Current mood:	happy
Current music:	Cat Stevens - It's a Wild World
Entry tags:	crossover, dark angel, supernatural

The Month of Come What May
Title: The Month of Come What May
Author: windout
Fandom: Dark Angel/Supernatural
Rating: G
Word Count: 1587
Pairing/Characters: Sam/Max
Notes: Last post for awhile, I promise. But it’s for vigotmanpartsv’s belated birthday, because she just plain rocks. Sorry, it's so late love, hope you can forgive me! *blush*
Summary: Sam’s got something up his sleeve.


“Hey, Max, you busy?”

She couldn’t help the small flinch at the sudden noise, but she was still able to control the majority of her reaction. Especially when she recognized the voice as belonging to one of the brothers.

“Hey, Sam,” she replied softly, scooting over on her rocky perch to make room for the tall, gangly man. She hadn’t been expecting him, had been too caught up in her own thoughts to notice his approach. Her thoughts had been pretty consuming these days anyway, after the whole rave thing. Sometimes, it was thoughts of all those people that’d gotten sucked into the lie. Other times, it was the people they’d saved. Recently though, she was occupied (but definitely not in that way) with the Winchester brothers. “What’s up?” she asked as an afterthought while he clambered down from his too-tall height and sat beside her.

“Oh…you know. Checking the papers. Twiddling my thumbs. The usual.” He glanced over at Max with a beatific smile. At Max’s curious look, he pulled out something from behind his back. She hadn’t even noticed his hand was back there, let alone imagined he might actually come bearing gifts. Why would anyone do that, anyway? It was just some dumb ritual people made up to feel good about themselves, after all.

“I managed to steal the Impala today; thought I might run a couple errands,” Sam continued, that soft, gentle smile still in place. In his hand, now that Max was actually examining him, trying to get back to peak attention, was a single red rose. It was suspended between three of his fingers in a lazy, care-free grip, and tilted gently towards her, like Sam wanted her to take it. What was she gonna do with a rose, anyway?

“That’s sweet, Sam, but you didn’t have to go do that.” Max grinned back at him anyway, relishing the way that he flushed under his skin. His hazel eyes met hers again, and it was that smile, the one that turned her into a pretty useless pile of goo. A pretty useless pile of goo with a rose tucked in its fingers. “I would’ve been fine just getting a drink or something.”

“Drinks don’t last very long,” he pointed out. “Call me a romantic, huh?”

“Okay, you’re a romantic, Lurch.”

That smile grew even wider. There was little doubt in Max’s mind that Sam knew exactly how to work that smile for the greatest effect when he wanted to. Now had to be one of those times, but Max found that she just didn’t care all that much. She was too busy grinning like a dope to care.

“Oh, but I’m not done yet.” Then Sam was off, crawling back up to a standing position again and holding out one of his big old paws for her to take. “I’ve got something even better planned. Well…sort of,” he amended. Max pointed a look at him meant to convey a lot of cynicism and playfulness which Sam responded to with a casual shrug. Yeah, like he was getting off that easy.

Being the chivalrous girl she was, Max let Sam help her up and lead her into the woods before asking, “What’s in that big old head of yours, huh, Ace?”

“It wouldn’t be much of a surprise if I told you now.” And damned if that look wasn’t just parroted from Max’s own ironic expression. Sweet, adorable, and plain evil if you asked Max. She didn’t really mind the evil though.

“So where are we going, anyway? Can’t believe you just gave your brother the slip for a whole evening.”

“He’s…not here. Isn’t that enough?” Sam had a laugh that was warm and infectious and he should’ve really considered doing it more often. Well, maybe he shouldn’t’ve. It’d be pretty unprofessional if Max went and gooed all over his shoes.

“He ain’t gonna be popping out of a birthday cake or something, is he? Because not only would it be your brother, he’d be wasting perfectly good cake.”

“Would you think it was any better if I were popping out of a cake?”

“Do you know the size of the cake they’d have to make? Jeeze, Lurch, that cake could feed Asia for a week!”

They bantered about stuff all the time; it helped wind them down and distract them. It was a pretty good distraction too: Max just noticed how far they’d walked since they’d started the conversation about cake. He was a wiley one, Sam Winchester, working her weak points like that. Well, little did he know that she’d get the best of him tonight. Didn’t matter that she didn’t have a plan or an idea, she’d come up with something on the fly, just like always.

“Almost there.” Sam just tossed that out there like he didn’t expect Max to notice or comment. They’d been walking for close to an hour now, and Max was beginning to wonder what the hell could possibly be that great all the way over here. Judging by the overwhelming funk of fish and saltwater, they were pretty close to the California coast. Sam better not expect her to go swimming.

“Don’t tell me you’re just gonna drop that statement. Almost where? Almost in town? At the store? Cut me a little slack, would ya?”

And he just shook his head with a smug little smile, the jerk. All Max could think was that it had better be worth it.

***

“Pull harder, Max, it’s getting away from you!”

“If I pull any harder it’s going right into the ocean!”

“Pull, Max!”

Max gave the string a hefty yank and sure enough, the kite went into a quick nosedive and buried itself in the surf. Sam, the jerk, was laughing harder than he should’ve been. Not that Max cared or anything, it wasn’t like she was gonna keep the kite. Not like she could just go out and fly it whenever she felt like; not when there was a world to save.

“Hope you’re happy, Lurch,” Max replied tartly as she sat down stubbornly beside him and crossed her arms. He let out a long moan that she guessed might’ve been the tail-end of breathless chuckling. Then he turned and pegged her with those dewy, puppy eyes of his. Well too bad for puppy that Max was immune to that sort of crap. Mostly immune. Kinda.

“I’m sorry, Max. I’ll get you another one when we get back to town.”

“No need, Lurch.”

Sam shrugged. He really was way too calm about the whole thing. Between the kite shoved up the back of his jacket and showing her tide pools and stuff, she’d thought he might have room for a little humility with all his brains and puppy instincts. But nope, he’d been nothing but cheerfully cool the entire evening.

“I’ll go fetch it if you want.”

“It’s wet; what’re you gonna do with a wet kite?”

“Dry it off?”

“You’re pretty maddening, Ace, you know that?”

His face twisted up into one of those “Who, me?” expressions that wasn’t nearly as shocked or appalled as his brother’s. It was all Sam, with hints of curiosity, apology and atonement. Sometimes, it was hard to separate Sam’n’Dean, but this was definitely not one of those times.

“I can get the kite. I don’t have to, but I’d like to if you want it.”

Max shook her head and rolled her eyes as she stood back up and hurled the spool into the ocean to join the kite. “All gone.” So she brushed her hands and sat back down beside Sam again.

“Oookay,” he laughed.

“So how’d you get rid of Dean?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Sure I do. Now that you’re making a big deal about it.”

“I—what? I’m not making a big deal about anything.”

“Sure you are. If it wasn’t something interesting, you’d’ve already told me.”

“He’s out, okay?”

“Out where?”

“Out.”

Sam let it go at that, already drawing into himself like the moody sonofagun he was. If he wasn’t half as nice (or cute, or damn fine-looking), Max wasn’t sure she’d bother. But something about the guy…

“You paid him, didn’t you? Give him money for pornos?”

The look Sam gave her was pretty dark, but it was also kind of amused, so Max counted the victory and grinned back at him to cement it. Sam laughed, shook his head and it was all good, like Herbal liked to say. She scooted closer to him, while Sam did this show of rearranging himself should a chilly damsel happen to slide close. Well, Max was never chilly, but so what, right? A cuddle was a cuddle, and Sam wasn’t half bad at it.

The sun was already down, so there was no romantic horizon to make it the perfect date or whatever, but it didn’t really matter. The stars were plenty, and the moon was brighter here than in Seattle.

“Hey, Max?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for coming.”

“You kidding? Wouldn’t have missed it for anything. Those little shrimp things were fascinating.”

She felt the laugh more than she heard it. When she turned to check and see his face, he was already checking her out with this curious or pleased look. Sam’s expressions were kind of confusing sometimes.

Then he leaned in to kiss her on the mouth and she was pretty inclined to bet the latter.

If, you know, she was thinking about anything in particular at the moment.