The Year of Letting Go (1/7)
Jul. 31st, 2008 11:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
runedgirlChapter One
Master Post
Chapter One
December, Seven Years Before
(Sam)
The problem with being fourteen and never in one place long enough to define yourself is that you just end up staring obsessively at the only mirror you do have, even when his eyes are never going to see you as you really are, only as his little brother.
At fourteen, the need to say this is me, this is who I am, this is what I want, pushes up from inside Sam every hour of every day, relentless and insistent. The problem is, Sam doesn’t know. Never got the chance to see himself reflected in his mama’s eyes. Hasn’t stared up into the face of an adoring mother whose expression tells you that you’re the most precious thing in the world – in the universe. Sam has the same need to know as every other fourteen year old, but nothing fits into place when your life hasn’t followed the patterns that every college psych class define as ‘normal’. And still the need just keeps coming, nature trumping nurture (or lack thereof) to force his hand because Sam’s just human and evolution will brook no argument.
“Who am I?” he asks Dean, the only one he can. The only one who’s ever looked at him like that, like he was someone – special. It’s three days before Christmas in a motel with a wreath made of beer cans tacked up on the door, and the damn thing makes Sam cold every time he looks at it, metal edges sharp enough to cut and the faint smell of Budweiser instead of woodsy pine scent. Becky Griffin had one that smelled real on her door, the green kind, its needles soft beneath his curious fingers as Sam paused to examine it. Not quite admiring, more like cataloging the difference, one of millions, one too many. Who am I when I’m not like anyone?
Dean tosses a bottle of gun oil at his little brother. “Make yourself useful, Sam, and stop asking dumb questions.” Grins as Sam catches it one-handed, reflexes already sharpened by three years of training. “That’s m’boy,” Dean says, warmth slipping into his voice as Sam sighs and picks up the next weapon.
Seventeen and Dean seems to know exactly who he is. Dean can swagger like a man ten years older, could do it since he was the age Sam is now, even before he could back it up with enough muscle to convince the skeptics. Blood has never scared him, threat of pain never stopped him, so why not come on strong? Sam watches Dean’s fingers sure and capable on the barrel gleaming slick and lethal in his hands, not a trace of hesitation or doubt. Everything Sam wishes he could be, and knows he never will.
Dean has an eyebrow cocked over one emerald green eye when he looks up, feeling Sam’s stare the way he always can, knowing, and Sam drops his gaze blushing. He thinks about something hateful he can say to his brother, something to wash away the adoration he knows is in his eyes when he looks at Dean because it just makes Sam feel smaller.
“You’re my brother, Sammy,” Dean says finally, soft and certain, like that’s all the identity Sam will ever need. And Sam smiles in spite of himself, because that, at least, is true. The part of him that’s Dean’s brother feels sure, rings with truth when nothing else does. Sam wants more, wants to be something else the way Dean is cocky, and smart, and strong, and a bastard sometimes, but there’s nothing else he knows about himself other than this. Dean’s brother. Dean says it like it’s important, like it’s enough. Like it means something. And if Sam wishes Dean would tell him more, would lean down and stare into Sam’s eyes again like he’s the most wondrous thing in the universe, well, Sam’s fourteen now, and he keeps that to himself.
(Dean)
In Dean’s eyes, it seems to happen overnight. One day Sammy’s a red-faced squalling little thing who won’t shut up til Dean’s four-year-old arms are wrapped tight around him, Sammy chomping down with toothless sore red gums on Dean’s finger til he quiets. When the first tooth breaks through Dean feels like he’s shepherded it into existence himself, and he grins as he feels it scrape sharp against the pad of his small fingertip, doesn’t flinch when Sammy bites down.
The next day it seems, Sam’s long and lean and sinewy skinny, feet and hands too big for him, like a puppy letting you know he’s gonna end up a newfoundland, not a beagle. At fourteen, Sam’s still a kid, or at least that’s what Dean tells himself. There’s a longing there now, restless underneath the unruly bangs always in Sam’s face, something that makes those brown cat eyes settle on Dean when Sam thinks he’s not looking, waiting for Dean to give him something, to make it okay like he always has. It’s harder now, more confusing than when Sam was seven and Dean could make him squeal with joy just by tickling his soft little boy belly, until they were both breathless and Sam was curled against him hiccupping and grinning. Now Sam wants Dean to fix things that can’t be fixed, change things that are indelible, and Dean feels the first whispers of failure scratch at the corners of his brain when Sam looks at him.
Dean likes the beer can wreath hanging crookedly on the front door – hell, it’s more than they usually have, and he didn’t even have to sneak it from a house down the road. Dad brought it home, laughing and smelling like he’d consumed half the beers before he added them to the circle, the corners of his eyes crinkling like he had some Santa in him. Dean tacks it up, anticipating Sam’s smile. He gets an eye roll instead, and Sam’s out the door, backpack of books that Dean can’t help him with anymore but little blonde Becky Griffin two blocks over can.
Dean might have used the wreath for target practice come January, the aluminum crunching with a satisfying ping as every shot found its mark.
When Sam asks him, Dean almost answers without thinking. Who Sam is, that’s something Dean knows better than he knows himself. Sammy’s quiet in the mornings, wakes up slow and affectionate, used to like to burrow against the warmth of Dean’s chest and nuzzle there until his big brother finally opened his eyes, the tickle of Sammy’s hair underneath his chin tugging him up from sleep. Sammy’s loud when he’s happy, and Dean misses those times now that they’ve been drowned in teenage angst and the need for rebellion. Dean remembers the yelp of Sam’s laugh and how it never failed to pull Dean along with him, laughing just to be there in Sam’s space, in his joy.
Sammy’s brave, has always been, clinging to Dean’s hand the first day of school so tightly Dean had red-rimmed crescents in his palm until lunch time, but Sam let go when Dean told him. “Go Sammy. This is what you have to do.” Sam didn’t know his brother dug the half moons back in when they started to fade, to keep Sam close until the bell rang at the end of the day.
Sammy’s scared too, when the nightmares come as they always have and he cries in the night, and it’s always the call of his own name that brings Dean from a sound sleep and slipping into Sam’s bed to hold him.
Sammy’s smarter than anyone Dean has ever known, perceptive in a way that sends a chill down Dean’s back sometimes when he doesn’t expect it, when Sam can read his mind as effortlessly as he can skim through a calculus book already and do the math. Sammy’s dumber too, clueless and stupid when he doesn’t see himself at all, when everything Dean sees in him is invisible to Sam, and Dean’s throat chokes up when he tries to tell him.
Sammy’s beautiful, then and now, the most beautiful thing Dean’s ever seen in this world, enough to convince Dean that not everything is ugly and evil and cold. When Sam was nine, John cut off all his hair, buzzed it down to fuzz with clippers that growled and nicked Sam’s ear and made it bleed. Sam cried when he saw the golden-brown curls around his feet, and John told him to grow up and stop looking like a girl, so Sam sniffed it back and stared at Dean. His ears stuck out too big for his head, and his brown eyes slanted haunted and wide without their fringe of bangs, and Dean could see his lower lip tremble.
“You look handsome, Sammy,” Dean told him when Dad had left the room, but Sam looked at himself in the bathroom mirror and made a face, small and miserable.
“No I don’t, I look stupid. I hate myself! I’m not goin’ to school tomorrow.”
Dean had yanked him away from the mirror, hands grasping Sam’s face roughly til Sam whimpered. “Don’t you ever say that, Sammy, you hear me? You don’t hate yourself and you don’t look stupid. Don’ matter what kinda hair you have, see?”
Dean had kissed the bare forehead he usually couldn’t see, pressed his lips gently to the soft skin there. “You’re beautiful, Sammy, you hear me? Don’t forget it.”
Sam doesn’t know those things, doesn’t know who he is in Dean’s eyes.
“You’re my brother,” Dean finally answers. And Sam doesn’t know that’s the one thing Dean’s sure of about himself, the one thing he knows he is and will always be.
May, Six Years Before
(Sam)
Fifteen is better than fourteen, if only because Sam is finally taller than his brother. It’s the first time he’s been able to do something that really annoys Dean, and Sam relishes it, takes every opportunity to stand close and exaggerate the bend of his head down when he meets his brother’s eyes. Some kids who get too tall too fast end up slouching, uncomfortable with standing out, but Sam welcomes it. Dean’s the only one who’s ever noticed him anyway, and the scowl on his face when he has to tilt his head up slightly to be eye to eye with his little brother makes Sam’s heart skitter-thud with joy.
He’s stronger too, muscles still trying to catch up to growth of bone but Sam’s got height on Dean now if not weight, and he’s not afraid to use it to his advantage. Dean taught him that (taught him everything), never to be afraid to give it all he’s got, not even when it’s his brother bearing the brunt of Sam’s strength when they grapple.
“You surrender, Dean?” Sam crows, gasping and sporting a scrape where Dean’s ragged nail caught the side of his face, but gleeful because he’s on top, his brother pinned beneath him. Dean’s panting even harder than Sam, and the green of his eyes is striking against the pink flush of his cheeks as he tries to catch his breath with Sam’s weight on his chest. He makes a last half-hearted effort to unseat his brother, scrambling to try to knock Sam off with a twist of strong legs, but Sam leans down and presses his wrists to the ground and Dean gives up with a grunt.
“Say it, Dean,” Sam demands, taunting as only a fifteen year old who’s been teased a million times over by his big brother can. “Say ‘you win, Sam.” Dean snorts and shakes his head, mouth a thin tight line of refusal. “Not lettin’ you up til you do,” Sam threatens, and to prove it he sits down hard, full weight on Dean’s stomach, and he can feel the muscles there tighten. Sam figures Dean’s ready to fight again, readies himself for it, squeezes his thighs around Dean’s waist to hold on for the ride, but instead Dean goes abruptly still and Sam can just barely feel him tremble.
Immediately Sam’s up and off, afraid he’s pushed too far, and god knows he doesn’t want to be the big brother, not really, not when he needs Dean too badly to be that for him.
“Sorry,” Sam mumbles. Dean’s already on his feet and turned away, shrugging his broad shoulders like it’s nothing, but Sam knows what he felt. Wonders why he thinks about it as he falls asleep that night, answering trembles hot in his belly.
(Dean)
Eighteen is a year of passage. Dean passes senior year and Sam passes his brother by two inches, and in typical Winchester fashion, the latter has much more impact.
Dean Winchester has felt older than every single one of his classmates since the first day of kindergarten when he climbed over the fence and snuck back to the rented house to check on Sammy during recess, and graduation is redundant in its symbolism. Dean’s never felt like he belonged there, so the walk across the stage is just an opportunity to make it official, to accept a piece of paper he knows will never open any doors for him. The doors he needs to open require shotguns and lockpicks and devil’s traps, not diplomas. But Sam is in the tenth row with his long – freakishly long – legs sprawled into the aisle, and the smile on his face as Dean strides across the stage is enough to make Dean feel like maybe he’s done something important after all. Making Sam smile.
Sammy loves school, always has, and Dean thinks about the day when Sam will be here, diploma in hand – probably with twenty lines of honors taking up half the goddamn page – and he knows it will mean something very different to his brother. Knows even then, long before Sam does, that it might take Sam away. There’s a shudder running down his spine as he waves the diploma at Sam and returns the grin, prescient chill and the image of Sam and someone else, someone not Dean.
He doesn’t keep the diploma, claims he lost it somewhere between that house and the next.
Dean knows Sam thinks he hates it, and a part of him does, when he can no longer meet Sam’s eyes straight on. Big brothers always expect to be BIG brothers, it’s one of those things that make the universe spin right, and for a while Dean’s off balance with it, constantly surprised when he has to angle his gaze up to his brother’s. Sam lords it over him, the bastard, practically standing on his tip toes to raise himself up as much as possible, looking down his nose at Dean to make it even more obvious.
Sammy feels different too, all the little boy softness hardened into whippet thin muscle and bone. When they spar, Dean fights even harder, has never coddled but now he’s full on going at it, always careful not to hurt too much but neither of them tempers their hold on each other or breaks the other’s fall. The first time Sam actually lifts him off his feet, adrenaline-strong and determined to best his big brother, Dean’s so shocked he only fights back half-heartedly on instinct, and it’s not enough to keep him from landing on his back in the dirt. Sam falls on him with no mercy, big hands around Dean’s wrists, 140 pounds of Sammy on his chest, but it’s not until Sam taunts him that Dean goes breathless.
Because who the fuck is this, teasing and grown-up and just this side of mean, demanding Dean’s surrender? It’s fucked up and it’s wrong and when Sam sits on him and grips Dean’s hips with hard muscled thighs, Dean feels the blood suddenly flush his cheeks and harden the rest of him and jesusfuck, that’s not okay. He can’t find the voice to answer, just needs the heat of Sam’s body off his own, the clasp of Sam’s hands quickening the pulse at his wrists gone. Sam’s too much here, and Dean is too much Sam’s, and before he knows it he’s shaking with it. It’s not until Sam’s gone that he can breathe again.
Dean fucks a lot of girls that year.
March, Three Years Before
(Sam)
Sam doesn’t lose his virginity until he’s practically done school, and it does very little to help him forge an identity apart from his brother. Mostly because Dean is there when he does.
Whenever Dad’s on a hunt and doesn’t take Dean with him, Dean brings girls home. He’s not a kid anymore, he’s allowed, and really he hasn’t needed their father’s permission for sex in a long time, it’s one of the things John’s never gone out of his way to discourage. Sam wonders if Dad knows the way Sam’s fantasies slant sometimes, if he wants Dean to flaunt his conquests in Sam’s face, make sure Sam knows his brother’s all man. Funny, but that’s never been the problem. Sam knows, knows every inch of Dean’s body, the smooth line of spine and bunch of muscle, the way he moves, all tightly coiled grace and power. Sam knows more than he probably should, thanks to shared bedrooms and too-close quarters. The freckles between his brother’s shoulder blades, scattered over pale skin, rippling muscle. The curve of Dean’s ass as he turns away to tug on jeans in the morning, glimpse of his balls between legs that are slightly bowed, the sight making Sam’s mouth go dry.
Sam knows he shouldn’t look, but Dean’s the only thing he’s ever adored, the only one whose touch has ever warmed him, so he only turns away sometimes, when he catches Dean looking back in silent question.
The night of Sam’s prom, his date smuggles a bottle of her daddy’s whiskey in her purse and shares it with Sam in the backseat of her car. They grope and fumble and Sam pops a boner, then Trisha pukes on his suit that used to be Dean’s (and leaves three inches of boot showing) and he ends up walking back to the house after parking her car on the curb and running before her daddy sees the shape his little girl’s in. Dean clearly hasn’t expected him back so soon – Sam remembers Dean’s high school dances as all-nighters, Sam lying awake waiting for the rumble of the Impala to finally calm him into sleep. So when Sam walks in the front door they’re right there on the couch, illuminated in flickering blues and grays by the light of the television, naked bodies entwined in fluid motion. Sam fixates for a moment on the way Dean’s bare ass clenches as he thrusts into her, hips pumping hard and frantic, making her moan every time he pushes in.
The girl just drops her jaw in open-mouthed surprise when she sees him, and Dean jumps up, vigilant and ready even naked and unarmed, and Sam’s eyes go right to his cock. Because sure, Sam’s seen his brother without his pants, has seen his dick, but fuck, not like this. Dean’s cock is slick, dark red beneath the condom – and jesus, fucking big -- standing up stiff and eager. Sam wonders what it would be like to get his fingers around it, if it would feel like his own dick does when he jacks it.
“Sammy,” Dean breathes, like he’s relieved it isn’t something paranormal bursting in to interrupt them, just his little brother, like that happens every day. And then his eyes drop right to Sam’s crotch, where his erection is threatening to tear through the dress pants with the puke on them, and that just makes the goddamn thing stiffen up even more.
“This is your little brother?” Maryanne asks, her hands covering her breasts half-heartedly. “He’s adorable.”
Dean laughs as Sam goes scarlet, mumbles an apology and tries to slink off down the hall to the bedroom. Dean catches him by the wrist, almost unbalances him as the whiskey dizzies him, and pulls him nearer to the couch.
“Yeah, he is, ain’t he?” Dean smiles, and Sam knows he’s drunk too, can smell the alcohol on him. Dean trails a hand down Sam’s back, and Sam tries not to look at him, not to stare at the way Dean’s nipples are pebbled and dusky-red, the amulet hanging between them like a mark of Sam’s affection. He shudders at that thought, and Dean follows his eyes, reaches up to wrap his hand around it before he huffs another affectionate laugh. “Why you back so early, Sammy? That little girl didn’t put out for you?”
Sam tries again to back away, but Dean’s hand on the small of his back is firm and his voice keeps Sam rooted to the spot. “Don’t know what she’s missin’ then,” he slurs, and he’s pushing Sam’s jacket off his shoulders, working at the knot of his tie.
“Dean, what –
“Shhh, Sammy, don’t worry, we’ve got ya,” he soothes, like he did when Sam was five and had a nightmare, when he curled against Dean’s chest and felt Dean’s fingers carding through his hair, gentle tugs and pulls and strokes against his scalp until he fell back into sleep. This is nothing like that, the play of Dean’s fingers on his throat as his brother loosens the tie is anything but restful, and Sam can feel his pulse race under Dean’s touch.
“You wanna help me here, sugar?” Dean says to Maryanne, and then there’s naked girl there too, smiling at him and unbuttoning his shirt and stripping it off as Dean flings his tie to the floor. “Don’t worry,” Dean tells her, “He’s clean, nobody’s had him, you’ll be the first,” and his voice is wistful when he says it. Sam sways as she unbuckles his belt and opens his pants, reaching for his cock before she’s even got them off him, and Sam yelps and almost comes in her hand.
“Easy Sammy,” Dean says, and ohgod he shouldn’t be here, not now, not like this. For a moment Sam thinks he’s gonna be sick, stomach rebelling against too much whiskey and too much naked Dean and all the blood gone to his dick and left his brain. Dean eases the girl back on the couch, urges Sam down with her, and Sam’s hips jerk as Dean works his pants down as he goes, his hand palming Sam’s bare ass briefly as he mutters, “Yeah, yeah Sammy, do it, go on.”
He can’t stop with the girl wrapping her legs around him, guiding him inside her with eager fingers, so hot and wet there, where Dean’s dick has just been ohgod, and he comes with Maryanne’s heels digging into the small of his back and Dean’s voice in his ear, murmuring “Jesus Sammy, ohgod.”
(Dean)
Dean knows he shouldn’t have done it. Probably wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for the alcohol blocking out the part of his brain responsible for executive functioning and taking most of his impulse control with it. That and the fact that he’s this close to coming in Maryanne’s tight little pussy make him stupid though, make him say things he wouldn’t have otherwise. Or maybe it’s the way Sammy’s blushing, shuffling his feet, all six plus feet of him awkward and embarrassed and fuck if that doesn’t do funny things to Dean’s insides, and certain parts of his outsides too.
Sam’s been pulling away, Dean can feel it, knows something’s coming long before Sam finally throws the acceptance letter down on the kitchen table of the house that’s not theirs. So he wants it, this moment. Dean’s been there through every milestone in his little brother’s life, holding out his arms for Sammy’s first step, holding his hand that first day of school, handing out kissing advice for his first date. He wants this first too, knows it might be the last one he gets to be there for, and god, the knowledge eats away at him. Who will he be, without Sam?
Somehow he’s not too surprised when Sam goes with it, when he doesn’t try to push Dean’s hands away (when has he ever?), doesn’t protest as Dean’s clever fingers work off his tie, as the girl’s hands strip away his shirt, unfasten his pants. Sam’s blushing like crazy, but he’s horny as hell too, and Dean gets a glimpse of Sam’s dick as Maryanne shoves his pants and boxers down just far enough to free it, red and thick and glistening at the tip already. Sam’s hard and ready, shakes as Dean smoothes his hands over Sam’s sides and strips his pants farther down, exposes Sam’s tightly rounded ass. He can’t help but stroke his fingers over it as Sam goes down, feel the curve of muscle firm under the baby softness of his brother’s skin.
“Jesus Sammy,” Dean hears himself mutter as Sam goes for it, Sam’s groans loud and desperate as he fucks into her, and Dean goes to his knees as he takes his own cock in hand, strips off the condom and spills hard over his fist.
August, Three Years Before
(Sam)
California is somewhere they’ve never been. Sam wonders if there’s just too much bright sunlight there, too much turquoise and vermillion and hot pink for the things they hunt who love the blacks and grays, and so California just doesn’t have any evil sonsofbitches at all. There’s nothing at Stanford that’s familiar, nothing that will draw his father and brother into the brand new canvas Sam intends to paint himself into. He wants it – needs it – to be a tabula rasa, a backdrop against which Sam can finally discover himself apart from the too-tall shadow of his big brother. He knows Dean won’t understand. Won’t get that Sam’s not putting distance between them because he doesn’t care, but because he cares too much.
Sam expects his father’s rage -- fear and guilt thinly veiled as threat. The hurt in John’s eyes is like a physical pain when he pins Sam to the wall with his words and forces his hand, makes the decision black or white instead of the gray Sam was hoping for. Leave and you stay gone. Maybe John knows that’s the only way Sam could have managed it.
What he doesn’t expect is his brother’s agony, so clear in the moist green of his eyes that Sam can barely breathe through it. He knows that Dean’s been waiting for this, has felt Sam pulling away for months now, hiding his feelings from Dean for the first time as imperfectly as he tried to hide his acceptance letter. And still he can see how much it’s taking for Dean not to reach out and pull him back, hand clenched at his hip so tightly his knuckles are white.
The day Sam leaves, Dean kisses him. Chaste and tender, but it rips them both apart anyway. First time in a decade, and Sam knows how far he’s pushed his brother by the tremble that runs down Dean’s broad back as they press together awkwardly in the shadow of the Greyhound, by the way Dean’s fingers fumble as he puts the envelope in Sam’s hands. Sam doesn’t open it until much later, terrified – hoping – there will be a note, some evidence of Dean’s forgiveness, inside. All he finds are bills, twenties and some fifties all neatly smoothed and turned the same direction, enough to ensure that Sam can follow the dream that’s taken him away from Dean. The one that Sam knows has broken his brother’s heart.
He never can bring himself to spend the last one, just keeps the worn-thin twenty in his wallet, runs it between his thumb and forefinger sometimes to know it’s there. From Dean, who’s given him the only things he ever needed, even the permission to take.
(Dean)
Sam’s leaving isn’t a surprise, far from it. He’s known for months, ever since the first handwritten list of colleges in Sammy’s furtive scrawl, balled up and tossed away beside the bed. Dean handles it like he handles everything in his life, does what he can and pushes the rest away, locks it inside. ‘What he can’ in this case is take care of Sammy like always, even when he won’t be there to see it, even when Sam maybe doesn’t want that from him anymore. He finds a lot of ways to make cash in the months before Sam leaves, and if some of them cost him more than others, he closes his eyes while he does what he has to and thinks about what Sam will spend it on when he gets to Stanford. Books and frou frou lattes and taking girls to movies, the things Dean imagines guys like Sam do at college. The tens and twenties and fifties (those are mostly the ones he closes his eyes for) pile up, and Dean likes knowing Sam will have them for a long time, long after he’s gone away.
He wants to be strong and certain and okay with it all, the day he drives Sam to the Greyhound station, but knowing that Sam won’t be there beside him in five minutes puts a lump in his throat that feels like a tennis ball. Chokes him and takes even the word ‘goodbye’ from him, until he can’t give Sam anything to take with him but the battered bulging envelope full of the things he can’t say.
Dean only kisses him because of that lump. Otherwise he would have just said ‘take care of yourself, Sammy.’ He doesn’t meet Sam’s eyes after, afraid of what he might see there.
October, Two Years Before
(Dean)
The night Dean gets back everything he’s ever wanted, Sam loses the only chance at normal he ever had. And Dean knows it.
Irrational to think his coming back had anything to do with Jessica blonde and bloody on the ceiling, but Dean shoulders the guilt anyway, wonders if Sam’s gonna blame him. Maybe if he’d stayed away, Sam could have kept Normal. Dean feels the weight of everything he wants, everything he shouldn’t want, heavy in his chest when Sam’s there before him for the first time in years, rumpled with sleep and so damn beautiful. Tall and strong and eyes still innocent even after all he’s seen, and Dean feels like he’s infected, like he brought the darkness back with him and let it seep into the bright warm colors of Sammy’s collegeboy life the second his fingers gripped Sam’s shoulders to roll him under, press him down. The moment their eyes met and Dean knew he couldn’t let go again without leaving a chunk of his own heart behind splattered in the California sun. He shouldn’t have come.
“Stop it, Dean.” Sam’s voice startles him, and Dean’s hand on the wheel jerks the Impala slightly to the right, toward where his brother’s been staring at him. “Nothing you could’ve done.”
Dean physically flinches, grits his jaw at the pain and resignation in Sam’s voice that stab at his insides. Sam doesn’t know that’s the worst thing he could say, the one thing Dean doesn’t want to believe. Because if that’s true, he can’t keep Sam safe. Can’t keep Sam from hurting, crying, needing, dying. And that’s the one thing Dean’s always been good at, maybe the one thing he’s ever really cared about.
“Yeah, well, there’s something I’m sure as hell gonna do when we track that sonofabitch down,” he finally answers, turning to Sam and daring him to disagree.
Sam shrugs and sighs, sinks into the worn leather of the Impala’s seats, lets his hazel cat-eyes fall closed as Dean watches. There’s a warm flush creeping up Dean’s chest as Sam sinks into sleep, relaxing under his brother’s watch. Keep you safe, Sammy, Dean promises, words mouthed to the highway stretching ahead of them.
(Sam)
It’s not that he blames Dean, it’s never been that. Just that Dean coming back and Jess dying get all wrapped up together sometimes in the corners of his mind that don’t do rational, and then he snaps at Dean, the urge to let his fist connect with his brother’s smirking mouth a physical itch, making the muscles in his bicep twitch. It’s just that one day there were classes and papers and LSATs and Jess warm and wet in his bed, and the next there was Dean and then she was gone, taking all his carefully constructed Normal with her.
He knows Dean can feel it, and he’s sorry, he is. Dean doesn’t deserve his anger, but then, who does? Who should he blame for all the loss, all the fucked up backwards and forwards that his life has always fucking been? It’s not Dean’s fault. But yellow eyed demons are out there somewhere and his brother’s right here, brash and headstrong and know-it-all, and sometimes Sam just wants to punch him. Curse him out for letting Sam leave in the first place, for not knowing how far away from normal Sam had gotten and how much of that involved Dean’s green eyes and the way Sam’s heart beat too fast when they met his own.
Other times, when he wakes up from the nightmares that won’t leave him alone to the sight of his brother’s hands big and strong and sure on the wheel and the Impala purring beneath them, Sam just wants to kiss him. It hurts in those moments, underneath the anger Sam directs at the universe who just doesn’t give a damn, that he never will. That he’ll never let Dean know why he had to leave, too young to trust himself to keep the wanting locked up tight.
Sam’s not young anymore, not after watching Dean through the back window of the bus as it pulled away, standing stiff and awkward and unmoving until the road turned and broke Sam’s view. Not after watching Jess burn to death above him. Sam can do it now, and Dean will never know how close Sam came to saying his brother’s name too many times even with Jess’s soft curves and blue eyes beneath him.
Dean who loves him the way nobody else ever has, not even Jess who wanted him and thought she knew him. The way Dean loves makes other people’s attempts seem pale and half-hearted. Maybe it should scare him, Sam thinks sometimes, but it never does. He’s had Dean’s undivided attention all his life, even when there were 2,000 miles between them, and Sam drinks it in now, lets it warm him when the sun goes down and the road grows dark, the spark in Dean’s eyes enough of a beacon for Sam to see where he’s going.
With Dean.
Chapter Two
Master Post
Chapter One
December, Seven Years Before
(Sam)
The problem with being fourteen and never in one place long enough to define yourself is that you just end up staring obsessively at the only mirror you do have, even when his eyes are never going to see you as you really are, only as his little brother.
At fourteen, the need to say this is me, this is who I am, this is what I want, pushes up from inside Sam every hour of every day, relentless and insistent. The problem is, Sam doesn’t know. Never got the chance to see himself reflected in his mama’s eyes. Hasn’t stared up into the face of an adoring mother whose expression tells you that you’re the most precious thing in the world – in the universe. Sam has the same need to know as every other fourteen year old, but nothing fits into place when your life hasn’t followed the patterns that every college psych class define as ‘normal’. And still the need just keeps coming, nature trumping nurture (or lack thereof) to force his hand because Sam’s just human and evolution will brook no argument.
“Who am I?” he asks Dean, the only one he can. The only one who’s ever looked at him like that, like he was someone – special. It’s three days before Christmas in a motel with a wreath made of beer cans tacked up on the door, and the damn thing makes Sam cold every time he looks at it, metal edges sharp enough to cut and the faint smell of Budweiser instead of woodsy pine scent. Becky Griffin had one that smelled real on her door, the green kind, its needles soft beneath his curious fingers as Sam paused to examine it. Not quite admiring, more like cataloging the difference, one of millions, one too many. Who am I when I’m not like anyone?
Dean tosses a bottle of gun oil at his little brother. “Make yourself useful, Sam, and stop asking dumb questions.” Grins as Sam catches it one-handed, reflexes already sharpened by three years of training. “That’s m’boy,” Dean says, warmth slipping into his voice as Sam sighs and picks up the next weapon.
Seventeen and Dean seems to know exactly who he is. Dean can swagger like a man ten years older, could do it since he was the age Sam is now, even before he could back it up with enough muscle to convince the skeptics. Blood has never scared him, threat of pain never stopped him, so why not come on strong? Sam watches Dean’s fingers sure and capable on the barrel gleaming slick and lethal in his hands, not a trace of hesitation or doubt. Everything Sam wishes he could be, and knows he never will.
Dean has an eyebrow cocked over one emerald green eye when he looks up, feeling Sam’s stare the way he always can, knowing, and Sam drops his gaze blushing. He thinks about something hateful he can say to his brother, something to wash away the adoration he knows is in his eyes when he looks at Dean because it just makes Sam feel smaller.
“You’re my brother, Sammy,” Dean says finally, soft and certain, like that’s all the identity Sam will ever need. And Sam smiles in spite of himself, because that, at least, is true. The part of him that’s Dean’s brother feels sure, rings with truth when nothing else does. Sam wants more, wants to be something else the way Dean is cocky, and smart, and strong, and a bastard sometimes, but there’s nothing else he knows about himself other than this. Dean’s brother. Dean says it like it’s important, like it’s enough. Like it means something. And if Sam wishes Dean would tell him more, would lean down and stare into Sam’s eyes again like he’s the most wondrous thing in the universe, well, Sam’s fourteen now, and he keeps that to himself.
(Dean)
In Dean’s eyes, it seems to happen overnight. One day Sammy’s a red-faced squalling little thing who won’t shut up til Dean’s four-year-old arms are wrapped tight around him, Sammy chomping down with toothless sore red gums on Dean’s finger til he quiets. When the first tooth breaks through Dean feels like he’s shepherded it into existence himself, and he grins as he feels it scrape sharp against the pad of his small fingertip, doesn’t flinch when Sammy bites down.
The next day it seems, Sam’s long and lean and sinewy skinny, feet and hands too big for him, like a puppy letting you know he’s gonna end up a newfoundland, not a beagle. At fourteen, Sam’s still a kid, or at least that’s what Dean tells himself. There’s a longing there now, restless underneath the unruly bangs always in Sam’s face, something that makes those brown cat eyes settle on Dean when Sam thinks he’s not looking, waiting for Dean to give him something, to make it okay like he always has. It’s harder now, more confusing than when Sam was seven and Dean could make him squeal with joy just by tickling his soft little boy belly, until they were both breathless and Sam was curled against him hiccupping and grinning. Now Sam wants Dean to fix things that can’t be fixed, change things that are indelible, and Dean feels the first whispers of failure scratch at the corners of his brain when Sam looks at him.
Dean likes the beer can wreath hanging crookedly on the front door – hell, it’s more than they usually have, and he didn’t even have to sneak it from a house down the road. Dad brought it home, laughing and smelling like he’d consumed half the beers before he added them to the circle, the corners of his eyes crinkling like he had some Santa in him. Dean tacks it up, anticipating Sam’s smile. He gets an eye roll instead, and Sam’s out the door, backpack of books that Dean can’t help him with anymore but little blonde Becky Griffin two blocks over can.
Dean might have used the wreath for target practice come January, the aluminum crunching with a satisfying ping as every shot found its mark.
When Sam asks him, Dean almost answers without thinking. Who Sam is, that’s something Dean knows better than he knows himself. Sammy’s quiet in the mornings, wakes up slow and affectionate, used to like to burrow against the warmth of Dean’s chest and nuzzle there until his big brother finally opened his eyes, the tickle of Sammy’s hair underneath his chin tugging him up from sleep. Sammy’s loud when he’s happy, and Dean misses those times now that they’ve been drowned in teenage angst and the need for rebellion. Dean remembers the yelp of Sam’s laugh and how it never failed to pull Dean along with him, laughing just to be there in Sam’s space, in his joy.
Sammy’s brave, has always been, clinging to Dean’s hand the first day of school so tightly Dean had red-rimmed crescents in his palm until lunch time, but Sam let go when Dean told him. “Go Sammy. This is what you have to do.” Sam didn’t know his brother dug the half moons back in when they started to fade, to keep Sam close until the bell rang at the end of the day.
Sammy’s scared too, when the nightmares come as they always have and he cries in the night, and it’s always the call of his own name that brings Dean from a sound sleep and slipping into Sam’s bed to hold him.
Sammy’s smarter than anyone Dean has ever known, perceptive in a way that sends a chill down Dean’s back sometimes when he doesn’t expect it, when Sam can read his mind as effortlessly as he can skim through a calculus book already and do the math. Sammy’s dumber too, clueless and stupid when he doesn’t see himself at all, when everything Dean sees in him is invisible to Sam, and Dean’s throat chokes up when he tries to tell him.
Sammy’s beautiful, then and now, the most beautiful thing Dean’s ever seen in this world, enough to convince Dean that not everything is ugly and evil and cold. When Sam was nine, John cut off all his hair, buzzed it down to fuzz with clippers that growled and nicked Sam’s ear and made it bleed. Sam cried when he saw the golden-brown curls around his feet, and John told him to grow up and stop looking like a girl, so Sam sniffed it back and stared at Dean. His ears stuck out too big for his head, and his brown eyes slanted haunted and wide without their fringe of bangs, and Dean could see his lower lip tremble.
“You look handsome, Sammy,” Dean told him when Dad had left the room, but Sam looked at himself in the bathroom mirror and made a face, small and miserable.
“No I don’t, I look stupid. I hate myself! I’m not goin’ to school tomorrow.”
Dean had yanked him away from the mirror, hands grasping Sam’s face roughly til Sam whimpered. “Don’t you ever say that, Sammy, you hear me? You don’t hate yourself and you don’t look stupid. Don’ matter what kinda hair you have, see?”
Dean had kissed the bare forehead he usually couldn’t see, pressed his lips gently to the soft skin there. “You’re beautiful, Sammy, you hear me? Don’t forget it.”
Sam doesn’t know those things, doesn’t know who he is in Dean’s eyes.
“You’re my brother,” Dean finally answers. And Sam doesn’t know that’s the one thing Dean’s sure of about himself, the one thing he knows he is and will always be.
May, Six Years Before
(Sam)
Fifteen is better than fourteen, if only because Sam is finally taller than his brother. It’s the first time he’s been able to do something that really annoys Dean, and Sam relishes it, takes every opportunity to stand close and exaggerate the bend of his head down when he meets his brother’s eyes. Some kids who get too tall too fast end up slouching, uncomfortable with standing out, but Sam welcomes it. Dean’s the only one who’s ever noticed him anyway, and the scowl on his face when he has to tilt his head up slightly to be eye to eye with his little brother makes Sam’s heart skitter-thud with joy.
He’s stronger too, muscles still trying to catch up to growth of bone but Sam’s got height on Dean now if not weight, and he’s not afraid to use it to his advantage. Dean taught him that (taught him everything), never to be afraid to give it all he’s got, not even when it’s his brother bearing the brunt of Sam’s strength when they grapple.
“You surrender, Dean?” Sam crows, gasping and sporting a scrape where Dean’s ragged nail caught the side of his face, but gleeful because he’s on top, his brother pinned beneath him. Dean’s panting even harder than Sam, and the green of his eyes is striking against the pink flush of his cheeks as he tries to catch his breath with Sam’s weight on his chest. He makes a last half-hearted effort to unseat his brother, scrambling to try to knock Sam off with a twist of strong legs, but Sam leans down and presses his wrists to the ground and Dean gives up with a grunt.
“Say it, Dean,” Sam demands, taunting as only a fifteen year old who’s been teased a million times over by his big brother can. “Say ‘you win, Sam.” Dean snorts and shakes his head, mouth a thin tight line of refusal. “Not lettin’ you up til you do,” Sam threatens, and to prove it he sits down hard, full weight on Dean’s stomach, and he can feel the muscles there tighten. Sam figures Dean’s ready to fight again, readies himself for it, squeezes his thighs around Dean’s waist to hold on for the ride, but instead Dean goes abruptly still and Sam can just barely feel him tremble.
Immediately Sam’s up and off, afraid he’s pushed too far, and god knows he doesn’t want to be the big brother, not really, not when he needs Dean too badly to be that for him.
“Sorry,” Sam mumbles. Dean’s already on his feet and turned away, shrugging his broad shoulders like it’s nothing, but Sam knows what he felt. Wonders why he thinks about it as he falls asleep that night, answering trembles hot in his belly.
(Dean)
Eighteen is a year of passage. Dean passes senior year and Sam passes his brother by two inches, and in typical Winchester fashion, the latter has much more impact.
Dean Winchester has felt older than every single one of his classmates since the first day of kindergarten when he climbed over the fence and snuck back to the rented house to check on Sammy during recess, and graduation is redundant in its symbolism. Dean’s never felt like he belonged there, so the walk across the stage is just an opportunity to make it official, to accept a piece of paper he knows will never open any doors for him. The doors he needs to open require shotguns and lockpicks and devil’s traps, not diplomas. But Sam is in the tenth row with his long – freakishly long – legs sprawled into the aisle, and the smile on his face as Dean strides across the stage is enough to make Dean feel like maybe he’s done something important after all. Making Sam smile.
Sammy loves school, always has, and Dean thinks about the day when Sam will be here, diploma in hand – probably with twenty lines of honors taking up half the goddamn page – and he knows it will mean something very different to his brother. Knows even then, long before Sam does, that it might take Sam away. There’s a shudder running down his spine as he waves the diploma at Sam and returns the grin, prescient chill and the image of Sam and someone else, someone not Dean.
He doesn’t keep the diploma, claims he lost it somewhere between that house and the next.
Dean knows Sam thinks he hates it, and a part of him does, when he can no longer meet Sam’s eyes straight on. Big brothers always expect to be BIG brothers, it’s one of those things that make the universe spin right, and for a while Dean’s off balance with it, constantly surprised when he has to angle his gaze up to his brother’s. Sam lords it over him, the bastard, practically standing on his tip toes to raise himself up as much as possible, looking down his nose at Dean to make it even more obvious.
Sammy feels different too, all the little boy softness hardened into whippet thin muscle and bone. When they spar, Dean fights even harder, has never coddled but now he’s full on going at it, always careful not to hurt too much but neither of them tempers their hold on each other or breaks the other’s fall. The first time Sam actually lifts him off his feet, adrenaline-strong and determined to best his big brother, Dean’s so shocked he only fights back half-heartedly on instinct, and it’s not enough to keep him from landing on his back in the dirt. Sam falls on him with no mercy, big hands around Dean’s wrists, 140 pounds of Sammy on his chest, but it’s not until Sam taunts him that Dean goes breathless.
Because who the fuck is this, teasing and grown-up and just this side of mean, demanding Dean’s surrender? It’s fucked up and it’s wrong and when Sam sits on him and grips Dean’s hips with hard muscled thighs, Dean feels the blood suddenly flush his cheeks and harden the rest of him and jesusfuck, that’s not okay. He can’t find the voice to answer, just needs the heat of Sam’s body off his own, the clasp of Sam’s hands quickening the pulse at his wrists gone. Sam’s too much here, and Dean is too much Sam’s, and before he knows it he’s shaking with it. It’s not until Sam’s gone that he can breathe again.
Dean fucks a lot of girls that year.
March, Three Years Before
(Sam)
Sam doesn’t lose his virginity until he’s practically done school, and it does very little to help him forge an identity apart from his brother. Mostly because Dean is there when he does.
Whenever Dad’s on a hunt and doesn’t take Dean with him, Dean brings girls home. He’s not a kid anymore, he’s allowed, and really he hasn’t needed their father’s permission for sex in a long time, it’s one of the things John’s never gone out of his way to discourage. Sam wonders if Dad knows the way Sam’s fantasies slant sometimes, if he wants Dean to flaunt his conquests in Sam’s face, make sure Sam knows his brother’s all man. Funny, but that’s never been the problem. Sam knows, knows every inch of Dean’s body, the smooth line of spine and bunch of muscle, the way he moves, all tightly coiled grace and power. Sam knows more than he probably should, thanks to shared bedrooms and too-close quarters. The freckles between his brother’s shoulder blades, scattered over pale skin, rippling muscle. The curve of Dean’s ass as he turns away to tug on jeans in the morning, glimpse of his balls between legs that are slightly bowed, the sight making Sam’s mouth go dry.
Sam knows he shouldn’t look, but Dean’s the only thing he’s ever adored, the only one whose touch has ever warmed him, so he only turns away sometimes, when he catches Dean looking back in silent question.
The night of Sam’s prom, his date smuggles a bottle of her daddy’s whiskey in her purse and shares it with Sam in the backseat of her car. They grope and fumble and Sam pops a boner, then Trisha pukes on his suit that used to be Dean’s (and leaves three inches of boot showing) and he ends up walking back to the house after parking her car on the curb and running before her daddy sees the shape his little girl’s in. Dean clearly hasn’t expected him back so soon – Sam remembers Dean’s high school dances as all-nighters, Sam lying awake waiting for the rumble of the Impala to finally calm him into sleep. So when Sam walks in the front door they’re right there on the couch, illuminated in flickering blues and grays by the light of the television, naked bodies entwined in fluid motion. Sam fixates for a moment on the way Dean’s bare ass clenches as he thrusts into her, hips pumping hard and frantic, making her moan every time he pushes in.
The girl just drops her jaw in open-mouthed surprise when she sees him, and Dean jumps up, vigilant and ready even naked and unarmed, and Sam’s eyes go right to his cock. Because sure, Sam’s seen his brother without his pants, has seen his dick, but fuck, not like this. Dean’s cock is slick, dark red beneath the condom – and jesus, fucking big -- standing up stiff and eager. Sam wonders what it would be like to get his fingers around it, if it would feel like his own dick does when he jacks it.
“Sammy,” Dean breathes, like he’s relieved it isn’t something paranormal bursting in to interrupt them, just his little brother, like that happens every day. And then his eyes drop right to Sam’s crotch, where his erection is threatening to tear through the dress pants with the puke on them, and that just makes the goddamn thing stiffen up even more.
“This is your little brother?” Maryanne asks, her hands covering her breasts half-heartedly. “He’s adorable.”
Dean laughs as Sam goes scarlet, mumbles an apology and tries to slink off down the hall to the bedroom. Dean catches him by the wrist, almost unbalances him as the whiskey dizzies him, and pulls him nearer to the couch.
“Yeah, he is, ain’t he?” Dean smiles, and Sam knows he’s drunk too, can smell the alcohol on him. Dean trails a hand down Sam’s back, and Sam tries not to look at him, not to stare at the way Dean’s nipples are pebbled and dusky-red, the amulet hanging between them like a mark of Sam’s affection. He shudders at that thought, and Dean follows his eyes, reaches up to wrap his hand around it before he huffs another affectionate laugh. “Why you back so early, Sammy? That little girl didn’t put out for you?”
Sam tries again to back away, but Dean’s hand on the small of his back is firm and his voice keeps Sam rooted to the spot. “Don’t know what she’s missin’ then,” he slurs, and he’s pushing Sam’s jacket off his shoulders, working at the knot of his tie.
“Dean, what –
“Shhh, Sammy, don’t worry, we’ve got ya,” he soothes, like he did when Sam was five and had a nightmare, when he curled against Dean’s chest and felt Dean’s fingers carding through his hair, gentle tugs and pulls and strokes against his scalp until he fell back into sleep. This is nothing like that, the play of Dean’s fingers on his throat as his brother loosens the tie is anything but restful, and Sam can feel his pulse race under Dean’s touch.
“You wanna help me here, sugar?” Dean says to Maryanne, and then there’s naked girl there too, smiling at him and unbuttoning his shirt and stripping it off as Dean flings his tie to the floor. “Don’t worry,” Dean tells her, “He’s clean, nobody’s had him, you’ll be the first,” and his voice is wistful when he says it. Sam sways as she unbuckles his belt and opens his pants, reaching for his cock before she’s even got them off him, and Sam yelps and almost comes in her hand.
“Easy Sammy,” Dean says, and ohgod he shouldn’t be here, not now, not like this. For a moment Sam thinks he’s gonna be sick, stomach rebelling against too much whiskey and too much naked Dean and all the blood gone to his dick and left his brain. Dean eases the girl back on the couch, urges Sam down with her, and Sam’s hips jerk as Dean works his pants down as he goes, his hand palming Sam’s bare ass briefly as he mutters, “Yeah, yeah Sammy, do it, go on.”
He can’t stop with the girl wrapping her legs around him, guiding him inside her with eager fingers, so hot and wet there, where Dean’s dick has just been ohgod, and he comes with Maryanne’s heels digging into the small of his back and Dean’s voice in his ear, murmuring “Jesus Sammy, ohgod.”
(Dean)
Dean knows he shouldn’t have done it. Probably wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for the alcohol blocking out the part of his brain responsible for executive functioning and taking most of his impulse control with it. That and the fact that he’s this close to coming in Maryanne’s tight little pussy make him stupid though, make him say things he wouldn’t have otherwise. Or maybe it’s the way Sammy’s blushing, shuffling his feet, all six plus feet of him awkward and embarrassed and fuck if that doesn’t do funny things to Dean’s insides, and certain parts of his outsides too.
Sam’s been pulling away, Dean can feel it, knows something’s coming long before Sam finally throws the acceptance letter down on the kitchen table of the house that’s not theirs. So he wants it, this moment. Dean’s been there through every milestone in his little brother’s life, holding out his arms for Sammy’s first step, holding his hand that first day of school, handing out kissing advice for his first date. He wants this first too, knows it might be the last one he gets to be there for, and god, the knowledge eats away at him. Who will he be, without Sam?
Somehow he’s not too surprised when Sam goes with it, when he doesn’t try to push Dean’s hands away (when has he ever?), doesn’t protest as Dean’s clever fingers work off his tie, as the girl’s hands strip away his shirt, unfasten his pants. Sam’s blushing like crazy, but he’s horny as hell too, and Dean gets a glimpse of Sam’s dick as Maryanne shoves his pants and boxers down just far enough to free it, red and thick and glistening at the tip already. Sam’s hard and ready, shakes as Dean smoothes his hands over Sam’s sides and strips his pants farther down, exposes Sam’s tightly rounded ass. He can’t help but stroke his fingers over it as Sam goes down, feel the curve of muscle firm under the baby softness of his brother’s skin.
“Jesus Sammy,” Dean hears himself mutter as Sam goes for it, Sam’s groans loud and desperate as he fucks into her, and Dean goes to his knees as he takes his own cock in hand, strips off the condom and spills hard over his fist.
August, Three Years Before
(Sam)
California is somewhere they’ve never been. Sam wonders if there’s just too much bright sunlight there, too much turquoise and vermillion and hot pink for the things they hunt who love the blacks and grays, and so California just doesn’t have any evil sonsofbitches at all. There’s nothing at Stanford that’s familiar, nothing that will draw his father and brother into the brand new canvas Sam intends to paint himself into. He wants it – needs it – to be a tabula rasa, a backdrop against which Sam can finally discover himself apart from the too-tall shadow of his big brother. He knows Dean won’t understand. Won’t get that Sam’s not putting distance between them because he doesn’t care, but because he cares too much.
Sam expects his father’s rage -- fear and guilt thinly veiled as threat. The hurt in John’s eyes is like a physical pain when he pins Sam to the wall with his words and forces his hand, makes the decision black or white instead of the gray Sam was hoping for. Leave and you stay gone. Maybe John knows that’s the only way Sam could have managed it.
What he doesn’t expect is his brother’s agony, so clear in the moist green of his eyes that Sam can barely breathe through it. He knows that Dean’s been waiting for this, has felt Sam pulling away for months now, hiding his feelings from Dean for the first time as imperfectly as he tried to hide his acceptance letter. And still he can see how much it’s taking for Dean not to reach out and pull him back, hand clenched at his hip so tightly his knuckles are white.
The day Sam leaves, Dean kisses him. Chaste and tender, but it rips them both apart anyway. First time in a decade, and Sam knows how far he’s pushed his brother by the tremble that runs down Dean’s broad back as they press together awkwardly in the shadow of the Greyhound, by the way Dean’s fingers fumble as he puts the envelope in Sam’s hands. Sam doesn’t open it until much later, terrified – hoping – there will be a note, some evidence of Dean’s forgiveness, inside. All he finds are bills, twenties and some fifties all neatly smoothed and turned the same direction, enough to ensure that Sam can follow the dream that’s taken him away from Dean. The one that Sam knows has broken his brother’s heart.
He never can bring himself to spend the last one, just keeps the worn-thin twenty in his wallet, runs it between his thumb and forefinger sometimes to know it’s there. From Dean, who’s given him the only things he ever needed, even the permission to take.
(Dean)
Sam’s leaving isn’t a surprise, far from it. He’s known for months, ever since the first handwritten list of colleges in Sammy’s furtive scrawl, balled up and tossed away beside the bed. Dean handles it like he handles everything in his life, does what he can and pushes the rest away, locks it inside. ‘What he can’ in this case is take care of Sammy like always, even when he won’t be there to see it, even when Sam maybe doesn’t want that from him anymore. He finds a lot of ways to make cash in the months before Sam leaves, and if some of them cost him more than others, he closes his eyes while he does what he has to and thinks about what Sam will spend it on when he gets to Stanford. Books and frou frou lattes and taking girls to movies, the things Dean imagines guys like Sam do at college. The tens and twenties and fifties (those are mostly the ones he closes his eyes for) pile up, and Dean likes knowing Sam will have them for a long time, long after he’s gone away.
He wants to be strong and certain and okay with it all, the day he drives Sam to the Greyhound station, but knowing that Sam won’t be there beside him in five minutes puts a lump in his throat that feels like a tennis ball. Chokes him and takes even the word ‘goodbye’ from him, until he can’t give Sam anything to take with him but the battered bulging envelope full of the things he can’t say.
Dean only kisses him because of that lump. Otherwise he would have just said ‘take care of yourself, Sammy.’ He doesn’t meet Sam’s eyes after, afraid of what he might see there.
October, Two Years Before
(Dean)
The night Dean gets back everything he’s ever wanted, Sam loses the only chance at normal he ever had. And Dean knows it.
Irrational to think his coming back had anything to do with Jessica blonde and bloody on the ceiling, but Dean shoulders the guilt anyway, wonders if Sam’s gonna blame him. Maybe if he’d stayed away, Sam could have kept Normal. Dean feels the weight of everything he wants, everything he shouldn’t want, heavy in his chest when Sam’s there before him for the first time in years, rumpled with sleep and so damn beautiful. Tall and strong and eyes still innocent even after all he’s seen, and Dean feels like he’s infected, like he brought the darkness back with him and let it seep into the bright warm colors of Sammy’s collegeboy life the second his fingers gripped Sam’s shoulders to roll him under, press him down. The moment their eyes met and Dean knew he couldn’t let go again without leaving a chunk of his own heart behind splattered in the California sun. He shouldn’t have come.
“Stop it, Dean.” Sam’s voice startles him, and Dean’s hand on the wheel jerks the Impala slightly to the right, toward where his brother’s been staring at him. “Nothing you could’ve done.”
Dean physically flinches, grits his jaw at the pain and resignation in Sam’s voice that stab at his insides. Sam doesn’t know that’s the worst thing he could say, the one thing Dean doesn’t want to believe. Because if that’s true, he can’t keep Sam safe. Can’t keep Sam from hurting, crying, needing, dying. And that’s the one thing Dean’s always been good at, maybe the one thing he’s ever really cared about.
“Yeah, well, there’s something I’m sure as hell gonna do when we track that sonofabitch down,” he finally answers, turning to Sam and daring him to disagree.
Sam shrugs and sighs, sinks into the worn leather of the Impala’s seats, lets his hazel cat-eyes fall closed as Dean watches. There’s a warm flush creeping up Dean’s chest as Sam sinks into sleep, relaxing under his brother’s watch. Keep you safe, Sammy, Dean promises, words mouthed to the highway stretching ahead of them.
(Sam)
It’s not that he blames Dean, it’s never been that. Just that Dean coming back and Jess dying get all wrapped up together sometimes in the corners of his mind that don’t do rational, and then he snaps at Dean, the urge to let his fist connect with his brother’s smirking mouth a physical itch, making the muscles in his bicep twitch. It’s just that one day there were classes and papers and LSATs and Jess warm and wet in his bed, and the next there was Dean and then she was gone, taking all his carefully constructed Normal with her.
He knows Dean can feel it, and he’s sorry, he is. Dean doesn’t deserve his anger, but then, who does? Who should he blame for all the loss, all the fucked up backwards and forwards that his life has always fucking been? It’s not Dean’s fault. But yellow eyed demons are out there somewhere and his brother’s right here, brash and headstrong and know-it-all, and sometimes Sam just wants to punch him. Curse him out for letting Sam leave in the first place, for not knowing how far away from normal Sam had gotten and how much of that involved Dean’s green eyes and the way Sam’s heart beat too fast when they met his own.
Other times, when he wakes up from the nightmares that won’t leave him alone to the sight of his brother’s hands big and strong and sure on the wheel and the Impala purring beneath them, Sam just wants to kiss him. It hurts in those moments, underneath the anger Sam directs at the universe who just doesn’t give a damn, that he never will. That he’ll never let Dean know why he had to leave, too young to trust himself to keep the wanting locked up tight.
Sam’s not young anymore, not after watching Dean through the back window of the bus as it pulled away, standing stiff and awkward and unmoving until the road turned and broke Sam’s view. Not after watching Jess burn to death above him. Sam can do it now, and Dean will never know how close Sam came to saying his brother’s name too many times even with Jess’s soft curves and blue eyes beneath him.
Dean who loves him the way nobody else ever has, not even Jess who wanted him and thought she knew him. The way Dean loves makes other people’s attempts seem pale and half-hearted. Maybe it should scare him, Sam thinks sometimes, but it never does. He’s had Dean’s undivided attention all his life, even when there were 2,000 miles between them, and Sam drinks it in now, lets it warm him when the sun goes down and the road grows dark, the spark in Dean’s eyes enough of a beacon for Sam to see where he’s going.
With Dean.
Chapter Two
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Date: 2008-08-02 05:35 pm (UTC)I cried when Sam went to Stanford and Dean couldn't say anything, couldn't talk, couldn't tell Sam he understood. Sam keeping that last bill, unable to spend it, that was lovely.
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Date: 2008-08-02 05:45 pm (UTC)Hope you like the rest of the story too - please let me know? Thanks again! :)
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Date: 2008-08-02 11:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-03 03:00 am (UTC)I'm eager, yet terrified, for the rest.
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Date: 2008-08-03 03:26 am (UTC)*hugs*
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Date: 2008-08-05 01:10 am (UTC)The relationship between them is just so perfectly painted, and the thing that got to me the most was this:
He wants to be strong and certain and okay with it all, the day he drives Sam to the Greyhound station, but knowing that Sam won’t be there beside him in five minutes puts a lump in his throat that feels like a tennis ball. Chokes him and takes even the word ‘goodbye’ from him, until he can’t give Sam anything to take with him but the battered bulging envelope full of the things he can’t say.
And that, right there, is Dean as we know him.
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Date: 2008-08-05 01:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-06 04:42 am (UTC)And yes, some of it is...intentionally...too much. Most definitely some bitter with the sweet with these boys...
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Date: 2008-08-27 02:46 pm (UTC)Just beautiful too, the way the physical affection is shown between them -- no mama, so Dean gets to tickle the baby boy belly -- and then the echo of that in the first stirrings of desire between them, and Dean making Sam's first time happen -- SO INAPPROPRIATE YET SO UNAVOIDABLE!!!! Masterfully told.
Thanks so much for your outstanding work on this -- just the first chapter stands alone and is so very canon.
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Date: 2008-08-27 05:24 pm (UTC)'Inappropriate yet unavoidable' -- I think that's one of the best descriptions of Wincest in general that I've ever heard. :)
Can't wait to hear what you think of the rest of the story!
Hugs,
Lynsey
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Date: 2009-06-01 12:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-01 03:13 am (UTC)Thanks,
Lynsey
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Date: 2009-07-07 10:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-08 02:44 am (UTC)Hugs,
Lynsey
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Date: 2009-09-07 01:17 am (UTC)I loved Dean's description of Sam, of who he is (who he is to him), it showed how much love he has for him. And Sam trying to figure out who he is, his identity away from his brother.
"the smile on his face as Dean strides across the stage is enough to make Dean feel like maybe he’s done something important after all. Making Sam smile. ...Dean thinks about the day when Sam will be here, diploma in hand...and he knows it will mean something very different to his brother. Knows even then, long before Sam does, that it might take Sam away. There’s a shudder running down his spine as he waves the diploma at Sam and returns the grin, prescient chill and the image of Sam and someone else, someone not Dean." Oh, Dean. Loved this whole scene, but particularly that last line. Everything is just filled with so much emotion.
"Sam’s been pulling away, Dean can feel it, knows something’s coming...So he wants it, this moment. Dean’s been there through every milestone in his little brother’s life...He wants this first too, knows it might be the last one he gets to be there for, and god, the knowledge eats away at him. Who will he be, without Sam?" I love the contrast between Sam and Dean. Sam is trying to find his identity apart from Dean, and Dean's identity is entangled in Sam. It's almost tragic. That makes it so heartbreaking when Sam finally leaves. I also love Dean's selfishness here.
"The tens and twenties and fifties (those are mostly the ones he closes his eyes for) pile up, and Dean likes knowing Sam will have them for a long time, long after he’s gone away." I love Dean doing whatever he can for Sam, sacrificing for him, so Sam can do what he needs to do.
"It’s not that he blames Dean, it’s never been that. Just that Dean coming back and Jess dying get all wrapped up together sometimes in the corners of his mind that don’t do rational, and then he snaps at Dean, the urge to let his fist connect with his brother’s smirking mouth a physical itch, making the muscles in his bicep twitch. It’s just that one day there were classes and papers and LSATs and Jess warm and wet in his bed, and the next there was Dean and then she was gone, taking all his carefully constructed Normal with her." Poor Sam! I sympathize with him so much here! He needed so much to be "normal", to have an identity away from Dean, and now everything was for naught, there's nothing he can do (or Dean), and now it's like he's back to square one. That has to be maddening, and of course he's not going to be rational while he's grieving. But of course Dean being Dean will take it personally.
It's very interesting to me the lack of John in this, and I think it makes the bond between the boys stronger. They're just so wrapped up in each other. Looking forward to reading more! :)
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Date: 2009-09-08 03:01 am (UTC)Thanks again!
Lynsey
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Date: 2009-10-22 12:15 am (UTC)Hugs,
Lynsey
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Date: 2010-02-03 03:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 03:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-12 04:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-12 01:04 pm (UTC)steady my shaky
Date: 2011-04-07 12:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-26 06:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-29 11:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-29 01:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-29 03:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-15 02:35 am (UTC)I don't know if I can read the second chapter tonight. I will return here.
Thank you!
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Date: 2012-04-15 11:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-29 10:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-30 03:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-03-25 09:44 am (UTC)"
He wants to be strong and certain and okay with it all, the day he drives Sam to the Greyhound station, but knowing that Sam won’t be there beside him in five minutes puts a lump in his throat that feels like a tennis ball. Chokes him and takes even the word ‘goodbye’ from him, until he can’t give Sam anything to take with him but the battered bulging envelope full of the things he can’t say."
That's sooo Dean ... and it's so Sam that he doesn't know what to say either...
This chapter broke my heart after I read the first lines...
I'll re-read it again and then - you can be sure - I will go one step further to part 2.
you did an amazing Job, my dear. Wow... just amazing. I'm curious how this will go on, you'll see me later again.
Thank you - you made my morning!
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Date: 2017-03-26 02:46 am (UTC)