Running Laps Around the Sun (Slash, Adult)
Title: Running Laps Around the Sun
Rating: Adult
Category: Slash (Wincest) oneshot
Word Count: 8444
Characters: Dean/Sam
Spoilers: None
Summary: Sam and Dean learn that sometimes one future must be sacrificed for another.
Warnings: Brother incest
Author’s Notes: This was written well before both parts of “All Hell Breaks Loose.” As such, it contains only my speculation and takes place during the middle of season two before those final episodes. This is not necessarily how I think the show could-should-go. This is just a possibility within a story.
I have two people to thank for their continued help with this. An extreme amount of gratitude goes to equinox_blue who has supported and tolerated me endlessly since the first moment I whispered to her in the movie theater, “This’ll be the soundtrack for the next fic.” An overwhelming amount of thanks also goes to drvsilla who made time in her busy life to beta this monster and overthink patiently with the needed handholding through it all. I couldn’t have done without them, and I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to try going it alone either.
Any remaining mistakes are mine alone. Crossposted around.
Disclaimer: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the television show, Supernatural, to whom they rightly belong. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.
- - - - -
He makes the phone call while Dean is in the shower. It’s been three days short of four months since they killed the demon, and Sam has counted every day that has passed since the demon’s death. He has counted every moment that they do not spend in fear and blood, running from the monster and running to answers. In these months of peace, Dean and he have continued to hunt together. Small cases, people saved and monsters destroyed nonetheless, but now their lives are safe again. After all these days, Sam thinks that, yes, it’s time.
He finds the phone number on the Internet and presses the too-small buttons on his cell phone with nervous fingers. In the bathroom, Dean sings loudly and off-key under the water that Sam can hear rushing through the pipes above his head. As he finishes dialing the numbers he rolls his eyes at Dean’s singing ability.
The connection rings once, twice, and Sam brings a hand to his forehead to steady himself. If he closes his eyes, maybe this won’t seem so real and powerful. So dishonest.
By the third ring, someone answers.
“Stanford University Admissions Office, how can I help you?”
He swallows, forces himself to speak; his throat is suddenly dry and tongue thick in his mouth. “Yes, um, my name is Sam Winchester, and I attended school at Stanford a while ago and I-” He stops to breathe. “I’d like to come back.”
The lady on the other end is off and talking before he has a chance to get a word in edgewise. A cold wave of reality from listening to her voice starts to climb down his throat and suffocate him with its presence. He reminds himself that it has been nearly four months and they have nothing more to fear. More than that, he needs to move on. He needs to live his life as it should be.
It’s time, he knows that. Yes, it is.
In the bathroom, Dean continues to sing happily in his ignorance that Sam is preparing to leave him for a chance at a future.
- - - - -
Over the next few days Sam struggles with how and when and where he will tell Dean. While Sam considers keeping the information to himself until immediately before leaving, he knows that doing so would be no different than gut punching Dean. But in Sam’s mind, there will never be a good time-let alone a right time-to tell his brother that he’s leaving again. Only, this time, when he leaves, it will be for the last time. The demon is dead; he won’t ever need to return.
One morning when Sam comes back with breakfast, he finds Dean standing at the countertop in their latest motel, coffee mug in one hand and folded newspaper in the other. He has an uncapped red marker between his teeth.
“Oh, hey, you’re back,” Dean says, pulling the marker out of his mouth. “I just found this case about this mom who thinks her kid can move things with her mind. Telekinesis shit, right?” He slaps the paper with the back of his hand. “But, get this, they live in a house where…”
As Dean stands there, waving his marker in the air carelessly and yammering on about the house and how many hours away it is, Sam knows that now he must tell Dean. Now.
He steps forward and cuts Dean off in the middle of his sentence. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
For the first time, Dean looks up from the newspaper and directly at his younger brother. His eyebrows come together in confusion. “You okay, Sammy? What’s going on?” He chuckles to himself. “You look like somebody ran over your puppy. Some bully steal your lunch money?”
“Dean, I-I’m going back to school. To Stanford.”
Those little words slap the smirk right off Dean’s face. “S’cuse me?” he says, freezing up instantly.
“I’m going back to Stanford. I made the call already. I’m enrolled for this fall’s term.”
Dean reaches out a hand to grab the edge of the counter, and he stares down at the linoleum for a long moment. When he lifts his bent head to look at Sam, his expression is blank.
“Well,” Sam presses, “say something.”
Dean exhales heavily, and Sam prepares himself for the worst. But all Dean says is, “Okay.”
“Okay?” Sam echoes incredulously, voice rising. With the time he’s spent in agony by keeping this from Dean, he would have expected more from his brother. “Is that all you have to say? ‘Okay’?”
Dean touches the tip of his tongue to his lip and glances away. There is a flash of something across his face, and he looks as though he’s going to start screaming or swearing-a reaction Sam would be almost thankful for-but then Dean turns back to him.
“How long do we have?” he asks, capping the marker and laying it on the countertop next to the newspaper article. “How long until you leave?”
“About two months.”
Dean nods stiffly. “Two,” he says. “Okay, two months,” he repeats as he turns away from Sam and walks to the nightstand between their beds. He grabs his keys and jingles them loosely in his cupped palm. “I need to…I need to go out for a while…” He waves one of his hands loosely, drunkenly, as though he doesn’t have complete control of his motor skills. “Go out and just…Just to think…” Without saying anything further, he walks slowly out the door.
Left inside the room, Sam listens for the start of the car and the gradual acceleration as it creeps out of the parking lot. When at last all is silent and he knows that Dean has left, he falls back on their bed and covers his face in his hands. He’s not sure if this is the beginning or the end; he is sure that he is the one who has brought it to them.
- - - - -
That night Dean returns long after dark and they sleep separately for the first time in months. In his own bed, Sam keeps his back to Dean, and he watches his fingers’ shadows in the soft moonlight coming through the window. Without Dean beside him the bed seems so cold and empty, and Sam begins to wish that he had never made the call to Stanford. My life is filled with regrets, he realizes. I should have just known that I would have regretted never finishing college too, left it at that. He curses his stupidity and false hopes that things were going to work for him.
Then, slipping through his thoughts, he hears Dean whispering, “Move.” Sam glances past his shoulder to see Dean standing next to the bed, shirtless with his jeans resting low on his hips.
“Dean?” Sam asks, confused, but shifting over anyway. As Dean pulls the blankets back and slides into bed, Sam rolls over to meet him.
“Look,” Dean says and brushes Sam’s bangs away from his face. His breath is sweet with alcohol and the scent of cigarette smoke is heavy in his hair. “I’ve been thinking...” When he pauses, he watches Sam staring back at him with confused and wide eyes. “We’re going to do this. You’re going to college.” He swallows and glances away for a moment. Meeting Sam’s eyes again, he clarifies, “The right way this time.”
“Are you-”
“Ssh,” Dean hushes him, lying down and pulling Sam with him. He wraps a bare arm around Sam’s waist, twists his fingers in the thin cotton of Sam’s t-shirt. “It’ll be okay this time.”
- - - - -
Sam thinks Dean will forget about his irrational promise from the night before. He chalks up Dean’s bizarre behavior to the alcohol that lingers between them. Sam mentally pieces together an elaborate storyline of Dean going to the bar, getting drunk and spilling the story of his little brother running away from him, only to be reassured by a beautiful woman with ample cleavage that he should try to help said younger brother.
Sam figures by the time breakfast comes and the effects of alcohol have cleared, Dean will be back to his old bitter self, angry with his baby brother for leaving him and the hunting life. Sam will be surprised if Dean talks to him at all for the remaining two months.
As Sam clambers out of bed the next morning, he is surprised to see Dean sitting at the table. Spread around Dean’s bowl of cereal, glossy store advertisements lay open, shouting sale prices and back to school bargains. Dean has a hand pressed to his cheek, squashing the skin around his eye, and he glances from the flyers to a piece of notebook paper covered in his numbered scribbles.
“What are you doing?” Sam asks and approaches the table cautiously. He knows Dean well enough to think that something is amiss.
“What’s it look like I’m doing?” Dean mumbles, not moving to face Sam.
“It looks like you’ve got the obituaries confused with the shopping section. Department store flyers?”
Dean laughs lowly. “You’re such a moron sometimes.”
“What-” Sam begins, but Dean interrupts him.
“Back to school shopping, Sammy. C’mon, I’m not just going to leave you in ivy league land with nothing.” Dean reaches for the notebook paper and shoves it at Sam a bit too roughly. “Here. I think this is everything you need. At least,” he says, scratching the back of his head, “that’s what Wal-Mart says is necessary for a college student. They didn’t have a ‘what to buy for the demon hunter turned Stanford lawyer’ section, so I did the best I could.”
Sam scans the list as Dean chews on a spoonful of cereal. The list is full of typical things like notebooks and pens followed by other items. Clothing, deodorant, fabric softener, and a question mark with an arrow drawn to the large word “apartment” in the margin.
“You’re serious about this, aren’t you?” Sam asks incredulously as he looks up from the list to Dean.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” he yawns, mouth opening to reveal a half-chewed ball of mashed cereal.
“I just-I thought-”
“You thought I’d piss and whine and kick you out like Dad did before?”
Sam looks down at his feet. He’s too ashamed to answer.
“Look,” Dean tells him, leaning forward and holding out his hands openly. “I realize you’re going to do whatever the hell you want, but at least this time, I can help you out.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Sam mumbles. In all their time together, he has never doubted that Dean cared about him, but actions such as this are rare and unusual. Love-all displays of it-has never come easily to Dean.
Dean stands up from the table and takes his empty cereal bowl to the sink. “You can say you’ll get a shower for your dirty ass so we can start shopping.”
Sam smiles and grabs clean clothes from his bag. Before he goes into the bathroom, he glances at Dean one last time. Dean has returned to the table and opened the flyer to the lingerie section, smiling happily to himself. Sam just shakes his head and closes the bathroom door behind him.
- - - - -
At the local store, Dean is the one who grabs the shopping cart. He pulls the list from his pants’ pocket and asks, “You want to start with the office stuff?”
“Office stuff?” Sam echoes a bit mockingly. He still cannot believe that this is Dean, his brother, standing in front of him with-of all things-a shopping cart.
“Y’know, crayons, paper. That sort of shit.” When Sam just smiles and fights back his laughter, Dean rolls his eyes and huffs, “C’mon already.”
In the aisle, Dean shakes his head in disbelief. “Damn. Who would’ve thought a guy needed all of this?” Sam watches Dean scan the hundreds of pencils and pens, markers and erasers. Down the aisle, a little girl with her mother is pointing to a pink box of glitter crayons.
“Well. Go at it,” Dean says with a gesture toward the display wall. He steps back as if to give Sam room for the monumental decision of blue or black ink.
Sam reaches for a two-dollar pack of pens and drops it into the shopping cart with a smack. “All right. I’m good.”
Dean shakes his head in clear disapproval. “Even I know you need more than that. I’m not leaving until you get-everything.”
“You’re forcing me to buy school supplies?” The girl at the other end is now eyeing a pack of stickers. Sam thinks they’re unicorns, but he’s too far away to be sure.
“…I’m just saying,” Dean is telling him, “you don’t want to look like a loser at college. Get some stuff. Besides,” he coughs under his breath, “not like I’m paying anyway.”
Sam finally just sighs, relenting, and he begins to pick items off the little hangers. Somewhere during his splurging on things he knows he’ll never use, he notices that Dean has moved down next to the sticker display. Crouched on his haunches, Dean is talking to the little girl who nods eagerly while her mother looks on.
When Dean returns to Sam, he’s holding several packs of stickers, which he wordlessly flings in the cart alongside what Sam’s picked out.
“Stickers?” Sam asks with a raise of his eyebrows.
“She told me you’d need them,” Dean replies, jerking his thumb in the direction of the departing girl and her mom.
“And why would I need stickers?”
Dean frowns, shrugs and begins to push the cart away before he answers, “To put on the letters you’ll write me.”
- - - - -
Dean finds a lake where they can stop for a swim. The air is thick and heavy with afternoon heat and rain that refuses to fall. Sam’s hair sticks to the back of his neck, and sweat eagerly gathers on his skin from the simplest of movements. As he climbs from the car, limbs weak and limp, he has to close his eyes for a moment against the blinding sun. The light is so strong it is nearly painful.
Dean stands on a ledge overlooking the lake below, and he whistles at the sight of the glistening water. There isn’t another person around for miles, and Sam considers asking Dean how he knew about such a place.
“You want to go for a swim?” Dean asks, glancing over his shoulder as Sam comes forward. There is a dark stripe of perspiration down the back of Dean’s shirt, and his face is flushed and wet.
Sam wipes his forehead on his sleeve. “Sure, I guess.”
“Good.” Dean grins and proceeds to unlace his boots. When Sam bends down to untie his, he discovers a knot and swears under his breath until he hears Dean yell.
Sam looks up to see Dean running, stark naked, to the edge of the cliff. He leaps and disappears over the edge.
“Dean!” Sam screams, hurrying to the end where he watches Dean vanish into the water under a churn of white froth. “Dean!” Sam cries again.
A moment too long later, Dean resurfaces with a flick of his head. His laughter scatters across the lake, and he wipes water from his eyes. “C’mon, Sammy, whatcha waiting for?”
“Just…give me a…I’ll be down in a sec,” Sam replies, fumbling with the button on his jeans. He tries to slow the knock-knocking of his heart that leapt and held fast in his chest when he saw Dean go over, then stay under. Silently he curses Dean's impulsiveness and wishes he had the ability to stay angry with his older brother. Instead, all Sam can do is allow a playful smile to tug at the corners of his lips.
“Jump!” Dean yells from below. A splash follows his encouragement.
Sam pulls off his shirt and drops it in a pile next to his boots and socks. The idea of jumping straight off the cliff terrifies him more than he rationally knows it should. But Dean is there, watching and waiting, and Sam believes Dean wouldn’t ask him to go through with it if there was any doubt.
Sam swallows, sighs, and tugs off the remainder of his clothing. Taking a deep breath, he backs a few steps away from the edge. The rock is hot underneath his bare feet, and he can hear Dean splashing and taunting below.
Sam rushes forward and jumps. For that brief moment, he is suspended free in the air. He flies on the sound of Dean’s triumphant laughter.
- - - - -
They go to a garage sale where the family’s children are selling lemonade in the driveway, and the women gather with floral sundresses and local gossip.
“What are we doing here?” Sam asks as Dean steps out of the car.
“More shopping,” Dean answers. He stops to buy two cups of lemonade from the girls at their stand. They giggle behind small hands with purple painted fingernails when Dean gives them a dollar and tells them “to keep the change, ladies.”
Dean hands Sam the other lemonade before taking a drink of his own. The small cup with its pink seashell border looks awkward and fragile in Dean’s hand. Sam sips his own lemonade gingerly-not enough sugar-but it’s cold and for that he’s grateful.
While the women chatter on about the upcoming neighborhood barbeque and who’s bringing pasta salad and who’s bringing potato, Dean moves around the tables as Sam tags along.
“You looking for something specific?” Sam asks curiously.
“Yup. Saw it in this morning’s classifieds.”
Sam shoves his hands in his pockets and follows Dean past the children’s toys and neatly folded clothing. Little shoes form a straight line and men’s hats are jumbled in a heap. At last, Dean stops in front of one of the tables and picks up a large box.
“Cookware?” Sam gapes as Dean pries the lid open and peers inside.
“Hey, you can’t eat microwaveable dinners the rest of your life. A man’s gotta know how to cook.”
“Oh? And I suppose you do?”
“Damn straight I do,” Dean replies, closing the box and moving over to the ladies with the calculator and Tupperware of change. He pays for the pots and pans, and the women smile and tell him to have a nice day.
Back in the car with the box of cookware in the trunk, Dean pulls the list from his jeans’ pocket. Sam watches as he crosses off “pots” on the wrinkled notebook paper.
“Aren’t you forgetting to get me a cookbook?” Sam asks sarcastically as Dean starts the engine. “I was thinking something by Martha Stewart would be appropriate. If I need to learn I might as well start at the top.”
“You really want one?”
Sam just laughs.
- - - - -
Sam’s hands fist in the bedsheets as Dean leans over him, one knee on either side of Sam’s thighs. Dean’s hand is on Sam’s cock, slip sliding up and down, thumb smearing the head, fingers scratching the sac. With every twist of Dean’s hand, Sam’s hips snap forward. He throws his head back, eyes closed, as his legs tighten in anticipation. Unable to breathe, he sucks quick shots of air through the corners of his mouth.
“No, no,” Dean murmurs, quickening his pace, “don’t do that.”
Sam legs begin to shake and prickles of warm heat scurry up beneath his skin. He’s so close now. Just a little bit more.
“Look at me,” Dean is whispering. “Please, Sam, look at me.”
Forcing himself to lift his head as his muscles clench down in his body, Sam opens his eyes to meet Dean’s. As he pumps Sam’s cock, Dean’s eyes never leave Sam.
“Don’t look away,” Dean tells him. “Don’t.”
Sam comes with a hot whiplash through his spine. Groaning, he arches upward into Dean. The come splatters between them, white sticky hot, but neither notices. Dean wraps an arm around Sam’s back as they link their hands together over Sam’s twitching cock, and Dean pulls him in for a kiss. Sam curls shaking fingers behind Dean’s head as he gasps for air.
“Just don’t look away,” Dean repeats, but the words are more to himself.
Through the fog hazing his mind and the sated cloud in his limbs, Sam wonders if he was meant to hear these words, all the rest unspoken.
- - - - -
At a discount furniture store, Dean stands with his arms crossed and stares at the assortment of displayed desks. “You think you can fit in any of those?” he asks, not looking at Sam behind him, instead studying the desks intently as if he will be able to measure them mentally.
Sam pauses before answering then points at one in the corner. “Probably that one. It’s the biggest.”
Dean nods silently and walks over to the pile of boxes with the unassembled desk pieces tucked inside. He pulls out the list and scratches off a numbered item, then hefts one of the long flat boxes onto his shoulder. He nods, starts for the register at the front of the store, box a see-saw near his cheek.
“Hey,” Sam calls, not following, “how am I supposed to put it together?”
Dean doesn’t look back at Sam when he answers, “I guess we’ll have to add ‘tool kit’ to the list.”
Sam stands and watches Dean. The part of Sam he’s been trying to silence whispers, He’s only doing this so he doesn’t have to think about how you’re leaving him. This keeps him busy. Go to him. Tell him that you won’t leave and break him apart.
But Sam only shakes his head, shakes away the argument that has been creeping through his mind since his phone call to Stanford. No, I deserve to go to school, don’t I? I deserve to make my own future, don’t I?
Don’t I?
The only answer is the overwhelming feeling of guilt.
- - - - -
In bed, late at night with the windows cracked open to let in a warm breeze and song of crickets, they lie facing one another. Sam remains awake, watching Dean sleep with a face quiet and peaceful, his barriers let down. Sam runs his fingers over Dean’s face, tracing soft eyebrows and the harsh curve of prickled jaw.
“Sam…” Dean mumbles, shifting under the covers. Blearily he opens his eyes then asks, “Sam, what-why aren’t you asleep?” His voice is sleep-thick and disoriented.
“I can’t sleep…Too much thinking…”
“About?” Dean moves onto his back and wipes his eyes with his knuckles.
“What if…what if I never love again?” Sam whispers. He is afraid to ask such questions of his heart out loud. His darkest fears formed into human words. Even to Dean he does not feel comfortable admitting such things.
“Sam,” Dean breathes, ready to offer sympathies and reassurances, before Sam speaks again.
“What if no one ever loves me like you do?”
Dean smiles sadly in the darkness. “No one ever will,” he admits after a pause. “There’s never going to be another…us. You’ll find other people…girls, boys, whatever makes you happy. You might even get married.” He laughs, but the sound is bitter hoarse. “Y’know, when you do get married, I’ll come if you want. Be your best man.”
“Dean-don’t-” Sam pleads, voice small and helpless. Weak against this reality he has created for them.
“Why not?” Dean tests. “Why not? It’ll probably happen eventually. We shouldn’t pretend like it won’t. You’ll have kids, Sammy, poker buddies on the weekends, company meetings with your lawyer friends…a wife. Not me.”
Sam bends his head to his chest and feels hot tears forming in the corners of his eyes. “I just-you-” He sighs raggedly. “I don’t want to think about replacing you.”
Dean rolls over again and faces Sam. “I know you don’t, I know.” He kisses Sam, light and dry. “But, Sam, you gotta understand, I can only be your past, all right? I can’t give you a future, not like this, school and everything, you know that. That’s why you’re leaving. For a future. I’m not as stupid as I look sometimes.”
Sam nods. He tries to convince himself that things will get easier for him. For the both them. Really, for Dean. After all, when the end comes, Dean is the one who will be left behind.
- - - - -
Flat tire just past the state border and Dean is hunched over the trunk, rooting around for the spare. Sam sits in the passenger seat with door opened and gazes across the desert where rare cacti rises high against the sun and turkey vultures circle overhead. It’s been hot again, and in the rising heat without relief, Dean and he have grown aggravated with each other. Not quite fighting. Not quite arguing. Not quite drawing the much needed blood just for a taste because they are both too afraid to hurt each other with the knowledge that they are entering the final moments now.
When Sam hears a clank come from the trunk followed by Dean’s curse, he gets to his feet and trudges around back. Even before he speaks, Dean tells him, “We’ll make it in time. Don’t worry.”
Sam watches him lift the spare tire out of the trunk and walk to the flat. For a moment, he says nothing, staring at Dean and thinking of how many miles they’ve come and how many lies they’ve told each other. Told themselves.
Finally Sam asks, “Why can’t you just say it?”
Dean peers up from the tire and drags his arm across his face to wipe away his sweat. He squints, looking into the sun. “Say what?”
“That you don’t want me to leave.” Sam knows the words coming from his mouth are dangerous, yet he cannot stop them. Does not want to stop them. They need to be said. “I can see it every time you look at me. I’m not blind. You do care.”
Dean chuckles lowly and pushes himself to his feet, shaking his head in what seems to be disbelief. “We’re not going to do this,” he states dispassionately.
“Why not? Fight with me already, tell me that you want me to stay and I’ll stay, goddammit. But-fuck, don’t act like you don’t care.”
“Don’t care?” Dean mocks. His voice is sharp, and Sam knows he has hit something, but it feels too good to stop now.
“You pretend like you’re okay with this, but I know you’re not. Just admit it, would you? Stop acting like a fucking saint.”
“You think I don’t care?” Dean repeats again. “Let me ask you something, Sammy, who’s the one running off and leaving? Huh? You ever thought about that? Maybe I have to act like I don’t give a shit about you because I’ve still got to go on while you leave. After you’re gone.”
“Then tell me to stay with you!” Sam snaps, louder than he intends.
“I won’t tell you anything. But don’t sit here and accuse me-”
“Accuse you?”
“-of not caring!” Dean flings his tools to the ground where they clang noisily against the asphalt. “You are one selfish son of bitch, you know that? You can’t be happy unless you have it all. You can’t have both me and Stanford-”
“You’re a miserable bastard. Can’t bring yourself to admit when you’ve got something that makes you happy for once in your goddamn life and fight for-”
Dean’s punch to the jaw silences him quickly. The pain is crackling hot, and Sam brings his hand up, feeling the blood falling from his split lip. Dean only stares at him with faraway eyes.
When Sam wipes his hand on his shirt and leaves bloody trail marks against the fabric, Dean finally looks away, moves away, and finishes replacing the tire. They say nothing more to each other until they reach the next motel that night.
- - - - -
Dean comes back from town one day with a white plastic bag in one hand and a six-pack of beer in the other. Sam looks up from the television as Dean empties the bag on the bed. Candy spills out in a menagerie of colorful cellophane that crinkles noisily.
“Candy and beer?” Sam asks skeptically.
Dean shrugs and unwraps a bar of chocolate. He bites off half of it easily and says with a full mouth, cheeks bulging out comically, “Wanted to get you something you’d enjoy.”
They haven’t spoken of the incident in the desert since it occurred; this is their apology to each other.
“You’re such a sap.”
“Says the man watching cooking shows.”
“Hey,” Sam points out defensively, “I’ve got to learn how to use those pots you bought me. I need to know how to make more than macaroni and cheese out of a box.”
Dean smiles, leans, and kisses Sam. His breath is warm, sweet with the scent of chocolate forgiveness.
- - - - -
The store’s music is louder in the dressing rooms than anywhere else, and the fast-paced bass is beating in Sam’s head, drumming the blood in his body to a feverish pace. He's surrounded by new clothes he's choosing to buy, stuffed in the too-small dressing room. Jeans are piled on the floor with their hangers hidden beneath and he’s discarded the most recent shirt in the corner. Instead of trying on another piece of clothing, he places his hands on Dean’s skin.
Dean is leaning against the wall with his jeans pulled down past his hips. His head is tilted back, eyes closed as he swallows and pants. Sam reaches for Dean’s cock and wraps his lips around the head; his tongue darts out to trace the leaking slit. Dean moans and brings his head forward to look down at Sam through heavy lidded eyes. He says something that Sam can’t hear above the music. Around Dean’s cock, Sam smiles with a glance upward.
In one smooth motion, Sam pushes forward to take as much as he can in his mouth. His nose brushes against curled pubic hairs and forehead ghosts across Dean’s navel. With every bob of his head, Sam watches Dean’s fingers curl a little bit more against the wall.
Sam pulls off, spit sticky at the corners of his mouth, and he jerks Dean’s cock quickly in tempo with the music overhead. In one hand, he holds Dean’s hip to the wall, and just as he feels the muscles beneath begin to quiver, he comes forward and swallows Dean.
“Goddammit,” Dean hisses, and Sam chuckles. Then Dean groans and slams a hand against the thin wall behind him, spilling into Sam’s mouth. When Dean finally opens his eyes to see Sam wiping off his lips with the back of his hand, he pulls Sam up next to him. They kiss messily and open-mouthed with come passing on their tongues.
The song has switched to something modern that Sam doesn’t quite recognize, but the pounding beat remains the same. “So,” Sam whispers as Dean brings his hands down to Sam’s unbuttoned pants with the price tag still attached, “how much longer do you think we have until someone catches us?”
Dean squeezes Sam’s erection through his jeans, causing a hot flush to rush through Sam’s body and spark every nerve.
“We’ve got time,” Dean replies before opening his mouth to Sam again.
- - - - -
The cat at the used book and music store follows Sam around the building. Whenever he stops to look at something, it rubs against his legs and chatters. Eventually, he hoists the fat calico into his arms where it purrs contently while he strokes its head. The owner, a gray-haired woman wearing a flannel shirt and jeans with holes in the knees is shelving books; she glances up with a smile.
Sam finds Dean with a thick stack of cassette tapes in one of his hands as he thumbs through the boxes with his other.
“I thought you had all of those,” Sam says, seeing the familiar titles between Dean’s fingers.
“Yeah, but-” Dean begins, then stops when he notices the happy cat in Sam’s arms. “You know that’s not on the list, Sammy. Can’t keep it even if it did follow you home.”
As if in answer, the cat twists itself against Sam’s chest and meows. Dean continues, smirk forming on his lips, “You need to make sure all those geek kids at school know good music.” He shakes the cassettes at Sam so that they rattle in their plastic cases. “Classic, baby, classic.”
Sam tries to picture his old friends from school listening to Dean’s music. But, when Sam thinks of the songs and hears the melodies in his head, he can only see Dean.
- - - - -
At a roadside park they stop for a lunch of gas station groceries and day-old colas. The drinks are warm and flat, but still sugary on the tongue; Sam takes his without complaint. They are about two days from campus, and Sam can feel the pressure, the tension rising to a suffocating heat between them. He sees it in Dean too. He knows that his brother senses the end as he does.
“You’ve never asked me to choose,” Sam says, turning his eyes to the sky instead of where they sit atop a picnic table with peeling green paint. The trees are tall but thin and do not provide much shade. Behind the small grove, the highway traffic is a low growl.
Dean takes a drink from his Coke. “Choose what?” he asks with a grimace at the taste. His eyes look away from Sam, and his voice is emotionless.
Yes, Sam decides, the strain, the end, has reached Dean too.
“Between you and everything else. You’ve never asked me to choose you or Stanford. Hunting or college. Even after the fight we had…you still didn’t ask me to choose you.”
Dean shrugs, crumbles his wrappers together in a metallic wad. “No, I didn’t,” he agrees. “Never will either. That’s not something anyone should be forced into deciding by another person.” He hops off the table to the ground, and his shadow is black and skinny against the dry ground. “Figured you had enough on your mind without me getting in the way of it all.”
“Look,” Sam starts, climbs from the picnic table and goes to stand beside Dean. “I-”
“Just let it go, Sammy. Don’t over think it. You’ll hurt yourself.” He turns away and throws his garbage into an overflowing can with area maintenance and refuse property of phone numbers etched into its sides.
Slowly, Sam follows him back to the car where the list, almost finished, waits patiently for them. As he walks and watches Dean open the door, Sam thinks, I wish you would have. I wish you would force me to choose.
- - - - -
Not far outside city limits, Dean pulls over when he spies a couch on the side of the road. There is a piece of wood with “free” spray-painted on it resting on the cushions. He gets out of the car and inspects the couch carefully. Sam just gapes at the hideous plaid color covering, and he wrinkles his nose as Dean sits down to test the cushions, legs sprawled open casually.
“It’s disgusting,” Sam states. It looks like something out of a bad horror movie from the seventies. Even in all the motels he has ever visited, he’s never seen such an ugly piece of furniture.
“It’s a gift,” Dean replies. “You are one ungrateful bastard.”
“Fine,” Sam snorts as Dean rises to his feet and goes to the trunk of the Impala where he digs through his supplies, looking for rope to tie the couch to the car’s roof. “Every time I sit on it, I’ll think of you.”
“Hey-but you said it was disgusting, though-”
Sam grins wickedly. “Exactly.”
Dean, rope in one hand, punches Sam in the shoulder. “Asshole,” he says, but not long after they’ve lifted the couch off the ground, he snickers softly.
- - - - -
At Sam’s apartment, they haul and heave the couch up three flights of stairs. Dean swears under his breath the entire time, while Sam wonders what exactly he has gotten himself into. Maybe this wasn’t the future he wanted after all. Maybe he can still turn back.
Inside the apartment, they put the couch in the small living area, and Sam looks around with wide eyes. It does and doesn’t look like the photos that the landlord e-mailed him a month ago. Now there is a bed frame with its mattress, both wrapped in plastic and leaning against the far wall, and he sees a television and microwave box in the corner. There are other boxes too that he knows Dean and he did not purchase together. Gaping, he looks back to Dean, who only shrugs guiltily.
“I paid to get some extra things shipped,” he admits. “We didn’t have much more room in the car, y’know.”
As Sam stands there, staring and scratching the back of his head that all of this is his now, that there will be no more motel rooms and middle of the night monsters, Dean comes up from behind him.
“Instead of thinking about all of that, you know what we still need to do?” Dean asks.
“Hmm?”
Dean chuckles, hot and husky against Sam’s ear. “We need to break in your couch.” He kisses the nape of Sam’s neck, licks a wet line from collarbone to earlobe. “I mean, you can stand here if you want, but what do you say to that?”
“You really think we need to break in the couch?”
“Mm-hmm,” Dean agrees, slipping his fingers down the back of Sam’s jeans.
Sex is the farthest thing from Sam’s mind at the moment; he's still trying to process all this, moving the couch, seeing his new apartment. Leaving. “You been thinking of this since we picked that damn thing up, haven’t you?” he asks.
He already knows the answer.
“You better believe it.” When Dean begins to work at Sam’s zipper, Sam discards his apartment wonders and worries.
Sam turns and meets Dean’s lips with a soft grunt. It’s been too many hours on the road and now they’re here. Here and the end is drumming on their shoulders. Suddenly, the only thing he wants right now is Dean.
He shoves Dean toward the couch, both madly tearing at clothing and shedding it as quickly as possible. Fingers dancing and pulling, hands grasping and reaching.
“You gonna do it?” Dean hisses, challenging, as Sam licks at his chest and bites a nipple. “You gonna fuck me, Sammy?”
Sam growls, almost a laugh. “Yeah,” he answers. “Yeah, I will.”
“Fuck me so hard I’ll feel it after you leave.” Dean wraps his hands around Sam’s ass and pulls so they fall together on the couch. They twist and pant until Sam is straddling Dean, face to face. Dean’s cock curves against his belly as he gazes up at Sam through wide and wanting eyes.
“Do it,” Dean encourages, baring his teeth. “One last time like this, y’know. Do it hard.”
“I don’t have-” Sam begins, but Dean cuts him off.
“Just do it without the lube. I can take it.”
Sam nods. There is sweat forming on his temples already, gathering at the base of his spine, and he tries not to think that they may never be like this again. His own dick is hard against Dean’s, and desire is turning to sheer desperation within his belly.
He spits into his palm, smears saliva and precome on his cock. He clutches the back of the couch with one hand, shoves Dean’s legs apart and guides himself with the other. Dean throws his head back and curses, low and throaty, when Sam enters him. Sam gasps, almost chokes on his own air, but then Dean clenches onto his forearm with sweat sticky fingers and says, “Now, Sam, now.”
Sam pounds fiercely as Dean grunts and gasps beneath him. The couch squeaks, and Sam wonders if it’ll fall apart beneath them like he’s falling apart inside his brother.
Dean’s fingers wrap around his own cock and tug frantically, matching his pace to Sam’s. They’re both making so much noise that Sam’s sure that the neighbors have to be able to hear them. But right now, cock buried in Dean, Sam doesn’t care. God, he needs this. Needs this heat and fire. Needs Dean.
One more time.
Dean comes with a shout, breaks apart with Sam leaning over him. Sam follows after a few more thrusts, not far behind, with a heavy sigh that tears the air from his body.
Still leaning over Dean, Sam closes his eyes and feels the world spin around him. He can smell their spunk in the air and hear Dean’s labored breaths as they both return to themselves. When Sam opens his eyes, he looks at Dean like this, at them, for one more moment. One last moment.
Sam pulls his cock out, leaking strings of semen on those ugly couch cushions. He falls away, legs splayed open and head resting on the back of the couch as he tries to catch his breath. Looking over, he sees Dean sliding his fingers through the wetness on his belly and pubic hair.
Dean notices Sam watching and looks up, smiles under flushed cheeks. “Yeah,” he whispers with eyes alight. “Like that.”
- - - - -
After the Impala is emptied, they spend the night together. One final night before Dean leaves the next morning for reality and monsters, and Sam stays for normalcy and books. Together, they lie on the floor, surrounded by the unpacked purchases accumulated over the miles past. Dean lies behind Sam, front pressed to Sam’s back. Both naked, but nothing sexual or wanting passing beyond the intimacy of touch.
“It’s not like I’m leaving forever,” Sam says to the darkness, listening to the soft rise and fall of Dean’s breath. “I’ll come back, you know.”
“It’s not that. You can’t just-” Dean stops, and Sam feels him shift uncomfortably.
“Can’t what?” Sam tries to crane his neck to see Dean but his brother, even so close, is merely a shadow in the room.
Dean sighs reluctantly, not wanting to admit what he has been holding back. “Can’t just come back and visit me every now and then like I’m some fucking pity cause. Like you’re obligated or something.”
“Then what do you want?” Sam asks hesitantly.
For a long time, Dean says nothing, then his voice, soft and pained, slides through the darkness. “You can’t just come back then leave again. You'd have to stay…with me. Because I couldn't just stand aside and let you go…That'd be...that’s all I want.”
Silence follows, and Sam feels the burn of tears come to his eyes. This is what Dean has been keeping from him all these months. This is what Dean felt but would never tell. This is what Dean worked so hard to ignore. This is everything.
Finally, not knowing what else to say, Sam whispers, “Just...” He reaches back, finds Dean’s hand and pulls it around and over his body. “Here…” Their fingers interlock to rest on Sam’s chest. He whispers, voice cracking, “I’ll always love you, you know.”
Dean says nothing, only kisses Sam’s neck and pulls him tighter. His touch alone says everything, and Sam falls asleep with tears on his lashes, wrapped in his brother’s warmth.
- - - - -
Morning comes fast and painful in a way like never before. Sam offers to make breakfast, to give Dean money for all the purchases, to pay for gas. He offers Dean everything except himself, and they both know it.
Sam follows Dean down the stairs. He has been following Dean his whole life, only now Dean is leaving and Sam is the one pushing him away.
They stand together by the Impala as the city comes to life. With school beginning tomorrow, the students are gathering around the stores and apartment stairways. Businessmen walk by in suits, ladies with their dogs out for a morning jog. The world is brighter than Sam prefers; it ignores his pain.
“Well,” Dean says, looking out to the horizon where the sun is bright and fat, “I guess I’ll see you around?”
“Be careful,” Sam warns. “Call if you need anything. Don’t think you can’t call. Send a postcard or something. But, you have my number…I mean, if you need help or you get hurt or you-”
“If I’m in the area, I’ll make sure to come to your place first,” Dean replies with words dry and rehearsed.
Sam bends his head to kiss Dean for one last time, seeking that connection he knows he’ll never find with anyone else. But Dean shies away, hand coming up to push Sam back as he gets too close.
“Don’t,” Dean whispers faintly and stares down at his car keys that he’s playing with. “Just, don’t.”
“But, Dean…”
“Don’t,” he repeats with eyes downcast. “Somebody might see. This is your new start, remember? Don’t-” he mumbles, pauses when his voice falters and breaks. “Don’t fuck it up because of me.” When Dean finally lifts his head, he smiles, but his eyes are sad and wet. Instead of kissing him, he slaps Sam on the arm and climbs into his car. He doesn’t look back when he starts the engine and drives away, disappearing around the corner.
Sam remains in the parking lot, alone and numb. His body feels heavy, drugged, like it doesn’t belong to him, and he realizes that he has just gotten exactly what he wanted. This is his dream made reality.
There is no reason for happiness.
- - - - -
In bed that night, Sam brings his pillow to his chest, wraps his arms around it and buries his face in soft cotton. He inhales deeply, but all he can smell is detergent and new fabric. Artificial scents that he does not recognize. For the first time in so long, he is alone in bed without the chance of Dean coming to him. In the darkness his pain is so intimate and he feels naked and incomplete; part of him has been ripped away and tossed aside to be forgotten.
Somewhere during the middle of the night when the city finally starts to quiet, he staggers out to the living room and collapses onto the couch. Ugly old couch with faded fabric cushions, but he can still smell Dean. Sam’s body is too big for the couch, so he lies with his legs draped over the side and pain shooting through his joints. When sleep comes at last, he only dreams of Dean who asks, “Did you find happiness yet, Sammy? Did happiness find you?”
- - - - -
The syllabus for his first class is five pages, front and back, in a small type almost impossible to read. The professor paces as he talks. The girl next to Sam keeps smiling at him through fake lashes; the kid on Sam’s other side writes down everything the professor says. Sam feels a headache forming, strong and unforgiving, heavy at the back of his mind. When he brings a hand to his head, winces, the girl asks in a whisper if he wants some aspirin. He remembers how Dean used to hold him when he suffered from headaches after his visions, warm, solid comfort. It seems so long ago that he has to wonder if it was even real.
Sam shakes his head to answer the girl and to rebuff the thoughts of Dean spilling through his mind, and he pulls a pencil from his bag to take his own notes. A piece of paper falls to the ground. Curiously, he opens the folds, then Dean’s meticulously compiled list stares back at him.
The professor talks about the final essay due at the end of the term and how to get started on it early and not procrastinate. How the university has certain expectations for its students and Stanford is not a school to be taken lightly. He talks until all Sam hears is a mad buzz of words.
Sam stares at the crumbled piece of notebook where Dean’s stubborn hand meets his gaze. Where Dean’s determination to let Sam have this without a fight and love him nonetheless is shown in every pen dash, every wrinkle of that paper. He lifts his head, ache gone and thoughts clear.
This is not his future. He knows that he once naïvely thought that it was and would be. Only now, too late, does he realize that he was wrong. Instead, he has pushed his real future away, the one that he was meant to live and love back.
When Sam stands, a hundred eyes snap to him in mute surprise. The professor says something that Sam chooses not to hear when he grabs his backpack and walks to the exit. With a sharp push of the door, he leaves. He is surprised at how silently it shuts behind him.
- - - - -
His directions in the cab are a flurry of breathless words, but the driver understands. When they arrive he tosses a twenty, a ten and tells the taxi driver to keep the change, and Sam stumbles out of the car tripping over his own legs, duffel bag slung over his shoulder. Running to the door where the Impala waits outside, he knocks three times before he stands back to wait and wish that he still has time. That he is not too late.
The motel door opens. Sam's chest tightens as relief mixes with fear, and he fights to control his sharp crash of emotions. Inside the room, the man coming out of the shadows is dressed in jeans and a faded t-shirt. Eyes tired and puffy, surprisingly vulnerable bare feet, face drained of color, he only stares wordlessly.
“Dean,” Sam says. His voice cracks and he cannot stop it. “Dean, I came back. Dammit, Dean, I came to...”
Without waiting for more Dean collapses into his arms, limp and heavy. His forehead is hard against Sam’s shoulder when he wraps around Sam. They fall into each other, fall together once again like it always should have been.
“Sam,” Dean breathes, so soft and quiet. It is a question unspoken, but Sam knows what he asks.
“Yeah, I am. I will,” Sam whispers. Under the heat of the embrace, he closes his eyes and listens to the sound of his brother’s heartbeat. He closes his eyes, and he stays.
End
Rating: Adult
Category: Slash (Wincest) oneshot
Word Count: 8444
Characters: Dean/Sam
Spoilers: None
Summary: Sam and Dean learn that sometimes one future must be sacrificed for another.
Warnings: Brother incest
Author’s Notes: This was written well before both parts of “All Hell Breaks Loose.” As such, it contains only my speculation and takes place during the middle of season two before those final episodes. This is not necessarily how I think the show could-should-go. This is just a possibility within a story.
I have two people to thank for their continued help with this. An extreme amount of gratitude goes to equinox_blue who has supported and tolerated me endlessly since the first moment I whispered to her in the movie theater, “This’ll be the soundtrack for the next fic.” An overwhelming amount of thanks also goes to drvsilla who made time in her busy life to beta this monster and overthink patiently with the needed handholding through it all. I couldn’t have done without them, and I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to try going it alone either.
Any remaining mistakes are mine alone. Crossposted around.
Disclaimer: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the television show, Supernatural, to whom they rightly belong. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.
- - - - -
He makes the phone call while Dean is in the shower. It’s been three days short of four months since they killed the demon, and Sam has counted every day that has passed since the demon’s death. He has counted every moment that they do not spend in fear and blood, running from the monster and running to answers. In these months of peace, Dean and he have continued to hunt together. Small cases, people saved and monsters destroyed nonetheless, but now their lives are safe again. After all these days, Sam thinks that, yes, it’s time.
He finds the phone number on the Internet and presses the too-small buttons on his cell phone with nervous fingers. In the bathroom, Dean sings loudly and off-key under the water that Sam can hear rushing through the pipes above his head. As he finishes dialing the numbers he rolls his eyes at Dean’s singing ability.
The connection rings once, twice, and Sam brings a hand to his forehead to steady himself. If he closes his eyes, maybe this won’t seem so real and powerful. So dishonest.
By the third ring, someone answers.
“Stanford University Admissions Office, how can I help you?”
He swallows, forces himself to speak; his throat is suddenly dry and tongue thick in his mouth. “Yes, um, my name is Sam Winchester, and I attended school at Stanford a while ago and I-” He stops to breathe. “I’d like to come back.”
The lady on the other end is off and talking before he has a chance to get a word in edgewise. A cold wave of reality from listening to her voice starts to climb down his throat and suffocate him with its presence. He reminds himself that it has been nearly four months and they have nothing more to fear. More than that, he needs to move on. He needs to live his life as it should be.
It’s time, he knows that. Yes, it is.
In the bathroom, Dean continues to sing happily in his ignorance that Sam is preparing to leave him for a chance at a future.
- - - - -
Over the next few days Sam struggles with how and when and where he will tell Dean. While Sam considers keeping the information to himself until immediately before leaving, he knows that doing so would be no different than gut punching Dean. But in Sam’s mind, there will never be a good time-let alone a right time-to tell his brother that he’s leaving again. Only, this time, when he leaves, it will be for the last time. The demon is dead; he won’t ever need to return.
One morning when Sam comes back with breakfast, he finds Dean standing at the countertop in their latest motel, coffee mug in one hand and folded newspaper in the other. He has an uncapped red marker between his teeth.
“Oh, hey, you’re back,” Dean says, pulling the marker out of his mouth. “I just found this case about this mom who thinks her kid can move things with her mind. Telekinesis shit, right?” He slaps the paper with the back of his hand. “But, get this, they live in a house where…”
As Dean stands there, waving his marker in the air carelessly and yammering on about the house and how many hours away it is, Sam knows that now he must tell Dean. Now.
He steps forward and cuts Dean off in the middle of his sentence. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
For the first time, Dean looks up from the newspaper and directly at his younger brother. His eyebrows come together in confusion. “You okay, Sammy? What’s going on?” He chuckles to himself. “You look like somebody ran over your puppy. Some bully steal your lunch money?”
“Dean, I-I’m going back to school. To Stanford.”
Those little words slap the smirk right off Dean’s face. “S’cuse me?” he says, freezing up instantly.
“I’m going back to Stanford. I made the call already. I’m enrolled for this fall’s term.”
Dean reaches out a hand to grab the edge of the counter, and he stares down at the linoleum for a long moment. When he lifts his bent head to look at Sam, his expression is blank.
“Well,” Sam presses, “say something.”
Dean exhales heavily, and Sam prepares himself for the worst. But all Dean says is, “Okay.”
“Okay?” Sam echoes incredulously, voice rising. With the time he’s spent in agony by keeping this from Dean, he would have expected more from his brother. “Is that all you have to say? ‘Okay’?”
Dean touches the tip of his tongue to his lip and glances away. There is a flash of something across his face, and he looks as though he’s going to start screaming or swearing-a reaction Sam would be almost thankful for-but then Dean turns back to him.
“How long do we have?” he asks, capping the marker and laying it on the countertop next to the newspaper article. “How long until you leave?”
“About two months.”
Dean nods stiffly. “Two,” he says. “Okay, two months,” he repeats as he turns away from Sam and walks to the nightstand between their beds. He grabs his keys and jingles them loosely in his cupped palm. “I need to…I need to go out for a while…” He waves one of his hands loosely, drunkenly, as though he doesn’t have complete control of his motor skills. “Go out and just…Just to think…” Without saying anything further, he walks slowly out the door.
Left inside the room, Sam listens for the start of the car and the gradual acceleration as it creeps out of the parking lot. When at last all is silent and he knows that Dean has left, he falls back on their bed and covers his face in his hands. He’s not sure if this is the beginning or the end; he is sure that he is the one who has brought it to them.
- - - - -
That night Dean returns long after dark and they sleep separately for the first time in months. In his own bed, Sam keeps his back to Dean, and he watches his fingers’ shadows in the soft moonlight coming through the window. Without Dean beside him the bed seems so cold and empty, and Sam begins to wish that he had never made the call to Stanford. My life is filled with regrets, he realizes. I should have just known that I would have regretted never finishing college too, left it at that. He curses his stupidity and false hopes that things were going to work for him.
Then, slipping through his thoughts, he hears Dean whispering, “Move.” Sam glances past his shoulder to see Dean standing next to the bed, shirtless with his jeans resting low on his hips.
“Dean?” Sam asks, confused, but shifting over anyway. As Dean pulls the blankets back and slides into bed, Sam rolls over to meet him.
“Look,” Dean says and brushes Sam’s bangs away from his face. His breath is sweet with alcohol and the scent of cigarette smoke is heavy in his hair. “I’ve been thinking...” When he pauses, he watches Sam staring back at him with confused and wide eyes. “We’re going to do this. You’re going to college.” He swallows and glances away for a moment. Meeting Sam’s eyes again, he clarifies, “The right way this time.”
“Are you-”
“Ssh,” Dean hushes him, lying down and pulling Sam with him. He wraps a bare arm around Sam’s waist, twists his fingers in the thin cotton of Sam’s t-shirt. “It’ll be okay this time.”
- - - - -
Sam thinks Dean will forget about his irrational promise from the night before. He chalks up Dean’s bizarre behavior to the alcohol that lingers between them. Sam mentally pieces together an elaborate storyline of Dean going to the bar, getting drunk and spilling the story of his little brother running away from him, only to be reassured by a beautiful woman with ample cleavage that he should try to help said younger brother.
Sam figures by the time breakfast comes and the effects of alcohol have cleared, Dean will be back to his old bitter self, angry with his baby brother for leaving him and the hunting life. Sam will be surprised if Dean talks to him at all for the remaining two months.
As Sam clambers out of bed the next morning, he is surprised to see Dean sitting at the table. Spread around Dean’s bowl of cereal, glossy store advertisements lay open, shouting sale prices and back to school bargains. Dean has a hand pressed to his cheek, squashing the skin around his eye, and he glances from the flyers to a piece of notebook paper covered in his numbered scribbles.
“What are you doing?” Sam asks and approaches the table cautiously. He knows Dean well enough to think that something is amiss.
“What’s it look like I’m doing?” Dean mumbles, not moving to face Sam.
“It looks like you’ve got the obituaries confused with the shopping section. Department store flyers?”
Dean laughs lowly. “You’re such a moron sometimes.”
“What-” Sam begins, but Dean interrupts him.
“Back to school shopping, Sammy. C’mon, I’m not just going to leave you in ivy league land with nothing.” Dean reaches for the notebook paper and shoves it at Sam a bit too roughly. “Here. I think this is everything you need. At least,” he says, scratching the back of his head, “that’s what Wal-Mart says is necessary for a college student. They didn’t have a ‘what to buy for the demon hunter turned Stanford lawyer’ section, so I did the best I could.”
Sam scans the list as Dean chews on a spoonful of cereal. The list is full of typical things like notebooks and pens followed by other items. Clothing, deodorant, fabric softener, and a question mark with an arrow drawn to the large word “apartment” in the margin.
“You’re serious about this, aren’t you?” Sam asks incredulously as he looks up from the list to Dean.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” he yawns, mouth opening to reveal a half-chewed ball of mashed cereal.
“I just-I thought-”
“You thought I’d piss and whine and kick you out like Dad did before?”
Sam looks down at his feet. He’s too ashamed to answer.
“Look,” Dean tells him, leaning forward and holding out his hands openly. “I realize you’re going to do whatever the hell you want, but at least this time, I can help you out.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Sam mumbles. In all their time together, he has never doubted that Dean cared about him, but actions such as this are rare and unusual. Love-all displays of it-has never come easily to Dean.
Dean stands up from the table and takes his empty cereal bowl to the sink. “You can say you’ll get a shower for your dirty ass so we can start shopping.”
Sam smiles and grabs clean clothes from his bag. Before he goes into the bathroom, he glances at Dean one last time. Dean has returned to the table and opened the flyer to the lingerie section, smiling happily to himself. Sam just shakes his head and closes the bathroom door behind him.
- - - - -
At the local store, Dean is the one who grabs the shopping cart. He pulls the list from his pants’ pocket and asks, “You want to start with the office stuff?”
“Office stuff?” Sam echoes a bit mockingly. He still cannot believe that this is Dean, his brother, standing in front of him with-of all things-a shopping cart.
“Y’know, crayons, paper. That sort of shit.” When Sam just smiles and fights back his laughter, Dean rolls his eyes and huffs, “C’mon already.”
In the aisle, Dean shakes his head in disbelief. “Damn. Who would’ve thought a guy needed all of this?” Sam watches Dean scan the hundreds of pencils and pens, markers and erasers. Down the aisle, a little girl with her mother is pointing to a pink box of glitter crayons.
“Well. Go at it,” Dean says with a gesture toward the display wall. He steps back as if to give Sam room for the monumental decision of blue or black ink.
Sam reaches for a two-dollar pack of pens and drops it into the shopping cart with a smack. “All right. I’m good.”
Dean shakes his head in clear disapproval. “Even I know you need more than that. I’m not leaving until you get-everything.”
“You’re forcing me to buy school supplies?” The girl at the other end is now eyeing a pack of stickers. Sam thinks they’re unicorns, but he’s too far away to be sure.
“…I’m just saying,” Dean is telling him, “you don’t want to look like a loser at college. Get some stuff. Besides,” he coughs under his breath, “not like I’m paying anyway.”
Sam finally just sighs, relenting, and he begins to pick items off the little hangers. Somewhere during his splurging on things he knows he’ll never use, he notices that Dean has moved down next to the sticker display. Crouched on his haunches, Dean is talking to the little girl who nods eagerly while her mother looks on.
When Dean returns to Sam, he’s holding several packs of stickers, which he wordlessly flings in the cart alongside what Sam’s picked out.
“Stickers?” Sam asks with a raise of his eyebrows.
“She told me you’d need them,” Dean replies, jerking his thumb in the direction of the departing girl and her mom.
“And why would I need stickers?”
Dean frowns, shrugs and begins to push the cart away before he answers, “To put on the letters you’ll write me.”
- - - - -
Dean finds a lake where they can stop for a swim. The air is thick and heavy with afternoon heat and rain that refuses to fall. Sam’s hair sticks to the back of his neck, and sweat eagerly gathers on his skin from the simplest of movements. As he climbs from the car, limbs weak and limp, he has to close his eyes for a moment against the blinding sun. The light is so strong it is nearly painful.
Dean stands on a ledge overlooking the lake below, and he whistles at the sight of the glistening water. There isn’t another person around for miles, and Sam considers asking Dean how he knew about such a place.
“You want to go for a swim?” Dean asks, glancing over his shoulder as Sam comes forward. There is a dark stripe of perspiration down the back of Dean’s shirt, and his face is flushed and wet.
Sam wipes his forehead on his sleeve. “Sure, I guess.”
“Good.” Dean grins and proceeds to unlace his boots. When Sam bends down to untie his, he discovers a knot and swears under his breath until he hears Dean yell.
Sam looks up to see Dean running, stark naked, to the edge of the cliff. He leaps and disappears over the edge.
“Dean!” Sam screams, hurrying to the end where he watches Dean vanish into the water under a churn of white froth. “Dean!” Sam cries again.
A moment too long later, Dean resurfaces with a flick of his head. His laughter scatters across the lake, and he wipes water from his eyes. “C’mon, Sammy, whatcha waiting for?”
“Just…give me a…I’ll be down in a sec,” Sam replies, fumbling with the button on his jeans. He tries to slow the knock-knocking of his heart that leapt and held fast in his chest when he saw Dean go over, then stay under. Silently he curses Dean's impulsiveness and wishes he had the ability to stay angry with his older brother. Instead, all Sam can do is allow a playful smile to tug at the corners of his lips.
“Jump!” Dean yells from below. A splash follows his encouragement.
Sam pulls off his shirt and drops it in a pile next to his boots and socks. The idea of jumping straight off the cliff terrifies him more than he rationally knows it should. But Dean is there, watching and waiting, and Sam believes Dean wouldn’t ask him to go through with it if there was any doubt.
Sam swallows, sighs, and tugs off the remainder of his clothing. Taking a deep breath, he backs a few steps away from the edge. The rock is hot underneath his bare feet, and he can hear Dean splashing and taunting below.
Sam rushes forward and jumps. For that brief moment, he is suspended free in the air. He flies on the sound of Dean’s triumphant laughter.
- - - - -
They go to a garage sale where the family’s children are selling lemonade in the driveway, and the women gather with floral sundresses and local gossip.
“What are we doing here?” Sam asks as Dean steps out of the car.
“More shopping,” Dean answers. He stops to buy two cups of lemonade from the girls at their stand. They giggle behind small hands with purple painted fingernails when Dean gives them a dollar and tells them “to keep the change, ladies.”
Dean hands Sam the other lemonade before taking a drink of his own. The small cup with its pink seashell border looks awkward and fragile in Dean’s hand. Sam sips his own lemonade gingerly-not enough sugar-but it’s cold and for that he’s grateful.
While the women chatter on about the upcoming neighborhood barbeque and who’s bringing pasta salad and who’s bringing potato, Dean moves around the tables as Sam tags along.
“You looking for something specific?” Sam asks curiously.
“Yup. Saw it in this morning’s classifieds.”
Sam shoves his hands in his pockets and follows Dean past the children’s toys and neatly folded clothing. Little shoes form a straight line and men’s hats are jumbled in a heap. At last, Dean stops in front of one of the tables and picks up a large box.
“Cookware?” Sam gapes as Dean pries the lid open and peers inside.
“Hey, you can’t eat microwaveable dinners the rest of your life. A man’s gotta know how to cook.”
“Oh? And I suppose you do?”
“Damn straight I do,” Dean replies, closing the box and moving over to the ladies with the calculator and Tupperware of change. He pays for the pots and pans, and the women smile and tell him to have a nice day.
Back in the car with the box of cookware in the trunk, Dean pulls the list from his jeans’ pocket. Sam watches as he crosses off “pots” on the wrinkled notebook paper.
“Aren’t you forgetting to get me a cookbook?” Sam asks sarcastically as Dean starts the engine. “I was thinking something by Martha Stewart would be appropriate. If I need to learn I might as well start at the top.”
“You really want one?”
Sam just laughs.
- - - - -
Sam’s hands fist in the bedsheets as Dean leans over him, one knee on either side of Sam’s thighs. Dean’s hand is on Sam’s cock, slip sliding up and down, thumb smearing the head, fingers scratching the sac. With every twist of Dean’s hand, Sam’s hips snap forward. He throws his head back, eyes closed, as his legs tighten in anticipation. Unable to breathe, he sucks quick shots of air through the corners of his mouth.
“No, no,” Dean murmurs, quickening his pace, “don’t do that.”
Sam legs begin to shake and prickles of warm heat scurry up beneath his skin. He’s so close now. Just a little bit more.
“Look at me,” Dean is whispering. “Please, Sam, look at me.”
Forcing himself to lift his head as his muscles clench down in his body, Sam opens his eyes to meet Dean’s. As he pumps Sam’s cock, Dean’s eyes never leave Sam.
“Don’t look away,” Dean tells him. “Don’t.”
Sam comes with a hot whiplash through his spine. Groaning, he arches upward into Dean. The come splatters between them, white sticky hot, but neither notices. Dean wraps an arm around Sam’s back as they link their hands together over Sam’s twitching cock, and Dean pulls him in for a kiss. Sam curls shaking fingers behind Dean’s head as he gasps for air.
“Just don’t look away,” Dean repeats, but the words are more to himself.
Through the fog hazing his mind and the sated cloud in his limbs, Sam wonders if he was meant to hear these words, all the rest unspoken.
- - - - -
At a discount furniture store, Dean stands with his arms crossed and stares at the assortment of displayed desks. “You think you can fit in any of those?” he asks, not looking at Sam behind him, instead studying the desks intently as if he will be able to measure them mentally.
Sam pauses before answering then points at one in the corner. “Probably that one. It’s the biggest.”
Dean nods silently and walks over to the pile of boxes with the unassembled desk pieces tucked inside. He pulls out the list and scratches off a numbered item, then hefts one of the long flat boxes onto his shoulder. He nods, starts for the register at the front of the store, box a see-saw near his cheek.
“Hey,” Sam calls, not following, “how am I supposed to put it together?”
Dean doesn’t look back at Sam when he answers, “I guess we’ll have to add ‘tool kit’ to the list.”
Sam stands and watches Dean. The part of Sam he’s been trying to silence whispers, He’s only doing this so he doesn’t have to think about how you’re leaving him. This keeps him busy. Go to him. Tell him that you won’t leave and break him apart.
But Sam only shakes his head, shakes away the argument that has been creeping through his mind since his phone call to Stanford. No, I deserve to go to school, don’t I? I deserve to make my own future, don’t I?
Don’t I?
The only answer is the overwhelming feeling of guilt.
- - - - -
In bed, late at night with the windows cracked open to let in a warm breeze and song of crickets, they lie facing one another. Sam remains awake, watching Dean sleep with a face quiet and peaceful, his barriers let down. Sam runs his fingers over Dean’s face, tracing soft eyebrows and the harsh curve of prickled jaw.
“Sam…” Dean mumbles, shifting under the covers. Blearily he opens his eyes then asks, “Sam, what-why aren’t you asleep?” His voice is sleep-thick and disoriented.
“I can’t sleep…Too much thinking…”
“About?” Dean moves onto his back and wipes his eyes with his knuckles.
“What if…what if I never love again?” Sam whispers. He is afraid to ask such questions of his heart out loud. His darkest fears formed into human words. Even to Dean he does not feel comfortable admitting such things.
“Sam,” Dean breathes, ready to offer sympathies and reassurances, before Sam speaks again.
“What if no one ever loves me like you do?”
Dean smiles sadly in the darkness. “No one ever will,” he admits after a pause. “There’s never going to be another…us. You’ll find other people…girls, boys, whatever makes you happy. You might even get married.” He laughs, but the sound is bitter hoarse. “Y’know, when you do get married, I’ll come if you want. Be your best man.”
“Dean-don’t-” Sam pleads, voice small and helpless. Weak against this reality he has created for them.
“Why not?” Dean tests. “Why not? It’ll probably happen eventually. We shouldn’t pretend like it won’t. You’ll have kids, Sammy, poker buddies on the weekends, company meetings with your lawyer friends…a wife. Not me.”
Sam bends his head to his chest and feels hot tears forming in the corners of his eyes. “I just-you-” He sighs raggedly. “I don’t want to think about replacing you.”
Dean rolls over again and faces Sam. “I know you don’t, I know.” He kisses Sam, light and dry. “But, Sam, you gotta understand, I can only be your past, all right? I can’t give you a future, not like this, school and everything, you know that. That’s why you’re leaving. For a future. I’m not as stupid as I look sometimes.”
Sam nods. He tries to convince himself that things will get easier for him. For the both them. Really, for Dean. After all, when the end comes, Dean is the one who will be left behind.
- - - - -
Flat tire just past the state border and Dean is hunched over the trunk, rooting around for the spare. Sam sits in the passenger seat with door opened and gazes across the desert where rare cacti rises high against the sun and turkey vultures circle overhead. It’s been hot again, and in the rising heat without relief, Dean and he have grown aggravated with each other. Not quite fighting. Not quite arguing. Not quite drawing the much needed blood just for a taste because they are both too afraid to hurt each other with the knowledge that they are entering the final moments now.
When Sam hears a clank come from the trunk followed by Dean’s curse, he gets to his feet and trudges around back. Even before he speaks, Dean tells him, “We’ll make it in time. Don’t worry.”
Sam watches him lift the spare tire out of the trunk and walk to the flat. For a moment, he says nothing, staring at Dean and thinking of how many miles they’ve come and how many lies they’ve told each other. Told themselves.
Finally Sam asks, “Why can’t you just say it?”
Dean peers up from the tire and drags his arm across his face to wipe away his sweat. He squints, looking into the sun. “Say what?”
“That you don’t want me to leave.” Sam knows the words coming from his mouth are dangerous, yet he cannot stop them. Does not want to stop them. They need to be said. “I can see it every time you look at me. I’m not blind. You do care.”
Dean chuckles lowly and pushes himself to his feet, shaking his head in what seems to be disbelief. “We’re not going to do this,” he states dispassionately.
“Why not? Fight with me already, tell me that you want me to stay and I’ll stay, goddammit. But-fuck, don’t act like you don’t care.”
“Don’t care?” Dean mocks. His voice is sharp, and Sam knows he has hit something, but it feels too good to stop now.
“You pretend like you’re okay with this, but I know you’re not. Just admit it, would you? Stop acting like a fucking saint.”
“You think I don’t care?” Dean repeats again. “Let me ask you something, Sammy, who’s the one running off and leaving? Huh? You ever thought about that? Maybe I have to act like I don’t give a shit about you because I’ve still got to go on while you leave. After you’re gone.”
“Then tell me to stay with you!” Sam snaps, louder than he intends.
“I won’t tell you anything. But don’t sit here and accuse me-”
“Accuse you?”
“-of not caring!” Dean flings his tools to the ground where they clang noisily against the asphalt. “You are one selfish son of bitch, you know that? You can’t be happy unless you have it all. You can’t have both me and Stanford-”
“You’re a miserable bastard. Can’t bring yourself to admit when you’ve got something that makes you happy for once in your goddamn life and fight for-”
Dean’s punch to the jaw silences him quickly. The pain is crackling hot, and Sam brings his hand up, feeling the blood falling from his split lip. Dean only stares at him with faraway eyes.
When Sam wipes his hand on his shirt and leaves bloody trail marks against the fabric, Dean finally looks away, moves away, and finishes replacing the tire. They say nothing more to each other until they reach the next motel that night.
- - - - -
Dean comes back from town one day with a white plastic bag in one hand and a six-pack of beer in the other. Sam looks up from the television as Dean empties the bag on the bed. Candy spills out in a menagerie of colorful cellophane that crinkles noisily.
“Candy and beer?” Sam asks skeptically.
Dean shrugs and unwraps a bar of chocolate. He bites off half of it easily and says with a full mouth, cheeks bulging out comically, “Wanted to get you something you’d enjoy.”
They haven’t spoken of the incident in the desert since it occurred; this is their apology to each other.
“You’re such a sap.”
“Says the man watching cooking shows.”
“Hey,” Sam points out defensively, “I’ve got to learn how to use those pots you bought me. I need to know how to make more than macaroni and cheese out of a box.”
Dean smiles, leans, and kisses Sam. His breath is warm, sweet with the scent of chocolate forgiveness.
- - - - -
The store’s music is louder in the dressing rooms than anywhere else, and the fast-paced bass is beating in Sam’s head, drumming the blood in his body to a feverish pace. He's surrounded by new clothes he's choosing to buy, stuffed in the too-small dressing room. Jeans are piled on the floor with their hangers hidden beneath and he’s discarded the most recent shirt in the corner. Instead of trying on another piece of clothing, he places his hands on Dean’s skin.
Dean is leaning against the wall with his jeans pulled down past his hips. His head is tilted back, eyes closed as he swallows and pants. Sam reaches for Dean’s cock and wraps his lips around the head; his tongue darts out to trace the leaking slit. Dean moans and brings his head forward to look down at Sam through heavy lidded eyes. He says something that Sam can’t hear above the music. Around Dean’s cock, Sam smiles with a glance upward.
In one smooth motion, Sam pushes forward to take as much as he can in his mouth. His nose brushes against curled pubic hairs and forehead ghosts across Dean’s navel. With every bob of his head, Sam watches Dean’s fingers curl a little bit more against the wall.
Sam pulls off, spit sticky at the corners of his mouth, and he jerks Dean’s cock quickly in tempo with the music overhead. In one hand, he holds Dean’s hip to the wall, and just as he feels the muscles beneath begin to quiver, he comes forward and swallows Dean.
“Goddammit,” Dean hisses, and Sam chuckles. Then Dean groans and slams a hand against the thin wall behind him, spilling into Sam’s mouth. When Dean finally opens his eyes to see Sam wiping off his lips with the back of his hand, he pulls Sam up next to him. They kiss messily and open-mouthed with come passing on their tongues.
The song has switched to something modern that Sam doesn’t quite recognize, but the pounding beat remains the same. “So,” Sam whispers as Dean brings his hands down to Sam’s unbuttoned pants with the price tag still attached, “how much longer do you think we have until someone catches us?”
Dean squeezes Sam’s erection through his jeans, causing a hot flush to rush through Sam’s body and spark every nerve.
“We’ve got time,” Dean replies before opening his mouth to Sam again.
- - - - -
The cat at the used book and music store follows Sam around the building. Whenever he stops to look at something, it rubs against his legs and chatters. Eventually, he hoists the fat calico into his arms where it purrs contently while he strokes its head. The owner, a gray-haired woman wearing a flannel shirt and jeans with holes in the knees is shelving books; she glances up with a smile.
Sam finds Dean with a thick stack of cassette tapes in one of his hands as he thumbs through the boxes with his other.
“I thought you had all of those,” Sam says, seeing the familiar titles between Dean’s fingers.
“Yeah, but-” Dean begins, then stops when he notices the happy cat in Sam’s arms. “You know that’s not on the list, Sammy. Can’t keep it even if it did follow you home.”
As if in answer, the cat twists itself against Sam’s chest and meows. Dean continues, smirk forming on his lips, “You need to make sure all those geek kids at school know good music.” He shakes the cassettes at Sam so that they rattle in their plastic cases. “Classic, baby, classic.”
Sam tries to picture his old friends from school listening to Dean’s music. But, when Sam thinks of the songs and hears the melodies in his head, he can only see Dean.
- - - - -
At a roadside park they stop for a lunch of gas station groceries and day-old colas. The drinks are warm and flat, but still sugary on the tongue; Sam takes his without complaint. They are about two days from campus, and Sam can feel the pressure, the tension rising to a suffocating heat between them. He sees it in Dean too. He knows that his brother senses the end as he does.
“You’ve never asked me to choose,” Sam says, turning his eyes to the sky instead of where they sit atop a picnic table with peeling green paint. The trees are tall but thin and do not provide much shade. Behind the small grove, the highway traffic is a low growl.
Dean takes a drink from his Coke. “Choose what?” he asks with a grimace at the taste. His eyes look away from Sam, and his voice is emotionless.
Yes, Sam decides, the strain, the end, has reached Dean too.
“Between you and everything else. You’ve never asked me to choose you or Stanford. Hunting or college. Even after the fight we had…you still didn’t ask me to choose you.”
Dean shrugs, crumbles his wrappers together in a metallic wad. “No, I didn’t,” he agrees. “Never will either. That’s not something anyone should be forced into deciding by another person.” He hops off the table to the ground, and his shadow is black and skinny against the dry ground. “Figured you had enough on your mind without me getting in the way of it all.”
“Look,” Sam starts, climbs from the picnic table and goes to stand beside Dean. “I-”
“Just let it go, Sammy. Don’t over think it. You’ll hurt yourself.” He turns away and throws his garbage into an overflowing can with area maintenance and refuse property of phone numbers etched into its sides.
Slowly, Sam follows him back to the car where the list, almost finished, waits patiently for them. As he walks and watches Dean open the door, Sam thinks, I wish you would have. I wish you would force me to choose.
- - - - -
Not far outside city limits, Dean pulls over when he spies a couch on the side of the road. There is a piece of wood with “free” spray-painted on it resting on the cushions. He gets out of the car and inspects the couch carefully. Sam just gapes at the hideous plaid color covering, and he wrinkles his nose as Dean sits down to test the cushions, legs sprawled open casually.
“It’s disgusting,” Sam states. It looks like something out of a bad horror movie from the seventies. Even in all the motels he has ever visited, he’s never seen such an ugly piece of furniture.
“It’s a gift,” Dean replies. “You are one ungrateful bastard.”
“Fine,” Sam snorts as Dean rises to his feet and goes to the trunk of the Impala where he digs through his supplies, looking for rope to tie the couch to the car’s roof. “Every time I sit on it, I’ll think of you.”
“Hey-but you said it was disgusting, though-”
Sam grins wickedly. “Exactly.”
Dean, rope in one hand, punches Sam in the shoulder. “Asshole,” he says, but not long after they’ve lifted the couch off the ground, he snickers softly.
- - - - -
At Sam’s apartment, they haul and heave the couch up three flights of stairs. Dean swears under his breath the entire time, while Sam wonders what exactly he has gotten himself into. Maybe this wasn’t the future he wanted after all. Maybe he can still turn back.
Inside the apartment, they put the couch in the small living area, and Sam looks around with wide eyes. It does and doesn’t look like the photos that the landlord e-mailed him a month ago. Now there is a bed frame with its mattress, both wrapped in plastic and leaning against the far wall, and he sees a television and microwave box in the corner. There are other boxes too that he knows Dean and he did not purchase together. Gaping, he looks back to Dean, who only shrugs guiltily.
“I paid to get some extra things shipped,” he admits. “We didn’t have much more room in the car, y’know.”
As Sam stands there, staring and scratching the back of his head that all of this is his now, that there will be no more motel rooms and middle of the night monsters, Dean comes up from behind him.
“Instead of thinking about all of that, you know what we still need to do?” Dean asks.
“Hmm?”
Dean chuckles, hot and husky against Sam’s ear. “We need to break in your couch.” He kisses the nape of Sam’s neck, licks a wet line from collarbone to earlobe. “I mean, you can stand here if you want, but what do you say to that?”
“You really think we need to break in the couch?”
“Mm-hmm,” Dean agrees, slipping his fingers down the back of Sam’s jeans.
Sex is the farthest thing from Sam’s mind at the moment; he's still trying to process all this, moving the couch, seeing his new apartment. Leaving. “You been thinking of this since we picked that damn thing up, haven’t you?” he asks.
He already knows the answer.
“You better believe it.” When Dean begins to work at Sam’s zipper, Sam discards his apartment wonders and worries.
Sam turns and meets Dean’s lips with a soft grunt. It’s been too many hours on the road and now they’re here. Here and the end is drumming on their shoulders. Suddenly, the only thing he wants right now is Dean.
He shoves Dean toward the couch, both madly tearing at clothing and shedding it as quickly as possible. Fingers dancing and pulling, hands grasping and reaching.
“You gonna do it?” Dean hisses, challenging, as Sam licks at his chest and bites a nipple. “You gonna fuck me, Sammy?”
Sam growls, almost a laugh. “Yeah,” he answers. “Yeah, I will.”
“Fuck me so hard I’ll feel it after you leave.” Dean wraps his hands around Sam’s ass and pulls so they fall together on the couch. They twist and pant until Sam is straddling Dean, face to face. Dean’s cock curves against his belly as he gazes up at Sam through wide and wanting eyes.
“Do it,” Dean encourages, baring his teeth. “One last time like this, y’know. Do it hard.”
“I don’t have-” Sam begins, but Dean cuts him off.
“Just do it without the lube. I can take it.”
Sam nods. There is sweat forming on his temples already, gathering at the base of his spine, and he tries not to think that they may never be like this again. His own dick is hard against Dean’s, and desire is turning to sheer desperation within his belly.
He spits into his palm, smears saliva and precome on his cock. He clutches the back of the couch with one hand, shoves Dean’s legs apart and guides himself with the other. Dean throws his head back and curses, low and throaty, when Sam enters him. Sam gasps, almost chokes on his own air, but then Dean clenches onto his forearm with sweat sticky fingers and says, “Now, Sam, now.”
Sam pounds fiercely as Dean grunts and gasps beneath him. The couch squeaks, and Sam wonders if it’ll fall apart beneath them like he’s falling apart inside his brother.
Dean’s fingers wrap around his own cock and tug frantically, matching his pace to Sam’s. They’re both making so much noise that Sam’s sure that the neighbors have to be able to hear them. But right now, cock buried in Dean, Sam doesn’t care. God, he needs this. Needs this heat and fire. Needs Dean.
One more time.
Dean comes with a shout, breaks apart with Sam leaning over him. Sam follows after a few more thrusts, not far behind, with a heavy sigh that tears the air from his body.
Still leaning over Dean, Sam closes his eyes and feels the world spin around him. He can smell their spunk in the air and hear Dean’s labored breaths as they both return to themselves. When Sam opens his eyes, he looks at Dean like this, at them, for one more moment. One last moment.
Sam pulls his cock out, leaking strings of semen on those ugly couch cushions. He falls away, legs splayed open and head resting on the back of the couch as he tries to catch his breath. Looking over, he sees Dean sliding his fingers through the wetness on his belly and pubic hair.
Dean notices Sam watching and looks up, smiles under flushed cheeks. “Yeah,” he whispers with eyes alight. “Like that.”
- - - - -
After the Impala is emptied, they spend the night together. One final night before Dean leaves the next morning for reality and monsters, and Sam stays for normalcy and books. Together, they lie on the floor, surrounded by the unpacked purchases accumulated over the miles past. Dean lies behind Sam, front pressed to Sam’s back. Both naked, but nothing sexual or wanting passing beyond the intimacy of touch.
“It’s not like I’m leaving forever,” Sam says to the darkness, listening to the soft rise and fall of Dean’s breath. “I’ll come back, you know.”
“It’s not that. You can’t just-” Dean stops, and Sam feels him shift uncomfortably.
“Can’t what?” Sam tries to crane his neck to see Dean but his brother, even so close, is merely a shadow in the room.
Dean sighs reluctantly, not wanting to admit what he has been holding back. “Can’t just come back and visit me every now and then like I’m some fucking pity cause. Like you’re obligated or something.”
“Then what do you want?” Sam asks hesitantly.
For a long time, Dean says nothing, then his voice, soft and pained, slides through the darkness. “You can’t just come back then leave again. You'd have to stay…with me. Because I couldn't just stand aside and let you go…That'd be...that’s all I want.”
Silence follows, and Sam feels the burn of tears come to his eyes. This is what Dean has been keeping from him all these months. This is what Dean felt but would never tell. This is what Dean worked so hard to ignore. This is everything.
Finally, not knowing what else to say, Sam whispers, “Just...” He reaches back, finds Dean’s hand and pulls it around and over his body. “Here…” Their fingers interlock to rest on Sam’s chest. He whispers, voice cracking, “I’ll always love you, you know.”
Dean says nothing, only kisses Sam’s neck and pulls him tighter. His touch alone says everything, and Sam falls asleep with tears on his lashes, wrapped in his brother’s warmth.
- - - - -
Morning comes fast and painful in a way like never before. Sam offers to make breakfast, to give Dean money for all the purchases, to pay for gas. He offers Dean everything except himself, and they both know it.
Sam follows Dean down the stairs. He has been following Dean his whole life, only now Dean is leaving and Sam is the one pushing him away.
They stand together by the Impala as the city comes to life. With school beginning tomorrow, the students are gathering around the stores and apartment stairways. Businessmen walk by in suits, ladies with their dogs out for a morning jog. The world is brighter than Sam prefers; it ignores his pain.
“Well,” Dean says, looking out to the horizon where the sun is bright and fat, “I guess I’ll see you around?”
“Be careful,” Sam warns. “Call if you need anything. Don’t think you can’t call. Send a postcard or something. But, you have my number…I mean, if you need help or you get hurt or you-”
“If I’m in the area, I’ll make sure to come to your place first,” Dean replies with words dry and rehearsed.
Sam bends his head to kiss Dean for one last time, seeking that connection he knows he’ll never find with anyone else. But Dean shies away, hand coming up to push Sam back as he gets too close.
“Don’t,” Dean whispers faintly and stares down at his car keys that he’s playing with. “Just, don’t.”
“But, Dean…”
“Don’t,” he repeats with eyes downcast. “Somebody might see. This is your new start, remember? Don’t-” he mumbles, pauses when his voice falters and breaks. “Don’t fuck it up because of me.” When Dean finally lifts his head, he smiles, but his eyes are sad and wet. Instead of kissing him, he slaps Sam on the arm and climbs into his car. He doesn’t look back when he starts the engine and drives away, disappearing around the corner.
Sam remains in the parking lot, alone and numb. His body feels heavy, drugged, like it doesn’t belong to him, and he realizes that he has just gotten exactly what he wanted. This is his dream made reality.
There is no reason for happiness.
- - - - -
In bed that night, Sam brings his pillow to his chest, wraps his arms around it and buries his face in soft cotton. He inhales deeply, but all he can smell is detergent and new fabric. Artificial scents that he does not recognize. For the first time in so long, he is alone in bed without the chance of Dean coming to him. In the darkness his pain is so intimate and he feels naked and incomplete; part of him has been ripped away and tossed aside to be forgotten.
Somewhere during the middle of the night when the city finally starts to quiet, he staggers out to the living room and collapses onto the couch. Ugly old couch with faded fabric cushions, but he can still smell Dean. Sam’s body is too big for the couch, so he lies with his legs draped over the side and pain shooting through his joints. When sleep comes at last, he only dreams of Dean who asks, “Did you find happiness yet, Sammy? Did happiness find you?”
- - - - -
The syllabus for his first class is five pages, front and back, in a small type almost impossible to read. The professor paces as he talks. The girl next to Sam keeps smiling at him through fake lashes; the kid on Sam’s other side writes down everything the professor says. Sam feels a headache forming, strong and unforgiving, heavy at the back of his mind. When he brings a hand to his head, winces, the girl asks in a whisper if he wants some aspirin. He remembers how Dean used to hold him when he suffered from headaches after his visions, warm, solid comfort. It seems so long ago that he has to wonder if it was even real.
Sam shakes his head to answer the girl and to rebuff the thoughts of Dean spilling through his mind, and he pulls a pencil from his bag to take his own notes. A piece of paper falls to the ground. Curiously, he opens the folds, then Dean’s meticulously compiled list stares back at him.
The professor talks about the final essay due at the end of the term and how to get started on it early and not procrastinate. How the university has certain expectations for its students and Stanford is not a school to be taken lightly. He talks until all Sam hears is a mad buzz of words.
Sam stares at the crumbled piece of notebook where Dean’s stubborn hand meets his gaze. Where Dean’s determination to let Sam have this without a fight and love him nonetheless is shown in every pen dash, every wrinkle of that paper. He lifts his head, ache gone and thoughts clear.
This is not his future. He knows that he once naïvely thought that it was and would be. Only now, too late, does he realize that he was wrong. Instead, he has pushed his real future away, the one that he was meant to live and love back.
When Sam stands, a hundred eyes snap to him in mute surprise. The professor says something that Sam chooses not to hear when he grabs his backpack and walks to the exit. With a sharp push of the door, he leaves. He is surprised at how silently it shuts behind him.
- - - - -
His directions in the cab are a flurry of breathless words, but the driver understands. When they arrive he tosses a twenty, a ten and tells the taxi driver to keep the change, and Sam stumbles out of the car tripping over his own legs, duffel bag slung over his shoulder. Running to the door where the Impala waits outside, he knocks three times before he stands back to wait and wish that he still has time. That he is not too late.
The motel door opens. Sam's chest tightens as relief mixes with fear, and he fights to control his sharp crash of emotions. Inside the room, the man coming out of the shadows is dressed in jeans and a faded t-shirt. Eyes tired and puffy, surprisingly vulnerable bare feet, face drained of color, he only stares wordlessly.
“Dean,” Sam says. His voice cracks and he cannot stop it. “Dean, I came back. Dammit, Dean, I came to...”
Without waiting for more Dean collapses into his arms, limp and heavy. His forehead is hard against Sam’s shoulder when he wraps around Sam. They fall into each other, fall together once again like it always should have been.
“Sam,” Dean breathes, so soft and quiet. It is a question unspoken, but Sam knows what he asks.
“Yeah, I am. I will,” Sam whispers. Under the heat of the embrace, he closes his eyes and listens to the sound of his brother’s heartbeat. He closes his eyes, and he stays.
End