By the time Dean is ten years old, he's well aware that his family is different from everyone else's. He knows not to mention that sometimes they live in hotels or that he got a set of knives for his last birthday, and it goes without saying that he won't tell anyone that his dad hunts evil instead of holding a job like the other kids' fathers. He hadn't realized, though, that those weren't the only things that were weird about his family.

Pete Barker, Matt Fried and Eric Buchanan are all staring at Dean over the lunch table like he's grown a second head. "You still let your little brother cuddle with you?" Pete says incredulously. "Seriously?"

"It's not cuddling," Dean shoots back, immediately on the defensive. "The kid just gets scared at night, and he won't go back to sleep unless somebody holds him for a while."

The other three boys exchange a look. "That sounds a lot like cuddling," Eric says.

Dean piles the trash back on his tray. "It's not." He stands up to take his tray back. Lunch is almost over, anyway.

"Hey, Dean, where are you going? We didn't mean anything by it," Pete calls after him.

"Whatever." Dean heads back to Mrs. Evans' room quickly so he doesn't have to walk with them, his face burning.

He doesn't wait after the last bell rings and hang around with them like he usually does, either. Instead he heads straight for Mrs. Masterson's first grade class and picks up Sammy. Dean can feel his face heating again as Sam puts on his backpack and says, "Hey! Dean! Guess what we did in math today!"

"What did you do?" Dean asks automatically. He's not really listening, though, as Sam babbles about fractions and pie slices. He's still thinking about what Pete, Matt and Eric said. Is it weird that he lets Sam sleep with him? He's never really thought about it. Sam's been curling up against him pretty much forever; he hardly ever stays on his side of the bed anymore.

It's not like Dean really cares what Pete, Matt and Eric think. He's not going to change something he's doing because of them. But -- is it weird that Sammy sleeps with him all the time? The kid is six years old. He should probably learn how to sleep on his own, especially since Dean is ten already and Dad's probably going to start taking him along on hunts any day now. What will happen if Dean's gone for a couple of days and Sam can't sleep at all? Yeah, it's definitely time for Sam to learn to sleep by himself.

That night Dean plants himself on his side and stares at the door all night, too conscious of Sam's muffled whimpering to fall asleep. He doesn't roll back over, though. It's for Sam's own good, he tells himself.

After a week, Sam is falling asleep on his own, sure enough. It takes Dean longer.

*

When Dean is thirteen, they move to Lonoke, Arkansas. Dad is working at a garage, Sam is in the fourth grade and Dean has a potentially life-threatening crush on Natasha Blackburn. They're in physical science class together, except the only physical science Dean is learning about is the correlation between the way Natasha's short skirts ride up when she squirms in her seat and just how quickly Dean pops a boner at the sight of her legs, long and pale and stretching up up up . . .

Three weeks of class and Dean's most of the way to crazy before he works up the nerve to ask Natasha if he can walk her home. She says yes. They take a long, looping route that leads them nowhere near where she lives. The talk about nothing in particular, and Dean is concentrating so hard on what she is saying that he doesn't realize he's led them to the rental house until he looks through the front window and sees Sammy doing his homework at the kitchen table.

Natasha follows his gaze. "That your kid brother?"

"Yeah," Dean says. "We could go inside, if you want."

She wrinkles her nose and smiles a secretive little smile. "Nah, I don't really want to. I've got a better idea."

She takes his hand and leads him around to the back of the house. The month of September has been dry and the grass around the rental is brown and dead, flattening beneath their feet in twin sets of footprints until Natasha stops. Dean knows what is going to happen and cannot, in spite of this, control the speed of his pulse. Natasha pulls the hand that is clasping hers to her waist and Dean fits his hand to her hip, which is tiny and perfect. She places her free hand on Dean's shoulder, stands up on her tip-toes and touches her mouth to his. She's not the first girl Dean has kissed but she is by far the best, moaning softly when he slides his tongue into her mouth.

They walk home together the next day, too, and make plans to meet the day after that, when she's not going to be at school in the afternoon because of an appointment. She says she'll come over at four-thirty, though, as soon as she's back from the doctor's.

Dean is scaling the walls of the kitchen, waiting for it to be time. At 3:45 he can't take it anymore. "I'm going to go buy some snacks," he tells Sam. "You hungry?"

"Mmm," Sam replies, pouring over his geography homework.

"Right, well, I'll be back in a little while, so you just stay here," Dean says rapidly.

"Mmm," Sam says again.

That's all the acknowledgment Dean needs. He's up and out the door.

The auto repair shop where Dad works is just down the street, and it has a gas station and a mini-mart attached. Elmer, the owner, is behind the counter today, and he lets Dean take a bag of Cooler Ranch Doritos, Sam's favorite, for free. Dean's cover story is in place, and it's 3:55 now. He half-sprints back to the house and finds Natasha already waiting out back.

"Hey," she says. "I was wondering where you were."

"Sorry, I was--"

She doesn't really seem interested in where he was. She kisses him hard on the mouth. He drops the bag of Doritos. She backs him up against the wall of the house and curls her hands in his t-shirt. His hands find their way to her hips. They kiss for a long time; Dean doesn't know how long. Their teeth clack and noses bump sometimes but Dean still thinks he could go on kissing Natasha for years and be happy.

He knows he should always be alert, on the lookout, but he can't concentrate on anything but Natasha while he's kissing her, while she's so warm and pliant beneath his hands. So he's not paying attention and he can't really be sure if it actually happens or if he's just imagining it, but he thinks he hears a noise: a sharp intake of breath, quickly muffled. Sammy, Dean thinks.

Dean never sees him, and when he and Natasha pull apart fifteen minutes later and Dean heads back inside, Sam is sitting the kitchen table doing his homework, exactly as Dean left him.

"Hey, kid, catch," Dean says, tossing him the bag of Doritos.

Sam snags them out of the air and says thanks before tearing the bag open and going back to his homework.

Dean stares at him for a long moment, wondering if Sam really saw them and, if so, how much he saw. Was he there when Dean tucked an errant hair of Natasha's behind her ear and their noses hit together and they stopped kissing for a moment to laugh? Was he there when Natasha, ever so daring, covered Dean's hand with her own and moved Dean's hand up away from her hips, up up up until it cupped the small swell of her breast and it was all he could do not to come in his pants? His dick is swelling again just thinking about it. Was Sammy watching then? He doesn't know.

Natasha breaks up with him a week later and starts going out with Ben Stone the week after that. It doesn't really matter. A few weeks after that Dad gets word of a hunt in Elk City, Oklahoma, and they pack up the Impala and go.

*

They're in Oklahoma again when Dean is sixteen: Muskogee this time. There were only five weeks left in the school year when they moved in, so Dean doesn't see much point in concentrating on schoolwork. If Dad were around, he'd probably make Dean try a little harder, but Dad's been gone off and on the whole time they've been here. As it is, Dean puts in just enough effort that the teachers don't pay attention to him either way, and that much effort he can manage in his sleep. School doesn't matter. It's not like he's going to go on to college after this.

Dean spends his time picking up girls and training for hunts. Summer is coming up, big hunting season, and Dad will want to take Dean with him all the time like he did last year.

Sam, though, is determined to finish the seventh grade, no matter how behind on schoolwork he is. He's spending every spare second at the kitchen table, nose down over extra credit geography or science or whatever it is that seventh graders do. Sometimes Dean comes home at one or two in the morning and Sam is still there at the kitchen table, and Dean has to send him to bed to make sure he gets a little bit of sleep sometimes. Dean's never seen a kid who cared so much about school.

It's a Thursday afternoon in the middle of June, and Dean's been in the abandoned garage out back for the past two hours, practicing with his throwing knives. The high hasn't dropped below 106 degrees in a week and Dean is dripping sweat. Sam doesn't even look up from his homework when Dean comes back in and makes straight for the shower. He's too hot to do anything but turn the temperature all the way to cold and stand under the showerhead -- too hot to jerk off, even.

When he gets out of the shower, the A.C. is on the fritz again. Even after the cold shower, beads of perspiration gather on his forehead. The damned A.C. unit just won't full-out die, and until it does, the landlord refuses to replace it, 106-degree weather or no.

It's too hot to think, and if Dean had his way he would park himself on the couch naked with a cold beer and not move for the rest of the afternoon. Sam's gotten weird about Dean being naked around him lately, though. It's just some awkward twelve-year-old phase, Dean figures; he's hoping Sam'll get over it soon, but because he is an awesome brother he leaves his towel wrapped around his waist while he heads into the family room.

He can feel Sam staring at him as soon as he walks in. Sam's been doing a lot of that lately, too, watching Dean when he thinks Dean isn't looking. Dean can't for the life of him figure out why Sam's doing it, and Sam honestly seems to think that Dean hasn't noticed, so Dean's been letting it slide, acting like he really does think Sam's been doing his algebra homework all this time. The kid needs to learn sometime that he's not as sneaky as he thinks he is, though.

So after he reaches down to grab the clothes he left on the floor here yesterday -- a mostly-clean pair of boxers and a dirty t-shirt -- he turns very deliberately towards Sam, catches him staring and says, "Aww, Sammy, don't worry, give it a couple of years and all the girls will be looking at you, too." He doesn't really think that's why Sam's staring at him, but maybe it is: Sam flushes brilliant red. Dean plays it off like it's nothing, winks at Sam then walks over and ruffles Sam's hair.

Sam flushes even more and mumble something unintelligible, probably, "Cut it out, Dean."

Dean just grins at him and heads back into the bedroom to put his clothes on. He's got an odd taste in his mouth; he can't figure out what it is.

*

Dean thought Sam might stop staring at him now after Dean had called him on it. But Sam doesn't. He's sneakier about it, and Dean catches him at it less often, but he doesn't stop.

Dean doesn't call him on it again; he probably should, but he doesn't. He's not entirely sure why not.

*

Dean would have thought there would be some kind of impetus, some event that later he could go back to and pinpoint as the start of the whole thing, but it doesn't happen that way.

Instead, it's more like this:

When Dean is seventeen, Sam gets his first growth spurt. When Dean is eighteen, he gets his second. All of Sam's clothes are too small, so Sam borrows some of Dean's until they can get to the next Goodwill or army surplus store. Sam is nearly as tall as Dean after the second growth spurt, but he's skinny; he hasn't stopped growing long enough to put on any muscle, and Dean's clothes hang loose on his frame. He has to cinch belts tight around his waist to keep Dean's jeans up, and something about the sight of it makes Dean swallow hard, muscles working in his throat.

And this:

Dad's gone more and more these days, now that Sam's getting older. Dean graduates high school in June, to his great surprise. Dad is off on a hunt at the time, and when he gets back all he says is, "Huh. How about that, son." But Sam comes to the ceremony, watches Dean walk across the stage in that stupid cap and gown and takes Dean out for a steak dinner afterwards with money he'd made walking the neighbors' dogs. Sam smiles at him over dinner and says he thinks it's awesome that Dean finished high school, and something curls happy and tight in Dean's stomach, a feeling for which he has no name.

And this:

When Sam turns fifteen, Dean takes him to the Manassas, Virginia D.M.V. to get his driver's permit. There's no real need for it -- Dean taught Sam to drive when Sam was ten, and Sam's got half a dozen driver's licenses to choose from in the Impala's glove compartment -- but Sam likes to do things up good and proper, and when Dean tells him where they're going Sam's entire face lights up in a way that makes Dean feel like the best big brother ever.

It turns out you have to take a knowledge test before they'll issue a permit, but Dean should've guessed that Sam would know the answer to every question on it. When they hand him the driver's permit, Sam looks like the sides of his face are going to split, he's grinning so hugely. Dean gives him crap for it, but he doesn't really mean it; Sam's so completely happy that Dean can't help grinning back at him.

So the first time he jerks off thinking about Sam, he's not nearly as surprised as he probably should be. He's more relieved than anything else, honestly: he's glad that he finally bit the bullet and did it. He'd been building up to it for a while, though he'd been trying not to think about it, and now that he's done it and it didn't kill him or anything, it feels like some balance has shifted back into place. Jerking off thinking about Sammy can just be another thing he does now; he doesn't have to worry so much about it. It doesn't mean anything. It's not like Sammy's ever going to find out about it anyway.

*

By the time Dean turns twenty, Sam is a full inch taller than him and still growing. Dean rags on him for it constantly, calls him Sasquatch and Gigantor, but the fact is that Sam is taller than him and Sam turns him on more than ever. It's embarrassing, and Dad's insistence that Dean spar with Sam increasingly often isn't helping a damned thing. "Sam needs to learn how to use his height," Dad says, and that's all well and good, except that Dean's still the better fighter and there's no way in hell he can end up with Sam pinned to the ground and keep from popping a boner. It just can't be done.

Because that's the other thing: Sam gets a hard-on every time they spar, without fail. Dean remembers being fifteen: he used to get hard if a girl so much as looked at him the right way; a little physical contact and he was pretty much done for. Sparring involves a good bit more physical contact than that, so it's really no surprise that Sam goes hard every time they fight. But after Dean nearly does himself in a few times trying to keep Sam from noticing he's gone hard too, Dean decides that something has to change.

It's easy enough, once Dean figures it out. If he jerks off right before he has to fight with Sam, he can usually make it all the way through the sparring session without getting hard again. So Dean gets on a schedule. If he starts jerking off at 3:30, he can be cleaned up and ready to go by the time Sam gets home from school. Sam likes schedules; he never questions Dean's insistence that they spar right when Sam gets back and no later.

Dean can't help himself, though. When he pins Sam and Sam's dick is poking into Dean's stomach or thigh, Dean holds him there, stares at Sam's mouth and thinks about how easy it would be to press down against Sam, grind his dick into Sam's -- Dean would go hard instantly, he knows he would--

Dean always rolls off as soon as he starts thinking that, muttering something about how they really need to get Sam a girl. He's damned lucky: Sam's never suspected a thing.

*

Dean had kind of hoped it would get better as time went on, that it'd turn out to be the kind of thing that decreased in intensity. Instead it keeps getting worse. He could tell himself that it was just a thing at the start, something he'd get over, but that's not working anymore. He jerks off thinking about Sam all the time now. He still picks up girls at bars, and he loves girls, loves making them come so hard they scream, loves the feel of full breasts heavy in his hands, but he doesn't come anywhere near as hard when he's buried to the hilt in them as when he's just thinking about Sam. It's fucked up, he knows it's fucked up, but as long as Sam doesn't suspect anything, he tells himself it's okay.

Sometimes he wonders if Sam maybe does suspect. Dean's working mostly morning shifts at the auto shop and he's still doing the same thing as before, jerking off right before Sam gets home, but Sam's at some kind of weird experimental high school now that doesn't seem to hold to a firm schedule, so sometimes Sam gets home earlier than Dean expects him to. Sometimes it's so early that it's a close thing, whether Dean's done by the time Sam's back or not.

Dean doesn't think Sam's ever caught him at it, which is lucky, because Dean's not good at staying quiet when he's jacking off, and he knows he says Sam's name out loud more often than not. But every once in a while Sam looks at him over dinner, and there's nothing in the look that says Sam knows, but Dean still wonders nonetheless. Sam never says anything, though. He would say something if he knew, wouldn't he? Surely he would say something if he knew.

*

Dean's pretty sure Sam is actually trying to kill him. That's the only explanation he can come up with for why Sam would be shirtless on the floor between Dean and the T.V., doing about nine billion sit-ups and push-ups. Dean's trying to keep his mind on the T.V., he really is, but the M.A.S.H. rerun isn't anywhere near enough to hold his attention. There's nothing in the damned world that could distract him from Sam, newly seventeen and broad-shouldered, sweat sliding down his back and muscles flexing, grunting with exertion. Even as Sam flips over onto his back and goes into a new set of sit-ups, Dean is still staring openly. Sam can see Dean every time he contracts his stomach muscles, and even knowing this, Dean can't help himself.

Sam has done two sets of push-ups and three sets of sit-ups when he rocks forward, rests his arms on his knees and says, "Dean."

It shocks Dean out of his stare. "I gotta go, uh. Do something. Take a shower."

Sam is still staring after him, but Dean can't get out of the room and into the shower fast enough. It's all he can do not to come at the first touch of his hand to his dick. He's been so hard for so long that it's painful. He's trembling. He squeezes his eyes shut and thinks about the curve of Sam's back, the line of his hips, the dusky tan points of his nipples, what they would taste like: dirt and sweat and Sam . . .

He thinks he is imagining the sudden shift in the room temperature, the slight rush of air against the shower curtain. When he hears the curtain being pulled back, he's sure he is imagining it. He turns, hand still on his dick, and has to slam his free hand against the wall to keep from falling over: Sam is naked in front of him and stepping into the shower.

Dean's brain function pretty much stops right there, so he doesn't do anything to resist when Sam pushes him against the back wall of the shower, hands on Dean's chest to hold him there, and presses his lips to Dean's. Sam is kissing him, he realizes finally, and only then does he think to stop this.

"Sammy," he says, trying to duck away, shoving at Sam, "Sammy." He needs to get out of there, but Sam isn't letting him do it, is blocking Dean wherever he moves. For the life of him Dean can't figure out what Sam is doing.

Except then Sam grabs him by the chin and forces his head up, so he has to look at Sam as Sam says, voice rough, "What have I gotta do, Dean, to make you see I want this?"

The words don't make it all the way through Dean's head at first. Even when they do, they don't make sense, as if Sam is speaking in a foreign language Dean used to know and has long since forgotten. Finally they rearrange into a pattern that makes sense and it clicks. Dean would fall to the floor of the shower if Sam weren't holding him up.

He says the only thing he can think of: "It's wrong, Sam." It isn't what he means at all. What he means is: You can't mean that. You don't. There's no way.

Sam stares at him until he starts to think Sam can read his thoughts. Then Sam says, "Why? Why is it wrong when we both want it?"

Sam is kissing Dean's jaw. That's the only thing Dean can think about right now. Sam's mouth is moving against the side of Dean's jaw, lips rasping over stubble, and Dean's eyes slide closed.

"Sam," Dean groans, trying to fit everything he is feeling into the one word. He doesn't know if it works.

Sam's mouth is pressing against his ear now. "Let me do this," he breathes. "I'll make it good. I wanna make it good for you, Dean."

Dean opens an eye. Sam's earnest stare, heavy-lidded, is almost more than he can take. He means to find a way out of this, somehow make it so that they are back to where they were before, Dean wanting Sam and never having any idea that this might be a possibility, that Sam might want him back.

He means to do that, but the wires get crossed somehow. He says instead, "We do this, there's no going back. You understand, Sam? I can't . . . I won't . . . "

"I want this," Sam says simply. "I want us."

There is a long moment in during which neither of them moves. Dean heard him just fine this time, but still he wants to ask: Are you sure? Are you really sure, because if you go back on this I don't think I could take it. But Sam is waiting in front of him, warm and wet, and suddenly Dean doesn't need to ask anymore. It is so easy to give in.

"Okay," he says to Sam. "Okay."

Everything seems to happen very quickly. They kiss. The hot slide of their mouths together is better than it's been with any girl. Sam falls to his knees and sucks Dean off, long sloppy licks and strokes of his hand. Dean shudders against the tile with the intensity of it. Sam licks the come off his chin, after, and Dean cannot stop from pulling Sam up, tasting himself in Sam's mouth. Dean goes to his knees for Sam, licking along Sam's dick and rolling Sam's balls between his fingers and sucking Sam's thumb into his mouth, nibbling down gently as Sam comes, the wetness warm and tacky on his hand. They kiss again, after, until the water runs cold. The taste of Dean's come is still heavy on Sam's tongue, but layered under it is the taste of Sam, a perfect taste, one Dean never knew he'd know.

Only after they have washed each other off and are in the bedroom, Dean on his back on the bed and Sam kneeling over him, does Dean start to think of the consequences of this, of what will happen next.

"Sam," he says, letting the warning come through in his tone, but Sam pushes at him.

"Don't. I told you I want this, and I know you do too, so don't."

Dean says something sarcastic to that, he doesn't even know what, but it seems to work: Sam is smiling brightly at him, tangling their fingers together and sprawling all over his chest, and Dean pushes his worries down. This will all be okay, he tells himself fiercely. It will.