fields of mud and bone, for brin_bailey (Sam/Jo, Adult)
Title: fields of mud and bone
Author: blincolin
Recipient: brin_bailey
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Sam/Jo
Summary: The case was reduced to a simple manila folder overflowing with highlighted clippings and scribbled notes, and it sat squarely in the passenger seat of the van, right where Sam ought to be. Some people need to be alone to deal with their grief. Others need something to hold on to, so they’re not going down on their own.
Sam watches Dean drive away in the panel-beaten van, exhaust trailing from the rear and a grinding noise from the gearbox. The case was reduced to a simple manila folder overflowing with highlighted clippings and scribbled notes, and it sat squarely in the passenger seat of the van, right where Sam ought to be. Stay here, Dean had said, without waiting for a reply. In case Ash finishes early. His knuckles white around the flimsy paper, Dean raced out the door.
I got this, he had said. I’m fine.
Watching the van, Sam feels useless and tired, like he should have stayed at school with his perfect grade-point average and ink-stains on his fingertips, but when he thinks of California he thinks of blonde hair and sunshine.
He stands there for a few minutes after the vehicle reaches past the horizon. It gets cold quickly, and Sam’s left shivering on the porch, alone as the grey sky begins to streak with oranges and purples, the sun beginning its tired retreat. He slams back into the bar, the door creaking on its hinges, and he swears when a splinter from the wooden frame works its way into the pad of his index finger.
There are no lights on in the bar, and the only light struggles through windows covered in a thick layer of dust. The chairs are still stacked on top of the tables, but people will start trickling in soon, and they’ll get their own chairs down, banging them on the floor with heavy thumps. There’s no ceremony here, and they’ll shout at whoever’s working the bar, tight-lipped and angry, because maybe they lost someone today, friend or family, or perhaps a stranger’s mother or daughter or cousin, someone they were to slow or too stupid to save in time.
She’s standing in front of the bar, wiping gun grease from the creases in her palms and smirking at him as she taps her unpainted fingernails on the bartop. He raises his finger to her like it’s an excuse, even though she’s standing too far away to see the small bead of blood welling on top of the skin.
Sam puts the small sting into his mouth when Jo walks behind the bar, beckoning him over with an inclination of her head. She puts the first-aid box on the scarred wood with a heavy thump, her thin fingers flicking the broken padlock with practiced ease. The box looks heavy and solid, well used, and what light shines through the grimy windows reflects dully off the metallic surface. She pulls out a small set of silver tweezers, brandishing them in his face. Men, Sam can almost hear her saying, as she continues to tap her fingernails against the wood, impatient for him to relinquish control of his finger.
When she’s done, she roughly slaps a band-aid over the now crater-sized wound, pulling two shotglasses from beneath the bar as she tells him not to be a baby. Jo pours the amber liquid into cloudy glasses, and there’s a quick snap of her wrist and it’s already sliding down her throat. She barely blinks, but Sam doesn’t fare so well, and almost spits it out when it touches his tongue. It burns all the way down, and he can feel it in his throat long after it’s swallowed. She pours him another one, and they drink until the bar starts crowding and she takes him into her room.
//<>\\
Her room is bare, white linen sheets tucked neatly into her mattress, her knife collection gleaming on the dresser. The varnish over her mahogany furniture had long since chipped away, and she doesn’t bother to shut her underwear drawer when Sam walks in. He can see one spot of electric purple amongst all the white cotton, and he tries to look anywhere but there as she strikes a match to light the single candle by the window. She pulls him down onto her bed, their legs tucked under them and their backs against the wall, passing the bottle between them until all Sam can feel is the cold tip of his nose, and Jo pressed up against his side. Sorry about your dad, she ventures, and Sam thinks about the merits of pouring your heart out to a complete stranger. In the end, he just nods.
I don’t remember my father, she finally continues, and Sam replies, I wish I didn’t remember mine.
//<>\\
Later, the bar is quiet. She leads Sam out by the hand, and only the slight unsteadiness of her hands betray the fact she’s had a drink at all. Music? she suggests, and Sam perches himself on a barstool to watch her cross the room. She’s concentrating too hard on where she places her feet, and it takes her a couple of tries to press the right buttons. She succeeds with a small sound of victory, a smile spreading unchecked across her face, and Sam can hear the whirring of the machine as it searches for the record. She turns, swaying her hips to a beat that doesn’t exist, singing about barroom queens in Memphis and divorcees in New York. For a few minutes she talks of places she’s never been, the grand adventures she’ll embark on, as soon as she takes her first steps over the state line.
Sam doesn’t have the heart to tell her that the adventures tend to blur together, until they’re only remembered by the scars that are left behind.
She tries to pull him up to dance, but Sam shakes his head, tells her he’s not drunk enough for that yet. We’ll have to do something about that, she replies, picking up the bottle as she shimmies around the floor.
//<>\\
It starts when his fingers go numb at the tips, and he can’t understand the words that trip over his tongue in their rush to taste the sodden air. Jo’s grin is split wide, her lips spit-slick and pink, and a laugh rumbles up from her chest. She looks for all the world like a young and pretty drunk girl in a small-town bar, and for a minute, there’s only the sound of them hiccupping, and the continual zapping of a mosquito’s kamikaze mission into the electric blue bugtrap.
When she looks up again, her eyes are twinkling, and her hair obscures half her face. They’re sitting side-by-side on matching seats at the bar, settled into the grooves where the leather is worn into a muddy red, and the stuffing peeks out the seams. The wooden frames have initials carved into them with hunting blades, and she leans over the chasm between them to rest her head on his shoulder.
His arm is curled around Jo’s waist, and her bones are small and fragile under his hands. He can see how they’d snap with the smallest amount of pressure, with a brittle sound like the breaking of a bird’s wings.
Her face turns inward, until her lips touch his neck. They’re cold and sticky, and she shifts off her seat and into his lap so his hands fall naturally onto her hips, bringing her flush against him. It’s uncomfortable with her back wedged against the bar, and he fights to keep his balance on the stool as she leans into him. She leaves a slick trail from his ear to his mouth, her lips smeared with the remains of her pink lip gloss and the bottom of her shot glass.
She rolls her hips, shifting against him, and his hand cups almost half of her head as he pushes away her hair. Her kisses are fierce and sharp, the bitter aftertaste of her mouth stinging Sam’s. She comes on too strongly, her desperate fingers finding the hem at the bottom of his shirt, and the kiss ends quickly. Jo slides off his lap, her hand still twisted into the bottom of his shirt so she can pull him off the stool and toward the back rooms.
They don’t make it that far, and he forces her back against the wall before they make it out of the room. He doesn’t kiss her again, just focuses on the buttons at the top of her jeans, concentrating on sliding the small pieces of brass through the undersized holes. She ends up taking pity on him, laughing softly while he bites at the hinge of her jaw, his fingers worming into her waistband so he can peel her jeans down her thighs.
Her underwear is plain cotton, off-white with holes underneath the elastic band. He rubs her through the thin material, feeling the wet heat of her, and he kisses the moist skin of her stomach, pale in the moonlight. He slips the first finger into her as his lips caress the curve of her belly, mapping the movement of her skin as her muscles clench and unfurl.
Jo breathes raggedly above him, her hands curling into his skull, and his nose fits in the groove of her hip. Sam can smell the musk of her when he draws her panties down to her ankles, and she kicks them away as he unbuckles his belt.
He fucks her against the wall, one hand leaving thin finger-shaped bruises around her wrist and the other tangled in her hair, keeping her close as he breathes into her skin. Her back is pressed against the rotting timber, one leg flung over his hip as he pushes her thighs apart, and she presses her fingers over her clit in time with his thrusts.
They slide to the floor before they’re done, Sam laughing against her neck as he tells her she’s too heavy. Jo laughs back, tells him I bet that’s what you say to all the girls, and she reaches for him again, her blunt fingernails rough against his skin.
He’s not a perfect fit. He stretches her too wide when he’s buried deep inside her, makes her thighs tremble and groan as she clenches around him, but he fills her up, makes her less empty, and he’ll do.
//<>\\
They still don’t talk much. The days pass slowly and without incident, the time marked by stolen kisses in the back rooms, quiet laughter as they listen for the sure footsteps of Jo’s mother.
Sam goes down on her once, in that sodden period between tipsy and drunk. Jo’s thighs frame his head, her hips bucking as Sam twists his fingers inside her. She drips onto her sheets, groaning as Sam lifts his head again, stilling his fingers moments before she starts to spasm into his mouth. She screams oh please, please let me come before he lets her, and she finally shudders over the edge with the corner of her pillow muffling her mouth, and he wipes his glistening fingers over her stomach while she kisses herself off his lips. Later, they move together, a jumble of elbows and calloused skin, and she accidentally reopens one of the cuts that remain over his eye. It only bleeds a little, drying in rusty flakes over his forehead, and he swallows her apologies with his mouth.
She finally gets him to dance, long after they’ve started mixing alcohol together, just to see how drunk they can get. It’s cold, and he stares at her feet, her red toenails jarring against the purple that colors the cool edge of her skin. She’s put something low and bluesy on the jukebox, and they shuffle together, quiet and slow, but Jo still turns gracefully as Sam spins her around. They dance until her eyes start drooping closed, and he has to carry her to her bed. He fumbles with her shoes, navy scuffs with no laces or buckles, and throws a blanket over her, leaving her in her singlet top and jeans, because even though he’s seen her naked, it doesn’t give him permission to undress her when she’s passed out.
//<>\\
She comes to him the next morning, and puts a hand in his boxers before he’s fully awake. She’s still got the imprint of Sam’s fingers on her hipbone when Dean comes blowing in the door, muttering about clowns and diseased circus folk, raising his eyebrow at the t-shirt Sam’s thrown on backwards.
His eyes tick between them when Jo comes out, her cheeks pink as she stares back at him. Maybe she’s saying you had your chance, or maybe she’s saying you never could have had this anyway.
She doesn’t touch Sam as he walks out the door. Her mother offers them a bed, slanting her gaze at Sam, but Dean answers for the both of them even as Jo opens her mouth to speak. She doesn’t know what she would’ve said, but Sam walks out the door with hardly a sideways glance. It’s Dean that pays her that last lingering bit of attention, asking silent questions even as he follows Sam out the door. That’s why, months later when Sam walks through the door of a bar that’s so different, yet exactly the same, she says well, you’re about the last person I expected to see, not knowing that the last she’d ever see of Samuel Winchester was a reflection in the rearview mirror, the last time he drove out of Nebraska.
Author: blincolin
Recipient: brin_bailey
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Sam/Jo
Summary: The case was reduced to a simple manila folder overflowing with highlighted clippings and scribbled notes, and it sat squarely in the passenger seat of the van, right where Sam ought to be. Some people need to be alone to deal with their grief. Others need something to hold on to, so they’re not going down on their own.
Sam watches Dean drive away in the panel-beaten van, exhaust trailing from the rear and a grinding noise from the gearbox. The case was reduced to a simple manila folder overflowing with highlighted clippings and scribbled notes, and it sat squarely in the passenger seat of the van, right where Sam ought to be. Stay here, Dean had said, without waiting for a reply. In case Ash finishes early. His knuckles white around the flimsy paper, Dean raced out the door.
I got this, he had said. I’m fine.
Watching the van, Sam feels useless and tired, like he should have stayed at school with his perfect grade-point average and ink-stains on his fingertips, but when he thinks of California he thinks of blonde hair and sunshine.
He stands there for a few minutes after the vehicle reaches past the horizon. It gets cold quickly, and Sam’s left shivering on the porch, alone as the grey sky begins to streak with oranges and purples, the sun beginning its tired retreat. He slams back into the bar, the door creaking on its hinges, and he swears when a splinter from the wooden frame works its way into the pad of his index finger.
There are no lights on in the bar, and the only light struggles through windows covered in a thick layer of dust. The chairs are still stacked on top of the tables, but people will start trickling in soon, and they’ll get their own chairs down, banging them on the floor with heavy thumps. There’s no ceremony here, and they’ll shout at whoever’s working the bar, tight-lipped and angry, because maybe they lost someone today, friend or family, or perhaps a stranger’s mother or daughter or cousin, someone they were to slow or too stupid to save in time.
She’s standing in front of the bar, wiping gun grease from the creases in her palms and smirking at him as she taps her unpainted fingernails on the bartop. He raises his finger to her like it’s an excuse, even though she’s standing too far away to see the small bead of blood welling on top of the skin.
Sam puts the small sting into his mouth when Jo walks behind the bar, beckoning him over with an inclination of her head. She puts the first-aid box on the scarred wood with a heavy thump, her thin fingers flicking the broken padlock with practiced ease. The box looks heavy and solid, well used, and what light shines through the grimy windows reflects dully off the metallic surface. She pulls out a small set of silver tweezers, brandishing them in his face. Men, Sam can almost hear her saying, as she continues to tap her fingernails against the wood, impatient for him to relinquish control of his finger.
When she’s done, she roughly slaps a band-aid over the now crater-sized wound, pulling two shotglasses from beneath the bar as she tells him not to be a baby. Jo pours the amber liquid into cloudy glasses, and there’s a quick snap of her wrist and it’s already sliding down her throat. She barely blinks, but Sam doesn’t fare so well, and almost spits it out when it touches his tongue. It burns all the way down, and he can feel it in his throat long after it’s swallowed. She pours him another one, and they drink until the bar starts crowding and she takes him into her room.
//<>\\
Her room is bare, white linen sheets tucked neatly into her mattress, her knife collection gleaming on the dresser. The varnish over her mahogany furniture had long since chipped away, and she doesn’t bother to shut her underwear drawer when Sam walks in. He can see one spot of electric purple amongst all the white cotton, and he tries to look anywhere but there as she strikes a match to light the single candle by the window. She pulls him down onto her bed, their legs tucked under them and their backs against the wall, passing the bottle between them until all Sam can feel is the cold tip of his nose, and Jo pressed up against his side. Sorry about your dad, she ventures, and Sam thinks about the merits of pouring your heart out to a complete stranger. In the end, he just nods.
I don’t remember my father, she finally continues, and Sam replies, I wish I didn’t remember mine.
//<>\\
Later, the bar is quiet. She leads Sam out by the hand, and only the slight unsteadiness of her hands betray the fact she’s had a drink at all. Music? she suggests, and Sam perches himself on a barstool to watch her cross the room. She’s concentrating too hard on where she places her feet, and it takes her a couple of tries to press the right buttons. She succeeds with a small sound of victory, a smile spreading unchecked across her face, and Sam can hear the whirring of the machine as it searches for the record. She turns, swaying her hips to a beat that doesn’t exist, singing about barroom queens in Memphis and divorcees in New York. For a few minutes she talks of places she’s never been, the grand adventures she’ll embark on, as soon as she takes her first steps over the state line.
Sam doesn’t have the heart to tell her that the adventures tend to blur together, until they’re only remembered by the scars that are left behind.
She tries to pull him up to dance, but Sam shakes his head, tells her he’s not drunk enough for that yet. We’ll have to do something about that, she replies, picking up the bottle as she shimmies around the floor.
//<>\\
It starts when his fingers go numb at the tips, and he can’t understand the words that trip over his tongue in their rush to taste the sodden air. Jo’s grin is split wide, her lips spit-slick and pink, and a laugh rumbles up from her chest. She looks for all the world like a young and pretty drunk girl in a small-town bar, and for a minute, there’s only the sound of them hiccupping, and the continual zapping of a mosquito’s kamikaze mission into the electric blue bugtrap.
When she looks up again, her eyes are twinkling, and her hair obscures half her face. They’re sitting side-by-side on matching seats at the bar, settled into the grooves where the leather is worn into a muddy red, and the stuffing peeks out the seams. The wooden frames have initials carved into them with hunting blades, and she leans over the chasm between them to rest her head on his shoulder.
His arm is curled around Jo’s waist, and her bones are small and fragile under his hands. He can see how they’d snap with the smallest amount of pressure, with a brittle sound like the breaking of a bird’s wings.
Her face turns inward, until her lips touch his neck. They’re cold and sticky, and she shifts off her seat and into his lap so his hands fall naturally onto her hips, bringing her flush against him. It’s uncomfortable with her back wedged against the bar, and he fights to keep his balance on the stool as she leans into him. She leaves a slick trail from his ear to his mouth, her lips smeared with the remains of her pink lip gloss and the bottom of her shot glass.
She rolls her hips, shifting against him, and his hand cups almost half of her head as he pushes away her hair. Her kisses are fierce and sharp, the bitter aftertaste of her mouth stinging Sam’s. She comes on too strongly, her desperate fingers finding the hem at the bottom of his shirt, and the kiss ends quickly. Jo slides off his lap, her hand still twisted into the bottom of his shirt so she can pull him off the stool and toward the back rooms.
They don’t make it that far, and he forces her back against the wall before they make it out of the room. He doesn’t kiss her again, just focuses on the buttons at the top of her jeans, concentrating on sliding the small pieces of brass through the undersized holes. She ends up taking pity on him, laughing softly while he bites at the hinge of her jaw, his fingers worming into her waistband so he can peel her jeans down her thighs.
Her underwear is plain cotton, off-white with holes underneath the elastic band. He rubs her through the thin material, feeling the wet heat of her, and he kisses the moist skin of her stomach, pale in the moonlight. He slips the first finger into her as his lips caress the curve of her belly, mapping the movement of her skin as her muscles clench and unfurl.
Jo breathes raggedly above him, her hands curling into his skull, and his nose fits in the groove of her hip. Sam can smell the musk of her when he draws her panties down to her ankles, and she kicks them away as he unbuckles his belt.
He fucks her against the wall, one hand leaving thin finger-shaped bruises around her wrist and the other tangled in her hair, keeping her close as he breathes into her skin. Her back is pressed against the rotting timber, one leg flung over his hip as he pushes her thighs apart, and she presses her fingers over her clit in time with his thrusts.
They slide to the floor before they’re done, Sam laughing against her neck as he tells her she’s too heavy. Jo laughs back, tells him I bet that’s what you say to all the girls, and she reaches for him again, her blunt fingernails rough against his skin.
He’s not a perfect fit. He stretches her too wide when he’s buried deep inside her, makes her thighs tremble and groan as she clenches around him, but he fills her up, makes her less empty, and he’ll do.
//<>\\
They still don’t talk much. The days pass slowly and without incident, the time marked by stolen kisses in the back rooms, quiet laughter as they listen for the sure footsteps of Jo’s mother.
Sam goes down on her once, in that sodden period between tipsy and drunk. Jo’s thighs frame his head, her hips bucking as Sam twists his fingers inside her. She drips onto her sheets, groaning as Sam lifts his head again, stilling his fingers moments before she starts to spasm into his mouth. She screams oh please, please let me come before he lets her, and she finally shudders over the edge with the corner of her pillow muffling her mouth, and he wipes his glistening fingers over her stomach while she kisses herself off his lips. Later, they move together, a jumble of elbows and calloused skin, and she accidentally reopens one of the cuts that remain over his eye. It only bleeds a little, drying in rusty flakes over his forehead, and he swallows her apologies with his mouth.
She finally gets him to dance, long after they’ve started mixing alcohol together, just to see how drunk they can get. It’s cold, and he stares at her feet, her red toenails jarring against the purple that colors the cool edge of her skin. She’s put something low and bluesy on the jukebox, and they shuffle together, quiet and slow, but Jo still turns gracefully as Sam spins her around. They dance until her eyes start drooping closed, and he has to carry her to her bed. He fumbles with her shoes, navy scuffs with no laces or buckles, and throws a blanket over her, leaving her in her singlet top and jeans, because even though he’s seen her naked, it doesn’t give him permission to undress her when she’s passed out.
//<>\\
She comes to him the next morning, and puts a hand in his boxers before he’s fully awake. She’s still got the imprint of Sam’s fingers on her hipbone when Dean comes blowing in the door, muttering about clowns and diseased circus folk, raising his eyebrow at the t-shirt Sam’s thrown on backwards.
His eyes tick between them when Jo comes out, her cheeks pink as she stares back at him. Maybe she’s saying you had your chance, or maybe she’s saying you never could have had this anyway.
She doesn’t touch Sam as he walks out the door. Her mother offers them a bed, slanting her gaze at Sam, but Dean answers for the both of them even as Jo opens her mouth to speak. She doesn’t know what she would’ve said, but Sam walks out the door with hardly a sideways glance. It’s Dean that pays her that last lingering bit of attention, asking silent questions even as he follows Sam out the door. That’s why, months later when Sam walks through the door of a bar that’s so different, yet exactly the same, she says well, you’re about the last person I expected to see, not knowing that the last she’d ever see of Samuel Winchester was a reflection in the rearview mirror, the last time he drove out of Nebraska.