Chapter Text
The cicadas burst with their screaming sounds after sundown. You hear them behind worn walls, beyond the porch where jasmine clings to the columns. The worn wood with foot paths follow to your door — your childhood home. Dean’s car kicks up dust as it crunches slowly up the gravel road, long after your father’s passed out on the couch with a sweating bottle of Jim Beam. You’re sitting on the porch swing, worn wood beneath your bare feet, and a glass of sweet tea that had gone warm in your hand. Your slip clings to your skin, albeit translucent in the heat. You brush your toes against the porch, flicking a dead sun bleached fly in the dust.
Dean steps out of the truck with the crackling of his boots hitting the rocks. He moves slowly, like the air’s thicker here than where he’s been. That, or maybe he just knows not to move too quick around things that bite.
“Evenin’,” Dean says, voice like bourbon aged in guilt. He looks older than when you saw him last summer, when you were home after your second year of college. You don’t mind, though. That’s the way good men age — worn, not weathered. He’s got those sweet freckles on his cheeks and neck, the ones from days in the sun. His jaw is clenched, sharp, and dusted in stubble. His flannel sleeves are rolled up to the elbows like a sin waiting to happen. You secretly hope it’s waiting.
“Evenin’.” you reply, eyes dragging over him with a slow curiosity. You watch him shift, just slightly, barely enough to notice.
Dean doesn’t sit down next to you on the porch, not right away. He just leans a hand on the porch railing, thumb brushing over the peeling white paint. “Your dad home?”
You nod, looking up at him through blonde eyelashes. “Passed out.”
He makes a noise at the back of his throat, not quite content with the answer. “Some things don’t change.” You sip your warm-ish tea. Dean’s gaze flicks down to your legs but back to your eyes way too quickly.
He’s reluctant, unsure of the sight before him. The warm air and old light bulbs give your skin a golden glow, reflecting off the sheen of your sweat. A slow, deliberate breeze ruffles the hem of your slip, making it snap. Your hair is down, unbrushed. There’s a circle of condensation on your knee where you had your tea before the ice all melted.
“Didn’t know you were gonna be here.” Dean speaks up in the thick silence.
“Didn’t know you were showin’ up here.”
The silence, just as it started to ebb, returns to you. It is hot, pulsing, and full of ghosts. Crickets keep singing beyond the dead grass.
“You’re grown now,” Dean says lowly, almost to himself. You toy with the hem of your slip, pulling on it like a child.
You crack a small smile to yourself. “You just figuring that out?” you ask, voice sweeter than it maybe should be.
His eyes snap to yours. You see a glimpse of war behind them, the devil on his shoulder, the Bible in his ear. He’s not a man who lets himself want things he shouldn’t. But you can feel the heat coming off him anyway, in waves. He grunts lowly, adding, “you shouldn’t look at me like that.”
I respond quietly, “then stop lookin’ first.”
The porch swing creaks as you shift. He finally sits. Not next to you, but close enough for now. You smell smoke on his jacket. Marlboro. Cedar. Gunpowder. Something holy and something violent. Your stomach flips and you swear you catch him staring at your hands in your lap. You look up at him, hoping he says something the devil on his shoulder would like.
You got your wish.
“I ain’t a good man.” Dean murmurs, staring off into the dark landscape.
“I ain’t askin’ you to be.”
There’s a long pause and you start to worry you’ve messed up. But then, “you don’t know what you’re doin’, sweetheart.” His thick drawl makes your head spin.
But you do know. You’ve known since you were sixteen and he smiled at you like you were someone’s little sister. Since he fixed your daddy’s fence with his shirt off in the July heat. Since he left and came back and left again. Each time, older, quieter, lingering closer.
Now, like he said, you’re grown. And he’s here.