the constant vow

With Crowley apparently dead and Sam's soul back in place, even though Eve is a worry and Castiel's fighting a heavenly war, Sam and Dean at last have some space to get back to what passes (for them) as a normal life. They've just finished up a pretty standard job and are killing time in snowy Wisconsin when Dean wakes up no longer looking like Dean. That's just the start of their problems.

Notes:

finally writing a fic that I had an idea for nearly ten years ago; really big thanks to Ava & Eve (the vowel-v-vowel buds) for beta help and making sure I wasn't going crazy.

(See the end of the work for more notes and other works inspired by this one.)

Chapter Text

They're trained, both of them, to notice things, to catch what's off or weird, but it was—just a night, like any other night. The tired-sore feeling of coming off a job, and skipping a state over so they'd be far from any badges that might ask questions about unburied bones and burning graves, and rolling into some town that differentiated itself not at all from the town before it except that it was the town they were in now, and a motel that looked like all the other motels except that the interior of their room was all purple, and even that wasn't a differentiator because after so many quirky rooms the quirk blurred to blandness—and then the bar. A block down from the motel, a bar, close enough to walk except for the snow drifted up in dirty slush against the broken sidewalk, and it was cold enough that Sam knew it'd refreeze into treacherous ice.

The bar, then, and it was any other bar. Neon and the televisions above the taps playing some sport—basketball, college, green uniforms vs white—and locals half-crowded in, and a shuffleboard table instead of pool, and food that was bad and beer that was cold, and that was it. A bar. It wasn't interesting. They drank and they ate and they were tired and they talked about the time Dean beat Vic Anderson at shuffleboard when he was nine and Dad won a pistol in the bet. Dean paid the bill while Sam went to the bathroom to take a piss, and the bathroom was a bar bathroom: grey stall, white fluorescents, thick smell at the urinals of stale pee and distant disinfectant. Dean was sitting at the bar when Sam came out and he drained his last drink, jerked his head at the door, and Sam met him there and they got into the car and they went back to the motel, to the purple room, and Sam took a shower and when he came out Dean had his hand tucked behind his head flicking through the infomercials and he'd said, you think that knife is really sharp enough to cut a tomato like that? and Sam doesn't remember what he said in response, something like why do you care, and Dean shrugged and said something about always looking for new knives, being somewhat of a connoisseur of sharp things, and Sam remembers rolling his eyes and Dean's mouth curving slow but tired, dragging at the corner because god, they were both really, really tired, after the night before and the week before and the month before, and by the time Sam was tugging the blankets up to his shoulder the TV was off, and he heard Dean rustling around and then settling, and then he blew out a long breath, and then—nothing. Sleep. Nightmares but not bad ones, and then he woke up at some point and heard Dean turning over, and fell back asleep and if he had more dreams, later, he doesn't remember them. It was nothing. It was a night he wouldn't remember, at all, except that they were both safe and Dean had a bruise coming in on his jaw and they were going to bed okay, with each other and with the world, more or less, and that was something Sam knew to treasure if he thought about it. He didn't think about it. He just went to bed. There were a lot of days, you didn't know how perfect they were until you missed them.

***

February 24

He wakes up two minutes before his alarm and blinks fuzzily at the popcorn ceiling, waiting for it to go off. Still dark, in the room and outside, nothing but the filmy fluorescent of the parking lot light coming around the thick polyester curtain. He knuckles at his eyes, the world coming to him slow. Wisconsin, no job lined up. No leads to follow, neither. His ribs hurt but not bad. He's got to piss, and he stretches all the way out in the bed, untucking the sheet from under the mattress and letting in a little puff of chilly air but god, worth it, feeling his body uncurl from its usual sleeping comma. He must not have moved all night.

On the nightstand his phone starts to buzz and he slaps out a hand, stops it. Drags a hand over his face, sighs. Sits up—ah, lurch of bladder, he really does have to pee—and he looks at the other bed but Dean's a lump, buried deep in the blankets. Little trapped fuzz of a snore, while Sam's idly watching, and Sam doesn't smile but it feels like his chest does, somehow, and that's enough to get him up.

He doesn't bother with the lights in the bathroom, pissing by sonar. He's pretty good at it. That done, he splashes his hands through the shockingly cold water in the sink, bends and drinks—ah, ice sinking down to his belly—and drags wet fingers over his eyes, trying to wake up, trying to think. No leads, no job. What are they going to do? Look for Eve, he guesses—maybe call Bobby—maybe try to talk to Castiel, although that's getting weirder and harder these days—and none of it will be better if he hasn't had a shower, he figures, and so—

Clean, he's feeling actually-alive. He comes out of the bathroom in a towel, thinking simultaneously of clothes and coffee and maybe getting south of Wisconsin because it's cold as hell outside and also of that show he used to watch after school sometimes, Pierce Brosnan was in it, what was it—and there, sitting on the end of Dean's bed, is a woman.

"What," Sam says. She looks up, blinks at him. Sam swallows, holds his towel tighter around his waist. How the hell did Dean sneak in a—when did he—and Sam realizes he's backed right up to the door frame, steam curling past his shoulder. "Uh, hi," he tries, instead. The woman's mouth parts and nothing seems like it's coming out. Sam can't remember if they had aliases last night but doesn't know what to risk. Where the fuck is— "Where's, um. Your friend?"

"Sammy," she says, strangled. Sam's grip around the towel is iron, his knuckles creaking. Who is this? He remembers too late that his day job involves monsters and he shifts his weight, glancing stupidly at his duffle on the table, iron and salt and silver waiting, and the woman bursts out, "Sammy, it's—it's me—"

Darkish hair, bangs and a messy bob to her chin. Hard to see her eyes in the light from the bathroom but she's pale, small, slim-built. Wearing—Sam blinks—a ratty black t-shirt that's swimming on her, and men's grey boxer-briefs, and when Sam flicks on the lamp she's got—on her jaw, purple and sore, a bruise.

"Sam," she says, and with the light on Sam sees her clearly. In her thirties, maybe. No makeup. A mole in the center of one cheek and her eyes round with freakout, a deep brown under straight dark brows, her hands clutched desperate and tight in the rucked purple bedspread, and that bruise, on her jaw, just where Sam saw a werewolf throw a punch that nearly stopped his heart, except that his brother rolled with it just like he always has and came up with his gun firing a silver bullet that saved the day.

Sam takes a deep breath. He steps forward, reaches out, and the woman just watches him, frozen, while he touches the collar of the t-shirt—gapping on her little body—pulls, down and to the right—and there's a tattoo on the milk-white skin over her heart that matches the one over Sam's. He says, absurdly, "Dean?" and Dean says, in an unfamiliar high raw voice, "Oh my god."

Sam doesn't freak, much. Dean's doing it enough for both of them. He—and Sam had a talk with himself, while he was tugging on jeans and shirt and wishing, fuck, really really wishing for coffee, that if Dean was Dean then things wouldn't be helped by any confusion about pronouns—he hasn't made much progress, torn in three pieces between shock and outrage and what's going to become hysteria pretty quickly, if Sam's any judge.

They've been through tests, silver and salt and iron, and they were as pointless as Sam figured they'd be but Dean insisted, for some reason. What if I'm a shifter hadn't made a ton of sense but Sam went with it, and now Dean's got a new cut on his newly slim little forearm and he's standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom, touching his cheekbones. Not really gawking but not making any expression Sam can read, either. He doesn't know this face.

"What does it feel like?" Sam tries.

Not even a glance. Dean's fingers drag down to the small mouth—less full than Dean's real mouth, a paler pink that blends with the paler face—and then down the throat, visibly denting the skin.

"Dean," Sam says, and gets nothing but the little fingers pushed hard enough that Sam can tell it hurts into the flesh just over the collarbone—and then in a jerky flex Dean rips the undershirt off, backwards over his head, ruffling his hair forward into a dark froth around his cheeks and also baring—god—a slender female upper body, naked but for a tattoo. Sam blinks, looks away automatically. Feels, then, like an idiot, and looks back, and finds Dean staring at himself, still with almost no expression.

When Sam brought the silver knife they stood by each other and Sam felt—massive. He'd put Dean's height at maybe 5'6, and standing there in just baggy boxer briefs he'd now put Dean's—breasts—half his brain hitches absurdly at the thought while the other half ticks along, calculating information—his breasts are maybe a B-cup. A mole, on the curve of the left one, to match the mole on his left cheek, and while Sam's watching Dean brings a hand up to cup that breast, fingers covering the pale nipple, and then Dean—squeezes, hard. Sam stands up from the bed and Dean sucks in a tummy-curving gasp, shoulders hunching in because it so clearly hurts, and Sam says his name and Dean shakes his head, folds his arms over his chest—grips his arms—says, "Jesus, Sammy," in the weird and unfamiliar voice, and then really looks at Sam for the first time since that first ringing shock and says, again, "It's me," and it means more, this time.

It is Dean. All the way. He remembers their birthdays (and death dates) and where they are and the hunt they were on all last week, the werewolves in St. Paul. "Yes, Sam!" Dean bursts out, when Sam's asked one too many questions. "I shot the chick and you ganked the guy and we had a hotdog roast in that creepy barn, and then we skedaddled out of the Gopher State to eat some pretty sketchy wings at a bar that ain't gonna be winning any Michelin stars anytime soon, and I'm pretty sure none of that crap should translate to making a dude junkless!"

Sam holds onto his patience. It is Dean, yes, in every way but one. A pretty big one, admittedly.

The one benefit to Dean being pissed at him is that he's not in the weird fugue anymore. Has gone so far as making coffee at the pot in what passes for the kitchenette, little foot jouncing on the linoleum, because this day can't go any further without caffeine. Fair enough. He reaches for the pre-bagged Folgers, tucks his hair behind his ears almost unconsciously, and Sam drags his hand through his own hair, doesn't even pretend he's not staring.

"You don't look like you," Sam says, and gets an incredulous death-glare in response. He holds up his hands. "No, I know—I mean—you're nothing like you. Right? Like—hair color, eye color. No freckles but you've got moles. It's like—you've got your tattoo and the injuries that Guy Dean had from yesterday, but everything else got body-snatched."

"What, like—some chick in Menomonie, Wisconsin, is waking up in her nice little house, but as a dude?" Dean flicks the on switch on the pot and seems really to be thinking about it. "Like, Freaky Friday, but instead of Jamie Lee I've got some random brunette who keeps up with her manicures." He braces his hands behind him on the tiny countertop, the sort of thing Dean does unconsciously while thinking. It's not his fault that it pushes his breasts forward, curving obviously through the thin cotton of the t-shirt, but Sam blinks anyway. God. So, he's not freaked. Doesn't make this any less completely bizarre.

By the time the little coffee pot hisses, neither of them have said anything. Dean's eyes are fixed on the middle distance. "What," Sam says, and Dean's eyes hitch toward him. Unfamiliar eyes, unfamiliar face, but the expression is vaguely guilty and Sam focuses on him, fully. This is Dean, he remembers. "You're thinking about Lindsay Lohan, aren't you."

"What? Shut up," Dean says, and Sam sighs. Dean's weight shifts, hips tilting, and then turns and busily pours out the coffee, covering. "So. Okay. So, if it's—body swap time, we've got a bunch of questions to answer."

"Yeah." Sam accepts his coffee and watches Dean sit down on the other bed, both little hands clutched around the paper cup. Familiar, unfamiliar. "One: where's your real body; two: who did this; three: how; and four—"

"Why," Dean says. Sam shrugs at him. He takes a sip of the coffee—not great, but hot and ready, which is half the battle—but Dean doesn't, just looking down into the cup for a few seconds. His weight shifts on the mattress, again, his knees pressed tight together.

Sam should say something. There's nothing to say. He holds his cup between his knees, sitting with Dean in the quiet if that's what'll help.

An audible breath, across the space between the two beds: in, and out. Dean licks his lips and fixes Sam with a look. "'Guy Dean'? Really?"

It's not real outrage but Sam'll take it. He lets his mouth curve up, shrugs. "I mean. If the size six shoe fits—" he says, and figures the only reason Dean doesn't throw coffee in his face is because they both need the caffeine too much.

Obstacles Sam thinks of: what is Dean going to wear while they investigate; how's he going to fix a new ID (where's the nearest copy center, need a decent picture of this new female face); what lore is there on body swapping, and who can they contact about it? Other problems are arranging themselves in his head in order of vague worry to downright fear, and he puts them aside in favor of what can be done in the next hour. Obstacle he doesn't think of:

Dean's heel is jouncing on linoleum again, though this time in the bathroom. Sam tries to think of something not absolutely idiotic to say but all that comes to mind, unhelpfully, is: "I mean… It's not like it's anything you haven't seen before?"

He doesn't get a glare though he probably deserves one. Instead Dean's eyes turn toward the ceiling, then close, and in what sounds like a careful non-yell Dean says, "Thanks for that, Sam, but I've never had to pee through something that's not a dick."

He's just standing in the bathroom. Back to the sink this time, like he doesn't want to see himself, arms wrapped round his middle. An hour of back-and-forth, draining the little coffeepot twice each, and Dean's twitching just kept getting more obvious until Sam said, dude, go already, not realizing the minefield waiting.

"Would—" Sam checks his watch. God, it's not even nine a.m. "All right. We need something for you to wear. I can go, pick up some stuff, and you can… do whatever you need to do here, okay?"

Dean huffs. "Yeah, I'm shy 'cause you're standing next to me at the urinal," he mutters, and glances at Sam, who can only spread his hands helplessly. Dean shakes his head, long hair swinging forward over his cheek, and he tucks it back irritably. The bruise is a problem, too, Sam realizes—a guy his size, with a woman who looks like her home life is a terror—but he's not sure he's up for picking out concealer for his older brother, no matter how delicate his new bone structure. "Sorry," Dean says, after a second, muttered and small. "Yeah. Yeah, I'll—I'll clean up." He wipes his hand over his face, sniffs. "Uh, I think I'm—I don’t know, a size eight maybe? Lisa wore a four, and I'm a little bigger than her I think, so." He bites his lips between his teeth and gives Sam a very unenthusiastic smile. "You get me a muumuu and I'll pummel your ass, got it?"

"Yeah," Sam says, stomach doing something unhappy. Dean turns, catching himself in the mirror and flinchily closing his eyes, and Sam remembers, hating it: "Wait, before I go—"

The door has to serve as the backdrop for the picture, the only white space in the room. Dean sits on one of the square chairs and finger-combs his hair into something neat while Sam gets the good digital camera out of his bag. He goes to one knee to frame the shot, knowing what they'll need for the fake ID, and Dean twists an arm behind himself to pull the black undershirt into a tight smooth plane, which for the picture can fake like it's not a woman wearing a man's cast-offs. He doesn't smile but Sam doesn't ask him to, and when the flash goes off his eyes smart and he has to blink away tears. "Good?" Dean says, and Sam looks down at camera's glowing preview screen, the little squared-off picture of a stranger, and says, "Yeah, perfect," and Dean stands up and brushes past him and the bathroom door closes very firmly, locking too, and Sam's left on his knees on the carpet, thinking—god, what are they going to do.

Walmart, one stop shop. He leaves the photo to be developed at the counter and goes to the women's clothing. Early enough not to be busy but he still feels like an alien in a place he shouldn't walk. Size eight: a red t-shirt, a blue blousy thing that looks boring and formal enough to pass as cop-wear. Jeans that Sam hopes are normal. Black pants that say they're curve-huggers, and he drops those into his basket and then has to stand there, mortification welling up, because—curves.

Need more sizes, he texts. Tinny country music is playing over the store's sound system and a drop of sweat curves unexpectedly behind his ear. God, get it together. He licks his lips, tries to gauge how to word for the maximum of information and the minimum of intense embarrassment. Shoes and underwear. Bras aren't just a size 8.

While he waits for a reply he picks up a 5-pack of panties. Boyshorts, which strikes him as grimly funny, in black and grey and white. A little chart on the plastic label gives him a good guess about which one will fit, if Dean's even right about his body's size. A woman drives a laden cart past the aisle and gives him a startled look and Sam drops the package into his basket and wants to die and then, thank god, a text: Foot is 9.5 inches. Get a sports bra. Small and medium, one of those will work.

Two two-packs of those, grey and boring—another chart consultation and Sam ends up with a pair of plain black flats in a women's size eight—hell if this woman's body isn't consistent—and a pair of sneakers—and socks—and it's been long enough that, thank god, he can go and get the developed set of pictures he can use to make up a set of IDs and get out of this awful store—and when he's walking back to the car after paying Dean texts again, saying No hex bag in the room, bring back donuts, and Sam dumps the bags in the backseat and feels like an absolute moron. He wasn't freaking but he wasn't thinking, either. A hex, a spell, the most obvious thing. At least a witch didn't get into their room; at least Dean's brain is working. They'll maybe be trading off on competency, on this job.

"Nancy Wilson?" Dean throws his painstakingly made new FBI badge on the bed. "This is why you're never in charge of aliases."

"Could've gone with Linda Ronstadt," Sam says, mild, and Dean rolls his eyes and bites into the donut like it offended him.

The room's ransacked, but methodically: Dean searching hard and probably desperately for as easy a solution as witchcraft reagents. Sam's bags weren't left unscathed, he sees, but he quashes the little squirm of the privacy violation. It's not like there's anything for him to hide, and if he suddenly had his testicles spirited away he'd probably do worse than rummage through Dean's dirty socks.

No mention is made of whatever happened in the bathroom, although Dean's hair is damp. He's twitchy, sitting across the table from Sam still wearing yesterday's undershirt and briefs, motoring through three of the chocolate donuts and helping Sam construct a timeline of everything they did yesterday. Seems focused, working on the paper map of Minnesota-Wisconsin and plotting their movements, scribbling notes over the top of the key. His handwriting isn't different, Sam sees, and finds that odd. Dean's brain still moving the muscles, even if the muscles are unfamiliar?

"What about the bar?" Sam says, once they've exhausted St. Paul and come up with zip. "Last night, I mean. What happened?"

"Uh, the Spartans tanked the first period?" Dean says, and at Sam's look he throws his hands up, and then notices a smear of chocolate on his thumbnail and sucks it off, irritable. "Dude, I don't know. We—what, we came into town at like eight? Got the room, drove over there for dinner. I had wings and you had a chicken sandwich. You ate my celery and I had your fries. The waitress was like forty and she wanted to take you back to her trailer park but you didn't even notice. Your girly bladder made you use the can and I went up to the bar and got one last drink and paid and then we left."

Sam discards the retort that comes immediately to mind about the girly bladder as being unfair, on this day of all days, and casts his mind back. Dean's right, although the trailer park line was… well, probably accurate. He remembers the looks, now, although he'd mostly been zoning out at the basketball. The clientele hadn't been unusual either, not rowdy or rude or anything other than people at a bar, not-that-late on a Wednesday night. He tries to think if there'd been a woman matching Dean's current description anywhere in the room but has no idea—Dean's body doesn't look at all familiar, but then again Sam hadn't been looking.

"Bartender was… that older guy, right?" Sam's closed his eyes now, dredging up the look of the place. Red brick walls, wooden bar. Old school, sort of, a place regulars go. Bartender had a bald spot and a beer gut and in Sam's memory seems like an unlikely witch, at best, but then again who'd suspect him and Dean of being apocalyptic catalysts. It takes all sorts. "What was the drink?"

"The what? Oh." Sam opens his eyes and Dean's frowning, the straight black brows drawn into a tight line under the choppy muss of the bangs. It's an expression that looks right on this body, with its serious face. For a second that makes Sam almost dizzy he can't see his brother in the room at all. Dean blinks, nods. "Oh, yeah. I asked for a straight double but he gave me a scotch and soda instead. Which, whatever, he was busy. Think that matters? A little CO2 one way or the other doesn't seem like it'd cause…"

He waves a hand vaguely, grimacing, and suddenly Sam can see him again. He takes a breath, weirdly relieved. "I don't know," Sam says, sitting back. "But I think we'd better go over there, and see what we can find out. Which means—"

Dean nods, jaw set and grim. "Yeah." He looks at the line of Walmart bags, cheek sucked in on one side. "Let's see if Nancy Wilson would hire you as a personal shopper, huh?"

Sam forgot to buy a woman's coat and so 'Nancy' is wearing Dean's brown jacket, the epaulets just accentuating how much it doesn't fit her shoulders. His shoulders, Sam reminds himself, and has to drag his hand over his mouth so as to smother a completely inappropriate smile. Half actually funny, half… very not. At least it's not Dad's leather jacket, which would have come down to the woman's body's knees. Not for the first time, Sam wonders what happened to it, but it has never been the time to ask and now's no different.

They spent the time until the bar opened going through what research Sam could think to do. Witches still the best bet, unless demons have a weird sideline in practical jokes that Sam hasn't heard about. If Crowley were still alive, Sam wouldn't have put it past him. What little they carry with them hasn't been a huge help. Dean pored through Dad's journal with that serious line between the black brows, searching, and Sam went through every semi-reliable website he's found for hints. Of course there are some ideas out there, although he found just as many weird Harry Potter sites about how to brew your own Polyjuice Potion. Either way, it was nothing concrete, and so here they are at 11:02, disembarking from the Impala and staring down the bar: Monty's, which is so nondescript it's no wonder Sam couldn't remember it.

They were going to actually do the FBI pretext until Dean pointed out, completely correctly, that if it were a body-swap then what if someone recognized 'Nancy' and knew for a fact that she didn't work for the FBI at all—so they walk in with Dean wearing the too-big coat and a t-shirt and jeans that mostly fit and the sneakers he stared at and then asked Sam if he'd ever met a woman, which Sam didn't dignify with a response, and Sam's walking behind Dean but feels ridiculously exposed when they're in the dim interior and the bartender glances over at them, says welcome in, take a seat wherever.

Two minutes after opening there's no one else in the joint. Dean leads the way up to the bar, walking pretty normally for how utterly weird it's got to be, and Sam checking the corners, the décor, looking for anything witchy. No luck, unsurprisingly, by the time Dean says, bright, "Hey, long time no see," and the bartender looks up with no hint of recognition in his face.

"Howdy," he says, clearly trying to figure out if he's ever met this lady before in his life. Well, that dashed that hope.

"Two—uh, whatever you've got on tap?" Sam says, and the bartender nods, glancing again at Dean in puzzlement before he goes down to the line of taps. Dean taps his nails on the bar—a more pronounced rat-a-tat than Dean's nails can usually make—and Sam lowers his voice, speaks down toward Dean's ear. "Definitely nothing. So, Nancy's not a regular. You recognizing anything?"

A brief head-shake, the hair swinging down from behind his ear again. Just as well, it covers the bruise. "We sat at that table," Dean says, jerking his thumb back past Sam, and—yeah, that's right. A hightop in the middle of the bar's minimal action, with a view of the front and kitchen doors if they looked over each other's shoulders, and in this sort of town Sam thought that's all they required for safety.

The beers appear. "You ordering food?" the bartender says, with this air like he hopes they don't, and Dean immediately says, "Yeah, a reuben for me and a chicken club for Big Bird here." Sam rolls his eyes but the bartender just gives a tight smile and disappears through the kitchen door, and that gives them the space to be weird.

Examination of their table shows nothing—no spellwork, no coins or bones or blood smeared awfully on the underside of the tabletop, and nothing on the stools either, or on the floor anywhere around. Only thing is a little carved L+P in an angular heart, and it'd be a talented witch who could create a full spell out of just that. Sam checks the men's room out of desperation and there's nothing but a strong smell of bleach, which at least speaks well to Monty's standards. When he comes out Dean's back at the bar, holding his beer but not drinking it, just walking slowly along the wooden angle of the countertop, feeling under the old-fashioned golden rail. The bartender still hasn't come out.

"Anything?" Sam says, and Dean shakes his head, but two steps later halts and puts his glass down. Nearly at the very end of the bar where—yeah—Sam's memory puts him, when he sat and had that last drink. Sam pulls out the stool, feels it up, and there's nothing there, either, but Dean's looking at the bar itself. When Sam stands up he sees it too: a little, narrow plaque, in bronze that almost blends in with the wooden top. Gary's Spot, it says, and Dean's newly dainty forefinger reaches out, touches it before Sam can stop him.

"Who the hell is Gary," Sam says, when Dean doesn't fall over or catch fire, and Dean shifts his weight and says, "I don't know, but—Sam—" except the bartender comes out, then, and says, "Lunch'll be out in a few, folks," and Sam gets to remember how to be charming.

Gary Studebaker, it turns out. Pillar of the community, or at least the community that hung out at Monty's when it first opened in the '70s. "Good guy," the bartender—Pete—says, and yeah, Sam guesses he's old enough to know. "Shitty tipper, hah. But he had all the stories, and he knew how to tell 'em, and people always wanted to hear 'em, so we got in a pretty good crowd back then. Before people were on their phones instead of talking, you know?"

Sam nods, smiles. Gives Dean a look that he hopes speaks volumes but Dean's hands are folded on the counter, his big dark eyes fixed on Pete.

"Anyway, good guy. Always sat in the same spot, so Monty—guy who owned it back then—figured he'd make it official. Gives the place some character, I figure."

"I take it Gary's no longer with us," Sam says, he hopes in a way that's not as weird as it sounds. "How'd he pass?"

From the look Pete gives him, he was unsuccessful. "Uh, went in his sleep, so far as I know. Not really my business." A bell, from the kitchen, and Pete presses away from the bar. "That'll be your lunch. If you're sticking around, Gary Junior comes in a few times a week. Can't tell the old man's stories so good but he's a, uh, character. Sits right there, like he inherited the damn thing." Pete nods at the stool that they're avoiding. "Anyway. You want something besides ketchup for your fries?"

They take the food away to another table—a booth, on the far side of the still-empty bar. "Haunted barstool that transforms someone into someone else?" Sam says. "Seems kind of unlikely, right?"

Dean nods, but he's distracted, eyes looking through Sam's chest. Fingers twiddling a fry back and forth and not eating. Sam looks all over the face, slowly becoming familiar. Pink, high on the woman's cheekbones, and the dark eyes a little glassy. "Hey," Sam says, and when that gets nothing he knocks on the table. The eyes dart toward Sam's, startled wide. "You all right?"

"I'm—" Dean blinks at him, lips parted, and then he presses his mouth into a straight flat line and shakes his head, shifting on the wooden bench. "I'm good. Sorry, it's just—weird. Obviously."

His eyes cast down to the basket and he bites into the fry like an afterthought. "Yeah," Sam says, but just to say something. Of course it's weird, but it's not any weirder than it was half an hour ago when Dean was bitching Sam out about the 'torture device' of a sports bra he'd had to wrestle into in the motel's bathroom. He watches Dean's face but Dean doesn't seem to want to look at him. Well, Sam's learned his brother, regardless of shape. It can be shelved, for now, because Sam will learn the truth. One way or another.

"So—Gary Studebaker. Senior and junior." Sam wants his laptop. "Got some research to do."

Dean blinks, eyelashes fluttering. That is actually no different, male version to female. "Mm, definitely some research," he says, and then gives Sam a wide and winning smile—first time he's seen one, on this face. "Sounds like a job for geekboy, to me."

Sam snorts. "Surprise me sometime, huh," he says, and takes a bite of his sandwich.

Dean stares across the table at him, and then looks down at his body. "Yeah, Sam," he says, sarcasm dripping through the light voice. "I'll try to think of something to make sure you're not bored."

Nothing in the phonebook, so Sam drops Dean off at the deeds office while he hits the library. Studebakers all over the county, turns out, although as far as Sam can put together from the microfiche it's not some town fathers situation. Just some family, with siblings and cousins and marriages and babies. The obits section includes Gary Senior, whose death came at 81 and was not at all suspicious. Survived by a son and his daughter-in-law, along with two grandkids. Gary Junior would be in his forties now, by Sam's math, and the kids off to college if they went. Probably time they had a talk.

No answer on Dean's cell. Sam drives past the deeds office and asks if his partner, Agent Wilson, is still around, and gets blinked confusion that she left a long time ago. Sam's gut clenches, a little late. Dean can take care of himself—the too-big coat is hiding a gun and a silver knife and has salt and holy water in the pockets, just like always—but. But. He calls again, texts: where are you? and there's no answer by the time he pulls back into the motel lot and sees the curtains drawn tight, the do not disturb firmly hooked on the door.

Dark inside. The table has a pile of printouts, scattered like they fell in a hurry. Cell and room key dropped beside them. The bathroom door is closed. "Dean?" Sam calls, and there's no answer but a thump, and Sam's at the door immediately, a hand on the sticky purple paint. "Hey. You okay?"

Another thump, and then a scuffling sound, and Sam's about to push in the door when he gets, muffled, god, and then louder: "Yeah—sorry, uh, give me a minute."

Doesn't sound like he's bleeding out at least. When the door opens Sam's waiting, and Dean flinches to see him, and braces on the doorframe. "Jeez, you got a thing for porcelain percussion you haven't told me about?"

Flushed like at the restaurant, but worse. His jacket's discarded on the bed and Sam can see the body better. Too well. Turns out a sports bra doesn't do much to hide nipples, bullet hard even through a double layer of cotton, which is deeply embarrassing to see—even if it weren't his brother it's some random woman's body that doesn't know he's looking—and when Sam takes a step forward—god, why did he even focus on the nipples, because the smell—

"Dude," Sam says. Dean blinks at him, glassy-eyed, but Sam's not fooled. Been a long time, at least for the memories he's currently working with, but that ripeness isn't forgettable. "Seriously? We're supposed to be working."

Dean's mouth opens—the pale lips flushed, too, like he's been biting them. It's sort of funny, in a mortifying way. At least Dean's not secretly dying.

"Hey, like you wouldn't put on your explorer hat if—" Dean starts, and Sam's already rolling his eyes, turning away, except that Dean makes a… sound. Weird, deep. He puts a little hand to his stomach, low, and curls inward, like something hurts. Sam reaches out and Dean waves his other hand, holding him off, but it's weak. "Uh—yeah. I—I've got to—"

He goes to close the door again but Sam slams his hand against it, holding it open above Dean's head. "No, dude—Dean, come on," he says, over a half-voiced objection. This close he really can smell—god, what did Dean do in there? "What's wrong? You're our biggest clue, you can't go hiding in the shower."

Dean slumps into the doorway, fingers curling over the frame. He blinks, slow, and then quickly, and drags in a deep breath. "If you laugh I'll gut you," he says, and that's maybe a little rich when he's a foot shorter than Sam but the tone is serious. Pained. "I've been feeling it, for a few hours now. Uh." He gestures, vague and unhelpful, and when Sam shakes his head Dean rolls his eyes and puts his fingertips carefully back to his stomach, low, where this woman's stomach gently curves the denim, and he says, "I've been—I've been feeling it. Get me?"

Sam knows he makes a face because Dean makes an exasperated sound, high and feminine. "If—listen, man, if it's—exciting to be in a new body, that's not—"

"Would you shut up?" Sam shuts up. Dean folds his arms over his chest, awkwardly covering his breasts. "I never felt it from this side before but I figured that's what it was at first, okay? But it wouldn't stop, even when I was trying to think of the nastiest crap—you know, ghoul dinners and rawhead goo. Really put me off lunch." He offers a grimace of a smile. Sam dutifully wrinkles his nose but Dean's being so clearly serious that the usual oversharing about his crotch is just making Sam think. Lunch was—three hours ago, now. "Could hardly think at the deeds office. Found the Studebaker houses—dude, how many cousins do they have—but, uh. I finally—couldn't stand it, came back."

He licks his lips, looks at Sam's face and then at the thin carpet. "I can't, uh. I can't do it."

"Can't—"

"Can't make it happen," Dean says, all of a sudden and too loud, and turns and puts his spine up against the door frame, knocking his head back into it. His eyes are scrunched closed, face miserable. "Remember what I said about laughing."

Sam finds himself standing there with his mouth open, and for lack of alternatives decides to sit and close his mouth. Better to be an extra few feet from Dean, probably, for this conversation.

"Okay," he says, finally. He's just staring through the wallpaper. God. Okay. "Uh, I guess you tried—" he starts, and the look Dean slants his way is so white-hot brutal that he shuts up immediately. "Okay." He drags a hand over his face. "Okay, the only reason in the world you'd be telling me this, other than to torture me—and I don't think you're torturing me—" (Dean puts both hands over his face) "—right—is because it's—I don't know. Does it feel… unnatural?" Another glare and Sam throws his hands in the air. "Man, I don't know. Work with me. I know this isn't you but you didn't seem… this morning it seemed like it was okay. As okay as it can be, I mean. Right?"

"Yeah," Dean says, fingertips pressed to his lips. "Yes. I guess so. It only started… I don't know, around noon. And dude, I've got plenty of experience being turned on as—as me, and this isn't… Unless chicks have superhero self-control, this can't be… right. I feel like…" He rubs his hands over his face, delicate fingers over delicate bones. "God, I don't know. Desperate."

His legs shift, thighs rubbing against each other with a denim rasp. Sam glances down involuntarily, feels instantly like an asshole, but then—this is a case, now. The case of Dean's needy vagina, his brain supplies, and he bites the inside of his cheek very hard before he says, carefully, "What does it feel like? Specifically."

Dean gives him another vile look but clearly sees the same need Sam does; he goes to the other bed—Sam's—and sits down on the end, perched very high and awkwardly upright, knees together and hands planted firmly on them. "It's… shit. I don't know. Everything down there's very… awake? It's like… there's a big golden thread that's been looped around into the start of a bowline and you really, really want to pull it tight and secure the knot but you can't, and so there's this… weird waiting, all warm, right on the edge of something." He glances at Sam, sees him staring. "What?"

What, he says. Sam takes a deep breath and ignores whatever might have just swooped through his gut. "Okay," he says, and feels both redundant and stupid. "So. The question is if… whatever has swapped your body with Nancy's body needs to… you know."

"Come so hard she bounces back to the home dugout," Dean supplies.

"…Right." Why is it that Dean seems to be more relaxed the more they talk it out, while Sam feels like he could easily just die right here? "And—I mean, I'm assuming it's connected—if that's the case, then why did the spell or curse or whatever swap Nancy for you?"

An opening that wide earns him a sidelong look and then a wide, filthy grin, recognizable no matter how different the face. "When you need someone with a license to thrill, wouldn't you call Bond?" Sam rolls his eyes, stands up. "I have a very particular set of skills, acquired over a long career—"

Sam picks up the set of print-outs from the deeds office. "You done?"

"No, I'm trying to remember the A-Team intro," Dean says.

"Right. Okay, you work on that, and I'm thinking that if you can keep it in your pants for a little while longer maybe we can check out this Studebaker connection. Unless there's some detail we're totally missing, it's the only thing I can think of."

Dean flicks his fingers through his bangs, brushing them away from his face. He's still flushed, his eyes pooled dark, but he takes a deep breath, and stands up, and nods. "Studebaker manor it is," he says, and Sam nods back. Dean picks up his jacket, shrugs it on, and pauses. "If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them... maybe you can hire the V-Team."

Sam keeps control of the car keys.

Dean's right, there are too many Studebakers. They drive around the county hitting some of the addresses Dean picked up and they hit: empty house, house with a teenager home alone on a Thursday afternoon who wants nothing to do with them, empty house, house with a boat garage that looks like an honest-to-god manor, but the housewife who answers the door says that, no, Gary's her cousin, they want the house on—

When Sam pulls up to the curb it seems normal. The mailbox says, of course, Studebaker. It's stopped looking like a real word. Two stories, brown brick and white siding and a red roof, bare-branched trees clustered all around in the snow. A basketball hoop on the side of the garage, which is so ordinary Sam doesn't even know what to do with it.

"Real den of psychos here, huh," Dean says, but quietly. Just something to say.

Almost five o'clock. Sam kills the engine on the car but doesn't get out. "How you doing?"

Dean doesn't look at him. His knees slide against each other, the hand Sam can see clenching and unclenching in the too-long sleeve of the brown jacket. "Peachy," Dean says, rough and weird in the girl's voice, and shoves the passenger door open, so Sam doesn't have much of a choice but to follow.

The welcome mat says I hope you brought wine! and has a little cartoon of a woman drinking a glass the size that she is. Sam grimaces at Dean, but Dean's eyes are closed and he's clearly focused on—something else—so Sam's left to be the one to ring the doorbell, pin on a smile. They don't really have a play planned, although if the members of the house recognize Nancy then at least they'll have a direction to improvise.

The guy who answers the door is maybe fifty, or forty with hard living. Red-faced, holding a beer, squinting at them through the screen door. Gives Sam half a glance, gives Dean—the petite, cute woman that is Dean—a longer one. "Yeah?"

"Gary Studebaker," Sam says, and the guy's eyes turn back toward him, wary. "Hi, sorry—I just got a job over at Monty's, Pete sent us over."

"Pete?" The magic word: Gary opens up the screen door, leans in the doorframe. "What's that crook up to?"

"We're planning a write-up on the history of Monty's," Dean says, abruptly. Thank god; Sam had exactly nothing. "How it got started, famous customers. Cheers in your hometown, you know? Pete said you were the Norm to his Sam. You and your dad."

"Ha!" Gary actually says ha, barked loud. Sam shoves his hands in his pockets, tries to look earnestly interested in the history of a random dive in central Wisconsin. Gary gives Dean another look, up and down—and it's a real up and down, the kind most guys have long-since learned to do subtly and quick if they're going to try to get away with it at all. He clearly doesn't recognize the owner of the body but is just as clearly willing to make her acquaintance. Dean blinks, smiling easy, and Sam balls his fists and makes sure his own expression stays pleasant, and Gary takes just that long to shrug, say, "Why not," and gestures for them to come inside, turning around and disappearing back into the house, and Dean doesn't hesitate a second before going inside and so, well—

It's an aggressively normal house. Family photos in the hall: a marriage picture from the '80s with the bride in an explosion of white froth; two boys, framed in their high school graduation gowns; a family ensemble where everyone has that fixed grimace brought on by the JCPenney photographer. The furnishings are Midwest middle-class, not fancy but not beat-up, either.

In the living room the basketball's on and Gary plops into his recliner like he never left it. He waves at the couch and Sam sits, and Dean follows—oddly, careful.

Questioning people isn't actually that hard; they always want to talk about themselves, especially if they don't know that weirdness is on the line. Sam asks for some light family history and gets that Gary Senior was the best, just the best. What a character. Gary Junior's a character, too, and Sam wonders if it's of the exact same type. Same section of the store, anyway. A little crude, thinks he's funnier than he is. He's telling a loud long story about some time that some guy came in and his dad said something when Sam realizes that he's been tuned out, for some length of time he can't even begin to calculate, and tries to pay attention again with difficulty. Beside him, Dean's nodding and smiling and laughing lightly in this way that sounds completely natural, and Sam's frankly impressed with his acting skills—feigning interest in blowhards isn't one of Dean's specialties—and notices, too late, that Dean's little fist is clenched in the couch fabric so hard it must hurt.

"Must've been a great dad," Sam says, when there's a pause for air. "You got any pictures?"

"Have I got pictures, he says." Gary rolls his eyes at Dean—at Nancy—flirty, making Sam the dumbass, the joke. It's a weird tactic to see outside of an actual bar; weirder when it's in the home the guy shares with his wife. To Dean specifically, grinning as he gets up: "Come on, check this out."

They follow him to a room deeper in the house, a den split in two: a desk with a computer on it, piled up fishing paraphernalia, clutter on one side; some kind of crafting setup on the other, neatly labelled bins of yarn and fabric and DMC, whatever that is. Gary sticks his thumbs in his belt and beams up at framed photos above the computer and Sam meets Senior: a wider, grander copy of his son, blue eyes and red face. Rough living etched in the lines but grinning wide, arms slung around friends at the bar. A picture of the plaque being installed, Gary Senior with a thumbs-up. Gary Senior with pals at a lake, fishing gear on display but the cooler front and center, all of them toasting the camera with open cans. Not a family photo in sight.

"Wow, this is awesome," Dean says. High, breathy. Ditzy except that Sam knows there's an undercurrent that's making it sound, to him at least, like—and Gary Junior may hear it or not but he's beaming down at Dean anyway, and Sam gets this gross weird wave of—some kind of feeling he can't pinpoint. Jesus. "So you guys are, like, really connected to Monty's, huh? Family tradition?"

"You know it, sweetheart," Gary says, and leans in like it's a secret. "Got some great memorabilia upstairs. Wanna see?"

Jesus. Like some beer mat from the '80s is going to clinch the deal? Gary leads the way out of the room—Sam lays a hand on Dean's arm, through the too-big jacket—and gets a flinch for it, and Dean's lips part but Sam just gets a quick warning look, and a headshake, and apparently this is all fine. Well, whatever. Dean knows how to protect himself—if not with size and strength, with the guns and knives the jacket's hiding—and so Sam says, "Hey, if you don't mind—you got a bathroom I can use?"

Gary frowns, like he's annoyed to be reminded that Sam's there to cockblock, but he gets directions—he smiles, and follows them, and listens to the footsteps thud up the stairs in one heavy set and one light before he exits the bathroom and goes right back to the den, searching for anything, anything at all. But what? Gary's sure as hell not the witch, and he's not a demon either unless he's the most boring tempter on this plane, and Sam stands back from the desk, tries to get a clear picture. A mundane life. Guys being guys, matched presumably with gals being gals. Fishing, drinking, sports. He turns around and looks at the wife's side of the room and finds—gals being gals, so far as he can tell. Cotton yarn and a tin full of buttons and pictures, there, of the kids growing up, of other family that don't look to be Studebakers, of some lake scene at sunset with no fishing rods in it at all. No cat bones and no tomes bound in human skin and nothing off, just the boring blah of a small life with a certain, small end, and Sam's about to scream if he doesn't get out of this stupid house.

Upstairs, Gary doesn't seem to notice that it took Sam ten minutes to take a piss. In the master bedroom he's telling Dean a story about some darts competition that Gary Senior was the adjudicator for—apparently a very serious mission, from how proud he is of it—that Dean's nodding along to, smile pinned painfully into place. They're at the dresser, looking at yet another picture (does the man have any photos that aren't of his dad?), when Sam interrupts, guilelessly gesturing at the room so obviously decorated by a woman who loves Target: "Hey, Gary, I hope we're not going to interrupt dinner with the missus."

Another eyeroll, but at least he leans an inch out of Dean's personal space. "Denise is at her sister's this weekend," he says, and gives Sam a long-suffering look. Man to man. "Some chick spa day thing. What I don't know won't hurt me, right?"

"Right," Sam says, and grins with an effort, and—Dean grabs his arm then, leaning into him so hard that Sam's almost taken off balance. Dean says to Gary, "Wow, this is really awesome stuff, we'll write something up—maybe come back and talk some other time?—but remember, we've got that thing—"

Radiator-hot, even through Sam's jacket. Gary frowns but Dean's tugging at Sam's elbow and so Sam nods, mugging along with it—oh yeah, gotta get on the road, thanks a lot—and it's not an elegant retreat by any means but Dean drags Sam down the stairs and to the front door—Sam smiles at Gary again, waves, says some dipshitty thing about how they'll be in touch—and when they get to the Impala Dean puts both hands on the cold roof and pants, pink from cheekbones to collar.

"Are you—"

"Can we—" Dean drags in freezing air and coughs, shakes his head. Bangs scattering over the pale, sweating forehead. "Sam," he says, and it's thin, rough, strange. "Get me back to the motel right now."

Nothing at all from Gary's house, hardly anything to go on. There's Denise but Denise is away, and Dean's—not getting better. Sam sits at the table with his laptop and tries to think of anything and can't focus to do it, his knee jogging so restlessly that he's annoying himself but he can't stop, either. The bathroom door is firmly shut and he can't hear anything behind it and this is mortifying but he stands up, puts his hand against it flat, knocks.

Fuck, muffled through the shitty plywood. Moaned, thin. It's nearly seven o'clock.

"Dean, seriously," Sam says, and inside gets a high cracked shut up! and he puts his forehead to the sticky paint, listening, trying to be patient. "I know it's—weird—but this isn't helping, is it? You need—something."

Thump, rattling through the door. A punch or did he throw a shampoo bottle? Sam closes his eyes, makes a dark space where he's just imagining—a woman. A woman, who needs help. "All right," he says. Calm, coaxing. He's done this before. "Just talk to me. What's going on? What does it feel like?"

What, he gets. Then, closer, like the woman's talking right up against the door, up against the plywood just like Sam is: "It—it hurts." Sam grabs the doorknob, doesn't turn it. "It feels like—god, I don't know, I never felt it like this before. Blue balls but in—inside, this—this pit—fuck, it feels like—"

Sam's eyes open involuntarily. A long breath, a held h. He unclenches his jaw and feels the bone loose and odd, muscles responding a second after he asks them to. The doorknob's cheap, loose ill-fitted fake brass—he jerks his shoulder and the crappy push lock pops and he presses the door open easier, softer than he actually wants to, and there's a scrabble, scramble, the woman with Dean's heart grabbing one of the bleached-harsh towels and holding it up over her body. Not naked, entirely—still in the red t-shirt, sneakers and jeans and panties discarded all over the floor. Smell in here of—pussy, no sense skirting around it, ripe and ridiculously strong, like she's been gushing. No wonder, a half-hour alone in here and no progress.

"Get out," Dean says, eyes closed. A high flush in the cheeks to match the red shirt, hands rawboned clenching around the towel. He sways and Sam grabs the shoulders—Dean makes this awful hurt sound, squirming like to get away—and Sam sits him down on the toilet, shocked all over at the sheer heat pouring off.

"Dude," Sam says, and then: "Dean. There's something seriously wrong."

"Like I don't know that." Rasped. His eyes are closed, long dark lashes fanned over the dark circles under the eyes.

On his knees on the bathroom floor—not the first time, but maybe the weirdest—Sam tries to ignore the smell, ignore the flushed little body flooding the room, touches the jaw—soft—and then frowns, digging his fingers in more firmly, ignoring Dean's squirm, his helpless small hand pushing at Sam's arm.

"Dean, your heart's beating way too hard." Squint—glassy eyes. Like a fever. Maybe actually a—"Hey—hey, are you with me?"

"God, where else would I be," he mutters. The hand not hooked in Sam's shirt is dragging down the line of towel-covered thigh, shifting the fabric, showing flushed-pink hip, bare, sweating.

Blue balls, inside. "Have you put something in?" Sam says. Dean blinks at him, appalled. "I don't want to talk about this either. Tell me. Have you—have you tried?"

Dean stares at him, then away. "Fingers." Said vaguely, to something over Sam's shoulder.

God. Okay. "Maybe—" Sam says, and stands up, and thinks of—anything, anything but what he's actually thinking. In one of their bags there has to be something. Menomonie doesn't have a sex shop and there's no time to drive back to St. Paul. The bed frame has a finial that—no, god, god—but there, Dean's bag, the dopp kit, the toothbrush holder. He takes the toothbrush out—why? like it matters, now?—and goes to his laptop, and because they've lived together their entire lives he knows what'll work for Dean and he goes to a website and enters a fake card number and when bottle-tanned women are whimpering on the screen he goes back to the bathroom and ignores everything else and grips Dean's arm, pulls him to his feet and he—loses the towel—and Sam puts the woman's body on the end of the bed closest to where the laptop's pumping porn into the air and puts the toothbrush holder in her hand and he says, to the air, looking at nothing, "Try, okay, just—" and goes outside into the freezing Wisconsin night and closes the door behind himself, and his breath comes out in a long shocked white fog and he sits down on the sidewalk, heedless of the instant ice of concrete through his jeans, forgetting that he doesn't have his jacket, because—he can't think. He can't. Because if he does, he'll follow a conclusion, a logic that he can't handle, and it's bad enough that behind him—

In the car Dean was coherent, but barely. Distracted, desperate. It had gotten worse in the house. Was it Gary? No, came the repulsed answer. Zero interest, zero pull. How did he know? What felt different? No answer to that one beyond the knees pressed tight together, the eyes shut tight. Sam drove fast but careful enough that they didn't skid through the turns and when they hit a bump Dean jolted and said oh my god and his hand—her hand—

Sam sits with his head in his hands. He could check his watch but he's got a pretty good sense of time. This woman, this impossible woman, fine-boned and pale and holding everything that matters to Sam, and for no reason. Burning up inside and out, and needing. Why? Since about noon, getting steadily worse, and why?

No answers. His brain's ticking along looking for conclusions but there aren't enough clues and what's the point, when behind him—when he knows what's happening, behind him. When he knows, when he's certain, that behind him—

He makes it an hour. Shivering, the cold sunk down to his bones. When he stands up his muscles ache and he's honed down to a kind of focus. The door opens on the dim purple room, light spilling from the bathroom door and from the harsh bluish kind of light of his laptop screen, and on the bed there's—a woman. He thinks of her as a woman.

Naked, now. Flushed head to toe, sweating, hair clinging damp to her cheeks. Shuddering—crying, he sees now—and he puts a hand to her face and she groans, shoulders curving in. Eyes closed, not seeing him. Hands busy, below—frantic, working—and he sits on the edge of the bed and puts his hand down between her legs and finds everything blood-hot, hotter, slippery, soaked. Hair clinging close to the skin, soaked too, and he slides his thumb under her upper hand and brushes the too-exposed shock of her clit and makes her shake all over—rubs, makes her wail—and he shakes his head, pets her hair away from her face, drags his other thumb over her open mouth. Can't say what he wants to say. She grabs his hand and he lets her because it opens his way—she's still working, slim forearm flexing in the blue light, and he shapes his hand around hers and feels the push, the slim and insubstantial plastic shifting inside. No weight, strange and hot too from the heat of her body, and it's—nothing—why would it work?—but he takes over, pushes up and angles and applies steady pulsing pressure, trying to make it not be what it is—her fingers stuttering over his wrist, smearing—but he tries, tries, pushes his thumb into her mouth and bends and slides his tongue over the shriveled tightness of one nipple, sucks, makes her arch and spread her thighs wide and hump her pussy up toward his hand, working the stupid toothbrush holder, and her nails bite into his wrist and she scratches down his forearm and he lifts up and she's shaking her head, tears seeping steadily down her temples, her heart beating so hard under the thin barrier of her flesh that he can see the thudding, shivering her skin.

He should ask but he doesn't. His throat won't work. He undoes his belt and his button and his zip and pushes down the shield of his jeans, his boxers, and the woman's eyes are as big and dark as mirrors, not turning away, not flinching. His dick's nearly there just from the smell, from the slick of her and her skin-taste under his tongue. He jerks himself full with his wet hand and gets up, moves over. Her legs, already open. His body blocks hers from the laptop's light but there's still that harsh bathroom white casting her bones into stark things. She grips his shirt—his collar pulled awkward, a button popping open—the skin of her scorching—he balances on one hand and reaches down, pulls the plastic out—she makes a gut-punch sound. Pushing into her is smooth, easy. Small—even with all the masturbating she'd done, fingers and plastic and whatever else—small, gripping. Dizzying for a second—to be bare, inside—molten, close. He was cold but isn’t anymore.

He hilts himself and slides his hand up her side, gentling by habit. She shudders and keeps shuddering, this fine shiver that's skittering through her whole body, and to stop her from having to see he bends his head down beside hers on the plasticky polyester bedspread and tries to keep his body weight as far up as he can and pushes—deep, but careful, not wanting it to hurt any more than it has to.

Nails in his back, blunted through the double-layer of his undershirt, his flannel. Her legs wrap around his hips and fuck, fuck that feels good, her body waking to his, wanting it. He leans on one elbow and slides the other hand under her hip and feels it roll—her pussy tilting toward him, grinding in where it must feel best—and he puts his lips to the side of her throat where he can feel her heart thundering and lets her take, flexing in with a steady reliable rhythm that'll let her—god—is she—already—? Rippling, squeezing him. He grips her ass and she shakes, and he lifts just enough for room and pumps inside, drags his dick back and shoves, and she grabs his shoulder and digs her heel into his ass so hard that she lifts clear off the bed and she—fuck—comes, he feels it tightening and coiling inside and spilling out of her on a long moan pressed shaking against the top of his ear, in his hair, her lips soft and helpless against his skin.

God, it's the best, hottest thing. His nuts surge at making it happen, he squeezes her ass and presses in tight, making that rhythmic clench go on as long as he can, making it good, but—it happened. It happened, so it's over. He closes his eyes and steels himself and tries to pull out but—her legs tighten, dragging him back in. He dips his head, breathes out hot against her throat. He isn't steel—he flexes in again, bites back the noise in his throat just from how—incredible—but he can't. There's no way he can. He pulls back—out—her arms around his neck, her body still a slick alive pulsing heat, under and around him—and he's seconds from coming, just the satisfaction radiating out of her making his head swim—and he reaches down between them and takes himself in hand and brings himself off in a few quick pumps, his mind wiping clear and clean as the snow outside, forgetting.

He shakes after. For a few seconds. God, when was the last time he—he shakes his head. The small hands are holding his shoulders but lightly, careful, tension held in check. He lifts up, cautious. It's this woman's body but it's Dean who's turning his face away, eyes closed. Sam touches his throat and the pulse feels rapid but not scary, not like before. Comedown, cooling sweat. The relief is physical, if brief. Sam closes his eyes, drops his head, pushes out a slow breath. Brushes his fingers against a bare, round hip, and lifts entirely away, tries not to touch anything else. Dean immediately turns over, knees drawing back together, and Sam's off the bed in the next second, zipping up, feeling—hard to pinpoint. It hardly matters.

"You're okay," he says, after a few seconds. He wants, very badly, to wash his hands.

Beat, two. He can hear his own heartbeat in his ears. Is that ironic?

"Yeah," Dean says. He sits up, back to Sam, although of the many reasons why that would be Sam can't pick one. Maybe for all of them.

Sam licks his lips. What to say? Sorry isn't right because he won't mean it, or at least not mean it in the way it'll be heard. "Look," he starts, and Dean unfolds his legs to the floor and stands up. His thighs shake for a second and he staggers—Sam reaches out, stupidly because Dean's on the far side of the mattress—but he steadies, and goes to the bathroom, and when he's about to close the door he pauses, and says without looking around before he closes it: "I'm not pissed. I'm taking a shower."

The door closes.

Sam sits on the bed. It's less than a minute before the water hisses on. The thing is that Sam believes that Dean's not pissed. Dean wouldn't be. It's the other things that aren't being said that are running through Sam's head and he sits, watching the closed door, for two minutes and then five minutes and then coming up to ten before he stands up, flips his laptop closed so the stupid freeze-frame of that stupid porno at least won't be beaming its way into the room. He goes to the kitchenette's miniature sink and washes his hands and then, after a frozen second, hauls his jeans back down and swabs his crotch, and then bends and splashes his face, feeling the water icy-cold from winter pipes on the flush of his skin. Relief, only it's not. He shuts off the sink and hangs there, dripping, listening to the water still running in the bathroom. To the spats dropping off his hair, into the metal basin.

He's sitting at the desk with the Impala keys in hand, thinking—lots of things, that he's thinking—when the shower goes off, and there's a loud Sam!

He drops the keys—is at the bathroom door in a heartbeat—and it opens and there, standing and dripping and holding a towel just barely over his crotch, is his brother. His brother, broad shoulders and green eyes and not as tall as he claims, flushed red from the hot water, staring at him.

"What—?"

"I was just—I was just standing there," Dean says, and his face ripples into a grin, wide and wild and relieved. Sam smiles back, automatic when Dean's that delighted. Dean blinks, takes half a step back. Looks down at himself. "It just—I don't know, one second I was Nancy and now I'm—do you think—"

"As long as you're you," Sam says, and he really means it but he still says it careful, testing: "As long as you're you, I don't care what did it." Dean wraps the towel loosely around his hips, holding it. Sam licks his lips but—he doesn't want to sleep in the car, he doesn't want to leave, he doesn't want anything to be any way but how it is between them, now. These days that are easier than they have any right to be. "You're okay?"

More of a question than it was before. Dean nods, and then looks up and meets his eyes, and firms his mouth, and nods again. Meaning it. He smiles again, smaller. That tiny dimple in his cheek that only pops sometimes, that the girl didn't have. Sam didn't know he could miss it. "Guess I gotta give you credit for some game, Murdock."

Sam huffs. If this is all they ever acknowledge it, that's fine with him. "I'm Face, at least."

"Oh, you think so," Dean says, and Sam raises his eyebrows, and Dean—glances at his mouth, his chest—Sam drags in air—and then Dean rolls his eyes, says, "Yeah, okay, Faceman, you get that once," and slams the door again, and when Sam bangs on it Dean calls out, Sue me, I just got Mr. Happy back and we're getting some we-time, okay?

Sam groans loud enough that Dean can hear and then—cleans the room, throws away Dean's toothbrush holder and puts away his laptop and strips the sweat-soaked comforter off Dean's bed, makes it so what happened didn't happen. Orders a pizza—tiny town but they do at least have pizza delivery—and when Dean comes out, he dresses in jeans and his own shirt with every evidence of pleasure and they split the pizza, drink whiskey in the paper coffee cups, watch Seinfeld reruns. Sam gets to hear Dean's impression of the Soup Nazi in his own real voice and he laughs and gets Dean to grin at him again, which is good even with an oregano fleck between his teeth, and it's—not ruined. Nothing's ruined. They had a problem and they dealt with it and they're still who they are. When it's time for bed Sam crawls into his and Dean flops onto his back on his, touches his chest. "Might miss the boobs," he says, and gives Sam a sidelong look, and Sam throws a pillow at him and Dean throws it back and then they turn off the lamp and Sam's so—just—inutterably—

They sleep.

Sam wakes up to a crash. He sits up fast, brain online in a second, grabbing for the knife—but—there's no monster, no ghost. Three in the morning, by the bedside clock. The kitchenette light comes on and the crash it turns out was a chair turned over. There's a woman, standing there, staring at the reflection of herself in the black window.

A woman. Sam shoves the covers off, stands, and she doesn't move, frozen and staring. She's tall. That's Sam's first, stupid thought. Tall, with reddish blonde hair that reaches her mid-back and, when she turns her head, these tip-tilted blue eyes that stare at Sam in abject shock. There's a bruise, fading but obvious, on the turn of her jaw.

"Dean," Sam says. Hating it.

The woman closes her eyes, breathes in slow and shaky and clearly trying to hold it together. "Don't think we quite solved this one, Face," Dean says, and sits down on the linoleum next to the overturned chair, and puts his hands in his long strawberry hair, and doesn't look up for a long time.

Chapter 2 Chapter Text

February 25

Sam's trying to think and Dean isn't helping. Yes, he has an excuse. It's barely stopping Sam from walking out to work in the town library.

"Dude—"

"Dude? A little rich right now, don't you think?"

Sam puts his head in his hands. Refrains from groaning, but it's a close thing.

With very little assistance, he's making a timeline.

They were in St. Paul and nothing out of the ordinary happened. Then they were here, and Menomonie is—a blip on the map. Monty's is boring. Sam has written down what they ate and what they drank and when they drank it and that Dean sat at the stool—the stool that was Gary's spot—and that they came here, and they slept, and they did nothing, nothing, that could've triggered it. Nothing that was their fault. Unless—

"Was there some witch you stood up sometime while I was in the cage?" Dean—pretty, blue-eyed Dean—stops pacing and stares at him, and Sam throws up his hands. "Dude, I don't know. I'm trying to think of anything. There's no point a to point b I'm coming up with that leads straight through you—you know—"

"Sprouting a vagina," Dean says, acidly, but what can Sam do but nod? Dean's jaw (sloping sweetly this time, to a smooth round chin) firms, but he gives up and slouches down into the now up-turned other chair. Still far from the table, in the middle of the kitchenette's linoleum, and Sam leans back and stares at him—at her. This new woman.

"Why don't you look the same," Sam says. Not really meaning it to be heard but of course Dean does, and all Sam gets in response is closing eyes and the head dropping back, the long coils of reddish hair falling away, baring his—her—shoulders.

Dawn's come and gone. Sam makes the coffee this time, since Dean doesn't seem up to it. New woman, new body. Or old body? The bruise is still in place, as is their tattoo, and in a lot of ways that still made this Dean, as much as the mind and memory and bitter, bitch-ass attitude did. Sam leans over the percolator, breathing the roasted-dark fumes, trying to be fair. It's hard, on no sleep. On what they—what he did. God, when will the coffee be done.

The change happens sometime in the night. Why? The change reversed when—when they—and why? He doesn't know, he doesn't know and he can't think, weird dreams plaguing what little sleep he did get and the radiance of Dean's misery blotting out what remaining space there is in the room.

It is worse, this morning. Yesterday was the shock—today is shock, too, obviously compounded by the thought that they'd fixed it. No matter how they'd fixed it. Sam's been trying to put the how out of his mind but of course that's impossible. Anyway, there are enough things that he's lying to himself about, these days. He's not really interested in trying to fool himself even more.

He brings Dean a cup, with sugar mixed in even though Dean pretends he prefers it black. He sits on the end of the bed and watches Dean hold the coffee, looking into it and not drinking. "Do you feel—" he starts, and watches Dean's lips part, watches the air go out of him. "Shit. Man, I know I—I know it's weird. Do you feel like you did last night? At all. Anything like it?"

"Kinda TMI," Dean says. Soft. This woman has a different voice—higher, sweeter. Sam wonders if she sings, when she's herself.

Sam watches her—him, rather. It's, again, no one either of them recognizes. Maybe 5'10 this time, smaller breasts and narrower hips than yesterday. The clothes Sam bought may or may not fit—for now Dean's, once again, wearing a faded black t-shirt and boxer-briefs and his long pale legs are kicked out in front of him, long pale feet stretched out on the linoleum, toward where Sam's waiting. No polish but neatly trimmed. Sam has no idea if that’s from her or if it's because one of Dean's inexplicably fussy personal habits is making sure that his pedicure is kept in check.

"I don't feel anything," Sam hears, eventually. He's been looking at Dean's toes for a long time, he realizes. They curl against the linoleum, a little embarrassed cringe of a moment that makes Sam feel intensely sorry, for seeing it, and he turns and looks at his legal pad, pretends like his notes are at all helpful. There's a dainty clearing of the throat and then Dean sits up, and from the corner of his eye Sam can tell that he's trying to treat it like a job, just as Sam's trying. Fake it 'til you make it. "I just feel like—I don't know, man. Normal. I don't know how to describe it. I don't feel not like me, you know? I'm just—me, Dean Winchester, born in Kansas in 1979 and been screwing up ever since. Even the body part doesn't feel weird, not until I move. Center of gravity's off. And I keep getting distracted by all this friggin' hair. I don't know how you manage it."

"Ha," Sam says, dry, but when he looks up Dean's, at least apparently, got his crap back together.

"I mean, I've got boobs and lady-junk," Dean says, bald and practical. He gestures vaguely toward his crotch, thankfully hidden in the bagginess of the boxer-briefs. "It's not like it was yesterday, though. If I—concentrate, I guess, I can feel it, but I don't have, you know. Needs."

Something about the flick of the woman's long fingers, the reference. Sam's face heats and Dean sees, of course, and gives him a narrow-eyed look, but apparently he's reading it as embarrassment because he breaks out in a grin. New expression on this new face: this woman's got a slightly crooked canine and a smile that gives her slanting fox-eyes, charming and wicked. "Sammy," Dean says, sing-song and high, and Sam drags a hand over his face. "Shouldn't do it if you can't talk about it."

"Any-way," Sam says, while Dean sniggers. Figures, Dean chills out while Sam gets more flustered. Jerk. "We've got approximately squat to go on. We've got random details but we have no idea why, for any of it. We've got to figure out why it happened if we're gonna have any chance of fixing it."

The smile dims, although there's still a sorta-twinkle in Dean's borrowed eye. "We know how to fix it," he says, oddly neutral.

Sam stands up, flipping his legal pad into his bag and packing up, though with no clear idea of where they'll go. "Let's aim for a fix that's more long-term."

The clothes… sort of fit. The slacks are high-waters and the blue blouse is baggy and the black flats are a squeeze—taller woman, bigger feet, Sam guesses—and Dean growls under his breath until he gets a rubber band and ties up her long fall of hair into something that's approximately a bun, although it looks like a child did it. Sam thinks about offering to fix it and then thinks about Dean bitching at him to do it right, because of course Dean would suddenly have a bunch of opinions on hairstyling, and decides discretion is the better part of valor. Dean goes for his current leather jacket this time, tugging the collar high around the woman's long neck, and an uncaught loose strand of hair falls forward from behind his ear and only then, inexplicably, is Sam reminded of Jessica. His stomach pangs but distantly. He doesn't really know why—this woman looks almost nothing like her, other than that they're both white and tall. Something about that twist of hair, falling against the temple. Jessica dealt with them with bobby pins, and left the discarded pins all over their apartment. Sam hasn't thought of that in years.

Quiet drive to breakfast. They go to a little place that bills itself Family Restaurant and has the faded but friendly interior to prove it, and a plump older lady takes their order of a Denver omelette and a three-stack of pancakes and, quote, "the strongest coffee you can possibly make," and she gives Dean an odd little once-over that Dean doesn't notice but Sam does, and he realizes only after the waitress has walked away that—wow. Dean's being judged for his looks, and not in a positive way.

"The bun's not really working," he says.

"It's that or shave my head," Dean says, futzing around with the Equal packets and staring out the window at the thin grey morning, and Sam gives up. It doesn't matter, except for anyone taking them seriously—but who are they going to talk to? Who can they ask? FBI pretext doesn't really work if they're questioning… what?

"History of the bar?" Dean says, abruptly. He focuses on Sam—the blouse makes the fine-fringed blue eyes even bluer, the lips pale pink and pursed, thinking. Nose like a knife, straight and long. Some Viking girl. Dean blinks and waves a hand. "Dude. Stop checking out Bonnie Raitt here and focus, would you?"

"You don't look anything like Bonnie Raitt," Sam says, embarrassed to be caught, and Dean snorts, says, "Didn't look anything like Nancy Wilson either, but I might as well pick a guitar player with the right hair color," and their coffee arrives then, interrupting Sam's argument that Dean's hair isn't even that red, and while Dean falls on his mug like it's the first beer he's seen in a year Sam remembers the fake badge he made.

Once again, Dean's floating in the world untethered, without an ID (even fake), without a name anyone would believe. Not even shoes that fit. It's nine in the morning and they're nowhere, with more questions than answers. At least no one's dying, so far as they know. So far as they know.

The wire basket by the counter has the Pioneer Press and the Dunn County News, and Dean frowns but takes his half of the pages, and they read through, looking for anything. "Guy died in a house fire," Dean mutters, mouth half-full of pancakes, but in a disinterested way. Sam's got much the same in his paper, which is to say he's got nothing. Obits are boring, all old people and one young father who got hit by a car. Sad, but not curse-worthy. There's a Studebaker in the Dunn County pages, which Sam turns around for Dean to read, too, but it's just some cousin, Maryann, with a human interest story about being the crowned queen at the county fair this past summer and so she wants to make all the ladies at her new salon feel like beauty queens, too.

"Could get her to do your hair," Sam says, and Dean kicks him—hard enough to mean it, and Sam holds up his hands, does feel sorry. The one spark of inspiration he had has guttered out, though, and he's not feeling charitable to the world. The omelette wasn't even that good.

What they're left with: the bar, and Gary (maybe), and…

"Bupkis," Dean says, sighing. They're standing outside the diner, looking out at the day. The town's moving but slowly. What people are at work are already at work and the kids are in school and not a lot's going on in the mean streets of Menomonie.

"Library?" Sam says, and it's weak but—what else do they have? Dean sighs again, follows, and Sam finds himself trawling the folklore shelves, looking for anything that'll give the faintest clue. Not too many stories of men being turned into women. Women are usually the ones getting punished, in fairytales, and for not much that's their fault. Men are the heroes, riding in to save fair maidens. Sam doesn't feel up to it. Especially when saving means—what it means. Of course, Sleeping Beauty's always had a more R-rated solution. Sam knows that from college reading; there's also the version he and Dean watched on late-night pay-per-view, drunk, and to be honest that girl had done a really shitty job of acting like she was asleep.

He comes back with some books that he doesn't have much faith in and meets a surprise: Dean, making his own list, using Sam's legal pad.

"What," Sam says, and Dean shakes his head, making the sloppy bun wobble. Sam sits down opposite him at the library table and isn't shy at all about reading upside down.

Change: midnight? Before dawn?
Change2: noon? hours after switch
Need increases – here there's a little rollercoaster doodle, arcing upwards toward the margin, followed by:
- 3 hours: pain starts
- 6 hours: serious pain
- 9 hours: start dying?
- 12 hours: XXX?

Sam feels like the air's gone out of the reading room. The librarian, bustling along returning books to their slots, feels like she's on another planet. "You didn't say you felt like—that," he says, and Dean flattens his hand over the writing but it's a little late. Sam looks at the woman's fingers: tapered, knobbed pink knuckles. He takes a deep breath. "If it—happens again," he starts, and doesn't know what to say after it.

"Why do you think I'm trying to work it out," Dean says. It turns out that this woman blushes almost entirely in the apples of her cheeks, bright red spots that leave the rest of her pale. She'll look similar, Sam bets, when she's so turned on she can't think, and he sits back in his chair, drags his hands through his hair. God.

Dean's focused though, dogged. "If it's a twenty-four hour thing—I mean, let's say that's what it is. I don't know when I changed but let's say midnight, okay? And I only started to feel like I needed—" He pauses, and Sam looks up at him to see him lick his lips, frown, bull on: "The body needed to have sex around noon. Ish. So that's twelve hours later. Just got worse and worse, and if I'd made it another twelve hours after that—I mean, I don't know that I would've. Made it."

"What was it like?"

"It sucked, Sam," Dean says, and when he sees whatever's on Sam's face his tone softens. "I mean, it was—I don't know, like a fever. Worse than that. Heart felt screwed up, but more than it did back then—that first time, with the rawhead and the reaper, remember?" Like Sam will ever forget. "Couldn't think straight and my stomach hurt, my friggin' lungs. My skin, all over. When you—uh, grabbed me—that hurt, too. Like there wasn't anything that would help except—except, you know."

Shouldn't do it if you can't talk about it, Sam thinks, but isn't enough of an asshole to say so, because he doesn't want to talk about it either.

The stack of books he brought back is crap. He pushes them aside, folds his arms on the table. There is a book he sort of remembers but the source… "We should call Bobby," he says, and gets the groaned no he expected. "I know. I mean—I don't, obviously, but I get that it's—weird. But who else do you know who might have a lead on whatever… this is? On how to fix it?"

"The Campbells," Dean says, and when Sam stares at him he shakes his head, looks up at the ceiling. "Okay, no. Though they did have that weird-ass vault library thing."

Sam doesn't remember, of course, and feels the intense pang of curiosity he always has about the year (and more) that's been hidden from him. "If this keeps going we might have to call in a favor," he says, calm even if Dean gives him a warning look down that knife-straight nose. "But, Dean—"

"One more day," Dean says, and Sam sighs, but. Christ. It's Dean's body, even if it's not.

They sit quiet. It's not even ten in the morning. Dean's timeline feels like it's glaring up at Sam, daring him, showing him how few hours there are before Dean's life will be threatened. If that's what it is. There's a school of thought that says a valid experiment would be to try to wait it out—to see if making it to the next midnight would somehow let them pass through the spell or curse or whatever into peace. Something about learning restraint, keeping pure. Sam gets a sense-memory of wiping the helpless sobbing tears slick across the girl's cheek and his stomach flips over. No, they won't be trying that. Screw empiricism.

"I should—"

Abrupt, cut off just as quickly. Sam looks up to find Dean turning the pen over, watching his new hands and nothing else. Tap of the pen tip on the table, slide of the pale fingers down the barrel, flip. Tap again. Sam doesn't interrupt although he wants to. Ten revolutions of the pen—stolen from some motel Sam doesn't remember, the cheap printed label mostly smeared off—before Dean accidentally smears a fingertip over the point and ends up blue. He huffs, a light little sound, and puts the pen down, and gives Sam a look with a wry tip to his mouth.

"I should try to pick up a guy." Sam feels his face do something and Dean smirks at him, eyes steady. "What, you don't think I'm hot enough?"

He should say something quippy back but nothing comes to mind. The smirk dims and Dean flips the pen again. Somehow Sam hadn't thought of that. They'd landed on a solution, even if it turned out only to be a band-aid and not a fix, and somehow he'd just…

"Makes sense," he finally says. His voice is weird and Dean's eyelashes flicker, and Sam curses himself but there's nothing for it. He clears his throat. "Yeah. But—I mean. Where? And when?"

Dean shrugs. "When is after noon, obviously. Or—whenever I start to—" Another gesture. "Seems like that'll make it easier. Where—hell. I guess we could try Monty's." He makes a face, which now is a cute little scrunch of the nose, at the same time that Sam's shaking his head. "Yeah, terrible idea. I don't know. This is a small town but how many small towns have we been in? You know there's a bar where some dude's looking to get some low-effort nookie."

Sam could've gone his entire life without casting his brother in the role of low-effort nookie. "If anyone should know," Sam says. Dean rolls his eyes, throws the pen at him.

More research, while they wait. Sam looks up Denise Studebaker, just to check, but there's hardly anything online about her. He takes notes. At the motel he skims through some of the books he checked out after all, in the vain hope of finding anything, and takes in stories of transformation, of fairy wishes, of moral lessons hard-won, while Dean spends literally two hours in the bathroom. At some point Sam's going to have to take a piss and he's wondering if he's going to be forced to use the kitchenette sink.

They went by the Walmart again. New jeans, new shirt. New bra, a real one this time, and Sam was thankfully not privy to the trying-on process but when Dean emerged he was sweating and said, not that quietly, how the hell do chicks get these on every morning? While he waited Sam picked up real hair ties and, with an odd feeling, some bobby pins, and then they stood in the makeup aisle feeling overwhelmed for a few minutes until Dean said, god, screw it, and randomly picked up a few tubes of things, and marched out toward the checkouts with his head held high.

Sam's trying to think in terms of metaphors. That's usually how magic works, in the end. There's some slight, that a demon or a ghost or a witch wants to correct, and then some cruel trick played on the perpetrator, who either learns a lesson from it or dies. Or both. A boastful woman who works tapestries gets turned into a spider, doomed to weave and never be acclaimed for it. A guy who acts like a dog gets turned into a dog and is hunted for sport. Someone who wants power is destroyed by it. It ends bloody, and ironic.

Trouble is that every trick always has a story in front of it that explains why it was done, and here there's no motive. If this were five years ago, maybe Sam could see it. Maybe Dean might've acted like a jerk to some woman and she turned him into one so that he could… who knows, see what it's like? Put the high heel on the other foot? But Dean hasn't been like that in years, and if Sam's honest he wasn't ever really like that. The girls Dean spent a night with always knew the score—how could they not, in a random bar with some random, charming guy they'd never met?—and Sam hasn't seen him even make an attempt with a woman since he's been back. At least, since he's been back with his own mind. Dean never spoke a word about what it was like to live that year with Lisa, and Sam's respected that because—hell. For a lot of reasons. Last month, it was Sam who made Dean actually take the calls from the kid, Ben, and it was Sam who made Dean go back and talk to them, and he wasn't surprised when nothing came of it but he knows, he's certain that Dean wasn't an asshole, didn't treat them badly. When he came back he was sorry but Sam knew that a door had closed, somewhere, and—that was it. There hasn't been time for anything else, no women and not even really much flirting that Sam's noticed, beyond the low-grade everyday charm that Dean can't seem to help but aim at anyone female aged seventeen to seventy with a pulse, and surely that wouldn't be enough of a crime to land him with a random woman's body that's trying to stop his heart. Not even a fairytale has come up with something that out of proportion.

It's after noon by the time the door opens. Sam checks the clock before he looks up, and Dean… well. It's the kind of thing they tend to see, more or less, in bars. Tight jeans and a tight, figure-hugging top, in purple this time, both decorated with sparkly… things. The bra seems to be doing its job, since Dean's got… cleavage, which when Sam notices it is one of those moments where he has to close his eyes, reorient himself and remember that he lives on a planet where this kind of thing is possible. What a stupid life they have.

"Okay, say it," Dean says, and Sam finds him standing there, grim, hands on his hips. "I look like an idiot, right?"

Hair still wet but it's drying in slightly frizzled waves over his shoulders. The makeup is, thank god, minimal, when Sam was half-expecting cartoon raccoon eyes with the mascara. He picked up some cheap pleather boots with no heel—I'm tall enough and I ain't breaking an ankle for this gig—and he looks—like some woman. Pretty, ordinary. Otherworldly. There's not a word for it.

Dean bites his lip, looks down. Sam takes a deep breath. "Dude, I can't tell if you want me to say yes or if you want me to call you hot, and I don't think I can take getting into a fight with a girl if I get it wrong."

He knows his brother: Dean snorts, and plops down on the end of the closer bed. "Yeah, I guess I'm kinda making you be the dorky husband in a sitcom, huh?" He sweeps his hair over one shoulder, nods at the table where Sam's spread out. "Anything?"

Sam shrugs. He bites the inside of his cheek, says steadily: "Anything for you?"

Dean shrugs back at him. "Not yet. Don't feel any different." He examines his nails. "I, uh, checked—" Sam grimaces, thankfully unseen— "—but, yeah. The basement's dry."

Sam stares at his laptop and tries to rein in the first thing he thinks. The second's not a lot better. "Okay. Well. Maybe we won't have to—do anything. Which would be great, but we still need to figure out the bigger problem. I figured out where Denise's sister lives—a few hours out. You up for a roadtrip?"

"Anything to get out of this room," Dean says, which is a little rich considering how long he just spent in the bathroom, but Sam's not arguing. He stands up, picks up his cheap new jacket. "I get the wheel this time. And I don't want to hear any cracks about women drivers."

Wausau's a straight shot east from Menomonie, about twice as big in population and exactly zero percent more interesting. Denise's sister lives near a golf course, in a much nicer house than Gary's managed to put over Denise's head, and Sam scopes out the neighborhood while they wait for anyone to come to the door. Stone facades, big lawns. Currently snow-covered but given the area he's guessing there's a lot of keep-up-with-the-neighbors landscaping that goes on once the melt finally comes.

"Come on," Dean mutters, and rings the doorbell again. He shivers, folds himself tighter into the new jacket.

"Okay?" Sam says. Dean shakes his head, impatient, and Sam backs off because—well, he'll know, won't he.

Finally, a twitch of the curtain in the big window by the door. It opens, barely a foot, and they're faced with a teenage boy: acne, badly dyed black hair, t-shirt advertising something called a Vampire Weekend. Sam doubts this kid has had the pleasure.

"We don't want any girl scout cookies," he says, squinting at them.

"Funny," Dean says, and it'd normally be dry but in this woman's sweet voice it actually sounds like a compliment. The boy blinks, looks Dean up and down, and god. Doesn't anyone do that subtly anymore? "No, we were actually here to see Mrs. Russo and Mrs. Studebaker. Are they at home?"

"Aunt Denise doesn't live here," the kid says, frowning. "And Mom and Dad are in Atlantic City. What, are you from the school or something? Mom called in, I'm sick."

Vaguely high isn't the same thing, but Sam doesn't argue. "Atlantic City," he repeats. "Did your aunt go with them?"

"No?" the kid said, making it sound like Sam's the dumbest person alive. "She lives, like, five towns over or something. She hasn't come over since Christmas." Finally, he seems to gain an ounce of real suspicion, looking back and forth between them. "Wait, why do you want to know?"

They stand on the sidewalk afterward, Sam's brain trying to leap to connections from vague, shifting sand. "So does the kid not know what's going on? Or did Denise lie to Gary? Or did Gary lie to us?" It's at least a real clue, when they've been spinning their wheels for so long. "I don't know—what do you think? Follow up on Denise? Or try to track down Gary, ask some more questions?"

"Sam," Dean says, and Sam refocuses. Flush on Dean's cheeks, his lips wet. He licks them again while Sam's watching and shivers again, shrugs.

Stupidly, Sam hoped—but apparently being tied to the clock would be too easy. "When?" he says, and Dean bites his lips between his teeth, shakes his head, says: "When we were driving out here. Maybe—an hour ago?"

"What?" Sam checks his watch. "Dude—"

"It's not like a switch flipping, Sam," Dean says, so sharp and serious that Sam shuts up. Another shrug, like Dean's trying to resettle his whole self on bones that don't fit right. "I just—god. I started to notice around then, okay? I feel—" He folds his arms over his chest. "It's starting. That's what I'm saying."

According to Sam's watch, it's 2:37. Early, to go barhopping. Even for the kind of guy that'll go home with some random woman—a guy like Dean, Sam thinks uncharitably—before happy hour is a little early to flirt your way into bed. "Two hours back to Menomonie," he says, and Dean drags his hand straight back from his forehead, ruffling the woman's reddish hair back, making it fall differently. It's unselfconscious, attractive because of it. Sam swallows. "I don't know. Will you make it?"

Dean snorts. "Let me worry about my junk, huh?" he says. Curt, and unfair to boot, but Sam doesn't retort. What could he say?

Sports bar with a vague pub theme, this time, on the outskirts of town. Near a truckstop, which Dean picked with absolutely zero discussion. He did unthaw enough to let them work out a plan, and Sam is currently sitting at the very furthest end of the bar, his back to the wall, nursing an American domestic, hating every second of it.

Dean can protect himself, even when he's herself. Sam knows this even if it hasn't been tested. They bought him a purse that currently has nothing in it but his gun and a wallet with the latest fake ID—Nancy again, the picture applied amateurishly but Sam refused to allow Bonnie Raitt and, anyway, which one of them was going to the copy store—and forty bucks cash, since they couldn't get a credit card in Nancy's name in time. Sam knows for a fact there's a knife somewhere on his body, too, although he's not sure where. Maybe there are two. Dean came in ten minutes after Sam sat down and took up residence on his own stool, ordering a gin & tonic and sipping it slowly, and he's not looking at Sam at all, watching the basketball over the bar and looking like he wants—well, like he wants to be fucked, but hopefully that's only as obvious as it is to Sam because he knows the score, here.

The fact that he feels helpless is his own problem. Knowing that doesn't make it any easier to watch a guy check out Dean's ass in those stupid sparkle-pocket jeans, watch him walk up behind—watch him lean in, smile, say—something, something Sam can't hear over the country radio. Ordinary guy. Sandy blond hair, maybe in his thirties. A little bit of a paunch but mostly fit, like he lifts weights but likes a drink, too. Sam watches, sipping his beer and not tasting it, while Dean smiles up at the guy, easy as easy. Like getting hit on by random truckers is something that happens to him every day.

How the hell are you going to do this and have it seem natural? Sam had said, and Dean had said, not looking at him, I think I know how guys flirt, man. I'll just play the other part. How hard can it be.

Not hard at all, from what Sam's seeing. He's too far away to overhear, other than a brief peal of laughter from Dean when the guy says something that Sam's sure wasn't that funny. It doesn't matter. The play's worked out. Dean's got a backstory—Nancy and her girlfriend are road-tripping and her friend left her to go meet up with a guy. Nancy's all alone. She's got a motel, and she's bored, and she wants some company. They'll take a ride in the guy's car and Sam will follow in the Impala and he'll wait, and when it's done Dean will kick the guy out—no one stays longer than they have to, man, he'd said, matter-of-fact—and that'll be it. Fixed, for the day. Easy as easy, as long as every single part of it goes to plan.

Dean and the guy drink their drinks. The guy sits next to Dean and orders them another round. Sam sits and finishes his beer, bitter and warm by now, and the bartender offers him another and he takes it and watches Dean lean in to the other man and say something in his ear, smiling, and the guy's eyebrows pop high but he laughs, nods, puts his hand on Dean's back. Low, sliding down. No stiffness in Dean's body that Sam can see; he's practically hanging on the random dude, needing. It's past six o'clock. They're shifted an hour past Dean's timeline and in another hour the need is really going to start, and—god. Is it better to wait, to make sure that he wants it so badly he'd accept anything? Or to have his own mind directing the action, making sure—what? That he can get fucked by a stranger and it'd be his own choice?

Dean stands up, leans in close enough that his breasts push in against the guy's arm, says something. The guy laughs, nods, and Dean strolls off to the sign that says RESTROOMS, passes into the hallway. Sam tenses, not sure—but his phone buzzes, almost immediately, and he puts it to his ear and there's a woman's sweet breathy voice saying: He wants me. Am I good or what?

Sam has to unlock his jaw. "Congrats, you're the prettiest girl in town. What's the plan?"

Same as we talked about. I told him my sister Samantha and I were on a road trip. When we finish up I'll kick him out, tell him I don't want it to be weird when she comes back. Since she's such a weird prude, you know?

"Nice, thanks," Sam says, dry as dry, and gets a light high laugh. He listens to Dean breathe for a second. It sounds heavy. He licks his lips, watching the empty doorway to the restrooms. The guy's still sitting on his stool, grinning down at his beer. Knows he's got it made. "What's his name? This guy."

Jealous? Sam's silent, and there's a beat before Dean says, in a different tone: Mike. Mike Klein, from Bakersfield. Has a sales job. He's heading to Michigan tomorrow.

Mike Klein, from Bakersfield. Sam looks at the guy and fits that against him. "I'll be in the parking lot. Phone in my hand. Okay?"

Another light laugh. My hero, Dean says, thin and strained, and the call goes dead.

Sam sits in the parking lot, phone in hand. He's in the backseat, hidden from the fluorescent lot lights. The window's cracked so he can hear but it's also really goddamn cold because it's 22 goddamn degrees outside, and he's thinking, with what part of his brain isn't focused on the motel room, that why couldn't this have happened in Miami?

The motel room. He pulled the Impala in two doors further down. Mike's truck is parked in what was the Impala's spot. Lamplight seeps out from behind the curtain, makes the square of the window purple and dim gold, and then goes out. No sound, other than the occasional car rolling down the road behind them. The motel's half-full, no one in the rooms on either side of theirs, and—god, god. Sam can't stand this. He has to stand it.

In his life he's never cared who Dean screwed. Well—okay, so that's not true. Sometimes when he was drunk but Dean was drunker he'd look at whatever random sleazeball woman Dean had pulled in and thought, really? Truckstop waitresses and barflies and casino lurkers, Dean could take down any of them. Dean could take down pretty much anyone—that was a fact of life, from the time Sam was about thirteen and started to notice.

It was always on his terms, though, and no matter who it was, no matter how weird their circumstances were, Sam knew—what? He'd never thought about it. Dean was a guy and he was sleeping with women and nothing bad was going to happen. If he really thinks it through of course that was stupid of him, all assumption and male arrogance and all the stuff he'd been cautioned against in his humanities classes, back in college, but… it was true, either way. Dean's biggest vulnerability was his heart, not his body. This whole thing flipped the equation on Sam in a way he wasn't prepared for. Dean's body, not his own. This—pretty, suddenly breakable thing, that was doing what it wanted, a ticking bomb inside making demands that it wasn't fair to meet. That had to be met. That glassy, pained sheen to Dean's (not-Dean's) eyes, last night—they had to be met.

Eight o'clock comes, goes. Sam's freezing. He gets out of the car and paces the lot, walks past the few other cars and fucking Mike's fucking truck and past the door of their room, three times and then five, his mind buzzing hard enough that he starts to forget, really, how cold it is. He's thinking about the time, passing. If it gets toward eleven, what is he going to do? Bust in? What if they're—so then he has to think about that, too, about a guy humping away single-mindedly and how Sam will have to come in and drag him off, will have to see if Dean's okay, if he's fixed and breathing right and if his heart is safe, and meanwhile there'll be some stranger with his dick out all confused and angry in the room and whether Dean's okay or whether he's not Sam will have to get the guy out, put him down, do something, and Dean will be there, on the bed, naked and fragile and—

He gets back in the Impala, sitting back in the backseat with his arms folded over the front seatback, his face buried, his phone in hand. Listening and trying not to think. Wanting it to be done. Wanting a world where, somehow and impossibly, the problem's fixed. That Mike Klein from Bakersfield has solved it and everything'll be set back to rights and all they'll have to worry about is where to go to breakfast tomorrow, since his Denver omelette was pretty shitty, after all.

He's listed every state capital in alphabetical order and every president and vice-president backwards from Clinton/Gore to Washington/Adams and is on to the periodic table, going through it by vertical column instead of element type just for some variety, when the door to their room opens.

Mike Klein. He laughs, says something to the dark interior before shutting the door. He stands on the sidewalk in the frosty fluorescent light and the cherry when he lights his cigarette is the reddest orangest thing in the universe. Sam feels like set steel, locked into place in the backseat, every muscle and bone this solid and unmovable thing. Mike Klein blows out a plume of smoke indistinguishable from frosty breath, calm and lazy, and laughs again, quieter, and checks his phone. He texts something. Sam watches him, heartbeat thudding high in the pit of his throat. Just some guy, who just got laid. His nose has a bump in it, not unlike Dean's when Dean's nose is his own, that catches the light. He looks up at the moonless sky and takes a long drag from his cigarette—flicks the ash, careless, unselfconscious because he thinks no one is watching—and Sam has to tamp down on the very real and very present and very immediate urge to get out of the car and beat Mike Klein to death. His hand flexes and he doesn't move, otherwise. He can't move, otherwise.

The room's dark when Sam opens the door, when Mike's got into his truck and driven away and the coast is clear. He closes it behind himself, quietly, and the smell—god. Sex. Sweat's the least of it. He says, "Dean," very soft, and gets a slow strangled drag of air from somewhere deeper in the room, and—he can't do this in the dark. Maybe has to. "Did it…" he says, and there's a caught deep sound that grabs him by the breastbone.

The bathroom light's the least intrusive. By the slice from the cracked door he sees—the bed, Dean's bed, wrecked. The girl with the strawberry-blonde hair, a long pale comma-curve, shoulders hunched. The angle of white light slices over her side. Sam sits, touches her shoulder, and her eyes squeeze shut—she moans—and Sam slides his fingers to her throat knowing, sick, that—

"I tried to hold it together until he left," Dean says, thin. His heart's beating so hard Sam doesn't see how he's not bleeding straight through his pores. "I—I thought if—if—but it didn't work, Sammy, it didn't work—"

Holding her hands between her legs, shuddering. How the hell did Mike not notice something was wrong—but it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter now. He shushes the girl—shushes Dean—drags a hand over her side—stands, and this time he strips, kicks off his boots and shirt and jeans and climbs in behind her, naked, covering her from that slice of light. Reaches down, sliding over her long arm to cover her hand—finding her three fingers deep, trying to fill what can't be filled—and she makes this cracked sound, a sob. Her shoulders round, hurt, her body curving into the shape of him.

He turns her on her stomach, urging her over soft but brooking no resistance. He's not sure what resistance she can give. He slips an arm under her stomach and pulls her up against him and her face turns away from the light so he can't see if it hurts but he knows it hurts, he knows it, and he presses his lips to the goosebumped curve of her shoulder and presses against her, hot and open and shockingly wet because—someone else was here, someone tried and couldn't help her. He jerks himself, fingers slippery just from the inside of her thighs here, and she whines and he pushes inside and god, god! The heat of her, the slick. Swallowed immediately, and he tips his hips and grinds down and she makes the weirdest little noise, hiccups, lifts into him, wants him. Wants him. He doesn't think it but knows it somewhere up past his guts, his balls urging him forward, wanting to give it to her, wanting to make it so she's not hurt anymore. Her hand fumbles down past his arm, between her legs, fingers finding his nuts and dragging up to where he's splitting her, and he puts his head down into the sweaty fall of her hair that despite everything smells like—like Dean—and he crushes inside, makes her grunt, puts his hand over hers where it's gripping the sheet and does what he can. Everything he can.

Afterward he's very careful, easing his weight to one side, letting her quiver. Letting Dean quiver. It feels more like Dean afterward and Sam doesn't know why that is. He keeps his arm around Dean's waist and feels the pulsing heartbeat slow, ease, come down to something natural. The body cooling, slowly, sweat making the hair around the face curl.

Dean doesn't get up this time. Sam pulls on his boxers and brings a damp rag back to the bed, a towel, a t-shirt that it turns out is his. Whatever. Dean's got his curled knuckles pressed against his forehead, breathing in these slow heaves that seem deliberate, and Sam bites the inside of his cheek before he sits down, carefully separate. "Can't imagine," he says, "but it can't be better if you feel gross."

That earns a snort, at least. "Yeah," Dean says, and sits up. Not modest, but then this isn't his body. Sam looks away, anyway, and whatever he catches from the corner of his eye isn't worth dwelling on. Dean tugs on Sam's shirt and stands up to wrap the towel around his waist and then sits on the other bed, Sam's bed, and looks not at Sam but at some vague point past him, at the door or beyond it. Sam turns on the lamp between the beds and Dean's eyelids sink but he doesn't turn away, and so Sam can see for himself—that faint remaining bruise on the jaw but no other visible harm. Dean swipes his hair over one shoulder, tugs at the v-neck. "Could've gotten me a clean one at least," he says, but there's zero heat in it.

Sam watches him and Dean doesn't look back, and Sam's not going to insist. He has questions he wants to ask and knows this isn't the time to ask them. "You think it'll work?" he says, and Dean shrugs but then says, "Why wouldn't it," and Sam doesn't have an answer for that. He was just filling air.

"How long did it take, yesterday?" Sam says instead. Dean glances at the clock, doesn't answer. He seems entirely remote—this woman's fine carved face some ice-covered mountaintop. The makeup seems to have smeared off. Sam didn't notice, before.

It's Sam who goes to take a shower, in the end. He's quick by nature but takes his time, now, soaping up and trying not to think of anything at all. Impossible, but for trying he ends up with splintered too-tumbled thoughts, trains that he tries to derail and makes a bigger mess. All the details of the last few days all crumbled together, but also Dean's face when he was avoiding talking to Lisa—and the way Gary stared down at the petite version from yesterday, wanting—and the book Sam can almost remember from Bobby's house—and Dean's expression, surprised and then not surprised, when Sam told him that he had Dean's back, that afternoon in the junkyard, like when a bone's been dislocated and first there's the pain and then the weird, shocky, sore relief of having it put back in place.

He comes out clean, resolute. Wraps himself in the only towel they've got left and thinks that if they keep staying here they're going to need to actually let in a maid, or steal from one anyway. When he comes out Dean's Dean. Still wearing Sam's undershirt, still in his own towel, looking down at his own square blunt hands.

"How long?" Sam says, and Dean glances at the clock again and says, deep and rough and familiar, "Uh, twenty, twenty-five minutes?"

Sam drips on the carpet and Dean looks at him, full on, and says, "All right, my turn, and then I want dinner," and so Dean takes a shower—much faster than he usually does—and they get dressed—and they go back to that pub by the truckstop, and they order burgers and Dean watches the basketball and Mike Klein isn't there, a relief un-looked for. Sam drinks three beers too fast and actually gets a little tipsy and Dean doesn't drink at all but calls him a lightweight, is relaxed, drives back to the motel when they're done, and Sam watches his face in the intermittent light of traffic and street lamps and thinks about how he doesn't know how Dean got that scar on his lip. It's so small, easy to miss especially when Dean hasn't shaved for a few days—and Dean's always not shaving for a few days—and if Sam were describing Dean's face, to a stranger or to a cop or to a missing persons expert, would he even think to mention the scar? Would it matter, in the scheme of things?

"Dude, did you sneak in some vodka shots while I wasn't looking? Hop to it, champ."

Sam gets out of the car and the cold hits like a hammer. Dean unlocks the room and Sam wishes they'd cleaned up, before they left, but that ship sailed like so many others have. Dean drops his coat on the table and the keys next to it and looks at his bed, face unreadable—and for Sam not to be able to read it, that makes it extra unreadable, and Sam wants to say something but of course he doesn't. He isn't as much of an asshole as he thinks, sometimes.

"You might need to sleep it off, princess," Dean says. "But I'm making coffee, if you want to stay up."

"Stay up?" Sam says, and puts his hand on the table to steady himself. Okay, so maybe the princess comment wasn't too far off. He's way drunker than he should be off that little booze, and only belatedly remembers that he didn't eat his burger, just stared while Dean ate his.

Dean shrugs, going through the motions: water, filter, grounds. "Ought to see what happens when Superman turns into Lois, right?"

"Right," Sam says, aching, and Dean brings him a cup of coffee and drops onto the bed—Sam's—and turns on the television, and Sam makes Dean's bed while Dean doesn't look at him doing it and then drinks his coffee and watches an infomercial. The same one, about the knives.

"Who even needs to cut a tomato mid-air," Dean says.

Sam doesn't have an answer. They finish the infomercial, and then there's one about some kind of slapping chopping thing that apparently works wonders on bell peppers, and then Dean flips around through the channels and they watch a really awful cut-for-TV version of the most recent Batman interspersed with ads for local car dealerships and phone sex operations. Late Nite. Sam's surprised these didn't disappear over the eighteen months he missed but apparently bad lipstick and dyejobs work on the lonely, even in these post-apocalypse years.

He dozes for a while, can't help it; wakes up and Dean's still Dean; dozes again, and wakes, and Dean's staring at the television with his expression as remote and unaffected as the last girl's. Sam sits with his head leaned back against the wallpaper and watches Dean, mind blank as dark water. That means that he sees the change when it happens.

Dean doesn't gasp or shake or shed revolting lymph like a shapeshifter. Instead there's a—ripple. A shift, the world going strange for a moment. Sam blinks, sits up, and it—it should be stranger than it is. Instead it's this smooth slipping of features, of angling bone, his body like a gradient sliding over to some other possibility that genetics could afford. A change, and then—instead of Sam's brother there's a woman of medium height, coloring that suggests maybe Hispanic, with a cloud of curly brown hair and a face that isn't terribly remarkable, other than her beautiful, soft mouth. As full as Dean's.

For a second Dean almost doesn't seem to notice. He blinks, looks down at himself. Still in jeans and in a flannel shirt that's too big, now, and holding the television controller in smaller hands. He uncrosses his ankles and draws his knees up, socked feet dragging on the blanket, and lets out a sigh.

2:15 in the morning, according to the clock. Why? Sam gets up and writes it down on his legal pad, and when he turns around Dean's staring at his hands. "Nails are going to be a bitch," he says, mildly, and Sam thinks, for a second, what if he—just did it now. What if.

Dean glances up at him. This woman's eyes are dark brown, her brows high, and Sam looks away before Dean can read whatever might be in his own face.

"At least I got better tits this time," Dean says, philosophically, and then sighs again and says, "Screw it. I'm going to sleep. We can freak out in the morning, right?"

"Definitely," Sam says, and Dean shoves off his jeans—this girl has round fat hips that make it a squeeze—and then squirms down into the bed, turning his back to the lamp, and the last look Sam gets at him that night is of the cloud of curls, the defensive tilt of the little shoulder in Dean's old purple plaid shirt that nearly matches the blanket, and he sits there for a while with his hand hovering on the lamp's switch, wanting…

Shouldn't say it if you can't think it. Sam turns off the light, and crawls into the other bed, and listens to the cycle of the heater under the window going on, and off, and on again, long into the wee hours of the morning.

Chapter 3 Chapter Text

February 26

The first thing Bobby says to him is that he's an idiot. The second thing is that he's joking, and this isn't a fun distraction when they got no idea what's going on with Eve and monsters and whatever the hell Cas has got going on with Heaven. The third thing is to put Dean on the phone, and Sam looks at Dean and Dean shakes his head, drinking coffee with his little bare feet kicked up on the table, and Sam says, "I swear, Bobby. On anything. It's been three days. We really need some help."

Put him on the damn phone, Bobby says, no arguments, and Sam grimaces but what is he going to do? He tosses the phone into Dean's lap and Dean glares at him, puts the phone to his ear, says in his new soprano, "Heya, Bobby," like he hasn't got a care in the world, and Sam—can't take it, doesn't want to hear it, picks up his coat and the keys and goes out to the store. They need yet another pair of fucking shoes.

Almost ten in the morning when he gets back—they slept late, after staying up too late waiting for revelation—and he's feeling calmer. To-go coffee that's better than what they can make in the dinky machine, doughnuts that Dean will take as a peace offering. More clothes, including a Zeppelin shirt cut for a ladies' frame that he's hoping will make Dean smile, at least.

Dean accepts the coffee, and bites into the doughnut like he's starving. A chocolate-and-chocolate with chocolate sprinkles. Yes, Sam knows his brother. He groans, swipes frosting off the edge of his lip and sucks it off one long oval nail, and then says: "Bobby's going to be here this afternoon."

Sam nods, sucks the inside of his cheek. Embarrassing that he wasn't here to hear it himself but he's done more embarrassing things than take a breather, in the past few years. "Did he say anything else?"

"Well, he said we're idiots again," Dean says, dry, but he smiles a little, too. Sam huffs. Yeah. "But yeah, he had some suggestions." Dean sips his coffee, looks at his nails. "Said we'd wait to talk about the rest when he got here."

The rest. Yeah. Sam's not looking forward to that part, either.

They get Dean into his new size six boots ("Is it a foot-shrinking curse? What the hell?") and they start on Bobby's list, which is mainly about space, land, location. Dean checked the room that first day for a hex bag but how do they know it's not something going on in the room itself? Sam sends Dean down to the motel office, since he's got the fresh face and they might as well make the most of it, and they rent out another room, this one on the opposite side of the building. Still purple inside, although the bathroom fixtures look a little newer. Maybe the shower won't suck. Small blessings.

They split up, then. Sam takes the motel building and Dean walks down to Monty's, despite the temperature, because at least it's a clear day, one of those days where the sky's so blue it's hard to believe there ever could be a storm. Dean's going to sweep the entirety of the bar for EMF, for any kind of magic sign he or Sam or Bobby can possibly think of, and Sam's left to do the same at the motel, which is not exactly the subtlest task, in broad daylight on a Saturday. He walks laps around the building, drinking his coffee and watching the EMF for the slightest blip, and of course gets nothing. He goes to their new room and prods his way through it, watchful even though he doesn't suspect anything, and of course, gets nothing. Then he thinks, fuck it, and goes back to the first room that they haven't given up, and closes the door and then tears it apart. Flips the beds, rips into the mattresses, tears the carpet up at the corners of the room and searches the bare concrete foundation for anything, any clue at all, and, of course—

Dean comes back when he's sitting on a chair in the middle of the wrecked room, looking at his notes. Sam stares at his own handwriting, silent. He tore a fingernail on the carpet nails in the far corner and it smarts.

"There a hurricane warning you didn't tell me about?" Dean says, after a minute. Light, unconcerned.

Sam breathes out, slowly, through his nose. "Find anything?"

"What do you think," Dean says. He perches on the stack of mattresses and boxsprings that Sam made up against the wall. It's too tall for this girl to sit; his new boots kick idly against the bottommost mattress. "Whatever did it isn't part of the furniture at a dive bar. Or, apparently, part of the… carpet in a motel."

There's a line between the new woman's high fine brows. Sam doesn't want to hear it. "We keep looking for the how but we still don't know the why," he says, tossing the legal pad to the concrete.

"Are you bleeding?" Dean says, and Sam rolls his eyes—god, like it matters. "Okay, sheesh."

He doesn't seem to have any answer on the why. Nothing Sam can fault him for, since he doesn't have one either. There was a night that was normal and now all the nights aren't, and when he checks his watch to wonder when Bobby's going to get here all he can really think about is—not Bobby, and not the answers, but that the clock is ticking. That it won't be long before this new body wakes up hungry and, so far, they've only found the one way to feed it. Dean's looking up at the ceiling, seemingly thinking, and Sam looks at his body: the round ass and full breasts and hair he can imagine sinking his hands into. That mouth. Her pussy, and his stomach flips oddly to think it, but—god, why dance around it? Her pussy, which is what's waiting. The wet split of it, how he could sink his fingers in and she'll want it. How she won't be able to help wanting it. The way she'll moan for him, desperate, and he'll—

He goes to the library, again. Alone. The Studebaker connection is still the best one he can come up with and there's more information to learn about Denise—Denise Studebaker née Marino, it turns out—and then there's the Marino family, moved to Wisconsin from New York, after coming over from Italy—and Sam's wasted a full three hours with the microfiche, quite effectively because at least he's learning something even if all he's learning is how to tread more water, when he gets a text to come back to the motel. He picks up a pizza and a twelve-pack, since it's lunchtime, and when he gets back, there's a '71 Chevelle in the parking lot and he feels, entirely unwilling, the sensation of being caught at something. Hand in the cookie jar.

They use the new room, since it's not a complete disaster. Sam's going to have to put the carpet in the first one to rights before they check out, just to satisfy his own conscience. He forces himself to eat the pizza—sausage and extra mushrooms and onion, ordered entirely with Dean in mind—and he drinks one beer very fast and sips at a second, and doesn't really look at Dean. At the woman who is Dean.

Bobby's himself, because he always is. Hat low over his forehead while he reads Sam's notes. His coat has a grease stain on the forearm. Sam didn't get to see the moment when Bobby met the pretty, petite version of his brother. Probably for the best. It's funny when Dean's embarrassed; it's way worse to see Dean humiliated, no matter that it's almost always Dean who's doing the humiliating.

"Talk me through it," Bobby says, finally, and Dean looks at his knees and then gets up abruptly and goes into the bathroom. The door closes softly. Bobby squints after him—after her. He sighs, after a moment, and looks at Sam, and says more quietly, "Talk me through it," and Sam puts his elbows on his knees and holds his beer between his two hands and he—what can he do, but tell the truth.

The facts: Dean woke up in the morning and he was girl-shaped. Around noon the body started to crave sex. Dean tried to satisfy it on his own but it didn't work. The craving started to become need, and after a while it became pain, and nothing was working to ease it, and Sam came in after a while and—did what had to be done.

It's incredible to him that he manages to explain without hiccup or stumble or just fully vomiting. Doing what has to be done is one thing; explaining it to someone who fed him mac & cheese when he was five is another. He sits back in his chair, takes a deep swallow of his beer. Bobby's looking at him, eyes slightly narrowed. Thinking. Not, thank god, saying anything that Sam has already thought about himself. The bathroom door is still closed.

"What made you come up with that solution?" Bobby says, finally. He has another notepad open but he's not writing.

Sam lifts a shoulder, feels immediately childish. "Curses," he says, and has to clear his throat. "Stories, metaphors. It's the way witches tend to work, you know? Someone's dying of thirst and all they can get out of the tap is sand. A drunk needs booze but the bottle just kills him faster. Like—careful what you wish for, almost. Fixes that make you hurt. I just thought—this spell, or curse, or whatever it is, it turned a man into a woman, and the woman needs… to orgasm, somehow, and she can't. So what would punish a guy—a straight guy, I guess—who needed that?"

"Sand out of the tap," Bobby says, after looking at him for another few seconds. "Could've been a situation where getting what you wanted was the punishment, itself. Could've killed him."

The air goes out of Sam. That first night, gathering up that small dark-haired girl, desperate to do anything to help her. He imagines making one last gasp crush out of her lungs, her heart failing. His heart failing. Sam stands up, goes to the kitchenette, puts his beer bottle in the sink. Breathes. Fucking Bobby. "Well, it didn't kill him," he says, rough and weird.

Another pause. "Guess not," Bobby says. A further pause, and then Bobby sighs and says, soft, "Aw, hell," and then, loud: "Dean, come on out. It ain't going to be any less awkward to talk about your downstairs problems just because you're in the other room."

Sam knocks his head against the wall, over the sink, and then drains his beer, and then turns around and puts his ass against the counter, waiting, resigned. When the bathroom door opens it's slowly, and Dean—dainty, little Dean—folds his arms, leaning against the lintel. "I think it's gonna be pretty awkward either way, Bobby," he says.

Bobby resettles his cap over his forehead. "Well, that's as may be, but we're just going to all have to put on our big-girl panties and get through it. No offense, princess."

Somehow that makes the corner of Dean's plush mouth turn up. "None taken, Roberta," he says, and Bobby rolls his eyes and picks up a pen, and says, "All right, let's actually figure this thing out," and Sam doesn't know how they manage it. How they always just—end up on the same page, working together somehow easy, when Sam, on the far side of the room, feels like someone's stuck him in an unwashed, ill-fitting skin.

They go over the timeline again. Maybe midnight, maybe some time after. Bobby writes down 2:15 and circles it, and frowns, and asks them to keep talking. About twelve hours before the cravings start, and Bobby's eyes go to the bedside table, the clock there. 2:23. They both look at Dean and Dean pushes his curls back from his face—they're getting frizzed out, from how often he's done it—and he doesn't say anything and, to Sam's surprise, neither does Bobby. They've got time, either way.

"So what does it feel like?" Bobby says. He points the pen at Dean, warning. "And don't be cute. I gave you the sex talk, kid. You can say penis without making a fool of yourself."

Dean, who'd started to smile around cute, opens his mouth and then closes it. "Yeah," he says, and bites the pretty curve of his lower lip. "Yeah. I know I need something. I mean, physically. It's like being hungry, but like in the early part of being hungry where you're not getting the stomach growling or the pangs but just this kind of… I don't know, this feeling." He rolls his eyes, apparently at himself. "Crap, I'm not exactly a poet here, Bobby. I don't have my own junk anymore. It's kind of new territory."

"I'm not trying to get the Women Are From Venus speech here, young lady," Bobby says, dry. "It's the part where you start to get sick that's the trouble."

"We haven't exactly done anything scientific," Sam says, interrupting. He's still over at the kitchenette counter. More coffee brewing which he's really, really looking forward to. "The body—I don't know. Her heart starts beating too fast, her body temperature goes up to something dangerous, past a fever. It causes a lot of oversensitivity. Pain. As soon as… as soon as the sex is over, all the symptoms go away." Sam shrugs. "Female ferrets have to have sex in estrus or they'll overheat and die. Figured it's something like that."

Dean's face is a picture. "Why do you know that," he says, and Sam opens his mouth but Dean waves a hand, makes a disgusted noise. "God, never mind."

"Okay," Bobby says, quelling. "Miss Ferret needs her fix." Dean gives Sam a poison look and Sam sighs; he's going to pay for the ferret thing, one way or another. Bobby taps his pen on the table, looking at them both and then only at Sam. "So. Why you?"

Sam licks his lips. Dean isn't looking at him. The cloud of hair seems to have become too annoying; he pulls it back with a hair tie Sam bought. Not well, since curly wisps escape all over. He takes a deep breath, pins his eyes to the wall. The only sex talk he got was from a teenaged Dean, which probably wasn't the ideal way to go about it given that before the end Sam practically ran from the room while Dean cackled. Doesn't mean Sam has an excuse not to be an adult, now. They've been through weirder and worse than this, and Bobby knows pretty much all of it. At least Sam isn't currently detoxing from demon blood in his basement, right?

"I've been thinking about that. It seems clear that the body requires someone's help to have an orgasm. We tried a—an aid, but that didn't do anything either. So, Thursday night, that was the only thing I could think of. It seemed to work. No heart attack. Last night, we tried a different guy, but—I don't know. It didn't work that time."

"I'm going to assume the curse isn't aiming to get its rocks off with incest," Bobby says. Dean flinches; Sam takes a long, slow breath in through his nose. A beat, in which for once Bobby seems like he feels a little sorry, before he says balls very softly under his breath, and then, "Hell with it. We need something stronger."

Round of whiskeys, poured around—Sam dumps a healthy two shots into his cup of coffee—and Bobby drinks his measure down like medicine before he leans forward, looks at Dean.

"Need some details here, son," he says, entirely calm. Dean sips at his paper cup of booze, lips twitching back from the sting, and then the dark eyes lift and settle on Bobby's face. Small, ironic quirk to his mouth. Masklike, and obvious, the kind of lying Sam hates from his brother when it's so clear that he's hiding something that actually matters, that hurts, but—Sam can't blame him, not this time. Bobby looks at Dean's expression, nods, and then says, "All right. Quickfire round, points available for true answers only. Let's hear it."

Bobby asks the questions that Sam couldn't, last night. He does it clean, like a doctor going down a list, and Dean answers in as few syllables as possible, and Sam watches the side of the smooth round face and thinks, in a detached way, that either this woman doesn't blush or Dean's somehow—shut it off. Wouldn't it be amazing, if that were so.

Last night:

Mike Klein was straightforward. They kissed. There wasn't much foreplay. No oral sex. Mike fingered her. He played with her breasts. They had sex on Dean's bed. The first time lasted maybe five, ten minutes. Dean still needed to orgasm. Mike stuck around. More fingering. When he was hard again they went again. He lasted longer the second time. Dean couldn't orgasm the second time, either. They didn't use a condom, the second time. Mike kissed her before he left. Dean kept it together, flirting and laughing with Mike until the door closed, trying to seem normal. Once Mike was gone the pain flared up. Worse than it had been, like having gotten a tease of what was wanted made the need even worse. This deep, massive, empty thing.

Bobby taps his pen on his notepad. Sam's face is so hot he can feel his skin prickling. Why didn't he ask if Mike had used a condom? Why is he furious that Mike didn't, when it's not like he and Dean—when they—

"Sam didn't glove up," Bobby says, unnecessarily in Sam's opinion. "Either time."

"No," Dean says.

"When Sam came inside did you feel relieved?" Bobby clears his throat. "I mean, when he came into the room."

A pause—Dean has to think about that one. "I don't know. Maybe. I knew I wanted it not to hurt and that Sam was a good shot at that. I wasn't thinking that clearly."

"How long did it take with Sam before there was an orgasm?"

"A few minutes. Not long."

"And you orgasmed first."

"Yeah."

"Did you feel like you needed Sam to orgasm, too? Or did you start to feel better right away?"

Another pause. Sam, sitting now on the kitchen linoleum with his head buried in his hands, doesn't see the expression Dean's wearing. "I don't know. I guess I—no, I don't know." A clearing of the throat. "Sam didn't, uh. Ejaculate inside. He pulled out first."

Bobby grunts. Sound of pen on paper. "So orgasm fixes the heart, but we don't know about the semen," he says, sort of to himself. Sam thought he was going to be an adult but he feels like he might, literally, die if he has to hear much more. The hell experience he can't remember is probably worse than hearing Bobby talk about his semen, but it's hard to see how. "So, we've still got the million-dollar question. Why Sam, and not someone else."

"I've been thinking about that, too," Dean says. Sam picks his head up, finally. Dean—the girl that is Dean—has his arms folded over his stomach, slouched and fake-calm in the squared-off chair. He glances at Sam's face and then quickly away, and shrugs, turning back to Bobby. "Not like I've had anything else to do."

He takes a breath, pauses. His lips fold so there's just one tight bloodless line. Without the mouth the girl's face really is plain, almost unrecognizable. Just the one feature that makes her beautiful.

"Share with the class, miss," Bobby says, only about half as rude as normal, and Dean blows out the breath—lips red, bitten—and he says, "I think it's about… care."

"Care," Sam says.

Dean doesn't turn his head. "It's all I can figure. I can't do it myself, and I can't do it with a stranger. Mike wasn't an asshole but if I got hit by a bus he wouldn't shed a tear, you know? He didn't know me. He wouldn't give a crap if I died."

The second part of the thought is obvious. "Huh," Bobby says, after a few seconds. "It's neat, too. The curse—or spell, or whatever it is—turns the guy into a lady, and then the guy has to convince someone who actually cares about him to make like the beast with two backs. Satisfies your humiliation theory, too," he says, nodding at Sam. Sam swallows. "If it's a punishment for something or other. Make a guy lie back and think of England with a buddy, and probably one he's lying to, to boot."

"Right," Dean says. Now, at last, there's some color in his face—an all-over pink flush, light but obvious. He unfolds his arms, sits up straighter. Folds them again. "Right. So. The list of people who care about me—you know, me me—is, uh. Pretty short."

Sam bites the inside of his cheek. It's Bobby who jerks, in his seat, and then sits up straight. "Now, hang on," he says, and Sam doesn't make the leap for a moment that's long enough that maybe Bobby's right, maybe he is an idiot.

"I don't like it either," Dean says. He's really pink, now. "Look at my options, here."

Sam sits frozen. Bobby stands up, walks away to the door, turns back. Puts his hands on his hips. He appears to be genuinely shocked, which is rare enough that Sam wishes he could enjoy it, but there's not really room for that in the train of his own thoughts, running now at an appalled hundred miles an hour.

Dean looks at Bobby's face and then down, at his knees. Tucks his hands between them. "I thought about Lisa." High but even. He shakes his head and a loose curl falls down from the terrible ponytail he managed. "I don't think that'd do it. I mean, even if she used—" He cuts himself off, his face darker pink, and Sam's thoughts take an insane, pornographic detour. "Anyway, it seems like it wants me to be screwed by a guy. Screwed over. And for guys who give a crap about me at all, the list is pretty much down to… two."

For a moment that makes Sam nauseated, he's intensely glad that their father is dead.

"Cas," Bobby says, into the dismayed silence. "Castiel. He—"

Dean interrupts, loud and firm. "Not Cas." He looks up and he's determined. Shoves the loose curl back behind his ear, impatiently. "No. I mean. Yeah, I thought of—but first of all, okay, he's busy with the angel war or whatever's going on, but more importantly who knows what… angel jizz might do to a person. And that's if he'd even agree."

"He'd agree," Sam says, certain of it—more certain than he's been of much, these last few days.

Dean's eyes close briefly. "I'm not calling Cas," he says. He slants a look at Sam, not joking and not fake-adamant but intense, implacable as Dean so rarely is. "Not him."

Something's there that Sam doesn't know how to touch. Neither does Bobby, apparently; he's still staring at Dean, but closes his mouth and drags a hand over his face, and then takes his cap off—thinning brown-grey hair—and drags his hand over his scalp, too. "Hell, Dean," Bobby says. Weak, but resigned.

Sam grips his knees, some entirely indefinable emotion rolling through his whole body scalp to soles.

"Too bad you weren't here yesterday," Dean says. "I could've given Bo Derek a run for her money."

God. Sam stands up fast, too much warring for top of mind. Dean's eyelashes dip but he doesn't move or flinch or turn away. Just sits there, in his too-tight jeans and his little size six boots and his purple plaid shirt that doesn't fit right because it's supposed to be on someone who's six foot with shoulders broad enough to carry both of them, if that's what's required, and Sam can't—handle it, once again, on this stupid and awful day. He walks straight outside, forgetting his coat, out of the parking lot through the snow and down the iced-over sidewalk straight back to Monty's, where the crowd's medium-sized for a Saturday afternoon, and he goes to the bar and finds the furthest stool and puts his head in his hands, breathing hard and weird, and he sits there for a while, his heart beating hard in his ears, mocking.

At some point, later: "Could I get a Moose Drool? Make it two, actually."

High, delicate voice. Flutelike, Sam thinks. He's only ever read that description; never known someone where it was actually true.

A glass is put in front of him. He looks up and Pete's walking away, although he's giving a strange glance back toward Sam. Probably fair. Sam's been taking up space on a barstool for… who knows how long.

Dean sips the beer. Dark, a thick coffee-foam on it. "Local," he says. "Ish. I mean, within a few states. You should try it."

"Dean," Sam says, and nothing arrives to go after it. He feels—he doesn't even know how he feels. He's out of practice, with feeling this much. Ever since getting back, since being with Dean and walking around in a world that didn't end, things have been… not perfect, not even really good. But they've been okay. Sam had some bleak soulless past and who knew how many years of hell crammed up behind a not-strong-enough wall in his head, and Dean had a hard year, a year he doesn't talk about, penned behind his usual mask—and there were all the years before, the days of misery and betrayal and lying and looking at each other with the horror of newfound strangers, and—no matter how weird these new days were, with an angel war and empty pools of lost memory behind and who knew what cruelties ahead, it had at least been—okay, between them. That was all Sam had to go on, most days. That he and Dean were okay.

Dean watches him, but it's not Dean. It's some woman. The hair's been neatened, somehow; a caught-up half-bun, brown curls springing like a halo behind her head. Dark eyes with high curved brows and dark lashes, steady and unaccusing. Slight hook of her nose. Broad round face, a sweeping smooth jaw. Her mouth, so full and sweet, like a welcome. The only part that's anything like Dean.

"I told Bobby he couldn't get actually drunk," Dean says. He raises his eyebrows, lifts a shoulder. "I mean. After all this it'd be dumb to try to start the race without any gas in the tank, you know?"

"Dean," Sam says again, pained, and Dean puts his glass down hard on the bar and says, quiet but firm, "You don't get to be mad about this, Sam."

"I know," Sam says. Dean's eyebrows pop again and Sam shakes his head. "I know, I swear I—that's not even it."

"It's not," Dean says, the flute somehow playing sarcastic. "So, what is it?"

How to explain when Sam can't explain it to himself? The past five years—when it's really almost seven, by an accounting Sam can't manage on his own—and before that the years he thought were independent—and before that the years he knew weren't. Watching Dean, always, and thinking… So many things, impossible to untangle.

A benefit of all those years—Dean doesn't demand an answer that Sam can't give. He watches Sam for a while longer, and then swivels on his stool and looks up at the game, on the television above the bar. Yet more basketball. Duke versus Virginia Tech. "You think it's hypocritical or something to root for the Blue Devils? You know, considering," Dean says, with a stretched forced calm Sam can hear even through this new voice, and Sam closes his eyes but dredges up, from some reserve he didn't know he had, "Maybe, but even that's got to be better than a Hokie," and Dean says, "A what?" and that's—

They watch basketball.

When the game's over Dean shifts on his stool. According to the big clock above the bar it's past six o'clock. Dark outside. According to the timeline they're not yet at pain but even through the inches of air between them Sam can feel the heat of the girl's body.

"I told Bobby to come back at eight o'clock," Dean says. He flicks his fingers at Pete, who nods and starts pulling another two pints. When the glasses are set in front of them Dean pushes both in front of Sam, and turns around on his stool, facing out toward the fuller bar. He licks his lips, face pink, eyes roving over the crowd. He clears his throat. "It'd be good if you—"

"I'll be outside," Sam says. If his voice is thick and stupid, well. Dean doesn't comment.

"Okay," Dean says, and nods. He takes a breath, a very deep one, that expands his chest and seems to settle the girl's shoulders. "Don't you get too drunk, neither," he says, and hops off the stool, and walks out of the bar.

Sam takes a sip of the beer. It is good. Dark, coffee-roast and chocolate. He rubs his hand over his mouth, looks at the clock. Almost two hours to kill. He orders himself a sandwich, and then gets on the phone and calls up another pizza delivery to the new motel room. If Dean can eat he should eat. If Bobby can eat—when he comes there—well. Pizza will keep overnight, whatever happens.

The crowd in Monty's is as boring as it's been the last few nights. Sam eats his sandwich. He finishes one of the beers. He asks for a glass of water and alternates, sipping slowly from each glass, eyes on the television but taking nothing in. Something about the SEC. Basketball. Always has been his least favorite sport.

Gary Studebaker comes in, quarter after seven. Sam goes stiff, immediately and awkward, and deliberately removes his hand from his pint before he cracks the glass.

Gary's got a friend with him, similarly red-faced, broad. Big puffy jackets and plaid shirts. Good ol' boys. Someone's sitting on that last stool, with the plaque, and there's the ambient classic rock and the racket of Midwestern conversation and the basketball commentary from ESPN and Sam can't hear every word. It's sort of jovial, at least from here. Boisterous but in that way some guys are where they expect everyone will be their friend if they grin enough, are loud enough. In the wrong hands it comes off like a fight. Dean can make that play sometimes, on a good night, and pull it off. Sam can't tell if Gary can or if he just expects people will play along, but the guy on his stool does smile, puts his hands up in an aw-shucks, sorry sort of way—in on the joke, maybe—and Gary and his friend settle down in pride of place, and there's a shout: Pete, my good man!—audible over everything.

Sam doesn't twitch. Gary's self-involved; he's not going to see Sam, lurking at the far end of the bar, unless Sam calls attention to himself. That's if Gary even remembers him, if the entirety of that afternoon at his house isn't wiped out in memory of the petite little doll Dean had been.

Pete delivers drinks: two beers, and for Gary specifically something else. Sam's view is bad and he can't tell what the order was. Gary holds up the glass in a toast to Pete and clonks it against his friend's beer, and downs about half of it in the first swallow. He whoops, and says something loud but indistinguishable to Pete, and his friend laughs—too loud, loud enough that the woman on a nearby stool rolls her eyes—and Gary sits back and grins, like a king used to the court's applause.

Sam drains his beer. Pete disengages from the Gary show and walks along the bar, checking on customers. A woman gets a new g&t. A guy gets a new Bud. Pete gets to Sam, sees the empty glasses, says, "You lose your friend?" and Sam pins on a probably-demented smile and says, "Yeah, what can you do? Hey—I'm in the mood for something else. What'd that guy order?"

Pete raises his eyebrows, follows Sam's point. "Him? Ah, usual. The Gary Special."

Sam leans in, musters all his innocent curious good-guy energy, the kind of thing that's made the incurious and unsuspicious open up for the past twenty years. "Yeah?" he says, smiling. "What makes it special?"

In the bathroom he picks a stall, takes a leak. Washes his hands, and after a second of looking at himself he splashes water on his face, too, and pats dry, and breathes into the paper towel when he's done, calming down. He took notes and he'll share them later and he's got ideas rising, connections being made somewhere, but. It's almost eight o'clock.

Cold, cold walk back to the motel. The Chevelle's already parked in front of the new room. Sam stands on the sidewalk and looks at it, and then turns and crosses the parking lot to their old room, and opens the door, and his face and hands and ears all prickle, shocked at the heat. He opens the curtain, drags a chair in front of the window. Sits, in the dark, so he can see the expanse of the parking lot and the window of the new room and the sere blue chill of the world outside, and waits.

With Mike he couldn't help but imagine. This time he absolutely does not want to, and mostly manages. Maybe because the mind just recoils, from the whole idea. In a cruel joke, for some reason, his mind provides another alternative: Gary, with his fat stupid red face and his ridiculous puffy jacket, his rough hands, and not this current girl but that first one, the girl with the dark bangs and the darker eyes and the unsmiling mouth, the one who stared at Sam uncomprehending and wanted the hurt just to stop. Gary, with her. His hands heavy and stupid on her skin. Not kissing her, not careful, but rutting in, thoughtless and selfish and driving solely for his own brutish pleasure. Like all she was good for was as a hole to be filled. Pump and dump. Her face, turned away and pale and hurt, and her eyes opening, when he was done, and her just wanting—needing—

Sam's got his elbows braced on the sill, his hands braced over his mouth. His knee jogging restlessly. When the door to the room across the parking lot opens he stands up and is out in the cold in less than ten seconds.

Bobby closes the door behind himself, softly. He puts a hand against the door and it curls into a fist, while Sam walks across the lot, and by the time Sam gets there, breathless, Bobby's turned, eyes on his boots. Fully dressed—god, of course he's fully dressed, what did Sam expect? Hat pulled low, but what Sam can see of his face is answer enough. Bobby shakes his head, anyway, and Sam's jaw clenches. He hands the key to the old room to Bobby and Bobby nearly fumbles it, but Sam's already got his hand on the knob, and Bobby turns away, cursing—and once again, Sam enters a dark room, breathing deep to smell what happened there.

The bathroom light's on. Just enough. The light spills in that cold white angle across the room, shows first the empty clean bed and then the other, which is a wreck, pillows tossed to the floor and the comforter kicked down and the sheets twisted. Dean—the girl-shape who is Dean—sits on the edge of the mattress, hands braced and shoulders high, head low between his shoulders. The bun hasn't really survived, curls spilling and loose. Still wearing the Zeppelin t-shirt but the bottom half bare, knees together, skin shining with wasted effort.

It's not late enough that there'll be the bad pain yet, Sam thinks. He strips, leaves his clothes in a pile on the nearer bed. He comes closer and sits and puts his fingertips on the heat of one thigh and Dean lets out a breath like it's been held the whole time he's been waiting. He picks up his head, looking forward with his face in the light, and there aren't tear-tracks. Just a pink flush, and the mouth deeply red, and Sam touches her cheek, instead, and her eyes shutter and she turns and puts her face in Sam's neck, shuddering from the shoulders on down, the heat of her just—overwhelming. Everything about it, overwhelming.

Despite the first attempt it's not as vicious as it was last night, the need not yet yearning up from bedrock. Sam lets her head tuck under his chin, closes his eyes. Just feels her. He slides a hand under her shirt and cups a breast, thumbing one nipple slow and coaxing, and gets a little low sound let out against his throat. Her curls are soft, tickling on his bare shoulder. Her breast sits heavy, full and firm, and he traces careful fingers along the curve of it, that sensitive low place that always made Jessica gush. Hitch of breath—jackpot. Sam skims his hand back along her belly, reaching down, and finds out for the first time that this girl's got pubic hair, hidden under the draping folds of the tee, trimmed short but damp and sticky-wet from what's already happened. Her legs spread and Sam curves his hand flat and heavy over the whole glossy curve, feeling her plush, plump, sensitive. Ready. Whatever that means.

He wants to be careful and has no idea if that's what's best. If care, here and now, after this particular night, is something that will come as a relief or just another humiliation.

On her belly, again—he presses his lips against her shoulder, the curve of her throat. There's a smell of cigarettes, for some reason he doesn't know, but there at the turn of her jaw it's Irish Spring, the mint-fresh of their shampoo. Familiar as home. Sam's nuts pulse, his stomach swirling deep, and he breathes in there and tests his way with two fingers, pushing in on the syrupy slick. Already opened up. She groans below him, fat sweet ass lifting up and her shoulder curving, her face turning back toward his—and without thinking he kisses her, brief and off-center and not much of a kiss at all, just—what's right, in that second, to meet her with that, to taste the plush of her lips and know it, finally. Finally. She gasps and he pulls his fingers away and in the same moment pushes into her, driving in to the base in one heavy thrust, and she groans in the pit of her throat and turns her face down toward the wrecked sweaty sheets and Sam puts his wet fingers to her clit and just does his job, as thoroughly and carefully as he knows how.

It feels—

She's open, ready. He drives in and in and in again, feeling how she's been broken open, her body emptily wanting, dragging him inside. He holds his mouth at the curve of her shoulder and feels her jolt with his movements, her hips lifting up for him, tilting, making it good, making it perfect. He smears his thumb all sloppy over her clit and drags into her in thick short bursting pulses that make her shake, make her hands clench in the sheets, make her back arch, and too soon, ah, too soon—she's starting, already, he can feel it, the way she's panting, a high pained whine on each breath that he's shoving out of her. He drags in his focus, holds himself together, pushes hard where it's wanted in a steady unchanging rhythm—abandons her clit and cups her breast instead, sliding wet fingers over a bullet-hard nipple—and it's that, that, that makes her go off, that makes her squirm and flash a hand down to grab his hip, to drag him in harder, to make her ripple and shake and cry out, seizing. God—! He works her through it, grinding where he's caught in close, rolling her nipple thick and beautiful under his thumb, and he tries, he tries, he tries to pull out. She doesn't want him to pull out. She keeps hold of his hip, trembling—lifts her hips again, her ass plushly fitting into the arch of his pelvis—puts her forehead down to the mattress, rolls smoothly so that he works in her, and he can't—he can't—he can, he's not steel and it feels like nothing has felt, it's not like a stranger or a girl he's loved or anything but—what it is—and he hangs over her, hopeless—slides his hand back down to the turn of her hip, not asking in any other way but that—and pushes his dick deeper, firmly digging in, and she moans, and so he puts his face down into the mint-smell of her hair and fucks in, drives home, pours himself helpless and stupid, inside.

He holds in her after he's done. His brain's struggling to reassemble itself in those first seconds after— entire personality deleted, rebooting from a backup—but he holds, weight just barely caught above her, his mouth pressed against her temple, his breath not even close to normal. She came again, before he was done. Her face turns, her cheeks flushed and her eyes heavy, looking at nothing, and he wants to kiss her. Properly this time, not just a helpless glance of their mouths but a knowing, deliberate thing. He wants very badly to kiss her. He rocks his hips, smoothly slick on her own want and on what he left inside her, and sees her lips part. He could—and before he can ruin both of them even further he pushes up, gets cooler air between their bodies. Her t-shirt's soaked. He's about to pull away entirely when her pussy clenches, a vicious aftershock pulse that almost hurts where he's oversensitive, and he's pushed out on a runnel of wet, the head of his dick glancing almost painfully against the back of her thigh. God. His whole body just wants to—

He swings his knee over, sits back. Dean pushes up on his elbows and takes one of those huge, expansive breaths, ribs and shoulders pushing out from the inflating lungs. Sam wants to put his hand on Dean's spine—feel the way he's safe—but doesn't, just kneels there, brain chugging slowly back toward working like a normal human's, watching his brother breathe inside this random, inexplicable girl.

Eventually, Dean turns his head. "Cleanup on aisle three?" he says, thin and really asking, and Sam goes and gets the rag, the towel. He's already got a shirt.

Sam sits and Dean turns over and applies the rag between his legs. Sam's too tired and strange-feeling to even turn away, and so he watches—the slow, careful swab, the way Dean's lips purse. "You come a lot," Dean mutters, complaining, and Sam—christ. Doesn't even know how to feel weird about it. Third time he's fucked his brother, second time as sloppy seconds, and even if this is a first, of its kind, there's not a lot that can be weirder than that. Everything else in the universe can take a number.

The annoying thing about being who he is is that part of him is taking notes. The time, the method. That Dean came slower, this round. That he let out this breath of relief when he did, and in that moment it didn't seem like Sam had to do his part at all except for how Dean's hips tipped up, asking, and all Sam could do was pour into the soft, willing body. The body that wanted him. Only him.

It all means something. Sam's too drained to talk it through. Dean drops the soiled rag over the side of the bed and then stretches out, sighing, head tipped back on the mattress, plucking the sweaty t-shirt away from his chest to get cooler air. Sam sits forward, elbows on his knees, and feels himself. His body, relaxed and drained, muscles loose-warm and his brain's effortless work as clear and cool as the water of a bright forest stream, while the thoughts themselves are treacherous. Dark, sucking mud. Isn't that always the way.

"Hand me my boxers, would you," Dean says. His bag, by the wall. Sam fishes out a clean pair, brings them to the girl on the bed. Dean sits up to pull them on, wriggling them over his round hips, and when that's done he sits up against the headboard with his elbows hugging his drawn-up knees, looking at Sam like he's not there. "Rule of threes, right?" he says, like reading from some book with bad translation. "Isn't that a witch thing? Do something three times and then the spell's all done. Like bitchslapping Bowser."

Takes Sam a second to make the lateral leap. "When did you ever play Super Mario?" he says, and Dean says, "They've got arcade machines all over the country, Sam, you should try living a little," and Sam opens his mouth to retort but—why. Dean's head tips back against the wall and he looks at Sam down the gentle hook of his nose. Sam can't make a joke, can't front. He's empty, down to the pit of himself.

Sam knows more or less to the minute when it happened. He should get dressed, while they wait. He sits, eyes half on the clock and half elsewhere entirely. Dean swivels off the bed, disappears into the bathroom. Door half-closes and Sam listens to him pee. Sitting down. Sam wonders if just that is as weird as anything else. On reflection, probably not.

Flush, and then the sink. Dean comes out with a cup, which he hands to Sam, and Sam drinks the water for lack of anything else to do, and Dean brings him, then, a t-shirt and boxers from his own bag, and holds them out without really looking at Sam, like if he doesn't look at Sam naked maybe it won't count, and when Sam doesn't respond Dean makes this small sound and says, "C'mon, man," frustrated but in a soft, careful way. Sam closes his eyes. Opens them, puts the cup on the table, takes the clothes. Becomes human, because that's what's required.

Dean's sitting across from him on the other bed in the quiet dim when he changes back. Ripple, shift, in reverse this time. He looks down at himself while it's happening. Breasts disappear, legs lengthen. Hair on his shins, what little hair he's ever had. He holds his hands open on his thighs and watches them broaden, scars reappearing. His fingers curl in, his thumb rubbing against his knuckles. Slow. Like he's relearning the feel of his own skin.

Sam wants to sleep for a week. That's not in the cards. He says, "Okay?" and Dean nods, and then looks up at him, and Dean looks—as tired as Sam does. Worse. Face white-pale in the low light, especially stark after seeping back from the smooth all-over brown. Dean says, "Are you okay?" and Sam doesn't have much more energy than to let out a slightly louder breath than normal.

"I'll text Bobby," Dean says, after a minute. "Let him know it's done. For tonight, anyway."

"Yeah," Sam says, on a sigh, and drags his hand over his face. So much for the coma.

"Then I vote we get drunk," Dean says. Sam frowns at him and Dean just shrugs, in the too-tight Zep shirt. "Either I'm a chick again in the morning or everything's fine, or as fine as it ever is, right? Nothing we can do about it in the next eight hours. So: repression and alcohol. Better than sitting here stewing in our juices." His nose wrinkles. "Well, your juices."

"Jesus christ," Sam says. His fucking brother. Dean's eye doesn't quite twinkle but there's something around the turn of his mouth, and Sam sighs, and he doesn't smile because there's not much to smile about but—god, okay. Yeah. Dean can get a win, this time. "Okay. Fine. Let's get drunk."

Dean nods sharp, like they've come to a decision on a battle-plan. "Score one for the good guys," he says, and goes to grab cups, and Sam sighs and flops onto his back on the bed and it smells like—wet pussy and cigarette smoke and that faint, delicious trace of mint, and he thinks that no matter how much Dean pours, it can't possibly be enough.

Chapter 4 Chapter Text

In the morning they're both pretty hungover and Bobby calls them idiots. "Thanks for the update, Cronkite," Dean says, arms folded over his face. "Tell us something we don't know."

He's a girl again. Short again, maybe 5'4, and a combination of the clothes they've collected fit, thank god. This girl is some ethnicity that's hard to pin down, although the eyes this time suggest something maybe Asian—dark, with an epicanthic fold and slight tilt, and with the faint freckles over the bridge of the nose and the long brown hair it's an absolutely beautiful combination. Dean wasn't in a fit state to notice while groaning through whatever he went through in the bathroom, but Sam hopes he'll appreciate it, if only abstractly, when he manages to look in a mirror again.

Sam's managed to crawl into his own clothes but not much else. He really needs a shower—he's itching in all sorts of places he'd rather not think about, especially this particular morning—but Bobby wouldn't be put off. At least he came with coffee, which he's thumped grumpily into three spots on the table, and another bottle of whiskey, which makes Sam vaguely queasy just to look at, and a pile of books, half of which he shoves toward Sam.

"This don't make any kind of sense," Bobby says. He's in an extra foul mood and he's not looking at Dean, where he's slumped back on the further bed. No guesses why and Sam doesn't blame him, but it's still a lot to take when Sam's head hurts this bad. "There are way too many moving parts, here. It ain't any kind of demon magic I ever saw, and most witches can't move much more than a spoonful of sugar without the help of one of those black-eyed sons of bitches."

"Right," Sam says, smearing gummy sleep out of his right eye. "But if it's not a demon, and I'm pretty sure it's not an angel, then witch is pretty much all we've got left, right? I'd say trickster, but the only trickster we knew was Gabriel, and—"

"Those hot wings fried extra crispy," Dean mutters, still flat on the bed. Sam grimaces, but. Yeah.

"Good job, team. So, witch it is," Bobby says. Extra sarcasm in it, for no reason Sam thinks is particularly fair. "She's got some juice but no motive that we can tell, unless Dean's been salting the earth here in Cheeseville and neglected to mention it."

"I mean, I don't like the Packers," Dean says, one pretty eye peeking out from beneath his elbow.

Sam shakes his head, sits forward, tries to quell the thump from his mistreated brain. "We went over this, Bobby. Nothing. All I can figure is that Dean wasn't supposed to be the target and ended up getting in the way. He got the wrong drink—that scotch and soda? That's the Gary Special, apparently. The bartender makes it all the time, gives it to Gary at that spot. Gave it to Dean, too, on accident. But Gary drank one the very next night and there was no issue, because I saw him. He's still just Gary. It was something that hit that day, on Dean, and no one else."

"That's a lot of bad luck for wrong place, wrong time," Bobby says, and Sam just gestures, helpless. Like that's new. Bobby looks over his face, nods. "Well. If we're talking wrong place, it sounds like that barstool was it. But you didn't get anything from Gary."

Dean groans, finally pushes up on his elbows. "He's a dog. I don't know if he dips the wick away from the family candle but he sure the hell talks like he wouldn't mind, and he isn't shy about letting people know it. Hit on Nancy within about a minute." Bobby frowns at 'Nancy' and Sam jerks his thumb at Dean, ignores the expression that follows. "Not too concerned about his living family but trying to impress the memory of dear ol' dad. If Denise doesn't love fishing and beer then I bet they've got as much in common as Spock and the Pillsbury Doughboy."

"So, he steps out on the missus and she wants revenge?" Bobby says. Dean shrugs. He's not looking at Bobby either but seems to be less screwed up. Go figure. "Not exactly an original motive, but hell if this ain't ten different kinds of punishment."

Sam holds his head in his hands, trying to think without wanting to hurl. The coffee's turning on him. "If she wanted to kill him, why is there a cure? If she just wanted to humiliate him, why the heart attack timer?"

"And why the hell is it just looping back again, is my biggest question," Bobby says. He glares at Dean, looking at him fully for the first time. "When did you change?"

"Just after three this morning." Dean sits up, slow, like if he's careful maybe the top of his head won't come off. "Didn't get the, uh, exact minute."

Sam tries not to feel guilty about that and mostly succeeds. He was puking and didn't write it down.

A pause. "You two really do look like roadkill," Bobby says. Just slightly toward the neutral side of caustic. "All right. To do list for the morning before you keel over on me. Sam, you smell like a distillery mixed with a whorehouse and the combination is not as fun as you'd think. Shower. Dean, you come here and list every single person you've talked to in the last seven days. Stow it," he says, interrupting the initial noise of protest. "I don't care if you've been over it. We've got to get down to the atomic-level details here, and clearly we've missed something. Get that pretty little ass over here to the table and get writing, princess."

Mean isn't the same thing as cruel. Sam's kind of grateful for it, honestly. There's something honest about how Bobby's a total dick all the time, and it's certainly easier to take than gooey sympathy, especially on days like these when if he pauses to think he might just expire from mortification. Four aspirin down and finally clean and in fresh clothes, it's a lot easier to be clear-eyed. They review Dean's list—and it's comprehensive, because Dean's got an insanely good memory for random c-store clerks and librarians and waitresses, even if his list is pretty editorialized. Sam doesn't think that barmaid, blonde hair and c-cups, chip on her shoulder is a potential curse-wielder, although if she read the description of herself she might just want to try.

Fresh out of his own turn in the shower, Dean's braiding his new hair, in a long damp curve over his shoulder. Sam has no idea how Dean knows how to do it and doesn't want to ask, but it's… cute. Especially with the freckles.

"Bobby, I swear," he's saying, fingers busily working. "Every single person. Hell, I gave you the old guy who flipped me off for turning right on a red in St. Paul, and it was obviously my right of way. He wasn't a witch, he was just a random old coot." Dean wraps a hair tie around the end of his braid, and flicks a glance at Bobby. "No offense."

Sam smiles, hides it down in the book of witchcraft he's leafing through. Bobby makes a rude noise but studies Dean's list, and Sam shuffles through the frail tea-tinged pages, looking for anything. Lots of stuff about punishment and revenge, although Sam has to think that most of it is in the wild imagination of whatever crazy lady wrote this, back in the 1820s. He doesn't think many witches have actually poisoned the humors of their love-rival and thereby turned the wicked maiden into a snake. Did anyone actually believe in humors in the 1820s?

"The other part that makes no sense," Bobby says, after a period of silence in which Sam's read with increasingly horrified fascination about a spell to turn the bowels to hot, liquid lead, "is why you keep changing back, and changing into brand new shapes to boot. Why not just one… Deanna?"

"Don't make me pour coffee in your lap," Dean says, evenly.

Sam sticks a finger in his place, interrupts the inevitable sarcasm-fest. "We wondered if it was maybe some kind of… body swap happening? But we went all over town with all three girls—I mean, with Dean looking like all three girls—and nobody batted an eye. And no one ran to the hospital complaining about suddenly turning into a guy."

"Body swap," Bobby says. The tone is unflattering and Sam blinks. Bobby rolls his eyes, gestures. There's hardly a hint of the bruise on Dean's jaw this morning, just a little yellow discoloration on the otherwise smoothly barely-brown skin. "If it's a body swap, why in the hell does he keep his injuries? Not to mention that no-demons-allowed tattoo you're both so proud of."

Dean looks at Sam, blank, and Sam grimaces. Okay. Point.

Bobby shakes his head at them, clearly refraining from calling them idiots again by the skin of his teeth. "We need to know who cast this damn thing before we can unravel the whys and wherefores," he says. "You say Gary's wife is supposed to just be away for the weekend? All right. We've got to hope that means Sunday night. I'll go see if I can rustle her up, maybe find out a few things. You boys see if you can find anything in this mess that makes any sense at all of the kind of magic we're dealing with here—transformation, birds and the bees, anything."

He stands up, pauses. Looks at the book in his hand and nowhere else. "Question remains why it takes Sam to make the change back happen," he says. Calm, even. "Question also remains, can it happen quicker than you've managed."

Sam's hands clench hard enough on the book that the page he's on separates from the spine. Dean sits very still, in his chair. Bobby shrugs, looking—as much as Bobby can—uncomfortable. "No sense in waiting until your heart's about to explode to fix the damn thing, if you can avoid it," he says, and then before either Sam or Dean can say anything: "I'm off to look into this Denise situation. Let me know what you find out."

The door closes firmly behind him. Sam looks down at the book he's holding. Tries to put the page back, as neatly at he can, but it's torn now and that’s just always how it'll be.

When he looks up, Dean's looking back at him. Steady. Almost challenging, and Sam can think of reasons why that would be but he's not interested in challenge, or fighting, or—anything. His head still hurts. "I will," he says. "If you want me to, I will."

It's—god, not even ten in the morning. He waits and can't help but picture it. He doesn't want to. He can see how it could go.

The girl's eyes go all over his face. Small upturn of her mouth. "I know you would," Dean says, sort of—soft, rueful. The upturn turns into a smirk, without a lot of real smirk behind it. "Figures. I mean, where are you gonna get it that's better than this."

Sam's probably supposed to be annoyed but he just smiles back, rueful too, and Dean's eyes slide away from his, his fingers slipping over the little bow of his mouth. "Not really feeling up for experiments," Dean says, and stands up. "We've got a while, right? C'mon, we're burning daylight."

Sam spends the day thinking about women. Women he's known, that he's loved. Jessica, of course, although the acidic brightness of that pain is long-mellowed—and the love has, too, which makes him ache in that low deep way of an old broken bone. Not forgotten, but not urgent, either, and something that had to be put away for the healing to happen. After Jessica he was thrown back into the blurring ever-changing world of the Winchester life, what he swore he'd never go back to, that he said he hated, and in some ways that's true. In a lot of others, it isn't. He does like hunting, when it’s the intense fierce thrill of chasing down something evil, when it’s saving people who don’t deserve pain, and he does like, although Dean would scoff to hear him say it, meeting these new people. New girls, sometimes. He doesn’t get close to most people, because it’s pointless (they'll be gone in a week) and because… how could they become close? How could they know? There were women who were victims of whatever shitty reason had blown the Winchesters into town, and most of the time even if they'd been exposed to the underbelly of the world Sam walks they didn't want to open their eyes. Couldn't see. Sam doesn’t blame them; he'd closed his eyes, once, just the same. Tried to pretend it wasn't true, and nearly succeeded. Every once in a while, though, there's a woman who turns her face straight into the shadow and looks it full in the face and those ones, sometimes…

He isn’t celibate, although Dean would, again, scoff. Not by nature or even, really, by choice, although he's seen the looks women give him sometimes, and knows that if he asked, if he made any kind of play, he'd have an hour or two in a warm bed and get a respite from the life he's been saddled with. No; the life he's chosen. He doesn't want to lie to himself, anymore. That's the whole damn point.

He isn’t celibate. He doesn’t like women, especially—in that he isn’t like his brother, who seeks female attention like a moth around particularly pretty lights—and he doesn’t need sex, or that kind of intimacy, to feel sane or whole. He does fine with his right hand and doesn’t feel shame or strangeness or loneliness in that fact. There were times that he'd take what was offered—or that he'd, very occasionally, feel some deep fire in his gut and turn to a woman and see that she could be had and then, with a smile and earnest flirting and sympathy and real, if brief, affection—have her. It’s transactional, in a way, but it’s good, too. For both of them. (From the brief flashes of painful memory he's gotten, and the even briefer admissions from Dean, he knows that in the year and a half he can’t remember he'd done a lot more. Without affection or sympathy or any hint of kindness. The only thing he can hope is that it was good, still, for both of them. That the transaction hadn't left a cruel, unthinkable debt he'd have to one day think how to repay.) He hasn't done that since he got back. In the past, he'd wanted some kind of normalcy—although of course that isn’t on the table, and hasn’t been for a long time. He wanted to want normalcy, is maybe more accurate, and in bed with a woman who wants him, the rest of the world goes away, and he doesn’t have to think about all the things that have gone wrong in it. He just doesn’t give himself the opportunity to forget, all that often. It feels like getting away with something he doesn’t deserve to have.

Throughout the long morning-into-afternoon of reading and comparing and taking notes, he pays attention to what he's doing, because he's a professional. The entire rest of his mind is occupied with women, and with—

"Caffeine, protein, hygiene," Dean says, planting an energy drink and a Clif bar in front of Sam.

Sam frowns. "I showered," he says, twisting around, and Dean shrugs, dropping onto the bed where he's spread out his own half of the books, says, "Yeah, but you probably stink anyway, mon gaseous frere," and bites into a Snickers bar, casual and unconcerned. Sam watches, for another second, and doesn't bother with the comeback he's probably meant to say. Dean's eyes flick up at him, while he's sucking chocolate off his thumb, and it's Dean who looks away first, back down to the huge tome cracked open on the bedspread, and Sam looks at Dean's eyes, his lips, the way his body curves sweetly down from the tense shoulder down to the turn of hip, and only then turns back to his own books, and finds the passage he was on, and keeps reading while his body hums, revved, aware that, in a few hours, the bed's waiting. The forgetting, that'll come after, like the ocean pulling back from the beach; trouble being that the world rolls right back, a wave that's easy to drown in. At least Sam's good at treading water.

They read. A text from Bobby—to Sam, when normally he gets in touch via Dean—Denise coming back 7:00 tonight. Got a pretext going with Gary. Monty's, 7:30.

Not hard to do the mental math. Well within their window, and after tossing the phone to Dean and watching him read the text, Sam watches him think through the options.

"If she's the witch," Sam starts, and Dean nods, says immediately: "Might have to catfight it out of her but can't hurt to see."

Sam nods back and Dean's cheek sucks in on one side before he gets up, goes into the bathroom. Waiting, then. May never have to do it again. This nightmare over, ready to find a fresh one around the corner. Sam snorts, alone in the room, and sits back to the books. Five hours to go.

It's Dean, finally, who settles on anything at all useful. "Hold on," he says, surfacing Sam from the middle of what he hopes is a metaphorical story about drowning in a well representing vaginal sex. Dean's holding up a hand, like he's interrupting someone who's not there.

"You want to share with class?" Sam says, raising his eyebrows, and Dean squints at him, then at the clock. "Dude, what?"

"The moon," Dean says. Then: "Dude? C'mon. But—yeah—look up, uh, is there a meteorology site or something where you can look at moon… stuff? Hippie crystal chicks track that kind of thing, don't they?"

Sam blinks. "Yeah," he says, and knocks his laptop awake. "The moon's a powerful symbol, in a bunch of pagan religions, Wicca, all other kinds of spell traditions. Especially connected to female power and ritual—tides, menstruation, that kind of thing."

"Don't need to hear about your cycle, Samantha," Dean says. A presence at Sam's back; he leans in, looking over Sam's shoulder while Sam types, finds a reasonable site. Irish Spring, and Dean's deodorant too, and for a second it's like—any other week, any case—until Dean leans forward far enough that the long tail of his braid brushes Sam's arm.

Moon cycle. The moon set at noon, today in Wisconsin; it rose—

"3:11 in the morning," Dean mutters. "Check—"

Yesterday: 2:15. The day before, 1:10, and the day before right about midnight, when the half-moon slipped over the horizon, just between waxing and waning.

"Holy crap," Sam says, while Dean stands up. He turns and the girl—Dean—is staring at the laptop, frowning, thinking. "That's… like, intense, big-deal symbolism. In some pagan cultures the half-moon is a space of transition—dark and light in equal parts, you know? And then it's also midnight, where one day becomes another day. It's like…"

"Two for one special," Dean says. He bites the corner of his mouth, rubs the smooth point of his chin. "Okay. Okay, so—so whatever spell or curse or whatever that did this, it got timed just right so when it hit it was, like, nitro-boost supercharged. You think that's why it keeps starting over? Too much juice and it's just—good to go, forever?"

Ragged edge, just at the end. "Not forever," Sam says, firmly, and Dean's lips press thin and he breathes heavily out through his nose, loses some of that wild tinge, which is good even though Sam has zero idea if what he just said was true or not. He has to believe it's true.

"Right," Dean says. "So—"

He leans over Sam's shoulder, seizes the trackpad. His breasts push warmly soft into Sam's shoulder and Sam stays rigidly in place, neither relaxing into it nor jerking obviously away. On the astronomy site Dean finds a calendar for the whole month of February: each rise is nearly an hour later, every day.

"This keeps going and I'm going to change into Miss March at noon in the middle of a Wendy's," Dean says, grim.

Sam tries to imagine that and somehow his brain just fails him. Small blessings. He clears his throat. "If you ended up with red hair we might get a discount," he says. Dean smacks him.

As three o'clock nears Sam thinks about trying to be subtle. Not much point. They both know how the minute hand ticks along, dragging the world toward weird, terrible things. Since the revelation—duly reported to Bobby, so wherever he is he can dig up solutions, too—they've both been looking for moon-related magic, stories, lore, digging through Bobby's old books and the sites Sam's found that are semi-reliable for any hint of what this could be. Dean's taken over both beds, now, books cracked open and held with beer cans and knives and Dean's favorite gun as paperweights, and Sam's got the table and the kitchenette floor, and he's reading his laptop and taking notes and watching the clock and he sees, the minutes slipping to quarter after and past, how Dean shifts his weight, on the bed—how he uncrosses his legs, puts his socked feet on the floor—hips tipping, knees together, lips parting on the dry warm air. Book held loose in his fingers. Sam knows, right then. Knows. Feels like a tiny shard of hot metal slips down, then, from his spine to his gut to his balls. He flattens his hands on the table, breathes in carefully, and Dean's eyes dart toward him, quick-prick of a glance, over his face and to his hands and lower, before he fumbles for the television remote and the box comes on in a blur of noise and the crackle of the local news station fills the room, oppressive, muffling. Apparently the county's top Ford dealer has deals deals deals. Dean's eyes are pinned to the book he's reading. Sam watches that, for a minute that he lets himself achingly indulge in, and then he goes back to the internet, for answers he's not confident in finding.

7:30, they have a booth at Monty's, in full view of the bar. No Gary sighting, at least not yet. "Ten bucks, Bobby threatened to fill her with buckshot," Dean murmurs. A waitress this time, who smiles at Sam invitingly even though there's another woman at the table. Dean makes a face at her after she leaves their beers. "He's grumpier lately, you noticed?"

Hard to miss and no guesses as to why. "No deal," Sam says, though. If Dean's ignoring it, Sam can do him the favor of ignoring it too. Dean raises his already-high brows and Sam shrugs. "He tends to lie to civilians, not threaten them. Now, if she were a demon—"

"Ten bucks she's a demon," Dean says, immediately, and Sam snorts. Gets a smile, flat and maybe a little fake, but a smile anyway. "A real nasty one. Hooks and pokers. Creepy laugh, the whole nine."

"Pretty weird plan, for a demon," Sam says, and Dean sees how he's trying not to smile and rises to it, leans forward, says, "Yeah, but you know those guys are real weirdos, right, they just love to make handsome, charming gentlemen get a frequent shopper discount at Victoria's Secret—"

"Try the clearance rack at Walmart," Sam says, and Dean grins at him, warm and real at last. Sam's heart thumps. Then the door jingles, and there's—

Bobby's wearing a suit—Fed pretext? At his side, ushered with hand at her lower back, Denise is…

"Wow," Dean says, under his breath.

A lot of fake red hair, teased high. A lot of nails. A lot of big balloon boob, crammed into a leopard-print top that's too small. Overripe, over-made-up, just… overmuch. If Sam saw this lady in a lineup he'd call her the Tryhard Fake-talian, at least inside his own head, and then feel bad—but, damn, that's what she's clearly selling. He'd expect her in Trenton more than in Nowhere, Wisconsin.

She looks annoyed more than anything, and Bobby's even more so, and Sam scoots all the way to the back of the booth and knows exactly how quick he can get to his gun, his knife. Bobby sits her down next to Sam and drags a chair over from an unoccupied table, plants himself there so she can't run off. That leaves Dean, sitting alone on the opposite side of the booth, staring unblinkingly at her, while she says, "This isn't much of a venue, is it? This bar's a pit."

"Venue for what?" Sam says. Edge to it that he hears too late—Denise glances at him, startled. She smells like a lot of vanilla perfume.

"Boys, meet Denise Studebaker," Bobby says, flat. "Avid romance reader, crafter, and beloved wife of Gary."

"Beloved," Denise snorts. Despite the looks she has a broad upper Midwest accent—Frances in Fargo. "Yeah, not as beloved as his F350. Are these the judges?"

Bobby sighs. "Mrs. Studebaker, I am not actually a representative of the American Quilting Association. The AQA is not holding a talent competition. Honestly, I doubt it even exists. We're here to ask you a few questions about the night of February 24." She blinks, confused—her slabs of mascaraed lashes slamming up and down, distracting—while Bobby digs into his pocket and pulls out an honest to god, bloodied leather and ancient sigils, bones on the inside and sacrifice accompanying it, witch's fetish. "Found it with her manicure set," Bobby says, to them. To her: "A little high-octane to be there with the Maybelline, don't you think?"

"Ex-cuse me, I don't use that drugstore trash," Denise says, and seems legitimately offended. She flicks her claws at Bobby, glittery burgundy. "This is Chanel. And what do you mean, there's no AQA? You had the organizer on the phone! We're going to host the show here in Menomonie!"

Bobby frowns at her, seemingly at a loss. Sam meets his eyes over her pouffe of hair and they're on the same wavelength. "You don't want to mention the hex bag?" Sam says. She turns on him, pissy. "That might be a little more important than your nail polish brand."

"That thing?" Denise tosses her head—god, she's a cartoon—and flicks her nails again, dismissive. "Just some family heirloom from my grandma. She said it was good luck. Luck! Like I got any of that." She frowns at Dean, who's remained silent. "And what about you, missy? You in on this quilt thing, too? I don't get the point of dragging me out here, right when I've gotten back from my trip, and you know Gary's going to bitch about me not putting together dinner, and—"

She natters on. Dean watches her, eyes just barely narrowed, and Sam waves off the waitress when she circles by. At the head of the table, Bobby's carefully opening the hex bag, and inside: small bones, ancient dried flowers, gold thread woven into a complicated knot, and an emerald the size of a walnut, smeared with rusty-ancient flaking blood, which when Denise notices it past her offended bubble of annoyance makes the firehose of words cut off in an instant.

"Oh," she breathes, "my gawd, was that Granny G's?" She reaches for it and Bobby pulls away.

"You never opened the hex bag?" Sam says, and Denise immediately retorts, "The what bag? No, it was gross." Sam stares at her, frowns at Dean. What the hell is going on?

"Denise," Bobby says, holding the emerald out of her reach between two fingers, so it sparks deep green fire, catching the neon light. "I think you'd better tell us about your grandmother."

The story has to be pulled out of her with pliers, since she's distracted by the shiny thing and seems, genuinely, stupid. Sam tries not to think that about most people but Denise certainly deserves it.

Grandma was Giuliana Marino. Came over from Italy to New York City in 1911. Weird old lady, according to Denise. Barely spoke English but didn't need to, because she stayed with her people, kept to the old ways, even when her son was building up an American life, even when he moved them away from the shelter of Bensonhurst to freezing, foreign Wisconsin. She had a permanent room in her son's home and stayed mostly out of the way of her daughter-in-law, but she insisted that her two granddaughters learn some of her craft.

"Tammy was always better at knitting," Denise admits, over a glass of chardonnay she flagged down the waitress to get, and it's clearly a grudging admission. She taps a nail on the table. "But I could crochet, and quilt, and Granny said my french knots were even better than hers. I mean it was boring, you know? Old lady stuff. But Dad said I had to respect my nonna—ugh, he always made me call her that when he could hear—and so I worked with her after church every Sunday. Tammy got out of it, I don't know why. That was lucky. Granny told the craziest stories."

"What kind of stories?" Dean says, unexpectedly. He's been listening in a still, unusual silence, through the whole babbling cascade.

"Crazy," Denise insists. "Like—ghosts and spooks and monsters kind of stuff. She wasn't even telling them like scary stories, you know, like at summer camp when the girls put the flashlight under their chins? Just told 'em the same way my Grandma Jean, Mom's mom, would talk about growing up on the farm. Like it was boring. Granny G said all that stuff, you just had to deal with, because—" Here she puts on a ridiculously thick Italian accent: "The secret world is woven by your hands and your hands shape it. Like, what does that have to do with ghosts? I don't know. She was a nut. Didn't know she had a rock like that sitting in her hope chest. I thought it was just all those stupid books."

"Denise," Bobby says, interrupting the flow, "what books?"

"Oh," she says, waving a hand. Like it's nothing. "All these weird Italian things. I can kinda read it, just from hearing the old lady and Dad go on and on. She said they were weaving books but it wasn't like any pattern book I ever saw. And—" She cuts herself off. Takes a sip of chardonnay, shrugs. Nervous, suddenly, and doing a very bad job of pretending she's not. Bobby leans forward. "Well, it don't matter. Not like it worked."

"Denise," Sam says, in his turn: "What didn't work?"

She bites her lip—is clearly trying to think of something besides the facts—and it's Dean who interrupts, that time, says: "Where did you go?" Denise blinks, and Dean clarifies. "Your vacation. Girls' spa trip?"

"What, you want recommendations?" Denise says, to the girl she thinks she's talking to. Pointlessly catty, especially since Dean just stares at her. "Tch. No. I mean, yeah, Gary I told I was going to Tammy's, which he should've known wasn't true since me and Tammy haven't talked since that blow-up at Christmas. I went to Dad's old fishing cabin, up by the lake." She looks around at all three of them, gearing up slowly to lie. "What? I wanted some alone time. Is that a crime?"

"That depends," Bobby says, squinting at her.

Denise rolls her eyes. "Uh-huh," she says. She drains her glass of wine and sets it down firmly, turning toward Bobby. "Well, I don't know what the point of this whole thing was other than you stealing Granny's luck charm. Which I would like back, now, please. Unless you want me to call the cops, speaking of crime."

"Your grandmother was a witch," Bobby says, flatly. "Are you?"

She practically balloons in outrage. "How," she says, "dare you—" and Dean gets up from the booth, walks quickly past the tables and out the front door, and Denise is in the way and Sam apologizes to her very perfunctorily before he climbs fully over the top of her, jumping down from the booth and following Dean out into the freezing night.

Outside Dean's already on the sidewalk back toward the motel, walking fast. Snow's starting to come down, in little fine flakes that are barely illuminated by the streetlights, the starlight. No moon. Sam knows the time it'll rise in the pre-dawn morning, down to the minute. He hurries, trying not to slip on the sidewalk ice.

"Hey—" he says, and Dean whirls, braid whipping around over his shoulder.

"She's an idiot!" Dean says. "Like a bona fide actual stupid person, Sam!"

"She might—" Sam starts, and when Dean glares at him he falters. "Okay, yeah, it seems like it. But, dude, she's our only lead, and that stuff about her grandma—"

"She doesn't understand, or even really know about," Dean says. Sam shrugs, helpless, and Dean seems to deflate slightly, folding his arms over his chest. A car drives by, headlights gleaming over his little body. The coat doesn't seem warm enough. Dean shakes his head. "Left a hex bag like that in her makeup drawer. If she did this, and at this point I'm still thinking it's a big if, she probably doesn't even know what she did. And I never met her, and she doesn't know me, and she's got no idea that because of whatever she did, I've got to either die or go back to this stupid eggplant of a motel and get fucked by my little brother."

Raw, at the end. Dean drags the heel of his hand over his cheek, blows out a long white stream of air. Sam waits, sick. "Shit," Dean says, quietly, and doesn't look up at Sam but turns, and walks more slowly back toward the motel. Sam checks his watch—after eight o'clock, which means that soon it will have been six hours, which means—and so he follows, still sick, boots crunching alongside the little imprints left by Dean's smaller feet, and when they do make it to the motel Dean opens up the room and holds the door for Sam to come in, and Sam closes the door behind himself quietly and stands with his back against it and looks around, anywhere but at Dean’s face. It really is ridiculously purple.

Dean shrugs off his jacket. Snow sparkles briefly on the long braid, melting in the warm air. He unzips his boots and drops them in a wet pile on the kitchenette linoleum, and then sticks his hands under the faucet and drinks from the sink. Hangs there, with the water running, and then turns it off, and sighs. "I've got to pee," he says, sullen. "Give me a few."

The bathroom door closes, less quietly. Sam tips his head back against the wood and closes his eyes and counts to five, measuring a slow rhythm with his breath that lets him put away all the trouble, all the fretting. For now, anyway. Then he opens his eyes, and tries to make it better.

Ten minutes, before Dean comes out of the bathroom. He freezes in place, wiping his hands on the hips of his jeans, and stares at Sam. "What the hell," he says.

Music's playing from Sam's laptop—'Mellow Zeppelin,' a playlist he put together forever ago—the year of Dean's deal, when he needed something to listen to at night while he looked for anything at all that would put off the fact of Dean's dying. Babe I'm Gonna Leave You plays, quietly, while Dean looks around. One of the beds has been stripped and remade with the two blankets—one green, one brown—they've had stashed in the back of the Impala as long as Sam can remember, soft and stained and familiar. Sam's shoved the other bed up against the far wall and hidden away all of the books and research they'd both accumulated, one of the stupid purple comforters draped over the top. Sam's changed into pajama pants, a clean undershirt, and he brings Dean a cup of whiskey, which Dean takes seemingly on automatic, and frowns down at the cup and then up at Sam.

"I ordered pizza," Sam says. "Again. I think I'm going to get a frequent buyer discount. Should be here in twenty minutes or so. And I looked at the cable listing, League of Their Own is on if you want to watch."

"Avoid the clap," Dean says, also seemingly on automatic.

"That's good advice," Sam says, doing his part.

Dean huffs and then looks all over his face. "Sammy," he says, and it doesn't sound anything like it should. Just nothing at all like he wants that word to sound, out of a mouth that's all wrong.

"It sucks," Sam says. He bites the inside of his cheek, shakes his head. "It's not—I mean, it's crazy, and it shouldn't be happening, and it's not fair."

"Story of our lives," Dean says, quietly.

Sam shrugs. "So, we can make it this—horrible, awful thing, that we've got to get through and that feels like torture, or it can be…" The corner of his mouth hitches up. He can't quite say the first thing he thinks, while Dean's staring at him, and settles instead on: "I don't know, man. It can be not horrible."

Dean's mouth opens, and closes. He steps neatly around Sam and Sam revolves in place to watch him walk over to the table, set the little cup of whiskey down with a crisp tap. "So," he says, and even in the wrong-voice there's that forbidding edge Dean will get, sometimes. "You think wining and dining is the way to go? Sam, we're not dating."

"No, we're not," Sam says, "but I don't want it to feel like I'm raping you, either." Dart upwards of Dean's dark eyes, big and genuinely shocked. Sam bites his lips between his teeth, shrugs again. "I just—that can't be how it is, man. I don't know how long we're going to have to do this but I can't keep doing it if it's—this—violation, with the lights off, and we never talk about it, and whenever it's finally over we hate each other and we can't talk ever again. I don't know, maybe when I didn't have a soul that's the kind of guy it seemed like I am, but even if it's just to save your life, Dean, I can't—"

"Sammy," Dean says, strained, and Sam drags his fingers hard over his mouth, more upset than he realized. Dean looks at him across the expanse of purple carpet and then licks his lips. Looks down, and takes a gulp of the whiskey. A big one, from how he grimaces. He tucks a hair that's come loose from his braid back behind his ear, and then takes a big breath and meets Sam's eyes. "No crying in baseball, right?"

Sam lets out a breath. "Never," he says. Dean looks all over his face, and whatever he sees there is enough that he nods.

Sam takes a quick shower. Just to rinse off the day, the grossness of meeting Denise, the nervousness. He brushes his teeth, self-conscious, and when he lifts up from rinsing his mouth he drags a hand over his jaw, prickling, and looks at himself in the mirror. If they're doing this, they're doing it.

In the time he was in the bathroom Dean changed, too. Into one of his real self's t-shirts, floating loose over the girl's shoulders, and boxers again. Long bare legs, smoothly pale. He's sitting on the bed Sam made up with the bottle of whiskey at easy reach and his cup dangling from his fingers, watching League, though the television's muted and Sam's playlist is still going. Battle of Evermore, now. "Madonna was hot in this movie," Dean says, and pats the other side of the mattress, so Sam comes and sits, and gets handed his abandoned drink. Dean holds out his paper cup for a toast.

How did he end up with this brother. How could he possibly have deserved it. Sam swallows, and obligingly bumps their two cups together. "You think Madonna's hot in every movie," he says, and Dean says, "Never argue with a winning formula, Sammy," and they take their sips at the same time. Dean wiggles back so he's sitting up against the headboard, knees drawn up, and Sam stretches out, ankles crossed, the familiar rhythms of the movie playing out silently under the bone-deep familiarity of the music.

The pizza comes a little earlier than expected. Sam gets up to pay and tip the guy, and when he closes the door, Dean says, "Leave it on the table, huh? It's kinda weird on a full stomach."

8:40. Dean's pouring them both fresh cups of whiskey, cross-legged on the bed. "In your life, when have you ever complained about a full stomach?" Sam says, and Dean says ha ha not very under his breath, and holds out Sam's cup. Sam takes it, sits on the edge of the mattress, and watches Dean drink his down like Nyquil. "Hey," Sam says, frowning, but Dean shakes his head.

"You said you didn't want it to be like—like before," Dean says, a little breathless. "I can hold it together better now but in… I don't know, half an hour, forty-five, it's going to be harder."

The woman's ears have gone pink. "Does it hurt?" Sam says.

Dean shakes his head and then grimaces. "It's—not exactly," he says. His jaw flexes. "Not yet."

Sam breathes in carefully through his nose, and then downs his drink just like Dean did. He leans past the girl—Dean—puts his cup on the bedside table, and even in the space still between them he can feel how warm the body is. Not yet a fever but that's coming, maybe. He reaches out, careful, and puts his hand around the slender wrist, and the pulse is quick but not yet the thundering that scared him so badly, that first night.

It's not a rush, not desperate. Sam asked, this time, and Dean said yes, and that makes it—Dean, this time. When Sam turns the hand over, his thumb dragging into the palm, it's not her hand but his, and it's Dean's breath that catches, and his face that turns a little away, his eyes that close. That's okay. The lamps are on and music's playing and Sam's holding Dean's hand, even if it's small and strange. He rubs his thumb there again, soft but deliberate over the mount of his palm, and watches the deep breath fill Dean's chest, his breasts rising against the thin old fabric of the t-shirt. No bra, Sam sees, for the first time. Ready, just as Sam is.

He sets his other hand on the mattress, by Dean's hip, and leans in. Obvious, obvious. Sam lets go of Dean's hand and touches his jaw, lets his fingers trace up over the soft cheek, over the freckles, to cup the high tender shell of the ear. "Can I—" he says, quiet, and Dean lets out this quick exasperated breath and says, "You're such a gentleman," like it's an indictment, and then turns his face and puts his hand under Sam's chin and presses their lips together. Too hard at first and then, when Sam holds there carefully still, another sigh against his mouth and Dean tips his head and it's softer, better. A kiss.

Other than random snatches of painful, soulless memory, Sam can barely remember the last time he really kissed a woman. Of course this is Dean—but it's not—but it is—and Sam gives up on trying to keep his mind right and just sinks in, feels it. Slow, careful. Learning. The girl's mouth gives sweetly under pressure, and Dean's fingers slide back along Sam's jaw, holding him in the place he's wanted. Easy enough for Sam, who doesn't want anything but this for now: moving together, quiet, their breath mingling. He presses Dean's mouth barely open, taste of wet—of whiskey—and Dean makes this tiny trapped sound, grips Sam's hair. Sam's gut flares, urgent, just for that.

Slow, though—slow, because they have time, because that's the whole point. He pulls away from Dean's mouth only reluctantly, kisses his jaw, his throat. Hot, flushed skin. "Who taught you to kiss like that?" Dean says, almost dizzy-sounding, and Sam smiles against Dean's collarbone and kisses it, too, and then reaches back over his head and pulls his shirt off, smooth, ruffling his hair forward. When he shakes it out of his eyes Dean's hands have landed on his shoulders, small and startled. "Exhibitionist," Dean says, and doesn't mean it.

Sam slides a hand up under Dean's t-shirt, feeling the violin-dip of the waist, the smooth bare expanse of the ribs heaving out. "Just leveling the playing field," he says. "I thought…" He lets his hand carry upward, framing the small weight of one breast. The girl's nipples are small, too, but he can feel how wound up Dean already is in the tight furl of the skin there, drawn tight and ready. Dean blinks at him, flushed, and Sam bends down and puts his mouth to the bullet-hard point, through the cotton, holds the breast high with the L of his thumb and forefinger and sucks, and Dean gets both hands in his hair, gasps deep so his chest rises into Sam's mouth. Sam breathes hot through the fabric, lets his teeth drag lightly over the bump, and Dean says, "Jesus christ," and uncrosses his legs, squirms closer, and—Sam can smell pussy, now.

Heady, strong. Dean's been needing it for hours, it's no wonder. Sam slides his free hand down Dean's belly, down to the v of his legs, and Dean's thighs squeeze tight together and then open, letting Sam cup the plump of him through the loose boxer-briefs. The cotton's wet. God.

Dean's hips tip forward, rocking, and Sam grinds the heel of his palm helpfully against the mound even though they both know it won't do anything. He bites Dean's nipple again, gentle, and Dean lets out this helpless high noise and then says, "Oh, screw it," and leans back—wet circle on his chest that makes Sam's nuts tighten—and tears off his shirt, awkwardly, and Sam leans in immediately and sucks in the other nipple, careful with it now that there's not the shield of fabric, and Dean grips his bare shoulder, his hair, arches toward him—moans—and Sam gets down off the bed and goes to his knees on the carpet, pulls Dean's hips to the edge of the mattress, kisses him between the breasts and on his belly and at the waistband of the boxer-briefs before he looks up, and finds Dean staring down at him hotly, mouth open.

"We have time, right?" Sam says, holding his patience together with unsteady hands. God, he can smell—he wants to, his mouth is watering, but it won't do what the spell requires, and so technically—

"That's why you—" Dean starts, and drags his fingers along Sam's smooth-shaven jaw. He laughs, high and a little insane-sounding, and then says, "Yeah—we've got—you dog—"

"Thought I was a gentleman," Sam says, and Dean shoves his face away with weak fingers and then lifts his hips, squirms, and Sam helps, dragging the boxers down, all the way to the girl's neat bare toes and off, and oh, here, this is—where he wants to be, exactly. As good as it'll be later. Better, maybe.

Hair again, darker than on her head, trimmed on the mound, but shaved bare lower down—plump, full outer lips, dark and flushed with blood—and wet, wet enough that the inner curve of Dean's thighs shine slick. Sam drags his hands along the lean softness of his legs, spreads them wider, lets his thumbs slip in the wet and then frames the vulva. Has to swallow, his mouth's watering so much.

Dean's fingers, careful on his shoulder, and he looks up. Through the girl's face Dean's as turned on as Sam's ever seen him but nervous, now—like this is—"Sammy," he says, with this note almost of warning, and Sam drags his thumb flat and firm over the closed lips all the way up to the mound, makes Dean's thighs quiver and clutch around his sides, and he says, "Dude, when have you ever not wanted to do this?" and that makes Dean laugh again, thinly, his hand going to Sam's neck, and Sam lets that faintest barely-there pressure guide him down, in, to a broad flat lick following the path his thumb traced, that makes Dean's hips jump, that makes him moan.

Sam does love this. Not just for the taste, not just for the intimacy, not just for the power that comes from making a woman fall apart—but because it's single-minded. Focused, ignoring his dick and his own want, relying on every sense to do the best work he can. He spreads Dean open and works, knowing there's a timer ticking away but wanting to make this feel as good as possible, and it's—god, maybe the easiest he's had it, with how much Dean wants, how much he has to want. His pussy gushes wet, lets Sam smear it smoothly slick up over the inner lips and the small hidden bump of his clit—a little one, closed away, but Dean still responds beautifully when Sam closes his lips there and sucks—moaning, gripping Sam's neck, hips lurching up. Sam pulls Dean's thighs over his shoulders and licks lower, sloppy, making sure he covers absolutely everything that could feel good—drags his thumb over the clit, slides it down to the hole and in, a fat breaking-in that makes Dean yelp—lifts his head to breathe while he slides it further, smearing slick down to Dean's asshole, and kisses his clit, nose brushing the crackle-soft hair while he presses there, gentle, and feels Dean shudder through his entire body, his heels dragging against Sam's back. God, good, the taste suffusing Sam's mouth with a salt-sweet tang. He settles in, enjoys himself. Ignores every other thought but this.

"S—"

Barely a word; Sam lifts his head from leisurely eating and Dean's glowing all over, shimmering sweat. He blinks, turns and looks over the shaking muscle of Dean's thigh to see the clock—still time, plenty, but—

"I—Sammy—" Dean gets out, teeth nearly chattering, and Sam's focus shifts, tips. His dick's been ignored but it's heavy, ready. He shoulders away Dean's thighs, stands up, leans forward—hesitates, remembering—but Dean grabs his face, kisses him heedless of the smeared wet all over his lips, his chin. Sam shoves his pajama pants down and off—no underwear, because there was no point—and Dean pulls back from his mouth, breathing fast and shaky. Looks, deliberately, like he hasn't these past nights.

"For christ's sake," Dean says, thin, and despite everything Sam feels his face heat. He swipes his forearm over his mouth, kicks the pajamas away, and Dean's shaking his head but trying to heel backwards, further onto the bed. "Figures. I lose my dick and find out baby bro's got the Eiffel Tower in his pants all in the same weekend."

Dean's thighs are quivering, useless. Sam grabs him by the hips and rolls them both onto the bed, into the blankets that smell like home. Gasoline, gunpowder. Whatever it is that's ground into the car, into both of them, in their skin. "You'll get yours back," Sam says, sliding his hand down the sweaty line of Dean's spine. They're very close to each other, close enough that Sam can speak right down into Dean's ear. "And, hey, that little replica they've got in Vegas isn't that bad—"

He gets a punch to the stomach. He grins, rolls Dean onto his back, and he's getting a half-hearted glare but Dean spreads his legs and the joke fades when Sam moves over, kneels there. They haven't gone for condoms, again, and Sam doesn't want—he should but he—

Firm, dragging touch down his stomach. He plants a hand by Dean's shoulder and Dean looks up at him, eyes glassed-over and practically black, but serious, asking, even breathing quick and with his hand curling around Sam's side. "Ready?" he says.

Like it's really a question. Sam doesn't answer. What could he say, now? He bends down, deep enough that he can feel Dean's breath on his mouth, but kissing now would be—he doesn't dare—and curls down, instead, takes himself in hand and feels Dean's thighs spread wider, knees drawing up, fits himself bluntly against where he's licked everything soft and open and sweet and hears Dean's breath hitch—puts his forehead against Dean's, eyes closed—and drives home, in a long heavy push. Splitting, tense—small inside, god!—and scorching-immediate when it's bare like this—and Dean groans long and shocked against him, grabs his arms, tips into it, wants it. Wants it, more than Sam could have ever imagined. More than he ever hoped.

Sex is sex. Dean comes quickly, after all the foreplay, and Sam pauses, caught in a tight knot of gripping arms and thighs and the rippling clench inside and Dean's breath, gasping—willing, if Dean doesn't want it, to—but then a nod, fast and shaky, and Sam surges forward again and Dean moans, wraps his arms around Sam's neck, lifts into it. Makes it good. Makes it—

Sam holds inside, again, when he's done. Brain off. He breathes like oxygen's just come back into the room, open mouth pressed down against Dean's throat, and realizes very slowly that he's probably crushing the girl. Dean. The girl who is Dean. He drags his weight equally slowly to his elbows, but Dean's legs are still wrapped loosely around his hips, his hands heavily lax on Sam's back, and it doesn't do much to budge him. Dean's heart beats gently against Sam's lips. Safe. Sam wants to move no time in the next century.

"I'm not complaining," Dean says, quiet, "but if you suffocate me with your redwood body my ghost is gonna haunt you forever."

Sam takes a deep breath. "That counts as complaining," he says, and drags together the wherewithal to tip his hips—oh, the gush out, the horrible cold air—and rolls off, onto his back. Stares up at the ceiling. Possibly the only non-purple part of the room.

Shoulder to shoulder. Sam's knuckles press up against Dean's thigh. The smell now is sweat, is the flush of their bodies together, is pussy and jizz commingling. Absurdly intimate, and more so this time, when they both agreed that it could be. That it had to be, at least so Sam wouldn't kill himself when the whole ordeal was done with. Although—

"Okay?" says Sam, and he really wants to know. Of course it was good, physically—he has an insanely intense sense-memory of bringing Dean there the second time, the specific texture of nipple under his tongue and rigid clit under his thumb and his cockhead seated right up in the center, grinding, while Dean clutched and moaned, all around him—but he's feeling… he can't pin it down, yet. He will—one of the biggest problems with being who he is remains that he can't lie to himself, not now, not after the years where he tried so hard to—but not yet. How much weirder, for the one that's the subject of all this?

Dean doesn't answer. Sam turns his head and finds him lying still, eyes closed, his hands laid lax over his belly. His chest lifts on slow, even breaths. His breasts tip out gently to the sides, natural and soft, and Sam sees—oh—a dark, circular mark around the small brown areola. He bit hard, not thinking. He lifts up on one elbow, wants to touch Dean—doesn't dare to—but he says, carefully light, "Hey. Don't be dead."

"I ain't dead," Dean says. His eyes open—strange, how Sam always expects them to be green, even in a stranger's face—and he glances at Sam but then looks up at the ceiling, distant. Thinking things through. Sam remembers, from some distant past—it's okay, Sammy, I believe you—and his stomach turns, sour and hurting, connecting that moment to this one. He hopes it's true. After everything, Dean has to believe him.

"Is it all right if I don't have an answer to that one?" Dean finally says. Takes Sam a second to remember the question, in which time Dean's eyes come back to his face. Sam nods, throat thick, and Dean nods back. "Yeah. So—" He licks his lips, and then drags both hands over his face in a long, slow slide. "Okay, yeah. Bring me pizza, bitch. Better have ordered extra onions."

Sam—god, he wants... But he can't have what he wants. He smirks, instead, says, "Extra olives," and when Dean groans betrayal he rolls away. Finds his pajama pants and climbs back into them, goes to the table while Dean says—something about treason, vegetables. Sam's ears are rushing with blood and he can't parse it.

He brings the lukewarm pizza back to the bed. Dean sits up, makes a face. Fishes over the side of the bed and finds Sam's shirt, and wipes between his legs, and when Sam protests Dean says he should've thought of that before he came like a geyser. They sit on either side of the mattress, eating pizza. Watching the tail end of the movie. Dottie and Kit, fighting. Dean's always hated this part. Sam's always thought that at the end—when Rockford loses to Racine—Dottie drops the ball on purpose. They watch it happen, for probably the hundredth time, and as Geena Davis's fingers go loose, as the baseball rolls away in the dust, Dean makes a strange low sound and turns away, and Sam looks up to find him changing.

Bizarre. It's not a cartoon; the long hair doesn't suck up into his scalp, it's just—there one second and in the next, before Sam can register the shift, it's gone. Dean gets his feet on the floor and Sam watches his back change, the girl's narrow slenderness broadening, waist thickening and the shoulders gaining the width they should have. Naked, still, and even if this is the body that should be familiar it's shocking, makes Sam look away. The female body is his responsibility, for reasons they still don't know—Dean's own isn't his to look at. Not—exactly.

In the corner of his eye Dean rubs a hand over his head, over the almost-buzz at the back. A sigh. He leans down, fishing through their discarded clothes, and finds his boxer-briefs where Sam tossed them, and stands up to step into them—flash of his white ass, a shadow—and then pours another measure of whiskey into each of their cups, a dull glug. They're putting a real dent in the bottle, at this rate.

When he turns around he's—himself. A little tired, a little sore. The corner of his mouth lifts as he hands Sam his cup, as they bump them together in an unsatisfying toast. "To wining and dining," Dean says, and Sam looks to see if he's being sarcastic, but he isn't. He takes a sip, lets it float down warm into his already warm-stomach—decent food, good sex, the two of them safe and okay. Lot of worse nights than this one, in Sam's past.

Dean watches his face, then nods, and goes into the bathroom. Leaves the door open, runs the sink. Splashing water. "Hey," he calls, over the noise, "where do you think your spooj goes?" Sam freezes, mid-swallow, and starts to cough. "I mean, I don't have a vagina anymore. You think it's just, like, absorbed into my guts? Pretty weird, right?"

Somehow Sam doesn't aspirate and die. "I hate you," he coughs out.

Dean appears in the doorway, wiping his hands on a towel, grinning. "Yeah, I know you do," he says, and even if this ease is hard-won the tone is still nothing but fond. He tosses the towel at Sam, who barely catches it against his chest. "C'mon. It's not even ten o'clock. We should see where Bobby got to with Glinda the Dumb Witch."

Sam goes into the bathroom in his turn. Washes his face, rinses out his mouth. He's going to need new clothes. They're going to need to go to a laundromat, sometime soon. If Bobby hasn't scared up an answer already, they're going to need to—talk, maybe. Or maybe not. He turns off the sink, looks at himself in the mirror for the second time that night. Back in the room, on the television, the baseball players are singing: we're all for one, we're one for all, we're… Sam's going to have it stuck in his head for a week.

"Kidnapping," Denise says, with awful portent, "is a crime."

Bobby stares at her. Chained to the big oak table in the kitchen of the fishing cabin, just enough slack to get to the toilet by herself, and a strange little charm around her neck that Bobby said would stop a witch casting spells—despite it all she's not scared but is instead narrow-eyed, pissy, arms folded like she wants to ask for the manager. "I'll ask for a pardon from the governor," Bobby says, finally. Sam can't help but snort, no matter how tired he is.

Long night. Turned out that after their departure Bobby told Denise he was taking her back home and she, amazingly, believed him—and then, on the side of the road in the dark they had a very frank conversation that ended up with them here, at the Marino family cabin a few hours north of Menomonie, next to a black frozen lake gleaming in thin starlight.

The cabin's small, and made smaller by being chock-full of hand-crafted kitsch. By the light of the fireplace and lamps they've been confronted by ugly afghans, quilting squares, little painted fish on wood planks on the walls, each of them with a cutesy saying coming out of their mouths like a cheerful, lame hook. Sam stared at the one that said Catch You Later!! and Dean—in a reassuringly male, familiar voice—muttered, "I feel like the sad is on me," and—god, yeah. It's all this stuff that doesn't mean anything, crammed in here because no one wants it, and at the center of it all this little puffed performance of a witch who doesn't seem to get, at all, what's happening here.

Bobby's been working on Denise, trying to stop her from piping out outrage and actually get her to focus, talk, admit to anything. Sam and Dean have been working around it, since Sam's not sure he can dredge up the patience and Dean—well, Sam's not sure why Dean doesn't want to even look at the woman. He can make guesses and doesn't, honestly, know if they're good ones.

The boxes and bins of crafting supplies and projects both unfinished and unloved are everywhere. No fishing trophies, or gear, so whatever Denise's father had left behind here is gone. The only remainder of his presence is one picture, framed and hanging in the kitchen: two small girls with dark hair, one of whom Sam can see growing up into Denise; an olive-skinned man with Denise's eyes, with his hands on both of their shoulders; and, seated just to the side, in an armchair that swallows her, an old lady, with crabbed hands wrapped around knitting in her lap, looking directly at the camera and unsmiling, her eyes in the picture seeming to be entirely black. Giuliana.

The hope chest Denise mentioned is also here—Bobby blinked at the arrival of a male-shaped Dean but pointed them straight to it when they arrived. It was covered, like everything else, in baskets—crochet, magazines, god knew what else crafty crap, which when lifted away revealed a beautifully carved old wooden piece, dark olive leaves and strange flowers shining in relief on the surface. Dean went to one knee, carefully shaping his hands around the edges of the lid, and when he lifted it he and Sam said crap, simultaneously, because—all this nonsense filling the cabin until the walls creaked, and this was the treasure, the motherlode, shoved up against the back wall like it was just another shelf for a load of purchases from Joann's.

Sigils carved edge to edge on the interior of the lid, stretching down the sides of the box. Some of them Sam recognizes, some he's never seen. The books are ancient, too, soft long-used leather and frail crackling pages, although the text inside is as sharp and black and fresh as though it had been inked this morning. Most of it's in Italian, which Sam can't really read beyond what's familiar from his rusty Spanish—some of it's an older dialect, though, and some of it's Latin, and some if it's some language he doesn't recognize at all, in thin angling script that looks somehow sinister, on the rough pages. Old world magic, passed down through who knew how many generations. Sam wonders if Giuliana was disappointed that the inheritor of it was someone like Denise.

They've been going through the books but it's slow-going. With Dean's talent for languages he's mostly flipping through looking for the word cambiare, which he wrote on his hand when Sam spelled it for him, and for the usual grim artwork witches can't seem to help but include. He makes a disgusted sound from the other end of the couch and Sam looks to find—grotesque, sprawling over two pages, black-and-white of a woman split in two, with something blacker coming out of the space left between. "Mark it," Sam says, because who knows, and Dean shoves a loop of pink embroidery thread in between the two pages and keeps flipping, his movements quick and sharp. Not tearing pages but clearly pissed. Sam can't blame him.

In the kitchen Bobby isn't making much headway. "Gary's going to kill you, you know," Denise says, certain. Sam bites the inside of his cheek, tries to keep reading for the words he knows, for luna and for transformare, tries not to be distracted. "He's a goat but he'll come, and oh boy, you guys are in for it."

"Yeah?" Bobby's sitting with his arms folded on the back of the chair opposite hers. "Tell me about Gary. Tough guy?"

She makes a tch sound, but apparently there's some strange marital pride buried in there if she's insisting he'll be the knight to her damsel. "Played center in high school," she says, and Sam rolls his eyes, thankfully hidden behind his hair. Football player. Of course. "Everyone crushed on his cousin Marty, the quarterback, but he was skinny. Cheated on Marissa all the time, too. No, Gary was for me. I like a man who can follow orders and then shove away four guys. Bet he's got you three outnumbered. And you're old."

Denise is forty-five, if she's a day. When Sam glances up Bobby's watching her, assessing. Dean slams his current book closed and reaches for another, shoulders rounded and unapproachable.

"Follows orders, huh?" Bobby says. "That right? So, good husband, then. Not a cheater, like Marty."

"Be the last thing he ever did," Denise says, hotly. Not her usual puff and bluster but real feeling behind it. Sam marks his place with a thumb and watches, squinting. Denise glares at Bobby, swipes at her crispy bangs like they've offended her, even if Sam's not sure they can move. "You men. Just because you're a dog doesn't mean everyone's like you. Gary would never."

"Got it on good authority that might not be so, Mrs. Studebaker," Bobby says, dry. "Real big flirt, is what I hear. Like a man dyin' of thirst who sees a big fountain of Schlitz, ready for the drinking."

"That's—" Denise starts, and cuts herself off. Her leopard-spot chest heaves on a deep, steadying breath. "Not the same as stepping out," she says, after a few seconds. Weird new note in her voice. Sam can't tell whether it's true or not, and if it's not if she really believes it. She licks her lips. "We made a promise. Love, honor, and obey. It's carried us through. Not that I expect you to know anything about it."

Sam winces; Dean finally looks up. Bobby doesn't flinch, though, or frown, or throw it back in her face. He just looks—vaguely sympathetic, and his forbearance makes something swirl in Sam's gut, somewhere small and sad. "I believe you," Bobby says, and Denise sits back, looks away. Not mollified, but air's gone out of her.

Silence, for a few minutes. Bobby goes to the kitchen counter where there's a coffee maker, and rummages until he finds the stuff required to use it. Sam marks a spell in one of the books—something about transformation, although from the other words he recognizes it might be about farm work—and Dean marks a section with the moon cycle drawn out, where the half-moon is centered on the page with strange sinuous lines radiating from it. Denise sits quiet, arms folded. Pouting, or maybe if Sam's kinder just thinking. He doesn't want to have sympathy for her but when she's not on offense her too-much-ness feels less like an offense and more like an attempt at armor, and that's just… sad. He turns a page, tries to focus.

When the cabin's full of the smell of coffee and he's muddling his way through trying to read something he thinks is going to turn out to be about fertility—nudge, to his side. Dean's grimacing, when he looks up, and he taps Sam's watch, and when Sam checks it—shit. "Bobby," Sam says, tilting his wrist meaningfully.

A couple minutes to four o'clock; Dean slams down his book, gets halfway to the door, but—"Hang on," Bobby says.

Dean stops. Bobby's still watching Denise, eyes narrowed. "No way," Dean says, hard, but in that way Dean always does where the concrete demand is just the opening salvo to an argument.

It means there's an opening, and Sam can hear it and that means Bobby definitely can too. "What better way to prove it?" Bobby says.

Dean's mouth is open, while Denise frowns, says, "Prove what? What are you yahoos talking about?" Dean swings to Sam for support, but—the indignity aside, Bobby's right, and Sam knows it, and he lifts one shoulder while Dean stares at him, and feels intensely sorry for it when Dean's jaw squares, when his eyes go tight and hard as glass.

He's wearing his own clothes, men's clothes. Jacket, flannel, jeans, boots. He shrugs out of the jacket, practically throws it on the couch next to Sam. "Everybody got their ticket for the show?" he says, smiling nasty. He stands in the little space in the middle of the floor, between the craft bins and the couch, firelight licking up his side, and it's just a few seconds after Sam's minute hand ticks over that the change starts. Bobby watches, having never seen it—Sam watches Denise, since after all that's the point, and while in the corner of his eye Dean flinches—shifts, alters—Denise's eyes go round, her mouth an O, and when it's done she stands up, fast enough that her chair skitters out from below her and falls on the wood floor, and she backs up all the way to the kitchen counter but her chain pulls taut, there, and she's left just to stare, world upturned, while Dean blows out a long breath and says, quietly, "Least I'm not a mini-me, this time."

True—he's tall again, maybe the tallest so far, this time with whitish-blonde hair cut in a shaggy short muss. The brown flannel sags over his shoulders but not as badly as on other days. He drags long fingers through his bangs and looks sideways, at the fireplace, and in profile he's pretty again—dark brows, long lashes, cheekbones sharp and high and making a soft shadowed hollow in his cheek. All these strange, pretty girls.

"That's—" Denise, cartoonish, blinks and gapes. "Tapered pixie with feather-cut textured top."

Bobby, who'd been studying Dean, fully turns around in his chair to stare at her. Sam's been watching, though, and she's not… She's paying attention, finally. This isn't just Denise Makes Noise, like it's been for the last four hours; it's real.

"How did you do that," Denise says. Flat, at a normal volume.

Dean folds his arms over his chest, under his new breasts. "We were hoping you could tell us," he says—a lower, mature-sounding, but undeniably feminine voice—and Denise says, under her breath, cavolo, Nonna, and then, barely louder: "It worked. Christ, it worked."

They get her seated, get a cup of coffee in front of her. Bobby looks at her face, drained of color, and dumps a healthy slug from his flask into her mug. Dean perches on the back of the couch, this new body all slim angles and long limbs—elegant, icy, especially as he turns his face away and watches the fire, rigid with dislike. It doesn't matter: Denise can't stop staring, and with all the cajoling and questioning and trying to come at it from a wheedling angle, Sam knows that this has unlocked the door. All they've got to do is wait for her to walk through it.

"Gary doesn't cheat," Denise says, abruptly. Even some of the accent has pulled back, quieted. She glances at Bobby. "He doesn't. He never would. But he—" She shakes her head, eyes dragging straight back to Dean.

"Maybe you're worried he wants to," Sam says. He tries to make it gentle. Mostly succeeds. "Like he's looking around, maybe."

Her eyes close. "When the boys were home it was easier," she says, thin. It spills out of her, stilted and embarrassed and half-detailed, just enough to paint a picture. A marriage, to love and honor and obey, and they did what they could but—life moved on, and there were kids to look after and jobs to muddle through and bills to pay, and what had been a teenage passion became a mellow adult partnership became a middle-aged… blah.

"Spent more and more time at Monty's," she says. "He's not even a drunk. If he were a drunk I'd get it. He just doesn't want to be—home." Her voice wobbles on the last word. Sam drags his hand over his mouth. "And when he is at home, what is it. The news. Sports. He doesn't even like the racing but he'll watch it if it's on the TV. Anything but—" She shakes her head again.

Bobby pours another shot of whiskey into her mug. "Not appreciating you, then? Not caring? That the problem?"

Denise drinks the mug down in one swallow. "Cared about everything but me, is the problem." A little more bitter. Her face has gone red, either from the story or the whiskey. Both. "In all the rooms of the house, if you know what I mean."

Sam opens his mouth and can't ask. Thank god for Bobby, who says, blunt as ever, "Not so good between the sheets, then, our Mr. Studebaker."

Denise snorts. "You ever see a nun try to parallel park a bus?" She shakes her head. "And, you know, I didn't care. Who cares? Guys can't find their way without a compass and a print-out from MapQuest, I never expected any different. It's just—" She licks her lips, looking again at Dean. "You start to feel like you're not worth more attention than the fishing rod. Just a thing to throw into the back of the truck, if he even remembers to bring you. It starts to wear on a girl."

Dean stands up, abruptly, and goes to the window.

"So," Bobby says, coaxing. "You wanted to, what. Give Gary a taste of his own medicine."

Her eyes were on Dean's back but she looks between Sam and Bobby, with a hint of the earlier defiance. "It was—stupid," she says. Sam swallows down an inappropriate noise. "I was just so—I don't even know how to say. Tired of it. Christmas, me and Tammy came up here to do the stockings and stuff for her kids, since I got all the supplies, and we were having our wine and she started talking about Dan and how he's so great, how he was planning these trips. He gives her foot massages. Foot massages! What, is he trying to get away with something? But—whatever, it was—driving me crazy, you know, like she was rubbing it in. We have this big fight and she goes and I'm sitting here with all the stupid stockings and I was looking at Granny's picture and I thought, what would she say, you know? She'd say I had to make my own luck. Weave it."

Wanting him to feel like she felt. Uncared for, with desires unmet. Denise dashes her hands over her eyes—smear of mascara—and stands up, and Bobby unlocks the chain from the table and she comes over and picks up books. "I was just looking for—anything, you know? Anything."

What she lines up are three different books from the pile, ones Sam hadn't yet gone through. From a project bag next to the hope chest she pulls out a long, yellow-white crochet hook, and a strange blueish yarn, and a bag of dried flowers, and lays them all out on the coffee table, and twists her hands together. "I weaved—well, I mean, I had the floss and all from Granny's stuff, and I followed the patterns."

"Patterns, as in multiple?" Bobby says, frowning down at the books. "You mixed spells?"

"Patterns," she repeats. She opens the books to the right pages, and Sam does see cambiare in one and luna in another and then the third is some language he doesn't recognize, but the pictures show—god, it actually is pattern, thread weaving together down the page and back around in an odd, twisting loop. "I don't know all of it but it's not that hard to follow a pattern if you know what you're doing. Heck, I made my own wedding dress that way. It's like—you know, you've got two lasagna recipes from your aunties and you mix them together to make it the way you want it. Makes it unique."

Sam swallows. From Bobby's expression he agrees. "Denise," Sam says, carefully. "What did you do?"

The lake's pretty. Still frozen, with how cold the days have been, although Sam wouldn't walk on it unless he absolutely had to. In the mostly-dark it stretches out as this white-and-black mirror of the sky; the trees crowd up close and give way to the snow-rimed edges, and out further, toward the center, it's a hard gleam of starlight with a spilled silver pool of the moon, rising as a sharp sickle over the far shore. Sam sits on the hood of the Impala, huddled against the cold, attention split between the ice, the story he just heard, and on the tall slender shadowed figure, standing at the lake-edge, face turned up toward the dark sky.

Patterns, mirrors. Care and cruelty, rejection and need. The witch wove what she wanted, desire and hurt and honesty and stupidity interlocked, and the result was exactly what she worked, if not what she intended.

A circle of bridal lace, for commitment, crocheted on a hook of virgin bone. Lungwort and alstroemeria for devotion, saxifrage and gentian for passion, and rich, fragrant basil for fidelity. The spells were chosen in the heat of desperate wine-soaked anger and misery—one to punish a selfish lover, one to induce empathy, one to make sure it all stuck. The words were spoken in a muddled tumble over the working, thread flashing between flesh and bone, and then when it was finally done the veil and the flowers burned, by the light of the full moon, and were stirred into a potion of the witch's choosing. Sixteen-year old scotch, smoky and strong already, and when the words poured into it again the ash dissolved away like it was never there. Placed in secret, in the bar, the special bottle kept for the special customer, and it was meant to go off perfectly. He'd order his father's favorite drink, the drink he always ordered, he'd swill it down unthinking the way he always did, and when the half-moon rose, that midnight, he'd finally see what it was like—to be some thing, with needs that weren't met. To learn that it would require real, true love to satisfy them.

Sam shivers, and hugs his coat closer around himself. At that last part, Bobby had looked at the floor. Sam hadn't seen Dean's expression at all.

What could've gone wrong—the man not going to the bar, someone else sitting in the space, a bartender not paying attention and operating on autopilot and seeing someone in the spot and making up the Gary Special, just the same as he did every night—that wasn't considered. And then, what consequences might follow—

The cabin door opens, square of yellow light spilling out onto the snow; Bobby. There's a sigh, and the door closes again, and Bobby's boots crunch close. "He said anything?" Bobby says. Sam looks at him, and Bobby sighs again, a big white purl floating out into the dark air. "Right."

Quiet enough that it's startling when a branch breaks, somewhere in the evergreens heavy with cold. Dean's far enough away that he certainly can't hear but Sam still talks quietly, eyes on the moonlight gleaming off the white-blonde hair. "What are we going to do?" It feels childish even to say it; he takes a deep breath, tries to think not of himself but in logical, clear lines. "It's not just—one spell, or one curse, or something. It's all this stuff, stuck together. We don't have a hex bag to burn here, or a reagent to remove. It's—in him. There's nothing to shoot."

"Could shoot Denise," Bobby says, dry. Rasp of his palm over his beard. "No. Trying to work backwards on this one—it's going to be a toughie. We're not getting the answer this morning. Hell, looking at those books of Giuliana's, I'm not putting money down on this week. Too bad Denise got all the power and none of the precision, huh?"

Sam can't really respond. Another week. He drags his heels up on the bumper, hunches over his knees. He can handle this. He knows he can handle it. It's what comes after that's the worry.

"Listen to me, son," Bobby says. Quiet but firm. "I'm not—look. The fix is the fix. I guess it's whatever… love you've got, for your brother, that does it, and I don't—I love the kid but we're not family, so I guess it's on you. Hell if I know why it works but it does." Sam swallows, doesn't pick his head up from his hands. "That's how it is and that's just how it's going to be and there's nothing any of us can do about that. But don't get mixed up, you hear me? Whatever you've got to do, you can do. You've got the drive for it. I saw that last year, no mistake about that. But when you're done, you're done. There's going to be a rough patch but then it'll be over, and you're going to get through it. The two of you—it's going to be all right, is what I'm saying. You're brothers. You always will be, no matter what."

"Yeah," Sam says, aching.

Bobby nods, resettles his cap. "Right. Well." He clears his throat. "There's work to do and, to be frank, having the two of you here isn't going to help. I need to get in touch with people, work some contacts, see if we can piece together any kind of a counter-spell to fix this nonsense, and you two are just going to clutter up the place. Not to mention I've got to mop up Denise, sooner or later." True; she'd fallen to pieces when Bobby told her about the heart-attack element of her little pattern and it had been the sobbing that drove them out of the cabin. "There's plenty of world around here. You just get gone, to some part of it, and stay alive while you do. We'll figure out a way to turn you back into Winchester brothers, full-time."

Brothers. After Bobby goes back into the cabin Sam leans on his elbows, cold fingers laced. He watches as Dean's head drops, and as he scrubs his hands over his face, and then as he turns and trudges back toward the car, his back to the moon and the too-big boots finding his own footsteps over again in the snow. He's far enough away that, if it weren't for the slender frame and the color of his hair, Sam might not know the difference.

Being Dean's brother is the best part of who Sam is. It's the anchor he's had against everything—against the horrors of growing up how they did, against spiraling away from who he was meant to be. Being Dean's brother saved him from monstrousness; being Dean's brother saved the world. It's complicated—has killed them both, it's so complicated—but it's also clean, true. Real, down to the bone, when these days so little in their lives seems to be. He has Dean's back, just like Dean has always had his, and whatever else he's worried about, whatever might come—that has to be all that matters. They'll make it; they have to.

Dean's expression is hard to read, when he's close. Sam gives him a smile, anyway. "I need coffee," he says, "and somewhere to sleep that isn't purple. And it's my turn to drive."

A blink. Dean looks at the cabin door, then at Sam. Straight, dark brows, without a furrow. A breath, before he digs into his coat pocket. "Drive on, Kato," he says, and tosses the keys to Sam in a smooth, perfect arc.

Chapter 5 Chapter Text

They have breakfast in Dubuque. The waitress tells Dean that she loves his hair. "Thanks," he says, and returns to the passenger side of the car when they leave, and so they get back on the highway, and Sam angles them without a plan toward Cedar Rapids. Still cold but with the sun crisply risen and the skies clear it feels less so. They listen to the radio, morning traffic and weather and that annoying DJ out of Des Moines Sam had almost forgotten about, but whose bad jokes are nevertheless comforting as he shuffles through his usual cycle: Zeppelin, the Doors, the Who. Sam drives steady with the commuter traffic, taps his thumb on the steering wheel to The Real Me, thinks about how they're going to need gas, a place to stay, a job. Something to do that's not—waiting, and doing what they have to while they wait.

A motel. Forest-themed but not over the top, just dark green bedspreads and pictures on the walls. The lamp has a leaf-patterned shade. Dean looks at the two beds and then at Sam, frowning, and then says, "Gotta piss," and disappears into the bathroom. Sam drags a hand over his face, tired. Should think about this more but doesn't want to. It's ten in the morning and the world isn't currently ending. He closes the curtains, kicks off his shoes, dumps keys and phone and coat on the table, and crawls face-first onto the nearer bed. In the bathroom the sink turns on and he listens to the water running, the rush of the pipe in the wall, the evidence that life just ticks on regardless, and then he closes his eyes and turns his face into the pillow and slips into a sleep dreamless and dark and deep enough that when it's hours later, when his bed shifts and there's a hand on his shoulder, he thinks that no time has passed at all, and his reactions are so sluggish that he reaches way too slow for a knife that isn't there.

"Could've totally ganked you just now," a woman says. Sam groans. "Yeah, I know."

The hand slips to the back of his head, tucks his hair back behind his ear. Sam opens his eyes, bleary. The room's mostly dark, afternoon filtered greenly around the edges of the curtain. It smells like old carpet and like girl. Details trickle back, too slow and then all in a rush.

Dean's sitting on the side of his bed. Blue eyes, small pale mouth, wearing a t-shirt and nothing else. The clock says it's 4:42. Sam looks at that, and then up at Dean, who lifts a shoulder—sharp skinny angle of his collarbone appearing and disappearing in the gapped neck of the shirt—and Sam drags a hand through his hair, nods, says, "Give me a minute," his voice coming out all froggy and strange.

He goes to the bathroom. Strips his clothes. Long, aching piss, and then after a splash of water on his face, and a rinse of his mouth, and a washrag to his groin, because—god, because. His brain's too foggy to do anything but whatever the next step is.

In the room, Dean's sitting exactly where Sam left him, and Sam drops the towel he dragged on—why did he bother?—and takes Dean down onto his back on the bed, and when Sam goes to kiss him Dean turns his face away and Sam hangs there, muddled, for a strange second. Can't remember why they shouldn't. Then Dean lets out this hurt little noise and turns his face back and drags Sam's head close and kisses him first, clumsy, teeth knocking until Sam gets a hand on the hard angle of Dean's jaw and soothes him slower. Dean's tongue tastes like mint.

Hand between his legs, a thigh curving over his hip. Slow. Easy, or at least sort of easy. Sam slides a hand up under the shirt, finds thick soft nipples that go tight as he touches them; curves in, and Dean meets him, breath coming quick but not desperate, and Sam encourages Dean's long legs around his waist and presses his mouth to Dean's temple and his nose into the short soft hair and Dean sighs long and relieved against his skin when he pushes in. He holds—god, this one's tight—he hardly prepped Dean at all—but Dean mumbles against his cheek go on, Sammy, and it's slow, then, a tight and careful grinding screw, his weight barely held above Dean, their cheeks sliding together, Dean's hands on his back and then in his hair. His thighs drag against Sam's waist—his hips, arching—and Sam can't hilt himself, this body's too clutched small and close for that, inside, but—Dean's leg curls around the back of Sam's and he lifts up, wanting it, and so Sam slips a hand under the small of his back, helping, Dean's clit grinding up against Sam's pelvis since they're crushed together so close, and—god, they'll get there. They'll get there.

After he barely has the presence of mind to pull out. He slumps to the side, still holding Dean, and Dean thankfully doesn't seem to mind. They breathe there, on the same pillow, and when Sam finally drags together the strength to open his eyes he's met with mussed blond bangs and long pale eyelashes, fanned over pale cheeks. Dean's not hurt. Not ripping away in disgust or misery to shower off the truth of what they have to do. A fine sheen of sweat makes his skin glow in the low light. Sam lifts a leaden hand and brushes the bangs back from his forehead, and Dean's eyes open, and Sam says, "We're going to be all right," and knows it's true. Whatever else happens. He needs Dean to know it's true, too.

It's a long, heavy look he gets. Dean's still curled toward him, on the mattress, and it's dark enough that it's hard to tell that the eyes are blue. Sam wants to kiss him. It keeps being true even if it shouldn't be. There's a hazy line that draws itself, a strange but forbidding wall that divides need from want, a boundary between making this okay and making it wrong.

Dean doesn't respond, in the end. He stretches out, next to Sam—tips away, so he's looking at the ceiling. Sam wants to fall asleep again, wants to doze the day away and let it be not a problem, but it is, so he can't. Minutes pass, and Sam watches the pale strange profile beside him, and eventually Dean says, "Thanks, Sammy," very quietly, and pushes up and away and goes back into the bathroom, and at some point during the shower he'll transform. His heart will be safe and his body will be his own again, because of Sam. Because Sam satisfies the requirements of the spell. Love. Bobby's explanation—family, closeness—it's generous, but Sam can't let on, to anyone who'd matter, how sure he is that Bobby's wrong.

He listens to the water running. Thinks of snow, of frozen lakes. A desperate woman, surrounded by ice, fumblingly trying to create a cure for her loneliness. He turns onto his back, and his body hums, drowsy: naked and warm, used well. He drags a hand over his chest and thinks of Dean—not now, not as a woman, but rather that moment, barely two months ago, when he climbed up out of the panic room and came into the light of Bobby's house and saw his brother and grabbed him close, chest to chest and thigh to thigh, as hard and solid as he possibly could, to prove that Dean was real, here, breathing. They were in sync for a moment, chests rising at the same time, and Sam had thought clearly that everything, everything, had been worth it. For the feel of Dean's shaky, startled breath against his skin, and his arm around Sam's shoulders, and for the thud of his heart, beating against Sam's. That was worth anything.

He looks at the ceiling, hand over his chest. Then he gets up, and finds clean clothes, and there's still the rest of the day, waiting to be dealt with.

A couple of days in Cedar Rapids. They do laundry. They find Dean more clothes, since apparently Sam has no taste. There's a businessman or something who's staying in the same motel they're in and on the third day Sam exits the room with a different woman the guy gives Sam a very odd look—almost impressed—and it's so ridiculous that Dean asks what he thinks he's grinning about. Just the question means Sam can't say.

They're living with it; they've found a rhythm. They've got the moonrise tracked to the minute—thank god for the internet—and that means they're prepared for the rest of what they have to do. Even so, or maybe because of it, Dean's been in a shitty mood. Worse, somehow, now that they have the culprit, that they know the reason why things are how they are and all that's left is trying to solve it. Sam's trying to be patient, because it's not like Dean doesn't deserve a piss-fit. But—

It's not always pissy. They find a co-op garage where the guys are entertained to see a pretty little lady who looks sort of like Halle Berry get elbow-deep in a classic engine, and Sam reads a book about curses borrowed from Bobby on a bench in the car bay and ignores the shop talk, the bickering and banter. The flirting, although most of these are old guys and they seem to just be charmed. It's a good day, and when Dean's finished babying the car to his satisfaction he washes up and they pick up a late lunch and drive out to park by the river. Cold day but they sit in the clear fine air and Dean eats his burger and re-tells a story from one of the old-timers about working on a Pinto and worrying it'd catch fire, and Sam doesn't really have an appreciation for the finer details but he sits with his knee brushing Dean's and their shoulders touching and doesn't listen. Instead he takes in the way Dean's in a good mood, and that for now at least he's—all right. They're all right. These days that's the only important thing.

Dean drinks his soda slow, bootheels propped up on the bumper. His eyes are a clear, pretty amber, watching the cold drift of the river, swirling by. Not green, but the shape's right and his lashes are just as long.

"You know it's not your fault, right?" Dean says. Sam rouses from the thing he shouldn't be dreaming about. Frowns, and Dean glances over to see it. "I mean, all this. None of it's on you."

Sam twists his straw inside the plastic lid of his cup, makes that weird shriek. "Yeah, man. I mean—yeah, of course I know that." Dean nods, looks back at the river. His profile is still, thoughtful. "Where'd that come from?"

"I don't know," Dean says, and that's a lie and so Sam waits. He's been patient quite a bit, this last little while. Dean licks his lips, sighs. "I know I've been—it's been a lot. I mean, everything has." He drags his hand along his jaw—weird muscle memory from rubbing stubble, pointless now. "I'm pissed as hell. At Denise, and Gary. Pete, who can't get a damn drink order right. My piss-poor luck, in general. But I ain't pissed at you."

Carefully said but—true. True enough, at least, or true for now. Sam twists his straw again and Dean slants a look at him, and he seems honest. Steady, as steady as Dean can be these days, and whatever else might be going on it's at least one thing for them both to lean on. "Well," Sam says. "That's something."

Dean snorts. It's a dainty little sound. This particular girl is a porcelain teacup. "At least it's something," he says, and uses a grip on Sam's knee to slide down to the cold ground, and if things aren't perfect they're easier to live with, like this. Talking, when things are weird. Understanding each other, even if it's hard.

The sex helps. It shouldn't. It should be the weirdest goddamn thing in the world and—it is, of course it is, when Sam thinks about it or when he gets a check-in report from Bobby or when he stands next to yet another cute woman at a diner's hostess stand and knows that the waitress thinks they're dating—it's the strangest, most world-upending thing that's happened in Sam's life. This includes being told he's a vessel for the devil.

Dean's honest, though, during. Even if the intimacy is forced it's still closer than Sam's ever been with his brother, other than the night before Detroit, when they sat up together straight through and watched the sunrise on the day Sam was going to go to hell. That was silent, though, and terrifying, and what Sam gets from Dean in bed is—terrifying, sure, but only afterward, when it's over and Sam has to face himself in the mirror.

Before that, though—to turn and find Dean's mouth waiting, and his skin with its smell that's somehow still familiar, and his hands the wrong size and the calluses missing but finding their hold in Sam's hair, on the side of his face, on his neck where Dean so often dragged him close with rough affection, when they were younger. The sex is sex—it happens, it's good—and while they're lying there afterward, close and drained and loose, the space between them dwindles. An easiness unfurling in its place. One night before they get dinner Sam brings Dean to safety and afterward Dean leaves an arm around Sam's waist, curved into him and lax with his eyes closed. Trusting, in a way Sam wasn't sure he'd ever get from Dean again. Wasn't sure he'd deserve to get again, and yet here they are. Sam leans in and kisses the rounded curve of the girl's shoulder—not all he wants but something he thinks he can have—and Dean doesn't flinch or turn away or make any kind of comment. There's only the faintest twitch of his mouth, tipping up so faint at the corner that Sam wouldn't have noticed if he weren't avidly watching. Heartbreaker. It stays with him, through both of them showering and going back to that same diner—Dean shaped as himself this time, and the waitress doesn't seem to think a thing about it—and it changes things. It's changing things.

Sam's been on the phone with Bobby, hearing about his travails with Denise, and Dean's been ignoring that the way Dean's ignored pretty much everything to do with Denise since they left Wisconsin, even if Sam does have his cell on speaker. Apparently the research has been going slow, in part because Denise—genuinely contrite, apparently—has been insisting on helping. Never heard so much Shania Twain in my life, Bobby says, surly, and Sam snorts. I heard that.

Dean turns a page in the newspaper he's been studying. Sam clears his throat. "Any new info?"

Not much. I think I've got the variant on the Latin spell nailed down, though hell if I know how it interacted with this one's Italy-by-way-of-dontcha-know accent. Had to make some calls. Nora Havelock's got some old Italian work in her archive, she's sending stuff this way. Dean's shoulders round out, forbidding and tense over at the table. Sam wants to touch his back, calm him, but. Bobby continues: Oh, and we do have an update on the rolodex of ladies. You guys ever hear of something called InStyle?

When Bobby finally hangs up there's quiet in the motel room. Sam drags a hand over his face. Seems like Bobby's going a little bit nuts with his only company being a dingbat who takes her fashion tips from Peggy Bundy but Sam's got to remember not to have these chats where Dean can hear. Still, one mystery solved, at least. Why pick one female aspect to transform your husband into as punishment, when you could burn an entire hairstyle guide and give the spell fifty models to choose from. "Explains why you always end up with good hair, I guess," Sam says.

Dean stands up—male, tight-jawed, pissed again—and tosses the newspaper at Sam's lap. "Read," he says, ignoring Sam's attempt at any kind of lightheartedness, and he disappears into the bathroom while Sam sighs, and does as he's told to keep the peace.

A job. Sam sits up, reads closer. Three dead. Cops still seeking information. Closed-door mysteries, no suspects, all the crime scenes impossible. Unfortunately, impossible things happen every day. Dean's circled parts of the article in thick overdrawn circles, the pen pressing so hard into the paper that impressions are left, engraved shining black. Sam lets his fingertips run over the dents in the paper, thinks. He did want a job. He wanted life to feel like life again.

Dean comes out of the bathroom, wiping his hands on his jeans. His stubble's thick, overgrown almost into a beard, since he hardly gets a chance these days to shave. "What do you think?" he says, and he's not exactly pissed, now. Really asking, except Sam doesn't think he's asking about the case.

"What's the pretext?" Sam says. Dean frowns and Sam holds his hands up. "Hey, man, I'm not—I'm on board. I just want to think it through. Are we cops, reporters? If it's FBI we've got to keep making badges, and I don’t know if digging up an InStyle magazine from December's going to cut it for forgeries."

To his credit Dean doesn't argue. "I know. We have to be careful. Maybe I—I don't know, I'm on research duty, or something. Stuck at the house while you go out and do the work. Serve me right, after Rhode Island, huh?" He tries a smile that doesn't work all that well, and gives it up quick. He drags a hand over his stubble—it makes the right rasp, this time—and looks not into Sam's eyes but at some point in the middle of his chest. "I need to do… something, man. I gotta work. Anything that's not sitting around waiting for the next shitty thing to happen."

Honest, again. His eyes lift and meet Sam's and there's nothing hidden in them and Sam wants things that no longer seem impossible. He swallows down the first and second and third things he wants to say and says, instead, "Okay, Dean," and sees Dean's face slacken so-slightly in relief, and Sam smiles at him rather than stand up and change everything and then says, easy, "Then I think we're going to Davenport."

Working a job—it hasn't even been that long, but muscles Sam has been completely ignoring stretch and ache, just from settling back into the rhythm of it. Dean drives and Sam reads the news stories over again and they get there quick. Another motel—riverboat themed, this close to the thin northern tendrils of the Mississippi—and Dean's eager, raring to go, but there's nowhere to go. They sit on either side of the table and do their reading. Town history, anything they can find on the victims. Just some men, so far as they can tell. Went to the same high school—small town, lots of people went to the same high school—graduated in different years—got different jobs—lived different lives. Memorial coming up tomorrow for one of the vics, announced in the paper, and Sam notes the funeral home and then notes the time, 2:00 pm, and the concentration he's been able to drag together starts to fray.

"Good thing we bought that black suit," is all Dean says about it, and—well, that's all there is to say about it, then. Sam hopes it'll end up fitting, with whatever hairstyle model they end up with tomorrow morning, and that's all he can do. Among all the things he wishes were true: why couldn't Denise, if she were going to screw up this bad, at least just have picked one woman to curse her husband into being?

In the morning it's not as bad as it could be. Sam wakes up to his brother standing in the kitchenette in the thinnest grey of dawn. Sam squints at the body, sizing her up—maybe 5'8, curvy but not all the way to plump, with wavy almost-black hair that's cut long enough that he can tuck it up into a bun. The room smells like coffee, for which Sam's grateful, although it's not the best sign. Dean's been waking up earlier than Sam, most days. Sam hopes he's getting sleep but it's not the time to ask. He clears his throat of morning thickness and sits up, wanting vaguely to pee. "Your shoes fit?" he says, hoping he's not going to be sent out once again to pick something Dean's sure to declare frumpy, and Dean turns around and says, "Finally," with real exasperation, and then he comes and sits down on the side of Sam's bed and looks him square in the face and says, "Hey, fuck me now, would you?"

Sam freezes, scratching his stomach. "Uh," is all he can manage.

Dean looks fairly rested, eyes clear, a rich dark brown. Freckles again, spattered all over, and a confident, encouraging look on his face. "I was thinking—I mean—we haven't tried it this early yet, but if we're working—dude, I'd rather be me than the tenth version of Nancy, you know?"

"Uh," Sam says, again, and when Dean raises his eyebrows Sam scrubs both hands over his face and tries to get himself together. "Yeah—I—yeah, that makes sense. But—it's only been like an hour or something, right, so you're not—"

"Don't need to want it to do it," Dean says, with a calm flat note in his voice that makes Sam look up. This girl's got a wide mouth that quirks up at whatever expression Sam's wearing. "Come on, man. You can get it up, right?"

Condescending, which is so rare from Dean that Sam's instant raised hackles shift into—he doesn't even know what he's feeling. Fuck, it's early. "I can," he says, deliberate and even, and Dean nods at him, like he's picking up some play they're running, and…

He brushes his teeth first. Pisses, and swabs himself clean, and looks at himself in the mirror. He should shave. From behind the closed door Dean calls, "Dude, are you primping in there? Come on, I'm a cheap date." Sam closes his eyes, breathes through the wave of—fuck, of whatever that rolls through him, and doesn't bother.

God, it's awkward. Dean's expectant, waiting for Sam to do what they know he can do, and Sam settles against him in the other bed with his brain trying to do three or four things at once. He wishes he'd had a cup of coffee first. They kiss, because Sam's not going to fuck Dean again without kissing him, and Dean goes with it but it's—mechanical, odd. Primarily just feels wet without need behind it. Sam slows down, holds Dean's jaw carefully and breathes his smell and tries to sink into the strange tangle it's been for the last week, but—it's not the same, with Dean holding him back only lightly, the heat not there.

"Sammy," Dean says, soft, when Sam pulls away and kisses his throat instead, and Sam runs his teeth lightly along the sweet line of the tendon but Dean only shivers and whispers, come on, and—christ, can Sam do it?

They've had sex eight times and even if Dean's body keeps changing it's still a woman, and Sam's still himself, and they aren't surprising to each other. As far as they know the goal is to force Dean's body to have an orgasm via Sam's penis, but it's not going to happen just because they decide it should. He ducks down and Dean spreads his thighs—a shaved pussy this time, spread loose lips and a thick clit—and Dean's not wet at all when Sam sets to work but he does jerk up into Sam's tongue on that first lick, his heels drawing up and his body waking, slowly. Sam closes his eyes, settles in—his own body starting to want it, just from the taste, the familiarity. He suckles, works, uses his teeth and his fingers, and Dean's hands go to his shoulders, his hair, hold him as he starts to give it up to Sam, salt-tang, dark as the sea.

Sam's got three fingers buried up in him and he's worked Dean's clit as stiff and hard as he can when Dean groans, Sam, and Sam smears his wet mouth against Dean's heaving belly and lifts up, his dick ready from getting Dean ready, and Dean grabs him, nods all quick and urgent, and Sam scoops an arm under the small of his back and gets Dean's thighs around his hips and feeds himself inside on a thick-quick thrust. Dean makes a little hurt sound against his ear, but it's not—needing, not like before. Sam tucks his head down against Dean's shoulder and angles his hips, careful and precise, and surges back in with his cockhead dragging all over the inside wall where for most girls it's best, and Dean grips him with small urgent hands and pressing knees and makes another tiny sound, and so Sam hauls in his focus and takes a breath and—goes, as steady a pace as he can manage, hitting him there again and again, as long as it'll take, as long as he has to.

Dean gets hotter—under this level of focused stimulation it'd be impossible for him not to, unless the magic were preventing it—and the magic's not preventing it, from how wet and flushed and needy he finally is, but nothing's happening. The spot's right and Sam's working of his clit is right and Sam suckling and then biting at his full fat tits is right, and it's not happening. Sam pulls out, flips Dean onto his stomach, drives back in and nails him as hard as he dares right there and Dean moans, clutches back at Sam's hip, and nothing. Sam kisses all over the sweating shoulders and gets to his knees, hauls Dean up to kneeling with him, pulses inside in this short grinding stroke that's never failed him once, tries it soft and coaxing and sweet and then tries it hard, gripping one breast vicious enough that Dean squirms back against him, shocked and trying to get away but of course he can't, and Sam bites his shoulder and rubs and rubs and rubs at his poor stiff clit and thinks of—baseball, cold showers—of anything, of maggots in corpse-meat and Lucifer smiling at him sympathetic and of Bobby, just where he is right now, trying to fuck Dean and getting nowhere—and he's not, he's not, he's getting nowhere.

"Dean," he says, slowing, sorry. Dean shakes his head, covers Sam's hand on his clit and presses it harder against himself, arches back and kicks his hips into Sam's, taking over for the first time, but there's no point. Sam closes his eyes tight, breaks Dean's grip embarrassingly easy, tangles his fingers with Dean's and drags away to hold his hip, to slow him down. He hauls in air, ignores the smell and the taste of Dean still thick under his tongue, talks directly into the shell of Dean's ear. "Dean, it's not—we can't yet. We can't."

It's hard to pull out—harder to pull away, separating his skin from Dean's—his dick bobbing wet and furious at him, and he cups a hand around himself, shuddering, turns his face away. Dean slumps down to hands and knees, flushed and sweat-soaked, long hair falling down in curtains around his face, moaning, and Sam—christ—wants to shove into him anyway, wants to drain his balls and frustration all at once, wants to fuck—and he should say sorry or that it's okay—but he can't, he bolts to the bathroom and turns on the shower just for the noise and jerks off, instead, leaning over the toilet and fisting himself with his brain blissfully blank, needing the physical relief and not able to think of anything else.

When he finally comes out, showered and shamed, Dean's sitting at the table, in a t-shirt and shorts, reading their print-outs. "Think we ought to talk to Mrs. Wilde after the memorial," Dean says, before Sam can figure out any kind of apology. This woman's voice is pleasant, low, and Dean doesn't sound upset. "Or, I don't know, keep an eye out for her if she's there. Her husband was the first to go so he's probably our best shot at figuring out the scope of this thing."

"Yeah," Sam says. Dean's eyes stay on the printouts, skimming through the information. He's working, steady, and it wouldn't be questionable if the last half hour hadn't happened. Sam watches the still, pretty face, and he chews the inside of his lip, and then he comes and sits down, on the opposite side of the table, and says, "Hey," and to his credit Dean doesn't pretend he doesn't know what Sam's asking.

"It's fine." Sam's silence clearly speaks volumes; Dean lets out a short breath, looks up. "It would've made it easier, that's all. I can wear the stupid suit, I can play it. We'll make another Nancy ID. It's fine." Rue at the corner of his mouth, then, and he drops the printouts to the table. "Weird to be that kind of frustrated. Guess I should feel sorrier for unloved wives. Which, guess that's the point of this whole shebang, right?"

"Guess so," Sam says. Dean's eyebrows pop and he leans back in his chair, looks out at the slowly rising day. Apparently calm, in a way that he doesn't look like he's faking so Sam won't talk, and—Sam mostly believes it. Won't get more, if he pushes. At least not now.

"Yeah, well," Dean says, like he's finishing the conversation. A sigh and then he sits up, shoves the articles toward Sam. "I gotta clean up and my eyes are blurring, reading these over and over. Your turn to do the research, geekboy." He drains the last of his cup of coffee and stands, grabs a pile of the girl-clothes they've started keeping in their own bag. He pauses, though, before disappearing into the bathroom, and when Sam looks up a muscle in Dean's jaw twitches. "Hey, just so I'm sure," he says, lightly. "Since you whacked it, you're sure you're gonna be able to get it up again tonight? I'm not gonna die from your gas tank being on E, am I?"

Not very often Dean can get Sam to blush, now that he's out of his teens. "It'll be fine," he says, face hot, and Dean raises his eyebrows like he's not so sure, says, "If you say so, playboy," and the door closes, and Sam puts his head in his hands, breathes out a weird burst of humiliation. So. Maybe Dean's a little pissier than Sam thought.

Sam's very comfortable in funeral parlors. They tend to have the same ambience: neutral tones, calm woods. Gently piped-in classical music, probably from a professional CD called somber strings. People gather in dark semi-formal clothes and speak in little soft-voiced knots and there's always the burst of recognition from two people who haven't seen each other since the last wedding or funeral, surprise quickly hushed into god, it's good to see you, sorry that we're meeting again like this. The script tends to follow similar lines.

He's been to dozens and dozens of funerals; he knows his own part, knows how to fake like a distant cousin or a family friend—oh, didn't he mention me? that's okay—or when to pull the detective pretext, gently asking questions. So sorry to bother you in your time of loss. It's easy, after all these years, and it should be a piece of cake today. It would be, if Dean were—Dean. Sam talks to the widow and to the best friend and to the grieving father and he intakes information on automatic, because that's what he does, that's the job, and he's sympathetic and he plays his part well because he's not an asshole, but the whole time he's watching his brother—his sister—Dean, circulating through the crowd in the mostly-fitting black suit and the black flats and the hair semi-reasonably done in a professional-ish updo learned from a YouTube video, an hour ago, and he can't focus. It's ridiculous. He wasn't this scattered in the weeks after Jessica died.

They're FBI, for this pretext. It's very inappropriate that they're here. The best friend says that Larry was a great guy, he volunteered at church, he captained the softball team. What do you mean, do you think there's something going on? The father says that Larry was a great student, good son, wonderful dad to his own children. What, do you have any leads? The wife says, red-eyed but curiously keeping it together, "He was an extremely moral person. Very private. He loved us all but he kept himself to himself."

Sam's attention wrenches from Dean, beautiful face directed with soft charm at some other man across the funeral home, back to the present. "What do you mean?" he says, marshalling his focus. "Do you feel like there were things Mr. Tanner didn't tell you?"

Mrs. Tanner stares at him, and then smiles very briefly. No humor; it's as though the corners of her mouth jerk up and down on some strange, autonomic reflex. "No one tells their spouse everything," she says. "We can't. You'd go crazy. Some things you just have to keep quiet for the good of the household. Larry had his own life, just like I had my own things. I know he cared for me, and he did his duty, and that's what was important. You can't ask for more than that."

They sneak out, when the singing starts for the service. There's snow gathered all around the edges of the full parking lot and Dean leans his ass against the car, folds his arms against the cold, blows out a foggy stream of white air. "Good Samaritan or best Samaritan?"

Sam snorts, but just because Dean expects it. The Tanner children are fresh in his mind: girl and boy, seven and four, holding hands with adults and eyes heavy with uncertainty. "You talk to the wife?" he says, after a minute.

Dean shakes his head. "Did catch Mrs. Wilde, though, and Malcolm Iverson—he was the super tall old guy with the bald spot?" Sam did notice, yes—Mr. Iverson seemed to be looking down Dean's cleavage during the whole of their conversation. "Yeah. Definitely something connecting the three vics. Not just a wrong-place-wrong-time, not with this one. There's something hinky."

Despite himself, Sam smiles. "Hinky?"

Dean rolls his eyes. "Un-you-sual," he says, exaggerated. "Bizaaaarre, odd. Weird, okay?"

"Okay," Sam says, still grinning, and Dean goes tch, throws up his hands, circles around to the passenger seat. For some reason he's been reluctant to drive when he's in his female forms and at this point Sam's mostly taking it in stride. They sit on either side of the bench seat and Sam turns the engine over, takes the first blast of icy air from the vents and puts his fingers against one, waiting for it to warm. "So. Library? More research?"

Dean groans, tipping his head back against the bench. Sam glances over, taking in the smooth column of his throat and the way his hair gathers at the nape of his neck and, more importantly, the way that past the feminine shape his body language still reads, incredibly, just like his brother—and then Dean says, "Fine," and Sam drags his eyes away, and Dean says, "Drive on, Watson," and Sam says on automatic something about how that reference doesn't make sense, and Dean says something about how if one of them is Sherlock Holmes surely it's the cooler brother, and it's dumb banter and pointless besides and it's what Sam needs, to stop thinking about how badly, how entirely, how consumingly he wants to say something he isn’t allowed to say. He doesn't lie to himself. Lies to Dean—those he's still not sure on.

On the phone, Bobby's gruff but professional. Sounds like what happened when it was my turn, he says. Sam has his eyes closed and slowly, deliberately slams his head into the library wall. 'My turn.' God. That fits with what we've been putting together here. The whole punishment's about being made to feel like an object—how can it mess with you if it's something you're actually choosing to do?

"Makes sense," Sam says. His stomach turns, thinking of Dean groaning on the bed—backing away from the quivering soft body—and he clears his throat, imagines clean bright snow at the cabin where Bobby's still working. Denise has been commuting, when Gary's at work. More helpful, apparently, now that she understands more of what's going on. Go figure.

Sam? Sam jolts; he's been quiet too long. There's a sigh, crackly through the phone. Look, you're doing what you've got to do. You're saving his life. Don't think too much about the other stuff.

"Yeah," Sam says, and opens his eyes, and on the far side of the library there's Dean, scrolling through microfiche for birth announcements and death records, just what they always do, except that this time he's a lovely, warm brunette with the prettiest nape of the neck Sam's ever seen. He wants his brother back and wants to put his lips on the firmer, rougher skin there, to taste the difference.

Bobby grunts. Anyhow. I sent Rufus for a grimoire I heard tell of a few years back. Hope that gives us a direction on how to fix this thing. Should take him a few days but I'll let you know what we find out.

Rufus, Havelock. Soon the whole intellectual hunting world is going to know about this spell.

At the microfiche Dean's frustrated, tapping his nails while he scrolls. "Did you get attacked by Swamp Thing in the shitter, or what," he says, and the tone's harder than a crack like that would usually carry and so Sam doesn't respond. Dean blows a strong breath through his nostrils, shoves his notepad over to Sam. "Here's what I've got so far, maybe you can actually help."

High tense shoulders. The mood's shifted, sometime when Sam was gone. He checks his watch, but it's almost two hours still until the flip from blank to needy. He sits quiet, looks at the evidence.

Three dead men: Larry, Calvin, Rob; ages 38, 39, 41; married and two kids, married and three kids, divorced and no kids; Methodist, Catholic, atheist; different jobs; different lives; different places of death. They're going to have to visit the coroner and see about the actual causes of death, beside what minimal detail was given in the papers, but from what they've seen it's not a monster—no big-eyed panic about missing hearts or brains or blood. Just—dead, for no reason, in such a quick span that it caught the attention of the little local paper and therefore of the hunters who were nearby, and that's all they have to go on. Just that men died and they shouldn't have.

"I made an appointment with the sawbones for tomorrow at 9:00," Dean says, abrupt. He shoves a half-foot away from the desk, casters squeaking on the cheap carpet, and sighs, folding his hands over his stomach. "Dude, I don't know. There's nothing. We're gonna have to talk to—everybody. What's the connection?"

Sam doesn't have an answer and doesn't pretend to one. Dean glances at him for the silence, and then away, and his lips press together and for the first time Sam notices that—oh, this girl has the same little dimples Dean will get, when he's annoyed and makes his mouth that particular shape. Oddly charming.

It's an ugly library. Not many people come here, especially not in the late afternoon of a winter's Friday. Dean slumps in the chair, eyes distant on the cheap beige bookshelves and the fluorescent fixtures. "I want to go on vacation," he says, finally.

Sam blinks. "What?" Dean doesn't look at him. "What, now? Where?"

"Not now, we've got a job." Vaguely scornful but just for show, apparently. His eyes are heavy, body still and, somehow, feeling miles away from Sam, even though he could reach out and get a hand on Dean's jaw, tip it to a softer angle. "Just—sometime. Feels like we haven't had a day off in… hell if I know. Me and Lisa took Ben to Cedar Point once, for his spring break from school. Felt weird. Maybe just because so much of that whole year felt like… I don't know. Waiting. Lisa wanted to go, do something special, so I loaded up the truck and off we went. Never paid so much for funnel cake in my life."

That might be the most Dean's said about the year Sam didn't see since Sam got back. He swallows, carefully waiting, but Dean doesn't continue on that vein and just shakes his head, sighs.

"I wanna go somewhere warm. Nobody asking me for nothing, no one to say do this or do that. No friggin' demons or angels or anybody saying jump, so I don't have to pretend I don't need to know how high. Me and a bottle of tequila and a Nic Cage retrospective on cable. That's all I need."

Sam notes, because he can't help it, that there's very much not room in this vacation for two. He swallows down any embarrassing vague hurt about the idea and puts on a smirk. "Didn't know you liked Con Air that much."

Dean tips his head toward Sam, frowning. "You joking?" he says, after a second. "Am I an idiot? Of course I like Con Air. Who doesn't like Con Air?" Sam raises his hands in surrender, and if it were any other month Dean would warm to the subject, bitch more, say something about Cage's haircuts compared to the quality of the movie—but Dean just looks at him, still draped over the chair like a discarded thing. A soft huff, and another appearance of those surprising little dimples. "I guess you can come," Dean says, after another few seconds. Sam blinks. Dean sits up, with a groan, and tips his head side to side until something cracks in the slim neck. "Someone's got to go out on taco runs on the vacation, right?"

"Glad I've got some value, here," Sam says, dry, and Dean doesn't smile but uses Sam's shoulder to heave himself upright, and Sam sits in the horrible little library chair, watches Dean's back, the black suit narrowing and thinning to a violin-shape in the sunset-light coming in the front doors until he disappears, and then Sam closes his eyes. Imagines: a motel somewhere, and a movie on the tv, and a king-size bed, and Dean turning and smiling at him with his own real wide dorky smile, tequila on his mouth. Lazy, free. It wouldn't suck.

More research, more fruitless work. They split up for a while, questioning family members and friends. Rob Iverson, great guy, good bowler. Calvin Wilde, good to his employees. Perfect, perfect Larry. Sam and Dean text each other throughout the day, updating on locations and following up on leads and saying, again and again, anything? No. They get together for dinner around eight and Dean says, unpinning his hair irritably while they're waiting for their burgers at a bar that, Sam hopes, won't transform anyone into anything, "You feel like these guys are all too good to be true?"

Fair, and admittedly strange. In the police records they all had enough of a presence to not feel fake—a few traffic violations and parking tickets among them, a time Calvin got caught up in a barfight when he was twenty and managed to sock a guy hard enough that someone pressed charges. Rob's divorce was more or less amicable, though his ex-wife moved over to Ohio and didn't come to the funeral. On the phone, she sounded vaguely stunned while Sam went through his questions, and could only come up with, I don't know, I just felt like we never really—connected? I can't believe it. To go out all alone, like that.

Comparing notes, discussing possibilities. Dean's money is on a crossroads demon—but why, Sam argues, when none of them had any real windfalls in their small, unremarkable lives. Sam's money is on a witch, and Dean rolls his eyes and says it's just because Sam's got witchcraft on the brain, and—well, that's fair enough, maybe. There's just nothing to go on.

They're both annoyed when they get back to the motel. Half-past nine and Dean hasn't complained yet, hasn't said a thing, but Sam knows they've got a job to do. Dean glares at the bed—flush to his cheeks, shine to his lips from how he keeps licking them—and Sam wants him so instantly and intensely that his knees go a little weak, blood flooding to his crotch. "Ready?" he says, and it comes out rough, and Dean angles the glare back along his shoulder, and when Sam fits his hand around the back of Dean's neck Dean grabs him right back, soft curvy body all irritated angles and greed.

It's a good, urgent fuck. Dean actually wanting it—unnatural want or not—makes all the difference. Sam makes him come twice, the required one as an apology of sorts for that morning's failure and the second just an indulgence, with a slightly smug delight. Holding back, playing the body now that he knows its weak points, making Dean curve into him and lose all his pissy defiance and make just the sweetest, most delightful noises. When Sam's done he holds Dean's thighs loosely sweaty against his sides and rubs his cheekbone against Dean's and takes Dean's heaving bellows-breath against his throat, and all the tension in him feels like it's been wrung out like water from a sponge, his muscles loose and his bones warm and his skin molded familiarly against Dean's skin. He touches his nose to the sweaty-warm spot above Dean's ear where the long dark hair has gone damp, and presses his lips to his cheek. Dean sighs gustily against him and wraps his arm around Sam's neck and Sam presses his hips up deeper against Dean's so that his dick crushes sticky-wet all the way inside, even soft, and Dean's chest heaves—breasts rising against Sam's pecs—and Sam kisses the corner of his mouth, just where those tiny dimples rise, and against his lips he feels the soft, stretching satisfaction of Dean's smile.

They lie together afterward. Nowhere to be, and Sam can tell Dean's tired. He hands over some tissues and Dean wipes between his legs, unselfconscious, and stretches out after, skin gleaming, arms folded behind his head. Sam leans his head on one hand and doesn't pretend he's not looking. This particular woman's body isn't really his usual taste—more of a Dean girl, curves and fullness—but there's something about the ripeness of her body that's doing something for him. Maybe more in how Dean's settled in her, fully, calm now that all the frustration of the day seems to have spilled away. Orgasms really do make things better.

"I'd say take a picture 'cause it lasts longer, but in this case it literally will," Dean says. A sidelong look through the woman's eyelashes and Sam shrugs, caught. A snort. Dean stretches his hands over his head, making his spine as long as possible, and settles back down a little lower on the bed, one knee pulled up, lazy and tipped, just a little, toward Sam. "You like it, huh."

Sam holds his breath, actually-caught. Dean doesn't seem upset, though—no accusation, or betrayal. He looks down the length of his borrowed body. Cups a breast, almost meditative. Dean says, "I mean, I guess this is more than you'd get in like fifty years, with your game," and Sam says, quietly, "Don't," and Dean glances at him but does him the favor of not going on and on. He nods instead, and stays quiet, and touches his nipple softly. Watching, Sam realizes that he hasn't really seen Dean touch himself much, not since that first awful night. Like the bodies really are just—containers that someone else got to do things to. Nothing to do with the person inside.

Horrible thought. Sam takes a deep breath and says, honest, "It's good," and turns in, watches Dean's fingers gently moving and his downturned pretty face in equal measure. "I wish it weren't happening to you but, I mean, like we said. Being miserable about it wasn't helping anybody."

Dean gives him an odd little look, for that, but raises his eyebrows briefly in acknowledgment. Sam watches his face for a moment. "I have a really stupid question," he says, and Dean murmurs, "Not too late to stop yourself," and Sam hesitates, long enough for Dean to drop his hand from his breast and sigh, before he says, "Do you hate it?"

He regrets it even as it's leaving his mouth. There's no good answer Dean can give. But it's—these warm pooled sheets and the way their bodies are soft from each other and the kind of intimacy that's born from no other place but this. These end-of-the-world kind of places.

Some kind of luck: Dean doesn't kill him. He bites the corner of his mouth, and then rolls fully onto his side, mirroring Sam. Reaches out, and touches Sam's stomach—firm, unsexy. A prod, like to check that Sam's really there.

"Don’t know how I ended up in this universe," Dean says. Very soft, so soft Sam has to tip in to hear. Dean looks at him, and then down at his stomach, and then—further, to where Sam's dick has gone soft and is lying over his thigh. Sam swallows and the room's so quiet that the creak of his throat is loud, and Dean huffs, shakes his head. "Never thought I'd…"

What? Sam wants to know the end of that sentence very badly but his attention's torn by how Dean's still looking at his dick and he's aware, in a way that's making blood flow in opposite directions, that he could—he's not actually worn out. If Dean doesn't stop staring, he could—

Thank god, Dean sighs, and tips over onto his stomach, and folds his arms under his head. Looks at Sam's face instead of anywhere more dangerous and his expression is—relaxed maybe not the right word, but not upset either. "I guess if I had to get dicked by someone who loves me, you're the best of some creepy, terrible options," Dean says. Sam feels his face do something bizarre and Dean's mouth hitches at the corner, his eye crinkling. "Make you feel better?"

"Not exactly," Sam says, and Dean laughs, smile tucked down into the fold of his elbow. Sam can't help but smile back. How long have they been lying here? At least a few minutes more, until the change, but even if asking could get him nothing but pain he still wants to ask. "Promise you won't punch me," he says, and Dean of course does not promise but gives him a skeptical eyebrow, and lifts his face up enough that he's really looking at Sam straight on. "Bobby's—Bobby. Was it…?"

"The most embarrassing thing that has ever happened in my entire life," Dean says, flat. Sam winces and Dean lifts up onto his elbows, narrowing his eyes. "That includes that time I got pantsed in the 3^rd grade in front of Josie McNamara." It could be funny but isn't. Sam waits. Dean licks his lips, tips his head down toward his shoulder, like that's any kind of shield. "I don't know, man. He was trying to be nice about it. Bobby's not great at nice, not sure you noticed, but he was trying, and… that made it worse. I don't know why." His mouth tilts, but there's still no humor to it. "He didn't come. I guess that's something."

Sam flinches and immediately tries to suppress the flinch, but it doesn't stop Dean noticing. He didn't even consider that Bobby—wouldn't have. He remembers Dean, sitting there on the edge of the bed, shirt still on like it was some kind of privacy. How completely, overwhelmingly horrible.

Dean's looking at him, steady. The eyes are almost the shape of his real eyes, Sam notices, finally—the color's wrong but the upturned curve to the corner is the same. These echoes, like his real brother is peeking up through the unfamiliar bones. "You want details?" Dean says, while they're just looking at each other, and Sam stops looking at his eyes in order to actually look at him, and Dean's… neutral. Like if Sam really wanted to know he'd say.

What Sam wants doesn't matter. He chews the inside of his lip, and reaches out, and Dean holds still while Sam tucks a loose twist of hair behind his ear. "I'm glad it's me," he says. Dean's eyes tighten. Sam lifts a shoulder. "After everything that's happened? Whether I remember it or not. At least with this I'm keeping you safe."

Dean looks all over his face, really studying him. Sam's too warm to turn away. Maybe too much. Honest usually is.

"Ferris Bueller, you're my hero," Dean finally says, the barest hint of nasal so it's a reference at all. Sam huffs, looking down, but then Dean leans over and kisses him—on the forehead, and only briefly, just a sweet brief glance of affection—before he rolls over, off the bed, closes the door to the bathroom.

When Sam was five or six, maybe—before monsters were real—he and Dean shared a pull-out couch in a little apartment their dad had put them in. Sam doesn't know if they were renting or squatting; what he remembers is Dad's cot up against the wall, and how the pull-out was always out, and how he and Dean would watch cartoons, laying on their stomachs, the lights out and the curtains pulled against the day so that the whole room took on this weird brownish cast, like brackish water, and the tv bright and searing, and Dean pressed against his side, and how sometimes he'd wake up without knowing how he'd fallen asleep, and in the dim fog of memory very specific details stood out. The tv-light, and the ugly curtains. The bottles under Dad's bed. How, every once in a while, Dean would be holding him, an arm looped around his back and a coat thrown over the both of them as a blanket, and Sam would pretend to be asleep, listening to the tv that had turned into local news or boring grown-up shows. Even when there weren't yet monsters life was a pain, always having to run somewhere or do something with no one telling him why, and Dean was sometimes mean or sometimes scary, and Sam didn't know enough yet then to know the cause. Pretending to be asleep was nicer. Not least because, sometimes, when Sam was cozy and dozing and escaping the world, Dean would sigh, and then would press a kiss against the top of his head, hard and brief through his hair, and when that happened Sam had this warm shivery bolt go right through his tummy to his chest and he felt as good as he'd feel for the rest of the day.

The shower turns on. Sam wipes a hand over his face, smearing the wet at the corners of his eyes. He should turn on the laptop, see if he can dig up some town history about things that had been going on around the time the first guy died. The sheets are still warm. He'll get up, in a minute.

Sam ends up going alone to the coroner. Dean's girl, appearing right on schedule at 7:21 am, proves to be another pretty black model spattered with Dean-like freckles and even eyes that are verging on greenish, which is a startlingly beautiful combination, but she's a skinny scant five foot and the suit is so ill-fitting that it's clownish, and Dean stares at himself in irritable betrayal in the mirror and then throws Sam the keys and goes directly back to bed.

The coroner's an older guy, fairly polite, asks after the lady who called before. "Agent Wilson's following a different lead," Sam says, and the coroner smiles, says, "Too bad, was looking forward to meeting her," with this little note in his voice that could be completely professional, if Sam weren't a man who'd been dealing with men like this his entire life. It hasn't usually been angled at his brother.

If the guy notices Sam's instant change in temperature he doesn't mention it. He goes through the files. There are no bodies to look at because even if the deaths were strange they couldn't come up with anything that was truly foul play; the records will have to do. Sam sits at an unused desk and flips through photographs, all-caps descriptions of height and weight and time of death. None of them had any major medical problems beyond a little elevated cholesterol there, high blood pressure there. One a week, dropping on three consecutive Sunday nights, and the best the coroner could come up with was heart failure but there wasn't a lot there to confirm it. Everyone dies of heart failure, one way or another. Most people's hearts don't usually split open from the inside, so violently that the split cleaved all the way through their chest, like an invisible axe baring their core for the world to see. Not the goriest photos Sam's ever seen but some of the strangest, just because—nothing was taken, nothing's gone. They just burst, and died, and no real evidence pointing to why.

The one additional detail he's able to bring back to the motel, along with a very large coffee that he's secretly spiked with a little cinnamon sugar, are three photograph copies, which Dean squints at grimly through an undercaffeinated haze: a few darkish blotches, less than an inch in diameter, over the back of each man's neck.

"Pattern's not the same," Dean says. High girlish voice this time, which he clearly finds annoying from the way he keeps clearing his throat.

It's not, but it's strange nevertheless. "I don't know," Sam says. He points to the back of Larry's neck and Calvin's, where one of the dots seems to be in about the same place on each man, just at the side of the neck. "But it's something."

"Yeah," Dean says, squinting at them. "Yeah. Well, that's a mystery for when I've finished this coffee. Here, I've got something else."

More obits, although this time from the six months before Rob died. Mostly old people, because that's how obits go, but there are a few outliers. A mother in a car accident, a teen who killed himself. Maybe ten people, who might conceivably count as deaths outside their time, and that's the kind of outlier that's their job's bread and butter. Something to follow up on, and Sam leans back in his chair with his own oversized cup of coffee, imagining the rest of the long day: questioning loved ones who were barely grappling the overwhelming sense of loss they'd been forced to shoulder, with no good pretext for why. It's misery. "You have to help," he says to Dean, and Dean says, "You think I'm staying cooped up in here any longer than I have to, you're nuts. I think the guy in the steamboat picture is looking at me."

Sam snorts; the little riverboat casino print is pretty weird. Dean scratches at the back of his skull, floating his cloud of glossy curls further out from his head, and says, "You know, there's something else they kept saying, at the wake," and when Sam grunts he elaborates: "They were hiding something. The men. Even Iverson's ex said it, and they'd been divorced a long time. They all had something they weren't telling their wives. You think there's a wronged woman angle?"

It'd fit. It wouldn't be the first or tenth or even the hundredth case where that was so. Still: "Two jobs in a row of unsatisfied woman?" Sam says.

Dean shrugs. "If it is, you better keep your junk under lock and key, because there's no way in hell mine's getting stolen twice," he says, and drains his coffee.

Bitterly cold for the rest of the day. The river here is fairly narrow, splitting Iowa from Illinois, but this weird freezing wind skims off the surface and makes the terrible trips from car door to house or to office or to restaurant, talking to a waitress whose sister died, even more miserable than they would've been otherwise.

The waitress doesn't have much to say. Sam lights her cigarette for her and stands as a buffer against the wind so she can puff at it in wet-eyed misery, and she shrugs, says, "Viv knew lots of people. Small town, you know?"

Sam shows her the pictures, more flattering than the ones from the coroner. The waitress frowns at them, distractedly, clearly just wants to go inside, but waves her cigarette at Calvin's photo. "Oh, yeah, I know him. I dated him in high school. He died?"

Surprised, not upset. "A few weeks ago," Sam says, reshuffling the picture so Calvin's is on top. "So, you knew him? Not Vivian."

She shrugs again. "No? I mean, she maybe met him when he came over to the house. We didn't date very long, like—two months maybe. I broke up with him, started dating Walter. Not that he was any great shakes, neither."

Sam watches the ash on the cigarette grow by at least a centimeter with the next pull. Maybe best to avoid Walter. "I know it was a while back, but if I can ask—what was he like?"

"What, in high school?" She flicks the ash onto the wet pavement, blows a plume of smoke. "Played baseball but he was kind of a nerd. Went with me to junior prom—corsage, pictures, whole deal—but I don't know. He just never seemed that interested. Rather play video games with his friends than neck in the back row of the movie theater." She shakes her head, puts out her cigarette on the brick wall, swipes her bangs tiredly away from her forehead. "And miss out on all this, can you believe it."

High school. Sam goes to the 1989 yearbook for North High, the year Rob would've been a senior. He finds the boys, senior and sophomore and freshman. All of them as gawky as teenagers should be, although Calvin was growing an ill-advised moustache. There he was, on the baseball team, and Larry in the AV club, and Rob running the school newspaper, and there were a few people that were on the baseball team and the paper and one guy who was in AV club and the baseball team but no one who threaded through all three, and none of the unexpected dead people on his list of obits match anyone in the yearbook's index anyway, and he slams the book closed and earns a startled look from the librarian and is sitting there staring at the wall, trying to think, when his phone rings, and Dean says, with zero preamble, what do you know about Dungeons and Dragons?

In 1989 Rob was almost 19, and Calvin was 17, and Larry was 16, and the 2^nd Edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons had been published, and there were orcs and elves and wizards and rogues and the satanic panic element had died way down, and according to Malcolm Iverson, Rob's dad, the boys would get together every Sunday afternoon after they'd done their chores and homework—because the Iversons were sticklers for homework—and play pretend.

Sam grimaces his way to a smile. He had a couple of friends in college who were into D&D, or something similar anyway—there were charts and dice and really fervent discussions of armor class—and they'd tried to get him to play but it sounded like what he'd tried to escape from but dumber, and he never really got into it. He kept asking why he couldn't just shoot the goblin in the head, and Sandeep had tried once again to explain percentages and rolling and that if he had a dex modifier, he could do x y or z. Sam, a little drunk, had wanted to say that the chances of missing a shot depended entirely on steadiness of breath and sightlines and whether you'd stepped in a rabbit hole in the woods because your stupid brother wasn't holding the flashlight like he was supposed to, and anyway if you did miss then you just racked the shotgun and fired again immediately, because real life combat didn't take turns, and the only hit points that mattered were the ones in brain and heart. He only attended the one session, in the end.

The boys had no such hesitation. It was a steady social engagement, nearly every Sunday for nearly three years, even when Rob was going to college over in Cedar Rapids and Calvin was starting work after graduating high school. Some other friends came and went—Mr. Iverson couldn't remember who. There were just always boys in the basement, ignoring the football on upstairs and begging the late Mrs. Iverson for snacks, if she were willing to provide them. "Any girls?" Sam says, and Mr. Iverson snorts. Yeah, that figures.

Dean's in a combination of female clothes that make him vaguely plausible as a reporter, doing a human interest story on the late gentlemen, since they were such friends back in the day. Luckily Iverson doesn't seem to recognize Sam from the funeral, his attention then entirely on Dean's curves and his attention now on Dean's sweet, easy smile. Sam sighs, pointing their camera at the basement, just to show willing. These men.

As the 'photographer' for the story Sam doesn't have a lot to pretend with, since the room's been renovated into a home gym at some point in the last twenty years. A dusty treadmill, a weight bench with boxes stacked on it. Sam takes a picture of the room from the foot of the stairs while Dean draws Iverson away to the side, by a low bookshelf that looks like Iverson never touches it. "So, when did the boys stop playing their game?" Dean says, all innocent, pen poised over his notepad. "Anything that made them give it up? Seems like they were good pals."

"They were, they were," Iverson says. Warm, charmed. Sam can't tell if these old guys are just all letches or if Dean's got some skillset he's never let Sam in on. "But no, I just don't know. Sometime when Robbie was… oh, twenty-two or so. Right about when he dropped out of the college, there. They were all here one weekend and then gone the next, and never came back. They lost interest, I guess. Grew out of it, maybe." He looks over the room, transformed from a teen hangout to blandness. "Just as glad to have some peace and quiet, but it wasn't so bad. At least Rob had his friends."

In the car, Dean's animated. "So, Rob's twenty-two, Calvin's twenty, Larry's nineteen—and they've been hanging out for three years straight—and then Rob drops out of college and it all stops, just like that? Sounds to me like something happened."

"Definitely," Sam says, angling the car toward a bar—he needs a drink, after this many conversations with the bereaved, and doesn't think Dean will object—"But how the hell are we going to figure out what happened some Sunday in… what, 1992?"

"Why do you think I asked what you knew about Dungeons and Dragons," Dean says, and from the bulky purse he's been carrying to hold his real gun and fake badge and not much else, he pulls a copy of something called the Player's Handbook, battered at the corners and featuring some Viking-looking guy on a horse on the cover, and from there, triumphantly, an old smeared set of pages covered in, Sam sees with a sinking feeling, those old charts. Dean flips through the set—maybe ten pages in total—and snorts. "Who do you think Thorgaz the Merciful was, and do you think he ever got any tail? Three guesses, first two don't count."

"You’re a jerk," Sam says, but to be honest—given the picture forming, given what the waitress said—it's probably not… wrong.

They work at the bar, and order food while they're working. The night's drawing in cold and it's good to be in a dingy dive with decent burgers and what Dean abruptly claims are the best wings in Iowa. Home base, of a kind, especially with both of them putting their heads together, working, trying to match what they've learned about the dead men with the people they were decades ago.

Other stuff tucked into the guide: notes, hand-drawn maps. From Sam's vague memory someone would have been in charge of the game each week, running things and making up the story and telling everyone whether they were allowed to shoot something in the head or if it missed for no good reason, and it seems like it was Rob, just from what they have here. What else was on that bookshelf?

From what they have: three of them really were there every week. An elf, a dwarf, a human. A handful of friends seem to have come and gone, with half-finished character sheets and notes that one or the other of them 'died', so they'd have a reason for their stories not to continue. A note: Orc hunt with Chris?? Benny wants to fight a drider, check MM. "I am so glad I spent my teen years getting laid," Dean mutters, trying to arrange this into any kind of a timeline, and Sam covers his mouth so Dean won't catch him smiling.

It is kind of nice, in its own way. They were a bunch of teenagers who weren't getting into any trouble on the weekend, because they were in a fantasyland where they could be heroic and strong. There are worse ways to be eighteen. Of course, then it all stopped, and with destroyed hearts on the line it's not going to be a nice reason why.

They leave the bar at about ten, make it back to the steamboat room at about half-past, because Dean wanted to stop by a liquor store and was in a good enough mood that Sam couldn't raise an objection. The five-foot woman doesn't hold booze that well—they maybe had four beers, over the long evening of digging through fantasy-land, and Dean's bordering on ebullient. Sam can't stop smiling at him and of course that just makes Dean more… Dean.

"If these guys had had those Lord of the Rings movies back in '89 I think their pimply heads would've popped," Dean's saying, wrestling out of his little boots, gestures too big for emphasis. "Seriously, man. Liv Tyler with the, the pointy ears? Friggin' fantastically hot." Sam snorts at the pun, pouring their whiskeys. "Right? And uh, what's her name, with the sword and the horses? Chick was awesome. No wonder the little curly guy was so into her."

It takes Sam a second. "Eowyn?" Dean snaps, points at him, makes grabby hands for his drink. Sam's trying to not grin but god, he's just—cute like this. "I didn't know you liked those so much."

Dean slurps at the whiskey, shaking his head. "Sammy, Sammy. They all came out around Christmas-time, right? And they were all, like, five hours long. Best way to kill time out of the cold when you're trying not to pull your stitches is to hang out in a movie theater with a full flask and extra-buttery popcorn. I think I saw the third one like—eight times that year. Not like I had anywhere else to be."

No apparent bitterness. Sam looks down at his cup, bites the inside of his cheek.

"Guess you probably liked Aragon, right? Big hero dude who also needs a haircut and a better relationship with shampoo."

"Aragorn," Sam corrects. When he looks up Dean's leaned back on one elbow, smiling at him all lazy. Completely fine. Sam sits on the other bed, kicks at Dean's lightly. "Screw you, by the way. I wash my hair."

"Not back then, you didn't," Dean says, and this time his grin's ear-splitting at the face Sam makes, and Dean drains his whiskey in a big gulping swallow and tosses the paper cup off to the side of the bed and then says, "Dude, can we do this? I'm like—dying here."

"Oh, I don't need to wash my hair first?" Sam says, and Dean rolls his eyes, rolls onto his back with his legs splayed over the side of the mattress, says, "Come on," and Sam drains his cup too, blood warm, goes straight to his brother.

It's fun, this time. Dean's squirmy, playful. He tugs Sam's hair, laughs all breathless when it turns out that his plump nipples are surprisingly ticklish, scratches happily over Sam's shoulders when Sam goes down on him, thighs splayed lazily wide and his pussy sweet, soaking, already turned on enough that Sam's not even sure he needed the foreplay.

Tight, though—this tiny body, narrow-hipped and compact—really tight. Dean takes Sam's thumb but even two fingers is a squeeze, and Sam works them in and out, coaxing, but there's hardly any room. Dean's so hot for it that he barely sees the problem, hitting Sam's shoulder, little foot dragging along his side. Sam works himself wetter with Dean's slickness and spit, snubs up against where Dean's barely open, kisses him sweet and coaxing and pushes so-careful inside, but—god it's tight, and even tipsy Dean hitches in surprised air—and Sam fits himself in, dizzy practically on the grip but keeping his brain online through every ounce of will he can muster—and he's barely halfway when Dean yelps, hits his chest, says what, hips flinching, hurt. Cervix.

He's hit it before with a few of the other bodies but none of them were this small. It didn't seem to hurt the others as much, either—Dean's still turned on, can't help but be, but he's holding Sam's biceps very tightly, breathing hard down between their chests. "Can I—" Sam says, and Dean says, "Fuck," and then, thinner, "When'd that thing turn into a baseball bat," and Sam kisses his temple, his cheek, his jaw, apologizing, trying to think. It's not like it's never happened with women who weren't his brother—he knows what he's got, and some girls love it and some have a harder time, and for those few it hasn't worked out at all it was no big deal for him to just take care of them with fingers and tongue, and they seemed pretty satisfied by the whole experience. That won't work, this time.

"Hang on," he murmurs, against Dean's smooth jaw, and pulls out very carefully—Dean hisses just from that—and he lays down, pulls Dean against himself, starts entirely over—playing soft fingers between his legs, stroking the hooded clit, pulling lightly enough at the girl's tiny tuft of pubic hair that it's playful, makes Dean squirm against him, makes Dean open up and kiss him as hotly as he did before. Dean hardly seems to notice when Sam pulls him on top, at least not until Sam guides Dean's pussy against the spine of his dick, urging his hips into a rhythm, like riding. Smears wet all over, hot and not at all enough for Sam but still good, and good enough that Dean lifts away from his mouth, his knees slipping on the polyester blanket, his eyes heavy and the pupils huge and his lips wet, full, fuckable. Sam slips a thumb in the rising sweat behind Dean's ear, feels the pulse of his heart, wants him. Wants him.

"Yeah?" Sam says. Dean lays a hand flat on Sam's stomach, hips arching so he grinds hard against Sam's dick—fuck, the little weight of him all centered right there—but shakes his head, curls bouncing around his ears. Sam takes a deep breath and takes Dean's hand, and guides it between them, and when Dean's fingers curl around his dick he has to clench his jaw, swallow spit—says, "Okay—okay, take it slow," and Dean groans and then says, sounding drunk, "Like I don't know how to do it," and Sam skims his hands up the narrow ribs and holds just under his breasts, not at all patient but holding perfectly still while, between them, Dean fists his dick, lifts up awkward on his knees, guides—sits—so slow, moaning in this surprised way when Sam's inside, like this angle is a whole new experience. Sort of is. Sam hadn't thought he'd go for it, any other day.

Still not all the way, and not ideal. Dean loses his rhythm once, in the careful rocking, and flinches with his whole body in a way that seizes around Sam's cockhead and puts the whole night in danger—but Sam lifts up, kisses him, works his clit with a sure thumb and gets Dean going again, this time holding onto Sam's shoulders to stay steady. Once he has the depth worked out it's good—better, almost, for Sam, since he just gets to hold onto the sweetness of Dean's ass and kiss anywhere he can reach, enjoying the sensation of Dean using him, for once, for his own pleasure. How he could imagine it if they were both choosing this. God, he—

Dean comes, finally. It feels like forever even if it was only a handful of minutes. Sam wraps his arms around Dean's waist and Dean holds onto Sam's hair, breathing jagged-hot against his throat, curled down into him. Rippling-tight inside, rhythmically clenching, and Sam holds very still, stroking a soothing thumb in the sweaty valley of Dean's spine. Dean works his hips a little, careful, pussy still shockingly tight, and Sam can't help but grip at the smooth skin, thighs clenching. They can't—there's no way, it'd hurt Dean too much and they don't have to, it's not part of the spell or anything—his balls, this close to heaven, call him an absolute idiot—but then Dean lifts up, thighs shaking. Sam lets go so he can back off, clean up, do whatever he needs to do—and Dean squirms backwards, and plants a hand on Sam's thigh, and tucks his hair back from his face, and bends down and gets his lips around the head of Sam's dick, eyes closed and brows concentrated, tight.

Sam's hips jerk—a reflex he can't help. Dean rides it—easy—tongue swiping flat over the head, parting the slit just from the pressure, one hand on Sam's thigh and the other wrapping a fist around Sam's shaft, where he's slick—christ!—from Dean's body, from his borrowed body. Sam's bones quiver so hard he feels like he's a foot outside his skin. He reaches hapless for Dean's cheek—hollowing—the soft cloud of his hair brushing ticklish against Sam's hip—the silk-hot suction, Dean letting him a little further in, his cockhead dragging sweet against the pulsing heat of the inside of his mouth.

"What the fuck," Sam says, breathless. He touches Dean's ear, the point of his jaw, superheated soft shocks—Dean curling in closer, like he's wrapping around something he doesn't want taken away—his breast smushing in against Sam's thigh with the nipple this hard little bullet against his skin—and Dean pulls off, gasping, doesn't meet Sam's eye as he licks his lips to shining, jerks Sam from root to tip, ducks back in and sucks the head hard, tongue working at the crown in this way like—like he knows—like maybe he's done it—

"Dean," he says, stupid, and Dean pulls off again and says quick and panting, "Shut up, Sammy," and jerks Sam again, kissing at the underside of his dick and sucking over the vein and putting his nose there against Sam's balls and lapping at the weight of them, twisting on the upstroke, making it—god, good, really goddamn good, and Sam wants—wants to fuck his mouth—he squeezes his eyes closed so he can't see the girl and tips his knee out, makes room, and Dean pushes up and braces, little weight tipping the mattress, and gets Sam's dick in his mouth again and sucks and jerks and holds Sam's balls up close against his body, fingertips pressing up into Sam's taint, surrounding him and working him and making this repeated little grunting sound that's spiking queasy heat up through Sam's gut. He grips the blanket because he doesn't dare grab where he wants to—tips his hips up, desperate—Dean pulls off, spits on him, groans as he goes back down, lets Sam in to the pit of his throat—gags—fuck—and Dean's coughing when Sam starts to come and Sam squeezes his eyes tighter closed and covers his face, trying to make no sound at all, his balls unloading, the pulse like it's coming through his spine. Dean catches the head in his mouth again—takes it warm, makes it, oh, good, like he knows, he knows how to take care of a man, to take care of Sam. Sam humps up and Dean lets him, his dick sawing into the sweet hot pit—taking him, taking it. Fuck.

Sam breathes like a dying man. Dean laps at the head of his dick, soft, bringing him down, and Sam's thighs shudder and he uncovers his face and grabs Dean's shoulder and hauls him up Sam's body and kisses him, hard and not asking, tasting himself—Dean startled, hands pressing against Sam's shoulders—but Sam kisses him and hooks two fingers into Dean's pussy and sets his thumb against his clit and gets him off, now that he can give that with Dean's body unlocked and starting its change. Dean shakes against him, comes fast, and when it's done mumbles, in this dazed uncertain way, what the hell.

What they find out, the next day, after it snows in the morning and leaves the town with crisply metallic air and a sky so deeply blue it hurts:

More roleplaying books, on that dusty shelf in the basement. In them, more notes and campaign ideas and summaries of each week's play, as good as a girl's diary for piecing together who was where, who did what. Iverson was at work and Sam broke in and stole it all, with no apology, and they spread out in the motel room and tried to make any kind of timeline, working up to the very last note they could find, from February 1992, the last session they all played.

First names in the notes: Chris, Benny, Jake, Ari, Mitch. After some doing they assign the real names to the character sheets, and from there assign the characters to points in the story, over the many months of Sundays. Rob was in charge but the handwriting in the notes would sometimes change from his to what they figure out must be Larry's, even though he was the youngest—an ideas man, apparently. They played the same story all the way through, making up new quests for the three main characters to go on but the friends would come in as bit players, would hang for a while, would leave. A trip to the library and they get high school yearbooks for '85 through '91, and find their possible matches—a dozen Chrisses but only two who'd been on the baseball team—a Benjamin in three different grades—and so on. Connecting years in school with years in the game and then the research to figure out what happened to the five other guys: married, moved, died six years ago without suspicion, divorced, moved.

They have the session materials from the last few weeks. Chris, Ari, and Mitch were still playing, toward the end. A big campaign event coming up, from Rob's journal. Big fight with some big bad guy. The game didn't make it that far.

Chris, Ari, Mitch. They make a lot of calls, tracking people down, and then it's off to interview, and it's at that point Sam can't ignore anymore that Dean is not handling the day at all well.

Dean: wavy honey-blonde, blue eyes, five and a half feet tall, mouth so full and sweet it's a distraction. Basically his normal mouth. He was quiet through the morning and Sam could've chalked that up to working, except that he's also drinking, and not in a fun way or a despair way—Sam knows both of those well—but in a steady, workmanlike, intended-to-go-on-for-a-long-time way.

"You want to drive?" Sam offers, and Dean gives him a look like the question's bizarre—like it's not bizarre that Sam's driving more than half the time, these days—and so Sam settles behind the wheel, lets the Black Sabbath still in the tapedeck play, and Dean sips a to-go coffee with a hefty glug of whiskey and watches out the passenger window, silent, like he's not in the car at all.

Ari's a car salesman, a few hours across the border in Rockford, and agrees to meet them on the journalist pretext. He obviously finds Dean attractive, because he's not dead, but this time Dean's smile back is acid-laced and his responses are barbed, and even beautiful women can't get away with that for long. Ari frowns at Dean's back when he shoves away to get a new drink from the bar—"What, is it her time of month?" Ari says, and Sam does him the favor of not hitting him—and Ari tells Sam after the small talk and the placating that, yeah, it was fun back then, but the other guys were just getting too into it for his taste. They wanted to go out on some big camping trip in the woods in the friggin' winter, to make the adventuring a little less pretend, and they'd been out before a few times, sharing booze Rob was old enough to buy, but hell if Ari was gonna go out and freeze his ass off while waving a cardboard sword around. He missed a few sessions around then, starting a job, getting out of it. "Too weird for me," he says. He waves his hand. "I mean, not speaking ill of the dead, here. We were kids—kids get to be weird. But some of those guys were intense, you know? And Larry—" He shakes his head, and that's all Sam gets from him, and in the car on the way back—dark already outside, relying on passing headlights and the moon-gleam off the snow to see—Sam says to Dean, "Hey, what was that?" and Dean says without looking at him, "Guy was an asshole, what do you want from me," and—he was an asshole, Sam's not denying that. He drives.

Chris is a supervisor for the night shift at a factory in Peru and he also thinks Dean's hot, although he's married and does them all the favor of restricting his attention to a quick glance, taking in how Dean's ass fills out his jeans quite nicely indeed. Dean folds his arms over his chest, chilly as the night air while they let Chris smoke through a break, reminiscing. Yeah, it was fun back then. Calvin was a great guy—he didn't know the others as well. Yeah, they'd go out drinking in the woods sometimes, and play out there too—Rob was older, had a car, drove them out. A map? Yeah, he could point to—not the exact spot, but it was north of town, up by Lost Creek—he remembers because it was near where his girlfriend's dad lived back in—no, no, he wasn't there for that last session, because the guys were talking about camping overnight and Chris was still in school, made the mistake of telling his mom, she wouldn't let him go—he doesn't know what happened, but the guys were all kinda weird after that and when he came to Rob's house next Sunday Mrs. Iverson said Rob wasn't at home, so—that was kinda it. No more adventuring. "Oh, yeah," Chris says, when they're turning to leave, "but Mitch Floyd went. Yeah. Calvin, Larry, Rob, and Mitch."

Mitch is—missing. Not in the phonebook, but who's in the phonebook anymore. Married, quickly divorced. His ex-wife moved to Pasadena in '98. He was a paralegal at a law office but quit, a year ago, and when Sam called just before closing they didn't have a forwarding address. His mother's still alive, still living in town, but it's past ten o'clock when they get back to Davenport and that'll have to wait until the morning. They stop for gas and Sam sits on the trunk, waiting for the car to suck up its twenty-gallon dinner, and through the bright glass windows Dean goes straight to the counter, pays for the gas, and then the cashier brings him a pint of something sloshy, which Dean takes a swallow of right there, standing at the register. Sam sighs and watches it purl out, thick white fog.

When he walks out of the c-store Sam stays right where he is, the cold steel of the trunk seeping through his jeans. Dean's eyes are on the driven-over slush, the bottle dangling from his fingers. Not trying to hide it—good sign or bad?

The moon rose at 7:45 this morning and has already set, the slim crescent sinking past the horizon when they crossed the river back into Iowa. Under the fluorescence of the gas island Dean's cheeks are pink. He watches the total ticking up on the pump, thumb tapping slow on the shoulder of his little bottle—Dewar's, classy—and doesn't flinch when Sam clears his throat, and says, "We should go back to the motel."

Sam remembers Dean's chart. Three hours is when the need really kicks in. They can get it out of the way—maybe knock Dean out of this mood—and he's not tired, they can get back to work, maybe—

"No," Dean says.

He's still watching the pump, expression remote. Sam says, "Hey," just softly, thinking—okay, they need to talk or argue or even really fight, work through—if it was how last night went, if it was wrong for Sam to go after Dean was done, if they need to—but Dean slides a sharp warning glance at him and he closes his mouth. Dean goes to the passenger door, cracks the glovebox, and comes out with their map of Iowa—spreads it on the trunk, jabs with a smooth-polished nail at the bottom-right corner. Sam sighs, looks.

Lost Creek. Narrow, barely noticeable on the map—some little tributary spinning away from the greater Mississippi. The area of surrounding forest Chris circled for them isn't the biggest they've had to search in their lives but it's not a quick in-and-out.

"Dude," Sam starts, and Dean interrupts before the word's out:

"We have a job to do, Sam. Something happened out there and there's got to be something. Was there an accident? Something that everyone promised to keep secret, but it broke up the friendship? They were all weirdo magic nerds—what if they figure out something legit? Hell, what if they killed someone?"

"Who? Mitch is still alive—I mean, he was as of a year ago. Only four people went on that trip, as far as we know, and they all came back. So what are we going to find, almost twenty years later?"

Dean's sweetheart-curve jaw sets. "We're going to find out," he says, eyes hard, and holds his hand out for the keys.

Sam wants to argue. This is stupid, for a number of reasons. The nozzle pops and he looks down, chews the inside of his cheek. Discretion, valor.

Midnight woods are the darkest place in the world. Sam trips over his fifth tree root and tries not to put a bullet in—he doesn't even know what. Something. He likes hiking, likes camping, although he's only gotten to do it for real, disconnected from death and mayhem, a few times in his life. This experience is putting a damper on it.

The woods are softly old. Unimpressive, in a lot of ways. The undergrowth's not thick, the ground matted with mulch and a few rocks and sloping gently up and then down, toward the creek. Not frozen but sluggish, ice clustered around the banks, gleaming blackly in flashlight.

They've been out here—too long. Split up, although Dean made a show of waving his phone and tucking it firmly into his pocket and stalking away through the darkness. What they're doing, Sam doesn't know. Looking for shallow graves, that somehow might be noticeable a full nineteen years past the point of death? Looking for… what, a witch's cottage with some cackling crone who'll tell them what really happened, all those years ago? This is stupid.

Dean wouldn't hear it, though, and so here Sam is, dicking around in the dark, shining his flashlight around at ground and rock and tree, freezing. Worrying. He's trying not to do that last part but trying and succeeding are two different things.

Weird, all day. Drinking too much, hardly talking, hard-edged and sarcastic when he did deign to speak. Dean's tells are obvious, even if Sam doesn't know exactly what went wrong, and he—he doesn't know what, exactly, went wrong. They were good. Dean was good. They were making progress, working a job, finding out clues and making their way toward some kind of revelation. This many years on the road, there's a rhythm to these things, and both of them know it—the part where you're going in blind, the part where a match gets lit, the part where by furtive groping in the flickering faint light you get the shape of the world, and know that in not-too-long you'll be able to see the whole thing. Dean was happy, last night, and then—

He trips again. Braces himself against the tree, jaw grinding, stopping himself from yelling some hard consonants through sheer effort. For fun, he leans back, shines his flashlight around. Tree, tree. Stump. Dead leaves. Rock by the stump. Fascinating. Exactly what one expects to find in a small winter forest.

He plays it over in his mind. It's—weird, to think about sex after it's over. It was all just—sex. They did it and they were satisfied and Dean turned back into himself and they went to sleep, in their separate beds, and Sam felt… good, about himself and about Dean and about the world, sort of, even though the world wasn't at its best. It wasn't the same sex they'd had for the previous days but it was good—he knows it was good—and it wasn't like he'd—asked for anything. He wouldn't have; he never has, because he can't. Because to ask would be to admit, and there's nothing he can admit to that wouldn't hurt Dean, and that's something he just—will not, absolutely will not, do. Not now, after everything.

An owl calls, somewhere. Sam knocks his head back against the tree-trunk. The cold has seeped in through his coat, flannel, shirt, jeans. His toes cold in his socks. Dean's coat isn't thick, not nearly thick enough, but then again Dean's probably moving—stomping through the forest in his little pleather boots, looking for some kind of satisfaction that can't be had. Sam drags his hand over his face, stubble rasping loudly in the silence, and levers himself off the trunk.

At two in the morning, he's past pissed and thoroughly into exhaustion. Meet back at the car? he texts, and it's only a minute before he gets back, Keep searching. He grits his teeth, keeps going.

They're not amateurs—they know how to split a map. Sam's been moving through his quadrants, careful, even if he thinks this is the dumbest thing in the world, and it's been a steady, slow—very slow—dissection of the whole section of woods: to the edge of the creek, back out through to where the woods thin into someone's fallow farmland, back through the woods to the creek and its freezing sludgy trail, back again. Dark trees, owls bursting out of the canopy overhead and winging away into the night.

He texts another ? and gets nothing back, and looks, and looks, and fucking stupidly fucking looks, and it's coming up on four in the morning and he's dragging bones of weariness just kept upright by the irritation and the argument he keeps forming and reforming, refining the language until Dean will be cut down to a precise size by the strength and skill of it, and he walks and trips over shit and he wants to possibly just actually die, to not be in this forest. Then his flashlight sweeps over an empty spot of darkness, and he steps forward into a clearing that could easily hold a few tents, a fire, a passel of teenage boys, and there, the biggest tree-trunk, a carved-in set of letters: L and C and R and M, smooth with the years that have passed but still legible—and, above the crude carving, a much smoother, fresher sigil that Sam doesn't know the purpose of exactly but with a meaning he recognizes, down to his gut. He stares at it, in the white blare of light, and then drops his flashlight, and says, out loud to the forest, "Fuck."

Dean finds him after fifteen minutes. He runs his fingers over the carving. "Recent," he says, breathy and high, and Sam says, "Yeah," and Dean says, "You took—" and Sam says, "Of course I took a picture," sharp and not trying not to be, really.

Pause, while Dean leans against the tree-trunk. It's still dark, dawn an hour or more away, and it's just the ambient light from their flashlights swinging around. Sam shines his directly at the base of the trunk and Dean kneels down, looks at the smear of rusted red-brown on the blistered grey wood. "A spell?" Dean says.

Thin, raw. Sam licks his lips. "I think so," he says, and then, "Dean—"

"I know," Dean says, harsh.

Almost ten hours. How is he still standing? But—Sam doesn't pretend anymore, points his light directly at Dean's face, and he's—god!—red-faced, his eyes a glassy-wet mess. He throws a hand up, tries to glare at Sam, but no, Sam's not having this, not after everything.

Dean jerks at the touch when Sam grabs his elbow. Sam doesn't relent. God, he's searing through the muffle of his too-thin coat, his body swaying drunk against Sam's as Sam pulls him close. "Don't," Dean says, numbed and stupid, and Sam wants to hit him, wants to sling him over his shoulder like a goddamn caveman. They've done this, it doesn't have to be like this—

He's got a good sense of direction. He drags Dean along, hand locked hard around Dean's bicep, hauling him through the woods at a fast furious clip. "Location," Dean mumbles, and Sam says, "You think I can't remember that?" and Dean doesn't have a response and Sam—he should feel bad but he's just furious, all of a sudden, just absolutely toweringly pissed, because the whole point of this whole impossible month has been to keep Dean alive and safe and okay and Sam, Sam's given up a lot, Sam's ripped open something essential somewhere deep inside that's bleeding and won't be stanched and even if he's the only one who ever knows that's so it's still bleeding, and it's so impossibly, awfully, infuriatingly Dean to try to throw it all away, and for what?

The car, cold black frozen slab in the starlight, parked by the farm-fence. Sam drops Dean on the hood and Dean lolls, panting quick and hurt in the pit of his throat. By Sam's watch it's a quarter past five and that means it's not too long until it's twenty-three hours and that means that it's not too long to twenty-four, and they don't know that Dean will die then but it's a pretty goddamn good bet, and it's—half an hour at best back to the motel. If nothing happens between there and here.

Dean pushes at Sam's hands when he touches Dean's throat to take his pulse but Dean's weak, shuddery, and his fingers fall loosely away while his heart thunders against Sam's touch. Pounding, terrifying death-knell. Sam grabs Dean by the hair at the nape of his neck, his whole body ringing in this caught space between fear and fury, and Dean says again, very faintly, stop, and Sam says, "Screw you," heat singing behind his eyes.

Dean's weak, body failing. Sam flips him over onto his stomach. Wrenches his jeans down, his panties. Sam leans over him and unzips his pants and jerks himself hard, braced on one arm, and Dean's fingers clench hopelessly at the cold metal of the hood, his forehead gleaming clammy-pale and his lips parted, smearing. Tears spilling that catch the starlight.

He tries to jerk away when Sam shoves into him. Sam has to hold him down. He moans, shocking-loud, a ripped-open sound that Sam closes his eyes against. He doesn't want to see this. Bad enough that it feels as good as it does, the body open and welcoming and desperate for dick, pulsing around him, wet enough that there's a squelch when he hilts himself. Nails on the metal; Dean's sobbing breath. His weight, so much smaller than Sam's, rearing up—Sam grips the back of his neck, shoves him down flat against the hood—angles his hips so it'll feel best and drills in, mechanically hard. Dean whimpers, shakes, this awful cracked crying, his ass tipped up for Sam and his body forge-hot and making Sam break out in sweat all over and making Sam grip his neck tighter and making Sam fuck him harder, harder, furious, heartbroken.

Boy, you better be in Barcelona to make this seem like a reasonable time to be calling.

"Sorry, Bobby. Just got a question about a case."

We all got questions about this case, Sam, but before six in the morning my office hours are—

"This is something different, actually. We're on a job, down in Iowa. Couple of mysterious deaths. Found a symbol that I think might have something to do with it, but I don't recognize the origin. Wondered if you could give it a look."

Only you knuckleheads would find some crazy thing for me to research while I'm already researching something crazy. But, why not. It'll give me a break from the harpy.

"Thanks, Bobby. Let me know what you find out."

Before he can hang up, Bobby says, How are you two doing, anyway?

Silence, from the passenger side. Sam doesn't look over. "We're getting through it."

More silence, when he hangs up. He stretches his jaw until something clicks and drags his hand hard over his face. He needs sleep, food, coffee. Any order.

"Are you all right?" he says.

Dean clears his throat. "Yeah."

"Good," Sam says, and drives.

Dean transformed in the car. They didn't bring any of his own clothes and so he limps into the motel room, mincing awkwardly in the too-tight boots. Sam follows, slowly, and closes the door behind himself, and looks at the wall and the steamboat picture and at nothing while Dean wrestles out of the women's boots, shirt, jeans. Peels off the panties.

Not going into the bathroom for privacy; barely turned away. Sam can't help it, throat thick and his chest weighed with dread. The panties left a sore-looking red crumple at his waist, under the rise of his ass. His ass—pale, thick-muscled, the faintest scatter of blondish hair. His dick, soft, is still thick enough it'd be a handful, barely darker than the rest of his skin, and his balls hang neatly behind, and he keeps his pubes trimmed but not shaved. Gingery brown. All these years. Sam's never seen it.

He's moving slow. Sam can't tell if it's because he's lying about being hurt, some aftereffect of letting it go on as long as it did, or maybe it's just that he's tired. Maybe both. He digs for clean boxers in his men's-clothes duffel and drags them on, and finds an undershirt and drags that on, and when his head's clear of the neckhole, when the cotton settles down around his hips and covers up all that terrifying body, Sam says, "We're not doing that again."

Dean rubs his forehead, silent. Half turned away, like if he only shows Sam his profile he's not in same room.

Sam says, in the same tone, "I'm not doing that again. I can't handle that."

"You can't handle it," Dean says, quiet.

The freezing air against the sweat on Sam's neck, the way he had to listen to the girl's—to Dean's—wrenched, wracking sobs before it was over. Pulling out as soon as he was sure, jerking himself to a finish in the dirt. Doubling over, cut in half. Nothing he'd remembered from being soulless was as bad as this.

"The whole point is—" Sam shakes his head, tries to lower his voice. "Dean, I'm so sorry this is happening to you that—I can't even say. But you've got to work with me, here."

"I do, huh," Dean says. Razor edge to it. His cheek sucks in on one side. "Yeah. I've got to. I've got to prance around in friggin' heels and I've got to lose my dick every moonrise and I've got to watch the clock for when my fake little body decides it wants shit I never wanted, and I've got to make sure I climb on your dick once it does, huh? What else do I have to do, Sam?"

He's not quite shouting by the end but he's close. Jaw squared, eyes hard. Sam raises his hands, says, "Look—" and Dean interrupts.

"I'm not going to look, okay? I'm not looking! Everything—everything!—the last year—shit, the last five, ten, my whole friggin' life—has been me dragged around behind someone else's crap. Do you get that? I mean, Dad's whole mission was one thing. Then you got dragged into it too, and I was worrying about you more than doing the job, and then it was—the seals, and the angels, and even when I thought I was making my own decisions, no, it turned out heaven was running everything—and then you go to fucking hell and I can't stop it, and then you make me go live with Lisa, and I'm just—a wind-up toy, man, a friggin' turn the crank and watch him go, being what everyone else wants me to be, all the friggin' time. And then you get back, and I thought—okay, finally—we get to be okay, we get to make the decisions we want to make and live how we want to—except you're not you, and it turns out that we're all working for a demon—a demon, man. Again. Just clicking along, someone else's jobs and someone else's decisions and someone else winding the goddamn knob on my back, every morning."

Almost panting. Sam stays quiet. Dean takes a breath so deep it shudders when it goes out, and licks his lips, and there's an awful twist of an almost-smile when he says, after a few seconds, "And you know, I thought it was over. I got you back. I got you. And things were—not great, but they were okay. Making our own choices. And then I had a drink. A friggin' drink, at a friggin' bar. Not even the one I ordered."

He shakes his head. A rime of light, at the edge of his lashes. He sits on the foot of Sam's bed, drags his hand over his eyes. Holds it there.

There was a day that, for Sam, feels like a few months ago. They'd taken care of Pestilence and they'd taken care of Brady and Sam was trying to think of anything to stop Lucifer that wasn't the obvious thing to do, and he was sitting on the car, where he'd always done his best thinking, and Dean appeared like out of his dreams and said to him, reluctance screaming in every line of his body, that it was okay, if Sam did the obvious thing. That he'd back Sam, if it was what Sam wanted to do. He said it with truth in his eyes or Sam couldn't have gone ahead, couldn't have done it. It was true; Sam knows that. It was also the last, worst thing that Dean had never, ever wanted, and he knew that then and he knows it now, but he isn't sure, until this moment, standing with his back against a door and Dean miserable down to the pit of himself across the room, that he's felt what it meant, for Dean, on that day. What it's meant, all those other, endless, terrible days. At least on the days that Sam has felt like a chess piece, it's been his decision to take the first step.

Sam makes sure his voice is even. "We can do it like it was before. Wait until you—don't know what's happening. If that'd be better."

Dean's hand drops to dangle between his knees. "How would that be better," he says. Bitter.

"Damn it, Dean," Sam says, and his voice cracks with it. Dean looks up. Sam lets out this hopeless, stupid breath, and comes and drops down on Dean's bed, and doesn't know how to say it any other way than honest: "The whole point is for you to be okay. I can do whatever I need to to make that be true, but I can't lose you, okay. I don't want to hurt you but I will, if that's—if that's how it has to go, to make it—acceptable. But I'm not losing you." He shakes his head, looks at the spotty brown carpet. "What do you think made me jump in the cage in the first place, man."

That bleeding thing in his chest hasn't stopped. Maybe won't, ever. The inside of his lip hurts, with how much he's been chewing it, and he has to let it go, breathe slow out through his mouth. He can handle the bleeding, if he has to—forever, if he has to—if only Dean won't—

The mattress tips. Dean's hand, on his shoulder, and Sam covers it, heat surging abruptly behind his eyes, and then Dean turns and pulls him in and Sam buries his face in Dean's throat, gripping the back of his head, Dean's arm strong around his shoulders—his solid, real body, his smell, everything that's meant anything to Sam, all these long years. "Hell, Sammy," Dean whispers, sore against his hair, and Sam holds him tight, squeezes his eyes closed, says soft and barely audible against Dean's shoulder that he's sorry, he's so sorry, and Dean pushes his hair back away from his ear and says, "Don't," meaning it in an entirely different way to how he said it an hour ago, and Sam breathes out shaking and hot against Dean's throat, holds on.

They crack jokes about hugging, about being girly, about—stupid shit. When it matters they never do. Sam sniffs hard, pulls back, and Dean gets a firm hold on the side of his neck, looks him in the eyes. Sam nods, and the corner of Dean's mouth tips up. Not sarcastic, or unhappy. In moments like this Sam can't think of him as anything but his big brother. Makes it strange, that all Sam wants to do is lean forward and press their mouths together and with it say everything that he can't say, but—he still wants to, and Dean's still his brother, and Dean's thumb swipes affectionately over the corner of his jaw, and he says, "Bitch," in just the quietest, sweetest way.

"Yeah," Sam says, and he's in love. He's in love. There's no point in pretending he's anything but.

Dean smiles at him. Very small, and his eyes still heavy, but it's there. Sam squeezes his forearm, nods, and Dean nods back, and then drops his hand, and breathes out slow and raw while Sam immediately misses the heat of him.

"So," Dean says, rough. "Bobby's looking into the sigil. Guess we've got to see about Mitch, in the morning."

"In a few hours," Sam says, trying, for both of their sakes, to seem like he has one particle of his crap together.

Dean groans. "Great," he says, and stands up, and says, while he's walking toward the bathroom, "You better not snore while I'm trying to get my beauty sleep, then," and Sam should make a crack, make it feel normal again, except that Dean's got his back to Sam, fully turned with his body in the light, and Sam sees, for the first time, the back of Dean's neck above the frayed collar of his washed-to-death undershirt, and how on either side of his spine, rising dark under the creamy pale of his skin, there are circular bruises from Sam holding him down against the car—the grip of a man's hand, hard and uncaring, pressing him down to be fucked.

The woman who appears at 8:14 the next morning has a blunt haircut that, thank god, covers the back of her neck. Dean turns the collar of his coat up, anyway. "Cold out," he says, not looking at Sam. It is. It's stupid to pretend that's why.

They're not fighting but—Sam doesn't really know what they are. He didn't actually get very much sleep, after the horrible night and after realizing what he was looking at, and then after realizing that he had to tell Dean what he was looking at. They spread out the pictures from the coroner and Sam, with an unearthly strangeness from too much emotion and too little sleep, compared the back of a corpse's neck to the back of his brother's, and—they weren't an exact match, but they were close enough.

A few hours, napping fitfully in the motel room, before he finally gave it up and made coffee and figured out how to find Marjorie Floyd. Dean's got green eyes this morning, rimmed with red, and he's not avoiding Sam's eyes but he's not…

Sam tries to focus. More coffee, at a diner, and a breakfast that's actually lunch, and they're waiting for Mrs. Floyd—secretary at the high school—to come out and talk to them on her own lunch break. They're on a cold concrete pad outside the security gates and Sam tucks his hands into his coat pockets, watching through glass as the kids hustle up the stairs between periods, appearing in and out of classroom windows. Normal, boring kids, on a normal boring day. What might they be planning, that'll lead to mayhem in twenty years?

"This is creep behavior, you know that?" Dean mutters. Sam glances over—he's looking up through the windows, too. "They're going to call the cops on us. Couple of weirdos, watching 4^th period dissect their frogs."

"I don't think we can get arrested for peeping on frog dissection," Sam says, and—thank god—gets to see the corner of Dean's mouth turn up, before the door to the office opens up and Mrs. Floyd shuffles out in a remarkably pink coat and gloves, squinting at them in the thin cold light before she unlocks the gate, comes out to where they're waiting.

"Ma'am," Dean says, and holds out a cup of coffee.

"Oh, you're a lifesaver," she says, and takes the cup in both hands, and settles with a plump down on the bench where presumably kids wait for their parents to pick them up. She takes a long sip—trusting, apparently—and sighs once she swallows, and looks up at them, and says, "Now, what's this about the newspaper?"

Mrs. Floyd: almost seventy, her hair dyed auburn, pink lipstick carefully applied. She's plump, friendly-looking in a grandmotherly sort of way although Sam knows she's not a grandmother. Just one child, childless himself.

"Those boys," she says, when they're settled, when they've given her the same thin pretext they've given everyone else. She presses her lips together, taps pink nails against the side of the cup. "Well, I just don't know. They were—all friends, weren't they. Thick as thieves. Not so much in school but they'd all hang around here, chit-chatting after. I was the secretary back then, too, you know? Robbie Iverson used to cut class something terrible when he was in his senior year, I can tell you that, for your paper."

Actually sounding a little offended. Sam smiles, encourages her: "Cut-ups, then?"

"Oh," Mrs. Floyd says, fluttering a hand. "Well, I can't say that. They weren't bad, rest their souls. They were just…" She presses her lips again—a nervy habit. "My son, Mitchell. Mitch. He thought they were just cooler than cool. Robbie might as well have been James Dean, if you asked Mitch. He was a little younger than them but they let him hang around. I didn't encourage it, so much, but it was still—nice, I think, for Mitch. For a while. He was sensitive, you know, as a kid. Didn't have too many friends. Felt… different. But those boys, they let him play that—game, the pretend game—and it gave him a reason to get out of the house, and so I couldn't say boo about it, really."

For a while. Sam meets Dean's almost-familiar eyes and Dean raises his eyebrows. Dean leans just-barely closer, ingratiating. "Your son—Mitch?" Silk-smooth. Mrs. Floyd nods, sips the coffee. "He was good friends with Larry, Calvin, and Rob? So—he hung out with them a lot?"

"He did, for a while. Oh—that would've been his… junior year, mostly?" Tap of her nails on the side of the cup, again. "He just thought Larry hung the moon. All I'd get at Sunday dinner would be Larry said this, Larry said that." Short laugh. Sam watches her eyes, flitting from one spot to another in the distance. She is nervous; why? "He didn't hear from them much, after a while, I think. The game stopped, he said. Stayed home of a Sunday, after that. Not that I could get him to come to church."

"Yes, we understand the game stopped, in 1992," Sam says. She nods, looks at the lipstick-smear on the coffee cup. "We'd sure love to talk to Mitch, if we could. Get his perspective on that time. Seems like it was an important thing, for the guys."

"Mitch could really humanize them for our readers," Dean puts in. "Tell us the whole story. We're hoping to get this out for the Sunday paper, so…"

"Well," Mrs. Floyd says, hesitating. She looks at Dean, who smiles—winsome, sweet, down-home American girl. Whatever model's body he's occupying must be a hell of an actress. Mrs. Floyd sighs. "I guess it wouldn't do any harm. Mitch—he hasn't… had the easiest life. I think in a lot of ways that year, that time he played the game, was the best year he ever had. Seems like things have just been hard, ever since."

"We don't mean to cause trouble," Sam says, soft. Hating himself for it. Mrs. Floyd peers up at him, uncertain. "We just want the story."

Mrs. Floyd looks him in the eye. Sam smiles, as best he can—and she trusts him. They always do.

"Well, it can't hurt," she says, quiet. "And it'd be good for him to have some visitors, since I'm stuck here so often. Here—do you have a pen?"

"I feel dirty," Sam says, when he's put the car in park.

He's looking straight out of the windshield but he can see that Dean gives him a look. "Not the first old lady we've lied to and it won't be the last," he says, practical. Sam closes his eyes. "We didn't even really lie. We do want to talk to him."

They do. Doesn't mean it feels good to be where they are. Sam turns off the car and the silence rings in his head, and he opens his eyes, and looks: Trinity Cancer Center, over the border into Illinois. Plain brick building, big industrial windows and snow on the grounds and the trees surrounding bare of leaves. Grim, cold. Lonely. He thinks of a dark, February forest, a cold campground. A hard grip on the back of the neck, forcing someone down.

Dean leans forward, looking through the windshield. "Gonna snow," he says. Yeah. Grey, forbidding skies. He sits back, drags his fingers back and forth over his cute little bow of a mouth. "How are we playing this?"

Not reporters. Not FBI. Sam introduces himself at the desk as a distant relative, visiting his cousin Mitch with his wife—Dean looks at the side of his face and then smiles, brittle—and namedrops Mrs. Floyd, and says he's so sorry he hasn't been able to make it until now, and the girl gets big-eyed, empathetic, gives them the room number, wishes them a good day.

Second story. A view of the parking lot. A single bed, and in it, a wasted thin bald-headed man, dying fast at age 37. When they walk in, Mitch turns to look at them with minimal curiosity. Big dark eyes, limpid, vivid, alive. Pretty, almost, if he weren't so emaciated and almost-dead, otherwise.

Minimum of wasted time, in the introductions. Dean's watchful, waiting. Sam doesn't want to take the lead but apparently that's his role. Mitch says, in a reedy voice, "My mother said you were coming. Journalists? I don't think so."

His eyes are distracting. They looked him up, before they came—in the yearbook and in a random Facebook picture and at the ten-year high school reunion. A slender, relatively unremarkable man. Dark hair, dark eyes. High, narrow cheekbones, and a soft mouth, and a look on his face like he didn't expect his picture to be taken and was surprised, each time. In person—it's another thing, entirely. His face reduced to the shape of its bones. His eyes, massive, red-rimmed. Watching but not entirely present. Like they're a television show, playing out in front of him.

"We're interested," Sam says, "in what happened, back then. February 1992. Rob Iverson, Calvin Wilde, Larry Tanner. Your friends. You all went out on a camping trip, one weekend. What did you do?"

"What did I do," Mitch says. He blinks, slow. He looks from Sam to Dean. Curious, distant. "That's an interesting way to put it. What I did didn't really seem to have… much to do with anything. Maybe you should ask your questions a little different, journalist."

Dean pulls up the visitor's chair, in a screechy scrape against the linoleum. Sits. Looks at Mitch, neutral and nonjudgmental. "What did they do?" Dean says, soft.

Mitch looks at Dean's face—the girl's face. "What do they do," he says. Almost under his breath. His skin is a raw, sallow color, under the fluorescent hospital lights. He blinks at Dean, heavy. Drugged, Sam realizes, too late. Bags hanging on the rack, IVs in his arm. Mitch drags in air through his nose, tips his head back on the pillows stacked at his back. Looks at Sam. "What do they do."

"Fuck you over," Dean says, and Mitch laughs, high and nasal and breathy. Dean smiles at him, when Mitch's lamplight eyes turn back to him. "Right? Yeah. So—"

What happened?

A cold February. A Sunday. A trip, out into the woods, that big clearing that wasn't too far from the creek, and the thing was that Rob was in college and Calvin was working and Larry was a senior and they all had the run of their lives, they could do what they wanted, and they'd been planning this trip for weeks, and it was maybe two weeks before it that Larry said hey, you want to come? and Mitch, god, he wanted to. He really, really wanted to.

In the game he was Elodain, half-elf sorcerer. At the table, he smiled a lot and laughed at their jokes and he went with their plans and he just—loved them. They were so smart and so funny, creative, cool. Rob brought beer back to his parents' basement where they played and let them all share and he had great stories, from college, telling them about parties and classes and all the brilliant stuff he was learning, in the breaks from the game. Calvin was building houses, fresh out of high school, but he was kind of shy and loved movies and he showed Mitch all the coolest best things to watch, when they'd talk. Larry was a year ahead of Mitch in school but he was so clever, helped Mitch with his trig homework, made it so he didn't feel stupid asking questions about rules and rolls and what to do next, when they were playing. Mitch loved them. Loved Larry most. At eighteen Larry had long blonde hair that he had to push out of his eyes all the time, and blue eyes, and a crooked tooth that he tongued while he was thinking, and Mitch would watch him do it while they played, every Sunday, and he wanted.

It wasn't a secret. Not really. They'd all gone to see Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead and Rob had said how hot Christina Applegate was and Calvin had agreed and Larry had looked at Mitch, sitting quiet in the backseat, and said, what are you, queer? and Mitch had scoffed, but it wasn't believable. Rob had said, firm, lay off, Larry, and Larry had, but Mitch had burned with this intense all-over blush and he'd known, then, that they all knew. Like a spotlight, shined right down, and he couldn't ever pretend it wasn't true.

None of them were mean about it. In the game a few weeks after that Elodain flirted, cautious, with a male bard NPC that Rob invented, and Larry cracked a joke about his skills but it was just—a joke, it wasn't anything—bad. Made Mitch feel like maybe it wasn't the end of the world. That it was okay.

Then, a few months later, the trip.

Their adventuring party was on the way up to Icewind Dale, to make a bargain with a wizard. Mitch remembers that very clearly. They were alone, camping light and moving fast, fighting goblins and orcs on the way, the four characters becoming closer friends on the long journey north. Rob and the other two had camped out at Lost Creek a few times and Calvin was really big into outdoors stuff and Larry said, hey, let's play out there, make it real, and it just seemed like the best idea ever. He made brownies from a box mix and packed up his old bag from scouts and it was an adventure, making the not-that-long drive out of town, Calvin and Rob arguing about the wording of the Ring Poem in the front seat, Larry telling him about an idea he had for the game, for that night.

They set up camp. Calvin built a fire. Rob spread out the map and got the dice. Larry settled down next to Mitch, close enough that their knees were touching, and Mitch thrilled so hard at that he could hardly remember to be in character, as Elodain. They played all afternoon, until it was dark, and then Mitch and Calvin cooked up something that was kind of like dinner and Larry heckled their skills and Rob produced, like a magic trick, three bottles of vodka that he'd smuggled back from college. Things tilted, after that.

They were joking, and then playing games, and then daring each other to do silly shit. Larry leaned in close and Mitch could smell him, smell his body, even through the coat, the flannel shirt. It went from joking to not joking so fast. All three of them had been with girls, had had girlfriends, and of course Mitch hadn't, and they wanted to know what he thought about, what it was like. As if he'd ever had a chance. Larry wondered if he'd ever kissed anyone and Rob had said, lay off, like he had before, but Calvin looked intensely interested, and Mitch had to say, drunk and daring and woozy, no.

Then it was—do you want to. Then it was—have you ever—or have you ever—and every step, it was like someone else was making the decisions. Mitch felt like he was floating, somehow. Like the frozen creek was surging and just sweeping him along, bringing him from one action to another. More vodka, and then his hand on Larry's dick, with the other two closely watching; more vodka and then his head in Rob's lap, his mouth filled, and not knowing really how he'd gotten from one to the next. Rob's hands in his hair. Calvin, tugging his jeans off on the blanket that had held all the game pieces. Larry, pushing his shoulders down and leaning over him, hot breath on his ear and a hand braced on his neck while Mitch closed his eyes, the pain unreal but also just part of the strange undifferentiated floating, something that permeated every part of the night until it was—bearable maybe the wrong word, but it was bearable. And it was bearable again, and again, and after it had been bearable and unprotested and they'd laughed and said, that was so awesome, then it didn't make sense to do anything but to keep going along with it when the night kept spinning darkly on.

"We were so hungover in the morning," Mitch says. As dreamy-absent as he's told the whole story. "Everyone was real quiet. We were supposed to be getting up early so me and Larry could get back to school but of course that didn't happen. Rob and Larry wouldn't really talk to me. Calvin was real nice. Isn't that funny? He'd never talked to me too much compared to the other two before that, and then he was so rough that night, and then he was like—Mr. Solicitous. Men, am I right?"

This last directly to Dean. "The worst," Dean says, quiet, and Mitch laughs, a thin high giggle.

Sam has sat in the only other chair, up against the wall far from the bed. Dean's eyes are steady on Mitch's face and Sam doesn't want to ask but he has to. "What happened after that?"

"Oh," Mitch says. He waves a skeletal hand, lets it fall back to the blanket pulled neatly over his lap. "Oh, they didn't know how to look at me. It wasn't right, you know. None of them wanted to have wanted it. Straight guys are like that. They think if they pretend it didn't happen then it didn't. And you know, if they'd just treated it like a crazy drunk party it would've been fine, but—I guess they weren't smart enough for that, huh?"

Avoidance, guilt. The friend group dissolved. No more Sundays, no more movie afternoons. Mitch, suddenly friendless, wondered what it was he'd done. "It's so stupid," he says. "You think, oh, if only I'd… what? Like somehow you can make yourself the person that people won't leave. Like if I'd just sucked dick a little better maybe my best friend would still meet my eyes in the hall. Like things wouldn't have fallen apart."

Dean presses his knuckles to his mouth, stands up. Goes to the particle-board wardrobe under the window, looking out at the grey sky.

"Did you see them after that?" Sam says. Mitch tips his head back against the pillows, eyes going all over Sam's face. He swallows. "In the last year, maybe."

Mitch shakes his head, lazy metronome. "I saw them before," he says, slow. "A few times. Too scary when they were kids but they wanted to try it out again." Sam's expression flinches hard enough that he can't restrain it and Mitch gives him a wide loose smile. "Not all together! They didn't have the balls for that. All of them, different times. Rob first, then the other two. I wonder if they talked about it? I don't know. One of them would call, say it was too bad we hadn't talked. Wanting to catch up. Have a beer." He huffs, light and high. "Like we were going to talk about bowling, if they came to my apartment to have a beer."

"You let them—" Sam starts, and immediately regrets it. Mitch's forehead crinkles, raising eyebrows he no longer has. Sam swallows. "You—slept with them again."

"Sure," Mitch says, easy, and for the first time his expression goes intent, his eyes blazing in his wasted face. "Why not? I was their little embarrassing secret. Something they couldn't admit they wanted. And you know what? After the last time I sucked his dick Larry cried about how he had to go back home to his wife, his kids, his big house. Trying to make me feel bad about his perfect life, while I was trying not to get behind on my light bill in that shithole apartment. When I couldn't go to a real college, couldn't hold down a real job, because I couldn't sleep, because I kept dreaming—" He drags in a deep breath, closes his eyes. Opens them again and the emotion's wiped away, like it was never there. He shrugs a bony shoulder. "They screwed up my whole life. Might as well let them screw up theirs. "

"Sam," Dean says. He's been searching, quietly, while Mitch's attention was elsewhere. He holds up a book, bound in old scarred leather, and Mitch watches placidly when Sam goes to Dean, leafs through it.

Real magic. Not pretend. Sam gets an inside-out echo-feeling, just like sitting in Denise's cabin, seeing real spellwork outlined on frail pages. "My mom ordered that for me," Mitch says, while they look at the bookmarked page. Art of a man's heart, torn from his chest. Sam looks up and Mitch is still smiling, fingertips resting lightly on his collarbone. Almost coquettish. "Just like the old days, huh? The sorcerer takes out the bad guys." He lets out this tiny, bubbly laugh. "I guess there's no leveling up, though, this time. Too bad!"

They took the book. Not that it seemed to matter. Three victims, three targets of revenge. Sam looked at Mitch's chart. Liver cancer, extremely advanced. Just a few months left, if that.

"We could take him out," Dean says, but with no conviction. They're sitting on the trunk of the car, after stuffing the confiscated grimoire into it. "He did kill people."

When they walked out Sam glanced back at Mitch. He'd turned his big, clear eyes back to the window, back to watching for… what, Sam didn't know. Watching the sky turn to new colors. The bare room; no flowers, or cards, or anything. According to the visitor check-in chart his mother comes twice a week.

Sam's quiet and Dean nods. He pulls his boot-heels up onto the bumper and folds his arms onto his knees, leaning forward. "Two witches in a row with broken hearts," Dean says, after a minute. "That some kind of record?"

"Can't really blame this one, though," Sam says. Dean shrugs, says, "Maybe," and ducks his head, and his hair swings forward, enough that Sam can see the fingermarks on his neck. Sam swallows, looks up at the iron-grey clouds instead. They don't know how he did it but it almost doesn't matter. He's not going to kill anyone else because there's no one else, in his mind, to blame. There was that one bizarre night, full of mistakes, and then everything just… different, after it. Sam's had a few nights like that. He's lucky, maybe. To have the kind of constitution to survive it. Plus…

Dean sighs, sits up. Tucks his hair behind his ear, almost naturally. "I'm beat," he says, and Sam gets up right away, pulls the keys out of his pocket, and Dean nods, and they drive back across the river, to the steamboat room, and Dean unzips his little boots and shrugs out of his coat and crawls facedown onto the bed that's his, in the dark warmth, and Sam sits at the table and opens his laptop like he's going to work but he doesn't. He watches Dean while he slides slowly into sleep and he thinks about dark woods until his phone starts to vibrate. Bobby. He steps outside to take the call, leaving Dean to a briefly uninterrupted peace.

Mrs. Floyd's house is small, battered. Fence needs repainting. Sidewalk isn't shoveled. When Sam knocks the door's a faded, formerly cheerful yellow, and when she lets him in she's midway through a dinner of a Lean Cuisine, a glass of wine mostly-empty beside it.

"I don't know," she says, "I didn't know," and Sam believes her, mostly, but she was nervous when they talked before and she's nervous now, so she knows more than she's willing to let on, or at least more than she wants to believe.

"He was so angry, when the doctors told him," she says. "My Mitchell. He'd always been so—sweet, you know? Easygoing, went along with what I wanted, what the other boys wanted to play. Big relief to a single mother, especially with all the rowdy kids I had to deal with all day. I never saw him so… enraged, as he was that day."

Two years ago. Liver cancer. "I brought him back here after the appointment. He got drunk—stupid! With his liver. But he was so mad, and he wouldn't listen, and he kept talking about—before, when he was a kid, and how no one cared then so why would anyone care now? I told him that was silly, that of course his friends would care, but he wouldn't hear it. He wanted to call Larry Tanner for some reason but I hid his phone, because he was too drunk to make any sense and that wouldn't have helped anything." She presses her lips together. The lipstick's long gone and she just looks like a regular, tired old woman, but her expression turns to this odd mix—shamed and proud, at once. "He was in love with Larry. When he was a kid. He didn't want to tell me but I'm his mother, of course I knew. He married that woman when he was twenty-two but of course that couldn't have lasted, and it didn't. I don't know if he didn't want to admit it to anyone or if he hated it in himself. His whole life, Mitch never has gotten what he wanted."

Sam's stomach hurts. He says, "What about the books?"

What Bobby told him: it wasn't big-time crazy obscure spellwork. Witches traded this stuff. Basic charms and hexes. The kind of thing a demon would encourage, little selfishnesses and prideful acts, petty angers satisfied. Revenge. The spell was something he'd seen before, but it was specific. Needed activation, in blood.

"It was the only thing he wanted from me," Mrs. Floyd says. She twists a Kleenex, pink fingernails disappearing and reappearing. "Didn't even want to do treatment, not right away. He just wanted me to help order these books, since he couldn't afford them. Get back to his hobby from when he was a kid. So, I ordered them. And he studied and studied. It was good to see him excited about something. Especially after he got worse. Had to quit his job, and finally I convinced him to let the doctors try things but I think he was just humoring me. He was more interested in the books. And then he…"

The tears that had been threatening spill over, finally. Sam takes over. "He asked you to go out to the woods," he says, and her eyes get big, turn to him. He keeps his voice neutral, quiet. "Carve a picture, into that tree—the one the boys carved their initials into, all those years ago, right?"

"Had to be exactly right," she says. And then—like it was part of the game. A potion, one Mitch made himself, making her take a picture for proof she'd brought it to the tree and poured it, thick red, over the sigil, dripping down the bark. Once a week, three weeks in a row. Sam can picture it; his mother on her cell phone, confusedly humoring her baby, while he chanted the right rituals from his hospital room. Got his revenge, two decades too late.

"All I wanted was for him to be okay," Mrs. Floyd says, when Sam's at the door. "He's all I have."

"I know," Sam says, throat tight.

She presses her lips, looking up at him like he might have an answer. Then, past him, at the dark sky, and she says, "Snow," in this hopeless little voice, and Sam looks over his shoulder and, in the porchlight, there's a slow, fluttering white coming down, clouding the air, muffling any other sound.

Dean's awake when he comes back. "Where—" Dean says, and then sees the takeout bags, and says, "Oh, thank god," and they eat quiet on either bed, watching the 8:00 news on mute. School's getting a new principal. Parents worried about crosswalks near the park. Snow to continue, through the night, although next week looks like it'll be sunny skies.

Sam tosses his styrofoam box—the salad was terrible, like he knew it was going to be—and grabs them both beers from the mini-fridge, and brings one to Dean uncapped, and Dean holds it between his hands and looks at it, and his mouth is a tense, screwed-up thing. Sam told him how the Floyds had worked together, unwittingly or not, and Dean hadn't had much to say. What's there to say? Sad little life, battered on all sides, about to come to an ignominious end. The mother, bereft. Nothing for the two of them to do, but know that it had happened. Not much of a job.

"I could really go for a psycho ghost right now," Dean says. He brushes his bangs out of his eyes—the hair this time a light-ish brown, but apparently more for looking at than manageable. "You know? Just—simple. Dig 'em up, burn 'em down."

"Easy," Sam says, and Dean holds his bottle out in a toast, and takes a long swallow. Sam matches him, stretching out on the bed, the bitter cold sinking down to his stomach.

The clock's at 8:41. They worked their case and they've got nothing to show for it. Men still died—not evil men but not good ones—and the killer's not one either of them can face executing, and Dean's strange body has woken up, in the time they were eating, and even if he hasn't made a sound Sam knows that he's ready to be fucked, and Sam has to be the one to do it, and they're right where they started. The only difference is in Sam's bruised center, how he's finally come to an unambiguous end where he can't, won't, never again will lie—and in how Dean still, all day, hasn't quite looked him in the eye.

"Sammy," Dean says. Sam hums, picking at the label on his bottle. Dean huffs, says, "Sam," and Sam looks up, and Dean's chewing on his lip, sitting on the edge of the other bed, and then he takes a quick in-and-out breath like bracing himself for something, and then gets up fast and leans over Sam and presses their mouths together, their lips settling square and Sam, startled, getting a hand on Dean's shoulder. It's almost-chaste, soft, Dean tipping into him and pressing firm enough that it's obvious he means it—the release gentle, a tiny smoochy sound following. Dean holds there with parted lips and breathes against Sam's chin for a warm second before he sits down again, his hip against Sam's hip, his eyes turned down to the beer he's still holding.

Sam's whole body pulses. His hand's frozen around his bottle and he has to physically remind himself to take in air, and when he does he—smells Dean. He puts his beer down on the bedside table. "What was that for," he says, when he can manage it, and sees the corner of Dean's mouth tip up, unhappy. The way Dean always smiles when he's disgusted with himself.

"Sorry," Dean says. His cheek sucks in, brief hollow in the model's face. "About yesterday. Shouldn't have been such a—bitch." He snorts, if only softly. "Guess it fits more for me than for you now, huh?"

Sam doesn't dare lean forward; he sits very still, arm folded over his pulled-up knee. Dean's warm, next to him in the bed, and the inch between Dean's hip and his thigh he feels acutely. "Was it…" he starts, but he doesn't want to guess. They've been through enough; they can talk about this. He tips his head, watching Dean's face without pretending otherwise. "What happened?"

Dean glances at him. "I… man, I don't know." Sam waits. Dean drags his teeth over his lower lip and turns to the wall, the steamboat picture, the television light playing over the straight line of the girl's nose. "It just felt—too weird. You and me. It's been—what, two weeks almost, and we've had to—every day, we've had to—and I just thought, you know. Lay back and think of Kansas. We could get through it. But I…"

"Easier to handle if you're not choosing anything," Sam says. Dean blinks, looks back at him. Sam tries a small smile. At least these eyes are green. "Dude, come on. Last night was—different. Right?"

He'd held Dean close, licked his mouth clean, gripped his arms so tightly he was afraid after that he'd hurt him. But he wasn't hurt then; he was hurt this morning. Sam picks up his beer, takes a sip, like that'll help. Should've gone for the whiskey.

"It's too easy," Dean says. This woman's voice is low and some familiarity of tone shines through, rough and a little hurt. Dean's watching Sam's hands, the way he's messing with the beer bottle, fiddling once again with the label—pulling at the corner, smoothing it back into wrinkled place. "It should feel like—the worst thing in the world. I mean, we're not idiots. The chick body doesn't matter. It's still you and me, so it should be—awful. But I—I don't know. You made it good and you didn't have to. It felt shitty to just—roll away after I got mine and not help you out."

Sam's shoulders hurt. He takes a careful breath. "I don't want you to do that," he says. It comes out strange and Dean's eyes sweep down, away. "I don't—want you to feel like you've got to do anything. Dean, I wouldn't ask—"

"I know you wouldn't," Dean says, not loud, but Sam shuts right up. "Crap, Sammy, the last two weeks? I know you wouldn't. But I'm—" He shakes his head. Another huffed little fake-laugh, looking into his lap. "I don't know what it means, about you and me. If we can have sex like this and have it be… more than just thinking of Kansas. I can't make you do—like this morning—because that's not fair, man, I know that. But if it's more than that…"

Long quiet. Dean drinks his beer, sits still. Sam looks at the slope of his shoulders and the shape of his unhappy mouth and the way the light curves over his finally-familiar eyes, and Sam has wanted nothing more, these last few weeks and this last month and from the very moment he realized how much he'd be willing to give up, for his brother—from that moment in the cemetery, an archangel wrestled down inside him and hard light glinting in his eye—Sam has wanted nothing more than to just be here for him. For Dean to stand steady, the bulwark Sam's always had against the terrible world, and for Sam to be able to stand at his side, their shoulders braced together, and for Dean to trust him and for them to be okay and to be able, at the end of every night, to share a beer and to look each other in the eyes and to know that the trust between them went both ways. At Stull, it did. In the year and a half after—Sam didn't have a choice, then, about what his body and his terrible mind did to his brother, but he has that choice now, and all he wants is to have that moment, again. Where Dean could meet his eyes and know that Sam won't ever choose another thing but this.

He reaches out, brushes Dean's hair away from his neck. "I like it," he says. It feels like a terrible admission, even if they've had a conversation with this shape before. His hand settles carefully over the bruised places, his thumb finding the mark it left but not pressing down. Dean looks at him, sideways, sore. Sam doesn't smile, doesn't try to make it anything but true. "I know that's—weird. I just don't see any point in pretending, man. I know it's just a requirement of the spell, to save your life, and maybe that's all it should be. But it's good, we both know that. We can let it be good. As long as we've got to do it." Dean's studying him. Sam shrugs, drags his thumb up into the soft warm spot under Dean's ear, touching the point of his jaw just gently. Warm, sweet. Feels how Dean tips into it, if only barely. "Anyway," Sam says, softly, "I'd hate to miss out." Dean frowns, not following. "You give a hell of a blowjob, man."

Dean's jaw drops. Sam bites his lips between his teeth and Dean says, "Oh my god, you bitch," appalled, and he shoves Sam's face away and Sam lets him, swaying back, grinning small and a hard-fought kind of easy. Dean's glaring but not as hard as Dean's glared other times. He gets a hand on Dean's side, feeling the warm dip through the ladies' blouse, and Dean says, "I should kick your ass for that," sour, but he doesn't yank away.

Sam lifts a shoulder, head back against the wall. "You do whatever you want to do," he says, and means it, and hopes Dean hears everything he does mean in it.

Under his hand Dean's ribs expand on a deep breath. "Remember that when it's my turn to pick dinner next," he says, and then puts his beer on the bedside table, and then, with a deliberate casualness, takes Sam's out of his hand, too. He steals a sip—just as well, Sam was mostly just letting it get warm—and then puts it down, and licks his lips. When he looks at Sam, Sam raises his eyebrows, not moving otherwise, and Dean sighs at him and says, "You are a pain in my ass," soft, and then leans in and kisses him, soft and unshowy and tasting, with this bone-deep rightness, like cheap, shitty beer.

For a change, Sam wakes up first. No alarm but he still startles, some dream he instantly forgets rocketing him out of sleep into the grey darkness of the room. He scrubs his face, cataloguing. Before eight o'clock; Dean still asleep, in the other bed. Dean still Dean, in the other bed. Sam drops one foot to the floor, vaguely overwarm from the heater and the blankets and the pajamas he crawled tiredly into. He looks at the lump on the other mattress. In the dark there's nothing to see besides that he is a lump, of the right size, and when Sam's eyes adjust a little more there's the faintest shine of his cheekbone, limned by the green clock-numbers.

Sam looks at that and this tight unbearable thing unfurls, in his chest. Sore as a knotted muscle, hard to breathe past. All his want and wanting curl up so tense that his hand spasms, and he makes a fist, the intensity of it too much to deal with in the thin strangeness of early morning. He breathes slow, finding a rhythm he can deal with, and uncurls his hand, flexing. God, Dean.

He goes for a run. Been a while. It's freezing—snowed heavily, last night, and the plows have been out but he still has to crunch through drifts, the air just ice in his chest, his body protesting but the steady work of it warming him up, blood flowing easier, his mind clearing until there's just the next step, the next pound of his heart, the world waking as he goes through his paces.

When he comes back, six miles later, Dean's making the coffee. "What the hell," he says, voice crackly and raw. "Dude, it's like—eight degrees outside."

Still himself, in just a pair of boxers. Sam's whole body tingles in the heat in here. "It's good for you," he says, still breathing hard, and Dean blows a raspberry, futzing with the machine. Too early for a better comeback, apparently.

The bruises on his neck haven't faded. Sam kicks out of his wet sneakers, strips off his jacket and hoodie, feels like he's steaming. "Hey, don't stink up the place," Dean says, and Sam ignores him, and it's every other morning, and the thing is—Sam can handle that, if that's all he gets. If this is every morning, with Dean making the coffee and with his hair all screwed up from the pillow and the way he's going to suggest a crappy diner for breakfast just exactly like he always, always does—Sam can handle it, if that's all he ever gets, as long as they're here together. He drags his sweaty hair back from his face and Dean's looking at him, unimpressed and squinty, and he smiles in a satisfied way because he knows it'll annoy Dean and on cue Dean rolls his eyes, and that tight flush rolls through Sam's chest again but that's all right. He knows how to live with it, now.

When Sam's toweling off after his shower his ringtone starts shrilling, in the outer room. "Phone's ringing, dude," Dean calls, mild, and Sam drags the towel around his waist and says, "Thank you, Donny," and gets Dean to grin again, sipping his coffee and lounging easily in the wreck of the bed where they had sex the night before, and where afterward, leaning over him and his hand solid on Sam's chest, Dean kissed him without compunction. That image sits heavy in Sam's mind while he fumbles for his sweatpants, digging his phone out of the pocket, and he answers it without looking at the number, caught as he often is between being annoyed at his brother and loving him.

Sam, Bobby says, and Sam stands straight back up, startled. Dean meets his eyes and Sam puts the phone on speaker, immediately, so that Bobby's voice issues loud in the warm fug of the room: Come back up to Wisconsin. We've got something.

Chapter 6 Chapter Text

March 12

Still cold, up north, but less so. Snow sits heavy in the shadow of the cabin but it's less of a miserable aspect than it was when they were here before. The lake, still frozen but not solid. The trees more green than white, and the sun warm in the spaces between them, and it's freezing still at night but the thaw's had a chance to start.

Denise is letting them stay at the cabin, as long as they need. The horror of finding out she'd nearly murdered her husband has punctured all the bluster; the guilt of almost killing Dean is enough to make this concession almost graceful. She even pressed Gary into helping haul away a load of crafty crap, although Sam's glad they weren't here yet for that event. Means that even though the cabin's still caked in kitsch it's at least not stuffed to the gills. Means there's space to breathe, which these days they really, really need.

The cabin. They didn't explore, when they were here before. Small, but functional. It must have been an escape, for Denise's father. Set up on a rise over the lake, with a porch for the view. A generator for light in the evening but the fireplace is the main source of heat. Kitchen that's a little better than a motel kitchenette, with a propane stove; a bathroom with an ancient, sputtery, but functional shower, and a toilet that flushes, on septic they don't have to worry about. They've stayed in abandoned hunter's cabins that were worse.

Tucked behind the bathroom is the tiny bedroom, basically a queen mattress and side tables and not much else, and it's there that Sam finds Dean when he comes home with groceries after the long trek back and forth to town. He was loud coming in, he thought, but Dean's asleep when Sam presses the half-cracked door wider, and Sam takes a second, looking. He changed while Sam was gone. Another caucasian woman: medium height, medium-brown hair, what looks like a medium-sized body. Pretty, as always. The sizes seem to have stopped swinging to wild extremes and Dean's taken to wearing the same pair of jeans most days, and today that Zep shirt Sam got for him, and the purple plaid that always sets off his skin to this particular shade that makes Sam want to…

He goes back to the kitchen, and puts the groceries away—basic stuff, things they can live on for a while—and sticks the beer and the milk outside in the snowdrift so as not to waste the electricity for the fridge—and when he comes back to the bedroom, it's with coffee, and he finds Dean blinking, dragging the back of his hand over his eye like a little kid, and he looks up muzzily with his hair a long mussed fall over his shoulder and says, hopefully, "That for me?" and his eyes are green, again. Sam says, "Who else would it be for," so that Dean rolls his eyes, grabs for the mug imperiously, settles back down to an elbow for a greedy, slurping sip, and so that Sam can wrinkle his nose like he's supposed to and sit down on the little chair by the door and sip at his own mug, and look out the window at the clear day outside, and not fall on his brother like someone starving.

They moved in, more or less, yesterday. Dean hated the idea and said he wouldn't, that he'd go anywhere else, but Sam saw Bobby's face and knew that he'd have to talk Dean around. For what they have to do—what they will be doing, in seven days—they need privacy, not the bustle of a motel surrounded by strangers, and the other options were Rufus's briefly mentioned mysterious cabin (refused to them as quickly as it was mentioned) or Bobby's house, and it wasn't fair to Bobby, to do what they needed to do in that house. Not where he still remembered them being boys, and fed them awful chili, and taught Dean how to take apart a carburetor. That's a fight Dean was always going to lose.

"Got sandwich stuff for lunch," Sam says, and Dean sighs. "Ham, turkey, cheese. It's—" he checks his watch—"Noonish. You hungry?"

"I want a steak," Dean says, vaguely pouty, and Sam raises his eyebrows. Another sigh and he falls back to the bed, mug resting on his stomach. "Fine. Yes. Make mine with extra mustard."

Sam snorts. "I've met you," he says, and Dean's eyes are closed but his mouth hitches. The wash of warmth that goes through Sam is frankly stupid but it carries him back out to the kitchen, to grab bread and cheese and lettuce and mustard and make his ridiculous brother his sandwich, like the besotted idiot that he is. Among the reasons he can't let on the depth of his feeling: if Dean knew, he'd take even more shameless advantage than he's already taking.

Dean emerges with the day's hair caught up in a practical half-bun thing that he's been perfecting over all these moonrises. They have their sandwiches. Dean washes up their minimal dishes when they're done eating. Sam fishes two beers out of the drift on the far side of the patio and they sit by the fire together, Sam reading a battered spy novel left behind on the bedside and Dean spreading out on the coffee table to completely disassemble and clean and reassemble their shotguns, and Sam could wish for things to be different but, as they are, things aren't so bad. And then, tonight—

Bobby bailed, yesterday. Sam doesn't blame him. Dean—it's hard to tell, what Dean's thinking. It was Thursday when they drove back up to Wisconsin and got the explanation of what was required on the night of the full moon, and that was—a long day, especially when despite all they'd made it through Dean couldn't seem to look at Sam, when Bobby was in the same room telling them what they'd need to do. They were—nearly a hundred percent, that it'd work. Bobby had corralled Denise and he'd consulted with Havelock and her wiccans and he'd gotten some weird old text from Rufus and even, through some circuitous channels, received a rare text from their cousin Gwen, something the Campbells had been holding onto for who knew how long. Keeping the Winchester name out of it, pulling all of the threads together, and when he met them at a motel—not the purple one—on Thursday, he laid it all out. They were nearly a hundred percent, that it'd work, that the spell they'd need to complete would solve things—for the first half of the problem.

Dean gets the shotguns back together. Gleaming, solid, perfect. Sam watches over the top of his book while Dean twists his cleaning rag back and forth between his hands, eyes distant, and Sam bites the inside of his cheek before he says, "Hey, come on," and Dean comes back from a hundred miles away and says, "What? Come on, where?" and Sam says, "Just come on," and that's how they end up in boots and coats and with Dean bitching about the cold, walking down the half-mudded-out path down to the lake, to check out the scenery.

"You are a freak for hiking," Dean mutters, coat collar turned up around his ears, and Sam shrugs, says, "Better than sitting on our asses," and Dean says, "Hey, watch whose ass you're talking about, there," and Sam rolls his eyes and walks along the edge of the lake, admiring the way the declining day spills peachy-cold light along the still mostly-frozen surface, and of course Dean follows, after making sure Sam hears him groan.

It's a pretty walk. The trees cast long evergreen shadows. Sam's got his hands in his pockets, sort of enjoying the numbness of thirty degrees and his eyes mainly on what's turning into the sunset, when Dean's little hand catches his elbow and stops him in his tracks. He turns and finds Dean watching the woods, careful, and he follows Dean's eyes to find a stag, in the space between two trees, watching them right back. They stand still, and the stag stands still too. It's beautiful—its antlers, its hide, the powerful chest. Sam hardly dares breathe, and then he looks down at Dean and finds Dean's eyes a little wet, his cheeks pink with cold or emotion, Sam can't tell. He puts his hand at the small of Dean's back and Dean blinks, bites the corner of his mouth. Takes a deep breath, and then claps his hands sharply, and Sam looks back to find the stag leaping away, disappearing between the trees in a moment, the empty space sudden but also like it was never there.

"Shouldn't let it get used to people," Dean says, even, and then turns around to walk back to the cabin. Sam follows, a step behind, for a minute; it's Dean who slows, and lets Sam catch up, so they can walk side by side, their elbows bumping through their coats.

A week, up here. Waiting for the full moon, this Saturday. Bobby bailed because—what was there for him to do? He'd found an answer, just like he always did. It wasn't his fault that it wasn't one he could stomach. He'd pulled Sam outside, after Dean had had what nearly amounted to a tantrum over the venue of Denise's cabin, and he'd said, looking out at the icy nighttime road and not at all at Sam's face, "Wouldn't wish it on an enemy, much less you boys. No point whining, but—balls." He'd tugged his hat lower, like hiding his face would improve things. "You'll make it through. You just remember what I said, kid."

Back in the cabin Sam's face prickles with the flush of heat. Dean shivers, for some reason. They kick off their boots and dump their coats and Dean goes right for the bedroom while Sam lays a few more logs on the fire. Getting dark, and colder. He thinks about turning on the generator but it's a pain, and anyway he sort of likes this, with just the firelight, and the candles on the table, and a lantern in the kitchen. Like camping, but without Dean complaining—at least, not complaining quite as much as he would if they were actually camping. He's finished lighting the candles when Dean comes back out in—one of Sam's hoodies, the sleeves folded up so that he can actually use his hands, and Sam feels his face do something obvious and Dean, thank god, misinterprets it as annoyance, because he says, "What? I'm not gonna wear one of Mr. Marino's weird cableknits that's left in the wardrobe back there. If I'm getting cooties they're gonna be from my oversized little brother, not a dead guy."

Dean, hair caught up so it looks short-ish, in jeans and socks and Sam's sweater, working in the kitchen, shoulders falsely broad in the lantern-light. If Sam squints it looks almost right. Almost perfect.

It feels a little different, now. With things open between them—more or less—and with a goal in mind. It's not just wasting time, spinning out hours on the job to try not to think about what they couldn't fix. There aren't going to be any hunts, not for the next week, and Sam hopes to hell that the angel war and Eve and whatever else just—take a number, for now. They've only got this to focus on, and it's not a vacation exactly but it's…

Sam made lunch so Dean makes dinner, except Dean makes breakfast—pancakes from the box mix Sam bought, three each, and scrambled eggs that are just the perfect texture, and definitely better than anything Sam's had from a diner in the past three months. He groans and Dean gives him a smug look over his own plate. "Right?" he says, and Sam says, "Where the hell did you learn to cook like this?", and Dean shrugs, cuts a bite of pancakes and shoves them in, says around a full mouth, "I was in charge of breakfast, got pretty good," and Sam doesn't know what he's talking about at all until he sees that Dean's not looking at him, and that means that he's talking about Lisa.

It's that stuff. These things they don't talk about, or that they ignore. In this space they're—available to say. This cabin that doesn't feel like the real world, with its stupid fish art on the walls and the fact that they can't really leave it, can't pretend like they can be anywhere else but here. That stuff makes it—different. Sam washes the dishes, since Dean cooked, and they sit again by the fire—this time with whiskey in faded fish-themed cups, watered down with a blob of snow—and Sam watches the fire while Dean kicks up his feet on the table, toes extended toward the grate. He's wearing those woolly socks Sam bought, on demand: blue, with little grippy snowflakes on the bottom. Apparently as a girl his circulation isn't great. Sam looks at his toes, wiggling idly toward the fire, and the wave of pure endeared warmth sweeps through him again, and he props his head on his hand and doesn't look over when he says, "Hey," and Dean makes a little mm sound, and Sam says, "Tell me about it, huh? That year. You cooked?"

A long pause. Sam waits, because they've got the time. They've got a week. Dean crosses his feet against each other, a strangely shy little gesture, and clears his throat, and says—rough as can be with this girl's mellow, feminine voice—"Yeah," and then, after another pause, "Yeah, Lisa had to get out early to open up the studio, so it was usually me helping Ben get ready for school, and, you know. Most important meal of the day, right?"

"I guess you got a little better than pouring a bowl of cereal," Sam says. In his periphery he can see Dean look at him, sidelong, so he grins, says, "I think the best I ever got was a stolen Dunkin dozen, you remember that?"

Dean's surprised, hoots. "Oh, dude, from that construction site?" Sam looks over and Dean's grinning, easy. "I thought that fat foreman was gonna kill me. Talk about breakfast of friggin' champions."

"And you ate all the chocolate-with-chocolate ones, jerk," Sam says, and Dean drops his head back, relaxed and easy, says, "Yeah, well, who was the one stealing our breakfast, bitch," and Sam wants—god, this. Always, always this. He's happy to hunt, he's not pretending otherwise anymore—he's happy to deal with world-ending problems, even, if he has to, if there's no one else who can. That's all fine, it's their responsibility and their job and he's okay with that. He sips his whiskey and Dean tips his head to the side, still smiling, and he's—got that little dimple, the tiny one that Dean gets sometimes when he's glad enough, and even in the softer stranger face it's just this jolt that rockets right from Sam's heart to his nuts and back again. Everything tangled together, now, and he doesn't care. It's all fine, as long as he has Dean safe, and happy, and his.

The change happened just after ten that morning; just after ten that night Sam watches Dean's cheeks flush a deeper red than the firelight and whiskey could manage, watches his pupils expand, watches him lick his lips after a sip, lingering, drawing his teeth slow and sweet over the plush pink. Sam thinks about taking him to bed then, but—"Another?" he says, holding the bottle, and Dean says, easy, "Dude, when is that a question," and they have another, and Dean tells about this awful soccer game Ben had where a collision between a pile of fourth-graders resulted in one kid getting briefly knocked unconscious, and the worried nice middle-class parents actually called 911 and the kid got helicoptered away. They both laugh over that one, and try to remember the first time each of them got knocked out—Dean can't remember his, which is a joke in itself, but thinks Sam's was when he was maybe ten—and then they try to out-do each other on most exciting early injuries, with a tie happening somewhere between Sam's shattered arm as an eight-year-old and Dean's lung puncture when he was thirteen. Then somehow it's midnight, and Dean kicks him lightly on the thigh while he says, "And I didn't even draw dongs all over your cast, so consider yourself lucky," and Sam says, dry, "Yeah, I really won the Powerball on that one," and Dean gives him a warm easy grin and Sam doesn't see the point of waiting anymore and so leans over and gets his hand on Dean's jaw and kisses him while he's smiling, sweet and whiskey-tasting and ready, and Dean pauses for a single surprised hitch of air before he wraps an arm around Sam's neck and kisses back.

Dean on his back on the fuzzy couch, gripping the ugly afghan in one hand and Sam's hair in the other, thigh dragging along Sam's hip. Pulling back, gasping, eyes dark in the firelight. Sam could carry him to the bedroom, and considers it. Drags a thumb along Dean's jaw instead, unnaturally smooth, and Dean's eyelashes dip, his lips part. Wet. Sam presses his thumb there, too, and takes the gust of warm breath, and then pulls Dean up to his feet—indulges in a moment where Dean sways against his body—then says, "Go on," and pushes the low of Dean's back, and Dean goes toward the bedroom, unzipping the hoodie as he walks, and Sam pauses to be drunk on that before he goes around the cabin, blowing out candles, turning off the kitchen lantern, raking the fire over so it won't burn them to death in their sleep—and when he gets to the bedroom it's cold, and Dean's naked, body a white flash in the moonlight coming in the curtain, and he climbs into the bed while Sam's stripping, and Sam crawls in after with the sheets a cold shock but Dean's skin is warm, over-warm, a shock in itself to hold tight against. They made up the bed with their old blankets from the car and they're heavy, comforting, the smell right, but not as good as Dean's mouth opening under Sam's, his fingers dragging up Sam's back, pulling him in like he's glad to have him—like, maybe, it's not just because they have to, for the spell. Sam can at least imagine that's so.

Second night in this bed and it's already familiar, lumpy and old. Sam rolls them over, drags Dean on top, and a spring pops like a gunshot, makes Dean laugh against his jaw. He grips Dean's ass, pulls him into place, and Dean mumbles, "What, no foreplay?" and Sam says, entirely honest, "You are driving me nuts," and Dean snorts soft and presses up on his hands, the blankets draping over his shoulders like a cape, and his pussy slides slick and scorch-hot over Sam's dick, where Sam's ready—has been, has wanted, has been at a simmer all day, thinking about what was waiting. He slips a hand up to one breast, teasing drag on that sensitive lower curve—pushes up on his elbow and sucks in the nipple on the other, his teeth lightly pressing, his tongue soft—and Dean shudders all against him, reaches down and grips Sam's dick and jerks it base to tip, testing—makes Sam bite down a little, just from the jolt that goes through him—and then Dean lifts up, positions, snugs Sam up against the slick center, sinks down—lets out this long, rich moan, like sinking into a hot bath after a hard day—and Sam lets his breast go and grips one round hip, his shoulder, lifts his head and meets Dean's face, turned down toward his—presses their foreheads together, feels the insane clutch inside, all pulsing slick heat, threateningly tight from going straight to it but all the better for it—and Sam breathes out and says, barely keeping himself together, "Whatever you want," and Dean makes a caught little sound in his throat, wraps his arm around Sam's shoulders, tips his head against Sam's so that it nearly hurts, bone to bone.

The bed's almost too hot, after, although Sam knows they'll need that heat for later. He stretches out, hand behind his head, a foot extended from the heavy oppression of the blankets to help his temperature even out. Dean's tipped lazily onto his side where Sam left him—after they finished with Dean on his back after all, nails scratching and breath wild, urging Sam harder, making it good. God, it's good. Better every time. Dean's got the blankets pulled up high to his shoulder, his knee pressed idly against Sam's thigh, and he's looking at Sam long enough that Sam finally says, "You know, take a picture…"

The knee shoves against his thigh, though lightly. Sam smiles. He turns his head and there's the gleam of Dean's cheekbone in the moonlight, his temple. The shine of his lip when he resituates against the pillow. Sam expected some… he doesn't know, some stupid comment or banter, or Dean bitching at him to grab tissues, but he's quiet, and so Sam's quiet too.

"I barbecued," Dean says, finally. Sam doesn't get at all what he's referring to, at first. "Big grill, backyard, beers in the cooler. Like in a movie, you know? Ben running around with the other kids, sniping each other with those, whatchacallems. Super Soakers. Neighborhood people, and Lisa's friends. Felt so weird, man. I was sitting there pretending like I knew what to do at a barbecue, making like Randy Quaid in Vacation. At least I know how to cook a burger."

Sam chews the inside of his lip. Asks, careful: "You wish you hadn't stayed?"

Sweep of eyelashes, in the dark. "Would've been easier," Dean says, and—Sam's not sure that's true. Not from what clues he has of what Dean was like back then. "It just—I don't know. Backyard full of people and I was—alone. I mean, I fit in, more or less. I had a beer sometimes with this guy, after work, but it never really… We weren't really friends. Couldn't ever tell him anything real. Couldn't ever really talk to Lis about the stuff I was thinking, either, because she'd give me this look like…" He huffs. A pause, and while Sam's watching his profile shifts, changes—they've been lying here long enough that his brother is once again his brother. Dean stays still, though, and in his deeper voice continues like there wasn't an interruption. "I was just thinking. Don't laugh." Like Sam would. "Today… felt more normal than practically anything did, that whole year. Just you and me, in the ugliest cabin in the world, even if my nuts were MIA." He sighs, and turns fully on his back. "Ain't that a bitch."

Dean isn't yet moving to get up, not like last night, when they both pulled on pajama pants to make it brothers sharing a bed because there was only one bed, and nothing else. Sam can see the moon sinking, through the window—no clock and he can't see his watch but they've maybe got another hour or so of its light before it's real dark out here. He drags his foot back below the blanket, turns over. Watches the gleam over Dean's nose, the little bump there where it's meant to be.

"One time, back in college," he starts, slow. Trying to pull the details together, from something that feels like a hundred years ago. "The guys in my dorm put together a Superbowl party at this local bar. One of them was this huge Patriots fan—" Dean makes a raspberry noise, and Sam continues: "Shut up—anyway, it was this big group of guys, and girlfriends and stuff, and they invited me and I went because—I don't know." Because Brady had invited him, he doesn't say. That was before Brady—before. "The bar was all decorated with Boston versus St. Louis stuff and they were making bets and having a good time and I just… felt like an alien. Like there was this big flashing sign saying 'freak in attendance'."

"That part was true at least," Dean says. Sam socks his shoulder and Dean rocks with it easy, and Sam sees him smile, teeth white in the dark.

"You said it, forever ago," Sam says. "We're not like other people. Guess you were right."

"Yeah," Dean says, quiet. "Well, I'm always right."

The spell Denise had inflicted on Dean was too complicated, after the muddle she'd made of it, to have anything but a complicated solution. Rather than trying to reverse it directly they'd split it into two problems. The shapechanging was the harder part, and required more to fix than they'd yet been able to figure out; the required sex, by comparison, was almost straightforward in the details. Accomplishing those details, on the other hand—that was what required privacy, and was something that Bobby wanted to be at least a state away from.

Denise's spell: a punishment, intended to force the selfish lover to be unable to climax without the help of someone who loved them; by accident, making the victim so desperate for satisfaction that they'd die without it. So, the solution: a spell to make the selfish lover prove that he could serve, without personal pleasure or relief. What it boiled down to, when Bobby got frustrated with talking around it and blurted it crassly out: Dean would need to make Sam come, during the time that the full moon was in the sky (a symbol of fertility, among other things, although Dean wasn't interested in hearing about that part)—and he'd need to do so without coming himself, and moreover he'd need to do that three times, and on the last they'd need to collect what Bobby referred to, gruffly, as the "results," and mix them into a potion, and drink it down, and hope that it worked.

The last part, and the part that made Bobby not able to look at either of them, was that as far as they could tell Dean would need to truly, genuinely want only to please Sam, and not just to save himself. A lot of magic worked on belief, intent. It wouldn't matter if they mixed up the spell ingredients in Denise's ancient cracked mixing bowl that said Kiss the Cook! on the side instead of the brass cauldron the books recommended—what matters, as usual, is that they mean it.

They haven't talked about that part, exactly. Dean listened and cracked a joke about Sam getting the good end of this whole crappy month and they didn't say anything else, just packed up the car and drove up north. Now, while they wait for the moon to be in the right phase, Dean seems—

What? Thoughtful, for one. Dean does get like this sometimes—for all Sam rags on him for being shallow or shoot-first, it's more because that's what makes Dean comfortable, for… reasons Sam doesn't like to pry at too much. They talk about nonsense—they argue about the best Police Academy movie, try to remember the town they were in when they snuck into the theater to see Mission to Moscow and Sam dropped an entire Dr. Pepper onto that old lady's head and they got chased out, Dean nearly crying with laughter—and Dean's there, responding, acting—normal, more or less, but he spends a lot of time looking into the distance, and sometimes Sam waits, an ache that's almost sweet setting up what feels like a permanent residence in his throat, and watches Dean's profile, in the cold winter light.

They fill the days. Neither of them is constitutionally inclined toward idleness, and anyway they need something to do that's not waiting to screw. Despite the temperature Dean goes out and works on the car, and on the third day in the cabin he manages to get through his whole babying routine before Sam hears a bang, and finds Dean newly feminine, rubbing the back of his head under the hood, annoyed but not furious. "Got surprised by my own tits," he says, and Sam has to bite his lips together hard so as not to laugh. "Shut up," Dean says, and rolls up his coat sleeves, and keeps working, quiet and steady and clearly thinking.

That third day, dinner. Dean makes burgers, in mostly-silence, while Sam looks over the spellwork Bobby wrote out for them. Like a lot of spells, it's pretty easy. Bobby also left behind a lot of the notes he made while struggling with Denise on the second part of the spell, and Bobby's notes are tough to decipher but Sam's got years of practice, at this point. One double-underlined comment that leaps out: why does sex change F to M? Object changed by care? Figuring that out would go a long way to figuring out how to stop it from happening, but so far in the texts they've pulled together not much has appeared to provide an answer. Sam's frowning over the notes when a plate drops on top of them: burger, cheese melted over it—and he says, "Hey—" scrambling, and Dean says, "You look like you're gonna get a hernia, stop reading that crap and eat something, huh?"

Dean—light brown longish waves, and greenish eyes, and full mouth that's almost familiar—raises his eyebrows, challenging, and Sam sighs, concedes. It's a good burger. Could use some lettuce but Sam hasn't been back to town. They're quiet and Sam's trying to calculate in his head—if he leaves tomorrow, will he beat the snow, would Dean think he was ridiculous if he really did pick up steaks—and while he's thinking, Dean licks his thumb clean of mayo, and then says, "Hey, you think I should blow you tonight?"

Sam chokes. Dean says, "Dude, you're supposed to chew, not breathe it in," and Sam coughs, manages not to die on a bite of decent burger even though his brother is, apparently, trying to kill him.

When he's recovered, Dean's looking bland, like he didn't just say something—absurd. "It won't work," Sam says, eyes still watering. Tries to ignore his dick, idiot that it is, already enthusiastic about the idea. "We've got to—you know."

"Make like the beast with two backs," Dean says, helpful. "Thanks for the newsflash, Sammy. I was just thinking—" he lifts a shoulder, like it's not a big deal. "For Saturday. Maybe it'd help."

"It'd help," Sam says. Dean raises his eyebrows and Sam puts his burger down. Takes a breath, and then another. "How would it help?"

Another lifted shoulder. "I mean, if I've gotta be enthusiastic and all about my part, I should make sure I know what I'm getting into, right?" Bland, but of course it's not bland. Sam studies Dean's face and Dean's eyes drop, swiping his finger through a drip of ketchup. "I mean," Dean says, thin, "when have you ever not wanted a blowjob?"

It's rhetorical. Thank god. Sam checks his watch. Dean's personal timer will flip after one in the morning; they still have six hours, at least. He chews the inside of his cheek and Dean's… what? He genuinely can't tell. "You don't have to," he says, and Dean's mouth turns up at one side and he says, just barely bitter, "I actually do," and—god, if it weren't true it'd be easier to argue.

Sam pours them both whiskeys. He drinks his like a shot and Dean frowns at him. His cup's taken out of his hand and Dean refills it, and hands it back, and says, "Relax," and Sam scoffs, although Dean doesn't—hopefully—know why it's as ridiculous a request as it is.

Dean frowns at him again, and then grabs his forearm, pulls him along. To the couch, in front of the fire. He pushes Sam down and Sam goes, easy, making sure Dean can move him in this smaller body because it's unfair otherwise. Dean squints down at him for a moment, and then shrugs off his plaid shirt, and pulls off the baggy undershirt he's been wearing, and then—christ, no bra, which Sam didn't notice under the flowing fabric, and Dean's breasts today are just… pretty, milk-white skin and snub cherry nipples, neat areolas that pucker up tight in the sudden chill. "Relax," he says again, softer, and sits on the coffee table inside the spread of Sam's knees, close and soft, touchable.

It's a lot to take in. Sam's dick, ready to celebrate, lengthens against the inside of his thigh. He swallows and Dean smiles at him, small. "This is stupid," Sam says, and Dean snorts, the smile going more natural. Sam's still holding his whiskey, and he holds it out, and Dean studies him before he picks up his cup again and clonks it dully against Sam's, and they take a sip together. Even with Dean—not-Dean—half-naked, that makes it—his brother, again, and that makes it easier for Sam to drop his head against the back of the couch and say, careful, "I don't want you to do something you don't want," and Dean's rolling his eyes before he's halfway through so he hastens to continue: "I know you have to. I just—I don't know. Maybe it's pointless, but I've got to say it, man. I don't want you to have to."

"Sammy," Dean starts. He hesitates, and shakes his head. Hair slipping over his shoulder, and he huffs and digs into his jeans pocket and ties it up, with one of the ties Sam bought, those weeks ago. It's—interesting, to see how his breasts change shape, pulled perkily high as he works on his hair. Sam licks his lips, brain draining down to his balls. Dean shakes his head when he's done, the loose ends bobbing, and then says, quiet, "You let me worry about what I want, huh," and plants his hands on Sam's thighs, and leans forward, and Sam lifts his head and Dean's kissing him—full, sweet, all at once.

Thorough, good. It's not like before, that horrible time they tried when Dean's body wasn't ready. Dean's active, this time, licking into Sam's mouth and plushly warm, delicate fingers trailing down Sam's throat, feeling his chest. Sam holds Dean's shoulders lightly, careful, and Dean touches one of his wrists and pulls his hand down, shapes Sam's hand around one of his breasts—breathes out, hot and satisfied, when Sam thumbs the nipple—breaks away from Sam's mouth and kisses his jaw, lifts up and lets Sam bury his face between Dean's breasts, the smell there—this warm salty skin-smell, a Dean-smell, that goes straight to Sam's nuts. Sam kisses the inside curve, licking where he wants to bite, and Dean's hand clutches in his hair before he says, low, "Get your pants off, Sammy." Sam puts his forehead to the warm softness of Dean's breastbone and undoes his belt, his button, his zip, and Dean pushes him back with two hands in his hair and watches between them while Sam lifts his hips, shoves jeans and boxers down, to his knees, and it's Dean who carries them the rest of the way, pushing them to Sam's ankles and going down, kneeling in the little space between the couch and coffee table, dragging his hands up Sam's thighs, eyes heavy, not shying away.

Sam's hard already; embarrassingly, obviously there. "All right," Dean says, no apparent surprise, and Sam closes his eyes, and that means he just—feels, how Dean moves warmly between his knees, strokes his hip with gentle fingers, breathes out over his dick—hot, damp—and his dick jerks, flexing without his intention. Dean says, soft somewhere, amused, "Yeah, hi to you too," and Sam slings an arm over his face, breathes open-mouthed against the inside of his elbow, holds deliberately and viciously still while Dean bolsters his dick up straight, a touch slipping dry-rough just under the head, and then—

They have actually done this already, once. Even if they hadn't, Sam's an adult and he's had this—he doesn't know how many times, because his life's not sad enough that he'd have to count. Even so—"God," he says, bursting out, and Dean hums lightly, lips plush-firm around the head, tongue slick, pressure—god!—pressure, and there's a wet push down—Dean's fist around the base, he's not trying for deep-throating and Sam wouldn't ask for it even if he—could dare to—and Sam spreads his thighs wider, slouches down deeper into the couch, tries to—settle. As much as he can. As much as it is impossible to settle, with—this—and his other hand's on the back of Dean's head and when he notices he jerks it away, says fast, "Sorry, sorry," and Dean slurps up, off—cold air, god—and says, warm and entertained, almost—"Sammy, relax."

"You know how dumb that sounds, right?" Sam says, into the dark of his elbow.

Dean jerks his dick, capable, root to tip, slicking the wet he left back down to the base. "I know I wasn't this much of a pain in the ass when you wanted to eat me out the first time."

"That's different," Sam says, hips flexing. God, even with what's happening now the memory of that's—

"Yeah, super different," Dean says, sarcastic even in this lighter voice—and Sam doesn't get why, it is different, isn't it? He can't argue—he's dick-stupid, especially with Dean dragging his plush perfect stupid lips along the shaft, warm breath following the whole way—and Dean says, "Just enjoy it, huh? Bitch."

"Oh, who's the bitch—" Sam starts, and then Dean sucks him in, opening up and swallowing Sam down, all the way to where his little fist is holding Sam's base all warm and tight and fuck it's good, slickly open, dragging tight pressure on the way back up, and Sam squeezes his eyes tight shut and frames Dean's ears in both hands, has the presence of mind not to grab or insist but god, he has to touch him, has to, and Dean makes this soft low sound in his throat that vibrates straight to Sam's balls and Sam just—holds on, for the duration.

He comes. A blur, a draining. His bones dissolve. Dean holds the head soft in his mouth, lapping gently just like he did before, and Sam's sensitive but not enough that it doesn't feel—insane. Sam opens his eyes, finally—blur again, firelight fracturing, and looks down—and Dean's—a girl—but it's Dean—and he tucks a loose tendril of hair behind Dean's ear and Dean pulls off, licks violently red lips, and then takes Sam's cockhead back in his mouth and goes plushly back down, wet and gentle, pulling back and off so slow, releasing at last with a soft, audible pop.

"You're nuts," Sam says, thin. Dean's holding his dick still—little fist, Sam's cock rising out of it like a—monster, looking ridiculously big, thick, against Dean's pale skin, small hand. He isn't going soft, yet. Maybe because Dean's still wrapped up all close against him, fingers still gently cupping Sam's nuts and body warm, eyes heavy on Sam's crotch, looking entirely fuckable. Sam could throw him onto his back and be ready to go again in five. He takes a deep breath, brushes careful fingers along Dean's jaw, gets Dean to glance up at him, pink-cheeked.

"Worked, though," Dean says—christ, like Sam had any choice in the matter. He finally lets go of Sam's dick and it flops heavily satisfied against Sam's hip—Dean's eyes follow it, and then he brushes his lower lip with his thumb, quick. "Hm."

"What," Sam says, and Dean shakes his head, licks his lips again, says, "I forgot, you kinda feel like…" Sam wakes up, focusing, and Dean shakes his head again, presses his lips between his teeth.

"Can—" Sam starts, but—no, he doesn't want to get a no. He grips Dean's upper arm, makes him blink—pulls—and Dean goes with it, because their bodies have been talking to each other for the past few weeks better than they've been able to manage with their inadequate voices—and in a second he's got—a lapful, Dean sitting astride his bare thighs. Sam touches his chin, and Dean sighs like it's an imposition but leans in, gives Sam the kiss he wants. Soft, bitter. Sam licks in, intoxicated. Christ, it's the best thing. Dean's breasts squish pleasantly against his chest and he gets an arm around Dean's waist, dips a hand into the back of his jeans, brushing the sweet fat rise of his ass.

Dean hums, pulls back before Sam's ready to let him go. Sam lets him go. He drops his head back to the couch and Dean drags his teeth over his lip—fat, red, worked, jesus. Sam's dick flexes, stupid. "What," Sam says, again.

A bare, lifted shoulder. "You know when you're really drunk?" Dean says. Duh. Sam raises his eyebrows, and Dean—his face is pink, sort of, high over his cheekbones, in his ears. "That—feeling when your lips get kind of… numb? Like, buzzing. That's what it feels like."

Sam blinks. Dean pulls at his grip, just barely, but of course that means Sam has to let go—but Dean only shifts over to the side, one thigh still slung over Sam's naked lap, his elbow planted in the back of the couch, his face thoughtful. "You've got a nice dick," Dean says, after a few seconds, looking—apparently—at Sam's collarbone.

"Thanks," Sam says, dry. Dean blinks, looks at him in the face. Snorts. Shivers—no wonder, naked from the waist up, and the fire warm, but maybe not warm enough. He stretches, drags the horrible afghan off the back of the couch—and Dean resists at first, repulsed, but Sam folds it around his shoulders and he subsides, the irritation mostly a show, hating Denise but not an idiot ready to freeze to spite her crafting. Sam takes the opportunity to hike his jeans back up, so he's not freeballing at the world, and Dean accommodates it but stays just as close, pressed up to his side. "So," Sam says. Dean makes a small sound, acknowledging. Sam picks up their abandoned cups, presses Dean's into his hand—watches him take a sip—and leaves his own cup heavy on Dean's thigh when he says, carefully easy, "Not sure you need the practice, man. You're good at that."

Close as they are, easy to feel how Dean goes stiff. Sam doesn't react. Not like he has the energy to. He tips his cup against Dean's thigh, watching the amber tip against the foggy glass, and Dean folds himself closer into the afghan, shoulders tight and high. "Dicks are easy," is what he says, finally.

"I bet," Sam says. Dean looks at him but Sam doesn't look back. He sips his drink, and holds his stupid fish cup in his palm, and says, frank and really meaning it, "Anything you want to ask, I'll tell you. Anything you want to say, I'll hear it."

"Anything," Dean says, and Sam nods, and Dean sighs, and says quiet, "And you mean it, don't you," and of course Sam does, and of course Dean doesn't say anything. Not then, on the couch, at eight o'clock, sober, the firelight between them.

Later—Dean pulls his plaid back on and they play a few rounds of Texas Hold 'Em, and then gin rummy, and then a crappy version of spades where they're each a team and playing two hands at once, and Dean destroys Sam at that, crowing, which isn't fair because who had zero diamonds two hands in a row? Later still: they go to bed, mostly sober, around midnight. Dean's due to be fucked in just an hour and change but he's tired, he says, and so Sam brushes his teeth and climbs into pajamas and they sleep, until the alarm Sam set goes off at five a.m. Enough time for Dean to really be turned on but not long enough for it to hurt—and the moon's set, at that point, so it's entirely in the dark that he pulls off Dean's boxers, leaves his shirt so he'll stay cozily warm, and gets Dean to open up, and fucks him that way, slow, still tired, bringing him off and coming inside and then, because Dean's so close and warm and smells so good, and because the blowjob featured in Sam's dreams enough that he's still aching from it, Sam ducks down and eats Dean out again, tasting himself but mostly just tucked into the close dark of his thighs, making Dean arch and melt and shudder in the cave of the blankets, until Dean reaches down and grips his hair and says, groaning, god, don't suffocate, and the truth is that, in that moment, Sam wouldn't mind.

He crawls back up—wipes his mouth on Dean's shirt, which makes Dean smack his shoulder—but he gets to kiss Dean, anyway, so he can take a limp, satisfied smack. Dean's thigh drags along his, his ass full and sweet. His body's had this amazingly round ass a few days in a row, now. Sam's not upset about that at all.

He's awake now—annoyingly so—but Dean's drowsy. His body's cooling down from the danger zone but he's still hot from sex, and pliant, and Sam kisses the underside of his soft jaw, unbuttons his shirt one slippery button at a time. Dean hums but doesn't stop him. It's pure dark so all Sam can go on is feel—the weight of his breast, the pleasant bluntness of a nipple, puckering under his thumb. "Trying to get me going again?" Dean says, mumbly, quiet. "We got, what. Ten minutes?"

Sam smiles, kisses his neck. "I could do it in less," he says, and Dean huffs. Like Sam hasn't demonstrated, over this stupid, crazy month. He holds the fat underside of Dean's ass, keeping him close, and noses under his ear in that spot that's started to be sensitive, and Dean shivers, hand sliding over Sam's side. Makes it a space for Sam to say, carefully easy, "Anyway. You've got a nice pussy."

Dean's hand stills. Sam leaves it there—the echo obvious, but Dean can ignore it if he wants.

"Don't kill me," Sam says, sort of meaning it. He tips his head back, onto the pillow, so there's an inch of breathing room between them. "It's just kind of—cool. You get to experience all this stuff, like this. Feel it from both sides. That's kinda nuts, right?"

Dean's hand moves—flattens instead against Sam's bare stomach. "I guess. Coming as a girl is—" A rustle—maybe a shrug? "I don't know. It's good. Slower, I guess? And you're good at munching box, so congrats, Sammy." Sam snorts. Dean's thumb moves, sliding over his abs. When he talks again it's quieter. "Some of it's not different. Kissing's the same. Some of the—the spots that feel best, they're… the same, more or less." Pause. "Blowjob feels the same."

He knew it. He knew it, but hearing it—Sam tries very hard not to stiffen or shift or move in any way, but it's still—a dose of icewater down his spine, to have it out loud, honest. He immediately wants to ask a hundred questions. More. He doesn't, because he's not an idiot. He slides his hand up over Dean's hip, to the dip of his waist under his shirt, and says, instead, honest too because what's the point of being here, close in the dark, if they're not honest: "I've wondered, sometimes." He licks his lips, in the silence that follows, and says, then, "I would, I think. If…"

Less than ten minutes, now. They lie together, two true things there in the dark with them. Just as well that it's dark so Dean can't see the flaming red Sam can feel in his own face. Sam's heart beats a shocked thump in his own throat, and Dean hasn't responded, in any way—not words or movement or anger or—or what Sam can't hope for—and so before he can expose anything else, Sam squeezes Dean's hip lightly, like it's nothing, murmurs gotta pee, and pulls his arm out from under Dean to roll away, splash icy water on his face and—god, who knows what, after that—but Dean grips his elbow, and the mattress tips, and Dean's hand finds his jaw unerring in the dark and Dean kisses him. Off-center at first and then solid. Not licking in—not new, because now when Dean's like this their boundaries are completely blurred—but there's just a few moments left, and Sam's surprised anyway, holding still and letting himself be kissed—wondering if it'll last long enough, that he could have—but then Dean pulls away, and swipes his thumb over Sam's mouth when he does, like smoothing something down so no one will notice it's been mussed, and drops back, away, a bounce against the shitty mattress and his body-heat disappearing.

Sam breathes deep, in and out, and gets up like he said he was going to, walking naked out of the bedroom and into the tiny bathroom and closing the door, and sitting on the toilet with an icy shock he hardly notices, and he holds his fingers over his mouth, eyes closed, imagining Dean turning back into himself any second now in the bed on the other side of the wall—his muscles shifting and growing, his back broad, stubble on his jaw, his dick. Sam presses his lips together. Pushes his thumb against them, and then inside, dragging against his teeth, salty skin against his tongue. Easy.

Wednesday, the moon doesn't rise until nearly four in the afternoon. Dean's himself, after their early-morning fuck (on their sides in the bed, slow and close and lazy), and he takes a shower and seems—jittery, on edge. He wants to drive and of course Sam gives up the keys. Then Dean says, not looking at him, "Hey, you want anything special from the store? Rabbit food, or whatever?" Sam stands there in the kitchen, stupid in his coat, and Dean's chewing his lip, in his own jeans and his own jacket and his own real boots on, and Sam says, "Salad stuff, if they've got it," and Dean nods fast and disappears out the door—the engine on, in a split second, like he leapt into the car quick as a cartoon—and Sam's there, in his coat, the cabin silent around him, his fingertips finely, numbly cold.

Noon; Sam heats up a can of soup, standing over the stove, stirring slowly so it won't burn. He eats, sitting with his back to the windows. After he washes out the bowl he goes through Giuliana's books again, looking for the larger solution, translating slowly from the leftovers of Denise and Bobby's notes. Weaving. He traces the patterns in the big grimoire; flips the page to find the bridal crown Denise had sort of copied, in her boozed-up reworking that smashed the spells together. The picture isn't great—whatever witch put it down wasn't an artist—but the shape of the face is vaguely feminine, under the pattern of the veil. Sam frowns, looking at the thin script on the page by the pattern. Words he doesn't know but whose shapes are recognizable. Promises, loyalty.

On the phone, Bobby's gruff, curt. "Is there something to that?" Sam says, skipping over the small talk. Bobby doesn't want to hear how he is; Bobby doesn't want to think about what they've been doing, and what they're going to do. "I mean, if the curse is all about—making Gary feel how Denise has been feeling, right? That's where it started. Maybe Denise wants Gary to promise that he's still loyal to her?"

Maybe. But she wasn't worried about him stepping out, remember. He knows where his bread's buttered, and it's right next to Denise making her god-awful Olive Garden hotdish.

Sam puts another log on the fire, thinking. "Right, she swore he wasn't going to cheat, didn't she. So—it's not that. It's the other stuff—the caring stuff. Making him feel like she felt."

The fishing rod left behind, Bobby says, and it should sound stupid and Sam would expect Bobby to make it sound extra mocking, but it's not. He did spend a week with her—and Sam can imagine it, more or less. Left behind at home, in an empty house, with the most important person looking away, all the time, at something that was more interesting. A lonely housewife, wishing someone would care.

"Love, honor, obey," Sam says, looking again at the knot pattern. "I guess it only counts if you mean it."

Huh, Bobby says, like something occurred to him—but there's the sound of an engine, finally, cutting through the silent cold afternoon, and Sam says, "Gotta go—sorry—" and hangs up before Bobby can say goodbye, and Sam shoves his phone into his pocket and opens the front door, and finds Dean hauling a paper bag out of the backseat of the Impala, looking up at Sam like he's been caught at something.

"Oh," says Dean, clutching the bag, and then his jaw clenches. He jerks a head at the car. "Well, help," he says, like Sam's a dumbass for standing there, so Sam comes down and gets the twenty-four pack of beer, and the two bottles of bourbon in brown bags, and comes in to find Dean coming out of the bedroom, coat off, rolling up the sleeves on his plaid shirt, pink-faced. Still a man—it's a quarter past three, so he still has time—but pink-faced, anyway, and Sam squints at him but Dean only goes to the kitchen counter, starts unpacking the groceries. Says, "You better appreciate it, I got friggin' broccoli," and Sam wants to say, where have you been, and he wants to say, what is it, what can I do, what do you want that would make this okay—but he doesn't, because he's not actually a dumbass, and so he says, dry, "Broccoli, huh? You're my hero," and Dean snorts, and so—it's not okay, not completely, but it's enough okay, for now.

Dean shaves, before he changes. "Weird, right?" he says, over the sound of the sink running. "Like—my body's still doing its thing, even with me being a chick most of the time. I guess that's good. Be weird if I was, you know, permanently stuck on February 23^rd, for as long as I keep shifting into Nancy."

He comes out toweling his face, bare and neat. Sam drinks him in. "What," Dean says, "did I miss a spot?" and Sam says, dumb but honest, "I just kinda missed you, that's all," and Dean blinks at him, big green eyes and strong cheekbones and sharp, beautiful jaw. Beautiful, all over. The construction work mixed with sedentary living over that last year altered him, somehow—more obvious muscle but this layer of plushness all over, more than when they were younger—or maybe it's that Sam's looking, now, more than he did when they were younger—and his eyes and his mouth and the way he holds himself, a little dangerous, a little…

"So," Dean says, gruff, "did you find anything?" Sam blinks at him, idiotic, until Dean jerks his chin at the books spread out on the coffee table. "What, do I say abracadabra and then get my dick back, full-time?"

"Not yet," Sam says, and Dean clicks his tongue. Edge of sarcasm and Sam's not interested. "Come here," he says, immediately, and Dean frowns, but lets himself be drawn over, to the books, and Sam talks: frank, open, honest. Everything he thought, when talking to Bobby. No sneaking around and sparing feelings, no dissembling. Love, honor, obey.

"The fishing rod," Dean mutters. "You know, between that and the ferret thing I'm not feeling super flattered by you guys." Sam snorts.

Dean leans forward, elbows on his knees, looking at the crochet pattern—the lace drawn in harsh black lines but still somehow delicate. "I don't know, man. Denise was angry because she felt like Gary didn't care about her. Just some broad at home, easy to take for granted. So, she turns him—me—into the broad, and I've got to find someone who cares about me to fix me." He drags his thumb over his mouth, frowning down at the book. "Thanks for that, by the way. I don't know if I've… Well. Thanks."

Strange diffidence, in how he says it. "You'd do the same for me," Sam says.

A huff. "God forbid, I don't ever want to know how you'd handle chickification." Sam frowns, not sure if he should be offended, and when Dean glances over he rolls his eyes. "Dude, please. First jerk who hit on you a little too hard, you'd deck him. Then I'd be bailing baby sister out of jail, and who needs that." Sam opens his mouth, torn—because first of all, that's not true—and did someone—to Dean?—but his uneasiness is dismissed when Dean waves his hand. "Anyway. Not the point. All this—loyalty stuff, honor and obey, or whatever, I don't see what the spell might want that we're not already doing."

Sam's train of thought leaps rails, again. Dean's frowning at the book a little too hard so as not to look up. "You want to explain that part?"

His cheek hollows as he sucks it in. "Just saying. We haven't been, you know. Stepping out. I mean, I haven't, or not since—uh, Bobby. And ever since you came back—real you, I mean, you with a soul—it's just been me and you. Right?"

Counting backwards. Sam squints at the fire. He has no way of knowing what his body did while he was away, but—yeah. Ever since climbing out of Bobby's panic room he hasn't even… thought about it. And Dean—

—changes, while they're sitting there. Makes a soft sound, bracing on the edge of the couch. His hair's long, again, with a slight wave, and again that medium brown, lighter than Sam's and about the same as Dean's normal coloring. Another thing that's settled, the last couple of days. Sam clears his throat and folds his arms over his chest, to avoid reaching out and touching, and says, "What about you? Back when—you went to visit Lisa, when Ben was calling. You didn't…"

"A lady doesn't kiss and tell," Dean says, in the smooth sweet voice that's also, now, weirdly familiar. He takes a deep breath, and drops back into the couch, slumped. Wide hips, decent tits. Sam tongues the inside of his cheek. After a few seconds, Dean props his socked feet on the table, eyes distant. "No, we didn't. That's—all done, man. Should've been done a long time ago but I didn't know how to admit it. Ben said—"

He cuts himself off. Sam wishes for booze, just as an easy distraction to offer. After another moment, though, Dean shakes his head. "I tried, today." Non-sequitur; Sam waits. Dean coughs, and sits up, and talks to his knees. "I, uh. Tried to pick someone up."

Heat blooms in Sam's throat. He takes a deep breath. "Someone," he says.

"A chick," Dean says, then shakes his head. "A woman. Maybe thirty, fake blonde. Good rack, great smile. That, you know, glittery blue nail polish that's like a neon sign for crazy in the sack? Bartender at this place in Eau Claire—that's where I went. Alana." He says the name with a sigh. Soft, in the feminine voice. He folds his arms around his knees. "She was into it, man. Even at 12:30 in the afternoon. Would've been crazy in the sack."

Sam's gripping the back of the couch hard enough that his knuckles hurt. He lets go. The joints ache. He says, careful, "What happened?"

Not careful enough; Dean glances at him. His eyes are green, again, big and pretty and long-lashed, and he looks at Sam long enough for Sam to be hit with the similarity before he looks back at the fire, expression strange. "Just—couldn't feel it. I knew just how to do it, too. She told me when she could take her break, and she looked at the stock room, and it was like I could just see it, every single thing that'd happen, after that, and—nada. No interest." He bites the corner of his mouth. "For a second I was worried my junk was broken. But, no. Turns out I'm just a one-woman guy." He looks down at himself. "One-guy woman."

"Like, you—" Sam reaches for his notebook, thinking—clue—and says, "Like you couldn't? Or the spell was compelling you to—what, stay loyal?"

Dean drags his hand over his mouth, and with the other hand stops Sam from finding his pen. "No, Sam. The spell doesn't get to be in charge of everything I do." Sam holds there, uncertain, and Dean sucks the inside of his cheek again and then looks at him, straight-on. Pretty face, almost familiar. "I didn't want to. Not really. I mean, I wanted to use my dick—been a while since it's been anything but me and Mrs. Palm—but I didn't want to have sex with someone else." Sam opens his mouth, closes it, and the corner of Dean's mouth lifts, without much humor. "Yeah. So. If loyalty is the question—it's not a problem, is what I'm saying."

Sleeting rain, that night. Makes the cabin colder. Dean stokes the fire hotter and they sit by it, drinking, after dinner. Snow likely, in the early morning. They'll wake up to a frozen world, again. Sam will need to call Bobby, figure out how to tell him Dean's—experiment that failed. They'll have to go over the spells again. But that's tomorrow. For now—

Dean's been steady, all night. Thinking again, distant but only in how his mind's turned entirely inward, and when Sam says something it takes a second to tune back in. Sam doesn't blame him. It's a lot to think about.

In his life Sam hasn't really had much opportunity to be monogamous. Jessica was his only relationship of any length or consequence. Before her there were girls in high school—a few dates each before they moved and he had to start over again—and in his first two years of college there were hookups and a couple of rare parties where he ended up walking home from some girl's dorm at two in the morning, physically if not mentally satisfied. After Jessica—he never slept with the same woman twice, other than the demon. (He tries not to think about the demon and mostly succeeds.) He's guessing that didn't change while he walked around without a soul.

Strange to think of Dean with one woman, for a whole year. Not strange to imagine Dean staying loyal to her, having made the choice to stay in the first place. With responsibility and routine and promises made, on either side—no, Sam thinks, watching Dean while Dean's a hundred miles away, holding a beer and not drinking it. No, Dean wouldn't have strayed.

He's changed, again, into his fuzzy blue socks, and the pajama pants he can tie up around the waist, and Sam's sweater that swamps him but is warm enough. They can't screw—at least, they can't screw where it'll matter—until four tomorrow morning, and it doesn't seem like the kind of night where Dean'll want to practice. Like he needs it.

Sam goes to bed first, and lies there in the dark, warming the bed slowly with his own heat. Zero chance he'll sleep but he wanted to give Dean the semblance of privacy. There's an orange outline around the bedroom door and Sam stretches out on his side until his feet fall off the bed and then tucks into his usual comma to sleep, and waits, watching the faint rectangle of light. Minutes slip away and then an hour. Eventually: shadows moving, and the thump of Dean's lighter feet on the floorboards, and from the other side of the wall the sound of him peeing, and then flushing, and then splashing water in the sink—a hiss, audible even over the water, from it being so icy—and Sam folds his arm under his pillow, thinks of ten thousand nights just like this, Dean's little rustling noises while Sam was trying to sleep. That was home, as much as the rumble of the car engine and the smell of their blankets. Dean, trying to be quiet, shucking his boots and jeans and brushing his teeth and sighing, after, and crawling into bed to lay next to Sam, with their dad in the other bed if they were lucky, or dropping into the other bed if they weren't.

One bed, now. The orange rim around the door banks, goes dim. The door creaks gently open and Dean enters in a pool of candlelight, cupped behind his hand, his face a glowing gold oval. He squints and sees that Sam's awake. "Sorry," he whispers—why?—and sets the candle on the bedside table, and sits on the edge of the bed to twist his hair up into the half-bun, to shuffle his way under the blankets, to lean over and puff out the candle and leave behind that smell of waxy smoke.

Rustling, and the shift of him finding a comfortable spot. His hip snugs up against Sam and neither of them move. He smells good, but then lately Sam always thinks that's so.

"You still awake?" Dean murmurs, and Sam hums. A sigh, and the mattress shifting, and a hand on Sam's side, minty breath between them. "Sorry," he says again, soft, "I…"

"Stop being sorry," Sam says. A weird, frustrated little sound, and he takes a breath and then a chance—shifts forward, and slides his arm around Dean's waist, and there's a quick surprised stiffening and then a relaxing, by degrees, Dean warming against him. Amazing, how warm.

A minute, where they're quiet together. Sam runs his fingers down the middle of Dean's back, muffled through the sweater. The rain's stopped; turned to snow, maybe.

"Thing is," Sam says, staying quiet, "I don't even think I'd… care. If it kept going. Don't get me wrong, I want you back—normal you, the you that can pretend you're 6'1. But if we had to—I could handle it. And I guess—I'm sorry about that. That I'm… not sorry. I wish I was but I'm not."

Dean blows out a careful, slow breath, warm against Sam's chest. "Guess I do make a hot girl," he says, sort of lightly. Sort of not.

In the dark, Sam licks his lips. No lying to himself; and what's the point, now, after all this, of lying to Dean? He's sorry that he's not sorry. He wishes he wanted things that aren't what he actually wants, but he doesn't want those things, and now, after all this—"That's not why," Sam says, and flushes immediately, cheeks prickling heat and stomach tight. Dean puts his hand against Sam's chest, tucked between them—and Sam expects to be pushed away but he isn't. Dean just holds there, quiet, warmly soft and smelling like all the things that smell like Dean, and when no violence or recrimination or horror ensues Sam figures out how to breathe again, and lets his arm over Dean's side settle, holding him, not pretending to do anything else.

Agonizing minute, with nothing but them breathing together, before Dean tucks his socked toes between Sam's calves and puts his forehead against Sam's collarbone. "Lucky," he murmurs, curving in. Sam makes an interrogative sound, suffused with warmth from multiple sources. Dean presses his lips to Sam's pec—blunted through his t-shirt but still a sweet surprise—before he continues, quiet: "Lucky I'm not handing you your ass for that height comment. Screw you, I'm 6'1. Just because you're a giant—"

"Yeah, yeah," Sam says, cupping the back of Dean's head, eyes smarting—Dean lets him, squirming closer—and then says, "Night, jerk," and Dean huffs, and says his part hotly muffled against Sam's chest—and Sam still doesn't know if he'll sleep, but his world hasn't ended either, so—

He does sleep. He wakes up around six thirty, when the moon's set but the sun's not yet risen, that grey thin blueness of before-dawn, and the bed's warm but Dean's rolled away, in the night, and Sam stretches and groans and Dean says, quiet, "I'm right here." Sam blinks to find Dean—yes, there, watching him. He reaches, brain barely online, and Dean smiles at him, closemouthed and crooked but real. Dean says, "You dork," and Sam doesn't know why but that's all right. He's got Dean's hand in his, and he'll figure it out.

Friday, the moon doesn't rise until 6:30 in the evening. Dean's himself, after their early morning session does its job, and he showers up military fast and dresses in men's clothes and heads outside to split wood—ignoring the giant pile of dry logs in the lean-to shed in the back of the house—and Sam goes for a run, despite the snow. Dean calls after him, "Don't fall into a snowdrift and freeze to death, freak," and Sam waves, and he goes—he doesn't know how far, running for a while and then walking, and then running again, crunching through the fresh fall. Putting some distance between them, so they'll each have the time and space to think.

It's a perfect day—cold, but the sky bright and blue, and the snow's a powdery overlay over the hard ground, not yet iced over. Miles away from the cabin, out into the hills. Other cabins emerge unexpectedly, behind treelines and around ridges, and he doesn't see any sign of life but it's a weird shock. They're not actually on an island of solitude. There's a world that exists up here, too. Strange to think that they could have gone for a walk some other direction, shoulders jostling and faces red with cold and with—other things—and met some random couple coming the other way, and maybe have to come up with excuses, introduce themselves, put a name to—whatever it is they're doing up here.

Top of a rise, near another pond, frozen too. Sam kicks snow off his boots, enjoys the ice shards in his lungs. He's sweating from the exertion and his mind is maybe not clear but is less of a muddle. Tomorrow they'll fix the most dangerous part of the curse, or they won't. If they do it's a win, and at least for his part it'll be an unqualified win, because if they do it'll mean that Dean wanted to do it, and what that means…

He walks most of the way back, buoyed, warm. Nearly noon, when he finally makes it, and Dean whips around when he opens the front door and says, "God, I really was going to start searching snowdrifts," kinda pissy but just in that way he always is when he actually was a little worried, and Sam says sorry but not in a way where he means it, a soft touch of warm air still filling his chest. Dean looks at him shrugging out of his jacket, a quick-flicking glance from his face to his chest to—and Dean's ears are red when he turns around, says, "You have to make your own grilled cheese, weirdo," and Sam thinks, now. If he were going to, now. He dumps his boots in the mud tray, his hands and thighs and face washing over with a surge of heat, prickling, and there's—his shoulders in that thin brown henley and his lean hips and the back of his neck, bare, where Sam could put his mouth—where he will—

Sound of an engine. Sam sees Dean stiffen at the same time his own skin tightens, shock. No one is supposed to know they're here. Dean glances at him and Sam grabs for—shit, he hasn't had a gun on him for days, it's in the bedroom—and Dean jerks his head and Sam goes on quick socked feet, brain yanked onto different tracks so suddenly a lifetime of habit takes over—he goes for the bedside table on the right, where he's hidden his gun for years—not there—what is there freezes him, hanging in shocked silence for a second he shouldn't spare—before he jerks, closes the drawer, goes to the other table where of course of course he'd stuck his pistol on that first night and he yanks it out and checks the slide and has his shoulder to the bedroom door in a moment—to find Dean with his back to the wall by the living room window, holding his own gun by his thigh. He frowns at Sam and Sam shrugs, and Sam watches the muscle in Dean's jaw tick before he takes a breath and nudges the stupid fish-patterned curtain a centimeter to the side.

"No friggin' way." His shoulders don't relax but he's not whispering. He brings the gun up a few inches, stiff—what is this? If it's nothing they need to worry about, not monsters or demons or god forbid angels. Sam comes up behind him, nudges the curtain aside over Dean's shoulder, and sees over his head:

"Oh, god," Sam says, and Dean groans, dropping his head against the windowframe. Soft top PT Cruiser in champagne, parked right behind the Impala. The trunk's popped and Sam doesn't need to see to know who's digging in the back. "Maybe we can hide."

"Maybe we can shoot her," Dean says, aggrieved, but he tucks his gun into the back of his jeans—wrist brushing Sam's stomach, he didn't realize he was standing so close—and Sam backs off, drags his hand over his face. Jumping the rails again, from his hike to coming home, to the unwelcome surprise, to—he shakes his head. Sets his pistol on the coffee table with the spell books, in full view. Dean's gone back to the kitchen, where he yanks the grilled cheese pan off the stove and starts to get down a coffee mug—practically snarls at the stupid fish slogan on it—and so Sam's left to take a deep breath, and square his shoulders, and open the door.

"Hi," he says. Perfectly neutral.

Denise blinks at him, big eyes and o for a mouth. "What, were you watching the door?" she says. "How ya doing? Here—" and she shoves a casserole dish into his hands, and swirls in on a wave of vanilla air, bulkily stacked with bags and a too-big too-magenta coat and her pouffe freshly hairsprayed, by the smell, and Sam doesn't have much of a choice but to hold the casserole dish, close the door so the cold doesn't get it in, grimace after her.

"Boy! You guys haven't done much sprucing up!" Denise rotates in place in the kitchen, dumping bags and shedding her coat and looking around like there's something that might be surprising. "I thought you'd do the whole, you know, redecorating thing. Was kinda looking forward to it if I'm honest, this place could really use a refresher." Unburdened, she's in a slightly dressed down version of the look on the night they met her—extremely tight jeans, high heeled leopard boots, a plunging purple sweater that leaves very little of her assets to the imagination. She natters on without waiting for an answer, opening the fridge and seeing the lack of light: "No generator? You run out of gas? I can get Gary to run up a can if you need it—"

"We've been using the snow," Sam interrupts. Dean hasn't turned around and is pouring what sounds like a very large measure of bourbon into his fish mug. "Denise, what are you doing here?"

It's her place, but—good lord. Sam's expecting a snippy puffed-bird comeback but she purses extremely red lips, gestures vaguely. "Well," she says, and shakes her head. "You're—Sam, right? Right. And that makes this one Dean." Dean turns around, grim, holding the mug against his chest fish side out. Denise doesn't quail at his expression but she does turn right back around, aiming all of her puff at Sam instead. Surprisingly wise. "Well, I just, you know. I felt real bad, and I know, 'cos of all the studying we were doing, me and Bobby, that tomorrow—that's the full moon, right?" Dean's eyes slam closed, behind her. Oh, god. "So, it just seemed like, least I could do was put something together for you guys. I mean, you'll be busy! And it's a real mess to cook up here, best I usually manage is spaghetti—so!"

From the bags: garlic bread half-done in tinfoil that just needs to be toasted over the stove; a mostly-made Caesar salad that will need to be tossed together, with what Denise says is her mother's world-famous dressing, try it once and you never go back; pre-packaged individual tupperware with ricotta-and-spinach-stuffed shells; a six-pack of merlot bottles, which Sam stares at and then stares up at Denise. "You get that 10% off gas deal if you buy six, we do that all the time," she says, waving her hand. "Here, put that down—" and takes the casserole dish out of his hands, and she peels the tinfoil back to show: a lasagna, thick with béchamel, already made, and they can warm it up over the stove, she says, if they're careful with the dish.

Dean unsticks himself from the counter long enough to investigate the lasagna. "Big spread," he says, and sounds reluctantly impressed. Sam rolls his eyes. His brother. "What's the angle?"

"Angle? Oh—ha!" Denise grins at him, apparently relieved, and Sam has no idea why until he realizes that, christ, one of the stupid fishing tchotchkes says exactly that, on the shelf above the stove: a marlin, implausibly holding a cigar in the corner of its mouth. Denise swipes at her crispy bangs and shakes her head. "Like I said, you know. Least I could do! I know you guys are good cooks but it's not fair, to try, and—well, it's going to be tough, tomorrow, right? Unless—" she gives Sam a sidelong look, and leans in toward Dean, eyes bright. "I mean, if he's got the equipment, maybe it won't be such a hard lift, huh? Ha!"

Sam closes his eyes. If lightning struck the cabin, right this moment, maybe the conversation would end.

Unfortunately there are no acts of god, and doubly unfortunately—having arrived with her bounty, Denise doesn't show signs of quick leaving. She acquiesces to their no-generator plan and coerces Sam into dragging the cooler out of the woodshed, and they pack her food in with the snow in the shadow of the patio, safe and cold. Back inside, she lectures Dean on how to warm it up, and he says, "I think I got it," through barely un-gritted teeth, and she says, high and nervy, "Oh, of course you do! I just, you know, want to make sure—might as well make it as painless as possible, since you'll be busy!"

She takes over the kitchen, then, to make lunch, pushing Dean's half-made grilled cheese out of the way—"No, no, you just sit down—you want a glass of wine? Here, have a glass of wine—it's vacation, right?"—and so they sit at the table, each with an unwilling fish-glass of merlot, and Denise bustles around, heels tapping on the wood floor as she assembles something from the bag, starts the stove going, babbles away about another family recipe, how they're in for a treat, isn't this nice, to get away from it all.

Dean's watching her back as she works—frowning, but like he's thinking and not like he's angry. Sam chews the inside of his cheek, taps the table, catches Dean's attention—jerks his head at her—and Dean rolls his eyes, but he stands up again after all, and leans on the fridge, reluctant. "What are you making?"

"Oh!" Why is she always startled? Sam takes his glass over to the fireplace, makes an illusion of more space. The fuzzy recliner gives a decent view but means he's far enough away not to want to pour wine on her stiff head. "Chicken piccata. Lots of lemon, that's the secret. Actually this one is a recipe from my granny—she never skimped on the good stuff and neither will I. Tammy's always on a diet and she's always leaving out the butter—ha! And she wonders why everyone always likes my food more than hers. No point if there's no flavor, right?"

"Damn right," Dean says, and then looks abashed. Sam hides his face in his cup. It's not bad wine. Dean clears his throat. "This, uh. Not one of your granny's recipes that's going to have any side-effects, is it?"

For a wonder, Denise pauses. "No," she says, and then turns and gives Dean what's maybe one of the most real looks Sam's ever seen on her cartoon face. "No, hon. And—god, I never said. I never meant—you know? I never meant it."

Entirely genuine, enough that there's a shine to her eyes. Dean's cheek hollows as he sucks it in, and he turns his face so Sam can't see it. "Yeah," he says, rough, and clears his throat. "So. What else goes into piccata?"

Sam can't believe it, although after sitting there and drinking the stupid glass of wine he reluctantly, in fact, can. Always too easy for Dean to fold, even when someone's done him wrong—even a really horrible wrong—if they actually regret it. He only really holds grudges on Sam's behalf. Uncharitably, Sam thinks that he's actually been done his share of wrong here, too, although then Denise says something inane and Dean looks at her over the top of her hair pouffe and gives Sam a pained look and warm floods up in Sam's chest, and he thinks of what was in the bedside table, and—well. It could've gone wrong—it could've gone unbearably, unthinkably wrong—but it didn't, and if they're lucky, if things go right… He drags his hands over his face, shakes his head. Stands up, and sets the table, as best he can with trout plates and salmon napkins, for three.

Denise fakes a demurral at being invited to stay. It doesn't come off well when she's already sitting down, pouring herself a healthy measure of wine, and as she says, "Oh, no, this is for you boys—well, if you insist—I guess there is a lot, you know Italians, we always cook too much—"

Dean rolls his eyes and doesn't bother hiding it—no matter, since Denise is ladling out portions of piccata and potatoes, ignoring Sam when he says that one scoop is plenty: "No, you need your strength! How are you going to make it through the full moon, otherwise!"

Sam makes a fist around the fork handle. "Denise," he says, mostly evenly, "I appreciate the food—and that you're letting us use the cabin, it really is a help. But I need you to stop talking about tomorrow. Okay?"

Her eyebrows fly up. "Oh!" Sam's molars grind and he unclenches his jaw with an effort. She nods, waves a hand, pours more wine into his cup. "Sure thing, of course. Not my business!" Dean gives Sam a look over his plate, clearly entertained—why? How did this flip, already?—and takes a bite of the chicken, and then groans, shocked delight. Denise smiles at him, smug, and then raises her eyebrows at Sam again. "See? Oh, that's a good sound, huh. How we know we did our job." She blinks. "Ah—not that it's my business."

"Oh my god," Sam says, to his plate, but Denise rolls on, nattering away while cutting her chicken breast into bite-sized pieces.

"I just—I am sorry. I am. You know that, dontcha." Dean's shoveling in chicken at what's becoming an alarming rate and Denise nods at him, pleased. "Yeah. It's just—well, lucky I think is the word for it! For you two. I know now, I know, that coot Bobby Singer drilled it in my head long enough that I get it—no messing around with the spooky patterns, because even Granny didn't mess with those. And I shouldn't have tried something on my Gary, especially not without talking it through, first. We have to use our words." Repeated like rote, and at Sam's look she looks vaguely proud. "I got me a relationship book, it's real eye-opening. All kinds of stuff I never considered!" Sam slices a bite of chicken, crams it into his mouth, groans. All the more irritating that it actually is as good as Dean's orgasmic behavior over there indicates.

"But I just…" She taps her knife on the plate, lightly, eyes on the fire. "Oh, I just—if it had worked on Gary, if it hadn't had all these—problems. I don't know. I just worry, it wouldn't have worked, not like I hoped it would."

Dean frowns at her, speaks around a horribly full mouth: "Why not? If you'd made it back in time—and if you'd had the equipment for it—" (Sam swallows, with difficulty) "—I mean. You love him, right?"

"Even when he's watching soccer," she says, resigned. She shakes her head, takes a neat little dissected bite of chicken. Grunts approval at the flavor, chews politely. Sam sits back, watching her. "But me loving him—sure, it matters! But it's not all that matters, you know?"

"What else matters," Sam says. Dean frowns at his tone and Sam clears his throat. "Denise. What do you mean?"

"Well, you know," she says. Sam raises his eyebrows and she shifts, awkward. "You two, you know. You love each other. Which I think is real nice! I guess you folks can get married now, huh, in Massachusetts and those sorts of places? Lucky that if the spell was gonna miss so bad it happened to hit a couple that could handle it, ha!"

Dean freezes with his fork in his mouth. Sam takes a deep breath. Apparently Bobby didn't explain everything. "Lucky," he says, thin, and Denise nods, happy to be so accepting and liberal.

She chews potatoes, apparently thoughtful. "You been together long?" Sam opens his mouth and doesn't know what to say. Dean's looking at his plate. No matter; she doesn't wait for a response. "I was just thinking about those early days, you know? When everything's all fresh and exciting. Our wedding, now that was a doozy. My mom and I went near crazy planning everything just right, and Gary didn't do jack squat, of course, except for saying he wanted the cake to actually taste good. Tch! Like we wouldn't have a good cake? Me and Mom and Tammy made it ourselves." Denise glugs more wine into her cup, and fills Dean's again while she's holding the bottle. "Anyhoo. Like I say, Gary didn't really do anything—not that I wanted him to! Don't want a Packers-themed reception!—but he took the vows part real serious, practiced them and everything. I just thought that was so romantic, you know? That part, that was just a formality, I thought. The priest was gonna tell us our lines and we were gonna repeat 'em and we'd get through the mass and then the reception, that's where all the work had gone in. But Gary practiced, making sure he got 'em right. I just was thinking about that, how he'd be working on his truck and I'd come out and bring him a beer and he'd be saying to the engine, for richer or poorer, sickness and health." She bites her lip, puts her fork down. "'Til death."

Rime of wet in her eyes, again. Sam sits back in his chair, lunch half-finished. Across the table, Dean's watching Denise's face, thoughtful again. When she's quiet for a few seconds—blissful, to Sam's ear—Dean twitches the paper salmon napkin out from under his empty plate, offers it to her, and gets a watery, close-lipped smile in return.

"Thanks, hon." She waves the napkin at her eyes rather than use it—doesn't want to ruin her mascara, apparently. Sam clears the table of plates, chunky cutlery, drops them into the sink. Out the kitchen window the day's still clear, pretty. An improvement over having to think about Denise's sad marriage.

"Anyhoo," she says, again. Sam downs his cup of cheap wine, starts actually washing the dishes. "You stand in front of the priest and your mom and dad and your cousins and friends and all, and you have the wedding, and then there's the rings and the taking pictures and the rice—my cousin Chuck had an arm on him, throwing rice, like buckshot!—but that's it, you know? No one checks up after to make sure you're actually living up to the promises you made. Because you've both got to make the promise, and you've both got to live up to it, or what does it matter? It's got to last. And it doesn't count if it only goes one way. And if it's one way—hell. Even with the right equipment, Gary would've..." She sniffs, loudly. "Talk about 'til death."

Sam drops the mug he's washing. When he turns around, Denise is vaguely sad, very carefully pressing under her eyelids to make sure she doesn't ruin her makeup, but Dean is looking straight ahead at nothing, mouth parted. Maybe having the same thought Sam's having, while his hands drip and make a soapy puddle on the floor.

"Sorry," Denise says, and laughs, embarrassed. "Here I am, going on and on, like you guys are my hairdressers! At least it's nice to get out. Anyway, can't talk to my actual hairdresser, she's Gary's cousin and I just know she'd babble it to everyone at the next football party and then, ugh!"

Ugh. Dean drags his hand over his mouth, rasping on stubble, and says, "I'm gonna go check the woodshed," and stands up and walks out of the cabin, barely stopping to snatch his boots out of the tray.

Denise frowns after him, shrugs. "Men!" she says, to Sam, and Sam says, "Yeah, can't live with them," sarcastic, and turns around, and plunges his hands back into the water to find the mug, the mug Dean was using earlier, when Sam came in. It has a fish on it, with heart eyes, and it says I'm Hooked On You. Sam doesn't throw it through the window, but he comes close.

Dean's still outside somewhere when Denise finally leaves. Four hours until the moon rises. Sam sits in front of the fire with his knee jogging and thinks about the curse. About care, and promises. Day after day and night after night, almost three full weeks—but then, all those months that came before this stupid moon cycle, and years before that, and a lifetime before that. He's chewing the cuticle by his thumb, eyes hot and achy from staring at the fire, when he realizes he's not blinking enough, and he also remembers—

Bobby answers quick. What's the matter?

It's not funny but Sam huffs, anyway. "Nothing more than usual. Hi, Bobby."

A sigh, on the other end. Can you blame me? Of course not, and they both sit with that for a second. A log in the fireplace pops. What's going on, Sam?

He opens his mouth but—he hasn't wrapped his mind fully around it, and he can't figure how to say it out loud. "You used to have a book, at the house," he says. "Kind of a weird purple-red leather cover, embossed lettering but it was real faded, hard to read. Kept it… top left, on that bookcase by the stairs. I think it was about souls. You know the one I'm talking about?"

That crap? Sam, that's… fairytale stuff. Total bunk. When'd you even read it?

"Bobby."

Stashed it into the never use pile, but I got it around here somewhere. What, you think it'll help?

There's sound outside—boots on the porch, stamping. Sam clears his throat. "It might. I'll come pick it up, tomorrow."

Tomorrow—Sam—

"I'll be back in time," Sam says, as Dean's opening the door. Dean—pink-nosed with cold, startled at seeing him right there. "I'll talk to you soon, okay? Thanks."

He hangs up before Bobby can respond. Dean shivers, kicking off his boots. "Why aren't we doing this in Malibu," he says, rubbing his hands together, and Sam says, "Bad planning, I guess." Dean doesn't smile but he's not pissed. He comes and stands by the fire, holding his hands out, eyes closed, and says, then, "Going somewhere, huh."

"I got an idea," Sam says. He hasn't budged, sitting forward with his hands between his knees. Watching Dean. When isn't he, lately. "Bobby's got a book—I couldn't really remember it before but I think it might help. I can be there and back before the moon rises, tomorrow."

Dean's hands rasp together. "Guess that means you think you're borrowing the car," and Sam's quiet, and Dean takes a deep breath and turns and puts his back to the fire, looks at Sam straight-on. Line between his eyebrows, serious. "Sammy."

The corner of Sam's mouth hitches without his say-so. "I don't know," he says. Dean's cheek sucks in on one side. "Not for sure. But if…"

"If," Dean says. Just one word—Sam can't tell if it's as bitter as he fears. Dean bites his lip, and looks away, and Sam gets to look at him, for a long held moment in the quiet with the fire crackling and the daylight seeping past the ugly curtains and making him just—unbearable. Familiar. Both at once, and how's that possible.

Sam says, "Hey," and when Dean looks at him sidelong, he shrugs, and smiles in a way where he knows Dean can tell he means it, not bright or cheerful but—he's looking at Dean, and so he smiles. "We've got time to kill, until tomorrow. I don't want to talk about it, do you?"

Explosive breath that puffs Dean's cheeks out. "No," he says.

"Yeah." Sam leans back into the couch, drags his hand through his hair. Resolves: no worries. Nothing, until tomorrow, or after. He smiles again, rueful. "So: I mean, we got all this wine. And cards. And I could destroy you at rummy, if you want."

Dean snorts. "You wish," he says. Softer, maybe, than usual. He sucks his lower lip, lets it out wet and full. "Gin rummy," he says, then, after a few seconds. The corner of his mouth hitches up. "Make it a challenge for me to own your ass, at least."

"You're on," Sam says, and that night they finish the bottle of wine they started with Denise and, after Dean turns into a woman—honey-brown hair, greenish eyes, freckles even—they finish another bottle, and Sam thinks it's him who wins at gin but Dean has objections, for reasons Sam tipsily doesn't remember, and they go to bed together still arguing about it, caught up warm in the bedroom with Sam's lips buzzing and his tongue tasting like grapes and Dean's waist caught in the curve of his arm, sweetly giving.

He wakes up before his alarm, the next morning, and his nose is in Dean's hair and his dick's snugged up deliciously tight against the fat curve of his ass. He struggles out of bed, takes a piss in the wintry cold, splashes icy water on his face and drinks stomach-filling glugs of cold water and takes three aspirin, head pounding in the dark—and back to sleep, then, pressed up against Dean's heat, and when he wakes a second time it's to his phone buzzing, on his nightstand, and Dean grumbling, burrowing closer into Sam's chest, the world thinly grey with the sun not over the edge of the hills. Sam extricates himself from Dean's grip and makes coffee, leaning over the stovetop and dragging his thoughts together one by painful one. When it's done he laces Dean's cup with sugar he pretends not to want and brings it to bed, and when he's there tucks Dean's hair behind his ear, and wakes him that way, his eye slitting slowly, his mouth parting, soft. His ear's the same shape as Dean's real ear. Sam lets him sit up, sip his coffee—groan, satisfied, at the dose of bittersweet caffeine—and then, without speaking, he takes the cup away, and Dean reaches and sets lazy fingers over the back of Sam's neck, and Sam fucks him slowly, lips at the bolt of Dean's jaw and his hips cradled warmly between Dean's thighs, and he gets Dean off, a breast cupped in one palm, Dean's foot dragging along his calf, lazy, satisfied. Sam tips Dean's chin up afterwards and kisses him, gentle and wet, for long minutes while the sun rises through the curtains, enjoying Dean's sour-coffee taste and the sweet they pretend isn't there and the way Dean's fingers trace slow, thoughtless circles on his shoulders, until he pulls back, and opens his eyes, and Dean blinks sleepily at him, and he pulls out, finally, wet gushing after. Dean's eyes sharpen and it's not just the fuck-laziness of early morning but something that's—real—and there's, what, a handful of minutes before Dean changes back into his real self. Before he can Sam dips his head and kisses Dean again—close-mouthed, soft—and Dean's fingers slip into his hair and hold him close—and Sam rolls their foreheads together, their noses brushing, before he pulls away, rolls off—Dean's hand dragging along his shoulder, clinging—and gets out of bed, and goes out the door into the bathroom and turns on the shower, heart thumping, knowing the day ahead and knowing, too, that—whatever he feels—today, something's going to change. Remains to be seen, what stays the same.

Five hours to Singer Salvage; near one o'clock when he arrives. His stomach clenches when he pulls the Impala up into the dirt yard—hunger, nerves. Either one works. Bobby opens the kitchen door and squints at him, unimpressed, and leaves the door open when he walks back into the house, and so Sam has to follow, and in the dusty dim interior he gets that weird awful world-existing feeling all over again, doubly strong. The highway and gas stations and the streets of Sioux Falls through the Impala's windows didn't do it but Bobby's living room does, because he's slept on that couch and Dean has slept on the floor right next to it and this is—a kind of home, or home enough, and Bobby's expression, when he's handing over the book, says he's thinking the exact same thing.

"I looked it over," Bobby says. "All that soul stuff. Far as I can tell, the only thing it ever did is make some hunter a hundred years ago drive himself crazy, trying to get his wife back from the dead. What do you think you're doing, Sam?"

Sam chews the inside of his cheek, holding the book in both hands. It's the exact one he was thinking of, those first few days—when they were looking at fairytales, old folklore, myth. The cover, just as he remembered, from being a kid. A kid—he feels like one now, even if he's got half a foot on Bobby and the things he's done are…

"Balls." Sam looks up; Bobby's mouth is tucked up on one side, his eyes less skeptical. "You eat?" Sam shakes his head and Bobby rolls his eyes, dickish. Comforting. "Sit. Go on, sit. You'll make it back before you're needed." For what, Bobby doesn't say.

Not exactly a gourmet spread: Bobby gives him a cheese sandwich and a beer, and sits across from him at the kitchen table, arms folded, and waits while he wolfs the sandwich, hungrier than he thought no matter the nerves. When Sam's washing down the last bite with a swallow of vile El Sol, Bobby nods at him, no-nonsense. "All right, kid. Spill."

"Denise stopped by," Sam says, and Bobby says, immediately, "Condolences," and Sam smiles but only briefly, because it turns out the knot in his stomach is still there, and Bobby's eyes sharpen, and so—Sam spills. Just what she said, as edited as he can make it. When he's reported he still can't—say it, not exactly, because the idea's too big. "I just—she thought it wouldn't have worked. Her and Gary. I mean, of course—but if she loves Gary, and I think she does, then—" He swallows. Bobby's not looking at him. "You never—talked about that? While you were working out the first part of the cure? How—how she was thinking about it, when she cast the spell?"

"Course we talked about it," Bobby says, gruff. He stands up, futzes with the coffee maker. Not looking at Sam while he does it. God, he and Dean really are similar. "Not sure you noticed, Sam, she's not the most coherent character. She gabbed pretty well non-stop about love and feeling sorry for herself and making Gary see what it was like, and hell if all that didn't land right on Dean's head. She's the one who wove the whole thing together; in this cluster of a curse, her feelings, god help us, are the ones that matter."

"Yeah," Sam says. He's shredding the label on his beer and forces himself to stop, thumbing the peeled-back edge back into place. He thinks of her face, the clown makeup not concealing the sadness, as she thought about her husband—not wanting her, not loving her, not caring—and the surge of anger at Gary's as startling as it is unwelcome. It is her spell; it is her feelings that matter. But…

"Time to go, kid." Sam looks up: quarter to two. He does have to get back—has to drive fast to do it, to be there on time—and for a childish, stupid second, he doesn't want to. He wants Bobby to send him down to the basement to look for wormwood in the cobwebbed tacklebox Sam had always been scared of as a kid. He wants to be told, nah, it's fine, son—we can handle it.

He drains his beer. When was the last time he could let anyone handle anything, on his behalf, and not feel like absolute shit for passing the buck. "Thanks, Bobby," he says, meaning it.

"I'd say my pleasure, but," Bobby says. Sam snorts. Grabs the book, and fists his hand around the Impala's keys, in his pocket. He's halfway out the door when Bobby says, "Sam," and when he looks over his shoulder Bobby's pained. "If it works, tonight—" He scratches his beard, doesn't meet Sam's eyes. "Give me a few days, before you call."

That childish thing curls up in his stomach, aching. "Sure thing," he says, and sees Bobby nod before he turns away. Then Sam closes the door, and breathes in the cold March air, and then gets back on the road, to get home to his brother.

A few minutes after seven, when he coasts back up into the mud in front of the cabin. Sun barely setting, through the trees, and the sunset's a pale kind of pretty. He sits on the hood of the car, for a moment—knows Dean heard the engine, knows he's waiting inside—but he sits, takes it in, setting his mind in the place it needs to be, for tonight. For what he has to just—be there for, tonight. Not difficult, for his part. He doesn't know what Dean's going to be thinking, for his.

He leaves his boots in the tray. "Hey," he calls, hanging up his coat. The cabin smells good. Food, on the stove. Bottle of wine on the counter. The fire's built high and it's warm, homey in here, despite all the fish crap everywhere. The couch has been moved, a little, pulled back from the hearth—and one of their blankets, the brown one, spread over the cushions and hiding the ugly afghans, making it look like a bed.

Sam leaves the book from Bobby's on the pile that's been moved back over to Denise's trunk. Time enough for that tomorrow. According to his watch there's forty minutes, before showtime, and just as he's wondering if he should call out again, Dean steps out of the bedroom, in a t-shirt and pajama pants and bare feet, and he looks right at Sam, and Sam opens his mouth but it's suddenly dry, and anyway. What is there to say.

"You eat?" Dean says, and Sam shakes his head—nothing, all day, other than the cheese sandwich for lunch. Dean nods like that's expected. He moves into the kitchen and starts uncovering things on the stove. When he goes to help Dean gives him a hard look. "Plates."

So, Sam sets the table, feeling weird déjà vu. Fish cups, and fish plates, and the stupid, ugly forks, and while he's wishing for any kind of décor that's non-aquatic—even deer heads would do—Dean puts down a foil-covered dish. "Lasagna sounds good," Sam says. Lame even to his own ears. "You try it?"

"Had it for lunch," Dean says, and when Sam's frowning he peels off the foil and reveals—oh. Mac & cheese, swirled with peas and cut-up hot dogs and hot sauce.

"Dude," Sam says, "is this—"

"Winchester special," Dean says, and for the first time since Sam's returned he's got a soft curve to his mouth. "A la Motel 6 in, uh, Joplin, Missouri?"

"Carthage," Sam corrects. He huffs, nostalgia welling up. "God. This was what you made that night I was in dress rehearsal for Oklahoma. You remember I puked this up, right? All over Michelle Harris?"

"Pretty epic trajectory," Dean says, and now he's smiling. He puts down two beers, instead of the wine, and scoops a nuclear-orange mound onto each of their plates, and when he sits he nods at the other chair and Sam drops down, endeared by the frankly revolting pile but puzzled. Dean lifts a shoulder. "Called in a favor. If tonight's meant to be about you and me—it's you and me. Nobody else." Smile smaller, he holds out his beer to clink. Sam's throat feels thick. He knocks their bottle-necks together, and Dean nods, and they take a sip at the same time. Cheap, crappy. Home. Dean picks up his fork, swirls through the mush. "By the way," he says, "you puke on me, and I don't care about the curse, I'll kill you."

"Understood," Sam says, and when he takes a bite—it's gross, and squishy, and the peas are inexplicable, and Dean used too much hot sauce like he always did, and it's just—the best thing Sam's tasted in a long time. He doesn't realize he's had his eyes closed, savoring, until he opens them, and finds Dean watching him with a grin. "Shut up," he says, and Dean says, "Didn't say anything, Mr. Pukey," and Sam thinks about throwing a hot dog slice at him but—waste of a perfect thing.

The favor was called in, turns out, from Denise. Again. "She wasn't offended?" Sam says, and Dean says, "Dude, told her it was part of the ritual, and she just bought it. Witchcraft, featuring Nathan's Famous." There's still lasagna leftover, which Dean reluctantly admits was spectacular; the garlic bread he left alone, since garlic breath wouldn't be polite. "Oh, and hot dog breath is," Sam says, and Dean grins at him, with a green pea-jacket stuck on one canine. Sam rolls his eyes, pretending he's not charmed, and gets them fresh beers from the snow-packed cooler, and when he comes back Dean's sucked in his bottom lip, and is just looking at him, again, still not hiding it.

A handful of minutes until the full moon rises. Sam uncaps Dean's beer and slides it across the table. "What are you thinking?" he says. Dean's eyebrows lift and Sam nods. "Yeah, I really want to know."

Dean lets his lip drag out from his teeth, shining wet. "Been thinking about your dick," he says. Sam's stomach swoops. Dean's mouth quirks but he's not joking. "All day, pretty much. I mean, I took a nap around two, but other than that." He takes a long gulping swallow from his beer, and shrugs when he's done. "Kind of a conversation killer, huh?"

Sam scratches his jaw, trying to ignore the molten warmth pouring down into his gut, up from his balls. "I don't know," he says, and maybe it's thin but it'll have to do. "Gonna be a pretty quiet twelve hours if we can't talk about that. After all. Big topic."

"Ha." He says it, flat. Even so his eyes aren't—hard, or nervous. He's looking at Sam, very steady, like he keeps just freaking looking, and Sam wants to kiss him—like this, like now, with stubble on his jaw and his hands broad and his short hair and his no tits and his ass that's actually about as nice as the ass on any of the girls, these last weeks. He's just—there. This guy. Sam's aware of him in that minute in a different way to all these days before—all his life before—because there was his brother, who was the person who'd brought him up and was his best friend and was annoying as shit and had his back and was just the best man Sam knew, or ever would, and Dean's still all those things. But sitting there across the table, with a gross cheesy mess on the plate and a beer half-drunk and a pea maybe still stuck to his canine, he's—a guy that Sam wants to fuck.

Sam takes a deep breath. "Need to brush my teeth," he says, stupid.

"Good call," Dean says, following him, and that wasn't the idea but then there they are, standing side by side at the tiny sink in the tiny bathroom, scrubbing their teeth and tongues free of Kraft powder and peas and hot dog nitrates, shoulders nearly touching. Sam bends and spits first, and rinses his mouth with the icy water, and when he stands up, and looks in the mirror, Dean's changing.

Less of a shock, every time. Less different, too. His hair's longer but about the same color, a wavy thick pile that extends to his shoulderblades, and he shrinks a few inches, and the shape of the muscles and bones change, but the face—it's nearly, nearly the same. He holds the toothbrush in the air, waiting, while breasts appear and his hips round out and his jaw gets a softer angle—and then says, mouth full of foam, "Hang on," and tucks his hair behind his ear and bends and rinses, narrower elbows braced on the edge of the sink.

Sam leans against the doorway, waiting. "You almost look like you," he says, while Dean gargles the icewater. No more ladylike than usual. He gets a sideways look. "I mean. Daintier. But you're you. More or less."

Dean spits. "More T&A, less D&B," he says, and looks at himself in the mirror. He licks his lips, gives himself a heavy-lidded look. "Yeah, I guess. That a problem?"

"Not at all," Sam says, maybe too fast.

Dean smiles, into the mirror. Fake at first, like a fake-badge photo, and then smaller, fading, until it's just the curve of his familiar mouth, when Sam's said something stupid and Dean's getting a kick out of how he's going to make fun. His eyes shift and Sam's being looked at, even if he can't see his own reflection. "Guess we're good, then," Dean says, and turns, and grips Sam's shirt and goes up on his toes and kisses him, minty-fresh and immediate, all the way, no hesitating.

The full moon'll be in the sky for about eleven and a half hours. They'll only know if this cure worked a half hour after that—if then—if Dean's body wakes up and suffuses him with that unthinking, unasked-for need. Until then—

Sam's pushed onto the couch, again, before the fire. Dean in his lap, all over him, kissing sweet and then not-sweet, bending his head back against the couch, gripping Sam's hair. His dick was already interested but it fills, now, lengthening against the inside of his jeans, his balls urgent, telling him to get this fantastic enthusiastic girl on her back, fuck into her, make her—But no. No.

He gets a hand on Dean's jaw, pulls away—Dean looking down at him heavy-eyed—says, "We're not—"

"I'm saying what we are." Dean's thumb against the corner of Sam's mouth, dragging down to his chin. Down to his throat, bracing there, his thighs warmly close around Sam's hips. "Relax," he says, like that other day, and Sam snorts at how absurd it is, and Dean sighs at him but reaches down between them, gets his hands on Sam's belt himself, and Sam slouches down, lets Dean do it. Deft, quick. Practiced.

It is practiced. Sam tries not to think about that, not that he's able to think much, with all this distraction. Dean hasn't put his hair up and so Sam's got the heavy silky fall of that on his thigh, and when he looks down between his splayed knees there's the side-part, palely vulnerable for some reason, and the tuck of his hair between his ear—ever-so-slightly pointy, familiar for Sam to slide his fingers behind—the line of his nose, with the faintest bump—the hollow, under his cheekbone, when he goes down deep on Sam's dick and sucks all the way back, lips full and red and breaking sweetly over the ridge of the head, wet gleam shining behind the path of them, Sam's dick frankly huge and breaking Dean's mouth open dark and thick and a little astonishing, against Dean's skin.

Dean's eyes sweep up and he kisses the head, plush. "You're ridiculous," Sam says. Honest, dizzy. He pushes Dean's hair back from his face and sees—him—as much as he can, and Dean smiles at him, lips stretching right up against Sam's dick, and Sam laughs, helpless, wanting anything Dean'll give.

"Bet you ten I get you off in under ten," Dean says, fisting from the base, and Sam says, balls surging, "No deal," and Dean grins at him outright and goes back down, and Sam leaves his fingertips against the corner of the smooth working jaw and, yeah. It doesn't take too long, after all.

Dean swallows. He did before, when they practiced, and Sam shouldn't be surprised but it still aches lowly in his nuts and his gut, his dick flexing in Dean's hand, his body giving up another pulse. Dean goes, "Mm," and slurps his way backwards, off, lips closed while he swallows again, and Sam's heart might pound directly out of his chest like one of those sad bastards from their last case but he doesn't care. He watches while Dean licks his lips, and he says, helpless, "Dean," and Dean crawls back up into his lap, kisses him, softly bitter, tender, Sam tracing the shape of his jaw and neck, enjoying how Dean's teeth drag over his lip. The gentlest threat.

They curl together in front of the fire. Sam tips his head against Dean's neck and gets: mint, Kraft cheese, sweat, Irish Spring, the gunpowder and oil ground into the brown blanket. Salt and bleach and faint, strange sweetness. He should check his watch but doesn't want to. Dean drags his hand through his hair, and sighs, and Sam says, quietly, "Good?"

Dean makes a small noise, which could really go either way. A beat, and then Dean unfolds from his tuck against Sam's side, pushing himself upright with a hold on Sam's knee—"Stay," he says, when Sam goes to follow—and so Sam just hauls his jeans up a little and stays, chewing his lip, watching the fire. Kind of tired, drained in a good way. Two more, to look forward to. Long night.

Cold weight against his shoulder, damp—he reaches up, takes the beer, and Dean comes around to sit on the coffee table. With the couch moved back there's enough room for their knees to just barely not touch. Dean sips his own beer, looks at Sam over the edge of brown glass. All over.

"You've got a nice dick," he says, again. Meets Sam's eyes, makes sure he hears the repetition, and then leans back on one hand, apparently relaxed. Backlit by the fire, pretty. Prettier, in Dean's own black undershirt and soft pants and holding a beer casual against his thigh. "Should be asking you, anyway," Dean says, and Sam's distracted enough by looking for the echoes of his brother that he forgets the context and frowns. Dean shrugs. "Good for you?"

There are times Dean's good at faking casual. With his teeth tugging at one side of his lip and a thumb restlessly circling the rim of a beer bottle, this isn't one of them. "I came fast enough I almost sprained my nuts," Sam says, and Dean snorts so abruptly that he coughs, laughs, covering his mouth. "So, yeah, Good enough. But—Dean." Sam leans forward, reaches for Dean's knee and then thinks better of it, so his hand's just hanging futile in the air between them. "It's—not that part that matters. You know?"

"Yeah," Dean says, and coughs again. He smears his wrist over his watering eye, wipes his mouth. Huffs, shaking his head. "Keep picturing you with your balls in a sling," he mutters, and Sam rolls his eyes, and Dean says, more serious, "You want to know what I'm thinking about, huh?"

Like it's really a question. Sam spreads his hands and Dean gives him a one-sided smile. "You're a trip, little brother," Dean says, quieter. They haven't—been a while, since Dean's called him that—and Sam's stomach makes a slow, ungainly loop-de-loop. Dean shakes his head, and then: "Hey, put another log on the fire, would you?"

So, Sam does. And then there's coffee that Dean wants, and so Sam boils some up, and then they've finished their beers so Dean wants whiskey, and it's only at the point when Sam's jaw ticks when he's handing over a full mug and a whiskey-glass both that he realizes Dean's screwing with him. "Dude," he says, and Dean blinks all innocent and says, "What?", before his eyes crinkle, and he says, "Man, I thought I was gonna get you to make pancakes or something next," and Sam drops down on the couch again, but then again they've got caffeine and booze, so maybe it wasn't all just for Dean's sick entertainment.

"Hey, Sam," Dean says, in the same voice he's been asking for everything else, and Sam gives him a hard look, but Dean's grin has shrunk right back down, his expression soft. "Take your clothes off, would you?" Sam blinks and Dean raises his eyebrows. "Let me see what I'm working with, here."

"Nothing's really changed on my end," Sam says, but he's already reaching for his buttons. Even if he really knew how to, there's no point in making a show of it—he unbuttons enough on his flannel that he can pull it and his undershirt over his head, and he's been walking around with his belt undone and his pants barely zipped so it's easy to shuck those, pushing up his heels to make the room to get them down to his ankles, and off. His thighs rill immediately with gooseflesh in the cooler air but then the fire's warm, and he shakes his hair out of his eyes, and Dean's—looking at him. He puts down his coffee mug and leans forward, reaches for Sam's foot, and Sam sits there feeling surreal while Dean peels off one sock, and then the other, and then he's—really, really naked, and there's nothing for him to be ashamed of and it's nothing Dean hasn't seen, at one point or another, but he can feel his cheeks flooding red. He spreads his arms, awkward. "Want me to stand up, catwalk it?"

Dean sucks his cheek in on one side. He still hasn't pulled up his hair and it's a long fall over one shoulder, tucked behind his ears. Other than that he's disarmingly himself. No real way to pretend he's a stranger, if Sam even wanted to anymore. "I like seeing you," Dean says, and even his voice isn't—it's lighter, higher, but there's still this tone lanced through it that to Sam just sounds like Dean, and that makes his chest clench in this stuttering shocked way, because the tone is Dean when he's honest. He reaches out and touches Sam's knee, and then drags his hand up one thigh, firm and steady, making the muscle clench in his wake, and he looks, at Sam's dick and shoulders and the tattoo they share. "Makes it you. I don't know if you… I don't want to picture anyone else, in my head, or anything. It's just you, Sammy. Even if I've got to smell your stank-ass feet."

"You were the one—" Sam starts, even if his heart is bubbling up his throat, and Dean says, "Yeah, yeah," soft-eyed, and then he comes back, to the couch, and his mouth is coffee, whiskey, smiling.

They end up laying there, together. It's a fat old couch, so they mostly fit. Sam's on his back and Dean's draped over his side and the fire's warm, and even if Dean's still dressed it's more intimate than Sam can remember being with… anyone. He dozes, for a while, and wakes to Dean propped up on an elbow next to him, drawing a slow light spiral in and out from the center of the tattoo. Dragging pad of his finger on the way out; tiny scritch of his nail on the way in. Sam doesn't make a sound but Dean notices that he's awake; the swirl stops, for a second, then continues.

"I don't want to talk about other guys," Dean says. "Or—or anything. You know I've…" Line between his eyebrows appears, and disappears just as fast. "Doesn't matter." Seems like it does. Sam feels like he's holding his breath and tries not to make that obvious. "Just thinking about the spell. I've got to want to please you, right? Just you, not thinking about myself. It just doesn't make that much sense."

That tiny patch of skin is starting to get sensitive enough to hurt. Sam intercepts Dean's finger. "Why?" he says, and Dean's mouth screws up, before he lays his palm flat over Sam's tattoo, frowning at his collarbone.

"Just… when you give a crap, that's not really how it works. Right? Like—we practiced, before, and I was thinking about it then, too. I was thinking about your dick, and how you seem to like it a little rough, and you like your nuts played with, and all that stuff. So, it was kinda—I don't know, like a game plan. Tactics almost. When we practiced that's how I was trying to handle it. A job. I know how to treat it if it's a job." He licks his lips. "But then—shit, it's like any job. You think the vamp's gonna go left and then it goes right and then the whole plan's up in smoke. You were real, and I was really doing it and not just pretending, and you were—reacting, you know, getting hard and making noises and touching me like you couldn't get enough, and it—" He shakes his head. "Wasn't like a job, like that. You wanting it made it different. Hot. And just now, it… I mean, you asked, so I'm answering. It was good. Really good. But then—I'm not supposed to be thinking about anything I might want, right? Just what you would want. But—it's good for me when it's good for you, so… I don't know. It's all just—tangled up."

Sam lies there, looking at the ceiling, feeling like he's been hit with a bat. It's happened; he can make the comparison. They'll go days with Dean saying nothing more revealing than that he wants a whiskey instead of a beer, and then with no warning Sam will get an anvil dropped on his head.

"Say something," Dean says.

"You like it," Sam says, and Dean huffs, says, "Dude, if you haven't noticed that—" but Sam shakes his head, holds Dean's wrist to get his real attention. Dean blinks at him and Sam says, again, "You—you actually like it. This. Not just when it's the spell making us."

It should be a question but it's, suddenly, not. Dean frowns at him, studying his face in the firelight, and then breaks Sam's hold on his wrist and drags his hand down Sam's chest, his abs—and then sits up, swinging his leg over Sam's hip so he's kneeling, looking down. "You wanna hear?" he says. Kind of curious. "What I like?"

Sam can't answer. Dean's expression is strange. A little amused, a little bewildered. Like he's made some obvious joke and Sam's being too slow to understand the punchline.

"You've got a great body," Dean says. He touches Sam's stomach and Sam clenches, which makes Dean's mouth curve. "Ripped but not gross, you know? I guess all those stupid salads pay off. Your dick's fantastic, but you already know that, huh. And you smell good. I don't know why. Just like—your skin. Since we've been sharing that lumpy-ass bed it's the first thing I smell every morning and it's…"

"Thought I stank," Sam says, hot-faced.

"Oh, you do," Dean says, firmly. He lifts a shoulder, curving his hand over Sam's side. "Guess I got used to it. Stockholm syndrome, or whatever." He tongues the center of his lower lip, eyes low on Sam's chest. "I like how you are. During. You know what you want but you're… focused. Making sure it's good. Like there's nothing else you'd rather be doing." Sam slides his hands up Dean's thighs and Dean's hips tilt, sudden pressure over Sam's waking dick. Dean leans forward, a hand beside Sam's head on the couch arm. "And I like that I don't have to—fake anything." More serious and Sam's attention drags from Dean's lips to his eyes. "It's you and me." Dean's eyelashes dip and his weight tips, on Sam's lap, before he looks up. "And it's so weird, you freak, that that just made your dick harder."

"Pot, kettle," Sam says, and Dean lifts a shoulder but doesn't deny it—doesn't deny it at all, just dragging his thumb warmly over Sam's ribs. Sam holds Dean's ass to make sure he doesn't fall and sits up, and Dean rocks with it, and in answer to the question Sam can't voice he says, "Yeah," rueful, and so Sam kisses him, since Dean wants it, since Dean wants what Sam wants, because they're—

The second time, there on the couch. Sam gets Dean's shirt off and his tits are heavy, dark red snub nipples that get redder under Sam's mouth. He kisses Dean's tattoo and Dean sighs against his hair and pushes him back and returns the favor, investigating Sam's body. Licking a nipple and checking Sam's reaction, and grinning when a bite gets a bigger one. That grin—that annoying, shithead grin, that Sam's had aimed at him from the driver's seat and across diner booths and over flaming graves—Sam drags his thumb over it and Dean kisses the pad, and reaches down between them, and gathers Sam's dick in his hand.

"What do you want?" Dean says, and there's so much more than would fit into any answer.

He's sucked again. Softer, deeper. Dean was fast before but this time he's exploring. Takes his time. Sam's spread out, one leg pushed entirely off the couch so Dean has room, and he's licked and stroked and bitten, this constant onslaught of attention that'd be overwhelming if it weren't so slow. His dick's ready, his balls achingly tight, but Dean peeks up his body and says, "Hold on, huh?" He hauls in his patience. He doesn't want it to end, either.

When it's over Dean kisses him, brief, and then pulls back and pushes Sam's hair back from his face. "Oh, dude, you are wiped," he says, and Sam shakes his head but Dean's right. He usually is, when it comes to this stuff. Usually that's annoying as hell, so Sam doesn't really know why his chest feels so hot, soft. He gets another kiss, on his forehead, and Dean says, "Take a breather, man. We've got time."

He stands up, and Sam grabs his hand, before he can get away. It seems important that Dean not be far away.

"Relax, dude. Right here. You're gonna need to reload, anyway." Sam frowns and Dean rolls his eyes, and tugs the blanket off the back of the couch over Sam's body, and he says, "Sammy, sleep."

The fire's low when Sam wakes up. He's way too hot, anyway, and shifts awkwardly, and there's a snort and a mumbled, don't even, and he registers then that his right leg has fallen asleep and his back is soaked with sweat and Dean's plastered against him, and—how much time has passed?

He wrangles his arm out of the blanket. Quarter to five. He yawns, jaw cracking, and his mouth feels like something died in it. Probably something to do with the coffee and booze and all the fluid he's been giving up. Even so—

Dean shifts against him, sleepy. He put his hair up at some point and Sam can see, picked out in the firelight, the shape of his cheekbone and his eyebrow and his lashes thick on his pale skin. He touches the thin soft space at Dean's temple. Amazing.

A little work to extricate himself. Dean does wake up, but Sam shushes him and he turns his face into the blanket and goes back to sleep, and that gives Sam the space to stretch hugely, fingers brushing the ceiling, naked in the warm dark. Sweat along his spine that's chilly, now that he's not in the superheated closeness of the couch. Despite the hour, despite not enough sleep, he's awake. Feels like he could run a marathon.

He pisses, and washes his face, and rinses his mouth. He sets the coffee to reheat. It'll be foul but it'll be coffee. He finds the notes on the ritual that have been shoved out of the way, and brings them to the kitchen table, and spreads them out, and in the barely-there firelight and the shine from the full moon it's hard to read them, but he's got it memorized at this point and knows what they have to do. A few hours, still, to go.

The coffee boils and he pours a mug—the hooked on you one—and takes a sip, and it's awful, of course. The milk's outside. He's still naked. He shoves his feet into his boots and steps outside and the air's an electric shock, shriveling his nipples and dick and setting every hair on end. He shudders—there's the cooler, on the porch—but… He stands there, for a second, and steps into the cascade of moonlight, and looks out at the world, for a second. The car a silent frozen bulk. The lake, shining. He breathes out and watches the air crystallize and can't, for that moment, imagine dawn. Forever, spooling out in front of them, as this particular, moon-drenched night.

Dean wakes up when he closes the door. "Sammy?" he says—sleep-roughened voice, almost rough enough. He presses up on one hand, knuckling his eyes, and then squints at Sam. "You just freeballing at the moon?"

"Needed milk," Sam says, kicking off his boots, and Dean keeps squinting at him, and then mutters something quiet enough that Sam can pretend it was complimentary. He fixes his cup, and then makes one for Dean, too, and when Dean appears next to him he's got a crease in his cheek and sleepy eyes and he's wearing just Sam's flannel shirt that he'd discarded last night, hanging low over his hips, legs bare in the moonlight. He grimaces at the coffee but drinks it down like a shot.

"Who ever decided you were allowed to make the coffee," Dean says, wiping his mouth. "I don't think we voted on that."

He's messing with the pot, dealing with grounds, grumbling. The back of his neck, pale. Sam says, "Dean," and Dean grunts, and Sam says, "Why'd you buy lube?"

Dean stills, holding the can of coffee.

There, in the bedside table, staring up at Sam when he went for his gun. Brand new and unused and definitely something Dean picked up when he was out, that day he'd tried to pick up the bartender woman and couldn't face it.

Dean puts his back to the counter, holding the coffee can against his belly. Too dark to really see his eyes but Sam doesn't need to. He just wants to know what Dean will say.

"I wanted to see if it was like I remembered," he says, after a minute. "I tried it out. Yesterday, while you were gone."

Sam says, "What was the verdict?"

Comes out like a croak. He hears Dean's breath through his nose even if he can't tell if his expression really changes. "One day at a time, Sam," Dean says.

Dean makes fresh coffee. Sam drags the kitchen table in front of the window so it's fully drenched in the silvery light, and grabs Denise's Kiss the Cook! bowl, and finds the ingredients he's had measured out for days, and arrays them in order on the scarred wood, and the whole time he's got this white-noise fuzz happening in the back of his head.

"Try not to have a stroke," Dean says, handing him another mug. "I can smell smoke from how much your brain's working."

"If I do, it's your fault," Sam says, and Dean says, "Oh, yeah, it's my fault," but it's soft, and Sam fits his hand around the back of Dean's neck and drags his thumb up behind his ear and Dean clutches his mug to his chest and puts his forehead to Sam's shoulder, breathing out hot against his bare skin.

"I've got to just think about this next thing," Dean says, tucked against him. "Just this. If—if it works, then—we can talk about the thing after that. One day at a time. Okay?"

Sam doesn't answer. He holds Dean's neck, and Dean lays his hand on Sam's back, over his spine. Runs his fingers down the furrow between the muscle. He takes a deep, deep breath, and then drinks down his cup of coffee, and then he puts the mug on the table and lays his other hand over Sam's sternum, and says, "You ready?"

Sam doesn't need coffee. He puts his mug down, next to Dean's, and tips up Dean's chin. Gets a smile, small and nervous. Then, Dean presses his lips to Sam's tattoo, where he can reach, and then he shrugs Sam's shirt off his shoulders, lets it drop, and goes down to his knees on the wood floor, and presses another kiss to Sam's hip, on the hollowed dip under the bone. "Whatever you want," Dean says, quiet, and Sam slides his fingers over Dean's ear, waits.

Slow, again. Slow, aching, because Sam's no slouch but he's been giving up a lot, tonight, and that means that Dean has to work for it. Mouthing at him, sweet and wet, coaxing. He could sit—they could move to the couch—the bed—make it easier, but this is… Sam holds Dean's head, carefully gentle, and he doesn't push or insist or grab but Dean moans softly, kneels up higher, holds Sam's hips, pushes deeper and deeper until he chokes, and pulls back and breathes in shaky, and then goes right back down. Making himself soft, accommodating. Making a space for Sam, breaking open for him, because he wants to—wants more—and Sam stands there with his chin against his chest, watching, and he sees it when one of Dean's hands leaves his hip, creeps south. "Fuck," he says, soft, and then—"C'mon, Dean—let me see, huh?" and Dean pulls back, off, panting, and past the glossy fat thickness of Sam's dick Sam can see between them, where Dean's fingers tuck between his legs. It won't do anything—they both know it won't, can't—not yet—and Sam says, heat in his throat and behind his eyes and filling his gut, "What do you want?" and Dean says, "Shit," groaning, and then, grasping Sam's thigh, "I want—I want you to—in my throat, would you—c'mon, Sammy—"

It's an accident when Sam fucks in and makes Dean choke. It's not an accident the second time, when Dean swallows and moans and drops his chin, makes his tongue flat, gets a hand on Sam's ass and pulls him in. "Jesus, you really do—" Sam says, and Dean coughs, pulls back, says, "Shut up." Sam laughs, amazed, and gets Dean's jaw in his hand and surges, all the way in, because Dean wants him to and so he wants to, a circular reasoning that's untangleable and he doesn't care, now, doesn't want to try to make sense of it. He shoves in and Dean breathes shaky through his nose and Sam shoves in again, sawing over Dean's tongue and knocking the back of his throat and, god, the tight shaking jolt of that, going all the way through both of them. He says, "Don't swallow," and Dean makes a high strange noise and grabs his hips—his fingers sliding, wet—and Sam shoves in, and in, and feels—

Gutshot, weak. He holds deep when he comes—jerking against Dean's face—thighs shaking—and Dean holds him close, groaning. "Don't," Sam repeats, stupid, but he lets Dean's neck go only slowly, his balls clenching hard, giving up what feels like a thin load. With all he's come in the last twenty-four hours it's a miracle he has anything left to give.

Dean pulls off, lips tight. His tongue flicks just under the head one last time and Sam's bones give up. He goes down to one knee. In the moonlight he can see: Dean's watering eyes, a streak down his cheekbone—his mouth a shining dark-battered red. Sam wipes the tear away with one thumb. Kisses the corner of Dean's mouth. Dean lets him—holds his cheek, breathing in careful—and then pushes him away, and uses Sam's shoulder as a brace to climb to his feet, with his own thighs shaking, and Sam holds him steady, strong, while Dean leans over the table and opens his lips and there's a stream, into the bowl, wet. He coughs, spits. Says, with a sore hurt voice, "Got it." Means it's time. Sam leans his forehead against Dean's hip. Dean cups a hand behind his head, fingers tangling in Sam's hair. He smells ripe. Sam breathes that in, taking a selfish moment with Dean's bare skin, before he stands up, and looks down, and says, "Okay."

Simple spell, simple ingredients. Hyssop, yarrow, lavender. Burned, and then mixed with what the grimoire called with admirable restraint the spend. The smell's this awful combination of acrid and cloying. Sam pours in a measure of wine—it asks for claret, but Denise's bargain red will do—and swirls it until everything is as mixed as it can be, and decants it into the empty mug on the table. You're a Catch! Dean picks it up in both hands. "You think jizz is gonna be the hot new cocktail mixer?" he says, and before Sam can respond he downs it, in three gulping swallows, and licks his lips, and says, then, "Let's go with no." He coughs, once.

That's it, other than waiting. Sam shivers and Dean gives him a sidelong look, and then goes to the sink, rinses the mug and fills it with cold water and drinks it down, in audible glugging swallows. His back's pretty. Sam looks at him, all five foot seven of him, bare and white in the moonlight—the way his weight shifts, when he braces on the sink, and his head drops low between the not-wide-enough shoulders. Pretty isn't really the half of it.

They take showers. Dean first, Sam second. When it's his turn he washes as fast as he can and then holds with his neck braced under the shitty stream of hot water until it starts to thin, and then when the water's freezing he holds out for thirty seconds, icing his bones down to something patient, remote. The cold lake, waiting silent for spring.

Dean's sitting bundled up warm on the couch when Sam comes out, chilled but clean in pajamas. The brown blanket's disappeared and they're back to afghans. The fire's built up. Sam pauses, uncertain, for long enough that Dean glances at him, and then turns back to the fire and says, "What, you waiting for an invitation?" So—Sam sits, on the other end of the couch, and he thinks about offering to play cards but—when he glances over, Dean's lost in thought, and there are times, Sam thinks, when it's fine to be lost there. He'll be here, when Dean comes back.

The sun rises at seven, nearly on the dot. The full moon sets a quarter-hour later. They'll know at eight if it worked. Sam grips Dean's shoulder, careful, and Dean closes his eyes, and Sam gets up, makes coffee. Eggs, scrambled hard, and the stupid garlic bread Denise left in its stupid tinfoil packets. He brings breakfast back to the couch and says, "No matter what, it won't be better if you're starving," and Dean says, "Yeah, but then I gotta eat your crappy eggs," but he eats them, so. Dean takes the plates, too, even though Sam offers, and says, "There are rules, Sammy, and if we forget those then who have we become," and Sam should try to come up with a dumb answer to that but he's wrung-out and worried and so twisted up his head's not on straight. So he sits at the table, and he watches Dean wash dishes as slowly as possible, and at 7:55 Dean pulls the plug on the sink and stands there, braced again. His hair catches the morning and glints with gold, surprising hints of red. His ear, pink. He turns, and looks out the other window to the east, and his lips are full and his eyes full of light. He swallows and Sam's whole chest feels tight.

"Anything?" Sam says.

A beat, a year, before Dean answers. He shakes his head. His lips press together, and he closes his eyes, and Sam sees the deep breath he takes. He shakes his head, again, and looks out the window again, and his jaw clenches, and Sam thinks—Sam thinks—

"I'm going to bed," Dean says. His voice was shaky and he drags his teeth over his lip. "Long night."

"Yeah," Sam says, while the world reorients into another, a new universe taking the place of the last one.

Dean goes into the bedroom and closes the door. Sam sits back on the couch, and drags his hands over his face, and sits there, with his elbows on his knees and the cabin hidden from view, smelling the leftover garlic in the air from the bread and woodburn from the fire and the trace of lavender that's stuck in his throat. Lavender, in witchcraft: for healing, and calm, and love. Every third thing seems like it's for love so Sam doesn't put a ton of stock in it. He remembers being a kid, sitting in Bobby's living room reading something that definitely wasn't age-appropriate, and watching over the edge of the book while Bobby put together some simple spell that hunters could do without much trouble, and asking, careful—don't you need to say magic words? and Bobby replying, gruff in that way Sam later came to learn was affection, no, kid. You've just got to mean it, when you're doing it.

Sam sleeps, eventually. Wakes, after fitful dreaming, and the bedroom door's still closed so he paces the cabin, drinks water, goes back to the couch, and he sleeps that time like a stone, so that when he wakes up around four in the afternoon it's like from a coma, and he has no idea how much time has passed or where he is or what's happening, until the bedroom door opens, and there's Dean. Girl-shaped but at this point that's almost normal. Sam wipes his mouth and blinks sleep out of his eyes and Dean's still there, looking at him, and Dean says, "All quiet on the western front," and Sam doesn't get what that means either for a second until Dean's mouth trembles grinning into relief, and Sam sits up all the way, systems engaging all at once, because that means—it really worked—

"We should wait, right?" Dean says, when they're sitting there with coffee, the ticking clock no longer a terror. He drags a hand through his long hair, jittery. "I mean. I guess we don't—completely know, not for sure, until it's been the full twenty-four. Right?"

"Like I'm the expert?" Sam says, and Dean grins again, pierce of light through the clouds. Sam can't help but smile back, because Dean's just—radiating relief, and Sam didn't realize, maybe, until this weird morning-feeling afternoon, how much was wound up over these last three weeks. He wants to take Dean's hand but maybe that's not allowed, now that the wound-tight spring is unspooling. He bites the inside of his cheek, hard, and then says, even, "How are you feeling, really? Like—everything's good, physically?"

Everything is: temperature and pupils and heart and, as Dean unfortunately says, the junk's on lock. "This is—awesome," Dean says, looking down at himself. "I mean—I know, we're only halfway done, and I seriously can't wait to get Little Dean back full time, but it's just…" He lays a hand over his belly, presses his lips together, but those little dimples appear all the same. "Dude, I don't know. It's like the Impala's been hijacked and I've been in the passenger seat but now I finally got both hands on the wheel."

Sam forces himself to smile. "You comparing yourself to the car? Isn't that, like, masturbation?"

Dean's eyes practically sparkle. "Hey, what a lady does in her own time is her business."

They eat again, early dinner. Dean's in an ebullient mood and pours Denise's wine heavy in their glasses, and then Sam lets him win at poker for a while, using ugly beads from one of Denise's craft boxes as the pot, and Dean keeps checking the clock, and his pulse, and he says to Sam, when the clock ticks over to seven p.m., "Hey, you check, huh? Am I gonna blow up? Girl chunks all over the fish art?"

"Dude," Sam says, pained, but Dean just drops his arm across the table, giving Sam a big-eyed look, and so Sam rolls up the sleeve on the brown flannel and presses his fingers into Dean's soft, soft skin. He looks at his watch and does count, really, but he's more thinking about—this skin. The girl's. Soft, but just barely softer than Dean's normal wrist, where Sam's checked his pulse a hundred times before—small, but then Dean's wrist has always been smaller than Sam's, and it feels good, like this. His blood thrumming under Sam's fingers.

"What's the diagnosis, doc?"

Sam blinks. "You're good," he says, and Dean grins at him again, wide and wild and sweetly delighted.

"One hour," Dean says, and Sam nods, and takes his own turn washing the dishes, the sun setting out of the cabin windows and the day dimming down, disappearing. Amazing, the things you can get used to. Even after all they did, yesterday, he feels like he's forgetting something. The shape of Dean's waist, under his arm. Lips against his throat.

7:50 p.m. Dean's watching the clock, biting his lip. Sam's watching Dean. Has the sensation, unwelcome, that they're in two different cabins, on two different nights. He hasn't felt like that since before the apocalypse. He snorts, having had the thought, and Dean glances at him but his eyes drag back to the clock, and it's 7:51, then, which means a full twenty-four hours since the last moonrise, and Dean's—

"Free at last," Dean says, and almost looks like he doesn't believe it. Then he laughs, high and thin, and says, "Dude, your spooj saved my life," and Sam says, "Jesus, Dean," and Dean grins wide at the trout-covered clock and then says, "This calls for a drink," and so—what is Sam going to do, but have a drink?

Dean's kind of drunk, later. Sam's taken over watching the clock. "You know how nice it's going to be to bang on my own schedule?" Dean says, expansive.

He's spread out on the couch, smiling randomly at the ceiling. Sam says, "I'm very happy for you," and Dean grins at him, missing the sarcasm. To be fair, there wasn't a ton of sarcasm. Sam actually is happy for him. The little pit of strangeness in his stomach is his own business.

At 9:13, Dean makes a small sound, blinks. Sam sits up straight and watches, careful. Their moon calendar hasn't been off yet. Dean never changed back into his normal body and so Sam doesn't know what's going to happen, this particular moonrise. Turns out: not a lot. The body's been doing that strange normalization, some kind of elasticity of form that has meant that over the many many days Sam's been getting a slowly crystalizing view of what life might have been like with a big sister, instead of a big brother, and this moonrise is no different. Dean gets up on one elbow, frowning, and—what's changed? The shape of his eyebrow, a little? His hair a little less wavy, a slightly darker brown. Freckles, and green eyes, and his lips as full and phenomenal as Dean's lips always are, and that's it.

"Huh," Dean says, looking down at himself. "Well. I guess I still got good tits."

"Still another spell to figure out," Sam says. He licks his lips, tries to sound casual. "But like you said—we've got time, now. It's going to be kind of nice not to have sex by appointment."

Dean drops one foot down off the couch, tucks a hand behind his head. "Man, I might be able to jerk off," he says, dreamy. Sam takes a deep breath, imagining that, but then Dean frowns, turning his head to stare at Sam. "Wait—I still don't—you think the cure still works? To get me back to—you know, me?"

The cure. Sam's stupid, stupid balls wake up, just at the idea. "I don't know," he says, careful. "Me and Bobby didn't talk about that. I…" Dean's eyes are big, looking for answers. Sam tries to ignore the spike of selfish warmth that lances through his gut. "Maybe. I guess now it's just the… empathy part of the spell that's still on you, right, so… if the need timer isn't locking you down anymore, then…"

"Okay, stop with the trailing off and the weirdness," Dean says, and sits up. "Let's see if we can make it happen. No time like go time." At Sam's hesitation, Dean stands—sways for a second—and rolls his eyes. "Dude, it's not like it's new. We know how to bang it out. I think we might be experts, at this point. Do it for science, Sam."

He should grin, should go with it. Should say something. Instead he sits there, arms folded over the back of his chair, his tongue between his teeth, while Dean pads over, and he's not responded long enough that Dean actually looks at him, and he's enough trouble that Dean's cheerful triumph flickers, for a second, which is long enough for Sam to get an instant wave of guilt.

"Unless—" Dean starts, weight shifting onto his back foot.

"Let's try," Sam interrupts, standing, and holds out his hand, and Dean looks up at him with barely narrowed eyes before he puts his hand in Sam's, and Sam folds their fingers together, and the corner of Dean's mouth lifts, small.

The bedroom. They have done it before. All the talk last night—it should feel different, but it doesn't. Dean drags his hands over Sam's arms and chest and back and Sam kisses Dean as long as he dares, licking him clean of bourbon until he tastes just like himself, and when he goes down on Dean he gets the whole-body satisfaction of making Dean come, first, with his mouth, and Dean's thighs shake and his back arches and he's laughing, soft and glad and surprised, when Sam comes back up. Dean says, "Worth it, just for that," and puts his fingers to Sam's cheek, smiling at him, hot-eyed. Sam fucks him on his back, slow, his face tucked low by Dean's, and Dean hooks an arm around his neck to keep him close, and drags a knee up Sam's side, and his lips drag soft and coaxing at Sam's throat and jaw, smile at the corner of his mouth, and it's so good that Sam closes his eyes, slows further, makes it last longer. Better than anyone Sam's ever been with. Better than anyone who might ever come after.

They lie together, afterward, waiting. Sam's flat on his back, drained again. Tonight was easier than last night, just on spec; his chest hurts more, this time.

"Think that sobered me up," Dean says, drowsy. "How's that work, you think?"

Sam closes his eyes against the lamplight. "Exercise helps, right?"

A snort. "Guess it would, if you ever needed me to do anything different than lie there." A shift, weight tipping naked and warm against his side. "You're a control freak, you know that?"

It's amused, so Sam says back as dry as he can, "I've heard," and gets a little huff, and Dean's small hand slipping over his arm. Then—the mattress tips again, and there's cool air between them, and Sam drags a knee up, imagines how the next few days will go. If Dean turns back—if it works—then what?

Light steps to the bathroom. Peeing. Water. The sink running. Sam lies there, and wonders, and he's lying there long enough that when the steps come back they're heavier, and Dean's lower voice says, "Well, how about that," and Sam should open his eyes but he doesn't want to. Childish, he wants to stay exactly as he is. Warm in bed, and Dean safe, but nothing else changed. Like this cabin is the last place they'll need to be, in the world. Like time isn't rushing forward.

"Sammy." He grunts, in response. Like he's going to sleep. He can hear Dean breathing.

Touch on his neck. Blunt fingers. Goes to his jaw, and then along to his chin, and a thumb, grazing the corner of his mouth, his lower lip. He's holding his breath—it shakes out, and his lip's pressed so-lightly down—and then the bed dips beside him, and there's warm air on his chin, and he grabs Dean's wrist, to stop him, and opens his eyes, and—there's Dean, real Dean, his brother, leaning over him, surprised to be stopped. Then less surprised. His eyes narrow, reading whatever's on Sam's face, and he pushes up on his bracing arm and his hand on Sam's jaw goes lighter, but he doesn't let go.

"What," Dean says.

"I—" Sam's cheeks prickle, skin tight and hot. Dean studies him, thumb dragging back down the vulnerable underside of Sam's chin to his throat, and Sam's lips part but he doesn't—know how to say.

"You're not dumb, Sam," Dean says. A little harder but not exactly angry. "So, what is it?"

Sam pushes back and Dean does let him go, but stays right there on the bed. He dragged on boxers, at some point between leaving the bed and becoming himself; Sam wishes he'd had the same foresight. All this time together and he feels extremely naked.

"Okay, let's start slow," Dean says, "how many fingers am I holding up," and Sam says, "Dean, stop."

"Okay," Dean says, again, and this time there is an edge of being pissed off. "Stop what?"

"I don't want to fight," Sam says. Dean gives him a look that says, clearer than day, that he's doing a poor job of showing it. He drags his knees up, folds his arms. "It's just—different."

"Because I've got an adam's apple."

"No, because you don't have to," Sam says, and Dean loses the skeptical face and just frowns at him. "It's different because—Dean, anytime, between now and whenever we figure out the rest of the spell, if you want me to help change you back, I'm there. You know I'm there. If we do it just because—it's different. I'm not dumb, but neither are you. We can't pretend like that doesn't—mean something." He drags his hand over his mouth, feeling like an asshole. "We've got to be sure."

Dean turns away. His hands braced on the edge of the bed, his shoulders hunched. His back's still pretty: freckles at the top of his shoulders, and the long lovely muscles around his spine, and the dip of his waist—not nearly as narrow as his female body but still something Sam wants to get his hands around. Wants to hold, and know, and be allowed, some nights when it's cold, to drape his arm over it, and put his nose in that spot at the top of Dean's spine that smells exactly like all things good, and have Dean's broader shoulders push back against his chest and have them settle together, two commas curving against each other, in some bed that's their own, or at least their own for that night, in a motel where they're safe from the dark. He wants forever. Their life isn't the kind where they'll get that—but he wants longer than the trailing edge of habit, when they're stuck in the snow in Wisconsin, and neither of them can get anything better.

Dean gets up, and finds clothes, and leaves the room. Sam sits there with the heels of his hands in his eyes until the darkness sparks purple and painful, and then follows suit, and when he's got jeans and a shirt and he feels less like something pinned horribly in a specimen frame he comes out of the bedroom, and blinks to find Dean lacing up his boots, with his jacket on the table and the keys on top of that.

"I'm going to talk to Denise," Dean says. He tugs the cuff of his jeans into place and stands up, and looks at Sam, calm—or calm enough, his eyes neutral and his voice even but his mouth tight at the corners. "See if I can get her to dredge up something a little more specific than weird crap about her wedding day. I'm gonna stay the night down in Menomonie. I'll call you if I get anything. You can work on that book you got, maybe find something we can use."

"Yeah," Sam says, weak. Dean glances at him while he's shrugging into his jacket and Sam clears his throat, tries to be a man about a situation of his own making. "Yeah. I'll—call Bobby. Maybe one of his contacts will have an idea, too."

Dean nods, filling his pockets: phone, and wallet, and knife, and his gun at the back of his jeans, and his keys in hand, which he spins so they slap into his palm. Preface, always, to his leaving.

"Be safe," Sam says. Missing him already. Feeling like an idiot. Knowing he's right, even so.

A pause, while Dean looks at the keys in his hand. "You know I'm gonna come back," he says, less tensely neutral. "Not just because of the spell. You know that."

"Yeah," Sam says, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Yeah, I know you will." He tries to smile. "Bring back some decent beer, huh?"

Dean closes his eyes. "Shit," he mutters, and then turns and comes to where Sam's standing in the middle of the ugly cabin and grabs Sam's jaw with both hands and pulls him down and kisses him.

Close-mouthed, hard. Dean's still got the keys in his hand and they dig cold and sharp against Sam's neck. Sam squeezes his eyes closed and drags air in through his nose and lets his lips relax, and Dean tips his head, and there's—the soft of him. The drag of stubble. Familiar and not. Sam's lips part but Dean doesn't take the opening; he only presses gentler against Sam's mouth, giving, and pulls back with a barely-audible sound, and lets their noses brush, warm and comforting, before he drags his knuckles over Sam's jaw, and then lets go.

"I'll be back," Dean says, quiet.

"I know," says Sam, lips and face and fingers tingling, and he only opens his eyes when the door opens, and Dean doesn't look back at him before it closes again.

The Impala roars to life. Tires, in the icy mud, and then the sound of the engine receding, and then quiet. Sam stands there, alone, hot-faced, and feels his pulse throb, and thinks about what will happen, when Dean comes back. A log in the fire pops, like a gunshot, and he jumps—and then turns away, and goes to the books, and sets out to solve the problem.

Chapter 7 Chapter Text

The year Dean was going to die, Sam walked around with an unending, low-grade panic. Sometimes high-grade. He knew exactly why Dean had made the deal—obligation, protectiveness, terror—and there were days, and one period that stretched to two weeks, where he was furious. Because this was Dad, all over again. This was Jessica, all over again. Three gutshots in three years really felt like more than someone should have to handle. Then he just felt this suffocating guilt—that he'd been stupid enough to put himself in a position to die in the first place—that his unasked-for place in whatever ridiculous apocalyptic plan had put him in that ghost town, with his back turned, in the first place—so that Dean had to go to those crossroads, and drag a deal up out of the dirt, and condemn himself, and condemn Sam along with him. Then he slapped himself—usually figuratively, although once he really did, and his face stung for ten minutes, after—and avoided thinking about the parade of blame and bad decisions and unfair destiny that had put them on the tracks for this year to begin with, and he looked instead for anything. Anything. Demon deals and monstrous transformations and witchcraft and bloodletting and sacrifice. Because he'd come back to this life, and he'd made a kind of peace with living it, but living didn't make any sense if Dean wasn't there, to live it with him. Sam's never felt all that comfortable on the left side of the bench seat.

That last month, time stretched and pulled. Some days Sam felt like he blinked and they were gone, checked into another motel with Dean barely sleeping in the other bed and Sam no closer to any kind of answer. But then, other days, when they sat with takeout and beer on the Impala's hood, by the docks or on a quiet farm road or just at some lookout point, night spreading out with enormous, starry distance overhead, and every second ticked by like a year. Dean leaned back against the car and tipped his head to look at the sky and Sam looked at Dean. Couldn't admit to himself what was going to happen but memorizing him, anyway. His profile, in the dark. How Sam had seen him, for years, looking to his left and—his brother, there. Until he wasn't.

He knew exactly why Dean had made the deal. It had been one of those foregone conclusions, his whole life. It wasn't until that last month, though, that Sam started to understand something deeper. Hard to articulate, or even get his mind around the shape of it. It didn't matter, anyway, because Dean died and Sam couldn't stop it, and in the month after Dean died Sam couldn't get him back, either. Had failed, and was failing, and would fail again, over and over, until Dean was safe. He knew it, somewhere past any kind of rational thinking. It wasn't obligation, or fear. It wasn't selfishness, the thing he'd bitterly thrown in Dean's face just once, and hated himself for it immediately after seeing how Dean's eyes changed. It was just unthinkable, that Dean was gone and Sam was here, and there wasn't much more to it than that. It was worse than Dad, and it was worse than Jessica. Some essential balancing element of the universe tipped and then every other thing spun out away from it, either broken or on an inevitable course toward breaking. Sam among them.

Incredible, the sort of life the Winchesters have. They get so many chances. Sam's died, and Dean's died, and yet here they are, anyway. They've been to hell, and here they are anyway. Sam's done his duty, more than most, and he could walk away right now. He could start fresh. Reroll the game, become someone new. No destiny or greater purpose or apocalypse, drawing him down into the dirt. Here he is, though, because here is where Dean is. His life, the pieces of it inextricable. Hunting and family and—whatever else. He's tried other lives. He's been other people. He's wanted things that were impossible, and even things that were achievable, and he's still right here where he started, the highway spooling out ahead. So, what does that tell him.

The first night Dean's gone, Sam reads. He starts with the grimoire and the pages of translations and the notes, from the very first comment from Bobby to the last scrawled ?, thinking of the good old days of researching a paper: start with absorbing all the information to hand, and come up with a conclusion last, after considering all options. Sam's noticed that most people go about it the other way around.

He adds his own notes. Things from the last three weeks that they've learned through trial and error and things that Denise has told them and things that they've said, in the quiet of a bed, sweat cooling and honesty left behind with the salt.

The cabin's quiet. The fire crackles. At some point it rains and Sam puts another log on the fire, and keeps working, and at one point when he yawns he looks up and it's dawn, cool bluish-pink light stealing into the cabin and making it, strangely, harder to see. Those transitional moments where everything gets less clear. His eyes full of sand; he rubs them, and then leaves his fingertips braced hard against the ridge of his brow, trying to stave off a headache he knows will come anyway. He wishes Dean were here. Of course he also doesn't. Funny how that goes.

If the spell worked like it was supposed to, and the sexes of victim and caster had worked out and no one had died, then by the roles in the ritual: Dean equals Gary, Sam equals Denise. Leaving sex acts aside: what would Denise want, from Gary, to prove that he'd learned his lesson? What would empathy mean, then? Denise, wanting Gary to feel like a thing, like she felt—but what did the thing want, when she was lonely, when her heart was breaking, little fractures spreading deeper, day after day? She wanted proof: that she was loved, as much as she loved. That he loved her, equal to the promise they'd made, that day in front of the priest and their parents and their friends, all those years ago. The only way Gary would have gotten out of it, could have returned to himself, is if he loved her, and could prove it. Which means—

Sam's head does hurt. One of those deep pounding aches that wrap around the occipital bone, sinks through in leaden spikes that weigh heavy behind his eyes. Makes it hard to think, or at least think clearly. He keeps getting these random images, memories, that splinter his thoughts off from the problem at hand to some other time. Doesn't help that he's not an idiot, and so the other thing that's distracting him is very much at the top of his mind, and won't be avoided or discarded or forgotten. Not that he wants to.

All night he'd be reading and find himself running his fingers thoughtlessly over his mouth, tracing a place where something was and now was not, and he'd fold his arms, lean into them on the table like trapping his hands was enough to make the memory, the fact of it, go away. It wouldn't and never would. No matter what happened for the rest of his life there would still be, unalterable, a night in a terrible little cabin in Wisconsin where his brother had looked him full in the face, nothing forcing them and no excuses like being drunk or being under a curse or not knowing who they were, and his brother had kissed him, and Sam wanted that now more than any other thing. Like being sixteen again, and just wanting—that. That essential soft stupid thing.

He sleeps when he finds himself on his third jaw-cracking yawn within the same minute. Not the bed. He takes the green blanket from it and drags it over himself on the couch and gets six hours, through the bright early part of the day, and when he wakes up he's starving and he's wound himself around into an entangled burrito and the blanket's dragged up over his nose, still smelling a little of gasoline and gun oil but smelling mostly like—bodies, and stale sweat, and like it needs to be washed on the hottest setting for a long time. Insanely comforting. He lies there, sweating, breathing deep in the gross recycled air, before he gets up—nearly falls down, trying—and makes himself a cup of coffee and tries to reheat the stuffed shells Denise brought without burning the cabin down and realizes, only when he's standing there over the stove with his eyes closed and that smell still heavy in his sinuses, that his headache's gone. Miracle of miracles.

The book. He eats the shells—still cold in the middle but the cheese on the edges burnt, he really can't get a handle on this stove—and drinks coffee—a kind of vile combo but not the worst he's had—and he reads. It's a short book. He gets to the end and starts it over again, with a fresh cup. He read it when he was a kid and it comes to him in nostalgic strange waves, knowing what's going to be on the next page before he turns it but slowing down, wanting to experience it again just as he had back then, knowing it's impossible. Trying anyway.

There was a hunter, around the turn of the century, in Illinois. Dead wife and a dark world that opened up beneath his feet. How it goes. The difference here was that he never believed anyone when he was told he couldn't get her back. Maybe he didn't know enough other hunters to see that same old story—grief into fury into vengeance into, if they were lucky enough to survive, a cold bitter life, and realization that the vengeance never actually worked, never did anything. The hunter from Illinois (no name in the journal, just his wife's—Louise on every page, suffusing every entry) never looked for vengeance. He believed in her soul, and his, and that somehow across the barrier of worlds there'd be some door he could open, some lock he could crack, and he'd get her back. They'd made a vow together and upheld it over the seven years of their marriage and he didn't believe anyone but God could sever it; so, that bond still held, and he intended to use it to bring her home to him.

When Sam was a kid he didn't talk about the journal to Bobby or Dean or, god forbid, Dad. The hunter didn't succeed. The last page was a note from the person who'd found and bound it, a warning: don't get so consumed by hope that you forget the world as it really is. Even as a kid Sam wasn't sure his dad was really operating on much hope; he wanted to kill the thing that took his wife, with zero expectation of ever seeing her again. It was a lesson Sam had learned, unwilling, and he was much the same, that year after Jessica. Just like every hunter, over and over, through the years—the dark reached up and swallowed the person you loved into shadow, and now they were gone and you were never getting them back. The only question was what you decided to do next.

Trouble with that is—Sam's not quite like those other hunters. Neither is Dean. Unlike pretty much anyone else they've ever heard of, really. He goes over the pages of the journal—all the things the hunter from Illinois tried, all the prayers he sent up and the rituals he offered and the religions he studied and the impossible win-win deals he tried to make with indifferent, mocking demons—and the universe closed its ears and eyes to him, and he died—some way that's not mentioned, although Sam can guess it wasn't pretty—and he never knew what was possible. He didn't know that souls had a substance. That there were angels, who could work miracles.

Sam makes another cup of coffee. It's late afternoon, now. The sun lays amber gold over the view outside. Still some snow but it melted a little with the rain and the lake's this shining black hole in the landscape. He holds his coffee against his chest and stares out, seeing nothing, brain churning on fumes. Then—a movement, off by the trees. He refocuses. A deer—a stag—stepping out from the woods, antlers huge, thick coat, massive. It noses at the snowy ground, steps slowly by the edge of the lake. Looks out, over the water. Sam holds his breath. A wild, beautiful thing.

He washes his face in the sink, freezing. Shoves the wet hair behind his ears, drains his coffee, leans his ass against the counter, closes his eyes, clasps his hands loosely in front of him, tips his head up to the uncaring sky—stupid, but habits die hard—and thinks, please.

A flutter, wingbeats. "Sam?"

"Hey, Cas," Sam says, and opens his eyes, and there's—an angel of the lord, standing in Denise's kitchen. Over his shoulder a cross-stitched fish towel that says Splash Zone! "How are you doing?"

Castiel frowns at him. "The war's in a détente, for the moment." Not exactly an answer but it's the kind of answer Sam would give, and he smiles. Cas looks around the cabin, frowning still. "This place is… icthyological. When you prayed, I expected to find you with Bobby. Is it Eve? Where's Dean?"

The real question saved for last. Sam drags his hand through his hair. "Yeah," he says, and gets that same furrowed brow. He pulls out the chair at the table and sits down. "Yeah, about Dean."

He explains. Doesn't leave much out. What's the point, from Cas? The fumbled curse and the half-measures to keep Dean alive and the circumstances of them ending up this cabin, and the heart-destroying element solved but Dean's body still in this strange morphing state, slipping from one form to another, tethered to Sam—he lays it all out, as neutrally as he can. What he does leave out: the strange rising feeling in his own chest; the maybe-answer from Dean. The kiss, although he finds himself touching his mouth again at one point and drops his hand to his lap, nests his fingers like he's still praying.

Cas stays standing, an odd look on his face. Not that oddness is new from Cas. Sam says, "So, that's where we're at for now," finishing up, and Cas is silent afterward for a full minute, always-intense expression fixed at some distant point past the cabinets. He could just as easily be listening to some far-off celestial messenger as be thinking about the problem Sam laid out. His trenchcoat, wrinkled; his tie, flipped around; his hair screwed up like he's been standing in a windstorm; his lips chapped. Unchanging, faithful Castiel. Sam feels a pang. Puts it away.

"Angels aren't generally able to undo the working of witches," Cas says, finally. More gravelly than usual. "Their power is sometimes the hand of demons, but when it's your own kind of human magic it has to be resolved by magical means."

"That's why we didn't call until now," Sam says, which isn't true, but Cas doesn't need to know that. "I mean, I know you can't just wave a hand and fix it. But we're at a dead end here, and I ended up thinking about—uh, souls."

Cas's expression changes, then. "Why?"

Forbidding, hard. Sam sits back in his chair, pushes the hunter's journal forward like a defense. "This," he says, trying to say it evenly when the hairs have risen on the back of his neck. Cas's eyes shift and he gets a sense that a lion's picked a different zebra. After thinking of Cas as their weird little friend for so much of the last year (the year that Sam actually remembers), it's a jolt to remember sometimes that he's an otherworldly thing.

He picks up the book, flips through it. "I don't know it," Cas says. Feathers settling.

"That's kind of a theme," Sam says, but Cas just frowns—he really doesn't look relaxed, ever—and doesn't get the lame joke. "The page I marked. Got me thinking."

Cas flips to it, and frowns at it, and then reads, aloud although Sam knows it almost by heart:

Louise's heart and my heart. I could never find the space between them. We were married in the chapel down the road from her parents' house. The radiator had broken the night before. I can still remember the cold. She wrapped up warm in her father's coat, over the top of her gown, and our breath fogging the air between us. The pastor spoke the vows and we repeated them as our duty to God and to each other, but we each could not help but smile, one at the other. The pastor frowned at her and she bit her lip but in her eyes she smiled still. I remember that, as clear as the page before me now. We knew that this ritual was an important one, a sacred ceremony witnessed in the church that would make a contract between us and between us and the Lord, but hadn't that contract already been drafted, and witnessed, and laid in the vault of Heaven for any angel to read? From the moment I held her hand in mine at the barn-dance, and she teased for my old-fashioned boots, and I said some fool thing in response. We had started upon our vows that day and we had been speaking them ever since, understanding each other with hardly a word needed. When I proposed marriage she knew just what I was asking, and the yes was on her lips before I could finish my first sentence. And it had been yes ever since. Thus it was that when the pastor asked us, do you take, it felt like foolishness, because we had taken and were taken by and would always take each other, no matter what storm or earthquake or great fire might sweep the earth, from that first day to the last, until the day of Judgement, and then beyond into the kingdom of heaven. This is why I do not see now why I cannot call her soul to mine. The thing that took her was not an angel, was not divine, was not of God's hand—and unless God tore us asunder, which possibility I do not countenance, then we are not sundered, and Louise is still here, in my heart, as my heart. I lack only the physical form of her that could put her hand in mine, and smile, and tease my boots. She must be here because I am here. That truth is the only one that matters.

"What killed Louise?" Cas says, after a moment.

"A demon," Sam says. He lifts a shoulder. "I mean, I think. From how he describes it. He never got a real answer. What mattered was getting her back."

Cas sits. He holds the book open in his hands, staring down at the pages. "We are not sundered," he repeats, quiet.

Sam plants his elbows on the table. "Cas," he starts, and luckily Cas is strange and doesn't look up at his name, because Sam can feel the blood rushing to his cheeks. Embarrassing even in front of an angel. "When we—died. One of the times we died, I guess. We went to heaven, because—I don't know, I guess someone decided we still deserved to despite everything—and we met our friend. Ash. He told us something and I never was sure if it was true." He licks his lips. "We could—we could walk back and forth between each other's memories. Like. One big shared heaven."

"Of course," Cas says, flipping pages in the journal. "That's true of all soulmates."

Like it's nothing. Old news. Sam lets out a weird held breath and realizes he—never really was sure. It hadn't exactly mattered. He and Dean were still hurting each other, then, through misery and uncertainty and fear, and anyway it's not like they weren't busy. Not exactly time to sit down and consider what it meant, when your dead acquaintance told you something that shouldn't have been true, about two brothers. There were a lot of other things to handle, considering the apocalypse happening at the time. Still feels, for Sam, like just a few weeks have passed since then, though the world's moved on without him.

"Where's Dean?" Cas says, again.

Not frowning, for once. Strange look on his face, to be honest, but Sam's not really in a space where he can think about Cas's bizarre version of feelings. "He's in town, talking to Denise," Sam says. He clears his throat. "I wanted to talk to you alone. In case this was stupid. But if we're—if we're soulmates. Like—I mean, I don't know, but maybe Louise and the guy who wrote the journal were soulmates, too." Cas tips his head and Sam folds his arms over his chest. "He didn't get her back but he doesn't know what we know, right? Denise, for her spell, she wanted proof that Gary loved her, was really hers. What if we—made a promise? Me and Dean. A contract that any angel could read."

"You want to—" Cas blinks. Rare. "You want to know if you should marry your brother."

Sam's cheeks prickle. He drums his fingers on his ribs. "Do you think it'd work?"

Cas stares at him. "No."

The air goes out of Sam. His one, horrible, all-consuming idea. Dashed. He huffs, looks up at the ceiling. "Oh. Well. Sorry you made the trip, Cas."

"Don't misunderstand me," Cas says. "What you're picturing—what this hunter writes about—is a human ritual, which does have power. It used to, anyway. When people believed that it did." He puts the journal on the table, his borrowed hands spread over the old ink. "Imagine that you and your brother stood up in a chapel in front of a man of God and spoke the vows as this man did to Louise. Even with witnesses, it wouldn't have power." Sam shakes his head, not understanding, and Cas sighs. "Unless you were to admit publicly to incest, which I imagine you won't, you would be there under false pretenses. Your witnesses wouldn't know the truth. Mostly they wouldn't actually believe in the contract with God, and since God isn't exactly responding to messages right now, you wouldn't believe it either. A ritual of soul-binding doesn't succeed if it's a farce. Not to mention it would be superfluous, considering."

Sam takes a second to unclench his jaw. Castiel sailing past incest as a complicating detail has done something strange to his stomach. "That still sounds like no," Sam says. Voice harder than he meant. Cas doesn't seem to notice but he still tries to modulate. "So, what am I misunderstanding?"

"This witch—Denise. Her spell is meant to force the victim to empathy via objectification, correct? Your love for your brother, demonstrated physically, provides a temporary solution, but then the objectification is reestablished. Given that you're seeking a full reversal, my assumption is that the object must demonstrate its ability to act as subject and reciprocate the emotional demands inherent in the spell's creation." Sam's silent and Cas tips his head. "More simply, he has to love you back."

"I got it," Sam says. He takes a deep breath. "He—does. He did. I mean, that's how he's walking around right now. We proved it."

"Apparently the spell requires something more," Cas says and, well. Apparently it does.

Cas stands, and closes the journal, and then leaves his fingertips on it, frowning, eyes closed. "Edward," he says, after a few seconds. "Edward Caldwell and his wife, Louise."

Edward. Strange, to suddenly have a name. "Were they really soulmates?"

"They are together in heaven," Cas says. He turns his eyes away. "They spend most of their time in a yellow house, with a porch. Outside their window it's always snowing."

In the vacuum left by Cas's absence Sam sits by the fire with his cell clasped loosely in both hands. He hasn't turned on the generator for a while and he's running low on charge. He should call. He waits to have something worth saying.

The month after Dean died Sam walked around with his body split in half. Felt that way at least. It was Jessica and it was Dad and it was worse, so much worse, intolerably worse, in this all-over skin-scorching way where he didn't understand how he kept just waking up, every morning. The sun rose and that felt impossible. He tried to make deals and he tried to work magic and no one came, or cared, and he knows now that it was because a greater purpose was at work—an apocalypse gearing up and ready to run, waiting for the ignition of Dean's tortured failure—but at the time it was agony. Still is, if he thinks about it. Those miserable, crawling days. No wonder he was such a soft target to do his portion of the world-ending.

He'd learned the lesson, though. Over and over. They weren't coming back and you just had to live with it. So he lived with it, and then one random day Dean was miraculously recovered. Go figure. Four months. He was changed by that time and not for the better. He's not sure how he'd handle another absence.

He'd made Dean promise to live, when it was his turn to go. He'd made Dean promise—the woman, and the kid, and the life that was safe inside four walls, with a purpose and people who would watch to make sure he didn't put a bullet in his head or, worse, to walk into a vamp den and drop his gun and wait for what'd come. Was it the same, for Dean? That same all-over pain, like the skin had been peeled off and the world lay against the bones all wrong. He thinks so—he hopes, and then feels like a monster for hoping.

But then Sam was back, too, by another strange miracle, and now his soul returned on top of that, and here they are. Driver seat and passenger seat, same as before, same as—Sam thinks, hopes—it always will be. Here they are. He's touching his mouth again and his fingers curl, embarrassed, but who's to see? He drags along his lip and thinks of—a heaven, and maybe not a yellow house and maybe not snow but—maybe a motel room. The car outside, gleaming in moonlight.

He dials. Two rings before the answer. Hey.

A man's voice. Sam checks the clock by habit; only seven, hours to go before the moon rises. "How's it going with the Wicked Witch of Wisconsin?"

Dude, she's evil. Hasn't stopped cooking since I got here. I think she's trying to win me over with carbs.

"Is it working?"

Duh, Dean says, and Sam's smiling, like an idiot. Gary's out at the bar. You believe that? If he's not careful Denise might refine the spell and he really will lose his junk. A squawk, in the background, and Dean says, No, no, I know—hang on—and a door opens, closes, and then Dean's voice closer, like he's leaning in. Anyway. What's up.

"I've been thinking," Sam says, and ignores the inevitable god help us from the phone. He picks at a loose thread on the fuzzy recliner. "Thinking about proof. If the spell wants us to show how we feel—like, how do we manage that, so it knows that we mean it?"

I guess me swallowing your load three times wasn't enough.

Said calmly. Calm in that way that from Dean means challenge. Sam should say something—he supposes, technically, that they're fighting—but he doesn't feel like fighting. He thinks instead of Dean's red mouth, in the moonlight, and his gut warms.

You— Dean cuts himself off. A beat while Sam listens to him breathing, his mouth close to the mic. Sammy?

"I'm here." Sort of thick. He clears his throat, and in the pause Dean laughs, brief but light. Surprised. "What? It's not like it's a bad memory."

Guess not. Perv. Sam snorts. Anyway—if you weren't just calling to heavy-breathe at me, what's up? Denise is making chicken parmesan, don't want to miss it.

"Proof," Sam says, again. Dean grunts. "Think about it. Ask Denise, maybe. Like—if it was really Gary and her. They already said their wedding vows. What would Gary need to do to prove he meant them? It's obviously not just about the sex, because if it were—"

We kind of won the gold medal on that one. Dean's voice warm, over the phone. God, Sam wants him here. What kind of idiot was he to stop it? Yeah, good idea. She's been showing me wedding albums and crap between the random demos on how to make sauce or fresh pasta. Which is super easy, by the way. This'll make her focus a little instead of crying over getting the pattern right on her puffy marshmallow wedding sleeves.

"Good luck," Sam says, but before they can hang up and before he can second-guess he says, "What about you?"

What about me, what?

"What would be proof? For you."

Pause again, and Sam imagines him. Standing in the cold outside, seeing the same sunset Sam's seeing. His shoulders in his brown jacket, the one he was wearing when he left.

I'll talk to you tomorrow, Sammy, Dean says, quiet, and hangs up.

In the morning, Sam calls Bobby, fortified with three cups of coffee after a night of strange dreams. The third cup he poured a shot of whiskey into, and he's leaning over it getting a nice dose of aerosolized alcohol when Bobby picks up.

Take it everyone's alive, Bobby says, instead of anything helpfully small-talky like 'hello'.

"Alive and well," Sam says. "More or less." A grunt. Well, Bobby was the one who didn't want to hear about it. "So, now it's on to the second half of the spell. I don't think the cure can have anything to do with—uh, sex."

Thank god, Bobby says, sounding genuinely relieved. Sam should've put more whiskey into this cup. What, then? Maybe there's some magical combination of dead twigs and woo woo juice that's going to reattach Little Dean, but I've been through damn near every book in this house and haven't found it yet.

"Dean's with Denise, trying to figure out what she might have been looking for." Bobby makes an unattractive sound. "I'm just thinking about the way the spell worked, in the first place. Like—what did she use? Can we… I don't know, reverse it? Like magnets repelling each other?"

Could do. Clanking sound, like an car's hood slamming down. But Sam— A long sigh. This was Denise wanting her husband to return all those warm and fuzzies, right? I don't think repelling is what we're going to be aiming for. Another pause, while Sam's cheeks heat. God help us.

Sam goes for a run, that afternoon. Mud on the trails and it's frankly not a great day for it but he needs to think, clear his head, do something that's not pacing the cabin and then finding himself in the doorway of the bedroom, daydreaming. He misses Dean. He feels ridiculous about it for five minutes and then resigns himself. Why wouldn't he?

A few clouds but a mostly clear day. Crept above freezing and the snow really starting to go, except in the shadows of pine trees. He runs all the way out through the hills to that last rise he found last week, mostly avoiding mud, and stands there in the sunlight breathing hard, sweating. The pond here's shining in the center, losing the solid crust of ice. Temperature might drop again, given how long the frost tries to keep its grip, but Sam's warm through and it seems like a good sign, maybe. The first day of spring officially came the day Dean's body stopped trying to attack him; it feels like it might actually be true, out here.

When he gets back, rounding the curve in the gravel road through the trees, the Impala's sitting in front of the cabin. His gait hitches but he keeps going, and rests by the car, and does his stretching there, using the steel flank to balance against. The hood's warm. He finds himself smiling, and bites his lip as he pulls his ankle up, loosening up his quads. Deep, pleasant ache, in every muscle.

A woman's voice, talking, when he opens the door. Familiar-ish. Of course, Dean changed last night around 10:30 and hasn't had the opportunity to change back. The cabin's warm and it's what Sam blames for the immediate flush of heat that goes all through him, while he kicks off his shoes, wrestles off his jacket.

"No, I get that part—no, Denise—Denise, stop talking," Dean's saying. Sam snorts. He's in the bedroom, sounds like. Sam whistles, low, and Dean says, "Hey—no, not you—Sam's here—Denise, listen," and Sam grins, goes into the kitchen, finds coffee percolating and tinfoiled dishes waiting by the stove, and investigates hopefully, suddenly starving. Also in the kitchen: a new journal, decorated with roses, with a purple gel pen sticking out of it; a twelve-pack of beer, which looks a little more at home here; a crumpled receipt, which Sam snoops at with no guilt, and see's it's from… somewhere called Granny's Spinning Wheel, and someone with Jerry Cantrell's credit card ending -8898 spent fifty bucks there.

"Oh my god," Dean's saying, low and female and actually quite irritable, sounds like, "Would you just look at the picture I sent—right—okay, so with that many loops, do I—all right—and then over, right? Okay—"

Sam splashes cold water on his face in the bathroom, pushes his hair back. Looks at himself, pink and damp-eyelashed, and figures it's nothing Dean hasn't seen, and pads around the wall, and finds Dean—girl-shaped Dean—in an absolute disaster area, fine clouds of yarn spread all over the brown car-blanket and spilled on the floor and a ball rolled like a cat batted it all the way up to the door—rolling away, as Sam swings the door further open, and Dean glares at him with the phone rammed between his ear and shoulder, yarn tangled over his fingers, and he's—

"Are you knitting?" Sam says.

"Crochet," Dean says, like a curse. Then, into the phone: "Okay—yeah, I got it. If I need more advice I'll call you, okay?"

He has to carry the whole yarn tangle up to his ear to grab the phone and hit the disconnect button, which he does with knuckle-whitening intensity. Then he lets the phone slither down his chest to fall into his lap, and drops his head back on his shoulders and groans, and says, "Never, ever let me go off to talk to that woman alone again. I've got tinnitus from the babbling."

His brother: that same familiar shape. Sweetheart curves, and wearing women's clothes again—a blue sweater, jeans that fit. Hair tied up and skin cream-pink and when, he drops his chin again and looks at Sam, frustrated, that same plush mouth and green eyes and long lashes and freckles. His brother. More or less. Sam smiles at him because he can't help but smile at him, especially when he's pissy, and Dean frowns, honey-brown eyebrows a straight line, and says, "Oh, yeah. Live it up. You deal with her next time, huh?"

"Not unless my nuts disappear," Sam says, and gets Dean to huff, surprised. Dean's shoulders relax, minimally, and he looks down at the mess of yarn caught all around his fingers with his mouth tucked up on one side, and Sam feels safe enough to say, then: "So. Crochet?"

"Don't ask," Dean groans, but of course that means he'll tell the story, if only slowly. Sam stoops and picks up the ball of yarn that rolled off—a kind of coppery brown color, and what's wrapped around Dean's fingers and the—stick?—a light blue that looks like the sky outside, and when Sam squeezes the ball it's soft, fine, the string tailing off almost silky across his hand. He raises his eyebrows and Dean sighs. "Proof. Remember?"

Dean untangles his fingers—it actually takes some doing, he got a piece tight around his thumb and is practically growling before he gets it loose—and Sam decamps to the kitchen table and pops the caps on two still-cold beers and sits across from Dean while he stares down at his hands, untangling the yarn with deep concentration, while he explains.

Proof, according to Denise, was care. Of course they'd known that already, in a sense, but it was more than that—more than bodies and more than simple closeness, more than food shared and nights spent in the same bed. It was evidence of acknowledging and understanding what she cared about. Even if she didn't expect Gary to take up a hobby like felting or macramé she still got that stupid hurt pang in her throat when she tried to tell him about some project she'd started and he'd grunt, at best, and not even acknowledge that she'd spoken at worst. Of course she wasn't necessarily better—she didn't give a single lace-edged damn about football or basketball or fishing or hockey—and it was a mean little satisfaction, when he started talking about the Packers game over dinner like she should know what he liked, to say something like, did they get a home run? and watch him puff and steam and laugh about how ignorant she was. Even so—when constructing a spell out of wine-drunk bitterness, even-handed give-and-take wasn't exactly the thought foremost in mind, and so it was Gary who would've had to prove, in some big true way, that he gave a damn.

"Jesus," Sam says, and gulps his beer. "I don’t know if I could stay in that house for more than an hour. Disappeared nuts or not. They just sound—vile."

"Tell me about it," Dean mutters, and then says ha under his breath when he finally teases out a trapped tight loop of the blue yarn and pulls, careful, twining it out to loose with his more-delicate fingers. Longish nails—not enough to be trouble, but enough that they're useful. Sam imagines years with a sister filing her nails in the driver's seat. Like this, not hard to picture.

"Anyway," says Dean. Sam blinks, jerked out of a strange fantasy. This haircut—not from InStyle anymore, surely? but then what does Sam know—features loose wavy shorter layers around Dean's face, some of which have fallen out of the sort-of bun. He tucks them behind his pink ears, not looking up at Sam. "Anyway—care. Like I said. So. I mean, if we're talking symbolism—something that would seriously prove that asshole Gary was willing to put in the work—crafting seemed to be a good idea. So. Denise gave me the crash course in crochet." He shakes his head, starts winding the yarn back around the ball it came from. "Dude, we thought witchcraft was complicated. There's all these weird acronyms you gotta learn, and the patterns are nuts, and if I ever see dc2tog again it'll be too soon."

Sam doesn't know what that means and doesn't particularly want to learn. "So—what. You're… gonna make a… doily or something? Is that for a ritual?"

Dean shrugs one shoulder. Ears gone from pink to red. "I, uh. I spent a while, thinking." Fingers careful with the yarn, more careful than it needs. "There's—proof, for Denise, right? Because in this set-up I'm Gary. So, okay, something to make up for how he's a huge asshole. But—in this set-up you're Denise, and… I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but I'm thinking, maybe you haven't been pining your whole life for me to take up crochet. Unless—?" He raises his eyebrows, glancing up. Sam shakes his head and Dean smiles, quick, looks back down. "Yeah. So. I've been learning about loops and knots and double crochets and all that crap, but I've been thinking about you, too. What's proof, for Sammy."

"I think if you never played the Black Album again I'd be set," Sam says, light, and a weird warmness inside to be thought about. He's been thinking about Dean near nonstop; to hear it's reciprocated is—something, anyway.

Dean says, "Bite your tongue, heathen," but without much heart in it.

Sam watches him across the table, for a moment. Reaches carefully out, and takes the ball of yarn out of Dean's smaller hands—warm glance of their skin together—and pushes the untouched bottle of beer directly into Dean's grip. He wraps both hands around it, fingers lacing around the condensation-wet of the label. Doesn't want to look at Sam, still. "What did you think about?" Sam says.

He says it serious. Maybe that's why Dean licks his lips, lifts his head. A deep breath and then his eyes, steady. Green as green. "I thought about how you're a dumbass," Dean says. His mouth tilts. "Yeah, see. With that dumb expression on your face? Proving my point." He leans back in the chair. Drags his thumb up the neck of the beer, still not drinking. "Dumbass. Because—I mean, not like I didn't get what you were saying, the other night." No guesses about which night he means. Sam finds his fingers at his mouth and yanks his hand down before Dean can notice. "We're not stupid—well, you are, and I'll get to that—but you were right. It's different, if we don't have to and we do it anyway. If—I go to a bar and the bartender's the prettiest piece of pie in the whole state, and all I can think about is getting back home, because you're waiting. Can't pretend that doesn't mean something."

Sam's mouth floods and he swallows. Says, "So, why am I a dumbass?"

Dean licks the corner of his mouth. Takes a sip of the beer, finally, and puts the bottle down very precisely in front of him, and then leans forward with his elbows on the table and looks at Sam square on and says, not exactly challenging but not exactly mild, "Because you think I'm the one in this conversation who's not all-in."

Jolt in his stomach. Sam sits up straight, frowning. "I'm—what?"

"Come on, man," Dean says. He gestures vaguely toward the window. "I mean—if one of us was going to bail? Sam, you could do anything. Walk out that door right now and you could just slip into a whole new life. Back to college, back to law school. Or, hell, I don't know, become a librarian, or a history teacher, or—or a crossword puzzle writer, I don't know. You never wanted to be a hunter. I know that better than anyone."

All the vague arousal Sam might have felt when he found the car here evaporates. Queasy, overwarm. His hand slips on the beer bottle. "Where's this coming from?"

"I'm not picking a fight." Sam raises his eyebrows and Dean raises his hands, huffs. "Seriously. I'm—dude. It's a compliment. You could be more, you could have more, than being the world's tallest hunting sidekick."

"Who says I'm the sidekick," Sam says, thin.

Dean goes tch, soft. Draws a circle on the table, in the condensation left by his bottle, with his middle finger. "You know," he says. Around and around. Sam waits, sick. "It was—all I wanted, to get you back. We'd been working with robo-Sam and—hell, he was a good hunter. I mean, you were. Whatever. But it wasn't right. Made me sick sometimes, waking up and you—him—just… sitting there, waiting." Spike of pain behind Sam's eye—Dean slumped on his side on the far bed, boots still on, shoulders hunched against Sam's gaze—and he fists into his jeans, begs it not to become a full-on vision. He breathes through it and stays right here, in the fish cabin, and focuses on Dean's finger in the condensation. The pale oval of the nail. "Then you came back, and I…" He licks his lips. "Happier than I can remember being in… forever. And—that was in the middle of a job, remember? And so you came along, on the job, and I didn't really—question it. Because of course you were on the job. But, Sammy, you didn't have to. You don't have to."

"Am I—understanding this?" Sam says. He can't even work up how to get pissed because it's too strange to hear Dean say it. "You're, what. Trying to get me to quit? We've got—Eve, Cas's war, alpha monsters. And you're offering me an out?"

"I'm saying you've always had one." Sam spreads his hands, frustrated, and Dean leans forward and catches one of them. Makes Sam freeze. "Hey, listen. I'm—not saying it right. You could have left. If we hadn't stumbled into that thing with Eve—you could've come back, soul and too-big body and all that stupid hair finally united, and you could've just walked off. Decided to join the circus. And I don't know, maybe you still will. Sammy on the trapeze. Or the bearded lady, huh?" His grip on Sam's wrist is light. "But I don't have anything. Anything but this. And if you don't get that—Sam, I don't know. We always thought you were the smart one but I really, really gotta question that, these days."

Too much to target, in that little speech. "I don't know whether I should sock you in the face or hug you," Sam says. Dean presses his lips together—little dimples of frustration pocking his smooth cheeks—and sits back, and Sam does immediately miss his touch but apparently now they actually do have to argue. "You think after—all this. I might walk?"

"Would that be so bad?" Dean says. He drags his beer off the table, looks into it like there's something worth looking at. "Let's say we manage to handle whatever's up with Eve. Crowley's gone, Cas taking care of heaven. You don’t think you'd want to—do whatever? Circus ain't the only option."

"When was the last time either of us could see a thing in the paper and not wonder if the guy died 'cause he died or if it was because a monster ate him," Sam says. Dean's cheek sucks in one side and he takes a swallow of beer. "That—year. You were with Lisa. You're telling me it didn't eat at you? Knowing there were people out there who needed saving? What makes you think it's any different for me?"

Dean looks up at him, direct. His lips part, briefly, before they firm, and he takes another sip off the bottle.

Just as well, because Sam's not done. "Maybe it'd be better not to worry about it. Not to think about it. But I don't know who I'd be if I didn't, at this point, and—I mean, are you planning on quitting, anytime soon?" Dean makes a face. "Yeah, didn't think so. And—Dean, I don't know if you noticed, but—I want to be where you are." Sam shrugs, waves a hand at the stupid cabin. "Even with the fish kitsch. Even if we're not—doing what we've been doing. Hell, even without a soul, apparently. Which ought to tell us something."

"Had to get the best hunter in the world off the bench," Dean says. Quieter.

"Yeah, that's why." He dumps enough sarcasm in that Dean smiles at his lap. Glance of sun through the clouds. "Look. Even if we weren't hunting, or if we weren't—god, if we weren't having sex. We're brothers. That comes before anything. I'm all-in on that." He takes a deep breath. "I mean—you believe that. Right?"

"Yeah, I believe that," Dean says. He looks all over Sam's face, that way he's started doing. Smirks, after a second. "That's gotta be one of the weirder things you've ever said, huh?"

Sam lets the breath out, slow. "I don't know," he says. "It's a weird life. Might not even be ranked."

Dean huffs. "Yeah." Smirk melting away into something softer. He watches Sam for another moment, teeth catching the corner of his lip, then nods at the counter. "I got leftovers, from guess who. Alfredo. Lunch, and then—" He gathers up all the yarn in front of him, making a soft bundle in his arms. "Hey, let's get out of here, huh?"

"What—you want to go to the movies or something?"

"No, I mean—let's get out of here," Dean says. He tips his head at the fish clock. "We don't have a schedule anymore, right? And I don't think any magic one way or the other relies on the cod crew as witnesses."

"I guess, yeah," Sam says, frowning. "But—I mean, where do you want to go?"

Dean stands up, yarn trailing over his forearms. "At this point," he says, "anywhere without snow. Or trout."

Feels strange to leave, this time. Permanent, this time, so far as they know—unless Dean gets on Denise's list for the 4^th of July social? "Bite me," Dean says, fumbling with yarn in the passenger seat, and Sam smiles, settles in for a long drive.

Strange also because—they're not fighting. Dean's not particularly upset. Sam's—Sam doesn't know how to quantify what he is. What does it do, to feel like this and know it, and to know that Dean—feels something, something similar, something that's close enough that it can save his life? The last time Sam drove south with a feminized brother Dean was all hard sharp angles and misery and they had zero destination in mind other than away from the purple motel and all the fear that had accumulated in it; now they're escaping fish, and frost, and Sam stretches out in the driver's seat, lets the engine open up and purr on the long empty stretch of highway. Sees Dean smile, out of the corner of his eye, before he drops a loop of yarn and says, "Son of a bitch," and unravels his knot, tries again.

They go through the early Who, the Doors album Sam finds least annoying, the best of Elton John that Dean keeps 'forgetting' to throw away. Sam catches him bobbing his knee along to Crocodile Rock and smothers his grin, elbow propped on the door. I-74 slinging them straight down through a warming afternoon, stopping for gas and coffee and so Dean can pee—"Dude, blame the girl bladder"—and sailing on, the light going syrupy through the passenger window and catching amber glints on Dean's eyelashes, riming his nose with gold, his lips shining while he tries to make the yarn knot on purpose, this time.

"What are you even making?" Sam says, at one point, leaning on the car frame and watching Dean glare at some fairly innocent string.

"It's a surprise," Dean says, in a voice like he'll go back on previous promises and commit fratricide if Sam's not careful, so Sam raises his hands, goes back to sit on the trunk and wait for the car to fill up. Still cold, here, this random dot off the interstate, so—south.

Dinner in Springfield, Illinois. No snow but it's in the forecast. They eat at a bar and Dean orders a burger and a beer and leans heavy on the hightop, watches the waitress walk away. "Damn," he says, sort of under his breath, and Sam looks too—and, wow, yeah. Abigail fills out her jeans very nicely. Tap of nails on the lacquered wood and Sam blinks, looks back at Dean, who's frowning at him. "You think her ass is better than mine?"

Sam opens his mouth, freezes. "Uh—" Takes a second before he sees the glint in Dean's eye. "Oh, are you kidding?"

"Dude, your face," Dean says, grinning, and Sam says, "Yeah, okay, nice one," and then, because Dean's still smug like he won somehow, Sam leans back into his chair and says, "Yours." Dean raises his eyebrows and Sam clarifies. "Your ass is better. You just don't normally have rhinestones on your pockets to call attention to it."

A beat, real surprise. Sam smiles, flat and bland, and Dean rolls his eyes. "You think I should add that to my wardrobe? Real serious look, for a hunter."

"Never know," Sam says, and waits while Abigail puts two bottles in front of them, and smiles at her until she goes away. "Might blind a vamp if we angle a flashlight off your butt just right."

Dean sputters, in the middle of his first sip, and Sam grins, handing over a paper napkin. Score one.

Cold outside, when they leave. Street gleaming under the sodium lights. Dean shivers, zips up his jacket—he wore the one that actually fits, and Sam looks at the curve of his waist and it's a strange torn want, knowing that shape and wanting it and another, too—and to distract himself Sam says, "Stay?" and Dean blows out dragon-fog and shakes his head, so.

South again. Dean in the driver's seat now, since it's too dark to practice his crochet. He moves the seat up—Sam's knees against the glovebox, but he doesn't complain, angles himself to be more-or-less comfortable, body inclined toward Dean's. It was going to be, anyway. Dean's picking music since he's driving and he taps a nail on Metallica, humming like he means it, but chooses Neil Young instead. Mellow gold. Sam slouches in the corner made by the seatback and the car door, arm along the headrest, not touching Dean's shoulder although he could. Could find the back of his neck, slip fingers into his hair. Could—god, prove it. Prove something, at least. Dean's driving easy, left knee propped high against the driver door and two fingers on the underside of the wheel and parts of the profile aren't exactly right but most are. Sam could manage, no problem.

Quarter to midnight in Mayfield, Kentucky, while Sam walks across the parking lot with a room key in hand, and the Impala backs slowly into an empty spot. Still cold, but no snow. Only one other car in the lot. When the engine cuts off it's pure quiet. Sam approaches the dark bulk of the car in the thin green of the neon sign, his boots loud on the asphalt, and all he can see is the shape of Dean's hand on the wheel. Green, too. He pauses, at the front tire, and puts his fingers on the hood, and the heat's searing almost. Cold on his ears and lips and thighs, through his jeans. The moon, rising. Half a minute before the door cracks, and Dean steps out, spinning the keys into his palm. Sam's heart lurches, uncertain. Then Dean tips his head at the room, and says, "What, you waiting for a red carpet?" Sam rolls his eyes, and opens the door while Dean opens the trunk, and they grab their bags and Sam follows Dean into the room and watches Dean's lack of reaction to two queen beds. Can't quantify his own reaction to the lack of reaction. Puts his duffle on the table and thinks that he's being a dumbass. As accused.

Dean comes out of the bathroom after peeing, wiping his hands on his hips. "No fish," he says. Sam snorts, checking his pistol. "Is it weird if I say I'm gonna miss the one that said 'Fly Guy'?"

"The one with the aviators?" Sam says, and Dean says, "Yeah, he was pretty cool," and Sam says, "Okay, then yes, that is weird," and Dean's sitting on the other bed, leaning on his hands, boots kicked out in front of him with his ankles crossed, slight smile on his face. Watching Sam finish with the pistol and watching Sam tuck it under the pillow and watching Sam straighten up, turn, watch him right back.

The moon's up and so Dean's changed again, if only subtly. His face now—god, really nearly exactly his real face. Softer in some places but only just. His body a slightly bottom-heavy hourglass, his eyes that exact shade of gold-flecked green. Darker in the lamplight but no less recognizable.

They didn't stop for beer or booze and so there's not really a choice for distractions. Sam glances at the television but it seems abruptly ridiculous—masking the quiet in infomercials or whatever bowdlerized late-night movie, when they both know what they're masking. "Could play cards," Dean says, and Sam says, "Yeah, we could," and sits on the other bed, hands folded between his thighs, facing Dean head-on.

The little smile fades. "You change your mind?" Dean says. Sounds actually curious.

Sam shakes his head, and watches how Dean bites the inside of his lip. "You want to change back?" he asks, in his turn, and Dean's eyes dip. "Moon's already up. You'd get a whole day."

Dean draws in his bootheels, shifts his weight on the mattress. "Sam," he says. Pauses, and it takes the pause for Sam to hear that he's serious. "Don't make it—like that." A breath. "Tit for tat. Like we'll finish up and you'll give me my manhood like cash on the nightstand. I know you didn't mean it," he says, before Sam can respond. He smiles, tight and fast, not as nice as the smile earlier. "Just—I'd rather not. If—"

Sam stands up, abruptly, and Dean stops talking—thank god—and watches Sam take the step between the beds, and stays still while Sam cups Dean's jaw in both hands, and goes with it when Sam tips his face up, and closes his eyes when Sam leans in. The kiss is soft but Sam means it. Return pressure even if Dean doesn't touch him, and Sam swipes a thumb over Dean's cheek, pulling back just enough that he can look without his eyes crossing. Dean's eyelids stay lightly closed, his lips just parted. "I've wanted to do that all day," Sam says, quiet, and Dean reaches out, blind, touches Sam's chest. Tucks his fingers into the v of Sam's undershirt, and tips his chin up, asking.

Hasn't been that long. Sam feels like he's relearning, anyway. He takes his time but there's not much foreplay, beyond what it takes to get their clothes off, to make sure Dean's wet. He's wet—his nails in Sam's shoulder, his teeth against Sam's neck—and Sam's ready, urged, urgent. Until a sound like pain, and he slows, and gets a frustrated punch to the chest for it. Slows further, says—wait—says, let me—and nails again, teeth again. But then a sigh, and lips at his temple. Sam closes his eyes against lamplight. Makes it last.

Cheap scratchy tissues in the bathroom. They clean up. While they wait, Dean stretches out on his back and doesn't seem eager to move and Sam sits at the foot of the bed, boxers on, looking Dean over. The bend of the knee. Curl of lax fingers against the soft belly. The tattoo, on the soft upslope above the right breast, that marks him as Sam's brother.

"If we fix this thing," Dean says, "I guess I'll miss some of it." Sam looks up and Dean's mouth is curved up on one side. "I don't think you've looked up to me this much since you were, like, seven. Or should I say looked at me?"

"Shut up," Sam says, and Dean smiles. Then Sam actually listens to what was said and he frowns. "If?"

Dean sighs. He pushes up and walks naked over to his own duffle, on the table. "Not trying to be a Debbie Downer. Or her sister Nancy. But—" He shrugs, and pulls out the clean boxer-briefs he was apparently looking for. "I called Bobby. This morning, when I was driving back up to the cabin." He has to yank a little to get the briefs over his hips, and then looks at Sam, rueful. "Kinda weird to talk to Bobby now, huh?"

Weird isn't the half of it. Sam watches him drag a shirt over his head. "What did he say?"

"Mostly it was what he didn't say." Dean sits back against the headboard. Feet of bed between them. "I was asking about the crochet thing—he said it might work—but he wasn't, you know, enthusiastic." He licks his lips. "Seemed relieved that I was still a chick when I called. Don't think he's exactly thrilled about our solution."

Sam drags a hand over his mouth. No, Bobby's not thrilled. "Can you blame him?"

"Guess not," Dean says. He tucks his hair behind his ears. "Thing is—we've been talking about this whole thing. Proof." He shakes his head. "Starting not to sound like a real word. Proof, proof. And like—maybe we'll hit on the perfect thing. But—I don’t know. Maybe that thing we find, whatever it is, maybe it'll be something that… Bobby won't really be thrilled to answer our calls ever again."

Like punctuation for the thought, Dean changes. Sam closes his eyes, briefly, and by the time he opens them Dean's back—shorter hair, same expression on his face. Sam's chest feels tight and he can't really pin it down.

"Whatever we do," Dean says, deeper. "I don't think it's the kind of thing you can take back. So then it's—something to think about. If that's something we can live with. If it's something you can live with."

"Would you—" Sam strains not to put emotion into his voice. May not manage it but he tries. "If we never solved it, could you really do that? Live as a woman, half the time? Or all the time. Just so we don't have to… what, declare something?"

"I make a hot chick," Dean says. Same thing he said the other day. Not exactly a joke. He shrugs, arms folded over his now-flat chest. "If we go through with solving the curse, that means something. As much as just—screwing for fun does. We'd be giving Alabama people a run for their money. Roll Tide." Sam flinches. Dean's face has gone lightly pink but he shrugs, bulls on. "No point dancing around it, man. I guess we don't have much family left, outside the Campbells, and they already think we're monsters—and I guess Bobby might never talk to us again—but that almost doesn't matter. We'd know. That was what you said, right? So. We'd know, and we'd have to live with it. Or we could not go through with it, and we could live with that, instead."

Living with it. Sam can imagine that. It isn't even hard to imagine, after these past weeks. After that time in Iowa, working a case. Except, easier than in Iowa, because as far as Sam can tell Dean's honing down to a single body. Dean, or—Deanna. The sister Sam never wanted. So Dean would be this smaller, curvier version—so what? He can still core a Coke can at fifty paces and still knows pretty much everything there is to know about hunting and Sam would still rely on him, even if he were—her, half the time. There'd be no ticking clock of death waiting except the one that waits for them every day. If they kept an eye on the moon calendar the change might even be useful, for undercover pretexts or luring monsters. Sam and his two-part sibling, cruising around America, no one suspecting a thing. But they'd know.

Dean's quiet. He's got one knee pulled up on the bed and one foot on the ground, mirroring Sam. Looking not at Sam but through him, thinking too but about what Sam doesn't know. Not tense, or angry. Maybe going through the same what ifs that Sam has. Only—

"We'd know anyway," Sam says. Dean's eyes drag away from his chest, refocus with a frown. Sam waves a hand—the rucked comforter on the bed, that they're in their underwear. Sam still has raised-red scratches on his shoulder that are taking their time to fade. "I don't think I'm forgetting this one, man. Unless you want to call Death, put up another picket fence in my head."

"Don't joke about that," Dean says, without a hint of a smile.

Sam tips his head, making sure Dean's seeing his face. "I know. Sorry. But—I'm kinda not joking. Dean, this whole month—it happened. It's not just going to go away. We know what we did. And I don't regret it—I mean, you know that. Right? To save your life? I would've done anything I had to. Sex is actually a pretty decent option, all things considered. Even sex with the guy who has every episode of Star Trek memorized." He shrugs. "So. We're going to have to live with it, either way."

Dean looks at him, thoughtful. "We've gotten over worse things," he says. Sam's jaw clenches and Dean lifts a shoulder, unapologetic. "Hey, we have. Stuff I bet both of us would rather forget. But here we are, talking. Not killing ourselves or each other." Dean shakes his head. "Look, I'm just saying—I'm not trying to be a dick. I'm trying to—you know, like you said. If we fix it—however we fix it—and if we mean it, like I'm guessing we've got to if it's gonna get fixed—then, one way or another, we've gotta live with the consequences."

Pretty blue Kentucky morning. Dean's himself, in the other bed, sprawled out on his stomach and drooling into the pillow. Sam goes running. Unfamiliar town but that's fine. All towns are familiar, once you've been to enough of them.

While he's running he thinks about consequences. All lives really boil down to just that. One thing after another, starting from the creation of the universe, and for most people that's a fanciful way to think about it but for the two of them that moment has very literal and lasting significance. Down the eons, through angel wars and demonic plans and a long-planned genetic legacy, all the way to a girl kneeling in the dirt, making a deal to save her would-be husband. Damning her kids in the process. Not that Sam blames her; after all those tumbling decades of consequences, it's not like she had a choice in the matter. The only real choices in the whole sorry sequence, as far as he can tell, were in a cemetery in Lawrence, when Dean—reckless, righteous Dean—drove up and interrupted a showdown between archangels, like an absolute moron—and when Sam stood there and, because of what Dean had done, he screwed up one terrified last ounce of courage, and jumped.

There weren't really supposed to be consequences, after that big one. It was supposed to be—Dean with a life, and maybe not one he'd chosen or even exactly wanted but one he deserved, in safety and comfort. Sam would have had his own problems but he considered the cost to be worth it. For a world; for his brother. That he came back is still a mystery. That he got his soul back is something he'll owe Dean for, always. That they're here, still in the same car, in the same life, together—it's a consequence, too, and he's rational enough to know that it's because of shared history and habit and even, maybe, something to do with souls—but just because it's habit doesn’t mean it's not real. It's not just because they're family; plenty of families hate each other's guts.

That Sam wants nothing more, at the end of this six miles, than to go back to the motel and find his brother waiting with coffee made—if he's lucky enough for Dean to have heaved his lazy ass out of bed and learned to work the coffee maker—is because he remembers being seventeen and on the track team in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which their dad actually approved of because it counted as a kind of PT, and waking up early to go on cross-country practice runs with the team, and arriving back at the dump they were renting soaked in sweat despite the high-desert cold and finding Dean, twenty-one and hungover with a screwed-up shotgun blast in his hair, making coffee in the grey morning, and saying welcome home, Jim Fixx, take a shower before you fumigate the whole house. And shoving Dean's shoulder, annoyed, and going to take a shower after all, and coming out to coffee warm in the pot and Dean back asleep on the couch, snoring, because he'd only woken up to make sure Sam got home safe. Because that was their life. That was them, together. That nowhere else has ever felt as much like home as that—maybe it was a consequence of terrible events and maybe it wasn't perfect, but it didn't mean it wasn't home. Sam's been through too much to try to tear up the foundations that have laid his entire life. He tried that, once. Didn't go great. No reason to believe a second try would be worth the pain.

He gets back to the motel. Stretches, using the Impala as a balance. Sweating, and cold because of it. When he opens the door Dean's sitting at the little table with a cup of coffee and a pillow-crease on his cheek and he looks distinctly unimpressed. "You truly are a freak," he croaks, nose half in his mug. "How did I end up with you as my brother."

"Just lucky, I guess," Sam says, and Dean rolls his eyes, and Sam means it. With everything in him, he means it.

They leave Kentucky. Sam drives. Dean's making what looks like a passable crocheted chain to Sam's eye, in the passenger seat, although Dean says his loops are too loose. Whatever that means. He switches to a thinner kind of yarn, keeps working. Sam picked the music—Ozzy—and Dean grunted approval but then turned it up loud, which means he's thinking. Just as well. They need to think.

Lunch in Murfreesboro, a diner Dean remembers that does, wow, yes, have an incredible club sandwich. He grins while Sam groans. "Told you," he says, and demolishes his own, but then they’re just—back in the car. Sam still driving, and south again, with no destination in mind but to be on the road. A destination in itself. Which—what does that tell him?

They hop another border, coasting down to Atlanta. A motel on the outskirts of the city. Dean wants soul food so they find a spot—fried chicken, collards. Talking about nothing. Spring training started in Arizona and Florida. Could hit Sarasota, it's not that far. Shrugs. Walk back to the car—cool out but no longer cold, this far south—and Sam tosses Dean the keys and he takes them and then doesn't open the door, just leans against the side panel, and so Sam matches him. Dark night, riddled with stars. Moon won't rise until just past midnight.

Sam watches traffic going by instead of the sky. The restaurant's in a strip mall; down the row there's a gun store, a Goodwill, a tattoo parlor. Maybe not the gentrified part of town but it's familiar. Dean says, lazy, pointless like their minimal conversation has been all day, "Too bad the Goodwill's closed, could've picked up some new jeans to replace those ones you're walking a hole through," and Sam sucks the inside of his cheek, says, "Yeah," and then turns and grips Dean's jaw and kisses him.

Dean goes rigid, head to toe along Sam's side. Sam slides his hand back and holds Dean's neck and tips in, firm, moves his mouth against Dean's—and Dean sucks in shocked air, makes a fist in Sam's jacket. Kisses back. Sam tips his head and Dean makes a little sound, presses Sam's mouth open, glance of tongue—hot—tasting like sweet tea—before he pushes Sam back, firm enough that Sam sways, and keeps hold of Sam's jacket when he says, "What the hell." Not exactly shocked. "Dude, we're in public."

"No one's around," Sam says, which isn't strictly true, but—no one's using a strip mall parking lot as a scenic lookout. Dean stares at him. The light's just from the stars and the streetlamps and the reflected red of the fried chicken sign but Sam can still read his expression. A little pissed, a little shocked. Somehow, incredibly, a little uncertain.

Whole day of thinking. Sam's tired of it. "I wanted to," he says. Gets high, unimpressed eyebrows. "I can do it again if you don't believe me."

"Believing it's not the problem," Dean says, irritated, and Sam interrupts whatever was going to come next and says, "I think it is."

Dean subsides. Frowning at him. Sam touches his wrist, lightly—his hand still tight in Sam's jacket—and says, "Maybe somewhere a little less public?"

"No." Dean does let go—disengages, and folds his arms over his chest—and looks at him square. "You wanna make out in a parking lot, you can explain in a parking lot."

Sam sighs. "Fair enough." A jingling bell: a couple coming out of the restaurant. Older. Sam watches them go to a Buick that might rival the Impala in age, watches the man open the passenger door for the woman. "We keep talking about this stuff but we're going in circles. Making choices and not making choices. Want, or care, or desire, or pleasing yourself versus someone else. Like you said, that other night. It's all knotted up, all these threads coming together, and there's not one simple way to untangle it. It's not like I can just tell you I love you, and that'll suddenly zap you back to normal."

The Buick drives off. When Sam glances over Dean's lips are parted, his eyes big and fixed on Sam's face.

Heat rises up Sam's neck but that doesn't matter. Anyway, they're both reddish in this light. He clears his throat. "It's not just—one thing. That's my point. It's not going to be me cooking your favorite burger, and it's not going to be you suddenly deciding to go running with me, and it's obviously not us having sex, or not having sex with other people, or—I don't know. Making big declarations. That scene from Jerry Maguire."

"You trying to say I complete you?"

"I'm trying to say that none of it counts as proof unless all of it does," Sam says. Dean blinks, joke derailed. "All of it. Hunting together because we have to, and we want to, and who cares where the line is between those two things. Me buying that godawful El Sol because it's your favorite for reasons I can't fathom. That we went to hell for each other. How I'm the only one who's ever going to get why you say 'pinochle, Mrs. Arbuckle?' whenever you see that stupid word."

"That is a screwed up list," Dean says, after a few seconds. "And the pinochle thing is funny."

He's staring at Sam. Like Sam's saying something that counts as a revelation, which isn’t the point, because all Sam’s been thinking about over these hours and hours and thousand miles of driving is— "It's really, really not," Sam says.

The light over the restaurant goes off. Nine o'clock on a Wednesday is apparently closing time. A last customer files out and the waitress who served them locks the door. Dean's eyes flick to that, to the car the guy gets into, to the distance past Sam's shoulder and whatever mysteries might be there. "So, what," he says. "Are you saying we're—what, proving it already?"

Sam shoves his hands into his jacket pockets, leaning against the car. "You were the one who pointed out we were basically monogamous," he says. "You were the one who wanted to know if I was all-in. I am. I think you are, too." Dean lifts his chin, jaw flexing square. "This last Saturday showed that the—the physical thing—it goes both ways. I don't know how much more proof we can give."

"So why am I still gonna change into a chick in three hours?" Dean says. Harder. Maybe hurt. "If this is all just perfectly slotting into place. I don't see how my inevitable tits fit your theory, genius."

Sam takes a deep breath, because this is the other thing he’s been thinking about over the miles. "Like I said." Dean gives him a get on with it face and Sam shrugs, kinda sorry. "You've gotta believe it, too."

Dean doesn't leave him in the parking lot, although Sam bets he thought about it. He drives back to the motel at a reasonable pace, and doesn't crank the radio to painful levels, and doesn't slam the car door. He asks if Sam needs the toilet, and on Sam's refusal he says, "Cool, I'm taking a shower," and the bathroom door closes normally, and then the water comes on and stays on, for a long time.

It's too early to go to bed but Sam doesn't really have much else to do. He surfs the usual websites for jobs, although he doesn't particularly want a job. He looks for signs of Eve although he doesn't really know what those signs might be. He changes into pajamas and he's in bed, hands tucked behind his head and watching the ceiling, when the bathroom door finally opens—ridiculous gout of steam, Dean might've run out the whole motel's hot water supply—and Dean comes out, still a guy, in just his boxers, frowning. Frowns at Sam, who looks helplessly back, until he says, "Where do you want to go? Anywhere in the country. Name a spot."

It doesn't matter. Sam opens his mouth to say so, and Dean apparently divines it because he says, "Pick somewhere, Sam, or I'll brain you with the tv remote," and so Sam says, not planning to, "Albuquerque," and Dean stares at him and says, "My god, you've got shitty taste." Sam says, "You asked!" and Dean says, "I know, and I wish I hadn't," and then says, "Okay, whatever. Albuquerque it is. Freak." Then he pulls on a clean undershirt, and climbs into the other bed, and turns off the lamp, and it's dark in the room, warm, a thick and clinging silence. Solid enough that Sam can't see a way to break it. He feels Dean's presence acutely. Finally, Dean says into the dark, "I hope we don't take a wrong toin when we get there." Sam groans, and Dean says, "Shut up, you love it," quieter, and Sam doesn't really have a retort, for that one.

There's not a hurry to get to New Mexico and it's a long drive. Takes them two days. Dean's a woman in the morning and he tosses Sam the keys, but also takes over the tapedeck, and Sam doesn't want to pick a fight so he lets it happen, even when Dean picks the Black Album clearly just trying to be annoying. They switch at lunch, and Sam suffers the squashed knees, watching the landscape change out the window from Alabama, to Mississippi, to Arkansas. Woods and hills and dead grass and highway. A motel room, in Oklahoma City, that's got mysterious stains on the ceiling and the ugliest orange blankets in the world. A bar, next door. Ice-cold domestic on tap. Story of Sam's life.

Dean's a woman. He squints at the guys playing darts in the back and then starts to smile. "Oh, god," Sam mutters, but he watches while Dean walks over, beer in hand—smiling, fake-uncertain. Flirty, laughing, getting the guys to relax, smile back, suckering them in. Hook, line, sinker. He is good at it—better at it, with the purple v-neck he's wearing—and in short order he's squealing happily about beginner's luck, the guys groaning but charmed, and one of them bows to Dean when he offers up his twenty, and they all watch his ass as he walks back, waves the money at the bartender.

"Have fun?" Sam says, leaning back against the bar. The guys are laughing with each other, and Sam can't hear over the country radio but they don't seem pissed off.

"Like taking candy from an undersexed baby," Dean says, and then pauses, making a face. "Pretend I didn't say that."

One guy's still sneaking looks over, even if Dean's back is to him while he gloats over his winnings and his whiskey. Guy's practically besotted. Doesn't seem to notice Sam at all. "I guess there's one advantage. I think instead of getting in a fight in the parking lot you're gonna have to avoid that redheaded guy giving you his number."

"His name's Terry," Dean says. "Darts maybe not the simplest way to make money off these types, but definitely the cleanest." He takes a sip of his drink, looking up in the mirror over the bar. "No alley time for Terry. Sorry, Terry."

Sam checks the side of Dean's face but he's calm. He looks again at Terry. Maybe forty. Slight paunch but decently fit. Sweat on his neck, gleaming in the neon Budweiser sign. He glances over at Dean again—at the girl that is Dean again—and Sam imagines, the alley. A dumpster, empty eggcrates. Terry crowding close against the girl that is Dean—or—maybe not, maybe actual Dean, tall and his chin raised and looking at Terry with that expression Sam's seen aimed over and over again at random men and man-shaped-monsters—sometimes the same thing—that says, go ahead. Impress me.

The music's loud. Not the old stuff that Sam kind of knows from the radio, from osmosis, but thumpy, raucous, hip-hop with a twang. They can hear each other because they're sitting right next to each other but Sam can't decipher the conversation two bar-stools away. Dean sips at his whiskey, and Sam looks at Terry—at Terry's friends, all much the same types—and Sam says, "I never slept with a guy."

Dean's glass hits the bar top with a clang.

"Is it—" Sam starts, and realizes he's flushing, again. From the question or what he pictured? Either, both. He sips his beer, tries again. "Stupid question, probably. Is it that different?"

A pause. "Look at me," Dean says, and so Sam does. Aware of the heat across his cheekbones.

Dean's eyes narrow, searching Sam's. Means Sam can see it when some switch flips and Dean decides to actually respond, instead of whatever else might have come Sam's way. "Yes and no. Some parts are easier. Some parts are more of a pain in the ass. Sometimes literally." Sam wrinkles his nose and Dean raises his eyebrows. "Hey, you asked. Dork. Anyway—I mean, all that stuff's just mechanical. It just depends on the person. Guys are more likely to treat the whole thing like a dick-measuring contest, in more ways than one. Or it's just—quick, a transaction, and at that point it's basically better masturbation. The Stranger but really a stranger, huh? With someone decent, it's…" He leans on one elbow, surveying Sam. His cheek sucks in on one side. "Decent."

"Helpful," Sam says. Warmth in his gut that's not from the beer. Dean gives him a bland smile.

They use Dean's winnings to pay the tab. Sam has the keys and Dean doesn't ask for them, but when they're outside he says, "Hey, let's go out to Lake Hugh Hefner for a little while, huh?" and Sam says, like he always does when they're in OKC, "It's just Hefner," and Dean smiles in the most annoying way he has and says, "Not to me," and so Sam sighs, and drives, and of course the park's closed, it's ten at night, but when has that ever stopped them.

Dean sits on a picnic table, little bootheels hitched up on the bench. Sam leans beside him. No moon yet, so it's dark out other than the glow of the city, the lighthouse on the east wharf. Lit up tonight in pink-white, casting a long wavering glimmer over the black water. Pretty. Quiet. Smelling a little like waterfront funk and woodsmoke, although Sam doesn't know from where.

His profile, pale in the dark. Sam keeps his hands in his pockets, looks out at the night—light pollution from the sprawl of the city but out here there are a few stars to see. Dean says, finally, "Always thought they missed an opportunity to put a giant Playboy bunny right there." He frames up his hands at the western shore. "Really would've brought some color to the place."

"I don't know if Oklahomans are as big a fan of Hef as you," Sam says, and Dean shrugs, and Sam looks at the side of his face. His eyes, distant on the water. On something, anyway. Sam heels backward, sitting on the tabletop, too, nearly shoulder to shoulder with Dean except that Dean's shoulder sits about half a foot below Sam's, right now. Cold metal through his jeans, Dean's heat at his side. All natural, without the dangerous half of the curse in place. Distracting nevertheless. Sam lets his knee sink to the side, nudging Dean's, and he says, "Hey. So—alley time?"

Neutral. Just an invitation to comment if Dean feels the need. He's a lot better at these kinds of questions than he was when he was younger. He keeps his face up and pointed out toward the lake and sees Dean give him a look only in his periphery.

"You aren't subtle," Dean says, after a long pause. Sam smiles and bites it down smaller. Dean's knee nudges him back and Dean leans forward, shoulders curved in against the chilly air. "That's not the kind of thing you want to hear about."

"I asked, didn't I?"

"And I answered," Dean says, but not meanly. Sam's quiet, and Dean sighs. Says, light-ish, "Sammy, don't worry about it."

"I'm not worried," Sam says, which may or may not be a lie. Dean's head dips, long hair falling out from behind his ear. Sam wants to tuck it back but he clasps his hands between his knees instead, lets the glancing of their knees and hips and shoulders be enough. Takes a deep breath. "You know, when I was a kid, I always thought I was the one who was being forced to do stuff I didn't want to do. Hell, I thought that last year."

"That was true," Dean says.

"Well, yeah. I wasn't exactly volunteering to be Lucifer's vessel." Dean snorts. "I don't know why I never thought about you having to deal with all that crap, too. You always just seemed—I don’t know. Fine with it."

"It's the job," Dean says. Sam bites his lips between his teeth, not to make a sound. Dean glances back at him, then back out at the water. "Maybe not just the job. It's the life. You get stuff put in front of you and you can either cry about it or you can deal with it. Dealing with it's always made more sense to me. And it's easier. I don't know why."

Some distant internal part of Sam hears the criticism he could take out of that if he wanted to, but that's a younger part he tries not to listen to anymore. Usually succeeds—and succeeds now, looking at Dean's posture. Defensive, maybe, but then their lives have required a lot of defense. After a few seconds he gives in, and is careful when he slides his fingers around Dean's ear, and Dean doesn't flinch. Lets Sam have access, like he's let Sam do—god. A lot. He's let Sam get away with a lot.

"I wish you didn't have to deal with it," Sam says.

He lets his hand fall away. Dean sits up straight. "You know," he starts, and trails off. A one-sided smile, out at the lake, before he turns his head. "At this point—things could be a hell of a lot worse."

Sam huffs. "Ringing endorsement."

Dean shrugs, still smiling in that little, crooked way. Fair enough, Sam thinks. It kind of is.

Two beds, at the ugly orange blankets motel, and they sleep separately. Sam wakes up first, and takes a leak, and thinks about running but—not today. He makes the coffee, instead, and sits on his laptop looking idly for monsters, and watches over the top of the screen when Dean wakes up, and sees when Dean clocks his empty bed and frowns, and then when Dean turns over, and sees him, and his face does—this thing. Sam doesn't know how to describe it, even if he's seen it over and over. It's the expression Dean gets when he didn't expect to see Sam and then does. Something alchemical in it, since when Sam clocks that expression there's this answer, in his chest. Chest, hell. His whole body. Like a bell's been struck and the resonance goes through every bone.

"You made coffee," Dean croaks.

"Sure did," Sam says.

"What did I do to deserve this," Dean says, and not in a flattering way. Sam rolls his eyes and Dean drops flat on his back and groans, and Sam just—that struck bell keeps ringing, long past when it should have felt like old news.

Sam drives. Dean's still working on the crochet thing but it's yet another bit of yarn, the thicker blue this time. At a rest stop while Dean's peeing Sam picks up the project, curious. It's an interesting pattern. Not a large piece like the veil in Denise's book, but a strip maybe two centimeters wide, the edges a more complex kind of ridge and some… crisscrossing intricate knots in the middle. Tight work—maybe Dean's solved his loose stitch problem, who knows—and he's impressed, running his thumb along the soft ripples of the yarn, but Sam's no closer to having an idea where the half-made thing is going. The surprise is at least intact.

They started off late after a late breakfast, and lunch in Amarillo is lazily slow while they wait for barbeque that Dean says can't be rushed, and so they only make it to Albuquerque at six p.m. on Friday. Instead of a motel Sam picks a mostly abandoned lodge on the outskirts of town where they rent out casitas, cheap now that ski season is over. The casita isn't much better than a normal motel but they've got no neighbors, and it'll be a nice place to start the next morning. It's pretty now, with the sun setting over the high desert, thin streaky pink to the west and the remaining blue searingly clear overhead.

Two beds but then most everywhere has two beds. A pseudo-native pattern on the comforters. Dean steals Sam's laptop and dicks around for a second while Sam unpacks and then says, "Hey, keys."

Sam tosses them over. "Going somewhere?"

"It's a surprise," Dean says, which means something to do with either the crochet project or something that Sam will find deeply annoying—possibly both—but that's fine. "I'll bring back dinner. Mexican. Hatch for you?"

Sam nods, and says, "Beer, too," and Dean rolls his eyes, says, "Obviously," and he's gone, then, leaving Sam to cool his heels, to stretch out after the meandering days of driving. To think, in the quiet, and recently that's been a pain but—not right now. Not tonight.

The casita has a dusty little patio, with dusty little metal chairs. He makes more coffee, for lack of anything better to drink, and sits out with his boot heels stretched into the dirt, watching the sky sink from pink to dusky purple to navy. Stars coming out—more than in Oklahoma, out here on the edge of what counts as the city—and different stars, too, in the desert. The sky feels further away.

His phone rings. He's expecting it to be Dean, possibly complaining about New Mexican food wait times, and his chest warms without his say-so. "Hey," he says, without looking at the screen.

Bobby says, Thought you might be dead, and the warm spot cools very quickly. You can't keep in touch when you've got a curse on your heads?

"It's been—what, two days," Sam says. Annoyed, and feeling caught at something, and more annoyed because of that. "Thought you didn't want to know."

Son, there is nothing in this world I want to know less, Bobby says, caustic. Sam's jaw clenches and the phone creaks in his grip. He's fighting down the immediate response, in the pause, until he hears Bobby sigh. Dean still a contender for Miss Kansas?

"We haven't solved the curse," Sam says. "If that's what you mean."

Think he'd be in a different weight class from rest of the ladies, if you had, Bobby says. Less dickish. Sam tips his head back, the rush of irritation simmering down. Silence, for a few seconds. Got wind of a job. If you're interested. Where are you, anyway?

"Albuquerque," Sam says, and Bobby immediately says, What in the sam hell are you doing in Albuquerque. Sam huffs. "No reason to stay in Wisconsin. We had to be somewhere. What's the case?"

It's up north, Bobby says. I'll pass it along to Rufus or Irv, they're up in the civilized part of the country. Another pause. So. No luck, with your brother's masculinity?

"You're lucky he didn't hear that," Sam says. He draws up one heel. Can he hear an engine, in the distance? "We've got some ideas. Still… trying to iron some things out."

He did: a flash of headlights, in the pines, on the long curving road that leads up to the casitas. That warm spot comes right back.

In his ear, a grunt. Well. I got nothing, on my end. Denise already was what help she could be, I figure. It's the half-moon again, tonight. Who knows. Maybe the damn spell will consider a month without Mister Happy enough punishment.

Sam blinks. God—he's had the moonrise memorized but somehow didn't think about the phase. When he hangs up with Bobby he goes back inside, pulls up their site, types in: Albuquerque, March 26. Tomorrow—in just a few hours—the moon will rise, at 2:17 am. A half-moon, waning, just like it was on the night Dean got whammied in the first place.

Engine rumble, pulling up into the dirt in front of the casita. Sam’s still frowning at the lunar calendar, the perfect white half-circle floating in black, when the door swings open, and Dean blows in with cold air and says, "Man, you ask for extra salsa with your chips and some people act like you asked for a pint of blood," and Sam looks up and—it's just a night. Any average night they've had all their lives, when no one's hurt and no one's on the chopping block to die and the world's not going to end—not that week, anyway—and Sam's just—overwhelmed for a second.

Dean puts his bags on the table, drops the keys, shrugs out of his jacket. Sees Sam's face and blinks. "Whoa, what?"

This girl, his brother. Sam shakes his head. "Nothing," he says, which is completely unbelievable, especially with how it comes out thick. Dean's eyebrows swoop down and Sam clears his throat. "You get extra sour cream, too?"

Dean squints at him, for a second. "Of course," he says, finally. Obviously choosing to let Sam get away with it, and making it obvious that that's the choice. He smirks, annoying. "Told them my girlfriend couldn't handle her spice."

"Charming, thank you," Sam says, and Dean rolls his eyes, drops onto the closer bed and grabs the remote, says, "Okay, baseball or, uh, Major League II?"

"Those are both baseball," Sam says, and Dean says, "Major League II it is, and—oh, get the beer out of the car, would you?"

Major League II sucks. That doesn't matter. It's one of those cable movies and it's got Bob Uecker so they've both seen it fifty times. They eat, they drink beer, they argue about whether Bernsen or Berenger is phoning it in more. Dean kicks off his boots and puts his hair up and steals Sam's sour cream when the hatch chile actually is too hot and Sam imagines a hundred, a thousand more nights like this. Ten thousand. Dean in this shape or the other, content to crunch corn chips and get salsa on his shirt and be here, with Sam. Even after the last year, and the year before that, and the godawful year before that. Even if this is all there ever is—just these rented rooms, and in the morning, the road. Still here. Some kind of miracle.

Movie's over at ten, ready to give way to the late night talk shows. Sam deals with the trash while Dean grabs the other bag he brought in. Leather cord, wound on cards. Very, very thin, when Dean starts to loop it out over his fingers, and he says to Sam, absent, "Hey, could you grab my—" gesturing for his duffle, and when Sam brings it over he sees that Dean's got two colors: one black, one a very dark brown.

"For the surprise?" Sam says, and Dean gives him a dark look. Sam lifts his hands, surrenders. Sits back on the other bed. Watches Dean get settled with his supplies—crochet hook, leather cord, and that girly rose-covered journal he'd brought back from Denise's house, which he flips open and studies, moving his fingers in the air like practice, before he loops the leather around one finger, and starts.

Sam watches his hands move. Less than a week of practice and it seems like he's already confident, more or less. Even with these smaller hands. The leather cord goes around one finger, gets hooked through the last loop with the other, a twist Sam can't quite follow. It goes on. "Dean," Sam says. Gets a hum, Dean frowning at his work. "Half-moon, tomorrow."

"I know." Said without much interest. Then Dean glances up, quick, and Sam sees that maybe it's not as casual as all that. "It's our lunar anniversary. You gonna take me to dinner? Buy roses?"

He screws up a stitch, apparently, because the hook stumbles and he growls under his breath. "That's what you get," Sam says, mild. Dean mimes the sentence back, unpicking the leather cord. "Might be worth staying up, that's all. Just to—see."

"I've partied until dawn more than once in my life," Dean says. He raises his eyebrows at Sam, holding up the crochet. "Think I can handle this level of crazy, too."

Sam watches Dean's face instead of his hands, for almost a minute. Sees Dean's ears turn pink, slowly. "Well, this is—pleasant," Sam says, standing up, "but I'm not sure I can take four hours."

"Tch, I'm fascinating," Dean says, then looks up, hopeful. "You got something else in mind?"

"This does not count as fascinating," Dean says, arms folded under his breasts.

"Shut up," Sam says. He carries the second chair over, since he's getting exactly zero help. "There's light, there's beer, there's chips. This is a party."

"It's like thirty degrees outside, Sam!" Dean shivers, for emphasis. "I'm dainty now. Think of my dainty, frail frame. This is sexism, probably."

"I think that might count as sexism." Sam puts the chairs next to each other, and pushes his hair out of his eyes to find Dean looking like Sam ordered him a veggie wrap for breakfast instead of bacon and eggs. "Look, it's a bonfire. It's… fun."

"Do you have marshmallows? I don't think it counts as fun unless there are marshmallows," Dean says, and Sam says, "Would you shut up and sit down," and Dean does, put-upon, and then says, "I don't think it counts as a bonfire if it's less than three feet tall," and Sam says, "Dude, would you just—"

Dean settles. Okay, so maybe he's right—it's not much of a bonfire. In the middle of the circle of empty casitas there was a dusty, unused fire pit, and the fire Sam's built isn't exactly a rip-roarer but it's going steady, and it's putting out enough heat that in his boots and jacket Sam's riding that perfect edge of being aware of the cold night and knowing that he's warm enough, despite it. Zero clouds tonight and the sky's as beautiful as it can be. Sam cracks the tops of two beers and holds one out to Dean, who takes it with a sigh, and then it's Dean who waits, holding his bottle out for Sam to clunk the necks together.

They stretch their feet toward the fire. Dean brought out the bag with all the crochet stuff and he gets back to work, doing whatever it is he thinks he needs to do. Sam tips his head back and looks at the stars, comfortable now, waiting. Whatever comes.

He's halfway through his beer when Dean says, "You know…"

"If you ask for marshmallows again I'm pouring beer in your hair," Sam says.

He looks over to catch Dean smiling. Face a warm golden oval in the firelight. His eyes are on his hands, working the leather in its knots and loops. "I saw in InStyle that beer's actually good in shampoo," Dean says, but it's just words spent, spilling into onto the dusty ground. He licks his lips. Unwinds another length of leather.

"What," Sam says.

The crochet hook glints in the firelight. "Used to be, I'd think one day we'd be—done. Somehow." Dean shakes his head, tucks his hair behind his ear. He let it back down, complaining that his neck was cold. "I don't know how. Someone would show up and say, gold star, Winchesters, you did all the world saving there is to do. And then—I don't know. I couldn't really picture it. I guess I thought… you'd go off and—and get married, or something. Have some rugrats. You'd get that real life you were always talking about."

Doesn't sound, this time, like he's trying to offer Sam an out. Just thinking out loud. "What about you?" Sam says, and really wants to know.

A lifted shoulder. "I guess I didn't think I figured into that picture."

Again, not accusatory, and not—cynical. Just some future that didn't have him in it. A perfectly reasonable result. Sam holds his beer against his stomach, recrosses his boots. He can't really take Dean's lack of self-esteem personally but it does chafe. Especially now.

"Aside from everything else wrong with that statement," Sam starts, "Dean, I haven't thought about getting married since I was twenty-two. It's been… what, seven years. Things change." Dean's brows knit, although he keeps his eyes on his hands. For some reason Sam remembers, with startling clarity, that night Dean broke into the apartment. His expression now—the situation, now—different, to the way he looked then, but there was… something. The way he wanted, and wasn't sure Sam would give.

Sam could go to his knees in the dust. He stays right where he is, beer bottle on his belly. "I can't see being anywhere you aren't," he says. Dean's hands stop. "Nothing to do with hunting. Just—I can't. Unless you die before me, and even then—I mean, we probably will be on a job if that happens, so I guess I won't be too far behind you. No need to come up with a plan b."

The knotted leather dips down into Dean's lap and he looks up, at the fire. All his features soft, his eyes dark. Gleaming in the flickering light. "You know the level of messed up we are?" Dean says. "That somehow sounded kind of comforting to me."

"Yeah," Sam says, and Dean looks at him only then, and Sam could reach out—touch him, kiss him, roll him into the dirt beside the fire and have his way—and Dean would let him, he knows, would enjoy it and smile for it and only complain about dust in his asscrack afterward—but he doesn't need to. It's enough just to sit here, and know.

He gets up at some point, puts more scrounged wood on the fire. Swirl of sparks, leaping up against the dark sky. There are trees all around the clearing, blacker shadows against the night, and so they won't see the moment the moon crests the horizon.

Half hour before. Sam's drowsy. He lays more sticks around the fire and brings another round of beers. It really is cold, outside of the circle of light and heat they've made. Dean's holding up a strip of leather to the fire, squinting at it. Sam looks at him, lovely and steady, staying out here in the cold with Sam even though there's absolutely no need, and it’s while he’s looking at Dean that he falls asleep, and he dreams some strange and slippery dream, one of those where it's so real you think it's really happening even though the locations and characters change too fast. They're driving and they're in a motel and they're in a diner and Dean is his real self, complaining the whole time about something Sam doesn't remember, and the whole time Sam's thinking that they're on their way somewhere but he doesn't want to go. He told Dean they had to get to—where? it doesn't matter, a hunt or to Bobby's house—but he doesn't want to go, he wants to stay where he is. In the diner with tasteless dream-food, listening to his brother bitch across the table. Dean’s chest one great blazing bonfire light, which in the dream seems to Sam to be perfectly normal, because he has the same light in his own chest. Every space and atom of air between them, a torrent of light. So much that he squints, although it doesn't hurt. It's just—everything. It's all that he is.

"There he is," he hears. Blinks, jerking. Blinding light. "You snore when you sleep in an ugly camp chair, you know that?"

"No, I don’t," Sam says, mouth dry, and he coughs. Drags his hand over his face. The fire, still going, much lower but still warm although Sam's fingertips and ears are cold—but—light, not just from the fire, the sky a greyish light blue over the trees, and when he looks around there's Dean—girl-shaped, constant Dean—crouched by his chair, amused. "Oh, shit," Sam says, "I missed—"

"Nothing to miss," Dean says. He glances up and Sam follows it—the half-moon, in the sky above them. By his watch it’s a quarter to seven in the morning. Nothing happened. He doesn’t know if he’s disappointed or not.

Dean walks off while Sam's trying to get into the right timezone. He scrubs his hands over his face, rough, and then drags back through his hair, and sits up, and—ow, christ, his legs are totally asleep from being stretched out like that with his ankles crossed for so long. Pins and needles all over. He's jittery and still not right when a cup of water appears in his periphery, and he takes it and drinks it down in icy-cold swallows, and saves the last swallow to swish his mouth clean—smoke, and unbrushed teeth, and beer left over. He spits into the dirt and the cup's swapped out for a mug of coffee.

"You've been up all night?" Sam says, when he's got a swallow in him.

"Had work to do," Dean says, somewhere.

Sam's eyes still struggling; he drags the back of his hand across them, makes the light spark and bleed. Still has that lingering sense of the too-real dream, feeling like they should be sitting in a diner. White fire leaping between them. He sits up, stretching his tingling calves, and Dean's—close. Chair dragged in, just an inch from Sam's. He gestures for Sam's right hand, and Sam gives it to him, and Dean folds the cuff of his jacket back, and his flannel shirt, and circles Sam's wrist with his fingers. His hand's too small for it and he lets out a little breath through his nose.

"Thought so," Dean says, and produces—a strip of leather, which he wraps around Sam's wrist. Cord still dangling. Dean sits up high and straddles Sam's knee with his own knees, getting close enough that Sam doesn’t have to stretch. The hook comes out and Dean bends his head, working.

A bracelet, maybe an inch wide. Black leather cord, crocheted in some pattern Sam can't quite see, but it's tight, intricate. A ridge of double-thickness on either edge, and while Sam watches Dean uses the hook on the trailing edges of cord and knots either end together. The metal's warm from his grip when it glances against the inside of Sam's wrist. He sticks the hook between his teeth when there's only a last bit of cord remaining and pulls out his pocketknife, and Sam stays perfectly still while Dean slices the trailing end off, leaving an apparently-seamless cuff. It fits closely, but not too tight. "Did you measure while I was sleeping, or something?" Sam says.

Dean rolls his eyes. "Like I don't know the size of your wrist, you overgrown freak," he says. Sam raises his eyebrows. Dean shakes his head, like it's Sam who's weird in this situation. "Okay, now—"

He gestures at Sam's coffee and Sam drains the mug. He puts it down in the dirt and Dean produces another bracelet—a little smaller, this one made of the brown cord—which he wraps loosely around his own wrist, and says, "Okay, you've got to finish it."

Light enough to see Dean's face and that he's completely serious. Sam picks up the crochet hook and feels absurd. Dean says, "Dude, I'm not asking you to swim through a sewer main. I just can't do it with one hand. I'll walk you through it."

Dean's head bent close to his, his instructions patient, clear. It’s not actually that hard, it’s just making knots in a more sophisticated way. Sam screws up a few—he's not as immediately great with his hands as his brother—but Dean helps to unpick very carefully, and starts them over again, closing the leather cuff around his wrist.

"Kinda loose," Sam says. Enough room for him to fit two fingers between the leather and Dean's skin.

Dean shrugs, watching closely. "Made more sense to go with the bigger size, in case I change back. Don't want to cut off circulation or anything. That’d suck, huh? Get my junk back but lose a hand."

Together they close the last of the knots, and then Dean pulls one end of the cord tight while Sam works the last one closed, and takes Dean's pocketknife off his knee, and slices the leather as close to the edge as he can. Dean twists his wrist back and forth, pleased. It's loose, but not so much that it'll slip off his hand. "Am I good, or what?" he says.

Sam looks at them side by side. Matching but not identical. They're subtle enough that they don't look like jewelry, and can be hidden under the cuff of a suit jacket if need be. "Okay, you're good," Sam says, and Dean grins at him, pleased.

More pink in the sky, dawn breaking over the desert. A last few stars blot out behind Dean's head, the world going brighter. Sam turns his wrist and holds Dean's, lightly. "What made you think of this?" he says.

They haven't moved the chairs apart and Dean's face is very close to his. "Put in some work to learn something, right, that was the whole goal. I guess it won’t end up mattering but—since I started, might as well finish." His eyes go to their wrists, set alongside each other, black leather and brown. "Wedding veil seemed—nuts. I don't know about you but I'm not planning any Billy Idol moments anytime soon. Denise was trying to teach me lace, but for what. I just thought—you know, this'd be something for both of us. Leather made it feel a little less lame. Although who knows, maybe you could've pulled off something frilly, huh?"

There's no shadow in him. Sam slides his thumb over the inside of his wrist and Dean looks back up. Ears tinged pink in the dawnlight. His face entirely clear. Freckles, the bump in his nose. His mouth, soft. And—there at last—that tiny, almost invisible scar on his lip. A month and this is his brother. Girl-shaped or not. Sam touches his jaw, brushes over the scar. Dean blinks at him.

"What if I lose it?" Sam says. "Might get torn or something in a fight."

Dean's fingers close over Sam's forearm. "Doesn't matter," he says. Sam frowns and Dean lifts a shoulder. "It's not like it's a ring or something, Sammy. I can make another one, if you want. This isn’t a one-time deal."

Sam lets out a breath. "No," he says. "No, it’s not."

A beat, and Dean says, voice soft, "Sam," and leans in, and—changes.

His hand still around Sam's arm, tightening in surprise. Fast as always, the feminine features here one second and gone the next—that strange blurring moment where nothing seems entirely real, until he's got his own short hair and stubble on a barely squarer jaw and broad shoulders straining his jacket to the limits. His lips parted, shocked. That scar, in the exact right place.

They stare at each other. The sun's an inch or so above the horizon. The moon overhead, forgotten. Dean looks back down and says, thin, "Hey, look at that. It fits."

Sam holds him tight over the leather cuff and grabs the back of his neck and pulls him bodily forward. Their mouths meet clumsily but so what—the third time Sam's kissed his brother-shaped brother and it's good, even if their teeth bump and Dean laughs at him, grips his hair, has to resettle their lips. It's hard, pressing tight and at least for Sam's part desperate, until Dean pulls back an inch, mumbles, "Not going anywhere," soft and reassuring puff of air over Sam's lips—and it's easier then to make it—soft. It's not like they don't have practice. Sam holds Dean's jaw lightly. Lets Dean take control, since he seems to have some while Sam's brain has completely short-circuited. Dean kisses plush, sweet as he was as a woman, these melting wet presses that make Sam's cheeks and ears and throat hot, moving from Sam's mouth to his cheek, to let their cheekbones brush together, stubble scraping, Dean breathing out warmly against the side of Sam's throat. Holding him close all the while.

"Is it really—" Sam says, and Dean's hand clutches tighter in his hair. Sam drags in shaky air. He feels unhinged. "So—"

"So," Dean says, rough burst against Sam's neck, and then laughs again, high and breathy. "Goddamn. In friggin' Albuquerque? Really?"

Sam smiles, opens his eyes. Light rising over the desert, behind Dean's shoulder. He presses a kiss under Dean's ear, breathes in. His smell, unchanged. "You believe me, huh?"

"Practice makes perfect," Dean says, and his nails—shorter, blunter—scrape down Sam's spine. He grips Sam's shoulder then, pushes, and Sam sits back to find Dean as pink as the dawn behind him. Flushed, caught out. Glad despite it. He bites his lower lip, looks over Sam's face. "And you—"

"Can we—" Sam says, at almost the same time, and then—"Yeah—yes, I mean—but I want—if you—"

"If?" Dean says. "I bought lube, you idiot."

They pull each other up by the wrists. Dean grimaces—the clothes and boots too tight—and Sam thinks it'd probably be a little much if he swept Dean up in a bridal carry but he really considers it. Instead he shoves the chair out of the way—remembers the fire, which they can't leave burning—and says, "Go ahead," and Dean licks his lips and says, "Hurry it up, huh?" and Sam drags his hand over his face, tries to keep it together. Hurries.

When he pushes open the door Dean's already half-naked, down to sweater and panties, peeling off his socks. "Close it, man, I'm not trying to flash all of New Mexico," Dean says, and so Sam backs up, lets the door latch behind his back, tosses Dean's forgotten crochet bag onto the table, watches.

Dean yanks the sweater over his head. No bra—how did Sam not notice?—and then the careful, painful stripping of the panties. That same hurt red line of elastic where they bit in. Dean kicks them away and turns, looking at Sam, and he's—there. All there, all of him. His shoulders, broad and freckled even though he hardly ever gets shirtless sun, and his chest and stomach that have always been slightly soft, and his strong hairless thighs, and his dick. His dick, flushed and plump. "Eyes are up here," Dean says, and Sam looks up to find Dean—not smiling, exactly. No confusion about what they're going to do. No uncertainty. The cuff of leather, solid on his wrist.

"Sammy," Dean says, lips curving, and Sam feels blood rush south.

There's—undressing. Dean helps and that makes it go slower. They get stuck on the middle button of Sam's flannel for a while, with Dean licking into Sam's mouth, and Sam's hands struggling to go anywhere but Dean's shoulders. The skin there soft, somehow. Not as soft as the girl's but—familiar, even so.

Dean straddling Sam's lap on whatever bed they dropped to, knees around Sam's hips, pushing him back into the pillows. Looking at him like he's somehow new. When it's Dean who—but, no, Sam realizes. It's different but it's mostly not. These are Dean's shoulders, and his chest, and even if there's no curving weight of a breast Dean still squirms when Sam tweaks a nipple between two fingers, and Dean still sighs and cups the back of Sam's head when Sam sits up, sucks in the smaller point, scrapes his teeth over the soft skin of his pec. Difference being that instead of Dean's pussy smearing wet over Sam's thigh it's his dick that stiffens—but it's still wet, smearing slick at the head when Sam's touch trails curious over it, and Dean breathes out hot and pleased against the top of Sam's ear just like he did when Sam found his clit. And Dean's hands, too—bigger, rougher—but he knows Sam's body, just as he did before, and he reaches down between them and fists Sam, capable and experienced as ever, only difference being that his fist covers more.

"What do you want?" Dean says, dragging his hands over Sam's chest, pushing Sam back against the headboard.

Sam takes him in—flushed, ears and shoulders, pink nipples where Sam's been biting him, his dick—god!—his dick, standing out straight from his hips, thick, shining. Sam licks his lips and Dean's fingers tip his chin up, his eyes search Sam's eyes, and after a second he grins—goofy, glad—and says, "Yeah?" and Sam rolls his eyes, says, "What do you think?" and for emphasis, he licks his palm and fits his hand around the base of Dean's dick and jerks it, root to tip, and maybe he hasn't done that to a dick that's not his own before but, hell, the mechanics have got to be about the same, even in reverse. Dean's hips roll into it, his eyes going heavy, and—yeah, okay. Sam can do this, no sweat.

After a while Sam wrangles Dean down onto his back, rolling over him on the bed. Their thighs dragging together. "Control freak," Dean says, like he doesn't mind at all, and Sam grins at him and props up on an elbow and says, "Let me see?" and Dean tongue wets the center of his lower lip but he slides his hand over his own stomach, finds his dick, touches himself—soft, tugging in this loose open-fingered grip that's so not how Sam does it. Fascinating. Dean rakes his free hand through Sam's hair, hips flexing up, and Sam slides down, kissing a nipple and his ribs and his hip, watching. Touching his nuts, and Dean's thighs spread for it, so Sam cups them, careful, smoothing his thumb over the tight soft package. Sparse trimmed hair, just this little thatch of gingery brown, and his dick thick, blush-red at the tip. Sam lets his fingers trail behind, pressing where Dean's pussy—no longer is—won't be ever again, he thinks.

"You missing it?" Dean says, and Sam looks up the stretch of his torso to see Dean squinting at him, propped up, still palming himself.

"No," Sam says. Doesn't have to think about it. He presses into Dean's taint, feels the thick muscle there—how hot, smooth—a few curly hairs—leading down, back, to his asshole, and Dean's leg draws up, out, lets Sam feel. He's fucked women this way, a few times, and he can imagine it—slicking up, spreading, that scorch inside—and Dean's hole flexes, tightening against Sam's fingers, and when he looks up again Dean's heavy-eyed. Imagining it too, Sam thinks.

"I might miss it," Dean says, knee tipping wide. His hand slides down, cupping his balls up and out of the way, showing Sam—the whole smooth stretch, pinked, touchable. Sam drags his hand up the inside of Dean's thigh, not getting it, and Dean puffs out a shaky laugh. "Hell of a lot easier, as a chick."

Sam shrugs, smiling up at him. "We'll just have to practice, huh?" he says, and Dean rolls his eyes, and he opens his mouth to—whatever, who cares, because Sam rolls forward on his elbow and licks, up the spine of Dean's dick to the head, and Dean chokes, grabs Sam's shoulder, tilts his hips into it.

Tastes like—skin. Salt, bitter-tang of precome. Sam's in an awkward terrible position but he gets his mouth around the head, licks again, gets Dean to groan. His thigh flexing against Sam's chest, his hand sliding up to cup the side of Sam's neck. Thumb behind Sam's ear, stroking, and Sam pulls up, licks his lips wetter. Dean's face soft with surprise. Sam's dick throbs, caught against the bedspread, and he dips down, licks at Dean's nuts, at the base, at the spot under the head where it's always felt good for him, and Dean says, "Sam," and Sam swipes his tongue flat over the slit, his stomach hot, his cheeks prickling, his mouth starting to water as much as it ever has when pussy's waiting, and Dean says, "Sam," and Sam lifts his head and Dean's face is red and his mouth open, like he didn't expect this somehow, after everything. Sam says, "I said I would, didn't I?" and Dean huffs, eyes gleaming, and he reaches between them, bolsters his dick to stand straight up—a challenge almost—but when on earth has Sam ever backed down from a challenge. He kisses the side of the shaft, sucking carefully, sees Dean's face slacken, his tongue tucked into the corner of his mouth—and Sam smiles, and gets Dean to say, thin, "You're a little shit, you know that?" and Sam shrugs, and it feels—easy, natural, the best thing, to get Dean's dick in his mouth, to slide down all the way to where his lips bump Dean's bolstering fingers, to make Dean clench, and moan, and feel—oh—as good as Sam can make him feel.

Different and not, the same and not. He works, and reaches down to squeeze himself, his balls aching and his dick heavy, and at some point in the wet dark there's a hand in his hair and Dean insisting, pulling. Sam lifts his head and crawls up and Dean grips his neck and ass and wraps a leg around his hips, arching, their dicks crushing together—oh, god, that's a different kind of good—and Dean kisses him, licking deep and dragging him close and lifting his hips, rolling, so Sam fucks down against him—Dean nods, breathing heavy into Sam's mouth, nails dragging down between Sam's shoulderblades—and Sam has Dean's skin against his and Dean's breath on his mouth and Dean's taste on his tongue and it's everything he'd wanted—everything he already had—the two of them, together. Like always.

Sam doesn't have much more strength, afterward, than to move maybe three inches to the side. Still mostly draped over Dean, who doesn't seem to mind—his thigh hitched still over Sam's hip, his forehead tipped against Sam's on the pillow. His eyes closed, content.

Mess between them. Twice as much as usual. Sam slides his hand down Dean's side. Thicker waist, leaner hip. His dick soft, now, and satisfied, and wet. Sam slides two fingers over the head—makes Dean twitch, fly-stung—and over a white smear on his belly, and sticks them in his mouth, curious. Bitter, yeah. Salt. Not all that different from his own. Isn't that something.

Dean's staring at him when he opens his eyes. "Gross," he says.

He sounds like he actually means it. "How is it more gross than getting it straight from the source?" Sam says.

"It's cold," Dean says, appalled, and Sam shrugs and says, "Kinda room temperature, really," and when Dean wrinkles his nose Sam smiles and says, "Here, see?" and leans in and kisses him, and Dean squawks into his mouth, squirms away, so that Sam has to wrestle him back onto the bed and their bellies slick together and Sam says, "What, you don't want me anymore?" and Dean says, "No, you nasty freak," and then Sam just has to kiss him again, to shut him up, and Dean worms a leg over his hip and then, well.

Their heads on the pillow. Sam's t-shirt sacrificed to cleanup. Morning coming through the curtains. Dean stretches out, yawning, and Sam sits up. Thinks about coffee. About a huge glass of water first, maybe. Turns out sucking dick is thirsty business. Thinks about—

Dean's hand on his back. He looks over his shoulder. Dean's other hand tucked behind his head, his body loose. His eyes steady, easy on Sam's. "What?" Sam says, but Dean just looks at him, his mouth tugged up on one side, soft. Like he'd be content to do it all day. He squeezes Dean's thigh and says, "Yeah," quietly. Yeah, that's about it.

He goes for a run. Beautiful up here. High desert, the elevation making his lungs work for it, but that's okay. Pines around the lodge and then open air, dry scrub, the mountains in the distance still dusted, just barely, with snow. Six miles, his thighs sore and his mind clear, and when he comes back around to the lodge there's the Impala, and the ashes of their fire, and when he pushes the door open—the smell of coffee, and the room warm, and Dean awake again, sitting at the table, frowning at him over a mug.

"It's good for you," Sam says, preempting the comment.

"So are vitamins," Dean says, "but I don't take those, either."

Sam takes a shower. It's a decent one, which is a nice surprise, with good water pressure and a head high enough that he can stand there soaking, the spray heavy between his shoulders. The leather cuff stays on, because of course it does, and he twists it against his wrist and thinks they'll need to waterproof them, or they really won't last long. But then, like Dean said. He can always make another one.

When he comes out Dean's dressed, looking at Sam's laptop. "You find a job?" Sam says, pouring coffee.

"Not yet." Dean shakes his head, apparently disappointed at the lack of mayhem, and says, "There is truly nothing happening in this town."

He looks up, and he's—himself. Sam's brother. Absolutely nothing unusual, and nothing that would make this a morning any different from any other morning out of the past handful of years, other than the leather at his wrist. Sam says, "Don't give up, maybe someone will get decapitated after lunch," and Dean says, "I'm never that lucky," but he brightens at the idea of lunch.

Bright, when they head outside. Dean squints at the mountains, past the trees. "Give you this," he says, while Sam's shrugging into his jacket. "May be boring, but there's a view."

Sam looks out, too. New day with who knows what in it. When he turns around, Dean's leaning on the Impala, looking at him over the hood. It's not the look he gets when he sees Sam and it's a surprise, because Sam's right here and has been. It's an old one, Dean looking at him like a known and familiar quantity. Like he doesn't have to ask the question because he already knows Sam's answer.

Sam says, "Are we going, or what."

Dean huffs, and says, "Waiting on you, pal," and opens the driver door. Sam stands with his hands braced on the hood for a few seconds more, that answer ringing in his chest. A shared portion of light. Then he gets into the passenger side, and the engine roars loud. They go to lunch.

Notes:

All done. Heavily inspired by the last minute of Mannequin 3: The Reckoning and by The Wedding Vow, by Sharon Olds. In particular, this:
And yet, I had been working toward this hour
all my life. And then it was time
to speak—he was offering me, no matter
what, his life. That is all I had to
do, that evening, to accept the gift
I had longed for—to say I had accepted it,
as if being asked if I breathe. Do I take?
I do. I take as he takes—we have been
practicing this. Do you bear this pleasure? I do.

posted here on my tumblr if you'd like to reblog
I'd really appreciate any thoughts you have.

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ithinktoomuch4438 on Chapter 1 Fri 05 Aug 2022 07:30PM UTC

I can't believe I have to wait another week to read more! D: On a serious note though, this is so fantastic. I've been super excited for I don't even know how long for the genderswap fic you've teased on your tumblr, so when I got the email that this was posted I practically squealed. I'm sucked in, and will absolutely be thinking about this fic every day until the next update!

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1. deadlybride on Chapter 1 Fri 12 Aug 2022 08:43PM UTC
  
  Hey, I hope the genderswap thing is satisfying! I really feel like I've had the idea forever. Glad you're enjoying so far :)
  
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Guest (Guest) on Chapter 1 Fri 05 Aug 2022 09:56PM UTC

Holy shit this is spectacular! I really appreciate how in-depth you’ve gotten about both the logistics of becoming a woman and the various emotions it creates in Sam. And the plot is shaping up to fascinating! As usual, your prose is distinct and spectacular, particularly those opening paragraphs. Can’t wait for more!

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1. deadlybride on Chapter 1 Fri 12 Aug 2022 08:43PM UTC
  
  aw, thanks so much for the comment on the writing! I'm glad you're enjoying so far. The logistics/emotional ramifications are the whole point here so it's cool to hear that's working - thank you!
  
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JojoMarshmello on Chapter 1 Fri 05 Aug 2022 11:57PM UTC

Damn this is so good my lovely. I can’t wait for the next chapter. I have some theories about why it didn’t work but I’m still really unsure as to what is causing it. Looking forward to reading more. Thanks you 💜💜💜

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1. deadlybride on Chapter 1 Fri 12 Aug 2022 08:44PM UTC
  
  Thanks for giving the wip a shot! :) Hopefully the mystery gives you some surprises, haha.
  
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Timelady66 on Chapter 1 Sat 06 Aug 2022 01:16AM UTC

Ok, fucking magic. That was hot, weird, oddly a little spooky, and still managed to portray the brotherly love. Wow.
So I'm thinking a coven of witches crushing on Sam who kinda hate Dean? That's my best guess.

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1. deadlybride on Chapter 1 Fri 12 Aug 2022 08:45PM UTC
  
  Hey, I'm glad a little bit of spookiness came through! Magic's all nutty -- I feel like it should be a little scary for the people it's happening to.
  I love your guess. :D I mean, who *wouldn't* crush on Sam, right?
  
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Maz on Chapter 1 Sat 06 Aug 2022 04:40AM UTC

Oh this is such a fascinating take on genderswap I'm already hooked!

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1. deadlybride on Chapter 1 Fri 12 Aug 2022 08:46PM UTC
  
  yay, I'm glad you're liking the genderswap treatment! I've wanted to write it for so long, haha.
  
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catnipster on Chapter 1 Sat 06 Aug 2022 04:57AM UTC

I’m intrigued!

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1. deadlybride on Chapter 1 Fri 12 Aug 2022 08:46PM UTC
  
  Hooray! Another chapter up now if you want some more intrigue...
  
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stephxs on Chapter 1 Sat 06 Aug 2022 08:01AM UTC

omg it’s almost 3 am and i have to work tomorrow, but i’m so hooked. i’m not usually into case fics or gender swapping for that matter, and i always say this but i l o v e reading your takes on tropes i’d barely interested in otherwise- can’t wait for next chapter!!

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1. deadlybride on Chapter 1 Fri 12 Aug 2022 08:46PM UTC
  
  hey, so glad you're giving it a shot despite the qualms! I really appreciate the leap of faith. :)
  
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enteselene on Chapter 1 Sat 06 Aug 2022 09:27AM UTC

Loving this so far ♥

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1. deadlybride on Chapter 1 Fri 12 Aug 2022 08:46PM UTC
  
  thanks so much!
  
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nigeltde on Chapter 1 Sat 06 Aug 2022 11:59AM UTC

Seinfeld you're supposed to fix everything! What did you fix? Nothing!
I love the setup here -- a wrench thrown into a good thing but there's a level of confidence that their usual skills and capacities can meet it, until the mood shifts and crisis abruptly arrives. It's also a lot of fun that Dean doesn't look like Dean -- a point of difference from other genderswap fics I've seen for sure, but also it seems key psychologically and narratively. I love Sam sitting in the chair holding the Impala keys thinking lots of things.
"The case of Dean's needy vagina" lolol. Bring on next week!

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1. deadlybride on Chapter 1 Fri 12 Aug 2022 08:51PM UTC
  
  Now trying to imagine Jerry et al dealing with a genderswap curse. I'd pick George as the victim for maximum kvetching.
  6B! I love this period in canon. It's so immediately threatened but they have such an intensely good thing for a minute here -- between the shocky declarations of Swan Song, freshly thrown together, not choosing anything else -- and then before the wall-destruction puts everything in fresh peril. *They* are so good with each other, it's nice to threaten them. :)
  
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leavethepuddle on Chapter 1 Sat 06 Aug 2022 04:51PM UTC

Ooooh of course it can't be that easy. You've got me hooked and looking forward to the next chapters!

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1. deadlybride on Chapter 1 Fri 12 Aug 2022 08:52PM UTC
  
  When I wasn't calling this "the genderswap fic" in my head I was calling it "the one with the super confusing curse," haha. No easy one and done here. :)
  
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applecrumbledore on Chapter 1 Sat 06 Aug 2022 08:08PM UTC

This is so insanely COOL. I didn't know I was waiting for this but I feel like I've wanted an author I like to do a genderswap for a while now, and something more than just PWP. This is so rad and interesting and hot and I'm so stoked that there's MORE! this in itself, before the new morning at the end, would be its own story, but the fact that there's even more story is so great. cannot wait to see what happens next, A++

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1. deadlybride on Chapter 1 Fri 12 Aug 2022 08:53PM UTC
  
  Glad the drawn-out thing is interesting for you! I hope it remains so, haha. Most genderswap is pwp, but there's some out there that's really operatic and angsty -- I'm aiming for a midpoint here, I think.
  
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2. 1. applecrumbledore on Chapter 1 Fri 12 Aug 2022 09:00PM UTC
    
    yes!! I think you're nailing it. also, you weren't looking for feedback and obviously this is personal, but I for suuuure could have done with a more gratuitous sex scene here. the premise is just so hot and I could read sam fucking girl-dean for one million years. you write it very well
    
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Amberdreams on Chapter 1 Sun 07 Aug 2022 01:28PM UTC

Gender swaps are a trope I love, but I don't think I've read one combined with a body swap before - it certainly makes it even more interesting, and I feel for Sam having a stranger's body to deal with every time this happens. Makes me wonder what happens to Dean's body when this occurs...

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1. deadlybride on Chapter 1 Fri 12 Aug 2022 08:53PM UTC
  
  All these strange girls! It definitely contributes to their confusion. :)
  
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saxi on Chapter 1 Sun 07 Aug 2022 09:19PM UTC

So excited for this!! Loving the weekly update schedule, and of course the road so far ;) Poor Dean, you got some suffering coming your way...
🤍🤍🤍

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1. deadlybride on Chapter 1 Fri 12 Aug 2022 08:54PM UTC
  
  Thanks for giving it a try even though it's a wip! I really appreciate it. :)
  
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redmyeyes on Chapter 1 Sun 07 Aug 2022 10:56PM UTC

Such a fascinating premise. Genderswap not my usual bag, but I knew you'd have an interesting take. I love the.. almost bodyhorror vibes of Dean's freakout in the beginning, and that layer of creeping dread and panic that permeates the whole chapter, just from the fact of this Thing being dropped on them in the middle of otherwise normalcy, with no leads, no clues, nothing. Love Sam's disorientation in those moments where he 'loses' Dean, and his desperate cataloguing of familiar expressions and gestures. Also really love Sam's forced distant headspace at the end, where Dean becomes just 'the woman' and Sam resolutely refuses to think of anything at all. The way they handle the whole aftermath feels very much Them, and I love that it's neither maudlin and overblown nor ignored entirely. Just the right amount of shoved-down-deep freakout, haha. Extra special love for that moment where Dean pauses on his way to the bathroom, "I'm not pissed. I'm taking a shower." I don't know why that hits so hard, but it does. Just that tiny little moment of reassurance and reaching-out in the middle of his own freakout.
Really looking forward to seeing how this develops! Currently feeling spoiled rotten that we get five whole more chapters of this. Can't wait for next friday!

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1. deadlybride on Chapter 1 Fri 12 Aug 2022 08:57PM UTC
  
  The body horror element was really important for me! I mean not all the way to full melodrama, but -- it should be a Problem to get dropped into a body not your own. Someone stole his dick! That's scary.
  Glad that you're digging the 'no clues' situation they're in, too. The whole conception of this fic was based in 'what if solving a curse isn't actually easy', so -- that's all part of it. And VERY glad that the pronoun slippage came through for you. The fact that she doesn't look like Dean makes it easier for Sam to pretend, I think. It's just some woman. Except -- of course, it's not just some woman. :)
  Thanks a lot for reading! Hope you like the next chapter.
  
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plainflour on Chapter 1 Tue 09 Aug 2022 11:10AM UTC

Sam feeling the smile in his chest is such a lovely line. I like that it's season 6 and they way you brought that into the story - dean having been with Lisa and having some more logistical knowledge of female bodies, and the mentions of Sam missing his memories.
Hot as hell obviously and I'm really intrigued by the mystery, I can't wait for the next chapter!!

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1. deadlybride on Chapter 1 Fri 12 Aug 2022 08:58PM UTC
  
  Really happy to hear you like the setting! I love s6, haha. Dean actually having more recent experience with living with a woman at this point than Sam, really -- the real domestic day-to-day of it all -- makes for an interesting dynamic. Glad you liked, I hope the next one satisfies!
  
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icarusinflight on Chapter 1 Tue 09 Aug 2022 01:02PM UTC

Oh man i am so fucking excited by this.
You set this up as so entirely them and average and then THAT.
And also. Also. The tenderness you write Sam with. The warmth and love he has for Dean.
The hints you give us along the way that something isn't right and I was wondering, a bit, but I didn't guess that! But you'd told us, hadn't you, with Sam wondering why the body didn't even look like Dean BUT THEN.
(but it still has his tattoo WHAT DOES IT MEAN).
It's riveting. The investigation. Dean and Sam at the end of the line that they've already been at the end of. Dangling past the thread and then Dean's problem in top of that
And the sex scene. OOF. Sam refusing to acknowledge Dean - the body - as his brother. It's a body. A women. A her could be any her.
And Dean's "I'm not pissed" it was so perfect. Has this sam and Dean ever been in a similar situation? Have they had to put up with listening to the other get off consumed by desperation??
But it doesn't matter really does it. Because they'll do whatever it takes. Every time and that includes Sam fucking the women who's currently housing his brother, and he doesn't regret it, actually not at all, but he is so relieved by Dean not making a thing of it either. They both know. Whatever it takes.
I am so fucking excited for this story. And for more of this story. I can't wait. Thank you so much for writing and sharing it with us all

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1. deadlybride on Chapter 1 Fri 12 Aug 2022 09:00PM UTC
  
  Heyy, bud! I'm glad you're coming along on the wip journey! So glad you're digging the mystery & the relationship stuff both. "Whatever it takes" is really the guiding light here and it's great to hear that you're picking up what I'm putting down, haha -- I just... don't believe in any kind of Sam or Dean who *wouldn't* do what they needed to do, to make sure that their brother was safe and okay. I hope the next chapter is satisfying!
  
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Anonymous (Guest) on Chapter 1 Fri 12 Aug 2022 02:13PM UTC

FANTASTIC

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1. deadlybride on Chapter 1 Fri 12 Aug 2022 09:00PM UTC
  
  Thank you!
  
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(Previous comment deleted.)
1. deadlybride on Chapter 1 Thu 18 Aug 2022 10:11PM UTC
  
  Glad you're digging the concept -- thank you so much for reading!
  
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Onewingedangel1103 on Chapter 1 Sat 20 Aug 2022 07:50PM UTC

Dean as a female just always does it for me!
Thanks for going there, because I love Sam in such situations... Not only is this beautifully written, it's also a great case fic... I'm feeling the waitress is involved?
I'm just going to carry on and enjoy and say blessed be to your muse for always producing the very finest of works!
I loved that Sam does what is needed and doesn't think of her being anyone other than a woman.... Dean's eyes skittering over Sam's body... It's going to get very complicated from here on in though, me feels!

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1. deadlybride on Chapter 1 Thu 25 Aug 2022 10:41PM UTC
  
  I'm glad you're digging the case fic element of it! I don't write those very often so that's a nice comment to hear. "Sam does what is needed" -- that's like my thesis for this whole fic. I hope you keep enjoying the updates!
  
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2. 1. Onewingedangel1103 on Chapter 1 Sat 03 Jun 2023 11:12PM UTC
    
    After watching and reading the magic unfold, I'm back to enjoy this wonder. Thanks for the reply on this comment!
    I said I want to binge it during a holiday break but I really need it now, so I'm diving in. ❣️✨✨✨✨
    
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ashtraythief on Chapter 1 Sun 28 Aug 2022 09:44PM UTC

I've been seeing the updates, wanting to wait until it's finished. Had to take a peak anyway. It's excellent and very intriguing, but I think this is probably an easier point to wait than chapter four so I'll be back in two weeks 😅

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the constant vow

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