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FIC: Almost At Home

The Fancatus Bureau of Incest (balefully) wrote, 2008-07-07 16:52:00 � 44-56

minutes

Title: Almost At Home

Author:

balefully

Pairing: Sam/Dean

Rating: NC-17

Words: 24,302

Summary: Sam graduates from high school in early June in rural Tennessee. He and Dean start the summer with an all-nighter of celebration; the day after, while both fight hangovers, John calls to assign them their first hunt by themselves. They go to northern Virginia to investigate the homicidal ghost of a dangerous escapee of a high-security prison and mental institution whose MO is beheading people with an axe while wearing a filthy, grotesque bunny suit. Then throughout the long, happy summer, as they move around tackling a series of minor hunts together, John's absences grow longer. Sam and Dean explore their relationship as it burgeons into something they've both been craving and which neither of them regrets.

Warnings: None; Sam is eighteen.

Disclaimer: Sam and Dean are sadly not mine.

Notes: Written for

spn_j2_bigbang. Infinite thanks to everyone who listened to me bitch and moan and especially those who whip-cracked and encouraged me to keep on keepin' on (

causeways and

memphis86, I am looking at you in particular). And love as usual to

lazy_daze for a brilliant beta and the best cheerleading/ego-stroking ever. <333! More notes and acknowledgements at the end.

Graphics, Art, and Soundtrack by

fourfreedoms

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Art and Soundtrack Post

Like a brass cartridge. He is a useful thing, Almost at home, and yet not quite, not quite.

- from "Desertmartin," by Tom Paulin The day of Sam's graduation is a Wednesday. Which seems kind of lame to Dean, because graduation ceremonies should obviously be on weekends when people will actually be able to go to them.

But right now it's Tuesday, the night before, and Dean is sprawled lop-sided on the porch swing of their rental, one edge of the weathered bench tipped up so the chain rattles loose with give.

Sam comes out the front door, screen banging behind him. He soaks up the early summer breeze in his t-shirt and boxers, flip of hair wrapped soft around his earlobe as purple bleeds into the sky from the horizon like the sweet ache of a fresh, growing bruise.

"Where are they?" Dean asks, picking thick splinters of wood off the arm of the swing. Sam sits on the creaking wicker armchair on the other side of the porch, knees akimbo.

"Where are what?" Sam says with a sigh. He shifts his long legs to get comfortable. Dean chucks him one of the cushions from the swing, lying in a faded pile by the banister.

"Your tickets. For tomorrow. I dunno if Dad'll be home in time, but I—"

"Not going," Sam says, cutting Dean off. But it's not angry or petulant or even sad. He just sounds like he's not going.

"Seriously? You? Not going to your own graduation? Come on, Sammy."

Sam shrugs, small smile aimed at Dean as he squashes the cushion under himself and gets re-settled. "Don't really care. We've only been here three months, Dean. It's not like it's a sentimental occasion. Just means I don't have to worry about playing catch-up anymore. A relief, not an accomplishment."

Dean hums low and doesn't say anything, pleased and surprised.

"Let's do something else instead," he says after a long moment.

"Have our own pomp and circumstance."

Sam laughs, warm and short, and leans his head back against the white-washed siding, browned curve of neck blurry in the falling night. "Sure. But only if you buy me some liquor. What's the point of having an older brother if he won't get you something illegal on graduation night?"

"No point at all," Dean says with an answering huff, and lets his eyes drift closed as the first stars blink awake over the distant fields.

Not too long ago, Sam mentioned wanting to apply to college, for scholarships, internships, probably a bunch of other pretentious

'ships. Dean told him it was a fucking awful idea, that Dad wouldn't like it, that the Winchester men just don't work when they're split up. Sam set his mouth in the grim, determined line that means Dean is in for a shit storm—but nothing ever came of it.

Nothing beyond some cursory gruff silence and no hot water in the mornings for a week or two.

And now it looks like maybe Sam's seen some sense. He's done with school and the necessities it hauls along with it; their lives can really begin.

*

Sam and his classmates don't have to be in school the day of graduation. As a result, the town center of Bells, Tennessee is full of fresh-faced eighteen-year-olds drunk on freedom, and probably on forties, too. They're milling around in short, delicate sundresses or worn jeans and plain tees. Sam blends right in, tall and lean with a clear farmer's tan under the short sleeves of his white cotton Hanes, rubbed fuzzy and soft with bleachings. Someone will occasionally offer him a wave or a What's up? but Sam just

nods deliberately with a neutral smile and bumps his shoulder into Dean's after they walk past.

Summer is pressing in heavy on their town already, deep lines traced around the corners of everyone's eyes as the sun reflects off the bright sides of buildings. Dean slides on his sunglasses, but Sam doesn't bother, content to peer through his bangs at the list of movies playing at the Bells Theater.

At times like this, it's obvious how different Sam is from the other kids in the town, no matter how much he looks the part. At least during the school year they all have something in common; Dean sees these teenagers every day in their neighborhood, Sam one of them, as they all walk home or go to the library to study or hang out at the burger joint on Main Street. He and Sam can both slot into place with them even if they don't fit just right.

In summer, though, it's a completely different world. There's no common thread holding the Winchesters to the mundane; not even going to see a movie on the first day of the rest of Sam's life.

The theater is run-down, probably about to close. One screen and one window at the box office and that's more than enough. Dean sits under the overhang in the shade, comparing the merits of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider to Shrek while Sam nods and works on a bottle of Coke. They decide to grab some lunch and come back in two hours to see Lara Croft, because really, when you get down to it, there's no competition between Angelina Jolie kicking ass and taking names and

—pretty much anything else.

*

The movie ends up sucking, but Dean certainly doesn't care, and Sam doesn't really look like he cares, either: all smiles and rolling shoulders and cool skin from the frigid air-conditioning. Every once in a while, shivers will thrill down the thick muscles of his arms, and Dean breathes a laugh through his nose when Sam shakes with it, uncontrollable.

They gorged on popcorn and Skittles and Sno-caps and Reese's Pieces, and they each got one of those Coke slushy things. Dean really wanted cherry, but of course it's some law of movie theaters that only one of the slushy machines can be working at any point in time, so Coke it was.

"'Least your mouth won't be stained red for the rest of your natural life," Sam says with a smirk, and tosses their stacks of trash in the nearest garbage can.

Dean just snorts as they walk out into the twilight, air still baked warm from the heat of the day, wrapping close around them and pressing their goosebumps smooth. He punches Sam on the shoulder and shifts away before Sam can get him back, both of them a little slow with food and contentment muting the rush of their blood.

"ABC store?" Dean says, smiling wickedly. Sam claps his hands together, cupping just enough to make the smack thick and deep in the quiet square. Everyone else is heading over to the school, most likely, and Sam and Dean have the uneven pavement and faded storefronts all to themselves.

"Thought you'd never ask," Sam says. "I want tequila. The good stuff. And Jaeger."

"You're such a wannabe frat boy, Sammy," Dean says, all endearment.

"Probably gonna have to get your stomach pumped, and I will be laughing my ass off to kingdom come, just you fuckin' wait."

"Language, young man," Sam says, tight and mock-prissy, which Dean can hardly tell from real prissy.

Dean rolls his eyes, letting his guard down long enough for Sam to leap at him and pinch a huge welt into his elbow while he's not paying attention. Dean yelps and chases Sam up the street, but he doesn't really try that hard to catch him, too busy listening to the rounded echoes of Sam's laugh off the shop windows.

Sam turns, running backwards for a ways while he watches Dean, eyes glittering. He stops in front of the ABC store, leaning against the doorjamb, and shoves his hands in his pockets.

"You suck," Dean mutters, but he can't keep the amusement out of his voice. He doesn't even care that his elbow stings like a motherfucker and is stark white-red, blood pooling puffy under the skin.

"That's what she said," Sam mumbles. Dean doesn't bother perpetuating the game with a heavy cuff upside Sam's head, which would usually be his next move. He's too busy eying the cashier behind the counter and wondering if he could get away with swiping the booze or if he'll have to shell out for it.

He pushes inside, tiny bell ringing and cold wall of a/c instantly soaking into his clothes. He'll make it legit, this time. It's a present for Sam, anyway, and it's always better not to steal those.

Makes them more special, or whatever.

"How can I help you?" The woman is middle-aged, worn but not unhappy. Her name is apparently Doris, stitched in white threads of embroidery above a cluster of pink bleach spots on the smock she's wearing. According to Us, which she has folded in front of her like bizarre origami, Tom Cruise is sticking it to Penelope Cruz. Dean approves in theory, but the man was married and has kids, so that kind of sucks.

"Ah," he says, making his way over to the hard liquor, "just need to grab something to get my summer started off right."

He picks a bottle of Jose Cuervo and some Jaegermeister, even though aniseed makes him gag just to think about. He's the best big brother ever and Sammy better not forget it. He throws in a twelve-pack from the stack by the register – something cheap and on sale.

Doris raises an eyebrow at his choices and leans over on her stool to peer out the window. Sam, thankfully, has disappeared from sight. "It's graduation tonight," she says, voice rough with smoke and latent accusation.

"Congrats to 'em," Dean says, smearing on the innocence thick as cold butter. "I'll make sure to raise a toast. The children are our future, you know."

"Sure are," Doris says, blinking back obvious boredom and traces of suspicion as she rings Dean up, through with her inquisition. He hands her his ID—real name, fake card—without being asked, and bags the bottles himself.

"Thanks, Doris," he grins, and drops a dollar in the near-empty tip jar on the counter. She gives him a wave without looking up from her magazine, and he pushes back out into the warm air with a thrill of anticipation he can't quite place.

It's just another night, really, but Sam is sitting on the curb with the fabric of his shirt molding flat against the muscles of his back and Dean's got his hands wrapped around the necks of something good.

*

They walk to the woods outside town, still and quiet. Sam pops open one of the beers as twigs and summer leaves snap green beneath their worn boots. Dean watches as Sam takes a swallow, the quick brush of his tongue over his lips and the short burst of breath he lets escape after the sudden bitter cold hits his throat.

"It's weird, you know," Sam says, kicking at a rock. "I don't feel any different, but I must be. Everything's different."

Dean rolls his eyes and takes a swig of tequila straight from the bottle. No use pussy-footing around; they're here to get drunk, and drunk he'll fucking get. "Man, you have got to be kidding me. I don't want to hear all that crap. You're an egghead genius, you graduated with a fifty-seven point eight GPA or whatever, and you broke that lame school's record in the men's mile four years in a row. The only thing that's different is that you're moving on to bigger and better things."

Sam huffs a laugh and downs the rest of his beer. For a fraction of a second, Dean actually thinks he's going to chuck the empty can into the woods like a normal high schooler, but he doesn't. Sam stops walking, kicking away the leaves on the ground to expose hard-packed dirt, and sets the can down. He rests a foot heavily on the top, leaning his weight on the can as he pulls two pencils out of one of his pockets. He touches the very points of the pencils to the sides of the can, hardly any pressure at all, and the can instantly smashes. The metallic crunch echoes off the trees and scares away at least two squirrels; the can is a perfect flat coin of aluminum. Sam slides in it his pocket along with the pencils and keeps walking.

"You're such a freak. I can't—it's actually impossible to overstate how much of a freak you are," Dean says. He blinks and jogs a few steps to catch up with Sam.

"It's just a can," Sam says, blank-faced, but his voice is smiling.

"There's some sort of 'can' joke I should be making, but fuck me if I can think of one." Dean pulls a beer from the pack in his arm and opens it with one hand. He downs it as fast as he's able while not tripping over anything.

Sometimes it feels like it's all he can do to keep up with Sam, whether they're running through the woods or he's two beers behind on a drinking night. Big brothers aren't supposed to be the tagalongs.

Dean just tosses his can haphazardly into the thicket of oaks; they walk on, drinking.

"Why didn't you finish?" Sam asks after the long quiet settles, punctuated only by glugging and hissing at the rank taste of Jaegermeister. It's like Sam's picking up the thread of an old conversation they've never had, but Dean knows what he means.

The dark is trickling through the trees, now; they're coming up to a nearby outcropping of boulders, and if Dean remembers correctly, there's one with a nice flat top that'll be perfect for their purposes. Hopefully they can find it.

"Didn't need to. Didn't want to," he says. "There's nothing a high school diploma could teach me that I need to know. No reason to stick around except to keep Child Services off Dad's back."

Sam stops suddenly, and Dean looks over to see him breathe in deep and melt down into the grass. He's on his back with his feet on the ground, knees bent up, thighs pulling tight in his jeans. "No. I guess there wasn't. You never really—"

"What?" Dean snaps. The night was not supposed to go like this. He isn't going to sit here knocking back shots while Sam judges him and finds him wanting. "I never really what? Had friends? Study dates? Sam, everyone at those schools was snot-nosed and ignorant and—"

"Worrying about their pimples and prom dresses when you were shooting werewolves full of silver, I know," Sam mutters. "I'm sorry I actually like people. And doing things that don't involve mud and guts and imminent doom." Dean hears him pop open another can.

"You actually just said 'imminent doom'," Dean laughs, annoyance ebbing away as he settles cross-legged next to Sam in the grass.

"You're such a pussy."

He gulps another mouthful of Jaeger and chases it with some beer, retching the whole time. His nose is feeling kind of fuzzy, and he suddenly has the inexplicable urge to grind his molars. Drunkenness lies just around the corner. Which is good, because Sam is hogging the tequila and there is no doubt in Dean's mind that he'll vomit if he has to swallow one more drop of black liquorice hell.

"Whatever, shut up," Sam says, and smacks Dean's knee half-heartedly. His hand settles under Dean's calf, and Sam doesn't move it. He does, however, take an impressive drink of tequila, and then slides the bottle into the warm space between Dean's legs. "Here.

You'll be saying a lot worse real soon."

Dean just smiles and sets the bottle of Jaeger on Sam's pelvis, propped to lean against his thighs. It's precarious, barely cradled in the shallow dip of Sam's hip, but it's staying up. "You're totally getting there, if that's the best you can come up with."

"I am absolutely getting there," Sam murmurs, and it's like there's syrup coating his vocal cords. "I'm allowed to be a cheap date –

I'm only eighteen. I've been drunk, like. Twice ever."

"A cheap date, huh?" Dean says between swallows. The neck of the bottle is warm where Sam was holding it, and the base fits perfectly in the triangle of his folded legs. His jeans burn where Sam slid it against him, and Dean is definitely, definitely going to be wasted any minute now. Zero to sixty in two-point-five.

"You know what I mean." Sam turns towards Dean, forgetting the bottle of liquor perched on him, and it clunks to the ground.

" Fuck," he hisses, and windmills his arms hilariously while lying down on his side. The bottle rolls awkwardly, watering the grass with liberal amounts of Jaeger, and Sam scrambles after it. "Why didn't you put the fucking cap on?" he demands once he's finally caught it. His hair is all jacked up, sticking out crazily, and he's got grass stains all over his white t-shirt.

Dean is practically choking. His throat burns because he started laughing halfway through a swallow and it's very possible that the inside of his nose is getting scorched off by tequila, but he doesn't even care, because Sam is fucking priceless. They've lost at least a third of the alcohol from the bottle, and it was worth every bit.

Sam grunts and takes a long pull, then bends over, fishing around in the grass for his beer. Or beers. He has at least two going at once, and Dean's heard of two-fisted drinking but Sam's up to three fists now, and—Dean does not mean that the way it sounds. In his head.

He is definitely drunk.

After a second during which Dean's positive all he did was blink, Sam's suddenly across the clearing and up on top of the boulder they've been heading for the whole time. The moon is full, and he's silhouetted against the stars like a felt-board story, and Dean breathes deep through the burn in his nose and throat and the numbness of his cheeks; he swears he can smell Sam. Clean and boy and grass and pencils and illegal booze and bleach and aluminum.

Make that smashed. Not drunk, completely smashed out of his head.

Sam whistles with his thumb and middle finger in his mouth, loud and shrill in the muzzy quiet of the clearing. Dean just groans.

"I'm too comfortable here. Fuck off."

"No, no. You want some of this. You really, really wanna come up here," Sam calls back, and he's listing a little to the side. Then he's fumbling with something in his lap and Dean can't even feel his own eyebrows crinkle as he makes a what the fuck? face. After a confused second, Dean pulls himself to his knees, then his feet, and shuffles over to the boulder just in time to see a pinprick of orange flare up in front of Sam's lips as he hears a strained inhale.

"Did you just roll a joint?" he asks, feeling around for a hand-hold on the boulder. "Are you fucking smoking up, Sammy?"

Sam just laughs, warm and smoke-rough, pale cloud rushing past his lips and up against Dean's when Dean rolls onto the top of the rock next to him. "And what if I am?"

It tastes sour, rich, and Dean didn't even know he was craving it.

"Then I say you'd better pass the freaking dutchie, man, or I'm telling Dad. Also, I hereby revoke your goody-goody badge forever."

Sam snorts out his second toke and passes the joint to Dean. "You can have it. In all its metaphorical glory," Sam says. "Anyway, I got this stuff from Taylor. Couple weeks ago. It really does pay to go to study groups."

Dean inhales, sucking down the burn and holds it tight for long seconds. He can feel Sam's eyes on him, so he tries not to look too dopey-drunk. The moonlight is bright and clear and if he can see Sam's eyelashes one-by-one fanned against his cheek, then Sam can see his stupid pot-face expressions. He breathes out long and slow, immediately inhaling another toke.

As he holds it in his chest, he can see Sam breathe in, Dean's smoke curling gently up his nose, into the soft curve of his mouth.

Dean just smiles and relaxes, blowing his whole breath out in one puff through his nostrils.

They pass the joint back and forth until it's a nub and Sam yelps when he burns his fingers trying to hold it. They light another one, and smoke it down until the same fucking thing happens again.

Dean can't help but laugh, Sam flicking his hand in the air and making pitiful noises. He sticks his fingers in his mouth, presumably to soothe the burn, and Dean stops laughing abruptly.

He was going to say something, but he can't fucking remember what it was. Sam is blinking at him with squinty eyes, and his cheeks are looking sort of puffy, and damn pot really doesn't do anyone any favors in the attractiveness department.

Not that he was thinking about how attractive Sam is. Or isn't. Or whatever.

"What the fuck are you even talking about?" Sam mumbles, fingers still pressing heavy on his tongue. It's a miracle Dean can understand him.

"Huh?" Dean says.

"You're babbling about squintiness and being attractive and I can't follow what you're saying and I don't really know if it's because you're high or because I am. Squintiness isn't a word, though. I'm pretty sure—"

"Did I say that out loud?" Dean mutters. He presses his lips in a firm line and imagines supergluing them shut. Superglue would probably taste really bad, but then if he used it on his lips and was tasting it, that would mean his tongue would get glued to his lips too, and—

"Shut up," Sam groans, and claps his hand over Dean's mouth none too gently. "Shut up. You're. Whatevering. Hosing my yellow—

harshing. Harshing my mellow."

Dean starts laughing, and he doesn't stop. Is physically incapable of stopping, really. Sam rolls another spliff and lights it up, then pushes Dean bodily off the boulder.

He lies in a pile at the foot of the rock for as long as it takes to calm down; he pulls himself to his feet and knuckles at his eyes for a moment, trying to make sense of the shadowy lump where Sam used to be.

Sam's crouched down, on his knees but with his forehead pressed against the rock, arms wrapped around his legs; the third joint is gone. Dean's pretty sure he's humming, too, but he can't make out what. "Sam?" he says, tail ends of snickers still coloring his tone. "When you're done communing with nature, we need to get the hell out of here. It's—um. I don't actually know what time it is.

But it's. You know. When it is."

Sam sits up, staring at Dean owlishly. His eyes aren't that red anymore, and Dean figures he must've been prostrate on the ground longer than he'd thought.

"We good?" Sam asks, sounding a little spacey still. "I'm done with the rock."

"You're—done with the rock. Right." Dean nods and grabs Sam's firm forearm, veins and smooth cool skin, tugging him down into a spindly stagger on the grass. When Sam's steadied himself, they both head back the way they came.

The sky is fading grayish around the edges, a black page in a closed book, sunlight bleaching out the edges and not the middle.

"I'm really glad we did this," Sam says.

Dean tries not to groan; Sam sounds serious. "What, are you going to write me a thank you note when we get back home or something, Miss Manners?"

"Dean, shut up. I mean it." His voice is still a little warm and fuzzy. "It was good. A good end to the year and everything. I mean, what if this is our last chance?"

Dean scoffs. "What, are you planning to go all straight-arrow now that you're an adult or something? Or just mourning the fact that Taylor won't be around to hook you up anymore?"

Sam looks down at his feet, then up at Dean, gaze straight and even. There's something sad in his eyes, maybe even guilty.

"Something like that," he says; Dean can barely hear him.

"Man, you're still high," Dean says, laughing. Sam just watches him, a wistful little smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

They push through the front door of their house before dawn breaks over the hills, and Dean falls into his single on the other side of the room from Sam, feeling a little colder than he did before. But good. Definitely good. Watching Sam's deep breaths shift his comforter is good, too.

"Congratulations, Sammy," he says, already halfway to sleep.

He's pretty sure Sam says, "Thank you," but it might've been something else.

*

Dean falls out of bed at ten AM. He hits the floor with a thick thud and starts awake, rolling up immediately and reaching for the knife in his nightstand drawer.

He's heaving, eyes pinned wide, and scans the room. Nothing. Just—

just falling out of bed. Sam is dead to the world, heavy breathing muffled by the pillow and probably copious drool, if Dean knows his brother. Which he does.

There's a railroad spike through Dean's head. And his joints feel like someone filled them with jelly, achy and wobbly. His mouth is sticky-dry, his hair is grease-slick, and his sheets are clammy with sweat.

He scrubs at his face and staggers into the bathroom with a groan.

He doesn't dare to look in the mirror. After he takes a sorely needed piss, he forces down five plastic Dixie cups of water and two Tylenol. The water from the sink is ice cold and stings like torture when he sticks his face under the faucet, but it's worth it when he stumbles back to bed feeling at least half alive.

He'll give himself an hour more. Keeping on track means being functional by noon so he can wake Sam up and pester the hell out of his graduated ass.

At eleven thirty, Dean jerks awake again, and the railroad spike has diminished to a manageable pinch between his eyes.

This time, he manages a shower and a shave and brushes his teeth.

He's only a little pale, freckles bursting obviously over his cheeks and nose and in his ears, hair wet into dark spikes from temple to nape.

Sam is still unconscious. His breathing is raspy and labored, allergies probably irritating him after being outside all night.

He's never snored, doesn't even when he's got a cold, but the heavy inhales and exhales into his pillow are almost as loud as if he did.

"Rise and shine, Sammy!" Dean shouts in Sam's ear. He leaps on the bed with a yelp, Sam bouncing with the mattress and startling awake.

" Shit." Sam's panting and jumpy, and Dean laughs long and loud.

"What the fuck, Dean. Jesus Christ." And then all the blood drains out of his face in an instant. Sam hurls himself out of bed, hits the ground running, and barely makes it into the bathroom before puking liberally into the sink.

"You hit the mind-altering substances a little hard last night, huh," Dean says, and decides not to mention that he still feels pretty shitty himself, despite being able to move without revisiting the Red Vines from the movie theater yesterday.

"Go fuck yourself," Sam grumbles. He's obviously still a surly teenager in there somewhere under the geek, which kind of makes Dean feel a little better about himself.

"Would if I could, Sammy, would if I could." He's being overloud and obnoxious on purpose, and the death glare Sam gives him is pretty impressive. This is his job, though. What are big brothers for, if not getting their little brothers drunk and stoned and then mocking them the next morning? Doesn't matter Sam did the stoned part all on his own.

He goes out to their dingy little kitchen, beaming at Sam's misfortune. Schadenfreude's a bitch when you're not on the right end of it. But he is.

"I'm making breakfast," he calls back to Sam. "Lots of grease, just for you."

All he hears in return is a pretty pathetic garble. He'll make Sam some dry toast. His cruelty only extends so far.

The doors of the cabinets are coming loose, and Dean makes a note on the whiteboard by the phone—which came with the house; not like Dad was actually fussy enough to put one up himself—that he should tighten up the hinges soon. Right above his scribble is a smeared red reminder that trash days are Tuesday and Saturday, and that the air conditioner needs a new filter.

Most of the dishes came with the house. The frying pan is scratched up, rusty around the handle, but the Winchesters aren't exactly picky. Dean makes himself bacon and eggs, his favorite hangover food.

While the bacon's frying, he closes his eyes and just listens: it sounds like raindrops splattering on the roof, the beginning of a rough summer thunderstorm.

Sam shuffles in while Dean's stirring some oatmeal in their one saucepan. His feet scuff on the peeling edges of the fake linoleum floor where it's yellowed and brittle. His drawstring sweats hang loose around his hips, and he's wearing a clean shirt; still smells like puke and sweat and dirt, though.

"What, too enamored of your own stench to spare me by taking a shower?"

Sam shakes his head gingerly, mumbling, "Can't stand up and close my eyes or tilt my head back without falling over. Just have to deal, I guess."

"Sorry, man," Dean says softly after a second. He hands Sam a chipped white plate with four slices of dry toast on it. "Think you

can handle butter or jelly or something?" He pours Sam a pint glass of tap water, too.

"This is fine," Sam manages, and goes to lie down on the couch in the family room.

The phone rings, like it waited politely for Sam to be out of the kitchen first. "Hello?" Dean says. There's really only one person who would be calling.

"Dean, how're things?" Dad asks, gruff and quiet. He doesn't mean it in the small-talk way. He means it in the have-you-fucked-up-yet way.

"Good, good. Great. Sam's graduation was last night but he didn't wanna go, so we just hung out. Saw a movie. No big deal.

Everything's pretty quiet."

"Fine," Dad says. "That's fine."

"You're still coming home this afternoon, right?" Dean can't really keep the pathetic hope out of his voice. He tries, though.

"About that—"

Dean stays silent, pressing his lips tight together.

"I won't be home for a while yet. Another job came up, and I—"

"Are you okay?" Dean's fingers hurt from gripping the receiver so tightly.

"Yeah, yeah. Fine."

"We can come out there, Dad. It's okay—we can help, I know—"

"No," Dad spits out down the line. Dean flinches. "No, I need you boys to do something else for me."

"Sure." Dean's ready with the whiteboard marker.

"There's something going on over in Virginia. Caleb called me with some leads. Sounds like some sort of psycho spirit is causing a spate of axe-wound victims to show up at the hospitals in the area."

"Want us to do some research for you?"

"Not for me. I want you to take Sammy and the both of you check it out. Thirty-eight point eight, negative seventy-seven point three."

Dean pops the cap on the marker and scribbles down the coordinates.

"Shouldn't be too bad, but both of you must go." His voice goes deep and angry. "If I hear about you ever doing something like this without your brother, or if you let him go off without you, there will be hell to pay, Dean."

"Yessir," Dean says with a thick swallow. The memory of a black-robed figure and cold fear gripping Dean's guts in Wisconsin overwhelms him for a second, before the thrill of Dad giving them their own hunt takes over. "You gonna meet us there?" Dean knows Dad can probably hear how excited he is, but he doesn't even care.

"I think you both can take care of it on your own. Just remember—"

"I know, Dad. The rules. It's fine, we'll be fine. We can handle it, definitely. Won't split up, remember the rules, got it." He shuts up before Dad has to tell him to.

"It shouldn't take more than a couple days. Call Pastor Jim soon as you've got it taken care of. I'll be checking in."

"Right. Yessir."

"Bye, Dean." He sounds sort of funny, but Dean figures it must just be the connection.

"Bye, Dad." Dean hangs up, and his cheeks actually hurt from smiling. He whoops, jogging into the family room. "Guess what, pukebreath," he says, leaping onto the end of the couch where Sam's feet are.

Sam pulls his legs up just in time to avoid getting his shins cracked in half. "Shh," he groans, smothering his face with a throw pillow. "Could you not, please? My eardrums are going to burst brains and blood and earwax all over the couch, and you'll be really pissed off." Dean's impressed at Sam's level of coherency, actually. The water and toast have worked wonders.

"Too fucking bad." Dean pulls Sam's legs into his lap and smacks him on the knee.

"What the hell are you so Pollyanna chipper about?" Sam mutters, flinging the pillow at Dean's head.

"We've got some stuff to do, Sammy." He can't keep the smile off his face.

"Now? Right now?" Sam groans, and kicks his heels into Dean's stomach. It's feeble attempt, though, and Dean feels guilty.

"Well. Maybe not right now. But as soon as you're ready to rejoin the world of the living, we're going on a hunt."

"Dad's back? Or is he gonna meet up with us?" Sam actually doesn't sound disappointed, and it's all Dean can do not to crow about it.

"Um, not exactly. We're going on our own."

"What?" Sam manages to sit up. He definitely still looks like shit, but color is slowly creeping back into his face. "By ourselves?

We'll get slaughtered, Dean!" He sounds genuinely freaked.

"Nah, we'll be fine. Dad said it's super easy."

"Why don't you just go by yourself, then?"

Dean's joy doesn't even dissipate. This is the best week ever.

"Because Dad'll have my balls if I leave you. You know the rules, we can't hunt by ourselves."

"Can't you work on him about it? I'm not going if we're not all together. You know we work better when we're together." Sam is petulant, pulling his feet out of Dean's lap like it's a punishment.

"We are together, Sammy," Dean smiles, warm and happy. He reaches over to loop an arm around Sam's sweaty neck, pulling him in for a gentle noogie. "Let me know when standing up isn't gonna make you hurl chunks, and we'll get going. I'll check the maps and pack while you recuperate or whatever."

"Happy graduation to me," Sam mutters darkly, pulling away from Dean. He shoves him weakly, but his eyes are looking brighter. "I'm not moving until five at the earliest. And I get to drive at least halfway."

"The hell you do," Dean laughs, and gets to his feet. He's not even remotely hungover anymore, and he has the almost irresistible urge to go find Lacey Stewart in town for some afternoon delight to officially cap off the best day ever.

He can't, though. They have work to do.

*

The drive will take them ten hours if Dean floors it. Not counting traffic once they get to northern Virginia, which is apparently where they're headed. The coordinates Dad gave him point to Fairfax Station, which means suburbs, which means hell on earth, as far as

Dean's concerned.

Forty is almost deserted, at least until they get to Nashville.

It's a Thursday night, pick-ups and sedans winding their way home from work. Sam's doing well considering the rough start he got this morning, and he pulls some intricate navigational tricks out of his ass that have Dean pumping a fist in the air as they sail past some congestion.

It's clear going all the way to eighty-one after that. Dean rewards Sam by popping in The Doors for a good stretch of road. The kid needs a break from Led Zep and Mötörhead every once in a while or he'll be a total shit the entire time they're in Virginia.

Dean hums along to every single song on his Waiting for the Sun tape, and he catches Sammy nodding along, too. It's past dusk now, stars thick and bright in the country sky, and Jim Morrison is singing about freedom's shore.

Dean's not sure how far it is to the beach from Lynchburg, but once they pass Charlottesville and the clot of SUVs with university stickers on the bumpers, it's too late to turn back south. They wouldn't be able to see the crashing summer waves, anyway, and there'd be too many drunk college losers dancing around their bonfires.

Dean eyes Sam, slumped in the passenger seat with his head pressed against the window, staring out at the silver blanket of stars, and promises silently that they'll stop at the beach on the way home.

They have a hunt to take care of, and now's not the time for side trips, as much as Dean wants to make one. Sammy hasn't been to the beach since he was about eight, and even then it was because Dad needed to put a harpoon through a homicidal mermaid.

Sixty-six is faster than Dean thought it would be. Bumper-to-bumper traffic clogs the out-bound lanes, but they're doing at least twenty-five over the limit in-bound, the only car in the HOV lane and the discrete radar under the dash showing no speed-traps in range.

"What exactly is the job?" Sam asks. He hasn't spoken since the last rest stop they took, at least two hundred miles, but not in the bad way. In the easy, comfortable way, where his breath and the slow curl of his fingers on the door handle are more than enough conversation.

"Angry spirit, Dad says. In Fairfax Station, possibly. I don't know anything else about it, but apparently there've been a bunch of

yuppie types with weird axe injuries. And if they know what happened, they're not talking, so. It's probably our kind of gig."

"No fatalities?"

"Not yet," Dean says, sighing. "Well, that Dad mentioned anyway.

But he hasn't done much research. Said Caleb told him about the hospital reports and that's about it. I wouldn't rule it out."

Sam bites at his lip, concentration furrow creasing his brow. He starts picking at the grime under his nails, and Dean has the urge to grab his hands to make the faint clicking stop before it drives him crazy.

He switches from his tape to the classic rock station, instead, and turns up Hotel California until Sam glares at him. When Sam takes it one step further and seizes the lobe of Dean's ear between his fingernails and digs them in, twisting, Dean jumps and yelps.

"Jesus Christ, Sam!" he shouts, but Sam's just laughing, turning so the corner where the seat meets the window cradles his back and he can watch Dean flush deep red in frustration, struggling to keep them on the road. "That fucking hurts, you little punk!"

"You know how I feel about The Eagles, Dean. You only get what you deserve." He sits in smug silence until they turn off onto one twenty-three and Dean needs directions.

It takes them a while to find a motel in their price range with the front desk still open. As it's about three AM, it's too late to do any research at one of the dozens of libraries in the area and too dark to get a good look at the town itself to actually find where this spirit could be holed up. Dad was less than vague, plus their map of the place is both complicated and extremely out of date.

"What the hell, man, we're gonna have to sleep in the car at this rate," Sam grumbles.

"It won't kill us if we do," Dean mutters, but he keeps driving around. There's got to be something. "What is with these people?

Nothing under ninety bucks a night is a fucking swindle."

They end up at the Breezeway motel in Fairfax, peeling white paint and stucco walls under a faded red and yellow awning much more their style than the stacked-high Hiltons with BMWs in the parking lots.

They get to their room, and it's like someone shoved them into a sitcom from the seventies. Everything's brown – shag carpets, metal

cabinets, walls. It's retro without being retro chic.

Sam blinks and throws his duffle on the luggage rack in the corner; the scream of an eighteen-wheeler passing by presses in at the window and Dean squints as the light filters through the heavy brown curtains. "Whatever, it was cheap," Sam says, and eyes the two beds.

"Which one do you want?" Dean asks, and debates the merits of being closer to the door or to the bathroom.

"I guess that one," Sam says, and flops down on the bed to the right, the one next to the bathroom, "since I'm used to it."

The bed closest to the door has always been Dad's, and Dean shares the second bed with Sam. Except now they get to have their own beds, fucking finally. It makes sense that Dean would get the one that used to be their dad's. "I don't know what I'm gonna do with myself now that you won't be heaving your nasty-ass breath on me all night long," he says. A whole queen-size of his own seems like unheard-of luxury.

"At least I don't roll on people," Sam huffs, like he's about a second away from sticking his tongue out at Dean.

"Slander!" Dean says, facetiously shocked. He grabs his toothbrush and toothpaste and heads to the bathroom while Sam rolls his eyes.

"Shut up and get ready for bed. We should be up by about nine-thirty at the latest. Set the alarm."

Sam's still punching random buttons, trying to figure out the clock-radio when Dean's done washing his face and brushing his teeth.

Dean crawls into the saggy bed, pulling up the cheap white comforter. He intends to read through the previous day's paper to get a feel of the place they'll be wandering around in the morning, but he feels his eyes slamming shut by the time he turns to the second page.

He figures it can't hurt just to close them for a minute, and the last thing he hears is Sam spitting into the sink.

The next thing he's aware of is a stray dog barking, shrill and close. It sounds little and ratty, probably an escapee from one of the nearby yards with a literal white picket fence. Dean groans and turns over, facing the middle of the room instead of the window, and yanks at the covers to get them up over his ears.

They don't budge, though. After a long moment of confusion, he realizes he can't pull them up any farther because someone has hogged them all, and is lying on more than half of them. "Sammy?"

he grumbles, pushing at the lump curled on the far edge of the bed, encased in a huge swathe of blanket. "What—bed? You've got—?" The words are slow and sticky in his mouth, tasting of stale sleep.

Sam just snorts and smacks his lips, soft smile on his face, burrowing deeper under the sheets before flopping over towards Dean. He blows out a hot breath right in Dean's face. Rolling his eyes, Dean just shoves harder, trying to dump Sam over the side.

Sam, typically, won't budge. "Fine. Whatever. Just don't breathe all over me—"

He doesn't have any trouble drifting off again; if anything, the hot damp against him from Sam's side of the bed just sinks heavy into Dean's skin like southern humidity and lulls him steadily back to sleep.

*

The alarm screams obnoxiously at nine-thirty AM on the nose. Dean rolls over to smack the sleep button, but winds up with an armful of Sam, instead. "Huh—shit," he says into Sam's scapula. He also appears to have stuck his elbow in a cold, drying pool of spit on Sam's pillow. "Fucking gross."

Completely forgoing any courtesies that involve not jamming various bony appendages into Sam's vulnerable spots, Dean scrambles over his little brother to turn the alarm off. He wipes his elbow clean in the vicinity of Sam's kidneys, harder than strictly necessary, and then with a strong heave-ho, shoves Sam out of his bed and onto the floor. A hollow thud suggests that Sam hit something on the way down.

Sam wakes up with a pained moan, and Dean could not actually care less that Sam may have concussed himself on the corner of the nightstand. "What'd you do that for?" Sam whines.

"You were in my bed, dude," Dean says, heading to the sink to brush his teeth. He almost trips when his feet get tangled in the comforter from Sam's bed; Sam must've tried to sleep there before he moved. Dean doesn't really know what to make of that.

"My mattress has pokey springs in it," Sam says. He sounds like he actually means it. Dean has a hard time telling when it comes to Sam, sometimes, though.

"So in a fit of pique, you decide to drench my bed in your spit.

Thanks. You're such a pal."

"At least I don't snore like a chainsaw," Sam shoots back, defensive.

"Shut the fuck up, droolface. I'm the wronged party here, so you don't get to mount a case."

Sam just huffs, leaning back against the headboard so hard it slams into the wall. He grabs the remote from the drawer of the nightstand and starts flipping through channels, punching at the buttons like he has something to prove. He must be looking for local news, because after watching for a while, he says, "Nothing big," right as Dean finishes shaving.

"Anything small?"

"Nope. Mostly DC stuff, anyway. And run-of-the-mill human interest crap." Dean holds off on turning on the water in the shower long enough to hear the news anchor talking about a heroic neighbor saving a family from their burning home.

"Library it is," Dean says, and turns on the water full blast, as hot as he can stand it.

*

"Okay, so I've got some back issues of this free local paper, the Sun Gazette," Sam says from the stacks.

They've hit at least four libraries already, and there are another five at least within close driving distance. It's almost obscene, and Sam is lapping it up.

The Chantilly Library, their current location, is a large, open-plan building with aluminum shelves, plum carpeting, and row upon row of high-tech computers. It's crawling with annoying little kids and their Stepford parents, geekface high-schoolers who would probably be Sam's friends under other circumstances, and bored housewives who would probably be more than just Dean's friends under other circumstances.

Sam shoots him a disgusted look when he catches Dean leering at a hot young MILF bending down to reach the low shelf in the self-help section. "Hello? Earth to Dean? Sun Gazette."

"I heard you," Dean says, and turns his attention to Sam. "Remind me not to callously dismiss your love of the library in future," he

adds, smiling.

"I'm exhausting the amount of times I'm physically capable of saying 'Shut up' to one person," Sam mutters, and shoves the newspaper at Dean. "Read. If you even can."

"Ha ha," Dean says dryly. He flips the paper the right way around and scans the article Sam was pointing to. "This is just a review of a TV show. Am I on the wrong—"

"Yeah, but look at it," Sam urges. Dean reads it more carefully.

Scariest Places on Earth: 6

(Fox Family)

Hosted by Linda Blair

An ordinary family is sent to investigate infamously haunted locations in this horror-genre reality show. The episode features the Bunnyman Bridge in Virginia, said to be haunted by a lunatic that escaped from a nearby asylum and kept himself alive by killing and eating wild rabbits, leaving their carcasses to be found strewed across suburban neighborhoods. Reportedly, he dressed as a rabbit when he killed his victims, always with an axe. They were left hanging near the bridge, and to this day reports of mutilated bodies and appearances of a tall man in a dirty rabbit suit near an overpass in Clifton are still filed.

The second location featured in the show…

"I'll be damned," Dean says, impressed. "That's a perfect lead if ever there was one. Angry spirit of a guy in a fucking rabbit suit?

Appearances centered around a bridge in Clifton—"

"Plus, it says under further references there's a paper on the bridge and the spirit by some guy, Conley. We can get one of the librarians to call around and have a look for us while we're checking out the bridge," Sam says. He's tilting back in his chair as far as he can go, and Dean just barely catches himself before he barks at Sam that he's about to crack his head open. Dean's doing the exact same thing with his chair, after all, and he'd never live it down.

"Good thinking. You photocopy, I'll go have a chat with—" Dean eyes the youngest, hottest librarian behind the desk, getting a read on her nametag, "Heather. Report back in ten."

Sam rolls his eyes and grabs the paper back from Dean.

Heather's not even paying attention when Dean sidles up to her section of the check-out desk. "Morning," he says, and leans into her line of sight. She's staring at something beyond the New Arrivals shelf. He gives her a quick smile, then turns to see what she was looking at.

Sam, apparently. Bending down to refill the bottom paper tray of the copier. Dean doesn't know whether to be smitten by a woman after his own heart, or weirded out and uncomfortable, getting an eyeful of Sam's t-shirt riding up the smooth skin of his back and his jeans pulling tight and frayed across his—well.

"How can I help you?" Heather asks brightly. She could always be this chipper, but if Dean knows anything—and he does—she's enjoying perving on his brother a little too much. He's kind of proud, actually.

*

Part 2

balefully.livejournal.com /598588.html

FIC: Almost At Home, Part Two

The Fancatus Bureau of Incest (balefully) wrote, 2008-07-07 16:51:00 � 50-64

minutes

Almost At Home

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Art and Soundtrack Post

Heather didn't turn out to be much help. She was a new volunteer and wasn't well-versed in the document storage system in Fairfax County.

"What's the point of you eyefucking the librarian if she isn't even gonna give us what we want?"

Dean shoots Sam an incredulous look, but Sam just blinks back at him innocently, obviously unaware of what he just said.

"Right," Dean says, and lets it slide. "She just didn't know, no big deal. Although maybe it should have been you eyefucking her, from what I saw. Might have gotten luckier. In more ways than one."

Sam scoffs. "You're insane, Dean. She was like. Ten years too old for me."

"Hey, watch it, she was my age at the most."

"Yeah, exactly, an old geezer." Sam can't keep the laughter out of his voice.

"Fuck you!" Dean can't either, really. "She was totally checking you out. A cougar, man, no question, and she wanted to put her claws in you." He doesn't know why he's humoring Sam, but he is, and it's fun, and Dean stopped questioning the stuff he does for Sam a long time ago.

"You're so full of shit."

"I'm serious," Dean huffs, affronted. "I was there, tryin' to reel her in, and she was staring at your scrawny ass at the copy machine, drooling like you were a New York strip."

"My ass is not scrawny, and you know it."

Sam has a point, but that's not one Dean's willing to give him. He changes the subject. "Where am I going? You're supposed to be

navigating, not preening over the state of your own ass, Samantha."

"Laugh riot, Dean. Every time I hear it." The eye roll is audible in his voice. "And you're supposed to be following the train tracks as close as you can. We need to find this random overpass. It should be somewhere around here. I did a sort of ghetto triangulation thing since I know it's gotta be about equidistant from a few different high schools, if it's the party spot everyone seems to think it is."

"Ooh, maybe we can—"

"Dean. If you are going to suggest coming back tonight to either hook up with these high school girls or to drink on the job, I'm gonna—"

"Turn miraculously into Dad at the slightest provocation?" Dean snaps. Not that he's actually planning on breaking the rules, but Sam's sudden holier-than-thou act is just not kosher.

Sam's mouth shuts tight instantly, and Dean can't tell if he's more offended or upset. It doesn't really matter, but the discontent wafting across the bench seat isn't doing Dean any favors.

"There!" Sam shouts, pointing through the line of the trees next to the road. They're driving parallel to the railroad, and through a gap an overpass is just visible, made of concrete and a rusted guardrail. It forms a bridge over an unmarked back road. "That's gotta be it."

"Now we just have to figure out how to get down to it."

*

There are heaps of trash clinging to the underbrush for yards around the arch of the overpass. A metric ton of beer bottles, piles of cigarette butts, more used condoms than Dean's seen in one place since—well, for a while.

"Urgh," Sam says, and kicks at a Miller bottle that may or may not be filled with piss. It rolls down the road with a wet clink.

"Well. I guess we know how to get here. Think we should stake it out or come back later tonight?" Dean asks, eyeing the graffiti inside the short tunnel of the bridge. It sucks, as far as urban art goes, which isn't surprising, considering it was probably done by pubescent rich kids from the suburbs with government contractors for parents. Like how the roadside's probably so stacked with shit because there aren't enough inmates around to do the clean-up.

"Probably come back later," Sam sighs, clearly none too happy about it. "We need to find that paper. It'll get dark in—what, like, three hours? Four? That's not so bad."

From the sound of his voice, it is pretty bad. "Well, we can at least get some food first," Dean says. "There's tons of restaurants around here. There was that barbeque place, Famous—Whoever's."

"Not that famous, I guess," Sam says.

"Groan," says Dean, and punches Sam lightly between the shoulder blades.

"Famous Dave's it is." Sam ambles back to the car, taking another look around.

Dean tromps through the trash gathered in small drifts at the side of the road, scanning with their Dad's spare EMF meter. There's a pretty consistent mid-level read. "Hey, check it out." He peers at a nearby tree, tracing his fingertips over it at eye-level. "Some pretty deep scarring on this trunk. Definitely looks like some kinda weapon – machete or hatchet or something."

Sam scribbles a note in a little spiral notebook he pulls out of the pocket of his jeans. "Okay, well. We got more to go on now, it should be easier to figure out what we're dealing with. I wrote down how we got here so we can get back in the dark. Let's hit the books."

Dean sighs, exasperated.

They're at the Clifton library this time, and the librarian is a forty-something woman with a soft face and a sweet voice. She takes a shine to Dean right away. "Local history buff, huh?" she says, and pats his hand where it's curled on the counter. "That's so nice, young boys like you two taking an interest in where you come from. So nice!"

Dean nods politely and shifts on his feet. "So, uh, can you—can you help us out?"

"I can, actually," she says with a chipper wink, and comes back with a folder from the back. "We've had a few people in here looking into the Clifton Bunnyman ever since that TV show, you know? Very sensational, they all want to get a good look at him."

Dean nudges Sam with his elbow. Those are probably all the hospital reports they've gotten. Sam did some hacking and printed out a

recent morgue database spreadsheet, too, and there have been four reported deaths from axe wounds in the past five years.

"Well, it's a fascinating story," Dean says, smiling as charmingly as he can. She finally hands over the folder.

"Hope you boys have fun and find what you're looking for." She turns back to the stack of books she was scanning in.

They find what they're looking for. The paper is well-researched and in-depth, and Dean's able to cross-reference almost every fact he finds.

"I did some searching," Sam says, sliding his pen in his mouth, lips puckered pink around it. He slides it back out and starts tapping it on the side of the table instead. "And I think I got something. He was an escaped felon, supposedly, right?"

"Yeah," Dean says, spinning in his swivel chair. "Escaped convict.

Gave them the slip when he was being moved from high-security prison to a high-security—mental institution, or whatever they call them. Secure Reform Centers for the Criminally Insane."

"Okay, well. There's this website, Castle of Spirits—shut up, I know, but I think they've actually got something. This Timothy Forbes guy posted about a woman he talked to, and she said that right around here, in the Clifton area, two children were allegedly murdered by a local hermit for trespassing, and their bodies were left hanging from a covered bridge. The guy, the hermit—she said he was supposed to be an escaped inmate dressed in a bunny suit."

"Gross," Dean says, shuddering. "Okay, well. That can't be a coincidence. You find anything at the morgue about those kids?"

"I didn't check back far enough, and I don't think I can get back into the system more than once," Sam sighed.

"Well I got something else." Dean slides over towards Sam on his chair's rollers. "Lorton Prison. Right nearby, erected in nineteen ten, it's part of DC's Department of Corrections."

"And?"

"And, in nineteen fourteen, two inmates from an asylum in Fairfax County, which was a bunch of farmers back then, escaped while being transferred there. One of 'em, Douglas Grifon, murdered the other one, Marcus Wallster. And no one ever heard from him again." Dean smacks his hand down on the table in triumph.

"Well, if no one ever heard from him again—what are we supposed to do about finding him and burning him?" Sam asks, frustrated.

"The report on that website you found said he was a hermit. And we know the basic radius around that bridge where the attacks have been happening, and it's definitely the center." He slides the map they've been marking up over to Sam for his approval. "So I think we just gotta go on a little hike around the railroad until we find where his cave was. Is."

Sam nods dejectedly. "This area's so developed now, though," he says. "If he had a hermit hut or whatever, it probably won't be there anymore. Bull-dozed down."

"The railroad was here back then, and if he's kept close to it when he's going after people, then his shack was probably close to it.

It won't have gotten a development thunked down on top of it."

"Here's hoping, anyway. And all the development is a good reason for him to be so stirred up and angry. There was a huge spike in the settling going on around here back when the report of the dead children was made in the seventies, and there's another one now.

Real estate prices soaring, tons of people moving to the suburbs to be—"

"Yeah, right, got it," Dean says, tempted to clap a hand over Sam's mouth. "It's over the river and through the woods we go." He gets up and stretches, catching Sam's eyes on him. "What?"

Sam doesn't say anything for long moment. "Nothing. You're just a freak."

"Takes one to know one, Sammy."

*

They find the hut, pleasantly un-bulldozed, but clearly worse for wear.

"Well shit," Sam says, crouching down to pick through a pile of rotting wood and debris.

"I vote we just torch the whole shebang," Dean says enthusiastically.

"You would," Sam mumbles. "In case you forgot, it's the middle of summer, it's dry as a bone out here, and we're perilously close to not only a railroad, but also infinite housing developments. With people in them."

Dean starts digging through the wreckage. It's late, darkness falling fast, and there's no way they're going to be able to find the Bunnyman's bones before the Bunnyman finds them.

"When he shows up, you just gotta keep on going," Dean says. He stops for a second to fix Sam with a somber look. "I'm serious.

I'll take care of Grifon, you just find the bones and don't get axed."

Before Sam can reply, they both hear the tinkle of breaking glass and raucous laughter winding through the trees. "Oh fuck," Dean hisses, and Sam kicks at the remnants of a cabin wall.

"Those brain-dead party kids," he says, and redoubles his efforts.

It's Friday of the last week of school for the county, and Dean could kick himself for not realizing what that would mean.

Drifts of hard-packed dirt and leaf compost cover everything, and Sam has to hack at it all with a shovel for way too long to be making much progress.

Full dark is upon them, and Dean hasn't gotten anything more promising than an old, mouldy tablecloth, riddled with yawning holes. "Maybe he'll come for us instead of them, since we're the ones fucking around in his—"

He's cut off by a blood-curdling scream. And that's that; he drops his shovel and throws one of the loaded shotguns to Sam, then careens off through the trees back to the bridge.

He breaks through the cover of the forest to see about ten kids scattering to their cars. One, though, a kid who can't be older than about 16—he can't get away. The thing's got him by the neck.

And then Dean gets a good look at it. It's the most hideous thing he's ever seen: at least six and a half feet tall, huge and solid and gnarled. The bunny suit is disgusting, matted with blood and mud and things Dean doesn't even want to think about. It's shining in the moonlight, slick against the brown-grey fur that must have been white once, discolored with age and filth.

But it's nothing compared to the head. The face is a mask with huge bugged eyes, made of black one-way material, so whatever's in there can see out and no one can see in. There's a gruesome mockery of a smile on its face, but there's no fur on the mask. It's hard and matte, like it's been carved from bone, jagged teeth and an empty cavern for a nose. The ears rise to ragged tapers a foot and a half above the top of its head, and they're ripped and covered with

gore, dried and stiff to keep them erect.

There's a stench wafting over Dean, thick and strong and clogging his nose and throat. It's like death and rot, shit and BO and vomit and sulfur and every bad thing he's ever smelled all rolled into one. The kid the Bunnyman's got in a head lock can't stop retching, and Dean's sure to follow if he doesn't speed this up.

He leaps down onto the road from the slope out of the woods, brandishing the shotgun. " Get down!" he screams at the kid. "Get the fuck down!"

But the kid can't go anywhere, held tight by the maniac with an axe to his throat, one mangled, gnarled paw holding it up near the head like he's going to scalp the boy.

Dean gets around behind them, dodging and twisting until he has a clear shot at the spirit's back, and he squeezes the trigger with his breath tight in his throat.

With a deafening blast, the rocksalt hits home and the manifestation disperses, leaving the poor kid choking on vomit, prone in the street. "Fuck, kid—you gotta get out of here, come on

—" All the kid's friends are long gone by now, and Dean can't leave him here in case the Bunny fucker rematerializes. "You gotta come with me, come on," he says, trying to sound reassuring as he hefts the kid up in a fireman's hold and sprints back to Sam as fast as he can.

Sam's got a pile of bones by the time Dean finds him again, but they can't know for sure if it's all of them. "This is just gonna have to do," Sam says, panting.

"He had this one," Dean says, filling Sam in, "in a chokehold.

Couldn't leave him."

Sam just nods and pours gasoline on the pile of bones.

The scent of the Bunnyman precedes him, the apparition appearing just over Sam's left shoulder. Sam hasn't lit the bones yet, but Dean can't risk it, and leaps towards Sam. He barrels into him, knocking them both violently sideways, and scrambles up again before Sam even figures out what's going on. He sacrifices his best lighter, striking it and hurling it into the bones without bothering to grab it back out.

Sam reaches up just as Dean reaches down, and they grip each other's forearms like if they let go they'll fall off the earth.

Dean yanks Sam up and he lands running, reaching out to catch the

kid around the waist and pull him along with them.

The bones are burning hot behind them, adding the hot stench of scorched bone to the wafting smell, and the Bunnyman is nothing but a dissolving specter behind them.

*

They stumble up to their motel room by about seven AM, after dropping Jason – they finally had a chance to ask him his name –

off at the hospital. Dean's skin is tight with the adrenaline thrill of a successful hunt. Sammy's eyes are wide and bright, practically glowing with accomplishment, and it doesn't even matter that they're covered with mud and bridge slime and ash.

Dean can't quite get the door open, warped with summer heat. He and Sam throw themselves at it, laughing as it creaks and groans and budges slowly open. It gives with a final weak protest and sends them tumbling into the room, giddy like they're on laughing gas.

"I think you broke it," Sam says through the tail-end of his bright laugh.

"It's their own damn fault for having shittily-made doors," Dean says, fingers twitching in the folded-up hem of his shirt. He grins at Sam and rolls over to the phone. "But if you're that worried—"

He calls the front desk, pacing in the short space of shag carpet between the two beds. "Jim Rockford here. Yeah, room two-oh-four.

The door warped shut and I had to kind of force it open. You should probably have a look at it. We'll be out of here soon, so. Yeah. Uh huh. No, nothing major. Thanks."

By the time he looks up from the pattern he'd been walking, Sam is stripping off his gross clothes in the doorway of the bathroom, light weak on his skin compared to the flood of sunlight from the window. "Dibs on the shower," he says, and Dean huffs a put-upon sigh, even though he doesn't really care that much.

"I get it next time, then," he says. He's fiddling with the lining of his pockets while Sam finishes peeling off his wet jeans from thick-muscled thighs, bare back and shoulders still streaked with dark grime, but half-glowing in the spread of morning.

Sam pulls the bathroom door to as he goes in, but doesn't shut it.

The gap of about six inches between the latch and the doorjamb opens directly onto the shower. Dean blinks at it for a moment, sees the bend-and-flex movement of Sam's arm and his hip as he shucks off his underwear. That snaps him out of it, though, brings

him back from what must be a weird post-hunt energy sink.

He paces as Sam gets clean, turns on the TV loud enough to down out the heavy fall of water cascading off flesh into the tub. Dean isn't normally a very irritable guy, but for some reason it's really getting under his skin this morning.

Sam finishes in the shower faster than Dean thought he would. He comes out with the scratchy motel towel wrapped around his waist, hair dripping all over everything, wet and flushed and steamed.

"Your turn," he says, eyes bright, after Dean doesn't shove him out of the way to elbow into the bathroom himself.

Dean kicks off his shoes and pulls off his shirts, leaving them in a gross pile by the bed. He leaves his jeans on, though, not quite sure why. He's on edge anyway and hunts always get his blood pumping, make him feel a little crazy. In the good way.

"Don't wait up," he crows, tossing Sammy a wink as he firmly closes the door behind himself. The bathroom is thick and heavy with steam, yet somehow it still manages to smell like Sam.

Dean kicks off his jeans and underwear, hissing when the rough waistband rubs over his half-hard cock. That's not an uncommon occurrence after a hunt, either. Just something about the thrill of survival, success, that makes him want to fuck.

Considering it's only about seven-thirty or eight, though, he'll have to make do for now.

He steps into the tub and turns on the water as hot as it'll go, knowing since Sam was in there first, "as hot as it'll go" isn't very hot at all. After he washes with the worn-down bar soap and shampoos his hair with the dregs left in the bottle – Sam's light years of skin and fucking Chewbacca mop strike again – he rations the conditioner to make sure he'll have enough.

His cock is insistent, and after a while he can't ignore it anymore. He wraps his hand around it, hard and desperate. It's been a while since he last jerked off, actually, and he can't bite back the groan of relief when he smears the conditioner around the head, fingers rubbing just right against the slit, under the crown, tight squeeze as he works his hand down and up, slick suck of the conditioner music to his ears.

Not caring if Sam can hear, he moans in the back of his throat as he uses his other hand to grab at his balls, gentle in the steady beat of water from the shower head. Dean finds a good rhythm, clenching and rocking into his own grip, sighing as he hardens

further and starts oozing drops of precome down the slick shaft, washed away in the stream of water.

He thinks of Heather, first, in a naughty schoolgirl outfit, begging him for his cock, begging him to make her take it. Her cunt is tight and hot, smooth as he imagines sinking into it up to his balls. After a while it's not Heather anymore, though, it's just an anonymous body he's fucking. It's the noises he imagines that really get him off, deep and throaty, then choked higher almost like sobs as his hips piston. It's when he realizes it's a guy's voice, a hot, tight ass clenching around his dick instead of a pussy, that he muffles a curse into his forearm and comes, hot and sticky and copious against the wall of the shower.

He's still panting when he finds the strength to stand up straight and finish rinsing off, confused and residually turned on. He gets dressed slowly, taking his time, trying not to think about anything at all.

*

They're on the highway by three, heading south. "Hey, Sammy?" Dean says, breaking a twenty-mile silence.

Sam makes a non-committal noise and looks up from his book. He'd swiped a couple from the library, apparently, and if he's going to sit around reading like a complete nerd, at least it's stolen reading material. That's almost acceptable.

"We don't have to be back right away. I mean. Dad knows we got it.

He won't be home tonight anyway."

Sam gets that brow-furrow again. "And?"

"And—I don't know, I just thought. I wanted to stop somewhere on the way back."

"Where'd you wanna stop?" Sam uses the card in the pocket at the back of the book for a bookmark, and turns to pay Dean all of his attention. It's palpable, and Dean would scoot farther away if he weren't behind the wheel.

"Virginia Beach, maybe?" he says, trying for nonchalant.

Sam laughs and smiles, broad and genuine. "Are you serious? That'd be awesome, Dean. Let's do it."

Dean laughs, feeling lighter. "The last time you went to the beach, you were like—"

"I know, I know, eight. And I hated it, man. We gotta make up for lost time."

"Yeah, we do," Dean says, and turns back to the road.

*

It's evening when they pull into an ocean-side parking lot and tumble out of the car, stretching and hopping in place to work the distance out of their bones.

The sun is just beginning to set, flaming out where the sea meets the sky, pouring orange and pink, spreading in every direction, color seeping into the water and the clouds and even the sand.

They both kick off their shoes and socks at the car; Sam pulls off his jeans and puts on a pair of old gym shorts over his briefs.

Dean's wearing boxers, and there's no one around to see, so he just shucks his jeans and doesn't bother putting on anything else. They ball up their shirts and head out to the water.

There're no towels, no blankets or umbrellas or picnickers on the stretch of shore where Sam and Dean find themselves. The sand is warm and dry between Dean's toes, shifting to cool and wet the closer they get to the tide mark.

Sam starts wading into the water right away, but Dean keeps walking up the beach, checking around for people. He can see the distant glow of a bonfire, but just one, and there don't seem to be many people gathered around it.

"It's fucking freezing," Sam laughs, and Dean jogs back to join him in the shallow surf. He can see the prickles of goosebumps lacing Sam's arms, his nipples tight with the ripples of icy water splashing against his shins.

"We'll get used to it," Dean says. "I'm not comin' all this way and not even swimming in the ocean. I don't care if I'm a popsicle by the end."

Sam takes that opportunity to splash Dean in the face. Which Dean totally saw coming, but that doesn't make it any less cold or taste any less pucker-sour with salt.

He tackles Sam into the water with a carefree shout, landing them both in the squelching slick and soaking them straight through.

Sam doesn't even complain, just rolls them both into deeper water and starts swimming farther out, past waist-height and into the

higher-rolling waves. He shoots Dean a grin over his shoulder, and Dean paddles after him, skin numbing in the cold. He can't even feel it anymore; in fact, it feels kind of warm, now.

They swim solidly for a few minutes, Sam striking out with long, windmilling freestyle strokes of his muscled arms, and fast kicks of his thick calves. Dean swims along breast-stroke, content to ride in Sam's wake. Eventually Sam stops, touching down to stand on the bottom. The water laps at his neck, and as Dean tries to set down beside him, he ends up perching on his toes to keep his chin above-water. Sam laughs smugly at him.

Dean doesn't even care, can't even summon a smart-ass retort. He just looks up, bouncing gently on the tips of his toes as the brilliant sky washes dark grey then dark blue then star-spangled black above them.

They sit like that, silent in the water, just watching the sky turn, for long minutes. Dean ducks under the water after a while, opens his eyes to check if he can see in the moonlight. He can't; it's dark murky grey despite the spill of silver light on the surface. When Sam comes under as well, though, Dean can see his up-turned face outlined in fuzzy green, the dark of his shorts a blacker shadow than the surrounding water.

Dean reaches out under the water, feeling the cloud of Sam's hair where it floats in a back-lit corona around Sam's face. Sam probably can't see much of him, either, but the thick stream of bubbles that leave his mouth is close enough to a laugh for Dean.

He pulls away and starts swimming for shore.

They lie on the sand, drip-drying in the night, and Dean isn't sure how long they've been here. Sam's head is on Dean's stomach, seam of his lips inadvertently brushing cool against Dean's skin whenever their eyes meet. They're curled towards each other, trying to stay warm as they drift carelessly between sleeping and waking.

"Thanks," Sam murmurs, finally breaking the silence.

"For what?" Dean asks, pulled out of a shallow, half-conscious sleep.

"For this. I don't know. My last memories of—the last time we went to the beach it wasn't good. This is—this is much better." His mouth tickles Dean's belly as he talks.

"You're welcome, I guess," Dean says. "But it's not that big of a deal. Now that we're on our own more, we'll be able to go to the

beach whenever you want."

Sam sighs, something weighing heavy on him. "You never know, Dean.

We might not."

Dean doesn't have an answer for that. His silence blends into the quiet rush of the waves on the sand, and he watches as Sam slowly relaxes again, pliant against him. They lie there for a while longer, minutes flowing into each other with the tide.

Sam is the first to get up, quiet and sudden, but he reaches down, hand held out to Dean, to help him follow.

*

They make it back to the house in Bells by about eight in the morning. Dad's not home yet, but he should be soon, and Dean wants to have something ready for him when he gets back.

Sam takes over the kitchen, demanding that Dean let him make pancakes.

"The fuck do you know how to make pancakes from scratch?" Dean asks, and Sam smacks him on the ass with the spatula.

"Public access channel," Sam says, taking things out of cupboards Dean didn't even know they had. "Greta Livermore's cooking show."

"You just watch that 'cause she's fucking hot," Dean laughs, and jumps up to sit on the counter next to where Sam's mixing together flour and something-or-other.

"And?" Sam says, and if Dean didn't know better, he'd say his little brother is leering.

"And nothing." Dean just watches in silence as Sam whisks stuff together and ladles out pools of batter into the skillet. Sam flips the pancakes as they cook, usually pretty well but sometimes they're overly brown or kind of ripped up after he slides them out onto the platter.

It's nice, but the fact there's stuff Dean doesn't know about Sam—

his ability to cook, his stupid crush on the local TV personality—

weighs heavy on him.

Dad gets home just as Dean is polishing off his second plate of pancakes. He doesn’t say anything at all, just tromps through the kitchen, covered in slime with blood caked around the collar of his shirt.

His eyes are dull and lifeless, and Dean's up instantly to shove his shoulder under his dad's arm and help him to his room. "Christ, Dad, what—"

He just shakes his head, and Dean snaps his mouth shut.

Sam is pressed back against the counter in the kitchen when they pass him on their way to the hall. He looks like he can't get far enough away. Scared, but he's mad, too, Dean can tell.

Dean had almost forgotten what Sam looked like when wasn't loose-limbed and happy, or exasperated but reluctantly amused. He doesn't like the way Sam's face slams shut, the way his eyes go cold.

Dean wrangles their dad onto his bed, conveniently unused for weeks. After he slides off his boots and Dad's ruined jacket, he slips out of the room to get the first aid kit.

"Where's the disinfectant, Sam," Dean hisses, rooting around in the box from under the sink.

Sam stays defiantly silent, and their dad emerges from the back of the house in sweatpants and a wifebeater. There's a wide gouge through his shoulder and his hands are covered in lacerations; he's bleeding freely.

"What happened?" Sam asks, voice hard and even.

"Shut up, Sam," Dean murmurs, and sits their dad down at the kitchen counter, cleaning the shoulder wound and the scrapes on his hands as quickly and thoroughly as he can.

"Black dogs," Dad says, exhausted.

"You're stupid. You're so stupid—why would you go after. Christ, there were more than one?"

" Sam," Dean snaps.

Dad just stares Sam down. "Don't you talk back to me."

Sam's got his hackles up, but he doesn't take it any further, huffing and heading straight for the family room. The TV starts up, loud and obnoxious.

Dad shakes his head, eyes sad. "How was he? You know, the past couple days."

"Great, actually," Dean says, and finishes tying off the bandage he's working on. "Really great."

"—Good." He looks skeptical.

"I don't know, I think maybe he's just kinda bitter you won the college argument without there even being a knock-down, drag-out fight."

Dad makes a noncommittal noise, still worried around the eyes, but he stands up and slaps Dean's back manfully. "I'm beat, son.

'Night."

"G'night," Dean mumbles, and starts packing up the first aid kit.

He's gonna make it up to Sam—he is. For doing the right thing, the good thing, without even lashing out about it. He deserves to be happy, at least, even if it's not because he's doing what he really wants.

*

All three of them head to Maryland for the next job, Dad in the truck and Sam and Dean together in the Impala. It's an easy drive, but with Dad in the lead there's no stopping but also no breakneck speeding. With that combination, they end up making about the exact same time Dean and Sam would've made on their own.

They book the room under the name Busch, Sam at the front desk while Dean and Dad park the cars. He brings back the key and helps them carry the bags inside; they're going to be doing a thorough weapons inventory and cleaning while they're here.

Dean throws his duffle on the left side of the double he'll be sharing with Sam. After he's already started in on taking apart the shotguns, Sam surreptitiously nudges it to the other side of the bed, and puts his own duffle on the left side.

"What the hell?" Dean says, checking the sight on the gun.

"The air conditioner's on the other side. It's too cold. You have more insulation, it'll be easier for you sleep on the right," Sam wheedles.

"Dude, are you calling me fat?" Dean blinks, nonplussed.

"Not fat," Sam says, suppressing a grin. "Just. Robust."

"You little punk—" Dean starts, setting the shotgun aside before jumping up and wrestling Sam to the floor. Sam shouts with

laughter, rolling and dodging and trying to pin Dean back against the wall. The scuffle ends with both of them wincing and laughing at the same time, shoved in the narrow space between the bed and the wall. Dean's face is smashed to the floor so hard he's positive he's got rug burn on his cheeks, and Sam's neck is yanked at an impossible angle where he's scrunched against the wall.

Neither of them can get up.

"Um," Sam manages eventually. "Dad?"

Dad's silent for a long moment, and Dean's positive he's going to yell and rip them both a new one for jerking around instead of working.

He doesn't, though. He actually starts chuckling, honest-to-god, and Dean hasn't heard their dad laugh in—months, at least. It's good. Really good.

"Need some help?"

"Just, um," Dean says, trying to shove his feet against the cold metal frame of the bed to get some leverage. "Can you just pull the bed out some?"

"Nope," he says, smile practically audible. "But I think maybe I'm gonna go get another room. You boys are adults now, and I think I'm willing to shell out the extra cash if it means you get your own beds and actually sleep instead of shoving each other and bickering all night. Well-rested and able to hunt is a lot more useful than surly and bruised."

Dean recognizes the dull metal thud of one of the weapons duffels, and the click of the door shutting. "Fuck," he spits, struggling to get his leg free from where it's wedged under the bed. "This is all your fucking fault, Sam."

"Whatever, you totally jumped me first," Sam whines, and pushes against where his foot is jammed in Dean's solar plexus.

" Ow ow ow, no. Stop!" Dean bellows and ends up wrenching his leg so hard, he knees Sam in the stomach as his foot pops out from where it was stuck under the low bed frame.

"Unf," Sam says, doubling over as much as he can in the space allotted. "Shit."

"Sorry, sorry," Dean breathes, finally able to get the sole of his boot situated against the wall. He shoves hard, twisting painfully

in the confined space so his arms are under him and he can wriggle out into the middle of the room. "Oh thank Christ." He heaves a relieved sigh and collapses on his back on the floor.

"Little help?" Sam says, voice muffled by the wall and the fact that his windpipe is probably bent in two.

Dean's tempted to just let him rot there for daring to steal the left side of the bed, but he doesn't. He grabs the opposite legs of the frame and yanks as hard as he can, effectively giving Sam half a foot more to maneuver around in.

Luckily that's enough, because the bed won't budge an inch more.

Sam contorts himself impressively and manages to get himself upright and standing. "Wow," he mumbles. "Let's never do that again."

"No," Dean agrees.

Sam stays in his own bed that night, but he doesn't move it back from where Dean dragged it. When Dean wakes up at about two to the sound of a thunk in the next room, Sam's curled towards him on the other side of the space between them, practically falling off the side of the bed, he's so close to the edge.

Dean watches the heavy, even rise and fall of Sam's chest to lull himself back to sleep.

In the morning, they don't even bother to get dressed. They just pull out the bags their dad left behind and get to work cleaning the guns and the knives and pouring fresh holy water from the clear gallon jugs into the flasks.

Sam takes it upon himself to mix drops of it into all the polish for the guns and all the polish for the knives, then each silver bullet and even some of the casings for the shot gun. "Does holy water still work if the actual molecules evaporate?" he wonders out loud. "I mean. Does the—holiness or whatever—does it get left behind?"

"Fuck if I know, Sammy." Dean snaps the pieces of the Glock he's holding back together, then loads it and flips the safety on.

"Don't care, either."

Sam's skin is still creased pink on his face and biceps, the long line of his neck mottled with traces of pillow and sheets. His eyes are soft and cloudy with remnants of sleep, but he's alert and awake. Just hasn't shaken the night off himself just yet.

His hair is mussed, hanging long over the nape of his neck. It's thick and looks soft, curls bent into it and not yet brushed out.

He's wearing his favorite muscle tee, and it's almost a shock to see Sam in something without long sleeves. His shoulders jut out of the armholes, thick biceps tapering to strong forearms and wide capable hands. The coarse hair of his armpits is just barely visible, a dark shadow above the swell of muscle wrapping from the sides of his ribs to his back.

Dean feels stupid, suddenly, but in a good way. Punch-drunk. He doesn't question it, just puts down the gun he's finished with and picks up the next one.

Dad sends them to the library when they're done. It's just down the street and they end up walking, grabbing breakfast on the way.

They're standing in line at a poky, mom-and-pop bakery when a girl about Sam's age smiles a coy smile at Dean from the table by the door.

"Dude, I got a live one," he whispers to Sam. She's hot in a sweet kind of way, blonde waves down to her shoulders, wearing a tanktop and denim skirt that hits a respectable mid-thigh. Dean smiles back at her just as Sam turns to look. She colors, dusty pink in her cheeks that matches her sandals, and she smiles at Sam, too, practically batting her eyelashes. "Okay, we've got a live one.

What is it with you lately, man? You keep scamming my chicks."

"Maybe that's because I don't say things like scamming my chicks,"

Sam says with an indulgent grin.

"Or maybe it's because you're an enormous freak of nature," Dean says, off-hand. Because Sam clearly is. He's got several inches on Dean, at least, and he probably isn't done growing. He's bulked up some under their constant work this summer, training and sparring and hunting filling him out so he's less beanpole and more thick, healthy. His body is his own, and there's just—there's something else. Like he has purpose or hope or something cheesy that just draws him up strong. Draws girls' eyes to him – guys' eyes to him.

Dean's eyes to him.

Part of it might just be that, despite the fact that he's a whiny geek, Sam has become self-sufficient and competent. After they scour the library, they go back to the motel and run some drills in the grass by the parking lot, and there's nothing else for it. Dean can usually get the upper hand just by virtue of predicting Sam's moves before he makes them, but Sam is in shape to a kind of ridiculous degree. His long hair doesn't even get in the way; Dean

tries to hold him in a headlock with it, thick and soft between his fingers, but Sam doesn't even flinch and twists out of it with a solid crack to the back of Dean's knee.

Dad tries to make him cut it anyway. Dean would've told anyone who'd listen what would happen if he tried, but of course no one was listening. They're all in Dad's room collating their research from the day, which gives Dad the perfect opportunity to get on Sam's case and start making demands with no reasons and no room for backtalk.

But a Sam without backtalk is hardly Sam at all, and as soon as the conversation starts, it escalates to shouting and senseless argument. Dean can't even figure out what they're fighting about.

It's certainly not hair-related anymore, and it sounds like it has to do with responsibility and availability and—he can't really take this shit. He just leaves.

He waits down the breezeway in his and Sam's room for Sam to come back, and he does, slamming doors all the way.

Sam immediately starts in, ranting to Dean about how unreasonable Dad's being, but it actually seems kind of normal. More frustration than rage.

"I don't wanna hear it, Sam," Dean says, stern, and shoots Sam a sharp look. The fact that he quiets down without having to be asked twice means it wasn't a big deal to begin with, relatively speaking.

They dispatch the harpy terrorizing the town, and move on like always. Each subsequent place they stop plays out with variations on the theme. It's good, and it's settled, and yeah, Sam and Dad fight like dogs and Dad still drinks sometimes, but it isn't so bad when he's in a different room.

Dean takes a moment one night to sit back and look at the big picture. It's bright and crisp and amazing; Dean has everything he needs.

*

Next, they move to a farmhouse in Kentucky. They're technically squatting, but Caleb's used it as home base before, and they're not in any danger of being discovered and thrown out. There's electricity and clean running water, hot and cold, and that's more than they've managed with lots of times before.

After the first day of settling in, Dad immediately jumps in his truck and sets off to take care of a poltergeist one state over.

One poltergeist turns into two turns into a weird neighborhood infestation, and eventually Dean stops waiting for the call where Dad will say he's coming home, and starts expecting more calls where he begs off for "just a few more days, son."

Sam blossoms, now that he's out from under Dad's thumb again. Dean has been alone with him more this summer than ever before, and he feels like he should be getting claustrophobic, sick of Sam and his bratty teenage attitude and huge, smelly feet.

He isn't, though. The longer it goes on, the longer it feels like they're supposed to be this way, the two of them against the world, their Dad nothing but a watchful presence calling to check up on them. They're supposed to be investigating a spirit in Dremen, but after the preliminary research, they figure out it only appears every twenty-three days, and they can't find where the corpse has been dumped until they get a read on the manifestation patterns and where they're happening.

So in the meantime, they play house. Dean picks up a job doing road construction, Sam works part-time at the used bookstore in town, and together they just manage to scrape together a pittance. Sam leaves at noon and gets home by four, Monday through Friday. Dean's usually outside from seven to four-thirty, baking in the sun and tiring himself out so by the time he gets back it's almost five and Sam's making dinner.

The shower is his daily respite, soothing muscles that ache hot in the good way, washing away road dust and sticky sweat where it rubs itchy against Dean's ribs, behind his knees, in the soft creases above his thighs, front and back.

He's never been more glad to have a one-story house. He and Sam share a bedroom in the back, though there are two. Sam or Dean could have Dad's room while he's not home, but neither of them make a move to claim it. Dean needs to be able to hear Sam at night, to know exactly where he is at all times. Sam must be indulging him.

They joke more and bicker less, and when they do fight, it's about nothing more grave than what to watch on TV and who's taking out the trash.

They practice with weapons and spar together when they can; Dean doesn't even have to force Sam to do it. Sometimes, he comes home from work to find Sam not in the kitchen or on the couch, but out

back in the expansive field behind the house, instead.

The rolls of old hay dotting the sweeping carpet of tall grass are caked with dry rot, laying down a sickly sweet smell under the summer heat. It dissipates by the time it reaches the house, lending everything a light air of age and bright sun and domesticity-turned-wild.

When they first took over the old farmhouse, Sam had taken it upon himself to fashion a series of targets from the mounds of hay using foamcore and paint from the hardware store in town. Dean helped him out when he could, but mostly, Sammy just did it on his own. It was probably to give himself something to do with his hands, a task to take his mind off the monotony threatening to dull the soft joy of empty, carefree days.

He started out using them for crossbow practice, but after a while he'd shot wide holes through every single bull's-eye.

"I got the knife case out of your car," he says, late one Thursday night. Their window is open and a thick breeze curls around Dean's arms. He glances across the room at Sam's bed, watching the grey shadow of his hair stirring as the air moves in the room.

"What do you need that for?" Dean turns to his stomach, hands loose around the gun under his pillow, chin propped up on top. "Found out something else about the—"

"No, no, nothing like that." Shuffling sounds emanate from Sam's bed, and then Dean can just see the watery moonlight turning Sam's eyes silver in the shadows. "Wanna practice with them. Throwing, you know. Could be useful."

"Sure, yeah," Dean says, smiling small and secret. Sam's gonna get better than he is, if Dean doesn't watch out and keep stretching ahead. "But if you don't clean 'em 'til they're spotless and sharp enough to slice a hair in half after every single use, I'll tan your ass."

Sam laughs, and Dean watches the erratic shifting of his long legs under the single sheet he's using for a summer blanket. His heels hang off the end of the bed when he stretches out straight, so he always tends to pull his knees up towards his stomach, a big, loose ball of Sam. "I know, I know. What I don't know is how you're so fastidious about 'em, and your guns and shit, but you just let them all thump around randomly in a big pile in the trunk of your car.

How can you find anything? Or keep it in good condition? Or—"

"Because I'm a master armsman," Dean says with a mock put-upon sigh. "I couldn't expect you to even begin to understand my intricate weapons-filing system." He can practically hear Sam's smile through the silence, punctuated by the raucous chirping of crickets and frogs out in the fields.

The next day's Friday and Dean's crew finishes up the paving job they've got ahead of schedule, so Dean gets to leave at noon.

He comes home half-starved for anything resembling lunch, and also way less tired than he ever usually is when he walks through the door on workdays. After the obvious first stop in the kitchen to see if maybe Sammy's making some half-assed Wonderbread sandwiches or something for lunch, he wanders out to the back porch.

Sam's down the hill, in the back field with the knife case set up on an old wooden picnic table, bowed with age and weather. He's not wearing a shirt, the high-noon sun beating down on his bunching muscles, browning his skin past the gold of a month ago and into bronze, richer and darker. Dean's mouth goes dry, and he curses his own lame skin, prone to lobstering, blistering, and freckling.

Which sucks.

He sits on the steps of the porch, keeping quiet and watching Sam through the screen door. Sam picks a knife, hefting it his hand, getting the feel of it. He makes a few clumsy passes with it, learning the weight again. After a while, it's just graceful loops and quick slices through the air; Dean imagines he can hear the whistle of the blade cutting into nothing.

Sam flings the blade toward the nearest target, a fast snap of his arm and long slow follow-through. Dean smirks as it hits the outside upper rim of the huge target, feet from the bull's-eye and almost missing the hay altogether.

Sam curses loud enough Dean can hear it all the way up at the house, but he grabs the next knife, identical to the first, and tries again. It's still pretty far off, and Dean sits through the last three throws of their five-knife throwing set with a smug half-smile on his face.

Sam jogs over to the target to yank the knives out one by one. All except the last one, anyway, which is at an awkward angle and apparently sunk deep, up to the hilt, and he's struggling with it.

And then he's shouting, pained and surprised, and Dean starts up immediately, heart going fast.

He sprints down the hill, shouting, "Sam! Sam, fuck, what'd you do?" and comes to an awkward stop in front of his brother by the roll of hay, hands hovering out like he doesn't know what to do with them. "You fucking moron—what hap—"

Sam's just laughing, though, sound only slightly tinged with the bite of pain. He shakes his head self-deprecatingly. "Nothing, nothing, I'm fine, I—" There's a shallow pool of blood in the cupped palm of his left hand, dripping down over the meat of his thumb and trickling between the fine bones of his wrist. "Just me being a retard. Slipped trying to wrench the knife out and it got me across the—" he stops. "You know, the fleshy underside knuckle part. Like the balls of your feet, except—"

"Whatever, Sammy, let me fucking look at it. You're bleeding kind of a lot, and I just sharpened those knives, so—"

"No, seriously," Sam insists, pulling his hands away as Dean reaches for them. "I'm fine."

"You're not fine; you're a stupid dickhead who can't remember the basic knife safety they teach five-year-olds in Boy Scouts," Dean grumbles. "And you're supposed to be the smart one, Jesus Christ.

What does that make me, the village idiot?"

Sam just turns his left hand over and flattens it out, effectively dropping the blood to splat on the ground, semi-congealed. He's been pressing on the cut with his left thumb, and the blood's slowed to only oozing sluggishly, now. His fingers are all coated in sticky redness, thick in the heat.

He waggles them at Dean, waving and threatening to wipe them all over his shirt; Dean fidgets and dodges until Sam lets his hands fall to his sides. They just stand there for a minute, Dean not entirely sure what he's supposed to say now. Sam obviously doesn't need him to clean the cut and put a band-aid on it; he's capable of doing it himself and has been since he was six.

Sam takes advantage of the stillness to reach his left hand up and smear a generous trail of blood down Dean's cheek. It's sloppy and hot, and Sam manages to drag his thumb over the corner of Dean's lips as he pulls his hand away with an easy smile. "Oops," he says, deliberately.

It's a reflex. That's all it is, just a reflex, when Dean lets the tip of his tongue slide out to lick at the fat drop of Sam's blood on his lips. It tastes like watery iron, warm and sour and rich.

Sam's fallen silent, motionless, just standing there watching Dean.

Sam's chest is heaving; Dean's is, too, and he's definitely not out of breath from the short run down the hill. He can still feel the smear of blood drying at the corner of his lips; Sam's eyes are fixed there – he's not even blinking.

Sam lifts his arm for a split second, then drops it, an abortive movement towards Dean's face like he was going to wipe away the blood before he remembered his hands are still covered in it.

He leans forward instead, so close Dean can see the green in his eyes, the tiny mole in the middle of Sam's eyebrow that Dean's pretty sure Sam doesn't even know he has. So close Dean can feel the hot flush of Sam's cheeks, a distinct warmth separate from the noon heat.

A secret little smile brushes across Sam's face, almost smug, as he closes the distance. Dean can see what's coming, knows exactly what Sam is going to do before he does it, but knowing it doesn't stop the sudden intake of breath and the violent pounding of his heart as Sam licks at the sticky smear tucked into the corner of Dean's mouth.

Dean just watches, transfixed, eyes crossed to focus on the sweet push of Sam's nose against his philtrum, skin singing where Sam chases one sticky dampness with another.

The slow, deliberate lick morphs into a kiss. There's no other word for it. Sam's lips are warm and wet against Dean's, the tang of blood smeared between them, over Dean's teeth and tongue and just barely rubbed against Sam's chin. He lets his eyes slide shut, lazy-smooth.

Dean can feel Sam's smile, and he kisses back. It's not even a conscious decision; the buzzing knowledge of what was going to happen just turns into the buzzing need to keep it happening, everything tingling and itchy and fuck, but Sam's good. His teasing gentleness turns firm and insistent, and Dean starts playing a little, starts nipping at Sam's lips and sliding his tongue in just enough to brush Sam's teeth.

Sam makes noises, bright noises into Dean's mouth, barely audible above the summer insects and birds and the stirring of the weak breeze in the grass. Dean can feel the sun beating down on his arms, his neck and scalp burning angry red, but he doesn't even care when Sam's bloody hands come up to wrap around Dean's back, gripping fistfuls of Dean's shirt, spanning across his ribs and spine, big and rough. Leaning right into Sam's hold, Dean's never

been more glad he has a propensity for wearing black tees. He lets his own hands drift to Sam's slim hips, fingers and thumbs enclosing his sides, rubbing at the soft browned skin over his waistband, the trail of sparse hair up to his navel.

All Dean can taste is blood. Each and every painful, scary, frantic memory of Sam he's associated with that metallic bite is erased, one by one, all of them replaced with a different part of Sam, a different part of this. Instead of thinking of that time when he collapsed after gutting a Wendigo in Montana, coughing up viscera, Dean will remember Sam's bangs brushing Dean's eyelashes. The way they make him blink and bring one hand up from around Sam's waist to Sam's forehead, pushing his hair back. Dean lets his fingers twist in it, bury themselves in it, its softness, still coarse and heavy with the beginnings of sweat.

He'll remember the sighs Sam presses into his mouth, the slide of their lips and the brush of their tongues, the delicious, deep throb that spreads from the insides of his cheeks all the way down through his chest and into his hips, though his cock, thighs, down to his toes.

He'll feel the firm give as he runs his calloused fingers up Sam's bare chest, skin scorching hot and glowing in the sun; hear the steady beat of Sam's pulse as he circles Sam's neck with his hands, thumbs laid across the flutter at each side of his throat.

He burns it into his memory when Sam pushes on his shoulders, urging him to the ground. Sam spreads his legs over Dean's waist, wraps his arms around his neck and just kisses him, like it's all he ever wants to do for the rest of his life.

Dean should be disgusted; he knows he should. He can think about it, detached, completely objective. He should probably wonder what is so fucking wrong in his head that this makes him so happy. And it does, absolutely, a painful swell in his chest as Sam pulls away that says he is fucked, and it's just fine with him.

Blinking at Dean, Sam keeps his smile quiet and real, smeared faint red with his own blood from Dean's lips. He licks at it, eyes fixed on Dean's, hooded and pleased.

He doesn't say anything, doesn't need to. Just stands up and turns back to the case of knives, not losing Dean's gaze until he focuses on the target again. He's throwing with his left hand, the sliced one, from an awkward angle, way too close, because he doesn't seem to want to get any farther away from Dean.

Tossing a quick succession of all five knives, Sam thunks them all into the target, clustered close around the bull's-eye, stuck deep into the foamcore and molding hay.

Dean just feels good – loose and proud. After the last knife slams into the red circle to the hilt, he gets up and stalks over to Sam, tucking his thumb into Sam's frayed belt loop, pulling him close.

He presses their mouths together again, laughs into Sam's lips, congratulatory and self-indulgent all at once. He wraps his hands around the sides of Sam's chest, up the layer of muscle and unscarred skin over his ribs.

Sam cups his hands around the back of Dean's head, pushing the tips of his fingers through the fine, close-shaved hair at the nape of his neck, slipping in the drips of sweat trickling into Dean's collar. They kiss until they're both breathless, until they both taste like hay dust and knife metal and Winchester blood and tall Kentucky bluegrass.

*

Part 3

balefully.livejournal.com /598274.html

FIC: Almost At Home, Part Three

The Fancatus Bureau of Incest (balefully) wrote, 2008-07-07 16:50:00 � 31-39

minutes

Almost At Home

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Art and Soundtrack Post

They dispatch the ghost right on schedule, the day after their dad comes back from his extended tour of poltergeist duty. It's good to get out of the house, everything feeling too confined and awkward with the three of them there. Dean isn't sure how to reconcile what he has with Sam with the role he's supposed to be playing, with Dad being home. He finds that ignoring the problem works best.

The spirit appears in the woods outside of town, Sam and Dean chasing its trail to the ancient, broad oak tree about a mile away from the nearest highway.

Digging up the bones is easier than Dean thought it would be, the both of them shifting and grunting, reveling in the sharp ache of muscles and the fuzzy blanket of exhaustion that descends after they've lit the corpse.

They sit at the edge of the impromptu grave amidst gnarled roots, and Sam draws his legs up, crossing them to sit Indian-style, back hunched and shoulders bowed.

"You good, Sammy?" Dean asks.

"Yeah, actually," Sam says, sounding surprised. "Shoulders hurt, but sort of in the good way."

Dean laughs and tousles Sam's hair. He doesn't let his hand drop, though, keeps it resting across the top of Sam's back, fingers and thumb bracketing the base of Sam's neck.

Sam rolls his head, swaying almost imperceptibly closer to Dean.

They're both tired, but they have to stay until the bones are completely burned; have to make sure the job is done.

Dean's staring into the fire, watching the flames lick up the sides of the hole they dug when he feels Sam's hand close over his chin, pull him around to face Sam.

He presses a dry kiss to Dean's lips, chapped but sweet with woodsmoke and loam. "Hey," Sam says, and Dean digs his blunt nails into Sam's skin, kisses back softer and more careful than before.

It's different after it's not the first time anymore. He's more conscious of what they're doing, of what Sam might like or not like. He kind of wishes he wouldn't think so much.

But this is Sam.

Dean lets that thought drive him, and slides the hand against Sam's neck around to push at the hard dip of his collarbone, to get Sam to lie back in the mulch at the base of the tree. He crouches over his brother, pressing kisses to his lips, soft, then to his chin, jaw, softer still as he trails down Sam's neck.

The fire crackles next to them, and Dean clenches his fingers in handfuls of Sam's t-shirt, damp with sweat; hums against Sam's skin and trails the tip of his tongue in the hot grooves of Sam's neck, just tasting.

Sam pulls him back up, though, claims his lips in another kiss, and it isn't until the fire burns itself out, the smell of charred bones sunk deep into their noses, that he finally lets Dean go.

They walk back to the house hip-to-hip, but Dean shoves into the bathroom first, a little tired and a lot satisfied.

Sam's sitting on his bed when Dean comes out of the shower. He was tempted not to sling the towel around his hips at all, just bust out of the bathroom in his birthday suit, but he wouldn't want to give Sammy a heart attack.

He kneels on the bed next to Sam and grabs his head in his hands, pulling them together for a hard, demanding kiss, just because he feels like it. It's deep and perfect and Sam's practically begging for it, pushing himself up against Dean, needy, tilting his head back like he's offering Dean everything he could possibly want.

Dean takes it. He licks at Sam's mouth, bites and hums and drinks him in. And just when he feels Sam melting, weak under him, he goes in for the kill.

He digs his fingers into Sam's side, precisely placed for maximum damage, and tickles the living fuck out of him. Perfect sneak attack, right when Sam least expects it.

Sam practically screams into Dean's mouth, jerking his head up so fast, if Dean hadn't been expecting that exact reaction, he

probably would have ended up biting his tongue in half.

" Jesus Christ," Sam shouts, spasming into a tight ball, arms wrapped around his sides protectively and eyes squinted shut. "No, no, that's not—you can't—" But Sam can't keep his breath long enough to chew Dean out, because if there's one thing Dean knows, it's all Sam's weak spots.

Sam's the most fucking ticklish person Dean has ever known. Ever.

Which seems like it should pose a good tactical advantage, except that until now, Dean always thought tickling was way too gay, and infinitely preferred dead arms and strategic farting.

Now that his favorite hobby is shoving his tongue down his little brother's throat, though, a change in sibling warfare operations is only sensible.

Sam is rolling wildly, trying to shove Dean off the bed, or to get away, or something—Dean's not exactly sure. He sounds like a dying pig, and it's lucky he needs to keep all his limbs tucked as close to his body as possible to decrease the surface area available to Dean for tickling, because otherwise there would probably be considerable bodily injuries sustained by both parties.

"Can't take it—stop, fucking—fucking stop, you—" he grits out.

Mostly, though, it's just insane laughter, shrieking and high-pitched and god Dean wishes he'd thought to have a tape recorder or a video camera. He's also thankful their dad's outside around the back of the house, or else he'd think they were murdering each other. This—this is just unreal. Sam's face goes beet red, and he almost looks like he's pain, tears streaming down his cheeks.

Dean kind of feels sorry for him, actually, so he stops. Just lets his hands drop to his thighs, and sits quietly to watch the aftermath.

It's like Sam's shell-shocked or something, unmoving for long moments while he gulps in air and the color of his face shifts back to normal, body strung taut as a bow. Dean can see as each individual muscle group slowly relaxes, Sam gradually unfurling on the bed.

And that's when Dean's hands shoot forward, ready for round two just when Sam thinks he's safe.

Except somehow, he overestimated Sam's recovery period, and all he gets are vise-grips around each of his arms, and before he knows it, he's flipped and turned and Sam is holding his wrists smashed violently to the wall at the head of the bed.

"You are such a dirty fucker," Sam hisses, eyes alight above his feral smile. He leans down and crushes their mouths together, painful but delicious, thighs clenching tight on Dean's sides until he can barely breathe, the bones of his wrists grinding together, sparks of heat shooting everywhere, just enough hurt to keep everything sharp and on edge. Dean can't get any air, doesn't even want to when he starts to feel dizzy, light, Sam not letting him up, tongue and lips and teeth stealing every breath from him.

And as fast as he'd pinned Dean, he's up again, across the room, shooting Dean a dark look that sends shivers down his spine as Sam leaves. "Target practice with Dad in the back," he says.

And Dean's never been harder or more frustrated in his entire fucking life.

He gets Sam back the next day after lunch, shoving him away from the central island, not stopping until Sam's lower back hits the kitchen counter next to the sink. Dean kisses him breathless, hears his hands scrabble on the edge of the Formica, and he's practically whining into Dean's lips, barely audible. It just encourages Dean to press closer, kiss harder, suck at Sam's tongue and slide his lips to Sam's ear, nipping at the lobe.

Dean can feel Sam against him, cock hot and rigid through his jeans. He's making subtle, shifting flexes of his hips, catching Dean's thigh and the wing of his pelvis. So Dean pulls back suddenly, grins at Sam, smug and satisfied. And then he walks out, joining their Dad in the family room, watching the news for any reports on local disturbances. He just barely catches Sam's frustrated sigh, and can't decide between laughing and feeling disappointed when he hears the door to their room slam shut.

*

It goes on like that, week after week. Dean pushes down the niggling feeling that he shouldn't be doing this, shouldn't be living for it the way he is. He just lets himself enjoy it.

Dean and Sam entertain themselves stealing kisses and gropes whenever they get the chance, pushing as far as they can without falling over the edge. They drag it out, always leaving each other hard and wanting.

It's not really on purpose, for any sort of ethical reason—at this point, Dean figures it won't make much difference if they're adding some under-the-clothes playtime to the proceedings. Sam wants it as badly as he does, and Dean has always been able to rationalize

doing whatever it takes to give Sam what he wants. Getting hard and rutting like an animal against your brother is just as bad as coming from getting hard and rutting like an animal against your brother.

It's more like a competition for them. A constant back-and-forth of teasing and denial and fuck if it's not the most intoxicating game Dean's ever played.

Sneaking around and being discrete has always been fun for him, sexy, and he's had his fair share of nights that involved climbing out of and into windows to go meet girls in the past. But conducting their little—whatever they have, right under their dad's nose, all hours of the day? It's hotter than anything he's experienced before, no doubt about it.

It's the thrill, not the guilt. There isn't really any guilt, no matter how bad Dean knows he's supposed to be feeling. It's summer and he doesn't even care; it's like they're not part of the real world, anyway. In the summer, normal people have summer jobs and they take family vacations and get pool memberships and go to reunions with picnics and barbeques and annoying relatives. Sam and Dean don't do that. Sam and Dean aren't normal people.

Plus, their dad is completely oblivious. He's actually happier, more proud than Dean's seen him in a while. He sits Dean down one night when Sam's off doing something nerdy in their room involving books and envelopes and stamps. Dean doesn't bother asking about it, because the answer will probably put him to sleep instantly.

"Whatever you're doing, keep doing it," Dad says, gruff and pleased.

"Huh?" Dean says eloquently.

"You and Sam. And me. You boys—it's different now. You're both stronger. We're all—" He trails off, and Dean's pretty sure that's all he's going to get. They're not exactly talkative guys.

Dean just smiles and nods. "Yes, sir," he says. Dad doesn't even know the half of it. He's right: they are closer. And stronger.

There's a weird twist in his gut when he thinks of why, though.

When he wonders what their dad would say if he knew. But he just can't dwell on it, can't worry about it when he feels so right with Sam.

Dean is basically in paradise, and he doesn't want to waste it.

Good things like this don't happen to him, and when they do, they don't last. Sammy is his home, warm and constant, no matter how

sappy that sounds. His dad is strong and proud and drinking less and they're a fucking team, for real, and it's—it's just plain too good to be true. And yet it is the truth. Maybe this time, it'll be for good.

Later that night, after their dad is snoring down the hall, Dean throws open the door to his and Sam's room. Sam is standing by the window, trying to get cool, and Dean just grabs him by the armhole in his muscle-tee, sweat-stained and ripped wide, and pulls him down. They land on Dean's bed with a bounce, and fall into a kiss that feels sure and right and a long time coming.

*

Dad has been gone for two weeks. He hasn't been in contact, hasn't sent them any jobs. He just told them to stay put and keep out of trouble while he's tracking this new thing he caught wind of. Dean presses him for information, but he won't say anything about it.

Says it's too complicated; he's doing pattern analysis and data collecting and something about non-parametrics and Dean has no idea what the fuck he's talking about; he's not about to ask Sam and admit he's clueless.

Dad's scheduled to come home tomorrow, unless Dean hears otherwise, and Dean hasn't heard otherwise. He's never been more thankful in his life. Sam isn't yelling and stomping around the house and picking fights with everything their dad says, but all the pent-up energy he could be spending on being surly is roiling under the surface. He's restless and thrumming with it all day every day, and Dean is starting to go more than a little crazy just trying to deal with his brother.

Luckily they have an outlet now, and Dean tries to take the edge off Sam's constant motion by pinning him up against the refrigerator, slamming him into the bathroom door, pulling him across the smooth leather of the Impala's front seat, wrestling for dominance and taking what he can get: Sam's skin and mouth and teeth and hands.

But Sam's a little punk, and just like always, it ends before it gets anywhere good. Dean's not going to be the one to beg for it, isn't going to be the pussy that breaks first in their little game of cat and mouse.

But it's driving him insane, no doubt. His fingers itch to just grab Sam as he's bent over the sink washing dishes, to drag him to their room and throw him down on the bed and just fucking take.

Fuck him within an inch of his life. Just thinking about it makes Dean dizzy with want, and he has to go sit on the couch with a cold beer to collect himself, press the ice-cold base of the bottle against his hard dick to calm down.

Eventually, Sam takes that option out of Dean's control. He breaks first.

Dean's stretched out on top of the sheets on his bed that afternoon, sweat collecting at the back of his neck, cooling as the air from the open window blows soft over his skin. Sam comes in wearing a pair of swimming trunks, soaked and dripping on the carpet, pulling down off his hips under their own weight.

Dean's mouth waters automatically, and he licks his lips at the outline of Sam's cock thick against the inside of his thigh.

"Went to the river," Sam says, eyes dark and trailing over Dean's half-naked body. He's not wearing anything but briefs, weather too hot and sticky even for boxers.

"Yeah, got that, thanks." Dean sits up, or tries to, but he's greeted with Sam's cool hand splayed over his chest, instead, slipping as he pushes Dean back down onto the bed.

"Don't get up," Sam mutters, and climbs on the bed, knees astride Dean's hips, dripping cold drops of water all over him, crouching low.

Dean's skin tightens in goosebumps as Sam kisses him, sliding against him and tasting like outside. "Can't take it anymore, Dean," Sam breathes into his mouth. "I give."

"I win," Dean murmurs, and wraps his arms around Sam, pulling him down close, wanting him even closer. If he could pull Sam inside his body, he would.

Sam ruts up against him, their cocks burning hot through the cool fabric of Sam's swimsuit and Dean's underwear. Sam shudders and whimpers, mouth open against Dean's chin, like it's all he can do just to keep breathing.

Dean's eyes slip shut and he rubs his hips against Sam's, bending his knees and spreading his legs to fit them together just right.

"No, no," Sam says, like it's actually hurting him. "Gotta get—" he cuts himself off when he pulls away, shoving down his trunks and then working his wet hands under the cotton of Dean's briefs, dragging them off desperately.

He just kneels between Dean's legs for a moment after that, panting through his open mouth, staring at Dean's cock where it curves against his stomach. It's reddened, thick with blood and throbbing hard, and Dean will actually die if Sam doesn't touch it.

Sam's dick bobs in front of him as he leans down, and Dean can't help but raise his eyebrows. "Whoa," he mouths, and Sam laughs at him fondly.

"You totally knew I was packing," he says, barely above a whisper.

"It's different seeing it right there in front of me than just thinking about it when I jerk off in the shower," Dean says, reaching down to wrap his hand around Sam's considerable length and girth. It's hot to the touch, twitches when he fists it up and down a few times, seeping thick dribbles of precome. Sam's face goes slack as he moans a little, and Dean gets even harder in response.

The churning need to fuck is practically drowning him.

"You think about me when you jerk off?" Sam says, voice thin and hitching. His eyes slide closed as Dean continues to play with his dick. It's fascinating; Dean's never touched anyone's dick but his own before, and Sam's is even better than the ones in porn.

"Of course I do," Dean says, propping himself up on his elbow.

"Like. Three times a day, sometimes."

Sam's flushed blotchy pink, color creeping down his neck to stain even his chest, barely visible under his tan. His breath is coming short and erratic, every gasp audible as Dean twists his fingers under the head of his cock, over it, through the slit, then down the shaft in gradual squeezes. He's just trying it out, learning the feel of it, and even that seems to be driving Sam insane. "What am I doing?" Sam grits out as Dean lets his fingers wander to trail in the slick trails sluggishly dripping down between Sam's balls.

He didn't even know it was possible for a cock to drool that much precome. "When you think about me, I mean."

"All kinds of things," Dean says, voice gone scratchy, almost choked with how much he wants this, needs this. "Letting me blow you. Grabbing my hair and fucking my face. Giving me a wicked handjob, one hand on my dick, the other with fingers up my ass.

Pushing me down and fucking me. Licking me out—sucking your come straight out of—"

Sam clenches all the way up, keening quiet in the back of his throat, and Dean knows the split second before it happens that he's going to shoot. He does, all over Dean and the headboard and the sheets. "Oh god, oh god, Dean," Sam cries, hips humping into Dean's hand as he comes copiously, long ropes of it across Dean's body, splatters everywhere, even on his lips. He flicks out his tongue to taste, sour and salty but perfect nonetheless.

Dean won't ever forget Sam's face in that moment, the sound of his voice or the way his hands clench against Dean's thighs. Sam's hair drips slowly, water landing on Dean's skin and mingling with the thick white smears.

He strokes Sam through it, then lets go when his breathing starts to even out and his eyes ease open again. "Dean," Sam says again, awed, and leans forward to kiss him, smearing his come into both of their bodies, resting his weight on Dean.

It feels like it goes on forever, but Dean doesn't want it to end, and he lifts up to follow Sam's mouth when he finally pulls back.

"Wait," Dean starts, trying to pull Sam back down with a hand firm

at the nape of his neck.

"No, no, I want to—" Sam shimmies his way down Dean's body, rubbing agonizingly against Dean's cock. He's so fucking hard after all that; he feels like he's going to explode.

Sam trails off once his face is down by Dean's dick, cheek resting against his inner thigh. "You know I've never—done anything. At all. With anyone." He sounds kind of nervous, which is just stupid.

He's Sam.

"Yeah, Sammy," Dean says. Under normal circumstances, he'd take this opportunity to mock Sam, to call him a loser or a geek or a blushing virgin. He can't though, doesn't even have the slightest desire to when they're here together like this. He's the first person to ever touch Sam's dick. The first person to make him come, to taste his spunk. The first person Sam's ever been with in this way. Dean's chest clenches and it feels kind of like the floor got jerked out from under him.

"I want to try something," Sam mumbles. Dean can barely hear him, Sam's mouth pressed to the soft skin of Dean's thigh.

"Whatever you want," Dean says. "Anything."

"You're not allowed to make fun of me if I suck," Sam says. "I mean if I'm bad at this," he amends, before Dean can crack a joke.

"I won't," Dean says. He wasn't going to make the joke anyway. "I wouldn't. This is—I get it. It's different."

Sam takes a deep breath and pushes Dean's legs up, spreading them wide. He starts by licking over Dean's cock, tentative at first but then enthusiastic, slurping and wet. Dean tries to watch, but his eyes keep squeezing shut as he tries not to fuck his hips up, as he tries to keep calm and not shoot all over Sam's face before he ever gets a chance to do whatever it is he wants to do.

Sam suckles at the head, lapping up the droplets of precome. He rubs his lips down the length of Dean's dick, mouths at his balls and licks around them, between them, before sucking one and then the other into his mouth.

Dean moans, whines, doesn't even care what he sounds like, it feels that good. The clenching curl below his stomach gets stronger, harder to stave off.

And then Sam's mouth trails lower, tongue licking at Dean's perineum, and Dean hisses, jerking up a little. He tries not to

smack Sam with his hips, but it's hard to control himself as Sam's tongue starts stroking across the sensitive skin. He's smearing Dean with spit, and Dean can feel it dripping down the crease between his thighs and over his hole.

Sam follows it down, slicking his tongue in a gentle circle, mouthing the thin skin there. Dean gasps and moans like he belongs in a porno, but he can't help forcing his thighs further apart, angling his hips to bare himself completely to Sammy.

When Sam works him open, fingers slicked with spit and joining his tongue, it's like nothing Dean's ever felt before. He's vaguely aware of the fact that he's making stupid noises, that there's a cramp in his neck from craning up to watch Sam, that there's come drying itchy and gross all over him. But none of it matters, because Sam is humming as his tongue pushes inside, as his long fingers scissor him open so Sam can taste him, eating him out like in Dean's best, dirtiest daydreams.

Eventually Dean can't hold it back anymore, and he pushes his ass into Sam's insistent tongue, shoving back against him as he strokes in and out, never quite enough. Sam pulls away, and Dean chokes out a devastated groan. "Was that okay?" Sam pants, and wipes his mouth on the inside of his elbow.

"I—it." It takes Dean at least half a minute to remember how to make sentences. "Don't stop. How'd you."

Sam smiles up at Dean, rubbing his fingers over his lips. "Porn.

Lots and lots of it. And books."

Dean laughs breathlessly, threading his hands through Sam's damp hair. "Any of your research teach you how to fuck me?" he asks, shifting and spreading his legs so wide his thighs ache. The air hitting him is cold and he feels weirdly empty.

"Well, I've been practicing ignoring my gag reflex for like a month," Sam says, and scoots up the bed to take Dean's aching cock in one hand. He leans down, sucking at the head again for a second before easing his way down, all the way, until he meets the circle of his thumb and index finger, then moves his hands and presses down even lower.

Dean bites hard at his lip and fights to keep his eyes open, to watch as his cock disappears into Sam's mouth. He feels it hit the back of Sam's throat and push through. "Jesus Christ."

Sam pulls back off with an obscene, sucking slurp. Dean can see him flex in a little dry-heave as soon as Dean's cock is out of his

mouth. "Don't think I could keep it up, though," he says, hoarse already.

Dean smiles and grabs at his own balls, squeezing hard to stave off the inevitable. "What the hell have you been practicing with?"

"You haven't noticed the bananas in the fruit bowl?" Sam says, absently running his hands up and down Dean's thighs, over his hips. Dean just rolls his eyes. Sam bends closer, pressing his lips to Dean's ear. He's hard again, dick pressing against Dean's hip.

"Want to come in my mouth?" Sam whispers. "Down my throat? Want to make me drink you?"

Dean isn't sure if Sam learned that from his porno lessons or if he came up with it himself, but it makes Dean's dick jerk against his wrist. It isn't what he wants, though. "Want you to fuck me," he says, turning his face to press his lips to Sam's as he speaks.

"Want to come without you even touching my dick. Just from you—just

'cause you're in me."

Sam breathes out shakily, nodding as he kisses Dean once, twice, running his tongue along the seam of Dean's lips. "Yeah, yeah," he sighs. "Want to so bad."

He pulls away and goes to rummage through the dresser. Dean feels cold all over, lying on the bed, can't wait for Sam to find what he's looking for and come back. "What do you—"

"Lube," Sam says. "I don't—there's not much left."

"It's fine," Dean says, and rolls over onto his stomach. "How do you want to do this?"

"They say it hurts less if you're on your hands and knees and I—you know. From behind."

Dean nods, but he's kind of disappointed. He wants it the other way, wants to watch Sam's face as he's pounding him, wants to be able to pull him in with his legs and hold his face in his hands.

"We don't have to do it that way, though," Sam says, catching the look on Dean's face. "I kind of. I don't know. I want to see you."

"Yeah, let's—I wanna do it that way," Dean says, and turns back over as Sam climbs back onto the bed, lube in hand. He squirts out all that's left into his hand, slicking up his fingers and pushing them into Dean without preamble. "Eager, huh?" Dean says, smiling around a gasp as he shifts up against Sam's hand.

"There isn't a word for what I am right now, Dean," Sam says, twisting his fingers.

Dean feels a sort of tight swooping sensation when Sam rubs over the same spot a couple of times, firm and just right. "Oh god, keep doing that," Dean says, pulling his knees up so high his feet come off the bed.

Sam does, never taking his eyes off Dean's face. Eventually he pulls his fingers out and smears the last of the lube all over his cock, already wet with copious precome and sweat. "Ready?" he asks, voice trembling.

"Yeah, come on," Dean breathes, feeling desperate and empty.

Sam lines himself up, and he already feels enormous to Dean, like there's no way he'll ever fit. He starts to push in, so achingly slowly, and Dean feels the pull and stretch hot between his legs.

He breathes deep as Sam stops, eyes fixed on Dean's face, mouth drawn tight like it's torture not to be able to move. Dean wills himself to relax. "More, come on, come on," he pants, hurting but wanting so badly for Sam to just pound him into the mattress.

Sam thrusts shallowly, just an inch or two, barely moving. He's shaking all over and Dean can hear every dragging breath he takes.

It's the best thing he's ever seen, ever felt. "Okay?" Sam manages, hands rubbing up and down Dean's chest, all over his body.

"Better than," Dean says. It burns and aches but he doesn't feel cold or empty anymore, and he wants it all. "The whole way, just do it, Sammy, please. I'll be fine, pleasepleaseplease," he begs. He rocks his hips back into Sam's, bringing his legs up to urge him on.

Sam pushes all the way in with one agonizingly slow stroke, and it feels like an eon before he bottoms out, Dean's ass pressed flush to Sam's pelvis. His eyes are squeezed shut, fingers shivering where he clutches Dean's arms.

Dean palms Sam's face, hands on either side of his jaw, bringing him down for a deep kiss, putting all the intensity, all the love that he's feeling but can't say into that one movement. He's so full, in every way, dizzy with it; he's surprised he isn't having some sort of brain aneurism, that this isn't all some sort of acid trip. It's surreal, and he never wants it to end.

"Fuck me," he says, once he's gotten used to Sam, enormous inside him. And that's all it takes. Sam starts thrusting, long slow strokes all the way in and almost all the way out.

Dean can feel Sam's thick muscles clenching under his legs; Sam's ass and his thighs strung tight as he picks up his pace and pumps harder, faster. Dean throws his head back, can't help it, though he's loath to lose the sight of Sam's face and chest and arms.

He moans and shoves back into the rocking of Sam's hips, arching his back and urging him on, "Come on, come on, come on," all he can manage to grit out.

Sam pulls Dean's hips up onto his thighs, forcing a new angle, and Dean practically blacks out when Sam pounds against that spot inside him, forcing the coiling in his gut to an aching, sucking need to come. "Dean, god," Sam says as Dean clenches around him.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, oh god, Sammy," Dean sobs, and it twists up inside him, shooting out of him just like that, no hand on his cock, nothing but Sam thick and hard inside him, relentless, pulsing hot with his heartbeat. Dean comes more than he's ever come in his life, so hard it's like it's draining him completely, viscous and wet, over his chest and Sam's, sliding in thick wads down his stomach.

Sam cries out as he follows Dean, spurting inside him with erratic, rocking thrusts as he presses his hips tight against Dean. He fucks Dean through it, eyes watering, hands wrapped around Dean's sides, fingers spanning his ribs.

They're both heaving, glazed in sweat and jizz as they come down, Sam still hard inside Dean, neither of them wanting to move.

Sam starts to pull away, but Dean tightens his legs and won't let him, holding Sam in even as he feels come leaking out his hole around Sam's dick as it sluggishly starts to soften. "Wait," Dean rasps, and pulls Sam down to rest of top of him.

They doze like that, and when Dean wakes up after a little while, he finds Sam just looking at him, expression unreadable. "What?"

"I think we should shower," Sam says, smiling. He's glowing, flushed and happy, and Dean will never forget this as long as he lives.

They manage to behave themselves in the shower, mostly because they're both so exhausted Dean figures they'll probably sleep for a

week once they've changed the sheets.

"I can't believe you studied porn and read smut books for months just to prepare," Dean says, walking gingerly as he stretches new sheets over the bed.

"I didn't hear you complaining," Sam says, and flops down on it, pulling Dean gently after him.

"No, that's true." Dean lies on his back, turning his head to catch Sam's gaze. "You know I—" he starts. Sam needs to know—

"Yeah," Sam says, radiating warmth. "I know. You, too."

"Thanks," Dean mumbles, burying his face in the pillow.

Sam is still smiling, but it's a little different. A little sadder.

"Don't thank me just yet."

Dean figures that means more great sex during the night, but Sam just falls asleep pressed close to him, lips sealed to the soft fold of white skin between Dean's chest and his armpit. They don't wake up until the sun streams through the window, heralding another day of stifling heat.

They're still wrapped up in each other, heat no object. The front door bangs shut; Dad must be home. He's probably drained from the hunt, not making much noise, though Dean can hear the water running in the kitchen.

Sam props his chin on Dean's chest, looking up at him with something odd in his eyes. "Hey, Dean?"

"Yeah, Sammy," Dean says, a little groggy.

"If I'm ever—if we're ever not. If we ever get separated, for whatever reason. Or I can't—or if we can't really. Talk to each other as much as we want. Remember how much I—you know. How I—and this whole. This whole summer, and the stuff we did and what it was like. 'Cause. I don't know, that's really. This is who I am. Who I always want to be to you. Even without all the hunting, and without Dad and just. Just us."

"I will, Sammy," Dean says. Sam blinks, eyes suspiciously wet; this must mean something really important to him. "I promise."

*

The End.

*

Art and Soundtrack Post

Tracklist

Download HERE

Infinite thanks to

fourfreedoms and her seriously gorgeous art and AMAZING music. I am so glad you drew for me, darling! I feel so lucky and spoiled. Everyone go leave effusive comments about how awesome she is at her art post!

Notes, cont'd: Extra special thanks also go to

mickeym for not only cheerleading but for making the original request that spawned this story. I offered to write her something just for fun, and she requested pre-Stanford Sam/Dean where Sam tops and there is rimming and a lot of kissing. I had a different story planned for Big Bang at the time, but when I started writing this and realized how long it was going to be, I relegated the other story to the backburner and decided to make this one THE one. Thanks to

joosetta, and her mad story-planning skills for helping me figure out how to write this. Thank you to whoever it was on my flist who posted a snippet of "Desertmartin", as it was a great inspiration to me and I fell in love with it, going so far as to take the title of this fic from it (

rei_c, maybe?). AND of course thanks to

wendy and

audrarose for all the work they put into this stellar year of

spn_j2_bigbang. <333!

The myth of the Bunnyman is entirely real and extremely fascinating, although as usual I took artistic liberties with it. I highly encourage anyone who's interested go read about it HERE. I live in northern Virginia and it's a widely-known urban legend around these parts. There's reams of research on it, and the paper Sam and Dean find actually exists. The TV show is also real, and also hosted by Linda Blair (hah!), and they really did have a sixth episode featuring the Bunnyman Bridge.

All the places in the fic are real, as are the movie theatre and streets in Bells, the motel in Fairfax, the libraries, the location of Bunnyman Bridge itself, and pretty much everything else, too. I changed up Virginia Beach some, but hopefully no one is too miffed by that.