SPN: Fighting For Nothing

By: Paraflymore

Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I do not own Supernatural and if I did I would be way nicer to them all.

TimeLine: June 2003

A/N: This is a story I have been writing for a while now. It is very much AU, but it will follow canon as best as it possibly can. It features a few OC's mainly my muse Lila Dawson (Nina Dobrev) who I think is pretty cool. I hope to update this fairly regularly but I probably won't. The title for this story is also a Meg & Dia song and it is pretty much the theme song for this story/verse

Summary: She isn't a little girl anymore, and it is kind of hard not to notice.

Fighting For Nothing

Chapter One

"These Things Take Back Bone"

She was in soap suds up to her elbows when someone knocked on the door. Janis Joplin was playing loudly through the house, but she could hear her mother opening the door, her voice booming over Janis' scratchy voice. Arlene Dawson had the kind of voice that couldn't be quiet even when she wanted to. Lila had grown used to her mother's loudness. She wipes the soap on the front of her shirt and turns the radio down to try to hear who was coming in so late.

"What the hell happened?" She hears her saying as she comes around the corner, John Winchester in tow and he has a bloody towel pressed to his abdomen. Dean, his oldest son has his arm around his father, keeping him up right. Lila can tell that he is afraid, and she knows that feeling well.

This isn't the first time a hunter has showed up at their door bleeding to death, but it was the first time that it was someone that she loved.

The Winchesters had spent a lot of time in the Dawson house. They were almost like her brothers at one point in time, but Dean, he was always something so much more than that. Her face was burning red hot seeing him now, dressed in her ripped shirt and dirty shorts Lila could not help but feel like she used to around the oldest Winchester, like she was nothing more than a silly child.

"What happened?" Her voice sounded far away as her mother cleared off the counter and Dean helped his father up onto it effortlessly. His eyes were half open and when her mother touched his cheek she could see that her fingers were covered in his blood. "John I need you to keep your eyes open for me, okay?"

"It was a werewolf." Dean was saying, his hands were covered in blood and they were shaking. Lila grabbed her mother's bag from under the sink and sat it next to her on the counter. She turned the water on and motioned for Dean to wash his hands. "It was fucking huge. I have never seen one so big before..." He says, watching the blood swirl around the drain. She is lost for a second, watching him, rediscovering him after all this time. Five years can really change a person...

"Lila," Her mother snaps, bringing her back to reality. "I need you to draw me a dose of morphine."

She opens up the black box from her bag and draws the morphine into a syringe. She had been doing this since she was ten years old. So she was no stranger to the rush of adrenaline and the frantic way her mother spoke.

Dean stands close to her, and Lila is so aware of him, it makes her hands shake as she hands the needle to her mother. "Is he going to be okay?" He asks, his voice is barely a whisper.

She turns around and looks at him then, his green eyes meet hers and she is at a loss for words. What can she say to him to make everything okay?

"Dean, maybe you should wait in the other room-"

"I'm not leaving him." He snaps.

Arlene nods and continues working on him, her hands move mechanically over his wounds, and Lila thinks that she has seen her mother do this a hundred times before, but she is always amazed at how she keeps herself so composed. It was one of the things she admired most about her mother, her ability to control her emotions at emotional times.

Lila on the other hand was on the verge of tears and almost at a loss for what to do. John Winchester was almost like a dad to her. Her own father had left them when she was just a baby, and growing up he seemed to always be around, and he always made her feel like she was one of his own. She was seven the first time she laid eyes on the Winchesters. They were all dirty and cut up from a hunt and they showed up on their doorstep because little Sammy had broken his arm and John couldn't take him to the ER because it's hard to explain injuries like that. She had never seen kids hunting before, not like John had his sons doing. Lila knew enough about this life to know that it was not an easy gig, and she felt sorry for them.

Her and Sam were fast friends. They were just a year apart and he was in awe of her collection of books. But Dean was a different story, he was sullen and withdrawn and he didn't talk to them much. But Lila knew, she knew even back then that Dean Winchester was something special.

"Do you want something to drink?" She asks, peeking her head inside the small bedroom his father was sleeping in. Arlene had patched him up and he was sleeping soundly. He would pull through, he was strong. At least that is what Lila was going to believe.

He shook his head and turned to look at her. "No."

She nods, stepping further into the room. "Do you want something to eat? Or maybe a shower?"

He sighs and Lila stiffens, she was no stranger to the wrath of Dean. Somehow she always managed to tick him off.

"I'm fine. I just want to stay with him."

"Okay. You know where everything is if you change your mind." She turns back to the door and he clears his throat.

"Lila?"

She turns around and looks at him, trying to ignore the way her name sounded coming out of his mouth. She always got that flutter around him.

"I just don't want to be alone right now." He says, his voice sounding small and far away. "Could you stay and talk for a while? I'm climbing the walls."

Lila turns around and pulls the ottoman towards his chair and sits down slowly. "So... how have you guys been?"

He chuckles. "Peachy."

She chews the inside of her cheek. "Sorry I'm no good at small talk."

Dean nods, in the dark room he looked so much older than he really was. But he always had that air about him, like he was always above and way too cool. She was pretty much used to it. "How have you been?"

"Good I guess. I graduated last month, I got into Duke. But I don't think I am going to go."

"Why not?"

She shrugs. She didn't really want to talk about this with him. It was personal, and he wasn't someone who she felt comfortable around even though she knew him for most of her life. Dean Winchester had always made her nervous, and she knew some things would never change.

"You should go."

"I might." She says, picking fuzz balls off the ottoman.

Dean adjusts himself in the chair so he is facing her now. "What's your other option?"

Lila looks up at him, his eyes are boring into her and she wishes she didn't look directly into them. "I want to hunt."

He let out a noise that made Lila feel like a silly child. "What do you know about hunting."

"I know enough. I've been on a few over the years. Remember I went on a few with you guys the last time you visited."

"You salted and burned some bones... there is a lot more to it than that."

She sighs. "You sound like my mother."

"You don't want to be a hunter."

"How do you know what I want?" She asks, raising an eyebrow at him.

"I don't..." He says with a casual smirk. He really was just too damned good looking for his own good.

She crosses her arms over her chest. "I talked to Sam. We emailed a few times last year while I was filling out my applications, he helped me with my essays." She says in an effort to change the subject.

He winces at the sound of his brother's name and it does not go unnoticed.

"You miss him, don't you?" She asks, her voice coming out in a whisper.

He scoffed, but Lila could see right through him. She always could.

"He misses you."

"I don't want to talk about Sam, okay?" What he is really saying is he can't and she gets it. If anyone knew how close Sam and Dean were it was Lila. She experienced it for herself many times.

"You should really take a shower. You smell pretty bad."

He fights a smile and throws a pillow at her as he rises up from the chair. "You don't smell so nice either sweetheart."

And she would chase after him if she was still nine years old, but she is more mature now and settles for flipping him the bird.

...

He wakes up early. His back and neck are hurting from sleeping in that chair. Someone had put a blanket over him while he slept and he knows it was Lila. She was always sweet.

Dean could remember her as a kid, always wanting to help and always trying her hardest to impress him. It was annoying as hell if he was being completely honest. He was halfway expecting to see that annoying kid sister that he never asked for when he walked into their door.

He was not expecting her to be hot.

She had really grown up on him, and he could not help but notice.

Sue him for being a man.

His dad is breathing soundly in the bed, he looks like he has more color than he did the night before and that was promising. He almost felt relieved as he made his way towards the kitchen, until her saw her bent over, digging something out of the bottom of the fridge.

Fuck.

He was going straight to hell for the thoughts that began bouncing around in his head as he gazed at her butt, barely covered by her pajama shorts that had little pink stars printed all over them.

She rose up, flipping her long, dark hair over her shoulder. She was holding a pound of bacon with a smile of satisfaction on her face.

"Morning." He says, giving her his best smirk.

"How did you sleep?" She asks, cutting the pack of bacon in half on the counter. He tries not to notice the tattoo peaking out from under her shirt. It looked like something with wings.

"You can cook?" Dean asks, averting his eyes.

"Of course." She says putting a skillet on top of the stove and eyeing him with a vengeful look. "Do you want some breakfast or not?"

He shrugs and makes his way over to the coffee pot on the counter and pours himself a cup. He eyes her cup sitting there, she put whip cream on top of it.

"How do you drink that stuff black?" She asks, leaning coolly against the counter, her hip bones were playing peekaboo with him and he noticed another tattoo, this one just looked like three stars on her right hip bone.

"Nice tattoo." He says, trying his best not to sound like a jackass.

Lila pulls her tank top down over the offending stars quickly. "Thanks."

"Does your mom know?"

She chuckles, flipping her bacon over, he winces because she is doing it way too soon. "You keep forgetting that I am not a kid anymore Dean."

There was no way he could forget that. "You're not cooking that bacon right." He says, stepping closer to the oven and taking her fork.

She snatches it back from him. "What do you know about cooking?"

"I know that you're not cooking this bacon right." He flips it back over and turns the oven down. "Cooking it on high won't make it cook any faster either."

Lila pinches his arm and grabs the fork back from him. "You are such a know it all."

"I am not."

"Yes you are, you always have been."

He shrugs. "And what about you?"

"What about me?" She scoffs looking him right in the eye.

"You're annoying." and fucking gorgeous.

Lila tucks a loose piece of hair behind her ear and eyes him. He wonders what she sees, and why she seems to be staring for so long. He shrugs it off and takes a long drink of his coffee. "So where did your mom go?"

"She went into town to get some stuff for your dad, she is giving him a blood transfusion today."

He nods, flipping the bacon with a fork. Lila turned the radio on and pulled a carton of eggs out of the fridge, he did not look at her, at least not as long as he did the last time.

"So how does she feel about you wanting to be a hunter."

Lila takes a thoughtful sip of her coffee. "How do you think she feels? She hates it." She looks up at him, her eyes seem somewhere far off.

"I'm sorry. Maybe it is just crazy to me that someone would choose this life."

She nods. "I get it. Trust me. I saw how you and Sam grew up. I know that its a bloody, scary gig and I know it's not a joke-" She looks right into his eyes as she speaks, "But I think I would be good at it, and I want to save people. I want to make a difference."

"Well you should be a doctor or something legit like that."

She laughs. "Now you sound like my mother."

"I am getting kind of old you know?" He flips the bacon and he tries to concentrate on the sound of the grease popping, anything to distract him from how close she was. "Maybe that's why..."

She rolls her eyes at him. "You're what- six years older than I am. You are far from a grandpa."

"Ah yes, but I am wise beyond my year."

"You are such a nerd." She says, laughing at him.

"So seriously, what got you started on this whole I want to be a hunter thing?"

She sighs, "I found my dad a couple years back. He was a hunter you know?"

Dean shook his head. He never really knew much about Lila's father he didn't think he was the only one.

"You said was..."

Lila nods. "He died, about five months ago."

"I'm sorry."

She shook her head. "I hardly knew the guy besides a few letters and phone calls. We only met a couple of times in person..."

"So, he died and you want to hunt because he was a hunter and you wanna be like him , make him proud or something?"

She shook her head. "No. Not really. I mean, it just feels inevitable to me."

And if anyone could understand that feeling he could. Hunting was ingrained so deeply into him he didn't know if he could do anything else. Sometimes he didn't want to do anything else and other times he wished with every part of him that he could.

They settle in the living room after the food is done. Lila plops down on the couch and he sits as far away from her as possible. He couldn't fully trust himself.

She turns on the TV, settling on a re-run of some old sitcom that he barely remembers the name of. He is too focused on her, on the way she is chewing her food and concentrating on the TV at the same time.

It was easy to dismiss her when she was just a kid.

But that was proving to be impossible now.

...

Lila could feel him staring.

Yeah, she might have been licking the grease from her fingers a little too long, but he was looking at her, looking at her like she had seen him look at girls a dozen times before. It was unnerving and exciting. She felt like she might explode if he didn't touch her.

She turned to face him licking ketchup off her thumb and her eyes met his.

His eyes doubled in size and she couldn't help but smile. She was really enjoying watching him squirm. It was new, brand fucking new. Last time she saw Dean Winchester she could have grown wings and flew circles around him and he still wouldn't have gave her a second look.

Did it make her a horrible awful person because she was enjoying the way he looked at her. The way his eyes scanned her over, she could feel his gaze lingering on her bare skin.

And she was not this girl, not really. Sure, she dated. She even had a serious boyfriend or two, but none of them were ever special enough to hold her interest for longer than a couple of months. It was like she was looking for something that didn't exist.

"Do you want some more orange juice?" She asks, innocently.

Dean clears his throat and hands her his glass.

She felt like her face was on fire, her whole body was a flame as she opened the fridge. She pulled the gallon of orange juice out just as she hears her mom's old truck pulling into the drive way.

She didn't know whether to be relieved or upset and she was equal parts of both.

Arlene sits a bag of groceries on the table and eyes her daughter. "I know you didn't cook this..."

She could hear Dean chuckling from the other room and it made her want to punch him.

"Actually doofus did, but it was my idea and I made the eggs."

He came strolling into the room, a smirk on his face.

Smug bastard. She wants to smack him.

"I really have tried to teach her," Her mother began telling him. "I don't know what it is but she just cant cook."

"I can to-" she argues, "just certain things."

"Like cereal?" Dean asks, rinsing his plate off in the sink.

Arlene smiles and tugs on a piece of Lila's hair playfully.

She swats her hand away. "You two really aren't funny at all."

Dean starts washing the dishes in the sink and her mother's gaze meets hers. She can tell what she is thinking, it was just something that the two of them could always do, communicate without speaking. Lila looks away from her mother's all knowing eyes and finishes her glass of orange juice. She starts putting groceries away and trying to ignore the way her mother was watching her.

She could see right through her, she always could.

...

Arlene had her own opinions of the Winchesters. She loved them, don't get her wrong. She thought of Sam and Dean as her own kids once upon a time. But her and John had a tough past. She met him for the first time back in 86' she had a two year old and all kinds of baggage. Her mother ran a charm shop in Louisiana and Arlene took over it after she passed. She was no stranger to hunters and she could spot them from a mile a way. Sometimes she even thought she could smell them. Whiskey and gun powder and blood. Her nose wrinkled at the scent.

But John Winchester walked into her store and first thing he did when he saw little Lila playing in her playpen was smile.

"I got two kids myself." He said, patting her dark curls.

She smiled, and stepped out from behind the counter. "What can I help you with?" She could tell he was new to this life, it was something she could sense just by looking at him.

"I'm looking for a book."

"Library is two blocks over..."

He smirked, and weren't all Winchester's famous for their smirks?

"Missouri sent me, she said you could help."

She touches his hand, and his eyes flutter open. "You're a life save Arlene."

"Angel on earth, yeah I know the spiel, save your energy Winchester."

He smiles and Arlene begins hooking him up to a blood transfusion. "Do you know how many favors I had to pull to get all of this?"

He chuckles. "Thanks darlin'."

"You lost someone." She says in a quiet voice, looking up from her glass of whiskey.

John nodded.

She took a long drink of her whiskey and turned her radio down. He reached for the bottle same time as she did and their fingers brushed together.

"How can you tell?"

"Your eyes."

"I thought you might be psychic."
Arlene laughed, she hadn't been called psychic in a long time. Her abilities were a lot stronger when she was younger, before she had Lila. Now mostly all she got was feelings and moods. She hadn't decided which one was more stressful. "I'm just intuitive."

John smirked and she thought, my God, he has to stop looking at me like that.

"I want to find the thing that killed my wife. I want to keep my boys safe. It's all I have..."

She nodded, completely understanding what he was saying. She knew vengeance well, she knew that helpless feeling of not being able to do something, anything to make yourself feel better.

"Believe me when I say this John Winchester, revenge always comes at a price."

...

He is almost half asleep on the couch when he hears the front door open. He raises up, and reaches for his knife on the coffee table. Then he hears her laughing.

He peeked out the window and watches a red Camero pull out of the driveway. They guy driving peeled out and sent the gravel flying behind him. Dean knew that she was an adult now, she had pointed that out to him three times since he's been here, but he just couldn't stomach the fact of her actually out with a guy.

He wasn't jealous. Not really. He was just feeling protective over her, she was like his little sister after all.

She is sitting on the counter, looking down into a bag of Doritos when he walks into the kitchen. She had on a short blue jean skirt and a barely there tank top. Her flannel is thrown over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. Her dark hair is so shiny and he just wants to touch it, run his fingers through it. It was maddening. And he can't help but stare at her, she is just...

Beautiful.

"Hi." She says licking her thumb. Did she have to do that so seductively?

"Are you drunk?" He asks her with a chuckle.

She shook her head. "Not as drunk as I was thirty minutes ago."

He nods, taking a bottle of water from the fridge and handing it to her. "What were you drinking? Wine coolers?"

She scoffs and takes the bottle of water from him with a humph. "Don't do that."

He raises his eyebrow innocently.

"Don't talk all condescendingly to me Winchester."

He held his hands up in defense. "Sorry. I was trying to be funny."

"Well you're not funny."

Dean laughs. "I think I'm hilarious."

Lila rolls her big brown eyes and starts chewing on another Dorito. "Can you keep a secret?"

He nods, reaching into the bag to pull a chip out for himself. He chews on it thoughtfully, it really depended on the secret. "Sure."

"I didn't go out with my friends tonight, well I mean I didn't go to a party or something."

Dean leans in closer. "Where did you go?"

"I went on a hunt."

"Who's the guy?"

Lila laughs. "Does it matter?"

"It does if he is taking you hunting, what do you even know about him?"

She opens the water bottle and takes a long drink. "You gonna narc on me?"

Dean runs his hand through his hair, she slides off the counter and takes a step towards him. He can see the black lace on her bra peeking out from under her almost sheer tank top. "I'm not a narc."

"If I didn't know any better I would think you were jealous."

And just as she says it someone flips the light switch on in the kitchen. Dean steps away from her and looks towards Arlene who is standing in the doorway eyeing them both.

"Lila Jane Dawson, it is almost four in the morning."

She sighs. "I didn't know I had a curfew."

Arlene lets out a noise and Dean tries to slip out of the kitchen. "And you!" She says pointing a finger at him. "Why are you up? Have you been drinking too?"

"No ma'am."

"Good. I didn't want to have to kick your ass for contributing to a minor."

He fights the urge to smirk.

"Go to sleep little girl. I will deal with you when you are sober."

Without protest Lila walks towards the stairs.

"Oh no," Arlene says, grabbing the back of his shirt. "You park it. I wanna talk to you."

He gulps. "What did I do?"

She turns the coffee pot on and gets a cup down from the cabinet. She eyes him, her blue eyes seem to be looking right through him and he knew Arlene was a little bit psychic, but he never really seen her use her ability on him. "You think I'm blind?"

"I'm not sure what you mean."

She taps her fingers on the counter, he nails are painted bright red. "She's a little messed up right now, my daughter. I don't think she is really thinking straight and she has never really been able to when it came to you..."

"You're talking about me and Lila?" And when he says it out loud it sounds kind of silly.

"I can see the way you look at her."

Dean had to look away from her because honestly he felt like a piece of shit. Lila was a kid and just because she didn't look like one still didn't mean he could think of her as anything else. What did he expect to happen? It wasn't like the two of them could ever be together.

"I'm not saying that its necessarily a bad thing, I am just saying that I want something more for her, I don't want her to have the life I had. I want her to have a family and a career and a fucking dog or whatever is considered normal any more."

"Don't worry, I'm not going to... I'm not going to act on these feelings."

Arlene smiles, and she pours herself a cup of coffee. "Maybe in another life, a different time..."

And he was thinking that same exact thing.

-Okay that is chapter one; two should be posted some time real soon! Thanks for reading :)