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runedgirlFic title: The City Of Brotherly Love
Author name:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
runedgirl
Artist name:milly_gal
Genre: Wincest
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: NC17
Word count: 21,400
A horn blasts behind them, and Sam unfreezes long enough to curse and get them back on the road. Beside him, Dean is yanking his shirt up and examining his abs, and Sam is just waiting for him to unzip and check that out too.
“Dean, cut it out, wait till we get somewhere that I can stop, okay? We’ll figure it out.”
Dean doesn’t stop looking at himself, but Sam didn’t expect him to. He finally finds the Holiday Inn Society Hill where they’d planned to spend the night and pulls the Impala into the self-park.
“Come on, let’s go inside.”
Dean pulls himself away from the rearview and grabs his duffel, following Sam into the hotel. They check in, Dean looking like a total weirdo, constantly examining his own hands and touching his own face, but the clerk doesn’t blink, as though he’s seen it all before. Maybe he has.
Once the hotel room door closes behind them, Dean yanks off his shirt and rushes to the bathroom.
“I look different, right? Younger. Are you seein’ this too, Sammy?”
Sam nods, and Dean turns back to the mirror, running his hands over his own chest and stomach. He’s leaner than he was this morning, more muscled. His skin is smooth, dusted with the freckles Dean has had his whole life, creamy white beneath. Dean has never had too much hair on him, but there’s even less now—his chest is smooth, his happy trail just the slightest bit sparser. The hair on his head is thicker, though, and the gray is fading. There’s still some at the temples, but the tips are back to brown. Dean looks about forty, if Sam had to guess.
There’s the clink of a buckle and the snick of a zipper and then, as predicted, Dean drops his jeans and steps out of them. He’s got on the same black boxer briefs he put on when he turned fifty-five, but they’re looser now, sagging a little on a waist that’s trimmer. His ass looks amazing, but then again, Sam has always thought that.
Sam takes the excuse to look his fill. Dean is about the same age as when they settled down for good in the bunker. He was in his mid thirties when they found it, and Dean called it home almost immediately, but it took Sam a while. About the age he was when Michael and Lucifer came to a showdown, and Sam almost lost Dean forever. He remembers how his brother looked then, beautiful in his prime, strong and smart and smartassed; he remembers that he was in love with Dean even then, after all those decades of trying not to be. When Dean was no longer Dean and Sam moved heaven and earth to get him back from Michael's possession, that’s when Sam gave up the pretense, at least to himself. There had never been anyone for him but Dean, and even if he never had him in the ways he dreamt of in the privacy of his own bedroom, there never would be. It would be enough, just to be there, together.
Those memories flood back as Sam watches Dean examine his own body, hands running over his muscled thighs and squeezing his butt cheeks.
“Pretty pert,” Dean pronounces happily, grinning at Sam in the mirror.
Sam can see his own reflection there; he still looks about twenty, as near as he can tell.
“It happens when we sleep,” Sam says to Dean in the mirror.
Dean turns around then, eyes raking over Sam to be sure he’s still the young adult he was when Dean fell asleep. He sighs with relief.
“Yeah, I guess so. But I didn’t even meet this guy. How’s this happening to me too?”
That’s when it hits Sam.
“Did you—Dean, when I handed you the guide book, did you feel a sort of… tingle?”
Dean’s eyes go wide. “I think so, yeah. You?”
“Yeah.”
“Sonofabitch,” Dean swears, and he sounds like the big brother Sam’s been looking up to his whole life.
Sam goes out to grab them some dinner from one of the vendor carts that dot the city streets. Dean slips his underwear off and looks at all of himself in the bathroom mirror. The transformation is subtle, not nearly as dramatic as Sam’s, but there’s no denying he’s changed.
Remember this, he tells himself. If you turn back, or things go the other way, remember how fucking good you looked right now.
He takes a shower and enjoys the way he can move without worrying that something will ache or lock up on him. He touches himself like he can’t see, feeling the difference in musculature and the way his skin feels so smooth all over. He tries to tell himself that this is no time to think about sex, but his cock is so sensitive that the second he soaps himself, he’s got an erection that won’t quit. It takes no time at all to bring himself off, hands cupping his balls and sliding back behind to tease himself, his thoughts on Sam and his twenty-year-old slim hips and full lips. He’d forgotten that orgasm can be strong enough to make you weak in the knees, and he almost loses his footing, cursing just as Sam comes back.
“You okay in there?” Sam calls and then adds, “You’re jerking off, aren’t you?”
Dean doesn’t even bother to deny it. “I might not have another chance, Sam. Try to tell me you haven’t taken advantage of being twenty again. No, actually, don’t.”
Dean knows he shouldn’t be happy, and he sure as hell shouldn’t be horny. They don’t know what this is, and they don’t know how far it will go. Sam is twenty now; what if he wakes up again and he’s five? What about the time after that?
Sam is unwrapping Philly cheesesteaks and cheese fries when Dean comes out of the bathroom, and the smell is so delicious it literally makes his mouth water.
“Amoroso rolls, that’s the secret,” Sam says as Dean takes his first giant bite. “And something about the cheese, too, that I can’t remember. But the rolls, that’s the main thing.”
“Mmmm,” Dean answers, watching as Sam bites into his own cheesesteak. Dean’s has fried onions, because Sam knows what he likes, and he even got packets of ketchup for Dean to squeeze over the fries.
Sam’s hair is long and lustrous, hanging in his face as he leans over his meal and the juices land on the napkins he has spread out on the hotel-room desk. He’s young enough that his shoulders aren’t as broad as they will be when he’s fully grown, and when he turns to grab their Cokes from the bag, Dean can see the knobs of his spine.
Sammy.
Sammy just like Dean remembers him, the day he walked out the door and out of their lives, just his duffel over his shoulder stuffed with whatever he thought he needed to start over in California. Dean was crushed then, worse pain than from any monster’s teeth or any human’s bullets. He remembers watching Sam walk down the street, swinging his arms angrily, his pace quick and determined. Dean kept thinking that he’d look back, that he’d want to know if Dean was watching, but Sam never did.
It's like he’s been given another chance to know that Sam, the college kid who became a stranger. Who fell in love with a girl and forgot he was a Winchester.
“You’re staring,” Sam says, blushing under Dean’s gaze.
Dean shrugs. “Can’t help it. You look so different. It’s just… weird. I mean, I never knew you when you were this age, I don’t think.”
Sam doesn’t get it for a minute, and then Dean can see when the realization hits.
“Oh,” Sam says quietly.
“Hey, it’s okay.”
Dean has held onto his anger about Sam leaving for Stanford for a long time; too long. This feels like a second chance, a chance to have some of that time he always felt was stolen from him. God, Sam was beautiful. He’s still the most beautiful human being Dean has ever known, but at twenty? Sam was a goddamn miracle.
Sam smiles, and it seems impossible, but now he’s even more beautiful.
“Thanks,” he says. “That—that means a lot. I never wanted to leave you, you know.”
“Yeah you did, but you probably had your reasons.”
They’d grown apart in those years between the time Dean got caught looking and the time Sam finally left, and that was on Dean. Not fair to blame it on Sam when he’d been the one to pull away first.
“What’s gotten into you?” Sam asks, and even his voice is different. So familiar, but familiar from another time, when they were different people.
Before anyone had gone to hell or been locked in the Cage with the devil, or had to escape from Purgatory or come back a demon. When they were just Sam and Dean Winchester, brothers.
Dean’s eyes prick suddenly, and he busies himself with his cheesesteak and pouring ketchup packets over their fries.
“Glad you came and got me,” Sam says after a long pause.
Dean’s so startled he looks up. There’s nothing but honesty on Sam’s face; in fact, he looks heartbreakingly earnest and incredibly young and Dean’s heart is full to bursting with how much he loves his brother.
Somehow he manages a flippant answer anyway.
“You wouldn’t be in this mess right now if I hadn’t.”
Sam snorts. “Yeah, well, I’ve been in a lot of messes. We’ll figure this one out too. But I mean it. I know you think sometimes I want out, but I don’t. I’m where I wanna be, Dean.”
It should be awkward, the amount of time they sit there silently, looking at each other.
Somehow it isn’t.
Eventually Dean nods and goes back to his cheesesteak. He doesn’t remember the last time he felt so warm, or so improbably happy.
“So where do we start looking for this guy?”
Sam ponders. “I guess maybe a bookstore is a good place to start. He seems to frequent them.”
He pulls out his laptop and nods to Dean.
“Get some rest. I don’t think I should chance sleeping, but you can probably be okay with a few more hours. One of us should be rested and thinking clearly. Right?”
Dean lies down thinking there’s no way he’ll fall asleep. The click click click of Sam’s laptop tells him his brother is nearby, and before he knows it, Dean’s asleep.
* * *
Sam has a comprehensive list of bookstores in Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs within an hour. He saves the list and does some research on de-aging spells and some more research on “Haunted Olde City Philadelphia” and books them a ghost tour for the next day. By the time he’s done that, four hours have gone by. Dean is still sleeping peacefully, sprawled out on his back on top of the covers.
Sam gets up to go to the bathroom, but he only gets as far as the bed his brother is lying on.
“Holy shit,” Sam whispers, mouth falling open.
Dean is sound asleep. His expression is peaceful, lips parted as his chest rises and falls with deep slow breaths. The gray is gone from his hair, and it’s longer now, the way he used to wear it when they were still at home with Dad. He almost has bangs, it’s so long in the front, though still spiked up on the top because Dean has always been vain about that and apparently even curses can’t change his hairstyle. Long lashes fan out over freckled cheeks, and god that mouth, the one that got Sam in so much trouble when he couldn’t stop imagining what it would be like to put his own lips there. Dean’s thinner—Sam can see his ribs beneath his too-loose tee shirt—and his stomach is flat, a thin strip of skin showing between shirt and shorts. His legs aren’t quite as bowed as they are now, the hair blond and fine.
Sam stands there for a long time, just staring. No wonder he couldn’t stop thinking about Dean back then. No wonder his flight to Stanford was as much about getting away from his unintentionally seductive brother as it was about leaving hunting behind.
God, Dean.
He looks about the same age as Sam, around twenty. Sam remembers that time, Dean hunting with Dad while Sam stayed behind to finish high school. He remembers being angry constantly, half terrified that something would happen to Dean and half furious that Dean would put him through all that worry. And always enraged at Dad, that Dad would put his son in danger. When he wasn’t stomping his feet or yelling, Sam was watching Dean out of the corner of his eye.
Dean in a black leather jacket he’d won in a poker game, cigarette hanging from those obscene lips as he leaned up against the Impala, waiting to pick Sam up from school. Sam had hated him for it—for being the one all the girls (and boys) lusted after, for making Sam lust after him too.
“Dean,” he says, a little more loudly.
Dean stirs, throwing his arm over his face theatrically. “Leavemealonesammy” he mumbles.
The movement pulls his tee shirt up higher, smooth expanse of flat belly and a soft happy trail drawing Sam’s eyes down to where Dean’s dick is fat in his shorts. Sam’s mouth waters, and he has to reach down to adjust his own.
“Dean, wake up, come on. You’re a little—you’re, umm, a bit younger now I think.”
That wakes Dean up immediately. He shoots up in bed, eyes wide, and reaches up to touch his own face. “I am?”
He leaps out of bed and runs into the bathroom, and Sam can see his dumbfounded expression in the mirror when he sees himself.
“OHMYGOD!” he crows, grinning like an idiot. Sam can’t help but grin back.
“I mean, holy shit Sammy, I’m—look at me!”
Only Dean would be perfectly happy to ogle himself, Sam thinks. But he’d be lying if he didn’t appreciate the invitation to look. When Dean was this age the first time, Sam spent all his time trying not to look.
Dean inspects himself everywhere, turning this way and that to try to see his ass, and then spinning back around to lean in so his face is inches from the mirror and he can see every unlined inch of his freckled skin.
“If you’re done lusting after yourself, we should go check out some bookstores,” Sam reminds him.
Dean is reluctant to put clothes on, but finally relents. It’s a good thing they both have belts, because their jeans are definitely not fitting like they should.
They make the rounds of the few remaining Barnes & Nobles, where nobody has seen anyone who fits the description of their mystery man.
Philadelphia still has some independent bookstores too, so they visit them one after the other, going from one section of the city to the next. Each part is different, with different types of restaurants, different types of stores, even different types of houses. One old bookstore-slash-antique-store is in a three-story that the proprietor tells them is called a Holy Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—always three floors and a whole block of them all stuck together, every one different.
The proprietor has to be pushing eighty, but that doesn’t stop him from giving Dean the once-over… twice. Once from the front and once from the back. Sam hangs back and watches, Dean oblivious to the effect he's having on the man.
Sam remembers Dean’s junior year of high school, before he dropped out and claimed to not care anymore. Dean would walk down the hall and every head would turn once he’d passed: boys, girls, teachers, even the principal. They’d watch the way he moved his hips when he walked, just a little, the start of those bowlegs making his gait provocative. When they walked side by side that year, Sam felt invisible, just a scrawny thirteen-year-old next to a boy who looked like he should be a TV star or model. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t resent it sometimes, but he also couldn’t blame the rest of the world for feeling the exact same way he did.
Dean looks just like that now.
“Ready to go, Sammy?”
Dean’s voice pulls him out of his reflections. The shop owner gives Dean his card, tells them to call if they think of any other questions.
They have one more bookstore on their list. The sun is setting when they get to Sansom Street, in the heart of what the locals call “the gayborhood.” There are rainbow flags on every street lamp, and the sidewalk cafes are already bustling, waiters balancing trays full of drinks, a mix of delicious aromas wafting out onto the sidewalks.
Every head turns when Sam and Dean get out of the car and walk toward the bookstore on the corner of Sansom and 13th, and more than one man whistles softly. They’re obvious enough that even Dean notices. Sam can see the moment he realizes; he puffs out his chest, that swaying, bowlegged strut of his becoming just a little more pronounced.
“Any of these guys the one who took a shine to you back in Kansas?” Dean asks, and Sam realizes that’s what he should be looking for, not watching his brother so closely.
“No, don’t think so.”
“Hmph,” Dean says, and elbows Sam in the ribs. “Well, looks like just about all of them are taking a shine to you now.”
“Ow,” Sam complains, but Dean is smiling, so he just elbows his brother back.
“Can’t say I blame ’em,” Dean says easily, raising his eyebrows and leering at Sam. “I mean, phew, look at you, little brother.”
Sam feels himself blush.
“Yeah, well, look who’s talking. I’m pretty sure most of them are looking at you, not me.”
Dean laughs at that and looks ridiculously pleased with himself. If anything, he puffs out his chest even more, and once again that wave of overwhelming love washes over Sam. His ridiculous, gorgeous, idiotic big brother, who Sam has probably been in love with forever.
Everyone in the bookstore ogles Dean, and that makes Sam feel even better when Dean eventually pronounces this one a bust too and takes Sam’s elbow to usher him out of the store.
“You don’t have to push me,” Sam grumbles, but it’s mostly to hide the thrill he just got from Dean’s casual possessiveness—and the looks on several other customers’ faces when Dean all but announced that they were together.
“That was the last one,” Dean says, and he sounds a bit exasperated. “It’s 8 p.m., and we haven’t eaten, and you haven’t slept in two days, and we’re not any closer to figuring this out than we were when this whole thing started!”
Sam has been so busy enjoying staring at Dean that he’d nearly forgotten they don’t know what will happen next time they sleep. And now that Dean has mentioned it, damn, Sam is beat.
He yawns, and Dean punches him in the arm.
“Ow, jerk!”
“Bitch,” Dean returns automatically, and steers them in the direction of one of the sidewalk cafes that smelled so good. “We should eat, then we’ll deal with the sleep thing.”
They knock back a few beers and some slices of gourmet pizza. It’s a starry early-spring night, just enough light breeze to keep blowing Sam’s long hair in his face.
“So what now?” Dean asks after they’ve had bowls of homemade ice cream with whipped cream and a cherry to finish off their meal.
“Honestly? I don’t know. We can’t not sleep forever.”
Dean scrubs a hand over his face, and Sam is once again struck by how beautiful his brother is.
“I guess we need to bite the bullet and find out, then,” Dean says finally. He looks at Sam, and the same softness that Sam feels is in Dean’s green eyes too.
“Yeah,” Sam agrees. “In a little bit, okay? I just wanna… this is nice, you know? Just… being here with you.”
It’s a risk, but Sam is starting to not care. He’s pleasantly buzzed, and it’s a beautiful night, and neither of them knows if they’ll even exist tomorrow. So Sam just wants to enjoy it for a little while longer. He expects Dean to roll his eyes and get up from the table, but instead he reaches over and lays his hand on top of Sam’s.
“Yeah, okay, Sammy,” he says softly.
Sam should be terrified about what this curse is going to do to him, but instead he thinks that maybe this is the happiest he’s ever been, at a sidewalk café in Philly on a Friday night, holding hands with his beautiful big-hearted brother.
They sit there a long time, sipping their beers and looking at the stars and the blue-strung lights of the Ben Franklin Bridge at the edge of the waterfront… and sometimes at each other. At first it’s sly glances, both of them looking away before the other can be sure, but gradually the looks are longer. Dean smiles when he catches Sam looking, and Sam smiles back.
* * *
It’s almost midnight when the café closes and they climb into the Impala to drive the short distance back to their hotel. Dean is tired, and he knows Sam is even more tired, but somehow the night hasn’t been the sad and panicked thing he expected it to be. If they’re going to die tonight, Dean is so damn grateful they had this time together. That he got to see Sam like this, young and healthy and looking like he has his whole life ahead of him. That he got to feel like himself again, even if only for a short time… and, more than anything, that he got to see Sam smile. At him.
He doesn’t know what it means that they held hands, only that it didn’t feel weird. Somehow they don’t even feel like brothers, with the age difference between them muddled and no time for the bullshit that’s come between them far too often.
Sam yawns all the way back to the hotel, and once he nearly nods off, head lolling against the passenger side window like he’s done for most of their lives.
“So,” Dean says when they’re back in the room, “do we try to postpone the inevitable, or…?”
He means sleeping, he swears he does. But Sam looks at him when he says it, and just the corner of his mouth turns up, and his dimples are both out in full force, and he looks so goddamn perfect that Dean just grins back at him helplessly.
“The inevitable?” Sam asks, and takes a step closer.
Dean’s stomach does a funny loop-and-twist thing, because Sam cannot possibly mean what it seems like he does.
Dean licks his lips because he’s nervous all of a sudden, and Sam’s eyes track the movement. Sam looks up and stops smiling—and licks his lips too.
The gesture slides up Dean’s body like an electric shock, making the hairs stand up on his arms and legs and making his cock twitch like he’s been touched.
“I don’t,” he starts, and Sam is still looking at him. “You can’t… Sam, you can’t say that kinda shit to me, not when you…” He stops himself. It’s difficult.
“Not when I what?” Sam asks, and it would almost sound innocent except for the way he’s looking at Dean.
“Not when you look like that,” Dean whispers, and he can’t believe he said it out loud.
Sam starts smiling again and waves his hand in Dean’s general direction as he takes another step closer.
“You should talk,” he says, and then he laughs out loud. “I can’t believe we’re pussyfooting around this like a couple of teenagers.”
Dean has to laugh too, though it’s partly nerves. “We sort of are a couple of teenagers,” he points out.
“I was a skinny little kid when you looked like this,” Sam says, growing more serious again. “I would look at you and think, god, I will never look like that. Never look that good.”
Dean can feel himself growing red, the tips of his ears hot. Sam at thirteen, doing that fucking dance in front of that fucking fan. The shame washes over him, and he starts to turn away. Sam gets a hand on him before he can.
“Hey, what is it? Where’d you just go?”
Dean shakes his head. Sam’s fingers on his biceps are like a brand; he both wants Sam to let go and wants him to hang on.
“You—you were always—god, Sam, you don’t even have any idea how you looked, do you? How you still look!”
Sam considers that, a shy smile on his face. “Yeah?”
Dean just nods, looking at his feet because if he doesn’t he’s going to give it all away, going to confess to everything he felt for Sam when he shouldn’t have.
Sam’s right in front of him now, his hand still gripping Dean’s arm. When Dean reluctantly makes eye contact, Sam’s fingers rub back and forth lightly, and just that touch makes Dean’s skin go to gooseflesh.
“What are you doing, Sam?”
He has to ask; there can’t be any misunderstanding here.
* * *
Part Four
Author name:
runedgirlArtist name:
milly_galGenre: Wincest
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: NC17
Word count: 21,400
A horn blasts behind them, and Sam unfreezes long enough to curse and get them back on the road. Beside him, Dean is yanking his shirt up and examining his abs, and Sam is just waiting for him to unzip and check that out too.
“Dean, cut it out, wait till we get somewhere that I can stop, okay? We’ll figure it out.”
Dean doesn’t stop looking at himself, but Sam didn’t expect him to. He finally finds the Holiday Inn Society Hill where they’d planned to spend the night and pulls the Impala into the self-park.
“Come on, let’s go inside.”
Dean pulls himself away from the rearview and grabs his duffel, following Sam into the hotel. They check in, Dean looking like a total weirdo, constantly examining his own hands and touching his own face, but the clerk doesn’t blink, as though he’s seen it all before. Maybe he has.
Once the hotel room door closes behind them, Dean yanks off his shirt and rushes to the bathroom.
“I look different, right? Younger. Are you seein’ this too, Sammy?”
Sam nods, and Dean turns back to the mirror, running his hands over his own chest and stomach. He’s leaner than he was this morning, more muscled. His skin is smooth, dusted with the freckles Dean has had his whole life, creamy white beneath. Dean has never had too much hair on him, but there’s even less now—his chest is smooth, his happy trail just the slightest bit sparser. The hair on his head is thicker, though, and the gray is fading. There’s still some at the temples, but the tips are back to brown. Dean looks about forty, if Sam had to guess.
There’s the clink of a buckle and the snick of a zipper and then, as predicted, Dean drops his jeans and steps out of them. He’s got on the same black boxer briefs he put on when he turned fifty-five, but they’re looser now, sagging a little on a waist that’s trimmer. His ass looks amazing, but then again, Sam has always thought that.
Sam takes the excuse to look his fill. Dean is about the same age as when they settled down for good in the bunker. He was in his mid thirties when they found it, and Dean called it home almost immediately, but it took Sam a while. About the age he was when Michael and Lucifer came to a showdown, and Sam almost lost Dean forever. He remembers how his brother looked then, beautiful in his prime, strong and smart and smartassed; he remembers that he was in love with Dean even then, after all those decades of trying not to be. When Dean was no longer Dean and Sam moved heaven and earth to get him back from Michael's possession, that’s when Sam gave up the pretense, at least to himself. There had never been anyone for him but Dean, and even if he never had him in the ways he dreamt of in the privacy of his own bedroom, there never would be. It would be enough, just to be there, together.
Those memories flood back as Sam watches Dean examine his own body, hands running over his muscled thighs and squeezing his butt cheeks.
“Pretty pert,” Dean pronounces happily, grinning at Sam in the mirror.
Sam can see his own reflection there; he still looks about twenty, as near as he can tell.
“It happens when we sleep,” Sam says to Dean in the mirror.
Dean turns around then, eyes raking over Sam to be sure he’s still the young adult he was when Dean fell asleep. He sighs with relief.
“Yeah, I guess so. But I didn’t even meet this guy. How’s this happening to me too?”
That’s when it hits Sam.
“Did you—Dean, when I handed you the guide book, did you feel a sort of… tingle?”
Dean’s eyes go wide. “I think so, yeah. You?”
“Yeah.”
“Sonofabitch,” Dean swears, and he sounds like the big brother Sam’s been looking up to his whole life.
Sam goes out to grab them some dinner from one of the vendor carts that dot the city streets. Dean slips his underwear off and looks at all of himself in the bathroom mirror. The transformation is subtle, not nearly as dramatic as Sam’s, but there’s no denying he’s changed.
Remember this, he tells himself. If you turn back, or things go the other way, remember how fucking good you looked right now.
He takes a shower and enjoys the way he can move without worrying that something will ache or lock up on him. He touches himself like he can’t see, feeling the difference in musculature and the way his skin feels so smooth all over. He tries to tell himself that this is no time to think about sex, but his cock is so sensitive that the second he soaps himself, he’s got an erection that won’t quit. It takes no time at all to bring himself off, hands cupping his balls and sliding back behind to tease himself, his thoughts on Sam and his twenty-year-old slim hips and full lips. He’d forgotten that orgasm can be strong enough to make you weak in the knees, and he almost loses his footing, cursing just as Sam comes back.
“You okay in there?” Sam calls and then adds, “You’re jerking off, aren’t you?”
Dean doesn’t even bother to deny it. “I might not have another chance, Sam. Try to tell me you haven’t taken advantage of being twenty again. No, actually, don’t.”
Dean knows he shouldn’t be happy, and he sure as hell shouldn’t be horny. They don’t know what this is, and they don’t know how far it will go. Sam is twenty now; what if he wakes up again and he’s five? What about the time after that?
Sam is unwrapping Philly cheesesteaks and cheese fries when Dean comes out of the bathroom, and the smell is so delicious it literally makes his mouth water.
“Amoroso rolls, that’s the secret,” Sam says as Dean takes his first giant bite. “And something about the cheese, too, that I can’t remember. But the rolls, that’s the main thing.”
“Mmmm,” Dean answers, watching as Sam bites into his own cheesesteak. Dean’s has fried onions, because Sam knows what he likes, and he even got packets of ketchup for Dean to squeeze over the fries.
Sam’s hair is long and lustrous, hanging in his face as he leans over his meal and the juices land on the napkins he has spread out on the hotel-room desk. He’s young enough that his shoulders aren’t as broad as they will be when he’s fully grown, and when he turns to grab their Cokes from the bag, Dean can see the knobs of his spine.
Sammy.
Sammy just like Dean remembers him, the day he walked out the door and out of their lives, just his duffel over his shoulder stuffed with whatever he thought he needed to start over in California. Dean was crushed then, worse pain than from any monster’s teeth or any human’s bullets. He remembers watching Sam walk down the street, swinging his arms angrily, his pace quick and determined. Dean kept thinking that he’d look back, that he’d want to know if Dean was watching, but Sam never did.
It's like he’s been given another chance to know that Sam, the college kid who became a stranger. Who fell in love with a girl and forgot he was a Winchester.
“You’re staring,” Sam says, blushing under Dean’s gaze.
Dean shrugs. “Can’t help it. You look so different. It’s just… weird. I mean, I never knew you when you were this age, I don’t think.”
Sam doesn’t get it for a minute, and then Dean can see when the realization hits.
“Oh,” Sam says quietly.
“Hey, it’s okay.”
Dean has held onto his anger about Sam leaving for Stanford for a long time; too long. This feels like a second chance, a chance to have some of that time he always felt was stolen from him. God, Sam was beautiful. He’s still the most beautiful human being Dean has ever known, but at twenty? Sam was a goddamn miracle.
Sam smiles, and it seems impossible, but now he’s even more beautiful.
“Thanks,” he says. “That—that means a lot. I never wanted to leave you, you know.”
“Yeah you did, but you probably had your reasons.”
They’d grown apart in those years between the time Dean got caught looking and the time Sam finally left, and that was on Dean. Not fair to blame it on Sam when he’d been the one to pull away first.
“What’s gotten into you?” Sam asks, and even his voice is different. So familiar, but familiar from another time, when they were different people.
Before anyone had gone to hell or been locked in the Cage with the devil, or had to escape from Purgatory or come back a demon. When they were just Sam and Dean Winchester, brothers.
Dean’s eyes prick suddenly, and he busies himself with his cheesesteak and pouring ketchup packets over their fries.
“Glad you came and got me,” Sam says after a long pause.
Dean’s so startled he looks up. There’s nothing but honesty on Sam’s face; in fact, he looks heartbreakingly earnest and incredibly young and Dean’s heart is full to bursting with how much he loves his brother.
Somehow he manages a flippant answer anyway.
“You wouldn’t be in this mess right now if I hadn’t.”
Sam snorts. “Yeah, well, I’ve been in a lot of messes. We’ll figure this one out too. But I mean it. I know you think sometimes I want out, but I don’t. I’m where I wanna be, Dean.”
It should be awkward, the amount of time they sit there silently, looking at each other.
Somehow it isn’t.
Eventually Dean nods and goes back to his cheesesteak. He doesn’t remember the last time he felt so warm, or so improbably happy.
“So where do we start looking for this guy?”
Sam ponders. “I guess maybe a bookstore is a good place to start. He seems to frequent them.”
He pulls out his laptop and nods to Dean.
“Get some rest. I don’t think I should chance sleeping, but you can probably be okay with a few more hours. One of us should be rested and thinking clearly. Right?”
Dean lies down thinking there’s no way he’ll fall asleep. The click click click of Sam’s laptop tells him his brother is nearby, and before he knows it, Dean’s asleep.
* * *
Sam has a comprehensive list of bookstores in Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs within an hour. He saves the list and does some research on de-aging spells and some more research on “Haunted Olde City Philadelphia” and books them a ghost tour for the next day. By the time he’s done that, four hours have gone by. Dean is still sleeping peacefully, sprawled out on his back on top of the covers.
Sam gets up to go to the bathroom, but he only gets as far as the bed his brother is lying on.
“Holy shit,” Sam whispers, mouth falling open.
Dean is sound asleep. His expression is peaceful, lips parted as his chest rises and falls with deep slow breaths. The gray is gone from his hair, and it’s longer now, the way he used to wear it when they were still at home with Dad. He almost has bangs, it’s so long in the front, though still spiked up on the top because Dean has always been vain about that and apparently even curses can’t change his hairstyle. Long lashes fan out over freckled cheeks, and god that mouth, the one that got Sam in so much trouble when he couldn’t stop imagining what it would be like to put his own lips there. Dean’s thinner—Sam can see his ribs beneath his too-loose tee shirt—and his stomach is flat, a thin strip of skin showing between shirt and shorts. His legs aren’t quite as bowed as they are now, the hair blond and fine.
Sam stands there for a long time, just staring. No wonder he couldn’t stop thinking about Dean back then. No wonder his flight to Stanford was as much about getting away from his unintentionally seductive brother as it was about leaving hunting behind.
God, Dean.
He looks about the same age as Sam, around twenty. Sam remembers that time, Dean hunting with Dad while Sam stayed behind to finish high school. He remembers being angry constantly, half terrified that something would happen to Dean and half furious that Dean would put him through all that worry. And always enraged at Dad, that Dad would put his son in danger. When he wasn’t stomping his feet or yelling, Sam was watching Dean out of the corner of his eye.
Dean in a black leather jacket he’d won in a poker game, cigarette hanging from those obscene lips as he leaned up against the Impala, waiting to pick Sam up from school. Sam had hated him for it—for being the one all the girls (and boys) lusted after, for making Sam lust after him too.
“Dean,” he says, a little more loudly.
Dean stirs, throwing his arm over his face theatrically. “Leavemealonesammy” he mumbles.
The movement pulls his tee shirt up higher, smooth expanse of flat belly and a soft happy trail drawing Sam’s eyes down to where Dean’s dick is fat in his shorts. Sam’s mouth waters, and he has to reach down to adjust his own.
“Dean, wake up, come on. You’re a little—you’re, umm, a bit younger now I think.”
That wakes Dean up immediately. He shoots up in bed, eyes wide, and reaches up to touch his own face. “I am?”
He leaps out of bed and runs into the bathroom, and Sam can see his dumbfounded expression in the mirror when he sees himself.
“OHMYGOD!” he crows, grinning like an idiot. Sam can’t help but grin back.
“I mean, holy shit Sammy, I’m—look at me!”
Only Dean would be perfectly happy to ogle himself, Sam thinks. But he’d be lying if he didn’t appreciate the invitation to look. When Dean was this age the first time, Sam spent all his time trying not to look.
Dean inspects himself everywhere, turning this way and that to try to see his ass, and then spinning back around to lean in so his face is inches from the mirror and he can see every unlined inch of his freckled skin.
“If you’re done lusting after yourself, we should go check out some bookstores,” Sam reminds him.
Dean is reluctant to put clothes on, but finally relents. It’s a good thing they both have belts, because their jeans are definitely not fitting like they should.
They make the rounds of the few remaining Barnes & Nobles, where nobody has seen anyone who fits the description of their mystery man.
Philadelphia still has some independent bookstores too, so they visit them one after the other, going from one section of the city to the next. Each part is different, with different types of restaurants, different types of stores, even different types of houses. One old bookstore-slash-antique-store is in a three-story that the proprietor tells them is called a Holy Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—always three floors and a whole block of them all stuck together, every one different.
The proprietor has to be pushing eighty, but that doesn’t stop him from giving Dean the once-over… twice. Once from the front and once from the back. Sam hangs back and watches, Dean oblivious to the effect he's having on the man.
Sam remembers Dean’s junior year of high school, before he dropped out and claimed to not care anymore. Dean would walk down the hall and every head would turn once he’d passed: boys, girls, teachers, even the principal. They’d watch the way he moved his hips when he walked, just a little, the start of those bowlegs making his gait provocative. When they walked side by side that year, Sam felt invisible, just a scrawny thirteen-year-old next to a boy who looked like he should be a TV star or model. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t resent it sometimes, but he also couldn’t blame the rest of the world for feeling the exact same way he did.
Dean looks just like that now.
“Ready to go, Sammy?”
Dean’s voice pulls him out of his reflections. The shop owner gives Dean his card, tells them to call if they think of any other questions.
They have one more bookstore on their list. The sun is setting when they get to Sansom Street, in the heart of what the locals call “the gayborhood.” There are rainbow flags on every street lamp, and the sidewalk cafes are already bustling, waiters balancing trays full of drinks, a mix of delicious aromas wafting out onto the sidewalks.
Every head turns when Sam and Dean get out of the car and walk toward the bookstore on the corner of Sansom and 13th, and more than one man whistles softly. They’re obvious enough that even Dean notices. Sam can see the moment he realizes; he puffs out his chest, that swaying, bowlegged strut of his becoming just a little more pronounced.
“Any of these guys the one who took a shine to you back in Kansas?” Dean asks, and Sam realizes that’s what he should be looking for, not watching his brother so closely.
“No, don’t think so.”
“Hmph,” Dean says, and elbows Sam in the ribs. “Well, looks like just about all of them are taking a shine to you now.”
“Ow,” Sam complains, but Dean is smiling, so he just elbows his brother back.
“Can’t say I blame ’em,” Dean says easily, raising his eyebrows and leering at Sam. “I mean, phew, look at you, little brother.”
Sam feels himself blush.
“Yeah, well, look who’s talking. I’m pretty sure most of them are looking at you, not me.”
Dean laughs at that and looks ridiculously pleased with himself. If anything, he puffs out his chest even more, and once again that wave of overwhelming love washes over Sam. His ridiculous, gorgeous, idiotic big brother, who Sam has probably been in love with forever.
Everyone in the bookstore ogles Dean, and that makes Sam feel even better when Dean eventually pronounces this one a bust too and takes Sam’s elbow to usher him out of the store.
“You don’t have to push me,” Sam grumbles, but it’s mostly to hide the thrill he just got from Dean’s casual possessiveness—and the looks on several other customers’ faces when Dean all but announced that they were together.
“That was the last one,” Dean says, and he sounds a bit exasperated. “It’s 8 p.m., and we haven’t eaten, and you haven’t slept in two days, and we’re not any closer to figuring this out than we were when this whole thing started!”
Sam has been so busy enjoying staring at Dean that he’d nearly forgotten they don’t know what will happen next time they sleep. And now that Dean has mentioned it, damn, Sam is beat.
He yawns, and Dean punches him in the arm.
“Ow, jerk!”
“Bitch,” Dean returns automatically, and steers them in the direction of one of the sidewalk cafes that smelled so good. “We should eat, then we’ll deal with the sleep thing.”
They knock back a few beers and some slices of gourmet pizza. It’s a starry early-spring night, just enough light breeze to keep blowing Sam’s long hair in his face.
“So what now?” Dean asks after they’ve had bowls of homemade ice cream with whipped cream and a cherry to finish off their meal.
“Honestly? I don’t know. We can’t not sleep forever.”
Dean scrubs a hand over his face, and Sam is once again struck by how beautiful his brother is.
“I guess we need to bite the bullet and find out, then,” Dean says finally. He looks at Sam, and the same softness that Sam feels is in Dean’s green eyes too.
“Yeah,” Sam agrees. “In a little bit, okay? I just wanna… this is nice, you know? Just… being here with you.”
It’s a risk, but Sam is starting to not care. He’s pleasantly buzzed, and it’s a beautiful night, and neither of them knows if they’ll even exist tomorrow. So Sam just wants to enjoy it for a little while longer. He expects Dean to roll his eyes and get up from the table, but instead he reaches over and lays his hand on top of Sam’s.
“Yeah, okay, Sammy,” he says softly.
Sam should be terrified about what this curse is going to do to him, but instead he thinks that maybe this is the happiest he’s ever been, at a sidewalk café in Philly on a Friday night, holding hands with his beautiful big-hearted brother.
They sit there a long time, sipping their beers and looking at the stars and the blue-strung lights of the Ben Franklin Bridge at the edge of the waterfront… and sometimes at each other. At first it’s sly glances, both of them looking away before the other can be sure, but gradually the looks are longer. Dean smiles when he catches Sam looking, and Sam smiles back.
* * *
It’s almost midnight when the café closes and they climb into the Impala to drive the short distance back to their hotel. Dean is tired, and he knows Sam is even more tired, but somehow the night hasn’t been the sad and panicked thing he expected it to be. If they’re going to die tonight, Dean is so damn grateful they had this time together. That he got to see Sam like this, young and healthy and looking like he has his whole life ahead of him. That he got to feel like himself again, even if only for a short time… and, more than anything, that he got to see Sam smile. At him.
He doesn’t know what it means that they held hands, only that it didn’t feel weird. Somehow they don’t even feel like brothers, with the age difference between them muddled and no time for the bullshit that’s come between them far too often.
Sam yawns all the way back to the hotel, and once he nearly nods off, head lolling against the passenger side window like he’s done for most of their lives.
“So,” Dean says when they’re back in the room, “do we try to postpone the inevitable, or…?”
He means sleeping, he swears he does. But Sam looks at him when he says it, and just the corner of his mouth turns up, and his dimples are both out in full force, and he looks so goddamn perfect that Dean just grins back at him helplessly.
“The inevitable?” Sam asks, and takes a step closer.
Dean’s stomach does a funny loop-and-twist thing, because Sam cannot possibly mean what it seems like he does.
Dean licks his lips because he’s nervous all of a sudden, and Sam’s eyes track the movement. Sam looks up and stops smiling—and licks his lips too.
The gesture slides up Dean’s body like an electric shock, making the hairs stand up on his arms and legs and making his cock twitch like he’s been touched.
“I don’t,” he starts, and Sam is still looking at him. “You can’t… Sam, you can’t say that kinda shit to me, not when you…” He stops himself. It’s difficult.
“Not when I what?” Sam asks, and it would almost sound innocent except for the way he’s looking at Dean.
“Not when you look like that,” Dean whispers, and he can’t believe he said it out loud.
Sam starts smiling again and waves his hand in Dean’s general direction as he takes another step closer.
“You should talk,” he says, and then he laughs out loud. “I can’t believe we’re pussyfooting around this like a couple of teenagers.”
Dean has to laugh too, though it’s partly nerves. “We sort of are a couple of teenagers,” he points out.
“I was a skinny little kid when you looked like this,” Sam says, growing more serious again. “I would look at you and think, god, I will never look like that. Never look that good.”
Dean can feel himself growing red, the tips of his ears hot. Sam at thirteen, doing that fucking dance in front of that fucking fan. The shame washes over him, and he starts to turn away. Sam gets a hand on him before he can.
“Hey, what is it? Where’d you just go?”
Dean shakes his head. Sam’s fingers on his biceps are like a brand; he both wants Sam to let go and wants him to hang on.
“You—you were always—god, Sam, you don’t even have any idea how you looked, do you? How you still look!”
Sam considers that, a shy smile on his face. “Yeah?”
Dean just nods, looking at his feet because if he doesn’t he’s going to give it all away, going to confess to everything he felt for Sam when he shouldn’t have.
Sam’s right in front of him now, his hand still gripping Dean’s arm. When Dean reluctantly makes eye contact, Sam’s fingers rub back and forth lightly, and just that touch makes Dean’s skin go to gooseflesh.
“What are you doing, Sam?”
He has to ask; there can’t be any misunderstanding here.
* * *
Part Four
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Date: 2018-07-12 05:02 pm (UTC)The very thought of the boys in the gayborhood gives me big, happy smiles! I could totally see Dean loving the attention, and getting soooo much of it! :D
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Date: 2018-07-27 12:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-09 09:01 am (UTC)I'm glad they're not stressing over this and wasting their time together. They are still hot now but damn, at 20 they were a health hazard! :9
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Date: 2020-09-16 02:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-13 07:42 pm (UTC)Lol but I love how Dean reacted to being young again. He was such a cocky little shit, and he never lost the sass but there is something about that bravado on someone who shouldn’t be old enough to pull it off that is just ballsy as fuck 😁
And just awww about them having this night where they can just be young and care free (even if it might be their last! But I’m happily over here assuming it’s not! 😁) — it just makes me happy to see them rewind the clock a bit 😄
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Date: 2022-01-25 03:46 am (UTC)