A Life Most Ordinary, Interlude Two
INTERLUDE TWO: DAVID
I cheated myself, like I knew I would;
I told you, I was trouble; you know that I’m no good...
You Know I'm No Good - Amy Winehouse
Back to Chapter Three
Sam met David at KU in the fall of 2002 during his second attempt at completing freshman year. The first time around he’d been too distracted to really immerse himself in student life; Dad was dying, Jonah was a baby and Dean was working two jobs to pay for Dad’s medical bills and the new baby. His family had needed him so he’d dropped out, college not seeming at all important in comparison. But second time around, everything was different: Dad was gone, Jonah was older and Dean was with Reiko. It was time for him to get on with his own life.
Second time around he did everything differently. He joined the LGBT Group during his first week, signed up for Debate Club and even thought about Drama. After all, the two guys sitting at the Drama Club booth had both been extremely cute, and the cuter one had made no attempt to hide his interest in Sam.
It seemed like something that was meant to be when he turned up for the first LGBT meeting and saw the guy he’d already labeled Cute Drama Club Guy standing in the corner talking to a bunch of people. The guy saw him come in and immediately excused himself from the group to come over. He was about 5’11, well-built, with dark blond hair and blue eyes, the sort of fine features that immediately brought his brother to mind, and although he was nowhere near as attractive as Dean, he was definitely hot.
That was David.
They spent all that first night together, just talking. David talked about his parents, about how hard coming out to them had been, how hurt they’d been, how even now, they couldn’t talk about it openly with him. Sam didn’t mention his own father, how Dad had died not even knowing that he had a gay son; instead he talked about Dean and Jonah, and how easily Dean had accepted it when he’d finally plucked up the courage to tell him.
Sam found out a lot about David on that first night, though there’d also been a lot he hadn’t found out. Sometimes, months afterwards, he wondered if he’d known everything about him, then would he have still gotten as involved as he did? If David had told him the truth: by the way, Sam, I suffer from debilitating depression and will try to kill myself three times throughout the course of our four year relationship, the last time succeeding and leaving you devastated and broken - Would he have changed his mind about wanting to date him if he’d known that?
Then again, he wasn’t entirely up front with David either, no big admission of: by the way, David, I have these fantasies about my big brother, and yes, it is as creepy and wrong as it sounds. But he was a nineteen year old kid, still dumb and romantic enough to believe in soul-mates. His only previous experience with relationships and sex had been Jess, and that had been so tame, so anemic compared to how he felt when David touched him, how fast his heart beat when David kissed him, how hard his cock got when their bodies were pressed together. Their relationship was a revelation to him, everything becoming clear and bright and hopeful, and suddenly he could see a way out, a way out of the wrong, overpowering love he’d always felt for Dean, the feelings he’d been trying to repress and deny for years.
David’s relationship with Dean was fraught, to say the least. In retrospect, Sam could see that it was pretty much his own fault; he’d gushed about Dean and Jonah so much that poor David had developed an inferiority complex before he’d even met them. And Dean was suspicious from the start, deciding on their very first meeting that David wasn’t right for Sam, he wasn’t good enough for Dean's little brother, and that there was just something about him -
But Sam didn’t want to hear what Dean had to say; he’d found someone that he could love, that made him feel loved, someone with whom he could actually have a future. This was his chance.
So the two of them got serious fast. David was crazy about Sam, and never bothered trying to hide how much he liked him, in fact he asked Sam to move in with him only a few months into the relationship. Sam refused at first and kept refusing until Dean announced that Reiko was pregnant with Simon, and he knew then that it was time for him to leave - leave Dean to his wife and his son and the new baby.
Dean protested when Sam told him his decision to move out, insisting as they loaded Bobby’s pickup with Sam’s stuff that this was his home and always would be. But Sam knew that this was his chance; if he didn’t go now then he would never leave, he would spend the rest of his life in his big brother’s shadow, never able to break away from him, and he loved David, he really did.
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In the end, his and David’s relationship lasted four years. It lasted the course of Dean’s 20-month marriage to Reiko and their divorce. It lasted through Simon’s birth, his illness and his diagnosis; it lasted through Dean’s short courtship with Jess and their wedding. It lasted until David attempted suicide for the third time; the third time being the charm and all, that one stuck.
David died on November 12th, 2006, only three months after Dean and Jess’s wedding. He got into the bath and opened his veins with a kitchen knife. He wasn’t messing around this time; it wasn’t a cry for help like the other two times, it was someone who had given up and just didn’t want to be alive anymore.
Sam had been at home (it was still home to him, would always be home), babysitting his two nephews while Dean worked a late shift and Jess attended a PTA event at the high school where she taught. Dean drove him home, and Sam walked up the back fire escape, entered his apartment, went straight to the bathroom to piss, and saw his boyfriend’s dead body lying in the bathtub.
He didn’t call the ambulance at first. It was pointless. He knew that David was dead. He was cold to the touch, no breath, no pulse, blue lips and white skin, pink-red water like a gorgeous, artist’s sunset. Instead, Sam called his brother.
Dean wasn’t yet home and he answered his cell with a huff of amusement, Black Sabbath in the background: “Missing me already, man?”
Sam was numb, abrupt and to the point. “Dean, get here. David’s dead. He killed himself.”
Dean got there in four minutes and Sam was waiting outside on the front step for him. He never set foot in the apartment again.
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The day of David’s funeral was the first day Sam kissed his brother. They both got drunk, really, horribly drunk, blind drunk, and collapsed together on his old bed in his old room. Dean talked quietly while Sam lay beside him with his eyes closed, letting Dean’s familiar, soft, slurred voice break over him, listening to Dean’s mumblings about Mom, about what he remembered before Mom was murdered, about the home they’d been taken to when Dad was institutionalized that first time, about a crazy dog called Albert and being punished by Mrs. Winters, the foster mother, for breaking Sam’s crib when he tried to crawl in there with baby Sammy, his five year old body too heavy for the flimsy wood.
“I was so scared they were gonna split us up,” Dean slurred. “Last damn thing I remember ‘fore they took Dad away was him tellin’ me, Dean, look after Sammy, take care of your brother, Dean. And I was so fuckin’ scared, man, so fuckin’ scared they were gonna break us up, so scared they were gonna take you away from me -”
Sam wrenched his eyes open and stared at his brother’s face, his vision blurry and hazy with alcohol and all the damn tears he’d shed throughout the day, his body bone-deep exhausted and chest tight with the desperate sobs he’d cried after the eulogy. Dean had led him into the vestry of David’s family church where he’d buried his face in Dean’s crisp white funeral shirt and lost himself to his grief, the image of David’s dead and bloody body in the bathtub, the thick pink water and staring glassy eyes playing over and over in his head. They’d been sprawled over the floor, Dean holding him close and rocking him gently, his cheek against Sam’s hair, while Sam’d clung and sobbed until Dean’s shirt was wet and sticky with his tears and snot. He’d wanted so badly to be the strong one, to be the grieving boyfriend who held it together, who stood firm and strong and stoic, but he’d been weak, completely lost it the moment they’d started playing freaking Dido for fuck’s sake ‘cause David had loved that bland, blond shit.
He blinked, seeing the sheen of sweat on Dean’s freckled nose, his gold-green eyes and dark lashes, his skin pale in the low light. Even like this - exhausted and drunk and smelling of nasty sour whiskey - Dean was so beautiful, so beautiful that it hurt, and Sam suddenly, desperately ached to touch him, to kiss him, to put his lips on Dean’s and taste his mouth. He was beyond fucked-up, but it didn’t matter now, ‘cause David, the only guy he’d ever thought of as being capable of pasting over the cracks in his life that Dean had always filled, was gone now. Dead, fucking slit his wrists, the selfish fucker, and so Sam was back here, with Dean, wanting and needing him as much as he always had.
He reached out and curled one hand around Dean’s neck. He watched Dean’s eyelids flutter in surprise, his mouth half parting to breathe out Sam’s name in a confused question. He placed his other hand on Dean’s where it lay on the pillow and he entwined their fingers together, bringing Dean’s hand to his lips and letting it rest there so he could inhale the scent of his brother’s fingers, lemony-lavender smell of soap, sour tang of alcohol and salty pungent musk of Dean’s own sweat.
He shifted closer, close enough so they were sharing a pillow, close enough so their foreheads were touching, his lank hair sticking to Dean’s sweaty forehead, his fingers still spanning the back of Dean’s neck, caressing the knob of Dean’s spine. He felt Dean shiver, whisper, “Sammy, whatcha doin’?”
“S’nothing,” he whispered back, “s’nothing, Dean, just let me, please, let me. Need to be close to you, please, Dean, need you -“
Of course Dean let him, his eyes shiny and concerned, and far too close for comfort, for Dean’s own good, staring at Sam like they were trying to see inside him, trying to crawl inside his brain and fix everything. Dean loved him so much, and he loved Dean so much, and everything today had been just too much, and he couldn’t stop himself.
Dean had never gotten over his dislike of David. Even after Dean got the message that David was here to stay, he’d never got over it. He put up a good pretense, but he’d never liked him. Maybe it was the gay thing, or maybe, or so Sam liked to think with a stab of vindication, it was jealousy, that Dean felt the same way about David as he’d always felt about Dean’s significant others. Dean had been far too used to being Sam’s number one while Sam had had years of Dean’s girlfriends, of Cora and Reiko and now Jess, his own Jess, Dean’s wife, he was never going to be able to get used to that. But he’d only ever really had David, and now he didn’t have him. David was gone. Dead and gone.
And Dean was his number one again.
“Dean,” he whispered, “Dean.”
“S’okay, I’m here,” breathed Dean, the words soft puffs of air against Sam’s cheek, so close he could feel the reverberations of Dean’s breathing through his own body. He moved his hand from Dean’s nape to his cheek, cupping his face; he closed his eyes, leaned in and kissed him.
Dean instantly went deadly, deathly still. All the air vanished from Sam’s lungs and he snapped his head back, trying vainly to swallow back the sudden rise of bile, of terror that had flooded to his mouth at that stupid, stupid move. He couldn’t believe that he’d done it, that after all those years; he’d given in to that niggling, perverted part of himself and done it. He twisted around, jerking away from Dean, his heart thumping wildly in his chest, his fingers knotting into the pillow.
“Sam?” Dean was murmuring, sounding confused. He felt Dean shift on the bed beside him, flinched when Dean’s big warm hand landed gently on his shoulder, felt his heart give a twinge, that dull hammering ache. “S’alright, dude, s’alright, Sam.” Dean stroked down his arm, his touch making the hairs rise up in its wake. He wanted so much to turn around and drag Dean into his arms, layer kisses all over his face, but he couldn’t do that; he’d already freaked him out enough, he was lucky that Dean was still here, that he hadn’t booked it out of Sam’s immediate vicinity in disgust. “I know you’re all fucked-up, Sam, and it’s okay, I get it. I don’t mind. I just - I just want you to be okay, Sammy, please, turn around, please - just be okay, I’m worried about you, buddy.”
Dean’s voice sounded so wrecked, so hurt, and it was Sam’s fault, so he rolled over obediently and let his brother gather him up, pull him close and kiss the top of his head, just like he did to Jonah or Simon when they were crying.
In the morning, it should’ve been awkward, but it hadn’t been. He awoke to see Dean watching him, eyes red-rimmed with concern, face pale from his hangover, freckles more prominent than usual. He smiled at Sam as soon as he realized he was awake.
“Sammy, I’ve decided that you’re gonna stay here with us. I’ll go over to your place this morning, pick up anything I missed, though I think I got most of it, but I should check, and I’ll do that now, okay?” he said, mouth running on as if there weren’t enough words to reassure Sam. “You stay here and hang out with the kids. And later we’ll get this room sorted out - me and you, man - we’ll put all your stuff back where it belongs. Okay?”
Sam smiled weakly at him and nodded and felt so relieved that he wanted to sob all over again.
That was the thing about Dean, he always knew what to say, knew that words like: it’s gonna be okay, and, it’ll get better, were just words, just easy clichés. What mattered to Dean was actions, was taking charge and being the big brother; treating Sam the same way he’d always treated him, like he was the most important person in the world, because Dean had always understood without being told exactly what Sam needed.
He held it together after David because of Dean. Dean was the one holding it together for him, no matter that it had cost Dean his marriage to Jess, not that Dean ever said that out loud, but Sam knew. He could see in the way Jess would watch him sometimes, the way her eyes would linger over the extra place-setting at dinner - Sam’s place-setting. When she’d married Dean she’d known she would have to deal with Dean’s two kids, she hadn’t bought in for Dean’s little brother - her ex-boyfriend - as well. But Sam didn’t care about Jess, about his brother’s marriage. He was selfish and single-minded in his grief and guilt. He’d tried so hard to make things work with David, but he’d failed.
Maybe David would still be alive if he hadn’t been with Sam, if Sam had tried just that little bit more, if Sam’s heart hadn’t already been spoken for -
But it was what it was, and Sam knew that the guilt and failure were things he was just going to have to live with, along with the bitter, pain-tinged memories. He’d failed, and now - fuck it - what was the goddamn point? He loved Dean, he needed Dean, and Dean loved him back, Jess should give up and get the hell away from them already, she was never going to be Dean’s number one.
In the end, Jess left, and Sam stayed, and Sam was too selfish and too happy to have his brother to himself again to feel bad for it. If Dean had truly cared about his marriage as much as he cared about being there for Sam, then he would’ve figured things out. After all, Sam had spent the entirety of his relationship with David trying to convince David and himself that David came first, though it hadn’t counted for anything in the end. Friends and partners came and went; family was the only thing that really counted.
On to Chapter Four