A/N: There are mentions of substance abuse in this, but it's not the boys who are doing it. If you are triggered by discussions of child abuse, read only with caution. Unhealthy thoughts and situations are bound to come up. That aside, the boys are teenage boys through and through. Wild, sometimes a little creepy, awkwardly flirty around each other and always horny.
Cover image is from the lovely Kamidiox.
I'm crossposting this from AO3. Feedback is welcome and appreciated as always! :)
His new record is two minutes, twenty-six seconds. It's a hundred and forty-six seconds more than what Sam would willingly dedicate to his Physics class, but he's sixteen and has no fucking say in his own life. He's just ballast, sinking into the void where it doesn't matter if you gasp for air or let yourself suffocate.
Anyway, he set a new high score for himself. He didn't plan to, but some things are bound to make a guy snap. Physics being one of them. You gotta let it out somehow.
The thing is, Sam's teacher calls all his classmates by their first names except for her own daughter, which is the stupidest fucking way to practice anti-favoritism. It pisses Sam off. So, out of sheer boredom, he asked if she forgot how to pronounce Delilah. This was the fastest he got himself sent out of class with a shrieked "Detention!" thrown at his indifferent back, and it makes him pretty satisfied, all things considered. Minutes of uninterrupted hallway-time. Sweet.
If it wasn't for the jerk swaggering towards him along the row of battered lockers, he would go as far as pumping his fist in silent cheer.
As it is, he makes a face and hops up on the windowsill, scuffing his toes on the floor as he swings his long legs back and forth, back and forth. Hot Texan sunshine beats down on the back of his neck, makes sweat prickle under his too-long hair, and he watches his shadow on the dirty linoleum floor, the way his arm twitches when a second silhouette joins him in the oblique frame. His shoulders hunch on instinct - he lets them stay bowed this time, unassuming with his goody two-shoes face and boy scout clothes. Fuck if he knows why his Mom keeps dumping them on him, but khaki pants and pocket tees come in handy when an unknown element enters the picture. Sam prefers to know if they are trouble before they realise he is.
"Hey, Sasquatch, which one's 302?"
Oh, this guy is trouble all right. Already pushing Sam's buttons within two seconds of meeting him. Fuck off, Sam wants to hiss, but the memory of blood in mouth and knuckles on bones is stronger than the smoldering fire in his gut. Stay put, stay low, attack sneakily. Bide your time, he tells himself, but his head snaps up, delivers a glare that hits the guy right in his cocky face. It earns him a lopsided grin.
"Cat got your tongue?" The stupid, irritating ass raises an eyebrow.
He's got green eyes, pretty-shaped, a bottom lip Sam wouldn't mind splitting with a fist or a set of hungry teeth, and wanna-look-cool stubble on his jaw. His threadbare jacket sprinkles golden dust into the ray of light as he moves. Sam blinks after the particles, startles when he sees the reflection of his own life in them. The same worn-down carelessness, the same drifting, meaningless existence. And just like that, the stranger is one step too close to being attractive. Sam has to get away from him. He doesn't want to care, to get his shit together and impress. All he wants is to be left alone.
Before he can mumble an answer, his Physics teacher opens the classroom door, a furious scowl digging wrinkles between her brows. She opens her mouth to scold him for not coming back with an apology, as though he ever does, but the words die on her tongue as she spots the new guy. "Oh. Hi, you must be Dean Winchester."
The boy shrugs, suddenly taciturn. A case of authority allergy, another point in Sam's long catalogue of dark desires. He grips the ledge he's sitting on to keep the rising irritation at bay. He doesn't want to care.
His - well, their teacher purses her lips, scenting animosity, and beckons them. Dean follows the silent order and lets out a disappointed breath, the softest of sighs meant for no one's ears, but Sam hears it, wants to stay as far away from it as possible. It's too familiar, too empty.
"You too, Samuel." Mrs. Butler snaps, prepared to put up with him once again, how wonderful.
Sam slides off his perch, weary as only a brooding teenager can be, and trudges after his new classmate. Hot ass, he adds to his mental blacklist, not checking, just ducking his head to hide his expression. They have to know he doesn't care. Dean Winchester wears leather and jeans, carries six states' worth of caked mud on his boots, and sprawls in his seat with his thick thighs spread wide. The girls lick their lips, the boys frown, some teachers update their tally of people to watch out for. Sam keeps his head down for the rest of the day, avoiding him at all costs.
For someone who looks like prime material for the teacher's pet position, Sam has an impressive track record of misbehavior. Part of it is necessity - better chances of survival if the greatest danger is the mind-numbing monochrome of a classroom. The rest, Sam would admit if anyone asked, is a dysfunctional valve on his emotions. There's something volatile in his chest, inflammable, something that makes the pressure in his ribcage rise to bursting. His teachers can't handle him, can't predict his bites or counteract his venom. He's a paragon four days out of five, the devil himself on the fifth. Dead on the weekends.
Sam drags his gangly body into detention, nodding at the teacher, who sighs, turns back to her work. They see each other more often than he talks to his Mom. He looks back down on his shoes, counts the times he steps on his laces, tries to work out a ratio for missteps and stumbles. At the very back of the room, he folds himself into a chair with a reflexive slump, his bag clanking heavy-dull on the desk, and buries his face in the crook of his elbow. Maybe he'll get some sleep. Might as well make up for last night. He counts the ticking of the too-loud clock instead of sheep and imagines a place where his skin doesn't smell like dry sand and apathy.
Five minutes later, something tickles his ear.
"The fuck." He mutters to himself, leaves out the what because he doesn't like questions. Answers make jack shit change in his future anyway.
Without raising his head, he tangles his fingers in his hair, swipes through it until they catch on a piece of paper. No, I won't go to prom, he thinks as it unfolds, the image of that unhinged senior, Becky Rosen, clear and sharp in his mind. She's probably after the dubious fame of his reputation.
But the note isn't from her at all - he would know, he has seen her handwriting, all the loopy curls and heart shaped dots - no, this is a chicken scratch of doom.
Sup Sammy?
Dean Winchester is staring at him from across the aisle, discarded candy wrapper confetti around him. He is absent-mindedly embedding a pencil into the shabby top of his desk. His hair looks like he's been running his hand through it, rustling the sun-washed tips of it, and it's not fair, it's not fucking fair that he blasts through Sam's defenses like that, makes him want to fist those locks and pull.
"Name's Sam." Sam mouths, a foreign feeling of heat washing over him. Fuck, this school needs ACs yesterday.
Dean's cheeks barely contain his smile.
"I'm bored." He whispers back, head tipping to the side in a show of the gurgling zombie mood they are all in. His lips are cotton candy pink. He must have been gnawing on them since his chocolate stash ran out.
Sam turns away, ignores the flutter in his throat that says he wants to bite them red-raw, and looks out the window, watches the bright blue of this flowery spring afternoon. Who the hell transfers in March? As a junior? Drifters, that's who. Clumps of dirt in the wind, Sam's kind.
Twisted as he is in his seat, his shirt rides up and leaves the most annoying strip of skin bare and too cool compared to the rest of his overheated body. He's blushing, he knows, and it's the worst that could happen, to care and for people to know it after one look at his expression. Weak points are going to be exploited, he learnt it years ago. Nothing like having your favourite toys stomped on and trashed because you refused to shut the fuck up while your stepdad was watching porn in the other room.
Behind him, he hears a hum and a pop. Something hits the naked spot on his back, falls into his pants because he's a skinny shit and leaning forward means half an inch of a gap between his back and his waistband. He bolts upright, grabs for the thing before it could make it further down and leave a smear on his trousers.
It's a chewing gum, still in its wrapper, a colour clash of blue and neon pink, cartoon figures chasing each other. Another pop resonates in the forced quiet of the room, and Sam looks over, scowls at the deflating bubble Dean Winchester is pulling back into his mouth with the cheekiest twinkle in his eyes. Sam is about to throw the gum into that arrogant face when the teacher blocks his sight, high-heels clicking menacingly. He can't hear what she says, but Dean is loud and shameless, the perfect counterpart to Sam's quiet and dangerous.
"Just wanted to get a closer look at the view, miss." Dean tells her, and Sam can hear the leer, almost expects a slap for it.
It doesn't come - she must have gotten used to the local delinquents admiring her cleavage long ago. One piece of garbage trained by the country's dust bowl isn't going to faze her that easily. She walks over to a trash can, picks it up and thrusts it under Dean's nose. There's no sign of disappointment as Dean spits, and Sam's stomach sinks, because it means that boisterous idiot didn't do it for her reaction. And since all the others in here are heavy metal punks living their fuck the system phase, Sam has no doubt Dean is going for him. He knows - tumbleweed doesn't mix well with black hair dye and eyeliner.
Sure enough, as the teacher strolls away, satisfied in the illusion that she taught a lesson, Dean's gaze is fixed on him, challenging. Fuck. Why did Sam get saddled with his own distorted mirror image as a classmate? And who the hell Dean thinks he is, trying to one-up Sam's unique sort of rebellion?
Screw him, Sam fumes and pops the bubble gum in his mouth. This is his domain.
Dean's laugh is a ring that rolls on and on and on in Sam's head even after he finished flashing his white teeth in the orange-violet sunset of their post-detention time. "Man, I can't believe she stepped into it. Those shoes must have cost a hundred!"
Sam curls his index finger around a rod of the railing he's leaning into, helpless to watch Dean skip up and down the school steps. The rough surface of steel grounds him, makes the reel of want easier to bear. He's not used to it. Living the way he is, it's better to stay away from connections, planned or accidental. There's nothing graceful in the feeling of loss when he is torn apart from them, when his Mom decides she has taken enough abuse from her current guy and moves them away to find another.
Dean stops in front of him and plants big, calloused hands on the bar behind his back, caging him in. He's flushed and out of breath, with a manic gleam shimmering in his eyes, and Sam is - he isn't afraid. There's no panic, nothing screaming in his head to flee, to run, to avoid the pain. Dean's leather smell and sweat-soaked heat surrounds him like a cloud.
"You should go home." Sam mutters, dropping his gaze to the moisture cradled in the dip of Dean's collarbone, where it peaks out of his askew shirt. He should have put on his hoodie by now, the tattered one lying at the bottom of his bag. Texas isn't warm enough yet, not for Sam's oven of a body. The shiver running up to his shoulder leaves a chemtrail of goosebumps behind, but he isn't cold, not at all. He's burning, caught off guard by the whirlwind that hit him today. He forgot how to understand attention that doesn't come with anger or disappointment.
Dean bumps his boots into Sam's sneakers, smudges brown on the not-quite white tips of them. "Nah. We should celebrate. Getting detention in detention? Impressive."
Sam raises his eyes, defiant. He feels Dean's thumb next to his right elbow, how it curls and shifts as Dean lets go with his other hand and stretches, swings outward and away from him. The evening chill begins to seep in. "You got detention on your first day."
There's something true and awful in the twitch of Dean's smirk, how it hammers on Sam's resolve, breaks his wall of disinterest. "What can I say? I'm charming."
Sam snorts. "I bet."
Dean's eyes hold a strange tightness, a wistful gleam. "Tell me you don't like me, and I'll buy you a soda."
"I don't like you." Sam replies without missing a beat.
"Awesome." Dean grins and takes off, glancing over his shoulder to see Sam follow. He leads the way to a black Chevy, old and beloved, shiny clean, and strokes a hand over its top. "That's Sam."
Sam's eyebrows shoot up. "Did you just introduce me to your car?"
"Don't hurt her feelings."
There's nothing funny or seducing in the reply, it's just plain quirky and a little messed up, but it does Sam in. He doesn't know this guy. He has no clue what he wants, sex, entertainment, friends, or something else, maybe Sam's liver, but that, the ridiculous show of fondness for an old piece of metal, allures him.
He should head home, make it to his bedroom in time to lock it. A few hours of detention may go unnoticed, but if he stays out past sunset, the current douchebag might notice it when he sneaks inside, even wasted as he usually is. And that means flying fists and yelling, complaining neighbours. A shitty night.
But Sam wants to take Dean up on his offer, see where this will take him. It has been so long since he took new risks, and Dean looks like he could be the risk of a lifetime, something truly wild and addictive. There's no way Sam can pass this one up.
"I know a place." He says at last and opens the door, pretends the creaking hinges can drown out his racing heart when the full force of Dean's smile sweeps over him. He knows he's lost as soon as his thighs hit the leather.
They don't talk much on the way, but it suits them just fine. Sam bitches about the music and Dean grins, cranks it up until the car's windows shudder. Suffused with too much crappy noise, Sam rolls his own down and lets his hand coast over the wind blowing inside and ruffling his hair.
It feels like home, more so than the mildew-frosted shithole he's living in with his Mom nowadays.
As the last rays of sunshine hit his face through the windshield, Sam gives in to the comforting leather-smell and Dean's effortless driving, lets them bring up the hope and nostalgia he used to feel those rare times his Mom was happy to be on the move. Back then, he thought they could start a new life. A better one.
Inside the diner, Dean sprawls over one half of a booth and gives their waitress a bratty-confident wink. Her pinking cheeks are pretty enough, Sam notes, if someone is into that fake Virgin Mary thing. She smiles at them both when she comes back with their order, gives Sam's scowling figure an appreciative look and sways her hips like live porn. Going for both types of bad boys, huh? Fuck knows Sam has no idea why their imminent doom revs a proper girl's engine, but he watched his Mom enough times to notice the signs.
By the time he tucks into his sad Caesar salad, half of Dean's sausages are struggling their way down his throat, leaving a trail of mustard in the corner of his lips as an evidence of their heartless murder. Sam twirls his fork and wonders why that doesn't disgust him at all.
"You eat like a pig." He says dryly.
Dean doesn't bother to swallow before his comeback. "At least I eat real food. Manly food."
It would be no use telling him that Sam didn't want to order more because they are both broke and Dean counting change to pay would be too painful for today. Sam likes salad anyway, no reason to step on Dean's gut with figurative cleats of shame. His phone buzzes, but fuck it, he ignores the call. The easy banter helps the embers in his stomach settle. "Tell me how manly you feel when you start to show."
Dean laughs, loud like the obnoxious, enticing thing he is, and leans down to take a sip of his drink, straw caught behind his front teeth as he grins around it. "A little bird told me you are the smartest kid in our class."
Sam snorts. Yeah, right. Define smart and he may be convinced. "That bird sure wasn't the sharpest tool then."
Dean's come-hither gleam dims into something deeper, more serious. Sam has to focus on ignoring the mix of dread and satisfaction in his chest at the sight. "You are quite an enigma, huh?"
"So I heard."
"Are you a mathlete?"
Sam shrugs, wanting to brag and to shy away at the same time. He's out of his element, so he pulls his walls up high enough to hide behind. "That and the resident devil."
Dean flicks drops of coke on him with the tip of his straw. "How does that go with - detention and shit?"
Easy question. "Life is crap either way. I don't care."
"True that." Dean laughs softly, bitterly. Sam didn't know it would be this frightening to meet someone who gets it, but it is. It's crazy exhilarating though. "What's your deal?"
"Aren't we done playing twenty questions?"
Dean leans back and bumps his right boot into Sam's ankle. "Come on. Spill. I'll let you cry on my shoulder."
Sam gives him a much harder kick back, but Dean's grin only widens and makes him scowl.
"My Mom changes fuck buddies twice a month. Hell knows which one left me behind. That about sums it up." Sam spits, gaze fixed on the sticky tabletop to avoid further interaction, but his curiosity gets the better of him in the end. "What about you?"
"I lost my Mom thirteen years ago. Dad and I've been on a road trip since." Dean offers, honest humour in his voice. It must be how he copes with the inevitable suffering. "With Jack Daniels on the backseat." He adds wryly.
Their eyes lock and something passes between them - an emotion so unfamiliar and scary for how pleasant it is. Their waitress sashays back, asks if they want anything else, and Dean just pulls out the wrinkled bills from his jacket pocket he pretended not to count in the car. Neither of them looks away, not even when a slip of paper lands in front of Sam, along with the words "I get off in ten, sweetie."
Dean's eyes don't flicker to her curvy backside as she retreats, but stay intent on connecting to Sam's. It doesn't feel like a challenge, not this time around.
"I thought a nerd like you would jizz himself after such an invitation." Dean teases, mouth curving.
Sam takes a leap of faith, a small one. "She's not my type."
A heavy silence settles over their booth. Dean's lips are stretching into a slow, lazy smirk, and Sam has the answer on the tip of his tongue, feels how hot his blood is running to take Dean up on that unsaid offer, to jump right off the ledge and go wild for fucking once. To get off on the danger of it. But his phone buzzes again, goes off right there, in his pocket, loud enough for Dean to falter, glance away.
"Sorry." Sam mumbles and picks it up, hates whoever is on the other end, whoever robbed him of a probably spectacular act of decadence.
"Sam, where the - you seen the - Don can't find his .45 -"
It's his Mom. Drunk, looking for the fucking gun Sam hurled into the river last week. Ruining his life at every chance she gets.
"I don't know, Mom." He says, voice quiet and impassive. Dean picks the last pieces of meat out of his salad until Sam threatens to stab him with his fork.
"The hell is wrong with you?" He mouths at Dean's atrocious laugh, then flinches when Don Whatshisname local stud bellows out his smoke-tainted lung into the phone, promising bloody murder. Nothing new, Sam thinks, and hangs up.
"I gotta go."
"Yeah, no kidding." Dean licks his lips, seems to fish for something else to say, but comes up empty-handed. He slaps the tabletop and rises. "All right, let's go, Sasquatch."
"Can you quit calling me that?"
"Sure, Sammy."
Sam shoves him out the door, hard. "It's Sam, you jerk."
Dean's laugh rumbles in his chest the way an engine purrs flying down a dusty road.
The next morning dawns on a gloomy Thursday with purple-grey clouds in the sky, promising rain. Sam shuffles his feet into class on a yawn and an empty belly, then stops dead in his tracks because Dean Winchester is in the seat next to his, smiling at Sam's previous neighbour who looks a little worse for wear. Sam scowls. Sometimes it's a superhuman quest to get himself to school, when the light at the end of the tunnel flickers out into darkness. This is one of those days. He feels phantom pain in his chest, has to rub at it to quell its throbbing as he shoulders through a group of girls giggling in the doorway. But looking at Dean - it helps. He digs kernels of curiosity up from where Sam has buried them all months ago.
Dean winks at him when he passes his desk and their clothes brush, swish like dry leaves. It makes Sam feel antsy enough that he volunteers to go up to the blackboard and solve an equation. He doesn't want Dean to look at him, but he knew he would, he fits the type who gets off on the hunt as much as he likes getting what he wants. He knew Dean would give him once-overs well into this side of inappropriate, so, reluctant as he was, he made a grudging effort to dress up in something that didn't come from a thrift shop. The fruity scent of women's shampoo still clings to his hair, because his Mom's guy used up all of Sam's, but he feels kind of nice anyway, all clean and decent.
Standing in front of the class doesn't make him slouch for once.
"Good job, nerd." Dean smirks at him when he sits back down, when the fleeting pride of how smart he is runs its course through his system.
Sam doesn't let his eyes wander away from his notebook, but the burn of his blush stays with him until the bell rings.
He's deliberately slow to pack his things after, to see if he can avoid Dean until their next class together. Or, a torturous voice in his head pipes up, to see if Dean wants whatever it is he's chasing enough to wait until Sam drags his ass out of the room. Behind him, the self-assured jock gang goes about its daily gossip business, debating who to go after that day. Cause it's fun, apparently. Sam isn't the least bit afraid - these guys are wary of him, just a little bit. He's a wildcard who's antisocial enough that they don't bother with him. With Dean, however...
"...the Winchester boy?" He catches the tail end of one knucklehead's question.
"Shit, man, that guy's feral."
"Feral?"
"Yeah. Like, we're sitting in Bio, cutting frogs and shit, and I'm telling ya, he ate one. Legs and all."
Sam smiles to himself, then tries to frown when he catches how his heart thuds double time for a second. He bets that idiot has been popping candies again, right next to a dissected carcass. Licorice, probably. One day together and he feels like he has known the guy all his life.
"What the fuck? You're full of shit, Jimmy."
Sam hears them laugh and joke around in disbelief, but there's a tone of carefulness in it, something that tells him they won't try their luck with someone so unfazed by bloody intestines. Relieved in spite of himself, he stops stalling and picks up his stuff.
Dean is waiting for him outside. He's flashing leers left and right at anything with two legs and a pair of C cups, his hands in his pockets, holding up a dented locker. The flirting throws Sam for a momentary loop - then he remembers he's the tallest junior in this dirthole of a school. He must look like a good ally, the biggest blink on the radar. It doesn't make him disappointed, just… grey. That's the best word he's got. Grey like the long stretch of nothing between night and day, the time no one cares about or stays awake to see.
When Dean sidles up to him, he finds himself glancing at him anyway. "Got yourself a rep already."
Dean bounces on his heels. "Good or bad?"
"Depends."
"All lies, Sammy." He laughs. "Though I gotta say, snakes taste much better."
Sam rolls his eyes and doesn't press back when Dean bumps into him, just scuffs his feet and ignores the gaping stare he receives from a pair of freshmen losers - yeah, he's tall, so what. He can't fucking get it why it takes three months at a new place for every noob to get over that. And why it seems to fascinate Dean that much. Well, fuck him, Sam's not interested. Not much, anyway.
At lunch, he plants himself down at his usual table, the one in the corner farthest from the doors. When he has to go on two meals a day, he usually chooses breakfast and dinner, sleeps lunch away in the library. He isn't sure why he decided to forgo breakfast this time, because he's fucking tiredand feels like keeling over from hunger, but the last straw that makes him regret it is Dean Winchester, singling him out as soon as he got a tray in his hands and coming over to him.
He drops into the chair opposite Sam and shovels a forkful of lunch into his mouth as though he wasn't trespassing on Sam's territory of solitude.
"You mind?" Sam raises his eyebrows and spreads his hands, incredulous.
Dean looks up for a quick, relaxed smile. "Nope."
Sam's blood boils. He doesn't want anyone to disturb his routine, he wants to stay in the background, away from the spotlight. He can already feel calculating eyes on him, trying to guess why the sexy new boy bothers to associate with him. He doesn't need that shit in his life.
"This is my table. Go find one for yourself."
"I'm quite comfy, thanks."
Sam has no idea what to do with this shameless audacity. He kicks at Dean's leg and falls into a scuffle when Dean kicks him back, stops only when he realizes this is essentially a heated footsie. Since chasing Dean off doesn't work, he tries the ignore-and-look-away route then, sits at an angle and glares at anyone who dares give him the side-eye. His mistake - by the time he chews through a mouthful and glances back at his plate, he only has two thirds of his fries and twice as many pickles as he originally had. Dean's plate is clear of vegetables.
"What are you doing?" Sam grits out, setting Dean's plate on fire in his mind.
"Eating fries and - what's this again? A coal bun?" Dean's voice struggles its way through the piece of burnt meatloaf in his mouth.
"No, Dean, what are you doing?" Sam snaps. He needed those fucking fries. Yeah, he likes pickles, but they ain't gonna hold him up until dinner. "I'm not your fucking friend."
"Don't I know it." Dean snorts, then leans back with an arm on the chair next to his, shrugging. "I dunno, man, I like you. You are entertaining."
Sam is not a fucking TV. "Find your fun elsewhere, asshole."
He stands up with his plate and stomps away, all but runs into the library to calm himself with the smell of dust and old paper. It's the closest to peace he ever gets nowadays.
Sam has yet to find a class more cringeworthy than PE. The mere sight of the locker room makes the acid in his stomach churn. He doesn't wanna change. Has a damn good reason why, too. No one wishes to be the poor abused outcast whom everyone gawks at when his shirt is off. No, Sam would rather be the guy who's always ten minutes late in and out, the weirdo who sticks to long sweats instead of comfy shorts.
He looks like a beanpole, but he isn't green at this shit, so it's not like the guy got him too bad last night, but he received a blow to the ribs and that ain't gonna pass as a hickey. Sam doesn't want anyone to catch sight of it. Hell no. The last thing he needs is some tattletale nagging him about it. But with Dean lingering by his bench in the hopes of catching a time when Sam isn't blowing hot and cold, he has no choice. Not really.
"Oh." Dean makes a surprised sound when the clothes lift away from Sam's chest.
Sam wishes he could fool himself into believing he was sexy enough to get that reaction. As it is, he throws on his shirt and purses his lips all the way to the gym. He doubts Dean will let it go without pushing for details. Keeping boundaries doesn't seem to be his forte.
During basketball, one of the clumsy dumbasses elbows into Sam's bruised ribs and he doubles over, hissing. He's this close to lashing out at the guy when Coach Wilson sends him off to the nurse. Fuck that, Sam thinks and wedges himself into the storage room, banking on a bit of shut-eye on the gym mattresses there.
It couldn't have been more than ten minutes though when Dean shows up with a grin and a bag of M&Ms, as though they are both for Sam to take.
"Piss break." He explains and throws himself next to Sam, sits with one leg pulled up and the other stretched stubborn-hot against Sam's own. In the thin ray of light that streams in through the age-old dirt of the window, the dusting of golden hair on the inside of his thigh gleams. Sam's fingertips ache to curl into that pale flesh and see how soft and pliable it would be under the grip of his palm.
Shit. Sam closes his eyes, swallows, tries not to breathe too obviously. Why, he doesn't know. It just feels like maybe he could become invisible then, watch Dean without the fear of him looking back and judging. The candy in Dean's mouth crunches between his teeth, over and over again. Sam waits for a break in the rhythm and thinks he's simultaneously dying and combusting with life. How the fuck could the most annoying sound in the universe make his heart pound?
"I've got something in the car." Dean mumbles, busy fishing for the last few balls of chocolate stuck in the corner of the bag. "You know, for your ribs."
"I'm fine." Sam starts, but has to trail off into a glare when Dean pokes him at his tender side.
"You got rid of it, didn't you?" Dean grins. From Sam's vantage point directly below, he has the slightest curve of fat under his jaw. It looks so biteable Sam wants to surge up and suck a mark into it. "The gun."
Nosy jerk. "Yeah. Bastard kept shooting holes in the milk cartons when Mom made him angry." Sam grunts to disguise the breath he loses when Dean's leg shifts and he can feel the muscles twitch even through his sweatpants. "Do you know how a rotting milk stain smells on a carpet?"
"Can't be worse than day-old vomit in a car's trunk." Dean snickers, and the genuine, awful humour of it floods Sam with fire. It's a suffocating rush.
"How long have you got?" Sam sits up to make breathing easier, but his leg might as well be paralysed. He can't bring himself to move it, keeps it awkwardly stretched just so that it can hold Dean's warmth a little longer. It feels pathetic. Clingy. But every spot of contact makes the base of Sam's spine tingle.
"Of what, my juvie sentence? Hate to break it to you, buddy, but my sheet is clean as a nun's." Dean smiles and he's so close, Sam can see the blue stain in the corner of his mouth where a candy's coating melted. He wants to lap it up. "Officially." Dean adds.
Sam's lips part to let him pant through his mouth. Up close, he can smell Dean now, the Axe under his shirt and the sugar on his tongue, the sweat he worked up before he left the game. Sam's stomach whoops when he thinks of burying his nose in that stink and coming out high on it.
"Until you turn eighteen, you moron."
Dean's eyes twinkle. "Ten months." He shrugs. "But I already have a part-time gig at Joe's, helping out with the classics. I could drop out if I wanted."
"Oh." That… shouldn't be a surprise. Not everyone's here because they don't have any other choice. "Why don't you do it then?"
Dean shrugs, averts his eyes. "Family." Is all he says. "You?"
"More than a year." Sam sighs. Sixteen sucks. He imagines seventeen won't make much difference either. He follows the green of Dean's eyes as they flicker around the room, then come back. Their beauty stands in such sharp contrast to the rough cut of Dean's cheekbones that he is crushed by the sight. His words tumble out like paper planes flying through a window, bereft of meaning as soon as their flight ends. "But I've been thinking about, you know. Leaving earlier. This shit gets old fast."
"What about your mom?"
"Do I look like I care?" Sam scoffs, then jerks away when the storage's door opens and one of his classmates throws in a basketball. As he clambers up from the mattress, he catches Dean's sincere reply.
"Yeah. You do."
He's glad they have been interrupted before he said anything stupid to that. He knows he would have.