"You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean." - Matthew 23:27

They laid side-by-side in the sweaty bed, a gulf of sheets and mattress between them, the only sounds the gentle tick of shifting metal in the vents and their slowing breathing. It was very dark, with the curtains drawn against the streetlights outside. Lisa thought about reaching up and turning on the lamp she had on her nightstand, but didn't. She told herself that it wasn't because she was afraid to look at Dean.

Thank god Ben was staying over at a friend's house. That was why she'd thought tonight would be perfect to make this kind of move in the first place.

She felt like she should say something. She had to say something, they couldn't just stare up at the shadowy ceiling until the sun rose. But what in the hell could she possibly say, she wondered? She was equal parts relieved and afraid when Dean broke the silence, clearing his throat.

"So," he started. "There was this girl. Samantha - "

"Y'know, by now," Lisa turned her head on the pillow to find Dean's dark shape, "I think I've at least earned the right to have you tell me the truth."

"Okay." Dean breathed out. "Yeah, you're right. Sorry." There was a long, long pause, one Lisa wasn't going to bring to an end, and then he turned his own head. Their eyes locked blindly. Something uncomfortable rolled under Lisa's ribs, and she found herself studying the ceiling again. "You finish?"

She had, actually. Twice. Dean was always good about that, attentive in ways none of her other partners had probably ever even thought about. But that didn't seem relevant at the moment. Somehow.

"Is this really what we should be talking about right now?" He wanted her to let it go, forget about it. That was almost painfully obvious. But she wasn't going to. "Why'd you say your brother's name?"

"Why d'you think, Lisa?" Dean snapped back.

She knew exactly what she thought. She knew Dean knew it, too, but he didn't want to say it out loud, and Ben did this exact same thing sometimes. Made her drag it out of him. She wasn't sure if it was just an annoying man-habit or what.

Or a Winchester one.

She was too tired for dragging tonight, and not in the mood. Didn't feel like giving Dean whatever sick satisfaction he'd take in being forced to voice the obvious. Better to act like it was already hanging in the air between them.

"Did Sam know?" she asked then, to head off the "Know what?" she could already feel coming, added, "How you felt?"

"Course he did." Dean sounded mad. At himself, her, or everything in general, Lisa wasn't sure. "Wasn't like I was...pining away for him in secret." The mess they'd made of the covers shifted as he tugged at the fabric. "I'm not great at talking about my feelings, you know that." She did. "But he was. And he felt...he was the same."

It was awkward and forced, doing this, like Lisa was intruding somewhere she'd never been intended to go. She also, if she was being totally honest, didn't want to know any of this. But she knew she needed to hear it. Dean probably needed to talk about it, too.

"And you...?" She trailed off, the words stuck unpleasantly to the roof of her mouth.

"Nothing happened 'til we were both adults," Dean stated. "After I got him from college. After our dad died, even." That was another thing Lisa didn't know much about. "It was never...abusive or anything."

Lisa was silent. Dean sighed, halfway annoyed, halfway heartbroken.

"I know how that sounds," he said quietly. "Ain't like Sam's here to back me up, either. Or call me out. But it's true." His pillow made a soft noise as his head moved. "You don't have to believe me."

Did she? It was probably going to be weeks, at least, until Lisa could see her own feelings about this as anything but a whirling storm of blood and shadows. She couldn't imagine Dean hurting his brother in any way. At the same time, who ever heard of a loving, consensual incestuous relationship?

"Did you tell anybody else?"

"Couple people," Dean replied bleakly. "They found out by accident, like you, and wasn't any way we could hide it. Lots more out there who know we're together but not about. Th-the brother thing."

Lisa didn't correct his use of the present tense.

"Our dad never knew," Dean went on. "Thank god."

Lisa had more questions, ones she knew would slide off her tongue like straight pins or razor blades, but she couldn't seem to get them down out of her brain or up out of her chest. Wherever they were stored. She seemed, though, to have nudged open some sort of floodgates in Dean.

"We were real close growing up." And what did "close" mean in this context, exactly? "We had to be. And that, and what happened later...it was such an important part of who we were. Alone and both of us together. I know it's fucked up. I'm sorry.

"If he...if he was still around, if we'd found another way to stop it all...I would've stayed with him.

"He was the best person I ever knew. He was the center of my whole world.

"I don't regret any of it. I probably oughta, but I don't."

Lisa listened to it all as Dean talked up into the indoor night, took in every line. What it reminded her of, honestly, was a science project Ben had done in third grade. A bug collection that she'd helped extensively with, out of necessity. Months of beetles, worms, and butterflies she'd mostly found disgusting and wasn't quite sure what to do with, but that she picked up and kept anyway, because Ben needed them. It was in the attic now with all his other school stuff, where she didn't have to look at it.

She sat up when Dean had been silent for a minute or so, apparently done for now. Sweat dried in her navel and between her breasts.

"Didn't you know it was wrong?" She realized it was a stupid question even as she asked it.

"Yeah, we kinda figured that out," Dean said sardonically. "With everything else we had going on, though, didn't seem like such a big deal. We definitely weren't hurting anybody."

"Well," Lisa said after a short pause. "It...explains a lot, at least."

Dean snorted at that.

There was another silence, one Dean also broke. The springs of the mattress creaked under his weight as he sat up beside her. And being over six feet tall and all muscle, he weighed a lot. All muscle and scar tissue. Both physical and emotional.

"I get it if you want me gone," he said like someone who was used to being thrown out of places, who wore it as a point of pride and pain both.

"You saved me and my son." Our son, maybe. Lisa had still never gotten around to the test she'd lied about. It'd be easier than ever, with Dean's DNA all over her house, most notably in the condom he'd tied off and tossed not too much earlier. But she'd never really wanted to know. She especially didn't now. "You saved the world. I think that makes up for anything else you might've done."

Lisa could feel him hesitating, could feel him beginning to pull up the tentative roots he'd put down in their loose soil. She put a hand on his shoulder. She hadn't wanted touching him to nauseate or horrify her, but when it actually didn't, she was more certain that what she was about to say was true. "I want you to stay, Dean."

He looked at her. She let go of him, ran fingers through her sex-matted hair, and laid back down.

"It was really good up to...that point," Lisa told Dean in her silver-lining voice. "And I'm beat. We can talk about it more in the morning."

Dean laid down without saying anything, and Lisa knew he wouldn't bring it up tomorrow. He wasn't a talker. He'd been essentially forced into this discussion. But if the conversation, the topic, never saw the light of day, Lisa could live with that.

Dean went to hold her, awkwardly, hesitantly. Lisa slipped under his arm, pressed her back against his chest. He was warm and smelled like lovemaking, and it was only Lisa's imagination, colored by what she knew about him now, that he had to adjust his grip because he was used to a body larger than hers.

Ironically, if things were just a little different, she might find the idea of Dean with another man kind of hot.

Both of them laid awake, as they probably would for a long time. Lisa thought about what'd drawn Dean to her in the first place, years ago. Her long, dark hair? Her wide cheekbones? Her height, tall for a woman?

Sam would've been sixteen when they met. Off-limits. And maybe already talking about Stanford, removing himself from Dean's life.

He could come back. The rules, the natural order of things as Lisa had always understood them, had been very different since the Winchesters re-entered her life. What was dead should stay dead but didn't always. And she hoped Sam would remain where he was. Partly because him returning would probably mean all sorts of bad things picking up where they'd left off. Dean hadn't offered up many details about the apocalypse they'd averted, but Lisa got the gist.

Partly, she hoped Sam stayed dead for his own sake, and Dean's. What they'd had was unhealthy. And no matter how Dean felt, Sam's loss had probably been the best thing to ever happen to him.

And then partly...well. There were things out there worse than having sex with your own brother, and Lisa thought being jealous of a man who'd sacrificed himself to save all of humanity might be one of them. She knew she was Dean's second choice. She didn't mind that. Frankly, she was happy to be his backup plan: he was good to her, Ben adored him, he'd found and kept a great job, and she knew she wasn't the only girl out there he could've gone to.

But partly she wanted Sam to stay dead because she knew that, even if she and Dean spent the rest of their lives together, he'd never talk about her the way he did his little brother.