Every Breath You Take || Ch. 7

Sam's soft snoring gently disrupted the sounds of passing cars and cicadas outside the car. The impala was parked in a tree-shaded area off the side of the main road. Dean had lowered his music mix to a low volume to accommodate the others in the car.  While Sam's long body was curled up across the backseat (and the fact that his giant body could squeeze anywhere like that amazed her), Claire lay on the passenger's seat. 

Her tiny hazel eyes were searching the stars high above through the cracked window. Her lips were constantly on the move as she murmured a rosary under her breath. It was past midnight now, but sleep was as distant for her as ever. Ever since finding out the hard way that witches, monsters, and demons were in fact as real as bread and butter... Claire had been questioning her faith. She wondered why God would allow such terrible creatures to exist, to let people suffer such undeserving deaths. But even so, she believed He heard her prayers with the love of a Father. And she prayed her little heart out that night, brow furrowed and tears pricking up with every Hail Mary.

A dry snort grated in Dean's ear and startled him awake. He had barely been asleep, his mind turning exhausted circles as he leaned back in the driver's seat. The itch from his burned shoulder and back had turned into a mind numbing ache as the bandage  rubbed against the top edge of the seat. Dean tried to curl up on his other side to relieve the pain. His leg got half way jammed under the steering wheel and his face stuck to the leather this way, but it was as good as it was gonna get tonight.

A small noise caught his attention. It was barely louder than the soft music playing from the speakers, but he checked on it anyway.  The hunter opened his eyes again and blearily looked down at the passenger's side seat. He had kept himself from looking over this way too often. If he looked too much, he found himself practically ogling the small lump she made in the folded up blanket. Quite frankly he was starting to creep himself out. Even if he just may actually like her, staring was never cool. But as he squinted, the cab darker on his side of the car and messing with his night vision, he finally noticed that the tiny woman was awake and staring up into the sky. 

Please don't be crying. Please don't be crying...

"Hey," he whispered, trying to get her attention without waking Sam up. His burn started to itch again as he turned to face her. "Hey. What's up?" He asked. 

He'd been told before by Lisa, someone he used to know and live with...that even his sensitive side seemed about as soft as sandpaper at times. But he didn't know that even though his tone seemed rough, his green eyes were concerned and worried. 

He had her attention in an instant. She immediately strained her neck to look at him upside down. When she saw Dean was definitely looking at her, Claire turned around the rest of the way. 

"A lot on my mind." She explained with a shrug. 

Two tiny hands ran through her long hair, gathering it over one shoulder and working out the few tangles that were left. She had changed into the doll shirt and pants he picked out. The security of pants compared to her cocktail skirt was heavenly. There was a beat of silence between them in which each sized the other up for the umpteenth time. 

"You really like the classics, huh?" Claire nodded towards the Impala's current cassette mix before raising her gaze dozens of feet upwards to look him in the eye.

Dean smiled again. "Course. Best of Metallica. Can't beat it." He chuckled when Claire rolled her eyes. He was kinda surprised he could even see the movement, but light was slowly creeping into the cab of the car as the moon came up somewhere over the front of the impala. 

"I was raised on this music. Actually it was literally these tapes our dad played over and over again." Dean's eyes became a little darker, distant. "Wherever we went, it was the three of us, the car, our guns... and the music. Here." 

Sitting up with a wince, Dean carefully leaned over and grabbed the black binder holding some of their tapes and cds off the passengers side floor. He tried to ignore the soft, surprised sound he heard from Claire as he leaned in so close. Not his most considerate idea, but he was too damn tired to consider apologizing. She knew he wouldn't hurt her and respected her, so everything was peachy and kosher to him. 

He flipped through the binder till he found the right cassette. 

"Here is it. My dad... he'd play this on nights when no one could sleep. He'd also play it really late at night when he thought we weren't watching him." He switched out the tapes and pushed play. "Plllleeeeaasse tell me you know of the Mamas and the Papas? They're not the most macho group...but....unh..... sentimental I guess." 

"Mmmaybe. They sound familiar." Heartbeat calming from that close encounter, Claire nodded thoughtfully; the new music had a much gentler vibe than the electro guitar riffs from before. 

As his words settled in, she realized what he meant. His father... He had been a hunter too. But to be raised like that? Into such gore and terror? Hardly a childhood at all in her eyes. Claire looked up at him curiously. Dean had already demonstrated in the course of a couple days that he was an extremely cautious, verging on paranoid, type of guy when it came to his inner circle of trust. And.,.he trusted her? How far was this casual flirting act of his going to go? 

"One of these days, I'll have to get you caught up On what's been happening in the music world post-1989." She smirked tiredly at her own jab. 

"I'd have to be crazy drunk to let you do that to me. People are all talking about that new...dubstep.. Beiber or whatever. And you wanna know what I say? It's complete douchbag crap." Dean smirked at his own reply, thoroughly amused by his wit. 

Dean looked away for a moment but didn't let himself think too much. "Say no if you don't want to, but it's giving me a crick in my neck to look at you like this. You mind if I pick you up for a  second?"

"Oh. uh, sure. Yeah." Claire said. 

His dark eyes found hers as she replied to his request to switch seats. Still feeling good from his amusement and exhaustion still fogging his brain, he missed the hesitation in Claire's voice. She steeled herself, watching this time as the hunter leaned towards her. The huge hand of his came closer, easily able to break her in half if he so desired. But she found her heart hiccuping not with fear but with longing. She wanted him to touch her. And that was frightening in and of itself. 

He wrapped his hand around her chest down this time, carefully picking her up. Claire felt her deep breaths constricted by his fist. She got that weird fluttery feeling in the pit of her stomach; left breathless by the knowledge that she was completely in his control.

His sore muscles, aching and bruised body, and driving-him-crazy-itchy-burn all seemed to sigh in relief as he relaxed into the seat solidly on his back. Dean was happily adjusting his shoulders, finding the right spot before he passed out, when he remembered that he had a four inch girl clutched to his chest. 

"Oh....Crap." He muttered.  

The hunter's hand instantly opened, letting Claire slide the short drop from his fingers to his chest. His clutching hand had been carefully resting ontop of his chest, and when Claire dropped to it, Dean couldn't believe the feeling of having a tiny girl DIRECTLY on his chest. It was rather intimate. and he could have sworn that his heart had suddenly started to beat at a million miles an hour. The hunter felt frozen otherwise. She might have been the tiny one but....just suddenly feeling her on him like this made him feel like he was pinned down and...completely at her whim. 

Claire gripped his finger tight as he shifted over and got settled-even the slightest movement was noticeable on her level. She collided with a firm plane of muscle, and she couldn't tell if it was just his body heat to blame for how hot she was. Then Dean became still... And he was still just holding her in place against him! Claire wondered if she had accidentally agreed to be a little teddy bear for the night when he mentioned switching seats. Thank goodness, he finally came to his senses and released her. 

"Easy there cowboy," she said, voice and knees like jello under these more intimate circumstances. "Just... Slow down for a second." 

She was still recovering from being plucked up like a doll. Without warning, The ground rose upward a fraction of an inch, and then dropped back down. Claire gasped quietly in the same instant that it clicked that it was just Dean breathing. Just breathing... Holy crap!

She looked up at his face with something akin to awe. She stood unsteadily on her feet, and soon after decided it safer to remain sitting while his body was angled like this. Her eyes darted out the darkened windshield. From this elevated perspective, she could see the road. It was empty. Completely barren and nothing but black for miles. It was strange, how she never noticed  how comforting the sight of headlights was until there was no one else around. 

"If you want off, I understand-" 

"N-no! Uh...Actually not a bad view from up here," she mentioned semi-coyly. as much as she might like to avoid looking right at him, it was difficult to do so when he took up so much of her vision. She took a few moments at her own pace to drink in the view of her surroundings... And of him. 

Claire laid a hand over the t-shirt clad chest beneath her. 

"So you grew up in this car?" She bridged a new conversation, treading politely around the subject. "Must be nice to have traveled so much... But I'm guessing monsters dampen any kind of bright side to that." She guessed, tilting her head at the blonde giant sympathetically.  

"Unh.....That's one way to put it." Dean stared almost stupidly at the tiny hand Claire had put on his chest. She had probably done it to help hold her weight up, but he just couldn't stop staring at it. This...tiny... little hand... With slim fingers that he couldn't believe he could feel through his shirt. Now that he thought about it, Dean could even feel the shape her folded legs and  butt made on his chest. When he realized that, he had to keep himself from obsessing over it. That thought was gonna get him into trouble real freaking fast. 

Dean coughed and looked away for a moment to get his brain back under control. The night was quiet and dark, the moon barely lighting up anything but the tops of the trees. Such a quiet night could have been comforting if Dean couldn't stop thinking about everything that could sneak around in the pitch dark in near silence. 

"It wasn't a conventional childhood by any means." He finally replied. He might have shared some stuff with her, but his past was under lock and key most days. Now that she asked, he felt himself claming up like he normally did. But when he looked back at her, dark circles under her big hazel eyes, exhaustion clear on her face, and her slightly messy hair still looked bright even though the light was nowhere near her, Dean suddenly felt....safe. Safe to just... talk. Claire was going through such crap, barely four inches tall and sitting on a stranger's chest... And she still looked at him like she gave a crap about him. 

"It....it was a lot to handle. Lonely. I guess. Our dad was off on a job so much, that I had to practically be both an older brother and dad to Sam. We tried to hide all the...monster stuff from him. You know, save what childhood we could for him. But the kid's so smart it didn't last long. And dad was so focused on hunting that....." 

Dean almost let the thought end there. He could just hear his dad's voice telling him to stop whining. There was work to be done, so why cry about it? Thinking and talking about it kept a hunter from doing his job. And their family needed to be protected. He was the older brother and should know better than to go spilling his guts to a victim. But dean ignored the voice for now. When would he ever again have such a great girl willing to listen to him rant and whine? Or sitting on my chest...he thought with some smug pleasure. 

"...I just never...got to really talk to him. You know...whine about having to watch out for Sam instead of going on a date. Never really having birthdays. Dropping out of school. It was always....keep the salt and shotgun right next to you. Check under the bed and closet for monsters." Dean smiled a world-weary smile at her and raised his eyebrows. "I bet this isn't a great story to help you sleep. What about you? Your turn to spill."

The weight of his confession sank down upon her shoulders. It took her off-guard really. A moment of unbridled honesty was unexpected- most of all from him.  And... She didn't know whether to praise him or pity him. As much as she yearned to look away from the intensity of his eyes, she made sure she was always paying attention when he looked down at her. Something shifted in the way she looked at him. 

"Oh no- I love hearing strange men's life stories before bed." She smirked, but sobered up soon after when he confided in her. 

"So.. Your whole life, you've been doing this?." Claire took a moment to let the grim fact sink in before looking back up at Dean. She felt so sorry for him. It sounded like he had never been asked the question 'what do you want to be when you grow up?'  He was starting to look uncomfortable with his admission, and was clearly looking for a change of topic from himself. 

More than the bad boy bravado after all, huh. She commented to herself. Compassion curved her pink lips in a smile that communicated even though she kept that particular thought to herself. 

She scooted a bit towards the center of his vast chest and folded her legs to the side. She could have sworn she heart his breathing hitch when she leaned her weight into her left hand. 'No way. I'm way too puny.. I'm lucky he can see me at all, honestly.'  Claire thought, voicing her inner pity-party. She had to say, he was as toned as he looked. All those push-ups paid off, she guessed, recalling a fleeting image from earlier that morning. Dean did look a bit funny from this close-up angle, the way he had to tilt his head down just to get a clear view of her. It made her feel even smaller and yet... Important. 

Weird. 

"I can't follow up to that!" Claire said, giving him a gentle backhand (even though she was sure her hardest punch wouldn't even phase him.) 

"Dean, I'm just a magazine editor." She went on, a little quieter. "Before all this, the most interesting thing to happen to me was the occasional speeding ticket. It's so bizarre.. How easily everything you knew can just slip through your fingers." 

"Speeding tickets." Dean said with a soft snort. 

Looking exceptionally pleased with himself, he chuckled and looked away, his eyes staring off into the memory of the time he'd banged the hottest female cop he'd ever seen.

When Claire's small voice kept talking, the hunters eyes quickly looked back to her. 

Thats why hunters dont have much Claire. Anything you love can be... just gone before you have time to blink. Dean frowned as the thought continued to build, and his brain wandered over all the things he and Sam had lost along the way. 

Without even thinking about it, Dean's hand reached for Claire. His fingers slowly found her, the tips lightly touching her arm before they trailed around to wrap around her till his fingertips touched her other arm. His pinky landed on the   tiny, pale hand that was placed flat on his chest. Dean could still feel where the hand had ran over his shirt, smoothing out the wrinkles and making his whole body freaking tingle. 

"Thats why we're here. Me and Sam. As hunters I mean." Dean coughed selfconsciously, suddenly realizing where his hand had gone. But he let it stay there. It felt... pretty amazing. To feel Claire with his hand like this....And feel more connected to her than he had to anyone. It actually felt comforting. Feeling her tiny form in his palm, made him feel...stronger and more at peace then he had for a very long time. 

"We're here to help you get it all back Claire. Ok? You gotta trust us... We want to help you as badly as we want to bag Abels, our  wicked man-witch of the Midwest. So...I guess..." Dean paused, breathing deeper as he tried to say what he was feeling. "I guess I'm hoping you trust us. Trust me." His lips tightened into a straight line, regretting he let something of his crazy crush seep out. Probably was the worst way to get the four inch victim sitting on his chest to trust him. 

She shrugged and looked down, distracted by the body heat that Dean radiated so efficiently. Without thinking, she smoothed a hand across his chest, eyeing the magnified t-shirt fibers under her fingertips. 

Claire felt her body tense up- both fear and a strange excitement battling for dominance within her as the giant hand draped over her. The weight was gentle, restrained, but certainly present. Her slight frown melted away to reveal coy disbelief. He wasn't asking for money, just trust. Claire leaned into dean's hand as if to demonstrate her trust. 

"I don't think you need to worry about that." She answered softly. 

"Oh. What's salt for?" She suddenly remembered, raising her head and tilting a puzzled look at his huge face. 

"Unh....salt? Oh....its kind of a one hit wonder when it comes to monsters. More than half of them out there have a weakness to salt or iron. Or both. So we put salt into shotgun shells and it tends to..." Dean suddenly yawned, his sentence breaking off.

She had to avert her gaze when he yawned. Sure he was cute, but he was also a giant. Which meant that mouth was potentially dangerous... And not the best angle from down here. 

Without an invitation, Claire took this as the cue to settle down for the night. She laid down on her stomach and nestled against his chest. Under other circumstances, it would have felt incredible awkward and invasive to sleep on some giant dude's chest.. But considering she had already ridden around like pocket change, her whole perception of "normal" and "socially acceptable" was a bit skewed. 

"Hope you don't mind," she called up to him, feeling his hand hesitate over her as she glanced up towards his huge face. 

"Nah, I don't mind being on the bottom once in a while." Dean said, unable to help the slightly filthy smirk that crossed his face for a second. He chuckled at the eye-roll Claire aimed at his chest, and he quickly added a reassuring smile. "You're fine." 

He watched as Claire settled down and laid out ontop of him. Her cheek rubbed against his T-shirt and she smiled pleasantly from the firm warmth he emanated. And crap, he noticed.

"Don't laugh at me, alright? You're the one good thing I've got going for me right now." She trailed off and shut her eyes, wiggling a little side to side and curling her legs up to her chest to get cozy for sleep. 

"That's so weird. Big scary ghost being afraid of salt..." Claire snorted to herself sleepily as she got settled.

Dean's face softened and something in his heart thumped in pleasure...and something that made it ache. 

"Dont worry about it. I'm uh...I'm not exactly in a laughing mood." He replied, whispering to the tiny girl curled up on his chest.

How could I laugh when I really just want to say 'ditto babe'?The thought was pushed to the side when Claire scooted around a little, wiggling her little body for a split second before she settled. Even though Dean could feel her body completely relax and practically melt into him seconds after, he was up for another 10 minutes trying to keep himself from remembering how her shapely little body had felt, rubbing against him.