Marks Made (SPN, Sam/Dr Cara, 4000 words, E)
Title: Marks Made
Fandom: SPN
Rating: E
Pairing: Sam Winchester/Cara Roberts
Characters: Sam Winchester, Cara Roberts, Dean Winchester (peripheral)
Warnings: references to past sexual trauma, panic attacksWordcount: c.4000
AO3 link
Summary: 'If you’d asked her yesterday, what was his name, she’d have told you she’d forgotten: told you, maybe, that she never knew it at all. That guy? she’d have said. The sex-in-my-office-guy? Yeah. It wasn’t really a ‘names’ situation.' // Sam reconnects with Dr Cara, some years later. He's changed.
Author's note: OK so this is partly for Cris who asked (a long time ago!) for hurt skinny Sam, and partly for Audree because it was a conversation with her that gave me the idea. Whether it will be acceptable to either of you, I don't know! But it's definitely better than it would have been otherwise thanks to the sterling efforts of my lovely beta Becky.
He’s still beautiful, and her body registers that long before her mind clicks into gear and she knows that she knows him. Even the shape of him has her smiling hello as he enters the room, dragging her eyes slow and appreciative up his body: long legs, trim waist and broad shoulders in his cheap suit jacket, fine jawline and high cheekbones and elegant almond eyes. It’s as she reaches the eyes that things shift; his open momentarily wider in a mirror of hers, a little jolt of startled recognition. Sam, she thinks.
If you’d asked her yesterday, what was his name, she’d have told you she’d forgotten: told you, maybe, that she never knew it at all. That guy? she’d have said. The sex-in-my-office-guy? Yeah. It wasn’t really a ‘names’ situation. Not to say that she didn’t remember the event: not that she hadn’t gotten off dozens of times to the memory of his muscles shifting under her fingers, of the pink blooming rosy in his cheeks and the dreamy whisky slide of his tongue. But she’d been messed up, back then. The incident has blurred into the other memories of that horrible year: a bright spot of pleasure and connection against the darkness of Carl’s death and her inept attempt to escape it, the move cross-country and the drinking which had escalated until it almost lost her the job. Anyway. That’s done with, and there have been a lot of guys since then (two who mattered: several more who didn’t, much). But now, somewhere in the debris at the back of her mind: a name.
“Sam,” she says, out loud. “It’s been a while.”
There’s that blush.
“Yes. Yeah.” He clears his throat. It takes a moment, tension flickering between them, before he glances down at the badge in his hand. When he meets her eyes again, his expression holds a little more purpose. “I’m, uh. I’m here about the bodies,” he says. “The murders, last month.”
“Like a bad penny,” and she grins at him again, can’t help it. “What do you need to know?”
He crosses the room, then, slides into the seat opposite like he had first time around. The repetition throws up contrasts. He’s changed, in ways that go beyond the weight loss that’s resculpted his face. There’s a new uncertainty to his movements. His palms slide restless over his thighs. And although the dimples are still evident, his smile is smaller, more restrained.
Still, once she starts getting into the technical details of what he’s asked for, he comes alive. At one point she draws a diagram and he shifts forward to look at it, his brow furrowed and his lips just parted, focused and intent. She discovers that she still wants him badly, even changed like this: wants to lean over the desk and press her mouth to his. Five years ago, she might have done it. Today, for the moment, she just answers his questions and enjoys the view; but there’s a thrum of anticipation building in her stomach. She could. That is, not in the office, she’s not drunk or crazy this time. But there’s the evening. People go for dinner. That’s a thing.
He seems to be thinking on the same lines. Once she’s finished laying out the facts of the case, he nods a few times, processing, and then opens his mouth like he’s about to speak. But it doesn’t go anywhere; he just shuts his lips with a frustrated exhale, fingers moving nineteen to the dozen in an anxious dance.
She gives it a beat and then, eventually, stands. “I’ll walk you out,” she tells him. It’s fine. She’s quite prepared to do the asking, but she’ll give him a moment to get there first.
The corridors are busy and she has to keep close beside him. Up against him like this, the change in mass is really noticeable. He’s still big: he’ll always be big. But before he’d been solid, like a wall. Now he’s narrower, tougher; wrought iron rather than double-stacked brick. It makes her feel oddly protective, which is crazy: he’s a grown man, a foot taller than she is; presumably lethal, definitely highly trained. But her fingertips tighten a little on his elbow as she steers him through the crowd.
As they near the door they run into a guy who she vaguely remembers from last time. His partner. Cocky, kind of macho, used to presuming on his own attractiveness. He seems downright pedestrian next to Sam.
“Okay,” she says, as she notices the guy approaching. She sets her hand on Sam’s upper arm, feels him jerk a little in surprise. “I’ll leave you here.”
Sam nods a few times, rapid and small. He takes a breath. “Do you wanna -” he begins, at last.
But Partner is already beside them, his eyes darting rapidly between her face and Sam’s. They squint for a second and then his face changes, his mouth opening in a grin. “Hey,” he says, and looks up at Sam. “Hey. Did you -”
Sam’s hunching his shoulders and looking away, over Partner’s head. “No, I didn’t know, Dean,” he says.
“Well,” says Partner - Dean - and he’s still smiling wide, “don’t let me keep you guys.”
“I have to work,” she tells him, and it comes out snippier than she meant it. But. The thing with Sam seems oddly fragile, suddenly, and she doesn’t want this guy with his clumsy insinuations coming in and fucking it up.
“But you’re gonna… I mean… later… right?” The guy is stammering now, uncertain, and she wonders why he’s so invested. What’s it to him whether Sam hooks up?
“Um,” says Sam, and he looks utterly miserable. It makes her suddenly furious on his behalf. Fuck that guy, she thinks. And, well. Being brazen worked quite effectively, last time.
“I’m not sure why you need to know,” she says. “But yes, actually. We were just discussing whether to go out for dinner or to meet at my place and save ourselves the journey later on.”
Sam glows pink, again, but he visibly relaxes. “Your place, I think,” he says.
“Perfect,” she says, and scribbles down her address on the prescription pad she keeps in her pocket. “See you at eight.”
She gets off work at six, is home by half past and spends the next ninety minutes frantically grooming both her apartment and herself. Fucking unexpected hook-ups, she reflects, retrieving her bras from where they’ve been drying over the shower. Fucking inconvenient beautiful men, as she shaves her legs. A pleasant coil of expectation swells under her ribs meanwhile.
By the time he arrives, ringing the doorbell at 8.02, she’s suitably smooth all over. As for him: he’s wearing jeans and boots, and a flannel shirt that strains over his shoulders and chest. It’s funny to see him out of the suit, but he looks good dressed down like this: softer, less stiff. When she kisses him on the cheek, there’s the faintest rasp of stubble; and the scent of him, mostly just detergent and shampoo but underneath it something woodsy and distinctive that shoots her straight back to that evening in the hospital, the blinds striping across her back as he ground her up against the window. She’s been trying to tamp down on her excitement, not to assume too much, but the shock of that smell is enough to undo all her efforts at self-control. She wants him so much she’s sick with it.
She shuts the door behind them and turns around to see him standing in the corridor, backlit by the glow of the living room lamp. The fingers of his left hand are curling and uncurling, a starfish rolling defensive into a ball.
“I brought,” he says, and proffers, with his right, a bottle of Maker’s Mark.
“Oh,” she says, and of course he did. Whisky, that was how it started, last time; or rather, that was what greased the wheel. Shit. “I don’t drink any more,” she says.
Unlike most of the guys she’s told, he barely raises an eyebrow at that; just nods and looks around for a surface on which to leave the bottle. She supposes that in his line of work, he must run into alcoholics more than most. That’s right, isn’t it? It’s like doctors. Cops love to drink. You need something to numb all that life and death.
So what he says next shouldn’t surprise her (it does). “I was, uh. I was on something, too, last time we met. So.”
“OK,” she says. “Then you understand.”
“Yes,” he says. “Well, maybe. Um.” He’s put the liquor down on a little table, next to the phone, but his fingers keep straying towards it.
“Let’s go through,” she says, and leads him into the kitchen, taking the plates out of the oven where she’s left them to warm.
“Thanks,” he says, looking almost surprised at the meal in front of him. Did he think they were just gonna get down to it? Not that she would have minded, the way she’s feeling; but surely he must have expected something, if only for formality’s sake.
He’s quiet while they eat, almost distracted; eyes darting around the kitchen, appraising, scoping it out. She’d feel self-conscious about it if he didn’t keep looking at her as well. Every now and again, she catches him at it, glancing over at her quickly like he’s just checking that she’s there. It’s probably just work that he’s thinking about. It’s fine. She lets him settle, asks questions but doesn’t push him to talk too much.
"So,” he says, after a little while silent, “Are you still living life like there’s no tomorrow?”
“Jeez,” she says. “Is that what I said?”
He presses his lips together, but he’s laughing with his eyes.
“I don’t know,” she says. “Maybe. No. Probably not. I was a bit of a mess back then.”
“What do you mean?” he says. He’s looking down at his plate, now, giving her space.
“I’d just lost my husband,” she tells him, surprising herself. “Last time we did this. I don’t remember if I told you that.”
“Not exactly,” Sam says.
“I was just… I don’t know. I moved here in a big hurry almost immediately after. I just wanted to forget about it all.”
Sam huffs a laugh, and she lifts her head to look at him, shocked.
“Sorry,” he says. “Sorry. It’s not funny. It’s. Um. Apparently I have a type.”
“Ooookay,” she says, slowly, but it’s somehow broken the ice; and as they finish eating the conversation is easier, if inconsequential; she finds herself babbling on about the apartment and how she’s doing it up. It’s nothing, but it all feels promising. She still likes him, a lot, and not just because he’s gorgeous. He’s nice.
He’s thinking the same thing, must be; because when she stands up and moves to clear the plates, she hears the scrape of a chair behind her. She turns to see him on his feet, chest rising as he steps forward.
“Can we,” he says. Then he stoops and kisses her, and that’s it, they’re away. It’s like she remembered it, better than, even: the power of him pushing open her thighs; and his hands, huge, spanning her hips, fingers curling into the small of her back. She scrabbles at him as he lifts her up, plants her on the kitchen counter and crowds up close against her, biting into her collarbone. She tips her head back, yes, wraps her feet around the back of his legs, reaches up with her left hand to tangle her fingers into his hair. Last time, she’s pretty sure, that had near done him in.
But. Now. As soon as she gets a real grip, starts to tug, he freezes, his muscles going lax all over, his hands falling from her sides. He shifts back on his foot, so she drops her legs; and when she looks at him, he’s blanched white, his eyes enormous, his pulse beating hummingbird-rapid in his throat.
“Sorry,” he says, gasping, “Sorry, I can’t.”
Her right hand is still on his chest, where she was braced against him. Looking down at it, she notices something: high up, close to the base of his neck, a round pink shiny burn. It’s big, a good couple of inches across, enough to make her wonder what must have happened. It’s like he’s been branded. Christ. No wonder he’s jumpy. She brings her hand away.
“I’m sorry,” he says again. “It’s been a long time. Since I. And. I’d thought the alcohol might help, but.”
She’s disoriented, shocked. A second ago, heat and proximity and now, suddenly, this. But he’s still apologising and Jesus, she might have been looking forward to it; but she’s a doctor, and a human being, and something serious has obviously gone down in the years since last they met.
“It’s OK. Don’t apologise. You don’t - we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” she tells him. Christ.
He looks sideways, biting his lip. “That’s not it,” he says, in the direction of the kitchen window. “I want to. I really want to,” and he turns back to look her in the eyes. “It’s not. I just. I don’t,” and he gestures between them. “With strangers. And you’re not. So I thought - but.” And he rubs the heels of his hands hard into his eyes, drags them out over his cheekbones and down, tugging at the skin which turns pale and then pink in their wake. “Sorry. I really wanted it to be good. To feel good. I used to be able to lose myself in this.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she tells him.
“No,” he says. “It does.” He’s silent for a moment, regulating his breathing. His hands are pressed open against the kitchen surface, his arms close enough to her thighs that she can feel their heat. Eventually, “OK,” he says. “Let’s try something else.” And he slips his hands underneath and lifts her, just like that, his forearms tucked under her backside. “Bedroom?”
“Second left off the corridor,” she says, and he carries her through.
"Okay, so let's," and he settles her back on the bed, lays her out flat in her half-undone clothes. Then, looking up at her, fingers fluttering around her waistline, where the last few buttons of her shirt cling shut. "Can I?" he says.
"Sam, you don't have to," she tells him.
"I want to," he says. "This is okay for me. It’s good. Let me do this, please." And he opens the buttons and kisses her stomach, slides her out of her skirt; moves his mouth down over her body, practised and sure. God. She probably should be more worried about this, she thinks, but it only takes seconds until he’s got her right back up to where she was before. He’s as good with his tongue as she would have imagined, working clever and certain until she’s drowning under waves of sensation, clawing hard at the sheets.
“Fuck,” she says, “fuck,” and gives herself up to it, feeling him through her whole body. When she comes it’s protracted, consuming, and he keeps going right through it until she’s exhausted and soft. “Yeah, OK, wow,” she says at last, when Sam finally lets go, uncurling his thumbs from the inside of her thighs and propping himself up on an elbow. “Jesus, Sam.”
He dimples. “I mean I’m good, but I don’t know if I’m that good,” he says, army-crawling up beside her. “But, you know, thanks.”
She lies there for a moment, breathing him in. Then, “OK,” she says, sitting up. “What are we gonna do for you?”
He tenses immediately. “Nothing,” he says, “it’s fine.” But there’s something regretful about the line of his mouth that makes her reluctant to abandon it there, just yet. “I don’t know,” he says, after a while.
She thinks about it. He wants to, he wants to. But he’s afraid.
"How about this," she says. "Just do what you would do on your own." She offers him her hand, palm up. "You're in control."
There's a pause before he reacts, and for a moment she's anxious that she’s overstepped - maybe he's got no interest even in that, any more. But eventually he pulls himself upright and reaches towards her, settling his hand over hers; lifting it with his thumb tucked under her palm. She shuffles forward, so that they’re kneeling together, facing each other, in the centre of her bed; and then he reaches down with their joined hands and settles them around his cock.
“Okay?” she says, and he nods, breathing hard. “No pressure,” she tells him. “It’s whatever you want.”
He nods again, ferociously inward, and starts to move; slow at first and tentative but eventually firmer and faster, until he’s panting and sweaty, his forehead pressed against hers. Their hands are still together but his grip falls loose, leaving her to set the pace.
“I don’t know if I,” he says eventually, clenched and raw, and
“It’s okay,” she says. “That’s fine. You don’t have to, it’s okay,” but about five seconds later, he does, on a shaky outbreath, coming mostly on the bedsheets between their knees.
“Shit,” he says, “shit,” and drops his head further, tucking into the side of her jaw. His shoulders are shaking.
“Hey,” she says, “hey,” and reaches up, running cautious fingers round the rim of his ear, stroking his hair. They stay like that for a while, together, until eventually he breathes deep and settles back on his haunches. His cheeks are blotchy, red and white and wet under the eyes.
"I'm sorry," he says. "Jesus,” and scrubs his palm over his face. “You didn't ask for any of this. Fucking... weeping in your bed. Christ. If my brother could see this." He smiles at her watery. "So much for the grand seduction."
Brother, she files away. As for the rest of it: "I didn't do so badly, buddy," she says. "Unless you're so used to dishing out the orgasms that you missed that part of the evening altogether."
He shakes his head. "Definitely not used to it. Not lately."
"Well then. I'm privileged," she says.
“Thank you,” he says. “Thank you for being so cool. It’s been, like… I mean I guess you gathered that it’s been a while since I did anything like this. Um. But I didn’t know I’d be this fucked up over it.” He pauses, considering, before offering a little more. "I mean, like. I had some bad experiences. So. Then I had a girlfriend, for a while. It. Um. Things were getting better. But. In the end it didn't work out. And then." His fingertips brush over his scar. "Sorry. I thought it would be okay."
“It is okay,” she tells him. “Honestly. I’m sorry if I pushed you.”
“No, no,” he’s shaking his head. “You didn’t. You were great. Like. Really great.”
“Okay,” she says. “Good.” She looks at the bed, the sheets tangled around his legs. "I've got a futon that I can make up," she says. "If you'd rather have the bed to yourself."
“No,” he says, quickly. And then, oddly polite, “No, thank you.”
“So, we’re OK here?”, and he nods at her, drawing the bedclothes closer around him. “Right.”
She gets up, pulls on the oversized T-shirt she likes to sleep in, and pads barefoot through into the kitchen where the dishes sit cold on the table. In the fridge is a plastic container from the deli down the street, full of profiteroles drowning in chocolate, fat with cream. She’d bought them in a panic, wondering if he’d be expecting (wondering if they'd get to) dessert; but now they seem appropriate, and she retrieves the box, bringing it to bed. They eat the pastries with their fingers. She doesn’t touch Sam, is careful about it, but eventually he licks his thumb and wipes a smudge of sauce off her cheek; and then he kisses her, thorough and slow, and brings her off again with that same thumb, working her clit in deliberate circles with his two fingers hitched up inside her.
She comes down gradually, sprawled in her sleep shirt up against her pillows while Sam elongates himself flat on his stomach on the other side of the bed. With surprising rapidity, he stills; and she falls asleep to the sound of his breathing, steady and even across the six inches of distance between them. When she wakes up, he's curled right around her, his nose tucked soft into the back of her neck, his arm lying strong and heavy and warm over her side.
“Hey,” he says, low in his throat, as she stirs against him. “This alright?”
“Very,” she says, and slips back into a doze.
She’s woken a second time by his phone, buzzing harsh against the wood of the bedside table. He sits up to answer it and the air blows cold over her skin, pushing her properly awake. She lies with her head on the pillow and watches his profile as he speaks, not listening, just tracking the shift of the muscles along his jaw.
"Dean wants to pick me up," he tells her, after he hangs up. "Says we need to get moving." He looks at her anxiously. “We think the, um. The perpetrator has moved a few states over.”
“Okay,” she says. “Do you have time for a shower?” He starts shifting into frightened deer at that, so she tells him, quickly, “Just you. I’m gonna make breakfast. Towels are in the cupboard in the hallway, OK?”
He takes his time in the shower, emerges rosy and damp and delicious, his hair curling wet against the collar of last night’s shirt. Seeing him like that strikes her with a sharp pulse of longing; to have him sit at her breakfast table every morning, eating eggs and gulping coffee and finally, finally beginning to unwind. It’s ridiculous, for what was supposed to be a one-time-fun thing. But there he is, and she can’t help it, and it’s not like she’s going to say. She just pours her orange juice and looks at him and indulges the thought while she can.
They don’t get long: maybe twenty minutes, half an hour. And then the blast of a horn, startling Sam back into rigidity, and it’s time to go. She walks him to the door again, and they pause on the front steps to say goodbye. Looking down at her like this, he’s big enough and close enough that she ought to be able to lose herself in him. But she’s conscious of the brother, of Dean, silhouetted in the car down below; and so is Sam. She can see it in the tension of his shoulders, the movement of his hands, fingers tip-tapping his thumbs; can see it in the sideways slide of his eyes.
“Hey,” she says, regaining his attention; and reaches up slowly, signalling it, to cup her hand over his jaw. He turns his face into her touch. “Thank you.”
“Thank you,” he says, and bends down for a kiss. He hugs her, afterward, crushing her shoulders tight.
“It’s OK,” she says into his ear. “Or it will be.” And, “Call me any time. You know. Not just for sex.” She thinks about it. “Although…” That might actually be a decent idea for him, right?
His lips twist and he’s smiling like it’s despite himself. “Got it,” he says. “Phone sex optional.” And then, already moving away, “It was so good to see you.”
She’s already back inside the lobby when he reaches the car, but she hears Dean’s wolf-whistle, his laughter, easy enough. When she turns, Sam’s hunched into the passenger seat, shoulders up around his ears. But she waves her hand and he waves back at her, face pale in the window of that big black car.
Upstairs, he’s left a business card by her bed. Sam Stanwyck, it says, with an FBI logo and a number to call. But the whole thing’s scribbled out, and on the back of the card he’s written, in scrawly ballpoint, ‘Sam Winchester’, and a Kansas cell. She sticks it on the fridge.