Dean nearly winced. He knew it sounded like a death-sentence to a debutante, but he wasn't that much older than her, hardly a few years and his life was hardly over. Perks of being a man, he supposed. He frowned a little bit, both because he could understand familial pressure, though his wasn't that bad now that he had a solid ministry career. But also, he thought she was selling herself short. Dean had never been under the impression that a marriage had to be about love either, so he was going to have to defer to her preference there. That his sister had jumped off the deep end and was head over heels for her husband was the exception to the rule, he thought.

"But you might at least like him, be friends, companionable; wouldn't you expect the same of him, for him to be faithful?" This was all well above his pay grade, but he was trying to understand where she was coming from and so he was purposefully asking these questions. Maybe he was looking for a loophole so even when she did marry they could carry on. Dean really didn't know, but he had to ask anyway.

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"Maybe he also won't be monogamous," Hanna said, stumbling a little on the word. She shrugged her shoulders at Dean. "It's — hard to plan long-term about someone when neither of us know anything about him."

It was hard to plan long-term about someone when on her worse days — and this week had had several of her worse days in it — Hanna didn't really believe that he existed. Saying as much out loud to Dean would concern him, she knew — so she was going to have to try to keep it in for as long as she could manage.

  

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set by Bee

She had him there, but Dean still worried. There were a lot of things up in the air at the moment and what concerned him the most was how well he would be able to keep up the juggling act. "I guess we can cross that bridge when we get to it, then." He decided with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. He took a long sip of his whiskey, letting the burn slide down his throat before continuing.

"Anything else you want to talk about?" Dean had said he'd answer any of her questions, so if there was anything else on her mind, he figured now was a good time. It was hard for him to read the mood, given that he hadn't even been sure she wanted anything to do with him anymore. Even though that didn't seem to be the case, he still worried that he'd clouded everything with his decisions and he wanted to make sure everything was out on the table before anything got muddled again.

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