SPN fic "Pilot: Prologue & Part One" (1/?)
Um, so. Yeah. This has been floating around my hard drive, and my various email accounts in one form, or another for a year. It's slow going, because I have no idea if it even works as a story, and I keep changing shit around. . . .
Nothing original, here: rewriting the pilot episode of SPN, with the ol' gender switcheroo for Sam and Dean. Worth going on with, or leave on the scrap heap?
Comments, suggestions and concrit are always welcome. But only in senryu form.
Pilot: Prologue & Part One
Author: _beetle_
Rating: R
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: The usual suspects.
Disclaimer: I am not The Kripke, nor The Singer, and most certainly not The Manners.
Notes/Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers for S1, Ep1. Plus, I girled-up Sam and Deen. UST, and femslash, ahoy!
Summary: Then . . . and Now.
Lawrence, Kansas
22 years ago
"Come on, sweetie, let's say goodnight to your sister, okay?"
"Okay, Mommy," Deen says as Mommy carries her into Sammie's room. When they get to the crib, Deen leans down and peers down into the crib.
Sammie is wide awake and gurgling softly to herself, dark blue eyes huge and curious as they meet Deen's. She's pretty, pink-cheeked, and always smiling: for the most part, a happy, quiet baby. Has been from the start, unlike Deen who, according to Daddy, had made more fuss than any ten colicky infants.
Deen brushes her finger gently down one soft, super-tiny baby finger.
"G'night, Sammie," she whispers, leaning down to kiss her sister's forehead, letting it linger for just a moment. Now that Sammie's not so new, she actually smells good--like baby powder and shampoo, instead of sour milk and spew. And when she smiles that sweet, toothless smile--not the gas-smile, which looks more like a grimace--an achy-nice feeling wells up in Deen's chest. So big and strange and endless, she doesn't know what to do with it. Might explode from the force of it.
Then Mommy puts Deen--who takes the opportunity to stand on her toes in the new ballet shoes she's only allowed to wear before bedtime--down to give her own goodnight kiss.
"Goodnight, love," she murmurs softly, the same way she does to Deen, and Sammie makes one of those excited, breathless baby noises.
Mommy's about to add the rest--it's never goodnight without the rest, the best part, the part about the angels watching over them--
Deen's suddenly scooped up into strong arms, and angels and goodnight kisses are forgotten in the best bear hug there ever was. He always smells like a mixture of soap and sweat, motor oil and wind. She'd know that scent anywhere.
"Daddy!" Deen hugs him as hard as her arms will allow, but not as hard as she wants to. His stubble tickles her face, and she giggles.
"Hey, princess--didn't think I'd miss bedtime, didja?" He kisses her cheek, settles her in the crook of his arm then brushes her hair out of her face to look her in the eyes seriously. But it's his pretend serious-face, not the real one. His lips even twitch as he glances at the crib. "So, you think Sammie's ready to toss around a football yet?"
"She's a girl, Daddy!" Deen exclaims, scrunching her face, and Daddy laughs, lines forming around his mouth and at the corners of his eyes.
"Well . . . I've already got a pretty little ballerina. Sammie can be my tomboy. Or who knows?" Daddy grins. "Maybe in a few years, you'll have a little brother."
When they both look at Mommy hopefully, she rolls her eyes and smiles. “Maybe.” She drifts past Deen and Daddy, pausing to kiss both on the cheek. "You got her?"
"I got her." Deen gets a another stubbly kiss on the forehead. She wraps her arms around Daddy's neck as he approaches the crib, still grinning, his eyes soft and happy. He rubs Sammie's tummy till she giggles. "Sweet dreams, darlin'."
As he cuts the light off and walks out the door, Deen could swear she sees the mobile--formerly Deen's own mobile, and it was very generous of her to give it to Sammie, Mommy had said--start to revolve slowly, even though it's Fall and the window's shut.
Then Daddy pulls the door in and, less than two minutes later, already warm and tucked into her own bed--her cheek still tingly from another stubble-y kiss--she's already forgotten all about it.
*
Deen's always slept like a log.
The soft, familiar sound of her mother walking past her room to Sammie's, then downstairs doesn't wake her. Nor does she stir when her mother runs back upstairs in a blind panic.
But when the screaming starts, she comes instantly awake. She'd think it was part of a nightmare, except she's had little enough experience with those. So she scrambles out of bed, jamming her feet into her slippers, and runs to the door.
Opens it and peers out just in time to see her father running into Sammie's room, then there's silence, punctuated only by her father's deep rumbling murmur, but this only makes Deen worry worse. It feels like walking in the woods sometimes, when all the birds and bugs and squirrels suddenly go silent. Like they're holding their breath. . . .
Then her father screams.
Just as she flings her door wide, there's a loud, breathless roar and the hallway is filled with orange light and heat.
She runs down the hall and nearly collides with her father's legs as he staggers out of Sammie's room, a wriggling, wailing bundle of blankets in his arms.
"Daddy?" Deen's eyes are opened wide, trying to see over and around Daddy clearly--there's nothing but fire pouring down from the ceiling, eating Sammie's nursery. Deen can almost make out . . . it kinda looks like there's someone there, on the ceiling . . . burning. . . .
Then Sammie's in her arms, crying and wriggling, and Daddy's face is looming in her vision, scared and wet.
"Take your sister outside as fast as you can and don't look back! Now, Geraldine--go!" He barks when Deen simply stands there, frozen to the spot.
Then he's dashing back into Sammie's nursery, into the flames, and even though she wants, more than anything to rush in there and help--she was screaming, and now she's burning some corner of her brain whispers; will whisper for the rest of her life--Deen runs for the stairs, horrified at the sudden and paralyzing thought of overbalancing with the unfamiliar weight of her squalling sister.
There's a wash of heat at her back, and the fear inside her is buried--obliterated by that huge, crushing, smothering that she's never been able to consciously identify, but for the claws it has in her heart and in her gut. The cold iron it injects into her spine.
Protect Sammie, it whispers, shutting off fear and all other concerns like a switch.
“It'll be okay, Sammie. I promise,” she murmurs, taking the first step without further hesitation. She doesn't know the word 'imperative', but that's what urges her downward on legs that are far steadier than they should be, holding Sammie with arms that are far stronger than they should be.
At the front door, unwilling to put Sammie down even for a moment, Deen wrestles the thankfully unlocked door open. Then she's out, and down the porch steps. The grass under her feet is dead and dry, crackles with the first hints of frost.
A couple feet away from the porch she stumbles on something hard--a twig, maybe--and goes to her knees, twisting to take the brunt of the fall on her right elbow, Sammie curled close to her chest. Bright flash of pain in her ankle that's not nearly as hot as the fire behind her, but Deen's immediately struggling to her feet. Sammie's high, sharp cries spur her on, even though it hurts to stand, to limp.
Suddenly there's another dull monster roar, louder than before, and hotter. And Deen's flying through the night. . . .
It's only after she opens her eyes to the interior of the Impala that she realizes she hadn't been flying, but picked up, and even underneath the smell of woodsmoke and her own sweat, she can smell motor oil and the wind. Her arms ache from holding Sammie so tight, and being held so tight.
The passenger side door slams shut and she can see Daddy running back toward the house. There's fire coming out of the second floor windows. Daddy running around to the other side of the house, to the back door probably, when there's another explosion and fire blows out the few remaining windows and shoots out the front door.
Daddy's thrown to the ground hard, and for a long time, he just lays there shaking, not getting up.
In her arms, Sammie won't stop bawling and wriggling.
“It'll be okay,” Deen is saying over and over, but she doesn't know it--can't hear it. Can't hear anything over the monster-roar that echoes in her ears, and the thud of her own heart.
*
Stanford University
Present Day
"Sam! Get a move on, wouldja? We were supposed to be there, like, fifteen minutes ago." Jess tugs once on her Naughty Nurse costume, and adjusts the thigh-high stockings yet again. Realizes running water is not exactly an answer. "Babe? You comin', or what?
Sam pokes her head around the bathroom lintel, eyes wide with fake innocence, toothbrush hanging out of her foamy mouth. "Uh . . . I'm gonna go with 'or what'."
Jess glares when Sam--clad in a sports bra, boxers, mismatched socks and nothing else . . . sleepwear--ducks back into the bathroom. "Where's your costume?"
After a minute the sound of running water stops, and Sam strolls back into their bedroom, all wide blue eyes and too-innocent face, twisting her hair into a knot at her neck. "I'll make you a deal: I'll pull on some jeans, and go as someone who doesn't wanna get arrested for indecent exposure."
Jess leans against their dresser and crosses her arms, watching Sam watch what said crossing does to her already low neckline. “Wet. Blanket.”
"C'mon, Jess, you know how I feel about Halloween." When Jess lets one eyebrow answer that question, Sam's face scrinches up like a kid's . . . except kids actually look forward to Halloween. "I said I'd go, but I never said I'd wear a costume."
"It's a Halloween party. Wearing a costume is sort of implied if you're going,” Jess protests, but half-heartedly. There are certain things Samantha Winchester won't be moved on, will not even discuss, and this, apparently, is one of them.
Sam watches her with unreadable eyes, her mouth turned down in an absent sort of frown. But that frown is replaced with suspicious alacrity by a thrice all-American grin, that somehow manages to be sexy and a little dangerous on Sam's square, impossibly girl-next-door face.
“We have a verbal contract about me attending--for an unspecified amount of time--but not about what I wear while attending. No costume." The grin fades a little, into Sam's real smile, sweet, slightly apologetic. “I'll go. I'll stay as long as you want. That'll have to be enough."
That'll have to be enough . . . not the first time Sam's said that, probably not the last. Everyone's got secret places, parts of themselves they barely let themselves see, forget other people. Sometimes, though, it seems like Sam's got more of those places most people, and in the nearly two years they've been together, she hasn't let Jess see more than a few.
She shakes her head. "Why are you so weird about Halloween?"
"I just am,” Sam says, her inclining her body forward a bit, as if wanting to move closer, but not entirely sure she'd be welcomed. Solicitous, but unyielding.
Too stubborn to bend, too strong to break, Jess thinks with an equal mix of fondness and exasperation. As always, she closes the distance between them; slides her arms around Sam's neck. The platform ankle-breakers she's wearing add a good couple inches to her height, and Sam has to look up slightly to meet her eyes.
They hold each other silently for a few moments.
“Still love me?” The tone is joking, but Sam's eyes certainly aren't. They're wary, and hunted . . . her arms tense and tentative around Jess's waist. And suddenly, nagging her over a Halloween costume seems silly, and Jess sighs, leaning in to kiss the tip of her upturned nose.
“Still love you . . . what can I say? I have horrible taste in women.”
“Yeah, your taste in women isn't nearly as good as mine.” Sam smiles again, happy and relieved, and runs teasing fingers down the buttons on the back of Jess's outfit, over ass, then under hem. "But, see--now I want us to stay home more than ever . . . I'll even help you out of your costume."
“Nuh-uh!" Jess catches those clever fingers before they work their way under the edge of her panties, and steps back. "After the party--but only if you at least try to have a good time. Halloween's not the only thing we're celebrating, Legal Eagle.”
Sam's eyes dart away, and she blushes. “It was just a test--I've always tested well. But if you, and the Trust Fund Kid keep the Black Label flowing after I run out of cash, good times are assured.” She holds out her hand. It's a hand that's seen hard work, though at what, Jess has never been able to guess, and Sam hasn't bothered to volunteer.
But that's never been enough to keep Jess from taking Sam's hand when it's offered.
This time, not unexpectedly, she's pulled hard against Sam, and kissed to within an inch of her life. Till the tingles start turning into a sustained burn, and her knees have gone to jelly.
Till Sam's once more examining the buttons on the dress and the edges of her underwear.
“No-no-no,” Jess murmurs, pulling away--uselessly, because Sam's lips follow, bringing Sam's Roman hands with them. They latch possessively onto her hips. “Later, I promise.”
“Now . . . with the stockings on.”
“Perv.” Jess lets Sam draw out a last kiss for a few seconds, then laughs when she realizes she probably looks more like a clown than a Naughty Nurse, thanks to all the kissing. "Fuck. Now I'm gonna have to reapply."
"Such is life." Those hands are making inroads under the costume again, Sam is backing them toward the bed, and . . . this is exactly why they missed the Halloween party last year.
Sam makes a funny squawking noise when Jess shoves her back on the bed, then grins. At least until Jess backs away, smirking and smug.
“No means later, jerk. Now get dressed.”
*
"So here's to Sam, and her awesome LSAT victory,. Hail the conquering hero!" Jess toasts, then giggles, Jaeger slopping out of the shot glass.
Sam and Lauren share near identical moments of Zen watching Jess knock back the shot like a pro, then lick at the runner of Jaeger sliding down her arm. She grins at them with tipsy triumph, and they both sigh.
"And to the victor go the spoils," Lauren adds wryly, shooting her Cuervo Gold, followed by Sam who grimaces when the Black Label hits her throat. Tears spring to her eyes for a moment as warmth and fuzzy good-will spread outward from her guts.
Around them, the bar is pulsing with life, and energy--house music blaring, people dancing, necking, drinking, laughing. For once, Sam feels like a part of it, completely at home. She's actually . . . glad Jess dragged her to this party, which--despite all the lame-ass costumes and decorations--is pretty awesome.
“Why on Earth did I ever give you permission to go out with my ex-girlfriend?” Lauren wonders, watching Jess with a predatory sort of wistfulness that'd set Sam on edge, if not for the magic of Jack Daniels. And for the fact that said Jack Daniels was purchased by none other than the owner of that intense stare.
“Because you're really, really . . . dumb,” Sam rasps out diplomatically, then clears her throat. Blinks till everything stops being quite so shiny. She's no lightweight, but she definitely doesn't have a Winchester's tolerance for hard liquor. Another two shots, and she'll likely be under the table. As it is, some kindly bartender's going to have to pour all three of them into a cab.
“Wrong: I'm self-defeating, not dumb--and speaking of I.Q.,” that bleary gaze swings to Sam, nearly taking Lauren's whole body with it. “What did you score, anyway?”
"One seventy-four . . . it's not a big a deal. There's a--a bunch of other people that scored higher than I did.”
Jess makes her careful way to Sam's side and slings an arm around her. "Yeah, and they're called one percent of pre-law students in the United States."
Lauren frowns, trying to do the math. It takes a few seconds because she's probably two shots away from black-out, herself. "So . . . you're in the ninety-ninth percentile?"
Jess presses a kiss into Sam's hair. The kiss turns into a nuzzle, and a murmur that sounds like love you. "My baby acts all humble, but she did scary good."
It's disconcerting when Lauren grins--that bright smile from the midst of all the fake skin, blood and grey makeup-and toasts Sam again with a random beer bottle that's actually been at their table longer than they have. "You're a first-round draft pick--you can go to any law school you want. Have you considered the East Coast? Or Canada?"
Sam smiles coolly, and plucks the bottle (there's a cigarette floating in it) out of Lauren's hand before she can drink from it; hands it to a passing barmaid. "No. I've got an interview here on Monday. If it goes okay . . . I've got a shot at a full ride next year." She looks up into Jess's eyes to gauge her reaction. The beaming, beautiful smile she gets makes something in her ache rather sweetly.
"It's gonna go great," Jess murmurs, leaning down for a lingering kiss that tastes like love, and Jaeger. "You'll do great."
"I'd better,” Sam murmurs back, sliding her arm around Jess's waist, partly for the contact, and partly to keep her upright. Jess obligingly snugs into her side.
"What I wanna know,” Lauren is saying, staring after the barmaid--or possibly after the stale beer--with undisguised regret. She turns back to Sam and Jess with a morose sigh. “Is how does it feel to be the fair-haired boy of your family?"
Sam gives her a look, and Lauren gestures expansively with a floppy, uncoordinated hand, nearly smacking the same barmaid in the crotch as she hustles by again. "You know what I mean. Are they doing back-flips on the old Winchester homestead?"
Picturing Dad and Deen, doing backflips in a skeevy motel room is actually kinda funny. Then just kinda disturbing. "Um, they don't actually know. I--I haven't had a chance to tell them. And it really isn't that big a deal," she adds again, off Jess's concerned look. Lauren just seems disgusted.
"You're so damn humble, I think I'm gonna puke.” She glares at Sam with real asperity, glances at Jess and immediately dredges up a wan smile from somewhere. “Look. Pretend you're a mere mortal, like the rest of us, and rub some faces in it. I would."
"Yeah, well, face-rubbing's just not me," Sam says, not knowing whether it is, or isn't. Deen and Dad would have to care about her achievements for her to find out if she was the face-rubbing type.
"C'mon! Just ditch the false modesty, and brag! If anyone's earned bragging rights. . . . "
Sam can feel Jess's eyes on her, loving and concerned. Wants to head this all off before it becomes another 'discussion' when they get home. "Listen, my family's not exactly the Bradys. . . ."
"And mine aren't exactly the Huxtables! Hence the joy of rubbing in the occasional success!” Lauren declares ruefully, signaling the barmaid, who ignores them completely for some unknown reason.
She swears and levers herself up unsteadily. Sam's amazed when, after a few iffy seconds, she doesn't hit the floor. “I'm starting to get maudlin, and bitchy--I need shots to maintain my usual benevolent equilibrium. You ladies in? My treat."
“No.” Sam and Jess say at the same time, looking at each other in agreement. "We've all had enough," Jess adds pointlessly. When the Trust Fund Kid makes up her mind to get flattened, three's no earthly force that can stop, or delay her.
“Whazzat?” Sure enough, Lauren lurches off in true, drunken-zombie style. “Can't quite hear you over all this noise. . . .”
"When you black-out, we're gonna steal your wallet, and leave your unconscious body in an alley!" Sam calls, but it falls on uncaring ears. Lauren is already at the bar and signaling the bartender with what looks like a hundred dollar bill.
She's either settling up their tab so they can leave (a wise move, therefore not likely), or buying a round for the whole bar.
Jess snorts. “She is so wasted. You've got her car keys, right?”
Sam pats her jacket pocket just hard enough for the keys to jingle.
“Who's my socially conscious little pickpocket?” Jess plops onto Sam's lap and presses their lips together. Her arms wind around Sam's neck, and even under the scents of booze and cigarettes--of bar, how sad is it that this is making her vaguely nostalgic for her misspent childhood--Jess's clean, sweet scent wraps around Sam's brain and heart. Sinks into her blood. She hugs Jess tight, turns the press into a proper kiss.
When they come up for air, Jess sighs happily. "You're gonna knock 'em dead on Monday and you're gonna get that full ride. I know it."
The weird thing is, Sam knows it, too--and the knowing washes over her with a strong sense of unreality. Like she's sleepwalking through a strange, wonderful dream. "I love you, Jess. Dunno what I'd do without you."
"Two words for you, Legal Eagle: crash and burn."
*
Sam sleeps fitfully, always has.
Even after drinking enough, and fucking enough to put a normal person into a coma, the slightest unfamiliar noise is enough to bring her fully awake.
So the solid thud coming from the living room jolts her right out of bad dream-land, where everything is fire, and a woman's hoarse, frightened scream, and into the cool, silvery dimness of their bedroom.
Milky, hazy moonlight filters in through the window, and by its light, Jess is an even more of an angel, breathing softly, hitching on every other inhale (not, as Jess has assured her, snoring).
Another noise from the hall, and Sam's crouched on the floor, sliding the bat from under the bed, her veins buzzing, her brain strangely empty.
Strega, a small part of her whispers into that emptiness, tiny and terrified. After glancing toward their closed and latched bedroom window, Sam strangles the voice, and snags her boxers and t-shirt from the floor. Avoids a notoriously creaky floorboard on her way out the door.
The hallway is dappled in light and shadows, both seeming to move nervously, and she exhales slowly, clutching the bat. The floor is cool under her feet, and ten different drafts whip around her legs and up her boxers.
At the entryway to the livingroom, she pauses and looks in.
Nothing moving but shadows. None of the windows are open here, either.
There's another sound from just ahead--in the kitchen, and Sam darts into the living room, flattening herself to the wall next to the lintel, bat raised. The house is warded against supernatural intruders, but a moderately determined--and fairly desperate--burglar could find a way in. Not that there's anything worth stealing besides a couple of aging laptops and a hand-me-down tv from Lauren--
Strega, strega, strega! the voice shrills suddenly, as a short, wild-haired figure clumps into the room past Sam, making no real effort to move silently. She swings the bat at back level, uncertain even at the last second whether she means to incapacitate, or kill--
But the stranger--not Strega--ducks out of the way easily, already spin-kicking with dismaying accuracy for Sam's right knee, only Sam's already dropped the bat and blocking the kick with her right arm. There's a surprising lack of impact.
Oh, it hurts, alright, and if it'd hit her knee, she'd have had a few days worth of ache and a hell of a bruise. But if the stranger was playing for keeps, a well-placed kick could've easily broken knee or arm.
"You block like a fucking girl," the intruder growls, grabbing her right arm and twisting into a basic judo-throw. Sam slams back first to the floor before she realizes the fight's over.
The winner sits on her legs and pins her arms while the room is still spinning, and trying to right itself. Sam groans at the dull ache in her back, then immediately starts bucking--not screaming, who knows what this psycho might do if Jess runs out here, startled and half-asleep?
She struggles disorientedly, getting nowhere and nothing but a stinging slap to the face.
"Shake 'er easy there, Xena, Warrior Princess." The intruder leans down, and into a ray of moonlight and Sam should've known. Who else would break into a house wearing . . . Jesus, a brown leather jacket and tight black jeans?
"Deen?" She barks. Two years and--with the way Deen drives--thousands of miles since they've seen each other and she looks just the same: assessing eyes like new grass, darkening to polished malachite in toward the pupils. Features a touch too strong to be pretty, but too fine to be handsome. White teeth in a knowingly charming smile--all of it topped by windblown, shoulder-length dark-blonde hair, because Deen apparently still drives with both windows down.
Strega, indeed.
"Way to scare the bejeezer outta me!" Sam twists and yanks her hands away hard enough to have broken Deen's thumbs, if Deen hadn't been, as Deen always is, prepared.
"Aw." That full-throated laugh, eerily like dad's for all that it's a few octaves higher. "Not my fault you're outta practice. College life makin' you soft, there, Princess?"
Scowling, Sam coils in as much as she can, then rocks backwards hard. Deen tumbles over her head with a startled yelp, and Sam follows through, landing solidly on her older sister, who oofs out a spearmint-y, pork-rind-y breath.
It's a quick turning of the tables that leaves Deen scowling, and Sam grinning, tense and humorless, pinning her to the floor with greater size, and muscle density. Exercise is, it turns out, a great way to relieve college-related stress. "Not so's you'd notice, no."
Deen laughs again, though it sounds forced. She tries to dislodge Sam several times before she sighs grudgingly. "Fuck off me, Sasquatch." She sinks her fingernails into Sam's wrists, grunting when Sam smacks her hands away.
"Screw you." Sam gets to her feet and probes her arm cursorily before offering Deen her hand. Not surprisingly, the hand is slapped away just as cursorily, and Deen's on her feet with another grunt. "God only knows what's under your grimy claws. What the hell are you even doing here, besides giving my last tetanus shot a run for its money?"
"I was lookin' for a tallboy 'til some lanky, horse's ass put the smackdown on me," Deen grouses, her mouth pursing into a pout that's all she seems to share with the little girl in the few photos of Before Dad kept squirreled away. Sam sighs and rolls her shoulders to relieve some of the ache.
"Deen. This is a college campus. There's a fucking frat house three doors down. All the free beer and whiskey-dicks you can swallow." Taking in the shamelessly accentuated curves on a body Sam would've killed to have in every sense of the word . . . once upon a time . . . she smiles wryly. Deen hasn't had to work to get laid since she was fifteen, and she still looked like jail-bait. "Have fun."
"Meh." Deen stretches like a cat, t-shirt riding up to reveal a flat stomach that's ten shades lighter than her face, hands and arms. Vertebrae snap, crackle and pop. "Frat boys are so three years ago, Sam. 'Specially those candy-ass, met-tro-sexual ones I've seen sashaying around here."
"Well, I dunno what to tell you--there's a biker bar on Van Allen. . . ."
"Shut up, for Chrissakes!" That sober, annoying Older Sis tone hasn't changed, except to have gained a bit more rasp, a bit more command. Makes Sam frown in a way that feels petulant, and young. But Deen keeps talking before she can get out a single word. "And shit-can that bratty 'tude while you're at it, Sammie-ham, 'cause we need to talk."
"Do we?" Sam ignores the hated nickname and paces to the window. The Impala's parked outside, sleek and dangerous looking like its owner. It, too, hasn't changed. But then, the Metallicar never does. That realization is unexpectedly warming. "You're the one who hasn't picked up a phone since dinosaurs roamed the Earth."
"Ah, c'mon. Hasn't been that long." Deen's voice, when it comes, is directly behind her, and Sam starts, but doesn't turn around. Doesn't give Deen the satisfaction of her discomfort and confusion.
Ignores the hand that settles in the center of her back, solid and steadying . . . radiating easy warmth and welcome, as if no time has passed at all.
It has, Sam reminds herself with gritted teeth. Time's passed, and things have changed. I've got a life, law school . . . and Jess. . . .
"The last time we spoke was my twentieth birthday,” Sam says softly, every hair on her body standing up when Deen's hand slides around to her ribs, then settles on her stomach, neatly eradicating her resolve to move away, put some distance between them.
Sighing again, she leans back into the embrace, and Deen's nose presses into her shoulder. The other hand joins its mate on Sam's stomach, rucking up t-shirt to rest on bare skin, barely brushing the waist of her boxers. Deen's body presses against her back tentatively. "God, Sammie, you feel so . . . fuck--so, I'm guessing from the au de bar skank aroma you've got going on, you're at least legal, by now. . . ?”
Yeah. Nothing's changed, alright: no one can so effortlessly fuck herself over like Deen when her mouth's moving. “I'm twenty-two, and you're an asshole.” Sam shrugs her off and moves away. Just far enough to catch her breath, and her train of thought. Halfway across the livingroom seems to do it. “Really, you have the emotional maturity of a toddler.”
"Is that so? 'Cause I sure feel older'n dirt, right now." Deen sounds tired, and hurt, lost but hopeful. When Sam turns to look at her, she's squinting a little; as if Sam's some bright, shining thing she can't bear to look at for too long . . . but just maybe wants to risk touching again.
Two years of not seeing that look, and Sam's the one who looks away first.
Deen clears her throat, turning to a bookshelf, skimming over the titles it's too dark to see clearly. "So, you're legal, now--and still hanging in there, doin' the book-thang . . . I always said you were smarter than me and dad put together."
"No you didn't," Sam scoffs, and it's half strangled laugh, because Deen's line of bullshit is just as unchanged as the rest of her.
There's a familiar creak of leather as Deen shifts defensively. "Yeah, well, maybe I shoulda said, you know? Anyway. If I'd'a called, would you have picked up?"
Not after the way you left, no, Sam thinks, but doesn't have time to say before she and Deen--whose already reaching into her jacket for something concealed, and no doubt deadly--are bathed in electric light.
Jess is standing in the doorway, wearing her cutoff Smurfs t-shirt and the frilly Naughty Nurse panties . . . smiling sleepily and rubbing her eyes. "Babe? Is everything--oh! Uh, hi."
Her gaze rests curiously on Deen, who's watching right back, her features dark and solemn--closed, in a sort of blank-faced lack of approval that makes her look the spit and image of dad.
"Sweetie, hey. Um," she moves to Jess's side and slips an arm around her. Jess leans against her easily, kisses her cheek, and thus doesn't notice Deen flinch and look away for a moment. "This . . . is Deen, my sister. Deen, this is Jessica. My fiancee."
Deen's eyebrows--far too perfectly-shaped to be anything but plucked, yet Sam'd never caught her at it once in all the years they'd lived together--lift ever-so-slightly in mocking question.
Sam returns the look with one that says: you, of the low standards, loose morals, and try-sexual track record, haven't got a stone to cast.
"You're Deen?” Jess 's eyebrows and lips quirk up in that goofy, girlish way that just makes her even more beautiful, if that's at all possible. "I'm so glad to finally meet you!"
She holds out her hand, and Deen's too-blank face settles into a wide, disarming grin--the one she ruthlessly uses to con and charm--as she steps forward to take it firmly. “Geraldine Winchester. Pleasure's all mine, I'm sure," she claims, and if Sam didn't know her, she might actually believe that.
"Sam's only told me a few 'Deen and I' stories, but I feel like I know you already," Jess is saying, and Deen's smiles tightens.
"Is that so?" Her eyes slide to Sam, then back to Jess, bright and flat as any mirror. "Then you've got me at a disadvantage, Jessica. We'll have to rectify that real soon."
"Yeah, soon, but you were just leaving," Sam interjects, shooting Deen death glares while trying to unobtrusively steer Jess out punching range. "You've got places to go, sailors to transmit embarrassing social diseases to--"
"Oh, you like the Smurfs, I see? Personally, I prefer the Fraggles . . . they rock," Deen goes on smoothly, right over Sam and still holding Jess's hand. Her eyes are lingering unsubtly at cleavage-level. "But I guess there just ain't enough material to fit Gobo, or Gunge on that tiny thing. . . ."
"Um, right." Jess blushes a little then a lot, letting go of Deen's hand with an uncertain glance at Sam, who tries to reassure her with a smile. "Right--so I'm gonna go put on actual clothing, and let you two catch up," Jess says, already backing out of the livingroom. Or trying to--Sam's arm around her waist stops her.
"You do that, sweetness." Deen's grins condescendingly, dismissing Jess with a sardonic finger-gunning. "I gotta borrow your man here for some family-talk, but it was nice to meet--"
“Deen--" I'm going to kick your ass if you don't knock it off "--whatever you need to say, you can say it in front of my fiancee, or you can get the hell out," Sam says quietly, coldly, meaning every word even as she wishes she didn't have to say it. Jess's surprised glance and grateful lean into her makes her feel a million feet tall, and this is one thing that's changed for the better in the past two years.
Something pure, and beautiful and Sam's . . . that has nothing to do with Deen, or Dad, or any of the life she thought she'd left behind.
Deen's eyebrows disappear under thatchy bangs, and she actually looks chastened. It takes years off her apparent age, while making the weather/ worry lines deepen momentarily. Then she takes a step back, hurt and confusion flickering briefly across her face. "Fine, have it your way . . . Dad . . . hasn't been home in a few days."
A cold shudder works it's way from Sam's spine, inward, settling as a lump of ice in the pit of her stomach, making the places on her skin Deen had touched seem to burn. "So he's working overtime on a Miller shift, he'll wander on back sooner or later."
Now, something angry and . . . scared flashes in Deen's eyes, and she shakes her head. "You're not gettin' me, Sammie . . . Sam. Dad's on a hunting trip. And he hasn't been home in a few days."
Sam doesn't even realize she's let go of Jess until she's much closer to Deen, who nods grimly, childish pissing-matches forgotten, mask tossed away. The ice spreads from Sam's stomach to her whole body, and she struggles to speak through suddenly numb lips.
"Jess, excuse us. We have to go outside."
TBC
Nothing original, here: rewriting the pilot episode of SPN, with the ol' gender switcheroo for Sam and Dean. Worth going on with, or leave on the scrap heap?
Comments, suggestions and concrit are always welcome. But only in senryu form.
Pilot: Prologue & Part One
Author: _beetle_
Rating: R
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: The usual suspects.
Disclaimer: I am not The Kripke, nor The Singer, and most certainly not The Manners.
Notes/Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers for S1, Ep1. Plus, I girled-up Sam and Deen. UST, and femslash, ahoy!
Summary: Then . . . and Now.
Lawrence, Kansas
22 years ago
"Come on, sweetie, let's say goodnight to your sister, okay?"
"Okay, Mommy," Deen says as Mommy carries her into Sammie's room. When they get to the crib, Deen leans down and peers down into the crib.
Sammie is wide awake and gurgling softly to herself, dark blue eyes huge and curious as they meet Deen's. She's pretty, pink-cheeked, and always smiling: for the most part, a happy, quiet baby. Has been from the start, unlike Deen who, according to Daddy, had made more fuss than any ten colicky infants.
Deen brushes her finger gently down one soft, super-tiny baby finger.
"G'night, Sammie," she whispers, leaning down to kiss her sister's forehead, letting it linger for just a moment. Now that Sammie's not so new, she actually smells good--like baby powder and shampoo, instead of sour milk and spew. And when she smiles that sweet, toothless smile--not the gas-smile, which looks more like a grimace--an achy-nice feeling wells up in Deen's chest. So big and strange and endless, she doesn't know what to do with it. Might explode from the force of it.
Then Mommy puts Deen--who takes the opportunity to stand on her toes in the new ballet shoes she's only allowed to wear before bedtime--down to give her own goodnight kiss.
"Goodnight, love," she murmurs softly, the same way she does to Deen, and Sammie makes one of those excited, breathless baby noises.
Mommy's about to add the rest--it's never goodnight without the rest, the best part, the part about the angels watching over them--
Deen's suddenly scooped up into strong arms, and angels and goodnight kisses are forgotten in the best bear hug there ever was. He always smells like a mixture of soap and sweat, motor oil and wind. She'd know that scent anywhere.
"Daddy!" Deen hugs him as hard as her arms will allow, but not as hard as she wants to. His stubble tickles her face, and she giggles.
"Hey, princess--didn't think I'd miss bedtime, didja?" He kisses her cheek, settles her in the crook of his arm then brushes her hair out of her face to look her in the eyes seriously. But it's his pretend serious-face, not the real one. His lips even twitch as he glances at the crib. "So, you think Sammie's ready to toss around a football yet?"
"She's a girl, Daddy!" Deen exclaims, scrunching her face, and Daddy laughs, lines forming around his mouth and at the corners of his eyes.
"Well . . . I've already got a pretty little ballerina. Sammie can be my tomboy. Or who knows?" Daddy grins. "Maybe in a few years, you'll have a little brother."
When they both look at Mommy hopefully, she rolls her eyes and smiles. “Maybe.” She drifts past Deen and Daddy, pausing to kiss both on the cheek. "You got her?"
"I got her." Deen gets a another stubbly kiss on the forehead. She wraps her arms around Daddy's neck as he approaches the crib, still grinning, his eyes soft and happy. He rubs Sammie's tummy till she giggles. "Sweet dreams, darlin'."
As he cuts the light off and walks out the door, Deen could swear she sees the mobile--formerly Deen's own mobile, and it was very generous of her to give it to Sammie, Mommy had said--start to revolve slowly, even though it's Fall and the window's shut.
Then Daddy pulls the door in and, less than two minutes later, already warm and tucked into her own bed--her cheek still tingly from another stubble-y kiss--she's already forgotten all about it.
*
Deen's always slept like a log.
The soft, familiar sound of her mother walking past her room to Sammie's, then downstairs doesn't wake her. Nor does she stir when her mother runs back upstairs in a blind panic.
But when the screaming starts, she comes instantly awake. She'd think it was part of a nightmare, except she's had little enough experience with those. So she scrambles out of bed, jamming her feet into her slippers, and runs to the door.
Opens it and peers out just in time to see her father running into Sammie's room, then there's silence, punctuated only by her father's deep rumbling murmur, but this only makes Deen worry worse. It feels like walking in the woods sometimes, when all the birds and bugs and squirrels suddenly go silent. Like they're holding their breath. . . .
Then her father screams.
Just as she flings her door wide, there's a loud, breathless roar and the hallway is filled with orange light and heat.
She runs down the hall and nearly collides with her father's legs as he staggers out of Sammie's room, a wriggling, wailing bundle of blankets in his arms.
"Daddy?" Deen's eyes are opened wide, trying to see over and around Daddy clearly--there's nothing but fire pouring down from the ceiling, eating Sammie's nursery. Deen can almost make out . . . it kinda looks like there's someone there, on the ceiling . . . burning. . . .
Then Sammie's in her arms, crying and wriggling, and Daddy's face is looming in her vision, scared and wet.
"Take your sister outside as fast as you can and don't look back! Now, Geraldine--go!" He barks when Deen simply stands there, frozen to the spot.
Then he's dashing back into Sammie's nursery, into the flames, and even though she wants, more than anything to rush in there and help--she was screaming, and now she's burning some corner of her brain whispers; will whisper for the rest of her life--Deen runs for the stairs, horrified at the sudden and paralyzing thought of overbalancing with the unfamiliar weight of her squalling sister.
There's a wash of heat at her back, and the fear inside her is buried--obliterated by that huge, crushing, smothering that she's never been able to consciously identify, but for the claws it has in her heart and in her gut. The cold iron it injects into her spine.
Protect Sammie, it whispers, shutting off fear and all other concerns like a switch.
“It'll be okay, Sammie. I promise,” she murmurs, taking the first step without further hesitation. She doesn't know the word 'imperative', but that's what urges her downward on legs that are far steadier than they should be, holding Sammie with arms that are far stronger than they should be.
At the front door, unwilling to put Sammie down even for a moment, Deen wrestles the thankfully unlocked door open. Then she's out, and down the porch steps. The grass under her feet is dead and dry, crackles with the first hints of frost.
A couple feet away from the porch she stumbles on something hard--a twig, maybe--and goes to her knees, twisting to take the brunt of the fall on her right elbow, Sammie curled close to her chest. Bright flash of pain in her ankle that's not nearly as hot as the fire behind her, but Deen's immediately struggling to her feet. Sammie's high, sharp cries spur her on, even though it hurts to stand, to limp.
Suddenly there's another dull monster roar, louder than before, and hotter. And Deen's flying through the night. . . .
It's only after she opens her eyes to the interior of the Impala that she realizes she hadn't been flying, but picked up, and even underneath the smell of woodsmoke and her own sweat, she can smell motor oil and the wind. Her arms ache from holding Sammie so tight, and being held so tight.
The passenger side door slams shut and she can see Daddy running back toward the house. There's fire coming out of the second floor windows. Daddy running around to the other side of the house, to the back door probably, when there's another explosion and fire blows out the few remaining windows and shoots out the front door.
Daddy's thrown to the ground hard, and for a long time, he just lays there shaking, not getting up.
In her arms, Sammie won't stop bawling and wriggling.
“It'll be okay,” Deen is saying over and over, but she doesn't know it--can't hear it. Can't hear anything over the monster-roar that echoes in her ears, and the thud of her own heart.
*
Stanford University
Present Day
"Sam! Get a move on, wouldja? We were supposed to be there, like, fifteen minutes ago." Jess tugs once on her Naughty Nurse costume, and adjusts the thigh-high stockings yet again. Realizes running water is not exactly an answer. "Babe? You comin', or what?
Sam pokes her head around the bathroom lintel, eyes wide with fake innocence, toothbrush hanging out of her foamy mouth. "Uh . . . I'm gonna go with 'or what'."
Jess glares when Sam--clad in a sports bra, boxers, mismatched socks and nothing else . . . sleepwear--ducks back into the bathroom. "Where's your costume?"
After a minute the sound of running water stops, and Sam strolls back into their bedroom, all wide blue eyes and too-innocent face, twisting her hair into a knot at her neck. "I'll make you a deal: I'll pull on some jeans, and go as someone who doesn't wanna get arrested for indecent exposure."
Jess leans against their dresser and crosses her arms, watching Sam watch what said crossing does to her already low neckline. “Wet. Blanket.”
"C'mon, Jess, you know how I feel about Halloween." When Jess lets one eyebrow answer that question, Sam's face scrinches up like a kid's . . . except kids actually look forward to Halloween. "I said I'd go, but I never said I'd wear a costume."
"It's a Halloween party. Wearing a costume is sort of implied if you're going,” Jess protests, but half-heartedly. There are certain things Samantha Winchester won't be moved on, will not even discuss, and this, apparently, is one of them.
Sam watches her with unreadable eyes, her mouth turned down in an absent sort of frown. But that frown is replaced with suspicious alacrity by a thrice all-American grin, that somehow manages to be sexy and a little dangerous on Sam's square, impossibly girl-next-door face.
“We have a verbal contract about me attending--for an unspecified amount of time--but not about what I wear while attending. No costume." The grin fades a little, into Sam's real smile, sweet, slightly apologetic. “I'll go. I'll stay as long as you want. That'll have to be enough."
That'll have to be enough . . . not the first time Sam's said that, probably not the last. Everyone's got secret places, parts of themselves they barely let themselves see, forget other people. Sometimes, though, it seems like Sam's got more of those places most people, and in the nearly two years they've been together, she hasn't let Jess see more than a few.
She shakes her head. "Why are you so weird about Halloween?"
"I just am,” Sam says, her inclining her body forward a bit, as if wanting to move closer, but not entirely sure she'd be welcomed. Solicitous, but unyielding.
Too stubborn to bend, too strong to break, Jess thinks with an equal mix of fondness and exasperation. As always, she closes the distance between them; slides her arms around Sam's neck. The platform ankle-breakers she's wearing add a good couple inches to her height, and Sam has to look up slightly to meet her eyes.
They hold each other silently for a few moments.
“Still love me?” The tone is joking, but Sam's eyes certainly aren't. They're wary, and hunted . . . her arms tense and tentative around Jess's waist. And suddenly, nagging her over a Halloween costume seems silly, and Jess sighs, leaning in to kiss the tip of her upturned nose.
“Still love you . . . what can I say? I have horrible taste in women.”
“Yeah, your taste in women isn't nearly as good as mine.” Sam smiles again, happy and relieved, and runs teasing fingers down the buttons on the back of Jess's outfit, over ass, then under hem. "But, see--now I want us to stay home more than ever . . . I'll even help you out of your costume."
“Nuh-uh!" Jess catches those clever fingers before they work their way under the edge of her panties, and steps back. "After the party--but only if you at least try to have a good time. Halloween's not the only thing we're celebrating, Legal Eagle.”
Sam's eyes dart away, and she blushes. “It was just a test--I've always tested well. But if you, and the Trust Fund Kid keep the Black Label flowing after I run out of cash, good times are assured.” She holds out her hand. It's a hand that's seen hard work, though at what, Jess has never been able to guess, and Sam hasn't bothered to volunteer.
But that's never been enough to keep Jess from taking Sam's hand when it's offered.
This time, not unexpectedly, she's pulled hard against Sam, and kissed to within an inch of her life. Till the tingles start turning into a sustained burn, and her knees have gone to jelly.
Till Sam's once more examining the buttons on the dress and the edges of her underwear.
“No-no-no,” Jess murmurs, pulling away--uselessly, because Sam's lips follow, bringing Sam's Roman hands with them. They latch possessively onto her hips. “Later, I promise.”
“Now . . . with the stockings on.”
“Perv.” Jess lets Sam draw out a last kiss for a few seconds, then laughs when she realizes she probably looks more like a clown than a Naughty Nurse, thanks to all the kissing. "Fuck. Now I'm gonna have to reapply."
"Such is life." Those hands are making inroads under the costume again, Sam is backing them toward the bed, and . . . this is exactly why they missed the Halloween party last year.
Sam makes a funny squawking noise when Jess shoves her back on the bed, then grins. At least until Jess backs away, smirking and smug.
“No means later, jerk. Now get dressed.”
*
"So here's to Sam, and her awesome LSAT victory,. Hail the conquering hero!" Jess toasts, then giggles, Jaeger slopping out of the shot glass.
Sam and Lauren share near identical moments of Zen watching Jess knock back the shot like a pro, then lick at the runner of Jaeger sliding down her arm. She grins at them with tipsy triumph, and they both sigh.
"And to the victor go the spoils," Lauren adds wryly, shooting her Cuervo Gold, followed by Sam who grimaces when the Black Label hits her throat. Tears spring to her eyes for a moment as warmth and fuzzy good-will spread outward from her guts.
Around them, the bar is pulsing with life, and energy--house music blaring, people dancing, necking, drinking, laughing. For once, Sam feels like a part of it, completely at home. She's actually . . . glad Jess dragged her to this party, which--despite all the lame-ass costumes and decorations--is pretty awesome.
“Why on Earth did I ever give you permission to go out with my ex-girlfriend?” Lauren wonders, watching Jess with a predatory sort of wistfulness that'd set Sam on edge, if not for the magic of Jack Daniels. And for the fact that said Jack Daniels was purchased by none other than the owner of that intense stare.
“Because you're really, really . . . dumb,” Sam rasps out diplomatically, then clears her throat. Blinks till everything stops being quite so shiny. She's no lightweight, but she definitely doesn't have a Winchester's tolerance for hard liquor. Another two shots, and she'll likely be under the table. As it is, some kindly bartender's going to have to pour all three of them into a cab.
“Wrong: I'm self-defeating, not dumb--and speaking of I.Q.,” that bleary gaze swings to Sam, nearly taking Lauren's whole body with it. “What did you score, anyway?”
"One seventy-four . . . it's not a big a deal. There's a--a bunch of other people that scored higher than I did.”
Jess makes her careful way to Sam's side and slings an arm around her. "Yeah, and they're called one percent of pre-law students in the United States."
Lauren frowns, trying to do the math. It takes a few seconds because she's probably two shots away from black-out, herself. "So . . . you're in the ninety-ninth percentile?"
Jess presses a kiss into Sam's hair. The kiss turns into a nuzzle, and a murmur that sounds like love you. "My baby acts all humble, but she did scary good."
It's disconcerting when Lauren grins--that bright smile from the midst of all the fake skin, blood and grey makeup-and toasts Sam again with a random beer bottle that's actually been at their table longer than they have. "You're a first-round draft pick--you can go to any law school you want. Have you considered the East Coast? Or Canada?"
Sam smiles coolly, and plucks the bottle (there's a cigarette floating in it) out of Lauren's hand before she can drink from it; hands it to a passing barmaid. "No. I've got an interview here on Monday. If it goes okay . . . I've got a shot at a full ride next year." She looks up into Jess's eyes to gauge her reaction. The beaming, beautiful smile she gets makes something in her ache rather sweetly.
"It's gonna go great," Jess murmurs, leaning down for a lingering kiss that tastes like love, and Jaeger. "You'll do great."
"I'd better,” Sam murmurs back, sliding her arm around Jess's waist, partly for the contact, and partly to keep her upright. Jess obligingly snugs into her side.
"What I wanna know,” Lauren is saying, staring after the barmaid--or possibly after the stale beer--with undisguised regret. She turns back to Sam and Jess with a morose sigh. “Is how does it feel to be the fair-haired boy of your family?"
Sam gives her a look, and Lauren gestures expansively with a floppy, uncoordinated hand, nearly smacking the same barmaid in the crotch as she hustles by again. "You know what I mean. Are they doing back-flips on the old Winchester homestead?"
Picturing Dad and Deen, doing backflips in a skeevy motel room is actually kinda funny. Then just kinda disturbing. "Um, they don't actually know. I--I haven't had a chance to tell them. And it really isn't that big a deal," she adds again, off Jess's concerned look. Lauren just seems disgusted.
"You're so damn humble, I think I'm gonna puke.” She glares at Sam with real asperity, glances at Jess and immediately dredges up a wan smile from somewhere. “Look. Pretend you're a mere mortal, like the rest of us, and rub some faces in it. I would."
"Yeah, well, face-rubbing's just not me," Sam says, not knowing whether it is, or isn't. Deen and Dad would have to care about her achievements for her to find out if she was the face-rubbing type.
"C'mon! Just ditch the false modesty, and brag! If anyone's earned bragging rights. . . . "
Sam can feel Jess's eyes on her, loving and concerned. Wants to head this all off before it becomes another 'discussion' when they get home. "Listen, my family's not exactly the Bradys. . . ."
"And mine aren't exactly the Huxtables! Hence the joy of rubbing in the occasional success!” Lauren declares ruefully, signaling the barmaid, who ignores them completely for some unknown reason.
She swears and levers herself up unsteadily. Sam's amazed when, after a few iffy seconds, she doesn't hit the floor. “I'm starting to get maudlin, and bitchy--I need shots to maintain my usual benevolent equilibrium. You ladies in? My treat."
“No.” Sam and Jess say at the same time, looking at each other in agreement. "We've all had enough," Jess adds pointlessly. When the Trust Fund Kid makes up her mind to get flattened, three's no earthly force that can stop, or delay her.
“Whazzat?” Sure enough, Lauren lurches off in true, drunken-zombie style. “Can't quite hear you over all this noise. . . .”
"When you black-out, we're gonna steal your wallet, and leave your unconscious body in an alley!" Sam calls, but it falls on uncaring ears. Lauren is already at the bar and signaling the bartender with what looks like a hundred dollar bill.
She's either settling up their tab so they can leave (a wise move, therefore not likely), or buying a round for the whole bar.
Jess snorts. “She is so wasted. You've got her car keys, right?”
Sam pats her jacket pocket just hard enough for the keys to jingle.
“Who's my socially conscious little pickpocket?” Jess plops onto Sam's lap and presses their lips together. Her arms wind around Sam's neck, and even under the scents of booze and cigarettes--of bar, how sad is it that this is making her vaguely nostalgic for her misspent childhood--Jess's clean, sweet scent wraps around Sam's brain and heart. Sinks into her blood. She hugs Jess tight, turns the press into a proper kiss.
When they come up for air, Jess sighs happily. "You're gonna knock 'em dead on Monday and you're gonna get that full ride. I know it."
The weird thing is, Sam knows it, too--and the knowing washes over her with a strong sense of unreality. Like she's sleepwalking through a strange, wonderful dream. "I love you, Jess. Dunno what I'd do without you."
"Two words for you, Legal Eagle: crash and burn."
*
Sam sleeps fitfully, always has.
Even after drinking enough, and fucking enough to put a normal person into a coma, the slightest unfamiliar noise is enough to bring her fully awake.
So the solid thud coming from the living room jolts her right out of bad dream-land, where everything is fire, and a woman's hoarse, frightened scream, and into the cool, silvery dimness of their bedroom.
Milky, hazy moonlight filters in through the window, and by its light, Jess is an even more of an angel, breathing softly, hitching on every other inhale (not, as Jess has assured her, snoring).
Another noise from the hall, and Sam's crouched on the floor, sliding the bat from under the bed, her veins buzzing, her brain strangely empty.
Strega, a small part of her whispers into that emptiness, tiny and terrified. After glancing toward their closed and latched bedroom window, Sam strangles the voice, and snags her boxers and t-shirt from the floor. Avoids a notoriously creaky floorboard on her way out the door.
The hallway is dappled in light and shadows, both seeming to move nervously, and she exhales slowly, clutching the bat. The floor is cool under her feet, and ten different drafts whip around her legs and up her boxers.
At the entryway to the livingroom, she pauses and looks in.
Nothing moving but shadows. None of the windows are open here, either.
There's another sound from just ahead--in the kitchen, and Sam darts into the living room, flattening herself to the wall next to the lintel, bat raised. The house is warded against supernatural intruders, but a moderately determined--and fairly desperate--burglar could find a way in. Not that there's anything worth stealing besides a couple of aging laptops and a hand-me-down tv from Lauren--
Strega, strega, strega! the voice shrills suddenly, as a short, wild-haired figure clumps into the room past Sam, making no real effort to move silently. She swings the bat at back level, uncertain even at the last second whether she means to incapacitate, or kill--
But the stranger--not Strega--ducks out of the way easily, already spin-kicking with dismaying accuracy for Sam's right knee, only Sam's already dropped the bat and blocking the kick with her right arm. There's a surprising lack of impact.
Oh, it hurts, alright, and if it'd hit her knee, she'd have had a few days worth of ache and a hell of a bruise. But if the stranger was playing for keeps, a well-placed kick could've easily broken knee or arm.
"You block like a fucking girl," the intruder growls, grabbing her right arm and twisting into a basic judo-throw. Sam slams back first to the floor before she realizes the fight's over.
The winner sits on her legs and pins her arms while the room is still spinning, and trying to right itself. Sam groans at the dull ache in her back, then immediately starts bucking--not screaming, who knows what this psycho might do if Jess runs out here, startled and half-asleep?
She struggles disorientedly, getting nowhere and nothing but a stinging slap to the face.
"Shake 'er easy there, Xena, Warrior Princess." The intruder leans down, and into a ray of moonlight and Sam should've known. Who else would break into a house wearing . . . Jesus, a brown leather jacket and tight black jeans?
"Deen?" She barks. Two years and--with the way Deen drives--thousands of miles since they've seen each other and she looks just the same: assessing eyes like new grass, darkening to polished malachite in toward the pupils. Features a touch too strong to be pretty, but too fine to be handsome. White teeth in a knowingly charming smile--all of it topped by windblown, shoulder-length dark-blonde hair, because Deen apparently still drives with both windows down.
Strega, indeed.
"Way to scare the bejeezer outta me!" Sam twists and yanks her hands away hard enough to have broken Deen's thumbs, if Deen hadn't been, as Deen always is, prepared.
"Aw." That full-throated laugh, eerily like dad's for all that it's a few octaves higher. "Not my fault you're outta practice. College life makin' you soft, there, Princess?"
Scowling, Sam coils in as much as she can, then rocks backwards hard. Deen tumbles over her head with a startled yelp, and Sam follows through, landing solidly on her older sister, who oofs out a spearmint-y, pork-rind-y breath.
It's a quick turning of the tables that leaves Deen scowling, and Sam grinning, tense and humorless, pinning her to the floor with greater size, and muscle density. Exercise is, it turns out, a great way to relieve college-related stress. "Not so's you'd notice, no."
Deen laughs again, though it sounds forced. She tries to dislodge Sam several times before she sighs grudgingly. "Fuck off me, Sasquatch." She sinks her fingernails into Sam's wrists, grunting when Sam smacks her hands away.
"Screw you." Sam gets to her feet and probes her arm cursorily before offering Deen her hand. Not surprisingly, the hand is slapped away just as cursorily, and Deen's on her feet with another grunt. "God only knows what's under your grimy claws. What the hell are you even doing here, besides giving my last tetanus shot a run for its money?"
"I was lookin' for a tallboy 'til some lanky, horse's ass put the smackdown on me," Deen grouses, her mouth pursing into a pout that's all she seems to share with the little girl in the few photos of Before Dad kept squirreled away. Sam sighs and rolls her shoulders to relieve some of the ache.
"Deen. This is a college campus. There's a fucking frat house three doors down. All the free beer and whiskey-dicks you can swallow." Taking in the shamelessly accentuated curves on a body Sam would've killed to have in every sense of the word . . . once upon a time . . . she smiles wryly. Deen hasn't had to work to get laid since she was fifteen, and she still looked like jail-bait. "Have fun."
"Meh." Deen stretches like a cat, t-shirt riding up to reveal a flat stomach that's ten shades lighter than her face, hands and arms. Vertebrae snap, crackle and pop. "Frat boys are so three years ago, Sam. 'Specially those candy-ass, met-tro-sexual ones I've seen sashaying around here."
"Well, I dunno what to tell you--there's a biker bar on Van Allen. . . ."
"Shut up, for Chrissakes!" That sober, annoying Older Sis tone hasn't changed, except to have gained a bit more rasp, a bit more command. Makes Sam frown in a way that feels petulant, and young. But Deen keeps talking before she can get out a single word. "And shit-can that bratty 'tude while you're at it, Sammie-ham, 'cause we need to talk."
"Do we?" Sam ignores the hated nickname and paces to the window. The Impala's parked outside, sleek and dangerous looking like its owner. It, too, hasn't changed. But then, the Metallicar never does. That realization is unexpectedly warming. "You're the one who hasn't picked up a phone since dinosaurs roamed the Earth."
"Ah, c'mon. Hasn't been that long." Deen's voice, when it comes, is directly behind her, and Sam starts, but doesn't turn around. Doesn't give Deen the satisfaction of her discomfort and confusion.
Ignores the hand that settles in the center of her back, solid and steadying . . . radiating easy warmth and welcome, as if no time has passed at all.
It has, Sam reminds herself with gritted teeth. Time's passed, and things have changed. I've got a life, law school . . . and Jess. . . .
"The last time we spoke was my twentieth birthday,” Sam says softly, every hair on her body standing up when Deen's hand slides around to her ribs, then settles on her stomach, neatly eradicating her resolve to move away, put some distance between them.
Sighing again, she leans back into the embrace, and Deen's nose presses into her shoulder. The other hand joins its mate on Sam's stomach, rucking up t-shirt to rest on bare skin, barely brushing the waist of her boxers. Deen's body presses against her back tentatively. "God, Sammie, you feel so . . . fuck--so, I'm guessing from the au de bar skank aroma you've got going on, you're at least legal, by now. . . ?”
Yeah. Nothing's changed, alright: no one can so effortlessly fuck herself over like Deen when her mouth's moving. “I'm twenty-two, and you're an asshole.” Sam shrugs her off and moves away. Just far enough to catch her breath, and her train of thought. Halfway across the livingroom seems to do it. “Really, you have the emotional maturity of a toddler.”
"Is that so? 'Cause I sure feel older'n dirt, right now." Deen sounds tired, and hurt, lost but hopeful. When Sam turns to look at her, she's squinting a little; as if Sam's some bright, shining thing she can't bear to look at for too long . . . but just maybe wants to risk touching again.
Two years of not seeing that look, and Sam's the one who looks away first.
Deen clears her throat, turning to a bookshelf, skimming over the titles it's too dark to see clearly. "So, you're legal, now--and still hanging in there, doin' the book-thang . . . I always said you were smarter than me and dad put together."
"No you didn't," Sam scoffs, and it's half strangled laugh, because Deen's line of bullshit is just as unchanged as the rest of her.
There's a familiar creak of leather as Deen shifts defensively. "Yeah, well, maybe I shoulda said, you know? Anyway. If I'd'a called, would you have picked up?"
Not after the way you left, no, Sam thinks, but doesn't have time to say before she and Deen--whose already reaching into her jacket for something concealed, and no doubt deadly--are bathed in electric light.
Jess is standing in the doorway, wearing her cutoff Smurfs t-shirt and the frilly Naughty Nurse panties . . . smiling sleepily and rubbing her eyes. "Babe? Is everything--oh! Uh, hi."
Her gaze rests curiously on Deen, who's watching right back, her features dark and solemn--closed, in a sort of blank-faced lack of approval that makes her look the spit and image of dad.
"Sweetie, hey. Um," she moves to Jess's side and slips an arm around her. Jess leans against her easily, kisses her cheek, and thus doesn't notice Deen flinch and look away for a moment. "This . . . is Deen, my sister. Deen, this is Jessica. My fiancee."
Deen's eyebrows--far too perfectly-shaped to be anything but plucked, yet Sam'd never caught her at it once in all the years they'd lived together--lift ever-so-slightly in mocking question.
Sam returns the look with one that says: you, of the low standards, loose morals, and try-sexual track record, haven't got a stone to cast.
"You're Deen?” Jess 's eyebrows and lips quirk up in that goofy, girlish way that just makes her even more beautiful, if that's at all possible. "I'm so glad to finally meet you!"
She holds out her hand, and Deen's too-blank face settles into a wide, disarming grin--the one she ruthlessly uses to con and charm--as she steps forward to take it firmly. “Geraldine Winchester. Pleasure's all mine, I'm sure," she claims, and if Sam didn't know her, she might actually believe that.
"Sam's only told me a few 'Deen and I' stories, but I feel like I know you already," Jess is saying, and Deen's smiles tightens.
"Is that so?" Her eyes slide to Sam, then back to Jess, bright and flat as any mirror. "Then you've got me at a disadvantage, Jessica. We'll have to rectify that real soon."
"Yeah, soon, but you were just leaving," Sam interjects, shooting Deen death glares while trying to unobtrusively steer Jess out punching range. "You've got places to go, sailors to transmit embarrassing social diseases to--"
"Oh, you like the Smurfs, I see? Personally, I prefer the Fraggles . . . they rock," Deen goes on smoothly, right over Sam and still holding Jess's hand. Her eyes are lingering unsubtly at cleavage-level. "But I guess there just ain't enough material to fit Gobo, or Gunge on that tiny thing. . . ."
"Um, right." Jess blushes a little then a lot, letting go of Deen's hand with an uncertain glance at Sam, who tries to reassure her with a smile. "Right--so I'm gonna go put on actual clothing, and let you two catch up," Jess says, already backing out of the livingroom. Or trying to--Sam's arm around her waist stops her.
"You do that, sweetness." Deen's grins condescendingly, dismissing Jess with a sardonic finger-gunning. "I gotta borrow your man here for some family-talk, but it was nice to meet--"
“Deen--" I'm going to kick your ass if you don't knock it off "--whatever you need to say, you can say it in front of my fiancee, or you can get the hell out," Sam says quietly, coldly, meaning every word even as she wishes she didn't have to say it. Jess's surprised glance and grateful lean into her makes her feel a million feet tall, and this is one thing that's changed for the better in the past two years.
Something pure, and beautiful and Sam's . . . that has nothing to do with Deen, or Dad, or any of the life she thought she'd left behind.
Deen's eyebrows disappear under thatchy bangs, and she actually looks chastened. It takes years off her apparent age, while making the weather/ worry lines deepen momentarily. Then she takes a step back, hurt and confusion flickering briefly across her face. "Fine, have it your way . . . Dad . . . hasn't been home in a few days."
A cold shudder works it's way from Sam's spine, inward, settling as a lump of ice in the pit of her stomach, making the places on her skin Deen had touched seem to burn. "So he's working overtime on a Miller shift, he'll wander on back sooner or later."
Now, something angry and . . . scared flashes in Deen's eyes, and she shakes her head. "You're not gettin' me, Sammie . . . Sam. Dad's on a hunting trip. And he hasn't been home in a few days."
Sam doesn't even realize she's let go of Jess until she's much closer to Deen, who nods grimly, childish pissing-matches forgotten, mask tossed away. The ice spreads from Sam's stomach to her whole body, and she struggles to speak through suddenly numb lips.
"Jess, excuse us. We have to go outside."
TBC