fic: Beggars Would Ride: 3/5 (Supernatural; Dean/girl!Sam; AU)

[musesfool]

Beggars Would Ride
Part 3

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Epilogue | Notes

Or you can read it in one long chunk here.

*

Dad and Sam are already up and having breakfast when Dean gets to the kitchen in the morning. Sam's got her nose in a book, bowl of cereal in front of her forgotten, and Dad's got his hands wrapped around a mug of coffee.

Coffee. Coffee would be good, Dean thinks, taking his mug off the drain board and reaching for the coffee pot.

"Have a good time last night?" Dad asks.

"Yeah." Dean leans against the counter, drinks half his coffee in one long sip, brain still fuzzy from lack of sleep and the early hour. Christ, he fucking hates mornings.

"Made a new friend?" Dad usually doesn't tease him about that shit, especially not in front of Sammy, so he must be in a good mood.

"Yeah," he says again, and he hopes he didn't toss that guy's name and number out. He's sick of pumping gas, would love to get back to actually doing real engine work, if he has to work at all.

Sam shoves her chair back with a squeak and dumps her half-eaten bowl of cereal into the sink.

"I'm going to be late this afternoon," she says. "Coach Marley is letting me try out for the team, says maybe I could be an alternate or something." She pulls on her coat, shrugs her backpack on over it. "I'll get a ride home with Claudia." She presses a kiss to Dad's cheek and rushes out to catch her bus like Dean's not even in the room.

He looks at Dad, who shrugs and shakes his head in the way Dean has come to recognize means it's some mysterious girl thing, or maybe just a mysterious Sam thing, and neither of them will ever quite understand it.

It's not until after his third cup of coffee, when the combination of caffeine and gasoline fumes has cleared his head, that he thinks he gets it.

When she comes home that night, he's waiting with a copy of The Princess Bride and the promise of microwave popcorn. She rolls her eyes and sucks her teeth at him, and holes up in her room with her homework until Dad tells her to come out and eat.

She's heading right back to her room when Dad says, "Hey, now, Sammy, your turn to wash the dishes."

She turns back, annoyed look on her face, and says, "Fine."

Dean grabs a dishtowel and leans against the sink, waiting. Dad's sitting at the cleared off table, doing some research and writing in his journal.

Sam doesn't even hand him the dish, just puts it on the drain board and sticks her hands back under the water, splashing herself and nearly nailing him, as well.

"So, the guy I was shooting pool with last night, his friend owns a garage. Might have some work for me."

"That's good," Dad says absently.

Sam huffs, like she doesn't believe a word he's saying. "Whatever."

"Sam, I don't like that tone of voice."

She rolls her eyes again, and Dean remembers sixteen, remembers feeling like that constantly when talking to adults, so he can't really blame her, but she says, "Yes, sir," in a subdued tone, which isn't like her at all.

"If you're done with your homework, we can watch the movie," he says. "Got popcorn and everything."

"I'm not five, Dean. Jesus. I have a chem test to study for and a few chapters to read for English. Why don't you go have a night out with your new friend?"

It's his turn to say, "Whatever," and under his breath, "brat."

She keeps it up for another two days, and it's like living in a minefield, because he knows eventually something's going to set her off, but he's not exactly sure what it's going to be, and he's never been the most careful guy in the world, so watching every word he says is giving him a headache.

He thinks about apologizing, but he's got nothing to apologize for; he wishes she would give him a little credit, a little trust. Because he's not going to stop going out, and he doesn't want to go through this with her every time he does. He thinks about saying that, but in the end, he doesn't say anything at all.

He takes her driving, but even that doesn't crack the ice. She's nervous at first, and trying to hide it, which makes him nervous, and he wonders if he can talk Dad into letting them do this in the truck, because he can't afford to do any kind of serious bodywork on the Impala these days. She rebuffs his efforts to discuss hockey--a sport neither of them follows, but he's watched enough of it on ESPN on long, restless nights in motels to understand it--and they have a snippy argument over the possibility of Bush as a musical choice in his car.

It's not like Dean has anything against derivative bands, because there are only so many geniuses out there, and everybody can't be Jimmy Page, but Bush is like a photocopy of a photocopy of Nirvana, who cribbed their signature sound from the Pixies anyway. At least they copped to it. And Dean, who's not a huge fan of the Pixies--though he'd totally bang Kim and Kelly Deal both if he had the chance--recognizes the sheer awesomeness of "Smells Like Teen Spirit," even if he mostly wishes he never has to hear it again after a steady diet of it, first on the radio when it came out, and then again when Sam finally developed some musical taste and latched onto Nirvana as the band of her heart, but he can't admit that when arguing with her, so he shuts up except to give her directions and to mutter snarky comments about other drivers.

The steady knot of tension in his shoulder expands into a throb behind his left eye by the time they're done, and he heads out to the bar after dinner, desperate for some peace.

He goes out the next night, too, but makes sure he's home relatively early and smells of nothing worse than beer and stale cigarettes. On the third night, she thaws a little, sits at the kitchen table to do her homework instead of disappearing into her room.

He hangs around, offers to play Nintendo with her, but she shakes him off. She's not bitchy about it, though, which is a nice change.

Around eleven, Dad says, "Why don't you pack it in, Sammy? It's a school night."

She kisses them both good night and heads into her room without arguing, which, along with the glances she's been throwing his way, is enough to make Dean wary.

A couple hours later, he's nearly asleep when she pushes the door to his room open and closes it behind her with a quiet click. She's got the old pink bathrobe on, but when he sits up, she shrugs it off her shoulders and drops it to the floor. He doesn't even want to know where she picked that up from. Too much goddamn television, no doubt.

She's wearing a lacy red baby doll nightie that's exactly what he finds sexy--it should probably disturb him, how well she knows him--and it looks both hot and wrong on her. She climbs into his lap, smiling like it's Christmas morning and all the presents have her name on them.

She kisses him, tongue slick and sweet in his mouth, tasting of toothpaste and secrets, and the lace of her outfit is rough under his hands.

He pulls back, rubs the hem of her top between his fingers. "This isn't you, Sammy."

"It could be. If you wanted it to be," she whispers, teeth closing gently on his earlobe, and then again on the skin beneath, and shit, she does know him too well, in ways she shouldn't. He gasps, the lingering vestiges of sleep and the hot rush of need making it hard for him to think clearly.

"That's not what I want," he manages.

She grinds down against him, and the flimsy lace of her panties and the thin material of his boxers do nothing to disguise the wet heat of her cunt. "You sure? 'Cause that's not what it feels like to me." She nips at his lower lip, then slides her lips along his jaw, down his neck, her thumbs tracing circles over his collarbones.

"I don't--I mean, I do, I mean--" She reaches into the opening of his boxers and wraps her hand around him, stroking firm and sure--"God." It's an honest-to-God prayer, which doesn't happen very often, mostly because he doesn't really believe in capital-G God like Pastor Jim does, but Sam makes him want to believe sometimes, if only because then he could maybe believe someone besides him and Dad is looking out for her. He grabs her shoulders, shakes lightly. "Sam, Sam, Sammy." She looks at him, curious, a little wary now, like she does when she knows she's going to get busted for doing something she knows she shouldn't have, and she's planning to use the puppy-dog eyes to get out of it. "Don't make me go all Afterschool Special on your ass," he says.

She brushes her thumb across the head of his cock and he sucks in another desperate breath. "Is that really what you want to do with my ass?" When he doesn't answer right away, still trying to figure out what it is he wants to say, because he knows he can't fuck this up (not that it isn't totally fucked up already, but since their situation normal has never been other people's, maybe other people's fucked up doesn't have to be theirs), she leans back, sits on his knees, expression changing from curious to hurt. "Or do you not want me at all? Is that it?"

This is why he stopped fucking high school girls the day he left high school. "God." He doesn't know how she does it, opening herself up like that, and he doesn't want her to ever stop, not with him, even though he knows that sooner or later, he's going to hurt her. "It's not that. It's that I want you, not--" he tugs at the camisole again "--this."

"Does it not look good?" She looks down at herself, touches her breasts, barely covered by the wispy material. "I know I don't look like that--like the girls you like. I'm kind of skinny and not very--"

He grunts in frustration. She should know there's no competition, that he'll always choose her over anyone and everyone else. "You're perfect. You're Sam." He slides his hands up her arms, over her shoulders, pushes the straps of her top down so he can cup her breasts, run his thumbs over her tight, pink nipples. Her breath hitches and she arches into his touch. He slides his hands around her back, the bones both strong and delicate beneath his fingers, hauls her in for a kiss, and she sighs into his mouth. He can feel her trembling, and hates himself for making her doubt for even a second that he does want her, would want her any way she wants to be, any way she's willing to let him have her. Wants her more than any truck stop waitress or random hook-up. Wants her to know she means more than that, and always will. He wouldn't take the risks he has with her if she didn't. "I didn't--I haven't--" he murmurs, but the words get lost in the glide of skin against skin, and he thinks maybe she knows what he means. He hopes she does.

She's frantic, a little wild, hands moving too fast, clutching too tight as she touches him, and he soothes her with kisses and soft nonsense words.

She's got a condom tucked in the elastic of her waistband and she hands it to him before she slides the lacy panties off. He's barely ready for the tight, wet heat of her as she sinks down onto him, eyes closed and head tipped back, hands on his shoulders and knees cradling his hips. She moves up and down slowly at first, and then harder and faster as he fingers her clit, mouths her breasts, tells her with his hands and lips and cock what he can't say with words.

She clenches around him like a fist when she comes, holding him deep inside her body, and pulling him along with her into the bright, hot pulse of orgasm. He has enough presence of mind to yank her close and cover her mouth in a hard kiss to muffle the noise so they don't wake Dad and get themselves killed, or worse.

When she's done, she curls up against him, blissed-out smile on her face, already three-quarters of the way to sleep. He loves that he can do this to her--for her--and he wishes she could stay cradled in his arms all night, but she has school in the morning, and they can't take the chance of not waking up before Dad, so he chivvies her into her bathrobe and back to her room.

He falls asleep with the scent of her on his skin and his sheets.

*

It's too freaking cold, Dean thinks, trying to think of warm things--coffee, fire, being wrapped up in bed with a hot chick--as they wait for the werewolves to show up. Dad and Caleb are trying to drive them into the clearing, and they've been waiting on the outskirts, ready to take their shots, for what feels like hours. Instead of waiting in the car like Dean had expected, Sam is about fifteen feet away to his left, using a tree for cover, the muzzle of her rifle like a low-hanging branch in the darkness, the red bandana in her hair the only spot of color he can see. The moon is full overhead, and the ground is covered in snow, and it'd be beautiful in a freakish Hallmark sort of way if it wasn't so freaking cold, and Sammy didn't look like she was going to puke or pass out any second.

The sound of gunfire startles him to attention, and then the chase is on, werewolf black against the white snow, darker and faster than the night behind it, but it doesn't keep going straight; instead it angles right, heavy muscular body eating up the ground between them fast, too fast, heading right towards them, like a guided missile that's found its target.

Dean swings around, raises his rifle and shoots as the thing leaps, messing up his shot; he gets it in the belly, not the heart, and it howls in pain, jaws snapping as it lands on Sam, takes her down with raking claws. Dean's heart stops but everything else keeps moving, faster than he can see. Sam's dodging sharp, yellow teeth, her face pale as the snow now staining red with blood--hers, the wolf's--and there's another shot, muffled by the wolf's body, and a third, up through its elongated snout, taking the top of its head off. She shoves at the carcass ineffectually, and he can hear her ragged breathing, see it misting in the darkness.

The paralysis of fear dissipates, leaving him weak and hoarse. "Sam! Sammy!"

"Get it off me, Dean, please!"

He grabs at the thing, fur bristly and slick with blood, and hauls it off her. Her left shoulder is slashed, four claw marks cutting through numerous layers of clothing and fairly deep into her skin, blood staining everything, but she hasn't been bitten.

"You okay?"

She swallows hard, and he can see tears oozing from the corners of her eyes, but she nods. He reaches down, grabs her right hand, pulls her up, as Dad and Caleb finally arrive.

"Sammy, you all right?" Dad grabs her good shoulder, brushes his thumb across her cheek.

She nods again, though her hand tightens on Dean's. With her left hand she scrubs at her face, sniffing and swallowing to stop herself from crying.

Dad turns to him, worry and fear combining into anger. "What the hell happened, Dean?"

He's trying to concentrate on making a temporary bandage out of her bandana, forcing his hands not to shake. He grabs her hand, pressing it against the wound to stop the bleeding while he ties it in place with her still-whole scarf. "I--It happened so fast--" A ferocious howl coming from somewhere to the west of them interrupts him.

"There are still three more out there," Caleb says. "They separated when they saw us--they're smarter than regular wolves, and regular wolves are pretty damn smart. They must have sensed you somehow."

Dean is still taking inventory of Sam, running his flashlight over her, brushing the snow off her legs and back, when he notices the stain on her ass. "Fuck, Sam, what--Oh, fuck. You gotta be kidding me."

Dad looks at him, then at Sam. "What?"

She hunches her shoulders in misery. "I didn't expect--" Her voice is barely a whisper, and Dean has to strain to hear it. She glances at Caleb, embarrassed, and then back at Dean. "I'm usually thirty days like clockwork, but it's, like, four days early, and--"

He can see realization dawn in Dad's eyes. "You couldn't have said something?" Dad yells, and she drops her gaze, misery plain on her face. Then he looks at Dean. "And you, you didn't know?"

Which is totally unfair. "No, sir. I didn't know I was supposed to be keeping track of my sister's period."

"It's not his fault," Sam says before Dad can yell at him for being insubordinate, and they both glare at her. "I didn't even know for sure until we'd been here for a while."

The wolf howls again, and another answers it from what sounds like north of them.

Dad runs a hand through his hair. "We'll be discussing this later," he says, "but right now, we've got a blood trail that's drawing them in, and we can take all three of them out. Dean, take your sister back to the motel now. Caleb and I will finish this up."

"Dad--"

"Now, Dean. Go."

"Yes, sir."

He takes Sam's arm, and as they walk away, Dad cups her face again, gently, holds it in his hand until his fingers slide away when she moves.

"I'm sorry," she whispers when they get to the car.

"It's not your fault." Dean guns the engine, peels up the dirt road and out of the woods like the werewolves are after them. She shifts uncomfortably and he leans over, opens the glove compartment, rummaging around by feel until he finds the bottle of Advil. He tosses it into her lap. "Here."

She dry-swallows a couple of pills with a grimace.

It's not too far to the motel, and he doesn't blame her for sprinting to the bathroom, stripping her bloody coat and shirt off on the way.

He gathers the supplies--peroxide, butterfly bandages, gauze squares, and a roll of Kling--and sets them down on the toilet tank. Then he strips down, leaving his clothes on the floor next to hers.

Nobody should be familiar with the sight and scent of their kid sister's blood as it washes down the drain--he can see now that the gashes in her shoulder and upper arm are clean and not as deep as he'd first feared--but he's all too familiar with it, been seeing it her whole life, so it doesn't freak him out the way it probably should, when he pushes back the shower curtain to make sure she's all right, and sees the water is still tinged pink as it washes away. He's more surprised to find her touching herself, one foot resting on the edge of the tub, fingers sliding between her thighs.

"Oh," they both say, and he feels his face heat, can see the blush rising under her skin.

"Sorry," he says.

"No, please." She steps back against the tile, holds out her other hand to him.

He climbs into the tub, letting the curtain close behind him, and pulls her close, pressing his face to the top of her head, breathing her in, making sure she's solid, whole, alive under his fingers. He feels the pulse beating in her neck, splays a hand over her heart, examines the four cuts on her shoulder with a clinical eye.

"You'll probably get away without scars, if we do this right," he says, cheek pressed against her temple. She nods, and he can feel her breathing, the hitch and hiccup of it, the way her whole body trembles just a little, enough that he can feel it, but probably wouldn't be able to see it if he was just looking.

She raises her face, eyes wide and green in the sharp fluorescent lighting, and he kisses her softly, closed-mouthed, a gentle brush of lips, inhaling the air she exhales. Her breath hitches again, and he opens his mouth over hers, wet and hot and deep, tongue sliding over tongue, desperate to communicate fear and love and need in ways words never can. She wraps her arms around him, presses close, rubbing against him, warmer than the water cascading over them.

"Dean?" she asks, sliding a hand between them to curl around his hardening dick. "Please?"

He's never been involved with a woman long enough for this to have been an issue before, and he's not sure about it now. It's not like he'd ever turn down sex, but--

"You don't want to. It's okay."

"Of course, I want to, Sammy. I just--Are you sure? Can you?"

"I know it's kind of gross," she says, looking away, "but it's supposed to help with the cramps."

"Okay." He tips her face up, meets her gaze squarely. "Okay."

He moves away, goes to push the curtain open, and she says, "Where are you going?"

He pats himself down, laughs. "I don't exactly have a condom on me."

"Do we have to--Can't we just...not?" She leans in, licks at his lips and inside his mouth, hand curling around his dick again and stroking. "I want to feel you, skin on skin," she whispers. "I want to feel you come inside me."

"Fuck." He swallows hard, leans his forehead against hers, cock aching to do what she's suggested. "You really wanna take that chance?" He gives a small nervous laugh. "We can't--I can't. It's not safe." He doesn't say he's not safe--he tries to be, is as careful as he can be, but there's always a chance, and while he'll bear the risk himself if he has to, he's going to shield her from it as best he can. He pulls away, climbs out of the shower, and grabs his wallet out of his jeans, ignoring the way everything is getting wet. He finds what he's looking for, and hops back in. Tries not to think too much about what she's said, because maybe he can't protect her from werewolves, or from this fucked up thing they're doing, but he can do everything possible to minimize the consequences, to make sure she, at least, never has to pay for it.

When he's got it on, he holds her up against the wall, slides inside her, so tight and slick. She sighs, wraps her legs around his hips, and meets his thrusts with her own. He wants to pound into her, let his body work out all his fear and desperation, but he holds himself back, goes slow, making her gasp and moan and beg before he speeds up, hips flexing hard and fast while she touches herself. She clenches around him, comes with a low growling moan that sounds almost like the thing that attacked her tonight, rough and dangerous, and the only thing he can think as he breaks open, pleasure pulsing through him in waves, is that he has to keep her safe.

*

Sam's still asleep when Dean gets up in the morning. Dad and Caleb came back around four, successful but grim-faced, splashed with blood and smelling of fire, so he waits until ten before he knocks on Dad's door, coffee and Danish in hand.

Dad scrubs a hand over his face, three days of stubble making him look dangerous even half-asleep, and grunts, opening the door wide enough to let Dean in.

"How is she?"

"She's fine. Still sleeping. I bandaged her up, gave her some Advil, and put her to bed." He sips his coffee, picks at the icing on his cherry-cheese danish, and takes a deep breath before continuing. "There's a Planned Parenthood clinic not too far from the house." Dean tries to avoid those places as much as possible, but he always knows where they are, ever since a close call he'd had with this girl named Cindy, when he was seventeen and the condom broke. It was a false alarm; he's pretty sure there is no next generation of Winchesters running around.

Dad nods, and Dean remembers the first and only other time they ever discussed Sam's period, the day she first got it and freaked out, locked herself in the bathroom and shrieked about how she hated everyone and everything and why couldn't they be normal like other people? She'd been twelve, and Dean had felt Mom's absence like a sharp, sudden pain flaring up after years of a dull, steady ache. He feels it again now. If Mom was alive, they wouldn't be this, wouldn't do this. If Mom was alive...

It's a pointless thought, one he tries not to indulge. Wishes are for little kids and people who don't know better. He knows what's real, and that's what he deals with. Anything else is just a sucker bet, a sure ticket to heartbreak. He presses the heel of his hand to his forehead, trying to focus.

"Okay," Dad finally says, and Dean can tell he doesn't like it, either, but neither of them ever back away from the hard things. "You take her this afternoon, soon as we get back."

She shows up at the door then, hair in her eyes, moving stiffly. She smiles gratefully when he hands her a cup of coffee, and sits down on the bed with a sigh.

"Do you wanna tell me what happened out there last night?" Dad asks. "We've discussed this before, and, you know, you could have been seriously hurt, or worse."

"Do you think I don't know that?" She touches her injured shoulder.

"Don't take that tone with me, young lady. You're not too old for me to turn you over my knee and tan your hide."

They've been hearing that threat almost as long as Dean can remember, but he can count on one hand the times Dad's raised a hand to him in anger, and still have fingers left over. And Sammy's never gotten spanked at all. Could be why she's so mouthy.

Her mouth still has that stubborn set, but her voice is subdued when she says, "Yes, sir. What happened last night is that my period arrived unexpectedly, four days early. That whole part where it was unexpected and early is why I didn't warn you."

"Sam." Dad's voice is a warning and a command.

"You ever hear of menstrual synchrony?" She pushes a hand through her hair. "Girls who spend a lot of time together start to cycle together. And I just started spending time with a whole new bunch of girls. Maybe if we didn't move so much..."

Dad looks down at his cup of coffee, and Dean knows he's not imagining the regret on his face. "Well, we do. Speaking of which, I hope you're packed and ready to hit the road again. We're heading home as soon as you are."

Sam nods and sips her coffee, and for once, doesn't say anything more.

In the car, Dean tells her where they're going, and she nods again. "I suppose Dad's on board with this? Anything to make hunting easier."

"Safer. He's trying to make it safer for you. For all of us."

"Whatever." She crosses her arms over her chest and shrinks down in the seat, mouth turned down in a frown.

"It'll make things easier for you, too," he says, trying to head off the inevitable bitch session she's working up to.

"Yeah, I'm sure that's his first priority."

"Sammy--"

"It's not that I don't think it's a good idea. I just--I don't know how you deal with him." She looks away, glares out the window at the snow-covered houses, snowmen starting to go grey and slushy in the front yards. Then she looks over at him, eyes bright and green, and he can see her brain working, knows she's come up with some angle he and Dad haven't thought of when she gives him the smile that never fails to make him worry, because it means she's got some crazy idea she's going to try to talk him into, and she'll probably succeed. Dammit.

"You know, every culture in the world has stories of sibling incest, and it's not always forbidden," she says. And there it is, that word he's spent months avoiding even thinking, lying between them like the body of that werewolf last night, vicious and bloody and raw. "In ancient Egypt--"

He pounds the heel of his hand on the steering wheel. "Does this look like ancient Egypt to you, Samantha? 'Cause I don't see any pyramids."

"No, but you're sure stuck in denial."

"That's not funny."

She gives him the puppy-dog eyes and the killer pout. "It's a little funny."

"It's really not." He grunts in frustration. "You're not the only one who can use the internet, you know, and that's all bullshit. The Egyptians didn't practice sibling marriage regularly. The Ptolemies did it sometimes, but they weren't even really Egyptian. They were, like, Greek, or something."

"Macedonian," she says, "but that's not the point. The point is, it's only a taboo because of genetics. And we're taking that out of the equation."

He doesn't answer--he doesn't have an answer, at least not one he can put into words.

He puts a tape on, and they listen to Zeppelin for the rest of the drive.

*

They stay in Ames until Sam's done with junior year; she has a track meet on her birthday, and Dad actually takes an afternoon off to drive two towns over to watch her run. She wins, of course, her own races and then as the anchor on the four hundred meter relay, glows with it afterward, when she catches Dean's eye and smiles before rushing off with the team for pizza instead of celebrating with them.

He and Dad go to the bar, and after a few beers, Dad gets a little sentimental. "She's growing up," he says. "Sometimes, she reminds me so much of your mother." He looks down at the ring on his finger, twists it slowly, something he did a lot when he'd first started hunting, and Dean recognizes it as a way of clinging to reality, of grounding himself after accepting all the weird shit they see, handling the hard things, like how Sam's growing up, growing away from them, and there's nothing they can do to stop her, hold her, keep her safe, no matter how hard they try.

Dean gets involved in a game of pool, sticks around for a couple hours after Dad leaves, and it's late when he stumbles home, a little drunker than he'd anticipated.

Sam is waiting in his bed, half-asleep and still excited about her victories. They whisper in the dark about it for a bit, in between kissing and petting, and then he's inside her, letting himself drown in her, taste and feel and scent, the hot, sweet flex of her cunt around him as she comes making him breathless and desperate for his own orgasm, her voice strange and high and keening before he remembers they're not alone in the house, and quiets her with a kiss.

In the morning, Dad pulls him aside, says, "Look, I've mostly turned a blind eye to what you do, as long as you're safe, and you treat those girls with respect, but you can't bring anyone home, not while Sammy's in the house. You know that."

Dean feels his stomach drop and his throat close up. He chokes on the mouthful of coffee he's trying to swallow, and Dad pounds him on the back a couple times, until he can speak again.

"Sorry, sir," he croaks. "I was a little lit last night. It won't happen again."

"Good."

He offers to drive Sam to school, and Dad smiles, gives him a nod of approval, but the tightness in his gut doesn't disappear, and as soon as they're in the car he says, "We have to be more careful, Sammy. Dad heard us last night."

She pales, because for all her defiance, she's still Daddy's girl in the end, and she knows how badly this whole thing could end for all of them if he finds out.

Dean takes a deep breath, blurts, "Maybe we should just stop."

"No." Her answer is swift and absolute. "We'll just be more careful, like you said. We can just...do it in the car, or something. It's not like we don't go driving every afternoon, anyway."

It's exciting at first, adds another layer of hotness to the whole thing, sneaking around, finding hidden places to park and fuck in the backseat, but it's so much less than she deserves, and also freaking annoying and uncomfortable after a few weeks.

By then, school is over and they're packing up again, heading out on the road, despite Sam's bitching; Dad's denied her some SAT-prep course she swears will raise her score by a hundred points, and she doesn't let it go for nearly a thousand miles.

Dean doesn't mind the steady stream of complaints so much, though, because he loves being on the road, on the hunt, and when they get back to the motel, he and Sam are alone in their own room, just hanging out, watching Nick at Nite, or HBO when it's available, and it's as close to happy as he can remember being in a long time.

*

They spend weeks rooting out old ghosts on the east coast: a murdered pair of honeymooners at a bed and breakfast in New Hampshire, a suicidal school teacher in Maine, the vengeful spirit of an altar boy in Boston. Sam can't stop talking about Harvard and MIT, and how many fucking colleges are there in this city anyway, he thinks, but she takes to the whole college scene like a duck to water.

Sam is usually disdainful of their fraudulent activities and refuses to dirty her hands with them, but she's so eager to get into the libraries that she actually helps him make false student IDs for each school. She's supposed to do the majority of the research herself, while Dean and their father interview the families of the current victims, but when Dean picks her up after a day at the library, she's learned almost nothing about the altar boy, his family, or anything else that's actually relevant to the case, even though he can see she's filled pages in the spiral-bound notebook she's been using as a journal.

The next day, Dad goes to scope out the cathedral and sends Dean with Sam to make sure she stays on mission, instead of getting sidetracked. They all avoid talking about the open houses she's missed, the possibility that next year she could actually be a student at one of these schools--Dad still thinks she'll do what he says, and Dean keeps hoping she'll decide to stay.

Dean doesn't love research the way Sam does. It's another tool they use to hunt, and he's good at it when he has to be, but he'd rather be back at the motel with Dad's laptop, instead of in the library, where people give him nasty looks when he talks a little too loud, and the concentrated silence makes his skin itch. It's like church, in a way, and he's never been fond of that, either.

Sam, on the other hand, disappears into the stacks like she's come home for the first time in her life.

He gets tired of reading microfiche about the altar boy's suicide and the sick fuck of a priest who probably drove him to it, and goes looking for Sam. She's sitting at a table with a group of students, book open and pressed to her chest, the way she gets when she's excited about something she's reading, and they're all talking about something that has absolutely nothing to do with the hunt. She looks beautiful, happy, like she belongs, and fear, sharp and sour in the back of is throat, makes him queasy.

"Sam," he barks, low but meant to carry, and she jerks upright, face going immediately blank, and even he can't read her when she wears that look. "Let's go."

She smiles at the group of kids and says, "Sorry," as she gathers her stuff up and joins him. "What's up with you? You're all cranky all of a sudden."

"This place. And this hunt. The whole thing is fucking creepy."

She nods and hums in agreement, and he knows she's not paying attention. He slides an arm around her waist, whirls her into the stacks, her back against the shelves, and kisses her, slow and soft. He loves that they can do this in public here, where no one knows them, that they can pretend what they do is normal, that it's as good as it feels. She sighs into his mouth, lays her palm flat against his chest, over his heart, which is pounding, each beat the sound of her name in his ears. He slides his lips up her jaw, nips at her ear, and she curls her fingers in the thin cotton of his t-shirt to pull him as close as she can, with her books cradled between them. She tips her head back so he can kiss and lick her neck; he slides his thigh between hers and presses close, as close as they can get in public, and it seems right somehow to be kissing her surrounded by books with titles like Madness and Civilization and The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language, while she clutches a history of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in her arms.

A cough from behind makes them separate, and Sam blushes and smiles, hand rising automatically to brush at her hair. Dean slaps her ass as they walk away--she squeaks, and he laughs, and it's enough to make the fear subside for the moment.

It flares up again in New York three weeks later. This time, she's twenty minutes late for their meet-up, and he's nearly ready to call the cops as he sits waiting in Washington Square Park.

He's left half a dozen angry messages in her voicemail ("I swear, I'm gonna LoJack your ass, Sammy."), trying hard to keep his voice from breaking and letting the fear ring through, and the feeling of helplessness is nearly overwhelming by the time she comes rushing up, eyes wide and excited, face flushed pink and damp in the summer heat. For no reason he can figure, she's dressed in a navy blue skirt and a white shirt (wilted now from the humidity, and unbuttoned far enough that he can see the tanned swell of her breasts), and he can't decide if he should shake her or kiss her, so he does a little bit of both, pulling her into a rough, one-armed hug and burying his face in her hair for a second, inhaling the scent of sweat and Flex shampoo.

He wonders if she's met a guy--wonders where she's found the time--but when she opens her bag to show him the folder full of photocopies and research on various ghosts that allegedly haunt Beth Israel Hospital, he catches a glimpse of the glossy brochures for NYU hiding amidst the paperbacks she carries everywhere, and a different kind of fear twists in his gut.

When he pulls out the guide to student life at New York University, she says, "Brittany Hall used to be a hotel, and there's rumors it's haunted."

"But it's not the job we're here for."

"No, but--" She bites her lip, gives him a pleading look. "My guidance counselor gave me the name of a friend of hers, who gave me a tour of the school, since Dad won't let me go to any open houses and--"

"Whatever," he says. He doesn't want to know, can't bear to think about it. He knows Dad'll never let her go--their fights on the subject have been epic--but he's not sure she won't just up and go anyway. "Don't be late again, or I'm gonna hunt your ass down and beat it, you hear me?"

"Is that supposed to scare me?" she says, laughing, and he wonders how she can be so blind.

"Yeah." He stands, wipes his sweaty palms on his jeans. "Let's go." He leads her to the subway--they'd left the car and Dad's truck with a friend up in Ossining--and God, he hates this fucking city, with its heat and humidity and distinctive stench, and all these fucking people living on top of each other, with no escape from the crowd except to sink deep into their own heads, a place Dean's never liked to spend too much time in, himself.

The V train comes after eight or ten sticky minutes underground, and they get on, pressed tight by the rush hour commuters; he leans back against the closed door, slips an arm around her waist and pulls her tight against him. She wriggles back, teasing, and he swallows hard, presses his hand against her belly, fingers slipping between the buttons of her blouse to trace tiny circles on warm skin. He grins when he hears her breath catch.

"The things I'm gonna do to you when we get back to the hotel," he whispers in her ear. Her face, already flushed from the heat, goes a darker pink, and her ass presses back against him in invitation. He slides his lips down her neck, ignoring the disapproving stares from their fellow straphangers. He doesn't care what other people think, never has, and here it matters even less--he kind of likes how easy it is to be with her like this in a place where no one knows them. Almost like the normal she wants so badly.

"Oh, yeah?" she answers, looking up at him in challenge, smile playing at the corners of her mouth, which means he has to kiss her.

"Mmm...Gonna bend you over the desk and fuck you 'til you scream," he murmurs against her temple as the train screams into Thirty-Fourth Street; he takes the hitch in her breathing as approval and anticipation. They tumble out of the train, carried along by the torrent of commuters rushing for the railroad downstairs.

They head up to the street, though, and she leads him by the hand, eager and laughing, over to the hotel. Dad is off buying hard-to-find supplies somewhere in Chinatown, and given past experiences, he's probably eating like a king at some hole-in-the-wall dive with the best dim sum in the city, and won't be back for hours. Which is good, because Dean can't keep his hands off Sam.

He doesn't know if it's fear or jealousy or some combination of the two, but as soon as the door is shut, he's pulling her shirt out of her skirt so he can slip his hands underneath to cup her breasts, feel her body respond to his touch beneath the silky, cool material of her bra. She drops her backpack and breaks the kiss only long enough to grab the hem of his t-shirt and yank it up, as eager and desperate as he is. Maybe she's afraid, too--of leaving, of not leaving, of things never again being as perfect as they are right now. He gets tangled in the shirt for a second; she giggles when he can't quite get free fast enough, but his grunt of frustration is changed into a moan by the feel of her lips skating over his chest and belly, trailing heat, igniting need.

Hands finally free, he grabs her by the hips and turns her around. "Lean on the desk," he says, voice low and rough, working his belt and zipper open.

She does what he says--God, he wishes she was that quick to take orders everywhere else--rests her weight on her elbows and turns to watch him over her shoulder, lips slightly parted and wet from his kisses, and he has to pause to breathe, almost choked by the need rising in him. He reaches up under her skirt to jerk her panties down, and she's wet, so wet for him.

He growls softly in approval, shoving his jeans down over his hips. He strokes his slightly trembling fingers over her slick cunt, nudging her thighs wide with his knee, his dick already in his other hand, aching to sink into her. She makes a soft, high-pitched choking sound, so he does it again. He squeezes his cock lightly, trying to keep control, and takes another deep breath; he licks her wetness from his fingers, then slides them over her lips, her tongue tickling his skin.

They don't usually fuck like this--he likes watching her face too much, likes seeing her open up and come undone under his touch--and even though she's been on the pill for months, and he hasn't been with anyone else since that night in the warehouse, he's used a condom every time (No sense in taking chances, Sammy), but right now, all he wants is to be inside her, to feel her and mark her and make sure she knows she's his, the way he's hers, has been hers forever.

He yanks her skirt up and pushes into her, hands on her hips holding her hard and steady, whispering, "So good, Sammy, God, so fucking good," the cotton of her shirt cool and dry against his skin in contrast to the wet heat of her cunt. She bucks back against him when he doesn't move fast enough.

"Dean, please," she begs, one of her hands coming off the desk to grab one of his and move it between her legs, rubbing frantically at her swollen clit. He tries to remember to breathe. She's as desperate as he is, urging him on, harder, Dean, please, her voice breaking on the words, the desk banging into the wall in time with his thrusts, echoing the staccato rhythm of his heart and her breath, the pulse of blood in their veins.

She clenches around him, shudders beneath him, gasping for air as she comes. Her low moan shatters him, and he loses himself inside her, hips pumping erratically and pleasure whiting out the world.

When he's done, he can barely stand, and she's trembling beneath him; he feels amazing, accomplished, like he could march into hell and take on the devil himself. He pulls back and she turns to face him, still shaky, blissful smile on her face.

He sinks to his knees in front of her, pushes her back against the desk, and leans in to lick at the sticky mess between her thighs, earning a gasp and the dull sting of her hands fisting in his hair and pulling tight, blunt nails scraping his scalp. He tastes himself and Sam and both of them mingled together, SamandDean, inseparable, bitter and secret, like the salt in the ocean, the salt in their blood, keeping out everything but themselves, binding them together against the world.

His fingers dig into the firm flesh of her thighs, and she thrusts against his mouth with a hoarse, wild cry that sends heat shivering through him, makes his dick ache for another round. He licks and sucks until she comes a second time, slower and deeper, his name a prayer on her lips.

She slides down into his lap gracelessly, loose-limbed and well fucked, and he lays her down on the tacky hotel carpeting and covers her body with his body, her mouth with his mouth in a soft, sloppy kiss. She holds him close, cradles him between her thighs, one warm, long-fingered hand coming down between them to curl around his cock and stroke until he falls apart again.

She keeps her arms wrapped around him, hides her face against his neck, and he can tell she's half-asleep already. He wants to stay this way forever, but he knows they can't, have to clean up, change, do laundry. Air the room out and hope Dad doesn't come back for a good long while.

He knows they can't stay like this, they won't stay like this, but for a few minutes, while she's clinging close instead of pushing away, he holds her, and wishes they could.

*

By the end of summer, they're settled again, in a cute little bungalow painted pink and orange, just outside of Tampa, where a series of mysterious deaths at MacDill Air Force Base have pinged Dad's radar.

The unspoken truce between Sam and Dad deteriorates when school starts, and it's not helped by the fact that she and Dean no longer have the safety of their own room, or a lot of time alone together. Neither of them deals well with frustration, and Sam is bitchier than usual when she doesn't fit in right away at her new school, and has to fight to be put into AP Physics.

Dean finds work as a barback--they're pretty flexible when he needs nights off to hunt, and it leaves his afternoons free to do research or whatever else Dad needs from him, which is mostly run interference with Sammy.

It seems like Dad and Sam have the same argument every day; the only thing that changes is when it happens. Today, it impinges on a very pleasant dream of Jessica Alba, and he's pissed he didn't get to the part where she was naked before Sam's voice wakes him up.

"It's my senior year. Can we please stay the whole time? I'd like to be able to make friends and graduate with them."

"You know I can't promise you anything, Sammy. We go where the hunt takes us."

"That is such bullshit, Dad!"

"Don't take that tone with me, young lady."

"That's bullshit, too. You shift the argument to my tone because you know I'm right and you just can't admit it."

Dean stumbles out of bed and into the kitchen, but he's not in time to defuse things.

"Samantha Winchester, I am still your father and you will speak to me with respect, do you hear me? No television and no telephone for a week, and you'll do extra PT in the morning with me before school."

"Fine! Do you think I care about any of that when you won't give me the money to send in my college applications?"

"For once in your life, Sam, think of other people," Dean says, and the words leave the sour taste of fear, of betrayal, in his mouth. "Think of all the people we help."

"I don't think it's selfish to want a safe, normal life," she snaps at him, then turns back to Dad. "And I don't see why helping other people is more important than helping your own kids. Don't you want us to have any kind of future?"

"It's because I want to keep you safe that we live like this," Dad yells. "You know what's out there as well as I do, missy. The safety 'normal' people have is an illusion, and you know that, too. I don't see how a smart girl like you can be so blind, so stupid. That's not how I raised you."

"No, you raised me to lie and steal and hunt werewolves. Sorry if I don't think it's a fair trade. The only thing I have--"

Dean interrupts before she can say something they'll all regret. "How can you sleep at night knowing someone else's family could end up like ours, and that we could have stopped it but didn't? None of us asked for this, Sammy, but someone's sure as hell got to step up and take it on."

She folds her arms across her chest, hurt flashing across her face at his treachery. "Maybe someone does," she says. "But it's not going to be me."

"As long as you live under my roof, you'll live by my rules, Samantha. And that includes hunting." Which is the worst thing Dad can say, and he knows it as well as Dean does, but he can't ever seem to stop himself, even though it backs Sam into a corner.

And she comes out swinging, claws unsheathed, knowing exactly how to draw blood in the way that hurts the most.

"Well, I won't be for much longer," she says. "I won't be here, and I won't need to follow your rules, ever again."

She grabs her backpack and stomps out of the house before either he or Dad can say anything else.

Dad sits down with a defeated sigh, and cradles his head in his hands.

"I don't know what we're gonna do with her," Dean says after a long silence.

"Keep her safe," Dad answers. "And worry about the rest later."

And they exchange sad, tense smiles that make Dean feel like he's putting a band-aid over a sucking chest wound.

*

When he gets home from work that night, he slips into her room.

"Sam, Sam, Sammy," he whispers, tapping the bottoms of her feet (he has a vague memory of Mom teaching him to wake her this way as a baby, small fingers tickling at even smaller toes, and getting a burbling laugh in response), and she rolls over, stretches lazily.

"Hey." She grins, reaches out to pull him down into bed with her, but he evades her hands.

"You gotta cut Dad a break, Sammy."

She sits up, mouth going hard and set. "Dean--"

"I'm serious, Sam." He rubs a hand over his eyes, tired from long nights of work and days of scanning newspapers and the internet for something to hunt while Dad concentrates on the Air Force thing. "We couldn't afford to send you to college, even if it was safe."

"There's such a thing as scholarships, Dean, and financial aid. Loans and--"

"And getting the government in our business? Is that what you want?"

"Maybe if you weren't goddamn criminals--"

He sucks in a breath, tries not to let the hurt show. "Sam--"

"I'm sorry, but it's true." She doesn't sound sorry at all.

He nods, has to unclench his fists and his jaw, but he manages to find an even tone when he speaks. "It is, but it's also what's kept a roof over your head and food in your stomach, and let me tell you something, sister, that shit don't come cheap. And I don't see you working an honest job to help out, either."

"That's not--"

"Don't say it's not fair, Sam. I swear to God, just do not say it."

She looks away, fingers picking at the blankets. "Dean--"

"Have a good night," he says, and walks away before either of them can say anything else.

*

He picks her up from school the next day, part of Dad's way of punishing her, and when she tries to cajole him into the backseat, sliding her hand up the inside of his thigh and sucking on his earlobe, he knows it's an apology of sorts, but he pulls away, tells her no.

She crosses her arms over her chest and sulks, but he doesn't give in. Not right away, anyway. They both know he can't hold a grudge to save his life, not against her, but he's got to make some small show of strength, or she'll just walk all over him, and he can't have that.

Again that night, he goes to her room when he gets home from work, his own version of an apology, slips into bed beside her and kisses her awake.

"Dean, what--"

"Shh," he whispers, putting a hand over his mouth. "We can't do this if Dad finds out. You have to be very quiet."

She mutters something that sounds like, "Hunting rabbits?" and he takes his hand away so he can laugh into her mouth.

"Think of it as a game," he whispers in her ear, hand back in place over her mouth, other hand lazily stroking over her skin, exposed by the tank top she's sleeping in. "I'm going to try to make you scream, but you win if you don't. And I know how much you like to win, Sammy." His hand dips beneath her top to brush the swell of her breasts, and then he slips down the bed to follow the same path with his lips.

Her breathing is harsh and ragged, and she makes some soft, choking sounds when he nips at the inside of her thigh, marking the smooth skin there, then soothing the sting away with his tongue. He brushes his fingers over the soaked cotton of her panties, enjoying the way she shivers at the touch, before he slips them down to her ankles and off. Her legs fall open and his fingers find the spot on the back of her knees where she's ticklish. She squirms and whimpers, but too soft for the sound to carry far.

He mouths her gently, taking his time, breathing in her scent, savoring the taste. She gives a low, impatient growl, and he laughs against her, soft puffs of his breath making her hips lift.

"Tease," she hisses at him, and he laughs again, hooking her legs over his shoulders, thumbs stroking the backs of her knees again briefly, then holding her open so he can suck her swollen clit into his mouth.

She arches up, letting loose a strangled moan, and all thought of Dad or getting caught is forgotten, because he wants to make her fall apart, wants to hear her call out his name when she comes. She's apparently forgotten, too, because she moans again, and it sounds terrifyingly loud in the silence.

They both freeze when they hear the creak of the bedroom door down the hall.

"Fuck." Dean jumps up off the bed, silently offers thanks to the universe that the house only has one floor and swings himself out the window, into the hydrangeas, just as Dad pushes into Sam's room without knocking, shotgun at the ready. Dean leans against the side of the house and peers in, holding his breath.

"Sammy? You okay?"

Sam's got the sheet pulled up to her neck and she's staring at Dad in horror. "I'm fine," she says breathlessly, covering her face with her hand as if she's embarrassed. "I was... I just... I had a nightmare." Her voice is a high squeak and the words tumble out too quickly, too obviously untrue, and Dean bites back a groan. She's usually a much better liar than this, even to Dad. Maybe especially to Dad. She sounds young and scared, and it's his fault, which is something he's always tried to avoid. He braces himself for whatever's coming next.

There's a long pause where it's obvious Dad is doing the math and coming up with an answer that is not something he needs a shotgun for, though now he probably wishes it were. Finally, he says, "Oh. Okay," gratefully grabbing onto the lie Sam's offering. Dean can't make out Dad's face in the darkness, but he sounds more freaked than Dean's ever heard him, except for the first time Sam got her period, and Dean has to bite back a bubble of hysterical laughter. Dad pats the dream-catcher hanging over her bed, avoids looking at her, and says, "Nothing's gonna getcha while I'm around, Sammy." He backs out of the room slowly, as if facing a dangerous, unknown creature instead of his seventeen-year-old daughter. "If you're all right, I'm just gonna go back to bed."

Sam nods and smiles tightly. "Okay. Sorry I woke you!"

Dean sags against the wall and breathes a sigh of relief. He crawls back into the room but shakes his head when Sam reaches out to him. This was too fucking close for him to feel anything but fear, sour as bile in the back of his throat. He presses a kiss to her forehead instead, and heads to his own bed. He can still taste her on his lips, salty and earthy and everything that's ever meant anything to him, and he knows it has to stop, because there's no way it can end well if they don't end it themselves, sooner rather than later.

Knowing doesn't make sleeping any easier, and he's still awake when the sky lightens with the gray of dawn.

He doesn't prepare any arguments, because he knows she can talk circles round him when she gets going, knows she doesn't even have to talk to get him to do what she wants in the end, and he knows she knows it, too. So, he makes the decision and swears he's going to stick to it, no matter what she says.

What she says is, "You can't break up with me, dumbass. I'm your sister." Her voice is low and furious, but he glances around anyway, hoping no one can hear her over the cheesy top forty crap blaring through the diner's speakers. She flings a French fry down into her plate in disgust.

"Yeah, and that's kinda the problem. Last night, if Dad had caught us--"

"So, you want to stop because you're afraid of Dad, or because you think it's wrong? Or is there some other reason you're not sharing?"

"Yes. All of that. It's wrong, and also, I would rather not have to face the business end of Dad's shotgun when he finds out, and if we keep going like this, he will find out."

"Dean--" Her eyes are wide and hurt, but he forces himself not to give in.

"Look, it's not like you weren't planning on ditching me for college anyway, right?" She scowls at him, but doesn't deny it. He ignores the sharp ache in his chest, knows it'll ease eventually. "We have to stop, Sammy. It's not right, and it's only going to hurt worse the longer we let it go on." She opens her mouth to argue, but he says, "Don't, Sam. Please. I've never asked you for anything, but I'm asking you for this."

She looks like she's going to cry, and he knows (and he's pretty sure she knows) that if she does, he'll give in. But she sucks in a shaky breath, takes a long sip of her soda, and says, "I can't believe you thought buying me dinner would make this okay."

He leans back, tries to act casual, grateful that her aversion to being stared at keeps her from making a scene in public. It's what he'd banked on when he offered to take her to dinner ("Ooh, like a date? I've never been on a date, Dean." That had made him feel even worse, but he'd gritted his teeth and said, "Not like a date, brat. Like dinner."). He takes a deep breath and says, "If you're not gonna eat those fries, Sammy, pass 'em over here."

She blinks, sniffs once, and shoves her plate across the table.

They don't talk on the ride home. She locks herself in her bedroom with her books and her homework, and he sits down at the table to clean his guns, and he wonders why doing the right thing makes him feel so lousy.

*

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Epilogue | Notes

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