Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/54470.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Supernatural
  Relationship:
      Dean_Winchester/Sam_Winchester
  Character:
      Sam_Winchester, Dean_Winchester, John_Winchester, Original_Characters
  Additional Tags:
      Wincest_-_Freeform, As_Certain_Dark_Things, Chicago_-_Freeform, Kansas,
      Travel, Angst, Established_Relationship, Spanking, Separated_Young,
      Alternate_Universe_-_Canon, 15000-25000_words, Bisexual_Character, Anal
      Sex, Food, Dysfunctional_Family, Family, Secrets
  Series:
      Part 5 of As_Certain_Dark_Things
  Collections:
      Queer_Characters_Collection
  Stats:
      Published: 2010-01-23 Words: 16003
****** Between the Shadow and the Soul ******
by azephirin
Summary
     Winter. Days are short, night falls early, and secrets are revealed.
Notes
     This is a sequel to As_Certain_Dark_Things, and unfortunately won't
     make much sense if you haven't read that first. (It's short!) Title
     from Sonnet_XVII, by Pablo Neruda. Thanks to
     [[livejournal.com profile] ]
katomyte for reading and listening to no small amount of kvetching.
See the end of the work for more notes
The phone rings while the "boys" (read: Dean, his uncles, most of his male
cousins) are playing poker in the den; the "girls" (read: his aunts, most of
his female cousins) are in the living room drinking wine and gossiping. Dean
and Uncle Frank wait for Aunt Martha to get it; when she doesn't, Dean hoists
himself out of his chair and goes to pick up the cordless. "Hello?"
"What's up, Middle America."
Sam.
Dean can't exactly say, "Merry Christmas, jailbait," in front of half his
family, so he settles for, "Hey. Merry Christmas."
"Yeah, back at you. Get anything good?"
Dean mouths, "Fold," at Uncle Frank, then takes the phone upstairs to his room.
"Clothes, parts for the truck. Some CDs I wanted. What about you?"
"Maria got me books, like always. Juan got me...uh, let's just say that what
Juan got me is probably illegal in a few states. Or at least it should be."
Dean flops back on his bed, feeling himself start to grin. "You realize that
you have to tell me what it is, right?"
"I can't say that out loud!"
Sam Conover: perfectly capable of sauntering in and seducing his crew coach,
but shies at the very mention of pornography.
"OK, OK. So books, porn. Anything else?"
"Debbie picked out clothes, and my dad said they were from him. Like usual.
Money from my grandparents. Oh, and a new laptop."
"That's pretty sweet."
"I guess. I mean, I didn't need it, but my dad apparently decided that I had to
have it, so now I do. Whatever. Listen, so what are you doing the rest of the
week?"
Dean shrugs. "I don't know. Tinkering with the truck. Drinking with my cousins.
Maybe catch up on some reading, since my grading's done. Why?"
"How far are you from Chicago?"
"Uh"—Dean thinks—"eight hours, maybe nine. It's been a while since I've been
there. Why?"
"Because I really need to get the fuck out of my house, and I hear there's
actual civilization in Chicago. To the extent that there's civilization in the
Midwest, that is."
Dean's about to respond with an automatic "bite me," but something's wrong
here; something's off. "Sam, what's going on?"
"At this time tomorrow, I'm going to be naked between crisp white sheets in a
suite at the Drake Hotel on Michigan Avenue. Can you think of any reason in the
world you shouldn't be there with me?"
"You're going to be where?"
"Dean," Sam says patiently. "I know you're not deaf."
"Sam, what the hell...how did you..."
"There's this thing, it's called the Internet. You can use it to make hotel
reservations. Then there are these other things, they're called cars. You drive
them, and they take you from one place to another."
"Fuck off."
"Oh, but I'd so rather you were fucking me. We'll be in a big hotel with thick
walls. Don't you want to know how loudly you can make me scream your name? Or
how long I can go down on you without letting you come? Because I'm looking
forward to finding out. I mean, if you can leave Lawrence for a few days."
"You're going to drive to Chicago from Connecticut?"
"I like driving," Sam says.
"What the hell am I going to tell my family?" Dean asks, and he knows he's
going to give in. As with everything that involves Sam, it's just a matter of
time.
                          **************************
 
He tells Uncle Frank and Aunt Martha that Sam's a friend from MIT, a freshman
when Dean was a senior. He's from back East but he's got family in Chicago, and
they've invited him up unexpectedly.
Dean leaves the next morning. Sam's got a longer drive, but will beat him
there: He was planning to leave more or less immediately after they got off the
phone.
Dean realizes that Sam never did tell him what the matter was.
Dean's only been on the road a couple of hours when Sam calls him from
somewhere in Ohio. "Man, it is fucking flat here. Jesus. I could roll a bowling
ball down I-80, and it would just never stop."
"Welcome to the Midwest," says Dean. "God, what the hell are you listening to?"
"REM," Sam says haughtily. "Reckoning. It's a rock-and-roll classic. Which
you'd know, if you listened to anything recorded after 1972."
"Son, you know you don't want to get into it with me about Zep."
"You calling me 'son' is just about the dirtiest thing ever."
"Sam!"
"It's true. I mean, I won't stop you, but I draw the line at calling you
'Daddy.'"
Dean hangs up.
Sam calls back.
Dean doesn't pick up.
Sam leaves voice mail.
"We can still do all the nasty daddy-kink stuff, though. Mmm. Like, maybe I did
something to piss you off—oh, I know, you caught me jerking off!—and so you
decide you need to discipline me. Maybe bent over your desk, with my ass bared.
I'll take my belt off and hand it to you—kiss it first, though, because you
know I love this—"
Dean calls back. "You won't tell me what Juan got you for Christmas, but you'll
leave messages about spanking on my voice mail?"
"That's totally different. There were clowns."
Dean howls with laughter. "Juan got you clown porn?"
"I don't want to talk about it," Sam says sulkily. "I have to go drive through
Ohio now. Good-bye."
No matter how much Dean tries to shake it, the image of Sam bent over, back
arched, pale bottom Dean's to spank, stays with him.
                            **********************
 
Dean stops in Iowa City to piss and get something to eat. Four hours later,
he's in Chicago. He was only twelve or thirteen the last time he was here, and
the noise of the city, the enormity of its buildings, and the speed and
determination of its populace were overwhelming. Now that he's lived in Boston,
none of those seem so bad—and now that he's dealt with Boston drivers, the ones
in Chicago seem altogether sane.
The hotel, on the most famous stretch of Michigan Avenue, isn't hard to find.
With some trepidation, Dean hands the truck over to a valet—he rebuilt the 1976
F-150 more or less from scratch when he was in high school, and it has taken
him from Lawrence to MIT and then to Rockshire, and he's bizarrely protective
of it.
The lobby is vast, high-ceilinged, chandeliered. Dean tries not to feel
intimidated, in his old leather jacket, his denim shirt, his patched jeans. He
doesn't care much about clothes, his own or anyone else's, never has, but he
feels distinctly out of place here. Sam, he thinks, belongs in surroundings
like these. Dean doesn't.
"Hey," he says, with an attempt to be casual, when he reaches the front desk.
"Checking in under the name Samuel Conover."
The woman behind the desk types something into her computer, smiles in that
customer-service-somewhere-really-expensive way, and says, "Welcome to the
Drake." She hands him a card key. "Room 1664. Enjoy your stay."
He goes up in the elevator, finds the room, lets himself in. It's quiet; the
curtains are open, and through the windows he can see the expanse of Lake
Michigan stretched out against the sky. Maybe Sam's not here yet? It's a hell
of a long drive from Connecticut to Chicago; he could have gotten stuck in
traffic along the way. Dean turns on a table lamp and realizes that this is
just a living room. Jesus, Sam. Dean sees a ribbon of faint light beneath a
closed door. He crosses the carpeted floor, knocks lightly, opens the door,
goes in.
Sam is, true to his word, naked in the bed (at least as far as Dean can
tell)—but he looks to be fast asleep. Something sharp, sweet, and uncomfortable
floods through Dean at that sight—Sam looks so achingly young. His face is soft
in sleep, the usual angles of stubbornness and sarcasm relaxed into the
smoothness of rest. With no one watching—not even Sam himself—Dean can do what
he always wants to: He brushes Sam's hair back from his eyes, tucks it behind
his ear, kisses his temple.
Sam makes a small, querulous sleep-noise. "Just me, Sammy," Dean says. He's
apparently incapable of taking his fingers from Sam's hair.
"Hey." Sam opens his eyes, smiles. "Fell asleep. Sorry."
The silence broken, Dean's finally able to stand up and take off his boots, his
shirts. He pauses at the buttons to his jeans. "You naked under there?"
"Uh-huh." Sam's eyes are closed again.
Dean undresses the rest of the way and folds his clothes on a chair. He crawls
in bed next to Sam—it's only late afternoon, but it was a long drive, and this
is really what he wants, himself and Sam. It doesn't matter where.
Sam tucks himself around Dean underneath the lawn of the sheets, the weight of
the duvet on top of them. "Sorry I'm such a loser," he mumbles. "First time
I've really slept since vacation started."
Dean doesn't ask why somebody might sleep better in a hotel in a strange city
rather than in the house where they grew up.
"It's OK," Dean says. "Go back to sleep. I could use some, too, after the
drive."
"K." Sam spreads his hand over Dean's heart, which is where Sam seems to have
decided it belongs. He settles into the crook of Dean's arm, and his breathing
is shallow, even—sleeper's breaths—when he adds, "Love you, Dean."
Dean's heart turns over in his chest. He stares down at Sam, but there's
nothing he can do: Sam's asleep again.
Dean doesn't answer, not out loud, but there's no way he's falling asleep now.
                             *********************
 
It's dark by the time Sam wakes up. Dean hasn't slept: He's spent the past
couple of hours watching the sun set over the lake, watching the lights of the
city reflected off the water, but, most of all, watching Sam sleep. Sam
stretches his arms and legs; fidgets; then rolls over so that his chin is
propped on Dean's chest. "Hi," he says.
It really hasn't been all that long since they've seen each other. Sam left the
morning of the twenty-first, ostensibly because that was when most boarders
did; in reality, his exams were done the afternoon of the twentieth and his
father's driver (driver, Dean thinks, not for the first time) could have come
for him at any point afterward. Sam spent that night with Dean, and the driver
picked him up in the morning. Dean waited until the last of the boarders—a kid
from Saudi with a late flight—was gone, then started the long drive back to
Kansas.
So it's only been about five days.
They're kissing like it's been five weeks.
Sam tastes like sleep, and like something that he must have eaten on the road
last night or earlier today; Dean couldn't care less. He wraps one hand around
the back of Sam's head while the other finds the small of Sam's back; they're
pressed together, wrapped around each other like one complicated creature.
"Dean," Sam whispers, "want you to fuck me. Now. Please."
This is an eventuality that Dean could have easily predicted—but, of course, he
didn't think to stop on his way into Chicago and buy something for them to use.
"I don't have anything," Dean says.
Sam disentangles himself and reaches into the top drawer of the nightstand. "I
went out right after I got here. Thank God for fake ID, is all I can say."
"You don't need ID to buy lube," Dean says. Thanks to a skipped grade (fourth),
he started MIT at seventeen and didn't turn twenty-one until midway through his
senior year; he's well qualified, at this point, to judge what one can and
cannot do without ID.
"Not at the drugstore," Sam replies, stressing the final word as though he'd
just said George W. Bush or fanny pack or Velveeta. "But I wanted to go
somewhere decent."
"Christ," Dean says. "I'm in bed with somebody who has to use fake ID to buy
not just beer but lube."
Sam rolls his eyes. "Are you going to fuck me or not?"
It's Sam on top at first, straddling Dean's hips and taking him deep. Sam rocks
back and forth, setting their pace regardless of Dean's pleas for harder and
faster. Dean can hear himself moaning, feet flat on the bed, thrusting up into
Sam as much as Sam will let him. His fingers flex on Sam's hips, and he's sure
they're going to leave bruises, but Sam doesn't seem to care.
"Sam, please—faster, I can't take it—"
Sam shudders, smiles, takes one of Dean's hands. He cups it around his face,
kisses the palm. "You can," he says. "Just a few more minutes—oh, Dean, like
that—"
"Minutes—Sam—I don't think I can last thirty more seconds."
Sam slows his movements, and Dean throws his head back in frustration. He can't
force the issue: He's effectively pinned, and Sam is several inches taller and,
despite his lankiness, weighs as much as Dean does. "You...bastard," Dean
pants.
"We'll talk about that later," Sam says, something bitter twisting his face,
and, concerned despite the heavy haze of arousal, Dean runs his thumb across
Sam's cheekbone. Whatever Sam meant by that, though, he doesn't follow up,
instead tilting his head down to take two of Dean's fingers into his mouth.
With his other hand, Dean reaches for Sam's cock—if he can't get Sam to speed
up through pleading, he can do it the dirty old-fashioned way.
But Sam slaps his hand like Dean's a kid who just went for the cookie jar. Sam
bites lightly at the fingers still in his mouth, then wraps his own hands
around Dean's wrists and holds them solidly against his thighs.
"You little bitch," Dean mutters.
Sam laughs, then sinks down hard and deep. Dean cries out despite himself.
"I don't—God!—think I'm the bitch here, Dean." Luxuriantly, Sam moves up, down,
and Dean gasps, wants something to bite. He settles for his own lip.
Sam leans forward and kisses Dean, running his tongue over the teethmarks in
Dean's lower lip. "You bit so hard you drew blood," he whispers. "Just trying
not to come. Are you ready?"
"I've been ready," Dean says. "Asshole."
Sam's smile is entirely too self-satisfied. "Well, so come. But don't you want
to fuck me for just a little while longer?"
Dean pulls his hands out of Sam's grip and flips them over. He thrusts hard
into Sam and feels Sam's legs wrap around his hips, heels digging into Dean's
ass. "What I want," Dean growls, "is to fuck you as hard as I please." He yanks
Sam's hands from where they've landed on his biceps, and pins them on either
side of Sam's head. Dean pulls out slowly, lowering himself onto his elbows to
kiss Sam's open mouth, then drives back in fast and merciless. Sam arches
underneath him, fighting Dean's grip, but Dean's been working in garages since
he was fifteen, and Sam hasn't. "Do you really want me to let you up?" Dean
says quietly.
Sam kisses him and smirks. "Just fuck me, bitch."
Dean does.
He thought Sam would be loud—he's had to clap a hand over Sam's mouth or press
his own over it more than once back at Rockshire—but Dean had no idea it would
be like this. Sam's demands of "harder, harder—come on, Dean, God!" graduate to
shouts of incoherent pleasure as Dean does it harder, faster.
He loosens his grip on one of Sam's wrists, bites Sam's shoulder, then says in
his ear, "Jerk off for me. Let me see you come all over yourself."
"You first," Sam says breathlessly, and bites Dean back.
Dean angles in and up, determined to render Sam nonverbal. Sam's legs tighten
around him, and Sam pants, "Yeah, Dean, like that—like that!" They're moving
together again, a single frantic organism, and Dean slides his hands up to
tangle his fingers with Sam's. They kiss hard and messily, gasping into each
other's mouths, and Sam breaks away to whimper, "Dean, I need..."
"What do you need, baby?" Dean whispers.
"I need my hand. Have to, God."
"Thought you said you weren't going to."
"I changed my mind. Dean—ah, please!—I need to touch myself or I'm going to
fucking explode. I'll—fuck!—I'll get on my knees and beg later if you want."
Dean licks sweat from Sam's exposed throat. "Oh, you'll be on your knees
later." He kisses Sam gently and releases his right hand.
It takes maybe five strokes for Sam to come. His back arches in an elegant bow;
his eyes are closed; the fingers of his left hand clench Dean's so tightly that
it's painful. He sobs out something that may be Dean's name, and his internal
muscles tighten around Dean's cock, shuddering and forceful, as his semen
paints both of them. And that's it, that's all Dean needs for orgasm to gather
him up and throw him out. It's long, intense, and Sam kisses him through it,
whispering "let me have it" and "yes" and "Dean." And Dean doesn't object, just
collapses on Sam when the tremors have finished rolling through him. He listens
to Sam's heartbeat slow, then arranges them both so that Sam's lying curled up
against him, head on Dean's chest. This is how he likes to be with Sam,
watchful and protective, hands gentle in Sam's hair and on Sam's skin to soothe
that brilliant, spiky, completely unpredictable personality.
Dean wonders whether Sam will fall back asleep, but he doesn't, and Sam's hand
draws contented little circles on Dean's ribcage and belly. "Was your drive
OK?" Sam asks.
"It was fine. Just long. Though not as long as yours."
"I like driving long distances. A lot of time to think. I just load up the CD
player, and nothing bothers me, you know?"
Dean thinks of driving back and forth to and from Lawrence and Boston, and now
Rockshire. It's lonely, but there's something peaceful about it, too,
especially at night, just his headlights on the road, as though he's the only
person in the world.
"Yeah," Dean says, "I think I know what you mean." He winds stray strands of
Sam's hair in his fingers; it's marvelously soft, like the fur on some small
animal. "So you want to tell me why you took off for Chicago like a bat out of
hell?"
"Wanting you to fuck me on thousand-thread-count sheets isn't reason enough?"
"Sam."
Sam sighs, burrows a little closer. "My dad and I always have breakfast
together on Christmas morning. Charlotte—she's the cook—makes it, and Maria
actually serves it, which is weird in more ways than I can possibly explain.
It's without fail superawkward, but whatever, we do it."
"Is that what your family did when your mom was alive?"
"No. We opened presents and all the shit you're supposed to. Is that what your
family does?"
"Yeah, and then my other aunts and uncles and their kids come over later in the
day. We have dinner, and then the guys play poker and the women drink wine and
gossip." Dean doesn't add: And we all wonder whether my dad's going to show up,
and sometimes he does but most of the time he doesn't.
"That sounds really nice," Sam says.
"It's kind of noisy. But yeah," Dean admits, "it's nice."
"Anyway, my dad and I were having breakfast yesterday morning, doing our usual
not-talking thing, and I told him—" Sam pauses and takes a breath. "I decided
you were probably right. About my biological parents, I mean. A lot of kids are
given away not because their parents don't love them, but because the parents
just can't raise a kid—they're too young, too poor, whatever. So I told my dad
that I'd been thinking, and I'd like to get some info on my biological parents,
and would he sign off on it since I'm not eighteen yet?"
Dean doesn't pause, just keeps stroking Sam's hair. "So what then?"
"He tried to talk me out of it, and I got kind of pissed. Like he was trying to
keep it from me. Which he was, but...well, apparently no one knows who my
biological parents are. I was left on the front steps of an adoption agency on
the Upper East Side when I was six months old. More or less six months, anyway.
That's what a doctor estimated. So April 20, which I always thought was my
birthday, most likely isn't my real birthday at all. They basically just picked
a date because I would need to have one, and that span of time was their best
guess."
"There wasn't a note or anything?"
Sam shakes his head. "No. I know that now a lot of times they fingerprint
babies right after they're born, but no one really did that in the early
eighties. So there wasn't a way to trace me. My dad said that it was a strange
enough case that it made the papers: I was obviously healthy, had been well
cared for, was dressed in clean clothes and all that—but no parents ever turned
up. My dad showed me some of the articles. Anyway, the adoption went through
like any other adoption, and my dad and my mom got me." That bitter twist is
back on Sam's face. "And they really, really hoped I'd never ask about my
biological family." Sam closes his eyes. "So I think I was right to begin with.
If they didn't want me then, why would they want me now?"
"I'm sorry, Sam," Dean says. He doesn't know what else to say, and can't fathom
how anyone would think it was right to abandon a helpless six-month-old on a
doorstep in New York City. He kisses the top of Sam's head. "At least those
people weren't the ones who raised you, though. I mean, I know your parents
aren't perfect, but at least they didn't end up being the kind of people who
think it's OK to leave a baby on a front stoop."
"There's that, at least." Sam's tone is indecipherable.
"So how did this translate to Chicago?"
"The whole thing ended kind of badly. My dad and I started yelling at each
other. I'm not even sure about what, but I guess it figures that the first real
conversation we've had since I was eleven would end in shouting. I just...I
wanted to see you. I'm not some poor abandoned child to you. Even Maria—she's
worked for my family since before I was born. She knows the whole baby-on-the-
doorstep story."
"Your parents told her?"
"My dad did, later, after I started spending so much time with her family. I
guess he wanted to give her a heads-up in case I ever asked. Anyway, my dad and
I had our shouting match, and then I went upstairs and thought, well, I've
never been to Chicago, and it's not that far from you—compared to Connecticut,
anyway—and even if you couldn't come, I could at least get away from my house
for a while and go somewhere."
Something occurs to Dean. "Sam, does your dad know where you are?"
There's a pause. Then Sam says, with just a trace of petulance, "I told Maria
where I was going."
"But not your dad?"
"She'll tell him."
"Sam," Dean starts, but has no idea how to finish that sentence. "If I'd pulled
something like that, my aunt and uncle would have killed me. Then my dad would
have killed me all over again the next time he showed up."
"But you wouldn't," Sam says. "Because you're good."
Dean snorts. "And because Uncle Frank and Aunt Martha—or my dad, God
knows—didn't give me a credit card with a ten-thousand-dollar limit."
"It's higher than that," Sam says under his breath.
In his dad's case, though Dean disagrees with whatever bizarre vendetta the
man's taken up, Dean gets why he's done it. Sam, on the other hand: Dean loves
him—that's an unfortunate but undeniable fact at this point—but he's about the
most perplexing person Dean has ever met. I don't understand you a lot of the
time, he thinks but doesn't say.
Sam wriggles out of Dean's arms and onto his side, but one of his hands remains
low on Dean's belly. "So," Sam says, "I don't know about you, but the last
thing I ate was something crappy somewhere in Ohio—which, by the way, is a
state I thought would never fucking end—and I could really go for some sushi."
"The last thing I ate was something crappy in Iowa—which, as a native son of
the Midwest, I can say with assurance is a state that really never fucking
ends—and you want to feed me raw fish?"
"Oh, don't give me that hick-from-Kansas act. You lived in Boston for four
years. You went to MIT and they're practically salivating for you to come back
and do your PhD. I know you've had sushi."
"The kind with vegetables," Dean says. "I like my dead flesh when it's not a
health hazard, thanks."
"It's not a health hazard! Japanese people have been eating it for centuries."
"I reject your reality and substitute my own," says Dean.
"Oh my God." If Sam's eyes could roll back any farther, he'd be looking at the
back of his own head. "You're the biggest nerd I've ever met."
"I won't deny that," says Dean. "But I'm still not eating raw fish."
"Fine." Sam rolls over and reaches for the phone. "I'll call the concierge and
ask them recommend someplace where the dead flesh is thoroughly cooked."
Sam sits up to make the call, turning toward the bedside table, and Dean traces
the fine lines of his back, delineates the muscles of Sam's shoulders, follows
the line of his spine to the curve of his ass. He rubs the small of Sam's back,
and Sam stretches with a small, pleased sigh. Sam writes something on the pad
of paper that's on the table, then says, "Thank you," and hangs up the phone.
He sprawls back across Dean. "Barbecue. I'm told that it involves roasting meat
over open flame, and so it should meet your standards."
"I've never had Chicago barbecue," says Dean. "Only Kansas City. I hope I'm not
committing culinary adultery against my homeland."
"I'm guessing we should take your truck," says Sam, "and not my dad's Lexus."
                             *********************
 
Dean's not a barbecue snob—unlike many of the people he grew up with, who
attend the various festivals and competitions around Kansas and Missouri and
speak knowledgeably (and often judgmentally) about the varieties of sauce and
regional technique. The sauce here is sweeter than he's used to, probably
closer kin to the Southern style—still, Dean likes it, and he also likes
licking it off Sam's fingers. Sam's eyes go wide and dark, and he says, low
enough that the people at the next table won't hear, "I am fucking you into
next week when we get back to the hotel."
Dean laughs. "I'm going to be too full to fuck when we get back."
"You can't just...do that and then be all, 'Oh, I'm too full to fuck'!"
"Do what? You mean this?" Dean runs his fingertips through the sauce that's
left on his plate, then, slowly and deliberately, licks them clean.
"I hate you," Sam mutters.
Back at the hotel, they're the only people on the elevator going up to the
sixteenth floor. Sam shoves Dean against the wall and kisses him, determined
and ferocious; Dean stops him, though, when Sam moves a hand between them and
starts rubbing at the line in Dean's jeans. "Not here. We're giving the
security people enough of a free show as it is."
"We are so fucking the second we get inside," Sam informs him.
Dean's really too full to want sex—he wasn't joking about that—but as soon as
they're in the room, with the door closed and locked, he pushes Sam against it
and goes to his knees. The blow job is fast and nasty, and Sam comes within
minutes, keening desperately, fingers grasping painfully at Dean's hair. After,
Dean tucks him back inside, then stands and kisses him; Sam, pliant and flushed
from his orgasm, wraps his arms around Dean's shoulders and says, "What do you
want me to do for you?"
Dean thinks of his hours in the car and of the jacuzzi tub in the bathroom. "A
bath," he says. "What I really want is a bath."
Sam seems to restrain himself, just barely, from another eye-roll. "I'll wash
your back."
The bath is one hundred degrees of foaming ecstasy. Sam mocks Dean for his moan
of pleasure upon sinking into it. Dean does not care. The tub is big, though
barely large enough for the both of them; still, Dean relaxes into Sam's arms
and the hot water, closes his eyes, and thinks that if heaven is real, it might
be a whole lot like this.
As promised, Sam washes him, but not just his back: He starts with Dean's hair,
massaging shampoo into his scalp with strong fingers; then, "Tilt your head
back," and rinsing it out, careful to avoid getting any in Dean's eyes. Sam
smoothes bath gel over Dean's body, then rinses it, too, hands exquisitely
gentle. He pauses occasionally to kiss Dean's neck or ears or shoulders, or to
let himself explore Dean a little, though they already know each other's
physical forms in specific detail.
Dean's almost asleep by the time Sam finishes, and he makes a noise of protest
when Sam says, affectionate and amused, "Time to get out." He lets Sam pull him
upright, though, and registers another complaint at the cooler air against his
skin. Sam wraps them both in enormous white towels and dries them, starting
with Dean's hair and going down to his feet. He shepherds Dean into the
bedroom, and Dean thinks vaguely that this isn't right, that he should be the
one marshaling and taking care of them, but he's too loose and sleepy to
protest.
In bed, Sam curls around him, and Dean thinks that if he were going to tell Sam
that he loves him, too, this would be a good time, when they're warm and close
and it's dark and there's Lake Michigan outside.
Dean hears Sam laugh, and realizes that he just said most of that out loud.
"It's like you're drunk off a bath."
"It was a good bath," Dean defends himself.
"I'm glad." Sam kisses him behind his ear, and his hand unerringly finds the
spot over Dean's heart. "And I love you, too, but you knew that."
"Uh-huh," Dean says, and falls asleep.
                             *********************
 
Dean wakes up the next morning alone in bed. Sun is pouring in through the
windows, and the lake outside is a perfect winter blue, reflecting the clear
sky back at itself. The door to the living room is open, and Dean looks through
it to see Sam in one of the armchairs, talking on his cell phone. After a
moment, it registers that he's speaking Spanish. Dean knows he's fluent—Sam's
taking Latin I as a senior because he roared through AP Spanish his junior
year—but he's never heard him speak it before. Dean dropped it after his
sophomore year in college, but he can make out part of what Sam's saying, and
he seems to be reassuring the person on the other end that he's fine, yes,
really he is, and he'll be home before school starts back up.
A few minutes later, Sam ends the call and puts the phone on a side table, then
drops his head onto the chair's back. Dean wishes he knew what might be going
through Sam's mind, but there are parts of Sam, he thinks, that will always be
closed to anyone else—and, Dean thinks, to Sam himself as well.
After a moment, Sam gets up and comes back into the bedroom, and Dean blinks as
though he's just woken up. Sam's dressed, but he curls up next to Dean anyway,
tucking his head underneath Dean's chin (which takes some maneuvering, since
Sam is taller than he is). "You seriously sleep like it's an Olympic sport," he
says to Dean.
"I had sex and food and a bath. And a nine-hour drive. I was tired."
"Or maybe you're just old," Sam suggests.
Dean pokes him in the spot in his ribcage that invariably produces a squawk.
The strategy does not fail.
"So I was thinking breakfast," Sam goes on, "and then I kind of want to go to
the Art Institute."
"You want me to get out of this warm, comfortable, thousand-thread-count-
sheeted bed, and go look at art?"
"Their collection's amazing!" Sam protests. "And it's not that big—it's not
like I'm dragging you to the Louvre or something. We'll go for a couple of
hours, and then you can fuck me later."
"I can fuck you later anyway," Dean counters.
"You're sure of yourself."
"You're a sure thing."
"Asshole." Sam pokes Dean in the belly, and this time it's Dean's turn to
squawk.
"I'll go look at art with you," Dean compromises, "as long as I get to see some
dinosaur skeletons later today or tomorrow."
"The Field Museum! Yeah, we can totally do that. OK, good. Get dressed."
"If I have to look at art, I want breakfast in bed."
"You're such a philistine."
"For wanting breakfast in bed?"
"For needing to be bribed to go to an art museum. OK, fine. I'll call."
Sam does, and Dean stretches, and pushes aside the unpleasant thought of who's
paying for this. The answer is, neither of them; the answer is also, the father
of one of Dean's students. Dean will most certainly lose his job if they're
found out—and because it's such a flagrant ethical violation, it would most
likely jeopardize his graduate school applications as well.
He loses reason around Sam, in a way he's never done for anyone else. He's
dated both men and women: He had a fiery Wellesley girlfriend for most of his
first two years at MIT; there was a relatively serious boyfriend, another MIT
student, when Dean was a junior; and there have been others, of both sexes,
afterward and in between. He loved Mackenzie, his crazy riot grrl; they broke
up when she moved to Seattle to be in a band, but they're still in touch. He
loved Nick, tiny and solid and hilarious and fierce, now in the Peace Corps in
Ghana. But he never felt this out of control with either of them.
If Dean were like his dad, he thinks, he would simply decide that things had to
be over with Sam, and they would be. That's how his father is.
Something—someone—family lore has always been murky on this point—killed John's
wife and son, and John won't rest until he finds what it is. And usually Dean's
like that: When he makes up his mind to do something, he does it. He wanted a
truck, so he got a job at a garage and rebuilt one. He decided to try out
rowing in college because he'd never done it before; now he coaches it. He runs
five miles a day. He decided he wanted to go to MIT; he did.
The first month that he and Sam were doing this, Dean told himself every day
that he'd break it off. And never once did he even bring it up. Now he's in way
over his head, and it's no one's fault but his own.
"Hey. Broody McBroodypants," Sam says, but with inflection that's affectionate
rather than sarcastic. "Pancakes are coming. You putting some clothes on?"
Dean doesn't force his smile, exactly, but it definitely requires
encouragement. "After food," he says. "No earlier."
                              *******************
 
The museum isn't so bad—they usually aren't, Dean is forced to admit, once he's
actually in them, and the arms and armor collection at the Art Institute really
is cool. Of course, Sam wants to see the geeky stuff like European painting and
sculpture. Dean could do without the various Madonna-and-childs, but there are
some crazy twentieth-century sculptures, even if Dean can't figure out what the
hell they're supposed to mean. (Dean wonders whether all Russian sculptors are
insane, or just the ones represented here.) His reaction to the contemporary
stuff is pretty much a big what-the-fuck (and he really could have lived
without seeing that painting of the pope flanked by two butchered sides of
beef). And he has no idea what the "Pitchfork Lady" thing was intended as.
They don't go to the Field—they save that for the next day—but instead drive up
Lake Shore, beside the gleaming glassy water, until the road ends; then they
have lunch Uptown. They're apparently near Rose Hill Cemetery, which, Sam says,
has some spectacularly weird graves, but it's freezing out today, way too cold
to wander around. They go back to the hotel, where they discover that there's a
Star Wars marathon on HBO, and where Dean discovers that Sam, too, can recite
every single line. They stay in bed the rest of the afternoon, into the
evening, making up their own dialogue and laughing at each other.
Return of the Jedi concludes—with the remade ending, which Dean admits is
better but which will always throw him for a loop when he sees it, because
that's not how RotJ is supposed to go—and Dean gets up to go to the bathroom.
When he comes back a couple of minutes later, the TV is off and Sam is sitting
on the bed, cross-legged, looking simultaneously expectant and nervous.
"What's up?" Dean says.
Sam's eyes flick down to his right side, and Dean glances down, too. There's
what appears to be a belt lying coiled next to Sam's thigh, but nothing else.
"Sam, what?" Dean says.
Sam breathes out, and Dean adds annoyed to expectant and nervous. "Dean, do I
have to explain?"
"Um, apparently? Unless there's a memo I missed somewhere?"
Sam flushes and looks down. "Remember that voice mail I left you while you were
driving?"
Dean feels his eyes widen. He's not a hick (much) (anymore). Mackenzie was
nothing if not inventive—and research-oriented. Nick had more toys than Dean
even had names for. Hell, Sam left him detailed voice mail about this very
topic. He shouldn't be surprised.
And yet.
"Uh, yes," Dean says. "I remember."
Despite his apprehensive expression, Sam is all lean grace as he stands and
walks over to Dean. "Chicken?" he murmurs in Dean's ear. He's leaning so close
that Dean can't see his face, but he just knows that Sam's smirking.
Dean knows he's being played, but it doesn't seem to matter.
"Have you ever done this before?" he asks Sam.
"No. Have you?"
"Yeah. Not with a belt, though. Sam, have you been spanked ever? By your
parents or anybody?"
Sam's lips are a warm, light pressure point on Dean's neck. "No. Doesn't mean I
haven't thought about it." He pauses. "Though not by my parents. Eeew."
Dean gasps as Sam's teeth find a tendon. "OK, so there's a reason it's used as
punishment. It fucking hurts."
Sam pulls back, mouth tight. "Did your aunt and uncle—"
"Like twice in my whole life, Sam. Calm down. I'm just saying, it does hurt."
Sam's hands slide to Dean's back and he guides them both to the bed so that
they're sitting facing each other, Sam's hand rubbing gently—surprisingly, Dean
thinks, not intended to arouse—on Dean's thigh. "So how did you do it? Before,
I mean. Like, with a partner."
"It was mainly with Mackenzie. My ex-girlfriend. With my hand and, um, a ruler
once." Dean can feel himself blushing. "She got this little punk-schoolgirl
outfit somewhere, I don't even know where—"
Sam laughs delightedly. "With a plaid skirt and everything?"
"Plaid skirt, knee-high Doc Martens, spiked collar, button-down shirt. Push-up
bra."
"That's hot."
"It was," Dean agrees. It really, really was.
"Your idea or hers?"
"Hers. Not that I objected."
"No," Sam says. "I imagine not." Sam swings his long legs onto the bed, settles
them loosely around Dean's hips, not quite sitting in his lap. "So you liked it
with Mackenzie. Why not with me?"
Dean doesn't have a good answer to that. Sam's not asking him to do anything he
hasn't done before. There's no schoolgirl outfit this time, but that's fine.
Dean's never been into that with guys.
"Kenzie had the whole scenario planned out ahead of time," Dean says. "I pretty
much just took direction. What did you have in mind?"
Sam retracts his endless legs and stands up with that same predatory fluidity.
His hands go to the top button on his jeans, but no further. "Well," he begins,
"you could be my hot teacher, and I'm your student who misbehaved—oh wait,
that's reality...."
Dean buries his head in his hands.
Laughing, Sam goes on, "OK, OK. So we won't play it that way. Um...hmm. I think
the Daddy thing is too kinky even for me."
"Thank God," Dean says, muffled.
"Mmm. I've got it."
Dean looks up. Now the top two buttons are undone, and Sam's jeans are
tantalizingly loose around his hips.
"You're my older brother—"
"How is that even slightly less dirty?"
"I don't have any brothers, so it's not like I'm picturing anybody's face," Sam
says, as though it's obvious.
"Yeah," Dean says, "well, I did, and he had your name."
Sam sucks in a breath, and he looks immediately contrite. He crouches in front
of Dean, nothing sexual about it, and sets a hand on Dean's knee. "I'm sorry, I
didn't think— We don't have to—"
Dean puts his own hand over Sam's. "It's fine," he says. "Just think of
something else."
Sam's eyes stay wide with dismay—then narrow wickedly. "I've got it. You're in
a fraternity—"
Dean can't help snorting.
Sam rolls his eyes. "That's why this is a fantasy, jerk. Of course you weren't
in a fraternity. You're way too dorky."
"OK, Calculus Boy."
"Whatever. Anyway. You're a senior brother—whatever they call them, I don't
know. And I'm one of the pledges. And I've just done something that's terribly
in violation of the rules, and it's your job—being older and all—to make sure
that I'm suitably disciplined." He looks significantly at the belt, still lying
innocently near where Dean is sitting. "Or whatever. I don't actually know why
frats do that. They swear it isn't homoerotic, but I say it's gayer than a
Liberace concert in George Michael's basement."
Dean fights back laughter again, and argues, "I'm pretty sure frats use
paddles."
Sam's voice drops. "Maybe this is a private session. One-on-one instruction.
Are you telling me there isn't room for improvisation?" Sam pushes his jeans
down to midthigh, revealing black boxer-briefs with a Dolce & Gabbana logo. As
ever, nothing less than haute couture for Sam Conover. He hooks his thumbs in
the elastic near his hipbones, then pauses. "Do you want to pull them down once
I'm over your lap? Or do you want me to?"
Dean stares.
"Well," Sam starts, "in this one story I read—"
"Over my knee," Dean interrupts. "Now. Leave them up."
"That's what I'm talking about," Sam murmurs.
He arranges himself over Dean's lap—which takes some doing, given how tall he
is. But in just a few seconds, six-foot-something of Sam is lying stretched
across the foot of the bed, ass tilted slightly upward. He reaches up, takes a
pillow from the disarray of the covers, and tucks it underneath his head.
"Comfortable?" Dean asks, amused.
"It's only my ass that's supposed to hurt," Sam points out, "not the rest of
me."
There's a pause, in which Dean wonders, not at all for the first time, what the
hell he's doing.
"So are you going to spank me like I deserve," Sam asks, "or should I start
going over noun declensions?"
Dean slaps him across the ass. Sam shivers, but says, "It'd be better without
anything in the way."
Dean slaps him again. "Did I ask you?"
"No."
Again. "Is it your job to give commentary here?" Again.
"No," Sam says on a sigh.
Dean gives him two more, and then two more after that. A shudder flares down
Sam's body, and he makes a sound that's not quite a moan.
"Raise up," Dean says, and Sam does. Dean maneuvers the underwear about halfway
to Sam's knees, then pushes gently to let him know to lie back down.
Dean rests his hand on the perfect curve of Sam's ass. He strokes lightly over
the rounded cheeks. "Tell me what you did."
"You were the one who caught me," Sam retorts.
"If you can't say what it was," Dean fires back, "you can't be properly sorry
for it." Sam arches a little, temptingly, but Dean pushes him back down. "Not
until you tell me."
"Asshole," Sam mutters.
"If you're going to be disrespectful," Dean says, "I can just tell our
president, and he can do this with his paddle, in front of the rest of the
brothers—"
"Fine," Sam snaps. "I was jerking off on the deck. Where everybody could see
me. On a towel. Which I stole out of somebody's clean laundry. It was amazing,
Dean. I was pretending that my hands were yours, and I had one of them on my
cock and the other one with fingers up my ass, and I was pretending you were
fucking me, maybe bent over something—"
Dean smacks Sam's bare ass. This time he can feel as well as feel see the
shudder. He keeps going, slowly but regularly, varying the spots where his palm
lands. The impossibly pale skin of Sam's buttocks begins to turn a light pink.
Sam's whimpering, but the noises are aroused, contented, and he pushes up and
back, rubbing himself against Dean's lap, encouraging him. Dean stops for a
moment. "Isn't it a good thing we're doing this in private. Look at you
begging. Would you be doing this if you were in the common room over"—quick,
think of a name that doesn't belong to anybody I know—"Todd's knee? Would you
do this for him?"
"No! God, Dean, don't stop. For you. Only for you."
Dean gives him two more, then another two, then four. "Are you sorry?"
Sam turns his head towards Dean and smiles slowly. "Not in the slightest." He
cries out when Dean slaps the "sit" spot, just above his thighs, but Sam
manages to add, "I'd do it again in a heartbeat."
Dean stops and rubs Sam's ass, letting the heat sink in. The skin is well and
truly pink. It's maybe one of the hottest things Dean's ever seen. "I don't
think you're getting what you need, Sam," Dean tells him. "And you know that's
my job, right? Your brothers are here to take care of you."
"So what do I need, then?" Sam asks. Even rock-hard, breathless from a
spanking, he's still full of back-talk. Topping from the bottom, Nick used to
call that.
Moving slowly, deliberately, so that Sam will be sure to register it, Dean
picks up the belt from where it's lying on the duvet. He folds it in half and
lays it gently across Sam's thighs—not a strike, just letting him know it's
there. "I think you know what you need," Dean says.
Sam's body goes boneless. Not limp—just very...relaxed. "Mmm, yes," he sighs,
eyes closed, tilting his ass even farther upward. "Please, Dean. Brother."
There's something indescribably dirty in the way he says it.
Dean brushes back Sam's hair with his free hand. "Promise me you'll say
something if you want to stop," he tells Sam softly.
Sam opens his eyes. "Of course. But I trust you." He smiles, and there's
nothing mocking in it, nothing but warmth. "I love you."
"I love you, too, you freak."
Sam's eyes fall closed again. "Just what everybody wants to hear. Are you going
to spank me or not?"
"You need to learn some manners, boy."
"Are you going to teach them to me?"
By way of answer, Dean gives him one stroke with the belt, not lightly. Sam
gasps as it leaves a darker stripe of pink across his ass.
Dean rubs lightly over the fresh mark. "OK to keep going?"
The English translation of Sam's expression is something along the lines of
"are you stupid?"
Dean keeps going.
The leather makes a solid smack every time it hits Sam's skin, and Sam makes
sounds of his own, too: moans, not-quite-cries, a bitten-off "God!" Dean gives
him one across the tops of his thighs, and Sam jumps, nearly displacing himself
from Dean's lap—Dean just rests a hand on the back of Sam's neck and says
quietly, "Remember, Sam, this is what you need."
Sam's wriggle, and the unflagging hardness of his cock against Dean's leg, are
all the confirmation Dean requires.
Dean doesn't go fast, but the pace is steady. He varies where he strikes,
trying not to come down too hard on any stretch of skin. Sam moves with it,
both toward and away from the belt, and Dean keeps his other hand where it is,
both a restraint and a reassurance.
It's only when Sam's gasps are a little wetter, a little closer together, that
Dean puts the belt back onto the duvet and gently massages the reddened skin.
Sam murmurs; Dean smacks him, not very hard, with his hand; Sam quiets, his
breath a languid sigh. Dean does this for a while, spanking Sam with his hand,
gradually decreasing the frequency; stroking his skin lightly, with careful
fingertips; massaging his ass and lower back, feeling the muscles loosen under
his touch.
By the time Dean finishes, Sam is passive, quiet, almost sleepy. Dean tugs on
Sam's shoulders, urging him up, then lies back on the bed and gathers Sam up.
Sam buries his head in the soft place above the crook of Dean's arm, and Dean
holds him, pets his hair and the back of his neck.
After a moment comes, "Thank you," muffled, barely above a whisper.
Dean kisses the top of Sam's head. "You're welcome," he answers, and realizes
that his voice isn't much stronger.
Sam's shaking a little, and then his body jerks in a way that's not just
adrenaline-comedown trembles. "Sam?" Dean says cautiously, hand on the back of
Sam's head.
Sam breathes out, long and unsteady, and takes his face out of Dean's side. His
eyes are shining with tears. Oh God, Dean thinks, what did I do wrong? Sam
wasn't crying when they finished, and he definitely wasn't crying during.
"I don't know why I'm all tearful all of a sudden," Sam says, and rests his
head on Dean's arm. "It just, fuck"—he wipes at his eyes—"came on a minute
ago."
"Is everything OK?" Dean asks. "Did...did something happen that you didn't
want?"
"No. God, no, Dean, I wanted everything that happened. I just—I don't know—I
feel all broken open, except I'm safe with you, and it's the most overwhelming
thing."
Dean starts to pull the comforter over them both, but Sam says, "Wait," and
Dean realizes his jeans and underwear are still around his knees. Sam kicks
both off and adds with a laugh that's also partly a sniffle, "Those briefs
aren't going back over my ass anytime today."
They both wind up naked, wrapped in cotton and down, and Dean says, "I want you
to always feel safe with me." He runs his hand up and down Sam's side, slowly,
soothing.
"I do," Sam says. "Always, Dean. Just...lie here with me for a while?"
“As long as you want,” Dean promises.
*********************
There is nothing more awesome than a T. Rex skeleton. Nothing. And now that
Dean has seen one, he can say that for sure.
Its name—her name, a docent corrects him—is Sue, and Dean can't help a bark of
laughter when Sam starts singing "A Boy Named Sue" under his breath. Sue hasn't
been on display very long, and she's clearly a popular attraction—throngs of
people stand around the sides of her dais. Dean feels no shame that he's just
as openmouthed about this as all the kids are.
"Dean," Sam says, "you look like you're six."
"That," replies Dean, with dignity, "is because this is the most awesome thing
I and everyone else in this room have ever seen in our entire lives."
There's also—believe it or not—a Star Wars exhibit, with things like the
original costumes and props; they walk through it with Sam whispering various
asides. In retaliation (there's just something so wrong about your younger,
taller student lover standing with his hands unabashedly on your hips and
snickering, "I'm your father, Luke!"), Dean makes Sam go through the Shackleton
exhibit with him. Then Sam wants to see the gems, so they do that, too.
"You can't tell me you didn't enjoy that," Dean says to Sam as they're driving
back to the hotel.
"Yeah, yeah," Sam acquiesces. "I still can't believe they didn't have Princess
Leia's iron bikini, though. That was, like, a staple of my sexual awakening."
"Dude, I think that thing was a staple of everyone's sexual awakening."
"It was hot. And with those boots..." Sam sighs nostalgically. "And then she
totally kicked Jabba the Hutt's ass."
Dinner is pizza, the traditional Chicago deep-dish variety. Dean had never
understood the love of the thick dough—too chewy, in his opinion—but,
begluttoning himself on buttery crust and Italian sausage, he decides that now
he totally gets it, and he's not sure he can go back to Boston (or, God forbid,
Rockshire) pizza ever again.
"Between that and the barbecue," he says when they've finished eating, "I'm
going to have to start running ten miles a day when I get back."
Sam pats Dean's stomach. "I think you'd be cute with a little belly. Perfect
abs are overrated."
"That'll happen soon enough," Dean says. The men in his family all get soft
around the middle—it's one of the reasons why Dean runs now, and why he did
crew and soccer all through college, and soccer and baseball in high school
before that. He figures he can stave off the inevitable only so long, though.
He explains this to Sam.
"Speaking of your family," says Sam, "I think you should take me to Kansas and
introduce me to the esoteric customs of the Midwest."
Dean does not have words for what a terrible idea that would be.
"I'm serious," Sam says. "Your family sound really cool."
"Oh, God, Sam, they're about the farthest thing from cool ever. My uncle
listens to Neil Diamond and my aunt's favorite book is The Bridges of Madison
County. They both voted for Bush. I mean, I love them and they're good people
and they raised me, but they're really, really not cool."
"Right," says Sam. "They raised you. That makes them incredibly cool."
"Sam, I don't think it's a good idea."
Sam arches one flawless patrician eyebrow. "Are you ashamed of me?"
No, but I probably should be is what Dean wants to say.
Sam flops onto his back. "I was hoping to try some Kansas City barbecue, but I
hear it actually really sucks. I bet what we had the other night is way
better."
Dean is torn between defending the barbecue of his people, and laughing at Sam
for trying to goad him by insulting—of all things—barbecue. "Are you impugning
the foodways of the great Heartland?"
Sam shrugs elaborately. "I'm just saying what I heard."
Dean puts the pizza paraphernalia on the floor and stretches out on the bed,
one arm across Sam. "Sam, what we're doing—it's risky enough..."
Sam rolls onto his side—keeping Dean's arm where it is—and looks at Dean
unusually seriously. "I know," he says. "And I don't want to do anything that
would put your job or your grad school stuff in danger. But there's no reason
anyone has to know. You told them that I went to MIT with you, right?"
"Right," Dean says reluctantly.
"So we'll just keep going with that," Sam persists, "and we'll say that my
family went back home, but I wanted to come visit you. It's reasonable; I'm
guessing MIT doesn't start back for a while."
"There's a January term," Dean concedes. "Classes usually don't start until the
first week of February, and a lot of people don't come back until then."
"So it makes sense," says Sam. "Look, I'll be completely polite, completely
respectful—I was raised to have excellent manners, even if you don't see them
much—and it'll only be for a couple of days. We don't have to act like...like
there's anything going on. As far as your family will know, we're just friends.
I just think it would be cool to meet them."
Dean traces the lines of Sam's face: the arcs of his eyebrows, the perfect
breadth of his nose, his wide mouth and the definition of his jaw. He's got a
bad feeling about this, but it's well established: He can't say no to Sam. He
gives in. "Alright. When do you want to go? I should call and give them a
heads-up."
                               ****************
 
They leave the next morning; Sam takes the sleek black Lexus and Dean takes his
truck. They don't need them both, but it doesn't make sense for Sam to leave
his car here in Chicago. They're in Kansas before dinner.
Dean doesn't like lying to his family, but it's not the first time he's done
it. One of the most vicious fights he and Nick ever had, in fact, was about
that very thing; the phrase "closeted asshole" was used at least once, and not
by Dean. Like Dean told Sam, he loves his family, Neil Diamond and all. But he
really doesn't think they'd understand—and God knows his paramilitary ex-Marine
father wouldn't understand—why their baby boy likes dick sometimes.
When they get to Lawrence, supper's almost ready, and Aunt Martha greets Sam
like he's long-lost family. She loves meeting Dean's friends, but hasn't had
much of a chance to, since they've been back East only twice: once to deliver
Dean to MIT at the start of his freshman year, and then a second time when he
graduated. Dean has a moment's panic wondering whether his aunt and uncle will
put together that they didn't meet Sam at graduation, but tells himself that it
was long enough ago—and there were so many people around—that they'll just
assume they must have missed Sam in the shuffle.
The single bed in the tiny guest bedroom is already made up, and Aunt Martha
fusses over Sam, showing him in great detail where everything is and impressing
upon him that he must ask if there's anything else he needs. Then she hugs him
and goes off to bed. Dean drops into the desk chair and waits for her door to
close; when it does, he says with a sigh, "So, now you've met the family."
"I don't understand why you're embarrassed. They're the nicest people ever. I
feel like I just walked onto the set of Oklahoma! or something."
"Please don't ever say that again. No self-respecting Kansan wants to be
mistaken for an Oklahoman."
Sam tugs Dean off the chair and onto the bed with him, and they make out for a
little while, but eventually they have to stop: They have to keep quiet, and
Dean needs to sleep in his own room. Sam kisses him one last time and laughs.
"I'm glad I was able to meet your family, but it kind of just dawned on me that
in doing so I gave up all opportunities to get laid."
"And tomorrow's Saturday," Dean says, "so neither of them will be at work."
"Dammit," Sam says, but he sounds more amused than anything else.
Still, Dean's slept next to Sam for the past few nights running, and it's a
habit he's sorry to have to break.
                              ******************
 
They're eating breakfast the next day when there's a knock at the front door.
Uncle Frank and Aunt Martha exchange glances, and Dean knows what they're
thinking. That's all he needs, is for his father to show up right now. Sam,
oblivious, bites into his toast.
Uncle Frank goes to get the door, and when he says, "Well, hello, John," Dean
has to keep himself from sinking his head into his hands.
Dean hears his father hanging up his coat in the front closet; then John comes
into the kitchen. He looks tired, but otherwise no worse for whatever wear he's
been through since Dean saw him last. It's been months, and even longer since
they've spoken. John pulled a drive-by at graduation last spring, and before
that...was last Christmas, when John surfaced unannounced in much the same way
he has just done. A year. It's hard for Dean to believe that he hasn't spoken
to his father in a year, but it's not like they chat on the phone, and John
doesn't do email.
Dean stands up and shakes hands with his dad; they don't hug. It's not their
way. Sam stands, too, and Dean says, "Dad, this is my friend Sam Conover. From
MIT."
John's staring at Sam like he's seen a ghost.
"Sam," John says after a moment. "I'm John Winchester. Dean's father."
"It's a pleasure to meet you, sir," Sam says, all good breeding and manners.
John sits down heavily, and Aunt Martha puts coffee and food in front of him.
Dean looks down at his eggs and can't eat any more.
"So, son," John says, "I hear you're teaching."
"Right, sir," says Dean. "It's a private school in Massachusetts. Rockshire
Academy."
John nods. "Pretty campus." He adds, "I, uh, I've stopped by a few times. Just
to get the lay of the land."
Dean hasn't seen him at Rockshire, but he knows his father did this when he was
in college: He came down out of Nick's apartment one morning, on his way to
class, and saw the battered old Impala parked across the street. He's pretty
sure he saw John on the MIT campus a few times, too, but just glimpses, not
even enough time to call out to him.
"I must have missed you," Dean says levelly.
"I didn't stay long," John replies.
Aunt Martha stands and takes her plate and Uncle Frank's to the sink. Briefly,
she rests her hand on Dean's head. "Dean graduated at the top of his class at
MIT," she says.
"Aw, Aunt Martha—" Dean protests.
"I'm just telling the truth, Dean. Anyway, he was at the top of his class,
John, and now he's applying to graduate school in mathematics."
John looks back at Dean. "So that's what you've decided to do."
Dean tries to keep his voice uninflected. "That's what I decided to do a while
ago, Dad."
"And you're not considering the service?"
There are so many ways Dean wants to answer this question: Will you shut up
about that already? and They don't take queers and The day Dubya signs up those
twins of his is the day I enlist. He settles for, "I don't think the military
would be a good fit for me."
"John," says Aunt Martha, "he was invited to apply to the PhD program at MIT."
John makes a noise that's part grunt, part snort.
Sam has been watching all of this like a tennis match, but the expression on
his face is now frankly bewildered. He schools it into polite sociability,
though, and says, "Mr. Winchester, I don't know how familiar you are with the
graduate math program at MIT, but they don't just invite people to apply. It's
more like 'you can send us your application and maybe we'll deign to read it
when we have some free time.' They really want Dean. It's quite a compliment to
what he's achieved, sir."
"Sam—" Dean protests.
"He's just stating the facts, Dean," Aunt Martha interrupts. "Sam's right,
John. You should be very proud of Dean."
Dean stares down at his breakfast.
"Well," John says, "that's good news, son, if that's what you want to do."
"Thanks, Dad," Dean says.
Sam's face has lost its mannerly veneer, and his eyebrows are up. The English
translation of this, Dean thinks, would be "what the fuck?"
"So, Sam," John says, "you were at MIT with Dean?"
"Yes, sir, that's right," Sam answers, back to good breeding once again.
"And you've graduated, too?"
"No, not for a while. I was a first-year when Dean was a senior, so I'm still
there."
John nods. "Sam. You know, that's a family name for us. My brother's name. For
you, too?"
It occurs to Dean for the first time that John has lost two Sams: his brother,
killed in Vietnam, and his youngest son. Maybe it's the name, Dean thinks.
Maybe it's cursed. He hopes not, though, for this Sam's sake.
"It was my great-grandfather's name," Sam says.
John nods and goes back to eating.
Dean wonders why in the name of God he let Sam talk him into this.
                              ******************
 
After breakfast, John pulls Dean into the living room. "I have something for
you, son."
Aunt Martha immediately thinks of something for Sam to help her with in the
kitchen, and Dean follows his father.
John takes a box out of a duffel he's left on Uncle Frank's desk. It's about
the size of a cigar box, covered in black fabric, not wrapped. He hands it to
Dean. "Well, go ahead. Open it."
Dean does.
The gun inside is a small semiautomatic, a Colt, with pearl grips. Dean doesn't
ask whether it's licensed, doesn't point out that there's no way in hell he can
or will take this into the Rockshire dorms.
John presents another box. "Standard, silver, and iron rounds."
"Thanks, Dad," Dean says.
"You remember how to load one?"
It's not difficult, with a semiautomatic. Dean remembers his father teaching
him this when he was a kid, back when John was around more. Back when, Dean
thinks, Dean was less of a disappointment to him. "Yeah, Dad, I remember." He
takes a clip of standard ammo, loads it, chambers a round. Then unloads the
gun, puts all the safeties on. He's a good shot—you can't live as John
Winchester's son and not be—but Dean hates shooting, hates firearms. He's lived
in a city too long, he thinks.
"Your friend," John says, "Sam. How well do you know him?"
Dean bites back several potentially disastrous responses, and says, "Pretty
well."
"What do you know about his family?"
"Rich and from Connecticut. His mom's dead; his dad works all the time. The
housekeeper mostly raised him, from what I can tell. Why?"
John, of course, provides no explanation. "You know anything else about his
family? Where he's from?"
"They're kind of messed-up and WASPy. Oh, and he was adopted."
"Really," says John. "That's unusual."
Dean thinks, not for the first time, that his father functions on a plane of
existence completely separate from that of the rest of the world. "It's not
that unusual. Dad, where are you going with this?"
"At birth?"
"Why, are you thinking of adopting a kid yourself?" The words are out before
Dean realizes what he's said.
"You want to watch your mouth with me, son."
Dean doesn't answer him back, but he doesn't break John's gaze, either.
"Just answer the question, Dean," John says, and there's maybe a note of
resignation to it.
Dean sighs. "He was about six months old, I think. Dad, seriously, I feel weird
talking about this. It's really none of our"—your—"business."
Dean's father finally releases him, and leaves in the Impala to "take care of
some things." Dean stays where he's standing in the living room, at a complete
loss. He can't figure out what the hell to do with his Christmas present. He
can't figure out his father at all. He half wants to just leave the Colt on the
desk for Uncle Frank to deal with, but Dean's not sure the man has ever touched
a gun in his life, and Dean doesn't want to make him start now. Dean double-
checks that it's unloaded, then carefully puts it back in its box, takes it
upstairs, and shoves it under his bed.
God, his fucking father.
Dean goes into the kitchen, where Sam and Aunt Martha are baking. He wants to
lean against Sam, let Sam's arms engulf him, but he obviously can't do that
right here.
But Aunt Martha, God bless her, decides that she needs a variety of items from
the grocery store and Target, and would he and Sam mind going? They should do
something nice for supper tonight, since Dean's father is visiting. She writes
out a list and sends them along.
Target's on the other side of town, but only about ten minutes away—Lawrence is
small. Once they're about a mile from the house, Dean turns onto one of the
side streets, stops the truck, and pulls Sam close. "I'm sorry my family is so
weird," he says.
"Dude, whatever. Your dad is totally Rambo."
"Well, that fits. He gave me a gun."
"He gave you a what?"
"A gun. A Colt semiautomatic."
"I'm guessing your dad doesn't know that you voted for Nader."
Dean laughs, and he can hear it verging on just this side of hysterical. "I
doubt my dad even knows there was an election. OK, that's an exaggeration, but
I doubt he cared very much. He's sort of...above all that."
Sam's stroking Dean's back gently, like he's calming a skittish horse or an
upset child. "Do you even know how to use a gun?"
"It's been a while, but yeah. My dad used to take me shooting when I was a
kid."
"Seriously?"
"Seriously. You heard him asking whether I was going to join the military. He's
always wanted me to do something like that. I don't know what he wanted me to
do when I finished college, but it wasn't teaching at a prep school. I think he
wanted me to go with him and do...whatever he does."
"So you liked the shooting and stuff?"
"I hated it. I mean, I wanted to spend time with him, and I wanted him to be
proud of me and everything, so I did it and tried to act like I liked it. And I
was pretty good at it. But I never enjoyed it."
"What does he want you to do with the gun?"
Dean sighs. "I don't know. I don't think he has any idea that I can't just take
it into the dorms at Rockshire."
Sam snorts. "Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta."
This time Dean's laughter is a little more genuine.
Sam's hand moves up to brush through Dean's hair. "Yeah, your dad's weird, but
it's not like I come from a family that's a bastion of normality. I just wish
he had the sense to be proud of you. I mean, your aunt and uncle obviously are.
They're awesome, by the way. Especially your aunt."
"Yeah, they're good people. They're good at dealing with my dad. He's not even
technically related to them—Aunt Martha is my mom's sister—but they always take
him in whenever he shows up. Which is never on any kind of schedule, and always
without warning."
"But you know that I wouldn't care even if they were all crazy, right?" Sam
says. "I'm glad I got to meet them, and I'm glad your aunt and uncle are as
cool as they are—shut up, they are cool, even if I did see your aunt's Barry
Manilow collection. But I'd love you no matter what. You know that, right?"
Dean lets his head rest on Sam's chest, listens to Sam's heartbeat. "Yeah, I
know."
"Good." Sam kisses Dean's forehead. "Let's go to Target."
                              *******************
 
John's still not home when they get back. Aunt Martha dismisses them now that
their errands are run, and they spend most of the rest of the afternoon
tromping around the property—Frank and Martha have several acres, with a creek
running through the lower part, and Dean takes Sam down there. He guides them
along the edge of the frozen creek and finds the spot of shore that was his
place as a kid: a stretch of sandy bank beneath a copse of low-hanging trees.
It's slightly below the ground level of the rest of the property, and
especially when the trees are in leaf, anyone sitting here is shielded from
sight. The branches are bare now, but the feeling of concealment, of security
and safety, is the same.
He and Sam huddle in a ball of L. L. Bean and North Face—it's the only feasible
way to stay warm—and Dean thinks that despite the cold, despite the strangeness
that is his father, this is the happiest he's been in a long time.
"Lie back," Sam whispers.
"Ugh, the sand..."
"I want to suck you off," says Sam in that same sultry murmur. "Lie back and
let me make you come."
"Sam, it's goddamn freezing out here!"
Sam kisses him slow and hot, tongue casual and possessive in Dean's mouth.
"Does that feel cold? Because that's what's going to be wrapped around your
cock. Don't you want me to take you all the way down my throat, suck you hard
and fast until you come in my mouth?"
"Jesus, Sam," Dean breathes, but he goes along with it, lying back and praying
he'll be able to brush all the sand off himself when they're done.
Sam flips up the hood of his jacket. "To keep my head warm." He grins. "And
yours too."
Dean would smack him in the shoulder, if that weren't the moment Sam chooses to
take Dean's cock into his mouth. Dean's fully erect in a matter of seconds, and
Sam's warm, wet suction has him gasping in just a few more. Sam tongues him
behind the head, on the bundle of nerves that are guaranteed to render Dean
nonverbal with incoherent pleasure, and even though it's below freezing
outside, Dean has to take off his gloves so that he can slide his fingers into
Sam's hair. He can feel his hips rolling—until Sam pins them down, and that
plus sudden harder pressure from Sam's mouth is all Dean needs. He comes,
trying to bite back his sounds, but he doesn't entirely succeed, and he can
hear his moans as the last of the orgasm shudders through his body.
Sam tucks him back in, zips him back up, and licks his lips in a way that's
entirely too pleased. Dean kisses him, tastes himself in Sam's mouth. "What do
you want me to do for you?"
Sam looks down, flushes. "That...um, listening to you...watching you...was
really enough."
Dean would like to laugh at Sam for coming just from sucking some cock, except
that he did the exact same thing the first time he went down on Mackenzie and
Nick. And while this is by no means the first time Sam has gone down on Dean,
they've been around each other nonstop without sex for a couple of days, and
making out last night had been pleasant but ultimately...unclimactic. What with
Dean's parental figures being right there on the same floor and all.
After a while, the sex-induced heat starts to wear off, and they head back
towards the house. "Now I need a shower," Sam complains.
"Don't blame me for that," Dean says. "I didn't even do anything."
Sam takes off one of his gloves, reaches over and removes one of Dean's, laces
their fingers together until they're within sight of the house. "You didn't
have to," Sam says.
                                ***************
 
John returns right before supper. He's quieter than usual, even more awkward
around Sam, and Dean catches himself wishing—guiltily, but by no means for the
first time in his life—that John would just go back on the road, return to
doing whatever he does, and stop disturbing all of their lives at irregular
intervals. John stays the night, which means that some rearrangement occurs: He
takes Dean's room (Dean doesn't protest), and Dean takes the living room couch
(Sam protests that he can just as easily sleep down there; Aunt Martha says
that he's a guest and she won't hear of it).
Later, when the house is dark and silent, Sam glides noiselessly downstairs—a
talent born of sneaking around boarding-school halls after hours, no doubt—and
takes A Brief History of Time out of Dean's hands before settling himself
against Dean on the sofa.
"So you're going to party with us Midwesterners for New Year's?" Dean says,
gathering the blankets around them both.
"I bet you guys do it right," Sam answers, yawning.
"Yeah, you know it. Pretty much we watch the ball drop and eat steak. My
cousins come over. P Diddy himself couldn't do better."
"I imagine not," Sam says, sleepy amusement coloring his voice. There's quiet
for a few moments, and Dean lets himself enjoy the nighttime peace of the
house, the solidity and warmth of Sam under his hands. "I can't sleep down
here, can I?" Sam adds after a while.
"Not without a huge scandal. I can take you upstairs and put you to bed,
though, if you want," Dean teases.
"I'd like nothing more than for you to take me to bed."
"Sam, I can't—"
"I know. Your whole family is around. I'll just pretend for a while that I'm in
bed with you, falling asleep next to you."
"One day, Sam," Dean says. If Harvard works out for Sam, if Stanford works out
for both of them, they could do this every day, without having to hide. Dean
lets himself imagine an apartment in Boston—tucked into a sturdy triple-decker,
maybe, like the one he lived in after he moved out of the MIT dorms, only
without the crazy hacker roommates (except for Ash, his best friend freshman
and sophomore year, thrown out for fighting—he misses Ash, with his terrible
beer and worse hair). Dean pictures California, where he's never been, where it
never gets cold and where he could kiss Sam on a public sidewalk and no one
would blink.
"Stanford," Sam says, voice slurred like he's falling asleep. Dean should nudge
him and make him go back upstairs, but he can't force himself to do it, not
quite yet.
"It never gets cold there," Dean says.
"Palm trees," says Sam. "There's a gay pride statue on campus, did you know
that? You could kiss me there and no one would even look twice."
"I was just thinking that."
"Great minds," says Sam. "But Boston's not bad, either. We could make out in
Harvard Yard, let the tourists stare."
"They should be so lucky."
"They should. We're hot."
"And you're falling asleep. You should probably head back up."
"Uh-huh," Sam agrees, and doesn't move.
"Sam, I mean it."
"So do I. In like five minutes." His eyes fall closed.
"Seriously." Except that Dean's stroking Sam's hair and ears, the back of his
neck, and it's not exactly strong encouragement for Sam to move.
"Five minutes," Sam insists.
"OK," Dean says, and holds Sam as he slides the rest of the way into sleep.
                                **************
 
The next morning, Sam's cheerful and bright-eyed like he didn't just spend most
of the night on a couch that's definitely not meant to sleep two men of more
than six feet in height. Dean, underslept and achy from sleeping cramped up
like that, hates him a little. Sam takes over the pancake-flipping and chats
happily with Aunt Martha while Uncle Frank reads the Star. John is nowhere in
sight.
"Is my dad around?" Dean asks, wondering whether his wish was in fact granted
during the night.
"He ran on out of here like a man possessed as soon as it got light," Uncle
Frank says. "He didn't pack up, though, so I'm guessing he's coming back."
True to Uncle Frank's word, John comes tearing back in the front door shortly
before noon. He looks more haunted than usual, the circles underneath his eyes
as sharply defined as craters, his gaze feverish. "There's something I have to
tell you all," he says. "Especially you, Dean, and you, Sam, before you
let...whatever you're doing go any farther than it has."
Sam drops The Cider House Rules onto the table and stares up at John, eyes
narrowing. Dean has heard the story of how Sam nearly got suspended his junior
year for fighting: He laid out a senior who made some kind of racial slur
against Mexican people—Mexican women, in particular. The story goes that Sam
had the kid on the floor with one punch; he still won't repeat whatever it was
that the kid said. Dean thinks that Sam's expression now might match exactly
the one he was wearing when he stood up in the dining room in Butler Hall last
year.
"Dad," Dean says, appalled, but he's not sure about what.
Aunt Martha drops her hand onto Sam's shoulder, and he lets her. His expression
doesn't change, but he does stay in his seat.
John looks at Sam. "You're adopted," he says.
Sam's eyebrows go up. "What business is it of yours?"
John forges on. "You were adopted sometime in November or December of 1983,
when you were six or seven months old. Do you know anything about your
biological parents?"
"Apart from the fact that they abandoned me on a doorstep in New York City?"
Sam replies icily.
Aunt Martha lifts her hand to her mouth.
"Dad, what are you saying?" Dean asks. He fights down an urge to
panic—everyone's heard his father say some crazy shit over the years, and this
is kind of embarrassing, but it doesn't have to be anything more than that.
Doesn't have to be anything more than a fluke and a run of not-uncharacteristic
erratic behavior on his father's part.
There's a long silence in the sunny kitchen, and with every passing second,
Dean becomes more and more sure, with dreadful certainty, that this is
something more than erratic behavior.
"Your brother's not dead, Dean," John finally says. "He never was."
Dean can't think of a thing to say.
What comes out first is: "I saw the death certificate." His voice isn't coming
out the way he wants it to. "Dad, I looked. I went to the county courthouse
last summer and I looked."
"No," Aunt Martha says. "No, Dean, your brother lived. He lived, but that thing
was never going to stop chasing him. He was declared dead, and I...I took him
to New York. It wasn't just a random doorstep. It was an adoption agency.
Families First. Seventy-fourth Street and Third Avenue. November fourth, 1983."
Sam's arms are wrapped around himself, tightly. He's looking up at Aunt Martha.
"That's the name of the agency," he says. His voice doesn't sound much better
than Dean's. "I've never been there, so I don't know where it is. But that's
the name. My dad...my actual dad...my adoptive dad—whatever—just told me a few
days ago."
Dean's breathing is constricted. He can't look at Sam.
"Sam died in the fire with Mom." Dean isn't sure who he's talking to.
"No, son," Dean's father tells him with unbearable gentleness. "You carried him
out."
Dean's standing before he realizes it—standing, with his chair knocked to the
floor behind him. "You said that wasn't true. You said that I was asleep in my
room, and I passed out from smoke inhalation, and you carried me out, and Mom
and Sam were...didn't make it."
John takes a breath, lets it out. It's the first time Dean's seen his father
hesitate about anything, ever. "You heard the noise and woke up," he tells
Dean. "I gave Sammy to you and told you to take him outside. I tried to get
your mom down but...couldn't. You ran outside with Sammy, and you did pass out,
but in the Robinsons' driveway, behind their car."
Dean can feel himself shaking. "Across the street?"
"You were hiding back there to keep Sammy safe, I think. You fainted from the
smoke inhalation, but also from shock and fright. We gave you something
to...keep you asleep, and I gave Sammy to your aunt Martha."
"You knew?" Dean says to his aunt. "You knew all the time, that Sam was
alive—that I wasn't fucking crazy with this thing that I remembered—that I
didn't make up because I wanted it to be true, but that I remembered because it
actually fucking happened—you knew about this since I was four years old, and
you lied to me the entire time?"
"I'm sorry," she whispers. "I'm so sorry, Dean. It was the only thing we could
think of. The only way to keep Sammy safe from the thing that killed your
mother. If none of us knew where he was."
Sam stands up. "I think you're all out of your minds," he says. "I'm leaving."
"I had your hair tested," John says.
Sam turns and stares. "You what?"
"You had enough hair for about three people—" John stops and grips the counter,
and Dean realizes that he's watching his father keep himself from tears. He has
never in his entire life seen his father display anything like emotion. Dean
thought it was something he'd never see. There are many things, today, that
Dean thought he would never see.
"You had enough hair for about three people," John begins again, "and when you
were about four months old, your mother cut it for the first time, and you
howled like it was the worst thing in the world. I kept a lock of it in my car,
and your mother gave one to your aunt Martha, your aunt Cathy, to your
grandmother. I still have a little bit of it, and a contact of mine was able to
test it against hair from your brush upstairs. I had him test it against some
of Dean's, too, and against mine, just to be sure. The DNA matches, but the
fact that you look like the spitting image of my own brother was what tipped me
off. The fact that your name is still Sam—well, that's just the universe with
its sick sense of humor, son."
"I'm not your fucking son," Sam spits, and John actually flinches. "My father's
name is Hastings Conover, and God knows he's not the most perfect father in
creation, but he's the one who taught me how to ride a bike, and he's the one
who didn't leave me on a fucking doorstep in November in New York City."
Dean's conscious of nothing but the overwhelming need to get out, now; it
doesn't matter where. He ducks around the table without looking at any of them,
without looking at Sam, with his father's words running through his head like a
banner: before you let whatever you're doing go any farther than it has. It's
gone, it's gone way too far, his little brother whose baby-smell he can still
remember, milk and talcum; who used to yank his hair and his ears; who used to
follow Dean with his big hazel eyes whenever they were in the same room. His
brother.
"Dean!" from somebody in the kitchen—his father or Uncle Frank—but Aunt Martha
says, "Let him go, if he needs it." As he's running up the stairs, he hears the
front door open and then close again. Sam, probably. Sam should leave and get
the hell away from him before Dean does anything worse than he already has.
The truck keys are on his desk. He shoves them into his pocket with shaking
hands, picks up the jacket he was wearing yesterday. That he was wearing when
Sam—God, the thought makes him sick. But his leather jacket is somewhere
downstairs, and he doesn't want to stop long enough to look for it. Keys,
jacket. He has another thought, crouches down beside the bed, pulls out the box
that could hold Cuban cigars. It won't fit in his interior pocket, so he slides
it up underneath his jacket, tucks it under his arm.
His father is standing in the front hall when Dean comes downstairs. He reaches
to put a hand on Dean's arm or shoulder, but Dean evades him with a "Don't
touch me" and goes outside, closing the door behind him.
He goes over to the truck and opens the driver's-side door, but he realizes
quickly that he's in no shape to drive. His hands are still shaking; all of him
is trembling. He doesn't care so much what happens to him, but it's New Year's
Eve and people are out, making last runs to the store before their parties,
visiting family, visiting friends. He'll probably kill somebody—and not just
himself—if he's on the roads. He closes the door to the truck and walks down
towards the creek.
He sits in the shelter of the winter trees, leafless but still adequate
protection from the world. The water's surface is still frozen, and the sand is
cold where he's sitting on it. He takes the box from under his arm, carefully
removes the Colt 1911 from it, loads it with a clip of standard ammunition.
Takes the safeties off. Then he sets it on the ground, looks at it for a while,
tries not to think.
He's not sure how long he sits there. The occasional wind, dry and frigid,
rustles through the tree branches. He's sitting and it's cold; he must be cold,
too; but he doesn't feel it. He runs his fingers over the gun's pearl grips,
traces the lines of its barrel. He picks it up, puts it back down. It weighs
less than you would think, about as much as a couple of paperback books. He
places it back onto the sand, but closes his hand over it. Some amount of time
goes by. He's not really sure how much.
"Dean?"
It's Sam.
Sam clambers down onto the bank, but comes up short. His face is streaked with
tears, but his voice is careful when he says, "Can I sit down, Dean?"
Dean nods.
Dean can't look him in the eye, but he watches Sam take in the empty fabric-
covered box and another, smaller box that the cartridge came in. Sam's eyes go
inevitably to Dean's hand where it lies on the ground; then they go back to
Dean's face, where Dean refuses to meet them.
"Dean," Sam says, "will you please unload that?"
Dean doesn't respond.
He hears Sam inhale, as though he's about to say something, but Sam cuts it
off, whatever it is. "Dean," he starts again, "I would do it myself, but I
don't know how. Will you please do it for me?"
He can't say no to Sam.
Dean takes out the cartridge, puts it in Sam's outstretched hand. Sam sets it
within the triangle of his crossed legs, then says, "Will you give me the gun,
too?"
Dean does.
Sam takes the gun and hurls it, throwing it far enough downstream that it hits
the surface of one of the pools and breaks the ice. John will be angry, Dean
thinks. The gun was probably expensive. Then Sam takes the ammo and throws it,
too, into the water. His aim is good; he wasn't a lacrosse player for nothing.
"I'm so sorry, Sam," Dean says after several minutes go by.
"For what?"
Dean looks him in the eye this time, but by accident, only because he can't
stop himself from raising his head in disbelief. "Where do you want to start?
The part where I'm your teacher? Or the part where I molested you?"
"Molested me?" Sam's laugh is sharp, incredulous, and utterly lacking in mirth.
"Dean, you were there, right? Not only was I not kicking and screaming, but I
initiated it. I wanted it, and I'm not sorry for that."
"Stockholm syndrome," Dean mutters, and Sam says, "Oh, give me a fucking
break."
There's another silence, and Sam goes on, "Dean, if anybody owes anybody an
apology, it's the people up in that house, for lying to you. You didn't do
anything wrong—"
"Besides sleep with my student?"
"That wasn't bothering you last night!" Sam snaps. "OK, no, maybe it's not
ethically the best thing to have done. But you're not giving me any grades, and
you're not writing my college recommendations, and again, let me remind you of
just how consenting I was. Dean," Sam says, and now his voice is gentle, "you
saved my life. You carried me out of a fire and hid us behind a car to make
sure I was safe. And you never forgot me."
"I couldn't," Dean says. "I couldn't. I went to a psychologist my freshman year
of college because I thought there was something wrong with me, that the memory
was so clear. I mean, I had memories of Mom that were a lot dimmer than that,
and I knew they had actually happened. We talked about the fire over and over
again, and the therapist said the false memory would fade as I dealt with the
trauma and accepted what had happened, except it never did."
Sam reaches over for him, but stills his hand halfway. "Can I?" he asks.
"Please?"
Dean nods again, and Sam puts his hand, with its broad palm and strong fingers,
over Dean's.
Dean looks up at Sam now and tries to reconcile the baby he knew—Sammy's little
round face, chubby cheeks, shock of cherubic curls that really had been enough
for three people—with the face of this almost-man, with its precise, beautiful
angles, the intelligent eyes, the expressive, generous mouth.
He feels sick again, but he doesn't take his hand away from Sam's. "I can't go
back to Rockshire," is what he says.
Sam doesn't say anything out loud, but his face is its own inquiry.
"I can't," Dean starts, then stops. "I can't see you every day and pretend like
you're just another student. It was hard enough before, but I can't...there's
no way, now."
"Can you leave midyear?"
"Dr. Bissell will be pissed, but it's not like he can force me to stay. And
it's better...like this, than some other way."
"Are you just going to stay here?"
"I don't—God. I don't know. I can't look at them."
"Are there friends you can stay with?" Sam's voice is careful again, so
careful, and Dean hates being fragile like this—he's always been solid, sturdy,
a heartland boy with a good mind and a strong back—but it's like that's all
broken apart.
"Mackenzie, out in Seattle. Ash, over in Nebraska."
"Will you promise me that?"
"That what?"
"That if you leave here, leave Rockshire, that you'll stay somewhere with
people who care about you?"
"Yeah," Dean says, "I promise," and he's not a man to break his promises.
Another silence comes, interrupted only by the prairie wind through the grass
and trees.
End Notes
     Sue is real, and lives at the Field Museum in Chicago. The artworks
     to which Dean refers are likewise real (or surreal): Figure_with
     Meat, by Francis Bacon, and Pitchfork_Lady, by Don Baum. I personally
     tender no opinion regarding the relative merits of Chicago vs. Kansas
     City barbecue.
     Thank you for reading!
     This story has a sequel, This_Shelter_in_the_Grove.
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