DISCLAIMER: I don't own Supernatural
A/N: I haven't much to say, except that I hope you enjoy this and I hope you review! No pressure, though. None at all.
This was stupid. What the hell was he doing here?
Grunting slightly in discomfort, Dean shifted on the black leather of the Impala's front seat, trying to find a comfortable position for his numb buttocks. The attempt failed spectacularly and Dean spent the next few seconds trying not to voice his pain as his leg, which had fallen asleep a long while ago, reawakened at the movement and promptly decided to hurt like a bitch.
This was seriously whacked up. He had been lounging in the Impala's front seat - watching Sam's house - for the whole day, and now it was one o'clock at night. Why on earth was he still here?
God, I'm thirsty. A beer would be good…
But the beer was in the trunk, and he couldn't be bothered getting out of the Impala, was worried that messing around would attract the attention of… something. Because whether Sam was innocent or guilty, there was a still a damn good chance that there were supernatural creatures lurking around him, hidden in the thick shadows covering the silent suburban street. Attracted to his power or awaiting his orders.
Despite his earlier surety that Sam was innocent, he was definitely having second thoughts. If Sam really was so powerful, why on earth hadn't he been attacked by anything supernatural yet? Then again, even if he had been, he probably wouldn't advertise the fact. But still… there were many things about Sam that made him extremely suspicious, and yet there were many things about Sam that made him want to protect him, preserve him. But those qualities that made Dean want to protect him: the innocence, the kindness (the geekiness, even), the utter cuteness and loveableness and fuckableness and was he high or something, because what the fuck? Anyway, all those attractive qualities – what if they were just an act? What if Sam was just pretending so he could fool Dean into letting his guard down? Into not doing his job?
And that prospect was the one that continued to nag at Dean, continued to tease him and poke at him until he felt like he was about ready to explode, or kill something at least. For some reason the thought of Sam… betraying him (it was the only way he knew how to describe it) made him sick to his stomach, made him blind with rage, made him feel like he might burst into tears, whimper don't you love me? like some naïve little girl who believed that relationships were forever that had just been dumped by her boyfriend. This turbulent mix of emotions just served to make Dean even more confused and frustrated with himself.
Anyway, he shouldn't be dwelling on something that wasn't the here and now, that wasn't the hunt. Sighing, he carefully moved his recently awakened leg, wincing at the pins and needles which assaulted him as the blood flow returned to the limb. The pain focused his wandering mind, which was just what he needed – inattention could very easily mean death. Glancing over to the silent EMF meter that lay on the seat beside him, resting next to his rock salt-loaded shotgun, made that statement sound like bullshit. The meter hadn't gone off at all the whole time he had been here.
Arranging his body so he could stretch his leg out on the seat and still keep an eye on Sam's house, Dean found a semi-comfortable position and braced himself to wait the rest of the night. It was already one o'clock, so he might as well. It wasn't like he had anything better to do… actually, that was a lie. He was able to think of a million things he could rather be doing right now, alcohol involved in near all of them.
He was dozing, near asleep, when the EMF meter started wailing, all of the lights along the top of the contraption coming to life. Startled from his nap, Dean jerked himself upright in the seat and scanned the scenery through the windows, simultaneously reaching for his shotgun. He couldn't see anything, but the EMF wasn't shutting up, so he opened the door and got out onto the pavement, shoving the meter into the pocket of his jacket. Closing the door as quietly as possible (quite a feat, what with the incredibly squeaky hinges), he walked a few feet from the Impala, still scanning his surroundings whilst listening as hard as he possibly could, shotgun clenched in clammy hands.
There. Movement, in the small bushes of Sam's front garden. Dean crept forward, hefting his shotgun to his shoulder. The leaves were rustling slightly as though some small animal were burrowing through them, but the EMF was still going off, so it had to be something supernatural. He had no idea what sort of creature would hang out in someone's garden (besides garden gnomes. Man, gnomes were freaky little fuckers. Why on earth did people like them?) but the EMF had never led him astray.
He was now mere inches away from the source of the movement. He reached out an arm to brush the bushes aside, movements slow and careful, and then gave a gasp of surprise (not that he'd ever admit it) as a black shape streaked from the bushes, right between his legs. Cursing, he stumbled around just in time to catch sight of a small black shape running across the road and vanishing into the shadows of a walkway.
His EMF had gone off because of a black cat? The fuck?
"Sam, what the hell were you playing at last night?"
Sam glanced up from his cereal and frowned over at his aunt and uncle, who sat together at the opposite side of the living room table. "Huh?"
"I was wondering why Paul didn't call me last night," his uncle growled, glaring at him. "You do know who Paul is, don't you?"
"Um, is he that friend of yours from Australia? The one… that… oh." Sam winced, bracing himself for the explosion that was sure to come. His uncle only got to talk to Paul once in a while, different time zones and the cost of calling being obstacles, and the worst thing was was that Paul had cancer and his condition was swiftly deteriorating. His uncle valued the rare call so much because each one could very easily be the last.
God, but he felt like such a selfish bastard. Yesterday, before his aunt and uncle came home, he had pulled the plug on every phone in the house to stop them from ringing off their hooks. In his panic he had totally forgotten Paul's scheduled call, had been thinking only of himself.
"Yes, 'oh'!" his uncle spat, stabbing at his eggs with unneeded violence. "You're as troublesome as your father -" Here we go again, Sam thought to himself, not bothering to try and suppress his eye roll as he tuned out his uncle's rant. He felt guilty about preventing Paul's call, but when he thought of his uncle's near daily ritual of slagging off his parents and himself, he didn't feel half as regretful. He was sorry for Paul, but he definitely didn't give a crap about his uncle's happiness.
" – she was only a child, and living in sin with a man of twenty five! And he wasn't the first man she had been with -" Apparently his uncle had bypassed the 'your father couldn't keep his dick in his pants' (though he didn't say it in those exact words) part and gone straight for the 'your mother was a slut' part.
To an outside observer it would seem that Sam wasn't at all bothered by the accusations, sitting serenely at his seat and leisurely eating cereal as though he had all the time in the world, but he had heard it all - and protested against it all - so many times that he had just learned to block it out. Fighting with uncle about it had never gotten him anywhere, and he knew that they would never come to a truce, so simply ignoring him had to suffice. Sometimes the comments did get under his skin, but then he reminded himself that they came from a slovenly, idiotic man in his early forties who thought that the sun shone out of Pairs Hilton's ass (much to his wife's chagrin.) What did his opinion matter?
Having finished his cereal, Sam stood up, dumping his dishes in the sink on the way out of the room, ignoring his uncle ("you come back here, boy!") as he yelled after him and striding away, thanking god that the phone hadn't rung during breakfast. Maybe the ghosts had given up for a while after trying yesterday and finding the phones unplugged. Making his way down the hallway, he turned into his room and grabbed his wallet before heading back up the corridor, towards the front door. He wanted to get out of here before his uncle really started to rant, and he didn't want to take a chance with the phones. He didn't know where he would go – only that he wanted to get away.
For a moment he sat on the doorsill, tugging on and lacing up his sneakers, and then he was on his feet, striding down the road. He headed in the direction of Rayford Drive, a vague idea of wandering around the shops and having a look at the brand new laptops on display at the only computer store in town springing to life in his mind. His own laptop was getting old and slow, the software was dated and the (very small) hard drive was completely full. His aunt and uncle would never get anything so expensive for him – but since he had a job, he would hopefully be able to afford a laptop for himself in the future.
He had just reached the more middle-class part of Rayford Drive and was making his way up to the computer store when he heard the screeching of brakes behind him, most probably from a vehicle speeding through the intersection he had just crossed. It was so close that it sent a shiver down his spine and caused the hairs on the back of his neck to stand up, and he whirled around, watching wide eyed as a small black convertible roared down the road, its grey-haired occupant clinging white-knuckled to the steering wheel. Black tyre tracks were painted messily across the tarmac, at one point almost mounting the curve that he stood only a few feet from. Christ. That was way too close for comfort. A large black bird, scared by the loud noise, swooped out of a nearby tree and went soaring into the sky with a startled caw.
For a moment Sam just stood and stared after the sports car, gaping in shock. That could easily have hit me. He felt distinctly shaken, his heart racing with fear. Focused as he was on the supernatural dangers, it was a very unpleasant surprise to be reminded of the many mundane phenomena that could just as easily spell his death. Which was more dangerous – a spirit or a car? Was he just overreacting with all this worrying about things that went bump in the night? This little incident has got you questioning everything? The thought was incredulous, and Sam's answer was also (when had he started arguing with himself all the time, anyway?)It was a freaking near-death experience! I'm allowed to question my life after one of those!
"Maybe I should make a television show," he muttered to himself, letting out a long breath. "I could call it My Name Is Sam."
"Dude, don't tell me you forgot." Sam froze; eyes clenched tight shut, wishing that he could just disappear, sink down through the pavement and lurk in some elaborate underground labyrinth for the rest of his lonely life. Wow, that actually sounded like fun. Jesus, Dean, why couldn't you have arrived at a good time? Ya know, sometime when I'm not acting like a freak. "Hey, are you alright? It was only a joke, man. Your secret's safe with me." He could hear the smirk in Dean's voice. It simultaneously aggravated him and made want to grin like a fool.
"Whatever," he muttered, turning to face the older man and hoping he didn't look too lovestruck. It just felt like ages since he had seen him (felt like so much had changed), and Dean was… well, he was as gorgeous as ever, and absence had most definitely made Sam's heart grow fonder. He could only hope that the feeling was mutual… that the older man hadn't been thankful to get away. Dean was standing a few feet from him, a smirk on his face and a look in eyes that was almost… fond? Only for a moment - abruptly it was replaced by a cautious, guarded look, and Sam wondered what on earth Dean was defending himself from.
"Good comeback there, Sammy." Before Sam could retort (with what he wasn't sure) Dean carried on, ignoring his open mouth. "You hungry at all? Only there's a two for one special in that Chinese place down the road." His grin was huge, infectious – and fake.
Unsettled, Sam gave back a false smile of his own. "Um, okay."
They walked down the road in silence, neither talking nor touching. The silence around them was tense and uncomfortable, and Sam couldn't help but worry that it was his fault somehow. What had he done? Did Dean feel obligated to him in some way – hanging out with him because he felt sorry for the fact that he was a hopeless geek who didn't have any friends? Dean, feel guilty? No freaking way. Well, not in Sam's knowledge of him anyway. Which meant jack. Sam probably didn't know a thing about Dean – the older man had probably just done hung out with him out of pity or boredom.
Then again, he could just be overreacting. Maybe Dean was just having a bad day. Studying the other man out of the corner of his eye, Sam eyed the fake grin stretched almost grotesquely over his face, the dark, haunted eyes…Christ. Didn't sadistic serial killers look like that? They probably weren't going to lunch – no, Dean was going to lead him down some dark, abandoned alleyway. Once they had walked into the darkest part of the place he would knock him out with a syringe, pause to cackle with glee, hog tie him with a handy length of rope produced from… somewhere, gag him, blindfold him, and throw his limp body into the back of a windowless white van. He would then drive said van to some abandoned warehouse or basement or something and proceed to tie Sam to a chair in the middle of the room and torture him cruelly and mercilessly for days on end until he was begging for death.
… Right. Rolling his eyes to himself (and hoping Dean didn't notice him do so), Sam cast around in his mind for something to break the awkward silence with. It hardly came as a surprise to him when he found nothing. Even when they were having a normal conversation (when Dean was normal), Sam was too nervous and embarrassed at his obvious crush to think up anything remotely interesting to talk about.
Well, if he couldn't think up a conversation, he would just have to find something else to distract himself from the gut wrenching horribleness of this situation. Awkward silences were just so goddamn… awkward, for lack of a better phrase. If he couldn't break them, he would rather occupy his mind with something else in an attempt to escape them. It worked… sort of. But it was better than nothing.
Something like… that dream. Sam blinked to himself, startled, having totally forgotten about the vivid (dream? Nightmare?) he had experienced the night before. What had happened? There was that big black car, the guy standing on the side of the road and talking on his cell, telling someone the job is done. What the hell? Totally random, but extremely vivid and entirely realistic. Something that he would expect to see in a film or television show, not in his sleep. What on earth was the guy doing, anyway? The phone call had sounded pretty ominous. Maybe he was an assassin and he just about to bury or burn his latest kill in a field. Maybe when he had glanced back, through the windows of the car, he was glancing at the victims' body sprawled across the backseat. But if it was a body, wouldn't he have stuffed it in the boot? Okay, maybe not quite so realistic.
Preoccupied as he was by pondering his dream, when he felt Dean's hand on his arm he gave a little squeak of surprise (god, he sounded like a little girl. In front of Dean!) and whirled around to face the older man. Dean cocked an eyebrow at him, that goddamn sexy/annoying smirk spread lopsidedly across his face. The firm grip on Sam's arm softened into a caress. "You must have been really spaced out. I was practically yelling at you. We've arrived, you know."
Blushing right up to the roots of his hair, Sam stared at Dean with wide, startled eyes, struggling to find a reply. Dean's mere presence was overwhelming him; face just inches from his own. He was so close that Sam could feel the heat radiating from Dean's body, sending a pleasurable shiver down his spine. It didn't help that the hand was stroking his arm absently; a gentle gesture of affection that Sam was sure Dean didn't know he was making. For a moment he was sure he saw something like heat in Dean's eyes, and then the older man was frowning, his hand stilling in its movements. "… Dean?"
The frown lines deepened, his lips stretching into a thin straight line. It was as though he was struggling internally, his grip on Sam's arm tightening until it became painful. The small gasp he gave as Dean's fingers dug even deeper into his flesh seemed to bring the older man into the present. Sam was both glad and disappointed when Dean immediately lost his grip on Sam's arm, snatching his hand back as though he had been burned. "I'm sorry."
When he opened his mouth to reply with something intelligent and witty, all that came out was "Huh?"
The corners of Dean's lips curved upward for a second and then he was stepping forward, right into Sam's personal space. Dean's right hand curled possessively around his hip, squeezing there before he tugged Sam forward so they were pressed chest to chest, nose to nose, and then he leant even closer. Ohmygodholycrapishegoingtokissme?! Sam's hysterical, excited question was answered when Dean's lips met his, wet, warm lips resting against his own without any movement, and even that was enough to wipe all rational thought from his mind. And then those soft lips were moving, parting, and a questing tongue licked at his mouth, causing Sam to gasp and lean closer, opening his lips under Dean's own.
This had to be a dream, because Dean's tongue was in his mouth, sliding against his own, the sensation so delicious, so fuckinghot that Sam moaned, legs turning to jelly, body pliant in Dean's strong arms as he wrapped them around the younger boys waist. Jesus, they were kissing right in the street where everyone could see and Sam couldn't bring himself to give a fuck. It was hot and liberating and god, just, fuck. He couldn't think, couldn't respond; all he could do was hang on, clutch at the leather of Dean's jacket as the older man explored every inch of his mouth with a hot tongue, as the taste of Dean flooded his senses: bitter black coffee, faint hints of sweet chocolate and minty toothpaste.
He was in heaven, this was bliss, but it was over all too soon, and Sam almost gave a whimper of disappointment as Dean pulled back and unwrapped his arms from around his waist. They stood there, panting breaths caressing flushed skin, firm chests rising and falling against each other. After what could have been an eternity or simply a second, Dean stepped back, and Sam opened eyes that he didn't know were closed, blinking at the older man in a happy daze. His contentment swiftly morphed into worry when he noticed Dean's unhappy frown. Had he been the only one to enjoy the kiss? Was he not good enough for Dean?
"Sorry," he said, again. Before Sam could ask him what he was apologising for, what he had kissed him for, Dean turned and strode away down the street without once glancing back, leaving the teenager standing alone in front of the Chinese takeaway, frowning in confusion, one hand reaching up of its own accord to brush against swollen lips.
In the narrow brick alleyway that separated the Chinese takeaway from an antiques shop, in front of the large orange dumpster, the spirit of Maureen Carter stirred, angry dark eyes focused on the psychic who stood so perilously close to her abode.