The summer before Sam’s junior year in high school, they move. Again.

At this point, Sam doesn’t even argue, because he knows it’ll be pointless.

Ever since Sam was in third grade, they have moved around pretty regularly, staying in one place for only two years at most. It was pointless every time Sam protested – Dad would set his jaw, and Dean would leave the house, not wanting to hear them fight. It was like talking to a wall, for all it mattered to Dad what Sam thought.

So, when Sam skids into the kitchen, dripping wet after spending the afternoon at the pool, and Dad tells him in his quiet no-nonsense voice that they need to go to New Mexico to get closer to this nest of harpies, Sam saves himself the trouble.

He ignores his dad, and just stomps up to his room and begins throwing shit into the boxes in his closet – boxes that never get completely unpacked, anyway.

* * *

First day of school. Sam hates the first day of school.

After getting the obligatory stack of forms from the main office – the only government paperwork that Sam’s dad tries to fill out correctly (as a result, Sam has a nearly perfect, if erratic, school record) – and running around the maze of hallways, Sam finally finds his first period class: World History.

He walks in late, and all heads shoot up to stare at him. Sam is used to it by now, but it’s still awkward.

The teacher, Mr. Tidus, continues droning on about the Edo era in Japan, not even pausing for breath as he hands Sam a textbook and waves at him to take a seat.

Sam prefers it this way. It’s a lot better than the teachers in elementary school and how they used to make Sam stand up in front of the class and introduce himself.

Taking an empty seat in the middle of the room, Sam tries to blend in. Sam always ends up in the middle – sitting behind the straight-A overachievers and the jocks and the popular kids, but sitting in front of the slackers and stoners who only make snide remarks in the back of the classroom, if they go to class at all.

Sam usually ends up hanging out with the skateboarders, the drama kids, the musicians. The kids who are smart but not stressed out, well-liked but not popular, laid-back but not apathetic. Sam always thinks of this group as “miscellaneous,” and Sam thinks he belongs in the middle by default, because he can’t see himself being in the top tier or the bottom.

Weirdly enough, Sam thinks that Dean was probably in the middle when he was in high school, too.

Once Sam is settled in his seat, he is acutely aware that he has no idea what’s going on. What the hell is the Meiji restoration?

As if on cue, the kid to Sam’s left mouths, “Hey.” He has short dark hair and light blue eyes, and he’s slouching, practically lying down, in his seat. Just by looking at him, Sam can tell he’s a drama kid. With that lazy bright smile, he probably gets the lead in the school play every year. The guy adjusts his slouch to lean closer to Sam and says, “We’re on chapter four.”

Sam flips open his textbook, and says thanks, but the guy has resumed staring off into space, already ignoring him.

* * *

Call it a hunch.

After school lets out, on the way to his bus, Sam overhears a bunch of senior girls whispering excitedly to each other. Who is that? He’s so HOT. He’s got a sweet car. You think he goes to St. John’s College? And Sam suddenly has this sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Sure enough, Sam turns the corner to see Dean, leaning on the Impala, hands in his pockets, leering at the girls that pass by. Some of the girls wave shyly back.

Sam very nearly growls.

A gang of guys, sitting on the grass in front of the school and smoking, whistle and jeer as Sam marches over to his brother. “Hey, Winchester!” One of the smokers, Rick, is in Sam’s gym class. “Is that your boyfriend? Hey! I’m talking to you, faggot!”

By now, the taunts roll off of him. Sam learned a long time ago that it’s easy to pick on the new guy. And the insult of choice is to call him gay. You’d think there’d be some variation, from school to school, or that the bullies would learn to be more creative. But no. They’re boringly predictable that way.

“What’s that about?” Dean asks as Sam approaches. His eyes narrow at the guys, and he takes a step forward. “Are they giving you shit?”

“I was supposed to take the bus,” Sam hisses at his brother, grabbing and dragging on Dean’s arm to force them back towards the Impala. “What the hell are you doing here?”

As if Sam isn’t enough of an oddity already, being the new kid. He doesn’t need Dean here, rolling up in his muscle car and acting like a wannabe Danny Zuko, to add to Sam’s already established “freak” status.

“Hi, Sammy. I’m fine, and yourself?” Dean shakes off Sam’s hand.

Sam, biting back a snarl, yanks open the passenger door and gets in.

Dean rounds the front of the car and gets in as well. He starts up the engine. “I drag my ass out here and wait in this fucking New Mexico heat for you, and this pissy attitude is the thanks I get?”

“You just wanted to check out the girls.”

Dean guns the engine. “I wanted to check out the girls,” he admits. His grin is smarmy and inappropriate.

“Ew, Dean,” Sam says. “That’s statutory rape, you know that?”

“Some of them are eighteen,” Dean says defensively.

“Where’s Dad?”

“A few harpies cropped up ten miles east of here. He went to track them down. He’ll probably be back in a few days.”

Sam waves a bunch of papers at Dean. “And what am I supposed to do about these forms? The main office needs them filled out by tomorrow.”

Dean doesn’t even look at him, unconcerned. “So? You fill them out, and I’ll sign off on them. I can forge his signature pretty well.”

“Where are we going?” Sam asks suddenly, when Dean takes a turn that leads them away from their apartment complex.

“Dad wanted us to get some training in. There’s this baseball field nearby that we can use. I don’t think they have practice today, since school just started.”

“Fuck no,” says Sam. “I’ve got a shitload of homework to catch up on.”

“Whatever, geekboy. You always say that, but you always finish it. Just a couple of hours. It’s a new town. We don’t know what’s around, so you can’t afford to get rusty.”

What Dean says makes sense, but it also makes Dean sound too much like Dad. And it irritates Sam. “You know, sometimes you could not do what Dad says, for once.”

“And sometimes, you could just shut up and listen to your elders, for once,” says Dean, finally letting his own annoyance begin to show. His mouth is set and his eyes are hard. “But that ain’t gonna happen, either, is it?”

Knowing that they’re going to go train whether Sam wants to or not, Sam folds up his leg and kicks at the dashboard with his muddy sneakers. Hitting Dean where it hurts him the most.

“Hey! Stop that!” Dean punches Sam on the knee, hard. “Fuck you, you ingrate!”

* * *

Dean is practicing scaling walls on the wire mesh fence that lines one side of the baseball field. He scrabbles up one side of the fence, and jumps down the other. He scales up again, one-handed. He climbs across the length of the fence, sideways.

Sam kneels down on the ground, near home base, and unloads the duffel bag, sorting through the guns and ammo.

Dean is talking, but Sam doesn’t feel like listening. Which is often the case, but it doesn’t stop Dean from talking. Armageddon couldn’t stop Dean from talking.

“Who were those guys?” Dean asks, slightly breathless as he hangs upside down, knees bent over the top of the fence.

“No one. I don’t really know them.” Sam wipes an oilrag down the length of the shotgun barrels.

“You shouldn’t let them talk shit about you. You can kick their sorry asses with two hands behind your back,” Dean says, like it’s that simple.

Sam feels his face flush warmly at the compliment, but he covers it up by saying roughly, “And what? Get suspended like you always did? It doesn’t matter to me.” Dean looks down at him skeptically, so Sam adds, “They always say it, Dean. At every new school, the guys call me gay and the girls ignore me. They get tired of it after a couple of months, or they find a newer guy to pick on. It’s nothing new.”

“They never called me gay,” Dean says thoughtfully.

“It’s because you always kicked the crap out of the first guy that even tried.” Sam remembers sitting in the car, waiting, while Dad had to go in and talk to the administrators. It happened every time, on the first day at a new school.

“Yeah,” says Dean, smiling, as if recalling a fond memory, “yeah, I did.”

“It doesn’t matter, Dean. They always say that about me. I don’t care.” Sam loads bullets into a pistol, loads shells into one of the shotguns.

“You know, this begs the question – are you?” Dean huffs out the sentence as he sits upright again.

“Am I what?” Sam cracks open the sawed-off shotgun and loads chunks of rock salt in it.

“Are you gay? Cuz, you know, it’s cool if you are.” Dean pauses, straddling the top of the fence, thinking. “Actually, that would explain a lot.”

Sam clicks the shotgun back together, tilts the barrel up, takes aim, and shoots at Dean’s feet through the wire.

“Son of a bitch!” Dean reels from the impact, nearly falling off the fence. His boots and the bottom of his jeans are studded with salt. “You fucking asshole!”

“And you wonder why I never tell you anything,” Sam mutters, just loud enough for Dean to hear, before striding off to practice at their makeshift shooting range of tin cans and beer bottles.

“It was a serious question!” The jangle of metal wire behind him signals Dean’s descent from the fence. “Come back here so I can kick your ass!”

* * *

“All right, Mr. Winchester,” says Mr. Sideman, interrupting Sam’s rebuttal. “You can step down now.”

“But I’m not finished.” Sam glances around the half-filled room, wondering if he has done something wrong. The debate team, scattered around in random seats, look back and forth, from Sam to Mr. Sideman and back to Sam again.

Sam starts to feel uncomfortable. He had been on the debate team at his last school. But this is a different place, a different school, a different state. Maybe Sam shouldn’t have done this… Maybe…

“I’ve heard enough,” said Mr. Sideman, a man with a hook nose and a severe mouth. But the severity is softened when he offers a slight smile. “You’re fine, Mr. Winchester. You have a spot on the team, if you want it.”

Sam slowly exhales, letting out a breath he doesn’t realize he has been holding.

“You’re good at this,” the guy from Sam’s history class that first day – whose name, Sam has discovered, is Jacob – says as Sam sits back down. “We could go to nationals, if you stick with it.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Let’s just say I’ve had a lot of practice.” If screaming matches with your dad and your big brother can count as debate practice.

Jacob is chewing gum, and he blows a bubble, tilting his chair back and letting the bubble grow huge, until it pops. He wiggles his tongue around, collecting the gum back in his mouth, watching the next pair get up to try out. He slouches so far into his seat that he looks like he lacks a skeleton. “Seriously, man. You could probably convince people the world is flat, if you wanted.”

“It would probably be easier than convincing my brother to give me the remote.”

Jacob laughs, bright and uninhibited.

* * *

When Sam leaves school, a crowd is gathered in the parking lot.

And then Sam sees the Impala parked by the curb, and he groans.

He runs over and peers over the heads in the crowd – one of the many advantages to being tall – only to see Dean facing off Rick and his friends.

“…it up the ass. That’s cute,” Rick is saying, grinning. “Waiting on your boyfriend like a good little homo.”

“So what if I am?” Dean steps forward, gets up close and personal with Rick. They are about the same height, but… somehow, Dean still manages to loom, towering over Rick like he’s a giant or something.

Sam realizes the reason Dean knows that trick. The reason is because, two years ago, Sam woke up and found himself eye-level with Dean. And, even though Sam is now taller than Dean, he still always feels smaller.

“Well?” Dean says. He spreads his hands, smirking. But the smirk gives off warning vibes of Mess with me, and I will fuck your shit up. “What are you going to do to me, hunh?”

Rick and his gang of cronies, somehow sensing that they are in the presence of a fellow hard-ass – hell, a superior, even – take a step back from Dean. Rick shrugs, eyes cutting away from Dean’s taunting look, and says, “Whatever, man.”

Dean nods, like Rick made the right choice. “Come on, Sammy,” says Dean – who hadn’t even so much as glanced in Sam’s direction, but somehow sensing Sam’s presence anyway – before turning on his heel and heading back toward the car.

Sam fumes, because if he follows Dean, he just looks like a goddamn baby or a kept boy or something even worse, and he doesn’t need this incident on the minds of the entire school, not on top of all the other shit he has to deal with.

“Sam!” Dean barks.

When they’re safely away from listening ears, Sam spits, “I don’t need you to stand up for me, Dean! And why the hell didn’t you tell them you were my brother? Now they think that I, that we’re…”

“I thought you didn’t care what they thought,” Dean says coolly, opening the driver’s side door.

“I-I don’t.” Sam is thrown temporarily off-track at this turn in the conversation.

“And I wasn’t standing up for you. I was standing up for me. I don’t let people call me a faggot.” Dean looks across the roof of the car at Sam. He seems angry, but he also seems… tired. “You can take care of yourself. I know that. All right?” Dean gets in the car, and that seems like the end of the conversation.

They drive home in silence.

* * *

The day after the debate team tryouts, Sam is poking at his Salisbury steak and wondering why it reminds him so much of an ifrit carcass, when a shadow passes over his table. He looks up.

Jacob stands over Sam’s table with his lunch tray, blocking the sunlight. “Anyone sitting here?” Before Sam has a chance to reply, Jacob sits down opposite Sam. “Eh, who am I kidding? You’re the new kid – of course no one’s sitting here.”

Sam glares at him, but Jacob ignores it or just doesn’t notice it.

“I don’t need to be your charity case,” Sam says, when Jacob doesn’t seem to catch the hint.

Jacob pauses with his Mountain Dew halfway to his mouth. “Charity case?”

“Yeah. You know. Be nice to the new guy because no one else will be.” Sam fiddles with his milk, trying to tug open the lip of the carton.

“Sor-ree, prima donna,” says Jacob, but he’s grinning and he looks very amused. “But maybe I just want to eat my lunch sitting down. Ever think of that?”

A little embarrassed, used to being on the offensive and unused to Jacob’s ease and lack of bullshit (which is strangely familiar in a way that Sam can’t quite place), Sam changes the subject. “What’s that?” Sam nods at the flyer on Jacob’s lunch tray.

Jacob passes the sheet to him. “Something Ms. Whitman was passing out.” Ms. Whitman is their English teacher. “An SAT prep class. I think I’m gonna need it. You should take it. A lot of the kids in English are.”

Sam sees the $100 fee, mocking him from the bottom of the paper. “I can’t afford it.”

“Won’t your parents give you the money?” Jacob picks up his slice of pizza and pushes the rest of his food – the steamed broccoli and the milk – aside. “Hell, I know my dad would pay for just about anything if it gets my ass into college and out of the house faster.” Jacob peers at Sam closely. “You are going to take the SATs, aren’t you?”

“I guess so.” Sam hasn’t really thought about it before. He passes the flier back.

“The library’s usually got prep books, if you don’t want to take the…” Jacob seems to lose interest in what he’s saying, looking at something behind Sam. “Hey, Sarah! Over here!”

Suddenly the table fills with countless people – all Jacob’s friends, Sam assumes. Some are carrying skateboards, others sporting heavy make-up and dyed black hair, some cramming for their World History test. They talk around him, above him, sometimes even to him, and just like that – Sam has been assimilated.

Jacob, listening to Sarah tell some story about the lighting crew dropping a fixture on top of the drama teacher, looks at Sam from across the table. He reaches over and grabs one of Sam’s tater tots without asking, popping it in his mouth and smirking as he chews. See? he seems to say with his eyes. Not so hard, is it?

* * *

Sam remembers Dean’s senior year in high school. He remembers one night in particular.

At the time, Sam had been thirteen. It was a weird time in his life, because he was growing like a weed, bumping into just about everything and knocking his head on low doorjambs, and he was fucking starving all day long.

It had been the middle of the night, and Sam had snuck out of bed to get something to eat. He had been hungry, so hungry that his protesting stomach wouldn’t let him sleep.

But the light had been on in the kitchen, and he heard Dad’s drunken mumbling.

Dad had nights when he would just go out and get stinking drunk. They didn’t happen that often. Only on Mom’s birthday, Mom’s death day, around the holidays.

It had been one of those nights.

Quietly staying on the stairs, Sam also heard Dean’s soothing murmurs. Sam had been close enough to the kitchen to hear the conversation.

Come on, Dad, get to bed, Dean was saying.

Dean, you don’t want to leave, do you? Dad slurred.

What? What are you talking about? Dean had sounded surprised.

Do you? Did you want to go to college? I never asked you. I should’ve asked you.

Naw, Dad, it’s all right.

I’m sorry. I need you here. I need you to look after Sammy. Sometimes, I don’t… I can’t—

I know, Dad. I’m here. I’ll always take care of Sammy. Don’t worry, okay? Come on. You need to get to sleep.

Sam had heard their shuffling steps, probably Dad leaning on Dean for support, leaving the kitchen and approaching the stairs, and he had scrambled back up to his room. He pulled the covers over himself and pretended that his stomach wasn’t growling like crazy.

When Dean finally got to bed that night, Sam had still been awake. He listened to Dean breathing in the dark, inhales and exhales finally evening out into light snores.

Sam hadn’t slept at all, that night.

* * *

Jacob is rehearsing for this year’s play auditions. Sam is feeding him the lines. They are sitting in the grass by the soccer field, in the blazing afternoon sun. School had let out early for a half-day, so Sam has time to help Jacob practice.

“You should audition, too,” says Jacob suddenly, interrupting himself in the middle of a line.

Sam snorts. “Me? In a school play?”

“What? You’re not that bad. I mean, okay, you’re reading Emily’s part right now. But you would make a lovely Emily.”

Sam smacks Jacob on the head with the script. They have been acquaintances for long enough that Jacob’s teasing doesn’t bother him anymore. “I don’t know…”

Sam really doesn’t. For one thing, Dean is going to give him shit about this for weeks. No, for years.

“The colleges love this extracurricular shit,” says Jacob. “Sure, you’ve got debate team, but they like variety. Gives you a sense of character.”

“Doesn’t it take a lot of time? For rehearsals and stuff?” But even as Sam is questioning it, he’s thinking it might work.

“Whatever. It’s mostly sitting on your ass for hours, doing homework and waiting for the crew to get the set-up right. The actual acting time required is close to nil.” Jacob waggles his eyebrows, trying to wheedle. “Come on, you know you want to.”

“God, I’m going to regret this,” Sam mutters, but he hides a smile when Jacob gives a triumphant whoop.

Jacob suddenly stops in his celebration, and stabs a finger in Sam’s direction. “But you better not be going for George. Or I’ll kick your ass. That part is all mine.”

Sam holds up his hands, a gesture that could be interpreted as submission, or just placation of the crazy man.

They are sitting very close.

There’s no one around. Everyone had been eager to get out of school while the getting was good.

Heart thumping, pulse skidding, Sam wonders. He could…. He could.

“Hey, can I…?” Sam whispers, and he thinks the question is lost in the sudden whistling wind.

But Jacob hears it. His eyes are twinkling, reflecting the sky. “You gotta ask?”

“I just want to know. I want to know if.” Sam doesn’t know if he’s getting hard because this is arousing him, or because this is just too weird and new and it’s not like Sam gets much human contact and… shit, it’s so confusing.

“Yeah,” Jacob is saying, voice low, leaning ever closer. “Yeah. It’s okay.”

When they kiss, Sam makes a startled sound. Jacob strokes Sam’s arms, up and down, trying to soothe. It’s a little different than kissing a girl. The fundamentals are all there, and Jacob is a good kisser – wow, a really good kisser. Sam can appreciate that, but the spark – that dizzying rush of excitement – that Sam usually gets when he kisses girls… it’s just not happening.

They break apart. Sam’s heartbeat is still trip-hopping along, but Sam thinks it’s just the adrenaline wearing off. He thinks.

“Anything?” Jacob looks amused.

Sam feels his cheeks redden, but he smiles back, half-relieved, half-embarrassed. “Nothing.” Blushing even redder, he adds, “Sorry?”

“Then you must be straight, man, cuz you’re never going to get anything better than this.” Jacob winks, and for a terrifyingly weird second, he looks just like Dean.

* * *

The days pass, and the butt-end of summer starts to morph into autumn. But the only indication of that here, in New Mexico, is that the heat is slightly less arid.

Sam is studying for the SATs, but he doesn’t tell Dad or Dean about it. After debate practices and play rehearsals, he goes to the public library, taking practice test after practice test. He gets home late and reheats leftovers from dinner. Eats them mechanically while finishing up the rest of his homework.

Neither Dean nor Dad makes any comment about Sam’s schedule, because Sam usually goes to the library anyway. And Dad doesn’t care how Sam spends his afternoons as long as he makes up for training by going out to the baseball field with Dean on the weekends – bow hunting and hand-to-hand and target practice and wall climbing and driving lessons.

Sam’s not sure what’s he’s looking for, why he wants to bury himself in cryptic vocabulary and complex formulas… but it makes him feel better, knowing he has a goal of his own to work for. His own task – not Dean’s, not Dad’s – to complete.

Then, one evening, Sam is in the middle of another practice test in the library, when Dean finds him. “Hey, I wanted to see if you want to go out to dinner. I don’t feel like cooking. Dad heard about some shit going down in Texas and he just left, so—” Dean cuts himself off.

Sam looks up guiltily at his brother. He feels his stomach do a funny little drop, like he just took a dive on a roller coaster.

Dean is staring at the stacks of prep books spread out on the table in front of Sam. “You’re studying for the SATs?”

“Um. Yeah.” Sam doesn’t know why he feels so irrationally guilty, like he did something wrong. Only in their fucked-up family could studying for the SATs be considered “wrong.”

For a long time, Dean is silent.

From the hard set in Dean’s mouth, Sam thinks Dean is going to yell, punch him, call Dad.

Anything other than what Dean actually does, which is to jab a finger at the open page and say, “It’s B, not D.”

“What?” Sam says blankly. This conversation is definitely not going how he has imagined it would go.

“The answer is 97, dumbass.” Dean pulls up a chair, scraping the legs on the floor, a sudden loud intrusion in the quiet library, and sits down. He grabs the pencil out of Sam’s hand, scribbling out the equation in his uneven scrawl.

Dean has always been better at math… He doesn’t have the patience for history or English or anything that requires a lot of reading. But with math, Dean doesn’t even need to look at the textbook or listen to the teacher – he just gets it, equations clicking into place in his brain as easily as loading a pistol.

“Dean…” Sam, watching Dean finish the problem, doesn’t know what to say.

“What?” Dean says, pushing the paper back at Sam. “If you’re going to do this, you better do it right. Winchesters don’t lose, not even at this nerdy stuff.”

“Right.” Sam says. He doesn’t know why he feels like he can finally breathe again, like the troll that had been sitting on his chest these past few weeks finally decided to get up and take a lunch break. Sam picks up another pencil and flips the page. “Okay.”

* * *

It’s late at night when Sam crawls into bed. It’s already two in the morning.

He had been up late, cramming for a physics exam, and Dean had helped a little (dammit, but Dean is better at science, too) before losing interest and opting to watch Baywatch reruns instead.

“Dean?” Sam turns over and sees the lumpy shadow in the other bed that is presumably his brother.

A low groan: “Nugh.” Dean doesn’t move.

“You awake?”

A little more distinctly: “Now I am.”

“You ever… do you regret not going to college?” Sam knows this is the closest he’ll ever get to asking the real question he wants the answer to. Do you hate me because I kept you here?

Dean pauses for a moment, a long moment that seems to last forever to Sam, before saying, “I never regret anything that I do or don’t do, Sammy.”

Sam doesn’t know why he feels relieved. “That… must be nice.”

“Yeah, but not everyone can be as cool as me.” Dean rolls over to face him, eyes glimmering in the dark. He looks tired and half-asleep, but a smile plays around his mouth.

“Dean… are you… are you going to tell Dad?”

Finally, after a long while, Dean says, “No.”

Sam is surprised. For all of Sam’s life, Dean has always tried to help out Dad, to be the good little soldier. Which means that, more often than not, Dean acts like he’s Sam’s other parent, instead of his brother. If Dean has to tell Dad something, he always does, even if it means incriminating his own brother. Sometimes Sam hates him for that.

Almost as if reading Sam’s mind, Dean adds, “But I’ll have to, if you don’t. You have to tell him eventually, dude.”

It had been too much to hope for. Sam sighs, knowing Dean is right, and hating that, too. “I know. I just.”

“Geez, go to sleep already, Sammy. You worry too much for your own good. It’ll be okay. All right?”

Sam squeezes his eyes shut, and wishes he could believe that. But something, deep inside his gut, keeps telling him this isn’t going to go well, this is going to rip and tear them apart, nothing is going to be the same again, and…

A rush of air hits Sam and his eyes fly open as Dean flips Sam’s covers back. Dean climbs into the bed, and his feet are cold, but his hands are warm as he slides an arm across Sam’s chest, holding him. They’re both big enough that the bed is almost too small for them now, and Sam wants to say he’s too old to be treated like a baby.

But then Dean pulls the covers up over them, settling in and already making those sleepy sighs he makes when he’s getting comfortable, and Sam changes his mind.

Sam’s eyes stay open, staring into the dark. Inside him, his stomach is twisted up in knots.

After a moment, Dean crooks his arm to smack Sam on the forehead, punctuating each word he mumbles into Sam’s shoulder: “Stop. Worrying.”

Sam closes his eyes again. He listens to his brother breathe and tries to match the rhythm. Eventually, he falls asleep. When he dreams, he dreams of his father and long stretches of road and the boiling California sun.

The End