fic: The Calendar Hung Itself (Supernatural; Dean/Sam; adult)
The Calendar Hung Itself
Supernatural; Dean/Sam (Dean/Ellen, Dean/OFC); adult; spoilers through AHBL2; 10,810 words
Being an accounting of the souvenirs collected on the Dean Winchester farewell tour of America.
Thanks to devildoll and luzdeestrellas for betaing. *hearts*
~*~
The Calendar Hung Itself
May is Sam's birthday, awkward because they haven't really done the birthday thing since Sam turned seventeen, and also because Dean's already given everything he has, and no CD or cool t-shirt is going to top that.
Still, he drags Sam out to the nearest bar, gets him loose and laughing with a few beers and a couple shots of Southern Comfort, sweet and sticky as the promise of summer on his tongue.
"A card, Dean? You didn't have to."
"Good, 'cause I didn't."
He hands Sam a printout of the day's Dinosaur Comic, the words Happy Birthday, Sam scrawled across the top of the page.
"This is what you were doing at the library?"
Dean shrugs. "Can't look at porn there, and I was bored."
"'Too much terror for the printed word,' huh?"
"It's as if they knew."
Sam laughs and takes a long pull off his beer.
Later, they tumble into bed and fuck sleepily, sloppily, loud laughter turning into moans, and the headboard banging hard against the wall, annoying the guy in the next room.
When they're done, Sam falls asleep with his head on Dean's shoulder, and Dean whispers, "Happy birthday, kiddo," into his hair.
A few days later, he finds the "card" folded up in the back pocket of Sam's jeans, so he tucks it into his journal for safekeeping. Sam has always been sentimental about those kinds of things, though Dean never does remember to give it back.
*
June is helping Ellen rebuild. She buys a small house not too far from the graveyard containing the gates of hell, talks about opening another bar, though they all agree it's probably not a good idea for hunters to congregate in the same place too often. Dean takes her to the local hardware store and helps her pick out the paint and the fixtures, spends a couple of weeks sanding stairs and painting walls, hanging blinds and staining floors, while Sam and Bobby huddle over dusty books written in dead languages, looking for ways to save his soul.
Even with all the windows open, the smell of the paint makes Dean dizzy. Not that he needs the excuse when Ellen stands just a little too close, holds his gaze just a little too long whenever their eyes meet, and lets her hand brush the back of his neck in the morning when she serves him breakfast in the tiny kitchen they've painted white.
Dean is covered in sweat and paint when Ellen pushes him against the not-quite-dry bedroom wall, her hands at the waist of his jeans, her tongue sweet and hot in his mouth.
They're quick, because Sam and Bobby could come back at any time, and rough, because it's not about anything but lust and guilt, about the need to forget the weight they carry (Ash, Andy, Ava, the litany of their dead always hanging over any attempts to make a fresh start), and the need to touch someone else who understands.
He lays her down on the drop cloth, and she wraps her legs around his waist, snapping her hips up to meet him, the soft skin of her belly warm against his, the fine swell of her hip the natural place for his hand to rest.
She's wet and tight around him, and beautiful when she comes, her low, satisfied moan shivering down Dean's spine like the burn of good whiskey. He covers her mouth with a kiss, swallows it down and comes himself, a hot rush of pleasure that leaves him weightless and free for a few seconds that feel like eternity.
Ellen smiles a little easier afterwards, jagged edges of grief smoothed just enough to make them bearable, but she doesn't touch him again, and he doesn't push.
Jo arrives the next morning, and Dean knows it's time to leave. He's awkward with her in a way he hasn't been with Ellen, and always aware of the way she holds herself away from Sam, who hunches in on himself in her presence, though none of it was his fault. Sam is understanding, but Dean finds his patience wearing thin, and the tension is back in Ellen's shoulders.
Sam is still finding flecks of paint in random spots on Dean's skin days later, but he doesn't do anything but smile and try to scrape it off with his fingernails, which makes Dean squirm, because Sam knows all the spots where he's ticklish, and likes to take advantage. His mouth follows his fingers, and Dean sighs in pleasure.
"You look like you rolled around in the paint," Sam murmurs against his shoulder. "I think Ellen would appreciate it more if you actually put the paint on the walls."
Dean grins, remembering. "Oh, Ellen appreciated me all right."
Sam leans back, looks up at him, skeptical. "Ellen? Really?"
"Yeah, Ellen. Really." Dean can't help the smug satisfaction in his voice.
Sam grins in response. "I'm impressed."
Me, too, Dean thinks, but doesn't say. He hits Sam with a pillow, instead.
He uses a strip of paint chips (silver mist, moonlight, mother of pearl) as a bookmark in his journal, marking the page about Samuel Colt's giant devil's trap in southern Wyoming.
*
July is languid heat and lambent yellow light that glows and clings like honey to Sam's slowly tanning skin--endless stretches of it salty warm under Dean's tongue, and he's determined to lick every inch before he dies--and raises freckles on Dean's skin like bits of cinnamon in the fancy coffees Sam orders to get on Dean's nerves.
In Charleston, they hunt the ghost of a Confederate soldier who deserted and has been murdering young women ever since. They salt and burn his bones in the humid summer night while mosquitoes cloud the air, and head back to the motel, drained from the heat. They crank the AC up as high as it will go (which isn't high enough given the heat and humidity even late at night) and strip down to their underwear. Dean cleans his guns and Sam surfs the net and calls everyone who's still speaking to them (and some people who apparently aren't, if Sam's muttered cursing is any indication) about Dean's problem. It's too hot to sleep in the same bed, but they do anyway, jostling for access to the small cool patches of cotton against sweat-sheened skin.
Sometime before dawn, Dean wakes up and rolls towards Sam, who swats his hand away, muttering, "Too hot, too tired," but he's as hard as Dean is, and they thrust lazily together until Dean can barely breathe with how good it feels. When Sam comes, he bites down hard on Dean's shoulder, hard enough to raise a bruise, and that's it for Dean--he spurts white and warm over their bellies, and then collapses onto his back, panting like he's just run the hundred yard dash.
In Milwaukee, they put down a black dog and celebrate by going to a Brewers game. They drink beer and eat brats, and after the game, they make out like overeager teenagers in the tunnel heading for the men's room, Sam's stubble scratchy against Dean's skin, his mouth hot and wet and tasting of beer.
Dean tucks the ticket stubs into his wallet, and later transfers them to his journal, slipped between the pages on hellhounds and black dogs.
*
August is four hot nights chasing a werewolf in Battle Creek, and then meeting a girl named Ami ("with an I") at the nearest bar. She's studying art at the local college, likes to talk about composition and post-modernism and transgression. She makes him feel a hundred years old, though that doesn't stop him from pressing her back against the booth and copping a feel while they make out. She has dyed black hair and a pierced tongue, the metal heavy, warm, and smooth in his mouth, and he fucks her out in the parking lot, bent over the trunk of the car, her skirt shoved up and her panties shoved down just far enough for him to slip inside the slick heat of her cunt and start thrusting. She throws her head back and moans--it sounds fake, which throws his rhythm off, and he wonders vaguely if she has a boyfriend who likes her to make noise, put on a show. He slides a hand over her hip and down between her thighs, flicks at her clit, and she gasps, tightening around him, murmuring soft little stuttering cries as she comes.
"That's it, sweetheart. That's better," he mutters, coming with a rush of pleasure and a hard grunt, pressing his face to the sweaty skin of her neck, which smells like baby powder.
She dots her I's with hearts and draws a smiley face inside the zero at the end of her phone number, and Dean shoves the scrap of paper into his pocket, though he knows he'll never call her, and thanks her. He gives her a long, slow goodnight kiss, the taste of strawberry lip gloss and stale beer on his lips fading as he drives back to the motel.
Sam is hunched over the laptop, forehead creased in concentration, sitting in the same spot Dean left him in three hours ago.
Sam wrinkles his nose but there's no accusation in his voice when he says, "Have a good time?"
Dean shrugs and grins smugly, knowing how much it will annoy Sam, who can be a jealous little bitch sometimes, even though he has no reason to be.
He's finished washing his hair when Sam pushes his way into the shower, and presses Dean against the wall. The tile is cool and unforgiving at Dean's back when Sam goes to his knees and swallows him down. Sam's mouth is hotter and wetter than the spray of the shower, and Dean threads his hands through Sam's hair and holds on tight, lets Sam have control. The pleasure builds hot and fast, licking down his spine like fire, and he watches his dick slide in and out of Sam's mouth, Sam's wet pink lips stretched wide around him, and then he looks lower, sees Sam jacking himself roughly. Dean comes hard in Sam's mouth, Sam's name on his lips, and Sam's hand on his hip the only thing keeping him from sliding down the wall and into Sam's lap.
They stay in the shower until the hot water runs out. Dean laughs at the way their fingers and toes have pruned up, and snaps his towel at Sam's ass. Sam tackles him to the bed, and they roll around and wrestle, laughing too hard to really do any damage. When they're done, Dean drapes his arm over Sam's waist, and drifts off to sleep, content.
*
September is New York, lingering summer heat fading into cool evenings, and the sky so blue in the mornings, it doesn't look real behind the spires of the Empire State Building and the Chrysler building.
Sam buries himself in the reading room at the public library, a shy half-smile and a forged ID card enough to get him access to some books most people don't even know exist. Dean wants to stay with him, and not just because the air conditioning is a blessing after the heat and humidity outside, but he's not sure if helping Sam here counts as trying to weasel out of his deal, and he doesn't want to take the chance. Sam seems to think that condition applies only to Dean, and refuses to listen to anything Dean has to say on the matter. So Dean grumbles about the silence, complains about the heavy smell of dust and damp that clings to the old manuscripts and folios, and bitches about the gloves they have to wear to handle them. He leaves after the first fifteen minutes, and Sam's exasperated enough to be glad, even though Dean's pretty sure Sam sees right through him.
He goes across the street to the branch, settles himself at one of the computers to check his email, messages forwarded through God only knows where to hide them from the FBI and whoever else might be tracking them, Ash's groundwork and Sam's vigilance keeping the system going now that Ash is gone.
He'd asked Ellen to send him some information about the headless horseman, figures they can head up to Tarrytown, see if there's any truth to the legend, and maybe stop in New Paltz, see if that Sarah girl is still willing to give Sam the time of day.
He knows Sam liked her, had kept in touch with her until the debacle in Milwaukee. He thinks maybe when he's gone, she could be someone Sam could count on, since she already knows the truth.
He meets Sam on the library steps two hours later, buys them each two hot dogs and a can of Coke from the guy on the corner, and Sam shuffles his papers around in his bag. He tries to tell Dean about what he's found, but Dean ignores him.
It's not that Dean wants to die, necessarily. It's just that he wants Sam to live, and it's not like he hasn't already spent his life dedicated to that, so why shouldn't his death be, as well? But he can't make Sam understand that, hasn't even tried, because once Sam gets an idea in his head, it takes a crowbar to get it out, and Dean doesn't want to spend the last year of his life fighting with him. If anyone can figure a way out of this deal, it's Sam, but Dean's not going to hold his breath, not going to let himself hope. He has a year--in the back of his mind he can hear Sam mutter, eight months, in an angry, panicked voice--and it will have to be enough.
The wind, a hint of autumn's chill creeping into it late in the afternoon, takes some of Sam's papers as they eat, and when he goes chasing them, Dean slips Sam's new library card into his pocket. It's not like they're going to be in New York much longer anyway.
*
October is saving the Martin Luther King Jr. High School Halloween dance from zombies accidentally created by the AP Bio class as their science fair project. Dean gets to set the lot of them on fire after they've been decapitated, and though the smell is disgusting, the whole thing is kind of awesome if you like setting shit on fire, and Dean really, really does.
They stay in town for a couple of days afterwards, waiting to make sure nothing else pops up out of the ground on Halloween night. Sam's been on the phone with Joshua, wants to do some ritual in the midnight hour--the veil between the dead and the living thins, he says, and though he's serious, Dean laughs, because it sounds like something out of an old Hammer horror flick with Vincent Price--that will help keep Dean's soul in place when the demon comes to claim it. In the meantime, they drive to the nearest Wal-Mart, stock up on rock salt and ammo and other assorted necessities.
"We should have some candy," Dean says, swinging down the candy aisle and tossing a couple of bags of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups into the car, as well as an economy-sized bag of peanut M&Ms, "in case any kids stop by."
"I really don't think we're gonna get any trick-or-treaters, Dean."
"You never know. We might." He thinks of all the years they spent watching other kids trick-or-treat while Dad kept them locked behind salt lines and protective runes carved into the lintels; how Halloween had been a night of tense silences and the kinds of ghosts that can't be laid to rest with rock salt and fire, and how the one time he'd defied Dad and taken Sam (dressed in a homemade Superman costume Dean still hasn't let him live down), they'd both eaten so much candy they'd made themselves sick, and that had been the end of that.
Sam laughs, shakes his head. "Then get something we can give out without worrying about anyone going into anaphylactic shock."
"What?"
"Peanuts, Dean. Lots of kids have peanut allergies."
Dean doesn't even want to contemplate life without peanut butter, but instead of putting the candy back, he adds an assortment of Hershey minis, and some packs of gum. Sam holds up a bag of red and white swirly peppermint candies, and Dean says, "Dude, no. That's, like, something your grandmother gives out." Sam looks skeptical. "And also, little kids could choke." Sam snorts in disbelief but puts the bag back on the shelf. He grabs some packs of Twizzlers instead, the look on his face daring Dean to say something, but Dean just grins at him.
They're in the parking lot, heading for the car, when a little girl in a fairy princess costume comes running over, the wings on her back quivering as she stares up at them. Dean looks over the way she came, sees a group of women and little girls sitting at a table draped with a sign he can't read from this angle, and then goes down on one knee to look her in the eye.
"You okay, sweetheart?"
The words tumble out of her mouth, barely audible. "You wanna buy a raffle ticket? For the Daisies?"
He smiles at her, reaches for his wallet. "Sure thing, princess. How much?"
She smiles back, revealing a missing front tooth, eyes sparkling like her tiara in the last vestiges of afternoon sunlight. "Five dollars."
"Okay, then." He pulls out the bag of mini chocolate bars, hands it to her with the money. "Happy Halloween."
She beams at him, and one of the women at the table--probably her mother--calls out, "Say thank you, Heather."
"Thank you." Heather gives him that gap-toothed smile again, and runs back to the woman at the table. She turns around halfway and waves; Dean grins in response and slides the thin slip of paper into his wallet.
Later, when he slips the raffle ticket into his journal (the entry on the shtriga), he tries not to think about the kids he'll never have.
*
November is another visit to Mom's grave, silently hoping she and Dad are together again, if there is a heaven in counterpoint to the hell he's headed for.
Later, sitting in the motel room, brooding over a bottle of Molson and a television that has no sound, he says, "When that djinn had me--Dad was dead there, too. I don't know why." It's not the first time they've talked about what happened with the djinn, but it's the first time he's admitted that that part still bothers him.
Sam looks like he has some ideas, but Dean doesn't want to hear them; he has ideas of his own, and they don't reflect well on him.
"He played on a softball team, though, when he was alive." He laughs, takes a sip of beer. "A softball team, Sammy. Can you even imagine it?"
Sam shakes his head. "You wanted him to be happy." He tips his head back, long line of his throat mesmerizing to Dean, who almost doesn't hear his next words. "You wanted his death to not be your fault."
"Don't."
Sam doesn't listen. "Shoe's on the other foot now, though, huh?"
"What part of 'don't' don't you understand?" Sam gives him a hard, steady look, and he can't hold it. He gets up, starts pacing. "It's not the same thing." Sam stays quiet, and it's not the sullen silence of his teenage years, but quiet like Dad, like a hunter. Like he knows if he waits long enough, what he's hunting will come to him. Dean looks down at him, and God, it feels like forever since he's been able to do that, since he was bigger than Sam and able to protect him from everything, and he wishes so goddamned much he still could. "It doesn't matter. It's done. If anyone can find a way to get me out of it, it's you." He hates putting that extra weight on Sam's shoulders, but Sam insists he can carry it, even says he wants to. "And if you can't..." He takes another long pull off his beer. "It was worth it."
He heads towards the door, ready to grab his jacket and leave, because he can't talk about it anymore, has already said more than he wanted to.
Sam is up off the bed in an instant, and Dean always forgets how fast he moves when he wants to, one freakishly long arm already wrapping around him. He swats at it. "Dude, unless you're planning to blow me, get the hell off."
Sam's got a half-smile on his face, and he looks determined and proud and maybe a little sad, but he just says, "Don't go out. We can play cards." He goes to his duffel, brings out the pack of ragged blue cards they've had for as long as Dean can remember--it'd disappeared when Sam left for school, tucked deep in the trunk of the car, and been found last year when Sam made him reorganize the weapons. The original four of diamonds, seven of hearts, and jack of clubs had been lost long before Sam left--those cards come from other decks now, easy to spot--and the ace of spades has "Sam rules, Dean drools" scribbled on the face of it in Sam's crooked nine-year-old script.
The cards feel soft and warn under his fingers, corners bent and edges warped, widened, from age and damp.
He bluffs outrageously and Sam calls him on it, laughing the whole time. They play for M&Ms representing ridiculous sums of imaginary money, and cheat each other left and right, still playing by the old family rule that if you can do it without getting caught, it's not cheating. At the end, Dean's down something like seven million dollars; he palms two kings to go with the two he was actually dealt, and when Sam bets, he shoves his last handful of M&Ms into the center of the pile, and says, "I'll see your four million and raise you--" he counts the candies quickly (yellows are one million, blues are five million, reds are ten million) "--twenty-five million dollars." He does a pretty fantastic Dr. Evil impression, if he does say so himself.
Sam grins and tosses two reds and a blue into the pile. "Let's see what you've got, then, tough guy."
Dean reveals his cards slowly, showing the useless nine of spades first, and then one by one, the four kings. "Four kings," he says, unable to keep the glee from his voice.
Sam tosses his cards (full house: queens over threes) down. "You always were a master of the obvious."
As Dean gathers (and eats) his winnings, he slips the king of hearts up his sleeve, and then into his journal. They can replace it later if they have to.
*
December is a demon in a doctor's body, devil's trap chalked on the floor of the hospital boiler room, and a weedy man in a lab coat and horn-rimmed glasses spitting curses at them in English, French, and Latin.
"We'll be waiting for you," he says to Dean, as Sam continues to chant the exorcism ritual over him, "every single one of us you've sent back to hell will be waiting for a piece of your sweet, sweet ass, and--"
Dean tosses more holy water on the guy, just to shut him up. "Yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before," he says, tired of this bullshit. "You demons sure like to talk."
Even as the guy's skin steams and burns, he's still yammering. "--an eternity of damnation and torment." Sam, not missing a beat, clocks the guy in the head, which shuts him up long enough to finish the exorcism.
Sam is silent and tense with anger, bruised fists clenched tight at his sides, as they walk back to the car.
"Dean." Sam's voice is low and tense, and Dean can hear about thirty different questions he doesn't want to answer in it.
"Not now, Sam."
Sam glares at him and seethes silently the whole ride back to the motel. When they get into the room, he slams Dean against the wall, hands hard and tight on Dean's shoulders.
"They're not gonna get you," he says, still angry. "Not while I'm around."
"I think that's my line, Sammy." Dean's voice is rougher, more serious, than he means it to be.
Sam's hands are huge and soft on Dean's face, thumb brushing over his cheeks, his mouth. "I mean it, Dean."
"I know you do. I just--"
"Shut up. Just shut up." Sam kisses him, and the kiss is full of anger and fear and desperation, familiar as breathing, and Dean wishes he'd never had to taste those things on Sam's tongue. He tries not to think about how he shouldn't have Sam's tongue in his mouth at all, how even if he hadn't sold his soul, he'd end up in hell for this, if nothing else.
After the first time, not too long after Dad died, he'd gotten used to the stutter stop and start of it, like an engine trying to turn over in the cold, used to how weeks would go by without anything happening, and then they'd tumble into bed together, desperate and hungry for the feel of skin under fingers and tongues.
Since he made the deal, though, it's been more of a regular thing, and that makes it both harder and easier. He knows they shouldn't be doing it at all, let alone getting used to it, but it's become one of the few things left in his life that he can count on--the rough stroke of Sam's hand on his dick, the gentle warmth of Sam's mouth on his neck, and then the sharp sting of his teeth. He was surprised, the first time, at how much Sam likes to bite, spent ten minutes in the shower the next morning staring at the bruises on his skin, something hot and sick and needy curling in his belly, knowing they were territorial markings, visible ones, as if Sam were unaware that he'd owned Dean's heart since the day Dean had carried him out of the fire (and his soul until he'd sold it for Sam's life).
He knows at some point Sam's going to want to talk about this, that they probably should talk about it, because it's fifty kinds of fucked up just off the top of his head, but he keeps thinking if he puts it off, it won't matter anymore. He'll talk if he's around after the year is up, when he can say more than, Don't get too attached (Sam laughs at the warning, a wet choking sound that's almost a sob, and answers, Too late), or This is never what I wanted for you, Sammy (Sam says, I know, and Dean wants desperately to believe that he does). For now, he's got better things to do with his tongue.
They've never been a family for holidays, but this year, Sam insists, and they end up at Ellen's for Christmas. Bobby's there already, new pile of old books stacked in the passenger seat of his truck, waiting for Sam's attention. They don't even ask Dean to join them, though Sam shoots him a wounded look over his shoulder.
Ellen greets them with a warm smile and only a hint of sadness in her eyes, and Jo hugs Sam this time, and only because Dean is looking for it does he see the split second of hesitation before she does. They sit around the table, tall white tapers in the middle, and Bobby carves the roast. Sam dips his head, and all Dean can think of is Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol and Tiny Tim's God bless us, everyone when Ellen says grace.
After dinner, they drink the good whiskey and play cards. They tell stories, the funny ones, the ones that shouldn't make Dean's eyes sting or his chest ache, but occasionally do. The stories are mostly familiar, and that's why they tell them--tidings of comfort and joy, Dean thinks, and wonders if he'll be saved from Satan's power.
At midnight, Ellen gets up, goes to the small, brightly decorated tree in the corner, and starts passing out presents wrapped in paper printed with Santas and candy canes. Dean is at sea, holds the box she hands him like it might turn into a snake and bite him, but Sam is prepared, has obviously given this some thought, because he has gifts for everyone--nothing big: a bottle of wine for Ellen, scotch for Bobby, a road atlas for Jo.
"Open it," Ellen says when everyone else is done and Dean is still sitting there with a wrapped box in his lap.
"You really shouldn't have," he starts, and she glares, so he scrambles to recover, smiles and says, "but I'm glad you did." That wins him a grin from her and a snort from Sam, who's rifling through the book on herb lore she got him. Dean's gift is a soft flannel, dark green and blue plaid, nicer than anything he's bought himself in ages. It's got a quilted lining, can be a jacket or shirt, depending on need and weather. "Thank you," he says, and if his kiss hits the corner of her mouth instead of her cheek, he really hopes Jo doesn't notice.
Bobby didn't bother with wrapping, just hands Sam a dusty old book, and Dean a business card. Dean's about to make a smart remark about it when Bobby says, "Curtis gets the best deals on vintage parts--anything I can't find myself, I get from him. You ever need anything for the Impala, he's your guy."
"Thanks, Bobby." Dean puts the card into his wallet. He copies the number down into the back of his journal, slips the card in between the pages about phantom travelers.
Later, he sits at the kitchen table, light from the Christmas tree filtering in (Sam wanted it on while he slept, said they'd never had a tree he could remember, and he wanted this one to add to the ones he'd had with Jess), hands wrapped around a mug, eyeing the coffee pot like an old friend.
"Hey." Ellen's on the stairs, legs bare beneath an old flannel shirt, hair tousled around her shoulders. "Can't sleep?" He shrugs, sets the mug down. "Me neither."
When she passes between him and the counter, he reaches out, puts a hand on her hip. The flannel is soft and warm against his palm; he brushes the top of her thigh with his thumb.
She looks over her shoulder at him, raises an eyebrow, and he shrugs again, letting his hand slide down against her skin, fingers rubbing gently on the inside of her thigh. It's not like they both don't know all the reasons this is a bad idea, starting with Sam sleeping in the living room and Jo upstairs in the spare bedroom. But he doesn't have time left for regret, and if she wants to give him this, in addition to the shirt and a place to spend Christmas, he's not going to say no.
She turns abruptly, slings a leg over so she's straddling him, sudden lapful of woman the best thing he's felt all damn day.
Her mouth is slick and hot over his, the mint of her toothpaste still tingling on her tongue, and he laughs, pleased at evidence of her intent. He slides his hands up beneath her shirt to cup her breasts, palm her nipples to hardness, and she purrs, grinds down against him. She's wearing white cotton panties, the crotch already wet when he pushes his fingers beneath the elastic. Her breath stutters into his mouth when he touches her, and he laughs softly, delighted at her response, his dick hard against his zipper. His fingers are quick inside her, thumb a little rough against her clit, and she bites back a low moan when she comes.
She finds the condom in his wallet, rolls it on him when he's licking her wetness off his fingers, and sinks down onto him while she's still riding out her orgasm, her cunt tight around him. She fucks him hard, smooth muscles of her thighs working, her hands clutching his shoulders, her tongue in his mouth, heat licking down his spine and through his veins. He tightens his hands on her hips, slamming up into her now, the tension so close to breaking, and in the brief endless moment right before he comes, when the world goes white and still before the rush of pleasure, he can forget about everything but the thrust of his hips and the tight wet heat of Ellen's body. The chair scratches against the kitchen floor, but neither of them care about the noise now, shaking apart in each other's arms.
She cups his cheek, kisses his forehead, before she drifts back up the stairs, and sleep comes easier when he slips into the sleeping bag on the floor beneath the tree.
Dean spends Christmas morning cleaning the car. Sam comes out when he's vacuuming the mats, leans against the fence with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders up around his ears, huddling against the cold.
When Dean turns the vacuum off, Sam pushes himself upright, brings a small wrapped box out of his pocket.
Dean frowns at him. "I didn't--I thought we weren't gonna--"
"Yeah, I know. You don't have to--" Sam shrugs, looking young and uncertain. "Just open it."
Dean gets the paper off--Sam would pick the kind with fat jolly Santas on it--and opens the box. Inside is a small black figurine of Anubis, about the length of his thumb. "Are we planning an Egyptian burial?" he asks, taking it out and running his thumb over the smooth, cool surface of the thing. There are hieroglyphics carved on the base.
"It's not an ushabti. It's Anubis--"
"I know that."
"It's supposed to protect your soul from being devoured." He looks so earnest, so damned hopeful, that Dean feels his chest tighten. "It's too big to wear, but if you keep it with you--"
Dean closes his hand around it, feels the stone dig into his palm. "Okay," he says, slipping it into the pocket of his jeans. "Okay. And, you know, thanks."
Sam's smile is wide and his eyes are bright, and Dean turns back to the car before they get any more emotional.
They leave in the afternoon, to beat the Christmas rush, Dean says, but mostly because he wants to avoid any awkwardness. He thinks about how, in a different time and place, he might have lived here with Ellen, been more than the son of her dead husband's dead friend, or the guy who shows up once in a while and wants to fuck. He respects her more than that, thinks she deserves more, and he can't give her that, even if he wasn't operating under a deadline.
He hugs Ellen tight, shakes Bobby's hand, gives Jo a kiss on the forehead, afraid this might be the last time he sees them. None of them mention it, though; they either have as much faith in Sam as he does, or they're wise enough to hold their tongues. Either way, he appreciates it.
Once they're in the car, Sam says, "We could have stayed. Done New Year's here. I know you and Ellen--"
"Sam--"
"No, no. It's...dude, it's okay."
"It's not--" He doesn't know how to say what it is, let alone what it's not, except it's not something Sam should ever be jealous of or worried about.
Sam puts a hand on Dean's thigh, squeezes gently. "I know. Like I said, we could've stayed."
Dean thinks about it--the ball dropping, champagne at midnight, the whole deal. When they were kids, he and Sam had always stayed up to watch Dick Clark, even long after it had ceased to be cool. He thinks maybe they could do that again.
"No need," Dean answers, and the thing is, he means it.
*
January is his birthday, twenty-nine and holding steady, like a Hollywood starlet hanging onto one last shot at the cover of Cosmo.
Sam makes him put on a tie, drags him out to some four star restaurant in Denver with abstract art on the walls and a guy whose only job, from what Dean can see, is to open bottles of wine and sniff the corks.
"Dude, this place has flowers and candles," he says after the guy hands him the wine list. Sam takes it out of his hands and lays it on the table, frowning. "I took Cassie to a place like this before I told her--"
"About the family business?"
"Yeah."
Sam's got his let's talk about our feelings face on, looks like he might be about to reach across the table and grab Dean's hand when he says, "Well, I'm not planning on dropping any bombshells tonight, Dean. It's just--it's your birthday, and--"
Dean rubs a hand over his mouth, because he is so not up for Sam's existential bullshit tonight. "You're hoping I'll put out if you drop some serious cash on dinner? You think I can be bought?"
Sam snorts with laughter. Score. "Who are you kidding, Dean? You'd put out for free."
"I'm offended. You've offended my honor."
"As long as it's not your virtue, which I know for a fact you lost to Susie Gibbons when you were fifteen."
"Ah, Susie." He grins fondly, remembering. "She had nice tits."
The waiter arrives then, asks if they're ready to order. Dean orders beer and steak and garlic mashed potatoes that are so good he thinks he might die of love for them. Just to be annoying, he snags one of Sam's asparagus spears off his plate, and Sam tries to slap his hand away.
"So, Idaho in the morning, huh?" he says when he's done chewing.
"Yeah. Bobby said there were pretty obvious signs of demonic possessions in Boise."
"More than one?"
"Guess so."
"Well, that'll make it interesting." He takes a bite of his steak, savors it slowly, the meat rich and juicy on his tongue. "You know what we should have done while we were here?"
"What?"
"Gone to see the Avalanche."
"The what?" Sam frowns at him, confused. "Oh. Do you even like hockey?"
Dean shrugs. "It's a bunch of guys on skates beating the crap out of each other. What's not to like?"
"We'll come back in the spring," Sam says. "Go see the Rockies instead."
He doesn't rise to the bait, nods and smiles and lets Sam drone on about whatever--it's amazing that they spend so much time together, and yet they always have some random bullshit to talk about, even beyond hunting and sports and horror movies. Admittedly, he doesn't always listen, and he's pretty sure Sam tunes out his lectures on music, but still, it's amazing.
He lets his gaze wander over the people in the restaurant as Sam talks about the chef and how he got kicked out of some culinary school and made a triumphant return cooking for a rival school, like chefs are the new mafia or something. He doesn't know where Sam learns shit like that, but he always seems to know it.
While Dean's not paying attention, he spots a hot blonde in a strappy dress sitting across from a guy old enough to be her father.
He digs for a pen and a piece of paper (the napkins are linen and hard to write on), and writes 9.5 on it, holds it up so Sam can see.
"What?"
"The blonde with the daddy kink. It'd be higher, but I don't think they're real. Too symmetrical."
Sam sighs. "Dean--"
"Ooh, the brunette at two o'clock, Sammy. Totally smokin'. Nine point eight, definitely." He continues scanning the room for hot chicks, showing Sam their ratings, enjoying the view, and also the way Sam's trying not to laugh, the way he's trying to be prissy and offended and all, "Can't take you anywhere, Dean."
There's a woman in a booth to their left who's definitely MILF material, though age has made her skin a little tight in some places and loose in others. He gives her a nine. He's always been fond of older women. Susie Gibbons had been seventeen when she'd popped his cherry.
"That's terrible, Dean."
"Hey, she's a hot old-timer, but she can't really compete with the blonde." He makes the universal sign for breasts and Sam rolls his eyes. "Gravity takes its toll, you know?"
For dessert, he has a sundae, and Sam has crème brulée, which looks and smells like vanilla pudding (except for the burnt part), but is cool because the waiter uses a blowtorch right at their table. Dean quizzes him on the make and model, gets a recommendation, because they are totally adding that to their arsenal. Dean's not sure why they never did before.
"Dude, you ever have bananas foster?" he says around a mouthful of chocolate ice cream and hot fudge sauce. "They set that shit on fire right at the table. It's awesome." He makes a mental note to get down to New Orleans one last time before he bites it, for beignets and coffee, and bananas foster.
"Yeah," Sam says, smiling, "it is."
When the bill comes, Sam signs it as Zachary Gray, and Dean folds it with his lady-rating scorecard, and shoves it into his pocket.
Before they leave Denver, they hit up the Williams-Sonoma in the Cherry Creek mall, and Sam buys him a mini-blowtorch for his birthday. He can't wait to use it.
*
February is Leap Year Day, an extra day Dean takes as a blessing, doesn't even complain when Sam tells him stuff he already knows about the rotation of the earth and the twenty-seven seconds they lose every year.
They spend the day in bed.
Even with Sam's long, lean body stretched out beneath him, winter pale skin smooth and dusted with light brown hair, warm and salty and slick with saliva under his lips, Dean still can't believe they're doing this, that Sam wants to do this. That he wants it himself.
He knows every scar on Sam's body now, even the few new ones from his time away--the knotty keloid on his wrist from when the Snapple bottle shattered in his hand, an inch-long burn scar on his forearm from making cookies with Jess, the puncture marks on his calf where her parents' dog bit him the first time she took him home--has mapped them all with fingers and lips, warm breath and wet tongue, laughing at the way Sam shivers, breath hitching and voice choking on a word that could be Dean or God or fuck--they all mean the same thing at the moment--when Dean hits an especially sensitive spot.
He loves knowing him like this, just one more way to add to his expertise on the subject of Sam Winchester--that there's a spot on the inside of his left elbow that makes him jump when Dean nips it, that he thrusts his hips helplessly when Dean licks the strip of skin where his thigh joins his body, that he likes it a little rough sometimes, that all the intensity and passion he tries to hide behind his nice boy smile is unleashed when he's fucking Dean or sucking him off. It's a thrill, having that intensity focused on him, one Dean never expected to want, let alone have, and now that he's had it, he doesn't think he'll ever stop wanting it.
Sam yanks him up for a kiss, and Dean laughs into his mouth. "Pushy little bitch, aren't you?"
"Not little," Sam answers with a pout, rolling them over and stretching Dean's arms over his head, curling his fingers around the bottom of the headboard, and then letting go so he can run those huge, soft hands over Dean's chest, thumbs rubbing at his collarbones, making Dean squirm and huff with laughter, heat blooming and lingering under his skin like a slow-burning fuse.
Dean rolls them over again, as much wrestling as fucking, hips grinding down when Sam thrusts up, both of them gasping and moaning. Dean reaches out and grabs the lube, fingers still trembling slightly when he slicks Sam's hole, not used to this yet. Maybe he'll never get used to it, maybe he shouldn't, but Sam growls when Dean pushes two fingers inside him, actually growls, "Just fucking fuck me, already."
"Dude, we've got all day," Dean says, laughing. He coats his dick with lube in a couple of long, lazy strokes, spreads Sam's legs high and wide, and pushes in past the tight ring of muscle. Both of them are shaking a little, dripping sweat and breathing ragged, and Dean almost loses it completely when Sam tightens around him.
After a rocky start, they move together like a finely tuned engine, Dean going slow so he can watch the pleasure light up Sam's face, the way his eyes flutter closed and his mouth goes slack with it, the way his chest heaves because he can't catch his breath. I did this, Dean thinks, awed and proud and so close to coming himself he thinks he might die if he doesn't, his hands tight on Sam's legs, and his hips pumping hard.
The relentless tension of need crests and breaks, and the world explodes in red hot pleasure, so good he thinks maybe he has died, and this is a sneak peek of heaven before he gets sent to hell.
He collapses on top of Sam with a grunt, slides out, eases Sam's legs down, rubbing at the muscles of his thighs, which, he's learned the past few months, tend to start cramping in that position.
"Dean," Sam says, grabbing his hand. He twines their fingers together and wraps them around his dick. Three strokes is all it takes, and then Sam's coming wet and warm and sticky between them.
When he's done, Dean flops down beside him on the bed, licking his fingers and frowning at the taste. He supposes he'll get used to it. Is glad he's learned that, too, in the time that he has left.
They take a break in the late afternoon to order in some food--General Tso's chicken, Hunan beef, and pork lo mein, with extra pork fried rice and two orders of fried dumplings on the side--and Dean laughingly overtips the delivery guy who stares at him with wide eyes when he opens the door half-naked and covered in hickeys.
"Dude, that guy wishes he was me," he says when he closes the door, and he laughs again when Sam flushes.
He's hunched over his laptop, typing quickly, so Dean starts eating without him.
"You know what they say about all work and no play, Sammy," he says, waving his chopsticks--and the lo mein noodles they're holding--in Sam's direction when another fifteen minutes has passed and Sam's still fiddling with his calendar and the laptop.
"Makes Homer something something," Sam replies, closing the laptop with a satisfying click and joining Dean at the table. He's wearing nothing but a smug smile Dean wants to wipe off his face.
In the morning, while Sam is in the shower, Dean rips February out of Sam's pocket calendar--the twenty-ninth is circled, and Sam pressed down so hard there's a groove on the next page--and puts it in the back of his journal.
*
March is running into Jo in a dive bar just outside of Tulsa. They team up at the pool table and make enough money that Dean doesn't mind splitting it with her. She did do half the work, distracting their opponents with a smile and the swish of her hips. She's had a couple of drinks and she's flirty and cute instead of awkward, and her hair is shiny and smells nice, so it's not like she's rough to be around.
After the clinic they put on, nobody wants to play them so they play each other. Sam, the traitor, teams up with her to play Dean. She and Sam win a game or two off him, and it's easy to forget the long nights they spent tracking a rawhead, to ignore the purple shadows under Jo's eyes, and the scrapes on her back that show when she bends to take a shot and her shirt rides up.
He goes to take a leak, stops at the bar to pick up another round of beer, and when he comes back, Sam and Jo have found new blood; Sam is working the "I've never seen a pool cue in my life" thing while Jo smiles like a cute blonde shark.
Dean leans against the doorjamb and watches them for a while.
Jo doesn't flinch away from Sam anymore. He's been treating her like a spooked kid who's just seen her first ghost, but for this con to work, he has to touch her casually, put his arm around her, kiss the top of her head, and she has to lean into him and let him do it.
After they're done--Sam, the chump, lets Jo pocket the cash they've won--they stumble into a booth together, the three of them, and she slides right in next to Sam, rests her head against his chest when he slings his arm across the back of the booth.
Dean thinks about how they'd sat around her mother's table at Christmas and he'd felt like maybe they could all be some kind of family. He thinks about how this makes that easier. When he's gone, Sam will be able to go to Ellen's without worrying about making Jo uncomfortable; they can give him a different kind of family, maybe one that doesn't tear itself apart over sacrifice and vengeance, all of that burned out of them now by the long year's war against the army of demons.
While he's been thinking, Sam and Jo have been giggling over something she's drawn all over her napkin.
"Okay, girls, hand it over."
Sam slides the napkin across the table--it stalls in a ring of condensation and the ink starts to blur, but it's a barely recognizable stick figure drawing of him (that has to be Jo's work, because Sam is pretty handy with a pencil and a sketchpad) holding a stick--"It's a pool cue, dumbass," Sam says--in one hand, and a gun in the other. Scrawled across the top, in Sam's handwriting, is Dean Winchester's on the loose. Lock up your money and your daughters.
"Damn straight," he says, folding it in and putting it into his pocket. He grins conspiratorially at Jo. "Now, do one of Sam."
With a few quick strokes of the pen, Jo's got something resembling Sam, all long arms and endless legs and shaggy hair, though she gives him little dog ears, too. "Because you look like a little lost puppy and everyone wants to take you home," she manages through her giggles, and Dean wonders for a second what it would have been like to have grown up with a sister.
"Dean!" Sam says in protest, like he hasn't been using that look for years.
"Artistic license, Sammy." Dean grins at Jo, takes the pen from her when she's done and writes, How much for that Sammy in the window? (which seems hilarious at the time, but not so much when he's sober), and before Sam can snatch the napkin back, he puts that one in his pocket too.
They close the place down, and walk her to her truck. Her blonde hair shines in the yellow streetlight and her hips sway in unconscious invitation. Dean almost says, Come back to the room with us, imagining that hair tickling his stomach, those hips under his hands. He thinks about the wet heat of her cunt, her mouth, and wonders if Sam is imagining the same thing as he's giving her a kiss on the cheek.
He doesn't say it, though. He doesn't know what Sam would think, doesn't know how Jo would respond. Doesn't want to make everything awkward again, or reveal that he and Sam are--shit, he can just imagine what she'd think.
So when she hooks her fingers in his belt loops and presses up against him, warm and soft in all the right places, he brushes the hair off her forehead and presses a friendly goodnight kiss there.
"You okay getting back to your motel?"
She gives him a small half-smile. "Yeah. You?"
"We're good, ain't we, Sammy?"
Sam smiles and lifts his hand in a weird half wave. "Yeah, we're fine."
"Take care of yourselves, you hear me?" She reaches up and cups Dean's cheek, her hand small and warm against his skin. "You need any help--"
He nods. "We've got your number."
They watch her drive off until her taillights are lost in the darkness.
When they get back to their own motel room, Sam says, "It's okay, if you wanted to--I mean--"
Dean shrugs. "I thought about asking her if she'd be up for a threesome," he says, and then he laughs at the stunned look on Sam's face.
"Okay, that's something I hadn't--" Sam shakes his head, laughing in disbelief. "You're incorrigible."
Dean drops down onto his bed and unlaces his boots, glad to be free of them after a long day. "I think you mean irresistible."
"No, I mean incorrigible. I don't think she'd have gone for it, though."
"Would you?" Dean doesn't look up from where he's pulling his socks off, but he wants to know now that he's thought of it.
"I--I dunno. Maybe."
"Jo would have freaked though, huh?"
"Well, she does have a crush on you, but she only tolerates me, after--"
"You guys seemed to be getting along all right tonight."
It's Sam's turn to shrug. "Yeah, I guess."
He looks down at his feet again, finds the words easier to say when he can't see Sam's face. When he's had a night of beer and shots to smooth the way. "Look, Sam, when I'm gone--"
"You're not gonna die, Dean. I won't allow it."
"When I'm gone," Dean bellows over him, "you go to Ellen's or Bobby's. You let them take care of you. Maybe you should partner with Jo--you're not used to hunting alone, and you could probably teach her a thing or two."
"Dude, you're not dying. It's not gonna happen."
"We all gotta die sometime, Sammy, and I'm past due."
"Dean--"
"Just promise me you'll take a break for a while, go to Ellen's or Bobby's, let them take care of you until--I don't know. Until you're okay."
"Dean, if you're dead, there is no more okay for me. Don't you get that?" Sam gets up off his bed, swings a leg over so he's straddling Dean's lap. He puts a hand under Dean's chin and lifts his face up, capturing Dean's mouth in a soft, desperate kiss. He pushes Dean down against the bed, all groping hands and thrusting hips, and Dean lets himself be distracted, tries to engrave into his memory the feel of Sam's hands on his body, Sam's mouth on his skin, knowing the alcohol is going to make everything fuzzy in the morning.
When they're done, sticky and satisfied and out of breath, he says, "You really think Jo wouldn't have gone for this?"
Sam looks over at him and shakes his head. "Incorrigible." Dean grins at him. "I don't know. Maybe. She probably doesn't know you've slept with her mother."
Dean nods, smiles at the memory. "There is that."
They fall asleep sprawled next to each other on top of the comforter, and when Dean wakes up to take a piss, he rifles through the pockets of his jeans, finds the crumpled napkins Jo drew on, and slides them into his journal, between the pages on H.H. Holmes. When he climbs back into bed, he stays awake for a while, watching Sam sleep.
*
April is New Orleans, warm spring air humid with the promise of rain. They eat beignets and drink coffee every morning, powdered sugar and chocolate melting on their tongues, and fuck slow and easy on soft, worn sheets while a white ceiling fan whirrs lazily above them.
There's no job, per se, but it's New Orleans, city full of ghosts even before the floods, so there's always something to keep them busy. Dean doesn't mind staying--he likes it here, likes seeing the city emerging from the disaster, proud and strong.
Sam spends time at the library, at the bookshops, at the nearest botánica, comes back with medals and beads and charms he strings around the motel room. Dean doesn't say anything, though. Not yet. There's still time.
He tries to make every moment last, and he thinks Sam is doing the same thing, because he's slowed down his frantic search for a loophole, has stopped calling everyone they ever met who might know something that could help them.
Dean's waiting for Sam in the Café du Monde, sipping his coffee and flirting with a dark-eyed girl who reminds him of Cassie, long hair and long legs and a wide, wicked smile. Cassie's the one loose end he hasn't tied up, but then, she'd done that when she'd said goodbye last year, so he's got nothing left to regret. He'd thought of calling her, but all he'd end up saying was goodbye, and he's refused to say that to anyone--it's too much like giving up.
Sam arrives, sun in his hair and smile on his face, grabbing Dean's attention, the girl forgotten.
"Good day at the office?" Dean says as Sam settles into the chair across from him.
Sam grins. "It's nice to work in a place where people don't think you're crazy for talking about ghosts."
April is the narrowing of days down to single digits on the narrow streets of the French quarter, and, just before the end, a visit to a psychic named Madame LeClair, who helped Dean the last time he was here.
"I remember you," she says when they push into the little shop, bell ringing over the door. Her face creases in a smile, the lines around her eyes and mouth the only indication of age--she could be anywhere from forty to seventy, though her hair is grayer now than it was when he saw her last. She studies them both for a long moment, then nods. "You out laying ghosts to rest, doing good work, but you got a powerful demon gunning for you now."
He smiles back at her, genuinely glad to be known, remembered, for once. "Tell me something I don't know."
"Cher, telling you what you don't know could take the rest of my life, and you ain't got that kind of time." Sam laughs as she leads them into back of the shop, gestures for them to sit on the green and gold striped sofa while she sits down in the easy chair across from it. "You got some powerful protection on you, but you got to believe in it."
Dean thinks about the figurine in his pocket, the amulet on his chest, the various charms and sigils Sam's scattered around the room, the runes he's drawn on Dean's body. He knows any or all of it can work, or not, but he's never thought of it as contingent on whether he believes or not. "I'm not really big on faith in things I can't see," he says. "Especially if they might turn on me at any second."
She waves a hand dismissively. "Not talking about the charms you wear, boy." She inclines her head towards Sam. "You believe in him?"
He and Sam turn startled glances on each other. "Yeah," Dean says. "Yeah. I do."
"Then let him believe for you."
She gets up, and they stand with her. She goes to the breakfront against the wall and digs in a drawer, comes up with a plastic bag full of dirt that she hands to Sam. "You know what to do?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Good boy." She turns to Dean. "You take care of yourself. You still got work to do and it ain't gonna get done if you're dead."
"Yes, ma'am," he says, shaking her hand. She squeezes it tight, slips him a business card, while cupping his cheek with her other hand in a way that's grown familiar lately.
Back in the motel room, Sam chalks a devil's trap on the ceiling while Dean reads the card. Her name and address are embossed on the front in fancy script, and on the back, a bible verse he vaguely remembers Pastor Jim quoting. One line in particular stands out--I will fear no evil, for you are with me. It's true, though probably not the way either the writer or Madame LeClaire intended. He slips it into his journal to mark the entry on reapers.
"Is it something we can use?" Sam asks.
"Nah. A prayer, not a spell."
Sam opens his mouth and closes it again, goes back to his drawing.
"It's gonna be okay, Sammy," Dean says. "You're here with me, and I'm okay. I'm ready." Sam's face twists into a hurt frown, but he doesn't say anything, just finishes off the devil's trap and starts pouring salt across the threshold and the windowsills. Dean gets up off the bed and stands in front of him, trying to hold his attention. "You have to promise me you won't try to bring me back."
"What?"
"You have to burn my body and scatter my ashes, Sam." He grabs Sam's arms, makes Sam look at him. "Promise me."
"No, Dean. No."
"Sam, I'm asking you--"
"Dean, no. It's not even gonna be an issue, because you're not gonna die. I won't let you. You have to believe that. You said you believed it."
"I do, Sammy. I do believe it. But just in case, man." He tries to laugh and it comes out sounding weak and hoarse. "Plan for the worst--"
Sam jerks away, goes back to pouring salt. "Shut up and help me."
"You know I can't."
"Dean--"
"I can't take the chance."
"Dean, please."
"I can't," he says again, and it hurts, breaking his hard-won calm, the acceptance he'd thought he'd reached over the past twelve months. "Don't be mad at me, Sam. Not now. Please."
Sam turns to face him again, reaches out and lets his freakishly huge hand settle on Dean's shoulder. "I'm not. I just--" His breath hitches, and Dean feels it in his chest. "You've gotta believe in me, Dean."
"I do. You know I do."
Sam is silent for a long moment, holding his gaze, trying to read him, and Dean feels more open to that searching look than he ever has before. Finally, Sam relents and says, "Okay," and both of them can breathe again.
Sam finishes with the salt and the goofer dust, sets five white pillar candles around the room at the points of a pentacle only he can see, and then they settle down to wait.
*
Epilogue
In the end, it's not the salt or the goofer dust that saves Dean, though they help. It's everything Sam's done over the course of the year, things Dean knew about--the Anubis figurine, the ritual at Halloween, the devil's trap--and things he didn't--some of the stuff from Bobby's books that Sam's too tired and hoarse to explain at the moment; the bottle of rum and box of cigars left at a makeshift altar to Baron Samedi; the whole leap year loophole thing that only a wannabe lawyer like Sam would have tried to exploit, let alone make stick, and now Dean knows why Sam looked so smug that day, and it didn't have anything to do with the sex. Well, maybe it did a little.
When they're done, the room is wrecked, they're covered in dust and salt, the crossroads demon has been bound and destroyed, and Dean's a free man.
He grabs his duffel bag and pulls out the car keys. "Come on," he says when Sam finally stops hugging him. "Let's go."
He's got his whole life ahead of him, and he wants to get on the road, see where it takes them.
end
~*~
Notes: Title and cut-tag text from "The Calendar Hung Itself" by Bright Eyes, whom I really rather loathe. But the title fit. Since Sam says, "We're all 23," in AHBL1, I'm going with the idea that the episode takes place in late April, even though that is completely insane. This story is actually a prequel to Drive Until You Lose the Road, and was begun when I realized there was a story behind each of the items Dean burns at the end of that, but there really wasn't any room in that story to tell them. That follows directly from this, though that can in fact be read as completely gen if one ignores the existence of this story.
*
June 25, 2007
~*~
Feedback is adored.
~*~
Supernatural; Dean/Sam (Dean/Ellen, Dean/OFC); adult; spoilers through AHBL2; 10,810 words
Being an accounting of the souvenirs collected on the Dean Winchester farewell tour of America.
Thanks to devildoll and luzdeestrellas for betaing. *hearts*
~*~
The Calendar Hung Itself
May is Sam's birthday, awkward because they haven't really done the birthday thing since Sam turned seventeen, and also because Dean's already given everything he has, and no CD or cool t-shirt is going to top that.
Still, he drags Sam out to the nearest bar, gets him loose and laughing with a few beers and a couple shots of Southern Comfort, sweet and sticky as the promise of summer on his tongue.
"A card, Dean? You didn't have to."
"Good, 'cause I didn't."
He hands Sam a printout of the day's Dinosaur Comic, the words Happy Birthday, Sam scrawled across the top of the page.
"This is what you were doing at the library?"
Dean shrugs. "Can't look at porn there, and I was bored."
"'Too much terror for the printed word,' huh?"
"It's as if they knew."
Sam laughs and takes a long pull off his beer.
Later, they tumble into bed and fuck sleepily, sloppily, loud laughter turning into moans, and the headboard banging hard against the wall, annoying the guy in the next room.
When they're done, Sam falls asleep with his head on Dean's shoulder, and Dean whispers, "Happy birthday, kiddo," into his hair.
A few days later, he finds the "card" folded up in the back pocket of Sam's jeans, so he tucks it into his journal for safekeeping. Sam has always been sentimental about those kinds of things, though Dean never does remember to give it back.
*
June is helping Ellen rebuild. She buys a small house not too far from the graveyard containing the gates of hell, talks about opening another bar, though they all agree it's probably not a good idea for hunters to congregate in the same place too often. Dean takes her to the local hardware store and helps her pick out the paint and the fixtures, spends a couple of weeks sanding stairs and painting walls, hanging blinds and staining floors, while Sam and Bobby huddle over dusty books written in dead languages, looking for ways to save his soul.
Even with all the windows open, the smell of the paint makes Dean dizzy. Not that he needs the excuse when Ellen stands just a little too close, holds his gaze just a little too long whenever their eyes meet, and lets her hand brush the back of his neck in the morning when she serves him breakfast in the tiny kitchen they've painted white.
Dean is covered in sweat and paint when Ellen pushes him against the not-quite-dry bedroom wall, her hands at the waist of his jeans, her tongue sweet and hot in his mouth.
They're quick, because Sam and Bobby could come back at any time, and rough, because it's not about anything but lust and guilt, about the need to forget the weight they carry (Ash, Andy, Ava, the litany of their dead always hanging over any attempts to make a fresh start), and the need to touch someone else who understands.
He lays her down on the drop cloth, and she wraps her legs around his waist, snapping her hips up to meet him, the soft skin of her belly warm against his, the fine swell of her hip the natural place for his hand to rest.
She's wet and tight around him, and beautiful when she comes, her low, satisfied moan shivering down Dean's spine like the burn of good whiskey. He covers her mouth with a kiss, swallows it down and comes himself, a hot rush of pleasure that leaves him weightless and free for a few seconds that feel like eternity.
Ellen smiles a little easier afterwards, jagged edges of grief smoothed just enough to make them bearable, but she doesn't touch him again, and he doesn't push.
Jo arrives the next morning, and Dean knows it's time to leave. He's awkward with her in a way he hasn't been with Ellen, and always aware of the way she holds herself away from Sam, who hunches in on himself in her presence, though none of it was his fault. Sam is understanding, but Dean finds his patience wearing thin, and the tension is back in Ellen's shoulders.
Sam is still finding flecks of paint in random spots on Dean's skin days later, but he doesn't do anything but smile and try to scrape it off with his fingernails, which makes Dean squirm, because Sam knows all the spots where he's ticklish, and likes to take advantage. His mouth follows his fingers, and Dean sighs in pleasure.
"You look like you rolled around in the paint," Sam murmurs against his shoulder. "I think Ellen would appreciate it more if you actually put the paint on the walls."
Dean grins, remembering. "Oh, Ellen appreciated me all right."
Sam leans back, looks up at him, skeptical. "Ellen? Really?"
"Yeah, Ellen. Really." Dean can't help the smug satisfaction in his voice.
Sam grins in response. "I'm impressed."
Me, too, Dean thinks, but doesn't say. He hits Sam with a pillow, instead.
He uses a strip of paint chips (silver mist, moonlight, mother of pearl) as a bookmark in his journal, marking the page about Samuel Colt's giant devil's trap in southern Wyoming.
*
July is languid heat and lambent yellow light that glows and clings like honey to Sam's slowly tanning skin--endless stretches of it salty warm under Dean's tongue, and he's determined to lick every inch before he dies--and raises freckles on Dean's skin like bits of cinnamon in the fancy coffees Sam orders to get on Dean's nerves.
In Charleston, they hunt the ghost of a Confederate soldier who deserted and has been murdering young women ever since. They salt and burn his bones in the humid summer night while mosquitoes cloud the air, and head back to the motel, drained from the heat. They crank the AC up as high as it will go (which isn't high enough given the heat and humidity even late at night) and strip down to their underwear. Dean cleans his guns and Sam surfs the net and calls everyone who's still speaking to them (and some people who apparently aren't, if Sam's muttered cursing is any indication) about Dean's problem. It's too hot to sleep in the same bed, but they do anyway, jostling for access to the small cool patches of cotton against sweat-sheened skin.
Sometime before dawn, Dean wakes up and rolls towards Sam, who swats his hand away, muttering, "Too hot, too tired," but he's as hard as Dean is, and they thrust lazily together until Dean can barely breathe with how good it feels. When Sam comes, he bites down hard on Dean's shoulder, hard enough to raise a bruise, and that's it for Dean--he spurts white and warm over their bellies, and then collapses onto his back, panting like he's just run the hundred yard dash.
In Milwaukee, they put down a black dog and celebrate by going to a Brewers game. They drink beer and eat brats, and after the game, they make out like overeager teenagers in the tunnel heading for the men's room, Sam's stubble scratchy against Dean's skin, his mouth hot and wet and tasting of beer.
Dean tucks the ticket stubs into his wallet, and later transfers them to his journal, slipped between the pages on hellhounds and black dogs.
*
August is four hot nights chasing a werewolf in Battle Creek, and then meeting a girl named Ami ("with an I") at the nearest bar. She's studying art at the local college, likes to talk about composition and post-modernism and transgression. She makes him feel a hundred years old, though that doesn't stop him from pressing her back against the booth and copping a feel while they make out. She has dyed black hair and a pierced tongue, the metal heavy, warm, and smooth in his mouth, and he fucks her out in the parking lot, bent over the trunk of the car, her skirt shoved up and her panties shoved down just far enough for him to slip inside the slick heat of her cunt and start thrusting. She throws her head back and moans--it sounds fake, which throws his rhythm off, and he wonders vaguely if she has a boyfriend who likes her to make noise, put on a show. He slides a hand over her hip and down between her thighs, flicks at her clit, and she gasps, tightening around him, murmuring soft little stuttering cries as she comes.
"That's it, sweetheart. That's better," he mutters, coming with a rush of pleasure and a hard grunt, pressing his face to the sweaty skin of her neck, which smells like baby powder.
She dots her I's with hearts and draws a smiley face inside the zero at the end of her phone number, and Dean shoves the scrap of paper into his pocket, though he knows he'll never call her, and thanks her. He gives her a long, slow goodnight kiss, the taste of strawberry lip gloss and stale beer on his lips fading as he drives back to the motel.
Sam is hunched over the laptop, forehead creased in concentration, sitting in the same spot Dean left him in three hours ago.
Sam wrinkles his nose but there's no accusation in his voice when he says, "Have a good time?"
Dean shrugs and grins smugly, knowing how much it will annoy Sam, who can be a jealous little bitch sometimes, even though he has no reason to be.
He's finished washing his hair when Sam pushes his way into the shower, and presses Dean against the wall. The tile is cool and unforgiving at Dean's back when Sam goes to his knees and swallows him down. Sam's mouth is hotter and wetter than the spray of the shower, and Dean threads his hands through Sam's hair and holds on tight, lets Sam have control. The pleasure builds hot and fast, licking down his spine like fire, and he watches his dick slide in and out of Sam's mouth, Sam's wet pink lips stretched wide around him, and then he looks lower, sees Sam jacking himself roughly. Dean comes hard in Sam's mouth, Sam's name on his lips, and Sam's hand on his hip the only thing keeping him from sliding down the wall and into Sam's lap.
They stay in the shower until the hot water runs out. Dean laughs at the way their fingers and toes have pruned up, and snaps his towel at Sam's ass. Sam tackles him to the bed, and they roll around and wrestle, laughing too hard to really do any damage. When they're done, Dean drapes his arm over Sam's waist, and drifts off to sleep, content.
*
September is New York, lingering summer heat fading into cool evenings, and the sky so blue in the mornings, it doesn't look real behind the spires of the Empire State Building and the Chrysler building.
Sam buries himself in the reading room at the public library, a shy half-smile and a forged ID card enough to get him access to some books most people don't even know exist. Dean wants to stay with him, and not just because the air conditioning is a blessing after the heat and humidity outside, but he's not sure if helping Sam here counts as trying to weasel out of his deal, and he doesn't want to take the chance. Sam seems to think that condition applies only to Dean, and refuses to listen to anything Dean has to say on the matter. So Dean grumbles about the silence, complains about the heavy smell of dust and damp that clings to the old manuscripts and folios, and bitches about the gloves they have to wear to handle them. He leaves after the first fifteen minutes, and Sam's exasperated enough to be glad, even though Dean's pretty sure Sam sees right through him.
He goes across the street to the branch, settles himself at one of the computers to check his email, messages forwarded through God only knows where to hide them from the FBI and whoever else might be tracking them, Ash's groundwork and Sam's vigilance keeping the system going now that Ash is gone.
He'd asked Ellen to send him some information about the headless horseman, figures they can head up to Tarrytown, see if there's any truth to the legend, and maybe stop in New Paltz, see if that Sarah girl is still willing to give Sam the time of day.
He knows Sam liked her, had kept in touch with her until the debacle in Milwaukee. He thinks maybe when he's gone, she could be someone Sam could count on, since she already knows the truth.
He meets Sam on the library steps two hours later, buys them each two hot dogs and a can of Coke from the guy on the corner, and Sam shuffles his papers around in his bag. He tries to tell Dean about what he's found, but Dean ignores him.
It's not that Dean wants to die, necessarily. It's just that he wants Sam to live, and it's not like he hasn't already spent his life dedicated to that, so why shouldn't his death be, as well? But he can't make Sam understand that, hasn't even tried, because once Sam gets an idea in his head, it takes a crowbar to get it out, and Dean doesn't want to spend the last year of his life fighting with him. If anyone can figure a way out of this deal, it's Sam, but Dean's not going to hold his breath, not going to let himself hope. He has a year--in the back of his mind he can hear Sam mutter, eight months, in an angry, panicked voice--and it will have to be enough.
The wind, a hint of autumn's chill creeping into it late in the afternoon, takes some of Sam's papers as they eat, and when he goes chasing them, Dean slips Sam's new library card into his pocket. It's not like they're going to be in New York much longer anyway.
*
October is saving the Martin Luther King Jr. High School Halloween dance from zombies accidentally created by the AP Bio class as their science fair project. Dean gets to set the lot of them on fire after they've been decapitated, and though the smell is disgusting, the whole thing is kind of awesome if you like setting shit on fire, and Dean really, really does.
They stay in town for a couple of days afterwards, waiting to make sure nothing else pops up out of the ground on Halloween night. Sam's been on the phone with Joshua, wants to do some ritual in the midnight hour--the veil between the dead and the living thins, he says, and though he's serious, Dean laughs, because it sounds like something out of an old Hammer horror flick with Vincent Price--that will help keep Dean's soul in place when the demon comes to claim it. In the meantime, they drive to the nearest Wal-Mart, stock up on rock salt and ammo and other assorted necessities.
"We should have some candy," Dean says, swinging down the candy aisle and tossing a couple of bags of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups into the car, as well as an economy-sized bag of peanut M&Ms, "in case any kids stop by."
"I really don't think we're gonna get any trick-or-treaters, Dean."
"You never know. We might." He thinks of all the years they spent watching other kids trick-or-treat while Dad kept them locked behind salt lines and protective runes carved into the lintels; how Halloween had been a night of tense silences and the kinds of ghosts that can't be laid to rest with rock salt and fire, and how the one time he'd defied Dad and taken Sam (dressed in a homemade Superman costume Dean still hasn't let him live down), they'd both eaten so much candy they'd made themselves sick, and that had been the end of that.
Sam laughs, shakes his head. "Then get something we can give out without worrying about anyone going into anaphylactic shock."
"What?"
"Peanuts, Dean. Lots of kids have peanut allergies."
Dean doesn't even want to contemplate life without peanut butter, but instead of putting the candy back, he adds an assortment of Hershey minis, and some packs of gum. Sam holds up a bag of red and white swirly peppermint candies, and Dean says, "Dude, no. That's, like, something your grandmother gives out." Sam looks skeptical. "And also, little kids could choke." Sam snorts in disbelief but puts the bag back on the shelf. He grabs some packs of Twizzlers instead, the look on his face daring Dean to say something, but Dean just grins at him.
They're in the parking lot, heading for the car, when a little girl in a fairy princess costume comes running over, the wings on her back quivering as she stares up at them. Dean looks over the way she came, sees a group of women and little girls sitting at a table draped with a sign he can't read from this angle, and then goes down on one knee to look her in the eye.
"You okay, sweetheart?"
The words tumble out of her mouth, barely audible. "You wanna buy a raffle ticket? For the Daisies?"
He smiles at her, reaches for his wallet. "Sure thing, princess. How much?"
She smiles back, revealing a missing front tooth, eyes sparkling like her tiara in the last vestiges of afternoon sunlight. "Five dollars."
"Okay, then." He pulls out the bag of mini chocolate bars, hands it to her with the money. "Happy Halloween."
She beams at him, and one of the women at the table--probably her mother--calls out, "Say thank you, Heather."
"Thank you." Heather gives him that gap-toothed smile again, and runs back to the woman at the table. She turns around halfway and waves; Dean grins in response and slides the thin slip of paper into his wallet.
Later, when he slips the raffle ticket into his journal (the entry on the shtriga), he tries not to think about the kids he'll never have.
*
November is another visit to Mom's grave, silently hoping she and Dad are together again, if there is a heaven in counterpoint to the hell he's headed for.
Later, sitting in the motel room, brooding over a bottle of Molson and a television that has no sound, he says, "When that djinn had me--Dad was dead there, too. I don't know why." It's not the first time they've talked about what happened with the djinn, but it's the first time he's admitted that that part still bothers him.
Sam looks like he has some ideas, but Dean doesn't want to hear them; he has ideas of his own, and they don't reflect well on him.
"He played on a softball team, though, when he was alive." He laughs, takes a sip of beer. "A softball team, Sammy. Can you even imagine it?"
Sam shakes his head. "You wanted him to be happy." He tips his head back, long line of his throat mesmerizing to Dean, who almost doesn't hear his next words. "You wanted his death to not be your fault."
"Don't."
Sam doesn't listen. "Shoe's on the other foot now, though, huh?"
"What part of 'don't' don't you understand?" Sam gives him a hard, steady look, and he can't hold it. He gets up, starts pacing. "It's not the same thing." Sam stays quiet, and it's not the sullen silence of his teenage years, but quiet like Dad, like a hunter. Like he knows if he waits long enough, what he's hunting will come to him. Dean looks down at him, and God, it feels like forever since he's been able to do that, since he was bigger than Sam and able to protect him from everything, and he wishes so goddamned much he still could. "It doesn't matter. It's done. If anyone can find a way to get me out of it, it's you." He hates putting that extra weight on Sam's shoulders, but Sam insists he can carry it, even says he wants to. "And if you can't..." He takes another long pull off his beer. "It was worth it."
He heads towards the door, ready to grab his jacket and leave, because he can't talk about it anymore, has already said more than he wanted to.
Sam is up off the bed in an instant, and Dean always forgets how fast he moves when he wants to, one freakishly long arm already wrapping around him. He swats at it. "Dude, unless you're planning to blow me, get the hell off."
Sam's got a half-smile on his face, and he looks determined and proud and maybe a little sad, but he just says, "Don't go out. We can play cards." He goes to his duffel, brings out the pack of ragged blue cards they've had for as long as Dean can remember--it'd disappeared when Sam left for school, tucked deep in the trunk of the car, and been found last year when Sam made him reorganize the weapons. The original four of diamonds, seven of hearts, and jack of clubs had been lost long before Sam left--those cards come from other decks now, easy to spot--and the ace of spades has "Sam rules, Dean drools" scribbled on the face of it in Sam's crooked nine-year-old script.
The cards feel soft and warn under his fingers, corners bent and edges warped, widened, from age and damp.
He bluffs outrageously and Sam calls him on it, laughing the whole time. They play for M&Ms representing ridiculous sums of imaginary money, and cheat each other left and right, still playing by the old family rule that if you can do it without getting caught, it's not cheating. At the end, Dean's down something like seven million dollars; he palms two kings to go with the two he was actually dealt, and when Sam bets, he shoves his last handful of M&Ms into the center of the pile, and says, "I'll see your four million and raise you--" he counts the candies quickly (yellows are one million, blues are five million, reds are ten million) "--twenty-five million dollars." He does a pretty fantastic Dr. Evil impression, if he does say so himself.
Sam grins and tosses two reds and a blue into the pile. "Let's see what you've got, then, tough guy."
Dean reveals his cards slowly, showing the useless nine of spades first, and then one by one, the four kings. "Four kings," he says, unable to keep the glee from his voice.
Sam tosses his cards (full house: queens over threes) down. "You always were a master of the obvious."
As Dean gathers (and eats) his winnings, he slips the king of hearts up his sleeve, and then into his journal. They can replace it later if they have to.
*
December is a demon in a doctor's body, devil's trap chalked on the floor of the hospital boiler room, and a weedy man in a lab coat and horn-rimmed glasses spitting curses at them in English, French, and Latin.
"We'll be waiting for you," he says to Dean, as Sam continues to chant the exorcism ritual over him, "every single one of us you've sent back to hell will be waiting for a piece of your sweet, sweet ass, and--"
Dean tosses more holy water on the guy, just to shut him up. "Yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before," he says, tired of this bullshit. "You demons sure like to talk."
Even as the guy's skin steams and burns, he's still yammering. "--an eternity of damnation and torment." Sam, not missing a beat, clocks the guy in the head, which shuts him up long enough to finish the exorcism.
Sam is silent and tense with anger, bruised fists clenched tight at his sides, as they walk back to the car.
"Dean." Sam's voice is low and tense, and Dean can hear about thirty different questions he doesn't want to answer in it.
"Not now, Sam."
Sam glares at him and seethes silently the whole ride back to the motel. When they get into the room, he slams Dean against the wall, hands hard and tight on Dean's shoulders.
"They're not gonna get you," he says, still angry. "Not while I'm around."
"I think that's my line, Sammy." Dean's voice is rougher, more serious, than he means it to be.
Sam's hands are huge and soft on Dean's face, thumb brushing over his cheeks, his mouth. "I mean it, Dean."
"I know you do. I just--"
"Shut up. Just shut up." Sam kisses him, and the kiss is full of anger and fear and desperation, familiar as breathing, and Dean wishes he'd never had to taste those things on Sam's tongue. He tries not to think about how he shouldn't have Sam's tongue in his mouth at all, how even if he hadn't sold his soul, he'd end up in hell for this, if nothing else.
After the first time, not too long after Dad died, he'd gotten used to the stutter stop and start of it, like an engine trying to turn over in the cold, used to how weeks would go by without anything happening, and then they'd tumble into bed together, desperate and hungry for the feel of skin under fingers and tongues.
Since he made the deal, though, it's been more of a regular thing, and that makes it both harder and easier. He knows they shouldn't be doing it at all, let alone getting used to it, but it's become one of the few things left in his life that he can count on--the rough stroke of Sam's hand on his dick, the gentle warmth of Sam's mouth on his neck, and then the sharp sting of his teeth. He was surprised, the first time, at how much Sam likes to bite, spent ten minutes in the shower the next morning staring at the bruises on his skin, something hot and sick and needy curling in his belly, knowing they were territorial markings, visible ones, as if Sam were unaware that he'd owned Dean's heart since the day Dean had carried him out of the fire (and his soul until he'd sold it for Sam's life).
He knows at some point Sam's going to want to talk about this, that they probably should talk about it, because it's fifty kinds of fucked up just off the top of his head, but he keeps thinking if he puts it off, it won't matter anymore. He'll talk if he's around after the year is up, when he can say more than, Don't get too attached (Sam laughs at the warning, a wet choking sound that's almost a sob, and answers, Too late), or This is never what I wanted for you, Sammy (Sam says, I know, and Dean wants desperately to believe that he does). For now, he's got better things to do with his tongue.
They've never been a family for holidays, but this year, Sam insists, and they end up at Ellen's for Christmas. Bobby's there already, new pile of old books stacked in the passenger seat of his truck, waiting for Sam's attention. They don't even ask Dean to join them, though Sam shoots him a wounded look over his shoulder.
Ellen greets them with a warm smile and only a hint of sadness in her eyes, and Jo hugs Sam this time, and only because Dean is looking for it does he see the split second of hesitation before she does. They sit around the table, tall white tapers in the middle, and Bobby carves the roast. Sam dips his head, and all Dean can think of is Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol and Tiny Tim's God bless us, everyone when Ellen says grace.
After dinner, they drink the good whiskey and play cards. They tell stories, the funny ones, the ones that shouldn't make Dean's eyes sting or his chest ache, but occasionally do. The stories are mostly familiar, and that's why they tell them--tidings of comfort and joy, Dean thinks, and wonders if he'll be saved from Satan's power.
At midnight, Ellen gets up, goes to the small, brightly decorated tree in the corner, and starts passing out presents wrapped in paper printed with Santas and candy canes. Dean is at sea, holds the box she hands him like it might turn into a snake and bite him, but Sam is prepared, has obviously given this some thought, because he has gifts for everyone--nothing big: a bottle of wine for Ellen, scotch for Bobby, a road atlas for Jo.
"Open it," Ellen says when everyone else is done and Dean is still sitting there with a wrapped box in his lap.
"You really shouldn't have," he starts, and she glares, so he scrambles to recover, smiles and says, "but I'm glad you did." That wins him a grin from her and a snort from Sam, who's rifling through the book on herb lore she got him. Dean's gift is a soft flannel, dark green and blue plaid, nicer than anything he's bought himself in ages. It's got a quilted lining, can be a jacket or shirt, depending on need and weather. "Thank you," he says, and if his kiss hits the corner of her mouth instead of her cheek, he really hopes Jo doesn't notice.
Bobby didn't bother with wrapping, just hands Sam a dusty old book, and Dean a business card. Dean's about to make a smart remark about it when Bobby says, "Curtis gets the best deals on vintage parts--anything I can't find myself, I get from him. You ever need anything for the Impala, he's your guy."
"Thanks, Bobby." Dean puts the card into his wallet. He copies the number down into the back of his journal, slips the card in between the pages about phantom travelers.
Later, he sits at the kitchen table, light from the Christmas tree filtering in (Sam wanted it on while he slept, said they'd never had a tree he could remember, and he wanted this one to add to the ones he'd had with Jess), hands wrapped around a mug, eyeing the coffee pot like an old friend.
"Hey." Ellen's on the stairs, legs bare beneath an old flannel shirt, hair tousled around her shoulders. "Can't sleep?" He shrugs, sets the mug down. "Me neither."
When she passes between him and the counter, he reaches out, puts a hand on her hip. The flannel is soft and warm against his palm; he brushes the top of her thigh with his thumb.
She looks over her shoulder at him, raises an eyebrow, and he shrugs again, letting his hand slide down against her skin, fingers rubbing gently on the inside of her thigh. It's not like they both don't know all the reasons this is a bad idea, starting with Sam sleeping in the living room and Jo upstairs in the spare bedroom. But he doesn't have time left for regret, and if she wants to give him this, in addition to the shirt and a place to spend Christmas, he's not going to say no.
She turns abruptly, slings a leg over so she's straddling him, sudden lapful of woman the best thing he's felt all damn day.
Her mouth is slick and hot over his, the mint of her toothpaste still tingling on her tongue, and he laughs, pleased at evidence of her intent. He slides his hands up beneath her shirt to cup her breasts, palm her nipples to hardness, and she purrs, grinds down against him. She's wearing white cotton panties, the crotch already wet when he pushes his fingers beneath the elastic. Her breath stutters into his mouth when he touches her, and he laughs softly, delighted at her response, his dick hard against his zipper. His fingers are quick inside her, thumb a little rough against her clit, and she bites back a low moan when she comes.
She finds the condom in his wallet, rolls it on him when he's licking her wetness off his fingers, and sinks down onto him while she's still riding out her orgasm, her cunt tight around him. She fucks him hard, smooth muscles of her thighs working, her hands clutching his shoulders, her tongue in his mouth, heat licking down his spine and through his veins. He tightens his hands on her hips, slamming up into her now, the tension so close to breaking, and in the brief endless moment right before he comes, when the world goes white and still before the rush of pleasure, he can forget about everything but the thrust of his hips and the tight wet heat of Ellen's body. The chair scratches against the kitchen floor, but neither of them care about the noise now, shaking apart in each other's arms.
She cups his cheek, kisses his forehead, before she drifts back up the stairs, and sleep comes easier when he slips into the sleeping bag on the floor beneath the tree.
Dean spends Christmas morning cleaning the car. Sam comes out when he's vacuuming the mats, leans against the fence with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders up around his ears, huddling against the cold.
When Dean turns the vacuum off, Sam pushes himself upright, brings a small wrapped box out of his pocket.
Dean frowns at him. "I didn't--I thought we weren't gonna--"
"Yeah, I know. You don't have to--" Sam shrugs, looking young and uncertain. "Just open it."
Dean gets the paper off--Sam would pick the kind with fat jolly Santas on it--and opens the box. Inside is a small black figurine of Anubis, about the length of his thumb. "Are we planning an Egyptian burial?" he asks, taking it out and running his thumb over the smooth, cool surface of the thing. There are hieroglyphics carved on the base.
"It's not an ushabti. It's Anubis--"
"I know that."
"It's supposed to protect your soul from being devoured." He looks so earnest, so damned hopeful, that Dean feels his chest tighten. "It's too big to wear, but if you keep it with you--"
Dean closes his hand around it, feels the stone dig into his palm. "Okay," he says, slipping it into the pocket of his jeans. "Okay. And, you know, thanks."
Sam's smile is wide and his eyes are bright, and Dean turns back to the car before they get any more emotional.
They leave in the afternoon, to beat the Christmas rush, Dean says, but mostly because he wants to avoid any awkwardness. He thinks about how, in a different time and place, he might have lived here with Ellen, been more than the son of her dead husband's dead friend, or the guy who shows up once in a while and wants to fuck. He respects her more than that, thinks she deserves more, and he can't give her that, even if he wasn't operating under a deadline.
He hugs Ellen tight, shakes Bobby's hand, gives Jo a kiss on the forehead, afraid this might be the last time he sees them. None of them mention it, though; they either have as much faith in Sam as he does, or they're wise enough to hold their tongues. Either way, he appreciates it.
Once they're in the car, Sam says, "We could have stayed. Done New Year's here. I know you and Ellen--"
"Sam--"
"No, no. It's...dude, it's okay."
"It's not--" He doesn't know how to say what it is, let alone what it's not, except it's not something Sam should ever be jealous of or worried about.
Sam puts a hand on Dean's thigh, squeezes gently. "I know. Like I said, we could've stayed."
Dean thinks about it--the ball dropping, champagne at midnight, the whole deal. When they were kids, he and Sam had always stayed up to watch Dick Clark, even long after it had ceased to be cool. He thinks maybe they could do that again.
"No need," Dean answers, and the thing is, he means it.
*
January is his birthday, twenty-nine and holding steady, like a Hollywood starlet hanging onto one last shot at the cover of Cosmo.
Sam makes him put on a tie, drags him out to some four star restaurant in Denver with abstract art on the walls and a guy whose only job, from what Dean can see, is to open bottles of wine and sniff the corks.
"Dude, this place has flowers and candles," he says after the guy hands him the wine list. Sam takes it out of his hands and lays it on the table, frowning. "I took Cassie to a place like this before I told her--"
"About the family business?"
"Yeah."
Sam's got his let's talk about our feelings face on, looks like he might be about to reach across the table and grab Dean's hand when he says, "Well, I'm not planning on dropping any bombshells tonight, Dean. It's just--it's your birthday, and--"
Dean rubs a hand over his mouth, because he is so not up for Sam's existential bullshit tonight. "You're hoping I'll put out if you drop some serious cash on dinner? You think I can be bought?"
Sam snorts with laughter. Score. "Who are you kidding, Dean? You'd put out for free."
"I'm offended. You've offended my honor."
"As long as it's not your virtue, which I know for a fact you lost to Susie Gibbons when you were fifteen."
"Ah, Susie." He grins fondly, remembering. "She had nice tits."
The waiter arrives then, asks if they're ready to order. Dean orders beer and steak and garlic mashed potatoes that are so good he thinks he might die of love for them. Just to be annoying, he snags one of Sam's asparagus spears off his plate, and Sam tries to slap his hand away.
"So, Idaho in the morning, huh?" he says when he's done chewing.
"Yeah. Bobby said there were pretty obvious signs of demonic possessions in Boise."
"More than one?"
"Guess so."
"Well, that'll make it interesting." He takes a bite of his steak, savors it slowly, the meat rich and juicy on his tongue. "You know what we should have done while we were here?"
"What?"
"Gone to see the Avalanche."
"The what?" Sam frowns at him, confused. "Oh. Do you even like hockey?"
Dean shrugs. "It's a bunch of guys on skates beating the crap out of each other. What's not to like?"
"We'll come back in the spring," Sam says. "Go see the Rockies instead."
He doesn't rise to the bait, nods and smiles and lets Sam drone on about whatever--it's amazing that they spend so much time together, and yet they always have some random bullshit to talk about, even beyond hunting and sports and horror movies. Admittedly, he doesn't always listen, and he's pretty sure Sam tunes out his lectures on music, but still, it's amazing.
He lets his gaze wander over the people in the restaurant as Sam talks about the chef and how he got kicked out of some culinary school and made a triumphant return cooking for a rival school, like chefs are the new mafia or something. He doesn't know where Sam learns shit like that, but he always seems to know it.
While Dean's not paying attention, he spots a hot blonde in a strappy dress sitting across from a guy old enough to be her father.
He digs for a pen and a piece of paper (the napkins are linen and hard to write on), and writes 9.5 on it, holds it up so Sam can see.
"What?"
"The blonde with the daddy kink. It'd be higher, but I don't think they're real. Too symmetrical."
Sam sighs. "Dean--"
"Ooh, the brunette at two o'clock, Sammy. Totally smokin'. Nine point eight, definitely." He continues scanning the room for hot chicks, showing Sam their ratings, enjoying the view, and also the way Sam's trying not to laugh, the way he's trying to be prissy and offended and all, "Can't take you anywhere, Dean."
There's a woman in a booth to their left who's definitely MILF material, though age has made her skin a little tight in some places and loose in others. He gives her a nine. He's always been fond of older women. Susie Gibbons had been seventeen when she'd popped his cherry.
"That's terrible, Dean."
"Hey, she's a hot old-timer, but she can't really compete with the blonde." He makes the universal sign for breasts and Sam rolls his eyes. "Gravity takes its toll, you know?"
For dessert, he has a sundae, and Sam has crème brulée, which looks and smells like vanilla pudding (except for the burnt part), but is cool because the waiter uses a blowtorch right at their table. Dean quizzes him on the make and model, gets a recommendation, because they are totally adding that to their arsenal. Dean's not sure why they never did before.
"Dude, you ever have bananas foster?" he says around a mouthful of chocolate ice cream and hot fudge sauce. "They set that shit on fire right at the table. It's awesome." He makes a mental note to get down to New Orleans one last time before he bites it, for beignets and coffee, and bananas foster.
"Yeah," Sam says, smiling, "it is."
When the bill comes, Sam signs it as Zachary Gray, and Dean folds it with his lady-rating scorecard, and shoves it into his pocket.
Before they leave Denver, they hit up the Williams-Sonoma in the Cherry Creek mall, and Sam buys him a mini-blowtorch for his birthday. He can't wait to use it.
*
February is Leap Year Day, an extra day Dean takes as a blessing, doesn't even complain when Sam tells him stuff he already knows about the rotation of the earth and the twenty-seven seconds they lose every year.
They spend the day in bed.
Even with Sam's long, lean body stretched out beneath him, winter pale skin smooth and dusted with light brown hair, warm and salty and slick with saliva under his lips, Dean still can't believe they're doing this, that Sam wants to do this. That he wants it himself.
He knows every scar on Sam's body now, even the few new ones from his time away--the knotty keloid on his wrist from when the Snapple bottle shattered in his hand, an inch-long burn scar on his forearm from making cookies with Jess, the puncture marks on his calf where her parents' dog bit him the first time she took him home--has mapped them all with fingers and lips, warm breath and wet tongue, laughing at the way Sam shivers, breath hitching and voice choking on a word that could be Dean or God or fuck--they all mean the same thing at the moment--when Dean hits an especially sensitive spot.
He loves knowing him like this, just one more way to add to his expertise on the subject of Sam Winchester--that there's a spot on the inside of his left elbow that makes him jump when Dean nips it, that he thrusts his hips helplessly when Dean licks the strip of skin where his thigh joins his body, that he likes it a little rough sometimes, that all the intensity and passion he tries to hide behind his nice boy smile is unleashed when he's fucking Dean or sucking him off. It's a thrill, having that intensity focused on him, one Dean never expected to want, let alone have, and now that he's had it, he doesn't think he'll ever stop wanting it.
Sam yanks him up for a kiss, and Dean laughs into his mouth. "Pushy little bitch, aren't you?"
"Not little," Sam answers with a pout, rolling them over and stretching Dean's arms over his head, curling his fingers around the bottom of the headboard, and then letting go so he can run those huge, soft hands over Dean's chest, thumbs rubbing at his collarbones, making Dean squirm and huff with laughter, heat blooming and lingering under his skin like a slow-burning fuse.
Dean rolls them over again, as much wrestling as fucking, hips grinding down when Sam thrusts up, both of them gasping and moaning. Dean reaches out and grabs the lube, fingers still trembling slightly when he slicks Sam's hole, not used to this yet. Maybe he'll never get used to it, maybe he shouldn't, but Sam growls when Dean pushes two fingers inside him, actually growls, "Just fucking fuck me, already."
"Dude, we've got all day," Dean says, laughing. He coats his dick with lube in a couple of long, lazy strokes, spreads Sam's legs high and wide, and pushes in past the tight ring of muscle. Both of them are shaking a little, dripping sweat and breathing ragged, and Dean almost loses it completely when Sam tightens around him.
After a rocky start, they move together like a finely tuned engine, Dean going slow so he can watch the pleasure light up Sam's face, the way his eyes flutter closed and his mouth goes slack with it, the way his chest heaves because he can't catch his breath. I did this, Dean thinks, awed and proud and so close to coming himself he thinks he might die if he doesn't, his hands tight on Sam's legs, and his hips pumping hard.
The relentless tension of need crests and breaks, and the world explodes in red hot pleasure, so good he thinks maybe he has died, and this is a sneak peek of heaven before he gets sent to hell.
He collapses on top of Sam with a grunt, slides out, eases Sam's legs down, rubbing at the muscles of his thighs, which, he's learned the past few months, tend to start cramping in that position.
"Dean," Sam says, grabbing his hand. He twines their fingers together and wraps them around his dick. Three strokes is all it takes, and then Sam's coming wet and warm and sticky between them.
When he's done, Dean flops down beside him on the bed, licking his fingers and frowning at the taste. He supposes he'll get used to it. Is glad he's learned that, too, in the time that he has left.
They take a break in the late afternoon to order in some food--General Tso's chicken, Hunan beef, and pork lo mein, with extra pork fried rice and two orders of fried dumplings on the side--and Dean laughingly overtips the delivery guy who stares at him with wide eyes when he opens the door half-naked and covered in hickeys.
"Dude, that guy wishes he was me," he says when he closes the door, and he laughs again when Sam flushes.
He's hunched over his laptop, typing quickly, so Dean starts eating without him.
"You know what they say about all work and no play, Sammy," he says, waving his chopsticks--and the lo mein noodles they're holding--in Sam's direction when another fifteen minutes has passed and Sam's still fiddling with his calendar and the laptop.
"Makes Homer something something," Sam replies, closing the laptop with a satisfying click and joining Dean at the table. He's wearing nothing but a smug smile Dean wants to wipe off his face.
In the morning, while Sam is in the shower, Dean rips February out of Sam's pocket calendar--the twenty-ninth is circled, and Sam pressed down so hard there's a groove on the next page--and puts it in the back of his journal.
*
March is running into Jo in a dive bar just outside of Tulsa. They team up at the pool table and make enough money that Dean doesn't mind splitting it with her. She did do half the work, distracting their opponents with a smile and the swish of her hips. She's had a couple of drinks and she's flirty and cute instead of awkward, and her hair is shiny and smells nice, so it's not like she's rough to be around.
After the clinic they put on, nobody wants to play them so they play each other. Sam, the traitor, teams up with her to play Dean. She and Sam win a game or two off him, and it's easy to forget the long nights they spent tracking a rawhead, to ignore the purple shadows under Jo's eyes, and the scrapes on her back that show when she bends to take a shot and her shirt rides up.
He goes to take a leak, stops at the bar to pick up another round of beer, and when he comes back, Sam and Jo have found new blood; Sam is working the "I've never seen a pool cue in my life" thing while Jo smiles like a cute blonde shark.
Dean leans against the doorjamb and watches them for a while.
Jo doesn't flinch away from Sam anymore. He's been treating her like a spooked kid who's just seen her first ghost, but for this con to work, he has to touch her casually, put his arm around her, kiss the top of her head, and she has to lean into him and let him do it.
After they're done--Sam, the chump, lets Jo pocket the cash they've won--they stumble into a booth together, the three of them, and she slides right in next to Sam, rests her head against his chest when he slings his arm across the back of the booth.
Dean thinks about how they'd sat around her mother's table at Christmas and he'd felt like maybe they could all be some kind of family. He thinks about how this makes that easier. When he's gone, Sam will be able to go to Ellen's without worrying about making Jo uncomfortable; they can give him a different kind of family, maybe one that doesn't tear itself apart over sacrifice and vengeance, all of that burned out of them now by the long year's war against the army of demons.
While he's been thinking, Sam and Jo have been giggling over something she's drawn all over her napkin.
"Okay, girls, hand it over."
Sam slides the napkin across the table--it stalls in a ring of condensation and the ink starts to blur, but it's a barely recognizable stick figure drawing of him (that has to be Jo's work, because Sam is pretty handy with a pencil and a sketchpad) holding a stick--"It's a pool cue, dumbass," Sam says--in one hand, and a gun in the other. Scrawled across the top, in Sam's handwriting, is Dean Winchester's on the loose. Lock up your money and your daughters.
"Damn straight," he says, folding it in and putting it into his pocket. He grins conspiratorially at Jo. "Now, do one of Sam."
With a few quick strokes of the pen, Jo's got something resembling Sam, all long arms and endless legs and shaggy hair, though she gives him little dog ears, too. "Because you look like a little lost puppy and everyone wants to take you home," she manages through her giggles, and Dean wonders for a second what it would have been like to have grown up with a sister.
"Dean!" Sam says in protest, like he hasn't been using that look for years.
"Artistic license, Sammy." Dean grins at Jo, takes the pen from her when she's done and writes, How much for that Sammy in the window? (which seems hilarious at the time, but not so much when he's sober), and before Sam can snatch the napkin back, he puts that one in his pocket too.
They close the place down, and walk her to her truck. Her blonde hair shines in the yellow streetlight and her hips sway in unconscious invitation. Dean almost says, Come back to the room with us, imagining that hair tickling his stomach, those hips under his hands. He thinks about the wet heat of her cunt, her mouth, and wonders if Sam is imagining the same thing as he's giving her a kiss on the cheek.
He doesn't say it, though. He doesn't know what Sam would think, doesn't know how Jo would respond. Doesn't want to make everything awkward again, or reveal that he and Sam are--shit, he can just imagine what she'd think.
So when she hooks her fingers in his belt loops and presses up against him, warm and soft in all the right places, he brushes the hair off her forehead and presses a friendly goodnight kiss there.
"You okay getting back to your motel?"
She gives him a small half-smile. "Yeah. You?"
"We're good, ain't we, Sammy?"
Sam smiles and lifts his hand in a weird half wave. "Yeah, we're fine."
"Take care of yourselves, you hear me?" She reaches up and cups Dean's cheek, her hand small and warm against his skin. "You need any help--"
He nods. "We've got your number."
They watch her drive off until her taillights are lost in the darkness.
When they get back to their own motel room, Sam says, "It's okay, if you wanted to--I mean--"
Dean shrugs. "I thought about asking her if she'd be up for a threesome," he says, and then he laughs at the stunned look on Sam's face.
"Okay, that's something I hadn't--" Sam shakes his head, laughing in disbelief. "You're incorrigible."
Dean drops down onto his bed and unlaces his boots, glad to be free of them after a long day. "I think you mean irresistible."
"No, I mean incorrigible. I don't think she'd have gone for it, though."
"Would you?" Dean doesn't look up from where he's pulling his socks off, but he wants to know now that he's thought of it.
"I--I dunno. Maybe."
"Jo would have freaked though, huh?"
"Well, she does have a crush on you, but she only tolerates me, after--"
"You guys seemed to be getting along all right tonight."
It's Sam's turn to shrug. "Yeah, I guess."
He looks down at his feet again, finds the words easier to say when he can't see Sam's face. When he's had a night of beer and shots to smooth the way. "Look, Sam, when I'm gone--"
"You're not gonna die, Dean. I won't allow it."
"When I'm gone," Dean bellows over him, "you go to Ellen's or Bobby's. You let them take care of you. Maybe you should partner with Jo--you're not used to hunting alone, and you could probably teach her a thing or two."
"Dude, you're not dying. It's not gonna happen."
"We all gotta die sometime, Sammy, and I'm past due."
"Dean--"
"Just promise me you'll take a break for a while, go to Ellen's or Bobby's, let them take care of you until--I don't know. Until you're okay."
"Dean, if you're dead, there is no more okay for me. Don't you get that?" Sam gets up off his bed, swings a leg over so he's straddling Dean's lap. He puts a hand under Dean's chin and lifts his face up, capturing Dean's mouth in a soft, desperate kiss. He pushes Dean down against the bed, all groping hands and thrusting hips, and Dean lets himself be distracted, tries to engrave into his memory the feel of Sam's hands on his body, Sam's mouth on his skin, knowing the alcohol is going to make everything fuzzy in the morning.
When they're done, sticky and satisfied and out of breath, he says, "You really think Jo wouldn't have gone for this?"
Sam looks over at him and shakes his head. "Incorrigible." Dean grins at him. "I don't know. Maybe. She probably doesn't know you've slept with her mother."
Dean nods, smiles at the memory. "There is that."
They fall asleep sprawled next to each other on top of the comforter, and when Dean wakes up to take a piss, he rifles through the pockets of his jeans, finds the crumpled napkins Jo drew on, and slides them into his journal, between the pages on H.H. Holmes. When he climbs back into bed, he stays awake for a while, watching Sam sleep.
*
April is New Orleans, warm spring air humid with the promise of rain. They eat beignets and drink coffee every morning, powdered sugar and chocolate melting on their tongues, and fuck slow and easy on soft, worn sheets while a white ceiling fan whirrs lazily above them.
There's no job, per se, but it's New Orleans, city full of ghosts even before the floods, so there's always something to keep them busy. Dean doesn't mind staying--he likes it here, likes seeing the city emerging from the disaster, proud and strong.
Sam spends time at the library, at the bookshops, at the nearest botánica, comes back with medals and beads and charms he strings around the motel room. Dean doesn't say anything, though. Not yet. There's still time.
He tries to make every moment last, and he thinks Sam is doing the same thing, because he's slowed down his frantic search for a loophole, has stopped calling everyone they ever met who might know something that could help them.
Dean's waiting for Sam in the Café du Monde, sipping his coffee and flirting with a dark-eyed girl who reminds him of Cassie, long hair and long legs and a wide, wicked smile. Cassie's the one loose end he hasn't tied up, but then, she'd done that when she'd said goodbye last year, so he's got nothing left to regret. He'd thought of calling her, but all he'd end up saying was goodbye, and he's refused to say that to anyone--it's too much like giving up.
Sam arrives, sun in his hair and smile on his face, grabbing Dean's attention, the girl forgotten.
"Good day at the office?" Dean says as Sam settles into the chair across from him.
Sam grins. "It's nice to work in a place where people don't think you're crazy for talking about ghosts."
April is the narrowing of days down to single digits on the narrow streets of the French quarter, and, just before the end, a visit to a psychic named Madame LeClair, who helped Dean the last time he was here.
"I remember you," she says when they push into the little shop, bell ringing over the door. Her face creases in a smile, the lines around her eyes and mouth the only indication of age--she could be anywhere from forty to seventy, though her hair is grayer now than it was when he saw her last. She studies them both for a long moment, then nods. "You out laying ghosts to rest, doing good work, but you got a powerful demon gunning for you now."
He smiles back at her, genuinely glad to be known, remembered, for once. "Tell me something I don't know."
"Cher, telling you what you don't know could take the rest of my life, and you ain't got that kind of time." Sam laughs as she leads them into back of the shop, gestures for them to sit on the green and gold striped sofa while she sits down in the easy chair across from it. "You got some powerful protection on you, but you got to believe in it."
Dean thinks about the figurine in his pocket, the amulet on his chest, the various charms and sigils Sam's scattered around the room, the runes he's drawn on Dean's body. He knows any or all of it can work, or not, but he's never thought of it as contingent on whether he believes or not. "I'm not really big on faith in things I can't see," he says. "Especially if they might turn on me at any second."
She waves a hand dismissively. "Not talking about the charms you wear, boy." She inclines her head towards Sam. "You believe in him?"
He and Sam turn startled glances on each other. "Yeah," Dean says. "Yeah. I do."
"Then let him believe for you."
She gets up, and they stand with her. She goes to the breakfront against the wall and digs in a drawer, comes up with a plastic bag full of dirt that she hands to Sam. "You know what to do?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Good boy." She turns to Dean. "You take care of yourself. You still got work to do and it ain't gonna get done if you're dead."
"Yes, ma'am," he says, shaking her hand. She squeezes it tight, slips him a business card, while cupping his cheek with her other hand in a way that's grown familiar lately.
Back in the motel room, Sam chalks a devil's trap on the ceiling while Dean reads the card. Her name and address are embossed on the front in fancy script, and on the back, a bible verse he vaguely remembers Pastor Jim quoting. One line in particular stands out--I will fear no evil, for you are with me. It's true, though probably not the way either the writer or Madame LeClaire intended. He slips it into his journal to mark the entry on reapers.
"Is it something we can use?" Sam asks.
"Nah. A prayer, not a spell."
Sam opens his mouth and closes it again, goes back to his drawing.
"It's gonna be okay, Sammy," Dean says. "You're here with me, and I'm okay. I'm ready." Sam's face twists into a hurt frown, but he doesn't say anything, just finishes off the devil's trap and starts pouring salt across the threshold and the windowsills. Dean gets up off the bed and stands in front of him, trying to hold his attention. "You have to promise me you won't try to bring me back."
"What?"
"You have to burn my body and scatter my ashes, Sam." He grabs Sam's arms, makes Sam look at him. "Promise me."
"No, Dean. No."
"Sam, I'm asking you--"
"Dean, no. It's not even gonna be an issue, because you're not gonna die. I won't let you. You have to believe that. You said you believed it."
"I do, Sammy. I do believe it. But just in case, man." He tries to laugh and it comes out sounding weak and hoarse. "Plan for the worst--"
Sam jerks away, goes back to pouring salt. "Shut up and help me."
"You know I can't."
"Dean--"
"I can't take the chance."
"Dean, please."
"I can't," he says again, and it hurts, breaking his hard-won calm, the acceptance he'd thought he'd reached over the past twelve months. "Don't be mad at me, Sam. Not now. Please."
Sam turns to face him again, reaches out and lets his freakishly huge hand settle on Dean's shoulder. "I'm not. I just--" His breath hitches, and Dean feels it in his chest. "You've gotta believe in me, Dean."
"I do. You know I do."
Sam is silent for a long moment, holding his gaze, trying to read him, and Dean feels more open to that searching look than he ever has before. Finally, Sam relents and says, "Okay," and both of them can breathe again.
Sam finishes with the salt and the goofer dust, sets five white pillar candles around the room at the points of a pentacle only he can see, and then they settle down to wait.
*
Epilogue
In the end, it's not the salt or the goofer dust that saves Dean, though they help. It's everything Sam's done over the course of the year, things Dean knew about--the Anubis figurine, the ritual at Halloween, the devil's trap--and things he didn't--some of the stuff from Bobby's books that Sam's too tired and hoarse to explain at the moment; the bottle of rum and box of cigars left at a makeshift altar to Baron Samedi; the whole leap year loophole thing that only a wannabe lawyer like Sam would have tried to exploit, let alone make stick, and now Dean knows why Sam looked so smug that day, and it didn't have anything to do with the sex. Well, maybe it did a little.
When they're done, the room is wrecked, they're covered in dust and salt, the crossroads demon has been bound and destroyed, and Dean's a free man.
He grabs his duffel bag and pulls out the car keys. "Come on," he says when Sam finally stops hugging him. "Let's go."
He's got his whole life ahead of him, and he wants to get on the road, see where it takes them.
end
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Notes: Title and cut-tag text from "The Calendar Hung Itself" by Bright Eyes, whom I really rather loathe. But the title fit. Since Sam says, "We're all 23," in AHBL1, I'm going with the idea that the episode takes place in late April, even though that is completely insane. This story is actually a prequel to Drive Until You Lose the Road, and was begun when I realized there was a story behind each of the items Dean burns at the end of that, but there really wasn't any room in that story to tell them. That follows directly from this, though that can in fact be read as completely gen if one ignores the existence of this story.
*
June 25, 2007
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Feedback is adored.
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