By Minim Calibre
Notes: Spoilers are vague through Born Under a Bad Sign. Character death, use of F7 as a beta, written in under a day, possible showing of one’s drawer fic in public. Perkins and Cass, this is really for you. And for me, but if it was JUST for me, it’d still be in the freaking drawer. Dean/Ellen, implied Ellen/John.
“Harvelle’s Roadhouse.” Ellen picks up the phone on the fourth ring, angles her head away from the crowd to better hear whoever’s on the other end. Hoping it’s Jo, knowing it’s probably not: she spoke to Jo not two days ago, on her way to a job in Nevada, isn’t expecting to hear from her again for at least another week.
Not Jo, Dean. “Ellen?” Something twists tight in her gut, echoing the wrung-dry sound of the boy’s voice.
She shoots a wary glance around the bar and decides against taking chances or naming names. Not on a Friday night, not with this many hunters filled with too much beer and too little sense. “This is Ellen. What do you need?” She makes her way back out of earshot, pitches her voice low just in case, already knowing the answer, giving hers in return. “Come ’round the back after closing. Key’s in the same place as last time.”
Breathes out and hangs up before Dean can say anything more.
***
The calendar tells her it’s been three months to the day since he turned up on her doorstep, soaking wet, stinking of smoke and blood and gasoline, ash and soot ground deep into a day-old gash. One look at his face, and she hadn’t bothered asking after Sam. Hadn’t needed to, not when she’d seen that same shattered expression in the mirror for a good year after Bill. Seventeen stitches and half a bottle of whiskey later, she’d poured him into Jo’s old bed, where he’d stayed until the fever and delirium had passed.
He’d stayed one more night before leaving, but the bed he stayed in wasn’t Jo’s, nor has it been every time he’s come back since. If Jo knew, she might be upset at that, but she doesn’t, and that’s for the best. Even dead, Sam Winchester doesn’t leave enough space in his brother’s heart for anyone else to slip through.
It’s half past two before the last of the customers clear out, and nearly three when she hears him pull in, the rattle of the primer-grey International Harvester he’s been driving lately a far cry from the sound of John’s old Impala, gone along with Sam. Funeral pyre, he’d explained. Not enough time to take the body elsewhere. She knows from things he’ll never remember saying that it was more his not being able to stomach having it around, a constant reminder of Sam bleeding out in its back seat.
She finishes wiping down the bar, listening to the sound of the key turning in the back door, of his footsteps heading down the hall to her room. Clears out the last of the empty glasses and heads that way herself.
He’s sitting on her bed when she opens the door, hands on the edge of it gripping tight, fingers bunching around the faded patchwork of the quilt Grandma Harvelle’d made her and Bill as a wedding present, eyes on the floor. She looks him over: there are fresh scrapes across his knuckles, and a bruise on his right cheekbone that wasn’t there last time, already fading to yellow, but nothing on the outside looks to need tending.
“I can’t do this, Ellen.” He looks up, everything that can’t be fixed showing in his eyes. And not for the first time, she thanks God she had Jo. “I promised Sammy…” looks down again. “I can’t.”
“I know, honey.” Pulls his head against her chest and strokes his hair until his hands come off the bed, come up to her shoulders to push at Bill’s old flannel shirt, reminding her that he’s not a child, that the comfort he’s come for isn’t as simple as all that. She steps back with a slight shake of her head, unwilling to risk him damaging clothing she can’t afford to replace. Turns her back and takes her things off–Bill’s things off–carefully and stacks them on the dresser while he watches, silent except for the steady rasp of his breath and the rustle of clothing being removed.
The scar across his ribs, the one she cleaned out and stitched up, stands out like a brand, lightning-shaped and jagged at the edges. She runs a finger over it, feeling the small indents where her needle darted in and out, the tight lumps where there was too much damage to get the skin properly aligned. Frowns at the sharpness of bone beneath it; he’s lost weight, just in the three weeks he’s been gone.
“Don’t.” He brushes her hand away with one hand, moves the other up to cup her face, slipping his thumb softly across her lower lip. Drops his head and drifts his lips across it just as softly. Drops his hands to cup her hips, fingers digging in, nothing soft about it.
Worn calico shifts and bunches beneath her butt as he twists them around, knees coming up to edge her thighs apart. She knots her legs around his back, rising to meet him halfway. Flashes back to six months after Devil’s Gate, to John stopping by and winding up where she is now.
He’d left without a backward glance as soon as he could collect his clothes, and Ellen’d damn near boiled the bedding trying to get the memory of them off of it, leaching half the color from the cotton in the process. She pushes it away now with a thrust of her hips, grinding up hard against his son until any thought of the father’s driven out, exorcised in a tangle of limbs, and it’s not long until she hears the tell-tale hitch in Dean’s breathing, feels the shudder go through him as his weight comes down on her.
His face is buried in the crook of her neck, cheeks damp from more than just sweat. Ellen eases out from under him, wincing a little as his pendant catches on her breast. Dean rolls over, already halfway asleep, fumbling his way beneath the covers. She watches him awhile, knows he’ll be up and gone by first light.
Knows he’ll be back again before too long, needing her to patch him back to life.