We're Always Caught In Between

Disclaimer: Angel and Supernatural belong to Joss Whedon, Eric Kripke, and other people who aren't me. Chapter title from Use Me To Use You lyrics by Trapt. No copyright infringement intended.

Pairing: Cordelia/Dean

Warnings: Angst. Violence. Language. Explicit sex.

Timeline: Post season 2 for Angel; pre-series (flashbacks) and late season 1 for SPN

Summary: He saw her die. He sees her everywhere.

Notes: Second guess everything, and then do it again. >:) I'm being all experimental, so let me know if I should slam on the brakes or race on.


Much praise and adoration to EgSparks for the awesomeful banner!


Crash and burn. That was how it ended.

That was how he thought it ended.

*~*~*

November 1, 2004

She's holding on for dear life.

Her normally golden complexion is white as a sheet as her fingers dig painfully into leather, her brown eyes wide and imploring as she glances to the driver and then back to the road beyond the rain-blurred windshield. Back and forth until it's like they're spinning in her sockets, and she doesn't know which thing to set her sights on—the maniac behind the wheel, or the dark, slick road on which she will inevitably be splattered. It's horror just to keep them open. She knows she should squeeze them shut and just don't look, don't look, oh crap, don't friggin' look and it'll stop. But she guesses she's got a morbid fascination with looking because she can't close her eyes, and they continue trying to land on everything all at once.

She should say something. Utter syllables that string together to form words. Issue a retraction. Protest. Her clothes are soaked and plastered to her skin, her long, dark hair dripping beads of water down her chest and shoulders—moisture aplenty. But in her throat lies the Sahara, and she can't protest verbally or toss out barbs that outline how very insane he is and what he will be deprived of for at least a month if he doesn't cut it out.

She's cold and wet and not having fun.

He's having a blast.

He's beaming that grin of his that usually makes her knees wobble and attracted her attention from across a crowded room all those months ago, and it still makes her knees wobble, though at the moment, it's for very different reasons. There's that glint in his metallic green eyes that spells trouble, and that's the important thing to note, because it's what changes the effect of the grin. It's trouble of the highest caliber right now, flashing red lights and a whole slew of signs that scream DANGER: manhood has been questioned, testosterone levels rising, idiotic stunts imminent.

His arm jerks, the car careens and skids, she clutches the seat harder as her body obeys the momentum and slams sideways, and he lets out a laughing bellow of the sheerest glee, something that would sound right at home echoing down the halls of the mental ward. He's like a demented cowboy with his hoots and chuckles, riding the meanest bronco in the West, and it's not a thrill he'll let go of easily.

The Impala fishtails for a moment as it takes on a puddle at warp speed, rainwater splashing up and cascading over the windows before he regains control and rights it, not a second of uncertainty in his expression, ever confident in his ability to maintain control, while she's pretty sure her stomach is staging a rebellion and plans to flee the scene any second, and her lungs have gone on strike, bowed out of the insanity and refusing to expand anymore.

Shadows seem to leap out of the night, the only illumination issuing from the the Chevy's headlights, the moon obscured by dark gray cloud cover and the storm pouring down outside on this lonely back road. Rain pounds against the roof, the stereo is blasting some outdated screeching band or other with bass and drums that vibrate the interior. Lightning splits the sky sporadically before a roll of thunder rumbles the ground, tires squeal, the engine roars, Dean cackles madly, and Cordelia does not want to die this way.

“I take it back!” she screams as loud as her revolting body will allow, her lungs and throat cooperating temporarily to allow the attempt to pull him back from over the cuckoo's nest. She barely hears herself over the cacophony, and he gives no sign that he heard, either.

Her eyes widen impossibly as the headlights glare against bright yellow that warns of a dangerous curve ahead, and a glance at him sends her heart rate skyrocketing. He looks as thrilled as a serial killer with a brand new carving knife, and he's not slowing down.

Cordelia panics. She chances prying a hand from the seat and darts it out to punch at the stereo until it falls silent, closes her eyes after all because she's not morbid enough to want to see her own bloody death stampeding toward her like a rabid rhino, then screams at the top of her lungs, “Dean, I take it back! Brakes! Brakes! Please, for the love of crap, stop the freaking car!”

And he does. Thank all the gods and devils alike, his foot leaves the accelerator and her skin stops trying to fly back off her face.

She stays stock still, rigid and trying to will her heart to slow back down, does her damnedest not to overreact. Deep breaths.

It's gotten out of control, this recklessness of his. She's gleaned enough from the little he lets slip in drunken stupors to know his little world hasn't been exactly right since his brother took off, and John's extended absences aren't helping matters any. His psyche is wrecked and he hides it well behind false smiles and that cavalier attitude, but Cordelia has always been more perceptive than she lets on, and this crap has got to stop.

She knows the pain of losing, of being left behind, but you don't see her going on benders that edge dangerously close to toxic, or taking unnecessary risks in their hunts, or trying to commit vehicular manslaughter/suicide over a little teasing. He's a mess, and she thought she was helping, that they were helping each other.

But it's not enough.

She's going to lose him one way or another, she knows. He's not the type to commit, and she's already surprised at the level of fidelity he's shown her, at the year and a half he's kept her around. They'll part ways when it just doesn't suit him to have her along anymore, but she'd prefer that departure to not be fatal.

“Hey,” he says softly, concern in his tone, and she feels the brush of rough fingertips against her arm, realizes she still has her eyes closed, they're leaking, and the trembling coursing through her frame isn't just from the cold.

How it went from her wanting to throttle him to feeling despair over a tragic ending between them she feels is inevitable, she doesn't know. Maybe the certainty of a bleak future is a gut thing, or intuition, and given her psychic connections, she's learned to follow her gut and just be glad the warning isn't in the form of brain-crunching visions. She's upset about it, yes. Doesn't know how to prevent it. She's also still a little terrified from his attempts to break the sound barrier, and okay, no... she still wants to throttle him.

Her eyes snap open to view their position half off the road, the Chevy's front end sitting in the grass as the back end juts out carelessly blocking one lane. The engine's still purring, and she twists to meet his worried gaze as she releases the seat at the same time, arms jerking up to pound her fists against his chest.

“You son of a bitch!” she rasps, her voice still not sure it's up for much as conflicting emotion whirls through her. Her ass comes up off the seat in her attack, and she's half on top of him before she realizes it.

Dean reels back a little in surprise, allows the assault for all of ten seconds, then snatches her wrists out of the air, holding them in a firm grip away from him. “Whoa, hey. Chill,” he tries to placate in that condescending tone he uses when he thinks she's fallen victim to chick-hysteria, and it just pisses her off more.

“Chill?!” she shrieks incredulously, her eyes hot with tears as she makes a concerted effort to flail against his strength and break free. It's no use, so she readjusts, angles her body around and employs that flexibility he likes so much to pretzel her legs around and kick at him, giving him no choice but to release her hands. She does it so fast, he's barely aware of what happened, just that her boots are making imprints on his soaked t-shirt all of the sudden and his restraining hands are empty. “You try to kill us on some country road where no one will ever find our mangled, rotting corpses, and you want me to chill?!”

“Okay, just—hey! Watch my fuckin' face, goddammit!” His eyes narrow dangerously as he dodges a blow that would have rearranged his jaw, catches an ankle, and she doesn't care. He's been dealt worse by rednecks and bikers in dives where he goes looking to get pummeled, leaving her to mop up the blood and sew him back together after, so why should she be dainty with his self-destructive ass now? “Cordy, dammit! Stop fucking kickin' me, or so help me—”

“You'll what?” she challenges on a scoff, even as she does stop kicking. But she's far from finished. Her rage is boiling up the more she thinks about everything, reaches a crescendo, and she sits upright again and tackles, pinning him to his seat as she straddles his lap—an enticing position on any other day, but she has less pleasant things in mind for the moment.

Dean simply eyes her in consternation as she leans back into the steering wheel uncomfortably, reaching a hand back to free the knife from her boot. He catches sight of it and stiffens, and she knows he's probably wondering just how much she had to drink tonight and if he should have been monitoring her alcohol intake and comparing it with levels of crazy all along. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Justifiable homicide,” she answers simply, and his eyes widen as she plunges the knife toward his shoulder.

It makes contact with a harsh, tearing sound and she twists and smirks coldly on Dean's indignant gasp. She's panting heavily when she pulls back, leaving the knife sticking crudely out of the leather of the seat. “There,” she says icily. “Now you have a reason to kill me.”

Dean's neck cranes to regard the damage to his precious car, his jaw working, a vein in his neck throbbing, and she's scrambling for the door handle as he shouts, “What the fuck did you do that for?!”

Cordelia already told him what the fuck she did that for, so she doesn't respond as she shoves the driver's side door open and crawls out into the rain, slams it in his face before he can follow and exercise the entire spectrum of his colorful vocabulary.

God, he makes her crazy. Car-maiming, jilted lover crazy. She pays no heed to the torrent pouring down on her as she stalks across the road and into the treeline. She just needs to get the hell away from him before she really does make him bleed. It's depressing and terrifying, watching him spiral like this, and nothing she's done so far has helped. Helpless fear translates to pissed off for Cordelia Chase, because she doesn't know how to be helpless anymore, hasn't for a long time.

She hears him explode out of the car in a frenzy of curses, shouting for her to come back here and she's paying to get that fixed, only with more vulgarity thrown in as his boots stomp and splash puddles up into the air. She picks up her pace, bats tangled branches aside as mud squelches beneath her feet, finds refuge in the form a huge gnarled tree, and proceeds to climb to the lowest branch that will hold her weight.

Out of the mud and leaning back against the trunk, rain filters down the back of her shirt, and she hugs herself and shivers. She misses California weather.

Cordelia tries to recall what state they're in, ignoring Dean's hissy fit as he chooses to stick near the car and wait her out, alternating between growls and angry muttering. They dealt with that haunting in Oklahoma yesterday, and they've been heading west, so she thinks it might be the Texas panhandle or even New Mexico. She wasn't paying much attention to state lines before Dean went nuts, and she certainly wasn't noticing them during. Either way, it's colder than she's used to. She doesn't know that she'll ever get used to the lack of steady climate in their travels, but she takes some consolation in the fact that they're not further north where snowfall and icy roads would have surely seen the two of them dead by now.

She hears the car door slam and knows he's returned to the shelter of the Impala, breathes a sigh that's equal parts frustration and relief. The easiest way out of this would be to just leave. Watching him circle the drain is slowly killing her, and she scoffs bitterly at the thought. Death doesn't scare her. It would seem to anyone else—if she was sharing, that was—that death is the very thing she's running from.

But it's not death she runs from, because it follows her anyway. She simply chose the least catastrophic path.

A vision of her own death when Angel was off mourning Buffy, and Cordelia tried to change it, she really did. But no matter what she did differently, it was the same vision, different verse. She debated and fretted until she finally made the decision to go. She saw what would happen before her death, and worse, what would come after, and she couldn't let it happen. So she took herself out of the equation in hopes of saving her friends, slunk out of town in the dead of night and without a word. Logically, she knows they looked for her, that maybe they still are, but they won't find her, of that she's certain. The wanderer lifestyle Dean introduced her to will see to that, and while time may increase their chances of tracking her, they don't know that time is not something they have. It's not something she has.

She huffs and shakes herself out of musings that stray too close to self-pity. She hunts with Dean now, to make a difference while she can, to save lives and put any kind of dent in the world's mass of evil. Following her visions was how she started out when she was on her own, and they eventually led her to Tennessee and smack in the middle of Dean's path.

They were crashing the same party, looking into mysterious disappearances that centered around a well-to-do tycoon who also happened to engage in a little sacrificial ritual or two on the side. She caught his eye, and he proceeded to try and charm the pants off of her. Nothing new, she was well aware of her aesthetic qualities, but there was something about him that prevented her from delivering a scathing verbal repellent and actually let him get away with the crappy pick-up lines. It was the grin, of course. Roguish, devil-may-care, and too much knowing in mossy green eyes. She saw some of herself in him and decided to allow his continued presence, and deep down, she was desperately craving more than fleeting human contact after nearly two years on her own, not fond of that lonely feeling she thought she'd shed for good with her neglectful parents and Sunnydale. Craptastic bars and greasy diner jobs to fund her travels, one too many overweight, overaged men with wandering hands, and she was... well, she didn't want to say giddy, but there it was. She was reluctantly giddy with the prospect of spending some quality time with such a major hottie, and better, he talked loudly and often. There would be little to no dead air in his company. One thing led to another and they figured out the game, that they were both hip to weird. They partnered up on that hunt, she went to bed with him thinking it an indulgence she should let herself enjoy—rolling with the punches, as they say—and instead of finding herself alone in that sleazy motel the next morning, Dean was rummaging around as he barked for her to pack her shit and hurry the hell up as he shoved an article about strange deaths in Wisconsin into her face.

There was no discussion on the matter. It had been a simple fact of going with the flow, and they've mostly just been following each other's cues ever since.

He's changed her some, and some of the change happened when she was on her own. She's mostly over being spoiled and needing to be at the height of fashion—her budget just doesn't allow for it, though she still makes an effort to look damn good, and maybe she internally rejoices when they get to play dress-up on some hunts, just a little. She's a little more raw than she used to be, hardened and prickly, but still with a firm grip on her sense of humor and other coping mechanisms, and yeah, she's a bit more vulnerable, too, even as she struggles to keep her shell intact. She's learned to enjoy whatever moments of happiness she can get, grasps Dean's good moods in a death grip and tries to ride them further than he wants them to go, and she desperately clings to the not alone even though she doesn't want to. She's lively and open with him some times, taciturn and fiercely protective of her own heart other times.

There are secrets between them, they're not delusional about things like candlelight and romance, they each have opinions that are hopped up on steroids and clash more often than not, and neither of them seems to have a filter between their brains and mouths. They're pretty far from being honeymooners in any sense of the term, but they just work. The sex is fantastic and often mind-blowing, their arguments are razor sharp, but each is armored enough not to be maimed beyond repair when all's said and done, and most importantly, they understand each other. Well, mostly. There are still the intermittent fits of madness, after all.

But now it's not so much working as counting down to implosion—who will go first is anyone's guess. The hardest thing of all of it is that she cares too much. Even after she promised herself she wouldn't get too caught up in friendships or relationships of any kind, even after she reminded herself over and over that it's selfish to form attachments when she'll just have to leave again, she cares a lot, and she knows he does too, in his own abrasive way. Dean Winchester wormed his way to the top of her list of people to save, and he is the one she will most likely fail.

In truth, she knows she won't leave unless he makes her, because it all comes back to the fact that at her core, she is selfish. She doesn't want to be alone at the end. She's at odds with herself about it constantly, because it's the exact opposite of saving him to want him with her, to want him to suffer the loss even if he gives off the appearance he can function just fine with anyone, anywhere, anytime, and even more so on his own. That latter is his biggest lie, because he craves solitude like a ghost craves salt.

Cordelia swipes hot moisture from her cheeks with both hands, attempting to banish the evidence of her emotional meltdown. The last thing she needs is Dean drawing the PMS conclusion and stepping around her like broken glass for the next week. She hates that even more than his brash obnoxious crap, because at least when he's being insufferable, she's free to do the same without feeling guilty over kicking the puppy trying so hard to please its master.

She takes a deep breath and decides she's as ready as she's going to get to receive his wrath as she carefully descends the tree.

She'll suck it up and go on and keep trying. It's all she can do.

*~*~*

Dean scowls at the knife handle protruding from his seat, jutting out at him like an accusatory finger, and he doesn't know what the hell it's accusing him of as he yanks it out and rubs apologetically at the torn leather. He flips the blade in and tosses the weapon into the backseat carelessly, aims his scowl at the windshield and the inclement weather beyond and switches the heater on before sitting back to sulk, his hands finding their way to the steering wheel to worry and twist.

He doesn't know what the hell has gotten into that woman. It was just a joke. She was the one who challenged his baby's reliability. She said the Impala wasn't sentient, that it wasn't possible for him and the car to understand each other and he couldn't possibly guarantee their safety under any and all road conditions. So he gave her a demonstration. Granted, it probably wasn't the best time to do so, given their recent consumption of booze and that fact that the May Queen was already in a bad mood due to having to jog two blocks in the rain to get from the bar to the Chevy, but it's not like it's his fault the lot was too full of potholes for his baby's health.

Cordy's lost her freakin' mind, is all, and he hopes she'll hurry the fuck up and get it back before he withers and dies of old age out here in the middle of fucking nowhere.

Goddamn, she seriously killed his buzz. She's getting to be more trouble than she's worth lately with all these mood swings, and he has half a mind to ditch her at the next sign of civilization.

He dismisses that thought almost as soon as he has it. Knows he's about as likely to get rid of her as a demon is to pray before bedtime every night. She's too far under his skin by now, and there's no getting her out without some seriously painful surgery minus the anesthesia. Fucking sucks, too, because he never meant for this to happen. Not after the disastrous, heart-shredding lesson about forming bonds outside his family that came in the form of one Cassie Robinson.

Dean shifts agitatedly to distract himself from traveling down that particular memory lane and huffs loudly, as if Cordelia can hear his impatience from here and will be coming along any minute now to appease him. Yeah-freakin'-right. Because she's so goddamn accommodating, he thinks sardonically. He smirks to himself and thinks what a contrary bastard he is to love and hate that about her, that he often does both at the same time and has a hard time deciding whether to fuck her senseless or throw her out of the moving car. Well, he wouldn't ever actually do the latter, but he's thought about it a whole bunch of times.

He remembers their first hunt, the way they just happened to stumble across each other after the party had ended as they both were apparently of the same mind about breaking into the mansion in the wee hours of the morn to snoop. Her in her tight black everything as she tried a little too hard to dress for the part of cat burglar—the first sign of a deeper interest as Dean always loved a woman that made him laugh—and him in his typical roughneck gear and armed to the teeth. When she actually made the bad guy cry once they caught up to him in his dungeon-like lower level mid-sacrifice, laying into him and bringing him to tears with only the power of her caustic vocabulary, Dean's eyes had lit up like he'd just come down to peek at the loot beneath the Christmas tree and discovered the motherload, and he absolutely had to keep her around a little while longer—out for a drink, game of pool, or to fuck, he really didn't care. He felt the unrelenting urge to bask and went with it.

She ended up in his motel where they had great sex, criticized B horror flicks on the shitty television loudly and with much raucous laughter, argued over pop culture before a tickle fight ensued, fucked some more, and annoyed some of the neighboring guests who complained about noise and had the manager pounding at their door. When Cordelia got irritated with the interruption and shocked the manager into gaping silence by answering the door completely nude and delivered a lecture on the thin walls and any other flaw she could find about their accommodations, Dean cracked up for a good twenty minutes and decided then and there he needed her to accompany him on the road for the entertainment value alone. And then he made her scream his name a few more times.

He figured her for a hunter, just starting out probably, and she didn't refute it. In fact, he's learned she doesn't confirm or deny much of anything, which is another thing he likes and loathes about her. They have a don't-ask-don't-tell policy going on, which benefits him in that he doesn't have to 'woe is me' out loud, but the curiosity hangs over his head and threatens to smother him some days. He knows she's running from something, can't buy that she doesn't have someone worried about her for one second because there's no way someone that vibrant and magnetic hasn't attracted others' affection over the course of her life. And besides that, he cottoned onto the fact that she was new to lone-wolfing it pretty early. She has tells.

She hasn't volunteered much, but he's guilty of the same. Yeah, she knows a little about his fucked-up family and Sammy-withdrawal thanks to the evils of whiskey, and there wasn't any way to avoid her meeting his dad those few times, and he knows she has 'a condition' of some sort that sometimes causes her to suffer debilitating headaches, but other than that, what they know about each other's pasts can fit in a thimble. She doesn't have any clue about the thing that destroyed his family in flame and ash all those years ago, and he has no idea if she even has a family. One brave attempt to bring it up in that first month, and she flashed him a look so painful he spent the next few hours trying to erase the question by distracting her with lots and lots of orgasms, and he hasn't brought it up since.

They're hunters, and how they got into it is up for speculation but there are no efforts to confirm whatever suspicions their brains concoct. Dean knows Cordelia as she is: his partner, lover, and eternal pain in the ass.

She doesn't press for more from him emotionally, doesn't lament about how closed off he is or demand he commit to a relationship. She says absolutely nothing about his flirtation, and he knows she expects him to wander into other beds now and again, and that she is still hopelessly confused as to why he hasn't. Honestly, he's a little confused about that himself, so he resolves not to think too hard about it and chalks it up to the simple fact that he's satisfied as far as carnal pleasure goes for the moment and has no reason to seek it elsewhere.

More than that, she accepts him as he is for the most part, the whole volatile and mixed-up package. She knows the life, takes it all in stride with a quip here and a quip there, and she carries her own weight. She forced him to alter his initial assessment of her as a beginner when she proved pretty proficient in hand-to-hand and a few of his more archaic weapons, and he eagerly taught her everything she needed to know about firearms. She doesn't bitch and moan about acquiring funds less than honestly, though she does tease him about being a criminal quite a bit, and he's caught a flash of spoiled princess on more than one occasion. He's taught her the fine art of hustling, and she's quick on the uptake, but she leaves the car-boosting and other stuff up to him when those things become a necessity. Even if he made her learn how to do it just in case she's ever in a jam. She takes the brunt of the research load off of him, and he gets the sense she's used to being relegated to computer and book duty for some reason. She finds hunts more often than he does, and sometimes, he swears she pulls their destinations out of thin air and scrounges up a newspaper article after the fact to back up her claim, but that falls under don't-ask-don't-tell, so he can only wonder. She can handle his bullshit, flings it back at him with equal passion, and rarely stomps off to cry about it, knows when to give him his space and vice-versa.

So yeah, overall (if you catch him on a good day, which is not today) Dean's of the mind that Cordelia Chase is just another synonym for awesome. She's strong and vulnerable, flawed and beautiful, and while he's not in love with her—he knows better than to go there—he can't let her go.

Which means he'll just have to learn to put up with her shit when she loses it and hope the sour attitude wears off soon. She's lucky she's such an asset because if it had been anyone else hurting his car, he'd be out in the woods digging a shallow grave right now. He still has plans to make sure she never, ever does that shit again. There are just certain lines you don't cross, no matter what.

He stops trying to twist the steering wheel apart and caresses it more affectionately, makes mental promises to the vehicle that he will never allow Cordelia in her with sharp instruments again.

The passenger door whines as it's opened, and Dean's glare is sharpened and ready to skewer and stab as he watches Cordy drop into the seat and slam it shut. Her eyes are red and puffy underneath all the wetness, and that takes the wind right out of his sails, damn it all. His glare softens, and he's panicking a little, because she doesn't do crying, at least not in front of him, and he doesn't know what he's supposed to do. It's not in the emergency manual, and he's wondering if it's that time of month already, and shit, he doesn't want to deal with that.

She's shivering, her t-shirt like a second skin as she crosses her arms over herself and waits for the heat in the car to soak in. Dean puffs out a breath and twists around to pull the blanket from the backseat that's still there from last night when they were stuck in the middle of a different nowhere and were both too tired to drive in search of a motel any longer. Wordlessly, he hands it to her, and she takes it without meeting his eyes, shame on her face as if she knows he knows she succumbed to tears and doesn't want to see it confirmed in his concerned gaze. She shuffles around to wrap herself in it, and that's it, Dean can't deal with sullen silence very long. Reflective silence, companionable silence, angry silence—those things he can handle. But knowing she's this upset about something and not acting is nigh on impossible for him.

He sighs again and ventures to tug on her shoulders, and she complies willingly, lets him maneuver her awkwardly into his lap, her knees angled toward the other seat, her back against the driver's side door as she rests her head on his shoulder.

“Aren't you supposed to be yelling at me?” she asks, a slight dare in her tone because she can't quite accept being coddled without some kind of token protest.

Dean clears his throat and tightens his arm around her waist. “There'll be plenty of that later,” he assures in a low rumble, and there will be, but even he, with his terrible sense of appropriate timing, knows this is not the moment for bellowing lectures. He swallows hard and toes the comfortable line they've drawn around themselves, testing to see what will happen if he dares cross another inch or so. “Tell me what's wrong,” he tries, his commanding tone something he can't really help; it seems to manifest of its own accord even more so when he's uncertain.

Unsurprisingly, she doesn't answer. She simply nuzzles into him, the blanket absorbing the moisture between them as she pulls it tighter around herself, the storm outside still rumbling away as the engine idles, so he retreats back into familiar territory and presses his lips to the top of her head. She lets out a mournful sigh that gets Dean's heart clenching, and he falls back on reliable tactics of comfort, rubbing circles on the small of her back like when she suffers one of her headaches, and he waits her out.

Long minutes pass before he realizes she's not shivering anymore so much as shuddering, and he tilts her chin up to see fresh tears in her eyes. Holy fuck, he's out of his element here and all he really knows is that he fucking hates seeing that look of devastation on her face, like she knows something terrible and can't share the burden with anyone for fear of upsetting the balance.

“Sweetheart,” he starts uncertainly, swallows again. It's times like these he doesn't appreciate the wall between them as much, because they're both still carting their own baggage even if the other's presence makes the trip a little more bearable, and it kills him to watch her lug and refuse any offer of help.

Cordelia seems to sense he's getting ready to blow out of the comfort zone to get a handle on this foreign occurrence, and she grabs a fistful of shirt with one hand, the blanket falling around her waist as she hastily swipes at her face with the other, and then she attacks him, smashes her lips to his in a desperate effort to keep him firmly in his place.

Less talking, more touching is what she says with that kiss, and Dean obliges because fuck, like he's ever been able to say no to her when it comes to this. She's too enticing for words, more than is probably healthy for him, but he's not thinking about that right now because her hands are working their way underneath his shirt, skimming and caressing hard muscle, and he's busy trying to win the tongue duel she started.

His hands set to work on her shirt, tugging and peeling it off, and their mouths unlatch briefly as she raises her arms to help it along, turns herself so she's straddling his lap. He's panting and achingly hard in an instant, eyes roving hungrily over smooth, tanned skin broken up by the sporadic scar, her ample chest straining against her black bra as it heaves with pent-up passion. He runs a finger over the ugliest scar, a ragged thing to one side of her toned stomach, and he knows there's one to match it on her back from where something impaled her. Cordelia snatches his hand away from it and relieves him of his shirt, ripping it over his head and tossing it aside mindlessly before she crashes back into him, tongue tracing over his lips and then she rams it home again, her hips undulating as she rubs herself against his imprisoned dick, a frustrating amount of denim still between them.

Dean's hands race all over her, unable to decide on which patch of flesh to worship first before his fingers catch and snap the pesky bra barrier, and a little wriggling from her sees that falling to the floor somewhere. Naked breasts rubbing against his chest, Dean grasps her hips and thrusts his own upward as she bites and licks her way down his neck, eliciting a strangled moan from her.

“Fuck, Cordy,” he pants out, needing her rightthehellnow, but holding back because this is something he can do for her, something he's good at, and he wants to take the time to make her feel better, forget all about whatever made her cry.

She's plundering his mouth again and one of her hands has gone astray. He realizes it found the seat lever when he's suddenly plunging backward into a prone position. Cordy continues moaning and laving attention on him with her mouth, writhing on top of him and damnityessofuckingghot, he's going to flip her over and pound into her with abandon if he doesn't take control of this soon. He lifts a foot and shoves out from the steering wheel, propelling their bodies backward, Cordy riding him like a sled into the backseat, and she doesn't want to remove her mouth or hands from his skin for a millisecond as he engages in some crazy maneuvering to get himself laid out across the seat right.

Her fingers start to fumble with his jeans, and he grips her wrist, pulling back from her demanding kiss. “Wait, baby, just...” and he finishes that statement by sitting up and pushing her back so that he's the one on top, takes his time kissing down her jawline as his callused hand finds a breast to knead.

She tosses her head back and closes her eyes, lets him have the reins for the moment, legs wrapped around him tightly to communicate her mind is apt to change any minute as she's desperate to have him inside, fingers and the muddy heels of her boots digging into his back. “Deeean,” she groans, bucking her hips up, and he has to stop and bite his lip, remind himself not to give into what his dick wants rightfuckingnow.

She doesn't relent, continues grinding against him, and he hisses, but proves just as determined to have his own way as he sets back to his slow attentions. His mouth latches onto pebbled hardness, tongue swirling around her nipple as he moves a hand to grab a hip and keep her still when she bucks harder and moans unintelligibly. He licks and bites lightly, moves down ever so slowly as tongue and teeth graze over the arch of ribs and make their way down to her hipbone, laving at the hollow dip there before he moves across and comes back up the other side, the entire process in reverse.

Cordelia's patience is hit or miss. Some days she wants what she wants right now, and other days she wants the slow burn and will eventually cooperate if he keeps at it. Today is not a day for the latter, and by the time he's reached her other breast, she's muttering and begging, “DeanohGodpleaserightnow. Need you inside me-- unnngh! DeanDeanDeanplease!” as she defies his restraining grip and thrashes all over the place, nails gouging into muscle to emphasize her pleas.

Dean's only human, so when her stomach arches and she throws her head back, hurling out the endless mantra and so fucking wild for it, he really has no choice but to make a beeline for the fastening of her jeans and yank them off with muttered curses as the wet denim protests its removal every step of the way, and then he remembers her boots should come off first.

“Fuck, babe,” he croaks out, lust-blown eyes on the prize when she's fully exposed to him and still wriggling around, so goddamn beautiful he's pretty sure it shouldn't be legal. “You're tryin' to fuckin' kill me,” he insists as he struggles with his own pants and shoes. He allows her shaking hands to help him, and it's a blur of needwantminenowohgod before he's finally free of the material, his dick so hard and pulsing so heavily with desire that it hurts, and holy fuck where the hell is his wallet?

“Goddamn shitballs fucking fuck!” This always happens. Never fails that he has to go on a search and rescue mission for his pants, and he's got to figure out a better method for this because obviously, remembering to drag his wallet out of his pocket beforehand is just not happening. It's not his fault she drives him so freaking crazy his brain ceases higher functions.

He gropes around on the floor and retrieves his pants, digs around in the damp pockets and finally locates it, liberates a condom and rips it open, trembling hands sliding it over his sensitive flesh, and Cordelia is acting like she's lying on a bed of jumping beans as she goads him with her, “Pleeease, needyounow, baby. Deeeean, huuuurry.”

Fuck, she's gonna be the death of him, and Dean marches merrily along, his hands on her hips as slides into tight heat and wetness that's fucking heaven, and she agrees with a loud yelp as she jerks her body to force him balls-deep in a hurry. “Jesus,” he hisses at the same time she grunts a victorious, “Yes!”

It's so fucking perfect, always so fucking right with her as she responds to him with fervor and rivals his desire, seeking pleasure with movements that are honest and don't cater to his ego. She knows what she wants, won't put up with him fucking around for fear of hurting his feelings and lets him know in no uncertain terms when he's not doing something right, and he freaking loves the distinct absence of guessing games.

He wars within himself, moves in and out slowly because he doesn't want it over anytime soon, fights his body's demands for hard and fast as he lowers himself over her and muffles her groans of pleasure with a searing kiss, so hot and tight and gaaawd, this never stops being the best thing in all of existence.

But she doesn't want slow and passionate, and she communicates this fact by undulating her hips impatiently, hands scrabbling up and down his back and ass to urge him to give her all he's got, and when that doesn't work, she bites his lip and jerks her head away to inform him breathlessly, “Harder, Dean!”

She clenches, and it's painfully awesome and he tells her so with grunts of, “Fuck, baby, gonna kill me, fucking fuck!” and he's still thrusting languidly in and out, in and out, methodical and torturous.

“Dean, GOD! Harderfasternow!” she screams, tossing her head back and forth as she claws at every available inch of skin.

Dean wants to so badly, oh god he wants it, but he's not one for being bossed around so much, and sometimes he opts to give her a little reminder. He rolls his hips and she screams a string of curses, begs, pleads, and offers up her firstborn if he'll just fucking fuck her already, fuck. And she knows what she's doing, the minx, because that sounds more like a challenge than an order, and he gives into it, hips faltering for a moment as he finds his new rhythm and pounds into her. His thumb seeks her clit, the rough pad rubbing over it and sending her eyes into the back of her head as her ass comes off the seat and gives him access to drive further into her.

She's panting, perfect round globes heaving and bouncing right in front of his face and he lowers his head to take a nipple between his teeth, and that drives her mad, gets her screaming his name over and over until it seems like it's the only word she knows. He keeps at it, sending her sensory receptors into overload with his thumb sliding back and forth, his dick filling her up with delicious friction, mouth alternating breasts as he supports himself with his free arm.

Sweat beads out over Dean's skin, the heater still blowing, and he's breathing hard and fast, fucking hard and fast, seeking release but refusing to succumb until she squeezes it out of him.

“Dean,” she rasps again, and he moves up to her mouth, slips his tongue inside and ignores the swell of his heart as she moans into it like it's the best thing she's tasted in years, her hands skating around his side and up his chest, then back around again, like she can't get enough of feeling him inside and out as she does her damnedest to lick his tonsils.

Their skin slips and slides together, so much heat and moisture between them, and his hand is at an odd angle now as it continues working her clit, and she shows her appreciation by clenching her inner muscles around him hard.

“Dammit, Cordy,” he pants, pulling back from the kiss and squeezing his eyes shut to keep himself in check. “Not yet,” he says, to her or himself, he's not sure. And then he bows his head and concentrates on getting her there, only half-aware that he's begging with things like, “Please, baby, please, need you to come for me, sweetheart, need you to come,” as he slams in and out, because he doesn't know how much longer he can hold on and he hasn't finished without her yet, doesn't plan to have any blemishes on his perfect record anytime ever.

And then, thank freaking Christ, he feels her channel start to flutter around him and she's crying out, “DEAN!” and tossing her head back, exposing the perfect line of her neck to him as she claws at his hips, and he looks up, arches back to watch, loves watching this part as her face is overcome with the sheerest bliss, jaw frozen open in a silent scream, eyes wide and looking at nothing and everything. Her body arcs, strains, skin sheened with sweat and rain as she seems frozen in that bowed position for long minutes, her hands on his back still managing to persuade his continued movement.

Then he's lost in the sensation of her muscles convulsing, and his hips falter with the onset of building pleasure, his hand dropping away from her to support his shaking frame better as he hammers into her recklessly. She screams louder, and so does he, though he can't say for certain what it is that spills from his lips or if it even makes sense as he peaks, muscles tensing and locking as he spurts his hot, rapturous release.

He drops on top of her with a slap of sweat-slick skin, dick still inside and shrinking slowly, and he peppers breathless kisses all over her flushed face.

She smiles and starts petting his hair, fingers running through short, damp strands and eliciting that soothing tingle, and he sighs out a contented moan. “You're like a kitten,” she teases, smirking at him as he feigns offense and glowers petulantly. She thinks it's endlessly amusing that he finds the action relaxing and can't ever let it go without comparing him to something furry.

Dean doesn't argue about it as he revels in the sensation, laying his cheek against her chest for long minutes.

“Heavy,” she complains half-heartedly, eyelids drooping with post-coital exhaustion.

Dean grumbles and rearranges them so that they're spooning, disposes of the condom in one of the plastic grocery bags she always keeps back here for trash, then pulls her tight against his chest and lets his tongue travel lazily along her neck and shoulder, can't get enough of tasting her.

“Hmm,” she mumbles in satisfaction, and he knows she's pretty close to falling asleep, shakes her a little because they're still parked with the ass end of the car jutting out in the road, and she's got him trapped between her body and the seat.

He doesn't want to move yet, but she can't drop out on him, either. “Hey.”

“Unngh,” is her intelligent protest to the treatment.

Dean sighs heavily and decides it's now or never, crawls up front too soon and realizes he's still naked and in need of dry clothes as he raises the seat back up. He glances around. It's still raining, no signs of life anywhere, so he quickly shoves the door open and darts out before he can change his mind.

He's fucking freezing his ass off by the time he hurtles back inside with a duffel from the trunk, and he makes his displeasure known to the now alert Cordelia who's sitting up and giggling at the pinched look on his face. “It's colder than shit and now I'm fucking wet again!” he laments grumpily, tossing the bag into the passenger's seat before he catches her gaze in the rear view and mock-glares. “You think that shit's funny, huh?”

Cordelia snorts and nods. “That's what you get for running around in the storm naked, dumbass,” she says plainly, grinning at him, and he's immensely relieved that she seems to be out of her funk now.

“Well, what the hell else was I supposed to do? We need clothes, don't we?” He flashes her a smirk, notices she's looking a little too contemplative for a moment before she catches herself and plasters nonchalance back on. Maybe not so out of her funk, and Dean wonders if maybe he should try to pry it out of her this time, make some bumbling effort to talk things out for once.

Her eyes flicker with some inscrutable emotion before she climbs up front and chucks the duffel into the backseat. “Not yet,” she says decisively, and the throaty purr in her tone coupled with the heat in her gaze has his dick saluting, which is all well and good since she dives for it and sucks it into her mouth to coax it back to full hardness, taking her time with it as Dean's head slams back and he knots a hand in her hair.

“Fuck, woman!” Dean doesn't know what the hell has gotten into her, but he hopes this stage of it lasts a long ass time as she makes use of another condom, straddles him, and proceeds to ride his higher thinking back up to orbit the stratosphere.

*~*~*

Four orgasms and a set of dry clothes later, and Dean's got her number. Every time he displays concern, gives the slightest clue that he knows she's not okay, Cordelia tries to distract him with sex. And the disturbing twist is, he has cut her off until she spills. Dean Winchester has become the woman, withholding sex until demands are met. Girly demands like opening up. Christ on a goddamn cracker.

He's trying not to think of it that way, trying to focus on the stubborn set of her jaw and the spark in her eyes as he holds her glare, but damn if it isn't causing his face to screw up every five minutes as he wonders what alternate dimension they've swerved off into and tries to pinpoint when it happened.

The interior is deathly silent, the engine having been cut off after round two to save gas, the only sounds the patter of light rainfall on the roof as the storm looks to be abating, and they are still sitting on this godforsaken road. Cordelia's got her arms crossed and that 'back the fuck off this subject right now' look on her face, but Dean doesn't give a shit. Or, well, he does, which is why he's not giving in. Something's eating her away from the inside, and he'll sit here and let her scream her head off if that's what it takes, but she's going to give him something to work with here.

Cordelia huffs, her shoulders slumping, and he tenses, anticipating and hoping the past half hour of exchanging glares won't result in catastrophe. He doesn't know what the hell he's doing when it comes to this shit, so he's jumping in headfirst and hoping he doesn't crack his skull open.

“Tell me what's wrong,” he tries again, soft but insistent, but the silence just gets further along in its pregnancy, and her mouth refuses to open. “You can't keep up the fuckin' crazy if you're supposed to have my back,” Dean growls, growing impatient. “Get it outta your goddamn system and let's move on.” It's a different, less personal tack, but it's true enough. He's not taking the chance of one or both of them getting killed because her head's not in the game.

“My crazy?” she snaps incredulously, her eyes locked and loaded. “You wanna talk about who's out-crazying who, Mr. Time Bomb?”

Dean affords her a flat stare, not willing to have the subject shot back at him for avoidance purposes. Unless— “Is that the fucking problem? Me?” he demands, and it bothers him more than he'd like that his chest feels weighted with lead at the prospect of her saying yes, he is the problem and she can't do this anymore, or something along those lines. It bothers him and it pisses him off because he knows everyone abandons him and he shouldn't be surprised, but damn it, he is and it doesn't feel pleasant at all. He wasn't supposed to get this invested, hasn't as far as she knows, but he could fucking kick himself anyway.

Cordelia's face hardens for a moment, then falls, and she shakes her head resignedly, staring at her lap. She looks back up at him, a shadow crossing her face. “I just have this really bad feeling,” she whispers hoarsely, her features drawn, eyes agonized.

Dean's heart rate picks up.

Neither of them sees it coming. Cordelia's looking like she's just foreseen the apocalypse, and yet, she still doesn't see it coming.

There are no lights to warn them, and if there had been, Dean would have surely seen it barreling out of the dark and had time to pull her toward him. But there's only a slight shift in the symphony outside, a new sound, and they barely have time to register it before the world explodes in a deafening cacophony of crumpling steel, shattering glass, and screeching tires.

Pain flares in his head, and Dean has a brief moment to scold himself—he knew he should've moved the fucking car off the road—before he's rocketed into oblivion.

The drunk behind the wheel of the wrecked Ford pickup blinks dazedly, blood leaking down from his hairline, before his fogged brain catches up to the fact he's no longer careening down a dark, empty road, and he's fucked up pretty royally this time. His heart galloping, he turns his headlights on to view the damage.

*~*~*

Present

They're not talking about it.

It's nothing new. He's used to this by now, has had an entire lifetime of being schooled in his family's fucked-up coping mechanisms, and not talking is pretty much Dean's favorite. Snarking and inappropriately timed humor comes in at a close second. Dean's said all he's going to say on the subject, so it'll have to be enough, but Sam can't help but wonder how much of himself his brother keeps locked away. First Cassie, then the shrtiga, and Sam's a little disoriented with the idea that parts of Dean he's never known could emerge any minute, leaving a stranger looking back at him.

Sam shakes himself out of that dramatic train of thought and scoffs at himself. Dean has secrets, so what? It's not like Sam hasn't kept plenty to himself, and Dean probably wouldn't have recognized the Stanford student if he ran across his brother in his scholastic element. Despite all that, no one will ever know him better than Dean and vice versa.

Still, he wishes he could take some of the burden off his brother that Dean's so adamant about keeping to himself. The shrtiga has shaken him up, Sam can see that clear as day in the shadows that linger in his eyes, all those deaths he thinks are his fault. Dean doesn't want to hear he was just a kid. Dean doesn't want to hear, and he doesn't want to talk. Fitchburg is behind them now, and as far as big brother's concerned, so is the discussion. Now and forevermore.

Sam will think later that it's pretty damn coincidental he's having these thoughts just before another of Dean's secrets drops into his lap and begins to unravel. Well, more like stumbles across the road and sets a whole new level of fucked-up-ness into motion as Dean morphs into a mental patient.

It's dark and loud and boring, and they're heading southwest to investigate some flimsy rumors. Sam doesn't really know where they are, just that they've been on the road for a few days. Dean's bobbing his head in time to Bad Company, rumbling low about his claim to fame as he sings along and the Impala eats up desolate highway at its usual breakneck speed. He's relaxed and content by all appearances, as he usually is when he's behind the wheel and wandering the roads between hunts—his downtime, the time he uses to collect himself and re-erect the walls if a hunt has left him particularly ragged. Dean's free and and never more agreeable than in these moments, and Sam smirks a little before returning his attention to the monotonous scenery shrouded in black.

He's tired, wants to sleep, and like Dean, he has a better chance of that in this car while they're in between—always something ahead and always something behind, but there's always in the middle, too. In the middle is brief respite and a small semblance of peace, and Sam should make an effort to get a few winks before they settle somewhere and the nightmares edge back in. But he can't for some reason, he's restless and antsy, and he can't put his finger on why. There's just this feeling—

And then it happens. A figure darts out into the road, and Dean's quick reflexes are the only thing that saves it from an unpleasant end beneath the Chevy's tires. Sam's arms fly out as he braces himself when Dean slams on the brakes, rubber shrieking against asphalt and sending up that burning smell in a cloud of dust and smoke.

“Son of a bitch!” Dean curses, his wide eyes indicating he's trying to will the car to stop with his mind before he becomes guilty of vehicular homicide, because Sam can see now that it's a person on the road, a woman, and she's just standing there regarding the rapidly approaching black monster in fear and shock—not a deer, but caught in the headlights all the same.

The Impala skids for what seems like an eternity before it finally lurches to a halt, mere feet between the bumper and the soft, vulnerable body that would have been crushed and splattered.

Then Dean does his best impression of a statue, eyes blown wide and bugging out of the sockets, his mouth clacking shut to cut off the colorful advice he was undoubtedly about to give the woman about playing on the road at night.

Sam sees this and takes a good look, trying to figure out what's got his brother stuck in a block of ice. She's panting with terror and exertion, clad only in a t-shirt that looks three sizes too big for her and is caked in blood, dirt, and other things he probably doesn't want to identify. Her long, dark hair is matted and filthy, ratty strands partially obscuring her equally filthy face, and rivulets of blood are running down her legs and arms, a few jagged gouges and cuts visible in the glare of the headlights. Her feet are bare and she's sporting a coat of mud up to her ankles, and Dean gulps in a huge rush of air, choking on it.

At the same time Sam decides this woman is hurt and needs help, reaches for the door, she seems to come back to herself and jackrabbits into the treeline.

Dean reacts instantly, fumbles out of the car in a tangle of curses and unnecessary violence against his beloved Impala, and gives chase, looking ten shades paler than is probably healthy. Sam hears him yell something about a cord as he rushes to catch up, in body and mind.

He doesn't know why the hell Dean looks like he's seen a ghost, though it's possible she is a ghost now that he thinks about it, but he's sure there's something more going on here. Something personal. He tears through the forest, his long legs covering a lot of ground in little time, and it's still not soon enough when he finally catches up to Dean, who's still yelling for a cord-something, turning frantically in circles as he's lost sight of the girl.

It's the uncharacteristic tears streaking down his brother's face that have Sam grabbing Dean by the shoulders, trying to provide an anchor even as he demands to know what the hell is going on.

Dean just looks up at him, his large frame trembling, misery laid bare, ghosts moving behind his eyes as he says, “I saw her die, Sammy. I killed her,” in a voice that's too shredded for Sam's comfort.

Sam frowns, glances around for the now confirmed spirit and sees nothing but trees and shadows. Doesn't mean the coast is clear, though, so he tugs his brother forcefully back to the car, intent on getting them somewhere safe before he launches into the interrogation and attempts to piece the shards of his brother back together that have been so effectively shattered in one random instant.

Dean barely puts up any resistance, a puppet with its strings cut as he keeps mumbling to himself and his eyes flit around fearfully (or hopefully, Sam can't be sure), his typical masks and barriers nowhere to be found, and Sam is officially freaking out.