Title: Stones Taught Me to Fly
Rating: PG-13
Summary: They’re apart too often. It hurts more every time he leaves her behind, and every time he’s with her, it gets that much harder to go again.
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural. A girl can dream, but, alas, that's all it is.
Author's Note: Used for philosophy_20, prompt #10: time.



there’s still a little bit of your face
i haven’t kissed
you step a little closer each day
that I can’t say what’s going on
Cannonball – Damien Rice

“No!” is what he says, adamantly, like it’s settled, like his word is final.

“Yes!” she replies, having none of that.

His back is to her, so that she can’t see his face – annoyance and worry and a thousand other things written all over it. She crosses her arms over her chest, stares a hole in the back of his head. The times when she’s truly annoyed, upset, are few and far between, but this is very obviously one of them.

Sam watches all of this from the edge of one of the motel’s beds. He’s actually kind of fascinated. They keep arguing, volleying back and forth like a tennis match, and they’re surprisingly evenly matched.

Dean is stubborn; it turns out, so is Layla.

Sam honestly doesn’t know who’s going to win in the end.

“Layla, it’s not an option, drop it,” Dean warns. She rolls her eyes. Actually rolls her eyes. Sam thinks maybe he’s a little bit in love with her for that –probably not as much as Dean, but still…he’s impressed.

“You don’t get to make decisions for me, Dean, that’s not how relationships work,” she replies, tightly. Dean really doesn’t like the r-word. It’s what this thing between him and Layla is, he hasn’t bothered to deny that, but the word never fails to ruffle his feathers, set him on edge.

“When it comes to keeping you safe, yeah, I do,” Dean replies, taking two steps forward, before even thinking that maybe crowding her is not the best idea. But Layla doesn’t back away; she holds her ground and stares him straight in the eye.

Damn. Now Sam’s not just impressed, he’s proud.

“No,” she replies, simply, directly. “You don’t.”

It’s a stalemate then. Neither of them are giving ground, or backing off. They’re just standing there, staring at each other, waiting to see who’ll blink first. Sam’s on the edge of his seat.

“Sam?” Dean says. Sam knew he would break first, look away. His eyes plead with Sam to agree with him.

“Leave me out of this,” he replies. Dean grinds his jaw, and in the interest of keeping the peace, he turns to Layla and says, “Both of you.” He sure as hell isn’t taking anyone’s side; no good will come of that. And as much as he wants to see who’s going to retreat first, he thinks it’ll be much easier (and quicker) for the both of them if he excuses himself for a cup of coffee.

Which he does. Dean looks at him like he’s a deserter, and Layla continues to stare tersely at Dean as he stares tersely at Sam as he leaves.

“I can’t believe you’re being this way,” Layla sighs, and shakes her head. She takes a few steps away, turns her back, and sighs again. Dean turns back to her, affronted.

“I’m trying to keep you safe!” he argues, loudly, coming around to the same point time and time again, because, damn it, it’s the point. Mom died. Dad died. Sam died. It’s not going to happen to Layla while he’s around, no chance in hell.

“We’re dying, Dean!” she wheels on him, angrily, as angry as he’s ever seen her. His mouth snaps shut, and his thoughts are blown away by the force of her voice, and her words. They stop him cold; the truth has a way of doing that.

She does her best to hold his gaze, as she had before, but it seems, once she’s heard herself say the words, she looses the momentum. Her eyes dart here and there and everywhere before they land back on him. “I’m still sick. You’re going to die, you get closer to it every day, and I sit at home, and wait for you to call, or show up, or anything, because half the time, I don’t even know if you’re still alive! I am so tired of sitting and waiting.” Her voice breaks four or five times and he tries to step closer to her, but she holds her hand up, makes him stay where he is.

It takes a long time for her to speak again, but when she does, she says, “All those months ago, you said you want to be with me. So, Dean, be with me. And let me be with you.”

Her voice is soft, but so, so strong. She steels her gaze against his, makes it so he pretty much has to look away.

“I could get you hurt.” His arguments are getting weaker.

She doesn’t blink. “I’m hurt now,” she answers.

Then, he does look away, because he just can’t hold her gaze anymore. The truth is, he’d like nothing more than to kick Sam into the back seat, let Layla ride shotgun with them until the end. But their job is dangerous, too dangerous for that. And he can’t justify putting Layla in that position. No matter how much he wants to.

And yet…she’s right. They’re apart too often. It hurts more every time he leaves her behind, and every time he’s with her, it gets that much harder to go again. They’re both dying. He could leave and come back to an empty house and a tombstone. Or he could be far, far away from Layla when his time finally comes, and die with the knowledge that he can’t see her one last time.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

“Let me…” he finally says, but he can’t get it all out. He feels like he hasn’t slept in days and he has a pounding headache. His mind won’t stop racing, and he can’t take any more of this. “Let me sleep on it.”

It’s as close to a promise as he can make.

Layla lets out a sigh, then takes a deep breath. She looks down at her hands and nods. “Okay,” she replies. It’s something, but she still sounds a bit defeated, deflated.

Dean goes to her then, and, this time, she doesn’t try to stop him. He pulls her into his arms and rests his chin on top of her head. She wraps her arms around his back and closes her eyes against his chest.

This is what she wants, this, every day, for as long as they have between them. She doesn’t care that it’s dangerous, what Dean and Sam do, and she doesn’t care that it scares her down to her very core. She just wants to be with Dean, not sit alone in her apartment, waiting for the two times a month she gets to see him, touch him, kiss him. It’s not enough; it probably never was.

She closes her eyes tightly, before opening them again, almost with purpose. Her head lifts away from his chest, and her hands wander up the back of his shirt. Dean pulls away and looks down at her, questioningly, as her hands move further up.

“Layla…” he says, and she knows what he’s thinking.

She shakes her head. “You should know me better than that,” she answers.

He swallows, heavily, and nods, “I do,” he replies. “I do.”

“Good,” she tells him, letting her fingernails rake up and down slowly. His breath hitches and he lets out a little hiss. “If this is all I get, in the end…let me have it.”

It’s amazing, he thinks, how little things like that manage to hit him in the gut like a punch when she says them. She says them so softly, almost as if the words are riding out on her breath. But there’s such power, strength behind them, that they hit him hard, in all the right places.

“Yeah,” he answers, his hands resting gently on her shoulders, now. “Yeah,” he agrees again, and his last thought is chased away when she starts kissing him, without giving him any indication that she ever plans to stop. She never does, and dammed if that isn’t another thing that he loves about her.

Shoes, socks, shirts are lost on the way to the bed, but Layla stops, and pulls away. “Wait,” she says, leaving Dean to stare at her, wide eyed, as she heads for the door.

“What are you-”

She pulls the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign off of the handle and puts it on the outside, before closing the door and locking it. “Sam,” she answers, with a shrug. Dean has to chuckle. She walks back over and stands directly in front of him. He smiles down at her, can’t help but.

“We were doing something?” Layla says, after a few moments, lifting her eyebrows at him, clearly implying, ‘What’s going on?’ He just shakes his head and runs his fingers over her forehead.

“In a minute,” he replies, keeps staring, keeps smiling.

She pulls him forward, both hands on the side of his head, and his hands grip her hips. Despite the fact that they are both minus one shirt, mere inches from a bed, in the middle of a tacky, cheap motel room, they stand like that, with each other, for the longest time, lost in each other, both holding on to the other for dear life.

*

“Have I mentioned I hate you,” Sam complains, tiredly, the next morning, coffee cup in hand. He looks tired, is tired, because he got very little sleep last night, thanks to Dean and Layla and all of their make up sex. They didn’t even let him back into the room until one in the morning.

“Only ten times in the last few minutes, but keep saying it, it’s great to hear,” Dean replies, way to chipper for seven am. Sam glowers at him, and tosses his bag in the trunk with a lot more force than necessary.

“Sorry, Sam,” Layla says, and, unlike Dean, she means it, so he offers her a small smile. Her bag (which is a light shade of purple to Dean and Sam’s canvas colored bags) is set gently next to his.

“So, she won, huh?” Sam says to Dean, when they’re out of Layla’s earshot. Dean rolls his eyes.

“Well, technically, I get to have my girl with me 24/7 instead of just my pain in the ass brother, so, I think I win in the long run,” Dean argues. Sam wonders if that makes any sense in his head.

“Whatever makes you feel better,” Sam replies, slapping Dean on the shoulder and walking toward the Impala. Dean is two steps behind him, rooting around in his pockets.

“Where the hell are my keys?” he demands of his pockets, turning them inside out, checking his jeans and still coming up empty. “What the-”

He looks up, and there they are, in between Layla’s fingers as she smiles smugly over the hood of the car, standing by the driver’s side door. Sam laughs out loud, both at the look on Dean’s face, and the courage that Layla seems to display time and time again.

She climbs in the driver’s side door without a word, and Dean’s mouth just hangs wide open. “You’re gonna catch flies, dude,” Sam says, still unable to contain his laughter. They both turn to see Layla searching through Dean’s box of cassette tapes, currently laying in the middle of her lap.

Sam shakes his head, in wonderment and awe. “I love her,” he says. Dean turns and glares at him. Sam chuckles yet again, then yells, “Shotgun!” and runs for the car.

“Hey!” Dean replies, chasing after him, but Sam beats him there, climbing in the front seat and shutting the door before Dean can grab him by his jacket and yank him back out.

“Looks like you get the back seat, honey,” Layla needles, and now she’s laughing softly at him too. He huffs and rolls his eyes, pulling the back door open and sliding inside.

“This is so not how I pictured this going,” he complains. He’s in the back seat of his own damned car, while his little brother rides shotgun next to his girlfriend. Those things should sure as hell be in a different order

Layla turns back to him and reaches out, runs her hands along the side of his face and up into his hair, “Stop complaining,” she tells him. “And just enjoy the ride.”

Dean smiles to himself as the car pulls away from the motel parking lot. As always, it seems Layla is right. From now on, and for however long they have left, he fully intends to just let go, and enjoy the ride.

He just wishes he didn’t have to do it from the back seat.