Big Bang 2012: The Iron Tongue of Midnight
Part Ten
April 24th 2002 cont…
Last time they did this; the first and only time that Dean had ever done it; he’d had a lubed plug in his ass for several hours beforehand. Not that that really mattered; Dean trusted Sam completely. He knew the younger man wouldn’t really hurt him; knew that when it came down to it, the sex would be mind-blowingly good, but…
Yeah. But. Seeing Sam so scared and vulnerable had put a dent the size of Texas in Dean’s libido and okay, he was a healthy young guy, he liked sex, and Dean junior had already voted in favor of the current plan with little more encouragement than Sam tackling Dean down onto the bed and licking his way into Dean’s mouth. So Dean’s body was on board with the whole getting-thoroughly-fucked thing, but there was an annoying little voice inside his head that kept reminding him that Sam might not be in the best headspace right now and that given the givens, maybe having sex might not be the best idea.
Sam wormed a hand in underneath Dean’s various shirts and found a nipple, pinching and tweaking it even as he rubbed his hard length against Dean’s and thrust his tongue, hard and hot, into Dean’s mouth. Dean groaned into the kiss and then wrenched himself away. He needed to say something before he lost the capacity for both speech and rational thought.
“Sam,” God…was that him? He sounded like he’d just smoked a whole pack of cigarettes, “Sam…are you sure about this?”
Sam looked at him like he was very, very stupid. In answer to the question he ground his hard dick against Dean’s.
Dean rolled his eyes.
“I’m not asking you if your body’s ready. I’m just making sure that you really want to do this; that you don’t feel like you owe me or some shit. Or…ya know, that you’ve gotta do your job cuz, dude, we are way past that.”
Sam looked down at him, his eyes slanted and dark. “There are exactly three people in this whole world who I trust; Andy from back home, Jess and you. You and me…we just click and…fuck, Dean, there is no part of me that thinks I have to do this. I mean, you’re pretty easy on the eyes and…you’re a good friend. I want this.”
“Okay,” Dean said.
Sam frowned. “Do you want this?”
Dean sighed. “I think I got sorta stuck in protective big brother mode. I’m havin’ a hard time comin’ down from wanting to tear this Brady dude into tiny little pieces.”
Sam smirked. “Big brother, huh? Well…it’s kinky, but I think I can work with that.” He ducked his head back down and kissed Dean quickly. “But you’ve gotta give me a proper answer.” He ground down against Dean’s dick again. “Do you want this? Yes or no?”
“Yes,” Dean answered promptly, “But you were pretty freaked out before and I don’t wanna take advantage of you.”
Sam linked his hands with Dean’s and shifted his weight subtly, so that Dean was pinned to the bed.
“Do you really think you could make me do anything I didn’t want to?” he asked.
Dean shook his head. “Physically, no. But you had a major shock today and I’m not sure what’s goin’ on in that big brain of yours. I know you’re smart as hell, Sam, but you’re also fucked up; cuz no-one has the childhood you had without getting fucked up by it. And what with me dropping that whole ‘monsters are real’ shit on you, I guess I don’t wanna make you any more fucked up than I already have.”
Sam laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “Takes one to know one, huh?” He rolled off Dean and lay on his back, next to him. Dean twisted onto his side, his elbow on the bed and his cheek resting in his hand. Sam turned his head to face him. “You wanna know what’s goin’ on in my brain?”
Dean nodded, his green eyes fixed on Sam’s and his expression serious.
“Fine. I’m scared. And I’m angry. And I’m very far from okay. But I’m dealing. Aazim and his crew, they can’t have me back. And if word gets around school…” he sighed, “then so what? Daisy-you know, that waitress from the diner? She has this thing she always says: those who matter don’t mind and those who mind don’t matter. If I end up with no friends and everyone all takin’ behind my back, then who cares? Won’t be fun, but I’ve put up with worse.”
“Jess’d stand by you,” Dean said.
Sam nodded and for a long moment he laid still and silent, just staring up pensively at the ceiling. Then he rolled over so that he was facing Dean, mirroring his position.
“You know what the worst thing is about hooking?”
Dean raised his eyebrows. “The sleazy johns? The asshole pimps? The corrupt cops? Fuck if I know, Sammy.”
“It’s the cold. Hours and hours spent standing on a street corner at night-when it’s barely 40 degrees out-wearing nothing but tight, ripped jeans and a short-sleeved mesh top. The sleazy johns, the asshole pimps, the corrupt cops; at least they provide a little warmth, some company and if you’re real lucky the occasional cup of hot coffee. But if I had to sum up hooking in two words I’d say ‘cold’ and ‘boring’.”
“Huh,” Dean’s eyes took on a faraway look, “Remember I told you how I used to get hit on by guys at truck stops sometimes?”
Sam nodded.
“Some of those guys were fat and hairy and smelled like they’d been sleepin’ in their trucks for a week, just sweatin’ into their shorts. If I had to go down on one of them, I’d hurl-even if I had a cherry flavored rubber to mask the taste. So I guess I’m surprised that ain’t the worst thing about hooking.”
When Dean met Sam’s eyes again, the younger man’s expression was amused. “Well I’ll say one thing,” Sam said, “I don’t have a gag reflex anymore.”
He watched heat flare in Dean’s eyes as he pondered the implications of Sam’s statement.
“Most johns are just sad, lonely guys who are either too ugly or too socially inept to get a date,” Sam continued, “but you know what? They can actually be real sweet. Sometimes they’ll even spring for a motel room, which means you can usually get ‘em into a shower before you have to do anything. And sometimes the sex is actually good.” He brushed a hand through his hair, “I dunno, maybe I just got used to telling myself stories to get me through the job, but with those guys, it’s almost like you’re a social worker…you feel like you’re doing a community service, you know?” Sam paused. “Then you get the closet queers who are so repressed it’s not funny. They can go either way; sometimes they’re pathetically grateful; sometimes they hate the fuck outta you for being what they’re not supposed to want. The point is-the fucking and the sucking and all the grossness that sometimes goes with it, it’s the job, and all jobs have their crap aspects. I mean, I bet you’ve had to do some truly craptastic shit in your time, being a hunter and all.”
Dean snorted. “You could say that. Hunting ain’t all glamorous monster-slaying, that’s for sure. Once the monster’s dead, you gotta salt and burn the corpse. Depending on the creature, there could be some other sorta ritual you gotta do to make sure it’s properly dead dead, and you can bet your sweet ass it’s gonna involve choppin’ off heads, rippin’ out hearts or tearing off tentacles and by the end of it you’re gonna be covered in blood and brains and guts and…and…tentacle juice and I’m tellin’ you now, Sammy, if it’s gotta be clean it’s gotta be not covered in tentacle juice cuz Tide sure as shit can’t get that stuff out. And do you know how you get rid of a restless spirit?”
Sam shook his head, his eyes sparkling with amusement.
“You gotta salt and burn the corpse. Which means you gotta find the corpse, which is usually in a public cemetery, and then you gotta dig it up. Most of the time there’s nothin’ left but bone; but every now and then we gotta deal with a ripe one,” he wrinkled his nose. “Not fun, Sam.”
“Yeah, I bet. Ever been caught?”
Dean grimaced. “Yeah. And that ain’t fun either; cops lookin’ at you like you’re some kinda satan-worshipping, grave-desecrating freak. Thank fuck for fake IDs. What about you? You ever been caught?”
For a moment Sam could’ve been made of marble, and then he said coolly, “My record’s clean.”
Dean nodded. “Only ever charged as a juvenile, huh?”
Sam rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. Dean reached out a tentative hand and touched his shoulder. “Hey, I ain’t exactly Mr Squeaky Clean, you know.”
Sam sighed. “Yeah, but you got in trouble for a good cause; saving the world from monsters no-one else knows about.”
Dean scooted a little closer to the younger man. “Surviving your childhood after your mom abandoned you is a good cause too. And look at you now, got a free ride to Stanford, gonna be a lawyer. You did good, Sammy. I bet Jenny would’ve been real proud of you.”
Sam didn’t reply, just folded an arm across his eyes and lay still.
Dean edged himself even closer so that the two of them were lying flush against each other. “I’d’ve been proud of my little brother,” he mumbled, “if he’d turned out like you.”
Sam didn’t reply, but he pressed himself against Dean’s side and Dean could feel the tension leaving the younger man’s body.
“You hungry?” he asked when Sam’s stomach rumbled.
Several cartons of Chinese takeout and a few beers later Dean decided that it was time to hit the hay. He called dibs on the bathroom, on account of him being the oldest, and when he’d finished up he brushed past Sam as the younger man made his way in, toothbrush in hand. “Hey,” Dean said with a smirk, “at least you won’t need to borrow my toothbrush this time, cuz, dude, having to stick my toothbrush in my mouth after it’d been in yours…that was gross.”
Sam threw his head back and laughed. “So you’re quite happy for me to stick my cock in your mouth, but you don’t like me using your toothbrush? You know you’re a jerk, right?”
“Don’t you go using your lawyer logic on me, bitch,” Dean snarked back. “It is gross. I don’t care what you say!”
When Sam came out of the bathroom he hesitated in the door way, looking first at Dean’s bed and then at the empty bed that Dean’s dad had been using. When he’d stayed over last time he’d slept in Dean’s bed, but given the way Dean seemed to want to give him his space this time, he wasn’t sure if Dean would appreciate Sam climbing into bed with him.
“Where do you want me to sleep?” he asked; a question that was two words longer than the one he normally asked in motel rooms.
“Wherever you want,” Dean replied.
Sam hesitated a moment.
“I wouldn’t feel right in your dad’s bed. Is it okay if I sleep in yours? We don’t have to do anything.”
“That’s fine, Sammy. Whatever you want.”
“It’s Sam.”
“Sure. Sorry.”
Sam climbed into bed beside him and then turned onto his side and faced away from Dean.
“Night Dean,” he said quietly.
“Night Sam,” Dean replied as he turned off the lamp.
Several hours later Dean startled awake, his hand sliding under his pillow for his knife as he was struck hard in the face.
Sam was flailing beside him, legs kicking out and arms wind-milling wildly, and the piteous moans that were wrenching themselves from his throat made Dean’s skin crawl. The room was light enough for Dean to see that they weren’t, in fact, being attacked, and when the motel’s neon sign flashed, Dean could see true horror on Sam’s sleeping face.
“Sammy,” he put a hand out to stop the younger man’s flying limbs, “Stop it, Sam. C’mon…shush…you’re okay.”
“Nooooo!” Sam moaned, bucking under Dean’s hands, “Nooooo!”
Never one for subtlety, Dean hauled himself on top of Sam, sitting astride him and pinning his hands to the bed. “Sam!” he shouted, “Snap out of it, man!”
At Dean’s shout, Sam’s eyes flew open. He focused on Dean and then looked up at the ceiling before closing his eyes and shuddering.
“You okay, Sammy?”
Sam met Dean’s eyes and nodded. “Sorry. Bad dream.”
Dean harrumphed. “I’ll say.” He pointed to his cheek. “Gonna have to tell people I walked into a door.”
Sam sucked his bottom lip between his teeth. “Shit. I’m sorry, Dean.”
Dean suddenly realized that not only was he sitting on top of Sam’s groin, they were both starting to get hard, so he quickly rolled off the younger man and then lay on his side, facing him.
“You’re forgiven,” he said. “What was the nightmare about?”
Sam shuddered again. “I keep having this recurring dream,” he said, “My dorm room’s on fire and Jess is trapped in there.”
A frisson went up Dean’s spine. “I hate fire,” he said.
“Must make life hard,” Sam remarked, “what with all the salting and burning you gotta do.”
Dean stared at him, his face hard and uncompromising in the dim light and then a look of understanding settled onto his face. “I never told you how my mom and Timmy died, did I?”
“You said something supernatural got them.”
“Yeah,” abruptly, Dean pulled himself into a sitting position, pushing his pillow behind him to lean on. Sam quickly followed suit and then looked at Dean expectantly.
“When I was four,” Dean began softly, “I woke up one night to find some strange man standing over my bed. He was frowning and muttering and when he realized that I was awake his eyes flashed yellow and then he disappeared. Man, I was fucking terrified. For a minute, I couldn’t even breathe and then,” Dean bit his bottom lip and a look of shame crossed his face, “and then I yelled for my mom.” His eyes flashed up to Sam’s, as if expecting some sort of condemnation for his cowardice.
“Dude, you were four,” Sam said.
Dean shook his head. “Yeah, but if I’d just been a little bit braver then…” he cleared his throat. “My mom came running in and she hugged me like mom’s do,” he ignored the wry look on Sam’s face, “and she kept telling me it was okay, it was just a bad dream, nothing could get me cuz I had angels watching over me. And eventually I calmed down enough to tell her that there’d been a man in my room and he’d just vanished and…Sam…she froze. And then she asked me if there’d been anything special about his eyes. So I told her, yeah, he had yellow eyes. The look on her face, Sammy…she was terrified. She let go of me and ran into Timmy’s nursery and the next thing I know she’s screaming out ‘no, no, not my baby,’ and then she’s just screaming and my dad came running up the stairs, screaming her name, and then he ran into the nursery too. So I got brave then and got outta bed and followed him. The nursery was on fire, Sammy, and mom…she was…she was on the ceiling…and Timmy’s crib was on fire and then there was, like, this fireball that just exploded out from the crib and Dad, he just grabbed me and ran.”
Dean looked across at Sam and noticed that he’d gone unnaturally still.
“What?” he said.
“That’s like my dream,” Sam said, his voice no more than a strangled-whisper. “Only in my dream, it’s Jess on the ceiling. She’s wearing a white nightgown and blood’s dripping from a wound on her stomach and then my dorm room just bursts into flames.”
Dean blinked and before he was even aware that he’d made a conscious decision, he’d pulled his knife from under his pillow and launched himself at Sam, pinning him down onto the mattress and forcing the blade up under the younger man’s chin.
“What the fuck are you?” he hissed.
Sam went completely limp. “I’m just a college student,” he said quietly, his eyes big and scared.
“My mom was wearing a white nightgown” Dean spat. “She was bleeding from a knife wound to her stomach. How could you know that?”
Sam’s eyes were locked with his and Dean could see that he was distraught.
“I didn’t kill her, Dean,” he said.
Dean blinked. “Well no shit, you would’ve been a baby at the time.”
“What do you want from me?”
Dean frowned. “Answers. Why are you having these dreams?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know something about the man with yellow eyes?”
“I don’t know…”Sam wet his lips nervously. “Maybe?”
“Tell me,” Dean demanded.
Sam swallowed. “When I was little,” he ventured haltingly, “there was an old woman lived in our squat. She had stringy black hair and crossed-eyes and she used to wander around the place muttering to herself and making the sign of the cross. The Mexicans all said she was a Bruja-a witch-but I just figured she was one of those crazy religious nuts. Schizophrenic or some shit. She used to mutter about El diablo-hombre con los ojos amarillos-the devil-man with yellow eyes. She said he stole the souls of children.”
“Did she say he was real? Did she claim to have actually seen this dude?”
Sam nodded slightly and took a shuddering breath. “One morning…I never told anyone this, Dean…one morning, when I was coming home from work, she cornered me outside the squat, got right in my face and started hissing at me that El diablo-hombre con los ojos amarillos had stolen my soul; that she saw him take it when I was a little kid. I just figured it was the usual religious bullshit I got from a lotta people for being a gay hooker. But what if she was right?” Sam wet his lips again. “What if that’s what the Faerie king meant when he said my soul was dark?”
“Fuck,” said Dean, his grip tightening subconsciously on the handle of his knife.
“Dean?” Sam’s voice was small and Dean could feel him trembling, “what are you gonna do to me?”
“Fuck,” Dean said again, pulling the blade away from where it still rested at Sam’s throat. “I’m sorry…I…fuck.” He climbed off Sam and thrust the knife back under his pillow. “I’m sorry,” he said again, “I panicked.”
Sam swallowed. “I’m pretty freaked too. What do you think it means? My dream? Am I, like, a mind reader? Am I somehow picking up on what happened to you and putting in my own faces? Or is something gonna happen to Jess, like something happened to your mom? And is your yellow-eyed man the same thing as the Bruja’s El diablo-hombre con los ojos amarillos? Does he really eat souls? Did he eat my soul? Oh fuck, Dean…did a monster eat my soul?”
Dean shook his head. “Nothing about you screams soulless monster. You’re kind; caring; compassionate; you’ve got the puppy dog eyes. You’re a good guy, Sam. And I’m sorry I forgot that for a moment.”
Sam looked away. “It doesn’t matter.”
Dean reached out and gripped the younger man’s arm. “Yeah. It does matter. I was outta line just now and for that I’m sorry. I dunno what’s going on and I’m freaked as fuck, but I do know that it’s not your fault. We’re gonna get to the bottom of this Sam and no matter what; I’ve got your back. You have my word on that.”
Sam nodded and Dean gave his arm a final squeeze and let it go.
“What if this yellow-eyed devil really did do something to me, though?” Sam couldn’t seem to drop it. “What if I turn out to be something you’d normally hunt?”
“You ever killed anyone?”
“No!” Sam looked shocked at the very thought.
“You ever wanted to kill someone?”
Sam’s eyes darkened. “Hell yes.”
Dean grimaced. “Well that’s understandable; you’ve probably had more cause than most people. You didn’t though, did you? You’re not a monster Sam.”
Sam looked down and then nodded, appearing to accept Dean’s verdict for now. “Okay. But we still don’t know what it all means. And Jess could be in danger. Should I warn her?”
Dean shook his head.
“What could you say without sounding ten tons of crazy? How ‘bout we see if we can get a few more facts before we go ringing the alarm bell.”
“How do we do that?”
“Well…we can investigate a bit on our own, I guess, but it just so happens that I know a guy who’s an A-grade research guru.”
-X-
Bobby answered the phone with the words: “This better be life or death Winchester; it’s four am where I’m at.”
Dean gave Bobby a run down on the situation, describing Sam as a college student ‘interested in mythology’ who was helping him with the case.
“I’ll hit the books in the morning,” Bobby promised, “see what all I can find out. In the meantime: What in tarnation were you thinkin’, boy, lettin’ a civilian get mixed up in all this? I really oughta tan your hide the next time I see you.”
Sam sniggered.
“Uh, yeah, Bobby, you’re on speaker phone.”
“Is that the boy?”
“Sam, sir,” Sam said.
Bobby grunted. “Least you’ ve got manners. So he give you the whole ‘monsters are real’ speech?”
“Yes sir. And it wasn’t really Dean’s fault, me finding out. We were doing research together when the Faeries snatched him.”
Bobby harrumphed.
“Well that don’t make a lick o’ sense. They’ve been doin’ this for a thousand years and ain’t never taken someone in front of a witness yet. Hmmmm,” Bobby paused, “You know,” he continued casually, “lyin’ to me with your first sentence ain’t the way to get on my good side. You wanna tell me what really happened, son?”
Dean shook his head frantically at Sam. Sam sighed. “Did Dean tell you what the Faerie king wants from him?”
“Ritual sex,” Bobby said bluntly.
“Right. So…I’m bi. I offered to take his place. Like Dean said, I’m interested in mythology so it seemed like an amazing opportunity.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the phone and Dean gave Sam two thumbs up. The kid sure could think on his feet and he was a really credible liar. He’d sure be useful to have tagging along when Dean and his dad were interviewing witnesses.
“You just ‘offered’”, Bobby said skeptically, “for the honor of it?”
“Yeah,” Sam said, “that and the cash. It ain’t easy being a poor college student. Unfortunately I’m not the Faerie king’s type. Something about my soul being too dark, which brings us right back to El diablo-hombre con los ojos amarillos and whether or not he’s real and if so, did he do something to my soul?”
“I’m on it, kid,” Bobby said with a yawn, “in the meantime why don’t you explain to me why you’re wakin’ up from nightmares at ass o’clock in the morning…in Dean’s hotel room and not in your college dorm?”
“That’s none of your business,” Dean interjected.
Bobby’s silence was almost tangible in its intensity.
Belatedly, Dean realized that he’d just more-or-less outed himself. “I…I don’t mean…” he stammered, but Bobby cut him off.
“You’re right, son. It ain’t none of my business. But for the record, I don’t give a damn if you like to bat for the other team sometimes. I don’t reckon your daddy’s gonna like it though.”
“My dad doesn’t have to know,” Dean said flatly. And he was frowning so hard at the cell phone sitting on the floral bedspread that he missed the look of pain that flashed quickly across Sam’s face.
<
| next>>
April 24th 2002 cont…
Last time they did this; the first and only time that Dean had ever done it; he’d had a lubed plug in his ass for several hours beforehand. Not that that really mattered; Dean trusted Sam completely. He knew the younger man wouldn’t really hurt him; knew that when it came down to it, the sex would be mind-blowingly good, but…
Yeah. But. Seeing Sam so scared and vulnerable had put a dent the size of Texas in Dean’s libido and okay, he was a healthy young guy, he liked sex, and Dean junior had already voted in favor of the current plan with little more encouragement than Sam tackling Dean down onto the bed and licking his way into Dean’s mouth. So Dean’s body was on board with the whole getting-thoroughly-fucked thing, but there was an annoying little voice inside his head that kept reminding him that Sam might not be in the best headspace right now and that given the givens, maybe having sex might not be the best idea.
Sam wormed a hand in underneath Dean’s various shirts and found a nipple, pinching and tweaking it even as he rubbed his hard length against Dean’s and thrust his tongue, hard and hot, into Dean’s mouth. Dean groaned into the kiss and then wrenched himself away. He needed to say something before he lost the capacity for both speech and rational thought.
“Sam,” God…was that him? He sounded like he’d just smoked a whole pack of cigarettes, “Sam…are you sure about this?”
Sam looked at him like he was very, very stupid. In answer to the question he ground his hard dick against Dean’s.
Dean rolled his eyes.
“I’m not asking you if your body’s ready. I’m just making sure that you really want to do this; that you don’t feel like you owe me or some shit. Or…ya know, that you’ve gotta do your job cuz, dude, we are way past that.”
Sam looked down at him, his eyes slanted and dark. “There are exactly three people in this whole world who I trust; Andy from back home, Jess and you. You and me…we just click and…fuck, Dean, there is no part of me that thinks I have to do this. I mean, you’re pretty easy on the eyes and…you’re a good friend. I want this.”
“Okay,” Dean said.
Sam frowned. “Do you want this?”
Dean sighed. “I think I got sorta stuck in protective big brother mode. I’m havin’ a hard time comin’ down from wanting to tear this Brady dude into tiny little pieces.”
Sam smirked. “Big brother, huh? Well…it’s kinky, but I think I can work with that.” He ducked his head back down and kissed Dean quickly. “But you’ve gotta give me a proper answer.” He ground down against Dean’s dick again. “Do you want this? Yes or no?”
“Yes,” Dean answered promptly, “But you were pretty freaked out before and I don’t wanna take advantage of you.”
Sam linked his hands with Dean’s and shifted his weight subtly, so that Dean was pinned to the bed.
“Do you really think you could make me do anything I didn’t want to?” he asked.
Dean shook his head. “Physically, no. But you had a major shock today and I’m not sure what’s goin’ on in that big brain of yours. I know you’re smart as hell, Sam, but you’re also fucked up; cuz no-one has the childhood you had without getting fucked up by it. And what with me dropping that whole ‘monsters are real’ shit on you, I guess I don’t wanna make you any more fucked up than I already have.”
Sam laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “Takes one to know one, huh?” He rolled off Dean and lay on his back, next to him. Dean twisted onto his side, his elbow on the bed and his cheek resting in his hand. Sam turned his head to face him. “You wanna know what’s goin’ on in my brain?”
Dean nodded, his green eyes fixed on Sam’s and his expression serious.
“Fine. I’m scared. And I’m angry. And I’m very far from okay. But I’m dealing. Aazim and his crew, they can’t have me back. And if word gets around school…” he sighed, “then so what? Daisy-you know, that waitress from the diner? She has this thing she always says: those who matter don’t mind and those who mind don’t matter. If I end up with no friends and everyone all takin’ behind my back, then who cares? Won’t be fun, but I’ve put up with worse.”
“Jess’d stand by you,” Dean said.
Sam nodded and for a long moment he laid still and silent, just staring up pensively at the ceiling. Then he rolled over so that he was facing Dean, mirroring his position.
“You know what the worst thing is about hooking?”
Dean raised his eyebrows. “The sleazy johns? The asshole pimps? The corrupt cops? Fuck if I know, Sammy.”
“It’s the cold. Hours and hours spent standing on a street corner at night-when it’s barely 40 degrees out-wearing nothing but tight, ripped jeans and a short-sleeved mesh top. The sleazy johns, the asshole pimps, the corrupt cops; at least they provide a little warmth, some company and if you’re real lucky the occasional cup of hot coffee. But if I had to sum up hooking in two words I’d say ‘cold’ and ‘boring’.”
“Huh,” Dean’s eyes took on a faraway look, “Remember I told you how I used to get hit on by guys at truck stops sometimes?”
Sam nodded.
“Some of those guys were fat and hairy and smelled like they’d been sleepin’ in their trucks for a week, just sweatin’ into their shorts. If I had to go down on one of them, I’d hurl-even if I had a cherry flavored rubber to mask the taste. So I guess I’m surprised that ain’t the worst thing about hooking.”
When Dean met Sam’s eyes again, the younger man’s expression was amused. “Well I’ll say one thing,” Sam said, “I don’t have a gag reflex anymore.”
He watched heat flare in Dean’s eyes as he pondered the implications of Sam’s statement.
“Most johns are just sad, lonely guys who are either too ugly or too socially inept to get a date,” Sam continued, “but you know what? They can actually be real sweet. Sometimes they’ll even spring for a motel room, which means you can usually get ‘em into a shower before you have to do anything. And sometimes the sex is actually good.” He brushed a hand through his hair, “I dunno, maybe I just got used to telling myself stories to get me through the job, but with those guys, it’s almost like you’re a social worker…you feel like you’re doing a community service, you know?” Sam paused. “Then you get the closet queers who are so repressed it’s not funny. They can go either way; sometimes they’re pathetically grateful; sometimes they hate the fuck outta you for being what they’re not supposed to want. The point is-the fucking and the sucking and all the grossness that sometimes goes with it, it’s the job, and all jobs have their crap aspects. I mean, I bet you’ve had to do some truly craptastic shit in your time, being a hunter and all.”
Dean snorted. “You could say that. Hunting ain’t all glamorous monster-slaying, that’s for sure. Once the monster’s dead, you gotta salt and burn the corpse. Depending on the creature, there could be some other sorta ritual you gotta do to make sure it’s properly dead dead, and you can bet your sweet ass it’s gonna involve choppin’ off heads, rippin’ out hearts or tearing off tentacles and by the end of it you’re gonna be covered in blood and brains and guts and…and…tentacle juice and I’m tellin’ you now, Sammy, if it’s gotta be clean it’s gotta be not covered in tentacle juice cuz Tide sure as shit can’t get that stuff out. And do you know how you get rid of a restless spirit?”
Sam shook his head, his eyes sparkling with amusement.
“You gotta salt and burn the corpse. Which means you gotta find the corpse, which is usually in a public cemetery, and then you gotta dig it up. Most of the time there’s nothin’ left but bone; but every now and then we gotta deal with a ripe one,” he wrinkled his nose. “Not fun, Sam.”
“Yeah, I bet. Ever been caught?”
Dean grimaced. “Yeah. And that ain’t fun either; cops lookin’ at you like you’re some kinda satan-worshipping, grave-desecrating freak. Thank fuck for fake IDs. What about you? You ever been caught?”
For a moment Sam could’ve been made of marble, and then he said coolly, “My record’s clean.”
Dean nodded. “Only ever charged as a juvenile, huh?”
Sam rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. Dean reached out a tentative hand and touched his shoulder. “Hey, I ain’t exactly Mr Squeaky Clean, you know.”
Sam sighed. “Yeah, but you got in trouble for a good cause; saving the world from monsters no-one else knows about.”
Dean scooted a little closer to the younger man. “Surviving your childhood after your mom abandoned you is a good cause too. And look at you now, got a free ride to Stanford, gonna be a lawyer. You did good, Sammy. I bet Jenny would’ve been real proud of you.”
Sam didn’t reply, just folded an arm across his eyes and lay still.
Dean edged himself even closer so that the two of them were lying flush against each other. “I’d’ve been proud of my little brother,” he mumbled, “if he’d turned out like you.”
Sam didn’t reply, but he pressed himself against Dean’s side and Dean could feel the tension leaving the younger man’s body.
“You hungry?” he asked when Sam’s stomach rumbled.
Several cartons of Chinese takeout and a few beers later Dean decided that it was time to hit the hay. He called dibs on the bathroom, on account of him being the oldest, and when he’d finished up he brushed past Sam as the younger man made his way in, toothbrush in hand. “Hey,” Dean said with a smirk, “at least you won’t need to borrow my toothbrush this time, cuz, dude, having to stick my toothbrush in my mouth after it’d been in yours…that was gross.”
Sam threw his head back and laughed. “So you’re quite happy for me to stick my cock in your mouth, but you don’t like me using your toothbrush? You know you’re a jerk, right?”
“Don’t you go using your lawyer logic on me, bitch,” Dean snarked back. “It is gross. I don’t care what you say!”
When Sam came out of the bathroom he hesitated in the door way, looking first at Dean’s bed and then at the empty bed that Dean’s dad had been using. When he’d stayed over last time he’d slept in Dean’s bed, but given the way Dean seemed to want to give him his space this time, he wasn’t sure if Dean would appreciate Sam climbing into bed with him.
“Where do you want me to sleep?” he asked; a question that was two words longer than the one he normally asked in motel rooms.
“Wherever you want,” Dean replied.
Sam hesitated a moment.
“I wouldn’t feel right in your dad’s bed. Is it okay if I sleep in yours? We don’t have to do anything.”
“That’s fine, Sammy. Whatever you want.”
“It’s Sam.”
“Sure. Sorry.”
Sam climbed into bed beside him and then turned onto his side and faced away from Dean.
“Night Dean,” he said quietly.
“Night Sam,” Dean replied as he turned off the lamp.
Several hours later Dean startled awake, his hand sliding under his pillow for his knife as he was struck hard in the face.
Sam was flailing beside him, legs kicking out and arms wind-milling wildly, and the piteous moans that were wrenching themselves from his throat made Dean’s skin crawl. The room was light enough for Dean to see that they weren’t, in fact, being attacked, and when the motel’s neon sign flashed, Dean could see true horror on Sam’s sleeping face.
“Sammy,” he put a hand out to stop the younger man’s flying limbs, “Stop it, Sam. C’mon…shush…you’re okay.”
“Nooooo!” Sam moaned, bucking under Dean’s hands, “Nooooo!”
Never one for subtlety, Dean hauled himself on top of Sam, sitting astride him and pinning his hands to the bed. “Sam!” he shouted, “Snap out of it, man!”
At Dean’s shout, Sam’s eyes flew open. He focused on Dean and then looked up at the ceiling before closing his eyes and shuddering.
“You okay, Sammy?”
Sam met Dean’s eyes and nodded. “Sorry. Bad dream.”
Dean harrumphed. “I’ll say.” He pointed to his cheek. “Gonna have to tell people I walked into a door.”
Sam sucked his bottom lip between his teeth. “Shit. I’m sorry, Dean.”
Dean suddenly realized that not only was he sitting on top of Sam’s groin, they were both starting to get hard, so he quickly rolled off the younger man and then lay on his side, facing him.
“You’re forgiven,” he said. “What was the nightmare about?”
Sam shuddered again. “I keep having this recurring dream,” he said, “My dorm room’s on fire and Jess is trapped in there.”
A frisson went up Dean’s spine. “I hate fire,” he said.
“Must make life hard,” Sam remarked, “what with all the salting and burning you gotta do.”
Dean stared at him, his face hard and uncompromising in the dim light and then a look of understanding settled onto his face. “I never told you how my mom and Timmy died, did I?”
“You said something supernatural got them.”
“Yeah,” abruptly, Dean pulled himself into a sitting position, pushing his pillow behind him to lean on. Sam quickly followed suit and then looked at Dean expectantly.
“When I was four,” Dean began softly, “I woke up one night to find some strange man standing over my bed. He was frowning and muttering and when he realized that I was awake his eyes flashed yellow and then he disappeared. Man, I was fucking terrified. For a minute, I couldn’t even breathe and then,” Dean bit his bottom lip and a look of shame crossed his face, “and then I yelled for my mom.” His eyes flashed up to Sam’s, as if expecting some sort of condemnation for his cowardice.
“Dude, you were four,” Sam said.
Dean shook his head. “Yeah, but if I’d just been a little bit braver then…” he cleared his throat. “My mom came running in and she hugged me like mom’s do,” he ignored the wry look on Sam’s face, “and she kept telling me it was okay, it was just a bad dream, nothing could get me cuz I had angels watching over me. And eventually I calmed down enough to tell her that there’d been a man in my room and he’d just vanished and…Sam…she froze. And then she asked me if there’d been anything special about his eyes. So I told her, yeah, he had yellow eyes. The look on her face, Sammy…she was terrified. She let go of me and ran into Timmy’s nursery and the next thing I know she’s screaming out ‘no, no, not my baby,’ and then she’s just screaming and my dad came running up the stairs, screaming her name, and then he ran into the nursery too. So I got brave then and got outta bed and followed him. The nursery was on fire, Sammy, and mom…she was…she was on the ceiling…and Timmy’s crib was on fire and then there was, like, this fireball that just exploded out from the crib and Dad, he just grabbed me and ran.”
Dean looked across at Sam and noticed that he’d gone unnaturally still.
“What?” he said.
“That’s like my dream,” Sam said, his voice no more than a strangled-whisper. “Only in my dream, it’s Jess on the ceiling. She’s wearing a white nightgown and blood’s dripping from a wound on her stomach and then my dorm room just bursts into flames.”
Dean blinked and before he was even aware that he’d made a conscious decision, he’d pulled his knife from under his pillow and launched himself at Sam, pinning him down onto the mattress and forcing the blade up under the younger man’s chin.
“What the fuck are you?” he hissed.
Sam went completely limp. “I’m just a college student,” he said quietly, his eyes big and scared.
“My mom was wearing a white nightgown” Dean spat. “She was bleeding from a knife wound to her stomach. How could you know that?”
Sam’s eyes were locked with his and Dean could see that he was distraught.
“I didn’t kill her, Dean,” he said.
Dean blinked. “Well no shit, you would’ve been a baby at the time.”
“What do you want from me?”
Dean frowned. “Answers. Why are you having these dreams?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know something about the man with yellow eyes?”
“I don’t know…”Sam wet his lips nervously. “Maybe?”
“Tell me,” Dean demanded.
Sam swallowed. “When I was little,” he ventured haltingly, “there was an old woman lived in our squat. She had stringy black hair and crossed-eyes and she used to wander around the place muttering to herself and making the sign of the cross. The Mexicans all said she was a Bruja-a witch-but I just figured she was one of those crazy religious nuts. Schizophrenic or some shit. She used to mutter about El diablo-hombre con los ojos amarillos-the devil-man with yellow eyes. She said he stole the souls of children.”
“Did she say he was real? Did she claim to have actually seen this dude?”
Sam nodded slightly and took a shuddering breath. “One morning…I never told anyone this, Dean…one morning, when I was coming home from work, she cornered me outside the squat, got right in my face and started hissing at me that El diablo-hombre con los ojos amarillos had stolen my soul; that she saw him take it when I was a little kid. I just figured it was the usual religious bullshit I got from a lotta people for being a gay hooker. But what if she was right?” Sam wet his lips again. “What if that’s what the Faerie king meant when he said my soul was dark?”
“Fuck,” said Dean, his grip tightening subconsciously on the handle of his knife.
“Dean?” Sam’s voice was small and Dean could feel him trembling, “what are you gonna do to me?”
“Fuck,” Dean said again, pulling the blade away from where it still rested at Sam’s throat. “I’m sorry…I…fuck.” He climbed off Sam and thrust the knife back under his pillow. “I’m sorry,” he said again, “I panicked.”
Sam swallowed. “I’m pretty freaked too. What do you think it means? My dream? Am I, like, a mind reader? Am I somehow picking up on what happened to you and putting in my own faces? Or is something gonna happen to Jess, like something happened to your mom? And is your yellow-eyed man the same thing as the Bruja’s El diablo-hombre con los ojos amarillos? Does he really eat souls? Did he eat my soul? Oh fuck, Dean…did a monster eat my soul?”
Dean shook his head. “Nothing about you screams soulless monster. You’re kind; caring; compassionate; you’ve got the puppy dog eyes. You’re a good guy, Sam. And I’m sorry I forgot that for a moment.”
Sam looked away. “It doesn’t matter.”
Dean reached out and gripped the younger man’s arm. “Yeah. It does matter. I was outta line just now and for that I’m sorry. I dunno what’s going on and I’m freaked as fuck, but I do know that it’s not your fault. We’re gonna get to the bottom of this Sam and no matter what; I’ve got your back. You have my word on that.”
Sam nodded and Dean gave his arm a final squeeze and let it go.
“What if this yellow-eyed devil really did do something to me, though?” Sam couldn’t seem to drop it. “What if I turn out to be something you’d normally hunt?”
“You ever killed anyone?”
“No!” Sam looked shocked at the very thought.
“You ever wanted to kill someone?”
Sam’s eyes darkened. “Hell yes.”
Dean grimaced. “Well that’s understandable; you’ve probably had more cause than most people. You didn’t though, did you? You’re not a monster Sam.”
Sam looked down and then nodded, appearing to accept Dean’s verdict for now. “Okay. But we still don’t know what it all means. And Jess could be in danger. Should I warn her?”
Dean shook his head.
“What could you say without sounding ten tons of crazy? How ‘bout we see if we can get a few more facts before we go ringing the alarm bell.”
“How do we do that?”
“Well…we can investigate a bit on our own, I guess, but it just so happens that I know a guy who’s an A-grade research guru.”
-X-
Bobby answered the phone with the words: “This better be life or death Winchester; it’s four am where I’m at.”
Dean gave Bobby a run down on the situation, describing Sam as a college student ‘interested in mythology’ who was helping him with the case.
“I’ll hit the books in the morning,” Bobby promised, “see what all I can find out. In the meantime: What in tarnation were you thinkin’, boy, lettin’ a civilian get mixed up in all this? I really oughta tan your hide the next time I see you.”
Sam sniggered.
“Uh, yeah, Bobby, you’re on speaker phone.”
“Is that the boy?”
“Sam, sir,” Sam said.
Bobby grunted. “Least you’ ve got manners. So he give you the whole ‘monsters are real’ speech?”
“Yes sir. And it wasn’t really Dean’s fault, me finding out. We were doing research together when the Faeries snatched him.”
Bobby harrumphed.
“Well that don’t make a lick o’ sense. They’ve been doin’ this for a thousand years and ain’t never taken someone in front of a witness yet. Hmmmm,” Bobby paused, “You know,” he continued casually, “lyin’ to me with your first sentence ain’t the way to get on my good side. You wanna tell me what really happened, son?”
Dean shook his head frantically at Sam. Sam sighed. “Did Dean tell you what the Faerie king wants from him?”
“Ritual sex,” Bobby said bluntly.
“Right. So…I’m bi. I offered to take his place. Like Dean said, I’m interested in mythology so it seemed like an amazing opportunity.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the phone and Dean gave Sam two thumbs up. The kid sure could think on his feet and he was a really credible liar. He’d sure be useful to have tagging along when Dean and his dad were interviewing witnesses.
“You just ‘offered’”, Bobby said skeptically, “for the honor of it?”
“Yeah,” Sam said, “that and the cash. It ain’t easy being a poor college student. Unfortunately I’m not the Faerie king’s type. Something about my soul being too dark, which brings us right back to El diablo-hombre con los ojos amarillos and whether or not he’s real and if so, did he do something to my soul?”
“I’m on it, kid,” Bobby said with a yawn, “in the meantime why don’t you explain to me why you’re wakin’ up from nightmares at ass o’clock in the morning…in Dean’s hotel room and not in your college dorm?”
“That’s none of your business,” Dean interjected.
Bobby’s silence was almost tangible in its intensity.
Belatedly, Dean realized that he’d just more-or-less outed himself. “I…I don’t mean…” he stammered, but Bobby cut him off.
“You’re right, son. It ain’t none of my business. But for the record, I don’t give a damn if you like to bat for the other team sometimes. I don’t reckon your daddy’s gonna like it though.”
“My dad doesn’t have to know,” Dean said flatly. And he was frowning so hard at the cell phone sitting on the floral bedspread that he missed the look of pain that flashed quickly across Sam’s face.
<
| next>>