Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/9289.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      F/M
  Fandom:
      Supernatural
  Relationship:
      Sam_Winchester/Dean_Winchester
  Character:
      Sam_Winchester, Dean_Winchester
  Additional Tags:
      Genderswap, girl!Sam, Alternate_Universe_-_Gender_Changes
  Series:
      Part 1 of beggars_would_ride
  Stats:
      Published: 2007-02-28 Words: 46070
****** Beggars Would Ride ******
by victoria_p_(musesfool)
Summary
     He tells himself that the line he's crossing can be redrawn, slightly
     over the edge into fucked up, and isn't that where they've been
     living anyway since Mom died?
Notes
     AU. Sam is and always has been a girl. Thanks to luzdeestrellas for
     enabling and brainstorming and handholding and betaing and everything
     else, far above and beyond the call of duty. I'd blame her for this,
     but I'm pretty sure it's mostly my fault (only mostly though). Thanks
     also to mousapelli, for taking on the monster and coming up
     victorious, to amberlynne, who put up with a lot of wibbling while I
     wrote, to Signe and Minim Calibre for giving it a good looking over,
     and to Fleur and Gail for previewing and encouraging.
The glass of the windshield is warm against Dean's back, holding the heat from
the day, and the May air is humid against his skin. He crosses his ankles
carefully, making sure not to scuff his heels against the paint, and links his
hands behind his head, getting comfortable.
Sam lies next to him, filmy white skirt tangled up around her thighs, long legs
bare in the moonlight, feet flexing and pointing in time with whatever crappy
pop song she's humming softly, like she's dancing even when she's flat on her
back. She doesn't wear skirts often, and it makes seeing her legs now kind of
weird, because he feels like maybe he shouldn't--it's more intimate somehow,
which is stupid, because he's seen her in less more times than he can count. He
looks up instead, so he doesn't have to think about it.
"Shooting star," he says, pointing. He doesn't believe in wishes, but sometimes
he wishes he did, wishes he could give her whatever it is she wants and can't
seem to find. Irony, he thinks, is a bitch.
"Ah," she breathes, eyes fluttering closed.
He shifts onto his side to look down at her--she's smiling so it lights up her
face, dimples and all.
She opens her eyes and squirms a little, and he knows he's making her self-
conscious. He remembers sixteen being full of the discomfort of people suddenly
watching you when they'd never noticed you before. And knowing what he knows
about teenage boys, it's got to be worse for girls.
"What?"
"What'd you wish for?" He doesn't know why he bothers to ask, braces himself
for the litany ofWhy can't we be normal?andI hate huntingand every other
complaint she's made since she was old enough to realize that their family's
not like everyone else's.
She wrinkles her nose at him. "Can't tell."
"Come on, Sammy, you can tell me."
"Telling's against the rules," she says, shaking her head, as if she doesn't
break the rules when it suits her. Or maybe it's just Dad's rules she doesn't
worry about breaking, because she knows he'll always cover for her. "The wish
won't come true if I tell."
It won't come true anyway, he almost says, but stops himself. She's old enough
to know that, and stubborn enough not to care. Instead, he says, "Yeah, but
telling me is just like telling yourself, right? You and me, we're two of a
kind. No rules against that."
He can see her thinking about it, brow furrowed and mouth turned down, and then
she says, "I'm sixteen and I've never been kissed."
He stares at her for a long moment, fiercely glad on the one hand, because
she's too good for the grubby boys she goes to school with--and he knows what
those boys want and what they'll do to get it--but shocked on the other,
because she's Sam, and how can they not see how beautiful she is, how she
shines like a light in the darkness?
She takes his silence and surprise the wrong way, words tumbling nervously out
of her mouth. "We move around so much, I never get a chance to get to know
anybody well enough--"
He doesn't even think about it, which is where his problems usually start. He
just knows he's good at this, and he can teach her, make sure she knows what
she's doing, make sure she learns to do it right. It's what he does, after all.
He's taught her all the necessary things over the years, like how to read, how
to pick a lock, how to bring down a werewolf from thirty yards away with one
shot. Kissing really isn't any different--damn useful skill to have, really.
And obviously, all the boys she knows are morons and can't be trusted with
something this important.
And he hates to see that anxious look on her face, like she's done something
wrong and isn't quite sure what it is or how to fix it, and he does whatever he
can, whenever he can, to make sure she never feels that way at all.
So, he leans in and presses his lips to hers, which are warm and slightly
parted. He doesn't do anything else at first, just breathes in her startled
gasp, her sudden smile. She doesn't push him away, so he sucks gently at her
lips, teasing them open, and she lets him in. He puts a hand on her cheek, can
feel her trembling slightly as he licks into her mouth, sucks lightly at her
tongue, which still tastes of chocolate from the Hostess cupcakes they had for
dessert.
She reaches up, slides her fingers through his hair, holds him to her as she
gets the idea, kissing him back with an eagerness that should surprise him, but
doesn't.
He eases away, the voice in the back of his head that sounds remarkably like
Dad yelling at him to protect his sister, that what he's doing now is wrong,
but she cups his face and pulls him back down to kiss her again, and this time,
she knows what she's doing. She's always been a fast learner, when she's
interested in what he's got to teach. He nips at her lower lip and she makes a
desperate little sound in the back of her throat, which sends a jolt of heat
through him, changing this from an odd but pleasant experience into something
more intense, something he wants.
She presses up against him and he can feel her heart beating like the wings of
a caged bird trying to break free; his heart is doing the same. He kisses her
back, tongue moving roughly over hers, learning the taste and texture of her
mouth, because he's never been able to lie to her, never been able to say no,
and now he wants it as much as she does, wants it in a way he's never wanted
anything in his life.
He slides his mouth away from hers to kiss along her jaw, then down her throat
as she tips her head back, dipping his tongue into the hollow between her
collarbones, tasting sweat and soap and soft girl-skin, adding to his store of
knowledge. He's the world's foremost expert on Sam Winchester, or so he'd
thought until this moment, which is teaching him all sorts of new things about
her, like the low moan she makes when he sucks on the spot just below her ear,
and the supple, satiny feel of her skin beneath his fingers.
It's warm and soft and a little sloppy, and it's the most perfect thing ever,
because it's him and Sam, and they go together like the twin barrels of his old
shotgun. But when he runs his hand under her skirt and up her thigh, feeling
the soft skin and the light down of hair she hasn't bothered to shave, hears
her gasp at the touch, he realizes he has to stop, because it's him and Sam,
and they're acting like something out ofFlowers in the Attic.
"Sam," he says, his mouth against her ear, her name nothing more than a breath,
because he's barely breathing, and he can't make himself move away just yet.
"It's okay." It's supposed to be reassurance but it sounds like a plea, and it
burns.
"It's really not." His voice is low and rough. He swings his legs down, leans
against the car with his back to her, trying to catch his breath.
"Dean, please. I wanted to." Her hands are on his shoulders, warm and strong,
the nails trimmed neatly and painted bright blue. He can feel the humid warmth
of her breath on the nape of his neck, ragged like she's just been out running,
but he doesn't turn around. She huffs in exasperation. "You don't have to be
such a girl about it," she says after the silence has started to make him
itchy, and he's grateful for it, because a few more seconds of her quiet
reproach, and he'd have had her spread out on the hood beneath him, and he
needs to not think about that ever again. "It was just a kiss."
But they both know that's a lie, and the words sink like stones between them,
ready to drag them under. He's almost willing to drown, and that scares him the
most.
She sighs again and pulls away. He can hear her slide down off the hood and
head back into the house.
Dean misses the weight of her hands on his shoulders, and the feel of her
tongue in his mouth.
*
She sulks for three days, fighting with Dad over every little thing and
treating Dean to sullen silence. She's vicious when they spar, but smart about
it, so he can't really complain, and he can only shrug and make a crude joke
about PMS when Dad asks him what her problem is.
But when Sunday rolls around, and Dad takes them out to Waffle House for
breakfast, she's all sunshine and smiles again, and Dean breathes easier. He
tells himself she was right, it was just a kiss, and he lets himself believe
the lie. It's easier than facing the truth.
She doesn't let him off the hook that easily, though. They've always been
touchy, relying on physical contact more than words to show how they feel, but
now she's sly about it, and pointed, pressing her breasts to his back when she
reads the paper over his shoulder, her mouth too close to his ear and her hands
lingering a little too long on his chest or hip to be innocent.
He knows he should ignore it, ignore her, but that's the one thing he can't
ever do. And maybe there's something wrong with him, because it's not only that
he can't ignore her, it's that he doesn't want to, even though he knows he
should, knows the feel of her skin under his fingers or the memory of her
tongue in his mouth shouldn't make him hard, but it does, and she knows it,
too, and won't leave him alone.
Lucky for him, Dad announces they're moving soon, and Sam transfers all her
attention to making him miserable, and stops playing games with Dean that
neither of them can win.
*
They pull out of Ashland early in the morning, two days after the end of the
school year, and head east. Dean dozes in the passenger seat for a while, his
crankiness at being relegated back to passenger status in his own car soothed
by the silence now that Sam's shouting about having to leave has settled into a
quiet pout.
When he wakes a couple hours later, she's curled up in the backseat, nose
buried in a book, frown of concentration on her face.
He looks out the window, and when he finally spots what he's looking for in the
light traffic pacing them on the highway, he reaches back and slaps her on the
leg. "Punch buggy, black," he says, before she can complain. "No punch backs."
She curls her lip at him in the sneer he taught her that time he'd been
obsessed with Elvis. "What are you, seven?"
"Passes the time, Samantha." He twists to look at her. "What are you reading?"
She holds up the book so he can see the cover. "Flu: The Story of the Great
Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It. Well,
that's cheerful."
"Bite me."
He sighs, rubs his forehead, and tries again. "So, what's so interesting about
the flu?"
"It's not so much the flu in general as this strain of flu in particular," she
says, leaning forward, open book pressed to her chest, over her heart. "It
killed between twenty-five and one hundred million people--nobody knows for
sure." Dean lets out a long, low whistle, and Sam smiles, getting her geek on,
sulk forgotten for the moment. "It was especially deadly to the young and
strong, which isn't usually how the flu works; so many soldiers and sailors
died, people thought it was germ warfare, that the Germans had concocted the
virus to win World War I. But they were probably just worn down from the
fighting, and vulnerable.
"Nowadays, scientists think maybe it was a bird flu that migrated to humans."
She chatters on for a bit, talking about genetic sequencing and epidemiology,
and Dean holds his breath, hoping Dad doesn't say anything about how she should
be putting her big brain to work researching ways to improve their hunting
techniques, instead of wasting time on a disease from a hundred years ago.
For once, Dad stays quiet. Dean glances over, and he's wearing this proud look
Sammy should get to see, but won't, because this has nothing to do with
hunting. So Dean turns to her again and smiles, because if Dad can't give it to
her, he will.
"That's pretty cool, Sammy."
Her mouth quirks again, this time in a half-smile. "Yeah."
He turns to face forward, pleased with himself.
After that, she starts quoting random statistics at them, her voice soft and
interested, in counterpoint to the world-weary tones of Johnny Cash playing on
the tape deck, and Dean listens, even after he's pulled out the latest issue of
Popular Mechanics and is trying to read about advances in jet propulsion.
And then, she whacks him on the back of the head.
"Hey!"
"Punch buggy, green. No punch backs."
Dad glances over at him, mouth curving in a rare grin. "She's got you there,
son."
Dean laughs. "I guess she does."
*
Dean shifts in the chair, trying to ease the crick in his neck. Dad had sounded
genuinely regretful when he explained that there was only one room left at the
motel, and Sammy had sunk back into the sulk she was treating them to for
having to move again, but it was easy for them. They each got to sleep in a
bed, even if it was a creaky, saggy motel room bed. The clerk had manfully
refrained from laughing when Dean asked about a rollaway, which Dean figures is
about the response he deserves for thinking a place like this would even have
one.
The rattle and buzz of Dad's snoring is making him crazy after months of
actually having his own room, and he's trying really hard not to listen to the
slide of Sam's legs underneath the sheets as she tosses and turns, trying not
to remember the feel of her skin beneath his fingers. In the weeks since he
kissed her, he's stopped thinking about it whenever he has a free second to
think, but now they're all living in the same room again, and it's hard not to,
when she's walking around in nearly nothing all the time, skin tanned golden
from spending all day in the sun when they're not driving from one place to the
next.
It's too goddamn hot in the room, with the windows painted shut and the ancient
air conditioning unit chugging asthmatically in the corner. He gathers up the
sheet he'd kicked off earlier and levers himself out of the chair in
frustration, shoving his feet into his boots. He grabs the extra pillow from
the floor where it landed when he'd tried to find a comfortable sleeping
position, and opens the door.
Dad stirs, murmurs, "Dean?"
"Going out to the car," he answers softly, and with a grunt Dean takes for
permission, Dad's snoring away again.
Dean stomps out to the car and flings himself into the backseat, the leather so
cool and good against his bare legs and chest after the itchy, warm brocade of
the chair. He cranks open the windows to let the light summer breeze in, and
settles down, breathing easily for the first time all night.
He's drifting over the line into sleep, the cool familiarity of the car lulling
him like nothing else can, when the door to the room opens with a creak, waking
him. He looks up to see Sammy scrambling across the gravel, barefoot.
She pokes her head through the open window. "You couldn't sleep either?"
"Insomniac little brat," he mutters in response.
"Hey!" She opens the door, crawls onto the seat and stretches out beside him,
wriggling under the sheet and fitting herself into what little space is left.
This, he thinks, even as he automatically wraps his arms around her to keep her
from falling, is a really bad idea.
She's wearing a tank top and a pair of his old boxers, and as they fit
themselves together, shifting so he's on his back and she's lying on top of
him, he can feel the rough brush of stubble against his shins and the soft
curves of her breasts against his chest. The chubby twelve-year-old is gone,
replaced by a young woman with a sleek, toned body that fits against his
perfectly. He can't decide if it's the best thing or the worst thing ever that
he didn't stop to pull on a t-shirt before he came out to the car.
"Sammy?"
"It's okay," she murmurs, and brushes a hand through his hair, the way he does
to hers when she has nightmares. She shimmies again, trying to get comfortable,
and he sucks in a deep breath, willing his body not to respond, and failing.
"It's okay. I want to." She leans in, and he can feel her breath--sleep-stale
but still edged with the scent of toothpaste--on his chin before she takes his
lower lip between hers and sucks on it, sending a shock of pleasure right to
his dick.
There are things he knows he should say--we shouldn't or stop or no--but she
steals the words from his mouth with her tongue, and the only one he has left
when she pulls back is, "Sam."
She smiles at him, eyes and teeth shining dark in the moonlight, and whispers,
"Dean," before kissing him again, deep and slow and sleepy, like they have all
the time in the world and nothing better to do than make out in the backseat of
the car.
He didn't teach her this, but she hasn't been out of his sight long enough to
learn it anywhere else since summer started and they've been on the road. Maybe
it's just some secret Sam-thing she knows, like the way she knows how to get
under his skin with her endless questions about everything, and the way she
knows how to get him to do what she wants by giving him that lost puppy-dog
look. And it's just like her to make a choice and throw herself into it
completely, determined to have her way and refusing to bend until she gets it.
He can't really think too much about it with her tongue in his mouth, sliding
slick-rough against his, soft and warm as velvet. He wraps one hand around the
nape of her neck, fingers trailing up into the tangled curls there, making her
shiver. He slips his other hand under her worn cotton tank top to trace circles
on the smooth skin of her back, and the light, strong bones of her spine.
It's been a while since he's done this with anyone, making out for the fun of
it instead of in a frantic rush to get laid, and in the wet heat of their
kisses, he nearly forgets why they shouldn't be doing it. The only thing he can
think is Sam, Sam, Sam, each staccato beat of his heart echoing with the sound
of her name.
She rubs against him like a cat, hands stroking over his chest and shoulders,
making him shiver with need, then brushing through his hair, feather-light on
his face, learning him the way he already knows her, strengths and weaknesses,
needs and wants.
He smiles at the way she gasps, "God, Dean," when he finally touches her
breasts, thumbing the hard little nipples as she arches into his hands. He
drags her up his body so he can take them into his mouth, one at a time,
sucking hard enough through the soft, thin cotton that tastes of Sam-sweat and
Tide to make her moan. He slides a hand down her back to grab her ass as she
rocks against his hard-on, and she freezes, as if she's just realized what
she's doing.
"Dean?" Her voice is hoarse and slightly shaky, and she says his name the way
she used to, like he can make everything better, make the monsters in the
closet go away.
"Sammy," he says, trying to get his breathing under control, suddenly aware
that not only is she his sister, she's a sixteen-year-old girl whose only
sexual experience has been with her brother, and this is even more fucked up
than anything they've ever done, and given some of the shit they've done,
that's saying something. He swallows hard, brushes her hair out of her eyes.
"Go back to bed, Sammy." She opens her mouth to protest, and he says, "Dad
can't find us like this."
She's smart enough to know he's right, but she leans in to kiss him one last
time before she goes, tongue thrusting into his mouth quick and hard like a
promise.
After he hears the deadbolt slide home behind her, he slips a hand into his
boxer-briefs and wraps it around his cock. He tries to remember the last girl
he fucked, tries to imagine Playboy's Miss July, but when he comes, all he's
thinking of is Sam.
Dad, he thinks, is going to kill him. And Dean won't do a thing to stop him.
*
When Dean comes into the room in the morning, Sam's sitting in front of the
television, shoveling Cheerios into her mouth. She watches him, eyes wide and
wary, and he sucks in a startled breath when he sees the hickey he left on her
throat. Stupid, stupid, amateur mistake, he thinks.
Dad looks up from his journal and says, "You look like you got bit, too, Dean."
Dean nearly chokes, but he manages to keep his cool, turn it into a cough.
"Mosquitoes were a bitch last night," he says when he's able to speak again.
"I wouldn't be surprised if this place has bedbugs," Sam says. "Maybe I should
spend tonight in the car with Dean."
Dean glares at her, but she's still looking at Dad, challenge in her eyes.
"Or maybe you should spend the day helping Dean do laundry," Dad answers. "You
can strip the beds and wash the sheets if it's bothering you that much."
"Maybe if we went back to the bug-free house in Ashland--"
"School's out and we have responsibilities."
"Maybe you do, but I don't see why Dean and I have to come along." She thins
her lips and raises her chin in defiance.
"Don't start," Dean interrupts. He can feel the headache beginning just behind
his left eye. "Just...don't, okay? Not today." He grabs clean underwear out of
his duffel bag, stalks to the bathroom, and slams the door shut behind him. He
listens for a moment, but they seem to have settled down--the only thing he
hears is the drone of the weatherman's voice predicting ninety-five and humid
again, and thunderstorms at night.
*
Dean drops Sam at the laundromat and heads to the nearest coffee shop, looking
for coffee and some information on the rash of mysterious deaths plaguing
visitors to the town.
When he comes back, she's sitting on one of the empty dryers, long, bare legs
dangling down the front, one flip-flop on the floor, the other hanging
precariously from her brightly-painted toes, on its way to joining its mate.
She's leaning back on her palms, and the straps of her tank top are slipping
down her shoulders, revealing strips of pale skin untouched by the sun. She's
not wearing a bra--says she doesn't need to, but he's starting to think she's
wrong. She looks like seven different kinds of sin all rolled up into one
tanned, toned package, and he's never been good at resisting temptation.
She lights up like an EMF meter in a haunted house when she sees him, makes him
feel like a hero. Sometimes, he feels like she's the only right thing he's ever
done in his life, and he's so close to fucking it up completely, if he hasn't
already, that he almost turns around and walks out.
He thinks about it sometimes--not very often, but occasionally, and more now
than when Sammy was younger and needed him like breathing--when she and Dad
start yelling at each other and her voice scrapes like nails on a chalkboard
against his ears, all the words she uses worse than curses (hate
thisandnormalandwhy? why? why?all the time, like she's still four, and doesn't
like the answers they give her), he thinks about walking down to the train
station, buying a ticket to anywhere, and starting over again, without a
backwards glance. But he knows he'll never do it, not when she looks at him
like this, like he's Batman and Santa Claus all rolled into one.
He holds out the iced mochaccino she didn't ask for but he knows she wants, but
she doesn't jump off the dryer like he expects; instead, she raises one hand
and crooks her fingers at him. She's got another think coming if she thinks
he'll go for that. He drops into one of the bright yellow, molded-plastic seats
opposite the machine she's sitting on, leans back, one arm draped along the
seatbacks, and smirks.
She cocks her head, considering, and then slides down off the dryer. He
supposes she means to be smooth, but there's an awkward coltishness to her, and
she stumbles a little over the discarded flip-flop. She reminds him of Bambi,
learning to walk on the ice, spindly legs flying out in all directions, but
just for a second. She's got training and reflexes, and she's getting used to
the new shape of her body; when she does learn to control it (and the day's not
far off; he can tell), she'll be deadly, in more ways than one.
She takes the plastic cup from him, wraps her full, pink lips around the straw
and sucks, hollowing out her cheeks, holding his gaze, mischief in her eyes.
The guy behind the counter, who's been pretending he's not staring at her for
as long as Dean's been there, gives her a lingering once-over, and Dean wants
to knock the guy's teeth down his throat.
"Cut it out, Lolita," he says, elbowing her, and when she laughs, loud, open-
mouthed, and genuine, he says, "It's not that funny."
"I'm not twelve," she answers. "And you're not--"
"Responsible? Your brother? What? What can you possibly say--"
"I love you." She says it like she's said it to him every day of her life, and
she has, but almost never in words. It's not something they say, avoiding the
words because saying them is like painting a target on their backs; they are
more aware of the power of words to invoke, to hurt, to soothe, and those words
are powerful magic they're too superstitious to call on overtly. It hits him
now like a punch to the gut. He thinks vaguely that he should be proud--he's
the one who taught her to fight dirty, to take every advantage, and to always
hit the enemy's weak spots hardest, and it's clear she's taken his lessons to
heart.
"Fuck you." He gets up, shoves his hands in his pockets so he doesn't grab her
and shake her and make her take it back.
She stares up at him for a long moment, then looks down at her hands, and he
hates that he can't tell which way she's going to jump. Time was, he'd have
known exactly what she was thinking from the set of her lips, the curve of her
spine, but that seems to have disappeared the day she got her first period,
sprouted breasts when he wasn't paying attention. The breasts don't look like
much, small and high and bound flat when they're hunting, but now he knows the
weight of them in his hands, the sounds she makes when he touches them, and
it's a whole different language from the one they used to speak. He turns away,
hands curled into fists in his pockets, nails digging into his palms as if he
can dig the memory out of his skin.
A washing machine buzzes, and she starts unloading the washer and loading the
dryer, her arm brushing against his, warm and familiar, the Sammy he knows, not
the stranger she's becoming.
"What'd you find out?"
He takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, and tells her.
*
The summer rolls by in a series of dusty towns and miles of highway, white
lines and black asphalt scrolling like an endless set of veins across the body
of the world: redcaps in Lexington, a nest of pixies in Fayetteville, a cranky
old ghost in Buckhannon.
They eat breakfast in roadside diners, Dad and Sam doing the crossword
together--in Latin, sometimes, or with runes, to make it more interesting--
while Dean reads the sports pages to keep up with the Cubs, their futile quest
for a championship inspiring loyalty the way winning teams never have with him.
Sometimes, he imagines going to Wrigley, or Fenway, seeing if there really is a
curse keeping the Cubs or Sox from winning, and if there is, trying to break
it.
Dad buys a hibachi, sets it up in the parking lot of whatever motel they're
staying at, and grills dinner for the three of them each night. Sometimes they
sit out under the stars and listen to a ballgame on the radio, or play cards
until it's too dark to see, Sam sneaking sips of beer from Dean's bottle while
he and Dad pretend not to notice.
It's as close to normal as they get, and Dean thinks he would be happy living
this way for the rest of his life.
There are long days of training, honing Sam into a stronger fighter now that
she's done growing. Their sparring is edged with tension that sends Dean out at
night, looking for a fight or a fuck, and not too picky about which he finds,
just so long as he doesn't have to go back to the motel and see the invitation
in her eyes, and the hurt when he turns it down and climbs into his own bed.
"I think we should give her some privacy," he says one afternoon while she
sleeps in the backseat, loose-limbed and sprawling, pillow clutched in her arms
like the teddy bear she lost somewhere in South Dakota when she was ten, and
she spent the week after crawling into Dean's bed to use him as a replacement.
Their boundaries have always been fluid--he can count on one hand the times
she's locked him out of a room--and maybe that's the problem. The look Dad
gives him makes him say, "I can stay with you. I don't need my own room. I just
think--"
"She doesn't sleep well when you're not around."
He nods, forcing himself not to feel guilty about being out all night the last
few nights, with pretty college girls slumming it on their summer vacations,
and the big-breasted bottle-blonde from the local coffee shop.
"I get that, I do. But she's going to have to learn sometime." He shifts,
unused to arguing with his father and unsure of how to approach what he wants
to say. "People notice. She's not a little kid anymore, Dad, and, well, people
notice."
Dad nods once, his mouth tight. "People are always willing to think the worst,
Dean. But right now it's safer for her if you're there. She's strong, she's
well-trained, but she's always going to be," he doesn't say, younger, your
responsibility, Sammy, but he doesn't need to, "vulnerable in ways you're not.
When we settle in the fall, she can have her own room again."
Dean's not sure he can hold out that long, but he says, "Yes, sir," because he
knows the conversation is over.
*
Another town, another haunting, another salt and burn, lather, rinse, repeat.
Dean's only way of keeping track these days is the length of time between Sam's
awkward attempts at seduction, which are harder and harder to dodge, and her
sulks afterward, when she's unsuccessful.
Dad doesn't notice much difference--she still complains when he makes her help
dig graves, though she never learned from either him or Dean that women aren't
capable of everything men are (and more, but Dad will never know about the
supplementary sex talk Dean gave her when she was thirteen and too embarrassed
to ask Dad)--but Dean could fill volumes on the vast varieties of Sam's sulks,
and this one is directed at him, and is sort of a cross between,I'm not a kid
anymore,andwho needs you anyway?It makes his head hurt when they're together
for too long, and lately, it seems like they're always together, but never in
the way they really want to be.
He wishes Dad would settle on a new car, so he could ride alone in the Impala
sometimes, Zeppelin cranked up loud and the wind in his hair, instead of riding
shotgun in his own car because Dad's picky, and the last truck he had got
mauled by a pissed off spirit bear up in Vancouver. He doesn't say anything,
though. It's not his place.
Sam unbends a little when Dad starts up this annoying variation on the memory
game they play sometimes; it was originally designed to teach her and Dean the
names (in both English and Latin) and functions of the herbs and spices they
use in hunting. It works better than flashcards and is a break from license
plate bingo and punch buggy, but Dean stopped finding it fun when he was nine.
He doesn't understand how they can spend so much time rattling off lists of
obscure herb combinations, trying to stump each other--he'd never thought Dad
was a geek, but Sammy must get it from somewhere--but at least when they do it,
they're not fighting. Dad looks downright smug the first time Sam actually
wins, turns to Dean and says, "Your sister is one smart cookie," while Sam
preens in the backseat like she's just won the lottery. Listening to them play
that stupid game is almost worth it, just to see them both smiling at the same
time.
*
"Come on, Dean! Race you!" have been Sam's favorite words since she could walk
and talk, and that's one thing that hasn't changed with the onset of puberty
and teenage rebellion. She's bouncing on the balls of her feet, flushed from
the heat, hair out of her face for once, held back with an old red bandana.
He scrubs a hand through his sweaty hair and grins. "You think you can take
me?"
Her answering grin is just as cocky. "I know I can."
"Goal post to goal post," he says, pointing down the field. "Loser has to clean
the winner's weapons."
"You're on." They finish stretching (he's not watching the way she bends and
twists, though he can feel her watching him, skin prickling under her regard),
and then she says, "Ready, set, go," and takes off, arms and legs pumping.
She's tall for a girl, with long legs that eat up the ground when she runs, and
she loves it, the one part of training Dad almost never has to order her to do.
She's begged to run track at every high school she lands at, but so far, Dad's
said no every time. Dean thinks he might have to take her side next time she
asks, convince Dad it's a viable alternative to the wind sprints and PT they do
for him.
Dean's never been a big fan of running for its own sake--he can run with the
best of them, for his life or the ninety feet between bases on a baseball
diamond, but he doesn't get the big Zen high from it that Sam does. He gets
that from shooting, from hunting, from looking down the sights and pulling the
trigger on some evil thing that needs killing, from knowing he's saving some
family from the hell his has been through. But he runs now, for exercise, sure,
but also for Sam, pushing her the way Dad pushes him, giving her something to
strive for, someone to beat.
And now it gives them both a way to work out some of the tension built up
between them.
Lately, she's been winning as often as he has, and this time it's by more than
a few inches, which makes her unbearable.
"Again," he says, sucking down a few breaths, cutting her off in mid-boast. She
nods and sets herself. He can smell her, vanilla lotion and sweat and Flex
shampoo. It's distracting, and he doesn't get a good jump, knows he's lost
thirty yards in, comes in a full five yards behind her this time.
"You didn't get a good start," she says, rubbing beads of sweat off her upper
lip with the back of her hand, and he has to stop himself from leaning in and
licking at her mouth. She grabs her left ankle, then her right, stretching her
quads, lean muscle shifting under smooth, tanned skin, and he licks his own
lips, looks away. "Again."
He forces himself to concentrate this time, locks in on the in-out of his
breathing, the furious, methodical pumping of arms and legs, the slap and push
of his feet against the grass. This time, he wins by an arm's-length, and he
grins at her, triumphant.
"Can't win 'em all, Sammy."
She's panting now, chest heaving with exertion, and the rueful disappointment
on her face twists into anger at his words. She steps closer, laying her hands
flat against his sweat-soaked t-shirt, and shoves him.
"Did you let me win?"
"What?"
She shoves at him again, against the goalpost, the metal hot against his back,
her breasts warm and soft against his chest, though the rest of her is stiff
with anger, her fingers fisted in the damp material of his shirt.
"Did. You. Let. Me. Win?"
He straightens up, looks down at her from his four-inch height advantage. "I
stopped letting you win at anything when you were ten, Sammy."
He grabs her shoulders, planning to shove her away, but he doesn't. Runs his
thumbs along the soft skin of her upper arms instead, then moves his hands up
to trace her collarbones, brushing at the drop of sweat sliding down her neck.
All the fight goes out of her; she melts against him, hands uncurling and
sliding up to clasp around the back of his neck, drawing his head down to hers.
The kiss is soft, tentative, brush of lips and whisper of breath, and it still
sets heat sparking under his skin, fierce and hungry and so different from the
humid press of air or the tight burn of exercise.
He runs his fingers through her sweat-damp hair, sending the bandana fluttering
to the ground, forgotten, tightens his hold to dip her head back so he can kiss
her again, teasing her with the quick flick of his tongue against her lips. She
presses closer with a needy little whimper that makes him ache.
"Hey, you two, get a room."
They spring apart, still breathing heavily. Sam's face is flushed with
embarrassment, lust, and anger, which is, thankfully, directed not at him but
at the kid with the soccer ball who's just interrupted them.
"Are you done?" the kid asks, tossing the ball from one hand to the other as
his friends join him.
She reaches down, picks up her bandana, and shoves it into her pocket. "It's
all yours," she says, walking away, head held high.
One of the older boys lets out a wolf whistle, and Dean glares at him before he
follows.
They jog back to the motel in silence, cooling down, though Dean's still wound
tight, need skittering through his veins like spiders on the bathroom wall when
the lights go on. The car's not in the spot in front of Dad's room, and he
barely has time to close the door before Sam's pushing him up against it, all
exploring hands and hot, wet mouth on his skin, hungry in a way he shouldn't
understand but does, completely, down to the soles of his feet and the marrow
of his bones. He wraps her hair, dirty blonde bleached pale gold by a summer in
the sun and now dark with sweat, around his fingers, tugs her head back so he
can lick her throat, tasting salt, skin, and lotion--not the Johnson's baby
lotion he still buys for her when he does the shopping, but some vanilla stuff
she started wearing when she started caring about girl things.
She grabs hold of his hair, tight, nails scraping bluntly across his scalp
because there isn't a lot to grab, yanks him back up for a hard, hot kiss, all
teeth and tongue, not gentle at all. She's shaking a little in his arms as he
walks her back to the bed, desperate and gasping when he breaks the kiss,
pupils blown and voice ragged when she says, "Dean, please." And there's no way
he can resist that.
He skates his hands over her arms, her breasts, the toned muscles of her legs.
He finds the smooth, untouched skin on the inside of her thigh, then slips his
fingers beneath the soft material of her running shorts, the elastic of her
underwear. She doesn't give him time to hesitate, arches up into his touch and
says it again, "Dean, please."
She's wet and hot and responsive to every brush and thrust of his fingers,
panting harder than she did during the races they just ran, muscles tensing as
she gets close. He leans back so he can watch her face, flushed and intent,
mouth slack as she gasps out soft little noises that make his cock ache in
anticipation of what she might sound like when he's buried deep inside her. Her
eyes flutter closed, though she keeps trying to open them.
"I've got you," he murmurs, leaning close again, mouth against her ear, free
hand brushing her cheek gently. "It's okay, Sammy. It's all gonna be okay."
It's not a lie if he believes it, and right now, he does, he has to. "Just come
for me now."
And then he hears it, just barely hears it over the fucking hot sounds Sam's
making, the rumble of the Impala, so familiar as to not even stand out.
"Oh, fuck." He jumps up, and Sam's eyes snap open in protest. "Dad."
"Oh, fuck!" She bolts into the bathroom on shaky legs, and slams the door,
leaving him to face Dad alone.
Dad bangs into the room a few seconds later, rare smile on his face. He must
have found something new to hunt.
"Pack it up, Dean. We're heading out as soon as you're done."
He keeps his back turned, tries to will his erection away, though he can hear
the shower running and he knows, he knows, she's in there finishing what he
started. He wishes he were, too.
Instead, he forces himself to pay attention as Dad tells him about the
possibility of a phantom train in Harpers Ferry. He snaps, "Yes, sir," at the
right moments, absorbs the information almost without thinking about it, second
nature to file away everything the man says, knowing it will appear in his mind
when he needs it most. He doesn't seem to have anything filed away regarding
wanting to fuck his own sister, though, can't even imagine Dad's white-hot fury
if he ever found out Dean had even thought about thinking about it, let alone
laid hands or lips on her. Knows he'd be dead and buried, bones salted and
burned, if Dad ever caught wind of what he's thinking, what he's doing. What
he's already done.
He's packing, trying to ignore how his right hand still smells of Sam, when she
comes out of the shower, flushed and clean, her hair already forming into
frizzy ringlets around her head from the humidity. She's wrapped in a tiny,
threadbare motel towel, which barely covers her from armpit to ass, and
practically scampers across the floor to the dresser. She digs around in the
drawer for a second and finds what she's looking for, then grins at him, cruel
and mocking, lacy scraps that pass as girl's underwear clutched in her fingers,
and when the fuck did Dad start allowing her to wear that stuff instead of the
big old granny panties he'd been buying five to a pack at Wal-Mart for years?
It's his turn to slam into the bathroom, which is still steamy and smells of
Sam's vanilla lotion. He takes a lukewarm shower and jerks off, resolutely not
thinking about her, though the smell of the soap and shampoo makes that
difficult, because everything in there--everything everywhere--reminds him of
Sam.
It's not particularly satisfying, because it's not what he really wants, and
what he wants, he can't have, shouldn't even be thinking of, and he can't ever
escape from it, from her. Wouldn't want to even if he could.
Basically, he thinks, as he slides into the front seat of the Impala, he's
fucked.
For once, Sam doesn't complain at all about leaving, curls up in the backseat
with her book--something about the Black Plague this time--and hums happily to
herself until Dean jams Motorhead into the tape deck.
She's asleep when they arrive in Charles Town, but it's not that late, just
after eleven. He half carries her to the bed, buries his face in her hair for a
brief moment, then tucks her in, kisses her forehead when he's sure she's out
of it enough not to know. He stops at the door to toss her flip-flops, which
had fallen off in the car, into the room.
He looks at his father, doesn't even ask this time, just tips his head towards
the door. Dad nods, lets him go to find the nearest bar, the nearest pool game,
the nearest girl who isn't related, and he laughs thinly to himself at the
jokes he used to make about West Virginia weddings.
He knows exactly what he needs and he finds it pretty quickly. One beer, one
shot of Jack, and one tiny, stacked blonde bent over in the ladies room,
bracing herself against the ugly yellow sink while he fucks her. Doesn't bother
to learn her name, because he won't remember it in the morning. All that
matters is that she's not Sam. The world is full of girls who aren't Sam, girls
who say yes (yeah, sugar, yeah, just like that), and it's okay, not like Sam,
who says yes to him when she shouldn't, knowing that to her he can't ever say
no.
He makes it back to the motel by two, can still smell the blonde--Lucy? Lacey?
Fucked if he knows. Fucked anyway, good enough to make him sleepy, make him
forget for a while, and that's what he'd gone out for, so consider this mission
a success, Winchester.--on his skin.
He's sitting on the bed, unlacing his boots, when Sam says, "Dean?" He looks
over to see her sitting up in bed, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them.
"What are you doing up?"
"Couldn't sleep." She shrugs. "Slept in the car too long, I guess."
He nods, but the guilt is already starting.She doesn't sleep well when you're
not there.
"Go back to sleep, Sammy."
She huffs, and he can tell she's annoyed--it's like a knot of tension at the
base of his skull when she's angry at him, only loosens when she finally wears
out, gives up, gets mad at Dad, which is a knot of tension in his left
shoulder, up high, steady on since she turned twelve and decided she wanted to
be normal, whatever the fuck that means.
Even in the darkness he can see the stubborn set of her jaw, the tight line of
her lips, holding back questions she wants to ask but won't. Maybe she's
reading the answers in the loose-limbed way he moves, the scent of whatever her
name was on his skin.
"Fuck you," she answers, yanking the covers to her chin and turning her back to
him.
He closes his eyes, because hurting her is the last thing he wants to do, but
this is a cleaner kind of hurt than the other, isn't it? Fucked if he knows
that, either. He's too shagged out to deal with it all now.
"Whatever."
But he lies awake until she goes back to sleep. The even sound of her breath
finally lulls him to sleep, too, as the sky begins to lighten.
*
The phantom train turns out to be some local teenagers having a laugh, scaring
the crap out of the late-summer tourists, one last big prank before school
starts again. Dad growls about wasted time, wasted money, slams out of the room
like he's going to hunt those brats down and salt and burn their bones instead,
though Dean knows he's just going to the bar across the street.
The last thing Dad says before walking out the door is, "Look after your
sister," and Sam grins at Dean in a way that makes his belly clench in fear,
scarier than any ghost or ghoul he's ever faced. She doesn't complain about
having a babysitter anymore, and on some level it makes him want to laugh,
because it's not like he wouldn't have tried seducing a hot babysitter if he'd
ever had one, and as much as she'd like to deny it, Sammy's just as much a
Winchester as he is.
"I'm sure we'll have fun," she says as Dad swings the door shut.
Dean braces himself, but she just pulls out a deck of cards.
"Poker?"
He pops open a Rolling Rock and sits down cross-legged on her bed. "Okay. I'll
deal first."
She grins and snags a sip of his beer before handing over the deck of cards.
They play for a couple of hours--seven card stud and five card draw,
matchsticks and silver bullets standing in for chips, which stand in for money
they don't have.
He wins pretty steadily, though she scores a nice hand or two along the way,
and he lets her drink some of his beer when she does.
"I'll see your silver bullets," she says when he's on his third beer, "and
raise you..." She looks down at the small pile of matches she has left, and
smiles. "A shirt."
"What?" He can't have heard that right.
"A shirt." She pulls her t-shirt over her head, drops it into the pot. Her
plain cotton bra--and thank fuck she's wearing one today--is very white against
her tanned skin, and her hair is tousled and shining gold like a halo around
her head. There's a light pink flush in her cheeks that could be from the heat
or from embarrassment or, probably, both. "If I win, I get my shirt back, and
you have to take yours off. If you win, well, I've already taken my shirt off,
so I'd say it's pretty much a win for you either way, isn't it?"
He swallows hard. "That's not how it works."
She shrugs, and he forces himself to keep looking at her face. "House rules,"
she says.
She's got a full house, queens over sevens, to his straight, and she grins at
him when he pulls his t-shirt off.
"Dude. That's more like it."
He throws the shirt at her and it hits her in the face. She holds it there for
a second, inhales, and he freezes at the soft sound of her breath catching.
"Aren't you going to put your shirt back on?" he asks, voice hoarse.
Her smile is slow and predatory, and it makes his belly clench again, but this
time, not in fear. "I'm comfortable like this."
He knows he should argue, should tell her to get dressed right the fuck now,
Samantha, but he doesn't. He doesn't want to.
Two more hands, and she's undoing the buttons on her jean shorts, peeling them
down long, tanned legs before he can stop her.
"I call," she says, dropping them into the pot. Like the bra, her bikini bottom
is plain white cotton, nothing intentionally seductive about it, but he can see
the shadow of her cunt, the faint line of hair trailing down her abdomen
leading to it. He swallows hard, keeps his eyes on his cards.
"This is a really shitty idea."
"I've shown you mine, big brother. Time for you to show me yours."
He lays down his cards, trying to pretend that's all she means. "Two pair--aces
and eights." Dead man's hand, and ain't that the truth?
She fans her cards out slowly, grin curling over her face. "Four nines. Read
'em and weep. Or strip, as the case may be." When he doesn't move she says,
"Don't punk out on me now, Dean." He clenches his jaw, because she knows
exactly how to push his buttons, and okay, that's a line of thought he wants to
cut off before it goes places it shouldn't, but he can't when she continues,
"I'd be happy to help if the concept of undressing is giving you trouble."
She's already moving across the bed, those long fingers so good at picking
locks easily flicking open the buttons on his fly, and he forces himself to
hold still under her touch.
"Sam." He means it as a warning, but his voice is low and raw, full of
everything he wants from her and shouldn't have.
She looks up at him, the sheer need in her eyes making his breath catch in his
throat. She reaches up and presses her thumb to his lower lip, pulling it down
slightly.
The moment stretches out endlessly, and he tells himself that he can control
this, can make it into another lesson for her. Tells himself that the line he's
crossing can be redrawn, slightly over the edge into fucked up, and isn't that
where they've been living anyway since Mom died?
Slowly, he darts out his tongue to taste the pad of her thumb, salt and Sam, as
familiar and strange to him as she is. He sucks her finger into his mouth,
watching as her eyes widen, and listening as her breath hitches. With a soft
wet sound, he releases her thumb, and reaches out to cup her cheek gently, tip
her face up to his so he can kiss her.
He tastes beer and heat as he slides his tongue over hers, need firing in his
veins as she climbs into his lap without breaking the kiss. He can feel how wet
she is, and it makes his dick, half-hard since she took off her shirt, twitch.
She's all awkward movement, unsure where to put her arms and legs, and he
soothes her wordlessly, strokes his hands down the soft skin of her arms,
pressing forward so she's on her back against the pillows, legs wrapped around
his hips, the cards scattering beneath them, forgotten.
She traces a path over his skin with blunt fingernails, laughing with
breathless delight when the muscles of his stomach jump under her touch, and
looking at him with wide-eyed awe that turns into calculation when he growls
low after she presses her palm to his cock before he moves her hand away.
He doesn't bother to unhook her bra, just shoves it up so he can touch her
breasts without any fabric between them, loving the way they feel, small and
warm and firm in his hands.
"I know you like big tits," she whispers, "and I'm not--I don't--"
He cuts her off with a ruthless kiss, then dips his head down to lick at her
peaked nipples. "Don't need more than a handful," he murmurs into the soft skin
between her breasts, though his hands look too large and alien on her body as
he touches her. "Perfect just the way you are, Sammy."
She looks skeptical, so he spends some time showing her just how much he likes
her breasts, licking and sucking until she's shaking and begging for more. She
arches beneath him, her hands clutching at his shoulders and her nails digging
into his skin, her breath coming in short stuttering gasps that sound like his
name.
She moans softly in protest when he finally moves on, sliding his lips down the
smooth plane of her stomach to dip his tongue into her bellybutton, kiss the
mole beside it. She giggles then, and runs her fingers through his hair.
He moves down the bed, fingers tracing words he'll never say on the soft,
unmarked skin of her thighs, following with his lips, his tongue. He can smell
her, breathes in deep and exhales onto sensitive skin, but doesn't even make a
move towards taking her underwear off yet. He teases her with kisses and nips
along the soft flare of her hip, the tender flesh of her belly.
"Dean, please," she says, squirming. "I want--" She tries to maneuver herself
into position, tries to direct his kisses with her hands in his hair.
He swallows hard, trying to keep control, and laughs against her belly. "You
can't say it, you're probably not old enough to do it."
"Bastard," she mutters, hands tightening in his hair, enough to cause a short
burst of pain. "Lick me," she says, and he looks up, meets her gaze, smiles at
the way she's blushing, proud of the way she doesn't look away when she's
asking for what she wants. "Can't stop thinking about it," she whispers, and he
almost loses it right there, has to reach down and squeeze the base of his cock
for just a second, because he's been thinking of it, too. "Your mouth, and--"
He hooks his fingers under the elastic and pushes her panties down and off,
then slides his hands up the length of her legs, thumbs coming to rest in the
creases where they join her body. He licks his lips at the sight of her, dark
hair curling over swollen pink flesh, and strokes his fingers over the wet
folds of her cunt, hungry to touch and smell and taste. Every sound and
movement she makes hits his bloodstream like whiskey; he pays close attention,
learning this the way he's learned everything else about her, because it's his
job to make her happy, and this is just one more way to do that.
He flicks his thumb across her clit and she moans, hands clenching in his hair
hard enough to sting.
"Wait," he says, sitting up. "Wait."
She raises herself up on her elbows, eyes wide and dazed but mouth twisting in
annoyance. "What the fuck?"
He slides down off the bed to kneel at the foot of it, and eases his jeans down
over his hips a bit to get comfortable and still be able to stroke his dick if
he needs to. Then he wraps his hands around her knees and pulls until her ass
is at the edge of the bed and her legs are draped over his shoulders.
"Better this way," he tells her with a grin.
"But now I can't see you," she answers, pouting.
That surprises him even as it sends another jolt of heat to his dick. "You want
to watch?"
"I told you, I've been imagining it forever."
He has to take a deep breath before he can answer, and his voice is ragged when
he says, "Stay up on your elbows, just like that."
He uses his thumbs to spread her open, and even that touch makes her gasp and
shimmy. When he dips his head to lick her, she moans again and presses up
against his mouth. He's surrounded by her--her taste in his mouth and her scent
in his nose, and the feel of her under his tongue and his fingers. She's the
only thing he can see, the whole of his horizon--she's the ocean and he's
drowning in her. It's the best thing that's ever happened to him, and he wants
to make it the best thing that's ever happened to her.
She's a talker, though she's not making much sense at the moment, and the sound
is muffled anyway, but he knows what she means, knows when she's close, and
knows how to make it good for her, her whole body shaking as she comes under
his mouth, her body clenching hard around his fingers, and then he gets her off
again before she's even finished coming down from the first time.
"God," she breathes, and he laughs. He loves the surprised, satisfied look on
her face; it amazes him that he can do this to her, make her feel like that.
He licks his lips, thinks he'll be tasting her forever, already wants to taste
her again. "No, just me." He slides back up onto the bed to kiss her, and she
makes a face.
"What are you--" Her voice is slow, hazy, and he shakes his head and smiles.
"Trust me," he whispers against her mouth, and she does. Of course, she does,
though he knows she shouldn't, not after what he's just done. But she lets him
kiss her, learns the taste of herself on his tongue.
"Huh," she says when he eases back.
He grins. "Yeah."
She curls up against him, and he can see the fact that he's still mostly
dressed register on her face. She reaches down to touch him, and he knows he
should stop her, shouldn't let her do it, but when her warm hand curls around
his cock, draws him out of his briefs, he can't help thrusting into it.
She's tentative at first, and her exploration nearly kills him, fingers sliding
up and down, learning the feel of him.
"Sam," he growls, wrapping his hand around hers, holding it still.
"Show me," she says, more interested than she's been in anything he's had to
teach her in ages, looking at him like he's one of her books, or some kind of
equation to be solved, frown of concentration between her eyebrows.
"We shouldn't," he manages, because fuck, he really wants to.
She laughs, whole body shaking with it. "We already did, dumbass." She starts
stroking him again, harder now, learning what he likes from how his body
responds, from his hand guiding her instead of stopping her. She's always been
a quick study. It doesn't take long, tension building and breaking as he comes,
spurting over their hands and bodies, pearly white against the sleek, tanned
skin of her belly.
"Wow," she says when he's done, running her fingers through the mess he's left
on her skin and then putting them in her mouth, curious. He swallows hard,
knowing that image will be featuring in his fantasies from now on. She opens
her mouth to say something else, but he leans in, kisses her instead, long and
slow, everything a goodbye kiss should be, because they can't do this again,
even if they'll never really say goodbye, the two of them entangled like the
taste of his come and hers now on his tongue.
He pulls away, brushes the backs of his fingers against her cheek, and she
grabs his hand.
"Whatever stupid thing you're about to say," she says, "don't."
He jerks his hand free. "Sam--"
"Just don't, okay." Her face is stormy, and he turns away so he doesn't have to
see her get upset, reaches for the box of tissues on the night table between
the beds and starts cleaning her off, as if he can wipe away what they've done,
but she grabs his hand again and squeezes tight. "You're the one person I
trust, the one person who's never going to hurt me. So don't give me some
stupid bullshit about how you're sorry, and we shouldn't have, and can't ever
again, because you're not, and we did, and we can."
He shakes his head. "You keep saying you want to be like other people--"
She doesn't let him finish. "And you keep telling me we're not, and I just have
to suck it up." She takes a deep breath and shoves her other hand through her
tangled hair, holding his gaze with wide, serious eyes. "Well, if I have to
suck it up and accept that, then you have to accept this, and stop pretending.
Don't lie to me like I'm one of the skanks you fuck and leave, who doesn't even
know your real name. I'm your sister, and I know you, and all I have right now
is what you give me." Her voice is low, serious. Heartbreaking. "So, please,
Dean, give me this."
Her face is all scrunched up like she's trying not to cry, and he's never had
any defense against her anyway. He pulls her into his arms and strokes her
hair. Her head is pressed against his chest, and he hopes she can hear his
heart beating, because he has no other response. It's not true, and he, at
least, knows it, but because she believes it is, he does, too. He can feel her
breath on his skin, warm and moist, in time with his own, and silently asks for
forgiveness.
He doesn't know how long they sit there like that, but finally she pushes away
and says, "Okay, ew. I really need to take a shower."
He laughs, a little shaky, and lets her go.
While she's showering, he cleans up the room, putting the matches and bullets
back in their boxes. He's on his hands and knees, reaching for the queen of
hearts that's wedged beside the night table, when he realizes the cards are
marked. He sits back on his heels and starts laughing again. She's definitely a
Winchester to the bone.
*
It becomes another game they play, something fun to while away the time, and
more dangerous than the games they played as kids.
Dad takes them with him more often than not these days--Sam isn't enthusiastic,
but she keeps her complaints to a minimum, too busy trying to grope Dean
whenever she can get away with it to fuss at Dad about hunting.
If it weren't so weird, it'd be almost unbearably sappy, the kind of thing they
show in montages in the chick flicks she makes him watch with her, but Dean
doesn't complain. He loves the feel of her body beneath his hands and mouth,
the sounds she makes when he's got his fingers sliding in and out of her, the
taste of her on his tongue, the way she says his name when she comes. And he
loves holding her afterward, curling his body around hers and keeping her safe
in the darkness, feeling her heart beat under his hand, though she isn't much
for cuddling, and tends to squirm away when he's asleep.
It's harder once the school year starts up again. Dad buys himself a truck and
finds them a decent apartment in a not-bad part of town not too far from Sam's
high school, though it only has two bedrooms; Dean is supposed to be sleeping
on the pullout couch in the small living room, but he ends up in Sam's room
whenever Dad's away. Dean offers to go with him, but even though Sam is
perfectly capable of taking care of herself for a few days, Dad rarely takes
him up on it, says she needs someone around, just in case. Dean hates the
wordsjust in case, tries to throw them back in Dad's face, says he wants to be
at his back, just in case, but Dad shakes his head.
"If something happens, it's better for you to be with Sam. She can't lose us
both, Dean."
And he can't argue with that.
Just like he can't argue with Sam, though he has it all mapped out in his head,
the territory he's allowed to trace with fingers and lips and tongue--using
everything he's learned since the first time he kissed Lisa Figueroa when he
was thirteen to make Sam come apart in his arms--and the things he's not going
to do, and not going to let her do for him, the spots on his mental map marked
"here be monsters," and not the kinds of monsters that can be killed with
silver or salt.
She wakes him with kisses, mouth moving hot and wet over his neck and chest,
making the muscles in his belly jump. He stops her when she gets to the
waistband of his boxer-briefs, though, wraps his fingers in her hair and pulls
her up for a long, lazy kiss. He lets her jerk him off, the pleased
concentration on her face making him feel as good as the firm strokes of her
hand and the laughing, open-mouthed kisses she presses to his face.
It's still all so new to her, so it takes her a while to realize that he
distracts her whenever she brushes against his boundaries, but she does figure
it out--she's always been the smart one--and their game takes on a competitive
edge, same as every other game they've ever played, and this time, he's not so
sure he's going to win.
By early October, they're settled in Mobile. Sam's fitting in pretty well,
already has a few friends, and has made the varsity track team. It was harder
to convince Dad to let her try out than it was for her to make the team, but he
finally caved when Dean pointed out it could replace early morning PT sessions
none of them really enjoyed.
She heads out for school early and comes home late, and since she seems fairly
content (Dean's not looking forward to the first time a hunt conflicts with a
meet, but so far things have worked out in their favor, and he isn't one to
look for trouble, at least, not within the family), Dad doesn't kick up a fuss.
He and Dean are both working shifts at the local mechanic's, a friend of a
friend of Bobby's, who was willing to take them on without too many questions
once they proved they knew their way around cars.
The weather is still warm when Dad gets a call from Pastor Jim about a
mysterious house fire in Valdosta. He refuses to take Dean with him, says it's
only a few hours' drive each way and he doesn't want to leave Sam alone, or
take her anywhere near the place if it is the thing they've been hunting for so
long. He heads out early on Wednesday morning, promising to be back by Friday.
His last words, as always, are, "Look out for Sammy."
Dean nods. "Of course, Dad." He doesn't have to be told--hasn't had to be told
since he was a kid; the words are carved into every molecule of his being--but
this is yet another Winchester routine that's hardened into ritual over the
years.
That night, he comes home after work and gets in the shower, washing sweat and
grease away, too tired to cook and wondering if they should order pizza or
Chinese.
He's washing the shampoo out of his hair when Sam slips around the curtain,
goes right to her knees before he can say anything, water already slicking her
hair back from her forehead and sliding down her skin in rivulets, making him
want to follow its path with his tongue. Her hands are sure--she's learned what
he likes well enough now, firm and fast and a little rough, with a twist on the
upstroke--but her mouth is tentative. She swipes her tongue along the head of
his cock and he can't bite back a soft grunt of pleasure, because he's imagined
this for a while, even as he's stopped her every other time she's tried.
She's sloppy, obviously doesn't know what she's doing, and he feels a fierce
thrill of possession he wants to believe is relief, but he's always been shitty
at lying to himself. He's glad he's the first to do all of this with her, wants
to mark her as his and keep her safe from the rest of the world, from guys like
him who will only use her and forget her name the next morning. The irony is
not lost on him, even as he drops his head forward so he can watch her full
pink lips slide up and down the length of his cock, brow furrowed in
concentration, like going down on him is another puzzle to solve, and the
answer will make her happy, ease those lines away.
He smoothes back her hair and cups her cheek, trying hard not to give in and
fuck her mouth the way his body wants to, but he can't help thrusting a little
into the wet heat of it. She makes a small gagging sound, and he says, "Breathe
through your nose." His voice is rough, even as he tries to be gentle.
She hums in response, and he feels the vibration shiver down his spine and echo
in his bones, hips jerking again, pushing him deeper. It feels so good, as good
as he'd imagined, all those times he promised himself he wouldn't let her do
this--be this--for him, heat and need spiraling high and tight inside him. He
tries to warn her, pull her off when he knows he's going to come, but she
smacks his hand away and swallows what she can before she lets him slide out of
her mouth and spatter her with come as the shower washes them clean. He wants
to pull her up, lick the inside of her mouth, maybe return the favor, but as
soon as she's clean, she slips away, satisfied smile curving her lips.
He leans back against the cool tile and thinks about redrawing the lines on his
map.
When he gets out of the shower, she's on the phone ordering pizza as if
nothing's changed, but then she turns and gives him that smile again, her hair
damp and frizzing around her face, and he wonders if he should just throw out
the map altogether, because he's in unknown territory now--has been for a
while, if he's honest about it--and there's no going back.
*
"I missed the track meet for your stupid hunt, and I didn't even complain,"
(much, Dean thinks), "and now you won't even let me go to Allison's sweet
sixteen? That is so unfair," Sam shouts.
Dad clenches his jaw and says, "I told you, if it was just a regular party,
that'd be fine, but we can't afford a fancy dress and shoes, plus a gift, Sam.
Stop asking."
"You commit credit card fraud all the time, Dad. So don't tell me we can't
afford it."
"That's for hunting, not frivolous crap like a dress you'll never wear again
and an expensive gift for some girl you hardly know."
"That is such bullshit! You never let me do anything fun. I hate you!" She
storms out of the kitchen and slams the door to her bedroom.
Dad rubs his hand over his eyes, jaw tightening, and Dean says, "She doesn't
mean it."
Dad gives him a look that can't mean anything good. "She can go to practice,"
and Dean holds in a sigh of relief at that, because it means he won't have to
get up extra-early to run with her, "but you pick her up every day and bring
her straight home right afterwards. No stops at the library or the pizzeria or
anything else. No hanging out with her friends." He gets up, stands outside her
bedroom door, and raises his voice. "Nothing but practice, homework, and chores
for a week, Samantha." There's a muffled thump from behind the door. "You wanna
push me, young lady? 'Cause I can make you way more miserable than you can make
me." Which is a lie, of course, and Dean knows it, even if Sam doesn't. "Now
come out of there and set the table. It's time for dinner."
There's another thump, and then the bedroom door swings open and Sam shoves
past them, jaw set and eyes bright. "It's not fair," she mutters, slamming
mismatched silverware and glasses onto the table. Dad goes into his own
bedroom, shuts the door.
"Life isn't fair, princess," Dean says, dumping dry pasta into boiling water.
"Easy for you to say. You get to do whatever the hell you want."
"Being older has its privileges. When you're my age--"
"I'll be in college, and far away from here." She says it like it doesn't mean
anything, like it's an established fact, like the sky is blue and water is wet,
but it makes his heart stop for a second, and when it starts again, the world's
tilting on its axis in a way it never has before. "I don't know why you didn't
go, get out while the getting was good." She shakes her head and sucks her
teeth. She has no fucking clue what she's talking about.
"Yeah, right," he says when he's sure he won't say anything too revealing. "I
suppose college might have its good points. Lots of beer and hot chicks looking
to get laid." The plate clatters on the table as if she's dropped it, and he
turns to look. She's glaring at him, angry and hurt, and he tries to look
innocent. "What?"
"You're disgusting," she says, practically snarling, and she looks like she's
ready to stomp off again when Dad comes out of the bedroom and sits down at the
table.
"Stop teasing your sister," he says, with thatyou're older and you ought to
know bettertone Dean's been hearing for as long as he can remember.
"Yes, sir," he answers, perky enough to be offensive, but Dad lets it go. Sam
scowls at him, face all scrunched up unhappily. He stirs the macaroni as Dad
quizzes Sam on Latin, and things are normal, or as normal as they ever get.
Dean knows it can't last though.
He picks Sam up each day after practice, sits in the car and watches her
stretch and run, listens to her laughter floating on the cool breeze when one
of the other girls says something to her, and she glances over and catches
sight of him. She waves, and he nods in acknowledgement, and the girls start
laughing again, shooting him assessing glances. There are one or two he
definitely wouldn't mind getting to know better, but Sam doesn't bring any of
them over when she comes to the car. Instead of going around to the passenger
side, she bends over and kisses him, hand cupping his cheek and tongue slick
and sweet in his mouth.
He pulls back, startled. "What the fuck are you doing?"
She scoots around to the passenger side and gets in. "I told them you were my
boyfriend."
"Sam." He manages to fit a lot ofthis is the worst idea everinto his voice.
"No, no, Dean, it's cool. This way we can do whatever we want and nobody has to
know." She curls her fingers in his shirt and leans in to kiss him again, hot
and wet, and he can't stop himself from kissing her back hard, hungry for her
mouth.
A wolf whistle reminds him that no, it really is a terrible idea to make out
with his sister in public (in private, too, a little voice in the back of his
head whispers, but he ignores it), even if people don't know she's his sister.
He pulls back, licking his lips, which now taste like cherry lip balm, and why
do girls always do that? "You got a lot of homework?"
She shrugs. "I did most of it in study hall. I still have some reading for AP
History, and a bunch of translations for Spanish, but that's it."
"You'll get it all done?" He doesn't know why he asks--he knows she will. She
always does. He'd done his homework in school grudgingly, with Dad standing
over him arms folded, immovable, ready to come down like the wrath of God if he
didn't toe the line and get decent grades and keep people from noticing there
was anything weird about the Winchesters. Sam does it all like it's a gift
someone's given her; sometimes she even asks for extra, though why a girl who's
never gotten anything but straight As needs extra credit, Dean can't
understand. But he has to ask, and she has to say yes, because that soothes a
tiny bit of the guilt he feels at disobeying Dad and not taking her straight
home, just another ritual to ward off the bad things he knows are going to come
out of this. Nothing really eases the guilt of what they do together, but he's
gotten good at ignoring that when she's warm and soft in his arms.
Her voice is breathless when she answers, "Yeah."
He nods and eases the car into the shady area behind the track, and he's barely
got the car in park when she climbs into his lap. She twines her arms around
his neck and kisses him again. He runs his hands up under her shirt, brushes
his fingers against the underside of her breasts, frustrated by the tight fit
of the sports bra she wears for running; he tugs the straps down her arms so
she can wiggle free of them, giving him access to her skin, warm and still damp
with sweat from practice, nipples peaking under his palms.
She grabs his hand, puts it between her legs, and he can feel how hot and wet
she is through her shorts. He rubs at her through the slick material and she
moans into his mouth, grinding down against his fingers. She's flushed and
beautiful like this, and it's so easy to forget why it's a bad idea, and so
hard to stop, to push her away before he slides his cock inside her and fucks
her the way he wants to, skin on skin and nothing in between--fucks her, and
fucks everything up for good.
She comes with a soft sigh against his neck, body going stiff and then
boneless, and he slides her off his lap, still hard and aching for his own
release.
She reaches out, palms his erection through his jeans. "Come on, Dean, let me
do this for you." Her voice is soft, breathless, seductive.
He swallows hard, pushes her hand away. "We have to get home. We're already
late, and Dad--"
"He's not going to be home for another two hours."
"But he's expecting you to be home now."
"You act like everything he says is the word of God."
"He's trying to protect you. It's not the easiest job in the world."
She huffs, crosses her arms over her chest. "Whatever."
They ride home in what would be chilly silence, except Dean cranks the radio
when "Pour Some Sugar On Me" comes on, feeling a small moment of triumph when
Sam snorts and rolls her eyes. She glares out the window at the tract housing,
and he wonders if she really wishes she lived in one of them, normal family
with a normal life, college in two years, and a perfect boyfriend, and then
forty years working nine-to-five. He can't even imagine it, mainly because he
knows how easily it can all be taken away.
When they get home, she pushes past him into the house. She does her homework
with a lot of huffing and sighing and slamming of textbooks.
He locks himself in the bathroom and jerks off, replaying their time in the car
over again, and comes imagining what it would feel like to be surrounded by the
slick heat of her body.
He thinks he knows a little something about wanting what he shouldn't have, and
how it can only end badly, but that's not the kind of lesson Sam is willing to
learn.
*
Sammy's just like Dad, can hold a grudge forever, and she holds this one for
the rest of the week. They snipe at each other when they have to speak, and
spend the rest of the time in cold silence. Dad gives him thewhatever it is,
work it outlook, but Dean thinks anything he does will make it worse, one way
or the other.
Not only does she not speak to him for three days, she avoids touching him,
too, and he misses it--not the sex stuff (though if he's honest with himself,
he does miss that), but the regular Sammy-stuff, like ruffling her hair and
punching her arm, and all the shit she pretends she's too old for, but still
secretly loves, like curling up together under the blanket with a bowl of
popcorn and a bag of M&Ms and watching The Little Mermaid--he leers at the
mermaids, and she sings along with the songs--when her homework is done.
Maybe this thing they've been doing has run its course, and he tells himself
that's probably for the best, and now they can get back to how they used to be.
She has enough shit to worry about hiding from the rest of the world without
having to deal with this, too. Dean's never run from the truth in his life, but
he still can't bring himself to name what they're doing. What they've done.
Words--names--have power, and that's one word that can't be erased once it's
said, one betrayal that can't be forgiven, so he tries to believe it's no
betrayal at all.
*
He's at work that Friday afternoon, flirting with the hot blonde owner of a
sweet little silver anniversary seventy-eight Corvette he's going to be working
on, and she's saying, "Yeah, I inherited it from my Dad last year. He loved
this car like it was his own flesh and blood, you know?" when his phone rings.
"Where the hell are you?" It's Sam, and she sounds pissed.
Fuck. He covers the phone with his hand and smiles at the blonde. "I'm sorry,
Chrissy. I have to take this call. It's my kid sister." She gives him a sweet
smile and leans back against the hood of her car, long legs crossed at the
ankle. "I'm still at work, Sammy. Things have been a little hectic here since
Dad left this morning." Dad's investigating rumors of a haunted shrimp boat in
Bayou La Batre, and seemed relieved to escape the Forrest Gump jokes Dean's
been making since he heard the news. He said he'd call for backup if it turned
out to be more than a prank on the tourists. "I think I can wrap things up here
in about half an hour. Can you hang around?"
Sam huffs and he can just imagine the expression on her face. "Whatever. I'll
just catch a ride with Evan."
"Who the hell is Evan?"
"Allison's brother. It'll be fine."
"I don't know, Sam. I--" As usual, Dad's last words had been,Look out for
Sammy, and that generally doesn't include letting her ride in cars with strange
boys. And Dean knows that whatever Sam might think, her punishment is
technically still in effect, even with Dad away. "Maybe you should wait--"
"Okay, he's here. Gotta go. Bye." And there's nothing but silence in his ear.
He turns and smiles at Chrissy, but his enjoyment in flirting with her isn't
quite the same now. "Let's get a look at what you've got under the hood."
She leans forward, giving him a nice view of her tits, and puts a hand on his
arm. "That sounds great."
"She's a beauty," he says when he's done checking out the engine. "Doesn't need
much work at all."
"Why don't you buy me a drink, and we can talk about the kind of service I'm
going to need?"
And he's going to say yes, is already picturing what she'll look like with his
dick in her mouth, and resolutely not thinking about Sam, when his phone rings
again.
Chrissy's mouth twists in amusement. "Little sister again?"
"Yeah." He flips open the phone, annoyed. "Hold on a second, Sam." He smiles at
Chrissy, and maybe it's petty, poking Sam when she's already riled up, but he
can't resist. He says, loud enough for Sam to hear, "Can I get a rain check on
that drink?"
"Sure thing, sugar."
"Sugar?" Sam says when he puts the phone up to his ear. "You're so predictable.
She's blonde, right? Big tits? Wants to fuck you?" Her voice is as corrosive as
holy water. Score one for him this round.
"Watch your mouth, Sammy."
"Whatever. I'm home. I'm doing my homework. Nothing big and scary is going to
get me while I'm here by myself so you can go f--"
"Hey, look at that, Sammy, you're breaking up. I'll be home in twenty minutes,
and you better not be up to anything you can't explain to Dad when I get there,
you hear me?"
She's sitting at the table, books spread out around her, when he walks in.
"Hey, it's Friday night. You don't have to do that shit tonight."
"If Dad calls and we have to go, I won't have time to do it before Monday
morning, and I have a test to study for."
He nods. "Okay, that's true." He picks up the phone. "Pizza or Chinese? I'm
starving."
"You could have just gone out with Chrissy." She spits the name like a curse.
"I'm perfectly capable of spending a night by myself without being attacked by
monsters or burning the house down."
He stares at her, surprised, and she seems to have realized what she's just
said because she looks away, can't meet his gaze. She gathers up her stuff and
mutters, "I'm not hungry," before going to her room and slamming the door.
He shakes his head, ends up making himself a meatloaf hero for dinner, and
dozes on the couch, watching reruns of Law & Order.
After a couple of hours, he's bored and starting to feel guilty. He should have
been there to pick her up, or should have called her, at least. He should have
checked out that Evan guy, made sure he isn't the kind of guy who puts the
moves on his kid sister's friends.
If things hadn't been so weird this week, he would have done all of that. He
would have dropped everything and brought her back to the garage. Something.
He gets up and goes to her room, knocks on the door. "Hey, you wanna play some
Nintendo?" he says. She doesn't say anything. "Or we could get some ice cream
or something." Still no answer. "Sammy? You okay in there? Just having a little
private time?" He knocks again, worried now, and raises his voice. "Sammy?"
When she still doesn't answer, he discovers she's actually locked the door. He
forces it open, flimsy lock breaking easily under the weight of his foot.
The window is wide open, and Sam's not there.
"Son of a bitch."
He sticks his head out the window, but she's long gone. He does a quick survey
of the room, fear nearly choking him, but her duffel is still in the closet,
and everything--her clothes, her Walkman, her goddamn books--is still in place.
So, not running away. He lets out a relieved breath.
Sneaking out to meet friends, then. Or that guy, Evan.
Fear resurfaces, and anger replaces relief, and he shoves at the pile of
schoolbooks on her desk, knocking them to the floor with a crash.
It doesn't make him feel better.
"Think," he mutters. "Where do sixteen-year-old girls go on Friday nights?" The
mall, or the movies, or their friends' houses. Shit. This is going to take
hours.
He squats down to rifle through her books, hoping she's got a list of names and
phone numbers somewhere, trying to remember the names of the girls she talks
about, though she talks so much he tends to tune her out after the first few
minutes, trusting the rise and fall of her voice to tell him how to respond,
and when he should tune back in.
He flips through each book quickly, methodically, scanning her small, cramped
handwriting for clues. And tucked in the back of her history textbook is a
flyer, printed in garish color:Party at Darnell's, it screams in purple and
green ink.
"I'm gonna kill her," he mutters, crinkling the paper in his fist. He smoothes
it out, folds it up, and shoves it into his pocket.
He spends another twenty minutes driving around looking for the address, which
is about twenty minutes too long, long enough to allow him to start imagining
all the ways this can end badly for her. The place is down by the docks, an old
warehouse in a neighborhood even he would think twice about walking around in
after dark. So he's got the Glock hidden in his waistband when he pushes his
way into the no-longer-abandoned warehouse.
The crappy music is turned up so loud he'd heard it as he'd turned the corner
onto the block, and it's brain-melting once he's inside. He makes a mental note
to add earplugs to his pockets for possible future use. Never know when they
might come in handy. There's almost no light, just strobes and glow-sticks and
black lights, scent of pot and cigarettes and sweat heavy in the humid air,
smoke curling like ribbons in the darkness. There are kids all over the place,
dancing, drinking, making out, and not just kids. He spots people who look his
age, and older, which makes him even more nervous.
He pushes his way through the crowd, shaking free of the occasional hand that
tries to stop him, ignoring the drinks offered as he passes, and that cranks
his level of fear up another notch, even as he tells himself Sam's smart enough
not to take a drink from someone else at one of these things.
When Dean finds her, she's leaning against the back wall of the cavernous room,
hips canted and head tipped back, laughing up at some guy who's whispering in
her ear, his arm braced against the wall by her head. Once Dean sees she's
okay, his fear transforms completely into anger.
"Sam," he growls, reaching out and yanking her arm. She stumbles into him, and
he wraps an arm around her waist, looks down to see she's wearing boots that
come up just past her knees, with high, skinny heels. "Jesus fucking Christ."
He glares at the guy, says, "Don't even fucking think about it."
He drags her into the nearest empty room, which is some kind of office, full of
dusty bookshelves and old file cabinets, and slams the door behind them. The
whole place is practically vibrating with bass, and he has to lean in and shout
in her ear to be heard.
"What the fuck were you thinking?"
"Fuck you, Dean. I'm just trying to have some fun," she answers, shoving at
him. He can smell beer on her breath. "I'm not a little kid. And you're not
Dad."
He ignores that, because it's true, and yet Dad's not here and his words--Watch
out for Sammy--are burned into Dean's soul like a brand, and he can't fail at
it any more than he already has. "You didn't drink anything you didn't pour
yourself?"
"One Coors Light, right from the bottle." She shrugs one shoulder. "Only
bottled beer they had. Opened it myself."
"You know what can happen to girls like you at parties like this, Sam?"
She rubs against him, like a cat looking to be petted, and wraps her arms
around his neck. "Why don't you show me?" she says in a husky tone that goes
right to his dick.
"What the fuck were you thinking?" But this time when he says it, his lips are
against her ear, and it's easy, it's so easy, to suck her earlobe into his
mouth, slide his lips down the length of her neck when she tips her head back
to give him access, soft gasp escaping her lips, breath warm and beer-scented
on his skin.
She laughs. She fucking laughs like it's no big deal. "I was thinking of you."
Anger and fear and need pulse through his veins like blood, and he pushes her
up against the door, hands already sliding up under the short black skirt that
leaves so much of her long, strong thighs bare. She gasps and arches into his
touch when he cups her, hot and wet against his palm, tiny scrap of her
underwear not interfering at all.
"C'mon, Dean," she says against his lips, then slips her tongue into his mouth
to flutter along the roof of it, wrap around his tongue, make him forget who he
is, and where, and why this is a bad idea. "You told me to ask for what I want,
and I want you to fuck me," she says when he pulls away, hooks her left leg
around his hip and tries to pull him closer, hands yanking his shirt out of his
waistband. She finds the gun and raises her eyebrows.
He grabs it from her and shoves it into his jacket pocket. "This place is more
dangerous than Dad's haunted shrimp boat."
Her fingers tighten on his shoulders. "You've got some nerve, lecturing me,
after some of the shit you've pulled."
"It's different for girls."
"Don't hand me that bullshit. You taught me--"
He wants to shake her until her teeth rattle for being such a stubborn little
brat. "It is, and you know it, too. I know it sucks, but it's true. You're the
prey here."
"I can protect myself."
"Can you?" He shoves her back against the door again, harder this time,
grinding into her, and the whimper she makes isn't about pain at all--her
pupils are blown wide, and he can feel her nipples brushing hard and tight
against his chest with each ragged breath she takes. He growls into her mouth,
biting and sucking at her lips, her tongue. It's a brutal kiss, and she gives
it right back to him, teeth and tongue meeting his in a way that makes his
nerves sing with need.
He pushes at the stretchy material of her tank top to get at her breasts. She's
not wearing a bra, which is good, because he doesn't think he has the patience
to deal with one at the moment. He dips his head to lick and suck at her
nipples, and she arches into his mouth, holds his head tight against her, nails
digging into his scalp. She's talking. He can't hear her words because the
goddamn music is too loud, but he can feel her chest rise and fall, the muffled
hum of her voice vibrates through him, and he knows she's saying,Dean, please,
Dean, because he'd know his name on her lips anywhere, at any time.
He slides a hand under her skirt again, yanks at the cheap thong that passes
for her underwear. It comes off in his hand, no doubt leaving angry red marks
on her skin. They both stare down at it until he shoves it into his pocket, on
top of the gun. He kisses her again, breathing in her laughter, but it's not
funny. He thinks of all the different things that could have gone wrong
tonight, if he hadn't gotten here in time, if she'd taken a drink from a
stranger, if...
Her hands on his fly abruptly derail that train of thought, and then she's
shoving his jeans and his underwear down, curling her fingers around his cock.
He thrusts into her hand; she thumbs the slit, then licks the precome off the
pad of her thumb. He sucks in a breath, fumbles for the condom in his wallet
like he's fifteen again and finally getting the chance to fuck Mary Alice
Bradshaw on the ugly plaid sofa in her basement.
Sam's a step ahead of him, pulling a small foil packet out of the purse thing
dangling from her shoulder, and he growls again, bites down hard on the flesh
where her neck meets her shoulder, marking her, jealous of whoever it was she'd
planned to use it with before he showed up. She moans a little, breathless,
grinding against his thigh.
"They were giving them out at the door," she manages, tearing it open and
rolling it on him with trembling, inexpert fingers. "Seemed rude not to take
one."
He snorts in disbelief. "I see."
He hoists her up, wrapping her other leg around him, and pushes forward, the
head of his cock sliding along the slick folds of her cunt, and she gasps.
"Fuck, Dean." She shoves her hands up under his shirt, scrapes her nails down
his back.
"That's the plan, Sammy." He knows, with the crystal clear certainty he gets
when he's sighting some monster down the barrel of his gun, that if he does
this now, there will be no going back, and if he doesn't, there's no going
forward, no escape from this scenario playing out again and again until she
finally sets her eyes on someone else. And as much as he'd like to believe
that's what he wants for her, the sharp jolt of possessive anger he feels at
the thought forces him to admit, if only to himself, that it's not.
He isn't gentle. He pushes inside her and doesn't stop until he's all the way
in, ignoring her surprised gasp and the way she goes still in his arms.
"God, baby, you're so tight," he murmurs, thrusting into the tight, slick heat
of her cunt, "so wet."
"All for you," she answers, pressing him closer with her feet against his ass,
those heels digging into the backs of his thighs, edging the almost unbearable
pleasure with just enough pain to make it sharpen into focus. He knows they're
going to leave a mark, welcomes it. "Just for you."
His hands are tight on her ass, fingers digging into firm flesh like she's the
only thing anchoring him to the earth, and he fucks her hard against the door,
in time with the bass still pounding through the walls, his mouth hot and wet
against her neck and jaw, and for one quick second he thinks this is the only
way he can keep her safe, make sure she never leaves him.
She clings to him, nails scraping against his skin, teeth sharp against his
neck, his jaw, before latching onto his lower lip, biting into soft, sensitive
flesh and then licking the sting away.
Pleasure bursts like lightning under his skin, shivers down his spine and then
out, as he loses his rhythm and thrusts erratically, whole world going white
behind his eyes as she clenches her body around him, drawing him in deeper, her
voice in his ear, shouting, "Dean, Dean, Dean," as he comes shuddering inside
her, her name on his lips.
He presses his face to her neck, breathes in sweat and Sam and sex, and when he
recovers, he realizes--"Fuck, Sam. You didn't--Christ, I can't believe I didn't
make you come first."
She runs a hand through his sweaty hair, and laughs--he can feel it all the way
down to his toes. "Man, I am never ever letting you forget that, either." She
lowers her legs slowly, unsteady on her feet, but he's not ready to let her go
just yet. They cling to each other for a few moments that feel endless and much
too quick at the same time. He cups her cheek briefly, presses a warm kiss to
her forehead and another to her lips, and then he pulls away.
He tosses the condom away and cleans himself up, the tips of his ears burning
as he realizes she's watching him, fascinated, pink tip of her tongue poking
out between red, saliva-slick lips.
"Nice boots," he says, to cover his embarrassment. "Where'd you get 'em?"
"Daphne lent them to me. I don't think I like the heels, though. They'd be a
bitch to run in. I can barely walk in them."
"Boots like that are not made for walking."
She rolls her eyes. "Oh, God. You're so lame."
He grins at that, and slips an arm around her waist because she's wobbly on
those heels, or maybe because she's just had sex for the first time, and he
can't think about that right now, though he wants nothing more than to do it
again, slow, this time, gentle, and oh God, how could he have--
She stumbles and grabs onto him, warm and soft at his side, looks up and gives
him a grin, bright enough to light their way out of this place.
His ears are ringing and his clothes stink of pot and sex and he hopes
fervently that he hasn't missed Dad's call, but when he checks his phone, there
are no messages.
He walks her back to the car, one hand steady on her hip, the other in his
jacket pocket, tight on the grip of his gun, but they make it without incident.
He actually opens the door for her before going around to the driver's side,
and she looks up at him in grateful surprise, but doesn't say anything.
They ride in silence for a few minutes, and he keeps glancing over at her.
She's fidgety, and he realizes two things at once: her underwear is still in
his pocket, and she's probably sore as hell.
Then she turns and grins at him, like she just got one over, and he says, "I'm
not gonna tell Dad about you sneaking out, but don't think you're getting away
with this."
"If that was your idea of punishment," she says, still grinning, "bring it on.
It's way better than wind sprints or push-ups."
"I'm not joking."
"Neither am I." She shifts again, pulls at her skirt, which is made of some
stretchy material that rides up when she moves, and he can see the long, strong
muscles of her thighs. The memory of those legs wrapped around his hips, of
coming deep inside her body, floods his veins with heat, and it's his turn to
shift uncomfortably. The endless loop of streetlights washes over her face as
they drive, and he can see the redness on her neck and chest where his stubble
scraped her skin, the bruises blossoming where he marked her, had his mouth and
hands and cock where no one else has ever been, and he was never meant to be.
His hands tighten on the wheel, and he takes a deep breath, tries to regain
some control. She must sense the change in his mood, because she reaches out to
touch him, and he flinches away.
"Don't--don't freak out on me, Dean. Please. I know it's weird, but that's us,
right? Who we are. We do all the weird shit that normal people freak out about.
This isn't any different."
She won't stop talking, throwing his own words back in his face, and he just
wants her to shut up, wants her to leave him alone. Wants to pull over and fuck
her again, until she's screaming his name like it's the only word she's ever
known, feeling it the way he felt her name, her body, before.
He can't--won't--do that, so he takes refuge in anger, though even that isn't
safe anymore. "What were you thinking?" he asks her for the third time, and
they both know this time she has to answer. Rituals must be observed, and even
Sam respects that.
"I wanted to make you mad. Make you jealous." She smiles. "And I did."
He shakes his head. "Jesus, Sam. What we did--what I did to you--"
"Not to me, Dean. With me. It's not wrong. I wanted it, I was right there with
you all the way. Well, maybe not all the way." She smirks at him and he knows
she's never going to let that go. But she's serious when she says, "You didn't-
-whatever you're thinking, you didn't hurt me. You'd never hurt me."
He wishes he could believe that the way she does. Makes himself believe it,
because she does. Ain't that a change, he thinks, from when they were kids and
she'd believed everything he told her with wide eyes and an eager smile and
aDean sayslike she was quoting the Bible.
When they get home, he tosses his jacket over a chair and helps her to her
room. She looks at the busted lock on her door and the books scattered on the
floor the way he left them, says shrilly, "You kicked down my door and went
through all my stuff?"
It's easy enough to fall back into their natural rhythm; he lets their version
of normality wash over him like a warm bath. "You snuck out of the house to go
to a party in an abandoned warehouse. Don't even think you have the moral high
ground here, princess."
She sinks down onto the bed, all fight gone out of her, unzips the boots, and
kicks them off.
"Remind me to call Daphne and Allison in the morning, tell them I didn't get
roofied and kidnapped or something," she says, pulling her socks off and
rubbing at the arch of her left foot.
"Here, let me--" He sits down next to her, and she swings around, rests her
feet in his lap. "Not like they were paying attention. If that's what your
friends are like, maybe you should find some new ones. And don't roll your eyes
at me."
"They didn't mean to--"
He shakes his head. "I don't want to hear it." He presses his thumbs into the
ball of her foot, working slowly and surely to ease the pressure there from the
heels she's not used to.
She sighs and flops onto her back, letting him take care of her. She wriggles a
little when he brushes a particularly ticklish spot.
"God, that feels good," she murmurs as he rotates her ankle, slides his hand up
her calf, half-hard from the feel of her skin under the pads of his fingers.
He shoots her a grin. "I'm the foot fucking master, and don't you forget it."
She giggles and scoots down the bed a bit, though the material of her skirt
doesn't move with her, and now her legs are bare nearly to the tops of her
thighs.
He swallows hard, fingers tightening on her calf. "You okay?" he asks, voice
gone hoarse.
"Little sore," she answers, not even pretending not to know what he means. She
leans up on her elbows now, straps of her tank top sliding down her arms, and
smiles at him in invitation, sliding her foot along his thigh. "Wouldn't mind
doing it again."
He clears his throat, tries to joke. "You need to be able to walk tomorrow."
"You really think that's gonna be a problem?"
"Hold on a sec."
He goes to the bathroom, wets down a washcloth with warm water, grabs a towel,
and goes back to the bedroom, and stops dead in the doorway for a second, has
to remind himself to start breathing again, because she's got her skirt off
now, is sitting up and touching herself, curious. There's no blood on her
thighs, and he breathes a soft sigh of relief about that.
"Hey," he says, "let me." He holds up the washcloth. He tries to be detached,
the way he is when he cleans her wounds from hunting, or rubs her strained
muscles from running, but he can't quite manage it, not when she's laid out
before him like an undiscovered country, his own new world ready to be
explored. Her hands open and close, fingers curling in the sheets, and she
makes all sorts of hot little noises while he cleans and dries her off.
"Dean," she says, trapping his hand against her cunt with her own and thrusting
against it, all slick warm heat and the promise of happiness. "Dean, please."
And there's no amulet, no salt line or chalked sigil that can protect him from
that. He doesn't want one that could.
He touches her softly, gently, everything he wasn't earlier, presses teasing
little kisses down her body, swirls his tongue in her bellybutton while she
giggles and squirms, her hands now stroking through his hair and over his neck
like a blessing, her voice murmuring his name like a benediction.
"Gonna make it good for you this time, so good for you, baby," he whispers
against the soft skin of her inner thigh, and she makes this broken, whimpering
sound that sends a jolt of heat right to his dick.
He goes slow, using lips and tongue and fingers to make her moan and gasp, hips
arching off the bed. When he looks up, she's got her shirt shoved up and is
palming her breasts, eyes closed and face screwed up in intense concentration,
taking what he gives her and begging for more with soft choking sounds that
never quite spell out his name. He brings her to the edge and then over it, and
she shakes and shudders and moans until she's spent, sprawled bonelessly,
shamelessly, across her bed.
He brushes her sweaty hair back from her forehead, kisses her softly, every
touch an apology, a request for the forgiveness she holds back from everyone
else and finds so easy to give him, who deserves it least.
She curls into him, hands tangling in his shirt to keep him close,
whispers,thank youagainst his neck, and something that might belove youover his
heart--he's not sure, and she doesn't say it again, but he's not going to ask.
He holds her until she falls asleep, blissful, fucked-out smile on her face,
and then goes back into the bathroom, jacks himself until he comes. He's slow
to wash, wants to keep her scent on his skin as long as he can.
He's restless, last vestiges of adrenaline burning off now that he knows she's
home and safe and asleep, that the biggest danger to her now--always--is him,
and no one else. He's not used to sticking around after sex, but there's no
place for him to go, and he wouldn't go even if there was. He's made his bed,
and he's got to lie in it.
As he pulls the gun out of his jacket pocket, still wrapped in the ripped
remains of Sam's underwear, he thinks, once again, that irony is a bitch.
*
He's not sure what time it is when he finally falls asleep, but he wakes to the
shrill ring of the phone, and on the other end, Dad's voice weary and excited
at the same time, barking directions to Bayou La Batre and lists of supplies
for them to bring him when they come.
Sam comes out of the bathroom, hair wrapped in a towel and her old pink
bathrobe pulled tight around her waist. She presses a kiss to his forehead
while Dad's still talking in his ear.
When he hangs up, she says, "I made coffee," and then, "I have a trig test on
Monday, so this better not take too long." Everything is the way it should be,
and Dean breathes out in relief, feeling like he's dodged one more bullet.
*
After the haunted shrimp boat--and Dean doesn't think he'll be able to face a
plate of scampi for months--Dad's restless, eager to move on, find something
else to hunt. He pulls Sam out of school at the holidays; they pack up and are
on the road in less than a day, leaving the warmth of the Gulf Coast behind as
they head north and west, chasing rumors of ghosts and danger.
Dad still makes them share a room when they stay at motels, and Dean doesn't
complain again, lets himself be surrounded by Sam and what she's giving him,
trying not to think about it as what he's taking from her.
It should be weird, and in some ways it is, because she's Sammy, and he
remembers holding her the day she was born, remembers carrying her out of the
house the night of the fire, remembers singing her to sleep, kissing her
scraped knees, and now he knows what she looks and sounds like when she comes,
what she tastes like. He's never stuck around long enough to know anyone the
way he knows her, to let anyone know him the way she does, and he knows there's
no easy out for either of them when this ends--and it will end, because she
wants so much more from life than hunting and fucking her brother, and the
thing is, she deserves it, and he's afraid that when she gets it, she'll leave
him behind altogether, one more relic of a life she doesn't want. And he's
afraid that if she doesn't get it, she'll end up hating him for keeping her
with him, for betraying her trust and using sex to hold her close.
He's not sure which he's more afraid of, so he pushes it away, loses himself in
the smooth skin of her belly and the silky weight of her breasts in his hands,
under his tongue.
In some ways, though, it's as normal as anything else in their lives, because
it's Sam and Dean, curled up under the ugly polyester covers, bad eighties cop
shows on television, warm and safe from the world outside, better protection
than any salt lines or chalk symbols could ever be.
*
They spend Christmas with Pastor Jim, New Year's with Bobby, and land in Ames,
Iowa when Sam reminds them that she's still got school to finish and could they
please settle until June this time?
They rent a small house not too far from the university, and Sam trades in her
flip-flops and jean jacket for snow boots and a parka, complaining the whole
time about the cold and how showing up in January makes it hard to get on the
track team, even with a glowing reference from her old coach in Mobile.
Dean's twenty-first birthday sneaks up on them--Dad's picking up shifts as a
security guard at the hospital, and Dean's pumping gas during the day and
hustling pool at night, trying to make the rent and keep them in food and
clothes and ammo. He comes home that night to Sam beaming at him over a heavily
decorated cake (she's more enthusiastic in the kitchen than capable, because
she tends to get absorbed in her reading and forget she's cooking) and Dad
pulling him into a one-armed hug and inviting him out for a drink, since he's
legal now.
After dinner and cake, Dad gives him a new shotgun, which is more than he
expected--when he turned eighteen, Dad gave him the Impala, and he's only
gotten small gifts since then, doesn't really need anything else.
Sam hands him a small box wrapped in bright paper. "It's not much," she says,
looking anxious.
"I'm sure it's great." She's taped it up so tightly he has to pull out his
pocketknife to get it open. When he finally manages it, he sees three leather
bracelets resting on that white cottony stuff they put in jewelry boxes.
"They're elephant hair bracelets," she says, leaning forward and sliding them
onto his right wrist, fingers warm as a kiss against his skin. "The knots
represent earth and nature, and the strands represent the seasons. They're
supposed to provide protection from illness and accidents."
"Thanks, Sammy." He smiles, honestly touched at the thought she put into the
gift.
She's still holding his hand in hers when Dad pulls on his jacket and says,
"Come on, Dean." Sam pouts, and he almost gives in to her when she asks to come
along--it'd be the least of the things he's given in on--but Dad laughs and
ruffles her hair, easy with her in a way he rarely is lately, and says, "You'll
have your turn, Sammy. Your brother will be so busy warning away your potential
boyfriends that he won't have time to enjoy himself."
The idea of some asshole picking Sam up in a bar makes Dean feel a little sick,
but he pushes it away, brushes a hand down her back and drops a kiss on the top
of her head to say thank you.
"Dad, please?" she says. "My homework's all done, and I promise I won't
complain when you're ready to leave."
Dad looks at Dean, and Dean shrugs. "It's fine by me."
Dad rubs a hand over his jaw and says, "Okay, but we're not staying long. And
don't even try to order anything but Coke, Sammy."
"Diet Coke."
Dad smiles. "That, too."
She throws her arms around him, gives him a quick squeeze, and he rests a hand
on the top of her head for a second, as always looking as startled by her
spontaneous shows of affection as he is by her constant questioning of his
authority.
She grabs her coat and bumps her hip against Dean's as they walk out, her hand
skimming under his shirts and over his belly like a promise, making him
stumble. She spins away from him, laughter ringing through the cold night air
like a bell.
The bar is like a hundred other bars he's been in since he was sixteen and old
enough to stare down bouncers with his fake ID--hard wood floors and scarred
wood tables, darts and pool in the backroom, a jukebox heavy on Skynyrd and
Zeppelin, and a cute blonde waitress dressed in a short skirt and belly shirt
despite the cold.
"Midnight Rider" is playing when they slide into a booth, and the waitress
saunters over, eyes and smile bright.
"I'm Annette, and I'll be your waitress tonight. What can I get you folks?" she
says, never looking away from Dean.
"It's my boy's birthday," Dad says, "so we're doing a little celebrating."
It doesn't seem possible, but Annette's smile gets wider and she leans in,
giving him a whiff of her flowery perfume. "Happy birthday."
He can feel Sam tense next to him, so he puts a hand on her knee and squeezes.
"I'll have a bottle of Bud and a shot of Jack."
"Make that two," Dad says. "And a Coke for the young lady."
"Diet Coke." Sam's smile is tight and false, and he wonders if she regrets
coming.
"Happy birthday, son," Dad toasts him, and they knock back the shot, warmth of
it in his chest welcome after the cold outside. Sam sips her diet Coke and
fidgets until Dad hands her a bunch of singles and sends her off to commandeer
the jukebox. "Don't forget to play some Johnny Cash," he says, and she waves
her hand, promising nothing.
The liquor doesn't taste any different now that Dean's legal, but he likes not
having to worry about getting tossed out, about having his ID confiscated
(there was this town down the Jersey shore where the bouncers got fifty bucks
for every fake they found, and Dean tried three different clubs before he gave
up; he's looking forward to going back to Jersey someday and walking in like he
owns those places), because those things can be a bitch to replace, and even
though he's gotten good at it over the years, it's still time and effort he
could be spending on something else.
"Thanks, Dad."
They drink in silence for a couple minutes, and Dean hums along with the
jukebox, which has switched to "Baba O'Riley," and grins at the waitress when
she goes past, a little extra swing in her hips, just for him.
Another beer, another shot, and Dad's slouching against the back of the booth a
little, small smile on his face. "Sammy's settling in pretty well, don't you
think? She seems happier lately."
He looks over to see her bent over the jukebox, face scrunched up in
concentration. "Yeah." He takes a sip of beer, forces himself to stay calm,
because Dad doesn't know, can't ever know, what's putting a smile on Sam's face
these days. "I think the track thing--I think it's good for her. Girls who play
sports--" He has some vague recollection of a Nike commercial about it that
used to enthrall her. He fumbles for words, can't find any that won't lead to
trouble, so he settles for repeating himself as if he's said something
profound. Dad'll blame the Jack if he even notices how lame Dean sounds. "It's
good for them. Keeps her out of trouble." He takes another sip of beer. "Looks
good on her college applications, too." Not that he wants her to go, or to go
away, anyway. Which is what it means--it's not like they're going to stay in
one place, so no matter where she goes, it will be away.
Dad nods. "I wish we could let her go. I wish it was safe. But it's not, Dean.
You understand that, right?"
"I--Yeah, of course." He hates that it's not safe, hates that he's grateful
that keeps her with him, but he's not sure, in the end, that she's going to
stay.
"Don't encourage her. It'll only break her heart when she can't go."
"Dad, I'm not--"
Dad gives him a look, because he knows how Dean crumbles like a Ritz cracker
when Sam pushes him.
"Any boys I should know about?" Dean chokes on his beer, and Dad laughs. "I
know, it's...difficult to think about. But she's a beautiful girl, and they're
bound to come sniffing around, probably sooner rather than later."
Dean clears his throat, manages to find his voice. "I know. I'm on it." It's
not technically a lie.
"Don't be afraid to show 'em your new shotgun." Dad clinks his bottle against
Dean's, and this time, they both laugh, though Dean's is edged with nervousness
he hopes his father can't hear. "Your sister is a special girl. I'm sure every
father thinks that about his daughter, but Sammy...Sammy is..."
"Yeah, Dad. I know." He takes another swallow of beer, signals the waitress for
another round. "I'm sure she'd like to hear that, too." It's as close as he's
come to criticizing his father in a long time. Possibly ever.
Dad looks away for a second, shakes his head. "She'd probably turn it into some
kind of argument. Never saw a kid who liked to argue so much. Stubborn as hell,
too."
"Gee, I wonder where she gets that from."
Dad points a finger at him in warning. "Watch yourself, buddy." But there's no
heat in it.
Alanis Morrisette's sharp, angry voice blares out of the speakers, and they
both wince.
"That and her god-awful taste in music."
"That I can't take any credit for." He shakes his head. "At least she's grown
out of that boy band shit."
"Yeah, even this angry chick rock is a step up from that." Dean shudders,
remembering the Backstreet Boys poster she'd carried from crappy apartment to
cheap motel to crappy apartment, fished it out of the garbage every time he'd
tried to get rid of it. And then one day, it'd disappeared as if it'd never
been there at all, and she curled her lip disdainfully at her old tapes, left
them behind somewhere between Tallahassee and Atlanta. "If she'd kept it up, I
was gonna suggest disowning her."
Dad laughs again. "So you let her play the angry chick rock in the car?"
"God, no! Same rules as always. Driver picks the music." Though Dad had bent
that sometimes for them, let him listen to Metallica's new albums the day they
came out, let Sam play Nevermind until the tape damn near snapped once she'd
discovered Nirvana.
"She's gonna be taking Driver's Ed this semester." Dad takes the new bottle of
beer from the waitress, who leans in to clear the empty shot glasses off the
table and gives Dean a look down her shirt. Dean grins appreciatively, lets his
gaze slide down her body like he's already got her undressed and on her knees.
She walks away with a smile, and he thinks they're going to have to leave her a
nice tip, either way. "Been thinking you should take her out driving."
"Wait, what?" Dean snaps out of his daze, sits up straight. "You want me to let
Sammy drive the Impala?"
Sam slides back into the booth next to him, sullen glare at the waitress
replaced with an eager look. "You learned to drive in the Impala."
"Yeah, but that was me. Dad taught me to drive when I was tall enough to reach
the pedals." He hadn't done it but once or twice then, in emergencies, but
knowing how to drive when other kids his age were still riding around on
bicycles, had been the coolest thing--cooler than the first time Dad had handed
him a beer after a hunt (at fifteen) or the first time Dad let him drop a book
of lit matches into a grave (at thirteen, and that's still pretty fucking cool
at twenty-one)--because even as a kid he'd known the Impala was pretty much as
cool as things ever got, and he'd hit that peak at twelve and never come down.
Dad reaches out and squeezes Sam's hand. "Well, Sammy's certainly tall enough
for that."
"Dad--"
"Dean."
There's no arguing with that tone of voice, and Dean knows it. "Yes, sir."
"It's not like I haven't taught her the basics."
"And I'll be taking Driver's Ed," she adds.
Dad nods. "You'll just be helping her practice." He must still look skeptical,
because Dad says, "I'm counting on you, Dean."
"Yes, sir."
"I mean it." He leans forward, gets that focused look only hunting puts on his
face. "I heard from Caleb this afternoon. He's tracking a pack of werewolves.
Next full moon, we're going after 'em. We're gonna need every gun we've got on
this one, and I need to know I can count on you and Sammy both to be prepared
for anything."
Dean nods, head spinning. They've taken down lone werewolves on occasion, and
there was that time with what turned out to be a married couple outside Three
Forks, but a whole pack is something else, something big. The thought of
depending on Sam to drive in an emergency is kind of scary, but she'll be safer
waiting in the car than tramping through the woods with him and Dad and Caleb,
and Dad knows what he's doing--he's kept them all alive so far.
"We will be, Dad. Don't worry about it."
"Good man." Dad claps him on the shoulder, smiling, and that's all Dean's ever
asked from him, best present he could have gotten. The only dark spot is the
way Sam tenses next to him, but he kicks her before she can complain about
hunting again, and she bites her lip and looks away.
One more round, and Dean's just getting into the swing of the night, eyeing the
pool table with interest, but Dad's ready to pack it in. He glances at the
waitress and gives Dean a knowing grin. "You can stay if you want--it's your
birthday party. I'll leave the chain off, but try not to stay out too late."
Dean nods. "I won't."
Dad tosses a couple of twenties onto the table and stands, pulling his jacket
on. "Come on, Sammy, let's motor. You've got school in the morning."
She slides out of the booth and gives him a look that's hurt and angry all at
once. He grabs her hand, squeezes it--to reassure her? To apologize for
something he hasn't done yet, but they both know he's thinking of doing? He's
not sure, and she obviously doesn't get it, or, more likely, she doesn't want
it, because she jerks away, lips quirking in a frown. She's generally got a
good poker face, and it's getting better as she gets older, but her mouth
always gives her away--he's been reading it for years, like a second language
she doesn't even know she's speaking.
"I didn't even get to hear all my songs," she starts, but one look from Dad
stops her. She promised, and even in something as small as this, they all take
that seriously. "Happy birthday," she says instead, and lets Dad lead her away.
Dean gets up, goes to the pool table, and puts his money down for next,
offering to play the winner. Turns out the guy owns a red sixty-nine GTO, and
they get to talking about cars and engines, the possibility of some part-time
work in a garage. Dean grins wide, surprisingly warmed at the oddness of maybe
making a friend. Annette keeps the drinks coming, and now that he's alone,
she's even more flirtatious, and he shows his appreciation.
He thinks about it as he plays, not even trying to hustle tonight and still
winning enough to at least cover his tab and still have cash left over, thinks
about dyed blonde hair ghosting over his skin, the weight and feel of her tits
in his hands--she's at least a C-cup, if not a D--and lips painted bright pink
wrapped around his dick. He wonders if she'd let him fuck her in that tight
little ass, if she'd giggle and pretend she'd never done it before, or if she'd
be proud of her ability to give him whatever he wanted.
Nirvana segues into Johnny Cash as he sinks the eight ball again, pockets his
winnings, and leans a hip against the table to watch her as she takes off her
apron and drops it on the bar.
"Going on my break," she says when she walks past, hips swaying like an
invitation.
Dean thinks of Sam, all the promises he's made her, and all the ones he hasn't,
the things he shouldn't give her, and the things he always will.
"Have a good night," he says. When she pouts, he says, "I've got to be at work
early in the morning," and she walks away, knowing rejection when she hears it.
And the really fucked up part is, he doesn't regret it nearly as much as he
thought he would, as he probably should. He drains the rest of his beer and
heads home, Annette the waitress already forgotten.
*
Dad and Sam are already up and having breakfast when Dean gets to the kitchen
in the morning. Sam's got her nose in a book, bowl of cereal in front of her
forgotten, and Dad's got his hands wrapped around a mug of coffee.
Coffee. Coffee would be good, he thinks, taking his mug off the drain board and
reaching for the coffee pot.
"Have a good time last night?" Dad asks.
"Yeah." Dean leans against the counter, drinks half his coffee in one long sip,
brain still fuzzy from lack of sleep and the early hour. Christ, he fucking
hates mornings.
"Made a new friend?" Dad usually doesn't tease him about that shit, especially
not in front of Sammy, so he must be in a good mood.
"Yeah," he says again, and he hopes he didn't toss that guy's name and number
out. He's sick of pumping gas, would love to get back to actually doing real
engine work, if he has to work at all.
Sam shoves her chair back with a squeak and dumps her half-eaten bowl of cereal
into the sink.
"I'm going to be late this afternoon," she says. "Coach Marley is letting me
try out for the team, says maybe I could be an alternate or something." She
pulls on her coat, shrugs her backpack on over it. "I'll get a ride home with
Claudia." She presses a kiss to Dad's cheek and rushes out to catch her bus
like Dean's not even in the room.
He looks at Dad, who shrugs and shakes his head in the way Dean has come to
recognize means it's some mysterious girl thing, or maybe just a mysterious Sam
thing, and neither of them will ever quite understand it.
It's not until after his third cup of coffee, when the combination of caffeine
and gasoline fumes has cleared his head, that he thinks he gets it.
When she comes home that night, he's waiting with a copy of The Princess Bride
and the promise of microwave popcorn. She rolls her eyes and sucks her teeth at
him, and holes up in her room with her homework until Dad tells her to come out
and eat.
She's heading right back to her room when Dad says, "Hey, now, Sammy, your turn
to wash the dishes."
She turns back, annoyed look on her face, and says, "Fine."
Dean grabs a dishtowel and leans against the sink, waiting. Dad's sitting at
the cleared off table, doing some research and writing in his journal.
Sam doesn't even hand him the dish, just puts it on the drain board and sticks
her hands back under the water, splashing herself and nearly nailing him, as
well.
"So, the guy I was shooting pool with last night, his friend owns a garage.
Might have some work for me."
"That's good," Dad says absently.
Sam huffs, like she doesn't believe a word he's saying. "Whatever."
"Sam, I don't like that tone of voice."
She rolls her eyes again, and Dean remembers sixteen, remembers feeling like
that constantly when talking to adults, so he can't really blame her, but she
says, "Yes, sir," in a subdued tone, which isn't like her at all.
"If you're done with your homework, we can watch the movie," he says. "Got
popcorn and everything."
"I'm not five, Dean. Jesus. I have a chem test to study for and a few chapters
to read for English. Why don't you go have a night out with your new friend?"
It's his turn to say, "Whatever," and under his breath, "brat."
She keeps it up for another two days, and it's like living in a minefield,
because he knows eventually something's going to set her off, but he's not
exactly sure what it's going to be, and he's never been the most careful guy in
the world, so watching every word he says is giving him a headache.
He thinks about apologizing, but he's got nothing to apologize for; he wishes
she would give him a little credit, a little trust. Because he's not going to
stop going out, and he doesn't want to go through this with her every time he
does. He thinks about saying that, but in the end, he doesn't say anything at
all.
He takes her driving, but even that doesn't crack the ice. She's nervous at
first, and trying to hide it, which makes him nervous, and he wonders if he can
talk Dad into letting them do this in the truck, because he can't afford to do
any kind of serious bodywork on the Impala these days. She rebuffs his efforts
to discuss hockey--a sport neither of them follows, but he's watched enough of
it on ESPN on long, restless nights in motels to understand it--and they have a
snippy argument over the possibility of Bush as a musical choice in his car.
It's not like Dean has anything against derivative bands, because there are
only so many geniuses out there, and everybody can't be Jimmy Page, but Bush is
like a photocopy of a photocopy of Nirvana, who cribbed their signature sound
from the Pixies anyway. At least they copped to it. And Dean, who's not a huge
fan of the Pixies--though he'd totally bang Kim and Kelly Deal both if he had
the chance--recognizes the sheer awesomeness of "Smells Like Teen Spirit," even
if he mostly wishes he never has to hear it again after a steady diet of it,
first on the radio when it came out, and then again when Sam finally developed
some musical taste and latched onto Nirvana as the band of her heart, but he
can't admit that when arguing with her, so he shuts up except to give her
directions and to mutter snarky comments about other drivers.
The steady knot of tension in his shoulder expands into a throb behind his left
eye by the time they're done, and he heads out to the bar after dinner,
desperate for some peace.
He goes out the next night, too, but makes sure he's home relatively early and
smells of nothing worse than beer and stale cigarettes. On the third night, she
thaws a little, sits at the kitchen table to do her homework instead of
disappearing into her room.
He hangs around, offers to play Nintendo with her, but she shakes him off.
She's not bitchy about it, though, which is a nice change.
Around eleven, Dad says, "Why don't you pack it in, Sammy? It's a school
night."
She kisses them both good night and heads into her room without arguing, which,
along with the glances she's been throwing his way, is enough to make Dean
wary.
A couple hours later, he's nearly asleep when she pushes the door to his room
open and closes it behind her with a quiet click. She's got the old pink
bathrobe on, but when he sits up, she shrugs it off her shoulders and drops it
to the floor. He doesn't even want to know where she picked that up from. Too
much goddamn television, no doubt.
She's wearing a lacy red baby doll nightie that's exactly what he finds sexy--
it should probably disturb him, how well she knows him--and it looks both hot
and wrong on her. She climbs into his lap, smiling like it's Christmas morning
and all the presents have her name on them.
She kisses him, tongue slick and sweet in his mouth, tasting of toothpaste and
secrets, and the lace of her outfit is rough under his hands.
He pulls back, rubs the hem of her top between his fingers. "This isn't you,
Sammy."
"It could be. If you wanted it to be," she whispers, teeth closing gently on
his earlobe, and then again on the skin beneath, and shit, she does know him
too well, in ways she shouldn't. He gasps, the lingering vestiges of sleep and
the hot rush of need making it hard for him to think clearly.
"That's not what I want," he manages.
She grinds down against him, and the flimsy lace of her panties and the thin
material of his boxers do nothing to disguise the wet heat of her cunt. "You
sure? 'Cause that's not what it feels like to me." She nips at his lower lip,
then slides her lips along his jaw, down his neck, her thumbs tracing circles
over his collarbones.
"I don't--I mean, I do, I mean--" She reaches into the opening of his boxers
and wraps her hand around him, stroking firm and sure--"God." It's an honest-
to-God prayer, which doesn't happen very often, mostly because he doesn't
really believe in capital-G God like Pastor Jim does, but Sam makes him want to
believe sometimes, if only because then he could maybe believe someone besides
him and Dad is looking out for her. He grabs her shoulders, shakes lightly.
"Sam, Sam, Sammy." She looks at him, curious, a little wary now, like she does
when she knows she's going to get busted for doing something she knows she
shouldn't have, and she's planning to use the puppy-dog eyes to get out of it.
"Don't make me go all Afterschool Special on your ass," he says.
She brushes her thumb across the head of his cock and he sucks in another
desperate breath. "Is that really what you want to do with my ass?" When he
doesn't answer right away, still trying to figure out what it is he wants to
say, because he knows he can't fuck this up (not that it isn't totally fucked
up already, but since their situation normal has never been other people's,
maybe other people's fucked up doesn't have to be theirs), she leans back, sits
on his knees, expression changing from curious to hurt. "Or do you not want me
at all? Is that it?"
This is why he stopped fucking high school girls the day he left high school.
"God." He doesn't know how she does it, opening herself up like that, and he
doesn't want her to ever stop, not with him, even though he knows that sooner
or later, he's going to hurt her. "It's not that. It's that I want you, not--
" he tugs at the camisole again "--this."
"Does it not look good?" She looks down at herself, touches her breasts, barely
covered by the wispy material. "I know I don't look like that--like the girls
you like. I'm kind of skinny and not very--"
He grunts in frustration. She should know there's no competition, that he'll
always choose her over anyone and everyone else. "You're perfect. You're Sam."
He slides his hands up her arms, over her shoulders, pushes the straps of her
top down so he can cup her breasts, run his thumbs over her tight, pink
nipples. Her breath hitches and she arches into his touch. He slides his hands
around her back, the bones both strong and delicate beneath his fingers, hauls
her in for a kiss, and she sighs into his mouth. He can feel her trembling, and
hates himself for making her doubt for even a second that he does want her,
would want her any way she wants to be, any way she's willing to let him have
her. Wants her more than any truck stop waitress or random hook-up. Wants her
to know she means more than that, and always will. He wouldn't take the risks
he has with her if she didn't. "I didn't--I haven't--" he murmurs, but the
words get lost in the glide of skin against skin, and he thinks maybe she knows
what he means. He hopes she does.
She's frantic, a little wild, hands moving too fast, clutching too tight as she
touches him, and he soothes her with kisses and soft nonsense words.
She's got a condom tucked in the elastic of her waistband and she hands it to
him before she slides the lacy panties off. He's barely ready for the tight,
wet heat of her as she sinks down onto him, eyes closed and head tipped back,
hands on his shoulders and knees cradling his hips. She moves up and down
slowly at first, and then harder and faster as he fingers her clit, mouths her
breasts, tells her with his hands and lips and cock what he can't say with
words.
She clenches around him like a fist when she comes, holding him deep inside her
body, and pulling him along with her into the bright, hot pulse of orgasm. He
has enough presence of mind to yank her close and cover her mouth in a hard
kiss to muffle the noise so they don't wake Dad and get themselves killed, or
worse.
When she's done, she curls up against him, blissed-out smile on her face,
already three-quarters of the way to sleep. He loves that he can do this to
her--for her--and he wishes she could stay cradled in his arms all night, but
she has school in the morning, and they can't take the chance of not waking up
before Dad, so he chivvies her into her bathrobe and back to her room.
He falls asleep with the scent of her on his skin and his sheets.
*
It's too freaking cold, Dean thinks, trying to think of warm things--coffee,
fire, being wrapped up in bed with a hot chick--as they wait for the werewolves
to show up. Dad and Caleb are trying to drive them into the clearing, and
they've been waiting on the outskirts, ready to take their shots, for what
feels like hours. Instead of waiting in the car like Dean had expected, Sam is
about fifteen feet away to his left, using a tree for cover, the muzzle of her
rifle like a low-hanging branch in the darkness, the red bandana in her hair
the only spot of color he can see. The moon is full overhead, and the ground is
covered in snow, and it'd be beautiful in a freakish Hallmark sort of way if it
wasn't so freaking cold, and Sammy didn't look like she was going to puke or
pass out any second.
The sound of gunfire startles him to attention, and then the chase is on,
werewolf black against the white snow, darker and faster than the night behind
it, but it doesn't keep going straight; instead it angles right, heavy muscular
body eating up the ground between them fast, too fast, heading right towards
them, like a guided missile that's found its target.
Dean swings around, raises his rifle and shoots as the thing leaps, messing up
his shot; he gets it in the belly, not the heart, and it howls in pain, jaws
snapping as it lands on Sam, takes her down with raking claws. Dean's heart
stops but everything else keeps moving, faster than he can see. Sam's dodging
sharp, yellow teeth, her face pale as the snow now staining red with blood--
hers, the wolf's--and there's another shot, muffled by the wolf's body, and a
third, up through its elongated snout, taking the top of its head off. She
shoves at the carcass ineffectually, and he can hear her ragged breathing, see
it misting in the darkness.
The paralysis of fear dissipates, leaving him weak and hoarse. "Sam! Sammy!"
"Get it off me, Dean, please!"
He grabs at the thing, fur bristly and slick with blood, and hauls it off her.
Her left shoulder is slashed, four claw marks cutting through numerous layers
of clothing and fairly deep into her skin, blood staining everything, but she
hasn't been bitten.
"You okay?"
She swallows hard, and he can see tears oozing from the corners of her eyes,
but she nods. He reaches down, grabs her right hand, pulls her up, as Dad and
Caleb finally arrive.
"Sammy, you all right?" Dad grabs her good shoulder, brushes his thumb across
her cheek.
She nods again, though her hand tightens on Dean's. With her left hand she
scrubs at her face, sniffing and swallowing to stop herself from crying.
Dad turns to him, worry and fear combining into anger. "What the hell happened,
Dean?"
He's trying to concentrate on making a temporary bandage out of her bandana,
forcing his hands not to shake. He grabs her hand, pressing it against the
wound to stop the bleeding while he ties it in place with her still-whole
scarf. "I--It happened so fast--" A ferocious howl coming from somewhere to the
west of them interrupts him.
"There are still three more out there," Caleb says. "They separated when they
saw us--they're smarter than regular wolves, and regular wolves are pretty damn
smart. They must have sensed you somehow."
Dean is still taking inventory of Sam, running his flashlight over her,
brushing the snow off her legs and back, when he notices the stain on her ass.
"Fuck, Sam, what--Oh, fuck. You gotta be kidding me."
Dad looks at him, then at Sam. "What?"
She hunches her shoulders in misery. "I didn't expect--" Her voice is barely a
whisper, and Dean has to strain to hear it. She glances at Caleb, embarrassed,
and then back at Dean. "I'm usually thirty days like clockwork, but it's, like,
four days early, and--"
He can see realization dawn in Dad's eyes. "You couldn't have said something?"
Dad yells, and she drops her gaze, misery plain on her face. Then he looks at
Dean. "And you, you didn't know?"
Which is totally unfair. "No, sir. I didn't know I was supposed to be keeping
track of my sister's period."
"It's not his fault," Sam says before Dad can yell at him for being
insubordinate, and they both glare at her. "I didn't even know for sure until
we'd been here for a while."
The wolf howls again, and another answers it from what sounds like north of
them.
Dad runs a hand through his hair. "We'll be discussing this later," he says,
"but right now, we've got a blood trail that's drawing them in, and we can take
all three of them out. Dean, take your sister back to the motel now. Caleb and
I will finish this up."
"Dad--"
"Now, Dean. Go."
"Yes, sir."
He takes Sam's arm, and as they walk away, Dad cups her face again, gently,
holds it in his hand until his fingers slide away when she moves.
"I'm sorry," she whispers when they get to the car.
"It's not your fault." Dean guns the engine, peels up the dirt road and out of
the woods like the werewolves are after them. She shifts uncomfortably and he
leans over, opens the glove compartment, rummaging around by feel until he
finds the bottle of Advil. He tosses it into her lap. "Here."
She dry-swallows a couple of pills with a grimace.
It's not too far to the motel, and he doesn't blame her for sprinting to the
bathroom, stripping her bloody coat and shirt off on the way.
He gathers the supplies--peroxide, butterfly bandages, gauze squares, and a
roll of Kling--and sets them down on the toilet tank. Then he strips down,
leaving his clothes on the floor next to hers.
Nobody should be familiar with the sight and scent of their kid sister's blood
as it washes down the drain--he can see now that the gashes in her shoulder and
upper arm are clean and not as deep as he'd first feared--but he's all too
familiar with it, been seeing it her whole life, so it doesn't freak him out
the way it probably should, when he pushes back the shower curtain to make sure
she's all right, and sees the water is still tinged pink as it washes away.
He's more surprised to find her touching herself, one foot resting on the edge
of the tub, fingers sliding between her thighs.
"Oh," they both say, and he feels his face heat, can see the blush rising under
her skin.
"Sorry," he says.
"No, please." She steps back against the tile, holds out her other hand to him.
He climbs into the tub, letting the curtain close behind him, and pulls her
close, pressing his face to the top of her head, breathing her in, making sure
she's solid, whole, alive under his fingers. He feels the pulse beating in her
neck, splays a hand over her heart, examines the four cuts on her shoulder with
a clinical eye.
"You'll probably get away without scars, if we do this right," he says, cheek
pressed against her temple. She nods, and he can feel her breathing, the hitch
and hiccup of it, the way her whole body trembles just a little, enough that he
can feel it, but probably wouldn't be able to see it if he was just looking.
 
She raises her face, eyes wide and green in the sharp fluorescent lighting, and
he kisses her softly, closed-mouthed, a gentle brush of lips, inhaling the air
she exhales. Her breath hitches again, and he opens his mouth over hers, wet
and hot and deep, tongue sliding over tongue, desperate to communicate fear and
love and need in ways words never can. She wraps her arms around him, presses
close, rubbing against him, warmer than the water cascading over them.
"Dean?" she asks, sliding a hand between them to curl around his hardening
dick. "Please?"
He's never been involved with a woman long enough for this to have been an
issue before, and he's not sure about it now. It's not like he'd ever turn down
sex, but--
"You don't want to. It's okay."
"Of course, I want to, Sammy. I just--Are you sure? Can you?"
"I know it's kind of gross," she says, looking away, "but it's supposed to help
with the cramps."
"Okay." He tips her face up, meets her gaze squarely. "Okay."
He moves away, goes to push the curtain open, and she says, "Where are you
going?"
He pats himself down, laughs. "I don't exactly have a condom on me."
"Do we have to--Can't we just...not?" She leans in, licks at his lips and
inside his mouth, hand curling around his dick again and stroking. "I want to
feel you, skin on skin," she whispers. "I want to feel you come inside me."
"Fuck." He swallows hard, leans his forehead against hers, cock aching to do
what she's suggested. "You really wanna take that chance?" He gives a small
nervous laugh. "We can't--I can't. It's not safe." He doesn't say he's not
safe--he tries to be, is as careful as he can be, but there's always a chance,
and while he'll bear the risk himself if he has to, he's going to shield her
from it as best he can. He pulls away, climbs out of the shower, and grabs his
wallet out of his jeans, ignoring the way everything is getting wet. He finds
what he's looking for, and hops back in. Tries not to think too much about what
she's said, because maybe he can't protect her from werewolves, or from this
fucked up thing they're doing, but he can do everything possible to minimize
the consequences, to make sure she, at least, never has to pay for it.
When he's got it on, he holds her up against the wall, slides inside her, so
tight and slick. She sighs, wraps her legs around his hips, and meets his
thrusts with her own. He wants to pound into her, let his body work out all his
fear and desperation, but he holds himself back, goes slow, making her gasp and
moan and beg before he speeds up, hips flexing hard and fast while she touches
herself. She clenches around him, comes with a low growling moan that sounds
almost like the thing that attacked her tonight, rough and dangerous, and the
only thing he can think as he breaks open, pleasure pulsing through him in
waves, is that he has to keep her safe.
*
Sam's still asleep when Dean gets up in the morning. Dad and Caleb came back
around four, successful but grim-faced, splashed with blood and smelling of
fire, so he waits until ten before he knocks on Dad's door, coffee and Danish
in hand.
Dad scrubs a hand over his face, three days of stubble making him look
dangerous even half-asleep, and grunts, opening the door wide enough to let
Dean in.
"How is she?"
"She's fine. Still sleeping. I bandaged her up, gave her some Advil, and put
her to bed." He sips his coffee, picks at the icing on his cherry-cheese
danish, and takes a deep breath before continuing. "There's a Planned
Parenthood clinic not too far from the house." Dean tries to avoid those places
as much as possible, but he always knows where they are, ever since a close
call he'd had with this girl named Cindy, when he was seventeen and the condom
broke. It was a false alarm; he's pretty sure there is no next generation of
Winchesters running around.
Dad nods, and Dean remembers the first and only other time they ever discussed
Sam's period, the day she first got it and freaked out, locked herself in the
bathroom and shrieked about how she hated everyone and everything and why
couldn't they be normal like other people? She'd been twelve, and Dean had felt
Mom's absence like a sharp, sudden pain flaring up after years of a dull,
steady ache. He feels it again now. If Mom was alive, they wouldn't be this,
wouldn't do this. If Mom was alive...
It's a pointless thought, one he tries not to indulge. Wishes are for little
kids and people who don't know better. He knows what's real, and that's what he
deals with. Anything else is just a sucker bet, a sure ticket to heartbreak. He
presses the heel of his hand to his forehead, trying to focus.
"Okay," Dad finally says, and Dean can tell he doesn't like it, either, but
neither of them ever back away from the hard things. "You take her this
afternoon, soon as we get back."
She shows up at the door then, hair in her eyes, moving stiffly. She smiles
gratefully when he hands her a cup of coffee, and sits down on the bed with a
sigh.
"Do you wanna tell me what happened out there last night?" Dad asks. "We've
discussed this before, and, you know, you could have been seriously hurt, or
worse."
"Do you think I don't know that?" She touches her injured shoulder.
"Don't take that tone with me, young lady. You're not too old for me to turn
you over my knee and tan your hide."
They've been hearing that threat almost as long as Dean can remember, but he
can count on one hand the times Dad's raised a hand to him in anger, and still
have fingers left over. And Sammy's never gotten spanked at all. Could be why
she's so mouthy.
Her mouth still has that stubborn set, but her voice is subdued when she says,
"Yes, sir. What happened last night is that my period arrived unexpectedly,
four days early. That whole part where it was unexpected and early is why I
didn't warn you."
"Sam." Dad's voice is a warning and a command.
"You ever hear of menstrual synchrony?" She pushes a hand through her hair.
"Girls who spend a lot of time together start to cycle together. And I just
started spending time with a whole new bunch of girls. Maybe if we didn't move
so much..."
Dad looks down at his cup of coffee, and Dean knows he's not imagining the
regret on his face. "Well, we do. Speaking of which, I hope you're packed and
ready to hit the road again. We're heading home as soon as you are."
Sam nods and sips her coffee, and for once doesn't say anything more.
In the car, Dean tells her where they're going, and she nods again. "I suppose
Dad's on board with this? Anything to make hunting easier."
"Safer. He's trying to make it safer for you. For all of us."
"Whatever." She crosses her arms over her chest and shrinks down in the seat,
mouth turned down in a frown.
"It'll make things easier for you, too," he says, trying to head off the
inevitable bitch session she's working up to.
"Yeah, I'm sure that's his first priority."
"Sammy--"
"It's not that I don't think it's a good idea. I just--I don't know how you
deal with him." She looks away, glares out the window at the snow-covered
houses, snowmen starting to go grey and slushy in the front yards. Then she
looks over at him, eyes bright and green, and he can see her brain working,
knows she's come up with some angle he and Dad haven't thought of when she
gives him the smile that never fails to make him worry, because it means she's
got some crazy idea she's going to try to talk him into, and she'll probably
succeed. Dammit.
"You know, every culture in the world has stories of sibling incest, and it's
not always forbidden," she says. And there it is, that word he's spent months
avoiding even thinking, lying between them like the body of that werewolf last
night, vicious and bloody and raw. "In ancient Egypt--"
He pounds the heel of his hand on the steering wheel. "Does this look like
ancient Egypt to you, Samantha? 'Cause I don't see any pyramids."
"No, but you're sure stuck in denial."
"That's not funny."
She gives him the puppy-dog eyes and the killer pout. "It's a little funny."
"It's really not." He grunts in frustration. "You're not the only one who can
use the internet, you know, and that's all bullshit. The Egyptians didn't
practice sibling marriage regularly. The Ptolemies did it sometimes, but they
weren't even really Egyptian. They were, like, Greek, or something."
"Macedonian," she says, "but that's not the point. The point is, it's only a
taboo because of genetics. And we're taking that out of the equation."
He doesn't answer--he doesn't have an answer, at least not one he can put into
words.
He puts a tape on, and they listen to Zeppelin for the rest of the drive.
*
They stay in Ames until Sam's done with junior year; she has a track meet on
her birthday, and Dad actually takes an afternoon off to drive two towns over
to watch her run. She wins, of course, her own races and then as the anchor on
the four hundred meter relay, glows with it afterward, when she catches Dean's
eye and smiles before rushing off with the team for pizza instead of
celebrating with them.
He and Dad go to the bar, and after a few beers, Dad gets a little sentimental.
"She's growing up," he says. "Sometimes, she reminds me so much of your
mother." He looks down at the ring on his finger, twists it slowly, something
he did a lot when he'd first started hunting, and Dean recognizes it as a way
of clinging to reality, of grounding himself after accepting all the weird shit
they see, handling the hard things, like how Sam's growing up, growing away
from them, and there's nothing they can do to stop her, hold her, keep her
safe, no matter how hard they try.
Dean gets involved in a game of pool, sticks around for a couple hours after
Dad leaves, and it's late when he stumbles home, a little drunker than he'd
anticipated.
Sam is waiting in his bed, half-asleep and still excited about her victories.
They whisper in the dark about it for a bit, in between kissing and petting,
and then he's inside her, letting himself drown in her, taste and feel and
scent, the hot, sweet flex of her cunt around him as she comes making him
breathless and desperate for his own orgasm, her voice strange and high and
keening before he remembers they're not alone in the house, and quiets her with
a kiss.
In the morning, Dad pulls him aside, says, "Look, I've mostly turned a blind
eye to what you do, as long as you're safe, and you treat those girls with
respect, but you can't bring anyone home, not while Sammy's in the house. You
know that."
Dean feels his stomach drop and his throat close up. He chokes on the mouthful
of coffee he's trying to swallow, and Dad pounds him on the back a couple
times, until he can speak again.
"Sorry, sir," he croaks. "I was a little lit last night. It won't happen
again."
"Good."
He offers to drive Sam to school, and Dad smiles, gives him a nod of approval,
but the tightness in his gut doesn't disappear, and as soon as they're in the
car he says, "We have to be more careful, Sammy. Dad heard us last night."
She pales, because for all her defiance, she's still Daddy's girl in the end,
and she knows how badly this whole thing could end for all of them if he finds
out.
Dean takes a deep breath, blurts, "Maybe we should just stop."
"No." Her answer is swift and absolute. "We'll just be more careful, like you
said. We can just...do it in the car, or something. It's not like we don't go
driving every afternoon, anyway."
It's exciting at first, adds another layer of hotness to the whole thing,
sneaking around, finding hidden places to park and fuck in the backseat, but
it's so much less than she deserves, and also freaking annoying and
uncomfortable after a few weeks.
By then, school is over and they're packing up again, heading out on the road,
despite Sam's bitching; Dad's denied her some SAT-prep course she swears will
raise her score by a hundred points, and she doesn't let it go for nearly a
thousand miles.
Dean doesn't mind the steady stream of complaints so much, though, because he
loves being on the road, on the hunt, and when they get back to the motel, he
and Sam are alone in their own room, just hanging out, watching Nick at Nite,
or HBO when it's available, and it's as close to happy as he can remember being
in a long time.
*
They spend weeks rooting out old ghosts on the east coast: a murdered pair of
honeymooners at a bed and breakfast in New Hampshire, a suicidal school teacher
in Maine, the vengeful spirit of an altar boy in Boston. Sam can't stop talking
about Harvard and MIT, and how many fucking colleges are there in this city
anyway, he thinks, but she takes to the whole college scene like a duck to
water.
Sam is usually disdainful of their fraudulent activities and refuses to dirty
her hands with them, but she's so eager to get into the libraries that she
actually helps him make false student IDs for each school. She's supposed to do
the majority of the research herself, while Dean and their father interview the
families of the current victims, but when Dean picks her up after a day at the
library, she's learned almost nothing about the altar boy, his family, or
anything else that's actually relevant to the case, even though he can see
she's filled pages in the spiral-bound notebook she's been using as a journal.
The next day, Dad goes to scope out the cathedral and sends Dean with Sam to
make sure she stays on mission, instead of getting sidetracked. They all avoid
talking about the open houses she's missed, the possibility that next year she
could actually be a student at one of these schools--Dad still thinks she'll do
what he says, and Dean keeps hoping she'll decide to stay.
Dean doesn't love research the way Sam does. It's another tool they use to
hunt, and he's good at it when he has to be, but he'd rather be back at the
motel with Dad's laptop, instead of in the library, where people give him nasty
looks when he talks a little too loud, and the concentrated silence makes his
skin itch. It's like church, in a way, and he's never been fond of that,
either.
Sam, on the other hand, disappears into the stacks like she's come home for the
first time in her life.
He gets tired of reading microfiche about the altar boy's suicide and the sick
fuck of a priest who probably drove him to it, and goes looking for Sam. She's
sitting at a table with a group of students, book open and pressed to her
chest, the way she gets when she's excited about something she's reading, and
they're all talking about something that has absolutely nothing to do with the
hunt. She looks beautiful, happy, like she belongs, and fear, sharp and sour in
the back of is throat, makes him queasy.
"Sam," he barks, low but meant to carry, and she jerks upright, face going
immediately blank, and even he can't read her when she wears that look. "Let's
go."
She smiles at the group of kids and says, "Sorry," as she gathers her stuff up
and joins him. "What's up with you? You're all cranky all of a sudden."
"This place. And this hunt. The whole thing is fucking creepy."
She nods and hums in agreement, and he knows she's not paying attention. He
slides an arm around her waist, whirls her into the stacks, her back against
the shelves, and kisses her, slow and soft. He loves that they can do this in
public here, where no one knows them, that they can pretend what they do is
normal, that it's as good as it feels. She sighs into his mouth, lays her palm
flat against his chest, over his heart, which is pounding, each beat the sound
of her name in his ears. He slides his lips up her jaw, nips at her ear, and
she curls her fingers in the thin cotton of his t-shirt to pull him as close as
she can, with her books cradled between them. She tips her head back so he can
kiss and lick her neck; he slides his thigh between hers and presses close, as
close as they can get in public, and it seems right somehow to be kissing her
surrounded by books with titles likeMadness and CivilizationandThe Archaeology
of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language, while she clutches a history of the
Cathedral of the Holy Cross in her arms.
A cough from behind makes them separate, and Sam blushes and smiles, hand
rising automatically to brush at her hair. Dean slaps her ass as they walk
away--she squeaks, and he laughs, and it's enough to make the fear subside for
the moment.
It flares up again in New York three weeks later. This time, she's twenty
minutes late for their meet-up, and he's nearly ready to call the cops as he
sits waiting in Washington Square Park.
He's left half a dozen angry messages in her voicemail ("I swear, I'm gonna
LoJack your ass, Sammy."), trying hard to keep his voice from breaking and
letting the fear ring through, and the feeling of helplessness is nearly
overwhelming by the time she comes rushing up, eyes wide and excited, face
flushed pink and damp in the summer heat. For no reason he can figure, she's
dressed in a navy blue skirt and a white shirt (wilted now from the humidity,
and unbuttoned far enough that he can see the tanned swell of her breasts), and
he can't decide if he should shake her or kiss her, so he does a little bit of
both, pulling her into a rough, one-armed hug and burying his face in her hair
for a second, inhaling the scent of sweat and Flex shampoo.
He wonders if she's met a guy--wonders where she's found the time--but when she
opens her bag to show him the folder full of photocopies and research on
various ghosts that allegedly haunt Beth Israel Hospital, he catches a glimpse
of the glossy brochures for NYU hiding amidst the paperbacks she carries
everywhere, and a different kind of fear twists in his gut.
When he pulls out the guide to student life at New York University, she says,
"Brittany Hall used to be a hotel, and there's rumors it's haunted."
"But it's not the job we're here for."
"No, but--" She bites her lip, gives him a pleading look. "My guidance
counselor gave me the name of a friend of hers, who gave me a tour of the
school, since Dad won't let me go to any open houses and--"
"Whatever," he says. He doesn't want to know, can't bear to think about it. He
knows Dad'll never let her go--their fights on the subject have been epic--but
he's not sure she won't just up and go anyway. "Don't be late again, or I'm
gonna hunt your ass down and beat it, you hear me?"
"Is that supposed to scare me?" she says, laughing, and he wonders how she can
be so blind.
"Yeah." He stands, wipes his sweaty palms on his jeans. "Let's go." He leads
her to the subway--they'd left the car and Dad's truck with a friend up in
Ossining--and God, he hates this fucking city, with its heat and humidity and
distinctive stench, and all these fucking people living on top of each other,
with no escape from the crowd except to sink deep into their own heads, a place
Dean's never liked to spend too much time in, himself.
The V train comes after eight or ten sticky minutes underground, and they get
on, pressed tight by the rush hour commuters; he leans back against the closed
door, slips an arm around her waist and pulls her tight against him. She
wriggles back, teasing, and he swallows hard, presses his hand against her
belly, fingers slipping between the buttons of her blouse to trace tiny circles
on warm skin. He grins when he hears her breath catch.
"The things I'm gonna do to you when we get back to the hotel," he whispers in
her ear. Her face, already flushed from the heat, goes a darker pink, and her
ass presses back against him in invitation. He slides his lips down her neck,
ignoring the disapproving stares from their fellow straphangers. He doesn't
care what other people think, never has, and here it matters even less--he kind
of likes how easy it is to be with her like this in a place where no one knows
them. Almost like the normal she wants so badly.
"Oh, yeah?" she answers, looking up at him in challenge, smile playing at the
corners of her mouth, which means he has to kiss her.
"Mmm...Gonna bend you over the desk and fuck you 'til you scream," he murmurs
against her temple as the train screams into Thirty-Fourth Street, taking the
hitch in her breathing as approval and anticipation. They tumble out of the
train, carried along by the torrent of commuters rushing for the railroad
downstairs.
They head up to the street, though, and she leads him by the hand, eager and
laughing, over to the hotel. Dad is off buying hard-to-find supplies somewhere
in Chinatown, and given past experiences, he's probably eating like a king at
some hole-in-the-wall dive with the best dim sum in the city, and won't be back
for hours. Which is good, because Dean can't keep his hands off Sam.
He doesn't know if it's fear or jealousy or some combination of the two, but as
soon as the door is shut, he's pulling her shirt out of her skirt so he can
slip his hands underneath to cup her breasts, feel her body respond to his
touch beneath the silky, cool material of her bra. She drops her backpack and
breaks the kiss only long enough to grab the hem of his t-shirt and yank it up,
as eager and desperate as he is. Maybe she's afraid, too--of leaving, of not
leaving, of things never again being as perfect as they are right now. He gets
tangled in the shirt for a second; she giggles when he can't quite get free
fast enough, but his grunt of frustration is changed into a moan by the feel of
her lips skating over his chest and belly, trailing heat, igniting need.
Hands finally free, he grabs her by the hips and turns her around. "Lean on the
desk," he says, voice low and rough, working his belt and zipper open.
She does what he says--God, he wishes she was that quick to take orders
everywhere else--rests her weight on her elbows and turns to watch him over her
shoulder, lips slightly parted and wet from his kisses, and he has to pause to
breathe, almost choked by the need rising in him. He reaches up under her skirt
to jerk her panties down, and she's wet, so wet for him.
He growls softly in approval, shoving his jeans down over his hips. He strokes
his slightly trembling fingers over her slick cunt, nudging her thighs wide
with his knee, his dick already in his other hand, aching to sink into her. She
makes a soft, high-pitched choking sound, so he does it again. He squeezes his
cock lightly, trying to keep control, and takes another deep breath; he licks
her wetness from his fingers, then slides them over her lips, her tongue
tickling his skin.
They don't usually fuck like this--he likes watching her face too much, likes
seeing her open up and come undone under his touch--and even though she's been
on the pill for months, and he hasn't been with anyone else since that night in
the warehouse, he's used a condom every time (No sense in taking chances,
Sammy), but right now, all he wants is to be inside her, to feel her and mark
her and make sure she knows she's his, the way he's hers, has been hers
forever.
He yanks her skirt up and pushes into her, hands on her hips holding her hard
and steady, whispering, "So good, Sammy, God, so fucking good," the cotton of
her shirt cool and dry against his skin in contrast to the wet heat of her
cunt. She bucks back against him when he doesn't move fast enough.
"Dean, please," she begs, one of her hands coming off the desk to grab one of
his and move it between her legs, rubbing frantically at her swollen clit. He
tries to remember to breathe. She's as desperate as he is, urging him
on,harder, Dean, please, her voice breaking on the words, the desk banging into
the wall in time with his thrusts, echoing the staccato rhythm of his heart and
her breath, the pulse of blood in their veins.
She clenches around him, shudders beneath him, gasping for air as she comes.
Her low moan shatters him, and he loses himself inside her, hips pumping
erratically and pleasure whiting out the world.
When he's done, he can barely stand, and she's trembling beneath him; he feels
amazing, accomplished, like he could march into hell and take on the devil
himself. He pulls back and she turns to face him, still shaky, blissful smile
on her face.
He sinks to his knees in front of her, pushes her back against the desk, and
leans in to lick at the sticky mess between her thighs, earning a gasp and the
dull sting of her hands fisting in his hair and pulling tight, blunt nails
scraping his scalp. He tastes himself and Sam and both of them mingled
together, SamandDean, inseparable, bitter and secret, like the salt in the
ocean, the salt in their blood, keeping out everything but themselves, binding
them together against the world.
His fingers dig into the firm flesh of her thighs, and she thrusts against his
mouth with a hoarse, wild cry that sends heat shivering through him, makes his
dick ache for another round. He licks and sucks until she comes a second time,
slower and deeper, his name a prayer on her lips.
She slides down into his lap gracelessly, loose-limbed and well fucked, and he
lays her down on the tacky hotel carpeting and covers her body with his body,
her mouth with his mouth in a soft, sloppy kiss. She holds him close, cradles
him between her thighs, one warm, long-fingered hand coming down between them
to curl around his cock and stroke until he falls apart again.
She keeps her arms wrapped around him, hides her face against his neck, and he
can tell she's half-asleep already. He wants to stay this way forever, but he
knows they can't, have to clean up, change, do laundry. Air the room out and
hope Dad doesn't come back for a good long while.
He knows they can't stay like this, they won't stay like this, but for a few
minutes, while she's clinging close instead of pushing away, he holds her, and
wishes they could.
*
By the end of summer, they're settled again, in a cute little bungalow painted
pink and orange, just outside of Tampa, where a series of mysterious deaths at
MacDill Air Force Base have pinged Dad's radar.
The unspoken truce between Sam and Dad deteriorates when school starts, and
it's not helped by the fact that she and Dean no longer have the safety of
their own room, or a lot of time alone together. Neither of them deals well
with frustration, and Sam is bitchier than usual when she doesn't fit in right
away at her new school, and has to fight to be put into AP Physics.
Dean finds work as a barback--they're pretty flexible when he needs nights off
to hunt, and it leaves his afternoons free to do research or whatever else Dad
needs from him, which is mostly run interference with Sammy.
It seems like Dad and Sam have the same argument every day; the only thing that
changes is when it happens. Today, it impinges on a very pleasant dream of
Jessica Alba, and he's pissed he didn't get to the part where she was naked
before Sam's voice wakes him up.
"It's my senior year. Can we please stay the whole time? I'd like to be able to
make friends and graduate with them."
"You know I can't promise you anything, Sammy. We go where the hunt takes us."
"That is such bullshit, Dad!"
"Don't take that tone with me, young lady."
"That's bullshit, too. You shift the argument to my tone because you know I'm
right and you just can't admit it."
Dean stumbles out of bed and into the kitchen, but he's not in time to defuse
things.
"Samantha Winchester, I am still your father and you will speak to me with
respect, do you hear me? No television and no telephone for a week, and you'll
do extra PT in the morning with me before school."
"Fine! Do you think I care about any of that when you won't give me the money
to send in my college applications?"
"For once in your life, Sam, think of other people," Dean says, and the words
leave the sour taste of fear, of betrayal, in his mouth. "Think of all the
people we help."
"I don't think it's selfish to want a safe, normal life," she snaps at him,
then turns back to Dad. "And I don't see why helping other people is more
important than helping your own kids. Don't you want us to have any kind of
future?"
"It's because I want to keep you safe that we live like this," Dad yells. "You
know what's out there as well as I do, missy. The safety 'normal' people have
is an illusion, and you know that, too. I don't see how a smart girl like you
can be so blind, so stupid. That's not how I raised you."
"No, you raised me to lie and steal and hunt werewolves. Sorry if I don't think
it's a fair trade. The only thing I have--"
Dean interrupts before she can say something they'll all regret. "How can you
sleep at night knowing someone else's family could end up like ours, and that
we could have stopped it but didn't? None of us asked for this, Sammy, but
someone's sure as hell got to step up and take it on."
She folds her arms across her chest, hurt flashing across her face at his
treachery. "Maybe someone does," she says. "But it's not going to be me."
"As long as you live under my roof, you'll live by my rules, Samantha. And that
includes hunting." Which is the worst thing Dad can say, and he knows it as
well as Dean does, but he can't ever seem to stop himself, even though it backs
Sam into a corner.
And she comes out swinging, claws unsheathed, knowing exactly how to draw blood
in the way that hurts the most.
"Well, I won't be for much longer," she says. "I won't be here, and I won't
need to follow your rules, ever again."
She grabs her backpack and stomps out of the house before either he or Dad can
say anything else.
Dad sits down with a defeated sigh, and cradles his head in his hands.
"I don't know what we're gonna do with her," Dean says after a long silence.
"Keep her safe," Dad answers. "And worry about the rest later."
And they exchange sad, tense smiles that make Dean feel like he's putting a
band-aid over a sucking chest wound.
*
When he gets home from work that night, he slips into her room.
"Sam, Sam, Sammy," he whispers, tapping the bottoms of her feet (he has a vague
memory of Mom teaching him to wake her this way as a baby, small fingers
tickling at even smaller toes, and getting a burbling laugh in response), and
she rolls over, stretches lazily.
"Hey." She grins, reaches out to pull him down into bed with her, but he evades
her hands.
"You gotta cut Dad a break, Sammy."
She sits up, mouth going hard and set. "Dean--"
"I'm serious, Sam." He rubs a hand over his eyes, tired from long nights of
work and days of scanning newspapers and the internet for something to hunt
while Dad concentrates on the Air Force thing. "We couldn't afford to send you
to college, even if it was safe."
"There's such a thing as scholarships, Dean, and financial aid. Loans and--"
"And getting the government in our business? Is that what you want?"
"Maybe if you weren't goddamn criminals--"
He sucks in a breath, tries not to let the hurt show. "Sam--"
"I'm sorry, but it's true." She doesn't sound sorry at all.
He nods, has to unclench his fists and his jaw, but he manages to find an even
tone when he speaks. "It is, but it's also what's kept a roof over your head
and food in your stomach, and let me tell you something, sister, that shit
don't come cheap. And I don't see you working an honest job to help out,
either."
"That's not--"
"Don't say it's not fair, Sam. I swear to God, just do not say it."
She looks away, fingers picking at the blankets. "Dean--"
"Have a good night," he says, and walks away before either of them can say
anything else.
*
He picks her up from school the next day, part of Dad's way of punishing her,
and when she tries to cajole him into the backseat, sliding her hand up the
inside of his thigh and sucking on his earlobe, he knows it's an apology of
sorts, but he pulls away, tells her no.
She crosses her arms over her chest and sulks, but he doesn't give in. Not
right away, anyway. They both know he can't hold a grudge to save his life, not
against her, but he's got to make some small show of strength, or she'll just
walk all over him, and he can't have that.
Again that night, he goes to her room when he gets home from work, his own
version of an apology, slips into bed beside her and kisses her awake.
"Dean, what--"
"Shh," he whispers, putting a hand over his mouth. "We can't do this if Dad
finds out. You have to be very quiet."
She mutters something that sounds like, "Hunting rabbits?" and he takes his
hand away so he can laugh into her mouth.
"Think of it as a game," he whispers in her ear, hand back in place over her
mouth, other hand lazily stroking over her skin, exposed by the tank top she's
sleeping in. "I'm going to try to make you scream, but you win if you don't.
And I know how much you like to win, Sammy." His hand dips beneath her top to
brush the swell of her breasts, and then he slips down the bed to follow the
same path with his lips.
Her breathing is harsh and ragged, and she makes some soft, choking sounds when
he nips at the inside of her thigh, marking the smooth skin there, then
soothing the sting away with his tongue. He brushes his fingers over the soaked
cotton of her panties, enjoying the way she shivers at the touch, before he
slips them down to her ankles and off. Her legs fall open and his fingers find
the spot on the back of her knees where she's ticklish. She squirms and
whimpers, but too soft for the sound to carry far.
He mouths her gently, taking his time, breathing in her scent, savoring the
taste. She gives a low, impatient growl, and he laughs against her, soft puffs
of his breath making her hips lift.
"Tease," she hisses at him, and he laughs again, hooking her legs over his
shoulders, thumbs stroking the backs of her knees again briefly, then holding
her open so he can suck her swollen clit into his mouth.
She arches up, letting loose a strangled moan, and all thought of Dad or
getting caught is forgotten, because he wants to make her fall apart, wants to
hear her call out his name when she comes. She's apparently forgotten, too,
because she moans again, and it sounds terrifyingly loud in the silence.
They both freeze when they hear the creak of the bedroom door down the hall.
"Fuck." Dean jumps up off the bed, silently offers thanks to the universe that
the house only has one floor and swings himself out the window, into the
hydrangeas, just as Dad pushes into Sam's room without knocking, shotgun at the
ready. Dean leans against the side of the house and peers in, holding his
breath.
"Sammy? You okay?"
Sam's got the sheet pulled up to her neck and she's staring at Dad in horror.
"I'm fine," she says breathlessly, covering her face with her hand as if she's
embarrassed. "I was... I just... I had a nightmare." Her voice is a high squeak
and the words tumble out too quickly, too obviously untrue, and Dean bites back
a groan. She's usually a much better liar than this, even to Dad. Maybe
especially to Dad. She sounds young and scared, and it's his fault, which is
something he's always tried to avoid. He braces himself for whatever's coming
next.
There's a long pause where it's obvious Dad is doing the math and coming up
with an answer that is not something he needs a shotgun for, though now he
probably wishes it were. Finally, he says, "Oh. Okay," gratefully grabbing onto
the lie Sam's offering. Dean can't make out Dad's face in the darkness, but he
sounds more freaked than Dean's ever heard him, except for the first time Sam
got her period, and Dean has to bite back a bubble of hysterical laughter. Dad
pats the dream-catcher hanging over her bed, avoids looking at her, and says,
"Nothing's gonna getcha while I'm around, Sammy." He backs out of the room
slowly, as if facing a dangerous, unknown creature instead of his seventeen-
year-old daughter. "If you're all right, I'm just gonna go back to bed."
Sam nods and smiles tightly. "Okay. Sorry I woke you!"
Dean sags against the wall and breathes a sigh of relief. He crawls back into
the room but shakes his head when Sam reaches out to him. This was too fucking
close for him to feel anything but fear, sour as bile in the back of his
throat. He presses a kiss to her forehead instead, and heads to his own bed. He
can still taste her on his lips, salty and earthy and everything that's ever
meant anything to him, and he knows it has to stop, because there's no way it
can end well if they don't end it themselves, sooner rather than later.
Knowing doesn't make sleeping any easier, and he's still awake when the sky
lightens with the gray of dawn.
He doesn't prepare any arguments, because he knows she can talk circles round
him when she gets going, knows she doesn't even have to talk to get him to do
what she wants in the end, and he knows she knows it, too. So, he makes the
decision and swears he's going to stick to it, no matter what she says.
What she says is, "You can't break up with me, dumbass. I'm your sister." Her
voice is low and furious, but he glances around anyway, hoping no one can hear
her over the cheesy top forty crap blaring through the diner's speakers. She
flings a French fry down into her plate in disgust.
"Yeah, and that's kinda the problem. Last night, if Dad had caught us--"
"So, you want to stop because you're afraid of Dad, or because you think it's
wrong? Or is there some other reason you're not sharing?"
"Yes. All of that. It's wrong, and also, I would rather not have to face the
business end of Dad's shotgun when he finds out, and if we keep going like
this, he will find out."
"Dean--" Her eyes are wide and hurt, but he forces himself not to give in.
"Look, it's not like you weren't planning on ditching me for college anyway,
right?" She scowls at him, but doesn't deny it. He ignores the sharp ache in
his chest, knows it'll ease eventually. "We have to stop, Sammy. It's not
right, and it's only going to hurt worse the longer we let it go on." She opens
her mouth to argue, but he says, "Don't, Sam. Please. I've never asked you for
anything, but I'm asking you for this."
She looks like she's going to cry, and he knows (and he's pretty sure she
knows) that if she does, he'll give in. But she sucks in a shaky breath, takes
a long sip of her soda, and says, "I can't believe you thought buying me dinner
would make this okay."
He leans back, tries to act casual, grateful that her aversion to being stared
at keeps her from making a scene in public. It's what he'd banked on when he
offered to take her to dinner ("Ooh, like a date? I've never been on a date,
Dean." That had made him feel even worse, but he'd gritted his teeth and said,
"Not like a date, brat. Like dinner."). He takes a deep breath and says, "If
you're not gonna eat those fries, Sammy, pass 'em over here."
She blinks, sniffs once, and shoves her plate across the table.
They don't talk on the ride home. She locks herself in her bedroom with her
books and her homework, and he sits down at the table to clean his guns, and he
wonders why doing the right thing makes him feel so lousy.
*
It was weird when they started, and it's weird now that they've stopped. Dean's
gotten so used to being able to touch her, kiss her, fuck her, and now he can't
do any of those things. Sometimes, he thinks about telling her to forget it, he
didn't mean it, he never wanted to stop, and please can they start again? But
he can't. He won't.
She disappears from the breakfast table just as he stumbles into the kitchen,
and comes to the dinner table worn out from track and whatever hand-to-hand
Dad's drilling her in afterward. She's silent and shadow-eyed for a few weeks,
mouth twisting in a sad, jaded smile when Dad asks how she's feeling. She sits
on the far end of the couch now, or lies on the floor when they watch
television, instead of cuddling up with Dean and sharing the bowl of popcorn.
He throws himself into hunting--Dad is glad of the backup, and Florida is full
of freaky shit that keeps them busy. They take Sam with them sometimes--she's
gotten good at knowing which battles to fight and which to let pass, and she's
turning into a skilled hunter, as much as she'd like to deny it. Dean's less
nervous each time--he knows she can take care of herself, and he and Dad are
there if something goes wrong--but that sick feeling in his stomach never quite
goes away, that worry that something's going to happen to her and he's not
going to be able to stop it.
Maybe college really would be better--safer--for her. That thought makes him a
little queasy, too, and not just because it's a betrayal of Dad and everything
he's raised them to be, but because he knows, suddenly, he knows, with a
certainty he's been trying to ignore, that she's going to leave. Maybe he's
always known it.
He's making pretty decent money, taking extra shifts so he doesn't have to hang
around the house and watch Sam avoid him, and one night he sneaks into her room
while she's sleeping, slips two hundred dollars into her paperback copy ofThe
Sound and the Fury--he doesn't know what the deal is with applications and test
fees, but more money's always better than less. And maybe if they spend some
time apart, get some distance between them, her feelings will fade, and she'll
find someone else to love. He's pretty sure his feelings aren't going anywhere;
everything he is, is all wrapped up in Sam and has been since the day they
brought her home from the hospital seventeen years ago. He tightens his fist at
the thought, nearly rips the back of the book off at the thought of her with
anyone else, but that's the only kind of normal he has to give her.
She rolls over, murmurs, "Dean?"
He swallows hard, whispers, "I'm here, Sammy." He brushes the hair back from
her forehead, leans close to breathe her in and press a kiss to her temple.
"Okay." She settles back into sleep and he watches her for a few minutes before
he goes to his own room and reminds himself that he's doing the right thing.
*
They're after a poltergeist in Jacksonville this time, so she sits and reads
while Dean drives, the squeak of her highlighter against the glossy pages of
her textbook loud and accusing in the unaccustomed silence.
He turns on the radio to drown her out, and that damn Santana song with the guy
from that lame band Sam likes comes on.
"Man, Santana really sold out with this shit," he says.
"I like it."
"You would."
"It's fun." She taps her highlighter against her teeth. "It's got a good beat
and you can dance to it. Dick."
He shoots her a glance. She's smirking at him. He can't help but grin back.
"It's no 'Black Magic Woman.'" He has good memories of that song on the radio
while Melissa Greeley went down on him in the parking lot of Woodrow Wilson
High School his junior year. Probably smarter not to mention that right now,
though.
"And thank God for that."
"You just don't know good music when you hear it, Sammy."
"Whatever. Just because I like things that were recorded after I was born
doesn't mean I don't know what's good." He grunts, and she slides a glance in
his direction. "You know, he collaborated with Eric Clapton on that album,
too." Says it like she's laying down the winning hand in a poker game. Says it
like she's interested in teasing him again, in having a conversation, instead
of the way it's been the past few weeks.
"Well, maybe it doesn't completely suck," he concedes, and feels something ease
in his chest when she laughs.
*
They spend the holidays with Pastor Jim again, and Dean kind of digs the
tradition, though he'd never tell anyone that. He knows Sam likes it, too; she
and Pastor Jim have long talks about books and philosophy and stuff Dean
pretends not to be interested in, because that's Sammy's thing, and he knows
she likes having something that's hers and no one else's.
They head west this time, land in Pocatello just in time to get Sam enrolled in
her last semester of high school. Dad's unsure at first if they're even going
to stay, so they end up living in a two-bedroom suite at the Thunderbird Motel
for a couple of months, and by that point it's not even worth renting an
apartment, Dad says, since they're going to be leaving after Sam graduates,
anyway.
Dean works as a day laborer on a construction site near the university, but he
and Dad both spend most of their time hunting--lots of restless spirits up this
way, and a lot of miles logged between hunts and what's passing for home these
days. When they're not hunting, he goes to the bars--it's a university town,
and there are always frat boys to fleece and sorority girls to fuck, and it's
so easy to lose himself in their sweet-smelling hair and supple bodies, and
walk away after without a backward glance.
If Sam notices, she doesn't say anything. No smart remarks, no teasing, no
disgusted looks at breakfast. He should be glad he doesn't have to deal with
her shit, but he kind of misses it.
He tries not to think of what else he misses, not now that they've come out the
other side and things have started to settle into some kind of normal between
them. He'd thought, when he'd made the decision, that that was the hard part,
but a two-bedroom suite isn't really big enough to give them any kind of
distance. They're still together more often than not, and it's hard not to
reach out and pull her into his lap when they're watching "Behind the Music,"
hard not to not climb in bed with her when he hears her tossing and turning
restlessly at night, especially when he knows a surefire cure for her insomnia.
It's easier, then, to spend his nights elsewhere, even if sometimes it feels
like a betrayal.
He gets into fights occasionally, because he sometimes forgets that the frat
boys don't like losing both their girls and their money all at the same time,
and he comes on a little strong. One night a couple months after they arrived
in Pocatello, he's washing up after a fight (big, lumbering jock type, thought
he could overpower Dean, who used his own strength against him), running cold
water over his bruised knuckles and shaking his head at the drunken stupidity
of certain members of his gender, when he hears Sam crying in the bedroom. The
sound stops him dead, makes his stomach drop and his gorge rise.
He dries his hands quickly and moves into the bedroom.
"Sam, Sam, Sammy," he whispers, sitting down on the bed beside her. "What's
wrong?" He expects her to brush him off, so he's kind of shocked when she
flings herself into his lap and starts sobbing against his chest.
He grabs the box of tissues off the nightstand and feeds them to her two and
three at a time, and she clings to him the way she used to when she was little
and was afraid Dad wasn't going to come home from a hunt. He rubs circles on
her back, trying to calm her down, and buries his face in her hair, breathing
her in.
"Baby, what's wrong?" he asks again when her sobs have tailed off into hiccups
and whimpers.
"There's this girl, Kathy, at school," she whispers, head still tucked beneath
his chin, and he braces himself. Sam hasn't gotten picked on much since middle
school--she's good at fitting in, at making friends, making herself invisible
if she has to be, all the things Dean never quite managed when he was in
school. "She's on the track team, too, does the long jump and the pole vault."
She reaches for another tissue, blows her nose, and tosses it at the garbage
pail. She misses, and they both ignore it. "You'd like her. She's almost as
tall as I am, but busty. She's got red hair and blue eyes and legs...." She
trails off, and he feels like he's missing an important piece of the puzzle.
"So, what? You both like the same guy and he chose her?" he guesses, ignoring
the curl of jealousy in his belly at the thought of Sam liking some guy, and
anger at the idea of the guy not liking her back. "Guys are stupid, you know.
Think with our downstairs brains all the time. I can beat him up for you, if
you want."
"No," she chokes out, and starts sobbing again.
He keeps rubbing her back. He hates crying women, even when it's not his fault
they're crying, and a crying Sammy is about ten million times worse, especially
since he still doesn't know what's wrong. Or how to fix it.
"Okay, okay. I won't beat him up. You want that satisfaction yourself, huh?"
She gets hold of herself a second time, scrubs at her face with the back of her
hand. "No," she says. She won't look at him, stares down at the soggy, snotty
mess of tissues in her fist. "There's no guy."
"Okay, so, what? Did this Kathy chick insult your hair? Get a higher grade on
her English paper? Gimme a little help here, Sammy."
"What's wrong with my hair?" It's weak, but the fact that she made the effort
is good. She still won't look at him, though, and that worries him more than
anything.
"You're getting a little shaggy," he starts, and she grunts and thwacks him
one, which is another good sign.
"You're such a jerk."
"Yeah, but I'm your jerk," he says, and that gets him a teary smile. "Come on,
Sammy, spill."
"We're--me and Kathy--we were friends. She was really nice to me when I started
school here, and we ate lunch together, and her locker is next to mine in the
girls' locker room, so we used to change together, and she would, when we
changed, I thought she was--" She starts shredding the wad of tissues she's
holding. "I thought she was flirting with me, and I liked her, and I tried to
kiss her, and now she thinks I'm a ginormous freak." That sets her off again,
even though he'd have thought she was all cried out.
And then what she's said sinks in, and he rests his chin on the top of her head
and tries to process it.
"Okay," he says, mouth on autopilot while his brain catches up. "Okay. So. I
normally don't hit chicks--well, unless they're evil--but we could totally
prank her. Break into her house, put some Nair in her shampoo or something.
Does she have a car? We could set her car on fire."
She pushes away, hits him again, flat of her palm against his chest. "Don't you
understand? She's going to tell the whole school I'm some kind of lesbian
freak."
"Well, you're definitely a freak, Sammy, but I got my doubts about the lesbian
thing. You like dick too much to be totally gay." He stops, horrified that he
actually said it out loud, and she makes a choking sound that might be laughter
or might be disgust. He can't seem to stop talking. "Though I guess it would
explain all the angry chick rock."
Another thump to his chest, and it's okay, because better an angry Sammy than a
crying one. "Dean."
And yeah, okay, he certainly shouldn't know that about his kid sister, and he
probably shouldn't have said it, either, but it's true.
At least, he thinks it is.
He swallows hard, stomach dropping in sudden fear. "Sam. Sammy. You liked it,
right? I didn't--It wasn't--I never meant to hurt--" Theyougets swallowed when
she kisses him, fierce and desperate, all wet heat and tongue and salt-sharp
saliva. He closes his eyes, kisses her back with that same desperation, and
God, maybe there really is something wrong with him, but he's missed this,
missed her, the way she tastes and smells and feels when they're this close
together and nothing can get between them.
"You never did," she whispers against his mouth, shifting so she can straddle
him. "You never would."
He wishes he could be that sure.
It's so easy to hold her, to hold on, to slip his hands up under the t-shirt
she's wearing to feel warm skin beneath his fingertips, as she rolls her hips
and breathes in his gasp of relief.
It's her turn to gasp when he slides his hands around, thumbs brushing the
undercurves of her breasts, and he pulls back, lifts her off his lap and onto
the bed. Forces himself to say, "Sam, we can't."
"Even you don't want me anymore. I know you've been fucking around again," she
says in a low, bitter voice, wrapping her arms around herself. "I'm a freak."
"Yeah, but you're my freak." He forces a grin, trying to cajole an answering
grin out of her.
Her mouth doesn't even twitch. "It's easy for you, isn't it?"
"None of this is easy for me," he answers, possibly the most honest he's ever
been with her while he's not fucking her, letting his body say all the things
he can't. He cups her cheek and she turns her face, presses a kiss to his palm.
She takes his hand, slides her lips down to rest warm and wet on his wrist,
between the bracelets she gave him for his birthday. His breath hitches, and he
says, "Sam."
"It can be easy," she says, then touches her tongue to his pulse. "As easy as
this." She pulls him close, and he lets her, lets himself lean into her, press
her back against the pillows, fitting between her legs like he belongs there.
Because she's right--this has always been the easy part, the part where it's
just him and her against the darkness.
Her skin tastes like tears, like salt poured to protect them both. This is as
close as he comes to true prayer--whispering her name against her lips--and to
belief--in the heat of her cunt surrounding him, the shift and shudder of her
muscles as they move together, and the arch of her back when she comes keening
into his mouth.
He cradles her close when they're done, and she's asleep before he can even
start to regret letting himself fall into her again, four months of trying to
keep his hands to himself swept away by her tears.
*
As far as Dean knows, Sam's shunning only lasts about a week--some new scandal
comes along to capture the attention of the kids at Hillsborough High, and
Sam's back to being that weird girl on the track team. At least, that's what
she tells him. She occasionally talks about another girl on the team, Stacy or
Tracy or something, and someone named Taylor from her AP History class, but she
never mentions Kathy again, and he doesn't ask.
He's sure now that she's planning to leave, has seen the fat envelopes stuffed
into her backpack--of course, they all want her; why wouldn't they? She's
practically a freaking genius. He'd never tell her how awesome that is, but he
brags sometimes, to the guys he works with, to Bobby, to Pastor Jim. To Dad
once or twice, who grins and claps his shoulder proudly. He catches her filling
out forms once, but he doesn't ask about that either, and she doesn't volunteer
anything. She closes herself off to him now, more than ever before, and he
wonders if she's doing it for his protection or her own; either way, it's only
making things worse as far as he's concerned.
He spends more time now training her, hours spent drilling her in hand-to-hand,
always her weakest area, because if he's not going to be around to protect her,
he needs to know she can protect herself.
Of course, protecting her has been hardwired into his brain, so the next time
Dad takes them hunting--skinwalker in Reno--she freezes for just a second and
Dean shoves her down, engages the thing himself. It tosses him like a ragdoll
before Dad pumps its heart full of silver, and Dean can feel his ribs crack,
the agony making him black out.
He loses the next few days in a haze of pain and narcotics, but he remembers
the determined set of Dad's jaw, the scared, pinched look on Sam's paper white
face, the sudden paleness making her eyes startlingly green. He remembers the
ridiculously cheerful ER doctor babbling on about the possibility of a
punctured lung that, thankfully, never does materialize, and who sends him home
with a prescription for painkillers and admonitions to rest and let himself
heal, and to be more careful on his motorcycle.
Sam slips into bed with him when she gets home from school each afternoon, the
long line of her body pressing warm and soft against his good side, and it
hurts a little less to breathe when she's there, though he can't tell her that.
"I'm fine," he lies, but she doesn't believe him, doesn't go away, so it's
okay. It's worth the pain to be able to wrap an arm around her shoulders and
hold her close, to be able to fall asleep and wake up beside her without
feeling like it's wrong in any way.
Dad takes off to handle a black dog up in Great Falls that Saturday morning,
and for the first time ever, before he goes, he hands the shotgun to Sam and
says, "Watch out for your brother, will you?"
She squares her shoulders and takes the gun with a solemn look. "Yes, sir," she
says, and for once, there's no anger or mockery in her tone.
Dean's propped up against some pillows, clicking through the channels, milking
the situation for all it's worth. He makes Sammy bring him sodas with bendy
straws, and generally orders her around until she snaps, "You need me to help
you take a piss, too?" and throws a pillow at his head.
"Cranky girl," he says, catching the pillow and tucking it under his good arm.
"I have the perfect cure."
"I'm not cranky," she lies. "I'm just tired. Some of us haven't been lying
around on our asses for the past four days. Some of us were worried about our
stupid, overprotective brothers."
"You were worried? Oh, Sammy, that's so sweet," he teases, but the warmth in
his chest isn't from the pain or the drugs. "Don't you know I'm
indestructible?"
She rolls her eyes. "Then you don't need me waiting on you hand and foot. Maybe
I'll go to the library."
"It's Saturday," he says, scandalized. "No books or homework or geeky shit
today, Sammy. I have something way better planned."
She cocks her hip, rests a hand on it, looks like every waitress in every diner
they've ever eaten dinner in, which makes him smile. "Oh, yeah?"
He hits TNT just as the voiceover comes on. "Yeah." He gestures towards the
television. "Star Wars marathon."
She laughs in disbelief. "You just said, 'no geeky shit,' Dean."
"Nothing geeky about Han Solo. Or Princess Leia in that bikini."
"Uh huh."
She comes close enough for him to grab her wrist--so strong and still so
delicate--and pull her down onto the bed next to him. He grimaces when the
bounce of the mattress jogs his ribs, but then she settles in, her head on his
shoulder and her hand resting lightly on his belly. The familiar words scroll
up the screen, and there's no place else he'd rather be right now than here.
*
Sam graduates from Hillsborough High three weeks after her eighteenth birthday.
Dad takes them out to dinner to celebrate. They didn't do much for her
birthday--Dad was gone on a hunt with Caleb, and Sam herself was buried in
studying for finals. Dean couldn't really understand that--she'd already got
the whole college thing in the bag, so it's not like those grades mattered, but
Sammy's grades junkie, through and through.
She and Dad had actually agreed to postpone the celebration without any
shouting. Dean's still worried one or the other of them might be possessed.
They dress up and go out for graduation--Dad's in a jacket and tie, and Dean's
got on his nice khakis and a blue button down shirt Sam picked up for him at
the Gap for his birthday and has bitched at him for not wearing since, and
she's got a sleeveless yellow dress on, with a skirt that shows off way too
much leg. Every eye in the place follows her as the maître d' leads them to a
table, and Dean's torn between being proud and wanting to hide her away,
because this is it, this is the big deal. She's eighteen and she's a high
school graduate--she can be whatever she wants now, and he knows the last thing
she wants to be is Sam Winchester, demon hunter.
Once they're settled at the table, Dad orders a bottle of wine and pours some
for each of them.
Dean raises his glass and says, "I'm proud of you, Sammy."
They clink glasses, delicate crystal chiming like bells, and Dad looks startled
for a second before he says, "Me, too."
Sam flushes pink and laughs, lips bright with wine and lipstick, the happiest
Dean's seen her in a long time. Maybe this will work, he thinks. Maybe we can
make this work.
But Dad's never been one to let the moment stand, or maybe he's just oblivious,
so focused on the hunt that he can't let it go, even for one night. "We're
leaving for Green Bay in the morning," he says. "Caleb has a job for us. Said
it might be a water wraith."
Sam sets her glass down hard, her wine swirling dangerously and her smile
disappearing. Dean forces himself not to flinch. Instead, he catches the
waiter's eye and calls him over.
"What are the specials?" he asks, though he knows he's probably just going to
order steak.
The tension defused for the moment, Dean takes a sip of wine and starts
mentally cataloguing what needs to be packed and what can be left behind. It
keeps him calm while he waits for Sam to explode. He won't be sorry to leave
Pocatello and that goddamn motel room. It'll be nice to be back on the road,
doing what they do best.
They make it through dinner without a fight, though Dad drinks too much wine
and Sam barely cracks a smile, even though Dean's totally working the charm.
They decide to skip coffee and dessert, because Sam can't open her gift in
public, anyway. On his way home from work, Dean had picked up a couple of CDs
he thinks she'll like, as well, and a carton of ice cream. It'll be more than
enough.
Back at the motel, Dad slips his tie off and pours himself some scotch, while
Dean puts the ice cream out to soften and sets the coffee brewing. He digs
Sam's presents out of the hiding place and hands the big one to her with a
grin.
She laughs at the Star Wars wrapping paper, and tears it open slowly, frown of
concentration on her face.
The box is fine wood, and when she flips it open, the scythe is nestled against
green felt, blade sharp and gleaming.
"You know," she says, standing and dropping the box onto the table, "I have an
Amazon wishlist. This wasn't on it." She stalks into her bedroom and slams the
door shut behind her.
"That went well," he mutters, still holding the wrapped box with the CDs in his
hand.
Dad looks like he can't decide if he wants to start yelling or finish his
drink.
Dean gets up, puts a hand on his shoulder, and says, "She'll come around." The
lie tastes bitter on his tongue, but he forces it out. "I'm just gonna--" He
jerks his head towards the door and Dad nods. He's pouring another two fingers
of scotch into his glass when Dean walks out.
Dean doesn't know how long he sits outside, the glass of the windshield warm
against his back, the stars popping out as the night falls. He doesn't know why
he doesn't just get in the car and drive away. He's thinking about it, watching
the lightning bugs fly around the motel parking lot and listening to the
crickets hum, when Sam comes outside. She's still in her yellow dress, looks
like a lit candle in the twilight.
"So you know that episode of 'Star Trek' with the mirror universe, where you
can tell Spock is evil because he's got a goatee?" she says, sliding up onto
the car next to him. He nods once. "Would you believe me if I told you that
that was evil Sam from an alternate universe in there?"
"You don't have a goatee."
"The goatee is a metaphor."
He laughs, can't help it, can't stay mad at her. "Seen weirder shit," he says,
nodding again. He glances over at her and she's smiling sheepishly, like she
really is sorry.
"It's a beautiful knife. Thank you."
"We had it made special. Caleb has a friend who makes really cool weapons. You
should see some of the shit on his website."
She nods, and lays her head on his shoulder. They sit in comfortable silence
for a little bit, staring up at the stars.
"Take me for a ride, Dean."
"Dad?"
"He's got Johnny Walker keeping him company tonight."
"Whose fault is that?"
She sighs. "Dean, please?"
He growls low in annoyance at her, at himself for not being able to say no to
her. "Fine. Get in the car."
"Can I drive?" She slides off the hood, practically bouncing.
Well, except on this one topic. "No."
"Dean--"
"No."
Another sigh. "Fine."
He takes her for ice cream, even though there's a perfectly good carton of
vanilla fudge ripple back at the motel. Instead of heading straight back
afterwards, he pulls into a secluded area behind the strip mall, and turns the
car off.
When he kisses her, she tastes of cold and chocolate, and she laughs into his
mouth. She cups his face with sticky fingers, and he sucks each one into his
mouth, licking them clean as she giggles. She slides into his lap and they
spend some quality time making out. He thinks he could do this forever, just
him and Sam in the car, slick wet slide of tongue and lip against soft,
sensitive skin, the gasp and moan and whisper of her voice speaking his name,
and the low growl of her name in his mouth when he tells her how beautiful she
is, and how much he wants her.
"Backseat," he says hoarsely, and watches as she swings her long legs over the
back of the front seat to get there, skirt riding up to show him her panties.
She scoots back against the door and he kneels between her thighs.
He goes slow, dragging her dress up her body, raising goosebumps and kissing
them away. He pulls it off, tosses it onto the front seat, and does the same
with her bra. His shirt follows, still buttoned and yanked up over his head in
impatience to feel her skin warm against his with nothing in between.
Once he has that, though, he takes his time, presses long, lingering kisses to
her mouth, her neck, her tits. Her hands stroke over his shoulders and back,
and she asks questions she already knows the answers to.
"Where'd this one come from?" she asks, thumbing the thin, white-pink line of a
scar on her bicep.
He leans in to trace his tongue over it. "Black dog, down in Abilene. Knocked
you out of the way when you froze."
She folds her leg up and points to the small scar bisecting her kneecap. "This
one?"
"You fell off your bike when you were twelve. There was glass in the street,
cut right through your jeans." He runs the tip of his tongue over the mark,
remembering the blood on her skin, the taste of it on his lips--though she was
too old by then to believe anyone could kiss it better, he still wanted to, and
she still let him. "Scared the shit out of me." He holds her leg there, blows a
raspberry against the soft skin on the inside of her thigh before licking at
it, changing her giggles to gasps. He breathes her in, presses his mouth to the
crease where her leg joins her body, salt-tang bitter and addictive on his
tongue, the taste of the slow, heavy pulse of need beating through him.
She pulls him up for a kiss, tongue thick and sweet like honey in his mouth,
and wraps her leg around his hip, rubbing against the bulge of his erection,
making them both pant a little. Then she ghosts a hand down his chest, finds
the old scar just below his ribs, thin white line no one else would ever
notice.
"Where'd you get this one?" she says, fingers tracing it lightly enough to
tickle, making him suck in a surprised breath.
"You did that, Sammy, first time you ever handled a knife." He hadn't expected
her to lunge, hadn't moved out of the way fast enough; it had looked worse than
it was, not very deep, but he'd bled like a stuck pig. He hadn't expected it to
scar, either, but he'd learned early on that there wasn't always a way to tell
with these things. She'd cried, then, cried the way she rarely did when she
hurt herself, and he'd spent more time comforting her than he had bandaging
himself up. It's not the only scar she's left on him, though it's the only one
she can see. He hopes it's the only one she knows about.
She bends forward, licks the scar, the flat of her tongue warm and wet on his
skin, and he shivers. She slides her lips up, tip of her tongue darting out at
random intervals now, no pattern he can find.
"What're you doing?"
She looks up, eyes dark and bright. "Counting freckles."
"Sam--"
She wraps a hand around the nape of his neck, pulls him in, and rains kisses on
his face. "Want to kiss them all, every last inch of you," she says before she
sucks his lower lip into her mouth, nips it with her teeth before letting go,
her hands finally unzipping his khakis and slipping inside to stroke him.
"Might take some time," he manages, finding a condom before he shoves his pants
and boxers out of the way.
"Be worth it, though," she answers with a grin as she wriggles out of her
underwear and guides him inside her.
"Yeah," he breathes, trying not to read anything into it, trying not to hope
she'll stay, that he can make her stay if he says or does the right thing, some
mysterious ritual he hasn't figured out yet, but will if she gives him enough
time and clues, just like a hunt, but so much more important and dangerous.
He kisses her softly as he thrusts, long slow strokes that have her gasping and
pleading with him to speed up, her fingers slipping down between them to circle
her clit. He loves the feel of her cunt tight and slick around him, the way she
keeps talking, her voice breaking on his name when she's close, the sudden
faraway look in her eyes before they flutter shut as she comes, muscles
clenching around him, holding him so tight and deep inside her, his favorite
place to be. He picks up the pace, thrusts harder and faster, desperate to lose
himself in the short burst of heated oblivion when the world disappears and
there's nothing but fierce pleasure so good it steals his breath.
When he's done, he slumps against her, sweaty, sticky, and satisfied, all the
tension of the evening fucked away. She wraps her arms around him, won't let
him pull away, though it can't be comfortable for her, with the door digging
into her back.
"Dean," she says in that awed yet sleepy tone he never gets tired of hearing.
"Dean, I--"
"I know, baby," he whispers against the sweaty hair at her temple. "I know."
Finally, he moves, gets rid of the condom, starts pulling his clothes back on.
She lies there, looking well and truly fucked, her eyelids heavy and her mouth
still red and swollen.
"We better get back," he says. "Got some packing to do."
She pushes a hand through her hair, takes a deep breath, and says, "We don't
have to."
He knows he heard right the first time but he can't quite wrap his sex-fogged
mind around it. "What?" He hands her the dress, wills her to put it on so he
can pay attention to the conversation he doesn't want to have.
She yanks the dress on over her head, but ignores the bra and panties, which
really doesn't make it easier to focus.
"We don't have to go back."
"Sam--"
She looks eager, earnest, her eyes wide and bright now, her voice pleading. "We
could just drive away right now. We could go anywhere. I bet Dad wouldn't even
notice until sometime tomorrow."
The tension comes flooding back, stiffening his shoulders and throbbing behind
his eyes, all his contentment washed away.
"Sam, don't talk about Dad like that. He's our father, and he deserves our
respect. Of course, he would notice." He shakes his head. "I don't know what
your problem is, Sammy. I don't know why I even thought--" He stops, because he
knew it was dumb to even think about hoping, but he can't help it where she's
concerned.
"We could do it, Dean. You know we could."
"No, we couldn't. It's not safe."
"That's such bullshit. How is facing a water wraith or a pack of hellhounds
safer than going somewhere far away from here and being normal? That doesn't
even make any sense."
"Give up on normal, Sam. We can't ever have it." He's so tired of this
argument, has run out of ways to explain it, and anyway, it wouldn't matter if
he'd found the perfect explanation, because she doesn't want to understand. "We
know too much. Don't you get it? We can't--I can't walk away, not when I know
other people, other families, need our help. But if you want to be a selfish
little brat--" He stops himself again, afraid if he tells her she can go alone,
she will. He takes a deep breath. "We have to go back."
She climbs into the front seat and stares out the window as they drive back to
the motel. They don't speak. There's nothing left to say.
They pretend it never happened, but Dean knows the clock is ticking, and
ignoring it won't make it stop.
*
It's a kelpie, not a water wraith, in Green Bay, and then a poltergeist in
Wabash. Powries in Pittsburgh, a shapeshifter in Charleston, and vengeful
spirits all along the way. June slips by in miles logged and monsters killed,
in hours spent sneaking off with Sam, making every moment count, trying to
memorize the soft curve of her hip, the low pitch of her laugh, the way the
late afternoon light makes her eyes more green than brown when she comes apart
in his arms.
Dad's drinking again, during the downtime between hunts, which is always when
he's at his worst, and Sam's alternating between bitchy and sullen, as if she's
permanently stuck in PMS-mode, and Dean sometimes wishes he could wash his
hands of both of them, but mostly he wishes they could see how alike they are.
That family--their family--is more important than college or even hunting, and
that if they'd both just give a little, everything would be much easier. But
they don't listen, don't seem to care. Both of them are dead-set on having
their own way, and neither seems to give a damn about him, stuck in the middle
and trying to keep the peace.
Dad's temper frays early and often, and he disappears for three days in Tulsa,
and for a week in Galveston.
He takes off again when they hit Shreveport, leaving them to deal with a ghost
wreaking havoc in one of the riverboat casinos. They pose as a couple to
investigate, and Dean realizes how easy it would be to become the people
they're pretending to be. For a second, he even thinks about doing it, but then
reality sets in.
They're back in Florida for the fourth of July, being eaten alive by mosquitoes
when they're not melting from the heat, hunting some kind of swamp monster in
Lake Okeechobee. Dad and Sam make it almost all the way through the town's
fireworks display before they start fighting, and between them Dean feels every
barb and sharp remark like they're aimed at him.
Dad stomps off to the bar to drink Jack Daniels with the good ole boys,
muttering about stubborn women who don't know what's best for them, and Dean
wants to bitch Sam out for not being able to shut the fuck up for once in her
life, for always pushing, but he can't, because he doesn't know when she's
going to leave, and he doesn't want to push her into going.
Instead, they sit and watch the finale of the fireworks show, oohing and aahing
with the crowd, and Sam looks so happy it makes Dean's chest ache. Then she
goes down on him in the car, her hand slipping down into her shorts to finger
herself while her mouth is tight and wet on his dick, and hotter than the humid
summer air heavy on his skin. He tangles a hand in her hair and closes his
eyes, knows the shape of her bones in his fingertips, and he comes like one of
those mortars, bursting into a thousand glittering shards of light and slowly
floating back to earth.
Every time they fuck now, he thinks it could be the last, and he can't bring
himself to stop, though he knows he should. Knows that soon enough, it won't be
up to him at all, and that makes it harder and easier all at once.
The middle of August finds them out on the west coast, in Aberdeen--rumors of a
sasquatch--and when Sam's not talking about Billy Gohl, she's babbling about
Kurt Cobain. Dean doesn't know why he's surprised at how morbid she is
sometimes.
The rumors turn out to be false, and Dad's out getting drunk with one of the
hunters he knows in the area. Sam's at the library, doing God only knows what,
and Dean is stuck in the motel room, bored, and sick of the rain.
He pulls out his throwing knives--Dad thinks it's mostly a waste of time, but
Dean's gotten pretty good at both circus and combat-style throwing. It's not
the same as having a well-loved gun in his hand, but he likes the rigor of it,
the attention the knives demand, edges honed sharp and metal warm from his
touch, the way his focus narrows to the knife and the target.
He loses track of time, and he's still at it when Sam comes back.
She leans against the desk, arms crossed over her chest, legs crossed at the
ankles. The look on her face is intent, hungry, and she says, "Do that again,"
when he's finished.
"C'mere." He grabs her hand, pulls her upright. "You trust me?"
"You gonna throw knives at me?"
"Why the hell would I wanna do that?"
"In the movies--"
"Yeah, and at the circus, too, which you'd know if you hadn't spent the whole
time hiding from the clowns like a baby."
"Shut up."
"I'm just saying. You'll face werewolves without flinching, but clowns--"
"Clowns are evil, Dean. Everyone knows that. Except you, apparently."
She says it completely seriously, too, which would make him laugh in other
circumstances, but right now he ignores that, too busy positioning her in the
spot he'd been standing in, about ten feet from the target, and she lets him.
"Here." He puts the knife, steel warm and smudged from his fingers, into her
hand, guides her arm into the right position. "And throw." The knife falls
short of the target, and he snorts in disgust. "Come on, Sam, I know you can do
better than that." She's always been more interested in knives than in guns.
"Didn't you throw javelin in track?"
"You know I didn't."
"Well, maybe you should have. Could be a useful skill for a hunter to have." He
puts another knife in her hand. "Again."
This time, she throws, and the point of the knife is embedded in the target,
and he presses another one into her hand. It joins the other in the target,
quivering a little from the force of the throw.
"Maybe I don't judge everything I do by how useful it'll be in hunting."
"Maybe you should," he repeats.
She turns to him, mouth open to argue, and he kisses her. He doesn't want to
hear her reject what he has to teach her, the only life he has to give her. He
sucks her tongue into his mouth, hands tightening on her hips, pulling her
flush against him. Awareness that every day brings the day she'll leave closer
makes him rougher than he normally is, seeking to hold and mark what's his,
make sure she never forgets, though he knows she will. Knows she should.
They stumble around a little, and then she's sitting on the desk and he's
standing between her knees, hands cupping her face, thumbs brushing over the
smooth, soft skin of her cheeks, the bump of the mole by her nose. She wraps
her legs around him, urging him closer, her hands slipping under his t-shirt to
glide along his belly and back, soft, quick touches that make him breathless
and needy.
It's warm and it's hot, two different kinds of heat burning inside him, one
purely the physical, and he can live without that if he has to, can get the sex
anywhere, though it's never as good because it lacks that other warmth he only
ever feels with her. And it's not enough--he wants to be inside her, wants to
hold her inside of him, twined together until there's no separating them, no
way for anyone or anything to take her away.
She undoes his belt and fly, shoves her hand down into his boxer-briefs to curl
around him, and he fumbles for the condom in his wallet before he lets his
jeans fall to his ankles. She's as desperate as he is, breath coming in short,
quick bursts against his overheated skin, the air conditioning in the room not
enough to cool this down, even if it was capable of producing more than mildly
cold air. She's got to be counting the days down, too, on some secret calendar
she's got stashed somewhere, red X's through all their days together and
nothing but a blank future ahead. He can't think about that right now, though,
not while she's shimmying out of her jeans and panties and pulling him close.
He tries to go slow, tries to memorize every gasp and flutter and moan she
makes as he fucks her, but fear makes him drive into her, fingers stroking at
her clit. He tells her how tight she is, how wet and hot, teases her about how
much she loves having his dick in her cunt, how much he likes watching himself
slide in and out, better than any porn he's ever seen, his voice low and hoarse
and filthy. She takes it all and begs for more, breathlessly chanting his name
like it's the name of God, voice breaking on it when she comes, clenching tight
around him and shuddering in his arms. He follows, world whiting out with
pleasure, and for a few minutes nothing exists but him and her, and the sticky-
hot way they're clinging to each other, his cheek resting on the top of her
head, her face nestled in the crook of his neck. He tries to pretend it's not
anything like goodbye.
He loves the way she's so sleepy and content afterwards, like a cat lying in
the sun, loves the way she lets him hold her instead of trying to break free.
"Dean," she says, voice thick with satisfaction, "when summer's over--"
He kisses her again, the easiest way ever to end a conversation with her, and
she sighs into his mouth, shoulders tensing for a second then relaxing. He
knows they'll eventually have to have a talk--possibly A Talk, about Feelings,
even--but he's going to put it off as long as humanly possible.
*
Dean can hear them shouting when he gets out of the car, the familiar rhythm of
their fighting almost comforting, until the meaning of Sam's words penetrates--
I got a scholarship, and I'm going. You can't stop me.
Even knowing it was coming, he's not prepared for how much it hurts, nothing
near as easy as a knife sliding cool and clean into his belly; more like the
burning punch of a bullet to the heart, all pain and fire and gasping for
breath that won't come. He's proud of her, too; it's swamped under by the hurt,
but the pride is there, fierce and sharp like a knot of razors in his chest.
And Dad's spitting ultimatums in return, anger and fear and desperation to keep
her safe goading him to say the words guaranteed to drive her away, words that
will echo in Dean's head for years--If you leave, don't come back--proof of
what Dean's always known, that even love has its limits and that words, once
spoken, can't be taken back. Better not to speak at all. Dad, of all people,
should know better, after the hours he's spent drilling them in rituals and
exorcisms and spells; he taught them that the power of words is never something
to be taken lightly, and that words spoken in anger have multiple layers of
strength.
Dean gets between them, guilty that he wasn't here when it started, that maybe
he could have kept it from going down like this, but it's too late. Maybe it's
always been too little, too late, and he's never been enough to hold them
together when they try to tear each other apart--they've been heading towards
this fight for years, no detours or alternate destinations allowed.
She turns away, throwing Dad's words back in his face--Fine! I'm going and I
won't come back!--and grabs her duffel bag from beside the bed. Dean can see
it's all packed and ready. Fuck. He'd hoped she'd give him some warning first,
though he knows that's not the Winchester way--they're always prepared to leave
at a moment's notice, to leave behind everything if they have to. He's just not
used to being the thing that gets left behind.
She slings the bag over her shoulder and storms out of the room in a righteous
fury, and Dad just stares after her like he can't quite believe it's happening,
like it's some kind of nightmare he can't wake up from.
But Dean knows it's not a dream, can feel the sweat trickling down his back
from the summer heat, hear the low hum of the air conditioner and the buzz of a
mosquito lazily hovering in the warm air of the room, smell the take-out he's
just dropped onto the table in grease-stained paper bags, and he knows now it's
going to be left to sit uneaten all night. He wishes Dad would snap out of it,
say something, do something, before she's too far gone to bring back. If she
isn't already.
Dad looks at him, eyes dark with regret and something that might be fear. He
scrubs a hand that trembles a little over his face, like he's just waking up,
and his voice is hoarse when he says, "Go after her, Dean. Make sure she's--"
"Yeah, Dad. Of course." Dean turns and heads back out into the early evening
heat. Sam's halfway across the parking lot, heading for the road. "Sammy,
wait."
She stops and lets the bag slide down her shoulder into her hand, but doesn't
turn to face him. He knows she's pissed at him, too, thinks he should have
defended her, supported her, or maybe she wants him to beg her to stay. Maybe
both. Sam's always wanted more than he could give her, and he's given her
everything he's got.
"Sammy," he says again, reaching out to touch her arm. "When were you planning
to tell me?"
She purses her lips, annoyed. "When were you planning to ask?"
He rubs his jaw, because he doesn't want to fight, not now, not like this, even
though he feels like she's gouged a hole in his chest where his heart should
be.
"I'm asking now."
"Well, I'm telling you now." She takes a deep, shaky breath, shoves a hand
through her hair, already darkening with sweat at the temples in the Arizona
heat. "I'm going to California, Dean. Stanford. It's practically Ivy. They gave
me a full ride--tuition, housing, the whole deal."
He doesn't even try to smile, though he knows he should--smile and tell her how
proud he is, how much he wants this for her, really he does. But not like this.
Never like this.
Instead, he grabs her bag. He expects her to fight, but she doesn't; she lets
him take it and sling it over his shoulder. It's not as heavy as he expected,
and he wonders what else she's leaving behind.
"Come on," he says. "I'll drive you to the station." It's the closest he can
come tocongratulationsor any of the other things he knows he should say--any of
the things normal people would say--and he hopes she understands.
She doesn't say anything, just follows him back to the car, maybe the last time
she'll ever follow him anywhere, but he can't think about that right now. When
they're in the car, she pulls a tape out of her bag and shoves it into the tape
deck, and he lets her, doesn't even complain when the familiar opening chords
of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" blare from the speakers.
It's only about ten minutes to the bus depot, and it feels both longer and
shorter, music only making the silence between them harder to bear.
When he pulls into the parking lot, she turns to look at him, finally, and
says, "You could come with. Get an apartment, get a job." He shakes his head,
won't look at her. She keeps talking, voice intense and shaky. "Have a life,
Dean. A normal life. You and me." She reaches out, cups his jaw, traces his
lips with her thumb. "We can start over in a place where nobody knows us."
"Baby, I can't. You know that." He looks at her, then, mirrors her gesture,
soft skin of her cheek warm against his palm. "This isn't part of normal," he
says. "It can't be." He doesn't say,I can't be,but it means the same thing. He
takes one of the bracelets she gave him and slips it off his wrist and onto
hers, the only bond and protection he can give her. "Take care of yourself,
Sammy." He wants to tell her to call, to write, to stay in touch, but he knows
she won't, not after what Dad said. Not after she's asked him to come with her
and he's said no.
She nods. "I figured that's what you'd say, but I had to ask." Her lower lip
trembles and the tears in her eyes spill over, hot and salty on his tongue as
he kisses her goodbye, trying to say everything he can't say in words, about
how much he loves her and needs her, how he knows she has to go and hates that
she does. How she'll always have someplace to come back to as long as he's
alive, and that Dad didn't really mean it, andplease don't go, all wrapped up
in the stroke of his tongue over hers, the soft ragged panting of their shared
breath.
"Jerk," she says when she pulls back from the kiss.
"Brat," he answers, smearing a tear away with his thumb.
He kisses her again, softly, gently, press of lips on lips with no tongue at
all, and doesn't flinch when she opens the door and gets out of the car. He
watches her walk into the bus station, shoulders square even under the weight
of her bag. He watches until she's out of sight, and he doesn't leave until his
hands have stopped shaking, and Kurt Cobain swears he doesn't have a gun.
When he licks his lips, all he tastes is cherry Chapstick, and nothing of Sam
at all.
*
Epilogue
April 2006
"I can't believe you fucking shot me," he mutters, and then hisses in pain as
she digs out bits of rock salt from his skin with the tweezers. And it wasn't
just the once, either--she pulled the trigger four times. He doesn't mention
that, though.
"I said I was sorry!" Her voice is shrill and hurts his ears, but her hands are
gentle.
He takes another sip of bourbon, closes his eyes and tips his head back in
exhaustion, trying to ignore the pain. "Just forget it."
"Dean--"
"I said, forget it. It wasn't you; it was Ellicott's ghost. I understand." And
he means it, mostly. He just wants to fall into bed and forget the whole thing
ever happened, erase the image of her standing over him and pulling the trigger
again and again, angry sneer on her bloodied face, the sound of her voice
saying hateful things. "Are you done?"
She jerks her hands away. "Yeah, I guess."
"I'm gonna go take a shower." He heaves himself up out of the chair, feeling a
million years old, weary down to his bones. She looks like he just kicked her
puppy, and he brushes a hand through his hair, shakes his head. "It's okay,
Sam. Go to bed. Everything will be fine in the morning." It's not a lie if he
believes it, right?
He drags his ass into the shower, lets the hot water ease some of the ache in
his muscles, wash away the smell of smoke and dirt and rotted flesh, lets the
water drown out the things she said,daddy's little soldier, can't think for
yourself, pathetic. He'd never thought she'd hated him that much, but given
some of his fuck-ups, he can't really blame her. And she knows exactly which
words to use to hurt him--that's one thing that hasn't changed at all. He leans
his forehead against the cool tile, forces himself to think of anything and
everything except what actually happened.
When he comes out of the bathroom, she's asleep--or doing a damn fine job of
faking it--curled up in a ball under the covers of the bed nearest the windows.
He stumbles to the other bed, which is closest to the bathroom, and collapses
into it. They've been sleeping in the same bed since St. Louis ("I knew it
wasn't you," she'd repeated over and over, fingers curled in his t-shirt, thumb
rubbing over his amulet as if for luck; he'd held her close and whispered that
everything was going to be all right, that nothing was going to hurt her while
he was around--it worked when she was two and it works now that she's twenty-
two, and he'll believe it as long as she does, knows she sleeps better when
he's right there to soothe her after her nightmares, that she always has), but
he feels the need for space tonight, doesn't want to fight her for the covers
and take an elbow to his already sore chest. Feels like redrawing some of the
lines they've started erasing since she's been back, needs the clarity of being
on one side while she's on the other.
He falls asleep to the sound of her breathing, and wakes to the sound of her on
the phone. The tone of her voice confirms who it is even before she says the
word, "Dad."
There's no reasoning with her after that, nothing in her head but the need to
get to California, to avenge Jess, and it's like dealing with Dad all over
again.
They're nearly to Burkitsville when she turns to him and says, "Dean, if this
demon killed Mom and Jess, and Dad's closing in, we've gotta be there. We've
gotta help."
"Dad doesn't want our help."
"I don't care."
"He's given us an order." He doesn't know why he says it--Sam hasn't cared
about following Dad's orders since she was twelve.
"We don't always have to do what he says."
He tightens his hands on the steering wheel, skin pulling white over the
knuckles, then forces himself to unclench, tries to sound reasonable. They're
both adults, right? Should be able to have a reasonable conversation. "Sam, Dad
is asking us to work jobs, to save lives. It's important."
"I understand. Believe me, I understand." She shifts to face him, folds one
long leg up underneath her. "But I'm talking one week here, man. To get
answers. To get revenge."
Dean shakes his head, because as much as she seems to have changed, she really
hasn't. "You're a selfish bitch, you know that? You just do whatever you want.
Don't care what anybody thinks."
She sucks in a breath, nods, and looks away for a second. "That's what you
really think?"
The words are out before he can stop them. "Yes, it is."
"Well, then, this selfish bitch is going to California."
He flashes a nervous, cajoling grin at her. "Come on, you're not serious."
"I am serious."
"It's the middle of the night! In the middle of nowhere!" She just stares at
him, jaw set mulishly, until he breaks. "Fine. But I'm taking you to the
nearest bus station." Because there's no way in hell he's leaving her in the
middle of nowhere in the middle of the night, no matter what she thinks or
says. "Don't thank me," he mutters.
Her mouth quirks into a half-grin now that she's got her way. "I wasn't
planning to."
"I want you to make sure Dad knows I had nothing to do with this brilliant
plan."
"I'm sure he'll know without my telling him."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"Dean, the day you don't follow that man's orders is the day the world ends."
His hands tighten on the steering wheel again, but all he says is, "Whatever.
It's your ass on the line," and turns up the radio.
He thinks he should be used to her leaving by now, but it stings worse than a
blast of rock salt to the chest, which, also thanks to her, he now knows stings
like a motherfucker. At least last time, he'd known it was coming; this time,
it's like a sucker punch to a barely healed wound. In the six months they've
been on the road together, he'd started to relax, get comfortable, started to
think she was going to stay. It was a mistake, and this is why.
He heads to Burkitsville anyway, holding onto the job because it's the only
thing he has left, but he's gotten used to having her with him again, and now
it's weird that she's gone. He's off his game and he knows it--he's always been
at his best as part of a team; when she was at school, and he'd started hunting
alone, he'd had to recalibrate his timing, his reactions, had to learn to
focus, to not always be keeping track of exactly where Sam was and how quickly
he could get to her if she wasn't where she was supposed to be. Since she's
been back, he's fallen into older, more comfortable habits, and it's startling
to be alone again. But he can actually help these people in a way he hasn't
been able to help her at all, since Jess died.
At first, she'd locked herself in the bathroom every night and cried. He
doesn't know if she'd thought he couldn't hear, or what, but it made him feel
like something inside him was breaking every time she did it, because it's the
one thing he can't fix--he can't bring Jess back, can't kill the thing that
killed her, couldn't even find Dad to figure out what it was until he called.
All he could do was keep searching, keep hunting, and keep her safe with him,
and now that's gone too. And if she and Dad kill this demon, she'll be gone as
well, back to school, and away from this life for good. He knows he should want
that for her--has always wanted that for her--but now that he's got her back,
he doesn't know if he can take losing her a second time.
Because he loves having her with him, even though she makes him crazy
sometimes, with her bitching about his food and his music, about the girls he
hooks up with (and he's not thinking about her, he's not; that's over and done,
and she acts like it never even happened, so he does, too; never mind the way
he wakes up hard and aching in the morning, her body soft and warm and familiar
against him) and the hunts he finds.
Her absence keeps him awake, even after the adrenaline rush of the night's work
subsides; he's gotten used to having her in the bed with him again, used to the
sound of her breath in his ears and the beat of her heart beneath his hand, and
sleep is a long time coming.
When she was away at Stanford, he'd never stopped feeling like a piece of him
was missing, never stopped expecting her to be there in the room when he came
back with coffee (always two or three cups, never just the one, and he always
ended up drinking it himself, even if he'd already doctored hers up with milk
and sugar), and it was weeks before he'd stopped telling her things she wasn't
there to hear, months before he stopped dialing her number and then tossing the
phone onto the passenger seat without pressing the 'talk' button.
He can't do that again.
He thinks about the ways she's changed in the time she was away, and the ways
she's just the same. She insists on being called Sam now, instead of Sammy, and
he knows names have power, and in naming herself, it's like she's trying to
banish the chubby twelve-year-old she used to be, her life as a hunter, the
girl he'd known before she left. And as stupid as it sounds, he feels like he's
just getting to know her again, know Sam instead of Sammy, now that she's
coming out of her mourning for Jess and letting him see who she's become--in
whispered conversations in the warm darkness of their bed, as much as in the
way she laughs at his lame jokes and mocks his music, and the way they stand
shoulder to shoulder when they hunt. She's softer in some ways, more brittle in
others, strange and familiar all at the same time, but still and always his
sister, the girl he loves the most. Not that he'd ever tell her that. He used
to think she knew, but he can't tell anymore.
He doesn't want to lose her for good, even if she does go back to school. The
first time he'd gone out to California to check up on her, he'd seen how happy
she was, how she'd found whatever normal she'd been looking for and made it her
own. And he wants to be part of that this time around, wants to be able to show
up and crash on her couch, threaten her boyfriends with his shotgun and ogle
her girlfriends, convince her that rare cheeseburgers at three am is the food
of the gods, and that there has never been anything finer than Led Zeppelin on
the stereo and the wind in their hair as they fly down the highway in the
Impala.
He starts to dial once, twice, three times, before he decides to man up and
just do it. He can picture her face, frowning at first, ready to argue, and
then when he tells her he's proud of her, has always admired the way she stands
up to Dad, he can hear the smile in her voice, and it makes him feel good.
Later, when he's tied up in the orchard with no rescue plan in sight, waiting
for that fugly-ass scarecrow to come and get him and Emily, he's especially
glad he did it.
And then Sam shows up to save the day. Relief stronger than fear floods him,
though he plays it off; he knows she isn't buying his nonchalance, but that's
okay, too, because she's here and she's safe, and she stopped being fooled by
him when she was sixteen.
There isn't a lot of time to stand around shooting the shit, though, until
after they set the tree on fire and put Emily on a bus out of town.
As they walk back to the car, he turns to Sam and says, "So, you gonna buy
yourself a ticket? Or can I drop you off somewhere?"
"No, I think you're stuck with me." She rests a hand on the roof of the car,
long fingers winter-pale against the shiny black paint.
He breathes out in relief, thankful for the reprieve and trying to hide it.
"What made you change your mind?"
"I didn't. I still wanna find Dad. And you're still a pain in the ass." Dean
nods and snorts, not disagreeing. "But, Jess and Mom--they're both gone. Dad is
God knows where. You and me--we're all that's left. So, if we're gonna see this
through, we're gonna do it together."
It's not a promise to stay forever, but it's more than she's given him before,
and he'll take it happily.
They drive for a few hours, Sam drowsing in the passenger seat as Dean drums
along with Keith Moon, relaxing into the rightness of things. There's nothing
like the buzz of a successful hunt, and it's even better now with Sam beside
him, now that she's going to stay.
It's early afternoon when he pulls off the interstate and into the parking lot
of a Motel 6, tired and dirty and ready for a shower and a nap.
They rarely unpack--they almost never stay anywhere long enough to make it
worth the effort--but Sam always manages to clutter up whatever counter space
is available in the bathroom with her stuff, stuff he hasn't bought in the past
three and a half years, but which he buys now without even thinking about it--
a bottle of Johnson's baby lotion, a tube of Noxzema, some kind of spray-in
conditioner, a card of black bands for her hair--falling back into the habits
of a lifetime of grocery shopping.
She lets him have the shower first--he stinks of rank sweat and dirt and smoke
from the fire--and he's using her shampoo instead of the stuff the motel
provided, when she says, "Hey," and pushes the curtain aside to climb in with
him.
"Sam--"
She gives him a smile he can't quite decipher, and reaches up to scrub her
fingers through his soapy hair, then trail her thumb over his cheek and down
his nose. He rinses his face to avoid a mouthful of shampoo.
"You could have died last night."
"Part of the job, Sammy. You know that."
"Yeah, but if I'd been there--" She looks away, grabs the soap, starts
lathering him up.
"Sam, don't--" He's not sure if he means the way she's touching him or what
she's saying.
"I can't, I can't lose you, too," she says, spreading soap over his chest and
shoulders. He tries to keep his cock from reacting, but he can't, even though
her touches aren't particularly sexual. It's been so long, and he's pretended
he doesn't want her like this anymore, but his body doesn't lie.
She washes him gently, thoroughly, and then hands him the soap and lets him do
the same for her. When he smoothes his hands over her belly, she quivers, puts
her hands on his shoulders.
"Dean," she says, and slides her hands up into his hair, draws his head down
for a kiss. She smells of soap and water, and tastes of heat and hope. He
closes his eyes and drinks her in.
She breaks away, rinses off, and steps out again, as easily as she'd stepped
in. He follows, and she dries him off with one of the threadbare white motel
towels, rough against his skin but gentle in her hands. He does the same for
her, every touch careful, caring, easy in a way it never is with anyone else.
He thinks about how they're back where they started, him and her and no one
else, and how maybe it's wrong, but it's what he'd choose every time if given
the choice. How he'd tried with Cassie, and been rejected. How she'd tried with
Jess, and lost everything. How it didn't matter that she'd lied and he'd told
the truth--there would never be anyone else in this the way they were, and
that, in the end, that would be okay.
He reaches for his underwear but she shakes her head, draws him back into the
bedroom and down onto the bed, clean sheets and a mattress that for once
doesn't sag or creak when they sink into it.
Her breasts are a little fuller and softer than he remembers, so he spends some
time getting reacquainted with them, using his hands and mouth to make her gasp
and stutter. Her hips are curvier, too--she's lost the awkward coltishness she
had at sixteen, has a confidence in her body that he's tried not to notice, and
it takes his breath away. He slides his hands up her legs, strong and sleek,
the soft, rough brush of stubble tickling his palms, and he's reminded of that
night in the car, the humid summer air and the lazy way she'd kissed him, like
they had all the time in the world and no one else existed, how the leather of
the car seat stuck to his skin, and how he didn't care, because it felt so good
to be so close to her.
"Open up, Sammy, come on. Lemme in," he whispers and she spreads her legs for
him, lets him in the way she always does; the way she opens up for him breaks
him open, as well. He'd taught her to pick locks when she was ten, and she's
only gotten better at it over the years, until there isn't anyplace inside him
he can keep her out of, and now she's returning the favor for the first time in
years. He settles between her thighs, reveling in the soft give of her body
beneath him as they kiss and touch, his fingers finding the slick, wet heat of
her cunt like a compass finding north.
He's got some new scars, and she catalogues them with fingers and lips, maps
the constellations of his freckles with her tongue and the shivery wet brush of
her hair.
They go slow, no worries about being interrupted or caught (nobody here knows
them, anyway), and it's been so long. He wants to relearn everything, the
ticklish spots behind her knees, the way the insides of her elbows smell, the
soap-and-salt taste of her skin, smooth against his tongue, and the soft-warm-
wet feel of her tongue against his skin, making him shiver as she rediscovers
him.
He's trembling a little when he rolls the condom on, tight ache in his cock
nearly painful. She slides her fingers over her slick, pink pussy and then into
his mouth; he licks them clean, hungry for the taste of her, and presses
forward so he's cradled between her thighs, head of his cock nudging at her
cunt, then slowly pressing in, perfect fit, like chambering a bullet.
She wraps her legs around his hips, locks her ankles around the small of his
back, heels pressing down into his ass, and pushes up.
"Come on, Dean," she says, smiling in a way he hasn't seen in years. "Fuck me."
And then she tightens her muscles around him, laughing.
He fucks her with long, slow strokes, eyes open and trained on her face,
watching as her eyes, pupils dark and deep enough to drown in, irises just a
thin ring of hazel around them, flutter closed, as she meets him thrust for
thrust. He leans in, sucks her lower lip between his, then licks into her
mouth, warm and home and everything he needs to keep him going. Need and heat
roll through his blood, and he picks up his pace.Close, so close now, baby,he
whispers into her ear, and she responds with a breathless,God, Dean.
She reaches down between them to circle her clit, body arching and bowing
beneath him as she reaches for release, and then comes with a low, shuddering
moan, her cunt clenching tight around him like a fist, nails digging into his
shoulder.
He doesn't last long after that, thrusting in short, jerky motions until he's
coming, everything else dropping away as pleasure rushes through him in waves,
and her body's the shore he washes up on.
"Sam? Sammy?" he says when he can talk again. "You okay?"
"Dude," she answers breathlessly. "Yeah." She cups his cheek, runs her thumb
over his lower lip, and draws him down for another kiss, letting him tell her
everything he feels without ever making him say the words.
She rearranges the sheets to cover them, then curls up against him, already
drifting off to sleep, a soft, satisfied smile on her face.
Dean lies awake, thinking. He let her go, and this time, she came back. And
though he doesn't believe in wishing, he hopes that this time, she'll stay.
end
~*~
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