rivers_bend

Title: Truer Words Were Never
Words: ~5,000
Rating: R
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Spoilers: None—set vague S2
Warnings: mentions of suicide in the distant past.
Summary: to the prompt: something supernatural messes with Dean, making him more honest/open. For dreamlittleyo.



"Night, Sam," Dean says as he turns off the light. Just the same as every night.

And, same as every night, Sam answers, "G'night."

What isn't the same, is that underneath the sound of his own voice, Sam hears Dean saying, "I love you, Sammy."

Straining through the dark, Sam tries to force his eyes to adjust to the gloom so he can see Dean's face—catch the mocking leer he's sure Dean's sending his way—but all he can see is a black lump against a deep gray background. It doesn't even look like Dean's looking at him to catch his reaction. Maybe Sam imagined the whole thing.

Not that he thinks Dean doesn't love him; just, not, you know, in a saying-it-out-loud sort of way. They're brothers. The love is just understood, and better left unspoken.

When Dean doesn't say anything else, Sam rolls over and, eventually, goes to sleep. By morning, Dean's grumbling about something-or-other and telling Sam to move his ass so they can eat, and Sam's forgotten he ever thought it happened.

There's a café in the next block, so they walk to breakfast. Sam's just turning to ask if Dean wants to take the newspapers or the town records once they've eaten, when Dean jostles him. If he hadn't been able to see it coming, Sam would have thought Dean tripped or stumbled, but that didn't happen. Dean looked at him and smiled, then nudged Sam's arm with his shoulder and danced sideways to bump his hip.

Instead of Sam saying whatever he was going to say—which was totally gonna make sense, Sam's sure—he says, "I, um, uh," and edges away.

But Dean doesn't even seem to notice. Instead, he reaches out a finger and kind of brushes Sam's wrist bone, like Jess used to do when she was about to take Sam's hand. Habit, that's all it is that makes Sam start to turn his palm towards Dean's seeking fingers before he realizes and feels a sudden need to make sure he didn't leave any dirt under his nails when he showered this morning.

Except it's not habit, and Sam knows it, because it's far too close to what he was thinking about just two days ago, walking next to Dean behind a couple holding hands. He'd remembered when they were small and Dean used to keep Sam's fingers tucked in his whenever they were somewhere crowded, or crossing the street, or sometimes just when Sam was tired. Sam had suddenly wanted that again, with an ache he didn't look at too closely. There are things he left behind when he went to Stanford—left behind for a reason.

Just because Jess is gone, and Dean is here, doesn't mean he needs to revisit those things. Even if Dean seems somehow to have guessed Sam's secret and is determined to tease him about it.

Before it's too obvious that Sam is dancing away from Dean's advances—the worst thing to do when Dean's trying to get a rise out of you is to let him know he's succeeding—they reach the café entrance, and Sam can stop to hold the door, letting Dean get ahead of him. Watching Dean chat with the waitress as she leads them towards a table, Sam tries to get a grip. Dean was never very good at keeping a straight face when he had a good prank going, but clearly he practiced while Sam was away. Not once has he cut his eyes at his brother to see how Sam's reacting.

"You getting an omelet, or pancakes?" Dean asks, when the waitress walks away.

"I think—" Sam starts, but stops when Dean starts rubbing his knuckles across the back of Sam's hand.

"You think?" Dean says after several seconds more perusal of the menu, idly stroking Sam's hand the whole time.

"I— Eggs," Sam says, breathing. Slowly. But not too slowly. Normally. That's it. Breathing normally.

"You boys decided yet?" The waitress asks as she pours them coffee. When she notices Dean fondling Sam's knuckles, she purses her lips and looks pointedly at her pad.

"Spinach omelet," Sam says, trying to edge his hand away from Dean's.

"Pancakes, tall stack, bacon and sausage." Dean smiles at 'Mindy', and bracelets Sam's wrist with his thumb and middle finger. "And some OJ for my brother, here, if it's fresh squeezed."

At the word "brother" Mindy's penciled-on eyebrows disappear completely under her tightly-curled bangs.

"He's nervous as a horse in a crowd," Dean goes on, thumb now tracing the folds at the base of Sam's palm. "Needs to know I'm not going to run off."

"Is he retarded?" Mindy looks like she hopes Sam's retarded. Sam's pretty sure his teeth are going to crack with the effort of not saying anything rude.

"Just a little flighty," Dean says, and nudges Sam's knee with his own, giving him the look that means he's winking in the inside.

Mindy nods curtly and bustles off.

"Dean!" Sam hisses.

"Sorry about the brother slip. I forgot that bothers some people." Dean finally releases Sam in order to stir creamer into his coffee.

"You forgot." Sam waits for Dean to crack up, but he just pops open another creamer tub. "Forgot that fondling your brother in public bothers some people."

Dean just shrugs. "So," he says. "I'll take the papers, and you get the records room. Okay?"

They eat in silence, Dean intent on stuffing his face as quickly as possible, and Sam hoping that if there's spit in his eggs it at least went in before they were cooked. On the way back to the motel, he ignores Dean's fingers brushing the small of his back when they move to pass a woman with a stroller, and pretends he doesn't feel a flush of heat when they dip and appreciate the curve of his ass before Dean reaches into his own pocket to get the room key.

In the bathroom, splashing cold water on his face, Sam notices that he has ketchup on his collar. They just did laundry, so he has plenty to choose from to change in to, but, since they just did laundry, he takes a few minutes to wash it in the sink, and hangs it to dry over the towel rail. When he goes out into the bedroom, Dean eyes him appreciatively, almost like Sam's about to wrap his leg around a pole and twirl.

"Dean?" Sam asks, starting to seriously consider that this might not be some kind of joke. That something else might be going on.

"You look good in a t-shirt. You should wear them more often."

As Sam walks past him to get to his duffel, Dean reaches out and rubs a hand over Sam's chest. It feels nothing like the time Dean prodded Sam's pecs and arms a few days after dragging him away from school, muttering that Stanford obviously had a pretty good gym.

"I wear a t-shirt every day," Sam says, pulling Dean off by his wrist and leaning down to his bag.

"Yeah." Undeterred, Dean just starts fondling Sam's ass instead. Which is not what Sam had in mind. "But then you cover it all up with those baggy plaid things. It's a shame."

Sam doesn't mention the denim shirt hanging loose from Dean's shoulders, obscuring his own arms and the trim cut of his waist over his slim hips, because that doesn't sound like a good lead-in to protesting Dean's hand which is still groping over Sam's right cheek, heading for Sam's hip. "Your hand, Dean," he says.

"Right. Sorry. We were going to get going." Like that's the only reason Dean shouldn't be fondling his brother's backside.

"Yes. We were." Sam pulls out his baggiest shirt, the one from what Dean called "The Godzilla Store", which comes several inches down Sam's thighs, covering everything Dean seems inexplicably tempted by today, including Sam's knuckles.

Grabbing the folder of notes they made yesterday, Dean tells Sam to get his laptop, and heads for the door.

Conversation in the car is nothing out of the ordinary: Dean checks three times that Sam knows how to spell McClintock, like it wasn't Sam that found the hunt in the first place, and reiterates that Sam needs to check the property records and notifications of births, deaths and marriages.

"Do you want to take the records, and I'll do the newspapers?" Sam asks testily.

"Naw," Dean says. "It's good. I'm sure you had enough of the periodicals room in college."

It would be a typical barb about Sam's having left, except that Dean says it with a pat to Sam's thigh, and in a tone of voice that implies he is just looking out for Sam, trying to give him the job he'll find less tedious.

Sam spends four hours poring through genealogy books, microfiche records, and registers, until he thinks he's going to go blind. He has half a notebook filled with names and dates and places, which he takes downstairs to where Dean is trying to get information out of the old papers. The one good thing is that for a small town, the records are all remarkably well indexed on the computer. It seems the people of Connecticut take their history very seriously.

"You look hot," Dean greets Sam when he looks up from the computer.

It was airless in the attic records room, and Sam chooses to believe Dean just means sweaty and this is nothing to do with the hand-holding or comments about his t-shirt.

"You about done?" Sam asks.

"I'm only up to 1945, but I'm starving. Let's eat, and then you can come back later, and I'll go up to the house and ask the widow McClintock a few more questions."

From the eager look on Dean's face, Sam would imagine the widow was twenty-five and an ex-Playboy model, but he's seen her, and she's eighty-two and looks more like a dried apricot than anything else. Remembering the scent of cinnamon and vanilla when he left Dean there yesterday, though, Sam suspects cookies are behind the look of lust in his brother's eyes.

Or, maybe it's just plain lust. When Dean stands, he slides an arm around Sam's waist. "Steak," he says. "That place two blocks over looks like it has good ones."

Dean does not order steak when he's the one buying. It's more out of character than the arm around Sam's waist. Which is why Sam says, "Steak, Dean?" and shifts his bag to his other shoulder so it's out of Dean's way, instead of saying, "Dean? What's with the cuddling?" Nothing to do with maybe liking the way Dean's arm feels there.

"I want steak. What's wrong with steak?" Dean says.

"We just usually save it for when we've got a new credit card."

It's awkward walking with his arm all forced forward by Dean's shoulder, so Sam shifts so it's around Dean's back instead. It's been years since they walked this close. In the mean time, Sam's managed to forget that he used to be shorter than his brother. Now, with Dean tucked under his arm, Sam feels ridiculously tall. With Jess, it was different—right that she was smaller. But Dean's his big brother. And Sam feels a little weird being the one with his arm on top.

They're more than half-way to the restaurant before Sam realizes that what should feel weird is walking with his arm around Dean at all.

The restaurant has linen tablecloths, and fresh flowers flanked by candles on every table. Though they're unlit at this hour, they still lend an air of romance to the place which Sam is sure Dean's going to back away from.

Instead, "Smell that peppercorn sauce," Dean says, and, arm still around Sam's waist, he walks right up to the maître d' and asks for a table for two.

Sam follows, and only glares a little when the maître d' pulls out his chair.

"Remember Cassie?" Dean asks, when the maître d' has gone back to his post. Obviously realizing that was a stupid question, he goes on. "She took me to this French restaurant once, and we had this 'steak o'pawvaire' or something. Peppercorn steak, anyway. And man, it was probably the best thing I've ever eaten. Always wanted to have it again. When we walked past this place yesterday I noticed it's their specialty."

"You've been wanting it all these years? Why suddenly today did you decide it was time?" Time to hold my hand and tell me I look good in t-shirts?

Dean looks a little confused. "No reason not to, today," he says.

Sam can't tell if that answers all his questions, or just the steak one.

The waitress who comes to take their orders says her name is Janice. She has long straight blonde hair that falls just past the shoulders of her white dress shirt, and is wearing fitted black pants and a slim black tie. It's not an outfit that really suits her; she hasn't got a boyish figure by any stretch of the imagination.

"You shouldn't be wearing a tie," Dean says to her. "But I bet you'd look amazing in the dress in the window next door."

Though it's hardly the first time Dean has said something inappropriate, it is, even for him, a) kind of rude, implying she doesn't look good in a tie, and b) taking flirting a little far, given next door is a Victoria's Secret, and the dress in the window isn't so much a dress as a teddy. "Dean!" Sam says, when the girl goes bright red.

"What?" Dean asks. "Tell me she wouldn't be smokin' in that blue lace thing."

"I'm so sorry," Sam apologizes, kicking Dean's ankle.

"My boyfriend actually bought me that for our anniversary last week. I'll tell him you think he has good taste." Janice smiles at Dean, but it's tight and a little patronizing. Sam is perversely pleased that she hasn't fallen for Dean's charms.

"We'd like two orders of steak Au Poivre," Sam says, before Dean can put his foot any farther into his mouth.

"And a bottle of red wine," Dean adds. "Whatever you'd recommend."

Janice, who has no idea that ordering wine is much stranger behavior for Dean than telling her she should be wearing a teddy, opens the wine list for them.

Much to Sam's relief, there is no further talk of lingerie while they establish that Sam wants salad and Dean wants potatoes, and Burgundy is just fine. At nearly two o'clock on a weekday, fewer than half the tables are occupied, and Sam and Dean feel safe discussing the case over their food. They've gathered a lot of information, but nothing they can see a pattern in yet.

Sam starts. Jonah McClintock brought his wife Mary to Connecticut from Scotland, in 1789. He built her a house and a farm, and she bore him thirteen children; twelve daughters and one son.

Alistair, the only boy, was the middle child. He was the one who built the current McClintock house, in 1824, for his bride, Laura. It was with Laura, Alistair, and their four children that the strange events started.

Six weeks after her youngest child's birth, Laura was found hanging in her father-in-law's barn. The next spring, the baby drowned in a tub of water while her nine-year-old sister Eliza was watching her.

Not long after turning fifteen, their son, John, married Polly Bishop, the neighbor's girl, and six months later, she gave birth to a daughter. "Shotgun wedding if I ever heard'a one, Sammy," Dean says when Sam tells him the dates.

Then Dean chimes in with the information that Eliza witnessed the death of her remaining sister as well: Alice was trampled by a horse while the two of them were out riding, two days before she was to marry.

"Could be Eliza was just a serial killer," Sam suggests.

"Maybe, but the weird doesn't stop with her."

From the records, Sam knows that when Alistair died of a fever, John and Polly inherited Alistair and Laura's house, and Eliza moved to her grandparent's farmhouse. At least until they died in December of 1866. By then John and Polly had six more daughters, and a son, Jeremiah. They sold the farm out from under Eliza and bought her a cottage in town.

Eliza and two of John and Polly's girls died when the cottage caught fire two years later, and Dean was right. The McClintock clan continued to make the papers even after Eliza burned to a crisp. Two of the daughters had children born out of wedlock, one later stole all the silver from the church, a third featured in the story of a prominent businessman leaving his wife and child, and the fourth had something to do with a horse-selling scandal that Dean didn't understand. Sam had lost track of the daughters in his search, but Jeremiah married a girl from New York, and their children carried on the family name.

Even though Dean only made it up to the second world war, he has four more pages of notes on the McClintocks and their neighbors in his notebook. "Different details, but it's the same story," he says.

What originally caught Sam's eye and brought them here was the obituary of the latest Mr. McClintock, who died in a sky-diving accident at the age of eighty-nine, and who had been predeceased by all seven of his children. When Dean talked to her yesterday, his widow claimed that the McClintocks had always had a wild streak.

By the time they get to the end of their notes, their steaks and two pieces of double chocolate cake are gone. Sam and Dean are feeling at a loss. Nothing they've seen points to a typical haunting.

"Maybe it's a family curse," Sam says.

"Maybe," Dean answers vaguely, and then, "We should do this more often," as he pours the last of the wine into his glass.

"Do what? Spend $80 on lunch?" Sam's pretty sure that they shouldn't.

"Sit down, eat a decent meal, talk. It doesn't have to cost eighty bucks. But we eat too much junk food sitting in the car. Sure, it gets the job done, but this is nice."

That, Sam can't disagree with. He likes pizza and burritos as much as the next guy, but when he was living with Jess, he did get a taste for sitting down to a meal cooked in a real kitchen.

Dean's hand finds Sam's while they're walking back to the library. "I'm so glad you came back, Sammy," he says, tracing the bumps of Sam's knuckles with his thumb. "I wish you were happy to be here."

"I'm not unhappy, Dean." And he isn't. Sure, he wishes Jess hadn't died, that their dad would stop being so very missing, that things were easier. But he missed Dean more than he ever imagined he would, and being with him again—working with him—does make Sam happy.

"But you never wanted this. Never wanted me." Dean's free hand is edging up under Sam's cuff, fingers stroking his forearm almost pleadingly.

It's possible adding alcohol to whatever was going on with Dean wasn't the best idea ever.

"Let's go back to the motel. Finish the research later. Okay?" Sam says.

Dean looks hopeful. "If that means you do want me, I need you to tell me."

Sam's not sure he can give Dean that. Not in the middle of the street, anyway. "It means let's go back to the motel and we can talk about it there."

Dean manages to keep quiet until they're in the car, doors closed. Then, "Remember that summer Dad left us in Arkansas, I had the broken leg?"

Catching Dean's eye, Sam nods. He'd just turned seventeen and managed to ace all his finals, despite having attended five schools for his junior year. Dean broke his leg trying to lure a haunted tractor to the trap John had set for it, and Sam remembers running out of the emergency room and sitting in the back of the Impala laughing his ass off after Dad told him the story, until he realized Dean could have died, and he started to sob.

"That was when I realized," Dean goes on. "My feelings weren't just about taking care of you, keeping you safe. They were— God, Sam, those shorts you had. Denim so thin over your ass I could tell what color boxers you were wearing, and when you weren't wearing any at all. The way your hair fell in your eyes and you would stick your lower lip out to blow it away. And you stank of sex. I kept trying to figure out if you had some girl stashed away somewhere, but you always seemed to be around."

Sam wants to laugh. No surprise he stank of sex; he'd spent the three months jerking off every chance he got—four, five, six times a day—imagining what would happen if he didn't stop when he gave Dean a sponge bath; if he pulled off his boxers and just kept going the way he wanted to. Imagining Dean basically stuck on the sofa, nothing to do but lie there while Sam kissed him and jerked him off and blew him until he couldn't breathe.

But he doesn't interrupt, just lets Dean keep talking.

"The whole next year was torture. I hated it when you left, but part of me was glad I didn't have to see you every day and keep my distance."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"What was I supposed to say? 'Sam, I know you're my brother, and this makes me a sick freak, but I can't stop thinking about sucking your dick.' How well would that have gone down?" Dean's concentrating on turning into the motel lot, and doesn't look at Sam.

"So why are you saying something now?" Sam figures he'd better get that question out of the way before he mentions that the only argument he would have put forth was who got to suck whom first.

"Because now there's no reason not to," Dean says.

Sam takes a moment to register the implications of that, and his heart starts pounding. "Jesus, Dean, are you dying? Why the hell didn't you tell me?"

Dean looks at him like he's crazy. "Of course I'm not dying. Why would I be dying?"

"Are you leaving?"

"No, I'm not leaving. Sam, what are you talking about?"

They're parked now, but neither of them moves to get out of the car. "If you're not dying, and you're not leaving, what made your reasons go away?"

Dean half shrugs and then his eyes go wide. "That's it! That's what's going on. Something in that house takes away your reasons for not doing things! Or your impulse control. Whatever. It all makes sense!"

Sam begs to differ. "It does?"

"The mom. She saw no reason not to hang herself even though she had four kids. You know that Eliza chick totally killed her sisters. And the boy, nothing stopped him having sex with the neighbor girl, even though it was all Victorian values back then. Sex, theft, murder, they were just acting on their impulses."

"And you spent two hours in the house and suddenly wanted to hold hands?"

Dean scratches his head. "It didn't make me want to, it's more like— Like whatever reason I had not to just doesn't matter anymore."

Sam can't help the smile that hearing Dean pretty much always wants to hold hands puts on his face. "Well, I wish we'd found this house back in Arkansas," he says.

"How will we—" Dean stops and looks at him. "You wish what?"

Instead of repeating himself, Sam pulls Dean forward and kisses him.

Apparently whatever common sense that tells a person two men who both top six feet shouldn't attempt sex in the front seat of a car also gets bypassed by the McClintock legacy, because as soon as Dean realizes what Sam is doing, he's pushing him back against the door, trying to wedge a hand between Sam's uncomfortably twisted legs.

Sam almost doesn't care, all the discomfort of not having a clue what Dean was up to turned to need now he knows, but then he bashes his elbow on the dash board, and the thirty seconds it's going to take to get into their room seems more than worth it.

"Bed," he manages when Dean releases his lips to bite his jaw, and then he catches Dean's hands and pushes him away. "We're going to break something if I try what I want to do to you in here." Somehow Sam gets the door open, and they both slide out the passenger side without landing on the ground.

"Just please tell me you're not fucking with me," Dean says as Sam practically drags him through the room's door.

"I thought we'd get naked first," Sam assures him, pulling his shirt off to emphasize his point.


In a way, sex with Dean is a lot like Sam imagined it would be. The close quarters they grew up in, he'd seen and heard enough to give him some pretty accurate fantasy fodder. What he never imagined was that Dean would be so open and honest with what he wanted. Even knowing it's more the effects of the McClintock house than Dean himself, Sam loves hearing it. Needy words, begging Sam, closer, faster, tighter, love you, want you, so long. Afterwards, Dean burrows into Sam's arms and holds on like he's never going to let go.

Wine, food, and more sex than either of them have had in months makes them sleep for hours, and it's almost ten o'clock when Sam wakes up, half suffocating in Dean's neck. He's paranoid suddenly, that this isn't a loss of inhibition, but some kind of mind control. None of this is what Dean wanted, he's only manifesting Sam's subconscious wishes. The come dried on Sam's stomach and thighs makes him feel dirty and wrong, and not in the fun way borrowing your roommate's handcuffs while he's out of town does.

Sam tries to get out from under his brother to go take a shower.

"Don't leave," Dean says, fingers closing on Sam's arm.

"I just thought—"

"I know what you're just thinking, Sam. And don't. You didn't do this."

"How do you know what I'm thinking?"

Dean doesn't even bother answering. "We need to figure out how to get the curse or whatever it is off that house," he says instead. "Then I am going to suck your dick until you pass out."

Which, as far as Sam's concerned, is probably the best incentive to do research he's ever heard.

To make sure Sam doesn't forget what a good incentive it is, Dean gives him another preview while they're in the shower.

The next morning, Dean is more himself. Kisses Sam good morning, but doesn't try to hold his hand on the way to breakfast. He does play footsie with Sam under the table, though, winking at him when Sam raises an eyebrow.

When Dean suggests going back to the house, Sam won't let him. If he's getting better, no way is Sam letting him get exposed again. Instead he drags Dean forty miles south to an occult bookstore, where they spend three hours researching cursed houses. Dean starts complaining after two, but Sam's determined to earn his blow job and get the hell out of Connecticut. In the end, the books give them two solutions. Burn the house, or kill off the McClintocks.

Dean votes for burning—he always does—but it doesn't take much for Sam to convince him that they can't burn an eighty-two-year-old woman out of her house. With her husband and children all gone, the only remaining McClintock in both name and blood is Barbara, the husband's never-married sister, who is, Dean confirms in their notes, 99, and dying of stomach cancer in hospice care in Boston.

They decide to let nature take its course. The Widow McClintock admitted to Dean that she seldom gets visitors, and chances are a lot less likely that someone will get hit with an impulse to kill than that someone would get hurt, or he and Dean would get caught, if they burned a house down to the ground.

"So," Sam says, on the way into their room. "Do I still get that blowjob?"

"I didn't get to burn anything, and you still want me to suck your dick? How is that fair?" Dean answers, grinning as he pushes Sam back towards the bed.

Having sex with his brother for the second time is nothing like Sam expected. Dean's toppy as hell, but it turns out he still begs, closer, faster, tighter, love you, want you, so long, when he has Sam writhing beneath him. And afterwards, Dean burrows into Sam's arms and holds on like he's never going to let go.


fin
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So I asked dreamlittleyo for a prompt, thinking I'd get "Sam/Dean: pine tree" or something. Because she's crazy plotty girl she loves me, I got this:
Littlest: I really REALLY love the idea of something (supernatural or otherwise) messing with Dean in such a way that he becomes more awkwardly honest/open/straightforward... maybe even uninhibited in the realm of physical contact. Just... Dean being too honest/confessional/physical/etc. and Sam having to deal with him, amused/annoyed/trying REALLY HARD not to be a bad person about it.

The trouble with this prompt is that lazy_daze already wrote I want to hold you til I die which I've read many times, and listened to even more often, because it is made of ten kinds of awesome. But, I said I would write yo's prompt, so I poked Sam Winchester until he told me about another time Dean got slapped with a hand-holding whammy.