Title: Four Times John Winchester Almost Got an Uncomfortable Suspicion Confirmed (and One Time He Did)
Author: nightrose_spn
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Warnings: heavily implied underage incest, language, mild sexual content
Summary: John Winchester isn't stupid. He starts to suspect that there's something not quite right between his boys the day he walks in on Dean "teaching Sam how to kiss". And it just gets worse from there.
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: Dean is eighteen, Sam is fourteen. Reviews are love.
Disclaimer: All your Winchesters are not belong to me. Even all this disclaimer are not belong to me.
-One-
John walks into the house. It's a little after five, in the afternoon this time. What a relief, to be home before the middle of the fucking night. Maybe he'll actually get to spend some time with his sons, for once. God, he feels awful. Sometimes he thinks that Mary's memory would be better served by raising them happy and normal rather than trying to destroy her killer to the exclusion of all else.
But they'll have dinner like a normal family, ignoring the fact that home is a motel room, they'll watch a bad movie and maybe even talk.
His hopeful thoughts crash into pieces on the floor the moment he walks in the room.
All he can see is Dean's back, a bit of long-for-a-guy or short-for-a-girl tan hair, and one giant hand wrapped around his son's waist.
Wow, this is awkward.
There's a half-second pause before he recognizes the fingers gripping Dean's shirt, the leg that's coming up to wrap around his waist.
Oh God. Jesus fucking Christ. This is not good, this is not good, this is very very very bad.
Because the anonymous stranger his son is dry-humping and making out with until it looks like the shorter body is about to disappear into the wall? Is no stranger at all. It's… It's Sam.
John, caught between several conflicting desires, settles on clearing his throat. He decides that's better, than, say, spiking their drinks at dinner with holy water.
Dean turns around. Now Sam's face is clearly visible, a bright red flush across his cheeks and a half-smile on his face which fades instantly when he sees his father.
"Oh. Hi, Dad!" Dean says cheerfully.
"Um… uh… I…"
Dean is a little too normal, for someone who's just been caught, by his father, apparently trying to eat his baby brother's face. "How did the hunt go?"
"Pretty well." If it weren't for the flushed and spluttering Sam (who also has a very prominent erection), John would think he's suffering some kind of bizarre post-traumatic stress from the hunt and seeing things. Really disturbing things.
"Um… What… You… Sam…"
Dean chuckles. "Sammy's got a girlfriend."
"And that explains why the two of you were…" God, he's going to try and pretend that never happened.
His older son shrugs. "Sammy asked me to teach him how to kiss." Then his eyes widen almost comically. "You thought that… Ew, no. I like chicks, Dad, thanks. In case you hadn't noticed. And Sammy's my brother. Gross, dude. Way gross."
John breathes a sigh of relief.
It's later, when the two boys are asleep in their bed, not touching at all, that John remembers he was the one who taught Dean how to lie.
Then again, a week ago he'd caught Dean with some random girl in exactly the same compromising position.
Maybe he has nothing to worry about. He'll just keep an eye out.
-Two-
John wakes up to stifled moans and the sound of rhythmic thumping. There's a moment or two in which he exists in a happy state of denial.
Ugh, Dean. Bringing girls home in the middle of the fucking night again. And with his little brother in the room!
"Dean…" he hears, cut off by harsh breathing, and recognizes Sam's voice immediately. Looks like the room isn't the only thing Sam's in. Or maybe it's the other way around. And, Christ, that was the last visual image in the entire world John Winchester wanted.
"Don't stop now, Sam."
"This really fucking hurts, Dean."
"Suck it up, Princess. I've done it, and you will too."
Now the question John didn't really ask in his head is answered. His older son is deflowering the younger. In the next room. And this would all be so much easier to deal with if it weren't five fucking thirty in the morning.
"You suck at comforting people, you know that?"
"Hey, you're the one who wanted to try this."
"Jerk."
There's a decided smirk in Dean's voice as he replies, "Bitch."
Oh, that's fucking it. John stands, rubbing his sore eyes, and starts to walk towards their bedroom. He's composing a little speech in his head, something along the lines of… Okay, he has no idea what to say.
He's kept his eyes open over the years. He's looked out for drug use, even self-injury. He knows the life they have to lead can't be easy on the boys. Most of all he's suspected that they'll find some girl, that a pretty face and an easy smile will seduce one of them (probably Sam) away from the hunt and each other.
An incestuous affair between his two otherwise completely heterosexual sons?
So not something it ever occurred to John to worry about.
He opens his door, approaching theirs across the hall. The sound of the grunts get louder. He's about to barge in on them when he hears a loud sigh of relief. "Ugh."
"Told you you could do a hundred pushups, Sammy."
"Would've been easier without you sitting on me, jerk."
John laughs and goes to pour himself a cup of coffee.
-Three-
He comes home late. The spirit had gotten angry when he was about to salt and burn the bones, and he'd had to fight the damn thing off for an hour before he'd been able to get the match to the skeleton. He's fucking wiped, not to mention starving. He hopes the boys left some food in the fridge.
He's humming "Wayward Son" as he opens the door. The motel room is silent, though, darkened and apparently empty. While he's gone, Dean usually sleeps in his room (he pays for two bedrooms, the boys are men now and three men in one motel room gets a little crowded). However, he doesn't see Dean when he goes into his room to throw his duffle down on the bed.
Just to be on the safe side, John pokes his head into the other room. Those boys are going to be in big trouble if they're out this late. Dean has his orders—it's school and right back home when John's on a hunting trip.
But, sure enough, they're in Sam's room. Both of them lie in the bed, and that makes him uncomfortable for a second before he really looks at it.
Sam and Dean are fast asleep. They're both wearing boxers, but nothing else. The tan skin of Dean's arm is casually flung over his brother, overlapping Sam's paler skin against the white sheet.
They breathe in and out with the same rhythm. As John watches, Sam snuggles a little closer into Dean's chest. A smile drifts across the older boy's face. God, John hasn't seen Dean this happy… this peaceful, since…
He doesn't remember. The last time he saw anything approaching this level of sweetness and love on his son's face, Dean was four and kissing Sam goodnight the day their mother burnt on the ceiling.
It's good to see Dean happy for once in his life. And Sam looks safe, relieved, like he's not terrified, unhappy in his own skin. John couldn't put a name to the pain always behind his boys' eyes until he saw it gone, but now it's all too obvious what this life is doing to them.
Dean's too young to be father and mother to Sam, Sam's a child who hasn't ever known a home or a parent. And they look it, sleeping here in each others' arms, their bravado slipping away as their breaths, slow and careful, match peacefully.
He smiles and closes the door behind his boys.
-Four-
John stops for a drink this time. It's just a little after midnight. Today is the anniversary of Mary's death, and this has become his sad tradition. He takes an hour that isn't for his vengeance or his sons and gets drunk in some bar, until he's ready to vomit, his vision blurring, can barely drive home and stumble into bed. It's the one time he lets himself drink heavily, the one time he numbs the pain with alcohol and not the hunt.
It's a shitty bar in the middle of nowhere. Maybe a half-hour away from the motel where his boys are.
There's no one inside but a middle-aged bartender with dyed red hair. She flirts half-heartedly with John as she pours out the whisky.
Silently, he slings it down. He's on the fourth drink when the door opens.
A young couple walks in. The taller of the two men has his arm around his boyfriend. They're laughing and laughing, the late hour or the alcohol they must have already had lowering their inhibitions enough that they don't hesitate to lean in for a kiss or two as the barkeep slides over their beers.
John smiles. It does his heart good, to see two kids so obviously in love. He couldn't care less that they're both men, that stuff is all nonsense anyway. And the way they lean towards each other, like they don't even know they're doing it, reminds him of himself and Mary, all those years ago.
Then he stands to leave, and he freezes.
Long, brown hair falling into big hazel eyes, that puppy-dog smile…
He looks at his sons for a second before Sam says, "Sir?"
And then he blinks and his vision clears. He realizes, abruptly, that it isn't Sam and Dean. The kid doesn't even look that much like him, except the hair and the eyes.
And the way he smiles up, adoringly, worshipfully, at Dean.
"Sorry," he says quickly. "I thought you were someone I knew."
"That's okay."
"You have a nice night!" his boyfriend adds. John smiles, politely, back, and heads for the door.
Just a couple of stupid kids in love.
-Five-
"Dad? We have something to tell you." There's a stutter in Sam's voice, and he won't look up at John.
"Yeah, kiddo?" He tries not to sound as harsh as he usually does. He knows it isn't always easy for Sammy to come talk to him these days—the boy is adolescent with a vengeance.
"I… We… I… Dean and me… We…"
Suddenly, Sam turns to his brother and buries his face in Dean's chest. It's obvious he isn't going to say anymore, since his shoulders are shaking as he hyperventilates, his whole body trembling with the stress.
Dean gently rubs his back, runs his fingers through Sam's hair, and waits. When Sam has stopped trembling, Dean talks for him. His voice is quiet, calm, and authoritative. Bizarrely, John is proud of him for how he's handling this.
"Dad, we can't keep this from you anymore. It isn't fair to you, and it's too much stress on Sammy to have to hide it."
Jesus Christ, Dean, do you ever think of yourself?
"Sam and I… you know how much we love each other." He takes a very deep breath. "And in the last year… it hasn't just been as brothers."
Sammy makes a little squeaking noise and buries himself ever-deeper into Dean's chest.
"We're in love, Dad. And I'm sorry, but there's nothing you can do about it. If I have to, I'll take Sammy somewhere else. Don't try to separate us… sir. Because it won't work."
John waits for a moment. Lets them squirm. And then he says, quietly, "Dean, I've known for a while now."
"Really?" Sam asks, his voice shooting up about twelve octaves.
Ah, youth.
"Really. 'Sides, what did you think I was going to do? You're my sons, it's not like I can file a restraining order."
The guilty glance they share says quite clearly that they'd considered that possibility.
"But if you two break each other's hearts over this, I will go for my gun. Are we clear?"
"Yes, sir!"
Relieved smiles break across their faces.
"Also, would you mind saving the… uh, you know… for when I'm not in town?"
Dean grins cockily. "Oh, we don't uh you know. Sammy here is only fourteen, Dad."
"He's your brother, Dean. It's illegal twice over anyway."
"Hah! Told you," Sam shoots, and before John has time to panic over the chance that he might have just encouraged his sons to have sex Dean interrupts him.
"Too damn bad, Princess. You can keep it in your pants for another two years. I've committed enough crimes in my day, I don't really want to add statutory rape to the list. Thanks all the same."
Sam sticks out his tongue and Dean grabs him in a headlock.
"Boys!" John calls loudly, and they all laugh.
"Is there breakfast?" Dean asks.
"Damn, dude, you have a tapeworm or something?" Sam teases.
"Shut up and get me some food, bitch."
Sam sits down next to John, puts his feet up on the table. "Get it yourself."
While he's at it, he makes John's and Sam's, too.
They sit and eat together, talk about the hunt and everything else.
Finally, John has the time he's always wanted. The quiet time for them to be a family.
He never thought it would come quite like this, but he's not going to complain.