Another flashback, though, this time, it's not nearly as graphic.

A quick-but-heartfelt thank-you to everyone who has favorited, followed, and, especially, reviewed.

It really does mean a lot.

Standing on ratty carpet that had probably been green at some point in the sixties, Dean crossed one ankle behind the other and leaned his elbows on the desk, and passed the least-suspicious of his credit cards to the check-in girl with two fingers and a smile. She had pink hair, which was most definitely not something he usually went for, and looked like she couldn't be a day over sixteen. Still, it never hurt to get into an employee's good books. Especially when you were staying someplace like the Cholla Motel, where most of the doors didn't actually seem to have locks on them anymore.

The girl smiled back, revealing braces - Yeah, not even going to touch that - with rubber bands the exact same shade of pink as her hair. After swiping Dean's card, she gave it back to him, and tapped idly at the dinosaur of a computer in front of her.

"So. One room, two beds?" she asked, more perky than anyone working someplace like this had a right to be.

"Yeah - " Dean began amiably, at the same time that Sam, who had been standing at the other end of the minuscule lobby and examining a fake plant, spun around with a plaintive, "What? No."

The girl blinked, clearly confused, and Dean straightened up with a very deep sigh threatening to tear its way out of him. He glanced back at Sam, who, obviously embarrassed, avoided his eyes.

"Give us a minute," he told the girl, before crossing the room with a few long strides. He almost crowded Sam into the corner that held the fake plant, in an effort to both keep the coming conversation private and be as close to him as possible, before realizing that that just might get him punched in the face. Lowering his voice to a raspy growl, he asked, "What's wrong with you?"

Sam looked away, a brooding expression on his face and the muscles of his jaw flexing.

"I'm...not comfortable sharing a room," he said quietly.

Dean made a split-second decision not to push him or tease him, not to test whatever fragile pace they'd manged to achieve on the way here. It was a far cry from what had been between them two years ago, from what he wanted, but at least Sam wasn't intentionally trying to hurt him anymore. And he could sense that he'd calmed down, gotten his emotions under control. He still didn't understand where all the hate and anger directed at him had come from, but it had ebbed for the moment, and he didn't want to ruin that. So he kept the hundred smartass comments that immediately popped into his head to himself, despite how much it hurt to know that Sam couldn't bring himself to sleep in the same room as him. He remembered when Sam couldn't even get to sleep without being in the same bed with him, either hugging him close or letting himself be held so he wouldn't be alone for even a second.

Just because he wasn't going to push him didn't mean he was going to pay for a second room, though.

"Okay," he said agreeably. "You can sleep in the car."

Sam blinked big hazel eyes at him, shocked, and Dean wanted to pull him down to his level and kiss away that shock, cute as it might be.

"Just try not to touch anything any more than you have to," he added, talking to take his mind off something he just wasn't allowed to do right now. "She's in mint condition, and I'd kill to keep her that way."

"I'm not sleeping in the car," Sam snapped at him. "Dude, just...get another room..."

"Safer just to get one." Dean tapped the pocket that held his wallet, and, therefore, his stash of illegitimate credit cards. "The less money we spend, the less red flags go up at Visa."

He didn't reply, just shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and turned away slightly with a heavy, resigned, "I-can't-even-believe-this-is-my-life" sigh. Because he didn't seem inclined to argue further, Dean almost felt like giving into him. But, no, it had to be just one room. That was one of Dad's rules, one he'd believed in fiercely enough to keep enforcing it even after he found out what his sons were getting up to in the bed they shared.

"I'll stay on my side of the room," Dean said, his voice as gentle as he dared to make it. "Promise."

"'Kay." Sam had the look of someone who wished they were somewhere, anywhere else than their current location. He didn't really blame him for not fighting harder, even though, he could tell, he really didn't want to do this. It'd been a long day spent almost entirely in the Impala, they were both tired, and no closer to finding Dad. Sam had called the local hospitals, looking for a guy in the ICU or the morgue who matched their dad's description, but hadn't turned up anything. Which, as far as Dean was concerned, basically just meant that he was either too badly hurt to get help for himself or lying dead someplace no one would stumble upon his body.

He raised a hand to slap his brother reassuringly on the shoulder, remembered Sam's earlier adamancy about not being touched, and just gave him a smile he hoped was apologetic instead. After getting the room key and digging their bags out of the back seat of the car, Dean led the way into a surprisingly-spacious, cactus-themed room. A flimsy-looking divider separated a tiny dining area from two queen-sized beds, placed disconcertingly close together, a TV, and a closed door that, most likely, led into a bathroom.

It looks just like that place in Oklahoma. Summer of eighty-eight.

Dean surprised himself with the thought, mostly because it'd been so long ago. But, yeah, the room's layout was exactly the same as the one they'd stayed in while Sam started kindergarten and he started fourth grade.

Oh. Sam's first day of school. Mud on his clothes, backpack missing, tiny little sobs of pain and fear bouncing off walls that had been arranged exactly like these.

Yeah. He remembered that.

Sam dumped his backpack on the bed that was closer to the door and then dropped into one of the chairs at the tiny table. He pulled out his cell phone, dialing, and by the way his face lit up when someone on the other end answered, Dean guessed that he'd called his girlfriend. The blonde. He felt a momentary stab of vindictive satisfaction when he realized that Sam's expression for her wasn't laced with quite the same enthusiasm as the look he'd get on his face when he saw him, back when things still made sense. It was a tiny, pathetic victory, but a victory nonetheless.

It took him about ten seconds to figure out that their conversation wasn't going to be very interesting ("We got here safe, we're in a motel. No, I'm fine, don't worry...Yeah, he's fine, too...how are you? Are you done with that diagram of the circulatory system yet?"). He laid out flat on the bed that Sam hadn't claimed, the muscles of his back and arms hurting in the best possible way as he stretched them after a long day of driving.

Oklahoma.

Summer of eighty-eight.

Sammy's first day of school.

For some reason, brushing shallowly against that memory like he'd been doing just wasn't shaking it. Some part of him wanted to relive it, so he sighed and laced his fingers together behind his head, closing his eyes. He really wasn't looking forward to the first three quarters or so of this, but everything that came after that...he could live with.

Mid-August, 1988

The kindergarten was closer to the motel they were staying at than the elementary school, which Dean had mixed feelings about. On one hand, he could walk Sammy to school in the mornings, without having to worry about him going the last few blocks alone or having to double back after dropping him off. And that was nice. But, on the other hand, Dad had decided, before he left, that Sam could have the key to the room and walk home on his own. He was starting school, five years old, and it was Dad's opinion that that was old enough to start doing some stuff without his brother.

Dean just wasn't comfortable with that, though he'd never disobey Dad's orders where he could see him. Which was why he had walked Sammy right up to the door of his new school this morning, checked that he had everything he needed - backpack, crayons, blanket, notebook; all of about the same low quality as the few supplies Dean himself had - and told him to wait for him after school. He estimated that it would only take him about five minutes to get over here, if he hurried.

The first day of school, for him, was pretty much exactly like it had been last year, and the year before that, and how he was begging to expect it to be for the rest of his academic career. His teacher, whose name he didn't even bother to learn because they'd be leaving soon, didn't like him. He didn't have most of the supplies he needed, he'd missed a lot of school last year during a hunt involving a nixie and so wasn't too great at multiplication, and his dad hadn't come to the mandatory parents' meeting before school started (Dean thought about telling them that he hadn't come because he'd been digging up a grave that, funnily enough, actually contained the wrong bones, then realized that that would probably go over like a ton of bricks and get him sent to the principal's office). The other kids didn't like him. He didn't want to make friends (he'd have to leave them, and, besides, he didn't actually need any friends, he had Sammy), his clothes were all secondhand, and one pocket of his beat-up black backpack was filled with rock salt and iron nails. A bit of which spilled on the floor during art class.

Dean didn't care. All he could think about was his little brother. He really wondered what and how he was doing - he thought that Sam was probably a lot smarter than him, and he'd been looking forward to school. He just wanted the final bell to ring so he could pick up Sammy and they could go home, hop up onto the bed they were sharing, talk about his day and hopefully touch each other in all the amazing ways they'd found over the last two years.

He just hoped Sam did what he'd told him to. He couldn't shake images of something with claws and fangs and red eyes snatching him right off the sidewalk as he walked home, or a hulking, inhuman figure waiting just inside the room and picking him up by his silky brown hair the second he came inside. Making him scream in pain and kick wildly and cry out for his big brother, who wouldn't get there in time.

Ironically enough, none of his "worst-case-scenario" fantasies included any humans besides Sammy. He was just a little boy, the ideal target for a certain type of person, but Dean was pretty sure that Sam could handle any purebred homo sapiens.

Dean was the first one out of the classroom when the bell rang, thrusting his arms through the straps of his backpack and feeling it smack home on his shoulder blades. He was sure that people were giving him weird looks as he jogged the whole way to the kindergarten, going faster than a normal kid would on his way home from school, but at nine, he was already getting used to strange stares and people whispering behind his back. He slowed down when he saw the wire fence around the building he had dropped Sammy off at this morning and the double doors that led into it.

Sam wasn't there.

Calm down, Dean told himself, even as his heart went from zero to a hundred in a second flat and his adrenaline levels skyrocketed. I'm sure he's just around back.

He looked, kicking up a spray of wood chips as he charged around the building and into the playground area. There were a couple kids there, messing around, but one had red hair and one was a girl. Not Sam.

Someone must have spotted him running around like a lunatic out there, because one of the doors of the school creaked open behind him. Dean turned to see a woman - probably a teacher - walking towards him. He stayed where he was, let her approach him, even though his heart was still hammering against his ribcage and the need to find his baby brother and make sure he was all right got more powerful every second.

"Can I help you?" the woman asked, in a tone of voice that made it very clear that she would do anything at all to get rid of him. She wasn't the kind of woman Dad ran off with every once in awhile, the kind Dean was most familiar with and not terribly impressed by. Her shirt covered most of her chest and all of her stomach, so he figured he could trust her.

"I'm looking for my little brother," he explained reluctantly. "Sammy Winchester. 'Bout yea high - " He demonstrated, putting a hand at chest level on himself. " - long brown hair, red backpack."

"Oh." Her unsympathetic borderline-glare softened. "Are you Dean? You must be. Sam went home early."

He barely even wondered why she'd known his name. He zeroed in on that last sentence, blankly asking, "What?"

"He didn't want to stay, after what happened, and I didn't blame him. He said he could walk home, your father would be there - "

Dean was off like a bullet out of a gun before she even finished talking, getting back to the motel the one and only thing on his mind. He didn't stop to demand just what the hell'd happened, to make Sammy lie like that and leave school. He was furious, and sick with guilt, and, most of all, terrified.

Mid-September, 2005

"We still have some daylight left. We should probably try and take advantage of it."

Sam's voice, reasonable and calm and wholly dispassionate, brought Dean out of the light doze he'd slipped into. Realizing that the drone of the one-sided phone conversation had stopped and Sam was talking to him, he forced himself into a sitting position with a loud groan, scrubbing a hand across his eyes. He'd always hated sleeping in the daytime, hated how it made him feel sluggish and completely off his game for hours after and how it just completely went against every human instinct he had. Sometimes, though, the day was the only safe time to sleep.

"Whaddaya mean?" Dean slurred, blinking back exhaustion and a memory that had transitioned into dream format halfway through.

"This place doesn't have wi-fi. I'm going to head to the local library, find out what I can about this Army base from the internet and the old newspapers," Sam said, looking away and rubbing a hand up through his hair.

Dean, having regained control of most of his brain, grinned widely. He had missed Sam's input, his affinity for the job, and the working partnership they'd just been starting to develop when he'd left; more than he cared to admit. Not to mention the fact that he absolutely loved that brooding, serious expression he got on his face whenever he got really into whatever he was researching. That always prompted gentle kisses running down the back of his neck, then hands gripping his hips hard enough to leave bruises, then Dean growling the filthiest things he could think of into his ear in increasingly-desperate efforts to get him away from the books and into bed.

He got a grip on himself when he realized that Sam was almost certainly going to make that face soon, and he couldn't touch him when he did.

"Kinda like riding a bike, isn't it?" he asked approvingly. Sam just shook his head slightly, looking distant.

"You can talk to people around town while I'm at the library," he said, heading for the door. "Use one of those fake badges Dad made."

Dean wasn't anywhere near as stupid as most of his teachers had assumed he was, and it only took him about a second to realize that this was almost wholly an excuse for Sam to get away from him. He did his best to pretend it didn't hurt as much as it actually did as he pushed himself to his feet and raised his eyebrows.

"Interrogation really works better with two men, Sammy," he said, and the nickname was out before he could even stop it.

Sam stopped dead, slowly turning to face him. And, for a second, Dean thought he saw something a whole lot softer than the usual hatred and disgust in his eyes, something wounded and shy and loving that reminded him of the best times they'd had together, something that hurt and wanted just as much as he did. But he must have imagined it, because, in a deadly-calm voice that was seething with rage under the surface, his brother snapped out, "It's 'Sam,' Dean. Just 'Sam.' 'Sammy' was the twelve-year-old who spread 'em for you every time you told him to because he didn't know any better."

Dean wished that he'd just start kicking him between the legs or something instead of saying these things, because, honestly, that would probably hurt less. He hated his dick brother for taking away the one thing in his life that wasn't horrifying or fleeting or dull inevitable, and he hated himself for not having the balls to grab Sam and throw him against the wall as hard as he could. He wasn't sure what he'd do with him once he was there, though. If he'd hit him until he bled or kiss him until he was gasping for air.

"I'm sorry." And he was, but only that he still felt so much for him when it obviously wasn't returned. So he could keep stabbing at him and watching him bleed and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.

All he could do was follow him out, wanting to reach out and hold him and make that soft thing come back, knowing he couldn't, trying to content himself with remembering when he could.

Mid-August, 1988

When Dean burst through the unlocked door of the motel room, he expected a pack of werewolves to charge, snarling, at him. A contingent of revenants to fall on his skull with a chorus of moans, Black Dogs to look up from his brother's mangled body and howl mournfully. But nothing like that greeted him. What he got instead was a seemingly-empty room and the quiet, shaky snuffles of a five-year-old who knew he wasn't supposed to cry but had been pushed way too far to be able help it.

All of his aggression drained away even as the crying abruptly stopped, the opening of the door apparently startling its source into silence. He closed the door quietly behind him, stepping into the room and softly calling, "Sammy?"

There was no response for a couple of seconds, and then a tiny, broken voice that he could barely even associate with his bright, upbeat little brother timidly asked, "Dean?"

He walked into the room, past the little dining area and right up next to their bed, the one closest to the door. Sammy was sitting on the floor on the other side of it, legs drawn up to his chest and face resting against his knees. When Dean approached, he raised his head, and Dean's stomach dropped into his sneakers. There was something thick and dark in his hair, on his clothes, spattered across his face, and there wasn't enough light in the room to tell if it was mud or blood or something worse. One of his eyes was almost swollen shut, and he looked utterly miserable.

"Oh, my God." Dropping into a crouch right in front of Sammy, Dean automatically reached for him, demanding, "What the hell happened?"

Sammy didn't immediately move towards him, like he expected him to. He just pressed his face against his knees again, squeezing fistfuls of his too-big jeans with his small hands. He muttered something about being called a freak during recess by some bigger boys, getting the words out between tiny, hiccupy sobs. They said his clothes were weird, he talked funny, he was a know-it-all and a shrimp and a bunch of other names he didn't feel like repeating. He'd done his best not to react, and that made them mad. When they pushed him into the mud, he fought back, and that made them madder. When he'd gone inside with a black eye and a split lip, he hadn't told his teacher who'd done it because (his childish reasoning came into play here) he figured he had enough problems without being labeled a snitch or a crybaby. And then he came home.

Finishing up his story, Sammy started crying again, in earnest. Dean felt like a pot ready to boil over, so furious he could hardly think straight. He wanted to track down the kids who had done this, make them hurt like they had made Sammy hurt. He didn't care that they were just kindergarteners. He was madder than he could ever remember being in his entire life, and the only thing that kept him from jumping to his feet and heading out to mete out a little justice was the urge to comfort his brother. And the knowledge that revenge probably wasn't the best way to do that.

He knelt, legs spread wide to give Sam room to get right up against him, and opened his arms again. This time, Sammy immediately took him up on the unspoken offer, pushing away from the bed and pressing himself against Dean with a heartbreaking little sound of comfort. He clutched his shirt, sobbing into his chest as Dean put his arms around him and held him as tight as he could without hurting him. He stroked Sammy's hair with one hand, rubbing soothingly between his shoulder blades with the other, and knew that he'd made the right decision, staying here and doing this. Sam didn't hate like he did, didn't get nearly as angry, hadn't had the concept of revenge drummed into him by Dad. He was a little kid who'd just had his very first taste of how the world and almost everyone in it was gonna try to hurt him, and being held while he cried out all his shock and pain was probably better for him than getting back at the guys who pushed him down and called him names.

Dean was too young to think about it now, but, years later, he would realize that Sam didn't even remember them. The only guy who stuck out in his memory of that time was the one who'd come rushing home to touch and talk softly and make everything better.

"Shh, shh, Sammy," Dean murmured. "It's okay. It's gonna be okay." He stood up, pulling Sammy to his feet, too, and keeping his arms loosely around him. "C'mon. Let's get you cleaned up."

He led him to the bathroom, undressing him while he sniffled and wiped embarrassedly at his eyes, then stripped himself without a second thought. They'd been showering together for as long as he could remember. It saved time, and Dad always seemed happy that he didn't have to help Sam wash his hair or whatever.

Leaving their clothes on the bathroom floor, Dean turned on the water, then guided his little brother under the hot spray before following him. He kept his hands above both their waists, just focusing on washing the mud out of Sammy's hair and off his face, letting him lean against him for support as he dabbed at every new bruise and minor cut he found on him. He was pretty sure that most of them hadn't actually come from today, but it still made him mad. He did his best to hide that, making Sammy tilt his head back so he wouldn't get soap in his eyes, smiling reassuringly as, slowly, he stopped crying. When all the soap had been washed out of his hair and off his skin, he sat down, looking exhausted. Dean was just getting ready to hustle him out of the shower and into bed when he looked up at him and asked, "Why aren't we normal?"

Dean blinked. "What?"

"How come we don't have a house like everyone else does? Or a mom?" Sam seemed oblivious when Dean flinched at the vague mention of their mother. "And Dad's never home, and he always tells you to take care of me, and you and him always put salt in the windows and in front of the door whenever we stay someplace."

He took a deep breath of the steamy air, crouching down so they were on the same level, more or less. He hadn't been expecting this question, but he knew that he probably should have been. As adamant as Dad was about keeping Sammy in the dark about what exactly he did, and as much as Dean agreed with him, the kid wasn't stupid. They were going to have to explain everything to him sooner or later, but...not now. Instead of telling the truth or thinking up some elaborate lie, Dean reached out to cup his face with one hand, noting that his eye was less swollen now.

"I don't know," he said softly, shaking his head. "But, y'know, this is normal, for us...and it could be a whole lot worse." He reached out with his other hand and pulled Sammy closer. "You're not a freak. They were just assholes."

"I'm not normal," Sam protested weakly.

"Fine. Then you're my freak." Hesitantly, Dean leaned down, and planted a quick, shy kiss on his brother's forehead. Kissing was okay, right? Kissing just meant love. And Sammy seemed to like it, judging by the way his eyes fluttered closed and he moved so that his bare chest pressed against Dean's. "And I don't care if you're not normal."

He knew what he wanted to do, and, heart beating fast, he kissed Sammy on the lips. And pulled away just as quickly as he'd touched his mouth to his baby brother's, so that it was really more of a peck. Convincing himself that he was just showing him he loved him, and he wasn't doing anything wrong, he cupped the back of Sammy's head and kissed him again. He held it longer this time, closing his eyes and holding him tightly, feeling his confusion and excitement and pleasure. This was okay. Sammy kissed back, his movements clumsy but intimate enough to make Dean shiver under the spray of hot water. Dean wouldn't be embarrassed even if Dad walked in on them right now.

Actually, no, that was a lie. He would be extremely embarrassed, and terrified of his reaction. He didn't want their dad to see him and Sammy kissing, and he hadn't even wanted him to know about what they'd been doing with each other before now, and he wasn't sure why. That scared him.

But Dad wasn't here right now. Dean leaned back against the tiled wall, crossing his legs Indian-style, then pulled Sam up so he was sitting in his lap. His legs wrapped automatically around his waist, and he braced his hands against his chest while Dean held him. Dean hesitated before kissing him again, unable to stop himself from thinking about actual, man-and-woman couples he'd seen, doing this, Dad with whatever woman he was about to disappear with until the morning. Love that wasn't exactly...brotherly. His grip on Sammy loosened, and, for the first time, he felt doubt about what they were doing. He wasn't sure it actually was okay.

"Ready to get out?" Dean asked, his uncertainty fueling the question. Sammy shook his head, leaning in to clumsily press his mouth against his older brother's, begging for deeper contact without saying a word. And that was enough to completely get rid of any inhibitions Dean had. At least, for the moment.

He kissed back, grip tightening again, and trailed his mouth down onto Sammy's neck, his chest, kissing down onto his stomach and making him giggle. Dean didn't protest when he took one hand off his chest and reached down between them, to gently run a hand over his cock, and returned the favor as soon as he started to stiffen. Keeping Sam as close as he could, he kissed him again, moaning a little against his mouth, and didn't break away until he did.

"You like this?" Dean asked, breathing heavily, pleasure shooting through his body and every part of him begging for more. Sammy, hands still on his brother's cock and doing exactly what he'd learned would feel best for him, nodded. He probably had no idea that Dean was just doing what felt good, what some instinct behind the pleasure urged him to, and that he'd stop in a second if he thought that Sammy wasn't enjoying it as much as he was.

He still wasn't sure about this anymore. But they'd already started; he saw no harm in finishing up.

Hours later, when they had both finished with each other, cleaned up a second time, and toweled off, Dean lay tangled together with Sammy. Their arms were wrapped around each other, their legs crossed over one another's, and Sam's head, hair still damp, rested on his chest. He sighed in contentment, burrowing a little deeper into him, and Dean closed his eyes.

"Do I have to go back to school tomorrow?" Sammy asked sleepily. Dean opened his eyes; he'd thought he'd fallen asleep.

"Yeah." He paused. "I'm sorry."

"...will you come with me?"

"I'm sorry, Sammy. I don't think I can."

"Oh." He sounded disappointed, but not surprised. "Will you come and get me after school?"

"'Course I will."

"And you'll stay with me?"

"Yeah."

"Always?"

"Yeah." Dean didn't even hesitate for a second before saying it. "Always. I promise." He nuzzled into his damp hair. "Whether you want me to or not."