Checkout time dawns with tension and hangovers and John peeling out without a word in Dean or Sam's direction.

Sam wishes he could say he was surprised or that their fifty-two year old father giving them the silent treatment like a pissed off middle school girl before driving away in a huff wasn't the best possible way this morning could have played out.

"So, before or after breakfast?" Dean asks as they watch their Dad's truck make for the highway.

"What?" Sam looks up from where he's downing aspirin and water like it's nectar of the fucking gods.

"Gay twenty questions," Dean elaborates, tossing their duffels in the trunk and slamming it shut. "I've got 'em, you're answerin' 'em, and cause I'm an awesome brother, I'm gonna let you pick when you want 'em: before or after breakfast. Either way, it's fucking share time."

"Dean-"

"Sam, what happened last night?" Dean interrupts, not giving an inch. "You sneaking off? Your little roadside freak out? That's not happenin' ever again. So we're getting this out in the open, and we're getting it out fucking soon, and if a girly share and care is what it takes then so fucking be it, but I'm not getting my ass scared off like that again, and you're not secret keeping your way to another panic attack on the side of a highway if I can help it. So, I repeat: before or after breakfast?"

"If I say 'after'," Sam asks, swallowing a groan as he rubs at the headache pounding behind his eyes, "is there any chance 'after' can mean 'never'?"

"Nope," Dean dismisses, firing up the Impala.

The worst part is, he has a point.

They don't get this out, Sam knows he'll just build it up in his head again, that the things that seems insignificant in the face of Dean dragging him out of the closet (At gunpoint, nonetheless. Goddammit, Dean.) will just get bigger and badder, harder and harder to say the further they get away from this.

"After," Sam sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face. "If we're doing this, I'm at least getting coffee first."

"Amen to that," Dean smirks, pulling into the Waffle House down the road.

"Really?" Sam bitches, grimacing. "Dean, I can smell the grease from here."

"Aww," Dean coos sarcastically. "Little Sammy a little hungover?"

"Shut up," Sam grumbles, getting out of the car and trying not to love how easy, how familiar the teasing feels. How comforting greasy breakfasts and Dean ragging on him about perfectly normal big brother things is in the face of everything.

"How much did you have last night, anyway?" Dean grins as they grab a booth in the corner. "Two beers? Three?"

"Enough to not want to be anywhere near here," Sam bites out, trying to keep his stomach under control as he's assaulted by the smell of bacon grease and unwashed trucker.

"Little Sammy," Dean laughs as a string bean of a waiter with a rat tail and a crooked nametag identifying him as 'Chet' pinned to his grease-stained polyester uniform shirt steps up to the booth. "Always the lightweight."

"What'll it be?" Chet the Waiter drones, pad at the ready.

"The All Star," Dean grins, eyeing the menu like Christmas has come early. "With bacon, scrambled eggs, and hashbrowns."

"How you want them hashbrowns?" Chet drawls, scrawling laconically.

"Smothered and covered," Dean answers, grin widening.

"Dean," Sam whines, not even caring that it makes him sound like a five year old, because having to go over the minute details of his sexual preferences with his brother is bad enough, but asking him to do it with a hangover and Dean reeking of rendered fat and onions?

That's just inhumane.

"You wanna double up, Sammy?" Dean teases, shoving a boot into Sam's ankle under the table as Chet watches them with bored indifference. "Best cure for a hangover."

"You're awful," Sam groans, his stomach roiling as he buries his face in his hands and winces when he accidentally hits the bruise on his cheek from the night before.

"Wheat toast and oatmeal for him," Dean tells the waiter, eyes on Sam and brow furrowing, "And two coffees, black."

As soon as they're along at the booth again, he leans forward, reaching for Sam.

"Your face still hurting?" he asks.

"S'fine," Sam mutters, not meeting Dean's eye as he ducks his grip.

Neither of them seems to know what to say after that, the silence stretching out, dragging through the morning bustle and clatter of the diner, getting bigger, more full of all the things they're concentrating on not talking about.

"I'm sorry," Sam says when he can't bite it back any more.

"For what?" Dean asks.

"Dad," Sam tells him. "Last night. You- I just- He was- And then you-"

He breaks off, words not coming together, not working, and he'd like to blame it on the hangover, on the morning, on the lack of coffee, on the possible concussion, but he knows it's just him, just another thing he can't tell his brother without royally screwing it up.

"Don't worry about it," Dean dismisses, giving Chet a tight nod as he slaps their coffees down on the Formica table and bustles off to deal with a family three booths down whose kid is industriously slathering the window with cheese grits. "Like I said before, man was outta line."

He wasn't, though.

Not for them at least.

"Dean," Sam starts, voice full of everything he can't say, of gratitude and guilt and his big brother throwing aside a lifetime of dogged, unwavering loyalty to their Dad to stand up for him over this and for what? Sam? When did he become worth that?

"Besides," Dean interrupts with a careless snort, a grin that's about as weak as the watered down coffee in front of them. "Don't tell me you missed the old man's snoring? Him hoggin' the bathroom all morning, leaving it smellin' like something died in there?"

"No," Sam can't help the ghost of a smile that sneaks across his face as he leans back to let their waiter slap a plate of toast and bowl of what purports to be oatmeal in front of him. "Not really."

He pokes a spoon into the bowl of grey sludge, stirs it experimentally as he keeps his eyes on the table and asks carefully, hesitantly, "Did you?"

"Nah," Dean dismisses.

He digs into his onion and cheese smothered heart attack with relish.

"I'm tellin' you, Sammy," he continues through a mouthful of grease and goop, and really, Sam should have known that if actually living with Dean didn't quench his questionably motivated ardor, Matt from Sidetracks had a snowball's chance in hell of doing the trick. "Man might be a hell of a hunter, but he's a piss poor roommate."

Sam tries not to read anything more into that than Dean might have meant, tries not to hear it as a condemnation of their father as a horrible parent and an overall shit human being.

He tries, at least.


"You ready Sammy?" Dean cocks an eyebrow at him as they pile back into the Impala and pull on to the Interstate.

"For what?" Sam asks, before remembering Dean's ultimatum with a wince.

"Really?" he whines, because he might be full of aspirin and coffee and what the Waffle House is calling 'Oatmeal' but Sam's pretty sure is wallpaper paste and pencil shavings with a few raisins sprinkled on top for camoflauge's sake, but he will never be ready for Dean, his big brother Dean, grilling him on the nitty-gritty of how he has more in common with Oscar Wilde than just an appreciation for acerbic prose.

"Really, Sammy," Dean nods. "Batter up. Okay, number one-"

"You have a numbered list?" Sam interrupts incredulously.

"Dude, I have a compendium," Dean snorts, confirming once again that he does actually retain something from the classics they run through the Impala's tape deck on their endless road trip. "And the first one is, why didn't you fucking tell me?"

"Because it was none of your business," Sam shoots back.

It wasn't. It really wasn't, and Sam wasn't wrong here. He had every reason to believe what he did, and if Dean doesn't get that—

"Well, how long are we talkin' here?" Dean presses. "Middle school? High school? How long you been sittin' on this, Sammy?"

Sam's mouth twists again against the sharp, contrary urge to not tell Dean a damn thing, because he hears the hurt in Dean's voice. Because he knows that if they don't get this out, it'll just keep hanging over them, and Sam dodged a bullet last night. He could have lost Dean just like that, and if this is what Dean wants, if this is what he has to do to keep this together, to keep them together…

"College," Sam sighs, caving, giving in, and praying, praying to whoever's listening, that this doesn't send them straight back to hell. "Just since college, Dean."

"College, and you didn't tell me?" Dean demands, glaring across the seat at him.

"Oh, what was I supposed to do?" Sam tosses back. "Pick up the phone at five thirty in the morning after midterms: 'Hi, Dean? How's it hanging? Kill anything neat lately? That's great. By the way, hooked up with a guy friend of mine last night. Came harder than I ever have in my life. Oh what, Dad's coming? Well, better hang up before he hears you talking to me and tears you a new one. Bye!'"

"You could have written," Dean grumbles sullenly after a long, uncomfortable pause, but no, Sam is not letting him get away with that.

"Yeah, because I want that postcard sitting on Pastor Jim's desk for three weeks," he snorts, rolling his eyes.

Dean nods, giving in, but Sam can tell he's not finished.

"Okay, fine. I get why you didn't tell me then, but still Sammy…" Dean starts after a few miles of silence. "It's been nearly a year. We- I- I don't know."

He trails off, mouth twisting into a line of displeasure.

"Forget about it," he finishes on a grumble, avoiding Sam's gaze.

"Dean, what?"

Sam can see the flush creeping up his big brother's neck, can see the words rise, almost make it out, then get swallowed, tamped down by whatever macho hang-up expressly forbids their utterance as he stares out at the road, at the dash, anywhere but Sam.

"I just," Dean tries again. "I just thought… after everything... if it was something this big, you'd have told me. That's all."

And Sam doesn't know why, but his brother looks like he hates himself for saying that aloud.

"Dean," Sam starts, then stops. Falters, because he never meant- This was never about- Just because he thought he couldn't tell Dean didn't mean that he thought he couldn't tell Dean, and that's a piss poor argument, so bad that it falls apart in his own head, but just because he didn't tell Dean this doesn't mean that he wouldn't tell him anything. Anything big, anything important-

Except that just falls right apart too, doesn't it?

'Cause there's something big, something important that he's sure as hell keeping under wraps, that he sure as hell has no intention of ever telling his brother ever, hurt feelings or no.

"I said forget about it," Dean repeats, eyes shuttered, face closed tight, and Sam never wanted this, never wanted Dean to feel like this, like just because Sam wouldn't tell him this thing he wouldn't tell him anything, because that's not true. He'd tell Dean, he would

Just- just not if it meant losing him.

"No," Sam shakes his head, refuses to let Dean bury this, because secrets or no, with or without the things Dean can never, ever know about his little brother, he's not wrong.

What's between them? Well, whatever it is, it deserves better than this.

"I'm sorry," he starts again, and he is sorry, he is. Sorry for not telling Dean. Sorry for not being able to tell him everything, for not being able to tell him more, because Dean deserves more, deserves the truth from Sam, deserves everything from Sam, he does, really, and it's not Dean's fault, none of this is, it's Sam's, it's always been Sam's, and if Dean can just see that-

"I just…" Sam swallows hard against the memories, the rush of panic, of fear."By the time it came up, I'd convinced myself you'd freak if you found out. Take off. Leave me alone."

"Well, so much for your bein' the smart brother," Dean smirks across the front seat, and it's not a hundred percent, not the same shining, devil-may-care flash Sam's seen a hundred thousand times before, but it's something.

It's better.

"Alright, hit me," Sam demands, sitting up, readying himself, because if Dean needs to know this for them to be okay, Sam can tell him. Can follow Dean's lead. Because if Dean can try for normal? Can push through this like a fucking champ then so can he. "Next question, let's go. We've got six and a half hours to Tennessee. and I'm not going over my past hookups with Dad… anywhere. At all."

"Fair enough," Dean snorts with half a grin. "Even though I still say he wouldn't flip out about it."

"Dean, he flipped out last night when I went for a walk," Sam points out, despite the fact that they both know Sam was not out last night taking the fresh air and admiring the fucking scenery. "He told me to leave and never come back when I wanted to go to college. Forgive me for not jumping at the chance to see how our alcoholic ex-marine serial killing drifter father takes the news that his smartass youngest is not only a shame and disappointment who refuses to hunt but also a fucking fairy to boot."

"Sam," Dean starts to object.

Whether it's to half-heartedly to defend their dad or get onto him for talking about himself like that, Sam doesn't know, but either way, he just cocks an eyebrow at his brother.

"So, how'd you suddenly figure out you were gay?" Dean asks, apparently deciding to just let that one drop and jump back in with the most uncomfortable question he can think of off the top of his head.

"I'm not-" Sam shakes his head, but Dean just steamrolls over him, apparently not to be distracted by answers in his quest for, you know, answers.

"Because I swear, with all the chicks you mooned after when we were kids, and then-"

He breaks off, his eyes staying very pointedly on the road, the speedometer, the mile markers streaming past, staying as far from Sam or the black notebook peeking out of the bag at his feet as possible.

Jess.

Her name hangs unspoken between them like a ghost. Silent, intangible, but very much present.

Very much there.

"Not that labels are always one hundred percent accurate," Sam starts, breaking the silence a few miles later, "and not that human sexuality isn't a sliding scale, and not that it's not the person that's important to me, not their gender, but if I had to pick one I'd say I was bi not gay. And how? Well…"

Sam swallows, hoping to god Dean's not gonna press him for the details as he feels a flush just beginning to heat his cheeks. This isn't as awkward, isn't as horrifying as he thought it would be, but it's still going over all this crap with Dean. Hearing about his big brother's hookups is worlds away from going over how the hell Sam figured out he liked cock with the big brother who changed his diapers and taught him how to tie his shoes.

"College is a time for growth and experimentation," he finishes.

He's not gonna tell Dean about Connor. About dark curls and a wide, soft smile with just a little bit of a tease at the corner, about study sessions that turned into something- something more. Into Sam realizing that maybe his yen for a normal life wasn't the only thing that set him apart from Dean or Dad.

"So, you had a boyfriend." Dean prompts.

"Two," Sam confirms.

"Hookups?" Dean quirks a skeptical eyebrow at Sam from the driver's seat.

"Aside from last night's disaster? No. I'm not you, Dean," Sam scoffs.

"Serial Monogamist Sammy," Dean grins. "Some things never change."

He's silent for a moment, eyes trained on the dashboard.

"Did Jessica know?" he asks softly.

"Yeah," Sam nods. "Jess knew."

He doesn't offer any more detail than that, and Dean doesn't ask.

"Okay, so girls versus guys," Dean picks up again, moving right down his apparent mental list. "What percentage are we talkin' here?

"S'mostly girls," Sam shrugs, looking down and trying to will away the blush he can feel pinking his cheeks. "Just… sometimes it's guys."

"What kind of guys?"

"Yeah, I'm not answering that one," Sam laughs.

"Why not?" Dean presses, quirking an eyebrow.

"Because it's awkward and invasive and just- no," Sam stammers, shaking his head.

"Fine, have it your way," Dean smirks, and Sam knows, just knows, that the next one is gonna be worse. "Top or bottom?"

And he's right.

"Pass," Sam mutters, face hot and eyes everywhere but the driver's seat.

"Aw, you're no fun," Dean cajoles, giving Sam's shoulder a playful shove.

"Not like you can't give it a good fucking guess," Sam grumbles, glaring out the window.

"Okay, okay," Dean grins, tousling Sam's hair. "Sorry I asked, Sammy. I'll give it a rest."

"Thanks," Sam bites out, shoving out from under Dean's hand and glaring fixedly at the passing countryside, but twenty miles later he's trying and failing to keep a straight face as his brother screws up the words to "It's the End of the World as We Know It" and feeling lighter than he has in days so, all in all, he figures Dean's little Q&A session could have gone worse.