A Long Way to Go
"Goddamn it, Sam! It's over! Done, you get me? I already told you, we are not having this conversation. Ever!"
They're twenty miles out of Tulsa, and Sam won't stop talking. It's been like this for days, ever since they stumbled on that be-spelled stretch of road in Idaho, the one where people had been disappearing since 1983. Sam and Dean had gone into the woods on the edge of the highway and had both been knocked out by something they neither saw nor heard. Six hours later, they woke up stiff and uncomfortable and feeling lucky to be alive.
Except now they have two sets of memories, memories of other lives lived separately and alone because they each thought the other one had died in 1983. Sam remembers being raised by his mother in a cabin in the woods, hiding from whatever or whoever killed his father and older brother. Dean remembers growing up on the road with his father, hunting for the thing that killed his mother and baby brother.
They both remember meeting as if for the first time the night their real selves went into the woods to investigate. Somehow the timelines temporarily converged, and they lived several hours as if they were strangers. Other-Dean was trying to find his father, and Other-Sam was grieving his mother, who had just died after a short illness. Despite being complete strangers, both Other-Sam and Other-Dean felt an intense attraction, and neither was afraid to show it. There wasn't a reason to hide it, and Dean knows damn well they might have acted on those feelings if they hadn't figured out pretty quickly that they were brothers.
"Except we weren't actually brothers," Sam pointed out the first day after they managed to return to their own timeline. "We were each from different timelines, crossing back and forth into each other's realities because of Mom's spell. Technically, we weren't brothers at all."
"Maybe not technically, but that's not really the important thing here, is it?" Dean fired back, angry at Sam for getting him to admit he remembered that other timeline as clearly as Sam did.
"Dean, there's nothing wrong with being sexually attracted to your brother," Sam pointed out. "We're both consenting adults. It's not like anybody's been coerced here."
"I'm not sexually attracted to my brother!" Dean exploded. "Just because I thought that stranger in the woods was hot does not mean that!"
"You can't turn off your attraction to someone just because you find out you're related to them," Sam said. "It doesn't work that way."
"Works that way for me," Dean insisted. "And anyway, it wasn't you. That guy was hot, man. I'm totally within my rights to want to tap that."
"That was me, Dean! God, how can you separate it like that? You're not making any sense!"
"I'm making perfect sense, Sam," Dean argued. "And that guy was not you. You are my pain-in-the-ass little brother. You are that little kid with scabby knees who pees in his pants and pukes when he sees a dead skunk by the side of the road. You are the little kid with the nosebleeds and stains on his underwear I had to wash out. You're the kid I had to constantly clean up after. Sometimes still do, for that matter."
"God, Dean, you are such a jerk!"
"Takes one to know one, bitch."
Dean felt pretty proud of himself for settling that particular issue, and for a while Sam fumed and sulked and let it go, thank God.
Because no matter how Dean lied and deflected Sam's attempts to talk about what had happened that night, there was one thing neither of them could pretend hadn't happened.
Sam had kissed him.
And no matter what Dean did to deny and pretend it hadn't affected him, the truth was, it had. And not exactly in a bad way, either. But most of the time Dean could shove that particular memory aside. If only Sam would stop talking about it.
But of course Sam's the definition of annoying little brother, so he won't stop going on about the incident like there's any possible way they could ever make sense of what had happened. It seems to be Sam's mission in life, to dissect this particular case, no matter how Dean tries to get him to move on, and no amount of arguing or ordering Sam to stop going on and on about it seems to work.
So now they're sitting in the Impala, four days after the case-that-will-not-stop-giving, and Sam's going on about his memory-mom, of all the damn things.
"But don't you want to know about her?" Sam asks for the hundred-thousandth time. "I mean, it's pretty obvious now that she was a hunter, don't you think? She must have been. All that spell-work, all those wards, the way she handled her weapons. Dean, you should have seen her shoot. She was amazing."
Dean shakes his head. "I already told you, Sam. It wasn't real. That wasn't really Mom. It was just some alternate version of her. Mom wasn't a hunter, I can promise you that."
"You barely knew her, Dean," Sam mutters. "You were only four-years-old when she died. Maybe there's things you just don't know about her..."
"Dad told me everything I need to know," Dean snaps. "He's told me a lot about her over the years, okay? She was a normal girl from Lawrence, Kansas. She grew up, she married Dad, she had us, and then she died. Nothing freaky or supernatural ever happened to her, you hear me? That's all in your damn freak of an imagination!"
Sam purses his lips, crosses his arms, and sinks lower in the seat, hunching down as he works his jaw stubbornly.
"All I'm saying is, we should look into it," he mutters, and there's a touch of sadness in his tone.
Fuck.
Dean shifts in his seat, grips the steering wheel with both hands, and sets his jaw stubbornly. It's like Sam's grieving or something. This latest thing that's happened has brought up all his grief and misery over Jessica's death, just when Dean thought Sam was finally starting to get a handle on it.
Not that it's been that long since Jessica died. Two months and a couple of weeks really doesn't qualify as a long grieving period.
That's all this is, Dean decides firmly. Sam's just grieving his poor dead girlfriend, and the crazy thing that happened in Idaho brought it all to the fore again.
Damn their lives.
And the trouble is, it's not just Sam. Dean has memories of that other life, too. Bad memories of growing up without his brother, sad, lonely, desperate and reckless. Probably headed toward an early grave and not minding too much. Dean remembers his dad in that other timeline, too, and that John Winchester was seriously fucked up. He'd lost his wife and baby in a supernatural accident he didn't understand and couldn't have possibly prevented. He'd blamed himself, he'd blamed the world, he'd blamed Dean. He'd been abusive and alcoholic at home, reckless and unfocused on hunts, more dangerous in general than the dad Sam and Dean grew up with together. Without Sam to buffer the relationship, Dean and his dad had centered all their anger and guilt and sense of failure on each other, and Dean had the scars to show for it, inside and out.
Thinking about it makes Dean grateful for the dad he has in this reality. The bastard might be an obsessive, guilt-ridden son-of-a-bitch, but he isn't a homicidal lunatic. At least, not with Dean. Childhood beatings that he deserved because he crossed the line not withstanding, John had been mostly fair-minded and rational when he doled out punishment. Dean never feared for his life, never spent a terrified moment thinking his father might kill him. In that other reality, there were times he honestly believed his father wished he was dead.
God, that is so fucked up, Dean thinks as he clutches the steering wheel, then reaches toward the radio to turn up the music. He feels Sam's eyes on him and waits for his brother's bitchy comment about the volume or Dean's choice of music, but Sam says nothing, just hunches down a little farther in his seat and glares out the windshield.
Dean glances sideways at Sam's spread thighs, at those long legs folded against the dash because there isn't enough room in the footwell when Sam hunches down like this. Hell, there's barely enough room when Sam sits up straight. It's obscene how tall the kid has grown. Back in Palo Alto when Dean first arrived to take Sam with him on the hunt in Jericho, it struck him again. The Sam in Dean's mind is a little snot-nosed kid with his shoe-laces perpetually untied. Even after more than two months on the road with this tall, gangly stranger, Dean still finds himself staring, wondering how his little-boy brother turned into this hulking beast of an almost-full-grown man.
Unbidden, the memory of Sam's soft lips on his sends a hot blade of lust through his loins, makes him see red.
Fuck.
If Sam were any other man, anyone but the little brother Dean has cared for and protected all his life, whose needs always came first and whose future is always more important than Dean's...
Who is he kidding? Of course he'd fuck that dude. He totally would. Dean's no homophobe, and sex with a dude is still just sex. Nothing complicated about a little lube and a warm, tight hole, even if it is the one that poop comes out of.
Dean grins because the word "poop" is always funny, damn it.
"What?" Sam shouts over the music, glaring at him like he's doing something dirty.
Which yeah, thinking about fucking some guy in the ass is a little dirty, so...
Dean smirks and shifts on the bench, widening his legs so his boner is probably obvious. Sam takes the bait, glances down at Dean's lap and turns a lovely shade of pink all over his no-longer-so-perfectly-tanned cheeks.
"Just gettin' into the music, Sam," Dean shouts as he thrusts his hips in time to the beat.
Sam rolls his eyes and looks away, but there's a hint of a grin on the corners of his soft mouth now, so Dean takes that as a win.
It's also par for the course between them. They're always flirting with each other lately. Dean didn't realize it at first, chalked it up to hours alone in the car with the smell of Sam in his nostrils and his gratitude in having his brother back by his side. Dean's just happy. He's in a constant state of horniness around Sam because he's feeling good in general.
Besides, the adrenaline rush of the hunts they've been on gets their blood pumping, gives them an excuse to touch each other, check each other over for possible injuries, and Dean can be excused for keeping his hands on Sam just a little longer than absolutely necessary because Sam's his brother.
Plus, Sam feels good. His skin is smooth and warm and his muscles are long and hard and Dean is just sick enough to want to feel Sam's body under his hands as often and for as long as possible.
If Dean had any doubts about how much he lusts after his own brother, they were pretty much blown out of the water along with the exploding spell-bowl on the side of that road in Idaho the week before. Of course he denied it at first, pushed back against every little suggestive comment Sam couldn't resist making. Insisted he didn't remember them kissing when it's been about all he can think about since it happened.
But Sam's patient, the fucker. He picks away at their memories of those other lives they led in those other timelines. He's slowly wearing down Dean's defenses, and Dean knows it's only a matter of time. Sam's memory is like a steel trap, and he remembers every word Dean said in the other timeline, every touch and look when it was so obvious that Dean was lusting just as hard as Sam, even after they figured out they were brothers.
"You said you didn't want to leave me with a memory of a one-night stand," Sam reminded him just last night when they were getting ready for bed. "You said, if we had a lifetime together, maybe things would be different. Well, hello reality. We've got our lifetime."
"Yeah, but all I can think about when I look at you is that bratty kid whose runny nose I used to have to wipe all the time," Dean snarked as he climbed into his bed and pulled the covers up to his chin, turning his back on Sam as deliberately as he can. "Go to sleep, Sam."
But they both know it's just a matter of time now.
Dean pulls into the parking lot of the Pheasant Bar and Grille, where there are still Christmas lights hanging around the windows, even though it's the middle of January. Sam follows Dean into the diner without arguing, a warm, solid presence at Dean's back that matters more than anything right now. Dean's still reeling from his memories of the other timeline, that other life where Sam wasn't there for twenty-two years. It makes him a little dizzy even now. Dizzy and damned grateful that his Sam has always been here, minus those years at Stanford when Dean got a clear picture of just how miserable life could be without his brother.
Nothing like a lifetime without him, though. Not even close.
"You said Mom would want me to go back to school," Sam says when they've ordered their food, continuing their conversation from the car from almost an hour ago as if Dean hadn't done his best to end it already. "You said I should go on with my life, if everything got back to normal."
Dean takes a deep breath, stares at Sam as their knees knock comfortably and Sam's foot slides between Dean's under the table.
"You think anything's ever gonna be normal for us, Sam?" he smirks, trying for cocky but coming off a little sad, probably.
Sam holds his gaze for all of two seconds before he looks away, blinking back tears. He taps the table with the edge of the fake credit card he pulled from the glovebox before they came in and shakes his head sharply.
"No," he says, his voice sounding choked. "But it can be better."
"How?" Dean demands, angry again because Sam's hope always makes him angry. The kid never faces reality, that's his problem. He always sees possibilities, always dreams a better future, always hopes for more than Dean can ever provide, and it makes Dean feel inadequate. A failure.
Except he also feels like a hero and a savior when he's with Sam. He can feel Sam's faith in him like it's something physical.
"How can it be better, Sam?" Dean asks again, terrified to hear the answer, sure Sam's going to leave him.
"You and me," Sam says softly, so quietly that Dean has to lean over the table to hear him. "We could be better together."
"We are together, Sam." Dean chooses to be deliberately obtuse.
Sam lifts his eyes, and Dean almost gasps. Sam's still a kid, there's no way he's not at twenty-two, but there's something old in his eyes, something wise. Like he knows Dean, like he understands their relationship in ways Dean never thought about before.
"I know this probably doesn't make any sense to you, Dean, and you can laugh if you want. All I'm saying is, if we were together, everything would be better. From here on out."
"From here on out," Dean repeats, staring into Sam's eyes because they're really pretty, damn it. He doesn't remember thinking that about Sam when he was little, but it's damn obvious now. Sam's fuckin' gorgeous, for God's sake. How the hell did that happen?
"Yeah," Sam nods, sliding his foot along Dean's as he sits back in the booth.
"Well, that's not gonna happen," Dean mutters, looking down at the cracked tabletop, the paper napkins, the badly washed glass and open bottle of beer the waitress already brought.
"Why not?" Sam throws his hands up.
Because you might leave me. Because you might see what a pervert I am and throw me away. Because your life would be better without me. Your life was better without me, in that other reality.
"You know why not, Sam," Dean hisses, lifting his eyes to Sam's long enough to make his point before letting his gaze slide away again. "Now let it go, okay? It's not happening."
Sam crosses his arms and sulks, Dean drinks his beer, and they eat in silence when the food arrives, grumpy and tired.
Sam keeps his foot wedged between Dean's under the table, though, and Dean's grateful.
**//**//**
"That other you," Sam says later, when they're back in the car, looking for a motel. "He wasn't that different. He grew up okay without a little brother holding him back."
You don't know the half of it, Dean thinks, and shivers.
"He was one sick, sorry son-of-a-bitch," Dean shakes his head. "Violent, reckless, dangerous."
"Sounds about right," Sam smirks, and Dean shoots him a glare. "Also heroic, brave, looking out for me when he thought I was a civilian in trouble, figuring out a way to fix things, trying to save all those people who might keep disappearing on that road if he didn't."
"Just doing my job," Dean shrugs. "Just doing what I do."
"Calling Bobby Singer," Sam huffs out a breath. "You and him seemed close."
"Yeah, that was weird," Dean nods. "I haven't seen that old coot in years. Ever since he ran us off with a shotgun and threatened to kill us if we ever came back."
"I'm just glad you had somebody to call besides Dad," Sam says.
Because they both know Dad's not around much, in any timeline. Sam's probably getting the picture now, if he hadn't already, that Dad's been missing more than usual these past few years while Sam was in school. That it was primarily Dean's desperation and loneliness that drove him to pick Sam up from Stanford in the first place.
Sam must think Dean's a pathetic sack of shit.
The motel only has one room left, and of course it only has one bed. It's a king, luckily, but Dean immediately announces he'll sleep on the couch.
"Why are you doing this?" Sam demands as they haul their bags in from the car, dump them on the bed.
"What?" Dean frowns.
"It's not like we don't break the law all the time," Sam says. "It's not like we haven't already kissed, for God's sake. We both want it. Hell, I've wanted it since I was fifteen."
Dean's eyebrows go up at that. "You have?" He can't help himself. He seriously didn't know, and it suddenly matters, way more than it should maybe.
"Yeah," Sam huffs as he strips off his jacket, toes off his sneakers. "You in the next bed with some girl, me wishing it was me. Why do you think I left, Dean?"
Dean thinks about that, then shakes his head. "Why didn't you just tell me, Sam?"
"I didn't want you thinking I was some sick perv," Sam shrugs. "I knew you didn't think about me that way. All you saw was that little kid I used to be. I'm not a little kid anymore, Dean, in case you hadn't noticed."
Oh, Dean's noticed. He's definitely noticed.
Dean scrubs a hand over his jaw, then rubs the back of his neck. Sam stands in his tee-shirt and jeans and bare feet, long powerful arms just hanging by his sides, and all Dean can think about is being manhandled by them. Being crushed against Sam's powerful chest and kissed stupid.
"I'll take the first shower," he announces, but his voice is shaking and he can't look Sam in the eye.
He starts to turn away from the look of disappointment and frustration Dean knows is there because he put it there. Sam makes a small noise like a wounded animal and suddenly he swoops forward and grabs onto Dean, who hasn't removed so much as his jacket. Dean's overwhelmed by the smell and heat of Sam's body pressing up into his personal space as Sam pushes him up against the wall, big hands fisted in Dean's jacket and shirts.
"You feel the same way, Dean," Sam hisses. "Do you know what it means to me to find out I'm not alone in this? I'm not a freak for this one thing?"
Sam's face is so close Dean's eyes have to flick back and forth between Sam's eyes, then they fall to his mouth. Sam's lips are soft and pink and slick with spit, and there's a little stubble over the top one and along his jaw, a day's growth. His hair is dark with sweat and sticking to his forehead, his temples, the back of his neck.
"You'll always be a freak to me," Dean murmurs, trying to smirk. "We're both freaks."
He becomes aware of Sam's thigh thrust up between his legs, pressing against his junk through their jeans, and just thinking about riding that hard muscle makes Dean chub up nice and hard.
Sam can feel it, Dean's just sure. He holds his breath. This is it, he thinks. He's going to kiss me.
But he doesn't. Sam shoves his thigh and his chest hard against Dean, shaking him a little, then takes a step back, leaving Dean cold and bereft and blinking back tears.
"It's all you," Sam breathes, chest heaving and hands clenching. "Not gonna force you."
An unbidden shock of lust surges through him as Dean remembers Rhonda Hurley and her pink panties, especially the light bondage she tried once or twice, how much he liked it. He really doesn't think he'd mind being held down by Sam, maybe even roughed up a little by those big hands.
Truth is, it's pretty much all he's been thinking about since Sam kissed him, if he's honest with himself, which he rarely is. He's been half-hard for days just thinking about being held down and fucked by his brother, and now he sucks in a breath to steady himself and runs a hand over his face.
"I - I don't want to wreck everything, Sam," he says finally, his voice sounding weak and choked. He feels like he's lying. "We just started hunting together again, and it's good, you know? I don't want to ruin it." Don't want to scare you away. Make you leave. "I don't exactly have a great track record with relationships."
Sam takes a deep breath, nods. "I'll always be your brother," he says. "This doesn't change that."
Pretty sure being brothers isn't the only issue here, Dean snarks silently. Being ex-lovers might be kinda hard on the whole hunting-partner thing...
Not thinking that way, he scolds himself. Sam can go back to his life, get his law degree, maybe help out with hunts down the line on a consulting basis...
Dean will be right here, doing the job, doing what has to be done. Remembering this.
"I don't want to lose you," Dean admits, and he doesn't care how desperate and pathetic he sounds.
Sam moves close again, cups Dean's face and gazes down at him, long thumbs swiping along Dean's cheekbones.
"You won't," Sam says. "This changes things, Dean. If I can have this, I don't want anything else."
Dean stares up into Sam's multi-colored eyes for a moment, relishing the feel of his body pressed close, of Sam's skin against his. The ball's in Dean's court, but his body won't listen to what his head tells him he needs to do. He needs to push Sam away for good, end this and make sure Sam has as normal a life going forward as possible. It was just Dean's selfish loneliness and desperation that made him take Sam out of school in the first place. It's Dean's fault that beautiful girl died; if he hadn't taken Sam with him that night...
And Dean should get over it and his unhealthy need for Sam and make Sam go back to school. Dean can continue this quest for their dad on his own. He was doing it before, he can do it again. It's better for Sam that way, so that's the way it should be.
Dean's heart and his body don't agree, though, and with Sam touching him, with Dean's hands sliding so easily under Sam's tee-shirt, over the smooth, warm skin of his hips, Dean's nobody's hero. Never could be. He's just a guy who's in love with his brother. End of sick story.
Besides, what kind of dick refuses to put out when he's already made it clear he wants it? Sam doesn't deserve this shit.
Dean closes his eyes the moment before Sam's lips touch his, but he imagines the look of relief or maybe triumph in Sam's eyes. Maybe Sam's just grateful he's not the only freak in this family, like he said before. At any rate, Dean can't help the feeling he's failing again. Giving in to Sam's kiss feels so good, so right, it must be a sin. It has to be bad, evil, a mistake. Definitely wrong.
Dean parts his lips to let Sam's touch swipe along the bottom one, then push into his mouth with a moan that sounds absolutely pornographic. Sam's cradling Dean's head like it's something fragile, controlling the kiss but trying to hold back at the same time, trying to let Dean kiss back.
Dean's definitely kissing back. He wants Sam to plunder his mouth, to take him and fuck into every hole in his body, all at the same time if possible. He wants Sam to fill him up and never leave. Dean wants to take Sam into himself and hold on for dear life.
"Want you to fuck me," Dean murmurs against Sam's mouth as soon as Sam lets him up for air.
"You sure?" Sam's shaking with emotion, or maybe just the lust he's holding in check. His eyes are almost solid black and he's panting as he nips at Dean's lips. His hands are trembling as they hold Dean's head, long fingers stroking Dean's hair.
"Yeah, I'm sure," Dean nods, a little breathless. He's still holding onto Sam's hips.
"Okay," Sam gasps. "We gotta get you naked first."
"You too," Dean says.
They step back and take turns removing their clothing while the other one watches. Dean drops his jacket, then his over-shirt, struggles out of his boots and socks until they're even. Then Sam pulls his tee-shirt off, revealing the hard-muscled chest Dean's been dreaming about since that night in the woods. There's the scar where a werewolf grabbed for Sam when he was fourteen and Dean wasn't fast enough to stop it. Dean reaches for it and Sam glances down as Dean's fingers skim along the silvery mark. He can still hear young-Sam's scream in his ears.
Dean's pretty sure gorgeous-stranger-Sam didn't have that scar.
Sam clears his throat, shifts his feet and nods at Dean's chest, and Dean jerks his hand back, startled out of his reverie. He grasps the bottom of his tee-shirt with both hands and peels it off over his head, letting it drop to the floor next to Sam's. Sam's eyes widen as his gaze drops to Dean's chest, and Dean's skin flushes hot. Sam's seen him naked before, hundreds if not thousands of times, but he's never had Dean's permission to look, to admire the body he's apparently lusted after since he was fifteen years old.
Dean doesn't know how he should feel about that, but what he does feel is contrite. It's like he's been deliberately with-holding candy from a baby. He's been cruel and he didn't even know it.
"Off," he commands gruffly, gesturing at Sam's jeans, and Sam tears his eyes away from Dean's chest to fumble awkwardly with the button and zipper, shoving his jeans and his boxers down at the same time.
"Damn," Dean breathes as Sam steps free of his clothes, kick them aside so he's just standing there all naked and gorgeous. And naked.
"Now you," Sam commands, his voice just as breathless as Dean's.
Dean stops his gawking for a moment so he can comply, stumbling backwards into the wall as he kicks his jeans and boxers aside. Suave. Real suave.
He looks up and Sam isn't laughing, although there's a little bemused smile tugging at the corners of his soft mouth and his dimples are showing, so Dean counts that as a win. Anything to lighten the mood.
Then Sam steps close again, and time falls away. It's like they're back in the motel in that other reality, only this time they're going through with what Dean wouldn't allow them to do then. That Sam hadn't been pining for his brother for years. That Sam hadn't been dragged all over the country by a half-mad, often-drunk, obsessively vengeful father who resented him for surviving the fire that killed his wife. That Sam hadn't been raised with a brother who loved him more than his own life, whose number one job had been to protect him and take care of him and keep him safe.
That Sam wasn't Dean's Sam. He was his own man, had his own life, apart from Dean and the hunting life. Probably better off that way.
But this Sam is his. This Sam knows Dean, has lived with him most of his life, and still loves him. Still wants him. This Sam trusts Dean and believes in him. It's more than he deserves, better than he could have wished in his wildest dreams, which is why part of him still doesn't quite trust it. Part of him still feels sure Sam will use him up and walk away, that when this fling or infatuation or whatever is over - maybe in a few days or weeks or months - Sam won't want him anymore. Sam will eventually figure out what a failure Dean is and move on.
As they kiss this time, Dean explores Sam's body with his hands, learning all the new muscles and edges. Some things are familiar; he remembers the moles in their configurations from all the years of bathing Sam as a toddler, then a child, then scuffling and wrestling with him as a teenager.
But so much is new, too. Sam is huge, powerful, sinewy strength and hard muscle everywhere, and Dean wants it all. Dean will take whatever he can get from his new Sam, this strange-but-familiar grown man who used to be his baby brother. If it's all he can get, he'll hold onto every memory for as long as he can. He'll be grateful he had this till the day he dies.
Sam's mouth blazes a hot trail across his jaw. Sam's big hand tips Dean's head back so Sam can kiss his neck, open-mouthed and with teeth, sucking marks into Dean's skin. Sam's other hand slides down his back to his ass, splays wide and squeezes, making Dean moan and shiver. Sam's other hand slides down and takes Dean's other asscheek, tugging Dean hard against Sam's body so Dean gets the full sense of Sam's strength. He could pick Dean up, no problem, probably wants to, wants Dean to wrap his legs around Sam's waist and let Sam carry him to the bed so he can throw him down and he can just lie there, legs akimbo, staring up at Sam as Sam towers over him...
"I'm not a girl," Dean reminds Sam hoarsely, and Sam's hands squeeze and release Dean's ass as his arms unclench and relax around Dean's body again.
"I know," Sam breathes into his ear. His tongue licks over the marks he's made on Dean's neck. "Wanna suck your dick."
"Fuck," Dean pants, leaning back against the wall as Sam slides to his knees and swallows him down in one swift, calculated motion, so Dean knows he's been thinking about it for some time now. Maybe since he was fifteen. Maybe Sam was thinking about sucking Dean's dick while he was going down on his girlfriend.
God, that is so fucked up, Dean scolds himself. Shut up about Jessica. Let it go. But of course he can't help the stab of jealousy that courses through him when he thinks about his brother's girlfriend, when he thinks about her and Sam together. Dean realizes now he was jealous of her right from the start, the first time he met her in that apartment in Palo Alto. Probably before that, when he stalked Sam on campus and watched him walking with his arm around the tall blond girl with the sunny smile.
I'm such a loser, Dean thinks as Sam's tongue twirls around the crown of his cock. Stalking his brother and being jealous of his girlfriend, even before he knew he was in love with him. Such a dick.
Sam's good at this. Deep throats like an expert, never lets his teeth scrape on Dean's sensitive skin, moans like a two-bit whore, like he's never had anything that tasted so good before.
They've been riding in the car all day and Dean hasn't had a shower yet, so Sam's getting the full experience, that's for sure. Moans and writhes like he loves it, though. Damn, he's good. And it's been too long....oh shit, they're not using protection...
"Sam, oh god, I'm gonna -- " Dean gasps, shoving his hands through Sam's hair, half-heartedly trying to pull him off.
But of course Sam only redoubles his efforts, bobbing up and down on Dean's cock like he doesn't have a gag reflex at all and fuck, how can he do that?
"Sam! I'm gonna -- Oh shit!"
Dean explodes in Sam's mouth, down his throat, and Sam swallows it, milks him and takes every last drop as Dean comes down off his high. He's breathing hard, his thighs are trembling, and his fingers are still tangled in Sam's hair. He tips Sam's chin up as his softening cock slips from Sam's mouth. Sam's face is flushed, his lips are pink and slick, and his eyes are sparkling with unshed tears. He looks debauched and used and achingly beautiful, and Dean's overwhelmed with emotion for a moment, can't even speak for fear he'll start blubbering like a baby.
"Good?" Sam croaks, and Dean strokes Sam's chin with his thumb and nods.
"Mmmmm," he hums appreciatively. "I don't even want to know where you learned to do that, but I'm guessing there's more to college-boy Sam than straight girls and lollipops."
Sam blushes so pretty Dean wants to embarrass him again just to see it.
"But that was dumb, Sam," Dean scolds. "Unsafe. You didn't even ask if I was clean."
"You are," Sam nods. "You told me so a week ago, don't you remember? And it's just been us since then, so."
Dean has a vague memory of bragging about how clean he was because he was flirting with a waitress and Sam seemed pissed-off about it, so Dean said the first thing that came to mind, as usual.
"I could've been lying," Dean shakes his head. "Usually am, when it comes to sex."
"No," Sam shakes his head. "I can tell when you're lying."
"No, you can't," Dean protests. "No way. I'm too good."
Sam raises his eyebrows in that skeptical way he has, and it's hotter than it should be since he's still kneeling and looking up at Dean.
"Okay, on the bed, cowboy," Dean orders. "This rodeo ain't over yet."
"I can't believe you said that," Sam huffs, shaking his head as he complies. Dean follows, laying himself out on the bed the way he had in his fantasy, spreading his legs and planting his feet on the bed in open invitation. He's relaxed and happier than he can remember feeling for a long time.
"Jesus, Dean," Sam murmurs as he kneels between Dean's spread legs with his dick in his hand.
Sam's dick is gigantic, like the rest of him, and Dean experiences a moment of panic as he considers how it will feel going into him.
"You've done this before?" Sam asks, stroking himself slowly as he gazes up and down Dean's body, letting his free hand stroke Dean's thigh.
"Sure," Dean lies. "A bunch of times. You?"
Sam flushes that pretty deep pink color again and manages to look up at Dean from under his bangs in that way Dean goes crazy for.
"Freshman year," Sam says. "There was this guy... We were just friends at first, then he let me know he wanted more. He taught me everything I know. Then he introduced me to Jess."
"Wow, that's awkward," Dean comments. "Were you still fucking him when you met Jess?"
"No! No way," Sam shakes his head, sweaty, shaggy hair flying all around his face. "We were just friends again by then."
"Huh," Dean nods. "So you're a fuck-em-but-stay-friends-with-'em-later kinda guy. Figures."
"What? No!" Sam protests. "Dean, that's not going to happen with us, okay? You're different. What we have here is completely different."
"I'll say," Dean mutters dryly.
"No, you know why it's different?" Sam crawls up Dean's body so he can look down into his face with his body pressed along the length of Dean's. Dean closes his eyes and turns his head, clenching his jaw stubbornly. "It's different because you're such a dick sometimes, but you make me want you anyway. It's different because you infuriate me almost as much as you turn me on. It's different because I hate you almost as much as I love you."
Dean's eyes fly open and he stares up at Sam, whose expression is as wild and fierce as he's ever seen it.
"You're like a drug, Dean," Sam grits out, almost hissing. "You're like an addiction I can't shake, even if I wanted to. You're in everything I see, in everyone I fuck. I couldn't leave you if I wanted to. You're inside me, part of me."
"Your breath smells like dick," Dean deadpans.
"Like your dick," Sam growls.
"Damn straight," Dean nods, then Sam's mouth crashes down on his and they don't talk for a while. It turns Dean on way more than he'll admit to taste his own come in Sam's mouth, to lick up that evidence that Sam is his now. Part of Dean is inside Sam, like Sam said.
"You've never done this before," Sam announces after he's kissed Dean stupid.
"Huh?" Dean blinks up at him, foggy and confused and more than a little sex-dazed.
"Sex with a guy," Sam clarifies. "You've never had sex with a guy before."
"Sure I have, Sammy," Dean says. "I already told you."
"You lied," Sam snaps. "Now turn over."
"What? Who died and made you boss?" Dean complains, but he's doing as Sam says, partly because he's been following orders since he was four years old and he's programmed to be a good soldier. But also because it's Sam, and doing what Sam tells him to do is so hot and feels so right it makes Dean a little dizzy.
Sam manhandles him into position, face down on his knees with his butt in the air, and Dean has only a second to consider how humiliating he should be before Sam's hands grab his ass, one cheek in each of his big, warm hands, and spreads him wide open. Then Sam's tongue plunges into his hole and Dean jumps.
"Jesus, Sammy! A little warning!"
"Hmmm." Sam mumbles what might be an apology but probably isn't, given the tonguing Dean's getting. He's had girls do this before, one in particular who seemed to get more out of it than anything else they did, but Sam's on a mission. He licks Dean's rim carefully, purposefully, pushing against the tight muscle before plunging deep inside his channel, fucking into him before working on the muscle again. When he reaches up and thrusts two of his long fingers into Dean's mouth, Dean sucks on them them greedily, tasting dirt and sweat and something vaguely like olive oil. When they're wet and dripping, Sam pulls his fingers away, leaving Dean gasping until he feels one of the fingers pushing into his hole alongside Sam's tongue.
"Damn!" Dean gasps at the strange intrusion. "Okay, okay, I'm good."
Sam's slow and careful, working Dean open on his tongue and one finger steadily until Dean almost doesn't mind when Sam pushes another finger inside him.
Almost.
"Fuck!" Dean curses as the stretch borders on painful, burning. He tries not to shy away from the sensation, tries to relax and let Sam work. Sam clearly knows what he's doing. But it hurts, damn it, and that makes Dean pissy.
Sam doesn't tease him, though, doesn't tell him he's being a big baby. Instead, he withdraws and slips backwards off the bed, and Dean twists around to watch over his shoulder as Sam retrieves his jeans from the floor, pulls out a tube of KY Jelly.
"Are you kidding me?" Dean demands. "You carry that around with you?"
"What can I say," Sam shrugs. "I try to be positive."
Dean rolls his eyes. "I guess that's one way to look at it," he grumbles as Sam climbs onto the bed and into position again.
"Now, just try to relax, Dean," Sam soothes, running a warm hand up Dean's spine, flicking open the tube of KY with his other hand.
Dean tries to keep still, tries to relax his muscles so that Sam's lubed fingers can slide easily into his ass, and at a certain point he thinks he's got the hang of it, thinks he's doing pretty damn well with two of Sam's fingers stretching him open.
"Okay, Sam," he huffs against the cramping and discomfort. "I'm ready. Go ahead, fuck me. Come on!"
But Sam just keeps on digging around in Dean's ass, groping and poking like he's looking for something, shaking the bed as he does it, and Dean suddenly gets it.
"Are you - are you jerking off on my ass?" Dean demands, twisting around so he can get an eyeful. Sam's kneeling between Dean's spread legs, the muscles of his arms and neck strained with exertion, sweat running down his chest.
"You're too tight, Dean," Sam gasps. "I don't want to hurt you."
"Fuck that!" Dean growls, pushing back with a sudden thrust that startles them both. Sam's dick is right there, at the entrance to Dean's ass, all lubed up and slippery in Sam's grip, and when Dean pushes back he can feel the velvety head of Sam's dick slip right past the tight muscle of his rim and into his channel.
Sam's dick is impossibly big. Dean's never felt anything so invasive. It punches the air out of him, makes every muscle in his body tighten and clench in protest. Sam freezes, not pushing in any more but not pulling out, either. It's like he's in shock, his whole body rigid with effort.
"Oh God," Sam croaks, his voice strangled and tight. "I'm gonna - Oh fuck, I can't - "
Then Dean feels the sensation of warm liquid filling his channel, and Sam makes a gurgling sound in his throat like he's dying as he comes hard. Dean holds still through the whole thing, through the weird sensation of Sam's come dribbling down the inside of his thigh, through Sam's post-orgasmic moment, as he shivers and barks out a breathy laugh. Dean waits for Sam to pull free, running a hand along Dean's flank as he takes deep, gasping breaths.
"Jesus, Dean, I didn't mean to do that," Sam says, his voice shaky and breathless. "Are you okay? Jesus. Did I hurt you? Oh my God, you look so gorgeous right now."
Sam crowds up over Dean's back, stroking and caressing his ribs and belly, and Dean takes a deep breath, rolls onto his side, away from Sam, so he can catch the expression of post-orgasmic bliss on his brother's beautiful face.
"Was that okay for you?" Sam asks, concern creasing his lovely features. "I mean, I know it was your first time, and I tried to go slow. I tried to find your prostate, because it always feels better that way, takes the edge off the burn - "
Dean reaches up, tucks a strand of hair behind Sam's ear and leaves his hand on Sam's cheek, steady and firm. Sam goes still, gazing into Dean's eyes helplessly.
"I think I need to bottom from the top next time," Dean comments with a wry grin. "I need to face you when we do that, Sam. Need to see you."
"Yeah, right, I get that," Sam nods. "It's just, physically it's easier the way we did it. Usually. And since it was your first time, I wanted it to be good, you know? I needed it to be good for you."
Dean nods, pats Sam's cheek, then slides his hand into Sam's hair as he pulls Sam in for a kiss. Sam relents, kissing back languidly for several moments. Dean thinks he could do this all night, just lie here and kiss Sam till his lips are numb and his jaw hurts.
As first times go, it wasn't so bad, Dean reasons. Beats the first time he did it with a girl, when he was so excited he came all over the front of her Sunday dress. The blow job was incredible, and he's sure he'll get the hang of the other thing, eventually. Maybe.
It wasn't perfect, but neither are they.
After showers and a little sleep, they go at it again, and it's better.
"We don't have to fuck every time," Sam assures him. "It's not like hetero-sex."
"No, it's a helluva lot messier," Dean complains as he cleans them up after they've come all over each other for the third time that night.
Things have changed, just like Dean was afraid they would. When they get in the car in the morning, Sam slips his hand across the seat, squeezes Dean's knee like it's a perfectly normal thing to do, like it doesn't make Dean jump and his eyes go wide. Later, when he's resting his hand on the bench between them, Sam tangles their fingers together. Dean yanks his hand free that time, shoots Sam a glare. He's nobody's girlfriend, for God's sake.
When they crash for the night later, they literally crash around the room making out more roughly and violently than Dean's ever done with a girl. Dean refuses to cuddle and he's damned if he's anybody's little spoon, although he can't help it if he wakes up draped over Sam's furnace of a body like some lovesick newlywed.
Mostly, they go on being themselves, getting the job done, doing what they have to do. They bicker and bitch and keep each other in line, and gradually the memories from that other reality fade unto the background and become just one more chapter in their weird, fucked-up lives.
One day, Dean wakes up with Sam curled around him and it feels normal. It's become part of who they are, this added dimension of their relationship.
And Dean's okay with that. More than okay.
It's better.
fin
BACK TO MASTERPOST
They're twenty miles out of Tulsa, and Sam won't stop talking. It's been like this for days, ever since they stumbled on that be-spelled stretch of road in Idaho, the one where people had been disappearing since 1983. Sam and Dean had gone into the woods on the edge of the highway and had both been knocked out by something they neither saw nor heard. Six hours later, they woke up stiff and uncomfortable and feeling lucky to be alive.
Except now they have two sets of memories, memories of other lives lived separately and alone because they each thought the other one had died in 1983. Sam remembers being raised by his mother in a cabin in the woods, hiding from whatever or whoever killed his father and older brother. Dean remembers growing up on the road with his father, hunting for the thing that killed his mother and baby brother.
They both remember meeting as if for the first time the night their real selves went into the woods to investigate. Somehow the timelines temporarily converged, and they lived several hours as if they were strangers. Other-Dean was trying to find his father, and Other-Sam was grieving his mother, who had just died after a short illness. Despite being complete strangers, both Other-Sam and Other-Dean felt an intense attraction, and neither was afraid to show it. There wasn't a reason to hide it, and Dean knows damn well they might have acted on those feelings if they hadn't figured out pretty quickly that they were brothers.
"Except we weren't actually brothers," Sam pointed out the first day after they managed to return to their own timeline. "We were each from different timelines, crossing back and forth into each other's realities because of Mom's spell. Technically, we weren't brothers at all."
"Maybe not technically, but that's not really the important thing here, is it?" Dean fired back, angry at Sam for getting him to admit he remembered that other timeline as clearly as Sam did.
"Dean, there's nothing wrong with being sexually attracted to your brother," Sam pointed out. "We're both consenting adults. It's not like anybody's been coerced here."
"I'm not sexually attracted to my brother!" Dean exploded. "Just because I thought that stranger in the woods was hot does not mean that!"
"You can't turn off your attraction to someone just because you find out you're related to them," Sam said. "It doesn't work that way."
"Works that way for me," Dean insisted. "And anyway, it wasn't you. That guy was hot, man. I'm totally within my rights to want to tap that."
"That was me, Dean! God, how can you separate it like that? You're not making any sense!"
"I'm making perfect sense, Sam," Dean argued. "And that guy was not you. You are my pain-in-the-ass little brother. You are that little kid with scabby knees who pees in his pants and pukes when he sees a dead skunk by the side of the road. You are the little kid with the nosebleeds and stains on his underwear I had to wash out. You're the kid I had to constantly clean up after. Sometimes still do, for that matter."
"God, Dean, you are such a jerk!"
"Takes one to know one, bitch."
Dean felt pretty proud of himself for settling that particular issue, and for a while Sam fumed and sulked and let it go, thank God.
Because no matter how Dean lied and deflected Sam's attempts to talk about what had happened that night, there was one thing neither of them could pretend hadn't happened.
Sam had kissed him.
And no matter what Dean did to deny and pretend it hadn't affected him, the truth was, it had. And not exactly in a bad way, either. But most of the time Dean could shove that particular memory aside. If only Sam would stop talking about it.
But of course Sam's the definition of annoying little brother, so he won't stop going on about the incident like there's any possible way they could ever make sense of what had happened. It seems to be Sam's mission in life, to dissect this particular case, no matter how Dean tries to get him to move on, and no amount of arguing or ordering Sam to stop going on and on about it seems to work.
So now they're sitting in the Impala, four days after the case-that-will-not-stop-giving, and Sam's going on about his memory-mom, of all the damn things.
"But don't you want to know about her?" Sam asks for the hundred-thousandth time. "I mean, it's pretty obvious now that she was a hunter, don't you think? She must have been. All that spell-work, all those wards, the way she handled her weapons. Dean, you should have seen her shoot. She was amazing."
Dean shakes his head. "I already told you, Sam. It wasn't real. That wasn't really Mom. It was just some alternate version of her. Mom wasn't a hunter, I can promise you that."
"You barely knew her, Dean," Sam mutters. "You were only four-years-old when she died. Maybe there's things you just don't know about her..."
"Dad told me everything I need to know," Dean snaps. "He's told me a lot about her over the years, okay? She was a normal girl from Lawrence, Kansas. She grew up, she married Dad, she had us, and then she died. Nothing freaky or supernatural ever happened to her, you hear me? That's all in your damn freak of an imagination!"
Sam purses his lips, crosses his arms, and sinks lower in the seat, hunching down as he works his jaw stubbornly.
"All I'm saying is, we should look into it," he mutters, and there's a touch of sadness in his tone.
Fuck.
Dean shifts in his seat, grips the steering wheel with both hands, and sets his jaw stubbornly. It's like Sam's grieving or something. This latest thing that's happened has brought up all his grief and misery over Jessica's death, just when Dean thought Sam was finally starting to get a handle on it.
Not that it's been that long since Jessica died. Two months and a couple of weeks really doesn't qualify as a long grieving period.
That's all this is, Dean decides firmly. Sam's just grieving his poor dead girlfriend, and the crazy thing that happened in Idaho brought it all to the fore again.
Damn their lives.
And the trouble is, it's not just Sam. Dean has memories of that other life, too. Bad memories of growing up without his brother, sad, lonely, desperate and reckless. Probably headed toward an early grave and not minding too much. Dean remembers his dad in that other timeline, too, and that John Winchester was seriously fucked up. He'd lost his wife and baby in a supernatural accident he didn't understand and couldn't have possibly prevented. He'd blamed himself, he'd blamed the world, he'd blamed Dean. He'd been abusive and alcoholic at home, reckless and unfocused on hunts, more dangerous in general than the dad Sam and Dean grew up with together. Without Sam to buffer the relationship, Dean and his dad had centered all their anger and guilt and sense of failure on each other, and Dean had the scars to show for it, inside and out.
Thinking about it makes Dean grateful for the dad he has in this reality. The bastard might be an obsessive, guilt-ridden son-of-a-bitch, but he isn't a homicidal lunatic. At least, not with Dean. Childhood beatings that he deserved because he crossed the line not withstanding, John had been mostly fair-minded and rational when he doled out punishment. Dean never feared for his life, never spent a terrified moment thinking his father might kill him. In that other reality, there were times he honestly believed his father wished he was dead.
God, that is so fucked up, Dean thinks as he clutches the steering wheel, then reaches toward the radio to turn up the music. He feels Sam's eyes on him and waits for his brother's bitchy comment about the volume or Dean's choice of music, but Sam says nothing, just hunches down a little farther in his seat and glares out the windshield.
Dean glances sideways at Sam's spread thighs, at those long legs folded against the dash because there isn't enough room in the footwell when Sam hunches down like this. Hell, there's barely enough room when Sam sits up straight. It's obscene how tall the kid has grown. Back in Palo Alto when Dean first arrived to take Sam with him on the hunt in Jericho, it struck him again. The Sam in Dean's mind is a little snot-nosed kid with his shoe-laces perpetually untied. Even after more than two months on the road with this tall, gangly stranger, Dean still finds himself staring, wondering how his little-boy brother turned into this hulking beast of an almost-full-grown man.
Unbidden, the memory of Sam's soft lips on his sends a hot blade of lust through his loins, makes him see red.
Fuck.
If Sam were any other man, anyone but the little brother Dean has cared for and protected all his life, whose needs always came first and whose future is always more important than Dean's...
Who is he kidding? Of course he'd fuck that dude. He totally would. Dean's no homophobe, and sex with a dude is still just sex. Nothing complicated about a little lube and a warm, tight hole, even if it is the one that poop comes out of.
Dean grins because the word "poop" is always funny, damn it.
"What?" Sam shouts over the music, glaring at him like he's doing something dirty.
Which yeah, thinking about fucking some guy in the ass is a little dirty, so...
Dean smirks and shifts on the bench, widening his legs so his boner is probably obvious. Sam takes the bait, glances down at Dean's lap and turns a lovely shade of pink all over his no-longer-so-perfectly-tanned cheeks.
"Just gettin' into the music, Sam," Dean shouts as he thrusts his hips in time to the beat.
Sam rolls his eyes and looks away, but there's a hint of a grin on the corners of his soft mouth now, so Dean takes that as a win.
It's also par for the course between them. They're always flirting with each other lately. Dean didn't realize it at first, chalked it up to hours alone in the car with the smell of Sam in his nostrils and his gratitude in having his brother back by his side. Dean's just happy. He's in a constant state of horniness around Sam because he's feeling good in general.
Besides, the adrenaline rush of the hunts they've been on gets their blood pumping, gives them an excuse to touch each other, check each other over for possible injuries, and Dean can be excused for keeping his hands on Sam just a little longer than absolutely necessary because Sam's his brother.
Plus, Sam feels good. His skin is smooth and warm and his muscles are long and hard and Dean is just sick enough to want to feel Sam's body under his hands as often and for as long as possible.
If Dean had any doubts about how much he lusts after his own brother, they were pretty much blown out of the water along with the exploding spell-bowl on the side of that road in Idaho the week before. Of course he denied it at first, pushed back against every little suggestive comment Sam couldn't resist making. Insisted he didn't remember them kissing when it's been about all he can think about since it happened.
But Sam's patient, the fucker. He picks away at their memories of those other lives they led in those other timelines. He's slowly wearing down Dean's defenses, and Dean knows it's only a matter of time. Sam's memory is like a steel trap, and he remembers every word Dean said in the other timeline, every touch and look when it was so obvious that Dean was lusting just as hard as Sam, even after they figured out they were brothers.
"You said you didn't want to leave me with a memory of a one-night stand," Sam reminded him just last night when they were getting ready for bed. "You said, if we had a lifetime together, maybe things would be different. Well, hello reality. We've got our lifetime."
"Yeah, but all I can think about when I look at you is that bratty kid whose runny nose I used to have to wipe all the time," Dean snarked as he climbed into his bed and pulled the covers up to his chin, turning his back on Sam as deliberately as he can. "Go to sleep, Sam."
But they both know it's just a matter of time now.
Dean pulls into the parking lot of the Pheasant Bar and Grille, where there are still Christmas lights hanging around the windows, even though it's the middle of January. Sam follows Dean into the diner without arguing, a warm, solid presence at Dean's back that matters more than anything right now. Dean's still reeling from his memories of the other timeline, that other life where Sam wasn't there for twenty-two years. It makes him a little dizzy even now. Dizzy and damned grateful that his Sam has always been here, minus those years at Stanford when Dean got a clear picture of just how miserable life could be without his brother.
Nothing like a lifetime without him, though. Not even close.
"You said Mom would want me to go back to school," Sam says when they've ordered their food, continuing their conversation from the car from almost an hour ago as if Dean hadn't done his best to end it already. "You said I should go on with my life, if everything got back to normal."
Dean takes a deep breath, stares at Sam as their knees knock comfortably and Sam's foot slides between Dean's under the table.
"You think anything's ever gonna be normal for us, Sam?" he smirks, trying for cocky but coming off a little sad, probably.
Sam holds his gaze for all of two seconds before he looks away, blinking back tears. He taps the table with the edge of the fake credit card he pulled from the glovebox before they came in and shakes his head sharply.
"No," he says, his voice sounding choked. "But it can be better."
"How?" Dean demands, angry again because Sam's hope always makes him angry. The kid never faces reality, that's his problem. He always sees possibilities, always dreams a better future, always hopes for more than Dean can ever provide, and it makes Dean feel inadequate. A failure.
Except he also feels like a hero and a savior when he's with Sam. He can feel Sam's faith in him like it's something physical.
"How can it be better, Sam?" Dean asks again, terrified to hear the answer, sure Sam's going to leave him.
"You and me," Sam says softly, so quietly that Dean has to lean over the table to hear him. "We could be better together."
"We are together, Sam." Dean chooses to be deliberately obtuse.
Sam lifts his eyes, and Dean almost gasps. Sam's still a kid, there's no way he's not at twenty-two, but there's something old in his eyes, something wise. Like he knows Dean, like he understands their relationship in ways Dean never thought about before.
"I know this probably doesn't make any sense to you, Dean, and you can laugh if you want. All I'm saying is, if we were together, everything would be better. From here on out."
"From here on out," Dean repeats, staring into Sam's eyes because they're really pretty, damn it. He doesn't remember thinking that about Sam when he was little, but it's damn obvious now. Sam's fuckin' gorgeous, for God's sake. How the hell did that happen?
"Yeah," Sam nods, sliding his foot along Dean's as he sits back in the booth.
"Well, that's not gonna happen," Dean mutters, looking down at the cracked tabletop, the paper napkins, the badly washed glass and open bottle of beer the waitress already brought.
"Why not?" Sam throws his hands up.
Because you might leave me. Because you might see what a pervert I am and throw me away. Because your life would be better without me. Your life was better without me, in that other reality.
"You know why not, Sam," Dean hisses, lifting his eyes to Sam's long enough to make his point before letting his gaze slide away again. "Now let it go, okay? It's not happening."
Sam crosses his arms and sulks, Dean drinks his beer, and they eat in silence when the food arrives, grumpy and tired.
Sam keeps his foot wedged between Dean's under the table, though, and Dean's grateful.
**//**//**
"That other you," Sam says later, when they're back in the car, looking for a motel. "He wasn't that different. He grew up okay without a little brother holding him back."
You don't know the half of it, Dean thinks, and shivers.
"He was one sick, sorry son-of-a-bitch," Dean shakes his head. "Violent, reckless, dangerous."
"Sounds about right," Sam smirks, and Dean shoots him a glare. "Also heroic, brave, looking out for me when he thought I was a civilian in trouble, figuring out a way to fix things, trying to save all those people who might keep disappearing on that road if he didn't."
"Just doing my job," Dean shrugs. "Just doing what I do."
"Calling Bobby Singer," Sam huffs out a breath. "You and him seemed close."
"Yeah, that was weird," Dean nods. "I haven't seen that old coot in years. Ever since he ran us off with a shotgun and threatened to kill us if we ever came back."
"I'm just glad you had somebody to call besides Dad," Sam says.
Because they both know Dad's not around much, in any timeline. Sam's probably getting the picture now, if he hadn't already, that Dad's been missing more than usual these past few years while Sam was in school. That it was primarily Dean's desperation and loneliness that drove him to pick Sam up from Stanford in the first place.
Sam must think Dean's a pathetic sack of shit.
The motel only has one room left, and of course it only has one bed. It's a king, luckily, but Dean immediately announces he'll sleep on the couch.
"Why are you doing this?" Sam demands as they haul their bags in from the car, dump them on the bed.
"What?" Dean frowns.
"It's not like we don't break the law all the time," Sam says. "It's not like we haven't already kissed, for God's sake. We both want it. Hell, I've wanted it since I was fifteen."
Dean's eyebrows go up at that. "You have?" He can't help himself. He seriously didn't know, and it suddenly matters, way more than it should maybe.
"Yeah," Sam huffs as he strips off his jacket, toes off his sneakers. "You in the next bed with some girl, me wishing it was me. Why do you think I left, Dean?"
Dean thinks about that, then shakes his head. "Why didn't you just tell me, Sam?"
"I didn't want you thinking I was some sick perv," Sam shrugs. "I knew you didn't think about me that way. All you saw was that little kid I used to be. I'm not a little kid anymore, Dean, in case you hadn't noticed."
Oh, Dean's noticed. He's definitely noticed.
Dean scrubs a hand over his jaw, then rubs the back of his neck. Sam stands in his tee-shirt and jeans and bare feet, long powerful arms just hanging by his sides, and all Dean can think about is being manhandled by them. Being crushed against Sam's powerful chest and kissed stupid.
"I'll take the first shower," he announces, but his voice is shaking and he can't look Sam in the eye.
He starts to turn away from the look of disappointment and frustration Dean knows is there because he put it there. Sam makes a small noise like a wounded animal and suddenly he swoops forward and grabs onto Dean, who hasn't removed so much as his jacket. Dean's overwhelmed by the smell and heat of Sam's body pressing up into his personal space as Sam pushes him up against the wall, big hands fisted in Dean's jacket and shirts.
"You feel the same way, Dean," Sam hisses. "Do you know what it means to me to find out I'm not alone in this? I'm not a freak for this one thing?"
Sam's face is so close Dean's eyes have to flick back and forth between Sam's eyes, then they fall to his mouth. Sam's lips are soft and pink and slick with spit, and there's a little stubble over the top one and along his jaw, a day's growth. His hair is dark with sweat and sticking to his forehead, his temples, the back of his neck.
"You'll always be a freak to me," Dean murmurs, trying to smirk. "We're both freaks."
He becomes aware of Sam's thigh thrust up between his legs, pressing against his junk through their jeans, and just thinking about riding that hard muscle makes Dean chub up nice and hard.
Sam can feel it, Dean's just sure. He holds his breath. This is it, he thinks. He's going to kiss me.
But he doesn't. Sam shoves his thigh and his chest hard against Dean, shaking him a little, then takes a step back, leaving Dean cold and bereft and blinking back tears.
"It's all you," Sam breathes, chest heaving and hands clenching. "Not gonna force you."
An unbidden shock of lust surges through him as Dean remembers Rhonda Hurley and her pink panties, especially the light bondage she tried once or twice, how much he liked it. He really doesn't think he'd mind being held down by Sam, maybe even roughed up a little by those big hands.
Truth is, it's pretty much all he's been thinking about since Sam kissed him, if he's honest with himself, which he rarely is. He's been half-hard for days just thinking about being held down and fucked by his brother, and now he sucks in a breath to steady himself and runs a hand over his face.
"I - I don't want to wreck everything, Sam," he says finally, his voice sounding weak and choked. He feels like he's lying. "We just started hunting together again, and it's good, you know? I don't want to ruin it." Don't want to scare you away. Make you leave. "I don't exactly have a great track record with relationships."
Sam takes a deep breath, nods. "I'll always be your brother," he says. "This doesn't change that."
Pretty sure being brothers isn't the only issue here, Dean snarks silently. Being ex-lovers might be kinda hard on the whole hunting-partner thing...
Not thinking that way, he scolds himself. Sam can go back to his life, get his law degree, maybe help out with hunts down the line on a consulting basis...
Dean will be right here, doing the job, doing what has to be done. Remembering this.
"I don't want to lose you," Dean admits, and he doesn't care how desperate and pathetic he sounds.
Sam moves close again, cups Dean's face and gazes down at him, long thumbs swiping along Dean's cheekbones.
"You won't," Sam says. "This changes things, Dean. If I can have this, I don't want anything else."
Dean stares up into Sam's multi-colored eyes for a moment, relishing the feel of his body pressed close, of Sam's skin against his. The ball's in Dean's court, but his body won't listen to what his head tells him he needs to do. He needs to push Sam away for good, end this and make sure Sam has as normal a life going forward as possible. It was just Dean's selfish loneliness and desperation that made him take Sam out of school in the first place. It's Dean's fault that beautiful girl died; if he hadn't taken Sam with him that night...
And Dean should get over it and his unhealthy need for Sam and make Sam go back to school. Dean can continue this quest for their dad on his own. He was doing it before, he can do it again. It's better for Sam that way, so that's the way it should be.
Dean's heart and his body don't agree, though, and with Sam touching him, with Dean's hands sliding so easily under Sam's tee-shirt, over the smooth, warm skin of his hips, Dean's nobody's hero. Never could be. He's just a guy who's in love with his brother. End of sick story.
Besides, what kind of dick refuses to put out when he's already made it clear he wants it? Sam doesn't deserve this shit.
Dean closes his eyes the moment before Sam's lips touch his, but he imagines the look of relief or maybe triumph in Sam's eyes. Maybe Sam's just grateful he's not the only freak in this family, like he said before. At any rate, Dean can't help the feeling he's failing again. Giving in to Sam's kiss feels so good, so right, it must be a sin. It has to be bad, evil, a mistake. Definitely wrong.
Dean parts his lips to let Sam's touch swipe along the bottom one, then push into his mouth with a moan that sounds absolutely pornographic. Sam's cradling Dean's head like it's something fragile, controlling the kiss but trying to hold back at the same time, trying to let Dean kiss back.
Dean's definitely kissing back. He wants Sam to plunder his mouth, to take him and fuck into every hole in his body, all at the same time if possible. He wants Sam to fill him up and never leave. Dean wants to take Sam into himself and hold on for dear life.
"Want you to fuck me," Dean murmurs against Sam's mouth as soon as Sam lets him up for air.
"You sure?" Sam's shaking with emotion, or maybe just the lust he's holding in check. His eyes are almost solid black and he's panting as he nips at Dean's lips. His hands are trembling as they hold Dean's head, long fingers stroking Dean's hair.
"Yeah, I'm sure," Dean nods, a little breathless. He's still holding onto Sam's hips.
"Okay," Sam gasps. "We gotta get you naked first."
"You too," Dean says.
They step back and take turns removing their clothing while the other one watches. Dean drops his jacket, then his over-shirt, struggles out of his boots and socks until they're even. Then Sam pulls his tee-shirt off, revealing the hard-muscled chest Dean's been dreaming about since that night in the woods. There's the scar where a werewolf grabbed for Sam when he was fourteen and Dean wasn't fast enough to stop it. Dean reaches for it and Sam glances down as Dean's fingers skim along the silvery mark. He can still hear young-Sam's scream in his ears.
Dean's pretty sure gorgeous-stranger-Sam didn't have that scar.
Sam clears his throat, shifts his feet and nods at Dean's chest, and Dean jerks his hand back, startled out of his reverie. He grasps the bottom of his tee-shirt with both hands and peels it off over his head, letting it drop to the floor next to Sam's. Sam's eyes widen as his gaze drops to Dean's chest, and Dean's skin flushes hot. Sam's seen him naked before, hundreds if not thousands of times, but he's never had Dean's permission to look, to admire the body he's apparently lusted after since he was fifteen years old.
Dean doesn't know how he should feel about that, but what he does feel is contrite. It's like he's been deliberately with-holding candy from a baby. He's been cruel and he didn't even know it.
"Off," he commands gruffly, gesturing at Sam's jeans, and Sam tears his eyes away from Dean's chest to fumble awkwardly with the button and zipper, shoving his jeans and his boxers down at the same time.
"Damn," Dean breathes as Sam steps free of his clothes, kick them aside so he's just standing there all naked and gorgeous. And naked.
"Now you," Sam commands, his voice just as breathless as Dean's.
Dean stops his gawking for a moment so he can comply, stumbling backwards into the wall as he kicks his jeans and boxers aside. Suave. Real suave.
He looks up and Sam isn't laughing, although there's a little bemused smile tugging at the corners of his soft mouth and his dimples are showing, so Dean counts that as a win. Anything to lighten the mood.
Then Sam steps close again, and time falls away. It's like they're back in the motel in that other reality, only this time they're going through with what Dean wouldn't allow them to do then. That Sam hadn't been pining for his brother for years. That Sam hadn't been dragged all over the country by a half-mad, often-drunk, obsessively vengeful father who resented him for surviving the fire that killed his wife. That Sam hadn't been raised with a brother who loved him more than his own life, whose number one job had been to protect him and take care of him and keep him safe.
That Sam wasn't Dean's Sam. He was his own man, had his own life, apart from Dean and the hunting life. Probably better off that way.
But this Sam is his. This Sam knows Dean, has lived with him most of his life, and still loves him. Still wants him. This Sam trusts Dean and believes in him. It's more than he deserves, better than he could have wished in his wildest dreams, which is why part of him still doesn't quite trust it. Part of him still feels sure Sam will use him up and walk away, that when this fling or infatuation or whatever is over - maybe in a few days or weeks or months - Sam won't want him anymore. Sam will eventually figure out what a failure Dean is and move on.
As they kiss this time, Dean explores Sam's body with his hands, learning all the new muscles and edges. Some things are familiar; he remembers the moles in their configurations from all the years of bathing Sam as a toddler, then a child, then scuffling and wrestling with him as a teenager.
But so much is new, too. Sam is huge, powerful, sinewy strength and hard muscle everywhere, and Dean wants it all. Dean will take whatever he can get from his new Sam, this strange-but-familiar grown man who used to be his baby brother. If it's all he can get, he'll hold onto every memory for as long as he can. He'll be grateful he had this till the day he dies.
Sam's mouth blazes a hot trail across his jaw. Sam's big hand tips Dean's head back so Sam can kiss his neck, open-mouthed and with teeth, sucking marks into Dean's skin. Sam's other hand slides down his back to his ass, splays wide and squeezes, making Dean moan and shiver. Sam's other hand slides down and takes Dean's other asscheek, tugging Dean hard against Sam's body so Dean gets the full sense of Sam's strength. He could pick Dean up, no problem, probably wants to, wants Dean to wrap his legs around Sam's waist and let Sam carry him to the bed so he can throw him down and he can just lie there, legs akimbo, staring up at Sam as Sam towers over him...
"I'm not a girl," Dean reminds Sam hoarsely, and Sam's hands squeeze and release Dean's ass as his arms unclench and relax around Dean's body again.
"I know," Sam breathes into his ear. His tongue licks over the marks he's made on Dean's neck. "Wanna suck your dick."
"Fuck," Dean pants, leaning back against the wall as Sam slides to his knees and swallows him down in one swift, calculated motion, so Dean knows he's been thinking about it for some time now. Maybe since he was fifteen. Maybe Sam was thinking about sucking Dean's dick while he was going down on his girlfriend.
God, that is so fucked up, Dean scolds himself. Shut up about Jessica. Let it go. But of course he can't help the stab of jealousy that courses through him when he thinks about his brother's girlfriend, when he thinks about her and Sam together. Dean realizes now he was jealous of her right from the start, the first time he met her in that apartment in Palo Alto. Probably before that, when he stalked Sam on campus and watched him walking with his arm around the tall blond girl with the sunny smile.
I'm such a loser, Dean thinks as Sam's tongue twirls around the crown of his cock. Stalking his brother and being jealous of his girlfriend, even before he knew he was in love with him. Such a dick.
Sam's good at this. Deep throats like an expert, never lets his teeth scrape on Dean's sensitive skin, moans like a two-bit whore, like he's never had anything that tasted so good before.
They've been riding in the car all day and Dean hasn't had a shower yet, so Sam's getting the full experience, that's for sure. Moans and writhes like he loves it, though. Damn, he's good. And it's been too long....oh shit, they're not using protection...
"Sam, oh god, I'm gonna -- " Dean gasps, shoving his hands through Sam's hair, half-heartedly trying to pull him off.
But of course Sam only redoubles his efforts, bobbing up and down on Dean's cock like he doesn't have a gag reflex at all and fuck, how can he do that?
"Sam! I'm gonna -- Oh shit!"
Dean explodes in Sam's mouth, down his throat, and Sam swallows it, milks him and takes every last drop as Dean comes down off his high. He's breathing hard, his thighs are trembling, and his fingers are still tangled in Sam's hair. He tips Sam's chin up as his softening cock slips from Sam's mouth. Sam's face is flushed, his lips are pink and slick, and his eyes are sparkling with unshed tears. He looks debauched and used and achingly beautiful, and Dean's overwhelmed with emotion for a moment, can't even speak for fear he'll start blubbering like a baby.
"Good?" Sam croaks, and Dean strokes Sam's chin with his thumb and nods.
"Mmmmm," he hums appreciatively. "I don't even want to know where you learned to do that, but I'm guessing there's more to college-boy Sam than straight girls and lollipops."
Sam blushes so pretty Dean wants to embarrass him again just to see it.
"But that was dumb, Sam," Dean scolds. "Unsafe. You didn't even ask if I was clean."
"You are," Sam nods. "You told me so a week ago, don't you remember? And it's just been us since then, so."
Dean has a vague memory of bragging about how clean he was because he was flirting with a waitress and Sam seemed pissed-off about it, so Dean said the first thing that came to mind, as usual.
"I could've been lying," Dean shakes his head. "Usually am, when it comes to sex."
"No," Sam shakes his head. "I can tell when you're lying."
"No, you can't," Dean protests. "No way. I'm too good."
Sam raises his eyebrows in that skeptical way he has, and it's hotter than it should be since he's still kneeling and looking up at Dean.
"Okay, on the bed, cowboy," Dean orders. "This rodeo ain't over yet."
"I can't believe you said that," Sam huffs, shaking his head as he complies. Dean follows, laying himself out on the bed the way he had in his fantasy, spreading his legs and planting his feet on the bed in open invitation. He's relaxed and happier than he can remember feeling for a long time.
"Jesus, Dean," Sam murmurs as he kneels between Dean's spread legs with his dick in his hand.
Sam's dick is gigantic, like the rest of him, and Dean experiences a moment of panic as he considers how it will feel going into him.
"You've done this before?" Sam asks, stroking himself slowly as he gazes up and down Dean's body, letting his free hand stroke Dean's thigh.
"Sure," Dean lies. "A bunch of times. You?"
Sam flushes that pretty deep pink color again and manages to look up at Dean from under his bangs in that way Dean goes crazy for.
"Freshman year," Sam says. "There was this guy... We were just friends at first, then he let me know he wanted more. He taught me everything I know. Then he introduced me to Jess."
"Wow, that's awkward," Dean comments. "Were you still fucking him when you met Jess?"
"No! No way," Sam shakes his head, sweaty, shaggy hair flying all around his face. "We were just friends again by then."
"Huh," Dean nods. "So you're a fuck-em-but-stay-friends-with-'em-later kinda guy. Figures."
"What? No!" Sam protests. "Dean, that's not going to happen with us, okay? You're different. What we have here is completely different."
"I'll say," Dean mutters dryly.
"No, you know why it's different?" Sam crawls up Dean's body so he can look down into his face with his body pressed along the length of Dean's. Dean closes his eyes and turns his head, clenching his jaw stubbornly. "It's different because you're such a dick sometimes, but you make me want you anyway. It's different because you infuriate me almost as much as you turn me on. It's different because I hate you almost as much as I love you."
Dean's eyes fly open and he stares up at Sam, whose expression is as wild and fierce as he's ever seen it.
"You're like a drug, Dean," Sam grits out, almost hissing. "You're like an addiction I can't shake, even if I wanted to. You're in everything I see, in everyone I fuck. I couldn't leave you if I wanted to. You're inside me, part of me."
"Your breath smells like dick," Dean deadpans.
"Like your dick," Sam growls.
"Damn straight," Dean nods, then Sam's mouth crashes down on his and they don't talk for a while. It turns Dean on way more than he'll admit to taste his own come in Sam's mouth, to lick up that evidence that Sam is his now. Part of Dean is inside Sam, like Sam said.
"You've never done this before," Sam announces after he's kissed Dean stupid.
"Huh?" Dean blinks up at him, foggy and confused and more than a little sex-dazed.
"Sex with a guy," Sam clarifies. "You've never had sex with a guy before."
"Sure I have, Sammy," Dean says. "I already told you."
"You lied," Sam snaps. "Now turn over."
"What? Who died and made you boss?" Dean complains, but he's doing as Sam says, partly because he's been following orders since he was four years old and he's programmed to be a good soldier. But also because it's Sam, and doing what Sam tells him to do is so hot and feels so right it makes Dean a little dizzy.
Sam manhandles him into position, face down on his knees with his butt in the air, and Dean has only a second to consider how humiliating he should be before Sam's hands grab his ass, one cheek in each of his big, warm hands, and spreads him wide open. Then Sam's tongue plunges into his hole and Dean jumps.
"Jesus, Sammy! A little warning!"
"Hmmm." Sam mumbles what might be an apology but probably isn't, given the tonguing Dean's getting. He's had girls do this before, one in particular who seemed to get more out of it than anything else they did, but Sam's on a mission. He licks Dean's rim carefully, purposefully, pushing against the tight muscle before plunging deep inside his channel, fucking into him before working on the muscle again. When he reaches up and thrusts two of his long fingers into Dean's mouth, Dean sucks on them them greedily, tasting dirt and sweat and something vaguely like olive oil. When they're wet and dripping, Sam pulls his fingers away, leaving Dean gasping until he feels one of the fingers pushing into his hole alongside Sam's tongue.
"Damn!" Dean gasps at the strange intrusion. "Okay, okay, I'm good."
Sam's slow and careful, working Dean open on his tongue and one finger steadily until Dean almost doesn't mind when Sam pushes another finger inside him.
Almost.
"Fuck!" Dean curses as the stretch borders on painful, burning. He tries not to shy away from the sensation, tries to relax and let Sam work. Sam clearly knows what he's doing. But it hurts, damn it, and that makes Dean pissy.
Sam doesn't tease him, though, doesn't tell him he's being a big baby. Instead, he withdraws and slips backwards off the bed, and Dean twists around to watch over his shoulder as Sam retrieves his jeans from the floor, pulls out a tube of KY Jelly.
"Are you kidding me?" Dean demands. "You carry that around with you?"
"What can I say," Sam shrugs. "I try to be positive."
Dean rolls his eyes. "I guess that's one way to look at it," he grumbles as Sam climbs onto the bed and into position again.
"Now, just try to relax, Dean," Sam soothes, running a warm hand up Dean's spine, flicking open the tube of KY with his other hand.
Dean tries to keep still, tries to relax his muscles so that Sam's lubed fingers can slide easily into his ass, and at a certain point he thinks he's got the hang of it, thinks he's doing pretty damn well with two of Sam's fingers stretching him open.
"Okay, Sam," he huffs against the cramping and discomfort. "I'm ready. Go ahead, fuck me. Come on!"
But Sam just keeps on digging around in Dean's ass, groping and poking like he's looking for something, shaking the bed as he does it, and Dean suddenly gets it.
"Are you - are you jerking off on my ass?" Dean demands, twisting around so he can get an eyeful. Sam's kneeling between Dean's spread legs, the muscles of his arms and neck strained with exertion, sweat running down his chest.
"You're too tight, Dean," Sam gasps. "I don't want to hurt you."
"Fuck that!" Dean growls, pushing back with a sudden thrust that startles them both. Sam's dick is right there, at the entrance to Dean's ass, all lubed up and slippery in Sam's grip, and when Dean pushes back he can feel the velvety head of Sam's dick slip right past the tight muscle of his rim and into his channel.
Sam's dick is impossibly big. Dean's never felt anything so invasive. It punches the air out of him, makes every muscle in his body tighten and clench in protest. Sam freezes, not pushing in any more but not pulling out, either. It's like he's in shock, his whole body rigid with effort.
"Oh God," Sam croaks, his voice strangled and tight. "I'm gonna - Oh fuck, I can't - "
Then Dean feels the sensation of warm liquid filling his channel, and Sam makes a gurgling sound in his throat like he's dying as he comes hard. Dean holds still through the whole thing, through the weird sensation of Sam's come dribbling down the inside of his thigh, through Sam's post-orgasmic moment, as he shivers and barks out a breathy laugh. Dean waits for Sam to pull free, running a hand along Dean's flank as he takes deep, gasping breaths.
"Jesus, Dean, I didn't mean to do that," Sam says, his voice shaky and breathless. "Are you okay? Jesus. Did I hurt you? Oh my God, you look so gorgeous right now."
Sam crowds up over Dean's back, stroking and caressing his ribs and belly, and Dean takes a deep breath, rolls onto his side, away from Sam, so he can catch the expression of post-orgasmic bliss on his brother's beautiful face.
"Was that okay for you?" Sam asks, concern creasing his lovely features. "I mean, I know it was your first time, and I tried to go slow. I tried to find your prostate, because it always feels better that way, takes the edge off the burn - "
Dean reaches up, tucks a strand of hair behind Sam's ear and leaves his hand on Sam's cheek, steady and firm. Sam goes still, gazing into Dean's eyes helplessly.
"I think I need to bottom from the top next time," Dean comments with a wry grin. "I need to face you when we do that, Sam. Need to see you."
"Yeah, right, I get that," Sam nods. "It's just, physically it's easier the way we did it. Usually. And since it was your first time, I wanted it to be good, you know? I needed it to be good for you."
Dean nods, pats Sam's cheek, then slides his hand into Sam's hair as he pulls Sam in for a kiss. Sam relents, kissing back languidly for several moments. Dean thinks he could do this all night, just lie here and kiss Sam till his lips are numb and his jaw hurts.
As first times go, it wasn't so bad, Dean reasons. Beats the first time he did it with a girl, when he was so excited he came all over the front of her Sunday dress. The blow job was incredible, and he's sure he'll get the hang of the other thing, eventually. Maybe.
It wasn't perfect, but neither are they.
After showers and a little sleep, they go at it again, and it's better.
"We don't have to fuck every time," Sam assures him. "It's not like hetero-sex."
"No, it's a helluva lot messier," Dean complains as he cleans them up after they've come all over each other for the third time that night.
Things have changed, just like Dean was afraid they would. When they get in the car in the morning, Sam slips his hand across the seat, squeezes Dean's knee like it's a perfectly normal thing to do, like it doesn't make Dean jump and his eyes go wide. Later, when he's resting his hand on the bench between them, Sam tangles their fingers together. Dean yanks his hand free that time, shoots Sam a glare. He's nobody's girlfriend, for God's sake.
When they crash for the night later, they literally crash around the room making out more roughly and violently than Dean's ever done with a girl. Dean refuses to cuddle and he's damned if he's anybody's little spoon, although he can't help it if he wakes up draped over Sam's furnace of a body like some lovesick newlywed.
Mostly, they go on being themselves, getting the job done, doing what they have to do. They bicker and bitch and keep each other in line, and gradually the memories from that other reality fade unto the background and become just one more chapter in their weird, fucked-up lives.
One day, Dean wakes up with Sam curled around him and it feels normal. It's become part of who they are, this added dimension of their relationship.
And Dean's okay with that. More than okay.
It's better.
fin
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