Bad Dreams, Ch02
Series: Supernatural
Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester
Couple: Sam/Dean
Title: Bad Dreams
Word Count: 3,413
Chapter: 2/?
Status: Incomplete
Rating: Mature
Disclaimer: Trust me, I'm way too broke to have any rights on this. They belong to their respective owners...all hundred of them or so.
Summary: An encounter with a dream's demon shows things to Dean he's not sure he's ready to see.
(I haven’t actually seen the show in a long while, I stopped watching after season 7, so I’m going to try to find time to watch a few of the early episodes to, hopefully, make sure I’ve got the characters right. Also, I know less than zero about how cars work, so forgive me if I’m a bit vague on details and what they’re doing.)
Sam glanced at Dean out of the corner of his eye. His hands were tense on the steering wheel and he stared right ahead with an intensity that didn’t seem to be needed. He wished he knew what was going on in his head, but whenever he broached the subject of the dream’s demon, Dean grew defensive and withdrawn. What had he seen? Was it a family, maybe? No, that didn’t seem like something his brother would want…and yet he couldn’t dismiss it entirely because hadn’t it happened once before? Dean’s fantasy world a few years ago with the jin had been about that.
“Dude, stop staring at me.”
He blinked. “What?”
“I can feel you thinking at me. Stop it.”
“Thinking at you?” He couldn’t help but laugh and there was a faint smile Dean threw his way. “What exactly does that even mean?”
“Sam, you’re the king of brooding.”
“What am I brooding about then?”
“About two days ago, aren’t you? With that dream demon.”
“Oh, right. Then why don’t you tell me what happened so I can stop then.”
Dean threw him a look that said ‘ha, right, I know what you’re doing’. “Now, are you going to tell me what you found or not?”
He closed the journal on his lap; they’d both gone through it so many times that he would have thought they’d memorized it by now, but there was always something more to read. The book was becoming too well-worn, could possibly fall apart in the next year. “Sounds like it could be a rusalka. It’s a Russian spirit, usually of someone who died violently like women who committed suicide because of a lover betrayed them.”
“Like the Woman in White?”
Sam tilted his head. “Similar, yes, but rusalki don’t have to always be that. Could be from unmarried women who were pregnant and died, or even, at least according to the journal, unbaptized children. They all haunt water, though, and are never really far from it.”
“Great. Any hints on getting rid of one?”
“We’ve got to know what we’re dealing with first, Dean. There’s all manner of suggestions, but it depends on if it’s a woman or a child. How far away are we?”
“About a hundred miles.”
“Wake me up when we’re close then.” Sam shifted, slumping in the seat and reclining it just a bit. As he closed his eyes, he saw Dean look over to him, eyes roving up from his head to his feet, before going back to the road. He really didn’t like not knowing that had happened to Dean; after Ruby, after Dean had just barely stopped him from unleashing the apocalypse, Sam had realized just how close he’d come to destroying their relationship entirely. He’d pushed Dean away so much that no one would have faulted his brother for giving up on him, on them…but he hadn’t. Dean was stubborn like that.
As he felt sleep slowly start to grip him, he dreamed. It had been a long time since he’d dreamed of Jessica, even though she was always there in the back of his mind, a precious memory of a person that had made such an impact on his life. He could feel her touch singing along his nerve endings as he remembered that drunken night three weeks into their relationship. She hadn’t known the reason he’d gotten drunk, hadn’t heard the argument he’d had with his brother over the phone, the last time he’d spoken with Dean before Dean had come to see him two years later.
His eyes flickered beneath his lids as he dreamed, remembered, the most passionate time he’d ever been with anyone, how he’d held her tight as if he feared if he let go she might disappear. She’d been as wasted as he was, if not moreso. Though he would never admit it, he was actually grateful because it kept her from remembering the name he’d shouted as he thrust into her form over him.
“Dean!”
She didn’t remember, had passed out almost as soon as she’d reached her climax…but Sam did. It had taken a few weeks to get snatches of that night in any clarity and when he did, he’d been horrified. His brother’s name had been on his lips as he’d orgasmed. Not only had it felt like a betrayal to Jessica, but also to Dean himself. He’d tormented himself for months over it before he’d forced himself to sit down and really think about it. If there were two people he loved in the world beyond anything, it was Jessica and Dean. They were separate, not interchangeable, and he loved both to his very core romantically.
Once he had acknowledged that he loved Dean regardless, that he had an attraction to his elder brother, it had been surprisingly easy to set it aside. Jessica had been there, filling his life with light and fun and her smiles. Then that light had disappeared with her death and he swore that his heart would grow withered and black.
Maybe it would have if it wasn’t for Dean. Those feelings, his relationship with his brother that he had packaged so neatly in a box and set aside protectively in his mind and soul, had become a balm. It took root nearby the now withered tree Jessica’s death had left and had grown stronger and stronger. When Ruby had interfered, some of the branches had gotten cut and scars on the trunk were left behind…but it was still there and now it was healing. His love for his brother, both as brothers and as a partner, had only grown and he had memorized the images that he’d see occasionally of his brother in various states of dress, because there was no way anything could come-
A hand shook his shoulder, jerking him awake. “What?” he muttered sleepily, fixing his seat and sitting up. He glanced around, but they were still driving. “Why’d you wake me?”
Dean looked over at his grousing. “Thought I should do that before you got really into it.”
Just as he was about to demand what Dean was talking about, he shifted and felt it. His jeans were tight and now he realized that he had an aching erection. Sam groaned in embarrassment and rubbed his face with his hands. This was not what he needed when he was trapped in the car with Dean and his imagination running wild, of just wanting Dean to pull over so bad and crawl into lap, and let Sam love him, all of him, until he was raw-
“Need me to pull over?”
The more primitive side of his brain screamed yes and it didn’t help the thoughts whirling around in his mind, but the rest of his higher brain functions attempted to tamp down on it, knowing that that was not what Dean was implying. “No, I’m good.”
“Dude, you’re not jacking off in my car.”
“No, I’m not!” he spat back, crossing his leg over the other so he could keep his erection from Dean’s sight. He was not going to have his brother pull over to deal with this; in fact, he wasn’t going to deal with it at all. He combed through his memory to think the least arousing things he’d ever seen, hoping that would deal with it.
“Sam-”
“Just drive, Dean.”
“Man, you get tetchy when you’re sexually frustrated.”
He had no idea, Sam thought, glaring at Dean and trying not to imagine the man nude and riding his lap.
-0-
“I can’t believe this! This is the last time I let you drive!”
“Me?!” Sam glared at him from the passenger seat, soaked to the bone and shifting uncomfortably in his wet clothes and wet seat.
“Yes. You drove my fucking car into the lake! Everything in the trunk is soaked, all our clothes are soaked, we’re lucky the damn engine even turned over! God knows how long we’ll be stuck at Bobby’s while I figure out what this gurgling noise is!”
Sam’s look was pure anger and frustration. “What did you want me to do, let her drown you?!”
“I didn’t want you to drive my car into the lake!”
“The car is not as important as you! We can replace a car!”
Dean drew back as if slapped. “Don’t you ever say that again! Don’t listen to him,” he cooed at the car, “you’re irreplaceable.”
In truth, he was deliberately keeping Sam riled up and arguing with him so he didn’t have to actually look at his brother in his wet clothes. It had been difficult enough yesterday morning on the drive when his brother had been dreaming ‘happy things’, because it reminded him of his own hallucination of the dream demon. And that was all it was, a hallucination.
God, Sam looked good in those wet jeans.
He hit the wheel of the car hard, the brief flare of pain in his hand centering his thoughts for a minute. This was not how it was supposed to be! That hallucination was not supposed to leave any lasting effects and here he was, with a lasting effect. He couldn’t get it out of his head, how right and perfect it had felt. Like what they had done in that dream had just been a natural extension of their relationship. There had been nothing wrong about how it had felt, even though he’d always kept in the forefront of his mind that Sam was his brother.
How the hell was he supposed to hide that from Sam? His brother was right, he could always tell when he was lying or what he was feeling most of the time. The last thing he wanted to do was have him find out about these…these…hallucinations. It wasn’t that he had anything against gay couples or people, but it wasn’t him and it wasn’t with his brother. It wasn’t as if children would come into the mix, but-
“Now who’s brooding?”
He blinked, drawn out of his thoughts and glanced over at Sam, who was still looking pissed about something. Dean almost shuddered at the idle thought that crossed his mind about wanting to kiss that frown away. No, he’d have to talk to Bobby about this…away from Sam. He had to know if there was some lingering effects from his captivity with the dream demon, like a poison left behind. Books could be wrong; it couldn’t be that this was something he wanted.
“Shut up,” he responded, his bad mood making him take it out on Sam.
This was all his fault.
The drive to Bobby’s was tense and silent and the engine stalled twice on him. By that time the seats and their clothes had dried to some extent, but the carpeting on the floor of the car was still squishy. As he stormed out of the car, Bobby stepped out of the house, wiping his hands on a rag. “Didn’t expect to see you boys.”
“Tell me you’ve got a beer, Bobby.”
“In the fridge.”
Dean stalked past his father-figure and into the kitchen. It was sheer habit that made him grab two, one for himself and his brother. He took a deep breath, sliding off his leather jacket and dropped it on the back of a chair. He could do this. He just had to find Bobby alone for a bit, without Sam there, and they could fix whatever the problem was with him.
When he retraced his steps to the porch, he paused to watch the two most important people in his life. They were all but whispering, deep in conversation, and there was a complicated look on Sam’s face. As he walked closer, he heard the tail end of whatever his brother was saying. “-terrified that I’d-we’d-lose him.”
As soon as they noticed him, the conversation stopped and he figured that he wasn’t supposed to have heard anything, so he pretended he didn’t. He wasn’t sure why he wasn’t allowed to know; Sam was a worrier and he knew that. He knew his brother was worried about him, so why was this a need for a clandestine meeting? He shoved the beer into Sam’s hand and said, “I need to work on the engine, Bobby. Got the parts for me around here somewhere?”
“Since when do I not? You’re always fixing it.”
“Good. Sam.” He smirked at his brother, who eyed him warily, “Since it was your fault that my car is now not working, you get to do the laundry. Go dry our clothes.”
“What?! I saved your life-”
“And now you can do the laundry.” He made a shooing motion with his hand and grinned in amusement at the annoyed expression his brother’s face. He tried not to ogle Sam’s ass when he opened the back seat of the car and bent down to grab their bags.
Dean left the doors open to help the carpet dry and popped both the hood and the trunk in the contemplative silence left in his brother’s wake. “Would you look at this…” he muttered in frustration, gesturing at the engine.
Bobby wandered over, glanced at it, and then asked as bluntly as he was known to be, “So what’s the problem?”
“Well, as you can see-”
“Not the car, Dean.”
Since when could he ever hide anything from Bobby? Dean sighed and he took his beer, wandering away and feeling the older man follow him, still in that worn but trademark hat of his. As they headed deeper into the junkyard, he felt safe enough away from Sam that he could talk about it. He found a stool next to a wooden table that had seen much better days and dropped down on it. “Do those dream demons we hunted a few days ago leave any after effects?”
Bobby blinked. “What? No, not that it mentioned. Why? Having problems?”
“Hallucinations, actually.”
The confused look turned serious. “Hallucinations of what? How bad are they?”
God, he really didn’t want to do this. “Look, you have to swear not to tell Sam about this. We can fix the problems ourselves, without him knowing.”
“Dean.”
He nudged his booted foot against the ground and gritted his teeth. “They’re about Sam. Things I shouldn’t be thinking about because he’s my brother.”
If the emphasis clicked in, Bobby didn’t show it. “What, like killing him? Hurting him?”
“More like fucking him.”
The silence was heavy between them and Dean couldn’t meet the man’s eyes. He waited for the condemnation, for the ‘disgusting’ comments, but instead, Bobby simply asked, “Dean, what did you see when the demon had you?”
“You remember the jin, right? It was kind of like that. I was in another life or something, but this time, Sam and I weren’t brothers. Adam was my brother and I’d actually married Sam.” His fingers gripped the bottle tightly, but he knew he had to finish. Who knew if some detail that he left out could actually be significant, a clue to removing whatever was on him. “You guys didn’t trap him quick enough before…before…”
“Before you had sex with Sam in this dream.”
“Yeah.”
Bobby finally came closer, sitting on a stool himself on the opposite side of the table. “Who’s Adam?”
He blinked at the seemingly random question before he realized neither had ever told Bobby about him. “He was…our half-brother. Dad’s other son. He kept him out of this business. He was killed by some ghouls that were taking revenge for their parents that Dad took out.”
There was a moment of surprisingly companionable silence between them. Dean finished his beer and found himself playing with the bottle in his hand. He let his mentor think, comb through the library in his head.
“What makes you think you’ve got a problem now?” the man finally asked.
“Because I’m still having hallucinations, Bobby. I look over at Sam, and I…”
“You sure it’s not just your superimposing the dream? That you’re not just remembering it?”
“No, this is different.” This was the most difficult thing in his life, but Bobby was calm, accepting, and just waiting for him to continue. There was no judgment, no condemnation. “I…look at Sam, and I think of…things. Things I want to do, here and now. It’s not just because of the dream. What’s worse is that I don’t feel…comfortable anymore without it.”
“Comfortable?”
“Like there’s something missing. In that dream, when we…it felt good.” At Bobby’s eyebrow, he almost blushed. “Not just the sex part, but the fact that we were…doing it. It was like I’d been waiting, fucking waiting, for this to happen for a long time. And now it won’t leave me alone! Bobby, there’s got to be something, a poison or a spell leftover from this because why would it still continue to…to…”
“Cause ‘hallucinations’? Which, by the way, what you’re describing isn’t really a hallucination, but let’s head on past that…”
Dean nodded, feeling a surprising bit better at having said it all out loud. At least now they could work on fixing it-
“Hate to break it to you, Dean, but there’s no spell on you and it’s not a poison. No lore anywhere ever mentioned it. What you saw in that dream was because of the demon; everything after when you woke up is all you. Dream demon’s can be really nasty because of this. They take whatever is deepest in your heart, that you want, and drag it right up front where you can’t ignore it. It’s not just about love; sometimes people don’t realize just how much they hate someone and end up killing them over it. All the demon does is show you what’s in there, but because it’s buried so deep you might not even know about it, once it’s out in the open, once it’s clear, it’s almost impossible to ignore.”
“It can’t be, Bobby!” he spat, standing up and pacing. That was not what he wanted to hear! “It can’t be that way!”
“Why not?”
“We’re brothers! Biological brothers! It’s incest!”
Bobby leaned forward, bracing his arms against the table. “Look, Dean. I’m not trying to say that what you said isn’t true; I’m not going to just throw out a revelation that you aren’t related and all your worries are for nothing. But you’ve got to realize that as hunters, we don’t get many chances. Very few of us are ever happy, or find someone in life that we can be with. Even fewer ever work with anyone. You and Sam are different because you have each other and that’s more rare than anything I’ve ever seen. Most hunters are bitter, unhappy, and alone, so I’ve always believed that if a hunter can find happiness with someone, particularly if they’re also another hunter, they should take that chance because it doesn’t come around that often. Yes, you’re brothers, but there’s no worry about kids…and Sam makes you happy, doesn’t he?”
What Bobby said did make some sense to Dean, because he had seen the same thing about most of the other hunters he’d come across. Hell, he remembered saying something remarkably similar once, but it was different somehow when it was himself. “You’re actually telling me you’d be okay with the two of us having sex.”
“No, I’m telling you that I’d be okay with you two having a relationship. Don’t start it just to ‘help each other out’, but because you actually want to take what relationship you have to the next level.”
Dean looked at the empty bottle in his hand and threw it in the nearby trash can. “Doesn’t matter anyway, I guess.”
“Why?”
“Why? Bobby, it’s Sam. If you’re right, then this means I’ve wanted this, whatever this is, for a long time, but Sam didn’t. He won’t think of me like that. He can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I know what you’re trying to do, Bobby, and it’s not gonna work. I’m not gonna tell him.”
“Tell me what?”
Shit.
Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester
Couple: Sam/Dean
Title: Bad Dreams
Word Count: 3,413
Chapter: 2/?
Status: Incomplete
Rating: Mature
Disclaimer: Trust me, I'm way too broke to have any rights on this. They belong to their respective owners...all hundred of them or so.
Summary: An encounter with a dream's demon shows things to Dean he's not sure he's ready to see.
(I haven’t actually seen the show in a long while, I stopped watching after season 7, so I’m going to try to find time to watch a few of the early episodes to, hopefully, make sure I’ve got the characters right. Also, I know less than zero about how cars work, so forgive me if I’m a bit vague on details and what they’re doing.)
Sam glanced at Dean out of the corner of his eye. His hands were tense on the steering wheel and he stared right ahead with an intensity that didn’t seem to be needed. He wished he knew what was going on in his head, but whenever he broached the subject of the dream’s demon, Dean grew defensive and withdrawn. What had he seen? Was it a family, maybe? No, that didn’t seem like something his brother would want…and yet he couldn’t dismiss it entirely because hadn’t it happened once before? Dean’s fantasy world a few years ago with the jin had been about that.
“Dude, stop staring at me.”
He blinked. “What?”
“I can feel you thinking at me. Stop it.”
“Thinking at you?” He couldn’t help but laugh and there was a faint smile Dean threw his way. “What exactly does that even mean?”
“Sam, you’re the king of brooding.”
“What am I brooding about then?”
“About two days ago, aren’t you? With that dream demon.”
“Oh, right. Then why don’t you tell me what happened so I can stop then.”
Dean threw him a look that said ‘ha, right, I know what you’re doing’. “Now, are you going to tell me what you found or not?”
He closed the journal on his lap; they’d both gone through it so many times that he would have thought they’d memorized it by now, but there was always something more to read. The book was becoming too well-worn, could possibly fall apart in the next year. “Sounds like it could be a rusalka. It’s a Russian spirit, usually of someone who died violently like women who committed suicide because of a lover betrayed them.”
“Like the Woman in White?”
Sam tilted his head. “Similar, yes, but rusalki don’t have to always be that. Could be from unmarried women who were pregnant and died, or even, at least according to the journal, unbaptized children. They all haunt water, though, and are never really far from it.”
“Great. Any hints on getting rid of one?”
“We’ve got to know what we’re dealing with first, Dean. There’s all manner of suggestions, but it depends on if it’s a woman or a child. How far away are we?”
“About a hundred miles.”
“Wake me up when we’re close then.” Sam shifted, slumping in the seat and reclining it just a bit. As he closed his eyes, he saw Dean look over to him, eyes roving up from his head to his feet, before going back to the road. He really didn’t like not knowing that had happened to Dean; after Ruby, after Dean had just barely stopped him from unleashing the apocalypse, Sam had realized just how close he’d come to destroying their relationship entirely. He’d pushed Dean away so much that no one would have faulted his brother for giving up on him, on them…but he hadn’t. Dean was stubborn like that.
As he felt sleep slowly start to grip him, he dreamed. It had been a long time since he’d dreamed of Jessica, even though she was always there in the back of his mind, a precious memory of a person that had made such an impact on his life. He could feel her touch singing along his nerve endings as he remembered that drunken night three weeks into their relationship. She hadn’t known the reason he’d gotten drunk, hadn’t heard the argument he’d had with his brother over the phone, the last time he’d spoken with Dean before Dean had come to see him two years later.
His eyes flickered beneath his lids as he dreamed, remembered, the most passionate time he’d ever been with anyone, how he’d held her tight as if he feared if he let go she might disappear. She’d been as wasted as he was, if not moreso. Though he would never admit it, he was actually grateful because it kept her from remembering the name he’d shouted as he thrust into her form over him.
“Dean!”
She didn’t remember, had passed out almost as soon as she’d reached her climax…but Sam did. It had taken a few weeks to get snatches of that night in any clarity and when he did, he’d been horrified. His brother’s name had been on his lips as he’d orgasmed. Not only had it felt like a betrayal to Jessica, but also to Dean himself. He’d tormented himself for months over it before he’d forced himself to sit down and really think about it. If there were two people he loved in the world beyond anything, it was Jessica and Dean. They were separate, not interchangeable, and he loved both to his very core romantically.
Once he had acknowledged that he loved Dean regardless, that he had an attraction to his elder brother, it had been surprisingly easy to set it aside. Jessica had been there, filling his life with light and fun and her smiles. Then that light had disappeared with her death and he swore that his heart would grow withered and black.
Maybe it would have if it wasn’t for Dean. Those feelings, his relationship with his brother that he had packaged so neatly in a box and set aside protectively in his mind and soul, had become a balm. It took root nearby the now withered tree Jessica’s death had left and had grown stronger and stronger. When Ruby had interfered, some of the branches had gotten cut and scars on the trunk were left behind…but it was still there and now it was healing. His love for his brother, both as brothers and as a partner, had only grown and he had memorized the images that he’d see occasionally of his brother in various states of dress, because there was no way anything could come-
A hand shook his shoulder, jerking him awake. “What?” he muttered sleepily, fixing his seat and sitting up. He glanced around, but they were still driving. “Why’d you wake me?”
Dean looked over at his grousing. “Thought I should do that before you got really into it.”
Just as he was about to demand what Dean was talking about, he shifted and felt it. His jeans were tight and now he realized that he had an aching erection. Sam groaned in embarrassment and rubbed his face with his hands. This was not what he needed when he was trapped in the car with Dean and his imagination running wild, of just wanting Dean to pull over so bad and crawl into lap, and let Sam love him, all of him, until he was raw-
“Need me to pull over?”
The more primitive side of his brain screamed yes and it didn’t help the thoughts whirling around in his mind, but the rest of his higher brain functions attempted to tamp down on it, knowing that that was not what Dean was implying. “No, I’m good.”
“Dude, you’re not jacking off in my car.”
“No, I’m not!” he spat back, crossing his leg over the other so he could keep his erection from Dean’s sight. He was not going to have his brother pull over to deal with this; in fact, he wasn’t going to deal with it at all. He combed through his memory to think the least arousing things he’d ever seen, hoping that would deal with it.
“Sam-”
“Just drive, Dean.”
“Man, you get tetchy when you’re sexually frustrated.”
He had no idea, Sam thought, glaring at Dean and trying not to imagine the man nude and riding his lap.
-0-
“I can’t believe this! This is the last time I let you drive!”
“Me?!” Sam glared at him from the passenger seat, soaked to the bone and shifting uncomfortably in his wet clothes and wet seat.
“Yes. You drove my fucking car into the lake! Everything in the trunk is soaked, all our clothes are soaked, we’re lucky the damn engine even turned over! God knows how long we’ll be stuck at Bobby’s while I figure out what this gurgling noise is!”
Sam’s look was pure anger and frustration. “What did you want me to do, let her drown you?!”
“I didn’t want you to drive my car into the lake!”
“The car is not as important as you! We can replace a car!”
Dean drew back as if slapped. “Don’t you ever say that again! Don’t listen to him,” he cooed at the car, “you’re irreplaceable.”
In truth, he was deliberately keeping Sam riled up and arguing with him so he didn’t have to actually look at his brother in his wet clothes. It had been difficult enough yesterday morning on the drive when his brother had been dreaming ‘happy things’, because it reminded him of his own hallucination of the dream demon. And that was all it was, a hallucination.
God, Sam looked good in those wet jeans.
He hit the wheel of the car hard, the brief flare of pain in his hand centering his thoughts for a minute. This was not how it was supposed to be! That hallucination was not supposed to leave any lasting effects and here he was, with a lasting effect. He couldn’t get it out of his head, how right and perfect it had felt. Like what they had done in that dream had just been a natural extension of their relationship. There had been nothing wrong about how it had felt, even though he’d always kept in the forefront of his mind that Sam was his brother.
How the hell was he supposed to hide that from Sam? His brother was right, he could always tell when he was lying or what he was feeling most of the time. The last thing he wanted to do was have him find out about these…these…hallucinations. It wasn’t that he had anything against gay couples or people, but it wasn’t him and it wasn’t with his brother. It wasn’t as if children would come into the mix, but-
“Now who’s brooding?”
He blinked, drawn out of his thoughts and glanced over at Sam, who was still looking pissed about something. Dean almost shuddered at the idle thought that crossed his mind about wanting to kiss that frown away. No, he’d have to talk to Bobby about this…away from Sam. He had to know if there was some lingering effects from his captivity with the dream demon, like a poison left behind. Books could be wrong; it couldn’t be that this was something he wanted.
“Shut up,” he responded, his bad mood making him take it out on Sam.
This was all his fault.
The drive to Bobby’s was tense and silent and the engine stalled twice on him. By that time the seats and their clothes had dried to some extent, but the carpeting on the floor of the car was still squishy. As he stormed out of the car, Bobby stepped out of the house, wiping his hands on a rag. “Didn’t expect to see you boys.”
“Tell me you’ve got a beer, Bobby.”
“In the fridge.”
Dean stalked past his father-figure and into the kitchen. It was sheer habit that made him grab two, one for himself and his brother. He took a deep breath, sliding off his leather jacket and dropped it on the back of a chair. He could do this. He just had to find Bobby alone for a bit, without Sam there, and they could fix whatever the problem was with him.
When he retraced his steps to the porch, he paused to watch the two most important people in his life. They were all but whispering, deep in conversation, and there was a complicated look on Sam’s face. As he walked closer, he heard the tail end of whatever his brother was saying. “-terrified that I’d-we’d-lose him.”
As soon as they noticed him, the conversation stopped and he figured that he wasn’t supposed to have heard anything, so he pretended he didn’t. He wasn’t sure why he wasn’t allowed to know; Sam was a worrier and he knew that. He knew his brother was worried about him, so why was this a need for a clandestine meeting? He shoved the beer into Sam’s hand and said, “I need to work on the engine, Bobby. Got the parts for me around here somewhere?”
“Since when do I not? You’re always fixing it.”
“Good. Sam.” He smirked at his brother, who eyed him warily, “Since it was your fault that my car is now not working, you get to do the laundry. Go dry our clothes.”
“What?! I saved your life-”
“And now you can do the laundry.” He made a shooing motion with his hand and grinned in amusement at the annoyed expression his brother’s face. He tried not to ogle Sam’s ass when he opened the back seat of the car and bent down to grab their bags.
Dean left the doors open to help the carpet dry and popped both the hood and the trunk in the contemplative silence left in his brother’s wake. “Would you look at this…” he muttered in frustration, gesturing at the engine.
Bobby wandered over, glanced at it, and then asked as bluntly as he was known to be, “So what’s the problem?”
“Well, as you can see-”
“Not the car, Dean.”
Since when could he ever hide anything from Bobby? Dean sighed and he took his beer, wandering away and feeling the older man follow him, still in that worn but trademark hat of his. As they headed deeper into the junkyard, he felt safe enough away from Sam that he could talk about it. He found a stool next to a wooden table that had seen much better days and dropped down on it. “Do those dream demons we hunted a few days ago leave any after effects?”
Bobby blinked. “What? No, not that it mentioned. Why? Having problems?”
“Hallucinations, actually.”
The confused look turned serious. “Hallucinations of what? How bad are they?”
God, he really didn’t want to do this. “Look, you have to swear not to tell Sam about this. We can fix the problems ourselves, without him knowing.”
“Dean.”
He nudged his booted foot against the ground and gritted his teeth. “They’re about Sam. Things I shouldn’t be thinking about because he’s my brother.”
If the emphasis clicked in, Bobby didn’t show it. “What, like killing him? Hurting him?”
“More like fucking him.”
The silence was heavy between them and Dean couldn’t meet the man’s eyes. He waited for the condemnation, for the ‘disgusting’ comments, but instead, Bobby simply asked, “Dean, what did you see when the demon had you?”
“You remember the jin, right? It was kind of like that. I was in another life or something, but this time, Sam and I weren’t brothers. Adam was my brother and I’d actually married Sam.” His fingers gripped the bottle tightly, but he knew he had to finish. Who knew if some detail that he left out could actually be significant, a clue to removing whatever was on him. “You guys didn’t trap him quick enough before…before…”
“Before you had sex with Sam in this dream.”
“Yeah.”
Bobby finally came closer, sitting on a stool himself on the opposite side of the table. “Who’s Adam?”
He blinked at the seemingly random question before he realized neither had ever told Bobby about him. “He was…our half-brother. Dad’s other son. He kept him out of this business. He was killed by some ghouls that were taking revenge for their parents that Dad took out.”
There was a moment of surprisingly companionable silence between them. Dean finished his beer and found himself playing with the bottle in his hand. He let his mentor think, comb through the library in his head.
“What makes you think you’ve got a problem now?” the man finally asked.
“Because I’m still having hallucinations, Bobby. I look over at Sam, and I…”
“You sure it’s not just your superimposing the dream? That you’re not just remembering it?”
“No, this is different.” This was the most difficult thing in his life, but Bobby was calm, accepting, and just waiting for him to continue. There was no judgment, no condemnation. “I…look at Sam, and I think of…things. Things I want to do, here and now. It’s not just because of the dream. What’s worse is that I don’t feel…comfortable anymore without it.”
“Comfortable?”
“Like there’s something missing. In that dream, when we…it felt good.” At Bobby’s eyebrow, he almost blushed. “Not just the sex part, but the fact that we were…doing it. It was like I’d been waiting, fucking waiting, for this to happen for a long time. And now it won’t leave me alone! Bobby, there’s got to be something, a poison or a spell leftover from this because why would it still continue to…to…”
“Cause ‘hallucinations’? Which, by the way, what you’re describing isn’t really a hallucination, but let’s head on past that…”
Dean nodded, feeling a surprising bit better at having said it all out loud. At least now they could work on fixing it-
“Hate to break it to you, Dean, but there’s no spell on you and it’s not a poison. No lore anywhere ever mentioned it. What you saw in that dream was because of the demon; everything after when you woke up is all you. Dream demon’s can be really nasty because of this. They take whatever is deepest in your heart, that you want, and drag it right up front where you can’t ignore it. It’s not just about love; sometimes people don’t realize just how much they hate someone and end up killing them over it. All the demon does is show you what’s in there, but because it’s buried so deep you might not even know about it, once it’s out in the open, once it’s clear, it’s almost impossible to ignore.”
“It can’t be, Bobby!” he spat, standing up and pacing. That was not what he wanted to hear! “It can’t be that way!”
“Why not?”
“We’re brothers! Biological brothers! It’s incest!”
Bobby leaned forward, bracing his arms against the table. “Look, Dean. I’m not trying to say that what you said isn’t true; I’m not going to just throw out a revelation that you aren’t related and all your worries are for nothing. But you’ve got to realize that as hunters, we don’t get many chances. Very few of us are ever happy, or find someone in life that we can be with. Even fewer ever work with anyone. You and Sam are different because you have each other and that’s more rare than anything I’ve ever seen. Most hunters are bitter, unhappy, and alone, so I’ve always believed that if a hunter can find happiness with someone, particularly if they’re also another hunter, they should take that chance because it doesn’t come around that often. Yes, you’re brothers, but there’s no worry about kids…and Sam makes you happy, doesn’t he?”
What Bobby said did make some sense to Dean, because he had seen the same thing about most of the other hunters he’d come across. Hell, he remembered saying something remarkably similar once, but it was different somehow when it was himself. “You’re actually telling me you’d be okay with the two of us having sex.”
“No, I’m telling you that I’d be okay with you two having a relationship. Don’t start it just to ‘help each other out’, but because you actually want to take what relationship you have to the next level.”
Dean looked at the empty bottle in his hand and threw it in the nearby trash can. “Doesn’t matter anyway, I guess.”
“Why?”
“Why? Bobby, it’s Sam. If you’re right, then this means I’ve wanted this, whatever this is, for a long time, but Sam didn’t. He won’t think of me like that. He can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I know what you’re trying to do, Bobby, and it’s not gonna work. I’m not gonna tell him.”
“Tell me what?”
Shit.