Five Times Sam did a Stupid Thing and Dean Bailed Him Out (and One Time He Couldn?t)
Five Times Sam did a Stupid Thing and Dean Bailed Him Out (and One Time He Couldn’t)
(Sam/Dean, 4531 words, Hard R)


The fifty's all gone. It took Sam about an hour to lose it, which is better than last week when he lost it in less than twenty minutes.

That's not the problem. Dean's getting real good at this and can probably make it back and then some this evening. Sam's meant to be practising too, that's why Dean gave him the money, because then there'll be two wage-earners in the family, like Dean says.

Dean knew Sam was going to lose the fifty even when he gave it to him, even though Sam had sworn he was going to prove him wrong and win some, even though he didn't really want to spend his evening in the bar, he'd much rather be back at the motel watching television.

The problem is that the man let Sam play another hand even after his money was gone, said they'd figure something out and Sam went along with it. Now he's got no money and a man that wants paying.

The man is a trucker with long hair who's probably older than both of them put together, not as old as Dad though. He saw Sam come in with Dean early in the evening and he'd seemed okay, much friendlier than some of the men Dean tries hustling. The man’s still friendly but that’s because he’s won; everyone’s friendly when they’ve won. And now he wants money. Sam doesn’t know whether they’ve got the money, doesn’t think they have.

He looks over at Dean who is short and scrawny. The old pair of Dad’s jeans he’s wearing, hanging about his hips and turned up a million times at the ankle, and the battered leather jacket that swamps him don’t make him look particularly impressive.

“That your brother?” the man asks, following the direction of Sam’s gaze.

Sam doesn’t answer. He wants to be over with Dean and he’s heading that way but the man comes too. Dean looks up and his smile settles on Sam before a shadow rises behind his eyes as he takes in the man at Sam’s elbow. He stands up and it doesn’t make much difference; Dean doesn’t even reach Dad’s shoulder and the trucker would have an inch or two on Dad.

“Lady Luck wasn’t smiling on your little brother tonight, I’m afraid.”

Dean flicks a glance at Sam, wary and confused. Sam wills him to understand that this is trouble but it looks like Dean’s already got there. He raises his eyebrows at the man.

“Yeah? Can’t win ‘em all, I guess.” He glances at Sam. “How much you owe this nice man, Sammy?”

It’s then that Sam realises there’s been a hole in the game. He’d told the man he was out of money, and the man had said they’d figure something out and said come on come on, one more round and you’re bound to win your money back. The bar suddenly seems much bigger, the neon lights glow brighter, the door out to the night is right across the way, such a long way.

“Well, see, we hadn’t talked money. Don’t want to be taking you boys’ hard-earned cash.” The man’s gaze drifts over Dean. “I’ve seen you two in here the last couple of nights. Seen you doing pretty well for yourselves.” He grins at Sam, then flashes a wink at Dean. “You two got spunk.”

Dean’s smirking and nodding but all he says is, “How much you owe this man, Sammy?”

“Hey, boy, I don’t want to take your money! Can’t we figure out some other way for you to settle up?”

The man’s hand comes down on Dean’s shoulder and Dean doesn’t seem to react at all. Nothing beside a lazy looking over of the guy. He shrugs and nods. And the man smiles back at him, that same friendly easy smile of old dusty tracks, that smile that had first made Sam think it was safe to try to hustle him.

“Guess we can,” says Dean. “But you gotta let me pay up. Sammy’s still new to the game.” Dean looks to Sam and there’s some kind of resolution in sight but Sam doesn’t understand how it’s been reached or what it is. He’d expected more talk of money. “You run back to the motel, Sammy, and get shut in tight. I’ll be along later.”

Sam doesn’t want to go. Dad’s always told him to stick with Dean and Sam’s happiest being right there. But Dean’s telling him to go and Dad’s also told him to always do as Dean says when he’s not there.

So Sam goes and he doesn’t like it but he goes right on back to the motel, just like Dean told him to. He sits on the end of his bed and doesn’t even put the television on so he can hear Dean’s key in the lock. It gets really dark outside and Sam knows he’s meant to stay away from the windows, like Dad’s said, but he has to keep looking to see if Dean’s coming yet.

He doesn’t cry, even though he wants to. And he’s glad that he doesn’t because when Dean gets back, Sam can see him checking him for tears. Dean’s breathless and he’s got a split lip, but he’s grinning like a wild thing. He pulls a handgun out from his waistband at the back and throws it down on the bed. Sam stares at it and thinks of the trucker’s pale blue eyes.

“Dean… Dean, did you shoot him?”

“No way,” says Dean. “Just gave him a little scare. Made him think the debt wasn’t worth collecting.”

Sam trails Dean to the bathroom where Dean proudly examines his split lip in the mirror. Sam thinks of something slamming hard enough into his brother’s face to do that to his mouth and frowns. Dean can be really irritating sometimes, teasing Sam and always thinking he knows best, but Sam can’t imagine hitting Dean that hard.

“How much did he want?” he asks.

Dean studies Sam’s reflection in the mirror and he’s finally stopped smirking. Sam doesn’t like it when Dean looks at him like that. It makes him think there’s some decision being made in Dean’s head that’s all about him but that he’s never going to get to know about.

“He was greedy. Wanted more than I was going to pay,” says Dean at last. “Next time, Sammy, try gambling Dad and see if they still wanna play.”


:::

The letter almost doesn’t make it home. Sam nearly shoves it back in his locker at school, and then twice almost ditches it before he gets to the motel.

But somehow he takes it to Dean anyway. Dean reads it while Sam studies the scruffy toes of his trainers. He doesn’t want to see Dean’s disappointment.

Dad and Dean are both proud of how well Sam does at school. Dean dropped out last year and though Dad tried to persuade him to go back, he didn’t try very hard. Sam though, Sam’s always bringing home good school reports. He’s bright and picks things up easily and teachers tend to like him. ‘Sam’s got a future’ Dad and Dean both say. Sam wonders if this means Dean only has a present, whether Dad only has a past.

Even at thirteen, Sam knows that ‘having a future’ is something of a responsibility. And the letter means he’s screwed up.

Mrs Hendry, Sam’s English Lit. teacher, has concerns about Sam and she can couch it as tactfully as she likes in her letter but her concerns make Dean concerned and he doesn’t let up until he’s dragged the whole story from Sam.

“You said that?" Dean asks, flapping the letter at Sam. “It’s fucking Shakespeare, Sammy! Not real life! What the hell were you thinking?”

It was stupid, Sam knew it was stupid the moment he’d said it, but that doesn’t stop him trying to justify it to Dean.

“The ghost was telling him to kill his uncle! Okay, so what his mom and uncle did was wrong but that doesn’t mean Hamlet should kill him! And any ghost that’s still walking about, demanding people kill other people, needs its bones dug up, salted and burnt!”

Dean doesn’t answer that, just goes silent. Sam hates these unreadable moments Dean gets, when he stops being open and uncomplicated and retreats back into his own little world. He’s living in that little world all the time, Sam thinks, but it’s easy to forget that that’s where he is when Dean is demanding extra onions on his burger or leaving his dirty socks under Sam’s pillow.

Sam doesn’t try pulling him out of it. He looks away, lips tightening reflexively into a pout, until he hears a sigh and chair legs scraping against the floor as Dean pushes away from the table. Dean’s reading the letter again when Sam glances at him. He looks stretched thin, like a patch of material worn through.

“I don’t know when Dad’s going to be back, Sam. Probably not this week.”

“What are we going to do?”

That’s the thing, of course. That’s why Sam brought Dean the letter rather than just chuck it. Secretly, deep down, he wanted to tell Dean. Nothing’s ever so bad once Dean knows about it. He’s just got to wait, wait for that curve of lips that means the dark clouds have passed overhead.

It only takes moments.

“It says she wants to see a parent or guardian,” says Dean, his voice bright with a smirk. “Might not be a parent but I’m damn sure I qualify as a guardian.”

It’s not the answer Sam was hoping for. The idea of Dean - Dean with his cockiness and crude jokes and too young face – sitting in a room with Sam’s teacher makes Sam’s stomach lurch. His lips tighten even further and he fidgets on the spot.

“Don’t give me that look,” says Dean. “I’m not calling Dad for this. He expects me to take care of things and I’m going to.”

Dean comes into school the very next day. Sam sees him down the hall in front of him, sees him swaggering and feels hopeless. It’s not often he’d rather Dad deal with a problem than Dean. Dad is unnerving when he’s solving things, quiet and level and giving every impression that he’s holding a ball of chaos squashed down inside himself. And when Dad is around, Dean’s not as much fun, not as open to persuasion. Sam hears ‘no’ a lot more often when Dad is around.

But he wishes it were Dad going in to see Mrs Hendry. There’s something dignified about Dad, something people just respect. Dean, though, Dean looks like nothing but trouble.

Sam has the mad urge to rush at Dean and beg him to leave, for them to just skip out and meet Dad a few towns over. They could do that. They’ve done it before.

Then Dean turns about to greet Mrs Hendry and Sam can see how nervous Dean is. It’s more than the fact he’s shaved, more than the old tie he’s dug out and is tied awkwardly about his throat. There are a hundred little giveaway signs of anxiousness that only Sam can recognise.

Dean doesn’t see Sam and that afternoon, when Sam gets out of school, there’s no clue that Dean ever thought he wouldn’t be able to smooth this over like he’s smoothed so much else. He looks up from the gun he’s cleaning, a big old shotgun Dad gave him, and Sam knows it’s sorted, even before he knows how. He takes the chair across from Dean and waits, expectantly.

“I promised your teacher I’d have a word with you, Sammy,” says Dean. “So: no more of those horror comics, all right? Other than that, Susie Hendry thinks you’re doing just fine.”

His grin catches on Sam’s face.


:::

Life is full of humiliations when you’re a teenager. Sam’s suffered more than a few of them. But this one: having your big brother turn up at a party you’re at, having him shoot the lock off the door (and taking half the door with it) and bawl you out in front of all your potential friends? This seems to go beyond what a teenager can reasonably expect.

Once the door is swinging crazily off its hinges Sam can get his friends out. From the way they look at him he doesn't think they're his friends anymore. He doesn't really care too much.

He’d tried to tell them that it was a bad idea. He’d appealed to David and Billy, saying ouija boards were for girls’ slumber parties and nothing else. And he’d been full of dire warnings to Sheri and Ann-Marie, telling them every gruesome ghost story he could. He’d pushed until they’d started looking at him like he wasn’t the cool new kid anymore, but a weird little guy they wished they’d never invited.

He’d been too pissed off to say ‘I told you so’ when the shadows started wreathing into the figure of a squat little child. When the door wouldn't open, not even with a good hard kicking, he'd realised he'd had to call Dean, and that had pissed him off even more.

Dean was pissed off too, but somehow managed to snarl out a few ‘I told you so’s’ himself.

By the time they've broken into the local library, Dean's fallen into aggrieved silence. The light from his torch doesn't waver as he stands over Sam, lighting the pages of the old newspaper Sam's flicking through. Sam doesn't try pushing him into talking; Dean's mute disapproval can be as loud as Dad's.

It's not until they're in the cemetery and Dean is knee-deep in grave dirt, the rasp of the shovel dragging regularly through the night air, that Dean speaks again.

"What have I got to do, huh?"

Sam looks over at him. Dean's leaning on the shovel, skin shining with sweat in the pale light from Sam's torch, t-shirt clinging to the hard lines of muscle, but his expression is strangely helpless.

"About what?" Sam asks.

Dean can't mean about the haunting. They've figured out who the ouija board woke up – Jennifer Coombs, 12 years old when she was smothered in her sleep by her crazy mother - and they've found the grave. This is the kind of thing Dean's great at, along with hustling, telling lies and shooting seven kinds of hell out of monsters.

"I gotta lock you up in the goddamn trunk of my car to keep you out of trouble?"

Sam looks back towards the wrought iron gates of the cemetery. It's cold and he hunches deeper into his coat, wrapping his hands - which are too big for his skinny body these days - around the torch.

"You don't need to go looking for trouble, Sammy," says Dean, as he smashes the lid of the coffin open. He douses the bones in petrol, then there's the snap of his lighter and the whoosh of flames. "Trouble knows right where to find us."

Dean's not mad anymore. He's got a grave full of burning bones and that always makes his day. Sam feels a rush of affection for his brother, even though he knows school tomorrow is going to be excruciating. This is their first hunt together. There's been no Dad so no orders or safety net, just each other. And they've got through it.

They've got through it.


:::

Dad says taking Dean along would be too much like bringing the succubus an all-you-can-eat buffet. Dean flushes and says, half-joking half-pleading, that maybe he could be bait? Dad laughs but says no. It’ll just be Sammy and him on this one.

Sam learns two things from the trip.

1. Succubi aren’t all that attractive when they’re not in seduction mode.
2. It’s not just their more intimate bodily fluids you’ve got to watch out for.

He shoots from a distance, like Dad tells him to, so he doesn’t know where the three little spots of blood on his cheek come from. He wipes them off and then staggers as he gets painfully, achingly hard.

He screws himself down in his seat in the truck on the way back to the motel, leaning away from Dad. Dad doesn’t mind the silence, seems to accept it from Sam. It’s a relief because Sam doesn’t trust his voice to stay level; it’d come out a high, desperate squeak. They drive over rocky dirt tracks and the juddering goes through Sam’s body. His vision starts to swim as he gets harder and harder. It’s like one big pulse of blood, low in his belly, getting ever heavier.

Dean’s waiting up for them, hunched forward in front of late-night trash television. While he presses Dad for details on how the hunt went, trying – and mostly succeeding – to balance his own curiosity with Dad’s usual unwillingness to go back over what’s passed, Sam rushes into the bathroom. He peels his clothes off, biting back a whimper as he tugs his jeans down over his stiff cock, and stumbles into the shower.

The water pelts down on him, bruising and icy cold. He tilts his face up to it and braces himself against the wall as his other hand curls about his cock. His wrist jerks furiously, fingers slipping sharply over the stiff length of himself. His skin aches, throbs like a living thing. His cock slaps through his fist, loud even above the thunder of the water. Someone knocks on the bathroom door and Sam freezes, eyes wide and full of tears and his whole lanky frame wound tight.

“Hey, Sammy? You all right in there?” It’s Dean and Sam sobs in relief, which is a mistake because a note of concern enters Dean’s voice. “Hey, you okay?”

There’s the muted sound of voices, a quick conference, and then the bathroom door opens. Sam almost slips up on the enamel as he tries to slam it shut, but it’s too late, Dean’s in the room, closing the door behind himself. So Sam can only turn to the wall, a flush creeping across his already blood-mottled body.

“Get out!” he screeches. “Get out get out!”

Dean doesn’t touch him, doesn’t say anything. He’s still just standing there when Sam peers over his shoulder at him. The water dribbling from his hair into his eyes, and his ashamed, panicked tears blind him. Dean is nothing but a familiar blur coming closer.

“Dude, that’s… wow.”

It sounds like Dean can’t make up his mind whether he’s more startled or amused by Sam’s predicament. It’s suddenly a blessing that Sam can’t see his face. He makes another small, angry noise and presses himself into the corner. Dean’s shadow rises up slickly on the wall and Sam starts shaking. Dean’s hand comes down on his shoulder and it’s only a tentative touch, the barest whisper of skin-to-skin contact, but it goes through Sam like a knife, the same sick tingling sensation.

The frantic fluttering arousal focuses into a single thudding need. His stomach clenches and he moans.

“Go away…”

Dean’s hand tightens on his shoulder. It’s clear in his voice that he’s trying to sound serious and soothing, but is holding back a laugh.

“Sammy, it’s a succubus infection. You need… uh, you’re gonna need a hand.”

There’s obviously some meaning in that but Sam can’t figure anything out beyond the want and the dizziness. He gets some idea what Dean means when Dean’s other hand reaches round and covers his own on his cock. His cock twitches but Sam shrieks and backs away.

“Dean? What the fuck? You can’t…!”

The shower is too small, too full of their bodies for Sam to escape. The water is splattering Dean’s t-shirt, droplets glistening in his cropped hair. And he’s smirking. This is so funny to him. Sam hates him, even as much as he wants him to touch him again.

“Don’t be pathetic, Sammy. I changed your goddamn diapers. Just jerking off, right? We all do it. Don’t need to make a big deal of it. Succubi make you need to come, but you can’t do it alone. Your balls’ll burst if you don’t let me sort you out.”

Sam tries to skitter away from Dean, darting under the water, his cock bobbing ridiculously against his stomach, and Dean is forced to corner him. He’s laughing as he wraps his fingers about Sam, his hands slippery on his skin. His shoulder wedges Sam in place and the cotton of his t-shirt is sodden and rough. He’s not gentle, not delicate, not like this is two boys in the shower touching each other in ways brothers shouldn’t. Even as Sam’s jerking against him, coming all over Dean’s hand, all over his thighs, he thinks that this is how he thought Dean would be.

This is how he thought a handjob from Dean would be.

He sags against the wall, thinking he might vomit, while Dean picks up a towel and rubs his hair dry.

“Dad says to shoot from further away next time,” says Dean as he goes out the door. “Now wash up and get out here, Dad’s getting us pizza.”


:::

It was Dad’s kill, but it was Sam and Dean that got the ghoul trapped in salt. They tumble back into the motel room, laughing and going over their victory for the fourth time that night. Dad takes off for a munitions stock-up because Caleb’s only two towns over, and Sam and Dean break out the beers. They toast their cleverness and cunning, how Sam found the thing when it sloped off into the woodshed, how Dean shot it right in the eye-socket, splattering Sam’s t-shirt with gunk but driving it back into the salt circle. They clap their bottles together, marking their individual moments of glory with the sound of clinking glass.

They drink until Sam’s giggling and Dean’s trying to call him a girl but can't speak coherently enough to do so.

Somehow, they manage to get to bed and though Sam can’t sleep, he’s happy enough to lie there, smiling inanely at the ceiling and listening to Dean snore. He rolls over in his bed, curling about his pillow, and staring through the soft blue-black shadows at the shape of his brother. Dean’s dead to the world, but there’s a smirk still clinging to the corners of his lips. There are bruises on his bare shoulders, and a nasty red scrape where the ghoul knocked him right off his feet into the woodpile.

Unsteadily, Sam slips from his bed and crawls on his knees to Dean’s bedside. He loves his brother and the alcohol makes him think he should tell him he does. He wanted to tell him earlier, I love you, you know, you stupid jerk – even though you got me sprayed with zombie juice, you’re my goddamn big brother and I love you, but Dean had been awake and even the persuasive nudging of the beer couldn’t make Sam say a thing like that while Dean’s actually conscious and looking at him.

But Dean’s asleep now, looking soft and docile, so Sam feels brave enough to touch his face.

“Dean,” he whispers. “Dean, I love you. You know that, right?”

Dean bats a hand at Sam, grumbling something in his sleep. His eyelashes flutter as his eyes twitch beneath the lids and Sam notices, for the first time, just how long his brother’s eyelashes are. They’re a long, dark sweep. Almost like a girl’s. His mouth is a girl’s mouth too, aside from the fact he’d probably taste like a boy, and almost certainly wouldn’t go for soft, girly kisses.

Sam wonders how Dean tastes, whether he tastes of guns and alcohol and things that go bump in the night. Whether there’s anything sweet about him at all.

He leans in close, holding his breath, and touches his lips to Dean’s. It’s not much of a kiss, just a brush of dry skin, but Sam feels like he’s found something secret and special. It’s wrong, he knows it is, but if he’s quick no one will know and it will be like it hasn’t happened. So he slips his tongue between Dean’s lips and tastes his mouth. He doesn’t dare breathe while he kisses his brother because anything could break this fleeting thing.

He closes his eyes and imagines that Dean is kissing him back. His brother’s mouth is slack and warm and it’s too tempting to push his tongue deeper, but Sam doesn’t risk it. He’s breaking too many rules even like this.

And with the recognition that Sam is pushing his luck, Dean twitches and twists his head away. His eyes flutter open, dazed and unseeing in the half-light. His face, his mouth, is still only inches away from Sam’s; his lips are still swollen and wet from the kiss.

“Sammy? What…?”

The kiss is gone, over, and all Sam has left is putting right the mess he’s made. He touches Dean’s face again and he knows it’s not the smartest thing to do but he can’t think straight.

“Shh, Dean, shh, just dreaming… just a bad dream. Go to sleep… shh…”

Dean stares at him a moment longer but gradually his eyes sink shut as Sam strokes his cheek and coos soothingly at him. His body goes limp again and he’s snoring before Sam even dares take breath again. He slinks back to his bed and goes back to staring at the ceiling. He fidgets until the cheap, stained bedsheets are rumpled around him. Briefly, he considers jerking off, then realises he doesn’t want to know what his mind would come up with while he was doing it.

The morning comes before Sam’s ready for it. He stays in bed, pretending to sleep, while Dean gets up and takes a shower. Dean pulls the curtains open and Sam slides further down in his bed, disappearing under his blankets so the sunlight can’t reach him. Then abruptly, the blankets yanked from him and Dean smacks him lightly on the leg.

“C’mon, Sammy, no time for a lay-in. Dad’ll be back soon and we’ll have to be moving on.”

Sam doesn’t answer, doesn’t look at him, but staggers towards the bathroom. He can feel Dean watching him and he freezes when Dean speaks.

“You as hungover as I am?” Dean asks. “Christ, how much did we drink? I can’t remember a damn thing from last night. How about you?”

Like that then, thinks Sam. He shakes his head.

“No,” he says. “Not a damn thing.”


:::

"Honey? Honey, your cell's ringing."

Jess tosses him the phone and Sam catches it neatly. He studies the small, flashing screen and his lips thin.

Dean.

He thinks of the last time he saw Dad, and how Dean didn’t say a damn thing as Sam packed his bags. He thinks of the apartment that is his home and the girlfriend that he loves.

He kills the call and, dropping the phone onto the table, goes back to his textbooks.

~end