Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/8255315. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Underage Category: M/M Fandom: Supernatural Relationship: Dean_Winchester/Sam_Winchester Character: Dean, Sam Stats: Published: 2016-10-10 Words: 5500 ****** All the parts that I'm not into, but I see in you... ****** by pinkwithoutplot Summary Sam's about to turn eighteen and leave for college. Dean buys a video camera to document their final weeks together, but their impending separation throws up all kinds of issues for the boys as Sam discovers he likes being the sole subject of his brother's home movies in ways he really shouldn't... Notes Drunk!Boys, misuse of a camcorder. Pre-series, set just before Sam leaves for Stanford. Title is taken from Moving Pictures by The Cribs.     It starts out as a bit of fun. Dean comes back to the rented apartment in Portland one day with a box, and sets it down on the kitchen table. “Where'd you get it?” Sam asks. “Pawn shop downtown.” “Does it even work?” “We'll soon find out, Sammy.” Dean opens the box and pulls out a video camera. It looks a few years out of date, and it's a little bulky, but it's digital according to the well-thumbed user manual. “Records onto these D-VHS tapes,” Dean says holding out something which looks like a normal video tape. Sam takes it and examines it, nodding. “Let's try it out,” he suggests. They eat cereal out of the box and watch TV while they wait for the battery pack to juice up. When it's done, they go out into the backyard and find insects and birds for Sam to film, but they move quickly and Sam hasn't gotten the focus figured out yet. After a while, Dean says, “This is kinda boring.” He takes out his hunting knife and says, “Film this, Sammy!” He shuts his eyes tight, throws it, and the blade sticks in a tree, the handle quivering. “Show-boater,” Sam says, blowing the bangs out of his eyes. “No,” says Dean moving over to the tree, dropping forward onto his palms and lifting his feet until he's hand-standing against the trunk. “This is show- boating.” “You know,” says Sam, stalking over to where Dean is upside down, his tee slid around his face, obscuring his brother's view and exposing the softly ridged plane of his stomach, “we could make some money outta this.” “Oh yeah?” Dean says, voice muffled by the fabric and strained by the dump of blood pooling in his head. “Yup,” says Sam brightly. “They pay like two hundred dollars on that show for this kind of thing...” Dean is quiet for a heartbeat – thinking – before a startled gasp bursts out of him and he tries to right himself, too late to prevent Sam nudging his elbow with the toe of his sneaker. Dean's arm collapses under him and he crashes to the dirt with a winded groan as Sam laughs his ass off. A few hours and a couple of tussles later, they have a whole lot of shaky footage of nothing much in particular, and the novelty of the camera is starting to wear off. For Sam anyway. He is making a sandwich. Dean is still filming him. “Dude! Seriously?” “What?” Dean says, all innocence. “I'm making a freakin' egg salad sandwich, Dean. It's hardly gonna make the documentary shortlist at Sundance.” “See – I barely understand that reference, Sammy.” Dean feigns ignorance. “Now if you were talking about the AVNs...But that's why you're the one with the full ride to Stanford.” And suddenly it all makes sense. Sam puts down the butter knife and turns to face his brother, only to find himself staring down the lens. “That what this is about?” “What?” Sam sighs. Dean is the most infuriating person on the planet. “This.” He gestures, wafting his hand between himself and the camera. “This sudden interest in gonzo movie-making. It's because I'm going to Cali, right?” They are quiet for a while, the hum emitting from the heated machinery Dean's holding and the whine of the refrigerator suddenly loud and intrusive. Dean clears his throat. “Well, OK...yeah. A bit. I mean – I just...I just though maybe while you're away you could maybe...urm...like a video diary y'know? Or I could. Or we could take turns. But if you're not into it, that's cool.” Sam watches his usually cock-sure big brother stammer his way through his piece and his heart seems to swell several sizes in his chest. While he hasn't mustered the balls to tell Dad his news yet, he hadn't been able to keep it from Dean, and while he'd made a pretty good fist of being happy for him, Sam knows Dean's genuine pride and desire for his kid brother to have some semblance of normality are tinged with fear and the impending ache of separation. Sam know because he feels the same way. “No,” he says, voice a little more broken that he'd like. “No, I mean yeah. It's a good idea, Dean. Really.” Dean hides the camera under his bed before Dad gets back. The days and weeks trundle by relentlessly, like so many miles under the worn treads of the Impala's wheels. Like the cassettes Dad plays as he drives, like the tape spooling as countless snapshots of the Winchester boys are burned onto it. Dean carries the video recorder around in his duffel, the physical weight of his complicity in Sam's secret. He knows he's going to have own up soon, and it won't be pretty when he does. Sam's not sure when the shift happens. Dean's compulsion to document every banal detail of their lives in the downtime started out as an irritant, but somehow, as time passes and the reality of his departure dawns on him, he begins to welcome the impervious gaze on him. It's weird, but it sort of gives him freedom, the license to act in ways he never would, were he eye to eye with his brother. They hole up in a shitty motel near Des Moines a week before Sam's birthday. There's been a spate of disappearances in the area, and the MO makes Dad think this might be their kind of thing. He's out most nights, trawling bars for information, though more often than not he comes home reeking of whiskey himself. Sam wonders if he knows – if he's somehow guessed that Sam's planning to take off, but he can never find the right moment to have the talk. On the upside, he and Dean are sharing a room which gives them plenty of time to make their little films. Dean hasn't been himself since Sam dropped his bombshell, despite his protestations. He isn't shadowing their father or propping up bars until he finds a hot, willing little body to leave with. Isn't coming back in the morning light, reeking of stale perfume and other people's homes. It's like he thinks Sam will evaporate the second he stops watching him. Sam wants to tell him it's OK. He's not going forever. Dean will always know where to find him. But the truth is he's terrified as well. He asks Sam to read to him. They spend hours, Sam lounging on one bed, reading chapters from some old paperbacks they picked up from a thrift store while Dean sits on the other, the camcorder logging each word. Steinbeck and Fitzgerald and Hemmingway. Dean's favorite is McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses. In fact, Sam swears blind his brother's breath hitches when Blevins is killed, and later he hears him mumbling something about only wanting what was rightfully his – the horse and the Colt - poor damn kid. It gets so Sam can't even do his ablutions without Dean stood behind him. One morning, he's trying to shave the patchy stubble on his chin with a blunt, disposable Bic, wearing nothing but his worn boxers, the elastic slack, the color long since faded by crappy laundromat detergent. He catches sight of the camera in the mirror. “Can I help you, Dean?” Dean chuckles. “Don't mind me. I'm just here for posterity. One day you might wanna look back and remember how pretty you looked before you butchered your face with that thing.” Sam rolls his eyes, puts the razor down and turns to look directly into the lens. “Oh yeah?” he says, voice deliberately soft and silky. “You think I'm pretty?” He bats his lashes. Dean's face is unreadable behind the camera. “You're passable,” He says eventually. Long seconds go by while Sam stares into the camera, neither of them speaking. The steamy air is charged with something new and dangerous. Then Dean laughs – a little forced – and says, “But I'm gorgeous.” Sam picks up a damp flannel and flings it at Dean, but his brother lowers the camera and ducks out of the bathroom, so it hits the door frame with a wet splat instead. Sam is running. It feels good, the hot stretch of his legs when he goes at full pelt, great breaths heaved in and pushed back out, hair moist with cooling sweat tickling his nape. It's still early. He'd left Dean asleep and Dad had headed out at the crack of dawn, promising to be back tomorrow evening in time for Sam's birthday celebration. Whatever that might entail. He's flushed and glistening when he arrives back at the motel. He lets himself in quietly in case Dean is still sleeping, but his brother is sat up in bed, hunched over and engrossed in something. As Sam approaches, he can see Dean is watching some footage back on the video camera, his Walkman headphones plugged into it. “Hey!” Sam says. Dean jolts and nearly drops the camera. “Jesus Sammy! Bit of warning next time!” Sam laughs. “Oh, Dean! Where are your finely tuned hunter's instincts? You're lucky I'm not a hungry monster.” He slumps down on the bed and shakes his sweaty hair over Dean, pawing at his brother and trying to swipe the camera. “Lemme see. You watching a porno on there or something?” Dean holds him at arm's length, face scrunched up in disgust as Sam smears his salt-tacky skin against him. “Why don't you mind your own damn business and go shower. You stink.” Sam looks wounded and makes to let up. Dean drops his guard and Sam pounces, snatching the camera. “Sam!” he shouts, pissed sounding now. Sam staggers back from the bed and hits play, watching the image stutter to life on the tiny viewing screen. It's him. The footage from the other morning. He's got his back to the camera, gaze fixed on the mirror ahead as he concentrates on shaving, oblivious to his brother standing just behind. The camera makes a sweep of Sam's body, from the floor up, following the long line of his legs, molded calves and lean thighs, stopping just a heartbeat too long on his ass, boxers riding, low exposing the dints at the top of each cheek, the start of his crack. Up it pans, up his spine, taking in his broad shoulders, before zooming in on his face reflected by the mirror glass. The image blurs and sharpens again, finding his brow slightly furrowed, strong chin tilted up, lips pressed together, bringing out his dimples. Finally, finally, Sam gets a clue, and his eyes light up when he realizes he's being watched. “Can I help you, Dean?” Sam feels cold squirts of adrenaline send tingles though his guts. It's strange seeing himself like this, as an outsider. He barely recognizes himself, all long limbs and burgeoning musculature. He is suddenly nervous and squirmy although he's not sure why. He vaguely notes that it's this way with hunting sometimes, his brain getting fear and excitement and arousal all confused because they make his body react in similar ways. He wonders if it's something he'll grow out of. Dean is looking at him with an expression of absolute dread. If Sam had had any doubts as to whether there was something off about the way his brother had dragged the camera's gaze lovingly over each contour of his near-naked body, they are all dispelled by seeing the terror in Dean's gold-green eyes. Sam swallows, bites his lip. Feeling emboldened, he drops the camera back onto the bed next to Dean and grips the hem of his soaked tee. He lifts it slowly, feeling Dean's eyes on him as he gradually exposes his jutting hipbones, the dip of his navel, his tight abs, the slats of his ribs, the soft, dark hair under his arms. He pulls it up over his head, and lets it fall to the floor. Dean makes no attempt to avert his eyes. Sam can see the rapid rise and sink of his chest as he takes shallow breaths. Sam's eyes flick to the camera on the bed, and Dean snaps out of it. Gets his meaning. He picks it up with trembling hands and this shocks Sam more than anything because he's seen his brother catch a knife by the blade, spin it and bury it in the heart of a vampire without hesitating, then pour himself a drink without spilling a single drop. He hears the tape start to run and looks deep into the lens. He hooks his thumbs in the damp waistband of his sweats and drags them down, painfully slow, over the swell of his ass, down his thighs, and steps out of them. “You know,” he says, voice catching as he picks lightly at his boxers. “I'm not leaving you. Never you. Just...I just need to know what it's like. I can't breathe, Dean.” There's no response, and Sam feels dizzy as he pushes his underwear down. He stands and lets his brother steal moment after long moment of him, exposed and vulnerable. His cock starts to fatten between his legs. He feels it twitch, knows Dean can see it - knows he's watching from behind the curve of glass. Maybe he's centered in on it, enlarging it, so it takes up the whole frame. And damn if that doesn't make him harden even more. He wonders briefly what would happen if Dad were to come back now. Violence most probably. Just then, a car pulls into the lot, wheels scuffing up loose chips of stone, and the surface tension breaks. Sam loses his nerve. He dives for the bathroom and steps into the shower, cool water leaching the heat from his blushing skin. It takes everything he has not to reach down and jack himself. Dean has his game-face firmly back in place when Sam re-emerges. The camera is nowhere to be seen. Awkward doesn't even begin to describe the atmosphere, so it's no surprise when Dean announces he's taking Sam out to start the birthday celebrations. “I'm still only gonna be eighteen, Dean.” “So?” his brother says, smirking. “'S what fake ID's for. You worried about breaking the law now? Bit late for that, Sam – sorry to have to tell you.” “It's not that, just...well...” Sam is out of excuses. He can't tell his brother that, in his limited experience, being drunk makes him maudlin and horny in equal measures, and being drunk around Dean right now is a very, very bad idea for so many reasons. So he sighs and nods, and lets Dean dress him in one of his favorite band t- shirts so he looks 'less like a preppy asshole', even if he's going to be one in a few more months'. They hit up a few bars, pacing themselves. Deans orders pitchers of beer, and the occasional shot, but nothing too heavy. Sam begins to loosen up. It feels better for a while. Normal – whatever that means. By the third dive, it's dark out, Sam is pleasantly buzzed, and Dean is acting more like his old self. There's a small group of young women in the corner by the duke box, students probably, and when Sam refuses to be dragged over, Dean leaves him alone while he systematically charms each one in turn. Of course, they all fall for it, twirling hair around their fingers, leaning in close to listen to his lame jokes. Of course they do. He looks like that, and beneath all the smarm and self-satisfaction, he's Sam brother. He can never fully hide his light. Sam feels his fist clench hard around his beer glass and he wonders how much pressure he can apply before it implodes in his hand and he gets shards impaled in the soft meat of his palm. He squeezes then relents, daring himself to go a bit harder each time. Playing chicken with himself. He must be scowling more than he realizes, because when Dean's eyes lock with his across the bar, something changes in his brother's demeanor. He straightens up, tugs at the lapels of his leather jacket and appears to make his excuses to the women with a small, tight smile. Then he stalks back over to their table. “You OK, scout?” Sam's tamps down the bitchy retort he feels rising up. “Yeah,” he says. “Fine.” Dean licks his lips, takes a drink. “So you wanna shoot some pool? Move on? Hey – I know! What about a titty bar, huh?” He nudges Sam with his elbow. “I'll buy you a lap dance.” He winks, and Sam's feels a slug of arousal, but it's not the thought of some stripper writhing in his lap that sparks it. “I don't think so, Dean.” “C'mon, Sammy boy. It's your birthday. Well, nearly. You call the shots. Anything you want.” Sam shrugs, tired suddenly. “Actually, I'd quite like to go back to the room. Just get pizza and watch some TV. You know?” Dean looks hard at him, and Sam thinks he sees the moment the penny drops. There won't be many more chances for them to be Sam and Dean like that. Not hunting, not patching up each others wounds. Not stripping and cleaning their weapons or sparring. Not sitting in the back of the Impala counting down the hours til the next rest stop. Just being boys, slobbing out and eating junk food and watching a sitcom. Just two normal brothers. The best of times. That's why it's all Sam wants right now and everything Dean doesn't all at once. “You got it, kiddo,” Dean says too cheerily, and ruffles his hair. “We'll swing by a liquor store on the way.” He leaves some bills on the table and Sam stands and puts on his jacket. They're quiet on the walk home. It's clear and the stars are visible through the soft sodium glow enveloping the city. Dean points out constellations and Sam dredges up the stories about them he remembers from the bumper book of Greek mythology he used to read every time they stayed with Pastor Jim. But most of the stories are about severance, and Sam feels precariously close to crying on more than one occasion. He feels portentous suddenly, like each step is taking him closer to something he isn't sure he wants but knows he won't be able to stop. When they get back to the room, Dean pops open a couple of bottles of beer and pours them each a couple of fingers of Bourbon. They clink glasses and settle on their twin beds to watch some re-runs of M.A.S.H. while they wait for one veggie combo with extra chicken and one meat feast. “Hey,” says Dean, after they've eaten and imbibed almost the whole bottle of liquor. “I want you to know...I mean, I just wanted to say...whatever happens with Dad, I'm proud of you, Sammy. I mean, the way you aced the GED. I know how hard it must have been. No proper base, being pulled out of every school just as you're starting to settle in. Nowhere private to study and a million things most people couldn't even dream of bouncing around your melon and keeping you awake at night. I don't know how you did it, man.” Sam smiles, his throat suddenly sore and constricted. “Thanks,” he says quietly. “Get the camera out. I wanna say something before I sober up but, but you can't wail on me for being a girl tomorrow, OK?” “OK.” Dean laughs and reached under the bed. He flips the record button and nods. “Go ahead.” Sam takes a deep breath. He raises his beer to the camera. “I just wanna raise a toast to my brother. I mean, I'm eighteen in...like an hour's time, and even though I have to stand on my own two feet for once, I don't want you to think for one second that I don't appreciate the way you've had my back all these years, and that I won't miss you more than I can say, man. I mean, this life. Dad's crusade. Yeah, I'll admit I feel like I need to get out before I suffocate, before I turn into something I don't like. But Dean. You've always been the most important thing in my life, and that doesn't change just because I'm not around twenty-four-seven OK?” Sam sees the lens bob and knows his brother is nodding. He sets his bottle down. He feels reckless. He knows deep down that once he's out, once he's gone, they'll never be like this again. He'll visit in the holidays and they'll make small talk. But once he's out, it won't be the same. How could it be? No point trying to condense a thousand near death experiences into a two-hour conversation over dinner once every few months. Theirs is the kind of existence you need to live through or butt out of. Dean will always be his big brother, but he'll no longer be the other half of Sam. He'll have tutors and friends and girlfriends who would blanch if they new he still occasionally shares a bed with his 22 year old brother. Dean won't need to dig his fingertips into Sam's torn flesh to retrieve shrapnel before he sutures him up. He won't be shouldering his way into the bathroom to share basin space or to take a shit while Sam's trying to enjoy a bath. He won't use Sam's toothbrush. Won't jerk off perfunctorily a few feet over and then toss Sam the skin mag he was using in case he wants a turn. Sam feels the loss then. A big, gaping pain like he's been blown right through the middle with a shotgun at close range. He kind of knew he was dangling by a thread, but this is so much worse than he ever expected. He's not sure he'll survive saying goodbye. He kneels up on the bed and pulls Dean's Ride The Lightning tee off. Dean keeps filming. “What do you want, Dean? Tell me what you want. Anything. I'll do anything.” Dean is quiet for a long time, then he coughs a little like he's testing whether he can still make a sound and says, “Want you to touch yourself. Pinch your nipples for me, Sam. Get them good and hard.” His voice is scraped raw and just a little slurred, and Sam's dick starts to swell in his jeans. He can't believe he's really going to go through with this. But if he's cutting his ties with the life, if he's giving up up hunting, he needs another way to bond his brother to him. It's sick, but it seems that's how he's hardwired. “OK,” he whispers. “But first, take off your tee. Wanna see you.” Dean balances the camera on his knee before shucking his own shirt and picking it back up again. “Better?” “Uh-huh,” Sam breaths, and starts to pluck at the sensitive buds of flesh, hard enough to redden them up, then running circles around them with his blunt nails which draw out goosebumps on his skin. “Like this?” Dean is breathing hard already, the tape whirring. “Yeah, Sammy. Undo your pants for me, there's a good boy.” Sam wets his lips. “You lose your jeans first.” Dean makes a frustrated growl and puts the camera down on the bed. He swivels round and wrestles his way our of his jeans. Sam can see his chubbed-up cock pressing out the front of his briefs. “So goddamn perfect, Dean.” And he means it. Sam never realized until now how much he means it. He's always known objectively that Dean is beautiful. Felt right down to his bones that Dean was his. But he's always equated arousal with nipped waists and full breasts, and long, shiny hair. Perfume that smells of fruit and flowers. The first hint of slick on the cotton of a gusset under his fingers. He honestly never knew the hot weight of his big brother's bedroom eyes on him would get him hard and dripping in about ten seconds flat. He can be pretty fucking stupid for a supposedly smart guy. Sam thumbs open the fly of his jeans and watches as the lens drops a couple of inches to zone in on the parted fabric. He pushes them down a little, then slips his hand down inside, rubbing lightly at his dick. It's angled downwards, strangled by the leg of his boxers, and he adjusts it so that it stands straight up, the engorged head peeking out of his waistband. Dean gives a moan and Sam sees a dark spot form on the front of his briefs. Dean makes to touch himself, but Sam pulls him up. “Uh-uh,” he chides. “You're the director. You get to drive the action, but you don't participate in it.” “Jesus,” Dean hisses. “Take off your underwear, Sam. Wanna see that huge cock you're packin'.” Sam smiles and shakes his head. “You first. You're the oldest.” Dean's hips jerk a bit at that. Seems Sam's big brother has serious issues. Sam would tease him about it if his own cock was throbbing and pulsing out gobs of sticky fluid. “Thought I was the director?” Dean says, shakily. But he's wriggling out of his briefs while he tries to keep the camera steady anyway. “I'm a novice,” says Sam coyly. “I need a lot of practical demonstration to fully understand what's required of me for this role.” Dean kneels up and Sam gasps at how stiff and dark his cock looks. He shivers and slides his own underwear off. “Fuck, kiddo,” Dean says, awestruck. “you're so big.” Sam smiles, pride washing through him. “You have such a beautiful cock, Dean. Never thought about it until recently. What it would be like to play with another guy's junk. Get it all hard and jack it off.” Sam's hand drops to his straining dick as he talks, and he starts to use the slick leaking from the tip to get the length nice and slippery. “Don't you dare touch yourself, Dean. You've been watching me for weeks now. Taping my every move. Gonna give you a proper show. Something to keep you busy while I'm away.” The alcohol is thrumming through his veins, making him feel loose-limbed and bold. His mouth is running away with him, but the way Dean's gone all glassy- eyed and slack-jawed, and keeps making little aborted thrusts into thin air gives him the encouragement he needs to voice every dirty thing that comes to mind. “Wish I could stroke your pretty cock, Dean.” Sam runs his palm up and down his own with a wet sound. “Get it all wet and shiny and jerk it nice and fast. I wonder how you like it, huh? Like a little twist over the head?” Sam turns his wrist on the upstroke, punching a moan out of himself as his fist glides over the ridge of his glans. “Yeah,” Dean moans, “Yeah, I like that, Sammy.” “Bet your balls would feel good and heavy about now too.” Sam lowers his hand and gently jiggles his in his cupped hand. “I'd love to roll them around like this. Tug on the skin a little bit. Massage them good and deep. Feel that big load waiting to shoot all over me.” Dean shudders and Sam watches a pearly drop slide down the twitching length of his dick and catch in the wiry hair at the base. Sam scoots forward to the edge of the bed and lies back, drawing his knees up and letting them flop apart. “Sammy!” Dean groans. “What're you doing?” “Shhh,” Sam says, collecting saliva on his tongue and swiping it off with his index finger and reaching between his thighs. “Just thinking about how much I'd like that thick cock all up inside me. I've never done it before, so I'm probably really tight. You'd have to open me up with your fingers first.” Sam sinks his lubed finger into his pink little hole to the first knuckle, eyes carefully on Dean the whole time. Dean has let the camera droop and is staring open-mouthed at Sam's asshole, his spare hand hovering over his cock. “Don't touch, Dean. And keep that camera focused. I want you to watch this while I'm away, knowing that I'm probably riding my own hand and wishing it was your big dick.” Sam starts to pump his finger in and out of his hole. It burns a little but the small, hurt sounds bleeding from Dean are incredible. “Love your hands, Dean. Love feeling them all over me, taking care of me. Knowing you use them to kill things one night and to finger some slut to climax outside a bar the next.” Sam pushes harder and finds a spot which makes him cry out. “Holy fuck!” he sobs. “God, I bet your fingers are just long and thick enough to find that place inside me. Nail it over and over.” Dean's moaning rhythmically now, hips hunching and fucking into nothing like a dumb dog, and face obscured by the video camera. “Bet you want to fuck me, don't you? Show your little brother what his hole was made for? But we can't cross that line, can we, Dean? You'll never forgive yourself if you let it get that out of hand. But you want it, and I want it. Want your cock in me so bad, Dean. Want you to fill me up. Let me show you.” Sam removes his finger with a moist sound, sucks two into his mouth and thrusts back in, arching up off the bed and resuming his punishing pace immediately. “Oh God! Dean! Two feels even better. But nowhere near as good as you would feel. How would take me, huh? Like this? On my back, so you can watch my dick drooling all over my stomach, see my face when I come? Or on my hands and knees so you could really give it to me hard. Fuck the come out of me without even touching my cock. Think you could, Dean?” Sam finger-bangs himself furiously, panting and sweating now, watching Dean through half closed eyes, mouth hanging open. Every sound which falls from his lips, Dean answers. “Shit, Sam. Gonna lose it. You have no idea how much I wanna come over there and pin you down. Pull your fucking hair, bite you, bite your dirty fucking mouth. Come all over your face and up your ass and on your tongue and ugh fuck! -” Sam stares wide-eyed as Dean's hips piston forwards and long ropes of come pulse out of his untouched dick. “Fuck,” Dean says again, hips churning wildly, and Sam bears down on his fingers, clenches around them and lets his orgasm rip through him. It knocks the breath out of him, spurt after spurt landing on his belly and chest, his fingers gripped so tightly in his clutching hole that they're starting to lose feeling. When he comes to his senses, Dean is sitting on his bed, head slumped forward, the camera perched on the coverlet next to him. Panic starts to claw its way up Sam's gullet. He pulls his fingers out of his tender ass. “It's OK, Dean. We didn't...I mean we haven't...actually.” Dean looks up and he's so beautiful and debauched looking, Sam can't believe he's been lying to himself all this time. It's always been his brother. But there are tears brightening the mossy green of Dean's irises and Sam knows despite his intentions, he's just given himself one more good reason to go and stay the Hell away, even if it's gonna kill him. “We should get rid of this,” Dean says, ejecting the tape, “just burn it before Dad finds it. Holy fuck, can you imagine?” He laughs but there's no humor in it. Sam nods and fumbles on the floor for his underwear, wiping himself off with it. He looks up and catches Dean looking, unable to rein back the yearning simmering there. He wonders when things got so messed up. “I should shower,” Sam mumbles. “Yeah,” Dean agrees and looks down at the dirty carpet. Sam gets up and walks to the bathroom. He fights the urge the pulp his hand against the chipped tiles of the shower stall and runs the water good and and hot. He lets his head fall forward under the stream and the water fills his ears, his nose, his mouth. He starts when he feels the first tentative touch on his back. Long fingers curl under his chin and tip his face clear of the deluge. His ears empty with a pop. There's a soft kiss pressed between his shoulder blades. “Happy birthday, kiddo,” Dean says, and rests his cheek against his brother's.     Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!