SpN fic post: Lodi part 5

[roxy]

book cover by taliosi_x



Title: Lodi
Fandom: SpN
Pairing: Sam/OMC
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1769
Summary: Sam finds out that love is never simple during a long hot summer in New Jersey



Lodi



On Dean's days off from the store, they walk the neighborhood, looking for bike frames. So far, they've found a pretty cool lamp, a coat tree, and a coffee table. They'd looked like assholes dragging that coffee table home but it really fits in the living room and gives them a place to prop their dinner plates on. Dean really gets into this trash trolling thing--he loves digging through other people's shit and Sam starts to understand that nothing much in the whole world embarrasses Dean. People see him going through their garbage and he just grins and waves. And he's so fucking pretty they kill themselves waving back.

Sam wonders if there's some kind of universal balance…if so, it's chock loads of unfair. Why the fuck is he stuck being the ugly balance to his too fucking hot brother? I've got personality he thinks. lots pf personality. And I'm smarter.

Sometimes, he feels like smacking the hell out of himself.


Summer gets warmer, and Sam gets lazier. Since school's out, it knocks out part of his schedule. He gets up in the morning and writes himself lists—to do lists for the day. He likes making them. Follow through was a little spotty. Didn't matter, it was the making of the lists that counted….

He takes the bus into town with Dean and Patrick, who is back at his mom's house again. They head off to work, and he heads to the library, eager to see if anything new has come in. He's studying the science fiction titles when he hears some kids talking, about a boy who's gone missing, and stores it in the part of his mind that keeps track of the lists. He finds an Asimov he's never read before, and tucks it under his arm. It's going to be a good day….

Later that afternoon, Patrick comes by and asks Sam if he wants to go with him, walking along the railroad track. Patrick assures him that trains haven't run on the tracks since he was a little kid, and it was perfectly safe to walk down them, "Look at all the grass and stuff growing over them," but Sam smiles at Pat pityingly. Pat just doesn't know—there's no part of the world that's safe.

He follows Patrick though, right down the center of the tracks. It's hot and sunny, and every step they take from tie to tie stirs up dirt in the gravel, crushes the drying grass under their feet. The air smells like dust and hay, iron. It's a good smell, kind of sweet. He likes the way the heat feels beating down on his back, like a hand on his shoulders and every couple of steps he closes his eyes, to see if his feet can find the way. If Patrick sees him, he doesn't say—he talks about other things. They walk the track in step, their feet hitting the ties, one two three one two three….

Patrick tries to sing, but he's got a horrible voice, and Sam begs him to please God shut up, which as far as Patrick's concerned means 'sing louder'.

They walk out, farther than usual. They're skirting the outside of the army base now, and Patrick tells him that behind a thick stand of trees is an old part of the base that no one ever goes to. In the middle of a thicket of brambles and vines and weed trees are tumble-down wooden huts—shotgun style buildings. Most of them have sunk to the ground, walls cracked and split, their roofs sway-backed and listing into the waist high weeds but there are a few still standing, almost intact. Through the glassless windows, they can see some are still fitted out with old furniture. They stand in a gaping door way and look at rusted old metal desks, piled high with rotting papers and cardboard boxes melting slowly away. It makes Sam feel cold, and kind of empty, and then he realizes…the places they leave, sometimes without warning…they must look like this to a stranger's eyes. Sad and lonely. He shivers, and Patrick glances at him.

"Weird, hunh? It looks like they just got up and walked away from it." Pat shivers, too. "It's like the people are still here, doing what they were when all this just…stopped. We just can't see them…"

Sam cuts his eyes at Patrick. "You mean like ghosts? Do you feel a chill?"

"Chill—are you kidding? It's freakin' ninety degrees out here, dude. Ghosts," Patrick laughs. "Sheesh."

"Hey, you're the one stressin' about invisible people—you're making fun of my ghosts?"

"Your ghosts?" He snorts. "Come on. Let's get back to the house before your brother comes hunting us."

They start the long walk back. The sun's higher now, and it dazzles his eyes when it hits pieces of broken bottles, cans, hiding in the overgrowth. Patrick was walking at a pretty good clip but he starts to slow a little, glancing at Sam on and off…finally, he stops. Clears his throat and says, "I have to tell you something but promise you won’t freak out and…well, promise you'll listen."

Sam feels a little weak in the knees, his stomach tightens. Oh, oh, this is going to--he tries not to smile, tries not to bounce like he wants to. For once in his life—for once, maybe he's going to get something--

"I hope you won’t hate me. But…I'm kind of…oh man, I like your brother. Like like. You know?"

Sam stares at Patrick, open-mouthed and hurting all over. Pierced right through the heart, a clean shot through and through. He's trying to swallow and breathe and *think* and Pat won't shut the fuck up.

"I'm sorry, he doesn't know, but I…he's amazing, you know—well you know, I'm—"

"Faggot," Sam says, and Patrick jerks, so Sam says it again, louder.

Patrick backs up. "I know you're just upset, you’re just scared, don’t be—

Sam calls him a faggot again and runs all the way back, he runs until he has to leave the tracks, ends up bent over in the bushes and dry-heaving. Praying he'll pass out because it hurts so bad.

When he makes it home, he holes up in the bathroom with Dean banging on the door and cursing at him to get out. Sobbing, he stands on his toes to see the giant fucking liar in the medicine cabinet mirror…he can't see his eyes in the mirror. He drops down off his toes and thinks, I'm taller. Almost as tall as Dean. Stares into his own eyes like he's looking at a stranger.

~~~~~~
He thinks about it, but it doesn't get better. Patrick was supposed to save him, help him get over Dean, not steal him away and that makes no fucking sense he knows, but still….

As for Patrick, he doesn't say anything but he looks at Sam with these wet, worried eyes, doesn't even have the decency to look pissed off at what Sam said. No, he just watches him like Sam's an unexploded bomb, probably can't sleep nights sweating, hoping and praying Sam won't tell Dean he's got the hots for him—

So of course, Sam *tells* Dean.

Not entirely on purpose. Kind of by accident.

Sam's hanging out with Dean, sitting on the porch. It's hot, sticky hot, and they're both shirtless, giving in to the demands of decency by wearing shorts and resenting having to. Just breathing and trying not to move because moving means sweating and sweating means sticky, itchy skin…sweat's rolling slowly down Dean's chest, curving around his nipples. So slow it's like Dean's teasing him on purpose and he has to fight to keep his tongue in his mouth. And suddenly it just bursts out. "Patrick's gay. For you." That was louder than he'd expected.

Dean jerks and turns toward Sam. "He what? For who?" Dean looks surprised; a little worried about Sam's sanity, but not much else.

Sam leans back against the steps, tilts his head towards Dean and what he's feeling now is…kind of let down, maybe even a little pissed off. He'd expected disgust, and anger—for Dean to swear he was going to stomp Patrick's ass into the dirt, some reaction that meant nothing would ever *ever* happen between those two in a million years….

"Hunh. That's weird," Dean finishes, looking sort of confused but not particularly upset or even interested.

Sam, on the other hand, is completely pissed off now. "You—that's all you have to say? You aren't going to do anything?"

"Like what? I don’t give a shit."

"But…but…he *likes* you! Like, wants to touch you and…and do stuff. With you! To you! Whatever!"

Sam's so vehement, Dean rears back from him. "Dude, first of all—trained in hand-to-hand, so no one's doing anything I don't want. Second, you have to be gay too for it to matter, right? And third—what the fuck, dude? What happened to that 'we're-all-one-world, peace-love-and-understanding' shit? What, you're anti-gay now?"

Sam snaps, "Oh fuck you!" and runs into the house. Rolls up in his sheets in the top bunk and pretends like he's not there.

What happens next is all kinds of weird. Suddenly there are more girls around, they're even hanging out in the house and that's never happened before. They're drinking beer on the porch and watching TV in the living room. They're in the fucking shower late at night. In the morning sometimes, there'll be some bitch standing in the kitchen wearing one of Dean's shirts, and making him breakfast and Sam *hates* that—it makes him furious. He doesn't like these girls acting they live they live there—like they belong or something. Dean walks around smiling, and Patrick won't stay anymore. He comes in and out, just kind of stews in his own misery and Sam fucking hates all of it, especially since he suspects that maybe, possibly, this shitty new development is his fault.

He begins to get used to it, this flagrant show of Dean's heterosexuality…it's something to think about. He thinks about it a lot, leaning against the shower wall, panting into the steam. Nightly, Dean pushes aside the shower curtain, and steps in the shower with him. "Those girls don’t mean a thing, they can't do for me what you can, Sam" before sinking to his knees….

In the Real World, Dean stops at banging on the bathroom door and yelling "Come on, Mary Ellen, fucking get the fuck out of there, willya? Some of us gotta piss!"

part 6

TBC