SPN Fic -- This is How it Works -- Sam/Jess, some Sam/Dean -- NC-17 -- 2/2
In Part One: Jess looks away from him and takes a deep breath, lets it out slow. What she says next is, "You feel up for a walk? We could go get coffee."
"Yeah," says Dean. "Coffee would be good."
They walk in silence. Jess sets the pace slower than normal since she can tell how tired Dean still is. When they're about halfway there, she points to an alley across the street. "We got mugged there a few months ago," she says. "Almost mugged. Sam grabbed the knife out of the guy's hand like it was nothing, had his arm pinned behind his back and his cell phone out to call 911 before I even knew what was happening."
Dean nods but doesn't say anything.
"He said it was instinct. Said he didn't know what happened, really, or how he did it. He's full of shit, right?"
Dean shrugs and they walk the rest of the way in silence.
Sam's behind the bar when they get to the store and the line is long, so he can't do much more than smile when he sees them. They're brewing Verona, and Jess and Dean both get ventis and settle into chairs on the outside patio.
"I was dating Sam's roommate when we met," Jess says.
"So you said."
"Anyway, I barely knew Sam when I was dating Mark. He was always gone, always working or studying. He never hung out in the room with us, rarely came to parties."
Dean sighs and nods. "Yeah. That sounds like Sam."
"Halfway through spring quarter, he started to cry and he couldn't stop." She can feel Dean's eyes on her so she doesn't look at him. She takes a sip of her coffee. "It went on for days and it really freaked Mark out. My mom's a therapist, so Mark thought maybe I'd know what the hell to do." She shrugs and looks at him finally. "I didn't know what to do, not really. We got him up and dressed, took him to student health, got him meds and therapy sessions. He could barely get out of bed."
"I didn't know." Dean's voice is dark with guilt.
"Mark didn't know what to do with him, and my roommate was never there, so every day I'd go get Sam, make him take a walk with me and sit in the sun, then we'd go back to my room and I'd study or watch TV or whatever, and he'd lay his head in my lap and cry."
"I..." Dean opens his mouth to speak, then closes it again. He takes a deep breath.
"I'm not telling you this to make you feel like shit. I just..." Jess shrugs. She doesn't know why she's telling him, exactly. "Your life, the way you grew up, it was hard on him."
"I know," Dean says. He looks down at his coffee, chews on his lower lip. "After our mom died, our dad...it wasn't...he did the best he could, raising Sammy."
"According to Sam, you're the one who raised him."
Dean looks up at her. "He said that?"
She nods. "Yeah."
"Huh." He takes a sip of his coffee, looks out into the distance.
"I didn't mean to totally kill the conversation," Jess says after a couple minutes of silence. "Tell me something about Sam growing up." She smiles. "Something embarrassing."
Dean laughs and rubs his hand over his stubble. "Embarrassing, huh? He ever mention the time he tried out for the gymnastics squad?"
"It was the cheerleading team, and if you tell that story I'll make you sleep in your car," Sam says from behind him.
Jess looks up and grins as Sam pulls out a chair and sits next to them, venti glass of ice water in his hand. He's got beads of sweat on his temples and Jess leans over to smooth them with her thumb. "Crazy in there today," she says. "You on your ten?"
Sam nods, leans over to kiss her, then kicks Dean's foot. "Don't let her encourage you," he says. "She's a bad influence."
Dean nods solemnly. "Terrible. In fact, she was just telling me how you two met."
Jess kicks Dean under the table, something Sam doesn't miss. He frowns and looks down at his ice water.
"It wasn't--" Jess starts. She doesn't know what to say. She didn't expect Dean to just come out with it like that, and she feels like an asshole since she knows Sam hadn't wanted Dean to know.
"No," Sam says softly. He lays his hand over hers. "It's all right."
"You never called," says Dean. He's looking out in one direction, Sam's looking away in another.
"Wasn't much to say."
Jess can see Dean's leg move, sees him place his foot gently on top of Sam's. "You could have called," he says, somehow making it sound like an apology.
Sam nods and looks at Dean, manages a tight smile.
"I totally want to hear about gymnastics tryouts," Jess says after another minute of tense silence.
"Cheerleading," says Dean.
"Over my dead body," says Sam, but he's smiling for real, his eyes crinkled at the corners, and Jess doesn't know quite how, but the matter's been resolved.
After Sam's break is over, Jess and Dean walk back to the apartment. Dean's obviously exhausted and Jess has brothers, she knows how guys work. She tells Dean she wants to take a nap, tells him she won't mind if he turns on the TV since she'll sleep right through it. She goes to her room and reads for a while, and when she comes out for a glass of water, Dean's fast asleep with the remote in his hand.
Sam gets home at one and immediately falls into bed. Jess rubs his feet as he falls asleep, then pulls out her sketchbook to work on the drawing assignment she has due in four days.
She lays down next to Sam after a while, snuggles up to his sleepy warmth. She knows she should wake him soon--he hates to nap for more than an hour--but they're going out that night so she lets him sleep for a while.
He and Dean both wake up around four, Dean blinking and denying that he was asleep at all, Sam scowling just a little bit at Jess for letting him sleep for so long.
"You wanna do something?" Jess asks.
"Star Wars marathon on," says Dean.
"Sweet," says Sam, going to the fridge for beer.
Jess rolls her eyes and goes back to working on her sketch. Boys.
Once it gets dark, Jess pins her hair up and takes a long bath, shaving her legs all the way up and scrubbing off the calluses on her heels. She wraps herself in a fluffy towel and pads across the hall to the bedroom where she applies lotion and sits at her makeup table to brush out her hair and twist it into two long braids. She takes her time getting dressed, humming softly as she does so, and applies her makeup patiently, exaggerating the bow of her lips and the pink of her cheeks.
She's ready around nine o'clock, which is perfect timing, and she heads out into the hall.
"Wow," says Dean, stopping short as Jess comes around the corner. "I...um...yeah. Sam. Your girlfriend's dressed up like a nursery rhyme hooker."
"I'm Little Miss Muffet," Jess says, putting her hands on her hips. She's wearing a short blue dress and a white ruffled apron with a black spider appliqué. She's got on white thigh-highs with black satin bows on the tops, black high-heeled Mary Janes, and a white ruffled crinoline that peeks out from beneath her dress.
"You can sit on my tuffet any time," Dean says, the words out of his mouth like he can't stop them. "Seriously, though, I...damn."
Sam comes out of the kitchen and smiles when he sees her. "Do you mind if we sit this one out?" he asks.
"I'm wearing thigh-highs and a six-inch skirt and you want to sit it out?" she demands.
"You guys do this on a regular basis?" Dean asks. "Not that I'm judging because obviously, Sammy, you've got a kinky girlfriend who's into playing dress up so, well, score."
"It's Halloween," Sam tells him.
Dean sighs. "Fucking Halloween."
"Not you, too," Jess says. She can't help but be mildly amused at the both of them, grown men sulking over a silly holiday. "It's fun."
"Previously, I would have disagreed with you," Dean says. Jess can feel his eyes on her bare thighs between where the stockings stop and her skirt begins. "Looking at that, though..." He looks over his shoulder at Sam. "Your girlfriend makes Halloween look fun."
"Stop looking at my girlfriend," Sam says, punching Dean's arm gently. "And you don't have to keep calling her my girlfriend, you can call her Jess."
"Hey, I'm just stunned that you've actually got a girlfriend, let alone one that looks like that." Dean looks back over at her and Jess can feel the heat behind his stare.
Sam smacks Dean in the back of the head. "Keep your eyes in your head, dude."
"I'm only human," says Dean.
"You sure you don't want to wear the gladiator costume?" Jess asks, though she already knows what Sam will say.
"I'm sure," he says. "Really, you go out with your friends and Dean and I will just hang here."
Jess shakes her head, reaches out and grabs Sam's wrist in one hand, Dean's in the other. "We're going out," she says firmly. "And we're going to drink too much and steal candy from small children."
"Well," says Dean, "when you put it like that..."
She drags them to the front door, then lets go of their wrists and leads the way down the hall.
"Dude. Stop staring at her ass," says Sam.
"Have you seen her ass?"
"Yes, actually."
"Then you know why I'm staring at it."
Jess grins and pretends she can't hear them, though they're only a few steps behind her.
"She doesn't happen to have any naughty schoolgirl outfits, does she?" Dean asks.
Jess looks over at her shoulder at him and grins.
"Dude," says Dean, looking at Sam. "You're, like, the luckiest man alive."
"Yeah," says Sam, a little bit smugly, "I know."
They spend hours at the bar and get back to the apartment around one.
"Halloween sucks," Dean says as he pushes back one of the kitchen chairs and straddles it. "You got any tequila?"
"I think we've had enough," says Sam.
"Tequila!" says Jess, opening the liquor cabinet. She sets the bottle down with a thunk. "Grab the limes, Sammy."
Sam snorts and rolls his eyes. "It's Sam," he says. "Don't let him rub off on you."
"Oh, I will so rub off on her," Dean says with a wicked grin.
Jess bats at Dean's shoulder and rolls her eyes. "In your dreams, buddy."
Sam smirks and sits down at the table across from Dean. He's already gotten the limes out of the fridge and a small paring knife to cut them with. Jess grabs the salt and the shot glasses and sits next to Sam.
"I just don't get it," Dean says as Jess pours the shots and Sam cuts the limes. "You dress up as a monster and people give you candy. It's fucked up. I wanted to waste half those dudes in the bar tonight."
"Seriously," says Sam.
"You're no fun," says Jess. She pours the last shot a little too full and licks the spill off her fingers.
"I'm lots of fun," says Dean with another leer.
"In your dreams!" Jess shrieks, laughing like it's the funniest thing she's ever heard.
They each do a shot and Jess is the only one who grimaces. "You boys," she says, "can really hold your liquor."
"It's genetic," says Sam.
"Sammy," Dean's voice is dark.
"What? It is. Also, environmental. Hell, Dad forgot half his hiding places, and don't tell me I was the only one sneaking his stashed whiskey."
Dean grins and shakes his head. "Who's the one who taught you how to find his stashed whiskey?"
"That would be you." Sam looks at Jess and sighs. He's drunk and happy. "Dean taught me everything," he tells her. "He taught me about music and cars--"
"Not that any of the lessons stuck."
"He taught me about girls."
"And you turned out to be an unexpected prodigy after the late bloom."
"He taught me about fighting and weapons."
"OK," says Jess, "that's a little freaky."
Sam shakes his head and waves his hand as if he could erase Jess's worry. "No, no, not at all. I mean, OK, yeah, so I don't exactly like to fight, but I totally can if I have to."
"I could still kick your ass, Sammy."
"It's Sam. My God, do I look like a fat pre-teen to you?"
"You were fat?" Jess asks with a hiccup.
"Dude," says Dean.
"I wasn't fat," says Sam, crossing his arms over his chest. "I was chubby."
"He was fat," says Dean. "Like the marshmallow man."
"Oh, fuck you," says Sam. He tugs off his t-shirt and turns to look down at his side. "At least I don't have love handles."
Dean looks seriously offended. "Dude, I so do not--"
"You so do!"
"I do not!"
"Relax," says Sam. "They're cute."
"Do I have love handles?" Dean asks, pulling up his shirt on the side to show Jess.
"Nope," she answers honestly. "But you don't have a body like Sam's either."
"Ha," says Sam.
Dean frowns. "You're just biased since he's giving you the dick."
Jess laughs and gasps and Sam looks like he can't decide if he wants to laugh or to punch Dean in the face.
"Dick giving or not," says Jess, "Sam's body is pretty much perfect." She grins at him. "Then again, all that dick might make me just a little biased."
Sam blushes and ducks his head down.
"I'm going to bed," Jess says, a little wobbly when she stands up. She runs her fingers along Sam's bare shoulders, leans to kiss his ear. "Don't be too long," she whispers before stumbling to their room and collapsing onto the bed without even taking her shoes off. She falls asleep within a minute.
Hours later and she's half asleep, so it doesn't register at first, what the sounds she's hearing are. There's a soft grunt, a sigh, Sam and Dean's voices low and hushed. There's a moan she recognizes as Sam's and then she's wide awake. She knows the sounds Sam makes during sex, and he's making them at that very moment. In the living room. With Dean.
She sits up and, God, oh God. She'd assumed the way Sam hadn't been able to keep his hands off her ever since Dean arrived had been some sort of alpha male thing, some stupid boy way of making sure his brother knew she wasn't up for grabs. But what if it had been something else? What if Sam had been so horny because of his brother?
Jess presses her hands over her ears and lays back down. She's having a bad dream. It's just a bad dream. She sits back up and occupies herself with getting out of her costume and into a roomy t-shirt. She wants to wash her face but she doesn't want to have to leave the bedroom and see anything she's not supposed to see. The noises stop eventually and she snuggles down into the bed, facing the wall. When Sam finally comes in nearly an hour later, she pretends that he doesn't smell like sex. It's just a bad dream, that's all.
She doesn't sleep. Sam rolls over in the middle of the night and slings his arm over her shoulders. She pushes his arm off and gets out of bed, sits by the window staring out into the darkness for hours. When dawn breaks she gets dressed and goes for a run. She doesn't have any answers by the time she gets home. Dean's asleep on the couch. He looks innocent when he's asleep. She wants to smash her fist into his face. She wants to cry. She doesn't do either, just takes a quick shower and leaves before she has to face either one of them.
She goes to class and then to work, and when she gets back to the apartment she can't remember anything she learned or any customers she talked to. Her stomach hurts as she climbs the steps and she holds her breath as she opens the front door. The apartment is quiet and there's a note on the coffee table, "Went to do laundry, back before dinner."
Jess takes a long shower and cries a little bit. She wants to call her mom but she doesn't know what she'd say. She wants to go to sleep but her mind won't turn off. She ends up lying in bed staring at the ceiling, then she sits up and grabs a sketchbook and draws, the lines coming out dark and fierce.
She can hear Sam and Dean laughing as they enter the apartment, can hear their easy, brotherly banter. Brotherly. Jesus.
"Hey," says Sam when he comes into the bedroom. "How was work?"
"OK," she says softly. She watches Sam from behind her sketchbook as he drops the basket of clean laundry on the floor in front of the closet and lifts out a shirt to hang it up. He never folds the laundry at the Laundromat.
Jess watches him for a long time, and he doesn't look any different. She thinks he should, though she knows it's ridiculous. He's just Sam, the way he's always been, the way she's never known he was.
She gets up, finally, to help him with the laundry. She snatches up one of her white cotton nightgowns, the ones she favors during the summer when it's hot.
"Dean seems better," Jess says softly, folding her nightgown over and over again before giving up and just crumpling it in her hands.
"Yeah." Sam seems distracted. He rubs his fingers over his mouth and closes his eyes, as if remembering something.
"I think it's time for him to go."
Sam looks over at her, startled.
"He's better. He doesn't need to be here anymore."
He says, "Did he come on to you?"
"No. God. Not seriously, anyway. Not except for when you were right there to hear him. I just...I don't...he's not..." What does she say? How do you have a conversation like this? "I think he's a bad influence," she whispers.
Sam stands up and comes over to her. He rubs her arms with his hands. "What's going on?" he asks.
Jess looks up at him, and Sam's mouth does that thing it does when he's sad. He looks away from her and takes a step back. "Jess," he whispers.
"It's complicated," she finishes. "Is that what you were going to say? You had sex with your brother, Sam. I heard you."
He takes a deep breath and she can see the tears in his eyes. He turns away from her and sits suddenly, his head down, his arms wrapped around himself.
Jess kneels next to him, places her hand on his shoulder. "You wanna tell me about it?" she asks.
Sam's soft laugh is choked with a sob.
"Or I can tell you, because I've been thinking about it. It's all I've been able to think about. Your mother's dead, your father wasn't there, there was no one for you but Dean. Town after town, city after city, no stability, no one to take care of you, no one to love you but Dean."
"Don't," Sam whispers. "Don't even think that you can understand."
"Maybe I can't, but that's not my fault. You don't tell me anything, Sam, and then your brother shows up and I find out you've been getting the shit kicked out of you your entire life and your father's a drunk and your mother's dead and your brother's a fucking bounty hunter and you grew up in bars and motel rooms and...fuck." She runs her fingers through her hair. "Fuck. I'm trying to understand this. I want to understand this but if you don't let me in--"
"I can't."
"What am I supposed to do here, Sam? You slept with someone else."
"I love you," Sam whispers, taking Jess' hands in his.
"You slept with someone else. What am I supposed to do with that? I can't even deal with the brother thing right now. What am I supposed to do with the fact that you had sex with someone else in our apartment while I was sleeping in our bed?"
"Hey," Dean says as he shoves open the door to their bedroom.
"Not really the time, Dean," Sam says.
"Yeah. Sorry. So, um, you still have that shotgun, right?"
Sam lets Jess' hands drop. "Why?" he asks, his voice low and wary.
"No reason," Dean says too quickly. "Except, you know..." He shrugs and gives Sam a wincing smile.
"Damnit," says Sam as he stands quickly. "It followed you?"
"Hey! I was as stealthy as I could be but, you know, days of torture, no food, serious dehydration, maybe I got sloppy."
"I'm not blaming you."
"Well, it sounds like you are."
"Well, I'm not!"
Jess stands and puts her hand on Sam's arm. "We should call the police," she says.
Dean winces at her suggestion and Sam doesn't even acknowledge it, just pulls away from her and strides towards their bedroom closet. He starts to pull things off the top shelf until he reveals a long shape wrapped in a blanket. He unwraps it and pops it open, gazing into the barrel for a moment before locking it back into place. "I've only got two shells," he says.
"You said it was unloaded!" Jess cries.
"I've got shells," says Dean.
"What the hell is this thing, anyway?" Sam asks.
"I don't know. Some sort of chupacabra thing."
Sam pauses and looks at Dean with incredulity. "A chupacabra?" he asks, and Jess thinks for a moment that Sam thinks Dean's crazy, just like she does. Then Sam says, "Christ, Dean, chupacabras feed on animals, not humans, and they definitely don't tie humans up and feed on them for days before finally killing them."
"I know," says Dean, raking his fingers through his hair. "I know, OK? It's not a chupacabra chupacabra, it's just...it's a bloodsucky kind of humanoid kind of mothman-ish thing, but no wings."
Sam rolls his eyes.
"It looked like a dog at first, if that helps," Dean says. He hurries into the hall and looks both ways before darting off towards the living room.
"Great," Sam grumbles. "A shape shifter."
"Sam?" Jess asks. She doesn't know what else to say. She wonders how she never knew before that her boyfriend was not only delusional, but completely insane.
"Come on." Sam takes her hand and pulls her out of the bedroom. In the living room, Dean's unpacking a duffle bag full of guns and knifes. He tosses a box of shotgun shells at Sam, and Sam palms them quickly and slides the box into his pocket.
"Why the hell didn't you ever salt your doors?" Dean asks as he stuffs a gleaming silver revolver into the back of his jeans.
"I did."
"Yeah? Because I just checked and there's no salt."
"It's inside the doorjamb. And there's salt in every windowsill."
"You said you replaced those because they had water damage!" Jess can feel her voice climbing higher and higher with every word, but she can't stop it. "Sam Winchester, what the hell is wrong with you?"
"Oooh, she just used your full name, dude," Dean says as he hikes up one pant leg and stows a knife in his boot. "You're so in trouble right now."
"What if it's corporeal?" Sam asks.
"What?"
"If it's not a ghost, if it's not a demon, salt won't do any good. Do you think it's a demon?"
"I don't know," Dean admits. "It's not a ghost, that much I know, I--"
The window shatters and suddenly there's a...a thing coming right at them, all claws and teeth and stringy fur. It's making this inhuman, unholy noise and Jess can't move, can't breathe because it looks almost like a person, but it's not, not like any person she could ever imagine.
She thinks maybe she's screaming and Sam steps in front of her, the shotgun poised on his shoulder, but the thing's so fast, inhumanly fast, it knocks Sam down before he can even pull the trigger and it's snarling and she can see its face and oh, God, its face, it's not human. It's a thing, some sort of devil creature, something out of nightmares, eyes glowing a sickly orange and it uses its claws to slash Sam's face and Jess is screaming, she's screaming and she needs to save him, needs to protect him, and then, suddenly the snarling turns sharper and more full of rage because Dean's got a knife and he's grabbed the thing by the matted hair on its head and he drives the knife deep into the thing's back.
The thing turns, hits Dean so hard he flies across the room and Sam's up, Sam's up and he grabs the knife and twists it before pulling it out, ducks the thing's arm as it whips around, throws himself at it and there's blood, so much blood, blood on Sam and on Dean and blood splashing across the front of Jess' t-shirt and blood on the floor and Dean picks himself up, staggers forward shaking his head as if to clear it, he's only been out maybe five or ten seconds and he's in the fight too and Sam's winning, Sam's got the thing by the hair and he's hacking at it with the knife, grunting and hacking until he's separated the thing's head from his body.
The room is suddenly quiet, the only sounds are their labored breaths.
Sam laughs softly and stands up, dropping the thing's head to the floor. It makes a sickening sound when it hits and it rolls a bit before it stops.
"You are so not getting your cleaning deposit back," Dean says, looking at the pool of blood spreading quickly across the rug that Jess had gotten not two months earlier from Pottery Barn.
"Are you all right?" Sam asks, reaching out to touch Jess' arm.
"Yeah," she whispers. Her voice sounds strange, like it's not her own.
"Let me see that cut." Dean takes Sam's face in his hands, turns it towards the light.
"I'm fine," says Sam.
"I should stitch it."
"I said--"
"Not open for discussion, Sammy. It needs to be stitched."
Sam sighs and nods, heads for the bathroom. "Fine," he says.
Sam's eyes flutter closed when Dean begins to suture the wound on his cheek, his deep, slow breaths belying the pain he must feel. Jess says, "You could have told me."
"Would you have believed it?" Sam asks.
Dean says, "Shut your pie hole, I'm working, here."
Sam closes his mouth and doesn't move again until after Dean's finished. He opens his eyes when Dean wipes the sutured gash with peroxide but he doesn't flinch away. When he looks at Jess his eyes are sad and wearier than she's ever seen them before.
"Would you have believed me?" Sam asks in a low, calm voice.
Jess shakes her head. She knows she wouldn't have. "What was that thing?"
"Just a nightmare, sweetheart," Dean says cheerfully. "Just some junkie wino. Nothing to worry about. Why don't you and Sam go get some ice cream and I'll get this all cleaned up."
Jess doesn't know she's going to slap him until she feels the sting in her palm. "What the fuck was that thing?" she demands.
"Yeah. I don't know. Some chupacabra-mothman-ish humanoid, um...thing." He looks at Sam. "Think we should save the head? Take it to Pastor Jim or something?"
"Maybe," Sam says. "We should call, first, see if he can identify it from our description, just in case it's got the power to regenerate."
"Good idea," says Dean.
Sam reaches out to touch Jess' hand. "There are things in this world that most people don't know about," he tells her. "Evil things. You know all those times I told you that my childhood was complicated?"
"Hard to forget." Jess' voice is shakier than she'd like.
"My mother was killed by a demon when I was six months old. I grew up hunting them."
"Demons," Jess whispers.
"Among other things." Sam sighs. "Sorry you had to find out this way. Decapitation's messy."
"But effective," says Dean. He rubs his cheek where Jess slapped him. "Your girlfriend has one hell of an arm, Sammy."
"Don't call me that."
"Sammy," says Dean with a grin.
They roll the body up in Jess' brand new Pottery Barn rug and Jess makes sure the coast is clear before they carry it out to Dean's car. It's huge and black, and when they're loading the thing's body into the trunk, she sees that it's filled with weapons of all kinds. They tell her she's safe, now. They tell her to stay in the apartment while they take care of it.
Jess refuses. She sits in the big back seat of Dean's Impala with her bare feet tucked beneath her. Sam sits next to her and pulls her into his huge embrace and rocks her back and forth. "I'm sorry," he whispers into her hair over and over again. She doesn't know what he means, if he's sorry about not telling her the truth, if he's sorry about having sex with his brother, if he's sorry about cutting off some demon-thing's head right in front of her.
Metallica's The Thing That Should Not Be is playing softly on the stereo, and neither Dean nor Sam seem to think there's anything weird about that, like maybe it's fucking symbolic or something.
They drive east for almost an hour, until they're in the middle of nowhere. Jess is nearly asleep, Sam's long arms still wrapped tightly around her. Dean gets out of the car and she can see the glow of his cellphone.
"What are we doing here?" Jess asks.
"We need to burn it," Sam tells her. "The body. So it can't ever come back."
Jess says, "Oh," like it should have been obvious. Of course. An inhuman dog-monster-thing nearly kills you, and you need to burn it. Why didn't she think of that?
Sam cocks the sawed-off shotgun and hands it to her. She stands by the car, watching them drag the body off into the middle of a field, cover it in rock salt and gasoline, then light it on fire. Sam comes back to wait with her, urging her back against him until she's standing on his feet when she shivers. He takes off his button-down and drapes it around her shoulders, then wraps his arms around her waist. She's still got the shotgun in her hands and Sam's cheek is warm against the top of her head.
"I didn't know how to tell you," Sam whispers. The fire pops and Jess tries to pretend that the sound isn't bones cracking. He sighs. "I didn't want to tell you. I didn't want this life."
She doesn't blame him. She leans back against him and tips her head against his shoulder.
"I hid my application to Stanford beneath my mattress the way most teenage boys hide porn," he whispers. "I had to do everything in secret, the application, the essays, recommendations, the scholarship. My father...to him, me leaving was like treason. My entire life I'd been dragged from motel to motel, from crappy apartment to crappy house, all across the country, never for more than a few months at a time. Even before I got older and he started to hate me, my father was never there. He was drunk or he was hunting or he was just gone, gone for weeks at a time. The only constant in my life, the only safe thing in my life was Dean."
"Sam, you don't have to," Jess says because she can't hear it. She can't take any more, no more secrets, no more pain. She turns towards him and Sam eases the gun from her hands, sets it down carefully. She wraps her arms around him and presses her face to his chest.
"I love you," Sam tells her. There's a hitch in his voice. "I love you so much."
"Love you, too." It's still true, even if her whole world has been turned around.
"I don't want that life," he whispers. "I want you. I want you, Jess. I want our life. If you can forgive me, God, please forgive me--"
Jess reaches up and touches his mouth with her fingertips. She leans up and kisses him, feels the same desire she's always felt every time Sam has kissed her, coiled at the base of her spine. Christ. She can come from the way Sam kisses her, the way he holds her head in his hands and just claims her. She winds her leg around his calf, presses herself against him, moans into his mouth--
"Oh, for the love of Christ," says Dean with an exasperated snort. "You guys can't keep it in your pants for two hours?"
Jess feels the soft gust of breath against her cheek as Sam laughs softly. "Fuck you," he says, but the words don't hold any heat.
"Leave me out of it," Dean says.
Jess thinks about Sam pressed warm against her front, imagines Dean pressed hot against her back. She shudders.
"Did you rip your stitches?" Sam asks. When Jess turns she sees Dean pressing his hand to his abdomen.
"I'm fine."
"Let me see."
"I said I was fine."
"You want to bleed all over the inside of your car, fine." Sam shrugs and picks up the shotgun, moves like he's going to get into the passenger seat.
"Fine. Fuck. I don't know. Maybe I ripped something dragging that heavy bastard out there." Dean pulls up his t-shirt and Jess can see fresh blood.
Sam squats down and presses his fingers to the skin beneath the bleeding gash. "I don't think you ripped them out," he says. "It's hard to tell in the dark. Can you wait until we get back to the apartment for me to take care of it?"
Dean nods.
"OK." Sam opens the trunk and pulls out a first aid kit, presses a large piece of gauze over the wound and tapes it in place.
Dean crashes in the back seat on the ride home. Sam drives and Jess sits in the passenger seat, her knees pulled up to her chest. She thinks the moonlit scenery would be beautiful any other time.
She turns off the radio and they drive in silence for a while. "Was that a werewolf?" she asks.
Sam shakes his head. "No. Some sort of shapeshifter."
"But there are werewolves?"
Sam nods.
"Vampires?"
Sam nods again.
"Bigfoot?"
He shakes his head.
"I think I need to get very drunk when we get home."
"Marry her," Dean mumbles, nearly asleep.
Back at the apartment, Sam cleans up Dean's stitches while Jess goes into the kitchen. She opens the freezer and drinks vodka straight from the bottle. It's so cold, it burns her chest. She keeps drinking until she's had the equivalent of three or four shots and her knees feel week and rubbery. She sits at the kitchen table and laughs, the sudden sound startling her. That makes her laugh again. She can hear the hysteria in her voice and it just makes her laugh harder.
"Hey," Sam says. She doesn't know when he got into the kitchen but he's there next to her, suddenly, stroking her hair. "Jess, baby..."
She laughs again, claps her hand over her mouth and tries to stifle the giggles that come through.
"Come on," Sam says, helping her up, leading her down the hall.
"Sammy?" Dean asks. "I think maybe your girlfriend's mind has snapped."
Jess shakes her head, leans in and presses her mouth to Dean's. He lets her kiss him for just a moment before pulling slowly away. "Yeah," he says softly. "I think it's a definite snap. What does Pastor Jim always do for shock, again? Tea with bourbon? You got any bourbon?"
"I'm not in shock," says Jess. She kisses Dean again and he kisses her back for just a moment before he pulls away.
"You're not thinking straight," he tells her.
"We could share," she whispers against his mouth.
Dean jerks away from her and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
"What?" she asks. "You don't kiss anybody you're not related to?"
"You're drunk," says Dean. "And you've had one hell of a rude awakening."
"Or don't you kiss girls?" she asks. "Is that it?"
"Jess," Sam says. He's been so quiet that she'd forgotten he was standing behind her. "Come on. You should lay down."
She lets Sam lead her to bed, tries to tell him that she's not tired but as soon as he tucks her in she's asleep. Thankfully, she's doesn't dream.
Jess wakes up around five in the afternoon, feeling like hell. She stumbles into the bathroom and pees for what feels like forever. Her mouth tastes absolutely disgusting and she brushes her teeth and her gums and her tongue to get the sourness out.
"Morning," Sam says from the living room.
Jess groans and leans against the wall. There's window putty around the edges of the new pane he and Dean had obviously just installed to replace the one broken the night before. Jess puts her hand to her forehead. "Did we get attacked by a monster last night?" she asks.
"Yeah," Sam says softly.
Jess groans and nods and shuffles back to bed. She wakes up again an hour later, feeling less like death and more like a human being. She wants to drink a gallon of ice water and to take an hour-long shower.
"Are you leaving?" she asks as she sees Sam and Dean zipping up duffle bags in the living room.
"Yeah," says Dean, hefting one of the duffels up and slinging it over his shoulder. "Figure I've overstayed my welcome."
Jess bites her lower lip. "About last night, when I--"
He grins at her and shakes his head. "Don't worry about it. Hell, I'm a damn handsome devil. Ow," he says when Sam punches him in the arm. "Anyway, Jess, it was nice to meet you. You take care of my boy, here."
"I will," Jess says with a quick nod.
"I'm gonna help him take his stuff to the car," Sam tells her, walking over so he can rub her bare arms. He smiles sadly at her. "Are we OK?"
"Yeah," she says. She doesn't think it'll be easy, but she knows they'll be OK. "I'm going to take a shower, then maybe we can get takeout."
"Sounds great," Sam says. "I'll order it soon as I'm back. You want Thai?"
"Yeah."
Sam kisses her forehead, then her mouth. Jess leans against the wall for a moment, watches Sam and Dean head out of the apartment with duffle bags full of clothes and supplies and weapons. She heads to the bathroom and has just turned on the shower when she hears Sam call her name.
"Sam?" she asks, leaving the bathroom and heading into the bedroom. Sam's standing by the closet with his back to her. "You lose something?" she asks.
"Jessica," the man says when he turns. "You're a sweet girl, but you just won't do." He's not Sam. She's suddenly propelled backwards and pinned to the wall, unable to move, unable to scream. She realizes after a moment that he's not a man at all, since his eyes flash dark yellow when he smiles.
End