Fic: There is a crack in everything (that's how the light gets in) (SPN, Sam/Dean, Sam/Dean/Jess, R)
This is my Sweet Charity fic. Finished on time! Aren't you shocked?
Title: There is a crack in everything (that's how the light gets in)
Fandom: SPN
Pairing: Sam/Dean (established), Sam/Dean/Jess (pending)
Rating: R
Warnings: incest, physical injury but no on-screen violence
Summary: AU. Dean comes to stay with Sam at Stanford after he's seriously injured on a hunt. While Dean regroups, Sam has to deal with his not-so-simple feelings for his brother, and for the girl in his class who smiles at him a lot and drops books on his feet.
Notes: Written for Demona as part of Sweet Charity. Beta by the fabulously meticulous busaikko, without whom this story would have been a flaily mess. Title and cut-text from L. Cohen. ~7700 words.
September
Dean hasn’t seen the sharp corner of Jess’s smile or the way the sunlight glints off her curls or the sly, considering looks she shoots Sam from across the aisle in anthro lecture. But when Sam comes back from class and flops down on the small apartment’s couch, flustered and jittery, Dean elbows him in the arm and says, “Who’s the girl?” Because Dean can sniff out that kind of drama like a bloodhound.
“Shut up,” says Sam, and Dean’s eyebrows go up behind his sunglasses, a smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth. It’s the only kind of smile Dean gives anymore, sarcastic and pointed.
“Come on, Sammy, gotta give a guy some details. We can’t all have your exciting life of studying and sulking. Is she stacked?”
“She’s blonde,” Sam offers sullenly. Dean’s shoulder nudges his like he wants better info. “I think she’s an English major. She dropped a Norton Anthology on my toe today.”
“A what?”
Sam shakes his head, realizes it’s pointless, and sighs. “A heavy book.”
Dean nods. “Think I’ll go to bed.”
Sam looks over Dean’s shoulder and out the window of their cramped living room. It’s not even eight, and the sky’s still shedding sunset colors. But Sam assumes Dean’s been sitting in this same position for the two hours since Sam dropped him off a cheeseburger for supper and left for his constitutional law study group. “Okay,” he agrees.
“You gonna come?” Dean asks, face tilted down like he’s watching his fingers worry the hole in the knee of his jeans. Sam wavers uncertainly until Dean grunts and gets to his feet, tossing his sunglasses onto the coffee table. “Whatever.” Sam looks at the still-raw flesh around Dean’s eyes, unfocused green gaze directed somewhere below the TV, which is still droning on dully. He wants to kiss the scars, run his tongue over them, down the rise of Dean’s cheekbones, and into his lush mouth. But if he tries it, he knows Dean will just push him off, tell him, “I don’t need your pity fuck,” meaning, “Just forget I’m like this, Sam.”
It’s obvious that that’s what Dean wants most of all, to forget that his eyes can’t help him anymore, that they maybe never will again and everything he thought he was going to do is fucked. He doesn’t say as much, but Sam knows. He turns off the light in the kitchen and follows Dean to bed, telling himself he has an early class and it’s not bad to go to bed. But when he gets to their shared bedroom, he finds Dean curled on his side, not sleeping, just silent and still, and Sam strips out of his clothes and curls around him, holding him with an arm around his waist like Dean used to do when Sam was little and had a nightmare. Back before. Before everything.
Dean bends his head and makes a vague encouraging noise as Sam’s lips find the side of his neck, rubbing gently up to Dean’s pulse, thumping under the strong curve of his jaw. It’s always like this now, hesitant and a little bitter. Sam doesn’t want to need Dean this way, and Dean doesn’t want to need anything at all.
August
It had been a year since they’d seen each other, and Sam had sloughed off all the remnants of his old life, except for the number in his phone labeled simply “D” and a box of weapons and photos and rock salt under his bed. His apartment was newly his, freshly white and full of sturdy, scarred student housing furniture. And then Sam had to learn Dean all over again in Omaha, like meeting a brother he’d never known.
It was two weeks before the start of classes when the call came in, and Sam almost didn’t answer, the area code only vaguely familiar. “Hello,” he sighed finally, picking up after four rings.
“Sam Roth?” said a crisp female voice at the other end. “I’m calling from St. Mary’s Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska.”
Sam’s heartbeat sped. Not his name, but one he had an ID to match. “Yes?”
“We’ve got a man here who claims he’s your brother.”
“Dean?” Sam asked, not sure what he’d do if Dean had given a fake first name. But as long as Dean was juggling aliases, at least he wasn’t….
The woman at the other end made a confirming noise. “He’s been in an accident, and he gave your name as next of kin.”
Sam didn’t bother to ask where his dad was. “Can I talk to him?”
The next voice he heard was his brother’s, hoarse and cracked. “Sammy?”
“Yeah,” whispered Sam, scared and angry and not sure what to say. “Hey, Dean.”
Dean’s tone shifted, falsely cheerful. “I’m in Omaha, but they’re about to kick me out for not being sick enough. How’d you feel about a houseguest?”
Sam’s stomach soured, but Dean was his brother. His hurt, stupid, infuriating brother. He resigned himself. “I guess I could handle that. What happened?”
“I’ll tell you when you get here.”
“Get there?” Sam’s anger surged again. “You want me to pick you up in Nebraska? You have a car, Dean.”
Dean cleared his throat, but his voice cracked anyway, turned lower with something like shame, something like grief. “I can’t drive, Sammy. You have to… Please, okay?”
Sam had been on the next bus, and he hadn’t slept more than an hour between San Francisco and Omaha. He hitched a ride to the hospital with the grandmotherly woman who had been his seatmate since somewhere in Idaho. “You poor dear,” she said, again and again after he told her his brother was hurt, a sickening replay of every kindly adult from his childhood. Her sputtering little car dropped him at the visitors' entrance to the hospital, and she patted his knee and said, “Poor dear,” one more time as Sam hitched on his backpack and nodded his thanks.
Sam found his way to Dean’s room on the fourth floor with the help of a pretty dark-haired nurse whose face gave nothing away as her white shoes squeaked along the tiles. No hint of a smile when Sam said Dean’s name. Sam remembered all the attendants Dean had charmed in all the hospitals they’d ever even been sewn up in, and wondered what could have been so bad that it made Dean stop flirting but didn’t kill him.
As soon as Sam entered the dim, sterile room, Dean’s head turned, the tape around his eyes flexing as he squinted towards the door. “Sammy?” he asked, and Sam nodded. But Dean just cocked his head, and said more loudly, “Sammy?”
Sam knew then, with sharp, painful certainty, that Dean couldn’t see him. “It’s me,” he said, shuffling towards the bed. Tears pricked behind his eyes and dizziness spiraled up his spine. Dean wasn’t supposed to look so small, so helpless, reaching out trembling, bandaged fingers to Sam, who was still frozen by the door. Sam’s life changed right then, started the slow sinking that brought them back to a place Sam thought he’d never see again.
They didn’t fuck right away after Dean got out of the hospital. Sam had spent the last year locking all that away in a box marked, “Stupid kid stuff,” burying the taste of his brother’s come and the steady grip of Dean’s palm around his cock far away in the back of his mind. He didn’t worry about it all the long drive back to California, catching little sips of sleep pulled over at the side of the road. Dean stayed curled up in the Impala’s backseat, scowling over Sam’s driving by ear alone. Sam waited for snide remarks, jokes about who taught him to use his stick shift, but they didn’t come. Just the scowl from behind Dean’s sunglasses, and the low grumble of discontent when Sam took her down to third as they cruised through little towns Dean couldn’t see, still ten miles over the limit.
He made himself not think about it when they finally made it back to Sam’s apartment, and Dean called first shower. The bandages on his hands were gone, showing shiny pink new skin striped across Dean’s fingers, patches of it down to his wrists. There would be scars, and Sam wasn't sure whether Dean could bend his fingers without wincing, wondered how he’d navigate a washcloth and a bar of soap. But it wasn't Sam’s job to ask.
They spent several days in uncomfortable silence, broken by “Do you want tacos or burgers?” and “Where do you keep the toilet paper, Sammy?” Dean stumbled around the apartment, learning his way, Sam hovering at his elbow, never sure how much to touch him as he showed Dean the plates above the sink, the shampoo at the corner of the bathtub, the extra drawer in the dresser where Sam unpacked for him. Dean bristled at questions, wouldn’t say how he got hurt, wouldn’t say what he was doing, didn’t mention where the hell Dad was. He didn’t ask for help, didn’t say anything when Sam gave it anyway. Dean had been there for seventy-two hours before he and Sam had a real conversation. Sam bought him the beer he liked, although his emergency cash was running low and scamming pool in a town he hoped to live in for at least three more years seemed idiotically risky. But Dean settled in on the couch, nursing his Corona and keeping his eyes closed, long lashes dusting his cheeks. After a while, he started to talk.
“I was working a job,” he said, “outside Omaha. Dad was in Minnesota somewhere. Maybe he still is.”
“Dad let you work a job by yourself?” Sam blurted.
Dean jutted his chin out. “I’m twenty-three, asshole.”
“Sorry.” Sam sighed, regrouped. “What was the job?”
“Big hairy creature menacing the townsfolk, luring kids out of town and eating them. It looked like a coyote, but bigger. A lot bigger. I still, I don’t know what it was.” He sounded ashamed about that, ground down like he had spent his week in the hospital wondering. “I shot it though, and it stayed down. But I figured I should burn it, to be safe. Stupid plan, apparently. It exploded. Just” - he puffed out his cheeks and spread his hands, making a representative noise. “I saw this flash of light and the next thing I knew I was in the hospital all bandaged up. And I couldn’t see.” Dean cocked his head in Sam’s direction. “Remember that time with the fireworks? I thought it was like that, just a flash burn.”
“I guess it wasn’t,” said Sam.
Dean couldn’t aim his glare as well as he used to, and Sam’s gut twisted. “They said it looked like a chemical burn, must have been something in the thing I killed.” Sam watched him squint down, the burns on his cheek changing the shape of his frown. “I don’t know.”
“Do they think,” Sam started, then swallowed as Dean tensed, “do they think you might get better?”
“I don’t have a fucking cold, Sam. I’m blind.” He hadn’t had to say it before, not to Sam, maybe not to anyone, and his fist clenched tight around the neck of his bottle as he gritted out the word.
“But is there--”
“Fuck you.” Dean shoved off the couch, hands splayed to balance himself as he stood. “Don’t you think I asked? They just said, ‘We’ll see,’ like I don’t know what that means, like it isn’t all a bad joke.” He shifted on his feet like he didn’t know which way to move, and the anger on his face faded to hurt frustration. “Shit.”
Sam was reaching for him before he even knew he was going to get up, wrapping his arms around Dean’s back and hanging on tight. Dean stiffened, and then breathed out and hugged Sam back. “When the hell did you get so tall?” Dean asked, running his hand up Sam’s back, into his hair and over the top of his head.
“I did it just to spite you,” Sam told him, and Dean’s snort of laughter seemed to surprise them both. Dean’s hand was still in his hair, tangling, fingers rubbing his scalp, and Sam looked into Dean’s face, but Dean’s formerly expressive eyes gave nothing away.
“Sammy?” Dean whispered hoarsely, and Sam only knew he was going to kiss him the second before it was happening, Dean’s mouth opening under his, fingers clenching in Sam’s hair. Sam licked his way between Dean’s lips, kissing him more deeply, then pulling back to breathe with him, his nose against Dean’s cheek. It was disconcerting to realize how far he had to bend his head to kiss his big brother now, but he tasted the same as ever, felt just as solid in Sam’s arms. Dean cupped both hands around his face, fucking his tongue into Sam’s mouth with sudden desperation. Sam’s heart raced and his brain was slow to catch up. This was so much easier than the tension of the last few days, Dean leaning into him, closing the distance between their bodies.
The rhythm of Dean’s kisses hadn’t changed, and Sam moved with him as though it hadn’t been a year since they did this last. He could feel it when Dean started to get hard, the rising weight of his dick against Sam’s thigh, and he shoved a hand into Dean’s jeans without thinking, grabbing at the heat of it and making Dean moan helplessly into his mouth. Sam just rubbed him until he came that first time, quick and unthinking, holding him up with an arm around his back in the middle of the living room.
The second time they made it to the bed, and Sam watched Dean’s damaged eyes flutter closed as he sucked Sam’s cock. Dean’d always been all about the porn-star “look up through my long pretty lashes while I worship your dick” thing, and Sam had always looked helplessly back, caught by Dean’s eyes. He thought he hated it, but he didn’t now. Now he wanted Dean’s eyes on him so badly the ache in his chest was as strong as the throb in his balls. “Come on, Sammy,” Dean murmured, pulling off. “Give it to me.”
Sam choked, and Dean could hear it, went back to sucking him down, throat-deep and so slick. Too much, too fast, too good. Sam came when Dean squeezed a hand around his balls, gentle, coaxing pressure. His come dribbled from the corners of Dean’s mouth, and Dean licked it up as he pulled off, lips slick and shiny and full. Sam rubbed a hand over the back of Dean’s neck in thanks, and Dean dropped a kiss into the curve of his hipbone. It was simple right then, Dean in his bed, settling in to stay.
September
It’s a slippery slope, an easy routine to fall into, fucking his brother. Sam comes back from his part-time job in the campus bookstore and fucks his brother. He wakes up in the morning to the alarm and the sun in his eyes and fucks his brother. Sometimes he struggles out of sleep in the middle of the night to Dean’s mouth on his dick, or Dean sinking down over him, riding him slow in the dark. It’s one more thing they don’t talk about, although Sam buys lube at the drugstore and shows Dean where to find it.
In the evenings, Sam makes mac and cheese like Dean used to when they were little, and Dean eats it with a sour look on his face that says he remembers his role as a big brother. He doesn’t tease Sam about not eating his spinach or joke about who’s the wife between them. Sam wants to talk to a doctor about Dean’s blindness, but he doesn’t know where to start. The burns are healing, but Dean’s eyes are still blank.
“Can you see light or anything?” Sam asks, shading his eyes against the bright of the window one morning.
Dean shrugs sharply at his side. “If it’s bright enough. If your giant head isn’t blocking it.”
“Is that a good sign?”
“What the hell makes you think I would know?” Dean shoves himself angrily out of bed, stomping along the familiar path to the bathroom. Sam watches the closed door for a minute, but there’s nothing he can say.
***
Getting used to Dean’s blindness is more disconcerting than the habit of fucking him. When Sam’s in class, he finds himself cataloguing the easiest routes Dean might take through the lecture halls and corridors on campus, as though Dean would ever come near a classroom if he could help it. He makes space in his life for Dean without meaning to, begs off nights out with his friends from last year so he won’t leave Dean alone in the dark. “My brother’s staying with me right now,” he explains. “He was in an accident, and he’s recuperating.” He lets them murmur their sympathy, but he doesn’t offer details. He can’t take questions any better than Dean can, really.
And then there’s Jess. Sam knows when he’s being watched - wariness is a reflex, not a choice - and he feels her eyes on him in anthro, trying to pick him apart. She doesn’t ask anything, just looks too close and sees too much; and every once in a while she drops books on his foot and apologizes, and they have a conversation where she says something witty and he mumbles and looks at his feet. “She likes you, you freak,” Zach says, when Sam complains. “When was the last time you got any?”
The truth is, Dean fucked him last night, slow and torturous, staying in him until Sam sobbed and begged and came, Dean murmuring, “That’s it, baby brother,” before sliding down to lick his own come out of Sam’s ass. He shrugs at Zach.
“Whatever, Sam. Get over your social anxiety and ask her out.”
It’s pretty fucking hilarious when Dean tells him basically the same thing.
Dean’s the stubbornest person Sam’s ever known, and he keeps up a steady stream of talk about “the girl” until Sam bites out that her name is Jess, and tells Dean to leave it the hell alone already.
“But isn’t that what you want? A nice little girl and a white picket fence?” Dean teases. “A normal life like normal people have?”
Sam is shaking with anger at Dean’s casual tone, but he’s across the room, so Dean can’t possibly know that. “You think if I really wanted to be normal so badly you would even be here?” he says, louder and sharper than he intended, and Dean’s easy sprawl on the couch disintegrates. “I would have left you to rot in Omaha, Dean. I can’t have a nice little girl and a white picket fence because I keep fucking coming back to you.”
Dean stumbles to his feet, fists clenched, and Sam wonders whether he’s willing to have a knockdown-drag out fight with his blinded brother. But then Dean’s crossing the room in long purposeful strides, balling Sam’s shirt in his fists and dragging him into a kiss that splits his lip on Dean’s front teeth. It’s clumsy and violent, and he hates his life and he loves his brother, and how could he possibly go out with a girl and come home to this?
“You’re so stupid, Sammy,” Dean tells him quietly.
“It’s Sam,” replies Sam.
“You’re so stupid, Sam,” Dean amends, and he’s got this sad little smile quirking his mouth that would make Sam pull back if Dean wasn’t still holding his t-shirt like a lifeline. “Go. You deserve better than me. Always have, always will. So fucking go, get your girl and your white picket fence and don’t let me stop you.”
“Martyr,” spits Sam viciously, and kisses him again. There are too many things he wants and none of them line up right. What the fuck could he even say to a girl like Jess? How could he be with her and not always be the guy who lost his virginity to his older brother? There’s no way.
But Jess doesn’t know that.
***
“I know this is very middle school,” says Jess, blocking his path to the aisle as he’s getting up to leave anthro, “but a friend of a friend said she heard you liked me.”
“Yeah?” says Sam, an octave above his usual speaking voice.
“So I was thinking maybe we could hang out sometime, get a coffee.”
“You don’t want that,” Sam says stupidly, and Jess grins like he’s charmingly shy.
“Oh, but I do.”
Sam looks away. “I can’t. I… just can’t.” And then he runs, or walks as fast as he can without looking as though he’s running, looking over his shoulder at the door to find Jess still standing in the aisle, curiosity in her eyes. He doesn’t tell Dean what’s wrong, but he sinks to his knees as soon as he gets home, sucking Dean off on the couch while Dean’s fingers make a mess of his hair. As he pants into Dean’s thigh afterwards, stroking himself off with vicious speed, Sam wants more than anything for this to be enough.
***
“Why didn’t you tell me?” asks Jess before class the next week, her voice soft with understanding.
Sam turns terrified eyes on her. “Tell you what?”
“That you had a boyfriend. You could have just said so.”
“Who told you that?”
“I saw you walking with him last night. He’s hot.”
Sam’s never thought what they might look like together, that anyone might see them and think… that. “That was my brother,” Sam says. “He’s staying with me for a while.”
“Oh.” Jess presses her lips together in confusion. “Well, he’s still hot.”
“I’ll tell him you said so.”
“But if he’s not your boyfriend, then I see no reason you can’t have coffee with me.”
Sam freezes, then nods. “Now?”
“How about Friday? Then if we have nothing in common, we can go home and cry about it all weekend.”
Sam laughs in surprise. “Okay.”
She has a beautiful smile, and when she turns the full force of it on him, Sam’s heart skips. In some other world, he thinks he could love her without reservation.
He doesn’t tell Dean he has a date, or what might be a date. Dean holds enough of Sam’s life in his hands already. Instead he tells him, “I’m going to run some errands after class,” and Dean replies, “More peanut butter.” Dean can’t see that Sam’s in his nicest shirt, a soft blue buttondown, and it feels like a sin of omission.
***
Jess is wearing a long orange dress that flutters around her ankles as she walks beside him, carrying a plastic cup full of chocolaty slush and melting whipped cream. “I only drink coffee in the mornings,” she had explained, as Sam stirred sugar into his own cup.
“Wasn’t it kind of ironic asking me for coffee then?”
She winked at him. “Maybe I’m hoping you’ll be around tomorrow morning.”
They take their drinks outside and Jess sits cross-legged under a spreading tree, dripping blotches of condensation onto her skirt. Sam feels like it’s been weeks since he tried to have a real conversation with anyone besides Dean. He stutters out some awkward questions about classes, which she answers politely. But then he stalls. He’s not sure why he’s here, when this can’t go anywhere, when he doesn’t know where it would go if it could.
“So your brother’s staying with you?” Jess asks, and Sam tenses before he can help himself.
“Yeah,” he says. “Just for a while.”
“You guys get along okay? I think if my sister came to stay with me in one of those tiny student apartments, there’d be tears and hair-pulling by the end of the night.”
Sam laughs. “Dean doesn’t really have enough hair to pull.” Although he swallows guiltily as he realizes that’s not quite true, thinking of his own hands fisted at the back of Dean’s skull as Dean deep-throats him.
“Is he older than you, or younger?”
“He’s twenty-three. He was in an accident, and I said he could stay until he got back on his feet.” Except Sam doesn’t know whether Dean can get back on his feet without his eyes. He can’t drive, can’t go back to hunting the way he did. All Sam’s seen him do in the last month and a half is sit on the couch with the TV on, grumbling when Sam makes him come out to the grocery store. The person he sees when he looks at Dean now is someone smaller, less than his brother, and Sam doesn’t have to hide the pity on his face. His chest hurts just thinking about it, everything his brother isn’t anymore.
Jess touches his knee. “Sounds like that may be hard on both of you.”
Her smile is kind when he looks up. “It’s okay. We moved a lot when I was a kid. Dean and I are pretty used to each other.”
“Why’d you move so much?”
“My dad’s job.” And that’s all he’ll say about that, shrugging off the rest of her questions, changing the subject to her own (perfectly normal, stable) family. She’s fun to talk to, and if she notices Sam’s awkward segues away from the topic of his home life, she doesn’t say, and she kisses him on the cheek as afternoon fades to evening.
“We should do this again, Sam,” she tells him, brushing dry grass off her dress, so that Sam can’t help watching the way the fabric falls against her thighs.
Sam nods. “I’d like that.”
October
He thinks Jess must find him frustrating. She’s been nothing but sweet to him, and she even laughs at his lame jokes, but there are too many things he can’t tell her, too many awkward silences in their conversation still. He’s been to her dorm to study and drink peppermint tea, but he can’t make himself return the invitation. It doesn’t matter if Zach and Becky and Dave come over to the apartment for movie and nacho nights with his brother there, but Jess is different. She still looks at him too hard, and there are some things he’s not ready for her to puzzle out.
But then she sinks into the lecture hall seat next to his one Tuesday and says, “So I met your brother.”
“You what?”
“I was out jogging yesterday, and I saw a guy doing pull-ups on the fitness trail. I was pretty sure it was him, so I called his name. I didn’t know he was blind.” She sounds apologetic about that, even though it was Sam who didn’t tell her. “I think I startled him. But when I introduced myself, he said you’d said good things about me. He’s even hotter in exercise gear, I have to say.”
She winks at him, and Sam wants to have a witty comeback, but Dean was outside without him. Training, it sounds like. Sam’s stomach churns with hurt and fear and not a little anger. Dean let Sam think he was helpless, dependent.
“Sam?” says Jess gently, setting a hand on his wrist. “Hey, it’s no big deal. He seems like a nice guy.”
“No, he is,” Sam assures her. “I just worry about him, with the” - he gestures at his eyes.
She slides her hand down until her fingers are covering his, and Sam twists so they touch palm to palm. “It must be scary, having him hurt, your big brother.”
“He took care of me a lot when I was younger.”
“He said you were a little punk.”
Sam snorts, and Jess smiles. She’s left-handed, so she doesn’t let go of his hand even while she’s taking notes.
When Sam gets home, Dean’s asleep on the couch, sunglasses tilted on his nose. Sam pokes him in the shoulder. Dean mumbles and keeps on drooling on the cushions. Sam kneels down in front of him, before remembering that trying to make eye contact is pointless. He wraps his hand, still sweaty from Jess’s grip, around Dean’s upper arm.
“What is it, Sammy?” Dean asks sleepily, slurred by the pillow against his cheek.
“Jess says she saw you when she was out jogging last night.”
“Well, I didn’t see her.” Dean cocks a smile at him.
“Dean.” Sam sighs, runs his hand up into Dean’s hair and strokes around the shell of his ear. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going out?”
Dean makes a satisfied noise and bends towards Sam’s hand. “You didn’t ask.” He stretches like a big cat, but there’s an edge to his voice. “You really thought I was sitting around all day feeling sorry for myself, huh?”
“I didn’t know,” Sam tells him. “I didn’t want to ask and have you bite my head off. Dean, I just want to know what you’re planning to do.”
“There are still evil things out there killing innocent people. That doesn’t go away just because I lose my eyes. I just don’t know what the hell I can do about it yet.” He sits up and pats the couch next to him. “Come on, Sam, tell me about your girl. Are you holding hands yet?”
Sam’s cheeks burn with embarrassment. “Shut up.”
“Wish I could’ve seen her,” Dean sighs wistfully. “Bet she was wearing one of those little sports bra deals, teeny little shorts. Bet she’s hot.”
“She is,” Sam agrees reluctantly. “But I’m not sure I like you perving on my friends that way.”
“Get your head out of your ass and admit you’re dating her, Sammy. Nobody likes a tease.”
“What about you?”
“I never tease.”
“Not what I meant.”
“I’m not your boyfriend. Just because you fuck me doesn’t mean you don’t deserve that girl. I know that, even if you can’t seem to get it through your thick head. I’ve got no claim on your dick.” Sam can’t tell if Dean means it, isn’t sure it matters. Dean wraps a hand around his chin, kisses him more gently than Sam’s used to. “Just let me know when I need to make myself scarce so you can boink her.”
Sam laughs in spite of himself. “You’re such a romantic.”
November
Sam tries to muster surprise when he finds that Dean and Jess have been hanging out together, but he can’t do it. While Sam’s been working extra hours and burying himself in the library, Dean has been working out with Jess, teaching her how to spar, treating her like the kind of friend Sam was never allowed to have as a kid. “Have you told her what we do?” Sam asks, watching Dean assemble a sandwich on the counter with deliberate, steady motions.
“The hunting or the fucking?” Dean replies carelessly, patting down his top slice of bread and taking a bite. “Is this ham?”
“Either,” Sam says. “And it’s smoked turkey.”
Dean takes another bite, chews thoughtfully for a minute, and sprays crumbs everywhere as he says, “I haven’t told her anything. Seems like that’s your job.”
Sam feels a twist of jealousy in his gut as he thinks of the excited smile on Jess’s face when she talks about Dean. “Not so sure about that.”
“Don’t pull that sulky shit, Sam. Jess thinks you hung the moon. I keep having to tell her you’re just shy. I feel like a chick.”
“She doesn’t know what’s she’s getting into.”
“Jess is a big girl. She’s smart. You treating her like she can’t understand your angsty little soul is fucking stupid. You don’t have to tell her anything, but don’t treat her like she doesn’t know something’s up with you.”
Sam can’t remember ever hearing Dean talk about a girl like this, especially a girl Sam was interested in. It was always, “Great legs,” and, “You gotten under her shirt yet?” But for some reason, Dean feels like he has a stake in this one.
Dean pulls open the fridge and sets the mustard on the shelf. “I can’t see the constipated face you’re making, Sam. You’re going to have to use your words.”
“I’m not making a face. It’s just, you like her, don’t you?”
Dean shrugs. “You could do a whole lot worse.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“I know what you mean.” Dean brushes past Sam on his way to the bedroom. “I’m gonna go for a run before it gets dark.”
“Be careful,” Sam tells him, watching Dean strip out of his jeans and pull on a pair of frayed sweats.
Dean huffs a laugh. “Little late for that.”
***
Jess kisses him the day before Thanksgiving break, dipping into his personal space as they sit in the little study lounge on her floor. Her mouth is soft and sugary with vanilla lip balm, but she’s not shy, curling a hand into Sam’s hair and licking along the seam of his lips. Sam tenses, but he’s already deciding to kiss her back. He opens his mouth against hers, and there’s no burn of stubble as they shift in closer, no familiar scent of sweat and cheap spicy deodorant. Sam fists a hand in her curls and tilts her face towards his, sucking at her lower lip and nipping at it with his teeth. It’s good, so good, but different, and a stab of guilt strikes him low.
He breaks the kiss and rubs his hands over the knees of his jeans. “There’s something I need to tell you,” he says.
Jess nods attentively.
“I sleep with my brother.”
She lifts an eyebrow at him. “Okay. Well, I’ve got a bed to myself.”
“No.” Sam swallows around the catch in his throat. He’s about to lose her without ever really having had her. “I mean, Dean and I, we have sex.”
Jess stares at him, and Sam has no idea what her pained expression means. “I think you should go,” she tells him quietly, and Sam grabs his book and doesn’t look back.
***
When there’s a knock at the door on Sunday, Sam assumes it’s Dean, who’s been out for the last hour, doing who knows what in the cold and damp. “Lose your key already?” he calls through the door. There’s no answer, and whatever else he was going to say goes right out of his head when he sees Jess standing in the hallway.
“Hey, Sam,” she says, a sad smile at the corners of her mouth. “Can I come in for a minute?”
He stands back from the door to let her pass. The apartment is a mess, books strewn all over the table, Dean’s socks balled up on the floor, takeout containers overflowing the kitchen trash. Jess takes it all in, evidence that Sam’s been sulking since Tuesday. He wishes he had invited her over weeks ago, so she could see he’s capable of living like a normal person. At least, normal apart from fucking his brother.
“Do you want some coffee or anything?” Sam asks awkwardly.
Jess shakes her head. “I just want to know… I really like you, Sam. And I like Dean, too. But.” Those too-quick eyes pin him. “I don’t get it. Did he molest you?”
“No.” Sam bites his lip. Right now he almost wishes it were that simple, that he could tell her it was a decision Dean made for him. But it’s never been that way. “We never stayed in one place very long, so it was hard to get to know anyone besides each other. But it was my choice. He never did anything I didn’t ask him for first. When I was sixteen, we - sorry, you don’t need to hear this.”
She touches his hand, fingers sliding down from his wrist, and the feeling of that brief contact is electric. “I think maybe I do.”
He wants to kiss her more than he can explain, and his mouth is slow to form words. “Do you want to sit down?” he asks, gesturing at the couch, which is relatively clean from Dean sweeping the crumbs off before he naps.
Jess nods. She shrugs out of her coat like she’s planning to stay awhile and settles herself against one arm of the couch. Sam takes the other end, folds his hands in his lap. “I was sixteen, and we were living out of a motel in Indiana in the middle of summer, and the air conditioner only worked about half the time, so Dean and I were hot and cranky and at each other’s throats all day. And there was nothing to do in town, and our dad was working all the time, and it just, built up, I guess. We were always shoving each other around, sparring, like you do with him.” He glances at her to see how this registers, but her face is impassive. “I kissed him first. He wouldn’t have done anything if I hadn’t started it. But he didn’t stop me. And so I didn’t stop. He was my whole world when I was a kid, and I mean, you’ve seen him. Even with the scars from the accident, he’s…” Sam swallows. He can’t justify it. “I knew it was wrong, but I figured in a month we’d be in a new town anyway, so who was going to care what we did? I thought it was over when I came here. I thought that was it, you know. I burned my bridges.”
“But then Dean got hurt,” Jess puts in, and Sam nods.
“When he called me, it’s not like I could tell him no. Our dad’s working all the time, and there isn’t anyone else. It’s just me and Dean.”
“Are you in love with him?” she asks.
“He’s my brother,” replies Sam helplessly.
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
Sam stares at his shoes until he hears the sound of Dean feeling for the doorknob, wiggling in his key. “I don’t know,” Sam tells Jess, and then Dean’s there, pushing through the door with a bag over his arm full of what smells like Chinese food.
“Sammy, you here?” Dean calls, a little louder than strictly necessary.
“Hi, Dean,” says Jess, before Sam can say anything at all.
“Jess,” Dean acknowledges slowly. “How’s it going?”
“It’s a little complicated right now,” Jess says matter-of-factly. “Sam was just explaining some things to me, but there’s a lot I still don’t understand.”
“Like what?” asks Sam, watching Dean navigate his way to the coffee table to set the food down. With Sam and Jess on the couch, Dean stands awkwardly with his hands in his pockets, his mouth twisted uncertainly.
Jess looks between the two of them. “Like what the hell you’re doing with me. Both of you. Was this all some kind of scheme for a threeway?”
Sam feels himself go white, all the blood draining from his face and leaving a rushing in his ears, but Dean grins lecherously. “Hey, I wouldn’t say no,” Dean jokes. At least Sam thinks he’s joking.
“I just liked you,” Sam says softly. “That was all. I liked spending time with you.”
“Agreed,” echoes Dean.
Jess gets to her feet. “Yeah,” she says, nodding vaguely, and Sam wonders how phenomenally stupid it would be to skip anthro lecture for the rest of the term to avoid her. But then she bends to kiss him on the cheek, and Sam shuts his eyes, breathing in the sweet, clean scent of her hair. “See you Tuesday, Sam.” She touches Dean’s shoulder as she passes, and Sam watches her hand linger against his collar. “See you soon, Dean.”
“I’m not sure what just happened,” Dean declares, when Jess has shut the door behind her. He drags the food back to the couch and holds out an overflowing container of fried rice. Sam takes it, cradling its warmth between his palms. “Think she’ll be back?”
“I have no idea,” sighs Sam. “We could royally fuck up her life.”
Dean digs a fork into a box of sesame chicken and shakes his head. “I think we probably already have.”
Sam looks at the door and doesn’t feel like eating.
December
Sam comes home from his Monday night study group to find Dean and Jess making out in his bed. It’s disorienting, watching Dean’s fingers clutch at Jess’s shoulders as she throws a leg over his, listening to the hitch of her breath, knowing that curve to Dean’s mouth from the inside. He thinks he should be angry, should be jealous, but instead he feels as though he’s accidentally walked through a door to another dimension, woozy and unsteady on his feet.
“Sam?” says Dean, and Jess turns her head to look at him. Her cheeks are flushed, her lips plump and dark from Dean’s kisses. He wonders if this was what she wanted all along, Dean and not him, but she was just too nice to say anything.
“Sam,” she confirms, mostly for Dean’s benefit, Sam thinks.
Dean lifts a hand toward the door, fingers spreading as though he could scoop Sam into his palm. “Come here, Sammy,” Dean says roughly, and Sam watches the flick of his tongue wetting his lips. “We’re discussing terms.”
Sam reaches out until his fingertips hit Dean’s, Jess still looking at him over her shoulder. “Terms?” he asks, as Dean drags their hands closer together.
“You’re pre-law, aren’t you?” Dean replies, tugging until Sam has to take a step forward or fall onto the bed. He steps forward. “Thought you’d have a real hard-on for terms and contracts.”
“It’s okay, Sam,” Jess says. “Nobody’s got more answers than you do.”
“I don’t have any answers.”
“Exactly,” sighs Dean. “Get down here, you giant freak.”
Sam unties his shoes and climbs into bed behind Dean, throwing an arm across his brother’s waist to palm at Jess’s hip. She watches him with hooded eyes, brings her hand up to tangle with his. They stare at each other over Dean’s shoulder, and Sam hesitates before bringing his lips to the back of Dean’s neck, kissing just behind his ear, showing her that this is how he looks kissing his brother. Then Dean rolls onto his other side, and his mouth meets Sam’s, soft and tasting like vanilla. Sam shivers and lets himself kiss back, opening to the searching heat of Dean’s tongue. He closes his eyes, presses forward to kiss Dean more deeply, Dean’s hands on his face guiding him.
When he pulls back, Jess is looking between them, biting thoughtfully at the inside of her lip like Sam’s seen her do in class. “Jess?” says Dean.
“Yeah?”
“You think Sam’s hot even though he’s morally bankrupt, right?”
“I do,” agrees Jess, cracking a smile.
Dean pats Sam on the cheek. “See, Sammy? You’re all right.”
“Is this what you want?” Sam asks, and he’s looking at Jess, but it’s a question for both of them.
“I’m going to find out,” Jess answers, and then she bends to kiss him over Dean’s shoulder, stretching until their lips brush. Sam sucks at her lower lip, helps draw her in with a hand around the ball of her shoulder.
Dean sighs. “Wish I could see you. Must be so damn hot.”
Jess murmurs affirmatively, and turns to kiss Dean again, moving back and forth between them until Sam is dizzy and short of breath.
“What were your terms?” he asks finally, ducking away from the temptation of Jess’s mouth.
“Our terms,” Dean corrects him. Sam watches his brother’s hand slip under the back of Jess’s shirt where she’s leaning across him.
“They have to be yours too,” Jess says. “If you want this.”
“He does,” says Dean. “I can tell.” His thigh nudges between Sam’s legs, where Sam’s dick is hard behind his fly. Sam whimpers before he can help it.
“It’s not just,” Sam begins. “I don’t just want that.”
“I know,” says Jess. “Seriously, Sam, I know.” She kisses his forehead and sits up, Dean’s fingers still tracing idly up her back.
“All right,” Sam says, hazy the first time, and then more firmly. “All right.” He swallows, looks at Dean, but Dean can’t read him that way anymore. “I think, if we’re going to do this, there are some other things you need to know about our family.”
Dean nods in confirmation, and Sam takes a deep breath. He’s never had anyone to tell before.
“When I was six months old, our mom died in a house fire…”
April
“I brought burritos,” Jess sings out, banging open the door with her arms full. Dean doesn’t even flinch, oiling up a shotgun months out of use. He’s been working on the guns lately, the whole arsenal from the Impala’s trunk, getting them ready for the summer. Dean wants to teach Jess to hunt.
“Phallic,” Jess had said dryly, the first time Dean dug out the rags and oil and cleaning rods. But she had watched with fascination plain on her face as Dean’s skilled fingers twisted and tugged and popped things out of place and then slotted them back together again. Sam didn’t tell her that they had both drilled until they could do this blindfolded as kids, that of all the things Dean could do without using his eyes, this was nowhere near the most impressive. And Dean had responded to her compliments with gruff pride and a murmured comment about what else he could do with the oil on his fingers.
She pauses now, grocery bag and sack of burritos still slung over her arms, watches the graceful competence of Dean with a piece of equipment he understands in his hands. Sam wishes she could have seen him drive, but he knows she gets the idea. And that’s more than he ever expected anyone to get. Sam watches Jess watching his brother and is more grateful than he can explain.
~fin~
(insert porny sequel here. no, really.)
Title: There is a crack in everything (that's how the light gets in)
Fandom: SPN
Pairing: Sam/Dean (established), Sam/Dean/Jess (pending)
Rating: R
Warnings: incest, physical injury but no on-screen violence
Summary: AU. Dean comes to stay with Sam at Stanford after he's seriously injured on a hunt. While Dean regroups, Sam has to deal with his not-so-simple feelings for his brother, and for the girl in his class who smiles at him a lot and drops books on his feet.
Notes: Written for Demona as part of Sweet Charity. Beta by the fabulously meticulous busaikko, without whom this story would have been a flaily mess. Title and cut-text from L. Cohen. ~7700 words.
September
Dean hasn’t seen the sharp corner of Jess’s smile or the way the sunlight glints off her curls or the sly, considering looks she shoots Sam from across the aisle in anthro lecture. But when Sam comes back from class and flops down on the small apartment’s couch, flustered and jittery, Dean elbows him in the arm and says, “Who’s the girl?” Because Dean can sniff out that kind of drama like a bloodhound.
“Shut up,” says Sam, and Dean’s eyebrows go up behind his sunglasses, a smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth. It’s the only kind of smile Dean gives anymore, sarcastic and pointed.
“Come on, Sammy, gotta give a guy some details. We can’t all have your exciting life of studying and sulking. Is she stacked?”
“She’s blonde,” Sam offers sullenly. Dean’s shoulder nudges his like he wants better info. “I think she’s an English major. She dropped a Norton Anthology on my toe today.”
“A what?”
Sam shakes his head, realizes it’s pointless, and sighs. “A heavy book.”
Dean nods. “Think I’ll go to bed.”
Sam looks over Dean’s shoulder and out the window of their cramped living room. It’s not even eight, and the sky’s still shedding sunset colors. But Sam assumes Dean’s been sitting in this same position for the two hours since Sam dropped him off a cheeseburger for supper and left for his constitutional law study group. “Okay,” he agrees.
“You gonna come?” Dean asks, face tilted down like he’s watching his fingers worry the hole in the knee of his jeans. Sam wavers uncertainly until Dean grunts and gets to his feet, tossing his sunglasses onto the coffee table. “Whatever.” Sam looks at the still-raw flesh around Dean’s eyes, unfocused green gaze directed somewhere below the TV, which is still droning on dully. He wants to kiss the scars, run his tongue over them, down the rise of Dean’s cheekbones, and into his lush mouth. But if he tries it, he knows Dean will just push him off, tell him, “I don’t need your pity fuck,” meaning, “Just forget I’m like this, Sam.”
It’s obvious that that’s what Dean wants most of all, to forget that his eyes can’t help him anymore, that they maybe never will again and everything he thought he was going to do is fucked. He doesn’t say as much, but Sam knows. He turns off the light in the kitchen and follows Dean to bed, telling himself he has an early class and it’s not bad to go to bed. But when he gets to their shared bedroom, he finds Dean curled on his side, not sleeping, just silent and still, and Sam strips out of his clothes and curls around him, holding him with an arm around his waist like Dean used to do when Sam was little and had a nightmare. Back before. Before everything.
Dean bends his head and makes a vague encouraging noise as Sam’s lips find the side of his neck, rubbing gently up to Dean’s pulse, thumping under the strong curve of his jaw. It’s always like this now, hesitant and a little bitter. Sam doesn’t want to need Dean this way, and Dean doesn’t want to need anything at all.
August
It had been a year since they’d seen each other, and Sam had sloughed off all the remnants of his old life, except for the number in his phone labeled simply “D” and a box of weapons and photos and rock salt under his bed. His apartment was newly his, freshly white and full of sturdy, scarred student housing furniture. And then Sam had to learn Dean all over again in Omaha, like meeting a brother he’d never known.
It was two weeks before the start of classes when the call came in, and Sam almost didn’t answer, the area code only vaguely familiar. “Hello,” he sighed finally, picking up after four rings.
“Sam Roth?” said a crisp female voice at the other end. “I’m calling from St. Mary’s Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska.”
Sam’s heartbeat sped. Not his name, but one he had an ID to match. “Yes?”
“We’ve got a man here who claims he’s your brother.”
“Dean?” Sam asked, not sure what he’d do if Dean had given a fake first name. But as long as Dean was juggling aliases, at least he wasn’t….
The woman at the other end made a confirming noise. “He’s been in an accident, and he gave your name as next of kin.”
Sam didn’t bother to ask where his dad was. “Can I talk to him?”
The next voice he heard was his brother’s, hoarse and cracked. “Sammy?”
“Yeah,” whispered Sam, scared and angry and not sure what to say. “Hey, Dean.”
Dean’s tone shifted, falsely cheerful. “I’m in Omaha, but they’re about to kick me out for not being sick enough. How’d you feel about a houseguest?”
Sam’s stomach soured, but Dean was his brother. His hurt, stupid, infuriating brother. He resigned himself. “I guess I could handle that. What happened?”
“I’ll tell you when you get here.”
“Get there?” Sam’s anger surged again. “You want me to pick you up in Nebraska? You have a car, Dean.”
Dean cleared his throat, but his voice cracked anyway, turned lower with something like shame, something like grief. “I can’t drive, Sammy. You have to… Please, okay?”
Sam had been on the next bus, and he hadn’t slept more than an hour between San Francisco and Omaha. He hitched a ride to the hospital with the grandmotherly woman who had been his seatmate since somewhere in Idaho. “You poor dear,” she said, again and again after he told her his brother was hurt, a sickening replay of every kindly adult from his childhood. Her sputtering little car dropped him at the visitors' entrance to the hospital, and she patted his knee and said, “Poor dear,” one more time as Sam hitched on his backpack and nodded his thanks.
Sam found his way to Dean’s room on the fourth floor with the help of a pretty dark-haired nurse whose face gave nothing away as her white shoes squeaked along the tiles. No hint of a smile when Sam said Dean’s name. Sam remembered all the attendants Dean had charmed in all the hospitals they’d ever even been sewn up in, and wondered what could have been so bad that it made Dean stop flirting but didn’t kill him.
As soon as Sam entered the dim, sterile room, Dean’s head turned, the tape around his eyes flexing as he squinted towards the door. “Sammy?” he asked, and Sam nodded. But Dean just cocked his head, and said more loudly, “Sammy?”
Sam knew then, with sharp, painful certainty, that Dean couldn’t see him. “It’s me,” he said, shuffling towards the bed. Tears pricked behind his eyes and dizziness spiraled up his spine. Dean wasn’t supposed to look so small, so helpless, reaching out trembling, bandaged fingers to Sam, who was still frozen by the door. Sam’s life changed right then, started the slow sinking that brought them back to a place Sam thought he’d never see again.
They didn’t fuck right away after Dean got out of the hospital. Sam had spent the last year locking all that away in a box marked, “Stupid kid stuff,” burying the taste of his brother’s come and the steady grip of Dean’s palm around his cock far away in the back of his mind. He didn’t worry about it all the long drive back to California, catching little sips of sleep pulled over at the side of the road. Dean stayed curled up in the Impala’s backseat, scowling over Sam’s driving by ear alone. Sam waited for snide remarks, jokes about who taught him to use his stick shift, but they didn’t come. Just the scowl from behind Dean’s sunglasses, and the low grumble of discontent when Sam took her down to third as they cruised through little towns Dean couldn’t see, still ten miles over the limit.
He made himself not think about it when they finally made it back to Sam’s apartment, and Dean called first shower. The bandages on his hands were gone, showing shiny pink new skin striped across Dean’s fingers, patches of it down to his wrists. There would be scars, and Sam wasn't sure whether Dean could bend his fingers without wincing, wondered how he’d navigate a washcloth and a bar of soap. But it wasn't Sam’s job to ask.
They spent several days in uncomfortable silence, broken by “Do you want tacos or burgers?” and “Where do you keep the toilet paper, Sammy?” Dean stumbled around the apartment, learning his way, Sam hovering at his elbow, never sure how much to touch him as he showed Dean the plates above the sink, the shampoo at the corner of the bathtub, the extra drawer in the dresser where Sam unpacked for him. Dean bristled at questions, wouldn’t say how he got hurt, wouldn’t say what he was doing, didn’t mention where the hell Dad was. He didn’t ask for help, didn’t say anything when Sam gave it anyway. Dean had been there for seventy-two hours before he and Sam had a real conversation. Sam bought him the beer he liked, although his emergency cash was running low and scamming pool in a town he hoped to live in for at least three more years seemed idiotically risky. But Dean settled in on the couch, nursing his Corona and keeping his eyes closed, long lashes dusting his cheeks. After a while, he started to talk.
“I was working a job,” he said, “outside Omaha. Dad was in Minnesota somewhere. Maybe he still is.”
“Dad let you work a job by yourself?” Sam blurted.
Dean jutted his chin out. “I’m twenty-three, asshole.”
“Sorry.” Sam sighed, regrouped. “What was the job?”
“Big hairy creature menacing the townsfolk, luring kids out of town and eating them. It looked like a coyote, but bigger. A lot bigger. I still, I don’t know what it was.” He sounded ashamed about that, ground down like he had spent his week in the hospital wondering. “I shot it though, and it stayed down. But I figured I should burn it, to be safe. Stupid plan, apparently. It exploded. Just” - he puffed out his cheeks and spread his hands, making a representative noise. “I saw this flash of light and the next thing I knew I was in the hospital all bandaged up. And I couldn’t see.” Dean cocked his head in Sam’s direction. “Remember that time with the fireworks? I thought it was like that, just a flash burn.”
“I guess it wasn’t,” said Sam.
Dean couldn’t aim his glare as well as he used to, and Sam’s gut twisted. “They said it looked like a chemical burn, must have been something in the thing I killed.” Sam watched him squint down, the burns on his cheek changing the shape of his frown. “I don’t know.”
“Do they think,” Sam started, then swallowed as Dean tensed, “do they think you might get better?”
“I don’t have a fucking cold, Sam. I’m blind.” He hadn’t had to say it before, not to Sam, maybe not to anyone, and his fist clenched tight around the neck of his bottle as he gritted out the word.
“But is there--”
“Fuck you.” Dean shoved off the couch, hands splayed to balance himself as he stood. “Don’t you think I asked? They just said, ‘We’ll see,’ like I don’t know what that means, like it isn’t all a bad joke.” He shifted on his feet like he didn’t know which way to move, and the anger on his face faded to hurt frustration. “Shit.”
Sam was reaching for him before he even knew he was going to get up, wrapping his arms around Dean’s back and hanging on tight. Dean stiffened, and then breathed out and hugged Sam back. “When the hell did you get so tall?” Dean asked, running his hand up Sam’s back, into his hair and over the top of his head.
“I did it just to spite you,” Sam told him, and Dean’s snort of laughter seemed to surprise them both. Dean’s hand was still in his hair, tangling, fingers rubbing his scalp, and Sam looked into Dean’s face, but Dean’s formerly expressive eyes gave nothing away.
“Sammy?” Dean whispered hoarsely, and Sam only knew he was going to kiss him the second before it was happening, Dean’s mouth opening under his, fingers clenching in Sam’s hair. Sam licked his way between Dean’s lips, kissing him more deeply, then pulling back to breathe with him, his nose against Dean’s cheek. It was disconcerting to realize how far he had to bend his head to kiss his big brother now, but he tasted the same as ever, felt just as solid in Sam’s arms. Dean cupped both hands around his face, fucking his tongue into Sam’s mouth with sudden desperation. Sam’s heart raced and his brain was slow to catch up. This was so much easier than the tension of the last few days, Dean leaning into him, closing the distance between their bodies.
The rhythm of Dean’s kisses hadn’t changed, and Sam moved with him as though it hadn’t been a year since they did this last. He could feel it when Dean started to get hard, the rising weight of his dick against Sam’s thigh, and he shoved a hand into Dean’s jeans without thinking, grabbing at the heat of it and making Dean moan helplessly into his mouth. Sam just rubbed him until he came that first time, quick and unthinking, holding him up with an arm around his back in the middle of the living room.
The second time they made it to the bed, and Sam watched Dean’s damaged eyes flutter closed as he sucked Sam’s cock. Dean’d always been all about the porn-star “look up through my long pretty lashes while I worship your dick” thing, and Sam had always looked helplessly back, caught by Dean’s eyes. He thought he hated it, but he didn’t now. Now he wanted Dean’s eyes on him so badly the ache in his chest was as strong as the throb in his balls. “Come on, Sammy,” Dean murmured, pulling off. “Give it to me.”
Sam choked, and Dean could hear it, went back to sucking him down, throat-deep and so slick. Too much, too fast, too good. Sam came when Dean squeezed a hand around his balls, gentle, coaxing pressure. His come dribbled from the corners of Dean’s mouth, and Dean licked it up as he pulled off, lips slick and shiny and full. Sam rubbed a hand over the back of Dean’s neck in thanks, and Dean dropped a kiss into the curve of his hipbone. It was simple right then, Dean in his bed, settling in to stay.
September
It’s a slippery slope, an easy routine to fall into, fucking his brother. Sam comes back from his part-time job in the campus bookstore and fucks his brother. He wakes up in the morning to the alarm and the sun in his eyes and fucks his brother. Sometimes he struggles out of sleep in the middle of the night to Dean’s mouth on his dick, or Dean sinking down over him, riding him slow in the dark. It’s one more thing they don’t talk about, although Sam buys lube at the drugstore and shows Dean where to find it.
In the evenings, Sam makes mac and cheese like Dean used to when they were little, and Dean eats it with a sour look on his face that says he remembers his role as a big brother. He doesn’t tease Sam about not eating his spinach or joke about who’s the wife between them. Sam wants to talk to a doctor about Dean’s blindness, but he doesn’t know where to start. The burns are healing, but Dean’s eyes are still blank.
“Can you see light or anything?” Sam asks, shading his eyes against the bright of the window one morning.
Dean shrugs sharply at his side. “If it’s bright enough. If your giant head isn’t blocking it.”
“Is that a good sign?”
“What the hell makes you think I would know?” Dean shoves himself angrily out of bed, stomping along the familiar path to the bathroom. Sam watches the closed door for a minute, but there’s nothing he can say.
***
Getting used to Dean’s blindness is more disconcerting than the habit of fucking him. When Sam’s in class, he finds himself cataloguing the easiest routes Dean might take through the lecture halls and corridors on campus, as though Dean would ever come near a classroom if he could help it. He makes space in his life for Dean without meaning to, begs off nights out with his friends from last year so he won’t leave Dean alone in the dark. “My brother’s staying with me right now,” he explains. “He was in an accident, and he’s recuperating.” He lets them murmur their sympathy, but he doesn’t offer details. He can’t take questions any better than Dean can, really.
And then there’s Jess. Sam knows when he’s being watched - wariness is a reflex, not a choice - and he feels her eyes on him in anthro, trying to pick him apart. She doesn’t ask anything, just looks too close and sees too much; and every once in a while she drops books on his foot and apologizes, and they have a conversation where she says something witty and he mumbles and looks at his feet. “She likes you, you freak,” Zach says, when Sam complains. “When was the last time you got any?”
The truth is, Dean fucked him last night, slow and torturous, staying in him until Sam sobbed and begged and came, Dean murmuring, “That’s it, baby brother,” before sliding down to lick his own come out of Sam’s ass. He shrugs at Zach.
“Whatever, Sam. Get over your social anxiety and ask her out.”
It’s pretty fucking hilarious when Dean tells him basically the same thing.
Dean’s the stubbornest person Sam’s ever known, and he keeps up a steady stream of talk about “the girl” until Sam bites out that her name is Jess, and tells Dean to leave it the hell alone already.
“But isn’t that what you want? A nice little girl and a white picket fence?” Dean teases. “A normal life like normal people have?”
Sam is shaking with anger at Dean’s casual tone, but he’s across the room, so Dean can’t possibly know that. “You think if I really wanted to be normal so badly you would even be here?” he says, louder and sharper than he intended, and Dean’s easy sprawl on the couch disintegrates. “I would have left you to rot in Omaha, Dean. I can’t have a nice little girl and a white picket fence because I keep fucking coming back to you.”
Dean stumbles to his feet, fists clenched, and Sam wonders whether he’s willing to have a knockdown-drag out fight with his blinded brother. But then Dean’s crossing the room in long purposeful strides, balling Sam’s shirt in his fists and dragging him into a kiss that splits his lip on Dean’s front teeth. It’s clumsy and violent, and he hates his life and he loves his brother, and how could he possibly go out with a girl and come home to this?
“You’re so stupid, Sammy,” Dean tells him quietly.
“It’s Sam,” replies Sam.
“You’re so stupid, Sam,” Dean amends, and he’s got this sad little smile quirking his mouth that would make Sam pull back if Dean wasn’t still holding his t-shirt like a lifeline. “Go. You deserve better than me. Always have, always will. So fucking go, get your girl and your white picket fence and don’t let me stop you.”
“Martyr,” spits Sam viciously, and kisses him again. There are too many things he wants and none of them line up right. What the fuck could he even say to a girl like Jess? How could he be with her and not always be the guy who lost his virginity to his older brother? There’s no way.
But Jess doesn’t know that.
***
“I know this is very middle school,” says Jess, blocking his path to the aisle as he’s getting up to leave anthro, “but a friend of a friend said she heard you liked me.”
“Yeah?” says Sam, an octave above his usual speaking voice.
“So I was thinking maybe we could hang out sometime, get a coffee.”
“You don’t want that,” Sam says stupidly, and Jess grins like he’s charmingly shy.
“Oh, but I do.”
Sam looks away. “I can’t. I… just can’t.” And then he runs, or walks as fast as he can without looking as though he’s running, looking over his shoulder at the door to find Jess still standing in the aisle, curiosity in her eyes. He doesn’t tell Dean what’s wrong, but he sinks to his knees as soon as he gets home, sucking Dean off on the couch while Dean’s fingers make a mess of his hair. As he pants into Dean’s thigh afterwards, stroking himself off with vicious speed, Sam wants more than anything for this to be enough.
***
“Why didn’t you tell me?” asks Jess before class the next week, her voice soft with understanding.
Sam turns terrified eyes on her. “Tell you what?”
“That you had a boyfriend. You could have just said so.”
“Who told you that?”
“I saw you walking with him last night. He’s hot.”
Sam’s never thought what they might look like together, that anyone might see them and think… that. “That was my brother,” Sam says. “He’s staying with me for a while.”
“Oh.” Jess presses her lips together in confusion. “Well, he’s still hot.”
“I’ll tell him you said so.”
“But if he’s not your boyfriend, then I see no reason you can’t have coffee with me.”
Sam freezes, then nods. “Now?”
“How about Friday? Then if we have nothing in common, we can go home and cry about it all weekend.”
Sam laughs in surprise. “Okay.”
She has a beautiful smile, and when she turns the full force of it on him, Sam’s heart skips. In some other world, he thinks he could love her without reservation.
He doesn’t tell Dean he has a date, or what might be a date. Dean holds enough of Sam’s life in his hands already. Instead he tells him, “I’m going to run some errands after class,” and Dean replies, “More peanut butter.” Dean can’t see that Sam’s in his nicest shirt, a soft blue buttondown, and it feels like a sin of omission.
***
Jess is wearing a long orange dress that flutters around her ankles as she walks beside him, carrying a plastic cup full of chocolaty slush and melting whipped cream. “I only drink coffee in the mornings,” she had explained, as Sam stirred sugar into his own cup.
“Wasn’t it kind of ironic asking me for coffee then?”
She winked at him. “Maybe I’m hoping you’ll be around tomorrow morning.”
They take their drinks outside and Jess sits cross-legged under a spreading tree, dripping blotches of condensation onto her skirt. Sam feels like it’s been weeks since he tried to have a real conversation with anyone besides Dean. He stutters out some awkward questions about classes, which she answers politely. But then he stalls. He’s not sure why he’s here, when this can’t go anywhere, when he doesn’t know where it would go if it could.
“So your brother’s staying with you?” Jess asks, and Sam tenses before he can help himself.
“Yeah,” he says. “Just for a while.”
“You guys get along okay? I think if my sister came to stay with me in one of those tiny student apartments, there’d be tears and hair-pulling by the end of the night.”
Sam laughs. “Dean doesn’t really have enough hair to pull.” Although he swallows guiltily as he realizes that’s not quite true, thinking of his own hands fisted at the back of Dean’s skull as Dean deep-throats him.
“Is he older than you, or younger?”
“He’s twenty-three. He was in an accident, and I said he could stay until he got back on his feet.” Except Sam doesn’t know whether Dean can get back on his feet without his eyes. He can’t drive, can’t go back to hunting the way he did. All Sam’s seen him do in the last month and a half is sit on the couch with the TV on, grumbling when Sam makes him come out to the grocery store. The person he sees when he looks at Dean now is someone smaller, less than his brother, and Sam doesn’t have to hide the pity on his face. His chest hurts just thinking about it, everything his brother isn’t anymore.
Jess touches his knee. “Sounds like that may be hard on both of you.”
Her smile is kind when he looks up. “It’s okay. We moved a lot when I was a kid. Dean and I are pretty used to each other.”
“Why’d you move so much?”
“My dad’s job.” And that’s all he’ll say about that, shrugging off the rest of her questions, changing the subject to her own (perfectly normal, stable) family. She’s fun to talk to, and if she notices Sam’s awkward segues away from the topic of his home life, she doesn’t say, and she kisses him on the cheek as afternoon fades to evening.
“We should do this again, Sam,” she tells him, brushing dry grass off her dress, so that Sam can’t help watching the way the fabric falls against her thighs.
Sam nods. “I’d like that.”
October
He thinks Jess must find him frustrating. She’s been nothing but sweet to him, and she even laughs at his lame jokes, but there are too many things he can’t tell her, too many awkward silences in their conversation still. He’s been to her dorm to study and drink peppermint tea, but he can’t make himself return the invitation. It doesn’t matter if Zach and Becky and Dave come over to the apartment for movie and nacho nights with his brother there, but Jess is different. She still looks at him too hard, and there are some things he’s not ready for her to puzzle out.
But then she sinks into the lecture hall seat next to his one Tuesday and says, “So I met your brother.”
“You what?”
“I was out jogging yesterday, and I saw a guy doing pull-ups on the fitness trail. I was pretty sure it was him, so I called his name. I didn’t know he was blind.” She sounds apologetic about that, even though it was Sam who didn’t tell her. “I think I startled him. But when I introduced myself, he said you’d said good things about me. He’s even hotter in exercise gear, I have to say.”
She winks at him, and Sam wants to have a witty comeback, but Dean was outside without him. Training, it sounds like. Sam’s stomach churns with hurt and fear and not a little anger. Dean let Sam think he was helpless, dependent.
“Sam?” says Jess gently, setting a hand on his wrist. “Hey, it’s no big deal. He seems like a nice guy.”
“No, he is,” Sam assures her. “I just worry about him, with the” - he gestures at his eyes.
She slides her hand down until her fingers are covering his, and Sam twists so they touch palm to palm. “It must be scary, having him hurt, your big brother.”
“He took care of me a lot when I was younger.”
“He said you were a little punk.”
Sam snorts, and Jess smiles. She’s left-handed, so she doesn’t let go of his hand even while she’s taking notes.
When Sam gets home, Dean’s asleep on the couch, sunglasses tilted on his nose. Sam pokes him in the shoulder. Dean mumbles and keeps on drooling on the cushions. Sam kneels down in front of him, before remembering that trying to make eye contact is pointless. He wraps his hand, still sweaty from Jess’s grip, around Dean’s upper arm.
“What is it, Sammy?” Dean asks sleepily, slurred by the pillow against his cheek.
“Jess says she saw you when she was out jogging last night.”
“Well, I didn’t see her.” Dean cocks a smile at him.
“Dean.” Sam sighs, runs his hand up into Dean’s hair and strokes around the shell of his ear. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going out?”
Dean makes a satisfied noise and bends towards Sam’s hand. “You didn’t ask.” He stretches like a big cat, but there’s an edge to his voice. “You really thought I was sitting around all day feeling sorry for myself, huh?”
“I didn’t know,” Sam tells him. “I didn’t want to ask and have you bite my head off. Dean, I just want to know what you’re planning to do.”
“There are still evil things out there killing innocent people. That doesn’t go away just because I lose my eyes. I just don’t know what the hell I can do about it yet.” He sits up and pats the couch next to him. “Come on, Sam, tell me about your girl. Are you holding hands yet?”
Sam’s cheeks burn with embarrassment. “Shut up.”
“Wish I could’ve seen her,” Dean sighs wistfully. “Bet she was wearing one of those little sports bra deals, teeny little shorts. Bet she’s hot.”
“She is,” Sam agrees reluctantly. “But I’m not sure I like you perving on my friends that way.”
“Get your head out of your ass and admit you’re dating her, Sammy. Nobody likes a tease.”
“What about you?”
“I never tease.”
“Not what I meant.”
“I’m not your boyfriend. Just because you fuck me doesn’t mean you don’t deserve that girl. I know that, even if you can’t seem to get it through your thick head. I’ve got no claim on your dick.” Sam can’t tell if Dean means it, isn’t sure it matters. Dean wraps a hand around his chin, kisses him more gently than Sam’s used to. “Just let me know when I need to make myself scarce so you can boink her.”
Sam laughs in spite of himself. “You’re such a romantic.”
November
Sam tries to muster surprise when he finds that Dean and Jess have been hanging out together, but he can’t do it. While Sam’s been working extra hours and burying himself in the library, Dean has been working out with Jess, teaching her how to spar, treating her like the kind of friend Sam was never allowed to have as a kid. “Have you told her what we do?” Sam asks, watching Dean assemble a sandwich on the counter with deliberate, steady motions.
“The hunting or the fucking?” Dean replies carelessly, patting down his top slice of bread and taking a bite. “Is this ham?”
“Either,” Sam says. “And it’s smoked turkey.”
Dean takes another bite, chews thoughtfully for a minute, and sprays crumbs everywhere as he says, “I haven’t told her anything. Seems like that’s your job.”
Sam feels a twist of jealousy in his gut as he thinks of the excited smile on Jess’s face when she talks about Dean. “Not so sure about that.”
“Don’t pull that sulky shit, Sam. Jess thinks you hung the moon. I keep having to tell her you’re just shy. I feel like a chick.”
“She doesn’t know what’s she’s getting into.”
“Jess is a big girl. She’s smart. You treating her like she can’t understand your angsty little soul is fucking stupid. You don’t have to tell her anything, but don’t treat her like she doesn’t know something’s up with you.”
Sam can’t remember ever hearing Dean talk about a girl like this, especially a girl Sam was interested in. It was always, “Great legs,” and, “You gotten under her shirt yet?” But for some reason, Dean feels like he has a stake in this one.
Dean pulls open the fridge and sets the mustard on the shelf. “I can’t see the constipated face you’re making, Sam. You’re going to have to use your words.”
“I’m not making a face. It’s just, you like her, don’t you?”
Dean shrugs. “You could do a whole lot worse.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“I know what you mean.” Dean brushes past Sam on his way to the bedroom. “I’m gonna go for a run before it gets dark.”
“Be careful,” Sam tells him, watching Dean strip out of his jeans and pull on a pair of frayed sweats.
Dean huffs a laugh. “Little late for that.”
***
Jess kisses him the day before Thanksgiving break, dipping into his personal space as they sit in the little study lounge on her floor. Her mouth is soft and sugary with vanilla lip balm, but she’s not shy, curling a hand into Sam’s hair and licking along the seam of his lips. Sam tenses, but he’s already deciding to kiss her back. He opens his mouth against hers, and there’s no burn of stubble as they shift in closer, no familiar scent of sweat and cheap spicy deodorant. Sam fists a hand in her curls and tilts her face towards his, sucking at her lower lip and nipping at it with his teeth. It’s good, so good, but different, and a stab of guilt strikes him low.
He breaks the kiss and rubs his hands over the knees of his jeans. “There’s something I need to tell you,” he says.
Jess nods attentively.
“I sleep with my brother.”
She lifts an eyebrow at him. “Okay. Well, I’ve got a bed to myself.”
“No.” Sam swallows around the catch in his throat. He’s about to lose her without ever really having had her. “I mean, Dean and I, we have sex.”
Jess stares at him, and Sam has no idea what her pained expression means. “I think you should go,” she tells him quietly, and Sam grabs his book and doesn’t look back.
***
When there’s a knock at the door on Sunday, Sam assumes it’s Dean, who’s been out for the last hour, doing who knows what in the cold and damp. “Lose your key already?” he calls through the door. There’s no answer, and whatever else he was going to say goes right out of his head when he sees Jess standing in the hallway.
“Hey, Sam,” she says, a sad smile at the corners of her mouth. “Can I come in for a minute?”
He stands back from the door to let her pass. The apartment is a mess, books strewn all over the table, Dean’s socks balled up on the floor, takeout containers overflowing the kitchen trash. Jess takes it all in, evidence that Sam’s been sulking since Tuesday. He wishes he had invited her over weeks ago, so she could see he’s capable of living like a normal person. At least, normal apart from fucking his brother.
“Do you want some coffee or anything?” Sam asks awkwardly.
Jess shakes her head. “I just want to know… I really like you, Sam. And I like Dean, too. But.” Those too-quick eyes pin him. “I don’t get it. Did he molest you?”
“No.” Sam bites his lip. Right now he almost wishes it were that simple, that he could tell her it was a decision Dean made for him. But it’s never been that way. “We never stayed in one place very long, so it was hard to get to know anyone besides each other. But it was my choice. He never did anything I didn’t ask him for first. When I was sixteen, we - sorry, you don’t need to hear this.”
She touches his hand, fingers sliding down from his wrist, and the feeling of that brief contact is electric. “I think maybe I do.”
He wants to kiss her more than he can explain, and his mouth is slow to form words. “Do you want to sit down?” he asks, gesturing at the couch, which is relatively clean from Dean sweeping the crumbs off before he naps.
Jess nods. She shrugs out of her coat like she’s planning to stay awhile and settles herself against one arm of the couch. Sam takes the other end, folds his hands in his lap. “I was sixteen, and we were living out of a motel in Indiana in the middle of summer, and the air conditioner only worked about half the time, so Dean and I were hot and cranky and at each other’s throats all day. And there was nothing to do in town, and our dad was working all the time, and it just, built up, I guess. We were always shoving each other around, sparring, like you do with him.” He glances at her to see how this registers, but her face is impassive. “I kissed him first. He wouldn’t have done anything if I hadn’t started it. But he didn’t stop me. And so I didn’t stop. He was my whole world when I was a kid, and I mean, you’ve seen him. Even with the scars from the accident, he’s…” Sam swallows. He can’t justify it. “I knew it was wrong, but I figured in a month we’d be in a new town anyway, so who was going to care what we did? I thought it was over when I came here. I thought that was it, you know. I burned my bridges.”
“But then Dean got hurt,” Jess puts in, and Sam nods.
“When he called me, it’s not like I could tell him no. Our dad’s working all the time, and there isn’t anyone else. It’s just me and Dean.”
“Are you in love with him?” she asks.
“He’s my brother,” replies Sam helplessly.
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
Sam stares at his shoes until he hears the sound of Dean feeling for the doorknob, wiggling in his key. “I don’t know,” Sam tells Jess, and then Dean’s there, pushing through the door with a bag over his arm full of what smells like Chinese food.
“Sammy, you here?” Dean calls, a little louder than strictly necessary.
“Hi, Dean,” says Jess, before Sam can say anything at all.
“Jess,” Dean acknowledges slowly. “How’s it going?”
“It’s a little complicated right now,” Jess says matter-of-factly. “Sam was just explaining some things to me, but there’s a lot I still don’t understand.”
“Like what?” asks Sam, watching Dean navigate his way to the coffee table to set the food down. With Sam and Jess on the couch, Dean stands awkwardly with his hands in his pockets, his mouth twisted uncertainly.
Jess looks between the two of them. “Like what the hell you’re doing with me. Both of you. Was this all some kind of scheme for a threeway?”
Sam feels himself go white, all the blood draining from his face and leaving a rushing in his ears, but Dean grins lecherously. “Hey, I wouldn’t say no,” Dean jokes. At least Sam thinks he’s joking.
“I just liked you,” Sam says softly. “That was all. I liked spending time with you.”
“Agreed,” echoes Dean.
Jess gets to her feet. “Yeah,” she says, nodding vaguely, and Sam wonders how phenomenally stupid it would be to skip anthro lecture for the rest of the term to avoid her. But then she bends to kiss him on the cheek, and Sam shuts his eyes, breathing in the sweet, clean scent of her hair. “See you Tuesday, Sam.” She touches Dean’s shoulder as she passes, and Sam watches her hand linger against his collar. “See you soon, Dean.”
“I’m not sure what just happened,” Dean declares, when Jess has shut the door behind her. He drags the food back to the couch and holds out an overflowing container of fried rice. Sam takes it, cradling its warmth between his palms. “Think she’ll be back?”
“I have no idea,” sighs Sam. “We could royally fuck up her life.”
Dean digs a fork into a box of sesame chicken and shakes his head. “I think we probably already have.”
Sam looks at the door and doesn’t feel like eating.
December
Sam comes home from his Monday night study group to find Dean and Jess making out in his bed. It’s disorienting, watching Dean’s fingers clutch at Jess’s shoulders as she throws a leg over his, listening to the hitch of her breath, knowing that curve to Dean’s mouth from the inside. He thinks he should be angry, should be jealous, but instead he feels as though he’s accidentally walked through a door to another dimension, woozy and unsteady on his feet.
“Sam?” says Dean, and Jess turns her head to look at him. Her cheeks are flushed, her lips plump and dark from Dean’s kisses. He wonders if this was what she wanted all along, Dean and not him, but she was just too nice to say anything.
“Sam,” she confirms, mostly for Dean’s benefit, Sam thinks.
Dean lifts a hand toward the door, fingers spreading as though he could scoop Sam into his palm. “Come here, Sammy,” Dean says roughly, and Sam watches the flick of his tongue wetting his lips. “We’re discussing terms.”
Sam reaches out until his fingertips hit Dean’s, Jess still looking at him over her shoulder. “Terms?” he asks, as Dean drags their hands closer together.
“You’re pre-law, aren’t you?” Dean replies, tugging until Sam has to take a step forward or fall onto the bed. He steps forward. “Thought you’d have a real hard-on for terms and contracts.”
“It’s okay, Sam,” Jess says. “Nobody’s got more answers than you do.”
“I don’t have any answers.”
“Exactly,” sighs Dean. “Get down here, you giant freak.”
Sam unties his shoes and climbs into bed behind Dean, throwing an arm across his brother’s waist to palm at Jess’s hip. She watches him with hooded eyes, brings her hand up to tangle with his. They stare at each other over Dean’s shoulder, and Sam hesitates before bringing his lips to the back of Dean’s neck, kissing just behind his ear, showing her that this is how he looks kissing his brother. Then Dean rolls onto his other side, and his mouth meets Sam’s, soft and tasting like vanilla. Sam shivers and lets himself kiss back, opening to the searching heat of Dean’s tongue. He closes his eyes, presses forward to kiss Dean more deeply, Dean’s hands on his face guiding him.
When he pulls back, Jess is looking between them, biting thoughtfully at the inside of her lip like Sam’s seen her do in class. “Jess?” says Dean.
“Yeah?”
“You think Sam’s hot even though he’s morally bankrupt, right?”
“I do,” agrees Jess, cracking a smile.
Dean pats Sam on the cheek. “See, Sammy? You’re all right.”
“Is this what you want?” Sam asks, and he’s looking at Jess, but it’s a question for both of them.
“I’m going to find out,” Jess answers, and then she bends to kiss him over Dean’s shoulder, stretching until their lips brush. Sam sucks at her lower lip, helps draw her in with a hand around the ball of her shoulder.
Dean sighs. “Wish I could see you. Must be so damn hot.”
Jess murmurs affirmatively, and turns to kiss Dean again, moving back and forth between them until Sam is dizzy and short of breath.
“What were your terms?” he asks finally, ducking away from the temptation of Jess’s mouth.
“Our terms,” Dean corrects him. Sam watches his brother’s hand slip under the back of Jess’s shirt where she’s leaning across him.
“They have to be yours too,” Jess says. “If you want this.”
“He does,” says Dean. “I can tell.” His thigh nudges between Sam’s legs, where Sam’s dick is hard behind his fly. Sam whimpers before he can help it.
“It’s not just,” Sam begins. “I don’t just want that.”
“I know,” says Jess. “Seriously, Sam, I know.” She kisses his forehead and sits up, Dean’s fingers still tracing idly up her back.
“All right,” Sam says, hazy the first time, and then more firmly. “All right.” He swallows, looks at Dean, but Dean can’t read him that way anymore. “I think, if we’re going to do this, there are some other things you need to know about our family.”
Dean nods in confirmation, and Sam takes a deep breath. He’s never had anyone to tell before.
“When I was six months old, our mom died in a house fire…”
April
“I brought burritos,” Jess sings out, banging open the door with her arms full. Dean doesn’t even flinch, oiling up a shotgun months out of use. He’s been working on the guns lately, the whole arsenal from the Impala’s trunk, getting them ready for the summer. Dean wants to teach Jess to hunt.
“Phallic,” Jess had said dryly, the first time Dean dug out the rags and oil and cleaning rods. But she had watched with fascination plain on her face as Dean’s skilled fingers twisted and tugged and popped things out of place and then slotted them back together again. Sam didn’t tell her that they had both drilled until they could do this blindfolded as kids, that of all the things Dean could do without using his eyes, this was nowhere near the most impressive. And Dean had responded to her compliments with gruff pride and a murmured comment about what else he could do with the oil on his fingers.
She pauses now, grocery bag and sack of burritos still slung over her arms, watches the graceful competence of Dean with a piece of equipment he understands in his hands. Sam wishes she could have seen him drive, but he knows she gets the idea. And that’s more than he ever expected anyone to get. Sam watches Jess watching his brother and is more grateful than he can explain.
~fin~
(insert porny sequel here. no, really.)