FIC: As We Are So Wonderfully Done With Each Other (SPN, Sam/Dean) (2/2)
First part here.
As We Are So Wonderfully Done With Each Other (2/2)
Sam/Dean. Explicit as hell. Please see warnings on first half.
It’s almost daylight and there’s a gas station about twenty miles up the road. Dean pulls into the lot and goes in, buys a Coke and a couple of power bars and asks for the key to the bathroom. The bathroom door’s on the outside of the building, dented gray metal with a padlock, and Sam’s already leaning against it when Dean comes out with the key.
Dean fumbles the lock, hopes the owner of the gas station doesn’t have a security camera installed, but they’re in the middle of freaking nowhere, so probably not. When he gets the door open at last, Sam grabs him by the neck of his shirt and drags him in, slams him against the wall. She lets go of him only long enough to lock the door behind them, and Dean takes the opportunity to look around. There’s scraps of toilet paper on the floor that stick to Dean’s feet, a thin layer of soap scum where the dispenser splashes, and thick lines of rust in the sink, but Dean’s seen worse.
Then Sam’s back on him, licking and biting at Dean’s lips, and Dean really doesn’t care.
He drops the bag and the Coke goes rolling across the disgusting floor. Sam’s pawing Dean through his jeans, impatient.
“Condom?” Dean manages to get out. He runs his hands up under Sam’s shirt and fumbles with her bra until it comes loose.
“Back pocket,” Sam gasps, and Dean gets the condom packet from Sam’s jeans and gives her ass a good grope as he does so. Sam chuckles and bites Dean’s jaw. “Dean, I didn’t figure you for an ass man,” she says.
“I’m more about the whole package,” Dean says, and grabs Sam’s ass and shoves her hard against the sink, pinning her there.
Sam grinds against him, nipples poking against Dean’s chest through the loosened fabric of her bra. Sam’s not as tall as she used to be, which Dean always manages to forget until they’re sparring or goofing off, but she’s still almost as tall as Dean. “You like my tits, then?” she asks. “You like my mouth?”
Dean groans and kisses her, squeezes her breast in one hand and runs his thumbnail roughly over her nipple. The weight of her breast in his palm is both familiar and alien. Sam. Sam’s breath catches, her mouth falls open under Dean’s.
“How do you want it?”
Sam twists in Dean’s arms until she faces the sink. She presses back against Dean’s dick, still throbbing against the denim of his jeans, and says, “Like this.”
“Whoa, Sammy.” Dean gives a nervous laugh, ignoring the unexpected surge of arousal. “I don’t think - now?”
“Not that,” Sam says, rolling her eyes. “Jesus, Dean. Just - fuck me this way.”
“Right.” Dean gasps open-mouthed against the back of Sam’s neck, says breathily, “I can do that.”
He peels her jeans and underwear down with shaking hands and fumbles his own jeans open. Sam spreads her legs, braces herself for him, but she doesn’t quite have the angle right, so Dean touches Sam’s other leg to guide her, make her open up for him. His hand stutters along the base of her thigh. Dean tests her with his fingertips, hides a groan in her shoulder at how fucking wet she is. He wants to go to his knees for her, but now’s not the time.
“Fucking fuck me, fucker,” says Sam, and Dean can’t help but laugh as he’s rolling on the condom.
“Think you coulda gotten a few more fucks in there, Sammy?”
“Jerk,” Sam huffs at him, sounding amused. “You think you can? Like, today?”
Dean catches Sam’s face in the mirror and she’s smiling. God, Dean knows that smile. He’s missed it. He always misses it, but to see it now fills a spot in him that he hadn’t even realized was empty.
Dean grabs Sam’s thigh, stretching her leg until she’s almost straddling the sink, then he presses in. He can feel her, hot and moist through the condom. Sam makes a noise like she’s dying, and God, she’s still so tight, still so fucking tight, and Dean’s not gonna make it. He squeezes his other hand between Sam and the sink, grinds the palm of his hand against her clit.
Sam practically fucking vibrates.
“Christ,” Sam says. “Just do it, Dean.”
She tosses her head, leans back against Dean’s shoulder, and Dean stares at the Sam reflected in the mirror, this wanton thing. Her T-shirt is rucked up over her breasts, her bra hanging loose, and the crazy rearrangement of clothing makes Sam’s breasts look like escapees from a mental institution, straightjackets and all. Dean fondly remembers that first couple of weeks when Sam refused to wear a bra and wonders if he can talk her into doing that again. He wants to imagine her bare under his hands.
Dean slams into her, eats up the whimper she makes, and finds himself wondering if Sam always used to make that whimper noise or if it’s new. Then he decides to stop thinking about it, because there’s no way he’s ever gonna know. The old Sam is gone, and Dean’s just got this one, and that’s good enough.
Dean can’t thrust as hard as he wants, otherwise the awkward angle makes him slip out, so he tries just flexing his hips against hers, shallow little thrusts that make Sam gasp. Dean’s not the one that’s supposed to be getting off, anyway - Dean wants to make Sam come, and come hard. He stops using his palm on her and uses his first two fingers to circle her clit, pressing hard against sensitive flesh until Sam whines and squirms against his hand. He’s still got her pinned, pinned so firmly that neither of Sam’s feet have to touch the ground. She’s probably gonna have bruises on her hips from that damn sink. Maybe they both will.
Sam’s gasping with every breath now, like she just can’t get enough breath because of the things Dean’s doing to her. He can feel her clit swell under his fingers, and her cunt keeps clenching around his cock in these little jerky spasms. With any regular girl, Dean would try some finesse, maybe draw it out a bit - hell, with any regular girl, Dean would have eaten her out before trying any of this shit, who knew Sam was so fucking easy - but this is Sam and Dean just wants to feel Sam come around him.
“Come on,” Dean murmurs. “Come on, baby. Come for me. Sam.”
Finally, Sam jerks and clamps down hard, spasms wracking her body. She bites her lip hard, her eyes squinched shut tight. Dean feels it through her whole body, feels the tremors and the following stillness. That’s it. Dean whispers in her ear, says Yeah, Sammy, yeah, just like that.
Sam slumps over the sink, trying to get her breath back. Dean extricates his hand from her as gently as he can, but she still flinches when his fingers brush her clit. He murmurs “Sorry,” and God, he wants to lick his fingers clean, but instead he pulls out of Sam and strips off the condom. He’s still hard, and while Sam pulls in thankful rasps of air, every limb screaming sated, Dean jerks off and watches Sam’s face in the mirror.
The glass in the mirror is warped, and in the reflection, Sam looks like Sam.
Dean comes all over Sam’s ass, groaning. His jizz shines there against her skin, and Dean reaches out and rubs it into the flesh of her lower back. He wants her to smell like him. He wants - Shit, Dean’s so fucked up. He’s so very fucked in the head.
Sam makes a disgusted noise and twists to check out the state of her ass. “Dude, what the hell are you doing?”
“I -“ Dean begins.
“Never mind,” says Sam wryly. “I think I can guess. That’s so gross, Dean. Yuck.”
It takes a moment for Dean to get out of whatever headspace he’s sunk into, and by the time he collects himself enough to fire back some witty quip, Sam’s looking concerned.
“Hey,” she says quietly. “You okay with this?”
“Yeah, I’m okay,” Dean says. He’s not quite sure if that’s true or not, but whatever he is feeling, he doesn’t know how to put it into words. “What about you?”
Sam cracks a smile. “Looking for me to feed your ego? I’m more than okay. That was awesome, man. Intense, but awesome.” She wrinkles her nose as she draws away from the sink, like she’s feeling the pull of Dean’s come drying on her skin. Dean holds back a shiver.
“Don’t look so pleased with yourself,” Sam says. “You’re totally wiping your gunk off my ass before we go back out to the car. You are so gross, Dean.”
Dean doesn’t point out to Sam that the bathroom is out of paper towels; he just drops to his knees on that gross tile floor and cleans Sam off the old fashioned way.
And then if Dean gets a little carried away and starts licking Sam elsewhere, too, well, that’s just a potential hazard associated with Dean’s methods. Sam certainly doesn’t seem to mind.
*
Sex. Sex with Sam. It’s like someone took their finger out of the crack in the dam, and now the river’s breaking through aged, crumbling concrete and forging a new course, eradicating everything in its path. Nothing can stop it. Dean feels dizzy all the time, can’t fully wrap his head around the fact that it’s actually happening.
They fuck every night, every day, sometimes at every bathroom stop. The first time they do it in a real bed, Dean goes a little crazy, he kisses and touches Sam everywhere he can reach and a few other places he shouldn’t be able to. He needs to know Sam, to map all this new skin and old scars onto a frame he remembers.
When Dean does start thinking about what they’re doing - and it’s always what they’re doing, because Dean can’t bring himself to label it, all those words like incest and perversion hanging over his head - Dean has no idea how it’s ever going to be normal between them again. Sam’s his responsibility, his kid sister, and what Dean’s doing with Sam now is not part of any Big Brother Handbook Dean’s ever seen.
This thing that he and Sam are weaving between them, with its unspoken weights and twisted promises, the taste of Sam’s mouth, the soft skin of her arms... it feels like sin. And at the same time, it feels like something Dean needs.
Dean doesn’t know what to do.
*
Sam comes into the motel room looking shifty. She’s carrying a plastic bag from some local department store, and Dean almost riffs on her for picking up such a chick habit as shopping, but something in Sam’s face makes him stop.
Sam goes into the bathroom and closes the door, and Dean stares after her. Sometimes Dean knows exactly what Sam’s thinking, but other times Sam’s freaking inscrutable.
Dean waits a while, wondering what Sam’s up to, then he turns back to QVC. They’re trying to sell very ugly emerald jewelry, and Dean is trying to imagine the kind of person that would actually wear the crap and managing to give himself the willies in the process.
He’s so wrapped up in the image - some gargantuan woman with huge, fat fingers, maybe? Or maybe some little slip of a thing with a sharp chin and mean eyes. Who the fuck even wears emeralds? Dean’s always thought girls were supposed to dig diamonds, gold and all that shit - that Dean doesn’t notice when Sam finally emerges from the bathroom.
When Dean looks up, he doesn’t know quite what he’s seeing at first. Then Sam shifts uncomfortably, and Dean blinks, takes in the whole outfit - the lacy purple bra, the matching purple panties stretched across Sam’s strong, slim thighs. And, shit, she’s wearing stockings and garters, too, and yeah, that’s a kink. Dean sits up straight on the bed, both to get a better look at Sam and hide how hard he’s getting.
Sam stares back at Dean, seeming oddly hesitant despite her elaborate get-up. Everything’s satin or see-through or lace, a major change from the usual plain cotton that Sam likes. Her messy hair is carefully styled into waves, and she’s wearing eyeliner and some sticky lipgloss.
Dean swallows, feeling rather uncomfortable, but he’ll go along with whatever scenario Sam has planned. He’s never doubted Sam’s schemes before, and if this’ll get Sam off, then Dean’s up for it. Plus, garters.
“Well, hi, sugar,” Dean drawls.
There’s a flicker of something in Sam’s face, then she flutters her eyelashes at Dean. The fluttering looks kind of dumb, actually, but all in all, Sam’s pretty hot. Kind of like Victoria’s Secret chewed her up and spat her back out, but hot. Totally Dean’s type, actually.
“Hey, stud,” Sam says, and Dean holds back the laughter that threatens at the sound of Sam’s sexy-voice.
Dean leans back on the bed, careful to display his package. He knows this game. “You want to come sit on my lap, sweetheart?”
Sam crawls onto the bed, and Dean spreads his legs to accommodate her. She straddles him, her breasts jiggling in the push-up bra, and Dean pulls Sam toward him until he can mouth at the tops of them, the pale flesh where they spill out from the ugly lace.
Sam moans softly, and Dean palms her through her underwear, rubbing at the scratchy lace. She lets him do that for a minute, then reaches down and moves his hand away.
Oh, so it’s that kind of game. Dean settles back, waits for instructions. Then he realizes Sam’s just looking at him, like she’s waiting for instructions too. There’s an awkward pause.
“I thought -“ says Sam.
“What do -“ say Dean at the same moment. They pause. “You first.”
“I want to suck you,” Sam blurts.
Dean goes really, amazingly hard. “What?”
Sam looks flustered. “I mean, that’s what you want, right?”
Dean’s brain is screaming Hell yes, but then there’s something about Sam’s tone that warns him off.
He says, “Is that what you want?”
“Jesus, Dean, it’s not about what I want,” says Sam. She freezes, as if hearing how bad that sounded. “That’s not what I mean, I - I thought this is what you wanted,” like that makes it sound any better.
“What was?” asks Dean, afraid of the answer.
Sam shrugs. “I know that the whole Playboy look gets you off, man, I was just trying to - hey!“ and she curses as Dean shoves her off of him and sits up.
Dean wonders if Sam knows how much of a jackass she’s being. But Sam’s expression doesn’t change. She’s honestly confused. She thought Dean wanted this?
Dean stops and looks at her. At Sam. For a dizzying moment Dean can’t see Sam in this girl’s body, no matter how long her legs are and how familiar her eyes. He can’t find his brother in the soft, round belly and the curved hips of this woman, with her lipgloss lips and her uncertainty. Sam has always been certain, Sam was always certain of everything in his life, even when it drove Dean crazy.
In the past few months, Dean’s put his hands all over her, felt her everywhere like he never did with Sam, and it makes him sick, it makes him sick and his brother is gone.
Oh, God, no. His brother is gone.
Sam has noticed Dean freezing and she’s suddenly all concerned eyes and grasping hands, saying “Dean, Dean, what is it? What’s wrong?” and Sam’s overbearing concern and nosiness, that at least hasn’t changed, not like everything else.
Dean can’t even begin to explain how he feels, not without upsetting Sam. He wants to cry, because Sam might be here, but his brother is gone. Dean’s brother is gone, and Dean never got to hold him, never got to touch him like this, and never will. Sam is here, but Dean’s brother is dead.
Sam turns Dean’s face up to hers, slim, long-fingered hands on Dean’s jaw, and she peers into his eyes for some kind of explanation. But Dean can’t. He just can’t.
He guesses she must get some idea, though, because suddenly her face hardens. Her mouth seals into a thin line, and she lets go of Dean like she’s been burnt.
Dean’s stomach drops. Fuck. Whatever he was feeling, whatever he was mourning, this is worse.
“Dean,” says Sam, and her voice cracks like Sam’s voice at fifteen, unsteady. “Don’t you - this is me, why does it matter? This is me.”
“It doesn’t,” Dean says faintly, and he’s not sure if he’s lying. He hopes he’s not. “It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t.”
He’s not sure if Sam hears him, though, because she tears herself away from Dean and stalks into the bathroom, angry and naked. He hears the door lock.
“Shit,” Dean says. He goes over to the door and knocks. “Sammy. Sammy!”
“That’s not my fucking name!”
Dean hears a clatter, like Sam’s knocking things around in there, and he wonders how badly you can really trash a motel bathroom on an average day. His past experiences with it have all involved hunts gone wrong and copious amounts of bleeding, nothing that a good mop wouldn’t fix.
Then there’s a shattering noise, maybe the mirror, and Dean starts slamming his palm on the door, swearing he’s gonna knock the whole fucking thing down if she doesn’t unlock it right now, Jesus Christ, Sammy, Sam.
Sam unlocks the door.
The first thing Dean notices when he pushes into the bathroom is that Sam’s crying, big gulping sobs, unabashed tears running down her face. Sam almost never cries, but when he does, he’s not ashamed; he doesn’t hide it. She’s no different now.
No different. Dean tells himself that, pushes the thought into his brain and hopes it’ll stick.
Dean hugs her, wraps her up in his arms. Sam pushes her wet, snotty face into his neck, gasping for air through her sobs. Yeah, and she did break the mirror, Dean can see the jagged cracks in the frame over her shoulder.
“I hate that I can only have you like this,” she gasps. “It’s like cheating, it doesn’t feel right. I can’t take it.”
“What are you talking about?” Dean asks. He hums and pets her back, running his hand down her spine like he’d soothe a ruffled cat. He’s done this. He’s done this to Sam. God, Dean’s fucked it up.
“Why won’t this work?” Sam asks, not answering. “Christ, Dean, it’s all I’ve got, man. It has to work.”
“It works,” says Dean. He cradles the back of her head in one hand, twists his fingers through her hair. “It works, okay? It works really well. Hasn’t it been working well?”
“No,” and Sam shoves at him, trying to get him off of her. Dean lets go and steps back, hands at his sides. “No, Dean, it hasn’t been working well, because I’ve been scared out of my fucking mind, Dean. I don’t want to lose you.”
Dean shakes his head. “You’re not going to lose me.”
“Oh, really?” Sam challenges. “And what about the day when I don’t, I don’t fake it well enough, and you remember that I’m not actually some new, hot girl you’ve been fucking, I’m your brother. What happens when you can’t pretend anymore. What then?”
There’s an incredible amount of things wrong with what Sam just said, so Dean focuses on the first one, his mouth going dry. “You’ve been faking it? I thought you - I thought you liked the sex.”
“Not the sex, Dean.” Sam holds her arms out, displaying the lacy bra, panties, garters. “This.”
It was a costume. Dean had known that, he just hadn’t realized the reasons behind it. She - what, she thought Dean needed that? To just lie back and think of Carmen Electra? That wasn’t what Dean needed, that was the whole fucking problem.
“Listen, Sam, you don’t have to dress up for me.” He risks a hand on Sam’s shoulder, but she shrugs him off. “You don’t have to play at being a girl.”
In fact, please don’t, I’d rather think of my brother when I’m fucking you, Dean doesn’t say.
Sam is silent a little too long. “Oh,” she says.
“Right,” Dean says. “So that’s not an issue. Are we okay, now?”
Sam just shakes her head. “I don’t get it,” she says, and she’s not even paying attention to Dean anymore, she’s just figuring this stuff out in her head. “I don’t know why you, you give me this look sometimes like you’re - wait.” Sam looks up at him, her face full of some terrible realization. “You - you’re looking at me like that because you miss him?”
And that’s it, game over, the final betrayal. Dean takes a step back, wondering how the hell he can fix this.
Sam’s gone and uncovered the whole thing that Dean’s been trying to hide from her. This, this is worse than Dean’s desire for her. This is the desire for the old Sam, for the one he’s never going to get back.
She was never supposed to know.
“That’s it,” Sam says, reading the truth off Dean’s face. “I was wrong. I thought that you had only started... wanting me, once I changed, and that’s why you... but that’s not it at all, huh?”
She wraps her arms around herself, looks Dean in the face, as resigned as Dean’s ever seen her. Him. Sam.
“I’ll go,” says Sam. “If this is going to be weird, I’ll just, I’ll go.”
No.
Dean’s throat closes up and he can’t speak, can’t even convey how wrong that would be. He shakes his head.
“Dean,” Sam says, her voice weirdly tight, like she might cry again. “I can’t be him again, either. I can’t be either one. I can’t be anything that you want, okay? This won’t work.”
“You are what I want,” Dean says. The words feel like something ripping. “The only thing. The only thing, Sam.” The only fucking thing he’s got left.
He steps in and kisses Sam, his whole body trembling, afraid of the answer he’s going to get from her lips.
Sam opens her mouth, lets Dean in, wipes the moisture from his face with her palms. She doesn’t protest when Dean turns desperate, when he presses her against the bathroom sink and sweeps away the broken shards of the mirror, glass catching on his hands.
Dean yanks at his boxers, presses into Sam and fucks her against the fake marble sink and the empty, barren frame of the fucking mirror. He kisses her until the urge to smash something dissipates, until the salty tears back up in his throat and leave him swallowing them down, swallowing everything down, and it’s just Sam, legs wrapped around Dean’s waist until he can only thrust deeper, her body rocking against his, head thrown back, long tanned neck, perfect, so fucking perfect, made for him.
When Dean finishes, gasping and stuttering into her body like a madman, she says nothing, just lets Dean grow soft inside her. When, finally, he slips out, she takes Dean’s hands and turns his palms up to the light, inspecting the bloody scratches on them for glass splinters.
“Should have used a dustpan,” she says.
Dean tugs his hands away, pressing them to Sam’s face, ignoring the bloody fingerprints he’s leaving on her cheekbones.
Sam says, “You got some kind of fetish about bathroom sinks? I mean, one time’s a fluke. But how many times is this?”
Dean shakes his head, tightening his grip on Sam’s face until her eyes snap back to his. She has to listen to this.
“You’re - you’re mine, okay?” he says. “You’re Sam. Nothing is ever going to change that.”
Sam looks at him for a long moment, then nods.
“Okay,” she says. A brief pause, and then: “You’re mine, too, you know. My big brother, always.”
“Sap,” says Dean.
“Yeah, well,” says Sam. She runs her palms under Dean’s eyes, catching more tears, then gently presses her fingertips to Dean’s closed eyelids, then replaces them with her lips, and Dean wonders if Sam always had this tenderness, if maybe people like Jess had seen Sam be this gentle.
He wonders what makes him deserve this tenderness now, after so long.
He wonders if more has changed between him and Sam than can even be measured.
“Hey,” says Sam, “You’re thinking. Stop that. Looks like it hurts.”
“Bitch,” says Dean, then freezes for a second, discovering yet another difference to come to terms with, but Sam just smiles.
“Jerk,” Sam finishes, and she pushes Dean off and goes to rummage through their packs for some antibiotic ointment and band-aids.
*
Now, Dean feels Sam’s eyes on him at weird times. When he looks back at her, she always gives him a sheepish grin and changes the subject. Weird. He doesn’t really care why she’s watching him, though. She looks happy.
It’s not until days later that Dean realizes that they didn’t use a condom, but by that time Sam’s already limping around their motel room and complaining about cramps.
Dean’s never been so glad to see a box of Tampax in the bathroom before in his life.
*
Despite what Dean had told Sam, it still takes a while. Sometimes he finds himself thinking of Sam as his sister, like she’s always been that girl. When that happens, Dean has to stop and just breathe for a minute until he can remember Sam’s old wide grin, his strong, muscular arms, his stupid hair, remember it and match it up to the Sam he’s with. Dean needs Sam to be in one piece in his mind, but he can’t just - shit - forget the past twenty-five years like they never happened.
It’s not until Dean stops grieving that he even realizes that’s what he was doing in the first place. The realization comes on the day that Dean’s bickering with Sam over another series of escalating pranks, one that left the box of condoms glued solidly to the motel’s Gideon bible - and really, what was Sam’s obsession with gluing things, anyway?
Dean has managed to get the box open and extract a condom, and he’s in the middle of tumbling Sam into bed and pressing his fingers against the dampness of her cotton underwear when he suddenly realizes that he’s finally not thinking of Sam as two different people anymore. It’s just all Sam. Sam’s arms around him are as familiar and welcome as they ever were.
Some things, of course, are still different. Sam bucks up against him, wet and frantic around his cock, her legs wrapped around his waist.
“Fuck me,” she pants. “Fuck me, fuck, fuck, Dean.”
Sam comes in a wave, trembling in Dean’s arms. She’s said that’s one of the best things about being a chick - the way she can just come and come with her whole body. Dean would envy her, but frankly, he never cares about his own orgasm so much as he wants to see Sam lose it, wants to see her utterly sated and - happy.
She rolls off of Dean’s cock, spent, and tiredly strokes Dean’s cheek and shoulders as Dean wraps a hand around his dick and finishes the business of getting off. He wore Sam out, he supposes, because her eyelids are drooping and the tone of her voice has a far-off sound to it, like part of her is already asleep.
“We could just stop,” she says. “Couldn’t we?”
Dean blinks up at the ceiling, half-hard, and thinks about it.
He really thinks about it, thinks about it until his erection is long forgotten and his brain is humming with what-ifs, feeling terrified and ecstatic at once.
Sam hasn’t had a vision in months. Ash hasn’t found any patterns pointing to the Demon, lately, and Bobby hasn’t heard a twitter from any exorcisms. And Dean and Sam have been keeping a low profile, going on a few odd hunts here and there, but mainly just blending in with the scenery. They hadn’t had an FBI scare since the hospital. From all they could tell, they were off the radar.
Maybe. It was unthinkable, but maybe - there was no way they could, but maybe.
Long minutes pass. He expects Sam to have fallen asleep already, but her eyes are still open when Dean turns to face her. Her gaze glitters in the dark, steady on Dean’s face.
“We don’t know that the Demon’s lost track of you,” Dean says.
“We do,” says Sam. “I know.”
Dean blinks. “Huh?”
Sam sighs. “My head feels... clean. No headaches. I can’t be a hundred percent sure, but seventy or eighty percent? Yeah. He doesn’t have a pipeline to my brain anymore.”
“Seventy percent’s not exactly safe,” Dean says.
“It’s as safe as we’re going to get,” Sam replies. “We’ve earned this, Dean.”
Dean stares at her for a long time, and Sam waits, being surprisingly patient.
“No,” says Dean, and Sam’s face shutters up. Without a word, she turns over, leaving Dean with a view of her implacable back.
Seventy percent isn’t enough of a chance. It’s not worth risking Sam, letting down their guard only to have something shitty and terrible happen again. Dean won’t build up a life only to have it ripped apart.
He hopes Sam understands that, eventually.
*
On their next job, Sam almost gets gored by something that looks a lot like a unicorn, something that Dean would ordinarily have laughed about. She twists away just in time, and the creature’s horn just scores her side, leaving a long gouge that bleeds like fuck.
Dean cleans Sam up once they’re back in the room, starts stitching up the wound, and wonders how many times he’s going to have Sam’s blood all over his hands.
Sam peers at the gouge. “Dude,” she says wonderingly. “Lucky thing I’ve got a chick’s waist, huh? A couple more inches of torso there and I’d have been screwed.”
Yeah, Dean thinks. Maybe Sam’s right. The horn would have lodged in the left side of Sam’s abdomen, and the way that thing was running, it would have kept going and carried off a hefty chunk of Sam with it.
For a minute he imagines Sam ripped open, bleeding out before Dean could even get there, and he loses his grip on the needle.
“Shit,” says Dean, hunting for it with his hands. It blends in with the motel blanket, and he can’t find it. “Shit.”
“Dean?” Sam says, and Sam’s blood is all over Dean’s hands. He can’t do this.
Sam’s asked him twice, now. Third time’s the charm.
“Yeah,” Dean says shakily. “Yeah, we could stop.”
*
They’re already in Montana, so they drive to Billings to rent an apartment. Dean makes bad jokes about “billings the rent” until both Sam and the realtor are ready to strangle him.
“We’ve earned this,” Sam had told him, and she was right. If the demon’s lost their trail, if the FBI can’t find them, then this is it. This is their chance to step out and get their lives back.
They can’t agree on which apartment they want. Sam complains that all the ones that Dean approves of look like motel rooms, to which Dean replies that all the apartments that Sam likes have ceilings high enough to hang himself in. They compromise.
Finding names is easier. Dean knows a guy in Rhode Island who owes him a favor, and he arranges to have new identities made-to-order. Dean scribbles long lists of possible names, most of which Sam turns her nose up at. Sam wants them to be Jack and Meg White. She thinks it’s hilarious until Dean tells her that he really doesn’t want to think of Sam as any kind of Meg, and she has to agree.
Luckily, Dean has a much better idea.
“Hi!” Dean tells their new neighbors, his smile bright and fake enough to make a counterfeiter cry. “We’re the Ramones. Just thought we’d swing by and say hi.”
“The Ramones, Dean?” Sam says later, once they’d introduced themselves to everyone in the apartment building. “The Ramones?”
Dean waggles Sam’s new photo ID at her. “You’re Dee Dee Ramone. I’m Joey.”
“You’re an idiot,” Sam tells him. She snags the ID and inspects the picture for Deanna Ramone. “Hey, this is pretty good.”
They fix up the apartment with some cheap furniture from Big Lots. Dean drives around the city on trash night, eying the sidewalks for anything else they can use, and they end up with a couple of rugs and a small bookshelf that’s only slightly stained.
There’s only one bedroom in the apartment. One bedroom, and it’s theirs. Just as Dean’s about to go down on Sam in their new bed, with its bright white sheets that are crisp from newness instead of starched rewashing - Sam rolls Dean onto his back and straddles his waist. Her pubic hair tickles his stomach and Dean runs his thumb down her mound, going straight for the clit like Sam likes it.
Sam slaps his hand away.
“You know what I’m thinking?” she asks.
“I think so, Brain, but what will we do with the five bananas?” Dean retorts, and Sam’s face creases in a mix of laughter and consternation. Then she goes for his ribs, fingers splayed, and Dean curls away from her hands, laughing helplessly. “Okay,” he gasps, “Okay. No, Sam, what are you thinking?”
Sam puts her arms on either side of Dean’s head and leans down until they’re face-to-face. Dean leans up for a kiss, and she meets him halfway, makes it slow and lingering until she pulls away again.
“I’m thinking that I want to have your cock in my mouth,” says Sam, and with that, she slithers down Dean’s body and licks the head of his dick. Then she puts her lips around him, hollows her cheeks out and runs her tongue around the tip.
“Jesus, Sam.” Dean throws his head back. It’s not the best blowjob in the world. Sam’s kind of awkward, keeps forgetting that her mouth is smaller than it used to be, but it’s Sam and that makes it good enough.
When Dean comes, he closes his eyes tight, concentrating on the feel of Sam’s mouth and hands. Once Sam decides she’s done, she laughs and sprawls next to Dean, kicking one leg over his.
“Okay, so maybe that kind of sucked,” Sam says.
“Heh,” Dean grins, and he doesn’t even have to finish his remark before Sam whaps him in the shoulder. “Ow!”
“I’m much better at eating pussy,” Sam tells him matter-of-factly. “But I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it.”
Dean’s too sleepy to really reply - he was exhausted from moving furniture even before Sam blew him. They stare at the ceiling for a while - their ceiling, their walls, their bed, Jesus Christ - then Sam says, “I knew what you were doing, you know.”
Actually, Dean doesn’t know, and says so. “Huh?”
“The sex,” Sam says. “I’m not saying it’s bad, but. You act like it’s your duty to please me or something. Like I’m some kind of orgasm machine and you just have to keep popping in quarters.”
She doesn’t act like she’s expecting an answer, so Dean doesn’t give one.
“Just give me a chance to even the score, sometimes,” says Sam. Her voice is casual, but she looks at Dean like she’s trying to stare her words right into his soul. “This thing goes both ways, Dean.”
Oh, please, save Dean from transparent metaphors. He’s warmed, though, and the reassurance worms its way under his ribcage and gets into his heart. He closes his eyes.
Sam kicks Dean in the ankle, rolls over and kisses him. He can taste himself in her mouth. Dean kisses her back, and he thinks about all the things he wanted that he never got, and this one thing that he did.
*
At first, Dean doesn’t’ recognize the thing he’s found in Sam’s dresser, thinks maybe it’s allergy medication. By the time it clicks, Dean’s been staring at the foil package for a good minute and Sam’s giving him a weird look.
“Is this -“ says Dean.
“Yeah,” says Sam. “I picked up some birth control pills while we were in Pennsylvania a couple months ago.”
“Huh.” Dean tucks the pills back in Sam’s bag, tries not to remember the safe sex talk he’d had with Sam when Sam was thirteen. “Good idea.”
Sometimes condoms break, and when shit like that happens, it’s good if the girl’s on the pill. Make sure you don’t have any little Sammys running around.
He thinks, breathless for a moment, of how very screwed they might have been if Sam hadn’t remembered what Dean was too much of a dumbass to remember. Dean’s just been - they’ve been having a lot of sex. A lot of sex with just condoms as barrier, and that one time with nothing at all, and if Sam -
“Jeez, what crawled up your ass?” Sam asks, and Dean just shakes his head.
“I’m gonna go out for a bit,” Dean tells her, and he leaves.
*
Later that night, Dean’s got his nose pressed up in Sam’s armpit, all salty smell and soft skin. Sam still doesn’t shave very often, maybe every week or so if she remembers, and there’s a dark shadow of coarse hair under Sam’s arm that Dean kind of wants to lick a line across.
Dean closes his eyes instead, bumps Sam with his forehead and says, “I just hadn’t thought about it.” He lays a hand on Sam’s stomach, palm spread. “That you could get pregnant, now.”
Sam snorts, digs her chin into the top of Dean’s head. “Well, that’s kind of implied with the uterus, dude.”
Dean ignores that. “But isn’t it, I don’t know, weird? To have that feeling?”
“What feeling? Like a sperm is gonna slip and fall up my vagina and oops, maybe I’ll have to change diapers for a mutant kid for my whole life?”
Sam’s voice isn’t cruel, but she obviously doesn’t understand what Dean’s trying to say. Dean’s not even sure if he knows.
“But you could,” says Dean. “You could get pregnant.”
Something must have come out in Dean’s tone that he didn’t intend, but it doesn’t take him long to realize that Sam’s inhaled sharply, that her stomach is tense under his palm.
“What? No!” Dean jerks his hand away. “I didn’t mean me. Jesus Christ, I mean - no!”
“Right, I knew that.” Sam’s laugh is a little shaky, but Dean lets it go.
“But someone else,” says Dean, and Christ, this is not a good idea, he has no idea why he’s pushing this. “Sam, you could have kids if you wanted.”
She’s silent for a moment, then says, “Who would the father be?”
Dean blinks. “Uh. I don’t know?”
Sam snuggles into Dean’s side. “I could pick someone up at a truck stop, maybe? Or go to a sperm bank? How would you feel with someone else’s kid just crawling around in my guts?”
“It wouldn’t be someone else’s kid,” says Dean. “It’d be yours.”
“It’d be ours.” She ignores Dean’s startled flinch, squeezes his arm. “Wouldn’t it. That’s what you’re saying.”
“I’m not saying anything,” says Dean.
“Dean,” and Sam rolls over and is suddenly in his face, her serious expression hovering right over his. “Do you want to have a kid? Do you want me to have one?”
Dean squirms out from under her and sits up. “I don’t want you to do anything,” he says. “Sam. Jesus. Just, no. No way.”
He knows that Sam can see the lie painted all over him. She knows that Dean’s always wanted a family, always wanted to carry on the line, always wanted to have someone call him “dad.”
Always known it was impossible.
“Okay,” Sam says quietly. “That’s what I thought.”
They don’t talk about it again.
*
Sam gets a job as a research assistant at the local college. Dean sits around and watches infomercials for a week, then starts looking into any possible hauntings in the area. Within two months, he and Sam have cleared out all the malevolent spirits in a hundred-mile radius. Then Dean gets bored again, and somehow finds himself at the local radio station. They look over the fact that he’s got no experience, deciding that the fact that he’s been listening to radio all over the country for the past twenty-five years makes up for it.
Before Dean knows it, he’s DJ-ing for a couple hours, four nights a week. The pay’s for shit, but Dean gets call-ins and can play pretty much any music he wants. Nobody riding shotgun to whine about the sixth Metallica song in a row. It’s not perfect, but it’s okay.
At some point, Dean realizes he’s happy, and he doesn’t quite know how to deal with that. He’d imagine it’s something like being in a foreign country, bumbling around and trying to learn a whole new language. He doesn’t know this world, this bright shining thing where he can wake up in the morning with Sam beside him and know that neither of them will die that day.
Wishful thinking, of course. Dean knows better than anyone how suddenly death can loom in front of you. But Dean has hope, and that’s better than anything else he’s had for the past two years.
Except for Sam. Sam is always better.
Sam grows her hair out long, and Dean doesn’t say anything, but he starts having dreams where Sam’s pinned to the ceiling above him, mouth open wide, blood dripping from her stomach. He wakes up coughing from smoke that isn’t there.
When Sam gets in a fit of pique one day and chops it all back to chin-length, Dean doesn’t complain. Without the long hair, Sam stops looking so much like Mom, and the dreams stop.
Dean never doubted they would; he’s not the brother with the nightmares who come true, after all.
*
Sam visits Dean at the radio station one day, and although at first he thinks Something’s happened, he waves her into the sound booth He’s playing Highway to Hell, and Sam gives him a fond smile.
“You’re going to call me a pussy,” Sam says, “But I brought you lunch. No boogers or worms or anything. Just chicken salad.”
“Thanks,” Dean says around his mouthful. It’s really good chicken salad, he doesn’t know why Sam is making that disgusted face. A piece of bread falls into Dean’s lap, and he picks it up and crams it in his mouth with the rest. Sam shakes her head at him. Weirdo.
She sits on the floor and leans against the wall, munching on her own sandwich. “You really like it here, huh?” she says.
“Sure,” Dean says. He finishes the sandwich and hunts around for his Coke. Sam points out a can hidden behind the speaker, and Dean gulps it down. “Yeah, I mean. It’s cool.”
“I quit my job today,” Sam says, and yeah, Dean figured it was something like that. “I just couldn’t take it anymore. They were a bunch of chauvinist pigs.”
“I know, you were telling me.” Dean offers Sam the Coke, and she takes a sip and hands it back.
“Anyway, and then I started thinking about it. I mean, I used to be like them, Dean.”
“I don’t think you could have been a chauvinist pig if someone replaced your brain with Hitler’s, Sammy.”
Sam rolls her eyes. “You know what I mean. I used to be a guy.”
She falls silent while Dean cues up the next couple of songs, then he nods for her to go on.
“But that thought... it was so far away. It was like I was thinking about someone else.” She shakes her head. “Not in a weird way, though. Not like I’m making it sound. It was good that it was far away. It felt comfortable. It felt like, hey, this is me now.”
Dean offers her the Coke again, but she shakes her head. “Nah, man. It’s gone flat. I don’t know how you can drink it like that. But, do you know what I mean? I don’t sound crazy?”
“You always sound crazy,” Dean tells her. She narrows her eyes at him, and Dean relents with a shrug. “Nah, man. I mean, you know I had a hard time with it, and it didn’t have anything to do with me. So if it doesn’t bother you, that’s good.”
Sam nods. “Yeah. It just felt permanent, that’s all. And those guys were cracking jokes and trying to pinch my ass, and I was like, shit. I’m a woman, and this is what I get?” She laughs to herself and finally takes another bite of her sandwich. Dean wonders if she’s going to eat the whole thing or just take it to a movie.
“What do you want me to tell you, Sammy?” Dean says finally.
Sam shakes her head. “I don’t want you to tell me anything. I just wanted to tell you.”
“Oh.” Dean pauses. “Good.”
She chews slowly. Dean tells his listeners that it’s nice outside, going to be a sunny day, then he puts on some Zeppelin. Steady-rolling woman gonna come my way. Sam glances up when she hears the lyrics, snickers at him.
“You trying to get me to blow you under the desk?” she says.
“Hey, if the mood strikes,” says Dean. He shakes his head, though, and Sam finishes her sandwich.
“Sammy?” Dean says a minute later.
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad you’re okay.”
Sam smiles at him. “Yeah. Same to you.”
“And later, you have to tell me every little detail of how you made those fuckers pay.”
She chuckles. “Not much to tell. I gave them a stern talking-to, that’s all. Although I did break one guy’s fingers.”
“Attagirl.”
*
When the end comes, it comes easy. Dean sees it from a long way off, notices how Sam starts running in the mornings, how she hangs up a dartboard, and how sometimes, on the weekends, she goes into the woods to do target practice. Stuff that people don’t usually do if all they’re worried about is getting another research internship.
Part of Dean still hopes he’s misinterpreting the signs, but mainly he tries not to think about it. It’ll happen when it happens. In the meantime, there’s him and Sam, and that’s enough.
Then Dean wakes up one night and finds Sam staring at the ceiling, striped in cool, night-hued moonlight from the open blinds. Dean recognizes that brooding look immediately. (“It’s called being contemplative, asshole,” Sam - the old Sam - had told him once. “You should try it sometime, you might learn something.”)
Dean asks, “Bad dream?” by which he means, “Vision?” He thinks Sam would have told him if she’d started having them again, but he could be wrong.
“No,” she says. “I was just thinking.”
“Really?”
Sam chuckles and hits Dean with a pillow. “Shut up. I was thinking. About the Demon.”
Dean quiets. Here it comes.
“He’s still out there, doing god knows what. I mean, maybe I’ve fallen off his radar, maybe I haven’t, but...” Sam trails off, goes back to inspecting the ceiling. “But does that make me any less responsible?”
“Um, yeah?” says Dean. “You’re not responsible. You never were.” He pauses, knows it’s impossible to talk Sam out of this, but he feels like he has to say something. “Sam, if we were right... we’re free of that son of a bitch. He can’t fuck with your head anymore.”
“Or so we think.” Sam pauses. “But there are other people he’s still fucking with. And maybe it’s up to me to do something about it.”
Dean says nothing.
Sam turns to him, blinking in the darkness. “Dean... He killed Jess. And Mom. And Dad.”
“I know,” says Dean. He knows.
Sam rolls onto Dean’s half of the bed, snuggling into his side until Dean gives up and puts his arms around her. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I wish I could just do this. I wish I could have this.”
And then, although she must know that Dean wouldn’t, not in a million years: “You can stay here, if you want.”
“No fucking way,” says Dean. He tousles Sam’s hair, pressing a kiss against the high slope of her forehead. “No. It’s the two of us, together, that are gonna kill this fucker. You and me. I know that much.”
It’s so much easier to have hope, these days. It’s so much easier to breathe. If they die because of this, Dean thinks, at least it’ll be on their terms.
Sam smiles, pulls Dean in for a kiss.
They leave in the morning, windows rolled down and the road in front of them, where it always is.
*
A woman working as an office assistant at a local university files a sexual harassment complaint. A little boy turns up the stereo and decides he wants to be a DJ when he grows up. A couple of employees at a local diner note the absences at the table in the corner, the striking-looking couple that used to come in every Saturday.
Of the people that knew their names, a few note the disappearance of Joe and Deanna Ramone, but no one goes to the cops.
*
There’s some lesson in here, about change, or destiny, or making the best of what you’ve got. A lesson about love, maybe, and looking past the outside into the inside.
Dean’s not sure. Doesn’t really care, either. The lessons aren’t important, it’s what you do with them.
Somewhere in New Mexico, Sam’s looking through newspapers, circling obituaries and chewing on the end of her red marker. She’s wearing a skirt as some relief from the heat, which Dean teased her about until she said Easy access, dude. Shut up, and provided a demonstration which shut Dean up pretty quickly.
When Dean calls Ash to check up, see if he’s found anything new. Ash says, Man, thought you guys bit it! Haven’t heard from you in ages.
The rumors of our death... Dean trails off, looks up into the clear sky as he’s listening to Ash rattle off some search results. Sam yawns, leans her head back against the seat.
It looks like it’s going to be a sunny day.
end
“As We Are So Wonderfully Done with Each Other”
by Kenneth Patchen
As we are so wonderfully done with each other
We can walk into our separate sleep
On floors of music where the milkwhite cloak of childhood lies
O my lady, my fairest dear, my sweetest, loveliest one
Your lips have splashed my dull house with the speech of flowers
My hands are hallowed where they touched over your soft curving.
It is good to be weary from that brilliant work
It is being God to feel your breathing under me
A waterglass on the bureau fills with morning . . .
Don’t let anyone in to wake us.
As We Are So Wonderfully Done With Each Other (2/2)
Sam/Dean. Explicit as hell. Please see warnings on first half.
It’s almost daylight and there’s a gas station about twenty miles up the road. Dean pulls into the lot and goes in, buys a Coke and a couple of power bars and asks for the key to the bathroom. The bathroom door’s on the outside of the building, dented gray metal with a padlock, and Sam’s already leaning against it when Dean comes out with the key.
Dean fumbles the lock, hopes the owner of the gas station doesn’t have a security camera installed, but they’re in the middle of freaking nowhere, so probably not. When he gets the door open at last, Sam grabs him by the neck of his shirt and drags him in, slams him against the wall. She lets go of him only long enough to lock the door behind them, and Dean takes the opportunity to look around. There’s scraps of toilet paper on the floor that stick to Dean’s feet, a thin layer of soap scum where the dispenser splashes, and thick lines of rust in the sink, but Dean’s seen worse.
Then Sam’s back on him, licking and biting at Dean’s lips, and Dean really doesn’t care.
He drops the bag and the Coke goes rolling across the disgusting floor. Sam’s pawing Dean through his jeans, impatient.
“Condom?” Dean manages to get out. He runs his hands up under Sam’s shirt and fumbles with her bra until it comes loose.
“Back pocket,” Sam gasps, and Dean gets the condom packet from Sam’s jeans and gives her ass a good grope as he does so. Sam chuckles and bites Dean’s jaw. “Dean, I didn’t figure you for an ass man,” she says.
“I’m more about the whole package,” Dean says, and grabs Sam’s ass and shoves her hard against the sink, pinning her there.
Sam grinds against him, nipples poking against Dean’s chest through the loosened fabric of her bra. Sam’s not as tall as she used to be, which Dean always manages to forget until they’re sparring or goofing off, but she’s still almost as tall as Dean. “You like my tits, then?” she asks. “You like my mouth?”
Dean groans and kisses her, squeezes her breast in one hand and runs his thumbnail roughly over her nipple. The weight of her breast in his palm is both familiar and alien. Sam. Sam’s breath catches, her mouth falls open under Dean’s.
“How do you want it?”
Sam twists in Dean’s arms until she faces the sink. She presses back against Dean’s dick, still throbbing against the denim of his jeans, and says, “Like this.”
“Whoa, Sammy.” Dean gives a nervous laugh, ignoring the unexpected surge of arousal. “I don’t think - now?”
“Not that,” Sam says, rolling her eyes. “Jesus, Dean. Just - fuck me this way.”
“Right.” Dean gasps open-mouthed against the back of Sam’s neck, says breathily, “I can do that.”
He peels her jeans and underwear down with shaking hands and fumbles his own jeans open. Sam spreads her legs, braces herself for him, but she doesn’t quite have the angle right, so Dean touches Sam’s other leg to guide her, make her open up for him. His hand stutters along the base of her thigh. Dean tests her with his fingertips, hides a groan in her shoulder at how fucking wet she is. He wants to go to his knees for her, but now’s not the time.
“Fucking fuck me, fucker,” says Sam, and Dean can’t help but laugh as he’s rolling on the condom.
“Think you coulda gotten a few more fucks in there, Sammy?”
“Jerk,” Sam huffs at him, sounding amused. “You think you can? Like, today?”
Dean catches Sam’s face in the mirror and she’s smiling. God, Dean knows that smile. He’s missed it. He always misses it, but to see it now fills a spot in him that he hadn’t even realized was empty.
Dean grabs Sam’s thigh, stretching her leg until she’s almost straddling the sink, then he presses in. He can feel her, hot and moist through the condom. Sam makes a noise like she’s dying, and God, she’s still so tight, still so fucking tight, and Dean’s not gonna make it. He squeezes his other hand between Sam and the sink, grinds the palm of his hand against her clit.
Sam practically fucking vibrates.
“Christ,” Sam says. “Just do it, Dean.”
She tosses her head, leans back against Dean’s shoulder, and Dean stares at the Sam reflected in the mirror, this wanton thing. Her T-shirt is rucked up over her breasts, her bra hanging loose, and the crazy rearrangement of clothing makes Sam’s breasts look like escapees from a mental institution, straightjackets and all. Dean fondly remembers that first couple of weeks when Sam refused to wear a bra and wonders if he can talk her into doing that again. He wants to imagine her bare under his hands.
Dean slams into her, eats up the whimper she makes, and finds himself wondering if Sam always used to make that whimper noise or if it’s new. Then he decides to stop thinking about it, because there’s no way he’s ever gonna know. The old Sam is gone, and Dean’s just got this one, and that’s good enough.
Dean can’t thrust as hard as he wants, otherwise the awkward angle makes him slip out, so he tries just flexing his hips against hers, shallow little thrusts that make Sam gasp. Dean’s not the one that’s supposed to be getting off, anyway - Dean wants to make Sam come, and come hard. He stops using his palm on her and uses his first two fingers to circle her clit, pressing hard against sensitive flesh until Sam whines and squirms against his hand. He’s still got her pinned, pinned so firmly that neither of Sam’s feet have to touch the ground. She’s probably gonna have bruises on her hips from that damn sink. Maybe they both will.
Sam’s gasping with every breath now, like she just can’t get enough breath because of the things Dean’s doing to her. He can feel her clit swell under his fingers, and her cunt keeps clenching around his cock in these little jerky spasms. With any regular girl, Dean would try some finesse, maybe draw it out a bit - hell, with any regular girl, Dean would have eaten her out before trying any of this shit, who knew Sam was so fucking easy - but this is Sam and Dean just wants to feel Sam come around him.
“Come on,” Dean murmurs. “Come on, baby. Come for me. Sam.”
Finally, Sam jerks and clamps down hard, spasms wracking her body. She bites her lip hard, her eyes squinched shut tight. Dean feels it through her whole body, feels the tremors and the following stillness. That’s it. Dean whispers in her ear, says Yeah, Sammy, yeah, just like that.
Sam slumps over the sink, trying to get her breath back. Dean extricates his hand from her as gently as he can, but she still flinches when his fingers brush her clit. He murmurs “Sorry,” and God, he wants to lick his fingers clean, but instead he pulls out of Sam and strips off the condom. He’s still hard, and while Sam pulls in thankful rasps of air, every limb screaming sated, Dean jerks off and watches Sam’s face in the mirror.
The glass in the mirror is warped, and in the reflection, Sam looks like Sam.
Dean comes all over Sam’s ass, groaning. His jizz shines there against her skin, and Dean reaches out and rubs it into the flesh of her lower back. He wants her to smell like him. He wants - Shit, Dean’s so fucked up. He’s so very fucked in the head.
Sam makes a disgusted noise and twists to check out the state of her ass. “Dude, what the hell are you doing?”
“I -“ Dean begins.
“Never mind,” says Sam wryly. “I think I can guess. That’s so gross, Dean. Yuck.”
It takes a moment for Dean to get out of whatever headspace he’s sunk into, and by the time he collects himself enough to fire back some witty quip, Sam’s looking concerned.
“Hey,” she says quietly. “You okay with this?”
“Yeah, I’m okay,” Dean says. He’s not quite sure if that’s true or not, but whatever he is feeling, he doesn’t know how to put it into words. “What about you?”
Sam cracks a smile. “Looking for me to feed your ego? I’m more than okay. That was awesome, man. Intense, but awesome.” She wrinkles her nose as she draws away from the sink, like she’s feeling the pull of Dean’s come drying on her skin. Dean holds back a shiver.
“Don’t look so pleased with yourself,” Sam says. “You’re totally wiping your gunk off my ass before we go back out to the car. You are so gross, Dean.”
Dean doesn’t point out to Sam that the bathroom is out of paper towels; he just drops to his knees on that gross tile floor and cleans Sam off the old fashioned way.
And then if Dean gets a little carried away and starts licking Sam elsewhere, too, well, that’s just a potential hazard associated with Dean’s methods. Sam certainly doesn’t seem to mind.
*
Sex. Sex with Sam. It’s like someone took their finger out of the crack in the dam, and now the river’s breaking through aged, crumbling concrete and forging a new course, eradicating everything in its path. Nothing can stop it. Dean feels dizzy all the time, can’t fully wrap his head around the fact that it’s actually happening.
They fuck every night, every day, sometimes at every bathroom stop. The first time they do it in a real bed, Dean goes a little crazy, he kisses and touches Sam everywhere he can reach and a few other places he shouldn’t be able to. He needs to know Sam, to map all this new skin and old scars onto a frame he remembers.
When Dean does start thinking about what they’re doing - and it’s always what they’re doing, because Dean can’t bring himself to label it, all those words like incest and perversion hanging over his head - Dean has no idea how it’s ever going to be normal between them again. Sam’s his responsibility, his kid sister, and what Dean’s doing with Sam now is not part of any Big Brother Handbook Dean’s ever seen.
This thing that he and Sam are weaving between them, with its unspoken weights and twisted promises, the taste of Sam’s mouth, the soft skin of her arms... it feels like sin. And at the same time, it feels like something Dean needs.
Dean doesn’t know what to do.
*
Sam comes into the motel room looking shifty. She’s carrying a plastic bag from some local department store, and Dean almost riffs on her for picking up such a chick habit as shopping, but something in Sam’s face makes him stop.
Sam goes into the bathroom and closes the door, and Dean stares after her. Sometimes Dean knows exactly what Sam’s thinking, but other times Sam’s freaking inscrutable.
Dean waits a while, wondering what Sam’s up to, then he turns back to QVC. They’re trying to sell very ugly emerald jewelry, and Dean is trying to imagine the kind of person that would actually wear the crap and managing to give himself the willies in the process.
He’s so wrapped up in the image - some gargantuan woman with huge, fat fingers, maybe? Or maybe some little slip of a thing with a sharp chin and mean eyes. Who the fuck even wears emeralds? Dean’s always thought girls were supposed to dig diamonds, gold and all that shit - that Dean doesn’t notice when Sam finally emerges from the bathroom.
When Dean looks up, he doesn’t know quite what he’s seeing at first. Then Sam shifts uncomfortably, and Dean blinks, takes in the whole outfit - the lacy purple bra, the matching purple panties stretched across Sam’s strong, slim thighs. And, shit, she’s wearing stockings and garters, too, and yeah, that’s a kink. Dean sits up straight on the bed, both to get a better look at Sam and hide how hard he’s getting.
Sam stares back at Dean, seeming oddly hesitant despite her elaborate get-up. Everything’s satin or see-through or lace, a major change from the usual plain cotton that Sam likes. Her messy hair is carefully styled into waves, and she’s wearing eyeliner and some sticky lipgloss.
Dean swallows, feeling rather uncomfortable, but he’ll go along with whatever scenario Sam has planned. He’s never doubted Sam’s schemes before, and if this’ll get Sam off, then Dean’s up for it. Plus, garters.
“Well, hi, sugar,” Dean drawls.
There’s a flicker of something in Sam’s face, then she flutters her eyelashes at Dean. The fluttering looks kind of dumb, actually, but all in all, Sam’s pretty hot. Kind of like Victoria’s Secret chewed her up and spat her back out, but hot. Totally Dean’s type, actually.
“Hey, stud,” Sam says, and Dean holds back the laughter that threatens at the sound of Sam’s sexy-voice.
Dean leans back on the bed, careful to display his package. He knows this game. “You want to come sit on my lap, sweetheart?”
Sam crawls onto the bed, and Dean spreads his legs to accommodate her. She straddles him, her breasts jiggling in the push-up bra, and Dean pulls Sam toward him until he can mouth at the tops of them, the pale flesh where they spill out from the ugly lace.
Sam moans softly, and Dean palms her through her underwear, rubbing at the scratchy lace. She lets him do that for a minute, then reaches down and moves his hand away.
Oh, so it’s that kind of game. Dean settles back, waits for instructions. Then he realizes Sam’s just looking at him, like she’s waiting for instructions too. There’s an awkward pause.
“I thought -“ says Sam.
“What do -“ say Dean at the same moment. They pause. “You first.”
“I want to suck you,” Sam blurts.
Dean goes really, amazingly hard. “What?”
Sam looks flustered. “I mean, that’s what you want, right?”
Dean’s brain is screaming Hell yes, but then there’s something about Sam’s tone that warns him off.
He says, “Is that what you want?”
“Jesus, Dean, it’s not about what I want,” says Sam. She freezes, as if hearing how bad that sounded. “That’s not what I mean, I - I thought this is what you wanted,” like that makes it sound any better.
“What was?” asks Dean, afraid of the answer.
Sam shrugs. “I know that the whole Playboy look gets you off, man, I was just trying to - hey!“ and she curses as Dean shoves her off of him and sits up.
Dean wonders if Sam knows how much of a jackass she’s being. But Sam’s expression doesn’t change. She’s honestly confused. She thought Dean wanted this?
Dean stops and looks at her. At Sam. For a dizzying moment Dean can’t see Sam in this girl’s body, no matter how long her legs are and how familiar her eyes. He can’t find his brother in the soft, round belly and the curved hips of this woman, with her lipgloss lips and her uncertainty. Sam has always been certain, Sam was always certain of everything in his life, even when it drove Dean crazy.
In the past few months, Dean’s put his hands all over her, felt her everywhere like he never did with Sam, and it makes him sick, it makes him sick and his brother is gone.
Oh, God, no. His brother is gone.
Sam has noticed Dean freezing and she’s suddenly all concerned eyes and grasping hands, saying “Dean, Dean, what is it? What’s wrong?” and Sam’s overbearing concern and nosiness, that at least hasn’t changed, not like everything else.
Dean can’t even begin to explain how he feels, not without upsetting Sam. He wants to cry, because Sam might be here, but his brother is gone. Dean’s brother is gone, and Dean never got to hold him, never got to touch him like this, and never will. Sam is here, but Dean’s brother is dead.
Sam turns Dean’s face up to hers, slim, long-fingered hands on Dean’s jaw, and she peers into his eyes for some kind of explanation. But Dean can’t. He just can’t.
He guesses she must get some idea, though, because suddenly her face hardens. Her mouth seals into a thin line, and she lets go of Dean like she’s been burnt.
Dean’s stomach drops. Fuck. Whatever he was feeling, whatever he was mourning, this is worse.
“Dean,” says Sam, and her voice cracks like Sam’s voice at fifteen, unsteady. “Don’t you - this is me, why does it matter? This is me.”
“It doesn’t,” Dean says faintly, and he’s not sure if he’s lying. He hopes he’s not. “It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t.”
He’s not sure if Sam hears him, though, because she tears herself away from Dean and stalks into the bathroom, angry and naked. He hears the door lock.
“Shit,” Dean says. He goes over to the door and knocks. “Sammy. Sammy!”
“That’s not my fucking name!”
Dean hears a clatter, like Sam’s knocking things around in there, and he wonders how badly you can really trash a motel bathroom on an average day. His past experiences with it have all involved hunts gone wrong and copious amounts of bleeding, nothing that a good mop wouldn’t fix.
Then there’s a shattering noise, maybe the mirror, and Dean starts slamming his palm on the door, swearing he’s gonna knock the whole fucking thing down if she doesn’t unlock it right now, Jesus Christ, Sammy, Sam.
Sam unlocks the door.
The first thing Dean notices when he pushes into the bathroom is that Sam’s crying, big gulping sobs, unabashed tears running down her face. Sam almost never cries, but when he does, he’s not ashamed; he doesn’t hide it. She’s no different now.
No different. Dean tells himself that, pushes the thought into his brain and hopes it’ll stick.
Dean hugs her, wraps her up in his arms. Sam pushes her wet, snotty face into his neck, gasping for air through her sobs. Yeah, and she did break the mirror, Dean can see the jagged cracks in the frame over her shoulder.
“I hate that I can only have you like this,” she gasps. “It’s like cheating, it doesn’t feel right. I can’t take it.”
“What are you talking about?” Dean asks. He hums and pets her back, running his hand down her spine like he’d soothe a ruffled cat. He’s done this. He’s done this to Sam. God, Dean’s fucked it up.
“Why won’t this work?” Sam asks, not answering. “Christ, Dean, it’s all I’ve got, man. It has to work.”
“It works,” says Dean. He cradles the back of her head in one hand, twists his fingers through her hair. “It works, okay? It works really well. Hasn’t it been working well?”
“No,” and Sam shoves at him, trying to get him off of her. Dean lets go and steps back, hands at his sides. “No, Dean, it hasn’t been working well, because I’ve been scared out of my fucking mind, Dean. I don’t want to lose you.”
Dean shakes his head. “You’re not going to lose me.”
“Oh, really?” Sam challenges. “And what about the day when I don’t, I don’t fake it well enough, and you remember that I’m not actually some new, hot girl you’ve been fucking, I’m your brother. What happens when you can’t pretend anymore. What then?”
There’s an incredible amount of things wrong with what Sam just said, so Dean focuses on the first one, his mouth going dry. “You’ve been faking it? I thought you - I thought you liked the sex.”
“Not the sex, Dean.” Sam holds her arms out, displaying the lacy bra, panties, garters. “This.”
It was a costume. Dean had known that, he just hadn’t realized the reasons behind it. She - what, she thought Dean needed that? To just lie back and think of Carmen Electra? That wasn’t what Dean needed, that was the whole fucking problem.
“Listen, Sam, you don’t have to dress up for me.” He risks a hand on Sam’s shoulder, but she shrugs him off. “You don’t have to play at being a girl.”
In fact, please don’t, I’d rather think of my brother when I’m fucking you, Dean doesn’t say.
Sam is silent a little too long. “Oh,” she says.
“Right,” Dean says. “So that’s not an issue. Are we okay, now?”
Sam just shakes her head. “I don’t get it,” she says, and she’s not even paying attention to Dean anymore, she’s just figuring this stuff out in her head. “I don’t know why you, you give me this look sometimes like you’re - wait.” Sam looks up at him, her face full of some terrible realization. “You - you’re looking at me like that because you miss him?”
And that’s it, game over, the final betrayal. Dean takes a step back, wondering how the hell he can fix this.
Sam’s gone and uncovered the whole thing that Dean’s been trying to hide from her. This, this is worse than Dean’s desire for her. This is the desire for the old Sam, for the one he’s never going to get back.
She was never supposed to know.
“That’s it,” Sam says, reading the truth off Dean’s face. “I was wrong. I thought that you had only started... wanting me, once I changed, and that’s why you... but that’s not it at all, huh?”
She wraps her arms around herself, looks Dean in the face, as resigned as Dean’s ever seen her. Him. Sam.
“I’ll go,” says Sam. “If this is going to be weird, I’ll just, I’ll go.”
No.
Dean’s throat closes up and he can’t speak, can’t even convey how wrong that would be. He shakes his head.
“Dean,” Sam says, her voice weirdly tight, like she might cry again. “I can’t be him again, either. I can’t be either one. I can’t be anything that you want, okay? This won’t work.”
“You are what I want,” Dean says. The words feel like something ripping. “The only thing. The only thing, Sam.” The only fucking thing he’s got left.
He steps in and kisses Sam, his whole body trembling, afraid of the answer he’s going to get from her lips.
Sam opens her mouth, lets Dean in, wipes the moisture from his face with her palms. She doesn’t protest when Dean turns desperate, when he presses her against the bathroom sink and sweeps away the broken shards of the mirror, glass catching on his hands.
Dean yanks at his boxers, presses into Sam and fucks her against the fake marble sink and the empty, barren frame of the fucking mirror. He kisses her until the urge to smash something dissipates, until the salty tears back up in his throat and leave him swallowing them down, swallowing everything down, and it’s just Sam, legs wrapped around Dean’s waist until he can only thrust deeper, her body rocking against his, head thrown back, long tanned neck, perfect, so fucking perfect, made for him.
When Dean finishes, gasping and stuttering into her body like a madman, she says nothing, just lets Dean grow soft inside her. When, finally, he slips out, she takes Dean’s hands and turns his palms up to the light, inspecting the bloody scratches on them for glass splinters.
“Should have used a dustpan,” she says.
Dean tugs his hands away, pressing them to Sam’s face, ignoring the bloody fingerprints he’s leaving on her cheekbones.
Sam says, “You got some kind of fetish about bathroom sinks? I mean, one time’s a fluke. But how many times is this?”
Dean shakes his head, tightening his grip on Sam’s face until her eyes snap back to his. She has to listen to this.
“You’re - you’re mine, okay?” he says. “You’re Sam. Nothing is ever going to change that.”
Sam looks at him for a long moment, then nods.
“Okay,” she says. A brief pause, and then: “You’re mine, too, you know. My big brother, always.”
“Sap,” says Dean.
“Yeah, well,” says Sam. She runs her palms under Dean’s eyes, catching more tears, then gently presses her fingertips to Dean’s closed eyelids, then replaces them with her lips, and Dean wonders if Sam always had this tenderness, if maybe people like Jess had seen Sam be this gentle.
He wonders what makes him deserve this tenderness now, after so long.
He wonders if more has changed between him and Sam than can even be measured.
“Hey,” says Sam, “You’re thinking. Stop that. Looks like it hurts.”
“Bitch,” says Dean, then freezes for a second, discovering yet another difference to come to terms with, but Sam just smiles.
“Jerk,” Sam finishes, and she pushes Dean off and goes to rummage through their packs for some antibiotic ointment and band-aids.
*
Now, Dean feels Sam’s eyes on him at weird times. When he looks back at her, she always gives him a sheepish grin and changes the subject. Weird. He doesn’t really care why she’s watching him, though. She looks happy.
It’s not until days later that Dean realizes that they didn’t use a condom, but by that time Sam’s already limping around their motel room and complaining about cramps.
Dean’s never been so glad to see a box of Tampax in the bathroom before in his life.
*
Despite what Dean had told Sam, it still takes a while. Sometimes he finds himself thinking of Sam as his sister, like she’s always been that girl. When that happens, Dean has to stop and just breathe for a minute until he can remember Sam’s old wide grin, his strong, muscular arms, his stupid hair, remember it and match it up to the Sam he’s with. Dean needs Sam to be in one piece in his mind, but he can’t just - shit - forget the past twenty-five years like they never happened.
It’s not until Dean stops grieving that he even realizes that’s what he was doing in the first place. The realization comes on the day that Dean’s bickering with Sam over another series of escalating pranks, one that left the box of condoms glued solidly to the motel’s Gideon bible - and really, what was Sam’s obsession with gluing things, anyway?
Dean has managed to get the box open and extract a condom, and he’s in the middle of tumbling Sam into bed and pressing his fingers against the dampness of her cotton underwear when he suddenly realizes that he’s finally not thinking of Sam as two different people anymore. It’s just all Sam. Sam’s arms around him are as familiar and welcome as they ever were.
Some things, of course, are still different. Sam bucks up against him, wet and frantic around his cock, her legs wrapped around his waist.
“Fuck me,” she pants. “Fuck me, fuck, fuck, Dean.”
Sam comes in a wave, trembling in Dean’s arms. She’s said that’s one of the best things about being a chick - the way she can just come and come with her whole body. Dean would envy her, but frankly, he never cares about his own orgasm so much as he wants to see Sam lose it, wants to see her utterly sated and - happy.
She rolls off of Dean’s cock, spent, and tiredly strokes Dean’s cheek and shoulders as Dean wraps a hand around his dick and finishes the business of getting off. He wore Sam out, he supposes, because her eyelids are drooping and the tone of her voice has a far-off sound to it, like part of her is already asleep.
“We could just stop,” she says. “Couldn’t we?”
Dean blinks up at the ceiling, half-hard, and thinks about it.
He really thinks about it, thinks about it until his erection is long forgotten and his brain is humming with what-ifs, feeling terrified and ecstatic at once.
Sam hasn’t had a vision in months. Ash hasn’t found any patterns pointing to the Demon, lately, and Bobby hasn’t heard a twitter from any exorcisms. And Dean and Sam have been keeping a low profile, going on a few odd hunts here and there, but mainly just blending in with the scenery. They hadn’t had an FBI scare since the hospital. From all they could tell, they were off the radar.
Maybe. It was unthinkable, but maybe - there was no way they could, but maybe.
Long minutes pass. He expects Sam to have fallen asleep already, but her eyes are still open when Dean turns to face her. Her gaze glitters in the dark, steady on Dean’s face.
“We don’t know that the Demon’s lost track of you,” Dean says.
“We do,” says Sam. “I know.”
Dean blinks. “Huh?”
Sam sighs. “My head feels... clean. No headaches. I can’t be a hundred percent sure, but seventy or eighty percent? Yeah. He doesn’t have a pipeline to my brain anymore.”
“Seventy percent’s not exactly safe,” Dean says.
“It’s as safe as we’re going to get,” Sam replies. “We’ve earned this, Dean.”
Dean stares at her for a long time, and Sam waits, being surprisingly patient.
“No,” says Dean, and Sam’s face shutters up. Without a word, she turns over, leaving Dean with a view of her implacable back.
Seventy percent isn’t enough of a chance. It’s not worth risking Sam, letting down their guard only to have something shitty and terrible happen again. Dean won’t build up a life only to have it ripped apart.
He hopes Sam understands that, eventually.
*
On their next job, Sam almost gets gored by something that looks a lot like a unicorn, something that Dean would ordinarily have laughed about. She twists away just in time, and the creature’s horn just scores her side, leaving a long gouge that bleeds like fuck.
Dean cleans Sam up once they’re back in the room, starts stitching up the wound, and wonders how many times he’s going to have Sam’s blood all over his hands.
Sam peers at the gouge. “Dude,” she says wonderingly. “Lucky thing I’ve got a chick’s waist, huh? A couple more inches of torso there and I’d have been screwed.”
Yeah, Dean thinks. Maybe Sam’s right. The horn would have lodged in the left side of Sam’s abdomen, and the way that thing was running, it would have kept going and carried off a hefty chunk of Sam with it.
For a minute he imagines Sam ripped open, bleeding out before Dean could even get there, and he loses his grip on the needle.
“Shit,” says Dean, hunting for it with his hands. It blends in with the motel blanket, and he can’t find it. “Shit.”
“Dean?” Sam says, and Sam’s blood is all over Dean’s hands. He can’t do this.
Sam’s asked him twice, now. Third time’s the charm.
“Yeah,” Dean says shakily. “Yeah, we could stop.”
*
They’re already in Montana, so they drive to Billings to rent an apartment. Dean makes bad jokes about “billings the rent” until both Sam and the realtor are ready to strangle him.
“We’ve earned this,” Sam had told him, and she was right. If the demon’s lost their trail, if the FBI can’t find them, then this is it. This is their chance to step out and get their lives back.
They can’t agree on which apartment they want. Sam complains that all the ones that Dean approves of look like motel rooms, to which Dean replies that all the apartments that Sam likes have ceilings high enough to hang himself in. They compromise.
Finding names is easier. Dean knows a guy in Rhode Island who owes him a favor, and he arranges to have new identities made-to-order. Dean scribbles long lists of possible names, most of which Sam turns her nose up at. Sam wants them to be Jack and Meg White. She thinks it’s hilarious until Dean tells her that he really doesn’t want to think of Sam as any kind of Meg, and she has to agree.
Luckily, Dean has a much better idea.
“Hi!” Dean tells their new neighbors, his smile bright and fake enough to make a counterfeiter cry. “We’re the Ramones. Just thought we’d swing by and say hi.”
“The Ramones, Dean?” Sam says later, once they’d introduced themselves to everyone in the apartment building. “The Ramones?”
Dean waggles Sam’s new photo ID at her. “You’re Dee Dee Ramone. I’m Joey.”
“You’re an idiot,” Sam tells him. She snags the ID and inspects the picture for Deanna Ramone. “Hey, this is pretty good.”
They fix up the apartment with some cheap furniture from Big Lots. Dean drives around the city on trash night, eying the sidewalks for anything else they can use, and they end up with a couple of rugs and a small bookshelf that’s only slightly stained.
There’s only one bedroom in the apartment. One bedroom, and it’s theirs. Just as Dean’s about to go down on Sam in their new bed, with its bright white sheets that are crisp from newness instead of starched rewashing - Sam rolls Dean onto his back and straddles his waist. Her pubic hair tickles his stomach and Dean runs his thumb down her mound, going straight for the clit like Sam likes it.
Sam slaps his hand away.
“You know what I’m thinking?” she asks.
“I think so, Brain, but what will we do with the five bananas?” Dean retorts, and Sam’s face creases in a mix of laughter and consternation. Then she goes for his ribs, fingers splayed, and Dean curls away from her hands, laughing helplessly. “Okay,” he gasps, “Okay. No, Sam, what are you thinking?”
Sam puts her arms on either side of Dean’s head and leans down until they’re face-to-face. Dean leans up for a kiss, and she meets him halfway, makes it slow and lingering until she pulls away again.
“I’m thinking that I want to have your cock in my mouth,” says Sam, and with that, she slithers down Dean’s body and licks the head of his dick. Then she puts her lips around him, hollows her cheeks out and runs her tongue around the tip.
“Jesus, Sam.” Dean throws his head back. It’s not the best blowjob in the world. Sam’s kind of awkward, keeps forgetting that her mouth is smaller than it used to be, but it’s Sam and that makes it good enough.
When Dean comes, he closes his eyes tight, concentrating on the feel of Sam’s mouth and hands. Once Sam decides she’s done, she laughs and sprawls next to Dean, kicking one leg over his.
“Okay, so maybe that kind of sucked,” Sam says.
“Heh,” Dean grins, and he doesn’t even have to finish his remark before Sam whaps him in the shoulder. “Ow!”
“I’m much better at eating pussy,” Sam tells him matter-of-factly. “But I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it.”
Dean’s too sleepy to really reply - he was exhausted from moving furniture even before Sam blew him. They stare at the ceiling for a while - their ceiling, their walls, their bed, Jesus Christ - then Sam says, “I knew what you were doing, you know.”
Actually, Dean doesn’t know, and says so. “Huh?”
“The sex,” Sam says. “I’m not saying it’s bad, but. You act like it’s your duty to please me or something. Like I’m some kind of orgasm machine and you just have to keep popping in quarters.”
She doesn’t act like she’s expecting an answer, so Dean doesn’t give one.
“Just give me a chance to even the score, sometimes,” says Sam. Her voice is casual, but she looks at Dean like she’s trying to stare her words right into his soul. “This thing goes both ways, Dean.”
Oh, please, save Dean from transparent metaphors. He’s warmed, though, and the reassurance worms its way under his ribcage and gets into his heart. He closes his eyes.
Sam kicks Dean in the ankle, rolls over and kisses him. He can taste himself in her mouth. Dean kisses her back, and he thinks about all the things he wanted that he never got, and this one thing that he did.
*
At first, Dean doesn’t’ recognize the thing he’s found in Sam’s dresser, thinks maybe it’s allergy medication. By the time it clicks, Dean’s been staring at the foil package for a good minute and Sam’s giving him a weird look.
“Is this -“ says Dean.
“Yeah,” says Sam. “I picked up some birth control pills while we were in Pennsylvania a couple months ago.”
“Huh.” Dean tucks the pills back in Sam’s bag, tries not to remember the safe sex talk he’d had with Sam when Sam was thirteen. “Good idea.”
Sometimes condoms break, and when shit like that happens, it’s good if the girl’s on the pill. Make sure you don’t have any little Sammys running around.
He thinks, breathless for a moment, of how very screwed they might have been if Sam hadn’t remembered what Dean was too much of a dumbass to remember. Dean’s just been - they’ve been having a lot of sex. A lot of sex with just condoms as barrier, and that one time with nothing at all, and if Sam -
“Jeez, what crawled up your ass?” Sam asks, and Dean just shakes his head.
“I’m gonna go out for a bit,” Dean tells her, and he leaves.
*
Later that night, Dean’s got his nose pressed up in Sam’s armpit, all salty smell and soft skin. Sam still doesn’t shave very often, maybe every week or so if she remembers, and there’s a dark shadow of coarse hair under Sam’s arm that Dean kind of wants to lick a line across.
Dean closes his eyes instead, bumps Sam with his forehead and says, “I just hadn’t thought about it.” He lays a hand on Sam’s stomach, palm spread. “That you could get pregnant, now.”
Sam snorts, digs her chin into the top of Dean’s head. “Well, that’s kind of implied with the uterus, dude.”
Dean ignores that. “But isn’t it, I don’t know, weird? To have that feeling?”
“What feeling? Like a sperm is gonna slip and fall up my vagina and oops, maybe I’ll have to change diapers for a mutant kid for my whole life?”
Sam’s voice isn’t cruel, but she obviously doesn’t understand what Dean’s trying to say. Dean’s not even sure if he knows.
“But you could,” says Dean. “You could get pregnant.”
Something must have come out in Dean’s tone that he didn’t intend, but it doesn’t take him long to realize that Sam’s inhaled sharply, that her stomach is tense under his palm.
“What? No!” Dean jerks his hand away. “I didn’t mean me. Jesus Christ, I mean - no!”
“Right, I knew that.” Sam’s laugh is a little shaky, but Dean lets it go.
“But someone else,” says Dean, and Christ, this is not a good idea, he has no idea why he’s pushing this. “Sam, you could have kids if you wanted.”
She’s silent for a moment, then says, “Who would the father be?”
Dean blinks. “Uh. I don’t know?”
Sam snuggles into Dean’s side. “I could pick someone up at a truck stop, maybe? Or go to a sperm bank? How would you feel with someone else’s kid just crawling around in my guts?”
“It wouldn’t be someone else’s kid,” says Dean. “It’d be yours.”
“It’d be ours.” She ignores Dean’s startled flinch, squeezes his arm. “Wouldn’t it. That’s what you’re saying.”
“I’m not saying anything,” says Dean.
“Dean,” and Sam rolls over and is suddenly in his face, her serious expression hovering right over his. “Do you want to have a kid? Do you want me to have one?”
Dean squirms out from under her and sits up. “I don’t want you to do anything,” he says. “Sam. Jesus. Just, no. No way.”
He knows that Sam can see the lie painted all over him. She knows that Dean’s always wanted a family, always wanted to carry on the line, always wanted to have someone call him “dad.”
Always known it was impossible.
“Okay,” Sam says quietly. “That’s what I thought.”
They don’t talk about it again.
*
Sam gets a job as a research assistant at the local college. Dean sits around and watches infomercials for a week, then starts looking into any possible hauntings in the area. Within two months, he and Sam have cleared out all the malevolent spirits in a hundred-mile radius. Then Dean gets bored again, and somehow finds himself at the local radio station. They look over the fact that he’s got no experience, deciding that the fact that he’s been listening to radio all over the country for the past twenty-five years makes up for it.
Before Dean knows it, he’s DJ-ing for a couple hours, four nights a week. The pay’s for shit, but Dean gets call-ins and can play pretty much any music he wants. Nobody riding shotgun to whine about the sixth Metallica song in a row. It’s not perfect, but it’s okay.
At some point, Dean realizes he’s happy, and he doesn’t quite know how to deal with that. He’d imagine it’s something like being in a foreign country, bumbling around and trying to learn a whole new language. He doesn’t know this world, this bright shining thing where he can wake up in the morning with Sam beside him and know that neither of them will die that day.
Wishful thinking, of course. Dean knows better than anyone how suddenly death can loom in front of you. But Dean has hope, and that’s better than anything else he’s had for the past two years.
Except for Sam. Sam is always better.
Sam grows her hair out long, and Dean doesn’t say anything, but he starts having dreams where Sam’s pinned to the ceiling above him, mouth open wide, blood dripping from her stomach. He wakes up coughing from smoke that isn’t there.
When Sam gets in a fit of pique one day and chops it all back to chin-length, Dean doesn’t complain. Without the long hair, Sam stops looking so much like Mom, and the dreams stop.
Dean never doubted they would; he’s not the brother with the nightmares who come true, after all.
*
Sam visits Dean at the radio station one day, and although at first he thinks Something’s happened, he waves her into the sound booth He’s playing Highway to Hell, and Sam gives him a fond smile.
“You’re going to call me a pussy,” Sam says, “But I brought you lunch. No boogers or worms or anything. Just chicken salad.”
“Thanks,” Dean says around his mouthful. It’s really good chicken salad, he doesn’t know why Sam is making that disgusted face. A piece of bread falls into Dean’s lap, and he picks it up and crams it in his mouth with the rest. Sam shakes her head at him. Weirdo.
She sits on the floor and leans against the wall, munching on her own sandwich. “You really like it here, huh?” she says.
“Sure,” Dean says. He finishes the sandwich and hunts around for his Coke. Sam points out a can hidden behind the speaker, and Dean gulps it down. “Yeah, I mean. It’s cool.”
“I quit my job today,” Sam says, and yeah, Dean figured it was something like that. “I just couldn’t take it anymore. They were a bunch of chauvinist pigs.”
“I know, you were telling me.” Dean offers Sam the Coke, and she takes a sip and hands it back.
“Anyway, and then I started thinking about it. I mean, I used to be like them, Dean.”
“I don’t think you could have been a chauvinist pig if someone replaced your brain with Hitler’s, Sammy.”
Sam rolls her eyes. “You know what I mean. I used to be a guy.”
She falls silent while Dean cues up the next couple of songs, then he nods for her to go on.
“But that thought... it was so far away. It was like I was thinking about someone else.” She shakes her head. “Not in a weird way, though. Not like I’m making it sound. It was good that it was far away. It felt comfortable. It felt like, hey, this is me now.”
Dean offers her the Coke again, but she shakes her head. “Nah, man. It’s gone flat. I don’t know how you can drink it like that. But, do you know what I mean? I don’t sound crazy?”
“You always sound crazy,” Dean tells her. She narrows her eyes at him, and Dean relents with a shrug. “Nah, man. I mean, you know I had a hard time with it, and it didn’t have anything to do with me. So if it doesn’t bother you, that’s good.”
Sam nods. “Yeah. It just felt permanent, that’s all. And those guys were cracking jokes and trying to pinch my ass, and I was like, shit. I’m a woman, and this is what I get?” She laughs to herself and finally takes another bite of her sandwich. Dean wonders if she’s going to eat the whole thing or just take it to a movie.
“What do you want me to tell you, Sammy?” Dean says finally.
Sam shakes her head. “I don’t want you to tell me anything. I just wanted to tell you.”
“Oh.” Dean pauses. “Good.”
She chews slowly. Dean tells his listeners that it’s nice outside, going to be a sunny day, then he puts on some Zeppelin. Steady-rolling woman gonna come my way. Sam glances up when she hears the lyrics, snickers at him.
“You trying to get me to blow you under the desk?” she says.
“Hey, if the mood strikes,” says Dean. He shakes his head, though, and Sam finishes her sandwich.
“Sammy?” Dean says a minute later.
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad you’re okay.”
Sam smiles at him. “Yeah. Same to you.”
“And later, you have to tell me every little detail of how you made those fuckers pay.”
She chuckles. “Not much to tell. I gave them a stern talking-to, that’s all. Although I did break one guy’s fingers.”
“Attagirl.”
*
When the end comes, it comes easy. Dean sees it from a long way off, notices how Sam starts running in the mornings, how she hangs up a dartboard, and how sometimes, on the weekends, she goes into the woods to do target practice. Stuff that people don’t usually do if all they’re worried about is getting another research internship.
Part of Dean still hopes he’s misinterpreting the signs, but mainly he tries not to think about it. It’ll happen when it happens. In the meantime, there’s him and Sam, and that’s enough.
Then Dean wakes up one night and finds Sam staring at the ceiling, striped in cool, night-hued moonlight from the open blinds. Dean recognizes that brooding look immediately. (“It’s called being contemplative, asshole,” Sam - the old Sam - had told him once. “You should try it sometime, you might learn something.”)
Dean asks, “Bad dream?” by which he means, “Vision?” He thinks Sam would have told him if she’d started having them again, but he could be wrong.
“No,” she says. “I was just thinking.”
“Really?”
Sam chuckles and hits Dean with a pillow. “Shut up. I was thinking. About the Demon.”
Dean quiets. Here it comes.
“He’s still out there, doing god knows what. I mean, maybe I’ve fallen off his radar, maybe I haven’t, but...” Sam trails off, goes back to inspecting the ceiling. “But does that make me any less responsible?”
“Um, yeah?” says Dean. “You’re not responsible. You never were.” He pauses, knows it’s impossible to talk Sam out of this, but he feels like he has to say something. “Sam, if we were right... we’re free of that son of a bitch. He can’t fuck with your head anymore.”
“Or so we think.” Sam pauses. “But there are other people he’s still fucking with. And maybe it’s up to me to do something about it.”
Dean says nothing.
Sam turns to him, blinking in the darkness. “Dean... He killed Jess. And Mom. And Dad.”
“I know,” says Dean. He knows.
Sam rolls onto Dean’s half of the bed, snuggling into his side until Dean gives up and puts his arms around her. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I wish I could just do this. I wish I could have this.”
And then, although she must know that Dean wouldn’t, not in a million years: “You can stay here, if you want.”
“No fucking way,” says Dean. He tousles Sam’s hair, pressing a kiss against the high slope of her forehead. “No. It’s the two of us, together, that are gonna kill this fucker. You and me. I know that much.”
It’s so much easier to have hope, these days. It’s so much easier to breathe. If they die because of this, Dean thinks, at least it’ll be on their terms.
Sam smiles, pulls Dean in for a kiss.
They leave in the morning, windows rolled down and the road in front of them, where it always is.
*
A woman working as an office assistant at a local university files a sexual harassment complaint. A little boy turns up the stereo and decides he wants to be a DJ when he grows up. A couple of employees at a local diner note the absences at the table in the corner, the striking-looking couple that used to come in every Saturday.
Of the people that knew their names, a few note the disappearance of Joe and Deanna Ramone, but no one goes to the cops.
*
There’s some lesson in here, about change, or destiny, or making the best of what you’ve got. A lesson about love, maybe, and looking past the outside into the inside.
Dean’s not sure. Doesn’t really care, either. The lessons aren’t important, it’s what you do with them.
Somewhere in New Mexico, Sam’s looking through newspapers, circling obituaries and chewing on the end of her red marker. She’s wearing a skirt as some relief from the heat, which Dean teased her about until she said Easy access, dude. Shut up, and provided a demonstration which shut Dean up pretty quickly.
When Dean calls Ash to check up, see if he’s found anything new. Ash says, Man, thought you guys bit it! Haven’t heard from you in ages.
The rumors of our death... Dean trails off, looks up into the clear sky as he’s listening to Ash rattle off some search results. Sam yawns, leans her head back against the seat.
It looks like it’s going to be a sunny day.
end
“As We Are So Wonderfully Done with Each Other”
by Kenneth Patchen
As we are so wonderfully done with each other
We can walk into our separate sleep
On floors of music where the milkwhite cloak of childhood lies
O my lady, my fairest dear, my sweetest, loveliest one
Your lips have splashed my dull house with the speech of flowers
My hands are hallowed where they touched over your soft curving.
It is good to be weary from that brilliant work
It is being God to feel your breathing under me
A waterglass on the bureau fills with morning . . .
Don’t let anyone in to wake us.