Dean Winchester (boundtothehunt) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2018-07-13 15:03:00 |
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Entry tags: | !closed, !completed gdoc, !log, [plot] final countdown, ~2018 july, ~25 points, ~~dean winchester (boundtothehunt), ~~lena luthor (anameforherself) |
Who: Dean Winchester and Lena Luthor
What: Confessions
When: Thursday night
Where: Lena's Place
Warnings: None
Status: Closed/Completed gdoc
When Dean had first realized what the giant clock counting down had meant, he was stunned. He’d always known that one day he’d have to go back, that this half-assed attempt at a civilian life wasn’t going to last forever, but he’d never thought he’d see it coming. Everything was so much harder when he saw it coming and this was even worse than usual. He had people he actually cared about here, beyond Sam and Cas, and they were people he wasn’t going to get to see again.
It was hard to say goodbye to Sara, harder to say it to Jo and he’d never felt guiltier for what had happened to her than he did in knowing her second chance was gone. It took a solid two days for Dean to work up the balls to try and say goodbye to Lena. They’d always had a relationship that was more questions than anything, but Dean had fallen for her over the months they’d gotten to know one another, and he’d fallen hard. He’d fought it every second, convinced that he was going to wind up hurting her, that she was going to end up dead or worse simply by virtue of being important to him, but this was it. This was the end and he couldn’t just let the thing between them go that easily.
He went to her place without even checking to see if she would be home first, just kind of hoped she would be and planned to wait if she wasn’t, rapped on the door and took a breath, wishing he’d had a drink before coming over. He was stark sober for a change, wouldn’t ruin the moment by being anything but.
***
The countdown clock was forever the eyesore. One that made Lena feel sick every time she saw it in passing. For the first twenty-four hours after it had appeared, Lena had done her best to ignore it. Given their past with the Dome, it was possible that it would disappear just as quickly. The place they called home was known for putting everyone on edge long enough to get a rise out of them before returning everyone to their normal lives.
Except it hadn’t gone away and now it was apparent just what it was. Even Lena, who did her best to keep a good head on her shoulders, was beginning to panic. There were far too many things that needed to be taken care of and too many ties that she needed to keep hold on.
That is where she had been before making a stop at her apartment to find Dean knocking at the door. Lena straightened and collected herself the best she could and put a smile on her face. She wanted to keep herself together. She wanted to be the strong woman that many had seen her as while in Madison Valley.
“Dean,” she started, her voice cracking despite her best efforts. Lena cleared her throat and started toward him. The back and forth would have been difficult for others to understand, but Lena got it. She had lost love before - twice - and knew the pain that went with it.
She didn’t wait. She didn’t hesitate. Not to fill the space between them and throw her arms around his neck. Lena’s kiss was nothing like any past kiss. There had been far too many emotions that went unspoken between them. Secrets that weren’t shared. Things that Lena wanted to say to him, tell him, but feared he would turn away completely.
***
That wasn’t the response to him being there that Dean would have anticipated, but he definitely couldn’t argue with it. The second she started moving toward him, his arms lifted to catch her, pull her in close, gentle and very obviously affectionate. It wouldn’t be unlike him to just push her up against a wall, have to fumble their way inside; he’d done it a hundred times before with a hundred different girls in a hundred different towns. This was different, though. If he managed to say goodbye to her, it would be goodbye forever and forever wouldn’t be what he wanted.
It was so far from what he wanted. Dean wanted this. He wanted that fairy tale life with her and there wasn’t any time for it.
He clung to her, drawing away only when he needed to catch his breath and only did so enough to shift and pull Lena into a tight hug. Looking at him most days, no one would assume Dean was much of a hugger. He was. Especially when the end was on its way. “Couldn’t let all this end without seeing you,” he said quietly into her hair. “I know we’re….we never….”
They’d never really defined what they were doing, he didn’t know if he had any right to be there in the first place, but there he was and he wasn’t about to let go without a fight.
***
It had been a surprise to most when Lena showed an affectionate side. It was a side that any past Luthor had rarely shown even to their own kin. Lena had witnessed that first hand. She was different, though. She was anything but a Luthor. In truth, she was only half of one; the better half.
With her face partially buried in his shirt, Lena forced a smile. She didn’t want to talk about how her face was already wet from traces of tearing eyes. “Don’t be silly. Nothing is going to end.” Lena couldn’t believe herself, though. Her voice shook and her tone was nervous. She knew what was coming. It was only a matter of time when that clock hit it’s final second.
“We’re complicated. Is that what you were looking for?” she asked, lifting her head to look up at him with a chuckle. It was fitting after all. “Oil and water? Never meant to continue crossing paths?” Fate was a terrible thing, but it was something Lena had been learning to accept.
“Sometimes these things just happen without explanation.” Which was, more often than not, utter bullshit. Everything had a reason for happening, but that was the scientist in her. Lena preferred things having a reason, but she was beginning to accept the unknown as well.
***
It was nice that she tried to lie to him, tried to offer reassurance even if neither of them believed it for a second. There was no pretending that it wasn’t happening, that they weren’t from crazy different places. She’d been face to face with Superman, and Dean fought demons for a living. They were never going to see each other after the clock hit zero.
He smiled weakly, hand coming to smooth against her cheek. “Yeah. Something like that.” Thinking back to the day they’d met, him sliding out of the car in front of her, checking her out like he would have any other woman who’d happened to be there and her going for it wasn’t something he’d ever have expected to go somewhere. But Lena was the right kind of something for him. She wasn’t broken beyond repair the way he was, she wasn’t messed up in the supernatural and always chasing danger, she wasn’t doomed to die when this fairy tale life ended. “You and me, we never should’ve worked.”
But the thing was that they did. They really worked and they hadn’t really don’t anything about it. They’d danced around each other for so long that they’d lost any chance of making something out of it. Dean didn’t have many regrets in life, a lot of guilt but not a lot of regret, but not letting Lena know how he felt about her a lot sooner was one of them.
“I love you,” he blurted out. Like a freaking idiot. Like he thought for a second she was as foolheaded as he was and had fallen in return.
***
Lena didn’t mean to laugh. It wasn’t a laugh per say. More of a chuff followed by a strained smile. “You know the last man I was in love with didn’t meet the best of ends.” Which had been damaging to Lena in so many ways. He had been her first love, too. One that she had to give up for numerous reasons, but mainly because of her family. It was always because of her family; because of her name. Even if she was nothing like Lex, the Luthor name always ruined far too many good things for Lena.
“I think you’ll be okay, though. There are no Luthor creations lurking in hidden bunkers here.” There were none where Dean was going to either. “Maybe some left over table linens and string lights.” She was doing her best to hold herself together, to keep a strong facade in place.
Holding tightly to his shirt, Lena shook her head. “I don’t want you to go,” she managed out with a trembling voice. “It’s not fair.”
***
She didn’t say it back, not in so many words, but it sure as hell sounded like she felt it and that was a lot more than Dean could have hoped for. He knew himself, knew his feelings always got him in all kinds of trouble and so he tended toward trying to hide them. Not this time. Especially not now. She deserved better than that just like she deserved better than him.
The smile he answered her weak attempt at a joke at was sad, and he couldn’t bring himself to tell her there was no way for him to be okay in the end. He didn’t lead a life that was going to end up okay. It wouldn’t be her fault, as far from it as anything could be, but he didn’t expect to have too many years left in him. It’d be for permanent one day. No more chances. And Lena didn’t need to know that. She didn’t need to spend the end of their time together knowing he was bound to kick it sooner rather than later.
“Come on,” he tried to reassure gently instead, fingers flexing gently against her. “Couple days, you’re not even going to remember who I am.” That hurt, actually, a lot more than Dean wanted to let on. He knew from experience that being forgotten by someone he loved was worse than losing them in the first place. He’d been written right out of someone’s life before. He hated that it was happening again more than anything. He hated that that stupid clock was going to count down to nothing and it’d be like he never existed for her. The only thing that helped even the slightest bit was knowing he wasn’t going to remember her, either. He’d just go right back to the big empty hole in him that she’d started to fill.
***
The idea of not remembering him, not remembering so much that the town had given her, was terrifying. She would go back home and she would continue with the complicated life she had. Kara, Clark, and Alex wouldn’t remember this place, either. They would simply pick up where they had all left off before coming to Madison. The whole thought was enough to give her a headache.
Pulling away only briefly to fumble with her keys, Lena was quick to get doors unlocked and open, and usher them both into the apartment. The apartment that, in a matter of days, she would never see again. The artwork from Tea, the leftover cat food from Tia, the sofa where she and Dean had stayed up watching ridiculous movies when neither could sleep and where they sat when he had been turned into a dog. Lena had good memories of home. They were few and far between at times, but she did have them. She had been making even better ones here. Ones that she definitely did not want to ever forget, but Lena didn’t have much choice in the matter. None of them did.
Her things were simply dropped onto the floor. They weren’t important.
Moving in, one hand coming to rest on the back of his neck and the other bunching into his shirt, Lena leaned up to pull herself into Dean. She kissed him firmly, heated and emotional. A kiss that she had been keeping pent up for far too long. One that they could have shared during the holidays over their take-out. One she could have given him in the park eating cheeseburgers. They could have been scandalous at forest orgies or ridiculous at formal events. Now they had just mere days. Hours even.
Pulling away, breaking her kiss to breathe, Lena gave him a small smile. “I love you, too.”
***
Despite everything, all the people he was losing, everything that sucked so badly right now, Dean returned her smile. It was small, sad, but it was impossible to keep back. He’d never admit to it but all he’d ever wanted was exactly what she’d just given him. Love and acceptance as he was, no questions asked.
“We couldn’t have tried to figure ourselves out any sooner, huh?” There was a darkness in the humour in his voice. “It takes being on the edge of losing it all to say it.”
That was him in a nutshell, though. Dean pushed his feelings down and back and didn’t deal with them, especially not when it meant opening himself up to someone. He’d done that enough times to poor results to do that easily.