Hidden Mouths of Stone and Light, for chase_acow (Dean/OFC, NC-17)
Title: Hidden Mouths of Stone and Light
Author: maboheme
Recipient: chase_acow
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Dean/OFC
Word Count: ~ 4,900
Summary: There’s only a beat, a moment’s indecision before she fires off the shot, and her life changes forever.
Author's Notes: Warnings for sexual situations/language. For chase_acow, from the prompt, Dean/Female!Hunter. Title and opening quote from Leonard Cohen’s poem, “Beneath My Hands.”
I dread the time
when your mouth
begins to call me hunter.
one.
She’s at the bus stop in front of her trailer park the first time she sees him. She watches as a sleek dust-covered classic Chevy rumbles to a stop beside the tin-roofed shotgun single-wide neighboring her parents’ lot.
A rough-and-tumble sort of man clambers out of the driver’s seat, followed by two skinny boys. The trio moves quickly from car to trailer, carrying a couple boxes and duffels between them.
She thinks to go and introduce herself to her new neighbors, offer a handshake and a friendly smile. But instead she just watches them. The boy with a mop of dark hair and a sullen tilt to his slouch waits on the cement-block front steps. The slightly taller one, pale and freckled, jeans torn, flannel worn, smile tired, sits down besides him, bumps their shoulders companionably.
Not ‘til the school bus rumbles to a stop do the boys even glance her way. She catches the eye of the one with freckles. He nods a greeting. She winks, smirks, and reluctantly steps on the bus.
::
She tells him her name when they’re first introduced, the pale sun sinking into the trees, the air still and smelling of desert flowers. But somehow he never seems to remember. Calls her Stella, Maybelle, Luanne.
“Georgia,” she tells him for the third time, with a slight growl to her pronunciation. He’s working on the Chevy. Always is. Classic rock pumping out loud enough to piss off the dead, or just Mr. Merriweather two lots down. She jealously eyes the car-the clean line of the dashboard, the smooth upholstery, the black shine of the hood. It’s cared for, loved. It belongs.
He steps out from under the hood to test the soft purr of the engine. “Georgia, you say?” he asks after a pause. When he finally stops tinkering with the car, he leans against the driver-side door, lopsided smile deepening, curlicue lashes batting. Too long in the sun, his freckles now layer his skin like a dusty star-pattern, a map to nowhere, everywhere.
“Yeah.” She stands there, hands on her hip, blinking the sun out of her eyes. “Like the state. Can you believe it? My Mama named me for a state neither of us has ever been to.”
To emphasize her point, she starts to trace her name into the dust on the windshield of the Impala: G- E- O, before he scowls and bats her hand away. He leans over to wipe down the window, shoots her the evil eye. Everything here is always coated in a fine layer of dust. That’s what you get for living so close to a desert.
When he’s done, he backs up to give her another considering look. She knows she’s not much to look at. She’s fifteen, but could pass for much younger; she’s short, reed-thin and flat as an ironing board. But the smile Dean gives her, well, it makes her feel kind of beautiful.
::
Even though he’s just fifteen, he’s already more tortured than she’ll ever be.
She wears black lipstick, dies her hair blue, skips Ms. Robinson’s third-period Geometry class to smoke up in the bathroom.
But Dean? Dean carries his alienation in the grim set of his shoulders, wears it in the cool faux-bravado of his smile. He hides it in his eyes-there you can glimpse the entire weight of the world, a heaviness made of breath and bone.
::
Neither of them dresses out for PhysEd. They sit in the bleachers and watch the other kids knock around a volleyball. She eyes his never-opened school books poking out of his tattered backpack. He eyes her black nail polish and Sony walkman. She lets him listen to her Slayer tape and when he’s not looking she steals his Ozzy Osbourne cassettes. They get along well.
::
He’s her first everything, really. Kiss. Grope. Fuck. She’s probably none of his firsts, but that’s okay. She doesn’t mind being somewhere in the undefined middle.
::
That first kiss is messy; all tongues and no finesse, stringy spit and clanking teeth. It tastes like orange pop and Doritos.
When they fuck, it’s a little better. Hurts a lot more, but she’s use to pain.
::
Dean’s rough fingers snake along her waist, trace down the groove of her thin frame; his right hand slip-slides up her hips, crawls under her shirt, struggles for three minutes to unhook her bra.
They’re both sweaty, even in the dry October chill. She’s shivering by the time his hand winds down across her belly. His fingers pop open her jeans and come to rest at the elastic of her cotton panty. She arches and sighs as his fingers make their way lower, wind through the damp, coarse hair of her cunt, settle there in her secret warmth.
When they’re both naked, he regards her silently, wet honeydew eyes shadowed in the dim light of her bedroom. She feels uncomfortable at the searching looks he shoots her way; she shifts her eyes to take in her squalid bedroom and the rest of her sad surroundings. He doesn’t seem to mind that her clothes that now litter the floor come from charity, her socks are full of holes, her blanket shredded or her trailer filthy. That both her parents are usually too drunk for house upkeep, too drunk to stick around.
She turns to him, smiles. She spiderwalks her fingers up his arms, over his ribs. She likes the feel of his rough patches. She sometimes wonders at the bruises and scars that mark his skin, the ones that mirror the ones on her own legs and belly. He doesn’t ask her about hers, and she doesn’t ask about his. It’s just nice that he isn’t repulsed by marred skin, by slight imperfection. Instead he runs calloused fingertips over her arms, his dirty, half-bitten fingernails catch on the raised ridges of old scars.
::
That first fuck is without finesse too, a little clumsy, a little awkward. Long limbs dangle off her twin bed. Torn floral-print sheets stick to wet skin, desert dust clogs in her nose.
But Dean’s body is warm and lean against her own. His lips make a soft drag down the length of her chest, his spicy hot breath puffs out on every ragged exhale.
She’s caught up in the feel of her own arousal, too heavy to speak. Her lips lock in nervous anticipation.
“Ready?” he grits out, voice threading wildly as he searches his wallet for a condom. He finds one of those free ones they both got in health class, the wrapper the color of grape bubblegum.
She nods jerkily as his hands gently urge her legs apart. She tracks the movement of his hands, which are shaking a bit as he tears open the condom pack.
Her eyes are slowly drawn down to his cock, flushed thick and full, curving against his belly. He wraps long fingers around his full length, gives it nice firm stroke before rolling the condom on.
She takes in a deep breath, widens her thighs, gasps as cool air hits the ache and pulse of her center. Her body arches every so slightly, and Dean leans into her shifting position, lines up and pushes into her. She lifts her hips further, concentrates on the slow burn of his entrance.
As he presses in, one hand squeezes the small curve of her breast. A few rapid thrusts, a couple of jerky motions, and she’s taking him all in. She welcomes the feel of his cock working in and out of her, the deep stretch and burn.
“God,” he rasps out, his fingers gripping hard into her slippery hips. His eyes shut tight as he pushes into her one last time. He comes with a garbled shout as she clenches tight around him.
“Not God. Just Georgia,” she pants out, her voice ripped to threads. Her lips curl to match the blissed-out smile on his face as she winds her arms tight around him, holds him close inside her.
The land they live on is a parched and scalding mouth, cracked wide from thirst. But everything’s so wet in this new aftermath. Their open mouths meet for sloppy kisses, their thighs rub moist and sweat-slick. They treasure the squishy mess they made, the flood between their legs. Their damp hair spreads across her pillow. Their breaths, warm and humid, mingle.
He collapses, limp and boneless at her side. She leans over and kisses his damp brow. A soft red blush spreads across the length of his body. The tawny scatterplot of freckles stand out along his cheeks, his nose, his chest. His eyes, deep green and flecked with sunrise gold, watch over her.
::
“What’s your trauma?” she asks him after a while, sweat-sticky and bone-weary tired. They lay on their backs across her bed. They’ve been trying to guess the shapes of the water stains on the ceiling, occasionally singing along to the low-moan of Lynyrd Skynyrd winding from her tape player.
Dean rises up on his elbows and turns to look at her. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told ya,” he huffs, offers a fleeting smile as he turns to lie on his belly.
“Your mom run off?” she asks, frowning a little.
He stiffens, lets loose a heavy exhale. His hand comes to settle on the sharp jut of her hipbone, his thumb rubs back and forth. “She died when I was four.”
“I’m so sorry,” she murmurs, nodding. She figured it was something like that.
He doesn’t say anything for a while, just splays his fingers across the crescent moon tattoo on her hip. “We’re leaving soon. Me, my brother, my dad.”
She swallows thickly, throat suddenly gone dry. “But what about school?”
He shrugs, makes an amused noise. “Finish somewhere else. I’m use to it.”
She’s goes quiet, thoughtful for a long time. She wonders what’s so bad his family has to keep running away. She’s afraid to ask. Knows he wouldn’t tell her if she did.
After a while, she cocoons them both in her Nanna’s patchwork quilt, lays her head against his shoulder.
“Was it good for you?” he mumbles softly, his fingers skidding along the crease of her thighs.
“Not too bad, Winchester,” she says, smile tugging at her lips. She leans over and kisses him once on the cheek.
His own smile is almost shy, his twilight eyes large and luminous. “I’ll do better next time.”
::
She knows she shouldn’t. But she does it anyway. She follows Dean and his daddy to Old Miss Millie’s house that last night. The haunted house on the hill, charred as black as cinders, with broken windows that gape like empty eye sockets.
Through one of the basement’s broken windows, she watches a scene unfold like a horror movie. The two Winchesters move in tandem, like a dance. The thing they’re fighting is huge, agile, wild. Claws and talons. Dark fur and red eyes. It knocks Dean’s father onto his back and lands heavily on his chest.
Dean has a shotgun lifted to his shoulder, fires at the thing from across the room. The sound ricochets through the basement as the creature turns its focus on the boy.
“Sonofabitch!” Dean groans when it suddenly lunges at him at an otherworldly speed. It has to weigh as much as he does-its coat a sheen of pure black, ragged fur; its face like a warped pit-bull; and its jaw coming unhinged to bare rows of blood-covered fangs aiming for his throat. His sawed-off shotgun crashes to the ground, skitters across the floorboards.
She runs into the house, doesn’t even stop to think. She’s makes it to the basement in three seconds flat, jumps down the stairs just as Dean hits the ground. The weight of the beast pins him to the floor.
Around her the house shakes, dust showers from the ceiling. Her world shifts, falls into place.
Everything is in slow motion then. See, once upon a time, before the alcohol, before the beatings, her daddy took her hunting quails. Funny, the things she remembers in the heat of an impossible moment. With a quiet sigh, she picks up Dean’s shotgun. Her eyes meet the dancing red orbs of a creature she has no name for. In her peripheral vision, she can see Dean’s daddy stirring. No time to wait though. She takes in the feel of the hot metal in her hands, the weight of the gun. The creature’s eyes flicker toward her. There’s only a beat, a moment’s indecision before she fires off the shot, and her life changes forever.
::
The warm night air kisses her fiery cheeks. Flickering flames create highlights and shadows on the sharp arch of Dean’s face. He watches her with a quiet smile. She watches him in return.
“So…?” he offers as a break in the silence.
She wipes sweaty palms on her jeans, looks over at him slyly, catches his eye and grins. “So…I take it the Bogeyman exists?”
“Yep,” he replies, his smile is still a bit of a secret.
“And you’re what? A Ghostbuster?” she asks, brow cocked, hands across her chest.
Dean comes over to stand beside her, a grin dancing in his eyes. “Just call me Dr. Venkman, baby.”
She giggles at that and can’t stop for a whole two minutes. She knows this is the night, the beginning of the rest of her life. There’s a tingling in her belly at that realization, something blooming inside her chest, warm and right. She controls her giggles, nods her head slowly, sucks in the desert heat. She lets her eyes linger for a moment too long on the ruptured earth, dry and cracked beneath her feet, on the burning creature in the distance.
“How’d I do in there?” she asks, biting at her lower lip.
“Not too bad,” he says with a thoughtful air and a playful tug of lips.
She watches the little flickers of light behind his brooding eyes. Sees something of herself reflected there. “I’ll do even better next time,” she promises.
::
Dean leaves on a Saturday in December. In a car he loves, with a father he idolizes and a brother he cherishes.
He leaves her with a broken heart, a sawed-off shotgun, and a keen love of Black Sabbath.
two.
She’s just shy of twenty-three the first time she sees him again. She’s been hunting solo for two years. Ran away from the trailer park at eighteen, found herself a mentor in a half-crazed, but well-meaning hunter named Reynolds out in New Mexico. Turns out that the creature in Old Miss Millie’s basement was just the tip of the iceberg. Demons, witches, vengeful spirits, poltergeists, wraiths, succubi.
The whole world had already gone to hell and she never even knew it.
::
She runs into Dean in a gritty dive bar on the outskirts of Spokane. It’s a Saturday night, the bar is buzzing. The crooning sounds of Waylon Jennings flow from the jukebox.
“Remember me?” she asks, but she doesn’t expect he will. She sits down beside him at the bar, orders a rum and coke.
Dean squints at her, blinking away the liquid shine in his eyes. He stares for a long moment, eyes raking up and down her curvy form, just drinking her in.
She sips at her drink and he downs a shot of whiskey. He finally settles on a glib, cocky grin, asking, “Trailer park outside of Tucson. Gina, right?”
“Georgia,” she whispers, a soft pout to her lips. “Like the state.”
He flashes white teeth, offers her a lopsided smile in apology. “‘Course you are.”
She snorts, leans back and shakes her head. Three drinks in, she tells him she’s here to catch the vengeful spirit killing off hikers in the foothills.
He only lets his surprise show for a moment, wide eyes blinking in rapid succession before he leans back against the bar and whistles. “I can’t believe you’re a hunter.”
Her smile is very smug. “I told you I’d get better.”
He cocks an amused eyebrow, tilts his head, a hint of a challenge in his eyes. “I bet you did.” His voice pitches high in admiration. “But let me take care of this one, darling. He’s a real nasty sonofabitch.”
“How about we both take care of him,” she suggests, smiling good-naturedly, before leaning in to whisper heatedly, “And then you can take care of me.”
::
It’s been six years but he’s much the same, just filled-out more. Firm muscles where once lean, wiry strength was only hinted at. Coy-smile and leather jacket. Classic car and ragged jeans. Rough hands and slick moves. He still smells like gun oil and engine grease.
He’s hunting alone at the moment. Baby brother left him behind for college, his daddy’s working another case across the state.
Dean Winchester’s got a hole in his heart can’t nothing fill.
::
She lets him blast rock salt into the angry spirit. He lets her use his machete to hack through the wall to locate the bones of Mr. Richard K. Fourcade.
They both do the salt’n burn.
::
Only two letters work in the flickering neon sign outside the fleabag motel he chooses. They stumble through the door, slam so hard up against the wall they send the entire room shaking. His fingers fumble at the zipper of her jeans, and she’s barely gotten them pushed down over her thighs before Dean picks her up, presses her back against the wall, and pushes into her. He pulls out slow and shoves hard again, groans as he sinks into her tightness, the slick warmth of her cunt flexing around his cock.
::
She wonders if her body is all that she can give him. The pillow of her tits, the comfort of her hands, the pressure of her mouth, the heat of her cunt.
He takes what she offers, without complaint.
three.
Days and nights flicker in and out. Time is a silent refugee, out of place amongst the ghosts on the highway.
Wake up to the fire-gold blister of a South Dakota sunrise. Down strong coffee, read yesterday’s paper. Record old hunts and contemplate the next one. Get lost in the shift-change of landscape, flat earth to rocky mounts.
She doesn’t know when the road becomes her home. When dust and dirt, burning rubber and exhaust, become her oxygen. It’s a broken, bone-weary transience, living out of motels and her beat-up pickup. Gas stations and all-night diners. Cheetos and greasy fries. She’s been back to the trailer park a few times over the years, her parents too out of it to notice.
She’s twenty-four when she finally makes it to Georgia. Lives in Athens for a solid two months. Gets a job at a little bakery. Thinks about going to college.
Two days into her third month she’s standing over the grave of Louis Dawkins, watching his spirit dissolve as a fire kindles his bones.
Before long she’s counting the cracks in the blacktop. She’s got a knuckle-tight grip on her steering wheel. In the rear view, she watches Georgia fade away, melt into the burning horizon.
four.
She’s exorcised two demons by the time they meet up again.
They share a bottle of whiskey in the bed of her truck, which is parked in a field in the middle of Wyoming. Nothing but prairie below and starry skies above.
He licks salt and lime off her tits before he goes down on her, his velvet tongue traversing the dark districts of her body.
With his face locked between her legs, he presses plump lips against her cunt, slowly dips into her slick heat, tongue pushing deep, the gentle pressure of his teeth brushing against her clit. She whimpers and arches, releases pained little gasps and moans as he fucks it into her, a slow-ride perfection.
She comes with his face tight between her thighs, Dean lapping greedily at the wet folds of her sex, eating into her likes he’s starving. When he pulls up, her fingers trace the come-slick smears across his lips. He kisses her and she tastes the spicy musk of herself on his tongue.
five.
It’s sort of a competition, really. How many solo hunts can they each do before they get together for another fuck? How many sonsofbitches can they send to hell before they need a reminder of what’s in heaven?
::
Three thousand miles. One Pagan god, two zombies, one werewolf, four hauntings, and three cursed objects.
She counted.
::
Sometimes the smells never come out. Fucking coin-operated laundries can’t handle her job. Everything she wears ends up reeking of sulfur and decay.
six.
He has a knack for stealing her heart, right alongside her hunts. She aims to reclaim them. And sometimes she manages. Salt and burn the bones before he does, crawl out of bed before he wakes up.
Dean Winchester. Sometimes, she thinks she’ll shoot him soon as fuck him. But fortunately, most of the time, fucking’s better than shooting.
seven.
A carnival funhouse in Tulsa. Classic haunt. Or so you would think.
The angry spirit of a psycho serial killer leaves her black and blue, her new favorite colors.
Back at the Motel 6, she watches her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Her clothes are heavy, a sodden unbearable weight. She slowly shrugs out of bloody denims and a sweat-stained shirt. It’s like she’s still staring in the funhouse mirror, her distorted body stretched and pulled like an elastic band. She can barely see through her puffy eyelid. Dried blood crusts in her hair, over her face, shoulder and arms. She’s painted in it.
No broken bones. Not this time.
She’s under the motel’s showerhead for fifteen minutes before Dean joins her, his hands running over her too-tender body. Her whole body aches, she feels hollowed out, wrung raw. Dean’s fingers glide across the purple bruises that bloom on her shoulders, his lips gently kiss her swollen cheekbone.
His breaths are a shallow warm pant against her neck. “You did real good,” he says and that’s all there is to it. They’ve seen each other scarred and broken so many times since that first reveal so long ago in that trailer park in the desert.
The pressure from the spray chases blood and dirt and gunk down the drain. When her bones don’t work anymore, and her body’s too heavy to stand, Dean holds her up, presses her gently against the tile. As he slowly sinks into her, the steam surrounds them like a cocoon.
::
“I know something better to do with that mirror,” he tells her when he catches her looking at her battered reflection later that night. “Watch us.”
Dean licks down her body, sucks at her warm skin, leaves his own bruises along the meat of her breasts. She watches herself with him, reflected in the motel room mirror. Two naked bodies, blue-black in the half-light, as they twine and entangle, writhe on blood-stained scratchy sheets.
The shadows, how they love their curves. The darkness curls around their bodies, in every new dip and angle.
She shivers slightly as his lips land on the sensitive flesh around her latest bruises. Her fingers ghost over his newly bandaged chest wounds. She moves slowly, her lips creating a lazy drag over the flat planes of his chest and the lean muscle of his upper torso. She traces the ridges of scar tissue, maps the imperfect geography of his history.
Her eyes never leave their reflection in the mirror as she rides him long and hard, takes him farther inside her. In the mirror she watches his cock slide in and out of her cunt, pushing, deep, deeper. The slow rhythm of the ride is hypnotic.
::
She loves the way he looks when he breaks, when he comes just for her.
::
Maybe, every fuck is another way of saying goodbye.
She peels down the back roads, crosses the border into the next town, sends the road signs shaking in her wake.
eight.
Alive.
Coming down from a hunt is hell and heaven both. The fire burning low in her gut, the heartbeat pounding out of her chest. A need so fierce she shakes with it. He fucks her in a 7-11 bathroom. It’s a tug-of-war wrestle inside, hands clutching at the filthy tiles, the cold sink digging into her back.
In these moments in-between hunts, blood, come, sweat and tears are the only thing that signify life. Sex becomes the single desperate act of the living.
In that small, cramped space, their bodies grind, dirty-hot-slick-wet as they wrestle-tumble-twist-yank-bite, searing skin against skin. Their struggle, an intricate battle; the pair of them clashing like warriors.
nine.
Some nights, the road runs straight as an arrow.
Some nights, it carries all her weight.
ten.
After his brother returns, she doesn’t see Dean for nearly three years. When she does see him, he’s got a date with the devil. He’s making his final rounds, maybe seeking some kind of redemption.
She’s walking down Main Street, Jackson, Mississippi., 2 a.m. on a Friday.
He calls out to her with a “Long time no see, sweetheart,” his honeyed voice slurred by liquor. His bow-lips twist into a Cheshire-cat grin, his swagger is easy and familiar as he approaches her. But his face is worn and tired, eyes hiding the pain of burdens past and those yet to come.
His boots crunch over broken glass, track soot and ash into her motel room.
::
She memorizes the feel of Dean’s dick inside her, fucking her open, rough and deep and final. He shoves, thrusts hard, fierce and merciless, sweat-slick skin slapping in a panicked rhythm. Her fingers dig into the curve of his ass, squeeze his buttcheeks as he rocks forward, her cunt clenching tight around him, milking him dry.
She touches him everywhere with her hands and mouth, memorizes him. He fucks her raw, makes it hurt, makes it last.
“Georgia,” he cries out, exhales the urgent, breathless moan into the curve of her neck. The force of his vibration thrums up her spine like a livewire. Dean’s whole body goes rigid as he comes, shoots slick and warm inside her, fills her up.
::
They lie tangled together afterwards, skin melded by the sticky glue of body heat. He’s still snug inside her, slowly going soft. Neither of them moves.
Voice sex-rough, she finally asks, “How long?”
He scratches the back of his neck, closes his eyes, shuts out the world. “Three weeks left,” he breathes out, voice shaking like hell might come up and swallow him whole right then and there.
They’re quiet for a long time. In the silence, there’s just the sound of their rattling breaths, their steady exhales.
After a while, a small smile curves her lips. “You never remembered my name.”
His gaze flicks to her face, a flush creeps up his cheeks. “Actually I did,” he admits, ducks his head like he’s embarrassed. “I just liked to see the look on your face when I pretended not to.”
“Asshole,” she gives a soft, choked laugh, wants to kick him for frustrating her all these years, for playing her so well. But she doesn’t because she knows this is it. This is the last time she’ll get this. Dean Winchester, bloody and broken, coming to her bed.
Sadness cloaks the green of his eyes, his burden revealed. “You were my first, you know,” he admits, the corner of his mouth lifting gently.
She blinks up at him, mouth agape. “I didn’t know-”
Dean hushes her with a finger to her lips, adds, “And I wanted you to be my last.” He leans in close, slides bruised lips across her chin, settles a kiss against the indent of her right dimple. He whispers, just barely a breath, her name again and again and again. A goodbye.
- fini -
Author: maboheme
Recipient: chase_acow
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Dean/OFC
Word Count: ~ 4,900
Summary: There’s only a beat, a moment’s indecision before she fires off the shot, and her life changes forever.
Author's Notes: Warnings for sexual situations/language. For chase_acow, from the prompt, Dean/Female!Hunter. Title and opening quote from Leonard Cohen’s poem, “Beneath My Hands.”
I dread the time
when your mouth
begins to call me hunter.
one.
She’s at the bus stop in front of her trailer park the first time she sees him. She watches as a sleek dust-covered classic Chevy rumbles to a stop beside the tin-roofed shotgun single-wide neighboring her parents’ lot.
A rough-and-tumble sort of man clambers out of the driver’s seat, followed by two skinny boys. The trio moves quickly from car to trailer, carrying a couple boxes and duffels between them.
She thinks to go and introduce herself to her new neighbors, offer a handshake and a friendly smile. But instead she just watches them. The boy with a mop of dark hair and a sullen tilt to his slouch waits on the cement-block front steps. The slightly taller one, pale and freckled, jeans torn, flannel worn, smile tired, sits down besides him, bumps their shoulders companionably.
Not ‘til the school bus rumbles to a stop do the boys even glance her way. She catches the eye of the one with freckles. He nods a greeting. She winks, smirks, and reluctantly steps on the bus.
::
She tells him her name when they’re first introduced, the pale sun sinking into the trees, the air still and smelling of desert flowers. But somehow he never seems to remember. Calls her Stella, Maybelle, Luanne.
“Georgia,” she tells him for the third time, with a slight growl to her pronunciation. He’s working on the Chevy. Always is. Classic rock pumping out loud enough to piss off the dead, or just Mr. Merriweather two lots down. She jealously eyes the car-the clean line of the dashboard, the smooth upholstery, the black shine of the hood. It’s cared for, loved. It belongs.
He steps out from under the hood to test the soft purr of the engine. “Georgia, you say?” he asks after a pause. When he finally stops tinkering with the car, he leans against the driver-side door, lopsided smile deepening, curlicue lashes batting. Too long in the sun, his freckles now layer his skin like a dusty star-pattern, a map to nowhere, everywhere.
“Yeah.” She stands there, hands on her hip, blinking the sun out of her eyes. “Like the state. Can you believe it? My Mama named me for a state neither of us has ever been to.”
To emphasize her point, she starts to trace her name into the dust on the windshield of the Impala: G- E- O, before he scowls and bats her hand away. He leans over to wipe down the window, shoots her the evil eye. Everything here is always coated in a fine layer of dust. That’s what you get for living so close to a desert.
When he’s done, he backs up to give her another considering look. She knows she’s not much to look at. She’s fifteen, but could pass for much younger; she’s short, reed-thin and flat as an ironing board. But the smile Dean gives her, well, it makes her feel kind of beautiful.
::
Even though he’s just fifteen, he’s already more tortured than she’ll ever be.
She wears black lipstick, dies her hair blue, skips Ms. Robinson’s third-period Geometry class to smoke up in the bathroom.
But Dean? Dean carries his alienation in the grim set of his shoulders, wears it in the cool faux-bravado of his smile. He hides it in his eyes-there you can glimpse the entire weight of the world, a heaviness made of breath and bone.
::
Neither of them dresses out for PhysEd. They sit in the bleachers and watch the other kids knock around a volleyball. She eyes his never-opened school books poking out of his tattered backpack. He eyes her black nail polish and Sony walkman. She lets him listen to her Slayer tape and when he’s not looking she steals his Ozzy Osbourne cassettes. They get along well.
::
He’s her first everything, really. Kiss. Grope. Fuck. She’s probably none of his firsts, but that’s okay. She doesn’t mind being somewhere in the undefined middle.
::
That first kiss is messy; all tongues and no finesse, stringy spit and clanking teeth. It tastes like orange pop and Doritos.
When they fuck, it’s a little better. Hurts a lot more, but she’s use to pain.
::
Dean’s rough fingers snake along her waist, trace down the groove of her thin frame; his right hand slip-slides up her hips, crawls under her shirt, struggles for three minutes to unhook her bra.
They’re both sweaty, even in the dry October chill. She’s shivering by the time his hand winds down across her belly. His fingers pop open her jeans and come to rest at the elastic of her cotton panty. She arches and sighs as his fingers make their way lower, wind through the damp, coarse hair of her cunt, settle there in her secret warmth.
When they’re both naked, he regards her silently, wet honeydew eyes shadowed in the dim light of her bedroom. She feels uncomfortable at the searching looks he shoots her way; she shifts her eyes to take in her squalid bedroom and the rest of her sad surroundings. He doesn’t seem to mind that her clothes that now litter the floor come from charity, her socks are full of holes, her blanket shredded or her trailer filthy. That both her parents are usually too drunk for house upkeep, too drunk to stick around.
She turns to him, smiles. She spiderwalks her fingers up his arms, over his ribs. She likes the feel of his rough patches. She sometimes wonders at the bruises and scars that mark his skin, the ones that mirror the ones on her own legs and belly. He doesn’t ask her about hers, and she doesn’t ask about his. It’s just nice that he isn’t repulsed by marred skin, by slight imperfection. Instead he runs calloused fingertips over her arms, his dirty, half-bitten fingernails catch on the raised ridges of old scars.
::
That first fuck is without finesse too, a little clumsy, a little awkward. Long limbs dangle off her twin bed. Torn floral-print sheets stick to wet skin, desert dust clogs in her nose.
But Dean’s body is warm and lean against her own. His lips make a soft drag down the length of her chest, his spicy hot breath puffs out on every ragged exhale.
She’s caught up in the feel of her own arousal, too heavy to speak. Her lips lock in nervous anticipation.
“Ready?” he grits out, voice threading wildly as he searches his wallet for a condom. He finds one of those free ones they both got in health class, the wrapper the color of grape bubblegum.
She nods jerkily as his hands gently urge her legs apart. She tracks the movement of his hands, which are shaking a bit as he tears open the condom pack.
Her eyes are slowly drawn down to his cock, flushed thick and full, curving against his belly. He wraps long fingers around his full length, gives it nice firm stroke before rolling the condom on.
She takes in a deep breath, widens her thighs, gasps as cool air hits the ache and pulse of her center. Her body arches every so slightly, and Dean leans into her shifting position, lines up and pushes into her. She lifts her hips further, concentrates on the slow burn of his entrance.
As he presses in, one hand squeezes the small curve of her breast. A few rapid thrusts, a couple of jerky motions, and she’s taking him all in. She welcomes the feel of his cock working in and out of her, the deep stretch and burn.
“God,” he rasps out, his fingers gripping hard into her slippery hips. His eyes shut tight as he pushes into her one last time. He comes with a garbled shout as she clenches tight around him.
“Not God. Just Georgia,” she pants out, her voice ripped to threads. Her lips curl to match the blissed-out smile on his face as she winds her arms tight around him, holds him close inside her.
The land they live on is a parched and scalding mouth, cracked wide from thirst. But everything’s so wet in this new aftermath. Their open mouths meet for sloppy kisses, their thighs rub moist and sweat-slick. They treasure the squishy mess they made, the flood between their legs. Their damp hair spreads across her pillow. Their breaths, warm and humid, mingle.
He collapses, limp and boneless at her side. She leans over and kisses his damp brow. A soft red blush spreads across the length of his body. The tawny scatterplot of freckles stand out along his cheeks, his nose, his chest. His eyes, deep green and flecked with sunrise gold, watch over her.
::
“What’s your trauma?” she asks him after a while, sweat-sticky and bone-weary tired. They lay on their backs across her bed. They’ve been trying to guess the shapes of the water stains on the ceiling, occasionally singing along to the low-moan of Lynyrd Skynyrd winding from her tape player.
Dean rises up on his elbows and turns to look at her. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told ya,” he huffs, offers a fleeting smile as he turns to lie on his belly.
“Your mom run off?” she asks, frowning a little.
He stiffens, lets loose a heavy exhale. His hand comes to settle on the sharp jut of her hipbone, his thumb rubs back and forth. “She died when I was four.”
“I’m so sorry,” she murmurs, nodding. She figured it was something like that.
He doesn’t say anything for a while, just splays his fingers across the crescent moon tattoo on her hip. “We’re leaving soon. Me, my brother, my dad.”
She swallows thickly, throat suddenly gone dry. “But what about school?”
He shrugs, makes an amused noise. “Finish somewhere else. I’m use to it.”
She’s goes quiet, thoughtful for a long time. She wonders what’s so bad his family has to keep running away. She’s afraid to ask. Knows he wouldn’t tell her if she did.
After a while, she cocoons them both in her Nanna’s patchwork quilt, lays her head against his shoulder.
“Was it good for you?” he mumbles softly, his fingers skidding along the crease of her thighs.
“Not too bad, Winchester,” she says, smile tugging at her lips. She leans over and kisses him once on the cheek.
His own smile is almost shy, his twilight eyes large and luminous. “I’ll do better next time.”
::
She knows she shouldn’t. But she does it anyway. She follows Dean and his daddy to Old Miss Millie’s house that last night. The haunted house on the hill, charred as black as cinders, with broken windows that gape like empty eye sockets.
Through one of the basement’s broken windows, she watches a scene unfold like a horror movie. The two Winchesters move in tandem, like a dance. The thing they’re fighting is huge, agile, wild. Claws and talons. Dark fur and red eyes. It knocks Dean’s father onto his back and lands heavily on his chest.
Dean has a shotgun lifted to his shoulder, fires at the thing from across the room. The sound ricochets through the basement as the creature turns its focus on the boy.
“Sonofabitch!” Dean groans when it suddenly lunges at him at an otherworldly speed. It has to weigh as much as he does-its coat a sheen of pure black, ragged fur; its face like a warped pit-bull; and its jaw coming unhinged to bare rows of blood-covered fangs aiming for his throat. His sawed-off shotgun crashes to the ground, skitters across the floorboards.
She runs into the house, doesn’t even stop to think. She’s makes it to the basement in three seconds flat, jumps down the stairs just as Dean hits the ground. The weight of the beast pins him to the floor.
Around her the house shakes, dust showers from the ceiling. Her world shifts, falls into place.
Everything is in slow motion then. See, once upon a time, before the alcohol, before the beatings, her daddy took her hunting quails. Funny, the things she remembers in the heat of an impossible moment. With a quiet sigh, she picks up Dean’s shotgun. Her eyes meet the dancing red orbs of a creature she has no name for. In her peripheral vision, she can see Dean’s daddy stirring. No time to wait though. She takes in the feel of the hot metal in her hands, the weight of the gun. The creature’s eyes flicker toward her. There’s only a beat, a moment’s indecision before she fires off the shot, and her life changes forever.
::
The warm night air kisses her fiery cheeks. Flickering flames create highlights and shadows on the sharp arch of Dean’s face. He watches her with a quiet smile. She watches him in return.
“So…?” he offers as a break in the silence.
She wipes sweaty palms on her jeans, looks over at him slyly, catches his eye and grins. “So…I take it the Bogeyman exists?”
“Yep,” he replies, his smile is still a bit of a secret.
“And you’re what? A Ghostbuster?” she asks, brow cocked, hands across her chest.
Dean comes over to stand beside her, a grin dancing in his eyes. “Just call me Dr. Venkman, baby.”
She giggles at that and can’t stop for a whole two minutes. She knows this is the night, the beginning of the rest of her life. There’s a tingling in her belly at that realization, something blooming inside her chest, warm and right. She controls her giggles, nods her head slowly, sucks in the desert heat. She lets her eyes linger for a moment too long on the ruptured earth, dry and cracked beneath her feet, on the burning creature in the distance.
“How’d I do in there?” she asks, biting at her lower lip.
“Not too bad,” he says with a thoughtful air and a playful tug of lips.
She watches the little flickers of light behind his brooding eyes. Sees something of herself reflected there. “I’ll do even better next time,” she promises.
::
Dean leaves on a Saturday in December. In a car he loves, with a father he idolizes and a brother he cherishes.
He leaves her with a broken heart, a sawed-off shotgun, and a keen love of Black Sabbath.
two.
She’s just shy of twenty-three the first time she sees him again. She’s been hunting solo for two years. Ran away from the trailer park at eighteen, found herself a mentor in a half-crazed, but well-meaning hunter named Reynolds out in New Mexico. Turns out that the creature in Old Miss Millie’s basement was just the tip of the iceberg. Demons, witches, vengeful spirits, poltergeists, wraiths, succubi.
The whole world had already gone to hell and she never even knew it.
::
She runs into Dean in a gritty dive bar on the outskirts of Spokane. It’s a Saturday night, the bar is buzzing. The crooning sounds of Waylon Jennings flow from the jukebox.
“Remember me?” she asks, but she doesn’t expect he will. She sits down beside him at the bar, orders a rum and coke.
Dean squints at her, blinking away the liquid shine in his eyes. He stares for a long moment, eyes raking up and down her curvy form, just drinking her in.
She sips at her drink and he downs a shot of whiskey. He finally settles on a glib, cocky grin, asking, “Trailer park outside of Tucson. Gina, right?”
“Georgia,” she whispers, a soft pout to her lips. “Like the state.”
He flashes white teeth, offers her a lopsided smile in apology. “‘Course you are.”
She snorts, leans back and shakes her head. Three drinks in, she tells him she’s here to catch the vengeful spirit killing off hikers in the foothills.
He only lets his surprise show for a moment, wide eyes blinking in rapid succession before he leans back against the bar and whistles. “I can’t believe you’re a hunter.”
Her smile is very smug. “I told you I’d get better.”
He cocks an amused eyebrow, tilts his head, a hint of a challenge in his eyes. “I bet you did.” His voice pitches high in admiration. “But let me take care of this one, darling. He’s a real nasty sonofabitch.”
“How about we both take care of him,” she suggests, smiling good-naturedly, before leaning in to whisper heatedly, “And then you can take care of me.”
::
It’s been six years but he’s much the same, just filled-out more. Firm muscles where once lean, wiry strength was only hinted at. Coy-smile and leather jacket. Classic car and ragged jeans. Rough hands and slick moves. He still smells like gun oil and engine grease.
He’s hunting alone at the moment. Baby brother left him behind for college, his daddy’s working another case across the state.
Dean Winchester’s got a hole in his heart can’t nothing fill.
::
She lets him blast rock salt into the angry spirit. He lets her use his machete to hack through the wall to locate the bones of Mr. Richard K. Fourcade.
They both do the salt’n burn.
::
Only two letters work in the flickering neon sign outside the fleabag motel he chooses. They stumble through the door, slam so hard up against the wall they send the entire room shaking. His fingers fumble at the zipper of her jeans, and she’s barely gotten them pushed down over her thighs before Dean picks her up, presses her back against the wall, and pushes into her. He pulls out slow and shoves hard again, groans as he sinks into her tightness, the slick warmth of her cunt flexing around his cock.
::
She wonders if her body is all that she can give him. The pillow of her tits, the comfort of her hands, the pressure of her mouth, the heat of her cunt.
He takes what she offers, without complaint.
three.
Days and nights flicker in and out. Time is a silent refugee, out of place amongst the ghosts on the highway.
Wake up to the fire-gold blister of a South Dakota sunrise. Down strong coffee, read yesterday’s paper. Record old hunts and contemplate the next one. Get lost in the shift-change of landscape, flat earth to rocky mounts.
She doesn’t know when the road becomes her home. When dust and dirt, burning rubber and exhaust, become her oxygen. It’s a broken, bone-weary transience, living out of motels and her beat-up pickup. Gas stations and all-night diners. Cheetos and greasy fries. She’s been back to the trailer park a few times over the years, her parents too out of it to notice.
She’s twenty-four when she finally makes it to Georgia. Lives in Athens for a solid two months. Gets a job at a little bakery. Thinks about going to college.
Two days into her third month she’s standing over the grave of Louis Dawkins, watching his spirit dissolve as a fire kindles his bones.
Before long she’s counting the cracks in the blacktop. She’s got a knuckle-tight grip on her steering wheel. In the rear view, she watches Georgia fade away, melt into the burning horizon.
four.
She’s exorcised two demons by the time they meet up again.
They share a bottle of whiskey in the bed of her truck, which is parked in a field in the middle of Wyoming. Nothing but prairie below and starry skies above.
He licks salt and lime off her tits before he goes down on her, his velvet tongue traversing the dark districts of her body.
With his face locked between her legs, he presses plump lips against her cunt, slowly dips into her slick heat, tongue pushing deep, the gentle pressure of his teeth brushing against her clit. She whimpers and arches, releases pained little gasps and moans as he fucks it into her, a slow-ride perfection.
She comes with his face tight between her thighs, Dean lapping greedily at the wet folds of her sex, eating into her likes he’s starving. When he pulls up, her fingers trace the come-slick smears across his lips. He kisses her and she tastes the spicy musk of herself on his tongue.
five.
It’s sort of a competition, really. How many solo hunts can they each do before they get together for another fuck? How many sonsofbitches can they send to hell before they need a reminder of what’s in heaven?
::
Three thousand miles. One Pagan god, two zombies, one werewolf, four hauntings, and three cursed objects.
She counted.
::
Sometimes the smells never come out. Fucking coin-operated laundries can’t handle her job. Everything she wears ends up reeking of sulfur and decay.
six.
He has a knack for stealing her heart, right alongside her hunts. She aims to reclaim them. And sometimes she manages. Salt and burn the bones before he does, crawl out of bed before he wakes up.
Dean Winchester. Sometimes, she thinks she’ll shoot him soon as fuck him. But fortunately, most of the time, fucking’s better than shooting.
seven.
A carnival funhouse in Tulsa. Classic haunt. Or so you would think.
The angry spirit of a psycho serial killer leaves her black and blue, her new favorite colors.
Back at the Motel 6, she watches her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Her clothes are heavy, a sodden unbearable weight. She slowly shrugs out of bloody denims and a sweat-stained shirt. It’s like she’s still staring in the funhouse mirror, her distorted body stretched and pulled like an elastic band. She can barely see through her puffy eyelid. Dried blood crusts in her hair, over her face, shoulder and arms. She’s painted in it.
No broken bones. Not this time.
She’s under the motel’s showerhead for fifteen minutes before Dean joins her, his hands running over her too-tender body. Her whole body aches, she feels hollowed out, wrung raw. Dean’s fingers glide across the purple bruises that bloom on her shoulders, his lips gently kiss her swollen cheekbone.
His breaths are a shallow warm pant against her neck. “You did real good,” he says and that’s all there is to it. They’ve seen each other scarred and broken so many times since that first reveal so long ago in that trailer park in the desert.
The pressure from the spray chases blood and dirt and gunk down the drain. When her bones don’t work anymore, and her body’s too heavy to stand, Dean holds her up, presses her gently against the tile. As he slowly sinks into her, the steam surrounds them like a cocoon.
::
“I know something better to do with that mirror,” he tells her when he catches her looking at her battered reflection later that night. “Watch us.”
Dean licks down her body, sucks at her warm skin, leaves his own bruises along the meat of her breasts. She watches herself with him, reflected in the motel room mirror. Two naked bodies, blue-black in the half-light, as they twine and entangle, writhe on blood-stained scratchy sheets.
The shadows, how they love their curves. The darkness curls around their bodies, in every new dip and angle.
She shivers slightly as his lips land on the sensitive flesh around her latest bruises. Her fingers ghost over his newly bandaged chest wounds. She moves slowly, her lips creating a lazy drag over the flat planes of his chest and the lean muscle of his upper torso. She traces the ridges of scar tissue, maps the imperfect geography of his history.
Her eyes never leave their reflection in the mirror as she rides him long and hard, takes him farther inside her. In the mirror she watches his cock slide in and out of her cunt, pushing, deep, deeper. The slow rhythm of the ride is hypnotic.
::
She loves the way he looks when he breaks, when he comes just for her.
::
Maybe, every fuck is another way of saying goodbye.
She peels down the back roads, crosses the border into the next town, sends the road signs shaking in her wake.
eight.
Alive.
Coming down from a hunt is hell and heaven both. The fire burning low in her gut, the heartbeat pounding out of her chest. A need so fierce she shakes with it. He fucks her in a 7-11 bathroom. It’s a tug-of-war wrestle inside, hands clutching at the filthy tiles, the cold sink digging into her back.
In these moments in-between hunts, blood, come, sweat and tears are the only thing that signify life. Sex becomes the single desperate act of the living.
In that small, cramped space, their bodies grind, dirty-hot-slick-wet as they wrestle-tumble-twist-yank-bite, searing skin against skin. Their struggle, an intricate battle; the pair of them clashing like warriors.
nine.
Some nights, the road runs straight as an arrow.
Some nights, it carries all her weight.
ten.
After his brother returns, she doesn’t see Dean for nearly three years. When she does see him, he’s got a date with the devil. He’s making his final rounds, maybe seeking some kind of redemption.
She’s walking down Main Street, Jackson, Mississippi., 2 a.m. on a Friday.
He calls out to her with a “Long time no see, sweetheart,” his honeyed voice slurred by liquor. His bow-lips twist into a Cheshire-cat grin, his swagger is easy and familiar as he approaches her. But his face is worn and tired, eyes hiding the pain of burdens past and those yet to come.
His boots crunch over broken glass, track soot and ash into her motel room.
::
She memorizes the feel of Dean’s dick inside her, fucking her open, rough and deep and final. He shoves, thrusts hard, fierce and merciless, sweat-slick skin slapping in a panicked rhythm. Her fingers dig into the curve of his ass, squeeze his buttcheeks as he rocks forward, her cunt clenching tight around him, milking him dry.
She touches him everywhere with her hands and mouth, memorizes him. He fucks her raw, makes it hurt, makes it last.
“Georgia,” he cries out, exhales the urgent, breathless moan into the curve of her neck. The force of his vibration thrums up her spine like a livewire. Dean’s whole body goes rigid as he comes, shoots slick and warm inside her, fills her up.
::
They lie tangled together afterwards, skin melded by the sticky glue of body heat. He’s still snug inside her, slowly going soft. Neither of them moves.
Voice sex-rough, she finally asks, “How long?”
He scratches the back of his neck, closes his eyes, shuts out the world. “Three weeks left,” he breathes out, voice shaking like hell might come up and swallow him whole right then and there.
They’re quiet for a long time. In the silence, there’s just the sound of their rattling breaths, their steady exhales.
After a while, a small smile curves her lips. “You never remembered my name.”
His gaze flicks to her face, a flush creeps up his cheeks. “Actually I did,” he admits, ducks his head like he’s embarrassed. “I just liked to see the look on your face when I pretended not to.”
“Asshole,” she gives a soft, choked laugh, wants to kick him for frustrating her all these years, for playing her so well. But she doesn’t because she knows this is it. This is the last time she’ll get this. Dean Winchester, bloody and broken, coming to her bed.
Sadness cloaks the green of his eyes, his burden revealed. “You were my first, you know,” he admits, the corner of his mouth lifting gently.
She blinks up at him, mouth agape. “I didn’t know-”
Dean hushes her with a finger to her lips, adds, “And I wanted you to be my last.” He leans in close, slides bruised lips across her chin, settles a kiss against the indent of her right dimple. He whispers, just barely a breath, her name again and again and again. A goodbye.
- fini -