"Keep Your Hands Off My Girl" Part One of Two
Title: Keep Your Hands Off My Girl (1/2)
Rating/Warning: Mature themes
Wordcount: 4,805
Spoilers: None
Fandom: SPN
By: kellifer_fic
Category: Sam/Dean (implied), Sam/Jess (implied)
Summary: A body swap has Dean seeing a Sam he'd thought he'd lost forever.
Dean woke up with a fuzzy head, a mouth that tasted like he’d been licking the inside of a beer can filled with cigarettes and an arm snugged tight around his waist.
A male arm.
Huh.
Stranger things had happened.
000
Dean opened his eyes again sometime later and this time realised that he wasn’t in the same hotel room. He’d gone to sleep with faded blue floral walls and woke up with dark red. Dean reached down and circled fingers around the wrist of the hand resting against his stomach and lifted up and sideways so he could scoot out. He swung his legs out of bed, put feet down on cold floorboards and looked down.
Those weren’t his feet.
Dean watched the blue-painted toes waggle for a second before bringing his hand up and smacking himself smartly across the cheek. He looked down again and yep, still the girl toes.
Head down, Dean realised he was looking at cleavage and lost a few precious seconds because it was nice cleavage. He brought his hands up and cupped them under the breasts, hefting experimentally. There was a muffled sigh and the bed moved behind Dean, who snatched his hands back down to his sides and looked over his shoulder, feeling inexplicably guilty. All he could see was a broad, tan back. The guy in the bed had rolled over and his head was hidden by the pillow. Dean figured it was probably for the best. He needed to figure out what was going on and didn’t really want to deal with a random stranger on the morning after.
Dean saw an open bathroom door and made for it, just as the sound of the guy turning over again could be heard. Dean got the door closed and leaned against it for a second, breathing hard, recognising that the sound wasn’t his. He crossed slowly to the bathroom mirror and blinked.
A good-looking blonde girl stared back at him, wearing his puzzled frown. She was also wearing purple, boy-cut underwear and a top that read forty-nine percent sweetheart, fifty-one percent bitch. Dean cast a critical eye over the bathroom for a second, realising that he wasn’t in some random motel but was in a home. There were toiletries for a man and a woman, a fluffy foot-towel under him and a hamper by the sink.
“Hi, what’s your name?” Dean asked his reflection, knowing she couldn’t answer and wondering if this girl, whoever she was, would be waking up in his body somewhere.
Only one way to find out, Dean decided. He opened the bathroom door and stepped out, meaning to find a phone and call, well, himself, when he stopped dead. Everything seemed to grind to a halt, going in comical slow-motion as the guy he’d woken in the same bed as, sat up, pushed messy bangs out of his eyes and looked over at Dean with a lazy, still half-asleep smile.
“Mornin’, Jess,” he greeted, a wide yawn splitting his face in two.
“Hey Sam,” Dean said, voice coming out in a strained whisper.
000
Dean knew he was staring, but he couldn’t help it. He sat on an armchair at the end of his brother’s bed and watched Sam going through his morning routine, walking around in just boxers. Sam was talking about something but Dean couldn’t make it out through the rushing in his ears, just nodding mutely whenever Sam looked to him for a response.
Dean only managed to break his paralysis when Sam moved out of his line of sight, disappearing into the bathroom and the sound of the shower starting up a few moments later.
“Want to join me?” Sam called out and Dean could hear the grin in his voice. It threw Dean a little and the only response he managed was a high-pitched squeak. “Jess?” Sam tried again, but this time the grin was gone from his voice and Dean could hear concern.
“I’m not…” Dean started, trailing off when the sound of her voice, Jess’s voice, threw him for a second. “Not feeling so great,” Dean finished, tempted to try slapping himself again. He thought that he must have been caught in some weird dream.
The shower shut off and Sam poked his head back into the bedroom, shaggy hair dripping and his eyes large and worried underneath it. “You wanna go back to bed and I’ll drop in to the café on my way and tell them you’re not comin’ in?” Sam asked.
“Uh, yeah. That’d be good,” Dean agreed readily, moving towards the bed until Sam pulled his head back into the bathroom. Dean changed tack and headed for the living room, spying the phone in the corner. It was a cordless so he grabbed the handset and moved back into the bedroom, flopping into the bed and pushing the phone under the pillow.
“You think it might have been the Mexican we ate last night?” Sam asked, coming back into the bedroom in only a towel, rubbing another briskly over his head and Dean was caught for a second. When Sam had left them four years ago he had been all elbows and knees, long and coltish. Then he had the beginnings of muscle overlaying his gangling limbs but now he was narrow-waisted and broad-shouldered. When he unconcernedly dropped his towel, Dean turned a burning face into the mattress.
A few moments later, Dean felt a broad hand at his shoulder that skipped up to the nape of his neck and kneaded, long fingers digging in and sending radiating sparks of pleasure down Dean’s arms and back. He squirmed under the touch and the hand disappeared.
“Do you want me to stay home with you?” Sam asked.
Dean put his hand under the pillow, fingering the phone for a second and sighed. “No, I’ll be fine,” he said and the bed dipped and then bounced as Sam got up.
“Okay, but call me if you change your mind or if you need anything,” Sam said and Dean pulled his face from the mattress, seeing Sam was now in jeans and a t-shirt. He was stepping into sneakers but paused when he felt Dean’s gaze and turned his head slightly, smiling. “What?” he asked.
“You just… you seem happy,” Dean admitted.
“Get some sleep,” Sam said, leaning down to press warm lips to Dean’s temple and then straightened, snagging a book bag that was hooked on the doorknob and touching fingers to a photograph on top of a chest of drawers on his way out.
When Dean heard the front door shut, he rose and picked up the photograph with shaking hands, knowing what it would be.
It was the photo of their mother and father, smiling and carefree, before fire and tragedy had ever touched them.
000
“Hello?”
The voice was high and panicked but his and Dean breathed a sigh of relief.
“Is this Jess?” he asked and heard breathe hitch over the phone.
“Yes! Who is this, what the fuck is happening?” Dean winced and pulled the phone a little way from his ear.
“Okay, you’re going to have to calm down-”
“Calm down? I woke up with a dick in a motel room in the middle of nowhere and from the sounds of it, I’m talking to myself so don’t tell me to calm down!” The voice was shrill but Dean was grinning. Hysteria would have been hard to handle but Jess sounded pissed off.
“I want you to stay where you are and I’ll come to you. We’ll figure this out,” Dean said, trying to inject reassurance into his tone.
“Who are you? I’ve found about fifteen different IDs, one of which is Rick Allen and I’m pretty sure I’ve got both arms and I can’t see drums anywhere.”
“My name’s Dean,” Dean offered, something inside telling him it might not be such a good idea to add the Winchester. Jess sounded fairly level-headed, although furious and he didn’t want to tip her into frantic which was possible if she found out she was inside her boyfriend’s brother. He had begun to wonder if he could solve the whole thing without Sam getting involved and thereby preserving Sam’s normal little existence.
“-familiar?”
“What?” Dean snapped back into the moment, realising he’d drifted off, worrying about Sam and how Sam might see the whole thing as Dean’s fault. They hadn’t separated on the best of terms and there had been a couple of obligatory phone calls, Dean calling and meaning to tell Sam how much he missed him and always, always ending up angry and saying things he didn’t mean. He just didn’t want something else to make the space between them yawn wider, if that were even possible anymore.
“I said, your face is familiar. Have we met before?” Jess repeated.
“No,” Dean answered. “Believe me, we’ve never met.”
000
Dean dug through the wardrobe and then the chest of drawers, finding strappy, lacy, complicated clothing that he vetoed on principal. He finally gave up and searched through Sam’s, finding an old ACDC band-shirt that he’d given Sam when the kid was twelve.
He pulled a pair of fairly inoffensive black jeans on, pausing when he found a pair of track pants with the word ‘juicy’ emblazoned on the ass and fought off a grin.
Chicks were crazy.
All of Jess’s shoes had heels except for a pair of flip-flops that had daisies on the strap. Dean figured it was better to look ridiculous than break Jess’s ankle. He found a hair band and pulled Jess’s long blonde locks out of his face, marvelling that she didn’t go nuts and lop the whole lot off. Dean was used to his high and tights. He liked being able to see.
A search of the apartment didn’t yield car keys and when Dean found a green knapsack that turned out to be Jess’s, he found a wallet and a license but that was it. At least she was twenty-one. Dean thanked God for small mercies.
The lack of car could be problematic though. He’d promised to make his way to Jess as soon as he could, but she was a good four hours away by car. He contemplated stealing a car for all of ten seconds, but the risk of getting pulled over and arrested was too great. He would have to play it strictly by the book while he inhabited someone else’s body. The risks he took wouldn’t be his own.
He pulled Jess’s cellphone out of her bag and dialled information. He asked for the nearest rental car place and, armed with an address, picked up Jess’s bag and headed out.
He scrolled through Jess’s address book as he walked, finding Sam’s number. He called, fingers crossed and praying for voicemail and was relieved when he got it, figuring his brother was in class. “Hey, it’s me,” Dean said when Sam’s message cut out for the beep. “I’m feeling better and a friend called with a… girl-related emergency. I’ll be back tonight.” Dean grimaced as he hung up, wondering just what girl-emergency could mean and where in his brain he’d come up with that one.
He used to be so suave.
000
Bobby sounded completely unfazed when Dean called him, merely saying, “Wow, one of your girls finally cursed you. Well, it was only a matter of time.”
“You think that’s what this is?” Dean asked with the cellphone tucked under his chin, smiling at the rental-car clerk who was eyeing him with trepidation. Dean realised he’d left the apartment without even checking what he’d looked like in a mirror and he possibly resembled some crazy, tom-boyish urchin. He turned the smile up a little in wattage and the clerk seemed to relax a little. An accidental dropping of the pen he was using to fill out his forms and a lean and reach that gave the clerk plenty of time to check out his ass had the man flushing and being much more helpful. Dean needed the guy distracted so he wouldn’t notice Dean having to refer to Jess’s license for the details he needed for the rental form.
“I won’t know till you get here,” Bobby said and Dean grimaced, watching as the clerk disappeared to fetch him keys.
“I have to come there?”
“Yep, and bring your body along. I’ll call some people; see if anyone’s encountered something like this recently. These things tend to happen in groups.”
“You mean there’s always a spate of body-swapping?”
“Tends to be,” Bobby confirmed. “Usually it’s someone trying out a new spell before they get a handle on it. Crossed any witches lately?”
“Not that I know of,” Dean said.
“Is it possible the girl you swapped with is a witch?”
“No way.”
“Dean, you can’t be sure,” Bobby admonished but Dean huffed a laugh.
“Oh believe me, I’m sure. It’s Sam’s girlfriend.”
There was a long silence on the other end and then Bobby said, “Oh, even still. Your Daddy’s made a lot of enemies. Maybe someone’s trying to get at him through you boys, through Sam.”
Dean clenched his fists, the very idea that Jess was a vehicle to get at his father not even having occurred to him. He looked over the counter he was standing at, into the mirror behind and Jess’s big eyes gazed back at him impassively.
“A compact okay?” The rental clerk said, making Dean jump a little. “It’s all we got left.”
Dean gritted his teeth. “Fine,” he said through a falsely bright smile.
000
“What the hell are you wearing?”
Dean had been expecting a lot of things, but to be standing across from his body, arms folded and looking impatient and incredulous, indignation about his wardrobe choice was not the top of his list.
“I don’t do chick clothes,” Dean answered, brushing past Jess as he made his way into the motel room. His duffle was turned out on the bed, clothes covering most of the surface and fake ids fanned across the small table in the corner. Dean was thankful that he hadn’t brought in a bag of weapons for cleaning like he’d been planning to. He’d stowed a knife under the pillow and a gun in the toilet tank like he always did and he was hoping they were both where he’d left them.
He would have to meet Jess eventually and he figured the fake ids would be enough to have to explain without adding the virtual arsenal he had to the mix.
“Is Sam okay?” Jess asked and Dean paused to look at her, trying to gauge whether her concern was false. It was nigh on impossible to read her expressions since anything he read could just be the incongruity of them being on a face they didn’t belong to.
“He’s fine. I told him I was sick.”
“That’s a nice way of putting it,” Jess snorted and Dean caught himself staring. It was odd to see your own body moving about a room from an outsider’s perspective. Jess noticed him looking and did a little spin. “This is so freaky.”
“You’re taking this pretty well,” Dean noted, a little worried. He desperately wanted Jess to be a civilian, for Sam’s sake, but she was eerily calm. She tipped Dean a half-smile and shrugged.
“I did the hysterical crying thing before you got here. I’ve had about seven hours to calm down.” Jess eyed him for a second. “How come you’re taking this so well?”
Dean wondered if he should go with the truth but went for levity instead. “I cried too,” he said and Jess laughed, a small twitter that Dean hoped to never hear come out of his mouth again because that was freaky.
“You said you might know someone? How could you know someone?” Jess asked. “How can anyone know someone about something like this?”
“Okay, I think you’re heading towards hysterical-land again. How about we get some breakfast?” Dean proposed.
“Yeah, okay. You’re starving by the way, when was the last time you ate?” Jess asked, rubbing a hand over her stomach, or well, his stomach and Dean groaned, knowing that it was just going to get more confusing from here on out.
He probably thought it was also bad that he couldn’t actually remember when he’d last ate and decided to evade the question.
“Shall we?” he prompted, opening the motel-room door.
000
“So, are you a criminal or something?” Jess asked, shovelling an improbably large mouthful of pancakes into her face and Dean snickered. He liked this girl more and more but Jess flushed when she noticed he was laughing at her. “Sorry,” she said, wiping her chin with the back of her hand. “I love maple syrup but I can’t eat it, always gives me an upset stomach. I’m indulging.”
“No,” Dean said, answering her first question. “I’m not a criminal.”
“Why does someone legitimately need that many fake IDs? You secret service or something?”
“Something,” Dean huffed, shrugging. “It’s all above board.”
“You’re lying,” Jess accused, pointing a loaded fork at him. “My eyelid twitches when I lie and it’s doing it now. You obviously can’t fool the body you’re in.”
“That’s crap,” Dean snapped, clapping a hand to his eye anyway and rubbing. “You can’t eat maple syrup and you can’t lie? Your body sucks.”
“Hey, you’re not Mr Perfect yourself,” Jess snorted, pulling Dean’s half-finished breakfast towards herself that he’d had to give up on. He’d ordered his usual and was annoyed that he couldn’t finish it, feeling like he was full up to his sternum when he’d tried. “Your shoulder is killing me, you need glasses and you’re gassy.”
“I don’t need glasses,” Dean protested, knowing that he would have to cop to the other two things.
“Whatever.” Jess waved a dismissive hand and then rubbed it contemplatively over her jaw, the rasp of stubble making her wince. “I gotta admit, you’re very cute but you still remind me of someone. It’s driving me crazy.”
Dean pounced on Jess’s cellphone as soon as it shrilled to life, thankful for the distraction and was relieved when it was Bobby on the other end.
“A friend said she may be able to help but she’s in the middle of something else right now. She can get to my place in five days.” Bobby said.
“Five days,” Dean groaned, letting his forehead drop to the tabletop and groaning again when he misjudged the distance and smacked himself harder than he’d meant to.
“You break it, you bought it,” Jess huffed from the other side of the table.
“What are we going to do for five days?” Dean sighed.
“Just chill out. Stay put. Don’t do anything nuts. Madelyn said she felt a disturbance in the force or whatever so I’d say she’s your best bet.”
“The force?” Dean asked incredulously.
“I’m paraphrasing,” Bobby allowed. “Just stay out of trouble and head to my place Friday. I’d tell you to come sooner but Andy Graves just called and I have a possession comin’ in. I would assume you wouldn’t want to freak this girl out more than she already is?”
“Yeah, I guess so. Okay, we’ll stay and cool our heels,” Dean agreed, snapping the phone shut and looking up at Jess who was watching him with an expectant expression. “There’s someone who can help but it’s going to take a few days to set up,” Dean explained and watched Jess’s face fall.
“Should I stay here?” she asked, using a finger to draw symbols in the maple syrup left in her plate.
“Yeah, it’s probably for the best. I can-”
“You should go back,” Jess interrupted, looking up at Dean. “Come back and get me when your friend’s ready. I don’t… I don’t want Sam to worry.”
“Are you sure? Isn’t there someone you would stay with, someone you could visit for this long?”
“Yes but…” Jess was looking miserable and Dean felt his heart twist. “We had a fight a couple of weeks ago and it was just getting good again. If I disappear for a few days Sam’s going to think I’m still angry. I don’t want to put him through that.”
Dean was struck again by Jess’s obvious concern for his little brother, how her thoughts seemed to swing to him above herself, and was reassured. If she were a vehicle for mischief then she was failing to trip his sixth sense and Dean usually had a good gut instinct for when things weren’t as they appeared. He also knew that Bobby was aware of the situation and the concern and would be using the time to put his feelers out and make sure that there wasn’t anything big coming at them in a new and interesting way.
“Okay, I can do that,” Dean agreed and Jess looked relieved.
“Alright, well, you’re probably going to need to take a crash course in the Jess and Sam story if you’re going to be playing the part of Jess,” she offered with a wry grin and Dean nodded, knowing that her instructions for playing him would be much easier.
Don’t answer the phone, especially if the caller id said Dad.
000
Dean had caught a break because he was in between jobs when the switch had happened so no one would be trying to contact him for a current case. Jess’s eyes had gotten big when she’d spied the Impala in the lot and he’d made sure to confiscate the keys, knowing it would be safer if she were restricted to the motel. She’d used his face to pout impressively and he’d wondered if he could ask her to teach him to do that when he got his face back.
He’d never had anything to combat Sam’s puppy-dog eyes.
He listened attentively as Jess had told him about Sam, cataloguing the differences between the Sam Jess knew and the real deal and filing them away for later. Sam had chosen evasion for the most part instead of out and out lying. Jess had admitted that she hadn’t known much about Dean himself or their Dad but had laughed shakily and had said, “Just as well for you I guess,” even though he could tell that it bugged her, the gaping holes in her knowledge about the man she’d lived with for two years becoming more stark when trying to explain them to what she thought was a stranger.
“So, what was the fight about?” Dean had asked, just before he’d left.
“I don’t think he’d bring it up,” Jess had shrugged and Dean had met her gaze, levelly.
“Yeah, but you probably would. If he’s expecting you to it’ll be odd if you don’t.”
“We have the same fight every couple of months like clockwork. I try to get him to open up and he deflects. I get frustrated and he clamps down harder. Then I get mad at him and even though I know we’ve done it all before, it’s like I’m powerless to stop it, like I’m watching myself from outside,” Jess had admitted, looking so goddamn sad that Dean had wanted, for just a moment, to tell her everything and wondering at the strength of Sam to be able to withstand her for a lot longer.
“Maybe it’s about you, but different than you think,” Dean had offered and Jess had looked at him, puzzled. “You probably get mad because you don’t feel like he trusts you, but maybe he doesn’t trust himself. Maybe whatever it is he’s holding from you is because he doesn’t want it to touch you, he wants to keep you as the good thing in his life, the untainted part.”
Jess had looked poleaxed and Dean had beaten a hasty retreat, promising to check in on her morning and night and hoping to God he hadn’t said too much.
000
Dean was wiped by the time he got back to Palo Alto. He’d checked that Jess had enough cash for food and other things she might need and had also made sure to stow the weapons he’d hidden in the room back in the Impala, knowing the risk of Jess finding them was much greater if she were stuck with nothing to do for five days.
When he made his way quietly into the apartment Jess and Sam shared, he found Sam crashed out on a worn-looking leather couch, book on his chest and his brow furrowed in sleep. Dean perched on the bit of couch by Sam’s hip and smoothed a thumb over the deep grooves in Sam’s brow, worried that he was still having the awful nightmares that he’d had as a kid.
“Dean?” Sam sighed and Dean froze, wondering if Bobby had maybe called him or something else had given him away, but then Sam’s eyes slitted open and he said, “Jess, hey. I was getting worried.”
“So worried you fell asleep?” Dean teased but Sam was looking at him with a puzzled frown.
“What are you wearing?” he asked, sounding a little muzzy from sleep still but fingers walking over the faded lettering of the ACDC shirt.
“Oh, sorry, I shouldn’t have-” Dean started to apologise but Sam was smiling now.
“Nah, it’s okay. You look cute,” Sam said, leaning up to wrap arms around Dean and lay back down, Dean now cradled against his chest. It was an odd feeling, fitting into the groove of Sam’s body, feeling tiny in his arms. Dean tried not to enjoy the feeling of comfort that overtook him but it was hard. Unless they were injured, he and Sam had always been rough with each other, always quick with a punch or a shove. Dean only dimly remembered the gentle Sam he was now getting to see, through the haze of painkillers and injury.
“You wanna go to bed?” Sam asked, lips pressed against Dean’s temple.
“I’m good here,” Dean sighed, feeling himself relax for the first time in what felt like months, maybe years.
000
Dean had never figured Sam the type for a sneak attack but he was wrong.
Dean was clambering his way out of sleep, a half-smile on his face because the dream he’d been having was the good kind when he realised the pleasure-warm sensation was following him out of sleep and there were fingers, long fingers, touching him…
Dean let out a startled yelp and fell off the couch.
“Are you okay?” Sam asked, head appearing over the side and Dean looked up at him through a curtain of hair, putting hands down to find that his jeans were unbuttoned and the ACDC shirt was up under his armpits.
“Perfectly fine,” Dean said in a terrifyingly high voice and cleared his throat, trying to sound more normal. “You just… surprised me.”
Sam rolled off the couch and came towards him, something predatory in his face and Dean put a leg up, landing a tiny foot square in the middle of Sam’s chest and halting his progress. The predatory look dropped away and Dean was left staring at the full-watt puppy-dog eyes that always left him conflicted, wanting to both smack Sam and cuddle the crap out of him.
“You’re still mad,” Sam said slowly, the expression on his face Dean recognised from when he was doing a particularly hard problem with math and had stumbled onto the right answer. “Something’s been up for days and I didn’t… I didn’t realise.”
“No, I’m fine. We’re fine,” Dean tried to reassure, seeing that Sam wasn’t buying it. He dropped his foot but Sam had already sat back on his heels, worrying at his lower lip with his teeth.
“How am I supposed to know if you’re not okay if you tell me you are?” Sam asked, sounding more defeated than Dean had ever heard him, even after all the fights with their dad. Fighting with their father had always seemed to invigorate Sam, strengthen his resolve, but fighting with Jess seemed to just be wearing him down.
Dean moved on instinct, curling up into Sam’s space and hooking his arms around Sam’s neck. Dean pressed his face into the hollow of Sam’s throat. “It’s not you. Something’s going on with me but you’ve gotta trust me that it’s not you.” Dean knew it was low, asking for trust, probably using the exact same argument Sam had tried on Jess. “Give me a few days to work some stuff out. Can you do that, for me?”
“Yeah, of course,” Sam’s arms came up and around, hands stroking down Dean’s spine. Sam was used to keeping secrets and it broke Dean’s heart just a little that he expected other people to do the same.
Part Two
Rating/Warning: Mature themes
Wordcount: 4,805
Spoilers: None
Fandom: SPN
By: kellifer_fic
Category: Sam/Dean (implied), Sam/Jess (implied)
Summary: A body swap has Dean seeing a Sam he'd thought he'd lost forever.
Dean woke up with a fuzzy head, a mouth that tasted like he’d been licking the inside of a beer can filled with cigarettes and an arm snugged tight around his waist.
A male arm.
Huh.
Stranger things had happened.
000
Dean opened his eyes again sometime later and this time realised that he wasn’t in the same hotel room. He’d gone to sleep with faded blue floral walls and woke up with dark red. Dean reached down and circled fingers around the wrist of the hand resting against his stomach and lifted up and sideways so he could scoot out. He swung his legs out of bed, put feet down on cold floorboards and looked down.
Those weren’t his feet.
Dean watched the blue-painted toes waggle for a second before bringing his hand up and smacking himself smartly across the cheek. He looked down again and yep, still the girl toes.
Head down, Dean realised he was looking at cleavage and lost a few precious seconds because it was nice cleavage. He brought his hands up and cupped them under the breasts, hefting experimentally. There was a muffled sigh and the bed moved behind Dean, who snatched his hands back down to his sides and looked over his shoulder, feeling inexplicably guilty. All he could see was a broad, tan back. The guy in the bed had rolled over and his head was hidden by the pillow. Dean figured it was probably for the best. He needed to figure out what was going on and didn’t really want to deal with a random stranger on the morning after.
Dean saw an open bathroom door and made for it, just as the sound of the guy turning over again could be heard. Dean got the door closed and leaned against it for a second, breathing hard, recognising that the sound wasn’t his. He crossed slowly to the bathroom mirror and blinked.
A good-looking blonde girl stared back at him, wearing his puzzled frown. She was also wearing purple, boy-cut underwear and a top that read forty-nine percent sweetheart, fifty-one percent bitch. Dean cast a critical eye over the bathroom for a second, realising that he wasn’t in some random motel but was in a home. There were toiletries for a man and a woman, a fluffy foot-towel under him and a hamper by the sink.
“Hi, what’s your name?” Dean asked his reflection, knowing she couldn’t answer and wondering if this girl, whoever she was, would be waking up in his body somewhere.
Only one way to find out, Dean decided. He opened the bathroom door and stepped out, meaning to find a phone and call, well, himself, when he stopped dead. Everything seemed to grind to a halt, going in comical slow-motion as the guy he’d woken in the same bed as, sat up, pushed messy bangs out of his eyes and looked over at Dean with a lazy, still half-asleep smile.
“Mornin’, Jess,” he greeted, a wide yawn splitting his face in two.
“Hey Sam,” Dean said, voice coming out in a strained whisper.
000
Dean knew he was staring, but he couldn’t help it. He sat on an armchair at the end of his brother’s bed and watched Sam going through his morning routine, walking around in just boxers. Sam was talking about something but Dean couldn’t make it out through the rushing in his ears, just nodding mutely whenever Sam looked to him for a response.
Dean only managed to break his paralysis when Sam moved out of his line of sight, disappearing into the bathroom and the sound of the shower starting up a few moments later.
“Want to join me?” Sam called out and Dean could hear the grin in his voice. It threw Dean a little and the only response he managed was a high-pitched squeak. “Jess?” Sam tried again, but this time the grin was gone from his voice and Dean could hear concern.
“I’m not…” Dean started, trailing off when the sound of her voice, Jess’s voice, threw him for a second. “Not feeling so great,” Dean finished, tempted to try slapping himself again. He thought that he must have been caught in some weird dream.
The shower shut off and Sam poked his head back into the bedroom, shaggy hair dripping and his eyes large and worried underneath it. “You wanna go back to bed and I’ll drop in to the café on my way and tell them you’re not comin’ in?” Sam asked.
“Uh, yeah. That’d be good,” Dean agreed readily, moving towards the bed until Sam pulled his head back into the bathroom. Dean changed tack and headed for the living room, spying the phone in the corner. It was a cordless so he grabbed the handset and moved back into the bedroom, flopping into the bed and pushing the phone under the pillow.
“You think it might have been the Mexican we ate last night?” Sam asked, coming back into the bedroom in only a towel, rubbing another briskly over his head and Dean was caught for a second. When Sam had left them four years ago he had been all elbows and knees, long and coltish. Then he had the beginnings of muscle overlaying his gangling limbs but now he was narrow-waisted and broad-shouldered. When he unconcernedly dropped his towel, Dean turned a burning face into the mattress.
A few moments later, Dean felt a broad hand at his shoulder that skipped up to the nape of his neck and kneaded, long fingers digging in and sending radiating sparks of pleasure down Dean’s arms and back. He squirmed under the touch and the hand disappeared.
“Do you want me to stay home with you?” Sam asked.
Dean put his hand under the pillow, fingering the phone for a second and sighed. “No, I’ll be fine,” he said and the bed dipped and then bounced as Sam got up.
“Okay, but call me if you change your mind or if you need anything,” Sam said and Dean pulled his face from the mattress, seeing Sam was now in jeans and a t-shirt. He was stepping into sneakers but paused when he felt Dean’s gaze and turned his head slightly, smiling. “What?” he asked.
“You just… you seem happy,” Dean admitted.
“Get some sleep,” Sam said, leaning down to press warm lips to Dean’s temple and then straightened, snagging a book bag that was hooked on the doorknob and touching fingers to a photograph on top of a chest of drawers on his way out.
When Dean heard the front door shut, he rose and picked up the photograph with shaking hands, knowing what it would be.
It was the photo of their mother and father, smiling and carefree, before fire and tragedy had ever touched them.
000
“Hello?”
The voice was high and panicked but his and Dean breathed a sigh of relief.
“Is this Jess?” he asked and heard breathe hitch over the phone.
“Yes! Who is this, what the fuck is happening?” Dean winced and pulled the phone a little way from his ear.
“Okay, you’re going to have to calm down-”
“Calm down? I woke up with a dick in a motel room in the middle of nowhere and from the sounds of it, I’m talking to myself so don’t tell me to calm down!” The voice was shrill but Dean was grinning. Hysteria would have been hard to handle but Jess sounded pissed off.
“I want you to stay where you are and I’ll come to you. We’ll figure this out,” Dean said, trying to inject reassurance into his tone.
“Who are you? I’ve found about fifteen different IDs, one of which is Rick Allen and I’m pretty sure I’ve got both arms and I can’t see drums anywhere.”
“My name’s Dean,” Dean offered, something inside telling him it might not be such a good idea to add the Winchester. Jess sounded fairly level-headed, although furious and he didn’t want to tip her into frantic which was possible if she found out she was inside her boyfriend’s brother. He had begun to wonder if he could solve the whole thing without Sam getting involved and thereby preserving Sam’s normal little existence.
“-familiar?”
“What?” Dean snapped back into the moment, realising he’d drifted off, worrying about Sam and how Sam might see the whole thing as Dean’s fault. They hadn’t separated on the best of terms and there had been a couple of obligatory phone calls, Dean calling and meaning to tell Sam how much he missed him and always, always ending up angry and saying things he didn’t mean. He just didn’t want something else to make the space between them yawn wider, if that were even possible anymore.
“I said, your face is familiar. Have we met before?” Jess repeated.
“No,” Dean answered. “Believe me, we’ve never met.”
000
Dean dug through the wardrobe and then the chest of drawers, finding strappy, lacy, complicated clothing that he vetoed on principal. He finally gave up and searched through Sam’s, finding an old ACDC band-shirt that he’d given Sam when the kid was twelve.
He pulled a pair of fairly inoffensive black jeans on, pausing when he found a pair of track pants with the word ‘juicy’ emblazoned on the ass and fought off a grin.
Chicks were crazy.
All of Jess’s shoes had heels except for a pair of flip-flops that had daisies on the strap. Dean figured it was better to look ridiculous than break Jess’s ankle. He found a hair band and pulled Jess’s long blonde locks out of his face, marvelling that she didn’t go nuts and lop the whole lot off. Dean was used to his high and tights. He liked being able to see.
A search of the apartment didn’t yield car keys and when Dean found a green knapsack that turned out to be Jess’s, he found a wallet and a license but that was it. At least she was twenty-one. Dean thanked God for small mercies.
The lack of car could be problematic though. He’d promised to make his way to Jess as soon as he could, but she was a good four hours away by car. He contemplated stealing a car for all of ten seconds, but the risk of getting pulled over and arrested was too great. He would have to play it strictly by the book while he inhabited someone else’s body. The risks he took wouldn’t be his own.
He pulled Jess’s cellphone out of her bag and dialled information. He asked for the nearest rental car place and, armed with an address, picked up Jess’s bag and headed out.
He scrolled through Jess’s address book as he walked, finding Sam’s number. He called, fingers crossed and praying for voicemail and was relieved when he got it, figuring his brother was in class. “Hey, it’s me,” Dean said when Sam’s message cut out for the beep. “I’m feeling better and a friend called with a… girl-related emergency. I’ll be back tonight.” Dean grimaced as he hung up, wondering just what girl-emergency could mean and where in his brain he’d come up with that one.
He used to be so suave.
000
Bobby sounded completely unfazed when Dean called him, merely saying, “Wow, one of your girls finally cursed you. Well, it was only a matter of time.”
“You think that’s what this is?” Dean asked with the cellphone tucked under his chin, smiling at the rental-car clerk who was eyeing him with trepidation. Dean realised he’d left the apartment without even checking what he’d looked like in a mirror and he possibly resembled some crazy, tom-boyish urchin. He turned the smile up a little in wattage and the clerk seemed to relax a little. An accidental dropping of the pen he was using to fill out his forms and a lean and reach that gave the clerk plenty of time to check out his ass had the man flushing and being much more helpful. Dean needed the guy distracted so he wouldn’t notice Dean having to refer to Jess’s license for the details he needed for the rental form.
“I won’t know till you get here,” Bobby said and Dean grimaced, watching as the clerk disappeared to fetch him keys.
“I have to come there?”
“Yep, and bring your body along. I’ll call some people; see if anyone’s encountered something like this recently. These things tend to happen in groups.”
“You mean there’s always a spate of body-swapping?”
“Tends to be,” Bobby confirmed. “Usually it’s someone trying out a new spell before they get a handle on it. Crossed any witches lately?”
“Not that I know of,” Dean said.
“Is it possible the girl you swapped with is a witch?”
“No way.”
“Dean, you can’t be sure,” Bobby admonished but Dean huffed a laugh.
“Oh believe me, I’m sure. It’s Sam’s girlfriend.”
There was a long silence on the other end and then Bobby said, “Oh, even still. Your Daddy’s made a lot of enemies. Maybe someone’s trying to get at him through you boys, through Sam.”
Dean clenched his fists, the very idea that Jess was a vehicle to get at his father not even having occurred to him. He looked over the counter he was standing at, into the mirror behind and Jess’s big eyes gazed back at him impassively.
“A compact okay?” The rental clerk said, making Dean jump a little. “It’s all we got left.”
Dean gritted his teeth. “Fine,” he said through a falsely bright smile.
000
“What the hell are you wearing?”
Dean had been expecting a lot of things, but to be standing across from his body, arms folded and looking impatient and incredulous, indignation about his wardrobe choice was not the top of his list.
“I don’t do chick clothes,” Dean answered, brushing past Jess as he made his way into the motel room. His duffle was turned out on the bed, clothes covering most of the surface and fake ids fanned across the small table in the corner. Dean was thankful that he hadn’t brought in a bag of weapons for cleaning like he’d been planning to. He’d stowed a knife under the pillow and a gun in the toilet tank like he always did and he was hoping they were both where he’d left them.
He would have to meet Jess eventually and he figured the fake ids would be enough to have to explain without adding the virtual arsenal he had to the mix.
“Is Sam okay?” Jess asked and Dean paused to look at her, trying to gauge whether her concern was false. It was nigh on impossible to read her expressions since anything he read could just be the incongruity of them being on a face they didn’t belong to.
“He’s fine. I told him I was sick.”
“That’s a nice way of putting it,” Jess snorted and Dean caught himself staring. It was odd to see your own body moving about a room from an outsider’s perspective. Jess noticed him looking and did a little spin. “This is so freaky.”
“You’re taking this pretty well,” Dean noted, a little worried. He desperately wanted Jess to be a civilian, for Sam’s sake, but she was eerily calm. She tipped Dean a half-smile and shrugged.
“I did the hysterical crying thing before you got here. I’ve had about seven hours to calm down.” Jess eyed him for a second. “How come you’re taking this so well?”
Dean wondered if he should go with the truth but went for levity instead. “I cried too,” he said and Jess laughed, a small twitter that Dean hoped to never hear come out of his mouth again because that was freaky.
“You said you might know someone? How could you know someone?” Jess asked. “How can anyone know someone about something like this?”
“Okay, I think you’re heading towards hysterical-land again. How about we get some breakfast?” Dean proposed.
“Yeah, okay. You’re starving by the way, when was the last time you ate?” Jess asked, rubbing a hand over her stomach, or well, his stomach and Dean groaned, knowing that it was just going to get more confusing from here on out.
He probably thought it was also bad that he couldn’t actually remember when he’d last ate and decided to evade the question.
“Shall we?” he prompted, opening the motel-room door.
000
“So, are you a criminal or something?” Jess asked, shovelling an improbably large mouthful of pancakes into her face and Dean snickered. He liked this girl more and more but Jess flushed when she noticed he was laughing at her. “Sorry,” she said, wiping her chin with the back of her hand. “I love maple syrup but I can’t eat it, always gives me an upset stomach. I’m indulging.”
“No,” Dean said, answering her first question. “I’m not a criminal.”
“Why does someone legitimately need that many fake IDs? You secret service or something?”
“Something,” Dean huffed, shrugging. “It’s all above board.”
“You’re lying,” Jess accused, pointing a loaded fork at him. “My eyelid twitches when I lie and it’s doing it now. You obviously can’t fool the body you’re in.”
“That’s crap,” Dean snapped, clapping a hand to his eye anyway and rubbing. “You can’t eat maple syrup and you can’t lie? Your body sucks.”
“Hey, you’re not Mr Perfect yourself,” Jess snorted, pulling Dean’s half-finished breakfast towards herself that he’d had to give up on. He’d ordered his usual and was annoyed that he couldn’t finish it, feeling like he was full up to his sternum when he’d tried. “Your shoulder is killing me, you need glasses and you’re gassy.”
“I don’t need glasses,” Dean protested, knowing that he would have to cop to the other two things.
“Whatever.” Jess waved a dismissive hand and then rubbed it contemplatively over her jaw, the rasp of stubble making her wince. “I gotta admit, you’re very cute but you still remind me of someone. It’s driving me crazy.”
Dean pounced on Jess’s cellphone as soon as it shrilled to life, thankful for the distraction and was relieved when it was Bobby on the other end.
“A friend said she may be able to help but she’s in the middle of something else right now. She can get to my place in five days.” Bobby said.
“Five days,” Dean groaned, letting his forehead drop to the tabletop and groaning again when he misjudged the distance and smacked himself harder than he’d meant to.
“You break it, you bought it,” Jess huffed from the other side of the table.
“What are we going to do for five days?” Dean sighed.
“Just chill out. Stay put. Don’t do anything nuts. Madelyn said she felt a disturbance in the force or whatever so I’d say she’s your best bet.”
“The force?” Dean asked incredulously.
“I’m paraphrasing,” Bobby allowed. “Just stay out of trouble and head to my place Friday. I’d tell you to come sooner but Andy Graves just called and I have a possession comin’ in. I would assume you wouldn’t want to freak this girl out more than she already is?”
“Yeah, I guess so. Okay, we’ll stay and cool our heels,” Dean agreed, snapping the phone shut and looking up at Jess who was watching him with an expectant expression. “There’s someone who can help but it’s going to take a few days to set up,” Dean explained and watched Jess’s face fall.
“Should I stay here?” she asked, using a finger to draw symbols in the maple syrup left in her plate.
“Yeah, it’s probably for the best. I can-”
“You should go back,” Jess interrupted, looking up at Dean. “Come back and get me when your friend’s ready. I don’t… I don’t want Sam to worry.”
“Are you sure? Isn’t there someone you would stay with, someone you could visit for this long?”
“Yes but…” Jess was looking miserable and Dean felt his heart twist. “We had a fight a couple of weeks ago and it was just getting good again. If I disappear for a few days Sam’s going to think I’m still angry. I don’t want to put him through that.”
Dean was struck again by Jess’s obvious concern for his little brother, how her thoughts seemed to swing to him above herself, and was reassured. If she were a vehicle for mischief then she was failing to trip his sixth sense and Dean usually had a good gut instinct for when things weren’t as they appeared. He also knew that Bobby was aware of the situation and the concern and would be using the time to put his feelers out and make sure that there wasn’t anything big coming at them in a new and interesting way.
“Okay, I can do that,” Dean agreed and Jess looked relieved.
“Alright, well, you’re probably going to need to take a crash course in the Jess and Sam story if you’re going to be playing the part of Jess,” she offered with a wry grin and Dean nodded, knowing that her instructions for playing him would be much easier.
Don’t answer the phone, especially if the caller id said Dad.
000
Dean had caught a break because he was in between jobs when the switch had happened so no one would be trying to contact him for a current case. Jess’s eyes had gotten big when she’d spied the Impala in the lot and he’d made sure to confiscate the keys, knowing it would be safer if she were restricted to the motel. She’d used his face to pout impressively and he’d wondered if he could ask her to teach him to do that when he got his face back.
He’d never had anything to combat Sam’s puppy-dog eyes.
He listened attentively as Jess had told him about Sam, cataloguing the differences between the Sam Jess knew and the real deal and filing them away for later. Sam had chosen evasion for the most part instead of out and out lying. Jess had admitted that she hadn’t known much about Dean himself or their Dad but had laughed shakily and had said, “Just as well for you I guess,” even though he could tell that it bugged her, the gaping holes in her knowledge about the man she’d lived with for two years becoming more stark when trying to explain them to what she thought was a stranger.
“So, what was the fight about?” Dean had asked, just before he’d left.
“I don’t think he’d bring it up,” Jess had shrugged and Dean had met her gaze, levelly.
“Yeah, but you probably would. If he’s expecting you to it’ll be odd if you don’t.”
“We have the same fight every couple of months like clockwork. I try to get him to open up and he deflects. I get frustrated and he clamps down harder. Then I get mad at him and even though I know we’ve done it all before, it’s like I’m powerless to stop it, like I’m watching myself from outside,” Jess had admitted, looking so goddamn sad that Dean had wanted, for just a moment, to tell her everything and wondering at the strength of Sam to be able to withstand her for a lot longer.
“Maybe it’s about you, but different than you think,” Dean had offered and Jess had looked at him, puzzled. “You probably get mad because you don’t feel like he trusts you, but maybe he doesn’t trust himself. Maybe whatever it is he’s holding from you is because he doesn’t want it to touch you, he wants to keep you as the good thing in his life, the untainted part.”
Jess had looked poleaxed and Dean had beaten a hasty retreat, promising to check in on her morning and night and hoping to God he hadn’t said too much.
000
Dean was wiped by the time he got back to Palo Alto. He’d checked that Jess had enough cash for food and other things she might need and had also made sure to stow the weapons he’d hidden in the room back in the Impala, knowing the risk of Jess finding them was much greater if she were stuck with nothing to do for five days.
When he made his way quietly into the apartment Jess and Sam shared, he found Sam crashed out on a worn-looking leather couch, book on his chest and his brow furrowed in sleep. Dean perched on the bit of couch by Sam’s hip and smoothed a thumb over the deep grooves in Sam’s brow, worried that he was still having the awful nightmares that he’d had as a kid.
“Dean?” Sam sighed and Dean froze, wondering if Bobby had maybe called him or something else had given him away, but then Sam’s eyes slitted open and he said, “Jess, hey. I was getting worried.”
“So worried you fell asleep?” Dean teased but Sam was looking at him with a puzzled frown.
“What are you wearing?” he asked, sounding a little muzzy from sleep still but fingers walking over the faded lettering of the ACDC shirt.
“Oh, sorry, I shouldn’t have-” Dean started to apologise but Sam was smiling now.
“Nah, it’s okay. You look cute,” Sam said, leaning up to wrap arms around Dean and lay back down, Dean now cradled against his chest. It was an odd feeling, fitting into the groove of Sam’s body, feeling tiny in his arms. Dean tried not to enjoy the feeling of comfort that overtook him but it was hard. Unless they were injured, he and Sam had always been rough with each other, always quick with a punch or a shove. Dean only dimly remembered the gentle Sam he was now getting to see, through the haze of painkillers and injury.
“You wanna go to bed?” Sam asked, lips pressed against Dean’s temple.
“I’m good here,” Dean sighed, feeling himself relax for the first time in what felt like months, maybe years.
000
Dean had never figured Sam the type for a sneak attack but he was wrong.
Dean was clambering his way out of sleep, a half-smile on his face because the dream he’d been having was the good kind when he realised the pleasure-warm sensation was following him out of sleep and there were fingers, long fingers, touching him…
Dean let out a startled yelp and fell off the couch.
“Are you okay?” Sam asked, head appearing over the side and Dean looked up at him through a curtain of hair, putting hands down to find that his jeans were unbuttoned and the ACDC shirt was up under his armpits.
“Perfectly fine,” Dean said in a terrifyingly high voice and cleared his throat, trying to sound more normal. “You just… surprised me.”
Sam rolled off the couch and came towards him, something predatory in his face and Dean put a leg up, landing a tiny foot square in the middle of Sam’s chest and halting his progress. The predatory look dropped away and Dean was left staring at the full-watt puppy-dog eyes that always left him conflicted, wanting to both smack Sam and cuddle the crap out of him.
“You’re still mad,” Sam said slowly, the expression on his face Dean recognised from when he was doing a particularly hard problem with math and had stumbled onto the right answer. “Something’s been up for days and I didn’t… I didn’t realise.”
“No, I’m fine. We’re fine,” Dean tried to reassure, seeing that Sam wasn’t buying it. He dropped his foot but Sam had already sat back on his heels, worrying at his lower lip with his teeth.
“How am I supposed to know if you’re not okay if you tell me you are?” Sam asked, sounding more defeated than Dean had ever heard him, even after all the fights with their dad. Fighting with their father had always seemed to invigorate Sam, strengthen his resolve, but fighting with Jess seemed to just be wearing him down.
Dean moved on instinct, curling up into Sam’s space and hooking his arms around Sam’s neck. Dean pressed his face into the hollow of Sam’s throat. “It’s not you. Something’s going on with me but you’ve gotta trust me that it’s not you.” Dean knew it was low, asking for trust, probably using the exact same argument Sam had tried on Jess. “Give me a few days to work some stuff out. Can you do that, for me?”
“Yeah, of course,” Sam’s arms came up and around, hands stroking down Dean’s spine. Sam was used to keeping secrets and it broke Dean’s heart just a little that he expected other people to do the same.
Part Two