Waiting Games. (Part II.)
PART I.


They're two hours west of the Carolinas, three hours into a block of Faster Pussycat, when he blurts, "Where would you be, if you weren't here?"

"Dude," Dean says warningly.

"Just answer the question."

"I don't know, man. Fightin' crime? Runin' hellhoundlair.com's rival site? Hangin' at the Playboy mansion?"

Sam presses his lips into a thin line. "You honestly can't think of anything you'd want to do, if you weren't hunting?"

"This is another bullshit question, Sam. The fuck do you mean, if I weren't here? If I wasn't Dean Winchester, what would I be doin'? Or if I was retired from the gig, or if I never started?"

"I never pegged you as a believer in nurture over nature," he says.

"Yeah, well, surprise. That shit doesn't play with me. If I'da been raised by some yuppie freaks in sweater-vests, you think I'd still be me? You think I'd dress like Dad, talk like Dad, care about shit like Dad, because it was in my friggin' DNA? I don't think so."

"Fine."

"I'm sick of tryin' to beat that into your fuckin' skull, too."

"Fine."

*

Time passes differently on the road. Four days to dig up a case, five or six to make it there. Another two, maybe three, to even figure out whether the trail is hot or cold. Research, tracking, finding the damn thing - then it's four weeks later, and Sam hasn't even noticed.

He wakes up in April to rain pounding on the roof of the motel, with this weird knowledge that it's been three months since the Minnesota job that didn't happen. They've traced their way across the states twice now, and he's starting to feel like he's outrunning something tireless, something that doesn't play fair.

If Dean's noticed his change in priorities, the jobs he's turned down and the detours he's started to take, he hasn't said anything. Dean's a fucking pro when it comes to ignoring whatever's necessary to keep their world black and white and simple. Your side, my side. Sam wishes it were that easy.

Outside Louisiana, everything starts over from scratch, and he doesn't know why. Suddenly it's not sex anymore, it's kisses - tender and unsure, or firm and demanding. He sits in the car outside a Love's truck stop and everything screeches forward five minutes - Dean sliding into the driver's seat and tossing him a Slim Jim and then just staring, and leaning forward across the seat. Sam digs his phone out of his jacket pocket and is yammering stupidly at Ellen by the time Dean actually does come back to the car, so he just throws the jerky at the side of his head and starts up the car.

It's unsettling.

There's this undercurrent through it all, too, that still makes him think it can't be real. It can't be real, it has to be something else. If he opened his mouth to tell Dean, he knows that's what he'd hear - You're just gettin' fucked with. It's the demon or somethin', that's all. Jeez, you didn't think we were really gonna--

And maybe it is the demon, maybe it's something dark and horrible that's trying to strip away the last thing he has left. Finding a way to break him. He doesn't feel broken, though. He just feels like this thing of his is spiraling out of control. And he doesn't know when he stopped thinking of it as Dean's thing and started thinking of it as his own.

*

They settle into a seedy little motel in Arkansas, looking into a possible zombie situation. It's a pretty good location, as motels go - there's a formal attire place right across the street. The only things they carry with them are priest collars and some ubiquitous repair man uniforms, since Dean seems to think that owning a suit is a sign of personal failure.

TBS is having a Kojak marathon that night, and Dean insists they watch. "Come on, Sam!" he says, flipping the remote around like a switchblade. "It's the shit we were raised on."

Sam rolls his eyes. "That's the point. We've seen every episode at least three times. And we could be doing, you know, research? For the case?"

"No respect," Dean says sadly.

Sam lays his book, open and face-down, on the bed. "You know, you never answered me."

"In her ass," Dean says automatically.

"What?"

"Oh, sorry." Dean unmutes the TV. "I thought we were pickin' up a different conversation."

"From 1998?" he asks. Dean doesn't say anything, but Sam can tell he's kind of smirking.

"Didn't answer you about what?" he finally asks during the next commercial break.

"Never mind," he huffs.

"Seriously," Dean says. "What's with the twenty questions?"

Sam picks at the fraying spine of his book. He stole it from a library in West Virginia. "I'm trying to figure something out," he says.

"Huh."

*

California is like a thousand vertical miles of guilt. They awkwardly avoid it, like a sore thumb they refuse to acknowledge. He knows that even now, Dean thinks Stanford was a stupid mistake. It's written off as the time Sam went crazy. He's never going to win that argument, never going to be able to justify his four years of being okay. Dean's never going to forgive him for those four years of growing comfortable and lazy, leaving the real work to someone else. It's not like he could ever tell him how hard it was, those months he was putting together personal statements that had nothing to do with who he was. Even now, he can't explain all the times he stared out the window of the Impala and listened to him and Dad argue about whether Thin Lizzy or Metallica did the better version of, "Whisky in the Jar," and tried to figure out how he was going to leave it all.

Sam's not sure he minds giving California a wide berth, though. It feels like the whole fucking state is too personal. It's where he was normal, it's the only place he ever felt really at home. He doesn't want to make new memories there. He doesn't want to touch the ones that already exist, in case they crumble away. He doesn't want to think about it.

Regardless, they catch wind of a case in Sacramento, and there's no reason to not do it. They hedge around the subject for fifteen minutes over breakfast, like they're both hoping the other can come up with a legitimate reason to head in a different direction. Sam certainly is, anyway. They finally suck it up and pack it in, eight hundred miles back through the desert.

"Do you think," Sam blurts out, as they pull away from the border check point, "that Jess could be - like how Mom was?"

The silence the follows feel careful and deliberate. Dean's profile doesn't change much, though his jaw goes a little more pronounced. "No."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't, Sam," he says, in the tense, blustering tone he gets when he doesn't want to discuss something. "She's gone. I don't know why Mom stuck around - haven't got a fuckin' clue, but that was a one-in-a-million thing."

Sam looks out the window at the salt flats. He hates Utah. He hates Dean. He needs to cling to this, even if it doesn't make sense. "You don't know that."

"Look, just say the word. We'll head to Vermont, an' you can make nice with the flowers and the headstone stuff. But there's nothin' left of her in California."

"But what if there is? What if she's stuck there, Dean?"

"You mean, what if you could talk to her again," he says, still not looking over. "It's a bad idea, Sam. Just drop it."

They roll into Palo Alto on a Wednesday afternoon, and Sam's mouth goes dry the second they make it past the welcome sign. He can't quite look at Dean, not if he's going to keep acting casual, so he keeps his eyes trained out his window.

Most of the apartment complex went up in flame, he knew that. Apparently they tore the whole thing down, because there's an office building there now, shiny and new. Sam can taste the ocean on the air when he steps out of the car, and he shuts his eyes. He can almost swear that when he opens them, Harbor View Court will be in front of him, and Jess will be in 13-C studying for an organic chemistry final, and he could just be on his way home from that coffee shop up the block, with the blueberry crumble and the barista who always said, Have a great morning! at him. It's a sweet, hopeful second, and then he opens his eyes to Dean looking sad and stern and uncertain.

"We could just go," Dean says, shifting in his electrician uniform. "Get back in the car, hit the road. Be in Mexico by sundown. I'll buy you a goddamn sombrero."

"No," Sam says, steeling himself and looking up at the five corporate stories.

They don't find anything. Not one goddamn ping on the EMF reader. They cover every available inch of the place, even though Sam can easily find where 13-C was. After the third pass through the store room that's more or less where he used to sleep, he sits on the floor and drags a hand over his face. Dean leans back against the wall.

"You disappointed or relieved?" he finally asks.

"I don't know," he laughs, but the lump in his throat makes it come out thick and achy.

"Be relieved." Dean shoves his EMF meter in his bag and slides down next to him. They stay like that for several minutes; footsteps get loud and then soft as someone walks past in the hallway. Dean pulls his flask from somewhere in his jacket and holds it out.

Sam laughs - it actually makes it out this time - and he pulls it from Dean's fingers. "Where did you get this thing, anyway?"

Dean grins. "Won it in a poker game." Sam shakes his head and takes a long, searing gulp. "Hey! Easy there, drunky. I'm not carryin' your ass outta here."

Sam shoves him with his shoulder. "I'm not that much of a lightweight, Dean. It's one of the perks of not being five feet tall."

"We could still make it to Mexico," he says. "Eh? What do you say? Tequila? Some hot Mexican chicks? Pinatas? Siesta?"

Sam squints at him. "You're just saying the only Spanish words you know, aren't you?"

"Yeah, pretty much. I'll still buy you that sombrero."

"I think I'll pass." He takes another swig from the flask and breathes out slow and shaky, slouching down and resting his temple against Dean's shoulder.

Dean claps his hand down on his knee, warm and reassuring, and takes the flask back. He screws the cap on slowly. "Whatever you say, Sammy."

They stay there for a long time.

*

California snaps something in him, something raw and delicate and the only thing that's been propping up his weight this long. It slices right in two when they make it out of the Parker Administrative Building, and he's left trying to figure out how he's made it this far, how he has anything to lash out against, anymore.

The Sacramento hunt is frustrating and dangerous. Cities are the worst for hunting in; too many people, too many places for things to hide. Everyone in them watches the news, and there are surveillance cameras every ten feet. It's a kind of hunting that requires subtlety, which isn't something they have in spades. It's one more close call - the third of the year, not that Sam's keeping score.

And then the visions stop.

They don't taper off, they don't peter away, they're just up and gone. His dreams are comfortable tangles of TV show characters, vague memories, and boring ideas. He's putting up fliers for a missing cat; he's driving some other car; he's eating ice-cream with pieces of coconut. He waits for three days, and then he starts to realize that he's not just holding out for them like some kind of inevitability. He actually misses them.

Dean sits in the other crappy armchair in their room and pores over a book from the university library, trying to find a match for the rubbing they took earlier. If he squints, Sam can see the silvery-pink scar that nearly divides his forehead in two. Dean doesn't really have the kind of features that are improved by scars - he might be tough, but he's too pretty in the face for that kind of thing. The little imperfections don't scream, You should see the other guy, they just kind of meekly attest to some past vulnerabilities. Sam's sort of glad that you can only really see it if you're looking.

Dean seems to feel his gaze, because his eyebrows pull together before he even looks up. "Quit starin' at me, freak."

"Don't call me a freak, freak," Sam says automatically, and then adds, "unless you want me to call you Harry Potter."

His mouth twists into a look of serious irritation. "Dude, you can barely even see it. Stop tryin' to see it. You're givin' me the creeps."

Sam shuts his book and just stares at him. "Don't you think it's weird that you never stop and deal with stuff in your life? Like that? You just to pretend it's not there, like that's going to make it disappear."

Dean rubs at his left eye tiredly. "Just because we don't cry and hug, doesn't mean I don't think about shit. God, you're annoying."

"Right," Sam says. "You're so healthy, you can deal with problems on your own."

"Hey, fucknut. We don't exactly pow-wow over your hopes and dreams. You don't see me makin' a big thing out of whether or not you deal."

"That's because I do deal."

Dean looks up at him, and then turns pointedly back to his book.

"What?" Sam snaps.

"Huh? Oh, nothin'. I'm just tryin' to figure something out."

Sam rolls his eyes. "What is it about that phrase that bothers you?"

"Just the context." Dean gets to his feet, shoving his book onto the table. "You're the only person in the fuckin' world who would - "

"What, dude?" Sam stands up, too, spreading his arms. "What is it you think I'm doing?"

"I don't know, Sam," he says impatiently. "What're you doing?"

He just stares at him, eyebrows perked up, one hand on his hip. Outside, some kids are yelling and hauling beach stuff out of a car. Sam doesn't think about it; he just leans in, leans down, and presses his mouth against Dean's.

There was never any doubt in his mind that Dean wanted this too - he had to - but he wasn't expecting it to be like this. Dean's licking into him with deep, heavy swipes before he can even think, before he can realize that he's not asleep on some freeway three states over. Dean's hands ghost over his sides, and he bats them away, pulls him in automatically. His body knows this, like he's not even calling the shots - he knows the angles of Dean's body, all the ways they fit together and bump sharply.

"Sam," he says, when they hit against the edge of the nearest bed. There are so many ways to read that tone, he doesn't know where to start.

"Yeah." He tries to pull them down on it, but they somehow wind up sliding down to the floor in a messy heap. Dean's mouth knocks against his cheek, wet and hot.

The things he remembers now are meaningless - just snippets. A cut of muscle, a drag of lips. They make it familiar, but he's still lost. He doesn't have any answers.

"This okay?" Dean asks, and Sam swallows, dry and achy.

"I don't know," he breathes. "Yeah."

Dean rolls them over, and then again, until they knock into the dresser and send a cascade of clean shirts down over them. He'd laugh if he had any air, because they're really wrestling around on the floor of this motel room. That's really Dean's body up against his.

The memories that do come to him are real, tangible. Dean works his mouth down the side of his neck, and he remembers every time he caught him making out when they were teenagers, every time he caught him misbehaving when they were kids. He remembers Dean's mouth curving over the rim of cheap paper coffee cups, steam dewy on his forehead. He remembers fights, hunts, every sting of stitched wounds. The dull ache of disappearing on a Greyhound.

He feels like a kid again, taking a step over the salt line and not knowing why it seemed so frightening.

"How long?" Dean demands, pushing him against the cold pressboard.

Sam wheezes, only faintly aware of Dean's tongue dragging against the dip in his chin. "Uh," he says.

"Yeah, me too," Dean says. He hooks his leg over Sam's hip, pushing them together in a hot, heavy slide.

It's too fast for anything, for the press of skin against skin, and he thinks feverishly, Next time, even as he breathes against Dean's mouth. His hands are too big, too shaky as he pushes up the hem of Dean's t-shirt and yanks his jeans open, and - Christ, the curve of Dean's cock is right there, fitting against his palm.

He wants too many things; he wants everything he's seen in the last three months, all at once. To crush them together and not come up for air. To say what this means to him, for them, though he's pretty sure Dean would never forgive him for it.

Instead he breathes, "Fuck, Dean, you like that?"

"Yeah," Dean says, voice shot to a rasp. "Jesus - Sam - I didn't think you had it in you."

He huffs out a laugh, shoving his hand through the slit in Dean's boxers. "Me either. God, you're - " He doesn't even know what he wants to say. Big? Hard? My older brother?

But Dean doesn't seem to require that sentence to be finished - he's busy grinding down as best he can, slip-sliding his cock against Sam's hand. It's hot and silky against his palm, and he's gripped it so many times in his mind that it comes naturally - he twists his fist without even thinking about it, the pad of his thumb finding that spot just below the head that always makes Dean--

"Jesus fuck."

-- do that.

It's all kinds of fucked up. He can hear himself groan again, like it's not even coming from him. It's been too long since he's really done this, felt someone come apart against him. And this is Dean, the only person in his life he's ever really known, really understood. He's always had these innocent little curiosities about him, about the smooth lines of muscle and the smell of sweat and aftershave, and now it's like it's all twisting hotly in his chest, making him recognize this - him - for exactly what it all is.

Dean rolls them over again, so Sam's pressing him down into the ratty carpeting.

"Want you - like that," he grates out. Their mouths are messy and rough together, and it's only then that Sam realizes how vague, how glazed his visions have been. He feels strung up by the details - the grind and burn of stubble, the slippery slide of tongue, the harsh edge of a tooth Dean chipped when he was fourteen. He can feel the roll of breaths, hitching and pressing up against his chest. Dean's hand is thick and strong and the opposite of delicate when he shoves it down into his boxers. "D'you really - I mean, your little gettin'-to-know-you game was cute an' all, but you. You really want this?"

Sam can feel his eyebrows working. "Just because we don't cry and hug, doesn't mean I don't think about things."

Dean laughs, bright and loud, and fists his hand around his cock. "Such a bitch."

"Yeah, yeah," he groans, because Dean's face is right there, right up against his. He knows that he wants this - more than he wants normal, more than he wants everything to be okay. In this instant, nothing seems as important as Dean gripping him, jerking his hand all rough and unforgiving. He shifts to give them more room, but that - that just makes him straddle Dean's hips, and that vision from St. Louis comes back in such a rush that he can't even breathe.

"Jesus," Dean gasps as Sam rocks down against him and comes. It feels like everything - everything - is slamming into him, until he can't stop. The world seems reduced to the rub of Dean's fingertips, the pull of skin and the wet slam of jizz in his own boxers. This has happened so many times, so many ways, but never quite like this; not with the sucker-punch he feels this time, the layers of want and need.

It's just automatic, tilting his head down to stare at Dean. He feels hollow and boneless and sated, and his fist starts up his fumbling rhythm before he can even stop panting. Without the rough, edgy tension welling in him, he can just watch, which is almost better. He shifts his shoulders, and afternoon sunlight streams all across them. It catches on the planes of Dean's face - the golden bits of hair, the spit-shine on his teeth, the glint of sweat across his nose. He can see every wisp of stubble, every line. That stupid scar, and all the other ones he doesn't even notice anymore. He can see the blood rush to Dean's cheeks just before he mutters, "Sam," and is jerking, pulsing in Sam's fist and losing sticky gobs of spunk across his fingers, all over his knuckles.

They slump like that afterwards, panting and slick.

"Dude. You're heavy," Dean mumbles, and Sam rolls over, pulling his hand back with a sticky elastic snap. He stares blankly at the underside of the table; there's an ancient-looking wad of gum stuck to it. His breaths feel like wind rushing through him, like something in him has been blown open.

Dean turns his head, and there's this lightness to his voice, still breathless. "You figure that thing out?"

He laughs, and it feels like it's coming from that fresh, warm pit in his stomach. "You have no idea."

*

In Pine Hills, Oregon, they waste a poltergeist. It's a clean fight.

The nights seem a little shorter now, and days are lasting more; spring's sliding into summer. They leave at dawn, with the father of the family shaking their hands. Thank you, thank you, he says, and Dean tosses the keys in the air and catches them.

No one dies, nothing goes wrong. If Sam's a little cut up, if Dean's a little bloody, that's par for the course. The only thing that's different is the way he feels - lighter, better, stronger. Like he can just reach his arm out, and Dean will be there, solid and warm. It's not perfect, and it doesn't make sense, but it's something.

They get a lead back down in California, and crossing the border is just a twinge.

"Working on cars," Dean says later. The highway twists wildly here, and redwoods tower on either side.

Sam looks up from print-outs on Russian house spirits. "Huh?"

"If I wasn't here," he clarifies, like it's obvious. "I'd be workin' on cars. Probably have the whole shebang - shop, jumpsuit. Honest Dean's Auto Repair, or whatever."

Bits of sunlight cut through the haze of tree shadows, rat-a-tat-tatting on the side of his face as he thinks that over. "Okay."

"Okay."

Dean cranks up the stereo; coast roads mean Creedence Clearwater Revival. Sam looks out the window, at the glimmers of ocean he can catch between patches of forest.

He's grinning, and he's pretty sure Dean is, too.


-fin.







notes: the concept of sam having sexy incest visions was totally valiant's - who also, not-so-coincidentally, gets my ever-lovin' thanks for the awesome beta and support.