Playthings
Dean and I stood on the front steps of the hotel, watching as the coroner loaded a body bag into a vehicle. Susan was talking to some police officer still.
She turned, walking toward us and the building.
"What happened?" Dean asked.
"The maid went in to turn down the sheets, and he was just...hanging there." Susan answered.
"That's awful. He was a guest?"
Susan nodded her head. "He worked for the company that bought the place."
"Hm."
"I don't understand."
"What?" I asked, turning my eyes away from the scene before me.
"Had a lot of bad luck around here." Susan says. "If you'd like to check out, I'll give you a full refund."
"No, thanks." Dean says. "I don't scare that easy." He smiled.
"He was my ride, so...." I trailed off in a joking tone.
___
When Dean and I reached the room he shared with Sam, the door was open. Dean grabbed the key from the lock, stepping inside. I followed, shutting the door behind myself.
"There's been another one. Some.guy hung himself in his room." Dean states.
The room was dark, only moonlight leaking in from the open curtains.
"Yeah, I saw." Sam mumbled, sitting slouched over in a chair.
"We gotta figure this out and fast." Dean dug through his bag. "What'd you find out about Granny?"
"You're bossy." Sam says. Both Dean and I turn to look at him.
"What?" Dean asked.
Sam looked up, his hair messed up and in his sight. He held his arms out in a semi-circle as if repeating what his brother had just said. "You're bossy." He repeated, letting his cast cover arm drop. He laughed. "And short."
I laughed a little.
"Are you drunk?" Dean asked.
"Yeah. So?" Sam asked, looking at his brother oddly. "Stupid." He muttered.
"Sam." I say. "Name calling is below us." There was a joking tone in my voice.
Sam laughed again. "You're short too."
I nodded. "I'm aware."
"Dude, what are you thinking? We're working a case." Dean says.
Tears brimmed Sam's eyes. "The guy who hung himself. I couldn't save him."
"What are you talking about?" Dean asked. "You didn't know. You couldn't have done anything."
"That's an excuse, Dean." Sam stated. "I should've found a way to save him."
"Did you even know another guy checked in?" I asked. "I wasn't aware he was here until..."
"I should've saved Ava too." Sam continued.
"Here's the angst, I guess." I mumbled.
"Well, you can't save everyone, even you said that." Dean reminded him.
Sam slammed his fist into the table. "No, Dean! You don't understand. The more people I save, the more I can change."
"Change what?"
"My destiny, Dean!"
Dean sighed. "Alright, time for bed. Come on, Sasquatch." He pulled Sam to his feet.
"I need you to watch out for me." Sam says.
"I always do." Dean told him.
"No, no, no! You have to watch out for me. Alright? And if I ever turn into something I'm not...you have to kill me."
"Sam." Dean complained.
I sighed, not knowing how to fix this. It had gone too far already.
"Dean, dad told you to do it. You have to." Sam says, hitting his shoulder.
In this moment as I watched pain flicker quickly across Dean's eyes, I realized why John wanted to keep us apart. He must have figured it would hurt less if it came down to Dean having to kill me if we weren't together.
"Yeah, well, dad's an ass." Dean snapped. "He never should have said anything. You don't do that. You don't lay that kind of crap on your kids."
"No, he was right to say it." Sam argued. "Who knows what I might become? Even now, everyone around me dies."
"Yeah, well, I'm not dying, okay?" Dean says. "And neither are you. Now come on, sit down." He pushed Sam down onto the bed.
"No, please, Dean, you're the only one who could do it." Sam grabbed his brother by the coat. "Promise, Dean, please."
"Don't ask that of me."
"Dean, please. You have to promise me."
A few seconds passed as Dean stared at Sam. "I promise."
My eyes stung.
"Thanks." Sam nodded before taking Dean's face in his hands. "Thank you."
Dean pushed his back back a little.
Sam laid down then, rolling onto his stomach and shut his eyes.
___
Dean and I headed downstairs to get a drink after...Sam's...meltdown...? Using that word felt mean, but I'd been where he was plenty of times. And there was no other word I would use other than meltdown.
I'm sure somewhere deep down, Dean knew I had shared the same feelings as Sam and that I too had been there. But I didn't bring it up or let myself fall apart in front of him. He had too much going on for me to just dump all of my problems on him.
The hotel was quiet and dimly lit as we walked into the bar room. Eight or ten small circular tables sat scattered across the room. Dean's hand found my waist as we walked toward the bar where Sherwin stood.
"Find any good antiques?" Sherwin asked as we sat down on the stools.
"No. No. Got distracted." Dean answered, shaking his head.
"Have a drink." Sherwin grabbed a glass, then the bottle of liquor.
"Yeah, thanks."
Sherwin filled the glass, handing it to Dean. He filled another, offering it to me.
Though I knew I shouldn't drown my feelings in alcohol, I took it anyway. I'd done it plenty before. One more time won't hurt.
"So poor guy. Killing himself." Dean says.
"That kind of thing seems to be going around lately." Sherwin noted.
"Seems so." I mumbled, raising the glass to my lips.
"Yeah, we heard about the other ones." Dean added. "It's almost like this hotel is cursed or something."
"Every hotel has its spilled blood." Sherwin stated. "If only people knew what's gone on in some of those rooms they've checked into."
Well, that's not reassuring as a guest at all.
"You know a lot about the place, don't you?" Dean asked, seemingly unbothered by the creepy comment.
"Down to the last nail." Sherwin replied.
"Well, we'd love to hear some stories." I spoke up. "Wouldn't we, Dean?"
"Yeah, totally." Dean nodded his head.
"Don't you know you should never say that to an old man?" Sherwin smiled.
___
We followed Sherwin around the hotel, gazing up at photos that lined the walls. Each held a story, a lesson, a moment frozen in time whether it be good or bad.
"This is little Miss Susan and her mother Rose." Sherwin pointed to the photo as we stood on the staircase. "Happier days."
"They're not happy now?" Dean asked.
"Well, would you be, leaving the only home you ever knew?" Sherwin retorted.
I pulled in a breath. "Yeah, you would."
"I don't know. I never really knew one." Dean says, setting a comforting hand on my waist.
"Well, this is Rose's home. It's been in the family over a century." Sherwin explained. "Used to be the family estate. And now she gets to live in some senior living graveyard and they tear this place down."
"That's too bad." Dean says.
"It's horrible." I whispered, thinking of my own childhood home that now sat empty and abandoned. My eyes stung, but I willed the tears away. I wouldn't cry.
"I hear Rose isn't feeling well either." Dean remarked as we made our way back down the steps.
"No, she isn't." Sherwin agreed.
"What's wrong with her?"
"It's not my business to say." Sherwin told us as Dean and I looked down at more photos on a table.
"Who's this?" Dean asked, gesturing to the photo of a child sitting with a dark-skinned woman.
"That's Rose. When she was a little girl." Sherwin explained.
I gave Dean's arm a squeeze once seeing the necklace that hung around the woman's next. It was a symbol just like the one carved into the urns around here.
"Who's that with her?" Dean asked, he noticed it too.
"That's her nanny, Marie. She looked over Rose more than her own mother." Sherwin moved to place the picture on the mantel across the room.
___
I stood by the window in my own room. I wasn't sleeping tonight. I knew I wasn't. Sleep was something that I hardly got nowadays. It seemed as though every time I was going to have a good night's rest something ruined it.
I felt arms snake around my waist. "You're quiet." Dean whispered.
"Sorry." I replied, not wanting to admit how scared I was. I wasn't going to burden Dean with anymore than what was already out in the open.
"Don't apologize." He rested his chin on my shoulder. "You're just normally not this quiet. It worries me."
"I was just thinking." I stated vaguely.
"You'll be fine, Angel." Dean reminded me. "You don't have an evil bone in your body."
"I never said that's what I was thinking about." I told him.
"I know you, Si. Better than anyone, probably. You'll be okay." He lightly brushed his lips over my neck. "Okay? I promise."
"If this is your way of trying to get me to talk, it's not gonna work." I inform him.
"Says Miss Talking About Your Feelings Is A Good Thing." Dean mocked me playfully.
Yeah, it is when it's not something that affects the person you're talking to on a personal level that could break said persons metal health.
But I don't say that.
"Don't use my words against me." I mumbled. I turned around in his arms, burying my head in the crook of his neck and pressing a kiss to his skin. "I don't want to talk."
"You can't use sex to get out of every uncomfortable conversation, Si." Dean says, then realized the words he just used and laughed a little. "I sound just like you now, huh? That's horrifying."
I smiled because he really did sound like me seeing as I had said that to him at one point or another.
"I'm not." I told him. "I wanted to have sex before an uncomfortable conversation was brought up. It just had bad timing."
"My little sex-crazed maniac or the desperate need for a conversation about the obvious dread you feel every day?" Dean asked.
"First of all, I am not a sex-crazed maniac." I lifted my head and gave him a quick kiss. "Secondly, the conversation had bad timing, not me. Plus, if anything you're the sex-crazed maniac."
Dean smiled at me. "Sure, sure. Whatever you say, but you are totally in denial."
"Until you stop calling me a sex-crazed maniac, I will not have sex with you." I told him. "Okay? So calm down, dude."
Dean scoffed. "Okay, sure. Like you could go any longer than I could without jumping my bones."
"Says the one who gropes my boobs every time we lay in bed together. Not to mention how often your hands wander to other places."
Dean laughed a little, reaching up to lightly squeeze my boob. I rolled my eyes. "I do not."
"You do too. I have to shove you away every night."
"Okay, fine, then." Dean began. "After tonight, you and me are gonna play a little game. No sex, no touching, nothing. Just to see who caves first."
I gazed up at him. "No touching meaning?"
"No groping, Si."
I smiled. "Okay, deal."
"Deal." Dean shook my hand.
"This starts tomorrow though, right?" I asked.
"Oh, totally." Dean slid his arms around my waist, hands drifting down to my butt.
"Good, because I was hoping we could fool around some." I smiled up at him.
Dean laughed. "You're a little weirdo." He leaned down, pressing his lips to mine. His tongue brushed against my bottom lip. I parted them, moaning softly into our kiss.
He pulled back to pull my shirt over my head and toss it to the floor. He brought his lips back to mine.
Dean lifted me up, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. He moved toward the king-sized bed, laying me down gently before positioning himself above me. His lips trailed over my neck, nipping lightly at the skin.
I tugged his shirt up and off of him, dropping it. His lips moved across my skin, down my neck, my collarbone, my chest, my stomach. I reach down to shimmy out of the skirt I wore, but he caught my hands.
He raised his lips back to my ear. "Keep it on." He whispered roughly. "So every time you wear it, you're reminded of what I'm about to do to you."
A blush rose to my face, heat pooling between my legs. "Okay." I murmured back, his hands still keeping mine held at my hips.
"Good girl." He placed a trail of open-mouthed kisses down my neck and chest as he let go out my hands. He then reached under my skirt, pulling my underwear down my legs and tossing them to the floor.
I arched my back, moaning as he ducked under my skirt, lips and tongue meeting me. Twinning my fingers into his hair, pleasure shot through my body. His hands gripped my hips, keeping me from squirming too much.
Let's just say it was quite the night after that.
___
The next morning when Dean and I walked back into the room Sam stayed in, I heard Sam groaning from the bathroom. He sat on the floor, slumping by the toilet.
"How you feeling, Sammy?" Dean asked, smiling as he pulled off his jacket. "I guess mixing whiskey and Jager wasn't such a gangbuster idea, was it?" He laughed. "I'll bet you don't remember a thing from last night, do you?"
I knew he was hoping Sam wouldn't remember.
I also knew that it was an inappropriate time to be having these thoughts, but at the mention of last night, I blushed. The memories swirling around my head. I bit my lip, rubbing my wrist where his belt had bit into my skin slightly (not enough to hurt, of course, but still) and where the cold metal frame of the bed touched. The dirty things he whispered in my ear echoed off the walls of my mind. His hand gently around my neck, finger brushing against my racing pulse. It all rushed back, and I realized how even when things got...kinky (that word weirds me out) he was still gentle...Mostly.
I swallowed, shaking away those thoughts.
"I can still taste the tequila." Sam groaned.
Dean shut his eyes, relief flooding his features as he nodded his head. "You know there's a really good hangover remedy." He opened his eyes, going through his bag as I sat down on the bed that he stood at the foot of. "It's a greasy pork sandwich served up in a dirty ashtray."
"Dean, that's mean." I smiled a little.
"Oh, I hate you." Sam groaned.
Dean laughed. "I know you do." He turned, moving to lean against the doorframe to the bathroom. "Hey, turns out when Grandma Rose was a tyke, she had a Creole nanny who wore a Hoodoo necklace." He groaned a little.
"So you think she taught Rose Hoodoo?" Sam asked.
"Yes, I do."
"All right." Sam pulled himself to his feet. "I think it's time we talk to Rose."
"You need to brush your teeth first." Dean moved back toward me.
"A shower wouldn't hurt either." I called out as Sam stepped back into the bathroom.
At the mention of a shower, my thoughts were thrown back into last night. How after our multiple rounds of...fun, Dean had lifted me into his arms, carried me to the bathroom and drew a hot bath for the both of us. We just laid in the nice, hot water for a while, in each other's arms, sweet nothings whispered between us. It was sweet and soft.
Dean winked at me as he walked toward me.