Disclaimer: I don't own it. But, oh wow, if I did… I do however own the poem at the bottom, so if you use it somewhere else, credit would be nice. Or I'll totally crack you kneecaps with my mad ninja skillz.
Author's Rant: I'm a bad person. I know I haven't updated anything in freaking forever, but to be honest, RL is kicking my arse right now. Exams and final assignments are coming up (again), and my Godson is due any freaking day now – which is just blowing my mind.
Anyway, here's a little Clothesline ficlet to tide over those following the 'verse. This takes place in some theoretical future, in which the boys are back on the road, still looking for a fix for Dean's Deal, Peg doesn't know, but they come and see her on and off.
Be warned, there's fluff.
My Side, Your Side
Late nights at the office suck.
Even when you love your job, work with a (mostly) great bunch of people and are slowly but surely achieving your dreams…late nights at the fucking office just suck.
Peggy feels like her eyes have been sandpapered and a few switches have been flipped the wrong way in some rather crucial parts of her brain. She barely gets back to her apartment in one piece (LA's motorists are not the most forgiving, even, or maybe especially, at eleven at night) and is pathetically grateful that the building's elevator is working for once.
Four flights of stairs at this point may actually kill her.
It's a minor miracle that she gets the key in the door on the first try and doesn't trip over the various shoes that live scattered at the threshold as she toes off her sandals. She doesn't actually register that some of those shoes are big, brown, leather boots that clearly aren't hers…
Her bag lands with a soft thump on the breakfast bar-cum-kitchen island, which is where she finds a blue post-it with Dean's easily identifiable scrawl across it in black sharpie.
Hey Peg-leg,
Just got in. Sorry we're late. Sam's crashed, I'll be back later with take out.
Dean.
Peggy closes her eyes, smiling.
So they did get in okay. Thank God…
She folds the note up and peers about the dark apartment, looking for the younger Winchester. He's not in the main living area, which leaves either the spare bedroom or the bathroom. Since both rooms are dark, he's probably doing just what Dean's note suggests and is snoring his head off in the spare.
Peggy smiles again at the thought.
Mmm, sleep…
She knows she won't get much – her head is on fire from the writers meeting – but she'll at least try for a quick snooze before Dean tools on back with food.
She pads into her room, has shucked her jacket and is halfway through the fly on her jeans before she realizes that something is different.
Namely, Sam Winchester is currently sprawled across her bed.
He's in jeans and a t-shirt, and deeply asleep.
But still.
Ohmygodyay.
Peggy stills for moment and just looks at him.
He is quite honestly sprawled all over her bed, arms flung wide with one hand grazing the carpet and the other curled in her sheets. His left sock is about to come off and he's managed to kick most of the duvet off the mattress.
She finds herself tracing his face with her eyes; his hair a dark, disarrayed fan of chestnut over her pillows, loving the brushstrokes of his eyelashes, the five-o'clock shadow and – oh, Sam – she has to smile when she sees that he's half-squashed his nose against the pillow.
She sighs.
She missed him.
Peggy strips her jeans the rest of the way off, tossing them in the general direction of her closet, and digs a pair of cotton shorts out of her tallboy. Slipping them on, she wonders how she's going to get Sam to only take up one side of the bed instead of one-and-a-half. This is quite the issue, seeing as how the guy is six-four and built like a brick shithouse.
She settles for nudging an arm and a leg out of the way and then doing some sprawling of her own.
In seconds, she's out.
Of course, she comes to not ten minutes later (so the bedside clock tells her).
For someone who has spent the entire time they've known each other nobly avoiding the stage beyond friendship, Sam sure does move fast.
He has somehow, in his sleep, managed to not only discover that she's lying next to him, but then proceed to impersonate an octopus and wind every limb he owns around her.
Umm…
At this point, it might be prudent to give up on the whole sleep thing and just wait on the couch for Dean to get back with what will hopefully be Thai food…but that would involve moving – which she's not sure she can really do right now, because wow that boy's got quite the grip on her.
She wriggles a little experimentally, only for Sam to mutter something in his sleep and simultaneously tighten each entrapping limb.
"Well, fudge," mutters Peggy.
She waits a bit before trying again, but the results are not encouraging. Sam's grip tightens even further, and she's really frigging snug now, though not uncomfortably, but so much so that there's really no way of slipping out of his grasp. Not unless it involves serious acrobatics or waking him up.
Which would be awkward…or potentially interesting…but in no way a situation to explore when Dean could arrive back at any moment.
Peggy heaves a resigned sigh. "You win," she murmurs to Sam.
Tilting her body towards him, she lays her arm along his where it's wrapped about her waist and smiles when she feels the white elephant bead tied to his wrist, warm and smooth against the skin of her forearm. Her opposite hand tangles seemingly of its own accord in his shirt.
She drifts back to sleep with the feel of his breath on her scalp and the scent of him filling her lungs.
When she dreams, it'll be of open skies, and open roads, and the sound of his voice in her ears…
So if you should come back
Back across the sea
Remember, this door is always open
So please come back to me