Higher Learning (Part 2 of 3) | NC-17 | Sam/Dean
Title: Higher Learning
Authors: shes_gone and peccatrixjusta
Artist: reallycorking
Notes: Warnings and authors' notes are here.
[ Part One.]
-=-=-=-=-=-
I slept with Danny.
Sam hadn't meant to say it. But it just happened. There was Dean, sitting across from him, stuffing his mouth with burger and poking him, goading him, staring at him with that stupid fucking knowing expression on his face. For once in his life, Sam just wanted to get his brother to Shut. The. Fuck. Up.
Informing Dean over dinner that he slept with a dude certainly did the trick.
Sam leaned back and coolly observed Dean's life-and-death struggle with his cheeseburger bite. Somehow Dean won, but the moment-it must have been only seconds-stretched out into a vast universe in Sam's mind.
He felt oddly calm in his body, like he sometimes felt during the climax of a hunt. Like anything could happen, and it didn't matter. And once again, images of Stanford washed all over him. This seemed to be happening a lot lately.
-=-=-
November 2002.
Sam couldn't breathe. Something was trying to smother him from above. Panicking, he jerked out of sleep and realized that he was face down on the bed, inhaling pillow. He propped himself up on his elbows, practically hyperventilating, and looked into the sleepy blinking eyes of the man next to him.
"Jesus Christ, Sam, are you okay?" Danny mumbled, barely awake.
Sam ran his hand through his hair, which was stiff with sleep and sweat. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine."
"No, you're not." Danny was more alert now, gazing at Sam like he could read his mind.
"Just a bad dream, I swear."
"Sammy…" Danny instantly cringed. "Shit. I know you hate it when I call you that. Sorry."
"No, I'm sorry… sorry to wake you up…" Sam sighed, collapsing down on the pillow.
"What are we, a couple of teenage girls? Enough with the apologies." Danny smiled, and Sam couldn't help but smile back.
They stared at each other in the late morning light. Sam found himself considering the moment: here they were, sprawled out on the futon in Danny's spartan dorm room. They had fucked the night before. They'd been fucking for about two months. It had started as a drunken fumble after a party. Danny initiated. Sam (or rather, Sam's cock) surprised them both by playing along.
Now Danny was looking at Sam with a familiar expression: half amused satisfaction, half total disbelief. Sam was pretty sure that Danny was waiting patiently for Sam to have some sort of obligatory straight dude meltdown. As if Sam would finally detect the naked guy in his bed and bolt. Danny's attitude seemed to consist of "I'll enjoy this while it lasts."
Sam never bothered to disabuse him of this. For his part, Sam was trying to avoid too much introspection. He wasn't sure which was weirder: the fact that he grew up hunting demons with his psychotic family, or that he currently allowed his R.A. to fuck him in the ass (and liked it, and reciprocated). The fact that he couldn't decide led him to believe that he shouldn't think about any of these things at all. But of course, he was Sam Winchester-over-analyzer extraordinaire.
Sam could hear Dean's voice: "Sammy, stop thinking so hard! You're giving me a fucking migraine."
Except, it wasn't Dean that just said that. It was Danny. Hazel-eyed Danny with his long swimmer's body and slightly crooked front teeth. Danny, who got kicked out of his house at sixteen for being gay, who crashed with friends until he earned his athletic scholarship to Stanford. Danny, who'd never met Dean and never would, who found Sam dark and mysterious and hot, and expressed all these sentiments. Frequently, in word and action.
Like now.
"Let me distract you…" Danny reached under the covers and grasped Sam's cock in his dry, strong hand. Sam's whole body woke up and his head emptied out. He drew towards Danny, through the blankness of his mind and the whiteness of the sheets. Their mouths smashed together, all clicking teeth and stubbly unshaven skin.
Sam held on and went with it.
And a tiny part of him thought, "If only you could see me now, Dad."
-=-=-
And here, in this moment, Dean had recovered and was staring at Sam with an unfathomable expression. Their surroundings faded; the whole world consisted of the two of them and the table in-between.
When Dean spoke, his voice was dangerously soft.
"So, when were you planning on telling me about this, Sam?"
Sam rolled his eyes. "What?"
"I said-"
"For Christ's sake, I heard you, Dean. It's just… you don't have the right to know every little thing I've ever done."
Dean leaned forward and spoke through clenched teeth. "Sam, hooking up with a man is not exactly a little thing!"
"Don't go all caveman big brother on me, Dean. We weren't idiots. It was safe every time."
"This happened more than once?!"
"Dean, shut up!"
"No!"
"Just… use your indoor voice, okay?"
Dean's skin was starting to flush. "Sam, I'm really not in the mood…"
"Neither am I," Sam snapped. But even as he said it, he had a sudden, rather shameful realization. He was in the mood. He kind of liked watching Dean squirm. Sadist, much? he thought to himself. But there was more to this than simply freaking out Dean, or making a power play. He wanted to make Dean feel… um…
Sam wasn't sure he wanted to investigate that line of thought further.
"Sam, look, just. Tell me what happened."
Sam sighed. "Okay. Okay. It was my freshman year. He was a year ahead of me." He made an editorial decision to omit that Danny was his R.A.; he didn't want to send Dean's protective instincts over the edge. "We just… I don't know. I guess you could say we dated."
"For how long?" Dean demanded.
"Like three months," Sam said. It really was over in a flash, but Sam knew that in Dean's universe, three months was practically married. "It wasn't, like, traditional dating… we weren't boyfriends or anything."
Dean visibly shuddered at the b-word. Sam leaned forward a little, angry and defensive but genuinely interested in something: "Dean, seriously-after everything we've seen-all the real evil you know is out there-I never expected any homophobic bullshit from you."
Dean looked at him sharply. "As if, Sam. I don't give a fuck that you… fucked a dude."
"You just can't believe I didn't tell you," Sam finished. "What's the problem… jealous that some guy mattered to me, and he wasn't you?"
I didn't just say that, Sam thought, for the first time scaring himself a little. They sat there, frozen. Dean was only a few feet away, but the distance between them was enormous. Sam felt that if he were to reach out and touch Dean's face, he would feel… nothing. The thought filled him with dread and he became absorbed in the salt and pepper shakers on the table.
"You boys need anything else?" It was the waitress. Sam could barely see her. He heard Dean ordering another round. There were several moments of silence, in which the waitress moved to the bar and drew them each a new beer. She deposited their drinks and left again. Sam forced himself to meet Dean's eyes.
There was a slight smile playing over his brother's lips. It filled Sam with relief. "Okay, Sammy," Dean declared, taking a long drink.
"Yeah," said Sam. He took a deep sip himself.
"How about you finish telling me about Danny." Dean's tone was carefully neutral, but there was no question in his voice. Sam decided to proceed with caution.
"Um… yeah, well. Like I said, it was just a few months. Then we stopped."
"Why? You too much for him, big boy?" Dean chuckled, having switched from bad cop to good cop. They were buddies again.
Sam felt slightly uncomfortable. They were working efficiently through their beers. He was aware of Dean signaling the waitress for yet more reinforcements. Clearly, neither of them could get through this conversation sober.
"Not exactly… he wanted to, you know, be in a relationship. At first he was cool with keeping things casual, but somewhere along the way he got all these ideas about us. I was sort of a jerk-I liked the guy a lot, but I couldn't really handle it."
"Because you're not gay?" Dean suggested helpfully.
"No… I mean, I don't know, Dean. It was never really about being gay or straight or bi…"
"Then what was it about? A big 'fuck you' to the old man?" Dean couldn't hide his smugness at figuring it all out.
Sam, though rather impressed at this brotherly insight, wasn't going to let Dean get the last word. "Sure. Yeah, Dean, maybe it was about Dad. I know this is hard for you to understand, but I needed to see myself through someone else's eyes. Danny… Danny did something for me. He saw something in me that no one else did."
He paused, accurately reading the expression his brother's face. "And don't say, 'Yeah, himself.' Grow the hell up, Dean. He was a good guy. We stayed friends. I hope he's happy with his new husband."
Dean shrugged, as if possibly conceding this point. "And I take it Shaheen knew all about this."
Sam felt relieved to shift into this territory. "Oh yeah. I mean, my whole circle of friends knew. We didn't broadcast it but it wasn't exactly a secret either."
There was a thoughtful break. Then Dean's right eyebrow cocked, and he simply said one word: "Jess?"
Sam understood. "Yeah, she knew." Dean looked at him incredulously. "Are you asking if she minded? Dean, Jess was practically raised by her lesbian aunts in L.A. She was the least judgmental person I've ever known. It was one of the best things about her." Sam experienced a genuine sense of warmth at this memory. This was the first time he had really thought about Jess in a long time; and instead of wanting to curl up in a fist of rage and grief, he felt a peculiar, quiet sadness settle in his body.
Dean appeared to be considering this, looking much more relaxed; they were both a bit drunk. "Yeah, but Sammy, it's one thing to have nice homo relatives. You were her boyfriend. Don't you think that's a little different? Like, she had to picture you with a dude, dude!" Dean's eyes widened with wonder at the thought.
Sam was buzzing. "Dean… this is going to blow your mind, man, but I gotta tell you-she thought it was hot."
"What?!"
Sam shrugged. A smile was taking over his face. With their brotherly camaraderie in place, it actually felt kinda good to talk about this. "Yeah, she liked to hear stories about it… with details…"
Dean's eyes went even wider, for a moment, and then he suddenly seemed to come to his senses. He slammed the table top a little too hard, drawing stares from other booths.
There was an instant, awkward tension reinstated between them.
"Sam, you're right. It's none of my goddamn business." He caught the waitress's eye. "Let's get the fuck out of here. We've got work to do."
-=-=-=-=-=-
"2115, right?" Dean asked, gesturing to the grey two-story on their left. Sam nodded and climbed the front steps, then paused as he looked at the buzzers for the four apartments that had apparently been carved out of the old building.
"Shit," he mumbled, and fished his phone out of his pocket to check Shaheen's text for the third time, after they'd forgotten the street name, and then the address, and now the apartment number. Dean squinted down the dark street, trying not to watch Sam out of the corner of his eye, and willed himself to relax. He really should've had another beer before they'd left the diner. He was pretty sure there was no level of drunk that was drunk enough for this.
"Look, Dean," Sam said as he tucked his phone back into his pocket. Dean managed a glance at him as he opened and closed his mouth. "We can still-we can still do this, right? Just… focus on the case?"
Dean frowned, and needed an honest-to-God moment to remember what case Sam was even talking about. Then he blinked. "Dude, of course. I'm a professional." Sam eyed him uncertainly, and Dean looked back down the street. "Honestly, man, it's fine. Don't worry about it. It's not a big deal."
Sam paused for a long moment, and Dean was afraid that he was going to try to talk about it again. But, "OK," Sam said, and pressed one of the buzzers. "Just… get as much info as you can. Let me know when you want to leave."
How about right now, Dean didn't say, because that would have meant more time alone with Sam, and he needed a break from that, at the moment.
A minute later, they were inside Shaheen's apartment, and Dean immediately turned right, in part because that was the direction of the booze table, and in part because Sam had turned left. He tossed the twelve pack that Sam had (wisely, Dean had to admit) insisted they bring into the cooler, and was halfway through a cold one before he could turn around and take in the party around him.
It was a pretty small party, but the living room was close to full. He scanned the various circles, trying to work out who seemed the most likely to know about their ghost, but somehow he ended up just staring at Sam. Who had found Shaheen, and was being introduced to a small group. They drifted towards the beer table, so Dean moved away. Dean eyed Shaheen's friends, wondering if any of them were like this Danny character, if any of them had known him, if any of them had their sights set on Sam as he settled down onto the couch with a laugh, his legs sprawling.
Dean closed his eyes a moment and took a long sip of his beer. He tried to settle his mind, which was a swirling mess of new information and a host of unwelcome images of Sam, and his bottle was empty incredibly quickly.
He opened his eyes and surveyed the room, turning his mind to the case as purposefully as he could. He needed to start talking to people. There were pockets of women around the room, standing in twos and threes, and he found himself approaching the closest one without even thinking about it, driven by some fundamental need to restore some balance to the universe.
He talked to Kristy and Lisa, a pair of brunettes in their second year who had both worked in New York City over the summer, but they'd never heard of Paul. Nicole, a 3L redhead originally from Tampa Bay, had heard of him, but didn't know any more than Dean already did. Whitney, a rather buxom blonde, launched into a rant about the lack of support of struggling law students that lasted for a good fifteen minutes (at least) before Dean could get her to clarify that she was not actually a law student, but was here with her boyfriend, Tom, who was, and maybe Dean should go talk to him? One look at Tom made it pretty clear how he felt about Dean enjoying Whitney's too-tight tank top, though, and even though Dean could totally take the guy, he didn't actually want to.
So he continued making the rounds, focussing as intently as he could on the women he was talking to, waiting for one of them to spark some interest-in his upstairs brain or down, he didn't care. He just needed a fucking distraction. Someone-anyone-to stop him from looking over at Sam every five seconds.
But it wasn't working. No one had anything interesting to say about Paul at all, and every time Dean would take notice of an inviting smile or a well-fitted pair of jeans, he'd hear Sam let out a loud laugh across the room (or maybe just inside his head), and he'd look over in time to catch Sam throwing his head back, exposing a ridiculously long stretch of neck, and it was all he could do not to grind his teeth into dust.
"Hey there," said a girl who had sidled up next to him. She was cute, brunette and bubbly, and smiling up at him with bright blue eyes. "I'm Ashley."
"Hi, Ashley. Dean."
"You look a little tense, Dean."
"Do I?"
She nodded, giving him an overly sympathetic look. "You do." She leaned in closer, and Dean could smell it on her before she said anything. "You want some of this?" she whispered, surreptitiously opening her hand for him, displaying a colorful glass pipe.
Dean didn't smoke pot. He'd been known to do it once or twice, especially if he was headed to bed with someone who offered, but it didn't particularly appeal to him. Booze was cheaper and did the job better, as far as he was concerned.
In that moment, though, he really wanted to. It smelled amazing, and Ashley was fucking cute, and this was probably exactly what he needed.
"What's wrong, you gotta work in the morning or something?" Ashley said, to Dean's hesitation.
Dean chuckled humorlessly. "No, but, uh," I'm supposed to be working right now. "Thanks, but no."
"OK," Ashley said, lifting her shoulders as if to say I tried. "But try to relax, would you? You're making some of us nervous." Dean frowned. "And maybe it would help if you just went and talked to him, already," she muttered.
Dean stared at her back as she walked away, and felt himself starting to lose it. Trying (and failing) not to look at Sam again, he made his way from the room, in search of the bathroom. He closed the door behind him and leaned up against it, closing his eyes and expelling a few deep breaths.
"C'mon, man," he muttered to himself. He took a piss and splashed some water on his face, but it didn't really help. It was time to go. He'd canvassed the party and come up dry, and Sam was looking way too comfortable to be getting any work done, either. They both needed some air and a change of scene.
When Dean walked back out into the party, the first thing he noticed wasn't Sam, for a change, but Ashley. She was in a large armchair, sitting in the lap of a tall girl with dirty-blonde hair. Ashley held the pipe to her own lips, then leaned in close to the girl's face, and breathed the smoke into her open mouth. The other girl inhaled and held her breath, and so did Dean. He watched, hoping, as she turned her head to the side to expel the smoke, and then, yes, leaned up to kiss Ashley's mouth.
"Nice," he breathed to himself, and then turned without thinking to find Sam, because Sam needed to see this, too. But when his eyes found Sam, sprawled on the small sofa next to Shaheen, looking ridiculously large and drunk and happy, chatting with this buddy, laughing, making a million new friends with just a smile and a handshake, Dean had to catch his breath.
Dean swallowed down his guilt, again, at how little of this Sam he knew. He wondered how much else had gone on at Stanford, how much else he didn't know about.
He watched Sam take a long pull from his beer, and felt something hot and dark flare in his gut. He had a sudden flash of Sam at eighteen, probably only a month or two before he had left, sprawled out on Bobby's dirty couch, tired and angry and sucking down a longneck then, too. Dean couldn't tear his eyes away fast enough.
He just stood there for a moment, breathing, and looked back at the girls in the armchair. They were still in-between drags, and he watched them as they kissed. Ashley's hands slid up the other girl's throat, and she rocked her hips a little as the girl's hands pressed against her back. Dean watched and imagined the rub of their jeans, the press of their chests.
"What do you think you're doing?"
Dean blinked and turned abruptly to his right, where a petite blonde was eyeing him pointedly, her arms crossed over her chest.
"I-uh. What?" he said, shaking himself a bit.
"You think they're here for your entertainment?"
He stared at her a moment. She raised a challenging eyebrow. "Now that's not fair," he said, and he didn't have to try that hard to sound offended. "I didn't ask them to go over there and start making out." Her expression didn't change. "And I can't help it if I've got a… natural curiosity."
She eyed him a moment longer, before smirking. "Yeah, well. Don't get your hopes up," she said resignedly. "They're not gonna go any further than that." She smiled, and Dean frowned.
"Huh?" Dean said.
"They do this at every party. Just to get a rise out of people. Tease us and tease us and tease us, but they never give us any more than just that."
Dean stared at her, confused, then looked back at the girls in the armchair. "OK," he said.
"I'm Carrie," she said, extending her hand.
"Oh, we're friends now?"
She smiled and shrugged. "If you'd like."
"Dean," he replied, shaking her hand. "And it's nice to meet you, Carrie, unless you've got any more angry feminist rants you want to throw at me."
"Ha," she said. "Not for another few minutes, at least."
Dean could deal with that. They turned their attention back to the girls in the armchair, but Dean found himself glancing back at Carrie several times in quick succession. He'd never checked out girls with a lesbian before.
"So what brings you here tonight, Dean?" she asked.
"It's a party, isn't it?"
"Well, yeah, but. Don't take this the wrong way, but, you seem a little out of place."
"That's sweet of you to say," he said flatly. "Thanks."
"That's not a bad thing, believe me. I'm just intrigued."
He eyed her a moment, and gave a small shrug. "My brother knows Shaheen. I'm here with him."
"Oh yeah? Which one's your brother?"
Dean gestured towards Sam. "Ginormo over there, taking up the whole couch."
"Really?" she said, with a glance at Sam and an expression of surprise.
"Uh, yeah. Why?"
"Um," she frowned. "No reason, I just… would not have guessed that that's how you knew him." She looked a little embarrassed. Dean frowned and cocked his head, but she pressed on before he could ask her what she meant. "So, um, are you in from out of town?"
"Yeah," Dean said, and decided that he'd had just enough beer to let it drop. "We're just passing through. Bit of a road trip."
"Nice," Carrie said. "That sounds fun."
"It can be."
"And what do you do, that you can take a road trip this time of year? Are you in school?"
"No, no. My job takes me on the road, actually. I, uh, tour the country, hunting and destroying various supernatural beings."
Carrie blinked, and then laughed. "That sounds… dangerous."
Dean smirked. "It can be. But someone's gotta do it."
"I suppose so," Carrie said. She chuckled again, and shot him a warm, sideways look.
"I'm a mechanic," he admitted, raising his shoulders.
"Really?" she said. "I like that. If there's one thing this place needs, it's more mechanics." Dean laughed. "So you're good with your hands, huh?"
"You could say that."
"My dad was a mechanic, actually," she said. "I love the smell of it. You know, the oil and the grease he could never get out from under his fingernails."
She grasped one of Dean's hands, pulling it close for an inspection. Dean blinked and suddenly found himself wondering if everyone who went off to some big fancy school came out batting for both teams, because there was no way this girl wasn't into him.
"You've got pretty clean hands, for a mechanic," she observed.
"Yeah, I'm between jobs right now. Just working on my own car, really."
"And I bet you drive something awesome."
Dean smiled. He liked this girl.
They talked for a long time, though Dean lost track of it, and wasn't sure how late it was when Sam passed them on the way to the bathroom. He suddenly realized he'd been thoroughly distracted from everything. He felt guilty, for a moment, knowing that he'd completely forgotten to work the case, but at least the evening wasn't going to be a total loss.
"So, Carrie," he said easily, "you wanna get out of here?"
She smiled, but looked surprised. "Um..."
She didn't say anything, and Dean wondered if he'd read her entirely wrong. "Sorry," he said, "that was stupid."
"Why?" she asked.
He looked at her a bit helplessly. "You made it pretty clear when you came over here that… you like, you know…"
She raised her eyebrows.
"Girls," he managed.
She smiled. "No, no," she said. "I mean, yes, but that's not it. I, uh, I guess I was just surprised when you didn't make a move, earlier. And then I figured you weren't going to. So it just… caught me a little off-guard."
"Oh. Sorry."
"It's OK."
An awkward moment passed, and Dean wondered what the fuck was wrong with him right now. Here was this hot girl, who was clearly into him, and he was just... sucking. Clearly he'd been spending too much time with his brother, whose complete lack of smoothness was apparently catching. "So… do you?" he asked. "Wanna get out of here?"
"No, thanks," she said, and seemed to want to leave it at that.
Dean frowned, perplexed as she smiled at him. He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, realizing that he was just never, ever going to get laid at Harvard.
Fuck it, he thought, and decided to focus on what he could. "Say, you ever heard of that kid, Paul Stevens, who jumped in front of a bus near here?"
Carrie struggled to follow the abrupt change of subject. "What?" she said, with a small, surprised laugh. "Um, yeah, actually."
"How much did you know about him?"
Carrie gave him a skeptical look. "Why do you want to know?"
Dean shrugged. "Just curious. Looking for some horror stories to talk my brother out of going to law school."
Carrie laughed. "Oh, I could give you some of those, no problem." She sighed. "Poor Paul."
"Did you know him?"
"No. I met him once, maybe twice. He didn't make much of an impression, at the time. His girlfriend, though, she was kind of high profile around here. Big personality, if you know what I mean. So... people talked about him."
"What'd they say?"
"That he was in trouble. From the start, he really struggled. He was one of those kids who clearly didn't actually want to be here, you know? But Mummy and Daddy weren't giving him much choice."
Dean frowned. "So you think that's why he did it? Stepped in front of a bus instead of standing up to his family?"
Carrie shrugged. "Like I said, I didn't know the guy. I'm in no position to claim that I have a clue what was going on inside his head. But I'm sure coming home to Julia every night didn't help."
"His girlfriend?" Carrie nodded. "And why was that?"
"She was perfect. Top of her class, law review, had a job lined up from practically the first day she stepped on campus. Whereas he almost didn't pass his first year and couldn't get a job to save his life. Which is kind of a horrible thing to say, I guess, considering."
"They sound like an odd couple."
"Definitely. We all figured that she must have really loved him, because otherwise being with him seemed totally out of character."
"How well do you know her?"
"Not very. She was the editor of the law review when I petitioned on. We were sort of friends, for a while, but we've lost touch since she graduated."
"She talk about Paul much?"
"No. I think they were still living together when he died, but she threw herself into school after it happened, and never seemed to want to talk about it. And we weren't close enough that I felt like I could ask."
"You don't happen to know if she's still in town, do you?" Dean asked.
-=-=-=-=-=-
"So… what do you miss the most about Stanford?" Shaheen asked, knocking back a shot.
Sam snapped out of his reverie, which consisted of feverish swirling images of Deanny-er, Danny and Dean, and the fact that he just told Dean about Danny, and... what the fuck was he thinking?
"Dude, you all right?" Shaheen asked. "You look kinda spooked. Do you need another drink?"
"Yeah, I think so," Sam affirmed, reaching into the cooler for a beer. They were seated next to the bar on a small couch. The cramped apartment was dark and clogged with cigarette smoke and pot. A few feet over, two girls with thick plastic glasses and tall boots argued vehemently about Butler and Foucault. Sam turned his attention back to Shaheen.
"Miss the most? Um…"
"Oh man!" Shaheen exclaimed. "Sam, that was a fucked up question. I'm sorry, dude."
"What?" Sam said, not following.
"I mean, dude, I know you miss Jess the most. I'm really sorry she died. Really sorry, man. I shoulda said that earlier, it shoulda been the first thing I said, but I just… it was awkward, you know? I didn't want to, like, distress you in front your brother."
Shaheen appeared as though he might start to cry. The guy was incredibly drunk, but Sam was touched anyway. He had never really been offered any condolences, the way normally happens when someone you love dies. He had been too busy hitting the road in pursuit of vengeance. His psychology professor would probably say he hadn't gone through the appropriate "grieving process." No shit, Sherlock.
"Shaheen, man, it's okay. I understand. It was a strange time." Sam thumped Shaheen on the shoulder in what he hoped was a manly but comforting way. "And it's not like I was around, afterward."
"Yeah, you just skipped town. We were worried, man. A couple of us wondered if you had driven off a cliff or something. I was so fucking relieved when Becky told me she had heard from you and you were okay…"
Sam smiled. "Ha, well, I guess 'okay' is a relative term… remember what I do, Shaheen?"
Shaheen pursed his lips and lifted his drink, as if to say 'fair enough'. He studied Sam with slightly crossed eyes. "So Sam… now that I know what I know about your-um, 'work'-I gotta ask you. Did something… like, supernatural happen to Jess? Is that what's behind this whole thing?"
Sam didn't answer right away. He found himself searching for Dean in the crowd, but he couldn't find him. "I guess… yeah, that was the start of it. No, it kinda started before that… look, Shaheen, it's complicated…"
"Yeah, yeah, I get it. Trade secrets. Whatever, Sam, I probably already know too much and you'll have to kill me when this is all over."
Sam made a face like he was actually considering that option, and they laughed together. It felt nice. Sam almost forgot that he had just outed himself to his brother.
"Shaheen," he said, grinning. "I didn't want to tell you this, but the thing I miss most about Stanford is you."
"I knew it! I knew you always wanted me, Winchester."
At that moment, a skinny young man with a hook nose and an incredible bouffant of hair skipped over. He was wearing a skin-tight metallic shirt and a lot of… glitter?
"Hey, what's up, Travis?" Shaheen greeted him.
"Sha-HEEN, you must explain what that MAN is doing here." Travis extended one long elegant hand, pointing across the room. Sam finally recognized Dean in the crowd. He was, predictably, putting the moves on some blonde chick.
"Oh, that's Dean," said Shaheen.
"DEAN? Oh, of course he's named Dean! OF COURSE," Travis cried.
"He's with me," Sam blurted out for no reason at all.
"What?" Shaheen and Travis said in unison.
"I mean, he's my b-" he started to sputter.
"You two make SUCH a gorgeous couple!" Travis was thrilled. He flitted around Sam like a flutter pony. "I'm SO INTO the two of you, and I don't even know you. How long have you been together?"
Sam was dumbfounded, but Shaheen jumped in with a smirk: "It seems like practically their whole lives."
"Aw, the old married couple type?" Travis sparkled. "I LOVE it. You two are SO ADORABLE. Yet kind of scary. Like I think you could break me with your pinky fingers if you wanted…"
"That's probably true," agreed Sam.
Travis spotted someone else in the crowd, shrieked, and excused himself. Shaheen poured them more drinks. "So… is it awkward that people think you're dating your brother?"
Sam scratched his head. "Yeah. More than you could ever know." He was shocked to note how his cock twitched at the thought. He could feel the blood rushing down to his crotch, a tugging pressure building up against his jeans. Oh, hell…
Thankfully, Shaheen didn't seem to notice. "Sam, I got the sense earlier that you never told Dean about your little gay adventure in college."
"Well, he knows as of now!" Sam said, taking a thick swig of alcohol.
"Really? You told him just today? Dude, this is totally my fault, I never should have brought Danny up, I wasn't thinking…"
"No more apologies, Shaheen, seriously," Sam insisted. "It's fine. He didn't take it that well, but you know, I'm really relieved."
His friend nodded sagely. "It's best to just get things out in the open. To just confront the demons, y'know?"
Sam nodded also, because yes, he did know about confronting demons, he and Dean did it all the time together.
Shaheen continued: "None of this repression bullshit. It's a waste of fucking time. Life's too short, man. I guess you understand that better than me, anyway…"
Sam gazed out at Dean. The room wobbled a bit in his alcohol-soaked vision, but he could see every detail of Dean with alarming clarity. He observed his brother's broad shoulders, the way his jeans hugged his legs. Even from the distance across the room, he imagined he could make out Dean's goddamn long eyelashes. How does a guy have eyelashes like that? He saw Dean's lips and he remembered kissing Danny's lips, the hot solid presence of Danny's body against his, the strength and sinew of that body, the all-consuming orgasms that detonated in his system like fucking atom bombs…
"I am so fucking drunk," he announced to Shaheen.
"Dude, right?"
They sort of leaned into each other then. Sam thought about college. About how he had felt safe there, except not, because one thing had been missing. Shaheen was talking about the dining halls, advisers, long forgotten drama from their freshman hall… Sam nodded, laughed, shared a few anecdotes. He kept an eye on Dean. Could Dean feel his eyes on him? The alcohol made Sam brilliant, and it made him stupid at the exact same time. He knew everything; he knew nothing.
"There's a lot my brother doesn't know about me," he informed Shaheen, who smiled blearily and clicked their glasses together.
-=-=-=-=-=-
[ Part Three.]
Authors: shes_gone and peccatrixjusta
Artist: reallycorking
Notes: Warnings and authors' notes are here.
[ Part One.]
-=-=-=-=-=-
I slept with Danny.
Sam hadn't meant to say it. But it just happened. There was Dean, sitting across from him, stuffing his mouth with burger and poking him, goading him, staring at him with that stupid fucking knowing expression on his face. For once in his life, Sam just wanted to get his brother to Shut. The. Fuck. Up.
Informing Dean over dinner that he slept with a dude certainly did the trick.
Sam leaned back and coolly observed Dean's life-and-death struggle with his cheeseburger bite. Somehow Dean won, but the moment-it must have been only seconds-stretched out into a vast universe in Sam's mind.
He felt oddly calm in his body, like he sometimes felt during the climax of a hunt. Like anything could happen, and it didn't matter. And once again, images of Stanford washed all over him. This seemed to be happening a lot lately.
-=-=-
November 2002.
Sam couldn't breathe. Something was trying to smother him from above. Panicking, he jerked out of sleep and realized that he was face down on the bed, inhaling pillow. He propped himself up on his elbows, practically hyperventilating, and looked into the sleepy blinking eyes of the man next to him.
"Jesus Christ, Sam, are you okay?" Danny mumbled, barely awake.
Sam ran his hand through his hair, which was stiff with sleep and sweat. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine."
"No, you're not." Danny was more alert now, gazing at Sam like he could read his mind.
"Just a bad dream, I swear."
"Sammy…" Danny instantly cringed. "Shit. I know you hate it when I call you that. Sorry."
"No, I'm sorry… sorry to wake you up…" Sam sighed, collapsing down on the pillow.
"What are we, a couple of teenage girls? Enough with the apologies." Danny smiled, and Sam couldn't help but smile back.
They stared at each other in the late morning light. Sam found himself considering the moment: here they were, sprawled out on the futon in Danny's spartan dorm room. They had fucked the night before. They'd been fucking for about two months. It had started as a drunken fumble after a party. Danny initiated. Sam (or rather, Sam's cock) surprised them both by playing along.
Now Danny was looking at Sam with a familiar expression: half amused satisfaction, half total disbelief. Sam was pretty sure that Danny was waiting patiently for Sam to have some sort of obligatory straight dude meltdown. As if Sam would finally detect the naked guy in his bed and bolt. Danny's attitude seemed to consist of "I'll enjoy this while it lasts."
Sam never bothered to disabuse him of this. For his part, Sam was trying to avoid too much introspection. He wasn't sure which was weirder: the fact that he grew up hunting demons with his psychotic family, or that he currently allowed his R.A. to fuck him in the ass (and liked it, and reciprocated). The fact that he couldn't decide led him to believe that he shouldn't think about any of these things at all. But of course, he was Sam Winchester-over-analyzer extraordinaire.
Sam could hear Dean's voice: "Sammy, stop thinking so hard! You're giving me a fucking migraine."
Except, it wasn't Dean that just said that. It was Danny. Hazel-eyed Danny with his long swimmer's body and slightly crooked front teeth. Danny, who got kicked out of his house at sixteen for being gay, who crashed with friends until he earned his athletic scholarship to Stanford. Danny, who'd never met Dean and never would, who found Sam dark and mysterious and hot, and expressed all these sentiments. Frequently, in word and action.
Like now.
"Let me distract you…" Danny reached under the covers and grasped Sam's cock in his dry, strong hand. Sam's whole body woke up and his head emptied out. He drew towards Danny, through the blankness of his mind and the whiteness of the sheets. Their mouths smashed together, all clicking teeth and stubbly unshaven skin.
Sam held on and went with it.
And a tiny part of him thought, "If only you could see me now, Dad."
-=-=-
And here, in this moment, Dean had recovered and was staring at Sam with an unfathomable expression. Their surroundings faded; the whole world consisted of the two of them and the table in-between.
When Dean spoke, his voice was dangerously soft.
"So, when were you planning on telling me about this, Sam?"
Sam rolled his eyes. "What?"
"I said-"
"For Christ's sake, I heard you, Dean. It's just… you don't have the right to know every little thing I've ever done."
Dean leaned forward and spoke through clenched teeth. "Sam, hooking up with a man is not exactly a little thing!"
"Don't go all caveman big brother on me, Dean. We weren't idiots. It was safe every time."
"This happened more than once?!"
"Dean, shut up!"
"No!"
"Just… use your indoor voice, okay?"
Dean's skin was starting to flush. "Sam, I'm really not in the mood…"
"Neither am I," Sam snapped. But even as he said it, he had a sudden, rather shameful realization. He was in the mood. He kind of liked watching Dean squirm. Sadist, much? he thought to himself. But there was more to this than simply freaking out Dean, or making a power play. He wanted to make Dean feel… um…
Sam wasn't sure he wanted to investigate that line of thought further.
"Sam, look, just. Tell me what happened."
Sam sighed. "Okay. Okay. It was my freshman year. He was a year ahead of me." He made an editorial decision to omit that Danny was his R.A.; he didn't want to send Dean's protective instincts over the edge. "We just… I don't know. I guess you could say we dated."
"For how long?" Dean demanded.
"Like three months," Sam said. It really was over in a flash, but Sam knew that in Dean's universe, three months was practically married. "It wasn't, like, traditional dating… we weren't boyfriends or anything."
Dean visibly shuddered at the b-word. Sam leaned forward a little, angry and defensive but genuinely interested in something: "Dean, seriously-after everything we've seen-all the real evil you know is out there-I never expected any homophobic bullshit from you."
Dean looked at him sharply. "As if, Sam. I don't give a fuck that you… fucked a dude."
"You just can't believe I didn't tell you," Sam finished. "What's the problem… jealous that some guy mattered to me, and he wasn't you?"
I didn't just say that, Sam thought, for the first time scaring himself a little. They sat there, frozen. Dean was only a few feet away, but the distance between them was enormous. Sam felt that if he were to reach out and touch Dean's face, he would feel… nothing. The thought filled him with dread and he became absorbed in the salt and pepper shakers on the table.
"You boys need anything else?" It was the waitress. Sam could barely see her. He heard Dean ordering another round. There were several moments of silence, in which the waitress moved to the bar and drew them each a new beer. She deposited their drinks and left again. Sam forced himself to meet Dean's eyes.
There was a slight smile playing over his brother's lips. It filled Sam with relief. "Okay, Sammy," Dean declared, taking a long drink.
"Yeah," said Sam. He took a deep sip himself.
"How about you finish telling me about Danny." Dean's tone was carefully neutral, but there was no question in his voice. Sam decided to proceed with caution.
"Um… yeah, well. Like I said, it was just a few months. Then we stopped."
"Why? You too much for him, big boy?" Dean chuckled, having switched from bad cop to good cop. They were buddies again.
Sam felt slightly uncomfortable. They were working efficiently through their beers. He was aware of Dean signaling the waitress for yet more reinforcements. Clearly, neither of them could get through this conversation sober.
"Not exactly… he wanted to, you know, be in a relationship. At first he was cool with keeping things casual, but somewhere along the way he got all these ideas about us. I was sort of a jerk-I liked the guy a lot, but I couldn't really handle it."
"Because you're not gay?" Dean suggested helpfully.
"No… I mean, I don't know, Dean. It was never really about being gay or straight or bi…"
"Then what was it about? A big 'fuck you' to the old man?" Dean couldn't hide his smugness at figuring it all out.
Sam, though rather impressed at this brotherly insight, wasn't going to let Dean get the last word. "Sure. Yeah, Dean, maybe it was about Dad. I know this is hard for you to understand, but I needed to see myself through someone else's eyes. Danny… Danny did something for me. He saw something in me that no one else did."
He paused, accurately reading the expression his brother's face. "And don't say, 'Yeah, himself.' Grow the hell up, Dean. He was a good guy. We stayed friends. I hope he's happy with his new husband."
Dean shrugged, as if possibly conceding this point. "And I take it Shaheen knew all about this."
Sam felt relieved to shift into this territory. "Oh yeah. I mean, my whole circle of friends knew. We didn't broadcast it but it wasn't exactly a secret either."
There was a thoughtful break. Then Dean's right eyebrow cocked, and he simply said one word: "Jess?"
Sam understood. "Yeah, she knew." Dean looked at him incredulously. "Are you asking if she minded? Dean, Jess was practically raised by her lesbian aunts in L.A. She was the least judgmental person I've ever known. It was one of the best things about her." Sam experienced a genuine sense of warmth at this memory. This was the first time he had really thought about Jess in a long time; and instead of wanting to curl up in a fist of rage and grief, he felt a peculiar, quiet sadness settle in his body.
Dean appeared to be considering this, looking much more relaxed; they were both a bit drunk. "Yeah, but Sammy, it's one thing to have nice homo relatives. You were her boyfriend. Don't you think that's a little different? Like, she had to picture you with a dude, dude!" Dean's eyes widened with wonder at the thought.
Sam was buzzing. "Dean… this is going to blow your mind, man, but I gotta tell you-she thought it was hot."
"What?!"
Sam shrugged. A smile was taking over his face. With their brotherly camaraderie in place, it actually felt kinda good to talk about this. "Yeah, she liked to hear stories about it… with details…"
Dean's eyes went even wider, for a moment, and then he suddenly seemed to come to his senses. He slammed the table top a little too hard, drawing stares from other booths.
There was an instant, awkward tension reinstated between them.
"Sam, you're right. It's none of my goddamn business." He caught the waitress's eye. "Let's get the fuck out of here. We've got work to do."
-=-=-=-=-=-
"2115, right?" Dean asked, gesturing to the grey two-story on their left. Sam nodded and climbed the front steps, then paused as he looked at the buzzers for the four apartments that had apparently been carved out of the old building.
"Shit," he mumbled, and fished his phone out of his pocket to check Shaheen's text for the third time, after they'd forgotten the street name, and then the address, and now the apartment number. Dean squinted down the dark street, trying not to watch Sam out of the corner of his eye, and willed himself to relax. He really should've had another beer before they'd left the diner. He was pretty sure there was no level of drunk that was drunk enough for this.
"Look, Dean," Sam said as he tucked his phone back into his pocket. Dean managed a glance at him as he opened and closed his mouth. "We can still-we can still do this, right? Just… focus on the case?"
Dean frowned, and needed an honest-to-God moment to remember what case Sam was even talking about. Then he blinked. "Dude, of course. I'm a professional." Sam eyed him uncertainly, and Dean looked back down the street. "Honestly, man, it's fine. Don't worry about it. It's not a big deal."
Sam paused for a long moment, and Dean was afraid that he was going to try to talk about it again. But, "OK," Sam said, and pressed one of the buzzers. "Just… get as much info as you can. Let me know when you want to leave."
How about right now, Dean didn't say, because that would have meant more time alone with Sam, and he needed a break from that, at the moment.
A minute later, they were inside Shaheen's apartment, and Dean immediately turned right, in part because that was the direction of the booze table, and in part because Sam had turned left. He tossed the twelve pack that Sam had (wisely, Dean had to admit) insisted they bring into the cooler, and was halfway through a cold one before he could turn around and take in the party around him.
It was a pretty small party, but the living room was close to full. He scanned the various circles, trying to work out who seemed the most likely to know about their ghost, but somehow he ended up just staring at Sam. Who had found Shaheen, and was being introduced to a small group. They drifted towards the beer table, so Dean moved away. Dean eyed Shaheen's friends, wondering if any of them were like this Danny character, if any of them had known him, if any of them had their sights set on Sam as he settled down onto the couch with a laugh, his legs sprawling.
Dean closed his eyes a moment and took a long sip of his beer. He tried to settle his mind, which was a swirling mess of new information and a host of unwelcome images of Sam, and his bottle was empty incredibly quickly.
He opened his eyes and surveyed the room, turning his mind to the case as purposefully as he could. He needed to start talking to people. There were pockets of women around the room, standing in twos and threes, and he found himself approaching the closest one without even thinking about it, driven by some fundamental need to restore some balance to the universe.
He talked to Kristy and Lisa, a pair of brunettes in their second year who had both worked in New York City over the summer, but they'd never heard of Paul. Nicole, a 3L redhead originally from Tampa Bay, had heard of him, but didn't know any more than Dean already did. Whitney, a rather buxom blonde, launched into a rant about the lack of support of struggling law students that lasted for a good fifteen minutes (at least) before Dean could get her to clarify that she was not actually a law student, but was here with her boyfriend, Tom, who was, and maybe Dean should go talk to him? One look at Tom made it pretty clear how he felt about Dean enjoying Whitney's too-tight tank top, though, and even though Dean could totally take the guy, he didn't actually want to.
So he continued making the rounds, focussing as intently as he could on the women he was talking to, waiting for one of them to spark some interest-in his upstairs brain or down, he didn't care. He just needed a fucking distraction. Someone-anyone-to stop him from looking over at Sam every five seconds.
But it wasn't working. No one had anything interesting to say about Paul at all, and every time Dean would take notice of an inviting smile or a well-fitted pair of jeans, he'd hear Sam let out a loud laugh across the room (or maybe just inside his head), and he'd look over in time to catch Sam throwing his head back, exposing a ridiculously long stretch of neck, and it was all he could do not to grind his teeth into dust.
"Hey there," said a girl who had sidled up next to him. She was cute, brunette and bubbly, and smiling up at him with bright blue eyes. "I'm Ashley."
"Hi, Ashley. Dean."
"You look a little tense, Dean."
"Do I?"
She nodded, giving him an overly sympathetic look. "You do." She leaned in closer, and Dean could smell it on her before she said anything. "You want some of this?" she whispered, surreptitiously opening her hand for him, displaying a colorful glass pipe.
Dean didn't smoke pot. He'd been known to do it once or twice, especially if he was headed to bed with someone who offered, but it didn't particularly appeal to him. Booze was cheaper and did the job better, as far as he was concerned.
In that moment, though, he really wanted to. It smelled amazing, and Ashley was fucking cute, and this was probably exactly what he needed.
"What's wrong, you gotta work in the morning or something?" Ashley said, to Dean's hesitation.
Dean chuckled humorlessly. "No, but, uh," I'm supposed to be working right now. "Thanks, but no."
"OK," Ashley said, lifting her shoulders as if to say I tried. "But try to relax, would you? You're making some of us nervous." Dean frowned. "And maybe it would help if you just went and talked to him, already," she muttered.
Dean stared at her back as she walked away, and felt himself starting to lose it. Trying (and failing) not to look at Sam again, he made his way from the room, in search of the bathroom. He closed the door behind him and leaned up against it, closing his eyes and expelling a few deep breaths.
"C'mon, man," he muttered to himself. He took a piss and splashed some water on his face, but it didn't really help. It was time to go. He'd canvassed the party and come up dry, and Sam was looking way too comfortable to be getting any work done, either. They both needed some air and a change of scene.
When Dean walked back out into the party, the first thing he noticed wasn't Sam, for a change, but Ashley. She was in a large armchair, sitting in the lap of a tall girl with dirty-blonde hair. Ashley held the pipe to her own lips, then leaned in close to the girl's face, and breathed the smoke into her open mouth. The other girl inhaled and held her breath, and so did Dean. He watched, hoping, as she turned her head to the side to expel the smoke, and then, yes, leaned up to kiss Ashley's mouth.
"Nice," he breathed to himself, and then turned without thinking to find Sam, because Sam needed to see this, too. But when his eyes found Sam, sprawled on the small sofa next to Shaheen, looking ridiculously large and drunk and happy, chatting with this buddy, laughing, making a million new friends with just a smile and a handshake, Dean had to catch his breath.
Dean swallowed down his guilt, again, at how little of this Sam he knew. He wondered how much else had gone on at Stanford, how much else he didn't know about.
He watched Sam take a long pull from his beer, and felt something hot and dark flare in his gut. He had a sudden flash of Sam at eighteen, probably only a month or two before he had left, sprawled out on Bobby's dirty couch, tired and angry and sucking down a longneck then, too. Dean couldn't tear his eyes away fast enough.
He just stood there for a moment, breathing, and looked back at the girls in the armchair. They were still in-between drags, and he watched them as they kissed. Ashley's hands slid up the other girl's throat, and she rocked her hips a little as the girl's hands pressed against her back. Dean watched and imagined the rub of their jeans, the press of their chests.
"What do you think you're doing?"
Dean blinked and turned abruptly to his right, where a petite blonde was eyeing him pointedly, her arms crossed over her chest.
"I-uh. What?" he said, shaking himself a bit.
"You think they're here for your entertainment?"
He stared at her a moment. She raised a challenging eyebrow. "Now that's not fair," he said, and he didn't have to try that hard to sound offended. "I didn't ask them to go over there and start making out." Her expression didn't change. "And I can't help it if I've got a… natural curiosity."
She eyed him a moment longer, before smirking. "Yeah, well. Don't get your hopes up," she said resignedly. "They're not gonna go any further than that." She smiled, and Dean frowned.
"Huh?" Dean said.
"They do this at every party. Just to get a rise out of people. Tease us and tease us and tease us, but they never give us any more than just that."
Dean stared at her, confused, then looked back at the girls in the armchair. "OK," he said.
"I'm Carrie," she said, extending her hand.
"Oh, we're friends now?"
She smiled and shrugged. "If you'd like."
"Dean," he replied, shaking her hand. "And it's nice to meet you, Carrie, unless you've got any more angry feminist rants you want to throw at me."
"Ha," she said. "Not for another few minutes, at least."
Dean could deal with that. They turned their attention back to the girls in the armchair, but Dean found himself glancing back at Carrie several times in quick succession. He'd never checked out girls with a lesbian before.
"So what brings you here tonight, Dean?" she asked.
"It's a party, isn't it?"
"Well, yeah, but. Don't take this the wrong way, but, you seem a little out of place."
"That's sweet of you to say," he said flatly. "Thanks."
"That's not a bad thing, believe me. I'm just intrigued."
He eyed her a moment, and gave a small shrug. "My brother knows Shaheen. I'm here with him."
"Oh yeah? Which one's your brother?"
Dean gestured towards Sam. "Ginormo over there, taking up the whole couch."
"Really?" she said, with a glance at Sam and an expression of surprise.
"Uh, yeah. Why?"
"Um," she frowned. "No reason, I just… would not have guessed that that's how you knew him." She looked a little embarrassed. Dean frowned and cocked his head, but she pressed on before he could ask her what she meant. "So, um, are you in from out of town?"
"Yeah," Dean said, and decided that he'd had just enough beer to let it drop. "We're just passing through. Bit of a road trip."
"Nice," Carrie said. "That sounds fun."
"It can be."
"And what do you do, that you can take a road trip this time of year? Are you in school?"
"No, no. My job takes me on the road, actually. I, uh, tour the country, hunting and destroying various supernatural beings."
Carrie blinked, and then laughed. "That sounds… dangerous."
Dean smirked. "It can be. But someone's gotta do it."
"I suppose so," Carrie said. She chuckled again, and shot him a warm, sideways look.
"I'm a mechanic," he admitted, raising his shoulders.
"Really?" she said. "I like that. If there's one thing this place needs, it's more mechanics." Dean laughed. "So you're good with your hands, huh?"
"You could say that."
"My dad was a mechanic, actually," she said. "I love the smell of it. You know, the oil and the grease he could never get out from under his fingernails."
She grasped one of Dean's hands, pulling it close for an inspection. Dean blinked and suddenly found himself wondering if everyone who went off to some big fancy school came out batting for both teams, because there was no way this girl wasn't into him.
"You've got pretty clean hands, for a mechanic," she observed.
"Yeah, I'm between jobs right now. Just working on my own car, really."
"And I bet you drive something awesome."
Dean smiled. He liked this girl.
They talked for a long time, though Dean lost track of it, and wasn't sure how late it was when Sam passed them on the way to the bathroom. He suddenly realized he'd been thoroughly distracted from everything. He felt guilty, for a moment, knowing that he'd completely forgotten to work the case, but at least the evening wasn't going to be a total loss.
"So, Carrie," he said easily, "you wanna get out of here?"
She smiled, but looked surprised. "Um..."
She didn't say anything, and Dean wondered if he'd read her entirely wrong. "Sorry," he said, "that was stupid."
"Why?" she asked.
He looked at her a bit helplessly. "You made it pretty clear when you came over here that… you like, you know…"
She raised her eyebrows.
"Girls," he managed.
She smiled. "No, no," she said. "I mean, yes, but that's not it. I, uh, I guess I was just surprised when you didn't make a move, earlier. And then I figured you weren't going to. So it just… caught me a little off-guard."
"Oh. Sorry."
"It's OK."
An awkward moment passed, and Dean wondered what the fuck was wrong with him right now. Here was this hot girl, who was clearly into him, and he was just... sucking. Clearly he'd been spending too much time with his brother, whose complete lack of smoothness was apparently catching. "So… do you?" he asked. "Wanna get out of here?"
"No, thanks," she said, and seemed to want to leave it at that.
Dean frowned, perplexed as she smiled at him. He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, realizing that he was just never, ever going to get laid at Harvard.
Fuck it, he thought, and decided to focus on what he could. "Say, you ever heard of that kid, Paul Stevens, who jumped in front of a bus near here?"
Carrie struggled to follow the abrupt change of subject. "What?" she said, with a small, surprised laugh. "Um, yeah, actually."
"How much did you know about him?"
Carrie gave him a skeptical look. "Why do you want to know?"
Dean shrugged. "Just curious. Looking for some horror stories to talk my brother out of going to law school."
Carrie laughed. "Oh, I could give you some of those, no problem." She sighed. "Poor Paul."
"Did you know him?"
"No. I met him once, maybe twice. He didn't make much of an impression, at the time. His girlfriend, though, she was kind of high profile around here. Big personality, if you know what I mean. So... people talked about him."
"What'd they say?"
"That he was in trouble. From the start, he really struggled. He was one of those kids who clearly didn't actually want to be here, you know? But Mummy and Daddy weren't giving him much choice."
Dean frowned. "So you think that's why he did it? Stepped in front of a bus instead of standing up to his family?"
Carrie shrugged. "Like I said, I didn't know the guy. I'm in no position to claim that I have a clue what was going on inside his head. But I'm sure coming home to Julia every night didn't help."
"His girlfriend?" Carrie nodded. "And why was that?"
"She was perfect. Top of her class, law review, had a job lined up from practically the first day she stepped on campus. Whereas he almost didn't pass his first year and couldn't get a job to save his life. Which is kind of a horrible thing to say, I guess, considering."
"They sound like an odd couple."
"Definitely. We all figured that she must have really loved him, because otherwise being with him seemed totally out of character."
"How well do you know her?"
"Not very. She was the editor of the law review when I petitioned on. We were sort of friends, for a while, but we've lost touch since she graduated."
"She talk about Paul much?"
"No. I think they were still living together when he died, but she threw herself into school after it happened, and never seemed to want to talk about it. And we weren't close enough that I felt like I could ask."
"You don't happen to know if she's still in town, do you?" Dean asked.
-=-=-=-=-=-
"So… what do you miss the most about Stanford?" Shaheen asked, knocking back a shot.
Sam snapped out of his reverie, which consisted of feverish swirling images of Deanny-er, Danny and Dean, and the fact that he just told Dean about Danny, and... what the fuck was he thinking?
"Dude, you all right?" Shaheen asked. "You look kinda spooked. Do you need another drink?"
"Yeah, I think so," Sam affirmed, reaching into the cooler for a beer. They were seated next to the bar on a small couch. The cramped apartment was dark and clogged with cigarette smoke and pot. A few feet over, two girls with thick plastic glasses and tall boots argued vehemently about Butler and Foucault. Sam turned his attention back to Shaheen.
"Miss the most? Um…"
"Oh man!" Shaheen exclaimed. "Sam, that was a fucked up question. I'm sorry, dude."
"What?" Sam said, not following.
"I mean, dude, I know you miss Jess the most. I'm really sorry she died. Really sorry, man. I shoulda said that earlier, it shoulda been the first thing I said, but I just… it was awkward, you know? I didn't want to, like, distress you in front your brother."
Shaheen appeared as though he might start to cry. The guy was incredibly drunk, but Sam was touched anyway. He had never really been offered any condolences, the way normally happens when someone you love dies. He had been too busy hitting the road in pursuit of vengeance. His psychology professor would probably say he hadn't gone through the appropriate "grieving process." No shit, Sherlock.
"Shaheen, man, it's okay. I understand. It was a strange time." Sam thumped Shaheen on the shoulder in what he hoped was a manly but comforting way. "And it's not like I was around, afterward."
"Yeah, you just skipped town. We were worried, man. A couple of us wondered if you had driven off a cliff or something. I was so fucking relieved when Becky told me she had heard from you and you were okay…"
Sam smiled. "Ha, well, I guess 'okay' is a relative term… remember what I do, Shaheen?"
Shaheen pursed his lips and lifted his drink, as if to say 'fair enough'. He studied Sam with slightly crossed eyes. "So Sam… now that I know what I know about your-um, 'work'-I gotta ask you. Did something… like, supernatural happen to Jess? Is that what's behind this whole thing?"
Sam didn't answer right away. He found himself searching for Dean in the crowd, but he couldn't find him. "I guess… yeah, that was the start of it. No, it kinda started before that… look, Shaheen, it's complicated…"
"Yeah, yeah, I get it. Trade secrets. Whatever, Sam, I probably already know too much and you'll have to kill me when this is all over."
Sam made a face like he was actually considering that option, and they laughed together. It felt nice. Sam almost forgot that he had just outed himself to his brother.
"Shaheen," he said, grinning. "I didn't want to tell you this, but the thing I miss most about Stanford is you."
"I knew it! I knew you always wanted me, Winchester."
At that moment, a skinny young man with a hook nose and an incredible bouffant of hair skipped over. He was wearing a skin-tight metallic shirt and a lot of… glitter?
"Hey, what's up, Travis?" Shaheen greeted him.
"Sha-HEEN, you must explain what that MAN is doing here." Travis extended one long elegant hand, pointing across the room. Sam finally recognized Dean in the crowd. He was, predictably, putting the moves on some blonde chick.
"Oh, that's Dean," said Shaheen.
"DEAN? Oh, of course he's named Dean! OF COURSE," Travis cried.
"He's with me," Sam blurted out for no reason at all.
"What?" Shaheen and Travis said in unison.
"I mean, he's my b-" he started to sputter.
"You two make SUCH a gorgeous couple!" Travis was thrilled. He flitted around Sam like a flutter pony. "I'm SO INTO the two of you, and I don't even know you. How long have you been together?"
Sam was dumbfounded, but Shaheen jumped in with a smirk: "It seems like practically their whole lives."
"Aw, the old married couple type?" Travis sparkled. "I LOVE it. You two are SO ADORABLE. Yet kind of scary. Like I think you could break me with your pinky fingers if you wanted…"
"That's probably true," agreed Sam.
Travis spotted someone else in the crowd, shrieked, and excused himself. Shaheen poured them more drinks. "So… is it awkward that people think you're dating your brother?"
Sam scratched his head. "Yeah. More than you could ever know." He was shocked to note how his cock twitched at the thought. He could feel the blood rushing down to his crotch, a tugging pressure building up against his jeans. Oh, hell…
Thankfully, Shaheen didn't seem to notice. "Sam, I got the sense earlier that you never told Dean about your little gay adventure in college."
"Well, he knows as of now!" Sam said, taking a thick swig of alcohol.
"Really? You told him just today? Dude, this is totally my fault, I never should have brought Danny up, I wasn't thinking…"
"No more apologies, Shaheen, seriously," Sam insisted. "It's fine. He didn't take it that well, but you know, I'm really relieved."
His friend nodded sagely. "It's best to just get things out in the open. To just confront the demons, y'know?"
Sam nodded also, because yes, he did know about confronting demons, he and Dean did it all the time together.
Shaheen continued: "None of this repression bullshit. It's a waste of fucking time. Life's too short, man. I guess you understand that better than me, anyway…"
Sam gazed out at Dean. The room wobbled a bit in his alcohol-soaked vision, but he could see every detail of Dean with alarming clarity. He observed his brother's broad shoulders, the way his jeans hugged his legs. Even from the distance across the room, he imagined he could make out Dean's goddamn long eyelashes. How does a guy have eyelashes like that? He saw Dean's lips and he remembered kissing Danny's lips, the hot solid presence of Danny's body against his, the strength and sinew of that body, the all-consuming orgasms that detonated in his system like fucking atom bombs…
"I am so fucking drunk," he announced to Shaheen.
"Dude, right?"
They sort of leaned into each other then. Sam thought about college. About how he had felt safe there, except not, because one thing had been missing. Shaheen was talking about the dining halls, advisers, long forgotten drama from their freshman hall… Sam nodded, laughed, shared a few anecdotes. He kept an eye on Dean. Could Dean feel his eyes on him? The alcohol made Sam brilliant, and it made him stupid at the exact same time. He knew everything; he knew nothing.
"There's a lot my brother doesn't know about me," he informed Shaheen, who smiled blearily and clicked their glasses together.
-=-=-=-=-=-
[ Part Three.]