It's the middle of the summer, and the heat is blistering. They just arrived in one of the many Bumfucks of southern Indiana, and Dad is leaving before Sam has even had the chance to pick a bed. He gives Dean two hundred dollar bills with an I trust you not to fuck up glare, and Sam pretends not to hear that gravelly voice say those burningly unnecessary words that make every layer of his skin itch with defiance:

Watch out for Sammy.

Dean nods, yes sir, and stuffs the money in his back pocket. Sam sees the tip of the bills sticking out, begging for the taking. He thinks of snatching them and running out the door. He thinks of the 2,959,064 square miles the continental United States has to offer and how he could pick any one. Despite the burning need in his chest, the manic-like impulse prickling every nerve in his body into action, he quickly lets the idea dwindle and die. Two hundred dollars won't get him anywhere, won't give him a place to go.

Dad gives Sam a pat on the head he has to force himself to not shy away from, and he watches his father slam the door shut with the poignant aggression of a bitter widower on his way out. The entire room rattles. Sam waits for the walls to crumble like a gingerbread house, so he can feel the weight of his brittle prison crush his bones. They don't, and he thinks maybe next time.

This motel room is like stale bread. He doesn't know why, but that's what it reminds him of. Stiff and old with air thin and hollow, that fills his lungs but doesn't get much oxygen to his brain. His nerves burn, fists twitch with need to knock down these walls. He's fifteen years old; he's lived in thirty-six states; and yet here he sits in the same motel room he's spent his entire life in. He's breathing the same air he has breathed in Ohio, in Arkansas, in New York, in Texas. He's been everywhere; he runs from death, runs toward evil, and he has never escaped these four walls. And he grows and they close in, and he fights and they strengthen. He knows he doesn't belong here, but this life is sewn into his skin.

Dean collapses onto the bed he has apparently chosen as his own, so Sam lets himself settle on the other. He toes off his shoes and scoots back until his back is resting against the headboard, and he's as comfortable as he's ever been in a place like this.

"I don't get why Dad barely lets us go on hunts," Dean says with an edge of contempt he never lets slip around their father.

"He doesn't trust me by myself. If it's too dangerous for me to go, you have to stay behind, too," Sam answers, and the truth burns his tongue.

Dean says something under his breath that Sam doesn't catch, and it's too late for him to ask by the time he decides he wants to know what Dean said. Sam wants to talk to his brother, drown out the sounds of the rattling AC unit and the roaring interstate with Dean's voice and his own laughter. He doesn't know what to say, and Dean's eyes are closed like he's about to fall asleep, and Sam thinks vaguely that it is not supposed to be this way.

Sam looks at his brother's stretched out form, laid out atop floral print sheets: the way his black t-shirt is riding up his midriff, showing off his happy trail; his jeans hang low on his hips, and Sam pictures himself straddling them with his hands on Dean's chest and Dean's eyes wide and wanting, and he knows that it is not supposed to be this way.

"I'm gonna take a shower," Sam mutters, and Dean grunts, and the itch of wrong on his skin starts to sting.

There's grime in the shower. Green and brown and unclean; snug in the grout between porcelain tiles and blooming from the crevices where the moistures get trapped until it becomes tainted, impure. There's shampoo in his hair, and the soap on his shoulders is rinsing away, running down his long, skinny frame, and there's a layer of filth inches from his face. He drags his index finger through the thickest coat of gunk, and for a moment he lets himself feel it on his skin. This is what pumps through my veins, he thinks. In the way he hates his father and the way he pulls away from his family and the way he feels about his brother. This is what he is.

The water gets scalding, and his skin never melts.

Dean is still lying on his bed, one arm slung over his face, one hand resting on his abdomen, when Sam leaves the bathroom. He looks asleep, but his breathing is too deliberate, the rise and fall of his chest too obvious. Sam walks past Dean's bed to his own, sits on the edge, and watches his brother exist.

Sam feels the walls get taller and the room get smaller; he feels the sludge crawling in his veins; he feels the want deep in his gut; and he watches his brother exist because that's the only thing he's sure of.

"You hungry yet?" Dean asks, and though his eyes are still closed, Sam becomes uncomfortably aware of how long he's been staring at him.

The clock on the nightstand between the two beds tells him it's well after seven. Sam hasn't eaten since noon, but the thought of food makes his stomach churn like it's full of gravel. Wherever Dean takes him will be fast food and grease, and he already feels like there's a layer of dirt on his skin.

So Sam says, "Not really," and Dean looks at him, concerned, and Sam looks at the ceiling, lets his eyes trace the water stains until he feels Dean's eyes leave him. There are unasked questions, unsaid words, lingering on the tip of Dean's tongue; Sam can feel it in the stillness of the air, in the pounding of the silence between them.

Dean catches Sam's eye, and then he can't look away. "You alright, Sammy?" he asks like he's afraid of the answer.

The question makes Sam's insides burn, and he can't figure out why. He isn't alright. He's stuck in this room; he's stuck in his own skin, and he wants to climb inside of his brother's; he feels wrong and dirty, not just in his mind, but in his bones. Sam wants Dean's lips to burn away the sin on his own and wants to feel forgiveness in the way Dean's hands touch his body—he's sick with it.

He's a freak, and he wants things that he shouldn't. He doesn't know which caused the other.

"I'm fine," Sam dismisses with a crooked snort that's a tad too insistent, and he waits for Dean to pretend he buys it.

But he stares at Sam for quite a long time, looking at him like a sentence he's read a thousand times and still doesn't know what it means. Sam is terrified of what he'll see if he keeps poking and prodding until he can see right through Sam; if he'll see into Sam's veins to the tint of sin in his blood. Deny himself as Sam's brother, and the next time he runs away, Dean won't come looking.

Then Dean says, "Suit yourself, you twig," because he hides the truth behind sarcasm and snark and that shit-eating grin, and Sam can't help but be thankful for it, "I'll bring you back something just in case—something healthy, of course. We wouldn't want you to bloat."

Sam's smile is genuine when he throws his pillow at Dean, who catches and sits on it, rubs his butt into it with an evil big brother smirk on his face. Sam laughs and calls Dean names, and Dean returns the favor. Sam would feel almost normal if it weren't for the lusting fire in his belly or the need to taste the obscenities coming out of Dean's mouth on his lips.

Sam sees the glimpse of relief in Dean's eyes before he leaves the room. He doesn't know exactly what he did to give his brother that look, but it feels good.

His mattress is more like a plank of wood; Sam's muscles complain when he tries to get comfortable. He lies on top of the sheets and stares at the door, and he thinks about leaving because that's what he does. Dean doesn't let Sam get anywhere too far for too long, but his soul is beating against his bones; the words escape scratches at the walls of his skull.

Sometimes Sam thinks about asking Dean to run away with him, but anywhere with Dean is the same place he's always been. Sam doesn't really want to leave him, but one day he will have to. Somehow Sam knows that. Whether it'll be the way he feels about Dean or Sam's tainted blood that drives them apart, Dean won't always be this close.

Dean comes back a while later with a white, Styrofoam box that he gives to Sam with a promise that they'll "find a Wal-Mart or something tomorrow, get some real food." Sam puts it in the mini fridge without opening it, ignoring the look of disappointment on Dean's face.

Sam turns on the TV, distracting Dean from him. They let themselves settle on their beds and watch Lifetime movies until the sky gets inky black, and the only light is provided by headlights flickering in and out through the window. After the TV is flicked off, the silence between them becomes heavy and obvious. Neither has said a word for hours.

Dean yawns, and turns his head into his pillow, eyes fluttering shut, eyelashes dancing in shadow.

Sam falls asleep with his head towards Dean. The staggered harmony of his brother's breathing and the rush of passing cars outside becomes a lullaby. Dean's face is caught in the darkness behind his eyelids and restlessness twitches his fingertips.

Visions of yellow eyes haunt Sam's dreams. He wakes the next morning with the taste of blood in his mouth, and it's not his own, but it belongs there. By the time he's done scrubbing out the taste with so much toothpaste it burns, Sam's forgotten about the dream, and all that remains of it is the stain it left in him.

Dean is gone when Sam reenters the room. He must have gone out for breakfast; Sam still isn't hungry. He stands between the door to the bathroom and the front door, and he thinks about leaving again. A passing thought, a fleeting desire. His lungs ache for fresh air, a smell other than cheap laundry detergent, ancient dust. Dean will take him out later, if he asks.

He bursts through the front door with a McDonald's bag and two coffees ten minutes later. He gives Sam one of the coffees and a fruit parfait, and Sam eats it to get the worried crease out of Dean's brow. Sam licks yogurt off his spoon, vacant gaze on Dean eating his own meal: messy, mouth wet, licking syrup off his fingers, plucking bites of hot, sticky pancake between his fucking pretty lips.

"Take a picture, why don't you," Dean says around a mouthful.

"What?" Sam swallows thickly; fingers clench reflexively around his cup.

"Why the fuck are you staring?" he asks, the prosecution in his words betraying the sincere curiosity in his expression. Dean puts his fork down, leans forward, and Sam sees something boil over in him. He is done taking bullshit from his brother. The small amount of food in Sam's stomach starts to protest. He's cornered. There's an answer to that question that doesn't involve wanting to sleep with your brother, but Sam can't think of it. Heat rises high on his cheeks.

"Dean," Sam hears himself say, quiet and desperate.

Dean eyes soften; his lips part, pink, glossy, strands of syrup bridging them. Sam stares. He has this morbid curiosity about his brother's lips. He wants to know what they feel like, what they taste like, what they look like up close, wet with spit and kissed swollen. The sordid creatures scuttling on the surface of his heart enlarge and hasten. His veins sizzle, his muscles snarl, and there is something like anger in Sam except it's far too vicious, far less rational.

"Sammy, should I be worried about you?"

Sam practically growls, voice biting and mean, "Dean, you know, I'm a big boy. You don't have to hover over me like an overbearing mother. I'm fine."

Dean pulls back, an annoyed look overcoming his features. The heat in his eyes makes them glitter, and Sam's own trace the patterns of the wallpaper over Dean's shoulder. Dean counters, "I don't know what's gotten into you, but I'm getting fucking tired of it,"

Sam flinches at Dean's words: gotten into you. Nothing has gotten into him that wasn't already there, that wasn't bred into him before he could force it away.

"I don't want to talk to you!" Sam shouts, throwing the crushed McDonald's cup at Dean, who easily dodges it.

Silence follows. Sam watches Dean watch him through seething breaths. Dean's expression is impenetrable; mouth taut, eyes cinched, Sam can't tell what he's thinking and it only makes him angrier. Sam has so many reasons to be mad, and his brother caring about him is not one of them. Still he can't stop the rage radiating out of his every pore.

Dean stands. He opens his mouth, words on the cusp of being uttered, but snaps it shut. Stuffing fisted hands into his pockets, he walks to the bathroom, and Sam's eyes follow him the whole way, keeps them on the door when it slams shut.

He waits until he hears the shower running before he releases his gaze from the door. With every beat of his heart, his lust for his brother strengthens and the fire in his chest burns hotter. It drives him mad. His hands are curled into fists, fingernails digging into his palms. He wants to punch the wall and jump his brother's bones. He needs to tear off his skin and rip out his veins. So he takes his pillow and punches it, sticks his face in it and screams.

He doesn't even shut the door behind him when he runs out of the room. The searing air hits his skin like a bomb, sweat immediately beading on his forehead and neck. One deep breath roasts his lungs, ripping through the rot trapped inside him. He sprints, socked feet pushing the blistering asphalt behind him as he extends the distance between himself and the rest of his world. Out of the parking lot; down the side of the interstate, cars zipping past, dangerously close; off the dirt trenches adjacent to the road into the prairie and through the skimpy forest that transpires on the other side; Sam keep running.

He doesn't stop until his breaths are racked and painful, his socks are ripped to shreds, clothes soaked through with sweat, and he has no idea where he is. The sun beats right over his head, burning his scalp. He collapses to the ground and his stomach contracts, begging for water. He presses a hand into it to shut it up, squeezes his eyes shut. He sits in a patch of grass in a huge, weed-infested field; there are about ten trees within a one-mile radius of him, and no civilization within sight.

Limbs like Jell-O, head pounding, adrenaline bottomed out, he feels weak. He thinks he should feel free: escaped from tyrannical hands and endless walls trapping him in a claustrophobic embrace; too burnt out to feel the dirty sickness inside him; his brother and his perfect mouth, structured shoulders, muscle-defined arms, out of sight and mind.

Instead he's lost, scared, and dehydrated.

"Shit," Sam bites out, rubbing circles into his eyes with his palms, elbows on his knees, "fucking shit. Fuck."

He sits in this spot, the blend of heat radiating in the air and off his skin a miserable mixture, until his feet feel solid again. He's dizzy when he stands, head muddled and heavy. He gives himself a minute to let his vision clear; then he picks a direction and walks in it. His feet feel too big, tripping over one another, his ruined socks catching on rocks and thick weeds.

The sun has begun to set before he meets a road, pot hole-ridden and nearly empty. His throat is so dry it hurts to breathe. Every step feels like the last he'll ever take. He stands by the road with his thumb held high and watches car after car pass carelessly by. He's never wished harder for his brother. He's never wished less to be on his own.

His blood starts to thicken with wrong again. His head rings with the echoes of unuttered screams.

He's given up and sitting with his head between his knees when he hears tires crunching on gravel, a familiar engine cutting out. His head snaps up, and he watches Dean climb out of the Impala, something between terror and relief warping his features.

"Sammy," Dean says his name like an answered prayer.

Dean is leaning against the hood of the car like he can't stand on his own; Sam hates looking up at his brother, but he doesn't think he could hold his weight under him, so he stays sitting in the dirt.

"How did you find me?" Sam asks, the weak tremor in his voice not going unnoticed.

"My Sammy senses were tingling," Dean says, approaches Sam with a hand held out. Sam takes it and lets his brother yank him to his feet; he collapses into him, unable to catch his feet. Dean holds him up, asks, "You okay, man?" the worry heavy in his voice.

"Yeah. Ran a lot. Dehydrated. Malnourished. You know."

"That was fucking stupid," Dean says, not aggressively but intent known. He helps Sam to the passenger side and gets behind the wheel. "What the hell were you thinking?" Dean asks once they're back on the road.

There are a lot of things he could say to Dean, that he probably should say. Sam disappeared on Dean's watch, and Dean found him on the side of the road, feet torn apart, blood sugar dangerously low. Dean deserves an explanation.

So he puts it as simply as he can: "Dean, I don't think I'm a good person."

Dean gives Sam a sideways glance, eyebrows drawn up. That wasn't what he was expecting. "What are you talking about?"

Sam shakes his head, rubs his hands up and down his arms reflexively, nervous, "It's like I can feel something bad…wrong crawling under my skin, all the time."

Dean keeps his eyes on the road. He doesn't speak for a long time. Sam stares out the window, wishing he had kept quiet. Dean doesn't know what to do with this information. He knows how to end a wendigo or banish a spirit or re-kill a zombie, but he doesn't know what to do with a brother who is just wrong.

Then Dean says, "Remember that hunt last year in Maine? It was supposed to be a simple salt and burn, but the ghost had trapped a couple kids in the house. You were the only one slim enough to crawl through that broken window, and Dad was freaking out saying we shouldn't have brought you, and you were going to get yourself killed, but a few minutes later you were leading those kids back out. Then you climbed out and you had this huge, stupid grin on your face because you saved their lives."

Sam watches his brother in fascination. Eyes kind, proud grin on his face. A kind of sincerity Sam never sees on Dean's face when anyone other than him is around. Sam didn't know. He didn't know that Dean saw him the way he sees Dean. Like a hero.

"You're a good person, Sammy, okay?" Dean says, affirmative. His fists clench on the steering wheel; the moon glows across his white knuckles. Dean keeps flashing glances sideways at Sam, who doesn't bother to try and stop staring. "You hear me, Sammy?"

Sam doesn't answer, and Dean pulls into the motel parking lot. He parks, turns the car off, and turns his whole body to face Sam. Sam does so to face Dean. It's too dark to see much other than the shadows casting along Dean's face, exaggerating the angles of his cheek bones and jaw line. His eyes have always glimmered in the dimmest light.

"Dean," Sam says, quietly, one word but it feels like he's saying a thousand.

"Sam?" Dean says it like a question, but it's not.

Sam leans forward, and Dean doesn't move away, and then their lips are touching. Pressed and moving and opening for each other and fitting together, and then it's a kiss. Sam kisses Dean with everything he has; Dean pulls his hands through Sam's hair, hanging on like he needs the anchor. Sam is lightheaded for more reasons than one, but he's on his brother, the way he's longed for, and he would pass out before he pulled away.

With each kiss and moan and rock of his hips, Dean rips something wrong from Sam, boils the sin out of his blood. He makes Sam feel right. Sam had never imagined it would happen this way, but now his hands are sliding up and down Dean's back, over his shoulders, feeling the smooth glide of Dean's muscles under his fingers.

Dean smells like leather and tastes like whiskey, and more than anything Sam loves that Dean is letting him close enough to know it. His hands are slipping under Sam's shirt, and he's saying his name over and over, in that same way, like he's asking permission, and Sam keeps saying yes, Dean, yes, please, yes.

When Sam's breath gets worryingly shallow, Dean pulls away.

"What?" Sam whines.

Dean shakes his head, "Sam. Sammy, you need to eat—drink something."

Sam rolls his eyes. Dean is hard against his thigh; Sam's own hard-on is obvious in his jeans. Sam grinds his hips down on his brother, voice strained when he says, "One problem at a time, Dean."

Dean's head fall back on a moan, and Sam takes the opportunity to suck on his exposed Adam's apple. He's barely able to put his hands on Sam's shoulders to push him off. "I'm serious."

Sam growls, "Fine."

Dean leads him into the motel and onto his bed. Sam kisses him and touches him to whole way because he can. Dean cleans Sam's feet with antiseptic and a washcloth from the bathroom. Then he gets a water bottle and heats up the meal he brought back for Sam last night. He does all this in silence, and Sam can't help but be a little annoyed, still hot and wanting and hard. Now that he knows it's reciprocated, he can't help but watch his brother and love the way he moves. Sam eats up every swing of Dean's hips, tremor of muscle in his jaw, roll of his shoulders. He takes huge gulps from his water; finds something else he loves about Dean's body every second.

"Did you want it all this time, too?" Sam asks suddenly.

"What?" Dean asks.

"Me. Us, I mean. Did you always want it, too?"

Dean stares at the floor. He waits for the microwave to go off, hands Sam the plate and a fork, and watches him eat for a few minutes.

Dean shifts, uncomfortable, "Not really. Not till it happened." His shoulder and knee press against Sam's. The heat is too much. His throat is tight when he swallows.

"Oh."

Dean sighs, shrugs, "I'm not really sure."

"About what?" Sam asks too quickly. If he hadn't gone almost two days without eating, he wouldn't be able to shove this food down his throat. He can already feel something cold and sick start crawling in his veins.

"If this is right," Dean says, too loudly.

"Does it feel right?"

"Sam, that's not—"

"Well, does it?"

Dean waits for Sam to swallow his mouthful and then he presses his lips against Sam's. Tentative at first, like he's testing it out, then he slips his tongue into Sam's mouth and Sam sucks, curves into it. Dean's hand lifts to cup Sam's face, and he moans.

Sam groans in frustration when Dean pulls away again. He scrubs a hand down his face, "You're only fifteen."

Sam rolls his eyes and purses his lips, annoyed, "So I'm old enough to risk my life hunting evil, but I'm not old enough for this?"

Dean's standing now, and Sam follows because he likes to tower over Dean when they're fighting. Dean's broader, though; he looks more dangerous, and he makes Sam feel young.

"Christ, Sam, that's not what I—it isn't the same thing! There are rules about this shit for a reason!" Dean shouts.

"And we break every other rule! We sacrifice everything so that other people can live. I'm serious, Dean. Don't you think we deserve this?"

Dean snorts, "What? To commit incest?"

"To be happy! For Christ's sake, Dean, you can't tell me you're totally content with this life. That you wouldn't ask for anything else if you could."

Dean collapses back onto the bed, beaten, "Jesus, this shit was easier when I pretended nothing was going on," he mutters into his hands.

Sam crosses his arms over his chest, frustrated and wanting Dean to understand. "Why don't you stop fucking thinking with your upstairs brain for a second."

Dean laughs weakly, "Never thought I'd hear anyone say that to me."

Sam sits back down, his smile small but genuine. Dean's body heat is a presence on Sam's skin, alive and tingling and wonderful. Sam is in love his brother—for his stupid jokes and his loud music and his spiky hair and his fucking lips; for the way he knows every line to all his favorite movies and every word to every song he deems worth listening to. For every smartass remark and obnoxious smirk and tedious harassment, Sam fucking loves his brother, okay?

"Dean, seriously, stop thinking about this like it's some problem that you have to solve. If you want it, you can have it. It's as simple as that."

Dean looks up, surprised, "You overthink fucking everything, where the hell is this coming from?"

"My heart," Sam says, voice raw, eyes wide and earnest. Dean stares at him blankly for a good fifteen seconds before his face breaks, and he realizes Sam is dicking around with him.

A smile cracks Dean's tense lips, "You're such a fucking girl."

"Yeah, but I'm your fucking girl," and by the look on Dean's face, Sam can assume that he agrees.

Sam doesn't waste another second, leans in and devours his brother's lips with his own, dragging his hand through his hair, cupping the nape of his neck; this time when Dean pulls away it's to rip off Sam's shirt, lay him down on the bed, and trace kisses up and down his abdomen. Sam apologizes for the night, the last could days, last couple years, with every bruise he sucks into Dean's jaw, every jerk up with his hips to match Dean's, every moan he draws out of him.

He takes Dean's rough callused fingers dragging down the sensitive skin of his back, teeth biting into the meat of his shoulder, lips dragging wet kisses along the taut lines of his neck, as forgiveness.

He's never felt so right in a motel room. He's never before lain on a bed as stiff as this one and wanted anything other than to burn it to ashes and run from the scene. Everything about this is right, and Sam's skin still crawls inside out with the feeling of wrong, and he still knows he's a freak, but Dean's got his hands on him and this is just too good for Sam to be bad.

END