Dean's thought about having sex with Sam before. Maybe that makes him a bad brother; he's pretty sure it does. He's never planned on acting on it, though. Fantasizing about having sex with your seventeen-year-old brother is one thing, but actually following through is a whole different level of wrong, and Dean's definitely not going there.

Which does absolutely nothing to explain why Sam is on his knees in front of Dean, fingers splayed wide on Dean's hips and swallowing Dean's dick all the way down. Sam's eyes are hot and dark and Dean can't stop it.

He's doomed, he's completely and utterly doomed.

*

That's not how it starts.

They're spending the spring in Amarillo, Texas. It's Sam's senior year of high school and he's been begging to stay in one place for ages. Just through the end of the school year. It's my last semester, we can move around as much as you want after that, Sam says.

Dean thinks Dad probably would have done it anyway, but Dean puts in a word for Sam just to make sure -- to push things over the edge into certainty. Sam doesn't really care where they stay, exactly, which is good, because Dad doesn't give him the choice. Amarillo it is: there's a long-term hunt nearby that Dad's working. Sam enrolls in the twelfth grade at Caprock High School, and Dean gets a job at the local auto repair shop.

The owner pays cash but it's legal, working there; that's something that doesn't happen to Dean very often. They work him pretty hard but the pay is good and he comes back at night mostly too exhausted to think about how he's got a permanent hard-on for his younger brother.

*

Dean's, well. Gay isn't the word for it, because girls are pretty much the best thing ever, but he's got eyes, too. He and Sam have always been too close, sleeping in the same bed for most of their lives and living in the same space, and when Sam finally gets his long-awaited growth spurt, grows and grows and grows, Dean doesn't miss it. Sam's got a couple inches on Dean already and he's not done yet, hasn't had time to get used to his height or to start to bulk up. He's strong, though, albeit lean -- 'scrawny' is what Dean tells him, "You're tall as fuck but you're still scrawny," except that's not really what Dean means at all, and he hopes Sam knows it.

Mostly, though, Dean hopes Sam isn't too good at reading minds, because Sam's meant to be his little brother, the one Dean's big enough to protect, and now that Sam's the taller of the two of them -- well, it's throwing Dean off, is all. That's the only reason he's looking at Sam and thinking of sex, is that he's not used to his little brother not being little anymore. It's no big deal. He's definitely not going to act on it, anyway.

*

Dean's not stupid. He knows Sam applied to college in the fall. He knows Sam hasn't heard back yet, that he probably won't hear back until April. There's an underlying anxiety to everything Sam's doing right now, a worry that's connected to the college thing; it has to be. Dean doesn't want to think what will happen when the letters arrive, so he tries not to. He's not meant to know that Sam applied to college at all, judging from how hard Sam worked to hide it from him and Dad, so Dean doesn't let on he knows. Maybe if he doesn't think about it, if he ignores it hard enough, it won't be real, the idea that Sam wants to go to college. Instead of thinking about that, he thinks about Sam's stress, wishes there were some way to ease the lines of tension out of Sam's back.

Maybe if he thinks it often enough, it'll stick.

*

Sam seems happier in Amarillo than he's been in a long time, though, in spite of the stress. It's got to be because of the fact that they aren't moving on, Dean thinks, because the kind of stress Sam's under right now -- the stress of college applications -- that's a normal kind of stress, stress other kids can relate to. Sam's been here long enough to learn the names of the kids in his classes, to receive long-term homework assignments he's actually still in town to finish. Stability makes Sam happy, and Dean's happy that Sam's happy.

*

Dean can never get all of the axel grease off himself, no matter how hard he tries. He's forever finding smudges on his elbows or behind his ears, and even when he can't see it he can feel it, oily slick black on his skin. Sam laughs at him about it for a while, but then goes quiet -- probably got bored with it, Dean thinks, because there are only so many jokes about axel grease in the world and most of them aren't that funny.

Dean doesn't actually believe that -- he's a veritable treasure-trove of axel grease jokes, and they are all funny -- but if Sam can't come up with any good ones on his own, well, Dean's not going to help him out there.

*

Being in one place too long makes Dean antsy. The auto repair shop's not so bad, as far as legal employment goes; he likes most of the guys he works with. Billy Anderson's kind of a jerk, but after the first few weeks Dean's schedule doesn't overlap with his anymore, so that's fine.

Dean might not like being here, but he's not going to bitch and moan about something that's clearly making Sam so happy. And if Dean picks up girls when he's out at bars with the auto repair guys, if he fucks them out in back alleys or in the Impala or, rarely, back at the apartment, when he knows Sam won't be home; if he thinks about Sam sometimes when he fucks them, if he calls out Sam's name when he bites down hard on their shoulders and comes -- well. No one says anything about it.

*

Dean's got a weekday routine in Amarillo, and it's unchanging:

7:00 a.m. Slam alarm clock off. 7:10 a.m. Get up. Wake Sammy up. Get dressed. 7:15 a.m. Pour a bowl of cereal. Eat it. 7:25 a.m. Laugh at Sam's bed-head when he walks into the room. Give Sam a noogie to distract from his enormous hard-on. Will his enormous hard-on down. 7:40 a.m. Yell at Sam for not being ready to leave. 7:45 a.m. Leave the house. Yell at Sam for making him late. 7:55 a.m. Drop Sam off at school. 8:00 a.m. Arrive at the shop. 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Repair cars. Refrain from strangling stupid customers. Get covered with axel grease. 5:00 p.m. Drive home. Say hello to Sammy, who's sitting at the kitchen table doing homework, tongue sticking out the side of his mouth in concentration. Pray Sammy doesn't notice his enormous hard-on. Get in the shower, partially to get rid of axel grease, but mostly to jerk off. Try not to think about Sam in any way while jerking off. Fail miserably. 5:45 p.m. Make something for dinner. Eat it with Sam. Spend the rest of the night trying to convince Sam to give up on his homework and watch T.V. or go out with him until he relents. Sometime around 12:00 a.m., go to bed. Repeat ad infinitum.

The routine's been working just fine for Dean so far. He knows exactly where he'll be at any given time and well, if it's a little boring, that's no less than he expects of being in the same town for months on end. Plus, their neighborhood is pretty much the least supernaturally-infested place ever. There's a little bit of crime, maybe, just enough to keep people smart, but it's nothing a kid like Sammy can't handle.

*

Dean knows that Sam's safe here, of course he does, but his stomach still turns an enormous flip when he comes home from work one night in April and Sam isn't in the kitchen. He's been at the kitchen table every night Dean's come home from work, every freaking night, and in a split-second Dean's thought of a dozen bad things that could've happened to him. He's got Sam maimed and left for dead in a ditch outside of town before he even thinks to call out Sam's name, to see if he's still in the house--

"Sam!"

"I'm right here." Sam rounds the corner coming from the back of the house. He's holding a towel around his waist and his hair is damp, curling at his neck, and Dean's furious, completely furious. Sam starts to say something -- I was just taking a shower, what's going on? -- but Dean isn't listening. Instead he slams Sam back against the wall by the door, ignores how the surprise in Sam's face is turning quickly to anger, and says, "What were you thinking? You're always right here when I come back, always, I thought something had--"

Sam freezes, the anger suddenly gone from his features. "Dean," he says, reaching up to touch Dean's cheek. Dean flinches. "Hey. I'm okay, y'know?" Then something in Sam's expression changes again. He still has his hand on Dean's cheek; Dean can't figure out why Sam hasn't moved it yet. For the space of a breath nothing happens, then: "Dean," Sam says, face full of wonder, and Dean realizes with a jolt that he's standing too close to Sam, is hard against Sam's thigh, and Sam isn't moving, hasn't backed away, is instead -- oh God -- dropping to his knees, saying, "Shit, Dean, I had no idea--"

Dean swallows. "Sammy, what're you--"

He tries to push Sam away but Sam's having none of it. His grasp on Dean's hips is firm. "Can I? Please? Can I blow you, Dean?"

Dean tries to be a good brother. Most of the time he succeeds, but he's nowhere near good enough to be able to resist this. "You--" He swallows, tries again. "You want to?"

"God, yeah," Sam breathes.

Dean nods, and then Sam is tearing at his zipper, shoving Dean's pants down, laying his mouth to Dean's dick through his boxer-briefs.

"Jesus fuck," Dean groans, and then his underwear is around his ankles, too. He's got his back against the wall and Sam is taking Dean's dick into his mouth, opening his jaw up wide and sucking deep down. He's good at this, way too good -- nobody's born knowing how to suck dick like this, and Dean goes even impossibly harder at the thought of Sam on his knees in front of one of the boys in his class, one of his friends.

Sam pulls back to suck on Dean's balls, gripping his dick tightly at the base, and Dean's brain shorts out altogether, harder faster more and it doesn't matter where Sam learned this as long as he keeps doing it, Jesus fuck yes--

Dean's coming all over Sam's face and Sam is smiling up at him.

*

In the middle of the April, Dad calls: he's coming home.

In the middle of the night, Dean goes into the kitchen and finds ten college acceptance letters on the table, little ducklings all in a row.

Dean knew it before but he knows it better now: there's no way that this can end well.