The Archive

The tongue at your slit is the same, too soft, too hesitant, lapping light little ice cream licks at the fluttering of your hole when all you want is the hot invasive plunge of penetration. 

The dissonance between what you want and what you need and what you’re being given makes your skin crawl. 

You spread your legs until they ache, hips burning from the effort. You grit your teeth against the urge to force the contact you’re craving. 

“Sam.” You bite his name out from low in your throat and knot his hair around your fingers. “More.” 

He looks up at you, eyes as glossy as his lips and chin. You meet his stare, buck up toward his mouth, your body begging in a way your words can’t.

“Don’t wanna hurt you.” 

You’re shaking, pushing him down, guiding him back to your folds. 

“You won’t.” You drag his face through your cunt before he can even open his mouth, stick his flat tongue out like a begging dog. “Need your tongue inside me.” 

One hand pushes on the back of his head, the other presses his hand down on your thigh, and that’s all he needs for encouragement. 

Big hands grip your thighs, pin you down, immobilize you. He lets you smear your pussy over his face once more before he tenses, shifts, closes his eyes, and buries his face in you.

The familiar mixture of spit and slick coats you, paints his features in you. He flicks his tongue across your entrance and you tug on his hair so hard he grunts into your pussy. 

“Jesus Christ, I said tongue fuck me, Sam.”

The blunt edges of his teeth rake over your folds. You gurgle, grind his mouth against you until finally, finally he gives you what you want. 

He nuzzles against your clit as he works your lips open and open again, the tip of his tongue breaching your entrance, firm muscle starting to find its time as it licks in and out of you. 

The sounds he makes are wet and hungry. Filthy. 

You shiver and whine at the momentary coolness of him sucking against you, slurping up his drool. Skin slaps on skin as he handles you roughly, the tip of his nose rubbing over your clit. You arch off the bed, a high pitched moan in the shape of his name echoes through the room. 

“This what you wanted?” He laughs against you, the heat and vibration working into your core. You nod, chasing the sensation.

His teeth scrape against you, not so blunt this time. Your hands fly from his hair, down between your legs, bracketing your mound on either side of his face, pulling yourself taut, opening yourself wider for him. 

His tongue swirls around your asshole, coating it with spit, flicking over it a few times before licking all the way up to your clit. He isn’t gentle as he starts working at you in earnest, all tongue and teeth and lips, sealed tight around your sensitive bundle of nerves, sucking hard and making you squirm. 

He releases your leg, tip of his pinky finger brushing your asshole. He pauses his attention on your clit to spit on you, the sound of it making you flinch along with the spatter of wetness, the roll of his finger through it to help resume the slow, deliberate slip of it into your ass. 

Mouth back on your clit, one finger working into your ass, he slides two more into your ready cunt, making you convulse at the unexpected fullness from it. Not as full as you could be, not as full as you have been, but full enough. 

For now.

The knuckle of his ring finger presses into you as he pumps his fingers in and out of you. When you look down at him, you can just see the wrinkle at the bridge of his nose, like he is snarling as he devours you. 

“Oh, fuck, Sam.” Your hips rock into him, match his tempo, ride his hand desperately toward your high. “Fuck, I’m so close.” 

“Then come for me.”  

You thrash, sweat clings to your skin, damp and dewy. Your chin tips to the ceiling, chest heaving as you try to suck in enough air to keep you from blacking out. 

You are consumed by the nexus of pleasure buried between your legs, beneath your hands and Sam’s. The building intensity leads only one place. 

Pleasure pours over you, harsh and needy, your whole body constricting around him, clenching as if you could pull him deeper, make him part of you. As if you could make it last.

It doesn’t. 

The rapturous tide of your release rushes away from you, same as always. He eases you back down, gentle as he unwinds you just enough to crawl up your body and let his weight settle over you. 

He drags a hand over his mouth, wiping some of you off his chin. You taste yourself on him when he kisses you, hard and hungry, his cock at half mast when you find him nudging against your core.

“Cunt doesn’t keep you hard, Sammy?” He twitches in your hand, velvet beneath your fingers starting to pull taut at your taunts. 

“Was busy.” He tugs at you with his teeth: your lips, your jaw, your neck. His cock fills your fist as you coat him in the mess he left between your legs. “Didn’t you notice?"

“Sam.” You bite his name out, needier than before. You line him up, grab a handful of his ass, drawing him into you, begging with your body again. “More.”

Thank you so much for reading. Gratitude for likes, comments, and vibes. I appreciate you!

Sam Winchester is kind of a weird guy. Quiet, keeps to himself, mostly, always buried in the back stacks of the library. Hard to miss but not easy to see.

The rumour starts a few months into his freshman year, though, is something really a rumour, if it's true?

Sam Winchester boosts cars, and he's good at it.

It's not his fault, he's been a thief since he was young. Out of necessity, you understand. When I say the Winchesters were poor, I mean dirt poor. Pickpocketing, shoplifting, and the like, were all a way of life, though their Dad taught them not to steal things they didn't actually need. It was just extra crap to lug around.

His older brother was always better at petty theft, something that got under Sam's skin like nobody's business. He even took up illusion magic to get better a sleight of hand.

Didn't matter. Dean just had naturally sticky fingers.

Sam's Dad is a mechanic, or was, once upon a time. His Uncle, ish, owns a scrapyard somewhere in South Dakota. Sam learned to hotwire at the tender age of twelve, had already been driving for a year and a half.

The first car he stole, by himself anyway, was a 1991 Honda Civic, a boxy piece of shit he drove from Wyoming to Arizona. Sam drove twelve hours and change over two and a half days, finally gave up the ghost when he found an abandoned cabin off 89 near Buffalo Park.

He spent two glorious weeks in Flagstaff, and then caught a hand me down beating from his brother, Dean still black and blue from the one he caught for losing Sam in the first place.

The drive to meet their Dad in Colorado Springs was deathly silent, and Sam swore to himself he'd never let Dean get hurt like that again because of him. He'd never steal another car, and he'd never, ever run away.

All three of these things were lies, but Sam didn't know that at the time.

The boy’s hand shakes as he pours, spilling as he slides over the glass, fumbling to clear the coins from the bar. 

“Owner here?” He shakes his head. Not simple, but maybe mute? “You speak, boy?”

“Y-yes.” He stammers, eyes flicking to the Whore eyeing the Rider from the end of the bar. “Miss Donna’s gone out but she’ll be back later.” 

“Donna ain’t the name I was given.” They tug down the scarf to free their mouth to drink. They say a name and the barkeep shakes his head. 

“She left.” The Whore speaks, the Rider turns, slides the bottle down the bar. The Whore takes a swig and slides it back. “’Bout a year back, met a man and went respectable.” It’s not quite sad, not quite a sneer, but almost. Almost. “I came with her from New York. Know all the same tricks. Whatever you wanted—“

“Not lookin’ for a girl.” The Rider pours another glass, rolls it between their fingers. “I need information.” 

“Like I said.” The Whore sidles down the bar, dark hair and round face peering into the shadow beneath the brim of the Rider’s hat. “I’ve been here this whole time, got two eyes, same as anybody else. You wanna know something, like as not I can tell you, but if you want that spilled for free you’re in the wrong place, mister.” She picks up the bottle and takes another swig, giving the Rider a satisfied smirk. She nods at the girls hanging off the banister upstairs, tucked into corners with johns. The day is young and the place is still quiet, but nobody could mistake it for something it wasn’t. “It’s a whorehouse, see? You gotta pay for everything. Drink, pussy, even gossip.”

“I can see it's a whorehouse.” The Rider pulls up to their full height which is modest, all things considered. “And I've paid for my drink, yours as well.” It’s their demeanour that’s imposing, straight spine, square shoulders, the glint of twin pistols holstered at their ribs. “Far be it from me to stand in the way of commerce, or the methods by which a woman makes her way in this hard world. If you have information about your former employer, or the quarry I believe that she can lead me to, I have coin enough to compensate you. Fairly, even well.” 

“Too good for pussy though, huh?” The Whore grabs the bottle to take another drink and the Rider stops her, hand firm on the neck, slamming the bottom back down on the bar with a thud. 

The room goes tense, the only sound the rustle of leathers and the click of a pistol hammer from somewhere in a corner. keen eyes, watchful from their vantage. The scuffle tips back the Rider’s hat and a few golden curls spill out. Piercing blue eyes flash from under the brim, staring down the Whore. She doesn’t balk, though her mouth drops open in a surprised O, and the bottle pulls easily from her hand when the Rider takes it back.

”I am not too good for pussy, though I do not pay for it.” The Rider pinches their glass against the neck of the bottle, index finger tipping their hat up further before pulling down their bandanna so it falls in a loose cowl across their chest. Features bared to the light, they are hardened but delicate, a pert nose and plush lips beneath, high arching cheekbones, a smooth and angled jawline. “Being in possession of my own, with skill and experience therewith, most I’ve met who trade in cunt have been happy to negotiate barter agreements. Opportunity and circumstance being correct, of course.” The Rider’s lip curls, seductive, predatory, and she leans in close to the Whore. “You come have another drink with me, you do it from a glass."

The last thing she remembers is burning to death. Heat, smoke. Her infant son, crying in tandem with her below.

Mary Winchester died, and was dead for thirty three years. 

The first thing she remembers is burning alive, thick heat and smoke licking her flesh, searing her back into existence. 

Mary Campbell, soot blackened, scarred, naked as the day she was born, breathed life into her lungs for the first time in thirty three years on the charred floor of the house she died in.

Coming in from a shine, the Rider has no less allure. Wisps of gold frame her face, handsome despite, perhaps because of, the smear of grime high on her cheek. The Whore leans against the bar, not at the far end now but near the door, as if she’s waiting for someone.

The Rider smirks at her, sips from her glass, rests an elbow on the curve of the saloon door, duster and waistcoat hanging open, wide over her shoulders. Her shirt drapes loose around her, only half buttoned, whatever decency that may concern her preserved by the confines of her leather vest. She’s pulled her bandanna free, tying it around her, no need of it against the dust of the road for the moment. It accentuates her narrow waist and the curve of her hips, cocked to one side. 

There’s a bullwhip hanging there, looped and lashed, though if she were hot on a quarry’s tail she’d have it looped around her, not on her belt. The sheath of a huntingknife rests in the small of her back while a skinning knife is concealed in her boot. The butts of matching, holstered Peacemaker revolvers gleam in the light that glances over her shoulder, leaving her painted in a mask of light and shadow. 

The Whore turns, her back against the rail, fingers sliding out to either side of her so her arms stretch long across the front of the bar. The Rider releases the door and takes a step inside, regarding her. The light shifts and the Whore can see the spidery white pink fingers of scars puckering kisses up her neck and over her chest. 

She raises her glass to the Whore, raises a brow too, and then strides across the room to settle into a chair in the corner by the window, boots shining and kicked up onto the chair opposite her. 

It doesn’t take long for the Whore to join her, coyly flaunting an empty tumbler as she approaches. “Found a glass, per your requirement, if you’ll have me for that drink now.” 

The Rider fixes a steady gaze on her, holding up the bottle to pour a drink. The Whore stands close, begins to lift her skirts to sit across the Rider’s lap but is stayed by a hand on her waist. 

“As I’ve said, I don’t pay for pussy.” Fingers curl into the draping fabric of her dress, the slightest caress. “seein’ as how we’ve yet to negotiate a trade agreement, I’ll not have you giving for free what you’d rightly take collection for.” 

“Such confidence, turning down a Whore’s affections.” The Whore curtsies, mockingly, and taps her glass against the Rider’s. “Truly, we are blessed to see the likes of such a gentleman.” 

“I’m a cattle driver, hunt bounty some, too. Hardly gentle, regardless of sex.” The Rider’s smile is a slow drawl of soft lips and the hint of teeth. “Make no mistake, I’m not jilting you. I told you I had coin if you had information and my purpose will only be delayed so long before demanding satisfaction.” 

“Talk may be cheaper, but I promise cunt will always keep you more thoroughly satisfied.“ She looks at the chair, the Rider’s boots unmoved. “May I sit?” 

The Rider leans back, tightening the stack of her legs, the leather of her boots supple and gleaming. Immaculate, despite being well worn. She grins and it is white and wide and wicked. “By all means.”

The Whore looks at the Rider, around the room, at the man who appears to sleep in the corner but who is really watching everything around him like a hawk. She looks at the spurred boots, one atop the other, then at the Rider again.

The leather isn’t entirely smooth, the boots are worn enough that there are ridges across the front of the ankles, the seaming and etched details all give it a remarkably textured look. 

“Sit.” The Rider holds up a coin, shows the Whore, and places it on the table. “Tell me about the shootout here in 1881.”

The Whore shrugs, lifts her skirts, and straddles the Rider's legs, settling her pussy along the front of her boot, carefully draping her skirts so they cover the seat enough to maintain the illusion of decorum. The contact is warm, the leather holds the heat of the sun and the Rider’s body. The curve of the boot nestles perfectly along her slit, all the way up the crack of her ass, a toe taps gently, just once, on her lower back. She hides the lick of her lips behind her glass, and the Rider sees it anyway.

“Comfortable?” 

“It’ll do.” She shifts her hips, the pressure and friction causing more of a rise than she expects. Maybe it’s just this cowpoke and her occupancy in both realms of the harsh masculine and delicious feminine. “What’s there to say about a shootout? One gun draws, another draws quicker.” Something sad crosses her face, turns angry. “Neither much concerned for the cause of good, over their own.”

“I’m concerned with the course of one gun in particular, loaded with a single unique bullet, followed that day.” The Rider stretches, casual though it moves her whole body, rocks gently up against the Whore. She feels it, but buries the wave of titillation better this time. “Do you know the gun I mean?” 

“I stole one to shoot a man for taking a life he had no right to take.” She leans back, dragging her cunt along the leather, feeling the press of a spur against her thigh. The sting is delicious. “That was the gun, and the bullet within, that focused my concern that day.” 

“Did that man you killed have eyes different from yours or mine?” The Rider’s knees bend, bringing her legs, the chair, the Whore all closer to her. Flirtation all but forgotten in favour of something else. “Pitch black? Or yellow, perhaps?” 

The change in pressure and the angle of it against her cunt, rocking her forward against the Rider’s shins, pressing into her slit as the toe of her boot drags up to graze her asshole, makes her mouth drop open into a soft round shape, puckering in surprise. A flare of white heat sparks up from her core through her sternum, spreading low and wide through her belly. Surely it’s just that, and not that this stranger knows about the demons. Demon.

“Worse.” Her lip curls in a snarl, rage and arousal simmering together in her. “A traitor, in the pay of those you describe.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, and that betrayal.” The touch on her knee was soft, gentler than the Rider or the Whore or the whorehouse perhaps deserved. The Rider turns, revealing what now the Whore can see are burn scars adorning the Rider’s flesh. “I know full well the insult that sort can deliver, and the need for retribution.” 

The Whore looks over her shoulder to the man in the corner, he looks somehow more asleep than he did before, as if he’s trying to escape even her knowing eye. He knows, probably more than either the Rider or the Whore, about what happened in Blackbird that day. 

The Whore looks down, the Rider’s fingers still brushing at her knee, then regards the Rider’s face, her scars. Her hips rock, softly, so that they can feel it but most won’t notice beneath the layers of her skirts. The pressure, the friction, is delicious, and she brushes her fingers down the trail of latticework scarring from the Rider’s neck until her hand disappears beneath the shirt. 

“You got these everywhere, mister?” The Whore asks, and the Rider nods, tucks an arm behind her head, dragging the Whore closer still with the bend in her leg. One foot drops to the floor, the one saddled with the Whore’s cunt stays right where it is, heel gently rising and falling, softly bouncing on the edge of the seat. 

There is a slight roll to the Whore’s hips now, the control on both of their faces focused. There is a light, deep burning and dangerous, in each of their eyes, if you knew to look for it. 

A slickness starts to smear across the leather, seeping from her lips unencumbered by modesty or the garments that attend it, adding glide to the rock and roll of her hips against the Rider’s boot. Something about the intensity between them, the vice grip on what they are allowing their bodies to betray to each other, heightens the way it’s building. Immersive, nonlinear, a flood drowning out the room and the bar and the town, but not them. 

The pace is barely a trot, but the slip and glide of her soaked nethers against leather feels frantic between the Whore’s legs. She blinks, holding fiercely to her composure, says nothing, but grins, widely, and palms the stacked coins and slips them somewhere hidden in her skirts. 

Everything stops. The rock of the boot, the glide over leather, the building promise of pleasure, all ground to a halt. The Whore’s fingers curl, digging into scarred flesh, while the Rider’s grip on her knee turned to steel. The Whore grins, leaning down, soft belly pressing into the firmness of the Rider’s knee. “If you’re plannin' on staying, I’d recommend we withdraw to my rooms and begin our trade negotiations.” 

The Rider is examining her fingernails closely, carving out grime from underneath the close cropped tips with her skinning knife. She’s washed her hands in the basin, is drying them slowly as she watches the Whore kick the door closed behind her, a fresh bottle in hand. She sets it down on the low sideboard, taking in the deliberate act of cleanliness. 

At surface, it seems uncharacteristic, those so covered in the filth of travel rarely afford a moment for such fastidiousness. A hidden oasis collects between her lips, renewed from what had been smeared across the Rider’s boot already. She is reminded that she’s here to fuck a woman, and not for pay. She plans to take her fee out in pleasure, and those clean hands are a promise that the Rider intends to pay her well. “You really are a gentleman, aren’t you, Cowboy?” 

“A gentleman wouldn’t know the half of what I got in store for you.” They’re standing close together, the Rider looking down at the Whore, knuckles raised to graze across the softness of her cheek. 

“You look about to kiss me.” The caress is so light, it almost tickles, barely ruffling the fine hair there. 

“I am.” The Rider smiles. It’s the first truly feminine thing the Whore has seen in her. “Only question is, d’you want it like a lady, or something more fitting the frontier?” Her knuckles linger at the corner of The Whore’s jaw, thumb tracing behind her ear, slow and rhythmic. Her mouth goes dry a moment, the piercing blue intensity of the Rider’s eyes at once a challenge and a promise. 

“You know how to kiss a lady?” Her hand is at the Rider’s lips, a rough kiss feathering across her knuckles. "Rough trade as you are, I’ve got my doubts.”

Callused fingers cup the angle of the Whore’s jaw, draw her in close. Blue eyes scan her face, the soft roundness of it, the plush bow of her lips. They darken, the colour of a stormy sea, and the Rider kisses her. 

It’s soft, the fingers holding her face, the pressure against her mouth, the feeling of warmth against her cheek from the Rider’s exhales. She relaxes, leans in, allows herself to be guided, up, up, up. She removes the Rider’s hat, tossing it over onto the chair in the corner. A few sunny yellow curls shake loose and when the Whore pulls at the pins and fasteners, the rest of that golden mane tumbles free. She buries her fingers in it, winding them around and through the Rider’s locks, pulling her closer. 

Their tongues dance, communing in the moist heat of each other’s mouths, and when they pull away spit clings to their lips and the skin beyond, evidence of their desire. Faces close, breath mingling, they embrace, hands halfway under garments, grasping at each other’s back and sides and faces. 

The Whore’s chemise and shift comes off her quickly. The Rider steps back to take her in, fingers reaching to trace the curve of her breast, then her hand widens to cover it, fingers toying with the hardening nipple. The way it pebbles and contracts as the coarse pad of her thumb brushes over it seems to amuse her, and the Rider grins as she bends to lick a wet kiss over it. Tongue swirling, lips providing delicious suction, the Whore arches into her mouth, back bending over where the Rider’s hand holds steady at her back. She moans. 

One hand on her back, the other on her ass, the Rider lifts the Whore, tucks one knee against her side, and carries her to the sideboard, rests her on the edge. “Reckon you believe I know how to fuck you like a lady, or do you doubt that, too?”

“One way to find out, Cowboy.” The Whore’s smile is slow and sultry. Seduction is an art she is well practiced in, and it shows. She spreads her legs, inviting the Rider between them, finding the lapels of her jacket to slide it off her shoulders along with her waistcoat, leaving her in just her tunic shirt and vest. 

“Fair enough.” She shrugs, expression sly and perhaps a little smug. She steps into the space that was made for her, leaned back to look at where the front of her trousers almost brushes up against the dark promise of her curls. 

The Rider’s touch is soft, incredibly so, ghosting across the Whore’s outer lips. Above, she looks down into cherubic softness, kisses her again, just as soft, just as slow. Until it isn’t. 

Fingertips slide through wanton heat, spreading her arousal over her, teasing around her budding pleasure, but never quite giving in to the satisfaction the Whore craves. She rocks closer, leaning back on her hands, arching her back and offering her tits up, her neck becoming a long, curvaceous line for the Rider’s mouth to follow. 

She does. 

Open mouthed, lips dragging down the roped column of the Whore’s neck, tongue leaving a rapidly cooling trail of spit in its wake. She nips at her collarbone, at the hollow of her throat, traces down the armour of her sternum before heading west, to her breast. 

“Your snatch feels like velvet.” The Rider whispers it against the delicate skin of her tit before taking her nipple in her mouth. Her fingers press, part, and penetrate the Whore’s entrance, her hips rocking softly with their movement, as if it were more than just her hand easing between the Whore’s slick folds. The Rider presses forward until their hips are flush together and her fingers are buried up to the knuckle, hand pinned between them. 

“Fuck, Cowboy.” The Whore’s cunt twitches, squeezes, sucks the Rider’s fingers deeper. She can feel them stroking the soft, undulating ridges of her channel, directing pressure along the front wall of her. She lets out a soft cry, bucking into the Rider’s hand, its heel right there, a ready, firm pressure for her to grind her sex against. “I don’t think ladies get fucked like this. We didn’t in New York.” 

“Better than a gentleman?” Hips and fingers thrust in concert still, the wave of the Rider’s body rutting into the Whore, adding extra sweetness to the drag of her fingertips over the place that keeps making the Whore contract around her. Another finger slides in, three digits folding around each other to make them feel almost like a singular appendage, thick and firm and offering fullness. The Whore begins to moan. “Never count on a man to invest in anyone’s pleasure but his own.” 

Her hand fists tight into blonde hair and forces her mouth back to her chest, encouraging her roughness with a tug at the root. It sounds wet. Her cunt, the mouth on her tits, everything in between. She can feel herself getting close, soles of her feet digging into the Rider’s waist, using her hip bones for leverage. Her knees fall wide, backs of her thighs working to draw the Rider in closer. One hand still holds the Rider to her chest while she lifts herself up with the strength of her other arm and starts to fuck herself into the Rider’s hand. 

The Rider grunts and the Whore pants and the sideboard rattles and shakes from their efforts. The Rider angles her wrist up, awkward, painful, and grinds the heel of her hand into the Whore’s pistoning hips. She’s strong, holds the rider steady while her arm becomes a girder to support herself. The Rider snakes her free arm around her back, folds over her, bicep flexing to take on some of her weight. 

The press of body to body, the rough friction from the leather of her vest, the roll and thrust of her hips meeting the Whore’s is enough. She starts to tremble, thighs quaking, struggling to maintain coordination, control. The Rider holds her. Her wrist and hips still offer the stimulation she needs to keep going, letting her ride out her pleasure. The Whore’s hand drops from her hair to her shoulder and the Rider lets her nipple fall free, a gossamer web of saliva connecting them as she pulls away. She wants to watch her face, the ugly beautiful twist of feature that is the herald of pain and pleasure twining together that men so rarely understand.    

The Whore’s legs stop shaking, drop away from the Rider’s waist, still framing it but no longer gripping tight. Dark hair clings to her forehead which she pushes back, shaking out the tension in her neck and shoulders. She settles her weight firmly on the sideboard once again, fingers the buttons on the Rider’s vest, tilts her head to offer a wry smile. 

“I don’t think we need this.” Her fingers slip the buttons free one by one until the Rider sheds the vest and tosses it aside, the Whore already tugging at the hem of her tunic to pull it up and over her head. She’s about to say something else, witty and alluring, but her eyes land on the Rider’s body and the words go quiet on her tongue. 

She’s lean, frame taut with muscle, shoulders and arms solid and defined. The curve of her hips and breasts and belly still belie her femininity and the contrast of the two together makes the Whore catch her lip between her teeth. 

That isn’t what stills her tongue.

The delicate latticework of scars is woven like lace all over her body. Thin white threads matted down to the pink and tender skin beneath. It looks raw. New. Relatively speaking. It coils around her, licking from her back to her front, as if she’d been embraced from behind by something violent. It creeps up her neck to its nape, fingers threading through her hairline, cresting over the angle of her jaw. Seeing these scars before, peeking from under her clothing, doesn’t prepare her for this, and the Whore is mesmerized by their ruinous beauty.

The Rider is silent as she allows herself to be observed, slowly shedding the rest of her clothing until her body is bared for the witnessing. She has no shame, and seems to take the opportunity to regard her scars herself. 

“Marked.” She says at last, taking the Whore’s hand and pressing it against her marred flesh. “By flame. By death, too, however temporarily.”

“By death, huh?” The Whore traces the fine webbing along the line of the Rider’s ribs to the underside of her breast. Very little surprises the Whore, at this point, her purview is that of the strange, sordid and deranged. Still, she lifts a brow, lets her hand wander, steps in closer so the front of her naked body moulds itself to the Rider’s bare back. “And how’s that work?” 

“I’ll let you know when I do.” The Rider laughs, bitterly, and turns to look down into the soft round face of the Whore. “That’s why I’m doggin’ him; the man who killed me.” 

“The Demon with the Yellow Eyes.” The Whore speaks softly, arm curling up the Rider’s chest, soft skin dragging over her nipple, fingers following the ghosts of long extinguished flames all the way up to where they kiss the rider’s face and neck. “We’ve seen others here after vengeance for his crimes.” 

“Tell me.” The Rider inhales, slow and shuddering, leaning into the touch, gripping the whores elbow against her, chasing more. The Whore kisses her shoulder, wraps her fingers lightly around the Rider’s throat, squeezes lightly, making her gasp. “Who were they? Did they claim their retribution?” 

The Whore just shakes her head slowly, a sly smile spreading across her lips. “I think that counts as commerce, Cowboy, and we’re not finished with trade yet.” 

The Rider is about to protest, persistence clings to the tip of her tongue, but the Whore stretches up on her tiptoes, her hold at the rider’s throat helping her balance just slightly, and slides her tongue over that persistence to silence it. 

The rider’s arm snakes around the Whore’s waist, drags her in close, bodies pressed together, thighs barely slipping between thighs. The whore presses her back, slowly walking them toward the bed, carefully, limbs and tongues still entangled when they bump up against the frame. They grapple, playfully, the Whore nipping at the Rider’s lips, her fingertips curling more firmly under the Rider’s jaw. The Rider in turn grabs at the Whore’s hips, hands making their way down her thighs, lifting her just enough to bully her back onto the mattress, earning light scratches overtop of the scars that wreath her neck.

The soft slapping of skin on skin mingles with the Rider’s throaty chuckle as she crawls over the Whore. Lithe fingers caress her scarred breast, soft lips wrap around her nipple and she arches, grabs the back of the Whore’s head, fingers lost in dark curls as she encourages the Whore’s lips to give way to her teeth.

Wet suction, soft lapping, barely audible breath huffs against the Rider’s chest, all serve to soften her enough that the Whore can flip her onto her back. She pins the Rider to the mattress, palm firmly planted on her sternum while the Whore attends to her other tit. The Rider arches, the back of her ribs rising from the bed, thighs parting to reveal a sheen of desire, musky, slightly sticky, and clinging to the curls at their apex. 

The Whore pulls away, kneeling to take in the Rider. She looks more feminine now than she has since she strode into the Cathouse, soft and supple and curvaceous, blonde hair a tempest of spun gold against the pillow. Her scars flush a little pinker, close to the colour that blooms in her cheeks, her nipples a duskier hue on the same spectrum. 

The rose backed intricacies of how her scars wind around her form invoke the image of a woman engulfed in flames. Her hands explore the muscular contours earned from a life on horseback under the open sky and the Whore wonders briefly if this Rider was like this, before she died. 

“Your body is incredible.” She is rarely this earnest, isn’t sure what’s brought it out in her. Perhaps it’s the altered nature of their engagement, perhaps it's simply because it’s true. She bows, follows the path of the scars with her mouth down, to the sanctum of her snatch, and offers supplication to this temple that could not be burned. “Fucking incredible.” 

The heat of her cunt is radiating, a natural hot spring of readiness that the Whore settles in to consume. Her tongue delves deep between fat, swollen folds, hungry and then hungrier with each gush of wetness that baptizes her tongue. In and up. In and up. In and up. She can feel the Rider beneath her winding with tense pleasure, her mouth’s ministrations getting louder, more enthusiastic as the Rider writhes to meet them. 

“Your body is incredible.” She says again, barely muttering the words before strong thighs close in around her and draw her back into musky oblivion as she ushers the Rider toward climax. The Whore doesn’t see the way the Rider’s face changes when she comes, doesn’t need to see her lip curl into a moan, one she only half-hears around the muffling strength cinched tight around her ears. Instead, the Whore holds the Rider’s hips as tight as she can, letting her drag her twitching pussy over the contour of the Whore’s chin and mouth and nose. 

The Whore is hauled up suddenly, the Rider sitting up to hold her roughly against her chest, the feel of it making them both moan. She sucks the taste of herself off the Whore’s face, lifting her easily with one arm while the other arranges their legs so the heat of their sexes can mingle into a slick convergence of wantonness. 

It takes a moment to find the angle, the cunt-on-cunt delight that pulls not so soft cries from each of them as they rut into each other. Rhythm found, the rest of their bodies meld together, mouths and hands roaming anywhere they can reach, pulling and tugging with fingers and teeth as their desperation builds. One pinches at the other’s nipple, teeth sink into a shoulder, and they each come again with both sets of lips locked together in heated ecstasy. 

Breathing slowed, fucking concluded, at least for now, the Rider holds the Whore against her, their legs sticky where they’re still entwined. 

“Who came for the Demon?” Any formality or coarse bravado has seeped out of the Rider’s voice, now low and thick and lazy after their exchange. “Did they kill it? Is it dead?” She reaches for the pouch of rolling tobacco on the nightstand and begins to prepare two cigarettes. “I have gold.” 

“They didn’t kill it, but it is dead.” The Whore bites the side of the Rider’s breast and sits up, accepting the first smoke and lighting it as it’s handed to her. “My friend did. Shot it, killed it, with that gun.” She takes a long drag and lets a thick white plume curl out of her mouth halfway before sucking it all back into her lungs. “Promptly rode off into the sunset to go tend some wasted farmland in Kansas, with the one the Demon came for.” 

“Kansas?” The Rider strikes a match against the table, motions for the whore to fetch the whiskey from the sideboard. “Were they the same?” She asks, taking a pull from the bottle. “Who it came for, and the ones who came for it?” 

“Demon only wanted one man, didn’t give a two-bit fuck about anything else.” She spits, curses, venom in both. “Wesson, he said his name was. Showed up alone, but his gang rode in later with his brother, Smith.” 

“And their real names?” The Rider snorts and pulls again from the bottle, mumbling at the absurd monikers. “This Smith, and Wesson. What was the gang they rode with?”

“The Winchester Gang.” The Whore takes the bottle and swirls whiskey on her tongue. “Named for them, of course.”

“Naturally.” She clears her throat, feigning nonchalance, and takes a drag. “Winchester? You’re sure.”

“Mhm. Samuel, and Dean.” Ash clings to the end of the Rider’s smoke and the Whore moves her hand for her to tap it off onto the floor before it does so on its own, in the bed. 

“Sam and Dean.” She speaks to herself more than the Whore, looks stunned, as if she’d been struck. 

“You’ve heard of them, then.” She tuts, shakes her head, laughs bitterly. “I’d say more’s the fool, retiring to Kansas, but then Blackbird is hardly cosmopolitan.” 

“Mhm.” The Rider is drifting, thoughts like tumbleweeds. “I’m inclined to agree, having doneso myself once.” She takes a drink, long enough for the Whore’s brow to lift. 

“That bad.” The Whore mirrors the drink, long and deep. 

“Hard to know which is worse.” The Rider muses, smiling wryly at the curious look that spreads across the Whore’s face. “Death, or Kansas.”

“Fuckin’ Kansas.” She chuckles around a drag. “I do love being right.”

“It's a woman’s purview.” The Rider leans in, kisses her temple, moves southwest to the Whore’s mouth, crooking a finger beneath her chin. They share a languid kiss, open mouthed and tasting of ash and alcohol. “And you are quite a woman.”  

“I’d say the same, but that’s not quite true.” The Whore grins, bringing a hand to the Rider’s tit and squeezing. “Is it, Cowboy?” 

The Rider just smirks, nips at the Whore’s lips, and tugs both of them back down into the tangle of sheets. 

Later, dressed, road ready and assuming the trappings of a man once again, the Rider lingers by the saloon door, swinging lightly with it as she drags a knuckle over the Whore’s cheek. She produces a not so small chunk of ore, a thick gold vein in it catches the dim light, and folds it into the Whore’s hand, callused fingers wrapping around more delicate ones. 

“For the gossip.” She says and kisses the Whore a final time. “And that’s for the cunt.” 

“So, where to now, Cowboy?” She holds up the chunk of gold, inspects it, then slips it into one of the folds of her dress. She cradles the bottle to her chest and takes a drag of her smoke. 

“Hm.” The Whore’s hand brushes the Rider’s mouth for a haul off the cigarette. “It was my purpose to hunt and kill that Demon, but if that task and satisfaction’s been claimed as you say, well.” She takes the bottle and drinks from it. “I reckon I’ll have to make my way back to Kansas, try to find my boys.”

A glass fumbles behind the bar, the hapless young man still tending it blushes deeply, trying to busy himself with something below the bartop.

"Andy." The Whore rolls her eyes, calls over her shoulder. “Tell Donna to ready a letter, let Jo know to expect company.”  

“You can tell ‘em Mary’s comin’ home.” The Rider backs out into the late sun that glows across the thoroughfare. 

“Mary?” The Whore steps out into the partial shade beneath the Cathouse awning. 

“Mary.” She swings up into the saddle, draws her hat farther down over her eyes. “Campbell, but they’ll know me by my married name.” All that’s left to see is the knife of a smile that flashes from the shadow of her face. “Winchester.” 

The sun dips toward the horizon, the shadow of the Rider stretches long across the thoroughfare. They are tall in the saddle, glance back once to touch the brim of her hat in parting and the Whore nods in return, watching the dust kick up as they break into a trot and then a gallop. 

Strands of gold catch the amber light of late afternoon, the Rider’s unbound hair fluttering behind them on the wind, and then, the Rider is gone.  

a/n (supplemental) : @sorryitsmyfirstdayonearth a millions thank yous again for this wonderful western world, and for letting me muck about in your thoroughfare. i hope this passes muster <3

thank you for reading! gratitude for likes, comments, and vibes.

and, as always, please remember to feed you local fanfic authors by reblogging!

SUPERNATURAL : DEAN WINCHESTER

ROOKIE LEAGUE • 1st base | 2nd base | 3rd base | Home Plate • 10.1K WRD • smut, pre-series GRIEF, FOR THE GRIEVING • 5.8K WRD • angst with a dash of smut, set after 2x02 OVER THE HILLS (AND FAR AWAY) • 2.3K WRD • poetry experiment, angst (grief) with a dash of smut EVERYTHING NICE • 3K WRD • fluff, post series/unspecified timeline CAROUSEL (OF TIME) • 3.2K WRD • tearjerker, post series (15x20 canon divergent), winchester family dynamics

SUPERNATURAL : SAM WINCHESTER

LACUNAE • 7.8K WRD • missing scene, takes place during the events of 5x15 GORGEOUS MORNING • 3.45K WRD • pwp, unspecified timeline CEREAL AND COFFEE • 2.9K WRD • fluff with a dash of smut, s2/s3 era

SUPERNATURAL : GENERAL / OTHER CHARACTERS

ADVANCED PLACEMENT • KEVIN TRAN • 575 WRD • post-series, drabble THE PRANK : A THEOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OR : THE ECUMENICAL IMPACT OF LAUGHTER ON THE HUMAN SOUL • SAM & DEAN, ET AL. • 2.6K WRD • missing scene (if you squint) takes place in the ballpark of 10x18-21 THE DEW : A DEDICATED PRACTICE OR : THE MOLECULAR THAUMATURGIC EFFECT OF YELLOW 5 AND OTHER DYES ON THE HUMAN TEMPERAMENT • SAM & DEAN, ET AL. • 6K WRD • missing scene takes place between 9x01-09

Remember to feed your local fanfic author by reblogging!

Thank you so much for reading! Gratitude for likes, comments, and vibes.

“It’s RC.” Clearly, Sam Winchester’s history of repeated head trauma has affected his memory banks. “Like the cola?” This doesn’t usually work, only true connoisseurs remember any colas outside of the big Red and Blue. “You gave it to me, after I took that Niagara thing off your hands?” Still nothing, but boy does this guy breathe irritation. “The Maid of the Mist?” 

“I thought Garth passed it off to some Canadian.” His brother sounds just as bothered. Probably because his memory banks are frito’d as well.

“Y’know it’s polite to tell someone they’re on speakerphone.” That’s always how it is, with these yanks. Miss Manners could never. “I’m the Canadian. And I need to borrow your morgue.” 

“Why?” 

It takes some convincing, but eventually they agree to let me drive my sorry ass across five states and one province down to Kansas so I can collect a meat truck carrying five monster carcasses down from Emerson, Manitoba. It’s rare you catch five of one species in a night, and nobody in the Rolodex knows anyone else who’s monster-fluent with a fully fitted facility they’re not using, like, at all. 

I show up in my RAV three days later. Turns out, winter sucks across the American Midwest about as much as it does the Canadian one, lake effect snow not withstanding. 

“There’s a cat on your car.” He means my tire cover, but Dean doesn’t sound impressed. 

“You like? It’s custom.” I grab my pack and my case of Dew and follow him into their secret lair. “Her name’s Miss Mildred.” 

“I hope you mean the cat and not the car.” Dean pops open the door to a stark room and I toss my bag in. I hang on to the Dew, that needs to be kept cold. 

“I do.” I have to hustle to keep up, these long-legged motherfuckers never think of the little guys. “You wanna know what the car’s called?” 

“No.” He leaves me in the kitchen, points down the hall. “Sam’s in the library, he’ll set you up in the morgue.” 

“‘Kay, dude. Thanks for the dime tour!” I yell after him, but he’s already gone. “Jeez. Grumpy.”

I throw the case in the icebox, have to move a few things around, but I make it happen. I crack a can on my way out the kitchen and throw one in my fanny pack for the road, or for Sam, if he wants it. It’s always good to come bearing gifts. 

Now, here, you’ll probably remind me that Dean pointed me to the library, which is true. But it was not very clear direction, and he didn’t explicitly tell me not to look around on my way there. So, I do.

What a weird place. 

All the halls echo in this creepy haunted way, and there are at least ten bedrooms, maybe more, but only Sam and Dean live here. There are no windows which, woof, can you spell vitamin D deficiency? Seasonal depression? And if you want to take a li’l bubbly tub, you have to do it in the middle of a giant locker room that echoes, creepily, because of all that tile.

Like I said, weird. 

Anyway, I’m wandering around, doing my Dew, thoroughly lost at this point because everywhere you go looks the same, and I find what looks like it might be a library. Maybe. Okay, so it looks closer to the forgotten part of a museum’s back catalogue storage. I guess that’s kind of what it is. 

“Hello?” I call out, wandering in, peeking inside boxes and reading the labels that seem to mark everything in little typewritten print. “Sam Winchester?” I wander down another shelf lined with forgotten and arcane paraphernalia. There’s some anatomical references I pull off the shelves: Comparative Anatomy of Supernatural Zoology; Auric Fields and the Creatura: The Neuromagical Study of Myths and Monsters; Demonic Dissection for Dummies; titles like that. I carry them with me, but mostly this stuff goes over my head. 

I’m just a little dude who loves their Dew, after all. 

“Well.” I hear someone in the back, but I don’t remember Sam having a British accent. American, yes, honestly more Texan than midwestern, but what do I know. “What do we have here?” 

I wander back and find a guy, surprisingly well dressed and even more surprisingly well composed, considering he’s chained to a chair in the centre of an iron devil’s trap, inlaid in the concrete of the floor. I look behind me, then point at myself. This guy can’t possibly be interested in me. I couldn’t pick a lock to save my life and I’m not quite stupid enough to fuck around with the Winchester’s feng shui like that.

“Yes, you. You’re new.” I take a swig of my soda at him. “Have they sent you to torture me with that incessant slurping?” 

“Nobody sent me.” I slurp extra loud this time and swish that gulp around my teeth before swallowing with an Ahhyeah. “I’m probably not even supposed to be down here. Why are you in chains?” 

“Moose and Squirrel are just playing a prank.” He sounds like a snake oil salesman, all slippery and too smooth. “If you let me out, we can get them back with something twice as clever.” 

“Those guys don’t really seem like the elaborate prank type. Toothbrush in the toilet bowl, saran wrap on the seat, sure.” I drag the heavy metal chair farther away from him and sit down. “This looks like day-job stuff, and lemme tellya, I know not to change the formulas in someone else’s spreadsheet. If you know what I mean.” 

“Shockingly, I think I do.” He muses to himself, looks down his nose at me. “I happen to be alpha testing a new Excel suite that I expect will skyrocket our Q4 profit margin quite impressively.” He looks very proud of himself and, yeah, with that outfit, it makes sense that he’s some sort of business dude. “Well, we’re complicating the circular references, and prioritizing #REF and #NAME errors for formula returns. My team is really quite excellent.” 

“You’re making error returns worse?” Truly, it’s diabolical to think of. “That sounds kinda messed up. You must be a Bad Guy.” I slurp my Dew again, because once I know it gets a rise out of him, I just can’t help myself. “Where do you work, anyway? Is Microsoft actually, like, Evil-evil?” Not that corporate evil isn’t Evil-evil, but you know what I mean. 

“Crowley.” He tells me, like that’s supposed to mean something. I shrug, shake my head. “King of Hell?” 

“RC, like the cola.” I introduce myself, about to offer my hand to shake his but think better of it. “So you’re not with Microsoft.” I frown, something not sitting quite right. Usually open source developers are agents of good, not evil. “Then who are you with?”

“Hell.” He’s adamant, but I’m still ninety percent sure he’s not being literal. “Perdition? The Abyss? Realm of Eternal Suffering, of which I am King?” 

I balk. Maybe he is being literal. “Like H-E-Double Hockey Sticks?” 

We get into it. The political structure of the Pit, methodology and ethos of damnation, I hit him rapid fire, even though I know the gist as well as you do. How often do you get to grill a primary source like this? It’s good fun, too, riling this guy up. 

“I am King, not a regent.” He’s shouting at me, getting a bit red in the face. “All of Hell is my dominion and domain.” 

“Except for that cage, though, right? Where the One True King or whatever is locked up?” I cackle when he starts to splutter and I hold my hands up in truce. “I’m just joshing ya, bud. Look, peace offering.” I unzip my pack and hold up a can of Dew, looking at it curiously, the black can with purple embellishment is one I haven’t seen in a while. “Pitch Black. Fitting.” 

He flips his restrained hands with a look that says he thinks I’m an absolute idiot. I hold up one finger, setting the can on the heavy metal table, it screeches horribly as I position the table so the can is in front of him. I pop the top and produce a straw, long, also purple, with three or four curly loops on the way from the can to the sipping end. I drop it in with a flourish so it’s poised and ready. 

“Crushin’ Dews with the King of Hell.” I raise my can in cheers and he rolls his eyes but still takes a long sip through the curly straw. 

“Beggars, choosers.” He smacks his lips and takes another sip. He frowns, nods, as if to say Not bad. “What is that horrible accent?”

“Uh. Canadian, I guess. Sort of a rude way to ask where I’m from, though, eh?” I kick my feet up in the corner of the table. 

“Oh, Canada.” He takes another sip and is visibly mellowing out. “We annexed you from Dick Roman a few years ago.” 

“Not a great deal for you, eh?” He nodded, shaking his head. “Everyone knows there’s not much Demon action in Canada, at least in winter.” 

“Well, I know now.” He simpers. “Too much bloody road salt.”

I hang around until he finishes his Dew, set things back the way I found them once he is. He’s proudly run down the long and short of his six-phase corporate restructure of Hell, plus a couple key schemes he probably wouldn’t want to tell anyone on this side of the Styx. 

I flick a salute to him with my fingers as I head out, promptly running into someone else as I try to find the library for real. 

“Hey man!” I call out to the little guy, he’s Asian, and looks like hammered shit. “You know where the library is?” 

“Huh?” Man he is out of it, almost reeling as he turns around to see me on his six. “Aw, crap, I’m hallucinating again.”

“Yeah, no. Not hallucinating there, bud.” I hold out my hand so he can shake it. “RC, I just got in.” 

“Like the cola?” I like this kid immediately. “Kevin Tran.”

“Kevin. No offence man, but you look like crap. When was the last time you slept?” 

“I stopped keeping track.” He starts walking and I fall in with him. “Most of the time I pass out face first in the word of God, but I’m not sure if that counts.”

“No, yeah. Pretty sure that doesn’t count.” I have no clue what he’s talking about, but I know that’s not quality Z’s. “Word of God? Like, Charelton Heston?”

“Close enough.” He laughs, albeit deliriously. “They’re stone tablets, at least.” 

We get into it, and this one kinda bowls me over. The sheer magnitude of solving the riddles of the great beyond. It’s way above my pay grade. 

“Yeah, no, for sure.” He tells me about trying to unlock the gates of Heaven, which were so recently slammed shut. “That sounds like pretty important stuff. Just saying, when I don’t sleep for a few days, you better believe I’m not making heads or tails of the cereal box, let alone using cosmic decoder rings.”

“Don’t really have much choice.” He looks so goddamned tired. “Fate of the universe, you know.” 

“I can’t even imagine.” We take the steps down into the kitchen to find the coffee pot empty, and like that my opportunity presents itself. “Lemme hook you up. I got just the thing.” 

I go to the fridge and grab a fresh Dew, considering the bottle of white soda with the swirling Reaper art on the purple and orange label before handing it over. “VooDew. Nice.” 

“Mountain Dew?” He looks puzzled. “I dunno, dude. Sam stopped buying me RedBull ‘cause he was worried about my kidneys.” 

“Listen. Listen.” He looks at me with that face, Listen to what? I forget myself pretty easily, get carried away. It happens all the time. “Caffeine won’t sort you like this. Remember, your brain runs on glucose. The sugar is brain fuel. Plus, there’s just enough magic in it to set you right. Trust.” He turns it over in his hands. “Very apropos, too. Mystery flavour, for contemplating the Mysteries.”

“Kinda on the nose, but.” He cracks the bottle and takes a swig, nodding with a surprised frown. “Not bad.” 

“Eh? Ehhhhh?” I hold my hands out, that universal c’moooon, give my fingers a wiggle, which gets another laugh. A saner one, this time, too. I reload myself, a bottle of Spark in my hand, another can back in my fanny pack. 

Keep one in the gun, just in case. 

Kevin’s about to show me where the library is when we hear them. The mountain comes to Muhammad, or whatever, so Kev is off the hook. I slap him five as he makes his way, nodding and raising the VooDew as he disappears down the hall.  

I can hear Dean talking to Sam just around the corner. 

“I mean they dress like a cross between a reject from a ‘90s punk band and a trading post clothing section.” I look down, guilty as charged: soggy Chucks, denim cutoffs and leggings that are too thin for winter, white waffle shirt under a t-shirt with seven wolves in front of a full moon lightning storm. “And then there’s the hair, Sammy. Is it a mullet? A mohawk?”

“It’s both, bud.” They walk in as I flop into a chair, my Dew hisses as I open it. Sweet raspberry lemonade, pink and fizzy and perfect. “Why settle, amirite? Excellence has no limitations.” 

“Uh. Yeah. Right.” He looks so busted it makes me laugh. “Sorry?” 

“It’s a curated aesthetic.” I wave at them, the plaid, the denim, the layers. “I mean, it takes one to know one, eh?” 

“Where’d all my beer go?” Dean scowls as he opens the icebox and while I don’t love the tone, it’s not exactly misplaced. “Why is there nothing but Mountain Dew in here?” 

“My bad.” I go over to take a look. It’s not right, too many cans line the shelf now. It wasn’t like this a minute ago. “This happens sometimes, like a Strega Nonna thing.”

“You mean a Shtriga?” Sam asks, leaning against the counter. “You remember, that thing in Fitchburg?” 

Dean nods, sombrely. 

“Unrelated.” I shove a couple of cans in the door, and pull the case out to take a closer look. “Strega Nonna is that kids story, you know, the never ending pot of spaghetti?” 

“So this is magic soda?” I nod, setting the case down next to my Spark. “Does it ward off diabetes?” 

“Never heard that one before.” I give him a wink and slide the case into the middle of the table and they both come to look at it while I explain. “Say I offer you a can, and you accept it. Like, in your heart.”

“Accept a Mountain Dew.” Dean rolls his eyes, his beer still unopened beside him. “In your heart.”

“Yeah.” I feel sincerity swell in my chest and my hand finds my heart. “Most people say no at first, but she can tell. She can see what you want, what you need, and then she gives it to you. Any Dew, from any time or place in history. Magically selected, based on the temperament of your heart or soul or whatever at the time. Cures what ails ya, guaranteed.”

“No way that works.” Sam looks so deeply displeased and it’s hard to tell if it’s because of the high sugar content or because he’s out of the loop on the lore. 

“Hand to God.” I turn to Dean, clearly the less skeptical of the two. “Try it. Let me hook you up, my man.” 

“What the hell. Hit me with your best shot.” I see a clear plastic clamshell in the case in my hands, right on top. A slice of pie. Even I’m taken aback. “This is pie.”

“Yeah, no, yeah.” I look at it, turn my head to glance at the label. “Oh this is cool, a gift from the future!” 

“Mountain Dew pie from the future is what his soul wants and needs?” Sam scoffs. He looks disgusted by the violently teal slice of pie. “You’re not actually going to eat that, are you? It looks radioactive.” 

“Baja Blast pie, to be specific.” I’m actually pretty wowed. I’ve never seen this before. I slap Dean hard on the arm, too excited to stop myself, and he slaps me back with a fraction of the strength he could. “No, yeah, this is awesome. You gotta try it.”

To my delight and Sam’s disgust, Dean does. He thinks about it, takes another bite, frowns and nods approvingly. “Not bad.” 

“That doesn’t prove anything, he’ll eat any kind of pie and be happier.”

“That is true.” Dean points his fork at Sam, then takes another bite. “How do I know this is curing me anything besides wanting a snack.” 

“Sometimes that’s all it is.” I tug at the back of my hair. “Mellowed your man Crowley out pretty quick.” 

“Crowley?” Sam looks close to a conniption. 

“Yeah.” I grab my Spark and take a sip, trying to hide my sheepish confession between gulps. “You know, British, cranky, tied up in your basement? Which. Weird, by the way.” 

“You gave Crowley a magic soda?” Dean laughs and crumbles more graham crust onto his fork. “He’s a Demon, he doesn’t even have a soul.” 

“Sure he does, it just looks like black smoke instead of white light.” I’m still puzzled by my case’s odd behaviour. “Anyway, it worked on him. He chilled right out, and here.” I fish out my notepad and hand it to Sam. “Minutes from my meeting with the King of Hell.”

“This is a strategy outline. For Hell.” Sam flicks through the pages, furrowing his brow. “This is super detailed.” 

“Yeah, it sounded like something you guys might find useful.”

“How’d you get all this out of him?” Sam hands my pad to Dean, who puts down his fork and starts nodding, impressed. 

“Can of Pitch Black and a curly straw.” I spin my case around slowly, checking to see if anything on her exterior has changed. “Get ‘em monologuing, then all you gotta do is listen.”

“Wow.” Dean says, shovelling another forkful of pie into his mouth as he scans my notes. Part of me wants to tell him to slow down, savour this rare and wonderful gift, but it’s not my place. “Gotta hand it to Boris, he really knows what’ll make people suffer.” He looks at me, gives me the same nod, the same frown of reluctant approval. “This is good work.” 

“Thanks, bud.” Grumpy giants or not, the Winchesters are legends in the field and I’m not above taking pride in impressing them. I grin and it feels like beaming. “I Dew my best.” 

They groan and roll their eyes, but Dean starts to laugh in earnest, sides splitting, even tearing up a little. 

“Dude. Seriously?” Sam is looking at his brother as if he’s unwell. “It’s not that funny.” 

“That’s the pie.” I can tell when laughter is the result of this particular magic. It’s sweet and bubbly, fizzy carbonation lifting spirits above their burdens, at least for a little while. I grin at Dean, bust out those spirit fingers again. “Pretty good, right?” 

He reins himself in. “I gotta give it to ya, I haven’t laughed like that in a while.” 

“Sam?” I look inside the case, try to hide my puzzlement, though it borders on concern. It’s just regular old cans, the way she looks when she’s dormant. “Whaddya say, big guy? Wanna see what she’s got in store for you?” 

“God, no.” He wrinkles his nose and shakes his head. “I’m not getting anywhere near that.” 

I spin my fanny pack around and unzip it halfway, the can inside flickering between Code Red and Reef Break Punch before settling into a shifting blur of indeterminate mystery. Either Sam Winchester is the first person health conscious enough to truly deny this effervescent mysticism, or something else is going on here. I look at him, too intensely, he leans back, looking uncomfortable. 

“Well, then.” I take the case back to the icebox and get her chillin’ again, swing the door shut and spin on my heel. “Guess you better take me to the morgue, eh?” 

That’s the vibe for the first couple of days I’m there. Sam and Dean dip on a milk run on day three and I notice that my girl stops her Sorcerer’s Apprentice act completely once Sam is out of the Bunker, which is both interesting and concerning.  

It’s unclear, when they leave, if they want me to avoid their captive Infernal Regent or engage him for more information on the finer points of hierarchical demonic management, so I pop by with a Flamin’ Hot for good measure, but we mostly just chirp each other this time. 

Kevin usually finds me once a day, having decided to try and share a daily Dew. The first time we try it, the can I pull swirls with bursts of colour, almost psychedelic in their vibrancy, against the barely violet iridescence of the blankness underneath. 

I stare at it for some time, thinking about the can I’d intended to give to Sam that first day in the kitchen. It looks exactly the same, confused, torn between the needs of two souls. I get it, when it comes to me and Kev, but why Sam? He’s just one dude, though he’s built big enough for two. It haunts me, lingering in the back of my mind for days. 

We figure it out, though, me and Kevin. How to share the blessing. 

We try both pulling a can at the same time; we wind up with a flavour each. 

We try just sharing sips, I pass my Spark to Kevin but when it hits his lips, he says it tastes like the jugs of Gatorade at a kids soccer tournament, which I know beyond doubt is Kickstart Orange Citrus.

We try having Kevin serve me some of his Voltage, but as it fizzes out of the bottle it foams and settles into the glass the distinct pink of Major Melon. 

We puzzle over it, together, my fondness for him growing exponentially. His scientific mind paired with his understanding of realms beyond explanation are put to delighted use trying to make the pieces fit together. 

“What if it’s not about the Dew?” He turns a can of Livewire over in his hands and it baffles me how he can drink it because, to me, it tastes like industrial orange cleaner. “What if sharing is about the other person?” 

“Well, fuck.” I blink at him, blink at the can in his hands. I’ll bet dollars to donuts he’s cracked it. “You’re gonna make me drink that horrible shit, aren’t you?”  

He shrugs, laughs at me and opens the can. It fizzes and I can smell the bite of artificial orange, almost tasting the bitter finish of the citrus oil used to flavour it. 

He takes a sip and while he does, I look at him: I see the bags under his eyes; I see the drawn look of him, almost gaunt from eating boiled hot dogs for months on end; I see the weight he carries, the terrible burden of great purpose. He is barely eighteen years old. 

I see the glimmer of something sweeter in his eyes, too. I’m sure it’s the effect of almost a full week of our daily caffeinated, carbonated confection. I feel a little pull, somewhere in my chest. On my heartstrings, maybe, because somehow I can see that it’s not just the soda, but the ritual of sharing time together, the blossoming of friendship. He has been alone for such a long time now. 

He hands me the can and I inspect it closely as it transfers from his hand to mine, unchanged. I lift it to my lips and can still smell the acrid imitation orange, feel it tickle my nose as I take a sip. I make a face, swallow, and take another sip. 

“That’s it, bud.” I wince, cough, take one more sip for good measure. It remains Livewire both inside and outside the can. I raise my hand so he can hit me up top, and the snap of his high five rings crisp and true. “How do you feel?” 

“I feel.” He thinks on it as we pass the soda back and forth. Eventually, he takes a big, final gulp and shakes the can, confirming it’s empty. “Good?” He sets down and he sounds so surprised I don’t know whether to be happy or sad for him. “Better than I have in a long time, actually.” 

I can see it on his face, a sort of relief. A levity that wasn’t there before. We alternate, from then on, seeing and being seen. We share our daily ritual in the 3pm quiet of the Men of Letters kitchen until it’s time for me to leave. 

I get a call from Manitoba, letting me know the promised reefer van of monster carcasses couldn’t make it across the border. It shouldn’t surprise anyone, but still sort of does. Disappointed, I seek out Sam in the library, since I finally know where it is. 

“I guess I should’ve known.” I tell him, flipping through the pages of a book he’s left open, marking his page so I don’t lose it.

“Customs.” Dean nods, sagely, feet up on the table. “What a bitch.” 

I point at him, silently confirming, You get it. 

“What’s your plan now?” Sam sets the book in his hands down and leans back in his seat. “Back home?” 

“Gonna head up to Emerson and see if we can’t MacGuyver something up there.” They almost look disappointed, which warms me up behind my ribs. They’d been so irritated my first few days here. “Then home to Miss Mildred.” 

“I think I might be sorry to see you go.” Dean shakes his head in disbelief. 

“Yeah.” Sam agrees and the warmth spreads through my chest and up into a smile. Nobody can deny how good it feels to be appreciated. “Kevin says he’s made more progress since you’ve been here than he has in weeks.” 

“Well, I’m not gone yet.” I produce three Dews, one for each of us. “One more for the road?” 

Dean takes his happily popping the top on a tallboy of Summer Freeze. I hold one out to Sam, that flickering, shifting pearlescence shimmering over the surface of the can. It may still be that he’s rejecting it, but I don’t think it is. 

Everyone does the Dew, eventually. 

“C’mon, Sam.” I set the can down in front of him, seating myself farther down the table and cracking my own Laguna Lemonade. “Humour me.” 

He sighs, picks up the can. For a moment it turns a bright cherry colour in his hand, and I wonder if it will finally land on a flavour for him. Dean sits up a little himself, though he wouldn’t admit that he’s invested. The Code Red label doesn’t last, though, and it shifts to the hot pink of Reef Break Punch before returning to the swirling nothingness of indecision. 

“Guess it just doesn’t work for me.” He slides the can back, but I leave it on the table. I don’t know him well enough to tell if he’s disappointed, but I can’t imagine anyone wouldn’t be.

“Try it again, Sammy.” Dean looks unsettled, like there’s something he’s not saying, but I don’t know him well enough to tell that, either. “Remember, you gotta accept it in your heart.” He looks at me with trepidation. “Right?” 

“Right.” I remain perplexed, plan to leave the can here for him, even if his second shot doesn’t work. “Surrender to destiny, my guy.” 

Sam sighs, heavier than before. He furrows his brow, like he’s thinking very hard about something. I think I see a brilliant flicker in his eyes, accompanied by a shocking moment of pink, here and then gone again. Dean stiffens but tries to be cool about it. 

“Nope.” He watches the can for a little while longer before putting it back down. “My heart just doesn’t want Mountain Dew.” 

“You’re the first, bud.” I click my tongue, tipping my head side to side, trying to hide how strange I think it all is from my face, the tone of my voice. “Just means you’re one of a kind, eh!” 

I say goodbye to Sam, leave the can of Dew on the table and encourage him to try again. Dean walks me to the garage where my RAV is already packed and ready to go. He refills my wiper fluid and gives her a quick once-over under the hood, closing the hood with an affectionate pat. 

“That thing with Sam is weird.” I tell him, hand on the handle of my driver’s side door. “I don’t think I’d even be able to pull a Dew for him if he really didn’t want one.” He looks at his boots, then around the garage, anywhere but directly at me. “You know something. Don’t you?” 

“It’s.” He swishes a mouthful of Freeze around, swallows and then sighs. He tells me about Sam’s Angelic subtenant, the circumstance and necessity of which he narrates heavily with conflicting emotion. “I know it sounds bad.” 

It does sound bad, but I also can’t imagine how it is for either of them, both of them, grieving each other over and over again. Losing someone once is hard enough. I hold out my hand for his Dew, wiggling my fingers when he hesitates. 

“Trust me.” He still hesitates, so I grab his wrist and trace: circle circle, dot dot. “Cooties shot, okay? Gimmie your pop.” 

He does, and I do my best to see past any judgements I might have. I look for the sacrifice, the loneliness, the fear. I see how consumingly important Sam is to him, how Dean’s sense of worth teeters on the state of Sam’s wellbeing. I try to see all of him, just like I saw all of Kevin Tran, and take a sip. The flavour of tricolour popsicle bursts across my tongue and I watch him for any sign that it’s working the way it did with their resident Prophet of the LordTM. 

“It does sound bad.” I take another sip, think I might see a sliver of relief cracking through the pall of guilt draped over him. “But you can’t UnMountain Dew what’s already been Mountain Done.” He snorts, rolls his eyes, and I can tell he’s resisting a grin. “You just gotta focus on what you Dew now.”

“You're obsessed. You know that, right?” He clears his throat, takes pause. “Did you just draw boobs on my arm?”

“Oh for sure.” I flash my teeth at him, this must be what impish feels like. “Made you feel better, didn’t it?” 

He laughs, another one of those deeply genuine thunders, summoned from the depths of soul. I wink at him and he gives me a hug, quick, tight, my face smushed into his chest and then released. He packs me into the car and sends me on my way, saying he’ll keep in touch and it’s not so much a lie as a promise destined to go unfulfilled.

I feel a resounding relief, returning to the Great White North, the Winchesters and their cosmic soap opera leave my mind until weeks later, when Sam calls me. 

His tone tells me immediately that bad business has gone down, and I am filled with sorrow when he tells me about the fate of Kevin Tran. I lament all the things he missed out on, because of a destiny could not control. It feels like a travesty. 

I can hear the vastness of Sam’s guilt across the 1900 kilometres that separates us. I wish there was something I could say, hope my disembodied company does something to ease his suffering. Then, it occurs to me.

“You still got that Dew I left you?” He says he does and takes me with him as he retraces his steps to find it. I’m in my kitchen, back home in Ontario. I listen, and wait. 

“Found it!” He sounds surprised and maybe a little disappointed. “But I’m not sure it worked?”

“Is she still not choosing for you?” I think for the millionth time how wise these selections are, how rarely they’re misplaced.

“Y-yeah. It’s just.” He pauses. I hear him tut, huff an irritated sigh. “Regular.”  

“Not just regular.” It almost feels like scolding him, even though I don’t mean to. I think of Sam, his loss of agency, the responsibility he shoulders for acts that weren’t his own. I feel his grief, imagine his guilt, and when I pull Dew for myself from the fridge, it’s nothing but classic green. “Original.”

“Original.” He sounds bitter. Defeated. “Is that supposed to mean something?” 

“Let it percolate for a little and see what you think.” I want to test my theory. “ Share with me, in the meantime.” 

“Okay, but I don’t see how this’ll help.” I can hear the ‘Pop’tsss of a can opening and can almost see the derisive sniff he makes, all the way in Kansas. 

“Humour me.” My own can mirrors the sound of his and I hope he can hear it on his end like I can hear his. It feels like camaraderie. I focus my mind on Sam, hope it works the same at great distance as it does when you can pass a bottle hand to hand. “Down the hatch, eh?” 

I hear us take a first sip in tandem, 1200 miles of distance reduced to feel like we’re in the same room. I imagine Sam nodding his begrudging approval, frowning as if to say, Not bad. Then he actually says it.

We do the Dew over the phone, and soon enough he starts talking. About Dean and Kevin and Gadreel, about the trials before that. He tells me he wishes he had died, so none of it could have happened in the first place. I hum in agreement, hum in disagreement, hum in understanding. 

I hear the crinkle of his can, a huff that might be a laugh, if you squint. “You got me monologuing, didn’t you?” 

“Works every time.” I laugh for real, in encouragement. I don’t bother asking if he feels better, it’s a tall order for such a grim moment. “You figure out what it means yet?” 

Words from The Prophet** pop into my head, and it makes me think of sitting in their kitchen in Lebanon, Kansas with a different Prophet, unravelling a mystery that has no consequence.   

      “And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and the sharing of pleasures.        For in the Dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.”  

It’s a little on the nose, perhaps but, then, sometimes that’s what’s called for. 

“I think it’s a reminder that you’re you, again.”  I can feel the moment drawing to a close as I empty my can. “Sam Winchester: Classic. Accept no substitutes.”

“Original.” He says it again, and that feels like the third-time charm. His tone is lighter, an honest to god chuckle escapes him. I can feel that bubbly kind of spell at work. Simple, but good. 

Refreshing. 

** Gibran, Kahlil. The Prophet.

Thank you so much for reading! Gratitude for likes, comments, and vibes. I appreciate you!

He hums to himself, to her, a mashup of the Zeppelin songs he thinks are the softer, sweeter ones, mixing the instrumentals and the melody together. He can’t let her miss the best parts just because they rip on guitar. 

“Hey, Unc.” Claire flops down across from him on the couch. “Gonna let the rest of us have a turn?” 

“Hell no.” 

She is gumming on his finger, and he nods for Claire to hand him one of the flannel burp cloths. She does, crossing her arms to watch him, like he’s some curiosity, as he cleans up baby drool and continues to let his niece use his ring finger as a pacifier.

“Didn’t think you’d be so good at that.” 

“Yeah, well. Not my first rodeo.” Claire is quiet, thinking, and her mouth drops open into a silent oh. She glances over her shoulder at Sam, leaning against the sink in the kitchen, and understands. “I might be rusty, but this is actually the easy part. Once they get legs under ‘em.” He whistles. “Then you’re in trouble.” 

“Sure,” Claire says, curling up in the corner of the couch. She just sits and hangs out quietly, sometimes humming along with Dean in poor harmony when she knows the tune. “I like the Zeppelin. That’s not a surprise.”

“Gotta teach ‘em young, or they’ll never learn.”

Dean will make a mix tape for her second birthday, and will have one with him every birthday thereafter. He’ll have already started collecting tape decks and walkmans and boom boxes from thrift stores to make sure she’ll be able to listen to them for a long time, long after people will say they’re obsolete. They’ve been saying that for years. 

By the time she’s twelve, her collection will be too big for the original box she keeps it in. Dean will buy her a pair of floral Doc Martens for no other reason than because she wants them, and because they come in a big sturdy box that her tapes can grow into. 

When she’s fifteen, she’ll start making her own. For herself, sometimes, but mostly for her Uncle, daisy chaining audio inputs from her walkman and her laptop to the aux on her shoebox tape recorder. 

“You don’t have to do that, you know. He’s not a total luddite.” 

“I know, but he likes cassettes, Dad. It means something to him, doing it this way.” She will shake her head sombrely. “Besides, he’s gotta be able to listen when he’s driving, that’s sorta the whole point.” 

Dean will long ago have softened his rule of the radio, without her even knowing what it means that he lets her pick the music. He will never complain when she chooses contemporary stations, the kind of stuff she will listen to with her friends. Stuff released after 1983. She will listen intently to him talk about this drum beat or that melody, and how it came from disco or blues or something else. She will be constantly amazed at how much he knows, just casually, and he will be happy to share all of it with her. 

“You know I used to bug him about updating his collection.” Sam will laugh, flipping one of her cassettes between his fingers, marvelling at just how well she knows her Uncle. He will sit down on the floor next to his daughter and hug her from the side. “This wasn’t exactly what I imagined.”

“It’s cool that he’s vintage.” She will shrug, turning her laptop so her Dad can see the list she’s put together. A side, B side. “Whaddya think?” 

“Mhm.” Sam will look at the list, classics from all genres, not just rock and metal like the tapes in his car, because she will be one of the few people who understand the full scope of Dean’s taste, his musicality. Sam will nod, drag her in so he can kiss her hair and hug her again. “He’s gonna love it, kiddo.”

It’s nice, just sitting around with her in his arms. He shifts a little to adjust her neck every once in a while, and Jody comes over with a coffee for him. She sits on the footstool beside him and leans in close to coo at his niece. He looks up and notices a glimmer of sadness on her face and leans his shoulder into hers, pretending it’s to bring the baby closer so Jody can tickle her tummy. 

“The thing about adopting them is that you don’t get to see them this small.” Her voice is soft and it’s got a wistful tone that isn’t unfamiliar. He understands it for what it is. Grief. “You’re so exhausted at the time, you don’t realize how much you’ll miss it.”

“Yeah.” When Sam was still a baby, John was always too busy to hold him, so Dean would. “You know, I remember when Sammy was little, I’d have to use both arms to carry him.” He mimics it around his niece and both he and Jody snort with laughter.

“Hard to imagine.” Jody looks at Sam as well, then back at Dean. “Both of you being that small.”

“We were.” Dean would curl up next to his little brother when his nightmares kept him from falling asleep. He never had a teddy bear, after the fire, but he had Sam. Has Sam. Has her now, too. “Everyone was, once.”

“Yeah.”

He doesn’t want to be a Dad, himself. Not anymore. The thought of it makes him feel weird and empty. His two sort-of shots at it had been such abject failures, it makes him feel too ashamed to think of trying a third time, even if it might be the charm. 

He’d been worried he’d feel the same way about her, hollow and distant or, worse, indifferent, when she was born. Now that she’s burbling in his arms, he sees there’s nothing to worry about. She’s the charm. She grabs hold of his finger tightly and gives it a tug. 

Jody rests her head on his shoulder and he shifts so she can lean into him a little more. He feels something warm and damp seep through the fabric of his shirt and he turns to press his mouth against her hair. 

“It’s okay, Jod’.” He murmurs softly, and she turns her face into him a little more, letting out a shaky sigh. He gives her another rough kiss to her crown and chuckles. “Cry all you want, you won’t make a sucker outta me.” Jody laughs, punches his shoulder, chuckling herself. “Her Mom’s the only one who gets to hold her tonight, besides me.”

“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen you like this.” She rests her hand on his shoulder, half-trying to rub away the evidence of her tears. “You look. Content.”

“Yeah. I guess I am.”

“It suits you.” She sniffles once as she wipes her eyes, and gets up to find her girls.

He will save a week of every year for her and Sam. When she’s little, he’ll stay in the guest room and help with what he can around the house. Take her on his shoulders to the park and run the energy out of her to give her Mom a break. He will enjoy a taste of the domesticated life that he will never quite settle into on his own.

Once she starts going to school, he and Sam will take her somewhere different every day during the week before class starts. Amusement parks and mini-putt and go karts and petting zoos. Dean will learn what a capybara is, and Sam will take a photo of his brother and his daughter petting the largest living rodent for the first time, together. 

It will be one of the things she takes with her every time she moves. Dean will keep it in his wallet no matter how creased and faded it becomes. 

They will take her camping. Real camping, not the miserable version they did as kids. They will go fishing. They will swim at quarries and both Sam and Dean will climb big trees with rope swings and fling themselves out over the water before letting go, arguing over who will make the bigger splash, so she won’t be afraid to try. 

She won’t be. Whenever she’s with her Dad and her Uncle, she will be fearless.

They will go to county fairs to watch tractor pulls and 4H exhibitions and demolition derbies. She will whoop and holler as loud as Dean at every event, and laugh at him when she outrides him on the Screaming Eagle, but will still rub his shoulder and get him a ginger ale while he sits with his head between his knees to keep from blowing chunks all over the grass. Sam will win giant stuffed toys at the shooting gallery games because he’s still a crack shot, even with a pellet gun. They will buy the blue ribbon pie every year and eat it together in the parking lot.

They will keep this tradition sacred, just the three of them. They will make time for her,  the way they never did for themselves.

They will get to have a childhood, finally, even though they are already grown. 

People keep offering to relieve him of her, but he is more than happy to keep her with him all night. She hardly fusses in his arms at all. He hums to her and plays with her feet and switches her from arm to arm and he tries to hold on to every second of this so tightly, because he knows how memories can fade.

He remembers being small, curled up beside his Mom, holding his ear to her belly like his little brother was already there. He remembers her explaining that Sammy will be delicate, so he will have to be extra gentle with him, to make sure he doesn’t get hurt. He remembers thinking he will be the best big brother in the world.

Sam drops onto the couch and motions to Dean to pass him his daughter. Dean goes to sit next to him, it’s the first time he’s gotten up since she was put in his arms, but he refuses to hand her over. She stays snuggled in his arms. 

“Dean, you have to give her back, eventually.” Sam tells him as they both look down at her little face, wide eyes blinking up at them. 

“I’m not done yet.” 

“Think you’ll ever be?” Sam asks, truly curious, maybe rhetorical. He means more than just tonight.

Dean takes a deep breath in, looks up at Sam. “Probably not.”

 “I keep worrying that there isn’t enough time. You know?” 

“Mhm.” Dean nods, hugs her tiny body against him a little more. There’s never enough time, he thinks, for the good stuff. “You’ll make time. We will.”

“It’s nice to all be together.” Sam looks up, looks around his living room, so warm and inviting and full of people they have collected to be part of their family. “It’s nice to be able to love someone this much.” He clears his throat, doesn’t look at Dean as he speaks. “Like the feeling isn’t too big, for once.”

“Yeah.” 

Dean nods, thinks of all the feelings he’s had that have been too big to contain. This feels so different, even though it’s still big. Enormous. It’s better. Good. 

It feels like a miracle that there are three of them now, when there have only been two for so long and, sometimes, only one.

They’re quiet, watching her watching them. Someone takes a picture when they’re not looking, because it’s a rare and wonderful thing to see the Winchesters look so peaceful. 

The year will come when they celebrate Dean’s birthday, and nobody will know it’s the last one.

She will host, like she often does. She will move to Nebraska some time after college, somehow right in the middle of where everyone else will end up. 

Dean will grill, even in January, and will let Donna assist. Sam will keep them company for a while, but Dean will not let him touch the tongs. Her Mom and Jody will make sure there’s something to eat besides meat. Claire and Alex will clean up after. As host, she will make sure there’s beer and whiskey and soda, and that rooms are made up for her folks and her Uncle. She will always take the couch when they visit.

“You know, when anyone else does this, they don’t make their guests do everything.” Claire will smirk, lean against the sink, and Alex will hand her dishes to dry. 

“Yeah, ‘cept you guys aren’t guests. You’re family.” She will pop the top on another beer and bounce the cap off the counter. She will wince and Claire will laugh when it splashes Alex when it drops into the sink with a plop. “Besides, I don’t cook.” 

“You’re a great cook.” Alex will say, flicking suds off her forearm. Claire will add, “That year you did Thanksgiving was unreal.”

“I didn’t say I can’t cook, aunties. I said I don’t cook.” 

They will look at each other, and smile knowingly. They will remember Mary, what little they knew of her. 

She will realize she forgot dessert while dinner is being cleared. She will look in the fridge, then in the freezer. There will be no cake, no ice cream. There will be no pie. 

She will try to sneak out without being noticed, but she will get caught halfway out the door. 

“You forgot the pie.” He will have his keys in his hand, bullet still dangling from the ring, ready to go.

“She forgot the pie.” Her Dad will be right behind him, pulling his jacket on.

“I forgot the pie.” It will be the sixth year she will have ‘forgotten’, just for this. 

She will lead them out onto the porch, and they will all three pile into the front seat of the Impala. Even when she’s grown, they will never make her sit in the back, because she’s one of them. She will rifle through Dean’s tapes, finding one she made for him many years ago. Sam will stretch his arm out behind her on the back of the bench seat and she’ll snuggle up beside her Dad, like she did when she was small. 

They will walk around the grocery store, arguing too loudly that cake is not the same, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a birthday, they’re still getting pie. She will recognize that shit-eating grin her Dad gets, when he knows he’s getting under his brother’s skin on purpose. 

“Winchesters!” She will hold up her hands between them, somewhere west of the pie and east of the powdered donuts, arbiter of their eternal debate. “Dessert’s on me, and I say we can have cake and pie.” She will spin her Dad and point him at the cakes. She will turn her Uncle and point him at the pies. 

She will link arms with them after, their selections stacked in the basket, which she will carry with two hands. They will walk three across the aisles toward the freezer section. She will grab two pints of ice cream and add them to the basket. 

“Cake and pie, huh?” Dean will look at her, carefully depositing their haul on the floor of the back seat. 

“We’re Winchesters. Who says we can’t have everything we want?”

She will slap both of their knees, holding up the newest tape she will make for her Uncle’s birthday. It will be Zeppelin. It will be all the songs she remembered him singing to her when she was a kid. She will punch it in and twist the knob. 

“Happy birthday, Uncle Dean.”

He will smile, soft in a way his younger self would never believe he was capable of, but that she will have known her entire life. Dean will stretch his arm out behind her on the back of the bench seat and she’ll snuggle up beside her Uncle, like she did when she was small. 

Dean finally surrenders her when Eileen comes to put her to bed. She doesn’t leave right away, standing shoulder to shoulder with Dean, holding the baby close against her chest. 

He remembers reading once that Beethoven was deaf, and that he composed all his music on pianos with the legs cut off, just from the vibrations. He wonders if that’s what it’s like for Eileen, holding her little girl close, and he is overwhelmed with a sense of respect and pride and gratitude for her. 

It strikes him at that moment that both her Mom and her Dad were barely older than she is right now when their lives, maybe their souls, were changed forever. When they were marked by tragedy, indelible in a way he knows, now, he will never quite understand. Not the way they understand each other. He grabs her gently as she turns to take her daughter to bed, pulls her into a hug. 

He sometimes says things over her shoulder that he feels too awkward or sissy to say with her watching, so she can’t read his lips. This time, he might try to maneuver more of his ribcage against hers than normal. Thinking about all the things he feels too awkward or sissy to even say aloud. 

“Thank you.” He is thinking about legless pianos and music, vibrating through the floor. “Thank you so much.” 

When he lets her go, she smiles at him, rubs his arm, squeezes his bicep. “You can hold her again tomorrow.” 

He can’t tell if she’s heard him, trying to speak to her through vibration. Heart, to heart. 

He hopes she did. 

By the time it comes to host Sam’s birthday in May, Dean will be gone. 

She will still forget dessert, will still sneak out with her Dad while dinner is being cleared, will still get cake and pie and ice cream. It will sit between them on the bench in the front, because she will be driving now. 

The car will be hers. So will the tapes. The bullet on the keychain. She will sob, sitting behind the wheel, because everything will be there, right down to the Zeppelin, except for him. Her Dad will hold her and he will cry, too. 

They will comfort each other. 

They will remind themselves that they are Winchesters, and that they know the truth about what happens, to the people that have gone before. 

There will be two of them for a while yet, then, only one.

They will be waiting for her, whenever she arrives, so they can be together again. 

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He brings coffee for the drive, carries his mug with him into the car to drink while he rips down Highway 36, tucking it under the passenger seat with a rag in it when it’s empty so it doesn’t drip anything on the floor. 

It’s still fall, but it’s getting colder, and the leaves on the trees lining the road are still kissed with the colour of flames. Still, the sun bursts through the branches brighter and brighter every week which means they have shed more of their foliage, and winter is readying itself to roar. 

Nothing changes, he just drives with the window up. 

He pulls into the angled stall out front, takes a quick minute to check himself out. He pretends he’s making sure he has his wallet and his phone and not that his collar is straight enough and his breath doesn’t stink like day old whiskey and there’s nothing in his teeth. 

The little bell jingles when the door swings open and there’s a steaming cup of coffee on the counter waiting for him. He slides onto the stool and wraps his hands around it, enjoying the almost too-hot warmth of the ceramic against his skin. 

There are a couple of waitresses that work at Wanda’s, none of whom are Wanda herself, and he knows their names and remembers who’s there when. Sunday morning shifts are yours, which is part of why he comes when he does. 

He holds the mug to his lips, enjoying the warmth and the smell and the ritual of a cup of coffee. This is better than church, he thinks, and not just because he knows what he knows about the nature of God and, well, whatever. He closes his eyes and feels a reverence for this everyday sort of sacrament that he can’t, no, won’t spare for the supernatural, let alone the divine. 

“You feelin’ sweet or savoury today?” 

His eyes snap open and you're leaning on the counter in front of him, arms spread wide to span maybe half the length of the small counter. The sun catches in your eyes and you scrunch up your nose as you squint until it passes. He smiles into his coffee, takes a sip and sets it down to straighten up and look at you.

“Depends what’s on offer.” 

He winks at you and, while it makes you blush the same every time, it doesn’t fluster you the way it did a few months ago when he started doing it. You grin and wink right back at him today. He thinks he might feel a little warmth spread behind his ears, but it could just be that he’s still wearing his jacket. He isn’t staying long today. 

You’re looking at him expectantly, almost excitedly. You drum your hands on the counter and he glances down to look at them, then back up at you.

“Surprise me.” 

Saturday afternoon wasn’t his usual time to drop in, but he was on his way back from Wichita, craving something sweet. The bell jingled like it always did, but the place was dead and nobody was behind the counter. 

Warrant blasted from the boom box, Wanda only played CDs or the radio or once in a while a worn out and kinda wonky cassette, and as it was playing out a mechanical ‘whrr’tk’tk’tsskt came from the the disc and the next, no, the same song started up.

Cherry Pie on repeat at a pie shop. Cheesy, and cute as hell. He hoped you were the DJ behind it. 

He leaned over to check the community bookshelf and grabbed the Ghost Towns of Kansas guide he’d been working his way through every time he came in. Perched on a stool, back against the counter, he started flipping through it while he waited.

“Sorry buddy, I'm just about to close, shoulda flipped the sign.” The volume on the boom box drops but doesn’t turn off. “I got a slice or two left. Looks like chocolate pecan, buttermilk, and peach melba?” 

He twisted, leaning his elbow on the counter to look over his shoulder at you, about to say he'd take the peach. When he saw you, Cherry Pie starting on the boom box again, his mouth just hung open, heavy with forgotten purpose. You were dishevelled, distracted in a way that made him feel like he’d interrupted some impassioned task, where the world had fallen away to let you focus, and he’d pulled you back just to box him up a couple pieces of pie.

You weren't wearing the cute, kind of whimsical, button front uniform all the waitresses wore. No, the faded Zeppelin shirt you had on instead, the How the West Was Won print peeling slightly, sleeves cut off and a rip at the collar, made you look casual. Comfortable. The black apron tied around your waist was covered in flour and flecks of drying dough, the general mess of baking made plain as it clung to your person. Something had left a smudge that looked sticky and sweet smeared across your cheekbone. 

“Dean?” 

That was the real doozy, and hot damn, did it throw him for a loop. Glossy, translucent pink whatever that mesmerized him so the only thought in his head was how badly he wanted to lick it off. His arm moved before he realized what he was doing, stopping halfway between you to hover over the counter. 

“You have, uh.” He pointed at you, then motioned to his own cheek and let his hand drop. “Somethin’.” 

“Huh? Oh.” You sort of dabbed at it with the back of your hand, smeared it around but didn't clean it off. “Yeah, workplace hazard.” You nodded to the kitchen, spreading your arms out across the counter the way you always did. “You know Sunday's tomorrow, right? You’re early.” 

“Really, Sunday’s tomorrow?” 

He spun all the way around to face you, hoped his face told you he was joking in case his tone missed the mark. Your face split into a grin, your tongue curling up over your front teeth, and you shook your head reaching under the counter for two mugs and a canister of coffee. 

 “Coffee? It's instant, but it's not half bad.” 

“Aren’t you closed?” 

“Nah.” You batted the question away, making up the coffee and tapping the spoon and popping it in your mouth. “It’s just coffee, and I need a break anyway.” You disappeared back into the kitchen. “Hang on, I got somethin’ for ya.”  

His first sip was suspicious, but he was pleasantly surprised to find you were right about the coffee. He leaned across the counter to try and peek into the back, where the magic happened, but you were already back. You set a copper bottomed pot on a folded tea towel and grabbed a clean spoon.  

“Don't touch, it's hot.” You swirled the spoon around a couple times before you were satisfied with the scoop you'd gotten for him, one hand cupped underneath it so it wouldn't drip as you blew lightly on it. “It's not pie yet, but tell me what you think.” 

You turned the spoon toward him for a taste of cherry pie filling. Your fingers brushed his chin, tipping his face up slightly, and then the spoon slipped between his lips and disappeared inside his mouth. He closed his eyes, sweeping his tongue around as you slowly pulled it back. 

He groaned which, honestly, he usually did when you gave him food, but this was the first time you’d literally fed him. It was incredible. The cherries were sour, not sweet, just enough sugar to take the edge off the pucker, keeping it from being too tart. There was a softness to it, too, with a bit of bite on the finish. He groaned again.

“God damn, Wanda.” He said every time you give him something new, the idea of Wanda as an eccentric and mysterious piemaker held in his mind. You’d laughed pretty hard the first time he did it, and Dean thought that was as delicious, if not more, than anything else you’d served him. “That's the best damn cherry pie I've ever had.” 

“Pretty good, right? I mean, it's still just filling.” You stuck the spoon in your mouth, grinned around it. “But it’s not all Wanda, y’know. The sour cherry's hers, but the vanilla and ginger's all me.” He licked his lips, looking at the spoon in your hand, the one that had just been in your mouth. The one that had just been in his mouth. “I think she woulda liked this one.” 

“Wait. What?”

He blinked, confused. He took mental stock of you again, the evidence of baking, the after hours casualness, every time you tell him you've got something for him to try, how you always seemed so happy when he liked it. 

“You make the pies.” 

“Yeah?” You leaned against the bar behind you, looking at him, amused, as you upended the sugar shaker into your mug. “You know this is my place right?” 

“It’s not like your name’s out front.” You started to laugh, shaking so hard you had spilled coffee on yourself, which made you laugh even harder. “Then who’s Wanda?”

“She taught me everything I know.” You wiped your eyes and pointed to a picture he’d never noticed before of a much younger you and an older woman. “She left it to me a few years ago.”

“Oh.” He frowned a little, then felt a little embarrassed when he caught what you were saying. “Oh.” 

You looked so damn cute in the photo. You were missing your front teeth, wearing that same grin as before, your tongue tucked up to hide the gap. You both stared at it for a while without saying anything and he thought, from the look on your face, you must be remembering something good.   

“So, why the food lab?” 

“Well.” You shrugged, looking back at him. “This guy started coming in a while ago.” His cup stilled and his eyes flicked up to meet yours. “Bit of an expert, turns out.” 

“Oh yeah?” The ‘tk of his mug on the counter felt loaded, like racking the slide on a gun.

“He knows from pie.” You stacked your forearms on the counter and leaned in, like you're about to tell him a secret. “Hasn’t led me wrong yet.” 

“Sounds like a catch.” 

“Mhm.” Nodding, you dragged the Ghost Towns of Kansas guide across the counter, almost shy as you tapped the cover. “You know, Macyville is like twenty minutes away.” 

“Yeah?” 

“If you come back tomorrow, I could pack us a traveller and you can take me for a ride in that car of yours.” Your face was very close to his, that smudge of cherry pie filling still high on your cheek, tempting him.

This time when he reached across the counter, he didn't hesitate, letting his knuckles drag along the tender underside of your jaw, tilting your face up like you'd done to him. He almost forgot that you were probably waiting for him to say something, distracted by the study of your features.

“You asking me to take you on a date to a ghost town?”

You nodded and so did he, leaning in to sweep his mouth over your cheek, cleaning off the sweet-sour stickiness with his lips and then, before he could stop himself, a drag of his tongue that was much more sensual than he’d intended. He lingered there, tasting you on his tongue, feeling your warmth. You turned into him, became his mirror image for a moment, your kiss soft and moist against his cheek. 

“So, whaddya say?” 

“Wish it was tomorrow already.” 

He's finishing his coffee, rereading the pages of the Macyville entry in the guide. You come back with an honest to god picnic basket, and Dean thinks he might already be half in love. 

“You know, some people would think it's kinda weird to hit up a ghost town for this.” 

“Some people are boring.” You look down at the book. “You think there’ll be real ghosts there?” 

“I think it's mostly failed infrastructure.” He chuckles, flipping the pages until the cover closes. He tucks it in next to a thermos of what he imagined must be more coffee. “Besides, even if there were real ghosts.” 

He cuts himself off, knows a throwaway comment like what’s caught on his tongue wouldn’t spill any beans, wouldn’t ruin anything about the day you’re about to have together. Except, it feels contrary to the point of all of this, the pie and the coffee and the date with a cute girl who doesn’t just smell like food, but like sugar, and like spice. It stuck in his chest, spreading its warmth around but wasn't ready to come out yet. 

“Even if there were real ghosts, what?” 

You’re giving him a funny look that’s curious and, he thinks again, excited. Like going for a drive to do the exact same thing you’d do sitting at the counter here is making your heart beat a little faster, the way his is starting to. You shrug on your jacket, an oversized, thick wool button up, plaid in a colour that looks really good against your skin. A lanyard with a bunch of keys on it  jingles as you reach your hand out to him to pull him towards the door. 

“Uh. Nothing. Don't worry about it.” 

You don’t just press your palm against his. You lace your fingers together and squeeze. Your skin is soft and a little cool, and it occurs to him that it’s from handling pastry all the time. Now that he knows you make all those pies yourself, with him in mind at least a little, he likes the idea that it also makes your hand feel so good, holding his. He lets you lead him outside and stands waiting as you hold on to him while you lock the door.  

“You’re not just closing up just 'cause of.” He clears his throat, feels silly that he needs to. “This?”

“I’m the boss. I get to do whatever I want.” Your keys jingle again, into your pocket this time and you stand very close to him in the doorway, giving him a sly grin. “Besides, we don’t open until noon.” 

“You don’t. What?” 

He must have the stupidest look on his face, processing what you’re saying. Is it that, all this time, you’ve been opening early, waiting for him to share coffee and feed him pie?  

"The girls don't come in 'til after church."

The way you’re looking at him tells him, yes. That’s exactly what you’ve been doing. He swallows, runs his thumb over your knuckle and you tighten the lacing of your fingers with his.

“Even if there were real ghosts, what, Dean?” 

He licks his lips and comes in to kiss you, heads for your mouth but tacks East at the last minute, catching your cheek right where it dimples when you smile. His hands are full so he can’t grab your waist and pull you into him, but he's not sure he wants to do that anyway.

He thinks maybe taking it easy, with the long drives and the mornings like slow molasses and the Sundays of it all, is sort of the point, too.

He keeps it short, it’s kind of weird to make a kiss on the cheek last too long, but stays close to you for a second, his forehead almost touching yours. 

“If ghosts were real, I’d keep you safe.” 

You make a funny little noise to go along with that funny little grin, the one you must have grown into while hiding a gap that isn’t there anymore. He thinks maybe you’re going to close the distance between you, but you don’t. You don’t even move. The two of you stand there, just holding hands and grinning, close enough to be a lot of things, but nothing in particular quite yet. 

“C’mon.” You clear your throat and nod your head toward his car. “Take me for a ride.” 

“Ngh.” He can’t help himself, he actually grunts, lets his forehead close the distance with yours, rocking against you side to side. He wants to say something to let you know what that does to him, how it feels like he needs to adjust his jeans around it, but he doesn’t. He just rubs his nose against yours twice, then leads you to the car and opens the door for you. 

You study him as he slides behind the wheel and guns the engine before he throws his arm behind the seat as he reverses out of the stall. He shifts gears and suddenly you're pulling his arm around your shoulders, your hip and thigh pressing lightly into his. You've threaded your fingers together again, letting them hang together in front of your shoulder so it stays wrapped around you.

As if he'd dream of letting you go.

You’re looking up at him, smiling, happily tucked against his side, and if he weren’t driving he would kiss you for real, with tongue so it would be wet and deep. So you would kiss him back. So you would never want to stop.

You smell like sugar and spice, and goddamn.  You feel like everything nice.

Thank you so much for reading! Gratitude for likes, comments, reblogs and vibes.

1.

Passing by a Town. A  Motel. A  Dive Bar. It feels like  Loss. And Longing. And Him.  You think of Dean, remember him to life. He doesn’t stop Dying. And Rising. From  the Grave. You are left  Grieving. For Him. For  You. You didn’t mind it,  when he was still alive.

2.

You and Dean were never really lovers, but you were friends. 

He would cross state lines to grab a beer with you, and you would drive all night for a bottomless cup of shitty diner coffee and a short stack. Sometimes there was some small town terror you’d team up on, but a lot of times there wasn’t. You never needed a job to work damn well together.

Whenever you laughed, he smiled so wide it would touch the corners of his eyes. It was the kind of thing that would have etched lines into your faces over time, transforming your topography, if either of you were allowed to live that long.

You made love once, maybe, one lazy summer day in Sioux Falls. It seemed so sappy to think of it that way, but you always felt it was different from just fucking, if the distinction even mattered. You don’t know if it made it better or worse, that you just loved each other rather than being in love. Whether losing him would have hurt more or less, one way or the other.

You always told him it wasn’t fair, having to mourn him in pieces. You did it anyway, fairness be damned, but one time you told him you couldn’t anymore even though it was a lie. 

“If you come back this time, Dean, don’t…please don’t come back to me. I can’t–”

You hadn’t been able to finish, that word hanging, loaded, in the silence between you long enough that he asked if you were still there on the other end. 

3.

He is twenty-eight. He is thirty-three. Thirty-six. Forty-one. He is dead. He is shoving past you in a diner to take a leak.  He is bleeding into your upholstery.  He is telling you you’re awesome. He is nowhere and everywhere. He is stretching through time.  You are twenty-five.  You are thirty.  Thirty-three. Thirty-eight.  You are living? You are ordering him pie and coffee. You are stitching up his wounds. You are thinking that you love him. You are everywhere and nowhere. You are trapped inside one moment for the rest of your life.

4.

The sun through grime caked windows made the diner feel brighter than it should have. The coffee, if you could call it that, was hot but terrible and you both just held the cups of thin brown water for the warmth of it. 

The world felt colder, now, without him in it.

You ordered pie, because he would have, but when the waitress brought it over you just stared at it until you couldn’t anymore, shoving it as far from you as possible without throwing it across the room. The fork clattered to the floor and you hid your face in your hands, suddenly too sick to even think about food. 

“So, that’s it.” It wasn’t the first time you had had this conversation, but it was the first time he’d asked to meet in person for it. “He’s gone, and you’re hanging up your spurs.”

“That’s what he wanted, so. Yeah.” You could see his hand curl in and out of a fist on the table. “Jerk.” 

“Bitch.” Call and response. It was a reflex, but not yours. He flinched when you said it. “I’m sorry. I—”

“It’s okay. It’s.” His shoulders shook once with laughter. It was sad, but not hopeless. You smiled when you heard it. “Good. I’ve missed him saying it.”

Sam waved the waitress over and asked for a slice of every other type of pie they had, sharing the remaining clean fork with you to work your way through all of them, together.

In the parking lot, he pulled you into the back seat of the Impala and you held each other there for a very long time.

5.

gas station  donuts and  cherry pie  and apple  pie and  pecan pie  and any  pie at  all but  never ever cake plaid and  denim and steel toes  and oversized leather and off-the- rack suits  and cheap  wingtips and  ugly fucking  ties filling your  tank too  late the  light on  your dash  reminding you  because now  he isn’t  around to do it anymore

6.

You never stopped thinking about that sunny day in South Dakota, when Sam and Bobby had gone on a milk run and Dean had stuck around to wait for you. 

That was it, The Memory. That one long afternoon when he was warm and soft and so painfully human. The day you and Dean made love, maybe.

You were the only person in the whole world who remembered it now, and you were so afraid you couldn’t hold on to everything it meant all on your own. 

Maybe it was how he had held you down and pressed you open and lost himself in the mystery between your thighs in a way that was different from the heat and the urgency and anonymity of how either of you were used to having sex. 

Sex, but not with each other.

Maybe it was how he’d cradled your cheek to his chest and whispered into your hair how afraid he was and didn’t want to go to hell and almost wished he hadn’t made that crossroads deal to save his brother’s life. 

Almost, but not really. 

The truth was, that morning was the most intimate you’d ever been with anyone, before or after. 

You’d never told him that, and now you’d never get to.

7.

He wonders: do you feel it the way he does? How it curls  in his belly. A shot of whiskey, or arousal. When he thinks of you.

8.

You drive. The asphalt, a shimmering oil slick stretching out and filling the night for miles. The air is humid, thick, steeped in the rain drenched richness of ozone and petrichor. It tastes like lightning. It puts you ill at ease, gathering into a bottomlessness in your gut that makes you feel like you’re falling upwards, out of time.

You drive. The radio, crackling with a soft buzzing static but you don’t remember turning it on. You can’t remember where you’re coming from and don’t know where it is you’re going. It sounds like voices whispering to you, but when you try to turn the volume up, the hissing white noise drowns out whatever you thought you heard. 

You drive. The glove box, overflowing with crap and you cannot find anything useful. Your phone, a map, something to orient yourself. It’s like the morning after a bender, retracing your steps to find out what the fuck happened after you blacked out. Dawn flickers between the long shadows of the trees, boreal ghosts lining the road, and you wait to recognize where you are in the daylight but it just doesn’t happen.

You drive. There’s someone riding shotgun beside you, you can see them but only from the corner of your eye and when you look over, no one is there. You’re hearing things again, not whispers this time, but a burner phone, buried in the back of your cab. It stops ringing before you find it, one notification waiting when you do.

Dean W Missed Call

9.

Dean Winchester’s Greatest Hits (studio release)

no crusts, store bought pie holding his Mother,  holding his Brother, a field, and fireworks. 

Dean Winchester’s Greatest Hits (bootleg sessions)

no alarms, soft fur tucked in bed with Miracle, tucked in bed with You, your body, and fireworks.

10.

Gravel crunches under your tires as you pull into the junkyard, squinting as the sun glints off the immaculate Chevy already parked there. 

He’s been waiting for you a long time.

The screen door rattles open and you stop breathing when it slams shut again, listening to the sound of his boots coming across the yard. 

“Heard your old junker coming from a mile away.” 

His hair is longer and he wears it swept to the side now, his smile crinkling even more around his eyes than you remember it. 

“So, this is Heaven."

His arms wrap around you tight, the spaces between his ribs and yours pouring warmth into the place in your heart you kept for him that has been visited by only grief for so, so long. 

“Yeah. We made it.”

You are a double exposed photograph, the ghost of one reality stamped across another, caught between them until the fact that you’re dead has finished sinking in. 

“What happens now?”

11.

“Hey, Dean?”  “Yeah?” “Did I pick this day, or did you?”  Humming. “It’s the right day, isn’t it?”  “Yeah, I mean…sure. I just...”  “It is the right day, isn’t it?” Gravel scuffing the rubber of your shoe.  “Yes. I just didn’t think it was, for you.” “I used to think about it, you know, when I couldn’t sleep.”  “Perv.” The back of your hand slapping his chest.  “Not like that. I mean, yeah, definitely like that, but.”  Silence. You and him and whispering fabric.  Laughing. And laughing. And laughing again.  “But only sometimes. Others…”  His thought, trailing away. His lips,  the crown of your head, kissing so softly it has no sound.  “Well, you know. Don’t you?” But you’re not sure you do.

12.

“C’mon.”

You walk across the yard side by side, fingers brushing, then lacing together. When you reach the house he holds the door open for you. You hesitate, looking out at the yard, past it to the road.

“Hey. Um. Dean?”

You worry that, with how you clung so tightly to this day with him, you have built this Heaven for yourself, brick by stricken brick. You wonder if you still want it, if this Dean isn’t really Dean, if all you get is a copy. 

“Are we…us, now?”

You are so afraid, want to stay on the porch, sure you’ll see it isn't him once you get inside. You want to leave this perfect memory, of you and him about to make love, maybe, intact and untouched. 

You don’t have the courage to ask: 

Were we ever?

13.

Of all things, it's the dog that convinces you because the canine miracle bounding out of the house was never yours

But his, then his brother’s, then gone and you’re not the type of person who’d remember all dogs get to come here, too

14.

Dean takes you upstairs and you take each other’s        clothes off and it is both the same as and       different from the last time you were here.  He kicks the door closed, saying sorry to Miracle,       but he wants you for himself, right now.  You start to cry when he slides into you, because the       place in your heart you made for him no longer needs to be left empty.  He holds you while you shake with quiet little sobs, until       you start to rock your hips against him and you’re no longer sobbing because of what you lost.  First: He loves you fiercely, like you have a lifetime to       make up for and you love him the same way, because you do.  He flips you over and holds you against him and drives       into you again and again while you meet him thrust            for thrust and he grips your hip and bites your shoulder            and almost comes when you reach behind       you to pull his hair and moan his name as if it’s the only one you’ve ever known. He almost comes, but he doesn’t because neither of you are ready for that. Yet. Next: He loves you slowly, like you have all the time in       the world and you love him the same way, because you do.  He cages you in between his forearms and you       lock him in the circle of your legs and you arch            your back and dig your nails into his ass            and almost say you love him when he holds       your face and looks into your eyes as if you’re the only person he’s ever known. You almost say it, but you don’t because neither of you are ready for that. Yet. Last (for now): He fucks you, or maybe you       fuck him, because you want to and he wants to, too, so you do. You hook your ankles over his shoulders and he       drags your ass high off the bed and he folds            you in half and drives himself so deep into you            that Heaven itself almost dissolves around you and       his cock in your cunt is the only thing either of you ever want to know again.  He starts to weep when he comes, because he must have his own       places in him that are empty, that you hope someday you can help him fill.  You hold him while he shakes with a lifetime worth of sobs, until       his open mouth against your breast is no longer mourning everything he never got to have.  Dean cradles your cheek to his chest and whispers into       your hair how happy he is and it is both the same as and       different from the first time you were here.  You throw open the door, he calls to Miracle,       who curls up at your feet, fur tickling your toes. 

15.

Heaven is a scrapyard in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. is a roadhouse just outside of Central City, Nebraska. is a ‘67 Chevy with the windows down       and a tank that never runs out of gas. is him kissing you for the first time since the last time. is him telling you you’re making love. is him saying the distinction matters      because you missed out on so much. when you were alive.

bonus a/n : special thanks to @sorryitsmyfirstdayonearth for planting the seed that got me thinking about "grief that is everywhere all the time it colours everything", your brain is the gift that keeps on giving, bud. thank you 💝

Thank you so much for reading! Gratitude for likes, comments, reblogs and vibes.