![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Fic: Sleight of Hand (PG-13)
Title: Sleight of Hand
Rating: PG-13 for language
Pairing: Gen
Wordcount: 1,944 words
Notes: So I started writing this for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
plutogirl10's birthday, right? Dean was going to go out for some donuts then commence with the schmoopity, easy peasy. But, well, men never can follow directions, and now I kind of have a 'verse on my hands. Thanks to scarlett_o for not hitting me, and _3amconfession for stomping around and demanding more. Happy late birthday, pluto! Hope you like!
Rating: PG-13 for language
Pairing: Gen
Wordcount: 1,944 words
Notes: So I started writing this for
plutogirl10's birthday, right? Dean was going to go out for some donuts then commence with the schmoopity, easy peasy. But, well, men never can follow directions, and now I kind of have a 'verse on my hands. Thanks to scarlett_o for not hitting me, and _3amconfession for stomping around and demanding more. Happy late birthday, pluto! Hope you like!One
When Dean wakes up on January twenty-fourth, it doesn’t really seem like a big deal. He rolls over and Sam’s still in bed, arm thrown out to the side, mouth gaping open, same as any other day.
So, he gets up, showers and heads out, planning to grab a few cups of coffee and a newspaper. Their last job had been a bust, just some stupid local kids trying to scare the adults into early graves, and he’s getting kind of restless. The open road is only nice when you have a destination.
He heads over to the local convenience store, some really hole-in-the-wall place right off the highway, and he’s just about to pay for his three donuts, two cups of coffee and paper when someone knocks into him.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” the woman says, and she sounds anything but. Her face is haggard: the lines around her eyes are pronounced and purpled with stress, her mouth is turned down and thin, and her cheeks are sallow.
Dean doesn’t say anything back, even though he can feel her eyes following him. He just sets his things on the counter and listens to the cashier ring everything up. But the woman won’t be deterred now and she pushes up next to Dean, spindly fingers on his arm.
“Twenty eight,” she says, and her voice sounds inhuman now. Dean looks at the cashier for some sign that he hears her, too, that he’s not going crazy, but ‘Bob’ doesn’t seem to notice. “Twenty eight and still small—don’t you know anything at all?”
And, okay, now Dean’s freaked out. Those hands look less like hands against his shirt and more like claws. He doesn’t even have his gun with him.
“Go back to him, dear sweet thing, if you dare. He’s left you by now, without a care,” she whispers. Dean’s chest tightens.
“W-what?” he manages, finally turning his head to look at her face. It’s horrible, dirt on bone and space between her eyeballs and their sockets. She smiles at him—he can tell it’s a smile, even though she has no lips—with rotten, yellow teeth.:::
“Sam,” Dean says, coming into the motel room. Sam’s not in his bed anymore: the sheets are kicked to the floor, one of the pillows is by the television, and Sam’s duffle isn’t sitting by the nightstand. “Sam!”
There’s a moment of agonizing silence and Dean can’t feel his fingers or see the carpet under his feet.
And then Sam pokes his head out from behind the bathroom door, bleary eyed and with shaving cream all along his jaw. “Dean?”
“Holy shit, Sam, don’t do that,” Dean says, shaky hand over his eyes.
Sam’s eyebrows rise. “Hey, man, what the hell?” he says, clearly bewildered. He comes out of the bathroom fully, towel wrapped around his waist, and pads over to Dean. “Are you okay?”
“No,” Dean says, “no, I’m not fucking okay. Christ.”
And Sam, being Sam, just carefully guides him over to one of the beds and sits down next to him, all warm body language and concerned sounds. Dean takes a few minutes to reorganize his emotions, head in hands and elbows on knees. Sam stays quiet.
Finally, Dean says, “There was a woman when I got the paper, and—actually, she wasn’t really a woman. She bumped into me when I was going to pay for my stuff and, man, there was something not right about her.”
“What do you mean, not right?”
“She said all this stuff and she looked like she was decomposing right in front of me, Sammy. Her hair was falling out and her skin was gone. She looked like the freaking crypt keeper. Except creepier, y’know?”
Dean laughs a little, because it’s true. “She, uh, she said you’d be gone when I got back.”
Sam’s mouth purses and his eyebrows draw in. “I’m not gone,” he says slowly. “So she was wrong. Maybe she was just trying to shake you up.”
“Well, it worked,” Dean says, letting his hands fall between his legs. “She knew today was my birthday, Sam.”:::
“So you said she had a voice that sort of…fractured into a bunch of other ones?” Sam asks uncertainly. He’s flipping through a huge book, biting the end of a pen into shreds. “There’s something here about banshees, but the lore isn’t really right.”
“Yeah,” Dean mumbles. “And why the hell would a banshee talk in riddles, anyway? I thought they were just known for shrieking things at people.”
Sam shuts the book. Dean half expects a mushroom cloud of dust and is kind of disappointed when there isn’t even so much as a puff.
“I can’t find anything, man. We’ve been looking for hours,” Sam says, running a hand through his hair. “There aren’t even any local mysteries or myths that we can jump start off. I think this is a bust.”
Dean nods. “Let’s get some dinner. How do you feel about burgers?”
“How do you feel about me melting all of your Metallica tapes?”
“Italian it is,” Dean says quickly. “And cake.”:::
They find a little restaurant off the main street. It’s tiny and family run, and Sam instantly loves it. There are even little candles in the middle of every table, small and white in their glass containers.
“This is snazzy,” Dean says, smirking at Sam and sitting down. “Just remember, I don’t put out on the first date.”
Sam rolls his eyes, too used to his brother to really be bothered, and the both of them look over the menu. There’s Ravioli and Chicken Marsala and some kind of sausage dish, but what catches Dean’s eye is a small corner of the menu on the back page.
“Hey, look. Pizza,” he says happily, reaching over to point on Sam’s menu. “You wanna share one, Sammy?”
Looking amused, Sam consents, and they order as soon as the waitress comes over: cheese with mushrooms and onions, and oh yeah, can we have some garlic powder on the side? The waitress blushes when Dean smirks at her and scurries off with her notepad pressed to her stomach.
“You are such a dog,” Sam laughs, and Dean doesn’t even remember why he was so worried earlier. He feels giddy, content like he hasn’t been in weeks. Plus, the complimentary bread is tasty.
Their food comes quickly, heralded by the strong tang of cooked onions in the air, and the both of them are so hungry they barely even fight over the first slice. They make some small talk in between chewing and taking another bite: the last werewolf pack they hunted down, how hot the waitress was, getting some new tires for the impala, and, oh yeah, how hot the waitress was.
Eventually, Dean leans back and pats his stomach. Sam’s still on his last piece, and the entire silver tray the pizza came on is empty. “I am going to take a leak,” he announces, lurching out of his seat and heading vaguely towards the restroom signs.
The waitress that had served them earlier is leaning back against the wall right at the mouth of the hallway leading to the toilets, twisting her hair around one finger. “Dean,” she says, voice low and seductive.
This birthday just keeps getting better.
She steps away from the wall and comes over to him, fingers closing around his forearm. As she leans forward into the light, her tan, smooth skin starts to wrinkle and her bright blue eyes sink back into her head. Dean suddenly realizes that her hand is resting exactly in the same spot the old woman’s had that morning in the store.
“Dean,” she murmurs again. “Why didn’t you listen to me? I was only trying to help, you see.”
“I went back to him,” Dean says through gritted teeth. Her grip on his arm is really starting to hurt. “I went back, he was still there. He’s here now.”
“Why didn’t you listen to me…” She trails off, bony fingers slipping down his arm, and steps back into the shadows. After a minute, she’s dissolved completely and, even squinting, Dean can’t make out anything but the wall’s wooden paneling.:::
When Dean gets back to the table, Sam stares at him for a good minute before he says anything. “You had sex with the waitress in the bathroom, didn’t you,” he says, more a statement than a question.
Dean levels a serious stare at him. “She came back, Sam. She was here.”
Suddenly, Sam’s alert, sitting up straight and leaning forward to listen intently. “What did she say?” he asks, cautious.
“She said that I should have listened to her,” Dean says. His arm itches. “She said she was only trying to help. I told her that you were still there when I went back, but she just repeated herself. Fucking bitch grabbed me again.”
When Sam doesn’t say anything, he tilts his head up. “Why are you looking at my arm like that, man?”
Sam licks his lips and says, “Pull up your sleeve, Dean,” all soft and controlled. Dean does, unbuttoning his jacket sleeve and his shirt sleeve and then rolling them both up past his elbow.
He looks down and there’s a sickly green mark on his forearm just about the size and shape of a woman’s hand.
“Fuck,” Dean says with feeling.:::
“Ok,” Sam mutters, a few hours later. “Fine, ok, I have no idea what’s going on. Dean? Dean, sit down.”
“Dude, she left a stamp on my arm. I don’t want to sit down, I want to figure out what the hell is going on and why this thing is haunting me,” Dean says vehemently, pacing up and down the narrow strip of rug between the two beds. “And rhyming! The rhyming is annoying.”
“Repeat what exactly she said, again?” Sam asks, a little furrow building between his eyebrows. “Was it ‘go back to him if you dare’?”
“Yeah, something stupid like that,” Dean says. He rubs the heel of one hand into his right eye, sighing. “Man, I’m gonna shower and crash. I am so freaking tired.”
“Yeah, all right,” Sam says, distracted. “Don’t drop the soap.”
He’s already opening another book when Dean closes the door behind him and turns the faucet in the shower. The water is as hot as it will go when he steps in, and for a few minutes he’s content to let it pour down his back.Two
When Dean wakes up on January twenty-fourth for the second time in as many days, he freaks the fuck out. Well, ok, he doesn’t realize it’s the twenty-fourth at first, he just thinks the song on the radio is the same because it’s popular, and that Sam is in exactly the same position as the day before because that’s how he sleeps.
No, what finally clues him in, after he’s showered and dressed, is when he goes to the convenience store again and picks up the newspaper and it says the wrong date at the top.
“Hey, buddy,” he says to the cashier, Bob. “You haven’t updated your papers, this is yesterday’s.”
Bob rolls his eyes and points to the television, where one of the news anchors is talking about this day in history. “That’s today’s paper,” he rumbles. “Yesterday was the twenty-third.”
The bell over the door rings then and, automatically, Dean looks over. The same sunken looking lady from yesterday comes in, holding a fabric purse in both hands, and Dean’s heart stutters in his chest. She barely glances at him, heading straight for the dairy section.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Page 1 of 2