Chapter Twenty-One
The sun was not yet up when she full awoke, but it was just down the road. Sam had rolled off, pulling the blankets around him, in the way of those used to fighting for blankets with brothers and not wives, his breathing deep and slow. She looked on him a bit, touched his hair, before slipping out of bed to find her shift and returning to her own room to dress. As she passed Clara's door and saw lamplight, she looked in. Clara was sitting on her bed, also in her shift, brushing her hair, looking quite dragged out and deliciously contented.
"Tore yourself away?" Marie-Rose asked.
"Wanted to live to fuck again, thank you very much," Clara said. "There's a man who appreciates women."
"Well and good. Your estimation was correct?"
"Sold him cheap. Tongue like a copperhead and don't need to breath at all."
"Ain't that grand. Come down to the kitchen. We need to fix them some breakfast and traveling provender."
Clara rose, somewhat gingerly, and followed. She glanced at the closed door across from hers, then gave a careful look at Marie-Rose, who said only, "Strange one, much burdened. Departing anon." Clara shrugged.
Down in the kitchen, O'Malley was making coffee. Marie-Rose thanked him for keeping watch, and reminded him to remind her to pay him more. She sent him out to the blacksmith's stable, for horses would be required in short order. Clara set out the bread, fried the eggs and bacon and potatoes. Marie-Rose wrapped two gingham packets of hard rolls, smokehouse beef, and cheese wedges.
Coming back through the saloon and up the stairs, she heard a sound above her. Looking up, she saw Sam in his wrinkled shirt and drawers, scratching at the door of the room wherein his brother had spent a bumptious night. He was whispering urgently.
"Come on, Dean. We have to go."
She couldn't hear if there was a response from inside, though Clara drew breath at the sight of those legs. She stepped up the stairs, quietly, behind him, Clara following.
"Dean, come on! Time's running out! …And we can't afford it…"
Marie-Rose cleared her throat, and Sam jumped a foot. "You let me worry about things pecuniary, Mister Sam Winchester."
He yanked his shirt closed, but it didn't near cover those tree trunk legs. He looked to his own room, but Marie-Rose just stepped past him, opened the door and entered, she not being afflicted by whatever noodle-headed fears Sam Winchester held of being party to his brother in the act of sexual congress. Near-dawn light filtered into the room, the last flickering of firelight from the stove gleamed off the brass tub and the amber, sweat-sheened body of Dean Winchester. He was sprawled on his back, jaybird naked, one hand hanging off the side of the bed, the other planted on Lisabet's odalisque bottom beside him. She was wrapped in what was left of the Astoria's best bed sheets. Some sections of those sheets were still knotted on the bed frame, which looked like it might require some repairing, and had been moved some distance from its accustomed position against the wall. The blankets and quilt were on the floor and clothing was dispersed to every part of the room.
His face was a pornographic symphony of lazy contentment and indecent satisfaction, his green eyes blissful and drowsy; his mouth smiling a salacious cat-purring-by-an-empty-cream-pot smile. He was rigid soaring erect, which Marie-Rose concluded was equally a miracle and entirely unsurprising. A work of art it was, at any rate.
"Good morning," Marie-Rose said.
"Dean!" Sam bolted into the room, grabbing up the quilt and tossing it over his brother's nether regions. Clara filled his space in the doorway.
"We fixed some breakfast, gentlemen, as we cannot send you stalwarts on your way on empty stomachs," Marie-Rose said.
Sam stood between the ladies, the dressed ones anyway, and tried to apologize for God knows what.
"I'm very sorry, Miss Rose, I was trying to get him up…"
"He's that," Clara said from the doorway.
Sam flinched, and then cleared his throat. "I'll get him dressed and we'll be right down. I'm really sorry if you were disturbed."
Marie-Rose leaned against the tub. "Who is disturbed, Mister Winchester? We must get you fed and on your way, but it's only right that we certify you got value for your money. Are you disturbed, Mister Dean Winchester? Or will you attest to your considerate and dutiful brother that received proper value for his money?"
Dean's heavy-lidded eyes barely moved, but as the liquid, licentious smile didn't leave his face it could be supposed that no, he was not disturbed, and yes, Sam had got his money's worth. Lisabet sat up and stretched, yawning ever so slightly. She caught sight of Sam, and looked him over most appreciably. Sam gulped and looked as elsewhere as possible.
"Miss Rose…" He cleared his throat.
Clara took a discarded robe from the floor, and tossed it to Lisabet. Both girls came to stand beside Marie-Rose.
"Well, who's hungry?" Lisabet asked.
"We'll be down as soon as we're presentable," Sam stated firmly, back on land.
"I speak for the entire Astoria in saying you are both rightly the most presentable creatures to have graced our beds," said Marie-Rose.
"Ornaments to manhood," said Clara.
Sam squirmed. "If you'd excuse us…"
"You looking to be shot of us, Mister Sam Winchester?" asked Clara.
"I dare say he's hiding something, Miss Clara," murmured Lisabet.
"His behavior is suspicious, Miss Lisabet," said Clara.
"Stealing from Mrs. Aushenbrenner's larder, are you?" accused Lisabet. The game was a familiar one.
"Suspic— Huh?" Sam floundered.
"And you're hiding the weisswurst right there." Clara directed an accusatory finger directly at his drawers.
"The what? Stealing? No! I swear—"
Sam's shocked and confused protests of innocence were interrupted when his brother's hand, heretofore dangling drowsily off the bed, snaked over to catch his fingers on his brother's nearby undershorts. A quick yank dropped them down about the ankles. The ladies made careful and thoughtful perusal of the provided proof of innocence.
Dean's indolent hickory-smoked voice murmured, "She means your dick, you moron."
Perhaps dithering mortification would be the expected response, but to Marie-Rose's wonderment Sam gave only one mighty twitch. He pulled his shirt closed, which covered very little of the "white sausage" he had been accused of smuggling, and drew himself up to his extraordinary full height.
Clara did not, as would be regular, finish the game with a smart word about the suitability, condition, or even the stature of the discovered weisswurst. She may have swayed just the tiniest bit till Lisabet put a steadying hand to her back.
"I apologize for my uncouth brother, ladies. I'll go get dressed." Sam spoke with imperial composure. Stepping clear of his drawers, he strode right out the door as he was. He was allowed to depart without further remark, as to have sullied that superior performance with applause or further comment would have been shamelessly disgracious. Professionalism be damned, however, when it came to delighting upon his superlative derriere as he departed. Two beautiful blushing bell peppers, seashell smooth and firm and strokably ripe, and there was a moment of reflection ending in a group exhalation and before attention was returned to the remaining Winchester. He was observing his brother's exit with rich amusement and affection and no sign of disappointment. The green eyes drifted back to rest upon to the ladies.
"So. Breakfast awaits, and Mister Dean Winchester must dress," Marie-Rose said. "But now despite what was just conveyed to good brother Sam, as I entered I believe I witnessed a clear indication of business not yet entirely concluded. That is a professional incivility we cannot abide."
"My responsibility, Miss Rose," said Lisabet, "and I was fixing to remedy that presently. I shall attend to it and we'll be down before the eggs are cold."
"No blame to you, girl, the schedule was not given to you timely," Marie-Rose said, "but let's get a wiggle on and have him down right smart." She took Clara by the arm and proceeded out, closing the door with a smile as Lisabet's robe and the quilt floated back down to the floor.
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