Higher Learning (Part 3 of 3) | NC-17 | Sam/Dean
Title: Higher Learning
Authors: shes_gone and peccatrixjusta
Artist: reallycorking
Notes: Warnings and authors' notes are here.
[ Part Two.]
-=-=-=-=-=-
Dean shouldered his way through the door back into Shaheen's living room, with an armful of duffle bag and coffee and breakfast, and found Sam still sleeping heavily on the sofa.
"Sam," he said, giving the sofa a swift kick before setting the food and drink on the table, and dropping the duffle bag to the floor. "Up and at 'em, Sammy. We've got work to do."
"Whutimeissit?" Sam groaned.
"It's late," Dean said. "I let you sleep it off while I went to check on the car and get our suits." Sam rolled over, tucking his head into one of the sofa cushions with a grunt. "C'mon, shake it off, you're going to like this one."
"Uhnnn," Sam said from within the cushion.
"We're going to a big, fancy law firm. So you gotta get up, 'cause you know I can't pull this one off by myself."
Sam was silent for a few moments, then pushed himself up off the couch and shuffled into the bathroom without a word. When he emerged, Dean shoved coffee into his hands and watched him guzzle it in several quick sips.
"So, where are we going?" Sam asked.
"We're going to see Julia McNamara, an attorney at the law firm of Hughes and Peterson."
"Who's that?"
"Our ghost's girlfriend at the time he ganked himself."
"Really?" Sam said, rubbing at his eyes. "How'd you find her?"
Dean smirked. "Had a nice long chat with a friend of hers last night. Carrie. You see her? The one with the real low-cut top on?"
Sam thought for a moment, then shrugged. "No, don't think I noticed her."
"Yeah, well, straight guys notice girls, Sammy." Sam stiffened and went a bit red, and Dean froze because the rest of yesterday night suddenly came flooding back, and fuck, why couldn't he ever just keep his mouth shut?
He had managed not to think about it so far this morning, and Sam had seemed too hungover to be capable of thinking about it, and all of that was just fine, as far as Dean was concerned.
An awkward, silent moment passed. "Anyway," Dean said, "Carrie."
"Yeah, Carrie," Sam said, nastily. "Was she any good?"
"What?" Dean said.
"Was she any good, Dean? You did fuck her, right? That's what you want me to know."
Dean stared at him. "Dude," he said, after a moment. Sam glared at him and looked away.
"Anyway," Dean continued, "the girlfriend, Julia, was living with Paul when he jumped in front of that bus. She graduated the year before last, but she's still in town." He held up the piece of paper that Carrie had written Julia's office information on. "So we're gonna go see her."
Sam stared at the piece of paper in Dean's hand, and seemed to struggle with himself for a moment. "Fine," he finally said. "Whatever, let's just go. I assume we're not moving the car-"
"Fuck right, we're not."
"-so you got cash for a cab?"
"No, but Carrie wrote down some directions for something called the 'T', which I guess is like the subway?" He flipped the paper in his hands over. "Do you think Shaheen needs this? The syllabus for Public International Law?"
"I'm sure it's online," Sam said impatiently. "Just take it."
One hour, forty minutes, and two wrong trains later, they emerged onto Boylston Street. "Goddammit," Dean gritted out. "That was ridiculous."
"C'mon," Sam snapped, making a right-hand turn out of the T stop.
"I mean, honestly. Why do people live here? That took forever, it was crowded and hot, and I'm pretty sure that stinky guy was possessed, Sam. If it weren't so dirty down there, I'd go back down after him."
"Shit," Sam said, ignoring Dean, but apparently noticing that the street numbers were going in the wrong direction, because he made an about-face and stomped back past Dean.
"This place sucks, Sam. I miss my car."
"Dean, would you shut up already? I'm having a hard enough time this morning without you running your mouth constantly."
Dean scowled with surprise. "Excuse me?"
"And I don't know if it's occurred to you, Dean, but this woman we're about to go see? Is a fucking Harvard-trained attorney, OK? She's not gonna be easily bullshitted, so you need to fucking focus."
"Dude," Dean said angrily.
"So just shut up about your car and how much you hate it here and all the girls you fucked last night, and let's just go do this."
Dean stared at him, his face hard.
"Fuck, just." Sam gave a tight sigh. "Is there a drugstore around here? My head is killing me."
"No, but here we are," Dean replied, pushing past Sam toward a tall, glassy building bearing the address Carrie had given him.
Sam groaned but followed him inside. The tall guy working building security examined their FBI badges a little too closely for Dean's liking, but they held up, and he let them past. Dean took the lead in charming the 34th floor receptionist, and they found themselves standing outside Julia McNamara's office without another word to each other.
"Ms. McNamara?" Sam asked, knocking on her open door.
"Yes?" The woman inside the office looked up from her computer. She wore an expensive suit and too much eye makeup and looked very annoyed to be interrupted.
"Sorry to bother you," Sam said. "My name is Sam Hetfield, this is Dean Ulrich. We're 2Ls at Harvard. We got your name from a couple of people who thought you'd be willing to talk to us."
Julia's eyes slid very obviously over the both of them, head to toe, and her irritation vanished as she leaned back in her seat. Dean tried not to smirk. "Talk to you about what?"
"We're writing a piece for the Crimson about depression on campus, most especially at the law school," Sam said.
"Ah," Julia said. "So you're here about Paul, then."
"Yeah," Sam said, with a wary smile. "I hope that's OK?"
Julia nodded. "Sure."
"Is now a good time?" Sam asked. "Because we can come back."
"No, now's fine," she said. "Please, have a seat." She gestured to the pair of chairs opposite her desk. "I could use a break from these contracts, anyway."
"I bet," Sam said with a smile as he and Dean sat. She smiled back, and her gaze flitted once again down his body and lingered, eventually making its way back to his face. Dean tried not to laugh as Sam blushed and fumbled around in his bag for a pad of paper.
"First, let me just say," Sam said, "that we're very sorry for your loss."
"Thank you," Julia replied. Her eyes tracked Sam's fingers as he pulled a pen out of his shirt pocket, and Dean felt his eyebrows lift. He respected a woman who knew what she wanted, to be sure, but even he found it a bit crass that she was checking Sam out so openly, given their topic of conversation.
But then she crossed her arms over her chest, drawing Dean's attention to the pull of the buttons across her breasts, and he found he didn't mind so much what she was doing with her eyes.
Sam asked another question (or maybe two) that Dean didn't quite hear, as he caught a flash of lace through the gap between Julia's buttons. She shifted a bit in her seat, and he couldn't help the small curl of his lip as he got another eyeful. He didn't notice the awkward silence that had descended upon the room until Sam threw his foot to the side, kicking at Dean's chair.
Dean snapped to attention, and was greeted with an icy stare from Julia.
"Sorry," he said, with a faux-sheepish grin and a glance at Sam. "What was that?" Sam didn't look back at him, but if there was anyone who could kill you with a look without actually looking at you, it was Sam.
No one said anything, and Dean watched Sam's jaw clench.
"Hey," Dean said, with an attempt at nonchalance, "did I see a men's room just down the hall here?"
Julia just raised her eyebrows.
"Think I'm gonna go pay it a visit." He thumped the armrest of his chair. "You got this, right, Sam?"
Sam seemed barely able to open his jaw enough to speak. "Sure," he gritted out.
"OK, then," Dean said, and Sam's bitch face seemed to reach a new decibel as Dean excused himself and closed the door to Julia's office behind him.
He did actually need the bathroom, which was huge and ridiculous and awesome, once he'd found it. The faucets sparkled and the stalls were mahogany and the whole place just smelled like money. He wasn't really impressed, exactly, but he had to admit that it was pretty fun to take a piss in there.
He wandered around the floor a bit after that, ostensibly checking for evidence that Paul's ghost had ever followed Julia to work, but mostly he was just killing time.
He stumbled upon what he assumed was a break room or something, and found himself suddenly beginning to understand the appeal of working in a place like this. There was a fully-stocked communal fridge, an incredible vending machine full of every delicious meal option he could imagine, an espresso machine and several carafes of coffee, each sporting a different description. It was like a coffee bar and diner all in one, and it was free.
Dean eyed the stack of to-go cups and wondered if anyone would mind a little coffee going missing, because Lord knew he and Sam could use another hit.
"Can I help you?" a man's voice came behind him, and if Dean jumped, it was only a little bit.
"Just admiring your digs," Dean said, with a smile. The man was tall, clean-cut, and wearing a suit that probably cost more than everything Dean owned, besides his car. Although, after what it must have cost to get it so expertly tailored, Dean wasn't so sure.
"Do you have an appointment with someone?" the man said.
"I did, yeah. Finished my interview a few minutes ago, and thought I'd take a stroll around until my buddy's is over. We came together."
"An interview for what?"
"Oh, you know, a job here. I'm a law student."
The man's dark eyebrows shot up. "Really?" he said, skeptically. "I didn't realize we were still conducting law school interviews. It was my understanding that they concluded last week."
"We had to reschedule."
"I see. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave, however. If you are, in fact, waiting for someone, they can meet you in the lobby."
Dean felt a Sam-worthy bitch face coming on, and he made a half-hearted attempt to suppress it. "My mistake," he said tightly. "Enjoy your coffee."
The man frowned and watched Dean as he left the room. "Hope you're pretty near done, Sam," he muttered to himself as he made his way back to Julia's office, "I think I've overstayed my welcome with these douchebags."
He was very relieved to find Sam standing in the open doorway to Julia's office. "Thank you so much for your time," Sam said, after a nod to Dean. "I really appreciate your talking to me."
"You're very welcome," she said. "It's a pretty unpleasant topic, but I think I could talk about almost anything with you." She flashed a sly smile, and Sam blushed. Dean almost regretted having left Sam alone with her, because he'd clearly missed something epic.
"Do you have plans for next summer yet, Sam?" she asked. "You should apply for a summer associate position here, I think you would fit in well."
"I thought you guys stopped interviewing last week," Dean said, and ignored Sam's surprised look.
"The cattle-call interviews through the law schools, yes," Julia replied dismissively. "But there's still plenty of time for those students with something special, that we somehow missed." Sam smiled embarrassedly. "Well, think about it," she said. "If you'd like to talk, you're welcome in my office anytime. Or we could go somewhere else, if you'd prefer."
Sam looked a bit like he had just bitten into a lemon, although he still wore a pretty convincing smile. Dean couldn't help himself. "You know, Sam, if you want to stay," he said, smirking, "I could probably find my way back to school on my own."
Sam's nostrils flared awesomely as he looked at Dean. "No, I've got that meeting, remember? Thank you, Ms. McNamara-"
"Call me Julia."
"-Julia. I'll be in touch."
Dean grinned as Sam thundered his way down the hall and into the elevator. "Sammy," he said, "I don't know whether to be impressed or disappointed with you."
"Stop it, Dean," Sam snapped, as soon as the doors closed.
"Stop what?"
"This, OK. Just. I don't know why you're being so-" He stopped, expelling a couple of hard breaths through his nose. "Just. Don't do this here, OK. Not right now, and not here. Let's just focus and get this job done."
"Oh, I'm sorry, Sam," Dean snapped, "was I misbehaving in front of your big fancy lawyer friends? And she was the one hitting on you, by the way. While you were asking questions about her dead boyfriend."
Sam just stared at the descending numbers on the elevator keypad.
Dean's jaw clenched, hard, as the doors opened into the stupidly sunny lobby of the high-rise. They stalked quickly and silently to the doors and out onto the sidewalk.
"Did she tell you where his body is?" Dean gritted out, ignoring his urge to go back up the elevator and punch Julia in her painted face.
"Cremated."
"Shit."
"I'm pretty sure we'll find something to burn in her apartment, though."
"Yeah? She kept his stuff?"
"No, she said she got rid of it. But one of the last things that happened before he killed himself was that the career office made him cut off his long hair, 'cause he was doing so poorly in job interviews. They thought a more clean-cut image might help. He kept what he cut off, apparently, to help him remember who he 'really was.'"
"Sounds like that worked out well for him," Dean scoffed, and Sam shrugged. "And you think," Dean continued, "that that woman is the type to hold onto some loser's gross ponytail after he died?"
Sam gave him a disgusted look. "I think she really loved the guy, Dean."
"I'm sorry, did we meet the same woman up there? The one who was talking about her lost love and undressing you with her eyes at the same time?"
"Look, I don't know, OK? Sometimes people react to a loss like that in strange ways, Dean. And I, for one, am not gonna judge her for it."
"Yeah, OK, Dr. Phil."
Sam heaved a sigh and looked down the street for a long moment. "She's got something in her apartment that was his," he said slowly. "She wouldn't say what it was, but she was really embarrassed about it. If you've got some other great lead that you haven't told me about, now would be a really good time to share with the class."
Dean rolled his eyes. "Fine. Let's go. Is there time now, or will she be leaving work soon?"
Sam huffed a laugh. "She's a second-year associate at a huge corporate law firm, Dean."
Dean looked at him blankly. "And?"
"And, so, no. She won't be leaving work for long time. Let's find a wi-fi spot. I wasn't able to get her home address, but I can probably track it down."
"No need," Dean said, and patted his suit coat pocket.
"What?"
"She had a stack of personal mail on the bookcase by her door. I slipped one in my pocket, just in case." He pulled a long envelope out of his pocket. "Hope she pays her Visa bill online."
Sam stared at the envelope in Dean's hand a moment. Dean waited for a little kudos, but they never came.
"Great," Sam said flatly. "Let's go."
-=-=-=-=-=-
They were standing in Julia McNamara's apartment, having endured a tense journey back over the river from Boston to Cambridge. There were a million moments when Sam could have smiled, cracked a joke, or grudgingly acknowledged Dean's coup in locating Julia's home address.
But he didn't do any of these things. Instead they continued to nip at each other like dogs. Getting turned around again on the T didn't help soothe anybody's irritation. Why are you being such a little bitch? Sam said to himself in his best Dean voice. He just couldn't shake the feeling that somehow all of this was Dean's fault. His brother was just... so...
By the time they arrived at the apartment off Massachusetts Avenue, they were barely talking at all, choosing instead to punish each other with accusatory silences. It was in these moments, actually, that Dad's training most came in handy. They were such a well-oiled machine, they could carry off a routine job like this in total silence if necessary.
After easily picking the lock of Julia's front door, they entered her small, tidy unit. To Sam's surprise, there was a framed photo of a young man on the mantle in the living room.
"That's Paul," he told Dean, forgetting for a second that they were annoyed with each other. Sam recognized him from the small, grainy black-and-white photo with the obit.
"Wow," Dean sniffed. "Julia, carrying the torch for a geek-who knew?"
"Dean, what the hell did Julia McNamara ever do to you?" And with that, they snarled and huffed and commenced their search for some piece of Paul Stevens.
It didn't take too long, really. In the top drawer of Julia's bedside table was a delicate keepsake box. Dean found it. He opened the lid and drew out a long dark ponytail, held together with a piece of ribbon; it could only have been sheered directly from Paul's head.
"Bingo," Dean said holding the twist of hair up for Sam's inspection. It looked small and sad coiled in Dean's hand; it was hard to believe it had been connected to a living, breathing, hurting person. "Just think, Sam, this could've been you." Dean cocked his head to the side in mock-thought. "Nah, I guess even you wouldn't grow your hair this long."
Sam didn't even dignify this observation with a response. "Let's burn it and get out of here."
Dean fished his lighter out of his pocket. "I'll do it in the bathtub. You draw a salt line at the front door in case Paul raises an objection."
"Dean, I don't think we need to worry. Paul's not a violent spirit. He didn't maliciously cause any of those accidents."
"I'm not taking that chance," Dean responded, turning toward the bathroom like he just expected Sam to obey.
Sam took a deep breath and tried to control his reactivity towards his goddamn fucking over-protective power-tripping brother and got out the salt.
As he crouched down in front of the door, he heard Dean opening windows in the bathroom.
It only took a moment for that sense to be overpowered by an all-too-familiar tingle running down his spine. He had been doing this for so long; picking up on the presence of a ghost was sometimes like breathing. The adrenaline began to course through him; he felt his body revert into fight mode.
Sam stood slowly and turned around. No sudden movements.
Paul was just standing there.
He was dressed like any student; he could've been one of Sam's old classmates. Ghosts sometimes appeared a little blurred around the edges, but even the lines of exhaustion around Paul's eyes were clear. As Sam watched, Paul suddenly looked up and glanced around the apartment, his expression becoming anxious. Maybe he recognized where he was.
Sam's hand twitched at his side, and he started to reach out toward the ghost. "Hey Paul, buddy," he said. He wasn't sure where the words were coming from. "I know you're tired and stressed out. Just... easy there. You're going to get to rest really soon..."
And Paul looked right at him; they locked eyes for a second, and it seemed like Paul was seeing him for the first time. Sam started to smile. Everything is going to be all right.
"Sam, what the fuck?"
And there was Dean, holding the hair in his hand, and it was already burning. As Sam watched, the fire rushed up the ponytail like a lit fuse and the unmistakable stench of burning hair filled the apartment. Dean dropped the hair on the floor.
Paul made an anguished sound and was himself consumed, collapsing onto the ground in a pile of ash. Sam gazed in horror as his brother stomped on the hair to put it out, leaving a blackened smirch on Julia's hardwood floors.
Dean looked up, breathing heavily, a satisfied look on his face. "So much for a clean job in the bathtub..."
"Dean!" Sam realized he'd raised his voice, not exactly a stealth move after breaking into a woman's apartment, but he didn't care. "Why the hell did you do that?"
"What?" His brother looked at him in genuine shock. "Sam, that thing was right in front of you."
"That thing's name was Paul," Sam spit out. "He was confused, in pain. He wasn't going to hurt me."
"Oh, I get it," Dean responded, stepping towards him. "In the future, you'd like me ask about the monster's plans before I let it gut you?"
"No-Dean. You know that's not what I meant. I just... you really didn't need to do it like that. Paul deserved a little more respect."
"Respect? Am I hearing you right? Sam, I think you're over-identifying with that guy. I know law school was your big dream and all, but look where it got Paul."
Sam was just about ready to kill his brother. "What are you trying to say, Dean?"
"You really want to know the answer that, Sammy?" At the use of his nickname, Sam shuddered. What was happening to them? How had everything gotten so crazy?
When Sam didn't have an instant comeback, Dean wiped his face with his hand, threw Sam a dismissive glance, and gestured at the stain on the floor. "We have to clean that up."
And right away, Sam was arguing, even though he knew it was just for the sake arguing. "Dean, it doesn't matter if Julia comes home and sees all that. If she even notices the ponytail is gone, she can't trace anything back to us." He wasn't even sure why he gave a shit.
Apparently Dean felt strongly about his position, too: "The woman's a lawyer. I won't put anything past her. She's probably running a background check on you right now, Mr. Pretty Boy Law Student."
"Dean, don't start with that again…" Sam suddenly felt very weary. He began to stalk towards the door to the apartment.
"Start with what Sam? Am I making you uncomfortable or something?" Dean was close at his heels, invading his space.
"Yeah, as a matter of fact, you are," Sam muttered. He turned around, facing Dean. He felt strangely hyped up, yet resigned at the same time. You're asking for it, Dean. It's not my fault you can't leave this alone. "You've never been exactly discreet or respectful when it comes to my sex life." He paused, took a breath, and gathered his courage. "But ever since I told you about Danny, you're acting like I'm some stranger! I don't know what the hell your problem is."
His brother looked at him dangerously. "Yeah, well, sometimes I feel like I don't know you as well as I thought, Sam," he said darkly. Dean's disapproval was so profound and Dad-like, Sam felt almost ashamed of himself. Almost.
He stepped forward, taking back some of his space from Dean. He tried to remain calm. "Dean, don't you think you're overreacting just a little?"
"Look, I'm sorry I'm not one of your liberal intellectual friends who thinks everything's just fabulous-"
Sam cringed. "Seriously, Dean, cool it. Don't be an asshole."
"Is that what you think of me?" Dean demanded.
Sam threw his hands up-he didn't know what to do with them, where to go, what to say anymore. "Dean, I went through this with Dad. I'm sick of begging for your approval, for the right to have my own goddamn life."
Dean went very still. "You think I'm like Dad?" he grumbled. Sam didn't say anything. He'd probably made a mistake, invoking Dad like that. They were both tensing their shoulders, shifting their weight from foot to foot. Just like during a hunt, Sam thought.
Dean continued to speak, sounding deceptively mild, as if he were just thinking out loud. "You would actually compare us"-and here Dean gestured back and forth between them-"to the shit that went on between you and Dad. Yeah. Right. Well, Sammy. That's a real compliment. I know what you thought of Dad."
A cool, distant, objective part of Sam actually felt kind of bad for Dean. He could sort of see what was happening here. "You're afraid I'm going to leave you."
Dean just stared at him for second, incredulous. "You think you have it all figured out, don't you? Mr. Psych 101. Well, that's fucking great. Thanks for your insight."
At this, the low-burn of Sam's anger spiked into honest rage. Here he was, doing his best to work out this crap with his impossible brother, and Dean couldn't throw him a frickin' bone. Sam could feel them moving into a different zone than their usual fights.
Dean was still talking. "Don't you get it? You have no idea what it was like. You fucking ran away from our family and went to live on a whole different planet. It wasn't an accident, Sam. You didn't trip and fall into Stanford. You planned that whole thing out, keeping it a secret. And now, obviously, you've still got secrets. Like Danny. So what am I supposed to think? What else have you been keeping to yourself?"
"Nothing, Dean!" Even to Sam's ears, it sounded lame and insincere. But he was so tired of this cycle of blame and distrust and betrayal, real and imagined.
"Don't lie to me Sam!" Dean's voice was ragged. "Don't fucking lie. I can tell something is going on with you. You're hiding something right now."
At this, Sam felt his face flush with blood and heat. Holy shit.
But Dean, oblivious, pushed on: "I know this is hard for you to believe, but I'm not an idiot." Sam huffed and tried to walk away, but Dean blocked him. "I see the way you fit in here. Don't pretend it's not true. This is what you always wanted, isn't it? Tell me the truth, for once. Is this what you still want?"
"This?! What do you mean, like, Harvard? Law school? Jesus Christ, Dean," Sam almost laughed. "What the hell do you think? If I really wanted Julia's stupid life, I'd get it for myself. I'm not some little puppy following you around. If I didn't want to be here with you, I'd have left a long time ago. I don't know how else to prove it to you."
Dean was looking at him suspiciously. His chest was heaving; Sam focused in on his lips, which twisted into yet another derisive sneer. "Well, Sammy, that all sounds great. But you've been lying to me for a long time."
Sam struggled to understand Dean. He struggled to understand himself. "Are you talking about Danny? Aw, Dean. I didn't lie to you. I just didn't tell you… I figured it wouldn't make any sense to you. I didn't think you'd even care."
In the brief silence that followed, it dawned on Sam that this may have been the worst thing he could say. All at once Dean exploded, charging up to Sam, getting in his face, shoving him against the wall.
"Are you fucking kidding me, Sam?" he snarled. "You are the only thing in my entire goddamn life that I have ever cared about."
"Dean-"
In that moment, Sam wished he could pretend that he didn't know what he was doing; that his body was acting without his permission; that he was possessed, out of control.
But he had never been more in control in his life.
Everything-the anger, the frustration, the sadness-it all coalesced then into a hard knot of desire. And Sam knew the desire for what it was.
He had always known.
Where there should have been revulsion, there was only heat.
He felt Dean's body close to his, heard his brother's labored breathing; he inhaled his scent, the shape of his features, all so close and real, and all he had to do was reach out.
So he did.
-=-=-=-=-=-
Dean couldn't move. He couldn't think, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't blink-he just stood there, with his eyes uncomfortably wide open, as his world tilted on its axis.
Sam's lips were warm and surprisingly soft as they pressed against his a little too firmly. Sam drew a long breath in through his nose, and Dean stared at him, as best he could at such close range.
Sam pulled back, only an inch or so, and their lips separated with a wet smack that sounded entirely too much like a kiss to be real. Dean just gaped at him, and Sam's eyes went wide, too, like he couldn't quite believe what he'd just done. But then Sam blinked and swallowed, looking defiant, and Dean blinked and stared some more, because he still couldn't think. He couldn't remember where they were, or what they were doing, or what the fuck they'd just been talking about.
They stared at each other for what felt like ages, but was maybe just a fraction of a second, however long it took for Sam to come to a decision-which he had, apparently, because he was leaning in, again, with a stubborn look on his face.
Warm bursts of breath came against Dean's face as Sam kissed him, again and again, and then a part of Dean's brain seemed to catch up, a bit, because he suddenly remembered that they'd been fighting, and that something was wrong, and that Sam was about to tell him, goddammit, but then he just kissed him, instead, and-oh.
Oh.
Dean pulled back, a bit, because, what-but Sam followed him, kept kissing him, wouldn't let him get away. And Dean, for some reason, wasn't really trying that hard to get away.
Sam's tongue pushed into Dean's mouth, knocking into his own tongue, and it should have been fucking gross, it really should have, but instead it just made Dean incredibly hard, incredibly fast.
And then something clicked. Or maybe his upstairs brain just... gave up. Because with a sigh and a noise he would've been horrified to hear himself make, if he had heard it, he was suddenly kissing Sam back.
Sam's tongue tasted like old coffee, and the skin around his mouth was rough with stubble, and Dean had never had to look up to kiss anyone in his life, but it was fucking perfect, because it was everything he'd been trying not to think about all day.
Everything he'd been trying not to think about for fucking ever, if he were honest. An entire lifetime of ignored wet dreams-a million goddamn years' worth of confusion and frustration and jealousy and fucking want.
Sam's hands were on Dean's throat, and he batted them away, because he wasn't some girl, even if Sam had somehow gotten him backed up against the wall, now, with their chests pressed together and Sam taking up so much space that Dean felt like he was maybe being swallowed whole, a little bit, but he didn't care because Sam's hand was suddenly palming his cock, roughly, and Sam-Sam-was fucking loving it, was making these noises, and rubbing against him, and Sam was hard, Dean could feel it, and fuck.
Sam pulled his hips back and reached for Dean's waist. His hands unfastened his belt and jeans, and Dean couldn't do anything but push up into them as they pulled everything down past his cock, jeans and boxers in one. He groaned as the air hit him, and he gripped at Sam's biceps, hard.
And then Sam's cock was out, too, somehow, and it was lined up against his, and Sam's stupidly huge fingers were wrapped around them both. Sam's hot, callused fingers were rubbing against one side of Dean's cock, and Sam's cock, hot and heavy, was sliding against the other.
Sam's mouth was on Dean's neck and jaw, licking and sucking, leaving marks he didn't want to think about. Then Sam's mouth was back on his, hot and wet and insistent, and he pressed his tongue into Sam's mouth and canted his hips forward, thrusting into Sam's rough grip.
His fingers were in Sam's hair, fisting too tightly as his hips gained speed, and suddenly he was throwing his head back, knocking the wall, and coming, his cock twitching against Sam's, his heart exploding and blood rushing through his ears.
[ Illustration.]
There was a moment, some immeasurable amount of time later, as he started to come down and the fog in his brain had only just begun to clear, that Dean felt a surge of something unrecognizable in his chest. He wanted to laugh, and he wanted to cry at the same time, and he wanted-he didn't know what he wanted. Except.
Sam. Dean opened his eyes, and there was Sam. Standing over him, one hand on the wall over his shoulder, his breathing hard and jagged. He looked like he couldn't quite stand, like the arm over Dean's shoulder was the only thing keeping him upright, and he was staring at the floor.
Dean stared at him, and maybe Sam could feel it, because his gaze suddenly darted from side to side, and then up to Dean's face, just for a second. His eyes were wide and fearful, and they cut straight through Dean's chest, turning everything inside to ice.
He stared at Sam and-oh my fucking God-his stomach dropped as the smell of burnt hair and sex filled his nose, clogging the air in this too-small apartment. He felt himself start to choke on it, and he couldn't breathe as he stared at Sam and guilt burned its way up his throat, almost all the way, and he was nearly sick all over this stranger's floor.
Dean closed his eyes and forced a couple of shallow breaths, as his head started to spin.
He swallowed and willed his hands to stop shaking as he grabbed at his jeans, hiked them up awkwardly, too quickly, and fumbled with his belt. He tried not to look at Sam's jeans hanging open-Sam, fuck.
Sam didn't move, didn't do himself up, didn't take his hand off the wall. He just stood, frozen except for his chest, which rose and fell with heavy breath, and his eyes, which flitted erratically from the floor to Dean's chest and back.
The smell of burnt hair and cooling sweat and drying come left Dean dizzy and nauseated, and the only thought he seemed capable of was Get out here, get out of here now, so he pushed himself off the wall and ducked out from under Sam's arm, without touching him.
"Dean," Sam said, choked and horrible at Dean's back, but Dean couldn't look at him.
"Make sure this place is clean," Dean said, without turning around. "Then come back to the car." He yanked the apartment door open and thundered his way down the hall, and couldn't quite breathe until he was outside.
-=-=-=-=-=-
Sam wanted to tell himself not to panic, but it wouldn't have worked, anyway.
He couldn't actually remember leaving Julia's apartment, couldn't remember if he had closed the bathroom window, locked the door behind him, or even double-checked that they'd burned all the hair. Dean had just left-of course he had fucking just left. What else would he do after being jacked off by his little brother? Kick back and share a beer?
Sam found himself outside, walking up and down crowded sidewalks, overhearing snatches of conversations-students fretting about papers, job applications, dorm dramas. He tried not to hate them and their simple fucking lives. He looked at them all and thought, That could have been me.
Except part of him understood what a fallacy that was-he'd never had a chance of being like all those people. There was always a gap between them and the rest of the world. And there had always been a strange, tense line between him and Dean, the existence of which he'd been dutifully ignoring since puberty. Now that the line was crossed, he knew the truth better than ever: Winchesters lived on a different planet than everybody else.
Even as Sam's heart crashed in his chest, he couldn't help but ruefully note that he and Dean had managed to out-weird the supernatural case that brought them to this town in the first place.
Sam collapsed on a sidewalk bench, closed his eyes and tried to breathe, tried not to remember the feel of Dean underneath him, against him, his lips sliding wetly against Sam's, his cock between Sam's fingers, against Sam's cock. Dean had gripped Sam's arms so hard, he was pretty sure he'd find bruises there. If he could ever look at himself again.
His brain churned with images of the last couple of days. He tried to piece it all together. How had he let this happen? When did the world go crazy? Remembering Danny, that was part of it, sure. But it was more than that-it was Dean's reaction to everything. To Danny, to Shaheen, to Harvard. Sam wouldn't have guessed Dean would feel so... threatened. And Dean's hostility and fear and possessiveness, they all awakened something in Sam. It had outraged him that Dean didn't know how much Sam needed him. Wanted him.
So I showed him.
Boy, had he ever shown him. In a language so blunt that even Dean couldn't pretend to misunderstand.
Come back to the car, Dean had said, and Sam wanted to. He had already turned in the direction of the river thirteen or fourteen times, only to freeze when he tried to imagine what he was going to say, how he was even going to be able to look at Dean.
A sickening rush of terror ran through Sam. In Dean's place, he'd probably have left already, abandoning his crazy, sick brother to figure out his shit on his own. He could hear Dean now: This is what a fucking Ivy League education gets you, huh? Well, don't sign me up. He pictured Dean driving away, fleeing back toward the safety of demons he could track and kill.
Sam knew, of course, that Dean wouldn't do that. It was against Dean's biological imperative to abandon his baby brother, no matter how sick or crazy or completely out of control he got, except-
Except Dean had liked it.
Dean's body had responded to Sam's desire almost without question, and had-physically, at least-wanted it. It was like their bodies already knew each other so well, knew what to do, how to move in time together...
And that was what scared Sam the most. He knew his brother's beautiful, fucked-up internal logic all too well. It was likely that Dean was currently figuring out a way to blame himself for the entire thing. Never mind that Sam had obviously started it. Never mind that Dean had been caught completely off-guard. Dean's fundamental need to protect Sam from everything would kick in; he would convince himself that what Sam needed protecting from was him.
If there was any reason in the world that Dean would leave his brother, that was it.
Sam drew a shaky breath and fought with himself, fought with the need to get back to the car. He wanted to check that Dean was still here, waiting for him. He was afraid of what he might find.
-=-=-=-=-=-
Dean had been sitting in the car for hours. Literally, hours. He hadn't moved from the parking spot they'd found the day before-had it really only been the day before?-and hadn't started her up, not even for the radio. He'd just rolled down the windows and sat, watching the sun make its way from somewhere overhead down to the horizon before him, its warm, late afternoon rays glittering off the river, giving him a headache.
A motorcycle sped past him, and a car up ahead honked as the guy on the bike made a quick lane change, sliding close between cars. Dan shifted against the leather again and tried to relax. He tried to look like he was just taking a nap behind his sunglasses. He tried not to check the rearview mirror every three seconds to see if Sam had emerged from the campus yet, but he was mostly failing.
He sat and stared, and he thought about leaving. Or, rather, he thought about how he should have been thinking about leaving. He wondered what Sam was doing-cleaning up the apartment, going to see Shaheen, just wandering around campus. He tried not to wonder if Sam was going to come back.
He tried not to be so completely, horribly unsure that Sam was even going to come meet him, and he tried to pick up his phone to call or text about a million times, but he didn't. He just sat there, listening to the grit of tire against asphalt as cars continued to stream past, some of them pounding with heavy bass lines. He caught snatches of public radio through open windows and more than one angry cell phone call. Pedestrians passed on the other side, some with their heads down, focused on wherever they were going, some just strolling, taking in the day and the sun and the school.
He sat there and thought about thinking about leaving Sam to this life, the life he could've had, should've had, if Dean had understood it, before, if Dean had fought a bit harder for him, if he had been a better hunter and hadn't needed Sam's help. The life in a world where Sam could be whoever he wanted, could afford a legitimate roof over his head, and wouldn't have to worry about his codependent fucking brother.
He closed his eyes and tried to shake the horribly selfish, sick feeling of how much he didn't actually want Sam to have any of that.
He thought about what had happened in that apartment, and he tried to decide which was worse: hating himself for letting it happen, or hating himself for wanting it to happen.
The smell of the river blew in with the breeze through the driver's side window, and Dean planned to start the engine and blow out of town the second Sam was back in the passenger seat. He had no idea what he'd do if Sam didn't come back, and he didn't think about it.
An eighteen-wheeler rolled past, its axels squeaking and chassis rocking and exhaust stinking, and Dean stared at it, wondering where it had come from, where it was going, and how the hell it was going to get there in this stupid town. He watched it until it followed the road's bend behind the trees, and when he glanced back into his rearview mirror, Sam was there.
Sam was there, forty or so yards behind the car, trudging forward with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched and his bag hanging on his back, looking to all the world like just another student on his way home. Dean stared at Sam's approaching reflection and tried to breathe.
Sam opened the door and climbed into the car and slid into his seat without a word, keeping his eyes forward. Dean thought about his plan, how he was going to start the car and make a run for it as soon as Sam was safe inside, but he couldn't move. He was fucking terrified, he realized, suddenly more afraid than he could remember being in a very long time.
Sam cleared his throat. "I wasn't sure if you'd still be here," he said. Dean sucked in a breath and didn't know what to say.
"Thanks," Sam continued, staring at the dashboard.
Dean frowned. "For what?"
"For not-for still being here." Dean's jaw went tense as something flared in his gut-something like anger or relief or guilt, he couldn't tell the difference, anymore.
He swallowed and tried not to grind his teeth through the long, silent moment. His fingers twitched, like they knew it was time to go, but he still couldn't move to start the car.
"Dean?"
Dean stared down the sun-soaked road ahead of them for a long moment before he spoke. "You would've made a good lawyer, Sammy."
Sam turned to look at him. Dean could see his surprised eyes in his peripheral vision. "What?"
"You would have. You're smarter than all those assholes."
"Dean," Sam said uneasily.
"And I would've-I would've been proud of you." He paused, then shrugged. "Even if I never would've admitted it."
Sam stared at him from across the bench seat. "Thanks," he said, sounding like he was at a bit of a loss, but somehow amused despite himself.
He didn't say anything for a while after that, and they sat in awkward silence. Dean was itching to reach for the ignition, but he still couldn't. Sam kept opening his mouth, taking a breath like he was going to say something, but closing it before he did.
Until, finally, "You want to get out of here?", and Dean breathed with relief.
"Hell yeah, I do," he said, and started the car. He threw a glance over his shoulder and pulled out into the street, felt his body relax as Sam settled himself comfortably against the leather, and they were finally, finally getting the hell out of Boston.
-=-=-=-=-=-
"Dude, check it out," Dean called from his seat on the bed, pausing his channel surfing. "Psycho's on!"
"Psycho?" Sam said, scrubbing his wet hair dry as he stepped out of the bathroom, another towel wrapped around his waist. "Since when do you like Hitchcock?"
"What?" Dean said without looking at him; the glow from the TV gently lit his features. "Since always."
"Dean, I've known you almost your entire life. If you liked Hitchcock and I didn't know about it, it was when you were three years ol-"
"Hang on, hang on!" Dean interrupted, impervious (as always) to Sam-logic. "It's right at the end, Norman's about to get locked up."
Sam chuckled as his brother stared at the screen in rapt, somewhat beer-amplified attention. "By the way," Dean said, "did you see that guy at the bar, who looked just like this dude? Had a totally creepy serial killer vibe about him. And I think he was eyeing you, Sammy."
"Nice, Dean."
"Thank God that's not our scene, man. Oh, hey, so are we going to go try to find the groundhog tomorrow?"
"Um, I don't know. I thought you wanted to leave for Knoxville first thing."
"Yeah, but that can wait a few hours. There's totally time to see the groundhog, Sammy, don't worry."
"Dean, I think you just need to admit that you're the one who wants to meet the groundhog."
Dean frowned. "As if. Why would I want to go see some overgrown rodent?"
"Because he's cute, and you're still skeeved out from that thing with the witches. I think you want something nice to play with for a change."
Dean made a face. "Whatever. The witches are ganked, so I am no longer skeeved."
"It's OK, Dean," Sam said, crossing to the far corner where his duffle bag sat on a chair. After Boston (or 'A.B.' as he was already referring to it in his mind), it felt good to just play around. "You can admit it. I don't mind your fear of witches or your closet love for small, furry creatures."
Dean rolled his eyes, practically audibly, as Sam started shifting through the duffle. "Dude," he said, "maybe I'll hit the laundromat while you're out with your groundhog buddy, 'cause this is not a good scene." He frowned, dug a bit more through the bag, then looked around the floor in confusion. "Dean," he said, "have you seen my socks? I know I had a clean pair in here."
Dean didn't reply, and Sam felt the old irritation mounting. "Dammit, dude, can't you just buy yourself some more fucking socks?" He turned around, ready to fight this issue to the death. But Dean wasn't looking at his face. Instead, his eyes were firmly fixed on Sam's towel, which had begun to slip around his hips. There was a pause-Sam might've described it as 'pregnant' if that wouldn't have been completely weird. Then Dean shook himself and focused, returning his gaze deliberately to the TV screen.
And he actually blushed.
Sam blinked.
I made Dean blush, he thought. Rather prettily... God help me if I ever say that out loud.
Something inside him burned, surprise coiling down into his gut, warm and pleasantly uncomfortable. Dean was clearly experiencing a more excruciating moment, so Sam turned away, giving them both a little space to breathe and collect themselves. He gathered up the clothes he had pulled from his duffle, stuffing them back inside, trying not to lose it all over again.
So much had changed in the last day. Familiar banter aside, Dean had experienced a major shift in the tectonic plates of his world. The rules had all changed. It was freeing. It was absolutely terrifying. What the hell must be going on his brother's head?
"We need more beer," Dean declared suddenly, vaulting up from the bed as if possessed. "I'll be right back."
Sam adjusted his towel. Just... be calm. This will take time. "Dean," he said patiently. "We haven't touched the twelve pack we picked up after the bar-which was your idea, by the way."
"Oh, right. Well. I'll just, um. Snacks. Do we need snacks?"
"Dean."
"I think we need snacks. I'll just run down to the gas station."
"Dean."
"Or magazines, or something."
"Dean. Stop." Dean stopped and just stood there awkwardly, unsure of what to do with his hands or where to look. Sam took pity on him. "It's OK. Just. Grab me a beer, would you?"
Dean nodded and bee-lined for the fridge, where he stood, carefully examining its faded avocado green while Sam pulled on an old pair of track pants and a t-shirt. After glancing behind him to check that the coast was clear, Dean visibly relaxed and crossed over to Sam with two beers.
"So what's on now?" Sam asked, gesturing to the TV. He tried to communicate telepathically with Dean: We can do this.
"Um, The Birds, I think," Dean answered.
"What's this, some kind of marathon?" If anybody can pull this off, it's us. Right?
"Guess so."
Sam hoped this meant Yes.
"Dean... how come you never told me about this thing you've got for Hitchcock?" Sam said as they settled into the two wooden chairs. He tried out a non-threatening smile.
Dean just shrugged. They watched in silence for a while. Sam fetched them another round and dimmed the harsh overhead light.
And finally, like a gradual change in the weather, Dean started to get excited, pointing out his favorite scenes, laughing at the fake-ass birds, and explaining to Sam why every character in the movie was an idiot.
Sam's mind drifted until one theme emerged clearly. This is how it is for us. Nothing we do makes any sense. Never has, never will. This was, if anything, a comforting thought.
And with that, Sam moved to the bed, sitting on the edge and then leaning down onto his back, sprawling out. Instantly, sleep began to tug at his senses. He resisted its pull, resting and waiting. He felt relaxed, like he could wait there forever if necessary.
But it didn't that long for Dean to follow.
He came over and sat down, right next to Sam's legs, without a word. Sam stared up at the back of his head for a minute or two before sliding his right thigh over a bit so that it touched Dean's. He pressed, gently, and heard Dean exhale. Sam's right hand found its way to Dean's back, the fingertips toying lightly with the hem of Dean's shirt, and he was glad he was a little drunk.
Sam sat up, slowly, so that his shoulder was pressed against Dean, too, and he concentrated on all the spots where their bodies touched almost completely from shoulder to knee. Dean's breath was a little too quick, a little too shallow, and his muscles were tense against Sam. But he didn't pull away.
Sam looked at him, his eyes catching on the curve of his ear, the flexing, twitching muscles of his jaw, the flutter of his eyelashes as his eyes darted around the room. He looked like he wanted to say something, but no words came.
"Dean," Sam said. Dean glanced sideways at Sam, involuntarily, and Sam watched this latest installment in his brother's epic battle with desire, fear, and the deep-seated need to protect Sammy no matter what. Sam leaned in, touched his forehead to Dean's temple, and his heart picked up speed as Dean pressed back into the touch-just a little, but enough.
"Dean, please," Sam said, and Dean shuddered and shook his head a little.
"Sammy," Dean whispered, sounding impossibly young. "Really?"
"Yes." Sam lifted his head, looking straight at Dean's profile. "Yes." Dean still wouldn't look at him, keeping his face forward and his eyes down. Sam couldn't let this go on.
"Dean," he said, packing it full of all the things Dean would never let him say out loud, and Dean must have heard it all, because he finally turned to look at Sam.
They kissed slowly, Sam taking the lead again, but giving Dean more space to react this time, to push and pull, to stop if he wanted to, but he didn't. Their lips met again and again, their tongues sliding against one another, and when Sam climbed over Dean's thighs, pressing a knee between his legs and pushing him down onto his back, he felt Dean's groan, hot and wet, in the crook of his neck.
It was the best sound he'd ever heard, and so he slid his knee back, letting his thigh lock firmly against Dean's groin, determined to hear it as many more times tonight as he possibly could.
-=-=-=-=-=-
The sun was beating in through the driver's side window, too hot on Dean's arm as he eased down the highway. It was unseasonably warm everywhere, apparently, and he could almost feel the temperature rising with each southward mile they covered.
Sam was asleep, curled up awkwardly, but still somehow taking up more than half of the Impala's front seat. His head rested on a balled-up hoodie against the window, tilted to the side, exposing a long stretch of neck. Dean watched the sun and shadow play on the cords of Sam's neck for a moment, before turning his eyes back to the road before him.
He turned the music up a bit, careful not to wake Sam, but enough to distract himself from his thoughts.
Inevitably, though, his eyes wandered back to Sam: to the long fingers resting on his lap, to the curve of his biceps under his t-shirt sleeve, and then back to his neck. Sam shifted in his sleep, turning his head a little so that his hair slipped away from his ear, and Dean noticed a hickey just behind his earlobe.
Dean flushed and had to look away. A familiar sensation coiled in his stomach as he remembered giving Sam that hickey the night before. He swallowed and tried to focus on driving.
He wondered if, when they got to Knoxville, anyone would notice that mark on Sam, and if they would wonder whether Dean gave it to him. They wouldn't, he figured. He wasn't sure if he liked that or not.
Sam's phone chirped, announcing a text message. Dean glanced at Sam, but he didn't wake up. His phone had fallen out of his pocket and was resting in the crevice at the back of the seat. Dean reached for it and flipped it open.
It was from Shaheen. Dean tried to ignore the irrational flare of jealousy in his gut.
dude, i think you guys did it!! fuckin' right, ghostbusters. don't be a stranger, man.
Dean held the phone open in his hand for a long minute as he turned his eyes back to the road, contemplating the 'delete' option on the phone.
The song on the radio changed, and Dean glanced back down long enough to navigate the menu and mark the text message as unread. Then he slipped Sam's phone back against the seat where it had fallen.
Ten minutes later, Sam woke up as Dean pulled into a gas station. "Already?" he muttered. "How long was I out?"
"We don't need gas, strictly speaking, but I'm hungry."
"Thought you wanted to wait for the Tennessee barbeque?"
"Dude, that's not for another, like, four hours at least," Dean scoffed, already climbing out the car. He filled the gas tank, anyway, because he hated the idea of his baby going hungry.
When he returned with a hot dog, chips, soda, and Twizzlers, Sam was checking his phone.
"I guess the accidents have stopped," Sam said. "Or at least, they've slowed back down to normal."
"'Course they have," Dean said smugly. "In case you've forgotten, Sam, we're awesome." Sam smirked. "I take it Shaheen dropped you a line?"
"Um, yeah," Sam said, glancing around like he wasn't quite sure if he should admit that.
Dean nodded. "You should keep in touch with him, Sam."
Sam looked at Dean, eyebrows raised. "Really?"
"Yeah," Dean said. "You never know when we might need a good attorney. Again. And he owes us."
Sam snorted and shoved his phone back into his pocket. It fell out, landing on the seat again, and Dean reached for it without really thinking about it.
"What are you-" Sam said as Dean pressed Sam's phone back into his pocket, all the way, and then let his thumb rub against the side seam of Sam's jeans for a moment too long. Sam took a quick breath, looking down at Dean's hand and then at Dean's face when he pulled his fingers away.
"Thanks," he said, fixing Dean with a look that shot straight through him, down to his cock, and Dean blinked.
"Be careful with that thing, would you?" he said, and Sam smiled. "And keep your grimy fingers off my Twizzlers, bitch. If you wanted something, you should've spoken up."
"Whatever. Jerk."
Dean stuck a rope of licorice in his mouth with a grin and eased back out onto the highway.
-=-=-=-=-=-
[End.]
Authors: shes_gone and peccatrixjusta
Artist: reallycorking
Notes: Warnings and authors' notes are here.
[ Part Two.]
-=-=-=-=-=-
Dean shouldered his way through the door back into Shaheen's living room, with an armful of duffle bag and coffee and breakfast, and found Sam still sleeping heavily on the sofa.
"Sam," he said, giving the sofa a swift kick before setting the food and drink on the table, and dropping the duffle bag to the floor. "Up and at 'em, Sammy. We've got work to do."
"Whutimeissit?" Sam groaned.
"It's late," Dean said. "I let you sleep it off while I went to check on the car and get our suits." Sam rolled over, tucking his head into one of the sofa cushions with a grunt. "C'mon, shake it off, you're going to like this one."
"Uhnnn," Sam said from within the cushion.
"We're going to a big, fancy law firm. So you gotta get up, 'cause you know I can't pull this one off by myself."
Sam was silent for a few moments, then pushed himself up off the couch and shuffled into the bathroom without a word. When he emerged, Dean shoved coffee into his hands and watched him guzzle it in several quick sips.
"So, where are we going?" Sam asked.
"We're going to see Julia McNamara, an attorney at the law firm of Hughes and Peterson."
"Who's that?"
"Our ghost's girlfriend at the time he ganked himself."
"Really?" Sam said, rubbing at his eyes. "How'd you find her?"
Dean smirked. "Had a nice long chat with a friend of hers last night. Carrie. You see her? The one with the real low-cut top on?"
Sam thought for a moment, then shrugged. "No, don't think I noticed her."
"Yeah, well, straight guys notice girls, Sammy." Sam stiffened and went a bit red, and Dean froze because the rest of yesterday night suddenly came flooding back, and fuck, why couldn't he ever just keep his mouth shut?
He had managed not to think about it so far this morning, and Sam had seemed too hungover to be capable of thinking about it, and all of that was just fine, as far as Dean was concerned.
An awkward, silent moment passed. "Anyway," Dean said, "Carrie."
"Yeah, Carrie," Sam said, nastily. "Was she any good?"
"What?" Dean said.
"Was she any good, Dean? You did fuck her, right? That's what you want me to know."
Dean stared at him. "Dude," he said, after a moment. Sam glared at him and looked away.
"Anyway," Dean continued, "the girlfriend, Julia, was living with Paul when he jumped in front of that bus. She graduated the year before last, but she's still in town." He held up the piece of paper that Carrie had written Julia's office information on. "So we're gonna go see her."
Sam stared at the piece of paper in Dean's hand, and seemed to struggle with himself for a moment. "Fine," he finally said. "Whatever, let's just go. I assume we're not moving the car-"
"Fuck right, we're not."
"-so you got cash for a cab?"
"No, but Carrie wrote down some directions for something called the 'T', which I guess is like the subway?" He flipped the paper in his hands over. "Do you think Shaheen needs this? The syllabus for Public International Law?"
"I'm sure it's online," Sam said impatiently. "Just take it."
One hour, forty minutes, and two wrong trains later, they emerged onto Boylston Street. "Goddammit," Dean gritted out. "That was ridiculous."
"C'mon," Sam snapped, making a right-hand turn out of the T stop.
"I mean, honestly. Why do people live here? That took forever, it was crowded and hot, and I'm pretty sure that stinky guy was possessed, Sam. If it weren't so dirty down there, I'd go back down after him."
"Shit," Sam said, ignoring Dean, but apparently noticing that the street numbers were going in the wrong direction, because he made an about-face and stomped back past Dean.
"This place sucks, Sam. I miss my car."
"Dean, would you shut up already? I'm having a hard enough time this morning without you running your mouth constantly."
Dean scowled with surprise. "Excuse me?"
"And I don't know if it's occurred to you, Dean, but this woman we're about to go see? Is a fucking Harvard-trained attorney, OK? She's not gonna be easily bullshitted, so you need to fucking focus."
"Dude," Dean said angrily.
"So just shut up about your car and how much you hate it here and all the girls you fucked last night, and let's just go do this."
Dean stared at him, his face hard.
"Fuck, just." Sam gave a tight sigh. "Is there a drugstore around here? My head is killing me."
"No, but here we are," Dean replied, pushing past Sam toward a tall, glassy building bearing the address Carrie had given him.
Sam groaned but followed him inside. The tall guy working building security examined their FBI badges a little too closely for Dean's liking, but they held up, and he let them past. Dean took the lead in charming the 34th floor receptionist, and they found themselves standing outside Julia McNamara's office without another word to each other.
"Ms. McNamara?" Sam asked, knocking on her open door.
"Yes?" The woman inside the office looked up from her computer. She wore an expensive suit and too much eye makeup and looked very annoyed to be interrupted.
"Sorry to bother you," Sam said. "My name is Sam Hetfield, this is Dean Ulrich. We're 2Ls at Harvard. We got your name from a couple of people who thought you'd be willing to talk to us."
Julia's eyes slid very obviously over the both of them, head to toe, and her irritation vanished as she leaned back in her seat. Dean tried not to smirk. "Talk to you about what?"
"We're writing a piece for the Crimson about depression on campus, most especially at the law school," Sam said.
"Ah," Julia said. "So you're here about Paul, then."
"Yeah," Sam said, with a wary smile. "I hope that's OK?"
Julia nodded. "Sure."
"Is now a good time?" Sam asked. "Because we can come back."
"No, now's fine," she said. "Please, have a seat." She gestured to the pair of chairs opposite her desk. "I could use a break from these contracts, anyway."
"I bet," Sam said with a smile as he and Dean sat. She smiled back, and her gaze flitted once again down his body and lingered, eventually making its way back to his face. Dean tried not to laugh as Sam blushed and fumbled around in his bag for a pad of paper.
"First, let me just say," Sam said, "that we're very sorry for your loss."
"Thank you," Julia replied. Her eyes tracked Sam's fingers as he pulled a pen out of his shirt pocket, and Dean felt his eyebrows lift. He respected a woman who knew what she wanted, to be sure, but even he found it a bit crass that she was checking Sam out so openly, given their topic of conversation.
But then she crossed her arms over her chest, drawing Dean's attention to the pull of the buttons across her breasts, and he found he didn't mind so much what she was doing with her eyes.
Sam asked another question (or maybe two) that Dean didn't quite hear, as he caught a flash of lace through the gap between Julia's buttons. She shifted a bit in her seat, and he couldn't help the small curl of his lip as he got another eyeful. He didn't notice the awkward silence that had descended upon the room until Sam threw his foot to the side, kicking at Dean's chair.
Dean snapped to attention, and was greeted with an icy stare from Julia.
"Sorry," he said, with a faux-sheepish grin and a glance at Sam. "What was that?" Sam didn't look back at him, but if there was anyone who could kill you with a look without actually looking at you, it was Sam.
No one said anything, and Dean watched Sam's jaw clench.
"Hey," Dean said, with an attempt at nonchalance, "did I see a men's room just down the hall here?"
Julia just raised her eyebrows.
"Think I'm gonna go pay it a visit." He thumped the armrest of his chair. "You got this, right, Sam?"
Sam seemed barely able to open his jaw enough to speak. "Sure," he gritted out.
"OK, then," Dean said, and Sam's bitch face seemed to reach a new decibel as Dean excused himself and closed the door to Julia's office behind him.
He did actually need the bathroom, which was huge and ridiculous and awesome, once he'd found it. The faucets sparkled and the stalls were mahogany and the whole place just smelled like money. He wasn't really impressed, exactly, but he had to admit that it was pretty fun to take a piss in there.
He wandered around the floor a bit after that, ostensibly checking for evidence that Paul's ghost had ever followed Julia to work, but mostly he was just killing time.
He stumbled upon what he assumed was a break room or something, and found himself suddenly beginning to understand the appeal of working in a place like this. There was a fully-stocked communal fridge, an incredible vending machine full of every delicious meal option he could imagine, an espresso machine and several carafes of coffee, each sporting a different description. It was like a coffee bar and diner all in one, and it was free.
Dean eyed the stack of to-go cups and wondered if anyone would mind a little coffee going missing, because Lord knew he and Sam could use another hit.
"Can I help you?" a man's voice came behind him, and if Dean jumped, it was only a little bit.
"Just admiring your digs," Dean said, with a smile. The man was tall, clean-cut, and wearing a suit that probably cost more than everything Dean owned, besides his car. Although, after what it must have cost to get it so expertly tailored, Dean wasn't so sure.
"Do you have an appointment with someone?" the man said.
"I did, yeah. Finished my interview a few minutes ago, and thought I'd take a stroll around until my buddy's is over. We came together."
"An interview for what?"
"Oh, you know, a job here. I'm a law student."
The man's dark eyebrows shot up. "Really?" he said, skeptically. "I didn't realize we were still conducting law school interviews. It was my understanding that they concluded last week."
"We had to reschedule."
"I see. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave, however. If you are, in fact, waiting for someone, they can meet you in the lobby."
Dean felt a Sam-worthy bitch face coming on, and he made a half-hearted attempt to suppress it. "My mistake," he said tightly. "Enjoy your coffee."
The man frowned and watched Dean as he left the room. "Hope you're pretty near done, Sam," he muttered to himself as he made his way back to Julia's office, "I think I've overstayed my welcome with these douchebags."
He was very relieved to find Sam standing in the open doorway to Julia's office. "Thank you so much for your time," Sam said, after a nod to Dean. "I really appreciate your talking to me."
"You're very welcome," she said. "It's a pretty unpleasant topic, but I think I could talk about almost anything with you." She flashed a sly smile, and Sam blushed. Dean almost regretted having left Sam alone with her, because he'd clearly missed something epic.
"Do you have plans for next summer yet, Sam?" she asked. "You should apply for a summer associate position here, I think you would fit in well."
"I thought you guys stopped interviewing last week," Dean said, and ignored Sam's surprised look.
"The cattle-call interviews through the law schools, yes," Julia replied dismissively. "But there's still plenty of time for those students with something special, that we somehow missed." Sam smiled embarrassedly. "Well, think about it," she said. "If you'd like to talk, you're welcome in my office anytime. Or we could go somewhere else, if you'd prefer."
Sam looked a bit like he had just bitten into a lemon, although he still wore a pretty convincing smile. Dean couldn't help himself. "You know, Sam, if you want to stay," he said, smirking, "I could probably find my way back to school on my own."
Sam's nostrils flared awesomely as he looked at Dean. "No, I've got that meeting, remember? Thank you, Ms. McNamara-"
"Call me Julia."
"-Julia. I'll be in touch."
Dean grinned as Sam thundered his way down the hall and into the elevator. "Sammy," he said, "I don't know whether to be impressed or disappointed with you."
"Stop it, Dean," Sam snapped, as soon as the doors closed.
"Stop what?"
"This, OK. Just. I don't know why you're being so-" He stopped, expelling a couple of hard breaths through his nose. "Just. Don't do this here, OK. Not right now, and not here. Let's just focus and get this job done."
"Oh, I'm sorry, Sam," Dean snapped, "was I misbehaving in front of your big fancy lawyer friends? And she was the one hitting on you, by the way. While you were asking questions about her dead boyfriend."
Sam just stared at the descending numbers on the elevator keypad.
Dean's jaw clenched, hard, as the doors opened into the stupidly sunny lobby of the high-rise. They stalked quickly and silently to the doors and out onto the sidewalk.
"Did she tell you where his body is?" Dean gritted out, ignoring his urge to go back up the elevator and punch Julia in her painted face.
"Cremated."
"Shit."
"I'm pretty sure we'll find something to burn in her apartment, though."
"Yeah? She kept his stuff?"
"No, she said she got rid of it. But one of the last things that happened before he killed himself was that the career office made him cut off his long hair, 'cause he was doing so poorly in job interviews. They thought a more clean-cut image might help. He kept what he cut off, apparently, to help him remember who he 'really was.'"
"Sounds like that worked out well for him," Dean scoffed, and Sam shrugged. "And you think," Dean continued, "that that woman is the type to hold onto some loser's gross ponytail after he died?"
Sam gave him a disgusted look. "I think she really loved the guy, Dean."
"I'm sorry, did we meet the same woman up there? The one who was talking about her lost love and undressing you with her eyes at the same time?"
"Look, I don't know, OK? Sometimes people react to a loss like that in strange ways, Dean. And I, for one, am not gonna judge her for it."
"Yeah, OK, Dr. Phil."
Sam heaved a sigh and looked down the street for a long moment. "She's got something in her apartment that was his," he said slowly. "She wouldn't say what it was, but she was really embarrassed about it. If you've got some other great lead that you haven't told me about, now would be a really good time to share with the class."
Dean rolled his eyes. "Fine. Let's go. Is there time now, or will she be leaving work soon?"
Sam huffed a laugh. "She's a second-year associate at a huge corporate law firm, Dean."
Dean looked at him blankly. "And?"
"And, so, no. She won't be leaving work for long time. Let's find a wi-fi spot. I wasn't able to get her home address, but I can probably track it down."
"No need," Dean said, and patted his suit coat pocket.
"What?"
"She had a stack of personal mail on the bookcase by her door. I slipped one in my pocket, just in case." He pulled a long envelope out of his pocket. "Hope she pays her Visa bill online."
Sam stared at the envelope in Dean's hand a moment. Dean waited for a little kudos, but they never came.
"Great," Sam said flatly. "Let's go."
-=-=-=-=-=-
They were standing in Julia McNamara's apartment, having endured a tense journey back over the river from Boston to Cambridge. There were a million moments when Sam could have smiled, cracked a joke, or grudgingly acknowledged Dean's coup in locating Julia's home address.
But he didn't do any of these things. Instead they continued to nip at each other like dogs. Getting turned around again on the T didn't help soothe anybody's irritation. Why are you being such a little bitch? Sam said to himself in his best Dean voice. He just couldn't shake the feeling that somehow all of this was Dean's fault. His brother was just... so...
By the time they arrived at the apartment off Massachusetts Avenue, they were barely talking at all, choosing instead to punish each other with accusatory silences. It was in these moments, actually, that Dad's training most came in handy. They were such a well-oiled machine, they could carry off a routine job like this in total silence if necessary.
After easily picking the lock of Julia's front door, they entered her small, tidy unit. To Sam's surprise, there was a framed photo of a young man on the mantle in the living room.
"That's Paul," he told Dean, forgetting for a second that they were annoyed with each other. Sam recognized him from the small, grainy black-and-white photo with the obit.
"Wow," Dean sniffed. "Julia, carrying the torch for a geek-who knew?"
"Dean, what the hell did Julia McNamara ever do to you?" And with that, they snarled and huffed and commenced their search for some piece of Paul Stevens.
It didn't take too long, really. In the top drawer of Julia's bedside table was a delicate keepsake box. Dean found it. He opened the lid and drew out a long dark ponytail, held together with a piece of ribbon; it could only have been sheered directly from Paul's head.
"Bingo," Dean said holding the twist of hair up for Sam's inspection. It looked small and sad coiled in Dean's hand; it was hard to believe it had been connected to a living, breathing, hurting person. "Just think, Sam, this could've been you." Dean cocked his head to the side in mock-thought. "Nah, I guess even you wouldn't grow your hair this long."
Sam didn't even dignify this observation with a response. "Let's burn it and get out of here."
Dean fished his lighter out of his pocket. "I'll do it in the bathtub. You draw a salt line at the front door in case Paul raises an objection."
"Dean, I don't think we need to worry. Paul's not a violent spirit. He didn't maliciously cause any of those accidents."
"I'm not taking that chance," Dean responded, turning toward the bathroom like he just expected Sam to obey.
Sam took a deep breath and tried to control his reactivity towards his goddamn fucking over-protective power-tripping brother and got out the salt.
As he crouched down in front of the door, he heard Dean opening windows in the bathroom.
It only took a moment for that sense to be overpowered by an all-too-familiar tingle running down his spine. He had been doing this for so long; picking up on the presence of a ghost was sometimes like breathing. The adrenaline began to course through him; he felt his body revert into fight mode.
Sam stood slowly and turned around. No sudden movements.
Paul was just standing there.
He was dressed like any student; he could've been one of Sam's old classmates. Ghosts sometimes appeared a little blurred around the edges, but even the lines of exhaustion around Paul's eyes were clear. As Sam watched, Paul suddenly looked up and glanced around the apartment, his expression becoming anxious. Maybe he recognized where he was.
Sam's hand twitched at his side, and he started to reach out toward the ghost. "Hey Paul, buddy," he said. He wasn't sure where the words were coming from. "I know you're tired and stressed out. Just... easy there. You're going to get to rest really soon..."
And Paul looked right at him; they locked eyes for a second, and it seemed like Paul was seeing him for the first time. Sam started to smile. Everything is going to be all right.
"Sam, what the fuck?"
And there was Dean, holding the hair in his hand, and it was already burning. As Sam watched, the fire rushed up the ponytail like a lit fuse and the unmistakable stench of burning hair filled the apartment. Dean dropped the hair on the floor.
Paul made an anguished sound and was himself consumed, collapsing onto the ground in a pile of ash. Sam gazed in horror as his brother stomped on the hair to put it out, leaving a blackened smirch on Julia's hardwood floors.
Dean looked up, breathing heavily, a satisfied look on his face. "So much for a clean job in the bathtub..."
"Dean!" Sam realized he'd raised his voice, not exactly a stealth move after breaking into a woman's apartment, but he didn't care. "Why the hell did you do that?"
"What?" His brother looked at him in genuine shock. "Sam, that thing was right in front of you."
"That thing's name was Paul," Sam spit out. "He was confused, in pain. He wasn't going to hurt me."
"Oh, I get it," Dean responded, stepping towards him. "In the future, you'd like me ask about the monster's plans before I let it gut you?"
"No-Dean. You know that's not what I meant. I just... you really didn't need to do it like that. Paul deserved a little more respect."
"Respect? Am I hearing you right? Sam, I think you're over-identifying with that guy. I know law school was your big dream and all, but look where it got Paul."
Sam was just about ready to kill his brother. "What are you trying to say, Dean?"
"You really want to know the answer that, Sammy?" At the use of his nickname, Sam shuddered. What was happening to them? How had everything gotten so crazy?
When Sam didn't have an instant comeback, Dean wiped his face with his hand, threw Sam a dismissive glance, and gestured at the stain on the floor. "We have to clean that up."
And right away, Sam was arguing, even though he knew it was just for the sake arguing. "Dean, it doesn't matter if Julia comes home and sees all that. If she even notices the ponytail is gone, she can't trace anything back to us." He wasn't even sure why he gave a shit.
Apparently Dean felt strongly about his position, too: "The woman's a lawyer. I won't put anything past her. She's probably running a background check on you right now, Mr. Pretty Boy Law Student."
"Dean, don't start with that again…" Sam suddenly felt very weary. He began to stalk towards the door to the apartment.
"Start with what Sam? Am I making you uncomfortable or something?" Dean was close at his heels, invading his space.
"Yeah, as a matter of fact, you are," Sam muttered. He turned around, facing Dean. He felt strangely hyped up, yet resigned at the same time. You're asking for it, Dean. It's not my fault you can't leave this alone. "You've never been exactly discreet or respectful when it comes to my sex life." He paused, took a breath, and gathered his courage. "But ever since I told you about Danny, you're acting like I'm some stranger! I don't know what the hell your problem is."
His brother looked at him dangerously. "Yeah, well, sometimes I feel like I don't know you as well as I thought, Sam," he said darkly. Dean's disapproval was so profound and Dad-like, Sam felt almost ashamed of himself. Almost.
He stepped forward, taking back some of his space from Dean. He tried to remain calm. "Dean, don't you think you're overreacting just a little?"
"Look, I'm sorry I'm not one of your liberal intellectual friends who thinks everything's just fabulous-"
Sam cringed. "Seriously, Dean, cool it. Don't be an asshole."
"Is that what you think of me?" Dean demanded.
Sam threw his hands up-he didn't know what to do with them, where to go, what to say anymore. "Dean, I went through this with Dad. I'm sick of begging for your approval, for the right to have my own goddamn life."
Dean went very still. "You think I'm like Dad?" he grumbled. Sam didn't say anything. He'd probably made a mistake, invoking Dad like that. They were both tensing their shoulders, shifting their weight from foot to foot. Just like during a hunt, Sam thought.
Dean continued to speak, sounding deceptively mild, as if he were just thinking out loud. "You would actually compare us"-and here Dean gestured back and forth between them-"to the shit that went on between you and Dad. Yeah. Right. Well, Sammy. That's a real compliment. I know what you thought of Dad."
A cool, distant, objective part of Sam actually felt kind of bad for Dean. He could sort of see what was happening here. "You're afraid I'm going to leave you."
Dean just stared at him for second, incredulous. "You think you have it all figured out, don't you? Mr. Psych 101. Well, that's fucking great. Thanks for your insight."
At this, the low-burn of Sam's anger spiked into honest rage. Here he was, doing his best to work out this crap with his impossible brother, and Dean couldn't throw him a frickin' bone. Sam could feel them moving into a different zone than their usual fights.
Dean was still talking. "Don't you get it? You have no idea what it was like. You fucking ran away from our family and went to live on a whole different planet. It wasn't an accident, Sam. You didn't trip and fall into Stanford. You planned that whole thing out, keeping it a secret. And now, obviously, you've still got secrets. Like Danny. So what am I supposed to think? What else have you been keeping to yourself?"
"Nothing, Dean!" Even to Sam's ears, it sounded lame and insincere. But he was so tired of this cycle of blame and distrust and betrayal, real and imagined.
"Don't lie to me Sam!" Dean's voice was ragged. "Don't fucking lie. I can tell something is going on with you. You're hiding something right now."
At this, Sam felt his face flush with blood and heat. Holy shit.
But Dean, oblivious, pushed on: "I know this is hard for you to believe, but I'm not an idiot." Sam huffed and tried to walk away, but Dean blocked him. "I see the way you fit in here. Don't pretend it's not true. This is what you always wanted, isn't it? Tell me the truth, for once. Is this what you still want?"
"This?! What do you mean, like, Harvard? Law school? Jesus Christ, Dean," Sam almost laughed. "What the hell do you think? If I really wanted Julia's stupid life, I'd get it for myself. I'm not some little puppy following you around. If I didn't want to be here with you, I'd have left a long time ago. I don't know how else to prove it to you."
Dean was looking at him suspiciously. His chest was heaving; Sam focused in on his lips, which twisted into yet another derisive sneer. "Well, Sammy, that all sounds great. But you've been lying to me for a long time."
Sam struggled to understand Dean. He struggled to understand himself. "Are you talking about Danny? Aw, Dean. I didn't lie to you. I just didn't tell you… I figured it wouldn't make any sense to you. I didn't think you'd even care."
In the brief silence that followed, it dawned on Sam that this may have been the worst thing he could say. All at once Dean exploded, charging up to Sam, getting in his face, shoving him against the wall.
"Are you fucking kidding me, Sam?" he snarled. "You are the only thing in my entire goddamn life that I have ever cared about."
"Dean-"
In that moment, Sam wished he could pretend that he didn't know what he was doing; that his body was acting without his permission; that he was possessed, out of control.
But he had never been more in control in his life.
Everything-the anger, the frustration, the sadness-it all coalesced then into a hard knot of desire. And Sam knew the desire for what it was.
He had always known.
Where there should have been revulsion, there was only heat.
He felt Dean's body close to his, heard his brother's labored breathing; he inhaled his scent, the shape of his features, all so close and real, and all he had to do was reach out.
So he did.
-=-=-=-=-=-
Dean couldn't move. He couldn't think, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't blink-he just stood there, with his eyes uncomfortably wide open, as his world tilted on its axis.
Sam's lips were warm and surprisingly soft as they pressed against his a little too firmly. Sam drew a long breath in through his nose, and Dean stared at him, as best he could at such close range.
Sam pulled back, only an inch or so, and their lips separated with a wet smack that sounded entirely too much like a kiss to be real. Dean just gaped at him, and Sam's eyes went wide, too, like he couldn't quite believe what he'd just done. But then Sam blinked and swallowed, looking defiant, and Dean blinked and stared some more, because he still couldn't think. He couldn't remember where they were, or what they were doing, or what the fuck they'd just been talking about.
They stared at each other for what felt like ages, but was maybe just a fraction of a second, however long it took for Sam to come to a decision-which he had, apparently, because he was leaning in, again, with a stubborn look on his face.
Warm bursts of breath came against Dean's face as Sam kissed him, again and again, and then a part of Dean's brain seemed to catch up, a bit, because he suddenly remembered that they'd been fighting, and that something was wrong, and that Sam was about to tell him, goddammit, but then he just kissed him, instead, and-oh.
Oh.
Dean pulled back, a bit, because, what-but Sam followed him, kept kissing him, wouldn't let him get away. And Dean, for some reason, wasn't really trying that hard to get away.
Sam's tongue pushed into Dean's mouth, knocking into his own tongue, and it should have been fucking gross, it really should have, but instead it just made Dean incredibly hard, incredibly fast.
And then something clicked. Or maybe his upstairs brain just... gave up. Because with a sigh and a noise he would've been horrified to hear himself make, if he had heard it, he was suddenly kissing Sam back.
Sam's tongue tasted like old coffee, and the skin around his mouth was rough with stubble, and Dean had never had to look up to kiss anyone in his life, but it was fucking perfect, because it was everything he'd been trying not to think about all day.
Everything he'd been trying not to think about for fucking ever, if he were honest. An entire lifetime of ignored wet dreams-a million goddamn years' worth of confusion and frustration and jealousy and fucking want.
Sam's hands were on Dean's throat, and he batted them away, because he wasn't some girl, even if Sam had somehow gotten him backed up against the wall, now, with their chests pressed together and Sam taking up so much space that Dean felt like he was maybe being swallowed whole, a little bit, but he didn't care because Sam's hand was suddenly palming his cock, roughly, and Sam-Sam-was fucking loving it, was making these noises, and rubbing against him, and Sam was hard, Dean could feel it, and fuck.
Sam pulled his hips back and reached for Dean's waist. His hands unfastened his belt and jeans, and Dean couldn't do anything but push up into them as they pulled everything down past his cock, jeans and boxers in one. He groaned as the air hit him, and he gripped at Sam's biceps, hard.
And then Sam's cock was out, too, somehow, and it was lined up against his, and Sam's stupidly huge fingers were wrapped around them both. Sam's hot, callused fingers were rubbing against one side of Dean's cock, and Sam's cock, hot and heavy, was sliding against the other.
Sam's mouth was on Dean's neck and jaw, licking and sucking, leaving marks he didn't want to think about. Then Sam's mouth was back on his, hot and wet and insistent, and he pressed his tongue into Sam's mouth and canted his hips forward, thrusting into Sam's rough grip.
His fingers were in Sam's hair, fisting too tightly as his hips gained speed, and suddenly he was throwing his head back, knocking the wall, and coming, his cock twitching against Sam's, his heart exploding and blood rushing through his ears.
[ Illustration.]
There was a moment, some immeasurable amount of time later, as he started to come down and the fog in his brain had only just begun to clear, that Dean felt a surge of something unrecognizable in his chest. He wanted to laugh, and he wanted to cry at the same time, and he wanted-he didn't know what he wanted. Except.
Sam. Dean opened his eyes, and there was Sam. Standing over him, one hand on the wall over his shoulder, his breathing hard and jagged. He looked like he couldn't quite stand, like the arm over Dean's shoulder was the only thing keeping him upright, and he was staring at the floor.
Dean stared at him, and maybe Sam could feel it, because his gaze suddenly darted from side to side, and then up to Dean's face, just for a second. His eyes were wide and fearful, and they cut straight through Dean's chest, turning everything inside to ice.
He stared at Sam and-oh my fucking God-his stomach dropped as the smell of burnt hair and sex filled his nose, clogging the air in this too-small apartment. He felt himself start to choke on it, and he couldn't breathe as he stared at Sam and guilt burned its way up his throat, almost all the way, and he was nearly sick all over this stranger's floor.
Dean closed his eyes and forced a couple of shallow breaths, as his head started to spin.
He swallowed and willed his hands to stop shaking as he grabbed at his jeans, hiked them up awkwardly, too quickly, and fumbled with his belt. He tried not to look at Sam's jeans hanging open-Sam, fuck.
Sam didn't move, didn't do himself up, didn't take his hand off the wall. He just stood, frozen except for his chest, which rose and fell with heavy breath, and his eyes, which flitted erratically from the floor to Dean's chest and back.
The smell of burnt hair and cooling sweat and drying come left Dean dizzy and nauseated, and the only thought he seemed capable of was Get out here, get out of here now, so he pushed himself off the wall and ducked out from under Sam's arm, without touching him.
"Dean," Sam said, choked and horrible at Dean's back, but Dean couldn't look at him.
"Make sure this place is clean," Dean said, without turning around. "Then come back to the car." He yanked the apartment door open and thundered his way down the hall, and couldn't quite breathe until he was outside.
-=-=-=-=-=-
Sam wanted to tell himself not to panic, but it wouldn't have worked, anyway.
He couldn't actually remember leaving Julia's apartment, couldn't remember if he had closed the bathroom window, locked the door behind him, or even double-checked that they'd burned all the hair. Dean had just left-of course he had fucking just left. What else would he do after being jacked off by his little brother? Kick back and share a beer?
Sam found himself outside, walking up and down crowded sidewalks, overhearing snatches of conversations-students fretting about papers, job applications, dorm dramas. He tried not to hate them and their simple fucking lives. He looked at them all and thought, That could have been me.
Except part of him understood what a fallacy that was-he'd never had a chance of being like all those people. There was always a gap between them and the rest of the world. And there had always been a strange, tense line between him and Dean, the existence of which he'd been dutifully ignoring since puberty. Now that the line was crossed, he knew the truth better than ever: Winchesters lived on a different planet than everybody else.
Even as Sam's heart crashed in his chest, he couldn't help but ruefully note that he and Dean had managed to out-weird the supernatural case that brought them to this town in the first place.
Sam collapsed on a sidewalk bench, closed his eyes and tried to breathe, tried not to remember the feel of Dean underneath him, against him, his lips sliding wetly against Sam's, his cock between Sam's fingers, against Sam's cock. Dean had gripped Sam's arms so hard, he was pretty sure he'd find bruises there. If he could ever look at himself again.
His brain churned with images of the last couple of days. He tried to piece it all together. How had he let this happen? When did the world go crazy? Remembering Danny, that was part of it, sure. But it was more than that-it was Dean's reaction to everything. To Danny, to Shaheen, to Harvard. Sam wouldn't have guessed Dean would feel so... threatened. And Dean's hostility and fear and possessiveness, they all awakened something in Sam. It had outraged him that Dean didn't know how much Sam needed him. Wanted him.
So I showed him.
Boy, had he ever shown him. In a language so blunt that even Dean couldn't pretend to misunderstand.
Come back to the car, Dean had said, and Sam wanted to. He had already turned in the direction of the river thirteen or fourteen times, only to freeze when he tried to imagine what he was going to say, how he was even going to be able to look at Dean.
A sickening rush of terror ran through Sam. In Dean's place, he'd probably have left already, abandoning his crazy, sick brother to figure out his shit on his own. He could hear Dean now: This is what a fucking Ivy League education gets you, huh? Well, don't sign me up. He pictured Dean driving away, fleeing back toward the safety of demons he could track and kill.
Sam knew, of course, that Dean wouldn't do that. It was against Dean's biological imperative to abandon his baby brother, no matter how sick or crazy or completely out of control he got, except-
Except Dean had liked it.
Dean's body had responded to Sam's desire almost without question, and had-physically, at least-wanted it. It was like their bodies already knew each other so well, knew what to do, how to move in time together...
And that was what scared Sam the most. He knew his brother's beautiful, fucked-up internal logic all too well. It was likely that Dean was currently figuring out a way to blame himself for the entire thing. Never mind that Sam had obviously started it. Never mind that Dean had been caught completely off-guard. Dean's fundamental need to protect Sam from everything would kick in; he would convince himself that what Sam needed protecting from was him.
If there was any reason in the world that Dean would leave his brother, that was it.
Sam drew a shaky breath and fought with himself, fought with the need to get back to the car. He wanted to check that Dean was still here, waiting for him. He was afraid of what he might find.
-=-=-=-=-=-
Dean had been sitting in the car for hours. Literally, hours. He hadn't moved from the parking spot they'd found the day before-had it really only been the day before?-and hadn't started her up, not even for the radio. He'd just rolled down the windows and sat, watching the sun make its way from somewhere overhead down to the horizon before him, its warm, late afternoon rays glittering off the river, giving him a headache.
A motorcycle sped past him, and a car up ahead honked as the guy on the bike made a quick lane change, sliding close between cars. Dan shifted against the leather again and tried to relax. He tried to look like he was just taking a nap behind his sunglasses. He tried not to check the rearview mirror every three seconds to see if Sam had emerged from the campus yet, but he was mostly failing.
He sat and stared, and he thought about leaving. Or, rather, he thought about how he should have been thinking about leaving. He wondered what Sam was doing-cleaning up the apartment, going to see Shaheen, just wandering around campus. He tried not to wonder if Sam was going to come back.
He tried not to be so completely, horribly unsure that Sam was even going to come meet him, and he tried to pick up his phone to call or text about a million times, but he didn't. He just sat there, listening to the grit of tire against asphalt as cars continued to stream past, some of them pounding with heavy bass lines. He caught snatches of public radio through open windows and more than one angry cell phone call. Pedestrians passed on the other side, some with their heads down, focused on wherever they were going, some just strolling, taking in the day and the sun and the school.
He sat there and thought about thinking about leaving Sam to this life, the life he could've had, should've had, if Dean had understood it, before, if Dean had fought a bit harder for him, if he had been a better hunter and hadn't needed Sam's help. The life in a world where Sam could be whoever he wanted, could afford a legitimate roof over his head, and wouldn't have to worry about his codependent fucking brother.
He closed his eyes and tried to shake the horribly selfish, sick feeling of how much he didn't actually want Sam to have any of that.
He thought about what had happened in that apartment, and he tried to decide which was worse: hating himself for letting it happen, or hating himself for wanting it to happen.
The smell of the river blew in with the breeze through the driver's side window, and Dean planned to start the engine and blow out of town the second Sam was back in the passenger seat. He had no idea what he'd do if Sam didn't come back, and he didn't think about it.
An eighteen-wheeler rolled past, its axels squeaking and chassis rocking and exhaust stinking, and Dean stared at it, wondering where it had come from, where it was going, and how the hell it was going to get there in this stupid town. He watched it until it followed the road's bend behind the trees, and when he glanced back into his rearview mirror, Sam was there.
Sam was there, forty or so yards behind the car, trudging forward with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched and his bag hanging on his back, looking to all the world like just another student on his way home. Dean stared at Sam's approaching reflection and tried to breathe.
Sam opened the door and climbed into the car and slid into his seat without a word, keeping his eyes forward. Dean thought about his plan, how he was going to start the car and make a run for it as soon as Sam was safe inside, but he couldn't move. He was fucking terrified, he realized, suddenly more afraid than he could remember being in a very long time.
Sam cleared his throat. "I wasn't sure if you'd still be here," he said. Dean sucked in a breath and didn't know what to say.
"Thanks," Sam continued, staring at the dashboard.
Dean frowned. "For what?"
"For not-for still being here." Dean's jaw went tense as something flared in his gut-something like anger or relief or guilt, he couldn't tell the difference, anymore.
He swallowed and tried not to grind his teeth through the long, silent moment. His fingers twitched, like they knew it was time to go, but he still couldn't move to start the car.
"Dean?"
Dean stared down the sun-soaked road ahead of them for a long moment before he spoke. "You would've made a good lawyer, Sammy."
Sam turned to look at him. Dean could see his surprised eyes in his peripheral vision. "What?"
"You would have. You're smarter than all those assholes."
"Dean," Sam said uneasily.
"And I would've-I would've been proud of you." He paused, then shrugged. "Even if I never would've admitted it."
Sam stared at him from across the bench seat. "Thanks," he said, sounding like he was at a bit of a loss, but somehow amused despite himself.
He didn't say anything for a while after that, and they sat in awkward silence. Dean was itching to reach for the ignition, but he still couldn't. Sam kept opening his mouth, taking a breath like he was going to say something, but closing it before he did.
Until, finally, "You want to get out of here?", and Dean breathed with relief.
"Hell yeah, I do," he said, and started the car. He threw a glance over his shoulder and pulled out into the street, felt his body relax as Sam settled himself comfortably against the leather, and they were finally, finally getting the hell out of Boston.
-=-=-=-=-=-
"Dude, check it out," Dean called from his seat on the bed, pausing his channel surfing. "Psycho's on!"
"Psycho?" Sam said, scrubbing his wet hair dry as he stepped out of the bathroom, another towel wrapped around his waist. "Since when do you like Hitchcock?"
"What?" Dean said without looking at him; the glow from the TV gently lit his features. "Since always."
"Dean, I've known you almost your entire life. If you liked Hitchcock and I didn't know about it, it was when you were three years ol-"
"Hang on, hang on!" Dean interrupted, impervious (as always) to Sam-logic. "It's right at the end, Norman's about to get locked up."
Sam chuckled as his brother stared at the screen in rapt, somewhat beer-amplified attention. "By the way," Dean said, "did you see that guy at the bar, who looked just like this dude? Had a totally creepy serial killer vibe about him. And I think he was eyeing you, Sammy."
"Nice, Dean."
"Thank God that's not our scene, man. Oh, hey, so are we going to go try to find the groundhog tomorrow?"
"Um, I don't know. I thought you wanted to leave for Knoxville first thing."
"Yeah, but that can wait a few hours. There's totally time to see the groundhog, Sammy, don't worry."
"Dean, I think you just need to admit that you're the one who wants to meet the groundhog."
Dean frowned. "As if. Why would I want to go see some overgrown rodent?"
"Because he's cute, and you're still skeeved out from that thing with the witches. I think you want something nice to play with for a change."
Dean made a face. "Whatever. The witches are ganked, so I am no longer skeeved."
"It's OK, Dean," Sam said, crossing to the far corner where his duffle bag sat on a chair. After Boston (or 'A.B.' as he was already referring to it in his mind), it felt good to just play around. "You can admit it. I don't mind your fear of witches or your closet love for small, furry creatures."
Dean rolled his eyes, practically audibly, as Sam started shifting through the duffle. "Dude," he said, "maybe I'll hit the laundromat while you're out with your groundhog buddy, 'cause this is not a good scene." He frowned, dug a bit more through the bag, then looked around the floor in confusion. "Dean," he said, "have you seen my socks? I know I had a clean pair in here."
Dean didn't reply, and Sam felt the old irritation mounting. "Dammit, dude, can't you just buy yourself some more fucking socks?" He turned around, ready to fight this issue to the death. But Dean wasn't looking at his face. Instead, his eyes were firmly fixed on Sam's towel, which had begun to slip around his hips. There was a pause-Sam might've described it as 'pregnant' if that wouldn't have been completely weird. Then Dean shook himself and focused, returning his gaze deliberately to the TV screen.
And he actually blushed.
Sam blinked.
I made Dean blush, he thought. Rather prettily... God help me if I ever say that out loud.
Something inside him burned, surprise coiling down into his gut, warm and pleasantly uncomfortable. Dean was clearly experiencing a more excruciating moment, so Sam turned away, giving them both a little space to breathe and collect themselves. He gathered up the clothes he had pulled from his duffle, stuffing them back inside, trying not to lose it all over again.
So much had changed in the last day. Familiar banter aside, Dean had experienced a major shift in the tectonic plates of his world. The rules had all changed. It was freeing. It was absolutely terrifying. What the hell must be going on his brother's head?
"We need more beer," Dean declared suddenly, vaulting up from the bed as if possessed. "I'll be right back."
Sam adjusted his towel. Just... be calm. This will take time. "Dean," he said patiently. "We haven't touched the twelve pack we picked up after the bar-which was your idea, by the way."
"Oh, right. Well. I'll just, um. Snacks. Do we need snacks?"
"Dean."
"I think we need snacks. I'll just run down to the gas station."
"Dean."
"Or magazines, or something."
"Dean. Stop." Dean stopped and just stood there awkwardly, unsure of what to do with his hands or where to look. Sam took pity on him. "It's OK. Just. Grab me a beer, would you?"
Dean nodded and bee-lined for the fridge, where he stood, carefully examining its faded avocado green while Sam pulled on an old pair of track pants and a t-shirt. After glancing behind him to check that the coast was clear, Dean visibly relaxed and crossed over to Sam with two beers.
"So what's on now?" Sam asked, gesturing to the TV. He tried to communicate telepathically with Dean: We can do this.
"Um, The Birds, I think," Dean answered.
"What's this, some kind of marathon?" If anybody can pull this off, it's us. Right?
"Guess so."
Sam hoped this meant Yes.
"Dean... how come you never told me about this thing you've got for Hitchcock?" Sam said as they settled into the two wooden chairs. He tried out a non-threatening smile.
Dean just shrugged. They watched in silence for a while. Sam fetched them another round and dimmed the harsh overhead light.
And finally, like a gradual change in the weather, Dean started to get excited, pointing out his favorite scenes, laughing at the fake-ass birds, and explaining to Sam why every character in the movie was an idiot.
Sam's mind drifted until one theme emerged clearly. This is how it is for us. Nothing we do makes any sense. Never has, never will. This was, if anything, a comforting thought.
And with that, Sam moved to the bed, sitting on the edge and then leaning down onto his back, sprawling out. Instantly, sleep began to tug at his senses. He resisted its pull, resting and waiting. He felt relaxed, like he could wait there forever if necessary.
But it didn't that long for Dean to follow.
He came over and sat down, right next to Sam's legs, without a word. Sam stared up at the back of his head for a minute or two before sliding his right thigh over a bit so that it touched Dean's. He pressed, gently, and heard Dean exhale. Sam's right hand found its way to Dean's back, the fingertips toying lightly with the hem of Dean's shirt, and he was glad he was a little drunk.
Sam sat up, slowly, so that his shoulder was pressed against Dean, too, and he concentrated on all the spots where their bodies touched almost completely from shoulder to knee. Dean's breath was a little too quick, a little too shallow, and his muscles were tense against Sam. But he didn't pull away.
Sam looked at him, his eyes catching on the curve of his ear, the flexing, twitching muscles of his jaw, the flutter of his eyelashes as his eyes darted around the room. He looked like he wanted to say something, but no words came.
"Dean," Sam said. Dean glanced sideways at Sam, involuntarily, and Sam watched this latest installment in his brother's epic battle with desire, fear, and the deep-seated need to protect Sammy no matter what. Sam leaned in, touched his forehead to Dean's temple, and his heart picked up speed as Dean pressed back into the touch-just a little, but enough.
"Dean, please," Sam said, and Dean shuddered and shook his head a little.
"Sammy," Dean whispered, sounding impossibly young. "Really?"
"Yes." Sam lifted his head, looking straight at Dean's profile. "Yes." Dean still wouldn't look at him, keeping his face forward and his eyes down. Sam couldn't let this go on.
"Dean," he said, packing it full of all the things Dean would never let him say out loud, and Dean must have heard it all, because he finally turned to look at Sam.
They kissed slowly, Sam taking the lead again, but giving Dean more space to react this time, to push and pull, to stop if he wanted to, but he didn't. Their lips met again and again, their tongues sliding against one another, and when Sam climbed over Dean's thighs, pressing a knee between his legs and pushing him down onto his back, he felt Dean's groan, hot and wet, in the crook of his neck.
It was the best sound he'd ever heard, and so he slid his knee back, letting his thigh lock firmly against Dean's groin, determined to hear it as many more times tonight as he possibly could.
-=-=-=-=-=-
The sun was beating in through the driver's side window, too hot on Dean's arm as he eased down the highway. It was unseasonably warm everywhere, apparently, and he could almost feel the temperature rising with each southward mile they covered.
Sam was asleep, curled up awkwardly, but still somehow taking up more than half of the Impala's front seat. His head rested on a balled-up hoodie against the window, tilted to the side, exposing a long stretch of neck. Dean watched the sun and shadow play on the cords of Sam's neck for a moment, before turning his eyes back to the road before him.
He turned the music up a bit, careful not to wake Sam, but enough to distract himself from his thoughts.
Inevitably, though, his eyes wandered back to Sam: to the long fingers resting on his lap, to the curve of his biceps under his t-shirt sleeve, and then back to his neck. Sam shifted in his sleep, turning his head a little so that his hair slipped away from his ear, and Dean noticed a hickey just behind his earlobe.
Dean flushed and had to look away. A familiar sensation coiled in his stomach as he remembered giving Sam that hickey the night before. He swallowed and tried to focus on driving.
He wondered if, when they got to Knoxville, anyone would notice that mark on Sam, and if they would wonder whether Dean gave it to him. They wouldn't, he figured. He wasn't sure if he liked that or not.
Sam's phone chirped, announcing a text message. Dean glanced at Sam, but he didn't wake up. His phone had fallen out of his pocket and was resting in the crevice at the back of the seat. Dean reached for it and flipped it open.
It was from Shaheen. Dean tried to ignore the irrational flare of jealousy in his gut.
dude, i think you guys did it!! fuckin' right, ghostbusters. don't be a stranger, man.
Dean held the phone open in his hand for a long minute as he turned his eyes back to the road, contemplating the 'delete' option on the phone.
The song on the radio changed, and Dean glanced back down long enough to navigate the menu and mark the text message as unread. Then he slipped Sam's phone back against the seat where it had fallen.
Ten minutes later, Sam woke up as Dean pulled into a gas station. "Already?" he muttered. "How long was I out?"
"We don't need gas, strictly speaking, but I'm hungry."
"Thought you wanted to wait for the Tennessee barbeque?"
"Dude, that's not for another, like, four hours at least," Dean scoffed, already climbing out the car. He filled the gas tank, anyway, because he hated the idea of his baby going hungry.
When he returned with a hot dog, chips, soda, and Twizzlers, Sam was checking his phone.
"I guess the accidents have stopped," Sam said. "Or at least, they've slowed back down to normal."
"'Course they have," Dean said smugly. "In case you've forgotten, Sam, we're awesome." Sam smirked. "I take it Shaheen dropped you a line?"
"Um, yeah," Sam said, glancing around like he wasn't quite sure if he should admit that.
Dean nodded. "You should keep in touch with him, Sam."
Sam looked at Dean, eyebrows raised. "Really?"
"Yeah," Dean said. "You never know when we might need a good attorney. Again. And he owes us."
Sam snorted and shoved his phone back into his pocket. It fell out, landing on the seat again, and Dean reached for it without really thinking about it.
"What are you-" Sam said as Dean pressed Sam's phone back into his pocket, all the way, and then let his thumb rub against the side seam of Sam's jeans for a moment too long. Sam took a quick breath, looking down at Dean's hand and then at Dean's face when he pulled his fingers away.
"Thanks," he said, fixing Dean with a look that shot straight through him, down to his cock, and Dean blinked.
"Be careful with that thing, would you?" he said, and Sam smiled. "And keep your grimy fingers off my Twizzlers, bitch. If you wanted something, you should've spoken up."
"Whatever. Jerk."
Dean stuck a rope of licorice in his mouth with a grin and eased back out onto the highway.
-=-=-=-=-=-
[End.]