Worlds Forgotten Boys, Chapter 17/28 - (R - Sam/Dean, Sam/Ross)
Fic title: World's Forgotten Boys (link to the full verse)
Chapter 17/28
Pairing: Sam/Dean, Sam/Ross, (mentions of Sam/Jess and Dean/Ross)
Rating: R
Word Count: 8,915
Summary: Season 1 AU. Ross Christopher Winchester knows three things to be true: that his father, John, is a hero, that he's going to be the best hunter in the goddamn world, and that his two older brothers are in love with each other. An AU-version of Season 1 where The Winchester Boys mean Dean and Sam and Ross, where John is still missing, where Mary and Jess are still crispy-fried, and where Dean and Sam are still obsessed with one another...
Previous Chapters Link to the Masterpost
A/N andreth47 you were extra awesome with this one! Thanks so much for your suggestions and criticism, I couldn't've finished it without you ;D
Chapter 17
Ross eases his eyes open and peers over the covers. Dad is standing over the table, mug in hand, gazing down at all the newspaper articles, photocopies and print-outs he’s gotten together on this thing - this demon - they’re supposed to be hunting. The stuff is covering the entire table, like some enormous collage; in fact, it’s pretty fucking amazing that they’ve even managed to find a motel room with a table big enough to take it all.
Dad frowns, leaning over to shift some pieces of paper around, obviously spotting some sort of pattern there. Dad was always pretty awesome at that, could spot the patterns and connections and secret hidden messages behind shit that just made, like, zero sense to him. If Dad’d been born years earlier, like before WW2, he could totally have been one of those Enigma code-breakers who figured out the Nazi secret codes. They watched this movie about it a couple of weeks ago; shit was kinda boring, though both Sam and Dean had been into it, Sam bleating about how historically inaccurate it all was, and Dean about how awesome Kate Winslet’s rack was.
He watches Dad sneakily; sure that Dad hasn’t figured out yet that he’s awake. But it’s so comforting and familiar to see Dad completely engrossed like this that he doesn’t want it to stop. It’s been so fucking long, and there’s been so much shit gone on since that last time they saw him, a year and a half ago now, (he’s totally not counting those five minutes in Chicago), and it’s like his life has completely changed since then and now, like he’s a different person, so seeing Dad now - seeing how much he hasn’t changed - it’s kinda too much, and if he’s not careful then he’s just gonna start breaking down and sobbing his heart out like a freaking chick.
“Dad?”
Dad turns his head, gives him a faint smile. “You’re awake,” he says. “Sleep okay?”
“Yeah,” he nods.
For once, it’s not a lie, he did sleep well, just knowing that Dad was in the room with him helped him sleep way better than he’s done in fucking months.
Dad nods, turns back to his papers. Ross yawns, throws back the covers and pads over to stand by him.
“Have you figured out the pattern?”
Dad frowns, looks up, dark eyes meeting his. He shakes his head, exhales heavily.
“Maybe. Sonofabitch is good. Knows how to cover its tracks.” He swirls the liquor in his mug, takes a long thoughtful sip. “Don’t mean we ain’t gonna win, though. But this bastard - it’s the toughest thing we’ve ever hunted.”
“Yeah?” Ross looks up, snaps his teeth, grins at him, “Bring it.”
Dad gives him an approving smile and reaches over to tousle his hair, his hand sliding down to squeeze his shoulder. He pauses for a moment, then turns so they’re facing each other, and Ross notices with a stab of surprise that they’re, like, almost the same height, Dad only about half an inch taller than him, it’s kinda freaky.
“Ross, you know you can tell me anything, son. You know, whatever it is, I’m still gonna be your father, you’ll still be my boy. That’s never gonna change. You do know that, don’t you?” This is weird, Dad doesn’t say this sort of shit, Dad just gets on with it, that’s how they roll. “Sammy - last night he had a bad dream. You were asleep, didn’t hear it. I went next door to check on him and found the two of them sharing a bed. Does that happen a lot?”
Fuck! How can they be so fucking stupid? So fucking dumb. Dad just next door and they still can’t help themselves. It’s pathetic, they’re pathetic, can’t keep their hands off each other for one goddamn night…
“Ross, answer the question.”
“I, uh, yeah? I guess,” he stammers. “I mean, Sammy, he, uh, has nightmares a lot, ‘bout his girl, and, like, with the visions and shit -“
“Visions?” Dad interrupts, eyes narrowing dangerously.
Ross stares at him, mouth still wide open, he probably looks like a fucking goldfish, mouth opening and closing, eyelashes fluttering, red stain on his cheeks that he can practically feel getting redder and redder every second, and Jesus, why’d he let that slip? Why’d he mention that?
“What visions?” Dad repeats coldly, saying the word like it’s something revolting that he’s about to spit out. “Are you telling me that your brother’s been having visions? Of what?”
Dad doesn’t give him time to answer, just swears under his breath, slams his half-drunk mug of whisky onto the table and stalks out the room.
Ross gapes at the half open door and tries to catch his breath. Well, at least, Dad’s not asking about the sharing a bed thing anymore, though he’s not sure that this is better. He can already hear the sound of raised voices coming from next door - Sam and Dad - of course it would be Sam and Dad. This just gives them another thing to fight about, like there aren’t enough already. He tugs on a pair of Dean’s sweatpants over his boxers, pushing his feet into his boots, not bothering to lace them up before he stumbles out of the room after his father.
They’re into a fully fledged screaming match. Sam’s on his feet, pointing an accusing finger at Dad and yelling at him for not being there, never being there for them. Dean’s stood off to one side, looking between Dad and Sam like he’s watching a fucking tennis game, frowning unhappily. He moves to join him, placing his hand on Dean’s arm, a touch that’s meant to be reassuring but Dean’s skin feels warm, and he’s forgotten that - forgotten how good Dean feels - how his fingertips tingle when they touch Dean’s skin, how the knots in his chest unravel like he’s being sedated with the really good shit… and this is shitty fucking timing, ‘cause it’s so not the time or place to be popping a boner over his big brother. He snatches his hand away from Dean and stuffs it into the pocket of his (well, Dean’s) sweats. Dean doesn’t even notice.
Dad takes a breath, turns his head to take in the two of them, momentarily distracted from his shouting match with Sammy. He stares at Ross, then shakes his head, teeth clenched, that look on his face that’s making something burn up in Ross’s chest, that disappointed, unhappy look - and he’s caused that: him and Sam and their freaky vision shit.
“I can’t believe none of you ever thought to tell me any of this,” Dad says. He’s talking about all of them, but his eyes are on Ross, like they’re boring through the layers of skin and muscle and fat and bone, and straight through to his heart, that look on his face that means, I’m disappointed in you, son… “Something like this happens; you pick up the phone and you call me.”
“Call you? You kidding me? I called you from Lawrence!” Ross flinches in surprise at the sound of Dean's voice. “Sam called you when I was dying. Getting you on the phone, I got a better chance of winning the lottery!"
Sam’s eyes widen, his face going all slack-jawed with shock, a tiny, love-struck smile playing at the corner of his mouth as he stares at Dean; if this were a cartoon then his eyes would be bugging out right now with little pink hearts fluttering all around them.
Ross glances at his father, heart in his mouth, body all tensed in anticipation, waiting for Dad’s retaliation, but Dad’s not saying anything. He’s not even looking at Dean or acknowledging what he’s said, his expression’s all blank and hard, a muscle jumping at the corner of his mouth, like every part of his face has clenched up.
“We needed you,” Sam says quietly. “Ross and me - we - these visions, we don’t know what they mean or what they are, and I - we were so scared, and you never answered. You weren’t there, Dad…” he trails off; his eyes are shiny with tears, voice shaky. “You weren’t there,” he repeats uselessly, like Dad needs to hear him say it again.
Dad nods abruptly, then he’s going, leaving, walking out of the room, door slamming shut behind him, and he still hasn’t spoken.
Dad’s not in their room. He’s gone, his truck missing from the parking lot, some of the pages of research leaving big rectangular holes in the collage on the table. Ross takes a shower because he can’t think of anything else to do.
He gets out the shower and sits on the edge of the tub, trailing his toes in the drops of water on the floor. He can’t be bothered to towel himself off just yet, the hot water’s made him feel all lethargic and itchy, he should’ve jacked off in there, done something to take the edge off this already shitty day. He stares into the mirror on the other side of the room; it’s seriously steamed up, like the Impala with all three of them inside on a rainy day, and he can only make out his outline, a human-shaped blur, like a ghost, he thinks with a shiver.
He glances down his body, watching the droplets of water rolling over the muscles of his chest, his hard abs and flat stomach. The last time he remembers looking at himself this closely, there were marks on his skin - hickeys and bruises and bites left by Sarah - but they’ve disappeared now, gone the same way as the hickeys and bruises and bites that Sam and Dean used to leave. It’s been nearly two weeks since he left her behind to her Upstate New York life, a month since he last fooled around with Sam, nearly two since Dean last touched him, and it’s like they were never even there, like nothing ever really happened, like it was all just his fucked-up imagination.
He raises one hand to his neck, presses down at the flesh, purposefully hard enough to hurt, prodding at the bruises that used to be there. He runs his fingers over the sides of his neck, touching his collarbone self-consciously. The flesh feels warm where his fingertips trace, hard ridges and nubs of bone standing out like they’re trying to poke right through his skin. He lets his fingers drift to the back of his neck, the nape; it’s his real sensitive spot, the sweet spot, the one that never fails to turn his crank up to eleven.
He thinks about the last time Dean touched him, how Dean kissed him on that sweet spot, whispering all soft and low: let it go, kiddo, s’alright, I’m here, we gotcha, littlest bro, you’re with us… Dean’s arms wrapped around him, holding him from behind, as they lay together on the big king bed, and that had felt so good, so fucking good, Dean’s fingers cupping his balls, big palm slicking up and down, up and down, Sam watching them like his eyes were greedy for it, like he wanted to record every little detail to think about later.
“Hey!” Dean’s voice yanks him out of the memory, and he flinches, scrambles the towel closer together to hide his growing erection. “Ross? You in here?” Dean pushes the bathroom door open and frowns down at him. “What you doin’?”
“Having a shower, what’s it look like?” He pushes his wet hair out his eyes, turns to look his brother in the face, “What do you want?”
Dean raises a cool-it, cool-it hand. “Just seeing if you wanna join us for breakfast?”
He pulls on some clothes quickly, and goes next door to Dean and Sam’s room. They’re sitting hunched together over the table, stained paper bags of food between them, Dean glances up, grunts and kicks out the spare chair for him, and he takes it, reaching to snag a handful of chili fries. It’s like every other breakfast they’ve had over the past few months, except it really totally isn’t because there’s an enormous Dad-shaped elephant in the room. Sam’s eyes look pink, like he’s been crying, and Dean’s cracking lame unfunny jokes in that obnoxious way he has when he’s trying to make up for something, except it totally doesn’t make up for anything and just makes everything so much worse.
“Dude, shut up,” Ross snaps through a mouthful of breakfast burrito. “You ain’t funny.”
Sam exchanges a look with him, while Dean frowns, looking momentarily hurt. “Just ‘cause you two can’t appreciate real humor.”
“We can appreciate real humor, which is why we don’t think you’re funny,” cuts in Sam.
Ross blinks, surprised by the vicious edge to Sam’s voice, Dean looks shocked too because his mouth is working in that way that means he doesn’t know how to take it, how to react next.
“You know what: fuck you!” Dean snaps, getting up from the table with a jerk. “Fuck you both!”
He stomps out of the room, snatching up the pack of cigarettes lying on the table on his way out and slamming the door behind him, like they haven’t gotten the message that he’s pissed already.
For a moment, there’s this lingering deathly silence, the crappy door shaking in its equally crappy frame.
“Oops,” Ross says.
Sam’s mouth quirks like he’s trying to hold back an awkward laugh. “I think we upset him.”
“He’ll get over it.”
Ross goes to the window, peers out through the smears and smudges and dirt. Dean’s pacing around the parking lot, empty except for the Impala and one old beat-up brown pick-up truck which must belong to the manager, Dean’s smoking violently and he looks seriously pissed. He looks up, glances back towards the room, and glares. Ross ducks his head away, though he’s pretty sure Dean didn’t actually see him, the window’s way too dirty for that.
“What’s he doing?” asks Sam.
He glances over his shoulder at his brother; Sam’s gotten to his feet, clearing up their shit, balling up the used napkins and paper bags, throwing them into the trash.
“Sulking,” says Ross with a shrug. “You should go out there, man, say sorry, do all your pansy-ass makin’ up shit.”
“Maybe later.”
He throws himself onto one of the beds, watches Sam climb onto the other and pull the laptop onto his knees. Both of the beds look mussed up and he wonders if they did that after Dad caught them, if they slept separately or if they slept together and messed it up purposefully, it seems kinda pointless now.
“I can’t believe you two were fuckin’ around last night. You totally deserved to have Dad catch you,” he says.
Sam looks up from the screen, there’s a wry sort of smile playing over his mouth that reminds Ross with a wrench of Dean, that’s totally a Dean expression. “Dude, c’mon, it’s not like we haven’t done it before. We spent years fuckin’ around with you and Dad on the other side of the wall. And we’re not gonna stop just ‘cause Dad’s back. I’m not letting that happen.”
He’s saying it all so matter-of-factly, like it’s just a part of life, like it’s something that Ross should just accept and deal with and get the fuck over. And in a way, mostly, he kinda has accepted and dealt with it and gotten over it. After all, he knew for years what was going on between his brothers every night after the four of them said goodnight and trundled off to bed. He used to lay in his own bed, while Dad stayed up reading or researching or writing in his journal, ever present tumbler of whisky by his elbow, and he used to think about his brothers, his brain torturing him with thoughts of what they were doing on the other side of that wall, all the disgusting shit they might be getting up to.
“What you lookin’ for?” he asks after a few minutes of Sam clicking and tapping and sighing over the laptop.
Sam huffs out this long drawn-out pissy breath that’s just Sammy’s way of being super passive-aggressive. Seriously, one day, they’re gonna find this massive freaking ulcer in Sam’s stomach from all the passive-aggressive, huffy-puffy shit he’s always playing at, and it will totally be his own fault, like really lame karma.
“I’m not looking for anything, just surfing, whatever.”
“Porn?”
“No, not porn.” He pulls a face, like Ross has just said something disgusting, like he never looks at or watches porn, and Ross fucking knows that ain’t the case.
“Liar.”
Sam smiles smugly and says, “You forget that I don’t need to watch porn, Littlest Bro, I get it for free all the time,” like he’s the superior one around here just because he’d rather fuck his brother than watch porn, like incest is the moral high-ground.
“Fuck you,” he snorts. He narrows his eyes on Sam as Sam smirks to himself again and goes back to reading whatever non-pornographic shit he’s reading. “You know, when you were with your girl did you think about Dean?”
“What?” Sam’s head snaps up in surprise.
“I was just wondering: you know - you and Dean - if you’re so fuckin’ meant to be and all that shit, then why’d you, like, even hook up with someone else?”
Sam’s expression goes hard, that dangerous look in his eyes that’s exactly the same as the one on Dad’s face this morning. “I don’t wanna talk about that,” Sam says stiffly.
“Fine, whatever, but it’s a serious fucking question, dude. You’re all, like, it’s me and Dean forever and all that shit now, but couple of years back you were off at college, not givin’ a shit about us - your family - acting like we never even fuckin’ existed, like Dean never existed!”
“It wasn’t like that,” Sam protests. “I never - I never forgot about Dean or Dad or you, I thought about you all the time.”
“Aha, so you did think about Dean when you were with your girl!”
There’s a long moment of silence while Ross watches Sam, eyes locked on the curve of his neck, his bent head, his wild crazy hair falling across his face and hiding his expression. He feels a lurch of regret, a knot of guilt in his gut. Shit, he didn’t want to break Sam again, that so wasn’t the point of all this, this was supposed to…
Fuck, he’s not sure, maybe he did want to upset Sam, after all Sam has everything: he had his own life away from them with a cute girlfriend and friends and an apartment and school and all that kinda shit that Ross knows that he never wanted for himself, and yet… he ain’t sure anymore, getting away from this, from his family, maybe he does want this, like Sam used to do, maybe he’s always been secretly jealous of Sam for that. And okay, so it all ended horribly for Sam, but at least Sam did get that, had that taste of something else. He’s never gonna have that, Dad’s never gonna let him have that, and even if Dad does let him, then he doesn’t know what he’d do about it, where to even start, how to live without his family (without Dean).
And yeah… that’s it too, Sam not only had that, but he also had Dean, he has Dean, right fucking now. Dean is all Sam’s, he gets all of Dean all to himself, and that’s the way it’s gonna be for however long the rest of their lives are.
When Sam finally raises his head, his eyes look shiny, like he’s trying not to cry. He fixes a look on Ross: “Why are you asking me this?” he says quietly.
Ross swallows over the lump in the back of his throat. “I dunno, but - I wanna know, tell me the truth.”
“Okay.” Sam takes a breath and he looks awful, his face all squeezed and scrunched up. “I never forgot about you, or about Dean. I thought about you every single fucking day. I thought about Dean all the time, I thought about Dean when… uh, even with Jess - sometimes when we were -“ he breaks off, presses the heels of his palms to his eyes, “I thought about Dean when I used to fuck her, okay? That what you wanna know?” He drops his hands to his lap, and Ross can see the tears for real now, streaking down Sam’s face. “God, I wish so much, so fuckin’ much that I’d never met her, she’d still be alive if it weren’t for me -“
“You don’t know that,” he says automatically.
“Of course I fuckin’ know that!” Sam snarls. “She would still be alive if it weren’t for me! And I never - I was the one who got her killed - and I never deserved her! I didn’t love her like she loved me! I should never have been with her in the first place!”
“Sammy -“
He’s off the bed and crossing the few feet between them before he realizes what he’s doing, before his brain has time to tell him that this is a really fucking stupid idea. He reaches for Sam, fingers brushing against Sam’s shirt, and then Sam’s fist flies out and he’s crumpling to the floor, fucking taken out by Sammy, and man, that is fucking that! He doesn’t give a shit that Sam’s upset or hurt or that it might be his own damn fault for upsetting Sam, for bringing up the taboo subject of Jessica, but Sam’s his brother, Sam’s Sam, and he’s not letting Sam get the better of him in a fight. He kicks out his legs, catching and tripping Sam, and sending him tumbling to the floor beside him, and then they’re on each other for real, wrestling just like they’re kids again.
It’s all so familiar, rolling around on the floor with Sam, trying to jam his knees into Sam’s belly and trying to pry Sam’s freakishly long arms off him, so familiar that it’s also weirdly comforting. This is how he and Sam work after all, this is how they roll. He should’ve, like, totally realized that when he made his stupid and pretty fucking pointless attempt to comfort Sam just then. Dean is the one who takes care of that kinda shit: Dean’s the one who pulls them into hugs and strokes their hair and tells them everything’s going to be okay. He and Sammy… well, they fight and they bitch and they squabble and they bicker and they call each other names and they get into dumb wrestling matches where they end up on the floor trying to pull each other’s hair, or, in more recent times, trying to get each other off… And shit, he could, like, really do without those particular sense memories right now ‘cause having Sam’s body so close, wrapped all around him, is starting to fuck with his dick, make him hard, and Sam’s totally gonna notice any minute now -
“Sam! Ross! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
It takes Ross a long, long second to register his father’s voice, and by then Sam’s already reacting, climbing off of him and pushing his hair out his eyes, looking sheepish under Dad’s furious glare.
“Where’s your brother?” barks Dad.
Ross gets to his feet, hearing Sam answer: “He went out.”
Dad makes an irritated sound in the back of his throat, and strides towards the table, and dumps a load of papers onto it.
“And the reason you two were fighting?”
“S’nothing,” Sam says, “just a stupid fight. We’re already over it. Right, Ross?” His eyes meet Ross’s for a moment, and Ross nods agreement quickly, “Right, uh, yeah. Sorry.”
“Good. I don’t want to see you fighting again. We go up against this thing together, or we don’t go at all. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” they answer in unison.
“Ross, go find your brother, get him back here now. We’ve wasted enough time already.”
****************************************
They’ve been sitting in the car for over two hours, watching the house through the windshield while trying their best not to look too conspicuous and out of place in their classic muscle car on this quiet suburban street. They’ve had a couple of strange looks from passersby, but the people in this neighborhood are evidently very trusting as no one has been out yet to ask them what the hell they’re doing there.
He raises his hand to his face to smother a yawn and rubs his eyes tiredly. He’s still feeling the after-effects of the vision from this morning, light thump-thump of pain throbbing against the back of his eyes, stifled by the handfuls of drugs he’s swallowed, but not completely vanished. It happened only minutes after Dad got back, both him and Ross falling to the floor and clutching their foreheads like they were suffering a nerve gas attack in a 70’s sci-fi miniseries. Dad had stood by and watched in amazement, the expression of horror and disbelief on his face afterwards while the two of them tried to explain what they’d seen telling Sam exactly how Dad really felt about their new-found psychic powers.
He darts a glance at his brother, Ross is staring listlessly out the window, eyes locked on the upper floor of the house, the nursery.
“Hey, how’re you feeling?” he asks.
Ross turns to look at him, gives a little shrug, “Peachy.”
“No, I mean, with the vision. This one doesn’t seem to have hit you as badly as before.”
Ross frowns as if he’s considering the question. “Yeah, no, I guess? Don’t ask me why, though, man, ‘cause seriously, I have zero fuckin’ clue.”
“Yeah,” Sam sighs in agreement.
He’s just as lost as Ross, he has no idea why, but this vision was different. Physically, the after-effects felt just the same, though Ross seems to be doing a helluva lot better than on previous occasions, thank God. Okay, so he’s still suffering from the same bitch of a headache and it’s still refusing to completely go away, but in all other ways, this time was different. It felt a lot more vivid, more real than all of his previous visions, as if he was really and truly in the moment, a part of the action, not just the silent, pointless observer. He could sense that evil sonofabitch this time, feel it, smell it, its scent and voice clogging up his brain like hair in a drain, and he was powerless, unable to do anything to stop it.
But they’re going to stop it now. They have the Colt, and the power is in their hands, literally in their hands, and it’s not going down like in their vision. Like Dad said, they’re going to end it all, tonight.
“Sam…”
Ross’s voice pries him out of his thoughts; he turns his head, catching his brother’s eye. Ross blinks, looking sheepish for a moment, before he opens his mouth again.
“Uh, I - I’m sorry ‘bout bringing up your girl before. I shouldn’t’ve mentioned that, so, uh, I’m real sorry for that, man.”
Sam’s eyes widen in surprise. He’s half expecting this to be some sort of joke, but he can see by the look on Ross’s face that it isn’t. He looks nervous, all the usual Ross bravado and bullshit swept away for a split second. Sam’s had years of practice figuring out when his little brother is lying and when he’s telling the truth, and this is Ross being completely sincere.
“Ross, it’s okay, seriously, don’t sweat it,” he answers haltingly. “I shouldn’t have reacted like I did.”
He’s feeling stupidly affected by Ross’s little apology, by the genuine remorse in his brother’s eyes. Sometimes it feels like he and Ross have been trying to build bridges and find common ground their entire lives. Of course they do have a lot of common ground; they’ve always shared a lot of common ground: Dean and hunting are the obvious examples, though those two things have hardly had a positive effect on their relationship, exacerbating already present resentments and hostilities rather than bringing them together. But things are different now. Maybe he and Ross can find common ground at long last.
“Anyway, I should’ve dealt with all that before now - Jess’s, uh, her death,” he sighs. “I haven’t - I haven’t let myself think about it, and well, I know that ain’t healthy.”
“Since when have we ever done what’s healthy?” says Ross with a snort.
They go quiet for a moment, he watches Ross crank down the window on the passenger side, snap open the glove compartment and retrieve the battered pack of cigarettes that’s supposed to live there for emergencies but never seems to last for longer than a week.
“Hey…” he starts to say.
“Sam, dude, c’mon,” Ross interrupts, but Sam cuts off the bitching with a wave of his hand: “Shut up, I wasn’t gonna say anything. Actually, I wanted you to pass me one.”
Ross’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead in a ridiculous way that kinda makes him want to laugh, but he tosses him one of the cigarettes and the lighter, Sam picks it up and frowns: “This looks just like Dean’s lighter. The one he lost a coupla weeks ago, the one he spent three hours solid bitching about.”
Ross exhales a long stream of smoke with a smirk. “Oh yeah, so it does. Whatever. It’s a cool lighter. And what Deano don’t know, won’t hurt him.”
“Right,” he answers, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.
He lights up with a quick snap of his fingers, inhaling greedily. It’s still unfamiliar enough to give him a head-rush, but it’s not unwelcome, in fact, it’s kinda invigorating, and hell, it’s not like he’s never smoked before. The three of them have smoked pot together regularly over the years, and at college he used to be a bit of a social smoker, he’d taken it up as a way to meet people, ingratiate himself with them, prove that he was one of the cool crowd. His roommate freshman year, Jimmy, had been just as hooked as Dean, though, naturally, he’d ticked “non-smoker” on the application form because he didn’t want his folks to know. But Jimmy came from one of those Midwestern backward towns that were far too familiar to the Winchesters, and in those kinda towns, all the cool kids were smokers, even the ones bound for Stanford.
“Way I figure it, you two are gonna kill me with your secondhand smoke anyway, so I may as well get the benefits.”
“Whatever,” Ross says breezily, “just kinda funny, man. After all the shit you’ve given us ‘bout how freakin’ bad smoking is for your health, how it’s gonna give us lung cancer and heart disease, blah, blah, fuckin’ blah, now you’re one of us.”
Sam ignores him and rolls down his window, letting his elbow rest on the cool metal, cigarette smoke curling up and out into the dark grey sky.
“I know I didn’t really, like, know her, ‘cause I only met her that one time, but she seemed really cool, you know? Like, way too fuckin’ good for a geek like you. And, dude, so hot.”
It takes him a few seconds to register that Ross is talking about Jess again, and for a brief moment, he feels the muscles in his chest clench up - and yeah, maybe it’s the goddamn cigarette, but it’s not likely. He forces himself to exhale, take a calming drag, feeling the tears start to blur his vision.
“Yeah, yeah she was. Way too good for me.”
“Wow, we finally agreed on something,” says Ross.
He huffs out a laugh, brittle but genuine, and exchanges a look with his brother, Ross cocking a rueful smile at him in a way that’s eerily similar to Dean.
“Ross, everything that went on before with you and me and Dean, I just want you to know, man, that I don’t regret it, any of it,” he says seriously.
“Jesus, is this, like, freakin’ confession time?”
“C’mon, you were the one who started it,” he answers, turning to toss his finished cigarette out the window. He feels a nibble of guilt for that, this is a nice neighborhood after all, but Dean goes fucking crazy if he finds butts in the car, so there’s really nothing else to do with it.
“Fuck, kill me now,” Ross groans.
“Shut up. Listen, tonight - things might - well, this is it. We might not have another chance to say this sort of shit to each other, so, I figure -“ he breaks off, shrugs awkwardly. “Get it out there. Say what you feel, what you mean.”
“I always say what I mean.”
Sam hesitates for a second, before he answers, “Yeah, yeah, I guess you do.”
It’s true. There’s no hidden agenda with Ross, he always says what he thinks, stands up for what he believes in, goes after what he wants. Ross is pretty single-minded that way - like himself. It’s unexpected, like a sudden realization, but in many ways he and Ross are way more alike than he and Dean could ever be. Dean’s the one who doesn’t go after what he wants; he represses his own personal desires, for the good of the family, for the mission, for Dad, for his younger brothers, always putting them first, always giving into their wishes and desires and spreading himself so damn thin all the time, while he and Ross… they just take and take, way too used to getting their own way with their big brother. It’s taken him 17 years to realize it, but maybe he and Ross are just as alike on the inside as they are on the outside.
A wave of affection for his younger brother hits him, and he turns to look at him, mouth crooking up into a fond smile.
“What now?” Ross asks warily.
“Nothing. Just - I wanna thank you.”
“Dude, for what?”
“For everything. For not letting me wallow, for helping me get over Jessica, for just - for being there, and well, being your usual annoying self, not letting me get away with shit.”
“Fuck, Sammy, like I’d ever let you get away with anything. Anyway, it’s Dean you wanna thank, not me. He’s the one who’s, like, wiped away your manly tears and given you comforting blowjobs and let you fuck him up the ass, I ain’t done none of that shit.”
“Shut up, Dean already knows how grateful I am to him.”
“I bet he fuckin’ does,” scoffs Ross.
Sam rolls his eyes and leans over to squeeze Ross’s arm, feeling the fond smile tugging at his mouth as he meets his brother’s eyes.
“Christ’s sake, dude, what is with you tonight? You’re actin’ really fuckin’ weird, even for you!” Ross sounds exasperated, the look in his eyes a mixture of confused and suspicious.
“Like I said, this could be it. You and me, littlest bro, this could be the last chance we have to say anything to each other!”
There’s a long pause, then Ross speaks, stumbling over the words: “Do you think it will ever be over? Like, huntin’, what we do?”
“Honestly?”
Ross nods, “Yeah?”
“No,” he says with a shrug. “If we ice this sonofabitch tonight, and I’m gonna do everything I can to make sure that we do, then it won’t be the end of it. There’ll still be evil shit out there for us to kill.”
“Right, yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” Ross says. “So, uh, is that what you’ll do? You’ll keep huntin’? After you got the bastard that got your girl and your mom? You won’t, like, wanna go back to school?”
Sam hesitates for a second before he answers, and when he does he feels the truth in the words: “No, I’m not going back to school. That part of my life is over now. I want,” he pauses, licks his lips, a smile starting to spread over his face, “I want Dean. I’ve always wanted Dean, I used to want the two of us to go off somewhere together, ride off into the sunset and just be together. And maybe I’d go to college and he’d get a job, or we’d both go to college, and just be normal. As normal as we could ever be ‘cause, dude, I know, brothers. But, I guess at some point I changed my mind, and now,” he breaks off for a moment, gives a shrug, “I kinda want us to stick together - the three of us. We’re the only people who really get each other, you know, even when - even with Jess, I was… God, I used to lie to her all the time, I never told her anything about huntin’, ‘bout you guys.”
He swallows over the huge lump in his throat, thinking back, remembering Jess, forcing himself to remember because he’s been forgetting about her for so long now, banishing her memory to the back of his mind so often that it’s in danger of completely disappearing, rubbed away forever.
He was going to marry her. He can remember that now and it seems so alien to him, the idea of him - Sam Winchester - being married to a girl like Jess. But he was set on that idea, even researched the price of wedding rings, possible venues, freaking tax breaks for married couples. He was as single-minded about that idea as he’d been about going to Stanford, about getting away from Dad, about having Dean to himself.
Truthfully, he knows now that he’d never have been able to go through with it, not even he can take cognitive dissonance that far, can fool himself enough to believe that he deserved to be married to someone like Jess, that he could even live that life, pretend for that long, give up Dean, his entire family for the rest of his life. And if he had married Jess, then what? Would he have invited his brothers and his father to the wedding? It would’ve been wrong to exclude them, Jess would’ve insisted on them being there, she was that kind of girl. So would he have even gone through with it? Said I do and till death us do part and forsaking all others to Jess while Dean looked on?
“Sam, it ain’t like you coulda really told her anything, man. What were you supposed to do - tell her the truth about huntin’? Bad fuckin’ idea,” says Ross.
Sam looks up, Ross’s eyes are soft, sympathetic even, he’s genuinely trying to make him feel better. It’s endearing, and before he realizes what he’s doing, he’s leaning forward, hand going up to cup his brother’s cheek, bring their mouths together.
Ross responds just as eagerly as Sam remembers, taking charge of the kiss with a hungry moan, grabbing onto Sam’s face with his rough palms, his tongue pushing into Sam’s mouth. He’s not sure how long they’re making out before he feels Ross pulling away from him, panting as he catches his breath, soft puff-puff of air against Sam’s cheek. His hands are still cupping Ross’s face, thumbs brushing lightly over his high cheekbones, fingers in his hair.
“Hey,” he whispers, feeling Ross tense up. “It’s okay. For us to do that.”
“Sure it is,” Ross snorts, but it’s half-hearted and his voice sounds a little ragged, shaky. “’Cept I thought that shit was finished. Thought you weren’t interested anymore.” He pulls away, turning his head so Sam can only see his profile, his ear covered by his slightly longer hair, the stubble on his jaw. He watches Ross blink, long feathery lashes swooping up and down.
“Dude, it’s not that, it’s just. Fuck, I don’t know, but you and me - it’s cool; we’re cool, aren’t we? And if we want to fool around, then that’s cool, ain’t it?”
“I guess,” Ross says eventually. “I guess it don’t have to have some big fuckin’ meaning to it.” He sighs and turns back to Sam, smirk edging at the corner of his mouth. “So feel free to blow me whenever the mood takes you. Promise I won’t say no.”
Sam laughs out loud, “Jesus, you’re such a little punk.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a bitch, Sammy.”
He rolls his eyes, but they’re both trying not to smile too widely. They go back to staring out the windshield, watching the house, and shit, he shouldn’t have gotten himself so distracted. The house - the nursery - that’s what matters right now, this is their big opportunity for vengeance. He and Ross, they’re the ones with the big job tonight, the actual fucking kill-shot while Dad and Dean are just providing the diversion.
“Hey,” Ross says quietly, breaking into the silence. “Did you, uh, before, when Dad and Dean left - did you feel anything, like, something weird, psychic weird?”
“Why? What do you mean? Did you sense something?” A buzz of fear prickles at the nape of his neck and he swallows, staring into Ross’s eyes: “Ross, please, this could be really fucking important, man, if you had a vision -“
“Not a fuckin’ vision. Wasn’t like that.”
“What was it then?”
“Just. A feeling. Fuck, Sam, I don’t know. Might just be over-reactin’.”
He can feel the hairs on his nape really starting to rise now, his fingers clenching into fists, the muscles in his stomach starting to churn. He bites back the wave of sudden overwhelming fear and shakes his head decidedly.
“No, no, you’re not overreacting. Not now, not with this kinda timing. But you gotta tell me exactly what you felt, like, exactly.”
Ross gulps, but he nods, starts to speak: “It was when I was sayin’ bye to Dean, he, uh, he just pulled me into a hug, and I just got this -“ Ross shivers, and that’s it, he knows now, can really see it in Ross’s eyes, feel it in his bones, wherever, whatever this psychic connection between them is - he can feel it, Ross’s fear. “Like this feeling. Like, uh, it might be the last time we did that.”
Sam blinks, and it feels like he’s been punched, like the air from lungs has evaporated, and he can almost picture the color seeping from his face. “You think, uh, you think something might get Dean? That he won’t be okay?” he stammers.
“Fuck, man, I don’t fuckin’ know. It was just some feeling! I’m just, like. C’mon Sammy, he’s with Dad. It’ll be fine. It wasn’t anything, like, solid, dude, it was just a damn feeling. Jesus, wish I hadn’t fuckin’ said anything now.”
“A feeling from a psychic, Ross. You’ve been right about this sort of shit before. We both have.”
“Christ’s sake, I’m not a fuckin’ psychic!”
“Ross -“
“- Sam. C’mon - this is - you’re overreacting, man. Did you feel anything this time? When we said bye?”
He tries to think, get his mind out of panic mode and into normal rational thinking mode. He didn’t feel anything while they were saying goodbye, not anything like Ross is describing. Dean pulled him aside and into a tight hug, whispering: “Sammy, you listen to me, don’t you fuckin’ dare go doin’ any stupid-ass heroics. You make sure you got each other’s backs, there’s way more important shit at stake than just blowin’ this bitch’s head off. I’m countin’ on you both coming back. That’s all that matters to me. You hear me, Sammy? Please, just make sure you come back to me.” He looked Dean in the eye, gaze burning and intense, and he promised: ”I will. You and me, Dean.”
He didn’t feel anything, just an overwhelming surge of love, of completeness, of never wanting to let go of his big brother ever again. But feelings of foreboding… impending doom… No, nothing like that.
“I don’t know,” he says at last. “I don’t think so.”
Ross looks relieved and he manages a weak smile, “Well then. It’s always been both of us in the past. Yesterday, that was both of us - seeing this baby - that was both of us. They’ll be okay, he and Dad, they’ll be okay. Right, man?”
“Right,” he answers. Then more forcefully, catching Ross’s eye: “Right.”
****************************
They’ve been on the road for three hours, Dad playing the radio low and drumming his fingers against the wheel. Dean’s tensed up, on edge, unable to stop his mind flashing to his brothers, to the two of them going up against the demon, alone. Sure, Sam and Ross have pulled some pretty impressive shit together over the past year and a half, but he’s still not happy knowing that they’re actually gonna be confronting this thing without him or Dad there to back them up. In his mind, they’re still his little brothers, hell, they’ll always be his little brothers, and this is worse than every occasion he watched the two of them head off to a new school on their own, worse than the first time they all went out on a hunt together, the first time they went out on dates, the first time either of them picked up a gun...
Still, after he offered to back up Dad in his plan to trick Meg with the false Colt, and Dad accepted, there was never going to be any other way, it had to be Sam and Ross on their own.
“We can do it, Dad,” Sam had insisted, his eyes shining in that fervent, almost feverish way of his. Of course this was everything to Sam: the opportunity to get revenge on the thing that killed his beloved girlfriend. “We’ve hunted loads of things on our own, me and Ross, we can do this.”
“Yeah,” Ross had added seriously, “yeah, you can count on us, sir.”
So Dad had agreed to it. Dean’s never second-guessed his Dad before, and he’s sure as hell not gonna start doing it now, not when they’re so close, but that don’t mean he likes the idea of Sam and Ross taking on this evil sonofabitch alone any better.
Dad moves his hand to twist the radio dial to mute, and Dean jumps, the sudden movement jolting him out of his thoughts.
“When this is all over, I want you to go stay with Bobby Singer, he’s got a job for you,” Dad says.
“Huh? Bobby Singer? I thought you guys were -“
“We’re back on speaking terms,” Dad interrupts. “He’s been helping me track this bastard. No one knows more about demons than Bobby.”
“Oh, right,” Dean nods, “okay then. And you think that he might have a job for us?”
“Not for us. For you. Just you, Dean.”
For a moment, his brain doesn’t take in what Dad’s saying, the meaning behind his words.
“Come again?”
Dad clears his throat; still not turning to look at him, eyes locked on the road unfolding before them. When he speaks again his voice is fainter, almost ragged. “When this hunt is over. Afterwards. You take the Impala and you drive to Bobby Singer’s and you help him out with this job. No matter how long it takes.”
“Dad? You, uh, you sayin’ that you want me to leave? Is that it?”
“That’s exactly what I want you to do. Dean, I need for you to do this. Don’t fight with me.”
“But Dad, I -“
“Don’t play dumb with me, boy!” Dad snarls. Dean flinches, body tensed for flight, every instinct telling him to get the hell out of there, but the needle’s pushing a hundred and Dad’s foot is welded to the gas, and he’s not going anywhere, neither of them is going anywhere, and Dad’s started speaking again, his voice cracked and hoarse.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. What you and your brother,” he breaks off for a second like he has to catch his breath, a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. “What the two of you do together, I can’t have it in my family. I can’t have sons that do - that do that - anywhere near me. It goes against everything I stand for, everything we stand for as a family, and I refuse to condone it. I trusted you to look after your brothers, to do your best for them, and yet… you and Sam. I can’t allow it to continue, not anymore. I mean what I say, Dean. When this is over, I want you gone. You have to leave.”
He sounds defeated, he’s only ever sounded like that once before: the day Sam left, the day Sam told them about Stanford, the day Dean drove Sam to the bus station. And Dean can’t answer him, he can’t speak, barely aware of the tears rolling down his cheeks, mouth dried up and voice evaporated, and besides, even if he could put words together, what’s he gonna say? He can’t defend himself from this. It’s true. It’s all true.
“Dean, do you understand what I’m saying?”
“I - Dad. But what about Sam? He won’t - he won’t agree to it. If you say I have to leave then he’ll try to come with me. I know he will.”
For a second, Dad doesn’t answer, just a hitch in his breathing that’s like a stab wound to Dean’s chest, a tightening around his heart.
“Then it’s up to you to convince him not to. Dean, son, listen to me: you think you love him, you think this is what he wants, but the two of you are sick. You’re damaged. And I - as your father - I have to bear some of that responsibility.” His voice drains away, and Dean risks a glance up, trying to catch his father’s profile through his blurred vision. Dad looks devastated, wrung-out and sick, and it’s him - him and Sam - that have caused it, that have broken Dad, ‘cause Dad’s right; the two of them are sick, they are damaged. He’s damaged, and along the way, he’s damaged Sammy too, fucked him up for good, and Ross -
God, no, he can’t think about that, can’t think about Ross too.
“Sam could have a normal life again,” Dad says after a moment. “He could go back to school, find another girlfriend; he could have all that, he could be happy.”
He could be happy…
He was the one who dragged Sam away from his normal happy life. Would Jess still have died if he hadn’t shown up? It was a pretty fucking big coincidence that she died on the same night they got back to Stanford. If this was a hunt, then the evidence would be compelling. Sam could go back to that, have that normal life he’s always wanted so much. It was his own selfish desires that had fucked it up for Sam, the best thing he could do is to let Sam go.
Dad’s right. He should leave; he can’t be trusted to be around either of his brothers anymore.
“What about Ross?” he whispers.
“Ross will stay with me,” Dad says, his voice gaining strength. “And if Sammy doesn’t want to go back to school, then he will stay with us too. That will be his decision to make. But I want them with me; I know I haven’t always been there for them, for all you boys, but I can do this right. I can be their father again.”
Dean feels his stomach turn over, chest pull and tug and clench, like his heart is trying to escape, trying to climb out of his body, because he doesn’t know if he can take this - be without Sam, without Ross. What is the point of his pathetic sorry life without his family?
But Dad’s right. He is right. This has to be done. For Sam, for Ross. He has to get away from them. The things the three of them have done together -
He has to leave. For their own good. For them, he’d do anything for them, his little brothers. And they’ll be good, with Dad. The three of them can be a proper family again, like Ross has always wanted.
When he speaks again, his voice is stronger, more sure, “Okay, yes. I’ll go.”
Dad exhales, a long, cracked breath. “Good, that’s - that’s good, Dean. You gotta know - it won’t be forever. Despite everything you’ve done, you’re still my boy. You’re still a part of this family, I just - I can’t have you around anymore. For now, at least.”
He goes silent, hand reaching to turn the music back up, fill up the devastating silence. Dean turns his head, stares out the window, his own ghostly reflection staring back at him. He closes his eyes and silently counts off the minutes, pushing all other thoughts from his head, after all they’re gonna be at the rendezvous point soon, and they have a job to do.
Next Chapter
Chapter 17/28
Pairing: Sam/Dean, Sam/Ross, (mentions of Sam/Jess and Dean/Ross)
Rating: R
Word Count: 8,915
Summary: Season 1 AU. Ross Christopher Winchester knows three things to be true: that his father, John, is a hero, that he's going to be the best hunter in the goddamn world, and that his two older brothers are in love with each other. An AU-version of Season 1 where The Winchester Boys mean Dean and Sam and Ross, where John is still missing, where Mary and Jess are still crispy-fried, and where Dean and Sam are still obsessed with one another...
Previous Chapters Link to the Masterpost
A/N andreth47 you were extra awesome with this one! Thanks so much for your suggestions and criticism, I couldn't've finished it without you ;D
Chapter 17
Ross eases his eyes open and peers over the covers. Dad is standing over the table, mug in hand, gazing down at all the newspaper articles, photocopies and print-outs he’s gotten together on this thing - this demon - they’re supposed to be hunting. The stuff is covering the entire table, like some enormous collage; in fact, it’s pretty fucking amazing that they’ve even managed to find a motel room with a table big enough to take it all.
Dad frowns, leaning over to shift some pieces of paper around, obviously spotting some sort of pattern there. Dad was always pretty awesome at that, could spot the patterns and connections and secret hidden messages behind shit that just made, like, zero sense to him. If Dad’d been born years earlier, like before WW2, he could totally have been one of those Enigma code-breakers who figured out the Nazi secret codes. They watched this movie about it a couple of weeks ago; shit was kinda boring, though both Sam and Dean had been into it, Sam bleating about how historically inaccurate it all was, and Dean about how awesome Kate Winslet’s rack was.
He watches Dad sneakily; sure that Dad hasn’t figured out yet that he’s awake. But it’s so comforting and familiar to see Dad completely engrossed like this that he doesn’t want it to stop. It’s been so fucking long, and there’s been so much shit gone on since that last time they saw him, a year and a half ago now, (he’s totally not counting those five minutes in Chicago), and it’s like his life has completely changed since then and now, like he’s a different person, so seeing Dad now - seeing how much he hasn’t changed - it’s kinda too much, and if he’s not careful then he’s just gonna start breaking down and sobbing his heart out like a freaking chick.
“Dad?”
Dad turns his head, gives him a faint smile. “You’re awake,” he says. “Sleep okay?”
“Yeah,” he nods.
For once, it’s not a lie, he did sleep well, just knowing that Dad was in the room with him helped him sleep way better than he’s done in fucking months.
Dad nods, turns back to his papers. Ross yawns, throws back the covers and pads over to stand by him.
“Have you figured out the pattern?”
Dad frowns, looks up, dark eyes meeting his. He shakes his head, exhales heavily.
“Maybe. Sonofabitch is good. Knows how to cover its tracks.” He swirls the liquor in his mug, takes a long thoughtful sip. “Don’t mean we ain’t gonna win, though. But this bastard - it’s the toughest thing we’ve ever hunted.”
“Yeah?” Ross looks up, snaps his teeth, grins at him, “Bring it.”
Dad gives him an approving smile and reaches over to tousle his hair, his hand sliding down to squeeze his shoulder. He pauses for a moment, then turns so they’re facing each other, and Ross notices with a stab of surprise that they’re, like, almost the same height, Dad only about half an inch taller than him, it’s kinda freaky.
“Ross, you know you can tell me anything, son. You know, whatever it is, I’m still gonna be your father, you’ll still be my boy. That’s never gonna change. You do know that, don’t you?” This is weird, Dad doesn’t say this sort of shit, Dad just gets on with it, that’s how they roll. “Sammy - last night he had a bad dream. You were asleep, didn’t hear it. I went next door to check on him and found the two of them sharing a bed. Does that happen a lot?”
Fuck! How can they be so fucking stupid? So fucking dumb. Dad just next door and they still can’t help themselves. It’s pathetic, they’re pathetic, can’t keep their hands off each other for one goddamn night…
“Ross, answer the question.”
“I, uh, yeah? I guess,” he stammers. “I mean, Sammy, he, uh, has nightmares a lot, ‘bout his girl, and, like, with the visions and shit -“
“Visions?” Dad interrupts, eyes narrowing dangerously.
Ross stares at him, mouth still wide open, he probably looks like a fucking goldfish, mouth opening and closing, eyelashes fluttering, red stain on his cheeks that he can practically feel getting redder and redder every second, and Jesus, why’d he let that slip? Why’d he mention that?
“What visions?” Dad repeats coldly, saying the word like it’s something revolting that he’s about to spit out. “Are you telling me that your brother’s been having visions? Of what?”
Dad doesn’t give him time to answer, just swears under his breath, slams his half-drunk mug of whisky onto the table and stalks out the room.
Ross gapes at the half open door and tries to catch his breath. Well, at least, Dad’s not asking about the sharing a bed thing anymore, though he’s not sure that this is better. He can already hear the sound of raised voices coming from next door - Sam and Dad - of course it would be Sam and Dad. This just gives them another thing to fight about, like there aren’t enough already. He tugs on a pair of Dean’s sweatpants over his boxers, pushing his feet into his boots, not bothering to lace them up before he stumbles out of the room after his father.
They’re into a fully fledged screaming match. Sam’s on his feet, pointing an accusing finger at Dad and yelling at him for not being there, never being there for them. Dean’s stood off to one side, looking between Dad and Sam like he’s watching a fucking tennis game, frowning unhappily. He moves to join him, placing his hand on Dean’s arm, a touch that’s meant to be reassuring but Dean’s skin feels warm, and he’s forgotten that - forgotten how good Dean feels - how his fingertips tingle when they touch Dean’s skin, how the knots in his chest unravel like he’s being sedated with the really good shit… and this is shitty fucking timing, ‘cause it’s so not the time or place to be popping a boner over his big brother. He snatches his hand away from Dean and stuffs it into the pocket of his (well, Dean’s) sweats. Dean doesn’t even notice.
Dad takes a breath, turns his head to take in the two of them, momentarily distracted from his shouting match with Sammy. He stares at Ross, then shakes his head, teeth clenched, that look on his face that’s making something burn up in Ross’s chest, that disappointed, unhappy look - and he’s caused that: him and Sam and their freaky vision shit.
“I can’t believe none of you ever thought to tell me any of this,” Dad says. He’s talking about all of them, but his eyes are on Ross, like they’re boring through the layers of skin and muscle and fat and bone, and straight through to his heart, that look on his face that means, I’m disappointed in you, son… “Something like this happens; you pick up the phone and you call me.”
“Call you? You kidding me? I called you from Lawrence!” Ross flinches in surprise at the sound of Dean's voice. “Sam called you when I was dying. Getting you on the phone, I got a better chance of winning the lottery!"
Sam’s eyes widen, his face going all slack-jawed with shock, a tiny, love-struck smile playing at the corner of his mouth as he stares at Dean; if this were a cartoon then his eyes would be bugging out right now with little pink hearts fluttering all around them.
Ross glances at his father, heart in his mouth, body all tensed in anticipation, waiting for Dad’s retaliation, but Dad’s not saying anything. He’s not even looking at Dean or acknowledging what he’s said, his expression’s all blank and hard, a muscle jumping at the corner of his mouth, like every part of his face has clenched up.
“We needed you,” Sam says quietly. “Ross and me - we - these visions, we don’t know what they mean or what they are, and I - we were so scared, and you never answered. You weren’t there, Dad…” he trails off; his eyes are shiny with tears, voice shaky. “You weren’t there,” he repeats uselessly, like Dad needs to hear him say it again.
Dad nods abruptly, then he’s going, leaving, walking out of the room, door slamming shut behind him, and he still hasn’t spoken.
Dad’s not in their room. He’s gone, his truck missing from the parking lot, some of the pages of research leaving big rectangular holes in the collage on the table. Ross takes a shower because he can’t think of anything else to do.
He gets out the shower and sits on the edge of the tub, trailing his toes in the drops of water on the floor. He can’t be bothered to towel himself off just yet, the hot water’s made him feel all lethargic and itchy, he should’ve jacked off in there, done something to take the edge off this already shitty day. He stares into the mirror on the other side of the room; it’s seriously steamed up, like the Impala with all three of them inside on a rainy day, and he can only make out his outline, a human-shaped blur, like a ghost, he thinks with a shiver.
He glances down his body, watching the droplets of water rolling over the muscles of his chest, his hard abs and flat stomach. The last time he remembers looking at himself this closely, there were marks on his skin - hickeys and bruises and bites left by Sarah - but they’ve disappeared now, gone the same way as the hickeys and bruises and bites that Sam and Dean used to leave. It’s been nearly two weeks since he left her behind to her Upstate New York life, a month since he last fooled around with Sam, nearly two since Dean last touched him, and it’s like they were never even there, like nothing ever really happened, like it was all just his fucked-up imagination.
He raises one hand to his neck, presses down at the flesh, purposefully hard enough to hurt, prodding at the bruises that used to be there. He runs his fingers over the sides of his neck, touching his collarbone self-consciously. The flesh feels warm where his fingertips trace, hard ridges and nubs of bone standing out like they’re trying to poke right through his skin. He lets his fingers drift to the back of his neck, the nape; it’s his real sensitive spot, the sweet spot, the one that never fails to turn his crank up to eleven.
He thinks about the last time Dean touched him, how Dean kissed him on that sweet spot, whispering all soft and low: let it go, kiddo, s’alright, I’m here, we gotcha, littlest bro, you’re with us… Dean’s arms wrapped around him, holding him from behind, as they lay together on the big king bed, and that had felt so good, so fucking good, Dean’s fingers cupping his balls, big palm slicking up and down, up and down, Sam watching them like his eyes were greedy for it, like he wanted to record every little detail to think about later.
“Hey!” Dean’s voice yanks him out of the memory, and he flinches, scrambles the towel closer together to hide his growing erection. “Ross? You in here?” Dean pushes the bathroom door open and frowns down at him. “What you doin’?”
“Having a shower, what’s it look like?” He pushes his wet hair out his eyes, turns to look his brother in the face, “What do you want?”
Dean raises a cool-it, cool-it hand. “Just seeing if you wanna join us for breakfast?”
He pulls on some clothes quickly, and goes next door to Dean and Sam’s room. They’re sitting hunched together over the table, stained paper bags of food between them, Dean glances up, grunts and kicks out the spare chair for him, and he takes it, reaching to snag a handful of chili fries. It’s like every other breakfast they’ve had over the past few months, except it really totally isn’t because there’s an enormous Dad-shaped elephant in the room. Sam’s eyes look pink, like he’s been crying, and Dean’s cracking lame unfunny jokes in that obnoxious way he has when he’s trying to make up for something, except it totally doesn’t make up for anything and just makes everything so much worse.
“Dude, shut up,” Ross snaps through a mouthful of breakfast burrito. “You ain’t funny.”
Sam exchanges a look with him, while Dean frowns, looking momentarily hurt. “Just ‘cause you two can’t appreciate real humor.”
“We can appreciate real humor, which is why we don’t think you’re funny,” cuts in Sam.
Ross blinks, surprised by the vicious edge to Sam’s voice, Dean looks shocked too because his mouth is working in that way that means he doesn’t know how to take it, how to react next.
“You know what: fuck you!” Dean snaps, getting up from the table with a jerk. “Fuck you both!”
He stomps out of the room, snatching up the pack of cigarettes lying on the table on his way out and slamming the door behind him, like they haven’t gotten the message that he’s pissed already.
For a moment, there’s this lingering deathly silence, the crappy door shaking in its equally crappy frame.
“Oops,” Ross says.
Sam’s mouth quirks like he’s trying to hold back an awkward laugh. “I think we upset him.”
“He’ll get over it.”
Ross goes to the window, peers out through the smears and smudges and dirt. Dean’s pacing around the parking lot, empty except for the Impala and one old beat-up brown pick-up truck which must belong to the manager, Dean’s smoking violently and he looks seriously pissed. He looks up, glances back towards the room, and glares. Ross ducks his head away, though he’s pretty sure Dean didn’t actually see him, the window’s way too dirty for that.
“What’s he doing?” asks Sam.
He glances over his shoulder at his brother; Sam’s gotten to his feet, clearing up their shit, balling up the used napkins and paper bags, throwing them into the trash.
“Sulking,” says Ross with a shrug. “You should go out there, man, say sorry, do all your pansy-ass makin’ up shit.”
“Maybe later.”
He throws himself onto one of the beds, watches Sam climb onto the other and pull the laptop onto his knees. Both of the beds look mussed up and he wonders if they did that after Dad caught them, if they slept separately or if they slept together and messed it up purposefully, it seems kinda pointless now.
“I can’t believe you two were fuckin’ around last night. You totally deserved to have Dad catch you,” he says.
Sam looks up from the screen, there’s a wry sort of smile playing over his mouth that reminds Ross with a wrench of Dean, that’s totally a Dean expression. “Dude, c’mon, it’s not like we haven’t done it before. We spent years fuckin’ around with you and Dad on the other side of the wall. And we’re not gonna stop just ‘cause Dad’s back. I’m not letting that happen.”
He’s saying it all so matter-of-factly, like it’s just a part of life, like it’s something that Ross should just accept and deal with and get the fuck over. And in a way, mostly, he kinda has accepted and dealt with it and gotten over it. After all, he knew for years what was going on between his brothers every night after the four of them said goodnight and trundled off to bed. He used to lay in his own bed, while Dad stayed up reading or researching or writing in his journal, ever present tumbler of whisky by his elbow, and he used to think about his brothers, his brain torturing him with thoughts of what they were doing on the other side of that wall, all the disgusting shit they might be getting up to.
“What you lookin’ for?” he asks after a few minutes of Sam clicking and tapping and sighing over the laptop.
Sam huffs out this long drawn-out pissy breath that’s just Sammy’s way of being super passive-aggressive. Seriously, one day, they’re gonna find this massive freaking ulcer in Sam’s stomach from all the passive-aggressive, huffy-puffy shit he’s always playing at, and it will totally be his own fault, like really lame karma.
“I’m not looking for anything, just surfing, whatever.”
“Porn?”
“No, not porn.” He pulls a face, like Ross has just said something disgusting, like he never looks at or watches porn, and Ross fucking knows that ain’t the case.
“Liar.”
Sam smiles smugly and says, “You forget that I don’t need to watch porn, Littlest Bro, I get it for free all the time,” like he’s the superior one around here just because he’d rather fuck his brother than watch porn, like incest is the moral high-ground.
“Fuck you,” he snorts. He narrows his eyes on Sam as Sam smirks to himself again and goes back to reading whatever non-pornographic shit he’s reading. “You know, when you were with your girl did you think about Dean?”
“What?” Sam’s head snaps up in surprise.
“I was just wondering: you know - you and Dean - if you’re so fuckin’ meant to be and all that shit, then why’d you, like, even hook up with someone else?”
Sam’s expression goes hard, that dangerous look in his eyes that’s exactly the same as the one on Dad’s face this morning. “I don’t wanna talk about that,” Sam says stiffly.
“Fine, whatever, but it’s a serious fucking question, dude. You’re all, like, it’s me and Dean forever and all that shit now, but couple of years back you were off at college, not givin’ a shit about us - your family - acting like we never even fuckin’ existed, like Dean never existed!”
“It wasn’t like that,” Sam protests. “I never - I never forgot about Dean or Dad or you, I thought about you all the time.”
“Aha, so you did think about Dean when you were with your girl!”
There’s a long moment of silence while Ross watches Sam, eyes locked on the curve of his neck, his bent head, his wild crazy hair falling across his face and hiding his expression. He feels a lurch of regret, a knot of guilt in his gut. Shit, he didn’t want to break Sam again, that so wasn’t the point of all this, this was supposed to…
Fuck, he’s not sure, maybe he did want to upset Sam, after all Sam has everything: he had his own life away from them with a cute girlfriend and friends and an apartment and school and all that kinda shit that Ross knows that he never wanted for himself, and yet… he ain’t sure anymore, getting away from this, from his family, maybe he does want this, like Sam used to do, maybe he’s always been secretly jealous of Sam for that. And okay, so it all ended horribly for Sam, but at least Sam did get that, had that taste of something else. He’s never gonna have that, Dad’s never gonna let him have that, and even if Dad does let him, then he doesn’t know what he’d do about it, where to even start, how to live without his family (without Dean).
And yeah… that’s it too, Sam not only had that, but he also had Dean, he has Dean, right fucking now. Dean is all Sam’s, he gets all of Dean all to himself, and that’s the way it’s gonna be for however long the rest of their lives are.
When Sam finally raises his head, his eyes look shiny, like he’s trying not to cry. He fixes a look on Ross: “Why are you asking me this?” he says quietly.
Ross swallows over the lump in the back of his throat. “I dunno, but - I wanna know, tell me the truth.”
“Okay.” Sam takes a breath and he looks awful, his face all squeezed and scrunched up. “I never forgot about you, or about Dean. I thought about you every single fucking day. I thought about Dean all the time, I thought about Dean when… uh, even with Jess - sometimes when we were -“ he breaks off, presses the heels of his palms to his eyes, “I thought about Dean when I used to fuck her, okay? That what you wanna know?” He drops his hands to his lap, and Ross can see the tears for real now, streaking down Sam’s face. “God, I wish so much, so fuckin’ much that I’d never met her, she’d still be alive if it weren’t for me -“
“You don’t know that,” he says automatically.
“Of course I fuckin’ know that!” Sam snarls. “She would still be alive if it weren’t for me! And I never - I was the one who got her killed - and I never deserved her! I didn’t love her like she loved me! I should never have been with her in the first place!”
“Sammy -“
He’s off the bed and crossing the few feet between them before he realizes what he’s doing, before his brain has time to tell him that this is a really fucking stupid idea. He reaches for Sam, fingers brushing against Sam’s shirt, and then Sam’s fist flies out and he’s crumpling to the floor, fucking taken out by Sammy, and man, that is fucking that! He doesn’t give a shit that Sam’s upset or hurt or that it might be his own damn fault for upsetting Sam, for bringing up the taboo subject of Jessica, but Sam’s his brother, Sam’s Sam, and he’s not letting Sam get the better of him in a fight. He kicks out his legs, catching and tripping Sam, and sending him tumbling to the floor beside him, and then they’re on each other for real, wrestling just like they’re kids again.
It’s all so familiar, rolling around on the floor with Sam, trying to jam his knees into Sam’s belly and trying to pry Sam’s freakishly long arms off him, so familiar that it’s also weirdly comforting. This is how he and Sam work after all, this is how they roll. He should’ve, like, totally realized that when he made his stupid and pretty fucking pointless attempt to comfort Sam just then. Dean is the one who takes care of that kinda shit: Dean’s the one who pulls them into hugs and strokes their hair and tells them everything’s going to be okay. He and Sammy… well, they fight and they bitch and they squabble and they bicker and they call each other names and they get into dumb wrestling matches where they end up on the floor trying to pull each other’s hair, or, in more recent times, trying to get each other off… And shit, he could, like, really do without those particular sense memories right now ‘cause having Sam’s body so close, wrapped all around him, is starting to fuck with his dick, make him hard, and Sam’s totally gonna notice any minute now -
“Sam! Ross! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
It takes Ross a long, long second to register his father’s voice, and by then Sam’s already reacting, climbing off of him and pushing his hair out his eyes, looking sheepish under Dad’s furious glare.
“Where’s your brother?” barks Dad.
Ross gets to his feet, hearing Sam answer: “He went out.”
Dad makes an irritated sound in the back of his throat, and strides towards the table, and dumps a load of papers onto it.
“And the reason you two were fighting?”
“S’nothing,” Sam says, “just a stupid fight. We’re already over it. Right, Ross?” His eyes meet Ross’s for a moment, and Ross nods agreement quickly, “Right, uh, yeah. Sorry.”
“Good. I don’t want to see you fighting again. We go up against this thing together, or we don’t go at all. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” they answer in unison.
“Ross, go find your brother, get him back here now. We’ve wasted enough time already.”
****************************************
They’ve been sitting in the car for over two hours, watching the house through the windshield while trying their best not to look too conspicuous and out of place in their classic muscle car on this quiet suburban street. They’ve had a couple of strange looks from passersby, but the people in this neighborhood are evidently very trusting as no one has been out yet to ask them what the hell they’re doing there.
He raises his hand to his face to smother a yawn and rubs his eyes tiredly. He’s still feeling the after-effects of the vision from this morning, light thump-thump of pain throbbing against the back of his eyes, stifled by the handfuls of drugs he’s swallowed, but not completely vanished. It happened only minutes after Dad got back, both him and Ross falling to the floor and clutching their foreheads like they were suffering a nerve gas attack in a 70’s sci-fi miniseries. Dad had stood by and watched in amazement, the expression of horror and disbelief on his face afterwards while the two of them tried to explain what they’d seen telling Sam exactly how Dad really felt about their new-found psychic powers.
He darts a glance at his brother, Ross is staring listlessly out the window, eyes locked on the upper floor of the house, the nursery.
“Hey, how’re you feeling?” he asks.
Ross turns to look at him, gives a little shrug, “Peachy.”
“No, I mean, with the vision. This one doesn’t seem to have hit you as badly as before.”
Ross frowns as if he’s considering the question. “Yeah, no, I guess? Don’t ask me why, though, man, ‘cause seriously, I have zero fuckin’ clue.”
“Yeah,” Sam sighs in agreement.
He’s just as lost as Ross, he has no idea why, but this vision was different. Physically, the after-effects felt just the same, though Ross seems to be doing a helluva lot better than on previous occasions, thank God. Okay, so he’s still suffering from the same bitch of a headache and it’s still refusing to completely go away, but in all other ways, this time was different. It felt a lot more vivid, more real than all of his previous visions, as if he was really and truly in the moment, a part of the action, not just the silent, pointless observer. He could sense that evil sonofabitch this time, feel it, smell it, its scent and voice clogging up his brain like hair in a drain, and he was powerless, unable to do anything to stop it.
But they’re going to stop it now. They have the Colt, and the power is in their hands, literally in their hands, and it’s not going down like in their vision. Like Dad said, they’re going to end it all, tonight.
“Sam…”
Ross’s voice pries him out of his thoughts; he turns his head, catching his brother’s eye. Ross blinks, looking sheepish for a moment, before he opens his mouth again.
“Uh, I - I’m sorry ‘bout bringing up your girl before. I shouldn’t’ve mentioned that, so, uh, I’m real sorry for that, man.”
Sam’s eyes widen in surprise. He’s half expecting this to be some sort of joke, but he can see by the look on Ross’s face that it isn’t. He looks nervous, all the usual Ross bravado and bullshit swept away for a split second. Sam’s had years of practice figuring out when his little brother is lying and when he’s telling the truth, and this is Ross being completely sincere.
“Ross, it’s okay, seriously, don’t sweat it,” he answers haltingly. “I shouldn’t have reacted like I did.”
He’s feeling stupidly affected by Ross’s little apology, by the genuine remorse in his brother’s eyes. Sometimes it feels like he and Ross have been trying to build bridges and find common ground their entire lives. Of course they do have a lot of common ground; they’ve always shared a lot of common ground: Dean and hunting are the obvious examples, though those two things have hardly had a positive effect on their relationship, exacerbating already present resentments and hostilities rather than bringing them together. But things are different now. Maybe he and Ross can find common ground at long last.
“Anyway, I should’ve dealt with all that before now - Jess’s, uh, her death,” he sighs. “I haven’t - I haven’t let myself think about it, and well, I know that ain’t healthy.”
“Since when have we ever done what’s healthy?” says Ross with a snort.
They go quiet for a moment, he watches Ross crank down the window on the passenger side, snap open the glove compartment and retrieve the battered pack of cigarettes that’s supposed to live there for emergencies but never seems to last for longer than a week.
“Hey…” he starts to say.
“Sam, dude, c’mon,” Ross interrupts, but Sam cuts off the bitching with a wave of his hand: “Shut up, I wasn’t gonna say anything. Actually, I wanted you to pass me one.”
Ross’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead in a ridiculous way that kinda makes him want to laugh, but he tosses him one of the cigarettes and the lighter, Sam picks it up and frowns: “This looks just like Dean’s lighter. The one he lost a coupla weeks ago, the one he spent three hours solid bitching about.”
Ross exhales a long stream of smoke with a smirk. “Oh yeah, so it does. Whatever. It’s a cool lighter. And what Deano don’t know, won’t hurt him.”
“Right,” he answers, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.
He lights up with a quick snap of his fingers, inhaling greedily. It’s still unfamiliar enough to give him a head-rush, but it’s not unwelcome, in fact, it’s kinda invigorating, and hell, it’s not like he’s never smoked before. The three of them have smoked pot together regularly over the years, and at college he used to be a bit of a social smoker, he’d taken it up as a way to meet people, ingratiate himself with them, prove that he was one of the cool crowd. His roommate freshman year, Jimmy, had been just as hooked as Dean, though, naturally, he’d ticked “non-smoker” on the application form because he didn’t want his folks to know. But Jimmy came from one of those Midwestern backward towns that were far too familiar to the Winchesters, and in those kinda towns, all the cool kids were smokers, even the ones bound for Stanford.
“Way I figure it, you two are gonna kill me with your secondhand smoke anyway, so I may as well get the benefits.”
“Whatever,” Ross says breezily, “just kinda funny, man. After all the shit you’ve given us ‘bout how freakin’ bad smoking is for your health, how it’s gonna give us lung cancer and heart disease, blah, blah, fuckin’ blah, now you’re one of us.”
Sam ignores him and rolls down his window, letting his elbow rest on the cool metal, cigarette smoke curling up and out into the dark grey sky.
“I know I didn’t really, like, know her, ‘cause I only met her that one time, but she seemed really cool, you know? Like, way too fuckin’ good for a geek like you. And, dude, so hot.”
It takes him a few seconds to register that Ross is talking about Jess again, and for a brief moment, he feels the muscles in his chest clench up - and yeah, maybe it’s the goddamn cigarette, but it’s not likely. He forces himself to exhale, take a calming drag, feeling the tears start to blur his vision.
“Yeah, yeah she was. Way too good for me.”
“Wow, we finally agreed on something,” says Ross.
He huffs out a laugh, brittle but genuine, and exchanges a look with his brother, Ross cocking a rueful smile at him in a way that’s eerily similar to Dean.
“Ross, everything that went on before with you and me and Dean, I just want you to know, man, that I don’t regret it, any of it,” he says seriously.
“Jesus, is this, like, freakin’ confession time?”
“C’mon, you were the one who started it,” he answers, turning to toss his finished cigarette out the window. He feels a nibble of guilt for that, this is a nice neighborhood after all, but Dean goes fucking crazy if he finds butts in the car, so there’s really nothing else to do with it.
“Fuck, kill me now,” Ross groans.
“Shut up. Listen, tonight - things might - well, this is it. We might not have another chance to say this sort of shit to each other, so, I figure -“ he breaks off, shrugs awkwardly. “Get it out there. Say what you feel, what you mean.”
“I always say what I mean.”
Sam hesitates for a second, before he answers, “Yeah, yeah, I guess you do.”
It’s true. There’s no hidden agenda with Ross, he always says what he thinks, stands up for what he believes in, goes after what he wants. Ross is pretty single-minded that way - like himself. It’s unexpected, like a sudden realization, but in many ways he and Ross are way more alike than he and Dean could ever be. Dean’s the one who doesn’t go after what he wants; he represses his own personal desires, for the good of the family, for the mission, for Dad, for his younger brothers, always putting them first, always giving into their wishes and desires and spreading himself so damn thin all the time, while he and Ross… they just take and take, way too used to getting their own way with their big brother. It’s taken him 17 years to realize it, but maybe he and Ross are just as alike on the inside as they are on the outside.
A wave of affection for his younger brother hits him, and he turns to look at him, mouth crooking up into a fond smile.
“What now?” Ross asks warily.
“Nothing. Just - I wanna thank you.”
“Dude, for what?”
“For everything. For not letting me wallow, for helping me get over Jessica, for just - for being there, and well, being your usual annoying self, not letting me get away with shit.”
“Fuck, Sammy, like I’d ever let you get away with anything. Anyway, it’s Dean you wanna thank, not me. He’s the one who’s, like, wiped away your manly tears and given you comforting blowjobs and let you fuck him up the ass, I ain’t done none of that shit.”
“Shut up, Dean already knows how grateful I am to him.”
“I bet he fuckin’ does,” scoffs Ross.
Sam rolls his eyes and leans over to squeeze Ross’s arm, feeling the fond smile tugging at his mouth as he meets his brother’s eyes.
“Christ’s sake, dude, what is with you tonight? You’re actin’ really fuckin’ weird, even for you!” Ross sounds exasperated, the look in his eyes a mixture of confused and suspicious.
“Like I said, this could be it. You and me, littlest bro, this could be the last chance we have to say anything to each other!”
There’s a long pause, then Ross speaks, stumbling over the words: “Do you think it will ever be over? Like, huntin’, what we do?”
“Honestly?”
Ross nods, “Yeah?”
“No,” he says with a shrug. “If we ice this sonofabitch tonight, and I’m gonna do everything I can to make sure that we do, then it won’t be the end of it. There’ll still be evil shit out there for us to kill.”
“Right, yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” Ross says. “So, uh, is that what you’ll do? You’ll keep huntin’? After you got the bastard that got your girl and your mom? You won’t, like, wanna go back to school?”
Sam hesitates for a second before he answers, and when he does he feels the truth in the words: “No, I’m not going back to school. That part of my life is over now. I want,” he pauses, licks his lips, a smile starting to spread over his face, “I want Dean. I’ve always wanted Dean, I used to want the two of us to go off somewhere together, ride off into the sunset and just be together. And maybe I’d go to college and he’d get a job, or we’d both go to college, and just be normal. As normal as we could ever be ‘cause, dude, I know, brothers. But, I guess at some point I changed my mind, and now,” he breaks off for a moment, gives a shrug, “I kinda want us to stick together - the three of us. We’re the only people who really get each other, you know, even when - even with Jess, I was… God, I used to lie to her all the time, I never told her anything about huntin’, ‘bout you guys.”
He swallows over the huge lump in his throat, thinking back, remembering Jess, forcing himself to remember because he’s been forgetting about her for so long now, banishing her memory to the back of his mind so often that it’s in danger of completely disappearing, rubbed away forever.
He was going to marry her. He can remember that now and it seems so alien to him, the idea of him - Sam Winchester - being married to a girl like Jess. But he was set on that idea, even researched the price of wedding rings, possible venues, freaking tax breaks for married couples. He was as single-minded about that idea as he’d been about going to Stanford, about getting away from Dad, about having Dean to himself.
Truthfully, he knows now that he’d never have been able to go through with it, not even he can take cognitive dissonance that far, can fool himself enough to believe that he deserved to be married to someone like Jess, that he could even live that life, pretend for that long, give up Dean, his entire family for the rest of his life. And if he had married Jess, then what? Would he have invited his brothers and his father to the wedding? It would’ve been wrong to exclude them, Jess would’ve insisted on them being there, she was that kind of girl. So would he have even gone through with it? Said I do and till death us do part and forsaking all others to Jess while Dean looked on?
“Sam, it ain’t like you coulda really told her anything, man. What were you supposed to do - tell her the truth about huntin’? Bad fuckin’ idea,” says Ross.
Sam looks up, Ross’s eyes are soft, sympathetic even, he’s genuinely trying to make him feel better. It’s endearing, and before he realizes what he’s doing, he’s leaning forward, hand going up to cup his brother’s cheek, bring their mouths together.
Ross responds just as eagerly as Sam remembers, taking charge of the kiss with a hungry moan, grabbing onto Sam’s face with his rough palms, his tongue pushing into Sam’s mouth. He’s not sure how long they’re making out before he feels Ross pulling away from him, panting as he catches his breath, soft puff-puff of air against Sam’s cheek. His hands are still cupping Ross’s face, thumbs brushing lightly over his high cheekbones, fingers in his hair.
“Hey,” he whispers, feeling Ross tense up. “It’s okay. For us to do that.”
“Sure it is,” Ross snorts, but it’s half-hearted and his voice sounds a little ragged, shaky. “’Cept I thought that shit was finished. Thought you weren’t interested anymore.” He pulls away, turning his head so Sam can only see his profile, his ear covered by his slightly longer hair, the stubble on his jaw. He watches Ross blink, long feathery lashes swooping up and down.
“Dude, it’s not that, it’s just. Fuck, I don’t know, but you and me - it’s cool; we’re cool, aren’t we? And if we want to fool around, then that’s cool, ain’t it?”
“I guess,” Ross says eventually. “I guess it don’t have to have some big fuckin’ meaning to it.” He sighs and turns back to Sam, smirk edging at the corner of his mouth. “So feel free to blow me whenever the mood takes you. Promise I won’t say no.”
Sam laughs out loud, “Jesus, you’re such a little punk.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a bitch, Sammy.”
He rolls his eyes, but they’re both trying not to smile too widely. They go back to staring out the windshield, watching the house, and shit, he shouldn’t have gotten himself so distracted. The house - the nursery - that’s what matters right now, this is their big opportunity for vengeance. He and Ross, they’re the ones with the big job tonight, the actual fucking kill-shot while Dad and Dean are just providing the diversion.
“Hey,” Ross says quietly, breaking into the silence. “Did you, uh, before, when Dad and Dean left - did you feel anything, like, something weird, psychic weird?”
“Why? What do you mean? Did you sense something?” A buzz of fear prickles at the nape of his neck and he swallows, staring into Ross’s eyes: “Ross, please, this could be really fucking important, man, if you had a vision -“
“Not a fuckin’ vision. Wasn’t like that.”
“What was it then?”
“Just. A feeling. Fuck, Sam, I don’t know. Might just be over-reactin’.”
He can feel the hairs on his nape really starting to rise now, his fingers clenching into fists, the muscles in his stomach starting to churn. He bites back the wave of sudden overwhelming fear and shakes his head decidedly.
“No, no, you’re not overreacting. Not now, not with this kinda timing. But you gotta tell me exactly what you felt, like, exactly.”
Ross gulps, but he nods, starts to speak: “It was when I was sayin’ bye to Dean, he, uh, he just pulled me into a hug, and I just got this -“ Ross shivers, and that’s it, he knows now, can really see it in Ross’s eyes, feel it in his bones, wherever, whatever this psychic connection between them is - he can feel it, Ross’s fear. “Like this feeling. Like, uh, it might be the last time we did that.”
Sam blinks, and it feels like he’s been punched, like the air from lungs has evaporated, and he can almost picture the color seeping from his face. “You think, uh, you think something might get Dean? That he won’t be okay?” he stammers.
“Fuck, man, I don’t fuckin’ know. It was just some feeling! I’m just, like. C’mon Sammy, he’s with Dad. It’ll be fine. It wasn’t anything, like, solid, dude, it was just a damn feeling. Jesus, wish I hadn’t fuckin’ said anything now.”
“A feeling from a psychic, Ross. You’ve been right about this sort of shit before. We both have.”
“Christ’s sake, I’m not a fuckin’ psychic!”
“Ross -“
“- Sam. C’mon - this is - you’re overreacting, man. Did you feel anything this time? When we said bye?”
He tries to think, get his mind out of panic mode and into normal rational thinking mode. He didn’t feel anything while they were saying goodbye, not anything like Ross is describing. Dean pulled him aside and into a tight hug, whispering: “Sammy, you listen to me, don’t you fuckin’ dare go doin’ any stupid-ass heroics. You make sure you got each other’s backs, there’s way more important shit at stake than just blowin’ this bitch’s head off. I’m countin’ on you both coming back. That’s all that matters to me. You hear me, Sammy? Please, just make sure you come back to me.” He looked Dean in the eye, gaze burning and intense, and he promised: ”I will. You and me, Dean.”
He didn’t feel anything, just an overwhelming surge of love, of completeness, of never wanting to let go of his big brother ever again. But feelings of foreboding… impending doom… No, nothing like that.
“I don’t know,” he says at last. “I don’t think so.”
Ross looks relieved and he manages a weak smile, “Well then. It’s always been both of us in the past. Yesterday, that was both of us - seeing this baby - that was both of us. They’ll be okay, he and Dad, they’ll be okay. Right, man?”
“Right,” he answers. Then more forcefully, catching Ross’s eye: “Right.”
****************************
They’ve been on the road for three hours, Dad playing the radio low and drumming his fingers against the wheel. Dean’s tensed up, on edge, unable to stop his mind flashing to his brothers, to the two of them going up against the demon, alone. Sure, Sam and Ross have pulled some pretty impressive shit together over the past year and a half, but he’s still not happy knowing that they’re actually gonna be confronting this thing without him or Dad there to back them up. In his mind, they’re still his little brothers, hell, they’ll always be his little brothers, and this is worse than every occasion he watched the two of them head off to a new school on their own, worse than the first time they all went out on a hunt together, the first time they went out on dates, the first time either of them picked up a gun...
Still, after he offered to back up Dad in his plan to trick Meg with the false Colt, and Dad accepted, there was never going to be any other way, it had to be Sam and Ross on their own.
“We can do it, Dad,” Sam had insisted, his eyes shining in that fervent, almost feverish way of his. Of course this was everything to Sam: the opportunity to get revenge on the thing that killed his beloved girlfriend. “We’ve hunted loads of things on our own, me and Ross, we can do this.”
“Yeah,” Ross had added seriously, “yeah, you can count on us, sir.”
So Dad had agreed to it. Dean’s never second-guessed his Dad before, and he’s sure as hell not gonna start doing it now, not when they’re so close, but that don’t mean he likes the idea of Sam and Ross taking on this evil sonofabitch alone any better.
Dad moves his hand to twist the radio dial to mute, and Dean jumps, the sudden movement jolting him out of his thoughts.
“When this is all over, I want you to go stay with Bobby Singer, he’s got a job for you,” Dad says.
“Huh? Bobby Singer? I thought you guys were -“
“We’re back on speaking terms,” Dad interrupts. “He’s been helping me track this bastard. No one knows more about demons than Bobby.”
“Oh, right,” Dean nods, “okay then. And you think that he might have a job for us?”
“Not for us. For you. Just you, Dean.”
For a moment, his brain doesn’t take in what Dad’s saying, the meaning behind his words.
“Come again?”
Dad clears his throat; still not turning to look at him, eyes locked on the road unfolding before them. When he speaks again his voice is fainter, almost ragged. “When this hunt is over. Afterwards. You take the Impala and you drive to Bobby Singer’s and you help him out with this job. No matter how long it takes.”
“Dad? You, uh, you sayin’ that you want me to leave? Is that it?”
“That’s exactly what I want you to do. Dean, I need for you to do this. Don’t fight with me.”
“But Dad, I -“
“Don’t play dumb with me, boy!” Dad snarls. Dean flinches, body tensed for flight, every instinct telling him to get the hell out of there, but the needle’s pushing a hundred and Dad’s foot is welded to the gas, and he’s not going anywhere, neither of them is going anywhere, and Dad’s started speaking again, his voice cracked and hoarse.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. What you and your brother,” he breaks off for a second like he has to catch his breath, a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. “What the two of you do together, I can’t have it in my family. I can’t have sons that do - that do that - anywhere near me. It goes against everything I stand for, everything we stand for as a family, and I refuse to condone it. I trusted you to look after your brothers, to do your best for them, and yet… you and Sam. I can’t allow it to continue, not anymore. I mean what I say, Dean. When this is over, I want you gone. You have to leave.”
He sounds defeated, he’s only ever sounded like that once before: the day Sam left, the day Sam told them about Stanford, the day Dean drove Sam to the bus station. And Dean can’t answer him, he can’t speak, barely aware of the tears rolling down his cheeks, mouth dried up and voice evaporated, and besides, even if he could put words together, what’s he gonna say? He can’t defend himself from this. It’s true. It’s all true.
“Dean, do you understand what I’m saying?”
“I - Dad. But what about Sam? He won’t - he won’t agree to it. If you say I have to leave then he’ll try to come with me. I know he will.”
For a second, Dad doesn’t answer, just a hitch in his breathing that’s like a stab wound to Dean’s chest, a tightening around his heart.
“Then it’s up to you to convince him not to. Dean, son, listen to me: you think you love him, you think this is what he wants, but the two of you are sick. You’re damaged. And I - as your father - I have to bear some of that responsibility.” His voice drains away, and Dean risks a glance up, trying to catch his father’s profile through his blurred vision. Dad looks devastated, wrung-out and sick, and it’s him - him and Sam - that have caused it, that have broken Dad, ‘cause Dad’s right; the two of them are sick, they are damaged. He’s damaged, and along the way, he’s damaged Sammy too, fucked him up for good, and Ross -
God, no, he can’t think about that, can’t think about Ross too.
“Sam could have a normal life again,” Dad says after a moment. “He could go back to school, find another girlfriend; he could have all that, he could be happy.”
He could be happy…
He was the one who dragged Sam away from his normal happy life. Would Jess still have died if he hadn’t shown up? It was a pretty fucking big coincidence that she died on the same night they got back to Stanford. If this was a hunt, then the evidence would be compelling. Sam could go back to that, have that normal life he’s always wanted so much. It was his own selfish desires that had fucked it up for Sam, the best thing he could do is to let Sam go.
Dad’s right. He should leave; he can’t be trusted to be around either of his brothers anymore.
“What about Ross?” he whispers.
“Ross will stay with me,” Dad says, his voice gaining strength. “And if Sammy doesn’t want to go back to school, then he will stay with us too. That will be his decision to make. But I want them with me; I know I haven’t always been there for them, for all you boys, but I can do this right. I can be their father again.”
Dean feels his stomach turn over, chest pull and tug and clench, like his heart is trying to escape, trying to climb out of his body, because he doesn’t know if he can take this - be without Sam, without Ross. What is the point of his pathetic sorry life without his family?
But Dad’s right. He is right. This has to be done. For Sam, for Ross. He has to get away from them. The things the three of them have done together -
He has to leave. For their own good. For them, he’d do anything for them, his little brothers. And they’ll be good, with Dad. The three of them can be a proper family again, like Ross has always wanted.
When he speaks again, his voice is stronger, more sure, “Okay, yes. I’ll go.”
Dad exhales, a long, cracked breath. “Good, that’s - that’s good, Dean. You gotta know - it won’t be forever. Despite everything you’ve done, you’re still my boy. You’re still a part of this family, I just - I can’t have you around anymore. For now, at least.”
He goes silent, hand reaching to turn the music back up, fill up the devastating silence. Dean turns his head, stares out the window, his own ghostly reflection staring back at him. He closes his eyes and silently counts off the minutes, pushing all other thoughts from his head, after all they’re gonna be at the rendezvous point soon, and they have a job to do.
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