Five Times Sam Had His Hair Pulled Back (R, Sam/Dean)
Title: Five times Sam had his hair pulled back
Author: girlguidejones
Rating/Pairing: R | Sam/Dean | 3000 words | Teensy, AU-ish reference to 3.11
Notes: Months ago, plutogirl10 said she wanted: ”To see Sam with his hair pulled back in a ponytail, tied with a piece of leather, holding a knife between his teeth and being all lethal and feral. Edged in steel." I know she’s on hiatus ATM, but will hopefully be back soon. Thanks to brynwulf and essenceofmeanin for telling me stuff that didn’t work. I listened, but they haven’t seen it since, so any remaining errors are all on me.
By a girl...
Hoo boy. This...this was a problem. Good thing Dad was gone until Monday.
“Who’s this, Sammy?” A tiny blonde girl with huge brown eyes smiled up at Dean from the cracked concrete behind their apartment. She was surrounded by a pile of pink and purple ribbons.
“My name’s Shelley!” she piped up, and piped really was the right word. Her little voice was high and clear. “I’m four!” Dean thought she sounded like a princess from some Disney cartoon.
“Short for Michelle,” his almost-five-year-old brother whispered helpfully, and nodded. Which was a mistake because it made the various bows and ribbons tied in his curls start to bounce. Dad really needed to get Sammy’s hair cut.
“Well now. Um, that’s real nice. Shelley.” Dean smiled, and tried to make it feel different than the one he gave to his teacher or the man in the gas station. He wasn’t sure he knew how to smile at a little kid that wasn’t Sammy. Especially a girl. With bows. “What are you two playing?”
“Dolls are gone,” Sammy said, matter-of-factly. Oh, sure. That explained everything. Meanwhile, Shelley clipped a sparkly butterfly in one of the few remaining undecorated parts of Sammy’s head.
“My Daddy left us, and now momma says we hafta go far away too.” Shelley was now very concerned with the bow tied near Sammy’s left ear. Sammy seemed not so concerned at all. He just sat there arranging the ribbons by color and sorting the clip thingies by what looked to be the amount of sparkle they gave off. Very disturbing. “She put Mandy and Kelly and Julie and Sally inna box an’ taped it alllll shut!” Dean tried not to think about how Sammy’s name sounded like he was already part of her entire doll family. Shelley was clearly disappointed in this tactical error, and looked up at Dean, waiting for him to agree that her mother’s moving plan was seriously flawed.
“Wow. That suc- uh, that’s too bad,” Dean said. Dad always says you really have to think a plan through to the end. Obviously Shelley’s mom needed some help with that, because her little girl was stuck putting glitter-bows in the next-door-neighbor boy’s hair. Dean wondered what in the world Shelly was going to do in the car. If there was one thing Dean knew, it was that you’d better have a plan to keep a little kid happy during a long car ride. He felt sorry for Shelley’s mom already. “It’s almost time for supper, Sammy. You...uh...better give the bows back to Shelley.” This produced twin howls of protest, and Dean was a little freaked that he couldn’t immediately separate the tone of his little brother’s voice from that of Princess Shelley.
“Hi Momma!”
“Shelley! There you are! I was worried sick!” Dean whirled around, face-to-face with the Bad Planner. He gave her his best I-was-raised-right smile.
“Uh...hi. Are you Shelley’s mom? I was just bringing my brother in for dinner.” Dean’s fingers tugged at Sammy’s hair, pulling out bows and unsnapping clips while he protested and pushed at Dean’s hands, snuffling. Sighing like she was expecting this, Shelley moved over and started helping untie knots.
“Thank you for watching her, ___?” She did that pause thing that adults did when they wanted you to say your name. He normally wouldn’t cave so easily on that one, but she didn’t look nosy or suspicious or like a PTO lady. She just looked sad. Besides, if they were leaving tomorrow he didn’t suppose it mattered much.
“Dean. This here’s Sammy.” Shelley would probably babble it all to her mom the minute they got back to their place anyway. No point in being careful now. Hand firmly on Sammy’s jaw, Dean turned his head from side to side, looking for stray ribbons. He wasn’t worried about the clips. As sparkly as they were, he didn’t think he could miss them. “I think that’s all of ‘em.” He tried not to sound too relieved.
“Say thank you, Shelley,” her mom chided. Dean thought she looked tired, and maybe even scared. He’d seen that look before.
“Tank you, DeenanSammy.” Shelley looked kinda sad too, but she smiled and Sammy smiled back and waved like a dork when her mom started to turn Shelley around to leave. Dean felt bad for Shelley. He knew what it was like when you’re just a kid and one of your parents disappears forever.
“Hang on a sec, Ma’am?” Dean gave Sam the stay-here look and ducked into the apartment, scrabbling under his bed. He brushed at the dust bunnies that were sticking to him when he stepped back outside.
“What’s this?” Shelley’s mom sounded surprised when Dean handed her little girl a stuffed Ninja turtle. She might be able to use the ribbons on it, but it didn’t really have hair, so Dean wasn’t sure it would keep Shelley occupied for that long. But starting a long road trip without anything for Shelley to play with was a total rookie move. A turtle had to be better than nothing. Besides, if Dean pinched Sammy really hard the next time they were in the Goodwill, he’d definitely cry loud enough to distract the little old lady who ran it. Then Dean could get himself another one, easy.
“Tanks, Deen!” Shelley gave him a big hug before Dean could get away, which was almost as bad as her mom smiling and patting him on the head. She looked a little bit like she might cry. Dean was ready to steer Sammy in the house when Shelley came running back, her little shiny shoes smacking on the concrete. She grabbed Sammy’s hand, and then Dean’s, shoving something into their fingers, and then ran back to her mom talking about her new doll.
Dean hoped she gave Michelangelo a name that didn’t end with a -y.
Sammy squealed with delight at the glittery butterfly, stumbling through the door with both hands tangled above his right ear, trying to get it back in his hair. Dean had a pink ribbon.
Oh well. There was probably something in their kits that needed tying back together.
By John...
“Jesus Christ, Dean. Get his goddamn hair out of the way!”
“Tryin’, Dad.” Dean only had one good hand to work with himself, and it was slippery with Sam’s blood. The howler had twisted Dean’s other wrist just before its claws had raked Sam’s forehead all the way to the skull bone. Dean had spent the ride back to the motel in the backseat, Sam’s head on his lap while Dean pressed the flaps of skin together with his fingers.
“To hell with it. Give me the Bowie.” Dean saw Sam’s eyes pop open at Dad’s mention of the knife, immediately blinking back blood that still flowed from the gashes on his forehead.
“Dean! No! F-Friday. Please!” Sam’s tone was reedy and desperate. Friday was the school carnival, and his little brother had a date with a girl that in Dean’s opinion was really way too hot for him. If he showed up with his hair chopped off in front? Well, safe to say Dean wouldn’t be catching him in the back seat of the Impala with her. Again.
“Dad. Wait.” Dean reached for the roll of gauze with his good hand, jiggling one end of it free and looking up at Dad with pleading eyes. He huffed, but took the roll from Dean with a quirk of his lips. Dean switched to holding back Sam’s sticky curls while Dad made a couple quick circles around Sam’s head to strap down the crazy shock of hair that at least one ninth-grade girl musta thought was cute.
“Friday, huh?” Dad grinned at Dean, and Sam’s eyelids twitched, but he didn’t open them again. His fingers dug into Dean’s thigh, though, so Dean knew he’d heard.
“Yeah, Sammy’s got a date.” Being hurt didn’t exempt a little brother from a having to take some shit from him. It wasn’t like Sammy was dying or anything.
“Dean!” Sam shifted, and his eyelids twitched again a couple times before Dean realized his lashes were glued shut with crusted blood.
“Easy, dude, easy...lemme get it for you...” There was an empty Cool-whip bowl filled with warm water on the nightstand, and Dean dipped a cotton pad into it and pressed gently it to Sam’s left eye, softening the clumped lashes.
“Guess I oughta make sure he looks pretty, then, huh?” Dad said, and Sammy snorted but said nothing. Dean watched curiously while Dad pulled the heavy black suture thread out of the needle, reaching into the nearby laundry duffle and coming up with the other sewing kit. Dean watched his Dad’s big hands fumble the miniature spools until he grasped the skin-colored one. Like the crayon labeled “flesh” in the 64-pack, it was mere filler, an untouched virgin destined to obscurity unless each of its companions got used up first. Dad dunked it into the smaller dish of alcohol that sat beside the one Dean had used to clean up Sammy’s face. It was thinner, and would take double the stitches, but at least it wouldn’t make Sam look like the Son of Frankenstein.
“Thanks Dad.” Dean beamed at his father, nodding. His chest felt tight and crowded.
“For what? What’re you doing, Dad? Dean?”
“Be still, Sammy.” Dean stroked his lame hand back over Sam’s restrained hair, switching the pink-soaked pad for a clean one and moving to Sam’s other eyelid. “It’s all good.”
By Sam...
“So. You wanna go all Crocket and Tubbs, I guess.”
“When in Rome...” Sam grinned, pulling a clean, pale blue t-shirt from his duffle. “Or Miami. Whatever.”
“Yeah, yeah. Easy for you to say. You wear loafers all the time anyway.” Dean watched Sam in the bathroom, slicking back his hair with Dean’s gel and sulfurous tap water. His huge torso took up the whole mirror. Freak.
“Dean, I can go by myself.” Right elbow akimbo at the back of his head, Sam half-turned toward Dean, reaching for the elastic resting on the chipped vanity. Dean stared; he had no idea how Sam planned to get those giant fingers through that tiny loop. Then again, they’d been somewhere smaller and tighter last night, and Sam’s slow grin said he suspected Dean was remembering it. “You can stay here and watch women’s jai alai on pay-per-view-“
“No way, dude.” Dean pushed in next to Sam, reaching for the cream and his razor to tailor his stubble from Lazy Shadow into Intentionally Scruffy. Sam honest-to-God preened for a minute, just to keep Dean from getting the whole mirror to himself. He finally side-stepped out of the way, ducking his Don Johnsoned, slicked-back head and huffing a warm breath against Dean’s ear as he skated past.
“Suit yourself,” Sam said. Dean turned, wincing as the dull blade took its due from a tiny raised scar under his jaw.
“Ha ha. Very funny.” He whiffed a dollop of mentholated cream up his nose trying not to laugh.
Sam finished pulling on the suit jacket he was holding, bright eyes shining at Dean.
By Dean...
“I will never not hate you for this.”
“You love me, Sammy,” Dean says, completely unconcerned at the prospect of a lifetime of Sam’s ire. “Always and forever. Probably even carved “Sammy ‘N Dean 4-evah” into a desk somewhere in...in...” Dean pauses, looking genuinely thoughtful. “Where were we when you were fifteen, again? You were especially sappy at that age.”
“Seriously, Dean. Hate. The white-hot kind, like the pokers that they use to torture people with in the movies.” It doesn’t seem to faze Dean in the slightest, and he keeps smoothing down the ripples in Sam’s skullcap, occasionally adding another dab of rubber cement around the edges. “And if you get that shit in my hair...”
“Relax, Samson. We can always cut it out.” Sam swears he can hear him smiling.
“The fuck we can, Delilah.” Sam shoots back. Dean snorts, but doesn’t reply, stepping backward and narrowing his eyes critically before reaching for the little flesh-colored pot of make-up. “Make-up too? Seriously? What are you, Hannibal Smith all of a sudden?” Dean merely starts humming the tune to the A-Team in response, blending the foundation into Sam’s now-hairless temples.
“Man, that was a great show,” he mutters.
“Why do I have to be the bald guy?” Sam’s pretty sure he sounds whiny, but, hell. “How can a six-and-a-half-foot bald guy blend in?”
“Not supposed to, Yul. We want you -and your tuxedo and charming smile- to draw attention. Then I can get into the control room.” Dean pauses, staring at Sam and rubbing his fingers together, absently smearing the remaining makeup on their pads. “Besides, it...uh, you...”
“I, what Dean? I’m kinda hot looking?” Sam knows that hitch in Dean’s voice, the one that tells him his brother’s thoughts are turning toward Sam and getting him naked. Sam stands, does his best loom over Dean, low voice deceptively soothing. “You’re gonna pay me back for this, aren’t you?”
“What? Shit. Whatever, Telly.” But Dean’s rubbing the back of his neck now, a sure sign that he’s off-balance. Triumph.
“Blow-job. Soon as this is over. You owe me.” Sam reaches out, palming the back of Dean’s full head of hair like a basketball, exuding every bit of power he can, controlled and smiling.
“Thinkin’ with your other bald head, Sammy?” Dean grins. His eyes are crinkling up at Sam and he’s licking those pretty, pretty lips. Sam can already see him on his knees later, can see himself dicking Dean’s mouth, smooth and spit-slick.
Maybe this job isn’t so bad after all.
By Fate...
When Dean woke up the first thing he noticed was the smell of dirt. Grave dirt, specifically. It was easy to tell it from other kinds of dirt. There was ball-diamond dirt, which always had a cleanish smell-taste. Maybe it soaked up the innocence from all the kids whose sweat and blood fell onto it. Dean had seen enough not to discount an idea like that out of hand. Then there was the dirt from a vegetable garden, which usually smelled faintly (or sometimes strongly, if you were unlucky and caught it on the wrong day) of manure.
Forest dirt had the smell of old. It was dirt that wasn’t dead yet. It was full of potential, like the life -the vitae Sammy would call it- of the earth was siphoned up and had seeped into it, like One-a-Days for trees. He remembered how the Ents drank their tree-drink, digging their knobby toes into rich soil made from their decayed ancestors. They did it knowing they’d rot there someday too, to feed and see to their brothers and their children. It was instinctive and ordinary, nothing to dread, or regret.
Dean knew just how they felt.
Grave dirt itself had the one of two scents; one was a stench, malevolent and urgent. The other was regretful, maybe even sad, but calm. He took a deep breath and filled his lungs with the scent of the second. (Thank god.) Sam would make fun of him if he knew Dean could describe the smell of dirt with emotions and motives. Whatever. Dirt could feel. Anybody who didn’t believe it just hadn’t met a mud-monster yet.
Dean looked up. He could see an almost-full moon against a square of sky that was...well, not black, but really, really dark blue. What color was that old SS? Deepwater. Yeah. It was Deepwater Blue. To his left and right things were black...pitch-colored dirt walls squared up on all four sides around him. It was then he realized he didn’t have to tilt his head to look up and see the sky, but had just opened his eyes. And looked straight ahead. All of which -combined with the smell he was smelling-- meant he was lying flat on his back in the bottom of an open grave.
That’s when Sam’s head silhouetted itself against the night sky. His eyes gleamed down at Dean, green-tinted-golden, and Sam’s lips were pulled back, baring the knife-blade clenched between his teeth. He had a big, sharp stake in one hand, and his hair was long and messy. Dean loved it instantly, wanted to tug on it and tangle his fingers in it, and figured he’d probably gone to his grave without ever saying so. It was tied back with something that dangled and swayed into the open air of the hole where Sam was leaning over it. The object at the end of Sam’s hair-cord turned and glinted, catching the moonlight. Dean’s throat clogged when he recognized his amulet.
Sam himself looked shadowy, and completely feral, not like his Sammy at all. Fear licked frosty-hot up Dean’s spine. That his brother probably tried something stupid was not surprising. He must have screwed up, and whoever held Dean’s contract these days had taken him in retaliation. He wanted to Christo Sam but the smell...the smell of his sweat mixing with the good-grave smell stopped him. Sam looked like a predator, with dirty arms sticking out Rambo-style from a t-shirt with its sleeves cut off. His eyes were glinty and primal and dangerous, but he smelled like little- boy Sammy who’d played too long and too hard and fell asleep before Dean could get him in the tub.
“Sammy?” Dean heaved upright, a little dizzy, his hands outstretched and fingers digging into dirt walls to steady himself. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been out, but it didn’t feel like it had been that long since they checked into the Broward hotel. He wanted to ask what happened. Why was he in a grave? How did Sam’s hair get so long, so fast? Instead he just stuttered, and started with something easy, just to get his bearings. “What...what day is it?”
Sam didn’t answer for a full minute, just staring down at Dean. The moon at his back blacked him out, and the gleam of his eyes was the only part of his face that Dean could make out. Sam shifted, but the long ponytail didn’t, greasy and stuck to a thick, sweaty shoulder with scars on it Dean didn’t recognize.
“Wednesday. I- I guess it must be Wednesday.”
Dean's Deepwater Blue
Author: girlguidejones
Rating/Pairing: R | Sam/Dean | 3000 words | Teensy, AU-ish reference to 3.11
Notes: Months ago, plutogirl10 said she wanted: ”To see Sam with his hair pulled back in a ponytail, tied with a piece of leather, holding a knife between his teeth and being all lethal and feral. Edged in steel." I know she’s on hiatus ATM, but will hopefully be back soon. Thanks to brynwulf and essenceofmeanin for telling me stuff that didn’t work. I listened, but they haven’t seen it since, so any remaining errors are all on me.
By a girl...
Hoo boy. This...this was a problem. Good thing Dad was gone until Monday.
“Who’s this, Sammy?” A tiny blonde girl with huge brown eyes smiled up at Dean from the cracked concrete behind their apartment. She was surrounded by a pile of pink and purple ribbons.
“My name’s Shelley!” she piped up, and piped really was the right word. Her little voice was high and clear. “I’m four!” Dean thought she sounded like a princess from some Disney cartoon.
“Short for Michelle,” his almost-five-year-old brother whispered helpfully, and nodded. Which was a mistake because it made the various bows and ribbons tied in his curls start to bounce. Dad really needed to get Sammy’s hair cut.
“Well now. Um, that’s real nice. Shelley.” Dean smiled, and tried to make it feel different than the one he gave to his teacher or the man in the gas station. He wasn’t sure he knew how to smile at a little kid that wasn’t Sammy. Especially a girl. With bows. “What are you two playing?”
“Dolls are gone,” Sammy said, matter-of-factly. Oh, sure. That explained everything. Meanwhile, Shelley clipped a sparkly butterfly in one of the few remaining undecorated parts of Sammy’s head.
“My Daddy left us, and now momma says we hafta go far away too.” Shelley was now very concerned with the bow tied near Sammy’s left ear. Sammy seemed not so concerned at all. He just sat there arranging the ribbons by color and sorting the clip thingies by what looked to be the amount of sparkle they gave off. Very disturbing. “She put Mandy and Kelly and Julie and Sally inna box an’ taped it alllll shut!” Dean tried not to think about how Sammy’s name sounded like he was already part of her entire doll family. Shelley was clearly disappointed in this tactical error, and looked up at Dean, waiting for him to agree that her mother’s moving plan was seriously flawed.
“Wow. That suc- uh, that’s too bad,” Dean said. Dad always says you really have to think a plan through to the end. Obviously Shelley’s mom needed some help with that, because her little girl was stuck putting glitter-bows in the next-door-neighbor boy’s hair. Dean wondered what in the world Shelly was going to do in the car. If there was one thing Dean knew, it was that you’d better have a plan to keep a little kid happy during a long car ride. He felt sorry for Shelley’s mom already. “It’s almost time for supper, Sammy. You...uh...better give the bows back to Shelley.” This produced twin howls of protest, and Dean was a little freaked that he couldn’t immediately separate the tone of his little brother’s voice from that of Princess Shelley.
“Hi Momma!”
“Shelley! There you are! I was worried sick!” Dean whirled around, face-to-face with the Bad Planner. He gave her his best I-was-raised-right smile.
“Uh...hi. Are you Shelley’s mom? I was just bringing my brother in for dinner.” Dean’s fingers tugged at Sammy’s hair, pulling out bows and unsnapping clips while he protested and pushed at Dean’s hands, snuffling. Sighing like she was expecting this, Shelley moved over and started helping untie knots.
“Thank you for watching her, ___?” She did that pause thing that adults did when they wanted you to say your name. He normally wouldn’t cave so easily on that one, but she didn’t look nosy or suspicious or like a PTO lady. She just looked sad. Besides, if they were leaving tomorrow he didn’t suppose it mattered much.
“Dean. This here’s Sammy.” Shelley would probably babble it all to her mom the minute they got back to their place anyway. No point in being careful now. Hand firmly on Sammy’s jaw, Dean turned his head from side to side, looking for stray ribbons. He wasn’t worried about the clips. As sparkly as they were, he didn’t think he could miss them. “I think that’s all of ‘em.” He tried not to sound too relieved.
“Say thank you, Shelley,” her mom chided. Dean thought she looked tired, and maybe even scared. He’d seen that look before.
“Tank you, DeenanSammy.” Shelley looked kinda sad too, but she smiled and Sammy smiled back and waved like a dork when her mom started to turn Shelley around to leave. Dean felt bad for Shelley. He knew what it was like when you’re just a kid and one of your parents disappears forever.
“Hang on a sec, Ma’am?” Dean gave Sam the stay-here look and ducked into the apartment, scrabbling under his bed. He brushed at the dust bunnies that were sticking to him when he stepped back outside.
“What’s this?” Shelley’s mom sounded surprised when Dean handed her little girl a stuffed Ninja turtle. She might be able to use the ribbons on it, but it didn’t really have hair, so Dean wasn’t sure it would keep Shelley occupied for that long. But starting a long road trip without anything for Shelley to play with was a total rookie move. A turtle had to be better than nothing. Besides, if Dean pinched Sammy really hard the next time they were in the Goodwill, he’d definitely cry loud enough to distract the little old lady who ran it. Then Dean could get himself another one, easy.
“Tanks, Deen!” Shelley gave him a big hug before Dean could get away, which was almost as bad as her mom smiling and patting him on the head. She looked a little bit like she might cry. Dean was ready to steer Sammy in the house when Shelley came running back, her little shiny shoes smacking on the concrete. She grabbed Sammy’s hand, and then Dean’s, shoving something into their fingers, and then ran back to her mom talking about her new doll.
Dean hoped she gave Michelangelo a name that didn’t end with a -y.
Sammy squealed with delight at the glittery butterfly, stumbling through the door with both hands tangled above his right ear, trying to get it back in his hair. Dean had a pink ribbon.
Oh well. There was probably something in their kits that needed tying back together.
By John...
“Jesus Christ, Dean. Get his goddamn hair out of the way!”
“Tryin’, Dad.” Dean only had one good hand to work with himself, and it was slippery with Sam’s blood. The howler had twisted Dean’s other wrist just before its claws had raked Sam’s forehead all the way to the skull bone. Dean had spent the ride back to the motel in the backseat, Sam’s head on his lap while Dean pressed the flaps of skin together with his fingers.
“To hell with it. Give me the Bowie.” Dean saw Sam’s eyes pop open at Dad’s mention of the knife, immediately blinking back blood that still flowed from the gashes on his forehead.
“Dean! No! F-Friday. Please!” Sam’s tone was reedy and desperate. Friday was the school carnival, and his little brother had a date with a girl that in Dean’s opinion was really way too hot for him. If he showed up with his hair chopped off in front? Well, safe to say Dean wouldn’t be catching him in the back seat of the Impala with her. Again.
“Dad. Wait.” Dean reached for the roll of gauze with his good hand, jiggling one end of it free and looking up at Dad with pleading eyes. He huffed, but took the roll from Dean with a quirk of his lips. Dean switched to holding back Sam’s sticky curls while Dad made a couple quick circles around Sam’s head to strap down the crazy shock of hair that at least one ninth-grade girl musta thought was cute.
“Friday, huh?” Dad grinned at Dean, and Sam’s eyelids twitched, but he didn’t open them again. His fingers dug into Dean’s thigh, though, so Dean knew he’d heard.
“Yeah, Sammy’s got a date.” Being hurt didn’t exempt a little brother from a having to take some shit from him. It wasn’t like Sammy was dying or anything.
“Dean!” Sam shifted, and his eyelids twitched again a couple times before Dean realized his lashes were glued shut with crusted blood.
“Easy, dude, easy...lemme get it for you...” There was an empty Cool-whip bowl filled with warm water on the nightstand, and Dean dipped a cotton pad into it and pressed gently it to Sam’s left eye, softening the clumped lashes.
“Guess I oughta make sure he looks pretty, then, huh?” Dad said, and Sammy snorted but said nothing. Dean watched curiously while Dad pulled the heavy black suture thread out of the needle, reaching into the nearby laundry duffle and coming up with the other sewing kit. Dean watched his Dad’s big hands fumble the miniature spools until he grasped the skin-colored one. Like the crayon labeled “flesh” in the 64-pack, it was mere filler, an untouched virgin destined to obscurity unless each of its companions got used up first. Dad dunked it into the smaller dish of alcohol that sat beside the one Dean had used to clean up Sammy’s face. It was thinner, and would take double the stitches, but at least it wouldn’t make Sam look like the Son of Frankenstein.
“Thanks Dad.” Dean beamed at his father, nodding. His chest felt tight and crowded.
“For what? What’re you doing, Dad? Dean?”
“Be still, Sammy.” Dean stroked his lame hand back over Sam’s restrained hair, switching the pink-soaked pad for a clean one and moving to Sam’s other eyelid. “It’s all good.”
By Sam...
“So. You wanna go all Crocket and Tubbs, I guess.”
“When in Rome...” Sam grinned, pulling a clean, pale blue t-shirt from his duffle. “Or Miami. Whatever.”
“Yeah, yeah. Easy for you to say. You wear loafers all the time anyway.” Dean watched Sam in the bathroom, slicking back his hair with Dean’s gel and sulfurous tap water. His huge torso took up the whole mirror. Freak.
“Dean, I can go by myself.” Right elbow akimbo at the back of his head, Sam half-turned toward Dean, reaching for the elastic resting on the chipped vanity. Dean stared; he had no idea how Sam planned to get those giant fingers through that tiny loop. Then again, they’d been somewhere smaller and tighter last night, and Sam’s slow grin said he suspected Dean was remembering it. “You can stay here and watch women’s jai alai on pay-per-view-“
“No way, dude.” Dean pushed in next to Sam, reaching for the cream and his razor to tailor his stubble from Lazy Shadow into Intentionally Scruffy. Sam honest-to-God preened for a minute, just to keep Dean from getting the whole mirror to himself. He finally side-stepped out of the way, ducking his Don Johnsoned, slicked-back head and huffing a warm breath against Dean’s ear as he skated past.
“Suit yourself,” Sam said. Dean turned, wincing as the dull blade took its due from a tiny raised scar under his jaw.
“Ha ha. Very funny.” He whiffed a dollop of mentholated cream up his nose trying not to laugh.
Sam finished pulling on the suit jacket he was holding, bright eyes shining at Dean.
By Dean...
“I will never not hate you for this.”
“You love me, Sammy,” Dean says, completely unconcerned at the prospect of a lifetime of Sam’s ire. “Always and forever. Probably even carved “Sammy ‘N Dean 4-evah” into a desk somewhere in...in...” Dean pauses, looking genuinely thoughtful. “Where were we when you were fifteen, again? You were especially sappy at that age.”
“Seriously, Dean. Hate. The white-hot kind, like the pokers that they use to torture people with in the movies.” It doesn’t seem to faze Dean in the slightest, and he keeps smoothing down the ripples in Sam’s skullcap, occasionally adding another dab of rubber cement around the edges. “And if you get that shit in my hair...”
“Relax, Samson. We can always cut it out.” Sam swears he can hear him smiling.
“The fuck we can, Delilah.” Sam shoots back. Dean snorts, but doesn’t reply, stepping backward and narrowing his eyes critically before reaching for the little flesh-colored pot of make-up. “Make-up too? Seriously? What are you, Hannibal Smith all of a sudden?” Dean merely starts humming the tune to the A-Team in response, blending the foundation into Sam’s now-hairless temples.
“Man, that was a great show,” he mutters.
“Why do I have to be the bald guy?” Sam’s pretty sure he sounds whiny, but, hell. “How can a six-and-a-half-foot bald guy blend in?”
“Not supposed to, Yul. We want you -and your tuxedo and charming smile- to draw attention. Then I can get into the control room.” Dean pauses, staring at Sam and rubbing his fingers together, absently smearing the remaining makeup on their pads. “Besides, it...uh, you...”
“I, what Dean? I’m kinda hot looking?” Sam knows that hitch in Dean’s voice, the one that tells him his brother’s thoughts are turning toward Sam and getting him naked. Sam stands, does his best loom over Dean, low voice deceptively soothing. “You’re gonna pay me back for this, aren’t you?”
“What? Shit. Whatever, Telly.” But Dean’s rubbing the back of his neck now, a sure sign that he’s off-balance. Triumph.
“Blow-job. Soon as this is over. You owe me.” Sam reaches out, palming the back of Dean’s full head of hair like a basketball, exuding every bit of power he can, controlled and smiling.
“Thinkin’ with your other bald head, Sammy?” Dean grins. His eyes are crinkling up at Sam and he’s licking those pretty, pretty lips. Sam can already see him on his knees later, can see himself dicking Dean’s mouth, smooth and spit-slick.
Maybe this job isn’t so bad after all.
By Fate...
When Dean woke up the first thing he noticed was the smell of dirt. Grave dirt, specifically. It was easy to tell it from other kinds of dirt. There was ball-diamond dirt, which always had a cleanish smell-taste. Maybe it soaked up the innocence from all the kids whose sweat and blood fell onto it. Dean had seen enough not to discount an idea like that out of hand. Then there was the dirt from a vegetable garden, which usually smelled faintly (or sometimes strongly, if you were unlucky and caught it on the wrong day) of manure.
Forest dirt had the smell of old. It was dirt that wasn’t dead yet. It was full of potential, like the life -the vitae Sammy would call it- of the earth was siphoned up and had seeped into it, like One-a-Days for trees. He remembered how the Ents drank their tree-drink, digging their knobby toes into rich soil made from their decayed ancestors. They did it knowing they’d rot there someday too, to feed and see to their brothers and their children. It was instinctive and ordinary, nothing to dread, or regret.
Dean knew just how they felt.
Grave dirt itself had the one of two scents; one was a stench, malevolent and urgent. The other was regretful, maybe even sad, but calm. He took a deep breath and filled his lungs with the scent of the second. (Thank god.) Sam would make fun of him if he knew Dean could describe the smell of dirt with emotions and motives. Whatever. Dirt could feel. Anybody who didn’t believe it just hadn’t met a mud-monster yet.
Dean looked up. He could see an almost-full moon against a square of sky that was...well, not black, but really, really dark blue. What color was that old SS? Deepwater. Yeah. It was Deepwater Blue. To his left and right things were black...pitch-colored dirt walls squared up on all four sides around him. It was then he realized he didn’t have to tilt his head to look up and see the sky, but had just opened his eyes. And looked straight ahead. All of which -combined with the smell he was smelling-- meant he was lying flat on his back in the bottom of an open grave.
That’s when Sam’s head silhouetted itself against the night sky. His eyes gleamed down at Dean, green-tinted-golden, and Sam’s lips were pulled back, baring the knife-blade clenched between his teeth. He had a big, sharp stake in one hand, and his hair was long and messy. Dean loved it instantly, wanted to tug on it and tangle his fingers in it, and figured he’d probably gone to his grave without ever saying so. It was tied back with something that dangled and swayed into the open air of the hole where Sam was leaning over it. The object at the end of Sam’s hair-cord turned and glinted, catching the moonlight. Dean’s throat clogged when he recognized his amulet.
Sam himself looked shadowy, and completely feral, not like his Sammy at all. Fear licked frosty-hot up Dean’s spine. That his brother probably tried something stupid was not surprising. He must have screwed up, and whoever held Dean’s contract these days had taken him in retaliation. He wanted to Christo Sam but the smell...the smell of his sweat mixing with the good-grave smell stopped him. Sam looked like a predator, with dirty arms sticking out Rambo-style from a t-shirt with its sleeves cut off. His eyes were glinty and primal and dangerous, but he smelled like little- boy Sammy who’d played too long and too hard and fell asleep before Dean could get him in the tub.
“Sammy?” Dean heaved upright, a little dizzy, his hands outstretched and fingers digging into dirt walls to steady himself. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been out, but it didn’t feel like it had been that long since they checked into the Broward hotel. He wanted to ask what happened. Why was he in a grave? How did Sam’s hair get so long, so fast? Instead he just stuttered, and started with something easy, just to get his bearings. “What...what day is it?”
Sam didn’t answer for a full minute, just staring down at Dean. The moon at his back blacked him out, and the gleam of his eyes was the only part of his face that Dean could make out. Sam shifted, but the long ponytail didn’t, greasy and stuck to a thick, sweaty shoulder with scars on it Dean didn’t recognize.
“Wednesday. I- I guess it must be Wednesday.”
Dean's Deepwater Blue