TITLE The Woeful Bell and the Huntsman
RATING NC-17
PAIRING Sam/OFC (Sam/Pepper)
WORD COUNT 4800ish
SUMMARY Definite AU. A little tale involving domestic/pervy Sam setting up house with a young lady of his choosing, who has no clue as to what or who he really is. Mary Sue warning, if you don't like then don't read. Part 1/3
COMMENTS This little ditty is pretty much just porny, pervy Samness…
WARNINGS Adult content, will be spoilers through season six.
Fall
They roll into town just as fall is turning forest bronze on the east coast. It's a picturesque New England town, charming stores peppered down main street, town folk preparing for the last tourist invasion of the year, while the trees fight to keep their tresses from withering in the nippy autumn sky.
171 W. Ichabod Lane
The Kingston household looks like a castle that should be made of ginger bread and gum drops. A three story Colonial house, framed via a white picket fence and moated by way of a well manicured lawn.
"Places like this always freak me out." Dean comments, pulling at the knot of his tie.
Sam just smiles.
Sam dreamed of growing up in a home like this. As a boy he imagined stable, safe families eating well balanced meals together in ghoul-free dining rooms across America…then he dad tossed him a box of hostess cup cakes into the back seat of the Impala and he remember those dreams were for other little boys with normal families.
They have to park blocks away from the targeted address. There's a steady stream of black-clad mourners making their way sluggishly up the front walk. Sam's glad they wore the suits, it seems more appropriate.
He feels as if he should have brought a casserole, or perhaps flowers. Anything to help him feel more reverent. They've been to plenty of wakes before, but the ones for children are always the worst - makes his gut ache.
There's a larger than life picture of the kid set up in the living room. A cheerful five year old boy, smiling wide and full of life. Sam idly wonders if they had the poster made at Kinko's and then wonders what that would be like to order a picture of your dead child to be blown up ten times full-scale. It's all so odd.
He doesn't want to be there. It's been months of close quarters and bad motel mattresses. He's had a dull head ache for a week now, a tender throb in his temple he thinks he might be able to sooth if he could just get a moment to himself, just an elusive moment of silence. One thing to himself.
Dean wanders off into the sea of dimly dressed faces and Sam makes his way into the backyard to have a look around. It's chilly, the light wind is blowing the chains on the empty swing set, making metal on metal noises that strike a chord, like a tolling bell for mortality.
He's by himself for quite some time, takes a seat and closes his eyes for a moment. It's a delicious second of peace he typically doesn't snag, that is until she bursts out the back door in a rush. Almost trips down the steps and sniffles as she steadies herself on the iron railing.
She's wearing a frilly little dress, something that a younger girl would wear to her confirmation, except this one is the color of burnt charcoal.
By the time she notices Sam she's already on her way to the picnic table where he's stationed. She looks at him hesitantly but sits down beside him. He thinks she's probably a knock out when her nose isn't running, all red-raw from crying. She rubs bloodshot eyes with her thumb and index finger, then wipes her nose again.
"Hey" she glances at him, gives him a good once over and tugs at the hem of her dress that's doing a less than adequate job of covering her legs. She's tall and her long legs are bare, growing tiny goose bumps up her thighs. He forces his line of sight back to her face where she's staring through him with a faraway look in her pink-raw eyes.
"I'm Sam." he offers gingerly.
"Pepper." She rolls her eyes, snuffs when she watches him smirk at the mention of her name, "Yeah I know, its ridiculous." she pants wrapping arms around her waist like she's has a sudden onset of cramps.
"Are you Ok?" Sam frowns, processing a hundred different thoughts that range from her obvious pain to whether Dean is making any headway inside.
"Oh yeah,…I'm just…you don't have to…my brother-" She starts, then stops just clutching herself. It hits Sam like a ton of bricks; she's the older sister, the person they came to talk to, the one who was there when it happened.
Sam's busy thinking of the best way to ease her into divulging the information they came for when she scoots closer to him and shivers. "I don't want to go back in there," she hiccups looking at the house, shaking her head as a rogue tear slides from the corner of her eye.
"I wouldn't either" he confides.
"It's so damn cold out here…here, move a little closer." She commands and Sam doesn't know what to make of her when she raises his arm up and wriggles against him. "I'm usually not this oddly confident, you must think I'm a nut job." She laughs though tears.
"It's fine, It is cold out…your mourning, I think you get a free pass for this one" He comments stiffly but drops his arm over her shoulders, cups her arm loosely.
"We had so much fun, he always loved my house." She wrings her hands, her face crumpling in that nasty way when there's too much pain, her cheeks blush even rosier.
"This hurts so bad" she whispers as if it stings to talk, then she cries, hard. Sobs into her hands so relentlessly that eventually she doubles over. Sam rubs her back cautiously, talks her back into catching her breath, and teaches her how to get air back into her lungs.
Sam glances at her knees - thinks about her legs. The charmingly soft looking skin is splotched red for the bitter autumn chill. Her skin looks olive, perhaps she's Italian or Greek or maybe she tans. That leads to thoughts of her sunbathing naked on Brazilian sand. Soft, firm breasts warm from the sun…
She hiccups a stifled snivel.
He feels like a tactless pervert.
He sits with her until the tips of his ears go numb. He thinks about how much it hurt when he lost…that raw throbbing in his chest he was convinced would kill him (for a while he wished is had). He wants to help her - doesn't know where to begin.
Sam tells her he's a private investigator. Makes up unnecessary details (insurance and medical malpractice) as to why he and Dean are there. She nods but he can see she couldn't care less, doesn't give a shit about anything other than her own nauseating grief.
He shivers when the wind blows, she feels him tremble and scoots out from under his arm. He thinks she's about to apologize for keeping him outside. Instead her eyes narrow and she groans: "I'm gonna puke"
She turns around, one final glance back at him as she opens the back door, "Thank you Sam!" she hollers as the door slams shut.
She's not at the funeral, so Dean stay there and he goes to find her.
Sam wanders on the front lawn of her parents house for an half hour, stomping dead leaves and trying to determine exactly what's wrong with him that he can't bring himself to knock on the door like a normal person.
After watching him pace through fallen leaves like a lumbering giant Pepper opens up the front door and calls out to him. "What are you doing?"
He tells her the truth, tells her he came back to check on her, that he can't stop thinking about her pain. She looks better than the day before, but her eyes are still red, lips remained chapped. She's still holding onto the Kleenex box like it might save her life.
Sam sits next to her on jack-o-lantern sheets in Wes' bedroom. She explains that he loved Halloween, Sam feels tenderly for her as she traces one of the pumpkins on his pillow. She pulls the pillow into her lap and press her face into it, a tear sliding down her cheek, "It still smells like him." she whispers, broken.
"Pepper, what exactly happened?"
She doesn't hesitate.
"He wanted me to read to him in the pile of leaves we raked in my front yard. Wes was nuts about this one book, The House of Boo, his favorite. So he sat in my lap and we read and then he just kinda, slumped back into me. I thought he was cuddling at first or maybe he fell asleep. They told me his heart just…stopped"
"Oh God." Sam mutters
"I never thought I'd have a little brother, no one did. I mean, I'm almost twenty years older…"
He decides it's better that she never knows what actually happened to Wes. There's no reason to tear her world apart.
Sam sees Pepper more or less every night for a month. After the first week she starts talking more and crying less. They go to dinner, to the movies, her sister's lacrosse games.
She's charming and delicate and witty. She makes Sam laugh. She's holding his hand while she dances and sings in isle at the midnight viewing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the first genuine smile he's seen on her lips since he's known her. She's beautiful.
She's afraid of everything under the sun; spiders, big dogs, horror movies, meteorites hitting the earth. He can't help but feel a thrill run up his spine when she walks closer to him at night, finding a warm, safe place at his side, under his arm.
"So what about your parents? They don't seem very…run of the mill." Sam asks, watching her fork a bite of salmon. It's their fourth real date and Sam's over the nervous search for topics, he just asks the things he really wants to know. Figures even though he can't share the details of his own life, learning about her is the next best thing.
"They are an odd couple I guess."
"Where's you mother from?"
"Egypt, Cairo, she was born there, moved here with her father when she was a teenager. She's brilliant you know. Went to school for cultural anthropology at Yale, then Cambridge. She's done some amazing things in her life. She went back home to Cairo, lived with an African tribe, spent a year in the Amazon rainforest, things I could never dream of I'm sure. But she came back stateside to teach, met my father, the contractor and decided she wanted a family."
"Wow, she gave it all up?"
"She still teaches at the college, three classes a week. So how 'bout you Sam, any deep, dark family secrets?"
"Umm," Sam nearly chokes on his salad, chuckles awkwardly, wiping his mouth, "Well, my mom died when I was a baby, my dad moved my brother and I around a lot. Pretty much just your average dysfunctional family."
"Where's your dad now?"
"He died a couple years ago."
"I'm sorry."
"Me too."
She works up the nerve to sleep in her own house, first time since her brother died Sam stays with her. They spend most of the night in the kitchen talking about subjects that don't matter; chiefly their mutual love for The Waltons (the best TV show of her youth) and the board game Operation.
"My grandmother left me this house," she explains sitting next to him at the dining room table. "When I first moved in it felt like coming home."
"What's changed?"
Sam's ear perk up when she tells him she thinks it's haunted. "It's strange, Wes loved it here, he'd spend every Friday night with me…I still see him sometimes, you know. When I was here yesterday…it's like I could feel him. And I have these dreams…you probably think I'm nuts huh?"
"You never know." He nods, "But I don't think you're nuts."
Then out of the blue he kisses her for the first time, softly, just the press of his lips, unobtrusive and sweet.
She laughs against his mouth, pulls away and laughs out loud, Sam leans back, confused as she slaps a palm over her mouth. "I'm sorry," she shakes her head and reaches for his hand, "You just make me really happy Sam, that's all. I haven't felt like it was ok to be happy for a long time."
"I know what you mean." Sam smiles, goes in to kiss her again but this time he laughs too.
Sam thinks about her all the time. He talks about her all the time.
"Just get it over with and bang her already will ya?" Dean's rather disgusted by the rather mushy turn in his brother's behavior.
Sam fucks her for the first time in her living room.
He humps her on the front porch, fully clothed, grinding the bulge is his pants into the crotch of her jeans, all up against the front door until the neighbors turn on their porch light and Pepper reaches for the handle.
Once inside, they get as far as her couch.
She sets him up, takes the condom from him, rolls it on his swollen erection and then crawls into his lap. Sam just watches, making little grunts of approval when she reaches for his cock, whole hand around the base and guides the head of his dick into her. She screws her eyes shut, her soft hands grasping at his shoulder as she sinks down on him so slowly, inch by inch until her resolves falters and she plunges down, the tight heat of her taking him in.
He thinks she might be the prettiest thing he's ever seen.
Her whole body does an upward wave, as she whines something unintelligible, kissing him desperately.
"Oh God, Sam" she groans when he pulls at her hips, tightens her down on him. Sam can feel her stretched wide open, the most delicate part of her shivering on his cock and glances down to where he's sunk deep in her cunt.
They both start to move. She kisses him, breaths his name like a mantra while her curvy little hips work back and forth on his dick. Sam fucks up into her in sharp jabs, making her tits bounce, just grazing his chest as she her cunt goes from wet to sloppy, her slick leaking from around him and over both their thighs.
When he grabs her hair, angles her head back and sucks at her neck, she hums. Then when he flips her, she just whines out "Oh Sam…"
He spreads her open underneath him and fucks her. His hips make hallow smacks as he pumps into her fast. He doesn't say a word that first time, just listens to his own grunts, her gasps and the squishes, gooey sounds of sex that seem obscenely loud. It takes everything out of him to stay on task, every ounce of self control not to come like a kid on prom night before he's made sure she's satisfied.
Afterwards he cleans her up. He uses tissue from the end table and she watches as he methodically wipes her thighs clean before the delicate swipe of his fingers over the center of her sex. Then he holds her, soft nude thighs basking open and rubbing his hips. He tells her how much he enjoys her, he tells her that he hasn't wanted anyone as much as he wants her, in a long time.
He almost tells her about Jess.
When he wakes up the next morning they're still on the couch. The absurdly thin quilt he pulled off the arm chair is barely covering her ass and her warm, pretty body is pressed into him while she's breathing into his neck, still calmly in the lull of sleep. It's extraordinarily satisfying.
Sam thinks he could be happy…happy here in this house with her.
The time comes for he and Dean to move on. He's standing on her porch with his backpack slung over his shoulder trying to find the right words for goodbye when she takes his hand and says:
"Stay."
He does.
It's a puzzling process that happens when Sam's not looking. Before he even knows how to define what's going on between them he's living with her.
And then the first year passes.
Winter - 12 months later
After much consideration Pepper decides that Sam is definitely the most consistent liar of all time.
At first he hadn't been as easy to read. Between sweet smiles and soft words he cleverly directed her away from realizing that half of everything he told her was, at the very least, somewhat lie.
He's a painfully private person, she does her best to chip away at his facade, but it's a slow moving process. Every time she thinks they might be getting somewhere an all too convenient interruption springs up, like her mother or his brother or spur of the moment sex. Sam's a quick learner and knows from early on that she's can't keep her thoughts straight when he's slipping his hand up her skirt or nudging his dick in.
However, time passes and she gets better at reading him, more adapt than she lets on.
There are a series of oddities that she chooses to overlook, figures he's just used to certain way of doing things.
So she stops asking questions, she just pretends she's so interested in her book that she doesn't notice him lugging five pound bags of salt from the back door down to the basement. She doesn't say a word when she finds strange symbols drawn on the underside of all her door mats, or when he gives her a little charm to wear around her neck, same as the tattoo on his chest.
There are a number of things about Sam that completely confuse her, he's a conundrum, a mystery she's always a few clues short of solving.
"Sam, you don't have to go. You're not Catholic, the whole thing's in Latin and my father's going to be there…" her voice trails off as she laces up the buttons of her coat.
"I already have the suit on." He grins, searching through the front closet for an overcoat more appropriate than his usual wear. "First off I'm only a little afraid of your father and second, I don't mind. I kinda like St. Matthews. We should start going on Sundays, if you want."
"Really?" Pepper balks, searching through her pockets. "Do you have keys? I don't what I did with mine."
Pepper opens her eyes, glances at him during the recited the liturgy. Sam kneeling beside her, hand on his chest to shield his heart, eyes shut tightly, reciting the words from memory, as her uncle, Father Kingston, leads the mass Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
"Sam," she leans into him as they sit waiting for the pews to empty. "How is it that you know a Roman Catholic Liturgy?"
"It's one of the first things I memorized when I was learning to speak Latin." he rambles absent mindedly, then his eyes go wide like he's just divulged a state secret to a cold war spy. "I mean, when I was a kid I, my dad-"
"Your dad taught you Latin? It's kinda funny I never knew that."
"Why you say that?" Sam's face ticks side to side, Pepper looks at the pulpit thoughtfully.
"Nothing, it's just my mom, she taught when I was kid too. Speaking a dying language doesn't help when you're already the weirdest kid in school."
"Strange school girl huh?" Sam beams a teasing smile, "Post hoc, ergo proctor hoc."
"After it, therefore because of it." Pepper's mother, Shohreh, emerges and sits down next to Sam, her coal black eyes sweeping over both of them. "Very good Sam."
Sam smiles, but he always looks at her mother like she's knows what he's thinking, like he's a bit afraid. He never admits to it.
After a year he still has trouble working her Tivo. However, when the lights in the house flicker for a week while he's away, some sort of random power surge that the repair guy can't figure out, Sam, well Sam fixes the problem by spending twenty minutes in the basement. No tools, no do-it-yourself pamphlet, just him and a flashlight.
Even though he's not catholic when she drags him to Mass he knows the names of every saint not to mention he has a bag full of rosaries she accidentally comes across when she sorting his laundry and he keeps a flask of water in the nightstand next to the bed.
Her mother puts things in perspective, "What do you think he is Pepper? A spy for the Catholic Church? He's just superstitious…and handsome and smart, sweetheart, you have to get over it, they don't make men like that anymore."
Pepper tells Sam early on that she doesn't want any of his "guns and whatnot" in her house.
It's a well established rule. He still tries anyway.
She finds his Mossberg hidden under the bed while she's searching for wrapping paper.
As soon as she hollers "SAM!" down the steps he knows he's in trouble.
"We've has this discussion a thousand times Sam!" She looks like a crazy person standing wobbly in the middle of the bed, wearing a Santa hat and holding the barrel of the shotgun. She's using socks to glove her hands like it's going to burn her if she has direct contact with the metal.
"Calm down, OK. We did, we have talked about it, but I just wanted to have something-"
"You know how I feel about these…these…weapons!" she makes a sour face and waves it at him, "Will you take this from me please. It's making me sick."
"Don't you think you might be overreacting just a little-"
"Not in the house Sam, and sure as hell not under our bed, for God's sake." she huffs indignantly, scrambling off the bed, doing the same kind of frantic dance she does when she walks face first through a spider web.
"But I feel better when I know where-" Sam stifles the urge to throttle her as she cuts him off yet again.
"This isn't Tombstone and you're not Wild Bill Hickok. You don't need a six shooter strapped to your hip when you're walking to the kitchen in your underwear Sam!"
"A six shooter?" Sam throws his head back, holding up the gun, it's the only part of the argument he can concentrate on. "This is a pump-action shotgun."
"Whatever! Name one reason you would need to have a shotgun laying around the house." She cocks her hip to side and crosses her arms.
Sam thinks.
Demons, ghosts, poltergeists, shape shifters, werewolves, disgruntled combatants "Home invasion happens all the time Pepper!" He hollers.
"Oh, come on Sam" She shakes her head like he's the biggest idiot in the world and throws her hands up. "It's just macho bullshit."
"I want to know that I can protect you if I have to!" He yells and his voice cracks. A true statement from Sam, although he doesn't mean for it to come out quite like a pubescent teen.
"You know I saw this thing on 20/20 that said a person is more likely to end up shooting themselves or a loved one instead of the robber. If we're being burgled I'd rather take my chances with 911. You hunt Sam, and you're not even very good at that! Who's to say what would happen if someone actually broke in. I mean it's not like a deer's going to come charging through the dining room windows and from the lack of venison you're bringing home on all those hunting trips I'm not even sure you can hit the broad side of a barn!"
He can't argue any further without getting into a whole other conversation he's not yet prepared to have. Sam frowns followed by a round of steel jawed frustration, rumbling under his breath as he runs both his hands through his hair and huffs a couple heavy breaths. He thinks about chaining her up in the basement and only letting her out for meals.
"Fine, I'll leave them in the shed." He forfeits in a thick, strained voice and lumbers off with slow resentful feet, like someone just stole his birthday cake.
That night when she snakes a thin arm under his shirt and over his stomach he curls away, turns on his side and tells her "Not tonight Pepper, I'm tired."
He swears he hears her giggle, it makes his face flush hot with irritation. Like he's going to have sex with her when she's being so blatantly unreasonable.
He thinks maybe he'll keep it up for a few days, let her know he means business. He'll make it clear that the whole firearm conversation is far from over. He falls asleep begrudging his own instinct and staying on his side of the cold bed.
In the morning when he wakes up he's pressed into her, arms and legs weaving around her from behind. His first thought is boner. He pulls back from her, wiping his eyes and look at the clock. It blinks back in angry red numbers, 6:22am. Sam's only half awake when he palms his erection through his sweats and Pepper's even less coherent when he tugs down her panties.
"Morning baby" she mumbles groggy, eyes still closed and head rolling to the side. She makes a little purring noise when he jostles her onto her back and slips his fingers between her legs. Checking. She's always a little wet, and this is no exception.
In the mornings Sam likes the slow, sleepy sex. He rolls heavy between her legs and yanks his sweatpants down enough to let his cock free. She still has her eyes shut when he pushes into her, watches her face tighten as her body stretches for him, perfect friction as his dick slides deep, makes his whole body go hot. He wishes she was naked but as a fair compromise pushes up her tank top and nuzzles her breasts, sucks thoughtfully at a hard nipple, before bracing himself, fucking her lazy and deep. She just sighs softly when at the feel of him.
He really enjoys the idea of fucking them both awake.
Sam pushes into her leisurely until her eyes blink open for the first time, grabs at his biceps with both hands, eyes batting wildly and moaning as her legs hitch wider for him. She gets a look at his face and her eyes fall shut again, tipping her head back, "God, Sam, harder please, please just a little."
"Yeah?" he grunts and pushes himself forward, just a little bit harder. He knows full well it's not enough. "Like that?" He urges and goes back to his relaxed pace.
"Come on, harder, Sam…" she drones, dragging out his name with her whine.
"Shhhh," he's teasing her, knows it drives her crazy. He grinds all the way into her, her body taking him deep and fucking her with sharp jabs, hardly pulling out, a couple rough shallow fucks that made her nails dig into his arm and then back to the slowness of before. He can feel her wriggling under him, frustrated and needy.
"Please," she begs again but then resorts to bargaining, the kind of words that get him every time "I'll be good for you, just the way you like it. Want you to…" He thrusts into her harshly, her eyes burst wide and she shrieks his name with the ach of her back. "Sam, just like that, Jesus…like that, like that."
He gives it to her just the way she wants and grits into her ear "Like that?" Pepper makes frail, muted whispers, little noises that get stuck in the back of her throat. Sam flushes when she makes those sounds, loves those sounds, his whole body starts to hum hot and generates this feeling of power like he's strong and big and she can't live with him.
He can feel her hands at his back now, pulling him down to her. Her body rocking with him, still waking up but wanting more. He gives her what she wants.
"So good like that" she whispers as she comes apart around him, pulsing and pulling as he hurries to his own end.