Supernatural - Whatever You Do, Don't Look Behind You (3/4) - Gen, Sam/Ava
Title: Whatever You Do, Don’t Look Behind You (3/4)
Author: Tonya (
_fullofgrace)
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Gen but with Sam/Ava
Disclaimer: The usuals. No own, no sue.
Timeline: obviously AU considering the finale; takes place in the universe created in my fic “Headlights on Dark Roads” but reading that beforehand is not a necessity
Chapter word count: 3600
Summary: A deadly urban legend leads Dean, Sam, and Ava on a new case.
******
The bad thing about grave digging was that no matter how many people started the dig, it always ended up being a one-man job. The deeper the hole became, the fewer people who could fit in the space with shovels without hitting each other. Last time had been Dean’s turn to be the last man digging, which by default meant that tonight would be Sam’s turn.
Above Sam, Ava and Dean crouched near the opening of the grave. Dean rummaged through his duffel bag for his lighter fluid as Ava’s flashlight shined down on Sam, giving him at least some amount of light to make his task a little easier.
A rumble of thunder threatened overhead, and Sam frowned as he tilted his head towards the sky. Ava’s light caught him directly in the eye, and he grimaced, his hand automatically shooting up to shield
“That wasn’t…” he started, hoping that he was just hallucinating the warning of rain approaching.
“It, unfortunately, was,” Ava finished his unspoken thought.
“Stop digging like a girl, dude,” Dean said, pulling the container of lighter fluid from his bag. “We got a timeline.”
“Screw you,” Sam grumbled, rubbing his forearm across his sweaty forehead. With a grunt, he dug his shovel as deep into the ground as it would go, but the blade stopped midway as it finally hit something solid. “Bingo.”
Dropping to a crouch in the grave, Sam began brushing away the remaining layer of dirt until his hands brushed against the textured surface of a casket. He pulled his switchblade from the back pocket of his jeans and shoved the blade between the lid and the body of the casket, jimmying it open. When he felt the lid begin to give, he gripped the edge and lifted the lid open.
Only one word came to mind as he finished prying open the casket. “Shit.”
Sam stood balanced over an empty casket. He looked up to where Dean and Ava stood at the edge of the hole, both of them now peering down into the emptiness.
“Shit,” Dean echoed his sentiments.
Ava frowned, her flashlight doing a quick survey of the casket before she finally lowered it. “Well, this is new.”
More thunder rumbled in the night air, and Sam felt the beginnings of heavy raindrops falling against his arms. He closed the casket lid and pulled himself from the hole before the ground became too wet to actually do so without help from his brother and Ava. Once on solid ground, he dusted his hands off on the back of his jeans.
“Now what?” Ava turned off her flashlight and tucked it into the back waistband of her jeans.
“If this is the ghost, then he has to have remains somewhere,” Sam replied. “Maybe the family moved them.”
“Maybe,” Dean frowned, tossing the lighter fluid back into his bag. “Meanwhile, we better cover this up if we’re gonna be sticking around town and asking questions about long dead serial killers.”
Each of them grabbed their discarded shovels, and Ava quietly cursed the weather, the rain beating down harder on them as they began covering up their mess.
******
By the time Sam stepped out of the shower, ridding himself of sweat and dirt, and changed into boxers and a t-shirt, Dean was already fully dressed in a new set of clean clothes. Drying his hair with a towel, Sam watched his brother suspiciously as Dean grabbed a long-sleeve button up and pulled it on over his t-shirt.
“Do I even want to know where you’re going?” Sam asked with an eyebrow raised.
Dean grabbed his wallet and keys off the nightstand. “I’m gonna drive that stretch of highway. See if there’s anything out there that screams paranormal activity.”
“Let me change real quick, and I’ll come with you,” Sam replied, tossing his towel onto the foot of his bed and reaching for his bag of clothes.
Dean held up a hand to stop him. “No, you hang tight.” He added off Sam’s look, “In case I need some on the spot research.”
“On the way back, you’re gonna find a bar to do some hustling, aren’t you?” Sam asked with a knowing smirk, his arms folded across his chest.
Dean returned the smirk. “Good chance of that, yeah. We’re running a little low on cash.” He pocketed his wallet as he started towards the door. “But first, work. Be back in a few hours.” He turned to Sam with a grin. “Maybe you can see if Ava can keep you company while I’m out.”
“You know,” Sam sighed, “it takes a lot for me not to kill you sometimes.”
Dean shrugged innocently and walked out of the room, shutting the door securely and leaving Sam to lock it from the inside.
*******
Sam had just settled on top of his blankets, a rerun of Law and Order: Criminal Intent on the television, when someone knocked on the room door. Sam glanced at the clock on the nightstand between his and Dean’s bed, frowning when he noted that it had been barely twenty minutes since his brother had left to go investigate the highway. With an annoyed sigh, he pushed himself from the bed and made his way over to the door.
“Dude, what did you forget?” he asked as he pulled the door open.
Dean, however, was not standing on the doorstop. Instead, Ava stood where Sam assumed his brother would have been. Dressed, or barely dressed depending on who you asked, in a lavender camisole and matching boxer bottoms, Ava balanced a pizza box in the palm of her hand like a waitress carrying a tray of drinks.
He cursed himself as he felt his neck begin to warm with a flush, and he hoped Ava would think it because of the balmy Tennessee summer if she happened to notice. It wasn’t that he had never seen Ava in her pajamas before; for the first few weeks on the road, she had borrowed one of his T-shirts and a pair of boxers until they had had the opportunity for her to buy pajamas of her own. But this was different for two reasons.
One, T-shirts and boxers kept her covered up, kept her innocently cute and boyish. Now, in a snug camisole and shorter female style boxers, there was no hiding her very feminine curves. Which, in turn, lead to the second problem with this situation.
They’d been basically living together for a little over six months now. Going from one motel to another, one town to another, putting their lives on the line time after time. And in that six months, she’d grown from Ava, the cute, perky secretary from Peoria who saved him, into Ava. A smart, witty, and attractive girl. He didn’t think of her in terms of visions or as one of the chosen kids anymore. She wasn‘t just special because she was a key to everything going on around him, but she was special because he cared about her away from all those things.
Dean had been teasing Sam for months now about sealing himself into the “friendship zone” if he didn’t act soon, but no matter how much his body reacted when Ava was in close proximity, Sam couldn’t bring himself to cross that line. Her fiance had been dead for less than a year, and she had only joined them on the road not far after that. She was comfortable with both of them, noted by her ability to just show up on his doorstep in such a manner tonight, and he didn’t want to ruin that for her. He and Dean had become a second family to her, which made it a lot harder for him to rationalize hitting on her like Dean kept prodding him to do.
“Hey,” he finally said with a shocked smile.
Ava smiled back, stepping around him and into the room. “So, I was just about to watch a horrifically bad Lifetime movie about stolen babies and the women who buy them when there was a knock on my door,” she said, placing the box down on the foot of his bed and turning to him. “The poor pizza boy nearly took a bullet cause your brother prank-ordered me.”
Sam laughed, rubbing the back of his neck, as he realized exactly what Dean had done. Sometimes Sam really did wonder if his brother didn’t get all his life lessons, especially when it came to the opposite sex, from bad horror movies and pornos. The half-naked girl on an unknowing boy’s doorstep with a pizza? Classic Dean. Sam made a mental note to beat the crap out of Dean later for his horrible attempt at match-making.
Ava shrugged, flopping down on Sam’s bed and folding her legs up under herself. “Speaking of, where is Dean?”
Sam continued to hover near the door, arms folded casually in front of him. “Driving the stretch of highway to make sure we’re not missing anything.”
“By himself?”
“Yeah,“ he nodded. “Insisted, which just means he’s gonna do something illegal after his investigation.“
“Figures,“ she said with a small laugh, flipping open the pizza box. “So, you hungry?”
Sam hitched his shoulder. “I’m good.” As if to contradict him, his stomach chose that moment to growl loudly.
Ava smirked. “So that was just a demon looking to rip from your stomach and skitter across the floor then?” She patted the empty mattress beside her. “Don’t make me be the pig I am and eat this by myself.”
Sam chuckled under his breath and sat down beside her.
*******
One impromptu trip to the vending machine for drinks (and a pack of Twizzlers for her) and half a pizza later, Sam and Ava relaxed on his bed, watching a horribly clichéd kids-go-on-a-road-trip-and-pick-up-a-sca
Sam checked his cell phone out of habit before placing it on the nightstand and settling back against the headboard of the bed again.
“A lawyer, huh?” Ava finally asked, her shoulder brushing against his as she nibbled on her cherry licorice stick.
Sam simply nodded, glancing over at her. She had known for a while that he had been a law student in a former life, but it wasn’t anything they ever really discussed. Much like he never really asked about her life before the night they met in Lafeyette, Indiana. It wasn’t as if he didn’t care to know her past, but he always worried that bringing it up would open old wounds for her that she had long let heal.
“I never pegged you as the slimy lawyer type.” She grinned around her licorice stick dangling from her lips.
Sam smirked over at her, nudging her gently with his elbow before folding his arms across his chest. “Cute.” He paused with a small hitch of his shoulders. “I don’t know. I think part of it was just to spite my dad, you know. Being on the right side of the law and everything. Of course, finishing law school? Not exactly on the to-do list anymore.”
“Sorry,” Ava said, a small frown on her lips.
“You know, at one point in my life, I may have been mad about that. Probably would have blamed my family, but now?” He hitched a shoulder. “I’m alright with that fact. I’m alright with where I am.”
She nodded, offering him a warm smile. “Acceptance is some amazing stuff, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it really is,” he said with a quiet laugh.
“Besides, I’m starting to think normal may be a bit overrated. I mean, don’t get me wrong, normal is great too. Normal is safe. Less likely to get chased by hell hounds or a pissed off ghost, but this stuff we do? Kinda cool.”
“Who are you, and what have you done with Ava?” Sam grinned.
“What?” she asked, eyes wide.
“The first time we met, I vaguely remember you telling me and my weirdness to go screw ourselves.”
“Because you were being stubborn about wanting to get blown up,” she countered. “It was annoying.”
Sam laughed, rubbing a hand across his forehead.
“Besides, I ending up staying and helping anyway.”
“You did,” he replied softly.
Silence settled between them for a moment as they watched the movie, but a question lingered at the back of his mind. He’d wondered it off and on for months now, but they had never gotten to a point where it seemed like a good time to ask.
“Why did you want to stay?” he asked, and she looked over at him, brows furrowed in confusion. “You’d nearly taken a bullet meant for me, and you still wanted to stick around to help me save my brother. Any normal person would have thrown in the towel by then.”
“I don’t know,” she shrugged, a small yawn slipping past her lips. “That night, before I met you, I thought I was pretty much losing it, but then I find out you’re just like me. And I realized I wasn’t alone in being a complete freak of nature.” She grinned up at him. “Besides, you seemed like a pretty decent guy, and I didn’t want to see you blow up in a million tiny Sam pieces on a suicide mission.”
He smiled. “Thanks for saving my ass by the way.”
“Don’t mention it,” she yawned again.
Ava settled further down in her spot against the headboard, leaning her head against Sam’s shoulder. He glanced down at her but said nothing in protest as the warmth of her body settled against his.
“I wonder what Dean found tonight,” she mumbled at his side.
“You mean, besides some poor girl who falls for horrible pickup lines?”
“Yeah,” she laughed, “besides that.”
He hitched the shoulder she wasn’t resting against, glancing over at his cell phone as if Dean would call now that his name had been mentioned. “Hopefully something to give us a new trail to follow. I know we’re looking at the right guy, but without remains, we’re kinda screwed. And now we’re down to forty-eight hours or this case is completely lost.”
He waited for Ava to say something in response, but nothing came except the sounds of her soft breathing. He tilted his head forward to peek down at her, and he could only smile at her already asleep in that small amount of time. Settling back into his spot again, he tried not to cause too much movement and wake her. He grabbed the remote from his lap, turning the volume down and then flipping back to the Law and Order marathon before placing it on the nightstand with his phone. Stifling his own yawn, he leaned his head against Ava’s resting one.
*******
Sam woke the next morning sprawled out on his back, a leg dangling over the side of the bed, and despite the fact that he was presently laying on top of his sheets, he wasn’t chilled. Thanks, in part, to Ava’s sleeping form curled up beside him. Nestled close to his side, her head used his chest as a pillow, one of her legs tangled up with his. He slowly rubbed at his eyes, trying not to wake her.
As if on cue, Sam’s cell rang, and even still half-asleep himself, he quickly reached for it and answered before the first ring even completed. “Hello,“ he asked in a hushed voice.
“Rise and shine, soldier.”
Sam held his breath as Ava stirred, her leg wrapping tighter around his, but she didn’t wake. The self-proclaimed light sleeper was fortunately taking a much-needed deep rest today.
“Yo, Sammy.”
“What?” Sam asked, distracted, his volume still in check.
“I asked why you‘re whispering.”
“Ava‘s sleeping,” he replied without thinking of a better way to phrase that to Dean. The chuckle on the other end of the line from his brother only cemented the fact that he really needed to start learning how to choose his words carefully around Dean. “Where are you?” he asked.
“About five minutes out.” There was a pause on the line, and Sam prepared to roll his eyes. “So, she’s sleeping, huh?”
“See you in a second, Dean,” Sam said and hung up without another word. Phone still in hand, he draped his arm across his eyes.
“He find something out?”
Sam nearly jumped at Ava’s quiet words. He lifted his arm and raised his head to look down at her, still nestled against him. “I thought you were asleep,” he said to the top of her head.
Ava propped herself up on her arm, the other hand braced against Sam’s chest as she looked up at him. “Light sleeper, remember?” she said with a lopsided smile.
Sam returned the smile. “Forgot.”
She pulled her hand from his chest to run it through her wildly tousled hair, untangling her leg from his. “Sorry, by the way. I didn’t meant to crash here and hog your bed.”
Sam pulled himself upright, back resting against the headboard. “It’s okay. I was out pretty good.”
Ava nodded and crawled out of the bed. She gathered the nearly empty pizza box and cans of soda off the floor, balancing them on the edge of Dean’s bed. “Dean find something out?” she asked again.
Sam tossed his legs over the side of the bed, elbows resting on his thighs as he leaned forward. “He didn’t say. He’s a couple minutes out.”
“Hopefully he’s a few minutes out with coffee,” she grinned, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Meanwhile, I’m gonna get cleaned up and changed. We’re on a deadline, right?”
Sam stood, nodding. “Forty-eight hours.”
Ava grabbed her room key off the nightstand, making her way towards the door. “Thanks again for letting me hog your bed last night.”
“Seemed only fair since you supplied dinner,” he grinned.
“Bought by your brother.”
“Technicality.”
She laughed quietly, her hand on the doorknob as she turned back to him. “And please tell Dean that you don’t need random pizza delivery to pick up a girl.”
Sam’s eyes grew wide, a flush creeping up his neck. “I didn’t…he… I had nothing to do with that.”
Ava chuckled at his stammering, holding up a hand to stop him. “I know you didn’t. It has Dean written all over it.”
“He’s…yeah.” He smiled awkwardly and rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry about that.”
“Sam, seriously, it’s okay,” she smiled.
Before he could form another apology on behalf of his brother’s annoyingness, Ava pushed herself up on her toes and planted a soft kiss on his lips. Stunned by this new development, it took him a second to collect his thoughts and kiss her back. The taste of cherry licorice still on her lips from the night before, he brought his hand up to the nape of her neck, fingers tangled in her hair as he brought her closer.
She pulled away first, chewing on her lower lip as she lowered herself off her tiptoes. “See?” she said with a small smile. “No need to apologize.”
Sam could only return the smile, still stunned to silence by the unexpected kiss. His hand dropped from around her neck as she gave him one last grin before turning and opening the door. On the other side, Dean had his key poised to unlock the door.
A smirk slowly curled onto his lips at the sight of Ava. “Ava.”
She returned the smirk, raising an eyebrow at him. “Dean.” She pulled a coffee drink from the cardboard tray tucked against his body. “Thanks. Just what I needed.” She raised the cup to her lips, blowing into the opening before taking a small sip. “Be back after I clean up.” Without another word, she stepped around him and started down the hallway to her room next door.
Dean leaned back out the door as he watched her walk away, and Sam punched him hard in the shoulder, pulling Dean’s attention away from Ava’s retreating backside.
“Ow, bitch,” he said to Sam as he stepped into the room, placing the tray of drinks on the edge of the dresser. He rubbed at his shoulder. “I know she’s hands off, dude.”
Sam grabbed one of the drinks as he resisted the urge to roll his eyes at his brother. “So, what’d you find out last night?” he asked, sitting on the edge of his own bed and hoping to completely avoid the conversation he knew was going to occur one way or another.
Dean’s cocky grin from earlier returned. “So, the pizza thing work?”
Sam frowned. “Dude, focus. Case, remember?”
Dean leaned against the edge of the dresser. “I am focused. I’m focused on the fact that you‘re avoiding the question.”
Sam finally rolled his eyes. “Nothing happened, Dean.”
The cocky grin faded into a look of utter disappointment. “Dude, you are not going to sit there and tell me she spent the night and absolutely nothing happened.”
“I am because nothing did,” he shrugged. “We ate some pizza, we watched some TV, and we fell asleep.”
Dean raised an eyebrow. “So, you had a sleepover. Must have been loads of fun, Samantha.”
Sam didn’t take the bait, instead placing his drink on the nightstand and heading towards the bathroom to escape. “I’m gonna go brush my teeth, and when I come out, we’re gonna talk about the case and not what happened with me and Ava.”
“Seriously,” Dean called out to him, “how are you my brother?”
Sam answered his question by shutting the bathroom door.
Author: Tonya (
_fullofgrace)Rating: PG-13
Genre: Gen but with Sam/Ava
Disclaimer: The usuals. No own, no sue.
Timeline: obviously AU considering the finale; takes place in the universe created in my fic “Headlights on Dark Roads” but reading that beforehand is not a necessity
Chapter word count: 3600
Summary: A deadly urban legend leads Dean, Sam, and Ava on a new case.
******
The bad thing about grave digging was that no matter how many people started the dig, it always ended up being a one-man job. The deeper the hole became, the fewer people who could fit in the space with shovels without hitting each other. Last time had been Dean’s turn to be the last man digging, which by default meant that tonight would be Sam’s turn.
Above Sam, Ava and Dean crouched near the opening of the grave. Dean rummaged through his duffel bag for his lighter fluid as Ava’s flashlight shined down on Sam, giving him at least some amount of light to make his task a little easier.
A rumble of thunder threatened overhead, and Sam frowned as he tilted his head towards the sky. Ava’s light caught him directly in the eye, and he grimaced, his hand automatically shooting up to shield
“That wasn’t…” he started, hoping that he was just hallucinating the warning of rain approaching.
“It, unfortunately, was,” Ava finished his unspoken thought.
“Stop digging like a girl, dude,” Dean said, pulling the container of lighter fluid from his bag. “We got a timeline.”
“Screw you,” Sam grumbled, rubbing his forearm across his sweaty forehead. With a grunt, he dug his shovel as deep into the ground as it would go, but the blade stopped midway as it finally hit something solid. “Bingo.”
Dropping to a crouch in the grave, Sam began brushing away the remaining layer of dirt until his hands brushed against the textured surface of a casket. He pulled his switchblade from the back pocket of his jeans and shoved the blade between the lid and the body of the casket, jimmying it open. When he felt the lid begin to give, he gripped the edge and lifted the lid open.
Only one word came to mind as he finished prying open the casket. “Shit.”
Sam stood balanced over an empty casket. He looked up to where Dean and Ava stood at the edge of the hole, both of them now peering down into the emptiness.
“Shit,” Dean echoed his sentiments.
Ava frowned, her flashlight doing a quick survey of the casket before she finally lowered it. “Well, this is new.”
More thunder rumbled in the night air, and Sam felt the beginnings of heavy raindrops falling against his arms. He closed the casket lid and pulled himself from the hole before the ground became too wet to actually do so without help from his brother and Ava. Once on solid ground, he dusted his hands off on the back of his jeans.
“Now what?” Ava turned off her flashlight and tucked it into the back waistband of her jeans.
“If this is the ghost, then he has to have remains somewhere,” Sam replied. “Maybe the family moved them.”
“Maybe,” Dean frowned, tossing the lighter fluid back into his bag. “Meanwhile, we better cover this up if we’re gonna be sticking around town and asking questions about long dead serial killers.”
Each of them grabbed their discarded shovels, and Ava quietly cursed the weather, the rain beating down harder on them as they began covering up their mess.
******
By the time Sam stepped out of the shower, ridding himself of sweat and dirt, and changed into boxers and a t-shirt, Dean was already fully dressed in a new set of clean clothes. Drying his hair with a towel, Sam watched his brother suspiciously as Dean grabbed a long-sleeve button up and pulled it on over his t-shirt.
“Do I even want to know where you’re going?” Sam asked with an eyebrow raised.
Dean grabbed his wallet and keys off the nightstand. “I’m gonna drive that stretch of highway. See if there’s anything out there that screams paranormal activity.”
“Let me change real quick, and I’ll come with you,” Sam replied, tossing his towel onto the foot of his bed and reaching for his bag of clothes.
Dean held up a hand to stop him. “No, you hang tight.” He added off Sam’s look, “In case I need some on the spot research.”
“On the way back, you’re gonna find a bar to do some hustling, aren’t you?” Sam asked with a knowing smirk, his arms folded across his chest.
Dean returned the smirk. “Good chance of that, yeah. We’re running a little low on cash.” He pocketed his wallet as he started towards the door. “But first, work. Be back in a few hours.” He turned to Sam with a grin. “Maybe you can see if Ava can keep you company while I’m out.”
“You know,” Sam sighed, “it takes a lot for me not to kill you sometimes.”
Dean shrugged innocently and walked out of the room, shutting the door securely and leaving Sam to lock it from the inside.
*******
Sam had just settled on top of his blankets, a rerun of Law and Order: Criminal Intent on the television, when someone knocked on the room door. Sam glanced at the clock on the nightstand between his and Dean’s bed, frowning when he noted that it had been barely twenty minutes since his brother had left to go investigate the highway. With an annoyed sigh, he pushed himself from the bed and made his way over to the door.
“Dude, what did you forget?” he asked as he pulled the door open.
Dean, however, was not standing on the doorstop. Instead, Ava stood where Sam assumed his brother would have been. Dressed, or barely dressed depending on who you asked, in a lavender camisole and matching boxer bottoms, Ava balanced a pizza box in the palm of her hand like a waitress carrying a tray of drinks.
He cursed himself as he felt his neck begin to warm with a flush, and he hoped Ava would think it because of the balmy Tennessee summer if she happened to notice. It wasn’t that he had never seen Ava in her pajamas before; for the first few weeks on the road, she had borrowed one of his T-shirts and a pair of boxers until they had had the opportunity for her to buy pajamas of her own. But this was different for two reasons.
One, T-shirts and boxers kept her covered up, kept her innocently cute and boyish. Now, in a snug camisole and shorter female style boxers, there was no hiding her very feminine curves. Which, in turn, lead to the second problem with this situation.
They’d been basically living together for a little over six months now. Going from one motel to another, one town to another, putting their lives on the line time after time. And in that six months, she’d grown from Ava, the cute, perky secretary from Peoria who saved him, into Ava. A smart, witty, and attractive girl. He didn’t think of her in terms of visions or as one of the chosen kids anymore. She wasn‘t just special because she was a key to everything going on around him, but she was special because he cared about her away from all those things.
Dean had been teasing Sam for months now about sealing himself into the “friendship zone” if he didn’t act soon, but no matter how much his body reacted when Ava was in close proximity, Sam couldn’t bring himself to cross that line. Her fiance had been dead for less than a year, and she had only joined them on the road not far after that. She was comfortable with both of them, noted by her ability to just show up on his doorstep in such a manner tonight, and he didn’t want to ruin that for her. He and Dean had become a second family to her, which made it a lot harder for him to rationalize hitting on her like Dean kept prodding him to do.
“Hey,” he finally said with a shocked smile.
Ava smiled back, stepping around him and into the room. “So, I was just about to watch a horrifically bad Lifetime movie about stolen babies and the women who buy them when there was a knock on my door,” she said, placing the box down on the foot of his bed and turning to him. “The poor pizza boy nearly took a bullet cause your brother prank-ordered me.”
Sam laughed, rubbing the back of his neck, as he realized exactly what Dean had done. Sometimes Sam really did wonder if his brother didn’t get all his life lessons, especially when it came to the opposite sex, from bad horror movies and pornos. The half-naked girl on an unknowing boy’s doorstep with a pizza? Classic Dean. Sam made a mental note to beat the crap out of Dean later for his horrible attempt at match-making.
Ava shrugged, flopping down on Sam’s bed and folding her legs up under herself. “Speaking of, where is Dean?”
Sam continued to hover near the door, arms folded casually in front of him. “Driving the stretch of highway to make sure we’re not missing anything.”
“By himself?”
“Yeah,“ he nodded. “Insisted, which just means he’s gonna do something illegal after his investigation.“
“Figures,“ she said with a small laugh, flipping open the pizza box. “So, you hungry?”
Sam hitched his shoulder. “I’m good.” As if to contradict him, his stomach chose that moment to growl loudly.
Ava smirked. “So that was just a demon looking to rip from your stomach and skitter across the floor then?” She patted the empty mattress beside her. “Don’t make me be the pig I am and eat this by myself.”
Sam chuckled under his breath and sat down beside her.
*******
One impromptu trip to the vending machine for drinks (and a pack of Twizzlers for her) and half a pizza later, Sam and Ava relaxed on his bed, watching a horribly clichéd kids-go-on-a-road-trip-and-pick-up-a-sca
Sam checked his cell phone out of habit before placing it on the nightstand and settling back against the headboard of the bed again.
“A lawyer, huh?” Ava finally asked, her shoulder brushing against his as she nibbled on her cherry licorice stick.
Sam simply nodded, glancing over at her. She had known for a while that he had been a law student in a former life, but it wasn’t anything they ever really discussed. Much like he never really asked about her life before the night they met in Lafeyette, Indiana. It wasn’t as if he didn’t care to know her past, but he always worried that bringing it up would open old wounds for her that she had long let heal.
“I never pegged you as the slimy lawyer type.” She grinned around her licorice stick dangling from her lips.
Sam smirked over at her, nudging her gently with his elbow before folding his arms across his chest. “Cute.” He paused with a small hitch of his shoulders. “I don’t know. I think part of it was just to spite my dad, you know. Being on the right side of the law and everything. Of course, finishing law school? Not exactly on the to-do list anymore.”
“Sorry,” Ava said, a small frown on her lips.
“You know, at one point in my life, I may have been mad about that. Probably would have blamed my family, but now?” He hitched a shoulder. “I’m alright with that fact. I’m alright with where I am.”
She nodded, offering him a warm smile. “Acceptance is some amazing stuff, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it really is,” he said with a quiet laugh.
“Besides, I’m starting to think normal may be a bit overrated. I mean, don’t get me wrong, normal is great too. Normal is safe. Less likely to get chased by hell hounds or a pissed off ghost, but this stuff we do? Kinda cool.”
“Who are you, and what have you done with Ava?” Sam grinned.
“What?” she asked, eyes wide.
“The first time we met, I vaguely remember you telling me and my weirdness to go screw ourselves.”
“Because you were being stubborn about wanting to get blown up,” she countered. “It was annoying.”
Sam laughed, rubbing a hand across his forehead.
“Besides, I ending up staying and helping anyway.”
“You did,” he replied softly.
Silence settled between them for a moment as they watched the movie, but a question lingered at the back of his mind. He’d wondered it off and on for months now, but they had never gotten to a point where it seemed like a good time to ask.
“Why did you want to stay?” he asked, and she looked over at him, brows furrowed in confusion. “You’d nearly taken a bullet meant for me, and you still wanted to stick around to help me save my brother. Any normal person would have thrown in the towel by then.”
“I don’t know,” she shrugged, a small yawn slipping past her lips. “That night, before I met you, I thought I was pretty much losing it, but then I find out you’re just like me. And I realized I wasn’t alone in being a complete freak of nature.” She grinned up at him. “Besides, you seemed like a pretty decent guy, and I didn’t want to see you blow up in a million tiny Sam pieces on a suicide mission.”
He smiled. “Thanks for saving my ass by the way.”
“Don’t mention it,” she yawned again.
Ava settled further down in her spot against the headboard, leaning her head against Sam’s shoulder. He glanced down at her but said nothing in protest as the warmth of her body settled against his.
“I wonder what Dean found tonight,” she mumbled at his side.
“You mean, besides some poor girl who falls for horrible pickup lines?”
“Yeah,” she laughed, “besides that.”
He hitched the shoulder she wasn’t resting against, glancing over at his cell phone as if Dean would call now that his name had been mentioned. “Hopefully something to give us a new trail to follow. I know we’re looking at the right guy, but without remains, we’re kinda screwed. And now we’re down to forty-eight hours or this case is completely lost.”
He waited for Ava to say something in response, but nothing came except the sounds of her soft breathing. He tilted his head forward to peek down at her, and he could only smile at her already asleep in that small amount of time. Settling back into his spot again, he tried not to cause too much movement and wake her. He grabbed the remote from his lap, turning the volume down and then flipping back to the Law and Order marathon before placing it on the nightstand with his phone. Stifling his own yawn, he leaned his head against Ava’s resting one.
*******
Sam woke the next morning sprawled out on his back, a leg dangling over the side of the bed, and despite the fact that he was presently laying on top of his sheets, he wasn’t chilled. Thanks, in part, to Ava’s sleeping form curled up beside him. Nestled close to his side, her head used his chest as a pillow, one of her legs tangled up with his. He slowly rubbed at his eyes, trying not to wake her.
As if on cue, Sam’s cell rang, and even still half-asleep himself, he quickly reached for it and answered before the first ring even completed. “Hello,“ he asked in a hushed voice.
“Rise and shine, soldier.”
Sam held his breath as Ava stirred, her leg wrapping tighter around his, but she didn’t wake. The self-proclaimed light sleeper was fortunately taking a much-needed deep rest today.
“Yo, Sammy.”
“What?” Sam asked, distracted, his volume still in check.
“I asked why you‘re whispering.”
“Ava‘s sleeping,” he replied without thinking of a better way to phrase that to Dean. The chuckle on the other end of the line from his brother only cemented the fact that he really needed to start learning how to choose his words carefully around Dean. “Where are you?” he asked.
“About five minutes out.” There was a pause on the line, and Sam prepared to roll his eyes. “So, she’s sleeping, huh?”
“See you in a second, Dean,” Sam said and hung up without another word. Phone still in hand, he draped his arm across his eyes.
“He find something out?”
Sam nearly jumped at Ava’s quiet words. He lifted his arm and raised his head to look down at her, still nestled against him. “I thought you were asleep,” he said to the top of her head.
Ava propped herself up on her arm, the other hand braced against Sam’s chest as she looked up at him. “Light sleeper, remember?” she said with a lopsided smile.
Sam returned the smile. “Forgot.”
She pulled her hand from his chest to run it through her wildly tousled hair, untangling her leg from his. “Sorry, by the way. I didn’t meant to crash here and hog your bed.”
Sam pulled himself upright, back resting against the headboard. “It’s okay. I was out pretty good.”
Ava nodded and crawled out of the bed. She gathered the nearly empty pizza box and cans of soda off the floor, balancing them on the edge of Dean’s bed. “Dean find something out?” she asked again.
Sam tossed his legs over the side of the bed, elbows resting on his thighs as he leaned forward. “He didn’t say. He’s a couple minutes out.”
“Hopefully he’s a few minutes out with coffee,” she grinned, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Meanwhile, I’m gonna get cleaned up and changed. We’re on a deadline, right?”
Sam stood, nodding. “Forty-eight hours.”
Ava grabbed her room key off the nightstand, making her way towards the door. “Thanks again for letting me hog your bed last night.”
“Seemed only fair since you supplied dinner,” he grinned.
“Bought by your brother.”
“Technicality.”
She laughed quietly, her hand on the doorknob as she turned back to him. “And please tell Dean that you don’t need random pizza delivery to pick up a girl.”
Sam’s eyes grew wide, a flush creeping up his neck. “I didn’t…he… I had nothing to do with that.”
Ava chuckled at his stammering, holding up a hand to stop him. “I know you didn’t. It has Dean written all over it.”
“He’s…yeah.” He smiled awkwardly and rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry about that.”
“Sam, seriously, it’s okay,” she smiled.
Before he could form another apology on behalf of his brother’s annoyingness, Ava pushed herself up on her toes and planted a soft kiss on his lips. Stunned by this new development, it took him a second to collect his thoughts and kiss her back. The taste of cherry licorice still on her lips from the night before, he brought his hand up to the nape of her neck, fingers tangled in her hair as he brought her closer.
She pulled away first, chewing on her lower lip as she lowered herself off her tiptoes. “See?” she said with a small smile. “No need to apologize.”
Sam could only return the smile, still stunned to silence by the unexpected kiss. His hand dropped from around her neck as she gave him one last grin before turning and opening the door. On the other side, Dean had his key poised to unlock the door.
A smirk slowly curled onto his lips at the sight of Ava. “Ava.”
She returned the smirk, raising an eyebrow at him. “Dean.” She pulled a coffee drink from the cardboard tray tucked against his body. “Thanks. Just what I needed.” She raised the cup to her lips, blowing into the opening before taking a small sip. “Be back after I clean up.” Without another word, she stepped around him and started down the hallway to her room next door.
Dean leaned back out the door as he watched her walk away, and Sam punched him hard in the shoulder, pulling Dean’s attention away from Ava’s retreating backside.
“Ow, bitch,” he said to Sam as he stepped into the room, placing the tray of drinks on the edge of the dresser. He rubbed at his shoulder. “I know she’s hands off, dude.”
Sam grabbed one of the drinks as he resisted the urge to roll his eyes at his brother. “So, what’d you find out last night?” he asked, sitting on the edge of his own bed and hoping to completely avoid the conversation he knew was going to occur one way or another.
Dean’s cocky grin from earlier returned. “So, the pizza thing work?”
Sam frowned. “Dude, focus. Case, remember?”
Dean leaned against the edge of the dresser. “I am focused. I’m focused on the fact that you‘re avoiding the question.”
Sam finally rolled his eyes. “Nothing happened, Dean.”
The cocky grin faded into a look of utter disappointment. “Dude, you are not going to sit there and tell me she spent the night and absolutely nothing happened.”
“I am because nothing did,” he shrugged. “We ate some pizza, we watched some TV, and we fell asleep.”
Dean raised an eyebrow. “So, you had a sleepover. Must have been loads of fun, Samantha.”
Sam didn’t take the bait, instead placing his drink on the nightstand and heading towards the bathroom to escape. “I’m gonna go brush my teeth, and when I come out, we’re gonna talk about the case and not what happened with me and Ava.”
“Seriously,” Dean called out to him, “how are you my brother?”
Sam answered his question by shutting the bathroom door.