Title: The Family Special
Rating: R (language, sexual situations)
Pairing: Sam/Sarah
Summary: She nearly chokes on her own tongue when the phone rings one May evening in the middle of a Gregory Peck marathon and she picks it up to hear a voice she had long since decided she would never hear again.
Author's Notes: Written for the spnsummerlove exchange. Many thanks to my fantastic betas modillian and amchara for their help!
It isn't that Sarah Blake hasn't tried. She'd waited, longer than she really cared to admit, for a call, an email, a letter, anything to acknowledge the spark there between them, acknowledge even her existence, and when it hadn't come, she'd told herself that he was too busy, too far away, too hung up on his dead girlfriend, and decided to move on.
This, unfortunately, had proved a little easier said than done. It only took her about four guys to realize she was saying yes to blinding smiles, big hands, and shaggy dark hair, not personalities. Sensitive art freaks with tragic pasts didn't go much better, and two of them turned out to be gay on top of everything else. It was shortly after the second of these that she had decided to join the rest of the civilized world and get a better cable package.
She nearly chokes on her own tongue when the phone rings one May evening in the middle of a Gregory Peck marathon and she picks it up to hear a voice she had long since decided she would never hear again.
"Hey," he says. "It's Sam."
"Wow," she says, when she gets her breath back. "It's been a long time, hasn't it?"
"Sorry about that," he says, sounding sheepish. "Things have been really-"
"No, no," she interrupts. "It's okay. Really. So, uh, what's up?"
"We're, um, going to be in the area for a little while doing some research and we've been having some trouble with our credit cards, and we were, uh, wondering if you could put us up for a week or two? If you can't," he adds hastily, "it's no problem."
"Of course it's not a problem! When will you be here?"
"Um, is five minutes too soon?"
Sarah chokes again. "Five minutes?"
"We're at the grocery store down the road," Sam confesses. "We can make it twenty, if you'd rather."
"Five should be okay," she says, turning off the movie and sweeping the bowl of popcorn into the kitchen.
"Okay, see you," Sam says, and the phone clicks off.
She takes the steps two at a time, pulling her pajama top off as she skids into her bedroom, hesitating at the closet before grabbing her black yoga pants and a t-shirt.
The doorbell rings as she is spreading the sheets on the hideabed in the den and she stops in the hall to check her teeth before opening the door.
Sam's as tall as she remembers, but broader, his face lined and tired-looking. He breaks into a sheepish grin at the sight of her, though, and for a moment, the unfamiliar care on his face drops away.
"Hi," he says.
"Hi," she says, breathlessly as a teenager with a crush. Dammit. She blushes. "Come in."
"Uh, thanks," Sam says, ducking his head and stepping inside.
"Hey, princess," Dean says, kissing her on the cheek as he goes by, a big duffel bag slung over his shoulder.
"Hi, Dean," she grins. "The den is almost set up for you, I just have to finish making up the bed."
"Is that popcorn I smell?" Dean asks.
She blushes again. "I was watching the Gregory Peck marathon on TCM."
Dean perks up. "Are they showing Cape Fear?"
"Of course! Later. Right now it's To Kill a Mockingbird."
Sam grins.
They watch both, and when Cape Fear is done, Sam yawns hugely and stretches long arms skyward.
"We started the day in Illinois," he says apologetically.
"I have work tomorrow, anyway," she says. "What do you guys want me to do about the locks? I do have an extra key."
"That'd be good," Sam says.
"It's upstairs," she says, getting up. "If you'd like to come up, I can give it to you now."
Dean shoots out of his chair like it's suddenly sprouted thorns. "Gotta take a leak," he says, diving down the hallway towards the powder room.
Sam winces. "Sorry he's so..." He trails off.
"Dean?" she suggests, grinning.
"Yeah, that about covers it."
"'s okay," she says. "Key?"
He smiles tightly, but follows her up the stairs.
She fishes the extra out of her dressing table and passes it over to him. "There, you can get in with that when I'm not home," she says, determinedly keeping her eyes away from the bed.
"Thanks for putting us up like this," he says. "I know it was sudden."
"It's no problem, really. Anything I can do..."
"Thanks," he says again, reaching out to squeeze her hand. "So. Um. Goodnight."
She can't help it, her eyes stray to the bed. "Goodnight," she says, fighting to keep the disappointment from her voice.
He ducks out of the room and she listens as his steps descend the stairs, steady and sure. She lingers, waiting, but he does not change his mind, and after a minute, she puts on her pajamas and goes into the bathroom to brush her teeth.
She wakes to the smell of sausages and sits bolt upright in bed before remembering her guests. Throwing on a robe, she heads down the stairs, stopping dead at the bottom when she realizes who it is.
Dean is humming cheerfully to himself as he tends to a sizzling skillet. He turns around as she steps off the lowest step, and grins a little sheepishly.
"I hope I didn't wake you," he says.
"Not at all," she says automatically, pouring herself a cup of coffee and leaning against the counter to watch. "I thought it would be Sam," she confesses.
He laughs. "Sam can make grilled cheese, if you like it burned, and Campbell's tomato soup. Trust me, you don't want him making you breakfast in bed. Ever."
"How did you learn?"
"Who d'you think did all the cooking when Dad was off on hunts?" Dean says. "Don't get the chance much anymore, though." He shovels the sausages out onto a paper towel covered plate. "Hope you don't mind."
"I never mind being cooked for."
"Maybe I can try teaching him again," Dean says. "Even Sammy oughta be able to learn in a month."
"A month?"
Dean shrugs and reaches for the bread knife. "There's this thing in June. How do you like your eggs?"
"Sunny side up."
"Good taste." He cuts off two slices of bread and she watches with interest as he butters them on each side and cuts a small hole out of the middle, then sets them in the skillet and cracks an egg on top, directly into the hole.
"What are you making?"
"Bread eggs," he grunts. "Family specialty. When I was little my mom used to cut stars out of the middle for me instead of circles."
"My mom made Mickey Mouse pancakes for my birthday every year," Sarah says.
"Chocolate chip or blueberry?"
"Chocolate chip," she grins. "It was the one day a year she let me have chocolate for breakfast."
"Chocolate for breakfast?" Sam says, stumbling through the doorway, his eyes bleary.
"Not today, Sleeping Beauty," Dean says, flipping the bread eggs.
Sam perks up when he sees what's cooking. "Ooh, yum!"
"Two for you?" Dean asks, slicing off more bread.
"Possibly three."
"Get your sleepy ass over here and help me butter them, then," Dean says, waving the knife at him.
"I can..." Sarah begins.
"Don't even think about it," Dean tells her.
"But you're my guests."
"Not this morning," Dean says, shoveling the first batch onto plates, and garnishing them with sausages. "Sarah, Sammy," he says, handing them the plates. "Table's set," he adds when Sarah reaches for the silverware drawer.
"Don't I feel pampered," she grins.
"You better believe it, Princess," Dean says, with a wink. "There'll be more in a minute," he calls, as they disappear into the dining room.
They're already back when she gets home that evening. Dean is sprawled on her driveway, tinkering with something underneath his car. He slides out when she pulls up on the other side, wiping at a streak of grease off his cheek and only succeeding in spreading it further. "Hey," he says. "Hope you like lasagna."
"Love it."
"Good. It oughta be done in about 20 minutes."
"Okay," she says. "Thanks."
Sam is in the den with his nose buried in one of the oldest looking books she's ever seen. Which, in her profession, says a lot. Other books lie open on the coffee table, some of them in Latin. An elaborate woodcut of a prancing, cloven-hoofed devil leers up out of one.
He looks up when she comes into the room, and smiles, closing his book. "Did you have a good day?" he asks.
"I did," she says, leaning over next to him to examine the woodcut. "And I hear your brother's made lasagna for dinner, too."
"It's his specialty."
"Hmm," she says distractedly. It looks to be early 17th century, probably from the era of the witch trials. "Trouble with witches now?" she asks.
"What? Oh. No."
She blinks. "The Devil?"
He gives a short, sharp bark of laughter. "No, just an ordinary, run-of-the-mill demon."
"I didn't realize demons came in run-of-the-mill ordinary."
"They do for us."
She shakes her head, running a finger down the lines of Latin next to the woodcut. "I can't even imagi-" she starts, but then her brain catches up with her eyes, college Latin rushing forward to turn the words on the page into a Las Vegas billboard. "Sam," she says. "Why does Dean have only a month to teach you to cook?"
It's like watching a door slam in her face. "He said that?"
"This morning. And something about a 'thing' next month."
"A 'thing,'" he repeats, voice rough. "That's what he calls it? He sold his soul, Sarah. He sold his soul at the crossroads to bring me back, and payment's due next month."
"Back from where?" she asks, feeling cold.
His eyes flick to her and away. "I was dead."
"Dead?" she repeats stupidly.
"Yeah."
"Can I ask what happen-, or is that another of your really long stories?" His eyes give her the answer. "So, are you some sort of, er, zombie now?"
That surprises another laugh from him. "No, think of it more like supernatural CPR. I'm as alive as I ever was. But he won't be, if I can't figure this out."
"You will," she says, certain.
"I have to."
The front door bangs and they spring apart guiltily as Dean pokes his head into the room to grab a stack of clean clothes by the door. "Oh, sorry," he says, gaze flitting back and forth between them, "Am I interrupting something?"
"No," Sarah says.
He tilts his head curiously, but seems to accept her words. "'K, I'm gonna take a shower. Be out in a minute." He disappears down the hall to the bathroom and a couple minutes later, she hears the water start up in the shower.
"I'll set the table," she says, just to break the silence.
The lasagna is delicious.
They are home the next day when she gets home from work, too, and the day after, and every day. She begins to suspect they never leave. Dean cooks breakfast and dinner, and she comes to look forward to their conversations every morning before Sam wakes. He tells her about Sam and Jess and their mother and father and friends, dead and alive, about the places he's been, the crappy diners and bizarre hotel rooms and the endless sweep of road and sky, about the creatures he hunts, how to keep them away, and how to kill them, too. Everything but the demons.
And every night he finds some excuse to leave her alone with Sam after dinner: tv shows and movies in the den, tinkering with his baby on the driveway, even once or twice, a sudden, urgent wish to play pool at the pretentiously decorated bar a few miles down the road. "Good hustling," he says, when she asks. She and Sam do the dishes together and talk.
She gets Sam to tell her about the demons.
Then Dean's phone goes off in the middle of dinner one evening and he disappears for almost an hour. They leave his plate sitting there as they talk, and Sarah watches as Sam's eyes stray from the rapidly cooling remains of Dean's jambalaya to the doorway and back, over and over.
"Bobby," Dean says when he comes back, and there is a rapid exchange of glances that she doesn't understand.
"I'll, uh, get started on the dishes," she says, earning a grateful smile from Sam, a nod from Dean.
They are still talking in hushed voices when she goes upstairs to get ready for bed, but in the hall, she hears heavy footsteps on the stairs behind her and turns. It's Sam.
"I'm sorry," he says, reaching the top. "There's a thing, and Bobby's going to need our help."
"Did he figure out some way to help Dean?" she asks hopefully.
Sam shakes his head, looking down. "No, still working on that."
"Sorry," she says automatically.
"Don't be," Sam says. He blinks hard, mouth twisting. "It's his own damn fault, but we'll get him out of it."
"When do you have to go?"
"Tomorrow morning, first thing."
"Tomorrow morning?" she repeats dumbly, hating herself for the tears that rush to sting at her eyes.
"I'm sorry," he says. "I know it's abrupt. But it's very important that we go."
"I know. Saving people, hunting things," she says.
"You've been talking to Dean," he says, smiling.
"Your brother's a good guy."
"Yeah, he is."
Sarah fidgets in the silence. "I know it's the way things are for you, the way things have to be," she says finally, in a rush, licking her lips and steeling herself. "But could you at least, if you have to go, could you spend the night with me tonight?"
His hand jerks away from her and she flinches inwardly. "Sam, please," she whispers. "I know about Jess, and Madison. I promise you, I'm not going anywhere." Her voice hitches in her throat. "Not unless you don't want me."
"Oh Sarah, Sarah, no," he says. "Of course I ... Of course I want you. I just..." He looks down again and she sees his jaw clench as he swallows. "How can I go through that again?"
"I'm not going anywhere," she says. "I promise, Sam, I promise you."
"It's not that simple," he says hoarsely. "There are things out there, lots of things, that would be happy to hurt me any way they could."
"I know how to protect myself now," she says.
"It's not that simple," he repeats.
"Then it goes both ways," she says. "I've lost people, too, you know that. And whatever you're going off to do, it's not safe either. It's a lot less safe than my boring life: home and work and home again. I want..." She looks away, still struggling with the tears trying to spill over, and the words come out in a rush. "I really, really like you. Maybe I'm even in love with you, and I want, if something should happen, I want you to know that. I want something to remember you by." She reaches up to cup his cheek in her palm. "I want to give you something to come back to, if you want, and if you can. I want you, Sam." He is silent for a long moment, his face in shadow, and she drops her hand, feeling her heart sinking. "Please?"
His head ducks lower, bangs falling down to obscure his face, and she closes her eyes, and takes a deep breath, forces a smile. "Okay, then. I'll see you in the morning?"
"Yeah," he says quietly.
"Goodnight." She raises herself on tip-toes to kiss his cheek.
"'Night," he says.
When she closes her bedroom door behind her, he is still standing there in the hall in shadow.
She oversleeps, almost misses them the next morning. When she comes downstairs, the kitchen is spotless, untouched from the night before, and she finds them in the den, Sam shoveling clothes into a duffel bag, while Dean works on the guns.
"Can I make you anything to eat?" she asks, leaning against the door frame.
Dean glances up from the barrel of the gun he's putting back together, grinning. "I don't know, can you cook?"
"I can, actually," she says. Sam zips up the duffel bag and heads out the door with it and her eyes follow involuntarily a moment, until she catches herself and jerks her attention back to Dean. He's watching her with a thoughtful look in his eyes, an expression that vanishes as soon as she meets his gaze, raising her chin in a challenge. "Even if you haven't exactly given me the chance to prove it."
"Didn't hear you objecting," Dean says. "We do gotta go, though."
"How about some scrambled eggs and toast and fruit? That's fast."
"Sounds good."
Sam steps back inside as she turns back to the kitchen and she feels his gaze follow her through the doorway.
"What the hell, dude?" she hears Dean hiss, not as quietly as he thinks, as soon as she is out of the room. She closes her eyes a moment, and then goes to the fridge for the milk and eggs.
Breakfast is almost done when Sam slinks into the room, looking like he's trying to fold his Brobdingnagian form into invisibility.
"Dean sent me in to help," he says.
"Oh," she says. "Um, the eggs are almost ready, but you could help me butter the toast. It's always best when it's buttered warm."
"Okay," he says, getting out a knife and starting to slather butter generously onto the nearest slice of toast. Sarah blinks, wonders idly what the daily cholesterol value for a man his size is, exactly.
"There's strawberry and raspberry jam in the refrigerator," she says instead, and takes a breath, forcing a wry grin. "And possibly some marmalade from an ill-advised attempt to host a proper English tea, but I won't vouch for the condition of that."
He laughs and pulls out the raspberry. "I've never liked marmalade anyway."
"Me neither," she confesses. "It was ill-advised for more than one reason, really. Eggs are done."
"Two more pieces of toast to go," Sam says.
"I'll set the table. You can, ah, put a little less than that on mine," she says over his shoulder, eying the enormous pat of butter on his knife.
"Okay." He frowns down at the melting pools of butter on the finished toast, looking confused, and she hides a smile on her way into the dining room.
"Looks great!" Dean says as she spoons scrambled eggs onto his plate. "Nice to see you're finally fulfilling your duties as hostess."
Her mouth drops open in outrage, but her protest dies on her lips when he breaks into a mischievous grin, which quickly turns to a yelp when she whacks him. Sam snickers.
"Traitor," Dean tells him, rubbing his arm. "Ungrateful," he adds, casting wounded eyes on Sarah.
"Eat your breakfast," she grins, selecting one of the less-buttered pieces of toast for herself. Dean snatches a piece that could be used as a swimming pool by small insects, and bites in, butter dribbling over the edge of the bread onto his plate. Sam winces, and for a moment, it feels like any other morning.
The trouble with scrambled eggs is how quick they are to eat, she realizes, as Sam shovels his last bite into his mouth. But they have to go, there's no helping that, and she can only hope to see them again. Alive, preferably.
"Oh, shit!" Dean says. "I forgot the rifle!"
"Dean!" Sam glares.
"Seriously, dude," Dean says. There's another rapid-fire exchange of glances, Sam looking annoyed, his brother innocent, and then Sam grabs his plate and stomps back to the kitchen.
Dean rolls his eyes. "Sorry my brother's such an idiot," he mouths at her, shoving his dirty plate onto hers as she starts to clear the rest of the table. Then he's gone.
Sarah follows Sam into the kitchen and finds him rinsing off his plate. "Sorry my brother's such an idiot," he says.
She hides her laughter in a coughing fit that she's pretty sure doesn't fool him at all.
"Sorry about last night, too," he says, reluctantly, standing aside to let her lay her dishes in the sink.
"Let's not talk about it, okay?" she says. "I don't want to ruin the morning."
"I-" he starts.
"Really, it's okay," she interrupts, bending her head over the plate she is rinsing.
"Sarah," he says, and she looks up in surprise at the unfamiliar resonance in his voice, her name spoken like a prayer, and finds him right there, so close the heat radiating from his body washes over her like the break of dawn. "I am sorry," he says. He ducks his head, looking embarrassed. "There wasn't any research, really, not anything I couldn't have done anywhere else, anyway."
"I thought maybe there wasn't," she admits.
"He wanted to see me happy," Sam says. "But I can't even-" He breaks off, looking distressed. "And I do want-" He starts again, but the rest of his words are lost as he pulls her mouth against his for a kiss.
"Are you sure?" she gasps, when they come up for air.
Her only answer is a hum far back in his throat as he pulls her closer, and she smiles in response, lets her arms go up around him. She laughs breathlessly against his mouth as he settles her onto the counter, pulling her shirt off over her head in a single movement, his eyes drinking in the plain cream satin of her bra, swell of her breasts, and she wraps her legs around his waist, draws him closer.
He kisses her pulse, sucks at her collarbone, trails wet kisses down her chest while she works her way down the buttons of his shirt, and there's a t-shirt underneath his flannel, goddammit, and he laughs, low and warm, against her breasts as she tugs ineffectively at it, raises his head and arms to let her pull it over his head. Her eyes go wide when she sees him at last, because she knew he was fit but god almighty, who could have guessed that would be hiding under all those layers? He's staring at her, an amused light in his eyes, and she blushes, caught, like a schoolgirl who's never seen a man's body before. "You shouldn't ever wear layers again," she says, teasing, and he laughs, tugging at the zipper of her jeans, and says "no more layers for no more jeans?" and helps her squirm out of them, before folding her back in those beautiful arms, hands and lips working their way across every inch of her skin until she is breathless, her entire body singing with need.
"Sam," she gasps, and he understands, one hand releasing her to fumble at his back pocket until he finds what he's looking for. He rips the little foil packet open with his teeth. "Dean's got a stash," he mumbles, misinterpreting her surprise, his head resting on her shoulder as he rolls it on. "Let me," she says, but he's already done, and instead she wraps her arms around his neck and helps him slide inside.
He hums again, deep in his throat, and she smiles, watches his eyes sweep closed, long lashes brushing his cheek, before he leans down to press his lips against her throat again, moving slow and deep inside her. I do love you, she wants to say, but she gasps instead, and pulls him harder against her, urging him on, and when she comes, the sound of his name on her lips almost drowns out the ceaseless chanting in her head. Come back to me, come back.