Fic: No Regrets Like Modesto Regrets (Sam/Dean, NC-17) Part 1 of 3
Title: No Regrets Like Modesto Regrets
Author: smalltrolven
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Word Count: 12,000
Summary: Stanford-era AU, Dean has amnesia and with his autopsy/body-handling expertise has talked his way into becoming a funeral director. He’s created a whole story for himself to explain it and he’s happy, but very lonely. At the request of a frantic John, Sam reluctantly journeys to the Central Valley town of Modesto, California to search for his wayward brother.
Author’s Note: Not my characters, only my words. Written for spn-meanttobe for prompt #42. Stranger. Go ahead, listen to No Regrets by Edith Piaf, the lyrics fit the story surprisingly well. Thank you to tebtosca for running this fun challenge (and giving us an extension!) And a huge load of thanks to my beta amypond45 for yet another skillful and helpful job.
Read it over on AO3 here.
Prompt #42 Stranger:
I pay strangers to sleep with me. I have my reasons…
But they're not the ones you'd expect.
For starters, I'm a funeral director taking over my dad's business. Not exactly the kind of person you'd expect to fork over cash for the lust and urgency only live skin-to-skin contact can create. Looking at me, you wouldn't have a clue I carry this little secret so close it creases up like the folds of a fan. Tight. Personal. Ready to unravel in the heat of the moment.
Unsurprisingly, my line of work brings me face-to-face with loss. So I decided long ago that paying for sex would be one of the best (and arousing) ways to save myself from the one thing that would eventually cut far too deep.
But Sam was a mistake. Literally. I signed on to "pick up" a stranger at a bar, but took Sam home instead. And now that I've felt his heat, his sweat and everything else, can I really go back to impersonal?
Let's just hope he never finds out about my other life….
~~~
~**I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe
- Albert Camus, The Stranger**~
“Sammy, damn it! Would you just listen to me for once? I’m telling you. Dean’s just gone. Last I heard from him was a couple of months ago. He was headed out your way. We had a big fight about it, actually,” John’s voice crackles with emotion over the phone.
“What, you didn’t want him checking up on me?” Sam challenges, instantly hearing that unsaid jibe about him being at school causing the need for Dean’s absence from John’s side. And god, when will Dad ever freaking get that his name is Sam?
John sighs, long and loud. “Yeah, I told him he should let you go. You wanted to do your own thing, right? Well, you know him, he’s always gotta mother hen you.”
“Mother hen? Is this the Dean I know?”
“Sammy, it’s been…since you left. Well, it’s been bad. For Dean. He’s had a real hard time, getting used to you being gone.”
Sam hears the unsaid admission that it’s been hard for his dad too, but that last Sammy is still one too many. “It’s Sam. He has?”
“Yeah. And that’s why I didn’t want him coming out there to see you. What’s broken should stay broke, otherwise it’s worse the second time around.” John says like it should be the most obvious thing in the world.
“Dad, you really don’t know where he is?” Sam asks, more worried now that John’s admitted how bad it’s been since he left.
“Yeah, and I can’t stop tracking this guy that I’ve been on for more than a month now. He’s gonna lead me to something on the demon, I just know it. Can you please just take your spring break and go look for him. I traced our last call to Modesto, so he made it at least that far out towards you. Please, Sammy.”
Sam grits his teeth and holds in the correction of his name that he knows he should make. But his father’s never asked him for something like this, not like this. And he’s worried for Dean. “All right, all right. I’ll go. I was just gonna stay here over break. I’ll call you if I find out anything.”
“Okay, thanks, Sammy.”
“It’s Sam,” he says to the buzzing of the dial tone in his ear.
~*~
It takes a while to figure out the bus schedule to get from Palo Alto to Modesto. Luckily he has a little spending money saved up from working at the campus bookstore. Thank god or whoever for work-study assignments. As he rides the Greyhound down the dusty Central Valley freeway, he remembers a bus trip not all that long ago, how it had taken until the first stop for him to stop crying. He remembers the old lady that was sitting next to him, and how she was passing him kleenex and patting his arm.
The bus had stopped and the comforting old lady had exited, thank god, because that shit had been embarrassing. He’d run a few laps around the parking lot just to stretch his legs. He remembers when the grief and shock of his leave-taking from his family had passed and he’d passed over into giving into admitting his deep anger. He remembers the white and near-bloody crescents in his palms from gripping his fists so tight as he remembered his father’s parting words that had sounded like a death sentence. Then Sam remembers the panicked, broken look on his brother’s face as he leaned against the Impala, waving goodbye for as long as he could still see Sam’s bus. It was a look that he’d never seen before, in his whole life of watching Dean.
The calls that they’d traded back and forth over the last few years had gotten farther and farther apart. Sam had thrown himself into being busy with school, with trying to make a life for himself the first time. And Dean seemed to be throwing himself into hunting more than ever before. He hadn’t thought too much about it, just that it hurt more than he could admit, that Dean hadn’t called him back when he’d left a birthday message for him back in January. So it’s been three months since they’ve even talked. That’s the longest he’s ever gone in his life without talking to Dean. And he just noticed. Great. Now the guilt trip Dad was trying to lay on him was starting to take hold.
Modesto is a much larger city than he’d imagined, and there’s a lot of parts of the city that would fit the usual places that Dean would choose to stay. He looks around the city for most of the day, and ends up staying in a motel that has a restaurant that looks pretty lively right across the parking lot. Why not? He needs something to eat, and maybe he’ll be able to ask around about Dean.
Sam pushes his way through the swinging saloon style doors and stops so suddenly that the doors whack him in the backside. He lurches forward and almost crashes into a waitress dressed in some short of cowgirl/shorts outfit carrying a giant tray of drinks. Recovering his balance, he takes a deep breath and walks towards the man at the bar he’d spotted. The man he’s been searching for.
Dean is sitting sideways on a barstool, beer mug resting on his lips, staring out the window. He doesn’t seem to see Sam’s approach, and barely moves when he sits on the stool blocking his view out the window. When his eyes finally raise up to meet Sam’s, there’s an almost visible electric connection made between them. Sam feels his whole body respond with the long-held back longing he’s always tried to hide.
Sam watches as a look crosses his brother’s face that he’s only ever seen when Dean is on the make in a bar, trying to pick up the conquest of the night. It’s the look. The one that always works. The one he’s even teased Dean about. And now it’s working on him. Shit.
“Hi, remember me? Oh, that’s right, I’ve only met you in my dreams,” Dean says in a low, sexy drawl.
Sam manages to not laugh in his brother’s face at that terrible pickup line, but just barely. “More like your nightmares. How’ve you been, dude?”
“Pretty good, let me buy you a drink. You are close enough to be old enough now, right?” Dean offers, signaling the bartender over. “Hey, Hank, get my friend here a beer with a whisky chaser, and I’ll have another, thanks.”
“Hi, I’m Dan Westchester,” Dean says, holding out one hand toward Sam. Sam quirks a smile at the alias he’s chosen and shakes Dean’s hand.
“Hi, Dan, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Sean Matthews,” Sam says, not sure if he was supposed to even invent an alias or not. “So, have you been here long?” Sam asks.
“Here, on this barstool? Or in this town?”
“Both I guess,” Sam laughs.
“Well, I’ve lived here in town pretty much my whole life. And I’ve been on this barstool just long enough to finally meet you.”
Sam’s eyes widen a little at Dean’s answer. So they really are role-playing or something? Maybe there’s a case and Dean’s checking out suspects in this bar right now. He quickly decides to play along. “You’ve been waiting, just for me, huh?”
“Yeah, I have. What took you so long anyway?”
“School, job, the usual. But now that I’m here, Dan…”
“Yes, what should we do to pass the time, Sean?” Dean jokes, winking as he drains his whisky.
Sam’s eyes track the movement of his brother’s hand, how it holds the glass so gently, his full lips opening and then the peek of pink tongue licking at his lips. He’s gotten sucked into the tractor beam power of Dean’s best game. Just like always. He sighs, reminding himself of one of the reason’s he’d left in the first place. This thing between them had been getting harder and harder to ignore. Half the time he hadn’t known if Dean was just teasing him, or if he was truly that oblivious to Sam’s attraction. All Sam had known was that he wasn’t making the first move and then getting teased for the rest of his life. No matter how much he’d wanted Dean, nothing was worth that.
Nothing is worth that, he reminds himself.
But now with Dean so close, -when’d he get so close? Dean’s practically trapping him against the bar between his legs, one arm around his lower back pretending to be resting on the back of the barstool. It’s all too much. He almost breaks character then, the explosion of want and hurt combining in his gut rumbling for release. But then Dean is leaning in, and whispering against his ear. “You wanna get out of here?”
Sam nods, feeling Dean’s hand brush lower on his back. He starts to stand up, feet hitting the ground between Dean’s spread legs. Dean’s hand ends up on his hip, gripping him possessively through the layers of his jacket and jeans. “You really were worth waiting for,” Dean says, looking up into Sam’s face.
Sam struggles to stay in character for whatever mixed up role he’s supposed to be pulling off here. Dean’ll tell him when they get back to his room. “Hell yeah, I was, you have no idea. I got a room in the motel here.” Sam downs his whisky and sets the glass back down next to Dean’s.
“Thanks, Hank,” Dean says, laying some cash on the bar between the glasses. He stands up and he’s in Sam’s space, there’s only a sliver of air between them. Dean’s hand finds it’s way to again settle on Sam’s lower back and he pulls him in close, just for a brief moment, so that they can feel how hard the other is. Then he grins, so blinding in it’s effortless ease with the casual way he’s dropped the bomb of their mutual attraction, and steers Sam out through the swinging doors into the dry night air.
Sam struggles to remember his room number and fumbles with his key. Not saying anything, just in case the suspects or whatever happen to be watching them. Dean’s hand is a warm weight that’s getting warmer and lower on his back, just resting above the swell of his ass, beginning to rub in a small circle that’s maddening. It makes him stumble through getting the door open.
After all his fumbling, they’re finally in there, in his room, together, both of them, alone. Sam’s not sure how it happens, but he’s got his back pressed to the door and Dean’s hands are everywhere all at once. Without a conversation or a word about what’s going on, or why he’s been missing all this time, Dean just proceeds to light every sense of Sam’s on fire. He feels obliterated. Just gone. His rational mind is no longer accessible. Dean’s lips finally lean up enough to capture his, and they tilt their heads to just the right angles and that’s it. The kiss goes on and on, just like he’d always imagined. Hot, searingly hot, but gentle and needy too. It almost seems like Dean really had been waiting for this from him.
Dean’s got most of Sam’s clothes off, as well as his own before Sam even has a moment of thought to hesitate. His brother is just assuming that they’re doing this. So why would he say no?
Sam gives in then, because he’s waited for too many years to feel this, to have Dean like this, above him, looking down with lust and appreciation. Moving their bodies together like they’ve always been heading here to this point. Years down the road after Sam had ever thought it would happen. It’s happening. And he succumbs then, he doesn’t question, doesn’t worry or fret, he just goes with it, whatever Dean wants to give he’ll take. And vice versa. Just like they are with everything else.
Dean seems to notice when Sam gets completely on board, murmuring his approval and encouragement as he kisses his way down Sam’s body. Sam loses the ability to speak coherently when Dean’s mouth is finally on him. He can barely process that he is inside Dean’s mouth. Those lips he’s always fantasized about are wrapped around him sucking and pulling and he’s never felt anything so perfect, so good, so right.
“I’m perfect, huh?” Dean asks with a low chuckle. Sam blushes a furious red, realizing that he’s said all of that out loud.
“Yeah, always knew you would be,” Sam says, panting hard at the exertion of trying not to come all over Dean’s face, those lips are killing him, red and puffy and slick.
“So…Sean, I really wanna fuck you,” Dean says around two fingers that he’s sucking on. Before Sam can respond, those fingers are toying with Sam’s ass, pushing their way in and making Sam lose his mind with pleasure. The small twinge of surprise at hearing his alias name out of his brother’s mouth is quashed when Dean’s mouth is kissing him again instead of saying anything. There’s no confusion about what either of them wants.
“Yeah, right now, please, need you in me,” Sam says, tossing his head on the pillow as Dean’s added another finger.
“Hold your horses, sweetheart,” Dean says, withdrawing himself suddenly, he’s off the bed and across the room, pawing through the pile of clothing to find a packet of lube and a condom. He’s ripped both open with his teeth and is kneeling between Sam’s legs on the bed before Sam’s processed that this is really about to happen. The line, the bright line that had always divided them, kept them apart, from this. It is about to be crossed. A thing that can’t be undone. And Sam doesn’t care, he watches Dean’s face as he lubes up his fingers and presses them back inside, the lust evident on his brother’s face. He takes the condom from Dean’s other hand and rolls it down his very hard cock, giving it a few not so gentle strokes.
Dean groans and teeters towards falling onto him, but stops himself, knocking Sam’s hand away. “Cut it out, or you’re not going to get what you really want.”
“And what’s that?” Sam manages to sass at him.
“Me. In you, like you said, like this,” Dean says, lining himself and pressing in slowly, in a smooth motion that doesn’t allow Sam to react or push back or slow down. Dean’s in him, all the way inside, there, taking up all the room Sam’s never knew he had empty. That emptiness is filled now, beyond completely. The enormity of what they’re doing, how long it’s been in coming, and how perfect it feels overwhelms Sam. His eyes start to tear up with the emotion of it all.
“Hey, you okay?” Dean asks with concern, thumbing over the tears that have escaped and are trickling down Sam’s cheeks.
“Yeah, uh, just never done this before, didn’t expect it to feel, so…uh overwhelming. I‘m good now, c’mon, go,” Sam insists. Shaking his head so that Dean’s hand is dislodged from his face. That’s too much tenderness for what they’re doing right now. This isn’t when he wants his big brother’s comfort, he wants everything else that Dean as just a man can give him.
Dean doesn’t say anything, just searches Sam’s face for a long moment, but then his body starts shaking with the effort to hold back. He pulls out until just the tip of his cock is still inside Sam and then pushes back forward all in one stroke.
Sam feels his eyes roll up and he opens himself up inside with all of his muscle control, then he grips onto Dean to not let him move for a moment, then releasing him. He likes the groan that he hears from his brother, so he does it again. And again. He loses track of the order of events after that, who comes first, who falls asleep first. But he wakes up alone, not sticky or gross. Just feeling well-fucked and it’s a lovely sensation. New and painful when he moves a certain way too suddenly. He lounges in bed for a long time, replaying the events of the last night. How it had all progressed so easily, like they were just two strangers and it was just a one night stand.
~*~
Sam takes a long shower that morning, trying not to get too worried about where Dean has gotten off to. Maybe he’s gone out to get them breakfast? He waits around a little, then gives up when his stomach is growling and walks across the parking lot to the diner. He’s on his third cup of coffee and is pushing around the remnants of his omelette when he sees a long black hearse pull up in the parking lot right outside the window. The morning sun glints off the chrome, hitting his eyes. He’s squinting at the bright flashes of light and then his jaw is hanging open, because Dean gets out of the hearse. He’s dressed in a severe black business suit, hair slicked down, and a serious look clouding his features.
Sam quickly rearranges his face and tries to get his thoughts together, because Dean sees him when he enters the diner. He’s headed right towards the booth, and now they’re going to have to talk about last night. And Sam’s not ready for that, he’s still too happy. He doesn’t want to hear Dean’s inevitable freak-out and brush-off.
“That’s quite a car you’ve got there, where’s the Impala?” Sam asks, smiling at Dean as he slides into the booth across from him. Dean waves the waitress over so he can place a to-go order.
“What Impala? That’s my work vehicle. That’s where I’m off to, soon as I get breakfast. Sorry that I can’t hang with you, I’ve got a family coming in first thing this morning.”
“A family. Oh uh, you’re supposed to be a what, a funeral director?”
“Yeah. Not supposed to be though, I am one. Took over the business from my dad this year, I hope it doesn’t creep you out or anything. It’s good, honest work. Can be a little lonely though,” Dean admits in a wistful sort of voice Sam has never heard him use before.
“Your dad?” Sam asks, hoping that the gulp he makes isn’t noticeable.
“He passed on, so I had to pick up the family business and keep taking care of people,” Dean answers.
“The family business…I see…well, I’m glad we ran into each other, have a good day,” Sam says with a little wave, feeling sick to his stomach at the realization of what he’s done. His brother doesn’t know him, and even worse, doesn’t know himself.
“Hey, uh, Sean, you gonna be around later? We could get lunch or whatever?” Dean asks, with an unabashedly shy yet beautiful smile.
“I’d like that, uh, Dan, sure,” Sam answers, slowly, because what else can he do?
“Pick me up, Westchester Mortuary, we’re over on 7th and Main, say, one o’clock or so?”
“See you then, Dan,” Sam says in a daze. He watches as Dean leaves and Sam’s heart bursts into a million pieces. His brother has some kind of amnesia. But either way, the mistake he made last night will haunt him forever. He’d thought he was finally getting his most secret, most desired wish. That Dean had wanted him. How is he ever going to be able to fix this, or explain it? To Dad, or oh god, to Dean. Sam downs the rest of his coffee and leaves a twenty on the table, exiting into the already hot morning.
He gets back into his room, the one that still reeks of sex, and is riveted by the sight of the messed-up bed. The bed he’d willingly let Dean fuck him in last night. All that passion, all those moans, those hadn’t been for him, Dean had had no idea who he was or who he was fucking. He’d never have done it! Oh god! Sam rushes into the bathroom and just makes it in time to kneel on the tile and empty the contents of his stomach into the toilet. He lays his cheek against the cool porcelain and pants for a while, a sudden flood of tears come, rolling into his ear.
Brushing his teeth, he can’t even meet his own eyes in the mirror, he doesn’t want to see what he looks like. To be a man capable of doing something like that to the one person in the world he’s ever loved. He just doesn’t want to see himself. Pacing around the small room for a while gets him thinking, there’s got to be a reason. Dean wouldn’t just have amnesia because of an injury. It’s got to be supernatural in nature, and he damn well knows how to research that. He hasn’t lost all the tricks his family taught him. And he’s going to use all of them to figure out what’s going on with his brother.
Read Part 2