Little Black Book 1/1
Title: Little Black Book
Author: jeyhawk
Pairings/Characters: Sam/Dean
Rating: PG13
Category: Romance with a touch of angst.
Word Count: 1793
Spoilers: All episodes so far.
Summary: At the bottom of Dean's bag, Sam finds a notebook...
Disclaimer: Dirty little lies, written for fun and no profit.
Beta: ames1010
Warnings: Vague references to het sex.
Notes: Thanks to nemo88 and saya415 for help with eyecolors. :0) And ames1010... OMG cameo. :0P :0) I actually did some research to get the timeline more or less right, but there might still be mistakes. :0)
Little Black Book
Sam would never have found it had Dean not been laid out in yet another hospital bed, face an ashen grey against the stark white linen, mouth a thin bloodless line. His eyes were clouded with pain when Sam pressed his hand one last time before getting up and going back to the motel; it really came too close for comfort this time. Had anything happened on the way to the hospital, a flat tire, an animal on the road…Dean wouldn’t have made it, and Sam can’t get that thought out of his head.
Dean will be fine, he knows that, but he can’t stop shivering and a motel room never seemed more impersonal than this one. It’s desperation that has him going through Dean's bag, rifling through jeans and t-shirts until he finds the one Dean wore last night, pressing it to his face and inhaling deeply. It still smells like Dean: grass, oil, dust, sweat and cheap cologne.
He spots it when he finally lets the t-shirt drop from his face, a small black notebook, hardly visible at the bottom of Dean's bag. He’s never seen it before, which is strange; he thought he knew everything about Dean, everything worth knowing at least, but his brother always was a close-mouthed bastard.
Feeling like an intruder, Sam fishes the notebook out of the bag, looking it over. It’s old, the covers worn enough to have the black chip away, showing stripes of the white paper underneath. Dean tried to fill it up in spots, black marker looking grey against the glossy black of the book.
Sam takes the book and the t-shirt with him to bed, sitting down with his back to the headboard, the only light the bedside lamp and the moonlight filtering in through the curtains. Dean will be all right, but it’s hard to believe in the dusk of dark sitting alone on a queen size bed.
He opens the book, reads the first entry and then he laughs out loud, sliding down on the bed and settling on his side with the book before his face, and the t-shirt a comforting lump against his cheek. It reads: January 27, 1994. Utah. Dinah. Blonde, brown. First.
The next entry says: March 15, 1994. Wisconsin. Sarah. Brown, brown. Second. Damned fine.
The third: April 30, 1994. Wisconsin. Emma. Brown, brown. Shaved.
“Fourteen years old, you dog.”
Sam laughs. He’d been seventeen and awkward, her name had been Rosie and they’d done it in the back of the Impala. At the first try he’d come before he was even inside her, second try had worked better and he’d taken her with him, one thumb against her clit, one hand on her ass.
He scans through the old worn pages, scanning names and dates. Feeling for Dean during long dry spells, laughing out loud when he finds three entries with different girls from the same day. Dean apparently has been every bit of the horn dog Sam accuses him of being.
An entry catches his eyes and he grins. June 29, 1998. Kentucky. Eric. Shaved, blue. Hot, hot, hot. Top. There is a red circle around the entry and Sam chuckles, tracing the outline of it. He remembers that night, John having left them behind to go on yet another hunt, Dean taking him out to some bar, setting him up in a corner with a coke and some fries while he hustled pool. He even vaguely recalls Eric, tall and gangly, with a kind smile and big hands.
Dean and Eric walked him back to the motel and then they went out again. Dean didn’t come back until the following morning, and he had a shit-eating grin on his face. Sam had assumed at the time that he and Eric had gone back to the bar and picked up some girls, now he knew better.
“You could have told me,” he told the book. “I wouldn’t have judged you.”
He turns a few more pages, his eyes sliding over names, dates and places. Some of them he remembers, others have been lost along the way. Another entry catches his eyes and his heart palpitates, making him hurt inside.
April 27, 2000. Florida. X-male. Grey, blue. For money.
“Oh Dean,” he whispers, his fingers sliding over the entry as if his touch can erase the pain.
Five days later Dean had given him a new watch for his birthday, brushed chrome and beautiful, just like the one he’d been drooling over a few days earlier when they’d been shopping. He lifts his arms to look at it and the way it’s still hugging his wrist years later. He never would have taken it if he’d known what it cost.
There are a lot of X’s scattered over the pages, nameless fucks that Dean hardly bothered to write down. A few entries are followed by “for money”, but they are few and far between, and Sam supposes hustling like that never really bothered Dean. Cassie got an entire page all to herself and it hurts Sam to realize how much of himself Dean gave to her.
In 2001 an entire page is covered in black marker and Sam realizes it must be when he left for college. The next entry reads: September 5, 2001. California. Joshua. Brown, brown. Tall and beautiful. Three weeks. Don’t look back.
Sam chokes up, pressing the book to his chest for a few moments. “Dean,” he murmurs, hurting for the brother he’ll never leave behind again. Too many entries after that are from California; it seems Dean stuck closer than Sam ever knew he did.
Another entry catches his eyes and he blinks: January 23, 2003. California. Jess. Blonde, blue. Not for me.
He met Jess in early February 2003. She came up to him at a party, saying: “Someone I knew once told me that you’re a nice guy. Is that true?” He never really thought about it before, always assuming that it had been one of their mutual friends that pushed them together. Could it be that it had been someone else?
“You should talk more,” Sam tells the book. “I wouldn’t have been angry.”
He keeps scanning through the pages, following the trail of Dean's sexual exploits. The male names dominate in the latter years, but few merit any special notice. In between
September 24, 2005. New Orleans. Amy. Red, hazel. Sultry. and December 13, 2005. Ohio. Peter. Bottom, there is a sun covering an entire page and Sam’s gut clenches again.
“Damn you,” he mutters.
Another entry catches his eyes and he shakes his head slowly. He should have known. January 10, 2007.Philadelphia. Jo. Blonde, hazel. So stupid. It’s no wonder Jo turned so pissy later. He’s willing to bet it had more to do with Dean fucking her over than John killing her dad.
His fingers tremble as he turns a few pages forward, not even bothering to read the entries in between, and then there it is.
May 2, 2007. Texas. SAM. Brother, lover, friend. MINE!!!!!!!!!!
Every page after that is crossed over with black marker and Sam's eyes fill with unbidden tears. “I love you, too, you freak,” he croaks, pressing the book to his chest and hiding his face in the t-shirt. “I love you, too.”
~*~
He wakes up the following morning when a familiar weight settles against his back.
“You’re pathetic,” Dean grumbles, his voice tired and rough. “You know that right?”
Sam twists around to face him, a grin spreading over his face. Dean is still pale and there are dark smudges underneath his eyes, but he’s smiling.
“You’re back,” he says dumbly, tracing his fingers over Dean's bruised cheekbone.
“Yeah, well, I had to make sure you weren’t moping yourself to death back here,” Dean says, but his eyes are soft.
“I missed you,” Sam whispers, pressing a sweet, soft kiss to Dean's swollen lips.
“Always such a girl,” Dean grumbles, but he lifts a hand to ruffle Sam's hair.
Sam turns his head into the touch, pressing a kiss to Dean's calloused palm. The notebook is digging into his shoulder, so he shifts, pulling it out and putting it on the bed between them. Dean's eyes rivets to it, widening slightly.
“In all these years… I never saw it,” Sam says, putting a hand on the worn cover of the notebook.
“I never meant for you to,” Dean responds, looking at Sam's hand covering the book.
Sam's watch glints in the dull morning light as he shifts his arm and they both look at it.
“I wouldn’t have taken it… If I’d known,” Sam says, reaching out with his other hand to take the watch off.
Dean stills his movement with a hand on top of his. “It’s not the same one,” he says softly, shaking fingers trailing over Sam's knuckles. “I couldn’t… couldn’t stand seeing it on your wrist, so the next time I had some money I bought a new one and took the other out back, stomping it to pieces.”
Sam smiles, moving his hand to lace their fingers together, placing them over the book. “I…” he begins, but then he doesn’t know what to say. “I appreciated getting to know you,” he finally says when he’s discarded a million other options that would just make Dean call him a girl again.
Dean nods, his features drawn in the bleak light. “I… thank you.” He nods and they both know it makes no sense. “Thank you.”
Sam doesn’t know what it means, but he supposes that is all right because he lost track of what they are doing and where they are going a long time ago. As long as there is him and Dean, the Impala, and the soft, hard warmth between them, he knows they’ll be okay no matter where the twisting road of life will take them next. He slides over on his back, letting Dean curl around him with his head on Sam's chest without calling him a girl even once. He knows Dean needs this, just as he knows that Dean would never ask for it, and that any ribbing would leave him with a shot of Dean's back as he moved to the other bed.
It’s how they work - taking and giving, talking sometimes, but mostly letting the silence work for them, because some things mean too much to be put into words. Later he’ll slip the notebook back into Dean's bag and they’ll pretend he never read it, but he knows that the next time he needs it, it will still be there and there will be a message for him on the last page, because Dean knows him inside and out.
The End
Author: jeyhawk
Pairings/Characters: Sam/Dean
Rating: PG13
Category: Romance with a touch of angst.
Word Count: 1793
Spoilers: All episodes so far.
Summary: At the bottom of Dean's bag, Sam finds a notebook...
Disclaimer: Dirty little lies, written for fun and no profit.
Beta: ames1010
Warnings: Vague references to het sex.
Notes: Thanks to nemo88 and saya415 for help with eyecolors. :0) And ames1010... OMG cameo. :0P :0) I actually did some research to get the timeline more or less right, but there might still be mistakes. :0)
Little Black Book
Sam would never have found it had Dean not been laid out in yet another hospital bed, face an ashen grey against the stark white linen, mouth a thin bloodless line. His eyes were clouded with pain when Sam pressed his hand one last time before getting up and going back to the motel; it really came too close for comfort this time. Had anything happened on the way to the hospital, a flat tire, an animal on the road…Dean wouldn’t have made it, and Sam can’t get that thought out of his head.
Dean will be fine, he knows that, but he can’t stop shivering and a motel room never seemed more impersonal than this one. It’s desperation that has him going through Dean's bag, rifling through jeans and t-shirts until he finds the one Dean wore last night, pressing it to his face and inhaling deeply. It still smells like Dean: grass, oil, dust, sweat and cheap cologne.
He spots it when he finally lets the t-shirt drop from his face, a small black notebook, hardly visible at the bottom of Dean's bag. He’s never seen it before, which is strange; he thought he knew everything about Dean, everything worth knowing at least, but his brother always was a close-mouthed bastard.
Feeling like an intruder, Sam fishes the notebook out of the bag, looking it over. It’s old, the covers worn enough to have the black chip away, showing stripes of the white paper underneath. Dean tried to fill it up in spots, black marker looking grey against the glossy black of the book.
Sam takes the book and the t-shirt with him to bed, sitting down with his back to the headboard, the only light the bedside lamp and the moonlight filtering in through the curtains. Dean will be all right, but it’s hard to believe in the dusk of dark sitting alone on a queen size bed.
He opens the book, reads the first entry and then he laughs out loud, sliding down on the bed and settling on his side with the book before his face, and the t-shirt a comforting lump against his cheek. It reads: January 27, 1994. Utah. Dinah. Blonde, brown. First.
The next entry says: March 15, 1994. Wisconsin. Sarah. Brown, brown. Second. Damned fine.
The third: April 30, 1994. Wisconsin. Emma. Brown, brown. Shaved.
“Fourteen years old, you dog.”
Sam laughs. He’d been seventeen and awkward, her name had been Rosie and they’d done it in the back of the Impala. At the first try he’d come before he was even inside her, second try had worked better and he’d taken her with him, one thumb against her clit, one hand on her ass.
He scans through the old worn pages, scanning names and dates. Feeling for Dean during long dry spells, laughing out loud when he finds three entries with different girls from the same day. Dean apparently has been every bit of the horn dog Sam accuses him of being.
An entry catches his eyes and he grins. June 29, 1998. Kentucky. Eric. Shaved, blue. Hot, hot, hot. Top. There is a red circle around the entry and Sam chuckles, tracing the outline of it. He remembers that night, John having left them behind to go on yet another hunt, Dean taking him out to some bar, setting him up in a corner with a coke and some fries while he hustled pool. He even vaguely recalls Eric, tall and gangly, with a kind smile and big hands.
Dean and Eric walked him back to the motel and then they went out again. Dean didn’t come back until the following morning, and he had a shit-eating grin on his face. Sam had assumed at the time that he and Eric had gone back to the bar and picked up some girls, now he knew better.
“You could have told me,” he told the book. “I wouldn’t have judged you.”
He turns a few more pages, his eyes sliding over names, dates and places. Some of them he remembers, others have been lost along the way. Another entry catches his eyes and his heart palpitates, making him hurt inside.
April 27, 2000. Florida. X-male. Grey, blue. For money.
“Oh Dean,” he whispers, his fingers sliding over the entry as if his touch can erase the pain.
Five days later Dean had given him a new watch for his birthday, brushed chrome and beautiful, just like the one he’d been drooling over a few days earlier when they’d been shopping. He lifts his arms to look at it and the way it’s still hugging his wrist years later. He never would have taken it if he’d known what it cost.
There are a lot of X’s scattered over the pages, nameless fucks that Dean hardly bothered to write down. A few entries are followed by “for money”, but they are few and far between, and Sam supposes hustling like that never really bothered Dean. Cassie got an entire page all to herself and it hurts Sam to realize how much of himself Dean gave to her.
In 2001 an entire page is covered in black marker and Sam realizes it must be when he left for college. The next entry reads: September 5, 2001. California. Joshua. Brown, brown. Tall and beautiful. Three weeks. Don’t look back.
Sam chokes up, pressing the book to his chest for a few moments. “Dean,” he murmurs, hurting for the brother he’ll never leave behind again. Too many entries after that are from California; it seems Dean stuck closer than Sam ever knew he did.
Another entry catches his eyes and he blinks: January 23, 2003. California. Jess. Blonde, blue. Not for me.
He met Jess in early February 2003. She came up to him at a party, saying: “Someone I knew once told me that you’re a nice guy. Is that true?” He never really thought about it before, always assuming that it had been one of their mutual friends that pushed them together. Could it be that it had been someone else?
“You should talk more,” Sam tells the book. “I wouldn’t have been angry.”
He keeps scanning through the pages, following the trail of Dean's sexual exploits. The male names dominate in the latter years, but few merit any special notice. In between
September 24, 2005. New Orleans. Amy. Red, hazel. Sultry. and December 13, 2005. Ohio. Peter. Bottom, there is a sun covering an entire page and Sam’s gut clenches again.
“Damn you,” he mutters.
Another entry catches his eyes and he shakes his head slowly. He should have known. January 10, 2007.Philadelphia. Jo. Blonde, hazel. So stupid. It’s no wonder Jo turned so pissy later. He’s willing to bet it had more to do with Dean fucking her over than John killing her dad.
His fingers tremble as he turns a few pages forward, not even bothering to read the entries in between, and then there it is.
May 2, 2007. Texas. SAM. Brother, lover, friend. MINE!!!!!!!!!!
Every page after that is crossed over with black marker and Sam's eyes fill with unbidden tears. “I love you, too, you freak,” he croaks, pressing the book to his chest and hiding his face in the t-shirt. “I love you, too.”
~*~
He wakes up the following morning when a familiar weight settles against his back.
“You’re pathetic,” Dean grumbles, his voice tired and rough. “You know that right?”
Sam twists around to face him, a grin spreading over his face. Dean is still pale and there are dark smudges underneath his eyes, but he’s smiling.
“You’re back,” he says dumbly, tracing his fingers over Dean's bruised cheekbone.
“Yeah, well, I had to make sure you weren’t moping yourself to death back here,” Dean says, but his eyes are soft.
“I missed you,” Sam whispers, pressing a sweet, soft kiss to Dean's swollen lips.
“Always such a girl,” Dean grumbles, but he lifts a hand to ruffle Sam's hair.
Sam turns his head into the touch, pressing a kiss to Dean's calloused palm. The notebook is digging into his shoulder, so he shifts, pulling it out and putting it on the bed between them. Dean's eyes rivets to it, widening slightly.
“In all these years… I never saw it,” Sam says, putting a hand on the worn cover of the notebook.
“I never meant for you to,” Dean responds, looking at Sam's hand covering the book.
Sam's watch glints in the dull morning light as he shifts his arm and they both look at it.
“I wouldn’t have taken it… If I’d known,” Sam says, reaching out with his other hand to take the watch off.
Dean stills his movement with a hand on top of his. “It’s not the same one,” he says softly, shaking fingers trailing over Sam's knuckles. “I couldn’t… couldn’t stand seeing it on your wrist, so the next time I had some money I bought a new one and took the other out back, stomping it to pieces.”
Sam smiles, moving his hand to lace their fingers together, placing them over the book. “I…” he begins, but then he doesn’t know what to say. “I appreciated getting to know you,” he finally says when he’s discarded a million other options that would just make Dean call him a girl again.
Dean nods, his features drawn in the bleak light. “I… thank you.” He nods and they both know it makes no sense. “Thank you.”
Sam doesn’t know what it means, but he supposes that is all right because he lost track of what they are doing and where they are going a long time ago. As long as there is him and Dean, the Impala, and the soft, hard warmth between them, he knows they’ll be okay no matter where the twisting road of life will take them next. He slides over on his back, letting Dean curl around him with his head on Sam's chest without calling him a girl even once. He knows Dean needs this, just as he knows that Dean would never ask for it, and that any ribbing would leave him with a shot of Dean's back as he moved to the other bed.
It’s how they work - taking and giving, talking sometimes, but mostly letting the silence work for them, because some things mean too much to be put into words. Later he’ll slip the notebook back into Dean's bag and they’ll pretend he never read it, but he knows that the next time he needs it, it will still be there and there will be a message for him on the last page, because Dean knows him inside and out.
The End