Your Sorrow for Another Coin - Chapter Four
Your Sorrow for Another Coin
Chapter Four: Heart held out like a tin cup
Word Count: 7109
Overall Pairing(s): John/OFC, Dean/OFC (Het)
Overall Rating: NC-17 (This chapter: NC-17)
Feedback: Absolutely. Concrit is always welcome.
Disclaimer: The Winchester boys aren't mine but I'd make Dean wear his boots all of the time if they were.
Spoilers/Warnings: None for the series.
A/N: This story was inspired by last year's spn_xx summer challenge - specifically prompt #149, Spelling by Margaret Atwood - and is my response to the This Woman's Work challenge on spn_het_love.
Beta(s): As always, embroiderama was the calm yin to my angsty yang. sarahcascade spent entirely too much time helping me research Gaelic prayers. quirkies caught every literary reference I made. All three of them helped immeasurably with pacing and characterization. Everything that rocks about this is because of them. The mistakes? Those are all me.
Summary: Winchesters always needed protecting, from themselves as much as anything else - so maybe it was no surprise that Mama added all that thyme and basil and oregano into spaghetti sauce every time a Winchester crossed their doorstep.
Chapters:
Chapter One / Chapter Two / Chapter Three / Chapter Four / Chapter Five
Alice hunkered down in the old claw foot tub, sliding down the rounded back until her nose was just above the bubbles, and kicked the spigot closed with her foot.
The wind was still whistling outside, hurling the snow into windows and clapboard walls when it wasn’t sneaking through the cracks, but the hot water heater was operating just fine; her toes warmed up along with the rest of her and the water was so hot that her skin was turning pink just by laying in it. The hot water worked through the kinks in her shoulders from three hours hunched over research books and trying to ignore the noises Dean Winchester made chewing on the end of a pen.
Just watching him push the end of that pen between his lips made her prickly as all hell, each gust of air from the heater blowing against the goose bumps on her arms. It got so bad when Dean started sucking that Alice squirmed in her chair and turned bright red.
As soon as that damn boy slammed his book shut and yelled that he was calling his papa, Alice shot out of the kitchen and pounded up the stairs; skin slapping against worn wood until she was shucking off her clothes and stepping into the tub.
Not even a nun could have stayed in that chair.
Mama hadn’t exactly helped things, standing up and telling them both that researching without her was a good learning exercise - like sitting in a chair and gritting her teeth just to keep from diving at Dean across the table was going to teach Alice Meeks patience better than all those days living between his postcards, helping Mama with her charm bags while she waited for funny little stories about the real reason why Sam was always bitch pissy or the trucker Dean saw in Alabama sleeping with his boots off.
Those little pieces of paper couldn’t stop the worry and the waiting, didn’t take the edge off whenever Alice found Mama rocking in her chair, embroidering spells into flannel shirts and hooded jackets that she’d send to that junkyard man in South Dakota. Alice slipped surprises of her own into Mama’s care packages, used books with notes in the margins for Sam and so many hours of mix tapes for Dean that Alice might as well have moved in with Barbara Jean just to get her hands on a working tape recorder, but they never made the wind blow back to Kentucky any faster than it always had.
Alice never lost the gut punch of them being gone until she could run her fingers along the side of the Winchester’s big black car, waking up early in the morning and pulling back the curtains; hoping they hadn’t left during the night to chase down someone else’s ghosts without saying goodbye. She hoarded memories like a magpie, breathing in the mornings when she would hug Sam before breakfast until her arms ached and breathing out the afternoons when she tangled her hands in Dean’s shirt just to reach his mouth. Some nights, when she was sitting on the back porch swing watching the flicker of fireflies out in the pasture, Alice could hear them arguing about who could run the fastest or who could burp the loudest.
And the first time Chuck Trelawny sweet talked her into the backseat of his car, Alice learned the secret behind every girl Dean had brought into her mama’s shed. Bodies had a way of going back to the essentials and it didn’t matter who you touched when you needed to feel skin against skin, when you needed to remind yourself that you were running on something besides empty. But even sprawled in his back seat, Chuck kissing her as hard as Dean ever had, Alice was coming up with a list of all the ways the leather didn’t smell right and why the music sounded all wrong.
She sighed, closing her eyes and dipping down below the water; hair swirling around her head like she was a mermaid, ready to float away on sea foam if she just let go. She never lost her wits with Chuck or Ronny Jackson at the movies or anyone else the way she did just from breathing the scent off of Dean Winchester’s neck.
Because there was no denying the things that mattered, the shiver when she remembered Dean’s fingers brushing the half-moon scars on her arms and the way he frowned every time Dean saw those little white loops standing out against her tan; sitting on the back porch steps drinking root beer floats with Sam, an echo of ‘your mom’s all banged up ‘cause of me’ in his eyes. Dean looked away with a clench to his jaw every time Alice murmured ‘it wasn’t your fault’ and she’d wait until Sam went back inside before throwing her arms around his neck, wishing he would believe her the harder Alice held on.
Wishing it was something other than what it was.
Alice burst back up when the pressure started burning through her chest, gasping like an old fish and flinging hair behind her hard enough to sting when it slapped her back. She pulled the plug and watched the water swirl down the drain, putting a finger in the hole - but nothing stopped a whirlpool when it was dragging something into it, even if it was just strands of red hair that got caught in the swell.
She sighed, pushing herself out of the tub, and pulled on her long underwear; arms and legs heavy from the heat.
Dean was still talking on the phone when Alice padded back downstairs in her bunny slippers, his voice a low rumble as she curled next to Mama’s rocking chair and rested her chin on Mama’s knee; touching the runner as the chair slowed down and Mama slipped her needle into the felt of her charm.
“Mama?” Alice pitched her voice low, taking a breath when Dean started rattling off something about redcaps using glamour - and at least that made sense, a darkling fey snatching little kids off of a school playground, especially when it backed up to the woods. There were spells enough to keep Dean safe if he used them, a trickster’s passel of charms that even Alice knew. She shook her head sharply. “You think the storm’s gonna pass soon?”
“Storms have a way of blowing over so long as you let them run their course. All a person can do is weather one as best they can.” Mama set the charm down on the table next to her chair. She brushed the wet hair off of Alice’s cheek, blue eyes staring down into her face like Alice was nothing more than a windowpane. “Even when they wash you clean through to your bones.”
“What…if you’re not strong enough?”
“You learn to bend.”
Mama touched Alice’s chin and she smiled, a brittle grin sitting by itself underneath a crackling shine that never reached Mama’s eyes, and the chime from the old clock rattled its way through Alice’s hipbones; telling Alice Meeks to give up and give in and let the universe snap her like a twig - because if Mama had trouble bending sometimes, there wasn’t enough strength in the earth or enough force in the tide to help the girl who dreamed about a boy’s careless laugh.
She rose to her knees, circling Mama’s neck with her arms; sucking in a breath and trying to ignore the muted taint that still spilled off of that ring of shiny scars. One tiny sob slipped out of Alice’s mouth, as cold in her belly as the wind outside, and Mama’s arms tightened across her shoulders. Alice choked the second one back with a shake of her head and a sigh more like a wheeze.
“The problem with Meeks women is that we feel the wind blow through us,” Mama said, “Even if our feet are always on the ground.”
“I don’t feel nothing but stupid.”
“Falling in love with a force of nature is in your blood, Alice, and that boy of yours is nothing if he’s not a force of nature.” Mama laughed softly, kissing Alice’s forehead. “And I’m bone tired from trying to warn the two of you off of each other.”
Alice jerked, sinking back onto her heels and glaring up into Mama’s face. “But he’s not my - ” she spluttered. “And I don’t! I fool around just as much as he does.” Her voice was a hiss, a spitting boil until Mama’s mouth quirked up and Alice lowered her eyes; flopping against Mama’s leg like she was a balloon losing air. “Even if I did, Mama,” she added softly, “Dean wouldn’t ever - ”
“Dean wouldn’t ever what, Sweet Pea?” he asked lightly from the kitchen doorway.
Alice swallowed, shoulders jerking a second time. She heard the smile on his face before she looked over her shoulder, watching Dean stroll into the living room carrying a tray with the chocolate cream pie Alice had whipped up for dessert and enough plates and forks for all three of them.
He set it down on the coffee table, grabbing Alice’s hand when she stretched her arms and yanked her towards him - handing her the pie server so that Alice could give a piece to Mama before making a plate for herself. Dean smiled at her like all those girls he used to parade into Mama’s shed meant nothing, just warm skin on cold days when you had nothing better but to make do.
Alice smiled back when Dean slipped his arm across her shoulders, waiting for Mama to head into the kitchen and make hot cocoa, and he was the one who squirmed like he had an itch to scratch when Alice leaned into him; sliding a finger covered with chocolate cream between his lips.
Until he started sucking on the tip of her finger like it was a goddamn ballpoint pen.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
He looked like a ghost stretched out on the floor, with his pale skin washed out from the flickering hiss and crackle off the television and the shadows underneath his eyes that only came out in the dark.
Dean’s eyelids had started closing halfway through Gremlins, even with most of a chocolate cream pie rumbling in his belly and a joke dying on his lips, and he was already asleep when Alice finished up the stitching on the last charm Mama had left her with before going up to bed - a sachet full of dried lavender that Alice didn’t think twice about sewing until Dean twitched, spilling over with a moan that stuck inside her belly for all the wrong reasons. There was fire trapped in that sound, fire and loss and the whir of tires on the highway singing two little boys to sleep.
Alice slipped the sachet underneath his ear, watching Dean with her knees tucked in tight to her chest, but he didn’t rest easy until the television station she’d been ignoring turned to static; a motel room lullaby that made every muscle sag.
The stretch in her legs burned as she stood up to turn off the light, pushing off the floor with both hands. She didn’t even think about turning off the television, the way it made him relax in ways that one of Mama’s remedies couldn’t, and she probably should have tossed Gram’s afghan on top of him instead of leaving it bundled on the couch. She probably should have slinked off to bed, tucked underneath her comforter and a whole pile of blankets pulled up to her neck; just the whistling wind to keep her company as she drifted off to sleep.
Lying right back down next to him, head on his shoulder and one arm curved around his waist, was the one thing she shouldn’t have done but Dean was warmer than Alice thought he’d be and she only shivered from the way he smelled; the smallest hint of hot chocolate from the tiny brown spots on his t-shirt mixing with the lavender until she was yawning, burrowing underneath his arm as it came around her and she pressed her nose into his chest.
Alice slipped her hand up underneath the shirt, feeling the heat except where those three scars of his laid their tracks across his belly, and sighed. There was nothing to keep her from curling her right leg around his, listening to his quiet snores; waking up to fingers grazing slowly from her hip down her thigh. She blinked, her eyes focusing on Dean’s grin as it widened, like she was the canary who’d jumped into the cat’s mouth all on her own, but all he did was lean up onto his elbow.
“Morning,” Dean drawled.
Alice tilted her head up, balancing herself on her own elbow and tracing wide circles onto his belly with her fingertips just as slow as that straight line he was still scratching up and down her hip - and there was a crack in her voice that she didn’t try to hide, not with all that blood rushing to her face when he leaned in close.
“It’s not morning yet, you yoo-hoo.”
“The sun’s coming up.”
“That’s just the moon reflecting off the snow.”
Dean snorted, tucking a tangle of hair behind Alice’s ear. “You got an answer for everything, don’t you?” He chuckled, touching her lips with an index finger.
But he wasn’t even trying to kiss her.
Not that she really blamed him, lying there with a girl whose long underwear was a size too big, hand-me-downs from Running Bear’s daughter complete with little yellow daisies on them, and sporting the same pair of bunny slippers he’d been teasing her about since she was thirteen.
All she was doing was embarrassing herself, trying to keep her palm flat on his stomach while she looked up at him because the damn thing wouldn’t stop trembling, fluttering like the dragonflies buzzing in her chest. It would have been easier to stop if he wasn’t so warm; if Dean Winchester didn’t taste like the best parts of summer when her mouth settled onto the curve of his neck, her tongue licking a stripe all on its own while her hand slid backwards to his hip.
“Can’t tell you why the boy who’s screwed half the girls in my class treats me like I’m made out of glass,” she said softly.
Dean sucked in a breath, his entire body jerking as Alice hitched up; one hand moving to his back and only stopping when her fingers touched tape - gingerly brushing a thick bandage and she winced when Dean hissed. She sat up, tugging his shirt off as gently as she could to get a better look.
Even in the flickering light of television static, Alice could see that it was a bone bruise; dark from the trauma of something hitting so hard it vibrated down to the bone, blue-black stripes showing off his ribs.
“How…”
Alice swallowed, shaking her head sharply. Ten different things off the top of her head could strike a man that hard, could send him reeling to the ground in a defenseless heap, and every single one of them was crowding around them in the dark. Seeing all the different pieces and parts when she closed her eyes, shivering when she saw a glistening bone spur jutting out from a bulging elbow, but she couldn’t tell whether or not it was from blood or the poison.
“You had me researching something stupid all night for no reason,” she managed. “And I coulda told you every spell Mama knows about redcaps instead of wasting all that time looking up squonks.”
“Doesn’t hurt all that much,” Dean answered. And he was staring at something past her shoulder when Alice looked at him. “Your mom said I was gonna be fine.” He grinned suddenly, a skull’s smile underneath dark circles where his eyes should be. “So there’s nothing for you to worry about.”
“Jackass,” she spat out.
“The fuck?”
“I’m never gonna stop worrying about you, Dean Winchester.” Alice’s hand trembled on his cheek and the smart thing to do would have been to bite her tongue off when Dean’s eyes widened instead of taking another goddamn breath before opening her mouth again. “I don’t make pies for anyone but you.” It was her turn to stare at something other than his face, hiding the traitorous shimmer on her cheeks. “I wouldn’t even make a pie for Sam if he asked me to and he means more to me than just about anyone I know.”
She couldn’t hear Dean breathe when her mouth finally snapped shut, feeling like a broken leaf whipping around in the storm all by itself and shriveling when the cold hit her stomach, but he bunched the fabric of her shirt with one hand until it was tight across Alice’s back; pulling her down until she was sprawled on top of him. He hissed again when his back hit the floor but Dean was smiling at her all the same, fingertips playing against her breasts until tiny nubs strained against cotton and Alice was pulling the shirt up over her head; daring Dean to stop with a kiss that darted past his lips.
But the one boy who wouldn’t run from a wildcat just scratched down her back, taking her with him as he rolled onto his side; his soft lips replacing his fingers as he curled one hand into the elastic waistband of her long underwear. Alice shivered, her body arching into his mouth as his hand slipped lower - a slow burn between her thighs when rough skin met slick.
The button at his waist popped out with just a flick of her thumb, slipping through the hole as easy as the sigh into her mouth. It was the zipper that caused all the problems, getting stuck halfway down, and Alice’s cheeks flushed as she tugged; her whole body going as red as it could when Dean chuckled, his free hand coming down to help hers, but he stopped laughing when she looked at him.
“You sure about this, Sweet Pea?”
“Now’s a fine time to ask.” Alice wrapped one hand around his neck, bringing his mouth down to hers while her other hand slid into his boxers. His cock was warm and heavy and softer than she expected, both of them gasping when her fingers circled the shaft; her mouth opening up to his like a bud in the morning sun. “What with our hands down each others pants and all,” she whispered, close enough to his lips that she could feel the curve of his smile warm against her mouth.
“You’re never gonna shut up,” he murmured, circling her clit with his thumb.
She opened her mouth but all that came out was a squeak, her blood stuttering with an uneven pulse, Dean’s fingers dancing inside the secret places he’d never touched no matter how many nights he dragged her into the backseat of his papa’s car and kissed her until it hurt. He was breathing ragged every time her hand moved, biting his lip when their eyes met and coming in her hand with one buck of his hips, salt and wet spilling up onto his stomach in ropy strands. Watching her even when he was done, waiting for Alice’s body to flutter against his hand in the slow swell that came afterwards, her head falling forward with a soft cry.
Dean kept right on watching her when she rested her head on the carpet, hoping it was too dark to see her blush when he smiled down at her and tangled both of his hands in her hair; pulling her in close enough to smell both of them mixed in together, his sticky belly touching her sweat-covered one as she hooked her leg around his and placed one hand on his hip, listening to his heart stumble.
“The sun’s really coming up now,” he said softly.
“That’s still the moon reflecting off the snow.”
“I hope so ‘cause your mom’s gonna kick my ass when she sees her half-naked daughter sacked out on the floor with me. Right after she makes us go take showers.” Dean snorted. “She might even kick your ass for seducing me. Anyone ever tell you that men go crazy for chicks in bunny slippers?”
Alice giggled, kissing Dean’s shoulder. His smile widened into a grin and the only ghost in that room was the one rattling the windows, an angry black wind exorcised with nothing but the way he captured her laugh with his.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The icicles had started melting all on their own during breakfast before the snow had the chance to start playing catch-up, blown into drifts by the wind that still howled its way through the cracks, but the patchy growl of the snow plow going down the county road brought a frown to Mama’s face while she stirred cream into her tea.
That didn’t keep her from dragging Dean out to the shed, both of them showing up on the back porch with shovels while Alice set up the double boiler. Dean stomped through the kitchen, pinching her ass when she was bent over looking for the dipping vat and the dipping frames, and slammed the front door behind him before Alice could smack his arm - but Mama stayed in the back, piling more snow onto her tulip and daffodil beds so the bulbs could grow up healthy.
Melting beeswax always made the house smell like honey, all those mornings full of oatmeal and orange juice before Papa’s last hunt, and there was something as close to peace as one could get without being a bodhisavatta when you were dipping wicks into the wax; watching the build-up until you were holding candles where a piece of string used to be, heating up the wax for one final dip to make them shiny.
Even Mama couldn’t have done a better job on the candles, not one speck of dust in all four batches and every single one of them smelling as sweet as the last when Alice brought them into the shop.
She was cutting the first set of candles from the frame when the bell rang, the welcoming smile on Alice’s face staying put until her cheeks felt like they were cracking. A woman with a red lips slicing across her white face was walking towards the counter slow and careful; a measured gait, like it was a dance and she was the only woman in the world who knew all of the steps.
“So you’re the little Meeks girl,” she said, tilting her head while her smile got wider and Alice shivered. The light was playing tricks because no woman that pretty would ever have a dark mark that shimmered on her wrist when she walked across the sigil Mama had hidden under a braided throw rug. “The one who ties her wishes on branches and believes that they’ll come true.”
“Who…” Alice shook her head sharply. “What… How…can I help you?”
“The question you should be asking yourself, Alice Betony Meeks, is how I can help you.” The woman made a clucking noise at the back of her throat. “Your mother’s done nothing but fill your head with silly notions about raising power and dancing naked underneath the moon.” She touched the nearest candle of the rack, her smile as sickly sweet as old cotton candy when it flushed a brilliant crimson. “The only power you need, little one, is the power you take for yourself from the edge of a knife.”
Alice blinked but the candle was still just as red as it had been after the woman’s finger traced a line down it. And the woman just laughed, curdling deep inside Alice’s belly when that cold hand touched her cheek, wound rot clinging to her fingers, and everything inside of her was screaming to run if she could only open her mouth to yell.
“It’s blood you’ll need on the night your heart breaks.” She sighed. “Better theirs than yours.”
“You…” Alice swallowed hard as she leaned onto the counter, spreading her hands flat in front of her and feeling the scratch on her palms. It was something to hold onto when the woman frowned, cutting through her sing-song voice and old words that flittered in the back of Alice’s skull like a long-forgotten memory. “You should be leaving now. My ma - ”
The front door crashed open, all splintering wood and broken metal and Dean Winchester standing in the doorway with a shotgun. He took one step past the threshold and pointed it at the woman’s back, eyes as hard as stones and not one move wasted when his finger clicked off the safety button.
“Get the fuck away from her.”
“That’s no way to treat a potential customer,” the woman hissed, turning on her heel, and cut through the air with one hand. “Permissum exsisto fessus per sulum quasi labor.”
The skin of his cheek sliced open into three neat lines but he didn’t even flinch, just bared his teeth like a wildcat himself and took another step forward with blood dripping onto his collar. “I’m not saying this a third time,” Dean said slowly, his voice a frozen tendril coiling around Alice’s spine when he squared his shoulders. “Get away from her.”
“Or you’ll do - ” The woman cocked her head, her body shifting on the balls of her feet.
“Ta mi lubadh mo ghlun, an suil an Maither a chruthaich mi, an suil an Trillsech a caithad co mi.” It was a whisper from the kitchen, getting louder as Mama stepped into the store swirling a whisk in a bowl full of water. The woman’s eyes widened when Mama began sprinkling the floor with a quick twist to her wrist, taking a step backwards when Mama didn’t stop walking. “An suil an Caillech a caemnaid mi, le caird agus caoimh.”
“You’re a misguided fool,” the woman spat, already moving towards the door.
Dean kept the gun trained on her until she was nothing but a shadow at the end of the driveway, turning onto the county road and disappearing behind one of the snow-covered bushes. “Fucking witches,” he muttered, glancing once in Mama’s direction like he’d said the wrong thing and she was going to turn him into a toad with her bowl full of salt water. He grinned when Mama smiled back and scratched underneath his ear. “Sorry about the door, Mrs. Meeks.”
“Your papa told me that once,” Mama replied mildly. Alice waited for Mama to tell Dean the truth, that no witch could cut a man fifteen feet away without a focus or turn candles red with just a touch, but all Mama did was laugh. “I made him help me board the place up until I could get a new one from town.”
Alice’s hands dropped to her legs, her whole body shaking, and the only reason she didn’t fall off the chair was Mama’s arm sliding across her shoulders, one kiss brushing warmth back into Alice’s cheek. She was going crazy, listening to the two of them standing there having a pleasant conversation about a broken door, watching them act like that thing was nothing more than a disgruntled customer who thought her good luck charm was broken - like Dean couldn’t have been killed taking on whatever that woman really was.
Like he wasn’t standing there bleeding all over his jacket.
“She… She knew my name, Mama.” Alice tried to get the words out without crying but her voice had a jagged edge, her nails digging into her thighs when Dean’s eyes narrowed. She was bawling like a girl who didn’t already know about the things hiding in the dark, a girl who hadn’t seen broken bones and torn-up skin and the remnants of lives left behind in a hunter’s eyes - but none of those things, tales pulled from dusty old books and passing stories, had ever known her name. She sucked in a breath, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “And she knew I wasn’t like you.”
“You’re exactly like me, Sweet Pea.” Mama kissed Alice on the forehead. “A Meeks woman.” And when Mama hugged her, it was easier to breathe; the voices whispering in the back of her skull untangled themselves as Mama’s lips touched down on skin, knots undone as easily as Mama could smile. “Now you go throw that candle in the woodstove and I’ll go patch up your boy. We’re not eating lunch until this place is cleansed and I’ve changed the wards.”
Alice’s mouth quirked up to the left when Mama let her go, poking the candle as Dean set the shotgun on the counter and watching it sway back and forth while the tip of her finger tingled. It was the same color as the blood on Dean’s cheek, flowing out of him because of her, and the hurt of that ached worse than crying. Alice wouldn’t even look at him until he coughed, a sharp bark in his throat.
“You did real good,” Dean drawled, hooking his thumbs in the belt loops of his jeans. “Even Sammy peed his pants the first time he saw a witch.”
“Why are all the really embarrassing stories you come up with about Sam,” Alice asked softly, reaching up to touch his cheek. “You’re making it sound like Sam’s been hunting when he was still wearing diapers.” The blood was sticky on her fingertips but it was hard not to smile back at him when Dean grinned at her, not one trace of the hunter who had stared down a dark stain walking around in the shape of a woman. “Well, you better not keep Mama waiting. She’ll make you drink the willow bark tincture without anything to cut the bitter.”
“Now you tell me.”
Alice watched him saunter into the kitchen and waited until she heard voices before she snipped the wick. The candle sent a shock through her palm, itching all the way up her arm. She slipped upstairs when Mama wasn’t looking, joking with Dean while she tenderly dabbed at the cuts on his cheek with a washcloth.
She tucked the candle into the sandalwood box underneath her bed, full of Dean’s postcards tied together with ribbons she had woven with protective runes and the fetishes that Running Bear would give her every time he stopped by the store and the hair clip covered in fake pearls she was wearing the first time a boy kissed her; a box full of polished stones with holes in them that Papa had pulled from the creek bed when she was a baby and pressed flowers from Mama that never lost their shape and the perfect little pine cone Sam had given her for her seventeenth birthday, the only magic Alice Meeks had to her name.
Maybe she should have thrown that candle away, burning it in the woodstove like Mama wanted and watching it melt like a fiery icicle, but she was never going to forget what that woman had said. All Alice had worth keeping was made of blood and bone and skin too easily broken - and the only power a sacrifice required was the willingness to be one.
But she bound it in a white cord overflowing with the luck of thirteen full moons and a black cord kissed with the wisdom of thirteen crones before she closed the lid, wiping her cheeks with trembling hands.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Mama caught them making out in the living room, Dean’s hips pressing hers into the couch and Alice’s hands roaming underneath his shirt, drowning in each other’s taste as they ran towards something clean - something that didn’t need to be washed away with salt and water and burning sage. Mama had to whisper spells at each window before that woman’s stench went away, even if her words would always dance between the books and the dreamcatchers and the ache in her chest that Alice had spent all afternoon trying to ignore.
And it wasn’t like they had spent all evening ignoring the books strewn across the coffee table or the notebook full of Spanish exercises sitting next to Alice’s backpack. But there wasn’t much sense in making Dean research faery lore when his papa had already moved on to a new job in Ohio that had nothing to do with redcaps and sitting around pretending to study wasn’t working; laying flat on her stomach and tapping her pencil on her textbook while Dean sang Zeppelin off-key. It was damn near impossible making out the meanings of words she wasn’t going to use in everyday conversation when the only thing she was concentrating on were the stupid lyrics Dean was making up to “Black Dog.”
Throwing her pencil at him worked about as well as the pillow Alice had been using to prop up her textbook; by the time she figured out that the only way to shut Dean Winchester up was to kiss him, he already had her pushed into the cushions; her legs wrapped around one of his.
Mama set them to chores, making Dean finish up his packing while Alice sat on the floor next to Mama’s rocking chair, copying new stitches onto a sampler until Mama stopped frowning and handed her a plain white belt to embroider.
She even made Dean pick up a needle and thread when he came back downstairs, cutting a hole down the center of a piece of felt and watching the length of his stitch; head cocked as he sat on the other side of the rocking chair, showing him the best way to sew up skin without leaving too many bruises - which stitches to use based on how deep the cut went and when to use the different salves she was sending with him to his papa, how you could tell an infection just from the smell and the way tiny red lines would creep out from the wound when the blood went hot.
“Your papa was never one for learning gentler healing, for all that he knows enough to patch up the worst parts.” Mama touched Dean’s temple with one hand, ruffling his hair like she used to when the Winchesters first started coming round. “You’re the one who needs to teach Sam how to close up someone proper, Dean Winchester.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Alice rubbed her fingers hard across her eyes, still seeing the criss-cross of scars a wildcat had left behind swimming on the backs of her eyelids - those uneven stitches rough across Dean’s belly, divots where Sam’s hands went unsteady. She didn’t know what was worse, between the quiet way her mama told a boy all of eighteen he needed to teach his baby brother how to make scars neat or the way Dean didn’t hesitate to make the promise, and even Alice could see the scars that were coming; scratched into arms and legs and all the fleshy spots that a monster could catch before the Winchesters brought it down.
There was nothing keeping Alice from kissing him no matter the way Mama’s eyes narrowed when she did it, throwing her arms around Dean’s neck until she stopped shaking. And the look in Mama’s eyes when Alice headed up to bed, the way her mouth pursed full of warnings about rambling men and their pretty sons, wouldn’t keep Alice out of the guest room.
Mama was the one always telling her that life called to life the same way the moon called to the tide.
Alice was underneath the covers, the sheets scratchy on her skin, when Dean stepped into the room wearing nothing but a towel; water droplets scattering across his chest and his shoulders with tiny sparks that made her catch her breath. His eyes flickered from her face to the small box Alice had found in his duffel bag, set out on the nightstand next to the clock.
“Alice.”
“I’m sure, Dean. Never been more sure about anything.”
Dean let out a tattered breath before locking the door, dropping the towel and slipping next to her; wincing when she kissed the butterfly bandages on his cheek.
“You’re all cut up ‘cause of me,” Alice said softly.
“Just wish I had figured it out sooner.” Dean pulled her in close, shivering when Alice kissed his collarbone. “We got out okay, Sweet Pea.” He licked his thumb and pressed it into her forehead. “That’s all that matters.”
Alice hitched up to trace her tongue along the sprinkle of freckles across his nose because all that mattered was memorizing every scar with her lips and fingers, taking him into her mouth gentle until he groaned and her head bobbed and he was slipping past her lips as fast as his hips could buck. And he let Alice take what she needed, his head between her thighs as she ran her fingers through his hair and broke with a shudder against his mouth; breaking all over again when she rolled the condom down his cock. Alice had to do it twice just to get it right, biting her lip when his hand wrapped around her wrist. His eyes looked as old as his papa’s for all that they carried a different ghost.
“You ever done this before?”
“I’ve sparked with boys some but…”
He didn’t say a word, just touched her shoulder without meeting her eyes.
“But we can stop.” Alice stared at the wall, watching the shadows forming from the moonlight pouring through the open curtains. She swallowed, looking at Dean through the fall of her hair, and the ice roaring through her belly had nothing to do with the frost spilling across the window like a spider’s web. “I…” She was no better than any of those girls taking their pleasure out in the shed, running away from a nightmare using skin and sweat and a pretty boy’s mouth. “It’s not treating you fair, just showing up like this and giving you no choice but to say yes.” Alice fisted the sheets in her hands. “So we can stop if you want to.”
“Jesus, I don’t - ”
Dean pushed her hair aside, tucking loose strands behind her ear before his mouth dipped down to her breasts; sucking one and then the other before kissing a trail between her thighs - and the buzzing that sparked through her when his lips encircled her clit and Dean flicked it with his tongue, his fingers curled inside of her as he held her thighs down with his arms, was enough to melt the frozen shard in her stomach. She spread her thighs wide and bit her lip, holding onto his arms and hissing when he thrust slow past the pain; gasping when he looked down into her eyes and his pulse fluttered against hers, as swollen as blue bells after a storm when the push and the pull flowed in her belly.
She rocked with an unsteady rhythm, hipbone against hipbone as her fingernails marked his shoulders but there was no chance of matching the easy way Dean had of moving, and he was already groaning into her mouth when a smoldering ripple began its teasing dance down deep; collapsing on top of her, his entire body hot to the touch.
“Fuck…”
It probably wasn’t good manners to laugh at the boy who had just turned you into something more than a girl but it bubbled out anyway when Alice wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed the top of his head. She was warm all the way down to her toes, giggling like an idiot because they were tangled up together on a bed too small for either of them, and all she wanted to do was hold on to the boy chuckling into the curve of her neck.
“Mama always says practice makes perfect.”
“Yeah?” Dean snorted. “Well, see if I ever screw you again.”
“You wanna make that a bet?”
“After you laughed at me, Sweet Pea, you’re gonna be lucky if I eat your goddamn pie.”
It was Alice’s turn to blush when Dean grinned at her, waggling his eyebrows and swallowing up another giggle with a kiss. There were some things worth paying the fiddler for and he was one of them - worth all the months of sewing charms and making candles until her fingers were poked full of holes and covered in wax when Mama figured out what she had done. If she was lucky. Mama was probably going to set her to chores so dirty that no boy would ever want to look at Alice Meeks again, let alone one as pretty as Dean Winchester.
But Winchesters could pluck surprises out of thin air, as easy as Dean plucked sighs and moans out of her before they woke up with the sun in their eyes and the smell of bacon wafting up from the kitchen.
And he plucked out something that she never knew she could lose after Alice hugged him goodbye, leaning on the trunk of the car with her arms around Dean’s waist and her forehead resting on his chest. He coughed and Alice tilted her head up to look at him; their breath making little white clouds in the spaces between them.
“Shit. I…” Dean sucked in a breath right before he kissed her; slow and tender and tasting sweeter than any boy had a right to, kissing her until Alice was clutching his collar hard enough to make her knuckles ache. He jammed his hands into his pockets when they were done, his boots crunching in the snow as he walked towards the driver’s door. “I don’t send postcards to anyone but you,” he said, looking at Alice over his shoulder before Dean slid inside the car and slammed the door.
Mama met her halfway as Alice stumbled back up the driveway, pulling Alice in close when the roar of the Impala barreling back towards the crossroads washed Alice clean through to her bones.
Chapter Five
A/N:
The title of this chapter is a song lyric from "Shadows Tumble" by Jeffrey Foucault.
The curse used by the "witch" in Jane’s shop when she cuts Dean roughly translates as “let him be wearied with every sort of hardship.” I used an online English to Latin translator because I was too lazy to look up my old Latin textbooks, so I’m certain the translation is a little off.
The invocation that Jane uses to dispel the "witch" from the shop is cobbled together from the Carmina Gadelica (a collection of Irish Catholic prayers), a website that modified the prayer about “cleansing” into a Pagan version, and my sorry attempts to translate the Pagan words with an English to Irish translator and replace them so that the prayer can be Goddess-centric in the language I wished to use. Obviously, I didn’t use the full version of the prayer because that would have been too long for the scene. Although I am certain my translation is laughable based on how I did it and the grammar is off, the stanza I did use translates as:
I am bending my knee
In the eye of the Mother who created me,
In the eye of the Maid who delights with me,
In the eye of the Crone who protects me,
In friendship and affection.