Laurel Lance (i_crylikeabird) wrote in we_coexist, @ 2012-12-23 00:45:00 |
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Entry tags: | dean winchester, dinah lance, zz:status complete |
Not Like Christmas At All (Dean/Dinah log, complete)
Dinah wasn’t at ease in the wake of her discussion with Eric. No, she didn’t like just how casually and easily he had found her. She also wasn’t sure how she felt about the truce, even if she was the one who had proposed it. She did believe that it was the best way to keep people safe. To keep Dean safe, assuming he went along with it. She didn’t plan on dropping the ball on Eric. She wasn’t going to assume that he would keep his word. Though if he did, that would give them the chance to focus on the Joker and Scarecrow. And Enigma, if the girl continued to make trouble.
Dean wasn’t home when she got home, so she decided it was time to wrap presents. She wrapped his first and slipped it under the tree. There were two for him-a ‘naughty’ and a ‘nice’ present. She smiled a little and started humming to herself as she settled into wrapping some of the other presents. She was nervous about the discussion that would be had whenever he got home but for now she would just enjoy the fact that there wasn’t a crisis happening right now. That she could be at home, wrapping presents for the people she cared about.
----
The older Winchester showed up eventually with a pizza and a box of cannoli. It was good, very good. He smiled, even though he knew he’d have to tell Dinah about talking to Jennifer, using her connections. He also knew that he hadn’t gotten the woman in his life a Christmas gift yet; he’d have to eventually, probably. Definitely, he’d definitely get her a gift, but what?
He opened the door and paused. The decorations always hit him everytime he came into the apartment. It wasn’t a bad reaction, so much as a strange pang. There were so many who deserved to celebrate Christmas, but they never would again because they had met the Winchesters. He also missed his brother and Cas, but he couldn’t let himself be too upset - he had Dinah. She’d made life so much better.
“Hey, Legs. Got food, hungry?” He shut the door and headed to dining table to set the food down. “We got beers right?” The job was on his mind, but he didn’t want to start right away talking about it.
----
The decorations were bittersweet for Dinah sometimes too. She couldn’t help but think of Jake and Sin. For Sin, she just hoped that the girl was celebrating with her adoptive parents somewhere. For Jake... well, she was glad that they’d had a good Christmas last year. There were others that she missed every time the holiday came around. But she believed that it was important to keep on living life. To keep celebrating the big and small things. That was her way of honoring their memory, of remembering that life was precious and always too short.
She wasn’t eager to dive right into the discussion so instead she followed him into the kitchen.
“Do you even have to ask?” she teased with a small smile. Whether she was referring to the question of her appetite or the beers, she didn’t bother to elaborate.
She did get out a bottle for each of them.
“How did the hunt go?” she asked as she came closer and gave him a kiss before offering the bottle to him.
She didn’t see any scars, so that was a good thing. He also seemed to be in a decent mood, so she could only hope that things with Sam were getting back to normal. Or whatever might be considered normal for the Winchesters.
----
Dean returned the kiss easily enough, giving one in return. He smiled at her, very happy that she was here. And that she knew where the beer was. He settled down at the table, opening up both boxes for her to see. The pizza was her favorite, or at least half her favorite. The pastries, well, they were Italian; she liked Italian right? Even had chocolate.
“We have to look into things. Nothing fits the usual, may be a curse, but we didn’t see any markings. Nothing that suggested it. No hex bags, nothing. So, now we start working another angle. It’s got revenge written all over it, but...” He sighed and shrugged.
“We have small lead that we hope turns out to be something. Thinking about talking to Jen; see if she can give us anything.” He said it like it was nothing and started working on freeing a slice from the whole. He did say ‘us,’ and he was telling her before anything happened. Now he would wait to see her reaction. Inwardly he was cringing in wait.
----
Dinah trusted Dean and she trusted Jen, so whatever reaction he was fearing didn’t come. She still didn’t love that those two had spent more than enough time naked together, but he’d made his choice and Jen seemed really happy with Charlie. And since they were all working different sides of the same goal for helping people, Dinah understood why Jen might be a good person for him to go to for answers if he was stuck on a case.
She nodded her understanding.
“Hopefully Jen can help point you in the right direction.”
She helped herself to some of the pizza, still trying to figure out how to broach the subject of Eric. Maybe it would be better to let Dean have a few beers first. Or maybe it would be better to open up with something a whole lot more pleasant. Or perhaps that was just her wishful thinking on what she’d rather be doing than having that particular discussion. She resisted the urge to play footsie under the table. Instead, she grew a little quiet as she helped herself to the pizza. It would at least be better if they both had the chance to eat first.
“How’s Sam doing?” she asked.
----
“He’s okay.” Dean didn’t sound so sure about that. “I asked him to Christmas.” He gave her a smile, a “see, I told you I’d do it” smile. He took a few bites of pizza and a sip or three of beer, focusing on anything other than that feeling of something wasn’t right. The problem was he couldn’t put a finger tip on what was giving him that feeling, not even a little bit. It could have been any number of things, but nothing came forth as the thing.
“You’re okay with me going to her? Sam will be along. And, he didn’t exactly give me a yes on the invite. Christmas is screwed up for us a lot of times.” He gave her a slight smile.
“Hey, how are you doing?” He knew that she might miss many people right now, her children, her team, maybe even her ex-husband on some level. He’d really only had Sam, and he was talking to the tall freak - he would be okay.
----
“Of course I’m okay with you going to Jen,” Dinah said. She reached over to give his arm a squeeze. “I trust you.”
Now that next question about how she was doing just made Dinah feel guilty for not coming clean about Eric right away. Christmas was tough for her too and she was sure that Dean had picked up on it. She winced a little and looked down at the table. She was going to have to just tell him. As for Sam, she didn’t really know how to feel about that. She understood that Christmas was a tough time for them, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that Sam didn’t think she was right for his brother. Or simply didn’t like her.
She took a sip of her beer and cleared her throat, looking up to meet his eyes again.
“Eric found me or ran into me-I’m not sure which-while I was out shopping. He didn’t hurt me,” she said quickly. “We just... talked.”
This wasn’t the best start to this conversation. Not by a long shot, but there wasn’t really any better way to open it up.
----
Dean had been about to take another bite of ‘za as some annoying fratboys had called it right before he and Sam hustled them at the pool table. Za his ass. He determinedly took the bite and chewed. It allowed him to tense his jaw without looking too angry; it didn’t really work. He still looked unhappy. He didn’t say anything at first, just chewed then swallowed. He even took a very long pull off the beer bottle before saying anything.
“Just talked?” He took another pull off the bottle and considered getting something harder. “How do you know that’s all you did? He could have had a taste, given you more blood...” He stared at her; she didn’t look different.
“Think you’d be all over me if that were the case.” Yes, Dean could use reason when he had to. “You didn’t call me, didn’t call anyone? You just talked?” Hadn’t they already had a conversation about dealing with things alone?
----
Dinah grimaced and pushed away from the table. She stood up under the guise of depositing her empty beer bottle in the recycling. She didn’t sit back down. Instead she leaned against the counter.
“Last time I tried to call for help when I was with Eric, it simply spurred him on. He’s fast enough to stop me from dialing. I thought it was best to try to keep the situation calm because we were in the middle of a crowd of people. I didn’t want anyone getting hurt.”
And truthfully if she’d called Dean, the situation would have quickly become violent. She understood why-in his place, she would have gone in with figurative guns blazing too.
She watched as he looked her over and reasoned out that she hadn’t had any of Eric’s blood. She didn’t think that was the case because she knew what the aftermath felt like and she didn’t feel like that.
“He agreed to a truce. If we don’t go after him, he won’t go after us or anyone else.”
She figured she might as well lay it all out there because she had a feeling that things were going to escalate quickly regardless of how she handled it.
----
Dean fell silent once more. He wiped his hands on his jeans and looked away, looked anywhere but at her. Yeah, she didn’t want anyone getting hurt. Though, he wondered if Eric would actually hurt people who weren’t involved in the fight. It wasn’t that he thought the bastard was a good and honorable guy, so much as Eric hadn’t seemed that interested in getting people involved. Maybe. Dean wouldn’t put it past the guy to use people however he wanted though...
“Truce? Really? You just agreed to a truce with a monster? A guy who really could give two shits about what we do? The same one who’s been harrassing you on your phone? The same one who flaunts himself out there because he doesn’t think we can get him? You made a fucking truce with this asshole?” He wasn’t yelling. No, his voice was harsh and low.
“Why would he make a truce? When he hasn’t gone after any of us? He’s working with Jo - hell, what kind of fucking spell does he have you under?” He got up; his voice rose a little as well. “You honestly think he gives a rat’s ass on if we’re going after him? Not that we have, have we? No, we just let him sit in that fucking bar...” He considered tossing something, but instead he finished off his beer and walked into the living room.
“What the hell, Dinah?”
----
Dinah followed, her own temper picking up as she stalked after him.
“Let him? We let him? Last I checked, we didn’t have a way of killing the vampire who found a way to walk in the sun and who’s now wearing a silver ring. And like you said, he probably doesn’t have to fear us stopping him. So why hasn’t he gone after me or you or Jo?”
She was perplexed by that question as much as he was, and her voice quieted just a bit as she asked it. She did turn and head back to the kitchen to grab her keys from the counter.
“And what happens to Jo’s bar if we do manage to stop him? Do you think the City’s just going to separate it again. Because from what I can tell, Eric and Jo agreed to a truce and rules and Eric’s doing what he can to enforce those.”
She sighed and headed to the closet to get her jacket.
“I don’t trust him and I don’t like him, but this was the best I could come up with for keeping people safe. For keeping you safe.” There was a little bit of pleading in her voice. She got that he was angry, but she really wanted him to just let this go for now. At least until they could figure something else out to resolve this situation.
“I’m going to go for a ride. Clear my head. You should probably do the same.”
She was angry, but she really didn’t want to fight and she didn’t think that either of them would benefit from the things that might be said now.
----
“I don’t need you to make a truce with a monster to keep me safe. I didn’t ask you to do anything for me. You don’t make deals with devils, Dinah.” Dean glared at her. She was running, and he had half a mind to do the same. Actually...he’d not really taken off his jacket, being used to sitting in it for a while, so he found his keys.
“I’m going to be out for a while. I’ll see you when this is all over.” He didn’t make it clear what ‘all’ was. “I’d tell you not to do something stupid...” He shrugged and headed for the door, pausing.
“I’ll call you from the motel, let you know what’s going on.” Dinah probably knew about the go-bag he kept in the trunk of his car. It wasn’t that he thought he’d ever have to leave her in a hurry, so much as he never knew when he would have to stay somewhere else because where they were living had been hit by something. It’d become habit to always have things ready.
He wasn’t saying good bye, but he was giving her space. He needed a hunt and time with his brother. He also knew he’d probably call her before trying to sleep, if he could do that without her now.
----
Hurt flashed across her face. She had expected that they’d both need some time to cool off, but not that much time. Not spending the night-or nights- somewhere else sort of time.
“Maybe I didn’t do it for you. Maybe it’s selfish, but I don’t want something to happen to you. I’m not sure if I could take that,” she said quietly.
The worst thing about all of this was that she knew that he had a point. Making a deal with someone like Eric was never the ‘right’ thing to do. In this case, it was the easier thing to do.
There were tears in her eyes, but she fought them back and didn’t want to let them fall. Not right now. Instead she just reached for the door to let herself out.
----
Dean’s jaw was tight as he left the apartment from the other door. He couldn’t walk out after her; he had other things to worry about. Or he’d push other things to the front. They had people dying, and he couldn’t let whatever the hell had happened get in the way. Could he?
As he headed down the stairs, he dialed Sam’s number. When the other Winchester picked up, his voice was curt, brooking no argument. “Put away the porn and get your shit off the other bed, I need to bunk with you while we work this case. Where are you? I’m on my way over.”