PART 2/3

Jeffrey sat across from Sam, nursing his drink and mumbling to himself every now and then in a voice so slurred and low that Sam couldn't make it out.  That was Jeffrey, though.  He came to the Roadhouse once every other month, got piss drunk, made Sam sit with him, and mumbled to himself for an hour or two before patting Sam on the head and stumbling out to sleep it off in his truck.

It had started back when Sam had first come to the Roadhouse, though Ellen had run interference for the first few months, until Sam was more settled in and less skittish around strangers.  It wasn't that Jeffrey was a bad person - he was kind of nice, even when he was drunk - it was just that it was strange and sort of familiar in an offsetting way that Sam couldn't pin.

Ellen had said that Jeffrey was the cousin and partner of a Hunter named Joe.  At first, Sam hadn't understood why that mattered, then he'd realized why Jeffrey looked so familiar.  Joe was the Hunter that Sam had been locked in the cage with, back when the vampires had him - back when he was ten.

Jeffrey didn't bring it up, but Sam figured he must have told Ellen at least some of it, because she insisted that Sam sit there every time Jeffrey came in asking about him.  Of course, since Jeffrey never spoke about it, he didn't know what the man knew or how.  Of course, he also wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know.  He looked back at Ellen and she raised an eyebrow, daring him to complain.  Holding in a sigh, he turned back at Jeffrey, who had been going on now for maybe an hour and fifteen.

Jeffrey shook his head, "You look good."

The few rare occasions that the man actually spoke to Sam, Sam was usually at a loss for words.  This was no exception.  "Thanks?" 

Tipping his mug back, Jeffrey emptied it and slammed it back down. "Walk me to my truck."

"Sure."  Dean was watching them closely and when Sam stood up with Jeffrey, he could see his brother tensing out of the corner of his eye, but waved him back.   

Kay had jokingly called Dean Sam's attack dog and it wasn't that far off from the truth.  A word or a gesture and Dean would either come running or sit and stay.  Mostly.  Sometimes, Dean didn't listen to a damn thing Sam said, because he insisted that he was older and that meant knew what was best for Sam.  Which was why Sam had yet to tell Dean what had happened with Kay almost a year ago.  That and, after carefully evaluating Dean's reaction to just about everything, he figured Kay was kind of right - no one deserved that.   

Except for Tiffany Wilcox, the skank from their high school that had gotten Sam in trouble so he'd have detention on a Friday night, because she'd figured out that he was sabotaging her and Dean's dates.  She'd totally deserved it.

Jeffrey stopped at his truck, leaning against the door and Sam looked around the parking lot self-consciously.  It was rounding on eleven on a Saturday and it was dark, but there were cars parked everywhere, people coming in and out constantly.  Technically, they weren't alone, but it felt like they were.

Sam shifted on his feet.  "So..."

"You're seventeen now, right?"

"Um..."  Sam looked around at nothing in particular, biting at his lip before answer. "Yeah, few months ago."

Jeffrey nodded to himself.  "You're old enough.  Can't say Joe would have agreed - man was always saying no one's old enough for the kinds of things we knew - but you?  You've pretty much always known, haven't you?" 

Rubbing the back of his head, Sam shrugged.  Dean hadn't told him until he was six or seven, but by then he'd kind of already known, at least on some level.  "Yeah, I guess."

"Hm.  Joe would have said that was a tragedy."

Sam found himself laughing a little at that and blushed under Jeffrey's questioning gaze.  "I was just thinking... well, when I was little, I asked a lot of questions and Dean was always accusing me of trying to grow up too fast.  He would have liked Joe."

"I've watched Dean, too, you know.  I think Joe would have liked him, too."   They stood there silently for a while and Sam got the impression Jeffrey was building up to something, taking long deep breathes to steal himself for what he was about to say, but he couldn't imagine what it was or what could be so hard about it.

Finally, Jeffrey spoke and if his voice shook a little, Sam pretended not to notice.  "We'd been chasin' those vampires for months, picking 'em off whenever we could, taking our time so they wouldn't notice we were there.  We just weren't careful enough.  I got a call from someone that needed my help and Joe said he'd tag along with the vamps.  Wouldn't do anything 'till I got back, just make sure we didn't lose 'em."

"They said they took him right after I left, when I was less than two miles out of town.  I know vampires lie a lot, but you can tell when they're telling the truth.  I can't explain it, it just..."

"You don't have to," Sam interrupted him, unconsciously rubbing the inside of his arm.

Jeffrey looked at Sam's arm and huffed a little.  "Right.  Well, anyway, I got back to town a week later and he wasn't there.  I called his cell phone, but it didn't even ring.  I asked around, but everyone thought we'd left together.  Then they started calling."

Sam tightened his grip around his arm to keep himself from shaking.

"They tortured him for weeks.  Calling me every so often so I could hear him screaming.  That first call, though, he said something.  He yelled, 'find the boys', before they cut him off.  It took some doing, but your brother apparently went to the police when you first went missing and he... well, I know all about what he did otherwise - and, before you ask, I've never told anyone and I don't intend to."

"If you..."  Sam was fighting the urge to run.  He knew Dean had told Ellen, but he hadn't been there and she'd never brought it up again.  Jeffrey saying he knew made him feel ten years old again, scared and small and wanted nothing more than to have his brother there to protect him.  "I mean, why are you telling me this?"

Jeffrey looked down before lifting his gaze to meet Sam's eyes.  "Because I want to tell you about him.  Not right now, maybe next time I come down, but I wanted you to understand why."

After a minute, Sam nodded, a smile finding its way onto his face.  He could handle that.  "Yeah, okay, next time, then."

Jeffrey clapped him on the shoulder and clambered into his truck, falling into the front seat and Sam turned around, going back into the Roadhouse, where Ellen would tell him to go on to bed and then later Dean would question him about what Jeffrey and he had talked about.  Or maybe he'd pretend to be asleep, because he wasn't sure he wanted to tell Dean anything.

 

*****

 

Sam stared across his bed at Dean, asleep on his stomach with one arm under his pillow, the other hanging limply off the bed.  At some point in the night, Dean had kicked the covers down, exposing his back and the top of his boxers.  Usually Dean slept in a shirt, but last night the heat had been sweltering and he hadn't bothered to put anything on before throwing himself down on the bed.

Biting his lip, Sam gazed over the well-muscled curve of Dean's back, down to the dip just above his ass.  Curling up a little more, Sam put his hand over his hardening cock, willing it to stay down.

Dean took a deep heavy breath that ended in a soft moan and shifted so he was facing Sam and that was not helping the situation.  Not when Dean's mouth was parted and his lips were full and red from where he'd bitten them through the night and his features, usually hard and wary, were soft and relaxed, his dark lashes fluttering against his cheek.

Almost involuntarily, Sam pressed his palm more firmly against his erection, moving minutely over it.  Dean didn't stir and Sam bit his lip, slowly moving his hand inside his shorts and wrapping his fingers around himself.  He half expected Dean to wake up as he moved his hand over his penis; telling himself that was why he was watching his brother - didn't want to get caught masturbating, Dean was a light sleeper.

Except Dean's arm was hanging half off the bed and even lax with sleep, the muscles were defined and Dean's tongue swept over his lip, a soft groan filling the room, covering the sound of Sam's hitched breathing as he came, white semen spilling over his hand and onto the sheets.

Oh god.  Sam threw the covers back, heedless of the fact that the moment his feet touched the floor, Dean's eyes opened, or that by the time he made it to the door, Dean was sitting up in bed.  He completely ignored the call of, "Sammy, what's wrong?"  in favor of throwing himself through the open door and swerving into the bathroom, slamming and locking the door behind him.

Oh god, what the hell had he just done?

Dean knocked on the door. "Sammy, you okay in there?"

Sam slid to the ground, staring forward blankly.  "I'm fine, Dean."  His voice was shaking, but he couldn't bring himself to really care.  All he could think about was Dean's mouth and how it was Dean's tongue pressing against those full lips that had made him come.  Hell, he hadn't even been hard when he'd first woken up, it was looking at Dean's body, soaking in all those muscles and hard lines that had got him going in the first place and that was... that was just wrong and not just because Dean was his brother, but because Dean was a guy. 

"Are you sick?"

"No!"  Yes, but not in the way Dean thought.  Did that mean he was gay?  He liked girls well enough, or he thought he did.  He'd had girlfriends, four or five, actually, and it may never have lasted very long, but he'd had sex - more than once.

"Are you sure?"

"Dean!"  Just go away, because I can still see your lips in the back on my mind and I can't help thinking about what they'd feel like wrapped around my cock and then I see your face when you'd been out making money and you were so disgusted and I'm disgusting and...

"Fine, okay, I'll leave you alone."

Dean's feet thudded on the wood floor, out into the house and then faded onto the linoleum floors of the kitchen.  Sam didn't move, just listened to the faint sound of the pantry opening and tins being pushed around while Dean scavenged for something he didn't have to cook and he tried to convince himself that it was okay, even if he didn't believe it.

  

***** 

 

The next time Jeffrey came in, Sam took him his beer and sat with him without waiting to be called over.  It had only been a month since he'd last seen him, but he'd found that he was pretty much overwhelmed with curiosity over what Jeffrey was planning to tell him.  Turned out it was pretty interesting too.  It was interesting the next month and then two weeks after that. 

Jeffrey stayed longer, talked longer, and the more he talked, the more comfortable he looked about it, which was good, because Sam liked listening to him.  He reminded Sam a lot of their father.  Not so much in the way he looked, but in his voice and mannerism.  He didn't pull any punches, told Sam all the gritty, gory details of his and Joe's first hunt, the first time they'd been caught, how they'd escaped and how they'd one time planned it all just to get on the inside, which turned out to be a bad idea.  Not that it stopped them from doing it all over again a few years down the road.

"You know, kid, some lessons, just need to be relearned every so often." 

Sam chuckled and sipped his water, thinking that was probably true, because May from school was checking out Dean's ass.  Last time she'd done that, Sam'd had to spread a rumor that she'd slept with some trucker at the Roadhouse, which hadn't been true, but still got her grounded for three months.  Whether she knew Sam had done it or not, she'd still stayed away for the last year and even her recent patronage hadn't included ogling his brother.  Until now.  So, yeah, maybe Jeffrey was right - some lessons needed relearning. 

"Hey, kid!"

Looking over, Sam fought an embarrassed blush as he realized he hadn't heard a word Jeffrey had just said.  "Sorry."

Jeffrey nodded towards May and Sam made a point of following his gaze, just so he could glare at her some more.  "What'd she do?"

After a minute, Sam forced himself to look away and shrugged, putting down his empty glass and watching the ice roll around inside.  "Nothing."  Jeffrey frowned and Sam knew he wasn't buying it.  Hell, the man had told him so many things, maybe he deserved one in return.  Besides, it wasn't like Sam had anyone else to talk to about it.  "She stares at Dean a lot, when he isn't looking."

"Dean don't seem to mind."

Sam's head whipped around so hard his neck popped, and Jeffrey was right.  Dean was winking at May from where he was picking beers up at the bar.  She winked back and damnit, that was it!  This time it was going to be an orgy with three, no, four sweaty, pock-marked, grizzled men in the back of a manure truck.

He stabbed the ice vindictively, trying to decide if he should throw in a lesbian, just for good measure.

"You okay?"

When he looked up this time, Jeffrey was actually grinning, which surprised him, because Jeffrey didn't do a lot of grinning.  In fact, the closest he'd ever come to a smile before was not frowning. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Is she that bad?"

He used the question as an excuse to look over again and stabbed his straw into his glass.  Dean had gone over and he was talking to her, lips curled in that half smile that he always used when he was trying to impress the girls.  He only did it when there were other hunters around, or at least, ones that had known their dad.  Finally tearing himself he away, he looked back at Jeffrey, "Maybe.  I don't know.  Just something about her."

"She isn't good enough for Dean?"

He nodded, because Kay had given him that excuse a year ago and it worked well enough.  Of course, it wasn't as simple as her not being good enough, because, despite what it might have looked like to everyone else, Dean didn't like it when he had to play up to the girls and even if no one else knew that, Sam did, and that was all that mattered.

Jeffrey sighed, almost wistfully, which was strange coming from a man who had a bowing knife taped to the inside of his leg, and said,  "No one was ever good enough for Joe, either."

He stood up after that, patted Sam on the shoulder and walked out.  Dean's eyes flitted up for a second, watching Jeffrey walk out the door before glancing back at Sam to make sure he was okay.  Sam gave a discrete nod and looked back at his drink, slurping up the melted ice.   He'd just remembered that May's parents ran the fund raiser for the church every year.  Definitely throwing in the lesbian.

 

*****

 

It didn't occur to him until much later - after May had been grounded for another three months and forced by her parents to see the closest thing to a psychiatrist the town had - to wonder what Jeffrey had meant by that.  No one had been good enough for Joe, either?  And there had been that little smile he'd had on his face when he said to.  Like he knew something he wasn't saying.  Like that had meant something else and Sam was supposed to understand it. 

Only he didn't and it wasn't until another month and a half that Jeffrey got back to the Roadhouse.  By then, he was determined to ask what Jeffrey had meant.  Except that the moment he was sitting in front of the guy, he'd lost just about all his nerve and the only thing he'd wound up doing was nursing a Coke and listening to more stories.

"So, we're Huntin' what we think is a vampire.  It added up like it should - all the blood drained from the victims, puncture marks on the neck, all the important evidence was there.   It was only our fourth, maybe fifth Hunt, so apparently, I hadn't done enough research, 'cause it turned out the damn thing was a ghost.  Some girl that'd gotten bit by a vampire and she was out for revenge on every man unlucky enough to wander into the old house she'd died in."

Sam sucked his straw into his mouth and pulled soda through it, letting it fizzle on his tongue.

"Well, you can imagine that's a little awkward.  We go blazing in with Silver Bullets and dead man's blood and end up running right through her.  Damned if we weren't lucky to get out of there alive.  After that, Joe was pretty damn insistent about carrying around a good amount of salt.  Just case."

Sam nodded absently.

"Somethin' botherin' you?"

Looking up, Sam swallowed the soda thickly and shrugged, "Not really.  Just..."  He stopped and licked his lips, looking around to make sure Dean or Ellen or Jo weren't anywhere near.   It was a slow enough night and Dean was slacking off at the bar, Jo was trying to talk some Hunters who knew better into a game and Ellen wasn't anywhere to be seen.  Good enough.  "Last time you said no one was good enough for Joe.  What did that mean?"

Jeffrey's eyes narrowed and he leaned back in his chair, tilting his head slightly to the side as if he were considering Sam.  "He was my cousin."

That almost made sense.  "Well, yeah, but Dean... I mean, I don't like the girls because of what he... you know, when..." He stammered to a stop, unsure how to proceed.  There really wasn't a delicate way of saying that he didn't like girls hitting on Dean because he knew Dean didn't like sex on account of all that prostituting way back when.  Especially since Dean had threatened to hang him by his ankles from the roof if he ever breathed a word of it to anyone and Sam knew that wasn't an empty threat because it wouldn't be the first time.

Thankfully, Jeffrey didn't need the explanation.  "I get it.  You don't like the girls 'cause you don't think Dean does.  Not really.  And maybe he don't, it's not my place to say, but is it yours?"

Sam tensed, sitting up straighter and tightening his grip on his glass.  "I'm his brother."

"And I was Joe's cousin."

It was said with an air of finality, but Sam still didn't understand it.  Before he could say anything else, Jeffrey stood up and patted Sam's shoulder before walking out.  After several minutes, Sam got up and took his empty glass to the back.

There was a small stack of dishes that needed washing and he considered putting them off, but either way, he'd have to do them.  Besides, Dean didn't bother him when he was working - not most of the time, anyway.  Turning the water up as hot as it would go, he pulled the yellow gloves on and started in on them.

What was all that supposed to have meant?  Was it just that no one was ever good enough for family?  He didn't think that was it, because Jo was like family and as long as she wasn't screwing around with Dean, he didn't much care who she shacked up with.  Besides, a cousin wasn't the same as a brother and Joe and Jeffrey may have been best friends, but until they'd started Hunting they hadn't lived together.  Dean and Sam had been in each other's back pocket for as long as Sam could remember.

He knew he was missing something, but what?  What else was there?

The door that separated the kitchen from the bar swung open and Dean came in.  "What's eating you?"

Sam didn't bother to look back.  "Nothing."

"Nothing, my ass.  You've got your brooding eyebrows on."

Sam's frown deepened, "I do not."

"Do too."

"Do not."

"Do too."

"Stop it."

"Not until you tell me what's eating you." 

Sam thumbed the faucet to cold and turned around, aiming the water hose at Dean and pulling the trigger.  Dean cursed heavily and Sam laughed as his brother danced out of the way.  "You think that's funny, do you?"

Shrugging, Sam kept the grin plastered to his face and the hose aimed up, just in case Dean decided to try for revenge.  "Maybe."

"Well, I'm glad you're happy, because I don't have anymore clean shirts."  Before Sam could say anything else, Dean pulled his shirt up over his head and rang it out.  "Tell Ellen I'll be right back and you can explain to her why the bread is soaked through while you're at it."

Shit, he hadn't thought of that.  Not that he was really thinking about it now, because Dean was still standing there.  Shirtless.  His chest hairless and wet and his arm muscles bulging as he tried to get more of the water out of the shirt before he left.  Sam's cock gave an interested twitch and as much as he wanted to turn away, he couldn't.

Dean looked up and Sam turned away before he could see the blush that was quickly rising to his cheek.  "Sammy, are you okay."

"Yeah."  He took a deep breath and starting scrubbing dried chili off a bowl.  "I'm just... worried about a test I've got tomorrow."

"Oh. That all?"

Sam nodded and very nearly flinched when Dean put a hand on his shoulder, "What are you...?"

"Go and study some.  I'll take care of this."

He blinked in confusion and shrugged off Dean's hand, trying to ignore that his skin still felt hot where the touch had been.  "It's fine, there isn't that much."

"It's a slow night and I can handle this.  Besides, do you really want to be here when Fred gets back and sees what you've done to his kitchen?"

Sam cringed, "Not really."

"Go on.  I'll see you later."

Without waiting for any more encouragement, he shed the gloves and apron and headed out the back door, waving at Fred who was having a smoke break.  He was gonna be pissed.

Ellen was in the house, her feet up on a chair at the breakfast table and her head tilted back.  When she saw Sam, she raised an eyebrow, "What are you doing here?"

"Test."  He'd decided to stick with the same lie he'd told Dean, because it wasn't really a lie.  He did have a test, he just wasn't that worried about it and, anyway, school was the only reason Ellen would let any of them slack off at work.  Well, school and illness, but Dean always said it was better not to compound a lie if you could help it.

"Ah, what subject?"

"English."  He sat down and put his head on his arms.  He could see Dean's naked abdomen in the back of his mind and feel Dean's hand on his shoulder and he wanted more than anything to lock himself in the bathroom and masturbate, but Ellen was there and that might be difficult to explain.

Ellen's stare was like a heat lamp on the back of his neck and he looked up, desperation on his face.  "Jeffrey said something and I can't... I don't know what he meant."

She nodded and after a minute, he continued, "He said that no one was ever good enough for Joe and I asked him about it and all he said was that Joe was his cousin, which just made it even more confusing, because I already knew that."

Ellen's face lit up in understanding and she put her feet down.  "Sam, sometimes it can get... lonely Hunting."

"I know, but they were always together, so..."

"No, honey," She put a hand on his arm and he frowned.  What was she trying to say?  "Not everyone has a home to go back to.  Not everyone has a wife and kids waiting for them.  Most times Hunters don't, because that would mean making themselves vulnerable, and sometimes..."

She bit her lip thoughtfully, which was an odd expression on Ellen.  "Sometimes Hunters turn to each other for companionship."

"That's what I just said."

"Not like that, Sam."

Not like that?  Then how...?

It was like a light bulb going off in his head.  She meant companionship as in... "But... they were cousins!"

"I know and I'm not saying it was right, but I'm not saying it was wrong either, just saying that's what he meant."

"But... I mean, couldn't they have...?"  Couldn't they have what?  Had sex with random strangers?  Paid for it?  He frowned and sat back in his chair, letting his arms go limp at his sides.  Why would Jeffrey have told him that of all things?  Why would he have expected Sam to understand?  Unless... and this time it really was a light bulb, because he got it.  Really got it.

Ellen stood up and grabbed her denim over-shirt off the back of her chair.  "Get some studying done and get to sleep early.  I want to hear you made an 'A' on that test."

Sam only half heard her, because he was busy trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together and he didn't like the picture it was presenting.  Jeffrey had been saying that he thought Sam liked Dean the way he had liked Joe, which Sam wasn't all that sure wasn't true, except that he wasn't gay.  Or, well, he thought he wasn't gay.  Maybe it was just Dean.

Not that that was any better, because Dean would never go for it - Sam wasn't even willing to entertain the idea of asking him - but if he didn't, then how was he supposed to figure out whether he was gay or straight or whatever-the-fuck?

Sighing, Sam dropped his head against the back of the chair.  Liking Dean wasn't so bad, because it couldn't lead to anything.  Being gay, though, was a whole other thing.  If he was gay, he might actually have to tell someone.  Like Ellen, or even Dean and that was a scary enough thought that he decided to put off thinking about it, at least for now.  Maybe forever if he could get away with it.

 

-tbc-