Chapter Text
You step on each other’s toes when you live this close: in the same motel room, in the same car, in the same greasy spoon rubbing the crust out of your eyes together and poking at the runny yolk of an egg sunny-side up thinking it’s funny because the sun isn’t even fucking up. You get used to bumping shoulders and brushing legs. You get used to putting on the other’s underwear, half out of your mind with no sleep, before you realize it’s too big or too small or it’s not quite the right color. You throw it in your brother’s direction. He rolls his eyes but you’ve both done the same thing ten times before. There’s nothing you haven’t seen of each other: full frontal, bare-assed. Not that you look for it, it’s just there. No boundaries except for “don’t come in when there’s a sock on the handle” and “no bean burritos when it’s winter” cause it’s a long drive and you can’t roll down the windows when someone lets one rip 'cause you’ll both freeze to death.
But then again that line’s been crossed once or twice by the both of you too.
So that’s why it surprises Dean when Sam throws a fit about his bag one night. They’re in a rush. Got an urgent call from a friend so they have to haul ass pronto. Sam throws their take-out from the night before into some trash bags (cause he’s a little priss that insists on doing the maid’s job for her) while Dean grabs their shit and throws it in the car. Dean checks his phone one last time; if he speeds they can get there by sundown. But then Sam comes into the room 5 minutes later wiping Lo Mein grease on his beat up jeans and there’s a brief moment of panic.
“Where’s my bag?”
It’s a dumb question. So Dean plays dumb right back. “Huh?”
“My bag. Dean-where…?” Sam looks around for it. It’s casual at first, but when he doesn’t find it right off his eyes start to dart around in alarm.
Dean has no idea what he’s watching right now, but it’s funny. “Your lady purse? I dunno Sammy maybe you packed it up along with your makeup and stilettos.”
Sam doesn’t laugh. He starts throwing off comforters and looking under beds. Dean thinks that’s an odd reaction for something that’s only got a few soiled pairs of underwear and a wardrobe Sam hasn’t updated since college. Not even Sam’s laptop. His dorky little brother keeps that in a separate case. But something has got Sam all riled up, and eventually Dean relents because they really do have to go.
“Hey. Einstein. I packed it up already. Once you’re done strip searching the bed you can hand the keys back in, capisce?”
Sam stops his one-sided game of hide-and-seek and drops the pair of towels he was checking under.He shoots Dean a glare, lips drawn tight, the perfect bitch face, and then stomps out of the room. Dean thinks that’s the end of…whatever that was. But just as Sam folds himself into the passenger side of their car Dean picks out his brother’s voice over the roar of the engine.
“Don’t touch my stuff again.”
Dean laughs cause he thinks he’s misheard. “What?”
“I mean it,” Sam snaps. “Don’t do that again.”
It’s a joke. Or a challenge. “You mean like this?” Dean says, and slaps his little brother’s canvas jacket with the back of his hand. “Or…like this?” Dean leans back and tugs at Sam’s bag, tucked into the back seat. He pulls at it hard enough that it falls on to the floor, which, whatever, when did Sam start keeping glass slippers in his bag, you know?
“Dude!” Sam grunts, pushing him away, back into the front seat.
Dean laughs again, but this time to cover up how pissed off he is. Sam and him practically exist on top of each other. Why would his little brother start drawing lines in the sand now?
Sam takes the bag from the front seat, puts it in his lap and wraps his arms around it like a protective vice. His face is twisted in a way that’s hard for Dean to read and he doesn’t like that.
“It’s Jess,” Sam says quietly and Dean feels like someone suddenly dumped cold water on him. “I have something of hers. A necklace. I um, and you know I just don’t want anything-”
“Yeah,” Dean cuts him off. Sam doesn’t need to say anymore, he gets it. Sam. Jess. Some sort of profound bond you get with a pretty girl when you finally stop running and hey at least Sam got to live the dream even if it didn’t last long.
They peel out of that old motel parking lot traveling on a straight highway while Dean’s thoughts looped around in jug handles and stall at dead ends. Dumb bumbling Dean like a bull in a china shop of his brother’s delicate memories. He really should learn to back off.
And maybe he would have too if Sam hadn’t fucked it all up.
It’s three days later after their case is finished. Poltergeist in a rubber chicken factory, if you can believe it. Dean got to end the day by declaring “Well at least nobody gagged to death,” and Sam couldn’t help but smile. Made Dean feel like a million bucks: best hunt ever.
Of course Sam’s good mood doesn’t last, never does. They’re on some bumpy road in Philly and Sam’s wincing like every pothole is shooting pain straight up his ass. But Dean can take a wild guess at what he’s thinking about.
“So uh, is it like, something you gave her?” Dean plies. He tells himself he’s being a good big brother, therapeutic and all that shit, but really he’s prying. “I dunno for an anniversary or something?”
Sam shifts in his seat and looks at him like he forgot his brother was there. “What?”
“The necklace,” Dean prompts. But nothing. Sam’s face is stuck in a pissy frown that says he has no idea what Dean is trying to say and it makes Dean feel a little crazy. “Jess’s necklace?” he clarifies.
Sam goes completely blank. It’s a split second hesitation but Dean knows that face too well.He’s seen it on fathers' and sons' and single white females when Dean cross-examines them pretending to be whatever occupation-of–the-week. He knows that face because it means he’s on the right trail. It’s the face of someone who’s been lying. It’s the face of someone trying to recall their own bullshit, and it makes Dean’s stomach flip to see it on his little brother inside the car that’s been a home to them for most of his life and all of Sam’s.
“Yeah well. I mean-no,” Sam stumbles.“It wasn’t like that it was…you know, something she had before.”
Nostrils flare. Dean smells something off. “You don’t seem too sure.”
“I’m sure,” Sam says forcefully and he straightens in his seat.
Five more miles of Midwestern road. Nothing but silence between them from exits 73 to 78.
“So. Where’d she get it then?” Dean finally asks.
This time, Sam’s ready for him. “Her mom.”
Dean grunts. “Huh.”
Sam turns his head slowly, eyes narrowed like he’s daring Dean to challenge him.
“No, I’m just curious,” Dean continues. “She just happens to give you some sort of heirloom necklace from her mother (very sexy by the way, Sam) and you, what, you just happen to have it on you the day she gets pinned to a ceiling in a fiery inferno? Is that it?”
“Dude!” Sam all but gasps.
He can feel Sam’s disgust beaming from him like radiation and sure Dean recognizes that he’s being a dick right now, a major dick, but something stinks and if Sam is lying to him right now, about something like that…well, Dean feels like he has the right even if he can’t prove it. But, if he decides to keep pushing he knows Sam’s going to withdraw so much he’ll turn inside out. So Dean screws his mouth shut and drives but all he’s thinking about for miles is: what’s really in that bag?
It’s a question that starts to drive him insane. Suddenly Sam’s got all these privacy issues. He locks the door to the bathroom, he’ll insist on eating alone, and he never, ever, EVER, once fucking lets that bag out of his sight. And Dean knows this because it’s never out of his sight either. He’s hyper aware of its presence like a big fat fucking elephant in the room. Of course Dean acts like he doesn’t care, and Sam acts like he doesn’t care, but for a month straight there’s nothing else on Dean's lizard brain other than what the fuck could be in that bag?
And then finally, finally, he catches a break. Just as Dean thought his brother was going to sew the damn thing to his body, Sam gets drunk and forgets to unpack it from the backseat.
Okay so that was mostly his fault, Dean played chicken with his brother and cheated but it’s not the first time he’s played sly on “I bet I can drink more vodka than you" so really it’s Sam’s fault because he fell for the same trick twice.
Anyways, Dean escorts his little brother back to their motel room. Sam falls face-first on the wrong bed, but even in this state he still reaches under the mattress searching for his precious black duffle where he’s been stuffing it for the last 3 jobs. Dean inserts a pillow into Sam’s open palm, and Sam takes the bait hook-line-and sinker. His little brother falls fast asleep with a pillow tucked under his arm, thinking his bag is safe and sound.
Dean realizes this is his chance and sprints back to the car, throws open the door and pulls the offending duffle bag on to his lap. He wriggles his fingers with excitement like a kid opening their first Christmas gift. Where does he look first? He unzips the largest compartment in the middle and pulls out the usual suspects: dirty clothes, socks, underwear, a handgun and a spare clip. No necklace, but nothing else is incriminating either. So Dean moves to the side pockets and finds a toothbrush, deodorant, a comb, a razor. Next pocket three spare cellphones…on and on until everything is emptied out on to the floor and still there’s nothing for his bitch-ass little brother to throw a fit about!
Dean examines the bag one more time, shoving his hand inside and searching for anything he might have missed.And that’s when he feels it, an irregular sort of bump along the bottom lining of the bag. He looks inside and there’s nothing but black polyester. Feels again and there’s that lump, long, and tough, it runs about half the length of the bag. Dean holds up the empty thing and it leans towards one side, weighted down at the bottom by something.
He thinks for a second before grabbing a flashlight from the glove compartment and examining the inside again.
It’s a false lining.
Dean sits up and lets this all sink in, how much trouble Sam has gone through, and for what? He frowns, digs into his bag pocket and removes his butterfly knife, exposing the blade. He's about to find out.
Dean carefully cuts away at the black thread of the lining. He cuts and cuts until there’s enough give for him to pull back the false bottom. And what he finally sees is like a punch to the gut.
It’s a dildo. Long, black, silicone. It blends in to the dark material of Sam’s bag but Dean’s been around the block enough to spot a fucking dildo when in it’s in front of his face, even in the dark.
Dean’s mind goes completely blank for a full 60 seconds. He has NO idea what to think. At first he feels like he might laugh, grab it like a lightsaber and swing it in Sam’s drunken face until he wakes up and whines and cries because Deeeaaann! But then he remembers Sam lied about this. He brought Jess up just to throw him off the trail and that pisses Dean off again. So maybe he’ll take the dildo and beat Sam with it instead.
But he doesn’t do either of those things. Instead Dean sits there and sighs like a deflating tire, trying to figure out why Sam wound him up so much about this. After all, what was the big deal?
Dean looked back down at the dildo.
Okay. There was that. He definitely didn’t expect that. Maybe from…people, you know, but his little brother? And it was kind of big, like, really big. So it wasn't as if Sam was only experimenting or some shit. You had to be pretty experienced to fit something like that up your-Dean pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, deeply regretting the line he had just crossed. Clearly Sam had a reason to keep him away and he should have, just….listened.
Dean shakes his head. Well, no going back now. Now he knows that Sam likes to shove big cocks up his ass. When and where-ugh, those were details Dean didn’t want to think about either. In fact, fuck this, fuck all of it. Dean grabs everything he’s pulled out and tosses it back messily into the bag. No need to pretend like he hadn’t been there. Sam would wake up and known he’d been had, know where Dean had been: the proof was clear as day in the torn lining.