Your Sorrow for Another Coin - Chapter Five
Your Sorrow for Another Coin
Chapter Five: Barely enough time to sing
Word Count: ~8600
Overall Pairing(s): John/OFC, Dean/OFC (Het)
Overall Rating: NC-17 (This chapter: R - Language, Sex)
Feedback: Absolutely. Concrit is always welcome.
Disclaimer: The Winchester boys aren't mine but I'd make Dean wear his boots all of the time if they were.
Spoilers/Warnings: None for the series.
A/N: This story was inspired by last year's spn_xx summer challenge - specifically prompt #149, Spelling by Margaret Atwood - and is my response to the This Woman's Work challenge on spn_het_love.
Beta(s): As always, embroiderama was the calm yin to my angsty yang. quirkies enthusiasm kept me going when I was ready to throw in the towel. sarahcascade reminded me that it wasn't the 1950's. All three of them helped immeasurably with pacing and characterization. Everything that rocks about this is because of them. The mistakes? Those are all me. A special shout out goes to discordia_intus, who spent entirely too much time brainstorming with me when she should have been getting ready to move.
Summary: Winchesters always needed protecting, from themselves as much as anything else - so maybe it was no surprise that Mama added all that thyme and basil and oregano into spaghetti sauce every time a Winchester crossed their doorstep.
Chapters:
Chapter One / Chapter Two / Chapter Three / Chapter Four / Chapter Five
Barbara Jean Benedict wasn’t making it to the fireworks display in one piece, no matter how many times she grinned at Alice and swore that boys would be lining up all the way to the funnel cake stand.
She was the only reason Alice was wearing sandals, dressed up perfect like she was a doll in someone’s collection - down to the light pink nail polish on her fingers and her toes, with her hair wrestled into something full of curls that hid all the bobby pins sticking into her scalp while pretending to look natural, and prancing around in a blue and white sleeveless dress pulled out of Barbara Jean’s closet. Heads were turning when they walked down Main Street on their way to the Fellowship booth but Alice guessed most folks were staring because the wild girl out on that farm was showing up at the Shelton Fourth of July festival wearing make-up.
And that wasn’t the worst part.
The worst part was being suckered into helping out at the Fellowship booth with Barbara Jean all afternoon, raising money for the volunteer fire department by selling cakes and cookies and pies that every mother in town had spent the last three days baking.
There wasn’t anything Alice could do but say ‘yes’ when Barbara Jean asked, closing her eyes and seeing that old piece of faded newspaper Dean would sneak out of his papa’s leather journal; all three of them could have been burned to nothing but ash that night, just like that blonde-haired ghost burned into John Winchester’s eyes. No man on earth had done more to keep his boys alive, holding on as tight to his sons in that picture as he did every day since with those callused hands of his twisted into fists where his boys couldn’t see.
A bake sale wasn’t much compared to that.
But the Fellowship booth was surrounded by a whole flock of women when they reached the stretch of grass and trees passing for the town square, laughing while they shared recipes between slipping quarters and dollar bills into the money box underneath the table; handing out glasses of lemonade along with that morning’s gossip.
Alice stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the booth next door, staring up at a shiny plastic banner waving in the breeze and proclaiming to the universe in red letters eight inches high that kisses only cost a dollar each. Someone had taken a signboard and posted a schedule on the outside of the booth, complete with girls’ pictures next to the time, and it didn’t take a scholar to figure out why she was standing there wearing something that she wouldn’t even own - not with her senior portrait staring Alice right back in the face, her hair slick from all that gel Barbara Jean had used trying to make it look smooth instead of frizzy like a horse’s tail.
Barbara Jean grabbed Alice by the arm, dragging her into the booth with ‘a promise is a promise’ and a giggle that would have gotten anyone else’s ass kicked. Alice grit her teeth and glared at the sunburn already going pink on the back of her best friend’s neck, leaning forward with a warning and trying not to turn bright red herself when Emmaline Wilson poked one of Alice’s curls and laughed.
Alice grit her teeth and smiled - but the way her day was going, she was running headlong into being the laughingstock of the entire town. Every single yoo-hoo planning on snatching a kiss from her was probably eating the biggest beefsteak sandwich they could find for lunch, slathering it in greasy onions sautéed in garlic butter and covering it in Tabasco sauce for good measure - warding themselves from whatever would happen to them after kissing the daughter of that woman who could coax a bird onto her finger with nothing but a whistle.
At least Alice wasn’t working a shift with Ginny Phelps.
She had enough time to get a glass of lemonade, sipping it slow while Alice watched the boys line up for their crack at half of the cheerleading squad - all three of them smiling pretty in a row and wearing their Sunday best. Alice swallowed the last of her lemonade as the lines dwindled, slipping another breath mint between her lips and smoothing her dress with her hands. Alice took a deep breath, changing places with Emmaline, and set her hands on the table to keep from keeling over.
Davy Grissom slid a dollar bill across the table at her, his friends egging him on from three feet away and scampering around like she was a two-headed snake when her eyes flickered in their direction, and Davy scrunched up his face as Alice leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. He scurried off with his friends when she was done, a length of carnival tickets trailing behind him for the rides.
“I don’t even know why I’m still doing this after you tricked me,” Alice whispered, grabbing another handful of money from Barbara Jean and throwing it into the bowl they were using to collect it. “The only goddamn person trying to kiss me is a ten-year-old on a bet.”
“That’s ‘cause you’re scowling at every boy who walks by,” Barbara Jean hissed, her mouth curving into a smile just to prove the point when the bag boy from Vogler’s handed her five dollars.
Alice rolled her eyes when Noah Harrison said he didn’t want any change and Barbara Jean laughed like they were all back in kindergarten sharing crayons from the big box. Alice listened to the jangle of a dime hitting the side of the bowl and hoisted herself up just in time to see a twenty-dollar bill slapped down onto the table in front of her - a dare covered with blunt-tipped fingers, bruised knuckles scabbed over like someone had taken a cheese grater to his hand.
“So how much for some tongue?”
“That the best you can come up with after five months of nothing but postcards?” Alice snorted, brushing her fingers lightly across his knuckles. “Jackass.”
Dean chuckled, that laugh of his worming its way inside - heat spreading through her belly until she was grinning back up at him, grabbing his t-shirt with one hand. Memorizing the way he tasted like beef jerky and soda and the rising wind blowing into his face as he leaned out of the open car window, her hands sneaking their way up to his shoulders and holding on tight because she wasn’t letting go first. And Alice didn’t stop kissing him back until Dean tangled his hands up in her hair, jerking when he got jabbed with bobby pins.
“Jesus Christ!” Dean dropped his hands to her shoulders, eyes glittering as his smile widened. “That kiss better be on the house ‘cause your hair’s worse than a goddamn mine field.”
“It’s the ones that come later that’ll cost you something.” Alice snatched the twenty-dollar bill off the table, handing it to Barbara Jean before she could say a word. Alice stretched up on her toes, arms behind her back as she swished her skirt. “Didn’t your papa teach you that it’s only polite to take a girl on the Tilt-a-Whirl before you kiss her?”
“You’re lucky if I buy you a funnel cake,” Dean retorted. “With all that metal you’re sporting for fun, we’re gonna get electrocuted on the fucking Zipper if the Nirvana on that freaking bobsled ride doesn’t kill us first.” He cocked his head, jamming his hands into his pockets. “So are you coming or what, Sweet Pea?”
“I’m coming,” Alice said softly.
She pushed her way through the circle of girls huddled around Ginny Phelps in the back of the booth, all bright eyes and hard swallows and lips twitching like someone had passed them raw lemons whenever her arms touched theirs; hugging Barbara Jean tight before Alice slid through the space between the kissing booth and the bake sale and catching Sam’s eyes as he balanced three chocolate cupcakes in his hands.
Alice was already pulling the pins out of her hair, feeling it swing loose past her shoulders; throwing them on the ground and not looking back when Sam handed her a cupcake, smiling at her with chocolate frosting at the corners of his mouth, and Dean didn’t jerk when Alice crooked her arm through his.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Mama always said that there were moments in your life when things stood still, when the universe stopped the world from spinning just long enough to savor the little things, but she probably wasn’t talking about Ferris wheels.
Sam dragged Alice into the line, holding on tight to her wrist and grinning at her over his shoulder while Dean cracked jokes; coming up with all the different ways the damn thing would fall apart and its dingy pieces of metal would come crashing to the ground. And Dean didn’t stop whispering them into her ear when Alice was squeezed next to him in the red and yellow car, his arm looping casually over Alice’s shoulder. Stories about the old carnie who died setting it up fifty years ago and haunted the engine, making it jerk and stop instead of spinning in a smooth circle, or those two kids who rocked the car so hard from making out when they were stuck on the top that some screws worked loose.
When the Ferris wheel jerked to a stop, their car swaying slowly at the top, Alice squeaked and threw her arms around Dean, and it probably should have pissed her off when Sam started laughing right along with him - both of them rocking the car hard enough to make a carnie yell at them in a sharp voice that had both of them laughing even harder. But all she could do was hold onto Dean, shivering every time she could see the ground over the edge of yellow leather and the wrong kind of wind blew through her, and Alice squealed when the gears shifted and the wheel turned.
The hand at her waist started trailing up her side, fingers spreading right underneath Alice’s left breast, and the hair underneath her ear stood on end when Dean chuckled.
“I’m gonna haunt you for the rest of your life after I fall off this goddamn thing,” Alice hissed against his cheek.
“I think I can handle a ghost who looks like you,” he retorted, licking a stripe up her neck where Sam couldn’t see him do it. She twitched, tightening her arms and wrapping her leg around his with another squeak when the wheel picked up speed; her body moving just enough to make the car swing. Dean rested his chin on the top of her head. “So, Sammy?” he bellowed over the grind of the motor. “Wanna go a second time?”
“Hell, yeah!”
Alice held her breath and counted each turn of the wheel until it cranked to a final stop and the carnie opened the door. Sam hopped out of the car first, steadying her by the arm as she stumbled onto the ground, but the smile on his face faded when their eyes met. Maybe she couldn’t glare as well as her mama but Alice had eighteen years of practice, and Sam lowered his head just enough for her to reach up and give him a noogie, both of them giggling when Dean grabbed their arms and pushed them out the gate.
The ground was firm, warmth rising up through the soles of her sandals, and the long grass tickled Alice’s ankles as she twirled in place to look at both of them. The sun was hot on her hair, sweat trickling between her shoulder blades, but the matching sunburn across both of their noses made Alice grin; wishing she was ten and could poke their noses before she started running through the food stalls and carnival games, both of them hollering about what they were going to do when they caught her - just like they used to yell about all that mud they were going to stick down her dress when they used to chase her through the trees back on the farm.
“I’m having words with your papa at dinner,” Alice said, her hands held loosely behind her back as her smile widened. “I can’t believe you both tried to throw me off a Ferris wheel and you’re not even offering to buy me some ice cream. And he’s probably not gonna be so thrilled when I tell him about how one of his sons likes to try getting to second base with terrified girls on carnival rides.”
Sam snorted and Dean grinned back at her, scratching underneath his ear. “You like waffle cones, Sweet Pea?”
“The biggest you can find,” she answered, reaching up on the tips of her toes to brush her mouth against his. “With lots of sprinkles.”
“And I want chocolate chips on mine,” Sam added. His eyes glittered like he had just swallowed a canary, standing up to his full height when Dean raised his eyebrows. Sam’s voice went low; a scratch in the throat that growled ‘Winchester’ like nothing else could, her heart sputtering because Sam was staring at his brother with the same squared shoulders as his papa. “Hey, I’m not the one who copped a feel.”
“You little bitch.” But Dean laughed, gesturing with his head towards the battered wooden picnic tables set up underneath a scattering of trees. “If I were blackmailing some poor innocent guy into buying me ice cream, that’s probably where I’d be sitting when he was done.”
Dean turned on his heel and Sam’s shoulders sagged, thin hands sliding into his pockets as his elbow bumped into Alice’s arm. He was taller than she was and she’d never even noticed until Sam Winchester had stood as proud as a bear, and something in the way his shaggy hair curled around his ears made Alice touch his arm, fingertips pushing into the lean muscles hidden underneath the skin - and she was the one who pulled her hand back when Sam sighed.
He didn’t say a word until they were sitting at a picnic table, his legs stretched out in front of him; didn’t say a word until a cool breeze swept through the leaves and Alice twisted so she could rest her elbows on the table, tracing a whorl on the bleached plank with her eyes.
“Dean’s not going to college. He’s not even gonna try in a couple of years.” Sam’s breath came out in a huff. “One of Dad’s friends said that he’d help but Dean says college isn’t even a choice ‘cause he knows what’s out there.”
“It’s his path, Sam. Your papa’s now, too,” Alice returned softly. She could feel the heat of Sam’s stare on her cheek, spreading her hands flat on the table in front of her. “Dean was popping bulls-eyes on tin cans when I was still making clay faces and slapping them on trees.”
“How come it feels like I’m stuck on a path that isn’t mine?”
Alice closed her eyes, an ache in her throat as the wind picked up speed and blew her hair backwards from her face - but if the leaves were whispering something important, all it sounded like was the brush of branch against branch as a leaf touched down on her cheek.
“You just haven’t found yours yet. Mama says it takes longer for some than for others.” She rested her chin on her hands, elbows on the table. “But you Winchesters are stubborn.”
“What about you?”
Alice sighed, the left corner of her mouth quirking up as she met Sam’s eyes; muscles burning as she lifted her feet off the ground. “I’ll probably stumble across it when a bee stings my ass and I fall down trying to swat at it.” She bumped her hip into his and Sam was laughing as he bumped her back.
That laugh reached Sam’s eyes when an ice cream cone appeared right in front of his face, heaping over with chocolate chips already melting in the sunshine. Alice stood up and shaded her eyes with one hand, smiling up at Dean when he handed her an ice cream cone covered with so many sprinkles that it looked like the cone was full of them.
Dean had a cone of his own, plain white vanilla piled on top of itself, and he stared right at her as he licked slow across the curve with the same hooded eyes that watched Alice from between her thighs and she shivered, sprinkles peppering her own tongue when she stared right back. She reached up and brushed her thumb against the corner of his mouth, twirling the pad between her lips as she sucked vanilla beans and sugar off of her skin with a moist pop.
“Get a room,” Sam muttered.
“Making girls squirm is half the fun, Sammy.” Dean chuckled, rolling his eyes when Sam shot Dean a dark look over the top of his ice cream cone. “And it’s even more fun when girls fight back.” He punched Sam lightly on the arm. “You should be taking notes. I’m not always gonna be around to teach you stuff like this.”
A hot flush started creeping up Alice’s neck that had nothing to do with the sun, returning the grin Dean flashed her with the ghost of a smile and hoping that he didn’t see the lie; hoping that he couldn’t see the sliver of ice jagging its way up her spine like it always did when the truth stopped hiding, slithering its way past the calliope on the carousel and the children laughing around them wherever she looked. That path of his only ended one way, with blood and shouts as sharp as any soldier’s in the middle of a war, and there was no use wishing the world would start spinning backwards just to change it - not when everyone’s road ended with the shine falling from their eyes.
Alice looked up at the sky and took a breath. The time was coming soon enough when they’d pick their way through all the blankets on the field behind the high school, looking for her mama and their papa and the big basket of food Mama would have brought from the farm, but the sun hadn’t set yet.
And there was another truth standing in front of her, both of them devouring ice cream cones while she watched.
“You know what’s funny?” She swallowed, pushing down the ache when they looked at her. “Barbara Jean’s been making me come to this stupid thing since I was ten and not once has anyone tried to win me a stuffed animal.” Alice cocked her head, her cheeks hurting from smiling too hard. “I bet the two of you could clean the clocks out of that shooting booth.”
“Bet we can.” Dean glanced slyly at Sam. “And I’m betting I can clean Sam’s clock.”
“You’re so going down!” Sam was grinning so wide it was like watching him win The Game of Life all over again. “When you lose, I’m gonna make you do all of the laundry for a month.”
“When I beat you, you’re gonna clean all the weapons covered in goo for a year,” Dean retorted. “But first we’re taking Alice on the Tilt-a-Whirl and then I was thinking we could hit the Fun House. Stop and say ‘hi’ to the clowns.”
“Bite me,” Sam shot back.
They were already walking down the path between food stalls, arguing about how little Sammy Winchester was afraid of clowns and how Dean Winchester was going down because he was an asshole; waving around their ice cream cones and upping the ante on bets while the good folks of Shelton stared at their backs as the Winchesters passed by. Giving them as wide a berth as the kids at school used to give her on the playground when Alice patted trees or squatted down to stare at a bug.
She had to run after them just to catch up.
By the time they collapsed on Mama’s blanket, Alice was carrying the two biggest stuffed animals from Sharpshooter Bill’s and her sides ached from laughing, her throat scratchy from all the screaming whenever a ride had her upside-down and her curls were wild from catching every sun-soaked breeze. Even sitting there sprawled on a bear and an elephant, her head was spinning topsy turvy and she finally kicked off her sandals and wriggled her toes. Alice scooted over just enough for Mama’s arm to come around her shoulders, both of them watching John Winchester smile when his boys started playing Rock, Paper, Scissors.
Alice started laughing all over again when Dean tried to get Sam to go two out of three because there was no way in hell he was cleaning bloodstains out of jack thanks to a shooting game being rigged. Dean was still coming up with all the reasons why Sam hadn’t won fair and square when Mama started passing out meatball sandwiches, shooting out another theory between bites and spraying tomato sauce, and he didn’t stop until sparklers started lighting up all around them.
Mama leaned against John as the high school marching band began lurching its way through “America the Beautiful” but Alice pushed back the stuffed animals so that she could lay on the blanket with Sam plopped down on one side and Dean stretched out on the other.
The first round of fireworks burst into the dark, drowning out the music, and Alice slid her hands out until they bumped into wrists and arms. Sam twitched and Dean sucked in a ragged breath but nothing was keeping Alice from curling her fingers through theirs and pulling their hands in close to her hips; never letting go while she stared up at the sky.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Alice woke up to chirping birds and a shaft of sunlight refracting off the glass of her bedroom window, eyes fluttering open to the slow rhythm of Dean breathing steady.
The sheets were tangled around their feet, pushed down to the edge of the bed along with Alice’s comforter. She was curled on her side, sweat-slick where skin met skin; moisture pooling in the cracks between her elbows and knees. But Dean was sprawled next to her on his back, one arm flung across her shoulder. His mouth relaxed into a smile when she brushed the scatter of freckles across one cheek with her thumb, sweeter than any smile Dean would conjure after his eyes opened, and Alice leaned forward to kiss the corner of it.
There were freckles splashed all over his chest, enough to make her turn around and map a feather-light trail down to his belly; freckles splashed all over his abdomen, hiding themselves inside the crease where his hip met his thigh and winding their way underneath the thatch of hair between his legs. Alice took in the scent, all salty sweat and warm musk as hot as her breath when she took his cock into her mouth, swirling her tongue around the head until Dean’s hips shuddered and a groan broke through the birds trilling outside.
Fingers dug into her hip with a rough ‘c’mere’ that burned until she was lowering herself down over his mouth and his hands were on her ass, her legs going wide with an ‘ah’ when his tongue dipped between warm folds. It flickered across her clit, playing hide and seek in counterpoint to the scratch of hair on the inside of her thighs and the bob of her head as Alice moaned around him. She sucked hard and she sucked soft, hand at the base of his cock, and Dean scratched up her back with another groan when a pulse pounded against her lips; a liquid warmth filling her mouth before he grabbed her thighs and pinned her against those lips of his and it was all she could do to bunch her fists in the sheet underneath him.
She kissed his hipbone, turning around when she stopped trembling and Dean finally let go, and sank down next to him. Alice wrapped her arms around him and rested her head in the crook of his neck; hooking one leg over his while she drew circles on his chest - watching the rise and fall until she heard the call of the wind chimes.
“Morning,” Alice said softly, raising herself up on an elbow.
“Damn. I could get used to you being my alarm clock.” Dean grinned at her, touching her collarbone gently; like she was a bubble ready to burst if he breathed on her the wrong way. “You sure as hell know how to wake up a man.”
“And you really know how to sweet talk a girl.” Alice snorted, tracing the thin scar on his cheek before bringing her mouth down to his; opening up to him with a sigh when his tongue darted inside, drinking in the taste of them both as her hair fell around them. “Jackass,” she murmured against his lips, feeling the curve of another smile. “You’re just lucky I’m still letting you kiss me - ‘cause if you’d called me a cuckoo clock, I’d be rolling you onto the floor.”
“Anyone ever tell you that you’re one crazy chick?”
Whatever she was going to say got lost in her rumbling belly, the noise echoing through her bedroom loud enough to make Dean laugh. All that she managed afterwards was a squeak, collapsing on top of Dean and staying there until Mama called ‘breakfast’ from down the hall. Dean kept right on laughing when they both scrambled to sit up, catching arms and legs on each other before untangling enough to get dressed, and he beat her to the bathroom.
Alice was still standing outside waiting to get in when Dean’s papa poked his head into the hall from the stairwell, her cheeks going red when she realized that she was wearing Dean’s t-shirt instead of her own nightgown.
It was worse during breakfast, when Alice would catch John watching her every time she passed the platter of bacon to Sam or pushed a jar of blackberry preserves in Mama’s direction; speculative stares with narrowed eyes and a bend to his mouth, his shoulders hitching up every time he took a breath and something washed across his face that kept his mouth shut. That didn’t keep him from frowning at Alice when she finally met his gaze, a look overflowing with the dust rising up from the Impala’s tires as it drove away.
The look made her feel like she was eight years old all over again, wearing her best dress and a pair of shiny black shoes with her hair wrestled into two thick braids; sitting alone on the top of the porch steps until John Winchester saw her, the stiff frown on his face turning into a smile when he knelt down to look her square in the eyes. Alice threw her arms around his neck when John started telling her how brave Papa was in a voice as soft as it was rough, how Papa was gone because he spent his life saving good people and how much her papa loved his red haired girls. Always carrying a picture of her and Mama both that Papa would show to anyone who asked - and even some who didn’t.
But there was something John had never said, a secret hidden behind the way his arms tightened around Alice’s shoulders. A secret that took ten years to untangle, busting out into the open when Dean stopped calling Sam a cheater long enough to ask Mama if he could set up a shooting range in the pasture where Alice practiced her bow. She saw it in the way John’s fingers twisted the wedding ring he still wore, in the way his jaw clenched when Mama surprised all of them by returning Dean’s grin and saying ‘yes’ so long as they used tin cans and Papa’s old BB guns and the fence posts leaning on the wall outside of the shed.
Every weather vane needed a place to turn from.
The wind chimes started ringing outside and Alice held her breath, watching John’s hand twitch next to his coffee cup and waiting for him to tell his boys to pack up but he just shook his head with a gruff laugh and told them to say ‘thank you’ while their chairs dragged away from the table. Dean was already telling Sam where they were setting up the posts as they dumped their dishes into the sink, their boots thumping across the floor until their voices were nothing more than a murmur from the back porch.
Alice was halfway to the back porch herself when she stopped and turned around, throwing her arms around John Winchester’s neck and whispering her own ‘thank you’ against a scruffy cheek.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Mama had given away every weapon Papa had used to hunt, the silver knives he had blessed every month by a priest out in Westerly and the guns he used to clean out on the back porch while he sang along with the radio, but she kept Papa’s BB guns in an old trunk out in the shed.
Sam helped Alice drag it out from behind the bags of chicken feed while Dean was moving the last of the fence posts, both of them coughing from the dust it raised, and she grabbed two of the work cloths hanging on the wall to wipe as much as she could away. Even the metal corners and the hasps were covered in dust, collected in the cracks for ten years after it had been pushed into the corner of the shed a month after Papa’s funeral. Alice slid the rag along the top until she could see her papa’s name written out in stenciled letters, the ‘Jacob Tompkins’ imprinted into the dog tags Alice kept upstairs in her sandalwood box.
“How come you don’t use your dad’s last name?”
“There’s power in names, even one as humble as ours.” Alice brushed her cheek with the back of her hand, smiling at Sam when he started cleaning off the hasps. “Meeks women have been living and dying on this land before the first crop was planted and only the last Meeks woman will know when it’s time for us to leave.”
“So I’m kinda screwed being named after a rifle.”
The way Sam said it made Alice’s fingers twitch, her laugh scratching up her throat like she was choking on a cloud of ash because the last thing Samuel Winchester should have been worrying about was his last name - not with that half-shadow crossing his face when he looked at her. And Alice figured she was lucky when the rag dropped from her hand, hiding the blood draining from her cheeks when she bent over to pick it up. Her fingers flexed around the rag just as Dean’s sharp whistle drifted in through the open window.
The hardest answers to give were the ones for questions that had never been asked.
“Only if you think you are.” Alice watched Sam’s jaw work, his hand bunched around the scrap of orange cloth he was rubbing on the top of the trunk. “Mama says that we make our names as much as they make us.” She swallowed, her mouth quirking up at Sam when their eyes met, and she heard the creak of the hinge as the door opened. “There’s one thing I know for certain about Winchesters besides the fact that you’re a bunch of jackasses.”
“And what’s that, Sweet Pea?” Dean sauntered towards them across the hard-packed dirt floor. He sat down next to Alice, bumping her knee and raising his eyebrow like a dare while he grinned at her.
“That you’re the best men I know,” she said softly. It was Sam’s turn to drop his rag and Dean started scratching underneath his left ear, staring at the wall past Sam’s shaggy head. Alice hooked her thumbs underneath each hasp, flipping them open into the silence. “I sure as hell wouldn’t be letting you root through my papa’s trunk looking for some BB guns if you weren’t.” And she wouldn’t have spent months working on leather with Running Bear or polishing all that crap for Reid Alred three towns over if those boys of John Winchester’s weren’t worth the cuts and the sore hands. “It’s not like I get presents for every yoo-hoo who passes through Mama’s store.”
The stale air inside the trunk spilled into the shed with a dusty hiss, escaping through the crack between the lid and the base. Alice was pulling the metal loop off of the second hasp when Dean touched her arm.
“We, uh…” His voice trailed off when their eyes met. “We got you something.”
“Dad said we’d be here close enough to your birthday for it to count,” Sam added. He leaned over and poked Dean in the arm. “Only we were gonna get a cake before we told you.”
“You…” Alice’s stomach ached, watching the way their faces lit up when they both started laughing. They were always getting blown somewhere, another life saved with every new leaf turning over, and that was the important thing - the big thing that outweighed the weeks between postcards and the months of not seeing them smile. But they had remembered her birthday. She swallowed. “You didn’t have to.”
“You’re always sending us stuff in those packages your mom mails to Bobby.” Dean shrugged, slipping an arm across her shoulders. “And Sam’s been busting a gut for a week trying to figure out how to give them to you.” He was smirking at her when she tilted her head up. “Apparently, there was gonna be cake. But I was really hoping for a big ass clown that would make us balloon animals.”
“Screw you, Dean!” Sam picked up his rag and flicked it towards Dean’s chest.
She hitched up and kissed Dean’s smile. “Let’s do it now.” Alice scrambled to her feet, stretching her arms up over her head. “You go get your presents and I’ll go get mine and then we’ll meet up on the porch.”
Sam was already out the door when Dean stopped in his tracks, looking back at her over his shoulder. Dean’s eyes were soft, as soft as they had been on the night she snuck into his bed and kissed the butterfly bandages holding his cheek together, and the rolling dust that had been collecting there since he was four was all that much easier to see when it wasn't hiding behind a grin. But it surprised her when Dean stopped Alice at the threshold, planting a kiss of his own on her mouth before jamming his hands in his pockets and turning on his heel.
One day those eyes would be as hard as his papa’s, nothing left but hard little stones when the weather vane started to turn, and it didn’t matter how many ribbons Alice Meeks tied onto her oak tree or how many charms she wrapped around the stack of Dean Winchester’s postcards.
It hurt to breathe, her mouth moving like she was a fish thrown up onto a bank; wiggling on her side in the mud and wishing for something to cool her lungs. The ache in her chest got stronger when his shoulders slumped and Dean started whistling that goddamn Kansas song.
Songs lied as much as they told the truth.
Alice followed him, a buzz rising through her feet until she caught up with Dean; walking so close to him that their arms touched. He stopped whistling when they reached the porch, chuckling at the slap of bare skin against wood when Alice tripped up the steps, and headed around the side of the house towards Sam’s voice hollering his name. She laughed herself, shaking her head and strolling into the kitchen where their parents were huddled over books; muted voices full of urgency and the heavy scratch of John Winchester’s pen against paper as he copied something into his leather-bound journal.
She slipped past them into the foyer and up to her room, her skirt swirling around her knees as Alice closed the door; smiling when a crack in Sam’s voice wafted into her bedroom through the crack in her curtains.
But her goddamn fingers were trembling as they caught the corners of her sandalwood box. Alice swallowed and plucked out the two small velvet bags she had kept in there since April, along with a bear fetish; the shaggy ruff along its back curling like Sam’s hair around his ears. She slammed the lid closed and shoved the box back under her bed before she could touch the red candle, the same glistening color it had been since that woman had run the tip of her index finger along its length; before she began untangling the cords she bound it with and feeling the shock it sent up through her arm, smelling the rot the woman’s scent had left behind on everything she touched.
Alice’s fingers were still trembling when she pulled the leather bracelet out of its bag, hooking the fetish onto it and wrapping the small leather ties Running Bear had made around the clasp.
And her breath stopped coming out as a wheeze by the time she slipped the bracelet back into its blue bag.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The creak of the porch swing greeted her when Alice opened the back door. Sam was sitting on it, his long legs stretched out in front of him while the swing moved back and forth.
He clutched something rectangular that could only be a book in his arms, holding it close to his chest, and stared at the misshapen bundle of newspaper near Dean’s right foot like it was going to burst on fire. Dean’s left foot was braced against the clapboard wall, his hands still in his pockets.
Sam solemnly handed her his present. It was wrapped in brightly colored paper, complete with ribbons and a bow. Every edge was perfectly squared and all she had to do was lift the tape on one side and slide the book out into her hand. The cover was rough to the touch, worked leather with embossed letters reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland across the front, and there were pressed flowers in the yellowed pages; sacrificing the ghost of their perfume when Alice touched them, blue violets and white lilacs scattering through the soft breeze into the song of Mama’s wind chimes.
“Do you like it?” Sam asked softly. “I didn’t see it in your bookcase.”
“No one’s bought me a book for that case since Papa died.” She closed the book, brushing her fingers against the words, and traced the letters of her name before Alice leaned down and kissed Sam’s forehead. Nothing kept the pang from stabbing deep in her belly when Sam jerked, even with his face scrunched up like he knew it was coming, and she slipped the blue velvet bag into his hand before she stood up. “And this is for you.”
“Thanks,” Sam stammered, his thin fingers tugging on the drawstring. His face broke out into a grin when he saw the bracelet, slipping it onto his wrist. The fetish hung near the knob of bone on his wrist and the braid was looser than she hoped it would be - but the way Sam was growing, there wasn’t a reason to tighten the leather.
Alice blinked, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, and looked up at Dean. She held out the green bag without saying a word, watching his eyebrow quirk up as he took it, and she stared down at her feet when he started opening it; wriggling her toes and wishing her goddamn cheeks would stop burning. Giving the damn thing to him was dumber than getting sweet talked into a kissing booth on the Fourth of July, let alone doing it in front of Sam; his eyes flickering between the two of them.
Only an idiot would give a boy a ring, even a silver one with four runes inscribed on the inside.
Dean sucked in a breath, letting it out with a bark of a cough that could make a throat hurt just by hearing it. He was squinting at the inscriptions on the inside of the ring when Alice got up the guts to stop gawking at her toes, holding it between a finger and his thumb.
“Uruz, huh?” Dean let out a low whistle. “You worried I’m not gonna put out or something?”
“It figures you’d recognize that one,” she retorted, her lips curving into a smile all the same because Dean was sliding the silver band onto the ring finger of his right hand.
But Alice was the one feeling the spark between her thighs; an itch creeping through her when Dean twisted the ring just like his Papa did, his eyes as soft as they had been in the shed. All she wanted to do was push him up against the clapboard wall and pop open the buttons on his jeans, sliding her hand past the elastic of his underwear and see how long it would take before Dean hiked up her dress; before he picked her up and slammed his mouth down on top of hers, both of them moaning as her arms came around his neck.
And doing nothing but standing there watching him made the itching worse.
She set her book on the swing next to Sam, laying it out on top of the wrapping paper, and picked up the raggedly bundle sitting near Dean’s foot. The only thing keeping the newspaper in place was the weight of the basket it was tucked underneath, three crumpling sheets snatched by another breeze singing through the wind chimes. Sam grabbed the paper before it blew away and Alice’s mouth twitched when she wrapped her hand around the handle of the basket. There was a jumble of color inside, different soaps and lotions and shampoos stamped with the logos of cheap motels, and a loofah sponge that had seen better days.
“It’s…” Alice blinked.
Sam snorted. “A bunch of stuff Dean stole.”
“Couldn’t afford a fancy gift basket from one of those body wash stores,” Dean said lightly. His mouth quirked up at her when their eyes met. “But I know how much you love taking those baths of yours, Sweet Pea. So I made you one.”
“Thank you,” she managed, rustling through the bottles and bars of soap. The basket was heavier than it should have been, even full of all those things Dean must have been stockpiling for months, and her fingers brushed against fabric; something solid that she could curl her fingers around, a handle wrapped in silk and what felt like a braided cord. Alice’s eyes widened, glancing at Dean. He was staring right at her when she kicked his boot with her toe. “You wanna help me bring my stuff up to my room?”
“You need help carrying a book and a basket?” But Dean tugged the basket out of her hand and kicked himself off the wall, heading towards the back door. He grinned at Sam over his shoulder. “Don’t sit around waiting, Sammy. She gave me a ring with a sex rune.”
“You’re gonna need it after giving her a basket full of crap,” Sam shot back.
Alice giggled, picking up the book and the wrapping paper, and Sam didn’t even jerk when her lips touched his forehead a second time. “I love the book, Sam,” she murmured. She held it tight in her arms, catching another whisper of lilacs and violets, and turned on her heel to follow Dean into the house.
He was the one who closed the door to her bedroom, pushing Alice into her bookcase before she could say a word. The basket snagged on her dress and the edge of the book pressed hard into her belly and his tongue was sliding into her mouth like it didn’t belong anywhere else, a hand tangled into her hair so she couldn’t pull away until he was good and ready to let her go, until she was breathing ‘Dean’ against his thumb, brushed across her lower lip swollen with the taste of him - all sweat and sunshine.
“You sure know how to set a girl to tingling,” Alice said softly.
Dean chuckled and let go of her hair, licking his thumb and pushing it down on her forehead. “That’s ‘cause I’ve got special skills.”
He smiled, leaning in close to her ear. He swung the basket backwards as the hairs on her neck began to prickle but whatever he had wrapped up in that smirk of his was swallowed whole by a jagged tear when the snag ripped a line down the front of her dress.
Alice snorted, resting her forehead on his chest.
“Shit!”
“Whatever you’re hiding underneath all that stolen shampoo better be good ‘cause your special skills just ruined my favorite dress.” She tilted her head up, standing on the tips of her toes to kiss his cheek. Alice leaned down and picked up the basket, putting the book on the shelf before sliding up onto her bed. “You gonna stand there all day just watching me?” She kicked her legs while she waited, the right one showing bare skin to her hip. “Can’t rightly thank you if you’re all the way over there,” she added.
“You’re the one who gave me a sex ring.” Dean stretched out next to her on the bed, grinning as he slid one hand up her leg. He snapped the elastic on her underpants, right where her hip met her thigh. “Don’t go complaining just ‘cause I started ripping your clothes off.”
There was nothing to do but return his grin, dragging the basket onto the bed and setting it down between them before she finished what he started - before she threw her dress onto the floor and tugged his t-shirt out of his jeans and sprawled across his thighs, bruising his lips with hers before following the roadmap of his freckles with her fingers and her tongue.
Alice sucked in a breath, diving through the soaps and the shampoos until her fingers touched fabric, and she picked up the cord-wrapped bundle by the handle. She pushed the basket to the side, plucking the knots out of the cord with trembling fingers. But her breath came out with a huff when she gently opened the white silk and saw the knife sitting there in the soft folds, a carved bone handle wrapped in oak leaves and acorns - and a turned-steel blade etched with ogham that would have made Reid Alred smile.
A woman’s hum danced at the back of her skull when Alice touched the hilt, a small tap on her forehead while she traced the ridges of an oak leaf with the tip of a finger; a hum as soft as Mama’s when the sun was shining and they were working in the garden and even Alice could feel the pulse down deep, the earth thick and dark between her fingers.
The hilt fit into Alice’s hand like the knife had been made just for her, the blade flowing through the space between the both of them when she twisted her wrist to measure its weight. She touched the knife’s point to her finger, testing the sharp edge as one drop of blood pooled across the whorls; one small sting marking it as her own.
“Jesus Christ, Alice,” Dean hissed. “Be careful with that thing.”
“I am being careful.” Alice set the knife back down onto the silk, sucking on her finger. “Where’d you find a knife so pretty?”
“One of my Dad’s friends picked it up on a job. Said it belonged to a good woman and I figured...” Dean shrugged his shoulders as his voice trailed off, scratching at his neck. “I figured I could teach you how to use it.” His face broke out into a grin. “If you ask me nice enough, I might even throw in some hand-to-hand.”
“Now you’re just coming up with excuses to grope me.” Alice tapped his shin with her foot. That low chuckle of his wasn’t a denial. “And what makes you think I don’t already know how to use it?”
“For starters? You were waving around eight inches of Damascus steel like it was a butter knife,” Dean shot back. “And it’s not like you can use a freaking longbow in your mom’s store.” His eyes darkened, watching her wrap the knife back into its silk; her fingers twisting the cord into a new pattern of knots before she tucked it into the basket. “What if that chick comes back when you’re alone?”
Her stomach turned all on its own.
And the shine staring at her when Dean asked the question was full of a wildcat’s cry, the call to a path that wasn’t hers to follow no matter how many nights she wished it was. The schooling she needed had nothing to do with the lessons a Winchester could teach, how to slash and how to stab and how to hold a knife while you were gutting the cat coming after your baby brother. There wasn’t enough Tompkins’ blood running in her veins for it to stick.
“I don’t know,” she replied, moving the basket out of the way. Alice straddled his thighs, cradling Dean’s face in her hands. “But that knife’s not made for killing.”
“I’m still teaching you how to use something,” Dean said, a storm cloud clamping his fingers tight around her upper arms. “Even if it’s a goddamn steak knife.”
That look of his was the real gift, so full of devotion that her throat swelled when his voice cracked. It was the look that made him press one hand to his bleeding belly and roar out a challenge to the night sky while fur and teeth charged from the side; the same look that kicked down a wooden door, yelling his defiance into a face of darkness that slithered through the world in the shape of a woman. And it was the look that his calling would stamp on his face when the last howl brought him down.
“And you don’t believe Winchesters are the best men I know,” Alice whispered.
She brought her mouth down to Dean’s, sighing when his hands spread open the tear to stroke her thighs. The silver ring was cool, a spray of goose bumps blossoming underneath it when it touched down on bare skin. What was left of Alice’s dress got stuck on her shoulders, both of their fingers curled tight around the fabric when a sharp rap on her bedroom door and his papa’s grumbling voice called them down to lunch.
Alice finished tugging the dress off and threw it onto the floor, smiling into the curve of Dean's neck when he tangled his fingers into her hair.
A/N:
The title of this chapter is a song lyric from "Mayfly" by Jeffrey Foucault.
I made the decision to use Nordic runes as the inscriptions inside of Dean’s silver ring. I felt that the cultural associations were interesting and selected the following runes for specific purposes:
- Eihwaz: Strength, reliability, dependability, trustworthiness. Enlightenment, endurance. Defense, protection. The driving force to acquire, providing motivation and a sense of purpose. Indicates that you have set your sights on a reasonable target and can achieve your goals. An honest man who can be relied upon.
- Algiz: Protection, a shield. The protective urge to shelter oneself or others. Defense, warding off of evil, shield, guardian. Connection with the gods, awakening, higher life. It can be used to channel energies appropriately. Follow your instincts. Keep hold of success or maintain a position won or earned.
- Uruz: Physical strength and speed, untamed potential. A time of great energy and health. Freedom, energy, action, courage, strength, tenacity, understanding, wisdom. Sudden or unexpected changes (usually for the better). Sexual desire, masculine potency. The shaping of power and pattern, formulation of the self.
- Ingwaz: Male fertility, gestation, internal growth. Common virtues, common sense, simple strengths, family love, caring, human warmth, the home. Rest stage, a time of relief, of no anxiety. A time when all loose strings are tied and you are free to move in a new direction. Listen to yourself.
In many Native American mythologies, every person is guided by nine totem animals. I felt that “Bear” has always been a good totem for Sam: Industrious, instinctive, healing, power, sovereignty, guardian of the world, watcher, courage, will power, self-preservation, introspection, and great strength.