A/N - *****WARNING**** Sexual situation and language *** Adults only, please
Firefly – Chapter 8
By: Suz Mc
Sam had lost himself in Calley Rail's life. He'd printed out enough paper to cover the pool table in the bar and what he'd put together was a combination of sad, happy, and savagely terrifying. At first, he'd thought Calley had a charmed life that went bad only to find out it had been a rough life with a few shots of happiness thrown in between the disasters.
The research seemed to point in a dangerous direction. He hoped he was wrong. He knew he wasn't.
The familiar rumble of a V8 engine startled Sam from his pile of papers. Dean was back and it was time to get on with the job. He didn't really need to stretch his legs but it was a good excuse to leave his makeshift desk and walk over to the window.
Dean was holding the backdoor of the Impala open wide for Emily to crawl out. Both of them looked tired and worn. They walked side by side, their bodies giving the appearance of two soldiers coming off the battlefield. Dean's face was tight and a little more pale than usual. Emily's head was down, looking at the ground as she walked with just enough energy to pick up her feet. Halfway to the building, Emily reached up and took hold of Dean's fingers. It wasn't a tightly bonded mesh of fingers, just a slight connection, like she was just making sure he was still there. Dean's hand was open and loose as if careful not to squeeze back and have her reject his touch.
Sam pulled the door open, letting Dean, Emily, and Ellen come into the bar. "Hey, how'd it go?" Sam asked, as Dean guided Emily past him.
"She's gonna be fine. Toughest princess I know," Dean said, reaching to touch Emily's head but barely brushing against her hair.
Sam crouched down in front of her. "That's great, Emily. You must be a better patient than this guy. He gets so cranky hospitals all over the country have warning posters up about him."
"Or wanted posters," Dean said with a half-laugh to go with it.
Emily just stared at Sam with her eyelids half open, too tired to keep standing much longer.
"Let's go talk to Jake a minute about some bar business and let you get a nap, Sweetie," Ellen said, guiding Emily toward her office.
"See you later, Cutie," Dean said, keeping a smile until the office door closed behind the two of them. As it snapped shut, the smile fell off his face and he walked directly to the bar.
"You look like hell, Dean. What happened?" Sam followed Dean to the bar, concerned by the abrupt change in his demeanor.
Dean took a long draw from his beer and set it on the bar with a loud crack. "She has a handprint burned onto her arm."
"What?"
"A hand, Sam," Dean said, putting his own hand on his forearm in the exact position of Emily's wound. "Right here. Somebody was on fire and fried her skin with their fucking burning fingers." He took another drink, his breath coming in sharper and sharper bites.
"I'm so sorry, Dean. That's horrible." Sam watched his brother drain the longneck bottle and reach for another. "Is she going to be okay? What did the doctor say?"
"If she could make a sound, she'd have been screaming her head off today," Dean said, ignoring the question. "You know how bad it hurts to treat a burn like that? They practically have to scrape it. Even the bandage coming off hurts."
Emily's pain was part of Dean and he was still feeling it. "Is it getting better?" Sam asked, then grabbed his own beer and took a drink. Thinking about Emily's tiny arm being branded by a burning hand put a knot in his gut. Grown men had a hard time with torture like that. How could a four-year-old stand it?
Focusing a bit more on the conversation, Dean said, "The doctor said her lungs were good and the wound's healing but she's going to need plastic surgery and even then she's probably going to be scarred for life."
Still keeping a tight grip on the beer bottle, he came out from behind the bar. "You know, she landed a few good shots on the three grown ups who were trying to hold her down. Nearly kicked the doctor in the head." He found a chair beside the pool table, and dropped down heavily. "Emily packs a wallop with those skinny legs. When she's old enough to train, look out."
Train. That was a John Winchester word. Sam had heard it every day he'd spent with his father. "Wait till you're old enough to train, Sammy." It sent a cold chill down his back.
"Old enough to train, Dean? Are you serious?"
"Don't look at me like that, Mike Brady," Dean said, exhaustion giving away to annoyance. "You know she'll have to train and learn everything we know."
"Great!" Sam shoved a chair out of his way and paced a few steps away from his brother. "Congratulations, Dean! You officially sound like a dad, OUR dad."
"I AM NOT LIKE DAD!" Dean leapt to his feet, following Sam across the room. By the time he got to Sam, he'd burned through half of his furious energy. Looking up into his brother's face, he said, "I'm not. I hope she never joins the hunt, but the hunt's already found her. It's done. If I don't teach her what she needs to survive, I might as well sign her death warrant and you know it!"
John Winchester's voice was pouring out of Dean's mouth, using the same justifications their dad had used to tie them to a rootless life of hunting. Sam was about to amp up the argument with lists of reasons why no kid should grow up the way they did when Dean cut him off mid-thought.
"Why the hell are you trying to take this away from me, Sam?" Dean was standing in front of him and looking not like a man ready for a fight but like any vulnerable human being on the verge of losing the one thing that he held dear. "I've spent my whole freakin' life trying to keep you and Dad and a thousand other people from getting hurt. Why don't you want Emily to be my daughter? Explain that to me. You think I'm not good enough to be her father? Is that it?" Dean said, his voice filled more with pain than anger.
"I'm trying to keep you and Emily from being hurt, Dean," Sam said, forcing his tone to change. Usually, he had to fight things out with Dean. There were no calm discussions. They battled through pros and cons and landed busted up somewhere in the middle. This time Sam didn't have the heart to slug it out with him. Dean was busted up enough already.
"Then leave it alone. Let me have her. Let me have this," Dean's voice had a pleading sound he hadn't used in years. It was the same sound Sam had heard him use when trying to keep him from leaving for Stanford. The face was older, but the sound was the same.
Sam leaned back against the wall, lessening his height advantage over Dean. He took a long drink from the beer bottle and answered. "Dean, I know you'd be a good father to that little girl. Hell, you were a good father when you were a kid. I know that. I just don't understand why you don't want the proof that will protect you both."
"All I need is to be is a dad to that little girl, Sammy. That's it," Dean answered, sinking down into a nearby chair. "I'm not going to screw it up. I'm going to do it right." His voice took on an almost begging quality, as if desperate for Sam's approval, for his blessing.
"That's what Dad thought he was doing, too," Sam said, pulling over a chair to sit beside his brother.
"I know what went wrong for us. I do. But why does it have to be all or nothing?" Dean leaned over, resting his elbows on his knees, the beer bottle dangling from his fingertips getting his full attention. "Today, when Emily was in pain and fighting those people, she needed me. I showed her the hand on my shoulder and she calmed down because she knows that I know how she's hurting. No one else could know that. This is what I'm supposed to do, Sam. I know it. I'm supposed to be her dad and I'm not going to screw her up, I swear I won't. I'll find a way to do this."
Sam could count in single digits the times Dean Winchester had bared his insides for his brother's viewing. His damaged self image, his recurring doubt in his own value was right there, laid out between the pool tables. Their dad had done that to him. Maybe Sam had helped him do it.
"I don't want to take her away from you, Dean. I just don't want anyone else to show up with better proof than a birth certificate and take her away from you three or five or ten years down the road," Sam said, watching Dean stare at the floor. "I'm not trying to hurt you, I swear."
Dean nodded, accepting Sam's explanation. "Then tell me you've found out who I need to kill so Emily will be safe and we can get on with this family."
Sam got up from his chair, understanding that Dean had jammed a bookmark into their discussion and he wouldn't be reopening it any time soon. Moving over to the pool table that held a day's worth of research, Sam said, "I did what we always do. Started with the victim."
Dean went with him to the table, following the photographic outline Sam had pieced together of Calley Rail's life. Dean picked up a society page photo of a very well dressed family at a formal event. "This her family?" he asked, scrutinizing the photograph.
"Sort of," Sam said, handing Dean a print out of an obituary. "Calley's parents were high school teachers, never very financially secure. They were killed in a car accident when she was ten and her father's brother, Landon Rail took her in."
"I'm guessing these guys weren't high school teachers?"
"Nope," Sam said, pointing out the man in the photograph. "Landon Rail is the owner of Rail Drilling in Houston. Think Ewings, dripping money, all living together in some big ass mansion. They took Calley in, all right, but you won't see her in any of the family photos, society pages, or magazine articles. It's like she's not really family, if you get my drift."
"I get it," Dean said, his voice a bit harder than before. "Wouldn't let people say they dumped her on the street but she was just tolerated, huh?"
"Looks like it," Sam handed him Calley's school records. "No sign of trouble from her, though, until she was sixteen. Then we have this."
Dean took the printout from the Houston newspaper. "Tragic Natural Gas Explosion Kills Two Local Teens," he read aloud. Scanning the article, he reached then end. "It says Calley and Lindsey Deaton were the only survivors."
"Lindsey Deaton who drove Emily here from Austin." Sam sat down, firing his laptop to life. "There was no investigation into the explosion that I could find. Blew up the basement of this house and then it just disappears from the radar. After that, Calley was shipped off to Our Lady of Perpetual Disappearance boarding school. Once she turned eighteen, she left them all behind and turned up in Austin."
The screen rolled out a website for the Backstreet Art Gallery in Austin, Texas. "She was an artist?" Dean leaned over Sam's shoulder and rubbed his finger over the trackpad, clicking on the name 'Calley Rail' to bring up her display.
"And a very successful one, at that. Austin has a hot artistic community and Calley's career took off. Seems now that she's dead, her work is in even higher demand."
Dean was scrolling through images listed under "Work of the Late Calley Rail." The majority of the paintings were of people, studies of faces and bodies, most in motion, most in bright, thick colors that reached off the canvas. Many of the paintings were of Emily from the time she was an infant to some that looked more recent. "Emily colors like Calley's paintings. I mean, with the heavy colors and strokes."
"You could have been an art critic, dude," Sam said, taking over the trackpad to redirect the website to another page.
"Hey, I can spot a good Velvet Elvis from a bad one with the best of 'em," Dean kept rolling through the paintings, looking at Emily's face through Calley's eyes. Her little face was always surrounded by light, always smiling or laughing. He had yet to see her do either and couldn't help but wonder if she ever would again.
"This is off the subject, but this gallery is selling Calley's paintings for a fortune and Emily should get that money," Sam said, clicking on the prices below each painting.
"Damn," Dean said, a low whistle emphasizing his shock. "One of these could send her to college."
"I sent an email to a friend of mine who's in a law practice in San Diego. I asked him to contact the gallery and let them know he was setting up a trust for Emily. I told him she might still be in danger so we weren't disclosing her location right now," Sam said, noting the surprised look Dean shot him. "I hope you don't mind. I thought we should look out for her best interest."
"No, I don't mind," Dean said, quickly looking back at the screen. "Good thing I have college boy to think of that stuff." He was still studying the paintings, when he found a photograph of Calley at her last opening. It had been a year ago. She was in a bright yellow dress, flowing almost to the floor. Hair long and loose. Wine glass in her hand. She was laughing with a few other people with Emily at her side. They were normal, nice, happy people. "Sam, how does this girl, the girl who paints these pictures, end up in a hunter bar like Getty's? With me? I don't usually attract the art gallery wine tasting type."
He was about to get to the darker part of the presentation. Sam knew what he saw in the next paintings, but he was going to let Dean come to the conclusions himself.
"Artists tell you their stories in their work. I think that's what Calley did." Sam moved on to a separate section of the gallery's website. "These are the most sought after painting in Calley's collection. They're different from the others." Before Sam opened the files, he turned to Dean. "Calley's life seemed to be going fine until the summer of '07. Some of her friends filed a missing persons report on her in August."
"Where did they find her? What happened to her?"
"She was nowhere to be found until mid-October when she just showed up back in Austin. The case was closed with no further investigation," Sam said, opening the new files. "From that time until Emily was born, she painted these. They call them her "Smoke Period.'"
There were ten paintings displayed on the page. Each had the same heavy strokes and three dimensional texture as Calley's other works but all were in shades of gray and dark blue, no bright sunlight, no happiness. Billowing, heavy smoke rolled across each canvas, circling all of the images. Dean rocked back in his chair, taking in the story Calley was telling them.
"You recognize that?" Sam asked, waiting for Dean to get to the same destination.
"Demon smoke," he said, almost whispering to himself. "She couldn't paint it that way if she hadn't seen it." His eyes were glued to the screen, soaking in every image.
"She's telling everyone what happened, even if no one can understand," Sam leaned closer to Dean, lowering his voice. "Just like Emily with the coloring book."
"Wait. Enlarge that one," Dean pointed toward the second painting in the series. Suddenly, an image filled the scene. Pool tables. The backs of several people with their faces obscured. One figure was hunched across the table, pool cue pulled back ready to break. The waves of smoke billowed around him, piling up around his waist.
"That's Getty's. See the busted mirror on the wall? That happened the night I was there. A guy scratched and popped the cue ball into the glass." Dean took in a sharp breath, his eyes darting around at nothing. "Go to the next one."
"Do you remember something?" Sam asked, moving quickly to the next page.
The third painting in the series bled across the screen and Dean shot up out of his chair, grabbing a photo of Calley from the table. He looked back and forth from the new image to the photo, horror taking over his face.
"What are you remembering, Dean?"
"Oh shit. Oh God," he said over and over as he stared at the screen.
This painting took on a darker, more violent tone. In the center of the canvas were the hands of a woman, bound together with rope and tied to what looked like the headboard of a bed. The hands and fingers appeared to be struggling and tense with the rope cutting into the flesh. Black curls of smoke framed the bound wrists and hands, swallowing them. It was a terrifying image of bondage and if that was demon smoke…
Dean was backing away from the computer, from the table, from all of Calley's life spread out for their inspection.
"Dean? What's the matter? Talk to me," Sam was on his feet, reaching out to his brother who looked like he was on the verge of explosion.
"It's her…damnit…I mean, she didn't look like this. She was different. It was her face, her body, but…oh shit what did I do?" Dean let the photograph of Calley fall to the floor and headed toward the front door.
"Dean, wait! Talk to me!" Sam shouted, having to double his strides to catch up.
"Not in here, damnit. Not while she's in there sleeping," he said, pointing toward Ellen's office where his newly acquired daughter was napping. "Not here."
Dean stormed out through the front door of the bar, pounding his way into the sunshine. When he reached the back of the Impala, he stopped, slamming both hands against the trunk. When Sam caught up to Dean, his brother's face was bone white and he was gulping in air.
Sam put both hands on Dean's shoulders only to have him jerk away. "Tell me what you remember."
"This is bad, Sam." His head was bent over, nearly touching the metal. "Awesomely bad. Unbelievably, totally bad."
Sam reached out again and was shocked to feel the tremble radiating through Dean's body. "If we're going to get to the bottom of what killed Calley, of what may be after your daughter, you have to tell me how you know this woman."
Shoving himself off of the vehicle, Dean turned toward Sam but wouldn't look him in the eye. "You swear to me you'll never tell anyone. Swear to me that little girl—" he swallowed a break in his voice, "—is never going to hear this."
"I swear."
Sinking back against the car, Dean took a long breath and closed his eyes against his brother's stare and started talking.
%%%
Getty's Bar, Beaumont, Texas,
September 2007
The night had started out like total crap but things were looking up. Dean leaned on his pool stick, watching a sucker slide into his pool hustler's trap. He was about five minutes from a big enough payoff to sit back and enjoy the rest of the night. His buzz was kicking in big time and Dean Winchester was going to get paid, then laid, in that order.
The other player scratched, sending the cue ball flying into a Budweiser mirror on the wall. Dean stifled his laughter. No need to rub the guy's face in it. He was about to be broke, no need to humiliate him. Humiliated losers tended to start fights when the time came to pay up. Famous words from John Winchester, master pool hustler.
Sam had tried to drag him to Baton Rouge to that stupid hoodoo priestess. They'd fought for hundreds of miles and after a few punches were thrown, little brother had shoved him out of the car in front of Getty's and told him he'd be back the next day. Sam was so freakin' stubborn that he wasn't listening. The deal couldn't be broken and if it was, Sam was back to rotting meat in no time. That was what the bitch had said and she hadn't stuttered.
Before he took his place at the table, a soft hand wrapped around his waist. "You want another shot, Sugar?" She was snuggled up against his back, one hand holding onto his belt buckle and the other giving him a shot glass.
"Baby, you were reading my mind," Dean said, throwing back the tequila and putting the glass back in her hand. "Damn! I love Texas!" Tequila with a girl in a short skirt and cowboy boots. It was enough to make him heart Texas forever.
"I guess I'm your lucky charm, Dean," she whispered, sliding under his arm.
Quickly, he grabbed her around the waist and popped her up on the edge of the table. Before he could get there first, she'd slammed her mouth against his, tongue tasting like a hot margarita. When he pulled back, he was laughing. "And you're magically delicious, too, Baby."
"Hey, dude!" Dean's soon to be broke pool friend was getting annoyed. "Save that for the room and get back to the game!"
"I think he's anxious to get his ass kicked, don't you?"
"Kick it."
Dean moved away, reluctantly, and took his shot at the table. Sam and his buzz-kill self was long gone on his waste of time hunt and Dean was free to run the table then do right by the little blonde who had kept rubbing against him all night. Three more balls and he'd be finished.
He'd stopped worrying about Hell four tequila shots ago when this hot girl had strolled over and sat on his lap. She wouldn't give him her name so he was calling her Baby. It suited her. Baby had the perfect combination of nice-girl-gone-bad that was his ultimate turn on. She was tiny, but had the rack he liked, long blonde hair he could already feel running through his hands, and bare legs with boots. Damn, he might spend the next year right here in this bar.
Dean defeated his opponent and quickly collected his money before anyone could figure out they'd been had then headed for the back of the bar where it was nice and dark and loud.
"Bring the bottle, Baby."
The girl followed, making one stop at the jukebox. She made it to his lap just as "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy" blasted out into the smoky room. She straddled him, she putting the bottle up to his lips and he gulped it down. The sting made his insides numb. Dean wanted his insides icy numb and he wanted his outsides on fire.
"You a cowboy, Dean Winchester?" She didn't give him time for a witty answer before her tongue took the place of the bottle. Wet girl was grinding against his zipper and his hand tangled up in her hair, just like he'd been thinking about. The other hand slid up her leg, finding nothing but skin under her skirt.
"I am tonight," he said, when he finally managed to pull his mouth away.
She was all over him and he hadn't even really tried. All of a sudden, she was just there, making his ego explode, looking sweet and acting nasty. He instantly knew this girl was synced up with his mood. He hung onto the last few rational thoughts he had that weren't being strangled by her crotch rubbing on his, and pulled her back.
"How 'bout we take this somewhere private?" Dean whispered into her ear, rubbing his hand across that sweet spot where her shirt didn't quite meet the top of her skirt.
In between kisses, she groaned back at him, "Bring the bottle, I might want to eat the worm."
He laughed as he got up and put her feet on the floor. His buzz had revved up to a level that made him glad the motel was just across the street.
She fit right under his arm and she slid her hand into his pocket as they walked. They were tangled up together, trying not to stumble in the dark as they crossed the street. Weird gaps in consciousness were scrambling his sense of time and suddenly he had the girl backed up against the hotel room door, trying to jam the key into the lock.
She was jerking his shirt out of his pants and he wanted the damn door to open so he could get both hands on her. When the door finally snapped open, he had to grab her body closer to his to keep them both from hitting the floor.
Nails clawed against his skin and he kicked the door shut. She slid down his body and Dean fell back against the door. Belt gone. Fly open. Red hot cowgirl mouth wrapped around his hard on. No Hell looming in front of him, just hungry girl sucking him dry.
"Baby..." He felt the words dripping out of his mouth and he felt better than he had in days. Muscles were tightening all over his body.
Then she stopped.
The cold air hit against him and he was desperate to have her back on him. Then she was, leaning against his body. Shirt gone. Warm tits pressed against his chest. He shivered as tiny hands shoved his pants to the floor and he stripped off his shirt to be skin to skin with her.
Blinding lust clawed though his mind, leaving only instinct. He picked up her legs, wrapping her around his waist, digging his fingers into her. The bed was close. If he could just keep moving, he'd get there.
Pain. It was ice against his back as she dug sharp nails into him. Pain made his body come alive and he told her to dig harder. His legs banged into the bed and they landed, writhing hot against the mattress. She was talking but he couldn't understand, then she shoved his hand into the pocket of her skirt where it was bunched at her waist. A length of rope tangled in his fingers and he pulled it out.
The rope was thin but rough and it scraped against her skin as he dragged it from her pocket. "This for you or me?"
"Please, baby, I need it this way," she begged, pulling her arms over her head and holding thin wrists together. "You can do whatever you want, just tie me…please."
He'd always been a partner who aimed to please and he was hoping he wasn't too drunk to tie knots. "You sure?"
"Please do it."
At first, he wrapped her wrists loose, most girls just wanted to play at it anyway. Then she started begging and pleading for it to be tighter. "Make it burn, please, baby," she said, grinding against him so he couldn't say no if he wanted to. The tighter he pulled the rope, the more she responded.
When he was finished, Dean looped the end through a hole in the headboard and stretched out beside her. "If it hurts, you tell me," he whispered and started licking his way down her neck.
"I want the hurt. I want it."
The more she talked, the harder it was to think. He gave up thinking. He didn't want to think, just feel. Her skin was hot and clean on his tongue and he wanted to swallow her. One hard nipple in his mouth felt so good between his teeth and when he bit down she bucked like a wild horse. She was begging him to grab and bite and suck her harder and his ears were ringing with the tequila and her voice.
Smooth thighs were rubbing against his and he felt the boots she was still wearing scrape against his legs.
"Fuck me, baby. Hard. Do it!"
He had her waist in his hands, moving her to suit his angle. His fingers almost touched and his booze soaked brain remembered how tiny she was and he loosened his grip.
"Do it!"
It was somewhere between a command and a plea. She kept wriggling, trying to get to him. Stretching her legs apart with his knees, he pushed inside, slowly burying himself in her body.
With a hard jolt, she shoved her body into his, forcing him deeper while she screamed at him to fuck her hard. He stopped thinking, stopped holding back and slammed into her with his full length and she went off like a roman candle. His hands pressed down around her arms, trying to hold her still while he jack hammered between her legs.
The world became nothing but sweat and heat and his cock being crushed inside her body. Each thrust met resistance and he was drowning in how crazy hot it was to listen to her moaning his name and wanting more. He was stretched out close to her face, those fantastic tits cutting across his chest, her teeth white and clenched while she fucked him back and he was so close to cumming his head was about to explode.
Putting his lips to her ear, he joined in with the nasty music she was screaming at him. Telling her how tight and sweet she was and he would fuck her until they died if she wanted him to. He was almost there. She was almost there.
"Dean…please stop…help me…hurting me.."
It wasn't the growling and groaning she'd been doing. The sounds were whimpered out so low he barely heard them. In the haze of sex and booze he was certain of two words and 'stop' and 'hurt' were words he didn't ignore during rough sex.
He immediately froze and pulled back to look in her face. Her features were frightened, soft and vulnerable. Then, within seconds, the hard edges returned.
"Baby, you want to slow down? We don't have play so rough," He barely had the oxygen to get the words out when she threw her head backward, arching against him.
"Don't stop…please hurt me…fuck me hard…please." She was back to the begging and pleading and she licked her lips to invite him back.
And he came back, ramming his tongue into her face. She fucked his mouth hard and he was banging into her with so much force he thought one of them might break in half.
Cumming at the same time as this girl nearly blinded him. He was paralyzed, suffocated by her body spasming around him. When he finished, he was laying on top of her gasping for air or water or more sex because he couldn't stand for it to be over.
Their bodies were slick and wet and he rolled off to lay next to her, putting his face beside hers. She was gulping in air with her eyes shut tight, like she was concentrating on regaining control.
They weren't done by a long shot but if he wasn't going to pass out, Dean had to get his own heartbeat down from heart attack level. With one hand, he turned her to face him and smiled. He took time to appreciate her pretty face through a drunken haze. This girl was a combination of petite innocent nice girl looks with the attitude of a wild bar chick. Perfect.
"You want your hands back?" he asked, and she smiled back at him.
"No, I want your hands on me." She arched backward, pushed those beautiful tits into his hands. Slowly, he closed his fingers over one mound and tightened. A throaty groan came out of her mouth. "I knew when I saw you, you were the one I needed. The perfect one."
He liked being called "the perfect one." He didn't leave an inch of her untouched and ignored her constant pleading for him to fuck her again.
When she couldn't stand it another second, she flipped herself over and they went at it again. Her hands still bound, she held on to the headboard, slamming her ass against him. He felt bad about the bruises that were going to be on her hips in the morning.
The neverending litany of begging and commanding was coming out of her mouth. She wanted to be bound but she wanted to give the orders. Dean didn't care. He'd be ordered around as long it kept his dick inside her, as long as he could cum again with that vice grip snatch cutting off his circulation, he didn't care what she wanted.
And he was doing just that when she wanted him to slap her. He did. Making her lily white ass cheek turn pink and she came while he did it. But she wanted the slapping to go on, harder and harder and he was finished and she was too and there didn't seem to be much point to it except the pain.
She was laying back on the mattress with the sheets a damp mess under them. This was usually the part where he would untie his stupid knots and he'd wrap up around the girl until morning. Not this time.
She wanted him to slap her face and he said no. She wanted to bleed because it felt so good and would he please hit her so she could bleed and cum again.
Even drunk and horny, there were lines he couldn't and wouldn't cross. He told her no and to relax and he'd make her feel good his way, slow and easy this time. The crazy begging didn't stop. Long lists of painful things she wanted him to do poured out of her mouth and his buzz was slowly fading. Pain was pleasure, she said.
Not that kind of pain, not if he was the one causing the pain.
He said no again and she went wild. Screaming what a waste of a dick he was and that she'd barely felt him at all.
The bottle of tequila was on the floor beside the bed. He grabbed it and swallowed what was left. "That's great, Baby, but as much as I'd like to shut that pretty mouth of yours you're not gonna piss me off enough to smack you around. Not my scene."
Buzz destroyed and patience gone, Dean grabbed his knife from under the bed.
%%%
Sam had stayed silent for the entire story, understanding the shame and embarrassment Dean felt having to tell it. Dean's conversations about sex were generally limited to bragging rights or one-line quips. This time he'd had fallen silent after that last detail.
"What happened when you said you wouldn't beat her?" Sam asked, keeping his eyes away from his brother.
"She went crazy and jammed her knee into my nuts. Guess she thought I'd lose it and give in. I cut her loose and you want to know what I said then? I said, 'Bitch, get your knee and your crazy ass back to Getty's and find some freak who gets off on beating women.' That's what I said and she left and took Calley's body with her." Dean's body rested against the Impala, which was the only thing holding him upright.
"Sounds like a demon trying to ride a human to death," Sam said. He wasn't quite sure what to say. Depending on how long the demon was inside Calley, she could have turned her over to other men as well -- other men who weren't Dean.
Not turning around, Dean pointed back toward the Roadhouse. "That little girl is here because some demon had me rape her mother. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?"
"Wait a minute, Dean. That's a big leap you're making," Sam said, jumping to his brother's defense. They'd covered ground like this years ago but never this personally. Never with living, breathing evidence of the event sleeping nearby. "You didn't know."
"Didn't know?!" Dean came off the car, pounding a path back and forth in front of his brother. "That nice, normal girl had enough strength to force her way out from under a fucking demon to speak to me and I was too drunk and turned on from tying her up to understand her."
"Dean—"
"She probably knew I was a hunter from that demon bitch in her brain. She gets out long enough to beg for my help, and what does she find?" Dean looked into Sam's eyes for the first time during his revelation. "Not a savior, that's for sure. She finds some drunk bastard banging her."
"You did stop, remember?
"Oh, yeah, I stopped and when the demon took over again, I just ignored it, and kept on going. I didn't question her, just bought the, 'No I meant don't stop,' lie. How am I going to face that kid?" He was walking away now, toward the road, toward nothing.
Sam caught up to him, tried to keep pace with his brother. "Dean, look, man, I know you. You're not a rapist. Stop!" He reached out to grab Dean's arm and spun him around. "Just stop."
"What would you call it, Sam? Calley sure didn't come to my room, get seduced by my good looks, and fall into bed with me, did she? What happened in that hotel wasn't consensual by a long shot."
"How could you have known, Dean? How?"
"Because I'm a GODDAMN HUNTER, Sam! I'm supposed to be good at this demon detection bullshit! It's been my freakin' JOB twenty-four seven for my whole freakin' life!" Dean started walking again, dust from the road blowing up around his boots.
Sam tried to detour Dean's critical thought process. "Set this whole nonconsensual thing aside for a second and let's focus on the bigger picture here."
"Bigger picture?! That's great. The bigger picture usually means we're gonna overlook the details that suck, right?"
"Right."
Dean kept moving, quickening his pace. "Stop trying to make this sound better by saying 'nonconsensual', Sam. I raped that woman. Take a look at those paintings and you'll see what it did to her, what I did to her!" The sweat was pouring out of him, soaking his shirt completely through.
Sam took advantage of his longer stride to throw himself in front of Dean and stop his escape. "Stop and listen to me for a second!" he shouted, slamming both hands against his brother's shoulders. "Don't you think you're a victim in this, too? The demon did it to you both, Dean. Not just Calley."
"Bullshit! Was I the one tied up with some drunk sweatin' on top of me? NO! I had a great time, Sam. Some hot chick wanted to play rough sex games and I was there. Dream come true, right? Right?"
They stood there for a few seconds, the sun beating down on both of them. All of Dean's confessions were pelting against him, destroying the joy he'd felt from finding Emily. Sam let silence settle around them to cool things before he spoke again.
"You can't undo this, Dean. It's done and it doesn't matter," Sam said, pulling his hands from Dean's shoulders.
"It does mat—"
"It's done and all you can do is find out why she died, who did it, and if they intended to kill Calley or Emily. Period. Calley's dead but Emily's here and if you're going to be her father, you can't stay in the past." Sam watched as Dean seemed to focus more on his words than the nightmare playing over and over in his own mind. "That's what Dad did and it destroyed any chance we had for a normal family. He missed being a real father because of it. Don't do it."
Dean had grabbed hold of both of his temples with one hand, trying to force the painful images out of his mind. At least, he was listening instead of countering Sam's every move.
"You ready to go back? It's hot as hell out here," Sam said, pushing Dean's shoulder to turn him around.
Dean squared his shoulders, trying to reassemble himself, and started walking. After a few seconds, he said, "You know I'd never do that to a woman. I never have. I've put passed out wasted chicks to bed untouched and kicked other guy's asses for messing with women."
"I know."
Changing the subject was his only defense left. As they walked back toward the Roadhouse, Dean said, "We have to go there, to Austin."
"Know that, too."
"I'll ask Ellen if Emily can stay here while we're gone," Dean said, shifting his focus back to Emily. "I don't want her anywhere near there."
He was walking a little straighter now, with more authority, Dean's authority. Whatever grief or shame he was feeling, he'd decided to shove it down and Sam decided to let him have that for now.
"There's this recurring mark Calley put on all her paintings after Emily was born and I'm having Bobby look into it for me. I'll pack up the stuff we have to take with us and make the ID we'll need. We can leave in the morning." Sam said, as they reached the bar.
"Good. I want to stay with her one more night."
"Dean?"
"What?" He had one hand wrapped around the railing, putting off that first step.
"You need to—"
"Go show Emily what a grill master I am," Dean said, forcing a smile and taking a couple of steps at a time. When they got to the door, Dean stopped, turning around to look Sam in the eye.
"What is it, Dean?" Sam asked, feeling Dean's regret.
"Of all the things we didn't have when we were kids, at least we knew our parents loved each other. That's where we came from."
"Yeah."
He looked back toward the door as if he had to reinvent the truth in his mind before going inside. "I want Emily to have that. I want her to think that's where she came from. Not from…well, you know."
"Understood," Sam nodded in agreement. Whatever Dean decided to tell Emily about her parents was his business and Sam was going to let him have that.
What Sam was going to tell Dean about his own secret was still up in the air. The rational part of Sam Winchester knew that the truth was always better than a lie and that getting that DNA test was necessary. The Sam Winchester that was Dean's brother wasn't so sure. At least, he had a few days before he'd be faced with that decision.
Sam followed his brother back into the bar and closed the door on both subjects for now.
TBC