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“Her tits were heavy man, none of that fake silicone shit.” Dean has his hands on the wheel but he's animating his story with facial expressions.
Sam wishes he'd stop already.
“Once I hooked up with this chick in Atkinson, Nebraska? Tits like cannon balls,” he says, making a pained expression with his eyes and taking both hands from the wheel to demonstrate just how monstrously huge said tits had been.
Sam scans the road ahead, automatically stepping up, despite his annoyance, while Dean's distracted. He has tried covering his ears and talking over Dean but short of actually flinging himself from a moving vehicle there's nothing he can do.
“All kinds of wrong,” Dean continues, shaking his head sadly, hands safely back at ten and two, “They didn't even jiggle.”
They cross the West Virginia/Kentucky state line and Dean takes the exit for Route 23. There's a lull at the peak of the exit ramp and it feels weird to have stopped, the Impala's engine running too quiet. Their father's truck disappears out of sight further down the road, and for a moment it's just the two of them, suspended like dust motes in a sunbeam. A big-rig rumbles by. Then they're pulling out, moving, travelling a well-mapped road with a solid destination in mind. Validated once again by the journey.
“So anyway, these babies were swaying Sammy. Big soft brown nipples-”
“Fine.” Sam folds. He cranks the volume back up, possibly even louder than Dean had wanted it in the first place. James Hetfield drowns out Dean's voice.
After a moment Sam has to look. Dean is smiling his victory smile.
****
They stay in Paintsville for a week, long enough for Dad and Dean to gank a wolfman with Kentucky Pete, to celebrate and then spend two whole days recovering, more from the celebration than the hunt. It pisses Sam off because he needs to be in school.
Dean winds Sam up. He's a scab picker, Sam's brother; the kind of guy who'd poke a crocodile with a stick. He ruffles Sam's hair like he thinks Sam's still a kid. He makes Sam laugh when he's trying to stay pissed, and at least once a day Dean pulls Sam's underwear up at the back, tight enough to make him gasp.
It's Sunday afternoon and Sam's sleeping peacefully on the couch when Dean sticks a big green 'UGLI' sticker on his forehead. Sam wakes up and doesn't know it's there. He goes to the gas station to buy smokes for Kentucky Pete without looking in the mirror. The sales assistant doesn't bat an eyelid but Dean, Dad and Pete all laugh it up, long and hard at Sam's expense when he gets back.
He doesn't know where Dean even got the sticker because they're definitely not the kind of folk to splurge on exotic fruits. It's a prank that hurts Sam on the inside, more than he wants to admit. He knows it's a stupid joke, doesn't mean that Dean really thinks he's ugly, but the achy want-to-cry feeling stays with him on and off whenever he thinks about it.
Sam replaces Dean's hair gel with goose fat and Dean curses like the possessed girl in The Exorcist. It's classic. Inevitably, however, anxiety and frustration set back in.
By the sixth day in Paintsville Sam's about ready to kill his brother, which is when Dean chooses to surprise him. He buys beer for the both of them and takes Sam out into the fields, to a multistory trailer park. All colours of trailers are stacked precariously, four high in places, the upstairs ones accessible only by flimsy ladders. Sam thinks it's awesome. He re-names it Ewoksville. Dean spray-paints the residents an updated sign and then they find some woods, far enough from people that they can shoot at empty beer cans in peace.
****
Another week and they're still on the road. Sam's sick of the road. He's sick of oreos and twinkies. He's sick of M&Ms and he's sick of Dean's music.
In a motel room in Broken Arrow, John asks what food they want from the take-out. He says if they want showers (and they're both too grimy not to want showers) then they'd better be done before he gets back. The Winchesters have a date with the local cemetery tonight because that's what Winchesters do for fun. Other kids Sam's age are going to watch Scream 3.
“Go shower Sam,” Dean says as soon as Dad's out the door. He has the nerve to make it sound like an order without taking his eyes from the TV.
There are fifteen minutes of the X-Files remaining. It's a good one; looks like they might finally find out what really happened to Mulder's sister, so Dean can just go screw himself. Sam wants to watch it too. “No way, you go shower,” he says. Dean will cave first anyway: he's always more concerned with pleasing their father and besides, it's Dean who will take most of the flak if their father gets back and they're still both lying here.
Dean's quiet for a moment. Scully knocks on a motel room door and Mulder answers, looking like he just rolled out of bed.
“They're definitely fucking,” Dean says sagely. “She'd be a wildcat in bed and he's a total porn addict, probably hung like Donkey Kong.”
“Shut up Dean, I can't hear it.”
“Aw, whassamatta Sammy, redheads not your type?” and Dean's teasing now, that infuriating glint in his eye. “Look how firm she is. Makes you want to grab a-hold doesn't it?” He gives Sam the sly side-eye and adds, “Or maybe you wanna grab a-hold of Mulder instead?”
“Fuck off Dean,” Sam says. If one of them is secretly crushing on Fox Mulder then it's definitely Dean.
“Up against the wall,” Dean continues, undeterred. “Those meaty thighs around you...”
Sam glares at the TV, willing himself to block out Dean's voice and focus on the show. His treacherous imagination has different ideas though, swelling under the assault, already threatening to go nuclear.
“...ass cheeks in your hands, more than a handful 'cause she's a solid chick Sammy. Like 'em like that sometimes. Meaty and thick.”
“You're disgusting,” Sam tells him but he doesn't sound convincing, even to himself.
“I could hold her. No point doin' all that PT if we don't get perks.” Dean glances at him. Grins.
Mulder and Scully search through old hospital records on-screen. They find evidence that Mulder's sister had been there fourteen years ago.
“Can you imagine Sammy? Pounding into her real hard. Could give it to her until her face was as red as her hair. 'Til she mewled like a kitten.”
Dean has most of his attention back on the show and only a little bit on torturing Sam but it's still enough to make Sam feel urgently aroused. He's annoyed by his body's betrayal, and annoyance fuels his arousal. He needs to go and jerk off, which is no doubt Dean's game plan. Sam shifts his hips against the bed. He imagines that Dean's smirking but Dean's still looking straight at the TV.
“And she'd be ready to go again right away,” Dean says with certainty. “That kind of chick really makes you work for it. Three, four times a night. Going down on you to get you goin' again and then it's ankles up 'round her ears on the bed. Next thing you know you're doin' it doggy style at 4am and you still can't get enough.”
Sam stalks off to the bathroom. The X-Files is kind of depressing anyway. Sam wishes their lives were so glamorous.
****
John gets lucky on a hunt in Denver and slaps a wad of cash in Dean's hand when he returns. He says, “Take Sammy for dinner somewhere nice,” before sticking his nose back into his research.
They go to the Hard Rock Café and slurp their way through three coke-floats a-piece. Dean tells the serving staff that it's Sam's birthday. They make him stand on a chair while everyone sings, and they applaud when Sam blows out his candles.
Afterwards, in the cool air of outside, Dean ruffles Sam's hair and says, “Happy unbirthday Sammy.”
Sam thinks it was actually kind of nice, once he has gotten over the hot-faced embarrassment of being the focus of attention. They've eaten enough ice cream that Sam's kind of dizzy with it and Dean plays Sweet Child o' Mine in the car. They both sing along.
They're still laughing and rough-housing when they get back to the house. Their father looks at the yellow cocktail umbrella stuck behind Sam's ear, poker-faced, and says, “I don't even want to know.”
****
They stop in Des Moines and John swears they're staying put until Sam finishes school. Dean wants to believe. Sam's the sceptical redhead of the outfit.
Sam's the new kid at school again and, if by some miracle their father is true to his word, it could be for the very last time. It only takes him a week to slip into a loose circle of friends. He signs up for a few after-school clubs, things that will look good and things that he's genuinely interested in.
Dean mocks Sam for caring about the environment. He calls him Sammy-Save-the-Whales for a week when he finds Sam's Greenpeace literature. He's more sympathetic to Sam's desire to join Amnesty International and campaign for human rights but also bemused by Sam's notion that he can make any difference.
When Sam tries to share his health concerns about the saturated fats in their road-life diet, Dean is one hundred percent unamused. Everyone knows that eating like Dean leads to heart failure aged forty, and if Dean were forty then Sam would only be thirty six, and that's not part of Sam's plans.
“You could have skinless chicken,” he suggests, when Dean orders a club burger at the local diner.
Dean widens his eyes dramatically and rolls them for their waitress's benefit. She gives him a small conspiratorial smile and heads off to the kitchen to get the grease engines running.
“Dean,” Sam complains, “You don't eat right. Did you know that most of the dangerous fats lining your arteries are laid down in your late teens and early twenties-”
“Did I ever tell you about the fetish bar I went to for the skin-walker job in St Louis?”
Sam stops talking. Not because he wants to but because he didn't know about the fetish bar in St Louis. Did Dad send Dean to a fetish bar? What even is a fetish bar?
“First thing I see when I get inside is this dark haired chick. She's got black lace on, bra and panties,” Dean pauses to consider, “And stockings. Miles of legs. Her arms are up over her head, holding onto this metal pole and she's not dancing, just kinda writhing.”
Sam swallows. His throat feels funny. He should stop Dean before he gets going but he can picture the girl and the pole, imagine the music, the lighting, picture the way her hips had moved.
“Don't know how long she'd been there but she looked hot.” Dean smirks, “Hot as in sexy, but hot like all flushed and sweaty too. And she was blindfolded,” he adds like an afterthought.
It's as though Sam's on some kind of empathy overdrive recently, always putting himself in other people's shoes. He imagines what it would have been like, vulnerable like that in the entrance of a bar, displayed in slutty black underwear and imagining hundreds of eyes on your body. His cock chubs up and takes an interest. Dean hadn't said that she'd been tied to the pole. Maybe she'd been following orders, told to hold on. He wonders if it had made her feel free.
“So anyway, I was looking for information – had no idea what form the shifter was in so we were gonna lure it out.” Dean takes a noisy last slurp of his full fat strawberry shake and Sam forgets to scowl. “But I'm tellin' you man, it was real hard to stay focussed in that place.” He leans forward and Sam can't help but lean in slightly to hear. “There was a guy getting bare ass spanked on the bar,” Dean says in a loud stage whisper. He leans back, lounging on the pleather bench seat and waiting for Sam to be impressed.
Their waitress returns with the trashy food order and now Sam has to imagine how the guy getting spanked felt. He feels the heat begin to creep up his neck and settle in his face at the imagined humiliation and his cock twitches like there's nothing it would like more than for Sam to be stripped from the waist down for a full-on public ass whupping.
“And when I was at the bar, waiting for the bartender to be free so I could question her, there were these two girls, all dolled up, like way over the top.”
Oh God no, there's more to the story? Dean needs to stop now. Sam looks around shiftily at the nearby tables but nobody's paying attention. “Can you tell me in the car?” he hisses at Dean, voice low but trying to convey the urgency he's beginning to feel, “Or, y'know, even better, not at all?” He tries to convey you win and I'll stop nagging you about saturated fats with his tone but Dean must be feeling sadistic today.
“Don't be such a square Sam,” Dean continues, looking far to happy. “I was just gonna tell you about this one girl, she kept touching me. And I didn't move away 'cause she was kinda hot y'know? And she started kissing me. Then she stuck her tongue in my ear-”
Sam laughs. It sounds too high and nervous but Dean grins back at him.
“I know man. It shoulda been gross but it made me weird all over. Kinda shivery.”
Sam's body supplies the appropriate empathic response, the skin on his arms pebbling into goose flesh, breaking out across his shoulders and neck and making him twitch as it ripples down his back and around his sides.
“And then she's got her hand on my dick, right there at the bar, and she's asking me to go somewhere private.” Dean swirls a fry in his little lake of ketchup with a dreamy look on his face. “She had these stick-on stars over her nipples and that's all. I mean, I've been with flat chested chicks before but I couldn't tell...” he meets Sam's eyes and says quietly, “I couldn't tell if she was really a chick. But dude, I really wanted to go find out.”
Sam should walk away from Dean, in fact he's starting to need to, but walking anywhere now would be painful. He can't shake the image of Dean, horny and confused with a guy mouthing at his ear. Because it would have been a guy, rubbing Dean's cock through his jeans... a guy rubbing Dean's cock... in public...
“You boys gonna eat that or stare at it all day?” their father asks as he slides in beside Sam, hip-checking him across the bench and scaring the bejesus out of him.
Dean smirks, Sam's face flames and their father ignores the both of them and steals their fries, ordering black coffee to go.
****
Sam sews the legs of Dean's favourite jeans closed. Their father has him practising suturing on banana skins and Dean's jeans are right there begging to be abused. He makes a good job of it and it takes Dean ages to unpick it all.
Dean grumps about the jeans for an evening and retaliates the next day by sending a text to Susy Carter, Sam's Friday night date, reading:
'Sry cant make it.
Have anal warts.
Going 2 clinic.
Sam xoxoxo'
Sam is seriously pissed off. He yells at Dean, throws a text book at his head and then blanks him for four whole days. He'd had real hopes for getting laid in this town.
****
There's a guy at school Sam doesn't really like. He's called Blake and nobody really likes him but he's the go-to guy for techy things. He brags about being a hacker and has an ego approximately the size of Greenland. Sam tells him that he wants to bug a room, electronically, James Bond style.
Dean sometimes swipes interesting looking gadgets for Sam while he's hunting. Stealin' from the bad guys Sammy, he says, or sometimes, Guy's not gonna miss it is he? He's Dead. Most recently Dean came back with a wireless Bluetooth headset, which Sam has to admit is pretty cool. It's not like they're going to use it though: John Winchester's jobs are more Deer Hunter than Mission Impossible.
Blake's all gimme gimme for the headset, as Sam thought he would be, and Sam's surprised when Blake hands it back sheepishly the next day, confessing that all Sam needs is an old Walkman, a microphone and a blank tape. He says that it would be an 'unfair exchange' and that he's returning the headset to maintain 'Hacker's integrity.' Sam rolls his eyes. He tells Blake that, if he can get Sam a microphone and a set of blank tapes, then he can keep the headset. Blake beams like a child and he shakes Sam's hand like a blue-chip media mogul in the making.
Sam asks Dean for his old Walkman. Dean never uses it. He puts up a front, humming and hawing about whether to give it to Sam, but it was Sam's as soon as he asked and they both know it.
“On one condition,” Dean tells him, holding the Walkman behind his back like the annoying prat he is. “No Radiohead.”
“No Radiohead,” Sam agrees dutifully, taking the Walkman.
It's tricky timing and Sam is torn between the ratty couch in the lounge or their bedroom, for the most likely location where Dean and Gina will do it. Sam opts for the couch. He sets the Walkman to record under the cushions of the armchair, with the little black flex of the microphone poking out, barely noticeable. There are sixty minutes of tape to run before the Walkman will stop with an audible click. Hopefully the cushions will help to smother the noise.
Gina is on time and exactly how Dean had described her: small, blonde, bobbed hair and very dark eye make-up. No bra. Sam wouldn't have noticed the bra thing if Dean hadn't made him look for it. She says, “Hi Sam,” and then he's being sexiled with cinema money.
It's not that Sam's some kind of sick pervert. He just wants to either prove or disprove Dean's infuriating bragging once and for all. And maybe learn a few things for himself while he's at it.
****
Sam's biology teacher is cool. She has a razor sharp wit and the ability to slip extra snippets of learning into the syllabus, concise titbits that keep Sam guessing. He's never bored in Mrs Miller's class. She tells them about the chemical properties that make spicy foods hot and it gives Sam an idea; revenge for Susy Carter.
He procures a red naga chili pepper for a small fee, which he saves from his lunch money. In Maisy's Diner, while Dad's chatting to some locals at the counter and Dean's taking a leak, Sam crushes the chili and rubs it around the lip of Dean's beer bottle. Then he sits back and waits for the show.
Dean swigs from the bottle, frowns at the itch and then squawks in panic as the burn sets in. He snatches Sam's soda and glugs it down, scowling and swiping, scrubbing at his lips. “Not cool Sam,” he says. He keeps rubbing with his sleeve, over and around, and his lips get bigger and redder, almost cartoon-like. It's hypnotic. The soda stays with Dean in a death grip as he rides out the irritation, lips redder than a baboon's ass.
John frowns his disapproval at Sam but goes on to reprimand Dean for leaving his drink unattended, which makes the prank even more perfect to Sam's mind. Dean glares daggers. Sam's not going to forget those swollen lips in this lifetime.
****
Sam listens to the tape. He listens carefully, plays it multiple times and pays very close attention. It would seem that Dean's boasting is not entirely misplaced, although in order to make his research stand up to scrutiny Sam decides that he needs multiple samples for further study. It's ridiculously easy to arrange. Gina and Dean fuck on the couch whenever Sam's going out and Dean's bored. They are horny and predictable.
****
“Remember that school in Fort Collins Sammy? That place was sweet.”
“Yeah?” Sam's wary. It sounds suspiciously like the opening of an unprovoked sex story, although with Dean pretty much everything does. They're in the car again, a school vacation ammo-run, and Sam's got nowhere to go, as usual.
“Would'a been the summer of '95. Damn, that's like five years ago. I'm gettin' old.”
“There's always botox.”
Dean ignores him. “Got my first blow job in that town. One of the best I ever had.”
This is the point where Sam should tell Dean to shut up but curiosity wins out yet again. “I thought you lost your virginity when you were fourteen?” he asks. Has Dean been making it up?
“I did.” Dean smirks over at him. “Had sex a whole year before I ever got my dick sucked. You've had your dick sucked, right Sammy? You know what I'm talkin' about yeah?”
“Yeah,” Sam answers quickly, trying to imply 'well duh' with his tone.
“Remember the first time? It was like, I thought I knew how it'd be but then it was so wet. She had this pretty face, kinda delicate, and I couldn't get over the fact that I was actually in her mouth, you know? That she could taste me.” Dean wriggle-shudders in pleasure memory. “Her little tongue workin' me, she was so hot Sammy. She played with my balls too. Totally blew my mind.”
Sam doesn't know what Dean wants this time. Maybe he's after a similar story from Sam, in which case he's going to be disappointed, and only partly because Sam's never had his dick sucked in his life. He says, “Too much information Dean,” trying to keep it casual, grits his teeth and concentrates on sitting still.
They get what they came for from Sol Careras, owner of the unofficial all-you-need gunstore. It's quick, efficient, in and out. Dean makes small talk with Sol, makes him laugh with a tall story about a skinwalker who got himself stuck in dog form and neutered. It earns them some extra shells and that will please their father.
On the return journey Dean is blessedly silent for the first twenty minutes, content to play Kiss quietly and tap his fingers on the wheel. Of course, it's too good to last.
“It's your turn Sam,” Dean says, nodding at him. “You're gonna've heard all my good stories and I ain't heard none of yours.”
“Yeah no,” Sam says, trying to make it sound firm and final. There's no need to panic. Dean doesn't actually have psychic powers. He can't force Sam to tell him the embarrassing truth.
“I could tell you about the underwear chick in Sioux Falls. Or that chick in Phoenix who cried any time something got put inside her. Kinda off-putting. Or the yoga chick,” Dean laughs once. “Man she was bendy. I'da been happy to get my dick wet the usual way but it seemed like she had something to prove, you know?” Dean thwaps him on the thigh. “But it's your turn,” he says again.
Sam turns up the radio.
Dean turns it down. “You have done it haven't you?”
“Yes Dean,” Sam lies through his teeth. “I have done it but I'm not going to kiss and tell okay? Some of us believe in a little thing called respect.”
“Alright, alright,” Dean rolls his shoulders. “Don't get your panties in a twist. God you're such a nerd.”
Sam shifts down in his seat and glowers out of the window. He crosses his arms and tells himself, Soon.
“I gotta tell you about that yoga chick though Sam. There's this pose they do call Dog Down...”
****
Dean takes him bowling. They see Final Destination and Rules of Engagement on the big screen, and when their dad's not around Dean buys beer for both of them. Sam thinks maybe Dean put aside some money for Spring Break and it's a sweet thought. He doesn't ask because it's the kind of thing Dean wouldn't want to admit to.
There's barely any mention of Gina. Dean goes out with her on Friday but comes home early claiming to have a stomach ache. It doesn't stop him from scarfing a whole pepperoni pizza. They eat a lot of pizza.
Dean gets Sam back for the naga chili by putting methylene blue in his peanut butter sandwich. Sam tries to bitch him out about the dangers of serotonin toxicity but Dean doesn't seem to care. In fact, Sam suspects that Dean knew all about the dangers of serotonin toxicity before giving Sam the sandwich, because Sam's piss had only been tinged a light greenish-blue: the effect of a very tiny dose.
****
Hardly a week back at school and they're in the car again, travelling to a weekend hunt because Sam's the only one who cares that he has homework.
The telltale rhythmic slapping of skin on skin is clear and stark but it’s Dean’s voice that Sam strains to hear as he wallows in the burn of prolonged arousal. He can feel the heat of it in his face. Dean doesn't seem to notice.
Spring has truly arrived and the morning sun filters through the tree branches by the side of the road, hitting Sam’s face in a spattering staccato. If he closes his eyes then his brain makes the patterns symmetrical; a kaleidoscope on the insides of his eyelids.
The volume is turned up as loud as Sam dares. The old Walkman has over-the-head earphones and he’s kind of paranoid about sound escaping the soft foam pads and drifting across the bench seat. Dean is playing his Led Zeppelin III cassette though, for the third time of listening, and the Impala’s engine thrums; the soundtrack of their lives.
On the tape, Dean is barely audible over the rustling of cotton and he doesn't make many sex noises at all. On the few occasions when he does give voice to his pleasure he sounds urgent, pitched a little higher than his normal speaking voice. Sam savours every tiny sound that he makes.
‘Ah,’ Dean gasps, ‘Uh.’ They're hardly more than huffs of breath. The recording quality for this session isn’t good enough for Sam to hear Dean’s breathing but he imagines it anyway. It would have been rapid by this point, maybe hitching a little. 'Uh…' Dean says again, and then in the softest breathless whisper, 'Yeah.'
Real life big-brother Dean is two feet away, happy as larry driving his Baby, smelling of leather, gun oil and his own scent, possibly distilled sex. He gives Sam a little smile and an eye-roll.
Sam smiles back, ducking his head so that his fringe hides him. Dean thinks he's listening to Radiohead.
They're getting to the good part, Sam knows. It's not the first time he's listened to this tape. ‘F-fuck,' Dean says, voice wobbling. There's a pause in the slapping and the sound of shifting bodies before it picks up again, faster now and Dean says, 'Ah!' short and surprised. The part of Sam's brain that is always objective, no matter how high his emotions run, thinks it sounds like a denial, as though Dean doesn't want it.
Sam closes his eyes and presses his eyelids down. This is the best part. He stays perfectly still in anticipation, helpless to the build of an orgasm that won't happen this time, just as it didn't happen last time, and won't happen until they reach whichever nowhere town it is that they're heading to. It's a self made torment that Sam is addicted to.
'Ah...’ Dean's voice has reached fever pitch: quiet, desperate and high. The orgasm itself is silent, as Dean's orgasms almost always are. Sam recognises it from the cessation of slapping flesh, and by the soft moans Gina makes as Dean empties his balls into her.
Sam teeters on the edge of orgasm. It's close, always a close thing, before the feeling backs off and he's left trembling, balls aching and cock straining.
The tape runs on, blank except for a soft background hiss. Sam enjoys the sun on his face. In another minute he will rewind and start over from the beginning.
****
The weather improves and vampiric copperhead snakes emerge from brumation down in South Carolina. Dad and Dean leave early Saturday morning and stay away for a week. Sam's birthday passes uncelebrated and he gets a lot of studying done. He writes four essays and doesn't think about slow death by blood loss and venom-induced euphoria.
Dean comes home a day early, surprising Sam with a bottle of Jim Beam as a late birthday gift. They find Caddyshack playing on some crappy channel and do shots anytime Bill Murray says 'gopher', anytime a golf club is swung, and, eventually, anytime they feel like it.
Sam manages to get to school on Friday morning but it's not one of his better days.
It's halfway through Math, the last class of the day, when he remembers about the Walkman. The first thing he does when he gets home is rush to their room, half convinced that Dean will be waiting for him, sick with disappointment at Sam's perversion.
The Walkman is still where he left it, thank God and all the angels, half buried under clothes on a rickety re-painted chair. Dean is whistling in the kitchen. He's making mac 'n' cheese, Sam can smell it.
What if Dean had picked it up, decided to mess with Sam's music for a joke? Sam needs to be much more careful.
“S'ready Sam,” Dean calls and Sam snatches up the Walkman and stuffs it in his back pocket.
Dad's home not long after. He bitches some about Sam staying home to study, says, “Coulda used you on Deadeye's Ranch, son,” and Sam wonders if other fathers ever say stuff that sounds like cowboy quotes from the movies. “There were a shit ton of nests this year since we missed 'em last year.” He and Dean nod sagely, presumably in some silent veteran snake-slayer acknowledgement.
“He's nearly there aren't you Sammy-Sam? Growin' a pair, almost a man.” Dean drops him a wink and tries to ruffle Sam's hair as he clears the dishes away but Sam ducks away in time. It makes Sam feel tight inside, nauseous with guilt, because Sam accepted the offer from Stanford last month and all that remains is high school graduation. He can't imagine returning to hunt vampire snakes after college. He tells himself that normal kids go to college, that being a Winchester shouldn't exclude him from making a good life for himself on principle.
The others have never mentioned college to Sam. Dad probably hasn't thought of it, since Sam doesn't exactly present his report card anymore, but it should have at least occurred to Dean. Dean is always calling Sam out for being a geek but with a quiet pride that he can't quite conceal.
Time's running down for Sam. He feels shaky every time he thinks about leaving for college, sure that he's making a bad decision, so mostly he doesn't think about it.
****
It's a bright and dry day and Sam sits in a sunbeam, his history essay finished, polished and ready to hand-in. He has also read ahead about the outbreak of the Revolutionary War in 1775 and 1776, so he's well prepared for this class. He opens his textbook to the page he bookmarked, and is greeted by a full-page spread of Jenny Rose, Dean's porn star of the moment. 'Spread' is definitely the appropriate term. He slams it closed.
The problem with reading ahead is that it can make class very boring, when it's basically a revision of what Sam already knows. He keeps thinking of the centrefold while the teacher drones on, of Jenny begging to be fucked. He imagines Dean sliding into her. Dean is so hot for her, he would make her moan. Dean would tell her how sexy she is, go down on her and get her body to make all the delicious slick sounds and the desperate little noises that Gina makes. Maybe he would whisper, 'Good girl,' like he had with Gina last night, after the third time he'd made her come.
Dean could be at home on their couch right now, jerking off to one of Jenny Rose's videos and thinking exactly the same thoughts. He could be at home jerking off and thinking about Sam opening his history book, having to sit through class with a killer erection. Sam does have a killer erection but it's for all the wrong reasons.
****
Sam probably could go out and get laid if he put his mind to it, rid himself of his V-card and move on. It would help if he didn't spend all his free time jerking off to recordings of Dean having sex. Maybe then he could get around to leaving their room and hooking up.
After Gina there is Clare. The tape runs out while Dean's with Clare, leaving Sam frustrated. There are no audiotapes with greater than 120 minutes capacity, which is seriously annoying. When Sam discovers that he can use the auto-reverse function for recording as well as listening, he's too happy to spend any time kicking himself for stupidity.
Dean always uses the couch. Sam can't help thinking it would be more comfortable in the bedroom but Dean always uses the couch.
It's beginning to look as though the Winchesters really are staying put as promised. Sam learns the best angle for the microphone in the armchair cushions.
****
Dad and Dean leave the state and head north, looking for a family of lechuzas in the mountains. Sam's not worried. The lechuzas aren't even killing people, just wreaking havoc with livestock.
So, okay, maybe Sam's a tiny bit worried. He always is when Dad and Dean go off hunting without him, and the storm is making him jumpy, hailstone lashing down outside. But then Dean calls, sounding pumped up on post hunt high, and announces that they're on their way home. “Get the reception party ready Sammy,” he says. “I'm expecting dancing girls.”
Even with the pedal to the metal, even if the Impala grew giant and epic death-metal wings, Dean couldn't make it back in less than four hours. Sam has already jerked off twice, it's all he seems to do recently, so he decides that it's the perfect opportunity to fuck around with Dean's things undisturbed.
He routes around in Dean's sock drawer with vague ideas about pranking Dean's underwear. A pair of socks are hiding something though, a hard cylindrical core to the woollen bundle, and that's even better, until Sam pulls it out and immediately wishes that he hadn't. It's lube and now that Sam knows that it's there he has to consider anal sex.
He thinks back to the most recent recording of Dean with Clare. The foreplay seems to take forever with Clare, it's why Sam's tapes run out. It takes way longer than it ever did with Gina. Had Clare's sex noises been more grunty? Had they been more guttural sounding?
Sam listens to the most recent recording again, one hand down his shorts. 'So tight,' Dean hisses when he finally gets around to fucking her, and Jesus, now Sam understands. He jerks off twice more before Dean and his father get home. Once because he needs to, urgently, previous two orgasms be damned. Again, because it's a long tape and he's only just eighteen. He hardly gets any studying done at all and falls asleep on top of his bed covers.
****
Clare works at the video and DVD rental place in town. She's pretty and chatty, full figured with curves in all the right places and a cleavage that can suck a guy right down to his death, when she cares to show it off. Just about everyone seems to know her to say 'hi' to. Sam thinks there are probably a lot of guys lurking around the video store who have no interest in renting films. It's where Dean met her.
'So you're working tonight?' Dean had asked her on the tape, and Clare had said, 'Yes.' Clearly, however, there has been a change of plans because Sam walks in on them having not-anal sex in their bedroom.
Dean never has sex in their bedroom. Sam wants to remind him about that, wants to complain because this is his and Dean's space. He can see the curves of Clare's naked body where she's pressed against Dean. Dean's broad back and naked ass are displayed for Sam, only for a moment but plenty long enough for the after image to be seared onto his retinas forever.
“Jesus Sam,” Dean says, standing, “Gotta learn to knock dude.”
Clare covers herself with sheets but she doesn't look too uncomfortable. She gives Sam a sheepish smile and mouths 'sorry'. She's flushed from the sex and pretty.
Sam should leave but he's rooted to the spot. There's colour flooding Dean's face, a stripe high across his cheeks, and all Sam can do is stare at Dean's bobbing erection. It's wet, wrapped in a shiny condom, and Sam is completely unable to make himself look away, other than to glance back at Dean's face. It's not the sex making Dean blush pink but the intensity of Sam's stare, Sam just knows it.
Dean turns away. Sam expects him to say something else, something cocky, but apparently the cat got Dean's tongue. Finally Sam flees, much too late, legs back under his control. He can hear Clare's bell-like laughter as he closes the front door.
****
When Dean announces that he and Clare have 'split up', Sam is sorry to lose her. He had liked Clare; had found it easy to empathise with her.
A consequence of Dean's lack of love life is that he's knocking around the house more than usual in the evenings. He starts to lay small traps for Sam, little childish things that are really annoying. There's jelly on the bedroom door handle on Friday evening and Saran wrap over the toilet on Tuesday morning (although Sam has never fallen for that one).
It's going on for two weeks of celibacy for Dean when Sam comes home from school on a Thursday afternoon and walks into a mantrap. At first he doesn't know what's going on. Dean backs him up against the front door and just keeps coming. “What the hell Dean?” Sam asks, squeaks really, pressing himself back into the solid wood of the door. His heart riverdances in his throat, body becoming confused and aroused. There's only one reason for Dean to be this close, looking this predatory, but then Dean backs off. Sam slouches, or at least he tries to but he can't because he is stuck tight, glued to the door like a human fly.
“What..?” Sam tries to twist his head to see what Dean has coated the door with that has him caught. His hair pulls. He's going to kill Dean if this means cutting off his hair.
“Oh my God it worked,” Dean says, looking utterly gleeful, his eyes wide and dancing with mischief. “Can you move? Try an' move,” his grin grows wider as the trap's effectiveness makes itself apparent, “Go on Sam.” It's the kind of grin that showcases all the teeth.
“Dean!” Sam yells, “Fucking get me out of this.” He tries to yank one sleeve away from the door, focussing all his strength there, careful to keep the skin of his hand clear. It doesn't budge. “You're such a dick,” he tells Dean, because it's true. Dean is such a dick.
Dean's watching him from a little too close. “Easy there Sammy, it's just an experiment,” he says happily, “You approve of experiments, yeah?” His voice is rich and lovely and Sam's body responds to him in the worst way. Dean makes no move to free Sam and end the entertainment. He chucks Sam under the chin, mocking, and Sam tries to bite, but his hair pulls again, making him hiss in pain.
Dean's finger stroking under Sam's jaw feels good enough to make Sam panic. He has to get free before Dean notices what a freak he is. He tries to yank both legs away at the same time. The heel of one shoe tears free with a familiar ripping sound, and Sam thinks of scotch tape. Has Dean covered the whole door with some kind of super-sticky tape? The legs of Sam's jeans and the other shoe stay stuck fast.
Dean goes to his knees to examine Sam's free foot, no, to remove Sam's free shoe, and Sam gets fully hard. He tries to twist away, to hide it, but there's nowhere to go. Dean strips off the sock too and gets a firm grip around Sam's ankle. “This little piggy...”
“Fuck no!” Sam yells again, “Let me go!”
“...This little piggy stayed at home.” Dean continues, smirking, grip like a vice, all his attention focussed on Sam's wriggling toes. “This little piggy had roast beef...”
“Dean I swear to fucking God, if you don't let me go I'll kill you!”
“...And this little piggy had none. And this little piggy...”
“Gonna fucking kill you! Nargh!” Sam chokes on a laugh as Dean scrubs at the underside of his foot. Sam's whole body jumps and shakes but he has very limited movement.
Dean looks up at Sam's face when he's done with his foot, the softness of Dean's smile at total odds with the complete sadism of his actions. Sam's jacket is too short and his cock is bulging and obvious, a hard line along his leg, pressed down uncomfortably in his jeans. Dean's eyes don't linger but Sam sees the moment when Dean notices. Sam gives in and goes slack, fighting back tears of humiliation.
Dean frees him. Their combined strength making easy enough work of pulling Sam's limbs free, and if Dean hadn't noticed Sam's erection before then he sure has hell does while he's pulling Sam's legs free. Sam's hair is the worst. Some of the strands tear free, despite Dean's best efforts and his attempts to get Sam to stay calm and still.
The pain of having his hair pulled is the final straw for Sam. He runs to their bedroom, adjusting himself awkwardly on the way, crying tears of frustration and regret. He can't help it, he's so angry and ashamed. He locks Dean out, jamming furniture against the door to make sure that he stays out.
Later, Sam jerks off, stubbornly thinking about breasts, and then cries some more.
****
They don't talk about it. Sam has a week of exams and Dean gets a new girlfriend. When Sam's done with his exams he's also done with school. There's no point attending graduation, and they would be moving on if Dad were around but they're paid-up until the end of the month and John's over in North Dakota on some personal quest too secret even to share with Dean. Sam knows that Dean's upset about it, however blasé he seems.
He tapes Dean and his new girlfriend on the couch. Sophie's a talker.
It's really corny, the porn dialogue, and Sam would laugh except that he loves it too much. It's like Sophie has loosened up something inside of Dean and they sure are noisy together. It also gives Sam a much clearer picture of what's going on.
'These real silk?' Dean asks.
'Satin I- mph! -I think.' Sophie says and then moans so long and low that Sam has to give up his denial. He wants to be Sophie, it's straightforward jealously. 'Take them off,' Sophie begs, 'C'mon baby, I'm so ready for you.'
'Soon,' Dean says, and Sam can hear the smile in his voice. 'Gonna get them all nice and soaked through first.'
Sophie moans again and Sam presses his hand between his legs and tries to imagine how it feels to be a girl.
'Dirty girl,' Dean says after a while, sounding impressed, 'So fuckin' sexy.' Sam doesn't know what Sophie did exactly and he doesn't get much time to wonder because not long after that they're fucking.
Apparently Dean's adaptable in bed. Sam's heard him being tender and slow but with Sophie it's usually hard and fast, with a stream of expletives from both parties that could be specifically designed to get Sam off like a cherry bomb.
'Yeah, fuck, so wet for me,' Dean says, kind of breathless. 'Soakin' wet pussy-' and Sam wonders, for the millionth time, what it feels like to slide inside.
'Ugnnn,' Sophie murmurs, 'S'good,' and Sam imagines them moving together experimentally, getting warmed up. 'S'good Dean,' she says again, 'Yeah, come on baby, s'good, c'mon.'
'Yeah?' Dean asks and Sam thinks it's a rhetorical question.
There's the sound of skin slapping on skin and it's so familiar to Sam by now that it's almost a lullaby. Sophie makes little gasping sobs, and they're sweet to listen to. 'Right there,' she says, voice getting higher and kind of strangled, 'Just there, yeah,' and then she mostly just says, 'Fuck,' whispering it, moaning it, repeating it over and over mindlessly until it loses all meaning.
Dean says, 'Yeah.' He says, 'Fuck,' and sometimes, 'Take it, fuckin' take it,' every word punched out of him like a curse.
The thing that Sam really loves about Sophie is the way that she sobs, 'Thank you thank you thank you,' like a mantra when she's about to come; and the thing he really really loves about Sophie is the way that her little mantra of gratitude is guaranteed to get Dean off so hard that he actually groans out his pleasure. The first time it happened Sam shot off so hard that he had to clean the wall.
'So good baby,' Dean murmurs afterwards and Sam hates her all over again.
****
“You know, Sophie has a cousin-” Dean begins, on an otherwise perfect Sunday morning.
“No.”
“C'mon Sam, just hear me out okay?”
“I said no Dean. I'm too busy reading.”
Dean sucks in a breath in the manner of the long-suffering. “She's real smart Sammy, a junior but I know she could give most seniors a run for their money.”
“Are you having trouble understanding the 'n' or the 'o' part?” Sam snipes. He doesn't want a girlfriend and Dean's persistence winds him up, makes him feel itchy and short tempered.
Dean must see the danger because he switches tacks. “Way I hear it she ain't exactly playin' hard to get, this one. Way I hear it she maybe might put out on the second date Sam.”
“Dean, just. Please. Shut up already okay?”
“S'gotta be a while since you got any though. You're always hangin' around here with your nose in a book. Unless you were sneakin' off behind the bike shed with the bad kids,” Dean smirks, “Or fuckin' in the store closet.”
Sam glares at him.
“Did that with a teacher once,” Dean says casually.
“Did not,” Sam immediately replies because that never happens, even to Dean. It's an urban myth.
“Did too,” Dean says, smiling at Sam's outrage. “In that tiny high school I went to for like four weeks in Montana. She was newly qualified, English teacher, kinda naïve. No actual sex but I did get her off in the janitor's closet.”
“Shit.” Sam doesn't know what else to say. It doesn't occur to him to really disbelieve Dean. He can't believe that Dean still wants to play this weird gay-chicken wind-up thing they have going on, not after the human fly paper incident.
Dean seems to realise it too. His eyes slide away from Sam's face and he rubs at the back of his neck. “So we should get some exercise anyway,” he says, turning away. “No time like the present. Or, whatever.”
Sam changes into running clothes and stands in the bathroom, thinking about Dean and the teacher. In his mind she's straight out of Horny Secretaries 4, pinstriped miniskirt, masses of blonde ringlets and tiny black rimmed spectacles. Before he can prevent it Sam's twitchy-hard imagining Dean fucking her over a desk, and then he can't piss for toffee. He's considering jerking off, despite the missing lock, when Dean slaps his hand against the bathroom door, making Sam jump and fumble his clothing back into place.
“Come on Frances, quit powderin' your nose,” Dean says loudly through the flimsy plywood. “We gotta do some PT before Dad gets back, and I'm meetin' Sophie at nine.”
Great. Now Sam gets to run with a semi and a full bladder. And his day had been going so well before.
****
June is a beautiful month. John calls to announce that he's staying with Bobby a while longer and tells Dean to pay another month's rent out of the cash he left them. There's plenty left, no school for Sam and no work for Dean, so all that remains is to lounge around and enjoy the weather.
Sam has breakfast and spends some time reading. He sets up the Walkman and goes down to the river to lie in the long grass, and he listens to his other tapes on a second Walkman that he bought for precisely this purpose. Dean fucks Sophie on the couch while Sam's out and then he comes down to the river to find Sam. They wrestle and swim, swim and wrestle. Sam is happy in the fucked up little routine they've got going.
Sometimes Dean lets Sophie talk until they're fucking but once they get going Sophie's voice gets all muffled. Sam can still hear her moaning and groaning but there are no more words from Sophie, and without the visual Sam doesn't know why. It can't be that Dean's cock is in her mouth because the slapping of flesh and Dean's torrent of, 'Take it, take it,' leaves no doubt as to where Dean's cock is. Come to think of it, Sam hasn't ever heard Dean getting a blow job. He's heard Dean giving head plenty of times but not vice versa, although it is admittedly difficult to tell what's going on with the longer foreplay sessions, before Dean had decided that his new mission in life was to dirty-talk Sophie (and Sam) to multiple orgasms.
Maybe Dean likes to get his fingers in Sophie's mouth? Sam slips his fingers into his own mouth, experimentally, while he listens. It's all good.
The other change in the recordings happens when Dean and Sophie decide to share their dirtiest fantasies with each other. It feels like Sam wins the jackpot with every new tape.
'A thousand little mouths all over my body,' Sophie says, her voice pouring out of her like honey while Dean eats at her pussy. 'A thousand little mouths licking and sucking and teasing me until I come. Uh, yeah, just like that. Right there baby, right there- oh! Just like that, yeah.'
Dean's scenarios are more specific. 'In a motel room, up against the wall,' he says, fucking Sophie in maddeningly controlled rhythm that has Sam moving his hips in time. 'Some motel rooms got really thin walls an' I- fuck -I'd fuck you so good, right up against the wall- yeah -an' you'd try to stay quiet but- fuck -but Dad would hear you...'
'Shit baby,' Sophie says after that one. 'That's some kinky fantasy you've got there with your Dad listening in.'
The only response from Dean is soft laughter.
Dean's vocabulary becomes increasingly creative. The third time Sam involuntarily claps his palm over his mouth, he decides that he definitely needs to be listening alone from now on, at least for the first time for each new tape.
Sam spends a lot of time listening to his tapes in the bathroom. One day he comes home to find that Dean has managed to break the lock on the bathroom door. Sam's pretty sure he did it on purpose.
Mrs Livietski next door, always so friendly with Sam in the past, stops meeting his eye. It's not me, he wants to tell her, it's my sex maniac of a brother making all the noise. I'm the hopeless virgin of the family.
****
On the last day of June John returns. They pack up their stuff and leave Des Moines behind. Sam kind of wishes they could take the ratty old couch with them.
Sophie's out of their lives now, since Dean left town, and it feels kind of weird for Sam to be listening to a new recording of her getting it on with Dean. Really though, it's weird of Sam to be listening to his brother having sex period, so he decides that any additional weirdness is negligible and dons his headphones anyway.
Technically, Sam's breaking his own rule about only listening to new recordings alone. He figures that he's getting harder to surprise though, and that if Dean says something truly shocking then he can cover himself with a fake coughing fit or something.
Sam waits with bated breath as he listens to the sounds of Sophie arriving and their initial making out. It doesn't take long before he's completely absorbed in listening, oblivious to what's going on around him, straining to hear what new torments Dean has for him this time and so ready to lap it all up.
'So Sam's a cutie,' she says, and Sam can't believe what he's hearing. He holds his breath.
'Sure he is,' Dean says with the smile in his voice. 'Think maybe he's kinda green when it comes to sex though. Might need an experienced lady to show him the ropes.'
'Both of us,' Sophie says, 'We could both show him the ropes together. Is he big Dean? Could he fill my mouth?'
'Oh hell yeah,' Dean says, and what the fuck? Dean can't possibly know how big Sam's erect cock is. Can he?
'Both of you inside me, filling me up. So dirty Dean, such a bad boy wanting a threesome with your little brother...' and Sam has to pull his headphones off. He's actually going to have complete heart failure.
Diamonds and Rust plays quietly in the background.
“You can't have gotten to the best part yet.”
And yes, it's official. Sam's about to die, tragically young, from heart failure.
“You wanna hear her once she got warmed up Sammy, had her purring like a sweet baby tiger.” And Dean's grinning at him and Sam can't take it now because Dean knows.
Sam's mind races back over the weeks. He's had the Walkman with him twenty-four-seven since he was sloppy enough to leave it lying around on his birthday, which means that Dean must have known for months, and if Dean has known for months then this talk about a threesome with Sam, the fantasy about the motel room, it's all been for Sam's benefit.
Dean knows that Sam has no interest in listening to the sex noises made by some chick. Dean knows that the only sex noises that Sam is interested in listening to are the sex noises made my Dean .
“Pull over,” Sam grits out, “Pull the fuck over.” As soon as the parking break's on he pushes his fingers into Dean's filthy beautiful mouth.
Dean moans and tries to suck but Sam's got all four fingers in there and Dean can't seal his lips around them. The feeling of Dean's mouth and tongue moving slick against the underside of his fingers makes Sam's eyes fall to slits and his body urgent with the need to fuck.
“Talk so fucking dirty Dean,” Sam says getting his pants shoved down his thighs, “Gonna make you curse for me,” which doesn't make any sense because he's pushing Dean's head down onto his freed cock and Dean's going for it, eager, with his hands at the creases of Sam's thighs. His mouth slides down Sam's cock, hot and wet and fan-fucking-tastic, and he gives up a deep moan of appreciation.
The vibrations have Sam's teeth clenching against the urge to fuck Dean's mouth. Dean swirls his tongue and Sam gives into the urge and pumps his hips. Dean can take it. Sam hasn't recorded Dean with a guy but this can't be Dean's first time giving a blow job, and even if it is, he can still take it, for all those times on the tape, talking dirty to Sam. Talking so dirty just for Sam, knowing he was listening and getting him off, getting them both off so hard every time. For the fucking wind-up with the motel and Dad listening, both of them with Sophie, maybe even the anal sex with Clare, walking in on Dean that time... “Oh Dean, oh fuck, fuck!” and Sam loses it in blinding pulses to the genius of Dean's mouth.
Turns out Dean was totally right about blow jobs being awesome.
****
It feels good to be back on the road with Dean. For the last time, Sam's conscience supplies unhelpfully but he pushes it away.
They swap high school stories, now that Sam's a high school veteran too, and Dean even lets him pick the music sometimes.
John leads them in a reverse S-shape across the country, heading first to the East, to swing by and check in on Pastor Jim, and then South to the hottest part of summer.
They buy stupid sunglasses at a truck stop just outside of Memphis and Dean calls Sam Thelma and will only answer to Louise, unless their dad is within earshot. He makes Sam solemnly swear that he will share, should he find a Brad Pitt-type cowboy. Sam's not really sure what to make of it all but he knows that they're both happy and figures that's all that really matters.
Anytime Dean gets bored, which is often, Sam gets called out for thinking about sex. Dean teases him for getting inopportune erections, which is stupid because Sam's got himself as well under control as the next man because he's not fourteen anymore. The problem is that whenever Dean talks about Sam having an erection it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, and twice as rapidly if Dean decides to test his theory with some groping. A couple of times Dean lazily strokes him off while they're driving long straight stretches of road, five car lengths back from their dad and clearly visible in his rear view mirror. Sam shakes and flushes and tries to stay still but he never manages to stay quiet.
****
A waitress ignores Dean for the first time ever and flirts with Sam for a change in an IHOP diner. Sam leaves with her number scrawled on a napkin, the same way that Dean has collected a thousand phone numbers from a thousand diners in the past.
Dean grins and shrugs it off but later, when Sam's too engrossed in An Introductory Guide to Morality in Law to notice him sneaking up, Dean jumps him.
“Dean!” Sam protests. Dean ignores him, flips Sam over onto his back and holds him down with one arm. Sam could break free if he wanted to but of course he doesn't, not really.
“Not thinkin' of hooking up with Cathy are you?” Dean says, and then kisses Sam to within an inch of his life without giving Sam any time to answer. “'Cause I gotta tell you Sam,” more kissing, “I've been thinkin' about it and I ain't exactly keen on the idea.” He fumbles Sam's fly, seeking out Sam's erection that's always there when Dean wants it to be.
When he has Sam's cock the way he wants it, Dean jerks him steadily, keeping him pinned all the while and studying Sam's face. It doesn't take long for Sam to get so that he's rock hard and leaking, balls tight like he's going to come. It seems to satisfy Dean how quickly he gets Sam there. Dean's expression is a weird mixture of hot and fond.
Sam hums in pleasure and strains for a little more, just enough to tip him over but Dean backs off, slowing the pace infuriatingly. “C'mon, fess up Sam,” he says, “You're a virgin aren't you? Hadn't done anything at all until I touched you, isn't that right?”
Sam bites his lips together and whines. He's ready to come but Dean's touch is too slow now, too light, not quite enough.
“C'mon now Sammy, tell the truth,” Dean squeezes and pumps faster once, twice and Sam's almost there when he stops, going slow again. “If you tell the truth I'll let you come.”
“Yes,” Sam whispers, totally strung out, knowing he's going to hate himself for it later, “Yes, I'm a virgin.”
“Not only a virgin,” Dean says. “Never been touched,” and there's a possessive light in his eyes.
Sam sobs, “Please.”
“Tell me Sam. Say it.”
“I've never been touched. Only by you.”
“Good boy,” and Dean speeds his hand up, jacking Sam nice and firm, quick and perfect. “Wasn't so hard now was it?” and Sam spills into Dean's fist, shuddering against Dean's forearm that's still braced across his chest, holding him in place.
****
“What you always reading anyway?” Dean asks the next day.
Sam has a stack of library books in their room, books that are described as 'suitable summer reading materials' on the departmental website.
“Oughta get you a copy of the Infernal Compendium or something,” Dean says, and he smiles at Sam. “You're gonna be the master of supernatural lore someday with that big ol' brain of yours.”
Sam feels his stomach sink. He tries to return Dean's smile but his face won't do it. This is the moment he has been dreading, for years now.
“What?” Dean's smile closes off, like he already knows what Sam's about to say.
“I'm going to college Dean,” and there, he's said it. Dean doesn't react. “Stanford. California. Pre-Law.”
Dean puts his hands together like a child learning to pray and presses his thumbs to his lips. Sam watches the muscles jump and pulse in his jaw. Eventually Dean nods. “Yeah,” he says, voice steady and flat, “Yeah, okay.” And then he walks away.
****
Dean keeps his distance from Sam for a few weeks. He's cold but civil. He stays out late into the evenings and their father keeps them occupied during the day with hunts.
Sam is given the task of questioning the witnesses of a werewolf attack in a tiny remote settlement in Arkansas. He must do okay because John seems satisfied with the way he handles himself and the information they're given.
He takes both boys down into Texas to tackle a haunted ranch. Sam keeps the spirits at bay while Dean sets alight the mass grave, their father otherwise occupied with the ranch owner, who is one crazy son of a bitch. Sam's actually quite proud of the way they handle so many ghosts but John seems more pleased by the research that Sam did to lead them to the burial ground in the first place.
By silent agreement neither son mentions Stanford to their father.
John trades in his truck and there's a two week wait for the new one, so they're all crammed into the Impala again in the meantime. They are getting two motel rooms by now though, one for John and the other for Sam and Dean to share. It's probably some kind of rite of passage now that they're all fully grown men. Or something. Nobody actually says anything about it.
There are no more pranks.
****
They're packing up the car in the Little Bridges Motel parking lot when a police cruiser swings in, blue lights and all. Dean hisses, “Shit,” tosses the keys to their dad and ducks into the passenger seat. Sam takes the hint, calmly but quickly closing their room door and dropping the keys to the porch. John is already gently gunning the engine as Sam slides into the passenger seat, squishing Dean in the foot-well between them.
There are two officers making their way along the block of rooms, knocking at doors. Dean stays ducked down low out of sight and John tips a salute to the fatter of the two as they drive slowly by. The officer dips his head and narrows his eyes, scrutinizing them against his print-out for likeness. Unfortunately, the large police officer doesn't stop walking while he's looking down at his print-out and he trips. His partner tries to rescue him, clutches at the poor woman he's questioning and makes it a hundred times worse.
Dean stays low until they're on the highway.
“What the hell Dean?” Dad asks. He's trying to do his angry face, with the frown lines of doom, but can't hold it. The frown cracks and John's smile breaks through.
“Did you see the way the fat one got tripped by the flex of the vending machine?” Sam says.
“And then the skinny one tried to help him up and the fat one ended up going over the railing,” Dean finishes and they all laugh, long and hard.
Their father wipes his eyes, chuckling. He checks the rear view mirror to make sure they really have gotten away and says, “We'd better not have the Feds after us son,” to Dean.
Dean says, “No sir,” and there's a sober moment of silence.
Then John slaps his hands down on the wheel and doubles over in snorting laughter again. “Did you see the way the skinny one caught at that woman's skirt on the way down?” he wheezes, shaking his head in disbelief and smiling wide.
“Never seen panties that big in my life,” Dean says, grinning. It really had been a perfect Laurel and Hardy slapstick moment.
Sam shoots Dean a questioning look but Dean shakes his head and climbs into the back, so Sam leaves it alone. Probably some local big-shot got pissed after Dean hustled him at pool last night. Or maybe one of the cops has a daughter who saw a little Dean-action and they decided to scare Dean off.
****
Mostly Dean goes out alone in the evenings. Sometimes he goes with John. They never take Sam along, which is fine because Sam isn't old enough to drink, wouldn't want to spend every night drunk even if he could, and besides, it means that he gets plenty of quiet time to read.
Dean gets home earlier than Sam expected, having obviously walked. He's drenched from a long overdue summer storm in Austin. There's no sign of the Impala, so their father must have it. Sam had assumed that Dad and Dean were at the bar together actually, since they'd left together earlier. “Where's Dad?”
“Dad got lucky,” Dean tells him with a rueful smile.
“Ew Dean! I did not need to know that!”
Dean smirks and skims the top of Sam's head on the way to the bathroom. “Old man's gotta look after the plumbin' too y'know.”
Sam pulls a face at Dean's back through the open bathroom door. “Are you drunk?” he asks Dean's back.
Dean zips up and takes his time answering. “Nah, m'not drunk,” he says sitting on his own bed across from Sam. “May've had a few.” He strips off his soaked t-shirt and Sam swallows thickly at all the damp naked skin now within arm's reach.
“'Cause you can't go trying to keep up with Dad while I'm at college,” he tells Dean, “You'd have liver failure by the time you're twenty eight.”
Dean drops his eyes and Sam's immediately sorry he brought it up. He hadn't meant to and now he's gone and made Dean miserable again. Dean rubs both hands over his face and suddenly looks so much older, tired. “I'm gonna miss you Sammy,” he confesses softly.
Sam feels a lump in his throat. Dean definitely isn't sober. He'd never say something like that while he was sober. Sam goes to him, loops an arm around those broad wet shoulders like he's been wanting to. Dean turns into it and kisses him on the mouth.
“It's not forever,” he tells Dean, resting their foreheads together, but it's a lie and they both know it. Dean's pupils are blown and there are water droplets collected in his brows and lashes. He kisses Sam again, deeper this time, and they fall into making out, losing Dean's jeans and then Sam's, and then everything else until they're naked together. It's breathtakingly intimate.
Dean's touch is firm and sure. He touches Sam everywhere while they kiss, strokes his cock, kneads his ass cheeks and rubs over and around Sam's hole. Sam's not sure at first, but Dean's hands are commanding, confident and Sam's body responds, relaxing into all the touches, pressing into them, wanting more.
“Wanna put my fingers inside you,” Dean says eventually, once Sam has gone past uncertain and started pushing down onto Dean's fingers anyway, trying for exactly that.
“Yeah,” Sam says, “Yeah, okay.”
Dean fishes the same tube of lube out of his duffel and lies down with Sam again. They kiss and explore each other's bodies, and rut against each other until Sam's sure that Dean has forgotten but then Dean gets a hand between his legs again and this time Dean's fingers are wet, really wet.
They feel weird at first, sliding about inside Sam, first one, and later more. Sam's too distracted by all the kissing and the other touching to keep too close a track of time. It's almost like Sam's drunk by proxy, lying there in the buzzing silence of their room. Time stretches and skews. They could do this all night; forever. The only sound is the very faint patter of rain and the occasional car passing by, so when Dean moves over him and slides his cock into Sam's open body it's easy and unexpected.
Sam sucks in a breath and his body tightens up around Dean, but he really was very well opened up and it doesn't hurt. Dean holds himself over Sam, dark eyed and intense, waiting for Sam to say something or do something. There are plenty of things Sam wants to say, like, Aren't you supposed to ask first? and, I love you so much it makes me want to die, but there's no conflict in what he wants to do. He shifts under Dean experimentally, making Dean gasp softly, and when he tilts his hips and finds the sweet spot that Dean has been toying with his fingers, he begins to move more confidently and Dean moves with him.
They keep their bodies close together and fuck in silence. The touching continues, memorizing every detail of each other, and whenever they're not kissing Dean likes to rub parts of their faces together or press his face against Sam's cheek or Sam's throat. There's no urgency about it, although Sam can feel his climax building and he doesn't fight it, just lets it build. It's not much like fucking at all in fact, not the way that Sam understands it. It's much more like making love.
Sam comes when his body can't contain it any longer. Dean moans at the sensations and follows him over, and Jesus, Sam can feel it, Dean's come spilling hot and deep inside his body, filling him up.
“I'll always find you,” Dean says afterwards. They've finally gotten two rooms and they're still sharing a bed. “Wherever you are, however long it takes-”
Dean breaks off and Sam knows that he's trying really hard not to cry. He squeezes Dean's upper arm and after a moment Dean gets it together enough to continue.
He says, “Wherever you are, you can always come home.”
Sam cries silently then, and Dean holds him until he's done.
****
Dean waits outside listening to their father yell at Sam. They'd known it would be bad when Sam announced that he was leaving but Sam hadn't been prepared for the explosive reality of John's temper. Afterwards they get into the Impala together, in silence, and let her engine do the talking. Sam doesn't stop shaking until they're twelve miles away down the road.
They're early to the bus station, so they get a soda and hang out by the car in the sunshine. Goodbye hangs in the air between them, Sam's ticket burning a hole in his pocket. He tries to find the words but can't, decides that he needs the men's room first. He's done pissing, looking for courage in his reflection, when Dean follows him in, pulls Sam into a hug and backs them up against the door so that no one can disturb them.
They kiss desperately, tenderly, and Sam may have underestimated this crazy want between them. He feels Dean's cock pressing his thigh and suddenly needs to be touching Dean one last time. Dean gets his hand on Sam too and they jerk each other fast and urgent, never breaking their kiss. It's over too quickly, Sam coming into Dean's hand and whimpering into Dean's mouth, while Dean's other calloused hand holds Sam in place by the back of his neck. Dean pulls Sam closer then, squishing Sam hard against him and covering Sam's hand with his own, making the movements fast and rough until he's grunting his release into Sam's hair.
Dean's hold slackens only slightly after his orgasm, and he keeps Sam pressed tight for long minutes like he can't bear to let go. Sam can feel Dean's heart beating wildly in his chest. It shows no sign of calming and Sam begins to realise what he has done.
Dean stays in the men's room. Neither of them actually say goodbye.
When Sam has boarded the bus the only thing he can see in the blur of passing fields is the echo of Dean's face, marred by tear tracks and dust.
****
Sam lies in his dorm room waiting for semester to start. He hid the enormous wad of cash that Dean gave him inside the mattress, a trick Dad taught them. There's enough to see him through his entire freshman year. Hell, there's probably enough for two years. He tries to avoid thinking about how Dean came by it all.
His other belongings make almost no impact on the emptiness of the room: a few clothes in the closet, a couple of books and his duffel, but it's not like Sam's a stranger to impersonal spaces. It's not the lack of personal affects that makes the room feel empty.
All he has of Dean is a small bundle of tapes.
It's an older recording that Sam's listening to, made before Dean had caught on. There's no background noise in the silent room, since the corridor is Sam's alone until the other students arrive tomorrow. The small sounds of kissing are loud in his ears. He screws his eyes closed and wishes them closer. Dean is right there on the couch with Gina, and yet he's so far away, out of reach.
Darkness falls by degrees outside but Sam only moves to change tapes. He doesn't get up to turn on the light and he doesn't bother to dry his tears. He falls asleep to the gentle slapping of skin against skin.