[twitfic compilation] Wipe off that angel face (and go back to high school) 1:2/3
Title: Wipe off that angel face (and go back to high school)
Volume 1: Bully and the Beast (Chapter 2 of 3)
Author: tiptoe39
Rating: R for a brief wank scene
Summary: Sam/Gabriel High school AU. WIP. Done through twitfic / twitlonger. Thanks to jabber_moose for an amazing title!!
Previous chapters: One
There's a whole weekend for him to think about it, and he does the best he can on his own. He doesn't want Mom and Dad's wisdom, or Dean's brash, overly aggressive form of justice. This is about him, and who he is, and who he wants to be.
By the end of the weekend he thinks he wants to be Gabriel's friend.
Which is weird and illogical and everything, but Sam keeps feeling his fingers tingle when he remembers their conversation, like it makes his blood move in a way that other thoughts don't. He liked that feeling. That's why, when doing the dishes or playing a video game, he finds his mind wandering back to that bathroom and that conversation. As though looking to recapture the sensation he might never feel again.
Imagine that without the anger and the angst. Imagine that kind of a sharp wit, on his side. Sam wonders if it's even possible. The guy is practically his sworn enemy. But it'd be nice, he keeps thinking. It'd be so nice.
Monday arrives and he's eating lunch in the cafeteria and Gabriel comes up and sits across from him.
"Uh," Sam says.
"You said we should talk," Gabriel mutters, hand in a bag of Skittles.
Sam looks around, afraid of prying eyes. "Here?"
"You wan--'" Gabriel is munching a handful of the candies at once. He swallows. "You wanna go back down to the basement or something?"
Sam shakes his head. "No. Just... Don't want to ruin your reputation. Lunching with the enemy."
Gabriel gives him a multicolored, lopsided smile. "That's clever."
Sam looks at the candy bag. "Is that all you brought to eat?"
"Nah. 'Sall I'm gonna eat, though."
"That's not healthy."
"Oh, thanks, Mom."
Sam reddens. "Never mind. Sorry."
Gabriel blows air through his lips. "Stop apologizing. It's embarrassing."
"I didn't think you could get embarrassed."
"I'm talking about you, dumbass."
Sam chuckles. "Now you're looking out for my well-being?"
Gabriel slides his hands behind his head like he's about to relax on an imaginary divan. "Well? What if I am?"
"Then I'd have to say, thanks, Mom."
Gabriel stares. And then he laughs. And all at once Sam is laughing too.
Surprising things that Sam learns about Gabriel in the ensuing weeks:
1) He's a good actor. Really, stupidly, ridiculously good. Not just with impressions (and the one he does of Mr. Singer is hysterical) but also with straight-up speeches and monologues and just about everything. Sam pushes him to audition for a play, but Gabriel demurs. "I prefer to inflict my special brand of torture on the truly deserving," he says. Sam suspects he's just nervous.
2) He has the metabolism of a freaking hummingbird. Sam has never seen anyone go through that much candy in his life. If it has sugar in it, Gabriel wants some. And it never shows on his body that he sucks down Snickers bars like they're French fries. It's kind of disgusting to watch, actually. Sam figures his continued fascination is analogous to a rubbernecker on a highway trying to get a glimpse of the mangled body in a road accident.
3) He believes in everything. Ghosts, goblins, fairies, aliens, gods, goddesses, demons, monsters, even superheroes. Sam quizzes him on it, in his usual practical skeptical way, but Gabriel laughs it all off. "It's more fun this way!" he declares, and it's hard to argue with a statement like that.
4) He doesn't have a mother. She died shortly after he was born, and his dad is uber-strict. Most of his siblings (and he has a few brothers) are hardasses in one way or another, but Gabriel is the black sheep of the family. Or, as he likes to put it, the "rainbow-striped flying sheep." Sam thinks there is nothing at all about him that is sheeplike.
5) There's a way he looks at Sam sometimes -- when they're in the middle of a conversation, or they've just come off laughing hard at a joke -- that makes Sam lose his breath, that makes his blood pump and his skin tingle. It's there for an instant, then gone, but Sam can still feel it driving shivers along his skin for hours afterward. Gabriel's eyes have magic in them, he decides. Sam doesn't believe in ghosts, but he finds himself believing in magic just because of those eyes.
"You're friends with him now?"
"That's great," Mom interjects, but Dean isn't so happy about it. "You're frigging friends with the guy now? After what he did to you?"
"He's a cool guy," Sam says, and it sounds whinier than he intended.
"Cool guy, yeah, sure. What is this, Stockholm Syndrome?"
Mom turns red. "Dean! Where did you learn that?"
"Must be one of those magazines he keeps under the bed," Sam says loudly, although he doesn't know what Stockholm Syndrome is and Dean doesn't keep his magazines under the bed.
"Sammy!" Dean makes a fist. Sam just laughs.
He's laughing more often lately than he ever did. He has more energy, too. Even Dad's noticed. "What happened, Sam? You meet a girl?" he says one afternoon, when Sam has spontaneously volunteered to go help him with one of his projects in the garage. (Dad does everything from woodworking to maintaining his classic car, with more than a little sportsmanship, that is, hunting, interspersed between the more productive hobbies. Mom doesn't approve, which is weird because they met due to mutual hunting buddies.)
Sam gives him a funny look when he asks, and Dad chuckles that rich low molasses chuckle that Sam likes so much. It means Dad's in a good mood, when he laughs like that, and everything's better when Dad's in a good mood. "You're very energetic these days. Like you can't wait to get up and moving. I suppose you're just a teenager."
"I don't know." Sam folds his arms behind his head, a motion he learned from Gabriel. "I'm pretty happy these days. School's going good, and I have awesome friends."
"Mm-hm." Dad looks at him knowingly. "It's that Jessica, isn't it? You like her."
"What?" Sam frowns. "No! Not like that. I mean, she's nice, and pretty, I guess, but..."
"Oh, I see how it is." Dad is laughing at him, and Sam feels anger rise in his chest. These days they can't go two feet without getting in an argument. Mom chalks it all up to adolescence. Sam thinks it might be more, but he's not sure.
"Dad, I'm serious," he says. "Jess is just a friend."
"That's fine!" Dad says, peering down at the jigsaw where he's carving out pieces for a rocking chair. "It's someone, though, that's for sure. Someone's making you very happy."
Sam pauses. Gabriel flashes through his mind. Truth is, it's Gabriel's friendship that's making him really happy these days. It's hard to believe they were ever enemies.
"Oh, there it is," Dad snaps his fingers. "It's that one, the one you're thinking about."
Sam wipes the stupid smile off his face. When the hell did that get there, anyway?
Sam is up in his room later that evening, thumbing through a Star Wars magazine he doesn't understand half of and thinking about what Dad said.
"It's that one, the one you're thinking about."
When Sam had been thinking about Gabriel. Normally, that would just mean Dad was completely off the ball. Wouldn't be the first time Dad had no idea what was going through Sam's head, not even close. But there's something really unsettling about this. Something Sam can't quite put his finger on.
He ends up putting his fingers on himself.
Like every teenage boy, Sam jerks off pretty regularly. It's a good way to mellow out his brain, to help him stop thinking so hard, help him sleep or just take the edge off whatever tension he's feeling. He raises up his shirt, lowers his pants around his knees, and eases himself under the covers.
"I'm going to bed!" he shouts to the closed door, turns off his light, and settles in. His fingers wrap around his cock, finding that easy, comfortable grip and rhythm, and his head lolls back onto the pillow as he gives himself over to the hypnotic good feelings.
The other day Gabriel had climbed a fence after a hastily thrown Frisbee had gone astray. The light had caught his thin limbs, and for a moment Sam had thought he looked like a leaf trapped across the spires of the silver fence, struggling to fly away.
His legs are so long for such a short guy, Sam thinks. The way he moves on them -- it's like a crane, one of those birds with bony knees.
If his hand is flying faster he's not noticing it. He's thinking now of Gabriel's grin of triumph when he climbs back down, his breath coming fast and hot from his mouth, his eyes glittering. The rush of joy that swells up in Sam's own heart just looking at him, feeling like they are partners in some divine game and the rest of the world is their playing field.
In Sam's memory Gabriel turns his head, looks triumphantly over at the sunset, and Sam realizes he's measuring how well his face would fit in that round stretch of shoulder and neck, and the realization comes just before he comes with a shudder and a stifled cry.
A rush of panic fills in the void that the departing pleasure leaves. This happens to kids in after-school specials. It doesn't happen to him. It won't happen to him. He's normal, he has perfectly good role models. There's no reason he should feel this way. He'll have to stop it somehow.
They're on the edge of the field, watching the football players go, when Sam mentions to Gabriel, "So I'm thinking I'm gonna ask Jess out."
Gabriel nearly spits out his jelly-jelly-jelly-peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. "Are you for serious?"
"Well, yeah." Sam shrugs. "She's cute."
"Pffft. If you like that type," Gabriel says. He makes a dismissive hand motion in the air.
"What?" There's a painful squirm of confusion in Sam's stomach. He was hoping Gabriel would encourage him. Expecting it. Not getting that expected enthusiasm makes him feel like everything's wired up wrong. "What's wrong with Jess?"
"Nothing!" Gabriel turns away from him, a bit peevish. "Is that really your type, though? I thought different."
"Really." Sam is defensive now, and defensive can mean angry. "What did you think I went in for? Goth chicks?"
"Sam," Gabriel says without facing him. "Remember when I told you that you weren't dumb?"
"Huh?"
"I might have been wrong."
At first Jess doesn't get it. "What, the Harry Potter movie? I've already seen it. I'd go again, though, if you haven't."
"Doesn't have to be that one," Sam says. He doesn't know why guys freak out about this. It's not a big deal, asking Jess to do something. They've been going to movies together for years. "Just -- I want to go to a movie with you."
"You're getting all romantic," she teases, an amused grin on her face. "People will talk."
"Yeah," he says, seriously, nodding.
Her hair's still in motion around her face when she stops, and it all falls in a sudden plunk around her shoulders. "Wait. What?"
"Yeah," he says, and now the nerves are starting. "I'm getting romantic."
"As in, you're asking me out?" He nods again. "On a date? Like, a date-flavored date?" Another nod.
She bursts into laughter. "I'm sorry, Sam... I don't mean to laugh at you... it's just..." She wipes her eyes. "Are you serious? Seriously serious?"
"Why does it make you laugh?" he asks, feeling mocked from all corners now. "Why can't we go out? I like you, and you're pretty, and nice--"
"Because!" she says, and then stops herself. "I mean, we can go out. If you want to. But you have to do one thing for me, OK?"
"Sure." He is a little sick of nodding right now. He feels like the world is just flowing along and he alone is trying to keep his head above water.
"Just--" She touches his arm lightly, and he repeats to himself: I like her. Ilikeherilikeherilikeher. "Don't do anything just cause you think you should, OK? I don't wanna be your guinea pig."
There's almost an accusation in her tone, and he doesn't get it. "Jess?"
She smiles. "Call me and we'll figure out what's worth seeing. Harry Potter is kind of depressing, anyway."
"Should I wear a tie or something?" Sam asks Dean. The look he gets is withering. "OK, so what?"
"Just look nice," Dean says. "No ripped jeans, unless she's into that."
"I don't think she's into anything," Sam says, wrinkling his nose. He really doesn't get this. What's the protocol for a date? Is it any different than going to the movies with Jess usually is? What's he expected to do that will be different? Open the door for her, hold her hand. Does he have to kiss her? He doesn't know what a real kiss feels like, he's only ever had a few, and they were all pecks. Are they supposed to make out in the movie theater? Or on the way home? It's so confusing.
But Jess gave him a break. She said he didn't have to do anything he didn't want to do. Well, that's not how she put it, but that's what he heard. There's something she doesn't want him to do. Maybe she doesn't like him enough, but he's pretty sure she doesn't want him kissing her.
Which should not be a relief, it really shouldn't.
She shows up wearing a pretty white sundress and he feels underdressed and oversized and goofy. A few minutes into the ride (Dean spares him the embarrassment of having a Dad-sized chauffeur) and he forgets, though. They're gabbing like crazy in the back seat, discussing the big embarrassment last week in the hallway when Bela freaked out about losing her rabbit's foot, and what seems most important is that they're jointly getting on Dean's nerves.
"Gabriel said it serves her right," Sam says as he circles the car to open the door for Jess, like Dean instructed him to do. (Big brothers are good for something.) "He says she shouldn't mess around with stuff like that."
"Messing around with stuff, in general, is what Bela does," Jess says, rolling her eyes. "I hear she's a klepto."
"What?" Sam stares at her, goggle-eyed, forgetting to move. "Where did you hear that?"
"Doesn't matter. We're gonna miss the previews," Jess says, and grabs his wrist to drag him into the theater. Somewhere in the middle of it all, Sam gets up the courage not to let go of her hand. She gives him a weird look, and then relaxes into it.
Yeah. He can do this. This'll be fine.
On to Chapter Three
Volume 1: Bully and the Beast (Chapter 2 of 3)
Author: tiptoe39
Rating: R for a brief wank scene
Summary: Sam/Gabriel High school AU. WIP. Done through twitfic / twitlonger. Thanks to jabber_moose for an amazing title!!
Previous chapters: One
There's a whole weekend for him to think about it, and he does the best he can on his own. He doesn't want Mom and Dad's wisdom, or Dean's brash, overly aggressive form of justice. This is about him, and who he is, and who he wants to be.
By the end of the weekend he thinks he wants to be Gabriel's friend.
Which is weird and illogical and everything, but Sam keeps feeling his fingers tingle when he remembers their conversation, like it makes his blood move in a way that other thoughts don't. He liked that feeling. That's why, when doing the dishes or playing a video game, he finds his mind wandering back to that bathroom and that conversation. As though looking to recapture the sensation he might never feel again.
Imagine that without the anger and the angst. Imagine that kind of a sharp wit, on his side. Sam wonders if it's even possible. The guy is practically his sworn enemy. But it'd be nice, he keeps thinking. It'd be so nice.
Monday arrives and he's eating lunch in the cafeteria and Gabriel comes up and sits across from him.
"Uh," Sam says.
"You said we should talk," Gabriel mutters, hand in a bag of Skittles.
Sam looks around, afraid of prying eyes. "Here?"
"You wan--'" Gabriel is munching a handful of the candies at once. He swallows. "You wanna go back down to the basement or something?"
Sam shakes his head. "No. Just... Don't want to ruin your reputation. Lunching with the enemy."
Gabriel gives him a multicolored, lopsided smile. "That's clever."
Sam looks at the candy bag. "Is that all you brought to eat?"
"Nah. 'Sall I'm gonna eat, though."
"That's not healthy."
"Oh, thanks, Mom."
Sam reddens. "Never mind. Sorry."
Gabriel blows air through his lips. "Stop apologizing. It's embarrassing."
"I didn't think you could get embarrassed."
"I'm talking about you, dumbass."
Sam chuckles. "Now you're looking out for my well-being?"
Gabriel slides his hands behind his head like he's about to relax on an imaginary divan. "Well? What if I am?"
"Then I'd have to say, thanks, Mom."
Gabriel stares. And then he laughs. And all at once Sam is laughing too.
Surprising things that Sam learns about Gabriel in the ensuing weeks:
1) He's a good actor. Really, stupidly, ridiculously good. Not just with impressions (and the one he does of Mr. Singer is hysterical) but also with straight-up speeches and monologues and just about everything. Sam pushes him to audition for a play, but Gabriel demurs. "I prefer to inflict my special brand of torture on the truly deserving," he says. Sam suspects he's just nervous.
2) He has the metabolism of a freaking hummingbird. Sam has never seen anyone go through that much candy in his life. If it has sugar in it, Gabriel wants some. And it never shows on his body that he sucks down Snickers bars like they're French fries. It's kind of disgusting to watch, actually. Sam figures his continued fascination is analogous to a rubbernecker on a highway trying to get a glimpse of the mangled body in a road accident.
3) He believes in everything. Ghosts, goblins, fairies, aliens, gods, goddesses, demons, monsters, even superheroes. Sam quizzes him on it, in his usual practical skeptical way, but Gabriel laughs it all off. "It's more fun this way!" he declares, and it's hard to argue with a statement like that.
4) He doesn't have a mother. She died shortly after he was born, and his dad is uber-strict. Most of his siblings (and he has a few brothers) are hardasses in one way or another, but Gabriel is the black sheep of the family. Or, as he likes to put it, the "rainbow-striped flying sheep." Sam thinks there is nothing at all about him that is sheeplike.
5) There's a way he looks at Sam sometimes -- when they're in the middle of a conversation, or they've just come off laughing hard at a joke -- that makes Sam lose his breath, that makes his blood pump and his skin tingle. It's there for an instant, then gone, but Sam can still feel it driving shivers along his skin for hours afterward. Gabriel's eyes have magic in them, he decides. Sam doesn't believe in ghosts, but he finds himself believing in magic just because of those eyes.
"You're friends with him now?"
"That's great," Mom interjects, but Dean isn't so happy about it. "You're frigging friends with the guy now? After what he did to you?"
"He's a cool guy," Sam says, and it sounds whinier than he intended.
"Cool guy, yeah, sure. What is this, Stockholm Syndrome?"
Mom turns red. "Dean! Where did you learn that?"
"Must be one of those magazines he keeps under the bed," Sam says loudly, although he doesn't know what Stockholm Syndrome is and Dean doesn't keep his magazines under the bed.
"Sammy!" Dean makes a fist. Sam just laughs.
He's laughing more often lately than he ever did. He has more energy, too. Even Dad's noticed. "What happened, Sam? You meet a girl?" he says one afternoon, when Sam has spontaneously volunteered to go help him with one of his projects in the garage. (Dad does everything from woodworking to maintaining his classic car, with more than a little sportsmanship, that is, hunting, interspersed between the more productive hobbies. Mom doesn't approve, which is weird because they met due to mutual hunting buddies.)
Sam gives him a funny look when he asks, and Dad chuckles that rich low molasses chuckle that Sam likes so much. It means Dad's in a good mood, when he laughs like that, and everything's better when Dad's in a good mood. "You're very energetic these days. Like you can't wait to get up and moving. I suppose you're just a teenager."
"I don't know." Sam folds his arms behind his head, a motion he learned from Gabriel. "I'm pretty happy these days. School's going good, and I have awesome friends."
"Mm-hm." Dad looks at him knowingly. "It's that Jessica, isn't it? You like her."
"What?" Sam frowns. "No! Not like that. I mean, she's nice, and pretty, I guess, but..."
"Oh, I see how it is." Dad is laughing at him, and Sam feels anger rise in his chest. These days they can't go two feet without getting in an argument. Mom chalks it all up to adolescence. Sam thinks it might be more, but he's not sure.
"Dad, I'm serious," he says. "Jess is just a friend."
"That's fine!" Dad says, peering down at the jigsaw where he's carving out pieces for a rocking chair. "It's someone, though, that's for sure. Someone's making you very happy."
Sam pauses. Gabriel flashes through his mind. Truth is, it's Gabriel's friendship that's making him really happy these days. It's hard to believe they were ever enemies.
"Oh, there it is," Dad snaps his fingers. "It's that one, the one you're thinking about."
Sam wipes the stupid smile off his face. When the hell did that get there, anyway?
Sam is up in his room later that evening, thumbing through a Star Wars magazine he doesn't understand half of and thinking about what Dad said.
"It's that one, the one you're thinking about."
When Sam had been thinking about Gabriel. Normally, that would just mean Dad was completely off the ball. Wouldn't be the first time Dad had no idea what was going through Sam's head, not even close. But there's something really unsettling about this. Something Sam can't quite put his finger on.
He ends up putting his fingers on himself.
Like every teenage boy, Sam jerks off pretty regularly. It's a good way to mellow out his brain, to help him stop thinking so hard, help him sleep or just take the edge off whatever tension he's feeling. He raises up his shirt, lowers his pants around his knees, and eases himself under the covers.
"I'm going to bed!" he shouts to the closed door, turns off his light, and settles in. His fingers wrap around his cock, finding that easy, comfortable grip and rhythm, and his head lolls back onto the pillow as he gives himself over to the hypnotic good feelings.
The other day Gabriel had climbed a fence after a hastily thrown Frisbee had gone astray. The light had caught his thin limbs, and for a moment Sam had thought he looked like a leaf trapped across the spires of the silver fence, struggling to fly away.
His legs are so long for such a short guy, Sam thinks. The way he moves on them -- it's like a crane, one of those birds with bony knees.
If his hand is flying faster he's not noticing it. He's thinking now of Gabriel's grin of triumph when he climbs back down, his breath coming fast and hot from his mouth, his eyes glittering. The rush of joy that swells up in Sam's own heart just looking at him, feeling like they are partners in some divine game and the rest of the world is their playing field.
In Sam's memory Gabriel turns his head, looks triumphantly over at the sunset, and Sam realizes he's measuring how well his face would fit in that round stretch of shoulder and neck, and the realization comes just before he comes with a shudder and a stifled cry.
A rush of panic fills in the void that the departing pleasure leaves. This happens to kids in after-school specials. It doesn't happen to him. It won't happen to him. He's normal, he has perfectly good role models. There's no reason he should feel this way. He'll have to stop it somehow.
They're on the edge of the field, watching the football players go, when Sam mentions to Gabriel, "So I'm thinking I'm gonna ask Jess out."
Gabriel nearly spits out his jelly-jelly-jelly-peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. "Are you for serious?"
"Well, yeah." Sam shrugs. "She's cute."
"Pffft. If you like that type," Gabriel says. He makes a dismissive hand motion in the air.
"What?" There's a painful squirm of confusion in Sam's stomach. He was hoping Gabriel would encourage him. Expecting it. Not getting that expected enthusiasm makes him feel like everything's wired up wrong. "What's wrong with Jess?"
"Nothing!" Gabriel turns away from him, a bit peevish. "Is that really your type, though? I thought different."
"Really." Sam is defensive now, and defensive can mean angry. "What did you think I went in for? Goth chicks?"
"Sam," Gabriel says without facing him. "Remember when I told you that you weren't dumb?"
"Huh?"
"I might have been wrong."
At first Jess doesn't get it. "What, the Harry Potter movie? I've already seen it. I'd go again, though, if you haven't."
"Doesn't have to be that one," Sam says. He doesn't know why guys freak out about this. It's not a big deal, asking Jess to do something. They've been going to movies together for years. "Just -- I want to go to a movie with you."
"You're getting all romantic," she teases, an amused grin on her face. "People will talk."
"Yeah," he says, seriously, nodding.
Her hair's still in motion around her face when she stops, and it all falls in a sudden plunk around her shoulders. "Wait. What?"
"Yeah," he says, and now the nerves are starting. "I'm getting romantic."
"As in, you're asking me out?" He nods again. "On a date? Like, a date-flavored date?" Another nod.
She bursts into laughter. "I'm sorry, Sam... I don't mean to laugh at you... it's just..." She wipes her eyes. "Are you serious? Seriously serious?"
"Why does it make you laugh?" he asks, feeling mocked from all corners now. "Why can't we go out? I like you, and you're pretty, and nice--"
"Because!" she says, and then stops herself. "I mean, we can go out. If you want to. But you have to do one thing for me, OK?"
"Sure." He is a little sick of nodding right now. He feels like the world is just flowing along and he alone is trying to keep his head above water.
"Just--" She touches his arm lightly, and he repeats to himself: I like her. Ilikeherilikeherilikeher. "Don't do anything just cause you think you should, OK? I don't wanna be your guinea pig."
There's almost an accusation in her tone, and he doesn't get it. "Jess?"
She smiles. "Call me and we'll figure out what's worth seeing. Harry Potter is kind of depressing, anyway."
"Should I wear a tie or something?" Sam asks Dean. The look he gets is withering. "OK, so what?"
"Just look nice," Dean says. "No ripped jeans, unless she's into that."
"I don't think she's into anything," Sam says, wrinkling his nose. He really doesn't get this. What's the protocol for a date? Is it any different than going to the movies with Jess usually is? What's he expected to do that will be different? Open the door for her, hold her hand. Does he have to kiss her? He doesn't know what a real kiss feels like, he's only ever had a few, and they were all pecks. Are they supposed to make out in the movie theater? Or on the way home? It's so confusing.
But Jess gave him a break. She said he didn't have to do anything he didn't want to do. Well, that's not how she put it, but that's what he heard. There's something she doesn't want him to do. Maybe she doesn't like him enough, but he's pretty sure she doesn't want him kissing her.
Which should not be a relief, it really shouldn't.
She shows up wearing a pretty white sundress and he feels underdressed and oversized and goofy. A few minutes into the ride (Dean spares him the embarrassment of having a Dad-sized chauffeur) and he forgets, though. They're gabbing like crazy in the back seat, discussing the big embarrassment last week in the hallway when Bela freaked out about losing her rabbit's foot, and what seems most important is that they're jointly getting on Dean's nerves.
"Gabriel said it serves her right," Sam says as he circles the car to open the door for Jess, like Dean instructed him to do. (Big brothers are good for something.) "He says she shouldn't mess around with stuff like that."
"Messing around with stuff, in general, is what Bela does," Jess says, rolling her eyes. "I hear she's a klepto."
"What?" Sam stares at her, goggle-eyed, forgetting to move. "Where did you hear that?"
"Doesn't matter. We're gonna miss the previews," Jess says, and grabs his wrist to drag him into the theater. Somewhere in the middle of it all, Sam gets up the courage not to let go of her hand. She gives him a weird look, and then relaxes into it.
Yeah. He can do this. This'll be fine.
On to Chapter Three