A Single Blade Of Grass - Section Three
Jun. 20th, 2011 12:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glasslogic
~~~~~
Pamela, Brett
“We’ve pretty much got everything that we came for. So ...we’re just going to go,” Sam cut into Pamela’s furious tirade at Brett after a few minutes.
“Are you going to turn him in?” she demanded. “He’s a jackass, but I don’t want him to go to jail.”
“No,” Dean finally spoke up. “We’re not working for the museum, we’re...agents, of the guy who gave them the collection in the first place. He’s dead now, but the jewelry belongs to his heirs.” Which was true, but even if Mason Todd had heirs they had no intention of turning the jewelry over to them.
“And what are you going to tell the museum?” Pamela pressed, shooting her boyfriend a lethal look when Brett opened his mouth to say something.
Sam, Dean, and Jessica glanced at each other. Then Dean shrugged. “Nothing. They lost it, they can sweat. We’ll keep our mouths shut if you will.” Pamela seemed too angry to bother with any more questions, and indicated they were welcome to leave. Sam insisted on cutting Brett free first, over his girlfriend’s objections. Jessica packed all of the cursed jewelry into a ziplock bag, then into another ziplock bag, and then into a canvas bag.
In the front hall, Dean paused to gently push the papers aside and retrieve the last piece from where it had fallen. He looked up to meet Jessica’s eyes. “Did it touch you?”
Sam snorted before she could answer. “She’s not stupid, Dean. If it touched her, she would have said something.”
Dean was still watching her face. She started to say something but there was a resounding crash from the kitchen and the yelling reached a new high.
“Time to go, before we get tied up with a murder,” Sam said wearily, a tightness at the corners of his eyes betraying the pain he was in. Jess nodded in agreement and opened the bags for Dean. He dropped the pendant in, she sealed them up, and the three of them headed back to the car and the long drive back to South Dakota.
“See how easy that was?” Dean asked with satisfaction once the trip was underway. “A little dirt, a little grime, and all the nasty little cursed crap is back in safe hands. We’ll take it out to Bobby’s and bury it in his yard or something. Maybe melt it down.”
Jessica rubbed her cold arms where she was sitting cross-legged in the front seat. “I’d be happier if we knew what the curse did.”
Dean’s face fell into expressionless lines. “Something nasty.”
“You don’t know that,” Sam spoke up from the backseat. “For all we know it makes your toenails purple.”
Dean gave a derisive snort.
“I’m not saying it does,” Sam continued, “just that it could be something completely innocuous. Maybe that’s why Todd donated it. The locals certainly weren’t worried about it.”
“We had this conversation,” Jessica cut in. “And it didn’t go anywhere then, either. The jewelry is cursed, and now it won’t be out in circulation. Congratulations all around. Someone buy me a steak. And a shower.”
“Admit it,” Dean smirked. “You guys had fun.”
“Which part was fun, Dean?! The crawling around all day in a house that should be condemned, the taking someone hostage, or the possible risking our lives to an unknown curse?” Sam demanded.
“The part where you weren’t stuck in an office staring out a window wondering what the hell you are doing with your life,” Dean said with great satisfaction.
“Not all jobs are like that,” Sam said frowned.
“Yours would have been.”
The usual banter was diverting for a while, but Jessica’s gaze kept falling on the narrow strip of skin above her ankle. The more time passed, the less certain she was about what had happened when the paper fell. It had just been a glancing touch after all, and the pendant was heavy and should have fallen straight to the floor. She told herself it made far more sense that what had brushed her skin was an overdue bill, or a stuffed envelope, or maybe an advertisement for a credit card. If she had been that sure, Jessica told herself, she would have spoken up at the house, but after this much time it seemed silly. Other than a headache from breathing in dust all day, she was fine. She tuned back into the conversation in time to hear Dean shrug off Sam's questions about what had spooked him in the house with mutters about dust in his eyes and fending off a sneeze. Jessica highly doubted it, but was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt since he seemed okay and wasn’t obviously bleeding.
They were back on the road, mission accomplished.
Chapter Six
Bobby seemed unimpressed with their exploits in the Carolinas when they reached his house again a couple of days later, but not displeased. Dean had apparently been serious about spending a day or two in Atlantic City, but Sam hadn’t been interested in anything that involved walking and Jessica hadn’t quite been able to shake her headache. Dean grumbled, but with some salacious promises to sweeten the pot, had been willing enough to put his pool hustling on the back burner in favor of just heading back to Bobby’s.
“So ...melt it?” Dean asked, sitting on the counter in the kitchen while Bobby poked through the loot with a pencil and an expression of distaste.
“Yeah, that’s usually enough to break any spellwork on it. Melt it and then bury it, just in case. Everything go okay?”
“Seems to have,” Sam answered him. “Dean called his friend to check and no one seems terribly excited about the break-in or the missing items anymore. No one is looking for it or breathing down the museum’s neck, so it looks like everything is just going to be quietly swept under the rug.”
“Sounds good. You guys have another job lined up or planning on staying around for a while?”
“We’re staying until Sam’s healed up, then ...not sure.” Jessica shrugged.
“Do you have another job for us?” Sam asked.
Bobby grunted. “Always jobs that need doing. I thought you and Jess were going to sit on the bench, though.”
“We’re not going to let Dean get killed because we didn’t want to get out of the car,” Jessica said firmly.
“Then you might want to rethink your plans, because anytime you tag along could get him killed—or save him. You don’t get any certainties in this life.”
~~~~~
Two weeks later, Sam’s ankle was a lot better and almost all of the discoloration was gone, but he was still limping on it and was resigned to not doing any running for a while. Possibly a long while. He hadn’t had a sprained ankle since childhood and being unable to move freely was intensely frustrating. It didn’t help when anytime he mentioned how annoying it was Dean chimed in that it was karma for spending all of his time holed up in the library before. So far, Sam had limited his response to dirty looks.
Dean wasn’t in the house much anyways. With time to burn and in better spirits after their road trip, Dean was taking advantage of the opportunity to pull the Impala’s engine apart and do some cleaning and maintenance. He cleared himself a space in Bobby’s barn, dug up a few space heaters, and pretty much moved in.
Sam couldn’t think of many things he would enjoy doing less, but Dean seemed happy enough.
Jess was a more complicated case.
“Are you mad at me?” Sam asked one sunny afternoon. Jessica was sitting on the floor in front of a window, wearing Dean’s boxers instead of Sam’s for once and with her stolen bath robe open over a paint spattered t-shirt. She was chewing on the ends of her hair and staring intently at paperwork spread out on the floor in front of her. She looked up, startled when Sam spoke.
“What are you talking about?”
Sam eased himself down onto a convenient piano bench --an interesting piece since as far as Sam knew Bobby didn’t own a piano-- and threw his bad ankle up onto the seat of a chair to elevate it.
“I’m talking about you being snappy and short tempered lately. We’re all a little restless and the weather’s been crap, but you just seem pissed about everything. I can’t even find you half the time.”
Jess picked up one of the papers and waved it at him. “Work, Sam. I’ve had things to do.”
“Yeah, work that should have only taken you an hour or two, and you’ve been dragging it out for almost a week now. What’s going on?”
Jessica grimaced and shoved hair out of her eyes. “First off, I haven’t been ‘dragging it out’, it’s a really technical piece and I’m just ...having trouble focusing on it. Secondly, you make it sound like I’m ripping people’s heads off and throwing plates or something. I’ve just been out of sorts, Sam. And I’m not hiding from you, I’m just trying to get some peace to get this stuff done.”
“Trying to get some peace at night, too?”
She crossed her arms but didn’t answer.
“I thought maybe you were staying up with Dean or something,” Sam continued, “but he said he hasn’t seen you either. Nothing says we have to go to bed together, but it’s been a week now. You’re gone when I fall asleep, and you’re gone when I wake up. If you didn’t keep stealing the blankets, I wouldn’t have any idea you’d even shown up at all. And you still want to tell me there’s nothing wrong? If it’s a problem with us, then I thought we agreed to talk about it. If it’s something else...I just wish you would talk to me.”
Her arms tightened and she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I don’t know. It isn’t you, or Dean. Or being here. I’m just ...out of sorts,” she finished lamely. “I’ve got this horrible headache, I can’t sleep, and I don’t feel like dealing with people.”
He hesitated, then lowered his voice. “You aren’t ...pregnant, are you? I know we’ve been careful but accidents happen.”
Jessica’s eyes flew wide. “And you think I might have maybe forgotten to mention that to you guys?”
Sam looked miserable enough that after a moment she took pity on him.
“I’m not pregnant, Sam,” she sighed. “The test was negative. All three of them.”
His eyes narrowed. “You get pissy with me for suggesting it, then tell me you were worried enough about it to take three tests?”
She shrugged. “I’m a woman having regular sex with a couple of hot guys. I wasn’t worried, but it seemed reasonable to make sure when I started feeling odd.”
“Drug store tests aren’t one hundred percent positive!”
“Yes,” Jessica agreed patiently. “Which is why I was happy when I got my period. I think that, along with the tests, is pretty conclusive proof. It’s just stress and maybe some kind of head cold. I’m fine.”
“Okay, but you’ve had this headache-”, something occurred to him and Sam's voice sharpened, “-is this the same headache you’ve had since South Carolina?”
Jessica rolled her eyes. “No. It comes and goes. Mostly comes, lately. I have some kind of sinus infection of something. Every problem doesn’t have to be something creepy, Sam.”
“I’m just worried!”
“And I’m fine! Just let me have my space.” She turned pointedly back to her work and Sam stood up. He paused just inside the doorway to look back at her. It wasn’t the argument that had him worried, or even her claim to need space. There was something else going on. He could feel a distance growing and didn’t know how to reach her across it. They had had fights before, even one just before he started law school that was so bad Jess had packed her things and moved out for a month. But they had worked past it, and grown together. He had never felt anything like this before between them, and Sam wasn’t sure that despite her participation in everything that had happened, it wasn’t the prospect of the life they were facing that was causing the wedge.
“I don’t want to lose you,” he said quietly.
Jessica jumped, apparently unaware he was still in the room. “Geeze, Sam! Make a little noise.”
“I’m serious.”
She gave him a somewhat harried look of fond exasperation. “I’m serious, too. I’m not mad, I’m not sulking, and you aren’t going to lose me. I just want to finish this project so I don’t have to think about it anymore. Go bother Dean or Bobby for a while, and I’ll see what I can do to make this up to you later on tonight, deal?”
“You don’t have to make anything up to me, just...wake me up when you come to bed?”
“I will.” She smiled and Sam felt that maybe he had been wrong after all. Maybe he just had too much time and too little activity and was obsessing over meaningless details. Dean didn’t seem to find anything alarming about her behavior when Sam talked to him about it, and when Jess bounded into bed with him later that night, full of high spirits and creative ideas, he was sure he had been imagining things.
The conversation came back to haunt him two weeks later when she packed her bags and left.
~~~~~
“It’s not for long, Sam!”
“You said you weren’t going to leave,” he insisted.
She gave him a look. “That’s a different kind of leaving. I’m just going home for a week or two. My parents are worried sick, they haven’t seen me in over a year, and I think you will survive a few days of absence. Look at Dean! He isn’t worried.”
Dean looked up from the omelet he was eating. “Are you sure you don’t want us to come with you? Sam and I can find plenty to do while you visit with your folks if you don’t want us hanging around. Places to go, monsters to shoot, stuff like that.”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Jess said dryly. “I think I will sleep better without the mental image of Sam trying to limp away from a Yeti haunting my dreams.”
Sam gave Dean a glare behind Jess’s back, so Dean cleared his throat and tried again. “It’s just that we’ve, uh, noticed you don’t seem to be feeling well lately. I know you want to see your family and all, but are you sure you’re okay?”
Jessica rolled her eyes and shouldered her bag. “I didn’t know paranoia was contagious.”
“Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean you’re wrong,” Bobby said, pulling his jacket off a hook behind the door and sliding it on.
“I’m just going home for a week or so! And no,” she growled at Dean, “I’m not homesick or unhappy, I just haven’t seen my parents in a while and they would probably like some physical proof I’m alive. This isn’t a big deal.”
“I don’t know why you’re snapping at me, I didn’t say anything,” Dean defended himself.
Jess hesitated, looking confused for a moment. Then Bobby pulled his keys out of his pocket and her expression cleared. “Whatever. I’ll be back soon. If you guys take off before I get back, just give me a call so I know where to meet up with you.”
“Are you going to see a doctor while you’re gone?” Sam asked quietly.
“For what?”
“You’re headaches. I know they’re still bothering you.”
“It’s my head, Sam. If there’s a problem, I’ll let you know about it,” she snapped. Sam’s expression darkened but he didn’t say anything else.
Jessica looked around. “Anyone else want to raise an objection or is there a chance I can catch my plane on time?”
Bobby rolled his eyes. “I’ll be in the truck.”
“Great.” Jessica waited until he was gone, then threw her arms around Dean and kissed him. It went on for a few minutes, until Sam made an exaggerated show of checking his watch and sighing.
“I’m not sure you deserve a kiss,” she told Sam dryly when she surfaced.
“I’m just-”
“Worried! I know! I’m telling you not to be. See you soon.” She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him until Sam relented enough to meet her halfway.
“Are you sure you’re not pregnant?” he whispered into her ear when he slid his arms around her tightly.
“Are you sure you don’t want a farewell knee in the balls?” she whispered back menacingly.
“I’m sure,” he said in a normal voice.
“Me too,” she said pointedly.
“I’ll miss you,” he tried.
“Goodbye, Sam. I’ll tell my parents you said ‘hi’ and are doing well.” Jessica grinned. Sam flinched.
“What are you going to tell your parents about me?” Dean asked innocently.
“Not a damn thing,” Jess responded serenely.
Bobby blew the horn of the truck out in the yard and she ran out with one last wave of farewell.
“What was that all about --with the whispers?” Dean asked after she was gone.
“Nothing. She just hasn’t been feeling well, I’m a little worried.”
Dean shrugged. “Her parents have better medical access than we do and a hell of a lot more money. If she’s sick, they’ll take care of it. But she seems fine to me, just a little moody. You’ve known her longer, though. You really think something’s wrong?”
“Well,” Sam watched his brother closely, “I asked her if she could be pregnant.” He felt a sort of petty pleasure when Dean choked on a bite of his omelet. No one was making Sam worry about Jess, but it felt only fair that Dean get to suffer a few moments of blind panic too..
“Pregnant?” Dean wheezed.
“I was wrong.” Sam shrugged. Dean glared daggers and drained his glass of water to clear his throat.
There was a comfortable quiet in the kitchen for a few minutes as Sam threw together his own breakfast and Dean flipped through the paper. When they were done, Sam slid scrambled eggs onto a plate and turned to the table. He was surprised to see Dean staring absently at the wall instead of at the print.
“Something wrong?”
“No,” Dean said slowly, obviously still lost in whatever thought he’d been having. “I was just ...you know how she said she wasn’t homesick or anything? And I said I didn’t know why she was pissed at me since I hadn’t said anything?”
“Yeah, so?”
“Well, I didn’t say anything, but that’s pretty much what I was thinking.”
Sam blinked, fork halfway to his mouth. “I would think if Jessica was some kind of telepath, we might have noticed before now. That she would have noticed?”
Dean shrugged. “Hey, you thought she was pregnant. Telepathy wouldn't be any more of a disaster than that. It’s not like anyone else in this relationship is exactly normal”
“That’s...an interesting perspective.”
Dean folded his paper and leaned back in his chair, giving Sam a speculative look. Sam tolerated it for about five minutes before meeting Dean’s gaze head on. “What?” he demanded.
“Nothing, just… I’m completely in for this threesome thing, you know I am, but this is the first time we’ve really been alone together since, Jesus, you left for Stanford?”
“We aren’t alone now, Dean. I think Bobby has plans to come back at some point. Like this afternoon.”
“Maybe we don’t have to stay here,” Dean pressed. “It’s not a secret you’re burned out on the Bar stuff, and I feel fine now. Jessica went home to touch base with her folks for a few days, no reason we can’t do our own little type of reunion.”
Dean’s enthusiasm was infectious and Sam found himself grinning back, cautiously. “What did you have in mind?”
Chapter Seven
“This is not the same thing as going home for a visit, Dean!” Sam yelled over the wailing moans of the shambling dead. “The next time you suggest something, remind me to ignore you!”
Dean, breathless after a half mile at a dead run to escape from the last wave of the undead, was not pleased to have stumbled into another. He was still enjoying it more than sitting on his ass, though.
“Zombies, Sam! What the hell are you bitching about? How many people get a chance to fight real fucking zombies? You know how much they pay to shoot these things at the arcade?!” They had run out of ammo more than an hour ago, and from the murderous glare Sam directed at him, it was a good thing Dean was out of range of the baseball bat Sam was sporting instead.
So maybe they weren’t real real zombies, but Dean didn’t know what else to call mindless corpses that crawled out of their grave intent on eating people. Fortunately for the human residents of Desult, they were neither fast nor intelligent. They also seemed limited to the five mile area around the town center. Dean didn’t know where the local police were, but the residents had wasted no time in fleeing the area. And whatever Sam’s complaints, Dean was having a fantastic trip so far. Dean had enjoyed life more in the last ten days than he had in the last ten years. There had been a few down spots, too, but those had mostly been Sam’s fault.
Only one thing would have made this particular episode better for Dean, and that was if Jess had been there to enjoy it with him. He though she might have been a little horrified, but she was still new to the life and underneath her better sensibilities she had a sense of crazy that would do any hunter proud. He was certain she would have enjoyed at least the idea of a zombie horde. Certainly more so than the overgrown whiner at his back claimed too.
“Sam, did you hear me bitching when you made us stop to spend time staring at freaking Mount Rushmore?”
“That-- that was a historical monument, Dean! It was important, and interesting. And nothing at the there tried to kill you!” Dean could feel the outrage in Sam’s voice and it made him grin, even as he took another swing at a grasping hand.
“Some of these zombies look pretty historical, too,” Dean pointed out. He ignored Sam’s unflattering rejoinder, attention caught by something out of the corner of his eye. Dean turned in that direction, distantly pleased that the zombies, for all that more than a dozen were loitering around the plaza, were so far content to just attack as they seemed to notice the living in their midst. No organization or coordination at all. After a moment, he saw the flash again and movement up in a bell tower where no one had any business being. No legitimate business, anyways. A feral smile curved his lips.
“I think I found our summoner.”
~~~~~
After dealing with the source of the zombie problem, they found a house that looked to have been abandoned in some haste, slipped into the back, stripped, and used the hose to sluice off most of the gore. Zombie fighting was interesting but not something Dean wanted to do every week. He was just glad cleaning all of the bodies up from where they had collapsed after their summoner was dead wasn’t his job. Cleaning themselves up was disgusting enough.
“Why do you think he jumped?” Sam asked, pulling a clean t-shirt on over his damp skin.
“Because two guys covered in blood and other assorted nastiness were charging after him with guns and he figured the flagstones would be less painful?” Dean suggested, stuffing their filthy clothes into a trash bag for later washing.
“The guns were empty.”
“He didn’t know that,” Dean shrugged. “And besides, maybe he just tripped? It doesn’t matter, Sam. He’s dead, the zombies are just corpses again, and the people are safe.” He paused, trying to read Sam’s expression in the dim light. “You aren’t sorry he’s dead, are you?”
“No. It was just ...unexpected.”
Dean punched his shoulder, ignoring the glare Sam sent his way. “A lot of things in life are unexpected, Sammy. You just have to seize your moments when they come. Take this thing with you, me, and Jess for instance. You think I saw this coming?”
“I know I didn’t,” Sam agreed.
Dean reached out and rubbed a thumb over Sam’s cheekbone. “You have some stuff.”
Sam stood patiently for a moment, but when Dean’s hand lingered, he shied and stepped back, shouldering the trash bag and heading for the gate. Dean scowled but followed without comment.
Back in the Impala, Sam pulled out his cell phone and made a call. Dean didn’t have to ask who he was calling or what the result was when Sam frowned and flipped the phone shut again without speaking.
“How many times is that today?”
“Screw you, Dean.”
“I wasn’t making some kind of judgment, Sam! I’m concerned. I just wanted to know.”
“Nine.”
“Nine,” Dean repeated. There was nothing but the sound of the road for a few minutes before he spoke again. “I’m sure she’s fine. Running around, doing family things.”
“She didn’t sound good last time she called.”
“She sounded tired, Sam. You said so yourself. I’m sure things are... stressful, what with the way she left Palo Alto with you and all to go looking for me. Her parents will calm down, she’ll get some sleep. It’s fine.”
Sam nodded but said nothing, preoccupied with his thoughts. The first few days Jessica had been gone she had called two or three times a day, then once a day, then every other day. But closing in on two weeks it had been three days since she had called or returned a message. After the second day with no contact, Sam had started leaving voice mail with increasing frequency, but had finally tapered down to just hanging up. He was worried, and Dean couldn’t blame him. Jessica had been practically welded to his side for the better part of eight years, and he imagined having her gone felt kind of like he had when Sam had taken off for college. There was a gigantic person sized hole in Sam’s life, and it didn’t help that he couldn’t even talk to her now. Dean wasn’t really excited about it either, but he recognized that he lived a life where a missing person was almost always bad news. Jessica wasn’t a hunter, and the odds were significantly higher that she was simply busy and distracted catching up with her old life than that anything... unfortunate, had happened to her.
It still would have been nice if she had called. But not having her around had given him a chance to do some serious catching up with Sam without dealing with the complications of their three-way relationship. When they had rescued him from almost certain death in the forest those months ago, things had pretty much immediately gotten all tangled up with sex. There hadn’t been time for him and Sam to just be brothers and repair that relationship before running flat-out into a different one. Dean had been a little surprised to find out just how easily they melded back into their old patterns as hunters, and siblings. And equally surprised, but less pleased, that getting out of Bobby’s house hadn’t done much to fix Sam’s attitude about other aspects of their relationship.
Sam keyed open the door of their motel room, dropped both of their duffle bags on the floor, and slumped onto the edge of the bed. “I’m beat.”
“Zombies.” Dean nodded sagely. “Get you every time. At least all your limbs are intact.”
“Yours too,” Sam yawned.
Dean dropped the trash bag of their filthy clothes under the window, wincing inside as it squelched, and locked the door. He leaned against the wall because he still needed a shower to really feel clean, and if he sat down, he didn’t think he was going to get up anytime soon.
“So, in ten days we’ve done what on Bobby’s housekeeping list? Two ghosts, a poltergeist, and now a horde of zombies? Not bad.”
“Don’t forget the possessed chicken.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “I’m trying to. It wasn’t possessed, it was just crazed. And delicious.”
“I still can’t believe you ate that,” Sam grimaced.
“Too much soft living, Sam. You’ve forgotten you have to eat when the eating’s good,” Dean said loftily.
Sam rolled his eyes. “The living has never been hard enough that you have to eat possessed poultry, Dean. Ramen five nights in a row, maybe, but there’s a line.” He eyed his brother and added, “For most people.”
Dean just shrugged with good humor and Sam looked up with a half-smile. Muscles aching with a hard job well done, all the bad things dealt with, and now safe in a place familiar in its generic motel shabbiness; it felt like old times. Too much like old times, and Dean felt his smile slowly fade.
“What’s wrong?” Sam asked.
“Nothing’s wrong, exactly. I just ...do you feel this?”
Sam didn’t pretend not to understand. “Yeah, like when Dad used to send us off to work alone. It feels ...good. Even with the zombies, this was a good idea.”
“You sound surprised. Have you been doubting the awesomeness of my planning, Sam?”
“Now and then,” Sam admitted without a trace of guilt.
“Running from the undead?”
“Definitely one of those moments. Running is not exactly my favorite sport right now.”
“Good thing they were slow,” Dean observed brightly.
Sam just glowered. But the easy familiarity and rhythm of the banter just reminded Dean of what was troubling him.
“You know this is never going to work, don’t you?” he said in a more serious tone.
Sam frowned. “What isn’t?”
“The grand plan you and Jess have,” Dean said reluctantly. “It just ...isn’t going to fly. Bobby knows it, he’s been dropping warnings for a while now, but we’ve all been too distracted with other things to deal with it.”
“I still don’t-”
“This thing, Sam. This thing with you, me and Jessica, where I’m supposed to hunt and you guys play second banana or whatever. You saw her face when Bobby said anytime you come or don’t come with me on a hunt could be the difference between life and death. And look at now! You were only supposed to be keeping me company for these jobs, too, but you haven’t hung back yet. And you may have been studying your ass off for law stuff when we first crashed in on Bobby," he added, "but that was only the first few days.”
“I’ve been studying!” Sam protested.
“Yeah,” Dean snorted, “but not law. Not unless Petronelli’s Guide to Astral Travel and the Abraxis Bestiary are things they test on the state Bar. I didn’t go to college, Sam, but that doesn’t make me stupid. You’re either burned out or uninterested, and way too willing to follow me into the field. And I don’t think Jessica is capable of watching either of us, but definitely not both of us, go heading off into mortal danger without tripping along at our heels. Which might be okay with a little more skill on her part, but it’s not the plan you guys keep talking about. I just want to know if you’re ready to face reality yet.”
Sam studied the carpet and sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t think it’s something that has to be decided, Dean. As long as we all agree we are sticking together, then the rest of the stuff can just ...happen. I see what you’re saying. I just think we need to see how things go.”
Dean shrugged. “Fine with me, we all know what I’m going to be doing.” His eyes narrowed. “And since we are hashing out messy details ...I have to say I’m not entirely sorry Jess isn’t on this trip.”
Sam looked up, expression exasperated. “Tell me you’re not jealous.”
“I’m not jealous,” Dean repeated obediently.
“Dean...”
“What, Sam! I’m not. I like having sex with you and Jess together.” He shrugged. “I like the way she feels, and the way she looks, and the sounds she makes when she has her legs wrapped around me. Almost as much as I like the way you look when the three of us are in bed and we’ve got you pinned down and-”
“I got it, Dean. You aren’t jealous,” Sam said hastily.
Dean leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. “No, but I wish you weren’t so ...uptight about things when she’s not here.”
“What are you talking about?”
Dean rolled his eyes. “How about that, just then? You’re fine as long as I’m talking about Jess and sex, but I talk about us and sex and... you shut down. When it’s the three of us you seem involved and like you’re having a good time, but as soon as she steps out of the room, it’s all awkward and weird, again. I thought it was a ‘being at Bobby’s’ thing, but it’s just the two of us now, in another random freaking motel room, and you’re still acting like someone is going to kick in the door and haul us off for indecency or something. I mean, this whole thing was your idea! I have to say I’m starting to feel a little rejected.”
“Sorry if I’m having a little trouble with it, Dean!” Sam snapped. “I’m trying. It just keeps hitting me that you’re my brother. It’s not a problem of wanting you, it’s a ...I don’t know. Just wrapping my head around it being okay, I guess. I feel like I shouldn’t be enjoying it. When Jess is here, it’s like, it’s okay, and when she isn’t...”
“No one out here knows we’re siblings, Sam. Is it the gay thing?”
“The gay thing?” Sam snorted. “I started watching your ass when I was fifteen, Dean. I’ve always known you were a guy.”
“I’ve been your brother since you were fifteen too, Sam.” Dean pointed out.
“I know. I just need more-”
“Practice?” Dean suggested, then raked Sam with a look that left no doubt of his intentions. “I think you owe me something for making me have that conversation in the first place. You always make simple things complicated.”
“Practice is good,” Sam agreed, eyes darkening with interest as Dean stalked towards him across the carpet.
Dean stopped in front of him and smiled, fingers busy undoing his belt as he met Sam’s eyes. “I want you to blow me. I want you to take your time, and I want you to do it without looking at anything, or thinking of anything, but me. And don’t think I won’t be able to see it in your eyes if you can’t follow simple instructions.”
“What if I don’t get it right?” Sam asked, eyes tracking Dean’s hands closely.
“Then I guess I’ll just have to show you how it’s done. You’re smart, I’m sure eventually you’ll catch on.”
“It might take a while.”
“We’ve got a lifetime. Right?” The tone of voice cut into Sam’s preoccupation and he looked up, surprised. Dean’s eyes were serious and locked onto his.
Sam smiled, feeling more certain of himself in that minute than he had in weeks. The hunting had been surprisingly good, had made him feel useful and with purpose more than anything he had done in college. He still was interested in law, but ...it seemed a distant kind of interest compared to the gritty reality of the family trade. It was a brutal, horrifying job -- but it had to be done and he was better equipped than most to do it. He didn’t really have to make any immediate decisions; it was just something to think about. Having his brother aware of his dilemma and apparently supportive of whatever he wanted to do helped.
“We’ve got forever. After you take a shower.”
Dean scowled, fingers frozen on his zipper. “We washed off.”
“Rotting corpses, Dean. All over us. If you think my mouth is going anywhere near your skin until after you clean up...”
“You are such a girl.”
“You can tell Jess all about it when she calls.”
~~~~~
But Jessica didn’t call. Not that night, and not the next day. The following day she left a garbled message on Sam’s phone while he and Dean were in the shower that was barely intelligible.
“Maybe she’s drunk?”
“She sounded like she was crying,” Sam paced, arms crossed and expression dark.
Dean paused in the midst of stuffing clothes back into his duffle bag. “What did she say?”
“I couldn’t understand most of it. Something about her mom, and her friend Stacy, and a car, and a tree, and a dream she had, and voices. I think. She was laughing too, and part of it was in French.”
It was Dean’s turn to frown. “I thought you said she was crying.”
“It was hard to tell. She might have been doing both.”
Dean finished stuffing clothes in, zipped his bag closed and tossed it at Sam’s feet. “Pack the car; I have to make a call.”
“She won’t answer.”
“I’m not calling Jess,” Dean said tersely. “Just pack the damn car.” He grabbed his cell phone off the nightstand and vanished outside.
Sam did as instructed and drummed his nails on the Impala's roof, waiting for Dean to come back. Sam could see him leaning against a light post at the far end of the parking lot. He seemed agitated and looked to be placing several calls, but if he had gone that far away he obviously didn’t want company so Sam waited in anxious impatience.
Finally, after about forty minutes, Dean jogged back. He held out one hand and Sam tossed him the keys.”
“What was that all about?” Sam asked.
“Just get in the car. We’re going to Palo Alto.
