Title: Jealousy
Author: Wildblueyonder
Characters: Jamie, River and Sam
Summary: Jamie is a little jealous. Ah, being fifteen is tough.
XXX
Jamie watched River sitting on the bleachers of the high school football field. Normally, his cousin held very little interest in the scheme of things but he was talking to Shelby Merchant. Shelby with the soft brown hair and golden highlights. Shelby who was as far from a cheerleader as Jamie was. Shelby who had been his lab partner since fifth grade.
He didn't have a crush on Shelby. Not even a little one, but that didn't mean that his cousin could step up to the plate and talk to her like that.
Suddenly he was hit hard by Jackson Pruitt. He face planted and then spit out what appeared to be grass and quite possibly dirt that was drug right through his facemask.
"Winchester!" That was Coach and he sounded pissed.
"Are you playing football or should I bring you out some tea?"
For some reason, that pissed Jamie off even more. "Red jersey, Coach! I thought that meant something! Where's my protection?"
Coach was in his face in a minute. "That red jersey doesn't give you cart blanch to expect everyone to watch your back while you daydream about whatever you are daydreaming about. Take a lap."
"But Coach…"
"Now Winchester, before I make it three."
Jamie growled to himself and started off at a trot around the field. From behind him he heard his coach. "It's not a fuckin' waltz Winchester – hustle."
Jamie picked up the pace, and glanced at River and Shelby one more time.
Shit.
XXX
The car ride home was less than comfortable. Uncle Sam picked both boys up after school because Jamie had practice and apparently River was making time with Shelby Merchant.
Normally there was good-natured banter in the truck but in this case Jamie sullenly looked out the window. He saw his uncle offer a questioning look to River who shrugged nonchalantly. But Uncle Sam being Uncle Sam just couldn't let it go.
"Something wrong, Jamie?"
"Nope."
River chimed in then with a slow grin, "Well, unless you don't count all the extra laps you ran in practice today."
"So what the fuck do you care? All you were doing was sitting on the damn bleachers. Maybe you should be paying less attention to me and more attention to yourself. I mean, what if you lost your balance and fell off the damn bleacher and busted your nose open? That woulda been a hot mess."
"Whoa there kiddo," Uncle Sam dropped his voice just a notch, "What's with all the anticipatory bloody noses and bleacher injury? Not to mention the language? I know we aren't exactly the Bradys but I think you better cool your jets. Besides from what I gather, River was just watching you practice."
"Whatever."
"Whatever? That's it? That's how you address your uncle?"
Jamie snorted.
"James."
Jamie did turn then because Uncle Sam was usually pretty cool about everything. Using his given name was usually a precursor to something Jamie didn't want to think about
"Sorry." Jamie ground it out, without a hint of contrition. But the words were said and that should count for something.
Jamie could see his uncle mulling it around in his head, trying to determine his next course of action, but then River decided it for him.
"I was talking to his girlfriend." River drew out the word like a song, taunting and full of merriment.
Unfortunately, that was not what Jamie wanted to hear. Jamie was in the back seat of the truck and River riding shotgun but it only took a moment for Jamie to dive over the bench seat to start pummeling his cousin.
XXX
"Jesus!" Sam yelped as the truck careened to the right side of the road and then back again. It flashed through Sam's mind how his father managed to handle the over the Impala seats brawls that occurred through the years. Then just as quickly he realized there hadn't been too many overt ones – mild cuffs, slaps and discreet rib jams, mostly because John Winchester's take on fist fighting in the car was a quick pull over to the side of the road (where-ever and when-ever) and ended with both boys bottoms roasted a shade of red not normally seen in the natural world.
Sam found himself doing the same thing.
He skidded the truck along the side of the road, gravel spraying up on the undercarriage.
Both boys were still swinging so he jumped out of the driver side and in three long strides was on the passenger side opening the door. River and Jamie tumbled out onto the gravel and there was a yip of sorts as one or the other hit the ground. Sam didn't recognize if it was Jamie or River and so intertwined were they that he doubted he would ever know. He could differentiate between his son's light blond hair and his nephew's deep reddish brown so he grabbed the collar at each corresponding hair color and pulled hard in opposite directions. He felt Jamie's tee shirt rip and one of the buttons on River's pop but he was able to pull them apart. He stepped easily between them keeping them at arms length.
Once separated, there was no way that either boy could get through six foot five of Sam Winchester. It wasn't a matter of lack of fighting ability on either boy's part, just simple physics. It was then that Sam could take a look at how much damage they had managed to do in the space of maybe two minutes.
River's eye was almost swollen shut, Jamie's lip was bleeding freely and both were sporting the typical post fight scuffmarks that were par for the course of a tussle between 15 year olds. The knees of Jamie's jeans were torn as were River's but Sam couldn't remember if River's were torn ahead of time.
"You," Sam pointed to Jamie, " Hands up against the side bed of the truck."
"You." Sam pointed to River, "Hands up against the quarter panel."
Jamie literally snarled at his uncle, "What is this an episode of Cops?"
Sam pushed Jamie toward the back of the truck. "You mister, better keep your mouth shut."
Reluctantly Jamie complied. River took a more direct approach and jumped to the front of the truck, palms on the quarter panel. Sam backed up to look at his handiwork. He tried not to smile because it did look like an episode of Cops.
Except Sam was pretty sure he didn't need handcuffs.
He went after River first. He was his kid and he had taunted Jamie. With his left hand firmly on River's back he drew back his right and spanked hard and fast right over his jeans. River was obviously completely unprepared for it.
"WHAT THE FUCK!" River yelled. Sam increased the tempo and strength.
"Watch your mouth and keep it shut otherwise the jeans come down and anyone driving down Route 50 is gonna see your lilly white ass turn red." That shut River up quicker than if Sam had slapped him across the face.
Sam spanked hard, fast and with intent. It was over quickly, these kind of spankings usually were if he remembered correctly. Anytime his father had felt it necessary to pull the Impala over to offer some hands on guidance, you could be pretty sure he was at wits end. His father had only wanted to stop long enough to get the message across. Spankings were meant to be powerful enough to make a statement and to make the offending boy remember what he ought not to do again. Sam didn't even try to make River cry, although the boy was sniffling when he got done. Plus, Sam knew from past experience, the drive home would sting like hell.
"Stay." He growled, certain that River wouldn't move a muscle.
Then he turned to Jamie, hands up against the side of the truck still breathing heavy.
"And you – who the fuck jumps over a bench seat while their uncle is driving down the road?"
Jamie refused to answer just stood shaking with his face as red as his ass was soon to be and dutifully ignoring the splattering of crimson blood that continued to drip from his lip onto the crush and run.
Mirroring River's butt warming, he placed his left hand over Jamie's shoulders and pressed them into the truck a bit and then proceeded to use his right to spank the hell out of Jamie's jean clad ass. Sam was a little harder on Jamie, mostly because he felt it was more Jamie's fault. River shouldn't have taunted Jamie but brothers tease each other all the time. Cousins too apparently. If Sam had retaliated at every snide remark Dean had made, neither boy would have made it to adulthood. The truth of the matter was, it was the fact that Jamie was hell bent on beating his cousin half to death in the truck that got them all in this predicament.
Sam spanked till his hand stung. It hurt enough in fact that he stopped and pulled his knife from his belt and walked to the willow -grove conveniently located just down the hill. Sam glanced over his back and-noted with satisfaction that Jamie didn't move a muscle. One quick swipe with the knife an appropriate switch was cut from the tree. He stripped it of leaves in record time and then walked back up to Jamie.
Sam felt a small twinge of satisfaction when Jamie realized what was happening. But Jamie didn't say anything and neither did Sam. Three fast strokes, sure to cause welts were slapped briskly across the fleshy part of Jamie's butt.
Jamie yelped then.
Sam broke the switch in half and pointed to the truck.
"Not another word."
The boys filed into the truck, Jamie in the back, River in the front, both sufficiently chastised that neither said a word on the remaining drive home.
XXX
Jamie was still seething but he wasn't sure why. Well, he was quite sure a large amount of his anger had to do with the god-awful pain in his butt but that really didn't account for why he did what he did.
River hadn't been kissing Shelby and even if he had been kissing her, Shelby wasn't his girl
And yet his blood boiled. To think that River was flirting with her – well, talking with her, it just made something snap in his head. It was like there was no connection between his rational brain and his dick. Which was stupid because he wasn't banging Shelby anyway. She was a girl and pretty but she'd always been his friend. Why was he losing his shit over this?
Then to pounce on River and back talk his uncle? Shit, he was lucky it went as well as it did.
Knowing all of this did little to change his anger though. He was angry. Angry at River, at Shelby, at Uncle Sam and even angry at himself. He was even angry at the fact that his mouth was sore and puffy from River's well-placed punch.
Plus the fact that he had been sent to his room. To their room which meant that both he and River were stuck there together. They were grounded which meant that there was no TV, no music, only books.
The Bible had Cain and Able in it. Death to brothers seemed like something he could get into.
Except he didn't think there was a Bible in his room. Maybe some Latin translation of some part of it, but he doubted he could find anything worth reading.
Then he looked over at River who was sitting uncomfortably on his bed. River had a pack of peas on his bad eye and was trying to read with his good eye. The peas slipped down and Jamie was able to see how much damage he really did to his cousin. River's eye was really purple and swollen to a slit, underneath was a reddish tinge that if Jamie looked hard enough he could almost see the marks of his knuckles.
Fuck.
Suddenly the anger was gone and in it's place guilt. He had done this to River for no reason at all.
"Riv?" River ignored him and pushed the peas back up to his eye.
"Please, Riv, can we talk?"
"You can talk, I can't stop you. Can't even leave the fuckin' room. You can recite Hamlet if you want."
Jamie sighed. He deserved that. Probably a lot more.
"Look, Riv. I'm sorry okay? I don't know what got into me."
River ignored him except to turn his one good eye in Jamie's general direction. It was hard to determine if the good eye was part of a scowl or not, but the overall impression was not one of understanding.
"So are you trying to give me the stink eye? Doesn't that indicate that you have more than one eye to stink with?" Jamie tried to offer a light chuckle.
"If this is your way of apologizing, it's not working. If this is your way of pissing me off, well, that might be working except I'm not rising to the bait. I'm trying to read my book, but it's giving me a headache and that makes me even more pissed. So. Fuck. Off."
Jamie shut up then. For a moment.
"If it makes you feel any better, I can barely talk with my mouth so swollen. I wouldn't be surprised if you loosened a tooth or two."
"Jamie, there does not appear to be any problem with your verbal skills. Your hearing on the other hand leaves a little to be desired."
"River, I'm really sorry. How about you get a freebie? Any time. Anywhere. No retaliation. Just slug me. I mean, it would be nice if you can let me know it's coming but you don't have to. "
River slammed his book shut. "Punching you in the face is not going to help. Well, maybe a little but it's not about that. It's about you choosing me over that Shelby chick and it really wasn't even a choice, Jamie. I wasn't choosing her. We were just shooting the shit. And if you must know. She was talking about you!"
"Huh?'
"Right dickhead. You! Like 'Do you think he likes me' and 'check yes or no'. And 'isn't he cute' and all kinds of shit that I didn't really want to talk about. She was fucking gushing about my cousin and all I could do was nod my head."
Jamie went from feeling like shit to feeling lower than shit.
"Okay…right here, right now." Jamie jumped off his bed, a little slower than he wanted to admit but Uncle Sam had done a number on his ass.
"Punch me. Chin, eye, hey, belly shot. They really hurt."
"What? No. I'm not going to punch you."
"Why not? I deserve it."
'Cause I don't go around punching people."
"Why not? You're a Winchester. We fight – it's what we do."
"Correction, Jamie. We fight bad things. You are not bad. Misguided, testosterone laden and maybe even annoying as shit. But you are not bad."
Jamie looked almost crestfallen. As if River's retribution would make him feel better.
River rolled his eyes, "Okay. If it makes you feel any better. One of these days when I'm really pissed off about something, I'll slug you. Does that help?"
"Yes, yes it does."
"Okay. Are we good?"
"Yeah, we're good."
Jamie lay back down on his bed and laced his hands behind his head.
"Now that we aren't mad at each other…can you answer me one question?"
River grunted.
"So what did you say to Shelby…do you think I'm cute?"
River picked up his pillow and threw it in Jamie's general direction. "You might be getting that punch sooner rather than later."
Jamie laughed. Yeah, they were good.
end.