Chapter Text
The sun is blinding.
Dean wiggles his ass against the towel to sink down a little deeper and then throws his arm over his eyes. Where are his sunglasses? How could he go to the beach without them?
The sun is blinding, but it feels good on his skin. Seagulls cry out as they glide over the water. Waves crash into the shore just a few feet from his toes. It’s perfect.
Totally perfect.
Dean doesn’t even mind the fact that at the moment he can’t remember how he got here. All he cares about is that he’s baking comfortably, and he can smell the salt of the ocean unfurled in front of him.
And then cold water hits his feet and Dean has to uncover his eyes and glare at his brother standing over him with a bright and ridiculous smile.
“What the fuck.”
It’s not even a question anymore. Dean knows exactly what Sam is doing. Being a little brother.
“You need to turn over. You’re baking.”
“I put on sunscreen.”
He’s not sure what part of the California coast they’re on, but it’s pretty isolated. Dean can’t see another person anywhere. It’s just water and sun and Winchesters. And seagulls. Always seagulls.
“Just absolutely baking.”
Sam drops into the sand beside Dean, eyes squinted against the bright sun and hand coming up to shade it. His long and beefy brother glistens in the sun. Dean looks away.
“I know how to sunbathe, Bitch. It’s not that hard.”
“Sure, Jerk, except you’re rapidly becoming a singular freckle.”
Dean hates his brother. Hates the easy way Sam sits in the sand like he was made to do it, the way his skin just absorbs the sunshine and glows with it, the way he can’t stop staring at Sam. Absolutely cannot stop staring at him.
“I don’t have freckles. That many freckles. I don’t have that many freckles.”
Sam rolls his eyes and scootches over to knock Dean with his hip. Dean obeys the silent nudge and moves over so that Sam can join him on the giant beach towel. There’s not a lot of room, Dean’s left leg falls into the hot sand and Sam’s legs hang over the side and end at the same time.
But it’s comfortable. Dean isn’t sure why, but he feels like he hasn’t seen Sam in forever.
“Sure. Whatever. The point is you’re baking. So, roll over.” Sam indicates the motion with a finger as if Dean can’t follow simple directions.
Dean does, making sure to knock Sam with as many knees and elbows as he can before he settles on his stomach and feels the soft sand shift under him to accommodate the movement. It serves a secondary purpose in that the erection Dean has felt stirring is safely tucked away out of Sam’s eyeline.
He props his chin on his folded arms and looks at the rocky cliff face instead of the ocean. Scrub brush dots the sandy cliffs and the sun shines off of them like an overdone movie spotlight. Beside him Sam sighs and stretches, and Dean can feel flesh and more flesh press against him with the movement.
Sam is very warm.
“Sammy. Settle down. You’re disturbing my peace.”
His brother huffs once and nudges him in the ribs.
“It’s beautiful here, isn’t it?”
“Even more beautiful when it was quiet.”
Sam huffs again and flings a hot arm over Dean’s back weighing him down against the towel.
“I was just thinking. I’m glad we came here. Aren’t you glad we came here?”
“Sure.”
Dean can’t remember why they came here. Did they have a bad hunt? Are they on a good hunt? Did they end up here accidentally and then decide to stay?
It’s been a long time since they got lost somewhere.
“And it’s so peaceful and isolated.”
Dean was thinking that same thing. When it was quiet.
“Just the two of us and the ocean.”
And the sun, and the sand, and Sam’s muscular thigh pressed to Dean’s.
“We can do anything we want and there’s no one to see it.”
Dean opens his eyes then. There’s a tone to Sam’s voice that he knows, but he knows it separate of Sam. He’s not sure he’s ever heard his brother use it before.
“Yeah. Anything we want.”
Sam rolls onto his side, pulling the towel out from under Dean a little more and leaving more of him in the sand.
“Dean?”
His brother has a new wicked gleam in his eyes. Dean isn’t sure he likes it. His cock presses harder into the sand and against the mesh inside his swim trunks.
“Yeah?”
Sam doesn’t answer, he stares at Dean a long time with that goofy and disturbing look before standing up and stretching. Muscles upon muscles. Dean swallows, an audible click in his throat, as Sam hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his shorts and pulls them down.
Holy fucking shit.
“Let’s go swimming.”
His little brother is big. Everywhere.
Dean’s brain can’t pull itself together. Years of a feeling barely recognized let alone respected press against the thin barrier of self-control he has taught himself.
“Sammy. Put your trunks back on. There could be sharks or something.”
Sam rolls his eyes, and then before Dean can even utter a response to the look Sam crouches down and grabs Dean’s trunks. He has time to let out a very dignified noise before his brother is dragging his shorts off and running for the water. Leaving Dean bare and with sand in very uncomfortable places because the fucking beach towel has become a rucked-up nightmare.
He thinks about it. He really does. Dean stays in the sand and thinks for several long minutes as Sam’s naked body enters the water. As wet is added to tan and glisten and swollen.
And then Dean gives up. Maybe it’s the setting, or the feeling, or just the sensation of sand rubbing against his tender bits, but Dean is done holding back. He gets up and goes into the water with Sam. It’s cool against his sun-soaked skin. The spray is salty when it hits his face, and he manages to catch up to Sam and grab his trunks before they’re sacrificed to Poseidon.
“What the fuck Sam?”
His brother smiles, expertly shaking wet hair out of his face before he looks up to the too bright sky and then back to Dean.
“I feel free here.”
And Dean knows the feeling. He digs his toes into the ocean floor as the waves pull at him before throwing his trunks back out of the water onto the shore. When he turns back Sam is looking at him in a calculating and calm manner.
“Dean?”
He doesn’t answer. He knows what’s coming next. Dean spreads his stance to get better traction and ensure that he can stand steady and strong. Sam doesn’t disappoint. He steps forward and wraps one arm around Dean’s waist and the other slides up so that Sam’s big hand cups the back of his head. It’s ok like this. It’s right. Sam is starting it with no untoward influence from Dean, and that makes it ok and right.
His brother’s lips are salty like the sea, warm like the sun, and perfectly comfortable against his. Dean gives in, hands gripping at Sam’s shoulders as his brother kisses him chaste and soft. His heart beats hard against his chest, the waves battering into them, and then Sam pulls Dean closer and tilts his head and the kiss deepens. A tongue slips against Dean’s lips and he opens his mouth and lets Sam in.
When did his little brother learn to kiss like this? Did Jess teach him? When they were kids Dean tried to teach Sam using elbows and vague hand gestures but it seems like someone did a more hands on tutorial.
Or several someones.
Dean hears the growl deep in his throat and Sam responds with his own rumble before his brother is picking him up and slotting Dean against him. Now Dean’s cock, rock hard and still warm from the sand and sun, is rubbing against the incredibly firm muscles of Sam’s abdomen as the ocean and Sam rock Dean against him. They’re still kissing, but Sam is alternating tongue-fucking Dean’s mouth with nipping at his lips or squeezing his ass.
Then Sam is walking out of the ocean, still holding Dean against him, and Dean keeps his arms wrapped around Sam’s neck and keeps kissing him as the water retreats and Dean is left with the breeze adding to the overloading number of sensations he’s experiencing.
Sam’s hands lower him down, and Dean’s feet touch the sand before his brother is gone. He almost protests until he sees that Sam is shaking off the towel, laying it back down on the sand as straight as he can, and displaying that incredible ass in a show that Dean has a hard time keeping his hands off of.
Dean remembers too late that he doesn’t have to keep his hands off and then Sam is lying face down on the towel.
“I need lotion.”
The gears in his brain fail to catch for several rotations before Dean finally understands what Sam is asking for. Sammy is a fucking tease.
But that’s ok. Dean can deal with that. He’s got tricks of his own.
He kneels, knees ending up on either side of Sam’s thighs, and finds the lotion bottle before pouring it into his hands and starting at Sam’s neck. It, like everything else, is made of muscle and is tight. Dean works on it for a while, listening to Sam’s little grunts of pleasure, and then moves down to his brother’s shoulders. A gull shrieks over them, and Dean takes the moment to push his hips forward so his still hard and wet cock can rub against Sam’s ass.
It works. His brother lets out a little noise and then pushes back into Dean’s cock. Dean likes the feel of it. The smooth skin of Sam’s ass pressing against his dick. The tightness of the glutes causing his cock to bounce and skip.
Dean digs his fingers into Sam’s shoulders and works the lotion in to the rhythm of his hips grinding into Sam. His brother is moaning under him, pressing alternately down into the towel and then back up into Dean’s cock. His shoulder muscles ripple under Dean’s fingers as he pushes himself up a little and Dean is forced to ride Sam’s ass up and then down.
He crab walks backwards his fingers moving down Sam’s back, playing along the spine, and finally tracing the dip before the rise of the cheeks. Sam looks over his shoulder at Dean, squinting in the sunlight, and smiles brightly.
“Dean. Come on.”
He takes it as a personal challenge. Dean digs his fingers into the meat of Sam’s ass and pulls the cheeks apart to look at Sam’s hole before releasing them and doing it again. Things are escalating quickly, quicker than Dean could have imagined even in his wildest and most buried fantasies.
And Sam’s loving it. His thighs flex and his toes dig into the sand beyond the edge of the towel as he moves against Dean’s hands. Dean thinks about it for a second, takes a breath and then leans down and pulls Sam’s cheeks apart to blow on his brother’s hole. Sam makes a noise, a growl and gasp, and Dean takes it as a good sign and does it again. His hole clenches and Dean leans in and blows a little closer to the source. It’s wildly effective. Sam bucks back and Dean is surprised by his lips pressing right against Sam’s flesh. Dean accepts the green light that Sam is showing him.
He’s never done this on a dude before, but he’s never had a woman complain. Dean sticks his tongue out hesitantly and then presses it against Sam’s hole. His brother shudders, his whole body shaking against Dean and his ass cheeks tightening down in Dean’s hands. So Dean slips his tongue out again and presses more firmly, tasting the salt and skin and everything else that comes with Sam. And then he goes for it. He runs his tongue along Sam’s hole, circles it lightly before pressing harder, and then presses against the center of the hole and deeper in.
Sam’s going nuts under him, pushing back and moaning, blabbering Dean’s name as he tightens around Dean’s tongue. And Dean loves it. Love the feel of it, loves the sounds Sam’s making, loves the way Sam’s muscles move and tighten as he reacts.
Dean keeps rubbing, pressing his fingers deeper into the muscular globes of Sam’s ass and taking his time with it as he licks deeper and broader. He sees out of the corner of his eye when Sam’s hand disappears under him and Dean can tell from the stutter of Sam’s hips that he’s jacking off.
That’s enough of a hint for Dean. It makes him shortly debate if he should follow suit or move forward. The decision comes pretty quickly. He pulls back enough to tug on Sam, and his brother rolls over without any other prompting. For a moment Dean simply looks at Sam. Looks at the length of him stretched out on the towel, the way the sun shines on his brother’s skin, the thick length of Sam’s cock. Parts of Sam Dean has never been allowed or able to stare at before. And while he’s looking Sam takes his cock in his hand and strokes it firmly as he licks his lips. And that inspires Dean.
He crawls up over Sam, eyes on his brother’s mouth, and then takes his own cock in hand and rubs the head against Sam’s already wet lips. Sam makes a face and Dean pulls back afraid he’s somehow crossed a line he didn’t know about. Sam instantly shakes his head.
“No. Hold on. You got sunscreen on your dick.”
Sam wipes at it, carefully, slower than Dean thinks is necessary. His fingers swipe and rub at the head, the tender fold of skin, and then the shaft. It’s not enough pressure or friction to get Dean off but it feels amazing. Sam keeps it up, eyes on Dean’s face as he keeps just sliding his fingertips up and over the skin, nail lightly scraping the vein once before working its way back down to the base.
Dean loves Sam, and he loves the sensation, but he’s gotta have more and he’s gotta have it now. He pushes forward past Sam’s fingers and Sam opens his mouth and accepts the head of Dean’s cock even as his hands lock down on Dean’s hips and hold him back. Dean tries harder to push forward, but Sam’s got an iron grip on him.
He pushes, Sam pushes back, his brother’s tongue dancing along the tip of his cock and pressing against the hole lightly before swirling around the head and going back to the beginning. Dean can only move as much as Sam lets him. It’s probably the singularly most frustrating and arousing thing he’s ever experienced. Dean flexes his legs and shoves forward hard and Sam just holds him still as he teases the hole of Dean’s cock with the tip of his tongue.
All that’s left to him is to sink his fingers into Sam’s hair and let his brother take over. And he does. He rubs Sam’s scalp with long slow strokes as Sam pulls his hips just a little bit forward and takes the tiniest extra bit of Dean’s dick into his mouth. It’s not enough, it’s making him crazy, but Dean can’t do anything about it except take what Sam’s willing to give him.
Dean tries to relax and let it go. He listens to the crash of the ocean, feels the sun baking his skin, and the wet suction of Sam’s mouth as he works Dean’s flesh. His brother’s hands squeeze his hips as Sam pulls him in a little deeper and then pushes him back out again. Dean moans, flexing his ass and stretching as Sam takes him halfway in. He pushes his fingers deeper into Sam’s scalp. Sam smiles around his mouthful, tongue slithering along the underside of Dean’s cock before he sucks hard and pulls Dean deep in.
There’s a cough, Sam moves him to readjust, and then Sam has a handle on it and is sucking Dean’s dick hard as his tongue moves in patterns around the head and down. His brother’s fingers are almost bruising in their tightness as they rock Dean back and forth. Dean’s the one babbling now, managing only Sam’s name and the word fuck over and over. Sam gives one last hard suck, and then he pushes Dean back and down until Dean is forced to walk back on his knees or be slid over the towel. He manages to make it down to where Sam wants him. His brother lines their cocks up and then catches Dean’s eye and smirks.
Dean’s hips jerk involuntarily at the look.
His brother’s big hand wraps around their cocks and Dean finds himself falling backwards and catches himself just in time with his hands on the towel. He digs his fingers into the fluffy cloth and tightens his legs to get a better angle. Sam grins at him, nods once, and then squeezes and starts to jack them off together.
It’s better than expected. There’s the rough friction of Sam’s hand, the firmness of his brother’s grip, and then the smoothness of Sam’s dick pressed against his.
Still, Dean has to say something because it’s gone entirely too long since he’s ruined the mood by speaking.
“Hey Sammy, pretty sure I’m the bigger one there.”
Sam looks down at their cocks, back up at Dean, and then the smirk gets wider.
“Longer is nice Dean, but thicker is what matters.”
And Sam, that cocky little shit, flexes his biceps before he squeezes them tight and bucks his hips so that they’re pressed firmly together and fucking into his huge hand.
Dean’s head falls back without his permission, he moans, and Sam picks up the pace as he rocks his hips and squeezes them together. He manages to force his eyes to open enough to see Sam biting his lip, gaze focused on Dean’s face as he works them together in a long steady roll. He flexes his thighs to keep himself in the perfect space as Sam keeps up the steady and relentless pace of his thrusting, holding the shafts together tightly as the heads bump against each other.
Sam’s grip is still firm, the two of them lubricated by leftover sunscreen, saltwater, and pre-come keeping them sliding smoothly and Dean feels like he’s been on the brink of something for forever. Sam’s still biting his lip, still watching Dean’s face, and Dean swallows hard as he keeps eye contact with his little brother.
A gull cries above them and Dean’s foot slips on the towel and digs into the sand beyond. Sam’s teeth slip out of his lip as he cries out, his hips picking up speed and their dicks pulling tighter against each other as Sam’s hand clamps down a little more on them.
“Faster Sammy. Little faster!”
His brother finally gives in to Dean and starts to move faster, his thighs slapping into Dean’s, his cock jerking against Dean’s in his grip, and Dean thinks that he’s going to go crazy if it doesn’t peak. It’s never been this intense before.
Right there. He’s right there. And then Sam says it and Dean’s done.
“Dean.”
He comes, messily, jerking against Sam’s cock as Sam pushes his hips up sharply and follows along. Dean can feel the pulsing, the hot spurt of Sam over the head of his dick, and Sam’s hand slips just a little before tightening down to keep them right there as they come together.
Dean pushes hard, practically launching himself so he can wrap his arms around Sam’s neck before slamming their mouths together. He kisses Sam through the aftershocks, thighs trembling as he opens his mouth and dips his tongue into Sam.
The sun is so bright.
Finally they break apart and Dean lays down beside Sam on the towel, the sun shining in their eyes as the water presses on relentlessly and Sam’s leg slips under Dean’s so they’re tangled together.
“What part of California is this anyway?”
It’s the first time Dean has even hinted at his confusion, but he feels so relaxed it doesn’t seem like it could possibly backfire.
How stupid could he be?
“We’re not in California Dean. This is Mykonos.”
Dean squints into the sun before turning to look at Sam. The sun is still out, still blindingly bright and only getting brighter, but Sam’s skin has suddenly gotten cold. His brother’s hand slips into his and the fingers are like ice.
“What are you talking about?”
Sam points with his free hand, grains of sand clinging to his arm and shining in the sun like bits of ice.
“Do you see that little island there, Dean? The one off in the distance?”
He looks, sees the blob of darkness against the ever-increasing sunlight. His pulse is starting to race again and he can feel alarm outweigh the pain of the bright sun blinding him. It feels like there is a dark hole opening up behind Dean, something dangerous and deadly and yawning wide to swallow them both up if fails. Fails what?
“Sammy. What’s going on?”
“That’s Delos, Dean. The birthplace of gods. A place of renewal. Of forgiveness. I thought I would be forgiven. I knew I could be renewed.”
Dean turns back to Sam. His brother’s face is pale, gray, and Dean starts to rub Sam’s skin to get heat and warmth back into it.
“Sammy. Sammy, what’s going on? Tell me what’s going on!”
His little brother looks over at him, eyes sad and dark, and the light is swallowing him up. Blinding Dean so that he cannot see to hold on and save Sam. And behind the light there is something awful. Black liquid rushing at high speed, a dark, cavernous place looming behind Sam. It’s no longer behind Dean it’s all around them. Are these the shadows of things that will be, or are they shadows of the things that may be only?
“People don’t just disappear Dean. Other people just stop looking for them.”
Dean wakes up with a start, heart racing and hands clammy. He looks around the motel room but there’s no sign of Dad anywhere. It’s just him in the queen bed, the sound of the air conditioner clanking along and some couple having a fight in the room next door. A TV somewhere else droning on, canned laughter and prompted audience applause.
Dad is missing. Dean leaps out of the bed and starts packing the things carelessly scattered around the room. Zips up his bag and washes his face before putting it all in the Impala and getting on the road.
He has to head West. He has to go to Palo Alto.
He has to get Sam.
Because Dad hasn’t been home in a few days. Dad’s on a hunting trip and he hasn’t been home in a few days.
You’re in a bar.
You’re in bar and a man and his sister are sitting across from you. Their hands are linked on the table, fingers tangled together and eyes bright and excited. They look so happy it hurts to focus on them for any period of time.
Your hand hurts. It sits empty beside you. The other one is holding a glass that steadily drips on the table from the melted ice. You didn’t ask for ice.
You hate them. You hate how happy they are. You hate how happy everyone is. Your hand is empty and you don’t know why. Or you do, but goddamn you do not want to.
You see the moment that you didn’t want to see. The moment that happiness turns into sympathy. Pity.
You didn’t ask for pity.
Sam is seventeen and Dean is twenty-one. He celebrated his birthday by getting drunk with Dad and getting a lap dance. When he got back there was a second lap dance with significantly fewer breasts and way more cock stroking.
Now they’re just lying there, lazy and sticky, Sam breathing hard and Dean staring up at the ceiling as the air conditioner clanks loudly filling the room with just enough cool air to keep Sam from drenching him in more sweat. His brother has always run hot.
If there was a time when it wasn’t this easy Dean can’t remember, but that doesn’t change the fact that the clock is ticking and he knows it. If dad hasn’t figured it out already then he might not before Sam takes off.
And Sam will take off.
Just as Dean always knew after Sam’s first time leaning over to steal a kiss while they star gazed he was permanently fucked, he’s known that eventually this won’t be enough for his genius brother.
It’s not fine, but it is the truth.
The truth?
Dean jerks hard, knee pulling up and barely missing hitting Sam in the stomach. His little brother gives him a dirty look before he melts into concern.
“What happened?”
He shrugs. Scratches at the drying come on his stomach idly as he processes what just happened.
“I dunno. Probably that thing where your brain starts to fall asleep, and your body thinks it’s dying.”
“You’re officially not allowed to talk about dying while we’re in bed together.”
He raises one eyebrow, mouth pursing at Sam, and his little brother’s face is covered in horror as he seems to process what he’s just said.
“No- you know. I mean. You know what I mean, jerk!”
He leans forward, slicking his tongue against Sam’s flabbergasted mouth.
“Bitch.”
Sam’s eyes narrow and he straddles Dean angrily, grabbing at wrists and pinning them down.
“We’ll see who’s the bitch.”
And Dean forgets about the voice. Forgets about the memory of it, the feeling of familiarity. The sense that it was meant for him, but not for him to hear.
Mommy is having his little brother.
She’s hidden behind those doors somewhere, people moving about in that fast and clean way hospital staff have. Daddy is back there too so Dean is left alone in a room with adults and families. He wonders where his grandparents are for the first time.
It’s never occurred to him to wonder that, because it’s always been him and mommy and daddy, and now it will be him and mommy and daddy and Sammy. Grandparents not had or needed.
Dean pushes against the swinging door, looking furtively from side to side to make sure none of the hospital workers see him before he starts to take quiet and small steps along the hall. He thinks that if he tries hard enough he can just sense the rest of his family somewhere waiting for him.
A nurse steps out into the hall and Dean presses himself back behind a cart and waits until she’s gone. Then he starts to stealthily creep along again. But just as he’s making steady progress again he hears a sound that makes his blood freeze. A scream. Mommy’s scream.
Not again. Please not again. I can’t see it again. Take Sammy. Dean take Sammy.
The voice ringing in his ears stops being the gruff old man he doesn’t know and becomes his mommy’s scream again and his daddy much quieter. He starts to run down the hall, not caring when the hospital workers turn to look at him. He just wants to make good time there. He just wants to see why she’s screaming.
Dean bursts through a door to find his mommy on her back, a sheet draped over her knees, his daddy holding her hand as she sweats and cries. He sees things he doesn’t understand, but he gets from the way everyone is acting that he is seeing the birth. And there’s something there. Something bright and shining and screaming all on its own. It sounds like the older man’s voice again.
“Dean! What are you doing here?”
He ignores his daddy, taking a step forward towards the light coming from mommy, towards the brightness of it, and he feels as if for a moment he’s forgotten who he is and where he is. There is something in that light and it is being born for him. Briefly Dean feels a hand on his shoulder but he’s too entranced to turn and see who. Or if any of it is real in the first place.
And then it’s gone, the room suddenly uncomfortably dim, and the doctor is holding a bloody baby. Dean holds his breath because he knows that Sammy needs to cry now. When daddy holds his hand out Dean immediately moves and takes it. He’s shaking all over as Sammy is quiet and the doctor’s mouth turns down and mommy is asking what’s wrong.
Finally, Sammy cries, and Dean knows everything will be alright.
Stanford campus is everything Dean secretly hoped it wouldn’t be. Beautiful, landscaped lawns, well-kept buildings, smart people hanging out with each other and having the time of their young lives. And somewhere here Dean’s little brother is one of them.
He was always too smart.
And sure, logically Dean had always known that Sam was set to fly the coop. There was no way that Dean would always be enough for Sam. It didn’t hurt as much as he thought it would when Sam walked out that night, duffel bag slung over his shoulder and darkness swallowing him like some half-remembered nightmare monster. The first and last text message Dean got from Sam was on Christmas. It’s still stored on his phone. Are these the shadows of the things that will be, or are they shadows of things that may be, only?
He hadn’t known how to respond, so he sent Sam a question mark from his position hanging upside down in a motel bed in Minnesota with some girl sucking his dick. There was never any answer, and Dean didn’t want to push.
Pushing, he knew from watching Sam with dad, never got them anywhere but across the Rubicon. Instead, Dean waited for when Sam would reach out. But he didn’t and now dad is missing and Dean has no other choice.
Dean crosses the campus on foot, watching all the frisbee players and sunbathers and wondering what Sam looks like now. It hasn’t even been that long, but he feels like there’s going to be some kind of change. Sammy was still getting taller the last time Dean saw him.
He catches glances, college girls looking his way and smiling, and he smiles back. It’s a reflex, meaningless, and then he’s to the other side of the quad and on the way back to his Baby. She greets him like always, warm and worn, built around him like armor.
It wasn’t hard at all to figure out how to find Sam. But now he has to figure out how to approach. He has a feeling he’ll go the less logical way because he thinks that Sam will appreciate him acting in character.
This is a bad idea.
Dean shakes off the voice, uninterested in its blunt logic. The apartment building his brother is living in is right off of campus, still a walk from classes, and that makes a perverse sense as Sam wouldn’t be able to pick a car and care for it.
He slumps down, comfortable in the Impala’s worn front bench seat and used to the position. He slumps and he waits, watching people enter and exit the building as the day passes. There’s no Sam in the little stream of students going about their lives, but that’s ok. Sam is probably staying in studying.
At one point a hot blonde number strolls past, glancing once at Baby but missing Dean, and he raises his eyebrow and clicks his tongue against his teeth.
You’re like a dog in heat.
“But only for you Sammy.”
He feels Sam roll his eyes. He waits for the sun to set, and when it does Dean gives up on the waiting game and goes for option two.
Breaking into Sam’s apartment.
Mommy rolls her eyes and then holds Sammy out to him. His little brother’s face is a bright beet red, scrunched up in distress as he wails to the sky. Mommy has made sure that Dean is sitting on the couch very still and serious while she gets ready to hand his baby brother to him.
They learned this trick a week after Sammy came home.
Dean takes his little brother in his arms and holds him, gentle and soft, and then he starts to sing the Journey song daddy used as a lullaby when Dean was just a little boy.
He is no longer a little boy. He is a big brother now. It’s his whole life.
Sammy goes quiet and attentive instantly. He watches Dean. Or stares his way. Dean is not sure if Sammy can focus yet. But it doesn’t matter because in that time Dean is Sammy’s everything. Dean is the world that holds and cradles Sammy. Dean is the solid foundation that Sammy rests on. Dean likes that for some reason. Mommy seems surprised at how much Dean wants to be involved, but being a big brother is the only thing Dean wants now. It’s what makes him special and valuable.
The apartment is dead silent. Dean can smell baked goods, and he stops at that and tilts his head. Sam was always pretty handy with a spatula and a pan, but he was never a baker.
Dean looks around the apartment. There’s not even a trace of Sam here. Nothing that cries his little brother’s presence. And not a single goddamn protection in place which makes Dean even angrier. He touches things as he crosses through the small apartment. He’s trying to find even a hint of Sam anywhere here, but there’s just nothing. Not even a lingering feel.
Worse still the place stinks of old smoke and ash. There must have a been a fire here, and the lingering scent of it sets Dean’s teeth on edge. He’s staring at a print on the wall of a little boy in a fountain when he hears the floorboard creak behind him. For a moment he knows that it’s Sam, creeping up for an attack.
And then he knows it isn’t. He steps to the side and misses the bat swinging towards him by centimeters. He catches it on the pull back and his hand vibrates with the force of the swing.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
He hears the voice, wholly feminine and a little husky, and tries to process what’s happening. Something tickles in the back of his brain for just a second and then the bat is gone and the light turns on. Dean is momentarily blinded before he sees the hot blonde from earlier standing there in boy shorts and a Smurfs t-shirt with a dip cut in the front.
“Uh. Howdy. Wow.”
Her eyes narrow even as her lips curl a little bit in a ghost of a smile.
“Howdy? What are you a cowboy?”
Dean shrugs, licking his lips to buy just a little time. This is Sam’s apartment. He’s done the research, he knows this is Sam’s apartment. Maybe his stupid little brother hasn’t been checking in with him, but Dean would be damned before he let Sam settle down somewhere unsafe.
“No ma’am. Just looking for my little brother. I heard he was shacked up here and I thought I would surprise him.”
The smile dies instantly, her eyes going a little wide. Dean can’t help but notice the parallels physically between her and himself. He files it away to give Sam a pat on the back later.
“Do you mean Sam? Are you Dean?”
Sam talks about him.
“Yeah. He out tonight?”
The girl finally puts the bat down, her hand hanging at her side and her eyes going soft with pity and sympathy.
“I’m so sorry. You’re about a month too late. Sam moved out.”
Dean’s throat clicks dryly on the confusion. He can’t seem to find anything logical to say so he simply stares at her like that’ll make what she’s saying make sense.
“Do you want to sit down? You look pale.”
Sam used to make jokes about Dean’s skin. The freckles, his inability to tan well, his constant cold hands and feet. Warm and safe, wrapped up around Dean, Sam always had a lot of complaints about Dean’s cold limbs that he tried to make into jokes.
He sits.
“Moved out? Well. The little bastard certainly didn’t tell me.”
The girl sits across from him on an ottoman, her face still full of that pity that Dean doesn’t really like to see.
“He didn’t tell me either if it makes you feel any better. Let me get you some water.”
She moves out of his sightline, and he hears the rustling in the kitchen while he rubs his face and then the back of his neck.
Didn’t tell her? Sam shacked up with this girl for who knows how long before just taking off? And wasn’t his graduation date next month? Dean had it marked on a calendar in the bottom of his bag where dad wouldn’t see it. He’d been planning to sneak down to Stanford that weekend to see it at the very least. Maybe embarrass Sam with an airhorn.
A cold glass of water finds its way into his hands and Dean lifts it gratefully and drinks.