Any Chance Collision - Part Four: I'm looking for a spark
Part Four: I'm looking for a spark
Word Count: 9403
Overall Pairings: Dean/OFC (HET)
Overall Rating: NC-17 (This Chapter: NC-17 - Language, Sex, Angst, Schmoop)
Feedback: Absolutely. Concrit is always welcome.
Disclaimer: The Winchester boys aren't mine, but I'd make Dean wear boots all the time if they were.
Spoilers/Warnings: None for the show, but the the story is unabashedly AU.
A/N: This is a remix of Always Falling.
Beta(s): embroiderama went above and beyond the call of duty, as always - between the random spammage and following up with me when her electricity was out. quirkies provided additional commentary on plot and provided much squee. The good parts are all them. The mistakes? Those are all me.
Summary: Georgetown was the next step in her plan but her father was always telling her that life could turn on a dime. If the trick was learning how to dance, she had really screwed it up by tripping over that boy who bussed tables in the New South Dorm cafeteria.
Story Sections:
Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five / Author's Notes
It was the ugliest apartment that Charlotte had ever seen, tucked in the back of an old house two blocks from campus.
The weeds had choked out the flowers in the small raised bed near their front door and the linoleum in the kitchen didn’t match the wallpaper or the cupboards some past resident had painted lime green. Every window, even the ones in the same room, had a different pair of curtains and the entire apartment smelled like cleaning detergent for three days after they moved in - antiseptic smells and shiny spots sitting side by side with dark tracks on the carpet that no amount of steam-cleaning could erase.
But it was theirs.
They didn’t argue about the old plaid sofa Dean had found in front of one of the frat houses or the bed linens she bought on sale. He laughed when she put African violets on the window sill over the sink in three small pots, just like his mother did, and kissed her neck. He couldn’t stop grinning the first time Charlotte slid a plate of toast slathered in butter and strawberry jam across their rickety dining room table, ripping off a piece of toast and popping it into her mouth; he chuckled when she licked leftover jam off of the tip of his finger.
Dean didn’t even say a word when she started alphabetizing their CDs, just watched her crawling around on her hands and knees with a bemused expression on his face while she moved between her scattered piles.
Each letter was part of a stack, his Metallica mixed with her Miranda Sex Garden before they ended up in the same spinning plastic tower, and Charlotte made the mistake of looking at him over her shoulder. Dean’s eyes were dark and his hands were already working on his zipper, a slow metallic rip that made her face flush.
He flipped Charlotte’s skirt up over her hips, kissing down a thigh until her panties were on the floor; kissing back up until his tongue slipped into the wet. Charlotte rocked backwards into his face, squirming with each pulse beating against his lips. She couldn’t keep her arms from shaking, her head flinging backwards with the push and the pull of his mouth and the way Dean split her apart with nothing but the promise of hot breath against skin - couldn’t keep from moaning ‘oh oh oh’ as Dean thrust deep, sweat pooling between her shoulder blades. He curled his arm around her, fingers flickering faster each time Charlotte’s hips bucked, and her head fell forward when the fire roared through her belly.
Dean came with a burning rush, both of them spilling out over his hand with a groan.
“Jesus,” he murmured into her shoulder. “You’re some kind of girl genius with this apartment idea and all.” Dean’s lips curved against the back of her neck. “But there’s no way your crappy music is getting mixed up with mine.”
“Do you want to keep all of your CDs in the shoebox?”
Her fingers flexed against the carpet as Dean sat back onto his heels, slipping past the throb with a hiss.
“That’s just as much your fault as the rug burns you’re going to get if you keep waving your ass at me. Who knew you could get CDs from a freaking used book store?” Dean snorted, dragging her up off the floor and actually throwing her over his shoulder. “And now that you got yourself all dirty, I’m going to have to clean you up.”
Charlotte kicked her feet, giggling and twisting as he carried her to the bathroom. Dean didn’t stop until he set her down in the shower stall and twisted the knob. Freezing water poured past her shoulders, wet hair plastered against her cheeks and her t-shirt. She shivered, goose bumps piling on top of themselves in places that Charlotte didn’t even know existed. Her nipples strained against the lace of her bra, two small nubs poking into Dean’s chest when he pushed her backwards against the tiles.
“You are the world’s biggest prick, Dean Winchester.”
Charlotte glared at him from underneath her glasses, the shower spraying up into her face.
“I figured our clothes were dirty, too.”
“You could have taken my glasses off first.”
“Shit.” Dean pulled them off her nose and ducked his head out from behind the shower curtain, a click on the counter before his cocky smile reappeared. Dean curled his fingers around the hem of her shirt and pulled it up over her head. “Bet I can make you forgive me,” he whispered, dipping his mouth to lick a stripe down her cleavage. “Got a trick or two I haven’t shown you yet, Charlotte,” he added, sliding her bra straps down her arms while he nipped the sensitive hollows of her neck.
Charlotte sucked in a breath when his hand brushed up underneath her skirt, twisting her fingers through his hair as the scratch of his nails left another trail of goose bumps along the track of a scar. Dean grinned up at her when Charlotte gasped, his slick fingers pushing into her core while his thumb teased the small bud quivering between her thighs. Tremors blasted up through her abdomen when his mouth closed around the peak of her left breast, holding her nipple gently between his teeth while he grazed it with his tongue.
“Do these tricks involve a housewarming party?” Charlotte managed.
Dean stood up, his hand still working as she undulated against it. “You’re getting dragged into every room and fucked screaming sideways but right now, baby, you’re talking to much.”
The hair on her neck bristled and Charlotte shuddered, giving a sharp cry as her pussy convulsed around his knuckles. He breathed in every ‘god’ and ‘fuck’ and ‘Dean’ that tumbled out, his mouth a soft bruise against hers.
The next morning at breakfast, when she mentioned ‘housewarming’ and ‘party’ in one sentence, Dean flashed a smirk and started pushing plates and a plastic bowl full of scrambled eggs with cheese out of the way. Charlotte burst out laughing when Dean coughed, gesturing towards the table with his head. She couldn’t stop, covering her mouth with both hands.
“Do you think the table can handle the weight?”
Dean’s eyes narrowed. “You were actually talking about a real party?”
“No, Dean.” Charlotte stood on the tips of her toes, arms around his waist as she kissed him softly. “I thought we could invite all of our imaginary friends and pretend we’re eating Cheez Whiz and crackers while drinking make-believe fruit punch.”
“There’s going to be fruit punch at this shindig? I’ll get my ass kicked ten different ways back in practice.” Dean fisted her hair in his hands. “You so owe me. Making me drink goddamn fruit punch in my own living room.”
“Consider it payback for the nachos,” she shot back.
“When were you planning on having this little get-together?”
“A couple of weeks from now. That would let us get settled into the apartment and give everyone enough time to work out any scheduling problems. I…” Charlotte swallowed when Dean let go of her hair, lowering her head, and stared at her feet. Her arms dropped, one hand picking at a loose thread on her ratty old tank top. “I already started making invitations with some of those pretty note cards Sam bought me in Savannah.”
“How the hell can I say no when you already started making the invitations?” Dean sighed but there was a smile in his voice, his hands tight on her hips, and suddenly she was sitting on the edge of the table. She returned his grin when their eyes met, lifting her hips and bracing herself with her hands as he tugged down her panties. “At least there aren’t fruity concoctions at my housewarming party,” he added, a whisper on the inside of her thigh.
The bowl tipped and cold scrambled eggs greasy with cheese spilled all over her hair before they were done but the table was still standing, no matter how it had threatened to collapse from the scratch of wood against old joints - groaning louder than either of them, her nails digging into his shoulders every time he lifted her up from the tabletop.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Southern hospitality wasn’t a myth.
There were strict rules of propriety wrapped up in manners and graciousness and bringing food to families that had suffered a loss. Alma had taught Charlotte every single one of them. They would sit at the kitchen table, Charlotte crushing pecans for sweet potato pie while Alma recited the litany of ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ until Charlotte could repeat them in her sleep.
It was customary to write invitations by hand the same way that it was customary to bring a gift to a housewarming party. Dean sat across from her while she included a personal note inside each invitation and laughed when she explained to him why the rules were important. Dean was more concerned about the ink stains on her fingers from the calligraphy pen and the black streaks smudged across her cheek, threatening to drag her into their tiny yard and hose her down when he wasn’t teasing her about using a bowl of water with a sponge for stamps.
Alma would have frowned at the whole thing, invitations full of polite requests asking their friends to attend without gifts, because the only thing more impolite than forgetting to bring a gift was automatically expecting one.
That didn’t keep her from buying a Sony Playstation for Dean.
It was on sale at the Game Stop near campus, used just like everything else they had been buying for their apartment, and the stunned look on Dean’s face when he pulled off the wrapping paper that morning had been worth lugging it through a rainstorm. He pushed her backwards and licked the whorls looping across her stomach, touching her like Charlotte Anne Webb had stepped out of a half shell and right onto the beach.
There was nothing that Alma could say about their wobbly table, loaded down with plates of food and a big punch bowl full of Sprite and sherbet. Maggie was on back-up duty, helping Charlotte refill plates with cheese and crackers and little rolls made out of ham and turkey and roast beef, while Dean hunkered down with Jimmy, Ruben, half of the kick-boxing team and the Playstation.
The doorbell rang while Charlotte was pouring more Sprite into the punch bowl.
“You want to get that?” Dean yelled at her over his shoulder, the title screen to something called Poy Poy flashing on their television.
Maggie just rolled her eyes, mouthed ‘boys,’ and grabbed the bottle.
The doorbell rang a second time before she swung open the door.
Charlotte gasped, peering up into eyes as wide as her own. There were more crinkles around his mouth when he smiled and more gray in his hair than she remembered but he still jammed one hand into a pocket of his leather jacket while holding his guitar case in the other. Charlotte ignored the blonde woman standing at her daddy’s elbow, flinging her arms around his neck and burying her face into his shoulder.
“Missed you,” Charlotte said softly, tightening her arms.
“How’s my baby girl?” he asked, his free hand brushing her hair. Charlotte’s hands clutched the collar of his leather jacket and the only thing keeping her standing was Dean, showing up out of nowhere to prop her up with a hand on her lower back. “That boy of yours sure has a fire inside of him, ganging up on me with Alma,” Daddy added with a smile. “And I figured it was time for you to meet Elena just as much as it was time for me to meet your boy.”
Dean reached around her and introduced himself with a ‘pleasure to meet you, sir’ that made Daddy’s face light up the same way it did when Charlotte walked for the first time without her crutches. Daddy made a joke about taking care of his little girl and Dean stammered something so low in his throat that Charlotte couldn’t make out the words.
Charlotte stumbled backwards, cheeks going red when Elena held Charlotte’s outstretched hand in both of hers with a ‘steady now.’ The only thing in Elena’s voice was kindness, matching the smile that reached her eyes, and Charlotte smiled back so hard that her cheeks ached.
Someone recognized Aaron Webb standing in the doorway, a shrill ‘holy shit’ ringing descant over the whispers and the gasps, and Daddy walked into the apartment like it was just another stage.
Elena ended up in an old rocking chair that smelled like magnolias whenever Charlotte closed her eyes and thought of Alma. Her daddy sat down in front of the rocker and he pulled out his guitar from its battered case. The breath caught in Charlotte’s throat when tuning turned into strumming and Daddy was embellishing a melody until “Man of Constant Sorrow” thrummed through the room.
Daddy could make her eyes tear up just by hitting the right notes and she stood there listening to the backbeat of a thumb against the soundboard. Charlotte interlaced her fingers through Dean’s, turning to kiss him, but he saw the tracks on her cheeks and yanked her behind him into the kitchen.
Dean’s jaw clenched when he brushed away a tear with the pad of his thumb.
“You made my daddy visit.” Charlotte swallowed.
“Alma helped. She said she’d make a good Southern boy out of me yet.” He shrugged his shoulders but the skin around his eyes was too tight, another touch of his thumb to her cheek. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said, wiping underneath her lenses. Dean’s eyes softened when Charlotte smiled, hooking her fingers into the belt loops on his jeans and tugging him closer. Dean plucked a sigh from her mouth, clutching the back of her dress with a handful of cotton in each fist. “You’re perfect,” she murmured. Charlotte’s fingers trembled on his lips.
“You’re so fucking hinky.”
But Dean was still holding her when Maggie came into the kitchen in search of more sherbet and another bottle of Sprite.
Maggie snorted and shook her head, smirking at them over her shoulder as she flounced back into the living room with a smartass crack about steering clear of the private housewarming party going on in the kitchen, but there was something in the way Maggie’s voice cracked that told the truth - that home smelled like hot pot stickers dipped in spicy sauce and sounded like tires whirring down the highway in time to old songs that she would never forget and tasted like the echo of crushed raspberries and sweat on sun-warmed skin.
Home picked her up whenever she fell, whispering ‘Charlotte’ into her neck while her hands tightened on his hips and their bodies moved together underneath a moon bright with bulrushes and bullfrogs.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Time meandered in college, measured in semesters and class units and deadlines for internship applications while the rest of the world ran on days and weeks and months, a clock wound up on current events and two weeks of vacation a year. On campus there were concerts and kick-boxing practices, summers spent working at the Washington D.C. Children’s Hospital or building houses as part of Habitat for Humanity, but the real world started creeping into their lives with graduation looming on the horizon.
A fire had taught Charlotte the importance of little things, how to hold on to moments that stretched into themselves by listening to the voice that sang her to sleep and counting the ticks of the blood pressure machine between notes. There was something to be said for the little things - how the blue and white pom-pom hat Dean gave her during their second Christmas perfectly matched the blue scarf that Sam had bought, neither one of them able to ask if she liked their presents with anything but their eyes, and Charlotte’s chest ached just a little before she grabbed their hands and pulled them close enough to throw an arm around each of their necks.
She tucked New Year’s Eve into the same place that she kept whispered conversations with Maisey when they should have been sleeping and Alma’s recipe for sweet potato pie drizzled with brown sugar and stuffed with pecans - sitting on the stairs with Dean and Chris McDonald, her arms looped around Dean’s shoulders as Charlotte rested her chin on the top of his head and laughed at every single one of their jokes. Mary Winchester’s smile was just as familiar as the one her daddy flashed in all of his pictures and John Winchester’s laugh sounded so much like his sons’ that there were days where she couldn’t tell you which one was laughing in the middle of The Empire Strikes Back.
Alma used to say that the little things were full of small lessons but the big ones, the ones most people would shy away from, had a way of hitting the folks who ignored them right between the eyes.
Dean Winchester had taught her that life was an apple, sweet like sugar and meant to be eaten whole while you licked your fingers and never stopped grinning when the juice dribbled down your chin. It was as easy as breathing to close her eyes and fall into him until all of the empty spaces overflowed with Dean, to believe that a little bit of hope could hold two people together - even on the days when it felt like they were falling apart.
Sometimes Charlotte wished that she could go back in time, just long enough to tell a girl who was barely eighteen that everything would work out in the end; that she would never know why a beautiful boy chose a clumsy bookworm or how a shaggy-haired high school student became her brother just by asking about Shakespeare. The ‘how’ and the ‘why’ didn’t matter. It was enough just knowing that it had.
Alma had laughed, telling Charlotte over a glass of moonshine that the only way to learn a lesson was to live through it.
But Charlotte had always known that promises were important, the broken ones as much as the ones you kept.
Her daddy taught Charlotte the first part of that lesson, the crack in his voice a tell-tale sign that he was getting ready to go on tour or take someone on their Christmas vacation or that he wouldn’t be home when Charlotte visited. Daddy would send presents as apologies but nothing could rub away the tarnish. Not even time could do that.
Sam Winchester taught her the second half, his voice cracking over a telephone line when he reminded her that promises were the most important thing of all.
She remembered every unspoken word because of Sam, every night that she and Dean would lay tangled in their sheets with gasps and moans and the moon fighting its way through a crack in the curtains; they had their own private vocabulary, his heart beating ‘don’t leave me don’t leave me’ and her heart answering with its gentle reply of ‘I’ll always stay.’
The answer to the question that he never asked.
Charlotte hadn’t expected Dean to remember the first promise, an off-hand joke that she had made sitting in a tacky vinyl booth. Dean’s eyes had widened and he reached for the nearest glass of water, Charlotte’s stomach tumbling while she watched Dean choke down a swallow - both of them closing their eyes and jumping for the very first time.
He made her put on the nicest dress she owned, a light green dress with a swishy skirt that skimmed her knees, and he told her to wear the matching high heels even though she couldn’t walk in them without hanging all over him. Charlotte put on the garter belt herself, Dean’s eyes going hungry as she slid her finger up the back seam on each leg. He looked at the clock with a frown before he tied a blind-fold around her head, making a crack about how they were going to use it later before Dean led her out to the car.
Charlotte wore it while she stumbled behind him to their table. She was already laughing by the time Dean reached over and pulled it off, between the strangled noise coming out of a trumpet and the splash across her toes when someone dove off of the waterfall.
Dean ordered her the biggest Casarita on the menu.
The only way to hold it was with both hands and Charlotte was tipsy before she finished it, even with all of the tacos and the nachos and the sopapillas smothered in honey that Dean kept feeding her. Dean asked the waitress for another Casarita, not taking Charlotte’s ‘no’ as any kind of answer, and Charlotte kicked him in the shin when he teased her about getting drunk on a goddamn fruity drink.
It wasn’t her fault that Dean kept ordering drinks that were bigger than her head. He smirked when she raised her chin, daring him to catch up with her. He snorted and told Charlotte to ‘bring it on’ when the waitress dropped off the second Casarita.
They lurched out of Casa Bonita two hours later, tripping down an alley on the way to the Impala. Charlotte grabbed Dean’s wrist, staring at him from underneath her glasses with a low ‘happy birthday to me,’ and dragged him behind a fire escape. Dean slammed her against the wall, hiking up her skirt, and Charlotte didn’t care if anyone sitting near the open windows above them could hear her groan as he fucked her with his fingers - her palms flat against the brick until Dean replaced his fingers with his cock, pulsing inside her as she scratched up underneath Dean’s shirt.
She held on while he rammed into her and their hips crashed together, her heels digging into his thighs while he stained her mouth with the tang of tequila and sweet margarita mix.
But the mariachi band still sucked.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Their living room smelled like Chinatown, ginger and lemongrass and egg drop soup seeping into the paint cracks while drops of sauce they were too slow to catch bloomed on an old blanket in multicolored circles around them. They weren’t even using chop sticks, feeding each other whole pieces of broccoli and strips of beef when they weren’t pulling off their clothes.
Led Zeppelin II was playing low on the stereo, Charlotte humming along to “Whole Lotta Love” while she dunked a greasy egg roll into a Styrofoam cup full to the brim with thick sweet and sour sauce. The fried skin crackled in her hand, more grease soaking into her fingers, and Dean took a bite when she offered it to him. Sauce dribbled down to his shoulder blade and Charlotte leaned forward, licking an old scar clean before delicately bringing the egg roll to her mouth.
He sucked what was left of the sweet and sour sauce off of her fingers after she popped the last bit of the egg roll between his lips, his hands tight on her hips. Sweat pooled on the back of Charlotte’s knees, resting on Dean’s thighs, as she locked her elbows behind his neck. His tongue darted against hers and Charlotte sighed into his mouth.
“You still hungry?”
Dean didn’t wait for her answer, brushing a pot sticker across her lips, and chuckled. The sauce burned like a low flame against her skin, peppered with red chilies. Charlotte took a small bite and spices burst inside her mouth; hot and savory mixing with pork and the slight char from the pan - every single Sunday they had ever spent alone together wrapped up in a dumpling and delivered right to their front door.
He cocked his head and swallowed the rest of the pot sticker, eyes narrowing as he chewed.
“I’ve been thinking about something,” he said.
“I thought that smell was your burnt Mushu pancakes.”
“I’m serious.” Dean scratched underneath his ear. “I want to get a house.”
“A house?”
“Yeah, one of those things with four walls, a roof and a backyard. Maybe even a fireplace. My boss said he’d help me find a brownstone closer to work that I could restore on my own. For the practice.” Dean shook his head sharply. “But I’d understand if you - ”
She leaned back on her hands, watching need and fear glimmer across his cheekbones and hearing the words that Dean wouldn’t say in the way the skin tightened up his jaw line - that houses were more than just crossbeams and concrete. Old houses became homes with hope and hard work, protecting families from the wind and the rain, and the first one he was going to transform was theirs.
Her eyes smoldered and Charlotte blinked furiously, swallowing past the lump in her throat. Her hand scrabbled out across the blanket, fingers curling around the first fortune cookie she touched, cracking it open with a strangled gasp; her lungs filling up with garlic and peanut oil and Schezuan sauce as golden crumbs scattered across her thighs and her belly.
Charlotte looked down at the small slip of white paper.
“The best man you’ve ever known is going to give you the most beautiful home in the entire world.” She sucked in a breath as the fortune fluttered to the blanket. “And he’s going to drag you into every room in the house and boink you screaming sideways,” she added gently, smiling when Dean’s face beamed brighter than the candles around them.
“Between the sheets,” Dean said, picking up the other cookie.
“What does yours say?”
Another spray of golden crumbs spilled across her thighs.
“It sucks giant green donkey dicks.” Dean sighed, not even looking at his fortune before he crumpled it up and threw it over his shoulder. “You’re going to end up stuck with some walking chick flick who talks too much.” He dipped a finger into the sweet and sour sauce, trailing it between her breasts. “But she tastes really good when she’s covered in Chinese food,” Dean murmured, breath hot against goose bumps.
“Between the sheets?”
Charlotte shivered, his tongue tracing the track left by his hand.
“There’s no way in Hell we’re making it as far as the sheets, baby.” Dean disentangled their legs, leaning in to kiss her and not stopping until she was lying flat on her back. “You’re so screwed.”
“God, I hope so,” she breathed, body arching as his tongue mapped pale blue veins.
Charlotte knocked the Schezuan beef carton with her elbow, her body going so red that her scars were cool against the blush. Dean chuckled and steadied the carton before sitting back up. She didn’t see the sweet and sour sauce container in his hand until it was too late, a drizzle across the swell of her belly that made her screech. Dean snorted, staring down at her with a shit-eating grin.
She challenged him to a duel with a Mushu pancake.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The only thing uglier than the new house was the old apartment.
It was in an older neighborhood, close to Dean’s office and the city-run orphanage where Charlotte interned. They had already decided to take the rent-to-own option on the lease, making a down payment with part of her trust fund, but Dean said it would be months before all of the work it needed would be done. The draft in every room, the cracked plaster on most of the walls and the missing shingles on the roof barely scratched the surface of impending home improvement projects.
But Dean couldn’t stop smiling as he walked between rooms, his hands touching the walls or knocking on a window lintel while he talked about ‘her strong bones.’
And that was enough for Charlotte.
Dean coerced all of their friends into helping them organize furniture and pack boxes full of more things than two people should own a week before the movers were scheduled to pick up their things but Charlotte was the one who decided to color code the boxes by room. She kept a list of what was in every box, each page secure in a binder. Dean would laugh whenever she pushed her glasses on top of her nose, kissing the blue ink stains on her fingers, but he never told the movers where to put the boxes when she was done.
Every single one of them ended up in the living room or the foyer.
Charlotte had started unpacking the boxes that were color coded for the living room while Dean moved the rest into the foyer. Her foot snagged on a box and she tripped backwards with an ‘oops,’ the unmistakable crash of shattering glass muffled by the box.
Crap!
The only thing that kept Charlotte Anne Webb from landing flat on her rear end was Dean Winchester.
“If you try real hard, I think you can attack every box marked ‘Fragile’ by lunchtime,” he said.
She stared up into his face, leaning backwards in his arms like they were in the middle of a dance, and he smiled like Adonis - even with his red flannel shirt covered with the remnants of something black and tarry that had been in the basement. It was his fault she had tripped, swaggering around the house in his old work boots and three days of scruff on his chin and expecting her to be able to concentrate instead of knocking him down to the floor and ripping off his clothes.
It should have been criminal for anyone moving into a house to be that beautiful after half a day of unpacking dusty boxes; Charlotte had so much dirt in her hair that she covered it up with a bandanna just to keep from looking like a chimney sweep.
“And I still think you’re the world’s biggest prick,” she snapped, but her arms slid around his neck and her fingers tangled in his hair.
“I never hear you complaining about that when it really matters, sweetheart.”
Charlotte hitched up and kissed him when Dean’s hands settled on her hips, all because of his stupid smile and the way he waggled his eyebrows. He brought one hand up to touch the pulse at the base of her throat, before helping her stand. Charlotte stretched her arms, returning his smile, and suddenly she was eighteen years old; standing in front of him with her skirt piled around her feet wondering what in the hell he saw in her.
“I’m pretty lucky,” she said softly. Dean’s mouth quirked up and she squeezed his hand.
“You’re pretty clumsy,” he retorted.
“You knew the job was dangerous when you took it,” Charlotte shot back.
“Yeah, I guess I did.”
Charlotte twisted, looking for the box cutter. If the only thing in the box had been their mismatched wine glasses, the ones they used at dinner when their parents visited, she wouldn’t have cared.
The problem was the glass picture frame she had packed in the same box. Sam had given it to Charlotte on her last birthday and she had used it for her favorite picture - the one where she and Sam were sprawled on a blanket near the old tire swing back on the farm, both of them trying to read while Dean tickled one of her bare feet with an unrepentant smirk. Charlotte’s book was flying in the air as she swatted at Dean with her other foot and Sam’s eyes were wide because her elbow was digging into his thigh but all three of them were laughing like they were never going to stop.
“What the - ”
Something small and hard bumped into her hip, the fabric of her jeans stretching tight over it. Charlotte slid her hand into her pocket, fingertips grazing a small velvet box. She started shaking before she pulled it out, staring at it while her pulse beat through her temples.
“Aren’t you going to open it?” Dean asked softly.
Her head bobbed but her hands wouldn’t stop twitching and the box tumbled from her fingers. Dean snorted, leaning down to pick it up, and handed it to her. Her hands were still trembling but she managed to lift the lid, her throat swelling when Charlotte saw the ring. It was beautiful - a simple antique setting with one small diamond surrounded by pearls - and all she could do was stare back at Dean with eyes as full as the ones that watched her without saying a word, a promise that she had never needed spilling into the air between them.
Charlotte sucked in a breath. “Are you sure, Dean?”
“You know, of all the answers I expected, that one wasn’t even on the list.”
“I was going to go with ‘Are you fucking nuts?’ but that seemed a little melodramatic.” Charlotte smiled up at him. “Even for me.”
“But it sure as hell would have made you sound like a goddamn Winchester. We’re all fucking nuts.”
“Your mother’s not nuts.”
“She chose a Winchester. Makes her a little twisted in my book,” he retorted. Dean jammed his hands into his jeans’ pockets, cocking his head and staring at her. “Do you want me or not?”
“Oh, I fucking want you.”
She plucked the ring from the box and slipped it onto her finger, dropping it when she knocked Dean backwards towards the couch. Charlotte was already straddling his thighs when the box thumped onto the wooden floor.
“What if the neighbors come over to say ‘hello’ or ‘welcome to the neighborhood’ or something?” Dean demanded, voice muffled by his t-shirt before his head popped out from underneath it.
“They can wait.”
“It ever occur to you that we don’t have any curtains up yet?” Dean didn’t wait for an answer. He grabbed the collar of her shirt and ripped it open, buttons popping off in a white spray that scattered like buck shot against the walls. “They’re going to see every fucking thing we do on the way to the front door,” he added, tugging her sleeves down her arms.
“They’re going to be pretty jealous, aren’t they?” Charlotte shot back, fingers plucking open each button down the fly of his jeans.
“Hell, yeah.”
Her mouth slammed down onto his and she touched his cheeks, unable to keep her hands from quivering when Dean’s fingers wrapped around her upper arms. Charlotte’s bandanna slipped off, her hair falling around their faces like a red waterfall - enough sunlight peeking through the strands for Charlotte to see his face when they stopped for breath.
“Thank you for tripping me,” she whispered.
Dean raised his eyebrows, quickly snapping each hook open down the front of her bra, and Charlotte waited for the snort followed by the smartass observation about emo babes and their front loaders - but he was already kissing the curve of her neck, hands pressed against her breasts as she sighed and sank into his palms.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
It was never going to be a traditional wedding, despite the big white tent in the backyard, and not even Mary Winchester could convince them to change their minds.
Dean was adamant that he wasn’t going to wear a tuxedo and Charlotte had no intention of forcing her friends to buy dresses that they would only wear on her wedding day. They didn’t want presents and the reception was going to be beer and barbecue and Charlotte’s Webb playing on a makeshift stage while friends and family made toasts with Sam Adams and licked barbecue sauce off of their fingers.
Even the flowers were going to be ones from the yard, a backdrop of lilac bushes and cherry blossoms falling onto them from the trees while they recited their vows; landing on his boots and her grass-stained feet. Charlotte’s throat had swelled when Dean slipped the ring onto her finger, telling the entire world that Dean Winchester was riding with Charlotte Anne Webb to the end of the highway. She threw her arms around Dean’s neck and kissed him right then and there.
Once the band started playing, Charlotte couldn’t stop spinning; she whirled like a dervish every time her daddy’s guitar roared into his signature slide, hands raised to the sky. She dragged Jess onto the grass with her, giggling as Sam’s girlfriend picked up speed along with the music and fell onto Sam’s lap, and Charlotte couldn’t keep the stupid grin off of her face when Sam started dancing with them - no sign of a limp in his step, just a peck on her cheek when Sam grinned back.
Watching his daughter laugh while she danced was the closest that Aaron Webb would ever come to tradition.
Alma had always said that a hostess needed to stay available for her guests but Charlotte guessed that Alma would make an exception; she wasn’t letting the caterers out of her sight, arms folded while she gave quiet commands but Alma’s eyes never left the lawn. Alma uncrossed her arms when Dean came up behind Charlotte and pulled her in close, both of them swaying to the music while Dean made fun of Sam and Jess danced around them.
It was as easy as the first summer in Georgia, Alma’s smile washing over them like a blessing - Dean wrapped his fingers into Charlotte’s skirt and pulled her up for a kiss while Sam sputtered and the music slowed down just in time for everyone to hear Dean bellowing about hot make-up sex.
It was as easy as breathing, as easy as closing her eyes and hearing the slow creak of a rocking chair on an old porch.
One day, Charlotte Anne, you’re going to find the boy whose smile slips past that wall of yours. And when you do, you need to hold on. Hold on until your fingers ache and never let him go.
Charlotte knotted her fingers in Dean’s while a breeze dripping with cherry blossoms blew her braids away from her face and hauled him off of the grass. She stood up on her toes, kissing Dean’s cheek.
“I’ve got a surprise for you,” she said. “Close your eyes.”
Dean rolled his eyes before he closed them, snorting when Charlotte opened the side door into the garage and the hinge gave a tell-tale squeak. “Open your eyes,” she chirped, taking in the look on his face as Dean stared at the Impala; trying to figure out what she had done to his baby until Charlotte opened up the back door and slid inside.
One boot thumped onto the concrete when Charlotte crooked her finger at him.
“Didn’t we already have this conversation?” His voice was muffled by the closed window. “The one about not getting fucked in the back of my car?”
“You always get that part wrong, Dean Winchester,” Charlotte retorted. She smiled when his other boot slipped to the ground.
Dean whipped the door open, poking his head inside before sitting next to her. “It was about my car, Charlotte Winchester…”
His voice trailed off and they grinned at each other liked idiots, Charlotte’s cheeks going red and Dean scratching underneath his ear because one word could hold the world, three tiny syllables overflowing with every secret she had always known and everything Charlotte had ever wanted the moment she collided into some boy stretching his legs out in front of him.
“I remember every time you called it a crap car. I kept a list.”
“I believe the exact quote was ‘you’re going to have to do something pretty amazing to screw me in the back of your crap car,’ actually.” She laughed, reaching down and pulling her shirt up over her head.
“Wait.” Dean shook his head, inching the waistband of her skirt past her calves until it pooled around her ankles. Charlotte wiggled her toes when the fabric fell out of his hands and landed behind the passenger’s side of the front seat. “You’re telling me that all I had to do was have some dumb ceremony for a piece of paper, and you’d screw me in the back of my car.”
“Pretty simple plan on my part, wasn’t it?” Her hands were moving on their own, tugging his t-shirt out of his jeans.
Dean grunted but his hands were unbuttoning the fly of his jeans; their breath keeping time with the small snaps echoing in the back of the car. He pulled down his boxer shorts along with his jeans and they landed on top of her skirt, followed by a scrap of lace masquerading as a bra that was a gift from Maggie during the impromptu bridal shower that Jess and Mary had held the night before.
His lips curved when Charlotte leaned backwards against the door, encircling the closest nipple as Charlotte shivered - rolling the sensitive nub with his tongue. The damn man chuckled when she squirmed but Charlotte managed to shimmy out of her panties. She dropped them on top of their discarded clothes with a triumphant smile.
“Look at you.” Dean grinned, his hips stuttering against leather when Charlotte’s fingers wrapped around his cock. “Lying there all sure of yourself, thinking you got your way with me.” She worked her hand up and down the shaft, her tongue slipping out just enough to wet her lips while Charlotte flicked pre-come off the tip with her thumb. Dean groaned when she increased the pressure, a small squeeze with the pulse rushing against her palm.
“I’m pushy,” she whispered.
Dean’s fingers teased the swollen cleft of her pussy, first one and then two driving slowly in and out of the wet - the friction of skin against skin, sticky sweet musk spilling over his hand while she moaned ‘please’ and ‘God’ and ‘more’ and he was tormenting her clit with his thumb; slow circles and quick swipes and a ‘fucking come for me, Charlotte’ that had her drenching his knuckles with a scream and an arch to her back and curled toes pressed against his shoulders.
“You’re pushy, too,” she managed.
“You’re pushy, too? That the best that you can come up with?”
“I’m a little distracted.”
“God, I hope so,” he retorted. Dean shifted, his knees squeaking against the leather, and he leaned down to kiss her shoulder. “Because you talk too fucking much.”
“You flirt with too many girls.” It came out as one long sigh, her body completely still when the head of his cock thrust past the mouth of her pussy. She slid her legs around his waist, hips rising as he sank into her, a rock leaving slow ripples that pulsed inside her belly with each flutter on the underside of his cock until she hissed and tightened her legs - heels resting on the small of his back, fingers twisting in his hair. “And I hate Metallica.”
“I hate most of that crap you call music.” Dean’s voice was a whisper, mouth suckling at her breasts like she was a holy thing so close to breaking that anything louder than a breath would shatter her - anything harder than the feather-light passes of his lips and his tongue would blow her into pieces. She whimpered and their eyes met. He laughed, a low sound in his throat as the push and the pull and the slap of their bellies filled the backseat of the car; the rhythm of two bodies working in concert to the drum beat of blood rushing through veins. “And I’m just lucky you’re not a freaking sex klutz,” he added, his grin sparking the fire between her thighs.
“You’re just lucky you were so cute I forgave you for taking me to a place where the nachos sucked.”
Each syllable was clipped, a hitch in her lungs that she punctuated with a roll of her hips. His hands fisted her hair and he licked the hollows of her neck while she traced the muscles of his back, first with the pads of her fingers and then grazing with her nails when the goose bumps springing along her thighs remembered every night they spent wrapped up in their sheets.
“The nachos…really…did suck.”
“But…you were really…cute.”
Her hands were everywhere, fingering her clit when Dean rammed hard and she was clamping around his cock with enough pressure to make both of them groan or tracing the skin around her nipples before brushing them with her thumbs when Dean slowed down and watched her moan. He would suck on her fingers when she touched his lips and suck on her breasts when her fingers left small half-moons on his shoulders and suddenly she was a firecracker - small bursts of ‘oh oh oh’ as her head tipped back, her body bending up into his until another wet spasm made her thighs shake and she sank back onto the leather with her arms wrapped around his neck.
“I love you,” Charlotte said, a soft gasp.
“Lucky for me,” Dean returned, a shaky whisper, “Because it’d fucking suck if you didn’t love me back.”
It was as easy as every night at the pond, the world shrinking until it was them and the earth and the ripple of water against their feet. Dean’s cheeks were red, a flush to match her own, and she pushed down on the small of his back with her heels. He could still pluck tiny little moans out of her whenever her hips bucked up into his and she could still make him smile, loose and comfortable, when she whispered that he was the best thing to ever happen to a shy girl from Georgia and that older brothers were sexy and that she was always his between breaths.
They started shuddering together, a loose-limbed jumble of urgency and desire. Dean swallowed her scream as she came, pouring into her with an ‘oh fuck, baby’ that left white fingerprints on her hips.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Dean opened the side door after one brisk knock echoed throughout the garage.
Sam’s startled face watched them walk onto the concrete path, taking in Charlotte’s lopsided braids with their halo of frizzy hair and Dean buttoning up his fly with a grin that Dean made no attempt to hide. There was no way to hide the musk and the salt soaked into their skin, both of them full with the taste of each other, and nothing could hide the mark Dean’s lips had sucked into the crook of her neck - a red kiss that claimed every square inch of Charlotte Anne Winchester as his own.
“Holy shit.” Sam’s eyes avoided her neck, staring at their bare feet.
“She’s my wife, dude.”
Charlotte’s entire body was on fire.
“Yeah, well…” Sam’s voice trailed off. “Dad was looking for you.” He shook his head with a low chuckle. “You’re going to be screwed when he finds out his wedding night speech was too late.”
“His wedding night speech was too late the first time I got Charlotte back to her dorm room.” Dean snorted. “You’d be amazed what a girl will do after you’ve subjected her to Chiquita the Angry Gorilla and the world’s crappiest nachos.” He started walked towards the white tent. “I bet Jess loves mariachi bands,” Dean yelled over his shoulder.
A stray breeze cooled her cheeks and Charlotte sighed.
“Your left braid’s falling apart,” Sam observed.
“Thanks.” She reached up and flipped off the tie, smiling wryly at Sam. “Your big brother is a doofus,” Charlotte said, fingers moving slowly as she intertwined shanks of hair around each other. They started following the path between the rose bushes, the long way around to the stage.
“You’re the masochist that married him.”
Charlotte giggled and Sam bumped into her, draping his arm across her shoulders. She leaned into him when they stopped walking and Sam pulled her into the hug. He rested his head on top of hers and she wrinkled her nose, wishing that she could have hauled Dean into the shower before anyone had found them, but it was Sam. He had seen her scars and he made chocolate chip cookies with her every Christmas and Charlotte couldn’t hide from him any more than she could hide from Dean.
“Sam?”
“Yeah?”
“I just wanted you to know that…” Charlotte swallowed, sucking in a breath when Sam’s arm tightened around her. “If I could pick anyone in the world to be my brother, it would always be you.”
Sam opened his mouth like he was going to say something, staring down at her with eyes that glittered and a clench to his jaw that said he was a Winchester, but someone was tapping into a microphone on the stage. It thumped through the speakers, followed up by her daddy’s chuckle and a joke about how her man wasn’t keeping a good eye on his daughter if she was already lost.
Dean was laughing when Charlotte and Sam emerged from the rose bushes, smiling back at her daddy while John slapped Dean on the back. She slipped away from Sam after squeezing his hand and tripped across the yard towards Dean, hitching up to kiss Dean on the mouth when he wrapped his arms around her waist.
“Found her,” Dean managed when Charlotte’s heels sank back to the grass.
And he wasn’t letting her go.
Charlotte twisted in his arms to face the stage, her back fitting against his chest like they had been made for each other - sculpted from the same block of clay and fired until they gleamed. She reached up and touched his cheek, the scruff tickling her fingers as Ray, Dave and Jared left the stage. Her daddy was still there, sitting on a stool while he spoke into the microphone.
“So here’s where I’m supposed to stop playing and do that dance with my baby girl.” His drawl was as sweet as syrup, working the crowd with a story, and he didn’t need anything but his acoustic guitar and his voice to keep them mesmerized. “Alma’s even threatened to come up here and sing ‘Thank Heaven for Little Girls’ if I don’t get off my ass and sashay out on the grass.” Daddy snorted, a random chord slipping out from between his fingers and the pick.
“But have you seen Charlie dance? Much as I love her and as proud as I am, it’s a life and death proposition.” Another strum that ended in a different chord made the whole backyard laugh, Dean’s chuckle tickling the back of her neck, and Daddy’s grin only got wider as he leaned conspiratorially towards the audience. “And for all that Alma’s been making noises, she only said ‘hell no’ when I said she should take a turn of her own.”
The music was getting louder, a whisper that danced with the soft smack of a thumb against wood.
“If she were still alive, Charlie’s mama would be the one dancing with her - but I don’t dance and Alma’s the one who taught Charlie how to sing.” Daddy’s body was straight despite the weight pressing down on his shoulders, the ghost of a woman long dead carved in the lines around his eyes, but his mouth quirked up suddenly and he winked at Charlotte. “So we’re doing this thing my way, baby girl.”
The melody burst into the air and the voice that crooned Charlotte to sleep on warm summer nights told them all how Daddy’s little girl painted the world with her magic wand - her bedtime story and her lullaby and his apology, ripe with a promise that even the soft rain that had started falling from the sky would never break.
When I come home, Charlotte smiles with the dawn
Charlotte smiles, and she radiates the glow around her halo
She lowered her head, braids falling forward, and Dean’s voice rumbled through her back when he tucked one behind her ear.
“You’re standing there getting all emo, aren’t you?” His chuckle shivered up her spine. “He wrote that goddamn song when you were four. You don’t think that’s enough time to come up with some new material?”
“Do I even want to know where you’re going with this?” Charlotte turned in his arms, eyes narrowing as she looked up into his face. “Because I don’t have a problem serenading you awake from a dead sleep every morning if you’re making fun of the song my daddy wrote for me.”
“That whole ‘nothing’s wrong when Charlotte smiles’ thing is fucking obvious,” Dean said. “I’m pretty sure the man knows how much you drool since he was around when you were still burping on people.” He shook his head, grinning at her.
“What?”
Dean’s mouth twitched and he took a breath.
“When I wake up, Charlotte’s snoring in the bedroom,” he sang, waggling his eyebrows when Charlotte’s mouth opened and abruptly shut. “Charlotte’s snoring, and she drools into my armpit - ”
Charlotte poked him in the stomach and he grabbed her hand by the wrist.
“I married a five-year-old.”
“You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, baby.” He tried to kiss her palm but ended up cackling instead, letting go of her hand. “What about a verse where you’re screaming my name and I’m boinking you? Just thinking about boinking makes me want to do you right here.” Dean’s hands slid to her rear end, pulling her in close. “And I bet any song with ‘boink’ in the title is going straight to number one.”
She snorted, getting ready to tell him that “Charlotte Boinks” didn’t scan properly, but Dean leaned down to kiss the curve of her mouth and the only thing that mattered was the way his lips brushed against hers with the rain sprinkling gently onto their shoulders.
They were still kissing, Charlotte standing on the tips of her toes while Dean held her tight to his hips, when a streak of lightning cracked through the sky - unleashing a downpour that fried one of the speakers with an electrical squeal. Sam and John helped her daddy and the rest of the band cover what was left of the working equipment while Alma organized another round of beer and barbecue under the big white tent.
“Got a surprise for you,” Dean said.
He dragged Charlotte to the back door, looking around furtively before throwing her over his shoulder. Dean carried her over the threshold through the kitchen and kicked the door shut behind him. Charlotte giggled, kicking her legs as Dean stumbled up the stairs and dropped her onto the bed - and then they were stripping off wet clothes, licking off the rain and kissing goose bumps and the rush of blood underneath their skin resonated with ‘don’t leave me don’t leave me I’ll always stay if you never leave me.’
When they came back outside an hour later, sporting new clothes and wild hair, it had stopped raining. Sam laughed when he saw them and their parents looked up from their beer with grins on their faces while Jess and Jimmy danced to a boom box blasting music that made Alma grimace. Maggie hugged Charlotte from behind, resting her chin on Charlotte’s shoulder and announcing that it was time to cut the cake before the happy couple decided to run off again and have sex.
Charlotte was still bright red when Dean smashed his piece of cake into her mouth.
Move on to Part Five.
A/N:
Poy Poy is an awesome PS1 game. Each player is a grade school kid and the purpose of the game is to beat each other up - using anything on the playing field. I know of no other game where you can pick up a T-Rex (if you can time it correctly) and chuck it at another player. You can also throw boulders, shoot them with rockets and pick up other players and just smash them into the ground. I suck at it…
I should have noted before that Charlotte has this annoying habit of thinking in song lyrics and “that a little bit of hope could hold two people together despite every ache that lay buried deep inside them” was shamelessly stolen from Kate Bush’s “Love and Anger.”
“Charlotte Smiles” is actually a direct rip of the song “Molly Smiles” by Jesse Spencer from the Uptown Girls soundtrack. (Yes, I watched the movie.) I really loved the song lyrics and they are exactly what I envisioned as part of a song that Aaron would have written about Charlotte when she was a little girl.
I used the word “knuckles” in this one, too. Be very afraid.