Fic: Androgyne, Mon Amour
Author: rei_c
Title: Androgyne, Mon Amour
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 4400
Summary: Dean's been working a missing person's case in Peoria that goes bust, so he heads to Chicago for a long weekend and finds way more than he was expecting.
Warnings: AU, dubious consent due to unknown identity, religious imagery/symbolism, unexpanded-upon backstory
Author's Notes: I rended garments and I'm still not exactly content, but. (Also at AO3 if preferred.)
Androgyne, mon amour,
shadows of you name a price
exorbitant for short lease.
What would you suggest I do,
wryly smile and turn away,
fox-teeth gnawing chest-bones through?
Even less would that be true
than, carnally, I was to you
many, many lives ago…
--Tennessee Williams, "Androgyne, Mon Amour"
--
The first time Dean sees Sam in six years, he doesn't even realise it's Sam. Someone has to tell him.
Dean's been working a missing person's case in Peoria -- not his typical thing at first glance but Dad sent him and once Dean got there, yeah, he could see why. The chick's fiancé was found torn to pieces in the bedroom, bad enough, but there were traces of sulfur scattered throughout the house and the neighbours, once they started talking, wouldn't shut up about how the girl started acting weird a few weeks earlier, started screaming in the middle of the night about nightmares coming true, freaking out in the middle of the day and running around the place yelling about visions and men with yellow eyes, shit like that. Dean runsall the rumours to ground, follows up on what he can, but he can't find any hint of the girl, can't come up with anything more solid about the fiancé’s cause of death. Even worse, he doesn't like the feeling growing in his gut, the one that says not finding anything now’s gonna be important in the long run.
He lets Dad know -- leaves a message on the man's voicemail because god fucking forbid he ever answer his goddamned phone -- and decides to go to Chicago for a long weekend, get the face of Ava Wilson out of his mind, get his head screwed on straight before he heads back out on the trail of whatever case Dad sends his way next. Dean leaves the Impala with a friend in Joliet and takes the train into the city, camps out at a shitty hostel off the Red Line. He catches a Thursday night game at Wrigley Field, visits the Museum of Science and Industry amidst a crowd of freakily well-behaved school-kids on Friday, strolls down Navy Pier eating a giant cinnamon roll the size of his face on a balmy Saturday morning, and keeps a gun tucked in his jeans and a knife in his boot the whole fucking time because cities, man, you never know what the hell you're gonna get.
As Saturday night ticks over into Sunday morning, he heads over to Boystown and steps in a local bar. It's not a gay bar, per se, though it does cater to that kind of crowd, and Dean's not gay, not really, but he's more to the middle of the Kinsey scale than he's ever let on to his father.
The crowd's young and pretty, skewed more hipster Academy of Art than pretentious Northwestern, and Dean's happily settled at the end of the bar, tilted to watch everyone else and keep one elbow on the wood. He's scanning the room, not really looking for company but open to anything, eased along the way by most of a Chicago deep-dish and half a dozen pierogi earlier in the evening, when his eyes land on the most gorgeous creature he's seen in for-fucking-ever.
Tall, whiskey-brown hair half pulled back, half left to tumble down, a few caramel-highlighted strands curled in a loose wave to highlight sharp cheekbones, a killer set of eyes made dark and feral with eyeliner. The shirt's got one of those necklines where it comes off the shoulders, made to display the curves of neck and collarbones, but these aren't curves so much as the bones are sweat-slicked razor blades and the neck is long and lean, begging to be bitten and marked up. The shirt's tight around the waist, showing off a glimpse of skin between where it stops and the jeans start, low on the hips, and those jeans are tight, shit, must've been fucking painted on long, long legs that end in ballet flats.
Dean's eyes glide back up, this time take in the nail polish, the eye shadow, the lip gloss and dangling earrings and adam's apple and bulge in the jeans, the hint of a switchblade in the pocket of those jeans, the corded leather bracelets covering up the tail trace edges of tattoos around both wrists. There's something about the shape of the face that looks familiar, maybe something in the arch of the eyebrows, but light glints off of sharp teeth, the dangerous smile distracts Dean, the hands derail his mind completely. Dean can imagine those hands wrapped around a gun and it makes him swallow; he can imagine those nails digging into his skin and it makes him hard.
This person is the most perfect combination of best girl and right hand man that Dean's ever seen before, all the beauty of a woman Dean would be more than proud to show off, to have on his arm, and more than enough man to hold his own and watch Dean's back in any kind of fight.
Shit.
She's -- he's -- fuck. If Dean's sitting in the middle of the Kinsey scale, whoever this is is perfect for him.
He leans back towards the bar, doesn't take his eyes off of -- them, until he knows what they prefer -- and when the bartender comes over, Dean taps his bottle for a refill and asks, "And another of whatever the handsome beauty over there's drinking."
The bartender follows Dean's eyes, snorts. "Handsome beauty," she says. "Got a thing for the heartbreakers, darlin’?"
"Think I'll be okay," Dean says, mildly, and this time he does turn to meet the bartender's eyes, can guess what kind of look is on his face, in his eyes, especially when she gives him the type of sad smile he's been seeing for close to a decade. "But is there something I should know in particular?"
"Beauty might be right," the bartender says, popping open another bottle for Dean, sliding it over and taking his empty, "and handsome ain't wrong either. But everything beautiful has its own kind of poison."
Dean takes a long pull of beer, savours the cold hit. "Poison," he says. "Huh."
--
Dean's known his fair share of poison and there are more than a few people in his past who'd say he's his own brand, too. It's probably even the truth, to be honest; the defining moments of Dean's life all revolve around a kid brother who Dean hasn't seen or heard from in six years - he’s the first to admit that kind of shit is bound to leave a mark.
Sammy, fuck. The kid loved Chicago, always got some wide-eyed smiling gleam on his face at the mere mention of the city. Dean’s never seen cause for it, ‘specially in the winter when the wind and ice make this place worse than miserably frigid, but fuck, Dean’s willing to think that maybe his runaway baby brother could’ve been on to something because, by god, there's a creature worth some loving in front of Dean's eyes right now.
He watches the crowd around the beauty -- his Beauty tonight, if Dean has anything to say about it -- ebb and flow, drawn in and then pushed back, again and again, waves crashing against a rock in the middle of an ocean, too proud to break, too strong to shatter. The crowd circles, drawn in, and Beauty laughs, throws their head back and shows off the clean lines of their throat; Beauty smiles, hint of their teeth reflecting against the dim light; Beauty reaches out and lays casual touches on people, male and female both, and leans in close to listen.
Eventually, they get to the bar and the bartender has a drink waiting, tilts her head in Dean's direction when they raise an eyebrow. Dean lifts up his bottle in their direction, takes a sip, and Beauty studies him from under long, thick eyelashes. They're too far away for Dean to guess what Beauty might be thinking, but they pick up the glass, salute Dean, drink. When they let their tongue slip out to trace an errant drop, Dean shifts on his stool. Beauty's smile turns knife-sharp; one of their nails taps against the glass. Beauty tilts their head in invitation for Dean to come closer; he shakes his head, stays planted on the stool, and resists the urge to smile when they raise an eyebrow.
Beauty tilts the glass back, keeps their eyes on Dean as they finish the drink off in three long swallows, tracing the rim of the glass with one finger when they're done, sucking that finger into their mouth, hollowing their cheeks around it to get the last hint of liquor from their skin. They set the glass on the bar, give Dean a half-nod, and let the crowd swallow them back up.
--
Dean drinks -- not fast, but steady -- and gets a couple baskets of fries and wings, too, over the course of a few hours. People come and go, numbers constant even if the individual members of the crowd change. Beauty doesn't leave but seems to know everyone, or everyone knows them, it's hard to tell. Dean buys them two more drinks but Beauty never approaches him and Dean never goes to them; they watch each other as Beauty drinks what Dean's bought them, keeps their eyes fixed on Dean the entire time, and the tension between the two stretches out until the bartender pauses the music and shouts that there's an hour until last call.
Dean waits until she comes back down to his end of the bar and then he asks, "An hour's warning for a fifteen-minute's warning?"
The bartender laughs, says, "It'll take 'em that long to decide on one last drink and then how to sign their names on the dotted line, not to mention figure out the math for the tip." She pauses, gives Dean a wink as she adds, "Sometimes I gotta help them out, y’know how it is."
"Can't say I blame you," Dean says, chuckling.
"You strike out?" she asks, nodding at Beauty when Dean frowns in confusion at the question.
Dean gives the bartender a lopsided grin. "Not sure," he says. "But I don't think so."
--
Half an hour until closing, Dean pays his tab with one of his fake credit cards but leaves his tip in cash. He heads for the bathroom before he leaves -- the hostel's only a couple blocks away but he's felt eyes on him since he stood up and has a feeling he knows where this is going, better a bar bathroom than an alley or a room that he's sharing with half a dozen drunk kids.
He gets inside, makes sure he's the only one there and then makes for the last stall, has just undone his belt and the zipper to his jeans when he hears the bathroom door open and then lock closed. He grins, can't help it; he hadn't expected to be followed so quickly. There's no further movement, though, no noise, so Dean pisses, shakes his dick off, does up his jeans but not the belt, and emerges from the stall to see Beauty perched on the edge of a sink, toes on the floor for balance, legs spread in invitation.
Beauty grins at him, something a little feline in that smile, a little hungry in the gleam of teeth, and in a voice that's lush, rich, darker and more feminine than Dean expected, they say, "Awfully convinced of yourself, aren't you."
"And yet here you are," Dean says. He steps closer, close enough to smell them: vetiver and tobacco, bourbon and sweat, and, underneath everything, the glue and ink and dust of old libraries and older books. It makes his mouth water, makes his dick harden. There's something Dean knows in the colour and shape of Beauty's eyes, those fox-tilted hazel eyes with gold flecks around the edges, but then he's standing between Beauty's legs, got his hands on their waist and his nose running up Beauty's neck, lips ghosting over that long line of skin just asking to be marked up. "What do I call you?" Dean asks. "Him? Her? Them? Do I get a name?"
"No names," Beauty says, and something about that answer, about the way they say it, sounds so savagely lonely that Dean almost pulls back. "Any pronoun."
Dean runs one hand up Beauty's back, tangles his fingers in all their hair, scritches the scalp hard and deep and tugs a little while he does it. "No names," he says. "How d'you wanna do this? 'Cause I gotta say, I'm up for pretty much anything."
Beauty laughs; the sound makes Dean's dick throb. "Can tell,” they purr, tracing their nails over his jeans. “I wanna suck you. Wanna get my mouth on that gorgeous dick I know you've got hidin' in them jeans and drink you down like one of them top-shelf bourbons you paid for out there."
Christ. "Sure know how to get a man's attention, sweet thing," Dean says. He reaches in his back pocket, pulls out a condom.
"Bare," Beauty says.
Dean narrows his eyes; Beauty slides off the sink and they're taller than Dean, not by much but enough, and Dean's, fuck, he's torn between thanking a god he doesn't believe in and laying down some serious repelling wards because there's no way this creature's pure human when they're hitting almost every single sexual fantasy Dean's ever had. He doesn't get the chance, not with Beauty kissing him, and god, their lips looked thin but they aren't, shit, and their tongue is wet, teasing when it darts out to taste the seam of Dean's lips and then tempting and plundering in turns, as forceful in searching out every crevice of Dean's mouth as it is shy when it curls around Dean's tongue and invites Dean to do the same in return.
He's panting when the kiss breaks, vision going black at the edges, and then Beauty's on their knees and sucking at Dean's dick through cotton and -- when did they even get his jeans undone, shit, this isn't fucking fair but he's not gonna complain, definitely not, angels and saints above he's going to die and they don't even have him in their mouth yet.
He runs his hands through their hair, takes out the clip holding half of Beauty's hair back, and digs both of his hands in the mess, thick and gleaming around his fingers. "Look so good on your knees, sweetheart," he says. "Gonna let me do the same thing? Let me make you feel as good as you're makin' me feel right now? I want to, fuck; been thinkin' about it since the second I saw you."
"You talk too much," Beauty says. Dean might take that as rebuke but there's a glimmer of humour in their eyes and so he just grins. The smile disappears quick, though, when they yank his jeans down, underwear quickly following, and get their mouth around him.
If the kiss was amazing, then this is a goddamned fucking religious epiphany and Dean's just seen the face of god. He's had his dick sucked a hundred times by a hundred different people in a hundred different places across the country, from high school bleachers to forty-bucks-a-night motel rooms to grimy truck stop bathrooms to gritty back alleys and fifty other kinds of spots but this bar in Chicago has just become Dean's church and this bathroom is his holy sanctuary.
Dean staggers backwards, half-pushed by Beauty, so that he's leaning against the wall, doesn't have to rely on himself to stand up. It's a damn good thing, too, because they're determined to suck out his bones and muscles through his dick -- and Dean thinks they just might be able to.
It's like Beauty knows him, knows every pound and ounce and atom of him, like they know everything he likes and everything he didn't know he liked, like they have a direct line to his brain and aren't afraid to push every button Dean has all at once. They use more teeth than Dean normally likes -- but apparently he likes that when the pressure of their tongue is a little harder as well, the suction a little lighter. They take him deep but instead of humming they sigh; they save the hum for when he's just barely hitting the back of their throat. They draw the lightest touch of nail along his balls and back toward his ass while circling the head of his dick with their tongue and then they look up at him and lick their lips, say, "C'mon, lemme get a taste of you," and swallow him down just like that.
Beauty's got their eyes closed; as Dean comes, he closes his as well, in prayers of mercy or thanksgiving or sheer fucking relief as the pressure in his balls spirals out and spills its way down Beauty's throat. Every muscle in Dean's body snaps at once, going from whipcord-tight to fucked-out loose, and he's panting for breath, leaning against the wall, as he tries to get his heartbeat back to normal rhythm.
Of course, looking down to see Beauty licking their lips doesn't help, especially when they sit back on their heels, gaze up at him through that tangle of curls and those long eyelashes. Dean holds out a hand, says, "I'll do my best, but there's no way I'm gonna live up to that."
Beauty's hand, in Dean's, is warm as they let Dean pull them up. "Consider that a gift," Beauty says, voice shredded, torn to pieces by the ride of Dean's cock in their throat. "No need to reciprocate."
"I don't work that way," Dean says. "I --"
Beauty cuts him off, one finger over Dean's lips. "Let me guess," they say. "You're not that kind of guy, right? But you are. Don't worry; I knew what I was getting into."
Dean feels stung by that. He waits for Beauty to move their finger and, when they do, he stands up a little taller, a little straighter, says, "And what kind of guy am I?"
"The love 'em and leave 'em kind," Beauty says. "Everyone comes, everyone's happy, but the bed's empty in the morning. You're a drifter; a different fuck in every city, a different city every night. You don't have a home except the back seat of your car. The most anyone will ever have of you is your mouth and your dick and even that's only for a few hours."
Beauty moves to pull back, to walk away; Dean doesn't let them. He takes hold of Beauty's wrist with one hand, their hip with the other -- loose enough that they can move if they want, but tight enough to signal Dean's intent without any mistake: he wants them to stay. "Takes one to know one?" he says, his mouth close to theirs, his breath meeting theirs, mingling with theirs. "You the love 'em and leave 'em type as well, sweet thing? If I'm a drifter, what are you?"
They step into Dean's space. The thrill that runs up and down Dean's spine is violent, vicious, makes his grip on Beauty a little tighter, a little more nail and a little less care. Dean watches as Beauty's eyes flash with answers thought of and discarded and he wonders which one they'll eventually settle on, which one he'll get the privilege of hearing and what kind of picture the others would paint.
"A survivor," Beauty says, and there's a brittleness to their voice that hadn't been there before. Dean's pretty sure, yeah, Beauty's had to put up with a lot of shit for the way they present themselves, the way they look and who they fuck and how they dress and talk and laugh, but there's something more to it as well, something deeper. Beauty wrenches out of Dean's hold, takes a couple steps back. "Enjoy however much time you've got left in Chicago."
"Dean." Beauty narrows their eyes; Dean says it again. "Dean. It's my name."
Beauty laughs. "Traces of Kerouac, there, Dean," they say. "Or is it Jack? Or Sal Paradise? Don't worry, Mister Paradise -- it don't matter much to me what you call yourself or why you're on the road."
Dean's heart is racing; he takes a step forward and isn't sure if he expects Beauty to step back or plant their feet and meet his challenge, doesn't know how to feel when Beauty just tilts their chin and looks at him, one eyebrow raised. "I'm not what anyone would consider smart," Dean says, low, quiet, "but that doesn't mean I'm an idiot. This was more than just a bathroom blowjob."
"Maybe for you," Beauty says, "Mister Paradise." Their eyes narrow a little, mouth curving up in a cruel slash of a smile. "For me? This was just a pretty dick, one I haven't had before."
Poison, that's what the bartender warned Dean about, and he'd laughed it off. Heartbreaker. He should've known better. She did her best and Dean didn't listen and here he is, now, feeling soul-burnt bitter at a brush-off he should’ve seen coming.
"Liar," Dean says, low. He takes another step closer, gratified to see Beauty swallow in the face of Dean's predation. He's drawn to them the way he's felt connected at gut-level to so very few people: his dad, a couple other hunters he considers close as family, his brother -- and he knows they feel it, too, or else Beauty would have left already, dregs of Dean's pride in their hands. The air between them is almost too heavy to breathe; Dean can feel his throat clogging up with the pressure.
The moment stretches out -- and then they're kissing again. Dean's not sure which of them closed that last little distance. He doesn't care, not with the way Beauty's practically melting into him, all the harsh stone of them crumbling into the way Dean's hands are digging into the strip of skin between shirt and jeans, not with the desperation of the kiss, less the torturous tease from before and now something hungry, two people brought together on the crest of a wave and scrabbling for every inch of connection they can get before the ocean tears them apart again.
"Let me," Dean says, breathes, nearly begs, one hand moving to the front of Beauty's jeans, "let me, c'mon," and he cups the bulge he feels, runs his hand up and down the length trapped in the denim, feels his mouth water at the thought of getting that in his hands or his mouth or his ass, can only imagine what it would feel like to bury himself in Beauty and feel that beautiful dick paint them both white with come.
"Dean," Beauty says, sobs, "I -- sorry, I'm sorry, I --"
Just like that, Beauty's gone, whirlwind speed right out the door, leaving Dean gasping for breath, hands on the wall, head hanging as his heart finds its normal rhythm. Dean grits his teeth, punches the wall once, twice, until the sting of broken skin makes its way through his blood, matches up with the pulsating throb of his broken lip, his shatter-shocked heart.
There have been times over the past six years when Dean's figured he's no better than some of the heartless shit he's hunted, nothing in his chest but empty air, hollow cavity, not even the fragments of a heart or soul to prove he was once any kind of human -- but apparently Dean's been fooling himself.
Beauty found something, reached down and coaxed out some kind of hidden hymn singing in the far corners of a softness Dean was convinced Sam had taken with him that night he’d walked out on Dean and Dad and a shitty little run-down apartment in Jackson, and fuck Beauty for doing it and then leaving just the same way.
--
It takes a few seconds for Dean to pull himself together, convince himself to leave Beauty’s fading scent-trace of bourbon and sweat and grass-stained cigarettes. By the time Dean makes it out of the bathroom, down the short hallway and back into the bar, the bar's almost empty, lights on all the way, music tuned to something local, commercial for one of the local auto dealers playing. There's no sign of Beauty; Dean hadn't been expecting one. He heads for the bar, pushes over a twenty dollar bill, takes the shot of whiskey the bartender has waiting for him. Dean throws it back, relishes the burn on top of the ache somewhere between his throat and his chest.
"Guess you didn't strike out after all," the bartender says. "Your handsome beauty everything you were expecting?"
"What do you know about them?" Dean asks, leaning up close, angling for all the information he can get because Dean isn’t putting this fucking cesspool of a city in his rearview until he’s gotten a name for his god and fucked an idol of his own right back onto Beauty’s soul.
The bartender leans her elbows on the bar, watches the last group of customers wave as they leave. "Not much," she admits. "Teaches, I think, at one of the colleges. Comes here to cut loose every so often. Quite the mystery."
"You knew enough to warn me about the bite," Dean says, pushing a little, trying to be gentle about it but knowing there's an edge in his voice.
"You work this job as long as I have," she says, "you get an eye for the heartbreakers. But that one leaves wrecks in their wake, a different one every time. Poor thing," she adds, soft, as she wipes down the bar.
Dean tilts his head, asks, "Why do you say that?"
The bartender glances at him. "The only ones who can inflict that kind of pain on other people and keep on livin' either had it done to them or ain't got a heart to speak of," she says. "Either way, Sam may not say much about --"
Dean cuts her off, feels a chill run down his spine. "Sam?" he asks.
"Yeah," the bartender says. "Sam. Sam Winchester."
Title: Androgyne, Mon Amour
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 4400
Summary: Dean's been working a missing person's case in Peoria that goes bust, so he heads to Chicago for a long weekend and finds way more than he was expecting.
Warnings: AU, dubious consent due to unknown identity, religious imagery/symbolism, unexpanded-upon backstory
Author's Notes: I rended garments and I'm still not exactly content, but. (Also at AO3 if preferred.)
Androgyne, mon amour,
shadows of you name a price
exorbitant for short lease.
What would you suggest I do,
wryly smile and turn away,
fox-teeth gnawing chest-bones through?
Even less would that be true
than, carnally, I was to you
many, many lives ago…
--Tennessee Williams, "Androgyne, Mon Amour"
--
The first time Dean sees Sam in six years, he doesn't even realise it's Sam. Someone has to tell him.
Dean's been working a missing person's case in Peoria -- not his typical thing at first glance but Dad sent him and once Dean got there, yeah, he could see why. The chick's fiancé was found torn to pieces in the bedroom, bad enough, but there were traces of sulfur scattered throughout the house and the neighbours, once they started talking, wouldn't shut up about how the girl started acting weird a few weeks earlier, started screaming in the middle of the night about nightmares coming true, freaking out in the middle of the day and running around the place yelling about visions and men with yellow eyes, shit like that. Dean runsall the rumours to ground, follows up on what he can, but he can't find any hint of the girl, can't come up with anything more solid about the fiancé’s cause of death. Even worse, he doesn't like the feeling growing in his gut, the one that says not finding anything now’s gonna be important in the long run.
He lets Dad know -- leaves a message on the man's voicemail because god fucking forbid he ever answer his goddamned phone -- and decides to go to Chicago for a long weekend, get the face of Ava Wilson out of his mind, get his head screwed on straight before he heads back out on the trail of whatever case Dad sends his way next. Dean leaves the Impala with a friend in Joliet and takes the train into the city, camps out at a shitty hostel off the Red Line. He catches a Thursday night game at Wrigley Field, visits the Museum of Science and Industry amidst a crowd of freakily well-behaved school-kids on Friday, strolls down Navy Pier eating a giant cinnamon roll the size of his face on a balmy Saturday morning, and keeps a gun tucked in his jeans and a knife in his boot the whole fucking time because cities, man, you never know what the hell you're gonna get.
As Saturday night ticks over into Sunday morning, he heads over to Boystown and steps in a local bar. It's not a gay bar, per se, though it does cater to that kind of crowd, and Dean's not gay, not really, but he's more to the middle of the Kinsey scale than he's ever let on to his father.
The crowd's young and pretty, skewed more hipster Academy of Art than pretentious Northwestern, and Dean's happily settled at the end of the bar, tilted to watch everyone else and keep one elbow on the wood. He's scanning the room, not really looking for company but open to anything, eased along the way by most of a Chicago deep-dish and half a dozen pierogi earlier in the evening, when his eyes land on the most gorgeous creature he's seen in for-fucking-ever.
Tall, whiskey-brown hair half pulled back, half left to tumble down, a few caramel-highlighted strands curled in a loose wave to highlight sharp cheekbones, a killer set of eyes made dark and feral with eyeliner. The shirt's got one of those necklines where it comes off the shoulders, made to display the curves of neck and collarbones, but these aren't curves so much as the bones are sweat-slicked razor blades and the neck is long and lean, begging to be bitten and marked up. The shirt's tight around the waist, showing off a glimpse of skin between where it stops and the jeans start, low on the hips, and those jeans are tight, shit, must've been fucking painted on long, long legs that end in ballet flats.
Dean's eyes glide back up, this time take in the nail polish, the eye shadow, the lip gloss and dangling earrings and adam's apple and bulge in the jeans, the hint of a switchblade in the pocket of those jeans, the corded leather bracelets covering up the tail trace edges of tattoos around both wrists. There's something about the shape of the face that looks familiar, maybe something in the arch of the eyebrows, but light glints off of sharp teeth, the dangerous smile distracts Dean, the hands derail his mind completely. Dean can imagine those hands wrapped around a gun and it makes him swallow; he can imagine those nails digging into his skin and it makes him hard.
This person is the most perfect combination of best girl and right hand man that Dean's ever seen before, all the beauty of a woman Dean would be more than proud to show off, to have on his arm, and more than enough man to hold his own and watch Dean's back in any kind of fight.
Shit.
She's -- he's -- fuck. If Dean's sitting in the middle of the Kinsey scale, whoever this is is perfect for him.
He leans back towards the bar, doesn't take his eyes off of -- them, until he knows what they prefer -- and when the bartender comes over, Dean taps his bottle for a refill and asks, "And another of whatever the handsome beauty over there's drinking."
The bartender follows Dean's eyes, snorts. "Handsome beauty," she says. "Got a thing for the heartbreakers, darlin’?"
"Think I'll be okay," Dean says, mildly, and this time he does turn to meet the bartender's eyes, can guess what kind of look is on his face, in his eyes, especially when she gives him the type of sad smile he's been seeing for close to a decade. "But is there something I should know in particular?"
"Beauty might be right," the bartender says, popping open another bottle for Dean, sliding it over and taking his empty, "and handsome ain't wrong either. But everything beautiful has its own kind of poison."
Dean takes a long pull of beer, savours the cold hit. "Poison," he says. "Huh."
--
Dean's known his fair share of poison and there are more than a few people in his past who'd say he's his own brand, too. It's probably even the truth, to be honest; the defining moments of Dean's life all revolve around a kid brother who Dean hasn't seen or heard from in six years - he’s the first to admit that kind of shit is bound to leave a mark.
Sammy, fuck. The kid loved Chicago, always got some wide-eyed smiling gleam on his face at the mere mention of the city. Dean’s never seen cause for it, ‘specially in the winter when the wind and ice make this place worse than miserably frigid, but fuck, Dean’s willing to think that maybe his runaway baby brother could’ve been on to something because, by god, there's a creature worth some loving in front of Dean's eyes right now.
He watches the crowd around the beauty -- his Beauty tonight, if Dean has anything to say about it -- ebb and flow, drawn in and then pushed back, again and again, waves crashing against a rock in the middle of an ocean, too proud to break, too strong to shatter. The crowd circles, drawn in, and Beauty laughs, throws their head back and shows off the clean lines of their throat; Beauty smiles, hint of their teeth reflecting against the dim light; Beauty reaches out and lays casual touches on people, male and female both, and leans in close to listen.
Eventually, they get to the bar and the bartender has a drink waiting, tilts her head in Dean's direction when they raise an eyebrow. Dean lifts up his bottle in their direction, takes a sip, and Beauty studies him from under long, thick eyelashes. They're too far away for Dean to guess what Beauty might be thinking, but they pick up the glass, salute Dean, drink. When they let their tongue slip out to trace an errant drop, Dean shifts on his stool. Beauty's smile turns knife-sharp; one of their nails taps against the glass. Beauty tilts their head in invitation for Dean to come closer; he shakes his head, stays planted on the stool, and resists the urge to smile when they raise an eyebrow.
Beauty tilts the glass back, keeps their eyes on Dean as they finish the drink off in three long swallows, tracing the rim of the glass with one finger when they're done, sucking that finger into their mouth, hollowing their cheeks around it to get the last hint of liquor from their skin. They set the glass on the bar, give Dean a half-nod, and let the crowd swallow them back up.
--
Dean drinks -- not fast, but steady -- and gets a couple baskets of fries and wings, too, over the course of a few hours. People come and go, numbers constant even if the individual members of the crowd change. Beauty doesn't leave but seems to know everyone, or everyone knows them, it's hard to tell. Dean buys them two more drinks but Beauty never approaches him and Dean never goes to them; they watch each other as Beauty drinks what Dean's bought them, keeps their eyes fixed on Dean the entire time, and the tension between the two stretches out until the bartender pauses the music and shouts that there's an hour until last call.
Dean waits until she comes back down to his end of the bar and then he asks, "An hour's warning for a fifteen-minute's warning?"
The bartender laughs, says, "It'll take 'em that long to decide on one last drink and then how to sign their names on the dotted line, not to mention figure out the math for the tip." She pauses, gives Dean a wink as she adds, "Sometimes I gotta help them out, y’know how it is."
"Can't say I blame you," Dean says, chuckling.
"You strike out?" she asks, nodding at Beauty when Dean frowns in confusion at the question.
Dean gives the bartender a lopsided grin. "Not sure," he says. "But I don't think so."
--
Half an hour until closing, Dean pays his tab with one of his fake credit cards but leaves his tip in cash. He heads for the bathroom before he leaves -- the hostel's only a couple blocks away but he's felt eyes on him since he stood up and has a feeling he knows where this is going, better a bar bathroom than an alley or a room that he's sharing with half a dozen drunk kids.
He gets inside, makes sure he's the only one there and then makes for the last stall, has just undone his belt and the zipper to his jeans when he hears the bathroom door open and then lock closed. He grins, can't help it; he hadn't expected to be followed so quickly. There's no further movement, though, no noise, so Dean pisses, shakes his dick off, does up his jeans but not the belt, and emerges from the stall to see Beauty perched on the edge of a sink, toes on the floor for balance, legs spread in invitation.
Beauty grins at him, something a little feline in that smile, a little hungry in the gleam of teeth, and in a voice that's lush, rich, darker and more feminine than Dean expected, they say, "Awfully convinced of yourself, aren't you."
"And yet here you are," Dean says. He steps closer, close enough to smell them: vetiver and tobacco, bourbon and sweat, and, underneath everything, the glue and ink and dust of old libraries and older books. It makes his mouth water, makes his dick harden. There's something Dean knows in the colour and shape of Beauty's eyes, those fox-tilted hazel eyes with gold flecks around the edges, but then he's standing between Beauty's legs, got his hands on their waist and his nose running up Beauty's neck, lips ghosting over that long line of skin just asking to be marked up. "What do I call you?" Dean asks. "Him? Her? Them? Do I get a name?"
"No names," Beauty says, and something about that answer, about the way they say it, sounds so savagely lonely that Dean almost pulls back. "Any pronoun."
Dean runs one hand up Beauty's back, tangles his fingers in all their hair, scritches the scalp hard and deep and tugs a little while he does it. "No names," he says. "How d'you wanna do this? 'Cause I gotta say, I'm up for pretty much anything."
Beauty laughs; the sound makes Dean's dick throb. "Can tell,” they purr, tracing their nails over his jeans. “I wanna suck you. Wanna get my mouth on that gorgeous dick I know you've got hidin' in them jeans and drink you down like one of them top-shelf bourbons you paid for out there."
Christ. "Sure know how to get a man's attention, sweet thing," Dean says. He reaches in his back pocket, pulls out a condom.
"Bare," Beauty says.
Dean narrows his eyes; Beauty slides off the sink and they're taller than Dean, not by much but enough, and Dean's, fuck, he's torn between thanking a god he doesn't believe in and laying down some serious repelling wards because there's no way this creature's pure human when they're hitting almost every single sexual fantasy Dean's ever had. He doesn't get the chance, not with Beauty kissing him, and god, their lips looked thin but they aren't, shit, and their tongue is wet, teasing when it darts out to taste the seam of Dean's lips and then tempting and plundering in turns, as forceful in searching out every crevice of Dean's mouth as it is shy when it curls around Dean's tongue and invites Dean to do the same in return.
He's panting when the kiss breaks, vision going black at the edges, and then Beauty's on their knees and sucking at Dean's dick through cotton and -- when did they even get his jeans undone, shit, this isn't fucking fair but he's not gonna complain, definitely not, angels and saints above he's going to die and they don't even have him in their mouth yet.
He runs his hands through their hair, takes out the clip holding half of Beauty's hair back, and digs both of his hands in the mess, thick and gleaming around his fingers. "Look so good on your knees, sweetheart," he says. "Gonna let me do the same thing? Let me make you feel as good as you're makin' me feel right now? I want to, fuck; been thinkin' about it since the second I saw you."
"You talk too much," Beauty says. Dean might take that as rebuke but there's a glimmer of humour in their eyes and so he just grins. The smile disappears quick, though, when they yank his jeans down, underwear quickly following, and get their mouth around him.
If the kiss was amazing, then this is a goddamned fucking religious epiphany and Dean's just seen the face of god. He's had his dick sucked a hundred times by a hundred different people in a hundred different places across the country, from high school bleachers to forty-bucks-a-night motel rooms to grimy truck stop bathrooms to gritty back alleys and fifty other kinds of spots but this bar in Chicago has just become Dean's church and this bathroom is his holy sanctuary.
Dean staggers backwards, half-pushed by Beauty, so that he's leaning against the wall, doesn't have to rely on himself to stand up. It's a damn good thing, too, because they're determined to suck out his bones and muscles through his dick -- and Dean thinks they just might be able to.
It's like Beauty knows him, knows every pound and ounce and atom of him, like they know everything he likes and everything he didn't know he liked, like they have a direct line to his brain and aren't afraid to push every button Dean has all at once. They use more teeth than Dean normally likes -- but apparently he likes that when the pressure of their tongue is a little harder as well, the suction a little lighter. They take him deep but instead of humming they sigh; they save the hum for when he's just barely hitting the back of their throat. They draw the lightest touch of nail along his balls and back toward his ass while circling the head of his dick with their tongue and then they look up at him and lick their lips, say, "C'mon, lemme get a taste of you," and swallow him down just like that.
Beauty's got their eyes closed; as Dean comes, he closes his as well, in prayers of mercy or thanksgiving or sheer fucking relief as the pressure in his balls spirals out and spills its way down Beauty's throat. Every muscle in Dean's body snaps at once, going from whipcord-tight to fucked-out loose, and he's panting for breath, leaning against the wall, as he tries to get his heartbeat back to normal rhythm.
Of course, looking down to see Beauty licking their lips doesn't help, especially when they sit back on their heels, gaze up at him through that tangle of curls and those long eyelashes. Dean holds out a hand, says, "I'll do my best, but there's no way I'm gonna live up to that."
Beauty's hand, in Dean's, is warm as they let Dean pull them up. "Consider that a gift," Beauty says, voice shredded, torn to pieces by the ride of Dean's cock in their throat. "No need to reciprocate."
"I don't work that way," Dean says. "I --"
Beauty cuts him off, one finger over Dean's lips. "Let me guess," they say. "You're not that kind of guy, right? But you are. Don't worry; I knew what I was getting into."
Dean feels stung by that. He waits for Beauty to move their finger and, when they do, he stands up a little taller, a little straighter, says, "And what kind of guy am I?"
"The love 'em and leave 'em kind," Beauty says. "Everyone comes, everyone's happy, but the bed's empty in the morning. You're a drifter; a different fuck in every city, a different city every night. You don't have a home except the back seat of your car. The most anyone will ever have of you is your mouth and your dick and even that's only for a few hours."
Beauty moves to pull back, to walk away; Dean doesn't let them. He takes hold of Beauty's wrist with one hand, their hip with the other -- loose enough that they can move if they want, but tight enough to signal Dean's intent without any mistake: he wants them to stay. "Takes one to know one?" he says, his mouth close to theirs, his breath meeting theirs, mingling with theirs. "You the love 'em and leave 'em type as well, sweet thing? If I'm a drifter, what are you?"
They step into Dean's space. The thrill that runs up and down Dean's spine is violent, vicious, makes his grip on Beauty a little tighter, a little more nail and a little less care. Dean watches as Beauty's eyes flash with answers thought of and discarded and he wonders which one they'll eventually settle on, which one he'll get the privilege of hearing and what kind of picture the others would paint.
"A survivor," Beauty says, and there's a brittleness to their voice that hadn't been there before. Dean's pretty sure, yeah, Beauty's had to put up with a lot of shit for the way they present themselves, the way they look and who they fuck and how they dress and talk and laugh, but there's something more to it as well, something deeper. Beauty wrenches out of Dean's hold, takes a couple steps back. "Enjoy however much time you've got left in Chicago."
"Dean." Beauty narrows their eyes; Dean says it again. "Dean. It's my name."
Beauty laughs. "Traces of Kerouac, there, Dean," they say. "Or is it Jack? Or Sal Paradise? Don't worry, Mister Paradise -- it don't matter much to me what you call yourself or why you're on the road."
Dean's heart is racing; he takes a step forward and isn't sure if he expects Beauty to step back or plant their feet and meet his challenge, doesn't know how to feel when Beauty just tilts their chin and looks at him, one eyebrow raised. "I'm not what anyone would consider smart," Dean says, low, quiet, "but that doesn't mean I'm an idiot. This was more than just a bathroom blowjob."
"Maybe for you," Beauty says, "Mister Paradise." Their eyes narrow a little, mouth curving up in a cruel slash of a smile. "For me? This was just a pretty dick, one I haven't had before."
Poison, that's what the bartender warned Dean about, and he'd laughed it off. Heartbreaker. He should've known better. She did her best and Dean didn't listen and here he is, now, feeling soul-burnt bitter at a brush-off he should’ve seen coming.
"Liar," Dean says, low. He takes another step closer, gratified to see Beauty swallow in the face of Dean's predation. He's drawn to them the way he's felt connected at gut-level to so very few people: his dad, a couple other hunters he considers close as family, his brother -- and he knows they feel it, too, or else Beauty would have left already, dregs of Dean's pride in their hands. The air between them is almost too heavy to breathe; Dean can feel his throat clogging up with the pressure.
The moment stretches out -- and then they're kissing again. Dean's not sure which of them closed that last little distance. He doesn't care, not with the way Beauty's practically melting into him, all the harsh stone of them crumbling into the way Dean's hands are digging into the strip of skin between shirt and jeans, not with the desperation of the kiss, less the torturous tease from before and now something hungry, two people brought together on the crest of a wave and scrabbling for every inch of connection they can get before the ocean tears them apart again.
"Let me," Dean says, breathes, nearly begs, one hand moving to the front of Beauty's jeans, "let me, c'mon," and he cups the bulge he feels, runs his hand up and down the length trapped in the denim, feels his mouth water at the thought of getting that in his hands or his mouth or his ass, can only imagine what it would feel like to bury himself in Beauty and feel that beautiful dick paint them both white with come.
"Dean," Beauty says, sobs, "I -- sorry, I'm sorry, I --"
Just like that, Beauty's gone, whirlwind speed right out the door, leaving Dean gasping for breath, hands on the wall, head hanging as his heart finds its normal rhythm. Dean grits his teeth, punches the wall once, twice, until the sting of broken skin makes its way through his blood, matches up with the pulsating throb of his broken lip, his shatter-shocked heart.
There have been times over the past six years when Dean's figured he's no better than some of the heartless shit he's hunted, nothing in his chest but empty air, hollow cavity, not even the fragments of a heart or soul to prove he was once any kind of human -- but apparently Dean's been fooling himself.
Beauty found something, reached down and coaxed out some kind of hidden hymn singing in the far corners of a softness Dean was convinced Sam had taken with him that night he’d walked out on Dean and Dad and a shitty little run-down apartment in Jackson, and fuck Beauty for doing it and then leaving just the same way.
--
It takes a few seconds for Dean to pull himself together, convince himself to leave Beauty’s fading scent-trace of bourbon and sweat and grass-stained cigarettes. By the time Dean makes it out of the bathroom, down the short hallway and back into the bar, the bar's almost empty, lights on all the way, music tuned to something local, commercial for one of the local auto dealers playing. There's no sign of Beauty; Dean hadn't been expecting one. He heads for the bar, pushes over a twenty dollar bill, takes the shot of whiskey the bartender has waiting for him. Dean throws it back, relishes the burn on top of the ache somewhere between his throat and his chest.
"Guess you didn't strike out after all," the bartender says. "Your handsome beauty everything you were expecting?"
"What do you know about them?" Dean asks, leaning up close, angling for all the information he can get because Dean isn’t putting this fucking cesspool of a city in his rearview until he’s gotten a name for his god and fucked an idol of his own right back onto Beauty’s soul.
The bartender leans her elbows on the bar, watches the last group of customers wave as they leave. "Not much," she admits. "Teaches, I think, at one of the colleges. Comes here to cut loose every so often. Quite the mystery."
"You knew enough to warn me about the bite," Dean says, pushing a little, trying to be gentle about it but knowing there's an edge in his voice.
"You work this job as long as I have," she says, "you get an eye for the heartbreakers. But that one leaves wrecks in their wake, a different one every time. Poor thing," she adds, soft, as she wipes down the bar.
Dean tilts his head, asks, "Why do you say that?"
The bartender glances at him. "The only ones who can inflict that kind of pain on other people and keep on livin' either had it done to them or ain't got a heart to speak of," she says. "Either way, Sam may not say much about --"
Dean cuts her off, feels a chill run down his spine. "Sam?" he asks.
"Yeah," the bartender says. "Sam. Sam Winchester."