chapter 1

Brianna POV:

The air just smells different in the bayou, a mix of decay, rot, and indulgence, like sweet garbage. Who knows if it’s the permissive people or the atrophy of the swamp itself, where souls still live in shacks on stilts.

This part of Louisiana has always been my favorite. Not the bible-beating north or the confused middle, but the indulgent, occult, sexual south, where all things are not only permitted, but encouraged when a few coins change hands in the damp bayou at night with only crickets for witnesses.

The smell permeates the home of Benny’s granddaughter, who was nice enough to throw this shindig that amounts to a big BBQ. The boys wouldn’t be up for anything fancy. I’m transferring a pot of homemade BBQ beans from an enormous pot on the stove into a big bowl to go outside so guests can serve themselves on paper plates.

This is a celebration of the brothers’ retirement from hunting, and everyone is here from Benny’s granddaughter to Bobby’s, Ellen’s and Jo’s ghosts. I have to shake my head at them. If the boys’ friends were this much trouble dead, I can’t imagine what they were like alive.

I’m placing food on the long table set up outside when I hear Bobby’s voice trying to be subtle. “I always liked ‘em big too. There’s something about ones your hands can’t contain. Spillin’ everywhere. Too much of a good thing is great”, Bobby mumbles as he stares openly at my breasts, then turns three shades of red when he’s afraid he got caught. Dean just grins at both of us. The guys are happy to be together again, uncensored as midwestern and southern men can be when they get together and hope they’re out of ear shot. I purposely don’t listen, or I’ll be more likely to want to smack Dean than fix him a plate.

I gasp out in the heat. The sun radiates down on us mercilessly from a cloudless sky. It has to be 100 degrees out here. Dean leans back precariously in an ancient green-and-white-striped lawn chair threatening to tear and spill him onto the grass. The chair may be going down for the last time, but Dean is finally safe, and I can’t wipe the smile off my face.

Dean is the un-gettable guy. The self-contained unit. He’ll happily sleep with you. He’ll happily let you fix him a meal. He’ll be genuinely grateful, then he’ll leave and not give you a second thought. He likes women, but he doesn’t need them. I turn on Elizabeth’s stereo and put in an 80’s Greatest Hits CD, fast forwarding to “Ramblin’ Man” in honor of the wilder Winchester.

I suppose I got him because I made myself indispensable. I knew he was attracted to me when we met in a small town in Ohio. They were investigating a ghost sighting at an historic hotel in the area where I grew up. I was visiting my folks from California, where I finished up a master’s degree in history with a minor in anthropology at UCLA. My knowledge has come in handy on many cases. Not that I believed in ghosts and ghoulies when we first met; I thought they were both mad as hatters. That was until I saw the ghost of George Washington marching down the hotel hallway, asking the way to his room.

I tagged along on several cases in the area. It wasn’t long until we slept together. Another two weeks before he realized the only place he could actually get some sleep, the only place the ghosts, and the victims, and the voices would let him rest was in my arms.

Dean is hurt and depressed, with that Mark of Cain on him for far too long, and when Dean is hurt and depressed, unlike your average red-blooded American male, he’s a threat to the entire world. Dean needs to be settled and stress-free for everyone's good.

Dean is everything I swore I’d avoid in a man when I left my dumb-fuck small town. He’s uneducated, dominant, boisterous, prefers rural American in all its glory, and more than one bit of misogynistic nonsense has passed his perfect, plump lips. I wrote him off as a romantic option while I helped them with the cases. That was until he took a demon fire ball meant for me and wound up dying in the ICU, only to be saved by Cas. He opened his eyes tucked in my arms, both of us sobbing, confessing to an abiding love that snuck up on us- something probably neither of us would have ever admitted to if a tragedy hadn’t struck.

I taught him and he taught me, and then one day I realized he wasn’t just gorgeous and surly, he was smart in a way I’d never be, able to sense exactly what happened in any supernatural catastrophe. He reads people immediately and knows exactly what they’re about, what they mean, and what they need.

He’s harsh and judgmental, and we’ve fought more than once over his decision to simply kill innocent people who turned into monsters, or even just got in the way. If you need someone who can pull a trigger on anyone, man, woman, or child, who can get the job done, it’s Dean Winchester. Most people don’t realize every time he does it though, it’s himself he mortally wounds. I realized if I ask him to second guess himself out there when his life is hanging by a thread, he’ll be killed. So I shut up and let him do his duty, however distasteful I may find it.

We fall into bed at night, into each other’s arms, foreheads pressed together, and he confesses to me whatever he needs to get off his chest to fall asleep while I kiss his hair and tuck his head under my chin, softly patting the burgeoning tummy rolls that flow over the waistband of his pj pants, hoping he won’t push my hand away.

Bobby isn’t the only one who likes ‘em big, who likes more than a handful that spills everywhere, and who thinks too much of a good thing is fantastic, but I'm not talking about boobs. I’ve always preferred bigger men, and since he’s stopped running for his life, Dean’s burgers, fries, and pies daily habit has begun to show. Right now, leaning back in the lawn chair that’s barely containing my sweet baby, he’s grinning like a Cheshire Cat and staring at me like he thinks he’s the luckiest man in the world. He puts his hands behind his head and his shirt pulls up, revealing a handful of rolls his jeans and tshirt can no longer hide. It’s taking everything I’ve got not to drop the damn beans on the ground, order everyone off the premises, turn the chair over, and take him on the grass. His mouth falls open as he sees it in my eyes, and he reaches out a hand.

I put the beans down on the table and walk over to him. He pulls me down onto his lap, and I feel the chair give more, down to one frayed nylon strap supporting us both. “How’s my smarty pants?”, he whispers in his soft drawl, and tucks my head onto his shoulder. “Wanna get out of here?” I kiss him soundly, answering, “later.” He smells like sugar and Old Spice and tastes like the maple syrup on this morning’s pancakes.

“Who’da thunk it? Dean Winchester off the market”, Bobby comments, watching us.

“I wouldn’t go that far”, Dean comments, and I mock hit his chest. He laughs.

“You two are makin’ me sick”, Jo mentions, but it’s good-natured. It may have bothered her once that Dean always saw her as a little sister, not a love interest, but death has matured her and they both know it.

“Why am I makin you sick, girl? You still have that crush on me?”, he says mercilessly, but she just sticks her tongue out at him.

“Be nice”, I admonish, but he just pulls me closer.

“I’m tryin to show you just how nice I can be, but you won’t leave with me.”

I roll my eyes at him and rub noses. “Let me feed you, baby”, I whisper surreptitiously into his ear, pinching a roll discreetly. His cock jumps and his belly growls. God damn, when can we leave?

I get up and go over to the table everyone is lining up for. A pig has been cooking in a giant roaster since 6 in the morning, and now the pulled pork is moist and flaky. I make two big sandwiches for him with cheese, a scoop of Brown Sugar sauce and a scoop of Spicy sauce, and add beans, cole slaw, and potato salad. I bring him the plate and plop it and a plastic fork down onto his lap, and I see he’s gotten me a chair too.

“Sit down, Angel”, he whispers, and I sit next to him, holding his hand. He manages to eat perfectly fine with one.

“Wow. That’s a lot of food. Well you know my brother at least.” We both turn to see Sam has arrived.

“Sam!”, I shout, jump up, and throw my arms around him. Dean narrows his eyes. He knows Sam and I are only the best of friends; we’ve always thought alike. But some small part of Dean still doesn’t like it.

“Let me know if you ever get tired of this lothario eating machine”, Sam smirks. “California misses you. It’s warm. Full of opportunity. Sophisticated men.” He’s trying to push all of Dean’s buttons.

“Hot. Overcrowded. Full of shit. And pretenders. And let me know if you ever get tired of drivin a piece of plastic”, Dean growls, pointing to Sam’s brand new BMW. Sam finished up his degree, graduating at the top of his class, and was immediately hired by an impressive San Francisco law firm.

Sam throws his head back and laughs. “Back off”, Dean pronounces and squeezes my hand possessively. I squeeze it back, and sit down, about to watch my favorite show: Dean eating.

Dean takes a big bite and moans. “Ohhhhh, that’s so good….Elizabeth…it’s so damn good. Thank you”, Dean offers, always greedy and grateful in equal measure in that way no woman can resist.

“Yes, thank you. It’s so good, thank you!” A round of thanks go up and Elizabeth turns pink.

“You’re welcome. I had help, and it’s no trouble”, she answers softly. Sam gets a lawn chair and I walk away to make myself a plate and let the brothers talk.

“I’ve never seen Dean like that with any woman. I mean maybe for one day”, Ellen mentions to me. “He’s in love with you.”

“I hope so”, I answer, “Because I sure am in love with him.”

“He is. It’s as obvious as if he’d written it on his shirt. You gonna stick with him?”, she asks, staring meaningfully at the food. Ghosts can’t eat, but I can tell she remembers the taste of pork melting in her mouth.

I smile at her unveiled protectiveness. The Winchester boys were always like sons to her. “Forever”, I answer.

She smiles wide. “Gettin’ fat. He always had a helluva an appetite, but he punched and fought and ran it all off. May have to start watching what he eats.”

Not if I can help it. “Domesticity looks good on him”, I say. “He was always wider, broader, than Sam. He looks good. Satisfied. Happy. He’s so…filled with pain, pain that’s beyond my ability to remove or even understand. But food calms him down, helps him sleep. That’s all I want, to take the very best care of him I can.”

She smiles at me and I can almost see her heart melt. She rubs my arm. I didn’t know ghosts could touch. “You’re a good girl”, she says, though I’ve got a year on two on Dean, and haven’t been called a girl in a while.

“Where ya’ll livin now?”, she asks.

“We’re still in the bunker”, I answer, “Cas is with us, Bobby comes and goes, and Sam stays with us for a month in the summer when the firm is slow, a habit he got into in college. Dean is…nervous. Worried. I don’t mind. The place is huge and there’s always someone to run to the store to keep it well stocked. Dean feels safe there, and I don’t mind.”

“But you want a real house”, she offers, able to cut through polite bullshit like a hot knife through butter. I’m not sure what to say.

“Would he consider movin down here? Because of our service to mankind, Jo and I are able to come go from the grave whenever we like. We spend a lot of time here. Only place in the country where believing in ghosts isn’t odd. I sometimes help out the Marie Laveau types on the strip when they need some mojo from someone they can trust on the other side. In exchange, they help us out with spells and appearing in solid form like this. Anyway…you wouldn’t be on your own. The two of you would have us. And well…Bobby and I are starting to spend some time together.”

I burst into a grin without a second though. “You and Bobby? Yes!”, I cry out, and Bobby looks at both of us sternly. “He never changes.”

“Never”, she adds. We see Bobby throw his arms around Sam. He was closer to Dean when they were young, but that changed when Dean was possessed, and Sam firmly became the more trustworthy and adult Winchester and it never changed back.

“I’m so proud to know you as a grown man, Sam Winchester, so damn proud. You graduated at the top of that law class, huh? You got a girl?”, he asks.

“I met….someone”, Sam answers. Ellen and I both smile.

“Could you talk to him about it? I think he’s more likely to listen to you”, I say, “Plus you know all the details he’ll be obsessed with immediately.”

“Sure”, she says. I realize I’m missing my favorite show. I pat her on the back and take my plate back to our chairs.

His plate is empty on the grass and I moan with disappointment.

“Can you get me a piece of pie, baby?”, he wheedles. I smile and put my plate down.

“Sure.” Straddling him, I sit on his lap face to face, risqué for a BBQ, so I don’t stay here long, but it’s too hard to keep my hands off him. I palm his soft tummy and give it a gentle jiggle. It bounces back against my hand. “Is my man still hungry?”

“Your man is starving”, he whispers hotly in my ear, “Especially since you won’t let me eat what I want.” I jump a little and laugh, crashing my lips into his.

He lets me take control, opening his mouth, but letting me control the kiss. I ravish his lips until they’re swollen and red. He’s staring at me, wide eyed, when I open my eyes, looking shocked and pleased.

I get up and bring him back a slice of cherry and a slice of apple, both doused with vanilla ice cream.

“Ohhhhh, yes, that’s my woman”, he answers.

“You’re gonna make me look skinny, you”, we hear, and look up. A true cajun accent is rare.

“Benny!”, Dean cries, putting down his pie to throw his arms around the vampire. “How the hell did you…?!”

“Retirement present.” Cas stands behind him, smiling.

“Cas!” I grab him first. For a long time, I had hoped to be with Cas. He’s so kind and sweet and good-looking. It takes an angel to have a soul that beautiful. And the artistic work of God to make lips like that. But after Dean and I got together, he revealed that Cas had confessed his romantic love for Dean in the past. Dean couldn’t reciprocate that kind of love but loves him dearly as a friend.

Dean hugs Cas too. “Thanks buddy”, Dean whispers. Cas just smiles thoughtfully.

“This beautiful woman is yours, Deano? You haven't met me, Belle.”, Benny gushes, kissing my hand, “I’ll treat you better than he, Cher.” He winks and pulls a rosebud out of his pocket, handing it to me.

“Woooow”, I comment, “Dean, you should have told me your friends were so handsome and charming. I think I picked the wrong one.” I wink at Benny. I can feel his passion and warmth and I can also detect a desire under the surface to drink my blood, but he’s easily controlling it.

“Seducer”, Dean accuses, taking my hand out of Benny’s. We all laugh. “Beware of Benny here, he’s loved some of the most beautiful women in the world.”

“Sam”, Benny says with a nod at the brother who never warmed to him.

“Benny.”

“Where is my girl?”, Benny booms and runs over to Elizabeth, scooping her up in his arms and twirling her around.

“Grandfather!”, she cries back, hugging him tightly.

“This is an amazing thing you did”, I say to Cas, hugging him again.

“It is. Thank you”, Dean confirms. Cas just nods with a smile, then walks over to Ellen and Jo.

Dean plunks back down into his chair, happy to take up his pie again. With everyone distracted meeting Benny, I can snatch the opportunity to feed Dean, taking his fork, scooping pie to his open eager mouth.

“You spoil me”, he says, leaning back with a satisfied moan, rubbing his belly.

“I always will.” He’s always so calm and sweet and helpless with a heavy belly, fattened to its furthest point, unable to move, and seemingly unable to obsess or worry.

He opens his mouth like baby bird, waiting to be fed. He knows what’s happening, knows I like his weight gain, knows what I’m doing to him right now, and he’s nothing but cooperative. Bite after bite.

“Getting full”, he whispers, as I rub his belly to relieve the discomfort and make room. I don’t think I’ve ever been this open and clear about my intentions, but he doesn’t argue or stop me.

“Oh not remotely, I’ve watched you eat”, I correct. When the pie is gone, I get up and bring him a large slice of chocolate cake with whipped cream.

“You’re killin me, baby”, he moans.

“You’ll be fine.” I pop open the button on his jeans and his tummy spills out in my hands, warm and soft. “You’re not tight yet.”

Everyone is distracted except for Benny, who is watching, shocked and intrigued. I button Dean back up and hand him the cake with a frustrated sigh.

I leave to talk to Ellen.

“I knew a woman like that once, me”, Benny says to Dean, “Why do you think I died with a spare tire?”

Dean laughs. “You love her?”, I hear Benny ask.

“There’s no way to express it in words, but, yes, I love her.”

“Oh no, Winchester, I didn’t think, I didn’t even know a WASP could be that passionate”, he jokes.

Dean rolls his eyes. “Catholic, for your information.”

“Never would have guessed. You adore her.”

“I do. So no more roses!”, Dean jokes back.

“Of course not”, Benny answers. “You stayin here?”

“Hotel”, Dean says.

“I’ll wrap something up and get the two of you out of here”, Benny offers with a wink.

Minutes later, everyone is saying good-bye to us. Benny told everyone we were exhausted from being on the road and he hands me a giant foil package that smells like all the good things we had today.

“I think you’re my new best friend”, I tell him.

“I hope so, belle femme”, he answers.

Dean tells Sam we’ll see him tomorrow, then plops down on the chair to look for his keys in the grass.

Finally, that thin frayed nylon strap gives up the ghost, and the chair breaks, sending him crashing 5 inches to the ground. I’m howling and so is Sam. I find the keys, hold out my hand, and help Dean up. “Less cake next time”, Sam taunts and Dean flips him off with a smile.

I wrap an arm around his swollen waist. He tucks me into the passenger side of the Impala and he gets behind the wheel, having to push the seat back.

I love the bench seating for so many reasons. I cuddle up to him, and Dean takes the wheel with his left hand, wrapping his right arm around my shoulders. It’s nice to have someone else to do things, like drive in the dark. I close my eyes and think about everything I’m going to do to him in our hotel room. I might be able to get used to New Orleans.

We pull up close to our room and he shuts off the car. “You gonna get me fat?”, he asks into the silence, helplessly, questioningly, as if he has no say and no power over what happens to him.

“Yes”, I whisper back. I ask no permission.

“Then let’s get started”, he answers, rubbing his nose against mine. He takes my hand and puts it on his belly. “I can’t say no to you. I can’t say no. I love you so much. I’d kill for you, I’d die for you, I have no choices.” Every word rings honest.

“I love you too, Dean Winchester. Let me make you happy. Let me help you forget. Don’t be with those memories. Be with me.” We kiss but only for an instant before he opens his car door, then comes around to open my mine. No stairs. We search for an elevator and take it up, my hand tucked under his shirt and into his super-tight jeans.

Thrilled anticipation thrums though my veins. Fuck you, demons, fuck you nightmares, fuck you kings of hell, and even well-meaning brothers, he’s mine.