Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/5844784.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      F/M, M/M
  Fandom:
      Supernatural
  Relationship:
      Dean_Winchester/Sam_Winchester, Original_Female_Character/Original_Male
      Character
  Character:
      Sam_Winchester, Dean_Winchester, Original_Female_Character(s), Original
      Male_Character(s)
  Additional Tags:
      Sibling_Incest, Secret_Relationship, Established_Relationship, Consensual
      Underage_Sex, POV_Outsider
  Series:
      Part 26 of Heart_'Verse
  Stats:
      Published: 2006-06-17 Words: 2829
****** Mirror Images ******
by poisontaster
Summary
     "People see what they want to see. What they expect. And lets face
     it; most of the time, expectations are low." When you look at it like
     that, that's almost as good as a confession.
Notes
     I've always liked the technique of an 'outside looking in'
     perspective on relationships; illuminating the things that are often
     unseen or unnoticed by the people in the relationship. Plus I had
     some more to say about Emma and Deacon. I am so pathetically grateful
     to inlovewithnight and shadow_walker3 for coming through in a pinch
     to edit this for me. They are both true and wonderful friends. All
     remaining screw-ups are firmly at my door.
"No, look." Impatient, Emma elbows Deacon in the neck as she slithers up in the
cramped confines of the bed to point. "Right there. John, Mary and Dean. Dean."
Deacon stares and she feels a spike of impatience. "Well that's got to be a
coincidence, right?"
"Hell of a coincidence," Emma says. She feels obscurely gleeful. "I mean…how
likely is that?"
"Becks went out with that guy that had the same birthday as dad. That was
pretty creepy."
"The same birthday. Not the same name," Emma points out. She's starting to
slide off sideways and so she angles her body to overlap Deacon's. He puts out
an absent hand, pulls her closer and angles himself until they're like a little
teepee in the middle. His hand stays where it is, rubs the small of her back,
though he never looks up from the birth announcement. "It's weird, right? Don't
you think it's weird?"
Deacon snorts. "Yeah, it's weird," he agrees. "But it doesn't prove anything.
Certainly not what you're thinking of, you perv."
"I don't think anything," Emma says, looking the blurry printout with greedy
eyes.
                                      ***
"Oh God, Em, not more," Deacon groans, looking over her shoulder.
"Shut up, shut up!" she hisses, tugging his wrist to pull him down into the
adjoining seat. "Do you have to be so loud about everything?"
"S'part of my charm," he says and sprawls out, putting his legs in her lap.
"I hate to break it to you, brother-mine, but you're not charming."
"I beg to differ."
"Mmm, you know I love it when you beg," she answers sarcastically, absently
massaging his ankle where it crosses her thigh.
Deacon sits a while, desultorily paging through one of her camouflage books;
something long and dry cataloguing the different names for water demons of the
old South. In her lap, his feet tap restlessly.
Finally: "So what is it today?"
"Obituaries. Says here that Dean Winchester died in St. Louis in 2005."
"See? What did I tell you?" Deacon asks, twitching his legs out of her lap and
leaning forward across the table instead. His fingers loosely encircle her
wrist. "Now would you please stop all this…" he waves his other hand,
"obsessiveness and come throw knives with me? That's what we came here for. Or
don't you care about that any more?"
She just looks at him. After a minute his ears flame red. "Okay, I didn't mean
that," he mumbles, ashamed. "But still…Em. What the fuck? Where are you getting
all this? And why do you care, anyway? If they're queer for each other, then
that means you don't have to worry about your pretty pink ass. Not like when
we…"
He's not stupid. She knows he's not stupid, but sometimes Deacon can act very
stupid. "Deacon, if you do not shut up, I swear on the souls of our family I
will shave every hair off your body when you are sleeping."
"Hey!" His hand jerks towards his head reflexively. He knows she'll do it.
Which is what makes it a good threat, when all's said and done. Emma's not a
big believer in empty threats. Why bother, then?
"Besides," she says fast, to cover the burgeoning hurt on his face, "it's a
fake."
"Okay, now how do you know that?"
"Because I've also got the police case file."
"Emma!" Deacon mimes shock, which makes her smile despite herself. "You
sleuth."
Emma shoves him. He's impossible to stay mad with, the idiot. "You don't even
know what that word means," she grumbles. She pushes the Xeroxes and notes in
his direction. "Look, though."
Deacon leans over to look and she knows she's got him. Deacon never can resist
a good mystery. And that's good, that's as it should be.
It's not like she's not doing this for both of them.
                                      ***
Once she's started, it kind of scares her, how easy this is.
It's a lot like hunting. She wonders if they realize that. If they know.
In a way, it only increases her respect for them; that they've been teaching
her what she wants—needs—to know from the very beginning. It's like everything
else; it just took her a while to understand. How it all fit together.
It's all about attitude, Dean said, talking about grift and impersonation.
People see what they want to see. What they expect. And lets face it; most of
the time, expectations are low.
Or, as Sam would say, You don't see it because you don't want to see it.
And fuck her, but they're right. Because when you look at it like that, that's
almost as good as a confession.
Not quite good enough, though.
                                      ***
Somehow Deacon gets the drop on her, the sneak, tackling her hard. They go
flying, sliding along the slimy layer of mud. Deacon wrestles her onto her back
and straddles her legs, panting and grinning in triumph. "Gotcha."
"I found a picture," she says, blinking the rain out of her eyes.
Deacon stares at her for a minute before it penetrates. "Really? And…it's
definitely him?"
She nods, then pushes him with muddy hands. "Get off me, you oaf," she growls,
slithering out from under him. "It's blurry, and they're in the background, but
it's definitely them."
Deacon gets up and puts his hand out to help her up. From anyone else, she'd
kick them in the balls first, but it's Deacon, so she accepts it and he pulls
her up. He must have hit her harder than she thought, because she's a little
wobbly. Deacon puts his arm around her and she rests her forehead on his
shoulder, breathing hard. "Where'd you find it?" he asks.
"Yearbook from Sarasota Springs," she answers quietly. "Had to spend both our
mad money to get it, but it was worth it."
Deacon didn't say anything about her spending up his money in addition to hers,
but she knew he wouldn't. Instead his arm just tightens around her waist and
she lets her fingers curl into his belt loop, feeling like these are the first
breaths she's taken in hours. "Are you done yet?" he asks finally.
She nods. "Almost."
Deacon's other arm goes around her and they just stand like that for a while
until the rain dripping down her neck becomes too cold and annoying to ignore.
To cheer them both up, she says, "What's say we go see if we can ambush the
others?"
"We're on opposite teams, Em."
She looks up into his face—and when did he get taller than her? "We're never on
different teams, Deac."
                                      ***
It takes her a while to find the opportunity. So long, she'd almost think Sam
was avoiding her, but she knows his spook tricks don't extend to mind reading,
and even if they did, she doesn't believe Sam would do that.
It's kind of weird, that realization. She didn’t think she had much trust left
for anyone besides Deacon. It makes her uncomfortable and she starts to worry
that she's slipping. That she's losing her edge.
In sparring practice that day, she finagles to get paired against Hari—who has
nearly as many issues as they do—and she manages to put the other girl on her
ass. Twice. Hari bares her teeth at her the second time and asks, "Got
something to prove, hon?"
"Don't we all?" Emma asks, just as sweet.
But she feels better after that.
                                      ***
She finally gets her chance totally by accident, which just goes to show. She's
out running on one of the hill trails—for a change without Deacon, who wanted
another two hours communion with the pillow—when she runs into Sam, out doing
the same thing.
"Hey," she says, reversing direction and falling into step with him without a
second thought.
"Hey," he says right back, and even though his hair is all wet and pointy with
sweat, he doesn't really sound out of breath.
She's planned and rehearsed for this moment a lot, but now that it's here, she
finds herself oddly tongue tied. Her reasons for digging into his and Dean's
past—while still valid—seem intrusive and sort of mean. She imagines what it
must be like, to pretend all the time. Or really, to have been pretending for
this long, because she's been pretending.
She wonders when it started, and how and if it really matters to them anymore.
She's so busy thinking and staring and stewing about it all, that she isn't
watching where she's going and she trips right over a big old rock about half
buried in the trail. "Dammit!" she shouts and then Sam's kneeling in front of
her, carefully peeling her track pants back from the bleeding scrape.
"It's not too bad," he says, squirting it with some of the water from his
bottle.
"I know," she says and Sam must know she's talking about something else
entirely, because his eyes come up to hers. "I know about you and Dean," she
clarifies.
Sam settles back on his heels, a narrow and somehow dangerous look on his face
that makes her swallow reflexively, even though she doesn't really think he'd
hurt her. Or she hopes not.
"What do you know about me and Dean?" he asks, and even his voice sounds
growling and deadly.
"I won't tell," she says quickly. "I… I know why you did it. Why you hide it. I
get that. He's your brother, you can't…"
Sam's arms close on her upper arms hard, and Jesus, she didn't know he could
move that fast. "Shut up," he grits, "shutup, shutup, shut. Up!"
Emma feels like her eyes are going to peel right out of the sockets, and if
she'd been thinking, she's have used the shoulder block and roll Dean taught
her to get out of Sam's punishing grip, but instead, she just finds herself
babbling, "I just want to know! I just…you have to tell me, I have to know,
Sam, you don't understand…"
Sam's eyes close and he takes a deep breath before carefully and deliberately
opening his fingers. Her arms smart and she knows she'll have bruises from this
later. "What don't I understand?" he asks, still not looking.
"I don't want… I won't tell, Sam. I'll burn everything I found, I swear…I
already erased the records I could find, but I have to know."
"Know what?"
"How you did it." She swallows hard again, her throat feeling like its steadily
garroting shut. Her heart's beating so hard she thinks even Sam has to hear it.
Can't he see how important this is? Can't he tell? Sometimes it feels like her
head's going to explode with it, or her heart, just blow its messy way out of
her chest. "Teach me how you kept people from knowing. Twenty years…me and
Deac…I have to know. I love him so much. We don't… We can't… Please, Sam, I'll
do anything."
"Oh God," Sam whispers, and puts his head in his hands. "Oh God."
                                      ***
"It would ruin us," Sam says, knees kilted to his chest, elbow braced against
knee, forehead in hand. "You know that, right? They… God, they would take
Chelsea away from him. Us. They'd take all of you away."
Emma shakes her head. "I'm sorry," she says. She's crying. She hasn't cried
since…since she and Deacon came home That Day. But she's crying now. Because
she understands.
The fear. The fear that permeates every waking moment; that you've touched or
looked too long. That you've somehow given yourself away, that someone will
know. That you'll be separated, to wither and die alone, deprived of the one
thing that gives you life. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry, Emma," Sam says harshly. "Forget. Forget this ever happened,
forget what you…what you think you know…"
Emma's chin squares, her face comes up. "I know," she says, sharper than
before, "and I have proof." Sam flinches and she feels kind of shitty about it,
but she presses on. "I just want you to teach me, Sam. Help me—help us—figure
out how to do what you and Dean did. You have to understand…you have to.
Because we're… I need him. We need each other and if they separate us again…"
"Emma, calm down." Sam rakes a hand through his hair, getting mud in the brown
strands. "No one's going to separate you and Deacon."
Emma's hands cover her mouth, trying to hold in the wild paroxysm of joy that
goes through her at his words. She's better than this. Colder. Emma gropes for
the fractured edges of that personality, floundering desperately in a sea of
what if and if only.
"How…how did you…" Sam pauses. He won't look at her, that muddy hand still
buried in his hair and again she feels that uncharacteristic pang of guilt,
because he and Dean have done so much for her and Deacon and this seems a
horrible way to repay it. "What made you think Dean and I are brothers?"
And she likes that. Careful. Still careful. She makes a mental note, because
someday this could be her. Forever, Deacon says, when it's just them and he
traces her lips with his thumb. But forever is easy to say and much harder to
do. She has to learn the do.
Emma shrugs. "I don't know. I just… I think I always knew. Because you look at
each other the way me and Deacon do. Because…I could see it was the same. That
we're the same."
Sam smiles. It's crooked and not at all happy. "Well, I love him," he says
softly. "That's how you look at someone when you love them."
"No." Emma shakes her head. "I mean…yes, but… I don't know how it's different,
but it just is. It's…more than that, somehow."
"Hmm." Sam's lips purse. "You've never been tested, have you? For…spook
abilities?"
"No." Emma shakes her head again. Her foot grits restlessly in the stony mud of
the trail. The wet coldness is soaking through her pants and panties, but she
doesn't care.
"Well, maybe you should be."
Emma shrugs. "Okay."
Suddenly Sam's looking at her, hazel eyes really bright against the gray
dullness of the day. He blinks and she realizes he's got water—not even really
tears—in his eyes. "Why didn't you go to Dean? He's your…mentor, for lack of a
better word."
Emma shivers. It's not from the cold. "Because I was afraid he'd kill me, if he
knew I knew. And I'm good, but I'm not as good as him."
Sam laughs, quiet but heartfelt and after a moment, Emma laughs with him, shaky
and slightly sick now that she's laid her cards out on the table. She's
exposed, she knows and for all Sam and Dean's position is as precarious as her
and Deacon's, they're adults and she and Deacon are still just looked at as
kids. Juvenile delinquents at that. Sam and Dean could really hurt them, if
they wanted.
"There's nothing he wouldn't do for you," Emma says seriously.
Sam's smile fades and he sighs. She remembers suddenly that it's always Sam who
demonstrates the finer points of knife play and throwing. He's wicked fast and
twice as deadly. "Yeah. I know. It goes both ways, Emma."
                                      ***
Epilogue.
Dean looks over his shoulder when he feels someone coming up behind him;
relaxes when he sees it's just Sam. "Hey," he says, feeling the grin break out
on his face.
"Hey," Sam answers. He comes to stand just behind Dean in the doorway, closer
than they normally stand in public—not that Dean's necessarily complaining.
Sam's just gotten out of the shower; his hair's still wet and curling up at the
ends and he smells like his girly shower gel. Him and his damn 'dry skin'.
"What's going on?"
Dean nods towards the knot of kids in the practice room. "Sparring. S'too wet
to get good traction outdoors." He watches them—the kids—step and move against
each other. It reminds him of when it was him and Sam under Dad's watchful and
critical eye. "Look at 'em, man," he whispers to Sam, tilting his head back a
little. "Hari's going to go through those monsters like goddamned greased
lightning." He looks at the twins, Deacon and Emma, like silent deadly ghosts,
working in the kind of tandem it took him and Sam years to find. "And Emma and
Deacon… Man." He shakes his head and lifts his water bottle to his mouth.
Sam stirs, leaning in a little closer so that the puff of his breath drifts
past Dean's ear and gives him goose bumps on the back of his neck. "Emma and
Deacon," Sam murmurs softly, "are fucking."
There might have been something else he said, but Dean can't hear it over his
own sputter and choke as the water goes down the wrong way.
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