Riders on the Storm 4. Part II: Dean
"To love is to suffer and there can be no love otherwise." ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground
As hard as he tries, Dean can't convince Sam to stay a while with Sarah Blake, Sam's insistent on getting out of there after the second night.
"What, she more than you bargained for, Sammy? Always said you were a prude," Dean teases, feeling good, though uneasy that he's putting more importance on this than Sam still.
Truth is, Sam's the one dragging them out of there, but Deans' the one who still feels bad about dragging Sam away from his life at Stanford with Jess, his good life, the life he would have led if he had kept that innocence. But Dean is needy. Needy for companionship, for company - like he said at the start, he could do it alone. He just doesn't want to.
What a selfish older brother.
"I just want to focus on finishing this thing with Dad and the demon now, Dean. Do what needs to be done first. Besides," he says, looking up from his computer to tap the sheaf of papers Deans put on his hotel room table. "You're looking at cases. Like I'd let you go off on a hunt without me."
Dean smiles despite himself. It's cute to hear that coming from Sam.
"What happened to the old you? Hate hunting, do anything to get out of it."
Sam shrugs. "I know what's important right now."
All in all, Dean's feeling unsettled. Sam may blame himself for not telling Jess, for not doing something, but Dean's the one who could have left well enough alone. Sam knows hunting - who's to say he couldn't have saved Jess, if he would have stayed and not followed Dean that weekend. They're hardly getting any closer to finding the demon - nothing Dad isn't taking care of himself. The only good they've done is go on a few hunts, hunts Dean would have done by himself anyway.
And been far more miserable? the weasely voice in his head asks. No. You wanted him with you.
Dean would trade his own happiness for Sam's, even if it won't fix things now. He's done it before and he'll do it again. He always makes it work.
He can't let Sam know about stuff like this - he knows how mad Sam would be, how he'd say Dean was full of bullshit, which was fair enough generally. Only once does Dean give a hint of this sentiment, another vague stray comment about how Sam would be better off if Dean hadn't come and gotten him from Stanford that night.
And Sam, who before had said I don't blame you, instead with that same quiet calm resignation and acceptance says, "If you hadn't come you wouldn't have been there to pull me out of the fire." His eyes are dark, heavy and sweet and serious leveled at Dean, a look with too much in it for Dean to take. Sam's acknowledging and remembering what Dean told him when they had to go to their old home in Lawrence to gank that poltergeist. Stanford was only the second time Dean pulled him from the fire.
It's not that Sam sees the best in him. But Dean knows Sam just doesn't see the worst.
-
Dean's been really good about laying off of Sam regarding the whole Sarah thing, if you ask him. Sam spent his time and Dean has been prodding Sam for details, but Sam really got the endorphins and stick out of his ass the way Dean had said he was hoping. Sam's so calm and collected that he didn't even respond to Dean's teasing, just ignored him or smiled mysteriously.
"Oh, I see, don't kiss and tell," Dean says in what's supposed to be a mocking tone, but all Sam does is turn his newspaper over and hum "Mmhm".
Dean's getting itchy. Restless.
So he says, "Let's go hunt the black dog of the Hanging Hills."
It's not like he wants to get out of there, but if Sam's so determined, then who is Dean to stand in his way? As long as he doesn't sound so fucking miserable and repressed when he jacks off now. Sam hasn't been the most subtle of late about his bedtime rituals, something Dean swears he only notices because he's so fucking careful not to invade Sam's space with his own. Figures, Dean's the over-careful one when it comes to Sam's privacy but Sam doesn't even think of it, just barges in even if Dean doesn't happen to be present, even if Dean's not actually asleep. Sam could be a little considerate, considering their past issues with privacy. That was a summer hard to forget.
Dean hopes the stick up Sam's ass will be better now at least, even if he has to listen to his brother wring it out. Now that Sam's done some loosening up, after he met Sarah, had his relatively-casual thing, Dean's got hopes for the kid's future, despite the fact that Dean knows Sam doesn't do casual - he's always so serious about chicks.
That's half of why Dean doesn't push it with Sam. He knows that's what Sam really wants - to settle down in a normal life. Unlike Dean, no sir. He did get serious, with Cassie, and he couldn't handle it. The only thing Dean gets serious enough to probably put before hunting is family. Girls have never been in the same realm; he can't let them be. Hunting's his life, he can't settle down just yet. Can't let himself start to think that way. That's when it gets too hard.
"I'm jealous of you, you know, Sam," he says later, after they've driven out of town, headed south. "You were on your way. You had the big come-up. You were going to settle down and marry that girl -"
"Are you still harping on - wait, not Sarah, you mean Jessica?" Sam's leaning towards the window with his nose practically pressed against it, watching the trees go by. "Dean, why are you saying this?"
"I don't want to prod old wounds. But you always knew you could leave and make your own life, Sam. You saw a way out of hunting and into a family, a good one."
".. Yeah," Sam says.
"Well, don't think I don't want that too." Of course it's easier to talk like this when they're not facing each other. "I know I've talked shit but I gotta take care of this family before the next, you know?"
Sam says, after a pause for the silence, "Yeah, I know." His voice is soft, quiet. Dean feels like shit for pulling this out suddenly.
"I'm just…" Dean coughs. "Real proud of you. No matter how pissed I was when you left." He's trying to salvage the situation, desperately.
"I… thanks, I guess. If that's the right thing to say."
Dean grunts, which he hopes sounds as approving and accepting as he needs it to right now.
Sam sighs, which is standard, and bundles up his coat under his head against the window, and that's the end of that conversation.
-
Dean may be regretting his choice of hunt. Despite the claims that the dog is responsible for six whole deaths, a claim popular enough to end up on the Wikipedia page for this place, all the locals love the legend and have adopted this legendary death omen as a sort of mascot. He doubts anyone would willingly help him answer the question of how to kill it.
"So the first time you see it, you have good luck?" Sam asks. Two forty-something women in hiking boots nod vigorously and smile at him. Dean rolls his eyes.
"I dunno, Dean," Sam says when they part ways with the hikers and head further up the hill. "You sure this is really the kind of vicious monster we should be hunting? Maybe we should come back when we're old and can't hunt anything else."
"Shut up, Sam," Dean says, and Sam fucking laughs. The ass. Dean has to bite his cheek to keep from snapping back. He's really annoying like this.
Then Sam smirks cheeky at him and starts walking up the mountain backwards just so he can grin at Dean, who went and wore two shirts today when he shoulda worn one like Sam, and he's sweating like a pig. The stupid gleam in Sam's eye, the gall of it - Dean gives up. "Man, we shoulda been getting you laid on the regular, Sammy, you're a fuckin ray of sunshine like this."
"You shut your mouth," Sam says in remarkable good humor, and Dean, because the uphill trail is really not so hard a climb, says, "Make me," and jostles Sam with his hip and shoulder as he passes him.
A few months ago Sam might not have reacted, either slow reflexes or a sad lack of humor, but now? Before Dean can move far enough ahead, Sam swings an arm out and hooks his fingers over the waist of Dean's jeans, and Dean nearly falls over his own feet trying to walk in place.
Sam overtakes him, and Dean lets him win the race to the top.
When Dean makes it up at last, Sam is out by the edge of the cliff, trying to look down below. Dean has to restrain himself from saying like some worrying nag, get back here, don't go so close to the edge, you're making me dizzy. Because he is. Watching Sam there is making him physically dizzy, or maybe it's how close Dean is to the edge himself. Still, Sam is closer, and that's unacceptable.
"The Hanging Hills," Sam says, neck arching out to crane over and look down on the forest below.
"Fucking creepy name," Dean says, and a breeze chills his sweaty torso.
"It's just the shape of the cliffs."
"Dude, I know." Dean's fingers twitch for the back of Sam's jacket to pull him back, till Sam backs away carefully.
"Let's head out towards the Rockies next," says Sam. "Real big mountains. Or, Sierra Nevada, out near Yosemite, further north by Tahoe. Had a friend invite me skiing once, it was awesome."
The hills are like cliffs, they can see for a long was off them but it's all trees.
"Skiing?" Dean shakes his head. He's thinking not of Sam's preppy rich college friends, but the woods up near Tahoe, before Sam went to Stanford, before Dean knew Sam was going to Stanford. Dean's always had cause to worry about Sam, and he feels like a bad person thinking that, right now, there's no way he'd trade this last year with Sam for another year like when they were teenagers. As much as they're going crazy looking for their father, unrooted in the world and Sam still affected by grief, still hung up on whatever it is - at least Sam can't fight with Dad when Dad's not here. At least they've grown up some, less tangled up and less claustrophobic about it.
So why keep thinking about it?
Dean ignores his snide inner voice and walks up towards the edge, down where there are real rocky crevasses. "All right, we gotta go check out where those people died, and then we'll see how seriously you take these hills."
They make their way, skidding through scree down the crevasses to where most of the deaths were reported. Fallen, mostly, one or two brained by rocks in a slide - Dean found the records.
"So the first guys died in the 1800s," Sam says.
"Dude, I know," says Dean. "I'm the one who suggested this case."
"I'm just saying, when was the last time anyone died here?"
"You think I'd come in here without doing the research first?" Dean looks back.
Sam makes a face. "Dean, you always shoot first and ask questions later."
"Not the same," Dean retorts. "Anyway, this is where they fell, every time. Seems like this dog has a M.O. we can count on."
They climb down to the crevasses, and then down between the rock walls of one, marked as passable, though not all of them are. The walls of the cliffs they were on rise high above them, blocking the light. Not only that, but the sky is starting to cloud over.
Someone kicks a rock down below and they hear it knock and clatter, the echoes rumbling ominously. Dean shudders. He's not particularly afraid of heights, but knowing what it'd be like to fall to your death here - it's pretty horrifying. They're on a slope but if the rocks are loose…
"Hey Sam," he says, craning his head back to look at the top of the cliffs. "Think it looks like - Shit."
"What?" Sam asks, but before Dean can tell him not to look up, he does.
So they both see the little black dog at the top of the ridge. Small and curly-haired, it's moving its head, facing right at them. It looks like it's barking, but Dean can't hear any sound. He just gets these fucking chills up and down his spine. Like someone walked over your grave, he thinks, and isn't that just fucking perfect.
"What the hell?" Sam asks.
"Goddamn it, Sam," Dean says.
"Well you didn't fucking say not to look!"
And the dog is gone.
"We are not going up there to hunt it," Dean says. "I was going to say it looks like rain, but then… shit." He kicks another rock and it goes ricocheting, missing Sam and tumbling down the jumble of scree before dropping off another cliff-like edge. "I wasn't expecting to see it during the day, you know? Since all the other deaths were at night."
Sam sighs longsufferingly. "Brilliant."
"Hey, shut up. Anyway, black dogs, they're usually more like spirits during the day, right? They can't actually attack you then."
"Since when?"
"Should be in Dad's journal. It was a hunt we did about a year ago. Dad shot right at it and the bullets went right through, but not at night."
"Well," says Sam, slow and considering. "If we have good fortune now, wouldn't you think we'd be able to kill the dog?"
"Sam. We're just going to see it again and then fall to our deaths if we go up there. No. I don't think so."
"Then what?"
"Keep your eyes down, head down the hill, and then… I wanna play a little poker."
The rain starts falling as they head back towards the car.
-
"Think we're gonna get lucky tonight, Sammy?" Dean says under his breath as they walk into the bar.
"You're ridiculous," Sam snorts. "I'll play pool or darts or whatever, but we're on a case, man. No hooking up." He doesn't say enough, Dean, it's Sam, which Dean takes as a sign that Sam is relaxed out of his mind. They sit at the bar and order two beers.
"Oh, if only my little brother were so generous to me as I was to him last week."
"You're a crazed sex-maniac."
Dean raises his eyebrows at Sam and licks his lips. Sam sputters, turning red, turning to hide his laughter in his shoulder. "The night's young," Dean says, grinning. "I can't be embarrassing you that bad already."
Sam swings his foot out to kick Dean's ankle, too speechlessly amused, his eyes glittering dark from under the shadow of his hair.
Dean feels buzzed already, heady with Sam's attention. "What do you say, you beat these guys at pool while I pick us up a pair of chicks to take back to the motel, and we keep our luck till tomorrow night?" He winks at a cute blonde who walks by and she smiles back.
"Oh no no no you don't," says Sam, grabbing Dean's arm to turn him back towards the bar, away from any more girls walking by. "Just us and that hunt tonight."
"You sure?"
Their beers clatter onto the bar, and Sam grabs his, takes a long drink from it. "I'll make do."
Dean feels a heat in his belly, letting his gaze linger as Sam takes a second drink, till he pulls off the bottle and says, "What?"
Dean mentally kicks himself and looks at his own beer.
It's not that he didn't realize he was staring. Or that he didn't think Sam noticed. He had fallen into those rhythms of flirting that came so easy to him, around chicks, yeah, but sometimes also around Sam. He was getting all those signals from Sam and just responding like a social cue, a biological imperative, that chemistry that happens without trying. Old perverted habits.
"Nothin'," he says, and tips his own beer back. Sam is not flirting with you. Sam is not asking you to flirt with him. Don't fucking flirt with your brother at a bar. "What's the pool crowd look like tonight?"
So Sam takes darts and Dean takes pool, and they hustle the shit out of these guys at the bar, and joy of joys, part of their great luck is that the guys don't even know they're being hustled.
They walk away with thick wallets. "Good cash money!" Dean says, and Sam laughs.
They find midnight breakfast a diner, the best they've had for weeks - months! Sam says - and then, because Sam and Dean agree that delaying any longer would be pretty unethical, they decide to head back to the Hanging Hills while it's still dark night.
Sam's theorizing in the passenger seat, this brilliant roll of thought spilling out into the night. The wet wind is blowing in their windows but it stopped raining while they were inside gambling.
"It just figures, right, that the creature would show its weakness in its strongest, most aggressive state. Like the striga, right?"
"Only preys at night"
"And the striga's maybe a higher form of monster, you know? Since it's a witch, it thinks and calculates and knows it has to minimize its weakness. Or builds up its powers through time - that's the thing. Monsters don't necessarily get more powerful over time. There's no learning or growing experience from sending a few people falling off cliffs."
"All right, Sammy, we can't start underestimating this thing."
They cross their fingers not to see the dog as they edge along the steeper inclines. Dean's heady feeling of luck is buoying him up along with his inability to see how truly immediate and steep the drop is.
He stops near the top, and since he's in the lead, Sam comes up behind him. Dean feels the heat of Sam's body close up against his back, all the more assuring with the chilly air.
"I've been thinking, what if this one's not a real black dog? Like, what if it's not dangerous, it's just an omen?"
Sweat's dripping down Dean's neck with the exertion of climbing. "It's a little late to think of that now, Sam. Anyway, we'll see, when we find it again. It's nighttime now, remember?"They reach the top, and after doing a quick sweep, turn around to descend again quickly.
Their last piece of good fortune is that they are very successful at seeing the black dog again.
Dean spots it not in the beam of his flashlight, but just outside the pool of light it casts. Its eyes shine just beyond the illuminated area. It's looking right at them.
Dean hadn't heard it bark before up on the ridge, and it still doesn't bark, but an unearthly rasping death-rattle fills the air.
Dean wonders if his good luck will hold if he keeps the animal outside his circle of light. He tries to raise his gun but he can't move - he's paralyzed in its stare. "Sam!" he hisses. The creature, amazingly, hasn't moved, but Dean can imagine a dog raising its hackles and baring its teeth.
Sam manages to get a shot off, and the dog flinches but its eyes vanish, and Dean hears the skitter of paws throwing up rocks on the path as it flees. Suddenly Dean can move again.
"What the hell was that?" he asks.
"I think I might know, actually." But Sam doesn't have time to explain, because they're running after it.
If its gaze alone paralyzes Dean, he doesn't worry about lighting it up with his flashlight. He figures if they can see it but it can't see them, they at least might have a better chance to aim.
They make it down the hill and have entered the crevasses below. Here it's even darker - not even the ambient light of the sky or stars can reach, but they've got their chance if they can back the animal up against one of the stone walls.
A gust comes up the crevasse, and Dean is nearly bowled over by the reek of the animal. It's like sulphur and piss, and he coughs reflexively.
The rattle sounds again. Suddenly the animal stops and turns, and the yellow circle of Dean's flashlight falls over it. "Don't look!" he shouts for Sam's benefit, because it's too late for him. He's frozen in the creature's gaze again.
In a flash he can see that what seemed from a distance to be a small curly-haired black dog is, after midnight, a shriveled nearly-hairless mangy wild thing. Its skin shines underneath its bare bristles like a pig's skin, and as it rattles its death rattle and raises its hackles, its shadow rears up behind it like a part of the creature, and suddenly the rocks are menacing them too, a wave of pure darkness overcoming any light from the sky.
Dean sees all this and is unable to move since he's caught the thing's eye, and he tries to hold it, hopes desperately that somehow Sam has managed to hold onto a scrap of luck and not look at it, or somehow shoot without looking. But before Sam can shoot, the creature runs again, and so they have to give chase.
They're a few yards from the bottom of the slope, where the forest begins, when Dean completely bites it. He trips and falls headlong, and at the speed he's going he has no time to fall smart, so he lands hard on his wrist. A jolt of searing pain shoots through it, and he yells.
He hears Sam skid to a stop near him, and then Sam hauls him up.
"Did you see it?" Dean asks, gasping.
"No," Sam says. "It stopped. Dean, if you aim me and I shoot it -"
"Yeah." Sam's holding his rifle up to his shoulder now, ready to fire. "Close your eyes." Dean turns his flashlight on the glisten of the black dog's oily skin - that's how close they are - and catches it like a deer in headlights, standing there, rattling.
The thing has stopped. It's isn't running now, stopped before the trees as though guarding something there, or suddenly caught between two dangers.
Dean doesn't look at its eyes but at its paws. Fast as he can he nudges Sam into the right position, sights it as best he can for the angle they're at, and says "Now!"
Sam shoots, the spray of iron pellets hit the thing and it yelps soundlessly, falling to the ground.
"Guess point-blank is close enough that my bad luck didn't screw it up," Dean says, going over to look at the thing. It's like the most disgusting wild cur he's ever imagined, the evil stench pouring off it. Like a chupacabra, almost, but bigger and more dog-like. Digusting.
A jolt of pain goes through Dean's wrist and travels up his arm, and he hisses, gingerly holding it with his other hand. He tries to gauge if it hurts less held vertical or horizontal.
Sam says, "What happened?"
"My wrist," Dean says. "Probably just sprained." He winces.
Sam goes over and helps him up. Dean holds his wrist close to his stomach,
"Maybe a tiny fracture," he admits, and he's self-conscious of the pain in his voice. Not like this doesn't happen to them all the time but he did just recently spend a few days trying to convince Sam he'd be fine doing this case on his own, so Sam could stay with Sarah a little longer. Obviously Dean would not have been fine by himself on this one.
"We can get you to a hospital,"
"Aw, man, no," Dean says. "Just give me some painkillers and we'll wrap it up. I'll see in the morning."
"If that black dog curse isn't permanent. That only counts as twice, right? Bad luck, not a death curse?"
"The thing's dead, it can't hold any power over us. I think."
"Maybe we should go see Missouri and get you checked out just to be sure."
"Dude, she hates me. Nah, I got my misfortune out of the way, right? And you're safe."
-
Sam wraps Dean's wrist out of the supplies in their trunk, a quick splint and ace bandage. Dean pops about four Advil and counts on that and his adrenaline to get him through the night.
The pain pills kick in but his adrenaline is still there when they get back to the motel room, though, so he waits for the cliff to drop off. Sam's washing up while Dean didn't even want to bother enough to do that, is just lying on his back still half-dressed with his wrist resting on his stomach.
"What a trip," Sam says through a mouthful of toothpaste, and Dean hums agreement, eyes closed. "Just a few hours ago we were the luckiest guys alive. We've still got a few hundred bucks in our wallets. Maybe that'll be enough to get you a cast if you broke that wrist."
Dean groans. "You're such a downer. Just go to bed, I'm not gonna need a cast."
"You sure you don't want me to stay up with you?" Sam's doing it on purpose now, Dean can hear the sly tease in his voice.
"You're lucky I don't have anything to throw at you, brat."
Sam turns out the light shortly, but Dean's still lying there, his wrist sore but without any serious sharp pain. He can't move around much, but he starts jiggling his foot and can hear the rustle of the starchy, scratchy sheets.
He can tell by Sam's breathing that Sam isn't asleep either. Dean's trying to think of something to bring up, an excuse to talk to Sam in the dark instead of just sitting in his head. Then he hears the rhythmic rustle of sheets, the familiar sound of Sam touching himself. Dean holds his breath, not saying anything. Goddamn it, Sam has to know Dean isn't asleep. They've both been restless and shifting on the scratchy sheets. If Dean knows what Sam sounds like when he's sleeping, then can't Sam know the difference between Dean's waking breathing and his asleep breathing? Doesn't he by now?
He must.
Dean doesn't want to think about why, about any of this, how Sam's being grossly inconsiderate, how Dean shouldn't be trying to listen. But the sounds Sam's making, quicker breathing, little movements that have Dean straining for the rasp of skin on skin, not just sheets - those little noises have him hooked. Any other night he's been able to sleep through this or ignore it, but not tonight.
Finally he has to say something, to scratch the itch or stop Sam or bug him, anything now.
"That got you goin', huh? A little post-hunt adrenaline, and you're gonna whack off without even waiting for me to fall asleep?"
"Ah, shit," Sam says, and he sounds a little choked. Like he was really getting into it, before Dean interrupted. "Sorry."
"Oh, go on, don't start worrying about me hearing you now," Dean says. He's trying to layer on the sarcasm to cover how Sam's not the only one a little riled up tonight. Dean doesn't actually want Sam to stop. "You're gonna have to pay up - share a little - if I'm stuck here listening to this. Can't even jack off with this wrist, come on, man."
Sam's holding his breath, so Dean ventures forth some bait.
"Tell me about Sarah, huh?"
Sam takes a deep breath. "What do you want to know?"
"Give me the penthouse letters. I could tell she wanted to jump your bones, man, not just sit around and watch Battlestar Gallactica. She a wildcat? She like it on top? Adventurous? How hard did you nut when you first -"
"Oh my god, Dean."
"Gotta spill, Sam!" Dean chuckles at his double entendre.
"Hard, okay? Jesus." Sam sounds flustered, the prude. "Maybe we did just watch Battlestar Gallactica."
"Mmm, Starbuck."
Sam coughs. "Uh, yeah. We had a lot of sex. She was really… experienced."
"Could you be more clinical?"
"Her parents were out for the weekend, so we had the run of her place. We cooked dinner, or she did, and then she wanted me to, uh, eat her out while she sat on the counter. So I did. And then she wanted me to carry her over to the dining table, which was huge -"
"Damn, Sammy! You just do everything she told you?"
"Mm. Yeah, basically. We did it on the dining room table, like, I sat her on the edge, and - and then she laid back - we knocked shit off, I think a sugarbowl broke." Sam gulps. "She came loud."
"You come?"
"Yeah?" Sam's voice is a bit of a squeak. "And then again half an hour later."
Dean's finding it really hard not to touch himself to this. "You ever get that blowjob, Sammy?"
Sam's breath catches - Dean can hear the little vocalization in his throat, and shit, that's hot. To think that Dean can get that from him. "Yeah, yeah I did," he says, and Dean wonders if he's maybe pushing too far - too close for comfort. Maybe he shouldn't go on. He promised himself not to fuck with Sam again, not to fuck him up, not to pull that on him. It's not supposed to be about them and sex.
Even so, Dean feels a burn in his stomach, envy and delight, glad to hear Sam had some fun he can look back on in laughter even now. Still the envy - he might be angry when Sam keeps the dark stuff from him, but he feels jealous of the happiness too, that there are moments of Sam's joy that he missed in his little brother's life. That burn in his stomach is greed, he knows it.
Sam turns again in bed, throwing the sheets around.
Then, because Dean is a little shit who wants to pry every one of Sam's confidences, he asks, "She slip you a finger while she was blowing you?"
He hears Sam's sharp intake of breath.
What, you're scandalized? Dean thinks, a little bit mocking, but he admits Sam's gasp fuels the heat in his gut. As long as Sam doesn't know, he can take his secret pleasure in Sam's reactions. He's learned to cultivate this: the fun of flirting with someone you know you can't have, when you've come to accept it. He and Sam have everything else, are close in every other way.
"Huh? N-no," Sam says, and it's the stutter, the distracted sound of Sam's voice that brings Dean out of his own head to notice the sound of skin, rubbing against skin. Dean realizes Sam's touching himself again. "Tell me what it's like."
Lust hits him like a bolt to the gut.
It's not like Sam hasn't done this before - touched himself with Dean in the room, hell, he's done it plenty in this last year - but God, while they're talking about Sam's sex life? Fuck.
No, really, shit.
Dean thought he knew, thought he knew something about how Sam was feeling messed up and dysfunctional after Jess. Thought Sam couldn't get it up, thought he was nervous, thought he was letting guilt over Jess get in the way of his fun.
Dean thinks to himself, Say something, just say something, pretend you don't hear, or make fun of him, just say something! Like if he stays silent he's complicit in Sam's perversion.
Instead Sam asks first, "You ever do it? Give that blowjob?" He's breathing a bit heavier than normal.
Dean clams up.
It's suddenly very clear to him that he has to put a stop to this right now. If this is Sam's way of reminding Dean he tried to seduce him as a teenager… or, remembering how Sam grabbed him then and initiated that handjob by the fire, some new solicitation… Dean's not that guy. He's not gonna be that guy and he's not gonna let Sam be it either. He fucking regrets kissing Sam and never stopped hoping Sam had somehow forgotten about it.
He may know what he feels and thinks and have come to accept that part of him will never be normal, that he's bound to be a freak. But Sam doesn't have to know that. And if he does, somehow, well. Dean's not going to give up the game.
"'Night, Sam," Dean says, abrupt. He rolls over to sleep on his stomach, with his splinted wrist resting next to the pillow. Bitter with the secret of his own half-arousal stifled against the mattress, Dean takes a while to fall asleep. He suspects it takes Sam a while too. He doesn't hear his brother moving any more that night.
-
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This entry was originally posted at http://zempasuchil.dreamwidth.org/281981.html.