A/N: A little too easy? Come on! Sam and Dean never get anything the easy way.


Love Etc (Chapter 9) by frostygossamer


They lay there in the bed after finally getting there acts together in the same place at the same time. At long last they had gotten their asses in harmony, literally as well as figuratively. And that should have been 'happy ending' time, but...

OK. So far so good. Sam had gotten the man of his dreams in his bed and, yeah, for a first time it had been great. More than great, perfect. And Sam hoped that that was all that really mattered, right?

Dean, on the other hand, ought never to have been left to think. Dean had a skeptical little angel on his shoulder who made all the important decisions for him, and it had a tendency to nag.

Yet, as they lay sweaty and naked on Sam's Egyptian cotton sheets, it was Sam who spoke first.

"So, Don," he said. "You're a car mechanic."

Dean flinched. "Don?" he snapped, eyes wide in disbelief. "Don?! Who. The freak. Is Don?"

"YOU are. Uh? Damn it! Did I get that wrong too? Crap!" Sam gasped, suddenly mortified. "So, uh, what IS your name?"

"Dean. My name is Dean," Dean answered, exasperated. "Not freakin' Don. Jeez!"

It wasn't like he hadn't introduced himself, back there on the bus that very first day. Hell, HE had gotten Sam's name. Was this guy deaf or what? No wonder the dumb-ass hadn't called him. He had probably 'forgotten' his damn number too.

"Hey! Dean? That's not so far off," Sam chuckled. "Closer than the other stuff."

"What other stuff?" Dean asked, suspiciously.

"Well, I reckoned you were some kinda artist," explained Sam. "A sculptor, to be precise, in metal. Saw you on the bus with tools and I..."

"Sure I had tools," Dean cut in. "Mechanic's tools. I'd been working on Sean the bar owner's engine. You got some weird freakin' imagination, Sam."

"Guess I have," Sam agreed. "I kinda make money from my imagination."

Dean shook his head. The guy was a space cadet. He guessed it came with the nerdy territory.

So he smiled indulgently. "What else?"

"Figured you woulda gone to Art College," Sam went on. "And probably broke everyone's heart."

Dean snickered. "Never finished High School. But you're right, I DID break every kid's freakin' heart."

Sam turned his head on the pillow and admired Dean's pretty profile for a moment. God, that guy looked awesome. He was SO a heartbreaker.

"And I reckoned you woulda had your pick of the most knockout art scene chicks," he went on. "Reckoned you'd to be hitched to some sexy blonde peach." And that was a nervous question heavily disguised.

"Used to live with a cute blonde," Dean admitted, remembering those rocky few years with Jo. "Didn't work out."

Sam thought he sounded sort of wistful. "No?" he asked. "Why not?"

But Dean grinned broadly. "Guess it musta been cos I'm freakin' GAY!" And they both laughed aloud.

Dean couldn't believe how good it felt to finally say it, admit it out loud. Actually 'gay' was maybe an exaggeration, 'bi' was closer, but up till then Dean hadn't even really allowed himself to THINK anything more concrete than 'not totally straight'.

He rolled toward Sam and slipped his arms around the guy's broad shoulders. Damn, that dude was huge. Dean was no short-ass but Sam made him feel kind of... dainty.

"I was freakin' wrong about you too," he admitted. "Convinced myself you were married to that hottie Rachel, had maybe five kids, some goddamn white-picket-fence life. Figured maybe you just had a wayward freakin' eye."

"What? A gay eye?" Sam had to chuckle at that. "Nuh-uh," he replied, stroking Dean's spiky hair. "Rach is a colleague and good friend. My heart's been yours since the day we met."

After a moment to process that, Dean inhaled sharply. "Dude, you're talking about love," he gasped.

"Sure am," Sam agreed, his hazel eyes conveying total sincerity.

Dean really didn't know what to say or even what to think about that. He really, really DIDN'T want to think about that. So, instead, he just kissed Sam, long and hard.

Sam didn't seem to mind. "You're staying the night," he whispered against Dean's neck.

It was a statement not a question, but Dean answered anyways, "Sure, Sam."

At dawn the following morning, the early light found Sam and Dean thrown together in sleep. Dean was the first to wake.

And he was FULL of doubt.

He squirmed out from under the sprawled Sam, and scrabbled around gathering up his discarded clothes. By accident he picked up Sam's shorts, seeing them for the first time with clear eyes, and spotted the Galaxy Quest quotation emblazoned on them.

"Really, Sam," he snickered quietly. "I get that you're a nerd, but..."

He got as far as the door before Sam spoke.

"You hafta go?" Sam asked. "You know, don't ya, Dean? You NEVER have to go."

Dean sighed, his hand on the doorknob. "I do," he said. "This was... I dunno... weird."

"Weird?!" Sam gasped, sitting up in bed. "How 'weird'? What did I do?"

Dean shrugged. "It's not what you did. It's what you said, man."

When Sam simply stared at him in confusion, Dean clarified, "You started talking about... love."

"I...? And that's bad why?" Sam asked, perplexed.

"Because you don't KNOW me, Sam," Dean explained. "You've fallen for some romantic freakin' image of me that was all in your head. Hell, you didn't even get my damn name right."

Sam opened and closed his mouth, and stuttered, "Bu-but... I know stuff..."

Dean let go the doorknob, but remained standing in the doorway. He was halfway out; he wasn't coming back.

"No, you don't," he disagreed, calmly. "I know plenty stuff about YOU. Like your name is Sam Winchester, you speak three or four languages, taught at Stanford and own a cutting-edge tech business. You're a freakin' nerd millionaire, Sam. You listen to classical music and freakin' faggoty power ballads, and Rachel is your business partner NOT your girlfriend. And, and..."

"But, Dean..." Sam tried to cut in, but Dean continued determinedly.

"You're a single, gay, adorable dork, Sam, but you don't know crap about me. You're INFATUATED not in love."

He fidgeted with the door and avoided Sam's eyes, glancing down at the floor.

"And this is not gonna work," he finished. "For what it's worth... I'm sorry."

With that Dean slipped out the door, and was gone before Sam could drag on his pants and run outside after him.

Dean quickly jumped on the next bus that came along. Of course it was THEIR bus, the first one of the day, and he was the only traveller on board. He dropped in a seat and sighed as he was carried away from the world of condos and SUVs, and back towards his home ground of cheap rented apartments and footsloggers, getting down where he normally got on.

When he got in his place, Dean realized he badly needed a shower. He was wearing his bar clothes, the bottle-green T-shirt decorated with Sean's logo, a stupid, smiling shamrock motif which in no way matched his mood. His street clothes were still where he had left them, at the bar.

He stripped everything off and plunged under the red-hot waterfall. Closing his eyes, Dean allowed the steaming water to flow over him in healing rivulets. And his mind snapped right back to Sam. Sam with his big hands squeezing Dean's butt, his mouth on Dean's throat. Sam enormous and all over him like some freakin' tsunami, intense, powerful, undeniable. Jeez!

Dean sagged against the shower wall. He had just walked out on the most perfect person he had ever met. Why? Because he was a guy! But, God, what a guy! He had to be insane.

Oh yeah, it had been right, what he said to Sam. Sam DIDN'T know him. The jackass had cooked up a complete fantasy that had nothing to do with Dean. True, Dean WAS kind of an artist in metal. He DID have the hands of an artist, an artist in automotive repair. He liked to think of himself as a virtuoso, and he could make an engine growl like Hendrix's Fender Stratocaster. Only, he had never made it to college. He had done pretty good at high school, but John couldn't afford it. So why did Sam have to rub his nose in that? Freakin' Stanford Boy!

Yet Sam was a big freakin' honey bear, drop-dead gorgeous and exactly what Dean needed. And, he had to admit, as much as Sam was infatuated with him, Dean was infatuated with Sam. What a freakin' idjit.

Dean crawled out the shower and got dressed. He was almost out the door again when a sudden overwhelming exhaustion overtook him and he decided to call in sick. No way could he show his face at the repair shop today. No way.

Instead, he spent the day trying to convince himself he wasn't an irrecoverable loser.

Dean was going to put Sam behind him the same way he put Jo behind him, and move on.

He just had to keep on telling himself that.

TBC


A/N: Poor old Dean. Just one more chapter should do it, I think. Updating soon...