WHO: Dean Winchester, Claire Bennet (future) WHERE: a shooting range WHEN: Tuesday, February 21, 2006; around noon, around the time of this [backdated] WHAT: Shooting and other empowering things. RATING: Low PG-13 for language STATUS: log; COMPLETED!
Two weeks was a long time to be kept cooped up in a house, even a house as warm and spacious as the Winchester house. Although Dean had thoughts on occasion about keeping Claire and his mom locked in the house forever to keep them from getting taken by Alastair again, he could tell that Claire needed to take small steps toward recovering. Although Claire had been on walks with Dean, and sometimes Ben or one or two others, off of the property, this was going to be her first real excursion since the kidnapping.
Which was why Dean thought letting Claire fire a few guns would be a good idea. Dean thought it might let her feel in charge again, because he always felt a little more powerful with a gun in hand. Though Alastair would laugh at any firearm, there were other attackers that wouldn't, and Dean thought it was a good idea for Claire not to let her marksmanship get rusty. Originally the plan had been to ask Faith and Sam to come along. Lately Sam seemed in need of a good distraction, and Faith and Claire had been training together. However, given the break up--and Sam's drunken stupor--and the fact that Faith now had her powers back, the shooting practice had dwindled down to just Claire and Dean.
"Think you can hit that one?" Dean asked, gesturing to a far off target.
Lately, the urge to get back out into the world had been rising more and more in Claire, a welcome growth of character from those early days right after the abduction when even leaving the comforter had been something she rarely did, cocooned in that fabric barrier between herself and everything else, avoiding ever being so exposed again as she had been that day in Alastair's Hell. But as the days had turned into a week and more, it had been easier to feel a little less like a victim. Less, but not stop feeling like one entirely, which needled at her.
She didn't want to feel like a victim, and certain didn't want to be one ever again. She wanted to go back to work, go out to eat instead of eating takeout from everywhere, to go do things like she had done before this. But it took time, time she wasn't always patient with herself enough to take, though she had learned her lesson when she'd pushed herself too far away from the house the first time she'd stepped outside the barrier around the property. A delivery truck had driven by, enough to trigger her and leaving her shaking on the spot at the time, then plagued by more nightmares that night.
So she had taken it gradually, leading up to today, the plans for shooting practice while Ben was at school. There was so much going on, not just outside the house, but inside it with Heather and Sam splitting up, and while she had been keeping a close eye on Heather so Sam had that reassurance, there was only so much she and Dean could do in the situation if Sam and Heather didn't allow it. A few hours away would be good, not just for Claire, but for Dean, for those at the house.
Leaving the house further than a walk was, logically, an empowering act. Had she felt more exposed, it might have left her unsettled, but the Impala by now was a familiar, almost safe, place and it wasn't a long drive to the range she and Dean had been to before, one that allowed more than guns, including things like the crossbow Claire had with her. That the range was half indoors, half outdoors (depending on what was being shot) was also a test of herself, to be out in the open air where there were no anti-demons shields, just the hex bags and other mobile protections available to them.
And shooting hadn't been an instant balm to fixing her, but much like sparring had helped Claire to find her confidence again, day by day, this was helping to do the same.
Her answer to Dean's question was the crack of the bullet leaving the handgun - Nathan had trained her with some firearms, like handguns and shotguns, but she had only done some real shooting once since leaving the Hyperion, due to the lack of places and time to do it - and whistling through the paper target, left of center of her intended target, the middle of the outline's forehead.
The gun coming down to her side, Claire huffed in an annoyed fashion. "I don't understand, I used to be able to nail it dead on."
Dean watched Claire as she shot, admiring her form. Though she was only a little off from the mark she was aiming for, it was still pretty impressive. "Pretty good, Supergirl," he said, coming up behind her to adjust her posture slightly. "But if you hold the gun more like this, and aim just a little bit more this way, I think you'll get it."
Dean really wanted her to get it. He wanted her to feel strong again, even if that meant that she would be venturing out of the house alone soon and scaring him to death. Claire deserved to feel safe and capable, most of all because she was. She was one of the strongest people Dean knew.
That didn't mean that he was ready for her to face the world alone, or that he wasn't going to insist she carry her handgun everywhere. There were some things about Dean Winchester that were just never going to change.
Despite her annoyance at herself for missing her intended bullseye, when Dean moved behind her, Claire lifted the gun again, attention on his instructions. Knowing how well Dean handled firearms, and how long he had done it, she took his coaching seriously. Jawing tightening in determination, she settled into his adjustments, waiting until his hands had fallen back before firing.
This time, the shot was closer, but still not the center she had been aiming for.
"I suck."
Rather than the statement being made with a high amount of drama, it was said on a sigh.
Dean looked carefully at the mark. It was close, and likely enough to seriously harm an attacker, but Claire seemed to be aiming for perfection today. Her posture was pretty good, and she was a pretty decent shot normally, but she was tensing up before she fired, and that made everything just a little off. But how was he supposed to combat that? She had just been through literal hell on earth, it made sense that sharp noises would startle her, and the last thing he wanted to do was point it out when she was trying so hard.
Dean rested a hand on her shoulder. "You suck at Guitar Hero, I'll give you that, but you're doing alright. You just need to--"
Relax? How the hell was she supposed to do that? Instead of telling her something that he was certain everyone else had said, and pointing out the obvious that she was probably still scared to death, Dean put his other hand on her shoulders as well, giving her a quick massage as though to point out how much tension he could feel there.
"Loosen up your muscles when you pull the trigger. That tightness can make it go just a little bit off center."
At that, Claire snickered slightly, amused more than offending by the oft used insult, which served to pull her back from the 'I'm a failure' sulk she was headed toward with every shot that missed her intended target. Slightly left of center was fine on the head, but it might not be so fine if she was in a tight spot and needed to shoot elsewhere.
"Psht. I do not suck at Guitar Hero," she said, then rolled her eyes. "You know, we really should get this whole delusional thing of yours checked out, it might be fixable."
But she knew what he was talking about, the tenseness, one that came consciously from being away from the safety net of the house. She wasn't even aware she was shying off a hair in anticipation of the retort of the gun.
"Should I meditate?" she asked, tossing him an amused look before she closed her eyes, raising one hand with thumb and middle finger together, still holding the gun in the other. "Ohmm. Ohmm."
Dean reached out, lightly smacking her in the back of the head. "You know what I've heard is really good to get rid of tenseness? Having the cool kids play pranks on you for doing dorky things like meditating. If you're gonna meditate, you should at least meditate for something useful."
He held out his own thumb and middle finger, mocking her meditation. "Ohmm. Ohmmmmmm...Ohmm, I wish I were as cool as Dean. Ohmmmmmmmmm."
It might look like he was just goofing around, and maybe he was, but if he could make her laugh again, make her forget for a few minutes that they were off of the Winchester property and out in the open where Alastair might see them, there was a chance she'd relax enough to hit the target. Dean wanted her to hit it, not because it was overly important to him whether she hit the thing slightly off center or not, but because he didn't want to hear Claire saying she sucked again.
Though Claire offered up her normal protest at things like being playfully smacked, she was pleased because Dean was treating her like normal. Some of the others still treated her like she was fragile, despite her regenerative ability, as though she needed handled with care because of what had happened to her. But Dean wasn't, and hadn't been for awhile now, and it was one of the things helping her most.
Shaking her head at him, Claire laid the gun down on the counter that ran between them and the targets spread out at various distances.
"It's meditation, not wishing for the opposite of reality," she said, her hands now free, for safety purposes, so she could elbow him in the stomach. "If I tried to be your level of cool, I'd be sinking sooo many levels to do it."
Dean rolled his eyes, then mocked her quietly. "Think you're soooo funny don't you? You want to know the opposite of reality? You thinking you're cooler than me. You listen to boy bands...You women drool over their choreographed dancing and their matching shirts, and don't even get me started on the lyrics of some of those songs."
Dean trailed off, pulling his own handgun out of the waistband of his jeans and placing it on the counter. "Try this one. It's a little lighter than yours, and I think it's a little cooler than your girly gun."
Truth be told, the guns were mostly similar, other than the slightly lighter weight of Dean's, but he could tell that by giving Claire a hard time, he was distracting her, and sometimes that helped.
Rolling her eyes right back, she propped her hands on the counter. It was a familiar joking argument, Claire taking up defense of pop music in general, but especially boy bands, just because Dean was so opposed to them. It was more for the sake of the banter than it was any real passionate defense of it, as it was a music like, not a music obsession like Dean's rock music.
"You're just jealous that guys in boy bands get women falling all over them and throwing their underwear on stage at them, using those lyrics you're mocking, like this," she said, reaching over to flip on the small speakers plugged into her mp3 player. After a few clicks and a skip to the middle of the song, Claire pulled the gun closer while a snippet of the chorus "if you want it to be good girl, get yourself a bad boy" played out in the room and she sang along.
Someday she planned to find a song that he had to agree with the lyrics, thus winning the argument forever.
Dean laughed. The song sounded like the sort of cheesy pickup line that he might have used when he was just a kid or a teenager, before he learned to be a bit more subtle. Hell, it sounded like something Ben would say when he figured out what "it" was. Dean had to believe that Ben was still naive on that point.
"The girls throw their underwear onstage because the boybands like to dress up and they can't go shopping at Victoria's Secret with all the fangirls following them around."
He glared playfully at the mp3 player. "Don't you have some real music on there that's not whiney girls? That's the problem, you can't concentrate with all this girl music around you." It didn't matter that the music hadn't been playing when Claire was missing the target, what mattered was that he could blame a boy band for it.
"You're such a baby, I swear," Claire said, letting the song play a bit longer before reaching over and scrolling through the list. She briefly settled on a solo song of a boy band member, just to see him make the face, then picked one to stay on.
"Look, there, Aerosmith," she said, faking an invisible microphone to sing along before picking up the gun. Giving him Zeppelin or Metallica would be caving to his teasing complaints, after all. "Now be quiet while I shoot."
Dean rolled his eyes at the solo song, and tapped his fingers against the countertop to indicate his bordom with the song. He opened his mouth, about to launch into a loud, off key mocking of the song, but Claire changed it just in time. Aerosmith was no AC/DC or Zeppelin, but it would work. He lounged against the counter, and held out his hands in a sign of surrender.
"Shoot, then, Supergirl. I'll only be quiet for about a minute, the best part of this song is coming up."
"You're still talking," Claire said with a slight trill of the word 'talking' as she raised the gun and fired. The slight distraction from focusing entirely on the shot proved beneficial, rather than harmful to her aim, as this time the bullet passed through the dead center of the target's forehead. For a moment, she just looked at the target, then she let out a soft squeal of victory.
Laying the gun down, she turned and grinned at Dean, clearly thrilled with the accomplishment.
Dean grinned widely when the shot hit its mark. Knew you could do it. he thought, but his typical macho man attitude wouldn't let him say it. Instead he stood there, looking smug and proud and undeniably happy.
"See what happens when you use a real gun? That girly gun of yours just can't compete."
"There's nothing wrong with or girly about my gun, it's actually heavier than yours, so there," Claire said, sticking out her tongue.
She wasn't certain what it was, as she knew how to shoot her own gun and she had checked it, it wasn't misfiring. The shot should have been easier with it. The only thing that had been different was they had been talking while she did it. She hadn't even really been tense like he said she had been.
Or was that it? For a moment, Claire just looked at Dean and then with a bounce forward, she hugged him tightly.
"Thanks, Batman." It was said softly as she closed her eyes, grateful for what he'd done for her. She hadn't been thinking about it at the time, just taking it for normal banter, but it was clear now he'd been trying to help her by distracting her.
"A brick's heavier too, maybe you'd have better luck at it than that girly gun of yours." Dean was still laughing at his joke when she came bouncing over to him and hugged him. He had thought he was so subtle, distracting her like that, and yet somehow she had figured it out. He hadn't done it for the thanks, but hearing her thank him was nice too.
"Welcome, Supergirl." He looked down at her, taking in that grateful look on her face, and he knew he made the right choice. Truth be told, he was pretty damned proud of her, and he knew she would have made the shot eventually even without his help.
Opening her eyes and lifting her head, but not pulling away, Claire looked up as he looked down at her.
"You always know," she said softly, warming under that look of pride that was mixed with the smugness that always came with Dean Winchester doing something he knew was right.
It never failed to touch her, how well he always seemed to understand her and how easily he did things to help her, despite his whole machismo front that involved dismissing anything 'chick flick'-ish. She hadn't even noticed what he was doing until she stopped to think about it, but it had been the right choice. And this certainly wasn't the first time, as he'd been doing it throughout their friendship, just how she'd done the same in return in knowing what to say or do to help him through all that had happened during their months here and the after affects of a life lived before that.
There weren't words to relate the gratitude she felt for having him in her life, someone who understood her better than anyone, someone who she could give the same back to, but there also weren't words to cover the feeling that flickered through her as she looked up at him, thinking about those things.
But it was something she recognized, named or not, something she knew she likely shouldn't be feeling.
Dean smile down at her. "I alway know," he said with that lightly teasing, 'it's nothing' sort of tone clear. To him, it wasn't a big deal, it was just what you did for your best friend. Dean thought of himself as the lucky one. He came back from hell with a near lifetime of godawful memories, he had done AWFUL things, and yet still he got another chance here. For the first time, here he got to be a dad, have a best friend, have a life.
And Claire was a big part of that life. She supported him, whether he needed to get drunk, or to be distracted, or just goof off. She didn't seem to think less of him for what he had seen and done, and even after she had been in that place with that demon, she still trusted him. As far as he was concerned, that made him the pretty damned lucky. He looked down at her, something odd playing across his features for a second before the familiar smirking returned. "That's why I'm the Brain to your Pinky."
But to Claire, it was a big deal, but she knew making a bigger deal of it wouldn't get anywhere. He was just too stubborn about having what he did recognized as anything special, always acting like it was nothing of note. If she thought he didn't know how much it meant to her, she might have done so, but she knew he did understand how important all of this was to her, how important he was to her.
She laughed at his comment, still holding on in the hug that had become simply holding on, a comfortable, familiar and safe embrace.
"You know it's totally the opposite," she said as she rested her chin on his chest, the shooting practice forgotten for a moment, "you just have a hard time admitting it."
Dean laughed quietly. "Me? Pinky? Not on your life."
He looked down at her, mind whirling to come up with a smartass retort, but he stopped short. The thing which had felt like the most natural thing in the world--holding her close like that--suddenly felt very different. He couldn't put his finger on it, but something wasn't the same, and he wasn't sure whether it was a good thing or something that made him a little uncomfortable. Maybe both.
Realizing that he had been silent and looking at her with his mouth slightly ajar for a moment, Dean shut his mouth quickly. Think of something to say, Winchester, or you'll look like an idiot.
Him staring at her like that, uncharacteristically without a retort, did little to help that flicker of feeling in Claire.
Months ago, she'd acknowledged and dismissed an attraction to Dean because it had been the wrong time. She hadn't been in Los Angeles long, she had still been sorting out what her weeks-old self had done in the city before her, including the history with Sam that Sam had tried to keep from her and, most of all, she had still been sorting out how she felt about the fiancé she had left behind. She had thought the feeling well and truly banished then, and they'd moved on, him to be with Jo, and them to being best friends. It had been what had be right then, she was certain of it.
Now what she wasn't so certain of was if that feeling was well and truly gone.
With a quick swipe of her tongue, Claire licked her lips to get rid of the dry feeling. Logically, she knew all she had to do was let go of him, as that would counter how his arms being around her made her feel, how cognizant she was of the smell of him - not cologne, just something essentially Dean, something she could only label on a ridiculous, fanciful whim as being like faded jeans and leather car seats and him - how aware she was of the closeness of their faces if she just lifted her head or he just bowed his. Just let go, and everything would settle back to where it should be.
It was easier thought than done.
Dean knew he should let her go. It had been too long for a hug, and it was getting a little uncomfortable. Not uncomfortable in the normal way, the way that made you want to move away, but uncomfortable because he realzied he was feeling things about his best friend he probably shouldn't, and it needed to stop. Claire would think he was crazy if she knew what he was thinking.
And then she licked her lips.
Dean bit the inside of his mouth hard to keep from making a sound that would leave him embarrassed later. "Claire..." he wasn't sure what he was going to say, or even do, but he couldn't look away from her now moist lips as hard as he tried. He couldn't help but think about what they would feel like, taste like, if he bent his head just a little.
And damned if he didn't tilt his head down an inch more. There was still distance between them, but less now, and it made the problem worse, not better.
At first, Claire wondered if it was a trick of her own mind, that his head was closer to hers, but then he exhaled and his breath on her face told her it wasn't just her mind. Countering the motion, she raised her head, her eyes never leaving his.
What was she doing? This was definitely not on the list of Things One Does With A Best Friend, she was certain, yet she couldn't seem to find any of the many objections and reasons for not doing this that she knew should be there.
"Yeah?" she asked softly, lips hovering near his for a handful of long moments before she gave into the impulse and kissed him.
Maybe it was the wrong thing to do, maybe he'd pull away, maybe it would feel like nothing, but the only thing she felt certain of was that just one kiss couldn't ruin their friendship. They had been too close for too long for something like that to change anything for the worse.
Dean honestly wasn't sure if his lowering his head had caused their lips to connnect, or if she had done it, but at the moment it didn't matter. The kiss felt so right that there was no need to question who had started it, because it was just there.
Even though it felt right, Dean knew it was wrong. It was a thought he didn't want to consider, one he pushed to the back of his mind for a long minute as he moved one hand to cradle the back of her head and focus on the kiss, but it was a persistant one. He wasn't supposed to do this to her. This was his best friend, the last thing he wanted to do was fuck that up and make things awkward. She was a virgin for God's sake, who was still recovering from losing out on a fiance, and he didn't want to hurt her.
But he didn't stop.
It didn't feel wrong, he hadn't pulled away and, God help her, it felt the polar opposite of 'nothing'. Claire's hands tightened on his shoulders where they'd come to rest when the hug had morphed into just holding, needing the stability of a handhold as that flicker of feeling turned into something much bigger. One slight shift of her head as he cradled the back of it, an unconscious movement on her part, and the kiss deepened.
She'd always laughed at stories and movies that said kisses were supposed to be life changing or like fireworks, as kissing Andy or anyone else had never been like that. They had been good, sometimes very good, but those kisses hadn't left her feeling like this. It wasn't fireworks in the background and it wasn't a lightbulb over her head; it was instead a deep down, pervasively wanting, needy feeling, a willingness to throw aside every rational consideration about friendships and ignore everything that held her back from being with any man, just so she could keep kissing Dean.
A cell rang - hers or his, she wasn't sure - but she ignored it, suddenly afraid of breaking the moment.
Dean felt himself lose a little bit more control when the kiss deepened. It was the most effortless thing he had ever done, kissing her, because it felt like the most natural thing in the world. Of course he didn't know why, and chalked it up to every kiss being different, but there was something so right, so uncomplicated about the kiss that he almost didn't notice his phone ringing. In the end, it wasn't that he heard it, but that he felt it vibrating in his back pocket. For a moment he ignored it, but after thinking about the recent danger his family had been in, Dean pulled back and reached for the phone.
He frowned when he saw Sarah Petrelli's name flashing on his caller ID screen. Ben...
"Hello?" he answered, already sounding a little tense. He listened for a minute before turning around, with his back to Claire because he had to focus entirely on the matter at hand, not her, for a moment. "You what?"
Dean began to pace as he listened silently to her next words, and then spoke again, his voice eerily similar to John Winchesters when he was worried and issuing orders he felt would keep his family safe. "Thanks. Keep him and Toby inside, and double check the barriers at the Hyperion: salt lines, hex bags, devils traps...if there's a space as wide as a needle Alastair will find it and get in. I'll be right there."
The keys were out of his pocket even before the phone was hung up. With a frightened look on his face, he shot Claire a glance and started toward the car. "C'mon, we've got to go. That evil son of a bitch is after him."
At first, Claire could have cursed whoever was calling for interrupting what was shaping up to be the best impulse she'd ever had, but that feeling vanished as she listened to Dean, the conversation at first not telling her as much as his tone and body language did. What it did reveal eventually was enough to make her blood run cold, even before Dean spoke Alastair's name.
He'd nearly gotten Ben. Just thinking that made her feel ill.
"Coming." Pausing only to stash the weapons they'd brought and toss her mp3 player and speakers into the bag, Claire headed out the door he'd just exited, thoughts now on Ben and the continued threat of Alastair. The rest simply ranked far second.