SPN Fic -- This is How it Works -- Sam/Jess, some Sam/Dean -- NC-17
Title: This is How it Works
Pairing: Sam/Jess, slight Sam/Dean
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: 12,788
Summary: AU, another way Dean could have shown up at Sam and Jess' apartment
A/N: OK, so I'm not exactly sure how to categorize this since it's a Sam/Jess story on the surface but, really? I'm totally an "all roads lead to Sam&Dean" girl. Also, I may or may not have written this entire story just so I had a good excuse to use this icon. *is a dork*
This is how it works
You're young until you're not
You love until you don't
You try until you can't
You laugh until you cry
You cry until you laugh
And everyone must breathe
Until their dying breath
--On the Radio, Regina Spektor
"That bitch better not be in my parking spot," Jess says as she takes the corner slow.
Sam laughs softly. "How'd your test go?"
"I aced it."
"Told you."
"I'm stopping at the store and when I get home, I'd better have a parking spot. Look out the window. Is she in my spot?"
Sam laughs again. "What are you going to get for dinner?"
"Are you looking out the window?" Jess asks, pulling into the supermarket parking lot.
"I'm looking, and Mrs. Gibson is not in your parking spot."
"Better not be," says Jess. "Because I told her the next time she parks diagonally into my spot I'm getting her ass towed, which I will. What do you want for dinner?" Sam doesn't says anything so Jess checks her reception, then says, "Sam?"
"I have to go," Sam says, and the line goes dead. Jess frowns as she flips her phone closed. She thinks Mrs. Gibson probably just pulled into her spot and she hopes Sam yells at her. Sam doesn't like to yell at anybody, but Jess will get the crazy bitch towed. She pays for that parking spot and she's sick and tired of getting home to see Mrs. Gibson's stupid minivan parked across two spots like she's got to protect the stupid thing from dings, like it's a Porshe or a BMW instead of a 1989 Ford Aerostar.
When Jess gets home from the store, Mrs. Gibson's stupid minivian is not in her spot, thank God. She carries the groceries up and dumps them in the kitchen. She's about to start cooking when she feels strange--she can't put her finger on it, but something's not right. There's a dark handkerchief on the coffee table that Jess doesn't recognize. She leans to pick it up, then stops when she sees that the handkerchief itself is white, it's just blood that makes it look dark. She rushes through the apartment, her heart in her throat.
Sam's in the bathroom. He's not hurt and he's not alone. There's another man with him, sitting on the counter with his t-shirt sleeve rolled up, hissing as Sam cleans away dark crusted blood from a gash on his right bicep.
"Jesus Christ," Sam says as he wets another washcloth and wipes away more dried blood. "How long ago did you get this?"
"Few days," the man says. He's handsome, despite the fact that his face is pale and the bags under his eyes are dark. "This your girlfriend?"
Sam turns his head and sees Jess standing in the doorway. There's a flash of something in his eyes, so fast she can't read it. "You get two guesses who this idiot is," he says to Jess, "and the first one doesn't count."
"Hey!" says the man. He hisses again as Sam pokes and pulls at the gash.
"Pussy," says Sam.
Jess says, "You must be Dean."
"You are way too hot to be dating my little brother," Dean says. He gives her a flirtatious grin that turns almost immediately into a wince as Sam rubs a cotton pad soaked with peroxide over the gash. "Christ, Sammy, give a guy some warning!" he snaps.
"Pussy," Sam says again. He looks over his shoulder at Jess. "Could you get the vodka out of the freezer?" he asks.
"Now that's what I'm talking about," says Dean.
Jess doesn't know what to do, so she gets the vodka. When she comes back, Sam is threading a very thin, curved needle with what looks like black fishing line. She knows he likes to mend his clothes if they get a tear, but she doesn't understand why he'd be mending anything when his brother has a gash on his arm that obviously needs medical attention. When Sam pours the vodka over the needle and down the thread, Jess thinks she might be sick.
"Son of a--" is all Dean says as Sam starts to stitch the wound. He says it deep in his throat, his teeth gritted.
Sam says, "Stop moving."
"I'm not--ow--fuck," says Dean.
Sam works quickly, his long fingers graceful as they make neat sutures in Dean's skin. Jess can't look away. "When's the last time you got a tetanus shot?" Sam asks.
"I don't know. Four months ago, maybe." Dean takes a deep, shaky breath and lets it out slow. "You wanna hand that vodka over?"
"The last thing you need is alcohol."
"I think I deserve a couple shots, Sammy."
"My name is Sam. And you've lost a lot of blood. You need water and rest." Sam ties a precise knot, then cuts the thread. He douses another cotton pad with peroxide, pats it over the sutured gash.
Dean looks down at his arm and nods. "You still got the touch," he says.
"You need to get that looked at by a real doctor," says Sam.
Dean shrugs and reaches for the vodka, which Sam snatches out of his reach and hands back to Jess. Dean frowns, then turns his stunning smile on Jess again. "Did I mention that you are way out of Sammy's league?" he asks.
Jess says, "I'll make up the couch." She returns the vodka to the freezer then goes to the linen closet. She takes out blankets and pillows, carries them to the couch. The bloody handkerchief is still on the coffee table. After a few minutes, she hears the water in the shower start to run. Sam takes the pillow from her hands.
"I didn't know he was coming," Sam says as he lays the pillow against the couch's armrest.
Jess nods. "He needs a doctor."
"I know. He won't go."
"I didn't...how did you know how to do that?"
"My dad. And, you know, Dean's always gotten in a lot of scrapes, so I had plenty of practice." He runs one hand over his hair, messing it up. "Look, it's just one night, and if you want I can--"
"I'm glad he's here," Jess says.
Sam looks surprised. "You are?"
"Yes." She bumps his hip with her own. "Maybe now I'll finally get to hear stories about your childhood that don't end in, '...never mind, it's complicated.'"
Sam sighs. "My childhood was complicated."
"So I've been told." She strokes his cheek, reaches up to smooth his hair. "It's just nice to finally meet your family. After all, you've met mine."
Sam nods. "I still think your dad wants to kill me."
"My dad loves you. It's Justin and Jason you should be worried about."
Sam laughs softly as he pulls her into his arms. "Your brothers don't scare me."
"They've scared every other guy I've dated."
"I'm not any other guy," Sam says. He kisses her gently, then with more heat. He runs his hands down her back, cups her ass and pulls her even closer to him.
"Sam," Jess says, feeling a blush warm her cheeks. "Your brother's here."
"You don't know Dean," Sam whispers, kissing her cheek, down to that spot behind her jaw that makes her weak. "He'll be in the shower for half an hour at least. We can be quick."
Jess laughs and pushes him away, swats his arm. "You're like a big, horny puppy," she says.
He loops one long arm around her waist and reels her back in. "You've never complained before."
She lays her head on his shoulder, lets herself luxuriate in the feel of his arms around her for a moment. Then she pulls away. "I'm going to start dinner," she says.
Sam sighs, but after a moment he follows her into the kitchen to help. He cuts the leeks and chops the tarragon while Jess gets the pan ready. They had fallen into an easy pattern once they started living together--Jess did the actual cooking while Sam did the prep work and cleanup.
He hadn't been kidding about the time Dean would spend in the shower. The table's been set and dinner's nearly finished by the time Dean peeks his head out of the bathroom door and, in a cloud of steam, says, "Hey, Sammy, do you have any--"
"Yeah," Sam says. "Just a second." He heads into the bedroom for a moment, then comes out with a pile of clean clothes that he passes to Dean through the barely cracked bathroom door. Jess loves that Dean didn't even have to finish his sentence, that Sam already knew exactly what he wanted. She wishes sometimes that she had sisters she could be like that with instead of two older, rough and tumble brothers who think of her as more of a doll than a person.
"The man loves his hot showers," Sam says with a grin as he comes back into the kitchen. He rinses the pan as Jess carries the plates to the table, and soon after, Dean comes out of the bathroom in a pair of Sam's sweatpants and a long-sleeved t-shirt.
"Gangly bastard," Dean mutters as he stops to roll up the cuffs on the sweatpants.
Sam just laughs and says, "Sit down and eat. When's the last time you ate something that didn't come from a Quick Mart?"
Dean hums and shrugs. "Three, four years ago? Where do you want me to sit?"
"Right there's fine," says Jess, indicating the closest spot.
They all sit down and Dean rubs his hands together, then looks at his plate. "This looks, um...interesting."
"It's braised salmon with leeks," Sam says.
Dean nods, looking unconvinced that it's edible.
"Does he not like salmon?" Jess asks in a whisper.
"He likes salmon," Sam tells her.
"He's sitting right here," says Dean.
"Eat," says Sam. "There's peach crisp for dessert."
"Homemade?" asks Dean hopefully.
Sam nods and Dean takes up a forkful of salmon. He puts it in his mouth and waits a moment and Jess realizes it's the exact same thing Sam did the first time she made salmon for him. She realizes that before her, neither one of them had ever had it.
"It's good," says Dean, like he's surprised. Sam doesn't say anything, but Jess can see a tiny smirk playing around the corners of his mouth and crinkling his eyes.
Dean eats two helpings of salmon and half the peach crisp. Jess can see Sam watching his brother out of the corner of his eye, can tell that he's pleased by how much Dean is eating.
After dinner, Dean stretches out on the couch and flips through their digital cable for a good ten minutes before he settles on the Guns & Ammo channel. Jess isn't really surprised, since sometimes she catches Sam watching it when he thinks she's asleep. She's amused by boys and their obsession with guns, by the way they don't even see that they're such an obvious phallic symbol.
She sits in one of the armchairs and props her bare feet up on the coffee table, resting her Molecular Biomechanics textbook open across her thighs. She's read maybe two pages by the time Sam's finished with the dishes and she catches his movement out of the corner of her eye. She glances up with a grin, expecting to see him trying to sneak towards her. Instead he squats down next to the couch and eases the remote from Dean's hand, presses gently on Dean's shoulder until he's lying down with his head on the pillow.
"'m not sleeping," Dean grumbles, but his eyes don't open. Sam pulls the covers up and around him, tucks them in, brushes a piece of fuzz off Dean's temple. It's so sweet it makes Jess ache a little inside and she thinks of the future, when Sam will tuck their children into bed and stroke their hair to help them sleep.
She and Sam head to bed soon after, since they've both got early classes. Jess wakes up around two and Sam is spooned up behind her. She can feel his erection rubbing against her ass. She turns so that she's facing him and kisses him gently. She hooks one leg over his and Sam makes a soft noise in his throat as he wraps his arms around her, rocks against her slowly.
Jess slides her hand down beneath his sweatpants to caress his ass. She slips her fingers into his crack, rubs against his hole. She loves the soft, needy sounds he makes whenever she does that. "Good?" she whispers.
Sam nods and presses his face into her hair. Sam has trouble sleeping and they have a lot of slow, lazy sex in the middle of the night. Jess had always preferred morning sex before Sam.
She's just wearing a t-shirt, which Sam pushes up as she helps him slip his sweatpants down. He enters her slowly and it's always an ache at first that's so delicious she can't help but moan.
Sam rocks into her over and over again and Jess kisses him sweetly, rubs his hole, uses her other hand to stroke his hair. He waits until she shudders with climax before finally letting himself go, muffling his groans against her hair.
She smiles and stretches and closes her eyes, listens to the sound of Sam's labored breaths. His breaths slow down eventually, but not to the slowness of sleep. Jess opens her eyes and peers over at him. He's staring up at the ceiling, his lips pursed in a tight line.
"Still can't sleep?" she asks, rubbing his chest.
"Yeah. I don't...did Dean seem off to you?"
"It's not like I have anything to compare it to," she says. "This is the first time we've met."
"Yeah, I know, just...I don't know. I think something's wrong."
"Something besides the eight inch gash in his arm?"
"Yeah."
"He's sick," she tells him. "He's so pale."
Sam nods. "He lost a lot of blood. That cut looked at least three days old."
"You sure he won't see a doctor?"
"Pretty sure, yeah. I'll try to talk him into it tomorrow, but..."
"But he won't go."
Sam nods and Jess sighs and closes her eyes.
The next day is Thursday. Jess has class all morning and work all afternoon. She gets home at six and collapses on the couch. Sam sits on the coffee table, pulls her feet into his lap, takes off her shoes and socks, rubs his thumbs hard into the arch of her foot. Jess closes her eyes and sighs, hums happily when Sam pulls on each of her toes, making the knuckles crack.
"Is this some kinky foot sex thing?" Dean asks from his spot on the couch next to Jess. "Should I leave you two alone?"
Jess laughs and Sam says, "You're a pervert." Dean doesn't argue.
Instead, Dean leans in towards Jess and sniffs, tentatively at first, then he breathes deep.
Jess looks over at him, quirks an eyebrow.
"You smell like coffee," he says.
"I work at Starbucks."
"You smell like overpriced coffee," Dean tells her. "Did you bring me any?"
"I didn't know you wanted any."
"I always want coffee."
Jess waves her hand towards the kitchen. "Help yourself. We get a pound a week. There's more coffee in the cabinet than Sam and I will ever be able to drink."
"I'll make a French press," Sam says, setting Jess's feet back on the floor.
"A what now?" Dean asks.
Sam grins at him and shakes his head. "Just coffee," he says.
"So," Dean says, stretching his arm across the back of the couch. "How did you and Sammy meet?"
"I was dating his roommate, Mark," she says. She sees Sam turn in the kitchen, suddenly, look at her with wide eyes, shake his head. She smiles at him. She wasn't going to tell Dean about that, anyway.
"And Sammy stole you from him?" Dean sounds impressed.
"Not really," Jess tells him. "Mark and I broke up but Sam and I stayed friends."
"Friends," says Dean, like it's a foreign concept.
"Don't you have any girls as friends?" she asks him.
Dean shakes his head, then shrugs. "Hell, I don't really have friends."
"Why not?" She can't imagine him not having friends, not with the way he can turn on the charm and disarm people with that smile.
He shrugs again. "Don't have time, and work takes me all over. I've got my dad, I've got Sammy." He doesn't seem at all upset over not having friends of his own, and Jess can't figure out if that's cool or sad.
Sam comes back into the living room with two mugs full of rich, dark coffee. He hands one to Dean and sips one himself. Jess doesn't like caffeine after noon.
"This is good," Dean says, like he's surprised. "Maybe you should work at Starbucks, Sammy."
Sam grins and Jess wonders how Sam and Dean can seem so comfortable together, so close, while Dean doesn't even know the basics.
"I do work at Starbucks," Sam says.
Dean sighs and closes his eyes, shaking his head like Sam's just broken his heart.
"Oh, fuck you," says Sam, though he sounds amused, not angry. "Heath insurance is a good thing."
'I've got health insurance."
"No, Paul Henderson has health insurance, you've just got an ID that says you're Paul Henderson."
"Abe Kusznierewicz, actually," Dean says with a grin.
Sam rolls his eyes and Jess is about to ask but she's not sure if they're teasing or serious and she doesn't want them to know she doesn't get the joke.
Sam cracks open one of his textbooks and sits in the arm chair next to the couch. Jess turns on the TV.
"Remote," says Dean, tipping his chin at her.
Jess pulls the remote closer to her body. "My TV, my remote."
Dean laughs and looks at Sam. "Is she serious?"
"I dare you to find out," Sam says, not looking up from his textbook.
"Seriously," Dean says. "Give me the remote."
"Nice try, bitch," she says. She drops the remote down the front of her shirt. "My TV, my remote."
"Don't think I won't go after that," Dean says.
"I'll stab you in the throat," Sam says, still not looking up.
"Only after I castrate him with a garlic press and feed his balls to the Doberman next door," Jess says sweetly.
Sam smirks. Dean looks slightly terrified.
"Your girlfriend's violent," Dean says.
Sam flips a page in his textbook. "Only when provoked."
Dean slings his arm along the back of the couch and leans in towards Jess. "I kinda like it," he says in a voice that Jess has to admit would be hot if he wasn't Sam's brother and maybe a little insane.
"Seriously," says Jess. "Garlic press."
Dean leans back and holds up his hands in surrender. "All right. Fine. What are we watching? Lifetime or cooking shows?"
Sam laughs and Jess lifts up the bottom of her t-shirt to pull out the remote. "Screw that," she says. "The Cheifs are playing."
Dean looks shocked. He looks at Sam. "Is she kidding?"
Sam shakes his head.
"You need to marry this girl, Sam," Dean says.
Sam looks up at Dean, then, and smiles. "That's what I keep telling her."
Jess' toes curl a little at that. Sam hasn't asked her, not yet, but there's a black velvet box in the very back of his sock drawer that holds a small but lovely diamond solitaire ring. They're going to Monterey in three weeks and Jess knows he's going to ask her then. Knowing Sam, he's going to propose at the aquarium. Probably in front of the kelp forest, since he knows how much Jess loves its otherworldly feel.
On Friday, Sam has early classes and Jess has none so she turns off her alarm clock and lets herself sleep until past ten. When she wakes up the apartment is silent and she assumes Sam and Dean have gone somewhere.
She hears their voices when she comes out of the bedroom, though, and follows them to the kitchen. There are two piles of clothes on the kitchen table, one rumpled and one folded. Sam and Dean are sitting across from one another and it takes a minute for Jess to realize that Sam is stitching a hole in the collar of a t-shirt and Dean is darning a sock.
Sam is telling a story. "...so then Justin points his pool cue at the guy and says, 'But he cheated! He wasn't half as good when we played the first two games!'"
Both Sam and Dean laugh at that. Dean says, "That's not cheating, son, that's skill."
"He doesn't want to pay," Sam says, "like, at all. Everybody knows he's got the bills in his wallet, he's just, you know--"
"Offended," says Dean. "Shocked that for once in his life he didn't win."
"Exactly," says Sam. "I mean, these guys are big, too, and Justin, man, he doesn't have any idea."
"They never do," says Dean. "They kick his ass?"
"They were going to. Luckily, I was at the end of the bar and when the bartender went for his sawed-off, I grabbed it."
Dean looks up at Sam, his jaw dropped open. "Do not tell me you let that little rich boy get out of Dodge without paying up."
"I made him pay," said Sam. "He lost those games fair."
Dean grunts his approval.
"It took him a while to realize that I was serious, though."
"Sawed-off's damn serious," says Dean.
"You'd think he'd know that, but..."
"Rich boy," says Dean. Spilling from his lips, it sounds like the filthiest possible curse. After a few moments he says, "You still got the shotgun?"
"Yeah," says Sam. "You want it?"
"Could come in handy. Not that...I mean, if you need it--"
"No," says Sam. "I'm not going to use it. You can have it."
"Cool."
"Are you serious?" asks Jess, her arms crossed over her chest.
Dean jumps a bit and Sam looks over at her with a guilty expression.
"How does she do that?" Dean asks. "I didn't even hear her."
"She's stealthy," says Sam.
"You have a gun in the apartment?" Jess asks. "A shotgun? That you stole from some bar you went to with my brothers? God."
"I didn't steal it," Sam says. "Exactly."
"Sometimes," Dean says, "you just need to borrow things in order to get out safely."
"Was he hustling pool?" asks Jess.
Dean snorts. "More like he got hustled."
"Not helping," Sam whispers.
"Can we talk?" Jess asks. She looks at Dean. "Alone?"
Sam puts down the shirt and needle and gets up from the table. "Yeah," he says, heading into the bedroom. Jess follows him and closes the door behind her.
"What the hell happened with my brothers?" she demands.
Sam sighs. "I promised I wouldn't tell you."
She puts her hands on her hips and raises her eyebrows.
"It was over Thanksgiving," he tells her. "They took me out to this roadhouse a few miles from your parents' place. I think they were trying to intimidate me."
Jess isn't surprised by that. Her brothers terrified every boyfriend she'd had before Sam.
"Justin was playing pool and he got hustled fair and square. I tried to warn him, but he wouldn't listen."
"And Jason?"
Sam shrugs. "Well, you know what he's like."
Jess nods again. Jason had gotten drunk fast and had probably been half passed out.
"It would have been ugly," says Sam. "I mean, the guy he was playing, he wasn't some lightweight, OK? He was big and he was mean and he was a regular, which meant if I'd let the bartender get his hands on the shotgun before I did..." He shakes his head.
"So you brought the gun back here?"
"What else was I supposed to do with it? Give it to Justin?"
Jess shakes her head. "Couldn't you have...I don't know. Thrown it away?"
"You can't just throw away a gun. Anybody could have gotten their hands on it."
"So you brought it back to our home?"
"It's not loaded."
"It's a gun!"
Sam sighs. "Look. I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to be such a big deal."
"It's a gun," Jess says again.
"Yeah, well, I'm used to them, so they're not a big deal to me. I mean, Christ, my dad gave me my first handgun when I was nine."
Jess is taken aback. "Really?"
"Yeah. It was for the monster in my closet. I slept with it under my pillow."
"That's..." Jess says. "That's kind of..."
"Fucked up," says Sam. "I know." He sits on the end of the bed and reaches out for her hand. She lets him pull her close, standing between his legs. He kisses her stomach and Jess strokes his hair.
"So, that's the complicated part of your childhood?" she asks, twining her fingers through his hair.
She can feel Sam's breath against her belly as he laughs softly. "That's barely the tip of the iceberg," he says. "My dad wasn't...even when he was there, he wasn't really there. Dean's the one who raised me. He's the one who made sure I was registered for school, made sure I went to the dentist every year, went to my parent-teacher conferences, patched me up when I skinned my knee."
The thought of one little boy trying to raise another makes Jess ache inside. "Baby," she murmurs.
Sam pushes her shirt up, kisses her navel. His fingers make short work of the tie on her yoga pants.
"Sam," she whispers. "We can't."
"Why not?" He slips his fingers into her panties, strokes her gently.
Jess' breath catches and she grips his shoulder to steady herself. She loves the way he touches her. "Your brother," she says.
"We can be quiet," Sam whispers as he tugs her yoga pants and panties down together. He takes her by the hips and turns her, pressing her back onto the bed as he moves to kneel between her thighs.
Jess closes her eyes with the first touch of his tongue on her. She slides one leg over his shoulder and presses one of her hands to her mouth. Her hips rock against him of their own volition.
Sam laps at her clit, slides his fingers through her wetness. He slips two fingers inside and curls them slightly, pressing up as he uses just the tip of his tongue to tease her. He makes her come in less than five minutes; he's always been able to make her come hard and fast, the way no one else ever has. She can feel him humming with satisfaction as she comes down from the first orgasm. He keeps his mouth on her and if they were alone in the apartment, if they had time and she had the freedom to scream she'd let him bring her to climax over and over again. Instead she reaches down and tugs on his shirt. Props herself up so she can look down at him. He's looking back up at her, his eyes dark and sincere as he licks a long line from her hole to her clit.
"Inside me," she whispers. "Now."
He presses into her in one long stroke and she moans against his shoulder and digs her nails into his back. It feels so dirty to fuck with someone in the next room. It feels so dirty to know that Sam's brother has to know what they're doing. She wraps her legs around Sam's waist and uses her heels to pull him in further.
"Harder," she gasps in his ear. Sam groans and snaps his hips forward, hard enough to make the bed creak with every thrust.
He grips her hair in one hand and tugs her head back and kisses her roughly. Their teeth clash together and he keeps kissing her, pulls her hair hard, grunts with every thrust. He's never been so forceful before. Jess feels another orgasm building and she bites his shoulder to stifle her scream. Sam's hips jerk and he says, "Fuck," once in a broken voice before he comes inside her.
Jess holds him close as she catches her breath. He's shaking a little bit so she strokes his back and his hair.
"That was intense," Sam whispers against the skin of her neck.
"Mmm," she says. She can't help how smutty and pleased she sounds. She says, "Maybe we should fight more often."
"Did that count as a fight?" Sam asks.
"A little one."
He laughs softly and rolls off her. He rubs his hands over his face. "I don't know if I can walk."
Jess hits him lightly in the chest with the back of her hand. "And my family's not rich."
Sam looks over at her and raises one eyebrow.
"They're just...comfortable," she says.
"Compared to my family, everyone's rich," says Sam. He pulls his jeans up from around his thighs, zips back up, stares up at the ceiling for a while.
"I need to clean up," Jess says.
Sam nods and yawns. Sex always makes him sleepy.
She tugs up her yoga pants and runs her fingers through her hair before padding down the hallway towards the bathroom. She pushes the door open and stops short. "Jesus Christ," she whispers.
Dean looks up at her in the mirror, his fingers paused from where he was pressing them against the hastily stitched up gash on his chest. He's covered with them, from his shoulders down to the waistband of his low-slung jeans, and probably further. All the cuts are long and deliberate, some of them shallow and scabbed over, some of them deep enough that they had to be sutured shut. She wonders who stitched Dean up if he refuses to go to the doctor and then she realizes that he did it himself--the only one he couldn't do himself was the one on his right bicep, the one he'd had Sam do.
"Don't tell--," Dean says at the same time Jess yells, "Sam!" She runs down the hall and Sam's already running in from the bedroom, pushing past her to get to Dean in the bathroom.
"Jesus Christ!" says Sam and he slams the bathroom door behind him. Jess can hear Dean and Sam arguing but she can't make out most of the worlds. "...tell me!" she hears Sam say. And then, later, "Of course it's a big deal!" She realizes that she's eavesdropping so she wanders into the living room. She sits on the couch and then gets up, crosses into the kitchen where she starts to do the dishes but can't concentrate.
Her first thought is that maybe Dean did it to himself. It doesn't seem right, though, and for as little as she knows him she knows he didn't. Somebody did that to him. Somebody took their time. She braces her hands on the counter and vomits into the sink.
Jess tips her head beneath the tap to rinse her mouth out. She runs the garbage disposal and places her forehead on the cool edge of the stainless steel basin. She thinks about the scars on Sam's body, the easy explanations that rolled off his tongue--car accident, fell out of a tree, flipped off his skateboard. She wonders if she knew they were lies even at the time.
She doesn't know how long it's been before she feels a big hand gentle on the back of her neck. She's always loved Sam's hands.
"Baby," Sam whispers.
Jess straightens up and looks at him. She doesn't realize that she's been crying until she sniffles. "Who did that to him?" she asks.
Sam shakes his head. "It's--"
"If you tell me it's complicated I swear to God I'm walking out of here and never coming back." She means it, too. She's shaking.
Dean's leaning against the doorframe. His face is still pale, though the dark circles have lightened up with a few days of rest and good food. Jess thinks about him tied down--because he'd had to have been tied down, right?--some...some psycho cutting him up like that. His eyes look like Sam's get sometimes, sad and tired and too old for his age.
Dean tries to grin at her but it's weak and unconvincing. "Don't worry about it," he says, trying for casual. "I dated this girl who turned out to be a real crazy bitch and, you know, hell hath no fury and all that."
"You are so full of shit," Jess snaps.
Dean smiles again, a real smile, though weary. "I really do like your girlfriend, Sammy," he says as he pushes off the wall and heads towards the couch. He sits down with a sigh and rubs his hand over his face. "OK. So. The truth."
"That would be nice," Jess says. "From one of you, at least."
"Don't blame Sam," Dean says, looking up at her. "The stuff he's kept from you, he was only trying to protect you."
"I'm not a doll!" Jess is sick of it. Her whole family treats her like she's a helpless child--she doesn't need it from Sam's family, too.
"I was tracking this guy," says Dean.
"Dean," Sam whispers, shaking his head.
"It's all right, Sammy," Dean says. "Dad and I were tracking this guy, a real evil bastard. He's left a trail of bodies across the Midwest and I can't even...what he did to me, that wasn't even close to what he did to those girls."
Jess sits down on the arm of the couch and rests her hands in her lap, waiting for him to continue the story.
"We lost the bastard's trail in Kansas," Dean says. He looks at Sam. "Near Lawrence."
Sam wraps his arms tight around his waist and hunches in his shoulders. "Was it...?"
Dean shakes his head. "No. But the trail ran cold, all the leads ran out."
"You and your dad," Jess says, "you're what? Cops?"
Sam laughs softly and Dean says, "More like bounty hunters. Only, you know, not as well paid. Dad got a call from a buddy of his in Maine who wanted a hand and I kept looking for our good friend the sociopath."
"You went in without Dad?" Sam sounds stunned.
"Hey," says Dean, "you're the family genius, not me. You know what an idiot I can be. I got wind the bastard was in San Gabriel, so I headed out here to California and, well..." He shrugs. "I got out alive, which is always a plus."
"You're such a fucking idiot," Sam says. His voice is shaking.
"Yeah," says Dean, "I kind of figured that out. Thanks."
"You could have been killed." Sam looks close to tears.
"I know. God. I was the one getting all sliced up and fed on, thanks."
Jess doesn't ask what he means by "fed on." She's pretty sure she doesn't want to know.
She sleeps restlessly that night, dreaming about psychopaths in the shadows with long, glinting knives. She wakes up when Sam leaves for work, but only long enough for him to kiss her forehead and stroke her hair and tell her he'll be back at one.
She wakes up again around nine, takes a shower, and in the living room Dean is folding up the sheets and blankets he'd slept on. Jess helps him without asking if he wants her to.
"Why haven't you called the cops?" she asks, folding their beige microfiber blanket and dropping it on the edge of the couch.
"About what? Oh, the, uh, the guy?"
"He kidnapped and tortured you," she says. "You should call the cops before he does it to someone else."
Dean sighs and runs one hand over his hair. He opens his mouth to say something, then closes it again. Finally, what he says is, "OK, so, you've seen what he did to me, right? If I sent police after this thing, this guy, I'd be sending them to their death."
"But they're trained and--"
"Not for this. Not for anything close to this. I know you don't like it when people don't tell you shit, but trust me, all right? There are, like, five people in the world I'd trust to take this guy out, and that's counting Sam and Dad."
Jess laughs softly and shakes her head. "Sam? Sam couldn't..." She stops talking when she sees the look in Dean's eyes. He looks weary again, and sad, like he knows something he doesn't want to have to tell her.
Jess looks away from him and takes a deep breath, lets it out slow. What she says next is, "You feel up for a walk? We could go get coffee."
"Yeah," says Dean. "Coffee would be good."
Part Two
Pairing: Sam/Jess, slight Sam/Dean
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: 12,788
Summary: AU, another way Dean could have shown up at Sam and Jess' apartment
A/N: OK, so I'm not exactly sure how to categorize this since it's a Sam/Jess story on the surface but, really? I'm totally an "all roads lead to Sam&Dean" girl. Also, I may or may not have written this entire story just so I had a good excuse to use this icon. *is a dork*
This is how it works
You're young until you're not
You love until you don't
You try until you can't
You laugh until you cry
You cry until you laugh
And everyone must breathe
Until their dying breath
--On the Radio, Regina Spektor
"That bitch better not be in my parking spot," Jess says as she takes the corner slow.
Sam laughs softly. "How'd your test go?"
"I aced it."
"Told you."
"I'm stopping at the store and when I get home, I'd better have a parking spot. Look out the window. Is she in my spot?"
Sam laughs again. "What are you going to get for dinner?"
"Are you looking out the window?" Jess asks, pulling into the supermarket parking lot.
"I'm looking, and Mrs. Gibson is not in your parking spot."
"Better not be," says Jess. "Because I told her the next time she parks diagonally into my spot I'm getting her ass towed, which I will. What do you want for dinner?" Sam doesn't says anything so Jess checks her reception, then says, "Sam?"
"I have to go," Sam says, and the line goes dead. Jess frowns as she flips her phone closed. She thinks Mrs. Gibson probably just pulled into her spot and she hopes Sam yells at her. Sam doesn't like to yell at anybody, but Jess will get the crazy bitch towed. She pays for that parking spot and she's sick and tired of getting home to see Mrs. Gibson's stupid minivan parked across two spots like she's got to protect the stupid thing from dings, like it's a Porshe or a BMW instead of a 1989 Ford Aerostar.
When Jess gets home from the store, Mrs. Gibson's stupid minivian is not in her spot, thank God. She carries the groceries up and dumps them in the kitchen. She's about to start cooking when she feels strange--she can't put her finger on it, but something's not right. There's a dark handkerchief on the coffee table that Jess doesn't recognize. She leans to pick it up, then stops when she sees that the handkerchief itself is white, it's just blood that makes it look dark. She rushes through the apartment, her heart in her throat.
Sam's in the bathroom. He's not hurt and he's not alone. There's another man with him, sitting on the counter with his t-shirt sleeve rolled up, hissing as Sam cleans away dark crusted blood from a gash on his right bicep.
"Jesus Christ," Sam says as he wets another washcloth and wipes away more dried blood. "How long ago did you get this?"
"Few days," the man says. He's handsome, despite the fact that his face is pale and the bags under his eyes are dark. "This your girlfriend?"
Sam turns his head and sees Jess standing in the doorway. There's a flash of something in his eyes, so fast she can't read it. "You get two guesses who this idiot is," he says to Jess, "and the first one doesn't count."
"Hey!" says the man. He hisses again as Sam pokes and pulls at the gash.
"Pussy," says Sam.
Jess says, "You must be Dean."
"You are way too hot to be dating my little brother," Dean says. He gives her a flirtatious grin that turns almost immediately into a wince as Sam rubs a cotton pad soaked with peroxide over the gash. "Christ, Sammy, give a guy some warning!" he snaps.
"Pussy," Sam says again. He looks over his shoulder at Jess. "Could you get the vodka out of the freezer?" he asks.
"Now that's what I'm talking about," says Dean.
Jess doesn't know what to do, so she gets the vodka. When she comes back, Sam is threading a very thin, curved needle with what looks like black fishing line. She knows he likes to mend his clothes if they get a tear, but she doesn't understand why he'd be mending anything when his brother has a gash on his arm that obviously needs medical attention. When Sam pours the vodka over the needle and down the thread, Jess thinks she might be sick.
"Son of a--" is all Dean says as Sam starts to stitch the wound. He says it deep in his throat, his teeth gritted.
Sam says, "Stop moving."
"I'm not--ow--fuck," says Dean.
Sam works quickly, his long fingers graceful as they make neat sutures in Dean's skin. Jess can't look away. "When's the last time you got a tetanus shot?" Sam asks.
"I don't know. Four months ago, maybe." Dean takes a deep, shaky breath and lets it out slow. "You wanna hand that vodka over?"
"The last thing you need is alcohol."
"I think I deserve a couple shots, Sammy."
"My name is Sam. And you've lost a lot of blood. You need water and rest." Sam ties a precise knot, then cuts the thread. He douses another cotton pad with peroxide, pats it over the sutured gash.
Dean looks down at his arm and nods. "You still got the touch," he says.
"You need to get that looked at by a real doctor," says Sam.
Dean shrugs and reaches for the vodka, which Sam snatches out of his reach and hands back to Jess. Dean frowns, then turns his stunning smile on Jess again. "Did I mention that you are way out of Sammy's league?" he asks.
Jess says, "I'll make up the couch." She returns the vodka to the freezer then goes to the linen closet. She takes out blankets and pillows, carries them to the couch. The bloody handkerchief is still on the coffee table. After a few minutes, she hears the water in the shower start to run. Sam takes the pillow from her hands.
"I didn't know he was coming," Sam says as he lays the pillow against the couch's armrest.
Jess nods. "He needs a doctor."
"I know. He won't go."
"I didn't...how did you know how to do that?"
"My dad. And, you know, Dean's always gotten in a lot of scrapes, so I had plenty of practice." He runs one hand over his hair, messing it up. "Look, it's just one night, and if you want I can--"
"I'm glad he's here," Jess says.
Sam looks surprised. "You are?"
"Yes." She bumps his hip with her own. "Maybe now I'll finally get to hear stories about your childhood that don't end in, '...never mind, it's complicated.'"
Sam sighs. "My childhood was complicated."
"So I've been told." She strokes his cheek, reaches up to smooth his hair. "It's just nice to finally meet your family. After all, you've met mine."
Sam nods. "I still think your dad wants to kill me."
"My dad loves you. It's Justin and Jason you should be worried about."
Sam laughs softly as he pulls her into his arms. "Your brothers don't scare me."
"They've scared every other guy I've dated."
"I'm not any other guy," Sam says. He kisses her gently, then with more heat. He runs his hands down her back, cups her ass and pulls her even closer to him.
"Sam," Jess says, feeling a blush warm her cheeks. "Your brother's here."
"You don't know Dean," Sam whispers, kissing her cheek, down to that spot behind her jaw that makes her weak. "He'll be in the shower for half an hour at least. We can be quick."
Jess laughs and pushes him away, swats his arm. "You're like a big, horny puppy," she says.
He loops one long arm around her waist and reels her back in. "You've never complained before."
She lays her head on his shoulder, lets herself luxuriate in the feel of his arms around her for a moment. Then she pulls away. "I'm going to start dinner," she says.
Sam sighs, but after a moment he follows her into the kitchen to help. He cuts the leeks and chops the tarragon while Jess gets the pan ready. They had fallen into an easy pattern once they started living together--Jess did the actual cooking while Sam did the prep work and cleanup.
He hadn't been kidding about the time Dean would spend in the shower. The table's been set and dinner's nearly finished by the time Dean peeks his head out of the bathroom door and, in a cloud of steam, says, "Hey, Sammy, do you have any--"
"Yeah," Sam says. "Just a second." He heads into the bedroom for a moment, then comes out with a pile of clean clothes that he passes to Dean through the barely cracked bathroom door. Jess loves that Dean didn't even have to finish his sentence, that Sam already knew exactly what he wanted. She wishes sometimes that she had sisters she could be like that with instead of two older, rough and tumble brothers who think of her as more of a doll than a person.
"The man loves his hot showers," Sam says with a grin as he comes back into the kitchen. He rinses the pan as Jess carries the plates to the table, and soon after, Dean comes out of the bathroom in a pair of Sam's sweatpants and a long-sleeved t-shirt.
"Gangly bastard," Dean mutters as he stops to roll up the cuffs on the sweatpants.
Sam just laughs and says, "Sit down and eat. When's the last time you ate something that didn't come from a Quick Mart?"
Dean hums and shrugs. "Three, four years ago? Where do you want me to sit?"
"Right there's fine," says Jess, indicating the closest spot.
They all sit down and Dean rubs his hands together, then looks at his plate. "This looks, um...interesting."
"It's braised salmon with leeks," Sam says.
Dean nods, looking unconvinced that it's edible.
"Does he not like salmon?" Jess asks in a whisper.
"He likes salmon," Sam tells her.
"He's sitting right here," says Dean.
"Eat," says Sam. "There's peach crisp for dessert."
"Homemade?" asks Dean hopefully.
Sam nods and Dean takes up a forkful of salmon. He puts it in his mouth and waits a moment and Jess realizes it's the exact same thing Sam did the first time she made salmon for him. She realizes that before her, neither one of them had ever had it.
"It's good," says Dean, like he's surprised. Sam doesn't say anything, but Jess can see a tiny smirk playing around the corners of his mouth and crinkling his eyes.
Dean eats two helpings of salmon and half the peach crisp. Jess can see Sam watching his brother out of the corner of his eye, can tell that he's pleased by how much Dean is eating.
After dinner, Dean stretches out on the couch and flips through their digital cable for a good ten minutes before he settles on the Guns & Ammo channel. Jess isn't really surprised, since sometimes she catches Sam watching it when he thinks she's asleep. She's amused by boys and their obsession with guns, by the way they don't even see that they're such an obvious phallic symbol.
She sits in one of the armchairs and props her bare feet up on the coffee table, resting her Molecular Biomechanics textbook open across her thighs. She's read maybe two pages by the time Sam's finished with the dishes and she catches his movement out of the corner of her eye. She glances up with a grin, expecting to see him trying to sneak towards her. Instead he squats down next to the couch and eases the remote from Dean's hand, presses gently on Dean's shoulder until he's lying down with his head on the pillow.
"'m not sleeping," Dean grumbles, but his eyes don't open. Sam pulls the covers up and around him, tucks them in, brushes a piece of fuzz off Dean's temple. It's so sweet it makes Jess ache a little inside and she thinks of the future, when Sam will tuck their children into bed and stroke their hair to help them sleep.
She and Sam head to bed soon after, since they've both got early classes. Jess wakes up around two and Sam is spooned up behind her. She can feel his erection rubbing against her ass. She turns so that she's facing him and kisses him gently. She hooks one leg over his and Sam makes a soft noise in his throat as he wraps his arms around her, rocks against her slowly.
Jess slides her hand down beneath his sweatpants to caress his ass. She slips her fingers into his crack, rubs against his hole. She loves the soft, needy sounds he makes whenever she does that. "Good?" she whispers.
Sam nods and presses his face into her hair. Sam has trouble sleeping and they have a lot of slow, lazy sex in the middle of the night. Jess had always preferred morning sex before Sam.
She's just wearing a t-shirt, which Sam pushes up as she helps him slip his sweatpants down. He enters her slowly and it's always an ache at first that's so delicious she can't help but moan.
Sam rocks into her over and over again and Jess kisses him sweetly, rubs his hole, uses her other hand to stroke his hair. He waits until she shudders with climax before finally letting himself go, muffling his groans against her hair.
She smiles and stretches and closes her eyes, listens to the sound of Sam's labored breaths. His breaths slow down eventually, but not to the slowness of sleep. Jess opens her eyes and peers over at him. He's staring up at the ceiling, his lips pursed in a tight line.
"Still can't sleep?" she asks, rubbing his chest.
"Yeah. I don't...did Dean seem off to you?"
"It's not like I have anything to compare it to," she says. "This is the first time we've met."
"Yeah, I know, just...I don't know. I think something's wrong."
"Something besides the eight inch gash in his arm?"
"Yeah."
"He's sick," she tells him. "He's so pale."
Sam nods. "He lost a lot of blood. That cut looked at least three days old."
"You sure he won't see a doctor?"
"Pretty sure, yeah. I'll try to talk him into it tomorrow, but..."
"But he won't go."
Sam nods and Jess sighs and closes her eyes.
The next day is Thursday. Jess has class all morning and work all afternoon. She gets home at six and collapses on the couch. Sam sits on the coffee table, pulls her feet into his lap, takes off her shoes and socks, rubs his thumbs hard into the arch of her foot. Jess closes her eyes and sighs, hums happily when Sam pulls on each of her toes, making the knuckles crack.
"Is this some kinky foot sex thing?" Dean asks from his spot on the couch next to Jess. "Should I leave you two alone?"
Jess laughs and Sam says, "You're a pervert." Dean doesn't argue.
Instead, Dean leans in towards Jess and sniffs, tentatively at first, then he breathes deep.
Jess looks over at him, quirks an eyebrow.
"You smell like coffee," he says.
"I work at Starbucks."
"You smell like overpriced coffee," Dean tells her. "Did you bring me any?"
"I didn't know you wanted any."
"I always want coffee."
Jess waves her hand towards the kitchen. "Help yourself. We get a pound a week. There's more coffee in the cabinet than Sam and I will ever be able to drink."
"I'll make a French press," Sam says, setting Jess's feet back on the floor.
"A what now?" Dean asks.
Sam grins at him and shakes his head. "Just coffee," he says.
"So," Dean says, stretching his arm across the back of the couch. "How did you and Sammy meet?"
"I was dating his roommate, Mark," she says. She sees Sam turn in the kitchen, suddenly, look at her with wide eyes, shake his head. She smiles at him. She wasn't going to tell Dean about that, anyway.
"And Sammy stole you from him?" Dean sounds impressed.
"Not really," Jess tells him. "Mark and I broke up but Sam and I stayed friends."
"Friends," says Dean, like it's a foreign concept.
"Don't you have any girls as friends?" she asks him.
Dean shakes his head, then shrugs. "Hell, I don't really have friends."
"Why not?" She can't imagine him not having friends, not with the way he can turn on the charm and disarm people with that smile.
He shrugs again. "Don't have time, and work takes me all over. I've got my dad, I've got Sammy." He doesn't seem at all upset over not having friends of his own, and Jess can't figure out if that's cool or sad.
Sam comes back into the living room with two mugs full of rich, dark coffee. He hands one to Dean and sips one himself. Jess doesn't like caffeine after noon.
"This is good," Dean says, like he's surprised. "Maybe you should work at Starbucks, Sammy."
Sam grins and Jess wonders how Sam and Dean can seem so comfortable together, so close, while Dean doesn't even know the basics.
"I do work at Starbucks," Sam says.
Dean sighs and closes his eyes, shaking his head like Sam's just broken his heart.
"Oh, fuck you," says Sam, though he sounds amused, not angry. "Heath insurance is a good thing."
'I've got health insurance."
"No, Paul Henderson has health insurance, you've just got an ID that says you're Paul Henderson."
"Abe Kusznierewicz, actually," Dean says with a grin.
Sam rolls his eyes and Jess is about to ask but she's not sure if they're teasing or serious and she doesn't want them to know she doesn't get the joke.
Sam cracks open one of his textbooks and sits in the arm chair next to the couch. Jess turns on the TV.
"Remote," says Dean, tipping his chin at her.
Jess pulls the remote closer to her body. "My TV, my remote."
Dean laughs and looks at Sam. "Is she serious?"
"I dare you to find out," Sam says, not looking up from his textbook.
"Seriously," Dean says. "Give me the remote."
"Nice try, bitch," she says. She drops the remote down the front of her shirt. "My TV, my remote."
"Don't think I won't go after that," Dean says.
"I'll stab you in the throat," Sam says, still not looking up.
"Only after I castrate him with a garlic press and feed his balls to the Doberman next door," Jess says sweetly.
Sam smirks. Dean looks slightly terrified.
"Your girlfriend's violent," Dean says.
Sam flips a page in his textbook. "Only when provoked."
Dean slings his arm along the back of the couch and leans in towards Jess. "I kinda like it," he says in a voice that Jess has to admit would be hot if he wasn't Sam's brother and maybe a little insane.
"Seriously," says Jess. "Garlic press."
Dean leans back and holds up his hands in surrender. "All right. Fine. What are we watching? Lifetime or cooking shows?"
Sam laughs and Jess lifts up the bottom of her t-shirt to pull out the remote. "Screw that," she says. "The Cheifs are playing."
Dean looks shocked. He looks at Sam. "Is she kidding?"
Sam shakes his head.
"You need to marry this girl, Sam," Dean says.
Sam looks up at Dean, then, and smiles. "That's what I keep telling her."
Jess' toes curl a little at that. Sam hasn't asked her, not yet, but there's a black velvet box in the very back of his sock drawer that holds a small but lovely diamond solitaire ring. They're going to Monterey in three weeks and Jess knows he's going to ask her then. Knowing Sam, he's going to propose at the aquarium. Probably in front of the kelp forest, since he knows how much Jess loves its otherworldly feel.
On Friday, Sam has early classes and Jess has none so she turns off her alarm clock and lets herself sleep until past ten. When she wakes up the apartment is silent and she assumes Sam and Dean have gone somewhere.
She hears their voices when she comes out of the bedroom, though, and follows them to the kitchen. There are two piles of clothes on the kitchen table, one rumpled and one folded. Sam and Dean are sitting across from one another and it takes a minute for Jess to realize that Sam is stitching a hole in the collar of a t-shirt and Dean is darning a sock.
Sam is telling a story. "...so then Justin points his pool cue at the guy and says, 'But he cheated! He wasn't half as good when we played the first two games!'"
Both Sam and Dean laugh at that. Dean says, "That's not cheating, son, that's skill."
"He doesn't want to pay," Sam says, "like, at all. Everybody knows he's got the bills in his wallet, he's just, you know--"
"Offended," says Dean. "Shocked that for once in his life he didn't win."
"Exactly," says Sam. "I mean, these guys are big, too, and Justin, man, he doesn't have any idea."
"They never do," says Dean. "They kick his ass?"
"They were going to. Luckily, I was at the end of the bar and when the bartender went for his sawed-off, I grabbed it."
Dean looks up at Sam, his jaw dropped open. "Do not tell me you let that little rich boy get out of Dodge without paying up."
"I made him pay," said Sam. "He lost those games fair."
Dean grunts his approval.
"It took him a while to realize that I was serious, though."
"Sawed-off's damn serious," says Dean.
"You'd think he'd know that, but..."
"Rich boy," says Dean. Spilling from his lips, it sounds like the filthiest possible curse. After a few moments he says, "You still got the shotgun?"
"Yeah," says Sam. "You want it?"
"Could come in handy. Not that...I mean, if you need it--"
"No," says Sam. "I'm not going to use it. You can have it."
"Cool."
"Are you serious?" asks Jess, her arms crossed over her chest.
Dean jumps a bit and Sam looks over at her with a guilty expression.
"How does she do that?" Dean asks. "I didn't even hear her."
"She's stealthy," says Sam.
"You have a gun in the apartment?" Jess asks. "A shotgun? That you stole from some bar you went to with my brothers? God."
"I didn't steal it," Sam says. "Exactly."
"Sometimes," Dean says, "you just need to borrow things in order to get out safely."
"Was he hustling pool?" asks Jess.
Dean snorts. "More like he got hustled."
"Not helping," Sam whispers.
"Can we talk?" Jess asks. She looks at Dean. "Alone?"
Sam puts down the shirt and needle and gets up from the table. "Yeah," he says, heading into the bedroom. Jess follows him and closes the door behind her.
"What the hell happened with my brothers?" she demands.
Sam sighs. "I promised I wouldn't tell you."
She puts her hands on her hips and raises her eyebrows.
"It was over Thanksgiving," he tells her. "They took me out to this roadhouse a few miles from your parents' place. I think they were trying to intimidate me."
Jess isn't surprised by that. Her brothers terrified every boyfriend she'd had before Sam.
"Justin was playing pool and he got hustled fair and square. I tried to warn him, but he wouldn't listen."
"And Jason?"
Sam shrugs. "Well, you know what he's like."
Jess nods again. Jason had gotten drunk fast and had probably been half passed out.
"It would have been ugly," says Sam. "I mean, the guy he was playing, he wasn't some lightweight, OK? He was big and he was mean and he was a regular, which meant if I'd let the bartender get his hands on the shotgun before I did..." He shakes his head.
"So you brought the gun back here?"
"What else was I supposed to do with it? Give it to Justin?"
Jess shakes her head. "Couldn't you have...I don't know. Thrown it away?"
"You can't just throw away a gun. Anybody could have gotten their hands on it."
"So you brought it back to our home?"
"It's not loaded."
"It's a gun!"
Sam sighs. "Look. I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to be such a big deal."
"It's a gun," Jess says again.
"Yeah, well, I'm used to them, so they're not a big deal to me. I mean, Christ, my dad gave me my first handgun when I was nine."
Jess is taken aback. "Really?"
"Yeah. It was for the monster in my closet. I slept with it under my pillow."
"That's..." Jess says. "That's kind of..."
"Fucked up," says Sam. "I know." He sits on the end of the bed and reaches out for her hand. She lets him pull her close, standing between his legs. He kisses her stomach and Jess strokes his hair.
"So, that's the complicated part of your childhood?" she asks, twining her fingers through his hair.
She can feel Sam's breath against her belly as he laughs softly. "That's barely the tip of the iceberg," he says. "My dad wasn't...even when he was there, he wasn't really there. Dean's the one who raised me. He's the one who made sure I was registered for school, made sure I went to the dentist every year, went to my parent-teacher conferences, patched me up when I skinned my knee."
The thought of one little boy trying to raise another makes Jess ache inside. "Baby," she murmurs.
Sam pushes her shirt up, kisses her navel. His fingers make short work of the tie on her yoga pants.
"Sam," she whispers. "We can't."
"Why not?" He slips his fingers into her panties, strokes her gently.
Jess' breath catches and she grips his shoulder to steady herself. She loves the way he touches her. "Your brother," she says.
"We can be quiet," Sam whispers as he tugs her yoga pants and panties down together. He takes her by the hips and turns her, pressing her back onto the bed as he moves to kneel between her thighs.
Jess closes her eyes with the first touch of his tongue on her. She slides one leg over his shoulder and presses one of her hands to her mouth. Her hips rock against him of their own volition.
Sam laps at her clit, slides his fingers through her wetness. He slips two fingers inside and curls them slightly, pressing up as he uses just the tip of his tongue to tease her. He makes her come in less than five minutes; he's always been able to make her come hard and fast, the way no one else ever has. She can feel him humming with satisfaction as she comes down from the first orgasm. He keeps his mouth on her and if they were alone in the apartment, if they had time and she had the freedom to scream she'd let him bring her to climax over and over again. Instead she reaches down and tugs on his shirt. Props herself up so she can look down at him. He's looking back up at her, his eyes dark and sincere as he licks a long line from her hole to her clit.
"Inside me," she whispers. "Now."
He presses into her in one long stroke and she moans against his shoulder and digs her nails into his back. It feels so dirty to fuck with someone in the next room. It feels so dirty to know that Sam's brother has to know what they're doing. She wraps her legs around Sam's waist and uses her heels to pull him in further.
"Harder," she gasps in his ear. Sam groans and snaps his hips forward, hard enough to make the bed creak with every thrust.
He grips her hair in one hand and tugs her head back and kisses her roughly. Their teeth clash together and he keeps kissing her, pulls her hair hard, grunts with every thrust. He's never been so forceful before. Jess feels another orgasm building and she bites his shoulder to stifle her scream. Sam's hips jerk and he says, "Fuck," once in a broken voice before he comes inside her.
Jess holds him close as she catches her breath. He's shaking a little bit so she strokes his back and his hair.
"That was intense," Sam whispers against the skin of her neck.
"Mmm," she says. She can't help how smutty and pleased she sounds. She says, "Maybe we should fight more often."
"Did that count as a fight?" Sam asks.
"A little one."
He laughs softly and rolls off her. He rubs his hands over his face. "I don't know if I can walk."
Jess hits him lightly in the chest with the back of her hand. "And my family's not rich."
Sam looks over at her and raises one eyebrow.
"They're just...comfortable," she says.
"Compared to my family, everyone's rich," says Sam. He pulls his jeans up from around his thighs, zips back up, stares up at the ceiling for a while.
"I need to clean up," Jess says.
Sam nods and yawns. Sex always makes him sleepy.
She tugs up her yoga pants and runs her fingers through her hair before padding down the hallway towards the bathroom. She pushes the door open and stops short. "Jesus Christ," she whispers.
Dean looks up at her in the mirror, his fingers paused from where he was pressing them against the hastily stitched up gash on his chest. He's covered with them, from his shoulders down to the waistband of his low-slung jeans, and probably further. All the cuts are long and deliberate, some of them shallow and scabbed over, some of them deep enough that they had to be sutured shut. She wonders who stitched Dean up if he refuses to go to the doctor and then she realizes that he did it himself--the only one he couldn't do himself was the one on his right bicep, the one he'd had Sam do.
"Don't tell--," Dean says at the same time Jess yells, "Sam!" She runs down the hall and Sam's already running in from the bedroom, pushing past her to get to Dean in the bathroom.
"Jesus Christ!" says Sam and he slams the bathroom door behind him. Jess can hear Dean and Sam arguing but she can't make out most of the worlds. "...tell me!" she hears Sam say. And then, later, "Of course it's a big deal!" She realizes that she's eavesdropping so she wanders into the living room. She sits on the couch and then gets up, crosses into the kitchen where she starts to do the dishes but can't concentrate.
Her first thought is that maybe Dean did it to himself. It doesn't seem right, though, and for as little as she knows him she knows he didn't. Somebody did that to him. Somebody took their time. She braces her hands on the counter and vomits into the sink.
Jess tips her head beneath the tap to rinse her mouth out. She runs the garbage disposal and places her forehead on the cool edge of the stainless steel basin. She thinks about the scars on Sam's body, the easy explanations that rolled off his tongue--car accident, fell out of a tree, flipped off his skateboard. She wonders if she knew they were lies even at the time.
She doesn't know how long it's been before she feels a big hand gentle on the back of her neck. She's always loved Sam's hands.
"Baby," Sam whispers.
Jess straightens up and looks at him. She doesn't realize that she's been crying until she sniffles. "Who did that to him?" she asks.
Sam shakes his head. "It's--"
"If you tell me it's complicated I swear to God I'm walking out of here and never coming back." She means it, too. She's shaking.
Dean's leaning against the doorframe. His face is still pale, though the dark circles have lightened up with a few days of rest and good food. Jess thinks about him tied down--because he'd had to have been tied down, right?--some...some psycho cutting him up like that. His eyes look like Sam's get sometimes, sad and tired and too old for his age.
Dean tries to grin at her but it's weak and unconvincing. "Don't worry about it," he says, trying for casual. "I dated this girl who turned out to be a real crazy bitch and, you know, hell hath no fury and all that."
"You are so full of shit," Jess snaps.
Dean smiles again, a real smile, though weary. "I really do like your girlfriend, Sammy," he says as he pushes off the wall and heads towards the couch. He sits down with a sigh and rubs his hand over his face. "OK. So. The truth."
"That would be nice," Jess says. "From one of you, at least."
"Don't blame Sam," Dean says, looking up at her. "The stuff he's kept from you, he was only trying to protect you."
"I'm not a doll!" Jess is sick of it. Her whole family treats her like she's a helpless child--she doesn't need it from Sam's family, too.
"I was tracking this guy," says Dean.
"Dean," Sam whispers, shaking his head.
"It's all right, Sammy," Dean says. "Dad and I were tracking this guy, a real evil bastard. He's left a trail of bodies across the Midwest and I can't even...what he did to me, that wasn't even close to what he did to those girls."
Jess sits down on the arm of the couch and rests her hands in her lap, waiting for him to continue the story.
"We lost the bastard's trail in Kansas," Dean says. He looks at Sam. "Near Lawrence."
Sam wraps his arms tight around his waist and hunches in his shoulders. "Was it...?"
Dean shakes his head. "No. But the trail ran cold, all the leads ran out."
"You and your dad," Jess says, "you're what? Cops?"
Sam laughs softly and Dean says, "More like bounty hunters. Only, you know, not as well paid. Dad got a call from a buddy of his in Maine who wanted a hand and I kept looking for our good friend the sociopath."
"You went in without Dad?" Sam sounds stunned.
"Hey," says Dean, "you're the family genius, not me. You know what an idiot I can be. I got wind the bastard was in San Gabriel, so I headed out here to California and, well..." He shrugs. "I got out alive, which is always a plus."
"You're such a fucking idiot," Sam says. His voice is shaking.
"Yeah," says Dean, "I kind of figured that out. Thanks."
"You could have been killed." Sam looks close to tears.
"I know. God. I was the one getting all sliced up and fed on, thanks."
Jess doesn't ask what he means by "fed on." She's pretty sure she doesn't want to know.
She sleeps restlessly that night, dreaming about psychopaths in the shadows with long, glinting knives. She wakes up when Sam leaves for work, but only long enough for him to kiss her forehead and stroke her hair and tell her he'll be back at one.
She wakes up again around nine, takes a shower, and in the living room Dean is folding up the sheets and blankets he'd slept on. Jess helps him without asking if he wants her to.
"Why haven't you called the cops?" she asks, folding their beige microfiber blanket and dropping it on the edge of the couch.
"About what? Oh, the, uh, the guy?"
"He kidnapped and tortured you," she says. "You should call the cops before he does it to someone else."
Dean sighs and runs one hand over his hair. He opens his mouth to say something, then closes it again. Finally, what he says is, "OK, so, you've seen what he did to me, right? If I sent police after this thing, this guy, I'd be sending them to their death."
"But they're trained and--"
"Not for this. Not for anything close to this. I know you don't like it when people don't tell you shit, but trust me, all right? There are, like, five people in the world I'd trust to take this guy out, and that's counting Sam and Dad."
Jess laughs softly and shakes her head. "Sam? Sam couldn't..." She stops talking when she sees the look in Dean's eyes. He looks weary again, and sad, like he knows something he doesn't want to have to tell her.
Jess looks away from him and takes a deep breath, lets it out slow. What she says next is, "You feel up for a walk? We could go get coffee."
"Yeah," says Dean. "Coffee would be good."
Part Two