Chapter Twenty-Four

"There is no such thing as monsters," Mr. Ernest Krueger declared.

Several nearby patrons of the bright, clean diner winced or hunched a little closer to their coffee, but not one head turned. Sam and Dean, seated across from the gray-haired and suspender-clad septuagenarian, glanced at each other, just to make sure there hadn't been some mistake in the hearing.

"It's all a government lie," Mr. Krueger continued at an aggressively loud volume, either oblivious or resistant to the general mood of his neighbors. "Just a smokescreen for the real story." He took a gulp of water from the glass in front of him, and then turned his focus back to the Winchesters.

"So," Sam said carefully. "When the White House was attacked in 1983..."

"That footage was completely doctored! Those were people in costume, not even good costuming, just some contact lenses and fake teeth and hair extensions, and they were sent by the White House itself! It was all a ploy to get Nancy Reagan out of the picture. They knew she wouldn't keep quiet for the rest of it!"

"Okay," Dean said after a long pause, during which Mr. Krueger looked at them with hopeful, wild sincerity from his rheumy blue eyes, "I'll bite. Keep quiet about what?"

Mr. Krueger leaned forward, hands planted on his knees, eyes fiercely squinted. "That Ronald Reagan was actually a Soviet plant. Yes," he added, seeing their faces. "Yes, he was. Do you know what's in the FREACS facility? Do you?"

Dean opened his mouth and then closed it again, lips tight, but Sam leaned forward, eyes wide. "What is it?"

"It's people!" Mr. Krueger shook his bent finger emphatically, and Sam twitched, then covered by reaching for his own glass. "It's people that get too close to the truth. The government tosses them in that black hole, calls them monsters, and it's safe, see, because no one wants to look too close, no one cares about a freak, right? But it's just propaganda instituted by the Red State!"

Dean took a breath and leaned back, reminding himself that the guy was clearly a nut job and didn't know shit about what he was talking about. "Look, Mr. Krueger, what does that have to do with..." And then it hit him, the last words catching in his throat because, looked at right, phrased right, the monster they hunted now and FREACS had at least one horrible thing in common.

Sam finished for him. "What does that have to do with children?" Compared to Dean he looked unruffled, but the hundred-kilowatt smile he'd given the waitress when they'd first sat down was gone like the old man had flipped a switch. "At least," he amended, "with the eight children who've recently come down with an illness no doctors can identify?"

"Well, it's all the same brand of evil, ain't it? This government's just the old government in a new suit! You think this is new, how these kids are getting poisoned? Happened back in the seventies when all the flower girls and boys thought they were gonna make peace with the Reds by taking off their clothes and smoking them psycho-Daleks, and back in the fifties right when the Reds were moving into our turf, scoping out the ground after Hitler. You remember Hitler?"

"Not personally," Dean said.

"Yeah, well he was the first Red Spy, the preeminent tsar! But they found him out in the end."

"What happened in the seventies and fifties, Mr. Krueger?" Sam's voice was firm, focused, and Dean would never stop being so goddamn proud of him.

Mr. Krueger, delighted at having a no-doubt rare captive audience, raised both hands to gesture as he explained, "The commies seeded the city water tank—which was in Rosebud in those days—with an experimental toxin compound. It was meant to soften us up for the invasion, but when old McClellan kicked up a fuss in Washington, they had to call it off. About a dozen kids died. Same thing happened in 1978, and that time we almost lost the whole dang town except the EPA opened an investigation, and the socialist Fed goons had to back off before they got their paws dirty."

"I...see." Sam, who could usually wear a bland mask at the most outrageous witness statements, couldn't completely cover his confusion and loss for words. "So, you're saying that twice, about twenty years apart, this town has suffered from a number of children falling inexplicably ill?"

Mr. Krueger looked disgruntled. "Didn't I just say that?"

"Yes, you did," Dean agreed. "Perfectly clear, thank you for your time, Mr. K." He stood, dropped a couple bills on the table and jerked his head at Sammy, eyebrows raised. "We're just gonna head out now and look for some of those commies."

The man smiled so happily that, for a second, Dean almost felt bad. "You boys take care out there. You can't trust anybody these days, not family, not television, and definitely not the government. You see a van full of those alphabet organization types poking their noses into this thing, you get out. They get wind of this in Washington, those ASC goons'll be all over this. I've had people flashing their badges and asking me questions about those kids before, and I was lucky they didn't haul me away to that prison, so you watch yourselves. Never take a wooden nickel, don't talk politics in church, and never trust the ASC."

Dean paused in the act of handing Sam his jacket, one hand lingering over his kid's shoulder as he helped him pull it on (he wasn't a child who needed the help, but it was a safe way to touch, to comfort, when Sam's eyes were a little too wide and fixed on Krueger, his movements belated and jerky as he got up). He quirked a smile at the old man, but it wasn't pretty. "Oh, I never do."

A couple blocks past the diner, Dean huffed out a breath that steamed in the sharp air, and adjusted the collar of his jacket. "What a kook."

"Was he...ill, do you think? Like, not right in the head?" Sam split his attention between Dean and the sidewalk traffic, but Dean didn't even spare a glance for the other pedestrians. Most of them dodged out of his way without much trouble, but when it looked like he was going to hit a particularly zoned-out businessman fumbling with his pager, Sam grabbed Dean by the sleeve and pulled him to the side. "Should we contact a doctor or someone to have him checked out?"

Dean sighed. "Probably wouldn't do any good. Did you see the slant-eyes he was getting? I could practically hear their oh, Ernest's waylaid another innocent bystander pity. He's just one of those nutcase conspiracy theorists who wouldn't believe in the supernatural if they got strung up by a djinn, but this is the first time I've run into one, or tried to get info off of 'em. Fuck. Given that he's clearly playing without any face cards, it's going to be damned hard to trust the details he did give us."

"We can easily verify the childhood illnesses in the fifties and seventies," Sam said. "If the pattern he identified can be tied to our current case, we'll at least have a lead."

"Dammit, Sam." Dean leaned against a wall, grinding his elbows into the peeling paint. "It's awesome, don't get me wrong, but how can you be cool about that asshole just...getting it wrong, just dismissing...everything, the crap we deal with every day? Not that people can't be completely messed up sometimes, but how can he be so wrong with everything laid out in front of him?" Dean turned and punched the wall, a short sharp jab that would have scared Sam months before and now just made him worry that Dean might hurt his hand.

"Hey," Sam lay a hand on Dean's shoulder. "We can focus on the hunt. We don't need to talk to him again."

Dean turned, and there was a little light in his eyes. Something in Sam's chest relaxed slightly. Before, it had looked like when Dean went out and drank so much that he gave Sam the keys.

"He was right about one thing," he said.

Sam blinked. "What?"

Dean shrugged and tucked his arm over Sam's shoulders, pulling him close enough that Sam could feel the warmth of his breath against his cheek. "Don't trust the ASC. And not everyone they take is a monster."

Sam looked down, feeling the blood rising in his face. Glancing around to make sure no one was close enough to overhear, he whispered, "D-do you think—the A-ASC will come? Like he said?"

"Hey." Dean tightened his grip, his voice pitched low too. "Don't worry about that, dude. Mostly other hunters go after bigger fish, whatever brings in the dough or is already on the nightly news. 'Sides, I grew up dodging those assholes, I've got a sixth sense for whenever they're within a mile. They decide to take up this case, we'll be a couple counties away before they book a motel room."

"Okay." Sam took in a full breath, trying to make himself relax. They'd yet to run into any other hunters on a case—but Mr. Krueger's remark was a sharp reminder that a lot of civilians were perfectly capable of spotting evidence and picking up a phone to call the ASC hotline. Sam had to trust Dean and stay focused, if they wanted to wrap up the hunt before anyone else got wind of it. "W-we're going to have to wait on t-the research until the library opens tomorrow, b-but we have a witness who works on this street we can question. Do you remember Rob O'Malley?"

"Yeah, that guy who's related to most of the victims through blood, marriage, and shopping preference? The one with the junk shop?"

Sam managed a smirk, and attempted to match the aloof tone of one of the mothers they'd talked to earlier. "He prefers antique boutique."

Dean snorted. "I just bet he does."

Rob's Antique Boutique, much-discussed pawn shop and secondhand store, was a block down from the diner, right where the small town's main tourist street morphed from touristy little shops, cafes, and quaint street lights into the humdrum of Subway and Walmart. The copper chimes that rang as they stepped through the door were fashioned in the shape of little Dia de los Muertos skulls, grinning out through their patina of green.

Dean narrowed his eyes at them and then glanced at Sam. "I'm gonna talk to Robbie," he said. "Watch my back, maybe case the rest of the joint?"

Sam nodded. "Should I look for anything in particular?"

"Anything that looks suspicious, supernatural, or like a good deal." Dean glared at a dusty, stuffed emu that had somehow, hideously, been worked into a coffee table. "Though there's a hell of a lot of suspicious in here."

Sam smiled. "I'll manage, Dean. And let you know if I find any evidence of the imminent commie invasion."

"You guys were just talking to old man Krueger!"

The Winchesters whirled, Sam's hands rising defensively, Dean's twitching toward his pistol but the guy who had spoken was grinning at them with crooked teeth, wearing dreads and a wifebeater.

"Your mama ever tell you it's not nice to sneak up on people?" Dean demanded.

"She told me not to listen in on other people's conversations too, but it didn't stick. Know how I know you was talking to old man Krueger? Because he's the only guy I know as worries about commies."

Dean let his hand fall from the butt of his gun. "Are you Robert O'Malley?"

"In the flesh." The guy plucked his shirt away from his thin chest, still grinning. "And not much of that."

"I've got some questions for you," Dean said, and nodded slightly at Sam.

Sure that Dean would be able to handle one witness who seemed more...strange than argumentative, Sam turned away to investigate the rest of the store.

The first few phrases (hoarder's stash; dragon or kobold lair) that came to his mind were probably not what a real would use for the piles of bent metal-work, broken china, rusted nails, unpolished glass lamps without bulbs hanging from the ceiling, sometimes low enough that Sam had to duck his head to avoid them. Dean would probably have called it junk, but as Sam moved between the irregular shelves and small tables crammed two-deep in figurines fashioned out of pop cans, he found something comforting about it: so many things in one place, reals' things that may have passed their usefulness but were still there, given a second chance in this little shop. Plus, it reminded him a little of Bobby's scrapyard. With Dean's and Robert O'Malley's voices fading behind him, the smell of dust and rust and strong tea mingling in the air, Sam felt that there was nothing particularly evil in this place. Strange things, maybe (certainly, like the small, fat, smiling man whose round stomach had been carved out to make a cup holder), but nothing truly evil.

And that's when he saw it: a small item jumbled among a dozen figurines carved like birds, beasts, faces, flowers. But the one peeking out at him from the edge of the blown glass ashtray was different in a way he couldn't quite pinpoint.

Cautious, checking around for any other reals, Sam picked it up.

It was heavy and cool in his hand, a good weight, slightly worn on the back as though someone had rubbed it down smooth. The small face carved in the greenish-gold stone grinned up at him, the face of no monster he had ever seen. Sam found himself smiling back.

Badass, Dean's voice crowed in his head.

There was a hole at the top for a lanyard or a chain, and as he weighed it in his hand, he had an idea.

If Sam strung it on something, Dean might wear it. He wore a silver ring and a thin, black, braided band around his wrist, so it wasn't impossible that he would wear this too, that he might like it. And even if he didn't, he'd probably thank Sam anyway and tuck it away, leave it in the trunk, or let it drop somewhere, surely when Sam wasn't looking, because he was kind. So it wouldn't be an imposition. Even if Dean hated the figurine, Sam thought that Dean would like to receive a gift, like a physical reminder that Sam understood more now, that he could pretend to be real as hard as anyone, and that he…cared. It certainly wouldn't be as though he were trying to lay a claim on Dean. It wouldn't be like any kind of collar. Dean wouldn't see it that way. And if it were, he definitely wouldn't wear it.

A month ago, Sam wouldn't have even considered this kind of risk. Buying something as a gift—he wouldn't have thought it possible, much less attempted it. And that new understanding made him brave, even through the clenching fear in his stomach, the slight dizziness that hit him when he turned back toward the counter, figurine clutched in his hand.

Dean was still talking with the witness, but they'd gotten through the case details and seemed to be arguing about the Rolling Stones versus the Beatles. Sam knew which Dean preferred, so he knew which side of this argument would win, even if the fight never formally concluded.

"Hey, Dean, you good?" he called, keeping his hand tucked to his side.

"And you're thinking with a modified vacuum cleaner instead of a brain if you think Yellow Submarine—hey, Sam! Yeah, we're good."

"Good. I'm going to go to the restroom. I'll meet you in the car?"

Dean raised an eyebrow, glanced at Rob O'Malley, and then shrugged. "Yeah, sure, shout if this idiot tries to tell you shit about Keith Richards."

"Sure, Dean." Sam waited until the big doors swung closed after Dean before turning to the proprietor. "I'd like to purchase this, please, quickly?"

The man took one look at the amulet and grinned. "Good choice. Because I got to be honest with you, we don't actually have a restroom, if you know what I'm saying. And this is a nice piece, did you know the Maori believed in a lot of hula about finding spirits and the interactions of the human and the divine for—"

The Impala's horn honked once, and Sam looked up, hurriedly scooping his change and the little brown paper bag out of Rob O'Malley's hand. "I have to go. Thank you very much!"

And he dashed out, as slowly as he could make himself go, with the bag shoved in the inner pocket of his jacket.

The next day, after a couple more fruitless witness interviews around town, they finally made it to the library, which offered plenty of proof that Mr. Krueger had been right: something had been going on for a while in this town. A similar series of child illnesses (and fatalities) had happened several times before, about twenty years apart, as regular as a generation. Within five minutes, Sam compiled a list of known monster types that attacked cyclically, along with an even longer list of possibilities, and they were off to the library. Sam headed straight to the microfilm while Dean paced over to the archive shelves.

By an hour in, Sam had narrowed the list to either a striga or an extremely comprehensive family curse, and then, just before the two-hour mark, he hit pay-dirt. Newspapers had photographs covering the previous two attacks: a doctor in 1954 and a school teacher in 1976 looked like identical twins in different decades, and they wore the same "I'm attempting to look sympathetic, but I'm not pleased about getting my picture taken" expression. When no family connection could be found, Sam felt the excitement of an accelerating hunt in his gut. He printed both images, and Dean showed the best of the two to the head librarian, a silver-haired woman in her late sixties who was barely an inch shorter than Dean, with a kind smile and the ability to raise only one eyebrow, as she did at the photograph.

"Well, that's odd," she said. "Yes, Dr. Earl Wilson, my granddaughter's pediatrician, is a dead ringer. But I could have sworn he didn't have any family in this area. You printed this off the microfilm? I could check the genealogies if you'd like, or call Annie, she would have Dr. Wilson's phone number."

"No thanks, that's all we need," Dean told her, already turning on his heel toward Sam.

"That's it," Sam said, as the library doors closed behind them. "He must be the striga. That fits with the cyclical attacks, the external handprint evidence on the houses, and how it's moving through the families. Which means..."

"Shit, the Sanchezes," Dean said. "Their second daughter was the last to get hit—"

"So their oldest son is the next logical target," Sam finished. "Dean, it could be tonight."

"You said that blessed iron works on this fucker?" Dean was already popping the Impala's trunk, getting out what they needed.

"But only when it's feeding," Sam said. "It's never been exterminated unless it opens itself up to absorb life force. How are we going to force it into vulnerability?"

Dean paused in rummaging through the trunk. "I've never iced one of these bastards before, but the fact that we gotta catch it in the act means we have to be really damn close."

"Ah." Sam shifted, hefting the bag of ammo Dean had handed him. "D-does that m-m-mean we're letting it a-a-attack?"

Dean straightened up and swore, quietly, viciously to himself. He hit the bumper of the Impala, and then turned to look Sam in the eye. "I don't see another way around it. It wants kids, it's marked out its next vic—these things move like the fucking wind, we don't got a chance in hell of catching it in the open. It'll zap someone else maybe tomorrow, maybe twenty years from now, if we don't stop it now, even if that means that that kid...look, nothings going to happen to the kid, we're the fucking Winchesters, right? So nothing's going to happen to the kid. We'll just stay close and jump it, soon as it's inside, and make sure it never leaves, right?

Sam nodded, slow and unhappy. "I don't remember ever reading another way to do it."

"And it's not like we can wait around forever. It only takes one cocky son of a bitch to spook this spook, and then it's the same old shit in a couple decades. We've got to give this our best shot now."

Sixteen minutes later, they pulled up across the street from the Sanchez house. They had a decent view of two sides of the house, but if the striga snuck in the other side, they wouldn't know it was there until the scream—if there was a scream. Sam hated that they were putting a real child at risk for even a second, but he had to have faith that Dean knew what he was doing, that this was a risk worth taking if it would save the other children who would fall prey to the monster if the Winchesters couldn't stop it now.

This wasn't the kind of threat that they usually faced. The ASC bounty on a striga would be huge, and that thought had left his hands shaking as he carefully replaced the books that he'd cross-referenced. This had to be done quietly if they didn't want the ASC hitting them afterward like a ton of bricks, but Sam wasn't sure that the threat of the ASC to him and Dean justified not telling civilians that they should get the hell out of Dodge. Whatever Dodge was.

When he caught sight of a movement along the top of the neighbor's fence, he turned, expecting it to be nothing more than another branch moving in the wind. Instead he saw what looked like a pile of black rags disappear into the bushes below. It appeared a second later, creeping toward the window with something between animalistic grace and haphazard wind catcher movements, its spidery fingers caressing the window joints.

"Dean!" Sam hissed.

Dean was already reaching for his door handle as the window eased open, and in another breath the figure had folded itself inside.

"Yeah, I see it. On three," Dean said, as they tensed to spring out. "One—"

Something broke in the house, a child began to scream but was abruptly choked off, and both Winchesters bolted out of the car and across the street before Dean could even draw breath for "two."

They ran full out, Sam pulling ahead of Dean and making the leap through the half-open window a full stride ahead of him.

He ducked and rolled, the top edge of the window frame clipping his shoulder, but he came to his feet with the shotgun braced to his shoulder.

The striga had disengaged from the child as soon as Sam had leaped through the window. It was an ugly creature, twisted, sickly-pale features framed by a cloak that reeked of ozone and moldering leaves. Its hands were as long and thin as the shoots of a strangling vine.

The expression on its face when it saw Sam could not be properly termed a smile, but it was close. It closed its mouth, pale blue glow vanishing behind its thin lips, a second before Sam pulled the trigger.

The shotgun blast hit the striga full in the chest. It jerked at the impact, but shrugged it off, and then skittered for the window.

Dean was there to meet it. The next two blessed rounds emptied into its body didn't do much but move it closer toward the door, away from the child, pale and coughing on his bed.

"Dean, it has to—" That was as far as Sam got before the monster wheeled, grabbed him by the throat, and opened its mouth to reveal the pale glow within.

Sam clawed at the beast's hand around his throat, but the brittle-looking fingers were surprisingly strong. The edges of the world going blue around his vision, he could feel strength seeping out of him as surely as when he'd hung from a hook in FREACS, and he wondered, distantly, if Dean could get enough blessed rounds off before the striga completely drained his life force.

Then the bedroom door burst open in a blaze of light, a man's high-pitched voice swearing, a woman screaming, and Ernest Krueger, an American flag bandana tied over his grizzled hair and a muzzle-loading rifle in his hand, strode into the room.

"I told you!" he shouted. "I told you they were coming for your children, but did you listen? Bet you'll listen now, Sanchez." He pointed the barrel at the striga and bellowed, "Go back home, you commie bastard!"

Sam had long enough to wonder if there were any blessed rounds in that thing (if you could even find blessed ammo for a weapon that ancient) before Mr. Krueger slammed the gun straight into the striga's head.

Reeling back—more surprised than in pain—the monster gave a breathy roar, dropped Sam, and wheeled around to face the new threat. With one sweep of its arm, the striga threw Mr. Krueger into the wall hard enough to knock down several mounted soccer trophies, and Sam, wheezing and dizzy, dashed forward to help the old man.

And then the monster had its bony hand around his throat again. Sam felt himself lifted, turned, until he could barely make out the beady eyes within the ragged hood, could see the burgeoning glow from the mouth, feel his chest tighten as though the air were being sucked from his lungs, and then Dean slammed into Sam's side, firing twice in quick succession into the striga's glowing maw, until the striga caved down in a pile of ash and ragged black cloth.

Sam fell, coughing hard, feeling air and energy rush back into his lungs as small drifts of white light floated from the striga's mouth. He felt Dean's hand on his shoulder, pulling him up, and Dean's worried, "Sam? Sammy?" in his ear.

He coughed once more and then managed a weak smile. "I'm fine, Dean, I'm…okay." He used Dean's shoulder to pull himself up. "Is Mr. Krueger?"

The old man groaned in the corner, and Sam stumbled toward him. Blood shone on the side of Mr. Krueger's head, but his pulse, when Sam put his fingers on his throat, was steady.

"Commies, my ass," Dean muttered. But before Sam could ask, Dean had his phone to his ear and was calling an ambulance, just as the frantic parents pushed forward to demand to know what the hell was going on and to take their trembling child into their arms.

Fordyce General Hospital wasn't very busy at that time of night, and Mr. Krueger received immediate care in the form of the harried ER staff, who replaced the bloody American flag bandana with bandages. The old man was as pale as the freak he'd helped take down, but it still took two medics to pry his old muzzle-loader out of his hands.

Sam had been so anxious about him that Dean drove after the ambulance, and they loitered in the hospital entryway, Dean keeping an eye on the news scrolling across the corner TV. It had been a good hunt—okay, the damned thing had gone pear-shaped in the end, but they'd killed the bastard, and everyone, especially Sam, was alive, so that covered everything that really mattered—but he didn't want to be in town when the ASC landed. And those bastards would. There had been too many witnesses, too much fuss, 911 called, and a civvy hurt in the line of fire.

The damn nurses were tight-lipped with the old man's personal medical information no matter how hard Dean insisted they were Uncle Ernest's family. Dean was just about to do something stupid (the pinched look in Sam's face had been getting more and more worried) when an elderly woman strode through the automatic doors and up to the desk. A brown leather handbag swung from her elbow, and her fur-lined cream coat showed some wear around the shoulders and elbows. Her oversized, dark-rimmed glasses made her eyes twice as large, and her hands were swollen around a simple golden band sporting a modest diamond.

"Excuse me, I'm Catherine Krueger." She spoke a shade too loudly with precise enunciation, like someone used to dealing with the hard-of-hearing. "I need to see my husband, Ernest Krueger."

"I'll be happy to give you a room number once I see some ID," the nurse said, more cordially. "Your nephews have been pretty anxious about Mr. Krueger's condition as well."

Mrs. Krueger looked at them in surprise, and Dean coughed and said, "Well, we're like family. I'm Dean and this is Sam, we were with your husband at the, uh, attack. Just wanted to make sure he pulled through okay."

Mrs. Krueger's eyes moved over both of them. "I've already spoken to the paramedics and George Sanchez about what happened. I take it you're the boys responsible for saving Ernest from the freak that's been sickening those children."

Dean glanced at Sam, but his eyes were down, his hands clenched on themselves, and while he didn't look close to a panic attack, exactly, he wasn't about to jump into the conversation, either.

"Yes, ma'am," Dean said. "I take it you don't…?"

She smiled thinly. "Think everything wrong in the world is the fault of the Red Menace? No. Ernest hasn't been right in the head for quite some time, and most days I'm grateful that he's got a fixation, not a…loss. But not, you can imagine, on days when he throws himself into the breach with an unloaded weapon."

Sam lifted his head, frowning. "H-how did you know that, ma'am?" Cleaning up before the cops arrived, they'd realized the muzzle-loader had been as empty as a frat keg on Monday.

"I've been hiding and selling off his ammunition since he started insisting commies killed poor Mary Campbell because she knew too much and were digging up our petunias in their spare time." The woman sighed, and Dean, looking down at his own clenched fist, saw Sam's hand jerk toward him, but stop short. He was grateful for that. He suspected Mrs. Krueger was sharp enough to get an inkling of what they were trying to hide.

"No, I don't share his delusion," she said. "Couldn't believe most of the awful things he assumed about the world. I assume my own evils, but keep my mouth shut. It makes the world, if not a better place, a quieter one. But I'd like to thank you anyway. Ernest…hasn't got enough cards to play go fish, but my life would have been a sorrier place without the old coot."

"I'm s-sorry that we c-couldn't protect him better," Sam said, softly, to the floor.

She chuckled dryly. "Young man, all the good citizens of this town combined couldn't keep Ernest out of trouble. If he's up for visitors, I'll let you come along so he can thank you in person."

Mr. Krueger was quite ready for visitors. They found him sitting up in bed, haranguing the nurse about the contents of the IV bag attached to the back of his hand.

"Ernest, that's quite enough of that," Mrs. Krueger said, formidable without raising her voice, and Mr. Krueger fell quiet at once. "You'll give me your spare car keys when we get home. I can't believe you still had anything that would start that old rust-bucket. And you scared me half to death disappearing like that without a word. We will have a talk, but right now I think you have something to say to these boys."

Mr. Krueger, who had been nodding and mumbling agreements with his wife, looked up, eyes lit, when she mentioned them. "See, boys! Those Russians are the only kind of freaks we need to worry about. Ugly sons of bitches, aren't they?"

Dean snorted, though last minute he tried to turn it into a cough. Glancing to the side, he caught Sam's broad grin, one of the widest he'd ever seen, and that alone made sticking around worth it.

"Oh, for God's sake, Ernest," Mrs. Krueger sighed, but Dean cleared his throat.

"Yes, sir, we won't forget that anytime soon. Gonna keep an eye out for those commies at every turn."

Mr. Krueger raised both hands, beckoning both of them forward. They approached hesitantly, until he could lean forward and grasp them with a hand on each of their shoulders. "You are good boys," he pronounced, looking between them, and Dean would have had to fight back a laugh at the old man's intensity, if there wasn't something deadly serious in it.

"Good, American boys," Mr. Krueger repeated. "You're fighting a good fight. Me, I'm not as young as I used to be, can't do so much. But you two have time on your side, and you're smart and quick. Quick as a whip. That's good. I'll sleep better, knowing there's Americans like you fighting the good fight, keeping watch. So thank you." He smiled, wide and sincere.

For once, Dean didn't have a ready response. Sam looked even more affected; his eyes held Mr. Krueger's, his cheeks flushed and lips parted in amazement.

"All right, Ernest, you've said your piece, now let those boys go home and get some rest," Mrs. Krueger said, and gently chivvied them toward the door.

They didn't speak until they'd reached the Impala, when Sam said, in an awed tone, "He said I was...a good American."

"Well, yeah," Dean said, and tried to catch his eye. "Even he's got enough marbles to see that."

Sam's mouth quirked, and he looked down before meeting Dean's eye. "I don't know, Dean. Have you ever considered that I might have been born in Russia?"

Snorting a laugh, Dean knocked his shoulder against Sam's before turning over the engine. There was a motel and a bed ahead of them where they'd get a few hours of shut-eye before they left town.

Seven hours after checking each other for wounds, showering, and passing out, Dean woke up when Sam slipped out from underneath his arm. He garbled something along the lines of "Sammywhereyagoin," to which Sam said, "Bathroom," a smile in his voice. Still muttering under his breath, Dean reluctantly released him. There weren't too many things that could grab him in the few feet between the bed and bathroom, and Sam would come back on his own.

He couldn't doze off, though, not when the memory of the striga half-strangling Sam kept flashing in front of his closed lids. Instead he watched the bathroom, vaguely alert for any sound of danger or the silence that could be even more threatening.

Paranoid, sure. But he was still alive, and that's what counted in a Winchester's books.

When Sam left the bathroom, he detoured around the bed to the window, where he pulled the heavy blackout curtain back just enough to peer out. The rosy-yellow light of early dawn lit his face like a TV angel's, highlighting the frown creasing his face as he rolled one shoulder back, absently working the muscle with the fingers of his other hand.

If the last few months of living with Sam had taught Dean anything, it was how very rare it was for Sam to actually show discomfort. Dean pulled himself up, rubbing hard at his face, trying to work the sleep out of his eyes. "Shoulder giving you trouble?"

Sam jumped and dropped his hand like he had been burned—not like he would have flinched in the early weeks, but Dean felt like a dick anyway, like he had deliberately snuck up behind Sam.

But when Sam turned to him, letting the curtain drop the room back into darkness, his expression was startled, but not afraid. "Just a little. Hardly any."

Dean reached up to turn on the bedside lamp and then patted the mattress beside him. "Grab a couple of Advil and have a seat."

"I don't need it," Sam protested, and Dean bit his tongue before he could say something stupid like, Just do it to make me happy. He'd never said that to Sam, and he wouldn't because he knew that was a bad fucking idea. Even the thought of Sam doing anything for that reason made him sick.

Instead, he looked Sam in the eye. "Promise you'll take it if it gets worse?" Sam nodded, solemn as ever, and Dean patted the bed again. "C'mere, Sammy. Lemme try something."

Sam sat, turned toward him curiously, but Dean pulled him around, gently, until he was facing the window. He rested his knuckles lightly on Sam's back, careful of his tender shoulder joint, tracing the length of his spine before spreading his palms flat and sliding them back up.

Through the thin material of Sam's nightshirt, he could feel the rough furrows crisscrossing Sam's skin, but he didn't focus on that. He kept his attention on Sam's warmth, the curve of his neck as he bent his head forward. Dean's fingers found the base of Sam's neck, kneading small circles, and Sam's breath caught.

Dean shifted closer, stretching one leg out next to Sam's, bringing his chest a breath away from making contact with Sam's back. He rested his thumbs at Sam's hairline and scritched his fingers over Sam's scalp.

Sam moaned, a quiet breathy noise that came close to a whimper, but wasn't pain. Dean knew the difference. Though this was a new noise, he could tell it was closer to want and need than stop that hurts.

Dean dropped his mouth to the back of Sam's neck, and he heard Sam's breath catch again. As he pressed a second kiss to the other side of Sam's neck (maybe dragging his lips a little, letting his tongue linger on Sam's soft skin, it was fucking hard to limit himself when it came to touching Sam), Sam made that sound again, low and desperate, practically a keen.

Oh, fuck. Dean was no rookie here. He'd been in roughly the same position a dozen times before with girls and guys happy to let him touch with the potential-promise of more, but it had never been so hot or meaningful or dangerous as this, now, with Sam.

He knew what this was, what line they were skirting, how close they were and how easy it would be to cross out of PG territory.

And fuck, yes, he wanted. He could get hard as hell just looking at Sam sometimes, much less being able to touch him, feeling Sam's breath go shaky just from a brush of his lips. And always before he'd known his only possible choice was to leg it to the bathroom, turn on the water, and get a hand on himself, because anything else was not okay for Sam.

Sam hadn't said anything lately to change that understanding, but there'd been a jump in the intensity of some kisses, in his touching and gripping and getting all over Dean—but they'd both gone too fucking far not so long ago, and now it was the memory of Sam pulling away from him, barely looking at him after they'd danced too close to that line, that had Dean treading more carefully than he ever had before.

Not that he was doing any treading yet, no. Not without Sam's explicit yes. But Dean was willing to bet his very favorite sawed-off that Sam had the same party in his pants as Dean right now (and holy shit, what a heady thought that Sam could be turned on by Dean), and sweet motherfucking Christ, Dean wanted to make Sam feel good. He wanted to take Sam there, to watch him writhe and flush and break apart under the caress of Dean's hands, maybe with Dean's name on his lips.

Slowly, he slipped one hand around to Sam's stomach, resting there as his other thumb continued rubbing circles at the base of Sam's skull. Resting his chin on Sam's shoulder, Dean let his words gust across Sam's ear. "That feel good, Sammy?" That earned him only another low, indecipherable noise. Dean pressed his hand tighter to Sam's stomach. "What do you want, baby? Just tell me, it's all okay."

A shudder ran through Sam, his hands tightening into white-knuckled fists the same moment he drew his breath in and stopped.

Dean froze and drew back, slowly pulling his hands off of Sam's suddenly stiff and unresponsive body. Shit, Dean was a fucking pushy asshole. He knew that. But there was a fucking difference between baiting a drunk asshole in a bar who thought he knew what it was to hunt, and completely ignoring the body language of a trauma survivor who wanted him to back the fuck off. Both Bobby and Pastor Jim would be justified thrashing the shit out of him the next time they saw him. How many ways did Sam have to show him that he was not ready to go past the PG line before Dean got it through his thick skull? Why did he have to keep pushing, just another fucking pervert groping at him and—

Sam drew his knees to his chest, circling them with arms tight and tense, compressing himself down to an unhappy, smaller-than-should-be-possible ball of Sam.

"I'm sorry," he gasped, muffled by his knees but misery audible in every syllable. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"Hey." Dean shifted around to face Sam, careful not to touch him. "Look, Sam, this ain't your fault, you didn't do anything, all right? I'm the one who started it—look, it's fine, I'm just, I'm just gonna get out of your space. Or if you need the first cold shower, you got it, whatever you want."

"Don't want anything." Sam's voice was indistinct within the tight ring of his arms and knees, but Dean's stomach swooped like a broken rollercoaster. Could he have misread Sam's body language that bad—sure, he hadn't been in a position to see the giveaway tent in his pajamas, but— "Don't want it, didn't, no, no, no, I didn't."

"Sam." Dean swallowed through his dry throat, barely daring to touch Sam's foot, over the sheet. "Look, it's okay, I swear—you don't have to—I don't know what those bastards—but I ain't mad, all right? Not ever. I mean, I'd be a hell of a hypocrite if I got mad about you jacking off, you know?"

Sam lifted his head, and Dean was taken aback by the blank shock in his face. Sam stared at Dean, his grip on his knees slipping; and then he shook his head, quick and decisive. "No, I d-d-don't—" He took a breath and looked Dean in the eye. "I don't do that."

Dean found his hands digging into the comforter for balance, as though the bed underneath them were threatening to spill them onto the thin carpet. He couldn't have understood. Or Sam didn't understand. Too many times they'd spoken across each other, the same phrase meaning something horribly different to each of them. "Sam, I dunno what you think—I don't mean anything bad, y'know—"

"T-t-t-touching. Yourself." Sam swallowed, his throat visibly working. He was pale as the white walls, but he didn't look away from Dean's eyes while his hands twisted together in his lap. "Th-that's what that means."

Even after all these months, Sam could say one fucking thing and leave Dean stripped down, gaping and defenseless as a toddler confronted by a wendigo, fucked beyond all belief. Dean dropped his face into his hand, a motion that served no purpose but to buy himself a few fucking minutes to think.

When that offered nothing but white-noise panic, he answered without lifting his head. "Yeah, that's what it means."

"And I don't." Sam's voice cracked and broke. They had been at this fucking point often enough that Dean knew that meant he was close to tears. "I don't, I don't do that."

"Sam." Dean looked up before taking one of Sam's hands, pulling it free of the tight tangle. He couldn't help himself. He needed connection, he needed to know that the ghost-pale boy across from him was real and not just an alcohol-fueled nightmare of a Sam he never wanted to see before him. "Sam, what did they do to you?"

Sam drew in an unsteady breath. "Nothing. Not to m-me. I never got caught."

Dean didn't look away. "And if you were?"

Sam lifted his eyes, and Dean saw the terrified kid he had known in Boulder, the almost-stranger who had shied from the television and looked with expectation at Dean's hands when Dean had been close to tears. "They used boiling water. Over our hands." His voice was hoarse, the hand within Dean's holding on fiercely. "I saw it happen, before I ever thought to do it. So it never happened to me."

But he had seen it. Dean didn't know whether to cry or vomit. Sam was too fucking young to have gone through any of that, to have been stripped of his innocence and first experiences with his body and sex, all with a systematic evil that made Dean want to scream, smash everything within reach and drink a fucking liquor store. But none of that would do a fucking thing to help Sam in the here and now.

Dean drew in a breath and offered his arm. "Can you—if you want to, Sam." For a moment, Sam looked at him in blank confusion; but his understanding turned on like a light, relief pushing him forward to Dean's side, pressing himself close and tucking his head to Dean's shoulder. He fit like he had every night before, like a part of Dean that he'd never known he was lacking. Dean let out a shuddering breath and pulled him in tight.

"Just to be crystal clear," he said quietly, his hand on Sam's shoulder moving unconsciously (but with Sam relaxing into the motion, it was damned hard to stop). "This is a pro-masturbation environment, no exceptions, no restrictions. You, me, the fucking neighbors, the landlord's dog, I don't care who's getting off, they've got my full support. And I would've told you that ages ago if I'd had a fucking clue. Seriously, the more the better, Sam."

Sam almost smiled, but then shook his head slowly. "I don't..." He made a vague gesture which lacked the conviction and confidence to be obscene. Dean fucking wished for both.

"You can, though. I am one hundred percent A-OK with this. You want privacy, some lube, I've got a Playb—yeah, anything, whatever you need."

Sam twitched, dropping his gaze. "I don't...I don't think I can. I...I don't want...to do that."

Dean swallowed. How much worse could this get?

But Sam glanced up to Dean, eyes wide and breathing a shade too fast. "I don't think I could—" He stopped to swallow, painfully. "Do that, t-touch myself. B-b-but I like it...when y-you touch me."

Dean blinked. And then took a deep breath, because he wasn't sure that he had been, his head felt a little funny, and that was one statement that he had to be fucking sure about before he made one damn move or the consequences would destroy them in a way there was no coming back from. "Sam, I need you to say that again because I don't...I have to be sure about this, okay. Just, tell me that again, and be...be..."

"I like it when you touch me," Sam repeated, soft but sure. "I always do."

The ringing in Dean's ears could not possibly help him be sure that what he was hearing was really what he was hearing, much less understanding it right. "Yeah, but Sam, I—touch you a lot, right? Like, every day. Like this, now, and in bed—but that's different, and do you mean like...like that?"

Sam stared at him for a minute, and for a crazy moment Dean wondered if there were some curse over them, that they couldn't even be sure of the meaning of a handful of words. Then Sam visibly gathered himself and said, low and clear and tight as an overwound watch, "I like when we kiss. When you t-t-touch me when we kiss. How you w-w-were t-touching me before I...b-before."

Suddenly, Dean was hyperaware of where they were—sitting on a rumpled queen-size bed, nothing between them but two sets of too-thin pajamas. He knew, even more clearly than a few minutes ago with Sam's neck under his lips, exactly where this could go and how easily it would be to get there. This morning. Right fucking now. With Sam's I like when you touch me still hanging in the air.

"Gimme a minute, Sam," Dean rasped, and made an effort to loosen his grasp on the bed.

Sam was throwing up pretty clear "full speed ahead, I'm yours for the taking" signals (and fuck those thoughts were not helpful right now when he was trying to be clear-headed), and there were so many ways they could fuck this up. But then again, Dean had been in over his head since the day he'd taken Sam out of Freak Camp, yet somehow, miraculously, they had made it this far. Maybe that spoke to Dean's good instincts, or Sam's ability to survive goddamn anything, or maybe totally unexpected Winchester luck, but whatever it was, they were still here. And while Dean couldn't do a damn thing to undo what Sam had gone through, maybe he could give back something that had been stripped away. And maybe making the attempt would be worth the potential fuck-up.

When he looked up, Sam was watching him, his hands twining again in his lap. Dean slid his hands over them, and immediately Sam's hands unfolded, turning to hold Dean's.

"Sam," Dean said. "You know, I like it when you touch me, too. A lot, dude," he added fervently, and watched color rise in Sam's cheeks. "And it's really important to me that you know...it's okay, no, it's really fucking awesome that you feel good too, when you touch me. That's the most important thing to me, you get that, Sam?"

Sam nodded slowly, eyes never leaving Dean's.

"And it's just as important," Dean continued, meeting that gaze, "that you know it's okay to feel this way. That you like it just as much. And if you're okay with me touching you, Sam, I'd like to...I really wanna show you how good it feels, that it's okay for you and for me and...that it's okay. 'Cause that's what matters to me, Sam, if we're gonna be doing any...touching."

Sam drew in a shuddering breath, but never looked away. And then he nodded.

"Yeah?" Dean said, his heart beating faster now. "You get it, Sam? I gotta know—"

"Yeah, Dean," Sam said, with a breathless hitch, and he leaned forward to kiss him on the lips.

It was too easy to shift his grip from Sam's hands to his shoulders, to pull him close, but Sam was already moving, rising onto his knees to meet him. Easy, Dean thought, easy, easy, Winchester—

And then they did, miraculously, slow down, each long, deep kiss taking its time, savoring the nearness of each other. Sam's fingers brushed Dean's cheek, then slid behind his neck and down his back, a sweeping caress that made Dean groan against Sam's mouth. He wanted now, more than ever before, to yank Sam to him, press chest-to-chest and groin-to-groin, rut against him as he felt Sam's body react against his. But that wasn't right. His only job was not to lose his fucking head (in every way, yeah). He just wished that didn't seem so damn impossible.

But he eased Sam back onto the bed, palms braced on his lower back. Sam broke off with a gasp, tensing, but Dean kept his weight braced off of him, slowing their kisses even more. He finished each one by looking into Sam's eyes, touching their foreheads, just breathing with him. He could do this all day and nothing more, if that's what Sam wanted. And he needed Sam to know that. Slowly, Sam's eyes shut, head tilting to catch Dean's mouth and kiss harder. He loved it every bit as much as Dean did, judging by the sounds he started to make deep in his throat, the good-whimpers, and how he started to twist to get closer, for more. His leg nudged against Dean's knee as his hands slid over Dean's shoulders, tightening with a tug, like he wanted Dean down now.

Dean shifted his weight so he could rest his fingers against Sam's face as he kissed across the opposite cheek. "Oh, Sammy, baby," he groaned, and rubbed his knee against Sam's leg. Sam whimpered again, arching his throat, and Dean pressed his mouth to the smooth skin there to kiss and suck.

Sam's moan choked off abruptly, and Dean stopped, lifting his head to look Sam in the face.

Sam was breathing hard, cheeks still flushed and pupils blown. "It's okay, didn't hurt. Just—" He swallowed. "Sensitive."

Dean nodded, tracing the line of Sam's face with his fingertips before lowering his head to Sam's neck again. This time, he savored the groans and gasps, Sam twisting frantically as he alternately dug his fingernails through Dean's shirt and ran his hands down Dean's back. Within a minute he was crying, "Dean, Dean, Dean," and Dean thought, fuck yes, that's it.

He slid his hands down to touch Sam's sides as Sam was touching him, stroking and caressing until he found the hem of Sam's shirt. When he dipped his fingers underneath and made the first tentative contact with the bare skin above Sam's hip, Sam's back arched, and Dean jerked up just in time to keep from getting knocked on the jaw by Sam's chin.

It was a good time to check his face again, smile and kiss that swollen, panting mouth. "You okay, Sammy? You good, baby?"

"Yes," Sam said, and just as tentatively he slipped his hand under Dean's shirt, to press against his abdomen. He met Dean's eyes, and there was no fear or uncertainty there. "Yeah, Dean."

No fucking way Dean could doubt that. With a ragged breath, he leaned in to kiss Sam again, harder and deeper than before, and this time he let one knee dip between Sam's legs to press against his inner thigh.

Sam felt it, Dean knew, but it didn't change the intensity of his kisses or his grip on Dean's back. Instead he closed his legs around Dean's knee, crossing his ankles over Dean's calf as he arched up again, and oh fuck.

There wasn't any point in holding back anymore. Dean settled slowly over Sam's body, and for a moment they both froze, eyes locked on each other.

Sam looked wrecked already, hands kneading bruises of want into Dean's shoulders. He was unmistakably hard under Dean's thigh, and that was the hottest fucking accomplishment of Dean's life, but that had nothing to do with whether or not it was okay.

Dean lifted his hand once again to Sam's cheek. "You okay, Sammy? You good?"

Sam whimpered, and it wasn't quite one of the good ones. "I don't—" He swallowed and shut his eyes, shaking his head while Dean's heart stuttered in his chest. "Don't want you to stop," Sam gasped at last. "I don't know if it's okay—with you, will you tell me? I can't—"

Dean kissed his mouth, just a light brush of lips. "It's okay with me," he said quietly. "Hell yes, it's okay with me, Sam, but I gotta know you're okay. Promise me you'll say something, if it gets too much, if—anything, okay? You can say—'PG,' y'know, to go back. That's okay."

"Okay," Sam said, a little breathlessly. "Don't wanna stop, though."

"Okay." Dean pushed his fingers through Sam's hair, then slowly ground his thigh down between Sam's. Sam's mouth opened in a gorgeous 'o,' his head dropping back as his eyes fluttered closed, and Dean sucked in a breath. "That good, baby?"

"Yes—"

"You can move, too, if you want," Dean said, trying not to give away how much he hoped Sam would.

And after a minute, Sam did, rocking his hips in hesitant, uneven jerks, his pants sounding half like sobs, pressing his face into Dean's shoulder. His hands had stilled, dug tight into Dean's shoulders, and Dean doubted that anything short of a superhuman force could have removed them.

They could have both come like this, probably within a few minutes if Dean took over—fuck, they were just dry-humping in their fucking pajamas, but that was sex in all the ways that counted, close enough to make Dean's head spin—but that wasn't what Dean had in mind. With a massive effort, he stilled his hips, and Sam did a moment later, his head falling back as he blinked his wet-bright eyes open.

"D-d-do you want to stop?"

"No way, baby." Dean stroked his knuckles along Sam's cheek. "Just wanna—lemme see your hand, 'kay?" Slowly, Sam released a shoulder and offered it, fingers trembling. Dean reached over, interlocking their fingers. "I wanna show you what I was talking about earlier. How to make you feel good." He kissed the top of Sam's knuckles, never breaking eye contact, and Sam nodded slowly.

Dean kissed him again, long and deep, as he brought both their hands down between them to touch the hot curve of Sam's cock beneath the thin fabric of his pajama pants.

Sam shuddered, mouth going still, but Dean just stroked lightly, moving both their hands back and forth, his eyes half-open to watch Sam's face. Slowly, Sam relaxed into the kiss, moaning and letting his hips rock against their hands. Then Dean dragged their hands back up to the flat of Sam's abdomen, to slip under the waistband of his pajama pants.

Sam stopped with a gasp, eyes flying wide open, and Dean's eyes never left his face. Slow, slow, he brushed their knuckles over the head of Sam's dick, hands gliding between pajamas and boxers, the skin beneath them so hot that Dean wanted nothing more than to grab that bare shaft and stroke it from base to tip, memorize the feel and look of it until Sam came apart underneath him.

But he was going to do this fucking right, and right now Sam looked petrified. Even if Dean hadn't known before that Sam had never, ever done this, he'd know now.

"You wanna stop, Sam?" Dean asked quietly.

"Dean—" Sam's voice almost broke. But he swallowed and said, "I trust you."

"Just like I'm trusting you to tell me when it's too much, right?" Dean kissed Sam again, just for a second before drawing their hands out. But he was only moving to grasp the sides of Sam's pants, to tug them down over Sam's hips. Sam drew a shaky breath, fisting his hands tight on the sheets, but still moving to help Dean get them off. Then Dean loosened Sam's grip on the bed, wrapping his hand securely in his.

"I got you, Sammy, remember? It's gonna be okay, I swear."

Sam nodded, fractionally, and Dean laid both their hands over Sam's cock, jutting against the boxers. It was a little awkward at first, until Dean let his fingers slip from between Sam's so they could overlap instead. He traced the outline of Sam's head and watched Sam gape and gasp, pupils enormous liquid pools.

"You tell me, Sammy. Tell me if you wanna go any further."

Sam's throat worked convulsively. "Yeah, Dean. Please."

Dean lifted him up by the hips, yanking Sam's boxers down his thighs. He let himself look—just for a second, or it was supposed to be, because he had to stay focused on Sam every step of the way—because he couldn't not look, not when he'd been fantasizing about this for way, way too many months.

And fuck, yes. This was Sam's cock, beautiful and hard for him, and Dean wanted to spend the morning memorizing the shape and feel of it, tasting it, seeing all the ways Sam would react when he did—but not yet. Not yet.

"Fucking beautiful, Sammy." Dean heard a ragged edge in his own voice, and he let himself stroke that gorgeous cock, feeling the smooth velvet skin beneath his hand.

But Sam wasn't moving his hand. He lay with his eyes closed, drawing in shuddering breaths, forehead knit like he was undergoing...nothing nearly as fun as sex should be. Fuck.

"Hey, Sammy, you with me?"

Eyes flickering open, Sam nodded fractionally, with effort.

"You're doing great, all right? You're so fucking hot—but I want you to try this, just try—move your hand like mine, all right? Here—" Dean started to move his hand over Sam's, to guide him, but Sam flinched, shoulders stiffening as his eyes squeezed tight shut. "Okay." Dean let go immediately, sliding his hand lower on the shaft, below Sam's. "Okay, we're not doing that. Just...follow me, if you can. I want you to—it's gonna feel so good, Sammy. It's okay for you, too, not just me."

After a minute, Sam started to imitate Dean's slow, easy slide, and his breathing changed. He threw his head back, whimpering in a way that made Dean's own dick ache and his breath catch, because it lay somewhere in the no-man's land between bad and good.

"You're doing good, Sammy, swear to God you are. Never seen anyone as hot as you, baby."

Dean kept talking, reassurances and encouragement, watching Sam's face as they found a rhythm. Sam shuddered and twisted, jerking his head from side to side as he alternately bit his lip and gasped. He wasn't relaxing. The more they found their pace, the more frantic Sam became, the more he writhed like he was—fighting it.

If Dean hadn't known the horror story behind Sam's terror, he would have stopped, terrified that he was hurting him, that Sam wasn't ready or didn't want this. But now he knew why, and it wasn't going to get easier if they stopped now, when Sam had said yes in every way he knew and every way Dean knew to ask.

The next time Dean drew his hand up, he brushed his thumb across Sam's wet head (fuck, he was so fucking hard, no wonder it looked like he was in pain), and Sam threw his head back with a cry, stopping his hand completely.

"I can't, Dean, I can't—"

"Yes. Yes, you can, Sammy, I swear you can. C'mon, baby, it's gonna be okay." Sam was listening to him, Dean could tell, despite how his body was fighting him. "You can, baby, I swear, I'm here, fuck I wanna see you come so bad..."

That did it. Sam came brutally hard, his body an arched bow against Dean's, mouth open in a soundless desperate scream. Dean kissed him then, hard, and felt Sam's cock pulse hot and wet beneath their hands.

Dean broke off only when Sam's cock was soft, letting Sam gasp out shuddering breaths while he kissed the tear tracks beneath his eyes. Then he eased down beside him, wiping his hand on the sheets before smoothing Sam's sweat-soaked hair back and pulling him close to his chest as Sam cried. They were quiet tears, to Dean's vast relief, nothing like the ones after nightmares or panic attacks. But they still had a broken quality about them, like a dam that had finally given way.

"You did good, Sammy," Dean told him, over and over again, "just fucking amazing." And he meant it, but he couldn't make himself smile.