Sam was eighteen. He was eighteen, and it was too much, and too hard, and it fucking hurt, and he just needed to get out.

Since he was twelve years old, he'd been having these excruciatingly painful, heart-wrenching, gut-twisting feelings, and he couldn't handle them anymore. He thought it would all go away as he grew older, thought it was a product of the hero-worship that he'd always had for his brother intensifying all of his new hormones, thought it was just a phase.

He couldn't have been more wrong.

Throughout the six years since it had started, it had only gotten worse. So, so much worse.

In the beginning, it was minor things. Little, fleeting thoughts. Noticing new aspects of Dean's body that he liked. Like... liked. Normally, it wasn't too difficult for Sam to push any of that away. But then it had gotten... bad.

Only a couple of years later, the dreams had begun. First, the focal point was Dean's mouth just... being. Sometimes he was talking. Sometimes pressing the cool rim of a beer bottle to his lips, dipping his tongue inside for a better taste. Sometimes singing along to Zepplin or Metallica in the Impala. Nothing unusual, aside from how the images made all of Sam's blood rush between his legs and always woke him with a pounding, throbbing ache that he ignored to the best of his ability. They didn't count as wet dreams if he never actually came, right?

Yeah. That was a good theory. Until, you know, he did.

The first time a dream about Dean actually brought him to a climax was just after he turned seventeen. The content had amped up a little by then, still nothing too inexplicably sexual, but not nothing, either. By this time, Dean's lips had begun brushing over small patches of Sam's skin in the dreams; sometimes his mouth, sometimes his neck, or chest, or even his shoulders and biceps occasionally, but no matter where, always feather-light. Dean's lips never lingered anywhere for more than a couple of seconds at a time, and they never applied any real pressure.

That is, before Sam kissed back. Because in the dream that finally got him off, Sam crushed his lips against (ohgod) his brother's, and his release was almost instant.

As if matters needed to be made worse, when Sam gasped in a lung-full of air and pulled himself into consciousness, the realization hit him that he and Dean were sharing a bed. Only one crappy motel room, as always, and their father was occupying the only other available sleeping space.

Sam muttered, "Shit," under his breath, and turned as delicately as he could onto his side, assessing the damage.

And then, the most horrifying of all horrifying possibilities brought itself to reality. Dean was awake.

Sam stopped breathing, stopped moving, stopped, god, everything.

He heard Dean lightly chuckle, and then felt his hand slide between them, ghosting his fingers over the wet patch on the sheets. Dean must have sensed how tense he was, and gently tugged on Sam's shoulder to pull him onto his back again. "'S'okay, Sammy," he muttered sleepily. "C'm'ere."

Sam allowed himself to be maneuvered back into his previous position, but his expression was still filled with embarrassment that flushed his cheeks a dark shade of pink.

Dean ran his fingers methodically through Sam's hair. "Nothin' to be ashamed of," he assured quietly, and Sam gradually relaxed under his touch.

Still, he felt dirty, and wrong, and if Dean could just see what was going on in Sam's head... He shivered.

"Cold?" Dean asked, aware of the movement immediately.

"Yeah," Sam breathed, the lie easily slipping over his tongue.

Dean pressed himself to Sam's body, their frames no longer aligning, as Sam was taller now, and began stroking Sam's back with his fingertips. "Better?" he asked.

Sam couldn't bring himself to speak, so he nodded, hoping that Dean wouldn't notice his rapidly reappearing erection.

If Dean did, he kept it to himself.

That wasn't the last time it happened, nor was it as intense as the dreams or the orgasms eventually became, and when it got to the point that Sam was dreaming about Dean wrapping those cocksucking lips around his dick, he decided he'd had enough.

When the fight with John ended the way that it did, a sliver of Sam had actually been glad that he'd finally gotten the push he needed to leave, to go to Stanford, to start a life of his own. A life without constantly having to watch his back. A life without his father dictating his every move. A life without Dean.

But when Dean wrapped his strong arms around him for what he knew could be the last time, Sam's soul all but melted and poured out of his body. "So fucking proud of you," Dean whispered against his hair. "Love you so much, Sammy. Do good for me. Stay happy."

Sam had ridden a lot of buses in his lifetime. He'd never loathed one more than the one that carried him away from a good, solid hundred and ten percent of his heart.