FIRE AND WATER
Dean Winchester was sat in a non-descript bar about a half hour outside of Sioux Falls, cradling a beer bottle in his hands with a blank look on his face. He'd just torched a nest of vampires in the warehouse district downtown, and he for one thought he thoroughly deserved the cold amber nectar trickling down his throat. There'd been more of them than he'd anticipated; if he was being honest with himself it was probably a miracle he wasn't halfway to becoming one of the undead by now. Definitely should have been a two man job. Dean grimaced as he realised that was no longer an option. He understood that Sam had to make his own choices, but he never considered that they would lead him away from the hunter's life. He never considered that they would lead Sammy away from Dean.
Dean had nearly spat out his coffee when Sam had announced his intentions over breakfast on their way to a job in Wisconsin. It took him a few seconds to form an answer.
"You want to do what now, Sammy?" Dean said, wiping the coffee drool from his tie and looking anywhere but at his brother's stupid moosey face.
"I'm going back to college, Dean. I called my old professor and he's swung it for me to pick up where I left off. I get a scholarship and everything, just like before," Sam said. He had a steely look of determination on his face; he was expecting a fight from Dean over this.
Dean stared at his brother for what, to Sam at least, seemed like a lifetime. His green eyes probing Sam's face looking for the reason behind his decision or a crack in his resolve. Of course he didn't want Sammy to go back to Stanford. He didn't care that it was selfish to want Sammy to stay with him. He was the only family he had left and he sure as hell didn't want to have him across the other side of the country. Yet he knew how much it had taken Sam to leave college in the first place, with a worried and petulant Dean turning up on his doorstep in the middle of the night to tell him about their Dad going missing. He knew that Sam had wanted out of the hunter's lifestyle since he was a kid, and it was Dean's fault he'd been dragged back into it. He'd be damned if he tried to force Sam to stay in it when he so obviously wanted out.
"You're sure that's what you want?" Dean asked him quietly, never taking his eyes off Sam's, which were now wide open with shock.
"I...erm...yeah Dean, it's what I want," Sam admitted. "Since I got my soul back, since I learned how to want things again...this is all I've thought about." His look was apologetic now, the determination gone when he realised Dean wasn't going to ask him to stay.
"Well you better have a bed for me then Sammy, I don't do sleeping on the floor these days. Too old for that," Dean joked, his eyes crinkling up at the corners and hiding the deep sadness he felt at the prospect of being alone again. Being without his brother again.
So Dean had put a brave face on it, clapping a hand on his much bigger little brother's shoulder before pulling him in for a hug. Waved him off with promises of phone calls and visits and 'call me if you need anything' and watched his car disappear into the distance. Truth be told, he felt almost naked without Sam's long legs filling up the passenger side of the Impala as he drove in the opposite direction to another case in another small time town.
That had been almost three months ago and Dean had barely let himself think about Sam since. He just looked for jobs and worked jobs and drank in an endless cycle, replying to Sam's numerous texts and voicemails when he had enough alcohol in his system to even slightly convince Sam that he was okay. Part of him was enjoying the solitude and only having to look out for himself during a job; he'd have to be an idiot not to acknowledge that his need to ensure Sammy's safety dimmed his effectiveness on a hunt somewhat. The larger part of him, however, was desperately and embarrassingly lonely. He'd bedded his fair share of women in the three months Sam had been back at college, but a stranger's alien warmth in a strange motel bed was only comforting for about half an hour before Dean was itching to be rid of them. He needed companionship, not a hook up. He knew he was damaged goods though, too much crazy in his head to be any good to anybody in the long run, so he mostly kept himself to himself apart from the occasional drunken conquest in a bar.
Talking of drunk, Dean had finished his beer without realising. He signalled to the bartender for another one and took a quick look around the bar. There was the usual clientele of a place like this, drunken locals and a few community college kids, the occasional couple and a few solitary men staring daggers into their beers. Dean cringed inwardly as he realised he was probably classed as one of the latter. His beer arrived and he turned in his seat to face away from the bar. He hadn't noticed on his first scan of the room but there was a girl in the far corner, standing on a make shift stage with a guitar and a microphone. She'd been playing the whole time Dean had been in the bar, but he'd assumed it was just a CD playing through the sound system.
Dean found himself leaning in her direction, still not really listening to what she was playing. Her hair was a mess of waves that fell down to the middle of her chest, a rich chestnut brown that shone with copper streaks in the harsh lighting she was playing under. She paused her fingers plucking at the strings to tuck a stray strand of it behind her ear and then went back to playing seamlessly, as if it was second nature to her. She had big, expressive eyes that closed and half closed and then opened again throughout the song as she felt the music she was playing. Dean noticed she was short; she was almost tiptoeing to reach her rose coloured lips to the microphone. She was swaying her hourglass figure to the slow tempo of the song and her curves seemed to be threatening to spill out of her tight jeans and even tighter plaid shirt. It didn't look bad though. In fact, Dean found himself wondering what she would look like spilling out of those clothes and into his bed...
He stopped that train of thought dead in its tracks and took a long swig of his beer. He didn't need another awkward morning of small talk before he made his excuses to get her to leave so he could shower and leave himself. He was planning to get out of Sioux Falls early tomorrow morning anyway; memories of Bobby were still a little too raw to stick around. Anyway, he could still enjoy her music even if he couldn't enjoy the delightful woman playing it.
She finished a song and smiled gratefully at the small round of applause that came from the people who were actually paying attention. Her smile pulled at something in Dean's stomach and he had to order another beer before he could think too much about what the hell that meant. She herself took a swig of the beer she had perched on a bar stool behind her and stepped back up to the microphone.
"Thanks for listening, you guys have been awesome. This is gonna be my last song tonight, and it's one some of you might know. Thanks again," she husked in a low voice, like velvet lined with cigarette smoke. Dean swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. He waited expectantly, eagerly, for her to start singing again. She played a few chords, deep bass notes resonating in Dean's ears in a way that was somehow familiar...he recognised this song. But where from?
"Every single day, I got a heartache comin' my way," the mysterious girl sang, her husky voice sending a not entirely unpleasant shiver down Dean's spine that ran straight down to somewhere he was not expecting. He tried to shake himself out of it, but he couldn't take his eyes off of those perfect lips wrapping themselves around the head of the microphone.
"Fire and water must have made you their daughter, you got what it takes to make a poor man's heart break," she sang, throwing her head back as her voice got louder and moving her hips almost imperceptibly behind her guitar.
Dean's impending erection was momentarily stilled as he realised where he knew this song from. It was 'Fire and Water' by Free. He was thrown back to being a little kid, sitting in the backseat of the Impala when his legs weren't even long enough to touch the floor properly. Sammy was next to him, gurgling nonsense to himself and laughing at Dean pulling faces behind his Dad's back. John Winchester had sighed affectionately at his two boys, watching them in the rear view mirror as he cranked up the radio a little bit louder. Fire and water must have made you their daughter...
Dean shook himself back to the here and now and realised the song had ended. He clapped, open mouthed and staring like an idiot. He watched, immobilised, as she nodded her thanks to her small crowd and packed up her guitar. Swigging the last dregs of her beer, she waved to the bartender and walked out of the door into the chill of the Indiana night. He swung back to face the bar, giving himself a stern internal talking to. She's just a girl in a bar, dammit. A girl with a voice like the first cigarette after damn good sex, but still just a girl in a bar.
The bartender managed to get Dean's attention long enough to enquire if he wanted another drink, but Dean declined. All of a sudden he was talking and he wasn't aware of asking his brain to let him.
"Hey dude, that girl who was singing? When's she gonna be back again?" Dean asked, trying to appear nonchalant and failing miserably.
"She's playing again tomorrow night I think, before she moves on to play in another town. Tends to kick off around nine," the bartender replied, smiling at Dean before moving off to serve another customer.
Back at his bleak motel room and reclining fully clothed on the synthetic scratchy double bed spread, Dean was trying and failing to get his mind to think about anything at all that wasn't the way the girl's lips had caressed the microphone like a lover. Tried to think about anything at all that wasn't the way her hands had moved so deftly and confidently, yet so softly over the solid wood of her fret board. Before he knew what he was doing he was imagining how those hands would feel gliding just as expertly over the taut skin of his back, his jaw, his chest. How those lips would feel caressing his, what his name would sound like rolling off her tongue in a quiet moan of pleasure...
He'd unbuckled his belt and popped open the button on his jeans without even registering the sizable hard-on already waiting for him. As he took the smooth, hot skin into his hand and started to move it slowly up and down, wishing it was her hands instead, he made himself swear to go back to the bar tomorrow night and talk to her. Fuck it, he thought, what's another hook up? He sure as hell needed to get this out of system before it got any worse.
His mind flashed with images of his mysterious girl in various different positions underneath him, head thrown back in pleasure with his name on her lips in a constant chant that almost became a song. It was too much for Dean and he came hard, a small 'Fuck, ah' falling out of his mouth as he did so. Exhausted, he cleaned himself up with his shirt and fell back on to the pillows, humming a few bars of that song as he drifted off into a restless sleep.