A Womb of His Own - 14/21
Masterpost
Since Balthazar had assured them that Sam’s body wasn’t some precious flower that needed to be guarded carefully, they resumed hunting. They needed to get back on the road, for the sake of their relationship with Bobby, who was going nuts running interference and who probably just wanted his house back. It also seemed selfish to be sitting around all day when there were people facing more immediate problems than bad remakes of Junior.
More importantly, though, hunting together would put them back into a routine that was familiar, with roles they knew by heart, instead of the unchartered waters that their current predicament put them in. They needed to get back to a life with two motel beds, with twenty-four welcome inches between them, where sex was for chicks at bars and unplanned pregnancy was a plot on telenovelas.
The first case they took was a suspected rawhead in Louisville that Rufus had phoned Bobby about. He couldn’t take it because he was tracking down a cursed object in Laramie. Sam and Dean packed up the car and took off on a sunny but cold Tuesday.
For the first leg of the trip, they rode in silence. Sam was sifting through their research, and Dean was humming quietly along with the radio. It almost felt like old times, except Sam didn’t pretend to be annoyed by the music, and Dean didn’t ask for case updates every five minutes. Instead, they each acted as if the other wasn’t in the car.
They stopped for gas, went to the bathroom, got coffee, and took off again.
Finally Sam broke the silence. “Dude, pull over up there. I gotta pee.”
“Again?” Dean couldn’t help complaining. “We just stopped, like, an hour ago.”
“Your semen in my ass made a soul-baby,” Sam said shortly. “Pull over.”
Dean did as instructed and watched Sam climb out of the car. Sam stretched enough so that his shirt slipped up and exposed a strip of flesh around his middle, and then he strode over to the ditch. His back was to Dean, so it wasn’t as though Dean could see anything, but Dean kept an eye on him because it was his job to protect Sam and because if he couldn’t see anything, he didn’t see any reason why Sam would have objected to him watching.
Sam returned to the car and fished a little thing of Purel out of the glovebox. He rubbed it all over his hands. “Why are we just sitting here?”
Dean let out a breath and tapped a hand on the steering wheel. “Right.” He pulled back onto the highway, keeping his eyes trained on the asphalt in front of him.
They stopped for dinner at a Jack in the Box somewhere in Indiana. Dean ordered a BLT cheeseburger, and then very generously pushed his fries onto Sam’s tray. Sam snubbed them even after Dean reminded him he needed to eat more now.
“We can’t keep eating like this,” Sam protested. “I mean, tell me your jeans aren’t tight?”
They were a little tight, but Dean thought it was only because they’d been recently washed. Everyone knew denim stretched after you wore it a second time. That was historically why he’d argued against doing the laundry very often - because jeans were the most comfortable after a week of use - but both Dad and Sam always thought that was gross.
“You said you were down ten pounds. I’m not hunting with Michael Cera.”
“Okay, but one, fries are not the answer. They’re nothing but saturated fat. And two, just because I have to eat more doesn’t mean you do.”
Dean shoved an obnoxiously large bite of his very delicious burger into his mouth. “Are you calling me fat?”
“What? No! Just - dude, that sandwich is disgusting. Do you even know what bacon is made out of?”
During moments like this, Dean had to remind himself that he’d missed these talks during the replicant phase. He looked over at Sam’s chicken salad, which had bacon bits crumbled all over the top. “At least my bacon’s real bacon,” Dean argued with his mouth full.
Sam made a face and then chewed a piece of lettuce, cementing the notion Dean had long had that Sam was, in fact, part rabbit. “Nothing about that sandwich is real,” Sam said. “I’m disgusted by the things you put in your mouth.”
Dean Winchester had a lot of skills, but he had never he really developed the fine art of thinking before speaking. Not when it really mattered. So he wasn’t all together surprised when he said around a mouthful of beef, “That’s not what you said -” He was, however, grateful he managed to cut himself off before finishing the sentence.
Sam frowned at him in disappointment. He took a drink of his Sprite and leaned back against the booth. “Do we need to talk about this?”
“Nope.” Dean took another bite out of his sandwich, cramming in a few fries along the side.
“When you eat like that, it doesn’t exactly scream sexy,” Sam pointed out.
“Doesn’t matter,” Dean said, but it came out Dunnen mar, which sounded like a Scottish beer or a law firm.
Sam pinned Dean’s wrist to the table before he could reach for more fries.
“We’re not having this conversation here, Sam.”
Sam glanced around the restaurant, then nodded and withdrew his hand.
They ate the rest of their meal, went to the bathroom, and then headed back out on the road. They only had a little more than two hours left before they’d reach Louisville, so they pushed it and didn’t stop until they arrived at a seedy motel off Highway 60.
Once inside their room, which didn’t even have light bulbs in the lamps, Sam sank down on the dingy bed and pulled off his boots with a sigh of relief. “Oh my god, I’ve never been so tired in my life,” he groaned, wiggling his sock-covered toes around. “I don’t think I can go that long in one stretch.”
Dean unscrewed one of the three bulbs above the bathroom mirror and put it into the lamp between the two beds. It didn’t light up the whole room, but it was enough for him to change out of his clothes and avoid tripping over their bags.
By the time Dean brushed his teeth and washed his face, Sam was dozing. “Hey,” he said gently, “hey, Sammy, you should get out of your jeans.” It wasn’t that sleeping in jeans was a big deal - they’d both done tons of times - but it did often result in funny red marks along the waist, and if Sam was going to feel lousy anyway, he deserved to do it in comfortable clothes.
Sam’s response was a groan. Dean sat tentatively at the edge of the bed and reached for Sam’s left foot. Sam kicked reflexively, hitting Dean hard on the thigh. “What are you doing?”
“Uh, sorry.”
“Were you just going to rub my feet?”
“No.”
Sam sat up, pulling his knees to his chest, probably to keep his feet a safe distance from Dean’s overeager hands. “I gotta brush my teeth. I can still taste that fake bacon.”
“What does it feel like inside you?” Dean didn’t mean the bacon, obviously.
“It’s not, like, moving or kicking or anything. Mostly it’s just…a presence. Like I can sense something there that shouldn’t be.”
“Like being possessed?”
“No, not like that. It doesn’t have any bad intentions. It’s just there. Being quiet.”
“Do you think it’ll be like you?”
“I don’t know,” Sam answered honestly. “Maybe. Maybe a little like both of us. Maybe totally different. It’s not the same thing as raising a kid.” He sighed. “About earlier, Dean, I -”
“It’s okay. I was out of line, and I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“No, you shouldn’t have to keep apologizing,” Sam said. “I’m sorry I keep making you.”
“Apology for the apology accepted.”
“By the way, in case you were curious, you’re clean.”
“What?”
“At the clinic, I, uh, asked for some STD tests.” Sam looked totally embarrassed. “I guess they’re called STIs now, but anyway, yeah, I’m clean. So I guess you are, too.”
Dean licked his lips while he tried to figure out what he was supposed to do with that information. “Okay.” It was probably the dumbest answer ever, but what else could he say?
“Dean, man, I’m freaked out. I mean, one minute I’m trying to stop Lucifer from destroying the planet, and the next thing I know I’m Juno.” He shrugged. “What was it about him anyway?”
What Sam really meant to ask was, Why were you so attracted to the soulless guy? It was the same question as back at Bobby’s, when he’d decided that rubbing his crotch against Dean’s would make his brother love him more.
As much as Dean wanted to reassure Sam and as much as he knew he was the sicko who had gotten them into this mess in the first place, he resented the question and the cagey way Sam asked it. Sam, who was always thinking of himself first, didn’t seem to realize that this little want-you-don’t-want-you game was playing with Dean’s emotions. Dean was being punished for lusting after his brother, but then every chance Sam got he made Dean revel in that forbidden desire.
“I spent the whole six months trying to get you back,” Dean reminded them both.
“But you slept with him.”
“I am not drunk enough for this conversation.”
“Dean,” Sam pleaded.
He could never resist Sam’s begging. “He didn’t say no. Okay? He never took no for an answer.”
“That’s it? Because he was easy?” Sam shook his head. “How many times?”
“No,” Dean said in his big brother voice.
“Dean, tell me how many times.”
“No. Listen, you want to tell me how fucked up it was? Go ahead. But I’m not giving you details that could make that wall in your head come down.”
Sam frowned. “That’s kind of convenient, isn’t it?”
Yeah, it was, but he also meant it.
If he’d learned anything back in high school, it was that kissing and telling to Sam always resulted in a jealous hissy fit. One Saturday night, Dad had been away (as usual), and Dean had skipped out on their plans to watch The Great Escape on their tiny motel television when he got a last minute invitation to the cool kids’ party. When he’d stumbled home drunk and high at two in the morning, it had seemed deeply necessary to tell Sam all about how Callie Sundstrom hadn’t worn underwear underneath her skirt. Sam had bitched at him for waking him up in the middle of the night, and for the two days it had taken Dad to get home, Dean had been on the receiving end of the silent treatment. At sixteen he’d thought it was because Sam was really that crabby about his sleep.
“It was a lot more than once, wasn’t it?” It wasn’t a question, really, more like a sad revelation. “What about Lisa, man? Didn’t you even care about hurting her?” Sam shook his head again. “I mean, I guess not, if you were willing to hurt yourself and me…”
“Hey,” Dean snapped, because there were limits to how far he’d let Sam go.
“Was it before you knew about my soul or after?”
That was the million dollar question. Because if Dean said it was before, then maybe, just maybe Sam could say he understood his brother needed therapy, but they’d be okay. But if he said he willingly went to bed with someone he knew was soulless, someone he knew wasn’t really Sam, then that was just awful.
“I’m sorry, okay? I know I can’t say it enough. But I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. If I could get a do-over, believe me, it would all be different.”
Sam licked his lips. “You’re still my brother,” he said quietly.
“No, I know - and that’s why it’s so bad, and -”
“No, I mean, you’re still my brother. Whatever else happened, that’s not going to change.” He looked over at Dean. “Okay?”
Dean accepted it as a gift. “Okay.”
“Ben, put your damn helmet on!” Dean hollered out the open garage. Ben kept pedaling faster and faster down the street until he was too far to hear Dean.
Dean was furious. The kid never appreciated any of the things he did in order to keep him safe. He bitched about the devil’s trap painted on the underside of his bed, and he made a big production when it was his turn to vacuum the house because of the salt that strayed away from the window ledges.
Ben had finished his loop down the block and was zooming back, his helmet dangling obnoxiously from one of the handlebars of his bike.
“Benjamin Isaac Braeden!”
“Wow,” Lisa complimented as she came through the garage. “You’re getting really good at that.”
“Not if the kid doesn’t listen.”
Lisa grinned and patted him consolingly on the shoulder. Then she put two fingers to her lips and gave a whistle that would have put John Winchester as drill sergeant to shame. The bike screeched to a halt. “Helmet.”
Ben rolled his eyes, but reached for his helmet. Right as he raised it above his head, a blue SUV plowed into him. Lisa screamed, and Dean went running into the street to check on him.
Ben was lying flat on his back. There was a pool of blood spreading out from his head, and when Dean put his hand back there to see what was wrong, he could feel the warmth and fleshiness of Ben’s brains leaking out. Except when he pulled his hand away, he saw that it wasn’t covered in blood. It was greenish goo.
“What is that?”
Lisa shrugged. “He’s not normal inside.”
“What do you mean he’s not normal?”
Lisa slowly turned to look at him, and her eyes changed from round deep brown to slanted green-yellow-brown-blue. “Don’t you realize, Dean?” she said, her voice deepening and hair growing shorter. “You’re his father. And you’re my brother.”
Dean awoke with a start. There were beads of sweat over his brow. He stumbled into the bathroom and slurped water out of his cupped hands. He splashed a little of it on his face and then looked at himself in the mirror. The face reflected there seemed normal. There was no way of knowing just by looking at him that he’d left behind a kid he thought of as his own to make a gay incest soul-baby with his brother. If Lisa knew how far gone Dean really was, she would do a victory dance that she’d made the right choice cutting him out.
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