Chapter Text
“So, Dean. Can you tell me why you decided to do this?”
How had he gotten here? He was drunk one night, flicking through Tindr and Grindr and not having any luck. One of the ads had been for a “unique matchmaker experience” and Drunk Dean thought it was a great idea. So great, in fact, that he’d stayed up until seven in the morning filling out the bajillion questions the application had asked him. Race. Height. Sex. Gender. Orientation. Religion. Eye color. Hair color. Build. Facial hair. Kink level. All of those things again, as preferences in a partner. Questions about his family, his “love language” (whatever the fuck that was), how he’d label his style of dress, hobbies, favorite songs, favorite movies, favorite TV shows, his job, where he lived, what foods he liked, his talents, his dreams, his ambitions… Deep shit for being three sheets to the wind. He supposed everything came out in a coherent manner, because the matchmaker, Pamela, had called him two days later and asked to meet him.
So here he was, in downtown Lawrence. The office of Pamela Barnes, Matchmaker, was in a tall building near the top. It was spacious and had a lot of windows letting in the sunlight. It was neutral: a lot of beige and creams, with hints of navy. The waiting room had a large sofa and some chairs, but her office held her large desk that faced the windows, and a round wooden table with only two chairs sitting at it. The chairs were comfortable, at least.
Pam was pretty. Dark hair, hazel eyes. Thin. Nice rack. She wore a white button down shirt, the top two buttons undone, and a black pencil skirt with a pair of heels. A bracelet, and Dean noticed that she didn’t wear any rings. Why was a matchmaker single?
Dean shrugged.
The shrug, however, didn’t seem to satisfy her because her hazel eyes were boring into him and had him pinned. “I’m tired of the grind. Of going to bars and going on apps and having a meaningless fling with someone that doesn’t go anywhere. I feel like I’ve tried it all, except this.”
Pam took notes and went over every detail of his application with him again.
“What about kids?”
“What about them?”
“Do you want them?”
That made Dean stop and think for a few seconds. He played with a loose thread on his shirt, trying to find the words that said what he wanted, but didn’t make him look like an asshole, either. “No. I raised Sam. He was like havin’ my own kid, and now he’s a lawyer who I helped put through school and now it’s just. My turn.” A nod and more notes. Was she writing a book? Dean tried to read what she was writing, but her writing was tiny and pretty far away across a table, and upside down.
“What do you like to do for fun, Dean?”
“Work on my Baby. Uh, my car.”
“But you work as a mechanic? Own your own garage?”
“Yeah?” She smiled and wrote some more. “Is that bad?” He was worried now that something was wrong with him.
“Nothing’s bad , Dean. But every detail is important when trying to find someone who you’ll be compatible with. For example, you obviously enjoy cars. So it might not be the best match to introduce you to someone who got car sick even looking at a car.”
Oh. “Yeah, that makes sense. Speaking of car sick. I don’t fly. On planes, I mean.”
Pam smiled at him. “Yes, I saw that. Any reason why?”
Dean gave another shrug. “A metal tube that weighs tens of thousands of pounds hurtling through the air five miles off the ground at 500 miles per hour. That doesn’t sound like a death trap to you?” She chuckled and made more notes.
“Tell me about your partner. Do you have a preference between male and female?”
“Not really. But, uh, I have a thing for dark hair.” It wasn’t that he discriminated. He didn’t. But if identical twins approached him and one had dark hair and one light, he’d go for the dark haired twin every day of the week.
“Alright. What about height? Build?”
Dean gave another shrug. “Beyond the hair, I don’t really have a ‘type’. I’ll screw anything that moves.” She may as well know that he was a man-whore. He wasn’t ashamed of it, but he was definitely getting tired of it.
They talked for hours. Kinks. Preferences. Likes. Dislikes. Hard limits. He rated his kinkiness on a scale of one to ten, and he rated his preferred kink level in a partner on the same scale. They talked about cocks and pussies and ass and tits and all of the things he’d never talked about with anyone, ever, because he was never that close with anyone in his entire life.
Pam asked him about his bad habits, and she knew just what to ask to get him to spill his guts even though he felt guilty saying some of the things. She asked him what were “domestic dealbreakers”, things a partner would do around the house that would make him not want to be with a person. She asked him about allergies, about pets, about favorite foods. They talked about religion and politics and how important it was to Dean that his partner shared his same views.
“Tell me about your last three partners.”
He did. Two of the three were women. One was five foot nothing, the other five ten. One had an hourglass figure of a swimsuit model, the other was what others might call “chubby”. One was prissy and wore dresses and makeup and heels. The other liked sports, tshirts, jeans, and sneakers. The guy was shorter, about five seven, and blond. Was always eating candy and he tasted like it. Dean smiled at that memory. He’d had a lot of fun with… Um… Whatever his name was.
“How long was your longest relationship, Dean?”
That took Dean a few minutes to answer. He didn’t really know. “I don’t know. A year? With Lisa.”
“And when was that?” Pam asked, writing everything down still.
“When I was nineteen. Twenty.”
“And you’re thirty five now?”
“Yeah.”
“And you feel that you’re ready for marriage?”
That caught Dean off guard a bit. Who was talking about marriage? He was looking to get more of a date than a quick fuck… “I mean. We’ll see if we click?”
Pam chuckled a little bit and smiled at him, and in Dean’s opinion, it was a bit condescending. “I’m a unique matchmaker, Dean. Did you not read the website? The disclaimers?” He gave her a blank stare and she sighed a little, pushing away her pad and pen for the first time since he’d sat down. “I match people, and the first time they meet is when they get married, Dean. You meet at the altar. You don’t speak beforehand, you don’t know what they look like or who they are. And vice versa.”
Oh. That… Clearly he didn’t read it as thoroughly as he thought he did. Dean blinked at her, eyes wide and owlish. Pam reached across and patted his hand.
“You’re still early in the process, and we’re pretty much done here. Why don’t you take a few days and think it over? If you decide to go forward, I’ll schedule an appointment for you with a psychologist, and then get a background check done, and a full medical workup.”
“That sounds like a lot.”
Pam nodded in agreement. “It is. But this isn’t just a date. I need to be sure you’re really ready for this, that you’re not a psychopath who’s going to kill someone I match you with, that you’re not going to drop dead of some sort of medical condition. If you come out the other side of all of that, then I’ll take a look at my files and see who I think you’d best fit with.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Great.” Pam slid a business card across the table to him. “Call me when you’ve made your decision. I look forward to working with you, Dean.”
★★★★
“You did what?”
Dean was kind of regretting calling Sam on his way home. Now he’d never hear the end of it. “I was drunk. Lonely. Tired of the one night thing.” There was silence for a few moments, making Dean nervous.
“Never thought I’d hear you say that.”
“What do you mean by that?”
He heard Sam sigh. “Nothing, Dean. Just. Since Lisa… You refuse to talk about a partner. A life beyond the garage and a quick lay. It just wasn’t on your radar or something, I guess, and I just thought it never would be.”
Dean didn’t know what to say in response, so he said nothing.
“It’s not a bad thing, Dean.”
“So you think I should do it?” He could almost see Sam running a hand through his hair and that made Dean smile, just a little bit.
“It’s… Unconventional. What if it doesn’t work out?”
Dean shrugged before realizing Sam couldn’t see him through the phone. “Then we divorce and go our separate ways.”
“You need a prenup. If you don’t have one, and the person is a dick, they could take half the garage, or the house.” That nearly made Dean choke. He’d worked his entire life to open his garage. He’d rather kill someone than give part of it to anyone. Sam let it sink in a bit more before speaking again. “How long until you have to decide?”
“She said to take a few days, but I guess… I mean, I guess I could take all the time I want if I wanted to go through that interrogation again.”
“That bad?”
“Dude. She asked about my kinks. And what I wanted his or hers to be. And if I had a strong preference between cut and un--”
“Yeah. I got the picture. Thanks.” Dean grinned, feeling better now that he’d made his little brother uncomfortable. “Whatever you decide, you know I’ll back you, jerk.”
“Thanks, bitch.” They chatted a few more minutes and then hung up just as Dean pulled into the driveway of the little house he’d bought a couple of years ago. It was small, just enough for him and a guest room for when Sam came to visit. White with blue shutters, and a garage for Baby. He’d added the large front windows so he could see the yard when he was watching TV at night, loving the wildlife that wandered in. It was all he needed, and Dean took pride in it. It was always a relief to come home to his space, and as he walked through the door, he wondered what it’d be like to share that space with someone. Would they expect him to move in with them? Was that something they negotiated with Pam before they were matched? Maybe he should keep track of all of his questions so that he didn’t forget any for when… If. For if he decided to see her again.
The front door opened up directly into the open layout of the house. His living room was right there and his kitchen was dead ahead. It was what the house had come with when he bought it, and while it was a hell of a lot different than the motel rooms they practically grew up in, this had become home now. Dean grabbed a beer from the fridge and retreated to his chair in front of the TV for the night. He tried not to think about whether or not he’d continue with the process with Pam, mainly because there really wasn’t any part of him that was telling him he shouldn’t do it. He already knew he was going to, but he wasn’t willing to admit that to himself just yet.
He wondered how he was going to tell Bobby and Ellen, and how they’d react. Sure, he’d been nervous calling Sam to tell him, but it was different, somehow.
Dean spent the next few days as normally as possible. He didn’t talk to anyone about what he’d done or the decision he had to make. He didn’t even speak to Sam about it again. Every time he came into the house from being outside, he was hit with an almost overwhelming sense of emptiness. Not of himself, but of the house. It felt like there wasn’t any life in it. Up until now, he’d loved that about the house; it was his quiet sanctuary. Now, it felt all wrong.
On Tuesday at lunchtime, Dean took his phone out and dialed the number on the business card. “Pam? When can I get in to see that psychiatrist?”