cained | 👻🎈🤡🥧

( there are certain chapters of dean's life that he's never properly put to rest, left buried for years, always on the verge of having them come back to haunt him. (others will haunt him until the day he dies; torturing souls in hell isn't something you just get over, though it's certainly gotten easier to compartmentalize as the years have passed.) he's made more mistakes than he can count, has mountains full of regrets, carries all that baggage with him every day. so it seems inevitable that the ghosts of his past will one day need salt and burning like everything else — and when it comes to his past relationships, well. he's burned those bridges, but never the memories. he's never let himself forget, or forgive, because it serves as a reminder that he isn't built for being a couple. he scarcely ever thinks he deserves happiness at all, in whatever form it might take.

that, and healthy communication has never been one of dean's strong suits, so to find himself having a conversation about his exes with bev is ... new. it's not like talking with sam, who knows him better than he knows himself, but dean has to admit she's just as good at calling him out on his bullshit. she can tell almost as well as his brother when he's holding something back, when something's bothering him — when there's something he doesn't want to talk about without a little gentle nudging. because, sometimes, he needs to talk about things, but he's always been too proud to have those conversations. with sam, they usually turn into arguments, dean always playing the big brother card and sam inevitably relenting until they blow up at each other. (admittedly, they've gotten better at talking to each other, being more honest, but there's still a decade or so of baggage they've never even touched because neither of them wants to dig up old trauma if they can avoid it.)

but bev hasn't been there for most of his life, is coming into it at a relatively good time. she's an outsider, so of course he feels like he owes her at least a little bit of context. he can be mad at sam all he likes for opening this particular can of worms, but, in a way, it's a little like ripping off a bandaid. he was gonna have to air this out eventually — he's heard the horror stories of bev's marriage; she deserves to hear about the only other serious relationship he's ever had in his life, deserves to know why this, them, might not work. why it's gonna be hard work if they really want to try. but he thinks he might be willing to if, after everything, she's still all in.

they're sharing drinks in one of the library's nooks late one evening, sam having retired to his own room for the night. he's not even sure how they got to this particular subject — how three words (who was she?) have unearthed the bones of something he buried a long time ago — just that there's no real backing out of it now. he considers saying none of your business, but it doesn't quite feel right. he respects her enough to tell her the truth. )

Lisa. ( he hasn't said her name since he threatened to break sam's nose if he ever mentioned her or ben again. hasn't said it since the last time he last saw her, lying in that hospital bed, ben scared and confused at her side. he remembers asking cas for a favor, how much it ate him up inside to know he had to let her go, and that was the only way to do it. he had to keep her safe, and that meant cutting himself out of her life entirely. out of her memory. i'm dean. i'm the guy who hit you. sometimes he wonders if their life did get back to normal after that. sometimes he wonders how they're doing. but he can't afford to let himself dwell too long on it, or go chasing after what could have been. ) Her name was Lisa. We were together for about a year. It wasn't ... a good time for me.

( he takes a sip of whiskey. he hasn't even told mary most of this story. even as he tells it, he's staring mostly at the whiskey in his glass, and there's a vulnerability to his voice that might come as a surprise. )

Sam was in Hell, trapped with Michael and Lucifer. Every night I'd have nightmares, wake up screaming, must've drank myself half to death a dozen times at the beginning, but she stuck with me through all of it and I did my best to keep her safe. Her and her boy, Ben. ( something nostalgic, melancholy, settles into the curve of his mouth. ) I loved that kid. Taught him everything I could. Got a job working construction, tried to — be normal. For a while, it was like living a Dolly Parton song. I found some kinda balance. I might've even been happy for a stretch. ( he huffs dryly. ) As happy as a guy can get when he knows his brother's being tortured in the Pit the whole time. ( he takes a breath, exhales slowly. ) But I made a promise to Sam I'd quit the life, that I'd get out if I could. That whole year I kept that promise and it was almost good. The thing is, the life never really lets you quit for long. Eventually, it caught up to us.

( he finally glances over to bev, trying to gauge her reaction. there's clearly more to the story by the way he looks at her, eyes heavy with sorrow, but he's leaving it up to her if she wants to hear the rest. winchesters don't get happy endings. )

[ They'd met a little over a year ago, almost exactly to the week (and some change). It's surreal to look back and barely recognise the life she'd been trapped in, then; to look back at the woman she thought she was (or rather the woman she'd had to become to survive). It's even more surreal to look back on the long stretch of years between her stints in Derry and find they've gone hazy in hindsight, like she's watching a film, someone with her face going through motions she can feel like a phantom limb. Still a part of her, but not like it used to be. To reconcile the two halves of who you are — before and after something you can never walk back from — takes time. They both know that. And it's not always straightforward, either.

Even now, sitting here with Dean almost in a mirror to their first conversation in her oppressive townhouse, it had felt like a strange sense of deja vu. (She's getting used to that, being blindsided by memories and feeling them slot into place.) But now, unlike then, when Dean looks at her, she doesn't look away. When their hands brush, she laces her fingers with his instead of jerking back. Yeah, it's funny how much can change in a year. What more ten or twenty-seven? But you don't just forget what came before. Each touch comes imbued with an older memory — Dean knows that about her, always careful not to startle or push. And Beverly knows that that care must come from somewhere, because what is that particular brand of attention but a kind of devotion? It's not new to him, she can feel that from how he is with her; just rusty, maybe.

So it doesn't take much for her to notice and wonder. Of course. Who was she? It's not meant to be prying. They've learnt, over the months, to meet in the middle, talk, especially when that's all they have when so much of their time is spent apart. And for two people wary of opening up for dozens of completely fucking understandable reasons, they're easing into being surprisingly good at it. Then again, when shapeshifters and alien killer clowns are the ice breakers, are mundane truths really so scary?

Yes. Hell yes.

But she asks, soft as can be, and Dean — answers. She doesn't interrupt, even when he drops his gaze from her; just listens, her own whiskey glass balanced on her knee and eyes steady on his profile, the wistful cadence of his voice, the twist of something bittersweet. And bit by bit, she understands why: A year, half of it spent mourning his brother (which, holy shit, that's another story altogether), somehow doing the impossible by living a life never guaranteed for people like him — and one taken for granted by others. Something quiet. Routine. Normal. (The kind she ran away from.) She almost can't imagine it and neither, it seems, can he; that's part of the tragedy, too.

She knew they might brush up against something like this someday — not sensitive, maybe, but scarred over. Dean's endured a lot of shit. She knows that, too. His experiences are likely what made him so patient, supportive, in the months they reconnected while she was struggling. She's a lot steadier these days, the biggest weights lifted with killing It and breaking free of her ex-husband's iron grip, but the immediate aftermath was... messy. Ugly. She was somehow the most liberated she'd ever been and still felt like she was trying to swim out of the deepest trenches of the ocean. Having someone stick it out with you, like she had with he Losers and Dean — she worked hard to breach the surface, but she knows she couldn't have done it alone either.

Even just hearing the start of this story, she's glad he wasn't, either.

Beverly smiles when he looks at her, meeting the weight of his gaze with a gentle upturn at the corners of her mouth; encouraging more than anything else. She thinks about making a quip to put him at ease (now I'm catching up, too) but she knows it's the wrong time and place. Instead, she shifts to face him better, knees almost brushing in the narrow gap between their chairs. ]

I get that, [ she says softly, with an almost wry kind of sympathy. ] I got twenty-seven years before my past came to bite me in the ass. [ It was also the kick in the ass she needed to turn things around. But that's neither here nor there. Bev shakes her head a little, dismissing that train of thought for them both: This isn't about her. ] You don't have to tell me, you know. If you wanna keep this just for you, it's okay. It just...

[ She tips her head a little, catching his eye, holding steady without pushing. ]

It feels like you haven't really talked about them before. Lisa and Ben. [ She doesn't ask why. She can guess. ] If you feel up to it, I'm all ears.

( the corner of his mouth twitches upward briefly; he appreciates the out she gives him, but for once he doesn't feel like he needs to take it. there's a reason they work, why he and lisa hadn't. why they couldn't, all things considered. if he'd come back into her life now would things have been different? probably. looking back on it all, trying to make a relationship work in the wake of the literal apocalypse ... it was doomed to fail, no matter how hard they tried. the stakes were still too high. which isn't to say there aren't stakes now, or that things haven't gone horribly wrong, shaken their faith in this whole thing — but crowley isn't the threat he used to be, there's no angel war, no bloodthirsty leviathan, no tablets or demonic marks to worry about. lucifer is dealt with, even if they wound up at a government blacksite for two months for their trouble. it's strange to think that, at least as far as winchester-level bad is concerned, things have been relatively good recently. it's given dean a chance with bev so rare he'd be an idiot to look the gift horse the mouth, despite every fiber of his being trying to tell him there must be a catch to all of this.

he thought the same about lisa once. too good to be true. (what woman in her right mind would put up with his deeply depressed, alcoholic ass and still call it the best year of her life?) too good to keep. (i can't. ask for something. i know what i want. but i can't have it — not how you live.) turns out he was right about one of those things.

he takes a slow sip from his glass, savoring the burn on the way down. )

We tried to make it work after Sam came back. I mean, it's not exactly like he dragged me back into the life kicking and screaming, but I had my reservations at first. I didn't want to lose them just like that, you know? Dad was always drilling into us "hunting is life, you can't have connections" — I thought if I ditched the domesticity, I'd have to ditch them too. ( he shakes he head with a short huff tinged with something almost like amusement. ) You know what she told me? To cut the shit, basically. That if there was some rule saying it had to be either/or, we should break it. To come when I could, as long as it was in one piece. ( and isn't that what he an bev are doing? breaking that rule. not playing by some rule of either/or. only this time maybe it's actually working. he throws back the rest of his glass, pours another. ) It almost worked. Hell, if things hadn't been so fucked up, maybe it would have. But Sam didn't have a soul, Crowley had my grandfather by the short and curlies, Cas was in league with Crowley trying to get the upperhand on Raphael in some angelic pissfight. So Lisa and Ben ...

( he inhales, tries to decide how detailed this next part should be. it's hard to explain everything that lead up to lisa and ben getting taken; worse to think about the lengths he'd gone to get them back, to get them out of that abandoned warehouse crowley had them in. carrying lisa bleeding out in his arms, shouting at ben to point and shoot, hating how much he sounded like his dad, hating himself for ever dragging them into his life. he's still not sure he's ever forgiven himself for everything that happened, even if they don't remember a damn thing. )

Well, let's just say they got caught in the crossfire in a bad way. Crowley wasn't so nice back then, though I'd still hesitate to call him nice now. ( a demon is a demon, but at least crowley has some shred of humanity in him from that botched final trial. and, well, this is the hardest part, isn't it? the reason he hasn't spoken of either of them in six years. another sip of whiskey, to steel himself. ) He had one of his cronies posses Lisa. It got ugly during the exorcism. She almost didn't make it. If Cas hadn't healed her ... But that's not the only thing he did. ( he stares into his glass, remembers the look on lisa's face when she woke up with no memory of who he was, why he was standing in the doorway, remembers how his heart broke having to walk away from them for good. his throat tightens; he drags his bottom lip between his teeth in an attempt to hold back the emotion threatening to break his voice. ) They think I'm the guy who hit them. Car accident. It was the only way to make sure they'd be safe.

[ In so many ways, the life Dean's talking about sounds like a different time; and in just as many, nothing about it has really changed. She doesn't know who he was then and even when he fills in the blanks of a story that never seems to slow down, she doesn't think she'll ever really know who he used to be — all she knows is the man sitting in front of her now, the one who's survived every worst thing the world's thrown at him and still managed to find moments of something good. (Even if it couldn't last.) She hates to know it, hates to hear it, the way he felt like compromise wasn't an option. But that's what being young was like, wasn't it? Black and white. Either/or. Raise the stakes with the apocalypse and you've got an impossible decision to make. She can't possibly understand it all, but she can listen and try.

Lisa telling him to cut the shit makes her smile. Beverly's under no illusions of what this road could hold for her and Dean, and she's sure Lisa felt the same too and thought it was worth it, anyway — just like Bev does. She likes the sound of her, appreciates the grit it took to hold on. Like recognises like. So when Dean relays the obstacles and the cost, of course she feels that pang of sympathy; and then a distant horror on the heels of it when he says she was possessed by a demon and almost lost her life in the process. It's one thing to have to choose between two lives and another to have one ripped away from you, to force the choice in the worst way possible — and maybe there's a warning here, maybe it should scare her (and maybe it does, just a little, because she's human and she's faced pure evil once before). But mostly, she feels heartache. ]

Jesus, Dean. [ Her voice is soft, hushed. He'd loved Lisa, that much is clear. Beverly doesn't think she's ever known a romantic love like that, but what she feels for the Losers is close; she knows how gutting it is when you can't keep the people you love safe. You'd do anything to do it.

But she's not sure she knows exactly what he's implying here. They think I'm the guy who hit them. She feels like she's missing a piece and isn't sure if this old wound's too raw for her to ask for it. But it could be cathartic, too. Her brows knit and she ventures gently, ] What was the only way? What did Cas do?

[ What did you ask him to do? Whatever it was, it's clearly something that pains him to this day. ]

( he can't look at her and say it. he doesn't want to have to say it at all, but — he thinks maybe it'll be easier to finally let this go if he does. to face what he did, because it was the only option he had at the time. better for all of them. he swallows hard, desperately trying to hold back the tears threatening to spill over. how many times had he cried in middle of the night, lisa holding him like he wasn't some horribly broken, mangled thing? bev's never seen him this close to the edge; it scares him, almost, to be this vulnerable, but how many times has he listened to her on the other end of the line late at night after a particularly horrible dream? they've always been there for each other. now is no different. he only wishes he had the courage to reach over and take her hand. instead, he grips his glass tighter, his jaw setting. )

He made them forget. ( not just the demons. not just the past year. ) He made them forget everything. The demons, our year together, me showing up out of the blue on Ben's birthday, the day we met. Everything. If they even knew me, they'd never stop being in danger.

( his brow tenses; a single wet streaks runs hot down his cheek and he sniffs, dragging a hand over his face in an attempt to regain some composure. but his voice is still thick, rough with years of guilt and grief. he should have done more to protect them. or maybe he never should have kept his promise to sam, never should have shown up on their doorstep with the weight of his immeasurable loss and all the rest of his fucking baggage. but he did keep that promise; he got out, and for what? to find some shred of love in a pile of misery and despair only to have to lose that too.

he's silent for a long moment, like he's still contemplating what to say. but there isn't much left. just: ) I did what I had to do. Better to leave them as a stranger than have them hate me.

( he remembers the look in ben's eyes before cas wiped everything away, the disgust and the betrayal, the things he never had to say: how could you do this to us? this is all your fault, dean. ben had trusted him and dean had nearly gotten them killed. there's no reason they should have had to live with that, so dean took it from them, has carried the burden of everything they had and everything he ruined ever since.

i'm glad your life can get back to normal now. he hopes, somewhere, they're happy without him. )

[ That distant horror sharpens into focus, settles with a cold weight when his answer lands, heavy with grief and guilt no matter how softly he says it. He made them forget. It's a kneejerk dread shaped by all the years she lost to magical amnesia of her very own, the past that defined her taken away against her will, and she thinks — God, how could he do that to people he loved? She'd never say it, she can see Dean's carried the agony (shame?) of that decision for years and she doesn't need to add to it so long after the fact. And she has no right to, anyway. But the hair at the back of her neck stands, reflexive, until she quashes those swirling questions with a second: He'd never do that to me. Surely not. Even if the road they're on now turned rocky, full of blind turns. She's had a foot in this fucked up world since she was a kid and Lisa and Ben were on the outside of it, untouched until it came crashing into their lives. It's different as much as it is the same.

He did what he thought was right at the time. What he believed was best. She didn't have to know him for long before she knew that much about him: Dean has always gone by that rule, has always been about saving people even at his own expense. And this, wiping someone's memories, is as selfish as it is selfless. There’s a fine line. She knows that. To sacrifice so that someone else can have a better life, because you're willing to do what they can’t. You don’t get to make that call; but equally, what if it’s the only one to make? It’s so grey even if it makes her stomach lurch at the thought. She wonders if that's what Lisa would have wanted. She's sure Dean's wondered it too. She doesn't know what it's like and she can't know, not really. (Bill could have let It take him as a boy and they would have lived long, happy lives... But would it have been in peace, knowing he did that for them, to them? Doubtful.)

God, it's awful. It's so much worse than she thought. Of course one little question about his ex wouldn't be so little or simple. Bev feels the twist of guilt in her own stomach, upset that she chased this thread and unravelled something fragile. He'd told her, when she showed up at the bunker, that she never has to apologise to him but the impulse still lodges itself in her throat when she watches that tear spill down his cheek. She's never seen him like this, even heard him like this though he's helped her through moments just like this one, haunted by her own past in the dead of night. But the trust he has in her to be this honest, to be this vulnerable, isn't lost on her either.

It's not her place to forgive or judge him for the choices he’s had to make in a situation beyond her understanding, but she can try to soothe the pain. He might not be able to hold her hand so she does it for them both, setting aside her glass and sliding to the edge of her seat so she can take his free hand with both of hers. She's silent for a stretch, letting that be their anchor point, her thumbs brushing back and forth over his skin.

Then finally, softly: ] I'm sorry.

[ Not for unearthing this buried hurt, although she'd apologise for that too if she knew he'd accept it. No, this is I'm sorry for your loss. Because it is a little like bereavement, isn't it? Losing the life he'd carved out for himself, the woman and son he loved. I'm sorry it happened that way. Sorry you felt you had no other choice. It's not on her to say whether it was right or wrong. But she can acknowledge it was shitty to have to make it at all. I'm sorry. ]

Edited 2020-09-08 06:13 (UTC)

( dean has never dealt well with grief, when he deals with it at all. (you shove it down and let it come out it spurts of violence and alcoholism.) so even having it out in the open like this is a step dean almost never takes and it shakes him in a way he's not accustomed to. at this point in his life, after so much loss, he and sam practically have a language of grief, silent but understood between the two of them. sam knows what dean needs without having to say anything about it, because he knows if he says anything, dean's only more likely to deny that he has feelings at all. it hasn't always been healthy, but it's worked for them, and they've gotten this far.

so to have this kind of open communication about something that's weighed on him for years, to have the emotional support of someone outside the life, to hear i'm sorry, to feel the warmth of bev's hands holding his — it's a fucking relief. it feels like letting go, even as he squeezes her hand back, almost to make sure she's still there and real. as much as sam and cas have always been there for him when it really mattered, they've never been able to give him this particular brand of support, mostly because dean's never let them (as tactile as he is and always will be, he rarely allows this kind of casual physical affection, but that's an entirely different can of worms).

he doesn't say anything for a long moment, just lets her hold his hand while he fights back the urge to cry. she doesn't need to see that and he doesn't want her to, even if he probably should let it all out, release the dam, turn on the full waterworks. but this thing between them is still so new, and just talking about lisa was hard enough, he feels like now is a good time to tap out on emotional vulnerability.

distantly, he's aware the record he'd put on earlier must have stopped playing a while ago. he gives bev's hand another squeeze and downs the rest of his drink, moving to stand as soon as he's swallowed, leaving his glass next to the decanter. )

Alright, how 'bout something to lighten the mood? ( he heads to where the record player sits, starts flipping through the box of vintage records left by the men of letters. big band, jazz, classical. ) C'mon, boys, where's the King? There's no accounting for taste, I guess.

[ In moments like these, sometimes the best thing to say is nothing at all. She's familiar with the weight of silence, knows how to navigate it with a steady course; there's no rush to fill it here, not when the only thing necessary is to hold on and be there in however way he needs her to be. It didn't take long for them to find that routine during their late night phone calls, hushed reassurances lapsing into silence, Beverly finding comfort in simply knowing she wasn't alone while the night stretched on around her. The only difference here is they get to hold each other instead of being separated by thousands of miles. It's a privilege they haven't had until now and it makes this so much easier. (She hopes it does, anyway.)

He squeezes her hand and her lips quirk a little, thumbs still stroking gently over his skin. She lowers her gaze to their joined hands, allowing him the privacy he might need without letting go. She won't be the one to break this connection, not when she doesn't know how long he needs it to ground him, to find a way to reel himself back from the edge. When he finally does, she can feel the air shift just before he draws away. She wishes he wouldn't, she feels like there's more to be said here, but she understands the reflex. She knows it isn't a matter of not trusting her enough but rather trusting himself. (It makes her heart pang to recognise her own habits in him, but she doesn't say anything. It isn't the time.) ]

Sure.

[ Soft, amiable. She can still hear the roughness to his voice as he tries to level out the emotion so she doesn't press. Beverly watches him go, trailing after him at a slower pace, finishing the last of her whiskey and leaving her glass on a library table as she passes it. In the same smooth motion, she sidles up behind him, slipping her arms around his waist; reassurance offered freely, without expectation. If there's a quota for emotional vulnerability tonight then it's easy to pass it off as something she wants rather than something he needs. So much of this may be new, but not all of it; after all, they were friends before they were lovers. ]

Not everyone can rock out to Elvis while reading Latin, I guess, [ she teases, peering at the collection around his side, . ] Besides, this stuff's like the definition of great taste. Hey, go back. [ One hand lifts off his stomach to point. ] Can't go wrong with Glenn Miller, right?

[ The late hour seems to call for easy listening. She quiet and thoughtful as she watches Dean pull the record out of its sleeve then tips her head a little to look up at him, studying the furrow between his brows; the idea comes a heartbeat later. She asks before she can talk herself out of it. ]

Do you dance?

( the sudden warmth in the room isn't just from the alcohol; it emanates from bev tucked against him and dean can't help the hint of a smile that tugs at his lips. as simple a gesture as it is, it speaks volumes louder than any words that pass between them. dean has never been very good at expressing his feelings out loud, was taught from a young age that what he felt was secondary to keeping sam safe, so the fact that he's allowed her into his space like this — the fact that he's comfortable with her this close — just goes to show how much trust they've built together. he doesn't know how to say thank you for listening or you know i wouldn't do that to you, but he lets her hold him, and that's almost enough.

he's only half paying attention to the records as he flips through them, his focus more on bev's arms around his waist, her chest pressed against his back, the steady beat of his heart, the faded scent of her perfume. he feels content for a moment, would be happy to stand here flipping through old records all night just to keep her close. (not that they haven't been spending the nights together like this, curled up in each other's arms.)

she points out glenn miller and he pulls the record out to consider it. not exactly his style but — )

What? ( he half laughs, the question catching him off guard. ) Maybe when I was sixteen getting ready for some dumb school prom — ( that he never ended up going to, thanks dad. ) — but, uh, not ... recently. Ain't exactly a skill they teach in hunting school.

[ She'd be content to stand like this all night too, even if the pair of them have been virtually inseparable since she turned up without warning at the bunker. Over two months apart with no word after parting in New York on such a high note — God, she'd been cruising on the memories of that visit all through the holidays — on top of Dean's stint in prison means taking every chance to be close to each other and savouring it. Sometimes it's as simple as their ankles brushing under the kitchen table over morning coffee; other times it's as overt as now, joined at the hip and then some.

Dean mentions prom and she has to laugh, too. Maybe it is all a little high school. But they've been starved of intimacy for so long, she thinks they're excused. Without eyes on them, Sam and Castiel nowhere in sight, they're allowed to let some walls down and let the softness come out into the open. That's what she's feeling now, anyway, especially in the wake of something so sad and heavy. She's glad to hear some lightness creep back into his voice and she's keen on encouraging that. ]

Well, put that on, and maybe I'll show you a few moves.

[ Her wedding was never really about her, although she'd tried to convince herself of otherwise at the time. She did think she was happy, then; had dismissed the sinking dread in her stomach as normal bridal jitters. But she'd liked learning to dance for the reception and had thought, naively at the time, that she and Tom could do it again sometime. They never did (surprise, surprise), but as Bev looks up at Dean, she finds herself glad that she has no old memories to overshadow the creation of this one.

This one's all theirs. ]

Come on, humour me a little, [ she smiles, patting his stomach twice as she straightens up behind him, decisive. ] We can be rusty together. It'll be fun.

( truthfully, dean always thought he'd be a good dancer if he wanted to be, and maybe he could have been if things had been different, if he'd grown up normal, but it's just never been in the cards for him. the most dancing he's ever done is the drunk texas two-step in some backwoods honkytonk. so maybe this is just as much for her as it is for him, in a way. a chance to pretend like his life isn't all monsters and death and trauma; a chance to convince himself he deserves moments like these knowing his life is all monsters and death and trauma. it can be both, can't it? isn't that the moral of this story? he doesn't have to choose anymore.

and, hell, he might just have a few moves of his own, if given the chance. )

Okay, Ginger Rogers. ( sarcastic, but painfully fond. ) Ain't no Fred Astaire, but what the hell.

( he pulls the record out of the sleeve, slotting it on the turntable, carefully dropping the needle. the sound crackles a little as the needle finds the grooves, but after a few seconds the melodic brass of moonlight serenade hums over the library speakers. he can't imagine the men of letters were ever dancing to these records, but it does evoke that feeling from every nostalgic old hollywood drama, and he can't deny how romantic it is. he can't help but smile to himself, taking hold of one of her hands to press a quick kiss to the back of her hand before he turns to face her, extending his hand palm up, bowing a nod, eyebrows raised expectantly. )

Shall we, Ms. Marsh?

[ It's a request she might feel ridiculous about making any other time, but that's the wonderful thing about what they have — even if this is new, their friendship isn't, and they've indulged in silly things together before. After years of living for other people's expectations, it's a relief to enjoy something simply for the sake of it: mugging for the camera in front of iconic street corners, diving into an indulgent platter of Belgian waffles, a big Broadway show or a nighttime stroll after. So what if it's cheesy? They've earned cheesy. No one's too old for that.

Her forehead drops against his shoulder as she laughs, delighted when he agrees. Mental note: Turner Classic Movies the next time they flip on the TV. ]

You're right, you aren't. [ Dramatic pause. Then: ] You're so much cuter than Astaire.

[ Well, Fred Astaire is technically cute but Dean Winchester is dashing. The proof of it is in how he kisses her hand against the swell of crackling music, turning to face her with all the smoothness of those old Hollywood stars. Swap out the flannel for a sleek set of tails against the Art Deco backdrop of the bunker, and it's a scene right off the RKO Pictures lot.

She's actually blushing when he offers his hand even as another laugh bubbles free — is he wooing her with her own damn idea or is she a little warm from the whiskey? (It's both.) She tries to school her beaming expression into something a little more dignified, but it doesn't last long, her eyes bright with amusement as she takes his hand. ]

We shall, Mr Winchester. [ The facade cracks in seconds, giggling as she steps into the circle of his arms. Maybe it starts out as a traditional dance hold; Bev doesn't lead so much as gently guide them into an easy sway, following the beat of the band. He's too tall for them to be dancing cheek to cheek a la Rogers and Astaire, but she rests hers against his shoulder and it's close enough. It's nice.

After a few moments, she speaks again, voice soft. ] You okay?

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