Riders on the Storm 2. Pt I: Dean
They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered. ― F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise
Dean went off on his own for a while to cool off. Sam fucking drives him crazy. Dean suspects he fell asleep in the deck chair, or went on doing what teenagers do, jerk off to pass the time. He ends up passing the time doing what they should both be doing together - the difference is Dean doesn't mind this, hunting stuff, while Sam will complain the whole way till Dad barks at him to quit it. Dean is intent on finding somewhere nice to sit, away from everything, and whittle idly.
When he gets back, it's late afternoon and he and Sam get their gear ready. They don't talk, but Dean suspects the afternoon was restful for both of them, because he doesn't get that hostile, tense vibe from Sam or bubbling up in him either. They're just going out to do recon, find what they can find, and get back before it gets too dark. Last night and this morning are off the table, and Dean thinks they're both happy to keep it that way.
They go that evening as soon as the sun's rays start slanting low and the hills' shadows lengthen. It's when the animals get really active, and they work better with some light still, let their eyes get used to the dark.
The dog, who Sam is calling Regina now, follows them, despite both Sam and Dean's efforts to tell her to go back to the cabin. She's quiet, though, which Sam points out is a plus, and Dean points out is a bit suspicious. Sam bristles defensively but Dean says, "All I mean is, we don't know anything about this dog, you know?"
"Maybe she's a hunting dog," Sam says.
"Funny looking hunting dog."
"You're funny-looking," Sam grumbles.
Dean snorts. "Seriously, lame."
They see birds flying to and fro, squirrels, small creatures rustling in the underbrush. Sam assumed they'd scare off anything big with the crunching of their boots, but they actually run into a couple adult deer and a juvenile fawn walking slowly through a thatch of bushes, eating the leaves from them.
An involuntary shudder runs through Sam. Dean looks at him funny. The dog, though, is completely calm.
The deer are calm, too. They look at them, and slowly walk away like normal deer. Sam and Dean don't follow.
Fifteen more minutes of walking and nothing interesting - some deer tracks, some raccoons, and Bonesy calm the whole time, strangely un-doglike in her lack of interest.
Then she bounds up ahead, and Sam and Dean freeze, whisper-shout, Hey! There's a thrashing in the brush, and they run towards it.
Regina's got a chupacabra by the neck and is shaking it to kill. The neck is already snapped.
"Drop it," Sam says, and the dog happily does so, wagging her tail.
"Well, shit," Dean says, surprised. "Maybe she is a hunting dog after all." He uses the muzzle of his rifle to turn the body over. "Not the biggest we've ever seen, but not bad."
"Good dog," Sam says, petting her wide white head. Dean bags the chupacabra to use as bait.
They catch another, the dog chasing it down, and then the dog chases a fox around and around and catches and shakes it, but lets it go in the end, which Sam sighs at and Dean laughs. Then, of course, thunder begins to rumble.
"Again?" Sam whines. The dog whines too.
On their way back, she doesn't even blink at the lightning, but when huge drops of rain start to fall she suddenly turns and bounds away, away from the cabin, back into the woods they came from.
Sam turns to chase after, but suddenly Dean grabs his shoulder. He can hear the vicious sounds of a dog fighting, snarls and yelps far worse than. Sam's face shifts into fear as he hears the noises too, and he shouts after her, "Reggie!" and runs despite Dean's warning yell. Dean chases after Sam, and finds that the dog isn't far. Its whole face is dark now, blending with its red ears now, muzzle bloodied and teeth sunk into the throat of a deer.
"The hell?" Dean says. This dog is really fucking weird. "All she was interested in were chupacabras before. We saw those deer."
The lightning goes and by the flash, they can see on the dead animal the gleam of nasty fangs, downward-curving, white and red and sharp in the blue-green light.
"Shit," Dean says as it goes dark again, and then the dog growls more into the distance.
"Never seen those before," Sam says.
"Nope," says Dean, and then lightning strikes near, the crack making them both jump. Rain starts falling hard and heavy, and the dog snarls a bone-chilling snarl. Dean drops the bagged chupacabra and they run back to the cabin.
-
They barely escape another soaking, and despite the freaking weird deer they just met, Dean feels pretty damn lucky. He rubs his damp arms and shivers, still thrumming with adrenaline but with nowhere to put it and his legs are feeling sore after their trek and spring back. The air has a chill that makes their shaken nerves worse.
"What the hell was that?" Sam
"I don't know. We'll ask Dad when he calls."
"Yeah," Sam says, looking doubtful. "But that's in two days."
"We'll go look at the body tomorrow. I got no clue, though, Sam." Dean sticks his head out the cabin, no sight of the dog. He grabs some kindling and a log from the small pile sitting near the door, dry in the overhang. He's going to build a fire and get warm.
The dog returns soaking wet before long, muzzle bloodied. Dean' shouldn't be surprised; as feral as the thing seems now, the dog seems to have adopted them, having already come back time and again. It probably likes the company, and what Sam feeds it. Sam points at the lake and says, "Go wash up!" Dean scoffs, but the dog actually listens, and comes back clean except for her muddy feet.
"Aw, Sam!" Dean's about to tell Sam to clean her up, but then she shakes in front of him, showering him with water, and he groans as Sam smirks. Then the dog lies down in front of the stove fire.
"Whatever, you're already wet," Sam says to Dean, who goes on grumbling about being covered in dirty dog-water.
Dean kneels in front of the stove to load a small log in, kindling and paper. He nudges the dog with his knee. "Move. Please."
"Her name's Regina."
"You made that up. Come on, Reggie. Move your butt."
Reggie doesn't budge.
"C'mon, Regina, come here," Sam calls. Of course the dog goes to him.
"You are the dog whisperer," says Dean. "Freak."
"You're welcome." Sam looks smug. Dean rolls his eyes and returns to building his fire.
Once Dean is done, the dog, of course, claims the front row seat. Even from further back, though, Dean can feel the fire's heat while sitting on the floor, his back resting against the foot of the bed.
"Now that's the way to do it," Dean says. He looks up at Sam, who is slouching on the bed above him, posture giving away his sleepiness, eyes dark and glittering orange, lost in staring at the flames.
Dean gets up to sit on the bed when the heat gets too strong, and after he rolls over to his side of the bed, Sam drops off almost instantly, fully clothed, boots on and all. Dean'll wake him up when he puts out the fire. He'll pull Sam's boots off and that'll probably wake him up enough for Sam to decide whether he needs to take his clothes off to sleep or if he's just going to let it be.
Dean wonders about those deer out there. Maybe they could figure something out without having to wait till Dad calls the pay phone in a couple days, whether the deer is just another animal or if it needs something special, if this dog is even a normal dog.
For all that Sam hates hunting, he's surprised Sam didn't get upset when the dog killed another animal. But that's what hunting dogs do, and Sam hasn't been too bad about this hunt. Undoubtedly since Dad isn't there.
Dean doesn't know how he feels about it, knowing that most of what Sam hates about hunting is Dad-related. That if Dad isn't around, maybe Sam could get used to it.
Dean sure could.
This summer they've been tying up loose ends and going from hunt to hunt in the hot season. Autumn will bring haunts on the tail of the monsters, and if Dean starts working on a plan to get a reliable car, something to carry gear for at least two - then he and Sam can set off on their own, not just Dean on his motorcycle but the two of them. It's basically the same as what Dad's been planning on, them getting their own cars eventually. Sam's getting too huge for the backseat of the Impala for sure. But while Sam was in school they were all three of them in the car less often, and Dean ended up spending a lot of time by himself anyway.
Dean wants a car for him and Sam, though, not a motorcycle for just him. Maybe Dad doesn't know that, but he knows he'd rather his boys were together looking out for each other, not striking out alone.
He stares at Sam on the bed, the way the light falls on his face and makes shadows there. Maybe Sam would rather be alone, and he knows it hurts Dad, even though he doesn't talk about it. Maybe Sam would push away. But this summer, this hunt - Dean's resolved to not give Sam too much shit, so Sam can see how things can be good between them. Dean might be the needy one here, though.
Dean does that, he needs company. It happens for him quicker than for Sam, who always seems most comfortable with his head in a book, ignoring the rest of the world. Sam's too sharp for everyone else, too cutting. He just wants to be left alone, which isn't what Dean wants to do, but he wants to give Sam his space. Doesn't want him running away again, like Flagstaff, what a miserable fucking disaster.
Dean stretches and groans happily with this thought. It's gonna get better. They're going to find the thing that killed mom and kill it, and then the whole world will open up.
-
The morning is hot already and Dean sits in the shade, mentally goes over supplies, how far they've gone. The schedule to call Dad. The tally of days he's notched on the exterior cabin wall in a hopefully inconspicuous place. The recon he's done - nothing majorly impressive but some wildlife tracking practice they'd picked up from their dad and his various friends. If he had to shoot and kill something to feed them he would, but they'd have to be pretty starving.
"You think those fangy deer taste any good?" Dean asks after telling Sam this idea of his.
"They're probably carnivorous, so no. But that's very My Side of the Mountain of you," Sam says.
"I remember that book. Didn't the kid get a hawk or something?"
"Wow, good one, Dean," Sam mocked.
"Asshole," Dean says, and Sam flips him off.
Dean's sitting half shade of an evergreen, etching protective runes into a knife blade. Maybe it wouldn't do anything against most of what they hunt, ghosts least of all, but Sam says it's supposed to work against Nordic things, so maybe one day they'll meet a frost giant and Dean will be prepared.
He's got a plan he tells Sam about, to make iron knives out of railroad spikes.
"It's illegal to take those, you know. They're private or federal property, they crack down hard on that." Sam's stripping off his shirt.
"What? Nah, what if they're not even in the tracks? I'm not gonna pry them up out of the ground." Dean would definitely pry them out of the ground.
"Well, how do they know, if they catch you with them in your hand?"
"You're such a goody two-shoes. How do you even know that, anyway?"
Sam shrugs. "Read it somewhere."
He looks distracted, staring into the middle distance somewhere to the right of Dean. At the fire pit, maybe. Sam hooks his thumbs inside the hem of his shorts, and hesitates, shoulders tensed, biting his lip.
Somehow Dean is held in the same suspense, though he doesn't even know what it is, doesn't think Sam's even noticing him anymore. There's a pale strip of skin showing over the waist of those shorts. Dean knows it, though he hasn't seen much of it in broad daylight before - well, except for Sam's brief moment jerking it in the deck chair. The sun makes his paler skin seem softer, thinner, more delicate. Fragile, even and Dean isn't so protective of Sam that he has a weird need to cover him up, but right now he feels the urge to conceal that pale under-skin and the rest of it that extends beyond his sight. Keep it from the sun and the dirt and the dry wind. He wants to bring Sam close and draw a blanket around not just him but around them together. He remembers how Sam's bare skin glows in the moonlight and how the contrast looks then, his pale thighs next to his darker forearms. Though he tries not to look anymore, tried for a long time not to, since it would be too weird.
But here in the harsh light, the golden-gilding thick sunlight of the heat of the day, Sam is brash and careless after two plus weeks without seeing another soul, other than Dean. And Dean is brazen, because nothing can hide, in this bright midday sun, and so why look away, why act like you can't see something when it's standing right in front of you.
"Something" is Sam, stripping off his shorts right there, five feet from Dean and slightly further from the water's edge. Jesus, Dean isn't into conspiracy theory or superstition, but why right there, why not the ambiguous midpoint or the definite water's edge? Does Sam know what he's doing? What this could look like, what Dean sees?
No, you dumbass, you asshole, he curses himself.
Sam is still ignoring him, still gazing at the middle distance, tossing his shorts onto a log near the fire pit and walking towards the water, naked as a jaybird. He's looking at the lake now, turned away. Dean thinks, this is not some goddamn show he's putting on for you. He's your little brother. If he's buckass naked it isn't a show for you, it's fucking normal. But Dean can't take his eyes off Sam's back, the small of it, his ass and long thighs.
Maybe it's entirely reasonable for Dean to be freaked out about this. For starters, they never were the casually naked types. They always spent too much time in each others' space, and with life on the road and in shared motel rooms, privacy became a big deal. Sam got really shy when he was about ten and still the smallest in his class. He wore his heavy coat to school every day. He was shy when puberty hit, shy when his testosterone-given muscles didn't kick in same time as the others, and then shy when they did, late bloomer that he was. Shy about being suddenly clumsy, shy about the attention girls weren't and then suddenly were paying him - and this was only ending in the last couple of years.
So yeah, for Sam to strip naked right in front of Dean's face, that's not normal for them. And if Dean feels really weird about it, then that fucking makes sense.
It's been a few years since their arrangement. They stopped when Sam started talking about this girl he wanted to ask out, and Sam is serious about the girls he likes, he's serious about everything. So when he stopped coming over to Dean's bed at night Dean got it, no explanation needed. He supposed it made sense, even though Dean hadn't thought about stopping despite the few things he had going on with a few girls in every town they'd been through. It was different, what he did with Sam. It was separate. It wasn't often, and they hid it from Dad of course, knowing that he wouldn't want to know what his boys got up to with their right hands at night. But on nights when Dad was away or where they got a treat and had their own room to themselves, once the lights were out Sam might crawl into Dean's bed and they'd jerk each other off, or Dean would hear Sam and offer, "Want a hand?" And Sam would say "Yeah," and Dean would go give him one.
If Sam wanted to stop, though, Dean didn't mind. This was something plenty of kids did, then grew out of.
Except now, it's been a long while since anything, and Dean hasn't been with a girl he really liked in ages. Sam and his girlfriend broke up when they left town at the end of the school year just in time for Sam to finish classes - they mailed his diploma to Pastor Jim, who said he'd hold on to it. Said he was real proud of Sam, and Sam stammered saying thank you, and Dean didn't get how high school was such a big deal to Sam since it all came so easy to him. Could've just gotten a GED like Dean.
Sam didn't seem that torn up about leaving Mandy, even though, like Dean said, they'd been serious and all. "She's going to college, we knew we'd both be moving on, bigger stuff ahead - hunting, you know." Dean had smiled, slapped Sam on the shoulder a couple times till Sam twisted away. He said "Well aren't you so grown up about all this. Mazel Tov, Sammy."
Dean's pretty sure though this means it's been months since either of them has gotten laid. He knows it's true for him. And Sam, Sam's too serious to have a little fun.
Sam's up to his thighs in the lake, shoulders tense and arms spread for balance, wincing at the cold meltwater as he dips his junk in it. Dean laughs on the shore. Sam can apparently hear him, since he flips Dean the bird without turning around. His back is muscular, and he's fit, nearly starting to get built, except his metabolism's so fast he probably won't catch up to Dean in muscle mass for a bit.
The pale strip is showing again as Sam gets hips-deep, then disappears as water laps the tanned, fuzzy-haired small of his back.
Dean knows he's staring but only then does he realize he's got a hand on his crotch, the heel of it pressing down against his dick. He freezes, hand still there, feels his own cock warm and good. A pleasure-seeking thing between his legs with a mind of its own. He sighs.
Sam, apparently having reached the point where the deeper waters unreached by sun become too cold, flops onto his back, sending a splash up before he rose to float at the top, his chest thrust out to keep his skinny ass afloat, everything else only scarcely bobbing to the surface as he lazily kicked, his dick floating and soft in plain sight, nestled in a thatch of dark hair.
Dean looks down at the curved blade and the steel hand graver in his lap, so Sam doesn't catch him staring. Still, Dean's palm is on his crotch, pressing on his jeans.
He closes his eyes to the blinding sight of Sam naked and floating in shimmering gold water, and contemplates falling asleep in the heat, letting it all drift away, too much to deal with right now.
Dean's twenty-two. He's old enough to know not to do this, smart enough to know too. That you are wishing hell down on yourself, the wrath of heaven and the life of an outcast, if you fall in love with and fuck your baby brother. It's damning.
But maybe, then again, he knows his family's seen enough shit to have a different perspective on how much you should love your brother, and what evil really is.
None of that relative morality shit. He's no Humbert fucking Humbert. Dean shakes himself, half purposefully and half out of the heeby-jeebies, and gets up to lie on the ground so he isn't facing Sam in the water.
-
Honestly Dean is just minding his business, he doesn't know why Sam comes and finds him all the time. Dean'll complain but if he's honest he's not complaining too hard about this whole vacation so far.
"You're such an exhibitionist freak," Sam says, and Dean snorts in disbelief, too relaxed to give a shit.
"Me?" The nerve. "I'm sitting here in a chair. You're the one walking around in his underwear."
Sam would normally redden but this new, middle-of-nowhere, no-Dad-around Sam has got a smartass look on his face, refusing to be ashamed, intent on making this about how Dean is being gross and violating human decency. "I don't touch myself where everyone can see!" He flings his arm towards the lake, where, across the water, there's another cabin much like theirs.
"I haven't seen lights on there for a week. Look, I could barely tell if someone over there was jerking off, I don't know why I gotta cover up if I come out here - by myself! - and take a little me-time."
Sam snorts at the euphemism.
"It's the fucking middle of the woods, Sam. If you don't wanna watch me jerk off, go somewhere else, because there's a lot of space here in case you hadn't noticed. I'm gonna jerk off when I want." Maybe he's messing with Sam but Sam messed with him first. Pulling that gig, stripping to go swimming.
But Dean feels disingenuous, thinking that. Sam may have started the acting out but it was before then, that second day, when after swimming the sun set and Dean found Sam in the plastic lounge chair, way over in the last patch of sunlight. Sam had dragged the chair over away from the cabin and fire circle and Dean to sit and watch the lake, shoulders stretched and dry and lit orange in the leftover sun.
They'd swam, and then Dean had gotten out and toweled off to go get some dinner. Sam had stayed in, not yet tired, maybe wanting some time alone as Sam often did, and Dean got something to eat because he knew he'd be starving soon and so would Sam, and he didn't want to put hp with Sam's bitching
Dean, dry and newly clothed, had gone outside to tell Sam there was food, when he saw Sam stretching his legs out on the deck chair, over in the last corner of sun further up the shore. The light splotched Sam's shoulders in orange glow. Sam looked like a carefree kid again for a moment, and Dean took a bit to appreciate the sight of his brother in some peace, when Sam had spent most of his life always restless, angry.
Sam'd had a rough time being a teenager. Technically he still was one, and technically things were still kinda rough between him and Dad, but all that was gonna change. Now without schools to stick around and the car becoming a bit cramped for three grown men, they'd get another one, Sam could get some time away from John, he and Dean could go out and do recon together or even some of their own hunts. Sam talks like he hates hunting but Dean sees Sam light up sometimes when he gets his hands on a really old book, and when Sam rattles off the myths and legends, cryptography and cryptids, well, who the hell doesn't love reading about cryptids? Anyway, Sam would research them, and Dean would kill them, and Dad would find the thing that had killed mom and they'd take it down together. They were already a great team, Dean could see it. It was only going to get easier from here on out.
Sam stretched his arms up, then curled up and wrapped them around his knees. His hair, being still slightly damp, curled at the nape of his neck, and (walking closer), Dean could see the pebbling of goosebumps, Sam's fine hairs lit golden and standing on end, running over the scar above his shoulderblade there that Dean had helped bandage himself. He winced but also saw the ripple of Sam's muscles under the scar tissue, how it had faded in time, become part of Sam, Sam's growing unbeatable vital body that Dean knew so well.
Sam shivered. Dean wanted to put his warm hands on Sam's goosepimpled skin and press the shivers back down, smooth it out till Sam's muscles were relaxed and supple under his hands.
He gulped and said, "Food's inside if you're hungry."
Sam looked over his shoulder towards Dean, not quite able to put his eyes on him but getting him in his peripheral vision. "You trying to sneak up on me?"
Dean felt guilty. He hadn't meant to. That kind of thing just happened.
Sam wasn't accusing, didn't even dwell on it. His legs had been under him for a while and seemed to be pins and needles. He stood up and tried to balance against the chair, but the frame was light and the back wobbly, so Dean reached out to grab his shoulder and right him, and Sam grabbed as he stumbled. Sam's shorts, a pair of swim shorts from the Salvation Army and not a old pair of boxer-briefs like Dean had set aside as his designated swim shorts, were still wet and dripping from being sat on.
Dean said, with a laugh in his voice, "You've got goosebumps all over, you're gonna want to dry off before your junk freezes."
"Yeah, duh." And Sam let go of Dean to gingerly walk across the twigs and pine needles and pebbled dirt in his bare feet to the cabin. Dean didn't manage the easy chuckle he would have liked. He looked down at the empty chair and then out across the lake, and thought of how vastly empty their weeks would be.
But that was before they found this dog and this bizarre deer creature. Honestly, at first, Dean had doubted they'd find anything really interesting in the woods, despite their Dad's assurances. They couldn't go as far without overnighting in the woods, which Dad had forbidden and Dean wasn't that interested in doing anyway, considering the wildlife.
Now Dean's interested, all right, but the wildlife seems even more dangerous than he'd thought. He'd rather sit here by the lake most days, and watch their sunburns progress over the week.
It's not like Dean has a thing for Sam's shoulders. He just notices them because they're out a lot, and occasionally they get burnt, and okay, they're really much broader than they used to be and it's weird to see your kid brother growing up and getting big when he's been a shrimp all his life.
Dean's got his t-shirt and sunglasses on sitting in the chair in the sun now, and from behind the safety of the dark frames he can see Sam out there sitting on a rock sunning himself, absurdly like some fucking Narcissus or, what, Hylas? The guy the nymphs drag underwater. Well, more butch than that guy. The one Zeus wanted for his cupbearer. The one the sun god wanted to pull his chariot. Or was he his son? Fuck. Dean can't stop looking. He's given up on reading his book, which is one of Sam's, which is Lolita, horrifically. He thought he wanted to read it before he really knew what it was about and before Sam made it uncool, gave it his geek cred by bringing it. It's not really a rewarding book. His interest peaked when Dolores climbed on Humbert's lap and Humbert secretly got his rocks off to it - which is sick, and disgusting, and creepy as fuck. It both summons and poisons every school girl fantasy he's ever entertained, and all the action he's not getting this summer makes him want to whack off to them horribly, as if to see them one last time before Vladimir Nabokov ruins them forever. Then he'll never pick up Lolita again and he'll judge everyone who reads it as hard as he's judging himself right now.
One of the most memorable nights of Dean's life was in high school when he first had real, more-than-blowjob sex with Julie, the hot volleyball star of their town high school. She was a good couple years older than him, and she rode him one night in the back of her car, good and hard, and he came back and told Sam all about it in every buzzed and vivid run-on detail. Seeing Sam's face as he took it all in made Dean realize that the pleasure he got from this, bragging about not just his game but the specific weirdly educational nature of his game, giving Sam the play by play - it was all because one day he wanted Sam to do this. Maybe he wanted Sam to tell him about it, and maybe he actually wanted to share this with Sam and Sam's awed face. One day he didn't just want to replay it to Sam but replay it with him, for Sam to get this idea in his head now and let it stew -
But that's not what their thing was about, back then. Their mutual agreement, the you-scratch-my-ears and I'll-scratch-yours arrangement that Dean feels creeping up in desire again with the mutual sexual frustration going on in the middle of nowhere.
It wasn't supposed to be about wanting Sam.
Dean was supposed to just want relief, relief and entertainment. He wasn't supposed to want stuff to actually happen.
-
It's the end of the three weeks Dad planned on them being there, so Dean builds a fire with the last of the already-chopped wood and he and Sam pass around the last of the bottle of whiskey. There's not that much left, Dean thinks ruefully. He was really hoping he could get drunk again tonight. Get both of them drunk - see this solitary vacation out with a bang, have one last fling before the yoke of Dad's presence weighed down on Sam and made him go back to being that curdled, sour kid that causes them all so much grief.
He doesn't say the last part to Sam but does say, "Wish we could get really drunk."
"Like last time?" Sam asks. His eyes are shining bright in the dusk and Dean can tell by that look, his smile, that he's already buzzed.
"Sure," Dean says, thinking of the swim in the lake and the roughhousing until Sam smirks, leans back against the big stump and stretches his legs across the ground, splayed wide like he's showing something off. Dean flushes. "We already drank more than half the bottle, though. So probably not that drunk."
"Yeah, sure." Sam says, looking off into the distance over the flames, into the darkness of the trees. "Gonna miss all this getting away with anything."
"Like you weren't complaining about coming here."
"Yeah, yeah," Sam shoves the bottle at Dean, leaning way over to reach. "Shut up and take another drink."
Dean does.
"I guess I miss people," Dean says. "People to play pool with. Bars full of 'em. Hot chicks," and he waggles his eyebrows suggestively at Sam.
Sam rolls his eyes. "Of course."
"Don't you miss your girlfriend? What was her name? Misty?"
"Misty!" Sam laughs, as if that's a hilarious name to have. "Her name was Mandy. I guess, sure. She's probably doing fine, though. Kinda out of my league."
"I coulda told you that."
"Shut up." Sam stretches again and Dean notices how far his shirt rides up over his belly. Kid's always getting taller, stretching out. A hand, maybe two hand-widths of bare skin there, and Dean squeezes the neck of the bottle and tells himself, not that drunk.
"Nah, I mean, you miss her -" Dean makes a crude movement, something between an s-curve with one hand and a smack with thither, rocking back and forth on the log he's sitting on making it thump rhythmically.
Sam snorts at Dean's pantomime. "Gross, dude."
"She let you tap that, yeah?"
"Oh my god, Dean, you don't even know."
"No, come on, now you gotta say!" Dean's laughing and so is Sam. He looks smug. Well, hell.
"Like, all the time. She was crazy about it. Crazier than me."
Dean snorts. "Well, that's saying something."
"Asshole." Sam rubs at his face, but the smoke's going the other direction.
"She ever blow you?"
"Eh, nah."
"Mm, shame."
"What?"
"You mean you never had one?"
"I - no, I've never had a blowjob, Dean."
Dean kicks his heels at the log with gleeful thuds. "You're missing out!"
"You tryna rub it in?"
Dean ignores the tone of that. "No, dude, they're great. You ever go down on a chick?"
"Uh. A little once."
"Damn! And no blowjobs? Let me tell you, going down on a chick is the best, I don't know why they don't like BJs more than they do." Dean cracks a grin at Sam's snicker. "Look, next time we can get you in a bar, I'll find you some action."
"I don't need you hooking me up at bars, Dean, you know I think that's creepy."
"Fine, if you're gonna continue to be against sex with strangers."
"Yes, thanks."
The fire crackles.
"My point is, if going down on chicks and getting your dick sucked is awesome, I wonder what it'd be like to give one. To suck dick, I mean."
Sam looks at Dean, flustered. "Really?"
Dean shrugs, trying to make it nonchalant. "Yeah, I mean, but who'm I gonna offer, huh? I don't wanna go around offering to blow dudes at bars, looking to get my ass kicked. 'Sides," he says, taking another swig. "It's not a gay thing. Just curious."
A pause stretches out. Dean cocks an eyebrow, waiting for Sam to react.
"You're such a freak, Dean." But Sam scoots up against his log again and crosses his legs, lets a hand fall into his lap. "I dunno, convince me."
"What?"
"Like, am I really missing out? Are you just winding me up?"
"Sammy," Dean says, his skin starting to prickle and tighten from the fire's heat. He gets the distinct feeling Sam's trying to wind him up, which is just what he's suspected for a week or two now, but it's too strange to mention.
"It's like, well, you know what sex with a girl is like. Warm and wet and tight, you know, hot and sweet when she squeezes around you, gets her legs around you. Now imagine her sweet lips and wet tongue around you - yeah, and she gets you all wet with her spit and you're not wasting time putting a wet spot in your shorts, huh. It's the suction too - that's more than tight, and she's got a hand squeezed around your dick and another one fondling your balls - you like that, right -" and suddenly Dean, who's been gazing off over the fire to avoid thinking about the fact that he's giving a sex monologue to his little brother, feels a hand on his knee, jerking it to the side.
Sam's there kneeling with his hands braced on Dean's legs, holding himself so he can stretch up, his face right under Dean's nose nearly poking his chin, and as Dean looks down and starts to say "What the hell" Sam cranes up and bites his bottom lip.
Dean gasps.
He's already hard, and jerks reflexively when Sam grabs for his fly, brushing Dean's hardon with his hands, opening his jeans up right there.
"What're you doing?" Dean says, somehow completely off-guard and unprepared for this.
"What do you think?" Sam butts his head against Dean's chest to push him to sitting up. Dean can feel Sam's hands not on his knees now but the tops of his thighs, nearly at the joint with his hip, and the pressure there is just sending his blood skyrocketing. He is so fucking turned on he can barely think but he manages to blurt out something like "Don't - you don't have to - you were right you shouldn't -"
"Shut up," and Sam takes Dean's dick out of his pants. Sam's hot bare calloused hands on him, that shuts Dean up pretty well.
Sam looks at Dean's dick where his hand is wrapped around it, not tight, just holding the weight of him. Dean looks too. His mouth is dry, and he can feel his own throat working like his protests are still trying to get out. Sam grins up at him, wicked as sin, and starts giving Dean long hard strokes with his fist.
Sam's leaning down but isn't sticking his face in it, but he's getting close, shit, Dean can't stop thinking about it. How he wants sam's mouth on his dick, wants him to rub his cheeks on it. It's dark and he's hidden in Sam's shadow from the firelight, but Sam's face is hidden too and Dean is both desperate to see and to know if Sam's okay, check in on Sam, know what the hell is going on, and desperate to tip his head back and close his eyes and not look and push his conscious mind far, far away.
Gradually he can hear Sam babbling, "Fuck, you're really freaking out, aren't you? What would you even do if I did blow you? Shit, Dean, that what you're thinking about?"
Dean hunches over and rests his face on Sam's shoulder, breathing and mouthing wet against his brother's cotton t-shirt and the warm thinner-than-his-own shoulder underneath it. He can't hold himself up, and he's not touching Sam, he's gripping the edge of his seat like if he touches his brother with his hands, on purpose, right now he'll be implicated in this crime. This is not a scene he planned on. Not one he asked for. Fuck, what is Sam thinking?
Sam's just got both hands working at Dean, forearms braced on top of Dean's thighs, and then Sam moves a hand and leans down and Dean's pulse is going a mile a minute.
Sam spits on his hand and then rubs his thumb over Dean's crown, slips his other fingers down to touch Dean's balls inside his shorts.
Dean makes this wholly undignified high-pitched noise. "Shit, Sam, gonna," and Sam pulls back, but keeps jacking Dean. Dean spurts over Sam's hand, jerking and twitching hunched over Sam's shoulder, and just like Dean had done to Sam the last time, Sam pulls Dean through it, wringing every drop till Dean knocks his hand away, swearing.
Sam gets up and, while Dean is still hunched over, still breathing hard, still unable to look his brother in the eye, puts a gentle hand on the side of Dean's jaw and neck briefly. Before Dean can knock that away too, he leaves. Dean's left tucking himself back inside his shorts, staring at the fire.
It takes a storm breaking overhead, dry but so full of lightning the cracks and booms shake even him, to make him knock the fire apart and bury it in the dirt.
Sam's fallen asleep on the bed with a book, and Dean doesn't know how he can sleep through this noise, but he lies down curled on his side and drifts in and out of sleep, chased by dream phantoms. He thinks he hears the dog barking up a storm but when he looks she's gone somewhere, and the only sound is the wind in the trees.
-
The next day they're supposed to go get a call from Dad at the highway phone. Dean and Sam go together. On the way they talk a little about the fanged deer, the chupacabras, but most of it is in silence.
They get Dad's call. It's short.
"He's coming back tomorrow," Dean says to Sam. "And then we'll go."
"What about the weird deer? And the dog?" Sam says as they walk back.
"We don't even know what they are. We'll go out again tonight. And your dog can take care of herself. Seriously, Sam, you've seen her hunt." Looking at Sam's sad face makes Dean sad. It's not that he likes the dog that much.
"I just feel responsible for her."
"She'll be fine," Dean cajoles, and resolves to not mess with Sam too much for the foreseeable future, as much as he can help it. With Dad coming back and not knowing where they're going next, Sam's got a stressful time ahead. Dean doesn't want to make it any worse for him.
They go out into the woods again that evening, with the sun setting behind them, toting guns and following the dog.
They don't manage to find anything they're looking for, deer or chupacabra, no matter how far they go, and the dog just chases squirrels the whole time.
It'd be crazy to think that was the only one, but Dean doesn't know what else to think. He'll tell Dad when he comes, maybe he knows what they are, if they would ferret them out. Maybe the dog will help.
"They must've left," Sam says.
"Left? More like we just can't find them."
"I dunno," Sam says. "Reggie isn't finding any. I've just got a feeling."
"You're just full of feelings," Dean jokes, and Sam punches his shoulder.
That night Dean says to Sam in the dark "Kinda gonna miss this."
Sam makes a skeptical noise, but then says, "Yeah," and pushes his nose and forehead against the muscle of Dean's shoulder.
They lie there, close in a strangely normal way, and fall asleep like that.
-
The next morning there's a rumble of a motor, and Sam groans, but then the barking of dogs approaching the cabin, and Dean opens the door. Dog stays at the hearth.
A man's there, with a muddy yellow-brown beard, a bandana on his head with a camouflage-and-deer print on it, riding a loud motorcycle followed by a pack of dogs. They look just like Reggie - same markings.
"I've come for my dog," the man says over the engine's roar.
Sam and the dog come up to the door and the dog sits by Sam's leg.
"Thanks for looking out for her. What's your name, kid?" The dog lifts her head to be pet by Sam, then goes to the biker guy to get pet down by his heavy hand.
"My name's Sam. It was no problem," Sam says
Dean thinks the dog looks content. This doesn't seem shady, just… weird.
"Well, Sam, I owe you one," the guy says, then guns his engine. "Be seeing you."
"What's her name?" Sam shouts.
"She don't got one!" the biker yells back, and roars off, the dogs in hot pursuit.
They're left watching the trail of dust and listening to the happy yelps and barks of the dogs.
Dad gets them a few hours later. Their bags are packed, and the empty whiskey bottle is stashed in the back of the closet where they found it.
"Where to?" Dean asks.
"Northwest," Dad says.
Sam sighs a little relief. The hot weather that had held them in suspension breaks as they move down out of the mountains towards the Pacific coast. They're in the middle of a cloud bank, the precipitation barely precipitating. It hisses against the windshield and the tires, it soaks into Dean's dried-out sun-heated skin, cooling him and giving him the occasional chill. Dean can see Sam shivering in the back seat. This air is like a cool cloth on a fevered forehead.
-
When they stop that night in Oregon, Sam announces that he's leaving for college at Stanford. Tonight. Dad's barely had any time for some shouted ultimatums, Dean no time to catch his breath, before Sam's out the door, bags still packed.
Dean's driving after him now, after the delay of the shock, Dad's questions and accusations still ringing in his ears - Did you know he was going to do this? What happened while I was gone? What does that boy get up to? He didn't say anything? Not even to you? That foolish -
He hopes he'll find Sam before he decides to leave the road or finds a ride that isn't Dean.
Dean finally spots Sam on the roadside, nearly hidden in the darkness and mist. Sam's got his thumb stuck out, but when Dean approaches he seems to recognize the sound of their car and draws it back, tries walking further away from the road.
"Sam!" Dean shouts out the window. "It's just me."
Sam doesn't respond.
"Come on, at least let me drive you there."
"No."
"It's nighttime, there aren't any other cars coming by. Come on," Dean pleads
Sam keeps walking, Dean keeps driving alongside him.
After a minute or two of this, Sam still won't get in, so Dean pulls over, sending Sam scrambling off the shoulder yelling "Watch it!". Dean's not trying to run him off the road, he just parks, gets out and goes after Sam on foot. Sam faces him dead-on and yells, "Just leave me alone!"
"Come on, Sam." Dean tries grabbing Sam's shoulder but Sam pushes his hand off. "You're not getting anywhere, I'm the only goddamn car on the road."
Sam keeps pushing and shrugging Dean's hands off .
"Please," says Dean. "I'm beggin' you."
Sam's face goes from angry and stony to twisted and sick. Like only anger had kept the fear and desperation and confusion at bay. Confrontation was what he was running from; now Dean gets past his shrugging, right as Sam's backed against a tree. He grabs Sam's shoulder, then takes his face between his hands roughly and kisses him.
Sam's thrashing against his grip, confused and biting both their lips, before Dean lets him push him off. "What the hell, Dean?"
"I can't - Sam, you can't go. I…" Dean can't finish any of his "I" statements. He has no fucking clue what to say about himself, so practiced in putting family first, family first, family first. There's a pull and a hurt and a need in him that he's slowly realizing has nothing to do with family right now and it's making him sick.
"Are you drunk?" Sam asks.
It feels possible. "No." Dean reaches for Sam again and Sam flinches away. It's like a lightning bolt hits Dean, from above, like damnation from God himself.
"Dean, I can't." He's deathly calm and reasoning and it only makes Dean feel crazier. "You have got to let me go. I'm leaving."
Dean covers his face with his hands and runs them up and down, scrubbing at the wet in his eyes. He opens them and all these multicolored dots are flashing over Sam, who's looking at him from the higher ground of the tree roots, pitying and pleading and exhausted, like he has no energy for any other feelings. He's not running. He's not walking away. He's waiting for Dean to say something, give some sign. Later Dean will look back on this observation with hope, that Sam will not hate him for this all his life.
"Can I at least give you a ride?" Dean asks.
A long pause: Sam isn't sure. Dean hates him so much right now, for being unsure about accepting a fucking ride. He hates Sam for making him love him, for making him crazy enough to stalk him out, for leaving all dramatic and shit and not give him or Dad any time to react. For running away like a child now, trying to walk away without saying goodbye.
"Yeah. Thanks," Sam says, after looking down the road where Dean came from. No more headlights. "Town's a few miles away. They have a bus there I can catch."
Dean opens his mouth. He's gonna try to persuade Sam to let him drive him all the way to the gates of Stanford. He'll make sure Sam's roommates aren't shitheads and make sure Sam has enough money for books and, shit. He'll promise not to touch Sam ever as long as he can see him again. He'll grovel for it. But nothing comes out, and Sam pointedly looks only at the road straight ahead.
They drive in silence for half an hour.
Sam gets out at a bus depot under a shelter, and Dean just waits at the curb in the car till the bus comes, staring at Sam the whole time to get him to get back in the car, it's raining, come on, I'll drive you to San Francisco or wherever.
The bus comes, and Sam gets on it.
After the bus is no longer in sight, Dean lets panic wash over him. Eventually, his vision clears. He runs the wipers for a couple passes, then puts the car in drive and heads back to his father.
-
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This entry was originally posted at http://zempasuchil.dreamwidth.org/282465.html.