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dean-winchester-is-a-warrior · 29 days

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Things Learned and Unlearned Ch. 15

Series Summary: Y/N has spent her life trying to outrun her mother's reputation. When she meets the rich and successful playboy, Dean Winchester, how quickly can he get her to stop running?

Pairings/Characters: Dean Winchester x Y/N, Sam Winchester, Jessica Winchester, Lucy Winchester (OC)

Warnings: Each chapter will have it's own warnings, but there will be smut, seduction, virgin!reader, playboy!dean, Edwardian era BS attitudes surrounding sex and women. (Technically it's set in 1900 and the Edwardian era started in 1901, but you get it.) Angst, Fluff, all the good stuff that regularly pops up in my series. 😁

Chapter Warnings: None. Just angst and fluff.

Word Count: 3,343

A/N: So, here it is - Chapter 15, and the end of this series. I've been so grateful for all the wonderful reblogs and encouraging comments this fic has received as it's gone along week by week. Your support is the reason why it's finally completed.

It began life as just a few chapters from an orphaned fic of mine over on ff.net and now it's a fully completed Dean fic that I'm very proud of. 😊 So thanks again, and I hope you enjoy the end of this story, and feel it was worth the investment of your time. ❤️

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Four weeks later. January 1901.

Dean sat down heavily behind his mahogany desk and picked up his morning mail before immediately throwing it back down in annoyance.

It will just be invitations and invoices, Dean thought, who cares?

He leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes and digging his fingers into them. He was hungover and had barely slept. He felt like he'd been hit with a brick building.

With a deep sigh, he opened the file in front of him and ran his hand over the top page. It was his copy of the deal that he’d finally signed a week ago.

Two weeks ago, George Taskett had called his secretary to arrange a meeting. When Dean showed up at the appointed time, George apologized profusely for what had happened at the theater.

“It’s taken me a little while to reach out to you because I wanted to be able to tell you that Byron Temple had been fired, and before I could do that, I needed to speak to the board about it first. But I can assure you now that he has been permanently removed from his position, and fired from our company. It seems that the board shared my concerns with his lack of moral character.”

George had told Dean that when they investigated a little bit, they’d discovered that the incident at The Manhattan hadn't been the first such incident for Temple. Dean was not surprised, and he was glad that the board of Northern Freight had been all too happy to show him the door.

So with Temple out of the picture, the deal had gone through as originally planned and all three companies were now set to make a lot of money. Winchester Shipping and Lumber was in the best shape it had ever been in.

But he still couldn't sleep at night.

As he tucked the file away, he heard a knock at the door and then Grant's voice when he opened it. Dean couldn't make out what he was saying to the visitor, but if it was anything other than, “come back another day”, Dean might have to fire him.

A minute later, however, Grant was in his doorway to announce his guest. But Dean didn't need the announcement, as he saw his baby brother's towering frame standing behind his butler.

Dean stood up with a frown, walking out from behind his desk as Grant left, and Sam entered his study. “What's wrong?” He asked without preamble.

Sam shook his head. “Nothing's wrong.”

Dean's scowl got deeper. “What do you mean ‘nothing’s wrong’? Then what are you doing here?”

Sam shrugged. “Just wanted to visit my brother.”

Dean crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back against his desk and fixing Sam with a look as he took a seat on one of the leather chairs across from Dean.

“You just wanted to visit?” Dean asked, his voice incredulous. “You thought you'd take a six hour train ride to just…drop in and say hi?”

“Sure.”

“Sam.”

“I just wanted to see how you're doing. See if you're alright.” Sam said innocently.

“Why wouldn't I be?”

Sam sighed. “Cause Y/N isn't.”

Dean's heart beat double time as he scowled again at his little brother. “Sam, honest to god…” He ran a hand through his hair. “This better not be the real reason you're here.”

“It is.” Sam said calmly.

“Well, then I'm sorry you wasted your money on a train ticket, along with six hours of your life.” He held up a finger. “No, twelve, actually, cause you're gonna leave now.”

Sam just continued to stare at him, annoying him profusely. Finally his little brother had the audacity to shake his head and scold him.

“Dean, why did you let her go? I saw you with her, saw you at Christmas. I know you love her.”

“Bullshit!” Dean barked at him, angrily. “You are imagining things, Sam, and I'm not interested in dredging up this same asinine conversation I already had with your wife.”

Sam nodded. “Yeah, she told me about it. Just made us even more sure that you were completely in love with Y/N. What we couldn't figure out is why you were so furious about the very idea of loving her.”

“Dammit Sam, drop this!” Dean shouted at him as he straightened up from the desk.

Sam pointed at him. “Yeah, furious like that.” He shrugged. “But then…I think I figured it out “

"Oh, did you?" Dean asked with a death stare, feeling the panic start to rise up in him.

Sam's voice softened as he looked Dean in the eye. “You're afraid you'll end up like Dad.”

Dean clenched his jaw and refused to respond.

But eventually Sam just shook his head. “You won't though.”

Fear and panic sat thick in Dean's throat, clogging his voice as he spoke. “You don't know that.”

Sam scoffed. “Yeah, I do.”

Silence reigned for a moment before Dean shuffled back and sat down behind his desk again. His head was pounding harder than ever.

He watched Sam for a while before he shook his head. “You don't remember him the way - I mean, obviously you couldn't remember him how he was. Before. But…”

He scrubbed an exhausted hand down his face. “I remember. The way he was. I remember him laughing and smiling. The way he'd pick me up when he walked back in the door at the end of the day, ride me around on his shoulders…I remember all of it. And I remember when it was gone. He was like a completely different man. He might as well have died with her, cause he was gone and he never came back.”

Dean closed his eyes. “So, I swore to myself, I swore,” he emphasized, “that I would never do the same. I would NEVER love someone like that and then lose myself completely when they were gone.”

He shook his head again and opened his eyes to pin Sam with another glare. “I just won't do it.”

Sam sat, quietly nodding for a moment before his brow wrinkled in thought. “Hmm…” He took a deep breath and spoke as he exhaled.

“Do you love me?”

Dean stared at him for a heartbeat before a red flush began climbing up his neck as he answered in a growl. “What are you talking about?”

But Sam just waved away his brother's words. “Nevermind, I already know you do. You love me a lot.”

Dean continued to glare at his annoying little brother, not sure what to even say to that.

“And I know you love Jess and Lucy too. Also a lot.”

“What is your point Sam?” He barked at him, although he thought he'd started to figure it out.

“I know this too, though.” Sam continued without answering him, “If anything ever happened to me or…Jess, or…” He didn't seem able to finish the horrible idea, and Dean felt his stomach churn and his chest ache at the mere thought.

But Sam pushed on. “If something ever happened, you'd never abandon the ones left behind. You'd never leave us on our own.”

Dean bit his bottom lip, feeling his throat ache from his trapped feelings.

“Oh yeah?” He asked doubtfully. “And how could you possibly be sure of that?” He smiled without humor. “I am my father's son, after all.”

Sam shrugged. “That may be, but you're also just Dean, my big brother. And he's the most selfless man I've ever known.”

Dean scoffed, but Sam continued over him.

“You've never put yourself first. Not while you were raising me. Not when you went toe-to-toe with Dad for me, so I could go to law school. Not when you worked a second job outside the business, so that you could pay my whole tuition when Dad refused to pay for it with ‘company money’ as he called it.”

Dean couldn't look at Sam any longer, dipping his head to stare at the wood grain in his desk as his brother continued to heap undeserving praise on him.

“And ever since you took over the company, you've always put your employees first, you take care of them, you work twice as hard as you need to, and pay them a lot more than other companies do, to make sure they can live good, happy lives. I've seen your books, I know it's true.”

“So?” Dean cut into Sam's diatribe, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck. “Even if all of this praise was true, which it isn't, none of it proves that loving and losing someone wouldn't change all of that. Dad was a good man too, until he loved a woman and lost a woman.”

Sam tightened his jaw. “Maybe he was, but he was also a selfish bastard for abandoning us, for just going off to live alone with his grief and anger. You weren't even five years old, and you'd just lost your mother!” Sam huffed angrily. “He should have cared about that too. He should have cared about you, about us...not just the wife he lost.”

Dean's instinct was to defend their father, but he didn't. He'd begun to see that Sam was right; it had been pretty selfish.

“And I'm telling you,” Sam said with conviction, “if you and Y/N were lucky enough to be blessed with children, you would NEVER abandon them for any reason. Not ever. Because you. are not. our father.”

Dean heard his little brother's words, and the freedom he found in them, surprised him. It felt like he could breathe deeply for the first time in a very long time. He felt a tear escape and he dashed it away quickly, turning his chair away from Sam and staring at the wall.

After a moment of quiet, Sam spoke solemnly. "But none of this speculating about how you'd act IF you fell in love with Y/N really matters anyway. Because the plain and simple fact is, you're already in love with her.”

The words still made Dean's stomach clench, and he turned back to Sam and shook his head. “No, I refused, I wouldn't let myself love her.”

Sam rolled his eyes and breathed out harshly. “Damn! You really are a monumental idiot.”

Dean scowled at him, unimpressed with his opinion.

“Dean, you can't stop yourself from loving someone. You can't just control something like that.”

Dean felt the old, familiar panic start to rise in his chest. If he couldn't control it...if he really did love her already…then he'd already lost, and he'd never be free of her hold on him.

I don't wanna be free.

The intrusive thought leaked into his mind and he closed his eyes, trying desperately to deny it but-

“She's leaving.”

Dean's eyes popped open to stare at Sam.

“What do you mean?” He asked quietly.

“She gave us her notice. She's leaving. Catching a train in a couple of days. That's why I came to shake some sense into you before it's too late. She's going west, says she wants to seek some adventure, but I know it's really because we're all just a constant reminder of you. She's been miserable this whole last month - trying very hard to hide it - but miserable.”

Dean felt a different kind of panic rising as he contemplated Y/N being on the other side of the country, living her life a million miles from his.

She'd get married to someone else - someone who didn't become paralyzed with fear at the thought of needing her in his life. He'd win her over, he'd make her smile, make her happy. He'd give her children; he'd be the damn compatible husband she'd always wanted, and give her the little cottage and respectable life she deserved.

The exact life he'd told her to go and live just before he made love to her and then snuck out of the room before she woke, like a coward.

He looked at his little brother, desperate now for his help. “Shit. I walked away from her Sam. I left her a goddamn note cause I was too much of a coward to say goodbye to her face. Cause I knew if I spent another minute with her, I'd be so tempted to do anything she wanted, say anything she wanted, just to get her to stay. And I couldn't risk it.”

Sam gave him a scolding look and just shook his head.

Dean's voice was slightly forlorn. “What are the chances she forgives me for that?”

Sam shrugged. “Won't know till you try, coward.”

***

Y/N clutched the handle of her leather bag tightly, gripping it over and over, wearing it smooth from sheer worry. She recognized that traveling alone, to some remote California town she'd never been to was ludicrous and dangerous. But she just couldn't take it another day; she needed to get as far away as she could.

Living with Sam and Jessica everyday, watching them in their happy, loving marriage, was simply more than she could handle. The fact that occasionally, when Sam smiled or frowned or laughed a certain way, a tiny piece of his big brother would appear on his face, well, that was just the knife in her heart that made leaving quickly a necessity.

So, here she was, on a bench on the train platform, waiting for a train to roll in and carry her away from endless reminders of Dean. But even just sitting on the bench reminded her that she'd first met him while she was sitting on a bench - on that cool day last fall, when he'd burned his way into her life, into her heart and then into her bed. Unfortunately, he'd also burrowed his way into her soul, and she knew he'd never leave.

Even now she imagined that she heard him calling her name over the screaming whistle of the steam engine that was pulling up beside her; it was the train that would take her away from everything she wanted to leave behind. Though she knew she'd never manage it completely.

Y/N frowned slightly as she looked up; she thought she heard his voice again. Was she truly going mad?

But then she saw him, running through the steam on the platform, coming towards her. She jumped up, completely confused, but somehow feeling like she needed to be on her feet.

“Dean?” She asked as he reached her. “Why are you…? What-”

Dean interrupted her. “Don't get on that train. Don't go. I have a proposition for you instead.”

Y/N felt her heart plummet. “Dean-”

“Marry me.”

Her words died in her throat and she just stared at him, her eyes bulging as she tried to work out what was going on.

“Oh,” she said almost sadly, “I've actually gone completely mad now.”

But Dean was shaking his head. “No, sweetheart, I was the crazy one. I was the one who thought I could simply wish away, or will away loving you, but I should have known it was never gonna work.”

Y/N returned to being simply speechless, eyes wide and staring once again, as Dean continued, his voice sincere and ardent.

“Sweetheart, I'm so sorry I didn't stick around to say goodbye. Hell, I'm sorry I even tried to say goodbye in the first place. I'm sorry I was too much of a coward to let myself love you, or admit to it anyway. Seems like I didn't really have much say in the matter. Apparently trying desperately to not love someone, doesn't actually stop you from loving them. Who knew?" He said with a lopsided smile and a shrug.

Still smiling, he took another step towards her and his voice was strong and sure. "But I'm mostly sorry that I didn't wrap my arms around you the very first time I saw you, and absolutely refuse to let you go.”

“That's actually kidnapping!”

Y/N whipped around to see Sam and Jessica standing behind her on the platform with Lucy between them. Jessica slapped Sam's arm for his sarcastic comment.

“Shush. He's trying.” She waved at Dean and called to him. “You're doing great, champ! Keep going!”

“Give her the ring, Uncle Dean. Ladies like rings!” Lucy shouted.

Y/N started crying and laughing in the same breath, and nearly choked. But as Dean nodded at his niece and got down on one knee, tears won out and she started crying noisily.

He gazed up at her with a soft smile and slightly glassy eyes. “I wasn't planning to do this with an audience, and I have a lot to explain to you, I know, about why I was such an idiot and how stupid I was to be afraid of loving you.”

“Quit reminding her she'll be marrying a moron!” Sam called out again, and Y/N heard Jessica smack him again. But she couldn't take her eyes off of the massive ring that sat in the velvet box Dean opened and presented to her.

It was a Tiffany's box, she noticed, and inside was a beautiful diamond ring, with a small round emerald in the very center.

“I love you so much, Y/N, and I know I don't deserve you, but please say yes anyway.”

“Yes!” She shouted, taking the box from him and then throwing her arms around his neck, letting him stand up and twirl her around, laughing with him through her tears.

Everyone on the platform clapped happily, as Dean kissed her.

Sam covered Lucy's eyes but she pushed his hand away, clapping loudly at the little fairytale that had played out for her.

As Dean pulled back, he slipped the ring onto her finger and ran his thumb over her knuckles, before raising her hand to his mouth and kissing the back of it, just like he did the very first day they'd met. It still had the power to make her stomach flutter.

“Do you like it?” He asked, touching the emerald in the center of her ring.

Remembering her prediction that emeralds would always make her cry, brought on even more of those predictable tears. She was happy beyond measure that she'd been both right and wrong about that.

“Yes, I love it.” She said as she kissed him sweetly and then gazed into his bright green eyes. “And I love you, Dean. So much.”

“Thank God. Just...just don't stop. Please?”

Y/N nodded. "Promise." She whispered.

Dean sighed against her lips before claiming them once again.

***

The St. Louis World's Fair. Spring 1904.

“Lucy Winchester! You've had more than enough of that spun sugar now, come back over here and hold your brother's hand.”

Jessica ran after her six year old with her two year old in tow, until Sam grabbed him up and settled him against his chest. With her hands now free, Jessica grabbed a protesting Lucy away from the cotton candy cart.

Y/N laughed at her former student's frustrated little face and decided to try and help her sister-in-law out. “Luce come here; your cousin needs your help.”

Jessica let go of Lucy's hand so she could run back to her aunt and uncle. Y/N and Dean walked behind them a little ways, with their one year old, Melody, toddling somewhat unsteadily between them.

Y/N let Lucy take Melody's hand. “She loves walking with you and you're so good at showing her just how a real lady walks.”

Lucy beamed proudly as she immediately slowed her pace to allow Melody to keep up, and then walked very sedately to help her little cousin learn how to be a lady.

Jessica smiled brightly over her shoulder and mouthed, thank you to Y/N who laughed lightly. Dean reached over and took her hand now that it was free, swinging it gently back and forth.

Suddenly Y/N remembered Christmas day three years ago and how she'd imagined going to the World's Fair, and walking hand in hand just like this.

There were no cherry trees beside them and the crowds were fairly thick on the pathways around the fair, which meant they were jostled around a bit more than she'd imagined in her idyllic fantasy.

But the feelings she'd imagined back then were exactly the same. Family. Love. Belonging. She stepped closer to Dean and rested her head on his shoulder, squeezing his hand tighter.

He kissed the crown of her head and then whispered to her. “Happy, sweetheart?”

She looked up at him and gave him a mischievous smile. “Happier if you'd kiss me.”

He pretended to be scandalized. “Mrs. Winchester? In public? In full view of the children?”

Y/N laughed happily, making her in laws look back at them and smile.

Dean leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose. “That's all my strict moral fiber will allow for.” He said in pretentious tones.

Y/N pouted at him playfully and he dipped his head to whisper against the shell of her ear, making her shiver.

“But Mel is sleeping in her cousins’ room with the nanny tonight. So later, in the privacy of our hotel room, I plan on kissing every writhing, shaking inch of your body until you -”

“Auntie!” Y/N was yanked back to reality as Lucy called to her, excitedly. “Melody said my name!”

Trying to ignore the raging fire her husband had kindled within her, Y/N smiled down at Lucy.

“Well, I'm not surprised. She loves her big cousin.”

Lucy smiled widely before she dropped Melody's hand to run up and tell her parents her good news. Melody started to fuss over her cousin leaving, until Dean scooped her up to sit on his shoulders; then she squealed happily, thrilled to be up so high.

Y/N just watched Dean for a moment, her eyes watering slightly as she thought about how heartbroken she'd been on that Christmas day so long ago, when she'd believed this life was forever beyond her reach.

Dean looked down at her and she picked up his hand again, pressing close to him.

“I love you, you know.”

His beautiful green eyes were warm and overflowing with happiness as he bent his head slightly, holding Melody tightly so she didn't slip, and kissed Y/N senseless. Despite his earlier moral protestations, his kiss was slow and deep and it stole all the air from her lungs.

He pulled back from her and the look of love in his eyes stole her breath all over again as he answered.

"I love you too, sweetheart." He kissed her forehead and spoke softly, for her ears only. "Thanks for teaching me how."

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