caught maybellene at the top of the hill
Bad in the Blood
by whereupon
A kind of dirty little pre-series Sam/Dean story, nc-17, 3,321 words.
No wonder Dad doesn't trust him on his own.
The porch groans beneath Sam's footsteps, wood creaking beneath the heavy soles of his boots, and Dean opens his eyes as Sam shoves open the door with the holes like clawmarks ripped down the screen, lets it slam behind him and rattle against the chipped frame.
Sam is eighteen. Dean is twenty-two and laid up on the couch, left behind to let his knee heal and to keep an eye on Sam, because Sam at eighteen is brilliant and angry, sparking with this all-American rebel-with-a-cause role that he milks for all it's worth, and no wonder Dad doesn't trust him on his own. Like without somebody watching him, maybe he'll hitch out, try to catch a ride to that perfect normal life he's always talking about.
And Dean didn't mean to fall asleep, meant to keep watch, keep alert, back to the wall and eyes on the door, but it was just so fucking hot, busted ceiling fan not doing anything and this amber glow over everything, sunlight haloing in high through the corners of the windows. He fumbles blindly for the Glock lying just out of reach on the floor, but it's Sam, it's just Sam.
Sam, leaning over the arm of the couch, staring at him. Upside down and frowning and Dean lets his head fall back against the cushion.
"You were sleeping?" Sam asks, incredulous tone, like there's something else to do, something else Dean should have been doing. Something else Dean could have been doing.
"Resting my eyes," Dean says, pushing himself up, and Sam takes a step back, crosses his arms. His hair's getting long again, shaggy and rough at the ends. "You need a fuckin' haircut."
"No, I don't," Sam says. He turns on his heel, stomps over to the refrigerator in the corner. Breath of blessedly cold air making its way over to Dean until Sam steps away, beer in hand, and lets the door swing closed. Dean rubs a hand across his face, pushing sleep away, blocking out the slump and burn of sun. He hears the screen door rattle again and opens his eyes, panic-quick, years-old habit.
Sam's sitting on the sagging porch step, staring out at the waste of field, the dusty driveway. This sky that's never blue, is always a little too bright to be blue. A mile from the place where the school bus drops Sam off, a mile from anything.
Sometimes Dean drives him to the library on the weekends, when Dad's home and the car's here. Other times he walks. Comes back hours later and tells Dean about what he's found, what he's read. About demons, sometimes, and sometimes about, like, Africa and random things, geology and the Mesozoic, and he rolls his eyes like he doesn't think Dean's listening, but Dean is, and Sam keeps talking, so maybe he knows.
"Hey," Dean says, sitting down beside him. Limping a little as he pushes off of the doorframe, crosses the porch, but Sam doesn't say anything. The windchimes that they didn't hang, that were there when they moved in last month and will be there when they leave, shimmer a little, dangle like the bodies of hanged men. "School suck?"
"No," Sam says. This exasperated breath and then, "How long until we leave?"
"A week, maybe," Dean says, even though Sam knows as well as he does, because sometimes Sam likes to pretend that he doesn't listen to anything Dad says. "Depends on how Dad's doing when he gets back."
Sam doesn't answer. He raises the bottle to his mouth and Dean watches him out of the corner of his eye. His spine hurts, his joints aching from being still for so long. He's not sure how long he was asleep. Little blue pills against the bone-on-bone grind in his knee and he's not sure it's ever gonna sound right again.
"'m gonna be the fuckin' Tin Man," Dean says. "Spend my life looking for an oil can or lube or whatever the hell."
Sam snorts a little, amused and weary sound. He shoves a hand through his hair and bumps Dean's shoulder, affectionate and at odds with the vaguely superior expression on his face. Dean snakes a hand over and twists the bottle out of his grasp. Steals it, but it was Dean's in the first place. He bought it, used the last of his cash last week.
"Thought you weren't meant to mix drugs and alcohol," Sam says.
"Yeah, well, you're not meant to drink 'til you're twenty-one," Dean says. Adds, "Kiddo" because he knows Sam hates it.
"You drank when you were sixteen and I got an ID says I'm twenty-three," Sam says. "So you can bite me."
"No, you don't. It's in the car with Dad. You got nothing."
Sam narrows his eyes, sighs and scratches at the hole fraying in the knee of his jeans. They're almost worn through completely, bony shapes of his knees through the denim. "You shouldn't pick fights with people who can kick your ass. Thought you learned that after the last time."
"First, okay, you couldn't, no way in hell, and second, dude, that guy started it, and third, I won the fight," Dean says. "My knee wasn't fucked up until after, on the hunt. Fuckin' banshees."
"Right," Sam says. "That's why you spent the whole way there bitching about it."
"You were the one bitching," Dean says. "About your, your bio homework or what the fuck ever."
"Bio test," Sam says. "AP bio." This smug tone in his voice, satisfied twist at the corners of his mouth, and it's contagious, sliding in like smoke to curl hot in Dean's stomach. Sam knows all of his weak spots, all of his unprotected places.
"Yeah, how'd you do?" Dean says, playing along. Like he doesn't know, like there's any other possible answer.
"Full points," Sam says.
"Fuck yeah," Dean says, gives him back the bottle. "See, no reason for you to bitch. You're never not gonna be a geek, so it's not like you gotta worry about it."
Sam shrugs. Bites his lip for a half-second and swallows. "I punched some guy in the face," he says, not looking at Dean. Rubbing his left hand across the knuckles of his right, like he's not even thinking about it, like they hurt or like he's trying to rub something away. Blood, maybe, but Dean must have heard him wrong, must have lost something. Maybe the conversation jumped tracks when he wasn't paying attention.
"What?"
"This asshole, I don't know. He's a bully and I just, I got so tired of his shit, he was picking on Natas-- some girl again and I lost it."
"Yeah?" Dean says.
"They took him away in an ambulance," Sam says, his eyes still on the field, the dead yellow grass.
"Awesome," Dean says. And then, "Fuck. Dad's gonna be pissed." Not that Sam will care, because he's angry at Dad for dragging them here, angry at Dad for fucking up his life, like Dad chose any of this, like Mom dying is somehow Dad's fault, and for a second Dean wonders if the kid had really it coming or if Sam was just looking for an excuse, some way to work out this crackling anger, take it out on somebody else, but Sam's better than that.
Sam knows better.
"I kinda figured that out on my own," Sam says, distant, maybe amused. "I's thinking maybe I'd blame you. You're the one who taught me to fight dirty."
"I taught you to fight smart, that's different."
"Right," Sam says. "So if I don't get some form signed and have my legal guardian call the principal tomorrow, I'm kinda fucked. They're not gonna press charges, but I'll be suspended, maybe expelled."
"That's not so bad," Dean says. "I mean, we were leaving anyway, right?"
Sam shakes his head slowly. "Fucked, Dean. Seriously."
"Okay, Sammy? That thing about your permanent record? That's just something they tell all the good little boys and girls to turn 'em into zombies and nerds. It doesn't fucking matter in real life, man. You're not gonna, like, have to recite your SAT scores to a vampire. Unless you're trying to bore it to death, but you can do that fine on your own already."
"It matters to." Sam swallows. "To me."
Dean blinks. His thoughts are still coming slip-slow, this dense muddy stream, but that's okay. He lets himself get distracted by the way Sam's hair is getting long enough to curl again, the way Sam holds the bottle in his hand, loose and easy, the Mars-red dust of the driveway. "You want me to sign the slip?" he asks.
Sam grins, showing his teeth. "You suck at forgery."
"You want me to call." Dean leans back, cracks his neck. Sunlight through his closed eyes, kaleidoscope shards of yellow and white. "I'll call in the morning. Dad won't be back 'til tomorrow night at the earliest, should have it taken care of by then."
"If you can drag yourself off the couch," Sam says. "Thanks." The bottle trades hands, brush of Sam's calloused palm against the inside of Dean's wrist. "You're awesome."
"Yeah, I know," Dean says. There's one sip left, one swallow. Dean drains it, sets the bottle down on the step. It catches the light, leaves a ring of condensation on the bleached wood. "The guy you hit, he gonna live?"
"Probably," Sam says. His shoulder bumps Dean's again.
"Sucks," Dean says.
"Yeah." Sam gets to his feet and after a second, Dean clambers up after him. If Sam doesn't stop growing soon, he'll be so much taller than Dad, than Dean, but right now Dean can still pretend they're almost the same height. Eye to eye and this heat-shimmer air between them, the shriek and wheel of the crows in the distance.
"You hungry?" Dean asks. He rubs a hand across the back of his neck, hopes Dad's okay.
"All you make's pasta," Sam says. "I'm sick of pasta."
"Fine," Dean says. "Make your own goddamn food, I don't care."
"Fine," Sam says. Standing awkwardly, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides, and Dean frowns, because that means there's something else Sam's not telling him, something else that's got him worried. He licks his lips, is trying to think of what to say, what will get Sam to tell him. He used to be better at this, better at getting Sam to talk, to confess.
He's thinking about how that happened, about what went wrong, all of his attention a thousand miles away, caught down deep in the drag of the past, and he's unprepared, caught off-guard when Sam throws an arm around the back of his neck, sudden and strong, and tugs him forward, off-balance. Dean falls in automatically (and later, if he wanted to, maybe he could blame it on his busted knee, maybe that would explain the way he clung so quickly, so tightly to his brother) and Sam's mouth brushes his, tastes like PBR and chapstick, like this dry heat and burnt sugar air.
Dean blinks. Sam's watching him, Sam's nose pressed against his, Sam's breath warm against his mouth, and Dean is. Dean is standing on the front porch with his brother. Letting his brother kiss him. Kissing his brother. Whose knuckles are bruised because he sent some guy to the hospital and who is staring at him. And Dad's almost in Canada, won't be back for. Days, probably.
They could do anything. They could, and nobody would know, and Dean's still too sleep-drugged, heat-drugged, just-plain-drugged, to be making this kind of decision. To be making any kind of decision. To even be thinking about this like it's something. Like it's. Like it's real. Like it's possible.
"Sam, I," Dean says, and Sam flushes. Red beneath the beginning of his summer tan and his mouth draws tight, a flat line that makes Dean think of when Sam was ten, the way he'd bite down when he was trying not to cry in front of Dad.
The screen door slams and Sam's gone again, retreating into the house.
Dean stands there for a moment, one hand on the railing, watching the field. Wondering what just happened, what he just did, and he thinks that there should be something. Panic, maybe, instead of this, instead of nothing, this quiet buzz against the walls of his skull.
Sam's in the bedroom they share, stretched out on the twin bed that's a little too small for him. Scuffed-up boots on the floor at the foot of the bed. "Hey," Dean says, leaning against the doorframe.
"What," Sam says. He doesn't look away from the ceiling. He's still blushing. The bedsprings squeal and cry when Dean lowers himself onto the bed next to him.
Probably this is a bad idea. Probably he should go back out to the living room, crash onto the couch with a couple more pills and sleep all the way through the night, the next day. Wake up when Dad comes through the door, wake up and grab the first aid kid and hope it's not too bad, hope that this time, this one more time, they're luckier than they should be.
"I just," Dean says. "I can't. It's not."
"Yeah, I get it," Sam says, and Dean hates when he gets like this, this flat dead edge to his voice, like he's a stranger or maybe like he wishes he were, like Dean doesn't know him at all. "It was a, it was a stupid idea. Forget I even, forget it. I just wanna get out of this town."
He licks his lips, closes his eyes, looks far too old. The set of his jaw like this is just one more disappointment in a very long line, so long he's forgotten where and how they even began. And Dean's gonna lose him. Sam, who's good to his core, who's the best thing Dean's ever done, the brightest. His brother who beats up bullies and's a fucking genius and hates this life and he's gonna leave, these heavy envelopes he gets in the mail and hides beneath the mattress, hides in his backpack, but he's lousy at hiding things from Dean, and Dean loves him, loves him more than anything, and that's okay because that's what he's meant to do, right? That's family. And maybe in love just got sort of. Buried in there, somehow. Sure.
Dean leans over, almost loses his balance when Sam flinches, stuttering surprised-breath and the mattress giving unexpectedly. Sam reaches to pull him down and it's like kissing a girl, at first, the way Dean doesn't push, but Sam's not a girl, not at all, nothing like those girls in high school and then, later, their could-have-been-sisters. All flatness and muscle instead, fierce where it would have been gentle, would have been sweet. Sweatsalt where he'd thought for an instant there would be cherry, strawberry, chemical lipgloss smear, and Sam's tongue swipes across his lips, Sam's eyes wide and dark. Dean's palm against Sam's face, holding him still, and his little brother looking up at him like Dean's just given him everything.
"You don't have to do this," Sam says, breathing hard, and then, "Unless you," and Dean pushes him flat. Sam bites his lip as Dean gets a hand under his shirt and lifts it up, works his way down Sam's chest. Stops at the line of his jeans and Sam's watching him and he's dizzy, the heat between them, the twist of Sam's mouth, the ache in his own jeans. This hazy slide into summer, this fever-dream life, and Sam wants him to, to do this, and that makes it easy.
Sam whimpers and says "Dean," and Dean's never done this before, never been on the giving end, teeth of the zipper rough against the pads of his fingers, this stroke and pulse, but Sam shudders, shivers and bares his throat and comes hot all over Dean's hand.
Dean straightens, uses the comforter to wipe himself off, and tries to breathe. His head's spinning a little, still, and he's not entirely sure what just happened. Epic incomprehensible significance of what he just did. Sam slides closer, no space at all between them, and Dean thinks that he might have just fucked up very badly, but Sam is smiling, Sam is pushing him back against the wall, has a hand on his stomach, tracing circles that match the skip-beat of Dean's heart.
Dean swallows, and he should pull away. He should, because this is some new level of wrong, some new boundary all together. Letting Sam do this, Sam kneeling beside him, Sam's mouth warm and wet on his neck. Sam's hand edges down his shorts, unexpectedly rough touch, an instant-scratch of jagged fingernails and Dean hisses, thin breath like a curse or a plea.
He keeps his eyes open, watches Sam, Sam's eyes narrowed in concentration and his teeth digging into his lower lip. Dean can see the sky from here, sky through the window, through the gap between the curtains that don't really close, this narrow strip of white sky like static, like the end of the universe, like they're all alone out here. His hips jerk and he bites down on the noises twisting wrecked and broken out of his throat, but it doesn't work. He grinds up, pushing, and Sam leans in, leans closer. And Dean wants to tell him to stop, to stop doing this to him (this thing he's been doing all his life, really, but mostly this particular manifestation, Sam's hand on his cock, the way Sam's going to break him apart) but he can't, oh god, he can't, won't ever, because if Sam stops, it seems entirely possible that Dean might die.
It shouldn't be so quick. He shouldn't be so desperate, so desperate for his brother, but he is, damned all the way, but that's nothing, oh god, not right now.
And after, sitting next to Sam on this twin bed that's too small for either of them, certainly for both of them, and the wall cool against the back of his neck and the ghosts of all the other people who ever lived here watching them.
Dean closes his eyes.
"I," Sam says. "Thanks. For calling, I mean."
"'s my job, right," Dean says.
"I'll make dinner," Sam says.
"Good fuckin' idea," Dean says. "About time."
Sam gets up, pads out of the room, and Dean hears the water start in the kitchen. He tilts his head back against the wall again and hears the windchimes begin to move. Imagines them slowly turning, imagines the storm on its way, the perfect green-grey of the sky and Dad on the other side, the black of his car on the other side of the clouds.
Any minute, Dean will get up, go out to the kitchen. He'll make fun of Sam while Sam makes dinner and then they'll eat in front of the black and white television set, finish off the rest of his six-pack and maybe they'll fool around in the dark, the desaturated glow of whatever the hell's playing forgotten on the screen until the power goes out. On the living room floor, Sam pinned beneath him, pressing close, breathless as Dean grins, the ache in his knee dull and meaningless.
Or maybe it'll be the other way. Carpet scratching at Dean's back, bare slice where his shirt's rucked up and Sam sucking illicit bruises beneath his skin, bruises that will maybe never go away.
Any minute, he'll get up. Take the next step, and the next, and it's just that he's tired, that's all. Just the drugs fucking with him, and the weird slide of almost-summer curling ominous, making the future, the guillotine blade of red autumn, seem suddenly so near, making it seem like something's been lost, some chance that never existed to begin with.
--
end
by whereupon
A kind of dirty little pre-series Sam/Dean story, nc-17, 3,321 words.
No wonder Dad doesn't trust him on his own.
The porch groans beneath Sam's footsteps, wood creaking beneath the heavy soles of his boots, and Dean opens his eyes as Sam shoves open the door with the holes like clawmarks ripped down the screen, lets it slam behind him and rattle against the chipped frame.
Sam is eighteen. Dean is twenty-two and laid up on the couch, left behind to let his knee heal and to keep an eye on Sam, because Sam at eighteen is brilliant and angry, sparking with this all-American rebel-with-a-cause role that he milks for all it's worth, and no wonder Dad doesn't trust him on his own. Like without somebody watching him, maybe he'll hitch out, try to catch a ride to that perfect normal life he's always talking about.
And Dean didn't mean to fall asleep, meant to keep watch, keep alert, back to the wall and eyes on the door, but it was just so fucking hot, busted ceiling fan not doing anything and this amber glow over everything, sunlight haloing in high through the corners of the windows. He fumbles blindly for the Glock lying just out of reach on the floor, but it's Sam, it's just Sam.
Sam, leaning over the arm of the couch, staring at him. Upside down and frowning and Dean lets his head fall back against the cushion.
"You were sleeping?" Sam asks, incredulous tone, like there's something else to do, something else Dean should have been doing. Something else Dean could have been doing.
"Resting my eyes," Dean says, pushing himself up, and Sam takes a step back, crosses his arms. His hair's getting long again, shaggy and rough at the ends. "You need a fuckin' haircut."
"No, I don't," Sam says. He turns on his heel, stomps over to the refrigerator in the corner. Breath of blessedly cold air making its way over to Dean until Sam steps away, beer in hand, and lets the door swing closed. Dean rubs a hand across his face, pushing sleep away, blocking out the slump and burn of sun. He hears the screen door rattle again and opens his eyes, panic-quick, years-old habit.
Sam's sitting on the sagging porch step, staring out at the waste of field, the dusty driveway. This sky that's never blue, is always a little too bright to be blue. A mile from the place where the school bus drops Sam off, a mile from anything.
Sometimes Dean drives him to the library on the weekends, when Dad's home and the car's here. Other times he walks. Comes back hours later and tells Dean about what he's found, what he's read. About demons, sometimes, and sometimes about, like, Africa and random things, geology and the Mesozoic, and he rolls his eyes like he doesn't think Dean's listening, but Dean is, and Sam keeps talking, so maybe he knows.
"Hey," Dean says, sitting down beside him. Limping a little as he pushes off of the doorframe, crosses the porch, but Sam doesn't say anything. The windchimes that they didn't hang, that were there when they moved in last month and will be there when they leave, shimmer a little, dangle like the bodies of hanged men. "School suck?"
"No," Sam says. This exasperated breath and then, "How long until we leave?"
"A week, maybe," Dean says, even though Sam knows as well as he does, because sometimes Sam likes to pretend that he doesn't listen to anything Dad says. "Depends on how Dad's doing when he gets back."
Sam doesn't answer. He raises the bottle to his mouth and Dean watches him out of the corner of his eye. His spine hurts, his joints aching from being still for so long. He's not sure how long he was asleep. Little blue pills against the bone-on-bone grind in his knee and he's not sure it's ever gonna sound right again.
"'m gonna be the fuckin' Tin Man," Dean says. "Spend my life looking for an oil can or lube or whatever the hell."
Sam snorts a little, amused and weary sound. He shoves a hand through his hair and bumps Dean's shoulder, affectionate and at odds with the vaguely superior expression on his face. Dean snakes a hand over and twists the bottle out of his grasp. Steals it, but it was Dean's in the first place. He bought it, used the last of his cash last week.
"Thought you weren't meant to mix drugs and alcohol," Sam says.
"Yeah, well, you're not meant to drink 'til you're twenty-one," Dean says. Adds, "Kiddo" because he knows Sam hates it.
"You drank when you were sixteen and I got an ID says I'm twenty-three," Sam says. "So you can bite me."
"No, you don't. It's in the car with Dad. You got nothing."
Sam narrows his eyes, sighs and scratches at the hole fraying in the knee of his jeans. They're almost worn through completely, bony shapes of his knees through the denim. "You shouldn't pick fights with people who can kick your ass. Thought you learned that after the last time."
"First, okay, you couldn't, no way in hell, and second, dude, that guy started it, and third, I won the fight," Dean says. "My knee wasn't fucked up until after, on the hunt. Fuckin' banshees."
"Right," Sam says. "That's why you spent the whole way there bitching about it."
"You were the one bitching," Dean says. "About your, your bio homework or what the fuck ever."
"Bio test," Sam says. "AP bio." This smug tone in his voice, satisfied twist at the corners of his mouth, and it's contagious, sliding in like smoke to curl hot in Dean's stomach. Sam knows all of his weak spots, all of his unprotected places.
"Yeah, how'd you do?" Dean says, playing along. Like he doesn't know, like there's any other possible answer.
"Full points," Sam says.
"Fuck yeah," Dean says, gives him back the bottle. "See, no reason for you to bitch. You're never not gonna be a geek, so it's not like you gotta worry about it."
Sam shrugs. Bites his lip for a half-second and swallows. "I punched some guy in the face," he says, not looking at Dean. Rubbing his left hand across the knuckles of his right, like he's not even thinking about it, like they hurt or like he's trying to rub something away. Blood, maybe, but Dean must have heard him wrong, must have lost something. Maybe the conversation jumped tracks when he wasn't paying attention.
"What?"
"This asshole, I don't know. He's a bully and I just, I got so tired of his shit, he was picking on Natas-- some girl again and I lost it."
"Yeah?" Dean says.
"They took him away in an ambulance," Sam says, his eyes still on the field, the dead yellow grass.
"Awesome," Dean says. And then, "Fuck. Dad's gonna be pissed." Not that Sam will care, because he's angry at Dad for dragging them here, angry at Dad for fucking up his life, like Dad chose any of this, like Mom dying is somehow Dad's fault, and for a second Dean wonders if the kid had really it coming or if Sam was just looking for an excuse, some way to work out this crackling anger, take it out on somebody else, but Sam's better than that.
Sam knows better.
"I kinda figured that out on my own," Sam says, distant, maybe amused. "I's thinking maybe I'd blame you. You're the one who taught me to fight dirty."
"I taught you to fight smart, that's different."
"Right," Sam says. "So if I don't get some form signed and have my legal guardian call the principal tomorrow, I'm kinda fucked. They're not gonna press charges, but I'll be suspended, maybe expelled."
"That's not so bad," Dean says. "I mean, we were leaving anyway, right?"
Sam shakes his head slowly. "Fucked, Dean. Seriously."
"Okay, Sammy? That thing about your permanent record? That's just something they tell all the good little boys and girls to turn 'em into zombies and nerds. It doesn't fucking matter in real life, man. You're not gonna, like, have to recite your SAT scores to a vampire. Unless you're trying to bore it to death, but you can do that fine on your own already."
"It matters to." Sam swallows. "To me."
Dean blinks. His thoughts are still coming slip-slow, this dense muddy stream, but that's okay. He lets himself get distracted by the way Sam's hair is getting long enough to curl again, the way Sam holds the bottle in his hand, loose and easy, the Mars-red dust of the driveway. "You want me to sign the slip?" he asks.
Sam grins, showing his teeth. "You suck at forgery."
"You want me to call." Dean leans back, cracks his neck. Sunlight through his closed eyes, kaleidoscope shards of yellow and white. "I'll call in the morning. Dad won't be back 'til tomorrow night at the earliest, should have it taken care of by then."
"If you can drag yourself off the couch," Sam says. "Thanks." The bottle trades hands, brush of Sam's calloused palm against the inside of Dean's wrist. "You're awesome."
"Yeah, I know," Dean says. There's one sip left, one swallow. Dean drains it, sets the bottle down on the step. It catches the light, leaves a ring of condensation on the bleached wood. "The guy you hit, he gonna live?"
"Probably," Sam says. His shoulder bumps Dean's again.
"Sucks," Dean says.
"Yeah." Sam gets to his feet and after a second, Dean clambers up after him. If Sam doesn't stop growing soon, he'll be so much taller than Dad, than Dean, but right now Dean can still pretend they're almost the same height. Eye to eye and this heat-shimmer air between them, the shriek and wheel of the crows in the distance.
"You hungry?" Dean asks. He rubs a hand across the back of his neck, hopes Dad's okay.
"All you make's pasta," Sam says. "I'm sick of pasta."
"Fine," Dean says. "Make your own goddamn food, I don't care."
"Fine," Sam says. Standing awkwardly, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides, and Dean frowns, because that means there's something else Sam's not telling him, something else that's got him worried. He licks his lips, is trying to think of what to say, what will get Sam to tell him. He used to be better at this, better at getting Sam to talk, to confess.
He's thinking about how that happened, about what went wrong, all of his attention a thousand miles away, caught down deep in the drag of the past, and he's unprepared, caught off-guard when Sam throws an arm around the back of his neck, sudden and strong, and tugs him forward, off-balance. Dean falls in automatically (and later, if he wanted to, maybe he could blame it on his busted knee, maybe that would explain the way he clung so quickly, so tightly to his brother) and Sam's mouth brushes his, tastes like PBR and chapstick, like this dry heat and burnt sugar air.
Dean blinks. Sam's watching him, Sam's nose pressed against his, Sam's breath warm against his mouth, and Dean is. Dean is standing on the front porch with his brother. Letting his brother kiss him. Kissing his brother. Whose knuckles are bruised because he sent some guy to the hospital and who is staring at him. And Dad's almost in Canada, won't be back for. Days, probably.
They could do anything. They could, and nobody would know, and Dean's still too sleep-drugged, heat-drugged, just-plain-drugged, to be making this kind of decision. To be making any kind of decision. To even be thinking about this like it's something. Like it's. Like it's real. Like it's possible.
"Sam, I," Dean says, and Sam flushes. Red beneath the beginning of his summer tan and his mouth draws tight, a flat line that makes Dean think of when Sam was ten, the way he'd bite down when he was trying not to cry in front of Dad.
The screen door slams and Sam's gone again, retreating into the house.
Dean stands there for a moment, one hand on the railing, watching the field. Wondering what just happened, what he just did, and he thinks that there should be something. Panic, maybe, instead of this, instead of nothing, this quiet buzz against the walls of his skull.
Sam's in the bedroom they share, stretched out on the twin bed that's a little too small for him. Scuffed-up boots on the floor at the foot of the bed. "Hey," Dean says, leaning against the doorframe.
"What," Sam says. He doesn't look away from the ceiling. He's still blushing. The bedsprings squeal and cry when Dean lowers himself onto the bed next to him.
Probably this is a bad idea. Probably he should go back out to the living room, crash onto the couch with a couple more pills and sleep all the way through the night, the next day. Wake up when Dad comes through the door, wake up and grab the first aid kid and hope it's not too bad, hope that this time, this one more time, they're luckier than they should be.
"I just," Dean says. "I can't. It's not."
"Yeah, I get it," Sam says, and Dean hates when he gets like this, this flat dead edge to his voice, like he's a stranger or maybe like he wishes he were, like Dean doesn't know him at all. "It was a, it was a stupid idea. Forget I even, forget it. I just wanna get out of this town."
He licks his lips, closes his eyes, looks far too old. The set of his jaw like this is just one more disappointment in a very long line, so long he's forgotten where and how they even began. And Dean's gonna lose him. Sam, who's good to his core, who's the best thing Dean's ever done, the brightest. His brother who beats up bullies and's a fucking genius and hates this life and he's gonna leave, these heavy envelopes he gets in the mail and hides beneath the mattress, hides in his backpack, but he's lousy at hiding things from Dean, and Dean loves him, loves him more than anything, and that's okay because that's what he's meant to do, right? That's family. And maybe in love just got sort of. Buried in there, somehow. Sure.
Dean leans over, almost loses his balance when Sam flinches, stuttering surprised-breath and the mattress giving unexpectedly. Sam reaches to pull him down and it's like kissing a girl, at first, the way Dean doesn't push, but Sam's not a girl, not at all, nothing like those girls in high school and then, later, their could-have-been-sisters. All flatness and muscle instead, fierce where it would have been gentle, would have been sweet. Sweatsalt where he'd thought for an instant there would be cherry, strawberry, chemical lipgloss smear, and Sam's tongue swipes across his lips, Sam's eyes wide and dark. Dean's palm against Sam's face, holding him still, and his little brother looking up at him like Dean's just given him everything.
"You don't have to do this," Sam says, breathing hard, and then, "Unless you," and Dean pushes him flat. Sam bites his lip as Dean gets a hand under his shirt and lifts it up, works his way down Sam's chest. Stops at the line of his jeans and Sam's watching him and he's dizzy, the heat between them, the twist of Sam's mouth, the ache in his own jeans. This hazy slide into summer, this fever-dream life, and Sam wants him to, to do this, and that makes it easy.
Sam whimpers and says "Dean," and Dean's never done this before, never been on the giving end, teeth of the zipper rough against the pads of his fingers, this stroke and pulse, but Sam shudders, shivers and bares his throat and comes hot all over Dean's hand.
Dean straightens, uses the comforter to wipe himself off, and tries to breathe. His head's spinning a little, still, and he's not entirely sure what just happened. Epic incomprehensible significance of what he just did. Sam slides closer, no space at all between them, and Dean thinks that he might have just fucked up very badly, but Sam is smiling, Sam is pushing him back against the wall, has a hand on his stomach, tracing circles that match the skip-beat of Dean's heart.
Dean swallows, and he should pull away. He should, because this is some new level of wrong, some new boundary all together. Letting Sam do this, Sam kneeling beside him, Sam's mouth warm and wet on his neck. Sam's hand edges down his shorts, unexpectedly rough touch, an instant-scratch of jagged fingernails and Dean hisses, thin breath like a curse or a plea.
He keeps his eyes open, watches Sam, Sam's eyes narrowed in concentration and his teeth digging into his lower lip. Dean can see the sky from here, sky through the window, through the gap between the curtains that don't really close, this narrow strip of white sky like static, like the end of the universe, like they're all alone out here. His hips jerk and he bites down on the noises twisting wrecked and broken out of his throat, but it doesn't work. He grinds up, pushing, and Sam leans in, leans closer. And Dean wants to tell him to stop, to stop doing this to him (this thing he's been doing all his life, really, but mostly this particular manifestation, Sam's hand on his cock, the way Sam's going to break him apart) but he can't, oh god, he can't, won't ever, because if Sam stops, it seems entirely possible that Dean might die.
It shouldn't be so quick. He shouldn't be so desperate, so desperate for his brother, but he is, damned all the way, but that's nothing, oh god, not right now.
And after, sitting next to Sam on this twin bed that's too small for either of them, certainly for both of them, and the wall cool against the back of his neck and the ghosts of all the other people who ever lived here watching them.
Dean closes his eyes.
"I," Sam says. "Thanks. For calling, I mean."
"'s my job, right," Dean says.
"I'll make dinner," Sam says.
"Good fuckin' idea," Dean says. "About time."
Sam gets up, pads out of the room, and Dean hears the water start in the kitchen. He tilts his head back against the wall again and hears the windchimes begin to move. Imagines them slowly turning, imagines the storm on its way, the perfect green-grey of the sky and Dad on the other side, the black of his car on the other side of the clouds.
Any minute, Dean will get up, go out to the kitchen. He'll make fun of Sam while Sam makes dinner and then they'll eat in front of the black and white television set, finish off the rest of his six-pack and maybe they'll fool around in the dark, the desaturated glow of whatever the hell's playing forgotten on the screen until the power goes out. On the living room floor, Sam pinned beneath him, pressing close, breathless as Dean grins, the ache in his knee dull and meaningless.
Or maybe it'll be the other way. Carpet scratching at Dean's back, bare slice where his shirt's rucked up and Sam sucking illicit bruises beneath his skin, bruises that will maybe never go away.
Any minute, he'll get up. Take the next step, and the next, and it's just that he's tired, that's all. Just the drugs fucking with him, and the weird slide of almost-summer curling ominous, making the future, the guillotine blade of red autumn, seem suddenly so near, making it seem like something's been lost, some chance that never existed to begin with.
--
end