Young Blood [SUPERNATURAL]

Part 23: Orphaned Again

3:14 a.m.

The night was cold, the crescent moon distorted in a haze of silver mist. Starless, the black canvas of the sky unfurled itself in front of Ash, her eyes blank and finally dry. The dull shine of the moon, the gentle whisper of mist suspended in silvery tendrils- it all seemed flat to her, like it was a scene on a piece of paper, rather than her dismal reality. Even her senses felt dulled; it was a confusing feeling, one that made her question if she had bled herself dry with her tears, gushed all the sensitivities she once possessed, carving out only room for the rattling skeleton that sat just beneath her skin. It didn't feel like grief or any pain she knew. It felt like being broken.

Without looking, her pale hand searched in the gravel for the half empty bottle of liquor. It was cheap and tasted awful but she still drank in generous swallows. When the amber liquid disappeared, she let the bottle slip from her fingers.

Normally she wasn't a drinker. Definitely not one to be caught indulging into the early hours of the morning. But this was not about pleasure. It was about quieting the shards of memories that slammed against her skull relentlessly, silencing them underneath the beat of her pulse in her temples. She didn't want to see it anymore. Not the demon's eyes, black as smoke, not the terrible gore of Wyatt's decapitation, not the strangled feeling of being helpless to save him. None of it.

She felt like a child, small and powerless. Orphaned again.

At the unwanted throb of memory, she reached for the bottle again, found it empty. So now even this, her numb escape, was gone, too. It filled her with rage, the stupid thoughtless kind that only came when you couldn't see straight. She went to throw the bottle, imagining the satisfaction she would feel at the tinkling of broken glass. But before she could, a warm hand closed around her wrist.

"Might wanna rethink that," It was Dean. He sat beside her on the stoop, leaving the otherwise vacant motel to his back.

He didn't need to even look at her to recognize the state she was in. In the week that passed since Wyatt's death, she just hadn't been the same. He could only watch as she turned cold, a layer of impenetrable ice separating them. He hadn't known her for very long, but he missed her warmth. Missed her blind optimism, sensed her fading, continually trying to decide whether she should stay or go.

Now she didn't even look at him.

It felt wrong to close herself off from him. She knew that in some foolish, irreversible way she had grown to want Dean. Maybe even need him. And that was the problem, needing someone. She felt secluded, like she was trapped in a glass box. He couldn't break her out from the outside no more than she could free herself from the inside. But she could still see what she wanted. The emotions simply wouldn't stir.

"Ash." His voice sounded tight when he said her name.  His body was on fire, every instinct he knew demanding that he reach out to touch her, hold her, anything to pull her through. There was a split second he couldn't catch his breath, desperate and vulnerable, before he masked the fear under heavy anger. "Now you can't look me in the eye?" She was still, and Dean felt his emotions rush forward all at once, all the frustration and exhaustion, fast and blunt like a bullet leaving the barrel of a gun.

He grabbed her by the shoulders suddenly, turning her body to face his. Her face appeared to be all shadows, and her eyes were different. The skin on Dean's neck prickled for half a moment before she reacted, shaking his hands off her in a huff.

"I-I-" It was her first time speaking in hours, since Sam had smiled at her and bid her a goodnight, to which she replied with a stiff "yeah". She liked the pain in the scratch of her voice.

Then it was quiet. Not the calm, comforting kind. This was the silence that came after brakes shrieking, shrill and icy. The sharp snap of a bone cracking.