Title: Hidden Mouths of Stone and Light
Author:nyoka
Recipient:chase_acow
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Dean/OFC
Word Count: ~ 4,900
Summary: There’s only a beat, a moment’s indecision before she fires off the shot, and her life changes forever.

Author's Notes: Warnings for sexual situations/language. For chase_acow, from the prompt, Dean/Female!Hunter. Title and opening quote from Leonard Cohen’s poem, “Beneath My Hands.”



I dread the time

when your mouth

begins to call me hunter.


one.


She’s at the bus stop in front of her trailer park the first time she sees him. She watches as a sleek dust-covered classic Chevy rumbles to a stop beside the tin-roofed shotgun single-wide neighboring her parents’ lot.


A rough-and-tumble sort of man clambers out of the driver’s seat, followed by two skinny boys. The trio moves quickly from car to trailer, carrying a couple boxes and duffels between them.


She thinks to go and introduce herself to her new neighbors, offer a handshake and a friendly smile. But instead she just watches them. The boy with a mop of dark hair and a sullen tilt to his slouch waits on the cement-block front steps. The slightly taller one, pale and freckled, jeans torn, flannel worn, smile tired, sits down besides him, bumps their shoulders companionably.


Not ‘til the school bus rumbles to a stop do the boys even glance her way. She catches the eye of the one with freckles. He nods a greeting. She winks, smirks, and reluctantly steps on the bus.


::


She tells him her name when they’re first introduced, the pale sun sinking into the trees, the air still and smelling of desert flowers. But somehow he never seems to remember. Calls her Stella, Maybelle, Luanne.


“Georgia,” she tells him for the third time, with a slight growl to her pronunciation. He’s working on the Chevy. Always is. Classic rock pumping out loud enough to piss off the dead, or just Mr. Merriweather two lots down. She jealously eyes the car—the clean line of the dashboard, the smooth upholstery, the black shine of the hood. It’s cared for, loved. It belongs.


He steps out from under the hood to test the soft purr of the engine. “Georgia, you say?” he asks after a pause. When he finally stops tinkering with the car, he leans against the driver-side door, lopsided smile deepening, curlicue lashes batting. Too long in the sun, his freckles now layer his skin like a dusty star-pattern, a map to nowhere, everywhere.


“Yeah.” She stands there, hands on her hip, blinking the sun out of her eyes. “Like the state. Can you believe it? My Mama named me for a state neither of us has ever been to.”


To emphasize her point, she starts to trace her name into the dust on the windshield of the Impala: G- E- O, before he scowls and bats her hand away. He leans over to wipe down the window, shoots her the evil eye. Everything here is always coated in a fine layer of dust. That’s what you get for living so close to a desert.


When he’s done, he backs up to give her another considering look. She knows she’s not much to look at. She’s fifteen, but could pass for much younger; she’s short, reed-thin and flat as an ironing board. But the smile Dean gives her, well, it makes her feel kind of beautiful.


::


Even though he’s just fifteen, he’s already more tortured than she’ll ever be.


She wears black lipstick, dies her hair blue, skips Ms. Robinson’s third-period Geometry class to smoke up in the bathroom.


But Dean? Dean carries his alienation in the grim set of his shoulders, wears it in the cool faux-bravado of his smile. He hides it in his eyes—there you can glimpse the entire weight of the world, a heaviness made of breath and bone.


::


Neither of them dresses out for PhysEd. They sit in the bleachers and watch the other kids knock around a volleyball. She eyes his never-opened school books poking out of his tattered backpack. He eyes her black nail polish and Sony walkman. She lets him listen to her Slayer tape and when he’s not looking she steals his Ozzy Osbourne cassettes. They get along well.


::


He’s her first everything, really. Kiss. Grope. Fuck. She’s probably none of his firsts, but that’s okay. She doesn’t mind being somewhere in the undefined middle.


::


That first kiss is messy; all tongues and no finesse, stringy spit and clanking teeth. It tastes like orange pop and Doritos.


When they fuck, it’s a little better. Hurts a lot more, but she’s use to pain.


::


Dean’s rough fingers snake along her waist, trace down the groove of her thin frame; his right hand slip-slides up her hips, crawls under her shirt, struggles for three minutes to unhook her bra.


They’re both sweaty, even in the dry October chill. She’s shivering by the time his hand winds down across her belly. His fingers pop open her jeans and come to rest at the elastic of her cotton panty. She arches and sighs as his fingers make their way lower, wind through the damp, coarse hair of her cunt, settle there in her secret warmth.


When they’re both naked, he regards her silently, wet honeydew eyes shadowed in the dim light of her bedroom. She feels uncomfortable at the searching looks he shoots her way; she shifts her eyes to take in her squalid bedroom and the rest of her sad surroundings. He doesn’t seem to mind that her clothes that now litter the floor come from charity, her socks are full of holes, her blanket shredded or her trailer filthy. That both her parents are usually too drunk for house upkeep, too drunk to stick around.


She turns to him, smiles. She spiderwalks her fingers up his arms, over his ribs. She likes the feel of his rough patches. She sometimes wonders at the bruises and scars that mark his skin, the ones that mirror the ones on her own legs and belly. He doesn’t ask her about hers, and she doesn’t ask about his. It’s just nice that he isn’t repulsed by marred skin, by slight imperfection. Instead he runs calloused fingertips over her arms, his dirty, half-bitten fingernails catch on the raised ridges of old scars.


::


That first fuck is without finesse too, a little clumsy, a little awkward. Long limbs dangle off her twin bed. Torn floral-print sheets stick to wet skin, desert dust clogs in her nose.


But Dean’s body is warm and lean against her own. His lips make a soft drag down the length of her chest, his spicy hot breath puffs out on every ragged exhale.


She’s caught up in the feel of her own arousal, too heavy to speak. Her lips lock in nervous anticipation.


“Ready?” he grits out, voice threading wildly as he searches his wallet for a condom. He finds one of those free ones they both got in health class, the wrapper the color of grape bubblegum.


She nods jerkily as his hands gently urge her legs apart. She tracks the movement of his hands, which are shaking a bit as he tears open the condom pack.


Her eyes are slowly drawn down to his cock, flushed thick and full, curving against his belly. He wraps long fingers around his full length, gives it nice firm stroke before rolling the condom on.


She takes in a deep breath, widens her thighs, gasps as cool air hits the ache and pulse of her center. Her body arches every so slightly, and Dean leans into her shifting position, lines up and pushes into her. She lifts her hips further, concentrates on the slow burn of his entrance.


As he presses in, one hand squeezes the small curve of her breast. A few rapid thrusts, a couple of jerky motions, and she’s taking him all in. She welcomes the feel of his cock working in and out of her, the deep stretch and burn.


“God,” he rasps out, his fingers gripping hard into her slippery hips. His eyes shut tight as he pushes into her one last time. He comes with a garbled shout as she clenches tight around him.


“Not God. Just Georgia,” she pants out, her voice ripped to threads. Her lips curl to match the blissed-out smile on his face as she winds her arms tight around him, holds him close inside her.


The land they live on is a parched and scalding mouth, cracked wide from thirst. But everything’s so wet in this new aftermath. Their open mouths meet for sloppy kisses, their thighs rub moist and sweat-slick. They treasure the squishy mess they made, the flood between their legs. Their damp hair spreads across her pillow. Their breaths, warm and humid, mingle.


He collapses, limp and boneless at her side. She leans over and kisses his damp brow. A soft red blush spreads across the length of his body. The tawny scatterplot of freckles stand out along his cheeks, his nose, his chest. His eyes, deep green and flecked with sunrise gold, watch over her.


::


“What’s your trauma?” she asks him after a while, sweat-sticky and bone-weary tired. They lay on their backs across her bed. They’ve been trying to guess the shapes of the water stains on the ceiling, occasionally singing along to the low-moan of Lynyrd Skynyrd winding from her tape player.


Dean rises up on his elbows and turns to look at her. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told ya,” he huffs, offers a fleeting smile as he turns to lie on his belly.


“Your mom run off?” she asks, frowning a little.


He stiffens, lets loose a heavy exhale. His hand comes to settle on the sharp jut of her hipbone, his thumb rubs back and forth. “She died when I was four.”


“I’m so sorry,” she murmurs, nodding. She figured it was something like that.


He doesn’t say anything for a while, just splays his fingers across the crescent moon tattoo on her hip. “We’re leaving soon. Me, my brother, my dad.”


She swallows thickly, throat suddenly gone dry. “But what about school?”


He shrugs, makes an amused noise. “Finish somewhere else. I’m use to it.”


She’s goes quiet, thoughtful for a long time. She wonders what’s so bad his family has to keep running away. She’s afraid to ask. Knows he wouldn’t tell her if she did.


After a while, she cocoons them both in her Nanna’s patchwork quilt, lays her head against his shoulder.


“Was it good for you?” he mumbles softly, his fingers skidding along the crease of her thighs.


“Not too bad, Winchester,” she says, smile tugging at her lips. She leans over and kisses him once on the cheek.


His own smile is almost shy, his twilight eyes large and luminous. “I’ll do better next time.”


::


She knows she shouldn’t. But she does it anyway. She follows Dean and his daddy to Old Miss Millie’s house that last night. The haunted house on the hill, charred as black as cinders, with broken windows that gape like empty eye sockets.


Through one of the basement’s broken windows, she watches a scene unfold like a horror movie. The two Winchesters move in tandem, like a dance. The thing they’re fighting is huge, agile, wild. Claws and talons. Dark fur and red eyes. It knocks Dean’s father onto his back and lands heavily on his chest.


Dean has a shotgun lifted to his shoulder, fires at the thing from across the room. The sound ricochets through the basement as the creature turns its focus on the boy.


“Sonofabitch!” Dean groans when it suddenly lunges at him at an otherworldly speed. It has to weigh as much as he does—its coat a sheen of pure black, ragged fur; its face like a warped pit-bull; and its jaw coming unhinged to bare rows of blood-covered fangs aiming for his throat. His sawed-off shotgun crashes to the ground, skitters across the floorboards.


She runs into the house, doesn’t even stop to think. She’s makes it to the basement in three seconds flat, jumps down the stairs just as Dean hits the ground. The weight of the beast pins him to the floor.


Around her the house shakes, dust showers from the ceiling. Her world shifts, falls into place.


Everything is in slow motion then. See, once upon a time, before the alcohol, before the beatings, her daddy took her hunting quails. Funny, the things she remembers in the heat of an impossible moment. With a quiet sigh, she picks up Dean’s shotgun. Her eyes meet the dancing red orbs of a creature she has no name for. In her peripheral vision, she can see Dean’s daddy stirring. No time to wait though. She takes in the feel of the hot metal in her hands, the weight of the gun. The creature’s eyes flicker toward her. There’s only a beat, a moment’s indecision before she fires off the shot, and her life changes forever.


::


The warm night air kisses her fiery cheeks. Flickering flames create highlights and shadows on the sharp arch of Dean’s face. He watches her with a quiet smile. She watches him in return.


“So…?” he offers as a break in the silence.


She wipes sweaty palms on her jeans, looks over at him slyly, catches his eye and grins. “So…I take it the Bogeyman exists?”


“Yep,” he replies, his smile is still a bit of a secret.


“And you’re what? A Ghostbuster?” she asks, brow cocked, hands across her chest.


Dean comes over to stand beside her, a grin dancing in his eyes. “Just call me Dr. Venkman, baby.”


She giggles at that and can’t stop for a whole two minutes. She knows this is the night, the beginning of the rest of her life. There’s a tingling in her belly at that realization, something blooming inside her chest, warm and right. She controls her giggles, nods her head slowly, sucks in the desert heat. She lets her eyes linger for a moment too long on the ruptured earth, dry and cracked beneath her feet, on the burning creature in the distance.


“How’d I do in there?” she asks, biting at her lower lip.


“Not too bad,” he says with a thoughtful air and a playful tug of lips.


She watches the little flickers of light behind his brooding eyes. Sees something of herself reflected there. “I’ll do even better next time,” she promises.


::


Dean leaves on a Saturday in December. In a car he loves, with a father he idolizes and a brother he cherishes.


He leaves her with a broken heart, a sawed-off shotgun, and a keen love of Black Sabbath.


two.


She’s just shy of twenty-three the first time she sees him again. She’s been hunting solo for two years. Ran away from the trailer park at eighteen, found herself a mentor in a half-crazed, but well-meaning hunter named Reynolds out in New Mexico. Turns out that the creature in Old Miss Millie’s basement was just the tip of the iceberg. Demons, witches, vengeful spirits, poltergeists, wraiths, succubi.


The whole world had already gone to hell and she never even knew it.


::


She runs into Dean in a gritty dive bar on the outskirts of Spokane. It’s a Saturday night, the bar is buzzing. The crooning sounds of Waylon Jennings flow from the jukebox.


“Remember me?” she asks, but she doesn’t expect he will. She sits down beside him at the bar, orders a rum and coke.


Dean squints at her, blinking away the liquid shine in his eyes. He stares for a long moment, eyes raking up and down her curvy form, just drinking her in.


She sips at her drink and he downs a shot of whiskey. He finally settles on a glib, cocky grin, asking, “Trailer park outside of Tucson. Gina, right?”


“Georgia,” she whispers, a soft pout to her lips. “Like the state.”


He flashes white teeth, offers her a lopsided smile in apology. “‘Course you are.”


She snorts, leans back and shakes her head. Three drinks in, she tells him she’s here to catch the vengeful spirit killing off hikers in the foothills.


He only lets his surprise show for a moment, wide eyes blinking in rapid succession before he leans back against the bar and whistles. “I can’t believe you’re a hunter.”


Her smile is very smug. “I told you I’d get better.”


He cocks an amused eyebrow, tilts his head, a hint of a challenge in his eyes. “I bet you did.” His voice pitches high in admiration. “But let me take care of this one, darling. He’s a real nasty sonofabitch.”


“How about we both take care of him,” she suggests, smiling good-naturedly, before leaning in to whisper heatedly, “And then you can take care of me.”


::


It’s been six years but he’s much the same, just filled-out more. Firm muscles where once lean, wiry strength was only hinted at. Coy-smile and leather jacket. Classic car and ragged jeans. Rough hands and slick moves. He still smells like gun oil and engine grease.


He’s hunting alone at the moment. Baby brother left him behind for college, his daddy’s working another case across the state.


Dean Winchester’s got a hole in his heart can’t nothing fill.


::


She lets him blast rock salt into the angry spirit. He lets her use his machete to hack through the wall to locate the bones of Mr. Richard K. Fourcade.


They both do the salt’n burn.


::


Only two letters work in the flickering neon sign outside the fleabag motel he chooses. They stumble through the door, slam so hard up against the wall they send the entire room shaking. His fingers fumble at the zipper of her jeans, and she’s barely gotten them pushed down over her thighs before Dean picks her up, presses her back against the wall, and pushes into her. He pulls out slow and shoves hard again, groans as he sinks into her tightness, the slick warmth of her cunt flexing around his cock.


::


She wonders if her body is all that she can give him. The pillow of her tits, the comfort of her hands, the pressure of her mouth, the heat of her cunt.


He takes what she offers, without complaint.


three.


Days and nights flicker in and out. Time is a silent refugee, out of place amongst the ghosts on the highway.


Wake up to the fire-gold blister of a South Dakota sunrise. Down strong coffee, read yesterday’s paper. Record old hunts and contemplate the next one. Get lost in the shift-change of landscape, flat earth to rocky mounts.


She doesn’t know when the road becomes her home. When dust and dirt, burning rubber and exhaust, become her oxygen. It’s a broken, bone-weary transience, living out of motels and her beat-up pickup. Gas stations and all-night diners. Cheetos and greasy fries. She’s been back to the trailer park a few times over the years, her parents too out of it to notice.


She’s twenty-four when she finally makes it to Georgia. Lives in Athens for a solid two months. Gets a job at a little bakery. Thinks about going to college.


Two days into her third month she’s standing over the grave of Louis Dawkins, watching his spirit dissolve as a fire kindles his bones.


Before long she’s counting the cracks in the blacktop. She’s got a knuckle-tight grip on her steering wheel. In the rear view, she watches Georgia fade away, melt into the burning horizon.


four.


She’s exorcised two demons by the time they meet up again.


They share a bottle of whiskey in the bed of her truck, which is parked in a field in the middle of Wyoming. Nothing but prairie below and starry skies above.


He licks salt and lime off her tits before he goes down on her, his velvet tongue traversing the dark districts of her body.


With his face locked between her legs, he presses plump lips against her cunt, slowly dips into her slick heat, tongue pushing deep, the gentle pressure of his teeth brushing against her clit. She whimpers and arches, releases pained little gasps and moans as he fucks it into her, a slow-ride perfection.


She comes with his face tight between her thighs, Dean lapping greedily at the wet folds of her sex, eating into her likes he’s starving. When he pulls up, her fingers trace the come-slick smears across his lips. He kisses her and she tastes the spicy musk of herself on his tongue.


five.


It’s sort of a competition, really. How many solo hunts can they each do before they get together for another fuck? How many sonsofbitches can they send to hell before they need a reminder of what’s in heaven?


::


Three thousand miles. One Pagan god, two zombies, one werewolf, four hauntings, and three cursed objects.


She counted.


::


Sometimes the smells never come out. Fucking coin-operated laundries can’t handle her job. Everything she wears ends up reeking of sulfur and decay.


six.


He has a knack for stealing her heart, right alongside her hunts. She aims to reclaim them. And sometimes she manages. Salt and burn the bones before he does, crawl out of bed before he wakes up.


Dean Winchester. Sometimes, she thinks she’ll shoot him soon as fuck him. But fortunately, most of the time, fucking’s better than shooting.


seven.


A carnival funhouse in Tulsa. Classic haunt. Or so you would think.


The angry spirit of a psycho serial killer leaves her black and blue, her new favorite colors.


Back at the Motel 6, she watches her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Her clothes are heavy, a sodden unbearable weight. She slowly shrugs out of bloody denims and a sweat-stained shirt. It’s like she’s still staring in the funhouse mirror, her distorted body stretched and pulled like an elastic band. She can barely see through her puffy eyelid. Dried blood crusts in her hair, over her face, shoulder and arms. She’s painted in it.


No broken bones. Not this time.


She’s under the motel’s showerhead for fifteen minutes before Dean joins her, his hands running over her too-tender body. Her whole body aches, she feels hollowed out, wrung raw. Dean’s fingers glide across the purple bruises that bloom on her shoulders, his lips gently kiss her swollen cheekbone.


His breaths are a shallow warm pant against her neck. “You did real good,” he says and that’s all there is to it. They’ve seen each other scarred and broken so many times since that first reveal so long ago in that trailer park in the desert.


The pressure from the spray chases blood and dirt and gunk down the drain. When her bones don’t work anymore, and her body’s too heavy to stand, Dean holds her up, presses her gently against the tile. As he slowly sinks into her, the steam surrounds them like a cocoon.


::


“I know something better to do with that mirror,” he tells her when he catches her looking at her battered reflection later that night. “Watch us.”


Dean licks down her body, sucks at her warm skin, leaves his own bruises along the meat of her breasts. She watches herself with him, reflected in the motel room mirror. Two naked bodies, blue-black in the half-light, as they twine and entangle, writhe on blood-stained scratchy sheets.


The shadows, how they love their curves. The darkness curls around their bodies, in every new dip and angle.


She shivers slightly as his lips land on the sensitive flesh around her latest bruises. Her fingers ghost over his newly bandaged chest wounds. She moves slowly, her lips creating a lazy drag over the flat planes of his chest and the lean muscle of his upper torso. She traces the ridges of scar tissue, maps the imperfect geography of his history.


Her eyes never leave their reflection in the mirror as she rides him long and hard, takes him farther inside her. In the mirror she watches his cock slide in and out of her cunt, pushing, deep, deeper. The slow rhythm of the ride is hypnotic.


::


She loves the way he looks when he breaks, when he comes just for her.


::


Maybe, every fuck is another way of saying goodbye.


She peels down the back roads, crosses the border into the next town, sends the road signs shaking in her wake.


eight.


Alive.


Coming down from a hunt is hell and heaven both. The fire burning low in her gut, the heartbeat pounding out of her chest. A need so fierce she shakes with it. He fucks her in a 7-11 bathroom. It’s a tug-of-war wrestle inside, hands clutching at the filthy tiles, the cold sink digging into her back.


In these moments in-between hunts, blood, come, sweat and tears are the only thing that signify life. Sex becomes the single desperate act of the living.


In that small, cramped space, their bodies grind, dirty-hot-slick-wet as they wrestle-tumble-twist-yank-bite, searing skin against skin. Their struggle, an intricate battle; the pair of them clashing like warriors.


nine.


Some nights, the road runs straight as an arrow.


Some nights, it carries all her weight.


ten.


After his brother returns, she doesn’t see Dean for nearly three years. When she does see him, he’s got a date with the devil. He’s making his final rounds, maybe seeking some kind of redemption.


She’s walking down Main Street, Jackson, Mississippi., 2 a.m. on a Friday.


He calls out to her with a “Long time no see, sweetheart,” his honeyed voice slurred by liquor. His bow-lips twist into a Cheshire-cat grin, his swagger is easy and familiar as he approaches her. But his face is worn and tired, eyes hiding the pain of burdens past and those yet to come.


His boots crunch over broken glass, track soot and ash into her motel room.


::


She memorizes the feel of Dean’s dick inside her, fucking her open, rough and deep and final. He shoves, thrusts hard, fierce and merciless, sweat-slick skin slapping in a panicked rhythm. Her fingers dig into the curve of his ass, squeeze his buttcheeks as he rocks forward, her cunt clenching tight around him, milking him dry.


She touches him everywhere with her hands and mouth, memorizes him. He fucks her raw, makes it hurt, makes it last.


“Georgia,” he cries out, exhales the urgent, breathless moan into the curve of her neck. The force of his vibration thrums up her spine like a livewire. Dean’s whole body goes rigid as he comes, shoots slick and warm inside her, fills her up.


::


They lie tangled together afterwards, skin melded by the sticky glue of body heat. He’s still snug inside her, slowly going soft. Neither of them moves.


Voice sex-rough, she finally asks, “How long?”


He scratches the back of his neck, closes his eyes, shuts out the world. “Three weeks left,” he breathes out, voice shaking like hell might come up and swallow him whole right then and there.


They’re quiet for a long time. In the silence, there’s just the sound of their rattling breaths, their steady exhales.


After a while, a small smile curves her lips. “You never remembered my name.”


His gaze flicks to her face, a flush creeps up his cheeks. “Actually I did,” he admits, ducks his head like he’s embarrassed. “I just liked to see the look on your face when I pretended not to.”


“Asshole,” she gives a soft, choked laugh, wants to kick him for frustrating her all these years, for playing her so well. But she doesn’t because she knows this is it. This is the last time she’ll get this. Dean Winchester, bloody and broken, coming to her bed.


Sadness cloaks the green of his eyes, his burden revealed. “You were my first, you know,” he admits, the corner of his mouth lifting gently.


She blinks up at him, mouth agape. “I didn’t know—”


Dean hushes her with a finger to her lips, adds, “And I wanted you to be my last.” He leans in close, slides bruised lips across her chin, settles a kiss against the indent of her right dimple. He whispers, just barely a breath, her name again and again and again. A goodbye.


- fini -

Title: Atheists in a Foxhole
Author:amchara
Recipient:regala_electra
Rating: Adult
Pairing: Dean/OFC
Summary: It was time to face two fucking depressing facts: they were dangerously low on ammo and supplies, and their gun-runner was two weeks late.
Author's Notes: ~7,700 words. Speculation but no spoilers for season four. Written for the prompt, ‘a pickup truck and an OFC that's a reformed nun turned gunrunner who knows exactly how strange that sounds’.



It was time to face two fucking, depressing facts: they were dangerously low on ammo and supplies, and their gun-runner was two weeks late.

“We can’t do any patrols beyond the salt lines until we get new flame-throwers, glocks and rock salt,” Dean said, flipping his knife idly. He set it down and grabbed a pair of darts from the bucket beside his chair, throwing them at the target. They both hit close to the bull-eye, courtesy of the last week’s frustration and inability to do anything, which had led to lots of dart-throwing practice. He turned around, facing Sam. “And I need more dead man’s blood bullets if we’re going out to MacMillan’s again. The blood-suckers have set up a base three miles out from the road.”

“We can’t do anything on the patrol front yet,” Sam said, rubbing his temple tiredly as he looked over their acquisition sheets. “So you’ll have to wait. If Jimmy’s dead, then we’ll have to find another guy to make the runs to the coast.”

“We’ll be trapped like rats here, if our supplies run out,” Dean reminded him. “The salt line and the armed sentries are—”

Sam glared at him. “I’m aware of the problem, Dean. I’m the one who picked this place originally and I did the calculations. I know how long we can last without.”

“So how much longer?” Dean asked, his voice soft. He leaned forward in his chair. “’Cause the kids are getting spooked every time we head out to the supply shed and see that small pile gettin’ down to nothing. If you’d just let me go…”

“No,” Sam said, his voice quiet as Dean’s, but with the dangerous undercurrent that everybody but Dean had learned to avoid. “You are not going past that line again. I’m fucking tired of having to ward you with a million-”

“We may not have a choice, Sam, so put on your big girl panties and realize that we’re in a shitty situation that’s gonna require us to move out and face them sooner rather than later.”
“We are not going anywhere yet,” Sam insisted.

The tension in the room was palpable, and Dean thought that if he didn’t get some answers or action soon, he was going to strangle the secrets out of his brother.

They glared at each other. Dean could feel a twitch in his face and to his horror, he couldn’t prevent the huge yawn from escaping. He saw Sam try to avoid doing the same, but unable to resist the temptation. Dean smirked and Sam smiled his rare half-grin.

“When was the last time you slept, asshole?” Sam asked with a tired chuckle. He stretched his arms over his head.

“Don’t know, sometime yesterday?” Dean said. He snapped his fingers, remembering. “After the four a.m. watch. “ He eyed the purple bruises that had taken up residence under Sam’s eyes. “You?”

“Uh.” Dean could see Sam was thinking about it. “Maybe… yesterday.” Sam groaned, pushing aside papers on the rough desk.

Dean snorted, “Get to a bed, Sleeping Beauty, and we’ll talk strategy when you’re not dead on your feet.”

He stayed where he was, watching Sam lurch to his feet and stumble into the room beside the study, with a half-hearted good-bye that sounded suspiciously like ‘Fuck you.’

Dean breathed a sigh of relief as the door shut, waiting a few minutes to make sure Sam was dead to the world. He pulled out his kit, opened Sam’s sickening easy-to-pick locks, and went riffling through the drawers. But like the last time he had checked, there was nothing new, no document that indicated the master plan of why they were waiting out the war in one of the most densely demon-populated areas and doing nothing except sitting on their asses and conducting surveillance patrols.

There was a knock on the outside door. “Dean?” It opened and a small head poked through. Alex, their youngest recruit, was the designated runner for their operations.

Dean shoved the last of the papers in the last drawer shut, and locked it.

“Dara spotted Jimmy’s pick-up coming down from the pass,” Alex said, a wide grin splitting his face.

Dean breathed a sigh of relief. “About fucking time.”

He joined Alex and they jogged their way to the base of the look-out point. Originally a grain silo, there was a platform 50 feet off the ground inside the structure, with two six-foot wide windows that allowed them to see for miles north or south of their base. Alex scurried up the ladder with Dean following close behind.

Dara was on look-out and she had the binoculars trained on a bobbing white spot on the horizon. “Definitely Jimmy’s truck,” she remarked, handing the binoculars over to Dean. “You can recognize his crest on the hood.”

Sure enough, when Dean focused in, he could make out the faint outline of two crossed shotguns on the truck’s hood. “How far out?” he asked. “15 miles?”

“Yeah, ‘bout that,” Dara agreed. “So you probably want to haul ass now, and get down to the roadblock.”

“Why’s that?” Dean tracked the truck as it turned onto the road towards their roadblock.

“’Cause that’s not Jimmy in the truck,” she answered.

“What?” Dean pulled his eyes away for a second to look at her.

“S’not Jimmy. Probably some demon in a meat suit.” Dara smiled a disarming grin. “Dean, can I come with you and waste the motherfucker when they come in?”

“Um… I need you to stay here, keep watch,” Dean said, perturbed despite himself. 16 year old former cheerleaders were not supposed to use that kind of language or have that kind of glee on their faces when they talk about killing people. At least, they didn’t in the world he was used to, which, admittedly, had changed in the past eight months.

Dara pouted.

Dean bent down and grabbed the look-out’s walkie-talkie, radioing ahead to the gate. “Robbie? Code 5. Be ready with all you got. Do not, I repeat, do not allow that truck past the gate without my okay.”

*

“Dara’s right- that’s not Jimmy,” Robbie said, sighting his rifle along the road at the approaching truck. “It’s a woman, brown hair, kinda hot,” he said, lifting his head. He spit a stream of tobacco out of the side of his mouth.

Dean nodded. “Any scope on her eyes? Scales, horns, fangs, anything that might indicate non-human?” He was only partially kidding on the last details—some weird shit had happened to the human race since Sam had brought him back from hell.

“Not that I can see, sir,” Robbie said, his eyes already lined back up with the target. “You let me know if you want me to light ‘er up.”

“Everybody get ready,” Dean called. All along the reinforced gate, the rag-tag band of recruits – mostly teenagers and college kids too stubborn or stupid to have fled with their families to the coast and safety – aimed their assorted weapons at the truck.

Dean hopped the lowest section in the gate, and stood on the other side of the salt-lines. He breathed in a deep breath, smelling the sulfur-tinged air and felt the prickling of electricity cover his skin. Different on this side of their Line. “Robbie, cover me.”

The former marine joined him on the other side, and together they stood in the middle of the road. “Sam isn’t going to like this,” he said in a low voice to Dean.

“Sam can go fuck himself,” Dean said with a pleasant smile. He pulled out one of his only remaining holy water grenades, and held it in his hand.

The truck slowed, as it approached and stopped ten feet from the barricade. The passenger didn’t exit right away and Dean could feel tension rising from the group at his back as the seconds dragged on. “Steady,” he called.

The driver’s door swung open, and a pair of no-nonsense boots exited, followed by the rest of the driver. She started walking towards them, a woman in her early thirties, light brown hair tied back in a braid, wearing a Kevlar vest, sweatshirt and jeans. She stopped five feet from them, still far enough out of range to touch.

“Quite a welcome,” she said, clear blue eyes crinkling at the corners with tiny laugh-lines as she surveyed the scene ahead of her. “This is the Winchester place?” She addressed the question to Dean.

Dean nodded confirmation. “It is. Where’s Jimmy?” he asked.

“Jimmy’s dead,” she answered. “I’m Magda, his cousin.”

“Dean Winchester, and this is Robbie Goulding.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” she held out her hand and took a step forward.

Robbie stepped in front of Dean, rifle on his shoulder and pointed straight at her. “No offense ma’am, but we need to be sure you aren’t a creepy-crawly or devilly before we’re going to be treatin’ with you.”

She stepped back, and in the mid-afternoon light Dean could see a silver cross glint against the matte black of her vest. Didn’t necessarily mean anything- higher level demons could wear crosses so long as they took precautions.

“By all means,” she said seriously. She held her palms up and turned to show them they were empty. “Human, unarmed, and willing to prove it.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call a gun-runner unarmed,” Robbie said, observing her with a thoughtful look, lowering his gun. “Or don’t you have massive amounts of weaponry in the back of your truck?”

“No personal sidearm?” Dean added, wondering who would be stupid enough to travel anywhere in this day and age without one.

“Guilty of the first, and left it in the passenger seat for the second, ” Magda said easily, letting her arms drop down beside her. “I figured I better be friendly.” But there was a relaxed ease and alertness about her that Dean thought she might have other means of protections at her disposal, likely in the form of protective wards or perhaps a rare blessed weapon.

She easily passed the holy water bottle test, and the body search for weapons and she could follow Dean and Robbie back over the salt-lines without any problems. The last test involved driving Jimmy’s truck between the gates. None of the sigils flared, indicating that she was as human as she claimed.

Dean relaxed slightly, but he still fell slightly behind while Robbie and Magda walked up the path to the farmhouse, observing. Never could be too careful. And if he was being honest with himself, the view wasn’t bad either.

*

Someone must’ve warned Sam ahead of time, because he was waiting at the front door, standing ramrod-straight and tall, with no indication that he hadn’t had more than an hour’s sleep in the last 24.

He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t let surprise color his voice as he took in their visitor. “Jimmy…?” he asked.

“Indisposed, permanently,” Dean told him bluntly. “This is Magda, his cousin. She’s taking over for him.”

Sam nodded, and held out his hand, which Magda took and shook firmly. “Pleased to meet you, I’m Sam Winchester.”

“Magda Sitovich.“

After a brief nod from Dean, Robbie headed back to the roadblock and they moved to Sam’s office, shutting the door on the curious eyes of the dozen or so young people off-duty and hanging out in the main complex.

“Shall we get down to business?” Magda asked. She opened her backpack to pull out a massive pile of papers, and grabbed the pen clipped to her vest, checking off points as she made them. “I have most of Jimmy’s last order… glocks, flame throwers, m-17s, two Berettas, holy water grenades, bullet casings, … a couple other odds and ends-, and a huge order of dried foods.”

Dean nodded. “Excellent, exactly what we need. I’ll have some of the kids unload your truck.” He swiveled back in his chair to open the outside door, yelling into the hallway. “Whoever’s out there, get off your lazy asses and help unload the supplies.” He turned back around with a grin on his face, noting with satisfaction the look of amusement that flashed across Magda’s face. “Gotta keep them busy somehow.”

Alex came running towards the door first, followed by two other boys and Dean directed them to the pick-up truck.

“Tell them to just take the cases off the first two rows to start,” Magda called.

“You got that, kid?” Dean asked and Alex nodded eagerly.

“In the meantime, we need to talk about rocket launchers…”

“I’m not equipping you with them.” Magda’s quick and dismissive response wasn’t exactly the response Dean had anticipated.

Dean blinked. “Look- we need gonna need RPGs and Jimmy said…”

“Look, you’re a rag-tag band of paramilitaries trying to eke out an existence beyond the Line, just to prove you can, like any other number of Jimmy’s other clients,” Magda stated, her arms crossed and her face impassive in Sam’s study. “You’re not a unique group—maybe larger than any of the others, but not special. If this ever ends and things go back the way they were… I’ll give you the smaller weapons, but I’m not going to equip every group with enough arms to start a small war.”

Sam looked over at Dean, and Dean shrugged. He’d let Sam handle this one. “It’s a little more complicated than that,” he said, and then let Sam take it from there.

“Doesn’t make a difference,” Magda said, shrugging.

“I’m betting you also have another client, buying them up,” Sam guessed.

“That’s a good guess,” Magda answered swiftly.

Dean had to admire her ability to cut through the bullshit quickly.

“Who?” Sam asked, his voice dangerously soft.

“Divisions of the Marine Corps, and the 60th Air Mobility out of Travis,” Magda met Sam’s eyes without hesitation.

Dean snorted loudly. “The military? Sweetheart, what those boys know about supernatural warfare they could fill with teaspoon. You’re better off giving it to us.”

“They’ve managed to keep more than half a million Bay Area residents alive so far in this environment. I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss them,” she retorted. “They might not have the experience, but they do have the discipline and manpower to help humanity survive in this new… situation.”

“They pay you well?” Dean asked, quickly reevaluating his first impressions of her.

“Well enough, but money’s not everything.”

“You have an awful lot of morals for an arms runner,” Sam observed. “You’re sure you’re related to Jimmy?”

Other than one quick, unimpressed eyebrow arch, Magda ignored the question. “I have heard of you though, the Winchester place. I’ve brought you some of my other cache. From what I’ve heard on the grapevine, I have a feeling they’re more to your style. You can take a look at what I brought- likely’ll make the difference for you than any heavy weaponry.”

Sam looked at Dean, and Dean shrugged. “Let’s take a look then.”

Magda led them out to the lightened truck, and jumped onto the bed, pulling out a key and unlocking a long, grey metal case.

“They’re blessed by the church,” she said, pulling the cloth back to showcase the shining rounds. “And I won’t even charge you extra for them.”

Dean let out a low whistle of appreciation. “You tracked down a member of the clergy who hasn’t been slaughtered yet, and convinced them to perform benedictions on rounds of ammo? Jimmy once claimed he could find us a priest for the right amount of money, but we didn’t think he could do it…”

“I did them myself,” she answered, a small, proud smile stealing across her face.

It took a moment for the significance to sink in for both Dean and Sam. “What?” Dean blurted out in surprise. “But that would mean…

“That you’re talking to the former Sister Magda of the San Francisco Sisters of Presentation,” she answered, the look on her and her tone warning them that this was the only answer they’d get at the moment. “So, do we have a deal, gentlemen?”

*

“I think I have whiplash,” Dean said conversationally, as they watched the white pick-up disappear in a cloud of dust into the horizon.

“Hmm?” Sam grunted, lost in his own thoughts, or perhaps just his exhaustion.

“I thought I had her pegged,” Dean replied. “Yuppie lawyer, business woman, yoga instructor maybe… former nun, never would’ve guessed with those legs.”

“Guess you’re not such a good judge of character as you thought,” Sam said, stifling a yawn.

“Maybe,” Dean said. “Shame though.”

“Former nun, did you say?” Robbie asked, joining them. “If she’s not working for God no more, no reason why you can’t.” He scratched idly at his three-day-old beard. “Hell, I’d tap it.”

“You’d tap it if you didn’t think Leah would cut off your balls for even thinking about,” Dean said, grinning at his second-in-command.

“Yeah… true,” Robbie admitted. “She wouldn’t be fond of that idea.” He looked around. “Speaking of Leah… if I’m not needed anymore for babysitting this post, I’m going off for a little R&R.” He leered good-naturedly. “She promised something good next time I came off watch.”

Dean nodded. “I think we should be good. Megan’s coming on and she can handle the ‘block for the daylight watch.”

Robbie gave him a quick salute.

“Oh, and make your R&R count,” Dean called after him. “Because we’re starting patrols again now that we have supplies that’ll inflict serious damage on those demon motherfuckers.”

“Hoo-rah,” Robbie answered, and he set off with a new spring in his step.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sam shaking his head. “We’re still just doing surveillance patrols, Dean. No offensives.”

“Goddammit, Sam…”

Sam turned to meet Dean’s eyes. “You promised you would trust me. I need you to keep doing that. We’ll get out there, I promise, but it’s not the right time yet,” he said, his voice filled with intensity tinged with exhaustion.

“Alright,” Dean said, reining in his frustration. “But if we’re attacked, we’re blowing them away.”

“Fine,” Sam said, with a tight smile.

*

Magda came back a week later with six large barrels of rock-salt and another load of consecrated ammo. Dean invited her along on a tour of their camp, ostensibly for the purpose of laying down new lines of salt and showing her exactly what they were doing here. In case she changed her mind about those RPG’s and rocket launchers.

“Where’d you find your recruits?” she asked, as they passed by a group of the younger kids picking beans in their late-summer garden. She had taken off her Kevlar as soon as she passed the roadblock, and was wearing her hair in a messy braid, with little wisps of hair glowing golden in the afternoon sunlight. It was surprisingly distracting, and Dean found his eyes sliding sideways to take a look more often than was necessary. His fingers itched to tuck this one strand behind her ears, but he valiantly resisted.

“First couple of months there was a long stream of refugees who passed by, fleeing from whatever the hell happened further inland,” he answered. He waved back at some of the kids, continuing. “We saw kids whose parents were killed along the way, and while the younger ones were taken care of, no one else was helping out the teenagers. Sam and I set an age limit—12, as we’re pretty much sitting ducks here, and we don’t have time to baby-sit, but we told anyone who wanted to stay and pull their weight could.”

He shrugged. “That was the beginning. We also picked a group of Stanford students who had been working on one of the university’s experimental farms just on up the road. We’ve left them in charge of our food and energy. Other than that—it depends. We’ve gotten strays, people who survived on their own but ran into trouble and decide to join us. Most adults tend to move on to the city the first chance they can, usually catching a ride with Jimmy or any other human passing by.”

He snapped his fingers. “How did Jimmy die, anyway?” he asked, remembering that that fact had been skimmed over the last time they’d met.

“Ambush outside the city Line, from the reports I’ve heard,” Magda said, her lips tight. “I was in the supply warehouse when his bodyguard dragged in his corpse. The guard said it was ghouls, but I don’t doubt it was demons who ordered the attack. Jimmy was getting too well-known as an arms dealer.”

“You work for him long?” Dean asked, sending her a sideways glance, wondering if she was worried about the same fate.

“About a month. I had just arrived back in the Bay area after running my own small operation in SoCal, and Jimmy asked if I wanted to help with inventory. I took him up on it, ‘cause I needed the break from the constant running. About two weeks in, I got a call from a client. Demons had found a way to smash through the barricades in most SoCal outposts. Most survivors were head up north, so I decided to cut my losses and stay up here, build up my own client base again while helping Jimmy out. The army contract helped as well.”

“Arms dealing run in your family?” Dean asked, grinning at her.

“Illegal activities run in my family,” she said, with a quirk in her mouth as she answered. “I was one of the few to originally go into a respectable profession.”

“So… a nun, huh?” he said, finally letting the curiosity get the better of him. “Bet you don’t see many high school counselors pushing that option anymore.”

A light flush rose in her cheeks. “Reformed nun. I learnt my lesson.”

“What was the lesson?”

She hesitated, clearly uncomfortable and Dean began to regret asking the question. “That God and religion lets you down,” she finally answered.

“Can’t argue with that,” Dean said, thinking back to his own hunts and the stubborn belief that Sam still clung to.

He stole a glance out of the corner of his eye, and saw she was fixedly looking at the horizon.

Dean searched for a safer subject but there was one question he realized still needed answering. “So, how’d you escape the initial purge after it happened?”

“Luck, mostly, plus the fact that I wasn’t officially part of the church anymore,” she answered flatly, clearly wanting to change the topic. She pointed over to their water tower. “Where do you get your water? From the stream that follows the road?”

Dean was only too happy to bring her over to Megan and Bradley, letting them explain their irrigation and water conservation techniques until Magda’s eyes began to glaze over, and then he and Robbie rescued her and showed her where they started their patrols.

“So, any chance of those RPGs?” Dean asked hopefully at the end of her visit.

“Not a chance,” she answered, but there was a smile playing on her lips. “I’ll see you in two weeks, likely on the Friday.”

*

It was sheer luck that Dean was on watch the night the white pick-up truck came barreling up next. He was staring out into the empty night when rapidly swerving headlights appeared in the distance.

Heather, one of the former Stanford students, was dozing beside him, and she woke up with a start when gunshots went off. “What’s happening?” she said sleepily, making a grab for the rifle beside her.

“I don’t know,” Dean stood up, straining his eyes in the distance, wishing for the thousandth time that they had any kind of decent night-vision. “Keep sharp.” He grabbed his radio and rifle and headed down the steep ladder.

He was almost at the roadblock when he heard shots being fired from their position ahead. “Shit,” he muttered and started running.

“What do we have?” he shouted over the crack of guns.

Leah turned around from where she was shooting, and he could see her teeth gleaming white in the dim light. “Ghouls, and we think possibly black dogs running alongside the gun-runner’s truck. Some of ‘em came onto the road, trying to cut her off and we lit ‘em up.”

“There’s a lot of them, Dean,” Robbie said calmly, as he paused between shots. “Doesn’t help in the dark, either.” He aimed again, pulling his trigger and Dean could see a dark shape drop.

“Do the best you can, and ease off when the truck gets close. We don’t want to lose another gun runner,” Dean said. “Are they coming near the ‘block and our lines?”

Leah shook her head. “Not as far as we can see.”

Dean ducked inside their small shack to grab an extra rifle. “Alright, let’s provide cover for Magda so she can get within the safe zone.” He joined the others in attempting to pick off ghouls that came within range.

Two minutes later, the white pick-up came screeching up, and Dean could see the remaining dark shapes melt away into the surrounding darkness outside their lights.

“You okay?” Dean shouted ahead.

Magda poked her head out of the window. “Yeah. Might need some minor medical treatment though.” Under the bright spotlights, Dean could see red, arterial spray coating her windshield and driver’s door. Not hers though.

“Head towards the main complex,” Dean replied. “I’ll join you there as soon as I can.”

Leah and some others opened the gates, and Magda drove through. The sigils stayed blank and Dean relaxed his hold on the rifle, noticing Robbie doing the same.

Dean waited at the roadblock for a good 45 minutes, but the night in front of them remained silent. “Keep scanning, make sure nothing else is coming, and radio me if you see anything,” he ordered.

The others nodded and Dean started jogging towards the main buildings.

*

She was waiting in a bedroom that doubled as a spare medical room when he came to offer his assistance. Cam, their only trained medic, was busy treating the two new refugees they had stumbled across in their patrols earlier that day but promised to be over shortly. One of the other girls still awake had told Dean that she had already helped Magda as best she could.

“Can I do anything?” Dean asked, hanging back in the doorway.

Her back was to him. She didn’t react, and Dean walked closer, concerned. He noticed that she was breathing rapidly, her chest heaving up and down, and he saw that she was silently mouthing words. He also noticed the red staining her crudely wrapped upper arm. “Bandage, Magda?” he asked sharply.

He leaned down over the bed, and he saw her squeeze her eyes closed tightly, and then open them, consciously forcing herself to slow her breathing. She flicked her eyes over to him.

He sat down beside her, and tentatively touched his hand to her shoulder. “Here, let me help you.” She turned slightly, not speaking and he started to push her sleeve up before realizing that it wouldn’t roll up that far.

“One second,” Magda answered, finally speaking and she moved away from him, starting to pull her arms out of her sleeves. She then lifted the shirt over her head, leaving her in a tight white blouse.

Quickly, he grabbed some gauze and antiseptic from the counter behind him, and turned his attention to the ugly scratches that marred her right shoulder. “Black dog?” he asked, trying to distract her.

“Think so,” she said breathily, as he probed gently as the wound. “They jumped at my window when I slowed down to cross the ford. Had to shoot them with my pistol.” That explained the blood on her door.

They didn’t speak for a few minutes while Dean cleaned the wound and bandaged it, all the while acutely aware of her slowing breaths against his face and the faint smell of Tide laundry detergent.

When he was finished he looked up, and was surprised to see her face less than an inch away from his.

She shifted forward and their lips brushed against one another. She lifted up her hands and lay them against his shoulders.

In the dim light, he couldn’t see her expression but the tightening of her hands around his biceps encouraged him to a deeper exploration. He could taste the sweat and fear on her lips, and even though logically he knew that he couldn’t kiss away her fear, he was going to try his damnest. It had been a long time—the age difference between himself and the rest of his recruits had him reconsidering any trysts. He’d been in the ‘commander’ role long enough and he longed for a release from the responsibility.

“Distract me,” he heard her say, drawing him back to the present.

“You sure?” Dean asked, the fog in his brain clearing enough to remembering the former nun part. God, he hoped she was serious and this wasn’t some random PTSD shit that Cam had warned him might happen. Because it would be wrong to take advantage of her offer in that case. Yeah.

“Look, I nearly died tonight. I’d like to forget that fact for the moment, so yes, I’m sure,” she said, and there was a note of laughter in her voice.

Dean hesitated, but then she was licking along his neck, and fuck it, he had her blouse open, palming her breasts through the thin fabric of her bra. He bent down and sucked along the edge of fabric and skin, feeling her shiver under his hands, her nipples becoming prominent underneath his fingers. He pushed her bra down to gain full access to her breasts, sucking on her tiny areoles. He wondered briefly if she was a virgin, because that could make things complicated.

She let him stay there for a few moments, letting out tiny sounds of contentment, and then she pushed against his chest, and he fell back on the bed. She clambered on top, straddling him. She helped him pull off his shirt, while he fumbled with her jeans, managing to push them down to her knees. Her panties were wet and he could feel his own jeans tightening uncomfortably, with his cock straining against the denim in response. She palmed a hand over his groin area, and he groaned.

“Gonna fuck you, gonna fuck you hard, baby,” he whispered, and pulled her on top of him, maneuvering his hand to rub against the wet fabric before pushing it aside, and fingering her clit.

“Stop talking about it, and do it,” she hissed in his ear, grinding against him urgently. Not a virgin, his senses were telling him. Fine with him.

Goddammit, he was going to come in his pants if he didn’t… she unbuttoned and tugged and his jeans fell down, releasing his cock, which she immediately began stroking.

“Condom?” he managed breathlessly. “I… can…” he reached into the back of his pocket, pulling out his battered wallet and it fell open beside them on the bed. She snatched at the condom the same time he did, and there was brief scuffle before Dean claimed it, managing to tear open the package with shaky hands and then handed it off to her. She rolled it onto him expertly, and then positioned herself on top of him, slowly lowering herself onto his cock.

Dean rocked back, the tight, hot wetness driving any other thought from his mind. Fuck, he had missed this. She rode him, settling her hips in a slow, torturous rhythm and he followed blindly, burrowing his fingers in her slippery cleft and attempting to stroke in a similar fashion.

She tightened around him, letting out quiet sounds of panting. “Yeah, sweet Jesus, yeah, sweet Mother… please…”

The last coherent thought Dean had was that there was something deeply wrong with her calling on those particular people but holy… he didn’t care. She let out a long moan, and could feeling her tighten around him even more, pushing him over the edge. He came hard, and clung to her while riding it out.

When it was over she gingerly disentangled herself and bent over him, her silver cross swinging over him like a star. He lifted up his head to give her a hard, bruising kiss. She collapsed beside him.

“Thanks,” she said, after a moment.

It seemed like an incongruous statement and Dean could only reply with the obvious. “You’re welcome,” he muttered.

Both of them exhausted from the night’s activities and events, they fell asleep soon after, with Dean waking up only after Cam discreetly knocked on the door.

*

She left early the next morning before breakfast, kissing him briefly on the cheek with an enigmatic smile on her face. He didn’t know where they stood.

Dean prepared a speech in his head for the next time they’d be alone together. It came at the end of a day when they had finished tallying the inventory and she was preparing to leave for her four hour trip back to the city.

“You need to get back tonight?”

She quirked an eyebrow at him. “Why, are you offering some incentive to stay?” she asked mildly.

To his dismay, Dean felt himself stumbling in his response. “Well, I uh, I thought. If you ever need another distraction…” he offered lamely. His seduction skills had definitely taken a hit without practice these last few months.

But it turned out he didn’t need to worry. “I’d love one,” Magda said, her eyes crinkling in a pleased, cat-like shape that was slowly becoming familiar to him. She leaned forward and pushed her palm against his chest, walking him back against the wall of the silo. He circled his palm around the back of her neck, and drew her in for a messy, open-mouthed kiss.

“I don’t do relationships,” she warned him, when they broke apart.

“That’s okay, sweetheart,” he answered. “Neither do I.” Which wasn’t exactly the truth, but near enough to it that he felt comfortable saying it. Besides, for all he knew, she had a fuck-buddy at all the stations she stopped at. Just a way to scratch the itch and relieve some stress, he could work with that.

*

It became a routine. Magda would make the trip out every couple weeks, unload the guns and weaponry she had brought, and then she and Dean would steal off for a tryst wherever they could find the space.

“Oomph,” Dean heard her say during a particularly enthusiastic session against the supply closet’s wall.

On the other side of the wall, they could hear muffled giggling, and a blush rose on Magda’s cheeks.

Dean hammered on the wall. “This area is off-limits. Scram, you guys.”

“Aye aye, Dean,” came a voice on the other side.

Dean shook his head as Magda buried her face in his chest, shaking with laughter.

They rarely talked about anything personal in their lives. It was either business, or pleasure. Nothing in between. Guns, surveillance patrol tactics, or fucking. Dean didn’t mind it like that.

“What’s it like in the city?” he asked her one afternoon as they took a post-coital walk through the tiny fruit orchard on the property.

“Chaos, controlled chaos, but still chaos nonetheless,” Magda told him. “The civilian government has ceded most of the power over to the military in efforts to control the population, but it’s not doing much good. Everyone’s running scared ‘cause of the demon threat, when you can’t tell who’s the enemy, it’s hard to trust anyone else to protect you.”

Dean nodded. In their relatively isolated bubble of calm, it was easy to forget that there were others fighting the same war they were.

“Sam and I… we’re working on a plan that might work,” he said, knowing how thin that promise sounded. A plan that Sam was still mostly keeping him in the dark on.

“Mmmm,” she said, lost in thought. “I’ve pretty much given up on anything going back the way they used to be, even if we do find a way to kill all the demons.”

“No hope at all?” he asked. “You ever pray for anything different?”

Her eyes were sharp and sad when she looked at him. “No,” she answered.

The next time she visited, she brought them RPGs and rocket launchers.

*

“I stopped at the Jones’ farm today,” she murmured against his neck. “Every family member slaughtered. I found their heads twenty feet from their bodies.”

Dean paused from where he was kissing her neck. He looked up to meet her eyes. “Hate to say this, but this isn’t exactly pillow talk,” he said wryly.

“Sorry,” she answered, but she didn’t meet his gaze. She leaned back against the bed’s headboard, sighing. “I just need something to distract me, anything to get those images out of my head. There’s too damn many of them in there nowadays.”

“Just lay back and let me take care of that, sweetheart,” Dean assured her. He eyed her no-nonsense black panties and his mouth watered. Jesus, if only she’d let him… well, it was worth a try.

He started by sneakily trailing light, whispery kisses down her stomach, watching her eyes close and her face relax. Without stopping he hooked a finger under the band and pulled down her panties, approving of the sight of white skin and a tiny strip of hair underneath. Magda let out a little squeak as he bent down and drew his tongue along the raised pink folds.

“Dean, what the hell-” She half-raised herself off the bed.

“Relax, just trust me,” Dean said, gently pushing her back down. He let a smirk cross his mouth. “Believe me, when I’m done here, there won’t be anything in your head but the thought ‘Dean Winchester is a fucking star at eating pussy.’”

The look on Magda’s face doubted that, but she settled back against the pillow, her brown hair catching red highlights from the dim lamp as it sprayed out on the pillow. Dean paused to admire the picture in front of him before returning to his work.

He sucked along the edge of her thigh, and then pressed his finger down and dragged it along her fold, pausing at her hole as if marking the spot. He licked along the same strip, letting his lips briefly grab and release rapidly on her clit. Her breathing changed, and Dean could feel the shuddering sign that had him excited, he pushed a finger inside her, feeling the wetness and she bucked her hips, thrusting up into his finger. He sucked, his nose filled with the faint musk and her unique taste on his tongue. Her fingers curled around his ears, guiding him in the direction she wanted. He was only too happy to oblige.

She came three times, and as she shuddered around him for the last time, he looked up and saw her smiling.

“Go on, say it,” he teased, after she had recovered.

She whacked him gently on the back of his head. “All right, I’ll give it to you. Dean Winchester, you are a fucking star at eating pussy.”

“Thank you,” he said with mock gravity. “Distraction enough?”

Her smile faded, and he could’ve kicked himself.

“Yeah, I think so,” she said, and then leaned forward to kiss him. “Here, let me return the favor.”

Not gonna argue with her there.

*

One cool day in February, she arrived to find a different sort of action going on in the main compound.

“This is it, isn’t it?” Magda asked in a low voice, hardly pitched loud enough for Dean to hear above the excited chattering of his group as they busily began unpacking the truck.

“Naw, this is just for the fireworks. Gotta celebrate the fourth of July sometime this year,” he answered glibly.

He saw her take in the mounds of supplies around them. They had been stockpiling for the last few months, and a windfall with a group of truckers the week before had produced the last piece to the puzzle. “Bullshit, you have enough fireworks to blow the Golden Gate Bridge to smithereens and enough protected and blessed ammo to take on Satan himself,” she said, catching his arm. “What do you have planned?”

He threw her a wild grin. “Maybe we’re taking on the big Hoobah himself. Maybe we’re tired of him making the world his playground. Maybe we’re going to take fight there.” He knew he was babbling, but after months of inaction they were finally going into the big finale. Sam, the sneaky bastard, had finally let him know the full plan the night before and Dean was riding high on the sheer brilliance and amazingly difficult insaneness of what they were about to attempt.

“Are you fucking serious?” Magda raised her voice, and in the lull it carried and the frantic action around them stopped.

The kids were staring. Dean cleared his throat. “Carry on, everyone,” he told them, drawing Magda to one side. There was a bit of awkward shuffling and then they started up again.
“Did you bring the…”

“I have everything you ordered,” Magda said, interrupting him. “You told me it was for new patrols, not a suicidal assault. Dean… do you know what’s been happening in the city and around the limits lately? The Line is breaking.”

“Yeah, the demons are getting stronger, we get that, which is why now is the time to strike.”

“This is suicide,” she stated again, crossing her arms.

“We all die sometime,” he challenged. “Might as well go out fighting.”

“Risking their lives too?” Magda asked, nodding her head at the kids.

Dean ground his teeth. The one weak spot in the plan that he couldn’t allow himself to think about. “They knew what they were signing up for when they agreed to stay,” he said. “Besides, we told them that any one who doesn’t want to take part in the assault can catch a ride back to the city with you and wait it out.”

She opened her mouth to speak and then closed it. Dean waited for the ‘is there anyway I can talk you out of it?’ part, but it never came.

She closed her eyes, as if gathering her strength. “Okay,” she said.

“…okay?” Dean said cautiously.

She opened them, looking cross. “Okay, I’ll take anyone back who wants to come with me,” she said. “Also, I’m going to help you out, so gather everyone around with the main weapon they’re going to be using. Can’t promise that it’ll work, but I can attempt a blessing on them.”

“Thank you,” he said sincerely. He wasn’t sure what else to say.

“Don’t mention it,” she replied, the lines on her face burrowing deep, making her look old.

The rest of the afternoon and into the evening a line threaded through the compound, ending beside Magda’s truck. She took each rifle, assault gun, machine gun and knife that was offered, quietly speaking the Latin blessing over the gleaming metal. She handed it back to the kids, and as Dean watched each kid walk away, their backs a little straighter, he concluded that this had been a good idea, if only for morale. There was a look of peace of Magda’s face too, and he commented on it while they took a quick break and ate dinner.

“I’ve been doing some thinking these last couple of weeks,” she said guardedly. “Reconsidering my stance.”

Dean remembered that she had always worn her cross, despite her professions of faith otherwise.
“No atheists in the foxholes,” Sam said from across the table. In the weeks leading up to finishing the plan, he hadn’t slept or eaten much, and Dean couldn’t help but feel a stab of concern whenever he looked at his brother. But the stress on Sam would all be over soon, one way or another.

“Maybe,” Magda said thoughtfully.

Dean decided it would be wise to keep quiet on the issue. No reason to upset the balance or start a fight, not on the last night together. Personally, he didn’t think that God had started to pay attention to the world again the last few weeks… or ever, so he saw no reason to start believing now that he was facing death.

Too soon, she had finished up with the last weapon, and was holding his own personal gun. She kept her eyes on his face as she moved her hands in the traditional movements over it, going through the Latin prayer in a practiced cadence. “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritūs Sancti ,” she finished.

Sam and the others had left to do the final preparations and they were alone in the open yard.

“Well…” he started awkwardly. “Take care of yourself, Magda.” He wanted to thank her, for being an anchor, a release for him these last few months. It hadn’t been love, but it had been enough for the time they had.

“You too,” she said, with a half-smile. She walked towards him and he bent his head down for a final, lingering kiss. No time this night for anything else. And nothing more to be said. He knew she wouldn’t stay.

She got into her truck alone. None of the kids had wanted to miss out on the final battle, despite persuading otherwise, and Dean and Sam hadn’t the heart to refuse. She waved a hand and shouted out the window. “I’ll be back next week—if you’re here, I expect a warm welcome.”

“You’ll get it,” Dean promised.

The engine started and the truck slowly rumbled along the narrow road to the roadblock. Dean resisted the urge to jog alongside it. He turned his back, walking towards the front door.

He didn’t look behind, but he could hear himself straining to listen for the truck’s noises until it was too far away and the noises ceased. He went inside, heading towards the sound of the voices, where Sam and Robbie were going over the final battle plans.

Outside the windows, a blood-red sun rose as the white-pick up truck disappeared into the horizon.

*

Title: who is the third who walks always beside you
Author:kickaboutheart
Recipient:connery_is_bond
Rating: Adult
Pairing: Dean/Impala, slight Mary/John
Summary: When he speaks to Her, there's something different about his voice.

Author's Notes: This pairing was much harder than I thought it would be to write, but I hope you like it!



She wasn't always a car. No, in the last 10,000 years, she has been many things. She has touched the Great Wall in China, felt the clear warm water of the Amazon river on her fingers, and driven through every continental United State.

She has given life, and she has taken it away. She has been born, and she has died.

But its only been in the last 50 years that she realizes well built cars last longer than human bodies.

-

She's there in 1971 when 17 year old Mary Winchester makes a deal with the crossroads demon. Anything, Mary pleads, blond hair whipping around her face. Anything to make sure that her boy comes home.

John arrives two weeks later, shell shocked but alive.

-

It's a warm April day in 1978 when Dean is conceived. The sun shines into the backseat and off of Mary's engagement ring as she bucks underneath John, back arching up against him.

-

The empty coffee cans and old shoes bang loud against the weathered pavement as She drives off from the church, Mary's laugh high and full, her belly starting to swell with beginning of their family.

-

Baby Dean cries a lot, leaves his mamma tired, and daddy frustrated. On a last ditch effort they put him in his car seat and drive for hours.

It's the only peace and quiet they've had in days.

-

Dean tells everyone who will listen about his new baby brother on the way. He even offers to give up his old car seat for the new baby.

But he won't give up his side of the backseat, and if She could, She would wrap her arms around the talkative four year old.

-

Baby Sam is not like Dean was. He is a quiet, shy baby, who hates to be held by anyone but Mary. It is not lost on Her that he is Mary's first child conceived in wedlock.

-

Dean's tears soak the leather of the backseat as John drives them out of Lawrence, out of Kansas, and out of the life that they'd always thought they would have.

She makes a silent promise to Mary that She will protect them and keep them safe.

-

Over the next fourteen years She watches them, feels them grow up inside of Her. She's there for Sam's first words, Dean! Dean! Dean!, She's there when Dean speaks again, after so many months of not talking, and he's spent the rest of his life trying to make up for it.

She's there when Dean shoots his first ghost, when Sam kills his first chupacabra, and when John realizes that there is no turning back.

-

Dean nicknames her Betsy during the summer of 1996. He's seventeen, palms itchy for the feel of skin softer than his own, and when he loses his virginity in Her backseat to Laura Paulsen, She's not really sure what to think, but it's the first time she wishes she'd picked a human host.

-

She mourns the loss of Sam with Dean, She pushes herself harder, tries to move him faster and farther away from the pain, but She knows that it's Her who holds the pain and the memories.

-

And somewhere along the way, She realizes that what She feels for Dean, She hasn't felt that in centuries.

When he speaks to Her, there's something different about his voice, something so raw and exposed, like She's the only he'll ever truly let see the real him. She's the only one who knows how much he resents his father, and loves him in the same breath; the same for Sam, perhaps more so.

-

In 2001 John buys a truck and from then on its just Her and Dean, and thousands of miles of interstate.

He plays the radio loud and booming, and when John takes off - sending him on his very own hunt without any warning, She's there as he beats his fists on the steering wheel, tears rolling off the weathered vinyl.

And for a second time in the last 50 years, she wishes she was human.

-

Having Sam back in the car with Dean is comforting and familiar. And its not just the weight of Sam's body, the stretch of his legs against the interior, its the way Dean feels - lighter and happier.

At least for a while anyway; there is so much unsaid between them - apologizes and forgiveness that they've both come to terms with except to each other.

But She's there, holding them together.

-

It's not supposed to hurt when the truck smashes into them at 80 miles an hour. She's just metal and leather and rubber, but she feels their pain, his pain and so she finds her own, waiting in the crumpled pile of debris. And this is her grief, this is how she deals with the fact that she couldn't keep them safe, and that regardless, she'll lose one of them.

-

A year later and Dean drives her out to the crossroads. It feels like an unfunny joke that she already knows the punchline for, but there's nothing she can do to stop from hearing it again, watching as the crossroad demon makes one more deal with the Winchester family.

-


When Dean finally concedes that he doesn't want to die, but he mostly likely will she realizes that its time. That her time with Dean is running short, and there are only so many days left until he leaves Sam, leaves her.

And so she pulls herself from the car, the process is exhausting and when she falls into her next host, its odd to feel the flex of fingers and toes - something she hasn't done in 57 years.

She doesn't have much time, three maybe four days at the most until someone notices, and then she'll be sent back into the car.

Easy punishment for a girl her who tried to get out of her own deal with devil.

-

They're having a beer at the bar when she walks in. Dean's chatting up the blond bartender, and Sam's got his head buried in an ancient book. They stick out like sore thumbs even if they don't realize it.

"Lemon drop," she says, her voice is still a little shaky but she forces a grin as the bartender nods, walking away from Dean's incessant chatter.

"Classic drink," he says, tipping the head of his beer bottle in her direction. "I'm Dean."

"I'm a classic kind of girl," she says, sipping slowly, the bittersweet liquid sliding quickly down her throat. "I'm Betsy."

It's strange, standing so close to Dean yet feeling so very far away from him. But she knows he can feel it, the connection between them, the chemistry that's been building for the last thirteen years. She wants to reach over, brush her hand over the day old stubble on his chin and feel the tingle on her fingertips. Her fingers make it half way before she realizes what she's about to do and he's looking at her with one eyebrow raised.

"You wanna get out of here?" he asks, taking her hand that's hovering in midair. She nods, draining the rest of her drink as she slides off the barstool. "Don't come home for a while," Dean says to Sam, patting him on the shoulder as he takes her hand, leading her out of the bar.

-

They don't make it past the parking lot when his hands are in her hair, and her mouth is flush against his, seeking and searching as his tongue pushes into her mouth.

It's all they can do to duck around the side of the bar, hidden from view. His hands are on her hips, sliding up to her breasts and he palms them roughly through the cotton of her t-shirt. Dean groans as her hand slides into his jeans, finds him hard and aching and oh so willing to her touch. She's missed this, the heat of skin between human flesh, the insatiable ache that continues to fill her every second he isn't inside her.

They don't have time for niceties, and she doesn't even take her panties off, just lets him push them to the side as he lifts her up, fucking into her in one long thrust against the decaying brick wall.

It's like nothing she thought, and yet she knows his rhythm, finds it quickly, one hand on the back of his neck, the other on his ass, pushing him in deeper.

He licks and grates his teeth over her neck, teeth grasping her ear lobe as he whispers into her ear.

"God, so fucking tight, girl. Want to fuck you hard, so fucking hard." That and the pressure of his thumb against her clit sends her right over the edge, into an explosive orgasm that she hasn't had since 1843 and she pulls him right down along with her.

-

She gets two and a half days before they find her; pull her down into the fiery pits of hell. They torture her just enough to remind her why she doesn't pull that stunt more than once a century, but she doesn't regret it and she's okay with going back into the car.

She and Sam have work to do.

In case you hadn't noticed, we've now finished posted all the stories for this year's exchange and all the names have been revealed. Feel free to post your stories elsewhere on the 'net!

If there's anyone who wrote a story for this exchange and did not receive one in return, please email the mod account (spnsummerlove @ gmail dot com) and we'll fix this oversight.

Look for a wrap-up post and masterlist of stories to go up tomorrow.

And so the 2008 spn_summerlove fic exchange has ended. All that's left is the big reveal, and the masterlist, so without further ado...


1. Title:I Will Show You Fear in a Handful of Dust
Author:caithream
Summary: For theemmer (Dean/OFC/Sam, NC-17) But after weeks upon weeks of watching…everything filtered through the dim glass, she ventured out into the world that was no longer her own, no longer anyone’s but theirs.

2. Title:Divided Loyalties
Author:briarwood
Summary: For tvaddictgurl, (John/Ellen, Adult) You concentrated on the game, because it was a thing you could control. There was no pleasure in it, neither satisfaction in your skill nor triumph in clearing the table. Only this: what you could control, because it kept the chaos in your mind at bay. Only the familiar, simple action of the pool cue in your hand, keeping you from screaming the pain in your heart.

3. Title:fields of mud and bone
Author:samescenes
Summary: For brin_bailey (Sam/Jo, NC-17) The case was reduced to a simple manila folder overflowing with highlighted clippings and scribbled notes, and it sat squarely in the passenger seat of the van, right where Sam ought to be. Some people need to be alone to deal with their grief. Others need something to hold on to, so they’re not going down on their own.

4. Title:Thy will, love
Author:joans23
Summary: For stars91 (Sam/Jo, PG-13) Everything Jo knows and loves has gone up in flames with the Roadhouse. So she does the only thing she can, she hunts. When she tries so save a little boy from a djin, she ends up falling under its spell instead. What is the only thing Jo could ever wish for?

5. Title:Consolation
Author:joans23
Summary: For chasingtides (Sam/Jo/Dean, NC-17) Jo lost everyone at the Roadhouse and learns to deal.

6. Title:My Fate, My Sweet
Author:montisello
Summary: For buffyspazz (Bobby/Wife, R) The only one left to remember was Bobby. And there was no one to tell him different.

7. Title:First Date
Author:oh_thatsgreat
Summary: For sacasim (Sam/Jess, PG) Sam smiled back at her, and at that moment, he didn’t know how hooked on Jess he was going to be.

8. Title:Those Who Favor Fire
Author:quiet_rebel
Summary: For joans23 (Sam/Jo, R) How do you repair something that wants to stay broken?

9. Title:Something Attempted, Something Done
Author:brin_bailey
Summary: For ashe_frost (Dean/Jo, R) This just might be the best morning ever.

10. Title:I Left (My Sam in San Francisco)
Author:ryuutchi
Summary: For briarwood (Sam/Jo, PG) A chilly San Francisco night, a hunt or two, Sam, Jo, and some kitchenware.

11. Title:Those Hot Summer Nights
Author:stars91
Summary: For snugduff (Dean/OFC, R) Pre-Series – Dean’s ‘something’ turns into a night he’ll never forget.

12. Title:Sweet Surrender
Author:tvaddictgurl
Summary: For littlestclouds (Bobby/Ellen, PG) Bobby and Ellen find a measure of comfort in one another.

13. Title:Wednesday Night Special
Author:
Summary: For sprbitch1313 (Sam/OFC, R) A Forest Ranger agrees to help Sam and Dean locate a “missing” mining town by letting them go through her late father’s old box of legends.

14. Title:Past Changes
Author:fonapola
Summary: For muses_circle (Dean/Chloe, PG) They snark, hunt and stop. Then do it again.

15. Title:Past Changes
Author:fonapola
Summary: For muses_circle (Sam/Sarah, PG) The body says what words cannot.

16. Title:From What I’ve Tasted of Desire, I Hold With Those Who Favor Fire
Author:diva5256
Summary: For quiet_rebel (Dean/Jo, NC-17) "Keep your heart broken"

17. Title:The Weight of Water
Author:twasadark
Summary: For violettestars (Dean/OFC, Adult) Dean and Sam are hunting a phantom mustang herd on the property of spitfire ranch owner Mandy O’Malley. She can’t stand Dean. He finds her irritating and oversensitive. So of course they must have sex.

18. Title:The War Drums Are Gonna Sound
Author:iluvroadrunner6
Summary: For diva5256 (Sam/Ruby, PG-13) Sam started coming apart at the seams long before his brother died.

19. Title:Through Hell
Author:staci_x2
Summary: For romani_65 (Dean/Bela, Adult) After months of hell, Dean and Bela have to stick together to find their way back to their old lives.

20. Title:Press my Luck and Try for Three
Author:chase_acow
Summary: For thatfilmgirl (Dean/Sister!Alex, Dean/Sister!Alex/Sam, NC-17) They didn't fuck until after Sam left them.

21. Title:Trouble Sleeping
Author:peganix
Summary: For evenasiwander (John/Mary, R) It rained the night Dean was conceived.

22. Title:Road to Nowhere
Author:stuffs_inc
Summary: For thenyxie (Dean/Bela, PG-13) Dean begrudgingly enlists Bela's help on a case with rather personal implications.

23. Title:The Last Hurrah
Author:snugduff
Summary: For stuffs_inc (Sam/Bela, R) Sam pulled over at a homey looking diner three days after the world ended and ordered a cup of coffee. What he got instead was a cup full of boiling blood, an electrical storm that he registered as the telltale swarm of demons, and Bela Talbot.

24. Title:Spot Check
Author:zelost_mind
Summary: For caithream (Dean/OFC, Adult) Dean, trying to tie up loose ends.

25. Title:A Moment is All It Takes
Author: sprbitch1313
Summary: For meg_dallen (Dean/Jess, Sam/Jess, PG-13)

26. Title:Inheritance
Author:cjmarlowe
Summary: For cynicaloptimis (Dean/Jo, Adult) A story about the things that are passed down.

27. Title:Demons Lie
Author:cynicaloptimis
Summary: For montisello (Dean/Jo, PG) Back from the dead, Dean stumbles upon a woman performing an exorcism and wonders where he's seen her before.

28. Title:Light Up the Darkness.
Author:kickaboutheart
Summary: For vinylroad (Dean/Jess/Sam,NC-17) 86 days after the world ends, when angels and demons have put each other to rest, all that's left is to start rebuilding.

29. Title:you and your eyes light the darkest room
Author:that_september
Summary: For fonapola (Dean/Lisa, PG-13) Three times Lisa asked Dean to stay.

30. Title: Shotguns and Heartstrings
Author: connery_is_bond
Summary: For dragonsinger (Dean/Chloe, PG-13) They’re both a little crazier for knowing each other

31. Title:I Close My Eyes and Dream That I’m Awake
Author:thenyxie
Summary: For samescenes (Dean/Jess, NC-17) In Hell, even mercy is a punishment.

32. Title:Swimming in Suwannee
Author:regala_electra
Summary: For zelost_mind (Dean/OFC, NC-17) Dean's seventeen years old and finds himself falling for a swimmer who gives as good as he dishes out.

33. Title:Send You Down to War
Author:vinylroad
Summary: For kickaboutheart (Dean/Jess, NC-17) In the rearview mirror, he can see her twist around, her delicate white dress splattered with blood twirling in the wind. Watching him drive away.

34. Title:Found
Author:littlestclouds
Summary: For twasadark (Dean/Ellen, PG-13) It’s not the Roadhouse, this isn’t her life, and maybe she’s a little bit thankful for that.

35. Title:File No. M-124-16
Author:ryuutchi
Summary: For iluvroadrunner6 (Sam/Claire Bennet [Heroes], PG-13) This file is classified at level 13. All agents must file form G-165 with their supervisor to gain access.

36. Title:The Little Things
Author:ashe_frost
Summary: For sasha_davidovna (Dean/Bela, PG-13) Dean and Bela find themselves together in Hell, which is not-awesome, just in case you were wondering.

37. Title:Sings to me
Author:sacasim
Summary: For oh_thatsgreat (Dean/OFC, PG-13) Sings to me.

38. Title:Cicatrice Road
Author:peganix
Summary: For that_september (Dean/Kaylee [Firefly], PG) The first time Dean and Kaylee met, he was skulking around the barn out back.

39. Title:New Times
Author:meg_dallen
Summary: For my_sam_dean (Dean/Jo, Adult) Jo woke up tangled in his sheets, her hand still on his arm. Dean was sleeping peacefully, slightly turned to her, with his cheek pressing against her scalp…

40. Title: Shout When You Wanna Get Off the Ride
Author: sasha_davidovna
Summary: For ryuutchi (Sam/Bela, Adult) Set during "Dream a Little Dream of Me." The day after Sam's dream, Bela decides to make it reality.

41. Title:rêvez un petit rêve de moi
Author:romani_65
Summary: For peganix (Dean/Bela, Adult) Some missing scenes during Dream a Little Dream of Me.

42. Title:Let Me Put My Love Into You
Author:chase_acow
Summary: For staci_x2 (Dean/OFC, PG-13) The dancing started at eight, and at ten, he fell in love.

43. Title:Hidden Mouths of Stone and Light
Author:nyoka
Summary: For chase_acow (Dean/OFC, NC-17) There’s only a beat, a moment’s indecision before she fires off the shot, and her life changes forever.

44. Title:Atheists in a Foxhole
Author:amchara
Summary: For regala_electra (Dean/OFC, Adult) It was time to face two fucking depressing facts: they were dangerously low on ammo and supplies, and their gun-runner was two weeks late.

45. Title:who is the third who walks always beside you
Author:kickaboutheart
Summary: For connery_is_bond (Dean/Impala, Adult) When he speaks to Her, there's something different about his voice.

Break-down:

Total:45 STORIES

Dean pairings:
8 Dean/OFC
4 Dean/Jo
4 Dean/Bela
3 Dean/Jess
1 Dean/Lisa
1 Dean/Ellen
1 Dean/Impala

Sam pairings:
4 Sam/Jo
2 Sam/Jess
2 Sam/Bela
1 Sam/OFC
1 Sam/Sarah
1 Sam/Ruby

John pairings:
1 John/Ellen
1 John/Mary

Other pairings:
1 Bobby/Wife
1 Bobby/Ellen

Threesomes:
1 Sam/Jo/Dean
1 Dean/OFC/Sam
1 Dean/Jess/Sam
1 Dean/Sister/Sam

Crossovers:
2 Dean/Chloe
1 Sam/Claire Bennet




Special Thanks to our pinch hitters -- ryuutchi, joans23, cjmarlowe, amchara, peganix, nyoka, chase_acow and kickaboutheart

The mods, amchara and sasha_davidovna, would like to thank everyone who chose to participate in this year's exchange! To those who wrote stories, those who wrote pinch-hits, and to all those who read and commented on the stories-- it wouldn't have been a success without all of YOU! SPN het may be a smaller niche in the fandom, but we've grown in the number of stories produced for this year's exchange, and also in the wide variety of pairings written for this year, and hopefully we'll continue to grow.

Thanks again, and keep an eye on this community-- we may very well be back in the future.

Title: The Last Hurrah
Author:snugduff
Recipient:stuffs_inc
Rating: R
Pairing: Sam/Bela
Summary: Sam pulled over at a homey looking diner three days after the world ended and ordered a cup of coffee. What he got instead was a cup full of boiling blood, an electrical storm that he registered as the telltale swarm of demons, and Bela Talbot.

Author's Notes: Violence, cursing, and plenty of bickering.


The hell hounds come two months early for Dean. He leaves Sam in a motel room in West Texas; ignorant of the cheeseburgers and the six pack falling out of Sam’s frozen hands as Dean hits the ground and started screaming. Sam drops everything as he slams the door shut, screaming at the top of his lungs, screaming in horror of the inevitable.

He doesn’t think it could get much worse.

But then it does.

The end of the world comes three days later. The sky, one morning, just doesn’t go from pink to orange to blue. Instead, the stars slowly begin to go out, one by one, with Sirius the last to go.

The world is in chaos, screaming into the black of the eternal night. Who doesn’t go nuts right then, hysterically swarms every church and pray fiercely to the God that they just decided existed was merciful. Those who didn’t pray lose their minds. They go on murdering sprees, their mouths frothing red as they wave their arms around, shouting, spewing gibberish and spitting blood. And those who didn’t go insane know it is only a matter of time before they do, because they are hunters, and they know what is going to happen next.

Sam pulls over at a homey looking diner three days after the world ends and tiredly orders a cup of coffee. What he gets instead was a cup full of boiling blood, an electrical storm that he resignedly registers as the telltale swarm of demons, and Bela Talbot.

“Took you long enough,” she growls as she comes out from behind the counter and grabs his arm, yanking him off of his stool.

“Wasn’t aware that you were waiting for me,” he drawls, blinking at her listlessly. Tired, he is so damn tired all the damn time.

She twitches her nose, annoyed, and begins to tear open packages on all the tables. She murmurs to herself, “salt, salt, get the salt,” as she goes, dumping a handful on the counter beside him, hoping he would get the message and help her.

He stares at the pile beside him and watches her, bemused, as she continues to trot around the place. “That’s Splenda.”

She slams the packet she is holding down and glares at him. “Then you get the salt out, and you fucking help me salt this place.” She looks around, noticing his singularity for the first time. “Where’s Dean?”

“Dead,” he mumbles, not even noticing as she flinches as if she had been tasered. “He’s been dead for a week.”

He is so tired, so damn tired.

She stares at him, and wonders whether she should feel any sympathy for him. She knows that his whole world centered on Dean, and now that he’s gone there just isn’t anything left to make him feel, to tie him down. But the world is over, and he isn’t the only one who has lost, so she decides to not give a damn, and to make him know it. “Well, lucky him. He’s already in Hell and we’re still trying to get there.”

He snaps his head up to stare at her, three shades of angst and violence pouring over his livid and purple face. But why should Bela care? She’s still trying to save her own ass.

“Salt!” she screams, and the cook and the waitresses at the damn homey diner just stare at her dumbfounded, their attention between their livelihoods and the screaming hysterical woman and the electrical storm that is erupting all around them. “Give me salt, now!”

Her voice shrieks out a pitch Sam hadn’t even know existed and he winces for a moment, his ears ringing. “Just give her fucking salt,” he whispers voice cracking and low and husky and tired.

She looks at him, a glimmer of what could have been a smile passes over her face as she just stares and takes in the tired slump of his shoulders, the hopeless look on his face, the kind that broadcasts, “Just kill me already, I’ve seen enough.” The cook and the waitresses go in the back and dump every bag of salt and every container they have on the counter and look at her expectantly, as if she knows what to do. “Sam?” Bela whispers as she looks at them. “Tell them what to do.”

He sighs and shifts to face them and looks them each in the eye, giving each of them the truth. “You need to salt this place down,” he says carefully, filling his voice with something Bela had never heard on him: authority. “Every entrance, every door, every freaking window- salt it. You need iron, and holy water, and any fucking thing else you think will help you stay alive. That storm that’s coming? It’s demons and they are not afraid to come in and just slit your throats. They don’t care that you’re human, and they don’t care if you have a family that you need to protect. They will kill you, and then they will keep killing. So you’ve gotta kill them, is that clear?” He gets up and grabs the bag of salt and rips it open and begins salting the window sill, looking at them to make sure they’ll follow his lead. They don’t.

“Look! Either salt the windows down and look like a fool for two minutes and stay alive, or protect what you think is your precious dignity and stand there and watch your death come for you. Forewarning? It’s not nearly as beautiful as the Grim Reaper.” Bela glares at them all and nods as they scamper from out behind the counter and grab everything that even vaguely resembles salt they can get. “Salt, dammit, salt!”

She strides around just as purposefully as Sam had a minute earlier, small lithe limbs covered in a trench coat that Sam only just realized he recognized. She wore it in a dream of his long ago, in a dream before he realized that there is just no chance in hell that with the job he has that you can even think about having any sort of relationship with anything, because what he hunts will find out, and they’ll take it away just as fast. His relationships are his weaknesses, and he can’t afford to have any more.

But he still remembers the dream.

Bela jitters around, excitement and terror racing through her veins as she moves salt into orderly lines and listens to Sam in the back of the diner, listens to him puttering around in search for iron and water. She has a rosary in her back pocket, so strange for her to have one. She sold her soul a long, long time ago; she shouldn’t need faith in a god who won’t even come to her rescue. The rosary, however, is a priceless antique, dating back to the eight century. It has dirt (pft, dirt) from Vatican hill said to have been scooped up as Peter was nailed to his humiliating crucifix. She doubts it has any real powers to act on faith, because, really, all St Peter did was get you up to the pearly gates, and then there’s a queue involved, but Mr. Johnson, her overwhelmingly rich patron with a firm belief in all things holy, really, really wants it, and who is she to argue? She had just been pawning it off the drunk and senile cook in the backroom when she heard the familiar roar of the impala’s engine out in the front. She had hit him with the butt of her gun and grabbed the rosary from his front pocket and fled just in time to see Sam (Sam? Where the hell was Dean?) sit down at the counter and order one cup of coffee, please.

She finds him again a minute later, sitting calmly and quietly in the corner most booth, his fingers calmly stroking a long iron pole. She doesn’t ask him where he got it and she doesn’t really care. She stomps over and folds her arms over her chest and looks down at him, trying to give him the most annoyed Catholic School teacher look she had (if only she had a ruler). “Sam,” she snaps at him and he raises his eyes to look at her, his entire expression blank, “why don’t you help the lovely people behind the back counter? You know, make sure they know how to shoot their shotguns and spray the demons with holy water.”

He gives her a disbelieving stare. “We’re in Windwick, New Hampshire. I seriously doubt anyone here will not know how to use a shotgun.”

“And I seriously doubt that the thirteen year old girl who is bussing the tables knows how it feels to have a black cloud ramming its way down her throat.”

“What does that have to do with-?”

“Teach her how to fire a shot gun, Sam!”

He stood up slowly, keeping her eyes until her neck was cracking with the strain to hold their gaze. “Why?”

“Why what?” she snarls, looking at him sourly. His chest is bumping against her folded arms and she’s acutely aware of how tightly he’s gripping the iron bar. He’s almost as close as the time when she- she drops the thought so fast her mind is left spinning blankly, thoughts turning to her dead father and the black and the deal and Lilith and-

“Why do you want me to teach her? Why do you want me to help them?”

She purses her lips and flips her eyes away for a second, to the cook, hanging out in the booth beside them, watching the window and electrical cloud with terrified eyes, before turning back to Sam- but he already knows then. “I scare them.”

He stares at her, studies, and takes her in before nodding. “Okay, but you have to move first.”

Bela backs up rapidly, not even bothering to be embarrassed as they run into each other, her shoulder running into his chest. He catches her as she’s thrown back by their impact and set’s her carefully back on her feet, out of his way. “Don’t scare them,” she whispers, surprising herself with the apathy she shows.

He turns to look at her, a smile almost cracking over the glacial ice of his face. “You’ve already got that covered, though, don’t you?”

She hisses and glares but he has already turned around, and with a gentle gesture he places his hand on the small girl’s shoulder and asks for her name. The girl looks up at him, tears leaking out of her pale grey eyes, and she answers “Karalee.”

Bela watches them with hard eyes before turning to the cook in the booth beside. She puts on a grin and can barely contain the venom in her voice, “Justin, let’s have a chat.” She lets him stand and follows him into the kitchen, trying to ignore the light tinkling nervous laugh of Karalee. She can’t ignore the smile on Sam’s face.

Bugger.


***

Bela hisses as she wipes blood and salt off of her shoulder, her ribs, and stands, cursing as her ankle tries to give out in her pumps. Her revolver is clutched loosely in her right hand as she tidies up Justin’s body, beating down his pockets for the money that they had exchanged not an hour before. It’s not that she had a grudge against him or anything (she didn’t usually kill her supplier) but she instinctly knew that when push came to shove, Justin would have caved, and that would have been one more hysterical person Sam would have to deal with when the demons came to them. That, and he reminded her of her father, and her father-

She straightens her skirt and cleans her gun in the grass, tapping Justin’s head with the toe of her shoe to make sure he was actually dead. “Dead,” she tells herself firmly, “He’s dead.”

She doesn’t even know which one she’s speaking of.

Going in through the back door of the diner two minutes later she knows that everyone is aware of what she had just done, even if it only looked as if she and Justin had a chat and he decided to take a piss in the bushes (better than the bathrooms there).

Sam looks at her as she passes to the front of the diner and she immediately picks up her pace. He knows. But of course he would know, it’s Sam Winchester. He stalks over to follow her, follows her to the counter where she whirls to face him, eyes livid with hate and anger and paranoia. “He would have slowed us down.”

“They’re all going to slow us down, Bela. We have to help them.” She sucks in a breath between her teeth and resists the urge to shoot him at the point blank range, but calmly bites out:

“You weren’t so keen on helping any of them before I made you. Do you recall that?”

He glares at her, fingers twisting and curling into fists at his side. He wants to shake her, wants to slam her against a wall, wants to make her bleed. But he remembers well, remembers counting the people in the diner as he waited for his coffee- coffee he still had yet to receive- and thought about the various ways they could die over the course of the next three hours. “I remember. And I also remember you were the one who started protecting them in the first place.”

She rolls her eyes at his accusation. “I was protecting my own ass and you know it.”

“Of course I knew it, why do you think I was so surprised when you actually asked for my help? Why do I matter?” She sighs and backs up to look at the broken down payphone hanging off the wall. She murmurs something and closes her eyes to hide herself from his disbelieving gaze. “What?”

“Someone’s got to help me survive,” she says again, opening her eyes to stare vacantly at the opposite wall. Behind her she can hear him suck in a surprised breath and huff, and she can almost see the expression on his face. Flabbergasted and annoyed, Sam contemplates throttling her right there. The mere thought of it wakes him up just a little more, let’s his senses become more keen.

“Well it won’t be me,” he snarls into her ear before stomping off to the others again, furiously shouting as he looks out the window to get ready, because the demons are coming.

Bela watches the wall for a long while, doesn’t even blink when she realizes that the rosary she had had in her pocket, the only reason she was there, was gone. She doesn’t even blink as the lights flicker twice before going out.


***

Bela used to plan everything- plan out her calls, plan out the exact phrases and lilt in her voice to use, plan out who to call, her fake names, her heists. She had considered herself a person of words, rather than of action. She planned out her heists, sure, but she employed others to do them (even though she wasn’t afraid to get down and get dirty to get what she wanted- as long as she showered right after).

But then the Winchesters walked into her life, and nothing after that ever went right.

When the demons attack there is no time for thought- it’s all action, action, save your ass, kick their ass. The demons took over the forms of everyone in the small town, and she sees the man who pumped her gas three hours before take a round through his forehead by the tall and dark waitress who had been working, and then he get doused by Karalee.

Flickers of images pass through her eyes as she fights, shrieking the Latin and flinging the holy water and all the while thinking, “I definitely should not have worn these shoes today- blisters!” She sees Sam taking down four at a time, an unholy grin on his face. He’s in his element, he knows how to fight, how to survive, how to protect, how to win. And she only knows how to lie.

The whole world around her is shrieking into the night, but she can’t listen to them, she can’t focus; fight, fight, kill, save your own ass, save Sam’s. People and demons alike are all around her, bodies pressing against hers for help and to kill, but she doesn’t pay attention to them- she’s going to kill her way out of here, and she’s going to drag whoever else is coming with her.

When she jumps behind the counter, feeling very Shawn of the Dead, Sam knelt behind it with her, reloading his gun, shell between his teeth. “Anyone left?”

He looks up to her, and his eyes are dancing. It’s Sam, the Sam she thought she used to know, the animated, “Let’s go nuts, let’s kill that evil son of a bitch” Sam. “You mean besides you and me?”

She twists a bit, hears the demons over her scrabbling to reach them- her ankle is killing her. “Besides you and me, yes.” She’s loading her revolver unconsciously, quickly assessing the scenarios that might just get her out of here alive. There are few and it shows in her eyes.

“You and me.”

“Well don’t I just feel like a country song.” He grins at her again and she wonders what life could have been like for him before his father died, before he died, before Dean dealed. She wonders if he could have been a happy kid who worked hard and loved hard and smiled and was always quick with the comebacks. She wonders what it would take to make him be that again.

“I have a plan,” he says slowly, and she spins her revolver and looks at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Well, I feel very safe. Should we sing ‘Eye of the Tiger’ while we go about this or the ‘Rocky Theme’?”

“Eye of the Tiger, definitely.”

“Well, I’m thrilled.” He smiles as he looks at his gun and ignores the demons yowling for their blood. She clutches at the pendant she has around her neck; no way is a demon going to get in her body. Almost unconsciously he rubs the spot over his heart, and she sees the outline of black under his threadbare white t-shirt. “So… your plan?”

“Run like hell and don’t look back.” She stares at him, waits for the mocking laughter she knows is coming. But it doesn’t.

“That’s your plan? ‘Run like hell’? How stupid can you be?”

He looks up suddenly; glares. “Apparently very to find myself stuck in this situation with you. Fucking hell, Be-” He cuts himself off, swallows, “they’re going to back off sometime.”

“Or Lilith will come.”

Sam doesn’t meet her eyes as he pulls at the fraying edges of his shirt. “She won’t.” She doesn’t ask what he means, she doesn’t want to know. “The impala is parked ten yards from the front door. We just have to get out of here without them getting us and leave.”

She looks at her long tapering fingers, contemplates what it’s like to have adrenaline coursing through her veins, contemplates what it feels like to have a partner, to have someone watching her back just as closely as she’s watching theirs. “But we’re killing first, right. Just a few?”

He looks up at her, eyes dancing and alive and so fucking green. He’s at peace, he’s alive, he’s awake, he’s breathing. “Wouldn’t be fun if we didn’t.”

She gathers herself up on her heels, wobbles unsteadily as a man reaches down and sweeps over her hair, trying to drag her up. “I’m driving.”

He stands up, loads his shotgun and shoots at the demon over her head. “You are not! It’s my car!”

She squints at him as he says the words, sees how he breaks when he claims ownership. No, the impala still isn’t his. “Whoever gets there first, then?”

“You’re on.” He leaps over the bar with a roar and she barely blinks before she climbs over right behind him, shooting and kicking and screaming and Latin she hadn’t even known that she had known spewing out of her. He charges on ahead of her, shooting and spraying holy water and just looking at the demons sometimes make them flee. But he looks back for her, makes sure she’s still holding up her own, because for some reason, even though he’s hated her, he thinks he always has, he needs to protect her, because life just isn’t life without someone to back you up.

He barrels out of the diner and bounces on anxious feet for her to get out behind him so they can run, run and laugh. She barrels out momentarily, running backwards as she shoots and demons squeal behind her. She whirls just in time to hit the first stair and launches herself down them, bypassing him within a second. He watches her for a second before realizing she has a goal in mind and he lopes off behind her, already heading for the right side of the car. She slaps the driver’s door with a silly grin on her face and catches the keys as he tosses them. “Drive, drive, drive,” he whispers as they throw themselves in and collide shoulders.

She’s thrown the car in gear before he even gets the words out and they’re gone, back tires spinning in the soft mud and lurching down the road. Sam watches the diner in the back mirror, sighs as the black cloud rises out of the open doors and windows and is gone, spinning away to fight another day. He’s tired, he’s ecstatic, he’s overwhelmed and under whelmed and sad and happy and- he smiles as he watches her spin out of town and onto a paved road going eighty miles an hour. He turns on the radio, laughs when he realizes the song he found was the middle of ‘Eye of the Tiger’. She turns the radio off and he looks at her, smile gone.

“We’re not listening to that.”

“Why not?” She keeps her eyes at ten and two as she scans the road ahead, sees the clouds (rain clouds, she thinks happily) rolling in.

“Because it’s an awful song, I hate listening to it, and I’m driving, that’s why.” He wrinkles his nose and bites back a hiss and tries to remember why they ended up together. Oh yeah, that was her fault too. “How do I turn on the windshield wipers?”

He tells her through gritted teeth, and as she flicks them on and looks back to the road again he defiantly turns on the radio.

“Dammit, Sam!”

Title: Spot Check
Author:zelost_mind 
Recipient:caithream 
Rating: Adult 
Pairing: Dean/ofc 
Summary: Dean, trying to tie up loose ends. 

Author's Notes: Set sometime after 'Jus In Bello'. I'm sorry it got so wordy and didn't really stick to the prompt! Oh, man. And many thanks to the girl with a stripper name for giving it a look-see. 

---

-


She makes him as soon as he walks in, tracks him as he weaves his way to the bar and pushes between two bodies, leans in to order. Looks up again a minute later and he’s got a bottle of Newcastle Brown flirting with his bottom lip, staring right back at her.


By the time her set’s over he’s moved into a free seat over in Lucy’s section. It’s packed; three fucking parties and payday for the regulars so she’s done nothing but twist and roll and strut and swing all night. Plus she’s still gotta cover the private lounge before her shift’s over, so there’s a whole bunch of wriggling and jiggling and bending and stretching still in store and she’s gotta be either smiling candy sweet or pouting up a storm for the whole duration.


It’s always her facial muscles that hurt the most by the end of the night.


She thanks her audience, flutters down the steps and kicks off her heels as soon as she’s under the cover of dim lighting, sweeps ‘em under the curtain and makes her way over to the bar.


“No shoes, no service,” Tony jokes, scooping ice into a glass, cranking a tap. “Be with you in a sec, doll.”


The vinyl bar stool stings her thighs, skin sticking, as she hoists herself up.


The big brown bottle comes over her shoulder sooner than she thought, lands with a splat on the artfully pocked wood and her nostrils get filled with him – thick beer, man and sunlight and vintage - as he slithers to follow it, material from his t-shirt dragging over her naked shoulder blades as he moves to squeeze up onto the stool next to hers.


He’s got a self-satisfied smile set on his face, ready made, and she takes it for the standoff it is, quirks a brow at him in acknowledgement. He doesn’t say anything for a whole minute while he looks her over, unabashed scanning of her legs, tits, collar bones, tits, neck. Lips.


Then: “What time’s your shift over?” Loud voice, to be heard over the lively concerto of the place, so abruptly familiar it starts a slow buzzing trickle down her sternum.


“I’m workin’ ‘til breakfast,” she informs, grabbing up the bottle of water that Tony deposits on the bar. Takes the opportunity to jab a thumb to her left., order,“The same again for this gentleman.” Tony winks, shuffles off, busy as a bee.


“Great. I’ll buy; you look like you could use a decent meal,” he says, continuing, tipping a little closer. She shakes her head, drinks down half her bottle as soon as she wrangles the cap off.


“I’m on a diet,” she lies. “The three C’s diet, ‘s all the rage in Hollywood right now,”


And he smiles for real, finally. Something a little sad about it but it’s there for sure, amusement slipping in and wiping away the wholly artificial seduction from ‘round his mouth.


“Caffeine, coke, and cock?” he ventures, nods a thanks when Tony flashes back past with his beer.


She drops her gaze to the tacky tiling on the floor, smirks. Can feel herself; heavy and aware in all the right places. Ready for him. 


“Pick you up around back at five-thirty?” he presses, leaning in close so he can talk right in her ear, hot breath on her neck, tickling through her hair and it feels so good she lets her eyes slip shut for a second, feels a warm wave of goose bumps coat her thighs and she’ll get into so much shit if the boss is around to see this, Jesus.


“Works for me,” she concedes, and edges off the seat carefully. He twists to let her past and she doesn’t bother even trying to liberate the underwear from her ass crack ‘cause she knows he’s watching her go and the frilly little Frenchies that’re covering her modesty were always a size too small on purpose.

Goddamn underwear specifically ordered so she’d be burdened with a perpetual wedgie. She wants them off, but it’s no good. She’s on point, on the pole, and there’s a strict rule - el coño no permitió - while performing for the fine patrons who choose to occupy the main bar. Panties of some kind must stay firmly in place at all times.


No freebies.


He stays to finish his beer. One elbow propping him up and eyes on her every time she opens her own, every single time she looks up for the agonizing length of two entire songs. By the time he gets up to leave she’s so turned on she can feel the pulse beating between her legs, strong and eager. Can feel her nipples ridiculously, exposed and tingling.





Shower, panties, t-shirt, Uggs, jacket, in that order, and then she’s ready to go, not ten minutes after her shift’s over. A personal record.


He’s parked as close as he can get, alley way too narrow for his car but the murky shape of it is blocking off one end, foreboding, giant engine idling and vibrating like something sinister. The heat’s on when the door slams itself shut behind her and she’s grateful, throws her bag over into the back and puts her hands up to the vents like they’re campfires. He eyes her bare knees and eases out, twists the dials until she can lean back in her seat, warm air ghosting right up her legs.


“You hungry?” he says, when they reach the turn off for the town’s main strip, all yellows, illuminations that hurt her eyes, and actually, yeah, she’s starving; rock of heavy nothing where her stomach should be ‘cause she hasn’t eaten anything since the little tin of tuna she had for breakfast but his car’s just so fuckin’ comfortable. It’s grows on her, huge heavy thing that should be clumsy but it’s not, it’s sleek, prowls over the road surface like it’s so confident, expertly trained.


Anyone’d forgive her for being a little envious.


She reaches over and clicks his blinker off, shakes her head. He shrugs a ‘your call’, carries on straight ahead, tut-tutting to himself.


She looks over at him and she ends up snagged on; his model profile, those perpetual tiny singed curl-ups at the corners of his mouth, the way his face is form perfect. He just looks fucking luscious. Always did.


Too pretty, maybe, if you catch a glimpse of him from the left especially.


Unfair, probably, that he looks the way he does, ‘cause it’s gotta be dangerous for a guy like him to be such a fucking head turner. It gets painful after a while, just looking, so she has to climb up onto her knees and trundle closer, magnetized, has to get her fingers in his hair and start some kisses on his rough cheek.


Feels him chuckle, feels his arm band around her waist and pull, ‘til she’s gotta sling one leg over his to stay upright. He hisses when her knee snugs up against the denim at his crotch and she sucks at his jaw, seats herself firmly on his thigh, bears down a tad and fuck. It’s amazing. Been so long since there was something alive between her thighs that she wanted and he’s so warm and big and he smells so good and she just wants him to lay her down and fuck her right here.


Just wants to open his pants and climb aboard, ride him ‘til she can’t even walk.


He shifts to brake and the friction, the denim grazing along her underwear, makes her whimper absurdly. He breathes out another laugh, whispers his free hand up the back of her thigh and squeezes a warning for patience, tilts his head to give her more room and she sighs, slightly appeased, nuzzles in under his chin, smells at him, and shit, he’s so good, he’s gonna make her feel so fucking good.


“What’re you, in heat?” he wonders, low, words like smoke rolling up her neck when the engine cuts out, leaves quiet, finally leaves both of his hands free to put on her and she arches into ‘em, pushes her ass more firmly into his grip even as she’s reaching over the seat for her bag.





“Where’s your roommate?” he asks.


She holds herself against the shut door and watches him make his way over to the fish tank, lets her eyes roam all over him.


“Haven’t seen her this week,” she tells him, distracted by the cut off point where the skin disappears into the sleeves of his t-shirt. He turns around in front of the tank, gets backlit.


“Goldfish’re dead,” he says, and smirks; leans back and crosses his arms, patient to let her look her fill.


She hated those goldfish anyway. Always peering out, judging everything, no fun at all. What’s the point in keeping a pet if you can’t even take it out of the water to play with it? Good riddance to ‘em.


She drops her jacket over the couch on her way past, lets her damp hair down and shakes it out. Feels him following her and has to resist the urge to break into a run ‘cause she knows –knows– he wouldn’t even hesitate a fucking second about giving chase and the thought makes her laugh out loud, delighted.


In her bedroom, the sound of him closing her door behind himself sends a quick little tremor up through her insides, makes her fuck up. She has to start again, conscious effort not to look up into her dresser mirror at him, up-ends the salt shaker and tap tap taps carefully, watches the white dust dance and scatter until she disciplines it, straightens it out with the edge of her City Library card.


Feels the heat of him, the bump of him against her ass just as she leans over to snort it, straightens up too fast but his body is solid, saves her from tipping backwards, tight in behind her. She keeps her eyes shut against the sting in her sinuses, feels his palms on her waist, belly going slippery inside when he inches one of ‘em up under her t-shirt, brush of his thumb over and over leaving a throb throb of sensation that spreads out everywhere like spilled whiskey.


“You want?” she offers, voice shot to shit, and lets her head tilt back, rolls it across his collar bone. He digs the fingertips of one hand into her stomach a little, takes the bill from her with the other.


“What’s in it? Catnip?”


He reaches around her to scrape and collect, neaten up the line she left out for him.


“Exactly,” she says, and laughs, feels the smile coil and coil at her mouth.


She watches him fuck around with it for a minute, grinding out any clumps, deliberating.


“Don't worry,” she teases, reassuring him. “It's not the good stuff, I can’t afford a coke habit.” He shakes his head, amused, and she moves away to turn the blinds, block out the pink morning light rudely.




She’s never really been much for kissing either, but he is, she remembers how he likes to kiss and be kissed back. He hauls her in, hand a firm shape against the small of her back, pushes his thick tongue into her mouth, makes her take it and makes a tiny moan, quiet approval, when she decides to give in easy and just suck on it for him.


Sets him into motion like an ‘on’ switch, and he goes backwards until he lands on her bed, slouches to let her drag off his t-shirt before he reels her in and in, up and over his lap, ideal. Bunches up her top while he mouths at her collar, her tits, through the fabric, impatient, ‘til she lifts her arms so he can scramble it off.


She’s content to be pliant, wouldn’t mind just turning to putty right there in his lap, feels like maybe she is, maybe she would be if it wasn’t for the dangerous-quick thump in her chest, the faintly sickening, swirling rush of adrenaline to her extremities.


She tips her head back, feels his teeth in her throat, wide warm hands spreading over her tits, squeezing, and she moans for it. Rides the sudden buck of his hips and the brand of a sharp palm on her ass, up under the edge of her underwear and gripping hard to lift her a little, move her up onto her knees. Then he’s nuzzling at her tits instead, rough licks and sucking bites that make her jerk, over-sensitized, and that’s when she feels it; rough and unfamiliar under her restless fingers.


New, and it draws her attention enough that she pushes his head off to one side so she can look down, see it better. 


She brushes her palm over it, feels the ridges of the scab, dry and raised on his skin.


He looks up at her, mouth open on her chest and she makes sure to hold eye contact as she presses the heel of her hand against it cruelly, harder and harder ‘til the pain shows up on his face in a frown.


Then, “That’s one ugly tattoo,” she tells him, petulant, a little giddy.


He just stares back, doesn’t flinch, disappointing, so she keeps going, skims over his skin, searching, drifts her fingers over the hot little ladder of tiny stitches she finds, slides her hand over the curve of his shoulder and feels the coarseness of a dressing still there.


Huh. Exit wound.


His eyes’ve gone smart when she looks again, brilliant green that’s truer than it should be in the shitty light, and that crap’s a little much for her, not what she signed on for, and you know what they say about curiosity, right? Applies to her especially, so yeah, she leaves off those wounds, leaves ‘em alone; presses her knuckles back into the tattoo instead, digs for the itchy pain that’s under there, under the healed parts. Leans down and kisses at his chubby gorgeous mouth again to shush him and reward him when he finally hisses out, hurt.


“Quit it,” he mumbles, jostling her, trying to shift his shoulder out of reach and shake her off, but she ignores him, or pretends to at least, edges forward in his lap ‘til she can feel him just right, ‘til they both sigh at the perfect fit.


She smirks, sucks the shell of his ear into her mouth and resists for as long as she can when he squeezes one arm around her middle and flips her onto the mattress.


“Quit. It.” he warns, dropping his weight on her, prying her hand away and pressing it to the pillows. He gathers up her other hand from where she’s got her fingers hooked in his belt and pins it up with the first, holds her wrists up above her head like it’s nothing and smirks, smug, when she tries to yank out of his grip and fails.


“Say ‘uncle’,” he says, glint of a grin as she pulls and wriggles, gives up after a minute and just stares up at him, biding her time. He tightens his grip around both her wrists and slithers one hand away to grab her boob.


“Say it, and I’ll let you go,” he offers, playing, teasing the pad of his thumb around her nipple. She groans, tries to twist away and he chuckles, the bastard, flattens his denim-pelvis against hers to keep her still.


She feels his arm working between them, jumps when his cold belt buckle touches her, hears his zipper and she’s groaning again, struggling a little. He drops his head to suck one of her nipples, shimmies around between her legs and then she feels him, hot bare weight of him on her belly, dragging on her skin, in the groove of her pelvis.


“You gonna say it now?” he rumbles, shifting, sliding lower, slurps what she knows is gonna be a purple bruise into the thin skin over her ribs, soft mean suction and his cock moving in tiny increments over her panties, the stickiness catching on the cotton, and really. That’s just about all she can take of that; outrageous tension zinging down between her hips every time he budges an inch.


“Please,” she bites out, trying to shove up against him, realises one of her wrists is free when she opens her eyes, sees her fingernails gouging into his bicep. He fits his free hand in behind her knee, lifts it snugger, higher on his waist, fucks against her a little like he can’t even help himself and it’s what she’s been waiting for all night, worms her arm between them so she can feel at him.


He tenses up, wrings the wrist he’s still got pinned, puts his face in her throat and nibbles, and she goes slow, didn’t get the chance to touch him like this last time. He’s big in her hand, too big, ready, and she surges a little, rush of wet hot want for him that makes her clench up everywhere, pushes a current of nonsense out of her mouth.



“Can’t even get my fuckin’ fingers around it, big fat fuckin’ dick, god, please. Please, I want - I want - ”



He groans, shifts again and then his hand’s covering hers, squeezing himself tighter.



He doesn’t take her panties off, she doesn't think she would've been able to stand it if he'd taken any more time, just clasps them out of his way and it’s a shock when he pushes inside, she feels like her body’s choking on him, struggling to take all of him, but he fucks her, steady, and it gets smoother. Smoother until it’s a glide, warm and perfect, simple stretching fuck that gets choppy towards the end, gets better and better when she tells him to go harder.



He obliges like he’s been holding back the whole time, waiting for to say, ‘go’.


-


There’s unlicensed boxing in the basement, and the first night he’s bright eyes and subtle questions, appreciative smiles at all the girls. Asking them all about Lauren, asking if anyone noticed her acting strange before she disappeared.


An addiction to painkillers and an inclination toward witchery. But no, nothing strange.


The second night, he figures out there’s unlicensed boxing in the basement and the case of Lauren, the missing witch who may or may not have turned herself into her cat is put on temporary hold.


She watches him. He fights like he’s was born to do it, swings tight and hard and fast and he doesn’t miss. He’s lethal, a natural, betting on himself probably, so it’s not like he can afford to lose.


She’s not supposed to go down there but none of the other girls’ve got much of a stomach for the violence so the bathroom’s always quiet when she needs to get ready for the stage.


And that’s where she meets him, officially.


She’s wondering between cherry and passion fruit, wondering whether a stars ‘n’ stripes bikini is really the way to go when the door slaps open, gust of swelled up testosterone air and then he’s there, eyebrow quirked at her reflection, bare chest and a crimson mouth that he licks around.


“Hey. I’m Dean,” he says, and twists his t-shirt in his hands. “Mind if I, uh...” He juts his thumb at the urinals, doesn’t wait to see her shake her head before his back’s to her, clear boot print stamped across his spine.


She watches his jeans sag a little, watches him flip his shirt onto his shoulder.


He doesn’t flinch when she smoothes along his ribs, runs a curious finger along the damp line of denim, he just breathes against the wall and lets her explore, forehead on his forearm.


It’s easy, like he was expecting it to happen all along. One minute she’s thumbing up the nape of his neck, the next he’s kissing her, expectant and greedy.


It’s hot, in a terrifying kind of way. She has no idea what she’s doing but she knows what she wants so she just scissors her legs around his waist, clings tight and tries to keep quiet ‘cause she is so fucking fired if anyone catches them.


“Fuck,” he pants, mouth dragging over her collarbone, nose nudging into her bikini top, and then his fingers are inside her, odd and gentle, thick. He strokes out, presses back in, watching her face like he’s testing something and she can’t help it, her muscles clamp on him, involuntary shock of satisfaction for her that makes him hiss, coil tight and then ease up. Breathe deep against her chest, trembling from the adrenaline that's still coursing through his system.


-


“Didn’t think you’d still be here,” he says quietly, one hand drifting along her parts idly like he can’t keep it still, cataloguing maybe. She shrugs, messes with the pointy amulet on his chest.


“You know, if you need – If you need money, or – or a ride,” he starts slowly, awkwardly, and she frowns at the sound of him, gets up on her elbows so she can look at his face. “Or if there’s somebody – someone you need me to take care of? I can help you out. With that. If you... Y’know. If.”


She stares at him, watches his eyes flicker to hers and then away again, trailing over the ceiling. Unsure but offering, and it tickles her, a little unfurling genuine thing of sugar and sharpness somewhere deep, right there in her chest cavity. She realises she’s grinning when his brows go annoyed and he huffs, shoves her off of him and tosses his forearm up over his eyes.


“Forget it,” he amends, hiding.


She wriggles out of the sheets and crawls to the head of her bed, kneels and reaches over to gap the blinds, peers out noisily.


He shifts out of the midday light she lets in like it burns his skin, mumbling irritably.


“I’m looking but I can’t see it anywhere, what have you done with it?” she hums, draping herself onto the window sill.


“What the hell’re you talkin’ about?” he asks, shifting up onto one arm. She lets the light hit his face, watches him squint, blink and blink, too interested to dodge again.


“Your white horse,” she says. “I don’t see it out here.”


He flashes some species of smile that looks like it could injure someone, mumbles, “Oh, real cute,” as he flops down onto his back. She laughs, unstoppable, even as she slithers back down to join him, throws a thigh over his, skates a slow palm down his belly to meddle her fingertips in his pubes, coaxing.


“Nothin’s keepin’ me here,” she says, sighing, when he stays silent and stiff. “Really. I’m not looking’ to be saved from anything.”


“Okay,” he says after half a beat, turning his face towards her, and she moves her fingers lower, lets ‘em split apart around the root of him. “I just, uh. I won’t be back this way again, that’s all.”


She kisses at his spiky chin, says, “Oh yeah? So you’re breakin’ up with me?”


He snorts, mutters, “’Guess so.” She smiles, curls her fingers around his cock, stretches her thumb out to rub along a delicate ridge. He jumps in her hand, fills; burst of growth like a prize and she watches his face, watches his brows go soft and then hard again ‘til she can’t watch anymore. 



She wakes up and he’s tasting at her. Long, slow laps, rough dough tongue, soft and lazy between her legs, cactus stubble pinking her thighs up ‘cause he’s not careful and the contrast is maddening. It’s him all over. She clutches a hand in his sweaty hair, strains her neck to look down at him, watch him work. He’s all eager slippery mouth and dark, open eyes. 



“C’mon, I’ll buy you lunch,” he says, later, when the stubborn midday sun is lighting the room completely. He sits up and messes his hands through his hair. “I gotta meet my brother anyway.”





She watches ‘em go. Watches him put on his sunglasses in the parking lot, watches all the heads swivel in the diner when his car snarls to life. Sweet smile from his kid brother and a salute from him through the windshield and then they’re gone, dust trails kicked up behind ‘em.


She bounces a straw in her clotty milkshake when she’s about ready to leave, clenches her tired thighs on the fresh used sting between her legs and has to sigh, completely satisfied.


Fuckin’ A, but that guy knows how to fuck. Damn shame he’s leavin’, she thinks.

 
She stretches as she steps out onto the sidewalk, needs to get back to the apartment to feed Lauren or there'll be hell to pay. Bossiest fuckin’ cat she’s ever met.



-
 

Title: A Moment is All It Takes
Author: sprbitch1313
Recipient:meg_dallen
Rating: PG13
Pairing: Dean/Jess, Sam/Jess
Summary: They’re so much alike, both stuck in hiding, now from others, always from themselves. Lying eyes buried deep in an honest face, a guilt-filled countenance. Shoulders dipping when no one’s looking, so weighted by their burdens.
Author's Notes: For Meg_Dallen...I hope you like!
Disclaimer: I own nothing, by the way.



She’d honestly thought Sam made them up. He had one photo of a young and beautiful couple from years ago whom he claimed were his parents. That was it, no other traces of a family. There were no pictures of him diving into a birthday cake with chubby baby fists, none of a gawky teen in a tux with a shy pretty girl on his arm. There were no snapshots of family vacations or Christmas mornings, or even his graduation. And there was no mail, no letters or cards or care packages. There were no telephone calls, no messages left guilting him into calling home. There was, so it seemed, no home.

And now she understood why.

A dead mother, a grief-stricken father bent on revenge. A caring if distant brother, never even mentioned. And demons, and ghosts, and…

Everything changed in an instant, her entire world split at the seams the night Dean walked into her life, and back into Sam’s.

***

“He’s just not the Sam I knew,” she tells him once, a bourbon-laden late night talk.

“Bullshit, he’s Sam, always has been, always will be.”

“No,” she shakes her head solemnly. “He’s not.”

Because the Sam she knew was gentle and sweet, smart and quick-witted. His idea of a fun night was watching old horror movies, curled up on the couch together in pajamas, a bowl of popcorn between them. A normal day was six hours of class, five in the library, and the rest spent doting on her. The Sam she knew tripped over his own two feet, wouldn’t hurt a fly even if he asked for it, and hadn’t a clue what to do with a gun of any kind.

Last month he came home bloody and bruised, newly thick arms staunch at his sides. “I’m fine,” he’d said. “Gonna shower,” to close out the conversation.

Dean had told her all about it over the phone, her running to call him as soon as the water turned on. A werewolf, yeah they’re real, things got a little out of hand, but we got it under control. Don’t worry about it. He’s fine.

Sam killed it, killed her.

She tries talking to him about it, about anything really. But perpetually shut down is his new mode. Strong and silent, he now carries a glock with him everywhere he goes, even to the supermarket on the few normal days they have together. He’s on edge, ever-watchful, vigilant. Scared.

Back at Stanford he’d wrap his long arms around her and that would be all she needed to feel safe and loved and protected. Now when he touches her it’s as though he’s afraid she might break, alternately too soft a touch to even feel real, or too harsh, too needy, grasping desperately at her lest she should somehow slip through his fingers.

“I almost lost you,” he reminded her once, as though she could ever forget. “I won’t let that happen again.”

The night of the fire she decided to die, let herself be taken away, cleansed by the flame. Giving in was always easier for her than fighting back. But when she saw Sam’s face, later in the hospital, tear-filled eyes and a trembling lip and the pallor of pure, undeniable guilt to his skin, she wondered how she could have ever refused to fight for him. Sweet, smart Sam who had no family but her, no one’s love but her own.

Now there are nights she wants the fire back, wants to burn away to nothing, ash on the wind, so that she can’t see his empty eyes and scarred flesh, can’t feel his hesitant touch, his guilty stare.

***

“He loves you.”

“I know that.” It’s too much.

“More than anything.”

“I know.” It’s too hard. “I love him too.” Just not enough.

***

He calls their place home, Dean does, because he has nowhere else. Two years later and neither Sam nor Dean are ever really there, always out hunting, saving people, searching for answers to their past, a past she finds herself buried in, and for what?

“For what?” her voice carries through the halls. “You made me come here to be safe, but you’re never here to save me! You go out fighting battles you can’t win with…things you can’t kill! You’re so worried about your past, your mom, your dad – what about your future?! What about me?!”

It’s not until she dejectedly turns, heads for her cold and empty bed, that she realizes she might have been yelling at the wrong man. But then again, Dean’s spent his whole life trying to protect Sam from whatever might hurt him, taking the brunt of any battle, and why should that stop now?

***

She finds herself watching him, more closely than ever before, though, admittedly, she would study him back when they first met, try and figure out this mysterious man, blood of her love, but otherwise a stranger forced into her life. She saw him as cocky, often rude, at times abrasive. He was, she determined, nothing like Sam. Brazen as opposed to quiet. An outspoken cover in place of unwavering truth. Flippancy instead of drive.

But, no, she was wrong. They’re so much alike, both stuck in hiding, now from others, always from themselves. Lying eyes buried deep in an honest face, a guilt-filled countenance. Shoulders dipping when no one’s looking, so weighted by their burdens.

***

“I’m going out,” he says one night, simple as that, as though he’d ever been in the habit of really going anywhere. But she merely nods her approval, kisses him goodnight, and heads to bed. “Sometimes I need to be alone,” he tells her all too often. And sometimes, so does she.

She wakes up screaming, strong hands holding her down to still her thrashing. He can’t be distracted, you understand, those same words spoken to her through yellow eyes so long ago making their way to the surface amid flames and fear. He’s too important to me.

“Shh, it’s okay,” she hears, more as deep rumbles in his chest than as actual words. “It’s okay. It’s alright. Just a dream.” Just a dream, she repeats to herself. It was a just a dream. She calms down a bit, falls into him, leaning heavily against his chest. “You okay?” his voice is so soft and full of concern she can barely stand it. “Shhh,” he starts again, calloused hands pushing back her hair as she begins to weep.

“I’m sorry,” she hiccups. “Sorry.”

His fingertips glide along her temple, her cheekbone, his thumb gently lifting away a tear.
“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.”

He leans her back down onto the pillow, sits over her, staring, deep worried eyes glistening in the moonlight. He continues to wipe away her tears, tucks her long, light hair behind one ear. The dream is gone, the demon, the fire, the pain, all gone. But she can’t stop crying, quiet sobs shuddering her body as he sits beside her patiently. Without realizing it her hand comes up to cover his, softly grasping the fingers that had so effortlessly stroked her face. “I want to be like you,” she mutters, barely audible. And it’s true, so true. She wants to be just like him, able to laugh instead of cry, joke instead of feel. Fuck instead of talk.

“What?” he asks, leaning closer to better hear.

“I want,” she says a bit shakier than before, “you.”

And she reaches up to cup the back of his head, pull him just that little bit closer. When their mouths meet she can almost feel him melt into her, gradually falling further, deeper, until, “Jess,” flows out of him in one hot breath.

He tries to pull away, but she won’t let him, both hands now gripping his shoulders, sliding around his neck like a needy, clingy little girl. “Dean,” she says, tasting his name on her tongue. “Dean.” So familiar and foreign all at once.

He’s shaking his head, face contorted in an odd sort of grimace when he leans into her again, kissing her greedily, pushing her deeper into the mattress with his own weight as he sidles on top of her. She’d kicked off the sheets during the nightmare and her tank top is nearly soaked through with sweat, as is her hair, sticky slick in his fingers. He combs his hands through as best he can, getting lost in the mess of damp curls, and when he feels her arch into him, under him, he gives it a good tug.

She lets out a little moan, her mouth parting from his just long enough for him to say, “No, we…” But that’s all he can get out, too lost in the moment, too lost in her, to think of any other words.

She reaches down and grapples with the zipper on his jeans. He pulls away a bit, untangles his hand from her hair to bat away her fingers. But instead of stopping there, as she figures he intends to do, he slips his fingertips just beneath the waistband of her panties, pressing her flesh as he moves them slowly down.

Again, her mouth separates from his. Again, she lets out a little moan. And again, Dean’s face takes on a tortured grimace that she simply can’t bear to see. “Do it,” she says, tightly shutting her eyes, blocking the sight of him. “Please, just do it,” a plea on a breath.

He rips off her underwear as she tugs down his pants, neither looking at anything, Jess with eyes so firmly shut she can feel the pressure of new tears beneath her lids. Dean with a gaze so empty and glazed it hardly seems he’s there. There are no more words from either of them, no more moans, no more cries. No more deep, long kisses. He slips into her fast and hard, violently thrusting, splitting her, it seems, down the middle.

It’s too much. It’s too hard.

He comes inside her, faster than she’d ever thought he would, and collapses onto her, slick with shared sweat and tears.

***

When she wakes up the next morning, curled into a tight ball on the same spent sheets, she feels Sam’s long, heavy arm draped around her. For a moment she leans into him, for a moment she feels safe and secure, happy and loved. For a moment, with him slightly snoring next to her, his breath warm on her back, his grip on her loose and relaxed, she thinks he’s the Sam she fell in love with.

Title: Inheritance
Author:cjmarlowe
Recipient: Becky (cynicaloptimis)
Rating: Adult
Pairing: Dean/Jo
Summary: A story about the things that are passed down.



"It's just a fair, Dean, it's not the apocalypse," said Sam, patting down the bench next to him then rummaging through the glove compartment. "You don't need to curse every detour sign."

"Yeah, well, I don't know about you but I've noticed a link between town fairs and bad things happening," said Dean, pulling up to a stop sign on a street corner that he wasn't even sure was on their map.

"Being forced to wear pink is not the definition of a bad thing," said Sam. Dean just shot him a dark look. "Okay, the murders are a bad thing, I'll give you that."

"If I'd shown up in this thing at school, one would've been the cause of the other," said Dean, making a right only to run into a red light a block later. "Goddammit."

"Dad didn't dress you in anything other than army surplus and Goodwill since you were six," said Sam, wrenching himself around to look in the back seat. "I don't think you had to anything to worry about. Damn it, have you seen a book about this big, block lettering on the cover?"

"I'm pretty sure I'm sitting on it," said Dean, squirming uncomfortably before yanking a hand-bound book out from under his ass. "You have too many books."

"Do you even know what I had to go through to get my hands on this?" said Sam, flipping through to a marked page. "An index of all known extant cursed objects. It's invaluable, Dean."

"Yeah, so what if we run into an unknown one?"

"We're not going to-- all right, if we run into a previously unknown cursed object I'll make sure it's added to the next edition, how about that?"

Dean gunned through the light only to run into yet another detour sign, their third so far. "At this rate we're going to be detouring through Alaska before we get there," he muttered, pulling up at yet another stoplight. "How many streets do you need to block off to run a festival, anyway?"

Sam was barely listening to him, holding up a picture from the estate catalogue Dean had just managed to get his hands on next to a drawing in the book. "What do you think? The same?"

Dean barely gave it a glance before the light changed. "Looks the same to me," he said. "Not that the two deaths by mysterious disembowelment weren't already a tip-off."

"The thing's been totally quiet since the mid-forties," said Sam. " I can't believe it's just popped up after all this time."

"Well, let's get it and get out of here," said Dean, finally pulling in against the curb of a tree-lined street. "This is the address on the paperwork."

"Nice place," said Sam as they got out of the car and headed across the street and up her flower-lined front walk. "What did you say her name was again?"

Dean straightened his pastel polo shirt and tried not to let his distaste for it show. "Mrs. Wilhelmina Penelope Millstone," he said, pronouncing every syllable. "Seriously. The whole thing."

"The whole thing?" repeated Sam, seconds before the door opened and they both plastered smiles on their faces. "Mrs. Millstone?"

"Mrs. Wilhelmina Penelope Millstone," she corrected him kindly. "What can I look for you two fine looking boys today?"

"Well, really, it's what we can do for you," said Dean, pushing forward. "We're art students over at the, uh, local college--"

"Adams College."

"--at Adams College, and we hear you have a fine example of, uh--"

"Bavarian hand-painted porcelain," Sam finished smoothly, whatever the hell that meant. "A vase, with a large stag on one side? We were wondering if you'd let us take a look at it, maybe take some pictures so that we can exhibit it in an art show we have coming up."

"It would be great exposure," finished Dean. "The world should see such a, uh, fine piece."

"Oh dear," she said, her face falling. "Oh, if I'd known anyone would actually be interested in that old thing I wouldn't have donated it to the charity auction. They came by just yesterday."

"Charity auction?" said Sam, swallowing visibly.

"Those lovely girls up on Forrest Road," she said with an oblivious nod. "Epsilon Sigma Pi, from the college."

"Ah, sorority girls," said Dean. "We'll have to talk to them."

"If you ask me, it wasn't much of a fine example of anything," she confessed. "I'm convinced my sister only left it to me because she knew how much I disliked it. Not that she liked it any better; she kept it locked in a cabinet in a sitting room she hardly used."

"Well, that's a disappointment," said Sam. "Epsilon Sigma Pi you said? Do you happen to know when this auction is taking place?"

"Well the festival's already started," she said, "so it could be any time now. You'll want to hurry if you want to get pictures of it. You might even be able to pick up the real thing for a decent price. I can't imagine anyone will be offering too much for it, to be honest, but the young lady was adamant that it would make an excellent donation."

"I'm sure she was right," said Dean. "Bacardi porcelain--"

"Bavarian porcelain."

"Bavarian porcelain is hot right now."

"Well, you'd best be on your way over there, then," she said. "Just be careful, it's not as safe out there as it used to be."

"Don't worry about us, ma'am," said Sam, "we know how to take care of ourselves."

"I'm sure that you do," she said and they were off her porch moments later, stopping across the street to regroup.

"Well, that explains why the murders started up again after so long," said Sam. "If it was locked away, then nobody was going around touching it."

"Until her sister died and passed it on," said Dean. "Or maybe she was just good at hiding the bodies. The sister sounded like a real piece of work; you should've seen some of the other things that came out of her estate."

"Either way, it passed through about ten sets of unsuspecting hands before making its way here," said Sam.

"I’m not surprised at least two of those people had passing homicidal thoughts when they touched it. Hell, I think I get homicidal thoughts just looking at pictures of the thing."

"And now god knows how many more hands it'll pass through at a charity auction," said Sam. "We need to get our hands on that vase before someone else dies."

"So to speak," said Dean, while Sam looked around like he might find it atop a nearby park bench, or maybe stuffed inside someone's mailbox. "The vase would make a great donation? Seriously? Did you see some of the other stuff she had just sitting around in her front hall? What we need to do is check out this sorority. Something weird is going on there."

"You know, any other time you suggested that, I would've suspected your motives."

"Every other time I suggested that, you should've," said Dean, winking at him. "What do you think, we've got some kinky, devil-worshipping sorority girls? You think they knew what they were getting their hands on?"

"I'm pretty sure that's the plot of a porno you once tried to get me to watch," said Sam.

"My favourite part was when they decided that group sex on the pentagram would break the curse," said Dean fondly. "Hey, do you think that might work here?"

"Remember what I said earlier about your motives being pure?"

"Was that before or after you brought up the porno?"

"Nevermind," said Sam. "Keep the shirt on. We need to go up to the college and find Epsilon Sigma Pi."

"I look like a tool."

"Yeah, but you look like a collegiate tool," said Sam. "It'll work for us."

"Trust me, Sammy, they'll be more likely to talk to me in my leather jacket," said Dean. "It's always worked for me before."

"If you're as good as you think you are, you can work the polo shirt too," said Sam. "Everything else you own has blood on it."

"I don't own this, we borrowed it from a laundromat."

"You stole it from a laundromat."

"Stealing implies I intend to keep it," said Dean. "All this needed to do was convince a few people that I was a fine, upstanding young man. Come on, toss me my jacket and we'll get out of here."

Sam pulled the jacket out of the back seat of the Impala and tossed it over the top of the car into Dean's waiting hand.

"Now let's just hope Forrest Road is somewhere on the detour route."

:::

They didn't find the vase at the stately sorority house on Forrest Road. They didn't even find any sorority girls at the house on Forrest Road. What they did find was Jo Harvelle, leaning casually against her pick-up like she'd waiting for them all along.

"Sam," she said. "Dean. What brings you to this little college town?"

As if she didn't know.

"You?" said Dean. "Seriously? You already got the vase?"

"Got it, locked it in a curse box and tucked it away for safekeeping," she said, her eyes daring them to challenge her on it. "Nice shirt."

Dean yanked his jacket across his chest to cover it, adjusting quickly to the situation. "So Epsilon Sigma Pi, huh? Any naughty pillow fights while you were working undercover?"

"Don't you wish you'd gotten here sooner so you could've watched?" said Jo with an arched eyebrow and not so much as a blush on her cheeks. "So does this mean you'll be leaving town before you even buy me dinner? Cause that'd be a shame."

Dean looked at Sam and they both gave a little shrug, Sam's eyebrows rising and a hint of a smirk turning up Dean's lip.

"How about lunch, and you fill us in on your little caper here?"

"Tell me, why is it a job when you do it, and a little caper when I do it?"

"Okay, big caper," conceded Dean, to her wry look. "That vase was bad news."

"Don't worry, I didn't touch it," she said. "No one's going to be killing you in your sleep."

Sam just snorted and clapped Dean on the shoulder, turning away to move some of his books into the back seat of the car.

"Sweetheart, something always wants to kill me in my sleep," said Dean. "The trick is not to let it."

"You're going to have to be a lot quicker off the mark, then," she said. "I had the job done before breakfast. Speaking of which, if you're not actually going to be feeding me soon I'm going to need to go take care of it myself."

"There was a diner right when we were heading into town," said Dean, who never let a potential feeding hole go unnoticed. "That all right with you?"

"We're just off a street lined end to end with nightclubs and cafes and you want to go to a diner on the edge of town?"

"Pretty much, yeah," said Dean. "You in?"

She pretended to think about it for a moment, tapping her fingers against her truck and looking Dean up and down, sizing him, and maybe the whole situation, up.

"Yeah, I'm in," she said finally. "I'll meet you there."

She didn't give him a chance to argue the point, or even decide whether or not he was going to, before she was hopping into her truck and putting it in gear.

Dean slid into his own driver's seat, started the car and took off down the street after her without a word. "What?" he said finally.

"I didn't say anything," said Sam, but there was amusement behind his words.

"Yeah, but you're thinking it."

"Thinking what, Dean?" said Sam, but Dean didn't answer, just took a corner a little too hard on their way back out of town. "Jo sure grew up to be something else, huh?"

Jo grew up was the key phrase there, and maybe a couple of years wasn't that long in a normal life, but when you were out on the road it was the difference between idealistic girl and hunter. Dean caught himself smiling in the rear-view mirror as he wound his way out of town, and didn't even bother trying to hide it from Sam.

"She sure did," he said, and hit the gas a little harder.

:::

"You going to finish those?" said Jo, snagging a french fry off Dean's plate before he could slap her hand away. He made a swipe to reclaim the half of it that wasn't already in her mouth, but that too was gobbled down before he could get there.

"So when you made the curse box," Sam was asking, with absolutely sincerity, "did you use yew or oak for your base wood?"

"Oak," said Jo, making an abortive movement towards Dean's plate, but he was already on guard this time. "Yew's harder to come by, and Bobby said oak was pretty good choice for a clay-based object anyway."

"You used oak for ours, didn't you, Sammy?" said Dean, mostly to prove he was following the conversation.

"Oak with some holly insets," said Sam, "just to, you know, strengthen it up a little."

"Strengthen it up? I thought you did those because we were stuck in a motel during a thunderstorm and you couldn't pick up a wireless signal."

"That too," said Sam, shooting him a look that Dean figured was supposed to shut him up. Not his fault Sam made extra work for himself when he was bored, though.

"That was a nice move you pulled, with the charity angle," he said, turning his attention back to Jo. "I remember the first time our dad tried to pull that one off. He looked like he hadn't slept in a week; people figured he just wanted stuff to pawn."

"Yeah, I remember him telling me about that," she admitted, not quite looking up from Dean's remaining fries. "Something about finding the silverware locked up when he went back in that night."

Dean could feel Sam's eyes on him as they felt silent, but he didn't meet them. This wasn't the getting-to-know-you conversation it might've been with someone else. Jo already knew things about them, in ways Dean never really thought about before now.

"The only thing I remember about that one was Dad waking me up when he got back to the motel using some words I'd never heard before," Sam said finally.

"And then repeated right up till you started kindergarten and just about got your mouth washed out with soap," said Dean, then stuffed his mouth with four fries at once to end his part in the conversation.

Dean knew Sam got it, but he was surprised when Jo shut up about it too without making any fuss, without looking at Dean like he was making something out of nothing.

"So what do you want to do?" Sam asked him after a moment. "Not much sense sticking around here if the job's done."

"There is the corn and apple festival," offered Jo, then looked up at each of them in turn. "No, seriously. It's an annual thing. Corn and apples."

"There you go, Sammy, the corn and apple festival," said Dean, much more enthusiastic now that he wasn't having to detour around it. "Roasted corn. Candy apples. I'd say that's worth sticking around for, wouldn't you?"

"I do need to find us a new hunt, since this one was a bust," said Sam.

"It wasn't a bust, you were just late," Jo said, digging it in a little harder. "You gonna come on some rides with me?"

"You have no idea--" began Dean, until Sam jabbed an elbow in his side. "You like the ferris wheel?"

"I bet you were the guy who always hoped for it to stop when you were at the top with a skittish date," said Jo, which if Dean had actually ever gone to fairs in his teens would probably not have been far from the truth. "It's pretty small here; the festival's not much for rides. But there's food and entertainment, and probably dead animals in jars if that's more your style."

"Would that be the food, or the entertainment?" said Dean around another handful of fries.

"Unless you've developed a taste for formaldehyde, I'd suggest sticking to the candy apples."

"What do you say, Sam?" said Dean. "You up for a little fair-going before we head out?"

"I don't know, Dean," said Sam wryly. "Bad things happen at fairs." The whole situation had fifth wheel written all over it, though, and thank god Sammy was smart enough to notice. "Actually, as long as we have these handy Adams College student IDs, I'm going to hit their library and see if there's anything worth looking at."

"Yeah, you do that," said Dean, jumping on that as soon as Sam stopped to breathe. "I'll give you a lift up there and we can meet back at the motel later."

"Sure, whatever," said Sam, not quite keeping a knowing look off his face. He could be a real smug bastard sometimes; probably got it from his brother. He looked like he was about to say something else, probably something about how long Dean needed him to stay away from the motel, but Jo mercifully cut him off.

"I know the best way over there," she said, and at this point Dean trusted her recon, even when it came to traffic. "You can follow me."

Dean was already feeling like they'd been doing that all day.

:::

"Midway's over that hill," she said once Dean'd parked next to her in the shade of an apple tree and hopped out to see what was up. "I don't feel like paying an arm and a leg just to park in someone's muddy field."

"So we're trespassing on someone's orchard instead. Fair enough," said Dean, giving his baby's hood a pat. He didn't like it any more than she did, everyone parking however the hell they wanted and threatening his paint job. "Just over that hill, or over that hill and two miles down the road?"

"Does it matter?" said Jo, checking her doors then shoving her keys in her jeans pocket. "Maybe a half mile tops. Can't you hear it?"

Now that he was thinking about it he could, but the din and tinny music of the midway tended to travel over impossible distances. She reached back for his hand but didn't hold on, just gave it a tug until he was trailing up the hill behind her, catching up at the crest and looking out over the back lot of the festival, a couple of trailers, a couple of tents, people hauling bags of garbage to a portable dumpster.

It was nothing he hadn't navigated before.

"So how long've you been in town then?" he said. "Sam picked up on the murders a few days ago but I only managed to get the estate catalogue this morning."

"Estate catalogue?" she said. "I just came to town and hit the antique dealers, asked who was likely to have the sort of vase I was looking for. They pointed me to Mrs. Millstone--"

"Mrs. Wilhelmina Penelope Millstone."

"--right away."

"So wait, you knew it was the vase all along?"

"Just as soon as I made a call to Bobby. He's got this book--"

"Cartwright's Compleat Guide to Cursed Objects?"

"Yeah, how did you know?"

"Just a hunch," said Dean, shoving his hands in his pockets and ducking around a couple of festival workers, slipping through a break in the plastic fencing and reaching back through for Jo's hand so she could follow. This time they didn't let go until they were well onto the gravel and concrete pathways.

Dean had a corndog in his hand before long, and a brown paper bag of popcorn not long after that, his eyes barely skidding over the rides, ignoring the quilt show and the art exhibition.

"So I guess you knew my dad," he said when they'd found a wrought iron bench out behind the burger canteen, not out of the blue but picking up a conversation a few hours old and assuming she would too.

"Well, he did used to visit the roadhouse," she said, but Dean knew that, he knew that part already. "I thought my dad's friends were the coolest people in the world."

"Dad was great," said Dean, because that was the most important part, that was what he wanted to get out there up front, "but talking about hunts were object lessons with me and Sam, they weren't stories."

"I was a little girl in a saloon full of hunters," said Jo, stealing popcorn from the dregs of his bag. "Everything they said was a story to me. I'd listen to them all night of Mom would let me."

"Weird to think you knew him different like that," said Dean, leaning forward onto his knees and looking off into the distance. "Hey, is that a roller coaster? I haven't been on a roller coaster since I was a kid."

"Not much of one," said Jo, hesitating only long enough for Dean to notice. "I think you have to be below a certain height to ride it."

"Only if you're a gigantor like Sam," said Dean. "Come on, let's check it out."

They didn't let them on the roller coaster (not because they were over twelve but because they were reluctant to empty their pockets and boots), but Dean found a snow cone stand on the way and they shared a blue raspberry, Jo sticking out her electric blue tongue at him when they were done.

Dean barely resisted sucking it clean.

"Hey, look at that, a Fun Shack," he said, pointing at a sign with chipped red paint. "What is a fun shack, anyway?"

"Definitely not what you're thinking it is," said Jo, steering him away. "Try not to get us run out of town before we find the booth with the free apple cider."

They passed the Epsilon Sigma Pi charity auction on their way and Dean raised his eyebrows at her.

"Of course it's real," she answered the unasked question. "If you'd been paying attention you'd have seen they've been advertising all over town." And now that he was thinking about it, Dean though he remembered seeing something about that on the bulletin board in the laundromat. "I wanted there to be something concrete if she decided to follow up on it."

"And if she stops by to see if her vase is there?"

"In the unlikely event she actually stops by," said Jo, "I'll be nowhere to be found, and neither will the vase. It wasn't as though she wanted to keep the thing anyway. No harm, no foul."

"I kind of liked her," admitted Dean, looking back over his shoulder at the entrance to the auction tent one last time. "She was feisty."

"You like them feisty, don't you?" said Jo. "Maybe you want to head back over to her place, see if she wants some company?"

When Dean fed her a hot mini-donut from the bag to shut her up, he wasn't surprised when she bit down on his fingertips, smiling around them.

"I think Sam was more her type," he said, and steered them down a new path, clown-faced juggler to one side of them and weary-faced parents to the other. They'd been in circles already, little to see and less of that worth seeing, but there was something about it that kept them moving, seeing everything one more time.

"He had the best jokes," said Jo, stopping in front of a cotton candy machine. "He used to wait until my mom was out of the room before telling them."

"My father didn't tell jokes."

"Well, John Winchester did," said Jo, telling him about a man he never knew. "Filthy ones. My mother would have throttled him if she'd known."

"I didn't hear my father tell a dirty joke till I was twenty," said Dean. "Hell, twenty-two. Just him and me and a bottle of Jack Daniels in a bar in Duluth."

"I only ever knew him in a bar," said Jo. "Always around other hunters. I didn't even know he had kids until about a year after he started coming around."

Dean fell silent, moved away from her side and pulled out his wallet to buy a cone of cotton candy.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean...."

Dean shoved a fistful of sticky candy into his mouth and faced forward, Jo at his side but not with him anymore. She didn't know his father, just some hunter who passed through sometimes, dropping a few stories and jokes and never anything that mattered.

"It doesn't mean you weren't important to him."

"Sweetheart, you don't need to tell me how important I was to my father," he said, putting a firm and abrupt end to that conversation. Dean already knew, entirely too well.

Jo was smart enough not to bristle at the comment, moving in closer again and letting Dean's sticky fingers brush over her wrist.

"What's white and red and has seven dents?" she said a few minutes later as they passed a table full of prize-winning jam.

"I don't know, what?"

"Snow White’s cherry," she said and grinned at him. "It's a lot funnier now than when I was twelve."

Dean snorted and shook his head. "My dad told you that? Seriously?" He could picture it, though, his father with a beer in one hand, some peanuts in the other, and a wide grin on his face.

"He told it to Pete Hildebrandt, actually," she admitted after another moment passed, "but I was sitting in the corner pretending to do my math homework. I always liked him. Your dad, not Pete."

"He was a pretty likeable guy," said Dean. "It's how he got the job done."

"Like father, like son, huh?"

People moved around them, passing on either side, thinning as they reached the distant edges of the festival, electrical wires taped to the walkway and weeds in amongst the less-trampled grass. Dean waited till they were completely alone before he pulled out his gun, back behind a carnival game at the opposite end of where the Echo Valley Boys were starting up their set on the main stage.

"He gave this to me when I was fifteen," he said, turning it over in his hand. It wasn't his best gun, but it was the one that was almost always close at hand. "I say he did, anyway. He left it out one night and I claimed it, and he never said one word about it after that."

It was just the way John Winchester worked.

Jo looked at it like she was supposed to, didn't touch. "Mine's bigger," she said, "but it's back in my truck."

"Sure, you just keep telling yourself that," said Dean, spotting her smile out of the corner of his eye. Expecting it. "Don't be jealous just 'cause I have awesome guns."

"It's not the size that counts," said Jo.

"Isn't that supposed to be my line?" said Dean, sliding the gun back into his boot. "Of course, it does."

"You just keep telling yourself that," said Jo, elbowing him in the side. "I always liked knives better anyway."

It was hard to argue with that. He'd seen Jo's knife before but she pulled it out anyway, and Dean didn't think it was for his benefit. She looked at it for a moment, twirled it over her fingers, then tucked it away again so deftly Dean wasn't even sure where it was hidden.

"I'd say mine's bigger, but you already know that."

"Whatever you say," she said, patting his knee and then letting her hand rest there until Dean's closed over it. "Your dad said something to me once."

"I get the feeling my dad said a lot of things to you once."

"When I was sixteen," she said. "When my dad'd been gone for years already. He said my dad would've given me the knife himself if he'd still been around. It meant a lot."

"Sounds like you knew a pretty good guy." No matter what Ellen told her about him afterwards. No matter what really went down the night Bill Harvelle died, which the way Dean figured it no one would ever really know now.

"My mom never wanted me to go out hunting," said Jo, "but I think my dad did. I think your dad thought my dad did too."

"I'm guessing you never told you mom about that."

"Never told my mom about a lot of things," she said. "She made herself scarce a lot when your dad came around, after."

"Yeah, I got that idea when she threw us out," said Dean. But hell, it couldn't have been easy for her. It wasn't like Dean hadn't taken his frustration out in the easiest direction instead of the right one a time or twenty.

"Never turned him away, though," said Jo. "All that water under the bridge and she never turned him away."

Dean wasn't sure what he was supposed to say about that, what it was even supposed to mean. Other than that he'd spent his whole life by his father's side, and there were still people out there who had pieces of him that Dean didn't.

"You should know," said Jo a few minutes later, "that once your dad trusted us enough to talk about the two of you, he never really stopped."

:::

Sam called as the sun was starting to go down behind the ferris wheel, Jo looking around with narrowed eyes, watching the lengthening shadows for those things that hid within them. Dean held up a finger to her, backed himself up against a flimsy plastic fence, and listened as Sam read him an editorial piece from the Franklinville Herald talking about the recent rash of suicides.

"I dunno Sammy. Maybe Franklinville's just a really depressing place to live."

Jo took a few moments to squat down, look underneath a trailer and check the sill of a cracked window, then turned back to Dean, walking purposefully over to where he was standing with an expression Dean couldn't quite read on her face.

"They're all off the same bridge, and all between midnight and dawn," Sam was saying as Dean watched her approach.

"Bridge could be convenient. Time of night's when the fewest people would see them."

"Maybe," said Sam, "but I want to check it out anyway. Could be a malevolent water creature; we've got about a dozen possibilities there."

"Yeah, maybe we'll bag ourselves a mermaid," said Dean, licking his lips as she reached him. "I gotta go, Sammy. I'll see you back at the motel."

He snapped the phone closed before Sam could answer, just as Jo's arms trapped him against the fence.

"Time to go?" she said.

"It was nothing important," said Dean, letting himself be trapped. "Just Sam."

"So... time to go?" she said again, something different in her voice this time. They were both silent for a moment, then Jo let go, backed away, angled her head towards the path they'd come in on, towards the hill hiding the nearby orchard.

This time Dean led, and Jo followed.

Their shade had vanished with the movement of the sun, the black metal of the Impala gleaming, the blue of Jo's truck deep like the afternoon sky. Dean could feel the heat of it already, sweat prickling on his arms and the back of his neck despite the cooling evening air.

Jo ran her hand over the door handle of her truck like she was contemplating opening it then stepped back, leaned up against the passenger door of the Impala instead and crossed her arms over her chest. "So today wasn't completely terrible," she said.

"Not completely, huh?" said Dean, coming around the other side of his car to meet her.

"I think I can consider this one a job well done."

"So you're leaving?" said Dean, trapping her against the car with one arm on either side. "Just like that?"

"Well, now that you mention it," said Jo, like she'd been waiting for him to set her up just like that, "I think I might have time for one more ride."

Dean smirked, leaned in closer, and Jo met him look for look, motion for motion. "What do you think the odds are that someone's going to wander back here and see us?"

"Not good enough that I'm going to let you stop now," she said, and fisted his shirt, tugged him in against her. A button popped free, clinked off the car door and disappeared into the grass.

Dean's hand found its way to her waist, slipped up under her blouse, down inside the waistband of her jeans at the small of her back. Her skin was soft, warm, just a faint slick of sweat down her spine.

Her hands came up between them, not to him but unbuttoning her own blouse carefully, bottom to top so Dean was forced to follow with his eyes, had to wait to see the white lace of her bra peek out at him.

"Off," he said, like somehow she needed to be told, but he didn't take his hands off her body to help, let her slip it off herself and toss it behind her, watched it float downwards until his attention was drawn to Jo again. One hand was still at the small of her back, fingers touching the curve of her ass, the other slid up to deftly unhook her bra, let it hang there on her shoulders as his hand slid up all that bare skin to the back of her neck.

A shrug of her shoulders and the bra, too, slipped off to land on their feet, then they were standing there in the open orchard, in the golden sunlight, with hands smoothing over every bit of bare skin they could find.

Jo tugged at his shirt, pushed it over his stomach, and Dean backed away for just long enough to raise his arms.

"If you tear it, you'd be doing me a favour," he said and the shirt was finally yanked off, tossed somewhere in the long grass and out of sight.

Right up until her hands fell on his bare chest it all felt slow, leisurely, as lazy as the setting sun, then suddenly it was skin on skin, peaked nipples and roaming hands and the rustle of leaves overhead, whipped up by a sudden wind. Dean's hand fell on her breast and he reached for her jeans, unbuttoning one-handed without even having to look.

Jo sank her teeth into his shoulder as she kicked out of them, just bare legs and white panties after that and she wrapped an ankle around his calf, yanking him closer. She hissed as her bare skin was pressed up against the hot metal of the car but she didn't move away, arched against it instead, and Dean's hand slipped in between her legs, over her damp panties, fingers pressing hard against her and thumb rolling against her clit.

"Been waiting all damn afternoon," she said, lifting a knee and pressing her foot against the car door, grinding back against him. She closed her eyes, bit her lip, and as Dean braced his other hand against the car, breathing hard against her skin, he felt the heat of the black metal bite into him too. "Don't you dare stop."

As if he could.

He waited until the heat was too much then let go and flipped her over, mouthed the red impressions on her back, on her thighs, yanked on her panties with his teeth until he gave in and pulled them down to her ankles in one firm yank, letting her kick them away. Then she was over again, shoulders backed against the car, and Dean was on his knees, between her legs, hands on her thighs and mouth between them.

"Bastard," she murmured, writhing and needy, clutching at his hair and trying to climb him. Dean wouldn't be hurried, his tongue sliding through her slowly, achingly slowly, flicking at her clit and following it with his lips and teeth. His neck ached and her thighs were trembling and he kept at it, kept going, pressing her thigh up onto his shoulder and keeping her there long after she might've gone weak-legged and stumbled.

When he finally stood again, let her put both feet on the ground, he smeared his lips against her upper arm and reached between her legs again, slipping two fingers in hard and rocking the heel of his hand against her. She trembled and gasped and might've been coming right then and there on his hand but Dean didn't stop, reached behind one thigh and urged her legs up again.

It wasn't until he had her hoisted up against the car, her legs wrapped around his waist, that he finally kissed her, smashing in hard with teeth and lips and tongue. She cried out soft and rocked against him, one hand braced on the roof of the car and the other clutching his shoulder, squeezing so hard it ached.

"Not like this," he said suddenly, choking on words that were agony to get out, and he had to pull himself away to get it done, letting her down and wiping his trembling hands on his jeans. Then he yanked open the door and urged her inside, sprawled across the back seat. A wave of hot air washed over them, but it couldn't be any hotter than Dean already was.

His jeans finally came off then, discarded without a look, and he crawled in after her, overtop of her, between her knees and around her. Condoms were under the seat and she didn't even blink at that, didn't ask why they were already so close at hand.

She was so wet and he was so hard and the only relief he got, the only time he touched himself, was in the few moments before he surged forward and pushed inside.

"Jesus, Dean," she said, her legs up and around him again before he knew it. Her hands were over her head and his were on her breasts, cupping them and brushing over her nipples with his thumbs as he pushed inside. He ached to put his mouth on them and kissed her again instead, letting her fuck him with her tongue, letting her fuck him in every way she could.

She trembled under his hands and trembled around his cock and Dean was shaking too, so ready for this, rocking into her so hard and steady that the car shook around him. His rhythm slipped and then shattered as his gut tightened, as Jo fluttered around him and moaned into his mouth and he knew she was coming, maybe coming again. His teeth sank into her lower lip and he lifted one hand to grip the back of the seat, using the leverage to push and push and push and hold himself deep inside her as he finally came.

Dean lay there, still, panting against her cheek, until Jo finally pushed him away, pushed herself up onto her elbows and watched as Dean tied off the condom, shoved it into the 7-Eleven bag they used for trash.

He thought maybe he should say something until he saw her face, met her eyes, and knew she got it already, knew she was thinking all the same things he was. Knew he didn't have to offer sweet nothings and didn't have to explain. He stayed a few moments longer, ran his hands gently over her sides, her stomach, her thighs, then backed out of the car and stretched up towards the darkening sky.

Dean found his jeans in a heap against the rear tire, his shoes not that much further away. He slipped them on and didn't even bother looking for the shirt; if he was lucky it would make a magpie a good home one day. When he turned back Jo was half dressed, plucking her blouse off the car antenna and buttoning it swiftly, top to bottom.

"I want to make Tulsa by tomorrow," she said, checking her face in the side mirror of her truck, brushing her hair back with both hands. "Had a friend of Mom's call me up, ask me to look into a possible haunting."

"Yeah, Sam wants us to go hunt the Little Mermaid in the morning," said Dean, reaching out and snagging her phone from her back pocket, flipping it open and fumbling as he punched his number into her address book. He wasn't as deft with the thing as Sam was, didn't exactly go giving out his number to everyone he fucked, but this time it mattered.

"So I guess I'll be seeing you around?" said Jo as he handed it back, slipping it back into her pocket without a look.

"Pretty sure we'll cross paths, you keep working our jobs," said Dean.

"Wouldn't have to if you were a little more on the ball," said Jo, smiling, lips still shiny and teeth gleaming in the last of the sunlight. "I'll be at Bobby's come Thanksgiving, if you're up that way."

"Might be," said Dean. "Stranger things have happened."

"Ain't that the truth," she said, and rested one hand on the driver's side door, ready to go but just waiting, just waiting one more moment before actually doing it.

Dean waited too, watched her, tugged restlessly on the jeans that were sticking to his sweaty legs.

"Thanks," he said finally, and trusted her to know it had nothing to do with what they'd just done. "Take care of yourself, Jo."

"You too," she said, and while Dean kept watching she hopped in her truck and took off down the road without a backward glance. A few moments later, when the dust started to settle, Dean took off the other way.

Title: Demons Lie
Author:cynicaloptimis
Recipient:montisello
Rating: PG/PG-13
Pairing: Dean/Jo
Summary: Back from the dead, Dean stumbles upon a woman performing an exorcism and wonders where he's seen her before.
Author's Notes: Spoilers through season 3 finale.


“Go to Hell you red-eyed son of a bitch,” were the words Dean Winchester heard when he walked into the old warehouse in Wisconsin a year after his return from Hell. It was a woman’s voice, oddly familiar, yet Dean couldn’t place it. He looked at Sam who nodded at him and the two slowly made their way towards the sound of the woman’s voice.

“Honey, I’ve already been there.” A man’s – no a demon’s – voice spoke and the lilting intonation was clearly meant to irritate the woman. When he didn’t receive an answer, he continued his taunts, asking the woman questions about her father and about her childhood home that apparently no longer existed.

“Why are you talking? I’m not going to let you go.” Her voice was harsh, abrupt and left no room for questions. Dean smirked, knowing that even he wouldn’t talk back to her unless he had good reason to. She reminded him of Ellen. Ellen. How he missed her, the dysfunctional mother figure he’d had for the past few years. She’d gone down trying to help Sam and Dean find one of Azazel’s particularly vengeful children. Dean still regretted her death, but more than that, regretted that she’d never been able to find Jo again before her death. A gasp drew him out of his thoughts and he looked over at Sam to find him looking slightly confused. Should we help? Sam mouthed. Dean shook his head curtly, wanting to know what the woman was going to do.

They heard a rustling sound and then the woman began speaking again in Latin. An exorcism. Knowing exorcisms could get messy, both Sam and Dean began moving closer in case help was needed. Sam had a bottle of holy water in his hand and Dean had an iron knife encased in his.

“Sending me back to Hell isn’t going to change anything.” The demon continued his taunts, trying to scare the woman into letting him go. She gave him another deathly glare, her blonde head glistening in the moonlight and continued chanting. She threw what looked like holy water on him for good measure and her voice rose.

The second Dean saw the glistening golden hair and the Devil’s Trap on the floor he knew exactly who was in there. Jo. Time seemed to stand still as his eyes made his way south from her hair. Gone was the skinny girl who had followed them to Philly and saved him in Duluth. In her place was a siren whose body had filled out in all the right places. Her shirt rode low and Dean could see the slight swell of her breast in the moonlight before following her body further to her slim waist and the expanse below.

Sam’s jostling woke him from his thoughts of Jo and back to the current situation. All Dean could think of doing was running in and helping her. It didn’t matter how old she’d become, how experienced or how beautiful. All that mattered was that deep down he had an innate desire to keep her from putting herself in harm’s way. The only thing that stopped him from doing so was Sam’s hand on his shoulder and the voice that whispered into his ear saying, “Dean, Dean! She’s gotten this far on her own.”

The demon spoke again. “Exorcising me isn’t going to bring your mother back, you know. She’s dead, has been ever since she tried to kill me.” Jo’s eyes glistened but still she soldiered on, refusing to be confused into oblivion by the demon.

“But we all know the real reason you’ve kept doing this, little Jo Harvelle. Well, I suppose not so little anymore. You’ve definitely grown up. But that’s beside the point. You’re still hoping to avenge Dean Winchester, hoping that if you work hard enough, if you exorcise enough demons, if you give as much of yourself that he did, somehow you’ll be able to save him from the fate that he suffers through everyday. “

Two lone tears made their way down Jo’s face and Dean realized how disconnected from the hunting world Jo had become. Without her mother, she knew no one save him and Sam but who knew when they’d come around again? She must have heard the news about him from a passing hunter that she’d come along and then segregated herself so much that she didn’t even know he was alive today. It took all of Dean’s willpower and Sam’s manpower to keep Dean from running into that room and telling Jo that the demon was lying, that he was alive. He was here.

But he didn’t run into that room. He didn’t tell her the truth. He didn’t because he wanted to see what Jo would do. Would she let her emotions get the best of her? Dean had no idea where these emotions had come from and he supposed that his subconscious had reevaluated life after his return from Hell. How else could he explain the tightening in his chest at the demon’s crass and cruel assessment of Jo’s emotions? That tightening had certainly not been there the last time they’d been on a hunt together. The last hunt there was paranoia and anger, but never this feeling of caring.

She wiped the tears from her eyes as if they were specks of dust and paused before she continued her chant, refusing to be interrupted. The words sounded almost like music coming from her lips and Dean stood in shock, just watching and absorbing the sound of her voice. The demon continued his taunting tirade.

“No matter how grown up you become or how good of a hunter you will be, Dean Winchester will never love you and he’ll never return. His soul will rest in Hell forever.” The gleeful words struck a nerve inside of Jo and she finished the exorcism with a glint in her eye that receded only when the demon had screamed its last scream and disappeared, leaving a pile of dust in its wake. It was only then that she fell to her knees and held her head in her hands. She counted to twenty and rose from the floor as she began to pack up the rest of her items.

She had everything tucked away and turned around to see Dean Winchester standing slack-jawed in front of her. She walked towards him and he almost thought she was going to embrace him, but that thought was shot to Hell when he felt water splashed all over his face. She thought he was a demon?!

When the water didn’t sizzle and Dean had wiped it from his face, Jo felt the stubble on his face and moved her hands down to his arms and his chest, feeling nothing but solid flesh, the sinewy muscles, underneath her fingertips.

“You’re real,” were the only words she spoke. Her voice was laced with incredulity and as her brown orbs locked onto his green ones, Dean could only think of one appropriate response before his lips crashed into hers, his tongue parting her own before fighting for dominance as her hands found their way underneath his shirt, pulling him closer to her.

“Demons lie,” he said before kissing her again, with the intention of never letting her go.

Title: Light Up the Darkness.
Author:kickaboutheart
Recipient:vinylroad
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Dean/Jess/Sam
Summary: 86 days after the world ends, when angels and demons have put each other to rest, all that's left is to start rebuilding.
Author's Notes: Thanks to my awesome betas for all their help and brainstorming along the way. Warnings of wincesty vibes/implications through out.



86 days after the world ends, when angels and demons have put each other to rest, all that's left is to start rebuilding.

Somewhere between what's left of North Dakota and Iowa, Dean hears the first rumor about the girl with the golden hair.

He makes his way east, stopping in new settlements when he can. A hard day’s work for a full belly, but he still feels empty, can't seem to get the ache out. He feels older than he ever has, but the months pass, and everything around him changes, withers, but he remains – along with the half broken toys and debris that seem to follow him across the country.

*

The impala's been gone for a while now, months, maybe years, he's not really sure anymore. He gets by with the 4x4 he found abandoned outside of Minneapolis. It's a Ford, but these days Dean finds he's not too picky.

In Bangor, he asks about her, heads north, into the mountains, up towards Silver Lake.

*

She's working in her garden when he comes over the ridge, eyes looking over the small cabin and the vegetable garden next to it.

She rises as he moves closer, every step confirming that it was her, the last link he had to Sam.

"At last," is all she says, pulling him into her arms. He can feel her scars under his hands as he hugs her; the smooth ridges along her back and neck. She smells good, spicy and comforting.

"Jess…" Dean knows there is so much to say, but she shakes her head, slipping her arm around his.

"Just come in, let me get you something to drink."

The inside of the cabin is very much that of a healer’s, bottles and herbs on makeshift shelves, a pot of something simmering on the woodstove. For the first time in months, Dean realizes the ache is gone.

*

They don't talk much the first hour, and as much as there are questions that need to be answered, the comfortable silence between them is a relief. She washes his back and neck as he sits in her bathtub, singing quietly to herself, nails scratching lightly over his scalp. He feels guilty when he catches himself staring at the hollow between her breasts as she leans over him to wash away the dirt of the road from his shoulders.

"Sam's gone," he says finally, catching Jess' hand against his chest. She sighs, a soft smile on her lips as she pats her hand against his skin.

"Not gone," she says, "just not here. He'll find us when he's ready."

*

The days waiting for Sam are tedious to Dean. While Jess keeps busy in her garden or with the expecting mothers that make the trek up the ridge, Dean finds himself sitting at the table, rocking it back and forth when he notices the uneven legs.

"I'm going to make you a new table." Dean announces one night as Jess is trimming his hair with her shears.

"My table's fine, Dean." Jess laughs, reaching down to squeeze his shoulder at the disappointment in his face. "But if you wanted to…keep busy, you could put the tin on the roof. It's out behind the house."

She cuts the rest of his hair with a smile on her face, loves the feel of running her fingers through the short hairs now, and he looks more like the Dean she used to know, Sam’s Dean. She wishes she knew for sure if he would ever be that again.

*

Three days after the leaves turn, Jess delivers Mary Atkins’ baby.

Dean remembers to bring the bottle of whiskey that sits above the fridge and hands it to Mary's husband, who can't be much older than Dean himself.

"Thanks," he says, taking a large swig as Mary's cries echo along the ridge.

"She'll be alright," Dean says, nodding his head towards the house, "She's in good hands."

After it’s over, they head back to the ridge, hands clasped as they walk the familiar path. And there's something about it, the way Jess tucks her head against his neck, it feels like it makes sense.

He waits two and a half months before he asks her how she's alive, when he saw her burning on the ceiling, saw the soft, blank glaze of death sweep across her eyes.

"Weren't you in hell?'" she asks, annoyed. He can tell because she's putting more weight into her movements, slamming the fridge just a bit harder than normal.

"Sam…he got me out…made some deal…" He feels the guilt twitch against his bottom lip, bites down hard to quell it.

"Did you ever think that maybe you weren't the only part of that deal." Her eyes are glassy, and her eyelashes flutter, heavy and wet "That maybe this," she waves her hands around the room, "this was the deal…"

Dean understands then, that she feels it too. That guilt of every breath they take weighs heavy on them both. He pulls her in close, holds her tight to his chest as she cries, shaking sobs into the soft worn denim of his shirt.

She kisses him first, the dry press of lips against damp cheeks. He slides his hand up along her neck; fingers brushing softly against the smooth tender skin and she breathes open and heavy against his mouth, allowing his tongue in, letting him taste her. Somewhere deep down, Dean swears he can taste Sam too.

Her mouth trails down his chin, the coarse hair of his beard pricking her lips, makes them tingle as she finds the dip of his collarbone. It's sweet with day old sweat and she sucks fervently on his skin, swirling her tongue around and over.

He palms her breasts as he backs her towards the bed, the one that they've been sharing oh so platonically until this moment. Her nipples are hard against his hands and she arcs when he plucks them through her t-shirt, hips canting involuntarily.

She's anxious and mewling on the bed as she watches him undress, her fingers dipping just under the waistband of her black cotton panties as he lets his jeans and boxers fall to the ground. He grabs her ankle then, pulling her down to the end of bed. He kisses the curve of her instep, the hollow of her ankle, lets the smooth of his lips and the roughness of his beard tease her as he moves farther up her leg, tongue reaching out to slide along the crease of her thigh.

She lifts her hips and the panties slide off in his hands, soft, blonde curls hiding her cunt, but he knows how wet she is, can almost taste her in the air.

He kisses the long, jagged scar below her navel, pushing her hands away as she tries to stop him. "It's part of you," he says, "don't hide from me." Her hand moves from her belly, sliding over his cheek and up into his hair. It's long now, and she can just twist her fingers into it, just like with Sam.

He parts her open with his thumbs, dipping his head to slide his tongue along her cunt, feeling her wetness coat his mouth. She is sweet and salty and he dives in, tongue licking over her clit, one of his hands covering her belly, holding her down. Her hand guides him, pushing him where she wants it, needs it, the most.

She comes quickly, fingers twisting into his hair as she bucks, with long small moans from the back of her throat. It's been so long since she felt Sam's touch, felt anyone's touch.

He wipes his face against the flannel sheet before crawling up to meet her, kisses her deep and wide, letting her taste the sweetness for herself.

Jess drags her fingers along his chest, long thin fingers wrapping around his cock, slow strokes as he nuzzles his face in her neck. She can feel the pressure of his mouth against her skin, knows that he's marking her.

"Please Jess," he begs, a husky whisper in her ear. "I need it, need you, want to be inside you so fucking badly." She runs her thumb over the head, can feel the stickiness of his precome against her hip.

She doesn't speak, only slides her leg under him, thighs wide as he rolls on top of her. She guides him closer, teases him with the slickness of her cunt until he grabs her hands, thin wrists under his palms as he pushes in. Her gasp is loud and full, and he's in so deep, but not deep enough, she needs more, wants to feel it in the very centre of her core.

"Like this," she says, lifting her leg, calve curling around his neck. He holds it tight as he thrusts, a staccato of moves until they find their rhythm.

"Is this how he did it?" Dean grunts, the fingers of one hand holding tight to her wrists, the other against her leg. "Is this how Sam fucked you?"

She whimpers in a nod, and Dean's mouth is on hers now, his teeth pull at her bottom lip, tongue searching wide. "Harder," she gasps, breasts heaving as she breathes deep, “like he wanted to disappear inside me."

Dean can feel it now, the pressure, and the familiar ache becoming stronger and stronger. Jess is thrusting up against him, her hips coming up to meet his, and then its hot white behind his eyes, and he feels every muscle in his body flexing as he comes, still buried deep inside of her.

They sleep nestled against each other that night, the bed seeming wider and larger than it had before, the worn quilt pulled up around Dean's shoulders.

"Do you really think he'll come back?" Dean asks, the air of the cabin quiet now, except for the occasional burst of wind outside that whips around the cabin. Jess doesn't speak but they both know the uncertainty of the answer.

*

It snows the week before Thanksgiving, surrounding the small cabin in a blanket of white. The days are short now, the sun setting earlier and earlier each day, giving way to longer, darker nights.

"Maybe we should leave." Dean says one night, his fingers playing along the plain of her belly, the rough pads of his fingers sweeping over smooth skin.

"We'll be fine," Jess says, turning to kiss him. "Besides, we have enough food and water to last us the whole season." Dean knows she's right, but there's a feeling stirring in him, a restlessness that he's felt before. He misses the road, misses the long drives from one state to another. Since that first night they had slept together, something about their dynamic had changed – as though the closer they seemed to get the larger the space between them seemed to grow, a space that felt large enough for another person to occupy.

The first time it happens he's lying in bed watching her get dressed. His mind wanders, imagining how she would look with her belly full and round, her breasts heavy with new weight.

It gets him so hard that he lays in bed for an hour after she gets up, stroking himself, thinking of how much he wants it – wants to make her like that.

*

Sam shows up two weeks after the first snowfall. Dean is out back, chopping firewood, the constant dull bang of the axe against the wood so monotonous that Jess barely hears the knock at the door. Pulling a sweater over her shoulders she opens the door and he's there, filling up her doorway.

She cries, silent, happy tears as she runs her fingers over his face, presses her nose against the crook of his neck, the memories of a lifetime ago flooding over her.

"I missed you," she says; as his mouth finds hers, long slow kisses like he knows she loves, the way his tongue licks along hers. "Dean's here." Sam steps back, and Jess’ heart squeezes when she sees the relief washing over him, his eyes flickering skyward in silent thanks.

"He's really here?" She nods, laughing and crying at the same time as he pulls her back into his arms, his face pressed against the side of her head.

They don't talk while they wait for Dean to come in, just sit at the table, Jess' hands stroking his.

"Jess, I think we really-" Dean stops dead in the doorway when he sees his brother, and Sam stands, moving towards him. Dropping the bin of wood on the floor with a loud bang Dean wraps his arms around Sam, holding him tight against his chest.

Jess watches the two of them, arms wrapped around one another, heads bent and touching. Somewhere she knows that maybe she should be jealous, that the bond they have, this never ending love that's deeper than anything else, that she'll never have that with Sam or with Dean alone. It's only with both of them could she ever feel a part of what they share.

*

The first day Dean and Sam waste the hours talking about the time they've been apart, the people they’ve known who died, the people who survived. Jess doesn't mind sitting back, watching them, because she knows that they need this.

"How did you get out of your deal?" Dean asks finally, taking a long swig of his coffee.

"I didn't." The two words seem to ring out and Jess drops her own mug, swearing under her breath as it breaks.

"What?" Dean's face has turned ashen grey and Jess can tell he's either going to start crying or he's going to punch Sam in the face.

"I didn't get out of my deal," Sam says, looking between the two of them. "I don't need too, Turns out-"

"Don't need to?" Dean stands, looking at his brother incredulously. "What the hell were you thinking, Sammy?"

"Jesus, Dean, listen to me for a second!" Sam says, standing to meet his brother. The two men glare at each other, eyes dark and tight. "I didn't make the deal with the crossroads demon. Look, Dean, let's just say that hell isn't the only place recruiting souls these days."

Jess can tell that Dean wants to ask more questions, but Sam's moved on to another topic, and Jess glances over at Dean, shaking her head, telling him that for now, they just need to let it go and be grateful they even have him at all.

*

It's late when the lantern at the table has almost burnt out, and as Jess heads towards the bed, she realizes that Dean won't be sleeping next to her for the first time in almost eight months.

"Are you okay, Jess?" Sam asks, as she stands halfway between where the table is, and the enclosed wall that the bed is tucked behind.

"Yeah…I just…I'm just tired." She gives Dean a soft smile, slipping past the curtain and into the bedroom.

Sam looks back at his brother and nods. "She thinks I don't know."

"It just happened, Sammy, I'm sorry…I never…" Dean begins but Sam stops him, a warm palm against his arm.

"I know how much she means to you, it's exactly what she means to me." It's Dean's turn to nod, though he always imagined that this conversation would be louder and a lot more physically painful. "Just like she knows how much I mean to you."

They're both silent for a moment, starring at each other, until Dean shakes his head, looking down at the table.

"Where do we go from here, Sammy? I'm not going to fight you for her, but fuck Sam, I…"

"Let's just go to bed, Dean." Sam says, standing, stretching his arms over his head. "Are you coming?" Dean thinks for a moment, watching his brother standing in the dimly lit glow of the small cabin, and then he follows.

*

Jess has a few candles lit on the bedside table, but it’s still quite dark in the room when Sam and Dean strip down to their boxers, climbing under the quilts on either side of her.

"Sam…" she breathes, her fingers finding his, "I never…"

He silences her with his mouth, a soft full kiss that says more than he ever needs to.

They continue to kiss, Sam's mouth making its way down along her neck when she feels the soft, familiar, scratch of Dean's beard against her arm, peppering her shoulder with his lips. She can feel his fingers running softly against the scars along her back, gentle strokes that seem to make Jess' whole body feel as though it might melt right into the bed.

Sam's moved down now, his face nuzzling into her breasts as Jess turns her head to find Dean's mouth, hot and waiting for her. While Sam's kisses are long and slow, like he's trying to savor every second of it, Dean's are harder, more demanding, like he wants to make her forget about anything other than the fact that he's kissing her.

She gasps a little sigh against his mouth as Sam's lips brush over one of her nipples, his palm cupping her breast as he suckles her nipple into his mouth, tongue swirling around the hardened peak, pressing it between the flat of his tongue and the roof of his mouth.

"God, you love that don't you, Jess," Dean says, as he nibbles along her jaw, up to her ear lobe. "Does it make you nice and wet?" Dean's hand is already reaching down under the quilt, his palm sliding over her backside, and then it’s tight, slick heat as he slips two fingers in.

Sam continues his descent, kissing his way down her chest, along her abdomen, flicking his tongue over her navel until his face is there, hot breath against her thighs.

"Hold her leg up," he says to Dean, catching his brother's eye. Jess whimpers as Dean slips his fingers out, his palm cupping around her thigh and holding it, watching as the first lick of Sam's tongue makes Jess squirm in his hands.

Sam's mouth moves against her cunt, his tongue lapping and curling around her clit, until he sucks the bud into his mouth, flicking his tongue against it in such a way that Jess feels she might just break right there into a million little pieces.

In the dark Sam reaches for Dean's hand pulling it away from Jess' thigh, letting her leg rest against his face as he brings Dean's hand back to her heat, and Dean goes from there, the long slow push into her cunt as Sam continues to lap and flick her clit in his mouth.

It won't take long, Dean knows, can feel her already tightening around his fingers as he pumps them in and out of her. Often the warm soft wet of Sam's tongue slips against his fingers, and he pushes deeper, makes her moan louder and longer as they work in tandem to bring her over the edge.

Jess comes with a sob, her fingers finding their way into Sam's hair, pressing his head against her as Dean feels her contracting around his fingers.

She’s still shaking when she climbs onto Sam’s lap, thighs sliding tight against his hips as she buries herself down onto him, Sam’s eyes squeezing shut as he fills her, feels the tight familiarity of her around him. It’s then that Dean moves behind Jess, hands sliding around her and cupping one of her breasts, thumb and forefinger pinching the rosy peaks.
It takes them awhile, the three of them, to find a rhythm, Jess rocking herself on Sam’s lap, pushing back against Dean, his hand wrapped around his cock, stroking slowly against her ass.

“That’s it Jess,” Dean whispers, his lips pressed against her ear. “You want this so bad don’t you? Do you want Sam to touch you? Do you want that?” Jess nods in a whimper, and Sam moves his hand to her belly, his palm stretching out as his thumb slips between her lips, pressing down against her clit.

Dean loves to watch Jess, and Sam, the way they move together, the way they move with him. When Jess turns her head to kiss him it almost surprises him but he kisses her hard, dipping his tongue deep into her mouth as she tenses around Sam, pulling him over the edge with her. Sam’s grip on Jess’ hips tightens and Jess flings her arm out to grab Dean as Sam fucks up into her, a groan past his lips as he comes.

Jess leans down to kiss him, peppering his face with soft, tiny pecks, as Dean rubs his hand along the tops of Sam’s thigh, comforting and reassuring until Sam’s hand finds his, fingers entwining and Dean’s grip on his cock tightens, and he feels the familiar tightening of his body, coming in spurts against Jess’s back and over his hand.

The candles have long since burned out and they fall back clumsily on the bed, legs and arms staying where they fall. Dean turns his head and presses a kiss into Jess’s hair, his foot rubbing against Sam’s calve as he pulls the quilt over them, trying not to think of how he’ll have to get up to make a fire in a few hours.


*

It’s easier than Dean thought it would be to settle into a routine, now that Sam is back. They eat breakfast, the three of them chatting over steaming bowl of porridge and black coffee, and then Dean and Sam head outside, to mark out the spot for the house Dean wants to build.

“What happened, Sammy?” Dean asks one day, as they stand in the middle of the newly cleared brush.

“I was ready to give in, Dean, make a deal, sell my soul for you, for Jess,” Sam wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. “Something happened, I started to get one of my visions, you know, like from before, then it was like white hot light surrounding me and I must have passed out. When I woke up, half the world was gone.”

Dean knows that they can’t go back to the way the world was before, that there will always be things to hunt, people to save, and that for them, he and Sam, the only way to go from here is forward, each day trying to light up the darkness.

Title: you and your eyes light the darkest room
Author:that_september
Recipient:fonapola
Rating: PG-13.
Pairing: Dean/Lisa.
Summary: Three times Lisa asked Dean to stay.
Author's Notes: Written for the prompt, “Stay.” Title taken from IKO’s song, Rosetta. I had a great time writing this—I hope it satisfies! ♥


Lisa always remembered the green first. Everything else—the swearing, the embarrassment, the hiss of pain, his startled expression, the faded leather of his jacket, his easy laugh, and all that had followed—came after.

--

It was a rainy Saturday, and she’d gone to Java Junkie to grab a quick breakfast because all the milk had gone sour and she’d forgotten that her one-night stand from a couple weeks ago, What’s-His-Face with the faux-hawk and the nose ring, had eaten the rest of the granola and yogurt.

Lisa had turned around from the counter with her usual double-mocha nonfat soy latte in hand, and there had been this guy—this guy with eyes that were so damn green she actually stopped in her tracks, breath catching in her throat. It was right out of one of those cheesy romance novels her sixteen-year-old baby sister, Maddie, was always reading, the kind of thing Lisa had always rolled her eyes at, something her best friend Julie would snark about on her radio show or whatever.

And yet, in that moment, she couldn’t really bring herself to care.

Wow, Lisa had thought in the split second before her full-to-the-brim coffee cup had practically thrown itself out of her hands, I’ve never seen eyes quite that shade before.

Then, there was a dark stain spreading across his chest, and she was lunging forward to try to grab the cup before it splattered all over his jeans, and he was jumping back in surprise, and oh, God, she really should have stayed in bed this morning.

“I’m sorry!” she cried, scrambling to pick up the traitorous cup, and in the process, dropping her bagel and a wad of napkins. “Dammit, I can’t believe myself—of all the clumsiest, stupidest—are you ok?” He laughed, then, warm and surprised and forgiving all in one, and knelt to help her gather everything together.

“I’ve been worse,” he said, voice a little gruffer than she’d expected, and held out a hand to her.

“Thanks,” she sighed, taking it and letting him pull her to her feet. “God, I swear I’m not usually this klutzy.” He still hadn’t let go of her hand.

“Hey, we all have our moments.” He smiled brightly. “Personally, running into a pretty girl was right at the top of my things-to-do list today.”

“Oh, well...” Lisa could feel the tell-tale blush rising in her cheeks. “…I’m still sorry. Can I make it up to you? Buy you a coffee or something? I promise I won’t dump this one on you.”

“I’d like that,” he said softly. “I’m Dean Winchester, by the way.” His grip tightened on hers, and she realized he was shaking her hand.

“Lisa,” she laughed, tightening her own grip. “Lisa Braeden.”

--

Dean Winchester was twenty years old. He hated the smell of wood smoke, was semi-fluent in Latin, couldn’t dance to save his life, loved 70’s mullet rock, and freaked out over classic cars. He didn’t know a thing about yoga, traveled constantly for his mysterious job, called her sweetheart within the first ten minutes of knowing her, drank his coffee black, and, the best part of all, wasn’t from around here.

Just Lisa’s type.

“So, do you have a place to stay?” she asked, watching as Dean slid his coffee mug from one large hand to the other. He met her gaze, smiled in a way that made her heart speed up just the tiniest bit.

“Not yet,” he said, leaning forward ever so slightly as he pushed his mug to the side. “Any recommendations?”

“Well, there’s always the Holiday Inn by the freeway, or the Motel 8 down on Jefferson…or…” She paused significantly, tilting her head and grinning. “…I’ve got a loft a couple blocks away. It’s not much, but it has all the amenities. Cable, A/C, a ceiling fan. Indoor plumbing.” His hand covered hers on top of the table, and Lisa liked the feel of it, the rough, calloused weight of his palm, the security of that one, small gesture.

“Sounds good to me,” said Dean, and his eyes almost seemed to burn with an intensity Lisa had seen more times than she cared to admit, though she couldn’t ever remember her heart hammering this loudly.

The rain pounded down ever harder outside, beating against the window with a determined ferocity, and she closed her eyes for a half-second, drinking in the smell of fresh coffee, the warmth of his hand, the anticipation and the desire and how damn good it felt to be young and alive.

“Yeah,” Lisa said softly at long last, opening her eyes and flipping her hand palm up under his. “Me, too.”

--

Dean was humming Metallica when she woke up. Lisa kept her eyes closed, turned her face into her pillow, pulled a blanket more snugly around her, and listened.

He was clacking around in the kitchen, pulling open cabinets and drawers, filling the coffee pot. Lisa thought she could smell bacon.

Grinning to herself, she got up, wrapped a blanket around her, and wandered out of the bedroom and into the kitchen.

Dean was shirtless, his hair freshly washed, and he’d already started pouring pancake batter onto the griddle beside sizzling bacon. The coffee had just started brewing.

“Wow.” He turned around at the sound of her voice, and she beamed. Something about Dean made her feel so…safe. Happy. The twenty-four hours they’d known each other had been unbelievable—and even though Lisa knew that nothing real could come of this, nothing lasting, a small part of her hoped.

“I’ll say,” he returned, eyeing her up and down, a slow, easy grin spreading across his face. “You’re gorgeous even with morning hair. That right there takes skill.” Lisa blushed despite herself, ducking her head.

“I meant the fact that you were making breakfast! Not too many guys do that, you know.”

“Yeah, well.” Dean bit his lip. “I’ve been told I make godly pancakes. Figured it was the least I could do.”

“For what?” she asked, laughing a little. “You don’t think last night was enough?” He quirked an eyebrow.

“Hey, you let a strange dude sleep at your apartment and use your indoor plumbing and devour your food. Plus…” Dean trailed off, grinning meaningfully. “Last night was, well…”

“Uh, fantastic?”

“That doesn’t begin to cover it.” He flipped a pancake over, and Lisa tucked a lock of dark hair behind her ear, smiling reminiscently as the details of the previous night flooded back.


He turned towards her again, and she stepped forward, let the blanket fall. Dean’s green eyes darkened with that same, familiar intensity, and he made a strange, guttural sound as she slid her hands up his bare chest.

“You know,” she murmured in his ear, entwining one of her legs with his, “I’m actually not that hungry.”


Not taking his eyes off her for an instant, he reached around, turned off the stove.

“What a coincidence.” One of his hands trailed furtively up her side. “Me neither.”

--

She made him dinner before he left.

Dean inhaled her terrible cooking like it was gourmet, taking seconds and thirds, and claimed he’d never tasted such delicious burnt pork chops in his life. Lisa tried to drag out the inevitable goodbye, making him promise he’d look her up if he was ever in town, thanking him again and again, trying to think of new things to talk about.

Finally, when it was nearly nine-thirty, Dean sighed and said he really had to get going…work, and all that. She bit her lip, watching as he turned towards the door, and then blurted it out before she could help herself.

“Stay.”

He paused, his shoulders tensed, before turning slowly back around and meeting her embarrassed gaze. For the briefest of moments, something flickered in his eyes—a twinge of longing, of hopelessness. Dean swallowed, then reached forward, brushing the hair out of her eyes, running a thumb across her cheekbone.

“I wish I could,” he whispered. Lisa nodded, closing her eyes, trying to ward off inexplicable tears. You’re being ridiculous, she told herself firmly. You barely know this guy. Get a hold of yourself, Lisa—don’t be that girl.

She stood on tiptoe and kissed him one last time, trying to put everything into it she couldn’t tell him in words.

“Bye, Dean Winchester,” she murmured. “Be safe, wherever it is you’re going.”

“I always am,” he said, smirking in a way that made her stomach squirm, and then he let go of her reluctantly, opened the door. “Bye, Lisa. Thanks…for everything.”

The door snapped shut, and for a moment, she stood there, staring at it, hoping, despite everything, that it would swing back open.

--

One and a half months later, the little pink cross appeared on the third pregnancy test, and Lisa was alone.

Dean Winchester had disappeared off the face of the planet, not that he’d ever left her an address in the first place, and anyway, why would he even care? She was just some girl he slept with, some girl he probably would never think of again, some girl he couldn’t have given less of a damn about if he tried.

Julie thought she should get an abortion, Mom thought she should keep the baby, everyone else thought she was a slut, and Lisa really hadn’t wanted to do much of anything but cry.

Some nights, she lay awake, thinking of the look on Dean’s face when she’d asked him to stay.

I wish I could.

She thought of his green eyes and his smirk and how he’d hummed Metallica, and some small part of her heart clenched down, as if to say, You can do this.

Seven months later, she had an emergency C-section, and when the doctors handed Lisa her son, he waved a tiny fist, opened his mouth, and let out the most beautiful, screechy wail she’d ever heard in her life.

His eyes flickered open, and though they were the generic baby blue-grey, Lisa could already tell what color they’d be.

“Benjamin Dean,” she whispered, cradling her son’s head in her hands. “Ben.”

--

Ben was everything she’d hoped for in a kid: funny, intelligent, and sweet, with a stubborn streak a mile wide. He’d inherited her knack for fixing things, her hatred of bell peppers, her dark hair, and her sunny smile, but everything else was all Dean Winchester—the eyes especially.


No wonder Dean knew Ben was his within moments of meeting him. It must have been like going back in time, like déjà vu.

When he asked the first time, though, she couldn’t bring herself to tell him. Lisa already knew he wasn’t the kind of guy that would stick around, and the last thing Ben needed was to get hurt.

When she found out who Dean really was, it made things even worse. Tell him he had a son, with the kind of life he led? Not only would Ben be hurt, he could be put in even worse danger than he already had been without Dean’s help, and Dean…well, Dean would feel responsible and want to be there for him, and with the work he did…that wouldn’t be an option. So when he took her aside and asked,

“You’re sure he’s not mine, right?” she only felt a little guilty for assuring him he was off the hook, making up a story about a biker in a bar and a blood test. Dean was quiet for a moment, so she added,

“So, yeah, you can relax.” Dean’s eyes were fixed on Ben, and there was something in his gaze she recognized—the longing, the hopelessness. It broke her heart a little.

“Good,” he said softly.

“I swear, you look disappointed.” She searched his face, bit her lip.

“Yeah, I don’t know.” Dean laughed hollowly, shaking his head. “Some stuff happened to me recently…anyway, a guy in my situation, you start to think, I’m gonna be gone one day, and what am I leaving behind besides a car?” Lisa paused for a moment, guilt rising in her throat, threatening to push out the truth. Get it together, Lisa..

“Ben may not be your kid, but he wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for you,” she finally managed. “That’s a lot if you ask me.” Dean nodded shortly, heading for the door, before he paused.

“Just for the record…you had a great kid.” He nodded again, his jaw clenched. “I woulda been proud to be his dad.” Lisa hesitated, meeting his eyes. Maybe…

“Look, if, um, if you want to stick around for awhile…you’re welcome to stay.”

“I can’t,” Dean said softly, painfully. I wish I could.“I gotta lot work to do…and it’s not my life.”

When he walked away this time, it took everything she had not to run after him and drag him back.

--

On Ben’s sixteenth birthday, it started raining.

There was no party this year; Ben kept saying he was too old for cake and ice cream, that all he wanted to do was go out to dinner with her and see a movie, but Lisa knew better. He was having trouble at school, getting into fights, struggling with class, alienating himself from the other kids. At least it wasn’t drugs or alcohol, but it was troubling none the less.

Ben had never been quite the same after the changelings, but it wasn’t until he got to high school that he’d really seemed different. Lisa didn’t know if it was fear something would happen again, or just hormones, but Ben had been…distant, isolated.

He asked about his father constantly, and was never satisfied with her offhand answers that the man was long gone. They never talked about the changelings, but she’d found books on the supernatural hidden under his bed the way some teenage boys would stash Playboys, and when she’d borrowed his laptop when hers had crashed, she’d stumbled across bookmarked pages about exorcising demons or hunting ghosts, and a few news clips about Dean Winchester, who was wanted for grave desecration, murder in the first degree, resisting arrest, armed robbery, impersonation of a federal officer…the list went on and on, until it mentioned that he and his brother had been killed in an explosion.

Lisa had wept, prayed it wasn’t true, but it had been eight years again, and Dean Winchester was gone—maybe for good this time.

The doorbell rang, ripping Lisa out of her reverie, and Ben thundered down the stairs, buttoning his flannel shirt as he did so.

“I’ll get it,” he hollered unnecessarily, hand already on the doorknob. Lisa rolled her eyes at her son’s enthusiasm, setting down the book she had been attempting to read, and stretching.

“It’s you,” she heard Ben say in abject disbelief. “But—you’re…the article said you were—”


Gasping, Lisa hurried to the entryway, peered over Ben’s shoulder. Dean Winchester was standing on her front porch, hands shoved into the pockets of the same beaten leather jacket, green eyes glinting in the same way they always had. There was a little grey in his hair, a few more scars and lines on his face, but he was alive.

“Well,” he told Ben, though his eyes were on Lisa, “I was in the neighborhood.”

“Dean Winchester,” Lisa said, hardly able to believe he was breathing air.

“Lisa Braeden,” Dean responded, smiling brightly.

“Come in, come in,” she said, shaking her head abruptly, waving Dean inside. “Would you like coffee? Ben, go get him some coffee.”

“Mom,” Ben groaned, rolling his eyes, but she caught a glimpse of a grin as headed for the kitchen.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call,” Dean said softly, shifting awkwardly from one foot to the other. “This was kind of an impromptu thing. Spur of the moment.”

“Do you realize you only visit every eight years?” Lisa asked, raising a brow at him. “What’s impromptu about that?”

“That,” Dean acknowledged, taking a step closer, “is a very good point.”

Lisa took in his green eyes and his leather jacket and his crooked grin, and she could smell coffee brewing and hear rain beating down on the windows, and isn’t it funny how these kinds of things always seem to come full circle?

“So, how long are you going to be in Cicero?” she asked, taking a step forward herself, eyes locked on his. “Are you working?”

“Actually,” Dean said softly, drawing even closer to her, “me and Sammy, we’re thinking of retiring early. We’re gettin’ too old.” Lisa snorted in disbelief, but her breath hitched when he reached out, took her face in both hands.

“Stay,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “Just…stay.”

Dean ran a thumb across her cheekbone, and kissed her, and Lisa could taste hope and gratitude and a million other things she wasn’t sure how to name.

When they pulled apart, Ben was standing there holding two mugs off coffee, a huge smile on his face, his green eyes bright.


“Sounds good to me,” Dean whispered in her ear, and Lisa beamed, beckoning Ben forward, and looping an arm across his broad shoulders. She drew both men close, resting her forehead on Dean’s shoulder, and squeezing Ben extra tight.

“Yeah,” she agreed, and she didn’t quite know why there were tears on her cheeks. “Me, too.”

Title: Shotguns and Heartstrings
Author: connery_is_bond
Recipient: dragonsinger
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Chloe/Dean (Smallville/Supernatural)
Summary: They’re both a little crazier for knowing each other
Author's Notes: I own nothing… from either show.


______________________________________________________________________________

The first time he meets Chloe Sullivan, she’s staking towards him with a dangerously dark look on her face; eyes flashing red and hands balled into fists at her sides.

It’s been three years since his time in hell, and he affectionately refers to the present as his dark period.

He figures if Sam can have his dark time, then why can’t he?

Everyone knows this- knows that Dean Winchester is a little less human and a little more unhinged now- and they stay out of his way.

She gets right in his face.

It’s her dark time too; the difference was, no body knew that.

So, when he sees her, he writes her off as another little girl lost looking for a story to take back home- one about demons and monsters that she knew she’d never really find.

But when she standing in front of his without an inch of fear on her face, Dean wonders if he made the right decision by killing the monster attacking her or if he aimed wrong?

“Are you crazy!?” Her chest heaves and he has this image of her punching him stuck on repeat in his head, “you could have shot me; you could have killed me,”

Who the hell was this little flake of a girl anyway? Would a ‘thanks for saving my life’ be too much to ask?

“Don’t worry sweetheart, there’s always next time,” he flashes her a cocky grin and pushes the old Winchester higher onto his shoulder, before turning and heading back to his car.

“You bastard,” she yells after him and he nods his head in agreement; yup, probably.
______________________________________________________________________________

“Are you crazy?” he growls, fishing blindly for her hand as they run in the dark; Chloe was seriously slowing them down.

“Please don’t start with me Dean, not now,”

“Why the hell would you wear those?” he pulls her up along side him and cocks his head in the direction of her feet and the dark green stilettos gracing them.

“Well if I’d known I’d be running for my life I probably would have decided on something a little more comfortable, but as I recall all you need me for was a little help with research not a marathon,” there is a strangled cry from somewhere out in the darkness behind them and Dean pulls her to a stop in front of him,

“Take them off,” he all but orders; her hand is still locked tightly with his.

Chloe looks appalled.

“Excuse me?”

“Take them off, leave them” he repeats

“No,”

“Why not?” he pulls a handgun from the waistband of his jeans and looks at her as if she’s grown another head.

“These are Lois’- she’d kill me,” Dean shudders at the mention of her favorite cousin; he met her once. He weights her options and makes up his mind.

“At least with Lois you’ll have a fighting chance; that thing out there will eat you alive,”

“Have you met my cousin? So will she!” Chloe countered stubbornly.

Where the hell was Sam already?

Dean grabs her shoulders, the cold metal of his gun prominent against the heated flesh of her arm, and he bends to catch her eye; they really don’t have time for this.

“Lois will understand Chloe, believe me, but right now we’ve got to put as much distance between us and Lassie-on-steroids behind us as possible. You can’t do that in those shoes and there is no way I’ve leaving you here. I need to get you out of here,” The stubborn look from moments ago is gone and Chloe is almost sure that that is the most he’s ever said to her at one time before.

At least outside of anything case related.

“Fine, fine, I’ll carry them” she toes off her stilettos and loops her fingers through the heels,

“Good, but be warned--- if I run out of bullets I’m throwing those instead, Lois be damned.”

Chloe smiled, fingers tightening around the heels of their own accord; Oliver bought these shoes for Lois once upon a time and it would be nothing short of hell if something happened to them.

Chloe nodded anyway.

“Whatever smartass, what do you say to the idea of us running again?” Dean grins and pushes her forward with a nudge to the side,

“After you,” but he reaches for her hand in the dark again anyway.

When they get out of this he is totally adding a new rule to the Family Rule Book.

A dress code.

Runners.
______________________________________________________________________________

“Dean,” she yells, trying fruitlessly to be heard over the death and destruction going on around her to no avail.

Where was he?

A head goes rolling by her- a red headed girl with fair skin and light freckles- it’s covered in blood.

“You’ve got to watch your back Chlo,” She spins around to find him grinning down at her, his cheek bleeding and his lip bruised; her heartbeat starts to slow down some.

She wants to reach out and touch him, she wants to run her fingers over his lower lip before taking it into her mouth softly but she knows better.

Contact like that- between them- isn’t allowed.

Chloe knows that.

Plus even if it was allowed this is a wrong place, wrong time scenario.

Very wrong time.

“Where’s Sam?” Dean shoves a gun into her hand and pulls her against him quickly. Shots ring out close to her ear and she can’t help but wonder what it was with the two of them and fire arms?

“That’s twice already that I’ve saved your ass, reporter- it’s time to multitask” he lets her go and turns to stand back to back with her; she takes her cue from him and cocks her gun.

“So, where’s Sam?” she asks again and she feels him tense against her back.

“That bitch had better be out there killing his fair share of demons--- I’m done doing all the work,”

“Don’t be a jerk Dean,”

“I don’t know where he is Chloe, I’ve been looking for him,” he almost growls

“Me too, but there are too many damn demons and they all seem to be gunning for you,” She steadies her gun and squeezes the trigger.

The bullet flies true; one down.

Dean is almost proud, and slightly turned on- not that he’d ever tell her that.

“Makes senses, hell was much livelier when I was down there,”

“This is getting old, we have to take out their leader otherwise they’ll just keep coming,”

“Fine, cover me I’m going in” She grabs his arm, and he looks down at her questioningly, “What?”

“Are you crazy, you can’t go marching back into hell by yourself Dean- its suicide,”

“And here I thought you of all people would know to ask the right questions; me, crazy? Yeah completely,” He flashes her a devil-may-care smile, and goes out to find said devil and put an end to this war.

Her heartbeat picks up again.
______________________________________________________________________________

It’s fitting how the sky opens up after it’s all over.

It’s as if the rain is only there to wash away all the evidence that there had been an apocalypse at all.

Chloe hates that, hates that all that will be left as proof is the body count; Chloe finds she hates the rain.

“Dean!” she yells out, voice horse from calling out for him and her sprites sinking lower with each passing moment.

“Dean!” Sam’s voice, just as rough as her own, rings out ahead of her, but when they lock eyes across what use to be the battlefield their hope is as grey and dim as the sky above them.

It’s been way too long with no answer.

“Dean,” her throat is bleeding but she pushes on.

One thing they knew for sure was that whatever Dean set out to do, he got done; the devil was dead.

“De--- oh my god, Dean,” Her head snaps round, Sam’s voice is panicked and it propels her towards him,

The younger Winchester crumbles before her, hands reaching out to cradle a dangerously still head of dark hair.

Dean.

Chloe stumbles over a couple decapitated bodies before dropping down beside Sam.

“Sam move,” she holds her voice steady, no cracking or breaking but Sam all but carries her away from the broken body of his older brother before she can blink,

“No Chloe, no; we have to burn his body- we have to burn them all.” His jaw is set tight and he blinks tears away.

Chloe pushes past him.

“I can fix this, Sam” she looks up at him from his vacant spot beside his brother’s head and Sam is looking at her like she’s insane.

“Damn it Chloe, this can’t be fixed- we won the war and they got what they wanted; Dean’s dead,” his voice is choked.

“I can fix it, trust me,” she holds his wet eyes and Sam gives her a small nod; she’s breaking his heart even more, “oh, but the last time I did this I was dead for almost a day and a half, so be warned,”

She pushes dry bloody hair off Dean’s cold forehead and shivers as she tries to center herself,

“What? Dead- Chloe what---“

“Just don’t burry me okay; I’m not a big fan of waking up in the morgue and I’m guessing six feet under isn’t a picnic either,”

“Are you crazy Chloe?” Sam is so sincere that it almost makes her laugh but there is hope in his voice and she shakes her head,

“You tell me,” and she bends her head to drop a cool tear onto Dean’s cheek; his heart beats for a second under her palm and in return her own stops.

Sam catches her before she hits the ground.
______________________________________________________________________________

Dean is the first thing she sees when she finally comes to.

“Chloe?” he drops his gun and grabs her hand instead; he rubs slow circles on her palm, “Chlo?”

She blinks up at him and Dean can’t help but pull her into a bone crushing hug,

“Dean, I can’t breathe,” her voice is scratchy and pained in his ear and he lets her go gently,

“Sorry,” he helps her sit and brushes wild hair out of her face,

“How long was I out?” her voice is small and this Chloe is so much different then they one he knows.

“Almost four day; we were getting worried.”

She nods, she takes it in and then she looks him in the eyes and there is a light gleam of mischief in the curve of her lips,

“You can’t tell me that that isn’t a cool little trick though,” his eyes darken,

“Are you crazy, Chloe? Cool? You almost died--- you did die--- Sam should have never let you do that. If I had been there,” she cuts him off,

“You were there Dean, lying dead and cold in my arms, what did you want me to do?” eyes flash fire and he sees the girl he met years ago.

“You should have left it alone!” he yells, pushing out of his chair and running a hand through his hair.

“I couldn’t, I lov---” he bends to kiss her before she can finish; a soft un-Dean like kiss on the corner of her mouth but it was a kiss or letting her finish her sentence.

He’d have been crazy to let her finish her sentence.

“Don’t,” he hisses as he pulls away and she nods and it’s not that he isn’t happy to have her back, it’s just that they can’t go there, it’s not allowed.

And she’d be crazy not to know that already.

End

Title: I Close My Eyes and Dream That I’m Awake
Author:thenyxie
Recipient:samescenes
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Dean/Jess
Summary: In Hell, even mercy is a punishment.
Author's Notes: Dark and kinda creepy. Threesome.


She can see as much as sense the demons moving all around her, whispering, slithering against each other, eager and excited. New boy they hiss, our boy. There is a name drawn out in a growl underneath those voices, thick and sinuous, satisfied and coveting.

Winchester.

She pushes through the throng of them, mass of black, oily bodies. She is used to the way they feel; it doesn’t bother her anymore. She stopped screaming a long time ago.

She can see him now, the meat hooks that hold him like the claws of a too-intimate lover. Ours, the hooks chant, blending into the bubble of dark voices. The demons have already begun touching him, bodies curling and stretching all around him, rubbing against him like cats. They are playing with him; clothes peeled away, cruel caresses over bare, bloodied skin, tonguing at wounds and winding around his cock.

She pushes to the front and waves her hands, tiny and tan, pink fingertips swirling through smoke. The demons twist and clench, tighten warningly against her.

OURS.

“You don’t want him,” she says, voice smooth and too-human among the din. “You know who he belongs to. Do you want him coming for you when he gets here?”

The demons shift uneasily, hiss of a sibilant name she knows all too well.

“I belong to him, too. So if you’re thinking about stopping me, think again.”

One of the demons surges, spins around her and closes in like a fist. He doesn’t scare us, little girl.

“Then you’d better get a fucking clue. Or maybe an army.” She wraps her fingers around the meat hook and pulls it free. The man screams, crimson splash hot against her skin.

She reaches for his hand, and his body is warm, pulse pounding. He still believes he’s alive. “It’s not real,” she says, fingers working him free one hook at a time. The demons melt away, background noise of angry, uncertain murmurs as they dissipate.

He’s stopped screaming by the time she frees him, wounds oozing weakly, shapes of stigmata punched into flesh.

*

When he opens his eyes, the pain is gone.

“Jess?” His throat feels full of broken glass. “No. You shouldn’t be here. Why are you here?”

“Burn once in Hellfire, burn forever in Hellfire.” Her mouth is warm, breath a secretive whisper against his lips as she kisses him. He twists his head away, eyes frantically taking in his surroundings, trying to get his bearings.

He recognizes this place. Sam’s college apartment. The room is steeped in the scent of Sam, and Dean wonders if it’s Hell itself that creates this place or Jess’s memories alone.

This is so fucked up.

She’s lying naked next to him, smooth tanned skin, ripe curves, hair like silken gold fanning out over the pillow.

“Jess. Why are you doing this? Sam…”

Her hand wraps around his cock, glides up the length, slow tugs and pulls.

“No.”

“Shh… Dean, it’s okay.” Jess kisses him, long flash of pink tongue, lapping, dipping inside his mouth. She sits up on the bed, throws one leg across his body. Her cunt is wet, burning hot, rubbing against his dick. It’s pure instinct that gets him hard.

“No…” He grabs her forearms, looks her in the eye. “I know I’m supposed to suffer. But not like this.”

“Take this,” she says, smoothing a hand through his hair, body sinking down on his cock, “and be glad. Because what they would do to you…. You could never come back from.”

Jess thinks she’s being merciful. This is just as much a punishment as anything else. Maybe worse.

He closes his eyes, bites against his lower lip and tries not to feel the way she slides up and down his cock, slick cunt squeezing him, her hands pressed to his chest, tips of her nails digging in. The tiny, breathy noises she makes as she rides him, and fuck, it’s wrong, so wrong. He can’t do this, just fucking can’t—

When he opens his eyes, they’re on the ceiling, bed she used to sleep in with Sam spread out below them, sheets rippling like a deep blue ocean. Jess is on fire, hips still grinding against him. Flames lick her skin in slow motion, flesh blackening, halo of fire around her body, rolling out in waves and her hair dances, writhing against the air on ripples of heat. He sucks in a scalding breath, fingers tightening in her crumbling arms. There's smoke in his lungs, thick gray-black clouds that taste like ashes. Taste like her.

He comes violently, her body burning against him. Fire spreads like liquid, orange-white bloom over his body, catching on the tiny hairs of his arms. He can smell his own skin burning as he comes, but he doesn’t scream. He deserves worse.

*

When his eyes flutter open, he’s lying on the bed again, and he has no sense of time having passed.

Jess sits at the vanity, brush working through her long golden hair again and again until it gleams like chrome. “Sam will thank me, when he comes for you.”

“Yeah, sweetheart, got my doubts about that.” Dean throws an arm over his forehead. “But he’ll save you, too.”

Jess looks at him in the mirror, those blue eyes empty and glassy as a doll’s. Dean feels a shudder work its way down his spine.

“There’s nothing left to save,” she says.

*

Time passes strangely in Hell, and sometimes Dean can’t tell if he’s been here for a moment, or eternity. There’s no solid ground. All he has is this room, Jess, and the bed. At least here, he knows what to expect.

And God help him, he’s starting to want it.

He runs his hand down between her legs, fingertip circling the swell of her clit. Her hips buck against him, and he presses a hand to her belly, slides his finger inside her wet cunt and holds her there while he pushes against spot inside her that makes her shove harder against him. He leans in with his weight, keeps holding her while he shoves another finger in, works that spot and thumbs lazily against her clit until she comes, shivering around him and shaking apart.

She’s spent, completely lax against the bed when he moves his body down the bed, pulls his fingers free and wipes them against the sheets. He settles between her thighs and pushes them apart, tongue swirling around her clit, ripe scent of her clinging to his chin in wet droplets as he pushes his face into the softness of her, sucks the tiny nub of flesh between his teeth. She twists, crying out, and he suckles harder, tongue flicking under the hood. Her fingers sink into his hair, gripping like talons, pulling, hips shoving into his chin, bruising with impact. He growls, spreads his fingers over her thighs, thumbs hooked behind her knees, opens her and holds her. Lips sealed around thin, pink skin, he sucks her mercilessly, tongue stroking her clit until she comes, almost screaming, contractions so violent he almost can’t hold her.

She’s senseless, eyes glazed, struggling to breathe as he glides up her body, shoves his cock inside her. She spreads her legs wider, pink mouth opening round and wide, hair tumbling in waves around her shoulders. Throat bare, held up like an offering, and he lets his mouth dip, slide along the curve of her, salty sweat against his tongue. She tastes real.

He rides her into the bed, fingers gripping her shoulders, holding her there while he slams his hips, cock scraping over the spot inside her.

He hopes if he holds her there hard enough the fire won’t come.

*

The next time he wakes, there’s a little girl sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Hello,” she says. She’s beautiful; cold porcelain doll with bow shaped lips painted bubblegum pink, curly hair dark hair pulled into pony tails. Her eyes flicker white when Dean sits up.

“Lilith.” Jess’s voice is a pale, frightened shadow.

“You shouldn’t have taken him, Jess. I had big plans for him.”

Jess’s hands are shaking, and she won’t look the demon in the eye. “You know Sam is coming for him.”

“Oh, yes,” Lilith nods, smiling. “And keeping Dean kind of intact will make Sam crazy to save him. Careless. So you can keep your new toy for a while longer. But when I’m done dealing with Sam… this one goes back to the hooks, and the demons have their way.”

“If Sam comes, it won’t be without a plan. There’s not gonna be anything left of you by the time we’re done,” Dean promises her.

Her feet kick against the bed. Black, patent leather shoes strapped to her feet, slow swing back and forth. “How are you, Dean? Enjoying fucking your brother’s dead girlfriend?” she asks with a smile, like she’s asking if he wants cake.

Dean grits his teeth. “Fuck you.”

Lilith twines a strand of hair around one finger and smiles up at him sunnily. “Not me. But there’s someone else you might be interested in, since you’re enjoying this so much.”

There’s a dark haired woman in the doorway, and she steps into the room, light creeping over her features.

Oh, God. God no.

“Thanks for trying to save me,” Madison says with a tight smile. She’s naked, gorgeous. There’s a crimson stain just above her heart, black hole in the center. “Nice try.”

He knows what’s going to happen. Feels another thin thread of his mind snap even as his body betrays him, starts to respond. He bites down on his tongue, tries to remember that it could be worse, so much worse than this. Thinks of demons stripping him bare, bodies nuzzling, intimate against his skin. He can imagine what they would have done to him.

Madison straddles him, slides down on his cock and he grabs her thighs, groans as she clamps down around him. Jess spreads her knees around his head and sinks down, slick cunt bumping his mouth, and he flicks his tongue out.

His brother’s dead lovers, riding his cock, his face. He should hate himself for letting this happen. But Dean’s never been good at resisting this, and they all know it. The shame he feels in his belly has nothing on the searing force of his orgasm.

Madison keeps fucking him, slides her fingers inside Jess’s body and makes Jess come, gushing all over Dean’s chin while he licks and sucks her through it. Madison comes too, squeezing and shuddering on Dean’s dick, and by the time the girls trade places, he’s hard again.

It gets easier to give in with every stroke, every glide of skin on skin. And some deep, dark part of him is enjoying it. He can feel it growing, swelling slow like a cancer, black and rotten.

He wonders how long it will be until he doesn’t care anymore.

Title:Swimming in Suwannee
Author:regala_electra
Recipient:zelost_mind
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Dean/OFC
Summary: Dean's seventeen years old and finds himself falling for a swimmer who gives as good as he dishes out.
Author's Notes: As per the adult rating, there is sexual content and language. Word count is 11,160. Major thanks to my beta.


*



It's only the second week at Suwannee High and Dean’s ready to bolt. “Go Bulldogs” is being chanted in the halls this morning, the sickening team spirit rah-rah-rah united we stand mob mentality that freaks him out. All the screaming and cheering’s fucking his head up even more because his hangover’s showing no signs of ending today.

But there’s no way he’s taking off, mostly ‘cause he’s toughed out crappier schools and Dad’ll have his hide if he starts blowing off classes now. The Dean Winchester reputation is best to start up around week three at the earliest. He’s gotta suck it up and head off to his first period class, English, where he knows he’ll be able to catch some sleep but today he’s got to do it on the fly.

Gotta play student but there’s no way he has to be an awake student. So long as he doesn’t get caught sleeping in the back of the class, there’s a shot of him getting to go out hunting with Dad.

There’s a hell of a hunt happening in the Suwannee River.

Dad and Caleb have been working on figuring out what’s taking out campers over the past few months. Rumors of some nasty gator dude chowing down have been circulating up as far as South Carolina, where Dad had gone after a nasty poltergeist that didn’t know when to quit.

Best thing about South Carolina in the summer—and there’s not much to praise—the sticky heat slows life down to a mind-numbingly boring crawl, was a girl who let Dean lick peach ice cream off her belly. She’d always spend the humid afternoon sipping spiked lemonade on the porch of her great aunt’s house. Took Dean around to the back of the yard where there was a hammock hidden between two thick trees and a promise of good times. A promise that was delivered repeatedly and Dean often left damn near wanting to whistle. But he didn’t. Well, at least not all the time.

But the summer doesn’t last forever, despite how fucking hot a Floridian September is and it’s Dean’s last year of school so he’s pulled back into the bullshit of this daily Monday through Friday grind. Working his way around the cliques.

Then there’s the crapshoot of getting laid. Sure, there might be chicks everywhere he can look—pretty girls who wanna fuck him but are worried about putting out too quick and girls who might give it up but they’ve got no fucking clue what to do with their bodies. That leaves him hot and bothered enough for him to skip out and find a woman who knows he’s good for a good lay and doesn’t expect anything more.

Oh, and somehow Dean needs to remember to do some homework so he doesn’t piss off his teachers enough that they do something stupid like call Dad.

Dean can’t freakin’ wait until he’s old enough that he doesn’t have to deal with this school bullshit. So that he can be there on the front line, working the angles and figuring out how to get rid of the creepy crawly terrorizing the RV crowd.

But because he’s seventeen, he’s not “old enough” to do that. Which is why he spent most of last night out because Dad wasn’t home and Sam was out cold. Sammy fell asleep at half past freakin’ nine, trying to catch up on all the reading he should have done over the summer since Dad enrolled them in school a week after the fall semester started. They’re both kind of fucking lost at the moment. Getting into the groove, where it’s sink or swim, and finding out how much they need to play at fitting in so no one gets too suspicious.

Not like Dean cares about being behind in class. The moment he slides into the back row, he knows he’s going to skate the line as far as it’ll take him because reading books ain’t exactly what’ll save his ass from getting killed when he’s out hunting.

He’s sitting in a neat corner pocket of the classroom where it’s real easy to avoid detection from his English teacher who has a weird ass believer fetish. Lots of Follow Your Dreams! motivation crap is pasted all over the room, bubbly words and cheery colors that’s freaky as hell and looks worse with the pounding hangover scrambling up his brain.

Avoiding his teacher by not flunking out is probably Dean's best bet or she’ll start hassling him about wasted potential and that’s a conversation Dean refuses to ever deal with.

He’s got his head propped up against the nice cool wall, curling his shoulder forward to make it look like he’s got a nasty crick in his neck that’s killing him. Hey, headache, neck ache, it’s all a bitch, and worse when time does the bitchass thing of slowing the fuck down when he’d love to breeze right past. Playing it off like he’s suffering totally makes it look like he ain’t leaning up against the wall because he’s thinking about dozing off right then and there. Even though that’s exactly what’s running through his mind.

There’s a flash of sun-bleached blondish hair in his field of vision, swish of a ponytail before the hair’s let loose, snapping noise of an elastic band. He blinks and takes in the sight in front of him: bare shoulders, sunburn starting to turn into a tan. Thin spaghetti straps, one of them slipping down her arm. She isn’t wearing a bra.

Hey, looking’s always for free, and Dean’s never seen her before so he has to take a nice long look. Has to size her up; never know she might be a succubus or something, though they’ve never run into one yet. One day they will and Dean knows he’s gonna need to be prepared. Sam sure as hell won’t be the vulnerable one with the way he nearly runs screaming away from girls. ‘Cause no, being thirteen and awkward ain’t an excuse.

Dean noticed girls when he eleven for fuck’s sake.

Dean would've noticed this chick if this was her usual spot so she must sit somewhere higher up in the front rows, land of the nerds. Usually a sad sack quasi-Goth takes the seat in front of Dean, probably writing angsty poetry or some shit, ‘cause the kid sure as fuck doesn’t seem to pay any attention to whatever the hell the teacher rambles on about.

Nah, he’s got a real teacher’s pet in front of him. Once the teacher walks in a couple of minutes later, the girl grabs a paperback out of her bag. It’s all dog-eared and beaten half to death. It looks like it got dropped in water too, way the pages curl and crackle.

Her fingernails are trimmed really fucking short and there’s a nasty bruise purpling on the back of her left hand. She inclines and angles her head a little like she’s trying to sneak a peek at him but doesn’t want him to know. Dean grins at that but she doesn’t seem to notice, stiffening her back and cracking the book open.

Last book Dean bothered to read for English was Johnny Tremaine. All he needed to hear was that the kid got himself a silver hand and he was sold.

“Okay everyone, I’m so happy you were so enthusiastic in our discussions about the summer reading,” the teacher says, beaming so widely that Dean has no fucking clue if she’s being sarcastic. She’s fiddling with the name plate she has on her desk, Mrs. Braun. Next to that is—fuck—a stack of papers.

There are faint groans in the classroom, and none of them coming from Dean, so at least some of ‘em are also blindsided.

“Please pass these to the person sitting behind you,” she trills, her voice distinctly missing that Southern accent Dean didn’t realized he missed until he left South Carolina and everyone started speaking so much quicker and clearer. What he’d give for a little dirty sweet talk whispered slow and thick, time sliding by syrupy and rich.

The girl in front of him twists from the waist to pass the last quiz to Dean, little scowl on her face when Dean doesn’t instantly grab it from her, making her drop the paper on his desk. Unlike Dean, she’s not faking whatever’s going on with her body, fingers rubbing her left bicep. Huh. Must work out a hell of lot, but hey, it looks good on her.

She doesn’t have huge tits but they’re perky enough so that she doesn’t need a bra. Sucks that there’s no air-conditioning, only a crappy fan, since he’d love to see just how perky she’d look under the right circumstances.

“Okay everyone, you have twenty minutes for this quiz before you put your pencils, and pens,” Mrs. Braun says, nearly giggling as though she’s making some sorta joke, “down. “Good luck!”

Maybe this English teacher’s actually evil.

This is shaping up to be an awesome day. He’s still nursing a nasty headache and there’s an actual pop quiz on his desk. He should be writing down something real thoughtful only he didn’t do the damn summer reading so the only inspiration he’s going to get is from his neighbors.

Specifically anyone hunched over who doesn’t have the same glazed look on his face ‘cause they also spend the night hustling people at pool.

Mystery Blonde, it is. Damn, she’s alert as fuck, thoughtfully taking her time answering questions, tilting her head back and forth like she’s got a bad crick in her neck and can’t get the sweet pop of relief. But what makes this awesome is that she’s a lefty and keeps her quiz tilted to the edge of the desk, right where he can see it.

She’s got neat handwriting too, damn near perfect block-print, no messy script to worry about deciphering. The kind of handwriting that’s begging to be copied and Dean really needs to keep his head above water in this damn class for the time being.

Damn, Dean cannot wait until he’s out of school.

When time’s called, Dean think he’s done a good enough job of copying without it looking obvious and five minutes after the teacher goes around the class, picking up the quizzes, he’s dozing off, last thing he hears a kid muttering, “Hey Clemmy, what the hell was up with question four?”

Heh, Dean’s damn sure he rocked a solid B since he skipped that damn question since Blonde Girl wrote a damn essay in response.


*


Dean’s headache breaks around third period, which is science, a class where he got stuck in since he was enrolled so late in the semester. He has no idea what’s going on in that class but the projector screen means it’s dark in the classroom so he gets some decent sleep before his next period, gym.

He does some running around track, cackles when he passes by one of those track bitches who probably have never run on cement in steel-toed boots. The kid looks amazed as fuck that Dean, New Kid, as he knows they’re calling him, blows past them.

Awesomely, right after gym, there’s lunch. He’s standing in line with two plates of food, not ‘cause he’s starving but since he had nothing but some coffee this morning, a whole lotta food is looking like a good idea. He’s got a plate piled high with hot French fries, and today is hamburger and hot dog day so he’s buying two burgers, ‘cause they’re small enough that two put together is almost as large as a Big Mac.

Once he devours his feast of meat and fried food, he’s got an hour to blow. Because somebody up there likes him, he’s got a study hall period right after lunch which means he can duck out and find out if Dad’s gotten those police reports he was trying to wrangle out of the bumblefuck PD in this town.

As he forks over cash to the lunch lady—he swears they must all be bred to do this job, way they all look nearly identical, right down to the permanent frown—he hears a girl loudly curse when the cafeteria worker says that they’re out of burgers for now and if she’d just wait—

“No,” the girl says, impatient, “Couple of hot dogs are fine. I’m starving.”

Most chicks are plenty weird about eating but it’s not interesting enough to make Dean turn his head and see who the fuck is freaking over the lack of ready-made burgers.

There’s one wonky table that looks like it’s always about to collapse that everyone avoids and Dean loves it ‘cause that means no one’ll fucking bother him.

He sets his tray down and turns a chair around, sitting on his chair backwards, propping the back of the chair to keep the table from wobbling. Dean dives into the fries first, hot and greasy in the best way, ketchup just sweet enough to make the salty taste good enough that he damn near groans.

As he’s licking ketchup off his fingers, Blonde Girl from his English class makes a beeline towards his table. Damn near looks scary, intense look on her face, hair pulled back from her face in a high ponytail. The tray she’s carrying, piled high with enough food for two, fries and hot dogs and a bag of chips, one of those fruit cups, like who the hell is she kidding, only she’s got a pretty fucking sweet body, nothing hidden under that blue tied-dyed sundress.

Well, there’s something hidden, lots of naked skin, which Dean would love to dwell on only he has to prepare to get himself bitched out. Only she doesn’t, she just rolls her eyes and grabs a seat, sitting across from him.

“So you figured out how to keep the table from falling apart,” she says, and then, as if she’s not changing the subject, she adds, “You cheated off me today.”

“Now why’d I do something like that? Maybe you’re just so hot I couldn’t keep my eyes off you.”

Dean knows how to push. How to flirt with a woman until he’s sure he’s going to have exactly what he wants—sex or close enough to it that it’s almost like (but in no way as awesome as) sex. He’s also damn good at pushing too hard if he needs to and in this case, he needs to. Doesn’t want some do-gooder reporting him as cheater and getting into trouble. Too soon. So he keeps pushing.

“Got a thing for blondes,” he says, biting into his burger, chewing loudly and openly. “Natural dirty blondes.”

Her face is frozen a moment too long like at first she’s so fucking pissed she doesn’t know whether to chuck her drink at him or throw a punch but when the moment passes, she breaks out in honest (and loud laughter), clutching her side. “Oh my God, you are that guy. Sleazy James Dean, that’s what people call you, you know.”

“James Dean, huh?” It’s not as awful as a nickname as he’s earned before. And since she doesn’t look pissed, actually she’s cracking open her bag of sour cream and onion chips as she tries to stop giggling, he pushes forward, “I’m Dean. You?”

“Beth. Clemons. And I know your name, you’re the New Kid,” she says, forcing capitalization on the first two letters of the words New and Kid. “Hey New Kid. You cheated off me and got the last two cooked burgers in the batch.”

“So?”

She’s holding up a hot dog. “Wanna trade?”

“Hell no,” he says but she must have siblings or something cause she uses some kind of ninja move and has his burger over in her no-man’s land of junk food wonders on her tray before he knows it.

“Good,” Beth says, taking an enormous bite of her burger that she probably doesn’t realize how much of a fucking turn-on that is. Damn, she can fit a lot in her mouth. When she’s done chewing and swallowing, she’s opening up her can of Coke with a loud pop, taking a damn near lady-like sip. “I’m behind on my calorie intake.”

“Yeah, well, I’m behind too.”

“What, are you planning on showing up Brad at his meet after school?” Dean’s stolen burger is now just a memory as she tackles the fruit cup, putting aside really sad looking grapes. “You’re already a legend for blowing past our best runner. You keep it up and Mr. McHale might ask you to join track. How are you at hurdles?”

Oh shit. Toned arms and a rocking body and all that food. Fuck, he’s got a jock trying to suss out if they’ve got a new member to their cult. “Awesome. Like if someone throws a hot girl at me, I know when to say thanks but I don’t do sports.”

Beth rolls her eyes. “Of course. You’re Mr. Rebel Without a Cause. Look, I’m not recruiting you, Danny Zuko. I’m getting my fair share. You cheated off me I take your burger, okay? Don’t do it again. Since you’re new, you don’t know this, but at Suwannee, if you get caught cheating, I’ll get in trouble too. Which means I have to sit out a meet and that is not happening.”

“That sounds like a threat, sweetheart.”

“More like an offer.” Beth leans in, which is awesome since her dress slides down a little and she’s got a bit of cleavage, though not too much. It’s still a damn nice view. Unfortunately he lingers a little too long. “Oh my God. Eyes up.”

He does and he hasn’t spent a lot of time up close to a woman that he hasn’t been trying to get into her pants. Or dress, as the case might be. She’s pretty in a high school pretty way, baby fat still on her cheeks. Blunt nose with a faint spray of freckles hidden under the red tinge of her tan. Eyes could be blue or grey, he has no clue, they’re just kind of light and she has dark eyelashes and brownish blonde eyebrows.

She’s been talking for a bit when she suddenly stops and says, “Wow how did you manage to cheat off me? You have the attention span of a gnat.”

“Well you weren’t insulting me then. I tend to concentrate better when I’m not being yanked around.”

Her mouth twists a little oddly and Dean realizes she took that in a totally dirty way. Beth might be kind of fun and Dean never thought he’d think that about a jock since they’re so rah-rah about whatever-the-fuck they’re doing.

“Look, I’m not gonna be here forever,” Dean says and he’s never realized what a relief it is to say that. “My dad travels.”

Beth nods. “I’m a Navy brat. At least, I used to be until my parents split,” she adds with a shrug and a half-hearted pause like she’s expecting Dean to say something. He doesn’t and it almost seems to cheer her up, like most people find divorce something to be real damn sad over.

“Look, you don’t have to worry about me fucking up your chances at jumping over shit or whatever you do.”

She’s cutting up her hot dogs like a freak, dragging them through ketchup, when he says this so it doesn’t register until she’s done getting them slathered red. Beth purses her lips when she’s trying not to laugh, she’d be a shit poker player, what she has all these obvious tells in her face when she’s not rocking the frozen bitchface. “I’m not into track,” she says with heavy disgust. “I’m a swimmer.”

Dean doesn’t see much of a difference, it’s all high school sports bullshit, but he decides not to tell her that.

“So what I was saying before is that I could help you study for Mrs. Braun’s class. She hasn’t changed her quizzes in the five years she’s been here.”

“Yeah? And how do you know that?”

“Because I’m that good,” Beth says, stealing one of Dean’s fries. “Or from my older cousin. Take your pick. But I like the seat in front of you because I don’t have to worry about getting called on if I need to take a nap—”

“Wait a minute. Why the hell would you need to sleep?”

“I train every morning. After school and as many evening as I can fit in. That’s hours of training. I get tired.”

“Yeah, well I think the teacher’ll notice if we start up a sleeping club in her class. You snore?”

“Don’t worry about me. I need to study same as you and Mrs. Braun never picks on people who hold steady B’s. Call it a gift.”

“I don’t do gifts,” Dean says. “Especially with no strings.”

Beth wipes her hands clean with paper napkins, studying the bruise on her hand. “There are strings. I expect you have a car, right? And don’t mind breaking into school property during off hours?”

“Now these kind of questions? I like where this is going.”

“Great,” Beth says. She takes out a pen and scribbles on a piece of loose-leaf paper. “That’s my address. See you at ten tomorrow night.”


*


Next day in class, that Goth kid tries to take back his desk but Dean stares him down and Goth kid wisely sulks off to another seat.

Beth doesn’t thank him or even look at him until she pulls out her notebook and the new paperback they’re reading. Even then, it’s just a quick look and perfectly blank.

It throws Dean off enough that he doesn’t even notice when Mrs. Braun hands him back his quiz and there’s a fucking smiley face on it until after class ends. Honestly. A smiley face.

What the hell did he do to deserve that?


*


Technically the Impala isn’t Dean’s yet and Dad’s always free to take it over but he’s got a SUV to roll around the camp grounds for now. Happy hunting season that it is, an SUV fits in better than the ’67 Chevy.

After Dean feeds Sam and teases him about the A+ he brought home (and hid in his backpack), he makes sure Sam’s all set for bed and heads out. It’s a little after ten but it’s not like he’s running that late, so he’s kind of surprised that he sees Beth waiting outside her house. It's a decent house, screened porch a little battered looking but that could be damage left over from a hurricane.

She’s got on a pair of faded grey sweatpants and a zip-up jacket on, duffel bag next to her. She doesn’t wait for him to come to a full stop before she heads towards him, opening the car door and smoothly sliding in.

“You’re late, New Kid.”

“Got a brother. Can’t let him go to bed if he doesn’t eat his lima beans.”

Actually he and Dean killed off a gallon of ice cream, which Sam bitched about since he prefers cookie dough and all they had was Neapolitan ice cream, but whatever. Nothing chases down steak better than beer and if there’s no beer, then ice cream can do the trick just as well. Especially if you eat enough to get a sugar rush going although Dean’s already burning through the high.

“Yeah you look like a big health freak,” she says, voice so even-measured it takes Dean a moment to realize she’s fucking with him. “You don’t swim, right?”

“Not wearing clothes,” he answers, grinning wickedly.

“If you spend as many hours in the pool as I do, you’d know how not sexy that is.”

“So is that what we’re doing? Breaking in so you can get some extra hours swimming? What, you don’t have a pool or something?”

“I have a meet tomorrow,” Beth not-answers.

“Um, good for you?”

“I need to not think about the meet. So I’m going to get you into the pool.”

Dean knows it hurts his baby to slam on his brakes but it’s a necessary evil. “Hold up. I know how to swim. Trust me. It’s not that fucking hard.”

“Good,” Beth says. “So you think you can beat me? I won’t put everything I have into it. I have to save something for tomorrow but there’s nothing like competing against someone who hates losing.”

“You’re kinda out there, Bethy.”

“Oh God, go with my nickname Clemmy if you’re going to be like that. How hard is it to say Beth?”

“I figure since you love calling me all kinds of things, I’ll stick to Beth if you call me Dean.”

“Deal,” she says like they’ve moved on and she’s going to get Dean into the pool.

Which ain’t happening.

“Look, can’t you get some guy who wants to see you naked or something to do this?”

She’s awful at pretending to be wounded. “You don’t want to see me naked?”

It throws him off, how she’s holding onto the zipper of her jacket, and yeah sure he wants to see her naked but it’s not like he’s going to jump through fucking hoops just to get a peek.

“Uh—”

“Wait, don’t answer that. It’s not like a bathing suit hides that much. And most guys freak out if a girl’s stronger than them and I do not date jocks.”

“So you planning on seducing me by trying to out-swim me?”

“You want to make a bet?”

“What kind of bet?”

“My cousin graduated with a 4.0 and she never throws away anything. There’s a box of her old quizzes and tests and I might have access to them. Now if you wanted to really be prepared for a surprise quiz from Mrs. Braun, I could really hook you up. So. If you beat me, I’ll hand over the box and let you skate by doing the broody James Dean thing.”

“And if you win?”

“We do it all over again.”

Dean considers it. “That sounds kinda naughty.”

“One rule. You do not try to feel me up.”

“Scout’s honor,” Dean says, raising his hand in an attempt at the salute.

“Yeah you look like a Boy Scout. I hear they’re adding leather jackets to the uniform.”

“You’ll give me all the quizzes and shit?”

“Girl Scout’s honor,” she says, pulling her hair into a bun. “And I used to be a Girl Scout.”

“’Course you did.” He eases off the brake and continues driving.

She’s rustling through her bag, pushing aside a thin white towel before she pulls out a pair of swim trunks. At least they aren’t fucking Speedos.

“I’m decent at picking a lock if you want to change in the boy’s locker room.”

“Sweetheart, you think I can’t pick a lock?”

“Ooh, the rebel rep gets even more dangerous. How fast can you hotwire a car?”

“We can change the bet right now. I’ll even give you a five second start. First car you see, you try to open it up and get it running. Then you give me a crack at it.”

“If I was competing in the grand theft auto meet tomorrow, I would but I think I’ll pass.”

“Damn shame.”

Dammit. They’re at the school. No going back now. The pool’s outdoors and there aren’t any lights on but that doesn’t seem to bother Beth as she hauls out a couple of flashlights out of her duffel.

“Is that how we’re gonna see where we’re going?”

“There are lights we could turn on,” she says. “But someone might notice. Besides real swimming? You have to rely on your other senses.”

“That so?”

“Dean,” Beth says, sweet as anything, “unless you have some more flashlights, stop complaining.”

“I got some in the trunk.”

“Fine then. “You can get changed out here if you want and I’ll get in, start warming up.”

“Man, you’re gonna kick my ass, aren’t you?”

She shrugs. “You never know. Maybe you’ve been hustling me and used to be a champion swimmer.”

He catches the swim trunks when she tosses them to him.

“Don’t take forever, okay? I do have a curfew.”

Dean has to resist asking her what her parents think of her coming home dripping wet. He almost bites down on his tongue.


*


“It wasn’t that bad. I mean, you did a good lap at the end. If I belly-flopped when diving into the pool, I’d be shocked too.”

“You really suck at making me feel better.”

“I might be rubbing it in a little,” Beth admits. “I smoked your ass.”

Dean scowls for the rest of the drive back to Beth’s house and Beth seems to take that as her cue to clam up, turning on the radio to keep the silence from making it completely uncomfortable. It’s not that Dean was awful in the pool—he was but that’s not the point—it’s that she’s that good. She even let him call the start and offered a quick rundown of different strokes and she still killed. Hell she had enough time to shout out advice on how he could pick up steam.

He’d love to claim that he had a full stomach so of course he sucked ass but no, he just sucked ass on a fundamental level. It’s not like he doesn’t know how to swim but to do the swimming she does, it’s something else entirely. Something waking up inside of him that he puts to other areas, the drive to hunt, maybe, the competitive spirit she must’ve spotted in him and it’s hungry for more.

Even though he knows she’ll kick his ass all over again, he wants to try again.

Man, he is so messed up in the head.

He turns the car off in the ignition, trying to figure out how he can tell her some of that and make it sound not-weird but before he even gets out a word, she slides over the bench seat towards him. Her skin smells of chlorine and maybe a little sweat and her hair is damp and sticks to her cheeks. She pecks the side of his face with a quick and very careful kiss. Like it’s practice.

Beth doesn’t give him a moment to bring her closer to him, to turn it into a real kiss. She’s out of the car with a half-wave and a slightly embarrassed smile.


*


Apparently Beth does extremely well at her meet, what with the way she’s strutting around the hallways, talking to the people Dean figures must be her regular friends, getting a lot of pats on her back.

He sure as hell isn’t a friend although she continues to sit at his lunch table, where they try to disgust each other with the amount of food they’ll eat in one sitting. She almost seems amazed that anyone’s thought of making cheesy nacho hot dogs by mashing up Nacho Cheese Doritos and sprinkling it over hot dogs.

“So what? It’s delicious. It’s all about the crunch,” Dean says, punctuating that with a big noisy bite. “Come here and have a taste of heaven.”

Wrinkling her nose at Dean’s offer, Beth points at her own creation, smashed Snickers stuck between Oreo cookies. “I’m on my dessert course now.”

Stealing one of her Snicker-Oreos, Dean says, “Who says you can’t mix it all together?”

She looks down as though contemplating Dean’s wise wisdom so the kick to his shin is a surprise. It’s not a hard kick by any means and he’s seen her swim, she probably could kick like a donkey if she wanted to.

“You telling me not to steal your cookies?”

“I’m telling you not to violate my cookies with your unholy hot dog.” The sentence is more than halfway out of her mouth before she realizes there’s a wrong way to take it if you’re twisted enough. And Dean so is, that she starts laughing and hell, Dean figures if you can’t beat ‘em, may as well join ‘em.

“When’s your next meet?”

“Aww, look at you pretending to care. Your defeat at the hands of a girl will be next Thursday. And? Mrs. Braun plans on giving us a test on Friday, so we’ll need to study too. Bring some paper and this thing, it’s um, like a bunch of paper bound up between covers. They call it a book.”

“A book, huh?”

“Yeah, I know you were sleeping at the time, but I did pass back the latest book we’re reading. It might be your first time,” she says, pausing long enough that Dean finishes off his hot dog in the time it takes for her to start up again, “but I think you have to pop your book cherry. Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle.”

Choking by hot dog is not the way to go.


*


“Where are you going, Dean?”

“Where do you think I’m going at this hour, Sam? When a dude likes a chick and wants to see her naked but doesn’t want his brother cockblocking him, he’s gotta go out so that he can get laid.”

“Ew, Dean.”

“Jesus little bro, when the hell are gonna understand how awesome chicks are?”


*


There is nothing sexy about Beth’s bathing suit.

Absolutely nothing. Only this is the third time they’ve done this pre-meet race, and once again Dean’s left panting for breath and Beth is riding off adrenaline. She swims over towards him and patting him on the chest. Tells him he’s getting so much better, especially now that he’s picking up on all the different strokes and getting used to the lingo.

Her bathing suit is a boring one piece that covers enough to make it damn near modest. The swim cap she wears shows that her ears stick out a little and it makes her look so cutesy and girly it’s kind of ridiculous. He does not want to have sex with Beth any more than he wants to have sex with any relatively attractive woman. (In that yes of course he wants to have sex but he doesn’t have to have sex with them. It’s not a lost opportunity, is what he means.)

Dean does know that she shaves most of the body hair off of her the night before her meet and her skin is silky-smooth when he catches her arm and brings her closer.

“What are you doing?”

“I can pick you up, easy,” Dean murmurs, expecting her to push away. “If, you know, I wanted to dunk you.”

Her eyes widen. “Oh. You would not.”

“It’s a victory dunk,” Dean says, and she’s so close, not slippery at all when he wraps his arms around her. He’s not applying too much pressure—he’ll let her go if she pushes him. Then she does, pushing against him, her leg trying to wrap behind his knee to get him off balance and she slides against him and fuck. Popping a boner can be hidden in swim trunks but it’ll be real damn obvious if she feels it so he lets go, swimming away.

Only fucking Beth takes that as her cue to chase after him, catching him around the shoulders, trying to take him down. Stupidly, because Dean is a total freakin’ idiot, he rolls around, pulling her with him as they go. He feels her stomach rubbing against his, her hand grabbing at the waist of his swim trunks for some weird reason. Oh wait, she’s trying to make sure he comes up the same time she does. And then her thigh rubs up right between his legs.

When they surface, her face is flushed and she’s doing everything in her power not to look him in the eyes.

“Sorry, uh, we both got a little carried away.”

“Yeah. I better take you home now.”

“Dean…?” Beth’s pulling off her swim cap, slowly taking her hair out of the bun. He doesn’t say anything and she bravely pushes on, “Um, if you need a little time, I mean, I could always get changed, so it’s… you know. Cool.”

“It doesn’t mean that I—”

“No, no, I get it,” Beth cuts in. She’s making quick time to the ladder, hauling herself out of the pool. Looking down at him, dripping wet, motherfucker, not a helpful sight at all. “I’ll wait by the car.”

There is no fucking way Dean is jacking off in or by the pool or finding a bush to really up the creepy. He ignores his half-hard dick and pulls on his jeans, no boxers, and finishes getting dressed before he collects all the flashlights.

Beth’s wearing her sweatpants and flip-flops, her jacket halfway zipped up. And she’s holding her bathing suit.

Dean really hopes she keeps underwear in her duffel because thinking of Beth wearing nothing else under that is really going to fuck with him.

When he stops in front of her house this time, she gives him this sad look. “This is weird for you.”

“What?” Dean fakes a laugh. “You’re gonna have to narrow it down, since we break into school so you can kick my ass by out-swimming me.”

“You’ve never done this before, have you? I mean, I have guy friends. And I like you even though you’re gross and you always check out every girl within your radar and you keep on staring at my boobs when you think I’m not looking.”

“I’m not… I don’t always stare at your boobs,” Dean huffs. Then he decides fuck it, it’s time to push his luck. “You have a great ass, too.”

Beth stares at him, a little wide-eyed but there’s an obvious blush, even in the darkness Dean can see it easy. “Okay. So we’re not friends.”

“You want to define us?” Oh God, he is not playing fucking boyfriend.

He’ll make up an excuse, try to set the school on fire or something, something big enough that Dad’ll pull him out of school before he, Dean Fucking Winchester, plays high school boyfriend and yes, this hard-on is fucking killing him and he needs to drive off so he can take care of it. Especially now that he knows Beth’s not wearing anything under her jacket—at the very least—and he has naked thoughts that he needs to dwell on so that he doesn’t die of blue balls.

Once he starts thinking about how she probably ain’t wearing panties, he’ll be totally fucked.

“Yeah, okay a definition,” Beth says and Dean had no idea that a panic attack felt like this. His whole body seizes up as Beth stares at the flickering light on her porch, deciding. “People who don’t have sex in the pool I swim in. That’s a good definition, right?”

He stares at her. “Seriously?”

“Is there something wrong with that?”

“Um-ooph,” is his answer since Beth kind of dives in, kissing him fast. But she doesn’t back away quick enough and he keeps her there for a long while. They only break apart when he starts tugging down her zipper.

“Not in front of my house, Dean. I’ll… I’ll see you later?”

“Yeah,” Dean agrees, parting her lips so he can suck on her bottom lip. She still has the faint taste of some kinda sweet balm in her mouth. “‘Course you will.”

She shuts the car door harder then expected, flashing an embarrassed grin. “See you, uh, later then.”

Jesus. Dean is so not going to last until he gets home. Better find someplace where he won’t get busted beating off between here and there.


*


“So there’s this cabin.”

“Is it a log cabin? Because according to my little brother, apparently Abraham Lincoln killed a grizzly bear in it. Or something, I wasn’t paying attention.”

Lunch with Beth has been kind of awkward, as awkward as it can be since Dean’s been whacking off a lot to the thought of Beth but doesn’t want to fuck things up and hasn’t made a damn move since she keeps walking around with her damn friends around. It would probably look weird if he pulled her aside and found some private area where they could fool around.

Only thing he’s been looking forward to and dreading is that since it’s Wednesday she probably has another damn meet tomorrow or on Friday.

This is the longest that Dean’s waiting and it’s completely throwing him off his usual game.

“It’s a cabin made out of wood and it’s in the park by the river. I’d worry more about gators than grizzlies. We could go there on Friday.”

“Friday,” Dean echoes. “You swimming in the river? This your next big meet?”

“I love how you don’t follow at all what the swimming schedule is. It is posted, you know. On the big bulletin board. You can’t miss it. You must pass by because I know you don’t always skip gym. Anyway, I’m free this week.”

“To go swim in a river.”

“No. To go to a cabin. But I don’t have a car.”

“And I do.”

“Oh yeah,” Beth says, thoughtfully. “You do have a car. The Charger, right?”

“What? You know my baby’s an Impala. I don’t drive a Dodge.”

Beth giggles. “Relax, Dean. I’m not a gearhead but some of my friends are. I think a few of them have fantasies about your car. It’s kind of twisted.”

“I like twisted.” Dean also likes it if these are Beth’s female friends who have lusty thoughts about her car because while a dude can covet from afar, he really doesn’t want to know if some guy is fantasizing about his baby.

“I do too,” she says, ducking her head down, fingers making a grab for his fried chicken which he deftly stop by grabbing her wrist. “Careful, Dean.”

“I think you better be careful who you try stealing from.”

“No. You keep doing that and it looks like we’re holding hands.” She straightens up a little when he lets go. “You don’t want to screw up your reputation like that.”

Dean studies her, watching her once again picking the grapes out of her fruit cup. “What do people think about you and me?”

“No one says anything to my face,” she lies. She always scratches her earlobe when she’s lying. Has he told her to never play poker? Because he really should tell her. “None of my friends are in this lunch period and this is the only time we talk, so. I could just be scamming more food off you.”

“Okay,” Dean says, deciding to go back to the more interesting subject of the cabin. “So you know of a cabin.”

“A cabin that will definitely be empty this weekend. You pack provisions. I’ll bring more provisions.”

“You’re secretly some kind of evil mastermind, aren’t you?” As Dean says this, he casually rubs his ankle against her, ignoring a small inner voice telling him how lame it is to play footsie in a school cafeteria.

“Yeah. Clearly I’m evil. It’s why I hang out with you. Stop it.”

Dean focuses his attention on his fried chicken and stows away the fact that he is going to get so fucking laid in two days.


*


Beth’s provisions, besides many, many snacks and some clothes, includes a board game. Which forces Dean to deal with a subject he hasn’t dealt with since he was fifteen.

Holy shit, I’m gonna be fucking a virgin.

It’s not that he didn’t have obvious signs that Beth didn’t have much previous action. It’s that now with the fact that they’re in a cabin together, Dean putting a clean sheet over the slightly musty mattress in the cabin, stocked with some supplies but not bedding, it hits him that he is going to have to be real damn patient. Sure he’s kind of been patient before but that was circumstances cockblocking him.

Now he has to cockblock himself.

The universe, she is a harsh fucking bitch.

“So no swimming,” Beth says, taking a tentative seat on the bed, bouncing to test out the springs, Jesus Fucking Christ, kill him right now. “The water’s disgusting. We could do nature walks.”

“I don’t do nature walks.”

“Or we could fool around?”

It’s said like a question. Kill him. Kill him right now or let him skip to the future when she’s not a virgin. “Beth.”

“Yeah?”

“I need to kill the mood and ask you, um, if—” This is a bad question, a very, very bad question and he shouldn’t say it, no fucking way but he’s already this far into it, he can’t just pussy out, “This isn’t your first—”

“It’s not my first cabin,” Beth answers, softly, tugging Dean off-balance so he has to sit next to her. “I mean, I’ve never done it in a cabin before. If you were wondering.”

“Jesus Christ.” Dean breathes a sigh of relief, lying back on the mattress. “You brought a board game, Beth.”

“So? I like board games.”

“Unless it’s strip Monopoly, I’m not interested.”

Beth has ridiculous perfect posture when she sits so when she makes her move, settling herself to sit on top of Dean, it’s all smooth and perfect as though she was sitting on him the whole time. “Strip Monopoly could be arranged. If I brought Monopoly. I brought Clue.”

“Strip Clue?” Dean has his fingers along the waistband of Beth’s jeans, one of the rare times she’s wearing jeans and it has to be when she’s on top of him. Figures.

“Is that a clue for me to start stripping?”

“More a hint.”

Apparently the hint isn’t enough. She dives down for a kiss and Dean holds her back, has her squirming in his lap, trying to reach him.

“Dean,” she says, a very faint whine and she almost looks embarrassed for it.

“You’re an awesome swimmer,” Dean says, freeing a hand to run down her chest, stomach, unbuttoning the top button of her jeans. As he pulls down her zipper, he promises, “I’m really good at this. Trust me.”

“That’s, um, ooh,” Beth moans as he gets two fingers underneath the elastic of her panties, touching smooth skin and the faint edge of pubic hair, “okay yeah. Yes.”

“Yeah? You gonna let me eat you out?”

Beth’s eyes snap open and she holds Dean’s wrist, stilling him. “Jesus, Dean. Are you serious? You want to do that?”

This is the exact opposite of freaking out over the possibility of Beth being a virgin. He’s completely sure. Dean swallows hard before he says, “Want to? Hell yeah.”

She licks her lips and finally, nods as though it’s an insane idea but she’s way past caring. “How, how do you want me?”

See this kind of question is best posed to Dean. Not the shit teachers ask him on tests. How does he want her? Naked. Begging him not to stop. That’s in his top two, generally. He has some twisted additions but for now, he wants to see her open herself up for him lying back, watching him, and if she could tell him how it feels and guide him around? Yeah that would be awesome too.

“Clothes gotta go, Beth.”

It’s sort of mutually agreed to start stripping in front of each other—no board game required—and Dean finds out he’s so right about her perky tits, nipples hard and dusky pink dark. She’s got a beautiful body and Dean’s gotten to see most of it, long, strong muscles but he’s never seen her stomach, with the cute half innie-outie bellybutton and how she’s got a little birthmark above her ass. He does known that swimmers do wax or shave damn near everywhere, but there’s still some blondish brown hair over her cunt, which she tries to cover up, a hand dropping down.

Dean’s still wearing his boxers, not ‘cause he’s shy or something, more that he’d love to not embarrass himself and cream himself humping the bed or some shit and wearing boxers reminds him not to jack off when he’s eating someone out. Hell, he’s only being polite.

“You’re so fucking hot.”

He expects Beth to come back with something snappy, hell it’s normal only she bites her lip and look away before muttering, “Really naked right now.”

“And really hot.” He kisses her then, hungry and long, keeping her close by holding onto that sweet ass and not just because she has an amazing ass and he’s been wanting to grab a hold of it for a damn long time, no way. It’s a bonus, yeah, because Beth’s a damn nice kisser, a little hesitant but he push her and she’s so fucking competitive that she pushes back. By the time she’s trying to get her hand between them to touch his dick, that’s time he stops her, and says, “Beth. Bed. Now.”

He should think about speaking in sentences but fuck it. It’s direct enough that Beth gets what he wants.

“I feel like an idiot,” Beth says as she lies back, keeping her strong long legs together, feet pointed like she’s gonna dive off the bed.

Oh, so it’s gonna be a slow tease to get her to open up. Dean doesn’t mind it, not really, even though his cock would beg to differ. He’s leaking a little pre-come already, raring to go but he has to fucking wait. Shoves his hand in his boxers and grips the base, focuses on a part of Beth’s neck and fuck it, even that’s getting him hot, which is kinda messed up.

Crisis averted, he kneels next to her and holds her hand, brings it carefully to the center of her chest. “You can stop me. I might die and you’d be responsible for killing me. But you give me the word and I’ll stop. Got it?”

She nods and he ducks his head down, tongue barely skimming across her nipple. “Say it.”

“Yeah.”

“Stop?”

“No. I, oh God,” she says, fingers curving gently around the back of Dean’s head. “What… what do you want me to say?”

“Say ‘please.’” Dean watches her legs open up, slowly, right knee pulling up, thighs parting. “And whatever the fuck else you can think of. Gonna lick you first. You want that?”

He looks up at her, sees the answer on her face.

“Please.”

He should go slow. Should drive her crazy first, bite and lick his way down and sure he does some of it. But it’s quick and only gets surprised gasps out of her as he pulls her left leg over his shoulder, mumbling that she needs to stay like that, that he’ll make it good. “So fucking good, God, you’re wet already, fucking warm, gonna lick you now.”

And he does and she shoves her pussy right in his face, trying to buck him off the bed but he’s got her left leg over his shoulder and there’s not a damn way he’s stopping now. He keeps her hot cunt open with his right hand, using two fingers as he eats her out, stalling on really playing with her clit, getting her used to it as she keeps wriggling around him.

Beth isn’t holding his head still. It’s like she’s got no idea what to do with her hands, clutching the sheet and sometimes grabbing at her hair like she’s trying not to be rude or some shit.

Fuck. That.

He leaves a sucking bruise on her inner thigh before he speaks, voice ragged. “Beth. You wanna tell me something?”

“I’m just. Fuck. I’m so close.”

“You want me to lick your clit?”

Dean loves naked Beth. When she trembles all over, she really trembles all over and there’s no need to study her obvious tells, this right here is the tell, so he says, “I’ll do it, Beth. But only if you tell me.”

“You,” she pants, a little unsteady as he angles his mouth a tongue-flick away from her clit, “are so evil.”

That’s not what he wants to hear so he starts working a finger inside of her, has to bury his face against her thigh to keep his moan from sounding so fucking needy. She clenches tight against him and he will not be able to hold out if she doesn’t let him get her off the way he’d like to.

He’s got two fingers inside of her and she’s rocking her hips before she says it, so quietly he misses it at first and then finally, she’s shoving him right where he’s wanted to go. He’s swirling his tongue just up and around before he really sucks her little clit in his mouth. When she comes, it’s fucking everything he’s wanted to feel right up close, the slick heat of her clenching around his fingers.

Since he’s known Beth, she’s always held herself a little stiffly when not in water and here she’s liquid still and fucking beautiful, gesturing for him to come up to her, crooking her long blunt-nailed fingers in invitation.

Dean sucks her nipples in his mouth before kissing her, partly ‘cause he barely took the time to do so before and also since some chicks get weird about tasting themselves. Hell some are weirded out that Dean doesn’t mind kissing after he gets a blowjob.


But when he does kiss her, after a curious little hum in the back of her throat, as though she’s appreciating the different way Dean tastes now, she seems to be cool about it.

Dean has no idea how long they’ve been making out. He’s been trying to be real good about how much he needs to get off when Beth says as he’s probably (most definitely) giving her a hickey, “Um, condoms?”

In theory, condoms are awesome. They suck if you’re going to fucking turn into a pathetic jerk who can’t hold it off long enough to put on the damn condom. Dean known he’s pretty close to that line.

“Hey, this cabin is locked up for the weekend, right?”

Post-orgasm, Beth is awesome. She gives him this dreamy look and bites her bottom lip all sexily like she has no idea how fucking hot that is. “Yeah. You haven’t let me. Touch you,” she finishes, lamely.

“You are free to touch me. A lot.”

And that is how to spin it. No whining or begging about a blowjob. Nope, make it seem like it’s her idea and it looks good not to last too long when getting sucked off.

Beth has no interest in getting his boxers off all the way. Pulling them low enough to get his dick out and balls, she nods, which almost wants Dean to ask what the fuck she’s nodding abou. But stopping her at any point is not gonna happen, not when he’s leaking at the tip like this and it’s been too, too fucking long. He fucking beat off before he got here and he’s hard as fuck so any distraction is not happening on his end.

At least she strokes him like she’s done it before although she hesitates just a little before her tongue flicks out over the head but she gets real confident, almost gets the head in her mouth the first time before she backs off.

“Oh God, you gonna tease?”

“You have to say something, Dean,” she says, evil glint in her eyes as she leans over him, body lithe and ferocious and Dean wishes for the life of him he knew what the fuck she wanted him to say.

Then, lightning bolt, wish granted, whatever the fuck it is, he gets it.

“Please.”

Twist of her wrist, cock halfway in mouth, and Dean’s fucking gone, shooting off with a mangled warning.

There’s some come dripping down her chin when he looks at her as she kneels over him. “Wow.”

Dean’s not so much with words right now so he nods in agreement.

“Why weren’t we doing this before?”

She nestles against him, warm and a little sweaty, not like he’s complaining. She’s wiping her mouth off with a napkin.

Mumbling something doesn’t seem to clear up the why.

Beth doesn’t seem to notice much as she breathlessly laughs. “Wow. Uh, again.”

Now that Dean’s gotten better with speaking he decides to answer her question. “Reason why we weren’t doing this before? ‘Cause I listened to your damn rule. Next time, you better set a ground rule that I get to feel you up all the time.”

“Okay. Fair’s fair. You can feel me up all the time.” Beth lies very still next to him, like she’s trying to listen to his heartbeat. Tapping idly on his chest, she says, “But no sex before meets.”

“Wait, remember how you set up a crazy rule and I followed it? You gonna do it again, Beth?”

She rolls on top of him, heat of her cunt dangerously close to his dick, sparking some interest. “Sex after. Lots of sex.”

“You’re using me.”

“Yes.”

Dean can’t even pretend to look wounded. Instead he raises an eyebrow. “I think I can work with that.”

“Good. Please tell me your jeans are close.”

“You aren’t gonna look as hot in them as I do.”

“Condoms. Remember?”

“Oh. Hell yeah.”


*


Beth likes to sleep sprawled out and has no issue with sprawling out on top of Dean, so he wakes up to her leg over his hips, her hand pining down his forearm like they’re engaging in wrestling match as she sleeps. The little birthmark on her ass almost looks like a long freckly rainbow, only as long as the width of two of Dean’s fingertips when he touches her skin.

When she wakes up, sleepy-eyed, face a little puffy and her lips pursed to hide her morning breath, Dean reaches out to the nightstand, where the remaining condom in the three-pack is left. He tears it open, his bleary morning thoughts jittering around his head.

One of these weird thoughts is it’s kind of fucking bizarre that he has longer nails than Beth and it’s easier for him to open it up with his fingers although Beth can rip the packet with her teeth pretty damn quick. It lead to him calling her Shark Teeth, a nickname that does not amuse her.

Dean guides her into a spooning position, whispering in her ear, “Morning breath,” and she nods, sighing happily when his fingers skim down to her pussy, where he’s already discovering how fucking responsive she is when he really takes the time to play with her clit. He waits until she’s really wet before he pushes in behind her but she’s so damn good at flexing that he’s able to get pretty deep without much effort.

He likes telling her how it feels. How if she this then he’s not gonna be able to last ‘cause it gets her to up the ante and her endurance is fucking ridiculous.

Why the fuck do swimmers not advertise how fucking hot they are in the sack, because this is supposed to be slow and drowsy. He’s not even had a jolt of caffeine and he’s wired awake.

She forces him to pull out, begs him to and before he asks what the fuck, she climbs on top of him. Her hand is carefully gripping the base of him as she sinks down, muscles in her thighs tense until she’s seat just right, ass rubbing against his balls. The pace is all her and it is good.

He comes before she does, so he pulls out and works fingers inside of her, rubbing her clit until she’s crying out his name since oh fuck, yes, she is damn noisy.

They reek of sex.

Dean has absolutely no fucking complaints.

Beth lies down on him again, sticky and mumbles as an afterthought, “Good morning.”


*


The cabin isn’t tiny and there is a functioning bathroom. Dean might not be a hippie tree hugger but he does argue about water conservation. When that fails, he tells her he’s gotten used to be in the water with her and Beth finally relents. Showering together is awesome.

Sure they probably waste a lot more water than if they had showered separately but Dean sees no reason it wasn’t absolutely necessary to eat out Beth with the noise distortion guaranteed as the shower pounded water overhead.

He watches Beth do some working out which again reminds him how fucking stupid he was to wait all this time and almost gets tricked into going on a run with her. (The trick? A blowjob.) Instead he gets her to skip it with one of his very awesome tricks that involves what he calls sleight of hand.

“That is not sleight of hand,” she tells him but she’s panting when she says it, pulling his hand out of her panties.

They’re sitting on the porch and Dean tries not to think of another porch in Savannah and fails pretty miserably to the point where she asks him about it. He lies point-blank, feeling shitty about it but the damage is done.

She nods and goes back inside, changing out of her soaked panties. When she walks back onto the porch, she’s wearing a bikini and holding a white t-shirt.

“Come on.”

“Thought you can’t swim here.”

“We can wade. I like wading. I used to be scared of the ocean when I was really little so my mom made me wade in the water to get used to it.”

“You’re kidding me,” he says as he follows after her.

“Yeah. The water made my dad go away, so I guess it was irrational. That and my mom let me see Jaws when I was five.”

She’s a good guide, taking the quickest path to the river.

“I don’t remember when I saw Jaws. But when I did, I couldn’t wait to show it to my little brother.”

“What’s his name?” Beth stops quick and he nearly collides into her. “Any time you bring him up you don’t ever say his name.”

“Sam.”

“I have two brothers. One’s gonna be a Marine. They live with my dad and stepmom. Anthony and Greg.”

“You tell ‘em about me?” Dean grins. “I can hold my own.”

“Ah, but now I know your weaknesses.”

“Yeah? Well I know where you’re ticklish.” She might be quick in the water, but she’s wearing flip-flops. Advantage to Dean and yeah, totally takes it, even trudging in the water in his boots as he runs after her, Beth overcome with laughter.

That has to the moment where it ends. With Beth in his arms as he tries tickling her under her arms and she deadlocks her arms shut. The moment his cell phone rings, he knows what’s going to happen.

“I have to take this.”

“Yeah, okay,” Beth says, pushing back her hair, as she always seems to be doing when she doesn’t have it in a ponytail, like she’s more used to slicked back than not.

Turning his phone on, he says, “Yeah?”

“Dean,” Dad says and that’s all it takes for Dean to know. “We’ve tracked it. I need you here before nightfall.”

“I’ll be there.”

Dean turns around to the sight of Beth, sunlight hitting her in the right way, skin golden and her smile so wide and fucking perfect that he wishes he didn’t like her so damn much.

“Family emergency.”

“Oh. Is everyone okay?”

“Yeah. Will be, I guess. But we gotta cut this short. I’ll take you home.”

He considers doing a terrible thing, a goodbye fuck without letting her realize it. But he can’t do it, not when she hugs him tight and he realizes that she’s put on a little bit of perfume, musky and outdoorsy, just for him. One last kiss in the car then, halting and sweet, like he should have kissed her that first night when he’d stuck away with her.

“See you on Monday, Dean,” Beth says, lazy beautiful smile that one day will wind up killing some luckier bastard. “If you look under your seat, someone, maybe that girl you commit petty crimes with, might have left you Monday’s quiz with all the answers filled in.”

Dean doesn’t want some fucking joke to be the last thing he says to her, so all he says is, “You’re fucking amazing.”

Beth pushes a lock of hair of her face. Dean knows that tell. Embarrassment. “You’re not bad either.”


*


Sunday night and they’re packing up.

There’s been cattle dying mysteriously in Texas and it’s weird enough to get Dad’s interest, so they’re heading off there soon as they’re packed, which means by nightfall. Dad’s SUV got a hearty chunk bitten out by the nasty Swamp Thing so it’s been junked, meaning the Impala belongs to Dad again.

Whatever, if they’re hunting zombie cattle or whatever, Dad’ll need a monster truck, so it won’t be forever that Dean’s without a ride.

He should call her but in all this time, he’s never gotten her phone number. Never needed it and he isn’t gonna roll by her place to drop the news that he’s leaving. Hasn’t ever had to do that before.

It’s Sam who makes Dean do something.

They have to drive into town because Sam left a book on hauntings Dad had borrowed from Pastor Jim at his school, so it’s not much for Dean to pretend he left some protection charms in his locker.

Only he doesn’t go to his locker once he’s walking around the dark and empty halls of the school.

Beth’s locker is covered up in some Homecoming messages, people sticking congratulations all over. The slots in her locker aren’t blocked which is good, a place where someone can drop a message for Beth’s eyes only.

Dean leaves a note, with his cell phone number on it, in Beth’s locker and tries not to feel like the stupidest fucking coward in the world.

When they’re back on the road, Dad tells him that since he didn’t cause any trouble in this school, if he wants, Dean can go for his GED and start hunting full-time with him.

Dean says that’s an awesome idea.

By the time they’re in Texas, little stopover in Louisiana to knock off a nasty spirit that didn’t know when to say when, his cell phone gets destroyed and if anyone tried making a call to him, it’s been lost for good.

There’s a swimming pool at Sam’s new school and after hours, Dean takes him there to drill him on everything Dean picked up. He remembers how ecstatic Beth always looked in the water and calls out for Sam to keep up the pace, that he’s seen girls who can swim better than him.


end

Title: Send You Down to War
Author:vinylroad
Recipient:kickaboutheart
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Dean/Jess
Summary:In the rearview mirror, he can see her twist around, her delicate white dress splattered with blood twirling in the wind. Watching him drive away.

Author's Notes: Post!apocaplypse AU. Spoilers up until the end of season 3.





He wakes up confused, the sort of daze he is unaccustomed to. He sleeps heavy and deep, but he never loses his bearings, never forgets the quickest routes outta dodge, the shape of the hotel room, the number of steps to the door, or the gun hidden under his pillow.

The light stings at first, his eyes smarting from the pale beam drifting in from the window. It’s only moonlight, hung low and filtered through dusty, mud streaked glass, but it’s enough to make the ugly expanse of stucco-coloured ceiling visible above him. He recognizes it, the dark black waterstains morphed around the broken drywall like an odd map.

He feels groggy, his arms and legs refusing to move like they don’t understand the orders. The muscles finally contract as he concentrates, erratic jerking that feels like spasms along his spine, like electricity moving down frayed wires.

He shifts on the mattress, the coils squeaking angrily as he tries to lodge his elbows into it for purchase. It’s old – musty, damp, and stinks like piss and earth. His hands sink into the mottled fabric lining like moss, making his fingertips wet with the rusty-coloured water that seeps out.

His legs swivel over the side as he sits up, his head spinning like a bad hangover. When the room stops swirling, he spots the table in the corner, candles burned down to the wick, red and black wax spilt on the surface. He feels the bile rise in his throat as he recognizes the room, wading through the haphazard shuffle of his memories until he pulls out the right one.

Over his shoulder, he can see the large red stain near the center of the mattress, a dried blood lake. Sam’s blood.





He’s not quite sure what he expects, but he definitely doesn’t anticipate the Impala parked on the gravel road outside the cabin. She isn’t dusty, but there’s something different about her, the way she sits on the ground, the angled slope of her body. The metal of the car is warm to the touch, even though the night is cool, and when he opens the door and sinks behind the wheel, he can feel his body slide into the soft groove in the seat. Perfect.

The keys are already in the ignition, his Metallica key chain drifting back and forth gently. Rocking.





The streetlights are out along the highway. Everything is black save for his headlights that struggle against the dark, twin beams that float into the distance and disappear too quickly. He nearly runs off the road twice, the highway curling dangerously around clumps of tall cedars and deep ravines.

After a half-hour without seeing a single car, he switches on his highbeams and guns it up to seventy, the engine groaning under the weight of his foot on the accelerator.

The first city he hits - Lincoln, population 250,000, home of the Nebraska Cornhuskers and birthplace of Johnny Carson - is a giant crater.





He doesn’t stop driving, doesn’t feel tired even after the sun finally rises and he hits the Colorado border. He fills up at a deserted gas station halfway between Holly and Lamar, pushing the button for premium instead of regular because he knows there isn’t a station attendant behind the register.

The small bell over his head jingles when he pushes the door in, stepping inside the small convenience store attached to the gas station. The electricity is still on, oddly enough, and when he opens the door to one of the small fridges to get at the cans of Red Bull and Coke, the cold air mists as it hits the hot air outside, snaking out of the bottom of the fridge like a heavy fog, swirling around his boots.

The cash register is open, the bills and coins inside untouched. He thinks about taking the money for a moment, a swirling instinct in his gut that reminds him he has no cash, no wallet in his pocket. The same gluttonous feeling he fought when he was younger and more impulsive, wilfully deaf when his father’s authoritative voice echoed we’re not thieves, Dean, in his ear.

He leaves the money. Wouldn’t do him much good anyway.

He thumbs through the magazines on the stand across from the register, the dishevelled stacks of newspapers below. His thumb brushes through the thick layer of dust covering the front page, scrubbing until he can see the date.

May 21st, 2010

Breakfast is a microwaved burrito, three Slim Jims and half a can of Red Bull consumed while he sits perched on the hood of the car. He chews deliberately, trying not to think about the abandoned cars a few feet away, their doors still open.





Ninety-six miles later, along a highway running between fields being chewed away by swarms of locusts, he finally sees someone. She’s bent over something on the shoulder of the road, crouched down, the hem of her sundress brushing over the loose gravel. She’s small, and when she looks up toward the slowing Impala, Dean guesses she’s maybe seven or eight, her face still round and chubby with baby fat.

Behind her, he can see a foot and part of a leg resting near the open door of a car. Blood on her hands, dripping off her fingers. She smiles at him gently, calm black lakes floating in her eyes.

He guns the engine, roaring past her. In the rearview mirror, he can see her twist around, her delicate white dress splattered with blood twirling in the wind. Watching him drive away.





Dean drives for two days straight. He knows which way to turn at the stop signs and traffic lights that all blink red. His head fills with roads that he remembers even though he’s never driven them before, directions to a place he’s never been but that he can see clearly in his mind like a fresh planted memory.


When he stops along the road – to piss, to eat, to fill up the gas tank – he feels sick, tipsy and nauseous until he gets back into the car and starts up the engine again. It pushes him hard, doesn’t let him sleep, doesn’t let him rest. The pleasure builds up in the back of his skull, like a gentle pat on the head when he makes the right turns, eats up the distance underneath his tires.

The ranch is thirteen miles south of Lone Pine, California; a two story farmhouse flanked by a wilted forest and bone-dry fields just outside Death Valley. This time when he kills the engine there’s a plum of contentment swirling low in his belly, so pleasurable that he feels himself start to get hard, has to shove a hand over the crotch of his jeans to calm his dick down. Get it to settle.

He has to stop a few hundred yards back from the house, the gravel driveway torn up, a ditch dug a few feet deep to make it impassable by car. He takes the last distance by foot, stripping off his leather jacket to ward off the heat. It’s at least a hundred and humid and he can feel the sweat start to build up along his spine and under his arms without the cool breeze of the car’s air conditioner.

Closer, he can see something burnt into the ground around the house, dark charcoal lines that stretch across the ground and end in a giant circle.

A devil’s trap.

Maybe. The lines are arranged in a way that isn’t familiar, the markings… different.

He hears her before he sees her, the low growl of her warning caught in the desert winds.

She’s on the porch, a rifle tucked solidly against her shoulder, raised. Aimed at him.

“Jess.” The sound is muted by the whipping wind; he can barely hear it himself over the thumping of his heart, the seasick churn returning to his stomach. “Jess,” he says again louder, clearing his throat, turning to face her properly, feet anchored behind the line of the devil’s trap.

For a moment she looks stunned, almost hurt, before her face twists into something bitter. Angry. “This isn’t fucking funny, Sam. Not again.”

“What?” He moves closer, his feet dragging, picking up dust off the ground.

“Stop. It.” She grunts the words roughly, but he can hear the telltale crack in her voice, the same when the werewolves’ teeth got a little too close, when the cuts and bruises were a little too deep, when there was a little too much blood in the backseat. “Don’t.”

“Jess,” he says dumbly, stunned like cattle caught between power lines, the hair on the back of his neck prickling.

He steps over the line, into the circle.

Dean knows it’s a mistake the moment he does it, the way Jess’s face flinches, the way her shoulders rise like the hackles of a dog, aggressive.

He doesn’t actually hear the shot, but he feels the bullet hit his skin, tearing into flesh. For a moment it doesn’t hurt, just a fleeting sting, the prick of a needle. Then he feels it, the wet warmth of the blood trickling out of his shoulder, down his chest, the blooming agony settling into his bones, up his neck and through the corded muscles of his arms.

Knees to ground, the hard gravel digging into flesh through his jeans painfully until he tips over, landing on his side.

He hears the crunching of her boots echoing along the ground until her shadow drifts over his prone body, offering relief from the unrelenting sun. She has the rifle trained down on him, circling him like a vulture. Face flat and sore, she watches him bleed.

“What the fuck?” he whines, clutching at his shoulder.

Jess’s face softens, her eyebrows arching high as she drops the barrel of the gun away from him.

“Dean?” she asks gently before he passes out.





He wakes up settled into something soft. He’s groggy. Drugged.

When he shifts in the large bed, he feels something wrapped around his shoulder. He sees white out of the corner of his eye, the bandage spotted with a whisper of red, a dark stain below hidden by thin layers of cotton. It doesn’t hurt, not really, though he can feel the ache of the muscle beneath his skin like a subtle threat, lost in the distance.

“Don’t move,” he hears her say softly, her voice calm, but authoritative. He lolls his head to the side to find her curled into a small chair near his bed, her legs bent and folded up to her chest. She leans forward to rest her chin on her knees, wrapping her arms around her lithe, toned legs. “Don’t tear the wound.”

“Jessie?” She reacts to the unwelcome nickname as expected, the corners of her mouth tipping down, but she doesn’t complain. She sighs over his drunk-sounding voice, patient as he slurs.

“Where’s Sam? Jess, where’s Sam?” he asks roughly before he passes out again.





She’s still in the chair the second time he wakes up. He feels lethargic, though the hazy drunkness is gone. But with the missing haze comes the pain that is so thick for a second it doesn’t register at all, just a heavy blanket of gravity over his body, pulling him down. But the telltale spike, the sharpness of the wound sneaks to the surface and then it’s a constant thrum in his shoulder.

Gunshot wounds are different than knives or claws, less of the burn of friction on the edges of the skin pulled apart. Bullet wounds feel hollow, empty aching that makes Dean want to pound his chest, fill in the hole. He’s been shot three times: once by a state trooper on his first hunt alone, thinking he, and not the body of the chaos jackal at his feet, had been the one slicing open all the pizza delivery boys in the area. Once by Sam when he was fifteen and the buck of the shotgun had caught him offguard, blown the spray wide, killing the satyr but knicking Dean as well; his father had spent the better part of an evening pulling buckshot out of his left ass cheek, a memory Dean is happy to bury deep.

And now once by Jess.

Her eyes are shut, her head tilted against the high back of the chair, her chest rising softly below her collarbones. Rhythmic breath of sleep.

Her eyes crack open a minute later, blinking quickly before settling. She disentangles her arms from her legs, stretching them out beneath her. He’s forgotten how long she is, the way her limbs seem to go on forever, miles and miles of skin and flesh.

The curves are still there, the soft roundness of her face and her breasts, easy slope of her hips and thighs. But it’s different now, a sharpness hidden just below the surface, like stripped away she’d be nothing but angles and corners. She has a sunburn, dark pink skin down her nose and along the ridges of her cheeks, bleeding into the paler spots around her mouth.

She stares, silent.

“Gotta piss,” Dean mumbles, thumping his head back onto the soft pillow beneath it. He hisses when his shoulder moves the wrong way as he sits up, a sharp, hot pain sliding through the flesh of his chest and shoulder like lightning. He lets out a huff of pain, a shaky exhale, and she stands quickly, pulling open a drawer next to the bed.

“Here,” she says, wrapping her fingers around his wrist and turning his palm up. She lets a few small pills drop into his cupped hand and passes him a coffee mug filled with lukewarm water. He tilts his head back, lets the pills slide down his throat dry before he gulps down the water.

He looks at the bottle. Oxycodone. Carl Forester. Take as needed for pain.

“Give me your-” she says, not waiting for compliance before slipping her hands under his good shoulder, helping pry him away from the headboard and swing his legs over the side of the bed. He can feel her hands shaking underneath him, even as she lets his weight fall back on the bed. It isn’t from the strain.

She leans down to scoop his body up, levering her shoulder under his to hold his weight more securely. Getting up feels like hot blades being slipped into his body slowly, a hot, aching stretch and burn. She grunts low when he finally lets all of his weight rest on her, and she wraps an arm around him to steady their movement, his hip slotting perfectly into the crook of her elbow. When he turns his head her hair brushes against his face, along his lips and across his cheek. Thin, soft strands that smell like wood and linen, sheared off at the ends like she took a razor to it. She had cut it that first year with them, most of it burned up in the fire and the rest hacked off in the shitty motel bathroom outside Palo Alto when they finally let her out of the hospital. Ended up with chunky layers that she never let grow past her shoulders, that spent most of the time up in a haphazard ponytail that Sam used to tug on to piss her off.

He lets his face fall into her neck, his nose brushing up into the unguarded spot behind her ear.

He feels her tense, all of her muscles suddenly pulled tight, the sharp corners under her skin prickling to the surface. “It’s ok,” he says, the soft wavy bits of her hair tickling at his mouth as he moves his lips. He lets his hand settle on the supple, tanned skin of her shoulder.

He pulls his face away from her neck, his lips worrying into a flat line as his hand falls down her back, fingertips dragging along unmarked skin.


“Jess?” he asks, feeling the ghost of mutilated flesh under his palm. She flinches.

He shakes his head, confused. “What happened? Where’re your-”

She shuffles off his hand roughly, using her body to steer him towards the bathroom.





He’s almost afraid to ask. He doesn’t want to know why Sam isn’t there because any answer she could give isn’t going to be one that he wants to hear. She doesn’t offer any answers either, silent as she pulls off the old dressing on his shoulder and inspects the wound, slathering ointment along the weeping flesh.

“I’m sorry,” she says finally, taping the new dressing to his skin. The silver bullet she dug out of his shoulder is still sitting on the kitchen table in a small dish, tweezers set across the top.

“And you shot me because?” The tone is light, almost joking, but she doesn’t smile.

He can tell from her mouth, from the way she sets her jaw and sucks at her bottom lip that she’s deliberating how much she’s planning on telling him. It irritates him more than he’d like to admit, suddenly feeling like a child that she feels needs protection.

She sighs, letting her fingers drift down until her nail catches on his bicep. “After-” she starts, pausing for a moment to breathe shakily. “You weren’t the only thing that showed up wearing your face.”

His lips part in shock. He leans back against the chair, the wood back digging into his sore shoulder.

“You called me Sam, Jess,” Dean pressures, urging her on gently.

It sets her off anyway, her face snapping closed like a steel trap, her eyes shifting to the left, away from him.





The instant coffee tastes like shit, but it’s hot and thick and that’s good enough for Dean. It’s humid as hell in the house, but he curls his hands around the cup like it’s the middle of winter, feeling the heat burn through the cheap porcelain.

Jess just watches her cup steam on the table. Drops in another sugar cube, watching it melt into the dark liquid.

“At first, I thought it was going to be ok. He didn’t talk for a couple weeks, slept most of the time, wouldn’t eat unless I shoved the food down his throat.” She snatches up a small spoon off the table, tapping it against her thigh nervously. “But then he started eating again, started talking, even picked up a couple hunts. I thought he was going to be ok.”

Dean sucks in a harsh breath, winded. His chest aches, the bullet wound forgotten. He doesn’t want to hear this, not at all. It was easier to die for a reason, to know that Sam would be ok, that he’d mourn and move on. Not this.

“He started changing,” Jess explains, rubbing her thumb over the surface of the spoon. “When he realized we couldn’t get you out of hell. Slow. Like your last year. Started using his powers.”

She runs her middle finger along her collarbone, letting it trail up over her right shoulder, along the skin that had once been marked and burnt, twisted masses of scar tissue. “I woke up one night and he had just done it,” she says. “Like it was nothing.”

The spoon lands on the table with a loud clatter. “But I knew. I knew it. Saw it in his face.” Her eyes narrow. “He was practicing.”

She stands up suddenly, jerkily, grabbing her coffee cup, crossing the kitchen and tossing it into the sink. He hears the distinct crack of porcelain as the cup hits the metal. Her white-knuckled hands grip the edge of the counter as she stares out the small window above the sink.

“Five months later, your body showed up at the door.”





He wakes up on the bed, plucked out of a dream he forgets the instant his eyes flutter open. But the pleasant feeling in his chest makes him think it was a good one. Maybe something with Sammy and Dad. Maybe their camping trip to Mt. Hood, when Dad had let them build the campfire and Sam nearly singed his eyebrows right off. It had been a trip to celebrate Sam’s thirteenth birthday, even though Sam’s idea of a good time was camped out between bookshelves at the library, his nose stuck between musty, brittle pages. But Sam had a good time fishing and picking up broken bits of Latin from Dad, and Dean had lost his virginity to one of the hippie girls living out of a broken down Winnebago parked near the abandoned ranger station by the lake.

He’s about to slip back into it, remembering the hippie’s long black hair and silver bangles that had tinkled together next to his ear as he fucked her, when a soft sigh startles him, wakes him up the rest of the way. He notices the weight on his hip, the warmth of another body bearing down on him.

He finds Jess curled up beside him, her hip knitted to his side. Her arm is slung across his waist, her hand wormed up inside his t-shirt, and her fingers curled against his ribs. He can feel the pads of them against him, the sweet weight of them on his skin.

He moves into it, curving his body, making room for her.

In the morning, when he wakes, she’s back in the chair, curled around herself, her chin tucked down to her chest in sleep.

He sneaks out of the bed slowly, carefully, partially because of his shoulder and partially because the house is old enough that even the slightest weight on the wood floorboards causes them to groan and creak. He plots his course to the bathroom cautiously, stepping on the seams between boards when he can, finding the places that will take his weight.

The small florescent lamp above the mirrored medicine cabinet inside the bathroom flickers, struggling to light. It bathes his face in unnatural light.

Carefully, he lifts the hem of his grey, worn t-shirt. He looks for them, the little trophies of battle, memories etched in scar tissue. The claw marks from the succubus. The long curved wound from the scythe of a dreamwalker around his torso, dipping down over his hipbone in a pink-silver strand. The patch of skin burnt by the fiery exhale of a phantom Klansman’s horse below his shoulder blade. The scar just under his nipple from Sam, where he nicked Dean with a knife during physical training when Sam was seventeen and already had his bags packed, secretly, for college.

He sees nothing but skin, perfectly smooth.





Dean would kill for eggs and bacon. Or eggs and sausage. Or eggs and Canadian bacon. Basically, something… porky – he’s really not that picky. Fatty and delicious, crispy, crunchy bacon-

Jess sets down the bowl of fruit loops roughly, pouring thin looking milk out a pitcher with cows painted along the base. The milk is so watery it almost looks blue in his bowl.

He considers it for a minute before his stomach begins to complain, and he figures it’s better than nothing, so he scoops too big a spoonful into his mouth, leaving the spoon in his mouth until he manages to swallow some of it, reduce the threat of leakage. It tastes about as good as it looks. He smacks his lips, running the flavour off his tongue.

“Sorry, powdered.” She pours some into her own bowl, scooping up the floating coloured hoops with her spoon and popping them into her mouth. “You’ll get used to it.”

“Uch,” Dean moans, shrugging before he pops another bite into his mouth, resigned.

“There was a lot of the fresh stuff in the freezer,” she explains, “but I went through most of it by the end of the first year.”

Dean freezes, his spoon halfway to his mouth. “How long have you been here?”

She brings the bowl up to her mouth, tips it against her lips and drinks the leftover milk-water. She smudges her wrist along her jaw when she finishes. Sloppy.

“I stopped counting,” she says.





The heat is uncomfortable. Dean’s always preferred the cold of the northeast, the bitter winters of Maine and Delaware. The heat is inescapable, makes him feel trapped and desperate, like an unshakable fever.

This close to Death Valley, he can see the heat in the air, whipping up off the sandy, dead grass, hazy.

“The house-” Dean starts to say, his foot scrapping along the lines of the trap in the gravel outside.

Jess squints as she stares into the wind. It’s coming from the East – strong. The weathervane on the roof of the house screeches as it’s spun around carelessly.

“We were in Vermont in early May. Sam had started tracking these omens across the Midwest - blood rivers, rain of toads, swarming serpents. Got this frantic voicemail from Bobby and I couldn’t get him on the damn phone.” She runs a hand through her choppy hair, hanging on to the ends when she gets there. “I went to bed in Vermont and woke up here.”

She laughs, but it isn’t friendly or carefree. Just dark, her teeth bared. She shakes her head, lets her hair droop down in front of her eyes. “I should’ve seen this coming. Should’ve seen it coming.”

“This?” Dean asks, kicking dirt over a section of the charcoal lines. It immediately blows away, the lines undisturbed.

“It was here,” she says. “It was already done.” She stares into the distance like there’s something out there other than flat fields of chewed, dead grass. Then back toward the house behind them, the yellow paint of it being stripped by the salty air. “Packed full of food, ready. He’d been planning it.”

He asks because he has to. “What did he do?”

This time she doesn’t hesitate. “He opened the gate again.”

His hands curl into fists, his nails digging into his fleshy palm. He knows why. He knows why.

“That first time… that wasn’t the army he was supposed to lead. Those demons - they’re infants, Dean. We thought Yellow Eyes was the top of the food chain.” She shakes her head. “Teenager. What Sam let out…”

Her words are short, out of breath, like she’s run a mile in the heat. Like it hurts to push the air out of her lungs. “They don’t even look like them. They’re not smoke. They have shape. They’re… different.”

She turns to him. “Can’t exorcise them, can’t kill them. Their only weakness is salt.”

“Death Valley,” Dean mumbles to himself, suddenly realizing the importance of their location.

“Yeah. The salt pans. They’ve all congregated inland, around Kansas and Nebraska, last I’d heard; they won’t go near the coasts – too much salt in the air. But the salt pans are as good as consecrated ground. They don’t come ‘round here unless they have to.”

She walks over to him, her toes brushing up to the edge of the circle. “That,” she says, her toes shifting in the dust, pointing, “keeps them away. I don’t think they can see anything inside it.” She swallows and he watches her throat work, the clean, beautiful line of her neck. “I think they’ve been looking for me.”





The temperature swings wildly, unbearably hot during the day to mind-numbingly cold at night. As soon as the sun hits the edge of the horizon, the cool air floats into the house, swirling violently against the hot air still trapped behind the curtains.

Changing the gauze again, she’s careful as she peels the tape off his skin, inching it slowly until it finally detaches with a loud slurping sound, tossing the damp bandage into the trashcan by the chair he’s sitting in. She thumbs at the wound thoughtfully, checking the stitching. He can see the perfect zig-zag of dark thread in his shoulder, bold through the red, angry flesh.

“No fluid build up,” she says under her breath. “Good, good.”


He had been the one to teach her how to put in stitches, how to snag the skin just right so the wound would heal properly, how to clean the wound out, how to sterilize the needles to prevent infection. She had bent over his shoulder in a poorly-lit motel room, Sam passed out face-down on the bed beside them with a fresh line of stitches up his back like a crooked ladder, and he had shown her, walked her through it as she pinched the broken skin from the machete wound back together.

He had kissed her for the first time that night, too. Her fingers still rich with his blood, she had left fingerprints on his face, lines of it dragging down his neck. It hadn’t felt like a betrayal and Sam didn’t treat it as one, touching the bloody marks on Dean’s neck the next morning.

“How’s the pain?” she asks quietly, moving the hand from his shoulder to his head, her fingers trawling gently through his soft spikes, her thumb rubbing against his forehead

“S’okay,” he answers, his voice catching roughly as one of her nails snags against his scalp. She’s standing between his legs, her body so close he can smell the hard medicinal lime scent of her soap. She lets out a shocked oh when his hands wrap around the backs of her thighs, tugging her closer and locking her in. He puts his face into her belly, noses her shirt up so he can put his cheek against her bare skin.

He lets his hands drift up, sliding until he feels the plane of her thigh curve into the round of her ass. Her stomach jumps under his face, shaking as he lets his thumb trace the curve slowly, the nail scraping against the denim on the way back.

“Dean,” she warns quietly.

One of his hands slides around, quick, wrapping in her shirt and tugging her down, making her bend at the knees until her nose bumps his. Her mouth splits open for him like a ripe piece of fruit, perfect and sweet. Takes his tongue when he offers it.





He finds her on the porch on the half-broken swing.

“You angry at me?” he asks, feeling stupid. Vulnerable.

Her mouth screws together, puckered like she’s sucking on something sour. She rubs at her bare arms, warming them against the cold. “You didn’t even think about it, did you?” she asks bitterly. “You didn’t even think about what it was going to be like for me to lose you.”

“What?” he asks, his heart accelerating, thumping hard and fast in his chest. He lets his hip rest against the rail of the porch.

“You just left me there, in that cabin with his body rotting on that mattress. Left me to sell something that you had no right to sell.” Her hand slams down on the banister, making the wood groan. “You were mine too, Dean. All those months after, telling me what I needed to do once you were gone, how to take care of Sam, like I wasn’t fucking losing something too. Like I wasn’t losing you too!”

He takes a deep breath, the chilly air cooling his overheated chest. “I thought…” He pauses, trying to choose his words, trying to help her understand. “You and Sam had a life before me. You could’ve had one after me. I got you two into this – got Sam back into this when he was ready to... it was my fault.”

The memories feel too raw still, like sandpaper sliding up his back, stripping away layers of skin and flesh. Sam face-up on the mattress in the dank, musty cabin, lips already turning blue, pasty-coloured skin stark against the slow bloom of red forming underneath his corpse. Jess tucked in next to him, head on his chest, arm over his waist. Shaking.

“You really believe that?” The swing’s rusty joints squeal when she gets up, moving toward him. She wraps her hand around his talisman, her knuckles skimming his chest. She tugs on the leather rope, making it dig into his neck. “You’re a fucking idiot, Dean.”

She disappears back into the house.





This time he wakes up when she gets on the bed.

It’s dark. The moon’s only a sliver in the sky, just enough light to see the silhouette of her face against the backlight of the window. She’s crawling over him when he opens his eyes, her hands brushing over his torso as she searches for purchase. When she finds the position she’s looking for, she drops her weight slowly onto him, plastering herself to his bare chest, nuzzling her face along his good shoulder until she reaches his neck.


“Jess,” he croaks softly. She’s straddling his hips, her bare legs cocked wide and rubbing against the thin skin near his hipbones. One hand wormed into the tight cove beneath the small of his back, the other on his chest, palm warm against his nipple. She’s so close he can feel her eyelashes dancing along his jaw when she blinks, her nose rubbing against his adam’s apple when he swallows.

She shifts until their mouths are only inches apart; he can feel her hot breath against his lips, a rhythmic puff that grows ragged when he lifts his hands, running them up her loose t-shirt, against the flat of her stomach to the swell of her breasts. When one of his thumbs tilts up, stroking the underside of her breast, she moans sweetly, squirms against his chest and lets her mouth slot with his. She opens the kiss, nudging her mouth up until she’s dragging her teeth down his upper lip.

By the time she reaches down to cup him through his boxers, he’s blindingly hard; he can feel the damp fabric brush his dick when she presses it down, roughing up his crotch. She slithers down his body, bumping her tits along his torso, dragging them down hard enough for him to feel the hard pebbles of her nipples through her shirt.

His boxers come down with a hard tug, resting on his thighs as she takes his cock in her hand, stroking, her thumb running up the underside. He bends a knee when she settles between his legs and takes him into her mouth, chasing her lips with her hands when she sucks up and off. Her suction is gentle and sweet, but she’s mean with her teeth, dragging them just hard enough to contrast with the soft touch of her tongue. He slaps the mattress with an open palm when they catch on the head of his dick, and she kisses the hurt better. She rubs the head against her lips after, spreading the precome and spit across her swollen mouth before she takes him in her mouth again, sinking down as far as she can.

“Oh God. Jesus- your mouth. Fuck,” Dean grunts inelegantly, trying to hold his hips down, trying to resist fucking up into her mouth, forcing her to take the rest of him.

When he starts to feel the telltale signs, the tight, short feeling rising up in his balls, he reaches down and pulls her up, making her pop off his dick with a soft cry of complaint. He kisses her when she comes up, eats at her mouth until he can taste the bitter-salt of himself on her tongue.

“Take it off,” he says roughly, tugging at her shirt. His arm is still too sore to pull it over her head, so he lets her remove it, instead sneaking his hand into her white cotton underwear, feeling for her. Her shirt is only halfway off when he pushes a finger into the wet cleft, collar still snagged around her head; she moans, trapped by the wound cotton of her shirt as he fingers her clit sloppily. After she pulls it off, he leans up, taking one of her nipples into his mouth. She hisses when he bites down and then suckles, raking her nails down his back, leaving a sharp, hot pain. He releases her breast, twisting her hips and flipping her down onto the bed. She spreads her legs lewdly, making room for him between them. He settles, using his good shoulder to support his weight, opening his mouth over her panties, scrawling his teeth over the damp, scratchy material. He can taste her through them, through the light, flowery tang of the fabric detergent. It makes his mouth water, his hips hump against the sheets, dragging the wet tip of dick against the cool cotton.

“Ah, Fuck,” she whines, her hand reaching down to fist in his hair. “Fuck. Dean.”

He uses his bad arm to snag her underwear to the side, runs his thumb over the top of her cunt before he leans into lick it, the flat of his tongue running against her. Her hips jump, her thighs shaking, and he knows that it won’t take much, that she’s already worked herself halfway there. She tastes perfect, like girl, but distinctly Jess, familiar on his tongue.

He lets her underwear go, the sticky fabric staying put, and uses his free hand to touch her pussy, wetting his fingers before he presses lower. He hears her let out a low cry when he circles a finger around her asshole, teasing her.

“Please,” she whispers, begging, and the sound of it makes him lean in, take her clit between his lips and suck. Her thighs close around his head, pinching at his ears while her hips jerk up, humping at his face.

The pressure between his ears fades as her thighs unclamp, slowly spreading, her muscles loose and relaxed with her orgasm. She sighs, reaching a hand down to run her fingers over his wet, sticky lips. “Such a pretty mouth,” she says hazily, bringing her damp fingers back to her own lips, sucking on them softly, innocently. Her eyes grow dark after though, and she extends one of her legs, running her toes along his back, over his hips and against his ass. “Fuck me, Dean.”

He moves quicker than she expects him to, and he sees it in her eyes, the way they widen in the dark, glassy as he moves over her. He hooks a leg quickly, spreading her, snubbing his dick roughly against her until he finally slides into the perfect wet heat. He leans over as his hips work, sucking and biting the skin around her neck roughly, grunting into her collarbone before she drags his head up and kisses him, sucks on his sneaky tongue.

He fucks her like that until the pain in his shoulder gets too strong, too much for him to handle. She sees it in his face, running a hand along his jaw before she disentangles herself, letting him guide her over onto her knees. He balances himself behind her, fucking into her again, reaching a hand underneath her to rub at her warmth.

One hand on the small of her back, his wet finger leaving streaks along her spine, he pushes her chest down to the mattress and she grunts, falling the rest of the way, finding her own angle, where he slides into her just right. It makes her tight, and his thigh quake, his orgasm rushing up through him, spilling hot and wet inside her.

She stays on her knees when he pulls out, and he leans down, flicks his tongue over her, curling along her sore, swollen clit. She explodes, her fingers clawing into the sheets, a soft wail exhaled into the mattress.

Her legs threaten to collapse, so he wraps an arm around her waist to support her body, helping her down to the mattress. He curls his body around her, shapes her tired, haphazard limbs until she’s tucked against him. He can feel the mixture of their come seeping out onto his thigh.

The room is quiet when she says it, filled with his sleepy breath. “You really thought I could choose between you.”





She’s still asleep beside him when he wakes up.

“Do you remember anything?” she asks groggily when she wakes under his roving hands, her body stretching leisurely against his.

“No,” he says honestly, his fingers finding a rosy nipple and stroking it, feeling it harden under his touch.

She sighs deeply, taking one of his thighs between her own. “Good.”





There’s real coffee in the kitchen. He can smell it when he reaches the bottom of the stairs, the distinct smell of freshly ground beans lingering in the air. On the table, there’s a pound of it in a small sack, flanked by packages of sugar and flour.

In the fridge, there’s fresh milk, cuts of pork and beef wrapped in brown paper. The door to the pantry swings open on its hinges, and he can see the shelves lined with cans and bottles. He knows without looking there will be seedless raspberry jam and pumpkin pie filling.

“What the fuck,” Dean barks as Jess rounds the corner in her t-shirt and panties. She freezes in the doorway.

She looks strangely guilty.





“He was here?”

She shrugs her shoulders, looking defeated.

“What the hell, Jess. What does that mean?”

“It means I don’t fucking know.” She leans against the doorframe, gripping the stained wood with nervous fingers. “I’ve never seen him. Shit would show up - food and books and things. But…”

“But what?”

“I know you can feel it too,” she says in a whisper, hushed like a secret. “Watching. He’s watching.”

Dean falls into the chair, the legs scraping against the floor when he hits the seat, propelled by the heavy weight. He thinks of his drive to California, the sick push in his gut, the way he knew where to go. How the passenger seat never felt empty. Never.

He touches the sacks, lets his fingers sink into the coffee grounds. Sammy.

He decides then. “We need to go,” he says. He bolts out of the chair and moves toward the door. “We need to go, now.”

Jess shakes her head vehemently, snapping her hand across the doorway, blocking Dean’s retreat. “We can’t.”

He crowds into her space, challenging her. She doesn’t fold, keeps her hand firmly planted in front of him, so he reaches for it, tugs it down with mean fingers and curls it between them. “The fuck we can’t. You want to sit here and play house?”

She looks hurt, like his words were a slap to the face. “You think that’s what I’ve been doing?” Her mouth sours.

He calms himself, lets go of her arm. She snatches it back to her body, curling it into herself protectively. He loosens his shoulders, pulls them up and back, but moves closer, less threatening. Searching for closeness. “We need to find him, Jess.”

“You’re fucking injured, I’ve only got a couple clips of ammo left. You don’t know where you’re going.”

The clock on the wall shaped like a rooster crows as it hits the hour.

“I need to go, Jess. I need to find him. Do you understand? I can’t stay here with you, I need to find my brother.”

“How the hell do you think you’re going to find him?” she asks. Her voice takes on a new tone, frantic and scared, like the beat of a heart on the hunt. “You think I didn’t try? He doesn’t want to be found, Dean. And let’s face it, they’re sure as hell more likely to find you first. I don’t know what Sam’s doing, but whatever it is, they don’t fucking like it much.”

And then she says it. Quietly. Like a dark confession. “Or worse, what if I’m wrong. What if he isn’t really Sam anymore?”

He looks at her and he finally sees it - the worn, rough look in her eyes. “I don’t have any answers for you, Dean. I don’t have any answers at all.”





Their sleep is jagged. She tosses and turns, talks in her sleep. Says things that make his stomach flip and his heart ache.

He can’t sleep at all, caught somewhere between wake and rest. His body demands sleep, but his brain refuses to shut down, humming busily with images animated by Jess’s words.

Dean wraps his hand around her, curling up behind her. Finds her heartbeat under his palm and holds on.





He wakes to an empty bed.





Outside on the porch, Jess guards the front door, her boots dragging on the weathered boards as she paces. The rifle lies cocked against the railing, the metal muzzle pointed up toward the sky.

Dean walks out, letting the screen door clatter back against the doorframe. She doesn’t turn, but he can tell that she’s looking for him out of the corner of her eye.

She jumps when he slithers his hands around her from behind, drops his chin onto her shoulder. He breathes her in before he speaks, lets her adjust to his presence. “I won’t leave you,” he promises gravely, his voice hard and sure. “We need to find Sam, but I’m not leaving you behind and I’m not forcing you to come with me. We’ll figure it out.”

He can feel her cheeks lift gently, a hand scooping back to rest against the scruff of his neck, thumbing at the soft hair there. “Ok,” she says.

Suddenly, her muscles tense. He follows her line of sight and in the distance, he can see a figure walking up the road. The outline is tall, lanky, striding quickly toward the house; fanning out behind him, a slew of other shapes appear, flanking the leader.

For a moment, he sees Sam. His crooked nose, obnoxiously flippy hair, and stupid smile, and his heart clenches with something stuck between fear and utter joy. But as they grow closer, the image of Sam fades away, replaced by an older looking man, at least forty, with pitch black eyes and a mouth full of shiny, sharp teeth. He stops at the edge of the circle surrounding the house, staring at it curiously.

Jess pulls away from Dean, moving toward the rifle to her left.

“Hi there,” the man says cheerfully. He straightens his business suit out, fussing with the folded handkerchief in his breast pocket and pulling at his tie. “We’ve been looking for you for a while, sweetheart.”

He winks at Dean. “Thanks.”

Jess brings the rifle to her shoulder as the man steps over the circle, firing one shot between his eyes. The man drops to his knees, his body lit with fire as the demon inside him dies. The others in the group fall back, giving clearance to the circle. They hiss out their anger, but smile viciously. They don’t advance, but instead spread around the perimeter, surrounding them.

Waiting.

Jess turns to Dean, fisting her hand in his shirt with shaky fingers.

“Dean,” Jess says, her voice cracking, fear deep and solid in her tone. He reaches up to touch her face, calm her. “Dean, did anyone see you? Did anyone follow you?”

He freezes, his hand cupping the gentle slope of her jaw.

In the rearview mirror, he can see her twist around, her delicate white dress splattered with blood twirling in the wind. Watching him drive away.

Jess closes her eyes at his silence, her breath ragged. “Oh no.”

In the horizon, a black tide washes in, swallowing the morning sky. The beat of wings echoes in the distance.

Title: Found
Author:littlestclouds
Recipient:twasadark
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Dean/Ellen
Summary:It’s not the Roadhouse, this isn’t her life, and maybe she’s a little bit thankful for that.
Author's Notes: Very loosely, loosely based upon Homer’s Odyssey (like, this is to the Odyssey what Clueless is to Emma). General spoilers for S2 and S3. Many apologies to twasadark for the lateness, and thanks to C. for the beta.

He was lost, and is found.

- Luke 15:24

Found

It’s not the Roadhouse, this isn’t her life, and maybe she’s a little bit thankful for that. The place is quiet and off the radar, although she knows how little anonymity matters in a profession like hers. Somebody knows somebody else who knows somebody else who knows a demon.

She hasn’t heard from anybody since she disappeared, not Bobby, not the Winchester boys, not even her own daughter. She tries not to wonder too much, keeps her mind on the new path she’s forged for herself since the Roadhouse burned down.

Nobody in this town knows she used to be married to a hunter, was a hunter herself. They don’t know her name was once Ellen Harvelle, that she wasn’t just a simple bartender, that she was married to a great man once upon a time. Here, they know her as Penny, a nobody, a nameless, faceless bartender at this dump. It’s pretty easy to create a new identity, pretty hard to maintain it, but so far, so good.

Pool balls crack into one another and scatter her thoughts like dead leaves across cracked concrete. One of the barflies catches her eye and offers her a smirk, but she doesn’t bite. Ellen ducks her head and scrubs at a smudge on the smooth countertop with the edge of her apron.

“Aw, c’mon, Penny. You’ve been givin’ me the cold shoulder all week,” he calls out. “What’s it gonna take?”

Ellen squeezes her hands into fists and counts down from twenty, wills the rage away. Finally, she clears her throat and speaks. “When pigs fly, Tony.”

Tony leans back on his barstool and claps big hands down on the countertop. “C’mon, sweetheart –”

“Don’t you ‘c’mon, sweetheart’ me, Tony.” Ellen moves to a different part of the bar and starts scrubbing at marks that aren’t really there. She can feel Tony’s eyes burning into her, probably picturing what she’d look like naked, and she feels naked.

The sound of bells at the front of the bar and the whoosh of air as the door opens happily distracts her and she looks up to see who’s stumbled in. They don’t get too many new faces around this place.

Ellen freezes, hands curled into fists on the bar. “Dean?”

Though she hadn’t kept in touch with Bobby or the Winchester boys after the incident at the Devil’s Gate, she’d heard things here and there, through the grapevine. She heard about how Dean had sold his soul, made an unbreakable pact with the Crossroads demon, heard about how Sam hadn’t been able to save him.

Dean looks different and the same all at once. The clothes he’s wearing are too big for him, and she doesn’t even think they’re his. He looks like an echo of himself, hollow, faded and worn.

Ellen yanks off her apron and slips out from behind the bar.

“Dean,” she says, making her way to him, through a maze of bar patrons, “it’s me, Ellen!”

His eyes don’t fill with recognition when he sees her, and for a moment, she thinks he doesn’t remember her. In the few seconds it takes for her to reach him, she wonders if she’s mistaken, if Dean just has a doppelganger running around, or worse yet, if it’s an impostor.

Their eyes meet, and the stiffness melts from his limbs.

He blinks and parts his lips, wetting them with his tongue. “Ellen.”

His voice sends a chill down her spine. Ellen presses her hands together, steepling her fingers under her chin. “Dean, what – I thought you were –” Ellen stops herself short, unable to find the right words to say. She reaches up and grips his face briefly in her hands before wrapping him in a warm hug.

Dean allows her the contact, reaching up and ghosting his fingers over her shoulder. “It’s been a while.” He grates out a short laugh, painful to her ears.

“It’s been too long,” she says, stepping away to smooth his shirt over his chest. “You look – different.”

Dean cocks a half-smile. “It’s a long story.” He shoulders the strap of a duffel bag and reaches into his pocket. “Lemme buy you a drink,” he says, pulling out a few crumpled bills.

“All right,” she says, turning back to the bar. “I’m up for my cigarette break anyway.”

“You work in this dump?” He pauses. “No offense.”

“None taken. I’ll be right back.” Ellen gives him a pat on the chest and hurries back to grab her coat from behind the bar and punch out for her break. Ellen pulls the coat on and heads back to his side.

Dean scans his surroundings before letting his eyes come to rest on her. “Ready to blow this popsicle stand?” Dean offers his arm to her, along with a slight smile.

Ellen chuckles and slips her hand into the crook of his elbow. “As ever.”

*

Ellen leads him to her car out back, and they huddle against the heater for warmth. She turns on the radio to a classic rock station and Dean settles back in the passenger’s seat, while Ellen digs a pack of cigarettes out of the glove compartment.

“How’d you find me?” she asks, plucking a cigarette free.

“I wasn’t looking for you,” he says, glancing sideward at her. “Kinda just stumbled on you.”

Ellen lit her cigarette and took a deep drag, letting her eyelids droop. “Awfully big coincidence,” she says, on an exhale of smoke, “considering I came here to get away from all of that.”

“Funny how it works out sometimes.” Dean opens his eyes.

“So, how long’ve you been –” Ellen gestures to him. “You know.”

“Not in Hell?” Dean supplies, and Ellen nods. “Few weeks. Tryin’ to make my way home.”

Ellen taps her cigarette, and gray ash swirls on the air before getting trapped in her hair and on the front of Dean’s jacket. “To Sam?”

Dean’s eyes flicker. “Home,” he says.

Ellen takes another drag, nodding. “You know how you got out?”

Dean shakes his head. “Nah. One day I was in Hell and the next – I wasn’t,” he says, but Ellen isn’t sure she believes him entirely. “And here I am.”

“And here you are,” she says, stubbing out her cigarette and dusting her hands off on her thighs. “What’s it like?”

He looks at her, brow furrowing. “What?”

“What’s Hell like?”

Dean glances down at his hands. “It’s different for everybody.”

Ellen reaches out and covers one of his hands with her own, squeezing. He looks up again and they make eye contact. Ice doesn’t trickle down her spine, like before. The coldness, the unfamiliarity in his eyes seems to have thawed.

Dean closes his fingers around her hand, and he taps his ring against her own, the one she’s never taken off.

Ellen stares at their hands, at the bands of silver and gold flashing in the dark.

When Dean raises his head, Ellen leans in and kisses him. She can taste the smoke on her own breath, and Dean’s lips are strangely cool against hers. He reaches up and curls a hand in her hair, kissing back.

Ellen tumbles toward him, like Alice down the rabbit hole, his kisses grow insistent, but not warm. He tugs her toward him, and Ellen goes, reaching under his jacket and shirt, stroking her hands over his back. She feels scarred flesh under her fingertips, and Dean hisses against her mouth.

“Your –”

“It’s fine,” he interrupts, pausing to shrug off the jacket and t-shirt.

In the dim wash of moonlight, Ellen traces the silvery scars grooved into his shoulders with her eyes. She reaches out and touches one of the scars lightly. Dean flinches, but doesn’t pull away.

Ellen tries to find something to say, something to fill the silence, but when she and Dean lock eyes again, the words die on her tongue. Dean slides a hand over the back of her neck and pulls her in for another kiss.

Ellen watches Dean as he presses small, firm kisses against her mouth, eyes squinched shut. She cradles him in her arms, carefully, as he kisses her and strokes her fingers through his hair.

“Why,” he asks between kisses, reaching under her blouse, walking his fingertips up her stomach, “does your nametag say Penny?”

Ellen laughs into his mouth. “It’s a long story.”

She feels his mouth curve into a smile against her own.

Dean starts unbuttoning the front of her blouse and pushes it off her shoulders. The plastic nametag comes loose and skitters across the floormat. Ellen crawls into his lap in the passenger seat and Dean arches up to kiss her again.

“How long’ve we got?” he whispers, unclasping the back of her bra.

Ellen shrugs and smiles, slipping free of the bra. Her hair falls over her shoulder and Dean tugs at one of the curls lightly. “As much time as we need.”

He smiles up at her, and she ducks her head to kiss him again.

This isn’t her life, no, but she thinks she likes it enough to keep it.

THE END

Title: File No. M-124-16
Author:ryuutchi
Recipient:iluvroadrunner6
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Sam/Claire Bennet (Heroes)
Summary: This file is classified at level 13. All agents must file form G-165 with their supervisor to gain access.

Author's Notes: This takes place after Jus in Bello and the end of Heroes Season 2.

Creatures From The Deep Impersonate Humans

M. Dowd

DETECTIVES in the La Jolla police department believe that the bodies found on the beach are not human, and that the city government is trying to cover up their existence.

Two police officers told the Sun-Times today that the skeletal and muscular structure of the creatures found Tuesday were twisted out of all proportion for a human adult. They say that there is a killer on the loose that is killing things that look human but aren't.

Another detective told the ENQUIRER that the bodies' DNA match members of the community, and so they must have been human.

When the police attempted to bring the deaths to the attention of their higher ups, they say the chief told them to shut down the investigation or risk being thrown off of the force. All the officers say they're letting the case rest.

For now, all they know is that there are three bodies that can't be human but are and the killer is still roaming the streets.

---

Sometimes the job was just a dud. A week spent in sunny La Jolla, California, and nothing to show from it except a few freckles dashed across the bridge of Dean's nose and a sunburn that made every exposed part of Sam turn lobster red.

"I told you there was nothing here," Dean said, after a trip to the city coroner turned up nothing—none of the twisted bodies promised in the news reports they'd found, nor any memory that the bodies had even existed. "Someone was probably making shit up, looking for a quick fifteen minutes. Or maybe the tourist board got together, thought a crazy, demonic serial killer would make this place look like fun for the whole family."

"There's something here, Dean, I can feel it," Sam replied, stubborn as a mule. He'd been the one to pick up this case. There were no premonitions, but it was a good compromise between Dean's current distracted state —Sam sighed as Dean turned his head to watch a passing girl in biker shorts walking her Chihuahua— and what looked like a promising case. "Why would someone have reported corpses that didn't exist? Doesn't that sound strange to you?"

Dean shrugged. He had stopped paying much attention to the case after three days of dead-end leads, but if letting Sam dive into the case meant spending another week on the beach, he wasn't going to complain.

[Verified Assignment Tip]

Name: Claire Bennet

Location: Costa Verde, CA

Reported Sightings: Odessa, TX; New York City, NY; Costa Verde, CA; Los Angeles, CA

Notes: Has the ability of healing.

---

Claire wasn't sure she had found the right place. Sure, the sign said "Aquatic Rose Motel", blinking on and off in a nauseating pattern even at high noon, but it didn't look like the sort of place anyone would willingly sleep. It was all chipped corners, cracks, and colors that might have been bright at one time but were now violent shades of vomit-green. She fingered the phone in her pocket, but suppressed the urge to check the text message again. It was short, and she already knew it by heart. She'd read it a hundred times on the drive down from Costa Verde: "If you want to be a thorn in the Company's side, I can help. They'll be doing a bag and tag in La Jolla. Stop them. Aquatic Rose Motel, Rm 5 –Evs Dropper." The message had come with an attached image of two men. The older was shorter and rakish looking, with a broad mouth that was twisted in a smirk, the younger looked like any of the college-bound guys she knew from school, hair that fell in his face and eyes like a puppy dog that had been kicked a few too many times.

Breathing deeply to steel herself, Claire strode towards the squat row of rooms. At least the weight of her father's gun tugged at her shoulder bag reassuringly. Like her dad, it wouldn't let her down.

[Verified Assignment Tip]

Name: Samuel Winchester

Location: La Jolla, CA

Reported Sightings: Laurence, KS; Cape Girardeau, MO; Rhinelander, WI; Baltimore, MD; New York City, NY; Stanford, CA; La Jolla, CA, Prescott, AZ, Lewiston, ME

Notes: Has precognitive visions. Subject has also been known to manifest telekinesis-- powers may be in flux. PROCEED WITH CARE.

---

When a sharp rap came at the door, Sam glanced at Dean, who had been engrossed in a particularly perverse pay-per-view movie. It had something to do with vampires not wearing very much. Dean shrugged and muted the video. "Expecting someone?" Dean asked. There was a short list of people who could reasonably find them, most of whom would probably call first.

Sam shrugged back, and went for the door. For a moment the blonde hair threw him—what would Ruby be doing here? But it wasn’t Ruby, although she had the same “you’re going to listen to me or regret it” set to her expression. “Hello?”

“Are you Sam?” she asked, the confident expression fading a bit. She hitched up her bag, like it was the only thing keeping her grounded. At his nod, she reached out and grabbed his wrist. It was a startlingly strong grip for someone who looked like she should be waving pom poms around. “My name’s Claire. We have to go.”

She looked like a Claire, small and cherubic, with long blonde hair that gave her an angelic look. Sam wasn’t fooled. Almost anyone could look harmless with enough practice. He drew his arm out of her grip, shifting directly into the doorway. Claire frowned up at him and hitched her bag again. She seemed about to say something, but she looked in his face and her lips pursed in frustration. Maybe she was going to give up. Maybe it had been a prank. But she reached out and shoved, hard enough to make Sam stumble back into the room, and she followed, quickly shutting the door behind her.

from Evs Dropper <wireless@samantha48616e61.com>

to [email withheld]

date Wed, Aug 27, 2008 at 1:17 PM

subject RE: Tooth and nail

My friends, the company is going to fight us tooth and nail, but with your help, we can turn them on each other. It's time to take this up another notch. They're spread thin and at each others' throats. Keep posting your "tips" to the assignment tracker map, but if you're willing to step up your involvement I'm including a link to their agents' schedule. [link withheld] Don't get caught.

We're close now, I can feel it. We're going to take this monster down. All of us, together. I won't stop until there's nothing left of the Company.

---

Dean was on his feet in an instant. His gun was in the duffel by the door—right where he could get at it if they needed to stock up and go hunting, but not so useful with a girl between him and the bag. No, that probably wasn’t true. She was small enough to look like she’d blow away in a stiff breeze. Dean could probably snap her in half if he needed to. He hoped he wouldn't need to. She was cute in that barely-legal cheerleader sort of way.

"How old are you?" he said, pulling himself up to his full height. He was taller than her by a foot at least, broader and more muscular by any measurement, but she looked at him with an expression that suggested she was frustrated rather than nervous. The only sign of worry was an almost instinctive tug on her shoulder bag, and a slight squaring of her shoulders when she looked at him.

"Dean, right? Look, this place isn't safe. There are people after you, people who are looking to take Sam down and do all sorts of nasty experiments on him." Again, there was that tug on the bag, and she looked around the room for the first time, taking in the seashell-studded walls, the messy beds, the porn still playing silently. Her mouth opened in a small "o" and she turned her head away, cheeks turning pink. Dean bit back a grin.

Sam strode over to the bed and shut off the television with a disgusted glare. He appeared to be blushing just as dark as the girl. "Dean, that's disgusting," he said, his voice strained, and his eyes darting to the cute little blonde again. Oh, right. Sam only got really prudish when there were women around. Specifically, women who weren't Dean's type. Dean snorted under his breath.

"Don't blame me for your perverted tastes, Sammy," he said, and threw his mildest glare at Claire. "Now, do you want to tell us just who you are and what you mean by saying my brother's in danger? I mean, I know he's a freakshow," Dean easily ignored Sam's squawk of dismay, "but that doesn't mean a bunch of government agents are planning to tie him down and probe him."

"It's not a government group. They're called the Company, and they hunt down people with powers. Like me. Like you, Sam." Dean and Sam exchanged a look. Long experience in reading his brother gave Dean unique insight, but he didn't need that to see the fear in the furrow of his brow and the set of his lips. It did take that to see a spark of hope begin to flare. They'd never met another person with powers who hadn't been crazy, evil or both. And despite her talk of companies and agents, Claire certainly seemed both sane and nice. Relatively.

Dean sat back on the bed, shoving covers out of the way to make himself more comfortable. "Look, I don't have any powers, so they probably don't care about me. Why don't you two crazy kids walk down to the Dunkin Donuts and get us all some coffee and talk this over? I'm sure spooky government agents won't look for you at the donut place, and I have a hankering for a strawberry frosted."

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Dean Winchester

File Number: 93-4675

DOB: 12/24/79 Sex: M Rac: W Soc: UNKNOWN

Name: Winchester, Dean

Arrested: 2/21/08 Monument, CO

6/20/05 GRAVE DESECRATION - F

10/18/05 MURDER - F

2/13/06 GRAVE DESECRATION - F

5/4/06 CRIMINAL IMPERSONATION - M

11/9/06 MURDER - F

11/10/06 FIREARM CARRIED W/O A LISCENCE - F

11/11/06 GRAVE DESECRATION - F

4/26/07 ESCAPE AND OTHER OFFENSES FROM CUSTODY - F

F = FELONY, M = MISDEMEANOR

---

Sam slammed the door shut behind them with more force than Claire thought was entirely necessary. The parking lot was still as empty as when she'd first walked in, although that didn't mean there wasn't a Company agent hanging around nearby. She moved closer to Sam, the better to protect him if anything came his way. But no one came at them as they rounded the corner and walked down the street, and by inches Claire began to relax a bit, and study the Company's newest target. He was cuter than the picture made him out to be, something in his eyes and the set of his shoulders when he moved that made her keep glancing at him.

"Sorry about my brother," Sam broke the silence, and she started, hand clenching around her shoulder bag. "He's a little, you know." Claire shrugged in acknowledgement. Dean was gruff, but he seemed sort of like the James Dean type to her. "So what makes you think there are people after me?" There was something hidden in the curve of Sam's lips, and Claire was sure he was hiding something, like he might have a guess why people could be following him.

"You have powers, Sam. You're... special. Right?" From the look on his face, it was obvious she had scored a hit. "There's a company out there, the Company, that tracks people like us down." She fumbled for her phone; lifting it to show him the message she'd received the day before. "I have problems with that, and I'm not going to let them hurt anyone else."

Sam took the phone from her hand, examining the photo from all angles. "Who took this?"

"I don't know. All I know is Evs gives good advice. If he says they're sending Agents out after you, you need to get out of town."

They turned into Dunkin Donuts' walkway and Sam pushed open the door. He stared at her as Claire stepped past him into the store, but he didn't ask any more questions until after they'd ordered their coffee.

Once they'd sat down in a booth Sam leaned in, lips parted in a way that somehow managed to look both like fascinated hunger and absolute concern. "You have powers too? This might sound-- did your mom die in a house fire when you were a kid?" Claire's heart felt like it had stopped beating, and she rocked back.

"There was a house fire," she breathed. "She's still alive, though. Mom, my real mom, has control over fire." Sam licked his lips once, quickly. He might want a demonstration, proof that she had the powers she said she did. "Do you have a knife?" Sam looked bewildered, but he pulled a swiss army knife from his pocket and handed it over. Claire flicked it open, and sliced the blade down across her palm. It was a surprisingly sharp knife for a standard swiss army piece. Sam gasped and reached for her wrist, but Claire extended her palm, so he could see the way the cut had vanished, leaving only a thin trail of blood that had managed to well up before the wound healed over.

She could see the revelation working its way across Sam's face, from the way his lips twisted to the narrowing of his eyes, to the way his eyebrows knit.

[Start Transcript: 45-178S, 8/12/08]

Cruz: Tell us where your daughter is, Bennet. This is for her good as well as yours.

Bennet: Why don't you tell me? You've kept me cloistered in here. I agreed to be your lapdog again in exchange for Claire's safety.

Cruz: Your daughter is working with a dangerous mole in the company. She's going to get herself in a lot of trouble if you don't stop her.

Bennet: How do you expect me to do that?

Cruz: Start by telling us where she's likely to be.

Bennet: [laughs] Have you tried Costa Verde?

Cruz: Your wife says she's been disappearing for days at a time.

Bennet: You talked to Sandra? I thought you said you'd leave my family out of your machinations.

Cruz: We told her nothing she didn't already know. We thought it best we have all the intelligence before coming to you.

Bennet: You mean, you wanted to hold all the cards.

Cruz: If you want.

Bennet: Fine, I'll tell you what you want to know.

Cruz: Good.

Bennet: But first, let me tell you a secret, Cruz. This company is going to fall, and it's going to fall hard. The normal humans will be at their partners' throats, and you'll want to nuke it all by the time you're done, and you know what? You won't be able to. Because by then your secret-- our secret will be out. That's what your mole is doing. He's turning this neat little world of paper trails, bagging, tagging and brainwashing upside down and inside out. And I can't say I blame him.

Cruz: Your daughter's going to get hurt if you don't help me stop Evs!

Bennet: My daughter heals fast.

---

Dean spent his time in leisurely contemplation of the last few minutes of his pay-per-view "movie" while waiting for Sam and his new girlfriend to come back. He wasn't entirely convinced that she was telling the truth, but Sam was good enough at pulling the truth out of situations like this that he didn't much mind sitting back and letting Sam enjoy the ride. After all, little miss cheerleader had come for Sam not for Dean.

Someone knocked, and Dean cursed, grabbing for the remote and turning off the tv. Sam would have just walked back in. What were the odds of two strangers showing up at their motel room on the same day? Unless, of course, Claire had been right. If agents from some mixed-up, crazy company that hunted people with powers were polite enough to knock, which Dean wasn't sure was the case. Just to be safe, he grabbed his gun from the duffel, and slipped it into the back of his pants. "Who is it?" he asked, peering through the peephole.

An uncomfortably familiar face filled his line of sight. "Lucy, I'm home," said FBI Special Agent Henrickson. Dean bit back a curse and dove for his duffel, jerking out the canteen of holy water. He slammed the door open and splashed Henrickson liberally with it. No smoke. No cursing of God and humanity. The formerly dead FBI agent, who did not look particularly dead, just glanced down at his wet shirt and sighed.

"Christo," Dean said, just to make sure. Henrickson arched an eyebrow and leaned against the doorway.

"If that's the way you greet all your friends it's no wonder you don't actually have any." Henrickson waited for a minute to see if Dean was planning to throw anything else at him, and stepped into the room, adjusting his jacket over the damp shirt. Dean stepped back, taking in the neat black suit, and irritatingly mocking smile and a set of nasty burn scars on either hand.

"What? Aren't you supposed to be dead?"

"Aren't you? Twice?"

"Did you climb back out of Hell just to annoy me? Because that's a new low, even for you. I'm pretty sure the FBI doesn't employ the undead."

Instead of answering, Henrickson look around the motel room. "Where's your brother? Hasn't gotten his lanky ass in trouble, has he? I thought that was your job."

"Out on a date. Shocking, I know, but even guys like him get a pity date occasionally. I thought Lilith killed you."

Henrickson's grin twisted at the edges, and he rubbed a thumb over one scar. "I have some damn comprehensive healthcare."

Dean grumbled and crossed his arms, trying look like Henrickson's sudden appearance hadn't shook him up. "What the hell are you doing around here anyway? You hoping we'll let you in on our hunts? Because we don't have a position open for formerly-dead ex-cop hunter right now. Maybe if you fill out an application and leave a resume, we'll get back to you in a decade."

"I don't need to be employed by you, Winchester. I've got a place. It's why I need to talk to Sam. We need to talk to him." A shock of alarm shot up Dean's back. Claire's face floated in his mind's eye, her conviction that someone was after Sam.

"About what, exactly?"

"About the things he can do."

Case File ID-Location

Temporal Anomaly Class: 1B

Monument, CO

Agents Sebastian Shell and Hsu-Mei Park were on the scene at the moment of temporal anomaly, surveilling subject Samuel Winchester [See report: D0019]. Analysis suggested at the time that abnormal occurrences, such as out-of-season weather patterns and mass hallucinations might have been the result of Winchester's ability manifestation. Later research has proven that subject might instead have been the focus of the anomaly rather than source.

There was brief skirmish between Winchester, his brother and a mob of local residents who were hallucinating, during which time Agents Park and Shell entered the building. Agent Park reported seeing a female child, white, between seven and nine years of age entering the building after the conflict. Despite risk to themselves and pre-operational orders not to directly engage any subjects or citizens, the agents chose to interrupt an altercation between the girl and FBI Special Agent Henrickson. [Sentence Omitted: Classified] The agents survived via Agent Shell's object-displacement abilities.

[Paragraph Omitted: Classified]

A team of agents was dispatched on 2/28/08 to examine the site.

---

Claire had a really nice smile, Sam thought, and then immediately buried the thought in the back of his mind where hopefully no one would ever find it. Claire bit back another dazzling grin, and reached for the bag of donuts. "Don't eat the strawberry one, or Dean will complain," he chided, handing it over. Much of his mind was taken up considering possible escape routes if this company searching for demon children really did exist, and how many Claire seemed to know of. He'd never been able to find that sort of pattern himself, maybe because there didn't seem to be a pattern-- Claire said she was the only one with powers who had been in a housefire as a baby.

"So your brother really has an FBI warrant out for his arrest?" That had slipped out. He hadn't intended to explain why Dean thought government agents were after them.

"You've asked that three times," he said, trying to frown, but her amusement at the idea nuked the grouchy expression before it could get anywhere near his face.

Claire bit into a powdered donut innocently.

"If I tell you it was for grave desecration and impersonation of priests, will you let it go?"

She shrugged, but turned her attention to polishing off her donut and left Sam alone with his thoughts. The more they discussed their respective powers, the more relaxed Claire had got. Sam wasn't so sure he counted as having powers, since he hadn't had a real vision since the Yellow-eyed Demon died. When he'd mentioned that, Claire had suggested that maybe the demon he thought he'd gotten his powers from had blocked him somehow. She didn't seem convinced by Sam's explanation of how they'd gotten their powers, firing back with suggestions of evolution and science. She'd never met the Yellow-eyed man, and that was probably a small favor.

Claire grabbed his arm with a startled hiss, jerking him out of his contemplations of natural and supernatural causes. He saw why she'd stopped immediately-- a car parked directly outside Sam and Dean's motel room. Dean and a man in a black suit were arguing next to it, Dean's voice getting louder the more annoyed he got, the other's voice low and intense. Another stranger stood, his arms crossed, leaning against the motel building.

"I don't know what you intend to do to Sam, but I swear to God I'll shoot you myself before I let you hurt him." Dean slammed his hand on the hood of the car. The other man responded, leaning in a little. His voice was too quiet to make out, but whatever he'd said didn't pacify Dean one bit. Dean move closer, barely a few inches seemed to separate them, and Sam wondered why the second agent didn't seem intimidated by the way Dean invaded his personal space.

The other stranger began to stand, but the first moved his hand in a quick motion, and tipped his head to the side. Enough that Sam could get a view of the familiar profile. "Henrickson?" he muttered. Claire, next to him, seemed to be vibrating with tension.

"Why are you just standing here," she said. "They're Company agents. You have to get out of here."

Sam shook his head, still staring at the dead man. "That's. He died." Confusion swirled Sam's thoughts, making it hard to decide on a plan of action. Clearly Dean trusted Henrickson, if that was Henrickson, enough to stand close to him without a weapon between them. But Claire was terrified. No, he amended, looking down at her pale, tense face. Terrified and furious. "We can't run off without Dean, anyway." He rushed forward into the parking lot, anxiety on his face and in his voice. "Dean?!"

Sam was pulling something out of his pocket as he ran in - a flask - and with one practiced sweep of his thumb he flipped the top off. Sam wasn't going to wait for an answer, and threw the flask's contents on Henrikson.



This is KPLH. We interrupt our programming; this is a local emergency. Important instructions will follow.

An earthquake has been confirmed in the La Jolla area, at 4:15 pm, centered around Camino Del Oro and El Paseo Grande. The earthquake is reported to have been 6.4 magnitude, and have lasted around a minute and a half.

Please evacuate all buildings. Emergency services have been dispatched to the area. If there is a medical emergency please dial 9-1-1, otherwise do not use your telephone. The telephone lines should be kept open for emergency use.

---

For the second time in less than an hour, Henrikson sighed and looked down at his freshly-soaked shirt. "You boys are two of a kind, I'll tell you that."



Dean swung around, his annoyance with Henrickson melding into annoyance with Sam, but Henrickson could only smile. He should have figured that Sam, when not in fear of the law, wouldn't cut and run. He nodded when his partner, Kendall, a thickset man with red hair messily tucked behind his ears, started to move into position. "Hello, Sam. It's nice seeing you when we're not all about to be murdered by crazies. I was wondering if you and Dean would be willing to come with us for a while."

The girl next to Sam looked like she was going to bolt. She was familiar. Henrickson was sure he'd seen her picture before. Sam had dropped his hand on her shoulder, like he was trying to calm her, but it wasn't working. She reached up and squeezed his hand. Her other hand, though, slipped into her purse. There was something dangerous in the way she moved, and he wondered whether Sam knew his girlfriend probably had powers. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his partner stop, hands out, concentrating.

"The hell are you planning, Henrickson?" Dean snarled, teeth bared like a dog being backed into a corner, and he reached his hand behind his back. It was no surprise Winchester was carrying. He pulled out his gun as the ground began to shake under them; Henrikson didn't waste his time and shoved the gun down and away. He should've been grabbing hold of something to anchor his footing, but sending Dean sprawling from a suckerpunch was a damn sight more satisfying.



August 29, 2008

Mission Report

Agent Victor Henrickson

Over my strenuous objections, the pre-operational analysis was that, considering the subject's close bond with his brother, agents would approach the elder Winchester first, and convince him to release his brother into the Company's custody. My own beliefs were that neither Winchester would release themselves willing into unknown hands, nor would they allow themselves to be separated for any length of time. Unsurprisingly, when Dean Winchester met the prospect of being separated from Samuel, Agent Kendall and myself were met with hostility, which we returned in due course.

---

The ground began to shake in earnest, and Claire couldn't remember the last time she'd had to deal with a real earthquake. Her father's gun was cool and reassuring in her hand, but she couldn't aim right without losing her balance entirely. Her first shot went wild, and the agent, whose powers were probably causing the quake started to walk forward. Distantly she noted that the other agent was on top of Dean, struggling for Dean's gun. Sam grabbed her free wrist, his massive hand covering it entirely. "Come on, let's get out of here."

He didn't wait for her to answer, and she would have just agreed even if she had. He was strong enough that he could probably carry her if she said no. As it was, they ran and she felt like she was barely taking a step, like he was carrying her along with him. She spared a moment to wish Sam had West's power, as they dashed down the street, feeling the ground move less and less violently the farther they went. They skittered to a halt in front of a broad section of park fronting a beach, and Claire tugged on Sam's hand. "Towards the trees," she suggested.

A shot rang out behind them. The first time she had heard a gun go off, she'd thought it was impossibly loud, but now it seemed hardly noticeable. That was possibly because neither of them had actually gotten shot, although it seemed the bullet hadn't been entirely off its mark. Sam let go of her hand as they both raced for the minimal cover the trees provided. She risked a glance back, and saw that it was the red-haired man, the one with powers who was following them. He aimed again, and Claire sped up. They were running fast enough that the smallest trip could send them both flying, so she shoved Sam as hard as she could, and he tripped, going down just as the agent fired again. Claire half-turned again, to see if the shot had gone wild, just as she felt the impact. Her own momentum combined with the speed of the bullet's blow, sent her tumbling back. There was pain, and warm wetness spreading across her chest. She couldn't focus for a long minute, although she could hear, over the blood rushing in her ears, the sound of Sam yelling and the thud of Sam's fist crashing into the agent's jaw.

And then someone picked her up. She coughed, and frowned at finding she made no sound, just coughed up a little bit of blood. Sam said something, and pressed on the wound. He there was a note of desperation in his voice and Claire wished her head would clear so she could understand what he was babbling about when he pressed his lips against hers. It wasn't forceful or tender or any other adjective she might have assigned to a kiss. Especially when he sat back and started pumping on her chest. She coughed again, and he pressed his mouth back against hers.

For a moment Claire blacked out, probably because of the blood loss and the bullet nicking her lung, rather than anything Sam was doing, but when she woke up, she found Sam's lips still on hers, still trying to give clumsy CPR. She exhaled, feeling like she could finally breathe again, and reached up to grab a handful of his shirt. She'd intended to use the grip to shove the large man off her, but he gasped into her mouth, and an pleased, warm feeling pooled in her veins and she playfully nipped at his lips instead.

Sam sat up, fingers pressed to his lips. "Claire? How are you? Why are you--?"

She coughed again, to clear her throat of the left-over blood and shrugged. "God, that stung. You'd think they could at least have bad aim or something. Bullets in the lung are bitch to get out."

With a shaky, exhaled laugh, Sam stood up and offered his hand to Claire. "You really do heal fast." Claire was about to take it, when motion behind Sam caught her eye. The agent, who had been crumpled on the ground in a beaten heap, was stirring. He looked up at her balefully and frowned, his face set in a familiar sort of concentration. The ground beneath them began to rumble again and Claire looked around. Her gun had fallen from her hands not too far away and she jumped for it. The ground wasn't trembling enough to disturb her aim this time, her focus had narrowed to his ugly face, the way he was concentrating on trying to hurt them both. She pulled the trigger, and knew she'd hit her mark when a spray of blood exploded from the man's forehead on impact. She sat back, still feeling as though the earth was trying to shake her to pieces.

Sam knelt next to the agent, turning him over gingerly. There was no way the man was walking away from that one. Claire wouldn't look him in the eyes. She slipped the gun back into her purse and waited for her limbs to stop shivering.


State of California County of San Diego

Death Certificate

I, BRIAN WERZTEL, Clerk of the City Commission in the County and State aforesaid, it being an office of record, and having a seal, do hereby certify that the records in my office show that

JACK KENDALL died at 4:25PM in San Diego County and the State of California on the 28TH day of AUGUST, 2008

Sex MALE; Age 34 YEARS

Name of Disease or Cause of Death GUNSHOT WOUND TO THE HEAD

Occupation UNKNOWN

As shown by Certificate of Death returned by Dr SIMON FERARRO and recorded in Death Report No. 5 at page 3.

Certificate filed AUG., 2008.

---

Dean stripped Henrickson of his suit, and, using the handcuffs in the man's pocket-- once a cop always a cop-- tied him up in the laundry room before going after Sam.

"What does it take to get rid of you?" he asked Henrickson, who leaned, irritated and bloodied, next to a pay washer that had seen better days forty years ago.

"More than it takes to get rid of you three, hopefully," Henrickson responded, cracking open one eye. "I'll be seeing you, Winchester."

Dean snorted at that and slammed the door shut. He wasn't sure which way Sam had gone exactly, but he knew the vague direction, so he chose a street and walked towards the beach. At the corner he paused, trying to decide when Sam and Claire turned it in the other direction, looking distinctly worse for the wear. "Hey!" he yelped, and Claire went for the gun in her purse again. He should have guessed that someone that cute would be more dangerous than she looked, if she was coming after Sam.

He raised his hands. "Sam, don't let your girlfriend shoot me, okay? Jesus." The look Sam and Claire shared spoke more than words, especially since Sam was no good at keeping his thoughts from his face. "Shit, Sammy, where's the other guy?"

Sam sighed and closed his eyes. "Dead."

Dean looked from Claire to Sam and back again, trying to decide who was more likely to have killed a human. Sam was too scrupulous, and even though she looked sweet, the defensive jut of her jaw made Claire the likely suspect. "Fuck, you killed him?" She didn't look like a murderer, and the way she shifted her weight and looked down at the ground and then up again said more about her than she probably realized.

"He shot me," she snapped. And, indeed, there was a bullet hole and a large bloodstain across her chest. She was standing and walking around, so clearly she was all right, though. "And he probably would have killed you and kidnapped Sam."

"And Henrickson?" Sam asked, distracting Dean from his examination of Claire's condition.

"He's an ass, but he's our ass," Dean replied without thinking. At Sam's arched eyebrow, Dean shook his head. "That came out wrong. He's locked up, and won't be getting away until the next time someone wants to wash their dirty underwear."

Feds Caught With Pants Down After Earthquake In La Jolla

M. Dowd

When Maria Gossens decided to wash her laundry at the Aquatic Rose motel after the mysterious La Jolla earthquake on Thursday, she never expected to stumble over a federal agent. She told the INQUIRER in an exclusive story that she found FBI Special Agent Victor Henrickson handcuffed and nearly naked in the basement laundry room. "He was very polite," she said, "but also mysterious. When he heard about the earthquake warnings, he asked to borrow a pair of my husband's pants and ran off."

Gossens, 42, believes that the government must have had a hand in the earthquake, which puzzled scientists by following no fault line or natural stressors.

---



When they returned to the motel room, Sam lent Claire a t-shirt to replace her torn and dirty one. She looked small and fragile in his oversize grey shirt, especially since she'd finally put down her bag in order to change. "Look, Claire, I have to thank you. I mean, I don't know much about these guys, but now that I know they're out there, I can protect myself. You took a bullet for me too. I mean, I know you got better, but that's still not something everyone would do."

Claire smoothed the hem of the shirt and smiled a little smile. Then she leaned up and pressed a little kiss to his cheek. She smelled like vanilla perfume and a little like blood. "Thanks, Sam. I have to get back home now." She held up her phone and smiled her dazzling smile. "I got a new text message. And I need to find my dad. Try not to get shot at again."

Sam bit back a wry smile, his cheeks turning slowly pink. "Good luck."

When the door shut behind her, Dean said "Dude, she wanted you so bad."

"Shut up, Dean."

"Come on! She was hot. I'll bet she'd even look cute in a cheerleader uniform."

"She is a cheerleader. Seriously, Dean, shut up."

"If you're not feeling up to it, I'll pinch-hit."

"Dean. Shut. Up."

Primatech

Memorandum

Date: 8/29/08

Subject Sam Winchester should be taken off the current Assignment Tracker at this time. Agent Surveillance was incorrect [see: Correction Form 12-AD4]. Genetic tests run on samples brought back by Agent Henrickson from assignment M-124-16 confirm that Samuel Winchester is not an evolved human.

However, his profile should not be deleted from the database. Tests are still being run, as traces of toxins in his blood may still lead to other assignments.

Gael Cruz

Title: The Little Things
Author:ashe_frost
Recipient:sasha_davidovna
Rating: PG 13 for language
Pairing: Dean/Bela
Summary: Dean and Bela find themselves together in Hell, which is not-awesome, just in case you were wondering.
Author's Notes: Thanks to my betas. Also I hope you like it!



Dean had had a lot of time to think since his last bloody, gasping moments. Most of the thinking had consisted of internally screaming Sam's name and realizing he was more alone and terrified than he ever had been before, but eventually that tapered down to a dull ache and the feeling of the meat hook shoved into his shoulder really took over. After he got used to that though, there was just the gaping feeling of emptiness and the realization that he would be there forever, without moving, only feeling pain and sorrow and hating himself more than he had ever done before.

In conclusion, Dean had done a lot of thinking, and he discovered with complete and utter clarity that Hell? Not awesome. In fact, Hell was so not-awesome that Dean had been (in his less gape-y and more thought-y moments) trying to think of words to describe just how not-awesome Hell was. So far, he'd come up with "lame,""sucktastic," and, "notawesome."

Dean had never been very good with words. That was Sam's thing. Sam. That was the worst, really. Every thought of Sam was like driving a blunt knife through every inch of his body then pouring salt on the wounds. Only on the inside. Maybe the outside, too. It was hard to tell.

Maybe in Hell there were really no outsides, and it was just his inside, only his insides looked just like his outsides and--See? This was obviously what Hell was like, because how else would Dean be left alone to think for all eternity? Dean didn't like to be alone. He didn't like to think. He'd rather work or fight or plot or fuck some random chick who he wouldn't have touched three shots ago, because thinking was for people that had different brains than he: the kinds that put together thoughts and words and emotions and made sense of the rage and pain jumbled up inside. The kind of brain like--

"SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM!"

Fuck. He really had to stop doing that.

See, the thing was, it's not even really that he missed him that much. Dean hadn't really been in Hell long enough to miss him. It's just that thinking about him made him think about himself and his failure and his father and his existence of service into some demon's master plan. About becoming a demon himself. About what Sam might become, now Dean wasn't around.

There he went again, with the thinking, and thinking about how he should've thought this whole Hell thing through. How there should've been another way. There probably was. There were probably books on it. And hindsight was a bitch and it was the only thing he could think of to do at the time.

Which just proved the theory again: he shouldn't think. Dean Winchester shouldn't ever think. But he couldn't stop. It was like a light went off in his mind and every thought he'd ever avoided kept dancing through his mind. He tried to re-focus and name off flavors of pie but instead he thought of eating past his fill and saw clearly how that had negatively impacted all of the people he'd been spending his life trying to save.

Which spiraled into how he was never really trying to save any of them so much as punish the other half for living when they should be dead, for causing mayhem, for existing; for taking what wasn't his. For fucking with Sam and taking his mother and he was just so fucking angry he could kill something.

And he saw the faces of every single one of them he'd killed. Their actual faces, from before Hell. And he felt no sorrow and no grief as he looked across the barrel of the gun pointed at---Bela.

Which was shockingly a welcome distraction because that bitch was somewhere down here, too. Of course, she would be. Actually, the only thing Dean could think of to make her situation worse was if he had to put up with her fucking mouth all day while he was metaphysically locked in his room and thinking about what he'd done.

So obviously, she popped up next to him, half-naked and screaming, "No!" at the top of her lungs. She looked up at him wet-faced and sobbing until her features tapered into a glare. "You?" she spoke, angry and surprised, mouth forming around the word like the barrel of the gun.

"I'm not happy to see you either, sweetheart," Dean replied.

"Then why am I here?"

Dean tried to look relaxed in his bonds; didn't flinch at the hook in his shoulder or under her glare. "Even in Hell I'm a chick magnet."

"Charming."

"You know me."

They were silent for a moment, the only sounds echoes of torment and Dean thought he could hear his thoughts echoing around in his head. Bela kill hate run help hide Colt save Sam. SAM SAM SAM SAM--"Sa--" But he stopped it, just before it came out. Huh. That was new.

"You were saying?"

"None of your damn business."

"Calling for your brother?"

"What's it matter to you?"

"It doesn't. I'm just making conversation. Since I'm obviously doomed to spend eternity suspended in mid air next to you. Though clearly someone's gotten something wrong. Why wouldn't I want to see you hanging from the air in abject pain and sorrow? Bit of a happy ending, really."

Dean stopped talking. There were about a million things he wanted to do to her at the moment, starting with taping her mouth shut and ending with schooling her on the life and times of Dean Winchester and his awesomeness, which would end with her helping him get the meat hook from his shoulder. But without finding a way to get away from the meat hook, he couldn't tie her up. And anyway, he was in Hell. It wasn't like he could just pop down to the corner to get some duct tape from the 7Eleven. He sighed, long and weary.

"You could help, you know."

Her fingers didn't even touch him, and he was sitting alone in a dusty bar, drink in front of him, in jeans and his dad's leather jacket in his good boots, the ones that never rubbed blisters and Sam was the furthest thing from his mind.

Well, Dean thought. This was certainly a strange turn of events. He felt okay, at the moment. Not his best, but he was in HELL at the moment, and besides, he hadn't had anything to eat or drink since like, four hours before death.

A shot glass and a piece of pie appeared on the table in front of him, which was totally sweet. He stared at it for a moment. All he wanted at the moment were a shot of whiskey and a warm bed, and he had them both. Maybe he wasn't in Hell anymore. Maybe putting up with that annoying bitch for five minutes had qualified for sainthood and he'd gotten upgraded to purgatory. Or maybe Hell felt sorry for him and wanted him to live out his misery in peace.

It didn't seem likely, what with the crazy evil demon sluts in biker chick garb who followed his baby brother around telling him every demon from the Archeron to the Cocytus wanted his soul stuffed like a pig on a platter. He wasn't expecting hospitality and comfortable shoes. But that's what he got, and really, who was he to look a gift horse in the mouth. He lifted his glass to his lips.

It promptly shattered as a bullet winged it, whizzing past him.

Bela stood at the door staring at him. "Are you mad? Don't you know anything?"

"I know you're a crazy bitch."

"A crazy bitch who just saved you from a certain death."

"Uh, I don't know if you noticed this, sweetheart, but we're already dead."

Her heels clicked too loud and gritty on the floor as she walked over to him. They were hot as well--Hell, and thoughts of sex and bodies grinding together sweaty and sated ran through his mind. She didn't sit in the chair next to him, but looked down at him like his teachers in high school used to (when he showed up). "Obviously you've never read mythology."

"Do you know what I do?"

"Other than serve as a pain in the arse? Not particularly."

"That's the pot calling the kettle black."

"More of the good china calling the kettle a low-life moron, but that's quite the gist of it."

"Oh ha ha."

"Good to know your sense of humor's in tact after you nearly had the food in Hell."

Dean was pretty done with her at this point. "What the fuck are you blathering about?"

"Persephone? Demeter? Don't eat the food in Hell or you're doomed there forever?"

"In case you haven't noticed, dollface, we are doomed in Hell forever."

"You might not be." Her expression twisted into something Dean hadn't seen on her before, and it looked sick and pretty on her face. "You and your brother are famous for getting one another out of tight spots."

Dean didn't know what compelled him to ask, because it's not like it mattered or even that he was curious, but it popped out. Things in Hell sure were poppy these days. "What about you?"

"I made my bed, didn't I? I didn't know I was going to Hell at first, but once I figured it out I made a point of making sure I went down blazing. Not that it's any business of yours. It's just that this place has a way of making you think. Wow. It must be a lot harder for you than I originally thought. Thinking isn't much your strong point, yeah?"

There was the flare of anger in his chest. He wanted to hit her in the face or wrap his big hands around her proud, delicate throat. He never hit women unless they were demons because Dean Winchester was a class act, but he slammed her face first on the table anyway, pinning her down.

She turned her cheek so that she was looking at him in profile. "Let go of me."

"Why should I?"

Thinking about it, she was less proud than he'd ever seen her. And he was shocked when she answered, "What good will it do? I hurt enough already." Dean let go of her, and shoved his pie (uneaten) onto the ground instead.

And then he was somewhere else. Naked and freezing his nuts off. Which was just as well, because who cared about shrinkage in this place anyway.

"God, it's freezing," came a voice from the dark. A British voice.

The bitch, of course.

"At least I've got a blanket," she said.

The fucking bitch, of course. Dean felt his toes going numb. He could kill her from the blanket. He could. Hell, they were in HELL for Christ's sakes. How much worse could he get? But he didn't. He just grumbled unhappily and turned on his side to face the direction of her voice.

"You have a blanket. I'm freezing my nuts off." Yes. That was the most tactful way he could put it. Partially because Dean wasn't much for tact and partially because of that thing how he wasn't great with words.

"Sucks for you, doesn't it?" He could hear her smirking. He re-thought killing her for a moment. Or at least crawling over there and ripping the blanket from her cold, dead fingers. Cold, dead, naked fingers. Which added a whole new layer to the uncomfortablenss of the situation. Because Dean was all about getting girls naked, but not without, you know, their distinct and vocal permission. Just in case there were bruises later. Or bite marks, or something.

You know, thinking about it, if the government really wanted to find him, they could probably trace his path through his dental record pressed into thighs in every city of the nation. And a few places in Canada. One in Mexico, too, maybe. Except maybe not Mexico because there was all that tequila so the whole thing was a little fuzzy. Mostly he just remembered how pleased he was he didn't get crabs.

"That'd better be a banana in your pocket," Bela announced.

Which she should know nothing about but since he was currently spooning with her. "Spooning? That's how I know I'm in Hell."

"The meat hooks and the random shifts of time and perspective didn't do it for you?"

"Bite me. You don't seem much like the spooning type, either."

"No, actually. I'm much more of the reverse cowgirl type, personally. Wow, that's definitely not a banana in your pocket."

Dean pretty much decided that moment he was going to fuck her mouth shut, but then again, he could just lie there. He was warm now, pretty content. The dull aches were duller than ever and really, he could just lay there forever.

"I'm exhausted," she spoke.

Which was pretty much when Dean decided it was time to get moving. "Get up," he said. "I don't like the idea of being comfortable in Hell." And then they were somewhere else.

It was hard to describe the place, exactly. Dean hadn't seen anything like it. It didn't look like Hell, and it didn't feel like Hell. It was warm but not hot and he was comfortable. He was still thinking, but clearly, and without the throbbing pain in the back of his head about Sam and Dad and how he was never quite good enough. And he was content, for a moment.

Then everything went black.

~*~

When Dean woke up back on Earth, he wasn't that surprised, really. He was at Bobby's. Sam hugged him. Bobby hugged him warily. They told him to rest. Dean laid on the couch with a blanket over him and listened to the voices from the kitchen whispering, "What's she doing here?"

He got up and walked outside where Bela stood in one of his T-shirts.

She had a mug in her hand. "Did they tell you how we got back, yet?"

"Sam made a deal with the reaper. Something about resisting the seven deadly sins. I remember it being easy. It was little things."

"It's always the little things that make you a good person."

"Or a bad person."

"Touché."

"I'll let it slide. I'm in a surprisingly better mood now that I'm not in Hell."

"Yes, but neither am I." The air seemed thicker all of a sudden, and she didn't look like she was going to cry, just very sad and very determined. "This was never meant for me. I deserved Hell, Dean. I did everything I could to make sure I deserved it."

"Yeah, I noticed." He could've said more; he probably should've. About stealing the Colt and trying to kill him and generally being a bitch. But it felt different now. He wasn't angry. He didn't hate her. There was just a warm, buzzing feeling and the strange kinship that she was the only one who knew what it was like. He touched her shoulder.

She shrugged him off. "Don't go soft on me, Dean."

He smirked, "I don't think that'll be a problem."

"You're horrible."

"I saved your ass, didn't I?"

Bela rolled her eyes. "How can I ever repay you?"

Dean grabbed her by the waist and pulled her toward him. Her mug fell, unbroken, onto the sand. "With little things," he said, and kissed her.

Which, in retrospect, wasn't exactly the best idea because Sam and Bobby got worried when he didn't show up two hours later and they found him ass-naked in the back of the Impala while Bela repaid him again.

Title: Sings to me
Author:sacasim
Recipient:oh_thatsgreat
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Dean/OFC
Summary: Sings to Me





I had always watched him from a distance, never making that leap I always had felt obliged to take because of his taste. He didn’t go for people like me, an equal to him in more ways than one, in intelligence in jobs or similar in age. No, he went for the 20 year old at the strip joint who hung on his every word, awed at his fake name which he flaunted with no shame.

The leap wasn’t as immense as I imagined it, just simply making an advance, flirting with him or worse giggling but, when you have known someone for the majority of your life and you have a foundation for the relationship even considering changing it, is mortifying. And made one quiet nervous, an example was me.

I wasn’t Dean’s favourite person, not like I had used to be.

He gave me the impression that he couldn’t trust me because; as soon as I turned 18 I had left and abandoned him to go to school. It wasn’t easy but some dreams, some aspirations can’t be denied and you have to reach for them. I went to school for a few years, completing my degree in medicine and came back, but Sam was gone and John as well and Dean blamed me.

‘Giving him ideas, that shouldn’t be in the boy’s head.’

I hadn’t stopped talking to them while I was gone. I would call but they never picked up. So with a stiff lip I took every blow they made at my education.

Of course it had hurt; my second family had shunned me and blamed me for the loss of a real member of their family. Everything I had done meant nothing. All those years helping them; helping to babysit Sam, cooking for them, cleaning the motel rooms. So I remained and tried my hardest to earn back every ounce of my trust that I had lost so that things would one day be the same as they used to be.

Then John left and never came back, Dean crumbled and his nights at the bar became more regular and I saw more that my leap would destroy him rather than save him and the pain I would suffer would be far greater, judging by the muffled shouts for Cassie.

But the urge got stronger as a part of him sang to me, taunting me, calling to him, to be part of him- to have that part of him and me as a whole.

He then left soon after but unlike myself; he didn’t call or send any mail.

It was as if he had disappeared. There were days where his face had flashed on the TV screen accusing him of murders I knew he would never commit. Sometime during those 2 years I realised that he wouldn’t come back for me and I moved on. I got a job and a house with a extra 2 bedrooms in case if they ever dropped by. A tiny piece of hope.

It happened when I least expected it, it wasn’t an urgent ring on the bell, it was short and patient followed by another- and I knew. I walked to the door and opened it and there they were, both of them.

Dean and Sam stood before me.

I hadn’t seen Sam in years, and it showed. He had grown and now he was no less than 6ft. He was handsome of course, which member of the Winchester family wasn’t? Sam seemed annoyed to see me; he hadn’t bothered to hide it from his face, making a pout. I inwardly scowled him, in all the years that I had helped raise him and when he turns up at my door he does one of the few things I taught him not to do, scowl. His hair had grown out and his face had matured, he looked calm but angry- different.

Dean looked like Dean except he looked tired and a bit older, but the presence of Dean was there. His eyes were still a bright, almost shocking shade of green, his lips were in a small pout and his stubble made him undeniable. He was still shorter than Sam, if anything shorter than before, but the fact didn’t seem to bother him. Dean looked as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders and I could see realization mask his face as he registered something.

A small smile tugged on my lips and I came to terms with the fact that family was here.

I frowned and let them into the house looking behind them at the Impala.

‘Tay’ he started.

‘Don’t call me Tay, Dean’ I snapped, I slammed the door closing it and led them to the sitting area. He had no right, in any sense, to call me Tay.

‘Taylor you have a nice house, you’ve done well for yourself’ he finishe,d sitting awkwardly on the sofa.

‘Thanks’ I replied stiffly. ‘Do want anything to eat or drink?’ I asked, they both nodded and I went to the kitchen and made their snacks, snickering at their rushed conversation. I slammed the fridge door so that they knew I was on my way back. They presented false smiles at me which I replied to with a frown while setting down the tray on the coffee table, taking my cup of tea and sitting on the sofa opposite them.

Dean and Sam shifted in their seats squirming, as the silence encased the room leaving us to listen to the quiet munching and slurping of our drinks.

‘How’s Dad?’ I finally asked, if it was possible- the silence got more awkward. Dean and Sam both began to speak but no sound came out of their mouths. ‘How is Dad Winchester?’ I asked again, my voice sterner.

‘He died.’ Sam said.

Then my tea dropped. Thank God I had a wooden floor.

‘I had heard but, I thought...I thought you would have told me. Did you really burn him?’

I can’t imagine how my face looked but I could feel a threat of a tear, as it hit me- my second dad was gone. It was just like when my dad had died all over again but it hurt more.
Now I was old enough to comprehend just was death is. Of course it was nothing like when my mum had died but it was close, too close for comfort.

They had burned him not even considering the option of putting him next to Mary, not even understanding that John wouldn’t come back as an evil spirit. Or maybe they had decided that he would.

I scurried to my kitchen and got my mop and dust pan, they left me to clean up not once saying a word. Then it clicked. They expected it.

I walked into the room and looked at them and shook my head slowly taking time to stare at each of them. I couldn’t believe that the two people I had practically given all of my life to didn’t even care to ask how I was.

‘I’ll show you to your rooms’ they seemed shocked to learn that they would be staying with me. They had it planned anyway but I guess they never expected to have their own rooms. I smiled a bit in spite of myself and lead them to their rooms before retreating to my own.

Then I broke down.

I hurt, it hurt on another level to what I was used to. Learning that he was dead had hurt, having Sam here hurt. Having Dean here hurt more than that, for he was just hurt.

So I did the only thing I could think of, I took a shower using the sound of water to hide my wrenching sobs.

--------------------------------

‘Damn it Sam!’ I growled, slamming my fist down on the bed.

She frustrated me so much! I winced as Linkin Park started blaring from upstairs- she was upset angry, miserable in pain.

I had been a dick.

I had been a dick.

Now she was upstairs away from us doing what few knew. As if it wasn’t bad enough as it was, I just needed her. 2 years ago, I had seen her. Now I was dying I needed her, when she appeared to need me the least. I couldn’t even hate her for it; I had failed her in more ways than one.

‘Dean...’ Sam started, he could obviously see.

‘No Sam! She is just as much of our family and she should have been there, she should have known. And she should be able to talk to us or at least stay in the same room as us for more than thirty minutes!’ Sam bent his head, defeated for the moment.

‘What made you think that she would even have wanted to come? After all we did hurt her.’ Sam asked. For the genius of the family he wasn’t really smart.

‘Sam, we have been dicks, she called at least four times a week when she went to college. Two out of five of the calls on Dad’s answering machine were from her just like the ones on mine and your phones. And to make us bigger dicks she sent an email to you everyday you went to Stanford,’ Dean continued as Sam began to argue against him. ‘I saw them on your email, Sam she’s been keeping tabs on us.’ I turned to Sam just to see what I had been hiding from, remorse.

She had done the opposite of what I had wanted. I had wanted her to leave to separate herself from us, to stop caring but she had kept trying. Kept fighting and constantly keeping tabs on us, just to make sure we were safe and we had never even answered one of her calls or emails.

We had been dicks.

The CD changed to John Legend and I winced, her taste in music still wasn’t the best. I headed to my room and slammed the door; I think she heard as the album changed to AC/DC.

It started to get dark outside but I was lost in thought. I needed her, it was funny to admit she had always been there; I had left her and I needed her. I was a sad excuse for a man.

Tay had been sleeping, she had looked so beautiful, her dark hair a fan around her, she had been peaceful and content a small smile on her face. She had said my name muffled by the pillow in her sleep followed by love ‘Dean I’m in love with you, isn’t that funny’and I had ran. We had planned to go Stanford to talk to Sam but I had left in the night racing there like she was on my tail, when she was asleep dreaming a dream that had me in it.

Tay had been so easy to forget, becoming a distant memory, less important than Cassie and the other women; she hadn’t even been a second memory. The thought of her had disappeared to the back of my mind and everything that could be related to her had been unappealing since, and the dull throb had seemed to numb. She wasn’t even in the parallel universe of the Djinn.

Seeing her today though had made everything about that last night come back and the look of peace and contentment that had graced her face. Standing at the door was a different woman, she had a distant look in her eyes and she seemed far from content, just a person who going through the phases of each day on auto-pilot. But Tay was beautiful. Her hair had grown a bit and was cascading down her shoulders in a matter no less than graceful, the sun had brought out the odd streaks of red in her hair. She had seemed bemused to see me and Sam, her hazel eyes had gone a shocking shade of brown in the light and a small crease had formed on her forehead. A blush had started to creep onto her checks as her pink her lips had formed a small smile and she let us in throwing a sly glance at the Impala.

Taylor had changed in the same way that she had stayed the same and she knew us too well. As she knew us she also didn’t, she had picked what she heard and only kept the information that she knew would apply to us. She hadn’t been able to disguise the disgust that she felt when she heard that Dad’s body had been burnt, I think even Sam knew that we had doe wrong by not calling her at that time or when we saw Mom in the old house.

The music stopped and I could hear hurried footsteps making their way down the stairs, there was a knock on Sam’s door then one on mine. I opened the door and she flung herself at me. Taylor was hugging me.

‘I take it back, call me Tay. Welcome to my home!’ she said breathlessly, she turned and hugged Sam. She stepped back and pointed at him. ‘You stop scowling or you tell me what’s wrong, we both know you’re not going to do the latter so please smile.’

Sam looked at her incredulously but stretched his face into a smile. Tay brushed her hand around his face and brought him in for another hug, reaching onto her tip toes so that her head came over to his chest.

‘How do you two feel about coming out with me?’ she asked, she turned between the two of us wringing her hands together.

I nodded, why would I turn her down?

‘Do you have suits or tuxes?’ Taylor asked. I raised an eyebrow. ‘Cause it’s a formal event thing, girls wear dresses and all the dudes wear formal stuff...’ she squirmed a bit. ‘You don’t want to come, do you?’

I shook my head at her quickly, raising my hand in protest. ‘No we want to come! We have tuxes but why are you going to a thing like that?’ I asked.

A smile presented itself on her face. ‘It’s just this thing for work; you’ll see when you get there. But, for now both of you get beautiful, there a few ladies who need to be swept off their feet’ she gave us each a grin ‘met you downstairs at about 7.30’ then she left the room, smiling at us as she left the room and headed back upstairs.

Sam turned to me and shrugged, he must have dealt.

The CD upstairs turned to some country (Carrie Underwood) I winced but smiled at Sam, she was trying just to get to know us again.

‘Dean, I know you feel guilty but we just need to make her happy.’ Sam nodded and made his way out the door and smiled at me. ‘Are you going to tell her?’

The deal.

Of course that’s why he had been angry not at her, but at me.

‘I don’t know’ Sam glared at me.

‘I hear a scowl! Make yourselves beautiful!’ Taylor shouted from upstairs. Sam turned to me, he looked as if he was about to say something but thought better of it and turned away closing the door quietly behind him.

-

I got down stairs 7.30 on the dot. Sam looked up at me and raised an eyebrow at me, I shrugged and smile sheepishly at him.

‘Bitch’

‘Jerk’

‘Idiots, did I not explain that I don’t want any swearing in my house?’ Taylor said from the foot of the stairs. I looked at her and raised an eyebrow at her.

‘No.’ I turned to Sam and sniggered, then I did a double take at her, she was wearing a dress. She had actually worn a dress. She made her way over to me and Sam glowing, she brought us in for a hug and stepped back.

‘You guys scrub up well, I know a few ladies who are going to ditch their dates for you.’ There was silence in the room for a second not even Sam had anything to say.

‘You look nice’ I said.

Nice. Of all words I choose nice, nice. I cringed a bit inside. Damn it, why was she doing this? Nice was near close enough.

She had curled her hair and fastened it in some sort of complicated hairdo, there were random stands of hair that popped every now and then covering her face, but the majority of it was in a bun at the back but some strands of hair fell to her back. She barely had any make up on just some lipstick and the stuff that goes on the eyes.

But GOD her dress, it hugged her in a fit meant only for a woman. It was tight but looked comfortable at the top showing her small waist, the fit following down, clinging to her hips and then flared out. On her wrist, neck and ears was a familiar set of gold jewellery and in her hand she clutched a small purse.

She looked so good I found it hard not to take her right there.

‘Thanks’ she replied. ‘Do you mind driving?’ she asked me, she knew the answer already but smiled innocently at me. Before we headed to the car she informed us of where the key was if either us decided to bring anyone back to the house.

The journey to the hall wasn’t as long as I thought it would be it got a bit awkward when the security guard asked her name ‘Dr. Taylor Dianne Evans’ we had got a bit quiet but it was to late to back out, we were there.

She walked around with us for about an hour introducing us to people as her family by heart, also telling us about the inside gossip of most in the room. She whisked away after that by a surgeon who needed to show her to a few people. I had tried not to let it show when she asked if we would be all right for an hour. Sam had made it easy for me by answering, as I stuttered beside him trying my hardest to grin. Swishing my drink, a bit too much that it created a small puddle on the floor.

When she was gone the conversation that surrounded me and Sam turned to Taylor.

‘She is young, hasn’t had any children, no boyfriends no fiancé in sight’

‘Always turns them down, not enough time she says now’

‘A skilled doctors, she treated me never put a stitch in the wrong place’

‘Such a lovely girl’

‘They want to move her to be head of the team’

‘She says she wants to start working with kids but the board don’t want to lose her’

‘On her first day she worked straight, one of the most determined people I have ever met’

‘Big shoes to fill, her grandfather was a good doctor’

‘Pretty one isn’t she, apparently very talented’

‘Voice of an angel, they want to see if she will perform for us today’

‘No one knows much about her. Popular she is, but private’

A few voices said anything but nice, criticising her dress, calling her a freak for not dating and living by herself. Not having any family, then making snips at her.

Then the lights dimmed and she staggered on stage taking a seat behind a large piano. She seemed to hesitate for a moment before leaning into the microphone.

‘I’m going to be singing Wheel of the World by Carrie Underwood, forgive me if I mess up I haven’t played in a really long time.’ I held my throat an odd feeling, swelling from my stomach as I waited for her to begin.

Then she started, her hands gliding quickly over the keys of the piano, she began to sing her voice coming out strong but sweet as she followed the notes with an angelic ease. She stopped playing the piano as her voice got louder and stronger as the song got faster but on the closing chorus the piano began again quieter as she sang in a whisper along to the song.

I don’t think she noticed that everyone was watching her until she opened her eyes and scanning for mine and Sam’s faces in the crowd smiling at both of us before bowing her head and coming off stage, then the hall full of people burst into applause.

I needed to talk to her.

Sam seemed to understand and went to get himself a drink she reached me.

--------------------

‘Where’s Sam?’ I asked, Dean mentioned gruffly that he had gone to get a drink. I made a face at him and cocked my head to the side. ‘Dean why are you so tense?’ I asked him reaching out my hand to place it on his shoulder, he flinched away from me and I quickly removed my hand.

‘I need to talk to you’ he said finally. I frowned and gestured for him to continue.

‘I missed you, two years I haven’t talked to you or heard your voice and I missed you. I wanted to be near you, I wish I hadn’t.’

I knew were he was going with this, it was standard Dean. I spun on him quickly and pointed at him, daring him to continue. He opened his mouth and I slapped him around the face, a deafening crack erupted through the room while we stared at each other.

I looked at my hand, it was shaking. I looked quickly back at him, his right check was beginning to turn a warm shade of red. I stepped back not believing, that I had done the one thing I promised myself I wouldn’t do. Hurt him.

‘I’m sorry’ I whispered. Picking up my dress I ran, I ran out of the hall and down the stone steps, I kept running until I reached the park and slumped onto a bench. There was a loud crack of thunder as a few pelts of rain fell. I removed the hair pins form my hair and threw them aside, my hair felt damp and heavy on my shoulders.

I wondered how long it would take him to catch up with me, whether or not he would forgive me. Most importantly if he would try to keep talking.

I didn’t have to wait long; he emerged from behind me a few moments later. He was wet, his hair flat on his head and his shirt going almost see though. I turned to him ignoring the squelch my shoe made.

‘Dean, I’m sorry, that was wrong. I can’t believe I did that to you. I should have just left.’ I whispered, his large hand curled along mine.

‘I’m sorry about everything’ he said simply, I looked up at him and stroked his hand.

Sorry can sometimes be a large word when you truly mean it but it can also be an empty word, a failed promise. Dean was known for his broken promises, especially the ones he had made to me. I couldn’t believe him, I couldn’t accept it, I couldn’t forgive him.

‘I know, but that doesn’t make much of a difference’ I said, ‘you have said sorry too many times, I’ll just deal. It’s easier than you think’ I offered him, taking my hand away.

I started walking out the park, turning back to him asking if he was coming. The walk home was quiet he seemed deep in thought; every now and then he would wring his hands and glance in my direction.

I laughed halfway throughout the journey, I let out a small bark of a laugh, shook my dress gathering it around my arms I started to run. He followed behind me and then we were there. We both stood staring at the house we knew, would have been ours if things would have been in my favour. He did something I didn’t expect then.

He kissed me. His bent forward and kissed me. I stood frozen in the spot as his lips grazed mine, again and again; I wanted to kiss him back but I couldn’t. His arms wrapped around me securing me to his chest and his lips became hungrier. I would have given anything to respond. I pushed him off not looking at him and stalked up to my door.

But a strong hand held me back, the grip was strong and slightly painful and I acted on instinct. I spun round and gave a roundhouse kick and a quick elbow into the solar plexus, he fell down and I stood staring at him for a moment. A quick kick in my knee brought me down so I faced Dean.

We didn’t say anything we just stared at each other, looking at each other realising how the moment was familiar, and in all the ways that it was different. I bowed my forehead against his and let out breath of relief, as I held his hands close to my chest.

I held onto his hand as I opened the door and led him to the kitchen.

‘Sit down and take off your shirt’ he looked at me as I said those words in a satisfied manner as if he has won some sort of bet. He took off his shirt and I simply looked at his chest for a few moments. It was hard to stay professional looking at him in that light, he looked so good, so perfect and amazing and he was in my kitchen.

It was like a song was playing from him, like he was singing to me. My thoughts always ran in the same circle about the idea of what if and what could have been.

The idea of being a Winchester, of becoming blood to him. It was the closest thing you could be to Dean- Family. I earned in a sense to have his blood coursing through my veins, as in me carrying his child. Thoughts of Dean never ended badly just in hope of what could be, then the blunt realisation of what it never would be.

I checked him over gently pressing down on certain parts of his body to see if he was ok. Each time he would reply with a gruff yes. I found an old wound and patched it up after cleaning it, he winced a little but smiled at me brightly when I was finished.

I looked him in the eye silently marvelling at the bright green of them, I dragged my eyesight to his lips and wondered what I would have done if he kissed me again.

Would I give in? Or would I run away?

I looked back into his eyes and smiled a bit. My thoughts went back into their circle of finally meaning something to him and I let out a sigh, then his lips were on mine.

I closed my eyes and felt, something amazing like an electric shock took me, I brought my hand out feeling his face as he kissed me and I responded.

I pressed myself against his body, as I was never too close.

His kisses got more urgent, more passionate, more risky- wilder. His tongue glided along my bottom lip asking to enter and I let him. Then I got wilder, he still wasn’t close enough, as our tongues wrestled I was vaguely aware of us making our way upstairs. I let out a moan only to have him bring me closer towards his body bringing a hand to my hip; I let it stay pressed to him as we stood by the door of my room, my body pressed up against a wall. I gasped and pulled him closer to me- he still wasn’t close enough. We entered my room, stumbling our hands everywhere on each other’s body, moving so fast it was impossible to say who was who. I hoisted myself up to reach his lips, both of my legs wrapped around his waist.

We collapsed blindly on my bed, still touching as we started to undress, lost in our senses, lost in the response- laughing, giggling, moaning and growls of pleasure. Eventually we disappeared under the covers, my legs quivered as my hands traced soft circles on his back and moans released themselves from my throat, as something sensational took me over bring him with me, and finally making him close enough to satisfy me.

--

I woke up to find Dean laying next to me his sheet wrapped on his lower half leaving his chest bare, I traced small circles marvelling as his eyes closed. His hand came out and brought me into a hug. I pulled back and looked at him.

‘Last night was, wow!’I said, smiling at him my hand playing with his hair. He placed a kissed on my collar bone.

‘Yes it was.’ We sat there content for a few minutes, just resting and breathing. Every now and then I would run my hands through his hair.

‘I love you, you know’ Dean said quietly, I looked up at him and placed a kiss on his chest.

‘I love you too Dean’ I whispered, it felt so perfect in that moment as if everything that I had secretly wanted for years was happening and I couldn’t feel more content. He brushed some hair from my face, placing a kiss on my forehead.

It slowly dawned on me that the leap had been made, he knew and I knew about him and we had leapt to each other. Everything that I had earned for, for the closeness to have been part of him, interconnected on a level I had barely understood, had happened.

‘Do you want to know why I left?’ I nodded snuggling myself to his chest. ‘You said you were in love with me in your sleep.’ He whispered, I turned to him shocked and suddenly embarrassed, I began pushing away but his arm kept me in place. ‘I liked the feeling it gave me’ he laughed weakly. ‘I had no idea what to say or do; there you were peaceful in love with me, smiling in your sleep. And I wasn’t ready, she was like a thought that kept on pacing in the back of my mind and all I could think of was the fact that if I was in love with you, it wouldn’t lead to much. So I packed up and convinced myself that you would be better off without me’ he sighed and planted a kiss on mouth. There was no need to explain who she was- Cassie.

‘Dean I have lived for two years as a doctor, made friends and reconnected with other ones, but I have never moved on. Never, I never went out on one date, or had a one night stand. I just lived. Do you know what I mean, Dean?’ I asked him looking into his eyes he nodded and pulled me into his embrace.

We lay there again clinging to each other.

‘When are you leaving?’ I squeaked, looking away from his face my attention focusing on his chest.

‘Today’ he whispered. I swear I could and should have lost it there and then. I should have screamed and thrown him out of my house, out of my room and out of my bed, but instead I held onto him more tightly- clinging to him. I kissed him pouring my soul and all my love into one kiss; he kissed me just as passionately.

‘I’ll come with you’ I whispered, he didn’t reply and the room was filled with my staggered breathing.

‘I’m going for a shower, do you want to join me?’ he asked cockily, his arms working their way up and down my arms, his eyes casting quick glances at the bathroom door.

‘Of course’ I whispered, smiling weakly up at him. He returned it brightly and carried me to the shower...

--

The forth dimension, time is a funny thing. To me it’s more like a force, one that is being used against me. When you want it to slow down it seems to speed up, when you want it to speed up it seems to slow down.

Before we knew it, it was 10:30pm and he and Sam were getting ready to leave.

The sky was dark and my porch lamp wasn’t giving me the light I needed to provide sufficient memories for my brain bank. I watched them out their stuff into the Impala each pulling on their large leather jackets. I stood at the door leaning on the frame watching them, ignoring the dull throb in my chest.

Sam came to me his arms out stretched wide; it took me a second to pull myself into his embrace. I clung onto him reluctantly pulling away after Dean coughed in the background.

‘Sam please look after Dean. Don’t stress yourself out and remember that my door is always open when you need; a pie, a room, even when you need a shopping spree or for me to check your cuts. You get that?’

‘Yes Tay’ he supplied, I pulled him for another hug.

‘Reply to my emails this time!’ I shouted after him as he headed to his side of the Impala.

Dean was up next, he pulled me into him embrace and we stayed there for who knows how long until he pulled away.

‘Dean, reply to my messages, pick up the phone and stay alive. Please.’ I whispered my request to me, it seemed simple but to the him they seemed to have a hard effect. ‘I love you.’ I hugged him again and placed a kiss on his check, brushing my hand along his check. I stepped away, tucking in my piece of paper into his jean pocket. Dean went to his side of the Impala and opened the door.

‘Wait!’ I shouted, I ran into my house quickly and grabbed my camera. ‘Smile.’ They beamed up at me as the flash went off. I gave them each a final hug and clung to myself as the Impala drove away- something wasn’t right.

I held the camera tightly in my hand; the picture would be all I had to remind myself of their visit.

I let a breath out and clung to myself, dragging my feet behind me into my house.

It hurt more than last time, because a part of me knew he wouldn’t be coming back.


I pulled out the piece of paper from my pocket, taking in her elegant curve of handwriting.


I love you, come back to me.


I turned to Sam, turning away as he glared at me.

I couldn’t.