Author: Restive Nature
Genre: Crossover
Type: WiP
Shows: Dark Angel and Supernatural
Disclaimer: Neither show represented in this fiction belongs to me. Dark Angel is the product of Cameron/Eglee and Fox, whereas Supernatural is the product of Kripke and The CW. No profits are made from this fiction and it is intended for private enjoyment only.
Story Rating: PG-13 up to NC-17 for language, violence and sexual situations. (All higher rated material will be contained in its own chapter and clearly marked at the beginning of the chapter. PG versions of these chapters will also be available.)
Chapter Rating: NC-17 for language, sexual situations and content matter pertaining to sex.
Timeline/ Spoilers: This story takes place predominantly in the Supernatural timeline. This means that the Dark Angel structure of post-pulse America does not fit in. The massive changes will be that Manticore is decades ahead of itself and the characters from DA are born much earlier than portrayed on the show. There is no Pulse occurring. Any other changes to the structures or episodes of the shows will be (hopefully) explained within the story itself.
Pairing: None at this time.
Summary: Change can be a choice and you never know where the road you choose to take will lead you.
A/N: This was a really difficult chapter for me to write. It was very hard to get the tones right, so I hope you’ll forgive me if it doesn’t feel completely right, though that is in part, something I was trying to convey.
A/N2: In this chapter the italicized parts are flashbacks, except for the last part, which denotes a hand-written note. It should be clear as you are reading them.
When It Changes
Chapter Twenty
Inside Lies Memory
“Call your father Dean,” Bobby’s voice urged.
Dean already had his cell phone in hand. He was staring at it as if it were a complex machine, not the simple instrument of communication that it was. He knew how to work it, had done so with ease for a long while. But this was most definitely a call he did not want to make. He heard, almost like background noise, Bobby’s voice urging him on.
“Damn it Dean, we’re losing time here,” Bobby swore, something the kids had rarely heard from the staid man. “Every minute…” He didn’t need to go on. Dean knew his father’s friend was right. Every minute that Dean wasted, being scared of what was happening, being scared of what his father was going to say, was another minute in which they weren’t searching. And right now, the hunt was the only thing that mattered.
*****
John cracked open a beer, throwing the bottle cap negligently on the table where his diary and other papers were strewn. He took a long pull off the beer, the only one he would have tonight, before he took a seat. He pulled the diary closer, and then located the small sheet of paper that he’d scribbled some notes on.
After the fight he and Max had had the previous week about her motorcycle, John had felt the need to get away. He needed time to calm down and was pretty sure that Max felt the same way. The motorcycle was still a small bone of contention between them, masking a deeper trauma to John’s heart. He’d heard precisely what Bobby had said to the kids and they’d discussed it later. Bobby had wisely pointed out that John would have to let the kids go at some point. And John had retorted that as a father, he could never really let them go. They had each conceded the other’s point. But admitting it just didn’t make it happen.
So John decided to head out on a solo hunt. It left Dean a little peeved, but when John had reminded the boy that he needed to watch out for his brother and sister, Dean had eased up a little. And that led him to this point. He hadn’t gone too far. Just up to Ashley, North Dakota, just a few hours away for a routine ghost hunt. He’d swung into town early this morning, done some recon and then had found a room. And since he wasn’t about to crowd his mind with numbing crap from the television, and he really didn’t want to continue dwelling on the fact that his children were already past the growing up stage and onto the amazingly adult stages of their lives, he decided to start jotting down notes in his journal.
He set the beer down, uncaring if it left wet circles on the pages he’d collected. Glancing over his notes already made, he began transferring them to the routinely formatted page he continuously copied. He heard his cell phone ring once. His hand paused, waiting to see if it rang again. Since the phone was also sitting on the table top, he glanced at it to check the number listed on the view screen. His brow furrowed when he realized it was the kid’s number. He felt his mouth go dry and his heart thumped erratically when the phone began to ring again. That method of phone calls was an old warning. He had used it before with Dean, when the boys were little. Dean never picked up the phone if he and Sammy were alone. John would always let the line ring once, then call back to let Dean know that it was him.
With the advantages of seeing who was calling on the cell phone, they no longer needed that warning. But somehow now, Dean was using this method. It struck fear into John’s very core. His hand scrabbled for the phone. He snapped it open and cocked his ear to the receiver.
“Dean?” his voice was raspy and his heart continued to thud up in his throat. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Dad?” Dean’s voice was hoarse and John had to strain to hear his son. There was background noise, it sounded like someone else was there with his eldest child. He heard Dean clear his throat and his heart continued to pound a dreadful rhythm.
“I’m here,” John responded quietly, waiting for the hammer to fall.
“Dad,” Dean began again. Whatever it was that his son wanted to tell him, John knew instinctively that it was catastrophic. He tried to brace himself for the worst, praying that it wasn’t true. What he was told was almost bad enough. “Dad, Max is missing.”
John felt the air rush from his chest. All at once relief combined with a new fear overwhelmed him. He had to frantically remind himself that Dean had clearly said missing, not dead. Just missing. He could work with that.
“Start at the beginning son,” he ordered through dry lips.
“Yes sir.”
John heard the modicum of relief in Dean’s voice. He realized that Dean was terrified that John would blame him. Truthfully, he did have to stifle some irrational anger. Most likely it wasn’t Dean’s fault, he’d have to wait and hear the information before making that decision. But regardless, he’d have words for his sons later. And for that matter, Bobby too. He waited while Dean ordered his thoughts.
“We were up late last night,” Dean filled him in. John didn’t bother to tell his son to hurry up. Background information was good. And he knew that Dean wouldn’t tell him if it wasn’t relevant somehow. “So this morning, we woke up late. Bobby was up first and he said that Max didn’t make coffee like she normally does. We thought that she slept in. But when we made breakfast, Sam went to get her and her room was empty. We found a note saying that she was going for a ride.” There his son paused, knowing still what a sore point this was for John. John just made an impatient gurgling noise in his throat and Dean hurried on. “Obviously she didn’t take our cell and Bobby’s was still in his jacket pocket. We decided to wait until noon. She didn’t come back by then, so Sam and I headed into town to see if we could find her. We didn’t and there were no signs of vehicular accident. We checked at the hospital but no one fitting her description has been admitted. Bobby has called some other hospitals in the area with the same answer. Her tryptophan is missing from her bag, so we’re hoping she took it with her. We came back here and we decided to call you.”
John glanced downwards, noting that somehow his hand had kept writing even though he was unaware of it. The stark words that he had written stood out in sharp, bold strokes against the relative pristine condition of the new notebook page. He dropped the pen in his hand and used that hand to rub at his forehead. “I’m on my way,” he declared, the decision a moot point. This hunt be damned. His daughter was missing!
“Yes sir,” there was no hiding the relief that coursed through Dean’s voice.
“And Dean,” John added, “if she’s not home by the time I get there, we’ll call the police.”
“Yes sir,” Dean’s voice was once again subdued.
“Call me if you hear anything,” John told him and quickly shut the phone off. He pressed the cool metal and plastic against his lips, his eyes squeezed shut. He ignored the lone tear that rolled down his cheek, just as he’d ignored the voice clamoring in the back of his head, wondering if maybe this last fight had pushed Max too far. If he’d finally succeeded in making her run from them again. But no, another voice contended, Dean said that Max had left a note. That implied that she intended to come back. Suddenly pushing away from the table, John began the hurried task of packing up the few belongings he’d brought with him. His family needed him now.
*****
“I hope you understand sir that I’m required to ask you these questions,” the female officer who’d come out to talk to them, later that night was trying hard to be sympathetic. John knew that. But he could only go over the same information so many times. Yes he and Max had had an argument. No Max had never run away before, which was a blatant lie, but the woman had no way of knowing that. But when the line of questioning took a darker turn, John was thunderstruck. He gaped at the woman, the police officer that had just implied…
“I have never…” he choked out, and then shuddered. He tried to control himself. Never in his life had he hit a woman not possessed of something, but right now, the urge was upon him. He was only vaguely aware that Bobby was holding Dean back, while Sammy looked like he wanted to vomit. John took a deep breath, set his jaw and looked the officer square in the eye.
“I have never hit my children,” he stated in thorough conviction. “Nor would I ever abuse my daughter in any way!”
The woman stared at him, gauging his words.
“You people are fucking sick!” Dean’s sudden outburst served to break the staring contest between father and police officer. Both of them glanced at the eldest son, one grateful for the overt support, the other wary. The woman gave a small sigh and turned back to John, acting as if the words that had flown past Dean’s lips made little difference. In her world, people always denied abuse of this kind. It was a dirty, dark, perverted secret. And there was always the possibility that the other children might not be aware of what went on behind closed doors.
But before she could continue that line of questioning again, John shot to his feet and stormed from the room. But before she could follow, Dean had taken his father’s place, though he gave her no room for comfort. Officer Alicia Freehan stared straight back at him, allowing no nervousness to cross her features, even though the look on the young man’s face was… near primal. Her only allowance in the face of her hammering, nervous heart was to swallow heavily once.
“I don’t care what the fuck you think about my father,” Dean stated quietly, his voice deadly. “I don’t care what assumptions you’ve made about my family. The only thing that matters is that you get the fuck off your asses and you find my baby sister!”
Alicia pulled back, stopped before she was ready by the unyielding straight backed chair she’d chosen to sit in. The implied menace in Dean’s tones made her shiver. All she knew was that she needed to get control of this situation back in her hands. “I assure you,” she retorted, just as quietly as her quarry, but with much less confidence, “that we can and will do everything possible to locate your sister.” She let that sink in before she continued. “But you need to realize that this information can help us narrow down places that she’s gone to, or if we’re looking at something else here.”
“What do you mean something else?” Sam questioned. Alicia’s eyes swung towards the youngest man in the house. He shouldn’t have been hard to overlook, but somehow she had. Perhaps it was because when she’d arrived at the salvage yard and come into the house, he’d been scrunched down on a chair in the corner, his arms wrapped about his midsection, looking like he was going to be ill. But now, as he stood to his full height, Alicia wondered that her well trained eye hadn’t realized these physical facts about him. Perhaps it was because his eyes were so full of darkness and despair. That was what it was, she decided. And probably also the reason she’d pursued the line of questioning with the senior Winchester like she had. She knew that there was a dark secret in this family. She just didn’t know what it was exactly.
She sighed before answering. “We don’t have very much information to go on,” she allowed. She was walking a fine line here between informing the family of what possibilities lay out there and possibly oversetting them. “There are a lot of scenarios that this could end up being. Your sister could simply have gone for a ride and her motorcycle broke down. Or…”
“Or it could be something a lot worse,” Sam finished for her. To her relief, Alicia didn’t need to acknowledge that. It seemed that they were just saying out loud something that they’d all been thinking.
Alicia busied herself a moment, going over the notes she’d taken. There was enough to get started on this case. She flipped the notebook cover shut and stood, thankful that Dean had inched his way back from her. “I’m going to head back to the station,” she informed them. “If there’s anything else you remember or think of, even if you think it might not mean anything, please call us.” She paused, and then reached for her coat. She turned to Sam, unable to deal with the fathomless disregard in his brother’s eyes. “We’ll do everything we can to find your sister.”
She stepped away from the brothers, to find that Bobby opened the screen door for her, holding it in a gentlemanly sort of way. “Thank you for coming out so quickly ma’am,” he uttered quietly in her ear. Alicia just nodded and took her leave.
The screen door banging shut jolted Dean from his seat. He still couldn’t believe that someone could come into Bobby’s house with the suspicion that his father was a perverted bastard. Oh true enough, he and Sam had known about the fear’s from CPS many times that John was allegedly an indifferent father or physically abusive. But never once had there been that horrible innuendo. It made him sick to think about it. He swallowed heavily and went to check on his father.
John was in Bobby’s bedroom, his cell phone pressed against his ear. He glanced up when the door opened, seeing Dean and held up one finger to ask for silence while he finished his call. “Yeah, thanks Josh. Call me if you hear anything.” He disconnected the call and grunted at Dean while he quickly flipped through pages of his journal.
“She’s gone Dad,” Dean informed his father. “That police woman, I mean.”
John simply nodded and began dialing yet another number in his list of contacts. Dean leaned his shoulder against the door frame, listening for the first time of many that evening as John informed his friends and acquaintances about Max’s disappearance and the many tactics he used to get them involved in her search. From simple asking to strong arm manipulation to outright death threats, John meant to have his little girl back safe and sound.
*****
The sad noise of forks scraping aimlessly against plates was the only sound that filled Bobby’s kitchen the next morning. Food was pushed around in an empty attempt to seem normal. The disappearance of Max weighed heavily, not only in the minds of everyone present, but in the very air itself.
None of them had gotten any sleep the night before and eventually, they’d huddled in the living room, wondering sometimes aloud, sometime silently, where she was, what had happened to her. When that subject had become too much to bear, Dean had recalled out loud some of the escapades Max had gotten into. Sammy had joined in, musing on her tendency to come out of every situation with flying colors it seemed. But then Bobby had silently drawn attention to John, who looked very much as if they were discussing someone gone in a total way. As if they were grieving her and he wasn’t ready to go to that place. So they had quit and gone back to wondering where she was, what she was doing, what had happened.
To be honest, it was Rumsfeld that first alerted them to the change. His bark seemed to have a questioning quality to it. Bobby rose from the table, taking his uneaten food to the garbage and letting it slide away. He muttered under his breath about the ‘stupid dog’ as he laid the dishes in the sink.
But Rumsfeld was true to his nature and it was Dean next that understood why the dog was behaving as he was. “Is that a motorcycle?” he demanded with bated breath, his head cocked at an angle. The kitchen returned to deathly silence until moments later, they all heard the familiar whine of the engine. Breakfast forgotten, the Winchester’s rushed to the window as one. Looking out, they were able to make out the lone figure that had slowed to take the turn into Bobby’s salvage yard. The motorcycle crept forward until it reached the Impala and was brought to a halt. The sudden silence was profound and it seemed that they were all holding their breath. They knew it was Max, recognized her bike, but until they had visual confirmation of her face, they wouldn’t discount it as some strange wishful dream.
In moments, she had removed her helmet, but instead of setting it with care on the motorcycle, or swinging it in one hand as she made her way to the house, Max just let the gear drop to the ground. Rumsfeld, who’d known first, had made his way off of Bobby’s tow truck, a place he favored, especially after it had been run and the engine was warm, was sitting at her feet, waiting with uncharacteristic patience for her to notice him. And instead of coming in as her family expected, some blithe excuse on her lips as to why she was gone for so long, she dropped to her knees and hugged the puppy to her, burying her face in his ruff.
“This is not good,” Dean breathed out quietly. He pushed away from the counter and headed for the door. The other males were a few steps behind him.
Max didn’t glance up as they came out on the porch and there was an uncertainty in the men about what to do. They’d tried to convince themselves that what Officer Freehan had said was true, Max had a spot of normal trouble, something that didn’t include her being hurt or kidnapped or any of those other terrifying things that happened in their broken world.
To Dean, the fear and uncertainty he read in his sister’s posture was a palpable thing. Any anger about her behavior had melted away the moment he had seen her. It was his job as big brother to make the world the safest he could for his younger siblings. He had failed yesterday, but he was damned if he was going to drop the ball this go around. He stepped off the porch, knowing after two steps that his father and brother weren’t going to follow. With their senses attuned, they knew that something major was off and hung back, probably not to overwhelm her, though he was certain that she was in for some heavy duty yelling from their father.
He knelt down beside Max, seeing with a little pang in his heart how she kept her face averted from his. “Hey Max,” he whispered, unsure of how exactly he should act. “We were worried about you. Are you okay?”
She nodded her head yes a few times, disturbing the dogs fur, but as Dean slowly reached out to grasp her shoulder, the motion changed. She was trembling so hard that it shook his whole arm and Dean knew that something catastrophic had happened to her. He pulled her to him, her head shaking back and forth. Obviously, in most basic terms, she wasn’t okay.
“Sh, sh,” Dean tried to soothe her, even though no words or tears from her were discernable. “It’s okay, you’re home now.” He repeated this quietly a few times until the trembling seemed to slow down some. “Can you get up? Why don’t we go in the house?”
Still quiet, Max allowed Dean to help her to her feet. Her head was still bowed, unwilling or unable to meet anyone’s eyes. Rumsfeld followed after them, staying close to Max’s heels. Once they reached the porch, no one said anything. John and Sam simply stepped off the porch to add their hugs and support to what Dean was already giving.
Bobby finally cleared his throat. “Why don’t y’all come back in the house? There’s plenty of breakfast left. And we can give Max a chance to tell us what happened.”
But it was the exact wrong thing to say. The shaking started again. “I can’t!” was torn from her lips and then she had broken free of her family and run into the house, the smack of wood on wood making their ears ring.
“God damn it!” John swore, though softly. He had prayed over and over since the moment he’d discovered she was missing that she hadn’t been harmed in any way, but she assuredly had.
“Those aren’t her clothes,” Sammy finally noted, breaking the heavy silence. “Unless she bought them… last night.” The males tried to fit that observation into the extremely miniscule amount that they knew.
“She flinched when I touched her,” Dean mumbled, admitting what had scared him most.
“God,” John breathed out again, staring up into the sky, blinking rapidly.
“Now wait,” Bobby stepped forward, grabbing his friends arm. “Don’t go jumping to conclusions. You have no clue what happened.” He waited until all three sets of eyes were on him. “John, go talk to your daughter. And I mean talk, don’t yell. Give her a chance to explain.” John stared at Bobby, trying to comprehend what the man was trying to imply. Finally he nodded. As he turned to walk up the steps, he heard Bobby handing out the rest of the edicts. “Dean you go call the cops and tell them to call of their search.”
“What’ll I tell them?”
“Just that she went for a ride, got delayed and had no way of reaching us,” Bobby supplied. “They’ll assume it was a stupid typical teenage thing and drop it,” he decided with the wisdom of familiarity with his local law enforcement. “Sammy, you can help me clean up the kitchen.”
“Yes sir.”
*****
John knocked quietly to the door of the room Max occupied. There was no answer, not that he really expected any and taking a deep breath, opened the door. He let it swing inwards, his eyes taking a moment still to adjust after being outside in the sun’s harsh rays. Max was silhouetted by a glaring halo, framed in the window where the curtains fluttered lackadaisically.
“Max?” his voice was soft, gruffer than he meant it to be. Her only acknowledgement was the bowing of her head. “Sweetie? Can I come in?” There was no reply so John stepped in far enough to shut the door behind him. The latch clicked, echoing throughout the room and John watched his daughter’s shoulders spasm once.
He waited, wondering how long she could go without talking. She was a stubborn little thing, something that had only strengthened in the time she’d been with his family. He knew that it was up to him to make the first move.
“Max, its okay,” he began, his throat dry and aching with a lump of anxiousness. “I hope you know that you can tell me anything.” He waited, hoping that she could open up to him. But again, there was a slight shiver that ran through her frame. “You know,” he tried again; “I’m upset that you took off. There’s no way in hell I can deny that. You know me too well. But I’m not mad at you,” he stressed the last words, hoping to break through her silence. John glanced down at his feet, shoving his hands in his pockets, forcing himself to stay calm, when all he wanted to do was smash through the nearest section of drywall. Maybe this was something she could never talk about. At that moment, he didn’t know if he wanted to know.
“I needed to clear my head yesterday,” she admitted quietly, her back still turned away from him. John sucked in his upper lip, chewing on it hesitantly, a nervous habit he’d abandoned in his pre-teen years. “So I went for a ride, on my bike.”
Oh God! Oh Dean! Yes! The tighter that he held her, the closer that he pressed against her body… His long, deft fingers slid under the strap of her tank top, baring the breast beneath it. His lips trailed fire down her neck, tantalizing her senses. She writhed against his heat, pressing into the apex of her thighs. As his moist lips neared her breast, her breath came out in little gasps and pants. Her nipple tingled as he caught the rosy pebbled flesh between his teeth. He rolled it, his tongue laving and soothing even as he held the weight of her flesh in his hand. Her hands scrabbled against his hair roughened forearms, wonderingly, discovering that his flesh had goose bumps. His lips returned to hers and he moaned into her mouth as she slid her hands up his shoulders. They stopped, hesitant at where to go next. ‘Touch me Max,’ he whispered, moving one hand to guide hers to the waistband of his faded Levis, strained and bulging.
“No!” Max woke from the dream, another in a long line of nights spent discovering the wealth of her own imagination and fascination with the forbidden sexual creature that was her brother. Clamping a hand over her mouth to prevent audible outcries and pressing her thighs together against the ache that lingered there, Max rolled out of bed. She winced as the material of her pajamas rubbed against her sensitized skin. There was an itch screaming to be scratched, and Max knew that it would only get worse. She arched her neck, her eyes unseeing of the ceiling overhead as she numbly, silently pleaded for anyone, anything to take this terror away from her. It was just the start and already it was worse than the last few times combined. When, she cried to herself, when was this going to end?
She knew she couldn’t stay. Just picking out the soft rumbling snore that Dean gave off when he slept soundly was enticing her from her room. Max clamped her jaws shut as tightly as she could, screaming at herself to not picture her brother naked. To stop thinking about him. To not imagine it was his hands peeling the sweat soaked pajamas from her body.
In minutes she was dressed, forcing herself to remember the items she needed. Her license, some cash, her keys, gloves and helmet. She scribbled out a terse note, setting it on the dresser and was definitely ready to leave. She slid open the window, and praying that Rumsfeld was still pup-napping, climbed out and away from that sin called Dean.
“I wasn’t really paying attention to where I was going.”
Max barely noticed the exit township sign. The miles had passed in a haze. She blinked furiously, trying to straighten herself out. If she let her thoughts center on her desires, a bloody wreck would be imminent. She gritted her teeth and revved the engine more, the vibrations flowing through her legs and back. The soothing rumble only served to partially take her mind out of her dilemma and she prayed that it would be enough.
“I ended up a couple towns over,” she continued in a monotone. John was loath to interrupt, feeling it was better to just let her get this out at her own pace. To rush it might scare her into pushing everything inward. John was sad to say that he was intimately aware of the dangers in that. “I had to stop for gas,” she explained, then paused.
By some grace, Max happened to glance down, noting immediately that the gauge on her gas tank was hitting the low end. Cursing her stupidity for not gassing up her bike the day before, Max began looking for signs of the nearest gas station. Finally she caught sight of a sign, indicating a full service station a mile and a half up the road.
As she pulled in, she noticed the few cars in the lot. One being filled up, another parked by the store. A family station wagon just pulling away, where Max could see two children fighting over some imagined slight already.
Now there was a young man, walking around the car to her right, wiping his hands on a rag he’d pulled from his back pocket. She could see the name tag sewn onto the front of his light blue denim shirt, though it was creased over and she couldn’t read the name.
“And that’s when I saw him,” Max turned her head, darting a glance at her father. She had only a glimpse of the question in his eyes. “My foster father I mean. Lucy’s dad. Good ol’ Marv!”
Even as she tried to ignore the way his dark pants stretched easily over his thighs as he bent to look once more under the hood of the car, the young man turned his head her way. A wink, quick as a flash was thrown in her direction, followed by an engaging smile.
“I just… I couldn’t believe it was him,” she whispered, turning her head back to the window. “I don’t know, I think he was surprised too. I mean, all these years…” She took a deep breath. “When he started walking over to me, I just… I froze.” Another shudder passed through her body and John checked himself from going to her then. He knew that she had wrapped her emotions in some sort of protective cocoon and even a slight touch would shatter her.
The lazy smile that curved her lips was upon her before Max had the wherewithal to stop herself. The young man, hidden from everyone’s sight but hers, let his tongue dart out to swipe at his lower lip and Max was just able to stifle a groan as the heat she’d been trying so hard to banish began to coil in her stomach once more. The young man pulled back from the engine and slammed the hood down. He gave a quick thumbs up to the occupants of the vehicle and then turned his face her way.
He sauntered towards her, his lithe, wiry body turning slightly to fit between the gas pumps. Max leaned back on her ride, her hands resting on her thighs, a thin sheen of moisture dampening her jeans.
“Hey little lady,” he grinned. “Want me to fill her up?”
“As much as she’ll take, Jack,” Max retorted huskily, finally able to read his name tag.
“I don’t know what I was expecting,” she whispered. She let out a rueful chuckle. “You could have knocked me over with a feather when he just… outright apologized to me.” John grunted. It wasn’t what he would have expected either. “And then he tells me,” Max rushed on. She couldn’t bear to let John interrupt. She needed to get this said. In ways, her sanity, his sanity depended on it. “He tells me that he’s been sober and in AA for the last few years.” Again it was another surprise to John, but it was possible.
“He asked if I wanted to get coffee,” Max explained. “He wanted to talk. I know I- I shouldn’t have gone with him. But,” a small sob escaped her, “I wanted to know about Lucy.”
Jack pressed against her back, his arms curving around her waist, his chest broad and tight against her. With instructions whispered in her ear, he led her to his suite of rooms at a boardinghouse. He explained that he had the basement suite with his own access and that no one would bother them at this time of day. Max didn’t care. All she knew was that the ache was more demanding than ever. Her mind knew, even if her clamoring body didn’t, that she could never have Dean. Anyone and everyone was a pale comparison to the strength, the sinewy curves of his body, to the heart that lay beneath. Max wanted, she needed, anybody or anything to take this damnable ache away. If it couldn’t be Dean, then who the hell cared who it was.
“We talked,” Max got out, though she had to swallow a few times around the lump in her throat. “He bought me lunch, though it was late.” She turned her head once more and John could see the softness of her profile, read the sadness embedded deep into her eyes. “And I should have known, you know.” She sniffed, trying in vain to stifle tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. John’s hands fisted as he struggled to remain where he was.
“The more he talked, about his life, about his job, the more stupid details he told me,” Max continued after a moment, “the more scared I got. He never mentioned Lucy. Not once. And I was scared… that if I asked. I started to think that I really, really didn’t want to know the answer.”
Jack’s mouth covered hers as he wrestled with the keys in the lock. His lips were moist, almost to the point of being a turn off. And even as Max’s brain registered this, it was pushed aside. The scent that filled her nose, her mouth, and her senses was purely male and that was all that seemed to matter to her traitorous body.
Finally he succeeded, the door banging open behind him. She pushed him inwards, even as his hand scrabbled to pull her into his domain. Max slammed the door shut behind her, only to find her body following as Jack pressed into her. His slobbering mouth attacked her neck as Max pulled his hips into hers, desperate for friction, for relief. Jack let loose of her tumbling curls to slide his hands under the lapels of her jean jacket.
The fear rose up her throat so quickly that Max feared she might vomit. Jack mistook her moan and grinned a purely male grin as he pulled her away from the door to rid her of her jacket. Max was unsure if she should follow suit, shivering as cool air made contact with her bare arms, burning up from the desire coursing through her. But Jack was ahead of her, unbuttoning his work shirt with a rapid ease. He pulled the hem from his slacks, letting the shirt hang loose on his frame.
He wasn’t nearly as muscular as Dean was, Max’s mind protested. Her breathing quickened as her mind conjured the lush image of her brother fresh from the shower, a towel riding low on his hips. She closed her eyes, her hands roaming her taut stomach with a mind of their own, her fingers reaching for the hem of her own shirt. She pulled the thin material upwards, baring skin that had never been shared by such an outsider. She heard Jack’s encouragement, urging her to bare everything to him.
To bare everything…
Her hands stilled. She couldn’t do this. She just couldn’t. But her body was working now on instinct and even as her mind screamed at her, her hands completed their journey, trembling with something she had never known.
“Finally, I told him that I had to get back,” Max explained. “I went back to my bike. And he followed me, saying that we should get together again. I told him that I didn’t think I’d be able to.” She paused, swallowing heavily. “I was so stupid. He had that look on his face, you know. Like right before he’d order me to do something. This look, kind of calculating. The best way to… I don’t know. Beat me down or something. I was so stupid,” she repeated softly. Her hands that until now had been wrapped around her waist loosened and she twisted her fingers together. “He told me that he had something else that he needed to tell me. I thought, maybe he meant about Lucy. And I told myself that he wouldn’t try anything. We were in the middle of a parking lot for God’s sake!” Her knuckles were turning white under the strain. “And that’s when he hit me. Knocked me clean over my bike.” She dared a glance at her father again, seeing that he seemed to be studying a point just over her shoulder. “I must have hit my head on the pavement. I don’t… I don’t know what happened next.”
Max winced as the force of Jack’s body upon hers pushed her into the thick wooden head board once more. It was nothing then, compared to the sudden stretching, the burning between her legs as Jack pressed forcibly into her. She gasped at the unexpected ferocity as her body tore, allowing him a reluctant entrance. Jack seemed even more surprised than she as he stilled and stared down at her.
“You’re a fucking virgin,” he ground out; seeming stunned more at the discovery of tears in her eyes. He groaned, his head dropping to rest on her shoulder.
“It doesn’t matter,” Max gasped out, her body flexing, trying to escape the pain. As the burn began to fade slightly, the heat coursed through her again and she shuddered, the motion drawing Jack further into her passage.
“Damn me,” he moaned. “You’re so damn tight.” Unable to resist the siren call her body was screaming, he pushed further, sheathing himself completely. Max’s body surged against his.
“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered brokenly, hatred and loathing of her own body consuming her.
“W-when I woke up,” Max sniffled, “I was tied to a chair. It was some motel room. And he… the bastard was laughing at me. Just spewing his garbage at me, drinking and l-laughing.”
“That’s right baby,” Jack grunted in her ear as his hips thrust against hers. “Come on, come with me babe. I’m so fuckin’ close.”
Max arched her back, the weight and pressure of his body almost too much to take. He continued to push into her, the motions jerky and frenzied. Her body felt strange, almost as if she were poised on a precipice, scared to fall, desperate to lunge. Her breath came in short gasps. She shivered as Jack continued to moan in her ear, the sensation tantalizing her when it would have normally revulsed her. He pulled her legs up higher around his waist and she instinctively kept them there as the action allowed him deeper into her slick channel. He pushed himself upon his forearms, his body thrusting spasmodically.
“Yeah babe, so fuckin’ good,” he whined. He moved so suddenly that it surprised Max. The angle of his penetration had changed and his cock rubbed hard against her pelvis.
“I couldn’t help myself,” Max forced out a chuckle, the noise sad and rueful. “I started screaming back at him. I just… despised him so much.”
Max was gasping for breath, turning her head away from the strained visage of the mechanic above her. ‘Dean,’ her mind whimpered, and in an instant his golden face had replaced the reality. His soft smile as he regarded her, his voice huskily whispering of his love. Max’s eyes squeezed shut as her womb fluttered and then exploded.
“Oh God! Yes, yes!” she keened as the sensations roared through her. The moment seemed to last an eternity and yet still wasn’t long enough. “More,” she whispered.
“That’s right baby,” she heard Jack rasp and the fantasy shattered. Her body stilled, having achieved its satisfaction. With nausea welling up in her throat, she watched Jack reach his culmination, telling herself that she should get this bastard off her. But the fierce twisted face above her scared her. He thrust once into her, his legs shaking against her, and then thrust again before he was still.
“He had a weapon,” Max continued to lie. “A gun. I kept screaming at him. I knew I should just shut the hell up, like he said, but I couldn’t. So long, and I was so scared of him. I didn’t want to be scared of him anymore. It felt like if I stopped, he would win.” She shuddered again, swallowing heavily. Carefully, she ran a finger over the crown of her head. “He hit me… with the gun. I don’t know how many times. Knocked me out again.”
Max stared down at Jack’s sleeping form, draped across her stomach. Her hands convulsed. She swallowed continuously, desperate not to vomit all over. It had threatened first when, with her head turned and her eyes closed, she’d heard a wet slurping noise and smelled the musk filled aroma of sex. She’d turned her head to see Jack disposing of his condom and she was grateful that at least she’d found someone who wanted to avoid any negative outcomes, just as much as she did.
Jack had thrown the used latex sheath into what Max had hoped was a garbage can. He turned back to her, his face filled with contentment. He shifted and crawled towards her, scooting down beside her and resting his head on her stomach. Max grit her teeth, wanting to kick and scream and demand that he get the fuck away from her. A little whimper escaped her however.
“Sore baby?” Jack asked sympathetically, turning to look up at her. Max simply nodded. The slight burn she still felt between her legs was as nothing. It hardly registered even now.
He pressed a kiss against the lower line of her ribs. “Go to sleep sweetheart. You’ll feel better later.”
“Mmm,” Max hummed, letting him think that she had agreed with him. It only took about ten minutes before Jack was asleep and Max was calculating how to get out from underneath him without waking him up.
“When I came to again, I was alone. So I tried to get out of the ropes he’d tied me up with.”
Max slid the door shut behind herself, keys clacking in her hand. Without looking at them, she dropped them on the table to her left. She leaned back against the wall, feeling the light switch poking against her shoulder. Shaking, she considered turning on the light of the motel room, but it didn’t matter. There was nothing there that she cared to see. There was enough afternoon light filtering through the green curtains that she could stumble her way to the bathroom. She didn’t bother to turn on that light either. She just knelt carefully on the floor, a trembling hand reaching for the faucets. She turned both dials on and flipped the shower head on. She rose up from her knees and climbed into the mineral stained tub, remembering belatedly to pull the curtain shut. As the water, bracingly cold still, ran over her, she began to pull the clothes from her body. As she struggled to pull the sodden jeans from her legs, the tears began to roll down her cheeks.
“It took me a while, but I finally got free.”
The water began to warm and soon it was scalding her body. She’d shoved her clothes to the back of the tub with her foot before sobs broke through. Max pushed her face into the stream, wincing as it burned slightly. She jerked back and clamped her hand over her mouth, her teeth biting painfully into her lower lip. As quickly as she could, she shut the water off. She reached for a towel, hanging on the bar outside, her face still dripping moisture. She wrapped the thin towel around her body, pulling it as snugly as it would go before tucking the loose end in, just under her arm. She reached for another, pulling it over her head to catch the drops of water from her hair. She pushed the shower curtain away, not caring that it was outside the tub, leaking water all over the floor. She heard a door bang somewhere and caught her breath in her throat, wondering if Jack had woken up and come looking for her.
“I heard him then, coming back. Th-there wasn’t much in the room,” Max explained. “So I picked up the chair and when he came in, I hit him. With the chair. He fell down. On the floor. I hit him again. And again. I just kept hitting him.”
Securely wrapped in the scant towels that the motel provided, Max turned, realizing that the only clothes she had were still in the tub. She turned back to the chipped enamel, kneeling on the cool linoleum. She reached for her jeans, wringing them out as best she could. She laid them out on the floor, wondering how long it would be until they dried. She turned back to the tub, her eyes widening in surprise.
“There was b-blood everywhere,” she whimpered. “On him. On me. You think I’d be used to it. But I couldn’t… it was too much.”
Max was so very shaken, she could barely reach to pick up the underwear that her jeans had covered. Her stomach heaved at the sight of small smears of blood.
“I felt so sick… I just had to get away. I ran.”
The underwear dropped from her hands as Max spun around. She pushed the toilet seat lid out of her way as the retching began. Her back arched with the force of the convulsion that ripped through her stomach, but there was nothing but bile.
“I wasn’t sure where I was,” Max continued her charade. “It wasn’t the same place where I’d stopped. But I found a gas station with a restaurant attached. I-uh, I ducked into the bathroom to clean up a bit. You know, wash the b-blood off. And I needed to figure out where I was. I went in the restaurant. This waitress, she knew something was wrong. I told her that some guy had grabbed my purse. That I’d cut my hand on the zipper when he yanked it from my hands.”
The revulsion that shimmied through her was bearable as Max determinedly pulled on the still damp jeans. Her shirt, slightly drier than the jeans was next. She stared down impassively at the underwear that remained in the tub.
“She said that she had some clothes I could borrow, since mine were all dirty. She wanted to call the police.”
Max slipped from the motel room, determinedly ignoring the bulge in her jacket pocket that the offending material made. Even though she knew that the water should have washed away the lingering scent of Jack’s body, she could smell it still. Her eyes fluttered shut and she knew that she couldn’t stay in these clothes for long.
Forcing herself to look around, she noticed that down the block, the businesses faded and gave way to a residential area. Without second thought, she headed that way. In minutes, she’d discovered that she’d lucked out, with an unworried housewife having hung her laundry out to dry in the afternoon breeze. Max crept into the backyard, eyes alert and watchful, ears straining for any noise.
Once she had what she needed, she hid between a large fence and a dumpster and changed as quickly as she could. The jeans, slightly too large for her slender waist, rode uncomfortably low. The woman must have been more robust in the upstairs department, because the t-shirt hung low enough to partially cover her thighs. She pulled on the jean jacket that Dean had given her the previous Christmas. Right now, it felt like the only safe thing left in her world.
Blowing in the wind across the alley, Max found a torn plastic grocery bag. She pushed her own clothes into it, grimacing as she added the underwear from her jacket pocket.
“I told her not to worry about it. You know, since I wasn’t carrying much cash. I had my keys and my license in my pocket.
She tried to insist, but I told her the guy was probably long gone,” Max muttered. “I, umm, I stopped at the phone booth outside, you know, to figure out where I was. It was so… strange. We’d only gone a few blocks from the restaurant…” She let her head roll forward, her curling hair framing and hiding her face. “I would have called, but I just wanted to get my bike and get… back here.”
Max returned to the motel she’d checked into, seeing that very few lights were on. She fished the keys out of her pocket, climbed on her bike and shakily started the engine. She winced a little as the heavy vibrations of the motor brought attention to the tiny ache of pain between her legs. She ignored the helmet strapped behind her and knocked the kickstand up off the ground. A gentle push and the slight incline in the parking lot gave her the momentum to roll backwards, away from the building. Squeezing the brake, Max brought the bike to a halt. Uncaring of any other patrons whom might be sleeping, Max revved the engine as she left a streak of rubber on the asphalt.
Max winced, rubbing an aching hand over her eyes. “I was so scared to go back for my bike, but I th-thought, after everything, our fight, the money I spent on it, you know… I kept thinking, Dad’ll kill me if I wasted all that money.”
Max chose her route carefully, knowing how many different ways there was to get back to Bobby’s. The Winchester’s had traveled all of them. But there was one in particular that Max wanted. It took her a little out of her way, but it had to be done. Under the cover of darkness, she approached the single lane country bridge. She cut the engine, leaning her bike against the concrete railing. She pulled the bag that contained her soiled clothes from the machine and stepped up to where the water was slowly meandering its course. ‘They can’t ever know,’ she told herself stoically. With a simple gesture, the bag fell from her hands, to be swiftly carried away by the current. ‘It’ll kill them if they ever find out…’
At last Max’s shoulders slumped down. John waited with bated breath to see if she would add anything more. But there was no more forthcoming. With careful steps, he crossed over to her, avoiding the end of the bed that took up most of the room. Hesitantly, he reached out, his hands hovering over her shoulders before finally descending to lightly rest there. He felt her tense and then forcibly relax. Once she had accomplished that, he turned her and wrapped her in a snug embrace. He rested his cheek on her tangled hair.
“I’m so sorry Max,” he whispered.
“It’s not your fault,” she whispered brokenly as John felt tears wetting the front of his shirt.
His mind screamed that it was his fault. He shouldn’t have pushed her so hard, been so unyielding and unforgiving about the motorcycle. Pushing her so hard that she had to get away. It never occurred to him that there could have been another reason for her leaving. But as soon as she calmed down again, his hands moved from her back, up to her head. With tentative fingers, he searched out any bumps or bruises, noting when she winced or flinched. There was a small bump at the crown of her head and seemed to be some tenderness near her temple. Removing his hands, he sighed heavily.
“Max, I know you won’t want to, but we should probably take you to the doctor,” he told her, fully expecting an argument.
“Yeah, I…” she paused and stepped back from him, slowly looking up to meet his gaze. “You’re probably right.” She gestured over to her duffel bag, open with a few shirts spilling out. “I should probably change first though.”
Her sudden turnaround on the subject of doctors floored him and the nagging sensation that something was really off scared John. For her to actually agree to see a doctor meant that something major had gone down and his earlier worries and fears returned full force. The idea that she had just concocted a story to put his mind at ease, a story in which she was scared but far from completely helpless, began to gnaw at him. His earlier concern that something happened to her that she couldn’t discuss with him, or maybe even at all, returned like a lightening strike through him. But John forced himself to calm down. If she couldn’t talk to him, maybe she could with someone else.
“All right,” he smiled softly. “Let me know when you’re ready and we’ll head into the clinic in town.” He squeezed her arm once, reassuringly, before he left the room. He pulled the door shut behind himself and leaned against the opposite wall, gathering his thoughts. In his peripheral vision, he caught sight of Sam and Dean, in the kitchen doorway, shifting about nervously, anxiously. He pushed away from the wall and gestured for the boys to move out of the way.
Once past them, he motioned for them to follow him outside, including Bobby in his command. Once they’d gone a little distance from the house, he repeated the story that Max had just told him. But before Dean could burst out with fresh torments to visit upon the bastard foster father, John stilled him. Without actually saying the words, he made them understand how deeply Max had been shaken by the encounter. Her agreement in seeing the doctor convinced Sam and Dean that something was afoot. They too understood the implications of what had to have happened to Max.
*****
They did have to wait a while at the clinic. It was a first come, first serve basis, since any traumas went straight to the hospital. When finally Max’s name was called, an alias John had assigned to her, since he didn’t have health care in his own last name, she jumped up, as if eager to have this over and done with. John followed behind her a little more sedately. A nurse showed them into the examination room and had Max hop up on the bed so that she could take her blood pressure and temperature. She noted that Max seemed a little warmer than she should be, but the girl just shrugged that off. While she worked, John explained that his daughter had had a few bumps to the head and they just wanted the doctor to give her a once over. The nurse cheerily assented, handed Max a gown to change into and led John from the room.
But as soon as the door clicked shut, John led the nurse away, wondering how he could get across to her what might have been needed. But looking at her smiling face, John knew that it would have to be Max’s decision of whom she trusted with her secrets. Instead, he told the nurse that if there were any treatments that Max needed, or any ‘prescriptions’ that ‘someone’ might object to, to rest assured, that this ‘someone’ wouldn’t object. She’d stared at him for a moment before she seemed to catch on. Her face softened and a sad smile settled on her face. She asked if he’d be willing to sign consent forms to that effect. He told her he would.
Forty-five minutes later, he was signing consent for Max to receive a prescription. He only knew that it was for depo provera birth control injections, because he’d snuck a glance at the file when the doctor’s back was suspiciously turned for quite some time. At least she hadn’t found any physical damage, one less worry to plague John’s mind.
John watched his daughter like a hawk over the next few days. As he was sure everyone else was too. It wasn’t hard to catalogue the changes in her. His normally bright, sunny, sassy little girl had withdrawn from them for the most part. She barely spoke at meals. She hadn’t touched her bike since she’d gotten back. She silently refused Dean’s attempts to get her outside, either helping him with fixing up an old car or going into town to pick something up for Bobby. Even Rumsfeld’s pathetic whines at the front door had little effect on her. Bobby finally took pity on the pup and let him in, where the damned dog made a beeline straight to Max on the couch. She’d simply picked the puppy up, rested him on her lap and went back to staring off into space.
Out of the four of them, she seemed best able to tolerate Sam and Bobby. Perhaps it was simply because those two let her be. If Sam was near her, he didn’t say anything or push, just read from one of the many books that Bobby had lying around. With innate senses, he’d hold his arm out to her if she scooted even an inch closer, wrapping it around her shoulder as she rested her head on his shoulder.
She was awkward with John, just as much as he was with her. After she’d emerged from the clinic cubicle, she’d kept her head down, her mouth silent. John didn’t push then and the moment for broaching the subject seemed to slip away, vanishing completely. She still stayed away from him, though she seemed to be over her initial embarrassment that her father had to have known about her protective role of her emerging sexuality. She answered quietly when he spoke to her, but as of yet, made no attempt to start a conversation with him.
But most puzzling of all was her behavior around Dean. She had pretty much shut him out cold. And as far as John could see, there was absolutely no reason that he knew of for her to do that. She didn’t talk to him, she didn’t look at him, didn’t notice that her treatment of him was slowly breaking his eldest’s heart. And Lord bless him, Dean had tried so hard to play the role he’d assumed the day Sammy was born, the protective big brother. And the tenacity his son showed reminded John of a ragged pit bull. Dean talked to his sister and if he didn’t receive a response, continued on as if nothing were out of the ordinary. He asked for her help and cheerfully went on his way after each and every refusal. But the pain that crept into his eyes as he beheld his little sister, gave him away to John. Not only was his daughter in pain, but his son was suffering as well. He wondered if he should talk to Dean about it. Reassure him that it wasn’t his son’s fault, though knowing Dean as he did, his son wouldn’t accept that.
Things finally came to a head on the morning that Bobby announced that he was going to head up North. He figured that someone should take care of the job that John had started in Ashley. There were no protests from anyone, though Max just quietly excused herself from the table and retreated to the bedroom. Bobby had apologized, but John shushed him. If things had been normal, John would have headed back immediately. But he and Bobby knew right then that his first priority had to be his children.
Bobby left immediately after breakfast, letting the Winchester’s know that they were welcome to stay as long as they liked. They weren’t to worry about business, just let any people know that called that he was out of town again. John knew the routine.
Dean, who seemed to have finally given up in the face of Max’s avoidance of him, made one last attempt. He told John that he thought he, Sam and Max should run into town. John wasn’t so sure that this time would work any better than previous times, but Dean simply assured his father that he wasn’t going to give Max a choice. With Sam’s help, they managed to drag Max from her room, telling her that she’d been shirking her chores for long enough. They kept their teasing light-hearted, not accusatory and finally she gave in with some heavily petulant pouting. John handed them a short, quickly made-up list and they headed off in the Impala.
They returned a few hours later, and John winced when he heard the abrupt slamming of a car door. He came into the kitchen just as Max stormed in. She was carrying several books, as well as a few bags of groceries. These she dumped on the table, not caring that they spilled out of the bag. In seconds she was back in her room, the door whooshing shut behind her. John went out to help the boys with any other groceries they had. Both boys looked guilty and John asked what had happened to set Max off.
“Things were going fine, until brainiac over here wanted to go to the library,” Dean grunted as he pulled some paper bags out of the trunk.
“Hey,” Sammy protested. “It’s not my fault that some idiot decided to defame a book!”
“What the hell are you talking about?” John puzzled. He glanced back and forth at his sons. Dean finally shook his head and began to gather up some canned goods from a bag that had tipped over. Sam sighed and turned to face his father.
“We were checking out some books,” he began. “Max wasn’t ready yet. She was looking over some books on training dogs. You know, we thought that was a good thing. Next thing we know she’s slamming the book shut and taking off.”
“Taking off?” John growled, panic gripping him.
“Just to another section Dad,” Dean quickly assured his father. “She didn’t leave.” He shut his mouth again, more than happy to let his brother explain the rest.
“Well, Dean and I went to see what bothered her so much,” Sam continued. “And the book she was looking at…in the uh… section on um, breeding dogs?” John nodded slowly. “Well someone had drawn a dirty picture… with captions.”
“What did it say?” John asked suspiciously. Sam, his face tinged pink glanced at his brother, but Dean had already gathered up the bags he could carry and was heading into the house. Sam was on his own with this one.
“Just something really tasteless about bitches in heat,” he muttered, glancing away. John didn’t ask for any more information, what he heard was enough. Both men sighed. John grabbed a bag of groceries, while Sam snagged the last two. John chuckled as he looked over what he could see in the bag.
“How much crap did you guys buy?” he demanded with a wry smile, remembering the six items he’d put on the list. Sam smirked and ducked his head. John pushed the trunk lid shut and followed after his son.
“Pretty much anything Max expressed an interest in,” Sam replied with a rueful shrug. He paused in his steps and fixed his father with a hesitant look. “You know Dad…”
“What son?”
“Nah, it’s probably nothing,” Sam shook his head, but John was interested to know. He nudged his son’s shoulder and arched his eyebrow. “I just…I can’t figure out why Max is avoiding Dean the most. You know, out of us all, they’re the ones that were thick as thieves. You’d think that he’d be the one she’d turn to for help.”
“I wondered the same thing myself Sammy,” John conceded. Sam waited but John shook his head. “And I still don’t have any answers about it.”
They walked slowly to the house and along with Dean began the chore of finding space in Bobby’ limited cupboards for the massive amount of junk food they’d bought.
Max remained in her room the rest of the day. There was only one phone call about getting a tow truck and John, as Bobby had asked him to, referred the customer to another company. At supper time, he could see the restlessness in his oldest son’s behavior. He wasn’t at all surprised when as soon as the dishes were done and put away, that Dean announced he was heading back into town. That said, he’d grabbed his jacket and keys and was out the door. Sam let out a grunt of protest, but John calmed him, letting Sammy know that he understood Dean’s need to blow off some steam.
What they didn’t expect was that he’d be back in a little over two hours, slightly drunk, with a couple boxes of chocolates under his arm and a bag of videos in hand. He came in, gave them a patented Dean Winchester ‘I’m-up-to-something’ grin and began to fish through the drawers in Bobby’s desk. Once he found a pen and a scrap of paper, he scribbled something down, set the videos by the television and then sauntered down the hall. There he set the chocolates on the floor in front of the bedroom door, set the note on top and knocked loudly. He immediately returned to the kitchen where he dug through the refrigerator for some of the soda they’d bought earlier.
John made to ask what his son was up to, but Dean silently put one finger to his lips and leaned back against the counter. After a moment, they heard Max’s door open, then close. Dean tilted his head so that he could see down the hall. He smiled when he noted that his sister seemed to have taken the bait.
“Like giving candy to a baby,” he chuckled quietly.
“Uh, isn’t it supposed to be ‘taking candy from a baby’?” Sam asked cheekily.
Dean fixed his brother with a slightly disgusted look. “Dude, why would you take candy from a baby? That just makes ‘em cry.” Sam shook his head, though he couldn’t deny his brother’s logic. And before a brotherly type debate could begin, they heard the door open again.
Max emerged from her room, the chocolates in hand. She made a beeline straight to her eldest brother, a shy smile on her face. “You got me chocolates?” Dean glanced down at the boxes, his face giving away the glee in his well intentioned plan. “Why?”
“’Cause you’re cranky,” Dean smirked, leaning back again and crossing his arms in front of himself. Whatever answer Max had been expecting, that didn’t seem to be it. But however Dean had meant it; it seemed to get the job done. Max aimed a small punch at her brother’s shoulder and stamped her foot.
“I am not cranky!” she protested, frowning at him.
“Oh but you are,” Dean countered, and then poked his sister lightly in the stomach. “Must be from not eating all those gourmet meals we’ve been slaving over.”
“Gourmet, right!” Max scoffed. “Since when is mac and cheese considered haute cuisine?”
“Hey, I’ll have you know that I blend at least two different kinds of cheese for my special mac and cheese,” Dean teased.
“What two cheeses,” Max retorted, a small grin on her face. “Stinky and stinkier?”
“Well at least Dean can make mac and cheese,” Sam chimed in. “Unlike some people who eat it raw out of the box.”
“Hey that was one time!” Max giggled as Sam tugged at her hair. “And you should talk Mr. I-refuse-to-eat-Spaghetti-o’s.”
“Oh God, don’t remind me,” Sam groaned, holding his stomach. At his father’s puzzled glance, Sam elaborated. “That’s all Dean would make when you were on hunting trips.”
“Hey!” Dean protested. “That shit was cheap and easy to make. Just heat ‘em and eat ‘em. Left more money to afford those damn Lucky Charms that you insisted you had to have.”
“Hey, you liked them just as much as I did,” Sam taunted.
“Did we get any popcorn today?” Max asked suddenly, interrupting her brothers. They both stared at her a moment, dumbfounded.
“Yeah you did,” John answered, moving forward to check the cupboards. “It’s here somewhere.” Max joined in the search, exclaiming occasionally when she saw something else she seemed to want to munch on. She tossed a bag of chips to Dean.
“So what videos did you get?” she asked as she searched through some lower cabinets.
“Oh, let’s see,” Dean mumbled, recalling what he’d picked out as he reached for a bowl to pour the chips into. “I got uh; ‘Pretty Woman’, ‘Gone With The Wind’, and some other chick flick all the girls seem desperate to want to see.”
“Oh tell me you didn’t!” Max gasped, staring up at her brother in horror. Dean tried to look innocent, but soon began to laugh.
“Hell no,” he finally gasped out. “What, you think I’m crazy?”
“What did you really get?” Sam asked, smiling.
“Just a couple Bruce Lee’s,” Dean shrugged as he fiddled with the chip bag. “And of course the latest, greatest Van Damme flick.”
Max giggled, remembering the nights that they’d sat around watching those flicks, making fun of the man who considered himself some sort of martial arts god. “At least it wasn’t a Steven Segal bomb,” she decided happily. “I mean, gah, he is allowed to speak in more than one tone.”
“Something no one in Hollywood is brave enough to tell him,” Sam added. But something nagging at him suddenly made him pipe up. “Uh Dean, doesn’t Van Damme usually uh… you know? In all his movies?” He widened his eyes and looked intensely at his brother, trying to convey his meaning. Dean looked puzzled until he finally caught on, remembering the actor’s tendency to…
“You mean when the Clod drops trou Sammy?” Max asked, pulling her head back from the cupboard and grinning up at her brother. “Don’t worry, we can fast forward through it,” she decided. She got up from the kneeling position she’d been in on the floor and flashed Dean and John a grin. “Wouldn’t want to offend you’re delicate sensibilities big bro.”
“I’m not delicate!” Sam protested, watching warily as Max placed some microwave popcorn in the appropriate appliance. “I’m not.”
“Actually,” Max shuddered, “I hope you are, because the other possibilities are just too icky to think of.” Sam gasped at the implication while Dean laughed.
“Oh, nice burn!” he crowed, pulling Max into a hug. To John’s relief, she didn’t flinch or draw back, just let the satisfied smirk rest on her lips. Apparently Dean noticed it too, if the flash of triumph he threw at his father was anything to judge by.
Sam growled at his little sister, “I am not gay and I’m not a woman!”
“Denial Sam,” Dean chuckled. “It ain’t just a river.”
“All right, that’s enough,” John smiled, breaking up the party before it could get out of hand. “What do you guys want to drink?”
“Did we get cherry cola?” Max asked immediately, moving from the shelter of Dean’s arms to gaze in the fridge with her father. John plucked out one and handed it to her.
“Sam?”
“Anything’s fine,” his middle child responded.
“Got mine already,” Dean added in before his father could ask. John snagged a few more pops and a beer for himself. That done, they gathered up the snacks and headed to the television. John was about to turn off the kitchen lights, when Max’s voice floated back to him.
“Dad, can you grab my chocolates?”
“Yeah, I got them sweetie,” he answered as he doubled back to the counter where they rested. As he pulled the two generously sized boxes from the Formica topped counter, a slip of paper fluttered to the ground. With a grunt, John released the boxes and bent over to pick it up. He recognized Dean’s handwriting immediately, but folded the paper over. He would return it to Max, he told himself, once he’d read it over to see what Dean had managed to write that so decidedly brought Max out of her funk. He didn’t kid himself that he was going to respect their privacy. He was just smart enough to do it when he wouldn’t be caught. He shoved the paper in his jean pocket and once more grabbed the chocolaty treats.
Once he made it to the living room, Sam informed him that they’d chosen Bruce Lee’s “Enter The Dragon’ to watch first. John nodded and took a seat on the sofa. The kids however had made a pile on the floor before the couch with Dean and Sam tucking Max securely between them. John waited until his daughter was settled with the afghan some lady had crocheted for Bobby, resting across their laps. He passed the chocolates to his daughter and she immediately tore into the wrapping, pulling the cellophane away.
“Oh,” she exclaimed softly. “Cherry cordials?”
“Yup,” Dean replied just as softly. John was amazed at the tender look on his son’s face as he regarded Max. “Did I do good?”
Max smiled up at her brother, and then leaned her head on his shoulder. “You did excellent.” She took one of the candies, and then offered the box around, warning them that they could only have one piece each. Sammy protested, Dean teased and Max defended her chocolate. It seemed that the evening was going to turn out all right.
*****
They’d managed to watch all the Bruce Lee films. But John felt his attention flagging when they finally popped in the Van Damme movie that Dean had picked out. It was one of his older ones, despite what Dean had said. And the kids did make half-hearted attempts to crucify the actor, like always. But John noticed that they’d slipped into slumber about a third of the way through. He debated about waking them up, and then decided to leave them where they were. Max was resting too peacefully for him to want to disturb the advances they’d made with her tonight.
As he leaned over to snatch the remote from Dean’s slack hand, he heard the crumple of paper from his pocket. He glanced at the kids’ faces, checking to make sure they were definitely asleep. With ease, he leaned back and pulled the creased sheet from his pocket. He leaned towards the lamp that aside from the television was the only source of light in the room. He smiled when he read Dean’s honest plea, glad that somehow his son had found the right words.
So I was sitting at the bar, getting drunk, completely bored out of my mind. Like beyond belief. Cause I didn’t have my little sister there making fun of all the drunken idiots around us. And I thought, you know, I’d rather be at home, even with you not talking to me, than be anywhere without you. So I grabbed a bunch of videos; we’ve got plenty of snacks. What do ya say?
Your favorite big brother
Chapter Twenty-one
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