The two hotel rooms, one for the Winchesters and one for the Ackleses, have a floor and three rooms between them but the atmosphere of each is a world apart.
In 114, Dean watches a MASH episode while John goes over his notes from the day's exceptional hunt, worried he might leave something out. The mini-coffee maker has completed its task, the smell strong in the air but the coffee itself sitting behind the glass, untasted. Dean picks at a scab on one of his knuckles then sticks his finger in his mouth when it starts to bleed. John glances at the clock, jolts a bit when he sees how late it's gotten. The afternoon has gotten away from him somehow.
In 211, Chalendra's face just won't stop being pink. She adds more foundation, a dull color that doesn't match her skin, looks more like a mask than anything, as Sam watches from the doorway. It's her first time wearing makeup; Sam, of course, insists that she doesn't need to wear it now, but she is quite convinced that proper contemporary American mating rituals require her to wear makeup. She likes the mascara, the way that the little balls of black sit in the lashes like spiders. The lipstick feels sticky and she keeps catching herself before she wipes it off with the back of her hand. The eye shadow is subtle, a tan color that would match her skin if it wasn't for the glitter.
Sam pushes his hair back behind his ears for the fiftieth time in ten minutes. He doesn't know John, doesn't know if he's a jerk or what. He does know that he's not the ethereal entity that Chal seems to think he is, knows that he can't walk on water. He's afraid she'll slip up and just casually mention that she used to be an angel. He's afraid that John might make a move she's not ready for. He's afraid of a lot of things.
"If he's on his good behavior," starts Sam, thinking that John had better be. "Then he will open all the doors for you so when you come to one, pause and give him time to open it."
She pets her mascara-stiff lashes. He's holding her jacket, wringing it a bit like wet laundry. "Just because he pays doesn't mean you owe him anything." Chal may not be his mother by birth but he's still totally embarrassed talking about this to her and he hopes that for once she'll understand that he's talking about sex without having to tell her that he's talking about sex.
"I owe him half of the meal," she says and Sam wants to kick himself.
"No, he's paying. What I meant was that you don't owe him any actions other than saying 'thank you.'"
When she blinks at him, the mascara makes her eyes look more clueless than usual. "So, I am not to repay the debt in any way."
"Correct," Sam says firmly. "Just think of it as a no-strings gift."
"Alright," she says. "What do I do if he wants to kiss me?"
Sam rubs his forehead against the door frame. "Jeez, Chal, I don't know. You two already kissed right?"
"Many times!" she says happily. "But that wasn't part of an officially designated date. I know that many movies advise against kissing on the first date." As she has come to understand it, women who allow men to kiss them on first dates develop bad reputations, are thought of as promiscuous. She's not sure why that should be a bad attribute to have, especially since the point of the films seem to be copulation, but she wants to do this as though she has always been human.
"Use your best judgment. Just try and remember that you've only known him a month." He wonders if she would give him the same advice about Dean. It's possible that he's being more mother hen than she would be. He can imagine her advice being something like "He's John Winchester's son, so he can be trusted."
"I do not like this lipstick," she says frowning at her reflection.
"Uh, maybe dilute it with some of the foundation? Oh, or can you use the eye shadow on your lips?"
In 114, John's just finished brushing his teeth and spritzing some cologne. "Well, I'm heading over."
"Don't screw up," says Dean.
John flips him a thumbs up and heads out.
Dean shows up at his hotel room, duffel slung over his shoulder. He doesn't ask for an invitation, brusquely bumps Sam's shoulder as he comes in. "Hey, Sammy."
Sam closes the door and watches his handsome guest. Dean pulls up a trash can next to the small table where he unzips his duffel. From it he pulls a gun, a knife, and other assorted items that most people wouldn't want to see a near-stranger pull out of a bag in a shared hotel room. Sam doesn't mind as long as Dean meant what he said about being okay with his special powers, but then, he has plenty of weapons himself in the suitcase currently flopped open on the luggage rack.
Rather than hover by the door and stare at Dean, he goes back to sitting on the bed as he had been before he showed up, three pillows stacked behind him and dubiously crisp top comforter tossed on the floor. "Hey, thanks for talking to your dad."
Sam's alone with Dean in a hotel room, which means that he's freaking out. He's trying to be cool about it, trying to mirror Dean who always seems so sure of himself, like surroundings and situations don't affect him, like he's confident enough to bring his own sphere of cool around him. The room smells like cigarettes and cleaning supplies.
"Yeah, no problem. I like Chal. She deserves to have an awesome date."
His fingertips stroke the remote control absent-mindedly, like he sometimes pets Cujo. He is deliberately not tapping his fingers or wiggling his toes, keeping his body posture as relaxed as he can.
"It's her first."
Dean looks up from unpacking the duffel. "You really think so?"
Sam nods. "I know so."
Underneath their conversation is a high-pitched electronic whine. Sam covers one ear and then the other to make sure it's not just his head making a ringing sound. That used to happen when he was younger after he evaporated a demon. He got headaches too. But, he is too strong for those side-effects now. It must be a lamp or perhaps the TV from the room over.
"Huh," grunts Dean, considering. "Well, hope my dad makes it a good one then."
Sam nods, fingers still tickling the remote. Dean's finished spreading the contents of the bag onto the dresser next to the TV screen. He upends the empty duffel over the trash can. Particles, powder, dust, crumbs all tumble out. Then he starts returning the items into the duffel, handling the weapons gingerly.
"Was your first one good?" asks Dean.
"My first date?" croaks Sam, his voice choosing the single worst moment to crack. He wants to sink into the bed and have it swallow him up. Dean doesn't laugh, doesn't even stop packing. "Uh, yeah, I guess. Would've probably been better if her mom hadn't died at the end of it, but the first half was good."
Sam half-expects that Dean is tuning him out, but the look of sympathetic horror on Dean's face assures him that he does, in fact, have his attention. "Hell, dude, that's not a good date! That's pretty much the worst date, actually."
Sam laughs from his nose. "Yeah, I guess you're right."
Dean zips the duffel, sets it on the floor by the door and sits at the bottom of the bed that Sam's occupying. He's rubbing his eyes, looks tired. "That wasn't quite where I was thinking the conversation would go." Dean's hand reaches out and rests on Sam's ankle. "Sorry man, that's a bad time."
Sam shrugs. "Hunter's life," he says. He isn't thinking of Amy right now or what happened to her mom. He's too busy feeling the touch on his ankle, thanking God above that he'd taken off his socks so that there is nothing between Dean's skin and his own. He likes the way his answer sounds though, rugged and tough, like Dean.
"Psh. Tell me about it. Hunters can't stay in one place too long or they'd get buried by their own baggage." The fingertip of Dean's pointer finger traces a line down the bridge of Sam's foot. Sam shivers. It doesn't tickle, just feels really nice. "Have you had a good date?"
Sam wants to say yes, but he hasn't. Amy had been his first kiss and, as Dean had pointed out, that had been the worst date ever. Then he had fooled around with Todd, but that hadn't been a date so much as desperate groping behind the Piggly Wiggly. Neither had been dinner and a movie. "No, I guess not."
The devious dancer that is Dean's finger moves again, dips between Sam's toes, the nail a feather-light scratch on the delicate skin there. Sam bites his lip, is still biting his lip when Dean looks up at him, sly amusement in the scrunch of his eyelids. "You've got some big feet, Sammy. I bet you're gonna be really tall."
"Already six one," mumbles Sam, insulted by the reminder of his age.
"Yeah?" asks Dean. The finger moves to the sole of his foot, the part that should be ticklish, especially with the unreal lightness of the touch. It doesn't tickle or maybe he's too turned on to tell anymore.
Dean touching him like this feels like foreplay. Whether that's Dean's intention or not, because Sam truly can't tell, it still feels like the start of something and he hopes that these are the light caresses of a lover and not the absent-minded touches of a friend, though really, he could use either. He can hear conversation from the wall behind his head, wonders if anyone can hear them, wonders if they'll do anything worth overhearing.
"I bet you'll get taller." He runs his thumb along the bottom-most part of the sole, presses his fingertips to the pads under the toes. Dean's watching his face. "You still have to grow into these," he says, sliding slowly off the bed, his hand never leaving Sam's foot, eyes never leaving Sam's face. Then, Dean is…
"God…" The word escapes without Sam's permission, without any thought because he can't think. Dean is licking at the parts of the sole not covered by fingers, using his hand as a sort of stencil for the trail of his tongue.
"Close, but the name is Dean." Sam's eyes have shut at some point but he opens them again, wants to see what it looks like when Dean licks him.
The tongue, wet and warm, slips between Sam's toes. That finally tickles a bit, but in such a nice way. Sam grips the mattress. He wonders when his foot became an erogenous zone, worries that somewhere along the way he's become a foot fetishist because what Dean is doing right now is a million times hotter than Todd grabbing his dick while he'd been pressed up against a dumpster full of empty cardboard boxes. The green eyes watch him. He hears words in his head that Dean's spoken over the phone, as clear as though he's asking now. "What gets Sam Ackles off?" Sam's imagined Dean says. 'Your tongue,' he hears his inner voice reply and then Dean sucks on his big toe and the inner voice sounds like a moan, like the moan his lips are releasing.
Dean smiles, lips puffy and perfect around his toe. He presses a chaste kiss to it before saying, "That's a nice sound."
"I've… no one has ever done that." He hates that he's winded and stuttering. It shows how embarrassingly inexperienced he is.
"So, that probably means that no one has done that to the left one either?" asks Dean, already reaching for the other foot, shuffling on his knees and stretching his upper body over the bed to bring himself closer to it.
Dean takes the big toe of that foot into his mouth, rolls his tongue around it, and Sam moans again, can't even feel too self-conscious because Dean had praised him for, said it was a nice sound. "Dean…" he whispers, tasting the name on his tongue.
Fingernail scraping between toes, tongue quickly following, these are the things that he is aware of, the teeth nipping his toe pads and the thumb flicking his Achille's tendon; he's not even aware of the hotel room anymore, let alone the world outside it. "Got it right this time," jokes Dean. It takes too long for Sam to get the joke and he's too tightly wound to pretend to laugh. "So, what do you think of foot kinks?"
It's not about the foot, though. It's about this amazingly handsome twenty-year-old getting on his knees to lick him and touch him. Sam feels worshipped, like a horny insecure god that's never before been prayed to.
Dean's waiting for a response but Sam can't spit out any of the thoughts swirling in his head because they would sound ridiculous on his tongue if he could manage to say them at all. "What you thinkin', Sammy?" Dean asks with a strange mixture of concern and amusement. "Should I keep going?"
Sam nods vigorously. He may not be sure if his aching dick can handle more, but he's totally up for getting blue-balled if the alternative is Dean not licking him.
Dean chuckles. "Or would Master prefer my tongue somewhere else?"
In perhaps the single most embarrassing moment in Sam's life, his throat decides to make a dolphin impression. Fire erupts in Sam's cheeks and he covers his face while Dean straight out laughs. Dean had called him Master, and it was probably a joke, but he offered to lick elsewhere and Sam's erection is painful, trapped inside a denim cage and his mind is exploding and if he'd wanted the bed to swallow him up earlier, well now he wanted the whole universe to suck him in, a black hole void of sound and light where he can hide from God himself.
Sam feels the bed shift. He removes the hand covering his eyes and sees Dean climbing, hands and knees over him. Again there's that amusement in Dean's eyes, the amusement that seems to indicate that Sam has made an ass of himself, but even with the twinkle in the green depths, Dean is moving into a position more intimate, isn't repulsed by Sam's foolish naivety.
Dean's straddling him just below his crotch and smiling at him. "Hey."
"Hey," says Sam, able to get out the word only because of its monosyllabic property.
"You doin' okay?"
Sam nods.
Dean's eyebrows lower. With a determined motion, he leans down, puts his face against Sam's cheek. Sam's overloaded with the three sensations – rough jawline against his smooth cheek, warm breath on his ear, and the warmth of Dean's crotch against his leg. "As fun as this whole seducing the innocent is, I have to check in, okay Sammy?"
Sam has no idea what he's asking, nods anyway.
"You're sixteen and I'm pretty sure that's legal here, but I'm gonna need more than those delicious squeaks. If you want me to suck you off…" he pauses, licks at Sam's earlobe. Sam whimpers. "I'm going to need a nice clear yes. Without that, you don't even have to say no, I'm gonna back off." He pulls his head back, taking the wonderful warm lips with him, and Sam wants to object, wants to do something else other than whine like Cujo, but Dean's just moving back so that he can look at him again. "So, what's the answer, Sammy?"
Dean smells like the Impala, open roads and sun-touched leather. He looks like the love child of a GQ model and a teamster. Then he acts like this, staggeringly considerate of Sam's consent. There shouldn't even be a need to ask, because he has it, oh he definitely has it. "Yes! God, Dean, yes!"
The white of Dean's smile is star-like. It only lasts a second, though, because soon his teeth are occupied with something else, pulling on the denim around the metal button of Sam's jeans. Sam watches, amazed when the button pops up and Dean drags the zipper down, using his hands only to hold back the flaps of denim as his mouth drags the metal tab to its junction. Guys like Dean don't exist outside of porn; Sam knows that! Or thought he knew it. Sam shimmies down so that he's lying underneath Dean, so that it's easier for Dean to remove his pants, which he does, slowly, pulling enough to lower them, but not remove them. He does this four times for the left leg and five times for the right, easing Sam's legs out slowly. Then he does the same, but with more ease, with Sam's boxers, which would normally be briefs but Sam had been optimistic enough about his chances with Dean to go for something more flattering, until Sam is left wearing only his shirt and even that doesn't last long, Dean lifting his arms as though he's incapable of doing it himself, and tugging the last clothing article off him as gently as the first.
There isn't much reason to think of his tattoos. They've been there longer than he can remember, so when Dean stares at all the marks on his chest and upper arms, he worries for a second that there's something weird about him that Dean is seeing. Sam looks down, realizes what Dean's looking at and relaxes.
"Dude, you have a lot of tattoos."
"Protection sigils," Sam says. He relishes that this is the first and might be the only time in his life he can offer such a simple explanation and expect to be understood.
Then Dean's finger is tracing the ink on the one above Sam's heart, lightly like he's done everything. "Anti-possession," says Sam. When the finger moves over to the center, he says, "Anti…." He stops, had almost said Angel, changes it as quickly as he can on his tongue though it's more of a three-point turn than U-turn. "Psychic detection." The finger slides again, the delight in Dean's eyes apparent. He names each tattoo's purpose, doesn't lie about any more of them. When Dean runs out of tattoos, his mouth replaces his finger, works backwards to the anti-possession tattoo.
From there, his head lowering, Dean's tongue follows the little trail of hairs, soft and almost blond, from Sam's belly button down, working underneath the red desperate cock obstructing his path. He loops around the base, licks back up the trail. His finger skates in curls up Sam's leg to his inner thigh. Sam squirms, cock nearly leaping for the touch. Instead, the hand moves to his balls, cups them, one thumb stroking over the skin.
"Ngh."
Then Dean's tongue is moving again, flat, not pointed, pressure firm and smooth as it slides from the caressing thumb on his balls over the happy trail's bridge that is Sam's cock. It passes over the head onto Sam's stomach. After a quick loop around the navel, Dean returns to the leaking head with his whole mouth, sliding down in the slowest slickest way on Sam's cock. Sam feels everything, the wet agile tongue, the stretched corners of lips, the hand still holding his balls, the gentle suction as Dean glides up again, the most overwhelming sensation his body has known. "Oh, oh, oh!" He can hear himself utter, voice fragile, body fragile, ready to break from need. It's so good, so eye-openingly, life-changingly good. His hips move up and down with Dean's mouth. The world is this up/down motion.
Faster, that mouth, with those beautiful lips, moves. The hand around his balls tightens, not painfully but securely, the most sensitive parts of his body literally in the palm of Dean's hands.
"Dean!" he cries, feeling the orgasm building, feeling every muscle in his body clenching. "Oh God, Dean!"
The suction lessens, the movement of Dean's mouth lessens, but that isn't going to stop Sam, just makes his body strain that much harder, seeking the friction and the warmth and the release. His hands are squeezing the mattress, the pillows, and finally, Dean's head. Eight fingers unite behind Dean's head, pull, as gently as he can in this frenzied berserker state of lust that he's in. It doesn't matter because Dean still chokes a bit, throat full of Sam's cock. Dean groans and that really is all it takes, not the feel of the tip of cock on the back of throat, but the sound, the wonderful noise, the one that says that Dean is enjoying himself.
Sam comes, orgasm punching the air from his body, doubling his vision, making every limb tremble and twitch. Sam comes like he didn't know was possible, fingers scrambling desperately on the short hairs on Dean's head, trying to get deeper, trying to merge with the mouth on him. Sam comes, Dean still nursing him, swallowing down what must be a porn amount of come and then, as it ebbs, licking the tip, the oh-so-sensitive tip, not one drop escaping the voracious mouth. Sam comes and it's awesome.
"Best head you've ever had?"
"Hands down."
"Oh man, tell me that wasn't your first head!"
They're lying shoulder to shoulder on the Cozy Inn bed, Sam's bare feet bumping playfully against Dean's socked feet. The ceiling has two sprinklers, one over each bed. They're Dean's buddies ever since he'd almost been barbecued to death in Wyoming. Not his finest moment, having failed to notice that the lampad had followed him back from her forest and he still doesn't know how he missed the glow of her torch, the one that was supposed to drive men mad, but he had and he'd be a well-done hunter hold the onions if it hadn't been for the sprinklers, his ugly metal allies.
"That was not my first head," Sam recites, making it perfectly clear that his words are not the truth.
Dean had known the kid was green, but not necessarily that green. "Well, guess that explains why you came so fast." He rolls onto his side, likes the view of Sam naked much more than the ceiling, metal comrades or not. He reaches out a hand and tweaks at a nipple. "And here I was hoping that was just cause of me."
Sam laughs, eyes glassy and body relaxed like a stoner. "Oh, it was definitely cause of you."
Unable to resist, mostly for reasons of symmetry, Dean's hand seeks out the other nipple. Sam's come is all he can taste, all he can smell, and his fingers are sticky with it, not from the act itself but from fondling Sam's cock as it deflated, oozing like a burst water balloon. He relishes it, not much for the taste itself which is nearly sour, nor its consistency like drying Elmer's glue, but for how it marks him, a lingering sign that Sam had been aroused by him, serviced by him, that he'd done a good job.
"So, you gonna show me my bad ass comic book self?"
"Oh! Yeah!" Sam practically jumps out of bed, lazy afterglow replaced by artistic enthusiasm. Dean notices each individual spine notch as Sam digs through his suitcase. He returns to the bed with a hard cased paper holder. It's purple and pink plastic. Dean reaches out his hand for the girly thing, but Sam holds it away from him. "You have to wash your hands first."
"Whatever, dude, give me the comic."
"Nope," Sam says stubbornly. "Soap first. Your hands are all sticky."
Dean grins. "I like them sticky."
His answer pleases Sam, but it doesn't get Sam to hand over the case. "Choose," he says.
Dean huffs. "Fine. You hold them and I'll look."
Sam looks surprised, then the shine of pleasure comes into his eyes. He lies next to Dean, opens the case, and pulls out what looks to be about twenty pages. "I haven't filled in any of the dialogue yet."
Dean's jaw slackens. He's staring at himself. He knows Sam is good, but damn! This is him on the first page. He's holding a knife, Sam's knife from the night of the waheela hunt. He's in the woods, the trees tangling up into the word "Hunters," written in sharp, blade-like lettering. This sketched Dean is on the hunt, expecting an attack at any second, eyes searching, body tense.
"Christ, kid, you didn't tell me I was your fucking cover!"
Sam doesn't say anything.
"This is me! I mean, it really looks like me!" His hand reaches out to touch the graphite face, but Sam moves the paper away. "How'd you even do that without a picture?"
"My memory doesn't suck," Sam says modestly. His eyes are studying Dean's reactions, feeding off of the intensity, the unadulterated awe. One corner of his lip is tucked under his teeth.
"I'll say," says Dean, turning his face back to the art. "Next page."
More squares of the forest, illuminated by a flashlight beam. There's a rectangle of erased pencil on the bottom of the first frame. Dean figures out that it's marking out where the text will go. "Location?" he asks, pointing, but not touching the square.
"Yeah, and year."
"Next page."
Sam obeys. Comic Dean is back, shining the light in the dark forest. He can't get over how much this little drawn person resembles him. In the next box, Comic Dean hears a noise. He tears off into the woods chasing after it. Rocks scatter behind his feet as he runs uphill. "What's the noise?" he asks.
"A growl."
Dean smiles. "A waheela growl?"
Sam turns the page.
In the story, a woman appears, young and blonde. She's on the other side of the waheela. Her frame is thin and weak, but her stance is strong, eyes flashing fire at the waheela. He's amazed by how life-like she looks, that he can tell her personality from this one frame, this one still image. Even so, he hates that she's there, because it's Sam's place. "You made yourself a chick?" he asks.
"Does that look like me as a chick?"
"No, but you were the one fighting that thing with me, not some blonde." He doesn't like seeing anyone else getting credit for that impressive kill, bringing down a bear with a knife.
Sam purses his lips, thinking. "I don't want to draw me. I don't want to be in this."
"But you were, dude!"
"Yeah, but I don't want to be."
Dean can't let that slide. He's glaring at Sam now, knows that he is, but he wants to open up that skull and dig around because he's completely lost. "What the hell does that mean?"
At first, Sam can't look at him, looks around him. He sets the page atop the pile. "I don't like hunting."
Dean's brain halts, brakes squealing to a halt. "But, you're good at it."
"So?" asks Sam. "That's not the only reason to do something."
"I know that," says Dean, he can't help feeling that when a person is as good at something as Sam is, where it's an art form like these comic book pages, then it should be what they want to do. Then, there's trying to wrap his head around not enjoying the hunt, the adrenaline rush when a monster sees him, when he knows that it's going to be either him or the monster left alive, and the peacefulness after, of knowing that he's done his best, that because of him some poor schmo is going to be able to kiss his children goodnight. Yeah, the making friends that you leave behind part sucks and sleeping in places that smell like ammonia and the not having a fridge with cereal and milk in it, cause man, he loves a good bowl of cereal, but it's worth it. Sam doesn't even go on the road, so he has all those things and he gets to hunt. That's Dean's ideal life, coming home from a day at the factory, eating some great food made by a great woman that will give him some great sex, and then, on weekends, getting machete deep into a crocotta, returning some missing kids to their folks, washing off the blood in his own hot shower, and then diving into a celebratory pie.
"You don't understand," observes Sam.
"Yeah, I guess not."
"I feel guilty." He quickly qualifies the statement. "Oh, not when it's a demon and it's easier the less human they are, but it's still a life that I'm taking. I don't want to be an assassin. I don't want death to play a part in my day-to-day life. I'd rather do things I can be proud of, things I can tell others about."
Dean looks back at the page with the blonde woman. "You can be proud of these, Sam. They're amazing."
"Thanks," says Sam. He picks the sheet back up. "Next page?"
Dean nods.
They go through each page the same way, Dean taking in the incredible art, asking a question about the drawing or the plot, pointing out what he likes about it, and then moving on to the next page. Sam's not finished and so the pages stop abruptly, disappointingly so.
"That is a kick ass comic, man. I can't wait to read it when it's finished."
Dean finds himself entranced by a freckle on Sam's shoulder and runs a lazy tongue over it, no intent, just appreciation. But it does prompt Sam to ask, "How long do you think they'll be gone?"
Dean considers. His dad and Chal left at seven. He figures in a half hour drive in and out of Springfield, ninety minutes for dinner, and some make out time in the car before they return to their sons. "Ten if they don't see a movie. One if they do. Nine if Dad makes an ass of himself."
Sam checks his watch. "Um, yeah, I do not want to be naked when they get back."
"You should probably put clothes on then," suggests Dean. He's still enjoying Sam's shoulder, though he's moving towards Sam's neck with licks and nibbles. The skin beneath his mouth goose pimples. A quick glance down the bed confirms an awakening erection that will soon be hidden by loose-fitting jeans. Dean believes that to be a necessary evil, since he is also not a fan of Sam being naked when their parents get back. Just the slight visual of such a scene, his head between Sam's legs with Dad and Chal standing horrified in the doorway, is enough to force his mouth to retreat from the cold but delicious pale skin.
Sam puts away the comic, tucks it into a light jacket so that Chal won't see it. Dean, still completely clothed, leafs through the Gideon bible as Sam pulls on his pants. He should know this thing by heart by now. He knows snippets, verses here and there, but only the way that someone picks up on choruses of songs they hear in stores or commercials.
"I hope they're having a good time," says Sam. "I probably should have had you tell your dad that Chal is vegetarian."
"He probably knows, dude. I mean, they talk every five minutes; it can't all be phone sex."
"Ugh. Come on man, you've got to stop with all the parent sex jokes." The shirt that Sam is putting back on has faded writing that he can't quite read. It's something that starts with an S and ends with an H. Dean's brain decides that it says sammich, like Sam's email address, though he knows the number of letters don't match and, of course, that that would be a ridiculous word to put on a shirt. "It's too creepy."
"Yeah, she'd probably think the same thing about you putting your dick down my throat," Dean says, knowing the reaction he'll get, the reddening of cheeks and shamed eyes, and yet still delighting in it when it comes, as though it's unexpected. He already knows that getting under Sam's skin is even more fun than getting his hands on it.
Dressed, Sam returns to the bed, sits farther away from Dean, already trying to create the illusion that nothing has happened despite the absence of their parents. Dean frowns. He's going to feel massively guilty if the sixteen-year-old regrets what they just did. He does not want to be the kid's first sexual mistake. "Doin' okay there?" he asks.
Sam smiles and Dean knows it's alright, his stomach buoying back up from the plunge it had taken. "Yeah, just trying to act normal."
"Psh! Good luck with that, nerd."
Dean accepts the pillow to his face with dignity.
John gets back in the room he's sharing with Dean at three. He's practically tip-toeing though it makes him feel like a teenager. Though really, there hasn't been a part of tonight that doesn't make him feel like a teenager. Paying for dinner, stealing kisses in the movie theater, talking in a truck parked in front of a building with two people inside waiting to hear about how it went, all of it was so normal and so childish.
He's made it to the bathroom without turning on the light, blessed with great night vision, and he blinks at himself in the mirror after relieving himself of the piss he'd been holding since they'd pulled up to the Cozy Inn. He even looks younger, eyes bright and chin freshly shaved, though the stubble is coming back at its full-beard-in-a-week rate. His cheeks hurt from smiling, muscles so unused these days. He hasn't smiled this much in one night since before Mary died.
It should surprise him, that fifteen year near smile-free stretch, should make him wonder how anyone could go so long without feeling happiness, but because John Winchester is who he is, it makes him proud. He's glad that he was able to Mary that much tribute to have so properly mourned for so long. She deserved that, to not have any other woman so much as catch his eye in fifteen years. It's taken a lot of years for his grief to ebb enough for this new romance. Of course, he's also been mourning an absent son as well. If it hadn't been for Dean, John is certain his skull would have met bullet not long after that terrible night. He hadn't lost everything, almost, but not everything, that night.
After brushing his teeth, he makes his way from the bathroom to the bed. Dean was thoughtful enough to let him have the bed closest to the door as he knows his preference to be. He can't hear Dean's breathing, figures he's probably awake since the boy is a trained fighter, alert and clever. "You up?"
Dean rolls over. They can just barely see each other by the lights of the parking lot that shines in through the gap in the curtains. "Yep, not used to sleeping in the same room with someone anymore."
They'd stopped sharing rooms once Dean expressed an interest in bringing ladies back to them. John had been stupidly proud, stupid because he knows damn well that promiscuity isn't a positive attribute, but still hadn't been able to help it. He liked that his son was a catch, chip off the Winchester block, or whatever nonsense his Y-chromosome was interpreting as a reflection of his involvement in Dean's actions.
"I brought back leftovers if you feel like a bite."
"I could eat," says Dean. He rises up slowly, scratching his head and rubbing his face. John snaps on the light while Dean does a mole impression.
"It's Mexican."
"Bueno."
John changes into sweats and a t-shirt while Dean unwraps the plastic bag and examines the contents of the Styrofoam container. The smell of tamales espinaca fills the room, masks the stench of hotel that John still notices, even after all these years. He'd ordered the vegetarian dish for Chal's sake, so that she wouldn't feel grossed out by him eating dead carcass. He'd had no trouble scarfing it down; it was delicious, meat or no, but the portions were huge and, truth be told, he'd wanted to bring some back for Dean, in case he hadn't had much to eat.
"So, the food's good," Dean says, mouth full of cheese and corn. "How was the rest of the date?"
John will not smile, refuses to have his son know that he's crushing on Chal like she's a Backstreet Boy and he's a 15-year-old girl. "Went pretty good."
"Cool," says Dean. After a minute, he says, "Sam was kinda worried."
"About what?"
"Well, he's under the impression that it was sorta her first date."
Something clicks into place in John's mind. "Ever?" he asks. He hears Dean's jaw and the slurp of food, the only noise in the room, and he flashes back over the indicators, things he'd taken to be signs of how infrequently she dated, realizing that it is probably true.
"Yep. Think he's right?"
John says, "That's probably not your place or his to be telling me." He feels hurt, a bit, that Chal didn't trust him enough to be forthcoming about it.
He can see from Dean's face that he knows the answer, that it really must have been Chalendra Ackles's first date. Dean is smart enough not to say anything more on the topic.
"What did you get up to?" John asks. He pulls a book from his duffel and climbs into bed.
"Went over and hung out with the kid."
He likes that Dean can still think of Sam as a kid after seeing the tremendous power that he used on the demon, but then, Dean's been fond of Sam since the night they'd all met. He figures there's some age camaraderie at play. For himself, he's never going to look at Sam the same way again. Now he sees only a weapon, a kind-hearted one as Chal tells it, but John's not going to forget the ice in the boy's voice when he'd reneged his end of the bargain with the demon.
"Yeah, do anything fun?"
If he was to look at Dean, he might have noticed the quirk to his son's mouth, as it is, he is trying to find where he'd left off in Citizen Soldiers. There's no point in buying bookmarks since he just loses them anyway. These days he uses pieces of paper that then get lost amid the bound pages and serve no purpose.
"Nah. What about you two? Movie?"
"Yeah."
"Nice."
John finally finds the page he's on and reads. Soon Dean is back under the covers, breathing heavy with sleep, though not snoring, and John feels safe allowing the smile to drift back onto his face.
Through self-discipline only had Chalendra been able to enjoy the rest of their date after John suggested Sam join them in California. She compartmentalized the despair his "we could sure use Sam on the hunt" summoned forth in her, pushed aside the knowledge of this path's inevitable, painful conclusion so that when he kissed her in the movie theater, tasting like popcorn and soda pop, her heart still soared with infatuated pleasure.
Since the moment she'd seen John Winchester in that Michigan forest, she knew that her time with Sam was nearly over, knew as an angel that there was no such thing as coincidence, knew as a human that there was no stopping time. She'd trained Sam well and soon he will stand with his father and brother and confront the yellow-eyed demon Azazel.
Her immediate reaction, uncertainty about Sam's readiness, is an unreliable indicator, her assessment clouded by emotions. She wants to keep Sam, isn't ready to see him fight Azazel, can't stand the thought of him rejecting her once he discovers that she's lied about his family being killed by the demon, the lie formed while she was still an angel, grace burning steadily weaker inside her. If he survives the battle with Azazel, leaving the much harder angelic struggle before him, he won't need her and, worse, he won't want her. If he dies or is persuaded by the demon's silver-tongue, then her fall from Heaven will have been in vain.
Now she's met John Winchester, the man with the incorruptible soul, the man who will resist losing himself to evil through over one hundred years of torture. She wishes that she still had her angelic powers so that she can wrap her grace around that pure soul, interlace them like the stripes on a candy cane. Instead, he will reject her, condemn her for keeping his son from him all these years no matter how honorable her reasons. She stands on the edge of losing everything, finally paying the full price (losing her grace had been only a partial payment) for trying to reshape the destiny of the universe.
So, she declined John's offer to assist him in California, using the excuse of having to get the Texas household set up. It was selfish. She wants just a little more time to keep for hers the only human that has ever mattered. Just a little more time to hold her son before he serves his role, whatever he chooses that to entail, in the apocalypse.
Sam's a cocoon of warmth and contentment. He fights to stay asleep but lively thoughts scamper through his head, wiggling and barking to get his attention. 'Dean,' he thinks. He opens his eyes and sees the hotel room, roses and textured cream walls, dusty pink carpet, and a framed garden scene with splotches of watercolor flowers. He hears the rustle of a page turn.
"What time is it?" he asks.
"Ten."
He hadn't meant to sleep so late but it took him so long to fall asleep, unable to stop the sex replays running through his mind. He'd finally rubbed one out, worried the whole time that Chal would choose that moment to walk in. She hadn't, and he'd passed out with Dean's name still vibrating on his lips. "What time did you get back?"
"3:17 am."
He lifts his head. She's sitting cross-legged on her bed, elbows on her knees, staring down at the book kept open by her legs. Her medium-length hair is pulled back into a ponytail. Sam knows she doesn't age, at least she hasn't yet, that it's quite possible that he will look older than she, but it feels a bit like that's already happened. Her fingers are interlaced with her toes, her face a portrait of eagerness as she reads. "How was your date?"
She looks around for her bookmark and, after finishing the page, slides it into place, before answering his question. "It was perfect!"
"Just like in the movies?" he asks.
"Yes."
Sam feels that something is not quite right about her attitude, that something hadn't been perfect. "I kinda expected you to wake me up when you got back and fill me in with all the details."
Chal smiles, guilty. "I thought about it, but it was so late. Also, I thought it best that I ruminate over the events of the evening first, and decide how I felt about its individual components."
"And?"
"I don't like waiting for doors or having him pay."
Sam laughs. "Okay, chivalry doesn't work on you."
"I liked the Mexican food and that he deliberately avoided a meat entrée. I like the way he chews with his mouth open and I like more that he didn't do it last night."
"Very polite," Sam notes.
Chal's head is tilted to the side, as though she's trying to access the side of the brain that stores memories. Sam likes this quirk of hers, though usually it precedes a ridiculous idea like when at midnight on a school night, she had tipped her head to the side and suggested that they catch fireflies. She'd poked holes in jars, dumping out the food contents without regard while he'd put batteries in flashlights.
"I didn't like the movie. I like the way he kisses. I don't like that he doesn't make jokes as often as you used to. I like that…"
Sam struggles to catch up, too many negations and his involvement suddenly coming up. "Hey wait, what do you mean, 'as I used to?'"
"Before you entered adolescence, you told me jokes, like the bee joke, all the time. Now you use sarcastic or teasing humor."
"What bee joke?"
"Where did the bee go after his wedding? On his honeymoon!" She laughs a little and when she looks at him, Sam gets the impression that she's not seeing him, but little him, the age of a kid that would think that joke is funny.
"That's a terrible joke," he says, regrets it when her smile turns to a resigned one.
"You didn't always think so," she says. "It was one of your favorites. But, that's okay. The maturation process involves heavy psychological and physiological change. The things that amuse you are bound to change."
"But you miss my lame jokes?" he asks.
Chal shrugs.
"So, what did you guys do after the movie?" He's almost afraid to ask but he wants to switch the conversation back to something that makes her happy.
"We talked in the truck."
"Talked?" he teases.
"Oh!" her face lights up. "You suspect we were kissing!" Her fingers drum happily on her knees. "No, just talking. We kissed in the theater."
"Look at you, making out in a theater. Were you in the back at least?"
Her eyebrows scrunch down. "Why would that matter?"
Sam laughs. He's losing the fight with morning bladder, so he figures that it's a good time to start the day. He pulls back the warm covers, stands, and stretches with exaggerated noises. "What time are they going to head to California?" Fear hits him suddenly. He's been assuming that they're still here, but what if they are already on the road and he didn't get the chance to say goodbye?
"They're having breakfast now. I told them that I would call when you were awake so we could say our goodbyes."
"Cool," he says.
He conserves time and effort by peeing in the shower, spreading his legs wide to avoid it touching his feet. He whistles a bit, though normally he's a quiet bather. As he's rinsing off the last remaining suds, he hears a door close and figures that their hotel room is now invaded by Winchesters. It's impossible to not get excited about knowing that Dean is near. He shuts off the water, hears muffled but understandable conversation as he towels himself off.
"Thank you! I love to eat pancakes!" Chal gushes. Sam's stomach growls, overhearing that there are leftovers to be had. Sometimes he thinks his stomach has better hearing than his ears.
He'd brought in a change of clothes since it wasn't like he and Chal had other changing areas. As he buttons his jeans, he thinks about how Dean had unbuttoned them so efficiently using only his mouth. He tells himself to stop thinking things like that with Chal right outside the room. The last thing he needs is to go out there looking guilty or horny.
"We'll take the 40 over," says John. "Shouldn't take too long, two, three days."
"Do you enjoy the driving too, Dean?" Chal asks.
Dean, nervous about something if Sam has to guess from his voice alone, replies, "Yeah, nothing like the open road and a box of tapes."
"Tapes?" she asks.
"Dean listens to cock rock on tape."
Sam snorts through his nose, not quite a laugh. He knows that Chal won't know what cock rock is. She's a jazz hound, all the way.
"Cock rock?"
Now he can't help it. He laughs.
"We've got a spy," jokes John.
Sam steps out into the sunlit hotel room, fully dressed, hair wet and dripping onto his shirt "Sorry, thin walls." Dean is by the door. He looks fresh-faced, well-rested, and ready to get back to his Impala, to the open road and the thrill of the hunt. John and Chalendra are a unit, standing closely to each other in front of the TV. Chal has never been conventionally pretty, facial features a bit too exaggerated, demeanor too, well, inhuman, but right now in this perky, floral-printed hotel room, beside the first man to ever take on her on a date, she's positively lovely.
"We have pancakes!" Chal holds up a large bag transparent enough to reveal two Styrofoam containers.
Sam thanks just John, because he feels that if he says thank you to Dean right now, it'll be like he's thanking him for last night. He's having a hard enough time being with Dean, whose fingers can draw sounds from him like he's a guitar and his nerve endings strings, in the same room as Chal. She's an observer and if she wasn't so distracted by John, she'd have already noticed how Dean makes him feel, would be able to see how Dean lights him up like a firework, a guilty sparkler crushing hard on a book of matches.
"Well, we ought to hit the road. It'll take a while to hit California," says John.
"I wish you both luck on your mission," she says properly, practically saluting with hunter professionalism.
Sam catches the brief smile on John's face, the one that precedes him reaching for Chal, pulling her into a hug. Sam wonders if John will miss Chal in the next however many weeks or months before they all see each other again. It strikes him then, as John and Chal embrace sweetly, just how big of an impact this could have on their lives.
Dean speaks up and instinctively Sam looks, their eyes meeting for the first time this morning. "We'll visit you two in San Antonio when we come through next." Boldly, he winks.
Their parents' hug becomes a kiss, not a tonsil hickey one but not a peck either and Sam completely agrees with the sound of disgust that Dean makes, though he likes to think he's too mature to emulate it. "I'd tell you guys to get a room, but…" jokes Dean.
John ends the kiss and Chal steps back.
The three men in the room have an advantage with social understanding common to the culture in which they were raised. Sure, the Winchesters can't be said to live a normal existence, moving from place to place and thwarting evil where they can find it, but they still know what acceptable behavior is and can emulate it when the need arises. Chal, as a former angel lacks this fundamental human aspect. She is instinctively direct in all she does, her actions and her words alike. Heaven, Sam suspects, is a place full of people without tact. So, like a foreigner that's lived in a new country for twenty years and never lost her accent, Chal behave as she would in her homeland. She bursts forth with question, voice loud like a child on stage during a school play. "John Winchester, are you my boyfriend?"
Dean is the first to laugh, an abrupt ejaculation of sound, and Sam wants to be mad that someone is laughing at the closest person he's ever had to a mother, but her question had been so sudden, so innocent and so, well, weird, that he cannot help but to laugh too, just a small traitorous giggle that he feels guilty for even before it touches the air.
John Winchester, interrogation target, exorciser of demons and slayers of vampires, blushes, pretty much from the roots of his brown hair to where his neck tucks into his collar. His smile is nervous and uncertain, but to his credit, he doesn't laugh. He lowers his head and volume, voice almost covered by Dean's ebbing laughter, "Do you want me to be?"
Chal nods. "Yes, please."
"Then, yes, I am." John kisses her again, just a touch of lips together, a sealing of a deal, opens the door, throws a glare at Dean, and walks out of the hotel.
Dean, human embodiment of amusement, throws up a wave. "Bye Chal, bye Danny boy." He follows his father out.
"Bye, Dean! Bye, John!" calls Sam, having almost forgotten his manners.
Chal locks the door behind them. When she turns, her face smiling, she says, "I am a girlfriend."
Sam refuses to die from the cute.
"We ever gonna pull off for the night?" asks Dean over the cell phone. It's ten at night and they've been driving all day.
"I was thinking of a room in Amarillo. How much you laggin'?"
"I think I can survive another, what, thirty-five miles?"
John doesn't like the choice of the word "survive." "If your eyes are shutting…"
Dean interrupts. "Nope, eyes are fine. My ass is pretty numb but I'm fine with staying in Amarillo."
"All right," says John.
"Quick question," says Dean. John has to adjust his phone because he'd been about to close it. "John Winchester, are you my boyfriend?"
John hangs up.