Gemini (Supernatural Rewrite Sam x Reader x Dean)

Jus in Bello

The laundromat smells like hot fabric, cheap detergent, and rain.

It is almost two in the morning, which means the only people inside are the three of you, one old man asleep in a cracked plastic chair near the front window, and a woman at the far end folding baby clothes with the hollow-eyed efficiency of someone who has been awake for too long. Half the fluorescent lights buzz overhead. One of the dryers keeps making a metallic clunk every third rotation, and the vending machine in the corner has already stolen seventy-five cents from Dean.

He has taken it personally.

"You know," he says, crouched in front of the machine with one hand braced against the glass, "this is what's wrong with America."

Sam doesn't look up from the folding table where he's spread out a notebook, a few receipts, and the list of Bela's aliases you've been helping him build for the last three days. "Bad snack distribution?"

"Crime." Dean slaps the side of the machine hard enough to make the peanut butter crackers tremble in their little spiral prison. "Right here. Happening in front of us."

"Pretty bold stance from a man washing blood out of three fake FBI shirts."

Dean turns his head enough to glare at you over his shoulder. "That is a completely separate issue."

You sit on top of one of the washers with your legs swinging, wearing one of Sam's hoodies because most of your clothes are either in the wash, still damp, or carrying enough dried blood to make a gas station attendant ask questions. The sleeves hang over your hands. The metal beneath you is warm from the cycle running under your thighs, and the rain tapping against the front windows has made the whole place feel smaller than it is.

Hunters should not get comfortable in public laundromats at nearly two in the morning.

You do anyway.

Sam notices his hoodie. Of course he does. He noticed ten minutes ago, actually, but he has not said anything because Sam has always had a better survival instinct than Dean when it comes to commenting on what you steal.

Dean hits the vending machine again.

A packet of crackers finally drops.

He straightens with a victorious little sound, fishes it out, and looks back at you, triumphant. "See? Persistence."

"Damaging property, and theft," Sam says.

"Negotiation."

"You threatened a vending machine."

"And it worked." Dean tears the crackers open with his teeth, then points one at Sam. "That's why I'm the people person."

You snort, and Sam's mouth twitches before he can stop it. He tries to hide it by looking down at Bela's alias list again, but the damage is done. Dean sees it immediately and looks pleased with himself.

The washer beneath you thumps into another cycle. Loose change rattles somewhere inside the drum, probably from Dean's jeans, because he never checks his pockets and then acts shocked when money survives the wash looking cleaner than he does. Through the round window, a dark shirt tumbles past, still carrying the faint rust-colored stain near the hem despite the amount of detergent Sam dumped in.

There is something strange about it. Not the laundry itself. Laundry is laundry, even when half of it has blood on it. But the way all your clothes are tangled together in the machine feels more intimate than it should. Dean's shirts with Sam's socks, your jeans with their flannels, underwear and ruined towels all shoved into the same cycle because there is no point pretending any of you have separate lives anymore.