SPN fic - There's a ghost in my mouth (girl!Sam/Dean, NC-17)
There's a ghost in my mouth
NC-17, girl!Sam/Dean AU, pre-series.
4685 words in total
She's sweaty under her uniform, damp and clingy and she can smell her own smell; the grease and the fried onions and burnt toast. Her feet ache but she walks through the crisp morning anyway, sees if she can't blow some of the diner waitress stench away. Their room is all Dean when she lets herself in, though he's not in bed, there’s a hot wave of boy and sleep; breath that's been trapped inside. The radio is playing quietly to itself, some guy crying that there ain't no sunshine when she's gone and Sam drops her bag, feels her mattress give too much under her ass when she sits down to heave her shoes off.
Her feet stink because she didn't wear socks and her toes wiggle on their own, free at last. Something clatters in the bathroom and she rolls her eyes, shakes her head, annoyed, when she spots Dean's crutches propped innocently against the television. Her brother is a dick but she's too tired from the night shift to fucking fight with him about his stupid, fat foot.
When she wakes up and six hours have disappeared - it's to the radio again, obnoxious competition, guess this scrambled intro and win a steak dinner! She might kill Dean for leaving it on; he knows there’s not a lot she hates more than the incessant twittering and jabbering of local radio.
"Did you walk back here this morning?" Dean says. He's out of breath and it's not really a question, he's accusing her. She sits up, takes her time rubbing her eyes, stretching out. Let’s her non-answer hang in the atmosphere for a second too long.
"It's not a big deal, I'm not gonna take a cab for a couple of miles, Dean."
He's doing pull ups, holding on with his fingertips to the bathroom doorway, ridiculous popeye-swollen foot weighing him down, ineffectual ace bandage on it like it's gonna help.
"How's the ankle?" she tries, untangling herself from the thin sheets. There's some food-thing on the table for her, with actual orange juice from an actual orange if she's lucky.
Dean joins her, mops his sweat with his dirty t-shirt as he limps over and sits down.
"You shouldn't be putting any weight on it," she nags, because she can't help it. It'll never heal and he's so fucking stubborn.
"You shouldn't walk around at four in the morning with nothin' on," Dean snaps.
Dean snaps a lot these days. Worse than when he was a teenager, she thinks. Sam watches him eat unhappily. Crease between his eyebrows even as he shovels eggs and bacon in to his mouth.
"You get any pepper?" she says, chicken shit. They've been arguing for two weeks straight. Dean tips his chin at her, the chair she's sitting on with his jacket draped over the back. She fishes in his pockets, rolls her eyes and pulls out napkins, sugar packets, scraps of paper, a plastic spoon and a beat up Hotwheels Classic. The left one is deeper than the right, silky lining inside like the whole thing's been replaced once already. His Zippo's in there, sharp shapes of car keys, more trash, something gritty that gets caught under her fingernails.
"There's no pepper," she says after three minutes of searching and he swears, puts down his fork delicately, sarcastically, leans over and stabs his hand into the pocket, pulls out salt and pepper sachets right away like a trick and scatters them on the table, goes back to his eggs. They've been arguing for two weeks and Dean's barely spoken the whole time.
Dean can name and describe every model of muscle car ever to come out of Detroit between 1955 and 1985. He can tell you what colours he’d spray them all if he won the Lotto. He can and has played varsity level baseball, basketball, football, lacrosse, hockey, darts, soccer, tennis and English rugby at various high-schools across the U.S. with more than a few offers to progress in to a ‘bright future’ but has declined all of them. He likes to dabble. His favourite game of all is pool because he enjoys the calculation of it and the smells that permeate the inside of a roadside bar remind him of home.
At least, that’s what he likes everyone to think.
She almost says something, Dean, I love you, Dean, he'll be back soon, okay, Dean, you wanna heal up already so I don't have to work any more? Wanna see who can name the most state capitols? Wanna paint my toenails like when we were kids? Instead, she takes the car when she leaves for work later. The Impala is ass-heavy and hard to steer, especially to park. She has to adjust everything inside, but there's no keeping Dean happy so she might as well give him something new to bitch about.
The diner is a lawsuit waiting to happen; the other waitresses are either dumb as pig's shit or completely dead inside, the manager is a sleazy prick and they underpay by about two bucks an hour but it's the only thing easy, and close. She doesn't have any qualifications but she has sweet dimples when she smiles and she can keep her hands out of the register. The guy hired her on the spot when she went in to ask about the night shift, no ID required.
Her uniform is second hand, a size too small and the boss slaps her on the ass every time she has to squeeze past him at the end of the counter, gets himself a good handful. It's bad enough trying to work with her own constant homicidal urges but her brother might put the guy in the ground for real, if he knew, and she might not feel too bad about it either. She hates everything about the job.
It stays dark as she drives back, orange threat of sunlight in the sky that looks like it might not make it. Dean's in bed when she lets herself in, radio humming from his bedside. There's no way he's asleep and she thinks, fuck it, and puts a knee on his mattress, watches his eyes open up. It was a long fucking shift and sometimes. Sometimes she just needs it. There's no excuse for the kind of wanting she has and Dean is just. Dean is perfect in the worst ways.
"Gimmie a foot rub, " she says, and climbs over him, lets her tits touch down on him for just a second, a plea for peace. Full body hug. Dean squints at her name tag, flicks it. He sighs, possibly defeated, fingers in her hair already. He always was pretty easy.
"Take a shower first, Tallulah," he says, agreeable for the first time in forever, hands skimming up her waist, and she'd forgotten how good it looks on him. She smirks, sits back right on his dick to start popping her buttons.
Victory always feels good no matter how greasy she smells.
She gets on him for real, later, his chest sweaty, tensing under her palms. She likes to watch his head tip back, jaw solid, everything withheld while he just lets her take for a minute, ride it out on him. She likes to listen to the noise she can get out of him, radio silent, no sound except their fuck in the room. She drops forward a little when she's ready, tiring, grinds down on him and pushes her fingers against her clit, makes herself come on his cock and Dean's hands clamp her, keep her right there until she's done, too full until it's too much.
He rests on his elbows over her, pelvis bones slotting and sliding against her own, all sweaty boiled heat between them, and his cock punching up softly, right inside her. He whispers things you're never supposed to hear come out of your brother's mouth, makes her sob, tighten up around him uncontrollably.
Dean likes to take his time, when he has the time.
She looks at Dean's purple foot sticking out of the sheets, it's all odd bruising and crooked toes. He never lets anything heal properly.
"I think it's getting worse," she admits, and Dean tosses an arm up over his eyes, trying to ignore her. "Maybe you should... Maybe it's time for a hospital, Dean," she presses. It feels like walking the plank, like she's pissing all over their fragile truce. He breathes in and out, then reaches out like he's going to stroke her hair, pinches her neck at the last second because he's a dirty bastard like that.
"Ouch! You asshole! " she yells, and punches him in his ribs until he stops smirking.
"It's fine, it looks worse than it is. It'll be fine in a few days," Dean lies, sitting up. He swings his legs over the side of the bed and sits there. She watches his back, his shoulders where her pink fingernail etchings haven't faded yet. Dean has a good, strong back. Solid.
He gets more like their father everyday, in stature.
Maybe she'll take his word for it, see how he likes that.
Her neck throbs and she kicks him in the spine, quickly rolls away from his shock of laughter, before his inevitable revenge can get her.
Dad doesn't come back. She doesn't mention it as long as Dean doesn't. She works seven 'til four every night except Sunday and they pay for two more weeks in the motel and they carry on like there isn't some looming, dark elephant in the room. She knows Dean must try Dad's cell every day, because she does the same, before work and after.
They carry on like there's nothing wrong. It goes straight to voicemail every time.
Dean's foot, miraculously, starts to look better. He starts taking painkillers and bitching about it, which in their twisted family means he knows it's healing. Bitching out his relief that he's not gonna lose his fucking foot.
"I told you it was just a sprain," he gloats, when he gets out of bed one day and his foot is only brown-yellow with bruises, back to normal shape and size. She knows he didn't believe it for a second, not any more than she did, so she lets it go. Watches the pressure ooze out of him like while he works out, watches him be careful with his foot, test it. He does all his warm up stretches meticulously.
It's so bright on Sunday that she gets a headache from squinting in to her book. The white glare from the pages is like staring at the sun, but. It's a good book.
Dean wanders past and drops a cold beer on her legs, comes back a minute later after some car door creaking and drops his sunglasses on her tits. She puts them on and takes a minute to bask in the other-worldly shade of the motel parking lot, listens to the spill and splash of water, the quiet crackle on the tape in all the right places that makes it hard to remember they're not in motion, on the road. Dean takes off his t-shirt and the maids cat-call at him good naturedly from the motel lobby, wolf whistles rain down from the hookers on the second floor and he soaks it up, shines up his car up like a goddamn diamond.
It's the best day they've had in a while, even if it turns out her shins and shoulders end up lobster-red with sunburn.
Dean puts his hands on her hips while she's brushing her teeth, panties and vest and ready for bed. His dick’s snug against her ass for a second, checking in, while he inspects the perfect white lines her bra straps left behind on her skin. She spits, puts up with his fingers spidering all over her burned parts for a minute, scathing inspection, before she presses her ass back against him to feel him swell up. She rubs on purpose until he huffs a laugh and slips a possessive hand down to cup between her legs, to pull her back against him harder. His tender mouth touches down on her sore shoulder and she goes up on her tip toes, gets a more serious angle against his cock, better, firmer.
Dean is not a toy, she tells herself, rubbing up against him like a fucking cat.
Her brother never shot anything he didn't aim for, he's never fucked any one over he didn't mean to fuck over. She has a twisted view of Dean, a twisted, deep respect. A kind of worship, which is what makes it so mortifying that she rips him to shreds a lot of the time without meaning to -'cause she knows she just can; without thought, a tick. One sharp harsh word, an unfair pitiful look and he's a kicked dog, her own completely.
He hasn't shared a meal with her since he was thirteen and he hasn't given up the remote control without a scrap since she got big enough to throw a punch. He's never missed anything important or not important. He's never ever fucking missed a birthday. He put her first four stitches behind her ear when she cracked her head on a sundial that time, and he bought three different brands of tampons from a Walgreen's when she got her period in a Tallahassee mall and refused to leave the ladies bathrooms outside the juice bar. He swore on the memory of their mother, when she asked him to, that he wouldn’t tell Dad.
He's exactly that and everything else he's ever been. Everything he needs to be, and there come the wide eyes, the impression he leaves, the worship she has. Full circle.
How Dean puts up with her, she'll never know.
"C'mere," he mutters redundantly, hot palm sliding back and forth over her panties, squeezing her there a little and she gets a slick feeling in her belly like a smile, 'cause she knows moods like this; like the planets are perfectly aligned or some shit, some weird syncing up. They're gonna be fucking for hours.
"Jesus," Dean mutters, nose running up the back of her neck, totally on board without her having to open her mouth to tell him. She pushes her hand over his, directs his fingers exactly where she needs them and lets him take her weight, lets him bring her off in under a minute against the cold sink edge.
She opens her eyes, lazy, and watches their languid reflection, can see her nipples through her tank, watches Dean’s lips brushing her ear, reads the words rather than hears when he asks her to turn around.
The loud triple-thump on the motel door startles them both. Like a psychical burst bubble they spring apart and she feels a sweep of adrenaline, a shock in her chest when her heart starts to race. Dean adjusts his crotch, gives her a look, stay, don’t make a peep, kid, and closes the bathroom door behind him - shuts her in like back up plan - when he goes to investigate. Sam checks Dean’s watch on the counter (23:09 ) and presses her ear to the thin door, finds some jeans.
Dean calls for her a minute later. Pastor Jim looks like he’s travelled a long way, clothes rumpled and dark smudges under his eyes. He nods a kind-faced greeting, asks her if she wants to sit down. He looks exactly like the bearer of bad news.
She feels her eyes darting between her brother and Jim, feels a swelling dread in her chest cavity.
“Dean?” she pleads, and Dean hesitates for a moment and then looks her dead in the eye. Dean is scared of nothing.
He shakes his head at her once. Final.
He can tell if a person is ex-military by the gait of their walk, the way they turn the wheel of a vehicle. He knows how to pick his battles so he doesn’t lose. He knows every symbol on the periodic table and its chemical significance, whether it’s useful or not, which household items he might find it in he needs to.
Dean buries his burdens.
Dean’s love is shocking in its abundance. He misses their father dearly. Every molecule of him yearns for a home that was one man.
Their dad is gone.
Sam watches Dean drive and wonders if there’s anything she doesn’t know about her brother. Anything she couldn’t guess correctly if she was asked. She puts a hand on his shoulder, runs it along when he doesn't flinch or shake her off, leaves it to settle for a moment behind his ear, smoothing over the outrageously soft hair there with her thumb. Dean rolls down his window, jerky. He doesn’t shake her off.
They’re never going to see their father again and Sam watches Dean, waiting for him to tell her what to do, waiting for him to take care of it like he always does.
Dean doesn’t say a single word to anyone for almost three months and it takes as long for Sam to realise that maybe this even Dean can’t fix. Maybe he’ll never be the same.
They float across country, adrift.
Part two: https://zelost-mind.livejournal.com/93537.html
I have been away for a long while so I am not even sure this fandom is still around (I'm sure het is still frowned upon if it is) but I got really back in to SPN again like six months ago and watched the entire series again from the beginning and realised my love for the Winchesters is still super strong. This was sitting in my google docs from 2011, nearly finished, and honestly, it's probably my favourite thing I've written. It was originally inspired by a prompt picture of some fried onions.
NC-17, girl!Sam/Dean AU, pre-series.
4685 words in total
She's sweaty under her uniform, damp and clingy and she can smell her own smell; the grease and the fried onions and burnt toast. Her feet ache but she walks through the crisp morning anyway, sees if she can't blow some of the diner waitress stench away. Their room is all Dean when she lets herself in, though he's not in bed, there’s a hot wave of boy and sleep; breath that's been trapped inside. The radio is playing quietly to itself, some guy crying that there ain't no sunshine when she's gone and Sam drops her bag, feels her mattress give too much under her ass when she sits down to heave her shoes off.
Her feet stink because she didn't wear socks and her toes wiggle on their own, free at last. Something clatters in the bathroom and she rolls her eyes, shakes her head, annoyed, when she spots Dean's crutches propped innocently against the television. Her brother is a dick but she's too tired from the night shift to fucking fight with him about his stupid, fat foot.
When she wakes up and six hours have disappeared - it's to the radio again, obnoxious competition, guess this scrambled intro and win a steak dinner! She might kill Dean for leaving it on; he knows there’s not a lot she hates more than the incessant twittering and jabbering of local radio.
"Did you walk back here this morning?" Dean says. He's out of breath and it's not really a question, he's accusing her. She sits up, takes her time rubbing her eyes, stretching out. Let’s her non-answer hang in the atmosphere for a second too long.
"It's not a big deal, I'm not gonna take a cab for a couple of miles, Dean."
He's doing pull ups, holding on with his fingertips to the bathroom doorway, ridiculous popeye-swollen foot weighing him down, ineffectual ace bandage on it like it's gonna help.
"How's the ankle?" she tries, untangling herself from the thin sheets. There's some food-thing on the table for her, with actual orange juice from an actual orange if she's lucky.
Dean joins her, mops his sweat with his dirty t-shirt as he limps over and sits down.
"You shouldn't be putting any weight on it," she nags, because she can't help it. It'll never heal and he's so fucking stubborn.
"You shouldn't walk around at four in the morning with nothin' on," Dean snaps.
Dean snaps a lot these days. Worse than when he was a teenager, she thinks. Sam watches him eat unhappily. Crease between his eyebrows even as he shovels eggs and bacon in to his mouth.
"You get any pepper?" she says, chicken shit. They've been arguing for two weeks straight. Dean tips his chin at her, the chair she's sitting on with his jacket draped over the back. She fishes in his pockets, rolls her eyes and pulls out napkins, sugar packets, scraps of paper, a plastic spoon and a beat up Hotwheels Classic. The left one is deeper than the right, silky lining inside like the whole thing's been replaced once already. His Zippo's in there, sharp shapes of car keys, more trash, something gritty that gets caught under her fingernails.
"There's no pepper," she says after three minutes of searching and he swears, puts down his fork delicately, sarcastically, leans over and stabs his hand into the pocket, pulls out salt and pepper sachets right away like a trick and scatters them on the table, goes back to his eggs. They've been arguing for two weeks and Dean's barely spoken the whole time.
Dean can name and describe every model of muscle car ever to come out of Detroit between 1955 and 1985. He can tell you what colours he’d spray them all if he won the Lotto. He can and has played varsity level baseball, basketball, football, lacrosse, hockey, darts, soccer, tennis and English rugby at various high-schools across the U.S. with more than a few offers to progress in to a ‘bright future’ but has declined all of them. He likes to dabble. His favourite game of all is pool because he enjoys the calculation of it and the smells that permeate the inside of a roadside bar remind him of home.
At least, that’s what he likes everyone to think.
She almost says something, Dean, I love you, Dean, he'll be back soon, okay, Dean, you wanna heal up already so I don't have to work any more? Wanna see who can name the most state capitols? Wanna paint my toenails like when we were kids? Instead, she takes the car when she leaves for work later. The Impala is ass-heavy and hard to steer, especially to park. She has to adjust everything inside, but there's no keeping Dean happy so she might as well give him something new to bitch about.
The diner is a lawsuit waiting to happen; the other waitresses are either dumb as pig's shit or completely dead inside, the manager is a sleazy prick and they underpay by about two bucks an hour but it's the only thing easy, and close. She doesn't have any qualifications but she has sweet dimples when she smiles and she can keep her hands out of the register. The guy hired her on the spot when she went in to ask about the night shift, no ID required.
Her uniform is second hand, a size too small and the boss slaps her on the ass every time she has to squeeze past him at the end of the counter, gets himself a good handful. It's bad enough trying to work with her own constant homicidal urges but her brother might put the guy in the ground for real, if he knew, and she might not feel too bad about it either. She hates everything about the job.
It stays dark as she drives back, orange threat of sunlight in the sky that looks like it might not make it. Dean's in bed when she lets herself in, radio humming from his bedside. There's no way he's asleep and she thinks, fuck it, and puts a knee on his mattress, watches his eyes open up. It was a long fucking shift and sometimes. Sometimes she just needs it. There's no excuse for the kind of wanting she has and Dean is just. Dean is perfect in the worst ways.
"Gimmie a foot rub, " she says, and climbs over him, lets her tits touch down on him for just a second, a plea for peace. Full body hug. Dean squints at her name tag, flicks it. He sighs, possibly defeated, fingers in her hair already. He always was pretty easy.
"Take a shower first, Tallulah," he says, agreeable for the first time in forever, hands skimming up her waist, and she'd forgotten how good it looks on him. She smirks, sits back right on his dick to start popping her buttons.
Victory always feels good no matter how greasy she smells.
She gets on him for real, later, his chest sweaty, tensing under her palms. She likes to watch his head tip back, jaw solid, everything withheld while he just lets her take for a minute, ride it out on him. She likes to listen to the noise she can get out of him, radio silent, no sound except their fuck in the room. She drops forward a little when she's ready, tiring, grinds down on him and pushes her fingers against her clit, makes herself come on his cock and Dean's hands clamp her, keep her right there until she's done, too full until it's too much.
He rests on his elbows over her, pelvis bones slotting and sliding against her own, all sweaty boiled heat between them, and his cock punching up softly, right inside her. He whispers things you're never supposed to hear come out of your brother's mouth, makes her sob, tighten up around him uncontrollably.
Dean likes to take his time, when he has the time.
She looks at Dean's purple foot sticking out of the sheets, it's all odd bruising and crooked toes. He never lets anything heal properly.
"I think it's getting worse," she admits, and Dean tosses an arm up over his eyes, trying to ignore her. "Maybe you should... Maybe it's time for a hospital, Dean," she presses. It feels like walking the plank, like she's pissing all over their fragile truce. He breathes in and out, then reaches out like he's going to stroke her hair, pinches her neck at the last second because he's a dirty bastard like that.
"Ouch! You asshole! " she yells, and punches him in his ribs until he stops smirking.
"It's fine, it looks worse than it is. It'll be fine in a few days," Dean lies, sitting up. He swings his legs over the side of the bed and sits there. She watches his back, his shoulders where her pink fingernail etchings haven't faded yet. Dean has a good, strong back. Solid.
He gets more like their father everyday, in stature.
Maybe she'll take his word for it, see how he likes that.
Her neck throbs and she kicks him in the spine, quickly rolls away from his shock of laughter, before his inevitable revenge can get her.
Dad doesn't come back. She doesn't mention it as long as Dean doesn't. She works seven 'til four every night except Sunday and they pay for two more weeks in the motel and they carry on like there isn't some looming, dark elephant in the room. She knows Dean must try Dad's cell every day, because she does the same, before work and after.
They carry on like there's nothing wrong. It goes straight to voicemail every time.
Dean's foot, miraculously, starts to look better. He starts taking painkillers and bitching about it, which in their twisted family means he knows it's healing. Bitching out his relief that he's not gonna lose his fucking foot.
"I told you it was just a sprain," he gloats, when he gets out of bed one day and his foot is only brown-yellow with bruises, back to normal shape and size. She knows he didn't believe it for a second, not any more than she did, so she lets it go. Watches the pressure ooze out of him like while he works out, watches him be careful with his foot, test it. He does all his warm up stretches meticulously.
It's so bright on Sunday that she gets a headache from squinting in to her book. The white glare from the pages is like staring at the sun, but. It's a good book.
Dean wanders past and drops a cold beer on her legs, comes back a minute later after some car door creaking and drops his sunglasses on her tits. She puts them on and takes a minute to bask in the other-worldly shade of the motel parking lot, listens to the spill and splash of water, the quiet crackle on the tape in all the right places that makes it hard to remember they're not in motion, on the road. Dean takes off his t-shirt and the maids cat-call at him good naturedly from the motel lobby, wolf whistles rain down from the hookers on the second floor and he soaks it up, shines up his car up like a goddamn diamond.
It's the best day they've had in a while, even if it turns out her shins and shoulders end up lobster-red with sunburn.
Dean puts his hands on her hips while she's brushing her teeth, panties and vest and ready for bed. His dick’s snug against her ass for a second, checking in, while he inspects the perfect white lines her bra straps left behind on her skin. She spits, puts up with his fingers spidering all over her burned parts for a minute, scathing inspection, before she presses her ass back against him to feel him swell up. She rubs on purpose until he huffs a laugh and slips a possessive hand down to cup between her legs, to pull her back against him harder. His tender mouth touches down on her sore shoulder and she goes up on her tip toes, gets a more serious angle against his cock, better, firmer.
Dean is not a toy, she tells herself, rubbing up against him like a fucking cat.
Her brother never shot anything he didn't aim for, he's never fucked any one over he didn't mean to fuck over. She has a twisted view of Dean, a twisted, deep respect. A kind of worship, which is what makes it so mortifying that she rips him to shreds a lot of the time without meaning to -'cause she knows she just can; without thought, a tick. One sharp harsh word, an unfair pitiful look and he's a kicked dog, her own completely.
He hasn't shared a meal with her since he was thirteen and he hasn't given up the remote control without a scrap since she got big enough to throw a punch. He's never missed anything important or not important. He's never ever fucking missed a birthday. He put her first four stitches behind her ear when she cracked her head on a sundial that time, and he bought three different brands of tampons from a Walgreen's when she got her period in a Tallahassee mall and refused to leave the ladies bathrooms outside the juice bar. He swore on the memory of their mother, when she asked him to, that he wouldn’t tell Dad.
He's exactly that and everything else he's ever been. Everything he needs to be, and there come the wide eyes, the impression he leaves, the worship she has. Full circle.
How Dean puts up with her, she'll never know.
"C'mere," he mutters redundantly, hot palm sliding back and forth over her panties, squeezing her there a little and she gets a slick feeling in her belly like a smile, 'cause she knows moods like this; like the planets are perfectly aligned or some shit, some weird syncing up. They're gonna be fucking for hours.
"Jesus," Dean mutters, nose running up the back of her neck, totally on board without her having to open her mouth to tell him. She pushes her hand over his, directs his fingers exactly where she needs them and lets him take her weight, lets him bring her off in under a minute against the cold sink edge.
She opens her eyes, lazy, and watches their languid reflection, can see her nipples through her tank, watches Dean’s lips brushing her ear, reads the words rather than hears when he asks her to turn around.
The loud triple-thump on the motel door startles them both. Like a psychical burst bubble they spring apart and she feels a sweep of adrenaline, a shock in her chest when her heart starts to race. Dean adjusts his crotch, gives her a look, stay, don’t make a peep, kid, and closes the bathroom door behind him - shuts her in like back up plan - when he goes to investigate. Sam checks Dean’s watch on the counter (23:09 ) and presses her ear to the thin door, finds some jeans.
Dean calls for her a minute later. Pastor Jim looks like he’s travelled a long way, clothes rumpled and dark smudges under his eyes. He nods a kind-faced greeting, asks her if she wants to sit down. He looks exactly like the bearer of bad news.
She feels her eyes darting between her brother and Jim, feels a swelling dread in her chest cavity.
“Dean?” she pleads, and Dean hesitates for a moment and then looks her dead in the eye. Dean is scared of nothing.
He shakes his head at her once. Final.
He can tell if a person is ex-military by the gait of their walk, the way they turn the wheel of a vehicle. He knows how to pick his battles so he doesn’t lose. He knows every symbol on the periodic table and its chemical significance, whether it’s useful or not, which household items he might find it in he needs to.
Dean buries his burdens.
Dean’s love is shocking in its abundance. He misses their father dearly. Every molecule of him yearns for a home that was one man.
Their dad is gone.
Sam watches Dean drive and wonders if there’s anything she doesn’t know about her brother. Anything she couldn’t guess correctly if she was asked. She puts a hand on his shoulder, runs it along when he doesn't flinch or shake her off, leaves it to settle for a moment behind his ear, smoothing over the outrageously soft hair there with her thumb. Dean rolls down his window, jerky. He doesn’t shake her off.
They’re never going to see their father again and Sam watches Dean, waiting for him to tell her what to do, waiting for him to take care of it like he always does.
Dean doesn’t say a single word to anyone for almost three months and it takes as long for Sam to realise that maybe this even Dean can’t fix. Maybe he’ll never be the same.
They float across country, adrift.
Part two: https://zelost-mind.livejournal.com/93537.html
I have been away for a long while so I am not even sure this fandom is still around (I'm sure het is still frowned upon if it is) but I got really back in to SPN again like six months ago and watched the entire series again from the beginning and realised my love for the Winchesters is still super strong. This was sitting in my google docs from 2011, nearly finished, and honestly, it's probably my favourite thing I've written. It was originally inspired by a prompt picture of some fried onions.