SpN: Impossible Things
6/13/10 10:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
roxyTitle: Impossible Things
Author: roxy
Pairings/Characters:
Rating: PG-ish
Word Count: evolving
Spoilers: very vague spoilery reference for the end of season 5
Summary: What happens when you survive a thing you never expected to
Things went pretty quiet when the end was averted. Shit still went wrong, but it was normal shit, wrong in normal ways. Sam had to laugh at that. Normal….
They stayed in Maryland for a few days, waiting…but Sam had slammed that pit shut pretty tight, and Dean had hit Ruby so hard with that knife her head almost came off and Castiel lit up like a bonfire and that was the last they'd seen of him. They waited for calls—from Bobby, or Chuck or Cas, but when a week went by and no one called they packed up, and they moved on.
Sam managed to convince Dean--through dint of screaming and punching and there may have been a swirly involved, but God, he was just so fucking tired of it all—to take some time off. It wasn't the end of the world after all. Not anymore. Dean tried the people are dying without our help thing and Sam pointed out that while they were saving one person on this side of the state on the other side some poor shmuck would always be losing his liver, his heart…Sam knew damn well that was a harsh thing to say and it made Dean look at him with white showing all around his eyes but you know, Sam just couldn't be bothered to care, not totally, not at that moment. He wanted to lay down, go to sleep and wake up some other year. It'd be a nice year too, one in which Dean and he had a great house, and a great life and maybe, maybe they still shared a house, probably just temporarily, but still. Because that's what they did, they shared things.
Later, they'd save people. Right now, they needed to save each other.
They drove a long, long time, changing off, one sleeping while the other ate and drove, until they were somewhere warm, some place with sun all the time and no dark corners. The town they fetched up against was small, and the people were unnaturally friendly. At least, that's what Dean kept saying under his breath, eyes narrowed and fixed on anything that crossed in front of his laser-like glare. Sam just laughed it off. There was nothing to be afraid of here. He'd feel if it was. Because sure, he'd told Dean that he'd used all of his mojo to shut down Lucifer, but he'd lied. Better for Dean. Peace of mind. Less underpants in his crack face. So anyway, pretty much a dead spot, supernatural-wise. No demons. No angels. No echoes from the spirit world—no dangerous ones, anyway. Safe.
Dean stared out on the little main street and shoved a dripping burger into his mouth. Sam gnawed his way through a turkey club and thought, this is it. We can stay put here, for a little bit, at least. Dean turned his face from the window and aimed a small but warm smile at Sam, and tripped a circuit breaker in Sam's brain. The sun lit Dean's eyes, turned them coke-bottle green, clear and cool and wide enough to swim in, and his pupils were blacker than coal, blacker then the hint of that black Sam'd seen around the edges of Lucifer's light. Deep, and black, and eternal. And then Dean blinked, smiled wider, gargled his coke and broke the spell.
Sam settled back in his chair with a grateful sigh. Sometimes…he got caught up in that *thing* that Dean broadcast indiscriminately. He wiped the back of his wrist across his mouth and swiped mayo onto his chin. Dean smiled the little smile again and reached over and wiped it off. "Slob," he said, so fondly that Sam froze in panic. His throat worked, until finally a weak "Jerk," popped out.
Dean snorted and pushed the bill towards him.
They argued a bit about stopping there. Dean wanted a cabin in the woods, far from everyone and everything. Sam wanted a place that they wouldn't have to plan a trip just to pick up toilet paper. Both of them laid out the pros and cons of their individual plans. Sam explained, with his knee in Dean's kidney and wiping away blood from under his nose, just how much better living in town would be then squatting in some shack in the asshole of nowhere playing Grizzly Adams, and Dean had to agree. Sam was gracious in victory, and filled the car's tank, ignoring Dean mumbling about mutant freak bitches…after all, he'd won.
They camped out in a motel on the edge of the town and perused the papers, looking for some place to drop their bags and take a breath.
"Hey."
Sam looked up from separating their dirty clothes from their dirtier clothes. "What?"
"Listen to this," Dean said and shook the newspaper smooth and Sam sighed. Nothing ever good happened after listen to this. "Police are still looking for information on a missing elderly man. Last seen at the Hampton Arms. The Hampton Arms have previously been the center of investigations concerning similar disappearances, though no investigations have resulted in charges."
"So?" Sam unfolded a t-shirt that practically crackled, glued together in the center with…not blood. And not his t-shirt, what the hell was it doing in his bag? Sam's face screwed up in disgust. His brother was an animal.
The animal huffed like it had a right to be annoyed. "Similar disappearances? No one's been charged?"
"It's probably a crack hotel. People disappear all the time," Sam said and let Dean's look of perplexed horror slide right off him. "Dean. Let it *go*."
"I'm just going to take a look, is all. C'mon, you're not bored?"
"We haven't been in town for more than a couple of hours—how can you be bored?"
"Talent."
Sam refused to look. Scrubbed his palms against his thighs and felt the heat of a goofy grin bounce off his neck. "Let. It. Go."
Brilliant advice, that. What happened was, he let Dean go, and stayed behind to think. Not pout. It wasn't true that he needed to get his way all the time. If that was the case, Dean would be there, on the bed, watching TV and teasing Sam and sitting close. And not jerking away when Sam tilted a little and accidentally dropped his head onto Dean's shoulder. Whatever.
"So…a ghost?"
"A ghost! Classic—cold spots, moaning, shit moving, yeah. So anyway, the dude owns the building was all coy at first but finally gives it up and begs for help. Some psycho used the place as his hunting grounds fifteen, twenty years ago until he was tracked there and shot dead by the cops. Thing is, it wasn't the guy causing trouble. This ghost was a chick."
Sam watched Dean's face as he talked, lit up like a candle. Thought, this is what Dean's made for—not dealing with those winged dicks, fighting off the end of the world shit—it was this. Salt and burns, putting dead things to rest—helping people, looking into their eyes and giving them hope. The one on one. He felt kind of guilty not letting Dean have that but he'd get over this guilt just like he'd get over the mountainous pile of guilt already teetering in his brain. Fuck it. He'd learn to make pie and Dean would be happy.
"Hey! Are you listening to me?"
Sam rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes, you big ghost hunter, yaddah yaddah."
"Bitch. Perfect object lesson, Sammy. never go off with a stranger, ever." Like he thought Sam was still ten and could be lured away with bright shiny objects—
Sam blushed, refused to follow that train of thought to its inevitable, sticky train wreck conclusion and of course Dean kept right on yapping like he didn't notice..."Not even if they promise you a real nice room and a good meal 'cause that never ends well. Also, why kill someone and keep trophies? What's up with that?"
"Hunh?"
"Under the floorboards. Found like, a bracelet of hair. Gross. So, psycho whacks some chick and braids her hair into a bracelet and the poor dead chick turns all vengeful spirit and anyone in the apartment goes missing. Sad shit, man—quick fix though."
Sam leaned against the table, mouth open and eyes wide. "How in the hell…that was good work," he says at last.
"Fucking don't sound so surprised," Dean snapped. "What'd you think I was doing while you were sleeping the day away at Stanford? So anyway, the ghost is gone—oh, and we have an apartment."
"Hunh?"
Dean rolled his eyes this time. "Apartment—place to stay? Rootlets, like you've been nagging the ever-loving shit out of me for?" He rooted around in the tiny fridge and pulled out a bottle of water with a grimace.
"Really? All ready?" But…Dean didn't really ever do anything Sam wanted. He pretended to but not really. This was just…weird. "Really?"
"Yes, really. Turns out the dude owns the building was looking for a super, too." Dean grinned. "Free rent and money for nothing and a great place that I personally know is ghost-free."
Ew."Dean…super means repairs, tending to tenants. Listening to people."
"Yeah well, that shit I can do. Who do you think made some of those squats we were in livable? Dad?" Dean snorted and Sam winced. It was still taking him some time to get used to the Dean of 'Dad Was a Just Barely Decent Sort of Human Being But a Shit Father' instead of Dad G. Winchester—G. Stands for God And Don't You Forget It.
"Anyway, that shit I can do easy, plus terrorize people into paying rent? No prob. And some of those tenants—hot, omg. I won't even have to leave the building."
"Jesus, Dean. Did you just really say OMG? Stop reading those fuckin' stories dude."
"Fuck you too, *dude*. Come on. We gotta get packed. Damien's gonna open the apartment for us."
"The owner's name is Damien…what's this place called again? The Bramford?"
"Wha?"
"The Bramford—Rosemary's Baby—you quote every fucking movie in the world and you don’t know Rosemary's—you know what? Let's just pack, okay?"
Dean stared at Sam, that Look. He heard him mutter 'freak', and it made Sam smile. Dean was coming back to him. Slowly but surely. Apartment…he grinned wide. Coming back and bringing him presents. And not second hand Barbies either.
Sam circled the apartment's living room, feeling a little—a lot—out of his element. This was wrong, all wrong. It wasn't supposed to go like this. Dean wasn't supposed to be grinning at him, standing in a pool of sunlight with his arms spread like he'd done something especially neato-keen. This was all so fucking wrong and Dean was an asshole. So why did he feel like crying?
"Cool right? Rent free, mother-fucker. Tell me killing evil shit isn't a profitable skill. Gratitude, dude. That's what gets you the extra cookie. Now you can." Dean stopped, dropped his arms and the attitude and said, kind of soft, "now you cam relax and think, plan your future, right?"
Sam nodded, still adrift on a sea of what the hell. "It's nice. Um. Nice."
"Right? So I've got some paper work to fill out, and some fake ID to flash, and I'll be back." He tossed Sam the keys. "Unload the car, bitch."
"Fuck you," Sam murmured but Dean was already out the door. Sam looked around again at the sunny living room, down the hall to the bathroom and two tiny bedrooms, wheeled to look at the dining room and kitchen. Okay, he'd been expecting a sunless box in the basement. Didn't all supers live in the basement? He'd been expecting the smell of mold and dryer lint but--he sniffed--it smelled like apple pie. Because there was pie on the counter…Dean bought pie for an apartment warming gift. Sam stared for a long moment before the whole scene wavered like melted wax. "Ah," he said, "I get it. I'm dead. Or dying and this is what's left of my brain cells firing off before it's all over…."
He sat on the floor, and crossed his arms over his knees and waited for the show to stop. The fact that he was alone, no Dean in sight, was just the final proof. Whatever he'd thought he'd done in Maryland, it hadn't been winning.
The sun was out of the living room window, and he was still in the damn apartment and starting to get a back ache from sitting on the floor when the door flew open and his bags flew into the room.
"Do I have to do every fucking thing, you fucked up yeti, you—*Sam*?"
Sam turned red eyes up to Dean and said, "You came back."
"Duh—was only in the lobby, what the hell is wrong with you?"
"Am I dead?"
Dean did a double take, said, "No, but I'm thinking maybe brain damaged." A range of expressions flashed over his face, annoyed changed to concerned, changed to fond. "It's really happening, Sammy. We're really okay—promise. We're alive. And I'm pretty fucking hungry so…."
It took Sam half a burger and a strawberry shake he didn't even like before he was willing to concede that yeah, he was alive and his pain in the ass brother had somehow, in some amazing way, really, truly, gotten them a real place to live. Sam grinned at Dean and Dean smiled back, soft, sweet, and kicked Sam in the shins so hard his chair rocked back. "Girl," he said, but Sam could hear what he really meant.
"Fuck you," Sam said, and figured Dean knew it meant, 'I'm glad you're my brother, too'….
2
Sam leaned back in the shadows of the room and watched the outdoors through the slats of the Venetian blind. Watched Dean wrestle a lawnmower out of the shed at the end of the building's parking lot. The mower looked antique, but Sam was sure Dean would be able to get it to do whatever he wanted it to; his brother was good like that.
Dean tensed over the mower, and Sam could see from the curve of Dean's back and the set of his shoulders he was checking the thing out--right now, Sam could tell, his brother was running through a mental checklist and just by eyeballing it, knew what it needed.
Dean shook his head and from Sam's third floor perch, he imagined he could hear Dean's exasperated sigh. Sam smiled. Hell, he was prepared for outrageous amusement—Dean mowing a lawn? The very idea made him snicker to himself. They'd never stayed anywhere that they'd needed to mow a lawn; at least Sam didn’t remember either of them ever doing something like that. He dashed into the kitchen and grabbed a soda, and raced back to his hiding place at the window. There wasn't anything weird about peeking out of a window and secretly watching your brother do yard work. Nothing wrong about it at all. Sam took a guilty sip of his coke and wondered if it was hot enough outside to wear shorts or maybe take your shirt off or sweat some. His fingers flinched, the brief tremor making them unsteady so he put his soda down and closed his eyes. Took a steadying breath. God....
When he opened them again, Dean was leaning over the mower, yanking on a string of some kind, trying to get the thing started. It gasped and coughed before it caught and then Dean started pushing it along the narrow strip of lawn that flanked the parking lot. He got as far as the bushes that defined the end of the lawn before suddenly dashing towards them. Sam wondered what he'd seen to make him run like that, cat, dog—something bad? Dean slammed to a sudden stop, and Sam understood, in an unpleasant rush, what his brother was doing, was throwing up in the bushes.
What the fuck… Dean swayed to a stop, his head hanging down, one hand swiping across his mouth and the other gripping his knee. It looked like he was shaking. Sam leaped up, ready to run down the stairs but Dean stood, squared his shoulders and pushed the mower onward….
Sam pushed away from the window. It wasn't fun anymore to watch. What was wrong, what made Dean do that? He couldn't figure it out, and stuff he couldn't unravel worried Sam. Was it this weird ass domesticity? Maybe it was being here.
Sam went back to his room.
"Sam—your sugar daddy's back!"
"Yeah, fuck you. Took you long enough—you've been mowing forever." Sam turned and raked his eyes over Dean. He looked okay, sweaty and a little red, but that was to be expected. Trading a fairly nocturnal lifestyle for all this sun and stuff, maybe he was having to adjust or something…"What do you want to eat? I made BLTs but if you're not feeling well…."
"What? I feel fine. BLTs sound great." Dean dropped the tool belt he'd taken to wearing on the couch, and kicked his boots off. He walked into the kitchen, shoved Sam away from the fridge. "Thirsty."
Shoving him back somehow ended up with Dean leaning against Sam. Just for a quick minute, sure, but it was real, and Dean grinned at him before wandering back to the table, chugging ice tea straight from the carton. Sam felt the warm press of Dean's body even after Dean swaggered away and threw himself into one of the chairs and propped his sweaty, grimy, elbows on Sam's clean table. Which observation Sam thankfully managed to keep to himself—he'd already given Dean mocking material to last a lifetime. Couple lifetimes. Instead he addressed the other issue that was making him feel like kicking the crap out of his brother.
"Gug, you disgusting slob. I was going to have some of that tea, you know."
"Oh please, like we haven't shared grosser fluids than spit—" Dean stopped and flushed. "You know what I mean."
Sam laughed, kind of high and breathy, the way he did when he was seriously amused and he hated that he did it, it sounded so girly. "You know what they say about Freudian slips, Dean."
"Yeah, they go great with your pretty pink dresses. Shut up and feed me bitch. So--'' he continued after Sam dropped a plate piled with sandwiches in front of him. "What are you going to do? Can't hang out in the apartment all day every day."
Sam frowned. "What, you getting tired of me hanging around already?"
Dean stopped eating and swept Sam with his eyes, tight and intense, seemed to relax after a second. "Well, no—but you gotta be bored. Put that giant brain of yours to use, right?"
"Why can't I help you?" Sam fumed when Dean had the nerve to laugh like he'd told the funniest joke ever.
"Because for one thing, you don’t know shit about this kind of stuff and also, you'd fucking blow yourself up trying to change a light bulb."
Sam might have been a little more insulted if it wasn't kind of true. But fuck, anyone could break a light bulb off in a lamp socket. And electrocute themselves a little bit trying to take it out…and the wiring in the dumps they lived in was so crappy that hey, it was no surprise he'd knocked out electric to the room…house…whatever. Like it never happened to anyone else. To his brother he said, "Fuck you."
Dean just grinned. And winked.
****
Later, they washed the dishes, elbows rubbing and bumping in the narrow space. They collided and rebounded like bumper cars, Dean singing softly, casually, in his surprisingly pleasant voice. It reminded Sam of when they were kids and sometimes Dean would sing to him, like really sing, not yell all screechy and warbley the way he did now, mostly in the car, to get on Sam's nerves. It was nice, and Sam smiled a lot, even while he dodged the water Dean thought was so fucking funny to flick at him. He felt good and even better when he managed to hit Dean square in the face with the sopping dishcloth.
For a guy who only spoke English and a smattering of Spanish, it was amazing how many curse words in other languages he knew…Sam was always learning something new about his brother.
****
After, they sat in the living room and talked about the television they'd buy soon as they could afford it, until it was time to go to bed. Dean slapped his shoulder before going off to his bedroom and closing the door on Sam. Sam listened at the doorway to the bump and rustle of Dean getting ready for bed until he started to feel a little queasy and lot like some kind of creep, before going off to his own bed.
Sam thought about what Dean had said. He spent days thinking about it. He was right, it was weak to be sitting around and letting Dean take care of him—again. Even though Dean didn't really seem to mind. He'd said what he said out of concern, Sam could tell that. It was time to do something, to find a life like Dean had, however temporary.
****
The town had a tiny library with few current books but a surprising amount of excellent information about schools. Then again, maybe not so surprising—he figured most of the kids in the area must be as eager as he'd been once upon a time to get the fuck out.
On the heels of that thought came a wave of grief-guilt-sadness-frustration. Easy to ride out, it was something he'd become used to. These days, he wasn't even sure what it meant—the loss of his lover, or the hope of a picture perfect life or maybe the desire for such a thing in the first place. Maybe it came from knowing that none of that had had any chance of being his. Or that he'd almost lost his brother without even thinking about it. His whole life was knotted, snarled, so entwined and turned in on itself he couldn't tease out the beginning from the end.
He raised his head and stared at the water marked ceiling, blinked back the hot weight in his eyes. It hurt, what he'd lost, and sometimes it felt like there was nothing in his life worth living for. Except for Dean. All he had left was a brother who was kind of high maintenance for a guy. Moody, bitchy as all hell, for all he complained what a bitch Sam was, no one could throw a bitch fit like Dean when he was pissed off….
Sam stared the length of the dark wood table. Drummed his fingers against the polished wood, pressed the callused pads into grooves cut by generations of disrespectful hooligans—scores of baby Deans. He'd lost those calluses at Stanford. How quickly they'd come back…and it hit him, all at once. A lot like getting punched in the gut.
Dean was getting ready to *leave* him. As soon as he was sure that Sam could take care of himself, he was going to leave.
Sam closed his eyes and waited for the sickening wave of fury to leach out of him.
Dean was an idiot. He wasn't ever going to separate little from brother. Dean was going to try and keep doing Sam's thinking for him, keep jumping in front of the gun for him. His brother was a monumental asshole, and Sam was going to kick his fucking ass from one end of town to the other. What would it take to make Dean understand, it was done? There was no place he could be now except wherever Dean was. He didn't have anything to give to anyone else. He was a shell, filled with horror and guilt and shame. It didn't exactly make for a tempting package, not even for someone desperate enough to settle for a fixer-upper. Didn't have anything left to fix. And Dean. The stubborn sonofabitch refused to see that Sam had nothing to offer anyone.
Sam shook himself and glanced at his watch. Twelve. Dean would be coming in for lunch soon; he'd probably want more than peanut butter sandwiches. Demanding jerk. Maybe it'd be better to stop and pick up something on the way home, one of those precooked chickens he liked. The ones made mostly of salt and enough grease to gag a—a—whatever liked grease as much as Dean did.
If such a thing existed.
On the way home, he passed a bookstore, an antique shop, a café, a bar, a bakery, a daycare center….
****
"I'm going to finish my degree."
Dean stopped chewing. Swallowed. "Hunh. All right then. Let me know when and where you want me to drop you. Shouldn't take long to wrap stuff up here—"
What Dean said sent Sam into babbling mode. "Jesus. I *meant* I'd go to school here. Online. It's possible--unless you'd rather go somewhere else. I go somewhere else. I just thought you were comfortable. I mean with me being here."
Dean leaned back in his chair, a look on his face Sam couldn't read. "Some day, you're going to have to go out on your own, right? It's, whada'ya call it, inevitable."
Sam stared at his brother, counted to ten, said 'fuck it' and threw a spoon at his head. "Fucking say it, *Dean*. Just tell me you don’t want me around." Which was stupid really, because of course Dean wanted him around, he was sure of it. More or less.
His brother stood and glared, and said, "You're such a pain in the ass, *Sam*." He buckled his tool belt around his hips, glared at Sam again before flipping him off and storming to the door.
Sam yelled, "You just wear that stupid belt because you think it makes you look hot—well, it doesn't!"
The apartment door slammed shut, hard enough to shake the thrift shop prints Sam had hung on the walls. Sam stared after, two things on his mind—how hot his brother looked with that tool belt hugging his hips and how much he wished Dean cared the same way back.
He felt so sad, and it was just ridiculous to feel sad. All that mattered was that Dean wasn't happy here—or rather, Dean was even unhappier than Sam had guessed. Dean didn’t deserve being unhappy, not after everything he'd given. This—this whole thing wasn't worth it if Dean was that fucking miserable.
Sam said to the empty room. "I should leave. I am going to leave." He grabbed his backpack and walked out the door, down the steps, out the front doors and right past Dean.
Den watched him—Sam knew he was watching, he felt it. When he stepped off the curb to cross the street he heard, "Bring some ice-cream back."
Sam thought, you're going to be waiting a god damn long time for ice-cream, you asshole. He wiped dust out of his eyes and trudged down the street, the bag hanging like a dead weight on his shoulder.
****
That night, they split a pint of Phish Food and Sam had a job at the food market a few blocks over. Dean kept smiling at him and Sam kept blushing and wishing he'd stop.
"Did you have a nice walk—"
"You know what, shut the fuck up, eat your ice-cream, I don't want to hear it."
It pissed Sam off how Dean managed to smile even louder.
Somehow, Sam thought everything was going to fit better after that, that Dean would see that he needed Sam around…that Dean would finally see the Sam he was now.
Nope.
****
Sam was dragging himself up the stairs, tired, smelling of stale air and damaged produce. All he was capable of thinking about clearly was getting home, getting clean and maybe talking Dean into going out later for some Chinese and a few beers. He hit the second floor landing the very same minute that Dean was letting himself out of some woman's apartment. He was flushed a satisfied pink, and smirked over his shoulder in a theatrically leering way. She was propped up in the doorway, looking like a Guild of Seamstresses reject. she giggled when Dean winked at her.
Sam kind of wanted to rip her head off and poke Dean's eye out. Dean turned around and startled when he saw Sam. "What are you doing here?" he snapped—practically accused. Blonde hussy was no fool; she slipped back in her apartment quick as a wink.
Sam snarled, "Coming home from work and what are you doing, trying to lose your job?"
"Who's gonna know besides me and her--and now you?" Dean scowled and in general carried on way beyond what the situation called for. If anyone had a right to pout and scowl, Sam felt it was all his. Well, sort of. Okay maybe he didn’t have a right to be…fuck. Jealous, damn it. But he was, and his heart hurt too. It'd been so long that Dean had flirted or gave any of the usual signs he'd 'got lucky' that Sam had started to think…stupid thoughts. Stupid thoughts. So he sucked it up, and smiled at Dean and winked. "Eh, you're right. Go get 'er, tiger."
"'Go get 'er, tiger'? What are you, someone's inappropriate creepy grandpa? Beat it, I got work to do."
"Think you can keep it in your pants next job?" Which was totally not what Sam had planned to say, he'd meant to come out with something witty and risqué and boys talking shit together but that had come out kind of thirteen year old girl-ish.
Dean looked at him like he was crazy. "Yeah, think I can since it's old Mr. K on six…."
Sam shoved down all his stupidity, managed a smirk and said, "I don't know, he's got a great smile and killer calves…."
Dean laughed and Sam laughed too, and everything was back to their slidey version of normal again. Which didn't last long. Sam had to acknowledge he was the genius of fucking things up.
Yeah, fucking things up, making epic fucked up choices, that was something he was really good at.
"So, I got us invited to bar tonight."
"Yeah?" Dean's attention was mostly on the baseball game playing out on their new TV. It looked good sat on their new fake cherry wood TV stand. Dean's feet looked comfortable planted solidly on their new rug.
"Some people are getting together after work tonight and I thought you might like to come. Booze and loose women—well, some of the girls I work with seem like they might like hanging out with ugly old guys like yourself."
"Shut up. Your friends know you're pimping 'em out?" Dean asked, but when Sam turned from tossing discounted groceries into the cabinets Dean looked milder than his tone had been. He looked to be still absorbed in the game. Sam shook his head. Sometimes his brain played weird tricks on him, like when it told him Dean was watching and when he looked Dean wouldn't even be in the room.
"They're not exactly my friends, and I'm not pimping anyone. I'm just asking if you want to come with me."
"You don't have to bribe me, kid. I'd come hold your hand without you waving wenches at me." Now Dean really was looking at him, and his smile was genuine.
"You’re so…" Sam wanted to say 'disgusting and sexist in a medieval way', but it was hard to when his lips were stuck on a grin. Hold his hand. It was an image Sam's heart seemed to like a lot. But then, his heart always was stupid as fuck.
****
It was fun. He was having a good time, and nothing could have surprised Sam more, he was shocked, even. The people turned out to be a lot more interesting than he'd imagined people forced to care about whether all the cans on a shelf were facing with the labels out would be. There were a few who were in the same boat as he was—not temporarily ex-hunters, but possessing degrees that at the moment, weren't doing shit for them.
Life. It had everybody by the shorts.
And Dean. His brother was getting on with everyone. Seemed that he'd turned the charm-o-meter to high and was doing that thing that reeled in defenseless, unsuspecting victims, that thing that made Sam stumble around sleepless in the middle of the night, wishing he was drunk, or living far away in another country. He consoled himself with the thought that none of these people would ever get to know who Dean really was, not like he knew. He turned on his stool in time to catch Dean walking out the door with the chick who worked pharmacy.
Then again, some people would get to know Dean in ways he was never going to. Unless there really was such a thing as sex pollen, or some crazy witch would actually curse them to have....
Sam thought maybe the best thing to do here was to get seriously, fucking, pass-out drunk. It was a good plan but a few minutes into it, one of the guys from the loading dock asked him if he wanted to smoke in his car and Sam said yes and one thing led to another and he found himself being kind of manhandled all over the inside of a Civic. There really wasn't enough room for what the guy was trying to do but Sam admired his enthusiasm. Sam decided he was too drunk to continue when everything the guy did made him break out in giggles.
The guy stopped, huffed a patient breath into the pot-scented air. "So. This isn’t going to happen, is it?" he asked.
"Um…no-oo…are you pissed off?"
"Nah," the guy shrugged—grinned in a friendly way that reminded Sam a little of his brother. That grin tugged at his heart. "Maybe some other time?" the guy asked. "And some other place?"
He laughed some and patted Sam's arm. Sam felt a deep wave of alcohol-and-cannabis fueled affection sweep him. The guy, Jamar, Jamie, Jake, whatever, the guy was a real nice person, a sweetheart; he'd love to try again, partly because Jerry, Jalil, was so nice. Mostly because Sam didn’t think he had a lot of other options and he so wasn't planning on living his life like a monk. But not a slut either, not like some other people he could name. The look on Jarek's, Jabbar's--the guy's face--a kind of befuddled curiosity, made Sam realize he'd been talking out loud. Okay. Sam was about to say that he thought it was a good idea to try some other time if Jacob was still interested when the car door opened and Sam fell out onto the gravel.
"What the fuck is going on here!" Dean yelled, and reached around to the back of his waist and Sam shouted, "No Dean!" before remembering they didn’t really go strapped anymore. He jumped up to grab Dean's arm and everything slid sideways.
"Whoa—who's moving things?" he muttered and Dean cursed, caught Sam in both arms. He glared at poor Civic guy and Sam figured he'd remember his real name at some point. Jason, pretty sure that was it…meanwhile, Dean was warm and solid and just so…there. He sighed and melted against him. Warm. Nice.
"The only reason I'm not kicking your ass right now is my hands are full of idiot," Dean snarled and the guy just nodded like Sam was a blushing virgin and not a twenty-eight year old man who was responsible for himself and hadn't he told Dean he was bi at some point? Sam stood scrunching his face at the sky, trying to remember that conversation, when Dean pushed him upright and let go of him. He kept a steadying hand on Sam's arm. Sam whimpered at the loss of warmth.
"Come on, you drunk ass yeti, let's get you home. Jesus. How drunk *are* you? I mean--a guy? Sam, what's going on here?"
Sam said, I'm bi, and you're a homophobe but it came out, "Nur, gun thrup."—and Dean did an amazing kind of side-step, arm-twist thing that had Sam twirling and bending and vomiting away from them instead of all over their shoes. He had a brief second to admire Dean's grace before harking all over the edge of the gravel drive. Shit, he'd only had a few beers and some shots and smoked a little, it'd been a while but not that long—"arrrgh. Bunh-bunh—"
"God, stop trying to talk and get it done. You're not getting in my car 'til you're all barfed out."
"Dean…" tears of strain ran down Sam's face. Strain, nothing else. He slid his hands over Dean's chest, looking for some shirt to hang onto, and dropped his head on Dean's shoulder because he was so tired. He waited for a smack or for Dean to push him away but Dean kind of…un-tensed, shoved his fingers under the hair at back of Sam's neck and rubbed his knuckles at the base of his skull, the way he hadn't done since Sam was thirteen or so. It felt so good he wanted to cry.
"You poor idiot. What're you trying to do? Hunh? Is it that bad, Sammy?" he whispered.
Sam nodded. Yes. Feeling this way was that bad. Being tortured daily was that bad. It was.
Dean made soothing noises and let Sam hang off of him a wonderful long time. Of course, it had to end, and finally Dean pushed him off and shoveled him into the car.
"You're lucky, no one saw you act like a girl. Don’t worry about Handsy McDeadGuy; he's not gonna say a word." Dean scowled. "But next time, no drinking without me."
Fucking brilliant advice. Dean should have given it at the start of the evening—or not left Sam alone while he went off with some hobag. "Oh crap," he muttered to himself. He didn't mean that, she was a nice enough girl, it was just—the car rocked and bumped over the gravel parking lot and Sam clapped a hand over his mouth.
"Hey! You okay, Sam?" Dean was balling up a napkin—tossed it out the window. He caught Sam's eyes on him and shrugged. "Nothing important," he said, "relax, we'll be home soon."
Fuck…home. What was a home?
3
Dean was coming up the stairs that led to the basement and the washer and dryers. He was pushing two red-faced boys in front of him, his face contorted into a vicious scowl. "I don't give a fu—crap—you do not shove your brother into a dryer and turn it on. You coulda hurt him. Killed him. And then I'd have to clean corpse stench out of the dryer. Go home before I kick your asses." The boys bolted for the building entrance. "You tell your mom I'm coming to talk to her."
Sam shuffled the grocery bags in his arms and watched the little drama unfold. He'd seen right away the scowl was a mask for laughter and sure enough, as soon as Dean caught sight of Sam, he broke out into a huge, eye wrinkling grin. He waited to let Sam catch up with him and they walked into the dim light and cool granite smell of the lobby together.
"Little bastards," Dean laughed. "Older one had the little kid shoved in a dryer and was looking for quarters. Lucky I got there before he found any." Dean shook his head like a fond uncle. Memories, no doubt, of nearly murdering his own younger brother. Younger Brother made an enormous effort not to step on his older brother's instep.
"Yeah, 'cause brothers should never do anything like that, hunh?"
The sarcasm was totally lost on Dean. "Hey, no one told you you had to put that vacuum hose to your face. Good thing you didn't try to attach it to your—"
"Dean!"
Dean laughed. "What are you up to tonight, wanna go out? I need to get out. I spent all day snaking toilets and changing bulbs—how freaking hard is it to get on a stool and change a bulb?"
"If you're four foot tall and eighty years old like Mrs. Gardiner, real hard." Sam snorted. "You're kind of crabby lately. Maybe you need to get laid," Sam said, just like he was anyone else's brother, like he was a normal guy, who didn't live a whole dirty secret life in the privacy of his head.
"Laid…speaking of, you ever talk to Handsy again?"
"Yes, of course, I see Jerome almost every day," he said carefully, and shoved a grocery bag in Dean's arms. "Salad and bread's in that one, be careful. Not like you mean though. He's a nice enough guy, bad habits aside." Dean snorted, but Sam ignored him. "Candy asked me out with a few people tonight. She's cute."
Dean unlocked the door and set his bag on the kitchen counter, Sam plopped his bag next to it.
"She? You've gone back to girls? I thought—"
"Bi, dude. That's what it means. She's nice; she's just a nice person to talk to. She listens just as well as she speaks. Kind of rare that," he said as pointedly as he could.
Dean was quiet as he helped put the groceries away. Fidgeted a bit before turning to Sam. "You know it doesn’t matter to me, right? You're my brother, nothing could change that."
Sam leaned against the counter and smiled through an embarrassing wave of awww and love. "I know that dude; you proved it over and over, okay? And. Thanks. For *everything*."
Dean shrugged and waved it off. "Whatever, bitch." He started to walk away, and then came back. "Say, Sam?"
Sam looked up, and froze. Dean was red-faced, his eyes darting everywhere but where Sam was. Sam's heart tripped a beat. Dean was about to say something that wasn't going to make him happy, much. "…yeah?"
"I." Dean stopped, bit his lip, tried again. "Listen. I." He blew out a sharp breath and blurted, "I hadsexwithaguy. Once. So, I get it, sort of."
Sam dropped the bag of oranges he'd been holding, oranges bounced and rolled all over the kitchen, under the table, over their feet. "Hunh? You did what now?"
"It was while you were at college," Dean said, like that explained it all.
"Dean," Sam said mildly, giving no indication that part of his brain had skipped the tracks and was dealing with unreasonable jealousy, anger, hurt, and curiosity. "Dean…that stuff about experimenting in college? Doesn't extend to siblings *not* in college."
"I just wanted you to know that, you know. It's okay to talk to me. All right?"
"All right. Thanks. Um. So, top or bottom?"
"What? *What*? Fuck you, I'm trying to—to—talk to you, and you're making fun of me?"
"No, dude, wait, Dean, come back—*shit*." Any other time Dean would be glad—it was what Dean did all the time, deflect a moment by joking. Wasn't like he really wanted to know.
A sharp, electric jolt shot through him, he almost gasped aloud. The picture of his brother with his dick down someone's throat made his head swim…his hands planted on some anonymous ass, plunging in and out. Sam blinked rapidly, dropped to his knees to pick up the oranges. He was still on his knees when Dean sauntered in as causally as if he hadn't just dropped a bomb that wiped out the last of Sam's fragile control over the worst of his imagination.
"Going out for a minute, I'll be back before it's time to go. Don’t cook."
Sam looked up at him, his gaze glancing from Dean's boots to his knees to his belt buckle, before settling on his chin. "Oh-okay," he said. He was still on his knees for a little bit after Dean left, his dick pulsing uncomfortably in his pants. "Oh fuuuuck," he groaned. Life was…full of bad suck.
****
Dean came in a few hours later, a little smile on his lips. His eyes were that cloudy, grey-green they got when he was drunk, and Sam kind of hated that…Dean getting drunk felt like he was hiding from him. Sam stared hard at the TV—he'd been watching some giant machines, mostly because he was a little drunk too, and couldn’t be bothered to pick up the remote from where he'd dropped it. Dean dropped down on the end of the couch and let out a huge gusty sigh.
"So, how was the date?" he asked. "Did you score?"
Sam closed his eyes and sighed. Okay, they were going to play it this way. "She's a nice girl. We had drinks. We might get together again. I'll probably go out with Jerome, too, if he wants." Sam shrugged. Dean just kept staring at him, kind of bleary around the edges, with an edge of judging. "What?"
"Nothing. Just…when did you get to be such a social butterfly."
"So, I take a page out of your book and I'm some kind of man-whore all of a sudden?"
"Well, isn't that what you think of me?"
"Dean—" No. Sometimes. Not a whore, just, too friendly. By far, damn it. Fucker. A guy. And he never told him, fuck Dean never told him anything. "I wanna know about that guy. And why you don’t now. You don't right?" Sam said past a stupid flare of jealousy.
"God, Sam did you learn how to kill a buzz dead at Stanford? Bet you were popular," he muttered. "No…it was just that once, like I said."
Sam got up off the couh. "Yeah, okay. Imma get another beer, you wan' one?"
Dean nodded. "Yeah, if I gotta talk about this shit, I need to be drunker than this." Sam jerked open the fridge door, he yanked a couple of bottles out. He had the bottles open dn was coming around the edge of the couch when Dean looked up at himand Sam froize. His eyes….
Dean started talking, eyes sliding off Sam and fixing on the TV. "You know what freaked me out after? I liked it. I liked it so much that. That I was afraid I'd never, you know, stop wanting it. I just figured it was easier not to, you know, with Dad and all. So." He shrugged. "Met him at a bar. He was tall, and had this crazy hair all in his face and shit. Did I tell you he was a hunter? I asked him how he saw with all that stupid hair and he pulled out this crazy headband and. He grinned, right to his back teeth and he reminded me of you and." Dean took a long swallow of his beer and Sam faked that he did too. "So, I was missing you, god, Sammy like you wouldn't believe and this guy just kept talking and making me laugh and drink, and the next thing I knew I was in his truck, and he was bent over me and touching me places no one ever had before and it felt—amazing. He made me come—" Dean stopped and coughed, wiped his mouth and set his bottle down firmly on the nightstand. "Anyway. It was the one time only."
"You ever see him again?" Sam asked, lifted his bottle and swallowed for real this time—he didn’t want to know Dean had kept in touch with the guy, maybe still talked to him. Hunters were a small, inbred community. It was reasonable to think that they kept in contact, even guys….
"No. he's dead," Dean said, in a way that let Sam know that conversation was over. He managed to swallow down the "I'm sorry," that kind of automatically formed in his mouth. There was no way he could pretend to be sincere, that he cared about this faceless stranger who reminded his brother of him. Who his brother had had sex with.
Dean jerked to his feet and slammed the empty bottle down on the coffee table. "I'm beat Sam. Hit the lights?"
Sam grunted agreement and switched off the TV, headed for the lamps. He gathered up the bottles, and set them in the sink, he brought the laundry hamper out of the bathroom and left it by the apartment door. Swept the kitchen floor, wiped down the counters…he didn't go to bed until he heard the soft sound of his brother snoring—he always snored when he'd been drinking. Sam took himself off to bed too, and tried to clear his mind. He was about to drift off when the whole evening suddenly replayed, and crashed to a stop on "he reminded me of you".
Dean had slept with a guy who reminded him of Sam. He'd said it out loud. He fucked a guy who reminded him of….Sam fell asleep, repeating that over and over and wondering. Stupid thoughts, maybe, but he slept sounder that night than any night in a long, long, time.
on to the next part
Author: roxy
Pairings/Characters:
Rating: PG-ish
Word Count: evolving
Spoilers: very vague spoilery reference for the end of season 5
Summary: What happens when you survive a thing you never expected to
Things went pretty quiet when the end was averted. Shit still went wrong, but it was normal shit, wrong in normal ways. Sam had to laugh at that. Normal….
They stayed in Maryland for a few days, waiting…but Sam had slammed that pit shut pretty tight, and Dean had hit Ruby so hard with that knife her head almost came off and Castiel lit up like a bonfire and that was the last they'd seen of him. They waited for calls—from Bobby, or Chuck or Cas, but when a week went by and no one called they packed up, and they moved on.
Sam managed to convince Dean--through dint of screaming and punching and there may have been a swirly involved, but God, he was just so fucking tired of it all—to take some time off. It wasn't the end of the world after all. Not anymore. Dean tried the people are dying without our help thing and Sam pointed out that while they were saving one person on this side of the state on the other side some poor shmuck would always be losing his liver, his heart…Sam knew damn well that was a harsh thing to say and it made Dean look at him with white showing all around his eyes but you know, Sam just couldn't be bothered to care, not totally, not at that moment. He wanted to lay down, go to sleep and wake up some other year. It'd be a nice year too, one in which Dean and he had a great house, and a great life and maybe, maybe they still shared a house, probably just temporarily, but still. Because that's what they did, they shared things.
Later, they'd save people. Right now, they needed to save each other.
They drove a long, long time, changing off, one sleeping while the other ate and drove, until they were somewhere warm, some place with sun all the time and no dark corners. The town they fetched up against was small, and the people were unnaturally friendly. At least, that's what Dean kept saying under his breath, eyes narrowed and fixed on anything that crossed in front of his laser-like glare. Sam just laughed it off. There was nothing to be afraid of here. He'd feel if it was. Because sure, he'd told Dean that he'd used all of his mojo to shut down Lucifer, but he'd lied. Better for Dean. Peace of mind. Less underpants in his crack face. So anyway, pretty much a dead spot, supernatural-wise. No demons. No angels. No echoes from the spirit world—no dangerous ones, anyway. Safe.
Dean stared out on the little main street and shoved a dripping burger into his mouth. Sam gnawed his way through a turkey club and thought, this is it. We can stay put here, for a little bit, at least. Dean turned his face from the window and aimed a small but warm smile at Sam, and tripped a circuit breaker in Sam's brain. The sun lit Dean's eyes, turned them coke-bottle green, clear and cool and wide enough to swim in, and his pupils were blacker than coal, blacker then the hint of that black Sam'd seen around the edges of Lucifer's light. Deep, and black, and eternal. And then Dean blinked, smiled wider, gargled his coke and broke the spell.
Sam settled back in his chair with a grateful sigh. Sometimes…he got caught up in that *thing* that Dean broadcast indiscriminately. He wiped the back of his wrist across his mouth and swiped mayo onto his chin. Dean smiled the little smile again and reached over and wiped it off. "Slob," he said, so fondly that Sam froze in panic. His throat worked, until finally a weak "Jerk," popped out.
Dean snorted and pushed the bill towards him.
They argued a bit about stopping there. Dean wanted a cabin in the woods, far from everyone and everything. Sam wanted a place that they wouldn't have to plan a trip just to pick up toilet paper. Both of them laid out the pros and cons of their individual plans. Sam explained, with his knee in Dean's kidney and wiping away blood from under his nose, just how much better living in town would be then squatting in some shack in the asshole of nowhere playing Grizzly Adams, and Dean had to agree. Sam was gracious in victory, and filled the car's tank, ignoring Dean mumbling about mutant freak bitches…after all, he'd won.
They camped out in a motel on the edge of the town and perused the papers, looking for some place to drop their bags and take a breath.
"Hey."
Sam looked up from separating their dirty clothes from their dirtier clothes. "What?"
"Listen to this," Dean said and shook the newspaper smooth and Sam sighed. Nothing ever good happened after listen to this. "Police are still looking for information on a missing elderly man. Last seen at the Hampton Arms. The Hampton Arms have previously been the center of investigations concerning similar disappearances, though no investigations have resulted in charges."
"So?" Sam unfolded a t-shirt that practically crackled, glued together in the center with…not blood. And not his t-shirt, what the hell was it doing in his bag? Sam's face screwed up in disgust. His brother was an animal.
The animal huffed like it had a right to be annoyed. "Similar disappearances? No one's been charged?"
"It's probably a crack hotel. People disappear all the time," Sam said and let Dean's look of perplexed horror slide right off him. "Dean. Let it *go*."
"I'm just going to take a look, is all. C'mon, you're not bored?"
"We haven't been in town for more than a couple of hours—how can you be bored?"
"Talent."
Sam refused to look. Scrubbed his palms against his thighs and felt the heat of a goofy grin bounce off his neck. "Let. It. Go."
Brilliant advice, that. What happened was, he let Dean go, and stayed behind to think. Not pout. It wasn't true that he needed to get his way all the time. If that was the case, Dean would be there, on the bed, watching TV and teasing Sam and sitting close. And not jerking away when Sam tilted a little and accidentally dropped his head onto Dean's shoulder. Whatever.
"So…a ghost?"
"A ghost! Classic—cold spots, moaning, shit moving, yeah. So anyway, the dude owns the building was all coy at first but finally gives it up and begs for help. Some psycho used the place as his hunting grounds fifteen, twenty years ago until he was tracked there and shot dead by the cops. Thing is, it wasn't the guy causing trouble. This ghost was a chick."
Sam watched Dean's face as he talked, lit up like a candle. Thought, this is what Dean's made for—not dealing with those winged dicks, fighting off the end of the world shit—it was this. Salt and burns, putting dead things to rest—helping people, looking into their eyes and giving them hope. The one on one. He felt kind of guilty not letting Dean have that but he'd get over this guilt just like he'd get over the mountainous pile of guilt already teetering in his brain. Fuck it. He'd learn to make pie and Dean would be happy.
"Hey! Are you listening to me?"
Sam rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes, you big ghost hunter, yaddah yaddah."
"Bitch. Perfect object lesson, Sammy. never go off with a stranger, ever." Like he thought Sam was still ten and could be lured away with bright shiny objects—
Sam blushed, refused to follow that train of thought to its inevitable, sticky train wreck conclusion and of course Dean kept right on yapping like he didn't notice..."Not even if they promise you a real nice room and a good meal 'cause that never ends well. Also, why kill someone and keep trophies? What's up with that?"
"Hunh?"
"Under the floorboards. Found like, a bracelet of hair. Gross. So, psycho whacks some chick and braids her hair into a bracelet and the poor dead chick turns all vengeful spirit and anyone in the apartment goes missing. Sad shit, man—quick fix though."
Sam leaned against the table, mouth open and eyes wide. "How in the hell…that was good work," he says at last.
"Fucking don't sound so surprised," Dean snapped. "What'd you think I was doing while you were sleeping the day away at Stanford? So anyway, the ghost is gone—oh, and we have an apartment."
"Hunh?"
Dean rolled his eyes this time. "Apartment—place to stay? Rootlets, like you've been nagging the ever-loving shit out of me for?" He rooted around in the tiny fridge and pulled out a bottle of water with a grimace.
"Really? All ready?" But…Dean didn't really ever do anything Sam wanted. He pretended to but not really. This was just…weird. "Really?"
"Yes, really. Turns out the dude owns the building was looking for a super, too." Dean grinned. "Free rent and money for nothing and a great place that I personally know is ghost-free."
Ew."Dean…super means repairs, tending to tenants. Listening to people."
"Yeah well, that shit I can do. Who do you think made some of those squats we were in livable? Dad?" Dean snorted and Sam winced. It was still taking him some time to get used to the Dean of 'Dad Was a Just Barely Decent Sort of Human Being But a Shit Father' instead of Dad G. Winchester—G. Stands for God And Don't You Forget It.
"Anyway, that shit I can do easy, plus terrorize people into paying rent? No prob. And some of those tenants—hot, omg. I won't even have to leave the building."
"Jesus, Dean. Did you just really say OMG? Stop reading those fuckin' stories dude."
"Fuck you too, *dude*. Come on. We gotta get packed. Damien's gonna open the apartment for us."
"The owner's name is Damien…what's this place called again? The Bramford?"
"Wha?"
"The Bramford—Rosemary's Baby—you quote every fucking movie in the world and you don’t know Rosemary's—you know what? Let's just pack, okay?"
Dean stared at Sam, that Look. He heard him mutter 'freak', and it made Sam smile. Dean was coming back to him. Slowly but surely. Apartment…he grinned wide. Coming back and bringing him presents. And not second hand Barbies either.
Sam circled the apartment's living room, feeling a little—a lot—out of his element. This was wrong, all wrong. It wasn't supposed to go like this. Dean wasn't supposed to be grinning at him, standing in a pool of sunlight with his arms spread like he'd done something especially neato-keen. This was all so fucking wrong and Dean was an asshole. So why did he feel like crying?
"Cool right? Rent free, mother-fucker. Tell me killing evil shit isn't a profitable skill. Gratitude, dude. That's what gets you the extra cookie. Now you can." Dean stopped, dropped his arms and the attitude and said, kind of soft, "now you cam relax and think, plan your future, right?"
Sam nodded, still adrift on a sea of what the hell. "It's nice. Um. Nice."
"Right? So I've got some paper work to fill out, and some fake ID to flash, and I'll be back." He tossed Sam the keys. "Unload the car, bitch."
"Fuck you," Sam murmured but Dean was already out the door. Sam looked around again at the sunny living room, down the hall to the bathroom and two tiny bedrooms, wheeled to look at the dining room and kitchen. Okay, he'd been expecting a sunless box in the basement. Didn't all supers live in the basement? He'd been expecting the smell of mold and dryer lint but--he sniffed--it smelled like apple pie. Because there was pie on the counter…Dean bought pie for an apartment warming gift. Sam stared for a long moment before the whole scene wavered like melted wax. "Ah," he said, "I get it. I'm dead. Or dying and this is what's left of my brain cells firing off before it's all over…."
He sat on the floor, and crossed his arms over his knees and waited for the show to stop. The fact that he was alone, no Dean in sight, was just the final proof. Whatever he'd thought he'd done in Maryland, it hadn't been winning.
The sun was out of the living room window, and he was still in the damn apartment and starting to get a back ache from sitting on the floor when the door flew open and his bags flew into the room.
"Do I have to do every fucking thing, you fucked up yeti, you—*Sam*?"
Sam turned red eyes up to Dean and said, "You came back."
"Duh—was only in the lobby, what the hell is wrong with you?"
"Am I dead?"
Dean did a double take, said, "No, but I'm thinking maybe brain damaged." A range of expressions flashed over his face, annoyed changed to concerned, changed to fond. "It's really happening, Sammy. We're really okay—promise. We're alive. And I'm pretty fucking hungry so…."
It took Sam half a burger and a strawberry shake he didn't even like before he was willing to concede that yeah, he was alive and his pain in the ass brother had somehow, in some amazing way, really, truly, gotten them a real place to live. Sam grinned at Dean and Dean smiled back, soft, sweet, and kicked Sam in the shins so hard his chair rocked back. "Girl," he said, but Sam could hear what he really meant.
"Fuck you," Sam said, and figured Dean knew it meant, 'I'm glad you're my brother, too'….
Sam leaned back in the shadows of the room and watched the outdoors through the slats of the Venetian blind. Watched Dean wrestle a lawnmower out of the shed at the end of the building's parking lot. The mower looked antique, but Sam was sure Dean would be able to get it to do whatever he wanted it to; his brother was good like that.
Dean tensed over the mower, and Sam could see from the curve of Dean's back and the set of his shoulders he was checking the thing out--right now, Sam could tell, his brother was running through a mental checklist and just by eyeballing it, knew what it needed.
Dean shook his head and from Sam's third floor perch, he imagined he could hear Dean's exasperated sigh. Sam smiled. Hell, he was prepared for outrageous amusement—Dean mowing a lawn? The very idea made him snicker to himself. They'd never stayed anywhere that they'd needed to mow a lawn; at least Sam didn’t remember either of them ever doing something like that. He dashed into the kitchen and grabbed a soda, and raced back to his hiding place at the window. There wasn't anything weird about peeking out of a window and secretly watching your brother do yard work. Nothing wrong about it at all. Sam took a guilty sip of his coke and wondered if it was hot enough outside to wear shorts or maybe take your shirt off or sweat some. His fingers flinched, the brief tremor making them unsteady so he put his soda down and closed his eyes. Took a steadying breath. God....
When he opened them again, Dean was leaning over the mower, yanking on a string of some kind, trying to get the thing started. It gasped and coughed before it caught and then Dean started pushing it along the narrow strip of lawn that flanked the parking lot. He got as far as the bushes that defined the end of the lawn before suddenly dashing towards them. Sam wondered what he'd seen to make him run like that, cat, dog—something bad? Dean slammed to a sudden stop, and Sam understood, in an unpleasant rush, what his brother was doing, was throwing up in the bushes.
What the fuck… Dean swayed to a stop, his head hanging down, one hand swiping across his mouth and the other gripping his knee. It looked like he was shaking. Sam leaped up, ready to run down the stairs but Dean stood, squared his shoulders and pushed the mower onward….
Sam pushed away from the window. It wasn't fun anymore to watch. What was wrong, what made Dean do that? He couldn't figure it out, and stuff he couldn't unravel worried Sam. Was it this weird ass domesticity? Maybe it was being here.
Sam went back to his room.
"Sam—your sugar daddy's back!"
"Yeah, fuck you. Took you long enough—you've been mowing forever." Sam turned and raked his eyes over Dean. He looked okay, sweaty and a little red, but that was to be expected. Trading a fairly nocturnal lifestyle for all this sun and stuff, maybe he was having to adjust or something…"What do you want to eat? I made BLTs but if you're not feeling well…."
"What? I feel fine. BLTs sound great." Dean dropped the tool belt he'd taken to wearing on the couch, and kicked his boots off. He walked into the kitchen, shoved Sam away from the fridge. "Thirsty."
Shoving him back somehow ended up with Dean leaning against Sam. Just for a quick minute, sure, but it was real, and Dean grinned at him before wandering back to the table, chugging ice tea straight from the carton. Sam felt the warm press of Dean's body even after Dean swaggered away and threw himself into one of the chairs and propped his sweaty, grimy, elbows on Sam's clean table. Which observation Sam thankfully managed to keep to himself—he'd already given Dean mocking material to last a lifetime. Couple lifetimes. Instead he addressed the other issue that was making him feel like kicking the crap out of his brother.
"Gug, you disgusting slob. I was going to have some of that tea, you know."
"Oh please, like we haven't shared grosser fluids than spit—" Dean stopped and flushed. "You know what I mean."
Sam laughed, kind of high and breathy, the way he did when he was seriously amused and he hated that he did it, it sounded so girly. "You know what they say about Freudian slips, Dean."
"Yeah, they go great with your pretty pink dresses. Shut up and feed me bitch. So--'' he continued after Sam dropped a plate piled with sandwiches in front of him. "What are you going to do? Can't hang out in the apartment all day every day."
Sam frowned. "What, you getting tired of me hanging around already?"
Dean stopped eating and swept Sam with his eyes, tight and intense, seemed to relax after a second. "Well, no—but you gotta be bored. Put that giant brain of yours to use, right?"
"Why can't I help you?" Sam fumed when Dean had the nerve to laugh like he'd told the funniest joke ever.
"Because for one thing, you don’t know shit about this kind of stuff and also, you'd fucking blow yourself up trying to change a light bulb."
Sam might have been a little more insulted if it wasn't kind of true. But fuck, anyone could break a light bulb off in a lamp socket. And electrocute themselves a little bit trying to take it out…and the wiring in the dumps they lived in was so crappy that hey, it was no surprise he'd knocked out electric to the room…house…whatever. Like it never happened to anyone else. To his brother he said, "Fuck you."
Dean just grinned. And winked.
Later, they washed the dishes, elbows rubbing and bumping in the narrow space. They collided and rebounded like bumper cars, Dean singing softly, casually, in his surprisingly pleasant voice. It reminded Sam of when they were kids and sometimes Dean would sing to him, like really sing, not yell all screechy and warbley the way he did now, mostly in the car, to get on Sam's nerves. It was nice, and Sam smiled a lot, even while he dodged the water Dean thought was so fucking funny to flick at him. He felt good and even better when he managed to hit Dean square in the face with the sopping dishcloth.
For a guy who only spoke English and a smattering of Spanish, it was amazing how many curse words in other languages he knew…Sam was always learning something new about his brother.
After, they sat in the living room and talked about the television they'd buy soon as they could afford it, until it was time to go to bed. Dean slapped his shoulder before going off to his bedroom and closing the door on Sam. Sam listened at the doorway to the bump and rustle of Dean getting ready for bed until he started to feel a little queasy and lot like some kind of creep, before going off to his own bed.
Sam thought about what Dean had said. He spent days thinking about it. He was right, it was weak to be sitting around and letting Dean take care of him—again. Even though Dean didn't really seem to mind. He'd said what he said out of concern, Sam could tell that. It was time to do something, to find a life like Dean had, however temporary.
The town had a tiny library with few current books but a surprising amount of excellent information about schools. Then again, maybe not so surprising—he figured most of the kids in the area must be as eager as he'd been once upon a time to get the fuck out.
On the heels of that thought came a wave of grief-guilt-sadness-frustration. Easy to ride out, it was something he'd become used to. These days, he wasn't even sure what it meant—the loss of his lover, or the hope of a picture perfect life or maybe the desire for such a thing in the first place. Maybe it came from knowing that none of that had had any chance of being his. Or that he'd almost lost his brother without even thinking about it. His whole life was knotted, snarled, so entwined and turned in on itself he couldn't tease out the beginning from the end.
He raised his head and stared at the water marked ceiling, blinked back the hot weight in his eyes. It hurt, what he'd lost, and sometimes it felt like there was nothing in his life worth living for. Except for Dean. All he had left was a brother who was kind of high maintenance for a guy. Moody, bitchy as all hell, for all he complained what a bitch Sam was, no one could throw a bitch fit like Dean when he was pissed off….
Sam stared the length of the dark wood table. Drummed his fingers against the polished wood, pressed the callused pads into grooves cut by generations of disrespectful hooligans—scores of baby Deans. He'd lost those calluses at Stanford. How quickly they'd come back…and it hit him, all at once. A lot like getting punched in the gut.
Dean was getting ready to *leave* him. As soon as he was sure that Sam could take care of himself, he was going to leave.
Sam closed his eyes and waited for the sickening wave of fury to leach out of him.
Dean was an idiot. He wasn't ever going to separate little from brother. Dean was going to try and keep doing Sam's thinking for him, keep jumping in front of the gun for him. His brother was a monumental asshole, and Sam was going to kick his fucking ass from one end of town to the other. What would it take to make Dean understand, it was done? There was no place he could be now except wherever Dean was. He didn't have anything to give to anyone else. He was a shell, filled with horror and guilt and shame. It didn't exactly make for a tempting package, not even for someone desperate enough to settle for a fixer-upper. Didn't have anything left to fix. And Dean. The stubborn sonofabitch refused to see that Sam had nothing to offer anyone.
Sam shook himself and glanced at his watch. Twelve. Dean would be coming in for lunch soon; he'd probably want more than peanut butter sandwiches. Demanding jerk. Maybe it'd be better to stop and pick up something on the way home, one of those precooked chickens he liked. The ones made mostly of salt and enough grease to gag a—a—whatever liked grease as much as Dean did.
If such a thing existed.
On the way home, he passed a bookstore, an antique shop, a café, a bar, a bakery, a daycare center….
"I'm going to finish my degree."
Dean stopped chewing. Swallowed. "Hunh. All right then. Let me know when and where you want me to drop you. Shouldn't take long to wrap stuff up here—"
What Dean said sent Sam into babbling mode. "Jesus. I *meant* I'd go to school here. Online. It's possible--unless you'd rather go somewhere else. I go somewhere else. I just thought you were comfortable. I mean with me being here."
Dean leaned back in his chair, a look on his face Sam couldn't read. "Some day, you're going to have to go out on your own, right? It's, whada'ya call it, inevitable."
Sam stared at his brother, counted to ten, said 'fuck it' and threw a spoon at his head. "Fucking say it, *Dean*. Just tell me you don’t want me around." Which was stupid really, because of course Dean wanted him around, he was sure of it. More or less.
His brother stood and glared, and said, "You're such a pain in the ass, *Sam*." He buckled his tool belt around his hips, glared at Sam again before flipping him off and storming to the door.
Sam yelled, "You just wear that stupid belt because you think it makes you look hot—well, it doesn't!"
The apartment door slammed shut, hard enough to shake the thrift shop prints Sam had hung on the walls. Sam stared after, two things on his mind—how hot his brother looked with that tool belt hugging his hips and how much he wished Dean cared the same way back.
He felt so sad, and it was just ridiculous to feel sad. All that mattered was that Dean wasn't happy here—or rather, Dean was even unhappier than Sam had guessed. Dean didn’t deserve being unhappy, not after everything he'd given. This—this whole thing wasn't worth it if Dean was that fucking miserable.
Sam said to the empty room. "I should leave. I am going to leave." He grabbed his backpack and walked out the door, down the steps, out the front doors and right past Dean.
Den watched him—Sam knew he was watching, he felt it. When he stepped off the curb to cross the street he heard, "Bring some ice-cream back."
Sam thought, you're going to be waiting a god damn long time for ice-cream, you asshole. He wiped dust out of his eyes and trudged down the street, the bag hanging like a dead weight on his shoulder.
That night, they split a pint of Phish Food and Sam had a job at the food market a few blocks over. Dean kept smiling at him and Sam kept blushing and wishing he'd stop.
"Did you have a nice walk—"
"You know what, shut the fuck up, eat your ice-cream, I don't want to hear it."
It pissed Sam off how Dean managed to smile even louder.
Somehow, Sam thought everything was going to fit better after that, that Dean would see that he needed Sam around…that Dean would finally see the Sam he was now.
Nope.
Sam was dragging himself up the stairs, tired, smelling of stale air and damaged produce. All he was capable of thinking about clearly was getting home, getting clean and maybe talking Dean into going out later for some Chinese and a few beers. He hit the second floor landing the very same minute that Dean was letting himself out of some woman's apartment. He was flushed a satisfied pink, and smirked over his shoulder in a theatrically leering way. She was propped up in the doorway, looking like a Guild of Seamstresses reject. she giggled when Dean winked at her.
Sam kind of wanted to rip her head off and poke Dean's eye out. Dean turned around and startled when he saw Sam. "What are you doing here?" he snapped—practically accused. Blonde hussy was no fool; she slipped back in her apartment quick as a wink.
Sam snarled, "Coming home from work and what are you doing, trying to lose your job?"
"Who's gonna know besides me and her--and now you?" Dean scowled and in general carried on way beyond what the situation called for. If anyone had a right to pout and scowl, Sam felt it was all his. Well, sort of. Okay maybe he didn’t have a right to be…fuck. Jealous, damn it. But he was, and his heart hurt too. It'd been so long that Dean had flirted or gave any of the usual signs he'd 'got lucky' that Sam had started to think…stupid thoughts. Stupid thoughts. So he sucked it up, and smiled at Dean and winked. "Eh, you're right. Go get 'er, tiger."
"'Go get 'er, tiger'? What are you, someone's inappropriate creepy grandpa? Beat it, I got work to do."
"Think you can keep it in your pants next job?" Which was totally not what Sam had planned to say, he'd meant to come out with something witty and risqué and boys talking shit together but that had come out kind of thirteen year old girl-ish.
Dean looked at him like he was crazy. "Yeah, think I can since it's old Mr. K on six…."
Sam shoved down all his stupidity, managed a smirk and said, "I don't know, he's got a great smile and killer calves…."
Dean laughed and Sam laughed too, and everything was back to their slidey version of normal again. Which didn't last long. Sam had to acknowledge he was the genius of fucking things up.
Yeah, fucking things up, making epic fucked up choices, that was something he was really good at.
"So, I got us invited to bar tonight."
"Yeah?" Dean's attention was mostly on the baseball game playing out on their new TV. It looked good sat on their new fake cherry wood TV stand. Dean's feet looked comfortable planted solidly on their new rug.
"Some people are getting together after work tonight and I thought you might like to come. Booze and loose women—well, some of the girls I work with seem like they might like hanging out with ugly old guys like yourself."
"Shut up. Your friends know you're pimping 'em out?" Dean asked, but when Sam turned from tossing discounted groceries into the cabinets Dean looked milder than his tone had been. He looked to be still absorbed in the game. Sam shook his head. Sometimes his brain played weird tricks on him, like when it told him Dean was watching and when he looked Dean wouldn't even be in the room.
"They're not exactly my friends, and I'm not pimping anyone. I'm just asking if you want to come with me."
"You don't have to bribe me, kid. I'd come hold your hand without you waving wenches at me." Now Dean really was looking at him, and his smile was genuine.
"You’re so…" Sam wanted to say 'disgusting and sexist in a medieval way', but it was hard to when his lips were stuck on a grin. Hold his hand. It was an image Sam's heart seemed to like a lot. But then, his heart always was stupid as fuck.
It was fun. He was having a good time, and nothing could have surprised Sam more, he was shocked, even. The people turned out to be a lot more interesting than he'd imagined people forced to care about whether all the cans on a shelf were facing with the labels out would be. There were a few who were in the same boat as he was—not temporarily ex-hunters, but possessing degrees that at the moment, weren't doing shit for them.
Life. It had everybody by the shorts.
And Dean. His brother was getting on with everyone. Seemed that he'd turned the charm-o-meter to high and was doing that thing that reeled in defenseless, unsuspecting victims, that thing that made Sam stumble around sleepless in the middle of the night, wishing he was drunk, or living far away in another country. He consoled himself with the thought that none of these people would ever get to know who Dean really was, not like he knew. He turned on his stool in time to catch Dean walking out the door with the chick who worked pharmacy.
Then again, some people would get to know Dean in ways he was never going to. Unless there really was such a thing as sex pollen, or some crazy witch would actually curse them to have....
Sam thought maybe the best thing to do here was to get seriously, fucking, pass-out drunk. It was a good plan but a few minutes into it, one of the guys from the loading dock asked him if he wanted to smoke in his car and Sam said yes and one thing led to another and he found himself being kind of manhandled all over the inside of a Civic. There really wasn't enough room for what the guy was trying to do but Sam admired his enthusiasm. Sam decided he was too drunk to continue when everything the guy did made him break out in giggles.
The guy stopped, huffed a patient breath into the pot-scented air. "So. This isn’t going to happen, is it?" he asked.
"Um…no-oo…are you pissed off?"
"Nah," the guy shrugged—grinned in a friendly way that reminded Sam a little of his brother. That grin tugged at his heart. "Maybe some other time?" the guy asked. "And some other place?"
He laughed some and patted Sam's arm. Sam felt a deep wave of alcohol-and-cannabis fueled affection sweep him. The guy, Jamar, Jamie, Jake, whatever, the guy was a real nice person, a sweetheart; he'd love to try again, partly because Jerry, Jalil, was so nice. Mostly because Sam didn’t think he had a lot of other options and he so wasn't planning on living his life like a monk. But not a slut either, not like some other people he could name. The look on Jarek's, Jabbar's--the guy's face--a kind of befuddled curiosity, made Sam realize he'd been talking out loud. Okay. Sam was about to say that he thought it was a good idea to try some other time if Jacob was still interested when the car door opened and Sam fell out onto the gravel.
"What the fuck is going on here!" Dean yelled, and reached around to the back of his waist and Sam shouted, "No Dean!" before remembering they didn’t really go strapped anymore. He jumped up to grab Dean's arm and everything slid sideways.
"Whoa—who's moving things?" he muttered and Dean cursed, caught Sam in both arms. He glared at poor Civic guy and Sam figured he'd remember his real name at some point. Jason, pretty sure that was it…meanwhile, Dean was warm and solid and just so…there. He sighed and melted against him. Warm. Nice.
"The only reason I'm not kicking your ass right now is my hands are full of idiot," Dean snarled and the guy just nodded like Sam was a blushing virgin and not a twenty-eight year old man who was responsible for himself and hadn't he told Dean he was bi at some point? Sam stood scrunching his face at the sky, trying to remember that conversation, when Dean pushed him upright and let go of him. He kept a steadying hand on Sam's arm. Sam whimpered at the loss of warmth.
"Come on, you drunk ass yeti, let's get you home. Jesus. How drunk *are* you? I mean--a guy? Sam, what's going on here?"
Sam said, I'm bi, and you're a homophobe but it came out, "Nur, gun thrup."—and Dean did an amazing kind of side-step, arm-twist thing that had Sam twirling and bending and vomiting away from them instead of all over their shoes. He had a brief second to admire Dean's grace before harking all over the edge of the gravel drive. Shit, he'd only had a few beers and some shots and smoked a little, it'd been a while but not that long—"arrrgh. Bunh-bunh—"
"God, stop trying to talk and get it done. You're not getting in my car 'til you're all barfed out."
"Dean…" tears of strain ran down Sam's face. Strain, nothing else. He slid his hands over Dean's chest, looking for some shirt to hang onto, and dropped his head on Dean's shoulder because he was so tired. He waited for a smack or for Dean to push him away but Dean kind of…un-tensed, shoved his fingers under the hair at back of Sam's neck and rubbed his knuckles at the base of his skull, the way he hadn't done since Sam was thirteen or so. It felt so good he wanted to cry.
"You poor idiot. What're you trying to do? Hunh? Is it that bad, Sammy?" he whispered.
Sam nodded. Yes. Feeling this way was that bad. Being tortured daily was that bad. It was.
Dean made soothing noises and let Sam hang off of him a wonderful long time. Of course, it had to end, and finally Dean pushed him off and shoveled him into the car.
"You're lucky, no one saw you act like a girl. Don’t worry about Handsy McDeadGuy; he's not gonna say a word." Dean scowled. "But next time, no drinking without me."
Fucking brilliant advice. Dean should have given it at the start of the evening—or not left Sam alone while he went off with some hobag. "Oh crap," he muttered to himself. He didn't mean that, she was a nice enough girl, it was just—the car rocked and bumped over the gravel parking lot and Sam clapped a hand over his mouth.
"Hey! You okay, Sam?" Dean was balling up a napkin—tossed it out the window. He caught Sam's eyes on him and shrugged. "Nothing important," he said, "relax, we'll be home soon."
Fuck…home. What was a home?
Dean was coming up the stairs that led to the basement and the washer and dryers. He was pushing two red-faced boys in front of him, his face contorted into a vicious scowl. "I don't give a fu—crap—you do not shove your brother into a dryer and turn it on. You coulda hurt him. Killed him. And then I'd have to clean corpse stench out of the dryer. Go home before I kick your asses." The boys bolted for the building entrance. "You tell your mom I'm coming to talk to her."
Sam shuffled the grocery bags in his arms and watched the little drama unfold. He'd seen right away the scowl was a mask for laughter and sure enough, as soon as Dean caught sight of Sam, he broke out into a huge, eye wrinkling grin. He waited to let Sam catch up with him and they walked into the dim light and cool granite smell of the lobby together.
"Little bastards," Dean laughed. "Older one had the little kid shoved in a dryer and was looking for quarters. Lucky I got there before he found any." Dean shook his head like a fond uncle. Memories, no doubt, of nearly murdering his own younger brother. Younger Brother made an enormous effort not to step on his older brother's instep.
"Yeah, 'cause brothers should never do anything like that, hunh?"
The sarcasm was totally lost on Dean. "Hey, no one told you you had to put that vacuum hose to your face. Good thing you didn't try to attach it to your—"
"Dean!"
Dean laughed. "What are you up to tonight, wanna go out? I need to get out. I spent all day snaking toilets and changing bulbs—how freaking hard is it to get on a stool and change a bulb?"
"If you're four foot tall and eighty years old like Mrs. Gardiner, real hard." Sam snorted. "You're kind of crabby lately. Maybe you need to get laid," Sam said, just like he was anyone else's brother, like he was a normal guy, who didn't live a whole dirty secret life in the privacy of his head.
"Laid…speaking of, you ever talk to Handsy again?"
"Yes, of course, I see Jerome almost every day," he said carefully, and shoved a grocery bag in Dean's arms. "Salad and bread's in that one, be careful. Not like you mean though. He's a nice enough guy, bad habits aside." Dean snorted, but Sam ignored him. "Candy asked me out with a few people tonight. She's cute."
Dean unlocked the door and set his bag on the kitchen counter, Sam plopped his bag next to it.
"She? You've gone back to girls? I thought—"
"Bi, dude. That's what it means. She's nice; she's just a nice person to talk to. She listens just as well as she speaks. Kind of rare that," he said as pointedly as he could.
Dean was quiet as he helped put the groceries away. Fidgeted a bit before turning to Sam. "You know it doesn’t matter to me, right? You're my brother, nothing could change that."
Sam leaned against the counter and smiled through an embarrassing wave of awww and love. "I know that dude; you proved it over and over, okay? And. Thanks. For *everything*."
Dean shrugged and waved it off. "Whatever, bitch." He started to walk away, and then came back. "Say, Sam?"
Sam looked up, and froze. Dean was red-faced, his eyes darting everywhere but where Sam was. Sam's heart tripped a beat. Dean was about to say something that wasn't going to make him happy, much. "…yeah?"
"I." Dean stopped, bit his lip, tried again. "Listen. I." He blew out a sharp breath and blurted, "I hadsexwithaguy. Once. So, I get it, sort of."
Sam dropped the bag of oranges he'd been holding, oranges bounced and rolled all over the kitchen, under the table, over their feet. "Hunh? You did what now?"
"It was while you were at college," Dean said, like that explained it all.
"Dean," Sam said mildly, giving no indication that part of his brain had skipped the tracks and was dealing with unreasonable jealousy, anger, hurt, and curiosity. "Dean…that stuff about experimenting in college? Doesn't extend to siblings *not* in college."
"I just wanted you to know that, you know. It's okay to talk to me. All right?"
"All right. Thanks. Um. So, top or bottom?"
"What? *What*? Fuck you, I'm trying to—to—talk to you, and you're making fun of me?"
"No, dude, wait, Dean, come back—*shit*." Any other time Dean would be glad—it was what Dean did all the time, deflect a moment by joking. Wasn't like he really wanted to know.
A sharp, electric jolt shot through him, he almost gasped aloud. The picture of his brother with his dick down someone's throat made his head swim…his hands planted on some anonymous ass, plunging in and out. Sam blinked rapidly, dropped to his knees to pick up the oranges. He was still on his knees when Dean sauntered in as causally as if he hadn't just dropped a bomb that wiped out the last of Sam's fragile control over the worst of his imagination.
"Going out for a minute, I'll be back before it's time to go. Don’t cook."
Sam looked up at him, his gaze glancing from Dean's boots to his knees to his belt buckle, before settling on his chin. "Oh-okay," he said. He was still on his knees for a little bit after Dean left, his dick pulsing uncomfortably in his pants. "Oh fuuuuck," he groaned. Life was…full of bad suck.
Dean came in a few hours later, a little smile on his lips. His eyes were that cloudy, grey-green they got when he was drunk, and Sam kind of hated that…Dean getting drunk felt like he was hiding from him. Sam stared hard at the TV—he'd been watching some giant machines, mostly because he was a little drunk too, and couldn’t be bothered to pick up the remote from where he'd dropped it. Dean dropped down on the end of the couch and let out a huge gusty sigh.
"So, how was the date?" he asked. "Did you score?"
Sam closed his eyes and sighed. Okay, they were going to play it this way. "She's a nice girl. We had drinks. We might get together again. I'll probably go out with Jerome, too, if he wants." Sam shrugged. Dean just kept staring at him, kind of bleary around the edges, with an edge of judging. "What?"
"Nothing. Just…when did you get to be such a social butterfly."
"So, I take a page out of your book and I'm some kind of man-whore all of a sudden?"
"Well, isn't that what you think of me?"
"Dean—" No. Sometimes. Not a whore, just, too friendly. By far, damn it. Fucker. A guy. And he never told him, fuck Dean never told him anything. "I wanna know about that guy. And why you don’t now. You don't right?" Sam said past a stupid flare of jealousy.
"God, Sam did you learn how to kill a buzz dead at Stanford? Bet you were popular," he muttered. "No…it was just that once, like I said."
Sam got up off the couh. "Yeah, okay. Imma get another beer, you wan' one?"
Dean nodded. "Yeah, if I gotta talk about this shit, I need to be drunker than this." Sam jerked open the fridge door, he yanked a couple of bottles out. He had the bottles open dn was coming around the edge of the couch when Dean looked up at himand Sam froize. His eyes….
Dean started talking, eyes sliding off Sam and fixing on the TV. "You know what freaked me out after? I liked it. I liked it so much that. That I was afraid I'd never, you know, stop wanting it. I just figured it was easier not to, you know, with Dad and all. So." He shrugged. "Met him at a bar. He was tall, and had this crazy hair all in his face and shit. Did I tell you he was a hunter? I asked him how he saw with all that stupid hair and he pulled out this crazy headband and. He grinned, right to his back teeth and he reminded me of you and." Dean took a long swallow of his beer and Sam faked that he did too. "So, I was missing you, god, Sammy like you wouldn't believe and this guy just kept talking and making me laugh and drink, and the next thing I knew I was in his truck, and he was bent over me and touching me places no one ever had before and it felt—amazing. He made me come—" Dean stopped and coughed, wiped his mouth and set his bottle down firmly on the nightstand. "Anyway. It was the one time only."
"You ever see him again?" Sam asked, lifted his bottle and swallowed for real this time—he didn’t want to know Dean had kept in touch with the guy, maybe still talked to him. Hunters were a small, inbred community. It was reasonable to think that they kept in contact, even guys….
"No. he's dead," Dean said, in a way that let Sam know that conversation was over. He managed to swallow down the "I'm sorry," that kind of automatically formed in his mouth. There was no way he could pretend to be sincere, that he cared about this faceless stranger who reminded his brother of him. Who his brother had had sex with.
Dean jerked to his feet and slammed the empty bottle down on the coffee table. "I'm beat Sam. Hit the lights?"
Sam grunted agreement and switched off the TV, headed for the lamps. He gathered up the bottles, and set them in the sink, he brought the laundry hamper out of the bathroom and left it by the apartment door. Swept the kitchen floor, wiped down the counters…he didn't go to bed until he heard the soft sound of his brother snoring—he always snored when he'd been drinking. Sam took himself off to bed too, and tried to clear his mind. He was about to drift off when the whole evening suddenly replayed, and crashed to a stop on "he reminded me of you".
Dean had slept with a guy who reminded him of Sam. He'd said it out loud. He fucked a guy who reminded him of….Sam fell asleep, repeating that over and over and wondering. Stupid thoughts, maybe, but he slept sounder that night than any night in a long, long, time.
on to the next part
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