
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/4067281.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Supernatural
  Relationship:
      Sam_Winchester/Dean_Winchester
  Character:
      Sam_Winchester, Dean_Winchester, John_Winchester, Bobby_Singer, Missouri
      Moseley
  Additional Tags:
      Wincest_-_Freeform, Pre-Series, Angst, First_Time, spn_j2_bigbang, Bottom
      Sam, Raised_Apart, Psychic_Sam, Alternate_Universe_-_Canon_Divergence,
      Romance, Underage_Sam, warning:_violent_pet_death_(not_graphic), ends
      unhappily_but_there's_a_sequel, Soul_Bond, Soulmates
  Series:
      Part 1 of The_Early_Years
  Collections:
      Supernatural_and_J2_Big_Bang_2015
  Stats:
      Published: 2015-06-09 Chapters: 6/6 Words: 54924
****** If Dreams Could Make Wishes Come True ******
by AmyPond45
Summary
     On the night of November 2, 1983, the Yellow-Eyed Demon killed Mary
     Winchester and baby Sam. Or did he? Little Sam Smith grows up in
     foster care, lonely and unloved, comforted and sustained by vivid,
     recurring dreams of a normal life growing up in a happy, middle-class
     home in Lawrence, Kansas with his mom, dad, and big brother. When a
     shadowy government agency takes an interest in Sam's nascent psychic
     abilities, Sam suddenly finds himself in training to be a kind of
     psychic superhero, and things start looking up. Until the day he runs
     into a tall, freckled teenager on an old country road, and Sam
     wonders if dreams can make wishes come true after all. A coming-of-
     age AU where the boys are raised separately.
Notes
     Written for the 2015_spn_j2_big_bang. Go to celtic_forest's_art_post
     and give her some love for her beautiful art-work for this story! And
     many thanks to smalltrolven for her beta work.
***** Chapter 1 *****
Sam couldn't remember the first time he dreamed about Dean.
Sam's earliest memories were of a woman with soft arms and a tired voice. She
smelled like onions and soap, and when she rocked him to sleep she sang to him,
country songs and old Irish ballads, sad and lonely and only a little off-key.
Sam could remember sleeping on the rough carpeted floor in front of the t.v.,
where he spent a lot of the day while she was at work, watching Scooby Doo and
Tom & Jerry cartoons. Sometimes he got so hungry he fell asleep sucking his
fingers, unconsciously seeking the dream-world that hovered just past the edge
of his consciousness.
Sam's other earliest memories were dreams of a boy who cuddled with him in his
crib, whispering to him to help him fall asleep, pressing soft kisses against
his cheeks and forehead. He and the boy played together on a thick carpet in a
sunny playroom, pushing a popcorn-popper lawn-mower and riding on a yellow
plastic push toy with a seat that raised up so Sam could store his blocks
inside. Sam's first words were "ball" and "Beam." As he grew and his
pronunciation improved, his favorite word turned from "Beam" to "Bean," and by
the time he was three it came out right every time.
Sam's dreams were always the same. He was a normal little boy growing up in a
normal family with a mom and a dad and an older brother. In his dreams Dean was
always there, playing cars with him, sharing his snacks, teaching him to throw
a ball in the yard. Sometimes they sat together on the couch and watched t.v.
and then Dean got bored and started to tickle Sam until he was gasping for
breath, rolling around on the couch and the floor with Dean like puppies.
Sometimes they played so hard Sam would fall asleep against the older boy,
curled up with him on the floor or the couch, sometimes in the bed they shared.
When he woke up back in the real world he was alone, always in the same tiny
one-room apartment. Sometimes the woman was there, sometimes she was already
gone to work and he waited, watching t.v. and eating the scraps of food she
left for him, mostly left-overs from the restaurant where she waited tables.
Sometimes he drifted back to sleep, spent a couple of hours playing with Dean
in his dream-world, eating real home-cooked food, feeling safe and protected
and loved.
One night the woman didn't come home. Sam waited, slept off and on, dreamed a
whole day with Dean, then woke up and waited some more. When the door opened
and two policemen came into the apartment, Sam was half-asleep, so hungry and
dehydrated he couldn't even answer their questions. He just let them lead him
out to their squad-car, belt him in with his blanket and a bottle of water and
take him away.
He never saw the woman again, never called her mother or mom or mama, even in
his memories, even though he later decided that's who she must have been.
*//*
For several years, Sam's dream world with Dean was the only stable thing in
Sam's life. In his waking life he moved from foster-home to foster-home, never
staying more than a few months at each place.
"He's a little freak," one foster-mother complained to her husband. "All he
does is sit in a corner by himself and stare into space. He creeps me out, and
I want him gone."
The children in these "homes" were cruel, pinching and hitting, pushing and
biting, hissing "freak" and "creep" at him until Sam folded so far into himself
he had to be relocated with a new family. In between foster homes there were
extended stays at a clinic, a shadowy, frightening place where Sam underwent
treatment for some kind of ailment that no one ever explained to him. Those
visits were terrifying and often painful, and Sam's confusion and lack of
understanding sometimes drove him even further into himself, so that later he
would forget how long he was there. Those horrifying experiences fading into a
foggy half-remembered nightmare from which Sam learned to wake himself at will.
In fact, later on Sam would swear he had spent most of those four years with
Dean, in their house in a nice suburban neighborhood where he had a mom and a
dad and a shiny black classic car to ride back and forth to Little League
practices and family picnics. He and Dean took swimming lessons, learned to
roller-skate and ride a skateboard, and on his fifth birthday their parents
gave Sam a new bicycle. Dean taught him how to ride it. He went to school and
excelled and had friends to play tag with him in the schoolyard, and if anyone
ever bullied him for being smallest in his class, Dean would make the bully
apologize, sometimes by just standing there glaring at the kid until he turned
into a blubbering mess and begged Sam to forgive him.
In the shadowy world full of pain and fear that Sam knew of as "reality," Sam's
treatments included daily sessions with a young clinician named Jennifer, who
had him lie on an examining table while she attached electrodes to his
forehead, then injected him with something that put him to sleep. In these
medically-induced dreams Dean was different, agitated and tense, looking over
his shoulder all the time like something or someone was watching them.
"Don't tell them about me," he told Sam. They were on the street, walking
toward the University of Kansas, and the sky was overcast and threatening, the
air heavy with the promise of rain, crackling with electricity. A storm was
coming. "They're trying to make you do things you don't want to do, Sam. You
have to fight them, okay? Promise me you'll fight them."
"Okay," Sam agreed because he couldn't ever say no to Dean, no matter what it
was his brother wanted.
When Sam was eight, Jennifer took him upstairs, into an office where a stern,
grey-haired man sat behind a desk, rifling through the papers in a file. He
looked up when Sam entered, motioned him into the chair opposite, then waited
until the clinician left the room, shutting the door behind her. Sam recognized
him vaguely as one of the doctors who provided his treatment, although he
hadn't seen him for some time.
"So you're Sam," the doctor pulled his glasses off and peered at Sam grimly.
"Yes, sir," Sam answered, falling back on the manners that had been grilled in
him over the past four years, fighting to keep the fear and uncertainty out of
his voice.
"I understand you've made good progress here," the doctor – Dr. Clausen, the
name-tag on his desk read – stared at him appraisingly. "You have real
promise."
Sam was silent, not sure what to say to that. He sensed that Dr. Clausen wasn't
going to be honest with him, and Sam was wary and suspicious.
"Your abilities could use some training, Sam, and I'm willing to invest
considerable resources in doing that. Out of all the kids we've had in here
over the past several years, you seem to be the most talented." Dr. Clausen
reached for a single sheet of paper on the edge of his desk, scribbled
something on it. "You've reached the age of reason, and I think you're old
enough to understand the difference between fiction and reality, isn't that
right?"
Sam frowned uncertainly. "I think so, sir," he answered, and Dr. Clausen
nodded.
"For example, you know Santa Claus isn't real, right?"
Sam nodded. He'd never received a Christmas present in his real life, or a
birthday present, for that matter, so it wasn't hard to imagine that the idea
of a benevolent fat man who delivered presents on Christmas didn't really
exist, except in his dreams.
"And you know the difference between dreams and real life, right?" Dr. Clausen
went on, his voice suddenly wheedling and conspiratorial, as if he was letting
Sam know that he understood Sam's darkest secrets and was encouraging him to
share his most intimate beliefs. It made Sam flush with anger, made him
instantly defensive. Sam's dreams were nobody's business but Sam's, and he was
darn sure not gonna talk about them with this mean old man who poked him with
needles when he was tied to an operating table.
Dr. Clausen could see the stubborn set to Sam's jaw, the flash of anger in his
eyes, and it made him smile and sit back in his chair with a satisfied nod. "I
thought so," he said smugly. "Jennifer's told me about your little fantasy
world, how you talk to your imaginary brother in your sleep. You've told her
all about that charming little suburban life, under hypnosis, haven't you,
Sam?"
Sam clamped his mouth shut, staring at Dr. Clausen in shock and disbelief.
Nobody was supposed to know about Dean or his other life, that other place. Sam
had been so careful never to mention it to anyone, to keep it safe and hidden
and private so they couldn't take it away from him, so they couldn't force him
to give it up.
"It's all right, Sam," Dr. Clausen was nodding, but Sam wasn't fooled. "No harm
done. Except that imaginary brother is getting in the way now, isn't he? He's
telling you not to cooperate with us. I think we may have to do something about
that."
Dr. Clausen shook his head, and Sam tried not to panic. There was no way he was
giving Dean up. And he was almost a hundred percent sure there was nothing Dr.
Clausen could do to force him to do something he didn't want to do if Sam set
his mind to it. That was what this was all about, wasn't it? Sam's special
mind-powers? At least that's what he thought he remembered, among the jumbled
recollections of his fractured young mind. He was here for some kind of special
treatment designed to help him focus his natural psychic abilities.
"Dean's just trying to protect me," Sam explained. "He thinks it's his job."
"Of course he does," Dr. Clausen said, smiling, and it was the creepiest thing
Sam had ever seen, hands down. "But he's a little misguided, don't you think?
You don't need protection, Sam. You're perfectly safe here. You don't need
anyone interfering with the development of your talents. You're a big boy now.
You can take care of yourself. We're just trying to help you along, make sure
you realize your highest potential. Nobody's trying to make you do anything you
don't want to do."
Dr. Clausen went on and on, soothing and calming, until Sam wasn't even aware
of hearing his voice anymore, just knew that he felt relaxed and safe and
hopeful, sure of himself.
When Sam woke up later in his cold little bed in the clinic dormitory, he
wasn't sure why he was there. He couldn't remember falling asleep, but that
wasn't unusual. Time played tricks on him in this place underground where there
were no windows and they kept giving him medicine to make him sleepy. There was
an itch at the back of his brain, like something important he should try to
remember, but the more Sam concentrated, the harder it was to focus. He felt
sad and lonely, but that was nothing new, and when he hugged his pillow in his
arms and curled himself around it, pretending it was his imaginary brother, he
could almost hear Dean's voice, soothing and comforting him, reassuring him
that everything would be all right, nothing bad could happen as long as Dean
was there.
But when he finally drifted off again, his sleep was dreamless, empty, as if
something had been blocked or pried loose and torn out. And no matter what Sam
did after that, no matter how he concentrated as he fell asleep, telling
himself that this time he would go to that special dream place where he felt
safe and loved and cared about, where his older brother was always there, Sam
never dreamed about Dean again.
*//*
Within a week Sam was settled into a new foster-home, this time on a farm near
Sioux Falls, South Dakota, with an older woman who ran a shelter for injured
and abandoned animals. Sam shared a room at the back of the house with two boys
who were both older than he was and had both been there for awhile. They were
orphans, like Sam, and had also been in foster care most of their lives. Karen
Richards, the woman who ran the place, had never had children of her own;
foster children and shelter animals were her kids, she explained to Sam as she
set him up with his own bed and laid out a new toothbrush for him in the
bathroom.
"We run a tight ship here, Sam," she told him, brusque and efficient. "Each of
you has chores to do every morning and after school, after homework. Rules are
posted on the doors and in the kitchen, and I expect them to be followed
precisely, am I clear?"
Sam nodded. "Yes, ma'am," he agreed, and Karen smiled kindly.
"We're gonna get along fine, Sam," she assured him. "You'll go to school, get a
good education, learn to be responsible and work hard, you'll do well here."
And Sam surprised himself by fitting in better than he could have expected. It
only took a week or two for Sam to fall into the routine, to get with the
program, and overall it was a decent, stable home for Sam, the first one he'd
ever really had. It almost made up for the cessation of his dreams, although
the constant ache in his chest reminded him of his loss on a daily basis,
especially at night. He couldn't help feeling Dean was there, just beyond
reach, every time he fell asleep, and it left him aching and empty in the
morning, missing a part of himself he never knew existed until it was gone. Sam
filled the void by following a daily routine of chores and school and homework
and more chores. On Saturdays, a man named Carl picked him up in a pick-up
truck and took him to a warehouse where he took wrestling and martial arts
lessons in the morning, then worked upstairs with a man named George in the
afternoon. George introduced him to The Project, as he called it, a special
unit of the FBI that did research on paranormal activity.
"We seek out kids like you, Sam," George explained. "Kids with special
abilities. Telepathy, telekinesis, other mental talents. The Clausen Clinic
tested you, found that you have real potential in that area. They sent you to
us, and from now on you'll work with us once a week."
George went on to explain that he would teach Sam to control his abilities, to
use them to help people. He could practice using his gifts in the safety of the
Project's warehouse training facility, where no one would know, and George
would give him brief homework assignments, easy tasks to complete out in the
world of his everyday life each week, to help him practice.
"You have a gift for empathy that's stronger than anything we've ever measured
before, Sam," George went on. "We believe your gifts could help people with
terminal illness, disease, even mental illness. With practice, you can learn to
reach into a person's mind, persuade them to heal themselves. You can do great
good in the world, Sam. Would you like that?"
Sam nodded, bewildered and uncertain but willing to go along with what George
was telling him. It was the first time anyone in the real world had talked
about a mission, or a purpose, for what he could do. Until that moment, Sam had
always kept his psychic abilities to himself, hidden deep inside like a dirty
little secret he felt he should be ashamed of. Early on, Sam had learned to
keep silent, keep his eyes down, avoid responding when the whispery voices
talked to him because he knew they weren't real, they were somebody's thoughts,
not the words they spoke out loud, and they weren't really meant for him to
hear. His abilities made others fear and revile him, and after years of teasing
and abuse from children and adults alike for being a "weird-o," Sam had become
sullen and withdrawn, unwilling to speak unless spoken to, and only then in
short, cryptic responses when he could be sure he was really hearing the person
speak and not just imagining the voice in his head.
The idea that he could use his despised secret talent to help people gave Sam
hope. For the first time in his young life, someone appreciated what Sam could
do, instead of fearing and despising him for it. George and Carl and the others
at the Project showed Sam how he could use his talents in a positive way, to do
good things, and Sam was primed to accept and feel inspired by what they told
him. The misery of Sam's life up to this point had prepared him perfectly to
take George's word for it, that Sam was special, that he could do good in the
world. It was almost as if Sam had been groomed for it.
*//*
The next four years passed comfortably for Sam. He did well in school, even if
he was too shy and withdrawn to make friends. Caring for the rescue animals on
the farm was a solace he didn't fully understand, and Sam's emotional
development revolved around the various dogs and cats. An old mare someone had
abandoned became a special companion for over a year, and Sam taught himself to
ride her bareback through the fields surrounding the farm, relating long,
rambling monologues out loud about his life growing up with Dean, making it
real in his mind by bringing it to life with language.
When the old mare contracted hoof-rot and had to be put down, Sam cried alone
in the barn for a week. He buried his face in the fur of his favorite dog, a
golden retriever named Zoe, who became his constant companion thereafter.
Saturdays at the Project were like entering another world, one where Sam was in
training to become a super-hero, where he felt important and useful. George
reiterated how essential it was for Sam to keep the Project a secret, but that
was easy for a boy who rarely talked to anyone human anyway. Sam had a natural
talent for computers, and as soon as George showed him the basics of coding Sam
was soon hacking into databases all over the country, determined to prove his
usefulness in ways the Project hadn't foreseen. His psychic abilities were
reserved for use only on the Saturdays in the warehouse, with outside homework
assignments in which he practiced controlled mind-reading. His subjects were
his foster brothers, whose teen-aged thoughts were consumed with cheerleaders,
sports, and beer.
One day while he was researching his own talents, he discovered that people
with psychic abilities weren't the only "freaks" in the world. At first, when
he clicked into chat rooms and message boards about vampires and werewolves, he
assumed it was all a joke. But when he found an on-line community of "hunters,"
full of tips on killing various kinds of monsters, some claiming first-hand
experience, Sam couldn't resist checking it out.
"Monsters are real?" he asked George, who narrowed his eyes at Sam and studied
him for a moment too long before answering.
"The thing you should understand, Sam, is that hunters are real," he said.
"There are people out there who would hunt and kill you, just because you're
different. Just because they think that what you do is evil. They're crazy,
sure, but they're very deadly."
Sam could feel his heart pounding dangerously in his chest; he could feel his
palms start to sweat. "But werewolves? Vampires? Those things are real?" he
persisted.
George shook his head. "I've never seen one," he said. "Hunters think they're
real, though, which is what makes them so dangerous."
"But would they kill me if they found me?" Sam's voice rose; he was starting to
shake.
George put a reassuring hand on his arm. "We're safe here, Sam," he said.
"Nothing's going to come after us here. Nobody knows about us, about what we're
doing here, except you and me and Carl, and maybe one or two of the others.
We're completely safe."
"But the monsters," Sam persisted. "What about them?"
George sighed, shaking his head. "Maybe there are monsters in the world, Sam,
but they're extremely rare. The hunters are the real monsters. These guys who
devote their lives to finding so-called monsters and killing them are a threat
to all of us who research paranormal activity. They would destroy us if they
found us. That's one of the reasons we keep what we're doing here so secret. Do
you understand?"
Sam nodded solemnly, and George smiled, got Sam refocused on his task, and the
crisis passed. But Sam couldn't help researching hunters and monsters; as much
as it scared him, the idea of a secret world of supernatural activity operating
just under the surface of every-day reality held too much appeal for Sam to
resist. It felt familiar, like the way reality and fantasy had always existed
side-by-side for Sam, sometimes blending, sometimes clearly separated.
Sundays after church and chores, Sam took Zoe for walks on the country roads
around the farm, sometimes exploring deep into the corn fields, pretending to
be lost. And it was one such Sunday in mid-summer, just after Sam's twelfth
birthday, that everything changed.
*//*
The sun was already doing its shimmery late-afternoon light thing, making the
dusty road look like it ended on the edge of a lake. Sam walked slowly, letting
the sun's heat make him feel lazy and sleepy, so that when he saw the pick-up
truck parked at the side of the road and the figure bending over its engine in
the distance, he almost thought it was a mirage. As Sam drew closer, he could
see that the figure was a young man, not much older than Sam, but fully grown,
muscles strong and solid in his tight black tee-shirt, his back soaked with
sweat, leaning in under the raised hood of the truck so that the hem of his
tee-shirt pulled up, exposing a strip of pale skin above the waist of his
jeans.
Zoe trotted up to the boy, panting and sniffing, and the boy straightened up
and turned toward Sam just as Sam felt a jolt of recognition that set the blood
pounding in his ears. Sam had been ready to ask if the boy needed some help,
but when the boy turned the full force of his attention on Sam it was as if the
world fell away beneath his feet and suddenly Sam was falling, blackness
swirling around him in a dark cloud that made his skin buzz and his head spin.
The next minute Sam was on the ground, opening his eyes to find green eyes
gazing worriedly from a handsome, freckled face that was at once intensely
familiar and different at the same time. Older, Sam realized as he blinked at
the boy bending over him, but still the boy from his dreams. Dean.
"Hey there," Dean murmured in a voice at once deeper and rougher than Sam
remembered. Older. "You okay, buddy?"
"What happened?" Sam asked stupidly, pretty sure he knew exactly what had
happened.
"You fainted, I think," Dean said. "Just collapsed. Must be the heat, huh?
Here, let me get you some water."
It took all of Sam's willpower to avoid reaching up to grab hold of Dean as the
older boy stood up, went back to his truck for a water bottle. Zoe circled in,
panting and licking his face, wagging her tail and whimpering a little.
"I'm okay, girl, I'm okay," Sam assured her, rubbing the back of his head,
which hurt like the dickens from hitting the hard paved shoulder of the road.
He pushed himself up to sitting, and would have climbed to his feet on his own
if Dean hadn't come back with the water, squatting down beside Sam so it
suddenly felt like a better idea to stay right where he was. He took the
bottle, fingers brushing Dean's, and the electric shiver that went through him
surprised Sam, almost made the world spin again.
"Whoa there, buddy, don't pass out on me again," Dean's hands were suddenly on
Sam's shoulder, on the back of his head, holding him up, and Sam felt every
touch like bolts of electrical current, overwhelming but keeping him conscious.
"Come on, now, just a little water and you'll be right as rain. That's it, I've
got you now, little buddy. You're okay."
Sam gulped the water, ignoring its warmth from sitting in the hot truck. He
focused instead on swallowing, on getting himself back under control.
"You live around here? Is there somebody I can call?" Dean's voice was warm and
soothing, pushing all the right buttons, making Sam flush with pleasure and
relief.
Sam shook his head. "I live right up the road," he said, letting Dean help him
up, holding onto his arm until Sam was steady enough to stand on his own. "I'm
okay. Thanks."
"Don't mention it," Dean said. He stood aside, rubbing the back of his neck,
his other hand on his hip. "I'd give you a lift, but as you can see, my truck's
busted."
Sam nodded, handing the water bottle back to him, empty now. "What's wrong with
it?" he asked.
Dean shrugged. "Battery's dead," he said. "Stupid thing's a piece of junk, but
it's mine, at least for the summer, as long as I can keep it running."
"If you want, my foster-brother can probably give you a jump," Sam offered.
"That'd be awesome. Thanks." Dean stuck out his hand. "I'm Dean Winchester, by
the way."
"Sam," Sam choked out as he shook Dean's hand, fighting the tears stinging the
back of his throat. Having the older boy say it, even though Sam had already
been calling him "Dean" in his head, was more emotional for Sam than he cared
to admit, although he never doubted for a moment it was really the boy from his
dreams
So Sam and Dean walked back to the farm together, Zoe circling their legs and
panting in the heat, and Sam tried not to blush when the boy's arm brushed his,
or when he turned that dazzling smile on Sam as they small-talked.
"You lived here long?" Dean asked, and Sam shrugged.
"Four years," he answered. "How about you?" Sam felt his hopes soar; maybe he'd
see Dean again. Maybe they were neighbors.
"Me? Nah," Dean shook his head, pushing his lips out in a tough-guy pout. "I'm
just passing through. My uncle runs Singer Salvage, on the other side of town.
My dad dropped me off with him yesterday while he does a job in Boise. He'll be
back in a week or two, then we'll hit the road again."
"Don't you have a home someplace?" Sam asked, already amazed by the differences
between this boy and Sam's dream-brother. "Don't you go to school?"
"Nope, I'm done with school," Dean insisted. "My home is the open road, kid,
going wherever the jobs are, helping my dad with his work."
Sam sighed. "Sounds so cool," he commented wistfully. "All that traveling. I
never go anywhere."
"Well, that's cuz you're still young," Dean admonished. "You're what, nine?
Ten?"
"I'm twelve," Sam said. "Just finished sixth grade."
Dean raised an eyebrow, gaze sweeping over Sam, making him blush. That was when
it hit Sam that he couldn't read Dean's thoughts; the older boy was a silent,
blank space in his mind. It was a relief, definitely, but also a little
disconcerting.
"Huh," Dean seemed a little dubious, a concerned frown creasing his handsome
brow. "Your folks feeding you?" he asked.
"My folks are dead," Sam answered, more bluntly than he intended, knowing how
creepy it sounded. "I've been living in foster care since I was four."
"Huh," Dean nodded, like he'd figured it out, and Sam remembered he'd already
mentioned he had a foster-brother. "I think I know a little bit about that. My
mom died when I was little. It's just me and my dad now."
Sam felt tears smart in the back of his eyes and his chest pulled tight; Dean's
confession and his empathy were like an offering. It felt like Dean was
extending the hand of friendship through their perceived shared grief. It made
Sam feel a little guilty for not mourning the woman who cared for him when he
was little, the woman he knew must've been his mother, even if his memories of
her didn't have the emotional impact that Dean's memories of his own mother
obviously did. Sam had the distinct feeling that Dean rarely opened up about
his personal life, that he didn't get close to people as a kind of unspoken
rule, and Sam was flattered and charmed, grateful for Dean's attention and
completely overwhelmed by it.
They walked slowly, partly because of the heat, but mostly because Sam didn't
want their time together to end, this golden, magical reunion which wasn't
really a reunion at all but a meeting, a beginning. And he was just brazen
enough to hope that Dean was feeling it too, brushing his arm against Sam's
shoulder as they walked, looking down at Sam with a look of fond surprise, like
he was learning something new about himself, like Sam was giving Dean the gift
of a new self-awareness, showing him a side of himself he'd never known
existed. And despite his shyness and his furious blushing, Sam couldn't stop
grinning, couldn't stop sneaking glances up at Dean through his bangs, catching
those clear green eyes smiling back at him. The air itself felt brighter,
sparking with an almost electric chemical reaction each time they touched, each
time their eyes met. Sam hoped Dean felt it too, was in fact pretty sure he
did, from the way the older boy slowed his steps, dragged out the walk as much
as Sam was doing.
Eventually they reached the farm, where Sam's oldest foster brother, Jack, was
working on his own truck. Jack shook Dean's hand and agreed to drive him back
to his truck with jumper cables right away, any excuse to get off the farm for
a few minutes a no-brainer for the restless teenager. After Dean climbed into
the passenger seat of Jack's truck he leaned his arm on the open window and
looked back at Sam with a little wave.
"See ya around, kid," he said. "Maybe we can go see a game or go fishing or
something."
"That'd be great," Sam grinned so wide it hurt, and Dean winked at him,
returning Sam's smile with one of his own. The sun made his eyes sparkle,
overwhelming Sam with the renewed conviction that something miraculous had
happened this day.
Sam went to bed that night half-expecting to be transported to the dream world
where he had spent almost every night until he was eight years old, but instead
he had a dream of the young man on the road, his wide smile and sparkling eyes,
the feel of his calloused hands gentle and soothing on Sam's back, helping him
get up after his fall.

Sam spent three days a week that summer at the Project, training relentlessly.
He spent the time when he wasn't there (or doing chores at the farm) with Dean.
Dean showed up the following Tuesday, and thereafter whenever Sam was free,
picking him up in his battered pick-up to take him to the lake to go fishing,
to the ballpark, to the movies. Karen, Sam's foster-mother, was genuinely
charmed, if a little skeptical at first. She seemed relieved that Sam had
finally found a friend who didn't walk on four legs. Sam didn't question why
the handsome young man seemed to prefer spending time with Sam to anybody his
own age; he was too grateful for the attention, too afraid that it would stop,
that Dean would suddenly decide he was wasting his time and move on.
Of course, Sam wondered why he had dreamed about Dean for most of his life, but
for a while he was so amazed and relieved that Dean was real, all he could do
was bask in the general pleasure of his company. From what he learned about
Dean, the boy's life had been nothing like Sam's dream of him. Dean Winchester
had grown up on the road with his dad, who was some kind of traveling salesman,
since the fire that took his mother's life when he was four. It was a sad, if
unremarkable, life, and Sam knew better than to pry once he'd determined that
Dean had nothing in common with Sam's dream-brother. Which begged the question
of how and why Sam had dreamed about the boy in the nice suburban home in the
first place. It was a mystery that Sam would ordinarily have tried to solve
with research at the library, or on the computers at the Project, until he
could satisfy himself that there really was no connection.
But Sam had already lost Dean once, and this coincidental reappearance felt too
much like magic, and Sam was loathe to break the spell, to do anything that
might make Dean disappear again. He kept Dean's presence secret from the
Project on instinct; they had disapproved of Sam's dreams, so Sam couldn't
trust that they wouldn't do something to get rid of the real Dean, if they knew
he existed. Then there was the miracle of Dean's obvious interest in him, which
made no sense, and Sam couldn't bear to do anything that might shake Dean loose
or turn off his interest in Sam. He wondered if Dean had ever had a dream of
him, if he recognized Sam somehow, the way Sam recognized Dean. He decided
quickly not to push it, though, rather to just accept it for as long as he
could and call it incredibly good luck, outrageous coincidence, miracle, magic,
anything that kept it happening.
Dean knew a lot about having fun without any money. He showed Sam how to climb
the fence and get in for free at ball games, how to wait outside the movie-
house exit doors until someone came out, then sneak in and spend the day
watching Apollo 13, Batman Forever, and Jumanji in air-conditioned comfort.
Dean knew how to pick locks so they could get into Sam's school to play
basketball in the gym after the custodial staff went home for the night. He
knew how to jimmy the coke machine so it would give up free pop. He could lie
with such ease and charm it took Sam's breath away, convincing the dumpy, bored
girl at the candy store that he had given her a ten-dollar bill when he'd only
given her a five, so they could get extra candy before their trip to the movie
theatre. Dean could convince the gas-station attendant that the pump was
malfunctioning so they could get free gas. Sam was startled and impressed the
first time Dean used a credit card with a fake name on it, buying them a
delicious dinner at the local all-you-can-eat buffet.
"I have to be careful, because Uncle Bobby lives here," he explained to Sam
when he signed the credit card receipt. "If somebody figures out I'm scamming
them, it could be bad for him. So I'm careful where I use this card. Only
places where I know the staff is too bored and underpaid to pay any attention.
'Course, the food's lousy, but hey, it's all-you-can-eat, right?"
Sam had to agree with him there. He vividly remembered times in his childhood
when his stomach was so empty if felt like it was ready to start eating itself.
Finding a way to eat double his normal portion seemed like a good idea to Sam,
and he wholeheartedly approved of Dean's strategies, even if it did upset his
stomach.
"Jesus, Sammy, you've got an iffy gut," Dean commented on more than one
occasion after Sam had managed to barf up most of their meal, or fart so much
in the pick-up that Dean decided they should just park the truck and walk. "You
got food allergies or something, little dude?"
Sam had to shrug because he really didn't know. No one had ever taken the time
to have him tested, and his trips to doctors had been few and far between
outside of his residential time at the clinic. His meals at the farm were
wholesome and nutritious, Karen's old hippy tendencies guaranteeing that the
boys ate a lot of fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Sam had an
instinctual aversion to a lot of the processed and fried foods that Dean seemed
to favor, but he valiantly ate whatever Dean put in front of him, too dazzled
by Dean's attention to complain.
Being with Dean felt unreal, and there were times when Sam doubted it was
actually happening. He considered the idea that his brain had short-circuited
and somehow flipped him temporarily back into the dream-world of his childhood,
managing to give him this more grown-up version of his dream-brother as
compensation for all those years without him. He loved this fantasy, but at the
same time it terrified him because it suggested that Dean could just disappear
at any moment and he might never see him again. The possibility that his dream-
world had never happened, that all those years of dreaming about Dean and the
life he led in that comfortable little Midwestern university town were an
illusion devised by his own misery and loneliness, made Sam so sad he could
barely stand to think about it.
The fact was, reality and fantasy blended dangerously in Sam's mind, always
had, so that there were times when he was with Dean that reminded him of other
times, until he remembered that those other times had happened in his dreams,
that they weren't real. Like the time they climbed the monkey bars in the
playground and Sam fell off, hit his face on one of the bars on the way down
and gave himself a black eye, for example. Or the time they climbed onto the
equipment shed behind the baseball diamond and jumped off, only Sam landed
wrong and broke his arm, so that Dean had to ride him to the emergency room on
the handlebars of his bike.
Then came the day Dean took Sam to the lake to go fishing. When they got there
it was too hot so Dean yanked off his tee-shirt and jeans, barely giving Sam
time to recover from the shock of all that pale skin and toned muscle before he
dove off the end of the dock.
"Come on in, Sammy," Dean called when he surfaced, shaking the water off his
head and treading water easily. "The water's fine."
Dean's exuberance was infectious, and besides, it was damn hot. Sam tried to
ignore his own self-consciousness as he pulled his tee-shirt off, dropped it to
the dock, then kicked off his rubber-toed sneakers and reached for the button
on his jeans. He was keenly aware of Dean watching him as he pushed the denim
down his skinny legs and stepped out of the jeans, leaving himself clad only in
his tighty-whities. It was tempting to cover himself with his hands, but he
knew how useless that was, so he backed up a few steps and took a running leap
off the end of the dock, pulling his knees up to his chest as he jumped,
cannon-balling into the water, going for goofy to counter Dean's graceful dive.
The water was cold. It closed over Sam's head as his body sank, black and deep
and relentless, rushing into his mouth and his nose and ears, pulling him down.
He let his instincts kick in at a certain point, uncurling his body so he could
kick his legs, pump his arms, turning his face up to the watery light of the
surface, taking huge gulps of air when he finally broke through. He could see
Dean's laughing face only a few feet away, watching, treading water with strong
arms, bare shoulders tensing as they moved. He had a moment of clarity as he
realized he didn't know how to swim, had never been in water over his head in
his life. Then the water closed over Sam's head again as he sank, the familiar
feeling of unreality making his head spin.
Suddenly he was flashing back to memories of swimming with Dean, but they were
dream-memories. Dean had taught him to swim at the town pool near their house;
they had ridden their bikes there, and Dean had led him deeper and deeper into
the water till his feet couldn't touch bottom anymore and he was floating,
floating with Dean's steady hands on his back and shoulder, holding him up,
Dean's encouraging voice telling him to relax, let the water keep him buoyed.
The sun beating down was warm, soothing, like Dean's hands, now almost barely
there as Sam floated free, ears filled with water so that all sound was
muffled, making Dean's voice sound dim and rich and no longer comprehensible,
growing dimmer as Dean moved away, letting him go, leaving him to float
endlessly on a sea of sun-warmed water, forgotten and alone.
There was a pain in his chest; it was growing, getting sharper, then Sam's head
cleared with a jolt of terror and he realized he was drowning, not floating,
that he had been sinking the whole time, passed out or so deep inside his
memories he might as well have been unconscious. Now Sam recognized the pain in
his chest as his lungs fighting for air, struggling to avoid breathing in
water, nearly bursting with the effort. Sam kicked frantically, disoriented,
staring around him at nothing but darkness, unable to make sense of what was
happening to him except that he was dying, completely immersed in water with no
visible way out.
Then Dean was there, his face hovering close in the gloom, his hands grabbing
Sam's flailing arms, pulling him close, then getting his arm around Sam's neck,
pulling him back tight against Dean's chest. In Sam's panicked state he was
sure they were going down, deeper into the water, and he fought, frantic, even
as his oxygen-deprived brain assured him that Dean wouldn't hurt him, was
trying to help. But Dean held him tight, using his free arm to pull them
through the water, kicking in short, strong spurts till they broke the surface
and Sam gasped, his body automatically sucking in air, almost passing out from
the need to ventilate.
"It's okay, Sam, I got you," Dean breathed into his ear, and Sam stopped
struggling, let Dean drag him toward shore, still keeping his choke hold on
Sam's neck, keeping his head above the water, keeping him safe. When his feet
touched the muddy bottom of the lake Dean let him go, turned him around so he
could scramble up the beach on his own, Dean's hand a reassuring pressure on
his back until they collapsed side by side on the shore, breathing hard.
"Dude, why didn't you tell me you couldn't swim?" Dean asked when they'd both
caught their breath, pushing himself up on one elbow so he could look down at
Sam.
Sam rubbed his sore throat, then ran his hand through his tangled hair. "I
thought I could," he answered truthfully. "I remember taking swim lessons when
I was little."
"Well, you must've had a helluva terrible teacher, then," Dean huffed out a
sharp laugh.
Sam flushed and shook his head, feeling weirdly defensive of the dream-brother
who had taught him more than just how to swim. "There's something wrong with my
brain," he confessed, suddenly needing to confide in the older boy. "I mix up
stuff that really happened with stuff I made up. I get confused sometimes."
Dean peered at him, reached over and pulled a wet twig out of Sam's hair,
dropped it. "What are you talking about?" he asked, frowning. "You're the
smartest kid I know. There's nothing wrong with your brain, far as I can tell."
Sam flushed with pleasure at the praise, suddenly overwhelmed by Dean's
nearness, all that freckled bare skin just a few inches away.
"I'm a freak," Sam whispered, the words rushing out, needing Dean to know. "I
see things that aren't there. Sometimes I hear voices."
"What, like a schizo?" Dean was still frowning, obviously making a real effort
to understand.
Sam shook his head, biting his lower lip. "I'm psychic. I read people's minds.
I have visions." The words spilled out of him before he could stop them, before
he could control the urge to tell Dean everything, to spill his guts because he
needed Dean to trust him, to know who he really was and to like him anyway. It
was suddenly the most essential thing in Sam's existence, the thing he needed
more than air.
Dean's reaction was classic; he raised his eyebrows in surprise, sat all the
way up so that he was a few inches further away, just staring at Sam in silence
for a full minute, considering. Sam could swear he saw a fleeting look of
suspicion and fear, wiped away almost instantly by anger and indignation,
replaced just as fast by a self-satisfied nod of recognition, like Sam had
suddenly confirmed something Dean had already suspected.
"Yeah, that makes sense, actually," Dean said finally, nodding. "I've heard
about people like you."
"You have?" Now it was Sam's turn to be surprised.
"Sure," Dean shrugged. "Jedi knights. Vulcans with their mind-melds. That
little kid in Poltergeist."
"Those people aren't real," Sam noted, disappointed.
Dean shifted uncomfortably. "Maybe not, but I know about people like you in
real life, too."
"You do?" Sam was skeptical.
"Sure," Dean repeated with another shrug. "My dad and me run into all kinds of
people in the work we do." He hesitated, then asked, "So what, you can read my
mind?"
Sam shook his head violently. "Not you," he said firmly, and was rewarded by
Dean's visible relief. "I like being with you because I can't hear your
thoughts at all." He blushed furiously, although he didn't understand why he
should feel so embarrassed. He'd been sure Dean would understand, had sensed it
since the moment he met him. "It's peaceful. I like to hang out with animals
because they're peaceful too."
"And you have visions," Dean suggested. "What's that like?"
Sam sighed. "It's just confusing, mostly," he admitted. "I see things that turn
out not to be real. Or I dream about something and then it happens in real
life."
"Sounds a little creepy," Dean suggested, but Sam shook his head.
"Not really," he said. "Just confusing. I have a lot of false memories, like I
remember learning to swim, but I guess I didn't really."
"Yeah, well, we can fix that, you know," Dean said. "If you want to. I could
teach you."
"Yeah?" Sam sat up, flooded with hope. "You'd do that for me?"
"Sure," Dean shrugged. "How hard can it be, teaching a kid to swim? You just
gotta get comfortable in the water, learn how to trust it. Once you can float
and put your face in the water without panicking, you're over half-way there."
"When can we start?" Sam asked, all excitement and eagerness. He was just sure
it would come back to him if Dean was there to guide him.
"Right now, if you're up to it," Dean smiled. "Dad always says, if something
scares you, get right back in there and fight harder. Show it who's boss."
"Yeah," Sam nodded, getting up, looking dubiously at the water.
"And next time, we get you a decent pair of swim trunks," Dean grinned, and Sam
flushed hot with embarrassment, which made Dean grin broader, made him reach
out and ruffle Sam's almost-dry hair.
They spent nearly an hour letting Sam get used to the water again, staying in
the shallows so Sam could feel the bottom, and just as Sam had suspected, the
feeling of being in the water was more familiar than not to him, and he was
floating face down as well as face up by the end of it, Dean's hands just a
gentle pressure on his back, not even holding him up, just there.
*//*
They came back to the lake almost every afternoon that week, and Sam was
swimming in no time, making Dean proud of him for being such a quick learner,
confirming Sam in the quality of his earlier lessons with his first teacher,
even if those lessons had been dreams.
On the following Sunday it rained, so instead of swimming Dean took Sam out for
ice-cream. They stood together against the wall of the little store, under the
eaves. Dean finished Sam's ice cream when Sam complained of a sore stomach,
scraping the bottom of the little styrofoam cup to get every last drop of the
sweet cream as Sam tried hard not to watch Dean's obvious pleasure in every
bite. Then Sam stuck his spoon out in front of him and closed his eyes,
concentrating as he knew how to do, focusing his mental energy on the spoon in
his mind. He was rewarded almost immediately by a gasp from Dean, and when he
opened his eyes the little white plastic spoon was curled in on itself, like it
had melted and reformed that way. Sam grinned despite himself as Dean took the
gnarled thing in his hand, fingers brushing Sam's with that now-familiar
electric tingle, and Sam wondered if Dean felt it too, although he never let on
if he did.
"Now that could be useful," Dean commented as he turned the plastic over in his
hand. "If you could do that with door-locks or alarm systems, you'd be all set
for a life of crime."
Sam shook his head. "Nah," he said. "It's not something I can control very
well. It comes and goes. I probably couldn't do it if I really had to."
"I'll bet you could," Dean insisted. "I bet you could do anything you set your
mind to. You're a pretty amazing kid."
Sam blushed furiously, ducking his head and shoving his hands into the pockets
of his jeans, glancing up through his bangs at Dean with a grin he couldn't
control. Dean's face broke into a smile when he caught Sam's look.
"Fuckin' adorable, too," Dean noted, reaching over to ruffle Sam's hair. Sam
leaned into the touch, so Dean grabbed him around the neck in a headlock with
the crook of his arm, pulling Sam against him and giving him noogies across the
top of his head.
Sam struggled weakly, pretending to shove Dean away when really he was loving
the closeness, the easy physical tussling, the warmth and firmness of Dean's
body against his. He could smell Dean's cologne, the leather of his jacket, the
faint spicy scent of after-shave, something sharp and smoky that Sam couldn't
recognize, and the sweaty, musky smell that was all Dean. Sam had the wild
thought that he could capture this, that he could hold it in his mind forever
so that no matter what happened later, he could always return here, to this
place in time when Dean had his arms wrapped around him, when Sam's face was
pressed into Dean's chest and all of his experience was just pared down to
these sense memories, this perfect moment, forever.
Then Dean released him after giving him a final squeeze, cuffing him lightly on
the back of the head as he bumped Sam's shoulder with his arm.
"Come on," Dean said. "Rain's stopped. Let's get you home."
*//*
Later that evening, Dean came back. It was already dark out, and when Sam ran
out on the porch to greet him he could tell immediately that there was
something wrong.
"My dad's back," Dean explained as he sidled awkwardly, scuffing his toe in the
dirt. He had his hands in the pockets of his jeans, bow legs wide, and he kept
shifting his weight and wouldn't look Sam in the eye. "We're leaving in the
morning."
Sam's throat closed up and tears stung at the backs of his eyes.
"When will you be back?" he asked, hearing the squeak in his voice and hating
himself for it.
"I don't know," Dean admitted, and damn if his voice didn't sound a little
choked up too. " I don't know, Sam. It could be a while."
"But..." Sam's nose was running, so he sniffled, brushed the back of his arm
over it, which only got snot on his sleeve and now there were tears sliding
down his cheeks and he wiped angrily at those, making it worse. He was sure his
face was an absolute mess, but he couldn't seem to stop it. "But you'll come
back, right?"
Dean's eyes were full of tears when he finally looked at Sam and realized how
upset he was.
"Of course, I will," he lied, and Sam could tell he was lying because he looked
away again when he said it. "We always come back here. Bobby's here. He's the
nearest thing to family we got. Well, him and Pastor Jim. So a-course we'll be
back."
He said the last looking straight at Sam, huge green eyes intent and serious,
stupid long lashes dark and wet against his freckled skin.
Sam wasn't sure how he did it, but when he suddenly threw himself at Dean,
tucking himself against the older boy in a desperate, bone-crunching hug, Dean
sank into it, wrapped his arms around Sam and laid his chin on the top of Sam's
head.
"Thank you," Sam breathed as he pulled Dean's warm scent into his lungs,
pressed his wet cheek against Dean's chest, memorized the feel of his body
under his leather jacket, the lean muscle and smell of after-shave, sweat, and
that sharp, smoky smell that Sam couldn't quite place.
"Okay," Dean soothed, allowing the hug for another minute before gently pulling
Sam's arms loose, stepping back and holding him at arm's length for a minute.
"Okay, Sam. It's okay."
He didn't say goodbye; at least he seemed to understand that saying goodbye
would destroy Sam's fragile self-control, maybe his own as well. So Sam stood
silently, trying not to cry as Dean walked away, got into his truck, and
started the engine. He didn't wave though; the little wave he usually gave had
been a promise he couldn't keep this time, and they both knew it.
***** Chapter 2 *****
The next day dawned like any other; Sam got up, got dressed, ate breakfast and
did his morning chores before Carl came to take him to the Project. And if his
heart was heavy and his steps were slower than usual, nobody seemed to notice,
because Sam had always been good at hiding his feelings, and nobody in his life
had ever really seemed to care that much about him anyway. So if Sam suffered
in silence because he missed Dean, then he bore his pain alone, just as he
always had. Just as though he hadn't just lost the one person who mattered to
him more than his own life.
Going through the motions that day – following the instructor's lessons in his
martial arts class, then his wrestling class, having lunch, following George
into the padded room where he practiced his telekinesis exercises – Sam didn't
once acknowledge the crushing weight on his chest, the grief threatening to
strangle his soul. When it was time for Sam to practice his computer skills, he
hacked into the chat rooms and message boards where hunters usually posted
their leads and discussed signs and omens in their areas, looking for and
tracking supernatural activity.
What he found made Sam's heart race. Apparently something big was going on,
very close by, and a lot of hunters were in on it. In fact, if Sam was reading
the signs right, the Project was sitting smack in the middle of some serious
shit. Sam had only a minute or two to absorb what he was reading, and to wonder
whether he ought to warn someone that it looked like a large group of hunters
was headed their way when he heard a loud bang, so loud it shook the entire
building. Then the lights went out.
Sam had instinctively ducked his head with the initial concussion, which was a
good thing, because another shuddering blast brought part of the ceiling down,
slamming across the computer in front of him and totally obliterating it as Sam
jumped back out of the way. There were shouts, running feet, screams, sounds of
gunfire, and Sam could smell smoke, could see flames through the beveled glass
of the door, gunshots getting closer, screaming and shouting on the stairs,
then in the hallway right outside his door. Sam only had time to crawl under
the desk, huddle there, hoping his smallness and the darkness would keep him
safe, before the door was flung open and two men stormed into the room, guns
raised, crouched in defensive postures. Or at least Sam imagined they were. He
was huddled under the desk with his arms wrapped around his knees and his head
down, trying to stay as small and quiet as possible as the men checked the
room. He could read adrenaline-pumped fear masked by determined bravado coming
off one of the men; the other was a complete blank.
"Clear!"
The familiar voice completely caught Sam off-guard, and the gasp escaped him
before he could stop it; he clapped his hand over his mouth and froze, hoping
against hope that the men hadn't heard him over all the yelling and screaming
and banging. And for a minute or two it was so quiet Sam almost thought they
hadn't heard. Then the men were there, crouched down with guns pointed and a
flashlight shining right into his eyes, so fast it made Sam gasp again.
"Sam?"
The familiar voice, Dean's voice, coming from the shadowy figure shining the
light in Sam's eyes, made Sam's heart leap, his terror dimming beside the
sudden elation rushing through him.
"Dean!" Sam heard his own voice, choking out his favorite word, sounding small
and desperate, terrified and relieved at the same time.
"This is Sam?" The other man – John Winchester, Dean's dad, he could read it in
John's thoughts – raked his flashlight over Sam's slight form, and Sam could
hear the doubt in his words, the dubious surprise in his thoughts.
"Yeah, Dad," Dean said. "This is Sam. Why?"
"Well, it's just..." John paused, eyebrows raised. "I thought Sam was a girl. I
mean the way you were always out all the time when I called, with somebody
named Sam, I figured..."
Dean frowned, shook his head a little, snapping the safety back on his gun as
he reached for Sam.
"Hey, buddy, what are you doing here?"
But before Sam could answer, another blast shook the room, sending part of the
ceiling down almost on top of them, this time bringing flames and fire into the
room as well.
"Come on!" John shouted, grabbing Dean's shoulder. "We need to get out of here.
The whole place is going down!"
Dean grabbed the front of Sam's shirt, hauling him up.
"Come on, Sammy, let's get you out of here."
But as Sam tried to walk they both realized he'd been injured; Sam's jeans were
torn just above the knee where something had gouged his right thigh, probably a
piece of jagged metal from the ceiling. Sam's jeans were soaked with blood and
when he tried to walk a piercing pain forced him to fall to his knees and cry
out.
Dean didn't hesitate. He gathered Sam's small body against him and easily
lifted him into his arms, forcing Sam to cling to him as he swept the boy out
of the room and into the inferno. The entire building was on fire, flames
leaping up the walls and down the banister of the stairwell, moving so fast
there wasn't even a lot of smoke yet. Dean moved quickly, sure-footed and
determined, following John down the stairs. All Sam could do was hold on,
watching in horror as the fire destroyed the rooms and offices where he had
spent so much time over the past four years. On the ground floor there were
bodies on the floor, and Sam had only a quick glimpse but he was shocked to see
George and Carl, both sprawled on their stomachs, both obviously dead. Other
familiar bodies dotted the floor, all people Sam had known, all dead and left
to burn. Sam's head swam with confusion and shock; he buried his face in Dean's
neck and squeezed his eyes shut as they ran toward the front entrance, away
from the scene of carnage and brutality and destruction.
Sam had only a vague sense when they were clear of the building. The air was
suddenly easy to breathe, and although it was a warm summer day it was cooler
outside. Sam felt himself being laid gently into the backseat of a car; he kept
his eyes closed because it helped dampen the voices in his head, the angry,
brutal thoughts of hunters bent on death and destruction, grimly determined to
"kill every monster in the place." They were all around him out here, at least
a dozen of them, all focused on the Project and its immolation. He could see
George's face in the mind of one of them, full of fear and surprise as the man
bore down on him, drove a silver blade the size of a small sword into his
chest.
Sam wasn't aware that he was whimpering and crying until Dean crowded into the
car seat next to him, still holding Sam's body against him and murmuring
softly.
"Hey, little buddy, it's okay. You're safe now. I've got you. You're safe."
Another thundering crash made Sam cower against the car door, Dean covering him
with his body as if he could protect him from the destruction and death all
around them.
"Come on, Dad, let's get him out of here," Dean said as John started the car
and it roared to life, its rumbling vibration a sudden deep comfort to Sam.
Half-remembered dreams crowded his mind, images of home, of family, of riding
in this car with people who loved him. He was shaking violently now, tears
still streaming down his cheeks, and Dean held him tighter, pressed his lips
against Sam's temple.
"You're gonna be fine, Sam," he murmured. "Everything's gonna be all right."
Dean slid his hand up into Sam's hair, then down his neck, his shoulder,
feeling and exploring every inch of Sam's body. It was soothing, and if Sam
hadn't been in so much pain and shock he might have enjoyed it, although he
understood Dean was just checking him for other injuries.
"What were you doing in there, huh?" Dean muttered, half to himself, as if he
didn't expect Sam to be able to answer. "Did they kidnap you? Were you being
held in there?"
Sam tried to answer, but his teeth were chattering badly, and he couldn't stop
crying; it felt more like leaking, really, since he wasn't sobbing at all, just
shaking.
"He's in shock," John said from the front seat, shooting a glance at them in
the rearview mirror. "We should drop him off at Sioux Falls General."
"No way, Dad," Dean shook his head firmly. "He's just a little kid. We need to
get him home. Someplace safe."
"Where's he live?" John asked, and Dean froze; Sam could feel him hesitate
before he gave Sam's address, and Sam had the wild thought that Dean had meant
to take him with them, to keep him. Sam wanted that so badly, to stay with
Dean, it made his chest heave painfully, starting a fresh round of crying. Dean
rubbed his back, then his arm, murmuring soothingly until they pulled up into
Sam's driveway.
"Houston, we have a problem," John said, slowing the car to a crawl.
Dean looked up, out the front windshield, and Sam could feel his whole body
tense.
"Jesus," Dean breathed, momentarily loosening his hold on Sam so he could take
in what he was seeing.
Sam looked up too, saw what he thought was a stuffed animal on the front lawn,
Jack lying beside it in an awkward position, unmoving...
Sam realized what he was seeing a moment before Dean pulled him close, slipped
his hand over Sam's eyes. Sam's gasp was audible in the silence as John stopped
the car, carefully drew his gun.
"Stay here," John commanded, slowly getting out of the car, on the alert.
Sam reached up and pulled Dean's hand away, stared at the body of his foster
brother and his beloved Zoe on the grass, speechless with horror. He watched
John Winchester cross the lawn at a crouch, keeping his gun cocked, whole body
tense and alert.
Beside him, Dean was just as tense.
"I should go with him," he muttered darkly.
"He said to stay here," Sam almost whispered, his voice cracking. He kept hold
of Dean's wrist, desperate to keep Dean with him, terrified of losing him too.
Dean's mouth set in a hard line and his jaw clenched, but he said nothing,
stayed where he was as John climbed the steps to the porch, keeping his gun
ready as he rapped on the screen door. None of the three expected an answer,
and after a minute John pulled the screen door open and slipped into the house,
out of view. Both boys sat in anxious silence for the five minutes it took for
John to scope out the house. Dean apparently holding his breath, if the sigh he
uttered when John finally came out was any indication. John shook his head once
at Dean, then rounded the corner of the house to check the barn and shed.
When he came back, John's face was a mask of grim disgust.
"They even killed the animals," he announced as he slipped into the driver's
seat, started the car, backing up so he could turn around in the driveway.
"When we get to Bobby's I'll have him put in an anonymous call to 911. This
isn't our kind of thing."
He looked in the rearview mirror at Sam, who had finally stopped shaking and
crying or, in fact, moving at all. Sam could see the images in John's mind: his
foster-mother, lying on the floor of the kitchen, his other foster-brother
slumped over his lunch at the table, the cats and dogs and farm animals in the
barn and out in the pasture behind, all dead. Sam could feel something cold and
hard in the bottom of his stomach, creeping up through his chest and out to his
arms and legs, tapping on the inside of his brain where the images replayed on
an endless feedback loop, sending his mind deeper and deeper inside itself. He
was vaguely aware of Dean waving a hand in front of his face, making him blink,
and when Dean spoke his name Sam moved his head slightly, but somehow couldn't
quite lift his eyes or focus on Dean's face, as compelling as it was. Sam felt
like he wasn't all there, like his body was functioning without him; his mind
was reading John's thoughts and his body was responding to Dean's closeness,
but there was no connection. Sam just wasn't home.
"Shock," John announced. answering Dean's worried expression as he tried to get
Sam to respond to him. "We'll figure it out when we get to Bobby's. I need that
kid to give me some answers."
The ten-minute drive to Bobby Singer's place felt like hours, or just a minute
or two. Sam couldn't remember later, and he definitely didn't want to think
about it. His brain was trying to process the things he'd seen that day, but
his soul was just checked out. He couldn't feel a thing. It was like being
immersed in freezing water; in fact it felt a lot like that day in the lake
when Sam had sunk like a stone and the water had closed in all around him and
he had just given up, let it cover him and enter him and absorb his body like
he didn't exist, like obliteration was the only reality.
"Sam?" Dean was speaking, had been speaking for awhile, had been trying to get
his attention, and Sam tried, he really did, to focus on Dean's voice, his
face. The car had stopped, and somehow Dean had gotten out, had pulled Sam's
limp, unresponsive body across the back seat so he could gather him up, carry
him into the cool, dark house. Sam was lying on a couch now, Dean hovering over
him, John and another man – Sam guesses it's Bobby Singer – hovering behind
him.
"Let's get that leg patched up first thing," Bobby was saying. Bobby's mind was
full of death; he'd driven a silver blade into two or three "monsters," as he
called the people who worked at the Project. Something called shapeshifters. He
had presided over a demon exorcism in his basement the previous day; the demon
had revealed the location of the Project, had sneered and taunted Bobby with
his father's death before he gave up the information Bobby needed. Sam could
see John in the memory, but not Dean.
Of course not. Yesterday was Sunday. Dean was with Sam. Dean was telling Sam he
had to leave him.
The sudden pang of grief at the memory of Dean's parting words made Sam gasp;
he could feel hot tears stinging his eyes so he closed them tight, felt
moisture on his cheeks as tears slid down.
"He's crying again," Dean breathed. "That's good. That's good, isn't it?"
Sam could feel the hole in his jeans being ripped open, could feel Dean's
gentle hands as he wiped away the blood, examined the wound.
"It's just superficial," Dean announced. "Just a scratch, really. You're gonna
be okay."
Sam watched Dean's face as the older boy worked, cleaning the wound, pouring
antiseptic on it, making Sam hiss and arch his back at the sting, but he didn't
cry out. He was brave. Then Dean bandaged the wound and wrapped gauze around
his leg to hold it, and Sam tried to give a shaky smile of thanks because he
could see how concerned Dean was, how tense his face was as he worked and Sam
felt like he needed to reassure him, to show him that Sam was gonna be fine.
"So this is Sam," Bobby muttered to John, and Sam was aware that they were
standing off to the side, watching the boys speculatively. "I thought Sam was
a..."
"I know," John nodded. "Me too."
"This kid is what, eight? Nine?"
"He's twelve," Dean threw over his shoulder irritably, still wrapping Sam's
leg. "He's just a little small for his age, is all."
"I'll say," Bobby grunted. "If the kid was much smaller he'd be invisible."
"Kid's just lost his whole family," Dean breathed. "Everything. He's probably
feeling pretty small right now."
John tugged Bobby aside, just out of earshot, but Sam could hear what they were
saying, knew John was recounting the scene at his foster-home. He could see the
images in John's mind again, fresh and vivid. When Dean finished and started to
get up to wash his hands Sam clung to him, stared up with his eyes full of
tears.
"Please, don't go," Sam croaked out, knowing how pathetic he sounded.
Dean smiled a little, reassuring. "Not going very far," he said. "Just need to
wash this off. I'll be right here."
And true to his word, Dean was back in a couple of minutes, let Sam pull him
down on the couch next to him. Sam snuggled in under Dean's arm, tucked his
head under Dean's chin, and held on for dear life, just needing the physical
closeness he'd never had with anyone else, not since those early years with a
mother he barely remembered. To his credit, Dean allowed the cuddling, slipping
his arm around the boy and pulling him in, running his other hand through Sam's
hair, pushing it back from his face in gentle strokes, soothing.
"You're gonna be okay, Sam," he murmured. "Everything's gonna be fine."
Bobby went off to make the anonymous call to 911, and John hovered close to the
couch, looking down at the boys huddled together there.
"I need to know what he was doing in that warehouse," John growled, and Dean
shook his head sharply.
"Not now, Dad," he pleaded. "Sam needs a little recovery time first. He'll tell
us when he's ready."
John shook his head, hands on his hips as he shifted, scrubbed a hand over his
face.
"Bobby and I need to go back over, do some clean up at the site," he said.
"Make sure we've covered our tracks."
Dean nodded. "I'll stay here with Sam," he suggested, and John hesitated,
casting a glance at Sam that was full of doubt and suspicion. Sam didn't need
to be a mind-reader to know John Winchester didn't trust him, felt
uncomfortable leaving him alone with his son.
Dean saw the look in John's eyes and tightened his hold on Sam, rubbing his
thumb back and forth over Sam's bony shoulder.
"Dad, he's a little kid," Dean reminded him. "I think I can handle this."
John scrubbed his hand across his face again. "We don't know if he's even
human, Dean," he reminded his son. "Considering where we found him...He could
be one of them. You know the drill, Dean. We need to test him. Silver, holy
water..."
"I'll do it, Dad, I promise," Dean insisted. "Just give him a little time to
recover first."
"He might not even be your Sam," John grumbled. "Shapeshifters may be able to
read minds. There's a lot we don't understand about them. Now, Sam's entire
family was slaughtered today. We find this kid in the warehouse where the
monsters are. You think that's a coincidence?"
"No, sir," Dean agreed. "But whatever went down, it's not his fault."
"Oh, you think so?" John shook his head. "How do we know he wasn't in on it?
Huh? How do you know he didn't kill his own family before joining his pals at
the warehouse, huh?"
"Dad, that's crazy," Dean protested, his voice rising dangerously. "I've been
hanging out with him all summer. He's just an ordinary, regular human kid.
Nothing freaky or monstery about him. If he was involved in this somehow – and
I'm not saying he is, just if he was – he'd tell us. He'll tell me. We just
need to give him a little space right now. Kid just lost his family, okay? Just
had his world turned upside down. Seems like we owe him a little sympathy and
understanding right now, don't you think?"
"Don't take that tone with me, soldier," John growled menacingly. "We'll do it
your way for now, but when Bobby and I get back, that kid had better start
giving us some answers. You got me?"
Bobby had finished his calls and was hovering behind John, frowning at Dean and
shaking his head.
"Well, that foster family of his was human, all right," he said grimly. "Just
checked with a buddy of mine on the force who was first on the scene. After you
idjits, a-course. Police are gonna be looking for this kid. We need to figure
out what we're doing pretty quick here, before somebody accuses us of
kidnapping."
"We'll figure it out later," John told Bobby, then turned back to Dean. "Bobby
and I will be back as soon as we can. You boys stay here. Don't go outside.
Don't call anyone or answer the phone unless it's me. Y'hear?"
"Yes, sir," Dean agreed.
John nodded grimly, cast one more frowning glance at Sam, shaking his head
again as if he knew he was doing something he shouldn't, leaving Dean alone and
unprotected with a potential monster. But even John couldn't bring himself to
kill a kid, at least not while Dean was wrapped around him like a mother bear
protecting her cub. And as much as it worried him, he was confident in his
ability to handle this, one step at a time. At least, that's what Sam heard
John telling himself as he snuggled in closer against Dean's warm chest,
closing his eyes so he couldn't see the distrust in John's, the way he looked
at Sam like Sam was a problem to be solved, or better yet, eradicated.
After the men left Dean breathed a sigh of relief, loosening his hold on Sam
and pushing him back a little so he could look into Sam's face.
"You're a dirty mess, you know that?" Dean grinned a little, swiping his thumb
along Sam's cheek, watching it come away covered in soot and grime. All the
crying had mixed with the smoke and dust and Sam could only imagine how awful
he probably looked, but he was suddenly too tired to care. With John and Bobby
gone so that it was just Dean here, Sam could feel the strain and tension of
the last couple of hours bleeding away, leaving behind a deep exhaustion that
rattled his bones and made his eyelids heavy.
"Hey, whoa, don't pass out on me," Dean admonished as he helped Sam recline
comfortably on the couch, or as comfortably as he could with his leg throbbing
painfully. "I'm gonna go get you a washcloth and a glass of water. You must be
thirsty. Do you want something to eat? Are you hungry? I'll bet I can make you
a sandwich or something."
Sam tried to shake his head, really he did, but it was so heavy, his neck felt
like it had turned to stone, and he just couldn't keep his eyes open, even to
watch Dean as he walked away into the kitchen.
He must've dozed off, because the next thing he knew Dean was there again,
sitting him up and tipping the lip of a glass of cool water against his mouth.
"Come on, little man, drink a little of this," Dean commanded softly, and Sam
curled his lips around the edge of the glass and drank, reaching up to hold the
glass for himself, his fingers brushing Dean's as he did. "That's it."
Sam gulped the entire glass straight down, and Dean was getting up again to
refill it when Sam grabbed his wrist, instinctively needing Dean to stay with
him, not sure how to express it. Dean stopped and looked down at him, the fond
smile in his eyes warming Sam's chest, calming him.
"It's okay, Sam," Dean assured him. "Not going anywhere. Just getting you some
more water, okay?"
Sam closed his eyes, sank back into the couch again. dropping into sleep almost
immediately, only to wake a few minutes later to the feel of a warm, damp
washcloth wiping his face gently. It felt so good, he lay still and kept his
eyes closed, letting Dean wash his face, then his hands, then check and re-
dress the cut on his leg, all the while focusing on Dean's nearness, on the
strength and confidence conveyed by his touch. Sam had never felt so cared for,
even in his dreams, even when he was a small child.
"You just sleep now, little guy," Dean breathed softly when he finished, laying
a gentle hand on Sam's forehead, checking for fever. "There'll be plenty of
time to talk later. I'll be right here, I promise. Not going anywhere."
When sleep pulled Sam down this time it was into a dark, dreamless place where
Dean's constant presence was a warm comfort, a sharp contrast to all the years
of lonely, empty beds. Dean was here, really here, even as Sam slept, keeping
Sam safe, banishing the nightmares threatening to crowd his head and keep him
from sleeping. Dean was here, with Sam, right where he belonged.
*//*
When Sam woke up he could smell bacon cooking. He'd slept for hours, he
realized right away; it was dark out and his leg was stiff and sore. He
stretched, pulled himself up to sitting, then twisted around toward the
kitchen, where Dean was standing with his back to him at the stove, cooking.
For several minutes, Sam sat watching the muscles of Dean's broad back, his
shoulders in the tight black tee-shirt, the smooth, almost hair-less skin of
his strong arms as he moved the spatula and flipped the bacon, then finally
turned to retrieve a plate from the table.
"Hey, look who's awake," he grinned as he caught Sam staring.
Sam blushed to the roots of his hair and looked down immediately, but he could
tell that Dean knew he'd been looking at him, had been for some time. Dean knew
and he didn't mind. Sam didn't really know how to feel about that. He didn't
understand why his feelings for Dean were so intense, but it embarrassed him,
made him worry there was something wrong with him. Something more wrong.
"You hungry?" Dean asked, as if he totally missed Sam's discomfort. Or as if he
noticed but chose to ignore it. Or was totally okay with it. Sam dared to look
up, met Dean's sparkling green eyes, got a wink and a smirk from Dean for his
audacity. Sam shook his head, but his stomach gave him away, and Dean raised
his eyebrows and tilted his head a little, as if to say, "Really?"
"Well, you sure sound hungry," Dean noted. He turned away again, cracking eggs
into the hot pan, and Sam deliberately avoided staring, twisting the blanket
that someone – Dean, obviously – had laid over him while he slept. "Bacon and
eggs coming right up."
Dean sat with him while he ate, washed it down with another glass of water
because apparently Bobby Singer didn't keep milk or juice in his fridge, and
the only other beverage on offer was beer. Dean helped himself to a bottle
after he cleaned up Sam's dishes, sat down in the chair next to the couch, and
laid a small silver blade on the table beside him.
"Now Sam, I told my dad I'd run some tests on you before he gets back," Dean
said solemnly. "I know you're not one of those – those things we killed back at
the warehouse, but he wants me to prove it to him. Are you okay with that?"
Sam nodded, glancing at the blade, then back up at Dean's face, feeling his
heart speed up and his palms start to sweat.
"What do I have to do?" he asked, voice shaking a little.
"Well, you've already been drinking holy water, so that's done," Dean gave a
little reassuring smile, and Sam relaxed. "Now I need you to give me your hand.
Palm up."
"Wh – what are you going to do?" Sam stammered, his shaking becoming suddenly
more violent, head pounding. He put his hand out as Dean requested, and Dean
took it in both of his large ones, uncurling Sam's fingers and running his
thumb along the lifeline there.
"Hey, it's okay, it won't hurt," Dean assured him, rubbing at the lifeline.
"Well, not much anyway. And just for a minute. Look, I'll do it first, so you
can see."
Dean picked up the knife and ran the sharp edge along the meat of his own palm,
and Sam watched in fascination as the skin split open and red blood welled to
the surface.
"See? Nothing to it," Dean said, holding up his palm for Sam to see before
reaching for a handkerchief to bind it with. "Now you, okay?"
Sam nodded, trying to control his shaking, keeping his hand in Dean's as Dean
wiped the blade clean, then drew it carefully along Sam's palm. It was so sharp
there was barely a sting as Sam's skin broke open and blood welled forth; they
both watched for a minute, then Dean nodded, satisfied, and grabbed a clean
handkerchief to wrap around Sam's hand.
"Good, Sam, you did good," Dean smiled his reassurance, closing Sam's small
hand around the kerchief and tucking it against his chest. "Just hold it like
that till the blood stops. You'll be fine."
"Those – those monsters were my friends," Sam blurted out, his voice small and
scared. "They weren't hurting anybody. Why – why did you kill them, Dean?"
Dean looked shocked for a minute, his eyes wide, face pale. Then he shook his
head, lowered his eyes, busied himself checking the cut on Sam's leg, re-
dressing it.
"You don't know what you're saying, Sam," Dean's voice shook a little. "They
must've drugged you or something. You were being held against your will. You're
traumatized, is all."
"That was my summer school," Sam explained, too late to stop now. "They were
training me. Showing me how to do stuff. I was learning how to be a super-
hero."
"Is that what they told you?" Dean looked up, eyebrows raised skeptically.
Sam nodded. "They were helping me control my abilities, teaching me how to use
them to help people."
"Using you, more like," Dean frowned, his voice low and rough. "Manipulating
you. Sam, those things weren't people. They were monsters. They were using you
and your – your abilities – to hurt people. Real people. People who aren't
monsters, or hunters. Just regular, innocent people, who don't even know we
exist."
"You hunt monsters," Sam suggested, nodding. "You're a hunter."
"That's right," Dean nodded. "Me, my dad, Bobby...It's what we do."
"George said hunters are bad," Sam's voice sounded small, and he wasn't trying
to whisper, but that's how it sounded. "George said hunters would want to kill
us. Just because we're different."
Dean huffed out a breath, clearly irritated. "Well, George was wrong, okay? We
don't kill innocent people. You are not a monster. None of those kids we
rescued today are monsters. The monsters were those things who were
brainwashing you. You were being conditioned for something. They were training
you up for something, but you were not one of them, you understand me, Sam? I
just tested you. That's what this was for. And you passed, okay? You're human.
You're just a kid. Just a regular, ordinary kid."
Dean had worked himself up, and his righteous anger on Sam's behalf was making
Sam's chest ache, making his cheeks hot.
"My foster family..." Sam's voice trailed off, his eyes burning with fresh
tears as the memories flooded in. "They're not monsters either, Dean. Why did
somebody kill them?"
Dean took a deep breath, scrubbed his good hand over his face, shaking his
head.
"You got me, Sam, you got me," he sighed. "That, I don't get. Your family was
human. That much we know. But they let you go to that...that summer school." He
looked up at Sam, biting his lower lip absently. "For how long, Sam? How long
were you going to the warehouse and training with those things?"
"Four years," Sam whispered, still shaking under the shock of Dean's
revelations. In all that time, it had never occurred to Sam that his handlers
weren't human. It just didn't. He accepted everything they told him at face
value, so that now, hearing Dean referring to them as monsters, Sam simply
couldn't take it in. Wouldn't he have known? Shouldn't he have known?
Dean was shaking his head, brow furrowed and lips pursed. "They had long-term
plans, I guess," Dean said, glancing up at Sam, then away again as if he
couldn't bear to look at him, as if this new information was making Dean see
Sam differently.
Which was just not okay with Sam at all.
"You tried to warn me, Dean," Sam told him, desperate to regain Dean's trust.
"I used to dream about you all the time, and you warned me about them. Well,
not about George and Carl and the other guys, but about Dr. Clausen, and
Jennifer. All of them at the clinic. You hated them. Then when Dr. Clausen made
you go away...when I forgot you...but I remembered everything when I saw you
here on the road that day, Dean. I remembered everything then."
Dean was staring, eyes wide, mouth open, uncomprehending and clearly freaked
out.
"Wha..what are you talking about, Sammy?" he stammered. "You used to dream
about me? About me?"
Sam nodded. "All my life," he said. "You and me, growing up in our house,
riding in the backseat of the car. We're brothers. In my dream, you and me are
brothers, Dean."
There. He said it. He finally told Dean his biggest secret, the one he feared
the most because it made him sound so freaky, like some kind of stalker or
something.
Dean was shaking his head, jaw clenched, lips tight. "That's impossible, Sam,"
he said. "That's just your weird psychic thing. My brother..." He hesitated,
biting back some strong emotions. "My brother's dead," he said finally. "He
died when he was a baby. In the fire that killed my mom."
Now it was Sam's turn to be stunned. That just didn't make sense. If he was
supposed to be dead...But then Sam realized that he'd been holding out hope the
entire time that it was true, that he really was Dean's brother, and the truth
– yes, Dean had a brother, but he died – the truth shattered all of Sam's
illusions in a single moment.
"Are – are you sure?" he heard himself asking, then cringed because it made him
sound so needy.
"Yes, I'm sure," Dean barked, angry now, which made Sam feel even worse. He
shouldn't be pushing this; it was obviously a horrible memory for Dean,
probably the defining tragedy of his life, and he sure as hell didn't need Sam
dredging it up again.
But Dean was riled up and seemed to need to go on, to make Sam understand. "I
heard him screaming, okay? I remember my baby brother crying and crying, but I
couldn't save him. The fire was too hot. Dad burned himself pretty badly trying
to get into the nursery, but the flames drove him back. I let my baby brother
die, Sam. I was supposed to protect him, look after him. That's what Mom always
said. And I failed. You get me, Sam? I failed."
Dean was on his feet, pacing, his entire body crackling with frustrated energy,
with the urge to do something – anything – to change what had happened that
night. Sam didn't have to be a mind-reader to see how fresh the memory was for
Dean, how even after twelve years he still beat himself up over something that
happened when he was only four years old.
"His name was Sam, wasn't it?" Sam whispered, and Dean stopped, stared at him,
clenching and un-clenching his fists, like he was wishing he could hit
something. "He'd be my age exactly if he survived, wouldn't he?"
"Sam, you're not him," Dean shook his head. "You can't be him. The firefighters
recovered the bodies. We buried them. I remember the funeral."
Sam felt a tear slide down his cheek, felt his chest tighten with grief. It
shouldn't hit him so hard, finding out he wasn't Dean's brother after all, but
he had been hoping it could be true since the day he'd seen Dean on that dusty
road, and it was the hardest reality he'd ever had to face. He wiped angrily at
his leaking face with his good hand, swiped the back of his handkerchief-
covered hand across his sniffling nose.
"Hey, come on, it's not that bad," Dean slid to his knees in front of Sam, his
hands on the couch, on either side of Sam's knees, leaned in so Sam was forced
to look up at him. "It happened a long time ago. I'm pretty much over it."
No you're not, Sam thought but didn't say.
"How – how did it start?" Sam asked instead, pulling himself together so he
could focus on Dean, get off his own wretched self-pitying head-trip. "The
fire, I mean. Do they know what happened?"
Dean sat back on his heels, turned his face away and clenched his jaw, and for
a moment Sam was afraid he wouldn't answer.
"Dad thinks it was a demon," Dean said finally, still looking off toward the
window, giving Sam his profile. He was so close, Sam could see every freckle,
every eyelash; he could smell the spicy scent of the gel in Dean's hair. "Dad
saw the thing, in the nursery, hovering over the crib. It had yellow eyes and
it was grinning at him. Mom was – the thing had pinned Mom to the ceiling
somehow, and she was bleeding and burning. Dad thinks she was already dead, but
he's not sure. He yelled at it – 'Get away from my son, you son-of-a-bitch!' –
but the thing just laughed at him, just threw him backwards against the wall
with a flick of its wrist – with his mind. Stunned him. When Dad came to,
flames were everywhere. He tried to go back in, but..."
"So he didn't actually see the baby die," Sam clarified, hope rising in his
chest again. "Maybe the demon took him. Maybe it left him with a foster-family,
and he grew up and...and maybe I'm him, Dean, maybe I am your brother."
Dean looked back at Sam, his eyes glistening like two pools of warm sea water.
"If you heard that baby crying like I did..." Dean lowered his head, squeezed
his eyes shut, and Sam could tell he was fighting back tears. "No, Sam. Don't
you think if I thought for one minute...Don't you think if I could have my
brother back, if I thought there was a chance in hell he survived that fire,
don't you think I want that? Don't you think I wish you were him? But you're
not, little buddy, okay? You're not. Dad saw my brother die. I heard him. We
buried him. This is all just some weird, freaky coincidence, that's all."
"But my dreams..." Sam tried again, one last time, because he couldn't not
hope. He couldn't not wish it were true, despite everything Dean was saying.
Dean put his hands on Sam's knees, raised his eyebrows in a stern look that
demanded Sam take him seriously. "When Dad gets back, we're gonna tell him
everything you just told me, okay? Except the dreams. You got me? Your psychic
stuff is creepy enough, and we don't want to give him more reasons to turn you
back over to the system, you got me? If he thinks you're a monster-in-training,
and then he starts thinking I'm your target or something...Well, let's just
keep that part to ourselves. Okay?"
Sam nodded, suddenly terrified of John's return, of his final judgment on Sam's
future.
*//*
It was already early morning when John and Bobby finally returned. Sam woke
with a start when he heard the rumble of the Impala, the creaking and slamming
of its doors. Dean was sprawled on the chair next to the couch, three empty
beer bottles on the table next to him, snoring lightly, and he didn't stir as
the front door opened and Bobby and John walked in. They were covered in soot,
dirt, and grime, and they were both exhausted.
"Shower, then bed for me," Bobby declared, kicking off his boots and moving
heavily up the stairs to the second floor.
John staggered into the living room, stared down at Sam for a moment, then took
a step closer and laid his hand on Dean's head, stroking the soft, gel-spiked
hair, then letting the back of his hand rest gently against Dean's temple. Dean
shifted restlessly, muttered something indecipherable in his sleep, but didn't
wake up. John looked up at Sam again, and his gaze was softer, full of his
fondness for Dean.
"I want your side of this story, son," he said quietly, his deep voice low so
as not to wake Dean. "But it can wait a little while longer. This has been a
helluva day, and I think we've all earned a little rest, don't you?"
Sam nodded solemnly, grateful for the first show of real kindness from the big
hunter. It was reassuring in a way Sam couldn't quite put his finger on, and it
made Sam feel safe for the first time since yesterday morning, despite the
horrible, graphic images of shallow graves full of salt and flame in John's
head. It made Sam feel reassured and protected. John Winchester was not a man
to cross, Sam could sense that easily, but he was also a good man to have on
your side, if you could get him, and Sam decided right then and there that he
would convince John to let him stay with them if it was the last thing he did.
 
*//*
 
"So the shapeshifters were training you," John clarified later that day, after
everyone was awake and rested and showered and Dean had checked Sam's wound
again. "Looks clean," he told Sam. "No infection." He was still on the couch,
Dean next to him, watching John pace in front of them as he interrogated Sam.
Bobby had just gone into the kitchen to get more coffee.
"That's what it looks like," Dean agreed. He'd repeated Sam's story to his
father, almost verbatim, minus the dream stuff and light on the psychic stuff,
which clearly worried John enough as it was.
"But you don't have any idea what they had in mind for you," John looked hard
at Sam. "What their long-term plan was."
"He figured they were teaching him to be a super-hero," Dean stepped in to
answer for Sam, shooting him a warning glance. "He thought he was learning to
be one of the good guys."
"And your psychic mojo," John ignored Dean, kept his intense gaze focused on
Sam, who tried not to squirm or look away. "Did you read anything in their
minds about what they were planning? Anything at all?"
"Carl didn't know anything," Sam almost whispered, his voice shaking, and he
cleared it before he tried again. "George had some kind of trick he used to
keep me from reading him. I could catch glimpses of his thoughts, once in
awhile, but it was...he...mostly he was thinking about sex."
Dean frowned at that, immediately interrupting again. "Did he bad-touch you,
Sam? Ever?"
Sam shook his head. "He had the hots for Carl," Sam blushed at the memory of
George's thoughts, not because they were particularly embarrassing, but because
thinking about George's lust for Carl made him think of Dean, and that
was...weird.
"And the rest of the shapeshifters...Could you read their thoughts?" John went
on, and Sam shook his head again.
"George told me not to. He said it was important that I learn to control it,
and he was trusting me. I never...Most of the time, even when I caught glimpses
of other people's thoughts, it was just boring stuff: 'What am I gonna make for
supper?' 'I hate my boyfriend.' 'The boss is a jerk.' Stuff like that. The
martial arts teacher was a closet knitter. He had a big box full of hand-
knitted scarves at home and he was very proud of them. The guy who taught
wrestling liked to wear women's underwear."
"Okay, that's enough," John put up a hand, and Sam closed his mouth. He wished
now that he'd disobeyed George and listened more closely to the thoughts around
him during his time in the warehouse. He might have figured out a way to
prevent all of this from happening.
But then he wouldn't be sitting here with John and Dean, interviewing for a
place in the Winchester family, hoping against all odds they'd let him in.
"And you never suspected they were shifters," John clarified. "Nothing about
them ever seemed off to you?"
Sam shook his head, trying to remember anything about George or Carl or his
teachers that might have tipped him off that they were monsters, but there
wasn't anything. They'd been kind to him, in a detached way, and he'd felt like
he belonged, like his future as one of them was guaranteed, as long as he made
progress and worked hard. He'd never questioned it.
"It's like I said, Dad," Dean stepped in again. "They had him really well
brainwashed. He believed they were helping him."
"Yeah, I get that," John nodded grimly. "I just want to be sure they never had
him do something evil with those powers of his."
Sam felt a stab of fear and he shook his head violently. "I
never...never...They made me promise not to do what I did with them out in the
real world. They didn't want anybody to know what I could do. They wanted
everything to stay a big secret."
John's mouth tightened into a grim line, and he narrowed his eyes as he
considered this for a moment, then shook his head.
"There were other kids in your classes, Sam," he said. "Did those kids have
psychic powers too?"
"I don't know," Sam answered honestly. He thought back to his martial arts and
wrestling classes, to the fleeting glimpses of the thoughts from the other
kids' minds. "I don't think so. They were just there for the classes."
"The shifters ran a legitimate business," Bobby weighed in, stepping in behind
John so that there were now three pairs of eyes trained on Sam. "Well, under-
the-table income-wise, but basically the martial arts and wrestling classes
were offered to the general public as a front for the behind-the-scenes stuff
they were doing upstairs. They were running a pretty complex operation. All
those other kids were just regular customers. Apparently, Sam here was the only
'special' student."
The three hunters stared at Sam for a moment, then John lowered his eyes,
turned toward Bobby with a sigh. "Anything more about his family? What happened
to them?"
Bobby shook his head. "Every living thing on that farm was killed, execution
style mostly. Single gun-shot wounds, straight to the head. Must've happened
fast, must've been more than one shooter. The police are calling it a multiple
homicide, leaving the animals out of it. They're looking for little Sam here
for questioning, but nobody's trying very hard. Right now the theory is, kid's
dead too, body's in the woods or in a ditch or something.
"And here's the weird part," Bobby went on, hesitating for a beat to glance at
John, then back at Sam and Dean. "There's no record of this kid in the foster
care system. They know he lived at that farm because he was enrolled in school
and the neighbors remember him walking the dog. But Child Protective Services's
got nothin'. As far as they're concerned, he doesn't even exist."
"So, that's a good thing, isn't it?" Dean pressed. "They can't charge us with
kidnapping a kid that doesn't exist, can they? And if they think he's dead they
won't come looking for him."
Bobby glanced at John, who shook his head but wouldn't look at the boys.
"It's not the police I'm worried about," John said darkly. "Somebody somewhere
thinks this kid is pretty important, and they don't assume he's lying dead in a
ditch somewhere."
"You think whoever killed his foster family knows he's still alive," Bobby
suggested.
"They know he wasn't at the farm," John nodded. "Now maybe, if we're lucky,
they'll figure he died in the fire. All I know is, they've gone to a helluva
lot of trouble to keep his entire existence a secret, and people who go to that
kind of trouble don't give up easy."
"We can keep him safe, Dad," Dean insisted. "We know how to live under the
radar. Sam's safer with us than he would be anywhere else, especially CPS. We
can't give him up to them, Dad. They'd find him easy that way, and then...well,
what if they've decided he really is too much trouble? What if they just want
to find him so they can be sure he's dead? We can't let that happen, Dad. If we
turn him in and he got killed, that'd be on us. You gotta see that."
"All right, Dean, that's enough," John put his hand up and Dean shut his mouth.
Then John turned away from the boys, scrubbing one hand over his face, the
other hand on his hip. Sam waited, soaking in Dean's nearness, daring to hope
against hope that John would decide to keep him, trying not to listen too
closely as the big hunter silently debated with himself. "Okay, here's what
we'll do. We need to know everything we can about that organization. Sam, I
know you were pretty little when you moved here. Is there anything else you can
tell us about these people? Where's that clinic you mentioned? How far away is
it? Then we need to try to track them down, stop them doing whatever it is
they're doing. Bobby, see what you can dig up on our boy here. Birth records,
school records. Don't kids have to have shots before they start school? Find
out where Sam got his. Hit the public library, go back to the farm, poke
around, see what you can find. I'll go back to the warehouse site, give it
another look, call some buddies of mine to see if they can give us any leads on
an organization of shifters. Dean, stay here and take care of the kid for now,
pick up the phone only if it's one of us, ya got me?"
"Yes, sir," Dean agreed. "So...Sam stays? We're keeping him?"
John looked from his son to the small boy huddled next to him, shaking his
head. "For now," he said. "At least until we can figure this out. If those
things are trying to find him, he's safer with us than some civilian foster-
home, no doubt about that."
Sam could barely answer John's remaining questions after that; his heart was
pumping so loudly in his ears and his palms were sweating so badly that Dean
finally put an arm around him, offering his steady reassurance so Sam could
control his trembling excitement. They were keeping him! He could stay! He and
Dean could be brothers for real! It was almost too much, after all he'd been
through over the past twenty-four hours, to go from thinking he'd never see
Dean again to suddenly being the center of the case he was working on.
And Sam was determined to show them they wouldn't regret it. He had skills and
talents he could offer that would help them. Cranking up Bobby's old IBM
desktop computer, he spent the rest of the day showing Dean how he could hack
into databases in hospitals and universities, logging in as a student so he
could access Lexis Nexis, as well as state and federal records databases.
Dean's eyes glazed over as Sam tried to interest him in the computer hacking,
but when Bobby got back later that day he seemed to understand what Sam could
do, and how much it could help them.
"You're a genius, kid," Bobby declared when Sam's research pulled up links
between the Project's work in Sioux Falls with a university research facility
in Lawrence, Kansas. But when John and Dean drove down, with Sam in the
backseat, to check it out, the research assistants there told them the project
had been shut down four years previously.
"They were using kids as test subjects," John explained in the car later, after
he'd gone in posing as a representative from the state Board of Medical
Examiners to question witnesses while the boys waited in the car. "The project
had to shut down when someone reported them to CPS. The kids were apparently
living at the clinic, bedding down in the basement somewhere. Not exactly
above-board."
"Creepy fuckers," Dean muttered under his breath, glancing at Sam in the
rearview mirror.
Sam was staring out the window, watching the familiar landscape slip by; the
lawns and well-manicured streets of the University of Kansas campus giving way
to comfortable, middle-class neighborhoods where he and Dean had walked and
played in his dreams. Seeing it in real life, in real time, was disorienting
and surreal. There was the park where Dean had pushed him on the swings. There
were the monkey-bars they climbed and jumped off, daring each other to climb
higher and higher until...Sam could still remember how it felt when he'd
fallen, hit his face and passed out, given himself a concussion and a black
eye. Dean had gathered him up, would've carried him to the hospital if people
hadn't come running...Sam couldn't remember the rest of that dream; the pain
probably woke him up.
John turned the car down another side-street, and that's when Sam saw it. Their
old house, the one where he and Dean grew up. Still standing, not burned to the
ground the way he had imagined based on what Dean had told him. Still there.
Memories flooded Sam's mind: playing ball in the back yard, he and Dean riding
their bikes up and down the street in front of the house, Dean shooting baskets
in the driveway.
"You okay?" Dean had turned around in the front seat, was looking intently at
Sam with those big green eyes of his, and Sam felt himself blush all over
because he was so close, so present, not a dream at all.
Sam nodded. "Yeah," he breathed. "Everything's fine."
Dean gazed at him intently for another moment, then gave a brief nod, turning
back to stare out at the landscape, his jaw moving almost imperceptibly. Sam
understood with a start that for Dean, for Real!Dean, the memories here were
not happy ones. This was a place of horror and tragedy for Real!Dean, who
shared none of Sam's dream-memories of growing up with a brother and parents
who loved him and all the warm, comfortable trappings of a normal, middle-class
life. It saddened Sam, made him wish he and Dean were alone so he could hug
him, crawl onto his lap and bury his face in Dean's neck and just cuddle there.
But Sam was pretty sure Dean wouldn't allow that. Not now. Dean was staring
stoically out the front windshield, jaw working as he ground his teeth, glaring
at the peaceful suburban setting, and Sam was struck again by how well he could
read Dean's expressions, even without hearing his thoughts.
John pulled the car into the parking lot of a small, nondescript building on
the eastern edge of the university campus, and cut the motor. The building
looked abandoned, or at least long unused, doors closed and padlocked, paint
that must once have been white chipping and faded over the door where a sign
must once have hung. John slid his arm along the back of the bench seat and
turned to look at Sam.
"Look familiar?" he asked, and Sam looked around, squinting, trying to imagine
the building when it looked freshly painted, when some kind of signage
indicating that it was a clinic hung over the door, when the lot was full of
cars and people were going in and out of the now cracked and pad-locked front
door.
Nothing.
"I think I was sleeping when I came here," he suggested, remembering the
disorienting feeling of waking up in a strange bed, realizing someone had
carried him in and put him there while he was unconscious.
John nodded. "Let's take a look around," he suggested. "See if the place jogs
any memories."
Sam wasn't sure how that could be possible, given the lock on the door; then he
noticed Dean pull out a small flat case of locksmith tools from the glovebox,
slipping it into the pocket of his jacket. He winked at Sam as he got out of
the car, and Sam felt himself flush.
"Just need the right tools, Sammy," he said with a smirk, "and any door can be
opened."
"Plus a helluva lot of practice," John reminded him as he led the way around
the side of the building, looking for easier access. "Don't get cocky now,
son."
"Yes, sir," Dean murmured obediently, falling into step just behind his father.
Sam tagged along last, looking around nervously, worried someone would wonder
what they were doing. The former clinic was located in an area of the campus
that seemed to have several buildings that were no longer used, and no one had
driven up or down the street for some time. Sam guessed they couldn't be seen
from the road or from the other buildings, and it occurred to him that this
might be the perfect place to conduct secret tests on orphaned or abandoned
kids. Who would notice? Especially if the kids were being brought in and out at
night.
John knew what he was doing; it didn't take long to find a side door which was
easily opened, and when they got inside, darkness and an old musty smell of
long disuse accosted their senses. After uselessly flipping a light switch,
Dean and John both pulled out flashlights and started a slow, methodical
search. Sam followed closely, bumping into Dean whenever he stopped, trying to
pretend he wasn't terrified. The first floor contained offices, a reception
area, and a couple of examining rooms, all empty and obviously unused for a
very long time. None of it was familiar to Sam, and he kept shaking his head
whenever John asked. When they found a stairway into the basement, however,
then started to descend into inky darkness that felt even more oppressive for
being underground, Sam balked. He could feel something down there, something
dark and sinister; it curled up the steps toward him and wrapped itself around
his body, cold and coiling and weirdly familiar, and Sam stopped dead on the
stairs, halfway down, unable to take another step.
"What is it?" Dean asked, turned to look at him, shining his light just below
Sam's face so he could see his expression. "What's wrong? You remember
something?"
"Why'd you stop?" John called from the bottom of the stairs, turning to shine
his own light back up at Dean and Sam.
"I think Sam's remembering something," Dean answered, his face softening as he
reached for Sam, took a step back up toward him so he could put his hand on
Sam's shoulder. "What is it, Sam? Can you tell us what you remember?"
Sam was trembling, the icy tendrils of the malevolent presence slithering
around him, making a small rustling sound that was just beyond normal hearing,
making him cold, making the sweat break out on the back of his neck.
"There's something here..." he stammered. "No, there was something here. It's
gone now, but...It was something bad."
"Okay," Dean nodded encouragingly. "Can you come down a little more? Tell us
what else you remember? What else you can...sense?"
And with Dean's reassuring presence at his back, Sam did. He moved slowly,
grasping at the slithering wisps of evil, the imprint of something really bad
but gone now, long removed. The rooms in the basement were all empty, not even
a chair or a table or a bed, but Sam could still feel the echoes of terror and
grief here, and he could almost hear children crying, the voices ragged with
fear and overuse. When Sam entered the last room at the end of the hall he was
hit with such a wall of invisible psychic pain it made him collapse in on
himself, double up and fall to the floor, gasping. Dean was there instantly,
warm, strong hands stroking his back, clasping his shoulder, his arms,
murmuring to him until the moment passed, until Sam could get a handle on the
pain in his head and push back, force it to let him go.
"I was here," he gasped, blinking up at Dean from his curled up position on the
dusty floor. "This is where Dr. Clausen fixed me." It's where he made me forget
you, he thinks but doesn't say. "Doctor Clausen was a bad man. He...there was
something different about him, like he wasn't real."
"You mean like he was a ghost?" Dean asked, and Sam shook his head.
"No, but he wasn't right somehow," Sam struggled to make sense of his memories,
of his younger self trying to read Doctor Clausen and finding something dark
and ugly inside him. He looked up at Dean with a start as it hit him. "Dean, I
don't think he was human."
"So he was some kind of monster," John suggested. "Another shifter, maybe."
Sam shook his head. "No. Something really, really bad. Not like George and
Carl."
"Well, whatever he was, whatever this place was, it's all long gone now," John
said. "My EMF reader doesn't even pick up any spectral activity at all, so what
you're sensing isn't really here. It's just echoes."
"Had to be something pretty powerful to leave echoes that are still here four
years later," Dean commented.
Sam was shivering so hard his teeth clattered in his head, and Dean put his arm
around him, helped him to his feet, steered him out the door and back down the
hall to the stairs.
"Let's get you out of here, little man," Dean murmured. "Too many bad memories
here."
And Sam had to agree with him there.
***** Chapter 3 *****
They made one last stop before leaving Lawrence. Missouri Moseley lived and
plied her trade as a psychic on a street not that different from the one where
the Winchesters had lived, all those years ago. She shook her head when John
walked in, followed by Dean, Sam so close behind he bumped into Dean's back
when he stopped.
"Knew you were comin' the minute I woke up this morning," Missouri said. "Had
to bake my special apple-blueberry pie because I know it's your favorite."
John smiled warmly as he hugged the plump woman.
"You remembered," he breathed, clearly pleased.
"You haven't changed, John Winchester," Missouri shook her head again. "Same
big handsome barn of a man you always were on the outside. Same vengeful jack-
ass on the inside." She glanced at Dean, and John nodded.
"My son, Dean," he said. "And this is Sam."
Missouri's eyebrows went up when she looked at Dean. "Well, didn't you grow up
pretty," she commented. "Not so funny-looking after all." Then her gaze fell on
Sam and her eyebrows stayed permanently raised, her mouth falling open a
little.
"Well, this, I did not expect," she said, and Sam's skin tingled, the hair on
the back of his neck raised. "Mm, mm, mm. I did not see this comin'."
It took Sam a minute to realize she hadn't spoken out loud. His eyes widened,
and Missouri smiled a little knowing smile, and Sam tried not to freak out
because he could see she knew he heard her.
"Sam's a psychic too," John explained, and Missouri nodded.
"You don't say," she pressed her lips together, put her hands on her hips, and
nodded toward her sitting room. "Y'all can come in and sit down while I get
your pie," she said. "Then you can tell me why you think you're here."
"What does she mean, 'why we think we're here?'" Dean groused when they were
seated and Missouri had left the room. "Why are we here, Dad?"
"Missouri Moseley is the psychic who helped me figure out what had happened to
your mother and your brother," John explained, his jaw set in a way that belied
the strong emotions Sam could sense, the memories of fire and heat in his head.
"She introduced me to the supernatural world, helped me connect with other
hunters. If anybody can help us figure out what happened to Sam in that clinic,
it'll be her."
"Here we are," Missouri said as she returned with two plates, each bearing a
steaming slice of freshly-baked pie. "Just out of the oven. Sam, you can come
help me in the kitchen."
Sam obeyed before he even realized what he was doing, giving a surprised shrug
to Dean as he left the room, finding a look of doubt and confusion on Dean's
face as the older boy's attention was clearly torn between Sam and the plate of
pie in his hands.
Missouri closed the door to the kitchen when they were inside and gestured to a
chair at the small table against the wall, where a glass of soy milk and a
piece of pie sat waiting.
"You can eat yours in here," she said brusquely. "I've got more trouble comin',
and I've got baking to do."
Sam sat down, watched as Missouri turned her back and busied herself stirring
and mixing. His heart was pounding and his palms were sweating and the hair on
the back of his neck was standing up even taller. He deliberately made his mind
as blank as possible, trying not to read Missouri's at the same time, but he
knew she was reading him like a book, and it made him more nervous than he
would admit, even to himself. He ate his pie and waited, and after a couple of
minutes she turned and looked down at him with narrowed eyes.
"You and Dean have a special bond," she announced abruptly. "You both sense it.
He's psychic too. He don't know it, but he is, and you can't tell him because
he couldn't handle it. You hear what I'm sayin'?"
Sam nodded, closing his mouth because it had dropped all the way open when she
said the word "psychic" and shock flooded his veins like ice water.
"Is that why I can't read him?" Sam asked, and Missouri gave a short nod.
"He's shielding hisself," she said. "He does it without even knowin' he's doin'
it. I can read him 'cause he don't care about me. I ain't important to him. But
you... You're everything he never knew he wanted. You two boys were made for
each other."
Sam felt the flush rise in his cheeks, up his neck, across his chest. He knew
what she was saying was true, he'd always known it. But it was the first time
he'd heard someone else acknowledge it, and finding out how Dean felt about him
was almost more than Sam could stand.
Missouri put her mixing bowl down on the table and sat down heavily in the
chair next to him, laying her soft warm hand on his arm. "And those dreams?
They started when you were suffering somethin' awful." Missouri's face clouded,
and she frowned deeply. "Your dreams kept you sane. Kept you from goin' over
the edge into darkness. They were your mind's way of coping with what your body
was going through."
"But how could I do that?" Sam asked. "How did I know about Dean before I met
him?"
Missouri smiled, reached over and touched his cheek. "Ah, child, you's such a
baby. Those people at that Project didn't teach you nothin', did they?" She
sighed, sat back in her chair and reached for the mixing bowl, starting to stir
as she spoke. "Dean's your soul-mate. Your soul knows his 'cuz that's the way
it works."
"But the house," Sam went on. "The car. It was like I was living my life with
him, growing up with him."
Missouri sighed again, watching her mixture turn and turn in the bowl. "Your
mind made up a way for you to be together," she shrugged. "You built up a story
for yourself in the only way you could. Being brothers was safe and comforting.
It's your soul's way of being close to Dean: growing up together, sharing your
lives from the start that way."
"But Dean didn't dream about me," Sam protested. "He doesn't have those
memories of being brothers like I do."
Missouri shook her head, raised her eyes, and gave him a look that was
something between a warning and a smirk. "You've got that boy wrapped around
your little finger and you know it," she said. "You just go easy on him,
y'hear? He breaks easier than you do."
Sam lowered his eyes to his plate, blushing furiously for reasons he didn't
fully understand.
"'Sides," Missouri went on. "It's just as well you're not brothers."
"What do you mean?" Sam looked up sharply, and Missouri shook her head, pushing
herself to her feet and wiping her hands on her apron.
"You'll see in a couple of years or so," she answered inscrutably. "Come on,
let's hear those Winchester boys lie about what they're doing here."
She winked at Sam as she headed out the door and he followed, flushed with
Missouri's revelations about Dean, feeling a little guilty about that because
he was pretty sure Dean wasn't going to get the same personal interview,
wouldn't find out about their being "soul-mates" unless Sam told him.
Which was an utterly terrifying thought that pre-occupied Sam's thoughts for
the rest of the visit, completely obscuring John's questions about Sam's
psychic abilities and any memories he might have about the creepy clinic on the
university campus. But he heard it when Missouri assured John that Sam had ‘a
heart of gold,’ and his soul was ‘pure.’
"There's no more evil in this boy here than there is in you," she admonished
John, then glanced at Dean. "You neither. This boy's had some twisted things
happen to him, that's for sure, but he's strong. He's a survivor, like
yourselves. You'd be lucky to have him on your team, and stupid not to." She
pointed her forefinger at John. "Don't be a damn fool, John Winchester."
John smiled and looked down, dimples showing.
"I won't," John assured her, glancing up at Sam, nodding once, and Sam could
sense John's acquiescence, the beginnings of trust.
*//*
"County records have him born Samuel J. Smith, mother Cheryl Smith, father
unknown, July 19, 1983, in Duluth," Bobby told them the next evening, when they
were back in Sioux Falls going over the case. The case at the moment being Sam.
Sam could read Bobby's determination, his concern for John and especially for
Dean, and his growing fondness for Sam, and Sam had decided he liked the gruff-
mannered hunter. He listened patiently as Bobby recounted the only "official"
record of his short existence. "The hospital pediatrician gave him his first
shots, then there's nothing until he enrolled in school here in 1991. Foster-
mother Karen Richards enrolled him at Sioux Falls Elementary, using that birth
certificate, a forged certificate of guardianship, and a forged immunization
record showing Sam's shots from a county clinic in Duluth that doesn't even
exist."
"In other words, we got squat," John muttered grimly.
"Well, I've also got the mother's death certificate," Bobby says, looking even
more grim. "Drug overdose, New Year's Eve, 1987."
"Kid was four years old," John breathed, glancing at Sam, who was squeezed
between Dean and the arm of the couch. Same as Dean, Sam could hear John think
to himself, as clearly as if he'd said it out loud. Same as me when my dad
left.
"Then we got nothing on him between the ages of four and eight, when he
enrolled in the third grade here," Bobby went on. "He just finished the sixth
grade. He's a good student, described by teachers as shy and aloof, but
apparently he can hold his own in a fight cuz he's been in a few and mostly
comes out on top, according to the principal. This is all in his school
records. I can't exactly go around interviewing teachers in the summer.
Everybody knows me around here, and not in a good way, if you know what I
mean."
Sam could read bits and pieces of Bobby's past in the hunter's mind, could
sense the tragedy and alcoholism, the violence of his childhood and the fairly
recent violent death of his wife. It was all sadder than he could handle, like
John Winchester's life, and Sam was beginning to get the sense that hunters
were not happy people, in general.
"No, that's all right," John shook his head. "We've got enough. This whole
thing is just one big, ugly, stinking dead end."
"What do we do now, Dad?" Dean asked, and Sam could feel the tension in his
body where Dean was pressed against him. Sam had woken up after a nightmare the
night before and Dean had been right there, soothing him and whispering away
the memory of fire, of George dead on the floor and Zoe's soft fur soaked in
blood.
"We get back to work," John answered brusquely. "I've got a lead on a possible
demon-possession two states over. You've got a month before school starts...We
leave today."
"What about Sam? We bring him with us, right?"
Now it was Sam's turn to tense, holding his body as still and stiff as a board
as he waited for John Winchester to pronounce judgment on his future. John
glanced at Sam, and Sam could read the doubt and uncertainty, could see himself
through John's eyes, how small and helpless he looked.
"We can't take a kid on the road," John protested gruffly. "It's not safe."
"You took me on the road when I was only four years old," Dean reminded him.
"That's different," John shook his head. "You're my son. I needed to keep you
safe. Teach you to protect yourself. After what happened to your mother and
your brother, you were all I had."
"Sam's family is dead," Dean reminded his father. "We had a hand in that. We're
responsible for his being alone in the world, unprotected. We owe it to him to
take him in, try to give him a home. We...we're all he has."
John shook his head. "He's not a hunter."
"We can train him," Dean insisted. "We can teach him how to protect himself.
And he's not completely defenseless, I can vouch for that. He knows a lot of
wrestling moves, and he's a black belt in karate. Plus, he can help us. You saw
what he can do back at that clinic. He's got real mojo. He's like Zelda
Rubenstein and the Karate Kid in one package, plus Matthew Broderick in War
Games. I'll bet he can hack anything."
John scrubbed his hand over his face, other hand on his hip. Sam held his
breath, tried to make himself small, huddling a little against Dean's side,
hands clenched between his knees, shoulders hunched, waiting, trying not to
read all the doubts in John's mind. John glanced at Bobby, who raised his
eyebrows and shrugged.
"Dean's got a point," Bobby offered. "Kid's got a real talent for computers.
He'd be pretty useful to have around, on a job."
John threw his hands up, blew out a breath. "All right!" he growled. "All
right. He's in. But you're in charge of him, Dean. He's your responsibility,
y'hear? I'm done raising kids. Done."
"Yes, sir," Dean agreed, relief smoothing the tension from his familiar face,
making Sam's chest fill with warmth.
"He'll need to go to school," John said. "You're in charge of getting him
enrolled wherever, getting him back and forth each day, keeping track of all
his homework and shit. I already did all that once, with you. I'm not raising
another kid."
"Yes, sir," Dean agreed, nodding vigorously, obviously trying and failing to
hide how delighted he was.
And just like that, Sam Smith became Sam Winchester.
*//*
That night, Sam woke up screaming, images of dead George staring wide-eyed at
him, Jack and Zoe lying on the green lawn in front of his house, and the house
was burning. Always burning. Dean was there, as he would be from now on, Sam
knew, holding him, keeping him sane. Dean was there like his dream-brother had
always been, but more alive and vital. More defined. And although Sam couldn't
read his mind, he knew that this Dean felt the same way. Sam and Dean had found
each other again, despite everything, just like Missouri said. It was just the
way it was supposed to be.
"You know what this is, don't you?" Bobby said later that night, when he and
John stood over the sleeping boys, Sam still awake enough to hear them. "It's
like he's got his brother back, after all these years. The brother he was meant
to grow up with."
"Yeah, I get that," John agreed grimly.
"It's a good thing," Bobby prompted.
"Yeah, maybe." John sounded reluctant, but Sam could hear the relief in his
voice too, and he could hear it in his head: When I'm gone, at least he'll have
this kid.
*//*
Three years passed in the relative security of the Winchester family unit. Once
John accepted Sam into the extended family he was allowed access to the family
secrets, which mostly amounted to meeting a lot of back-woods survivalist types
who happened to be hunters because it already fit their nobody-tells-me-what-
to-do lifestyles. Somebody named Caleb provided all the weapons, mostly black-
market and mostly untraceable.
Under the radar, Sam continued his training. He'd already had top-notch
wrestling and martial arts classes; now he focused on weapons and monster
anatomy. How to kill it, how to bring it down so it could be killed. Dean
stepped into the role of mentor, teaching Sam everything he knew about loading,
shooting, and caring for various firearms, starting with a small rifle, then
moving on to shotguns and handguns. Dean taught Sam to fight dirty, which was
his only recourse in certain situations, given his size. The boys spent whole
afternoons rolling around in the dirt behind whatever motel or abandoned house
they were squatting in, sparring and wrestling, getting the one-on-one moves
down until Dean was convinced Sam could protect himself in a fight.
"But if you can, you run," Dean warned him on more than one occasion, no matter
how well Sam was able to pin the larger boy. "You get away. Most monsters,
they're after blood. They're more powerful than they look, stronger than they
are big. So you just get away, use what I showed you. You got me?"
And Sam nodded, sweat dripping into his eyes, his body sore and pumped with
adrenaline from scuffling with Dean, his skin hot and tight from Dean's touch.
It felt good to be bruised and exhausted, felt like a kind of relief he
couldn't get any other way, and he welcomed it as often as he could get it.
After a year or two of living with Dean, sharing the same sleeping space, often
the same bed, spending every hour together except the ones when Sam was in
school and his whole body tingled with the need to be close to Dean again, Sam
finally faced the reality that he had an addiction problem, and his drug was
Dean. He had always loved Dean, even when he'd only been a dream, but now, with
the added hormonal chaos of adolescence, Sam's love had turned into a serious
craving. He was consumed, obsessed with constant thoughts of Dean's hands, his
ass, his broad back and shoulders, his chest and strong, muscled legs.
By the time Sam was fourteen he understood that he was in love with Dean, and
it was more than just a little boy crush. He watched Dean all the time, even
when Dean didn't notice. Especially then, and when Dean was sleeping. Sam was
hard just thinking about Dean, and it wasn't easy to hide. It made him blush,
shift himself uncomfortably, and Dean noticed. Of course he noticed, and his
teasing responses just made it worse.
"I'm awesome," Dean would say when he caught Sam staring. Or, "I know, I'm
adorable." And his grin would light up his face, make his freckles stand out on
his nose, his green eyes sparkle mischievously. Sam fantasized about grabbing
Dean and shoving him up against the wall and just laying one on him, just to
see those beautiful long-lashed eyes widen in surprise, just to feel Dean's
plump lips against his, if only once. Sam knew it would only be that one time
because Dean was clearly not into guys, seemed only interested in girls that
way, although he was warm and affectionate with Sam, never seemed to hesitate
to sling an arm around his shoulders and pull him in for a quick hug, or to
ruffle his hair and plant a smacking kiss on the top of his head. Even the time
Dean walked in on Sam while he was jerking off in the motel bathroom, moaning
Dean's name because he thought Dean and John had left for the diner for
breakfast already. Dean just raised his eyebrows and smirked, "Better remember
to lock the door from now on, Sammy." But of course Sam jerked off later to the
memory of Dean coming in and finding him with his pants down, fantasized that
Dean's passing glance at Sam's dick had been something longer and more
meaningful.
Sam could swear Dean knew how he felt. He was sure Dean heard Sam moaning his
name that time, and those times Dean caught him staring, Dean seemed pleased
with the attention. He seemed to like being the center of Sam's world, the
object of his devotion.
At night, with John passed out after a hunt and a bottle of Jack, snoring hard
on the other bed, Dean spooned Sam against his chest, buried his face in Sam's
hair, breathing deeply while Sam lay as still as he could, hoping Dean wouldn't
notice how turned on he was. He was pretty sure this was a comfort thing for
Dean, that Sam's small body was like a substitute teddy bear for the boy who
had sucked his thumb until he was almost nine years old, according to John's
memories.
John seemed to appreciate Sam's presence because it gave Dean a companion,
someone besides John to focus on, and John was grateful for that because it had
always been such a heavy responsibility, raising Dean, filling all the
emptiness in his young life all by himself. Finally sharing that hole with
somebody else made John grateful to Sam, took the pressure off a little. John
had always felt Dean was too clingy, too needy. By the time Dean was eighteen,
John was done. His job raising Dean was over. John was only too glad to
abdicate responsibility for Dean's emotional life, to let Sam take over the
role of Dean's anchor.
*//*
The summer Sam turned fifteen, he made his first kill. He'd already been on
hunts with John and Dean, but he'd stayed in the car, provided back-up only if
absolutely necessary. He'd learned a lot about triage, how to clean and bandage
various wounds, how to treat them so they didn't get infected. He'd had an
eyeful and a handful of more of Dean's body than he could have imagined, just
patching him up after a hunt, and he'd learned how to touch Dean without losing
it, how to focus on what needed doing to avoid falling apart.
But the moment he looked the werewolf in the eyes and pulled his trigger,
sending his silver bullet straight into the creature's heart, watched the
startled look on its face as it crumpled to the ground, letting Dean go just a
moment before it sank its teeth into Dean's neck...that was a defining moment
for Sam, the moment he crossed the line and became a hunter.
Dean was ecstatic, wanted to celebrate Sam's first kill with a six-pack of beer
and some porn back at the motel immediately. John thumped Sam on the back and
smiled, gave him a look of genuine warmth for the first time.
"Congratulations, son," John said, emphasizing the family bond in a way he
hadn't done before.
And Sam's chest should've swollen with pride; he should've been basking under
Dean's praise, gloating about his first kill like an old pro. He should've been
feeling grateful to finally be in the club, the one full of monster-killing
hunters who were dedicated to making the world a little safer, one kill at a
time.
But all Sam could think about was George and Carl and the others, lying dead in
that burning warehouse three years back. They hadn't been attacking anyone,
hadn't been trying to bite Dean's neck off or eat his heart out. Yeah, they'd
apparently killed people and assumed their identities, and no, they shouldn't
have done that. But their monstrousness hadn't been evident to Sam, nor had it
been an immediate threat to the community, other than the possibility that some
of them had been assuming other identities in order to acquire wealth and
intel. The fact that the hunters had been tipped off that a nest of shifters
was living at the warehouse was a complete fluke. The shifters could've gone on
indefinitely if that hadn't happened. They weren't hurting anyone, at least not
directly.
This was different. Something was threatening Dean, Sam knew what to do, and he
did it. Pretty straight-forward. Silver bullet to the heart. Sam didn't feel he
deserved to be congratulated for something that had to be done, but here Dean
was, going on and on in the car on the drive back to the motel, acting like Sam
had just made the winning basket in a ball game or something.
"I was fourteen, first time I killed something like that," Dean was telling
him. "Werewolf, same as you. Those mothers can be vicious. This one was fully
changed, teeth bared, the whole nine yards, just coming at me. Wasn't sure I
could hold my gun steady, and it took two shots, but that mother was on the
ground. I shot him one more time for good measure. Then he was dead, all right.
Son-of-a-bitch was deader than a doornail. Burned the corpse all by myself."
"Threw up all over my tools doing it," John commented dryly.
"You were alone?" Sam gaped.
Dean nodded. "It was part of a pack, and Dad had killed the rest of them, then
took off to follow another lead. I was supposed to stay behind and clean up,
but then this hairy fucker showed up. Must've been out eating hearts and come
back to find his family dead. Pissed him off pretty bad."
Sam read the guilt in John's mind, saw him flinch a little.
"You did good, Dean," John praised. "You did the job the way I taught you."
Dean nodded, clearly soaking up the praise.
"Except for the throwing up part," John added, and Dean's face fell a little.
"You were always hurling, on those early hunts. It was a problem."
"Not any more," Dean insisted. "I just needed more practice. Fifteen kills
later, guts of steel." He pounded his abs for emphasis, and John shook his
head.
"Too cocky, Dean," he reprimanded. "Always too cocky. You shouldn't have let
that thing grab you back there. You knew it was in there, you knew you needed
to stay alert, yet it managed to grab you from behind. From behind, Dean. That
means you were moving too fast, hadn't checked the room before you went in."
"Sam had my back," Dean protested.
"Yeah, well you're just lucky he did, is all I'm saying," John groused. "You
let your guard down. Next time, Sam might not be there."
I'll always be there, Sam thought fiercely. I'll always have Dean's back, if he
needs me. Sam felt very protective of Dean when John grilled him like this. It
made Sam angrier than he liked to admit. Dean was a good hunter, a superb
teacher, and Sam resented the way John was constantly taking him down a peg,
meting out just enough praise to keep Dean coming back for more, then laying on
the criticism. It felt deeply unfair.
Later, after showers in the motel and injuries tended and patched, John left
for the bar and the boys collapsed together on the other bed, too exhausted to
talk. Dean flung his arm over Sam as he always did, pulling him in, holding his
smaller body tucked against Dean's, pushing his face into the crook of Sam's
shoulder, just keeping him safe and close. Sam willed himself to relax, to
tolerate Dean's closeness, taking it for the sexless affection he was sure it
was intended to be, grasping at images of dead fish and old men's butts to keep
his dick from fattening too obviously. When Dean snuggled closer, pushing his
crotch into Sam's hip and pressing his lips against Sam's shoulder, Sam held
his breath, counted to one hundred, and waited for Dean to fall asleep, waited
for the inevitable evening of his breath and the subtle release of his hold on
Sam. When Sam was convinced that Dean had fallen asleep, he shifted carefully
away from him, knowing there was no way in hell he could find sleep with Dean's
dick pressed against him, even with two layers of cotton in between.
And it took awhile, but Sam finally drifted into an uneasy doze, aware of
Dean's every move, his every breath, needing it to help him counter the memory
of fear and rage in that werewolf's eyes the moment before Sam killed it.
*//*
A couple of days later, John handed over the keys to the Impala to his son,
admonished him to "take care of her," and turned to climb into his new used GMC
pick-up truck. Sam could read the goodbyes in John's every gesture, didn't even
need to read his mind, to hear him say, "Well, that's done."
"See ya around, boys," John waved to them from the cab, then drove off in a
smoky roar of exhaust.
Dean looked down at the keys, then back up at the road where John had gone, his
mouth slack with shock.
"Did he just – ?" Dean stuttered, and Sam nodded.
"I think so," he answered, and Dean turned to stare at him sharply.
"Did he say anything else?" Dean asked. "In his mind, I mean." What the hell?
Sam could hear the confusion in Dean's words, even if he couldn't read his
mind.
Sam shook his head. "He's got some idea he's done with parenting," Sam said.
"He figures you're grown now, graduated from high school, on your own. He – he
feels free."
The last part made Sam wince, because he knew it would hurt, and he almost
wished he could take it back because Dean's face fell immediately, then the
shuttered look came into his eyes and his jaw clenched.
"Yeah, okay," Dean nodded tightly. "I'm nineteen now. And a half. I'm an
adult."
He looked down at Sam, assessing and thoughtful for a moment, then he shook his
head and the little smirk returned to the edges of his mouth, he reached up and
slung a loose arm around Sam's shoulders and pulled him in.
"Guess it's just you and me now, kid," Dean said as Sam slid his arm around
Dean's waist because it felt like the right thing to do, even if it made every
inch of Sam's skin feel hot and tight, made his dick harden painfully. "Come
on, let's get some breakfast."
*//*
Dean was quiet over breakfast, and Sam watched him, as he always did when Dean
was too preoccupied to notice. When Dean glanced at him, he seemed startled
that Sam was still there, that Dean wasn't alone.
"Did he..." Dean started to ask finally, then shook his head as if to clear it.
"Is he coming back?"
Sam took a deep breath, willing the tears burning the backs of his eyes not to
fall. He was angry at John, mad at him for hurting Dean this way, for leaving
Sam to be his defender.
"He figures you and he can team up sometimes," Sam nodded. "He knows he can
always come to you when he needs help with a job. He trusts and respects you as
a hunter, Dean. He's...he's proud of you. Feels he did right by you." Sam
deliberately left out the other things John was thinking when he left: his
relief, his gratitude that Sam could take over as Dean's companion, the fact
that he'd been thinking about leaving for awhile now, since Dean turned
eighteen, but he had waited till Sam made his first kill so he could be
confident of Sam's ability to protect Dean, if necessary. John was convinced of
Sam's devotion; he'd obviously noticed Sam's embarrassing crush on his son and
decided that was enough to keep Sam by Dean's side, to keep him safe.
John was also more determined than ever to find the thing that had killed his
wife and son, and he didn't need anything, or anyone, holding him back. He knew
he was getting older, his reflexes already weren't what they were, and he would
need every ounce of strength and stamina to go after that yellow-eyed thing.
Sam had seen it, in John's memories. He'd seen the beautiful blond woman pinned
to the ceiling and burning, the monster leaning over the baby's crib. He'd felt
John's fear and frustration, his sense of failure at not being able to save
them.
"Well, he did," Dean agreed thoughtfully now, bravely tamping down on his
obvious grief and shock. "I just thought I'd have him around a little longer.
Figured once I turned eighteen and became a man, you know, that he'd...that
we'd be a real team."
Sam lowered his head to hide his anger and frustration at John. He couldn't
tell Dean that John had just been biding his time over the past year, waiting
for the opportunity to abandon ship and high-tail it out of Dodge. It was so
unfair! He knew Dean had been hoping for a partnership of equals, and all the
time it had been John's intention to shed the parenting trap at the first
opportunity.
"Well, now I know why he dumped us here," Dean continued after taking another
bite of his pancakes, staring out the window at the cornfield across the road,
shimmering in the August heat. "Bumfuck, Iowa has got to be about the safest,
most boring place on the planet." He glanced up at Sam, who was frowning, still
feeling mad as hell at John. "What?" Dean demanded. "It was good enough for
James T. Kirk, it's good enough for us. Maybe you'll grow up to be a starship
captain, Sam."
Sam sighed, trying not to blush, as he always did when Dean turned the full
force of his attention on Sam. Dean seemed to have this idea that Sam was smart
and had real promise, could do things with his life that Dean had never dared
to dream about. Dean was proud of Sam's talents, his academic success, his
increasingly obvious athleticism. Dean had even gotten used to the psychic
stuff, boasted to John about their "human EMF reader." Sam had made himself
very useful in the past couple of years on cases, reading witnesses's minds,
helping them get to the heart of a case in half the time.
Sam sensed that it bothered John that Sam could read his mind, when he thought
about it, but John rarely said anything. And for the most part, Sam was so
careful to avoid John's thoughts, trying to respect his privacy, that it
surprised him when John referred to it, expected Sam to know what he was
planning ahead of time. And no matter how Sam assured John that he didn't pry
into John's mind, he could tell it made John uneasy to think that he could. Sam
suspected the mind-reading was part of John's reason for leaving, but there was
no way in hell he would tell that to Dean.
*//*
Life without John Winchester was...different. The house John had left them in
had belonged to an old hunter who had left it to Bill Harvelle when he died.
Bill had originally planned to raise his own family there, but his wife had
nixed that plan in favor of opening a business in Nebraska, and there was no
arguing with Ellen Harvelle when she set her mind to something. So the largely
ramshackle old place had been mostly abandoned, stocked with survivalist gear
and left for hunters to use as a safe-house.
Dean enrolled Sam in school as a high-school sophomore, got himself a job at
the local Quik-Lube, and found a girl-friend, all in the space of a week. Once
he put his mind to it, Dean was good at ‘settling down,’ or at least that's the
way it looked from Sam's point of view. On the inside, Dean was obviously in
denial. He seemed angry all the time, slamming plates around when he prepared
meals, slamming the washing machine and dryer doors shut when he did laundry.
He was often gone when Sam came home from school, although there was always a
note, mostly cryptic, just a scrawl to let Sam know he was, "Out with Tracy.
Don't wait up. D."
Sam tried out for soccer that fall, made the team and played hard. He tried out
for the school play in the winter, since he was too short for basketball; he
got cast and stayed after school for practices every day. During school
vacations, while Dean was at work or with Tracy (or Suzie or Stacie or Erin),
Sam wrote stories, poems, book and theatre reviews, hung out at the local
newspaper until somebody took pity on him and gave him a part-time job as a
copy boy.
Sam didn't let on how badly he missed Dean, missed the closeness they'd had
before, when Dean was confident enough of his dad's love to give some to Sam.
He didn't let on how much it hurt, watching Dean going out with girls,
sometimes staying out all night, coming home stinking of perfume and alcohol
and sex, barely glancing at Sam as he climbed the stairs to his own room and
slammed the door. On Dean's twentieth birthday, when Sam bought a cake mix and
baked a lumpy, lopsided cake and left it on the table for Dean with a big
"Happy Birthday!" card next to it, Sam didn't even cry when he came downstairs
the next morning to find it still on the table where he left it, Dean still
out, possibly "celebrating" without him.
Late that spring, just over nine months after he left, John Winchester showed
up on their doorstep.
"Got a case," he told Sam. "Need you boys to come along, give me some back-up."
Of course, Dean was out, and getting ahold of him wasn't easy, so that by the
time he finally staggered home late that night, drunk and covered in lipstick,
John wasn't exactly happy to see him.
"You were supposed to be training, not partying," John scolded angrily. "I need
you boys sharp, ready to step in when there's a job to do."
"Yes, sir," Dean tried to pull himself together, tried to look like he hadn't
been out all night screwing around, and Sam almost felt sorry for him, standing
there swaying on his feet, fighting back tears at the sight of the father he
hadn't seen for the good part of a year.
"Go on," John waved a hand at him, shaking his head. "Go take a shower. Get
some rest. We head out in the morning."
Dean nodded, turned to obey his dad's order, stumbled and almost fell on the
stairs, and Sam was right there, instinct just kicking in, ducking under Dean's
arm so the older boy could lean on him, let Sam help him up the stairs.
"He's back," Dean muttered as they reached Dean's bedroom door and Sam opened
it, pulled the other boy inside, shut it behind them. "He came back."
"Yeah," Sam agreed, trying to dampen his annoyance as he dumped Dean on the bed
and pulled his legs up so Sam could remove his boots for him.
"He needs my help," Dean slurred, watching Sam with a look of wonder in his
eyes that nearly broke Sam's heart. "Wants us to help him with a case."
"That's what it looks like," Sam agreed, pulling the unlaced boots off Dean's
feet and reaching down to pull the blanket up, meaning to cover Dean and leave
him to sleep it off.
But Dean grabbed Sam's wrists as Sam started to pull away, and when Sam raised
his eyes questioningly, Dean was looking at him with such naked hope, such
relief, that all Sam could do was huff out a breath and shake his head.
"Sam, I'm all he has," Dean choked out, his eyes filling with tears, making him
seem even more desperate and vulnerable. "He needs me."
Sam didn't have the heart to tell Dean that John Winchester didn't need
anybody, least of all the son he had dumped unceremoniously nine months before.
Sam couldn't say what he knew to be true, that John was back only temporarily
because he'd burned so many bridges with so many other hunters that Dean was
his last resort when he needed back-up, not the first person he thought of. Sam
couldn't stand it, watching Dean get his hopes up, believing his dad had come
back for him, would finally make good on his promise to make Dean his partner.
Dean had never felt adequate, first because he'd been too young and too small,
and later because he just couldn't measure up to his dad's expectations, no
matter how hard he tried. This was all painfully obvious to Sam, and he didn't
need to read Dean's mind to see it.
It was hard enough reading John's mind, knowing John didn't need Dean at all,
was just using him because he could, because he didn't have anybody else and
this was a two-man job. He definitely didn't plan to stay. In fact, John had
already built a life away from Dean, had a woman and a little boy he pretended
to have a "normal" life with, people who knew nothing about his secret life as
a hunter. It turned Sam's stomach, knowing these things about John and feeling
guilty for not telling Dean. But he couldn't tell Dean. Sam felt sure it would
break him, and Dean had been barely holding on these past few months as it was,
had become such a shell of his former self Sam barely recognized him in the
self-destructive, reckless young man Dean had become since his dad left.
So Sam nodded, his eyes skittering away from Dean's, unable to look at the
blind faith there. Dean kept hold of Sam's wrists, though, and when Dean
coaxed, "Hey, Sam," in that quiet way that made Sam's whole body shiver with
need, he dared to look up, met Dean's look of hope with one of his own.
"I haven't been fair to you these past months, kid," Dean said, his voice still
slurred with drink. "It's supposed to be you and me against the world,
remember? And I kinda let that slide a little."
Sam felt his cheeks grow hot, suddenly hyper-aware of Dean's hands on his
wrists, of the way he was half kneeling over Dean's prone form, one foot still
on the floor.
"Gonna make it up to you, Sammy," Dean promised, his voice low, almost purring,
and Sam raised his eyes, hoping beyond hope that Dean meant what Sam wanted
more than anything in the world. Dean's look was fond, his eyes soft, and Sam's
gaze dropped to Dean's mouth without his control, imagining for about the
billionth time what it would feel like to suck on that plush bottom lip. "Gonna
drive up to Chicago for a Cubs game," Dean murmured, and Sam could hardly
understand the words because he was so fascinated by the movement of those
mesmerizing lips. "Maybe go see Ozzy."
Sam swallowed, breathing out slowly and licking his lips as he raised his eyes
to Dean's again, calculating the distance between their mouths, factoring in
Dean's diminished reflexes in his inebriated state, trying to decide whether he
had time to steal the kiss he'd been wanting for over two years now.
"What d'ya say, Sammy?" Dean's mouth was saying, still slurring, sleepy now,
eyes starting to droop shut. "Just you and me. Sound good?"
"Sounds good, Dean," Sam murmured quietly as Dean's eyes slid shut for good and
he started to snore almost immediately. "Sounds real good."
 
*//*
In the morning Dean was a new man. He was up ahead of Sam, ahead of John,
making coffee, scrambling eggs, packed duffel ready and waiting at the door.
Sam stood in the doorway of the kitchen, blinking in the early morning light,
running his hand through his hair, bare feet shuffling along the floor as he
took a seat at the kitchen table.
"Your dad up yet?" he asked as Dean set a plate of eggs and a steaming mug of
black coffee in front of him.
"He's doing a weapons check," Dean nodded, looking chipper and somehow happier
than Sam had seem him for some time. He'd showered, and his hair was still
damp, making it seem darker against his pale skin, making his freckles stand
out and his eyes seem bigger, brighter.
Dean was too beautiful to look at, Sam decided as he lowered his eyes to his
coffee. Especially this early in the morning.
"So Bobby's got a lead on another demon," Sam offered conversationally, and
Dean nodded, piling eggs onto another plate and sliding into the seat across
the table, dumping salt and pepper and catsup onto the eggs while Sam tried not
to flinch.
"Looks like," Dean agreed, shoveling a forkful of bloody-colored eggs into his
mouth, grinning as he noted the look of disgust on Sam's face. "Freak storms,
crop failures, all the omens." He opened his mouth so Sam could get a view of
the mess inside, and Sam cringed, pushed his own plate away.
"Yuck, Dean," Sam complained. "How am I supposed to eat with you doing that?"
Dean grinned wider and seemed so pleased with himself that it was hard for Sam
not to smile too. Being visibly gross was a coping mechanism for Dean; it was
such a contrast to his natural perfection that Dean seemed to do it on purpose,
to remind anyone watching (and everyone was always watching) that he wasn't
just a pretty face, that there was a person behind all that gorgeousness. It
always made Sam blush because it was yet more proof that Dean understood his
effect on Sam, was dealing with it by momentarily shattering the illusion,
daring Sam to crush on this goofy guy who chewed his food with his mouth open.
But of course Sam was so far gone down that road that he was pretty sure it
wouldn't matter if Dean's pores started oozing black goo and his mouth became a
permanent garbage disposal. Being in love with Dean was apparently something
Sam didn't have much say over; it seemed to be something that was a permanent
state of being for Sam, and no amount of revolting displays of hideousness was
going to undermine that.
*//*
Bobby Singer had another demon trapped in his basement.
This time the demon was possessing a deputy from the Sheriff's department who
had come to Bobby's house to kill him, or maybe possess him, Bobby wasn't sure
which. Bobby had managed to lure the demon downstairs, into his trap, then
subdue it with holy water while he called John Winchester, who immediately
dropped everything to head back to Sioux Falls, stopping overnight only long
enough to collect his son and almost-sixteen-year-old Sam.
"You've grown," Bobby noted when he greeted them at the door. He was staring at
Sam warily, which he explained as soon as John and the two boys entered the
house.
"The thing in my basement is asking for you, Sam," Bobby said. "It came here
thinking I would know where to find you."
Cold terror rushed through Sam's system like ice water; he could read Bobby's
consternation, his memories of the demon coming to his door, asking if he knew
where he could find Sam, Bobby's immediate suspicion prompting him to answer in
the affirmative, that Sam was downstairs in the basement, studying. Sam saw the
moment the demon realized he'd been tricked, could see the rage and frustration
in the deputy's face, his eyes turning coal black.
John was staring darkly at Sam, his earliest suspicions about the boy
rekindled, and Sam could read anger there too at the thought that maybe Sam had
been tricking them all this time, that John had made a bad call letting Sam
join the Winchesters three years ago.
Then Sam felt Dean move up behind him, almost pressing his chest against Sam's
back, so that Sam could feel his heat, could feel his breath on the back of
Sam's neck. It struck Sam that he had grown almost as tall as Dean over this
past year, and now Dean no longer towered over him, no longer even had that
head-and-shoulders advantage that made Sam feel so safe and cared-for. Instead,
Dean's larger size was now evident more as bulk than height; Dean was a solid
wall of hard, lean muscle, whereas Sam's body still retained the lithe, coltish
promise of a teenager who hadn't yet reached his full height, and wasn't likely
to do so for awhile yet.
"What does it want with Sam?" Dean asked, his voice going a step lower,
growling protectively, sending shivers up Sam's spine.
"It says it has a message for him," Bobby answered, equal parts spooked and
worried. "It'll only deliver the message in person. Wants to be sure Sam's
really still alive. Won't take my word for it."
"So what are we waiting for?" Sam heard his own voice break, doing that shaky
adolescent thing that it did sometimes when he was stressed, and he snapped his
mouth shut, clenching his fists and trying to convey a toughness and bravado he
didn't feel. He took a step forward, turned to look Dean in the eye, daring him
to stop the younger boy. "Let's find out what it wants."
The thing was tied to a chair positioned carefully dead center over a painted
sigil, ‘a devil's trap,’ Bobby explained to the boys, for whom this was a first
demon encounter. The things were rare, Sam knew. He also knew Bobby's wife had
been possessed by one, making Bobby a special kind of expert on demons.
The demon had its head down, its eyes closed, and Sam could see in Bobby's
memories that Bobby had already been torturing it with holy water, trying to
get it to answer his questions. The four hunters stood in a group just outside
the devil's trap, Dean a step ahead of Sam, positioning himself between Sam and
the demon, John and Bobby on his other side.
"We get what we need from it, then we exorcise it," John growled, taking
command of the situation. "And don't forget: demons lie. Whatever it says, keep
that in mind. Are we clear?"
Sam and Dean exchanged glances, then nodded, and Sam took a deep breath.
"Okay, here goes nothin'," Bobby grumbled, raising his vial of holy water.
The moment the water hit the demon, its body jerked. Steam rolled off wet
sizzling skin and an inhuman moaning growl rose out of the demon's throat. It
threw its head back, eyes squeezed shut, neck muscles strained, teeth clenched,
and it pulled violently on its bindings. Sam had the impression of great
strength, over and above what an average human should have. He also had the
impression of fear, confusion, memories of killing a uniformed partner, someone
cared for and mourned, something that had happened recently...
"He's alive in there," the words punched out of Sam with a shocked breath.
"There's a person in there."
Bobby nodded grimly. "Deputy Mansfield. He's an old friend. Good man."
"We...we have to save him," Sam protested. "He's suffering."
"We're gonna do what we can, son," John agreed. "But first, we need the demon
possessing him to give us some answers."
Sam wanted to protest, "To hell with the demon, there's a man in there. We have
to help him." But he felt Dean's hand close around his wrist, steadying him,
and he hesitated.
Then the demon opened its eyes and stared straight at him, and Sam froze, sheer
terror replacing every other emotion. The demon's eyes were solid black and
shiny like obsidian, but Sam could feel it staring at him, could feel its
twisted rage focused purely on Sam.
"We've been looking for you, Sam Winchester," the demon snarled, its voice
hoarse, wrecked, like it had been screaming for hours. "You've been a hard one
to find."
"'We'," John repeated. "Who's 'we'? Why have you been looking for Sam?"
The demon's lips turned into a grin. Its teeth were streaked with blood, like
it had been biting its tongue or the inside of its mouth. It turned its head
just enough so that Sam could feel its focus shifting to John.
"And here's Daddy," it snarled, insidiously. It ran its tongue over its teeth
slowly, licking the blood there. "We should have known you'd find him. You been
sampling the goods, Johnny? Having a little taste of this tender veal? Huh?
Hard to resist, isn't he? All that innocence and sweetness. No wonder you had
to hit the road, get away, with this succulent treat right under your nose.
Must've taken some real willpower to resist the temptation to hit that, eh,
John-boy?"
"You're sick." It was Dean, stepping forward, fists clenched, shaking with rage
of his own, spitting and shaking and looking for all the world like he meant to
throw himself at the demon and choke the throat that produced the foul words,
make it take them all back. Sam grabbed his arm at the last minute, and John
put an arm out in front of both boys, a fence to keep them from getting too
close.
"Dean," the demon hissed, its attention riveted to John's son now. "Ever the
problem child. Always getting in the way of Daddy's plans. But you can't stay
away, can you? You just won't stay gone. Why don't you tell him, Dean? Why
don't you tell Sam how you really feel about him? Huh? Afraid he might leave
you? Afraid he might see what a perverted, sick, twisted bastard you really are
and just leave?"
"All right, that's enough!" John bellowed, shooting a warning glance at Dean,
whose face was a mask of shock, all color drained from it so his freckles stood
out in stark relief and his eyes seemed huge. "Now you listen to me, you sick
fuck. Bobby said you had a message for Sam. So say what you have to say so we
can send your evil ass right back to hell, where you belong."
"Don't you wanna know what happened to your wife and baby, John?" the demon
taunted, turning its black eyes toward John again. "Don't you care about why we
gutted and roasted pretty little Mary that night? Aren't you just dying to know
the truth?"
John stiffened, and his jaw set dangerously. Sam could hear the agony in his
mind as he relived the memories of that night, as he grasped the demon's words,
confusion and desperation battling his former resolve.
"What do you know about that, you son-of-a-bitch?" John growled, his voice low
and almost as hoarse as the demon's.
"Only what I've heard," the demon answered, grinning wider. "Only enough to
know you're playing your part perfectly, Johnny. Playing right into our
father's hands. You keep on this path, everything's gonna work out exactly the
way it's supposed to. And it'll be all your fault, John-boy. It'll be all
because of you and your beautiful, perfect little family."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" John demanded furiously. "What the
fuck are you talking about?"
"Oh, you'll find out soon enough," the demon taunted. "Won't be long now."
The demon turned its head so that its black eyes were trained on Sam again. Sam
felt the fear and confusion of the human inside, but the demon's mind itself
was nothing but chaos, nothing Sam could read or hear clearly, just the
sensation of evil and malicious intent.
"Now we know where to find you, Sammy," the demon said. "We won't lose you
again, I can promise you that."
Then the demon threw its head back, opened its mouth, and roiling black smoke
poured out, filling the area inside the devil's trap, shivering and expanding
as if it were fighting to get out, shooting flickers of flame like lightning
against the edges of the trap. The four hunters shrank back instinctively when
the demon smoke poured forth, and Sam could hear moaning and distant screaming,
as if the demon carried a part of hell with it wherever it went. A sensation of
roaring fire and the smell of sulfur filled Sam's head, threatening to
overwhelm him, and he grabbed onto Dean without even thinking about it,
unsurprised to find Dean already clutching his arm.
When the demon was gone, the human sat slumped and unconscious in his chair,
and it took a minute for the hunters to adjust to the sudden silence, the
sudden emptiness in the room after such a display of power. Bobby took action
first, stepping into the devil's trap to check for a pulse, muttering, "He's
still alive," as he worked quickly to loosen the cords binding the now un-
possessed human.
With Sam's help, Bobby lifted the unconscious man out of the chair and laid him
gently on the floor, checking his body for injuries as John went upstairs to
put in the anonymous call to 911.
"Roger and I go way back," Bobby said. "He was the first on the scene after
your family died that day, Sam. The demon must've known that, must've possessed
him to find out what happened to you." He shook his head. "This is big, Sam.
Demons don't mess around. They'll be back."
Sam was already shivering, fighting the tears smarting in his eyes. He shook
his head, looking down at the man on the floor, helplessness and fear
threatening to overwhelm him again.
"I don't understand," he stammered. "Why me? What does it want with me?"
"Your crazy psychic mojo, maybe?" Bobby suggested. "Maybe it wants to possess
you so it can use that power somehow? I don't know." Bobby put his hand into
his vest pocket, pulled out a necklace with a charm hanging on it, handed it to
Sam. "Here. Put this on."
Sam took the charm, saw that it was a little brass amulet in the shape of a
horned bull's head, or possibly a human face wearing a horned helmet, hanging
on a leather thong. It felt solid and cool in his hand, and it thrummed with
power.
"What is it?" he asked as he slipped it on over his head, felt a strange sense
of calm that was almost courage flow through him.
"It's a protection amulet," Bobby answered. "Figuring you might need it." He
glanced over at Dean, still standing off to one side, unusually quiet and
moody. "Plus, you've got Dean," Bobby went on. "Ain't that right, boy?"
Dean's head whipped up like he'd been slapped, and he blinked a couple of times
as if to clear it. He frowned at Bobby for a moment before letting his gaze
flick to Sam, then quickly away again, as if he couldn't quite bring himself to
look at the other boy.
"Hell yeah, that's right," he muttered in a shadow of his usual bravado.
"You've got me."
But he didn't look at Sam when he said it, just pursed his lips and shoved his
hands into the pockets of his jeans, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot,
and Sam couldn't help the flush of shame that crept into his cheeks. He felt
exposed, laid bare, confirmed in his own self-hatred and despair. The demon had
said "they" had been looking for him, and now "they" had found him and weren't
gonna lose him again. Sam felt his heart sinking, felt the horror of the truth
creeping into his very bones. That Sam had the attention of a demon was proof
enough that there was something wrong with him, that all that talk by George
and Carl about how "special" he was, how he could help people, was a lie to
keep him in line, to get him to cooperate so that "they" could get him to do
what they wanted. And Sam didn't need to know what it was that "they" wanted to
know that it was bad, that he was bad. He was a freak, devil's spawn, just as
those taunting kids had always said. Missouri Moseley was wrong. His soul
wasn't pure. There was something that drew evil to him, and that couldn't be
good.
And Dean knew it.
***** Chapter 4 *****
Later, after dropping Deputy Mansfield at the emergency room of Sioux Falls
General Hospital, John and Bobby took off in John's monster truck to find a
bar, leaving Sam and Dean to pour over the books in Bobby's extensive library,
looking up demon possessions and researching ways to recognize demon activity.
"It says here demons rarely leave their hosts voluntarily," Sam read out loud
an hour later, his determination to learn everything he could about this new
evil haunting his life, making Dean hate him, taking over every other thought.
"Usually they cling to their hosts like parasites, feeding off their energy and
memories to keep themselves strong." Sam glanced up at Dean, who was flopped on
the couch with a beer in one hand, a car magazine in the other. "Usually they
have to be exorcised, which sends them back to hell."
"My dad can do that," Dean commented, keeping his eyes on the magazine. "So can
Bobby."
"Yeah, but I mean, the fact that the demon left voluntarily? Presumably to go
back to hell of its own accord? That's– That's pretty unusual behavior. They
hate being in hell, says here. They escape it every chance they get."
"I don't know, Sammy, maybe it was missing its girlfriend," Dean snarked, and
Sam felt the flush rising in his cheeks.
"Maybe it had a message to deliver," Sam suggested miserably. "Maybe something
called it back to hell so it could deliver its message."
Dean slammed the magazine down on the coffee table and stood up. "Okay, that's
it," he pounded the beer down and reached into his pocket for his keys. "You
know what? We're leaving."
"What?" Sam looked up, surprised. "But your dad said–"
"Yeah, well, I'm not sitting around here another minute," Dean had the keys
out, glanced at Sam even though it still felt like Dean wouldn't really look at
him. "It smells like rotten eggs in here, and I need to get out. You comin'?"
In the car they rode in silence, Sam sneaking quick glances at Dean's profile
every couple of minutes, Dean keeping his eyes straight ahead, on the road, his
jaw working as if he were grinding his teeth, and Sam knew that look. Dean had
something on his mind, and he was determined to deal with it, the same way he
dealt with any challenge. Straight on, without flinching, just getting the job
done.
Sam had the wild thought that Dean was planning to dump him, was working up to
telling him it was over between them before it had even started. Sam knew that
was insane, that Dean couldn't possibly think of their relationship that way,
but it made Sam's palms sweat and his heart pound and his breath speed up till
he was almost hyperventilating by the time they pulled up to the lake. Dean
found a quiet place to park where they had a view of the water and turned off
the engine, then sat back, still staring straight out through the windshield,
silent and still except for the bobbing of his adam's apple as he swallowed.
"This is where I taught you to swim," Dean said finally, a small smile playing
at the edges of his mouth.
"Yeah," Sam breathed out, realizing he had been holding his breath for awhile
now.
"You were so little," Dean shook his head. "Like a little lost puppy who needed
a friend."
Sam flushed at the memory, at the idea of Dean seeing him so small and helpless
like that. It was such a contrast to how Sam wanted Dean to feel about him, it
made him want to cry.
"When I pulled your bacon out of the fire that day, it was like I'd found my
purpose in life," Dean went on, oblivious to Sam's distress, lost in his own
memories. "You needed me, and I felt like I could take care of you, protect
you, maybe take all the bad things that had happened to you and make it better.
You know, like the song."
Dean smiled at his own joke, glancing at Sam for the first time since they got
into the car at Bobby's. Sam frowned, raising his eyebrows in confusion, and
Dean grinned wider. "You know, 'Take a sad song and make it better?' Dude,
seriously? You don't know that song?"
Sam shook his head a little, shame making his cheeks flush hotter, and Dean
shook his head, looked away at the lake again. "Man, that's pathetic," he
mumbled. He took a deep breath. "Well, anyway, now you're bigger. You're
growing up, and you're smart and talented and kind of amazing, really. You
don't really need me anymore. And if you'd rather just strike out on your own
or whatever, I don't want to hold you back, that's all I'm saying."
Sam stared, more flustered than he could admit by the turn in the conversation.
"Dean, you heard what that demon said back there," Sam protested, and Dean
flinched, positively blanched. "Bobby heard it too. That thing was looking for
me. I guess it's been looking for awhile. I'd probably already be a goner if it
wasn't for you. Of course I need you, Dean, maybe more than ever now. I don't
understand any of this, but I know I need to get to the bottom of it, I need to
figure it out. And I need your help. I need you to have my back."
Sam drew in a breath, steeled himself, then continued. "But I totally
understand if you don't want me around anymore," he went on, forcing the words
out despite the thickness in his throat, the tears fighting to surface behind
his eyes. "Maybe Missouri was wrong about me. Maybe I'm some kind of demon-
spawn or something. Maybe that's where my abilities come from, and I'm just
gonna turn dark-side one day and start destroying the world or something. Maybe
I'm poisonous. Evil. Maybe it's just a matter of time before I turn into a
monster."
Dean had started shaking his head four sentences ago, and by the time Sam
stopped talking he was muttering, "No, no, no. No way," under his breath, had a
hand up as if he meant to slap Sam or grab hold of him or put his hand over
Sam's mouth to get him to stop. "No, you listen to me," he gestured firmly,
right in front of Sam's face, turning on the bench to face Sam with a look that
was stern and intense and took Sam's breath away. "You are not evil, okay?
There's not an evil bone in your body. I know that, with everything I've got.
You are not evil. Jesus, Sam, if anybody's evil here, it's me, okay? Thinking
about you the way I do, the way I shouldn't, the way that demon said. That's
evil, Sam. Taking advantage of an innocent kid who depends on me, that's evil.
That's the twisted, sick thing about all this. Jesus."
Dean leaned back, scrubbing a hand over his face, his handsome features flushed
and contorted with his confession, with the sudden realization that he had put
the words out there, in his rush to correct Sam, without thinking about what he
was saying. Sam's mouth had fallen open; he could feel the air rushing in as he
drew a sharp breath, almost a gasp, and stared at Dean, who was squirming on
the bench like he wanted to climb out of his own skin, a wild look in his eyes
that Sam recognized as sheer panic. Dean rubbed the back of his neck, his eyes
flicking back and forth, glanced at Sam and flinched.
"Fuck," Dean breathed. "Gonna take a walk."
He was out of the car and heading toward the lake before Sam could fully
recover, before his brain could fully process what he'd just heard. He watched
Dean's back as he walked purposefully toward the shore, watched his sure-
footed, bow-legged stride, waited until Dean pulled off his over-shirt, then
started on his tee-shirt, before Sam got out of the car to follow. It was a
warm June day, and although Sam knew the water would be freezing, the air was
definitely warm enough for what Dean obviously had in mind. Dean had already
pulled off his boots and socks and was unzipping his jeans when Sam moved up
beside him, silently removing his own shirts, toeing off his sneakers, hopping
on one foot to pull off his socks.
Dean glanced at him as he pushed down his jeans, exposing his pale legs and
black boxer-briefs. Sam's hands shook as he pushed his own jeans down, grateful
that at least this time he wasn't wearing tighty-whities, just a pair of Dean's
boxers that had gotten a little too small for him. Before Sam was free of his
jeans Dean took off at a dead run across the sandy beach and onto the dock,
jackknifing into a perfect dive as soon as he got to the end, Sam on his heels.
Sam's dive was a little sloppier, but he'd been practicing over the years in
motel pools, had even tried out for the swim team freshman year, so he knew he
looked better than he had when he was twelve.
The water was cold, as Sam knew it would be, but the experience of diving into
it was nothing like that first time almost four years ago. This time there was
no confusion, no blending of realities as the dark water closed around him, and
when he surfaced it was controlled and instinctive at the same time. Dean had
come up a few feet away, spitting water and swiping a hand over his face to
clear his vision. When he saw Sam bobbing in the water, Dean's face broke into
a shit-eating grin so genuine it made Sam's chest ache, and Sam couldn't help
grinning back at him, giving into the sheer joy of doing something – anything –
with Dean again.
And when Dean took off across the lake, taking long, powerful strokes through
the water, Sam followed easily, matching the older boy stroke for stroke until
they were side by side in an undeclared race for the bank on the other side.
Sam's arms were sore and his lungs were aching by the time his feet touched the
muddy bottom of the opposite shore. He scrambled up the beach, Dean right
beside him, gasping with laughter and trying to push Sam out of the way, and
they collapsed side by side, panting with exertion and gulping in lungfuls of
air. They rolled onto their backs in the sand, arms barely brushing, and as
soon as Sam caught his breath he was aware of the tingling of his skin where
Dean's arm touched his. Dean didn't move, though, just lay still as his
breathing evened out, staring up at the sky, and Sam stayed as still as he
could after getting his breath back, soaking in the afternoon sun and Dean's
closeness, wishing he could stop time right here, right now, and live here
forever, with Dean warm and content beside him. When he finally felt Dean move
beside him Sam grabbed his hand, the gesture so automatic he didn't have time
to think about how needy and desperate it must seem. Dean went still again,
letting Sam hold his hand, carefully lacing their fingers together.
"Sam," Dean's deep voice breathed softly beside him, and it sounded like a
warning, almost like a plea, so Sam pulled Dean's hand up to his mouth and
kissed it, letting his lips linger on the warm, smooth skin. Dean allowed it
for a few seconds, then gently pulled away, murmuring, "Okay, Sam. Okay."
Sam turned his head slowly, watching as Dean disentangled their fingers, lay
his hand flat on his own chest. Dean's face was still wet, his lashes dripping
water, his lips parted and damp, his cheeks flushed with exertion. Sam watched
as Dean slowly raised his eyes to Sam's, blinked but held his gaze, green eyes
shining and huge.
"All my life, Dean," Sam whispered, staring straight into those beautiful eyes,
willing Dean to get it. "For as long as I can remember. Always. I always wanted
this with you."
For a moment, Dean's eyes softened; he seemed entranced, hypnotized, and Sam
wondered if he could affect Dean psychically after all. Then he blinked,
glanced down at Sam's mouth, then turned his head away quickly, as if he was
dismissing an urge that Sam understood only too well.
"No, Sam," he said quietly. "You're too young. It's wrong. You look up to me.
You trust me to look after you. And after all you've been through, all those
bastards abusing you..."
"Nobody ever," Sam breathed, struggling with his own sudden need to reassure
Dean, to force him to see how wrong he was. "Nobody ever did that, Dean, I
swear. I'm okay. You're the first."
Dean looked sharply at him then, considering. "That the truth?" he demanded as
he sat up, frowning down at Sam. "Nobody ever bad-touched you? All those foster
homes and never once?"
Sam screwed up his face with the effort to recall those horrible years, years
when he escaped into his dreams of Dean every chance he got to avoid the misery
of his real life, the taunting, bullying children, the harried, unhappy foster-
parents who seemed to care mostly for the money he made them.
"Nope," Sam shook his head. "Never. I was too much of a freak, I guess. I
scared them."
Dean's expression changed from horrified fascination to fond admiration in the
course of a couple of seconds.
"Of course you did," he murmured approvingly. "Read a couple of their pervy
thoughts, kicked their trailer-trash asses. That's my boy."
"Am I?" Sam felt his heart surge with hope, pushing himself up on his elbows.
"Am I your boy?"
Dean rolled his eyes, reached over and shoved Sam so he fell onto his side,
catching himself on one hand. "'Course you are, Sammy, what'd'ya think? Duh,
Nerd-brain. Your ass is mine. Always will be, ya doofus. Now come on. Race ya
back across."
"No way!" Sam yelled as he leapt to his feet, chasing Dean into the water again
for their race back across the lake, swimming so hard he pulled a muscle in his
shoulder. Back where they'd started, they pulled their jeans on, stealing
grinning glances at each other, bumping shoulders as they raced back to the
Impala side by side, laughing and gasping for breath as they collapsed into the
car, wet clothes sticking to the vinyl bench.
"I win," Dean announced, rolling down the window to let some air into the
stuffy passenger cabin.
"Like hell you do," Sam protested. "I matched you stroke for stroke, dude.
Totally a tie."
Dean shook his head, still grinning ear to ear as he reached under the seat to
retrieve his keys. Sam wasn't quite sure where he got the courage, but it
suddenly felt absolutely necessary to get Dean to kiss him, right then and
there, before another moment passed, before Dean started the car and drove them
back to Bobby's where they could pretend all of this had never happened. But
Sam had never kissed anyone before; he'd only been thinking about kissing Dean
for the past three or four years, and nobody else could have possibly fit the
bill. So when Sam reached for Dean's face and leaned in, it was so awkward that
Dean elbowed him in the gut, started to protest loudly before he looked up and
realized that Sam's face was right there, lips parted, eyes closed because he
read in a book he should do that when he kissed someone.
"Oh for God's sake, Sammy," Dean huffed. His breath smelled vaguely of onions,
this close, and Sam leaned closer, managed to smash his nose into Dean's cheek
and plant a kiss on the edge of Dean's mouth before Dean took charge of the
situation.
"Not that way, you idiot," he chastised, and Sam's eyes fluttered open as he
felt Dean's hand carding through the hair on the back of his neck, the other
sliding along his jaw. "Hold still," Dean commanded, and Sam had a close-up
glimpse of Dean's face, his eyes closed, long lashes sweeping his freckled
cheek as he angled in, lining their mouths up so their noses wouldn't mash
together, and touched his lips to Sam's.
Dean's lips were soft, softer than Sam had imagined. The kiss wasn't just one
little peck and done, either. It was a soft press, then a release, then another
soft press, just to Sam's upper lip this time, then another one to his lower
lip. Sam sat perfectly still, not sure what he should do but afraid to move for
fear it would stop. His eyes were still open, and watching Dean's face this
close sent a shock to his groin more intense even than the feel of his lips.
He's kissing me, he's really fucking kissing me, goddamn it, Sam's brain
screamed as his dick filled harder than it ever had before and he was suddenly
ready for anything. Everything. Whatever he could get. Beyond ready. In fact,
Sam had been more than ready for so long he couldn't remember a time before he
was an aching, hungry, desperate mess for Dean.
It was over too soon. In fact, Sam was pretty sure any time before the end of
the world would be too soon, but when Dean's tongue lightly caressed Sam's
lower lip just before he leaned back and released his lips, Sam was certain it
was about a million years too soon.
Sam's body followed Dean's as he leaned back, Sam's lips chasing Dean's,
needing to maintain the contact. But Dean had his hand against Sam's chest and
was pushing him firmly back, shaking his head as he slid his other hand along
the back of the bench so he could brace himself.
"No, Sam," Dean warned, his voice low and rough, like he'd been running and
hadn't quite caught his breath. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were so
bright they almost seemed iridescent. "That's enough. We gotta get back to
Bobby's."
Sam nodded, forcing himself to be content with the kiss, their first kiss, but
now Sam was pretty confident it wouldn't be their last.
"You ever done that before?" Dean asked as he searched Sam's face, looking for
something, although Sam couldn't imagine what it could be.
Sam shook his head, and Dean nodded, a smug smile turning up the edges of his
mouth as he reached for the ignition, turned the key.
"That's what I thought," Dean said as the engine roared to life.
As he maneuvered the Impala out of the parking area and back to the main road,
Sam watched Dean's profile, looking away only when Dean caught him staring and
called him on it.
"Dude, I know I'm hot," he said with his trademark cocky grin. "But you can
stow the creepy stalker shit, y'hear me? It's just me, Sam. Same as it's always
been."
And Sam didn't even try to argue, just lowered his eyes, blushing furiously. He
didn't bother reminding Dean that for Sam, it had indeed always been this way.
Sam made a mental note to ask Dean when he first realized his own feelings for
Sam were more than just friendly, but he was fairly sure Dean wouldn't answer
that particular question right now, might be too embarrassed by the answer. So
he tried to be content with sliding a little closer on the bench, splaying his
fingers on the vinyl so that he was just touching Dean's leg, keeping the
contact until they pulled into Bobby's salvage yard and a brand new chapter of
Sam's life.
*//*
In the days and weeks that followed, Sam went through the motions of
researching demons and demon activity, helping John and Dean hunt down another
werewolf, and teaching himself Latin and ancient Greek, since most of the texts
containing the lore they needed were written in those languages. Being back on
the road with John was both exciting and exhausting; although they couldn't
come up with any more signs of demon activity, there were plenty of other
supernatural creatures that needed hunting, and John had them moving all over
the country that summer, helping him put down a half-dozen evil creatures
before school started. When they collapsed into their motel room each night to
sleep, shower, and patch each other up, Sam should have been too exhausted to
keep a coherent thought in his head.
But the truth was, all Sam thought about that summer, all he really cared
about, was Dean. He was so consumed with lust that it was sometimes impossible
to keep his head in the game. Now that he knew how Dean felt about him, it was
like a switch that had long been out of commission had suddenly been flipped
on, and Sam was completely and utterly lost. It had been bad enough before,
when he was overwhelmed by endless fantasies of touching, kissing, and doing
things with Dean that Sam had no words for. But now, knowing Dean wanted him
too, living day-to-day beside the boy of his dreams who had become the man who
held his heart in his hands, it was almost unbearable. Because Dean insisted
they do this the right way, the legal way, the morally correct way, so of
course Sam had to wait, which was something he had never been good at, not when
he really wanted something.
And Sam really, really wanted Dean.
"Legal age in Minnesota is sixteen, Dean," Sam whined the first time he
demanded what Dean was refusing to give in to. "Even younger if the partner is
only four years older."
"I'm four years and seven months older than you, Sam," Dean reminded him, "and
you won't be sixteen for three more weeks."
"Fuck," Sam slammed his hands through his hair in frustration. "Since when do
you care so much about the law, anyway? We live our lives outside the law. How
can you be so randomly law-abiding about this?"
Dean sighed and pushed Sam away, for the fifth time that week, refusing to even
so much as kiss him.
"No sense starting what we can't finish," Dean said, and Sam could've screamed.
"Sixteen is the age of consent in this state, Dean," Sam reminded him, a week
after that, when John was out drinking and Sam had made a move on Dean in the
motel, had just grabbed him and kissed him up against the wall. Dean allowed it
for a minute or two before gently disentangling Sam's hands from the front of
his shirt and pushing him away, holding him at arm’s length firmly.
"Sixteen," Dean huffed. "Right. And I'm almost twenty-one. I should know
better."
"Dean, I couldn't be more consenting if I was one of those dashboard bobblehead
dogs," Sam protested, and Dean took that in, thought about that for a minute.
"I am so getting one of those," he muttered, pushing past Sam and into the
bathroom.
On July nineteenth, Sam woke up early, tingling with anticipation.
Nix that. On July eighteenth, Sam never went to sleep. He lay tossing and
turning in the little twin bed, which was getting smaller and smaller he could
swear, trying not to jerk himself off before midnight. He listened to Dean's
deep breaths in the other bed, tried to ignore the glowing face of the clock on
the bedside table between them, finally kicking off the sheet and palming
himself through his boxers because it was hot and the air-conditioning didn't
work very well and he was a sweaty, desperate mess, as usual. When the clock
read 11:55 Sam's heart started to pound and he broke out in a fresh sweat,
taking slow, deep breaths in an effort to keep himself from hyperventilating.
In an effort to keep his mind off the ticking clock, Sam thought back over the
horror of their recent hunt. John had dumped them in this roach-infested
Nebraska motel two days before, giving Dean time to recover from a particularly
nasty clawing by a katshituashku, a bear-like creature that had eaten six
people in three states. Dean had complained to no end about being forced to lay
up for a few days while John took off after another lead, but Sam was secretly
relieved to finally have Dean all to himself, even if it meant putting up with
a continual diatribe of grumpiness.
"Goddamn cat-shit thing did a number on me, Sammy," Dean complained when Sam
knelt next to him after stabbing the creature with an obsidian knife, the only
thing that killed this particular creature, according to Cree legend. Sam
didn't bother correcting Dean's pronunciation of the monster as he examined the
wound, which had torn several long strips of skin off of Dean's thigh and
shredded his jeans above the knee. Sam took his shirt off to wrap the leg and
staunch the bleeding, but he had to carry Dean out of the woods bridal-style,
much to Dean's humiliation and John's admiration.
"You're really growing, Sammy," John commented as they maneuvered Dean into the
backseat of the Impala. "You're going to be taller than I am one of these
days."
John already sensed the change in the relationship between the boys, and
although he had mixed feelings about homosexuality in general – he'd seen too
much bullying of gays and effeminate men in the marines to wish that kind of
attention on his son – he felt grateful for yet another testament of Sam's
devotion to Dean, yet another layer of the bond between the boys. Sam read
John's renewed interest in Sam as it seemed to be intended, like he was a
potential son-in-law being tested and interviewed for the job of life-time
partner to John's son, and Sam decided he was perfectly okay with that. In
fact, it felt kinda like being welcomed into the family all over again, in an
oddly more legitimate way than just in the role of substitute little brother.
But the whole waiting thing was a serious drag. Sam supposed he had the demon
to blame (or thank? how crazy was that?) for laying bare all the feelings that
Dean had clearly been bottling inside for some time. Sam wondered if Dean would
ever have revealed his feelings to Sam if not for the stark way they were laid
out that day, in front of Sam, no less. Maybe Dean had told himself he would
wait until Sam was at least sixteen, but Sam couldn't even be sure of that. He
wondered if Dean had buried what he felt to be inappropriate feelings so deep
he might never had admitted them. It made Sam's heart ache to think he might
never have known, could have gone on for years thinking Dean didn't care about
him like that, tearing himself apart inside over feelings he couldn't control
and which he believed to be tragically unrequited.
In fact, if Sam really thought about it (and Sam did too much thinking, he knew
that was one of his greatest flaws), he wondered if it might have been a little
too easy, the way the demon just happened to be there at the right time and
place to make Dean face his desire for Sam. "Love" was too strong a word;
although Sam knew he loved Dean with all his heart and soul, he wasn't ready to
entertain the idea that Dean might feel that way too. In fact, maybe that was
at the core of Dean's moral dilemma; if he couldn't love Sam, then his lust was
an empty expression of physical desire which he would've done better to have
kept to himself.
Such was the way Sam's thinking went that night of July 18, waiting for the
clock to tick out the time to his birthday, when he was determined to confront
Dean and at least get him to make good on that demon's word, even if love was
something Sam couldn't begin to hope for. And that was okay, Sam decided. He
was completely okay with taking whatever Dean would give him. Dean had grown up
without the love of a mother, just as Sam had, and maybe Dean's ability to love
someone like that had died in that nursery all those years ago, had just turned
to ash and flame. Dean hadn't had a dream-life to sustain him, as Sam had; Dean
hadn't had a brother who loved him more than life itself, who breathed every
word he spoke like it was his own special brand of oxygen, who never left his
side and mimicked his every move and followed him around like he was the second
coming. Sam had loved dream-Dean with a passion that was beyond any normal
brother-bond, and it had been easy for Sam to transfer all that love to the
real Dean.
But Dean had only known Sam these past four years, hadn't grown up with his
little shadow following him around everywhere, adoring and hopeful and showing
him how great he was, what a hero Dean Winchester was, at least in the eyes of
an adoring younger brother. Dean's only experience of love after his mother
died was a bitter, alcoholic father who resented him, however unfairly, for
surviving the night that took his beloved wife and baby. A father who demanded
he grow up as soon as possible so he could help take on the burden of revenge
for their deaths. Dean’s existence until then was a constant reminder of John's
failure to protect and save all of his family, not just this one small
dependent boy who cried and woke up from nightmares needing comfort John
couldn't provide because he was too consumed by his own grief to acknowledge
Dean's suffering, much less to assuage it.
Sam was dying to make it up to Dean, dying to go back in time and just be there
for him all those nights when he woke up sobbing, needing someone – anyone – to
hold him and wipe away his tears and tell him, ‘it's okay, Dean. I'm here. It's
okay.’ He would die for a chance to do just that. Seriously, Sam told himself
with utter conviction, if he could go back in time and be there for Dean the
way dream-Dean had been there for him – he would sell his soul.
Sam wasn't sure Dean would ever allow that comfort now, not from him, not from
anyone. Dean had acquired a toughness, a shell to hide behind and protect
himself with, a veneer of cocky bravado that no one would likely ever break
through. Especially not Sam, the boy Dean had rescued from the fire and felt
responsible for, the boy who had given Dean's life a kind of purpose for the
first time, as he admitted to Sam that day by the lake.
"Dean," Sam whispered in the dark as the clock glowed 12:01. He stared across
the space between their beds at the lump that was the love of his life and
hissed his name again, louder this time, "Dean!"
Dean was on his stomach, covers kicked back as Sam's were on this warm night,
arms tucked under the pillow where he kept his gun, probably touching it,
calming himself with the feel of its cold metal against his fingers. When Sam
punched out his name a third time, Dean stirred enough to turn his face toward
Sam, eyes still closed, moving his mouth in that intoxicating way that made Sam
think he was dreaming about sucking something, and God, that did things to Sam.
That and the way Dean wiggled his ass as he settled into his new position,
grinding his hips into the mattress so that he was probably feeling a little
friction against his dick...
"Dean," this time the name came out on a moan, and Sam slid his hand down his
chest, palmed his own dick as he imagined Dean's, and oh God all he ever did
was think about Dean's body so it didn't exactly take any effort...
Dean's eyes slid open, sleepy and dark, and stared straight at Sam, catching
him with his hand between his legs and his head thrown back, and Sam knew how
depraved he must look and he almost lost it right there, feeling Dean's eyes on
him while he touched himself...
"Happy birthday, Sam," Dean's mouth turned up in a tiny smirk as Sam squeezed
the base of his cock and stifled another moan, closing his eyes tight in the
effort to control his urge to come right then and there, just at the sight of
Dean sprawled out and looking at him, just on the sound of Dean's voice alone.
"You want a little birthday present, Sam?" Dean's low, sleepy voice drawled,
and Sam couldn't hold back the whimper that escaped his throat. Dean grinned
wider and rolled lazily onto his side, patting the space beside him on the
narrow bed. "Come on and see what I got for you, kiddo."
Sam didn't need to be asked twice. Slipping off his own bed, he climbed into
Dean's and stretched out beside him, the sheet still warm from Dean's body. He
lay on his side, one hand tucked under his head, the other laid carefully on
the mattress between them, gazing at Dean expectantly, waiting, his whole body
trembling with anticipation.
"You ever done this before?" Dean asked, his smirk turning fond, making his
eyes shine in the dark.
Sam shook his head. He didn't trust himself to speak, afraid of scaring Dean or
giving him any reason to decide this wasn't a good idea after all.
"Ever?" Dean clarified. "Even with a girl?"
Sam shook his head again, suddenly terrified that this might be too much for
Dean, finding out that he was Sam's first. It might be too much responsibility.
Sam held his breath, waiting for Dean to make a snarky comment about his
inexperience, his damn stupid virginity.
"Okay," Dean breathed finally, sucking in another shaky breath as if to fortify
himself. "Wow. No pressure there, huh? Well, you probably ought to know,
nobody's first time is that great. I mean, it's just sex. It's not all
fireworks and moonbeams, like in the movies."
A stab of lust speared through Sam's loins as Dean said the word ‘sex,’ the
deep, gravelly voice just hitting every target in his already over-sensitized
body.
"I know," Sam breathed, hating how young and shaky his voice sounded, grateful
at least that it didn't squeak anymore, that it was pretty much done changing,
as far as he could tell.
"Okay," Dean murmured. "So, you wanna?" he gestured at Sam's dick. "Or do you
want me to?"
The idea of Dean giving him a hand-job was sending Sam's libido into overdrive,
but when Dean's eyes flicked up and met his again and he saw the look of
helplessness, contrasted with the determined set of his jaw, Sam was even more
overwhelmed by a sudden tenderness, a need to soothe Dean's obvious panic.
Sam hand slid across the sheet and touched Dean's, nudged his fingers between
Dean's so he could clasp his hand and pull it up to his mouth, pressing his
lips against the bruised knuckles, the torn skin, barely kissing along each
one, then the back of his freckled hand. Then he lay Dean's open palm against
his cheek, kissing the fleshy pad before pushing Dean's hand along his jaw,
curling his fingers around the back of Sam's neck, tangling them in Sam's hair.
When he opened his eyes, Dean was gazing steadily at him, lips parted, eyes at
half-mast, just watching as Sam made love to his hand.
"Kiss me," Sam whispered, eyes dropping to Dean's mouth, and damn it if Dean's
lips didn't part just a little more, if his pink tongue didn't flick out and
lick the dryness away so that now the damn things were glistening, looking
stung and swollen.
Dean's breath huffed out in a short laugh that was nervous and sweet at the
same time. "Bad breath," he muttered. "Been sleeping."
"I don't care," Sam persisted. "Kiss me. Please." He added the plea
instinctively, sensing Dean's hesitance to give in to an order from Sam, but
his inability to resist when Sam begged.
And maybe because it was something he knew how to do so well already, or
because they'd already done it once so it lacked the pressure of a "first time"
experience, Sam didn't really care because Dean was tugging on the back of his
neck and leaning in at the same time, angling their noses just right, eyes
flickering over Sam's features, lingering on his mouth before closing
completely as his lips touched Sam's. This time Sam closed his eyes too, let
the sensation of Dean's mouth moving against his overwhelm all other senses,
unable to prevent a tiny moan from escaping his throat as he gave in to the
kiss.
Dean's bottom lip had been split in the struggle with the katshituashku, so
that the slight tang of hurt skin was the first thing Sam was aware of tasting.
He sucked carefully, running his tongue over the lip as if he could heal it
with his spit, before pushing into Dean's sleep-sour mouth, sliding his tongue
along Dean's teeth, then the roof of his mouth, exploring, tasting, claiming.
Sam had somehow managed to push Dean over, onto his back, or maybe Dean had
just laid back and surrendered, so that Sam was suddenly in control of the
kiss, holding Dean's jaw as he plundered his mouth, all his pent-up need and
long-withheld desire for Dean just coalescing in this sudden connection, this
moment of pure driving need.
He wanted to crawl inside Dean's mouth, inside Dean's body, and never leave,
just crawl deeper and deeper inside him until he was a part of Dean, till every
molecule and bead of blood was soaked in him, became threaded with his muscle
and bone. The need was so consuming Sam was only peripherally aware that he was
rubbing himself against Dean's hip, would probably have kept rutting until he
came in his shorts if Dean hadn't whimpered and shuddered against him, shifting
away a little so that Sam suddenly remembered his injury and pulled back with a
start.
"Oh my God, I'm sorry," Sam mumbled, scooting back immediately to take the
pressure off Dean's wound. "I forgot."
Dean's chest was heaving, short, panting breaths escaping his parted lips,
swollen and shiny with spit, eyes glistening up at Sam with an animal intensity
Sam had never seen in them before.
"It's okay," Dean breathed out, voice hoarse and ragged. "Don't stop."
Sam was ridiculously on board with that command. Kneeling eagerly next to Dean
on the bed, he pulled his sweat-soaked tee-shirt off, then stood up to wiggle
awkwardly out of his shorts, letting them drop on the floor, exposing his
throbbing, swollen cock. He gave it two rough, quick strokes before clutching
the base, holding back the orgasm that threatened to burst forth at the sight
of Dean sprawled out beneath him, looking up at him with lust-blown eyes.
"Sam," Dean whispered, reaching out, brushing Sam's hip with his fingertips.
"Look at you."
Sam watched Dean's face as he carefully straddled his hips, leaned down to
capture his mouth again. Dean reached up, tangling one hand in Sam's hair as he
let the other hand slide slowly down Sam's back, smoothing the sweat-slick
skin. Sam pushed his painfully hard dick into Dean's stomach, then rocked back
a little so his ass fit perfectly over Dean's still-clothed erection, moaning
into Dean's mouth. Dean gasped at the friction, so Sam did it again, then began
a steady rocking and rhythmic sliding, riding Dean's dick through his briefs,
releasing Dean's mouth and sitting back to get a better angle, so that he could
see Dean's face while he did it.
Dean's head was thrown back, exposing his throat, his lips parted and eyes
almost completely shut, just a sliver glistening under his long lashes to tell
him that Dean was watching Sam too, obviously liked what he saw. Dean reached
up and ran his fingertips lightly over Sam's pecs, down his stomach, and Sam's
gasped as Dean's fingers brushed over the tip of his cock, curled around the
shaft. Sam fought back the urge to come yet again, squeezing his eyes shut and
going utterly still as Dean took his dick firmly in hand, waited a beat as Sam
adjusted, then started slowly jacking him as Sam went back to rocking on Dean's
dick.
The feel of Dean's hand on his dick was too much; Sam leaned down to kiss Dean
again just to stop his strokes, sucking Dean's luscious lips one at a time
before pushing his tongue between them, wiggling his ass against Dean's
erection, holding Dean's beautiful face between his hands, thumbing along his
cheekbones. He released Dean's mouth so he could nuzzle along Dean's jaw,
relishing the scrape of stubble against his own smooth, sensitive cheeks as he
buried his face in Dean's neck and inhaled. He took Dean's earlobe between his
teeth and chewed gently, then dipped his tongue into the shell of Dean's ear,
feeling Dean shudder and cry out softly, felt Dean's dick throb against the
cleft of his ass.
"Like that?" Sam whispered, licking along the tender skin of Dean's ear as he
rubbed his ass against Dean's dick. He could feel the moment Dean tensed up,
the moment he gasped in a breath and held it, grabbing Sam's biceps for
leverage as his orgasm surged through him, and Sam only had long enough to
raise his head, to watch Dean's face as his body came undone beneath him. Sam's
body responded in kind, his orgasm hitting him, rushing through him like a log-
dam breaking, building momentum until he whited out. The little stars at the
back of his eyes sparkled like electricity, making him feel like a live wire on
the edge of an explosion. All the power focused on this moment, carrying him
out of his brain until he was floating above the bed, looking down at his own
naked body, crouched on top of Dean's, shaking and moaning his release as Dean
held him, stroking his back and murmuring into his ear.
Sam knew he'd passed out for a few minutes, because the first thing he became
aware of was sweat cooling on his back, making him shiver. He shifted a little,
grateful for the warm body under him, and he snuggled instinctively into the
warmth, turning his face into heated, damp skin. He fit so well here, collapsed
limply on top of Dean, his cheek rasping against Dean's stubble, he could
almost ignore the sticky mess slowly drying between them.
Then Dean squirmed a little beneath him, slid his hands along Sam's sides, and
tickled him.
"Oh, man!" Sam jerked away, lifting his head and rolling off the older boy with
a huff of breath, skittering away from the suddenly lethal fingers till he was
on his feet, backing away from the bed, out of reach. He stared down at Dean,
who lay grinning up at him, green eyes twinkling, tee-shirt a rumpled, sticky
mess, not to mention the dark, damp stain on the front of his boxers. Dean
pushed himself up on his elbows, ran a hand over his head, making his hair
stand straight up, and looked down at himself with a grimace.
"Damn, that was way messier than girl-sex," he declared, then glanced up at
Sam, letting his gaze sweep down over his body. "You need a shower, dude."
Sam flushed, lowered his eyes, hot with shame and embarrassment, wishing he
could run and hide so Dean couldn't see how gross he was, how disgusting.
"Hey," Dean reached up and grabbed his wrist. "Hey, Sammy. Look at me." And Sam
did because it was Dean, and he could never not do whatever Dean wanted him to.
Dean was smiling, his eyes warm, reassuring. "You were great, okay? Best sex I
ever had with a guy. Hands down."
"Dean, I'm pretty sure that was the only sex you ever had with a guy," Sam
ventured, hesitant because he honestly didn't know if that was true and he
suddenly needed to know, like it was the most important thing in the world.
And damn it if he wasn't right. Dean lowered his eyes, smiling a little, almost
shy, for God's sake, and it just about did Sam in right then to see that this
was actually kind of a big deal for Dean, that it was a first for both of them.
"Yeah, well, don't get a big head about it or whatever," Dean muttered. "I
still like girls. Like, pretty much only girls. Not like you turned me gay or
anything."
Sam shook his head because Dean was right, there wasn't a normal way to explain
why Sam's only sexual interest was Dean, and Dean's had apparently been pretty
exclusively female until Sam, a fact that comforted Sam more than he wanted to
admit.
"Shower with me," Sam offered, pulling against Dean's hold on his wrist.
Dean looked up, startled, like Sam had asked him to marry him, instead of just
getting naked together and washing off. "Yeah, okay, sure," he hemmed and
hawed, and Sam was amused at his obvious panic because really, they'd just
rubbed off on each other so how could a shower be so scary?
Except yeah, it meant getting naked together. And this thing between them was
still so new it felt like taking another step toward even greater intimacy, and
Sam could understand why that might freak Dean out a little. It wasn't like
Dean had had a lot of practice being close to somebody.
"It'll save water," Sam shrugged, trying for a nonchalance he didn't feel. "I
mean, there'll be enough hot water for both of us that way."
"Right," Dean agreed, nodding without looking Sam in the eye, and Sam could
tell he was nervous, but he let Sam help him into the bathroom, lean him up
against the sink while Sam ran the water, test it until the temperature was
just right, then turn back to help Dean undress.
Dean had already pulled his tee-shirt off, had gingerly pushed his boxers down
over his injured thigh, grunting in pain as he yanked the sticky material off
his pubes. Sam started to bend down to help, and it wasn't like he hadn't been
helping Dean get dressed and undressed over the past couple of days since the
injury, and it sure wasn't like they hadn't been naked in front of each other
before. But now a line had been crossed. Now Sam's touches were interpreted by
Dean as sexual. As if that hadn't been the case before, Sam sneered to himself;
as if Sam wasn't thinking about sex every time he looked at Dean, much less
touched him, since forever. But Dean pushed him away this time, insisting he
could do it himself, pushing the soiled boxers down far enough that he could
wiggle and step out of them, giving Sam a hard-on just watching his ass move as
he did it, which of course in the small space of the bathroom meant that when
Dean started to straighten up, Sam's swollen dick was almost right there in his
face.
"God, Sam!" Dean complained, backing up against the sink. "Put that thing away!
Jesus! Goddamn battering ram! Gonna take down Fort Knox with that thing, huh?
Damn it!"
Sam couldn't help the grin that split his face, making him blush and look down
and –
Damn. There was Dean's dick, and even all flaccid and covered in jizz and
surrounded by those dark, damp curls, all sticky with more jizz, it was
magnificent. Dean in his glorious freckled nakedness was the most beautiful
thing Sam had ever seen, hands down.
"Sam!" Dean's voice was full of warning, and when Sam looked up to meet his
eyes, Dean's eyebrows were raised expectantly. "Water? Shower? Can we stick
with the program here, Sammy?"
'Yeah," Sam breathed out, moving to help Dean get into the shower, steeling
himself against the tantalizing feel of skin against skin as he slid his arm
around Dean's waist, letting Dean lean on him as he limped into position under
the water. "Sorry."
Sam did the best he could to keep Dean's bandaged leg out of the direct flow of
water, but it was awkward, and Sam wasn't getting any water, so Sam stood still
and let Dean hold onto him as he washed himself, wishing he dared to do it
himself. Dean had his eyes closed, head tipped back into the shower, letting
the water flow over his head and down his chest, between his legs. He had the
foot of his injured leg propped on the edge of the tub, thereby keeping the
bandage mostly dry, but also keeping himself dangerously off balance, so that
he leaned heavily on Sam as he handed the soap to Sam and rinsed himself off.
Sam quickly soaped himself up, but before Dean could finish and get out of the
shower, leaving Sam to rinse off, Sam dropped to his knees and took Dean's
quickly hardening dick in his mouth, making Dean gasp.
"Sam!" Dean stumbled back, slamming one hand against the tile wall of the tub
to brace himself, the other hand in Sam's hair as Sam sucked on the velvety
head of his cock, keeping his teeth carefully tucked under his lips, letting
his hand caress Dean's hip soothingly. He ran his tongue over the slit, then
under the ridge of the head, exploring, tasting, before opening his jaw and
taking down as much as he could of Dean's now fully erect dick.
"Jesus, Sam," Dean breathed, sliding his hand through Sam's hair before
grabbing a handful, holding on tight. Sam had practiced this so often, although
usually with an empty whiskey bottle, it was easier than he expected, despite
the obvious difference in girth. His jaw unhinged naturally to accommodate
Dean's dick, so that when it hit the back of his throat Sam didn't even gag,
although it became impossible to breath and his eyes filled with tears. Dean
gasped, thrusting reflexively, shallowly, kneading Sam's scalp as he grabbed
more of his hair, and when Sam managed to look up, blinking tears, Dean was
looking down with intense concentration, eyes blown completely dark, jaw
clenched, lips pushed out in a tense pout. When their eyes met Dean squeezed
his shut tight and Sam could feel Dean's dick twitch in his mouth, the skin
feeling impossibly tight against his tongue.
Sam slipped his hand between Dean's legs and cupped his balls, and that was it.
Sam got only a strangled "Oh shit!" as warning before Dean was releasing down
his throat, pumping hot come as Sam swallowed, leaning back so he could suckle
every last drop of the salty, bitter fluid, flicking his tongue over the silky
smooth skin of Dean's slit one last time. He savored the taste and feel of it
before letting it go and burying his face in the crease of Dean's trembling
thigh; wrapping his arms around Dean's waist and sucking a mark into the tender
skin as Dean stood shaking and panting a little, fingers carding through Sam's
hair as he came down.
When Sam lifted his eyes again Dean was looking down, an expression of fond
wonder in his eyes; he slipped his hand along Sam's cheek, swiping his thumb
over Sam's bottom lip, shaking his head a little.
"Not even gonna ask where you learned to do that," he murmured, and Sam smiled
a little, feeling warm and praised.
"It was okay?" he asked, not really wanting to think about all the blow-jobs
Dean had already received, hating to imagine them or his ranking among them.
"Best damn head ever, Sam," Dean's voice shook a little, his eyes looked like
they might tear over. "You – you're amazing, you know that?"
Sam grinned wider, lowered his eyes, flushed with the praise and the feel of
Dean's gentle hand on his face, caressing his cheek, his lips.
He helped Dean out of the shower, then rinsed himself off in the rapidly
cooling water while Dean toweled off. They didn't speak again as Sam toweled
himself off, then bundled Dean back into the bedroom and into the unused bed,
but when he started to pull away to go sleep on the floor or the chair, to give
Dean some room, Dean grabbed his arm and pulled him down, let Sam spoon him on
the bed.
"Injured player has to be little spoon," Dean mumbled as if he had to excuse
his obvious desire to be cuddled, and Sam huffed out a breath and went with it,
grateful for the contact, the soothing feel of Dean's back against his chest,
his arm clutched to Dean's chest like a damn teddy bear while Sam curled the
other one under Dean's pillow and pressed his face into the back of Dean's
neck, leaving soft kisses against the skin as Dean settled into contented,
blissed-out sleep.
Sam tried not to let his erection press too hard into Dean's backside, tried
not to think about slipping it between Dean's ass cheeks and getting off that
way, but it wasn't easy, and when Dean released his arm and reached behind to
grasp Sam's hip, pulling their bodies flush and turning his face against Sam's
arm, kissing and suckling and pushing back against Sam's straining cock, Sam
was only too ready to comply with Dean's non-verbal invitation. And it only
took a few thrusts before Sam was there, coming in long, hot spurts between
Dean's legs, sinking his teeth into the meaty juncture of Dean's neck and
shoulder, moaning loudly as he did. He lay breathing hard, dazed and content,
until Dean reached back and swatted his ass, pushing against him so he got the
message and climbed out of bed to get the warm washcloth to wipe Dean's ass and
legs, in the course of which Dean became dangerously hard again and fuck it all
anyway, who needs sleep?
The rest of the week passed pretty much in bed. In between mind-blowing
sessions of increasingly better and better sex, Sam brought in food, using the
last of Dean's money, then the last of what John had left them, then stealing
what he could from local markets until he found a food pantry in the local
church, where the kindly older women stuffed his arms full of bread and peanut
butter and cans of soup.
Dean lay around watching t.v. and healing. He was surprisingly good-tempered,
taking his incapacitation more mildly than Sam could have expected, allowing
himself to be tended and fed and generally taken care of with a minimum of
protest. It was so out of character that Sam was tempted to worry about him, if
it hadn't been for his seemingly boundless interest in getting laid. By Sam. He
finally decided that the sex was good for Dean, helped him relax and heal
faster, and if it mellowed him a little at the same time, maybe that was okay
too.
It took Dean a couple of days to get adjusted to the fact that he was having
sex with a dude, though; he never seemed to get quite comfortable with the
idea, even when Sam insisted he was obviously bi-sexual, just hadn't realized
it before now.
"It's perfectly normal, Dean," Sam assured him, although all of Sam's research
and reading on the topic hadn't fully prepared him for how challenging it was
to be his lover's first confrontation with that aspect of his sexuality.
They were sitting on the bed, playing gin rummy with an old greasy card deck,
both naked except for boxers; the room was hot and stuffy because the air-
conditioning wasn't working very well and neither boy wanted to ask the motel
manager to fix it because they were pretty sure John had only paid up through
the end of the week, and that was yesterday.
"But you – you're just gay, right? Never so much as looked at a girl?" Dean was
so earnest, seemed so determined to figure this out, damn it, that it made Sam
ache for him.
"I guess," Sam answered. "I don't really know. I've only ever wanted you. Maybe
if you were a girl – "
"Shut up," Dean growled, frowning, thinking about this for a minute. "That's
not how this is supposed to work, is it? You either like boys or girls or both,
those are the choices. Not girls and Sam but not boys. Not me but no girls or
other boys."
Sam rolled his eyes, finally losing patience with the whole subject. "All I
know is, it's what it is. Maybe it's not normal, or maybe there's something
extra-normal about it. Missouri Moseley told me we were soul-mates. Maybe
that's what this is."
"She said what?" Dean stared, eyebrows lifted so high they were practically
touching his hairline. "She said we were what?"
"Soul-mates," Sam repeated. "Like twin souls. She thinks that's why I dreamed
about you all the time when I was little. That was my soul reaching out to
yours on some astral plane or something."
Dean shook his head, huffed out a laugh, then screwed his face up in disgust.
"Oh, that's just fuckin' weird," he said. "That's just the weirdest fuckin'
thing I ever heard."
Sam shrugged. "Yeah, she kinda said you'd feel that way about it. She sorta
suggested I not tell you till after we were bonded. She said it would freak you
out."
"Bonded, huh?" Dean's eyes were round and dark in the shadowy room; they had
left the light on in the bathroom, but otherwise didn't want to draw attention
to their presence in the room. Sam had been sneaking in and out through the
bathroom window since the day before yesterday. "Sounds like a curse."
Sam's insides twisted sharply and he tried not to wince. "It's supposed to be a
good thing, I think," he said, trying not to pout. "It means we're more aware
of each other, like if something happens to one of us, the other one knows.
Just senses it, or something."
Dean put his hands up, cards carefully facing away. "Hey, you're Haley Joel
here, not me," he protested. "I've got about as much psychic sense as a
beefsteak tomato."
"Actually, Missouri said you've got it too," Sam decided to go for broke, just
spill all the beans at once, to hell with the consequences. A week of nearly
constant sex could do that to a man, Sam decided; he was feeling reckless
because he was more sure of Dean than he'd ever been before, and he needed him
to see that. "You're psychic too. You just don't know it."
Dean stared, mouth dropping open adorably. Sam watched as his face changed
color; even in the dim light Sam could see Dean's jaw clench and unclench, his
frown deepening until his face seemed ghastly and contorted, fury and fear
building in his body till he started to shake with it.
"Oh no," he sputtered, dropping the cards and pressing the heels of his hands
against his temples. "You're fuckin' kidding me, right? That has to be wrong!
Sam, I've never – I never – I can't do that. She must be wrong."
Sam shook his head. "She was pretty clear about it, actually," he said, feeling
suddenly contrite for springing this on Dean so ruthlessly. It felt almost
abusive, especially since Dean was taking it so badly. "You and I are more
alike than you think. It's supposed to be a good thing, I think."
"You think," Dean repeated, still staring, equal parts horrified and furious.
"You're telling me I can read minds? Do what you do? And it's a good thing? I
don't know what you've been smoking, Sam, but me with psychic mojo is
definitely not a good thing." He looked wildly around the room, as if he was
looking for a way out, as if escape suddenly felt like the best strategy.
"Jesus. Dad's gonna kill me."
He was off the bed, limping around stuffing clothes into his duffel, moving
like a man possessed, muttering to himself, "This isn't real. It can't be.
There's no way I'm a goddamn psychic. No way. Fuck!"
"Dean," Sam cajoled, backing off the bed slowly, raising his hands in a
placating gesture, moving carefully as one would approach a wild animal. "Dean,
it's okay. I've been living with it all my life, and it's not a big deal. The
fact that you haven't ever manifested – maybe you never will. Maybe your
ability is dormant, maybe it's a really low-level thing that's just there on a
subconscious level or something. Trust me, it's not like you're gonna start
levitating suddenly, or starting fires with your mind when you get angry."
Dean stopped pacing and stared at Sam, half-full duffel grasped in one hand,
dirty tee-shirt in the other. "Well, that's a relief, Sam," he said, eyes wide
and accusing. "'Cuz here I was starting to think I could turn into Carrie on
prom night and nobody bothered to tell me, goddamn it. How could you keep
something like that from me? What's the matter with you?"
"I didn't want you to freak out," Sam sighed. "And it's not like that, I swear.
Being psychic can feel like a curse at first, but after awhile you get used to
it. It's just a part of you."
"Oh, like Peter Sellers. Now I'm Doctor Strangelove, learning to love the bomb.
Love your reasoning, there, Sam. It's just peachy," Dean spat, thrusting the
tee-shirt into his duffel and limping into the bathroom for his toothbrush.
"Dean," Sam waited till Dean came out of the bathroom, then moved quickly,
right up into Dean's space, so that he had to stop, stare up at Sam, which is
when Sam realized he was taller, that sometime in the past month or so he had
grown over Dean's head, at least while Dean was stooped a little from keeping
his weight off his injured leg. It was disconcerting to both of them, and for a
minute all Dean could do is stare at him, breathing a little too hard. "I swear
to you, this is not a terminal illness. It's not the end of the world, and it
sure as hell isn't gonna take over your life. You're still you, the guy who
stumbles through life without ever using his hidden talents. And I'm still the
freak who does. Nothing's really changed, Dean, you have to see that."
And to his credit, whether it was Sam's nearness. his soothing tone, or a
sudden insight of his own, Dean calmed down visibly, took a deep breath, and
dropped the duffel, following its descent with his eyes as he nodded.
"Okay," Dean sighed, lifting his eyes to Sam's again. "I don't know why, and
that sucks the big one, but I believe you." He laid the palm of his hand
against Sam's chest, over his heart, and took another deep breath, letting it
out slow. "I'm not gonna start second-guessing my own instincts here, and right
now I trust you, Sam." He closed his eyes, hesitated a moment, let out another
shaky breath as he slipped his hand down Sam's chest, grabbing his belt and
yanking him in, so their bodies were almost flush. "It's like something I know
in my gut. You're somebody I trust." He opened his eyes, gazing steadily into
Sam's, serious and intent. "So if that's the mojo talking, then that's what it
is. Don't know, don't care. You're still the kid who's got my back, Sam. And
I'll always have yours. That's what I know."
Sam felt tears smarting the backs of his eyes, felt his chest constricting
painfully. He took the last step into Dean's space, so that they were pressed
chest to chest. Dean's eyes fluttered closed as Sam cupped his cheek, gazed
reverently at Dean's perfect features, ran his thumb over his soft bottom lip,
trembling a little at Sam's touch.
"Always," Sam whispered his agreement as he took Dean's plush mouth in his,
sealing the deal with a kiss as deep and meaningful as any they'd shared so
far, maybe more so now that all the secrets were out, now that Sam didn't have
to keep hiding anything.
And Sam decided then and there that he would never keep anything from Dean
again, that keeping Dean's trust was too precious, too important, and he would
never jeopardize that, no matter the circumstances. There was no situation that
Sam could imagine in which he would ever willingly keep Dean in the dark, ever
again.
***** Chapter 5 *****
They left the next day, after checking in with Bobby and letting him know
they'd run out of money and needed to move on and if John checked in with Bobby
would he please let him know they were on their way back to Sioux Falls because
of course he wasn't answering his cell. School was starting in a couple of
weeks, and Sam needed to enroll, keep up his trajectory toward college and a
normal life. Now that Sam had his heart's desire, he fantasized about leaving
hunting, taking Dean with him, settling down somewhere safe, somewhere they
could have the kind of regular, middle-class life he had dreamed about when he
was small. Dean had been happy there, in that dream-world, and Sam knew
instinctively that he could be again, without the constant threat of monsters
and his father's relentless quest for revenge.
They took their time on the road, stopping in little road-side bars and
restaurants where Dean hustled pool and made enough to feed them and pay for a
room where they could tumble into bed together, their heat for each other an
almost constant thirst that had to be quenched every chance they got.
"No butt-sex," Dean announced after the first few of weeks of nearly constant
humping, rubbing, and sucking to get each other off. "I don't do anal."
"Okay," Sam agreed without hesitation. It hadn't come up, really, and although
Sam had rubbed off between Dean's legs plenty of times, whenever he'd touched
Dean's hole, Dean had bucked away, skittish and sometimes coherent enough to
burst out with, "Hell, no!" so Sam had never pushed it.
Sam, on the other hand, had no such aversion, and he'd read enough and
experimented with his own body enough to know he was definitely willing to try
it if Dean wanted to. He couldn't deny feeling a little disappointed when Dean
shut down the possibility completely, but he was so head-over-heels with things
as they were that it just wasn't much of an issue. He was content to rub
himself off on Dean for all eternity if that's all Dean wanted, and Dean seemed
on board with letting Sam suck his dick as much as he wanted, so Sam was good.
And the first time Dean went down on Sam felt like every Christmas and birthday
present he'd never had, so yeah, Sam was definitely good. Beyond good, he
gasped as he looked down at Dean's gorgeous mouth wrapped around his dick,
harder than he'd ever been in his life at the sight. They were six months into
their physical relationship by that point, and Sam had decided it was never
going to happen, like the butt-sex thing. But on the night of January 18, one
week before Dean's twenty-first birthday, he lay Sam down on the bed, kissed
down his chest and stomach, and while Sam held his breath, Dean looked up at
him with those big green eyes all blown black with lust and just went to town
on Sam's dick.
Sam figured he'd been thinking about it for awhile, maybe even researched it,
had definitely been taking lessons from Sam and all those girls who'd given
Dean all the head he never even had to ask for all those years before Sam. Who
wouldn't? Sam asked himself when he was feeling jealous. And when Sam's orgasm
coursed through him and he didn't have time to withdraw, Dean swallowed like a
pro, licking every last drop out of Sam's slit, then licking his lips and
crawling back up Sam's body to kiss him, letting Sam taste himself in Dean's
mouth till he was breathless.
"Happy sixth-month anniversary," Sam whispered when they were lying side by
side, facing each other, Sam having just returned the favor so they were both
sated and sleepy.
"Shut up," Dean frowned, rolling his eyes, as if it had never occurred to him.
Sam reached up and brushed his fingertips along the perfect planes of Dean's
face, over his lips, still slick with spit, and Dean tolerated the touch, the
tenderness he never allowed Sam to express verbally, keeping his eyes cast
down, long lashes fanning his cheeks almost delicately. Sam was overwhelmed
again by the strange juxtaposition of violence and beauty embodied in this man
who could take down a pack of werewolves single-handedly but make love like he
was creating a work of art, drawing out moans and whimpers from Sam like they
were brush-strokes on a canvas.
"When did you know, Dean?" Sam asked quietly, fingers skimming down Dean's
chin, his throat.
Dean's eyes opened, deep green pools in the dim light of the room. "Know what,
Sammy?"
"When you first knew how you felt. About me."
Dean rolled his eyes, pulled away and sighed, rolled over onto his back. "Oh,
God, not this again," he groaned, flinging his arm over his eyes dramatically.
"Not what again?" Sam demanded defensively, instantly full of self-doubt. "I
was just curious. You don't have to tell me."
"What?" Dean peeked out at him from under his bent arm, frowning. "You want me
to say it? You want to hear about how I lusted after a twelve-year-old? Is that
what this is?"
"Did you?" Sam asked. "Did you know right away? When you first met me?"
"Jesus, Sam, what do you want from me?" Dean rolled his eyes again. "I felt
sorry for you, okay? Figured you could use my help. You were so – you were this
little kid, y'know? It seemed like you needed somebody to look after you, and I
felt responsible."
"It was a good thing," Sam clarified, pushing up on his elbow so he could lean
over Dean. "Not just a drag, not just an obligation. You liked me."
"Yeah, I liked you, Sam," Dean shook his head, still irritated. "Don't you
remember? We had a good time. It was a good summer. I wasn't pretending, if
that's what you're worried about. I really enjoyed myself."
"Me too," Sam breathed, more relieved than he wanted to admit. "It just seemed
like we hit it off right away. Did it feel that way to you?"
Dean's face relaxed a little as he gazed at Sam, like he was remembering those
golden days, before things got complicated. He reached up and pushed Sam's hair
back from his face, tucking it behind his ear, a vague smile curling his lips.
"Yeah. Yeah, it did. It felt like I'd known you all my life. Like I was just
waiting for you to show up that day on that road."
"Yeah," Sam agreed, feeling his face relax into a grin of its own, lowering his
eyes as his cheeks grew hot. "Same here."
He could feel Dean looking at him, his hand still curled around Sam's ear. Then
he sat up and leaned forward, and Sam looked up just in time to catch the heat
in Dean's gaze, to watch those green eyes lower to Sam's mouth as Dean's hand
slid behind Sam's neck, tugging him forward.
"Come here, you adorable little shit," Dean murmured, and then his mouth was on
Sam's and all of Sam's insecurities melted away, forgotten in the reality of
the moment, in the here and now of Dean's warm, talented lips on his.
*//*
The next year passed pretty much like the last one, partly on the road with
John on various hunts, but mostly stationed somewhere semi-permanent so Sam
could go to school. Dean took odd jobs, often working as a mechanic, fixing
small engines, or mowing lawns, whatever he could get. He worked as a
dishwasher, a delivery boy, a mover, even for awhile as a driver for an elderly
woman who needed someone to take her to various doctor's appointments and on
errands. Sam was amazed and impressed by Dean's patience and natural kindness
with the old lady, his easy courtesy. She tipped generously, so Dean was
excused for putting up with her frequent last-minute demands, but he also
seemed to genuinely care, and his charm and good looks were certainly not lost
on her.
"Your brother is a real looker," she commented to Sam, who didn't bother to
correct her. "He's a real hit at my bridge club."
Sam couldn't help teasing Dean about his appeal to the old gals, and Dean shot
him a warning look and shook his head.
"You better watch it, Sam," he warned. "If I took a dime from every girl that
wanted me to take her out, we'd be living in Hollywood by now."
Which shut Sam up pretty quick. He understood that Dean had given up girls, was
being utterly monogamous with Sam, but his insecurity got the better of him
once in awhile, and he needed to be reminded that Dean had chosen Sam over all
of the girls, young and old, who would have dropped everything to be with him.
Because part of him just couldn't believe he deserved to be so lucky. It felt
like there had to be a catch somewhere, something bad just around the corner
ready and waiting to snatch it all away, make Dean hate him or leave him or
just suddenly wake up and realize it had all been a dream, or a nightmare, that
he'd never really loved Sam at all. The other shoe was just waiting to drop,
like it always did for Sam, or at least always had before he met Dean, and he
was living his life in constant dread of that horrible moment when it would all
be over, when Dean would come to his senses and realize he'd been tricked, that
Sam wasn't really the one he wanted after all.
The sense of foreboding got stronger the closer Sam came to putting his plans
together for college. As he began his senior year, he started having nightmares
in which he was leaving Dean, and he woke with such a grinding, gasping terror
in the pit of his stomach it took him hours to get back to sleep, even when
Dean woke up and gave him a late-night blow-job, then fell asleep again cradled
between Sam's thighs, nuzzling his scruffy face against Sam's belly. Sam lay
awake another hour, relishing the sand-paper feel of Dean's cheek against his
skin, smoothing Dean's soft hair with his fingers, until utter exhaustion
pulled him down into sleep again just as the early dawn began to lighten the
sky outside the bedroom window.
They didn't talk much about Sam's plans for college; it was a given, Sam
realized, that Sam would go, but whenever he tried to broach the subject, Dean
changed it, raising other issues or leaving the room so subtly Sam didn't even
realize he was doing it until it became impossible to avoid. On the surface,
Dean seemed more than supportive of Sam's college plans; he drove him to the
SAT testing site in October, came back to pick him up and took him out to their
favorite restaurant to celebrate after.
"Here's to the guy who got the top score," Dean raised his beer, and Sam
clinked bottle necks with him, grinning from ear to ear because he knew he'd
done well, and he didn't have to use his psychic ability for an instant, and
Dean knew that too.
Dean helped him complete the college applications, filled in all the cover
forms with pertinent information so that Sam could concentrate on the more
complicated essay questions. They agreed he would apply to five top schools
only, with University of South Dakota as a fall-back. Dean claimed he was happy
living wherever Sam got accepted, but Sam could tell he wasn't as excited about
Yale and Harvard as he was about Stanford and Berkeley and the University of
Chicago, so Sam couldn't help it if he put a little extra effort into those
applications.
In the midst of finals that fall, John Winchester showed up with a case that
needed their help. Sam stayed up all night doing research, so that he was
exhausted and wrung out at school the next day, and when he got back to their
little rented shack John and Dean were gone. The note on the refrigerator from
Dean promised he'd be back within the week, but Sam immediately panicked,
dialed Dean's cell and ranted and railed for fifteen minutes while Dean
listened, grunting periodically to let him know he was still on the line.
"Get your homework done, senior boy," Dean admonished when Sam finally paused
for air. "The colleges really look at your fall grades, and you need to keep
giving them those straight A’s. Dad and I are handling this one."
It didn't help that Sam dreamed about demons that night. Their eyes glistened
black as night, and they taunted him with threats of taking Dean away from him
permanently, hiding him somewhere Sam would never find him. He woke in a cold
sweat, Dean's absence in the bed making the nightmare real for a few seconds
too long, keeping Sam's heart pounding until he finally remembered why Dean was
gone. Not being able to reach Dean that day did nothing to reassure him, though
Dean had warned him they were going to be in the mountains, where cell service
was sketchy at best.
Sam dreamed about demons almost every night that week, scaring himself shitless
because the dreams brought back in vivid detail the last time he'd seen a
demon, in Bobby Singer's basement. In the dreams Sam relived moments from his
childhood, but this time there were demons in many of the pivotal roles. The
two police officers who picked him up from the dingy little apartment where
he'd been left by his mother while she went out and died of a drug overdose
suddenly had black eyes in his memory-dreams. And Dr. Clausen, the creepy
clinician who somehow excised his dreams of a home he'd never really had, had
the same demonic black eyes, as had at least one of his temporary foster-
mothers.
In his waking moments, Sam felt fairly confident that the dreams weren't real,
that no demons had actually possessed the people from his messed-up childhood.
But then he dreamed about the demon in Bobby's basement, the taunting way the
demon claimed to know him, seemed to imply that demons had kept watch over Sam
all his life, would continue to keep an eye on him now that they'd found him
again. In his dream the demon stared straight at him, as if it could see into
Sam's waking life, and Sam woke in a cold sweat again, didn't even try to go
back to sleep because this time the dream had been too real.
When Dean came home later that day Sam didn't wait for him to come through the
door. As soon as Sam heard the familiar rumble of the Impala's engine he was up
and outside, grabbing a startled Dean and pulling him into his arms for a
ferocious hug that went on and on, Sam's whole body shaking with raw emotion.
"Sammy?" Dean grunted, hugging back but mostly just allowing himself to be
mauled.
"Don't ever do that again," Sam breathed as soon as he could control his voice.
"Don't ever leave like that again."
"Okay," Dean agreed. "Just trying to give you some space, Sam. That's all.
Finals, remember? Figured you needed to concentrate."
"Needed you, jerk," Sam pressed his face into Dean's neck, inhaling the scent
of gunpowder and leather and soap. "Couldn't sleep."
"Couldn't shower either, I'm guessin'," Dean commented dryly. "You reek, Sam."
"We gotta get outta here," Sam pulled back, shaking his head, willing Dean to
take him seriously. "I think they found me again."
"Who?" Dean frowned, instantly on guard, glancing around furtively, as if the
mysterious they"’ would suddenly appear out of nowhere.
Which Sam was not so sure they couldn't do.
"Demons," Sam shook his head. "Like before. They've been looking for me, since
that time at Bobby's. And since you left I've been having these dreams –
they're more like visions, I think – and it's like they can see me now. They
know where I am, and they're coming for me."
Dean stared, reached up and pushed Sam's hair back from his brow, left his hand
on his cheek, thumb tracing Sam's cheekbone, his other hand firmly on Sam's
shoulder, holding him in place as he studied him. That's when Sam realized he
probably looked awful. He hadn't shaved, he hadn't slept, and he certainly
hadn't showered or washed his hair since Dean left. He couldn't even remember
the last time he'd eaten or had anything to drink, for that matter.
"Winchesters don't run, remember, Sam?" Dean said, his voice low and gruff,
belying the gentleness of his fingers.
Sam shook his head, freeing himself from Dean's grasp, backing away but
grabbing Dean's arm so he could pull him into the house. "No, no, this isn't
cowardice, Dean. You don't understand. They've been using me all my life, until
I met you. I didn't see it before, but here's the thing: they can't see me when
I'm with you. It's like you shield me from them somehow. I already called
Missouri, and she agrees with me. Your psychic thing complements mine. That's
the only thing that makes sense. As long as we're together we're okay, but when
you're gone it's like I lose my shield. After we left Bobby's that time, they
couldn't find me again, but now..."
Sam could hear himself rambling, but he was too keyed up to stop. The words
poured out of him, out of the jumbled confusion of his mind, and everything got
clearer as he talked, as if he was forging reality with language. He was
stuffing clothes into his duffel as he talked, packing his books and papers
into his backpack, stalking out the door to the car, dumping his stuff into the
backseat. He flung himself into the passenger seat just as Dean slid in next to
him, and their doors slammed exactly at the same moment, making them both jump,
then stare at each other in silence for a moment before Dean turned away.
"Fuckin' weird shit, Sam," he muttered as he started the car, then eased out
onto a quiet little side-street, passing a parked car with two men sitting
inside. Sam frowned at them as the Impala slid past, and at the last moment one
of them looked right at him and a little jolt went straight through his body,
shooting ice through his veins. The man's eyes were solid black.
Sam gasped, turned around in his seat to stare at the car through the back
window, but it just sat there, unmoving, as Dean turned the car down the next
side-street, heading for the highway.
"Did you see that? They were in that car back there," Sam breathed out as Dean
shot a questioning look at him.
"Who?" Dean glanced at his rearview mirror, but the car was already out of
sight.
"Demons," Sam answered, shifting nervously in his seat. "I looked right at one
of them, and his eyes were black. They acted like they didn't even see us. Just
sat there."
"Sam, you're scaring me," Dean growled, frowning. "Are you sure you're not just
having some kind of break-down or something? I mean, you've been working pretty
hard, and not eating or sleeping can make your mind play all kinds of tricks on
you, make you see shit that's not there, that kind of thing."
"That's not what this is, Dean, I swear," Sam protested bleakly. "I wish to God
it were. But I get it now. For the first time in my life, I can see the
patterns."
"Oh, now you're sounding like Mel Gibson in that conspiracy movie..."
"Just drive," Sam demanded, knowing he sounded whiny and irritated. "Let's get
as far away from here as fast as we can, okay? I promise I'll explain
everything when we've put some distance between us and them."
Dean shook his head, clearly not convinced and obviously more worried about
Sam's state of mind than demons or anything else, but he did as Sam asked,
pulling onto I-80 going east just to give them a chance to haul ass.
When the sky began to darken, Dean pulled off at a truck-stop with a
convenience store, a diner, and a shabby two-story motel, leaving Sam in the
car while he checked in, in plain sight, answering Sam's panicky look with a
reassuring wink.
"Not going anywhere, Sammy," he smirked. "Promise."
Once they unloaded the car, Dean marched Sam into the bathroom with strict
orders to clean up while Dean got them some chow. It wasn't easy for Sam to let
Dean go, but he did it, telling himself Dean went out for food all the time,
had been doing so for years, and no demon had ever found them. Only when Dean
was away for a period of time, and at a distance greater than just across the
street, had the protective barrier slid aside so the demons could find them.
After talking it over with Missouri Moseley and researching the hell out of
psychic phenomena, Sam had come to the conclusion that the soul bond between he
and Dean had created a kind of bubble around the two of them, keeping them both
safe as long as they were together. It seemed a little hokey, and Sam wasn't
entirely certain it was something that initiated with Dean; it could just as
easily be Sam's power that triggered the bubble, but only when Dean was close
by. Sam wondered about his recent fear of Dean leaving him, if that was somehow
his subconscious warning him that he'd have more than a broken heart to worry
about if Dean ever really left him. Which made him wonder if there was a
protection charm he could wear that might have the same effect, make the demons
not see him when they looked straight at him.
When Dean returned, Sam was on the phone with Bobby, picking his brain about
demon protection charms. Turned out the amulet Bobby had given him could be
spelled to have the effect Sam was hoping for, and once Sam explained what it
was for Bobby was eager to help.
"You're a demon-magnet, Sam," he said. "For some reason, those bastards just
love you, which should be creepy as fuck, except I know you, boy, and there's
not an evil bone in your body."
"Thanks, Uncle Bobby," Sam breathed, grateful for the vote of confidence, which
was more than he could muster for himself these days. "I can't put Dean in
danger. I won't. If I can't find some way to deter them, at least until I can
find out what they want from me, then..." Sam glanced at Dean, who was setting
take-out containers on the table. He clenched his jaw, fighting back the sudden
urge to cry.
"Listen to me, son," Bobby interrupted, clearly responding to the choked sound
in Sam's voice. "We'll figure this out, y'hear? You're gonna be fine. Dean's
gonna be fine. Just hang in there."
"You believe that?" Sam asked, sounding desperate even to his own ears, and he
answered himself before the older man could lie to him. "Never mind.
Just...thanks, Uncle Bobby. For everything."
After Sam hung up, Dean made him eat, sitting him down at the table with him
and all but spoon-feeding him, forcing limp salad and turkey dinner with all
the fixings down his gullet, making him drink glass after glass of water until
he felt bloated. Sated. Stupidly grateful to Dean for taking care of him,
letting him transfer all the strain and anxiety of the past few days onto
Dean's broad shoulders.
"Gonna fix you up, Sam," Dean told him. "Gonna get you feeling right as rain
again. Then we'll see what's what."
After supper Dean flipped on the t.v. and collapsed onto the bed next to Sam,
who was out like a light before the first commercial break, his head sinking
over onto Dean's shoulder, his last conscious thought how grateful he was to
have Dean home. Sam slept dreamlessly that night for the first time in a week,
Dean's warm body pressed against him from shoulder to ankle.
*//*
It took Sam another week to recover from his time apart from Dean. After
researching the hell out of soul-bonding, he decided on the theory that he had
been suffering from a kind of separation sickness that affected soul-mated
couples, except in their case Sam and Dean had the added problem of being
targeted by demons, or at least Sam did, which made it Dean's problem as well,
as Dean insisted.
"Dean, it's not your problem," Sam shook his head. "They've been after me my
whole life. Uncle Bobby was probably right when he said they want to use my
abilities. Dr. Clausen was obviously one of them. He was testing kids like me,
finding the ones with the most potential, then sending them to training
facilities run by paid shape-shifters. There were probably other training
centers, maybe still are, full of psychic kids and shape-shifter trainers. The
demons think they own me, Dean. They invested in me, and they want me back."
"Yeah, well, they can't have you, and that's final," Dean said. "And yes, it
sure as hell is my problem, Sam. Anything and everything to do with you is my
problem, y'hear? We're in this together, to the bitter end. No take-backs."
Sam loved Dean beyond reason when he got tough and protective like this,
although he'd never admit it in a million years. It made him feel safe, and it
felt so familiar it brought tears to his eyes. dream-Dean had been like that,
always fierce in his defense of Sam, even when they were little, and it made
Sam want to curl up in bed with the real Dean and never get up again. But it
also brought protective instincts out in Sam, who felt overwhelmed with guilt
for bringing down the wrath of these horrible, possessive creatures on Dean.
Sam was intensely determined to do everything in his power to keep them away
from Dean, who had never done anything to deserve that kind of attention.
Although the fact that a demon had killed Dean's mother and baby brother
bothered Sam, because it suggested that there was a connection, that there
might indeed be something in Dean's past that had attracted demonic interest,
besides just him. He wondered if Dean's psychic abilities had brought the demon
that had killed his family, if that demon had intended to take Dean that night
the way demons took Sam when his mother died. They had both been four years old
when their mothers died; Sam wasn't so sure that was just a coincidence
anymore. Maybe the yellow-eyed demon had planned to take Dean that night, but
his dad got in the way, managed to scare the thing off, thwart its plans.
Sam didn't dare discuss his theory with Dean, though; he knew how sensitive the
subject was, even all these years later. Dean missed his mother with a
vengeance, remembered her love like a painful reminder of how things could have
been, how they should have been if the yellow-eyed demon hadn't visited his
family that night.
*//*
Sam and Dean spent several weeks moving from town to town, until Sam was
confident that they'd shaken anything that might have been trying to follow
them. By that time it was after Christmas, close to Dean's birthday, and when
Sam suggested they settle in Champaign, Illinois for the rest of the school
year, Dean was all over it. He found a townhouse a block off the university
campus, where he and Sam could easily afford the top floor. The apartment was
sparsely furnished, intended for students, and the landlord seemed laid-back
and easy-going, not even bothering with their references or a deposit, assuming
they were good renters because he'd been a student himself fairly recently and
he believed in giving everyone a good start in life.
"You boys will love it here," he assured them as he handed them the keys to the
door and the mailbox. "Lots of liberal types, plenty of acceptance for all
lifestyles and orientations. It's a good neighborhood."
Dean's eyes widened until Sam had to stifle a laugh, slinging an arm around his
shoulders and playfully patting his chest, earning an arched eyebrow that was
almost a smirk from their landlord.
"I'm sure we'll love it here, won't we, honey?" Sam teased, and Dean's eyebrows
went up even higher as he turned his comically shocked gaze on Sam, then back
to the landlord.
"Oh, absolutely," he exclaimed, ever the trooper, and Sam was prouder of him in
that moment than he could ever recall feeling. Dean thought on his feet, that
was for sure, even when the topic was incredibly uncomfortable. "We'll be very
happy here."
Then Sam felt Dean's hand on his ass, squeezing almost painfully, and he
suppressed a yelp of surprise and near-pain as he jumped a little, then tried
valiantly to recover, managing a weak smile as their landlord eased his way out
the door, a look of uncertainty clouding his regular features.
"That dude needs to get laid," Dean announced as soon as the door was closed.
"He's not the only one," Sam muttered, grabbing the collar of Dean's jacket in
one hand, palming his dick with the other as he pushed Dean up against the wall
and kissed him, sloppy and hard and desperate, just the way Dean liked it.
*//*
That spring was the happiest Sam and Dean had ever shared. Dean found a job
right away, working for a millionaire who reconditioned classic cars and was
thrilled to have a handsome young mechanic who was as talented with cars as he
was easy on the eyes. Sam enrolled in the local public high school, ace-ing all
his Advanced Placement classes, and finishing top of his class. When the letter
arrived from Stanford offering him a full scholarship and living stipend,
forwarded from Bobby's, it was already late May, the flowers were in bloom, and
Sam and Dean celebrated by getting smashed and making out on the grass on the
university campus, under the stars.
"Fuck me," Sam begged as Dean ground his hips against Sam's, mouthing the
tender skin under his jaw, his hands in Sam's hair, holding his head so he
could get the angle he wanted.
"Okay," Dean murmured against Sam's skin, nipping his adam's apple, licking and
sucking along his neck to his ear.
"Do it here," Sam gasped, turning his head to give Dean better access. "There's
stuff in my backpack."
Dean lifted his head, glanced over at the pack, then off across the lawn at the
lights of the campus. "We're in kind of a public place here, Sammy."
"So?" Sam challenged, thrusting his hips up provocatively. "It's kinda hot that
way."
"You're still under eighteen," Dean reminded him. "If we get caught, they'll
put you in a boy's home."
"So? It'd be worth it," Sam insisted breathlessly, spreading his legs so Dean
could grind down between them. "Come on, Dean. Not gonna get caught."
Sam could see the minute Dean got on board with the idea, the sudden glint in
his eye, the little smirk as he pulled away so he could reach for the pack. Sam
took the opportunity to toe his sneakers off, followed by his socks, jeans and
underwear, then lay on his back with his knees pulled up to his chest,
spreading himself open wantonly.
"Jesus, Sam," Dean breathed as he knelt on the grass between Sam's legs, condom
and lube in hand, just staring.
"Come on, Dean, do it," Sam whined, wiggling down toward Dean, stroking down
the skin beneath his balls so he could push at his own hole with the tips of
his fingers. "Come on."
Dean flipped the cap open on the little tube, poured the lube onto his fingers,
replaced Sam's fingers with his own, gently at first, exploring the tight
opening as he watched Sam's face. Sam gasped as he felt Dean's fingers circle
his hole, then push gently against his opening; Sam rocked into it, and Dean's
middle finger pushed inside, eliciting a deep moan.
"Yeah, that's it, Dean," Sam encouraged, rocking against the strange intrusion,
forcing Dean's finger further inside him. "Now move it around, stretch me open.
Come on, Dean, that's it."
Dean's face was a silent mask of concentration, watching Sam's reaction to
every movement of his fingers with a look of rapt fascination, his
determination to do this new thing the right way conflicting with his concern
for Sam, for any sign that he was hurting him. But after the first penetration,
Sam began to relax almost immediately, his body adjusting to the new sensations
with almost no discomfort at all, so that when Dean added a second finger, then
a third, Sam was more than ready, the tingling in his channel making him harder
than he'd ever been before.
"Okay, okay, I'm ready," he gasped, pushing down frantically on Dean's fingers,
pulling his legs back so Dean was hitting that place inside that sent those
incredible little tingly shockwaves straight to his dick. "Come on, Dean, fuck
me. Come on. I'm ready for it."
Dean withdrew his fingers with an audible sucking sound. "Jesus, Sam," he
breathed. "Goddamn."
Sam wiggled his hips and stripped his dick while Dean rustled around between
his legs, pulling his dick out, unwrapping the condom, sliding it on and
covering it liberally with lube.
"I don't even know why we're bothering with this thing," he muttered to
himself, "It's not like you haven't been swallowing my jizz for over a year
now."
"Just do it," Sam begged, grabbing his legs behind the knees, lifting his ass
off the ground. "Please, Dean."
"Okay, okay," Dean murmured, taking his dick in one hand, holding onto Sam's
thigh with the other. "Pushy little bitch. Just hold yer horses there."
Sam could feel the moment Dean's cock touched his hole, sending sparks through
his system, threatening to overload his brain. His eyes slid shut and he
squeezed his dick in an effort to restrain his building orgasm, chewing on his
bottom lip to keep from moaning aloud. He couldn't contain the keening sound
that escaped his throat as Dean pushed in, though.
"You okay? You okay there, Sammy?" Dean froze, waiting for Sam to nod, let out
his breath, adjust to the sensation of fullness. Dean's dick was bigger than
his fingers, and Sam realized a moment before he started pushing in again that
this was going to be nothing like working himself open in the shower, as he'd
been doing for some time now, getting off on imagining Dean's cock inside him.
"Sam?" Dean checked again, his voice rough, hoarse with need. Sam felt Dean's
dick pulse a little in his ass and Sam's muscles squeezed back reflexively,
wringing a stifled grunt from Dean as he held himself still, tension causing
his arm to shake as he held Sam's thigh.
"Dean?" Sam opened his eyes, looked up at Dean's face, read the strain and
effort there, the attempt to contain his own need to bottom out and thrust, the
obvious pleasure of feeling Sam's tight heat around his dick. The sight of Dean
struggling to be careful not to hurt Sam was almost too much to bear; in one
sudden, hard movement, Sam rocked down on Dean's dick, burying it to the hilt,
a sobbing moan tearing out of his throat as Dean hit that place inside where
all Sam's nerve endings coalesced, sending sparks of pleasure-pain up his
spine.
Dean's eyes flew open, wide with shock and wonder, but Sam couldn't keep his
own eyes open; he needed to focus on the sensation of having Dean deep inside
him, of being filled and owned and made complete, this sudden violent
connection which was everything because it was Dean, his Dean, the love of his
life.
"Sammy," Dean breathed, and Sam's eyes fell open a little, just enough to see
the expression on Dean's lovely face, the tears in his beautiful eyes, before
Sam squeezed his eyes shut again and rocked, thrusting down on Dean's dick,
encouraging him to move.
And Dean did, moaning a little as he pulled back, not all the way out, just
enough to feel the drag on Sam's tight channel, and Sam could tell it felt
incredible because of the sounds Dean was making, the little breathless moan as
he pushed back in, then started pumping, thrusting in and out in quick, short
thrusts that told Sam he was close, that being buried in Sam's ass was the
hottest thing Dean had ever experienced, and he couldn't last long. Sam reached
up and wrapped his fingers around the back of Dean's neck, coaxing him down for
a kiss, and Dean was gasping and moaning and trembling against Sam's mouth and
it felt like he couldn't get any closer, couldn't go any deeper. When Dean
stopped, held himself rigid and held his breath as he always did just before he
came Sam kissed him deeply, keeping his tongue buried deep in Dean's open mouth
as his body shook out its orgasm, licking lightly, kneading the back of Dean's
neck with his fingers, rocking shallowly against him as he came down.
"Jesus fuck, Sam," Dean breathed as he finally pulled away, trembling with the
effort to keep from collapsing on top of Sam. He sat back a little so he could
look down between Sam's legs, where they were still joined, then at Sam's
belly, streaked with white from Sam's own orgasm, almost incidental in the
scheme of what had just happened. Dean let out a harsh gasp as he pulled out,
yanked off the condom and tied it off, tossed it easily into Sam's pack.
"Eww, Dean," Sam complained. "Gross!"
"Early birthday present, Sammy," Dean smirked, then shrugged off his over-shirt
and pulled his own tee-shirt off, exposing his muscular chest, skin pale and
almost glowing in the starlight. Sam watched silently as Dean cleaned him off,
then stuffed the soiled shirt in Sam's pack and reached down to retrieve Sam's
discarded clothing. Sam pulled on his jeans, stuffing his underwear and socks
into his pack, while Dean tucked himself away in his own jeans and pulled his
over-shirt back on, then turned to stare at Sam expectantly. Sam had the
distinct feeling he should say something, help Dean deal with this new step
down the road to gayness, reassure him that it was all perfectly normal or
something, didn't mean they were any more gay than they had been before Dean
had agreed to pile-drive Sam's ass.
But the truth was, Sam had sensed Dean in a way he never had before, as if in
the act of physical union, the psychic barrier between them had finally been
breached, if only temporarily, and Sam could swear he had seen inside Dean's
soul, had felt Dean's love for him like a salve on his own insecurity, on the
guilt Sam felt for bringing evil into Dean's life. And it made him want to do
everything he could to assure Dean of his love and devotion, to make Dean see
how important he was in Sam's life, how he had saved Sam and changed his life
for the better, how grateful Sam was for that.
"Stay," Sam begged, reaching out and taking Dean's wrist, pulling him closer
till Dean was right there, staring into Sam's eyes with those big green pools
of emotion and reality and memory, the windows into Dean's soul. Sam could
sense Dean's uncertainty, his need for reassurance, and giving him that was the
least Sam could do.
"It's okay, Dean. It's okay. It's good," Sam nodded, pulling Dean back down
with him on the grass so they lay side by side, staring up at the stars, Sam's
fingers on Dean's wrist slipping down till they were entwined with Dean's, so
they lay there holding hands like lovers on a first date, or like an old couple
who had been together forever. "We used to do this, when we were kids, in my
dream," Sam said quietly. "We used to slip outside after everybody was asleep
and just lie on the grass in the backyard and watch the stars. I think we fell
asleep there once. Woke up freezing and soaked with dew."
Sam could feel Dean turn his head and stare silently at him until Sam turned
his own head, returning the gaze. "What?"
Dean shook his head, the corners of his mouth turning up a little. "Nothin',"
he said. "It's just you, having dream memories of our childhood, like we grew
up together. And now we're together like this. It must be weird for you, is
all. Must feel a little..."
"Incestuous?" Sam offered, his own mouth relaxing into a grin. "Yeah, maybe.
But mostly it just feels like wish-fulfillment. Like I dreamed you into
existence. I have more memories of you, of growing up with you, than I do of my
real life. I think I tried to forget a lot of the things that happened."
Dean squeezed Sam's hand sympathetically. "But you know that wasn't really me,"
he said softly. "My childhood was one lonely, miserable time, full of a lot of
crap I wish I could forget. My dad drinking all the time, missing my mom; hell,
sometimes I think he blamed me for surviving that night. Sometimes the heat was
off and there was no food in the house and Dad was just gone. Being hungry and
cold leaves its mark on a kid. I was no pampered, middle-class suburban Little
Leaguer with birthday parties and picnics and family vacations, Sam. That ain't
me."
"I know," Sam whispered, squeezing back. "I wish– I wish you could remember the
dreams like I do. You were such a great big brother, teaching me stuff, holding
my hand when we crossed the street, standing up for me on the playground,
keeping me safe."
"And now I'm reaming your ass on the grass," Dean smirked. "Good thing I'm not
your big brother. I'd have to kick my own ass for incest and child abuse."
"I'm not a child," Sam pouted just a little, and Dean's smirk grew into a
lascivious grin.
"No, Sam, you definitely are not," he agreed, pushing himself up so he could
look down at Sam, propping himself on one elbow. Sam watched the stars shining
around Dean's head, thought he saw one glint in his eye for a second, decided
it was either a trick of the light or possibly a tear. "You're the gorgeous
stud who just let me fuck him into the ground."
Sam's face relaxed into a grin again as he felt his cheeks heat. "So much for
the thing about 'no butt-sex,'" he commented dryly.
Dean cupped his cheek, slid his thumb over Sam's bottom lip, taking his time,
just looking and smiling at Sam before he lowered his mouth and kissed Sam's
lips, slow and careful, with just a hint of tongue. "That's why I love you," he
murmured against Sam's mouth as he pulled back. "You get me. You get me, and
you love me anyway."
"Yeah," Sam breathed, heart pounding, eyes filling with tears at Dean's
unexpected admission, which felt so out of character on the one hand, and so
very Dean on the other. "Yeah, I do." I do love you, he thought but couldn't
say, was terrified of wrecking the moment. But Dean's eye-crinkling grin told
him he'd heard him anyway.
Or at least Dean knew him so well, he knew Sam was thinking it, even if he
wasn't actually reading Sam's mind.

*//*
Dean made Sam attend his high school graduation, even though Sam wasn't really
keen on going.
"No way, Sam," Dean shook his head firmly. "No way, after how hard you worked
to get your diploma." After all I've done for you to be sure you graduate and
get into college, Dean didn't say, but it was like Sam could hear it, even
without being able to read Dean's mind. Although he knew Dean would never think
that way, would never see himself as sacrificing for Sam. It was just who he
was, Sam realized. Dean was the big brother who gave all of himself to the
little brother he loved with everything he had. Sam was as convinced of that as
he had ever been of anything, even though the rational part of his brain knew
full well Dean's little brother had died all those years ago, before Dean had
ever had a chance to be a big brother in the first place.
"After all you had to overcome to get here, no way you're gonna blow this off,
y'hear me?" Dean went on. "Plus, Bobby's coming."
"Uncle Bobby's coming to my graduation?" Sam was shocked. He'd assumed John
wouldn't come; as far as he knew, John hadn't even attended Dean's, although
Sam had been there, whining and pleading until Dean agreed to go through with
the whole thing. Bobby hadn't even made it to Dean's graduation; he'd been on a
hunt with Rufus in Omaha.
"Yeah," Dean nodded. "He's got a lead on some kind of voodoo thing that can fix
your protection amulet so you and me don't have to be attached at the hip
forever."
"Oh," Sam couldn't hide his disappointment. Being apart from Dean was never
something he looked forward to, and he didn't like the idea that Dean felt any
different. "I guess you miss hunting with your dad."
Dean shrugged, but Sam could see the way his face darkened, the haunted look
that came into his eyes. "Dad doesn't need me," he said gruffly. "He never did.
I was just extra baggage, holding him back. He's happier on his own."
"That's not true, Dean," Sam protested, even though it was, and they both knew
it. "He loves you." At least that was totally true; Sam had felt John's love
for Dean like a brand sometimes, like a deep, passionate conviction that John
held onto with all his heart and soul. Dean was a symbol of everything John had
lost, of his failure to keep his family safe, but he was also the source of
John's strength, his determination to persevere in the face of that loss and
failure. Dean was the rock that kept John sane, gave his life purpose. Sam just
wished he could do a better job of conveying how much Dean meant to John. Dean
needed to feel confident of his father's love, but Sam was just about the last
person who could convince him of that. And Sam knew enough about the way John
thought to understand that John would never tell Dean how much he loved him.
It was so sad and twisted, sometimes Sam just wanted to pull Dean into his arms
and hold him for as long as it took to make up for the love John withheld from
his son, not to mention all the painful, aching guilt over his survival after
the night that tore his family apart.
"It's not your fault," Sam offered on more than one occasion, over completely
unrelated events, and still Sam could see Dean's jaw clench every time, watched
the way Dean's eyes flickered away and then refused to look back. Damn. So Dean
had internalized all that guilt, and there was nothing, literally nothing, Sam
could ever do to alleviate that.
Which meant, if he really wanted Dean's love, he would have to pretend he
didn't see how guilty Dean felt. Not for the first time, Sam was glad he
couldn't read Dean's mind, because at least he didn't have to face all of
Dean's survival guilt, his obvious sense of failure at being unable to save his
mother and his baby brother. A failure that had been reinforced at every turn
by a father who felt exactly the same way but couldn't tell him so. Had to
scapegoat his own son in order to alleviate the crushing sense of defeat that
threatened to destroy him every day of his life.
So when it was Sam's turn to cross the stage at graduation from Champaign
Central, there were four people watching with pride: Dean, Bobby Singer, Mr.
Jackson the guidance counselor, who was thrilled to add Sam's college admission
to his list of accomplishments, and Sam's English teacher, Mrs. Miller, who had
written one of the letters of recommendation that had gotten him into Stanford
in the first place.
"Congratulations, Sam," Mrs. Miller said kindly as she shook his hand
afterwards. "You deserve all your future success. I look forward to seeing you
again in ten years and hearing all about it."
"Yes, ma'am," Sam grinned bashfully, glancing over her shoulder at Dean and
Bobby, who were waiting off to the side of the gymnasium where the graduates
and their families had gathered after the ceremony. Sam was grateful to have
spent the last six months in the comfortable little college town. Although he'd
be grateful to leave and reclaim some familiar anonymity, he was also glad to
have had his final high school experience at a place where his academic
performance didn't stand out too obviously, where there was an expectation of
success that didn't make him seem too freakish.
"Damn, you got tall, son," Bobby exclaimed after congratulating him with a big,
solid bear-hug. "You got time to let an old man take you out for burgers and
pie? Help you celebrate?"
Sam nodded, suddenly too choked up to speak, ducking away to return his cap and
gown so Bobby wouldn't see the tears in his eyes.
An hour later, sitting across the table from the older hunter, Sam and Dean
rubbed shoulders and tried not to let on to Bobby how excited they were at the
prospect of moving to California and starting their new life. But Sam could
read Bobby's mind the moment he figured it out, sitting there watching them
moving in synch, finishing each other's sentences, leaning into each other even
though there was plenty of room on the bench.
"So you boys figure you can keep hunting during school breaks? Is that it?"
Bobby asked.
Sam nodded eagerly. "That's right," he agreed, swallowing a bite of his burger.
"You can send us anything you find. And during the school year we can handle
local jobs on the weekends."
"You find any more evidence of demon activity?" Dean asked around a mouthful of
fries.
Bobby shook his head. "Nothin'," he said. "But I did find a guy who can put
that spell on a protection amulet for Sam. He just needs a little of Dean's
DNA. Guy works in a lab that does police forensic work. He's the one who looked
into Sam's case for us, back when we first found Sam. Apparently, he does the
voodoo stuff on the side." Bobby shook his head. "The things you learn about
people that you never thought to ask."
"Thanks, Bobby," Dean nodded. "It'll be good to get away from this overgrown
puppy once in awhile." He nudged Sam's shoulder as he said it, smirking a
little, and Sam nudged back, harder, making Dean grin wider.
Bobby glanced from one to the other of them, then shook his head. "Yeah, I can
see you're just dying to get rid of him," he commented dryly. "You two look
just about as desperate to get away from each other as two people can be."
Sam lowered his eyes to his plate, trying to hide the sudden heat in his cheeks
and the shit-eating grin he couldn't stop from taking over his face. That they
were that transparent was embarrassing, especially in front of Bobby, who was
about as much of a father-figure as Sam had ever had.
"Is it that obvious?" Sam asked, glancing up shyly. Dean frowned, clearly not
understanding, but Bobby just shook his head and sighed.
"I'll put it this way, son," he said. "It's a good thing you two are living in
a liberal college town. And you'll fit right in at Stanford, too. Palo Alto's
about as open-minded a town as you could ask for. Lots of gay-friendly folk out
there."
Dean's face clouded over as he finally figured out what Bobby was talking
about.
"Whoa, hang on just a minute. I'm not – we're not – " he started to protest,
but Sam put a hand on his arm to stop him before he said what he knew would
come out as another denial, and somehow Sam was relieved Bobby knew. Bobby knew
about their relationship and he was okay with it, and that was comforting to
Sam, and even if Dean wasn't quite on board with being public about sleeping
with a seventeen-year-old boy, it normalized things.
"A psychic told us one time that we're soul mates, Dean and I," Sam said
softly, shifting on the bench a little, so that his thigh rubbed against
Dean's. "She said we found each other because that's what soul-twins do. They
spend their lives looking for their other half."
Bobby frowned, looking deeply uncomfortable. "Well, if that's what some psychic
told you, it must be true," he ventured, finally. "But I have to say, Sam, I
could've told you that, first time I saw you two together. Didn't need some
psychic telling you you're 'soul-mates' or nothin'. You two are like that pair
of matching socks that eventually end up together, no matter how many loads of
laundry get done in-between."
"Thanks, Bobby, I'll remember that one next time I'm doing my laundry," Dean
snapped. "That's just perfect."
"Jus' tellin' it like I see it," Bobby muttered, tipping back a last swallow of
his beer. "Now, I need some of that DNA, Dean. You got a hairbrush or a
toothbrush or something I can take with me?"
And just like that, the crisis was past. But Sam remembered, later, when he was
feeling down and depressed because he loved Dean so much but he couldn't help
doubting himself for it; wondering if there was something wrong between them,
worrying that his love was too suffocating, that Dean really did want to be
free but felt too responsible for Sam to admit it.
***** Chapter 6 *****
On Sam's eighteenth birthday, they were on the road, hunting their third
vengeful spirit that summer. It felt good, moving around, spending the night in
the car or some flea-bitten backwater motel. It felt normal in a way Sam
couldn't quite understand, but tried not to think about too much because soon
enough they'd be in Palo Alto, settling down again so Sam could go to school
and Dean could find a regular job.
It wasn't necessary to read his mind to see that Dean was in his element,
working their way across the country in the summer heat, taking cases wherever
they could find them, putting down evil and saving lives. Sometimes when Sam
glanced over at him, staring out at the landscape with that placid self-
assurance that Sam knew as a mask for Dean's inner torment, Dean seemed so
content it made Sam's chest ache, and he couldn't stop looking. Dean's profile
was the most familiar thing in his life, often the last thing Sam saw before he
fell asleep at night and the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes in the
morning. It was something Sam felt he didn't deserve, the idea that he put that
look on Dean's face, that Sam was the reason for Dean's happiness. It was too
much, weighed like an especially sweet kind of terrible burden, a
responsibility he couldn't possibly be worthy enough to handle. At times like
that, Sam felt sure the other shoe was just about to drop, that something awful
was right there on the edges of his consciousness, just waiting to crash in and
destroy everything, just as it seemed to do whenever things were going half-way
according to plan.
A week after Sam's birthday, the other shoe dropped. They were on the road,
back-pedaling to Topeka after a job in Lincoln, Nebraska, when Bobby's call
came in.
"Got something you boys need to see," he announced, sounding almost breathless,
like he'd been running, which was so unlike Bobby it made Sam sit up straight
on the bench.
"What is it?" Sam asked, and he could almost hear Bobby shaking his head.
"No, you gotta see this," he insisted. "It's not something I can tell you over
the phone."
"Okay," Sam sucked in a breath, glanced at Dean, who was frowning deeply.
"We're about three hours away."
"Good," Bobby hung up, and Sam sat staring at the phone for a full minute,
wishing, not for the first time and definitely not for the last time, that he
could read minds long-distance.
"No idea," he answered Dean's questioning look. "He says he needs to tell us in
person."
When they arrived at Singer Salvage, John's GMC truck was already parked out
front, and John was pacing the yard in front, obviously waiting for them, none
too patiently.
"He says he won't tell me till you two arrive," he growled angrily, then took a
step back as Sam unfolded himself from the front seat. "Jesus, Sam. What have
you been eating? You've grown another foot at least."
"Y'all gonna just stand there, or are you gonna come in and let me show you
what I got?" Bobby's voice boomed at them from inside the house, and they all
filed in, Sam with his hands in his jeans pockets and his shoulders
deliberately hunched so he didn't tower over the other men, at least not
deliberately.
Bobby had photographs laid out on the kitchen table, and at first glance they
looked identical, and completely nonsensical. Sam read excitement and
trepidation in Bobby's manner, but his thoughts were so confused and jumbled
Sam couldn't make heads or tails out of them, so he turned off his sensors and
pushed up beside Dean at the table, brushing shoulders in a natural gesture of
solidarity.
"What've you got, Bobby?" John demanded. "What're we looking at?"
"DNA strands," Bobby answered, pointing at the first of three identical photos.
"This is the sample I took from Sam back when he first came to us, six years
ago. This one, I took in May, just after Sam's graduation. And this one," he
pointed to the last of the three photographs, "this one's Dean's. I took a
sample from each of them so Jack could make that protection amulet for Sam.
Jack said I needed to give him a Dean sample and a not-Dean sample, so he could
compare them and be sure he was using the right one."
"They look alike," Sam noted. "I don't see the difference."
"Exactly," Bobby looked up, gazing at Sam, then at Dean, and finally at John,
and Sam could feel his heart start racing, sweat start to break out even though
he was standing completely still. "That's exactly what Jack said. He thought
I'd given him two samples from the same person. Then he compared them to the
one I'd given him six years ago, and again – a complete match. That don't
happen in nature, Sam. It only happens when the subjects are closely related."
The silence in the room was suddenly so complete it was as if time had stopped.
Sam was pretty sure he was holding his breath, and probably his heart had
stopped as well, frozen in the moment as Bobby's words sunk in and Sam's mind
raced, trying to make sense of what he was hearing.
John spoke first. "Are you saying Sam and Dean are related?" he demanded,
confusion and disbelief making him belligerent.
"I'm saying they're brothers, John," Bobby clarified, needlessly, since he'd
already said it. "Same mother, same father. Full siblings."
"But that's impossible," John shook his head. "Mary and I didn't have any other
children. You'd think I'd know if we had. This doesn't make sense."
"John, this is Sam," Bobby's voice was soft and careful, like he was speaking
to a human grenade who might explode any minute. "This is your son. I don't
know how, but apparently he survived that night after all. Somebody pulled him
out of the fire and took him. Maybe the demon that set the fire, I don't know,
but that's what happened, because here he is, and this is scientific proof,
boys. I had my friend check and double check before I called you all. This kind
of science is pretty new, but it doesn't lie."
John turned to look at Sam, really look at him, and Sam could read the
confusion and doubt in his mind, could hear the moment it gave way to
recognition, John's mind suddenly flooding with memories of that night, of
seeing the demon leaning over the baby's crib, picking up the baby, John
protesting with every bone in his body as the demon looked up at him, cradling
the baby in one demonic arm as he flung the other hand out toward John, sending
him flying backwards out the door, into the hallway, crashing into the wall,
John's head hitting hard, dazing him, knocking him out so that when he came to
the room was already fully engulfed in flames and smoke, the empty crib only
barely visible through the dark, roiling clouds.
Sam could feel the moment John realized how completely he had suppressed that
memory, how he had believed the firefighters who had told him the baby had
probably died but the fire had been so intense it had simply incinerated the
small body, composed as it was mostly of soft cartilage. They had buried an
empty coffin, and John had told Dean the baby was dead along with his mother.
It had been deeply traumatizing for both of them, and John had never for one
moment reconsidered his narrative of the events of that night. Until now.
The emotions flickering across John's face brought tears to Sam's eyes; he
could feel the exact moment John knew, really knew, that what Bobby was telling
him was true. From the moment he first met Sam, John had suspected, he had just
repressed that suspicion because it didn't jibe with his made-up memories, and
because he didn't want to set him or Dean up for another fall if it turned out
he was wrong. But having it all be true after all confirmed John's judgment in
adding Sam to the family in the first place, and he easily adjusted to the idea
that this explained why he had trusted Sam from the start, why he had allowed
Sam to get so close to Dean. It had been the right thing to do, and he had felt
it in his bones, even without fully understanding why the boy filled the Sam-
shaped hole in their lives so perfectly.
Now he did. Now John understood.
Sam was being hauled into a bone-crushing hug before he even knew what hit him.
John's eyes were filmed with tears as he held the son he'd never known he'd
found until now, the child he assumed he'd lost nearly eighteen years ago.
John's big body shook with emotion and all Sam could do was hold on, hugging
back as John murmured, "My boy," and "My little Sammy," into his shoulder in
his rough, choked voice.
Sam became aware of a roaring in his ears, knew it for the feeling of emotional
overload that precipitated one of his attacks, like that day on the road when
he first met Dean. Reality was cracking again, doing that thing where Sam
wasn't sure whether he was dreaming or not. Sam felt oddly detached, like he
was watching the scene from a distance, through a blue-tinged lens, making
everything seem grainy and almost black-and-white, drained of color. He was
aware that he should feel happy to know the truth, to have his childhood dreams
come true, to find out that he did indeed have a father and a brother who loved
him and had somehow, miraculously, found him and claimed him without anyone
even realizing who Sam really was. And being hugged tight by John, surrounded
by John's powerful feelings of gratitude and the fierce, possessive loyalty and
pride that John called love, Sam could almost believe those feelings were his
own, too. Like father, like son, his brain reminded him. I'm just like my dad.
Then Sam looked up, over John's shoulder, and his eyes met Dean's, and the
world fell away. Dean's face was a mask of shock, pale and drained of color,
his mouth hanging open and slack, a sheen of sweat on his forehead and pooled
in the hollow of his throat. His eyes seemed huge in his pale face, and his
whole body seemed suddenly smaller, more fragile and delicate, younger. It was
like the little boy who had suffered through the trauma of that night all those
years ago had been hovering beneath the surface, hiding deep inside under years
of denial and repression, and all the habits of survival and perseverance
ingrained in Dean were suddenly scraped away so that scared little child was
all that was left.
"Dean." Sam's instincts screamed at him to go to his lover – his brother – and
offer comfort, to smooth the distress and panic and sheer terror from his
beautiful, beloved face. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else was of the
slightest importance, and Sam wasn't even aware of extricating himself from
John and taking a step toward Dean until Dean blinked, momentarily startled out
of his shock by Sam's movement. Then the look of shock was replaced by sheer
horror; Dean's hands went up as though he would push Sam away if he got any
closer, and he took a step back, toward the door.
"No," he breathed, his voice shaky and broken. "No, Sam. No."
Sam recognized the panic, realized Dean was ready to flee, took another step
toward him out of sheer instinct, only half aware of saying his name again.
Then Dean turned and barreled out the door, letting it slam behind him as he
bolted for the car. Sam started right after him, might have stopped him if John
and Bobby hadn't both grabbed him and held him back.
"Let him go, son," John said firmly. "He needs to process this in his own way."
"No, you don't understand," Sam protested, struggling to push away from the
older hunter. "He's out of his mind right now. He'll drive off the road!"
The Impala roared to life just as Sam managed to break free, run pell mell out
of the house, jumped off the porch and into the driveway as the car peeled off,
leaving Sam in a cloud of dust and with only a quick glimpse of the back of
Dean's head, the tense set of his shoulders.
"Dean!" Sam stomped his foot, grabbed his cell phone out of his pocket and
punched in Dean's number. "Listen to me," Sam said to Dean's voicemail, pacing
in the driveway and running one hand through his hair. "I know what you're
thinking. I mean, I know you. We'll work this out. It'll be okay, I promise.
Just come back. Come back to me, Dean, all right?"
He hung up, feeling stupid and useless and wishing he could delete the message,
so he dialed again and left another one, trying not to sound so needy and
desperate this time. "Hey, this is good news. It really, really is. Turns out
I've got a family after all, and you've got the little brother you always
wanted. It's weird, yeah, it's really weird, but it's good weird, Dean. For
once, something good has happened here. So call me."
After pacing for another minute or two, Sam made a third call, unable to fight
the rising panic in his chest, the fear that nagged at the inside of his head.
"Hey, Dean. Please don't run from this. We can work it out, okay? I'll do
anything you want. If you don't wanna – if you need a break from us, whatever –
hey, it's okay, man. I get it. I do. Just please, call me, okay?"
Sam paced for a few more minutes, fighting with himself over the urge to call
again, finally throwing the phone angrily against the side of the house,
watching it shatter with a satisfying smattering of plastic pieces. Rage boiled
up from Sam's gut, making him need to hit something, someone, anything. It was
just so unfair! All his life he'd wanted Dean to love him, and Dean did love
him, but that hadn't been enough. Sam had wanted more. He had pushed and pushed
until Dean had given in to Sam's ravenous hunger, his insatiable need for Dean
in every way, despite Dean's protests that he wasn't gay, that he was confused
by their bond. And Sam had played that for all it was worth, Sam had used the
soul-bond as an excuse to bind Dean to him, to have him all to himself and keep
him close. And it was Sam's possessive, consuming love that had driven Dean
away, just as Sam had known it would.
Being brothers wasn't really the revelation for Sam that it was to Dean; Sam
had grown up thinking of Dean as his brother, wishing it with all his heart and
soul, then when he was old enough, wanting Dean physically as well. There
wasn't anything bad or wrong or dirty about that, in Sam's mind. Incest was
just a word. Sam and Dean were special, an exception to every rule, and this
was just the way they were.
But Sam knew it was different for Dean. He hadn't grown up thinking of Sam as
his brother, and he certainly wasn't thinking of him as a brother when they
began their physical relationship. Dean's main concern had always been Sam's
youth, their relative ages, fearing to take advantage of Sam before he was old
enough to give informed consent. After being so careful, after trying to do
everything the right way in his own mind, Dean would of course feel horrified
to discover he'd been fucking his own brother. It would feel like the ultimate
screw-job, like no matter how hard he'd tried to do right by Sam, he'd messed
up in the worst way possible.
Sam sat down in the dirt, put his head in his hands, leaning his elbows on his
bent knees. Fuck. This was beyond fucked-up, and the worst part was there
wasn't anything Sam could do about it. He couldn't make Dean see it
differently, couldn't convince Dean that it was okay to screw your brother
since your brother had always thought of himself as your brother anyway, so if
anyone had been committing incest here, it wasn't Dean. But Sam knew that
wouldn't matter to Dean; the incest itself was repulsive to Dean, and he'd been
just as engaged in it as Sam was, however unknowingly. Dean would accept just
as much blame as he could for their relationship, probably managing to convince
himself that Sam was totally innocent because he was younger and Dean should've
known better, should've trusted his instincts and never started a sexual
relationship with the younger boy in the first place. Instead, Dean would blame
himself for giving in to his desires, desires he should have repressed. If he
could have just held on like he knew he should have, until Sam was eighteen,
they would've found out about the brother thing and saved themselves from a lot
of depravity.
Because there was no way Dean Winchester would ever knowingly fuck his own
brother.
Sam sunk his hands into his hair, grabbing fistfuls, yanking as hard as he
could, relishing the pain. He would do that, he decided, inflict physical pain
on himself, to atone for making Dean love him. Because Dean didn't deserve this
shit; he was a good, moral person and Sam loved him for that, looked up to him
and admired him for his strong, ethical sensibilities, his goodness. There was
no separating the man from his moral code, and Sam knew in his bones that Dean
would survive this, would come to see it as the mistake that it was, would put
it behind him and eventually forgive Sam, if not himself.
And all Sam could do at this point was to make it as easy for Dean as he
possibly could. He owed Dean that.
Sam heard the screen door slam, felt the vibration and the crunching gravel as
John Winchester moved heavily down the steps and across the driveway, stopped
next to Sam, touched the top of his head with the tips of his fingers.
Ordinarily Sam would've leaned into the touch, would have accepted the comfort
John was offering. But he was too deep in his own agony to so much as lift his
head, couldn't even be bothered to read John's thoughts.
"You know, I think I was always hoping it was really you, Sam," John said
finally, after a silence so long Sam thought he'd never speak. "I guess I sort
of knew, ever since that day we pulled you out of that warehouse. Out of the
fire. It felt like you'd come back to us, even then."
Sam lifted his head, stared down the road in the direction the Impala had gone.
John stared too, still petting Sam's hair, fingers strong and gentle.
"He'll be back," he said after another minute. "He'll adjust. Family means
everything to him, and you're family now, Sam, for real. No take-backs. No
temporary foster-families. You're Dean's brother, and we're all he's got. He'll
be back, mark my words, son. He's loyal to a fault, that boy. You never have to
worry about him leaving, no matter what you do. No matter what you've done. You
hear me?"
"Yes, sir," Sam answered, nodding automatically, tamping down on his
humiliation and guilt; he could sense that John knew about them, but was
choosing to be pretty damn mature about it, not blaming him exactly, but also
making it clear he expected it to stop.
"You and Dean are brothers in more ways than one, Sam," John said. "Brothers-
in-arms make a tight, unbreakable bond. When you've fought side-by-side with
someone, like you and Dean have, there's nothing stronger. Not even blood. You
two make a great team, always will, once you get past this thing."
Sam nodded, his throat tight, fighting back the tears at the edge of his
vision, the weight on his chest. "I have to go," he said, feeling suddenly ill,
like he might throw up if he sat there one more minute, listening to John,
letting the man dictate his future to him. He pulled himself up off the ground,
weaving a little as he headed back into the house, trembling with the effort to
contain his rage. Bobby was sitting at the kitchen table, studying a map and
flipping through a book that looked like it was about five hundred years old.
He looked up when Sam came in, looking around wildly for a minute before he
realized he'd left his duffel in the car with Dean.
"You look like you could use a beer," Bobby noted, getting up to get one from
the refrigerator. They both heard the roar of John's monster truck starting up
outside, and Sam took the opened beer from Bobby without a word, chugging down
several swallows as the sound of the truck receded into the distance. Bobby
raised his eyebrows, gestured towards the other chair at the table as he sat
back down, but Sam shook his head.
"I have to get out of here," Sam said, hating how his voice shook, taking
another swallow of the beer, needing it to numb some of the ache in his chest.
"Do you have a truck I can borrow?"
"Running's not gonna solve your problems, Sam," Bobby reminded him. "Things
have a way of following you around, biting you in the ass. Someday you just
have to turn around and kick back."
"Yeah, well, not today," Sam said, grimly. "I don't want to be here when Dean
gets back, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't want to see me either."
"That boy loves you with everything he's got, kid," Bobby said flatly. "Don't
ever think he don't. Now, you wanna leave, not face him right now cuz your
feelings could get hurt, I get that. Life sucks sometimes. It throws you curve
balls when you least expect 'em. Don't mean you gotta run away, stick yer head
in the sand. You need to man up. Face yer fears. That's the only way to make
sure they don't get the best of you."
Sam was shaking his head, slammed the empty beer bottle down on the table. "No!
I can't do that to him. I won't! I've been stupid and selfish, Uncle Bobby, and
it's not fair to Dean. He doesn't deserve this shit. I have to let him go while
I still can, while I have the strength to do what I know I have to do." He
paced back and forth in front of Bobby, clenching and unclenching his fists,
agitated and restless. "I'm not running away, I'm giving Dean his freedom.
Don't you see? If I don't go now, Dean might take me back, but it won't be on
his terms; he'll be giving in to me because it's all he knows how to do, and
he'll be hating himself for doing it. I can't let him do that. I have to be
stronger than that."
"Jesus, Sam, you sure know how to beat yourself up, don't ya?" Bobby stared in
disbelief, then shook his head. "That's the craziest, most mixed-up bunch of
self-pitying horse crap I ever heard. Dean's a big boy. He's not gonna let
anybody make him do something he doesn't wanna do, even you, ya idjit."
"Maybe," Sam groused doubtfully. "But I still need to give him some space right
now. Do you have my amulet?"
"It's right here," Bobby opened a drawer in his desk, pulled out the leather-
stringed little brass object, put it in Sam's hand. "But you don't really need
it, y'know. Turns out, you've got Dean inside you, have had all this time. You
and him share the same genetic material. You're literally wearing part of him."
"But the visions..." Sam frowned in confusion. "I don't understand."
Bobby shrugged. "Nobody knows how the whole twin-soul thing works," he said.
"Maybe you made yourself sick because you were missing him so much. Or maybe
you're so tuned into him that you can sense when he's in danger, like when he's
on a hunt, and it makes you literally sick with worry. Either way, it's not
life-threatening, as far as I can tell. You can probably control it just by
thinking yourself through it, or whatever you do when you have to control your
psychic mojo. You know more about this stuff than I do. You two are the first
sibling soul-mates I've ever heard of."
Sam looked down at the amulet, turned it over in his hand, then gave it back to
Bobby.
"Give it to Dean when he gets back," Sam said softly. "If he wants it."
Bobby pursed his lips, squinting a little as he considered Sam. "You're really
leaving," he said finally. "You got any idea what that'll do to Dean? You just
leaving?"
Sam took a deep breath, let it out slow, shook his head. He needed to go now,
before he lost his nerve. "Yeah, I think I do," Sam sighed. "But I can't stay.
He'll be hurt, but not as much as if I stay."
"You sure about that? You absolutely sure leaving's the right thing to do?"
"No," Sam admitted. "But I know if I stay it'll be the most wrong thing I ever
did, and I've done a lot of wrong."
"Sam, you're eighteen years old," Bobby reminded him. "You've got your whole
life ahead of you."
"Yeah, well so does Dean," Sam sighed. "He deserves to start fresh, be his own
man without his weirdo freak of a little brother hanging around his neck,
holding him back."
Sam shoved one hand into the pocket of his jeans, comforted to find a few
wadded up bills there, maybe even enough to buy a bus ticket. He stuck the
other hand out to Bobby, who ignored it and pulled him into a hug instead.
"Take care of him for me, Uncle Bobby," Sam breathed into the older hunter's
shoulder.
"You call him, you hear me?" Bobby shook him a little as he released him,
clutching his biceps for emphasis. "You give it a couple of days, a week at
most, but you call, y'hear?"
Sam hesitated, pretty sure he couldn't do that, believing he wouldn't be able
to talk to Dean for a long time, convinced he just wasn't strong enough for
that. But Bobby looked so intense, so serious and worried, that Sam finally
nodded, albeit reluctantly.
"Promise?" Bobby pressed.
"Okay, yeah, I promise," Sam lied, feeling terrible, thinking of the shattered
cell phone out in Bobby's driveway.
"John is gonna be as mad as hell, you think o' that?" Bobby shook his head. "He
just found out his infant son was kidnapped by the demon that killed his wife.
You're the best clue he's got to what happened to her. You think he's gonna
just let you walk away?"
Sam sighed. "I know," he said. "He'll know where to find me if he needs to."
Bobby shook his head. "You're leaving me to deal with two pissed-off
Winchesters," he muttered darkly. "I think I might just hafta come with you."
"Sorry," Sam mumbled helplessly. "I'm sorry, Uncle Bobby. I gotta go."
"All right then," Bobby nodded finally, after giving him another hard look.
"Let me get my keys. I'll run you down to the bus station."
*//*
An hour later Sam was on the bus, headed west, nothing but the clothes on his
back and fifty bucks to his name. Bobby had insisted on buying the bus ticket,
had given him a fake credit card to use in diners along the way, hopefully also
for new clothes when he got to California. His scholarship included room and
board, so all he had to do was get there, but he was nearly a month early, so
there would be expenses.
Sam was four hours out of Sioux Falls before he fell asleep, dreamed of Dean,
sitting in the seat next to him on the bus, watching him sleep. He woke up with
a start, his cheeks wet with tears, glanced at the empty seat next to him as
fresh tears flowed. He wiped them away furiously with the sleeve of his hoodie,
sniffling uncontrollably until the middle-aged woman across the aisle reached
over and handed him some tissues from her purse.
"Off to college?" she asked kindly, and when Sam nodded, blowing his nose, she
nodded sympathetically. "Homesickness is a bitch, ain't it?"
She smiled, blinked, and her eyes flashed obsidian black.
Sam woke up with a start, cold sweat beading his brow and the back of his neck.
He glanced at the empty seat next to him, then at the man sleeping in the seat
across the aisle. No middle-aged woman, no Dean. Just Sam and his fucked-up
brain playing tricks on him again, freaking him out with memories of the last
time he and Dean were apart.
"I can do this," he murmured to himself, closing his eyes and taking a deep
breath, focusing as he knew how to do to calm himself, to control the
whispering voices and hallucinogenic imaginings of his tortured mind.
It wouldn't be easy, and sometimes it would be damn hard, harder than anything
Sam had ever tried to do in his life, but he would manage. He would go to
college, get his degree, work in the summers waiting tables or washing dishes,
maybe call Bobby once in awhile, just to keep his hand in the game, keep his
hunting skills sharp. Maybe catch up on news in the hunting world, hear about
how Dean and John were doing. Sam could do that, at some unspecified time in
the future, he was sure he could. Eventually he'd be able to think about Dean
without crying, without feeling like his heart was being slowly ripped into
tiny strips of bloody, useless gristle and fed to him, piece by piece, while he
choked and sobbed and begged to die because living without Dean was so much
more painful than even the slowest and most wretched death.
The days and weeks and months would pass, Sam knew, until the pain became a
dull ache, until he could think about Dean with a distant sadness, a deep,
thick, solid thing like a rock in the pit of his soul, worn smooth by years of
sorrow. And then, the day would come that Sam might be able to see Dean again,
or even just talk to him on the phone, hear his voice without collapsing into
an inconsolable puddle on the floor, sobbing for days afterwards. There would
come a day when Dean might show up at his door, green eyes sparkling with
mischief, leather jacket and gelled hair smelling like home and love and all
the things Sam thought he would never know again.
That day might come, Sam knew, if he could just get past the now, the endless
and forever now of pain and misery and horrible, wrenching grief. Someday he
might be able to face Dean again, maybe even be his brother again, like they
were all those years ago in Sam's dream. Maybe someday. Maybe.
Someday.
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