Fic: who is left (and who is leaving) 1/2 [Sam/Dean, NC-17]
Title: who is left (and who is leaving)
Author: bree_black
Pairings & Characters: Sam/Dean, Sam/OMC, Crowley, Meg, Alpha Vamp
Rating: NC17
Betas: Many thanks to evian_fork and lookturtles.
Wordcount: 18k
Warnings: incest and incest-based guilt, angst, drunk sex
Note: This story can also be found at my AO3 account, where I am finally posting stuff!
Summary: Completely without allies after Dean disappears, Sam decides desperate times call for desperate measures and takes a job working for Crowley, developing a new version of Dick Roman's "vamptonite" that will work on all monsters. It seems like a win-win situation - Sam becomes a more efficient hunter than ever before, and Crowley takes out his competition for earthly dominance. But during his work Sam meets a man who reminds him of Dean, and the more time they spend together the less certain Sam is that he's doing the right thing. Once he finally discovers a way to get Dean out of Purgatory, Sam is forced to decide how far he’s willing to go to get the one thing he’s always wanted.
It’s actually harder when there’s no body.
Sam wouldn’t have believed, if you’d told him before it happened, that knowing his brother was dead would be easier than knowing he’s probably alive, but it’s true. Dean’s body, bleeding and torn to shreds by hell hounds, was the worst thing he’s ever seen, but at least he’d seen it, laid hands on it, shed tears over it, put it in the ground.
This time, he’s got nothing to hold on to. Dean is just gone, body and soul, and Sam is utterly and completely alone - without even a corpse to burn.
The worst part is not knowing. So Sam focuses on the things he does know.
He knows Dean is likely in Purgatory, if Crowley was right about him and Cas hitching a ride with Dick. He knows he can’t open Purgatory without repeating Cas’ mistakes. He knows the Leviathans are still out there - leaderless and disorganized, but still deadly and impossible to kill. He knows Crowley is still King of Hell, and that it’s only a matter of time before he finds a way to take advantage of the Leviathan situation. And he also knows he’s the only person alive who knows all of the above.
What he doesn’t know is what he’s supposed to do about it.
Sam picks his way through the Demon-Leviathan skirmish raging outside Dick’s headquarters, picks his way through the broken glass to climb into the Impala’s driver’s seat, and drives her as far away as he can before the engine starts making some truly alarming noises. Then he pulls into a cheap motel - half its neon lights burnt out - and checks himself in.
He switches on the black and white television, and waits.
The news reports start within hours. Hundreds rioting near Sucrocorp labs, and Dick Roman rumoured to have left the country. The news experts’ leading theory is that some chemical in the corn syrup manufacturing process leads to sudden and violent insanity. By the next morning they suspect the chemical may actually be in the food itself, leading to an epidemic of mass hallucinations, particularly of monsters eating people. There are other attacks too, people with sharp claws or strangely sharp teeth biting innocent bystanders and then dropping dead a moment later, covered with strange acid burns.
Buried among the increasingly horrifying news items delivered by increasingly hysterical news anchors is a tiny item of business news: Dick Roman Enterprises purchased for an undisclosed sum by one A.J. Crowley, who will take control of the company and all its assets immediately.
Sam spends two days on research. He rehearses his presentation in front of the cracked bathroom mirror. He spends the majority of his savings getting the car fixed, and what little is left on a new suit. He cites his sources, he makes a pie chart. It feels oddly like being back in college. He files it all away into a three-ring binder, and then drives twelve hours to the personal residence of A.J Crowley, new owner of the former Dick Roman Enterprises (now Trident Properties).
The butler who opens the door is probably a demon, though Sam can’t be sure without running any tests.
“I’m here to see Crowley,” he says, resisting the urge to reach for his flask of holy water.
“His Majesty doesn’t take visitors without an appointment,” he answers haughtily, already closing the door.
Sam steps forward, putting a foot between the frame and the door to prevent it from closing. “Whenever he has a moment,” he insists. “I can wait.”
“Morning, sunshine. Could you kindly remove your filthy boots from my very expensive furniture?”
Sam wakes up suddenly, wiping frantically at the line of drool running down the side of his face. He sits up, guiltily brushing at the mud his boots have left on the upholstery of Crowley’s couch.
“Hi,” he says, brain still foggy with sleep. He’d been dreaming of Dean.
“Hi?” Crowley says. “You spent forty-eight hours waiting in my sitting room and all you have to say for yourself is ‘hi’?’”
“I wanted to speak with you,” Sam says, reaching up to straighten his hair.
“Clearly,” Crowley says. “But let me save us both some time. I have no interest in helping you find your brother or his pet winged monkey. The three of you have been a thorn in my side for too long already, and I’m inclined to kill you right now and finish the whole thing off.”
“Fine,” Sam interrupts. “Go ahead. But just hear me out first.”
Crowley sighs heavily. “Alright,” he says. “What can I do for you now?”
“I’d actually like to talk about what I can do for you,” Sam says. “I want you to give me a job.”
Crowley is so startled it actually takes him a moment to laugh. “You? Work for me? I wasn’t aware you had enjoyed our last arrangement so much.”
“I didn’t,” Sam says, struggling to keep his voice neutral. “But this time will be different. I want to be your VP.”
Crowley raises an eyebrow. “My second-in-command? Bit familiar isn’t it, this narrative? You’ve had your shot at the Prince of Darkness title, if I remember correctly.”
“I’d rather work under you than under Azazel,” Sam says, deliberately flirtatious. It’s transparent and kind of pathetic, but Crowley smiles.
A moment later they’re sitting on opposite ends of a long table, in a completely windowless board room. Sam’s chair is made of leather and incredibly comfortable.
“Let’s hear it,” Crowley says. “What is this exciting business opportunity I’m about to turn down?”
“You have a problem,” Sam begins. “The same problem the Leviathans had. The world is getting kind of crowded. Between all the usual monsters and the Leviathans, you’re facing a lot of competition on the evil-on-Earth front. You may not actually eat humans, but you prey on them all the same.”
“A hobby I was under the impression you strongly disapproved of,” Crowley interrupts.
Sam’s got momentum going, so he ignores the interjection. “The Leviathans are all new, and taking up a lot of space. Plus Eve’s army-building strategies upped the old-school monster population and wiped out a lot of good hunters. What you need - what Dick knew he needed - is population control.”
“And what makes you think I need your help with that?”
“I know you have Dick’s additive, the one that wipes out vampires, werewolves, and all the other people-eaters. You would have seized the formula when you bought the company; it’s pretty obvious that’s all you were after.”
“The man also had a fair number of quite impressive evil lairs.”
“But you have a problem,” Sam rushes on, undeterred by Crowley’s refusal to take him seriously. “The vampires, at least, know the additive exists, and they know who’s behind it. We spoke to their Alpha. It’s only a matter of time before they figure out you have it and come after you. If he was smart, he’d ally himself with some of Eve’s other children.”
“And?”
“And you need a hunter. No one knows more about monsters than I do. How to avoid them, manipulate them, kill them. You don’t have time to personally supervise a war on two fronts, so we should divide and conquer. You handle the Leviathans and I’ll take care of the rest of the monsters. I’ll help disseminate your additive, I’ll intercept their communications, I’ll keep them away from you, and if I need to, I’ll march into the Alpha Vamp’s lair and kill him myself.”
Sam gets out of his very comfortable chair and marches to Crowley’s end of the table, placing the thick binder in front of him.
“Inside you’ll find a catalog of all the creatures we can expect the additive to work on, and a list of others that might be immune. Dick’s guy only indicated it works on ‘anything with a taste for human flesh,’ and I can think of at least thirty species that don’t directly consume human flesh it may be ineffective against. We’ll need to run tests; I’m more than happy to track down enough test subjects for full scientific trials.”
“I could have any demon do that, you know.” Crowley leans back, puts his feet up on the table. But Sam recognizes his casual posture as an act masking real interest.
“Not the way I can. Dean and I have encountered more monster species than any of your demons have reason to. Besides, it will take creativity, subtlety and patience to track down all these species and customize strategies for feeding them the additive without their knowledge. Demons typically don’t have that kind of...nuance.”
“You certainly are a resourceful, persistent bugger.” Crowley flips idly through Sam’s portfolio. “But what’s in this for you?”
Sam doesn’t hesitate. “I kill monsters. That’s my job; it’s all I’ve ever done. But as you pointed out, I find myself completely without allies, and I’d rather not hunt alone. Why not take the opportunity to start a large-scale operation? If I help you distribute the additive I can exterminate as many monsters in a month as I would during a lifetime of case-by-case hunts. Our goals converge.”
“And what, pray tell, would you ask for in payment?”
Sam smiles because he knows he’s won. “A living wage. Access to your properties for use as headquarters as I travel, and all the resources in your labs and weapons stores, of course. Protection from any demon attacks.”
“And help with your brother,” Crowley adds.
Sam falters. “I...I was under the impression nothing could be done about that.”
Crowley nods. “Nothing that I know of.. But I could make inquires. My resources are nearly unlimited after all, and you should know by now that nothing’s impossible. I will look for a way to free your brother, and, should your performance impress me, I’ll let you know what I find. I like for my employees to stay motivated.”
Sam swallows hard, then holds out his hand. “Do we have a deal?”
Crowley narrows his eyes. “On one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You need to blend in, Sam. I have enough personal history with you not to doubt your skill set, and I like your work ethic, but I’m not sure you have the proper character to be a member of my team.”
“You mean because I’m not evil?” Sam says.
“Oh, no. I suspect you’ve done more evil deeds than some of my department managers. The problem is that you’ve always committed those deeds with such sickeningly good intentions. You started the Apocalypse because you thought you were preventing it, for fuck’s sake. I don’t care how much blood Azazel made you drink as an infant, there’s just not enough sin in you.”
“I’m not as pure as you think,” Sam says, with certainty.
Crowley’s grin is slow and malicious. “I suspect you’re right. Tell me Sam, have you ever wanted something you know is wrong, just because you want it? No ‘greater good’ rubbish.”
Sam glances down at the floor before he can stop himself, bites the inside of his cheek. When he forces himself to make eye contact again Crowley is still grinning, though now it’s a knowing smile, like he can see into Sam’s tainted soul.
“Yes,” Sam answers. “Yes, I’ve wanted that.”
Crowley stands. “Excellent. Then I’ll hire you on a probationary basis. But remember, Sam, sinful thoughts aren’t enough. If I don’t see some action, you’ll never win employee of the month.”
“Understood.” Bile rises in the back of Sam’s throat as he says it.
“Shall we seal the deal?” Crowley asks, and kisses Sam hard.
It’s the first time Sam’s ever kissed a man.
Sam is assigned a corner office with a view in Dick Roman’s former headquarters. It’s actually not far from Charlie’s old cubicle. He knows because he passes a slightly faded Harry Potter sticker every time he goes to the bathroom. Sam has his own computer and a completely legitimate ID pass, complete with blurry photo and security clearance. He has a secretary, a coffee order, and a tab opened under his real name at the pub on the corner.
He checks into the closest motel to the office, and pays an entire month’s rent out of an advance on his first paycheck. He makes sure it has a kitchenette, and he stocks the mini-fridge with groceries. He spends nine hours a day at the office - working alongside colleagues, half human and half demon, whose names he doesn’t bother to learn. Both species call him “sir” when they see the color of the pass he wears around his neck. He comes home at night and watches game shows and reality TV until he falls asleep on scratchy motel sheets.
He’s just your average Joe working his nine to five office job, except that his goal is to exterminate vampires and his boss is the King of Hell. It’s a bizarre, inside-out version of the lifestyle Sam had dreamed of as a kid, and he wishes he had someone to laugh about that with.
Sam works to keep from thinking. He pins a giant map of the entire U.S. to one of the walls in his office and marks known monster populations with multi-colored thumbtacks. He has his secretary set up alerts for electrical storms, cattle death, sudden drops in temperature and the like, plus, of course, any kind of mysterious death. In the last hour of every work day, Sam combs through all the data she’s compiled and adds it to his map.
His goal is to track down at least thirty different monster species and test Dick’s additive on all of them. He knows it works on vampires, but he’s not going to make assumptions about anything else. It’s likely modifications will need to be made to the formula for some unique species, and in that case Sam will need to capture a few specimen of each - alive - and bring them back to the lab for the research department.
On top of that, Sam needs to deal with the Alpha Vamp, who is bound to notice that even with Dick dead, even with human prey returning to its usual speed and intelligence, his children are still dying when they feed.
Sam hadn’t even needed to persuade Crowley to stop using Dick’s original corn syrup recipe. “Much less fun torturing humans when they don’t fight back,” he’d said. “Takes the sport right out of it.” But they’d left the monster-poison additive intact, mixed in with regular old high-fructose corn syrup, because why fix something if it’s not broken?
Sam has a lot on his plate and no one to delegate to, which is exactly how he likes it. He keeps his head down and his brain busy, and he uses the company health insurance policy to get a prescription for some pretty impressive sleeping pills, ones that knock him into deep and dreamless oblivion every night. It’s not much of a life, but at least he’s alive.
He spends a month doing research, then setting up the most efficient route to hit all of the chosen hotspots on his map. He plans to drive the Impala rather than one of the company cars. If he has to capture anything and send it back, he’s got assurances of demon assistance along the way, and shouldn’t have any trouble passing an unconscious creature or two off to one of Crowley’s underlings.
The night before his scheduled departure, Crowley summons Sam to his home office.
“And how is my Boy King?” Crowley says, handing Sam a tumbler of what he know will be very, very good scotch.
Sam takes the glass, sniffing it hesitantly before taking a sip.
“Don’t worry, it’s not poisoned,” Crowley says. “Why would I want to kill you? I’ve grown quite fond of you.”
Sam sits, takes a sip of his scotch so he doesn’t have to acknowledge the compliment. “What can I do for you?”
“Oh, I just thought I’d check in with you before you left, make sure you have everything you need.”
Sam nods, takes another gulp of his drink, and tries not to cough. “Eleven scheduled stops in my first trip. They gave me a new phone in IT, so I can call for help transporting stuff back to the lab.”
“I could get you a partner, that offer stands. I’ve heard hunting alone can be a dangerous business.” Crowley sounds almost proud, like he’s personally responsible for the danger.
“I don’t want a partner,” Sam says, too quickly.
“I thought you’d say that,” Crowley says. “And I must ask you to reconsider. You’re grieving for your brother, and that’s perfectly understandable. I know how close the two of you were.”
“Stop talking about him,” Sam says, losing his carefully cultivated professional calm.
“No,” Crowley says. “I’ve put too much time and energy into you to watch you burn out or self-destruct. You’re my investment and I’ve put a lot of responsibility on your shoulders. You need to let him go.”
Sam laughs. “Forgive me if I don’t take advice from you.”
“Whenever a door closes a window opens, Sam. You’ve lost your brother and that’s just terrible, but it’s time to start looking for the silver lining. He was holding you back; love always does. Now you have your freedom, so what are you going to do with it?”
Sam slams his empty glass down on the table. “Fuck you,” he snarls, storming out of the room.
“Stay in touch, love,” Crowley calls after him.
Sam doesn’t go back to the motel. Instead, he wanders Crowley’s mansion aimlessly. He has half a mind to find a weapon and try to cut the guy’s head off, though he knows it probably wouldn’t work. He passes more than a few demons, but none of them pay any attention to him - they know who he is, and how valuable he is. They probably assume he’s still here on business.
Sam ends up descending a dark stone staircase, lit only by torches affixed to the damp walls, somewhere in the bowels of the house. He wonders if it’s deliberately designed to be reminiscent of Hell. He hears a scream from below, and thinks the answer is probably yes.
There’s a long stone hallway at the bottom of the stairs, lined with heavy iron cages. In front of each cell, devil’s traps are scrawled in red paint - Sam hopes it’s paint - on the rough stone floor. He turns around, and moves to head back up the stairs. He doesn’t need to see this.
“Sam Winchester,” drawls an all-too-familiar female voice. “I’d recognize your lumbering footsteps anywhere.”
Sam stops, walks forward into the dark and peers into the first cell on the left. “Meg,” he says.
She sits on the ground, back to the wall dividing her cell from the next, and waves up at him. “Howdy,” she says. There’s blood on her jacket - a lot of it.
“I figured they’d caught you,” Sam says.
Meg nods. “Thanks for the rescue mission, by the way.”
Sam shrugs. “I actually assumed you’d be killed on sight.”
Meg laughs. “So did I. But Crowley decided it would be more fun to keep me around as his whipping girl, I guess. Don’t worry, I don’t expect you to help me. I hear you’ve switched sides.”
“It’s complicated,” Sam begins, but Meg interrupts.
“You don’t need to make excuses to me. If you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em, right? You have your own ass to save; I get it.”
“Okay,” Sam says. He shifts awkwardly from foot to foot. He doesn’t like Meg and never has, but he’s acutely aware that she’s one of the only people he’s ever fought side by side with still on Earth.
“Listen,” Meg says. “Is it true what they’re saying? Are Dean and Cas in Purgatory?”
Sam nods.
“Well, fuck,” Meg says, and it sounds like she means it. It’s the first time anyone else has expressed any regret, the first time since it happened he’s had anyone to talk to about it, and Sam feels profoundly grateful.
“Crowley says he’ll look for a way to get him out,” Sams says, “but obviously I’m skeptical.”
“Them. You mean get them out, right? I like that angel.”
“Why?” Sam asks. Truthfully, he hasn’t thought much about Castiel.
Meg smirks. “Because he likes me.”
Sam hears footsteps from down the hall, and while he hasn’t strictly been prohibited from visiting Crowley’s dungeon, he’d rather avoid any awkward questions.
“Listen, I’m going on a trip for awhile. For work. But I’ll come visit you again,” Sam says quickly.
Meg raises an eyebrow. “Sure,” she says, “if I’m still alive by the time you get back.”
Being back on the road is harder than Sam expected. There are too many reminders of Dean in every hunt; even driving the Impala, every moment behind the wheel, Sam imagines he can hear Dean’s off-key singing, can smell the mixture of leather and cologne and sweat that has always made his heart beat faster.
He can’t stop thinking about what Crowley said, about Dean holding him back, and about what he might be able to let himself do, now.
He finishes his first hunt without incident - confirms his hypothesis that yes, the additive does work on werewolves without modification - and is on his way to the second mark on his map when he finally cracks.
It’s the middle of the night when Sam pulls over onto the shoulder of an empty stretch of highway and rolls down the driver’s side window to let in the still-warm summer air. He takes three deep, steadying breaths, like readying himself for a fight, and then reaches into the Impala’s backseat and grabs Dean’s duffel bag, which he hasn’t opened since that day.
He rummages inside until he finds a grey t-shirt, wrinkled but not stained, and presses it over his mouth and nose. It smells like Dean, still. Sam inhales deeply, imagining the traces of Dean left on the shirt being drawn into his lungs, seeping into his blood and running through his veins. Then he reaches down with his free hand and unbuttons his jeans, unzips the fly.
Sam has never masturbated while thinking about his brother on purpose before. It’s only ever happened by accident, in moments of weakness or when he’s been drunk, creeping into his other, safer fantasies until he forces himself to veer sharply away again. He’s spent half his lifetime perfecting the art of not thinking of Dean while he jerks off, going so far as to never allow himself to think about any men at all. He’s learned to focus on petite blonde women with long curls and soft curves who smell like vanilla body lotion and flowery shampoo, because it’s the furthest he can get from what he wants most of all.
Not this time. Sam shoves down his jeans and boxers, keeping Dean’s shirt pressed against his face, and tentatively strokes his cock. He ignores the guilty twist in his stomach and, instead of replacing the images that automatically come to mind, deliberately intensifies them. He thinks about Dean covered in dirt and sweat after a hunt, then Dean fresh out of the shower in one of a thousand motel rooms they’ve shared. He thinks about Dean at nineteen and Dean at thirty-three, and all the ways his body has changed and the ways it hasn’t, and about how Sam is the only person in the world who’s seen all it happen.
He bites back a groan and then realizes he doesn’t have to, that no one can see him or hear him, and that there’s no one he cares about on Earth left to judge him anyway. He strokes himself faster, presses Dean’s shirt closer until he’s biting down on the cotton, eyes squeezed shut as a flood of images he’s spent a lifetime repressing streams through his mind’s eye. Sam fucks his own hand and lets himself imagine he’s fucking Dean.
His orgasm takes him by surprise, ripping suddenly through his body like a dam bursting. Sam screams his brother’s name as he comes, and what he feels most is relief, the blissful peace of caving in. He sits for a long time, sweaty and sticky behind the steering wheel of Dean’s car. When his breathing returns to normal, he wipes his come off his hand, wrist, stomach with Dean’s t-shirt, and waits for the guilt to hit him.
It doesn’t. Though he probably shouldn’t admit it, as he starts the engine again, all Sam feels is free.
Two days later, Sam successfully traps a Wendigo. It’s a pretty fucking huge accomplishment single-handed, and he nearly loses an arm in the process. He injects it with the additive while it’s struggling in a giant steel net procured for Sam by the local demon contingent, and he’s thrilled when the thing dies within a minute, because he had no idea how he was going to transport it back to HQ.
High on adrenaline and with no one to share his victory, Sam decides to go out and celebrate. Six shots and three beers later, he’s in a stall in the dingy bathroom at the back of a roadside bar, his pants around his ankles, and some guy on his knees in front of him.
“Shit,” Sam says, as a general expression of bewilderment and uncertainty, and of just how fucking drunk he is.
The guy, though, takes it as encouragement. He looks up at Sam and grins, and everything is wrong. His eyes are brown, not green, his lips are too thin, and he’s got a streak of blue painted into the front of his hair.
Sam is drunk and not exactly on his best behaviour. He shoves the guy’s head down and pulls him forward by his hair. He gives a short, startled laugh and then responds with enthusiasm, sucking back Sam’s cock.
Sam groans and lets his head fall back against the back of the stall. He keeps one hand twisted in the guy’s hair; with his eyes closed he can’t see the blue and it’s almost right. It’s not hard to conjure up an image of Dean; after all, his is the face Sam has spent more time looking at than any other.
It takes longer than it usually does for Sam to get off, partly because he’s had so much to drink, but also because he’s savouring this, taking his time, holding on as long as possible. He imagines he’s in a cheap motel room, not a club, and that if he looked down he’d see Dean’s green eyes, full of laughter and ready to pull off his cock and tell Sam to just come already, he doesn’t have all day. Sam pictures a line of spit - or maybe precome - connecting his cock and Dean’s lower lip, and for some reason it’s that detail that pushes him over the edge.
Sam comes, and the guy in the bar pulls off, coughing and then laughing, wiping his mouth, and teasing Sam for not giving him any warning. Sam doesn’t really hear much - he’s drunk and now he’s tired, and reality’s crashing in on him pretty hard. Thankfully the guy takes the hint, and a minute later Sam’s alone and pulling up his pants.
It’s a strange experience, but mostly good, and so Sam does it again the next night, in the next town, at the next bar with the next man. After all, there’s no reason not to anymore.
Sam has some trouble with the mermaid. Water-based cases aren’t exactly his strong suit, if only because he hasn’t actually encountered very many of them over the years. Dad’s theory was that water - known to repel some kinds of demon - has a stabilizing influence that tends to discourage supernatural activity. It’s always been a strong enough explanation for Sam - he can swim, but given the choice he’d rather fight a monster on solid ground.
Which is why the mermaid situation really sucks. He really wishes the chemical had worked this time.
Sam ends up in the ocean, thrashing around trying not to die, while a handful of demons stand around looking bored on the beach, refusing to so much as stick their toes in the water.
Mermaids, it turns out, are anything but beautiful. Instead of the soft clear skin of storybooks, they’re covered in huge, armor-like scales, and their long flowing hair is actually composed of hundreds of sea serpents. Normally, the snakes spend all their time fighting one another so that blood streams out behind her as a mermaid swims. Right now, they’re all simultaneously trying to bite off Sam’s junk.
Sam has enough tranquilizer on him to knock out an elephant; he just needs to get close enough to stab her with it.
“Here,” he says when he finally reaches shore, dragging the heavy unconscious body behind him. “Take this back to the lab. You’ll want to administer more tranquilizer every four hours.”
The demon in charge of the local group nods at Sam, but the sneer on his face gives him away. He likes working for Sam about as much as Sam likes working for Crowley. His flunkies approach the sleeping mermaid with caution, and then hoist her into the back of the tanker truck Sam instructed them to bring.
Sam hands off the extra tranquilizer, and then stomps off across the sand without even saying goodbye. He hopes he has dry clothes in the car.
At least the mermaid was the last item on the list for this leg of the mission. Now Sam can head back to headquarters, where the eggheads will already have started developing variations on the additive for Sam to test on the next leg. Sam, for his part, will have more research to do, more mapping, more travel arrangements. But he plans to take the trip back at a leisurely pace; he’s been working non-stop for six weeks and he figures he deserves a break.
His first stop is the local beer store. He goes in to buy a case - enough to last him through the weekend - and when he comes out again there’s a guy in a leather coat crouched down beside the Impala, looking underneath her chassis.
It sort of takes Sam’s breath away. He stands there, shocked into silence, until the guy pulls his head out from under the car. He doesn’t even look surprised to see Sam standing there, just smiles up at Sam before standing.
“This your car?” he says. “What is she, a ‘69?”
“‘67,” Sam says, still running on autopilot. He can see now that the man’s eyes are blue - not green - and that his legs are straight where Dean’s bowlegged. Still, the resemblance is striking in the fullness of his mouth, in the way he lovingly strokes the hood of the car.
He whistles, long and low. “Great piece of work. And you’ve kept her up really well.”
Sam merely nods again. There’s not enough air in his lungs.
The guys raises an eyebrow, then smirks at Sam. He is, after all, standing there like an idiot and staring at a stranger like he’s the second coming. “Okay well, thanks for letting me take a look at her.”
He slaps Sam on the shoulder as he heads into the store, just a friendly gesture, but it makes Sam’s dick go half-hard in his jeans.
Sam shakes his head to clear it, tosses his case of beer in the back seat of the car, and then forces himself to drive away and absolutely not follow the stranger back into the store.
He ends up at a gay bar later that night. It’s not exactly Sam’s scene, all the flashing lights and pounding electronic music, but it’s easiest to pick someone up here so he doesn’t expect to stay long. Sam orders a drink and figures that by the time he’s finished it he’ll have found someone willing to go back to his motel room. He scans the dance floor for prospects, but gets distracted by a yell from outside.
No one else reacts - they probably assume it’s just someone a little too drunk, a little out of control, having an argument with his boyfriend or something - but Sam’s instincts are too strong for him to ignore. While everyone else keeps dancing, he abandons his drink and heads out the back door, hand on the gun tucked into its holster on his jeans.
At first he think they’re fucking. One guy has another pressed up against the hood of a car, and another stands just to their left, watching with a smile. Simple exhibitionism, maybe. But then the voyeur’s eyes turn black.
“Hey,” Sam says. “Hey, hold on.”
The first demon turns, and Sam sees the knife in his hand at the same time as he registers that the guy who’s pressed against the car, terrified expression on his face, is the guy from the beer store parking lot earlier today, and that he’s bleeding.
“Let him go,” Sam says. He takes his hand away from his gun holster, and reaches for the demon-killing knife in his jacket pocket instead. “He’s with me.”
The demons laughs, a harsh, grating sound that stops when Sam steps forward and into the glow of a streetlight.
“Oh,” the leader says. “It’s you.”
“That’s right,” Sam says, standing as straight as possible and opening his jacket so the light glints off the blade hidden there. “It’s me.”
“Whoa, whoa, relax, Winchester,” the demon snarls. “We’re on the same side now, right? We didn’t know this human belonged to you. Though now that I take a closer look,” he continues with a knowing smile, looking down at his victim appraisingly, “I can see that he’s your type.”
Sam draws his knife, stepping even closer. “Fuck off,” he shouts. “Now!”
The demons scatter, running in opposite directions, leaving Sam alone with the man he’s just rescued.
“Hey Impala guy,” he says dazedly. “I’m Leon.”
“You’re not going to convince me, dude,” Leon says half an hour later, from his perch on the second bed of Sam’s hotel room. “I know what I saw. They had pure black eyes, and they didn’t punch like any human I’ve ever met, either.” He holds a blood-stained hand towel to his head, staunching the flow of blood from his demon-inflicted head wound.
Sam sighs heavily. He’s spent the last twenty minutes trying to convince Leon he’d hallucinated those eyes, with absolutely no luck. His stubbornness, combined with his still-striking resemblance to Dean, is making it really difficult to lie to him.
“Alright fine,” Sam says with frustration. “You were attacked by demons, okay?” He expects the guy to laugh, or back away slowly, or to tell him to cut the bullshit.
“Are you a demon?” he asks, completely matter-of-fact.
Sam sputters. “No! Why would you think that?”
Leon shrugs. “They seemed to know you, that’s all. Like you’re their boss or something. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“I’m very reluctantly working for their boss,” Sam explains. “Wait, you actually believe me?”
“Hard to deny what I saw with my own eyes,” Leon says. “And your explanation fits. Do I need stitches, you think?” He lifts the hand towel from his head.
Sam moves closer to look, and tries not to notice how he smells like leather and engine grease and blood, tries not to let the familiarity of that combination get to him. “No, you should be fine. Your wrist on the other hand...”
Leon winces. “I tried to fight back. That guy just snapped it like a twig.” It’s definitely broken; Sam doesn’t need to look any closer to tell that much. “You got something to dull the pain?”
Sam offers him one of the beers he’d bought earlier, and Leon frowns. “Anything stronger?”
Sam doesn’t have anything; he’d been planning on doing his drinking at the club. “I can give you a ride to the hospital,” he offers.
“Yeah,” Leon says. “Hey, you think they’d give me a job as a janitor or something to pay off my cast? I don’t exactly have insurance.”
“I’ll pay for it,” Sam says without thinking. He can afford it, after all, with what Crowley’s paying him. “Though you need a better job. I work for a demon and even I have benefits.”
Leon laughs, then gets up and grabs his jacket from the bed with his good hand. Sam follows him out the door, toward the Impala. He tries not to watch his ass.
“I’m a mechanic,” Leon says. “technically. Though I’m between jobs at the moment. I don’t even live here, actually. I was just passing through.”
Sam opens the door for him, telling himself he’s only doing it because of the broken wrist. Then he climbs into the driver’s seat.
“Oh yeah, where are you headed?” he asks as he starts the engine, just making small-talk to distract the guy from his injury.
Leon peers into the backseat, at the duffel bag already packed and waiting. “I’m going wherever you’re going, Sam,” he says, and then leans over and kisses him.
Sam has avoided kissing any of the guys he’s picked up along his journey; in fact, the last person he’d kissed was Crowley. He’s a little rusty and a lot surprised, so the kiss is messy and awkward and unpracticed, but also really fucking good. Sam catches on after a second, leans into it hard, panting open-mouthed into the kiss. Leon reaches up to grab his face and pull him closer still and then -
“Jesus fucking Christ my wrist fucking hurts,” he hisses, pulling away suddenly. “Can we maybe pick up where we left off after I get some good drugs in my system?”
Sam, dizzy and tired and also happy for the first time in a long time, pulls out his phone to search for the nearest hospital.
“I hate hospitals,” Leon says as they leave one, seven hours later.
“Me too,” Sam agrees. He admires the way the early-morning light shines off his hair, makes his eyes look more green than blue, almost. He hasn’t slept in nearly forty-eight hours, and he nearly trips climbing into the car.
“I don’t think you’re safe to drive,” Leon says, squinting at him.
“Sure I am,” Sam tries to say, but it comes out as a yawn.
“Give me the keys,” Leon orders, and the casual, bossy authority of it goes straight to Sam’s head. He reaches into his pocket.
“Hey, wait,” he says suddenly. “You have a broken wrist. And you’re on painkillers!”
“I can drive one-handed,” Leon insists. “You can shift gears for me. And they didn’t give me the really good painkillers, so I’m more awake than you are, at least. Why haven’t you slept, anyway?”
“I was busy catching a mermaid.” Sam mumbles. He’s too tired to fight back, so he slides over to the passenger seat.
Leon grins as he climbs into the driver’s seat, stroking the steering wheel. “I hope you realize the driver gets to pick the music,” he says, and Sam can only smile.
Tired and comfortable, sitting in the passenger’s seat for the first time in months, with his head against the cool window, Sam lets the familiar rumble of the engine lure him toward sleep. If he looks over at Leon through just the corner of his eye, now singing along off-key to the classic rock station, he can almost believe everything is going to be okay.
“So why are you working for the demon?” Leon asks three days later, sitting cross-legged in the centre of the king-sized bed he’s insisted on for their motel room. There’s a pizza box open in front of him and he’s carefully picking the green peppers off a slice with his good hand. Dean doesn’t like vegetables on his pizza either.
Sam is bent over a map on his desk, adding the most recent information his secretary forwarded him. “Be careful,” he says. “Don’t get crumbs all over the bed.”
“Shut up,” Leon answers, then takes a huge bite of pizza and continues talking with his mouth full, “and stop avoiding the question.”
Sam has told Leon a little about his job, if only because it’s pretty difficult to polish your weapons without explaining to the guy sharing your motel room what they’re for. But he’s kept everything pretty current, hasn’t mentioned demon blood or the Apocalypse or - most importantly - his missing brother.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” he says, and hopes against hope that will be enough. “I sold out.”
“Bullshit,” Leon counters. He throws a handful of soggy green peppers across the room, and they splatter across Sam’s map. “You obviously hate demons, and you’re not the kind of person to go against your beliefs without a good reason.”
Sam scoffs, picking green peppers off his work. “Three days on the road and drunken handjobs in the middle of the night and you think you know anything about me?”
Leon scowls. “You’d be surprised, actually. For example, I offered to let you fuck me but you opted for handjobs instead. Additionally, I had to fight you for the king instead of two queen beds tonight. So, sexual intimacy issues specifically related to sleeping with men. And since you’re a little old to be just figuring out you like dudes now, something else must have happened to spook you. Am I right?”
Sam frowns. “Honestly, you’ll like me a lot better if we don’t delve into my personal history, alright?”
Leon shrugs. “Whatever you say. Though when I decided to go on a road trip with the hot monster-hunter in the cool car who saved my life, I pretty much expected you’d have a few skeletons in your closet. Besides, I don’t know you shouldn’t be working for demons because of sex - I know it because of your car.”
Sam folds up his map and leans back in his chair. “Okay, you’re gonna have to explain that one to me.”
“If I do will you take the rest of the night off and do something fun with me?”
Sam raises an eyebrow. “I thought I had hopeless sexual intimacy issues.”
Leon grins. “You can get over anything if you work at it hard enough. Besides, I meant do something fun outside of this motel room, you perv.”
“Sure,” Sam says. “It’s a deal.” He doesn’t strictly need to be back in the office for another week, and anyway, if he’s late Crowley will probably admire the show of bad behaviour.
“Alright. So the thing about your car is that it’s awesome, but it’s also completely wrong for your job. It’s not very fast. It’s got a poor turning radius. It’s loud, so you can’t exactly sneak up on people. Worse, it’s old, which means it breaks down a lot unless you put a ton of work into it, and replacement parts aren’t easy to find, and are expensive when you can get ‘em. If you were smart you’d drive something newer, faster and less recognizable.”
“Okay, and?”
“So this isn’t the kind of car you keep because it’s practical. You keep it because it means something, because you love it and you’re loyal to it, and because you’re not willing to trade it in. It’s not the kind of car a sell-out owns. It’s not the kind of car driven by someone who’s given up.” He looks at Sam expectantly. “Am I right?”
Sam nods, slowly. “Almost. But it isn’t my car, not really. It was my dad’s first, and then my brother’s. Dean’s the one who loved it, he’s the one who took care of it. I inherited it, but it says more about him than it says about me.”
Something clicks in Leon’s expression, and Sam realizes he’s revealed too much. “Did he die hunting?”
Sam nods, afraid to open his mouth in case more personal information should spill out. It’s as good as true.
“How long ago?”
Sam knows the exact number of days. “About three months,” he says.
“I’m sorry,” Leon says. Then he brightens. “Well it’s a good thing you hooked up with a mechanic, though, because I’ll keep that car in perfect condition for you. Now come on, we’re going one-handed bowling.”
Sam lets Leon drag him out of the motel room, fingers curled together, and wonders what exactly he’s gotten himself into.
When Sam arrives at his office Crowley is already there, sitting in Sam’s rolling chair with his feet on Sam’s desk.
“Hi,” Sam says, feeling suddenly self-conscious about his wrinkled shirt and tousled hair still damp from the shower.
“Nice of you to finally make an appearance,” he says. “Your mermaid arrived nearly a week ago.”
“Sorry,” Sam says, though he doesn’t mean it. “I got a little held up.”
Crowley smiles. “So I’ve heard. I must say, the resemblance is uncanny.”
Sam stiffens. “You’ve been spying on me.”
“I had someone watching your hotel,” Crowley admits. “I just wanted to be sure you arrived home safely. Imagine my surprise when I heard you weren’t alone.”
“He’s none of your business,” Sam says quickly.
“So you’re keeping him then? Excellent. I’m glad you’ve taken my advice to loosen up a little bit. I will, of course, tell my men he’s out-of-bounds. You’ve done very well, Sam. I’ve been impressed with your progress reports, and I’m told the lab is well on the way to modifying the formula. You have exceeded my expectations.”
“Thank you,” Sam says, though the praise makes him feel faintly nauseous. He wants to be anywhere but this office.
“Believe it or not, I haven’t stopped by to dish about your new boyfriend. I’m here regarding your brother.”
Sam’s heart stops beating.
“I haven’t found a way to free him yet, but I have made inquiries and believe I have a few leads. Should your performance continue to impress me, I may have an answer for you at the end of the next stage of your project.”
Sam’s heart starts beating again, faster than normal. He recognizes that he’s being manipulated, of course, can clearly see the carrot Crowley is dangling in front of his nose. He doubts there’s a way to free Dean, and he doubts even more that Crowley will ever tell him what it is.
“Thank you,” Sam says again, breathless, and Crowley nods before he vanishes. The tiny flicker of hope in Sam’s chest burns painfully before it flickers out.
Sam half expects Leon to disappear shortly after they arrive in Chicago, but a week later he’s still there. He seems to spend the entire day watching the news, and always gives Sam a full report when he gets back from work.
“So those things with the teeth, the Leviosas or whatever, have started attacking people in the New York subway stations at night. They’re saying it’s a pack of feral dogs on the news, but it’s a pretty weak cover up.”
“Leviathans,” Sam says. “ And I know. It’s my job to know, and my secretary’s job to know. You don’t need to watch the news so much. You probably shouldn’t watch the news so much.” He gets his arm caught in his stupid work blazer and struggles to tug it off.
“I know,” Leon answers, hopping off the bed and helping Sam out of his jacket. “But the world’s practically coming to an end. How can you expect me to look away?”
“The world’s actually come a lot closer to ending than this, and you had no idea,” Sam says. “We try to keep civilians out of it.” He realizes too late there’s no ‘we’ anymore. No Dean, no Bobby, no Cas, and if the hunting network knew who he was working for they’d probably disown him.
“About that,” Leon says. “That thing where I’m a civilian. Could we maybe change that?”
Sam blinks. “What?”
“Business isn’t exactly booming lately, and honestly fixing cars seems kind of irresponsible when the world is on the verge of being overrun with monsters. I know you’re leaving in a couple weeks, and I thought maybe I could come with you?”
For one brief moment, Sam lets himself imagine what it could be like. He thinks about having backup, stealing food off each other’s plates in diners, cleaning guns together, having another head bent over the same book in the library. He thinks about the smell of gunpowder and sweat in the seat next to him, about a warm arm around his shoulder when he’s dead tired, about constant contact and never being alone for more than an hour without checking in. And he thinks about how this time, this way he could also have fingers entwined over the gear shift, slow good morning kisses, showers together after a messy hunt...
He thinks about how in some ways hunting with Leon might even be better than hunting with Dean, and then the betrayal makes biles rise in the back of his throat and he says “No, absolutely not.”
Leon rushes on, completely unaware of Sam’s rising nausea. “I’m a pretty good shot,” he says. ‘My dad took me hunting a lot before he died. Ordinary hunting, but still. I’m a fast learner, Sam, and I want to help.”
Sam shakes his head. “I hunt alone. I need to hunt alone.”
“”But why? It’d be easier, safer with two. And I really like you, like being with you. I think we’d make a hell of a team.”
It’s too close to what Dean told him once, and something snaps in Sam’s brain so that for a second he doesn’t even see Leon, he sees Dean instead, green eyes instead of blue, an inch taller, one of his old familiar flannel shirts. It makes Sam want to laugh, and cry, and when he blinks the mirage away and Dean dissolves into Leon, brow furrowed with concern, it’s like losing his brother all over again.
Sam’s throat and eyes hurt. Before Leon can say anything else he turns on his heel and runs, slamming the motel room door behind him.
He’s not surprised Leon’s still there when he gets back, several hours and and countless miles of blind jogging later. It’s a trick Sam learned after Bobby died, to run so long and hard his body’s screams drown out his thoughts. Dean had thought he was just on a fitness kick, but there were a lot of things Dean didn’t really know about Sam.
He is surprised, though, by the nearly empty bottle of whisky that had been half-full when he’d left, and by the pile of shiny, laminated ID cards spread out across the end of the bed.
Leon holds one up when Sam enters the room, brandishing it like a weapon. “I went into your glovebox to look for my phone,” he says by way of explanation. “I was packing my shit.”
Sam nods. He’ll have found all the ID there, half of them featuring photos of Dean. He has to have noticed the resemblance, to have put it together, to have made assumptions about Sam’s attraction to him. And he won’t be wrong.
“This is Dean?” Leon says, slurring his words slightly. “The brother you hunted with?”
All Sam can do is nod again.
Leon sits down suddenly, and takes a deep breath. “Jesus,” he says.
“I know,” Sam says. “I’m sorry. I get that you need to break up with me, and obviously this is all on me.”
“Break up with you?” Leon says with a laugh, surprisingly light. “Is there even anything to break? Do you feel anything for me at all? Here I was worried you were mad because you thought I was trying to replace your brother when all along it was you trying to replace him with me.”
“I didn’t mean to,” Sam says. “I didn’t know what I was doing.” He feels dizzy and panicked at the thought of losing someone else, even someone he’s known for less than a month.
“Do you feel anything for me?” Leon repeats, enunciating carefully through his drunkenness.
“Yes,” Sam says, though he wasn’t sure of it until now. Something about not knowing what you have until it’s gone. “I was going to ask you to come with me.” It’s a lie, but it feels true.
“Really?” Leon says. He lapses into silence, narrows his eyes appraisingly. “How many times have you saved the world, Sam Winchester?”
The sudden change of subject throws Sam for a loop. “Uh, it depends how you count,” he says honestly. “Maybe two or three times?”
Leons stands unsteadily. “Well then I guess you’ve earned the right to be spectacularly fucked up, haven’t you?” He takes three steps forward to kiss Sam hard on the mouth, and he tastes like whisky and salvation.
Sam kisses back hungrily, grateful for whatever stopped Leon from leaving the moment he’d found those photos, and for whatever’s keeping him in Sam’s arms now. He’d thought, when he’d first gone to Crowley’s office, that he would be okay alone, but he was wrong. He breaks their kiss to breathe, tucks his face into the curve of Leon’s neck and bites gently at the vulnerable flesh there.
Leon makes a soft, appreciative noise, then reaches down to unbutton Sam’s wrinkled shirt from the bottom. “Clothes off,” he says firmly, and Sam’s not in any position to argue. He shucks off his shirt and jeans, toes off his socks, while Leon does the same - a little less efficiently, on account of all the whisky and the broken wrist. Hooking one finger under the elastic waistband of Sam’s boxers, he tugs him onto the bed.
This is the most naked Sam has ever been while in a sexual situation with a man, a fact he’s painfully aware of as he lies on top of Leon, their bodies pressing together in so many new places. Half of him wants to look away, embarrassed by so much bare skin, but the other half wants to stare, wants to memorize every single inch of it. He’s knows he’s allowed, now, but he’s afraid that if he tries he’ll miss the freckles, keep a mental catalogue of all the scars that should mark his lover’s skin, but don’t.
“Hey,” Leon says softly, and Sam looks up into his face, reminds himself these eyes are blue. “Did you ever fuck him?”
Sam fights the urge to jump back and away, the deep instinct toward denial and flight he’s always had whenever someone gets too close to the truth about how he feels about his brother. Sam forces himself to lie still, to look Leon in the eye.
“No,” he says. “It wasn’t like that. He wasn’t like that. He didn’t know.”
“Okay,” Leon says, and maybe it’s because he’s less than sober, but there’s no judgement in his voice. “I want you to fuck me, then. There are condoms and lube in the bedside table.” Considering how drunk he is, and how upset he was just a few minutes ago, Leon is surprisingly matter-of-fact now. Sam wishes he knew what had changed.
But Sam wasn’t brought up to disobey a direct order, not one from someone he trusts. He wonders as he fumbles in the drawer, when Leon bought supplies, was it earlier this week or was it was he was out, after he found the photos of Dean in the glovebox? When, exactly, had he decided to forgive Sam, and why?
“Find it?” Leon asks, and Sam nods, closes the drawer, sits up again. He feels suddenly self-conscious, looking down at the tube of lubricant in his hand.
“Uh, I’ve never -” he starts, before trailing off.
“Oh,” Leon says. He squints at Sam like he’s a particularly fascinating puzzle. “It’s okay. I’ll show you.”
And that’s good, Sam likes that. Likes the way Leon takes control of the situation, guiding Sam’s hands without speaking, teaching by demonstration. It reminds Sam of learning to throw knives, fire a crossbow, shoot pool. Dean’s body leaning close to his, Dean’s fingers around his wrist, Dean’s hand on his hip. Dean’s is the only male body Sam’s ever been close to, acquainted with, and fighting that association now is futile; the flat planes of the body under his, the smell of sweat and spicy deodorant, and every low groan conspire to fill Sam’s brain with fog and make his cock go hard.
“Okay, ready,” Leon says after a time, and he’s put the condom on for Sam even though he probably could have managed that himself and Leon’s only got the one good hand.
Sam pushes in slowly, keeping his eyes fixed on Leon’s face to make sure he’s not in pain only that’s not right because Leon’s eyes are too blue, too unfamiliar, not what he knows or what he wants. Being with Leon - being inside Leon - feels exactly right and completely wrong at the same time. It feels like standing at the edge of a cliff, exhilarating at first, but nauseating once you look down.
Sam feels dizzy. “I’m sorry,” he pants, squeezing his eyes shut and leaning over Leon’s body, burying his face in the damp skin of his throat, where it’s easier to pretend because skin tastes like skin no matter who’s wearing it.
“It’s okay,” Leon answers. Sam can feel his throat vibrate. “Everything’s okay.”
Sam takes that as forgiveness, as permission, and he lets himself forget, grateful that they lapse back into silence broken only by panting and groaning, generically masculine and easy fodder for his imagination. If it didn’t feel so good it would be scary how easily it happens. In a moment, it’s Dean’s calloused hands rough against Sam’s back as he scrambles for leverage, Dean’s erratic breathing before they find their rhythm.
Sam starts slow, but soon thrusts harder, faster. It’s not like Dean can’t handle it; he’s the toughest person Sam’s ever known, and even now that Sam’s bigger and taller, there’s a part of him that believes his big brother will always be stronger than he is. In any case Dean’s breath hitches when Sam finds the right spot, and he makes a tiny whimpering sound in the back of his throat. Dean’s voice is as familiar to Sam as his own, but he’s never heard that particular sound before, and the brand-newness of it makes him shiver, makes him momentarily lose their rhythm. It’s a visceral reminder that there are still things he doesn’t know about his brother, that there are still places left to explore.
But as much as Sam’s mind wants to dwell in this moment, his body has other ideas. He braces himself on one arm and shoves his other hand between their bodies, wrapping it around Dean’s cock. He matches his strokes to the rhythm of their fucking, fast and firm and relentless. Dean expresses his appreciation by twisting his fingers in Sam’s always-too-long hair, and trying to pull him still impossibly closer. It hurts, but in the best possible way. Sam retaliates by sucking at Dean’s throat, so hard he suspects - maybe hopes - he’ll leave a bruise, by digging his fingers hard into Dean’s hips. He can feel Dean shaking underneath him.
“Shit,” Dean mutters, voice muffled so it’s hardly recognizable. Sam’s still got his eyes closed, but he thinks he must be covering his mouth with a pillow or something. “Oh god.”
Sam thrusts into Dean one more time - as hard as he can - and swipes his thumb across the head of Dean’s cock. It’s the light touch that makes the difference, makes his body go stiff for a moment, tight around Sam’s cock still buried inside him, before he shudders violently and gasps, come spilling over Sam’s hand and smearing between their stomachs.
“Fuck, Sammy,” Dean groans, and it’s that word as much as it’s the heat and the pressure and the motion, that nickname only Dean’s allowed to use, that pushes Sam over the edge. He yells as he comes, without sparing a second thought for the occupants of the room next door, and pushes Dean down into the mattresses, keeping them both safely pinned while they ride out their orgasms.
Reality hits him with the cold air as they pull apart, as he opens his eyes after bright red stars behind his eyelids fade and sees Leon’s blue eyes looking back at him. It should hurt, but mostly it just makes Sam feel numb. He wonders if maybe he’s used up all the pain he has for missing his brother, if all he has left is feeling nothing.
“So I guessed right,” Leon says, expression unreadable, as Sam pulls out and away on autopilot, removes the condom and tosses it in the trash.
“Huh?” Sam manages, still disoriented by the pleasure humming through his nerves.
“He called you Sammy,” Leon clarifies. He uses one corner of the sheet to wipe his own come off his stomach.
Sam shrugs, the warm feeling in his gut rapidly replaced by guilt. “I guess.”
Leon switches off the lamp next to the bed, kicking back the sheet and climbing under it. “There’s no sense pretending you weren’t imagining I was him,” he says. “You screamed his name as you came.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam whispers, climbing under the sheet himself.
“No you’re not,” Leon answers. “It’s okay. I can handle myself. Now shut up so I can sleep.”
Sam tries, but something is poking him in the back, digging into his skin. He reaches underneath him and pulls out a plastic ID badge, from which Dean’s face stares expressionlessly down at him.
Sam slides it under his pillow, but it takes him a long time to get to sleep.
Part Two
Author: bree_black
Pairings & Characters: Sam/Dean, Sam/OMC, Crowley, Meg, Alpha Vamp
Rating: NC17
Betas: Many thanks to evian_fork and lookturtles.
Wordcount: 18k
Warnings: incest and incest-based guilt, angst, drunk sex
Note: This story can also be found at my AO3 account, where I am finally posting stuff!
Summary: Completely without allies after Dean disappears, Sam decides desperate times call for desperate measures and takes a job working for Crowley, developing a new version of Dick Roman's "vamptonite" that will work on all monsters. It seems like a win-win situation - Sam becomes a more efficient hunter than ever before, and Crowley takes out his competition for earthly dominance. But during his work Sam meets a man who reminds him of Dean, and the more time they spend together the less certain Sam is that he's doing the right thing. Once he finally discovers a way to get Dean out of Purgatory, Sam is forced to decide how far he’s willing to go to get the one thing he’s always wanted.
It’s actually harder when there’s no body.
Sam wouldn’t have believed, if you’d told him before it happened, that knowing his brother was dead would be easier than knowing he’s probably alive, but it’s true. Dean’s body, bleeding and torn to shreds by hell hounds, was the worst thing he’s ever seen, but at least he’d seen it, laid hands on it, shed tears over it, put it in the ground.
This time, he’s got nothing to hold on to. Dean is just gone, body and soul, and Sam is utterly and completely alone - without even a corpse to burn.
The worst part is not knowing. So Sam focuses on the things he does know.
He knows Dean is likely in Purgatory, if Crowley was right about him and Cas hitching a ride with Dick. He knows he can’t open Purgatory without repeating Cas’ mistakes. He knows the Leviathans are still out there - leaderless and disorganized, but still deadly and impossible to kill. He knows Crowley is still King of Hell, and that it’s only a matter of time before he finds a way to take advantage of the Leviathan situation. And he also knows he’s the only person alive who knows all of the above.
What he doesn’t know is what he’s supposed to do about it.
Sam picks his way through the Demon-Leviathan skirmish raging outside Dick’s headquarters, picks his way through the broken glass to climb into the Impala’s driver’s seat, and drives her as far away as he can before the engine starts making some truly alarming noises. Then he pulls into a cheap motel - half its neon lights burnt out - and checks himself in.
He switches on the black and white television, and waits.
The news reports start within hours. Hundreds rioting near Sucrocorp labs, and Dick Roman rumoured to have left the country. The news experts’ leading theory is that some chemical in the corn syrup manufacturing process leads to sudden and violent insanity. By the next morning they suspect the chemical may actually be in the food itself, leading to an epidemic of mass hallucinations, particularly of monsters eating people. There are other attacks too, people with sharp claws or strangely sharp teeth biting innocent bystanders and then dropping dead a moment later, covered with strange acid burns.
Buried among the increasingly horrifying news items delivered by increasingly hysterical news anchors is a tiny item of business news: Dick Roman Enterprises purchased for an undisclosed sum by one A.J. Crowley, who will take control of the company and all its assets immediately.
Sam spends two days on research. He rehearses his presentation in front of the cracked bathroom mirror. He spends the majority of his savings getting the car fixed, and what little is left on a new suit. He cites his sources, he makes a pie chart. It feels oddly like being back in college. He files it all away into a three-ring binder, and then drives twelve hours to the personal residence of A.J Crowley, new owner of the former Dick Roman Enterprises (now Trident Properties).
The butler who opens the door is probably a demon, though Sam can’t be sure without running any tests.
“I’m here to see Crowley,” he says, resisting the urge to reach for his flask of holy water.
“His Majesty doesn’t take visitors without an appointment,” he answers haughtily, already closing the door.
Sam steps forward, putting a foot between the frame and the door to prevent it from closing. “Whenever he has a moment,” he insists. “I can wait.”
“Morning, sunshine. Could you kindly remove your filthy boots from my very expensive furniture?”
Sam wakes up suddenly, wiping frantically at the line of drool running down the side of his face. He sits up, guiltily brushing at the mud his boots have left on the upholstery of Crowley’s couch.
“Hi,” he says, brain still foggy with sleep. He’d been dreaming of Dean.
“Hi?” Crowley says. “You spent forty-eight hours waiting in my sitting room and all you have to say for yourself is ‘hi’?’”
“I wanted to speak with you,” Sam says, reaching up to straighten his hair.
“Clearly,” Crowley says. “But let me save us both some time. I have no interest in helping you find your brother or his pet winged monkey. The three of you have been a thorn in my side for too long already, and I’m inclined to kill you right now and finish the whole thing off.”
“Fine,” Sam interrupts. “Go ahead. But just hear me out first.”
Crowley sighs heavily. “Alright,” he says. “What can I do for you now?”
“I’d actually like to talk about what I can do for you,” Sam says. “I want you to give me a job.”
Crowley is so startled it actually takes him a moment to laugh. “You? Work for me? I wasn’t aware you had enjoyed our last arrangement so much.”
“I didn’t,” Sam says, struggling to keep his voice neutral. “But this time will be different. I want to be your VP.”
Crowley raises an eyebrow. “My second-in-command? Bit familiar isn’t it, this narrative? You’ve had your shot at the Prince of Darkness title, if I remember correctly.”
“I’d rather work under you than under Azazel,” Sam says, deliberately flirtatious. It’s transparent and kind of pathetic, but Crowley smiles.
A moment later they’re sitting on opposite ends of a long table, in a completely windowless board room. Sam’s chair is made of leather and incredibly comfortable.
“Let’s hear it,” Crowley says. “What is this exciting business opportunity I’m about to turn down?”
“You have a problem,” Sam begins. “The same problem the Leviathans had. The world is getting kind of crowded. Between all the usual monsters and the Leviathans, you’re facing a lot of competition on the evil-on-Earth front. You may not actually eat humans, but you prey on them all the same.”
“A hobby I was under the impression you strongly disapproved of,” Crowley interrupts.
Sam’s got momentum going, so he ignores the interjection. “The Leviathans are all new, and taking up a lot of space. Plus Eve’s army-building strategies upped the old-school monster population and wiped out a lot of good hunters. What you need - what Dick knew he needed - is population control.”
“And what makes you think I need your help with that?”
“I know you have Dick’s additive, the one that wipes out vampires, werewolves, and all the other people-eaters. You would have seized the formula when you bought the company; it’s pretty obvious that’s all you were after.”
“The man also had a fair number of quite impressive evil lairs.”
“But you have a problem,” Sam rushes on, undeterred by Crowley’s refusal to take him seriously. “The vampires, at least, know the additive exists, and they know who’s behind it. We spoke to their Alpha. It’s only a matter of time before they figure out you have it and come after you. If he was smart, he’d ally himself with some of Eve’s other children.”
“And?”
“And you need a hunter. No one knows more about monsters than I do. How to avoid them, manipulate them, kill them. You don’t have time to personally supervise a war on two fronts, so we should divide and conquer. You handle the Leviathans and I’ll take care of the rest of the monsters. I’ll help disseminate your additive, I’ll intercept their communications, I’ll keep them away from you, and if I need to, I’ll march into the Alpha Vamp’s lair and kill him myself.”
Sam gets out of his very comfortable chair and marches to Crowley’s end of the table, placing the thick binder in front of him.
“Inside you’ll find a catalog of all the creatures we can expect the additive to work on, and a list of others that might be immune. Dick’s guy only indicated it works on ‘anything with a taste for human flesh,’ and I can think of at least thirty species that don’t directly consume human flesh it may be ineffective against. We’ll need to run tests; I’m more than happy to track down enough test subjects for full scientific trials.”
“I could have any demon do that, you know.” Crowley leans back, puts his feet up on the table. But Sam recognizes his casual posture as an act masking real interest.
“Not the way I can. Dean and I have encountered more monster species than any of your demons have reason to. Besides, it will take creativity, subtlety and patience to track down all these species and customize strategies for feeding them the additive without their knowledge. Demons typically don’t have that kind of...nuance.”
“You certainly are a resourceful, persistent bugger.” Crowley flips idly through Sam’s portfolio. “But what’s in this for you?”
Sam doesn’t hesitate. “I kill monsters. That’s my job; it’s all I’ve ever done. But as you pointed out, I find myself completely without allies, and I’d rather not hunt alone. Why not take the opportunity to start a large-scale operation? If I help you distribute the additive I can exterminate as many monsters in a month as I would during a lifetime of case-by-case hunts. Our goals converge.”
“And what, pray tell, would you ask for in payment?”
Sam smiles because he knows he’s won. “A living wage. Access to your properties for use as headquarters as I travel, and all the resources in your labs and weapons stores, of course. Protection from any demon attacks.”
“And help with your brother,” Crowley adds.
Sam falters. “I...I was under the impression nothing could be done about that.”
Crowley nods. “Nothing that I know of.. But I could make inquires. My resources are nearly unlimited after all, and you should know by now that nothing’s impossible. I will look for a way to free your brother, and, should your performance impress me, I’ll let you know what I find. I like for my employees to stay motivated.”
Sam swallows hard, then holds out his hand. “Do we have a deal?”
Crowley narrows his eyes. “On one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You need to blend in, Sam. I have enough personal history with you not to doubt your skill set, and I like your work ethic, but I’m not sure you have the proper character to be a member of my team.”
“You mean because I’m not evil?” Sam says.
“Oh, no. I suspect you’ve done more evil deeds than some of my department managers. The problem is that you’ve always committed those deeds with such sickeningly good intentions. You started the Apocalypse because you thought you were preventing it, for fuck’s sake. I don’t care how much blood Azazel made you drink as an infant, there’s just not enough sin in you.”
“I’m not as pure as you think,” Sam says, with certainty.
Crowley’s grin is slow and malicious. “I suspect you’re right. Tell me Sam, have you ever wanted something you know is wrong, just because you want it? No ‘greater good’ rubbish.”
Sam glances down at the floor before he can stop himself, bites the inside of his cheek. When he forces himself to make eye contact again Crowley is still grinning, though now it’s a knowing smile, like he can see into Sam’s tainted soul.
“Yes,” Sam answers. “Yes, I’ve wanted that.”
Crowley stands. “Excellent. Then I’ll hire you on a probationary basis. But remember, Sam, sinful thoughts aren’t enough. If I don’t see some action, you’ll never win employee of the month.”
“Understood.” Bile rises in the back of Sam’s throat as he says it.
“Shall we seal the deal?” Crowley asks, and kisses Sam hard.
It’s the first time Sam’s ever kissed a man.
Sam is assigned a corner office with a view in Dick Roman’s former headquarters. It’s actually not far from Charlie’s old cubicle. He knows because he passes a slightly faded Harry Potter sticker every time he goes to the bathroom. Sam has his own computer and a completely legitimate ID pass, complete with blurry photo and security clearance. He has a secretary, a coffee order, and a tab opened under his real name at the pub on the corner.
He checks into the closest motel to the office, and pays an entire month’s rent out of an advance on his first paycheck. He makes sure it has a kitchenette, and he stocks the mini-fridge with groceries. He spends nine hours a day at the office - working alongside colleagues, half human and half demon, whose names he doesn’t bother to learn. Both species call him “sir” when they see the color of the pass he wears around his neck. He comes home at night and watches game shows and reality TV until he falls asleep on scratchy motel sheets.
He’s just your average Joe working his nine to five office job, except that his goal is to exterminate vampires and his boss is the King of Hell. It’s a bizarre, inside-out version of the lifestyle Sam had dreamed of as a kid, and he wishes he had someone to laugh about that with.
Sam works to keep from thinking. He pins a giant map of the entire U.S. to one of the walls in his office and marks known monster populations with multi-colored thumbtacks. He has his secretary set up alerts for electrical storms, cattle death, sudden drops in temperature and the like, plus, of course, any kind of mysterious death. In the last hour of every work day, Sam combs through all the data she’s compiled and adds it to his map.
His goal is to track down at least thirty different monster species and test Dick’s additive on all of them. He knows it works on vampires, but he’s not going to make assumptions about anything else. It’s likely modifications will need to be made to the formula for some unique species, and in that case Sam will need to capture a few specimen of each - alive - and bring them back to the lab for the research department.
On top of that, Sam needs to deal with the Alpha Vamp, who is bound to notice that even with Dick dead, even with human prey returning to its usual speed and intelligence, his children are still dying when they feed.
Sam hadn’t even needed to persuade Crowley to stop using Dick’s original corn syrup recipe. “Much less fun torturing humans when they don’t fight back,” he’d said. “Takes the sport right out of it.” But they’d left the monster-poison additive intact, mixed in with regular old high-fructose corn syrup, because why fix something if it’s not broken?
Sam has a lot on his plate and no one to delegate to, which is exactly how he likes it. He keeps his head down and his brain busy, and he uses the company health insurance policy to get a prescription for some pretty impressive sleeping pills, ones that knock him into deep and dreamless oblivion every night. It’s not much of a life, but at least he’s alive.
He spends a month doing research, then setting up the most efficient route to hit all of the chosen hotspots on his map. He plans to drive the Impala rather than one of the company cars. If he has to capture anything and send it back, he’s got assurances of demon assistance along the way, and shouldn’t have any trouble passing an unconscious creature or two off to one of Crowley’s underlings.
The night before his scheduled departure, Crowley summons Sam to his home office.
“And how is my Boy King?” Crowley says, handing Sam a tumbler of what he know will be very, very good scotch.
Sam takes the glass, sniffing it hesitantly before taking a sip.
“Don’t worry, it’s not poisoned,” Crowley says. “Why would I want to kill you? I’ve grown quite fond of you.”
Sam sits, takes a sip of his scotch so he doesn’t have to acknowledge the compliment. “What can I do for you?”
“Oh, I just thought I’d check in with you before you left, make sure you have everything you need.”
Sam nods, takes another gulp of his drink, and tries not to cough. “Eleven scheduled stops in my first trip. They gave me a new phone in IT, so I can call for help transporting stuff back to the lab.”
“I could get you a partner, that offer stands. I’ve heard hunting alone can be a dangerous business.” Crowley sounds almost proud, like he’s personally responsible for the danger.
“I don’t want a partner,” Sam says, too quickly.
“I thought you’d say that,” Crowley says. “And I must ask you to reconsider. You’re grieving for your brother, and that’s perfectly understandable. I know how close the two of you were.”
“Stop talking about him,” Sam says, losing his carefully cultivated professional calm.
“No,” Crowley says. “I’ve put too much time and energy into you to watch you burn out or self-destruct. You’re my investment and I’ve put a lot of responsibility on your shoulders. You need to let him go.”
Sam laughs. “Forgive me if I don’t take advice from you.”
“Whenever a door closes a window opens, Sam. You’ve lost your brother and that’s just terrible, but it’s time to start looking for the silver lining. He was holding you back; love always does. Now you have your freedom, so what are you going to do with it?”
Sam slams his empty glass down on the table. “Fuck you,” he snarls, storming out of the room.
“Stay in touch, love,” Crowley calls after him.
Sam doesn’t go back to the motel. Instead, he wanders Crowley’s mansion aimlessly. He has half a mind to find a weapon and try to cut the guy’s head off, though he knows it probably wouldn’t work. He passes more than a few demons, but none of them pay any attention to him - they know who he is, and how valuable he is. They probably assume he’s still here on business.
Sam ends up descending a dark stone staircase, lit only by torches affixed to the damp walls, somewhere in the bowels of the house. He wonders if it’s deliberately designed to be reminiscent of Hell. He hears a scream from below, and thinks the answer is probably yes.
There’s a long stone hallway at the bottom of the stairs, lined with heavy iron cages. In front of each cell, devil’s traps are scrawled in red paint - Sam hopes it’s paint - on the rough stone floor. He turns around, and moves to head back up the stairs. He doesn’t need to see this.
“Sam Winchester,” drawls an all-too-familiar female voice. “I’d recognize your lumbering footsteps anywhere.”
Sam stops, walks forward into the dark and peers into the first cell on the left. “Meg,” he says.
She sits on the ground, back to the wall dividing her cell from the next, and waves up at him. “Howdy,” she says. There’s blood on her jacket - a lot of it.
“I figured they’d caught you,” Sam says.
Meg nods. “Thanks for the rescue mission, by the way.”
Sam shrugs. “I actually assumed you’d be killed on sight.”
Meg laughs. “So did I. But Crowley decided it would be more fun to keep me around as his whipping girl, I guess. Don’t worry, I don’t expect you to help me. I hear you’ve switched sides.”
“It’s complicated,” Sam begins, but Meg interrupts.
“You don’t need to make excuses to me. If you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em, right? You have your own ass to save; I get it.”
“Okay,” Sam says. He shifts awkwardly from foot to foot. He doesn’t like Meg and never has, but he’s acutely aware that she’s one of the only people he’s ever fought side by side with still on Earth.
“Listen,” Meg says. “Is it true what they’re saying? Are Dean and Cas in Purgatory?”
Sam nods.
“Well, fuck,” Meg says, and it sounds like she means it. It’s the first time anyone else has expressed any regret, the first time since it happened he’s had anyone to talk to about it, and Sam feels profoundly grateful.
“Crowley says he’ll look for a way to get him out,” Sams says, “but obviously I’m skeptical.”
“Them. You mean get them out, right? I like that angel.”
“Why?” Sam asks. Truthfully, he hasn’t thought much about Castiel.
Meg smirks. “Because he likes me.”
Sam hears footsteps from down the hall, and while he hasn’t strictly been prohibited from visiting Crowley’s dungeon, he’d rather avoid any awkward questions.
“Listen, I’m going on a trip for awhile. For work. But I’ll come visit you again,” Sam says quickly.
Meg raises an eyebrow. “Sure,” she says, “if I’m still alive by the time you get back.”
Being back on the road is harder than Sam expected. There are too many reminders of Dean in every hunt; even driving the Impala, every moment behind the wheel, Sam imagines he can hear Dean’s off-key singing, can smell the mixture of leather and cologne and sweat that has always made his heart beat faster.
He can’t stop thinking about what Crowley said, about Dean holding him back, and about what he might be able to let himself do, now.
He finishes his first hunt without incident - confirms his hypothesis that yes, the additive does work on werewolves without modification - and is on his way to the second mark on his map when he finally cracks.
It’s the middle of the night when Sam pulls over onto the shoulder of an empty stretch of highway and rolls down the driver’s side window to let in the still-warm summer air. He takes three deep, steadying breaths, like readying himself for a fight, and then reaches into the Impala’s backseat and grabs Dean’s duffel bag, which he hasn’t opened since that day.
He rummages inside until he finds a grey t-shirt, wrinkled but not stained, and presses it over his mouth and nose. It smells like Dean, still. Sam inhales deeply, imagining the traces of Dean left on the shirt being drawn into his lungs, seeping into his blood and running through his veins. Then he reaches down with his free hand and unbuttons his jeans, unzips the fly.
Sam has never masturbated while thinking about his brother on purpose before. It’s only ever happened by accident, in moments of weakness or when he’s been drunk, creeping into his other, safer fantasies until he forces himself to veer sharply away again. He’s spent half his lifetime perfecting the art of not thinking of Dean while he jerks off, going so far as to never allow himself to think about any men at all. He’s learned to focus on petite blonde women with long curls and soft curves who smell like vanilla body lotion and flowery shampoo, because it’s the furthest he can get from what he wants most of all.
Not this time. Sam shoves down his jeans and boxers, keeping Dean’s shirt pressed against his face, and tentatively strokes his cock. He ignores the guilty twist in his stomach and, instead of replacing the images that automatically come to mind, deliberately intensifies them. He thinks about Dean covered in dirt and sweat after a hunt, then Dean fresh out of the shower in one of a thousand motel rooms they’ve shared. He thinks about Dean at nineteen and Dean at thirty-three, and all the ways his body has changed and the ways it hasn’t, and about how Sam is the only person in the world who’s seen all it happen.
He bites back a groan and then realizes he doesn’t have to, that no one can see him or hear him, and that there’s no one he cares about on Earth left to judge him anyway. He strokes himself faster, presses Dean’s shirt closer until he’s biting down on the cotton, eyes squeezed shut as a flood of images he’s spent a lifetime repressing streams through his mind’s eye. Sam fucks his own hand and lets himself imagine he’s fucking Dean.
His orgasm takes him by surprise, ripping suddenly through his body like a dam bursting. Sam screams his brother’s name as he comes, and what he feels most is relief, the blissful peace of caving in. He sits for a long time, sweaty and sticky behind the steering wheel of Dean’s car. When his breathing returns to normal, he wipes his come off his hand, wrist, stomach with Dean’s t-shirt, and waits for the guilt to hit him.
It doesn’t. Though he probably shouldn’t admit it, as he starts the engine again, all Sam feels is free.
Two days later, Sam successfully traps a Wendigo. It’s a pretty fucking huge accomplishment single-handed, and he nearly loses an arm in the process. He injects it with the additive while it’s struggling in a giant steel net procured for Sam by the local demon contingent, and he’s thrilled when the thing dies within a minute, because he had no idea how he was going to transport it back to HQ.
High on adrenaline and with no one to share his victory, Sam decides to go out and celebrate. Six shots and three beers later, he’s in a stall in the dingy bathroom at the back of a roadside bar, his pants around his ankles, and some guy on his knees in front of him.
“Shit,” Sam says, as a general expression of bewilderment and uncertainty, and of just how fucking drunk he is.
The guy, though, takes it as encouragement. He looks up at Sam and grins, and everything is wrong. His eyes are brown, not green, his lips are too thin, and he’s got a streak of blue painted into the front of his hair.
Sam is drunk and not exactly on his best behaviour. He shoves the guy’s head down and pulls him forward by his hair. He gives a short, startled laugh and then responds with enthusiasm, sucking back Sam’s cock.
Sam groans and lets his head fall back against the back of the stall. He keeps one hand twisted in the guy’s hair; with his eyes closed he can’t see the blue and it’s almost right. It’s not hard to conjure up an image of Dean; after all, his is the face Sam has spent more time looking at than any other.
It takes longer than it usually does for Sam to get off, partly because he’s had so much to drink, but also because he’s savouring this, taking his time, holding on as long as possible. He imagines he’s in a cheap motel room, not a club, and that if he looked down he’d see Dean’s green eyes, full of laughter and ready to pull off his cock and tell Sam to just come already, he doesn’t have all day. Sam pictures a line of spit - or maybe precome - connecting his cock and Dean’s lower lip, and for some reason it’s that detail that pushes him over the edge.
Sam comes, and the guy in the bar pulls off, coughing and then laughing, wiping his mouth, and teasing Sam for not giving him any warning. Sam doesn’t really hear much - he’s drunk and now he’s tired, and reality’s crashing in on him pretty hard. Thankfully the guy takes the hint, and a minute later Sam’s alone and pulling up his pants.
It’s a strange experience, but mostly good, and so Sam does it again the next night, in the next town, at the next bar with the next man. After all, there’s no reason not to anymore.
Sam has some trouble with the mermaid. Water-based cases aren’t exactly his strong suit, if only because he hasn’t actually encountered very many of them over the years. Dad’s theory was that water - known to repel some kinds of demon - has a stabilizing influence that tends to discourage supernatural activity. It’s always been a strong enough explanation for Sam - he can swim, but given the choice he’d rather fight a monster on solid ground.
Which is why the mermaid situation really sucks. He really wishes the chemical had worked this time.
Sam ends up in the ocean, thrashing around trying not to die, while a handful of demons stand around looking bored on the beach, refusing to so much as stick their toes in the water.
Mermaids, it turns out, are anything but beautiful. Instead of the soft clear skin of storybooks, they’re covered in huge, armor-like scales, and their long flowing hair is actually composed of hundreds of sea serpents. Normally, the snakes spend all their time fighting one another so that blood streams out behind her as a mermaid swims. Right now, they’re all simultaneously trying to bite off Sam’s junk.
Sam has enough tranquilizer on him to knock out an elephant; he just needs to get close enough to stab her with it.
“Here,” he says when he finally reaches shore, dragging the heavy unconscious body behind him. “Take this back to the lab. You’ll want to administer more tranquilizer every four hours.”
The demon in charge of the local group nods at Sam, but the sneer on his face gives him away. He likes working for Sam about as much as Sam likes working for Crowley. His flunkies approach the sleeping mermaid with caution, and then hoist her into the back of the tanker truck Sam instructed them to bring.
Sam hands off the extra tranquilizer, and then stomps off across the sand without even saying goodbye. He hopes he has dry clothes in the car.
At least the mermaid was the last item on the list for this leg of the mission. Now Sam can head back to headquarters, where the eggheads will already have started developing variations on the additive for Sam to test on the next leg. Sam, for his part, will have more research to do, more mapping, more travel arrangements. But he plans to take the trip back at a leisurely pace; he’s been working non-stop for six weeks and he figures he deserves a break.
His first stop is the local beer store. He goes in to buy a case - enough to last him through the weekend - and when he comes out again there’s a guy in a leather coat crouched down beside the Impala, looking underneath her chassis.
It sort of takes Sam’s breath away. He stands there, shocked into silence, until the guy pulls his head out from under the car. He doesn’t even look surprised to see Sam standing there, just smiles up at Sam before standing.
“This your car?” he says. “What is she, a ‘69?”
“‘67,” Sam says, still running on autopilot. He can see now that the man’s eyes are blue - not green - and that his legs are straight where Dean’s bowlegged. Still, the resemblance is striking in the fullness of his mouth, in the way he lovingly strokes the hood of the car.
He whistles, long and low. “Great piece of work. And you’ve kept her up really well.”
Sam merely nods again. There’s not enough air in his lungs.
The guys raises an eyebrow, then smirks at Sam. He is, after all, standing there like an idiot and staring at a stranger like he’s the second coming. “Okay well, thanks for letting me take a look at her.”
He slaps Sam on the shoulder as he heads into the store, just a friendly gesture, but it makes Sam’s dick go half-hard in his jeans.
Sam shakes his head to clear it, tosses his case of beer in the back seat of the car, and then forces himself to drive away and absolutely not follow the stranger back into the store.
He ends up at a gay bar later that night. It’s not exactly Sam’s scene, all the flashing lights and pounding electronic music, but it’s easiest to pick someone up here so he doesn’t expect to stay long. Sam orders a drink and figures that by the time he’s finished it he’ll have found someone willing to go back to his motel room. He scans the dance floor for prospects, but gets distracted by a yell from outside.
No one else reacts - they probably assume it’s just someone a little too drunk, a little out of control, having an argument with his boyfriend or something - but Sam’s instincts are too strong for him to ignore. While everyone else keeps dancing, he abandons his drink and heads out the back door, hand on the gun tucked into its holster on his jeans.
At first he think they’re fucking. One guy has another pressed up against the hood of a car, and another stands just to their left, watching with a smile. Simple exhibitionism, maybe. But then the voyeur’s eyes turn black.
“Hey,” Sam says. “Hey, hold on.”
The first demon turns, and Sam sees the knife in his hand at the same time as he registers that the guy who’s pressed against the car, terrified expression on his face, is the guy from the beer store parking lot earlier today, and that he’s bleeding.
“Let him go,” Sam says. He takes his hand away from his gun holster, and reaches for the demon-killing knife in his jacket pocket instead. “He’s with me.”
The demons laughs, a harsh, grating sound that stops when Sam steps forward and into the glow of a streetlight.
“Oh,” the leader says. “It’s you.”
“That’s right,” Sam says, standing as straight as possible and opening his jacket so the light glints off the blade hidden there. “It’s me.”
“Whoa, whoa, relax, Winchester,” the demon snarls. “We’re on the same side now, right? We didn’t know this human belonged to you. Though now that I take a closer look,” he continues with a knowing smile, looking down at his victim appraisingly, “I can see that he’s your type.”
Sam draws his knife, stepping even closer. “Fuck off,” he shouts. “Now!”
The demons scatter, running in opposite directions, leaving Sam alone with the man he’s just rescued.
“Hey Impala guy,” he says dazedly. “I’m Leon.”
“You’re not going to convince me, dude,” Leon says half an hour later, from his perch on the second bed of Sam’s hotel room. “I know what I saw. They had pure black eyes, and they didn’t punch like any human I’ve ever met, either.” He holds a blood-stained hand towel to his head, staunching the flow of blood from his demon-inflicted head wound.
Sam sighs heavily. He’s spent the last twenty minutes trying to convince Leon he’d hallucinated those eyes, with absolutely no luck. His stubbornness, combined with his still-striking resemblance to Dean, is making it really difficult to lie to him.
“Alright fine,” Sam says with frustration. “You were attacked by demons, okay?” He expects the guy to laugh, or back away slowly, or to tell him to cut the bullshit.
“Are you a demon?” he asks, completely matter-of-fact.
Sam sputters. “No! Why would you think that?”
Leon shrugs. “They seemed to know you, that’s all. Like you’re their boss or something. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“I’m very reluctantly working for their boss,” Sam explains. “Wait, you actually believe me?”
“Hard to deny what I saw with my own eyes,” Leon says. “And your explanation fits. Do I need stitches, you think?” He lifts the hand towel from his head.
Sam moves closer to look, and tries not to notice how he smells like leather and engine grease and blood, tries not to let the familiarity of that combination get to him. “No, you should be fine. Your wrist on the other hand...”
Leon winces. “I tried to fight back. That guy just snapped it like a twig.” It’s definitely broken; Sam doesn’t need to look any closer to tell that much. “You got something to dull the pain?”
Sam offers him one of the beers he’d bought earlier, and Leon frowns. “Anything stronger?”
Sam doesn’t have anything; he’d been planning on doing his drinking at the club. “I can give you a ride to the hospital,” he offers.
“Yeah,” Leon says. “Hey, you think they’d give me a job as a janitor or something to pay off my cast? I don’t exactly have insurance.”
“I’ll pay for it,” Sam says without thinking. He can afford it, after all, with what Crowley’s paying him. “Though you need a better job. I work for a demon and even I have benefits.”
Leon laughs, then gets up and grabs his jacket from the bed with his good hand. Sam follows him out the door, toward the Impala. He tries not to watch his ass.
“I’m a mechanic,” Leon says. “technically. Though I’m between jobs at the moment. I don’t even live here, actually. I was just passing through.”
Sam opens the door for him, telling himself he’s only doing it because of the broken wrist. Then he climbs into the driver’s seat.
“Oh yeah, where are you headed?” he asks as he starts the engine, just making small-talk to distract the guy from his injury.
Leon peers into the backseat, at the duffel bag already packed and waiting. “I’m going wherever you’re going, Sam,” he says, and then leans over and kisses him.
Sam has avoided kissing any of the guys he’s picked up along his journey; in fact, the last person he’d kissed was Crowley. He’s a little rusty and a lot surprised, so the kiss is messy and awkward and unpracticed, but also really fucking good. Sam catches on after a second, leans into it hard, panting open-mouthed into the kiss. Leon reaches up to grab his face and pull him closer still and then -
“Jesus fucking Christ my wrist fucking hurts,” he hisses, pulling away suddenly. “Can we maybe pick up where we left off after I get some good drugs in my system?”
Sam, dizzy and tired and also happy for the first time in a long time, pulls out his phone to search for the nearest hospital.
“I hate hospitals,” Leon says as they leave one, seven hours later.
“Me too,” Sam agrees. He admires the way the early-morning light shines off his hair, makes his eyes look more green than blue, almost. He hasn’t slept in nearly forty-eight hours, and he nearly trips climbing into the car.
“I don’t think you’re safe to drive,” Leon says, squinting at him.
“Sure I am,” Sam tries to say, but it comes out as a yawn.
“Give me the keys,” Leon orders, and the casual, bossy authority of it goes straight to Sam’s head. He reaches into his pocket.
“Hey, wait,” he says suddenly. “You have a broken wrist. And you’re on painkillers!”
“I can drive one-handed,” Leon insists. “You can shift gears for me. And they didn’t give me the really good painkillers, so I’m more awake than you are, at least. Why haven’t you slept, anyway?”
“I was busy catching a mermaid.” Sam mumbles. He’s too tired to fight back, so he slides over to the passenger seat.
Leon grins as he climbs into the driver’s seat, stroking the steering wheel. “I hope you realize the driver gets to pick the music,” he says, and Sam can only smile.
Tired and comfortable, sitting in the passenger’s seat for the first time in months, with his head against the cool window, Sam lets the familiar rumble of the engine lure him toward sleep. If he looks over at Leon through just the corner of his eye, now singing along off-key to the classic rock station, he can almost believe everything is going to be okay.
“So why are you working for the demon?” Leon asks three days later, sitting cross-legged in the centre of the king-sized bed he’s insisted on for their motel room. There’s a pizza box open in front of him and he’s carefully picking the green peppers off a slice with his good hand. Dean doesn’t like vegetables on his pizza either.
Sam is bent over a map on his desk, adding the most recent information his secretary forwarded him. “Be careful,” he says. “Don’t get crumbs all over the bed.”
“Shut up,” Leon answers, then takes a huge bite of pizza and continues talking with his mouth full, “and stop avoiding the question.”
Sam has told Leon a little about his job, if only because it’s pretty difficult to polish your weapons without explaining to the guy sharing your motel room what they’re for. But he’s kept everything pretty current, hasn’t mentioned demon blood or the Apocalypse or - most importantly - his missing brother.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” he says, and hopes against hope that will be enough. “I sold out.”
“Bullshit,” Leon counters. He throws a handful of soggy green peppers across the room, and they splatter across Sam’s map. “You obviously hate demons, and you’re not the kind of person to go against your beliefs without a good reason.”
Sam scoffs, picking green peppers off his work. “Three days on the road and drunken handjobs in the middle of the night and you think you know anything about me?”
Leon scowls. “You’d be surprised, actually. For example, I offered to let you fuck me but you opted for handjobs instead. Additionally, I had to fight you for the king instead of two queen beds tonight. So, sexual intimacy issues specifically related to sleeping with men. And since you’re a little old to be just figuring out you like dudes now, something else must have happened to spook you. Am I right?”
Sam frowns. “Honestly, you’ll like me a lot better if we don’t delve into my personal history, alright?”
Leon shrugs. “Whatever you say. Though when I decided to go on a road trip with the hot monster-hunter in the cool car who saved my life, I pretty much expected you’d have a few skeletons in your closet. Besides, I don’t know you shouldn’t be working for demons because of sex - I know it because of your car.”
Sam folds up his map and leans back in his chair. “Okay, you’re gonna have to explain that one to me.”
“If I do will you take the rest of the night off and do something fun with me?”
Sam raises an eyebrow. “I thought I had hopeless sexual intimacy issues.”
Leon grins. “You can get over anything if you work at it hard enough. Besides, I meant do something fun outside of this motel room, you perv.”
“Sure,” Sam says. “It’s a deal.” He doesn’t strictly need to be back in the office for another week, and anyway, if he’s late Crowley will probably admire the show of bad behaviour.
“Alright. So the thing about your car is that it’s awesome, but it’s also completely wrong for your job. It’s not very fast. It’s got a poor turning radius. It’s loud, so you can’t exactly sneak up on people. Worse, it’s old, which means it breaks down a lot unless you put a ton of work into it, and replacement parts aren’t easy to find, and are expensive when you can get ‘em. If you were smart you’d drive something newer, faster and less recognizable.”
“Okay, and?”
“So this isn’t the kind of car you keep because it’s practical. You keep it because it means something, because you love it and you’re loyal to it, and because you’re not willing to trade it in. It’s not the kind of car a sell-out owns. It’s not the kind of car driven by someone who’s given up.” He looks at Sam expectantly. “Am I right?”
Sam nods, slowly. “Almost. But it isn’t my car, not really. It was my dad’s first, and then my brother’s. Dean’s the one who loved it, he’s the one who took care of it. I inherited it, but it says more about him than it says about me.”
Something clicks in Leon’s expression, and Sam realizes he’s revealed too much. “Did he die hunting?”
Sam nods, afraid to open his mouth in case more personal information should spill out. It’s as good as true.
“How long ago?”
Sam knows the exact number of days. “About three months,” he says.
“I’m sorry,” Leon says. Then he brightens. “Well it’s a good thing you hooked up with a mechanic, though, because I’ll keep that car in perfect condition for you. Now come on, we’re going one-handed bowling.”
Sam lets Leon drag him out of the motel room, fingers curled together, and wonders what exactly he’s gotten himself into.
When Sam arrives at his office Crowley is already there, sitting in Sam’s rolling chair with his feet on Sam’s desk.
“Hi,” Sam says, feeling suddenly self-conscious about his wrinkled shirt and tousled hair still damp from the shower.
“Nice of you to finally make an appearance,” he says. “Your mermaid arrived nearly a week ago.”
“Sorry,” Sam says, though he doesn’t mean it. “I got a little held up.”
Crowley smiles. “So I’ve heard. I must say, the resemblance is uncanny.”
Sam stiffens. “You’ve been spying on me.”
“I had someone watching your hotel,” Crowley admits. “I just wanted to be sure you arrived home safely. Imagine my surprise when I heard you weren’t alone.”
“He’s none of your business,” Sam says quickly.
“So you’re keeping him then? Excellent. I’m glad you’ve taken my advice to loosen up a little bit. I will, of course, tell my men he’s out-of-bounds. You’ve done very well, Sam. I’ve been impressed with your progress reports, and I’m told the lab is well on the way to modifying the formula. You have exceeded my expectations.”
“Thank you,” Sam says, though the praise makes him feel faintly nauseous. He wants to be anywhere but this office.
“Believe it or not, I haven’t stopped by to dish about your new boyfriend. I’m here regarding your brother.”
Sam’s heart stops beating.
“I haven’t found a way to free him yet, but I have made inquiries and believe I have a few leads. Should your performance continue to impress me, I may have an answer for you at the end of the next stage of your project.”
Sam’s heart starts beating again, faster than normal. He recognizes that he’s being manipulated, of course, can clearly see the carrot Crowley is dangling in front of his nose. He doubts there’s a way to free Dean, and he doubts even more that Crowley will ever tell him what it is.
“Thank you,” Sam says again, breathless, and Crowley nods before he vanishes. The tiny flicker of hope in Sam’s chest burns painfully before it flickers out.
Sam half expects Leon to disappear shortly after they arrive in Chicago, but a week later he’s still there. He seems to spend the entire day watching the news, and always gives Sam a full report when he gets back from work.
“So those things with the teeth, the Leviosas or whatever, have started attacking people in the New York subway stations at night. They’re saying it’s a pack of feral dogs on the news, but it’s a pretty weak cover up.”
“Leviathans,” Sam says. “ And I know. It’s my job to know, and my secretary’s job to know. You don’t need to watch the news so much. You probably shouldn’t watch the news so much.” He gets his arm caught in his stupid work blazer and struggles to tug it off.
“I know,” Leon answers, hopping off the bed and helping Sam out of his jacket. “But the world’s practically coming to an end. How can you expect me to look away?”
“The world’s actually come a lot closer to ending than this, and you had no idea,” Sam says. “We try to keep civilians out of it.” He realizes too late there’s no ‘we’ anymore. No Dean, no Bobby, no Cas, and if the hunting network knew who he was working for they’d probably disown him.
“About that,” Leon says. “That thing where I’m a civilian. Could we maybe change that?”
Sam blinks. “What?”
“Business isn’t exactly booming lately, and honestly fixing cars seems kind of irresponsible when the world is on the verge of being overrun with monsters. I know you’re leaving in a couple weeks, and I thought maybe I could come with you?”
For one brief moment, Sam lets himself imagine what it could be like. He thinks about having backup, stealing food off each other’s plates in diners, cleaning guns together, having another head bent over the same book in the library. He thinks about the smell of gunpowder and sweat in the seat next to him, about a warm arm around his shoulder when he’s dead tired, about constant contact and never being alone for more than an hour without checking in. And he thinks about how this time, this way he could also have fingers entwined over the gear shift, slow good morning kisses, showers together after a messy hunt...
He thinks about how in some ways hunting with Leon might even be better than hunting with Dean, and then the betrayal makes biles rise in the back of his throat and he says “No, absolutely not.”
Leon rushes on, completely unaware of Sam’s rising nausea. “I’m a pretty good shot,” he says. ‘My dad took me hunting a lot before he died. Ordinary hunting, but still. I’m a fast learner, Sam, and I want to help.”
Sam shakes his head. “I hunt alone. I need to hunt alone.”
“”But why? It’d be easier, safer with two. And I really like you, like being with you. I think we’d make a hell of a team.”
It’s too close to what Dean told him once, and something snaps in Sam’s brain so that for a second he doesn’t even see Leon, he sees Dean instead, green eyes instead of blue, an inch taller, one of his old familiar flannel shirts. It makes Sam want to laugh, and cry, and when he blinks the mirage away and Dean dissolves into Leon, brow furrowed with concern, it’s like losing his brother all over again.
Sam’s throat and eyes hurt. Before Leon can say anything else he turns on his heel and runs, slamming the motel room door behind him.
He’s not surprised Leon’s still there when he gets back, several hours and and countless miles of blind jogging later. It’s a trick Sam learned after Bobby died, to run so long and hard his body’s screams drown out his thoughts. Dean had thought he was just on a fitness kick, but there were a lot of things Dean didn’t really know about Sam.
He is surprised, though, by the nearly empty bottle of whisky that had been half-full when he’d left, and by the pile of shiny, laminated ID cards spread out across the end of the bed.
Leon holds one up when Sam enters the room, brandishing it like a weapon. “I went into your glovebox to look for my phone,” he says by way of explanation. “I was packing my shit.”
Sam nods. He’ll have found all the ID there, half of them featuring photos of Dean. He has to have noticed the resemblance, to have put it together, to have made assumptions about Sam’s attraction to him. And he won’t be wrong.
“This is Dean?” Leon says, slurring his words slightly. “The brother you hunted with?”
All Sam can do is nod again.
Leon sits down suddenly, and takes a deep breath. “Jesus,” he says.
“I know,” Sam says. “I’m sorry. I get that you need to break up with me, and obviously this is all on me.”
“Break up with you?” Leon says with a laugh, surprisingly light. “Is there even anything to break? Do you feel anything for me at all? Here I was worried you were mad because you thought I was trying to replace your brother when all along it was you trying to replace him with me.”
“I didn’t mean to,” Sam says. “I didn’t know what I was doing.” He feels dizzy and panicked at the thought of losing someone else, even someone he’s known for less than a month.
“Do you feel anything for me?” Leon repeats, enunciating carefully through his drunkenness.
“Yes,” Sam says, though he wasn’t sure of it until now. Something about not knowing what you have until it’s gone. “I was going to ask you to come with me.” It’s a lie, but it feels true.
“Really?” Leon says. He lapses into silence, narrows his eyes appraisingly. “How many times have you saved the world, Sam Winchester?”
The sudden change of subject throws Sam for a loop. “Uh, it depends how you count,” he says honestly. “Maybe two or three times?”
Leons stands unsteadily. “Well then I guess you’ve earned the right to be spectacularly fucked up, haven’t you?” He takes three steps forward to kiss Sam hard on the mouth, and he tastes like whisky and salvation.
Sam kisses back hungrily, grateful for whatever stopped Leon from leaving the moment he’d found those photos, and for whatever’s keeping him in Sam’s arms now. He’d thought, when he’d first gone to Crowley’s office, that he would be okay alone, but he was wrong. He breaks their kiss to breathe, tucks his face into the curve of Leon’s neck and bites gently at the vulnerable flesh there.
Leon makes a soft, appreciative noise, then reaches down to unbutton Sam’s wrinkled shirt from the bottom. “Clothes off,” he says firmly, and Sam’s not in any position to argue. He shucks off his shirt and jeans, toes off his socks, while Leon does the same - a little less efficiently, on account of all the whisky and the broken wrist. Hooking one finger under the elastic waistband of Sam’s boxers, he tugs him onto the bed.
This is the most naked Sam has ever been while in a sexual situation with a man, a fact he’s painfully aware of as he lies on top of Leon, their bodies pressing together in so many new places. Half of him wants to look away, embarrassed by so much bare skin, but the other half wants to stare, wants to memorize every single inch of it. He’s knows he’s allowed, now, but he’s afraid that if he tries he’ll miss the freckles, keep a mental catalogue of all the scars that should mark his lover’s skin, but don’t.
“Hey,” Leon says softly, and Sam looks up into his face, reminds himself these eyes are blue. “Did you ever fuck him?”
Sam fights the urge to jump back and away, the deep instinct toward denial and flight he’s always had whenever someone gets too close to the truth about how he feels about his brother. Sam forces himself to lie still, to look Leon in the eye.
“No,” he says. “It wasn’t like that. He wasn’t like that. He didn’t know.”
“Okay,” Leon says, and maybe it’s because he’s less than sober, but there’s no judgement in his voice. “I want you to fuck me, then. There are condoms and lube in the bedside table.” Considering how drunk he is, and how upset he was just a few minutes ago, Leon is surprisingly matter-of-fact now. Sam wishes he knew what had changed.
But Sam wasn’t brought up to disobey a direct order, not one from someone he trusts. He wonders as he fumbles in the drawer, when Leon bought supplies, was it earlier this week or was it was he was out, after he found the photos of Dean in the glovebox? When, exactly, had he decided to forgive Sam, and why?
“Find it?” Leon asks, and Sam nods, closes the drawer, sits up again. He feels suddenly self-conscious, looking down at the tube of lubricant in his hand.
“Uh, I’ve never -” he starts, before trailing off.
“Oh,” Leon says. He squints at Sam like he’s a particularly fascinating puzzle. “It’s okay. I’ll show you.”
And that’s good, Sam likes that. Likes the way Leon takes control of the situation, guiding Sam’s hands without speaking, teaching by demonstration. It reminds Sam of learning to throw knives, fire a crossbow, shoot pool. Dean’s body leaning close to his, Dean’s fingers around his wrist, Dean’s hand on his hip. Dean’s is the only male body Sam’s ever been close to, acquainted with, and fighting that association now is futile; the flat planes of the body under his, the smell of sweat and spicy deodorant, and every low groan conspire to fill Sam’s brain with fog and make his cock go hard.
“Okay, ready,” Leon says after a time, and he’s put the condom on for Sam even though he probably could have managed that himself and Leon’s only got the one good hand.
Sam pushes in slowly, keeping his eyes fixed on Leon’s face to make sure he’s not in pain only that’s not right because Leon’s eyes are too blue, too unfamiliar, not what he knows or what he wants. Being with Leon - being inside Leon - feels exactly right and completely wrong at the same time. It feels like standing at the edge of a cliff, exhilarating at first, but nauseating once you look down.
Sam feels dizzy. “I’m sorry,” he pants, squeezing his eyes shut and leaning over Leon’s body, burying his face in the damp skin of his throat, where it’s easier to pretend because skin tastes like skin no matter who’s wearing it.
“It’s okay,” Leon answers. Sam can feel his throat vibrate. “Everything’s okay.”
Sam takes that as forgiveness, as permission, and he lets himself forget, grateful that they lapse back into silence broken only by panting and groaning, generically masculine and easy fodder for his imagination. If it didn’t feel so good it would be scary how easily it happens. In a moment, it’s Dean’s calloused hands rough against Sam’s back as he scrambles for leverage, Dean’s erratic breathing before they find their rhythm.
Sam starts slow, but soon thrusts harder, faster. It’s not like Dean can’t handle it; he’s the toughest person Sam’s ever known, and even now that Sam’s bigger and taller, there’s a part of him that believes his big brother will always be stronger than he is. In any case Dean’s breath hitches when Sam finds the right spot, and he makes a tiny whimpering sound in the back of his throat. Dean’s voice is as familiar to Sam as his own, but he’s never heard that particular sound before, and the brand-newness of it makes him shiver, makes him momentarily lose their rhythm. It’s a visceral reminder that there are still things he doesn’t know about his brother, that there are still places left to explore.
But as much as Sam’s mind wants to dwell in this moment, his body has other ideas. He braces himself on one arm and shoves his other hand between their bodies, wrapping it around Dean’s cock. He matches his strokes to the rhythm of their fucking, fast and firm and relentless. Dean expresses his appreciation by twisting his fingers in Sam’s always-too-long hair, and trying to pull him still impossibly closer. It hurts, but in the best possible way. Sam retaliates by sucking at Dean’s throat, so hard he suspects - maybe hopes - he’ll leave a bruise, by digging his fingers hard into Dean’s hips. He can feel Dean shaking underneath him.
“Shit,” Dean mutters, voice muffled so it’s hardly recognizable. Sam’s still got his eyes closed, but he thinks he must be covering his mouth with a pillow or something. “Oh god.”
Sam thrusts into Dean one more time - as hard as he can - and swipes his thumb across the head of Dean’s cock. It’s the light touch that makes the difference, makes his body go stiff for a moment, tight around Sam’s cock still buried inside him, before he shudders violently and gasps, come spilling over Sam’s hand and smearing between their stomachs.
“Fuck, Sammy,” Dean groans, and it’s that word as much as it’s the heat and the pressure and the motion, that nickname only Dean’s allowed to use, that pushes Sam over the edge. He yells as he comes, without sparing a second thought for the occupants of the room next door, and pushes Dean down into the mattresses, keeping them both safely pinned while they ride out their orgasms.
Reality hits him with the cold air as they pull apart, as he opens his eyes after bright red stars behind his eyelids fade and sees Leon’s blue eyes looking back at him. It should hurt, but mostly it just makes Sam feel numb. He wonders if maybe he’s used up all the pain he has for missing his brother, if all he has left is feeling nothing.
“So I guessed right,” Leon says, expression unreadable, as Sam pulls out and away on autopilot, removes the condom and tosses it in the trash.
“Huh?” Sam manages, still disoriented by the pleasure humming through his nerves.
“He called you Sammy,” Leon clarifies. He uses one corner of the sheet to wipe his own come off his stomach.
Sam shrugs, the warm feeling in his gut rapidly replaced by guilt. “I guess.”
Leon switches off the lamp next to the bed, kicking back the sheet and climbing under it. “There’s no sense pretending you weren’t imagining I was him,” he says. “You screamed his name as you came.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam whispers, climbing under the sheet himself.
“No you’re not,” Leon answers. “It’s okay. I can handle myself. Now shut up so I can sleep.”
Sam tries, but something is poking him in the back, digging into his skin. He reaches underneath him and pulls out a plastic ID badge, from which Dean’s face stares expressionlessly down at him.
Sam slides it under his pillow, but it takes him a long time to get to sleep.
Part Two