fic: Double Vision (Supernatural; Dean, Sam, girl!Sam [implied Dean/girl!Sam])
Double Vision
Supernatural; Dean, Sam, girl!Sam (implied Dean/girl!Sam); pg; 3,266 words
"I've got this girl here. She says she's you."
Thanks to luzdeestrellas for the beta; this is all her fault.
~*~
Double Vision
The girl is circling the pool table like she owns it, and Dean watches her take a frat boy for a hundred bucks before he saunters over.
She grins at him, wide and bright. "What'd you bring me?"
He's a little startled at the familiarity of the greeting, but figures she noticed him checking her out--it's not like he was subtle about it--so he just grins back and hands her a pint of beer. "That guy didn't know what hit him," he says, letting his admiration show in his voice. If he hadn't been watching, he might have been taken in by her, too. She's got the same kind of eager puppy eyes as Sam, and the kind of open, pretty face that inspires trust.
"They never do," she answers, clinking their glasses together before taking a long drink. She bumps her shoulder against his, and when he smiles at her again, she cups his cheek and draws him in for a kiss. Her tongue is slick and hot in his mouth, and there's none of the awkwardness he usually associates with a first kiss--she kisses him like she's been doing it for years, which should set off all his alarms, but it's been a long time since he got laid and she's warm and soft in all the right places. She presses up against him like she wants to climb him, and she whimpers softly when he pulls back, her lips pink and shiny with saliva. "Come on, Dean," she says, slipping a hand into his back pocket. "Let's go."
He jerks away, grabs her wrist hard. "Who the hell are you?"
"Dean, you're hurting me," she says, trying to pull away. "What the hell is your problem?"
He doesn't loosen his hold. "I'm not joking, sweetheart. Who are you?"
She stops struggling, the expression on her face going from annoyed to concerned. "It's me," she says, like he should know her. "Sam."
*
She doesn't fuss, lets him shove her outside, gun nestled against the small of her back, still with that concerned look on her face, and she mutters, "Christo."
"Now you're just pissing me off," he says. He holds the gun on her with one hand and pulls his phone out with the other, dials Sam and waits impatiently until he picks up on the second ring. "Sammy?"
"This better be good," Sam says.
"Oh, you're gonna love it," he answers. "I got this girl here--"
He doesn't need to see Sam's grimace; he can hear it in his voice. "I don't need to hear about it."
"She says she's you."
There's a long silence, and then, "That's not funny."
"Good, 'cause I'm not joking."
The girl who claims to be Sam is standing there, arms folded across her chest, mouth curved in a frown that does, God help him, look familiar.
"Despite your many and varied jokes on the subject, I'm not a girl, Dean," Sam is saying in his ear.
"I know that, dumbass. We'll be right there." He hangs up and waves the gun at the girl. "Get in the car. We'll figure this out at the motel."
*
It's only a ten minute drive, and he spends most of it shooting glances at the girl. She sits in the passenger seat like she owns it, bare feet up on the dashboard, toenails painted pink, not concerned at all about the gun he's pointing at her.
"Hey," he says, reaching out to tap her ankle. "Get your feet off my car."
She drops her feet to the seat, knees drawn to her chest, and pouts at him. He tries really hard not to think about how she'd kissed him, how familiar it'd seemed to her. How he'd liked it.
"Dean--"
"No talking."
She huffs and turns away to look out the window until he pulls into the motel parking lot.
When they get out of the car, she's got something in her hand, and he doesn't even think, sticks the gun in her back and shoves her face down against the side of the car, twisting her arm around behind her.
She cries out in pain and opens her hand, dropping a motel room key.
To room twenty-two at the Skyline Motel.
"Son of a bitch."
Sam appears in the doorway of room twenty-two, gun in hand, no expression on his face, and Dean pushes the girl into the room and slams the door shut behind them.
She stumbles and regains her feet quickly. She looks up at Sam appraisingly. "So that's my natural hair color, huh?" she says. Her voice cracks and she clears her throat before continuing. "It's been a few years since I've seen it."
Sam's giving her the same look, freaked out but trying to hide it. "I've never thought of myself as a blond," he answers.
She nods, still staring at Sam. "You're, like, huge. Please tell me you kick his ass," she jerks her head in Dean's direction, "on a regular basis when you spar."
Sam grins for a second. "Something like that, yeah."
"God, that's so awesome."
"Okay, can we get back on point here?" Dean says, still pointing the gun at her. "Who the hell are you and what do you want?"
"I told you," she says, "I'm Sam Winchester. Except, apparently, you already have a Sam. Which is, you know, weird. Even for us."
She sinks down onto the nearest bed like she's exhausted. She takes a swig from Sam's flask of holy water without protest when he offers it, and doesn't react badly, so at least she's not a demon. "We--you and I, Dean, though apparently not you, exactly--came here to investigate an alleged devil's gate. We did some research today at the library, and after we checked in here, you dropped me off at the bar because we're a little low on cash, and you were going to meet some guy you know but won't introduce me to, to pick up a new set of social security numbers."
"Jackson," Sam mutters. "I wish you'd never introduced me to him."
"He's--" Dean can't think of a way to defend their contact, who provides them with stolen names and social security numbers, and who makes even Dean's skin crawl. "He does have...proclivities."
He leans against the desk and lowers the gun, though he doesn't put it away just yet. "You could have known all of that just by following us, by eavesdropping. It still doesn't prove you're anything but some crazy chick who--" He stops at the grin on her face.
"You want me to prove it?" She rattles off a list of names and dates--birthdays, significant jobs, people they've met, creatures they've hunted. It's pretty damn convincing, but still not anything anyone who was paying attention couldn't have figured out. She cocks her head and looks up at Sam, who's wearing a thoughtful expression. "Your senior year of high school, you liked a girl named Kathy. Tall, leggy redhead on the track team, right?"
"Yeah. I took her to the prom, actually. We--we had a good time. You--"
The girl--Dean doesn't want to think of her as Sam--scratches the back of her neck, and the gesture is so familiar it nearly hurts. "Not so much. I made a pass at her and she shot me down. Told the whole school I was a lesbian freak."
"But you--" Dean stops, also not wanting to think of the way she'd kissed him in the bar, like it was something they'd been doing for a long time. "You are a freak," he amends.
She laughs. "Yeah, that's pretty much what you said then, too."
"So, um," Sam scratches the back of his neck, and Dean thinks this whole thing is going to drive him crazy, because he's got his hands full with one Sam--there's no way he can handle watching out for two. "Jess--"
"Yeah," she says, blushing. "Um. The backseat of Amy's car, right? The first time?"
Sam laughs. "She was so--"
"Bendy." The girl laughs again. She has a nice laugh, and dimples. "For a tall girl, she was really flexible."
"Yeah."
And now they both look like they might cry, so Dean says, "Thanks for the trip down memory lane, sweetheart, but this still isn't anything some really detailed research couldn't have put together."
She gets up off the bed, and her grin now is sharp and predatory, more like the one she gave him at the bar. She walks to the desk, moves into the V of his legs, and leans in close. "Oh, I've done some serious research over the years," she whispers, one hand coming to rest high up on his thigh. "I know all sorts of things about you that most people don't, Dean. Possibly not even your brother, huh?" Her breath is warm and beer-scented on the side of his face, and her lips brush his earlobe, making him shiver. "If you know what I mean." He swallows hard at the innuendo, looks down to avoid Sam's puzzled gaze, focuses instead on her hand, which tightens on his thigh. "I get the feeling some things didn't happen exactly the same way there as they did here. Wherever here is." Then she pulls away. "Wait. Wait a second." She turns to face Sam, and he's got the same arrested look on his face.
"You think maybe it's not a devil's gate but a--"
"Portal?"
They both turn to Dean wearing identical looks of geeker joy.
"Okay, this is officially weirding me out now," he says, and Sam--both of them--laughs.
She sobers quickly, though, says, "Shit. Dean--my Dean--is probably freaking out right now. I promised I wouldn't disappear again--"
Dean swallows down the metallic taste of fear that rises in his throat at the memory of Sam's various disappearances.
"Then let's get to work," Sam says, pulling out his laptop.
*
She asks to use the shower, and Sam gives her a clean t-shirt and points her at the bathroom. The window's sealed shut, and too small for her to get through anyway, so Dean's okay with that. Except for the part where he thinks for a few seconds too long about how she's naked under the water in there, and even if she isn't actually Sam, isn't really his sister, he shouldn't be thinking that at all.
Meanwhile, Sam's got the laptop fired up and he's pulled out the notes they took earlier this afternoon, down at the cemetery.
"The runes," Dean says, leaning over his shoulder and pointing at the screen. "They were carved all around the door of that mausoleum. What was the name on it? Fester? Finster?"
"Finestra," the girl says, coming out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam, holding her clothes in one hand and toweling her hair dry with the other. Sam's t-shirt fits her like a dress, looks better on her than it ever did on him. He forces himself not to stare at the miles of legs still exposed. "We're so stupid." She reaches into the back pocket of her folded jeans, pulls out a pencil rubbing of the runes on lined notebook paper. "I must have activated them somehow. It's right there in the name."
"A window between dimensions?" Sam says.
"Alternate universes where some things are exactly the same," she looks over at Dean and then back at Sam again, "and some are totally different?"
"Dad did have some theories in his journal," Dean says. "We always thought they were a little too Star Trek to be real."
"Guess not," she answers, with a wry grin, and he can't help it, he's starting to think of her as Sam, too.
*
He showers next, tries not to think about how there was a naked girl in here fifteen minutes ago, a naked, willing girl with great legs and some talent with a pool cue. Normally he'd be all over that--he gets the impression that he has been all over that, which just makes it worse, makes it something he didn't even know he wanted until he knew he didn't--shouldn't--have it. If she's not delusional or evil, the whole thing is fucked up six ways from Sunday, and he doesn't want to think about that, either, how different he is where she's from, or, even worse, how he's exactly the same.
He rushes through the shower, doesn't let himself enjoy any part of it, and when he comes out, Sam and the girl--he settles on Samantha, because he can't keep calling her 'the girl'--are huddled together around the laptop, laughing. He doesn't even want to know.
He flops onto the bed and turns the television on; he falls asleep sometime during "The Colbert Report" and wakes up to hear a whispered argument over who gets the other bed, which Samantha solves by curling up in the armchair with one of the extra pillows and pretending to fall immediately asleep.
He wakes up a second time to hear her crying softly, and even though he's technically only known her for a few hours, it's a thousand times worse than listening to some random chick cry. He's still trying to decide whether it's better to pretend he can't hear her or to say something when she gets up and walks over to stand beside his bed.
"I know you're awake," she says, swiping her hands across her face.
He thinks about how freaked he'd be if Sam disappeared again, how he--or a reasonable facsimile of him, and not just a shapeshifting freak--probably is going crazy right now, looking for her. He hesitates for a moment, still not sure it's any kind of a good idea, then lifts the covers and gestures her to climb in. She fits against him perfectly, small enough for him to hold the way Sam hasn't been in years.
"Okay?" he says through a mouthful of damp hair.
She snuffles and sighs, relaxing in the circle of his arms. "Yeah," she answers. "Safer this way." And even though he's not sure it actually is, he curls up around her and falls back to sleep.
*
He wakes up to an armful of soft, warm girl nuzzling his neck.
"Hey," she says, smiling sleepily and kissing him before he can answer.
It's easy and warm and feels really good--he can't remember the last time he woke up with a girl, let alone one who seems to know exactly what he likes without being told--and he goes with it for a few minutes, losing himself in the heat of her mouth and the soft sounds she makes when he nips at her jaw or thumbs her nipples.
"Dean," she whispers.
Sam, he thinks. "Where's Sam?" It comes out hoarse, like he hasn't used his voice in a while.
"He went running. I think he was a little more freaked than he let on."
"But you're not anymore."
"You're here," she says, as if that settles the question, and in a weird way, it does.
"I'm not--" He stops.
"I know," she says. "I just--" She closes her eyes, swallows, then traces his eyebrows, down the slope of his nose, with her fingers. "Even with the small differences, you're still you, and I've always--" She shrugs a shoulder. "It's always been you."
"Look, I don't know what it is you do wherever it is you're from," though he's got a pretty good idea now, and his downstairs brain is totally on board, "but if you're really Sam, then I know we don't do this."
"Dean--"
"I know the way we grew up was not...normal or any of that shit you--he--always talked about, but it was not this jacked up, I swear. I wouldn't--"
She cups his cheek gently with her free hand. "It's not--You never hurt me, okay? It's weird, I know it's weird, but can you honestly tell me you never thought of it? You never wondered?"
He doesn't even hesitate. "I never did." And it's the God's honest truth--he never has. But looking at her, he wonders now, how things would have been different if Sam had been a girl, if they'd grown up rough and alone except for each other. If she'd wanted it, he knows he'd have given it to her; hell, he's ready to give it to her now, sick curl of need and want in his belly belying his words, and the only thing stopping him is the knowledge that his Sam would be disgusted and horrified.
"Oh." Her face crumples for a second, before she can hide it, and it hurts him more than he expected, right in the chest, the way it hurts him whenever Sam is hurting. But she recovers quickly, rolls away and stands up, hands rubbing at her thighs like she doesn't know what to do with them, and though she's not a small girl, she looks tiny and lost in Sam's oversized t-shirt, her hair sticking up like crazy from sleeping on it wet. "Well. Okay then. I'll just--" She grabs her clothes from where she tossed them on the desk last night and goes into the bathroom. He hears the lock click into place. He scrubs a hand over his face and wonders why he feels like he just kicked a puppy.
*
The drive back to the cemetery is quiet. She sits in the backseat, legs drawn up, chin resting on her bent knees. In the sunlight, he can actually see the resemblance between them--tilted hazel eyes and wide, mobile mouths, tufts of hair curling uncontrollably around their ears--and for some reason he doesn't want to examine, it makes him feel even worse.
Sam tries to get the conversation going again, but she answers with monosyllables, and while part of Dean is amused at seeing Sam on the other end of his usual silent treatment, most of him is really glad this girl version of his brother will be gone in a few minutes, and he can make himself forget the things she whispered to him in the easy warmth of his bed.
When they get to the Finestra mausoleum, she gives Sam a hug and a sad half-smile. "You keep him in line, all right?" she says, tilting her head at Dean.
"You, too," Sam answers with a laugh.
She turns to Dean and shoves her hands into her pockets. "Take care of yourself, Dean."
"Yeah," he answers. He steps forward, gives her an awkward hug, and she melts against him, tucks her head right under his chin and hugs back fiercely.
"Anything you wanna say to your alter-ego?" she asks when she finally lets go.
Half a dozen things flit through his mind, most of them full of anger and accusation. He shakes his head. "Tell him to keep looking out for you, all right? Or I'll show up and kick his ass."
Her laugh ends on a little sniff, and then she's at the door of the mausoleum, touching the runes in a specific order she and Sam have worked out. The air shimmers and there's a sound like a huge bell being rung, and then she's gone as if she'd never been there at all.
"Yeah," Dean says, turning back to the car before Sam can say anything stupid. He wants this filed under things we do not talk about, and hopes Sam gets the message. "It's all a little too Star Trek for me."
end
~*~
August 15, 2007
~*~
Feedback would be fabulous.
[eta] and the companion piece, Like a Nursery Rhyme in Braille. [/eta]
~*~
Supernatural; Dean, Sam, girl!Sam (implied Dean/girl!Sam); pg; 3,266 words
"I've got this girl here. She says she's you."
Thanks to luzdeestrellas for the beta; this is all her fault.
~*~
Double Vision
The girl is circling the pool table like she owns it, and Dean watches her take a frat boy for a hundred bucks before he saunters over.
She grins at him, wide and bright. "What'd you bring me?"
He's a little startled at the familiarity of the greeting, but figures she noticed him checking her out--it's not like he was subtle about it--so he just grins back and hands her a pint of beer. "That guy didn't know what hit him," he says, letting his admiration show in his voice. If he hadn't been watching, he might have been taken in by her, too. She's got the same kind of eager puppy eyes as Sam, and the kind of open, pretty face that inspires trust.
"They never do," she answers, clinking their glasses together before taking a long drink. She bumps her shoulder against his, and when he smiles at her again, she cups his cheek and draws him in for a kiss. Her tongue is slick and hot in his mouth, and there's none of the awkwardness he usually associates with a first kiss--she kisses him like she's been doing it for years, which should set off all his alarms, but it's been a long time since he got laid and she's warm and soft in all the right places. She presses up against him like she wants to climb him, and she whimpers softly when he pulls back, her lips pink and shiny with saliva. "Come on, Dean," she says, slipping a hand into his back pocket. "Let's go."
He jerks away, grabs her wrist hard. "Who the hell are you?"
"Dean, you're hurting me," she says, trying to pull away. "What the hell is your problem?"
He doesn't loosen his hold. "I'm not joking, sweetheart. Who are you?"
She stops struggling, the expression on her face going from annoyed to concerned. "It's me," she says, like he should know her. "Sam."
*
She doesn't fuss, lets him shove her outside, gun nestled against the small of her back, still with that concerned look on her face, and she mutters, "Christo."
"Now you're just pissing me off," he says. He holds the gun on her with one hand and pulls his phone out with the other, dials Sam and waits impatiently until he picks up on the second ring. "Sammy?"
"This better be good," Sam says.
"Oh, you're gonna love it," he answers. "I got this girl here--"
He doesn't need to see Sam's grimace; he can hear it in his voice. "I don't need to hear about it."
"She says she's you."
There's a long silence, and then, "That's not funny."
"Good, 'cause I'm not joking."
The girl who claims to be Sam is standing there, arms folded across her chest, mouth curved in a frown that does, God help him, look familiar.
"Despite your many and varied jokes on the subject, I'm not a girl, Dean," Sam is saying in his ear.
"I know that, dumbass. We'll be right there." He hangs up and waves the gun at the girl. "Get in the car. We'll figure this out at the motel."
*
It's only a ten minute drive, and he spends most of it shooting glances at the girl. She sits in the passenger seat like she owns it, bare feet up on the dashboard, toenails painted pink, not concerned at all about the gun he's pointing at her.
"Hey," he says, reaching out to tap her ankle. "Get your feet off my car."
She drops her feet to the seat, knees drawn to her chest, and pouts at him. He tries really hard not to think about how she'd kissed him, how familiar it'd seemed to her. How he'd liked it.
"Dean--"
"No talking."
She huffs and turns away to look out the window until he pulls into the motel parking lot.
When they get out of the car, she's got something in her hand, and he doesn't even think, sticks the gun in her back and shoves her face down against the side of the car, twisting her arm around behind her.
She cries out in pain and opens her hand, dropping a motel room key.
To room twenty-two at the Skyline Motel.
"Son of a bitch."
Sam appears in the doorway of room twenty-two, gun in hand, no expression on his face, and Dean pushes the girl into the room and slams the door shut behind them.
She stumbles and regains her feet quickly. She looks up at Sam appraisingly. "So that's my natural hair color, huh?" she says. Her voice cracks and she clears her throat before continuing. "It's been a few years since I've seen it."
Sam's giving her the same look, freaked out but trying to hide it. "I've never thought of myself as a blond," he answers.
She nods, still staring at Sam. "You're, like, huge. Please tell me you kick his ass," she jerks her head in Dean's direction, "on a regular basis when you spar."
Sam grins for a second. "Something like that, yeah."
"God, that's so awesome."
"Okay, can we get back on point here?" Dean says, still pointing the gun at her. "Who the hell are you and what do you want?"
"I told you," she says, "I'm Sam Winchester. Except, apparently, you already have a Sam. Which is, you know, weird. Even for us."
She sinks down onto the nearest bed like she's exhausted. She takes a swig from Sam's flask of holy water without protest when he offers it, and doesn't react badly, so at least she's not a demon. "We--you and I, Dean, though apparently not you, exactly--came here to investigate an alleged devil's gate. We did some research today at the library, and after we checked in here, you dropped me off at the bar because we're a little low on cash, and you were going to meet some guy you know but won't introduce me to, to pick up a new set of social security numbers."
"Jackson," Sam mutters. "I wish you'd never introduced me to him."
"He's--" Dean can't think of a way to defend their contact, who provides them with stolen names and social security numbers, and who makes even Dean's skin crawl. "He does have...proclivities."
He leans against the desk and lowers the gun, though he doesn't put it away just yet. "You could have known all of that just by following us, by eavesdropping. It still doesn't prove you're anything but some crazy chick who--" He stops at the grin on her face.
"You want me to prove it?" She rattles off a list of names and dates--birthdays, significant jobs, people they've met, creatures they've hunted. It's pretty damn convincing, but still not anything anyone who was paying attention couldn't have figured out. She cocks her head and looks up at Sam, who's wearing a thoughtful expression. "Your senior year of high school, you liked a girl named Kathy. Tall, leggy redhead on the track team, right?"
"Yeah. I took her to the prom, actually. We--we had a good time. You--"
The girl--Dean doesn't want to think of her as Sam--scratches the back of her neck, and the gesture is so familiar it nearly hurts. "Not so much. I made a pass at her and she shot me down. Told the whole school I was a lesbian freak."
"But you--" Dean stops, also not wanting to think of the way she'd kissed him in the bar, like it was something they'd been doing for a long time. "You are a freak," he amends.
She laughs. "Yeah, that's pretty much what you said then, too."
"So, um," Sam scratches the back of his neck, and Dean thinks this whole thing is going to drive him crazy, because he's got his hands full with one Sam--there's no way he can handle watching out for two. "Jess--"
"Yeah," she says, blushing. "Um. The backseat of Amy's car, right? The first time?"
Sam laughs. "She was so--"
"Bendy." The girl laughs again. She has a nice laugh, and dimples. "For a tall girl, she was really flexible."
"Yeah."
And now they both look like they might cry, so Dean says, "Thanks for the trip down memory lane, sweetheart, but this still isn't anything some really detailed research couldn't have put together."
She gets up off the bed, and her grin now is sharp and predatory, more like the one she gave him at the bar. She walks to the desk, moves into the V of his legs, and leans in close. "Oh, I've done some serious research over the years," she whispers, one hand coming to rest high up on his thigh. "I know all sorts of things about you that most people don't, Dean. Possibly not even your brother, huh?" Her breath is warm and beer-scented on the side of his face, and her lips brush his earlobe, making him shiver. "If you know what I mean." He swallows hard at the innuendo, looks down to avoid Sam's puzzled gaze, focuses instead on her hand, which tightens on his thigh. "I get the feeling some things didn't happen exactly the same way there as they did here. Wherever here is." Then she pulls away. "Wait. Wait a second." She turns to face Sam, and he's got the same arrested look on his face.
"You think maybe it's not a devil's gate but a--"
"Portal?"
They both turn to Dean wearing identical looks of geeker joy.
"Okay, this is officially weirding me out now," he says, and Sam--both of them--laughs.
She sobers quickly, though, says, "Shit. Dean--my Dean--is probably freaking out right now. I promised I wouldn't disappear again--"
Dean swallows down the metallic taste of fear that rises in his throat at the memory of Sam's various disappearances.
"Then let's get to work," Sam says, pulling out his laptop.
*
She asks to use the shower, and Sam gives her a clean t-shirt and points her at the bathroom. The window's sealed shut, and too small for her to get through anyway, so Dean's okay with that. Except for the part where he thinks for a few seconds too long about how she's naked under the water in there, and even if she isn't actually Sam, isn't really his sister, he shouldn't be thinking that at all.
Meanwhile, Sam's got the laptop fired up and he's pulled out the notes they took earlier this afternoon, down at the cemetery.
"The runes," Dean says, leaning over his shoulder and pointing at the screen. "They were carved all around the door of that mausoleum. What was the name on it? Fester? Finster?"
"Finestra," the girl says, coming out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam, holding her clothes in one hand and toweling her hair dry with the other. Sam's t-shirt fits her like a dress, looks better on her than it ever did on him. He forces himself not to stare at the miles of legs still exposed. "We're so stupid." She reaches into the back pocket of her folded jeans, pulls out a pencil rubbing of the runes on lined notebook paper. "I must have activated them somehow. It's right there in the name."
"A window between dimensions?" Sam says.
"Alternate universes where some things are exactly the same," she looks over at Dean and then back at Sam again, "and some are totally different?"
"Dad did have some theories in his journal," Dean says. "We always thought they were a little too Star Trek to be real."
"Guess not," she answers, with a wry grin, and he can't help it, he's starting to think of her as Sam, too.
*
He showers next, tries not to think about how there was a naked girl in here fifteen minutes ago, a naked, willing girl with great legs and some talent with a pool cue. Normally he'd be all over that--he gets the impression that he has been all over that, which just makes it worse, makes it something he didn't even know he wanted until he knew he didn't--shouldn't--have it. If she's not delusional or evil, the whole thing is fucked up six ways from Sunday, and he doesn't want to think about that, either, how different he is where she's from, or, even worse, how he's exactly the same.
He rushes through the shower, doesn't let himself enjoy any part of it, and when he comes out, Sam and the girl--he settles on Samantha, because he can't keep calling her 'the girl'--are huddled together around the laptop, laughing. He doesn't even want to know.
He flops onto the bed and turns the television on; he falls asleep sometime during "The Colbert Report" and wakes up to hear a whispered argument over who gets the other bed, which Samantha solves by curling up in the armchair with one of the extra pillows and pretending to fall immediately asleep.
He wakes up a second time to hear her crying softly, and even though he's technically only known her for a few hours, it's a thousand times worse than listening to some random chick cry. He's still trying to decide whether it's better to pretend he can't hear her or to say something when she gets up and walks over to stand beside his bed.
"I know you're awake," she says, swiping her hands across her face.
He thinks about how freaked he'd be if Sam disappeared again, how he--or a reasonable facsimile of him, and not just a shapeshifting freak--probably is going crazy right now, looking for her. He hesitates for a moment, still not sure it's any kind of a good idea, then lifts the covers and gestures her to climb in. She fits against him perfectly, small enough for him to hold the way Sam hasn't been in years.
"Okay?" he says through a mouthful of damp hair.
She snuffles and sighs, relaxing in the circle of his arms. "Yeah," she answers. "Safer this way." And even though he's not sure it actually is, he curls up around her and falls back to sleep.
*
He wakes up to an armful of soft, warm girl nuzzling his neck.
"Hey," she says, smiling sleepily and kissing him before he can answer.
It's easy and warm and feels really good--he can't remember the last time he woke up with a girl, let alone one who seems to know exactly what he likes without being told--and he goes with it for a few minutes, losing himself in the heat of her mouth and the soft sounds she makes when he nips at her jaw or thumbs her nipples.
"Dean," she whispers.
Sam, he thinks. "Where's Sam?" It comes out hoarse, like he hasn't used his voice in a while.
"He went running. I think he was a little more freaked than he let on."
"But you're not anymore."
"You're here," she says, as if that settles the question, and in a weird way, it does.
"I'm not--" He stops.
"I know," she says. "I just--" She closes her eyes, swallows, then traces his eyebrows, down the slope of his nose, with her fingers. "Even with the small differences, you're still you, and I've always--" She shrugs a shoulder. "It's always been you."
"Look, I don't know what it is you do wherever it is you're from," though he's got a pretty good idea now, and his downstairs brain is totally on board, "but if you're really Sam, then I know we don't do this."
"Dean--"
"I know the way we grew up was not...normal or any of that shit you--he--always talked about, but it was not this jacked up, I swear. I wouldn't--"
She cups his cheek gently with her free hand. "It's not--You never hurt me, okay? It's weird, I know it's weird, but can you honestly tell me you never thought of it? You never wondered?"
He doesn't even hesitate. "I never did." And it's the God's honest truth--he never has. But looking at her, he wonders now, how things would have been different if Sam had been a girl, if they'd grown up rough and alone except for each other. If she'd wanted it, he knows he'd have given it to her; hell, he's ready to give it to her now, sick curl of need and want in his belly belying his words, and the only thing stopping him is the knowledge that his Sam would be disgusted and horrified.
"Oh." Her face crumples for a second, before she can hide it, and it hurts him more than he expected, right in the chest, the way it hurts him whenever Sam is hurting. But she recovers quickly, rolls away and stands up, hands rubbing at her thighs like she doesn't know what to do with them, and though she's not a small girl, she looks tiny and lost in Sam's oversized t-shirt, her hair sticking up like crazy from sleeping on it wet. "Well. Okay then. I'll just--" She grabs her clothes from where she tossed them on the desk last night and goes into the bathroom. He hears the lock click into place. He scrubs a hand over his face and wonders why he feels like he just kicked a puppy.
*
The drive back to the cemetery is quiet. She sits in the backseat, legs drawn up, chin resting on her bent knees. In the sunlight, he can actually see the resemblance between them--tilted hazel eyes and wide, mobile mouths, tufts of hair curling uncontrollably around their ears--and for some reason he doesn't want to examine, it makes him feel even worse.
Sam tries to get the conversation going again, but she answers with monosyllables, and while part of Dean is amused at seeing Sam on the other end of his usual silent treatment, most of him is really glad this girl version of his brother will be gone in a few minutes, and he can make himself forget the things she whispered to him in the easy warmth of his bed.
When they get to the Finestra mausoleum, she gives Sam a hug and a sad half-smile. "You keep him in line, all right?" she says, tilting her head at Dean.
"You, too," Sam answers with a laugh.
She turns to Dean and shoves her hands into her pockets. "Take care of yourself, Dean."
"Yeah," he answers. He steps forward, gives her an awkward hug, and she melts against him, tucks her head right under his chin and hugs back fiercely.
"Anything you wanna say to your alter-ego?" she asks when she finally lets go.
Half a dozen things flit through his mind, most of them full of anger and accusation. He shakes his head. "Tell him to keep looking out for you, all right? Or I'll show up and kick his ass."
Her laugh ends on a little sniff, and then she's at the door of the mausoleum, touching the runes in a specific order she and Sam have worked out. The air shimmers and there's a sound like a huge bell being rung, and then she's gone as if she'd never been there at all.
"Yeah," Dean says, turning back to the car before Sam can say anything stupid. He wants this filed under things we do not talk about, and hopes Sam gets the message. "It's all a little too Star Trek for me."
end
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August 15, 2007
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Feedback would be fabulous.
[eta] and the companion piece, Like a Nursery Rhyme in Braille. [/eta]
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