breathe out, so i can breathe you in

Honey, I'm Home (G, Sam/OFC)

Sat, 10 May 2008 16:51:24 GMT

Title: Honey, I'm Home
Author: Brinny
Character/Pairing: Sam and OFC. (Kind of Sam/OFC, I suppose.)
Rating: G
Wordcount: 263
Notes: Okay, this is just a quick response to theladyscribe 's prompt of Packed my bags, I'm moving out, because I wanted to make sure I fired something off before you left the country, babe! So, I WILL be utilizing the prompt in a more awesome way with something else. M'kay? :)

Sam opens the door and sees her standing with her hands on her hips, a pout on her mouth. He smiles anyway.

“Honey, I’m home.”

She tugs on her dress, still kind of pouting, and flips the braid that’s hanging over her shoulder.

“I packed my bags. I’m moving out.”

Sam drops the briefcase he’s holding and it thuds loudly on the old wooden floors. He plays with his tie and shuffles his feet, his eyes narrowing. She pokes him, finger digging hard into his chest.

“Well, aren’t you going to say anything?”

He keeps his eyes narrowed, then sighs and scrunches up his nose.

“Are you sure this is how we’re supposed to play house?”

The girl shrugs. “I think so. It’s how my parents do it. There’s a lot of screaming.”

Sam’s never had a mom and his dad is always out of town, ‘on business’ Dean says. And right now he’s staying with his Uncle Bobby and his dogs and his brother, so he shrugs too. Plus, a lot of screaming sounds about right, his dad yells at him and Dean all the time.

“Okay. Let’s start again,” he says.

Sam scoops up his battered briefcase and runs back out the door of the playhouse, adjusting his tie—her dad’s tie, borrowed from a box of clothes that he left—again before he walks back in. If this is how you’re supposed to play house, he’d better learn now. He kind of wants the practice for when he grows up. Smiling to himself, he opens the door.

“Honey, I’m home.”

the light that fueled our fire (then has burned a hole between us) PG-13 Sam/Dean

Fri, 09 May 2008 03:41:07 GMT

Title: the light that fueled our fire (then has burned a hole between us)
Author: Brinny
Character/Pairing: Dean and Sam. (Also, Sam/Dean. It's not outright Wincest, but there's overtones and undertones and allkindsoftones, so it's being labeled as such.)
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 709
Notes: tigriswolf asked for werewolf!Dean meets vampire!Sam. This is it. (Kinda, sorta, inspired by "Schism" by Tool. And I stole the title from the lyrics.) Um, edited the last line to clear up some ambiguity.

They used to fit.

Front to back and back to front with bare and pale skin. Sweat held them together like glue, both of them loose-limbed and sticky and loved. They used to fit with hands and lips, everything a mess of fingers and mouths. A mess of hard calluses and pretty bruises that seemed to stop hurting when they slowly and softly pushed together.

They used to fit and then they changed.

Sam’s first.

And the night he changes is the night he walks away from Dean.

He leaves with one hand pressed tightly against his ribs and willing his heart to beat, but it never does. His tongue slips past his lips and he feels the sharp slide of the fangs and tastes his own blood. He bled in life, has proof in silver scars, and now he bleeds in death.

The first kill is easy.

He picks a girl with a shy grin on a pink mouth. A girl who looks like she could be Jess. Or maybe it’s a girl who looks like she could be Mary. After he died, with pointed teeth tearing out his throat, Sam can’t really tell the two apart. He sees them the same way that other people saw him and Dean. He sees them as one.

He has his hands on her neck and he smiles as he drags the tips of his fingers over freckled shoulders. She looks back at him with wet eyes and trembling lips, and he touches her cheek with his knuckle, catches a tear. After that, she doesn’t cry. After that, she doesn’t breathe.

Sam sleeps as orange and yellow starts to cut across his walls, his hands locked over a heart that stays hollow and still, and dreams of his brother.

Dean doesn’t change until he’s lived for days and months without Sam.

He likes the change. He wishes he could share it with Sammy, look what we’ve become.

He counts lunar cycles on his fingers and stares up at crescent-mooned skies and waits until he can lose control. It starts under his skin, a low itch that creeps and crawls and hisses. He can always feel it coming, feel it somewhere inside of him, and it’s like being reborn night after night.

When he wakes, naked with blood staining his fingers and his mouth, he feels stretched out and alone.

They leave bodies behind, a trail of death and destruction that they wear like merit badges.

Sam leaves behind pretty girls, their lips shining with a kiss and two neat holes in their necks.

Dean leaves behind wreckage, people with hearts torn from their chests and mouths frozen in terror.

He needs Sam.

Dean finds him in the winter night, sees him smiling and his teeth gleam too-white in the low light of a November moon that hides behind black clouds in a starless sky.

They stare at each other, growling and howling, and then dart and disappear into the dark like animals. Frightened and scared.

Nighttime is when everything happens. It’s when Dean turns, the moon full and high, and when Sam stalks and prowls. The night becomes their salvation.

It’s been years since they used to fit.

Before they changed.

Dean presses his hand to Sam’s chest and the skin beneath his palm is cold, thin and near-translucent with all too brilliant blue veins that carry blood to nowhere. His own skin is warm and Sam ducks his head, curling his fingers over his brothers and moving closer until he can feel Dean’s steady and thrumming heartbeat against the ridges of his knuckles.

They used to lay face to face, hands on cheeks turned sickeningly purple from the night before. Sam would breathe out and Dean would breathe in, the air between rising and falling and mixing and only theirs. Dean can still breathe and does, hot on Sam’s neck. But nothing leaves Sam’s lips. His heart doesn’t beat and air doesn’t fill his lungs, but somehow, he still bleeds.

He bleeds and so does Dean.

Teeth sink into flesh and scrape across bone and they start to tear each other apart. Blood slicks over their mouths and drips down their skin, both cold and warm.

They used to fit, but now they're just broken pieces.

poke me, prod me, any way you want me

Thu, 08 May 2008 23:44:36 GMT

Um, so, yeah.

I'm bored and have a an hour or two to kill. Anyone have something that they desperately want me to write? I make no promises, but you just might save me from having to get up off my ass and doing housework. And do you really want a clean house resting on your shoulders? Wow. That came out weird.

Anyway, right. Prompts?

EDIT: Okay. So, the hour or two I had to kill worked out to me not having an hour or two at all, BUT I managed to squeeze out one of the prompts. And if anyone still wants me to give something a go, by all means.

On the list is:

~~-werewolf!Dean meets vampire!Sam~~
~~-Packed my bags, I'm moving out.~~ (For the meantime)
-dean/jo, after the apocalypse!
-Dean/Jo/Sam, subway, Chinese food, thirsty
-Sam/Jo. Maybe with Dean watching. Something with knives. As dark and sexy as you can get it.
-Sam/Jo, during the war. Groups of hunters. And Gordon is still alive. Not NC17.

dancing with the devil (PG, Dean)

Wed, 07 May 2008 02:33:30 GMT

Title: dancing with the devil
Author: Brinny
Rating: PG
Characters: Dean (and Sam, maybe)
Wordcount: 100
Notes: Written for 100_ghosts, prompt: "the writing on the wall".

It crawls deep inside of you.

It crawls deep inside of you and your bones crack and pull and splinter. It crawls deep inside of you and your blood boils and spills over. It crawls deep inside of you and all you see and feel and think is black.

On a cold night she smiles and tells him what he’ll become. She never says that it’ll be like this. It’s a lie.

He thinks it should hurt. It should break him, the way his body shifts into this thing.

But, it crawls deep inside of you and you like it.

I'm such a dork, I wrote this while listening to The Tea Party song Writing's on the Wall and then stole the title from the lyrics. C'mon, how perfect is that song in conjunction with the show? Huh? Totally.

The First Five Times (NC-17, Dean/Jo)

Sun, 04 May 2008 02:30:06 GMT

Title: The First Five Times
Author: Brinny
Character/Pairing: Dean/Jo
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: 2,848.
Notes: Loosely based on the song of the same name.

The first time it’s raining.

Jo pushes wet fingers to his mouth. And Dean pushes a wet mouth to her fingers. He pulls at her shirt and she tugs at the button on his jeans. Her shirt sticks to her shoulders and she pulls it off the rest of the way, smiling.

“No strings, right?”

He smirks and hooks two fingers into the belt loops of her jeans. She wiggles against him. He kisses her neck.

“No strings? Well, hello cliché.”

“Dean?”

“Yeah, sure. No strings. Just awesome, mind-blowing sex.”

“Good.”

Jo pushes a wet mouth to a wet mouth and traces her tongue over his teeth. His hand slides over her shoulder, fingers lightly pressing to her collarbone before slipping beneath the thin and lacy strap of her bra. Leave it to Jo to wear completely impractical underwear. Maybe she knew she was gonna get laid tonight. Hell, he’d practically planned on it. Although he really never thought they’d be fucking each other.

His hand smoothes around to her back and he lets his fingers work over eyehooks and the flimsy piece of lace drops to the ground with a wet thump. She yanks his shirt up over his head and kisses him again, both their mouths still wet and now kind of cold. Spit and rain water. Her fingers fall back to the button on his jeans.

“You don’t have to call me after.”

“Wasn’t really planning on it.”

She nods and holds her palm on his side, his hipbone pressing into her wrist. Her pants come off before his, stuck around her ankles, and she reaches into his front pocket, rubs the tips of her knuckles over his cock through the fabric, and pulls out a condom.

“Wow. You’re like Boy Scout.”

“Yeah, always prepared and I do good turns daily. Hey, how about that? Today you’re the good turn.”

A low laugh comes out from between her lips and she bites at the side of her mouth and tucks the foil packet into the elastic of her panties. He looks back at her with raised eyebrows.

The rain’s coming down harder now, thick and heavy drops on their skin. Jo pushes wet fingers back to Dean’s stomach and he nudges her against the wall with his knee. She pulls his jeans down, around his ankles, same as hers. He dips his fingers into her panties, grabs the condom with his thumb and forefinger and holds it in his teeth, and moves his hand lower. He doesn’t know if she’s wet from the rain or if it’s for him, but he grins in approval and flicks a nail over her clit as he noses his way inside. She grips at his shoulders and then plucks the condom from his mouth.

“Probably a good idea if this is just a one time thing.”

“Oh, yeah. Sure.”

He works a second finger into her cunt, knuckle deep and sets up a slow and soft rhythm. Her hands are on his neck now, wet tits pressed against his chest as she leans up for a messy kiss. Her lips start to warm under his.

“I mean, if we did it more than once, it’d be pretty hard to be friends? Right?”

“Maybe.”

Her fingers move around his cock, small hand curling into a tiny fist. She rolls the condom on, her movements jerky as he adds a third finger inside of her, his thumb still playing in circles over her clit.

“And we’re okay as friends. Not great as friends, like we’re not best friends, but we’re okay.”

He kisses her, pushes a wet tongue into a wet mouth and pushes a wet hand between wet bodies. She stops talking and comes around his fingers, low and shaking. Dean grins and pulls her half on top of him and still pressed up against the wall and as he takes his hand out of her panties, he shoves them down to her knees.

“Yeah, Jo, we’re okay as friends.”

“Yeah.”

He pushes inside and she’s wet and tight and he can feel each drop of rain as it pours down around them. She looks at him with serious eyes, wide and brown, and he swallows and pulls out almost to the tip then pushes back inside, as deep and as hard as he can. Jo gives him a brittle smile.

“Okay, so maybe there’ll be a few strings.”

He nods and swallows again and closes his eyes. He can hear the rain splashing to the ground and the wet slap of skin on skin.

There’s totally gonna be strings.

The next time is after a hunt.

Sam dislocated his kneecap and is kind of out of commission, so Dean sucks it up and calls in a favor from Jo. She drives over from some backwater town a few hundred miles away and they skip the small talk and get straight to business.

It’s an old house with unreliable wiring and that musty smell that all old houses have. And, thanks to them, it’s now ghost-free. Smoke and salt mix with the damp air and along with that musty smell, it kind of smells like cold summer nights, too.

Jo smiles and licks her lips and then looks over at him, her head tilted to the side. Dean knows that look.

“No way. Are you freakin’ crazy?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re such a nympho.”

She crosses her arms over her chest and raises an eyebrow, smirking.

“Oh my gosh, I didn’t know that you hadn’t met kettle! Well, this is really embarrassing, but just so you know, it wants to tell you that you’re black.”

He laughs and tugs her towards him until their hips slam together. He holds his hand over her ass, fingers splayed open and wide, and pushes his mouth to hers. His tongue flicks over lips and they stumble and trip over each other’s feet as they back into walls and make their way up creaky stairs.

She has one hand down the front of his jeans, fingers wrapped around his dick and pulling up and down along his shaft. They take fumbling steps down the hallway and knock at least two photos off the wall, revealing pale frame-shaped spots on the dirty wallpaper.

There’s a room that used to be a bedroom, yellowed sheets hanging loosely over mirrors and chairs and a vanity, and there’s an old mattress on the floor. Jo looks down at it, wrinkles her nose.

“Dude, gross.”

Her fingers are still on his cock. Dean fists one hand on his hip and rubs the other over his forehead and blows a frustrated puff of air from between his lips. It sounds a lot like a groan.

“You started this.”

“You started it last time.”

“Did not.”

“You so did.”

“Look, are we gonna finish this or what?”

He pulls her down onto the mattress, her hand slipping out from his pants, and she straddles his hips. They pretty much forget about the rest of the foreplay, Dean sliding his hands beneath her shirt and bra and quickly running his thumbs over hardened nipples before Jo bats his hands out of the way, and they decide the best idea is just to not let any skin really touch anything.

Dean tugs her onto his lap and quickly pulls her onto his cock, uses fast thrusts and closes his eyes. He wonders how it’d be if she rode him properly, tits bare and bouncing and hands on his chest. And it’s only after he comes, already dripping from her and back onto him, that he realizes they forgot the condom this time. Jo seems to think the same thing and her cheeks flush pink as they stand and button up their jeans, both sticky.

He kisses her cheek, stiff and awkward. She kind of grins.

“This thing with us being friends is taking a really weird turn.”

“Nah. I fuck all my friends.”

“Oh, well when you put it that way.”

He flings an arm around her shoulders and pulls her into him. She sort of fits there, tucked under his arm, and she slides her own arms around his waist, both of her hands locked together at his hip. He smiles.

“Makes you feel all special then. Right?”

“Yeah, Dean. I’m just tingling with happiness.”

The third time is in a doorway.

She’s on another hunt with Dean, tracking a trail of odd weather patterns that crisscross back and forth from the east cost to the west. Sam’s knee is healing up nicely, but Dean says that they wouldn’t mind the backup.

Out of the shower, she pulls on a pair of panties and a t-shirt and ties her wet hair up into a ponytail. Dean’s waiting on the other side of the door when she opens it and he smirks at her.

“What?”

He doesn’t answer and she tries to push past him, but he grabs onto her wrist. Her pulse jumps a bit where his fingers are pressed to her skin and he’s still smirking at her. She narrows her eyes and yanks her arm free.

“Dude, what?”

“No. It’s nothing.”

“If it’s nothing, then get that fucking grin off your face.”

“When did you get so hostile? I like it.”

“What don’t you like?”

He tucks his hands in his pockets and shrugs. There’s not much that he doesn’t like. From the time that Sam learned was sex was, he’d said that Dean would screw anything that was human and moved. It wasn’t an entirely wrong assumption. He does, however, really like Jo (enough to fuck her twice) and it’s confusing the hell out of him.

“Hey, Peeping Tom, we doing this?”

“Doing what?”

Dean looks up and she’s tugging the shirt that she just put on over her head. Her skin is still damp from the shower and the shirt bunches up around her middle. He grabs for her arm again, gently holds on and stops her from taking it off.

“Leave it.”

She blushes, two spots of pink dotting her cheeks. Jo smoothes her shirt back into place, fits it over her hips.

“Yeah, okay.”

He grins and bends to kiss her, one hand holding the back of her head, freeing her hair from the elastic, and the other on her stomach. She smiles into the kiss, he can feel her lips turning up at the corners, and he lifts her up and she wraps her legs around his waist, digs her heels into the backs of his thighs.

They end up pressed against the doorframe, the one separates the room from the bathroom.

Dean digs a condom out from his wallet and quickly slips it on, Jo’s fingers lightly touching the base of his cock, her other hand looped around his neck. He moves her panties to the side, pulls her pussy apart with two fingers, and slides inside. And he does end up taking off her shirt, pushes it above her tits first, then pulls it off. She feels so naked against him, bare skin rubbing against cotton and denim.

He presses his lips to the hollow of her throat, slides his tongue out of his mouth to lick at a drop of sweat. She shivers.

“So, that whole one time thing? That really didn’t work out, did it?”

“Yeah, I kind of noticed that when there was a second time.”

“Okay, good. It wasn’t just me then.”

Dean smiles and nods, his chin bumping her shoulder, and he lightly bites at her jaw. She shudders around his cock and feels it when he comes too, warm and hot. He stays inside of her, soft now, and kisses the tip of her nose.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

Jo blushes again and kisses him back, covers his mouth with hers and they both turn at the sound of the door opening, a low squeak of old hinges. They quickly untangle themselves, Jo almost falling to the floor, and neither of them can find her shirt, so after Dean zips himself up, he starts to unbutton his own shirt to give to her and that’s when they both see Sam.

“Oh, hey, Sammy.”

He stares at them for a second, not blinking, and Jo holds an arm over her bare breasts and ducks behind Dean. And then Sam blinks, and with the blinking comes stammering.

“I, uh, the d-door wasn’t locked. And, I didn’t really see, well I mean I saw some, but n-nothing really. Sorry.”

Sam ends up stopping himself and smiling apologetically and walking back out into the hall, closing the door behind him.

Dean laughs.

“That wasn’t awkward at all.”

“Webster’s might disagree.”

“Well, yeah. But I could kick Webster’s ass.”

The fourth time, neither of them are exactly sure how it happens.

They’re sitting at the bar one minute and fucking in the bathroom the next. Dean thinks it started when they were comparing hunts, pointing out new scars and fresh bruises. Jo was telling him about this werewolf that sliced open her hip pretty good and he vaguely remembers asking to see the jagged path of stitches.

And now, well, now they’re staring at each other uncomfortably.

Dean slowly pulls out and Jo unwraps her leg from around his, pulling up her jeans and knocking her elbow on the stall door. She laughs and it echoes off dirty tile walls. Dean ties off and flushes the used condom.

“So, I’ll call you?”

“Yeah, sure. I guess.”

“Alright.”

“Great.”

He leans over to kiss her, but he sort of misses and his mouth hits her chin. She laughs again and then shrugs her shoulders. She buttons up her shirt and chews on her lip, teeth snagging on skin. Dean scratches at his forehead.

“Or you know, round two?”

“Wow, two is my favorite number.”

“Really? Mine’s three.”

“Don’t push it.”

The fifth time is in her bedroom.

It’s the first time that they’re completely naked from head to toe, all sweat and bare skin. Dean pulls sticky fingers over her calf, walks them up her leg and follows with his mouth. Behind her knee and over her thigh. Jo lets out a low sigh.

“This is going to change things you know.”

“More so than the other how many times?”

She props herself up on her elbows, looks at him kneeling between her legs, hands on her thighs and holding her open. He presses a light kiss on her hipbone, lifts his eyebrows while he waits for her to answer.

“Jo?”

She tips her head to the side and smiles prettily.

“Well, yeah. It’s different. Don’t you think? It feels different.”

“Yeah.”

She catches the small grin on his mouth and he ducks his head back down, kissing her hip again. Jo curls her fingers over his shoulder and he turns and pushes his lips to her wrist. It is different.

He slides his hand up over her stomach, licks her mouth and moves careful fingers down to one pink and rosy nipple. He kisses his way down her throat, pauses at her shoulder and the top of her breast, then lightly drags his teeth over a finger-shaped bruise. His lips replace his fingers and he gives a few more small nips, saliva cooling their warm skin.

Jo runs the back of her knuckle over a stubbled cheek. He kisses the edge of her finger, softly licks at gun calluses. She rolls over on her side and he snakes up behind her, pushes his mouth to her neck and she shrugs.

“Hey, you don’t have to do this.”

“Uh, are you screwing with me? ‘Cause we’re kind of already doing it. Well, not literally right now, but if you just gimme a sec.”

She laughs and her back shakes where he has one hand neatly held between shoulder blades, thumb stroking the knobs of her spine.

“No, I mean you don’t have to be so soft and gentle. I said it felt different, not that it felt like a Hallmark commercial.”

“God, I love you.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“What?”

She pulls away from him a bit, folds her arms beneath her head.

“C’mon, Dean. Don’t say shit like that.”

“Like what? Jesus, Jo.”

“Just don’t.”

“Fine.”

He mouths at shoulder, shapes small kisses down her arm and back up to her neck, moves his finger up and down the bridge of her nose and then cups her cheek, turning her mouth to meet his. And her face is wet and tear-streaked as he kisses her.

“Don’t say shit like that if you don’t mean it.”

His licks his lips, licks her lips.

“Hey, Jo?”

“Yeah?”

“I mean it.”

She smiles and climbs on top of him, moves her legs over his hips and holds herself over him, her hair falling around her head, and then slides onto him, slick and wet and tight. Dean moves the hair from where it’s sticking to the trail of tears on her cheeks and tucks it behind her ears and pushes a wet mouth to a wet mouth.

For a Minute (PG, Sam)

Sat, 03 May 2008 03:30:14 GMT

Title: For a Minute
Author: Brinny
Character/Pairing: Sam, with mentions of Sam/Jess.
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 300
Spoilers/Warnings: Takes place during/after 3.14, "Long Distance Call".

For a minute, he thinks about it. Just one minute.

And maybe it’s really just for a few seconds, one or two slow passes of a ticking hand on a clock. Sam doesn’t know how to count time anymore because for months everything’s just felt like a countdown to a deal that should have never happened and a war that he’ll always be fighting.

But, for a minute, he closes his eyes and thinks about it. He thinks about how he wants the phone to ring for him.

Sam spent weeks dreaming of Jess after she died. He spent weeks dreaming of her on the ceiling, bleeding. He spent weeks dreaming of her asking him to help her, crying and gasping and pleading. Weeks of dreams where she screamed that he let her die. He learned to hate the sound of her voice.

And now, just for a minute, Sam wants to hear her breathe his name. He wants to hear her laugh and he wants to tell her that he’s sorry and that he loves her and he doesn’t care if it isn’t real. For just one minute, he just wants to hear her say that she loved him back.

If she asked him to come to her, he probably would. She died for him (and she never knew why) and part of Sam feels like he should return the favor. It’s the same part of him that wants to see her and touch her and would give up anything just to do either. And some other part of Sam knows that he and his brother are exactly the same and that’s why there’s some ticking countdown to a life without Dean.

And it’s just for a minute. (Or seconds or hours or days.) But, he thinks about it.

second to second (tick-tock)

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 01:11:00 GMT

Just a non-fandom specific little drabble of the het variety that I wrote while listening to "The Big Fight" by Stars (Minotaur Shock remix). The last line is a direct lyric from the chorus. Figured I'd post it here and see if anyone got a kick out of it.

Second to second and it feels like hours. (It’s minutes.)

He tells her that it’s all a mistake. (She cries.)

He says he loves her. (It’s not true.)

She leaves him, black lines on her cheeks and heartbroken. (He wants her back.)

“It’s over.” (It’s not.)

“Please.” (“I hate you.”)

Hour to hour and it feels like seconds. (It’s neither.)

She take him back, screws him in the same bed. (They’re stuck.)

She says they’re happy. (It’s a lie.)

He doesn’t want her, but he just won’t let her go. (She’s started breaking, but she still won’t let it show.)

nature's cruel (she laughs at me) PG, Sam/Jo

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 02:50:47 GMT

Title: nature's cruel (she laughs at me)
Author: Brinny
Character/Pairing: Sam/Jo
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 318
Notes: quiet_rebel asked for some Sam/Jo, with the prompt: "Texas, sandstorm, emergency". (Um, I may or may not have gone over the 100 allotted words for a drabble. Heh.) A bit more of an author's note follows the fic, should anyone be interested.

Jo says she needs a change and Sam drives them down gravel roads until they reach Texas. They rent a house and pretend they know how to play at normal. He ends up being better at it than her and she knows it’s because he’s had more practice.

One week in late winter and something inside of her changes. It’s around the same time the world decides to stop, but that’s probably just a coincidence.

It’s cold and everything is dark.

A different kind of storm is coming and she feels it for days and weeks before. She tries to ignore it, but the whistles of the wind echo into a warning. When she tells Sam, he only frowns and kisses her softly.

Last night, thunder shook the earth and lightning filled the sky. Last night, rain made everything new just one more time. Last night, she fucked Sam with her eyes open and it broke her before it fixed her.

She stands on the porch and he stands behind her, steady and strong, and holds onto her hand. He winds his fingers together with hers, all soft and sweaty skin and thin and hard metal. They’ll go down as one.

Jo remembers the last time.

The sand sweeps up into the air. She sees the red and brown dust twisting and fighting in the wind. Her eyes and mouth feel gritty and Sam just holds onto her hand tighter. Behind the red and brown, Jo can see slow and curling black clouds. They’ve fought this war before.

It circles around them. Red over brown over black.

And while everything tumbles down around them, it still feels like they’ve won. They made it this far, here and alive. And part of Jo thinks that if she just keeps holding on—holding onto Sam and holding onto life and holding onto what they had—nothing will really be over.

More Notes: Alrighty. So, firstly, "Rain City" by Turin Brakes came up on my iTunes when I was just finishing this up and it was all around perfect for this fic, so, uh, yeah I stole a lyric for the title. Also, (secondly?) I actually looked up sandstorms (yay! for learning) and, no, you wouldn't be able to just stand in the middle of one, but it's all symbolic and whatever in the fic. Kinda. Hee.

Over a Year (PG-13, Dean/Jo)

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 23:47:43 GMT

Title: Over a Year
Author: Brinny
Character/Pairing: Dean/Jo. (And for kicks, there's some Sam and Ellen, too. But not, you know, Sam/Ellen.)
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 830
Notes: This was written for the wonderful theladyscribe on the day of her birth. She just wanted some "Happy Dean/Jo". And it's happy, I promise! :)

It’s been over a year since the deal happened, when Dean pressed warm lips to a cold mouth and promised his life away. And it’s been over a year since Dean didn’t die. Over a year since the war started and ended. Dean and Sam come out of the battle with matching scars and smiles.

Hunters tell tales about the brothers. Old men sit in bars and shake their heads as they sip from dirty glasses filled with whiskey and talk about how those two boys saved the world from the hell itself. Gods among men. The legend of the Winchesters is born.

It’s been over a year since the gates opened, dark shadows walking the earth like they belonged, and Ellen rebuilds the Roadhouse. She does it board by board, hammers every nail in herself. Jo comes back and there’s still two Harvelles enough to hang up a sign with their name spelled out in burnt out lights.

And it’s been over a year, and Sam and Dean start to call it home.

Dusty from the road and they barrel through the front door, new hinges already squeaking like old. Sam pushes at Dean’s shoulders and they both laugh, still high off of the hunt. Tired and still laughing they slide onto sturdy barstools.

Dean knocks a fist against the counter.

“Hey, who do you have to blow to get a beer in this place?”

Jo comes out from the swinging door of the kitchen, coltish legs in a full sprint, and almost hurls herself at him. Arms around his shoulders, she pushes her nose into his neck and kisses his chin. He smells like leather and soap and sweat.

“You’re back,” she says. She looks up at him, all smiles.

He smiles back and quickly covers her mouth with his and then untangles her from his arms. “Yeah, I am.”

Jo sees the stool next to Dean, someone’s long legs wrapped around the rungs, and she waves, her face flushing pink. “Hi, Sam.”

“Hey, Jo,” he says, head tipped in a nod.

She bites her lip and fusses with her hair, pins it up high and messy, and walks behind the bar. Slipping two bottles of beer between thin fingers, she pushes them onto the counter and smiles again.

“I’ll go tell Mom that you guys are here.”

It’s been over a year since Dean first met her and he still watches her walk away, boyish hips canting from side to side and apron strings bouncing over too-tight denim.

“What the hell was that?” Sam asks.

He cracks the top of his beer against the edge of the bar and the metal cap makes a desperate sound as it falls to the floor with a small clank. He grins and licks at the beer and foam that runs down his fingers in uneven trails. Dean pops the cap of his own beer, slides metal ridges beneath the ring on his hand, and takes a noisy gulp. He shrugs.

“What was what?”

Sam lifts his eyebrows and he lifts them a little too high, tears open a neat line of stitches above his eye and a thin stream of blood glides through sweat and dirt and trickles down his temple. He wipes it away, then rubs his newly reddened fingers over his knee.

“Jo,” he says. “Since when did you two become so chummy?”

“Chummy?” Dean repeats. He pours more beer down his dry throat, drags the back of his hand over his mouth as he sets the bottle back down. “Dude, it’s Jo. We’ve always been chummy. We’re friends.”

“Wow.” Sam shakes his head. “Well, Bobby sure isn’t gonna be pleased to know he hasn’t been getting the full Dean Winchester friend treatment all these years.”

“Oh,” Dean remarks, so much behind the little word as he twists his lips around it. “Real fucking funny, Sammy.”

“Seriously, you and Jo?”

Dean moves his shoulders up and down and grins. “Are none of your goddamn business.”

It’s been over a year since Dean started sleeping with Jo, frantic fucking in the backroom and late nights under the stars with whispered promises in the dark. It’s been over a year that they’ve kept it a secret.

Jo pushes through the swinging doors again, this time Ellen behind her. Ellen smiles, grabs a beer for herself, and asks about the last hunt.

“Wasn’t anything we couldn’t handle,” Sam answers. He likes the legend of the Winchesters, likes being on the side of the good guys. “It got a little bloody, but we finished the job.”

Jo slips onto the stool on the other side of Dean, and holds her hand on his knee. He curls his fingers around hers, squeezes lightly.

It’s been over a year since Dean cheated death for the third time. And it’s been over a year since he asked Jo to marry him, when he pressed warm lips to a warm mouth and promised his life away.

Candles and cake and presents! OH MY!

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 19:38:30 GMT

Yeah, whatever, I'm a dork.

Anyway.

Happy Birthday theladyscribe! I hope you have the most awesomest day EVER. And should you want to request a fic, just leave a pairing or prompt or whatever the hell you want below. :D

When the Night Descends Upon Us (PG, Mary)

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 04:59:18 GMT

Title: When the Night Descends Upon Us
Author: Brinny
Character/Pairing: Mostly Mary with some OCs and John. (John/Mary)
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 1,380
Notes: Um, I guess this is kind of a fic about all the unanswered questions about Mary. Who's the uncle that Dean and Sam never met and how she knew the YED. Stuff like that. (It's late, I plead fatigue.)

Mary’s still in pigtails when her dad leaves. Johnny’s almost a baby. Her dad moves on to another town or another family, she’s not really sure. She guesses that her mom is just too sick for him to deal with, so he washes his hands of it. Washes his hands of them.

When Mrs. Jones asks them to draw pictures of their families, Mary makes neat stick-figures of her mom and dad and her brothers, then colors over her dad’s face with a black crayon. He doesn’t belong anymore. She gets sent to the school counselor.

That night, she tiptoes into her mom’s bedroom and crawls under the blankets. Johnny’s already there, warm and sleepy, and her mom kisses his forehead, then hers. And they become a little family of three.

The next year, her mom dies and her older brother David gets married to some girl named Susanna that he’s been seeing off and on for a few years. Susanna is pretty and she keeps candy in her pockets, lemon drops wrapped in crinkly paper that she presses into Mary’s hand, their own little secret. David says they’re going to have a baby, but all Mary hears is that she and Johnny are going to be living with their Uncle Paul, now.

Uncle Paul is her mom’s brother, but looks like he could be her father. (But, he and her mom don’t have parents, not that Mary knows of.) He has thick glasses and grey hair and he smiles a lot, always smells like chewing gum and pipe tobacco. His hands feel rough and calloused as he touches a finger to both of their noses.

“Hey, kids. Welcome to the abode.”

Johnny holds on tight to Mary’s hand and she squeezes his small and chubby fingers until they turn pink.

“Don’t worry,” Uncle Paul says. He pulls on one of Mary’s pigtails. “You’re safe here.”

Johnny sees the shadow people. Johnny sees them and Mary only hears them, a wet and heavy breathing on her neck. They whisper to her in the dark.

Johnny carefully stacks one colored block on top of the next, a shaky tower that grows higher and higher. Mary sits next to him and watches. Yesterday was her birthday and her uncle Paul gave her a stuffed toy bunny, with floppy ears and a black button nose. Mary watches Johnny and Mr. Carrots watches her.

“They say they’re coming,” Mary tells him. “The shadow people. They’re coming for us.”

Red block, blue block. Johnny’s foot slips and the shaky tower falls. He looks out the window, eyes wide, and Mary starts to hear a familiar sound, a low panting and hissing that she knows even in her dreams.

“Not us,” he says.

That night, there’s a fire at David’s house. And he and Susanna and the baby, a little boy they called Daniel, all sleep through the flames.

One week later, Mary puts on her best dress and shiny black shoes and holds Uncle Paul’s hand through the service. Johnny stands beside her, a book of hymns clenched in his small fingers.

“Not us,” he says. “They won’t come for us. They promised.”

Mary’s fourteen when they lose Johnny. And that’s what he is, he’s lost. He might be dead and he might be alive. And Mary wants to believe one, but she knows it’s the other.

He goes to sleep one night and he’s gone by morning. His bed is made, sheets pulled tight, and the bedside lamp flickers on and off as the radio spits out static. He’s only ten. Mary thinks that the shadow people took him. Nobody believes her.

Police and neighbors look, but they never find him.

“It’s the shadow people,” Mary whispers.

“It’s nonsense is what it is, Mary.” Uncle Paul shakes his head and when he frowns, the wrinkles around his mouth and eyes deepen. He looks old. “All of that is make believe. It’s time to grow up now.”

“They took him,” she says. “They said they wouldn’t. They lied.”

“Mary—”

“They took him,” she says again.

She doesn’t talk for days and weeks after, just stays in her room and doesn’t eat. She pulls out a box of old records from underneath Johnny’s bed and lets the needle scratch over the vinyl, listens to the sharp scrape and then the soft sounds of the guitars. Over and over.

After college, David’s still dead and Johnny’s still gone, and Mary moves out her uncle’s house. The only things she takes with her are Mr. Carrots and Johnny’s records and the picture she drew of her family. She’s the only one left.

The day after Johnny’s birthday (if he was here and alive, he’d be sixteen), Mary walks to the little store on the corner to get a six-pack and a bag of lemon drops. It’s an odd way to celebrate, she thinks, but maybe it’ll help her forget about the shadow people. Sometimes, in the dark, she can still hear the whispers.

When she gets back, there’s this guy leaning against the hood of her car. A cigarette is dangling from his lips and he nudges his buddy with his elbow, nods at her. She tucks her thumb into the strap of her purse, jiggles the plastic bag that’s in her other hand, and lifts her eyebrows. His buddy laughs and ducks down the street, but the guy stays. He stays and he smiles, big and wide.

“Can I help you?” she asks.

He pats the side of her car, holds his hand on the dark metal. “She yours?”

“Yeah. So?”

He keeps smiling, then purses his lips and a thin trail of smoke leaves his mouth. Mary smells the smoke and thinks of fire. It was the shadow people that started the fire. The shadow people that took Johnny.

The guy holds the cigarette with his thumb and forefinger, takes another quick drag, and flicks the butt to the ground. His ankles crossed and arms folded over his chest, and he smiles again.

“I’m John.”

Mary’s heart stutters at the name. She takes him up to her apartment, peels off his shirt and pushes the tips of her fingers to his wrist and his throat, lets her palm fall flat beneath his ribs, just to feel every low thump-thump-thump. He doesn’t know what to say, and looks back at her wide-eyed, curling his hand over hers.

“Are you from heaven?” she asks. She shakes her head, blonde curls sticking to the mess of tears on her cheeks. “I mean—”

“Kansas. I’m from Kansas.” John laughs and pulls her hand up to his mouth, kisses the edge of her palm.

Mary bites her lip, turns the skin white. “I’m Mary.”

“Nice to meet you, Mary.”

She dates John for about a month, kisses his mouth and sleeps in his bed, before she decides she’s going to marry him. He waits an entire two years to ask her. They move down to Kansas, to Lawrence, because some guy who knew his dad has this garage where he can work. John’s the only left in his family, too. Just like her.

It’s another two more years before they actually get married. They go down to the courthouse and the ceremony is done by a justice of the peace. Mary wears white and John wears a blue-striped tie, and they find the perfect house to move into. There’s a flowerbed out front, pink peonies stuck in the dirt, and shutters on the windows.

The first thing Mary does is plug in the old record player and listens to the low scritch-scratch of the needle against the vinyl.

“Hey, you’ll ruin the record,” he says, smiling. He lifts the needle to the third track (he always says the third song is the best, no matter what the album) and they dance around unpacked boxes until midnight.

That night, Mary wraps herself in John’s arms. They set up a blanket on the floor, for tonight their bed is wool and carpet. John snores and she likes that it’s his soft breathing that she hears and not the shadow peoples’.

“John,” she whispers. “I’m pregnant.”

He grins against her neck, tugs her closer. And they become a little family of three.

To Recall to the Mind With Effort (PG-13, Dean/OFC)

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 02:33:36 GMT

Title: To Recall to the Mind With Effort
Author: Brinny
Character/Pairing: Dean/OFC (Sam's there, too)
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 825
Notes: Written for the spn_het_love Birthday Challenge. The Birth of Sam or Dean’s first child. (Um, I've been watching/reading a lot of "Dexter" lately. And 'a lot' and 'lately' meaning: it's freaking consumed my life. So, yes, that kind of explains this. Also, feel free to correct my crappy Spanish skills.)

It happens too fast. It’s night (really, it’s early morning) and it’s over and Dean doesn’t remember a damn thing. Everything is just one incomprehensibly big blur. He closes his eyes and presses the back of his hand to his forehead. He’s sweating. Dude, what the fuck?

Behind him, or maybe beside him, Sam laughs and grabs at his elbow. “Hey, you need a drink, man?”

“What?” His throat is dry and he swallows, tries to force down spit. “No. No, I’m fine.”

“Okay.”

Sam uncurls his fingers and Dean keeps his eyes closed and only sees bright spots of white light. The moon was fat and full and there was a tearing scream, he’s pretty sure of that. But, holy hell, what the fuck happened after? Seriously.

This has got to be some new and weird type of airborne amnesia that he’s caught. Just some temporary memory loss, that’s all. And, hey, he’s already in a hospital (he still hasn’t figured out why), so maybe they can help. Except that all of this is just completely crazy. Who doesn’t remember the last seven or so hours of their life? What the fuck, indeed.

Dean opens his eyes and sucks back a breath through his nose and almost chokes on the sterile smell. He fumbles to sit.

“Sam?”

“Right here, buddy.”

Sam bends down next to him, drapes long arms over the side of the chair and loosely holds his fingers on Dean’s wrist. Dean can feel the blood pumping hard under his veins. Too hard. Cold sweat and a pounding heart. Jesus Christ, this is so not the Dean Winchester way.

And then some chick dressed in pink hospital scrubs pushes something into his arms. Something soft and oddly heavy and not. Sam lets go of his wrist, just gently drops it and smiles.

“Here you go,” she says. She winks. “All in one piece.”

Dean tries to swallow again. “Huh?”

She shakes her head, mouth tipping in a confused grin, and slowly pats his shoulder. Well, he’s not fucking five, he doesn’t need that pitying look. And who the hell said she could touch him, anyway?

“Your daughter,” she says. “A lot of new dads get a little lightheaded. Need to take a breather. It happens, don’t worry. You’ll do great.”

The incomprehensibly big blur starts to skip and unfold and unwind, like a projector set on slow-motion. Everything clicks back into place.

The moon was fat and full and there was a tearing scream. And then a hell of a lot of rapid fire Spanish and bodily fluids, blood and mucus and tears. Sam drove him and Em to the hospital, ran every red light, and Dean sat with her in the backseat, holding tightly onto her hand. Six hours, twenty-nine minutes, and three cups full of ice chips (one of which left a pretty little purple bruise at Dean’s temple) and it’s now. He remembers everything.

“Blue,” he says, lips pushing out in a whisper.

He hears another laugh. Not Sam’s, something soft and giggly. He turns and sees an over-tired Emelina smiling up at him. Underneath the dark curls pressed to her forehead with sweat, she lifts an eyebrow.

“You want to name your kid, Blue? Yeah, I don’t think so.”

Dean grins and stands to sit on the edge of the bed. His hip bumps into Em’s side and she loops an arm around his legs, her sleepy smile widening. She pulls at his jeans, a hole that’s forming just above his knee.

“No,” he explains. “Her eyes, they’re brown. I just thought all babies were born with blue eyes.”

She laughs. “Well, our kid is special.”

Dean starts to sweat again, beading at his hairline and threatening to drip down his face. This is their kid. He has a kid. Holy shit. Em picks a bit more at his jeans, then moves her hand to pull back the blanket that’s covering a small baby face and small baby arms. And there she is. All big brown eyes.

“I like Maria,” she says, tips of her fingers walking up and down a small baby stomach. “She looks like a Maria.”

The sweating stops, sort of, and Dean’s grin returns. “She looks like you is who she looks like.”

“Well,” Em gives a half-pant of mock relief, one hand on her chest. “Thank God.”

Sam steps forward, shoulders hunched, hands in his pockets, and the same grin spreading across his mouth that’s already on Dean’s. “Maria. Sort of like Mary, for Mom.”

“Yeah,” Dean agrees. “For Mom.”

“Maria,” Em repeats, trying the name on. Her fingers keep walking back and forth, stopping to stroke small baby cheeks. “¿Ella es muy bonita, sí?”

“Yeah.”

Dean nods and closes his eyes again, and he’ll always remember this. The fat and full moon and her big brown eyes, everything crystal and crisp and vivid. And there’s Sam and Em and Maria. His family.

Gone (R, Bobby/Ruby)

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 23:20:43 GMT

Title: Gone
Author: Brinny
Character/Pairing: Bobby/Ruby ( *gasp* I know!)
Rating: R
Wordcount: 972
Notes: This was written for the very lovely ultraviolet9a on her birthday. She wanted Bobby/Ruby hetlovin', so I wrote Bobby/Ruby hetlovin'. (Well, I twisted it around and roughed it up a bit, but that's just my way.) Happy Birthday doll! Enjoy.

She’s broken long before the demon takes her.

Her armor is made up of so many loose chinks that it starts to sag; hanging awkward and too low on thin and track-marked arms. She’s always tried to be the good girl, but sometimes even the trying is too hard. And every day, she thinks that the rust-beaten armor she clings to so desperately, will fall and then she’ll be left with nothing.

And that’s when the demon comes.

She doesn’t bleed anymore, sharp slices on her wrists scab over and disappear, and she doesn’t hurt and she doesn’t cry. Somebody else is inside her, breathing for her and smiling with her mouth. She feels alive in a way that seems like it’s for the first time.

Her eyes were blue before they were black and her mother used to tie her hair into braids and sing-song her name and kiss her cheeks. Now it’s all different.

Ruby changes everything.

“Gone,” Ruby says. Her lips set in a sneer and she unbuttons her shirt. There’s a neat hole above her heart, where Bobby fired a bullet into her chest. It was supposed to kill her. “The girl was gone. She was lost and confused and scared. I helped her.”

Bobby doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even lift his eyes to look at her.

“I helped her.” The tips of her fingers lightly push into the hole and she steps closer—mouth at his ear. “She would be dead without me.”

“And she ain’t dead now? You think she can’t feel the pain?”

Ruby tilts her head. “I gave her a second chance.”

“At what?” Bobby asks. He stands and rubs a hand over his neck. “You’re gonna leave behind a body that’s wrecked. And that girl ain’t gonna live through it. She’s gonna die and it’s gonna be painful as all hell.”

“I gave her a second chance at life,” she says. “Without me, she would be me. Don’t you understand? She wasn’t on the waiting list for harps and clouds. It was hellfire on her heels and it was going to burn her alive.”

“And what gives you the right? That ain’t your decision to make. No one gets to play God with somebody else’s life.”

“You hunters are all the same.” Ruby shakes her head. “You think that we steal something from humans. That we ruin them. Demons don’t do anything wrong. We just slip into the cracks and fill people up with what they want to be.”

Bobby’s mouth dips into a tight line and his fists tighten at his sides. The look on his face is a warning and Ruby wants to crack the thin ice that she’s standing on. Just to see.

“We prey on the weak,” she says. Her fingers flick over the rest of the buttons on her shirt, each one slowly popping open. “People who are unhappy. Lonely.” She knows what happened to Bobby’s wife. Demons talk. “We find women who sit in the dark and drink too much after their mothers die. And maybe they used to be sweet and liked long rides in pick-ups, but now they just want to die because everything hurts too much. And their husbands can’t fix them, so we do the fixing ourselves.”

Bobby’s hand cracks hard across her face. She gasps and grins, holding a palm to her cheek, and he points a finger at her.

“You watch your goddamn mouth. You hear?”

“You still don’t get, do you?” Ruby laughs. “She was saved, Bobby. Good Catholic girls who off themselves? They don’t go heaven. But, get a little demonic possession in you and God makes an exception for all those naughty thoughts and misdeeds. She was saved.”

“You even listenin’ to yourself?”

She slides the shirt off of her shoulders and leans herself forward. “You can be saved, too. You’ve still got time.”

“I don’t need yer kind of savin’,” he says, eyes narrowed and a line forming between his brows.

“Everybody needs to be saved, Bobby.” Her eyes shine black, dark and inky and endless, and she shrugs. “Doesn’t matter who does the saving or how, but everyone needs it. And the more you think that you don’t, the more you do.”

“Hell, aren’t you just the little goodwill ambassador, then? Shootin’ sunshine up all our evil asses. We should be so goddamn lucky.”

“Well, nobody saved me. And it kinda sucked.”

Her lips press to his and Bobby wraps his fingers around her arms, pushes at her. She pushes back, bare hipbones sticking out from the top of her jeans and cutting into his thighs. She can feel him hard against her, feels it even as he peels her off and rips her away.

“Gone,” Ruby says, spits the word out. She doesn’t know who she’s talking about now, which broken girl. “She was gone.”

She scrapes her knuckles over his chin, puts her fingers on his mouth, and drops her other hand to tug at his belt buckle. This time when he pushes her, it’s up against the wall, and a nearby pile of books tumble to the floor. He kisses her, tastes like bourbon and something sad, and she’s almost sorry. But when he kisses her again, mouth at her throat, right where her pulse should be, she’s not.

Ruby fucks him like she’s trying to crawl inside and if she really wanted to, she could. She scratches and pulls and soothes and smiles. He doesn’t touch her tits, doesn’t breathe hot on her cunt, just takes and doesn’t give.

He comes with a low grunt, one hand held over that hole in her heart, the one that should have killed her, and Ruby whispers, “Gone.”

She’s broken long before the demon takes her. And she stays broken long after.

Demons lie.

Semper ubi sub ubi (G, Sam and Dean)

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 02:08:03 GMT

Title: Semper ubi sub ubi
Author: Brinny
Rating: G
Characters: Sam and Dean (in wee!chester form)
Wordcount: 100
Notes: Written for 100_ghosts , prompt: "any port in a storm". (Um, apparently I'm drabbley tonight.)

“What?!” Sam screeches. He shakes his head, lip curled in disgust. “No way!”

“All they had, Sammy. And you’re out.” Dean waves the package, smirking.

“No." Another head shake. "I just won’t wear any.”

“You can’t not wear any, Sam.”

“Yeah? Says who?” he asks, cocky tip of his chin and hair falling in his eyes.

“I don’t know.” Dean rips at the plastic. “Says Dad. Or the bible or whatever. Just, stop being a brat and put ‘em on.”

Sam clenches the underwear (pink with a bow) in his hand. “Tell anyone and you’re so dead.”

“Yeah, okay, Samantha.”

Off Limits (R, Jo/Winchester Men)

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 20:42:00 GMT

Title: Off Limits
Author: Brinny
Rating: R (It's a light R, though)
Characters: Jo/Winchester Men (No. Seriously. It's Jo with all the boys. Although, not all at the same time.)
Wordcount: 100
Notes: Written for 100_ghosts , prompt: "forbidden fruit".

He’s off limits.

You’ve fucked his dad and you’ve fucked his brother, brokenhearted in backseats, both of them calling you little girl when they spilled inside of you.

But he touches his lips to yours and says your name so sweetly, it makes you forget.

You forget he’s off limits. You forget that you fucked his dad, thick hands around your hips. You forget that you married his brother, barefoot in a backyard with flowers in your hair.

You forget and you kiss him back, sorry and needy.

You forget even wrapped in dirty sheets, Dean looking back at you.

Hold Tight (PG-13, Dean/Jo)

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 01:17:16 GMT

Title: Hold Tight
Author: Brinny
Character/Pairing: Dean, Sam, Bobby and Jo. (Dean/Jo)
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 2,134
Notes: This can be read as a companion to "Throw the Light", but it works as a stand-alone, so if you haven't read the other fic, don't sweat it.

Dean smears grease-stained fingertips on the outside of his pockets and nods at Sam to knock on the door. There’s a dirty ‘welcome’ mat on the back step and after he knocks, Sam scuffs his boot along the edge, trying to wipe off clumps of thick and wet mud. He sniffs lowly, shifts, and loops his key ring around his knuckle. Dean rubs his hands over his jeans again, stains the denim dark.

Sam presses his nose to the window, squints and tries to see inside.

“Bobby know we’re coming?”

Dean shrugs. “Dunno. Probably not.”

“You didn’t call?”

Dean shoulders move into another shrug and Sam curls his hand into a fist and knocks, loud and short this time. The door opens and Bobby grins at them, wraps his fingers around the doorframe. He has a dusty book tucked under his arm and the lines around his mouth deepen as he laughs.

“Well if it ain’t the hell-fearing Winchesters.” He slides the book into his hand and pulls at the brim of his hat. “Good to see you, boys.”

“Hey, Bobby,” Sam says. He ducks his head, hair falling over his eyes and he quickly pushes it out of the way.

Dean grins back and lifts an eyebrow. “Miss us?”

“Yeah,” Bobby says, with a grunt and a nod. “Like a hole in the head.”

Sam smiles and Dean smirks. Bobby waves them in, pages of the book fanning open, and they weave their way through messy piles of books and newspapers.

It’s been almost a year, but the house hasn’t really changed. More books and more cracks in the plaster and the same protection charms knifed into the wood with new clippings marked with black ink taped and tacked to the walls.

“You kids just in the neighborhood or somethin’?”

“Yeah,” Sam says, lips still tipped in a smile.

At the same time, Dean says, “Or somethin’.”

“Not in any trouble, are you?” Bobby tucks his thumb into his book, keeps his page, and looks them both up and down.

“Nah, we’re good.” Dean guiltily shoves his hands into his pockets and gives a quick jerk of his head, out toward the junkyard. “Old girl kind of needed a rest, though.”

“Don’t we all,” Bobby near-mutters and wipes a hand down his face. “You workin’ anything?”

“A couple of hunches,” Sam says, sticking his own hands into his pockets. “Over in Watertown, maybe.”

Dean eyes a pair of boots, just as muddy as Sam’s but a few sizes smaller, lazily thrown in a doorway. A scrawny, orange tabby cat is curled up around the heels, purring lowly. Kneeling down, Dean touches two fingers to the sleeping cat’s ear. The tabby slowly opens one eye and yawns, stretching its paws. It looks at Dean, a little weary, then fits itself into a ball, closes the same eye, and goes back to sleep.

“Got a new friend, Bobby?” he asks.

Bobby looks at the cat and shrugs. “Can’t get the damn thing to leave.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, nodding at his brother. He smirks. “I got one of those, too. Call him Sam.”

Sam snorts and rolls his eyes and Bobby looks like he’s fighting not to do the same.

“You boys hungry?” He drops the book he’s holding onto a stack of newspapers and scratches his forehead, every move kind of tired and lazy. “I got some steaks sitting in the sink.”

“Yeah,” Sam says. “Need a hand?”

“Sure.” Bobby shrugs again, narrows his eyes a bit. He points a finger. “A red element equals hot, Sam.”

Sam huffs, and this time only the whites of his eyes show, he rolls them so far back. He crosses his arms over his chest and then laughs. “Yeah, not seven anymore, Bobby.”

“Refresher like that never hurts, kid.”

“Right,” Sam answers, chin tipping up and out.

“I’m gonna wash up.” Dean raises his hands, shows off the black smudges over his knuckles and palms. “Snag me a beer, Sammy?”

“Get it yourself.” Sam gives another laugh, tongue sticking out from behind his teeth.

“Yeah, well, you—” He stops. Thinks. “Get it yourself.”

Sam follows Bobby into the kitchen, shoulders bobbing in a low chuckle. “Yeah, Dean. Okay.”

Dean winks, though his brother can’t see it with his back turned, and thuds up the backstairs. The bathroom is down the hall and his boots are heavy on the worn floors, boards creaking under him as he walks.

He washes his hands with hard soap and cold water, and after he wipes them clean with the towel that’s draped over the shower rod, he pulls at the two stitches below his eye. The thread is crusted over with blood and a purple bruise is blooming behind it. Poltergeists freaking suck.

“Fuck,” he hisses, pulling a bit too hard on the skin.

He leaves the scabbed-over stitches alone, and walks back down the hall ,and the door, white chipped paint along the edges, to Bobby’s room is cracked open. And there’s someone inside. There’s tinny clank, something hitting something, and slip of blonde hair.

Dean tugs the door open wider.

And of all the places he expected to see her again, here was probably the last of them.

She’s sitting on the floor of Bobby’s old bedroom, blanket around her shoulders and her legs neatly crossed, with a book open on her lap. Her fingers are curled around a chipped coffee mug, the tag of a teabag dangling off of the side, and she turns the page, sipping slowly.

Dean licks his lips.

She looks different. Soft instead of hard. She’s not full of sharp and pointed angles anymore, more smooth and rounded. There aren’t any stray bruises marking her skin, just scars that have faded with time. It’s like she never held a knife or fired a sawed-off. Like she’s erased all the pain that she used to know and love.

Dean pushes his thumbnail under his forefinger, flicks at a piece of torn skin.

“Hey.”

Jo lifts her eyes from the book, holding her hand flat on the page. Her lips pull down into a frown when she sees him, his side pressed up against the doorjamb, holes in his jeans, and one hand in his pocket. She blinks, slow and wondering, and then starts to smile.

“Hi,” she says, quiet.

“You’re here,” he says, but it sounds more like a question. He shakes his head and gives an almost disapproving snort. “I thought you got out of this kind of life.”

She shrugs and closes the book, puts both it and the mug on the nightstand. Then she stands and stretches her arms above her head, the blanket falling from her shoulders and her shirt tugging up over her stomach. She pulls her shirt back down and smiles a little bit wider.

“I’m just visiting.”

Dean nods. “Oh.”

She tilts her head to the side, gathers thin sections of hair between her fingers and starts to twist it into a loose braid. Sitting on the bed, hair still half-tangled in her hands, and she shyly bites at her bottom lip.

“You?” She fiddles with her hair a bit more, then forgets the unmade braid.

“Yeah, same,” he says, smiling faintly. He pushes away from the doorway, takes a couple of slow steps into the room. “You, uh, never really said goodbye, you know.”

She nods. “Yeah, I know.”

Dean clears his throat, holding a fist to his lips. When his hand falls back to his side, he gives a one-shouldered shrug and sits down on the bed next to her. He rubs at his knee, fingers dragging over bloodstains and smudges of gun oil and grease and bare skin, and turns his head to look at her.

She frowns again.

“You didn’t either,” she tells him, touching his chin with the tip of her knuckle.

And her hands are cold, which surprises him, but shouldn’t. She was always cold before, and it’s such a strange thing to stay the same when near-everything else about her has changed. He thinks about all the rainy nights they spent in motel rooms with her feet pressed to the backs of his knees and how she’d giggle and call him a human furnace.

Dean loops loose fingers around her wrist and Jo uncurls her hand to cup his cheek, slowly moves her thumb over his lips.

“Guess that makes us even,” he says.

She drops her hand, laughs lowly. “Yeah, guess so.”

Dean returns the laugh and nods. He looks up at the ceiling, and there’s a thin and spindly crack leading to a brownish water spot that’s threatening to leak. If he and Sam end up staying for a few days, he’ll fix it up for Bobby.

Jo shifts beside him, pulls her knees up to her chest, and curls her toes around the edge of the bed. Dean looks back at her.

“Been here long?”

“Couple weeks.”

“Yeah?” he asks. He flicks at the same piece of torn skin.

“I come around same time each year.” She smiles awkwardly. “Helps us cope.” Pausing, she closes her eyes, and tears quickly slide down her cheeks, rolling down to her chin. “Or something like that.”

And then Dean remembers that the last time he saw Jo, she was standing in the grass in that black dress, hand in hand with Bobby. He didn’t say goodbye that time, either. Not to her or her mother. He thinks that maybe Sam did, because Sam’s always been that guy and he’s just always wanted to be that kind of guy.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

She bites at her lip again, tips her head in a small shrug. “It was a long time ago.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. The torn piece of skin starts to bleed the more he picks at it. “Still.”

“Yeah,” she repeats. She presses the backs of her hands to cheeks, wiping at the tears. “Gosh.”

“Gosh?” Dean asks with a grin.

She rolls her eyes, at herself or him, he’s not sure, and nudges him with her elbow. She’s still wiping her fingers over her face and there’s this thin gold band on her left hand, a little too loose, and it keeps sliding up and down her ring finger. He pulls at her wrist, lightly grabbing onto her hand.

“Hey, what’s this?”

Jo smiles, less awkward now, and more some impossible combination of happy and sad. “It’s a Cracker Jack prize, Dean. What’s it look like?”

“You’re married?” He frowns, a small knot forming between his eyebrows.

“Yeah,” she says. She tugs her hand back, drops her legs back down to the floor, and shrugs. “I would have called or something, but it just wasn’t really a thing. You know?”

“Wasn’t really a thing?” He shakes his head, corners of this mouth lifting into a smirk. “Wow. Congrats, I guess.”

“Thanks.”

“Sure.”

And he sort of nods and lets out a low breath and she sighs.

Dean stares at her, frames her in long lashes, then puts his hands on either side of her face, thumbs pressing to her cheeks, and softly pushes his lips to hers. She bends a bit underneath him, kisses him back, opening her mouth wider as his tongue touches to hers. His fingers slip through the messy braid that’s still hanging at her shoulder and Jo pulls herself away, holding a hand to her lips—startled.

“Sorry,” he says. “That wasn’t—” He rubs the tips of his fingers over his mouth, a grin starting. “Bobby’s fryin’ up diner.”

He can see her chewing at the side of her mouth and she stands up, jamming her hands into her back pockets as she kind of half-shrugs and half-nods at the same time.

“I could do diner,” she tells him, smiling again.

“Awesome.”

They walk over the squeaking floorboards and backstairs, down to the kitchen, and Dean keeps careful fingers at the small of her back, just beneath her shirt, like he if lets her go, he’ll never see her again. And she doesn’t just look softer, she feels softer, too.

Sam’s leaning over the stove, fork in hand, and Bobby is keeping a watchful eye, like Sam actually is seven.

“Hey,” Dean says. “Look who I found.”

Both Bobby and Sam look up from the steaks they’re frying and Sam laughs, his mouth splitting into a wide grin. He barrels towards her and hooks an arm around her shoulders and her cheeks and ears flush a dull pink.

Bobby just shakes his head back and forth. “Yeah, can’t get that one to leave, either.”

Dean slings his own arm around her waist, curving his fingers around her hip, and lightly presses his mouth to the bridge of her nose.

“Well, she’s not so bad.”

Different Unseen (R, Sam/Jo)

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 19:11:22 GMT

Title: Different Unseen
Author: Brinny
Characters/Pairing: Sam/Jo
Rating: R
Wordcount: 336
Spoilers/Warnings: None.
Prompt: un_love_you , #2 I was wrong about you. (Table Here)
Notes: I don't have a Sam/Jo icon. Odd.

Sam touched sticky fingers to the back of her neck, pulled them straight down over her spine. Jo shifted, knees bow-bent over his hips. He pushed into her harder.

It started tonight, when he held his palm on the side of her face, thumb curved under her jaw, and slipped two steady fingers inside her. He asked if she knew why and she let her mouth work into a slow smirk and lied.

“No.”

Sam lied, too.

It started two weeks ago, when he’d watched her with his brother. Hot heat and a hunt gone well and they’d shared a six-pack in the parking lot, sat with proud grins on their lips—all leather and denim and scars.

And Sam had watched through the window, feeling dirty and wrong and right. He’d watched as Jo knocked a curled fist into Dean’s knee, both of their mouths wrapped around amber-glass rims. Watched as they dug their nails into the edges of the labels, fingertips tacky as they peeled off strips paper.

She was different now. She was different because she wasn’t Jo anymore. She was Dean.

It started now and it started then.

Sam slid his hand back up her neck, scraped his nails against lines of scarred skin. Blunt ends of hair fell over his fingers. Before she’d taken a knife to it all, letting it swing above pale shoulders, Dean used sit next to her in diner booths, too-close and knees touching, and playfully wind the long curls around his wrist.

But she was different now. She was him.

Jo wrapped tight arms around Sam’s shoulders, pressed her cheek wetly against his. Every touch and kiss and thrust were all slick with sweat and love and shame. Sam pulled thin skin between his teeth and bit down lightly, his lips bumping over hers. She moaned lowly, breath warm and stalling on his throat.

“Him?” he asked, eyes closed.

Jo’s mouth turned up a bit at the corners and, this time, she told the truth.

“You.”

destroy/rebuild (R, Dean/Jo)

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 03:41:52 GMT

Title: destroy/rebuild
Author: Brinny
Character/Pairing: Dean/Jo
Rating: R
Wordcount: 278
Summary: The bed is unmade, like everything is.
Notes: Um, so if you listen to Stars, you'll know exactly where this came from.

How do you end something that never started?

She wants it to be beautiful, but it’s messy and dirty. And she wants him to love her. He promises he’ll never leave and she hates him for it.

The bed is unmade, like everything is. Her tangled sheets for his tangled heart. He grabs her by the wrist, presses his fingers to her cheek. His mouth is wet and warm over hers, his tongue soft between her lips.

Fuck me and stay or touch me and go.

It’s just one more night.

It’s just one more night out of countless others.

One more night that he drags sticky hands across her tits and down her back. One more night that she rides him, slick heat of her cunt tight around his cock. One more night that he says please and one more night that she cries. One more night that they break each other.

Destroy, rebuild, destroy. It’s just one more night.

She wonders if you can ruin something that you don’t even have.

They’ve never been friends and they never will be. They won’t hold hands and they won’t smile and pretty little lies won’t fall from their lips. She’ll fuck him and he’ll screw her. He won’t call and she’ll miss him. And he’ll love her and she’ll hate him.

He pushes his fingers to her throat. He thinks tonight will be different. She knows that it won’t. Hands on her neck and him inside her, she closes her eyes and wants it to be beautiful. It’s just one more night.

Rebuild, destroy.

How do you end something that never started? You go back to the beginning.

Muted Colors and Sticky Film

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 01:06:29 GMT

Title: Muted Colors and Sticky Film
Author: Brinny
Rating: PG
Characters: Jo Harvelle, Dean and Sam Winchester. (Can be read as Dean/Jo.)
Wordcount: 100
Notes: Written for 100_ghosts photographic prompt.

She flips through the stack of polaroids, edges hard under her fingertips. It’s her life, everything and nothing in muted colors and sticky film.

(Sam sleeping. Dean’s boots, laces untied and socks stuffed inside. Her sitting on the hood of the car, shoulders sunburned and peeling. The Star Motel.)

Muted colors, sticky film, and lies.

(Salt and burn in Texas, driving down highway 70. A cold hospital, stitches and broken bones and holding hands. Miscarriage. Where he died, where she died.)

Rolling down the window, she easily lets each photo slide from her hands.

It’s not her life. Not anymore.

Playing House (PG, Sam)

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 22:50:37 GMT

Title: Playing House
Author: Brinny
Pairing: Mostly just Sam (there's also some Dean and Bobby and mentions of Sam/Jess and Dean/OFC.)
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 792
Summary: Sam’s always wanted a home.

Sam’s always wanted a home.

He lies down in the backseat of the Impala and keeps curled fingers around one of Dean’s old t-shirts that’s masquerading as a makeshift pillow and wonders what it’d be like to be tucked into the same bed every night. Pressing bare feet against the door, he closes his eyes, heavy lidded and tired, and listens to the sounds of Neil Young on the radio and the low and thick rumble of the engine.

He falls asleep to the tapping of his dad’s fingers against the steering wheel and Dean’s off-key humming.

Dean and him stay at Bobby’s house one summer, sleep practically on top of one another under a homemade (by who is anyone’s guess) quilt in the cramped spare room.

And while his brother gets too itchy too fast—nothing to hunt and no one to lay—Sam really kind of loves it.

He likes waking up in the morning to Bobby burning both the bacon and the coffee. And he likes going from room to room and running his hands over the piles of books, dusty and cracked spines under his fingers. He tries to read a new book everyday, wanders off into the junkyard and naps on split vinyl in between pages.

Sam even likes doing the greasy, leftover dishes. He sings whatever he can remember of Long May You Run and Green River (which is pretty much only the choruses) up to his elbows in soapy water and smiles when Dean calls him a dork.

He’s been dating Jess for almost two weeks—sweaty handholding and sweaty nights tangled in his sheets—when she jokingly says they should just move in together, before her legs give out from the commute across campus to his dorm. And she’s already lost a pair of panties either on the way there or back to her place.

Sam says ‘yes’ so fast that the only thing that leaves Jess’s mouth is a high and stuttering, nervous giggle.

A month later, they’re hauling cardboard boxes up three flights of stairs. Jess makes sure to mention every five minutes that both of them are completely crazy, to the point of being certifiable. Sam just laughs.

After being back on the road with Dean, years and months slowly blending and shifting together, Sam finds out that he has to fall asleep after his brother. Because if Dean is snoring that means that Dean is breathing and if he’s breathing, he’s alive.

He guesses that it’s kind of stupid, to need that little bit of proof. And by now, it’s more habit than anything, but he still does it just the same.

He doesn’t tell Dean (why give him the ammo?), only pulls the blankets high around his chin and waits in the dark. It takes well into early morning before Sam finally gets a chance to sleep.

And home is turning out to be wherever Dean is and Sam thinks that he really should’ve known that in the first place and kind of forgets why he ever left.

When the car breaks down in some backwater town, Sam’s happy.

He likes the change of pace. He likes pumping quarters in the rusty washing machines at the laundromat and the too-sweet smell of fabric softener. And he likes coming back to the motel to Dean—in his underwear because Sam took almost every piece of dirty clothing—watching old sitcoms on the static-filled television.

Dean meets some girl named Leslie (everyone calls her Les, except Dean, who calls her ‘babe’) in a diner the day after Sam’s thirtieth birthday. She comes with a dog and a potted cactus and the nicest laugh that Sam’s ever heard.

They rent a house in some quiet suburb of Chicago and have a couple of kids, but don’t get married. Dean says it’s because he doesn’t want to ruin a good thing, but Sam’s pretty sure that Dean still thinks that it’s not him who fits with the smiling wife and white picket fence. Round peg and a square hole and he’s not gonna force it.

Sam visits every month or so. He piles hand-me-down duffle bags in the corner of the guestroom and cooks dinner as long as he’s there.

It’s the closest thing to a home that Sam’s ever found. He has a bed and he has Dean and it’s exactly what he started out with.

Sam remembers living with Jess and it was so long ago, it feels like he was just playing house the whole time: “I’ll be the lawyer and you’ll be the painter and this’ll be where we live and we’ll be really, really happy and it’s going to be so much fun!”

(“I’ve always wanted a home.”)

Notes: This started out as about ten scribbled sentences in a notebook and then somehow just kind of grew. I'm still not sure what to make of it yet. Heh.

come (run to me) PG-13, Chloe/Oliver

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 06:30:59 GMT

Title: come (run to me)
Author: Brinny
Pairing: Chloe/Oliver (although, it's never explicitly stated as such)
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 335

Four times, she’s died. She’s lain down too-careful hands for family and friend and foe and she’s left with cold skin and darkened eyes and heavy limbs.

It never gets easier.

She’s seen heaven (in death) and hell (in life) and in between (in herself). And each time she gives, she comes back emptier. This time, this fourth time, she doesn’t think that anything will pour out of her but tears.

He’s lying in a city made of hard and unforgiving stone; his body bent, broken, and bloodied. And if she touches him, just touches him, maybe she can save him.

She presses the tips of her fingers to his lips, soft hands and soft mouth meeting in an awkward kiss.

Yellow light slips around him and over him and through him. And he wakes, blinks slowly, bright and glassy.

He struggles to breathe, gasps and takes deep gulps of air that don’t quite fill his lungs just right. Like he was put back together wrong. His hands are too red (warm and sticky) and the sky is too blue (there and perfect). And he doesn’t understand until he sees her.

†

The world is wrong for minutes and then hours, light turning to dark over and over, before it’s finally right again.

†

They don’t talk about it.

He asks why and she pushes her lips to his, folds under him and into him. And he asks how and she frowns, cuts blunt nails across his arm and cries and fucks him harder. She feels hollow inside (cavernous cadaver) and he learns not to ask anymore.

Sweat-soaked and tear-stained, they lay in bed and he holds his hand on warm and bare skin. He slides gentle fingers over her ribs and between her breasts, waits for the familiar thump under his touch.

She gave him life and he gave her death and he doesn’t know how to say both thank you and sorry.

He tells her that he loves her and hopes it’s enough.

'til fingers don't know what to touch (PG, Dean/Jo)

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 03:40:47 GMT

Title: 'til fingers don't know what to touch
Author: Brinny
Characters/Pairings: Dean/Jo
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 300
Notes: I've been digging through old prompts and found one that quiet_rebel gave to me. Dean/Jo/the Impala breaks down or runs out of gas. And I'm sure this is not one iota of what she was looking for, but, like a drunken one night stand, it just kind of happened. (The title is from "Sweet Soul Honey" by Daniel Lanois.)

Jo hasn’t slept in days.

Dean keeps one hand on her knee when he drives, picks at edges of torn denim with careful and bruised fingertips. And she smiles at him, her cheeks pink and sunburned.

There’s a dirt and gravel road that loops off of the highway and ends at an iron gate. He turns the wheel, skin stuttering against leather. Jo hums, lips pursed and spit-shined, and slides her hand under Dean’s. She holds it there, fingers open and splayed across his palm.

The radio crackles and the engine sputters and stalls. Dies.

It’s just her and him. But, they’ve never quite equaled two. Not even alone.

He looks at her, drags his hand down and over hers, until their fingers bump and curl together. Maybe they equal one, she’s not sure.

He kisses her.

His mouth is soft and dry and his hands the same, outlining small shapes onto her skin. And Jo bends beneath him, loose limbs as he fists handfuls of sweat-tangled hair.

Outside, there’s broken gravestones hidden behind tall grass and cool summer air. And one marked stone in that forgotten cemetery, she knows, says Mary. And the worn bones beneath the dirt don’t belong to a pretty blonde woman with Dean’s eyes and Sam’s smile. It never seems to matter, Jo learns.

Dean licks at her lips, breath rising from his chest and pushing out his mouth, pausing between them. And Jo wraps tired fingers around his arm, leans forward until his face becomes large and distorted and not him, and breathes him in.

He shifts back, sinew and muscle and cartilage shifting with him.

And his hand falls to her knee, careful and bruised fingertips picking at torn denim. A thread pulls loose, unravels.

Jo smiles, cheeks pink and sunburned, and sleeps.