rivers_bend

Title: Second Hand
Words: 3500
Rating: Adult (talk of sex)
Characters: Sam/Dean, Bobby
Spoilers: General for show's arc
Disclaimer: Our porn makes more people watch your show
A/N: Part of power'verse, [Part 1] Kinesis [Part 2] Jade Follows on directly from Jade.
Summary: Sam had been awake for almost two hours when Dean finally showed his face. In that time he'd discovered that people do a whole lot of fugly things with jade in the name of making a quick buck, and that figurines are way more popular than carved coin things. Oh, and that the carvings on the disc Ruby gave him look nothing like Chinese.




Sam had been awake for almost two hours when Dean finally showed his face. In that time he'd discovered that people do a whole lot of fugly things with jade in the name of making a quick buck, and that figurines are way more popular than carved coin things. Oh, and that the carvings on the disc Ruby gave him look nothing like Chinese.

"Man," Dean said, hunched on the edge of the bed. "That sheet was not enough."

Dean rarely made much sense if anything other than impending apocalypse woke him up, but this was less helpful than usual. "What?" Sam said.

Dean gestured at the disreputable looking sex-bed. "Could we, maybe, not do the Vaseline thing again? Or just, make me take a shower or something before I fall asleep."

"You're the one who bought the stuff. Buy Probe next time."

"I bought it for my lips. I didn't know you were gonna want to fuck me with it."

"Stop complaining. You loved it." Sam watched for the tell-tale flush of red on Dean's chest, and wasn't disappointed.

"Whatever," Dean said, and headed for the bathroom.

Sam was, actually, pretty sympathetic. He'd given them both a quick swipe down with the sheet before they'd moved beds, but he'd still used almost a whole bar of motel soap scrubbing jizz and grease out of his pubes in his morning shower. Which reminded him: "Take the soap off the sink, the one in the shower's pretty much just a sliver," he called.

"Why aren't you out getting coffee?"

Dean's expressions of appreciation so very rarely involved the words, thank you.

"Careful or you'll end up with a non-fat double soy latte, and you know I can make you drink it."

"Dude, with great power comes great responsibility. Not great new ways of torturing your brother. Now, get!" The shower thumped on.

Sam totally needed coffee himself if he was gonna look at any more jade websites. Which is the only reason he went.

When Sam got back with two double shot mochas and a boysenberry scone, Dean was already dressed and lounging on the sleeping-bed, looking very pleased with himself. He'd picked up their scattered clothes and made the beds. Sam was suspicious.

"Nice shower?" he asked.

"The…" Dean tilted his head back to squint at the wallpaper, "are those geese? Christ. The geese are totally worth it for that water pressure. Who'd a thunk?" He sniffed loudly. "God, did you get mochas? I just might forgive you after all. And what's in the bag?"

"Berry scone." Sam had eaten his already, but considered not mentioning that and making Dean share. He was hungry.

"Gimme. I'm starving. Then we can go get breakfast or something." Dean waved his hand like he expected to be waited on.

"Get over here and get 'em yourself, lazybones. I'm not your maid."

"C'mon. I did maid things, your turn."

"What's up with that, anyway?" Sam relented and walked over to give Dean his coffee and pastry. "You never bother with that stuff."

"Pfft," Dean said and took a long drink of his coffee. "And skaaahn? What are you, the Queen of England, now? What's wrong with skohne?"

Sam ignored him and said, "We got a destination yet?" They'd rolled into town thinking they were after a water sprite, but it had turned out to be kids playing pranks. The only reason they were still here was that neither of them could be bothered to hunt through the papers yesterday. Well, that and the water pressure.

"Funny you should ask. Ellen called, wondered if we might check out a pattern in Oklahoma. One of Jo's old files. Then I thought we might swing up Bobby's way. See how he's doing. Haven't heard from him in a few weeks."

Taking a moment to wonder how many people sitting 20 miles outside Huntsville, Texas would talk about swinging up to South Dakota like it was an hour or two's drive, Sam shook his head. "You ever stop to think how many miles we must have put on that car, even just since you fixed her up?"

"She's a good girl, and I take care of her. So what d'you think? Bobby's? 'Less something more important comes up."

"Sounds good," Sam said. He wouldn't mind getting his hands on some of Bobby's books of symbols. Which reminded him, he was gonna have to get Dean to stop somewhere Sam could get tracing paper and a charcoal pencil on the way out of town. He wanted a better look what was etched on the disc.

"You want to load up or check out?" Dean's voice was thick with crumbs, but Sam could have guessed what he was saying even without understanding a word.

"I'll load up," Sam said. He'd left the disc under a pile of papers when he went to get coffee, and he didn't want Dean to find it.

"Good boy." Dean slurped down the dregs of his mocha and brushed the last of his scone off his jeans. "Back in a flash."

Sam had the bags in the back of the Impala and was just making one last check in the bathroom when Dean finally came back. "Seriously," Sam said. "Why'd you make the beds?"

"Owner's kid helps her clean the rooms. He didn't need to see that." Dean gestured towards the bed they'd fucked in the last three nights.

Sam shouldn't have been surprised, he supposed, but he was, a little.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Oklahoma was a school haunting that gave Sam a disquieting sense of déjà vu until Dean said, "It's like that episode of Buffy, remember? With the teacher and that creepy music." After that it was just a haunting. Just research, salt and burn. They didn’t have to act out any 50 year old love story, even. Not that that stopped Dean from teasing Sam about wanting to slow dance, when obviously it was him wanting to wind his arms around Sam's neck and grind against him.

Sam played along, let Dean hum in his ear, and then made him come in his pants like a teenager. He didn't tell Dean about the fantasy he'd had about taking Dean to his prom and losing his virginity to him in the limo afterwards. Dean tended to flip if Sam suggested the whole fucking each other thing was anything more than some sort of end-of-days freak out. He didn't remember getting drunk and admitting that he'd used to jerk off to thoughts of Sam fucking sorority girls after Sam left for Stanford. Sam let him pretend that they'd never have wanted this if Dean weren't dying, and hoped that Dean wasn't going to expect them to stop when Sam saved him. 'Cause the prom fantasy had started when Sam was fourteen, and there were other, more embarrassing ones, before that. He'd been waiting forever for this. Dean could protest all he wanted, but Sam suspected he wasn't the only one.

It was quarter to eleven and they'd been driving almost fourteen hours, if you counted that scenic overlook where they'd stopped to eat their burgers and 'rest' in the back seat for a while. Sam wanted a beer. "What d'you reckon, Dean," he said. "'Nother twenty minutes, half an hour?"

"I thought actually, um…" Dean turned into the parking lot of a roadhouse, cum motel, cum gas station. On a busier road it might be a truck stop, but it looked like some interstate or another had taken away most of the traffic, and now it relied on locals and the likes of the Winchesters.

"You thought…"

Dean parked and sat, tapping his ring on the wheel. "Well, Bobby can't- I mean—" Dean waved his hand around in a way that looked mostly like he was trying to swat a mosquito, but that Sam figured was supposed to encompass him and Dean, and, well, them.

Sam hadn't even thought of that. "No. Hell, no. He can't. Definitely. NO."

"So, I thought we could—" Dean's hand settled on Sam's knee. "Get it out of our systems before we descend on him."

"Get it out of our systems?" Sam felt sick. "You think I'm gonna just get you out of my system? What the fuck, Dean? Is that all I am to you? Some passing fancy you can just fuck and then forget about?"

"Dude, what the hell?" Dean gaped at Sam, palms out as if to ward him off. "I don't mean like permanently. I just meant, if we're gonna be there for a day or two, and I'm not allowed to touch you, I'mma need something to take the edge off after sittin' next to you in the car all day. Thought we could spend tonight fucking in one of those rooms over there, and hit Bobby's in the morning."

"Oh." Now he was feeling stupid. "Of course. Sorry."

Shaking his head, Dean muttered something about 'worse than a girl,' but Sam decided to ignore him, getting out of the car and heading for the roadhouse.

The beer on tap was watered down and flat, and Sam was about to order something in a bottle instead when he noticed Dean, hot-eyed and not trying to hide it, as he knuckled a drip of beer off his lips. "Let's go get a room," he said, dropping ten bucks on the bar.

"Let's," Dean agreed.

The room was a shit-hole, but there were two queen sized beds, and that was all either of them cared about.

After the first night they'd torn each other's clothes off and licked and sucked and jerked themselves into exhaustion—well, ok, after the second night that proved the first night wasn't just a fluke—Sam had thought they were only gonna need one bed. But, "Just because we're fucking, doesn't mean we're sleeping together," Dean said, so they still got two. Except Dean was wrong. Neither of them wanted to sleep in the wet spot, or the spilled lube spot, or the I told you to take off your muddy jeans before we started this spot, so they always ended up in the same bed after all. Which didn't mean cuddling. It was just that Sam's arms and legs were so long that Dean sometimes had to lie all tangled up with them to fit on the bed.

They didn't fuck all night, but neither of them was left wanting more when they finally fell asleep. Somehow they made the 11am check-out time. Dean called Bobby while Sam cleaned take-out trash and soda cans out of the back seat.

"We're 'bout half an hour away," Dean said. "Want us to pick up some lunch or something?"

Sam couldn't hear the next part, what with his head being practically under the seat while he went after a candy wrapper. Honestly. You'd think someone as picky about his car as Dean would be a little less inclined to fill the foot wells with trash. Dean was laughing when Sam straightened up with his armload of detritus from their mobile lifestyle, and went to put it in the dumpster at the side of the lot.

"And beer? Ok, Bobby. See you in a few." Dean snapped his phone shut. "Just as I thought," he said to Sam. "He's living out of cans. Said we could have baked beans or spaghetti-ohs."

"We going to an actual grocery store, then? Or are you gonna stop at that chicken place and call it good?"

"Nothing saying we can't do both."

They turned up at the salvage yard with two buckets of chicken, a case of beer, and five bags of groceries. Dean had insisted on buying Sam Lucky Charms, and Sam insisted on the London Broil and the ingredients for Jess's grandmother's spinach salad. Dean bitched until Sam pointed out the candied almonds he was going to put on top.

"I can do my own shopping, boys," Bobby said, looking gruff and put out, but Sam caught the smile he gave the food as he put it away, and was glad they'd stopped.

"So what can I do for you?" he asked as he cracked open a beer and dropped plates on the table for the chicken. "Dean said you were just in the neighborhood, but…" Gnawing on a drumstick, Bobby waited for them to come clean.

"You caught us," Dean answered. "Sam needs a look at some of your books. He has some sort of stone artifact our little demon stalker gave him."

Bobby didn't look fazed at all, but Sam jerked back in surprise and stared at his brother.

"Oh, come on, Sammy. You can't honestly tell me you thought I didn't know?"

Not trying at all to disguise his curiosity, Bobby looked back and forth between them.

"But—" Sam said.

"C'mon. You were shoving your hand in your pocket, and you said she gave you something. Besides. That hiding things in plain sight thing only works with people who don't know you.

"You do a good line in distraction," Dean carefully didn't look at him as he said that, and by dint of focusing all his energy on Bobby, Sam didn't blush, "but come on."

"Right." Sam wasn't sure what else to say.

"If it's what I think it is though, I don't know anything about it. I don't want to know anything about it. It's all you. I just want to help Bobby get that bitchin Corvette I saw out back running again." Dean slopped some coleslaw onto his plate and grabbed another piece of chicken.

"What do you think it is?" Bobby asked.

"Nope, that's Sammy's deal," Dean said.

"Technically," Sam started, and then changed his mind. They weren't talking about the deal. Dean had finally agreed when nothing happened to Sam after he shot the crossroads demon that Sam could try to get him out of the deal, but he still wouldn't have anything to do with it.

"You saw the 'vette?" Bobby was never one to shy away from a thing that needed to be said, but he could change the subject with the best of them.

"Sweet ride," Dean answered, only looking a little grateful. "What the hell happened to her?"

"Tree, would you believe it? Idiot trimmed the oak in his front yard without moving his car out of the driveway. Dropped a 30 foot branch right on top of it. Missed the engine, but she's gonna take a lot of body work."

"No shit."

"Guy didn't want to wait, of course, just got himself a new one. Some big shot movie producer, got himself a hideaway 'bout 20 miles up."

They kept talking about the car and Sam was dimly aware of Dean relaying the stories from the case they'd done out in Hollywood last year, but he mostly tuned them out, just watching as they ate and talked with equal relish. Knowing that Bobby loved Dean, seeing it with his own eyes, always made Sam feel better. When the men's conversation reached a lull, Sam said, "Hey, Bobby, mind if I take our bags upstairs?"

"You fixing to stay a few days, then?"

Dean answered. "'Less you're wanting to get shut of us."

"Naw," Bobby said. "Be nice to have the help." He nodded out towards the yard.

"Thanks," Sam said, and used every cell of concentration to not squeeze the back of Dean's neck as he went past to get the bags out of the car. Freaking Bobby out wasn't on the agenda, but he'd had no idea how difficult it was going to be to stop touching Dean now that he'd started. It was like 10 years of wanting to touch his brother were bottled up, and now there was a crack in the glass. And boy, did he need more sleep. Because the metaphors were really dorky. He didn't need Dean to tell him that.

The room under the eaves was squeezed into the space not taken up by the bathroom on the left side of the hall. Bobby's bedroom took up the whole right side. When they were little, the spare room'd had a double mattress on the floor in the corner, vying for space with a model train, a broken chair, an old roll top desk, and a pile of boxes they'd been forbidden to touch. Then the summer Sam was 12, John had left him at Bobby's for two whole months. He'd gone upstairs, furiously wiping tears out of his eyes after Dean and Dad drove off in the Impala, ready to burrow into the corner, only to find the room transformed.

There was a single bed under the window, all the boxes had been taken away, and the desk had been replaced with a bookcase and a table. There was even a bean bag in one corner. Sam was shocked out of his anger, and jumped when Bobby came up behind him.

"Have a friend whose son just got married," he said. "She was turning his room into a sewing room or some such, asked if I wanted the furniture."

Sam had been sad at first that it was so different from the room he'd shared with Dean, but then he was glad. Dean hadn't even tried to get Dad to let Sam come with them, and the fewer reminders of his brother, the better.

"Thanks, Uncle Bobby," Sam said politely.

"Get yourself settled, and then I've got grilled cheese for dinner. How's that sound?"

Dean would be jealous, Sam thought. He loved grilled cheese. Sam loved it almost as much.

It had been a lonely summer, though Bobby tried to entertain him, and it did help to have a special room just for him. The day Dean and Dad were due back, Sam asked, "Where will Dean sleep? If we stay over, I mean."

"That there's a trundle," Bobby answered, and leaned down to lift the funny denim skirt around the bed. Sam didn't know what a trundle was. Much to his surprise, Bobby pulled out a whole other bed that Sam had never noticed, and fiddled around underneath it until it popped up so it was the same height as Sam's bed.

"Huh," Sam said.

"There you go. Bed for you, and a spare one for Dean."

Sam knew his dad slept on the sofa downstairs so he didn't worry about him. "Do you think they're really coming back today?" He'd been marking off on the calendar, but Sam knew better than to count on Dad coming back on the day he said.

"Your dad called this morning. They were in Nebraska, just about to get back on the road. They'll be here."

"Oh," Sam said, wondering why his dad hadn't wanted to talk to him.

"You were in the shower." Bobby clapped him on the shoulder. "Got hamburgers for dinner. Want to help me make the patties?"

They'd stayed two more days, Dean sleeping a few inches away in the trundle, whispering to Sam stories of his hunting adventures with Dad, late into the night. Then they'd gone to Illinois for the school year, and a water stained apartment over a shoe store, where Sam had a cot in a room not much bigger than a double bed, and Dean was down the hall.

Now, like every other time since then that they'd stayed with Bobby, the trundle bed was already pulled out, set up against the opposite wall from its twin, with the bookcase and desk between them. The beanbag had long ago gone the way of outgrown furniture. Sam looked around the room, wishing there was some way he could move Dean's bed closer, but knowing there wasn't. He threw Dean's duffle on the bed with the head and foot boards, claiming the trundle for himself. Neither bed was long enough for him, but at least this one allowed his feet to hang off the end.

The disc was wrapped in his Lollapoluzza t-shirt, which he never wore, but which reminded him of Jess so he kept it. Sam pulled it out, tucking the shirt back in the bottom of his bag, and then went back down to Bobby's 'library.' He could hear Bobby and Dean outside, hammering metal and talking. He knew Bobby's curiosity would get the better of him soon, and he'd be in to see what Ruby'd given him, but that for now, he'd keep Dean occupied. Sam used the time to make a rubbing of the pattern, and another for Bobby to use, assuming he'd want to help.

The pattern wasn't anything he'd seen before. It looked a little like cuneiforms had mated with celtic knots and birthed some sort of illegible children. The piles of books suddenly seemed overwhelmingly daunting. Leaving the rubbings on the table, but tucking the disc into his pocket, Sam grabbed three beers and went out to see what his brother and the man he counted on to take care of them were up to.


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With a shout out to tastyeyeliner