Title: Impala, Queen of the Highway
Author: AlexJanna
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Series: Sequins verse
Rating: R
Genre: AU
Word Count: 13,401
Warning: wincest, (mentioned)growing up apart, cross-dressing, mention of homophobia, derogatory language, violence, semi-graphic m/m sex
Summary: Being on the road and hunting with your long lost brother again after ten years is bound to be difficult. Sam just didn't realize how difficult it could be when your brother is Dean Winchester and he likes to dress in drag, stand around half naked, and sing to disco.

A/N: This is the long awaited sequel to "Sequins and Padded Bras Notwithstanding". Once again I am not a drag queen nor do I have any experience hustling pool. Keep your salt shakers handy. Story cut into two parts for length.

Being on the road with Dean for the first time in a decade was much like Sam remembered it at twelve. Dean sang loudly and flatly to every song on every cassette tape with a grin on his dramatically scrunched up face. Dean drove the Impala like he was racing NASCAR and periodically outran highway patrolmen, much to Sam's chagrin. Dean ate greasy diner food with abandon and always ordered pie, no matter what kind, for dessert.

But despite how things were so familiar and seemed to slot into place, there were some things that Sam had to get used to again. Sam had to get used to actually having to call first shower again if he ever had any hope of bathing in hot water before Dean used it all up. Sam had to remember that the bed closest to the door was always Dean's no matter how grown up or capable he was of protecting himself now. Sam had to remember that it may have been ten years, but Dean still slept with a knife under his pillow and still insisted that precaution was not just another word for paranoia.

After ten years, a veritable life time of growing up and leading completely different lives, Sam had to discover that however much things stayed the same, more things always changed.

Sam started to notice the small things first.

Stopped at a gas station for a refuel Dean would stop by the magazine rack and browse through them. That in and of itself was not out of the ordinary of what Sam remembered from his childhood. What was odd, however, was that alongside Car and Driver and Guns & Ammo, Dean would flip through magazines like InStyle and Vogue while he waited for Sam to finish picking out a snack and using the restroom.

The first time Sam had caught him at it Dean still had chipped polish on his nails and some kind of berry scented gloss on his lips. He'd done a double take and stood staring at his completely oblivious brother in the middle of a gas station in the middle of nowhere Kentucky with his Vitamin Water soaking a spot on his shirt and his bag of jerky gouging him in the arm.

After a rather unreasonably long length of time Dean seemed to finally feel Sam's eyes on him and looked up from the apparently riveting spread of Betsey Johnson's new line in the magazine in his hands. He saw Sam standing at the end of the magazine rack and gave him an absent smile.

"Finally finished? I swear, Sam, you have the tiniest bladder. You're such a chick, seriously." Dean shook his head obviously amused and threw the InStyle back on the rack, but kept the Vogue as he took his three magazines and Sam's snacks up the counter to pay.

Sam just stared at his brother's retreating back and decided that seeing him looking at a decidedly female periodical shouldn't be that much of a shock since he'd seen his brother dressed in full drag, but still… it was something to get used to.

Of course it wasn't just the little things like fingernail polish and lip-gloss and magazines. There were bigger things too that Sam started to recognize as completely incongruous with his memories of Dean.

Sam leaned against the Impala –at least he could be sure that will never change- waiting for Dean to finally get his ass out of the shower so they could get back on the road. They were already running behind schedule and there was a haunted playground in the next state over that was throwing little kids off the jungle gym.

The door to their room opened and it took a split second for Sam to double take and stare in utter incomprehension.

There was Dean, tall, dressed, armed to the teeth and ready for another four hours on the road to their next job. He was wearing his normal tight jeans and boots and Sam could see his muscles flexing with the weight of his duffle through his shirts, but there was still something just a little off about his appearance. Sam couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"Ready to go, Sammy?" Dean asked as he dumped his duffle in the trunk and went around to the driver's side. "Let's hit the road."

Sam was in the middle of opening his mouth to agree when it hit him. Bronze. Bronze was dusted lightly, almost teasingly over Dean's eyelids. His eyelashes were dark and thick and his lips were a soft supple looking glossy pink. Small silver hoops were curled around Dean's earlobes with two silver balls trailing up his ears from them.

When had Dean gotten his ears pierced again? Had they always been like that? Why hadn't Sam noticed?

Of course now that Sam was looking it wasn't just Dean's face that was inching toward drag. His t-shirt was skin tight, his flannel over shirt was buttoned half way up his chest to fall open at his breastbone, his jeans were indeed skin tight… more so than usual. And they were skinny. Skinny enough that they fitted over Dean's decidedly more feminine boots like gloves and showed every curve and sway of Dean's body as he moved.

His nails were their customary dark color and his bracelets of skulls and leather were tangled and wrapped around his wrist like always. His silver rings sat on his fingers where they almost never left.

Sam was struck with the thought that his brother was dressed in work drag. It would take a second look to even point out what was not masculine about his appearance, and Sam knew that when you were just passing through very few people actually took a second look.

Dean would blend in almost perfectly. Even his makeup seemed seamless in its camouflage. At first look Dean was gorgeous and Sam felt a small thrill of satisfaction to know that he was the only one that would truly know what made his brother so eye-catching.

No one else would bother to look close enough to find out.

Things changed, but things still stayed the same.

"Down, Sam!"

Sam dropped just as a blast of rock salt exploded from Dean's shotgun. Heart pounding, Sam hadn't even realized the temperature had dropped until the light flicker of a spirit had appeared in his peripheral.

Another blast went off and Dean's voice shouted over the noise. "Get her lit, Sammy!"

Lunging from his place on the ground, Sam snatched up the lighter fluid and the canister of salt. He poured both in the open grave while Dean's cursing grew steadily in excitement and exertion. Sure, steady hands dug in his jacket pocket and yanked the motel matchbook out. Sam nearly had the thing lit before he was gripped by icy hands and flung away from the grave.

Landing hard on his back he barely had time to gasp for breath before frozen claws dug into his chest and started to ipull/i. He was yelling before he even really realized the pain was so overwhelming. It felt like his lungs were being ripped from his chest, then there was a blast of heat and the ghost exploded into a ball of flames with an ear splitting shriek.

Sam laid there for a moment just trying to get his breath back before he lifted his head to look.

Dean was standing over the burning grave with a satisfied grin on his face and his shotgun propped against his shoulder, his hand wrapped around the stock loosely. The fire cast him in a warm flickering orange and yellow glow, his legs stood shoulder width apart and his free hand was propped on his hip like it belonged there.

He looked amazing, Sam thought absently as he struggled to regulate his heart rate again. Grave dirt was caked to Dean's skin with sweat, his cheeks were flushed with the adrenaline of a good hunt, and the knees of his worn jeans were torn and bloodied from his slide to light the body before Sam died bloody.

Sam took the hand Dean offered him and got to his feet. Dean looked him up and down to make sure he had all limbs and body parts accounted for then he grinned again.

"You owe me a new Zippo, Sam." Dean said with slap to Sam's shoulder as he turned back to the grave to watch the body burn.

Huffing out a grudgingly amused breath, Sam just shook his head and got to packing up their scattered grave digging supplies.

Nope, some things definitely stayed the same.

Then again, Sam's awareness of change was starting to become rather dangerously patterned.

He just got back from a run at the library researching the recent missing persons and unexplained deaths in the small town they were currently in. When he opened the door the motel room was quiet and looked empty. The sound of running water and the tones of the tv volume turned down low were the only signs of life immediately apparent.

"Dean?" Sam called as he started unloading his research on the kitchenette table.

"In here, Sam." Dean called back from the mostly closed door to the bathroom.

Rolling his eyes, Sam just strode over and shoved the door open fully intent on lecturing Dean about wasting water and time and if he'd done any research at all while Sam was gone they would have been done with this hunt already, but stopped cold when he took in the sight before him.

Dean was standing in the bathtub wearing nothing but a pair of black panties. That alone would have made Sam swallow his own tongue, if not for the fact that not only was Dean mostly naked, but he was wet as well.

And covered from ankles to groin in what looked like shaving cream.

Sam must have made a noise of some kind because Dean glanced over and just raised an eyebrow at him. "What?"

Yeah, Sam definitely choked then. "What are you doing?" He asked his voice high and strangled.

"Shaving." Dean answered with a look on his face like he thought his brother was just the stupidest person alive. "What does it look like?"

"I- I don't know!" Sam burst out, the words sounding suspiciously like a shriek. "You're- you're not using my shaving cream, are you?"

Not that he would really have minded if Dean had. They were brothers; they'd been sharing for their entire childhoods. But, inexplicably, the thought of Dean rubbing Sam's shaving cream over his long, muscled legs made his belly feel all squiggly and something further south feel significantly more interested.

Dean just scoffed. "No. I don't want to have to shave my legs –and everything else- every other day, Sam." He said like that should have been obvious.

Sam manfully tried to ignore the flare of disappointment in his belly –and the niggling question of what exactly constituted everything else- and concentrated instead on the sharp chemically citrus scent of something that Sam had hoped to never smell again.

Horror dawned and Sam felt his face slacken in disbelief. "You're using Nair!" He exclaimed really rather accusatorily.

Dean looked up from where he'd been rubbing a long glistening straight line of cream from his freshly hairless leg and smirked in mischievous amusement at his little brother. "Yeah, Sam. I'm using Nair."

When Sam just looked a mix between betrayed and sullen, Dean laughed and rubbed another swath of gorgeous leg clean. "Don't worry, Sammy." He said, eyes glinting and lips smiling. "Nair's not just for awesome pranks. Most people use it for body hair removal too."

Seeing as the proof of that statement was standing right in front of him in little more than a scrap of black cotton while slowly revealing inch after inch of smooth hairless skin, Sam couldn't really bring himself to dispute that. He couldn't stop his curiosity, however.

"You really shave your legs?" Dumb, stupid question that Sam wished he could take back the moment the words slipped from his mouth.

Dean didn't seem perturbed though, just continually amused by his geeky little brother. "Yeah, Sam." He said, once again stating the obvious. "There aren't many drag queens that don't. There's just something more attractive, more appealing about silky smooth skin, a clean mostly hairless body."

Whether he meant for those words to sound so sensual or not, Sam was stuck trying to keep his breathing even and that slowly burning heat from spreading further than his belly.

"Of course," Dean continued, his eyes once more fastened on his legs, voice more absent than deliberate. He had one foot propped up on the side of the bathtub to give him better leverage as he continued to wipe away cream to reveal a larger expanse of smooth skin from ankle to thigh. "Hairless skin is more sensitive to the touch. The feel of cloth, of hands, of skin sliding against skin is well worth the trouble."

He paused suddenly and looked back up at Sam, pinning him with his piercing green eyes. "Smooth legs are pretty sexy, wouldn't you say, Sam?"

Sam choked. "Y-yeah." He coughed and felt heat rise to his cheeks and rush further south. He broke eye contact and coughed again, his mouth was suddenly horridly dry. "I'll leave you to it then. Just gonna go… order us some pizza."

He rushed from the bathroom before he could embarrass himself further, Dean's shout of, "I want a meat lover's pizza, Sam! None of that healthy vegetarian crap," following him as he shut the door and silently collapsed against it.

Dean's words, before his request for pizza, kept echoing through his mind. The sound of his hands wiping away the cream from his body, the smell of the Nair in the air, the way Dean's voice had deepened and gone whiskey rough and smoky, the sight of him nearly naked and glistening and smooth skinned and so fucking hot-

Taking a deep breath, Sam closed his eyes and tried to will away the memories Dean's words had brought forward. The feel of Dean's muscled, silken legs under hands, around his waist, the way their bodies had slid together so slick with sweat and burning heat. He shivered and forced his eyes open once more.

He'd spent nearly the entire time he'd been traveling with Dean trying not to think about that night. Trying not to remember how it had felt to move with his brother as lovers, to thrust deep and hard and so fucking right and good inside of him, but now Sam could barely get those images forever burned in his mind to stop dancing mockingly across his consciousness.

He'd just gotten Dean back. He wasn't going to risk losing him again because he couldn't control himself.

Pushing the last of those hidden, cherished, unspoken memories down, Sam shoved himself away from the bathroom door and snatched up his phone, his fingers already typing in the number for the pizza place.

Two pretty easy hunts, three motels, and one rather odd case of food poisoning later, Sam was still trying not to think about Dean in all the various positions, states of undress, and expressions of rapture he'd seen him in. He was failing rather miserably.

Dean wasn't half as oblivious to his little brother's state of inner turmoil as he liked to pretend and Sam was immensely thankful that he had decided to let Sam work whatever it was out on his own. He didn't know what had Sam so shifty, silent, and broody, but Sam knew that Dean was trying to lend his silent unspoken support like he'd always done.

Sam could remember Dean riding next to him in the Impala, silent, watchful, and patient. Whether it was the stress of switching schools, the horrors of ever confusing puberty, or the just burgeoning contention between him and their dad, Dean had been right there next to him, waiting for Sam to finally give in and spill about his problems.

He'd missed it, Sam realized as they continued down the highway through mostly flat prairie land. He'd missed Dean's constant supporting presence at his side. Even though he knew he wasn't going to be able to talk to Dean about what was going on inside his head, he appreciated the unwavering surety that Dean was still his big brother.

Since he was riddled with angst and brooding, it took Sam longer than it perhaps should have to realize that Dean was humming, lip-syncing, and even occasionally actually singing along to the radio.

Normally this wouldn't be strange. Normally this was pretty par for the course. Except that Sam had threatened to throw Dean's entire box of cassette tapes out the window after the third run through of the same Led Zeppelin album if Dean didn't turn it off or at least play the radio instead.

Out in the middle of nowhere, driving through Tornado Alley where radio signals were about as scarce as hills, there wasn't exactly a lot of options on the radio. The only station they could pick up that wasn't a southern Baptist preaching the gospel was a rather tiny local station that played an odd range of music from the 60's edging all the way into the disco era.

Sam had been mostly tuning it out until Dean's voice suddenly surpassed the sound of road noise and sang in rhythm with the radio.

"Baby, won't you tell me, what am I to do? I'm in the middle of nowhere getting nowhere with you!" Dean had been nodding his head to the beat and at the end of the lyric he'd taken his right hand off the wheel and shook a scolding finger in the air, his voice still singing along, off key, but sure of the words.

Sam just sat watching his brother dance in the driver's seat and sing along verbatim to something other than cock rock. Maybe he'd fallen asleep and this was some kind of twisted dream.

"Are you gonna leave me and lead my heart astray? I'm in the middle of nowhere, come and show me the way. Heeeeeeeeey!"

Nope, this was definitely not a dream and Dean was definitely singing along to Dusty Springfield while gesturing theatrically with the words and driving the Impala down a never ending stretch of highway in the middle of nowhere… lyrical irony not intended.

As the song ended and choppily segued into a commercial for car insurance, Dean seemed to realize what he'd just been doing and flicked an awkward glance toward Sam.

The look in his eyes plainly said, "Maybe no one noticed me completely busting out into man-hating-white-chick-soul song."

The wide-eyed, slack mouthed look on Sam's face plainly said, "Sorry, but it was kind of hard to ignore you totally owning that 60s British pop song about romantic dissatisfaction."

Dean grimaced as a blush stained his cheeks. "That totally didn't just happen."

"How do you even know who Dusty Springfield is?" Sam asked, completely ignoring Dean's embarrassment.

Huffing, Dean scowled and stared out of the windshield, hands once again firmly glued to the steering wheel. "You try living over a queer bar called I Love Lucy's for six months, and see how many ancient chick songs you learn by sheer repetition."

Sam swallowed his laugh, but couldn't quite smother his snort. The look on Dean's face was pure adorable poutiness. "And how do you explain the jazz hands you had going on there?" He asked just to be an annoying shit of a little brother.

"Those were not jazz hands." Dean protested turning his scowl back on his little brother. "I'll show you jazz hands." Sam laughed as he dodged Dean's smack to the head, but couldn't stop him from knuckling his crown painfully.

Grumbling and chuckling, Sam finally pushed Dean's hand away and smoothed down his mussed hair with a big sullen hand. "Jerk."

Smirking in satisfaction, Dean didn't take his eyes off the road. "Bitch."

"So, jazz hands." Sam continued, totally not willing to let that one go.

Glaring harder at the road in front of them, Dean's cheeks pinked a little more and he growled something that sounded like, "Not fucking jazz hands," before grumbling something else that Sam couldn't quite make out.

"I didn't catch that." Sam said with a seemingly innocent look on his face.

Snorting in annoyance, Dean gritted his teeth and ground out, "Karaoke Tuesdays."

Biting his lips, Sam felt his entire face turn bright red and his eyes water with the effort of keeping a straight face. "So on these Tuesdays…?"

Looking just plain put out now, Dean rolled his eyes, but seemed to resign himself. "They would score you on theatricality. Lucille wouldn't let me out of them. Said it was part of the rent or some shit."

Marveling at the fact that the word theatricality had just come out of his brother's mouth, Sam decided to put Dean out of his misery and not comment on that. Though, he wanted to. Oh sweet Jesus, did he want to.

Another hour and a half and more flat fields and black asphalt later, Sam was pulled from his monotonous zone-out by the sound of Dean's voice once again unconsciously rising up to join the radio.

"You're so hot, teasing me. So you're blue but I can't take a chance on a chick like you. Der-ner-ner-na! der-ner-ner-na! That's something I couldn't do."

Slowly, Sam looked over with wide eyes and watched his brother jamming out to ABBA, of all things. His eyes were wrinkled with unconscious dramatics, and his voice sounded strangely good with its deep tone and Dean's own special emphasis on a few of the lyrics making the song sound just a tad dirtier than Sam was sure ABBA originally intended.

Of course his vocalization of the guitar chords made the old disco song seem even more comical than disco normally warranted.

Dean looked happy, Sam realized as he sang, "And I know what you mean when you give me a flash of that smile. Smile! But girl, you're only a child." He looked completely relaxed and satisfied with just driving endlessly, outdated disco playing on the radio and his little brother in the passenger seat.

It made Sam smile as warmth curled up his chest easing some of his tension from his seemingly endless inner turmoil and the long hours on the road. His brother was amazing. Even when Dean wasn't trying he was still taking care of Sam, just like he'd always done.

When the next song came on Sam didn't even bother trying to stop himself from singing along with Dean. Glancing over at Sam, Dean's eyes widened in surprise then they twinkled mischievously and soon they were both trying to out do one another with theatricality and pure ridiculousness as they belted out the song loud and off key while Bonnie Tyler sang.

"I need a hero! I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night. He's gotta be strong, and he's gotta be fast, and he's gotta be fresh from the fight.

"I need a hero! I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light. He's gotta be sure, and it's gotta be soon, and he's gotta be larger than life!

"iHoooohooooohoooooohooooooo!/i"

"Dean, you're not serious." Sam stared incredulously at his brother, but it didn't seem like he was backing down.

"Deadly." Dean said, face serious, but he wasn't fooling Sam. He could see that tale tell spark of pure delight in Dean's eyes.

"But why?" Sam knew he was hedging dangerously close to a whine, but he couldn't help it. His brother wanted to teach him how to put on makeup. If that sentence wasn't enough to keep a shrink happy for years to come, Sam didn't know what was.

"Because," Dean drawled in that condescending tone of voice that told Sam Dean thought his brother was once again the stupidest person on earth. "It's a good disguise. If we ever have to run from the cops, they would never guess to try looking for a couple of drag queens."

That, Sam thought unamusedly, was the lamest excuse he had ever heard before in his life. "You just want to put makeup on me." He accused.

Dean sat himself primly at the dressing table in their current motel room and waved his hand dismissively. "Yeah, that too." He plopped his makeup bag down on the table and busied himself with unzipping it and spilling the contents. "But it is a good skill to know, Sam." He continued and Sam could tell he was serious this time.

"We should learn how to cover up bruises to keep people from asking questions. A little bit of eye shadow and lip-gloss can make a person nearly unrecognizable. And learning a new skill, no matter how useless it seems, is never a wasted effort." He finished with a pointed look.

Sam groaned and slumped in defeat. Dean had just hit him with a dad quote verbatim, accent, tone, inflection and all. Their father had always managed to make sense at the most inconvenient of times.

Reluctantly, Sam pulled a chair away from the kitchen table and dragged it up next to Dean before falling into it petulantly.

"Jeez," Dean groused in exasperation, "Regress a whole decade why don't you, Sammy."

Huffing, Sam couldn't quite fight the amusement tugging at the corner of his mouth. He did straighten up in his chair though and finally turn his mind to actually paying attention.

Sam watched Dean set up the stuff on the table. His face was open and relaxed, his shoulders down, his hands moving efficiently, but unhurried. There was a light in his eyes that suggested that this entire exercise was only partly about Sam learning a new skill. It was also a little bit about Dean sharing something important with him.

His own attitude about the whole thing suddenly softened, Sam marveled at just how gone he was for his own brother. He was so wrapped up in Dean just then that if he said, put this corset, fishnet tights, garter belt, and stilettos on and do a number from Rocky Horror Picture Show, Sam would jump up and start doing the Time Warp.

Grimacing at his own line of thought, Sam decided to just not go there ever again and turned his attention back to Dean.

"Alright, so this is called foundation." Dean said brandishing a bottle of skin colored cream. "It's supposed to match your skin tone so we'll have to get you your own. You're a shade or two darker than me –ya lucky bastard- so mine won't work on you."

Dean went on to demonstrate the correct technique for foundation application followed swiftly with powder and blush. Sam watched in no small amounts fascinated and surprisingly curious. It was like watching Dean transform before his eyes. With every new layer of makeup, Dean was morphing from a cocky, bad boy drifter, into a cocky, bad ass drag queen.

He never really watched Dean put any makeup on before now. Usually Dean just came out of the bathroom or motel room already made up.

"I don't usually put all this stuff on." Dean was telling him as he dusted his face one last time with his big fluffy powder brush. "It takes more time and if you're just going to go to a bar with crappy lighting, who's going to notice that you didn't shellac over some freckles?"

A little alarmed at the thought of Dean being without his freckles Sam exclaimed, "But I like your freckles."

Pausing, brush still held expertly in one hand, Dean looked at his brother's reflection in the mirror. His green eyes softened and Sam was almost positive that if he hadn't already put on the blush, Dean's cheeks would have been tinted pink on their own.

A small smile curved at his lips as Dean set his brush down and turned to look at Sam fully. "Thanks, Sammy." He said, sounding almost shy. "I like your freckles too." With a painted finger he tapped the freckle under Sam's left eye lightly.

His own blush firmly and likely permanently residing in his cheeks, Sam ducked his head and grumbled, "It's a birthmark."

Chuckling, Dean turned back to his makeshift work station and picked up the pencil Sam had seen him about to use that first morning after they'd found each other.

"Now, this," he wielded it like a sword, "is eyeliner. More specifically, an eye pencil." Uncapping it, Dean picked up a tiny sharpener and ran it over the tip a few times till it was satisfactory.

"That looks painful." Sam commented as he stared at the scarily sharp supposed-to-be writing utensil Dean was holding dangerously close to his eye.

"Not as much as mascara if you get poked in the eye with it." Dean said, sounding completely unconcerned.

Sam swallowed and started shoring up his courage. He decided to wait and ask what mascara was lest he lose his nerve to continue the lesson.

It was all a little unfathomable to Sam, why anyone would want to do this on a regular basis, woman or man. It seemed like a lot of work and fairly risky considering how delicate and sensitive eyes could be.

When voicing this concern, Dean had just rolled his eyes and told him there was hypoallergenic makeup out there for the wimps who couldn't just man up and suffer. Sam refrained from mentioning that the majority of the people using said makeup were in fact not men.

Watching while Dean lined his eyes with smooth practiced movements was mesmerizing. He did it perfectly only stopping once on the left eye to rub away a small bit of stray black. Sam had to admit that whoever invented this stuff was a genius, in addition to a sadist, because the dark outlines of Dean's eyes made their green almost glow.

He was beautiful. Dean was beautiful and he wasn't halfway done yet. Sam was screwed.

"Alright, now you try." Dean turned back to him and held out the pencil expectantly.

Sam looked from the pencil to Dean and back again and still Dean was looking at him with a calm, open face and he had to admit defeat. Again.

Taking the pencil from his brother hesitantly, Sam shifted till he was facing the mirror more than Dean and took a deep steadying breath.

He copied Dean's movements exactly and still he came out looking like a rejected extra from Cleopatra. Huffing in frustration Sam turned to see Dean watching him with barely contained amusement.

"Shut up!" Sam grumbled and scowled down at the pencil like it had personally insulted him.

"No, no." Dean tried to reassure him, but his giggles ruined it. "That was good. For your first try." When Sam just scowled at him even harder, Dean didn't try any more and just laughed.

"Quit pouting, Samantha. It's not permanent." Sam watched Dean pick up a small tub and unscrew the top to pull out a small white moist pad. He didn't point out that if he wasn't allowed to call his brother, Deanna, then his brother shouldn't be allowed to call him, Samantha. Though he was sorely tempted.

Dean took Sam's chin in one hand and tilted his face upward with a gentle nudge. Sam held his breath, every inch of skin Dean touched tingled and the squiggly feeling in his belly Sam was beginning to associate with inappropriate thoughts about his brother started to writhe. So it came as a bit of a shock when the cold wet pad touched his lightly closed eyelid.

"Hold still." Dean murmured when Sam started to scrunch his eyes in reflex. Dean's breath ghosted over Sam's mouth and chin and he found himself getting rather lightheaded with the sensation.

"There." Dean said when he pulled away, releasing his hold on Sam's chin and tossing the darkly smudged wipe back on the table. "Eye makeup remover." He said with a grin. "Best invention ever after sex, cars, and guns."

His skin felt cold and bereft where Dean's warm, callused fingers had held him, but Sam covered up his discomfort by huffing in amusement and taking another stab –hopefully metaphorically speaking- at the eyeliner.

This time it wasn't horrible and Dean helped guide him when it looked like the thickness of his lines was verging away from classy and more towards tacky.

Next Dean showed him the mascara and Sam watched in trepidation as Dean combed the brush over his eyelashes turning them long and curved and dark. The result was eye-catching, no pun intended, and Sam was a little bit curious about how it felt. The eyeliner hadn't exactly been comfortable, but this didn't look too bad.

Of course nearly the first thing Sam did was poke himself in the eye.

"Mother fucker!" Eyes watering and burning, Sam immediately tried to rub at his offended organ, but Dean deftly caught his hand and held tight.

"Don't rub it, Sam." He said in a voice that reminded Sam of days when he went to Dean for skinned knees and itchy scabs. "Here, come here. Let me look."

Still blinking away the pain and shock from being assaulted by a miniature pipe cleaner, Sam stopped cowering away and let Dean cup his jaw. Lifting his face toward him, Dean gently stroked a thumb under Sam's irritated, tightly shut eye.

"Open up, Sam." He coaxed softly but sternly. "Let me see the damage."

Fighting back a whimper and feeling supremely pathetic about being brought down by a feminine beauty product, Sam reluctantly blinked his eye open. His vision was blurry out of it, but he could still make out Dean's face close enough to feel his breath puffing out over his skin once more.

It calmed him and Sam gave a few more involuntary blinks before opening his eyes for real.

"Oh, that's not so bad." Dean murmured as he gazed into Sam's eyes. "It's red, but I don't see any actual mascara floating around on your eyeball so it's nothing fatal." He smirked slightly. "You'll live."

Sam growled and tried to glare at him as much as he could when Dean still had a gentle hold of his face. "It stings like a bitch."

Rolling his eyes, Dean sighed, "Fine, you big baby. Keep 'em open." He leaned even closer and Sam's breath caught in his throat as Dean opened his lips and started to blow cool air softly against Sam's eye.

The atmosphere was suddenly thick and Sam's heart was pounding madly in his chest. He could do it. Right now. All he had to do was lean forward four, maybe five inches and kiss him. Kiss Dean's soft, full lips. Sam started to tilt forward almost without meaning to. It was like Sam's mouth was a magnate and Dean's was its true north. He could almost taste Dean's skin against his tongue.

"There. Feel better, princess?" Dean pulled away, his customary smirk plastered on his lips and his eyes not quite meeting Sam's.

Clearing his throat, Sam blinked the injured eye a couple times and nodded. "Thanks."

This smirk was a little more genuine. "No problem, Sammy." He took the mascara brush and tube out of Sam's hands holding both expertly. "Maybe I should finish doing this part."

Sam wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of getting that thing anywhere near him again, but the prospect of Dean being so close, maybe having to touch him again was a more powerful motivator than his fear of blindness.

"Yeah, okay."

The rest of Dean's makeup training was an exercise in torture; frustrating, wonderful, forbidden torture. Dean's hand almost never left its place cradling Sam's jaw. Every flick of a brush dusted with eye shadow or smudge of a finger was gentle and soft and made Sam's heart skip traitorously in his chest.

Sam was half hard and struggling with his paper thin self control by the time Dean brandished something that looked vaguely like lipstick.

"Now, for the final touch: lip-gloss. Comes in just as many colors as lipstick, but has more of a slick glossy look to it. Hence, the name." He unscrewed the cap of dark gloss and Sam could just barely smell a sweet fruity scent as Dean lifted the brush and brought it up to Sam's lips.

"Plus, it tastes like berries." Dean added with a grin.

Sam couldn't have fucking cared less because the feeling of the cool gloss covered brush stroking slow and smooth over his lower lip was about to drive him crazy. Dean wielded it like it was making love to Sam's mouth. Tracing gently along the edge of his lips, dragging the pliant flesh with it and sending sparks through Sam's jaw like livewires.

He couldn't stop his breath from quickening, his mouth from falling open in small measured pants. He felt dizzy and his skin felt too tight. Focusing his hazy vision on Dean, Sam nearly gave up his control at the sight of him.

Face flushed, green eyes glazed, his full glossed lips open with his heavy breaths, Dean looked like pure sex.

Dean's wet, pink tongue darted out to lick nervously over his bottom lip and Sam made a sound he knew he should be a shamed of as he swayed forward with the near overwhelming urge to capture that tongue with his own lips and suck on it.

Breath hitched, Dean's eyes widened. His motions completely stopped, he slowly withdrew the gloss brush away from Sam's mouth and slid it back into its tube without looking. Sam watched him with a mixture of anticipation and wariness. He pursed his lips in nervousness and rubbed them together when he realized that the gloss made them feel slick and plump.

Eyes tracking the motion, Dean groaned low and dirty, the sound causing Sam's dick to harden in his jeans and his body to shiver. Dean's eyelashes fluttered unconsciously and Sam leaned forward ready to meet him halfway.

This was it. Sam's entire body was screaming for it. His mind hadn't been able to stop thinking about that night before they were brothers. Dean had permeated every aspect of his life and Sam knew no amount of forgetting and ignoring and denying was ever going to wash away the deep seated yearning that one amazing encounter had instilled in them both.

"Dean." He breathed.

And that was it.

Frozen stiff, Dean's eyes abruptly cleared of lust and he slowly leaned away from Sam. Despair and disappointment clashed inside him and Sam knew he'd never been able to hide his emotions for shit. His face always displayed every single thought in his head like an open bloody book.

Gaze flitting sluggish and searching over Sam's face, Dean studied his brother for a long moment of silence. The only sounds were their reluctantly steadying breaths and the crap window unit in the kitchenette flicking on.

Sam didn't know what exactly Dean saw in his face -though he could hazard a pretty good guess-, but his beautiful eyes softened and he looked down at his hands for a second before looking back up at Sam.

Steady and sure, Dean lifted his hands and cradled Sam's face between them tenderly, a small smile playing at his lips.

"You look good, Sam." He murmured quietly, seeming almost afraid to raise his voice. "You look gorgeous."

Sam sucked in a hitching breath and grasped Dean's wrists in shaking hands willing him to never let go.

Smile turning a little sad, Dean leaned forward and pressed their glossed lips together in a caressing, barely open mouthed kiss.

"But then, you always look gorgeous to me." And Dean slipped from his grasp like smoke.

His eyes were closed, Sam realized, and he didn't open them until he heard the bathroom door shut quietly and the shower turn on. When he did, the makeup on his eyelids felt heavy and stiff, the lip gloss tasted cloying and sweet, and his entire body felt just a little bit numb.

It all started like most things did involving Dean, with dubious forethought and fairly spectacular execution.

They were short on cash; and by short Sam meant scrounging between the seats of the Impala for loose change. The protocol for fixing this hasn't changed all that much since Sam was still a little twerp with baby fat and dimples the size of his face.

The protocol, however, never once in the history of life under the parentage of John Winchester included Sam's completely insane older brother sauntering into a bar wearing nothing but a pair of fuck me boots, black fishnet hose, a faded blue-jean ass hugging skirt, an obscenely tight Styx t-shirt, his drag leather biker jacket, and a pair of the hugest, flashiest earrings known to man and queens everywhere.

Sam knew the moment he'd watched his brother swagger up to the jerry rigged juke box and bend at the waist in a torturous déjà vu of that night that Sam wanted desperately to repeat, but Dean was refusing to acknowledge that tonight was going to end in utter disaster.

When Tina Turner's voice came floating over the suddenly incredulous silence following Dean's entrance, Sam just hoped they were going to be able to get out of this one alive.

"I'm your private dancer, a dancer for money. I'll do what you want me to do. I'm your private dancer, a dancer for money and any old music will do."

The urge to grab Dean around the waist, throw him over his shoulder, and run as far away from those mildly disgusted and disbelieving glares on every single male in the bar nearly had Sam hyperventilating. No way this ends any other way than bad.

"Hey, baby. You promised to teach me pool if I gave you a massage after work." Dean crooned into Sam's scorchingly red ear with a voice an octave higher and three times more saccharine than Dean's normal husky timber. "I held up my end, now you hold up yours."

He was going to kill him, Sam decided as he tried to keep his entire body from shaking with repressed sexual tension and disbelieving outrage. Sam was going to kill his brother. Not only was Dean a complete asshole most of the time, as is his older brother wont, he is actually a cruel heartless bastard.

That's it. Sam decided as he forced down that ache in the place where his heart should be. If Dean wanted to play the "that never happened even though we both know it did and neither of us can stop thinking about it" game then Sam was going to just let him get his ass kicked by the righteously indignant homophobes giving them the stink eye.

Not that he really blamed them at this precise moment. The smell of leather, gun powder, cherry flavored lip-gloss and Dean was invading his senses and the feel of his brother's radiating heat was soaking into his side where Dean was pressed, but all Sam could really think about was the suffocating silence they'd traveled in ever since the night Dean had kissed him and run.

At this point, Sam just wanted to get his role in the hustle over with so he could sit back down at the bar and drown his sorrows like any normal red blooded male.

Dean pulled a con like he did nearly everything else in his life. With a bow-legged swagger, a cocky grin, and a willful incomprehension of the phrase "less is more".

Still, Sam couldn't help, but slip back into his old awe of his brother. Through the torture of having to correct Dean's deliberately crap aim while he tried his best to rub his ass up against Sam's crotch, Sam watched as his brother enthralled nearly the entire bar with his act.

There were people watching the show with condescending amusement. People watching with thinly veiled disgust. And people watching with predatory eyes; for Dean himself or for the last of their cash Dean made sure to keep flashing as he ordered double whisky after double whisky.

Sam watched Dean sink the winning shot then down his fourth double in the span of two "practice games". He wondered absently when his brother became such a heavy drinker.

"Damn, sugar." Sam drawled, drawing out his voice and projecting more of a buzz than he had. "You're a natural. You're just about better than me."

Dean flashed a lightning quick expression of displeasure at the pet name before his game face was back in place. "You really think so?" He asked shyly with a flirty little flutter of his long painted eyelashes.

Sam grinned at him resisting the urge to smack him for over acting and said, "Definitely. I bet you could beat anyone in here you're so good."

That statement sent a ripple of righteous indignation through the more avid watchers and a guy sitting with two of his buddies stood up and said, "You want to bet on that?"

Hook, line, and sinker. It was almost pitiful how easy that was.

An hour and a half later, Sam really was feeling his buzz as he watched his brother completely dominant that guy and his two buddies at pool. He was on his fourth beer and he watched Dean swallow his sixth double. It was frankly worrying just how much of that stuff Dean had drunk and yet he still wasn't really showing any signs of being over intoxicated.

Maybe he had a drinking problem, Sam thought fleetingly as he popped the top off his fifth beer and swiveled on his bar stool to watch Dean wipe the floor with his opponents for the third time.

"Well, gentlemen, this has been fun," Dean said as he started counting out his winnings and slipped the beer stained crumpled bills into an obscenely tiny pocket in his skirt. "But I really do think I'm done for the night."

The look on the three guys' faces said something different and Sam felt his spine tighten as the air in the bar slowed with anticipation.

"You know," said the guy that was so damned sure no one could beat him at pool, "I don't think I'm gonna just let you take my money after all."

Dean just raised a flirtatiously curious eyebrow at him. "Oh?"

"Yeah," one of the guy's buddies stepped in. "Give us back our money you little fag." Obviously he was drunker and meaner than he appeared.

A ripple of unease went through the bar and Sam shifted both his feet to the floor, ready to spring in if it looked like he needed to.

Cool, unflappable, arrogant Dean just flashed them a sugary sweet smile and asked in his normal whisky roughened voice, "And if I don't?"

It took a split second for them to figure out that not only had a cross-dressing fag beat them out of the entirety of their paychecks, but that he had played them like a golden fiddle. Their hackles visibly bristled and their faces contorted in thinly restrained rage.

"If you don't we're going to beat your ass, you pansy fudge packing faggot. Then we're just gonna take our money back." The supposed leader growled and took a step forward as he bowed up threateningly.

Sam had almost lunged for his throat, he could barley see through the red haze of fury that fucker's words ignited in him. No one talked to his brother like that, no one. The only reason he hadn't completely lost his cool and tried to beat the ever living shit out those assholes was because he knew his brother and Dean would not have thanked him for it.

As it was, Dean's smile just sharpened and his eyes glinted dangerously, eagerly beneath their purple eye shadow and black eyeliner. He widened his stance and started to pull his earrings from his ears to slip them out of harms way into his jacket pockets.

"You think you can really beat me up?" He asked, voice dripping with predatory delight. "Because I got to tell you, there's only one thing I like more than a hard dick," he grinned shark like and vicious, "and that's a hard fight." He crooked a finger at the three stunned men mockingly. "Bring it."

The sound of pained grunts, enraged yells, and fists, boots, and knees hitting flesh soon filled the room. Sam just sighed tiredly and leaned back against the bar resignedly.

"You ain't going to help your girlfriend?" Ask the bartender as he watched the fight and busied his hands with wiping glasses foggy with a dishrag.

Sam shook his head and took a long swallow of his beer. "Nope. Dean can handle them."

The bartender just shrugged unconcerned. "Alright. It's your boy's funeral."

Sam may or may not have just snorted and muttered, "Yeah, I wish," at that, but due to a lack of witnesses he's pleading the fifth.

It was a pitifully short time later that Dean put the last asshole on the ground and made damned sure he wasn't going to get back up again. There was stunned silence only punctuated by pained whimpers and Dean's much too elated and rather drunken laughter. Straightening up jerkily, Dean stumbled unsteadily in his three inch heeled boots and turned a bleeding manic grin on his brother.

"Hey, Sammy! I totally kicked their asses!" He blinked and giggled like that was the funniest shit he'd ever said.

A cool ball of anger was simmering in Sam's gut, so he just stood up and dropped some bills on the bar as compensation for the trouble. It looked like all that alcohol had finally caught up to his brother and post fight adrenaline was not known to help a sober man walk straight much less a completely drunk one.

"Yeah, Dean." Sam said calmly as he took his makeup smeared, bleeding brother by the waist and helped him stagger out of the bar, the rest of the patrons watching them go with stunned incredulous stares. "You totally kicked their asses."

Dean giggled again, "Yeah. Totally."

The drive back to the motel was blissfully silent. The quiet was only broken by the occasional giggle from Dean in the passenger seat.

By the time Sam had wrestled his brother out of the car and back into their room he was far past stewing in his anger quietly and well into just not caring anymore. The entire night was like something out of a naked-in-front-of-the-class nightmare. Before tonight, Sam had forgotten his brother's talent for being in complete denial while still poking at the pink elephant in the room with a giant stick.

Maybe Dean didn't realize that's what he was doing. Mocking Sam's yearning for something more with his touches and his cockiness and his brashness. But he was still doing it, and it didn't hurt any less than if he was doing it on purpose.

It didn't matter either way, because Sam was just tired. Tired of ignoring possibly the most amazing night of his life, of ignoring his brother's inherent beauty inside and out, of ignoring his own heart's painful flips every time Dean looked at him that way before shuttering away everything in his gaze.

He was just tired.

"Hold still, Dean." Sam admonished his brother with a frustrated sigh as he tried to clean up his bloodied face.

Dean winced and swayed in his hold before steadying himself again. The alcohol had worn off somewhat and the adrenaline had faded. The pain from his split lip and his gashed eyebrow were starting to set in.

"Be careful, Nurse Ratchet." Dean grumbled when Sam prodded at his eyebrow with the alcohol soaked pad.

Sam ignored him and finished wiping away the blood to get a better look at the damage. "Well, you're going to be black and blue tomorrow, but you don't need stitches."

Dean just grunted and closed his eyes. Sam sighed and finished the thankfully short job of patching up his brother.

When he was done slathering his brother's rather minor injuries in Neosporin, Sam felt himself collapse backwards onto the other bed. He looked at Dean for the first time since dumping him on the bed furthest from the door. Really looked at him.

His makeup was smeared and running from his sweat. His plush bottom lip was split and puffy, stained with blood not gloss. His cheek and jaw were already starting to swell and color.

Those black fishnet tights that had tortured Sam the entire night had a run in them from Dean's calf all the way to his knee. Dean's boots had a smear of blood on the toe from where he'd kicked one of those idiots in the teeth.

Hands that Sam remembered smoothing down his hair as a child and clawing up his back in pleasure for one night as an adult were bruised and split knuckled. The paint on the nails chipped beyond salvage.

It struck Sam then that if the entire bar had chosen to take offense to Dean's truly inspired performance, things could have turned out a whole lot worse than just some superficial bruising and three-fifty down the drain in tights.

Sam felt himself start to shake with the realization. Hustling was one thing. No one liked to get played though if handled right it rarely instigated such violence. But a lot of the bars they went to, a lot of the bars they hustled in didn't look too kindly on the queer and the unusual.

And Dean was about as queer -in both senses of the word- and unusual as you could get.

Still trying to calm his tremors, Sam looked up into Dean's shrewd exhaustion and alcohol glazed eyes. "I don't want you hustling in drag anymore." He said voice just this side of steady.

Dean just snorted at him. "Sure, Sam. I'll just forget about the fifteen hundred dollars in cash sitting in my pocket." His voice dripped with sarcasm.

Suddenly so very angry and worried, Sam growled, "I mean it, Dean. It's fucking dangerous to hustle already. Hustling in drag? What were you thinking!"

"God, Sam." Dean groaned. "Let it go. Nothing happened."

"You got jumped by three guys, Dean. That's not nothing." Sam pointed out darkly.

"Yeah, three guys that I beat the crap out of!" Dean snapped at him in frustration. "I can take care of myself, Sam. I've been doing it since I was sixteen. Just leave it."

"Goddamn it, Dean!-"

"Enough!" Sam jerked in shock. The last time Dean had used that tone of voice on him, Sam had snuck out to a hunt and nearly been gutted by a Black Dog.

He stayed silent. Dean just sighed and rubbed at his forehead gingerly avoiding his injured eyebrow. "Enough, Sam." He said again, voice more exhausted than frustrated now. "It brings in more cash than a normal hustle and I can kick ass in a miniskirt just as well as in blue jeans."

Granted, but Sam just couldn't shake that awful feeling that it was an entirely horrible idea to keep tempting fate like that. He opened his mouth to say as much, but the look on Dean's face tamped the words back down in his throat.

"Go to bed, Sam." Dean instructed with finality before he collapsed back onto his own bed fully clothed, boots, smeared makeup and all, and passed out the moment his head hit the pillow.

Sam, for his part, lay awake until the early dawn light filtered in through the curtains. He knew this wasn't going to end well. When did any great scheme of Dean's ever end well?

Oh, that's right. Never.

It was another town, another hunt come and gone and Sam and Dean were once again short on cash. Their P.O. box for the credit cards was two states away and they needed gas money to get there.

Sam watched his brother strut into a dark sour smelling bar with his high heeled boots and his tight jean skirt and his dark sultry makeup and knew that no matter how many times he told and yelled and screamed and even begged that Dean was never going to stop hustling in drag.

The con went much the same as it had before. Dean played the crowd like a fiddle tugging Sam long suffering and reluctant behind him. He drank too much, flirted too much, hustled too much.

And in the end Sam wasn't the least bit surprised when it blew up in both their faces.

The mark was big and beefy and Sam could tell he had no sense of humor. The men around him regarded him as the leader and the other patrons gave him a wide birth. The bartender kept a weather eye on the proceedings and Sam watched his fingers twitch every so often to the shotgun behind the bar reflexively.

Dad had trained them to notice all these things and Sam had been doing it automatically long before he was let into a bar, Dean had been doing it even longer. So Sam didn't know if Dean just hadn't noticed (doubtful) or if he just didn't care (stupid).

The fight was going to go exactly like the last one, Sam was sure. Dean had already broke two noses, put on man on the floor permanently, and was about to kick another in the gut when everything turned abruptly pear shaped.

Dean planted his boot in a gut and grinned in satisfaction at the quick whoosh of air. It was satisfying, this meeting of muscle, this breaking of bone and rush of adrenaline. He wouldn't tell Sam, not in a million years, but this, this mindless need to just fight and be fought in return was about the only time he felt balanced since he'd found his little brother again.

Since he realized that Sam wasn't just his little brother any more. Since he realized that Sam was perfect in every conceivable way and that stirring in his gut wasn't just pride and love in a grown up Sammy. It was something so much darker and heavier and more beautiful than simple brotherly love, but a hundred times more terrifying.

"Dean!"

The choked off shout halted Dean's flurry of movement abruptly as he planted his last opponent on the floor and turned toward the sound.

Big-and-Ugly, as Dean had taken to calling his mark in his head, had Sam's hair in a fat beefy fist yanking his head back too far exposing his vulnerable throat to the razor sharp edge of his hunting knife.

That wouldn't have been a problem, Sam could have gotten out of that hold faster than a slippery fish, had it not been for the six other guys glaring and grinning around them, two of which had Sam by the arms in bruising holds.

Dean stood stock still his chest heaving as he took in the scene, four of Big-Ugly's gang still groaning in pain at his feet.

Big-Ugly smirked and pressed the knife against Sam's throat right under his jaw threateningly. "I thought this might get you to stop." He said.

Dean just glared at him. "Let him go. He's got nothing to do with this."

"I beg to differ." Big-Ugly objected and tightened his hold on Sam's hair making him wince. "He's part of your little game, ain't he? He was at that table not an hour ago teaching you to play pool. Now, as I figure it you can give me back all my money or I skin your little faggot boyfriend right here and now." The knife pressed hard against Sam's throat and a thin line of blood dribbling sluggishly down his Adam's apple.

Dean could just barley see Sam's eyes and he read the anger and the plan in them. Sam was going to go kamikaze to get out of this stand off. And that was just not an option when Sam could barely swallow for fear of slitting his own throat.

"I'm warning you," Dean growled his entire body tensed and his eyes bright with barely restrained violence. "Let him go."

Big-Ugly looked him up and down at his skirt and sweat smeared makeup mockingly and sneered at him. "Or you'll what?"

A deafening gunshot stunned the room into silence and the thug holding a knife on the bartender was suddenly on the floor clutching at his destroyed knee and howling like his entire leg had just been blown off.

"Or I'll blow a hole in your head so big your kids could pitch baseballs through it." Dean answered with his pistol aimed with a rock steady hand at the dead center of Big-Ugly's forehead.

Eyes flicking back and forth between Dean and his still screaming thug, Big-Ugly didn't look so self assured any more. The rest of his cohorts were looking even less enthusiastic about the situation and the bartender tried to reach for his shotgun while Dean's attention was diverted.

"Lift that shotgun and it'll be your blood that's going to have to be cleaned off the floor next." Dean warned him darkly, his eyes never leaving Big-Ugly. The bartender wisely raised his empty hands above the bar and kept them there.

"You crazy motherfucker!" Big-Ugly hissed, his voice returning to him as well as his bravado. "Put that piece away or I'll just slit your boy's throat right here right now."

Dean's expression didn't change, Big-Ugly's crew were looking at their leader like he'd grown another head. Sam even tore his eyes away from Dean long enough to look at his captor incredulously.

Lip curling in a sneer, Dean just said, "I'm not the one who brought a knife to a gun fight, asshole. Now you have till the count of three to let my brother go."

Ugly's crew started hissing at their leader frantically as they backed away. Sam's arms were suddenly released, but the knife was still pressing sharply under his jaw.

"One." Dean counted.

"You fucking faggot. You're just bluffing." Ugly sneered even as he felt the last shreds of his control slipping from his fingers. His hands were shaking and Sam was mildly concerned for the state of his neck, he could feel the tremors through the blade of the knife against his skin.

"Two." Dean's face was set in stone.

"You can't shoot me without shooting your boy!" Ugly yelled over the suddenly panicked den of noise around them as he yanked Sam further in front of himself in a last ditch effort of control.

Dean's eyes were hard as steel, he was not amused. He squeezed the trigger. "Three."

A second bullet left the chamber and slammed into Big-Ugly dropping him like graveyard dead almost before the word finished leaving Dean's lips.

Knife at his throat and grip in his hair abruptly gone, Sam jerked forward sharply almost dropping his knees. Stunned, shaken with adrenaline suddenly roaring through him, Sam lifted an unsteady hand up to his throat and felt the sting of sweaty fingers scraping over sliced, damp skin.

Everything seemed to be intact and functional. He wasn't a puddle of gurgling corpse on the floor drowning in his own blood and he wasn't still pressed unsanitarily close to a fat, sweaty slob with a fucking huge knife at his jugular.

"Sammy? You good?"

Glancing back around at his brother, Sam pulled his hand away from his neck and looked down at the blood smeared across his palm. "Yeah, I'm good." He rasped, throat dry from adrenaline and from the strain of having his head yanked so far back.

"Just nicked me." He added when Dean gave him a dubious look at the blood still trailing sluggishly down his throat and staining his hand.

"Good," nodding in acceptance, Dean finally lowered his gun and slipped it back into the waistband of his skirt. "I didn't want to have to shoot the fucker again."

"You killed him." Sam and Dean jerked their gazes away from each other and turned to see one of Big-Ugly's thugs staring down at the body of his leader in shock. "You killed him, you bastard!"

An icy chill washed over Sam and he looked back down at his captor, the reality of the situation sending panicked waves through him.

Big-Ugly was lying still as death on the floor of the bar a puddle of blood growing steadily larger around his head. He didn't twitch, didn't move a single hair. The only thing missing from the macabre tableau was an actual bullet hole.

He snapped his eyes back to Dean in surprise.

Dean stood tall his expression still stony and angry in the face of the bar's other patrons' fear and Sam's incomprehension. "I just clipped his ear." He said, voice dark and a tiny bit unhappy. "He won't even bleed out."

Sure enough, on closer inspection, Sam could see that while the fucker was indeed still breathing, the top of Big-Ugly's right ear had been blown completely off. Images of pit bulls and Dobermans with their ears cropped popped into his head and a hysterical laugh started to bubble up into his throat.

Coming off adrenaline was a bitch and Sam could feel the drunkenness of it start to seep into his bones. He needed to get out of there now unless he wanted Dean to have to drag his crashing ass past the twitchy bartender and the rest of Big-Ugly's rapidly angering crew.

"Dean." Sam called, voice strained. "Dean, let's go."

Dean looked him up and down taking everything in, his shaking hands, his ghost pale face, his glazed eyes.

"Sure, Sammy." Dean drawled like this was just a regular night out at the bar. "This party was staring to drag anyway."

Dean ended up supporting most of Sam's weight out to the car and kept the heat on despite the hot summer humidity in a vain attempt to lessen Sam's shivers.

By the time they got back to the motel, Sam wasn't the only one holding on by the tips of his fingernails. It seemed the night had started to wear away at Dean's seemingly impenetrable façade.

His hands shook as he sat Sam down on the nearest bed and popped open their first aid kit to start bandaging Sam's neck. His eye makeup was smudged where he had unconsciously rubbed at his face. His breath hitched when Sam hissed at the sting of the disinfectant soaking into his wound.

"Dean?"

Taking a deep steadying breath, Dean continued rubbing Neosporin on the slice under his jaw with heavily scowling eyes and a downturned mouth.

Sam watched him, his heart aching just a little bit when Dean's fingers skittered softly over his skin.

"Dean?"

"You were right, Sam." Dean breathed as he gently taped a strip of gauze over the wound, his fingertips just brushing the corner of Sam's jaw soothingly.

"Right about what?" Sam asked, his eyes riveted on Dean where he stood over him his fingers still stroking lightly over the sensitive skin of Sam's throat.

"I never should have hustled in drag." He answered, finally lifting his eyes from the stark white bandage to Sam's steady gaze. "Those fuckers looked at me and thought nothing but a stupid queer. They saw my makeup and my clothes and they thought this faggot is soft and worthless and can't protect his own."

It hurt, Sam realized. It hurt so much to hear those words come out Dean's mouth, to see the anguish in his bright green eyes. "Dean, stop."

"No, Sam!" He snapped, cutting a hand across his words like a knife. "They underestimated me because of the way I dress and it nearly got you killed. They wouldn't have dared to use you against me if I wasn't dressed in fucking drag."

"Stop, Dean!" Sam shouted, his ears ringing painfully with Dean's words. "It wouldn't have mattered." He said knowing he was right. "That asshole wasn't going to let you leave with his money no matter how you looked. It would have probably ended the same either way."

He was right. Dean knew he was right too, but still. If there was one thing in the entire world Dean took deathly serious it was taking care of Sam whether he needed it, wanted it or not. The fact that he could have done even one thing different and been spared the utter and complete terror of seeing a knife draw blood from his baby brother's throat, was enough for Dean to torture himself over.

Sighing heavily, Sam snatched up one of Dean's trembling hands and squeezed it painfully tight to get his brother's attention.

"Dean, I'm fine." He insisted, lifting the hand in his grasp and pressing it against the bandage under his jaw. He felt a twinge of pain at the pressure, but held Dean's hand steady over the wound. "Feel, Dean."

Dean looked like he was going to yank his hand away before he could hurt Sam further, but when he saw that look of bullheaded stubbornness on his brother's face he relented and let his hand relax till it was curled gently around Sam's neck. He took a deep breath and felt.

Sam's pulse beat hot and sure under his palm and Sam's hair brushed warm and soft over his fingertips. Unbidden, his thumb stroked slowly over the ridge of Sam's jaw and he felt the muscle there tick.

He was alive and whole and relatively unhurt and Dean felt his nerves start to finally level out. His heart finally slowed its furious pacing and Dean no longer felt like he wanted to shake apart at the seams.

"See? I'm fine." Sam said again, his voice suddenly low, rumbling deeply under Dean's palm.

Dean looked back up into Sam's eyes. "I know you are, Sam. I know." He slid his free hand up to wrap around the other side of Sam's neck, both his thumbs stroking slow and soft along Sam's jaw.

Breath hitching, Sam couldn't keep his eyes from fluttering or his head from tipping up as Dean's tipped down. He was standing in between Sam's legs now, the heat from his body radiating maddeningly against Sam.

"Just-," Sam swallowed, "just no more hustling in drag, okay?"

Dean closed the space between them and pressed their foreheads together, his eyes falling closed as he sighed contentedly. "Yeah, alright, Sam. Never again."

He was so close. Dean was so close. They were breathing each other's air. Sam knew his pulse was racing like wild fire, and the heat of Dean's hands made the sensitive skin of his throat and jaw spark like a live wire.

"Please, Dean." Sam begged not having realized that was his intent until he heard his own voice echo through the quiet room. He tilted his head just enough to nudge their noses together, so close. "Please don't run away this time when I kiss you."

"God, Sammy." Dean breathed and it sounded like it hurt him. But his hands still cradled Sam's neck, his fingers curled, tangling themselves in the hair behind Sam's ears.

"I tried to forget about it." Sam said, the words spilling out of him even as he wrapped his arms around Dean's hips clenching one fist in his skirt at his hip and the other in his t-shirt at his ribs. "But I can't, you asshole. You wouldn't fucking let me."

Hissing, Dean's brow wrinkled angrily as he pressed his forehead almost painfully hard against Sam's. "You're my baby brother, Sam." He said, voice strained like his lifeline was fraying.

Sam looked up into Dean's glinting green eyes with strengthening determination and said, "I haven't been your baby brother for ten years."

"Fuck," Dean cursed before he crashed his lips down on Sam's like he was drowning.

A split second was wasted being stunned, before Sam's entire being jolted into action and he parted his lips with a gasp. Their tongues brushed together fleetingly sending shocks of pleasure through them, before they pressed themselves even closer like they were trying to fuse at the mouth.

Sam stroked the roof of Dean's mouth, ran his tongue over his teeth, nibbled at his lips all the while Dean was doing the same and it just didn't seem to be enough.

Wrapping his arms around Sam's neck, Dean used the better leverage to lift his legs and put one knee than the other on the bed outside Sam's hips so he was straddling him. Sam growled at the move and squeezed Dean's hips pulling them till their bodies were flush together, no space for air in between.

"You tortured me, you jerk." Sam growled again, his mouth moving hot and wet over Dean's jaw and down his neck tasting sweat and smoke and makeup as he went.

"Sorry." Dean breathed unrepentantly his hands tugging and pulling viciously at Sam's shirts till they were yanked over his head and tossed to the floor.

"No, you're not." Sam fell back across the bed pulling Dean down with him.

Dean just laughed and bit his shoulder hard wanting it to bruise with the perfect imprint of his teeth when he was done.

Cursing, Sam flipped them over till Dean was pressed underneath him then he shoved a hand up underneath that sorry excuse for a skirt Dean was still wearing and fisted a handful of those lurid black fishnets. His fingers broke through the netting, but he figured it wouldn't matter for long since he yanked downward and felt a satisfaction deep in his gut as they ripped away from Dean's legs like tissue paper.

Time seemed to blend together after that.

They flipped over again and Dean was on top, naked this time, arching and moaning and panting as Sam opened him up with hot trembling fingers. He never thought he'd have this again, he realized feverishly, his eyes watching Dean like a starving man. He never thought Dean would be his again.

Sam flipped them again grabbing Dean's smooth, sweaty thighs and wrapping them around his waist. Dean locked his ankles together squeezing Sam hard, his chest arching upward as Sam scrapped his teeth over a peaked nipple.

"Come on, Sammy." He panted, his fingers clenching painfully in Sam's hair. "I want you now."

Sam thrust into him slow and hot and they both stopped breathing for a moment when he bottomed out.

They were thrusting and moving together all gasping breath and scraping teeth and clawing nails. Sam hit that spot inside Dean over and over again.

"I could have lost you." Dean panted, his painted fingernails scraping angry, livid red lines into Sam's back.

Sam kissed the darkening bruise on Dean's cheekbone where someone at the bar had gotten in a lucky hit. His fingers knocked into Dean's dangly earring as he slid a hand up into his short hair to tilt his head at a better angle for a kiss. He absently wondered when Dean had lost the other one.

"You didn't." He gasped, finding his voice after a spine shocking thrust. "I'm right here."

A breathless laugh gusted out of Dean, and he grinned. "I know. I can feel you." He clenched his inner muscles and Sam couldn't see much less speak.

It was fast and hard and completely perfect. When the burning in their bellies couldn't be staved off any longer and the tingling in their spines threatened to paralyze them, they grasped each other tight, sure to leave bruises, and felt their orgasms roar through them.

When it was over neither Sam nor Dean came away unscathed.

Sam lay sprawled on his back with Dean plastered sticky and too hot across his chest, but he couldn't bring himself to protest. The sting from where Dean's nails had clawed up his back was a persistent and a wholly pleasant reminder. He ached and he knew that tomorrow he would be covered in bruises, but he didn't mind.

Dean, for his part, ached as well. The sore burn in his ass seeped into his bones and left him feeling lethargic and utterly satisfied. His lips felt swollen and hot and he knew his hips and thighs would have Sam sized fingerprints littering up and down them for days. He hadn't felt this content since the night he went to bed with a stranger and woke up with his long lost brother.

And if that wasn't the freakiest thought ever he didn't know what was.

"Dean?"

"Hmm?" He was too comfortable to answer verbally, Dean thought. Sam was stroking lazily up and down his spin and radiating enough heat to melt an igloo.

"You're still my brother." He slid his hand up to cradle the back of Dean's head to his chest.

Lifting his head from its pillow, Dean shifted till he could look into Sam's serious, suddenly uncertain hazel eyes. "Sam?"

"You use up all the hot water. You play your outdated music way too loud. You speed everywhere. You eat nothing, but saturated fat, grease, and pie. You tease and prank and annoy the living daylights out of me." Sam said with a crooked little smile.

"But you also sing to ABBA, and put on makeup, and dress in drag, and shave everywhere, and have pierced ears." He flicked Dean's lone dangling earring lightly, his eyes smiling more now than his mouth. "Sometimes I look at you and I don't even recognize my big brother."

Dean's heart pounded so loud in his ears that he was surprised he could still hear Sam's voice. He couldn't decide if that was pain in his chest or just his pulse. Swallowing thickly he shifted awkwardly in his place still sprawled out across Sam's chest.

"What's your point, Sam?"

Sam looked at him like he knew exactly what he was thinking. "My point is that even when all I can see is a stranger you'll look at me and do something so familiar, it's like the last ten years have never happened."

Yeah, alright. That was definitely pain in his chest. It's just from his heart squeezing so tight he can barely breathe.

"Spell it out for me, Sam." He rasped. "You know I've always needed subtitles for these freaking chick flick moments."

Sam huffed out a breath and Dean took a small measure of accomplishment for having wiped that terminally serious look off his brother's face. At least for a moment.

"My point is," He started over sounding a smidgen put upon, much to Dean's relief, "that you're still my brother. You're not a stranger I've been road tripping with. Not a one-night stand that's stuck around for months. Not just a drag queen I picked up in a bar."

He cradled Dean's face between his palms making sure Dean was looking him in the eyes. "You're my brother, Dean, and I don't want to do this with anyone else."

It was all there, scrawled across his face like words on a page. Sam stared him down, his eyes steady and his face unreadable. He couldn't have looked away even if he tried.

Dean heard the challenged in Sam's words just as loudly as the assurance. If he didn't give the right response, it would be all over. Sam would again slip through his fingers like sand. He'd lose his brother again, but this time it wouldn't just leave him bereft, it would leave him broken.

And honestly, there really wasn't any other choice.

He pushed himself up on one hand till he was hovering a breath from Sam's face. Sliding his other hand into Sam's hair, he tugged until Sam had tilted his face up toward him.

Dean looked down at him and felt a smile start to tug up at his lips. "Sammy, no one else would be able to put up with you being a complete girl all the damn time."

The sound of Sam's laughter and the sight of his near blinding smile said that Dean had given the right answer.

End.

Music Credits:

Dusty Springfield – In the Middle of Nowhere

ABBA – Does Your Mother Know

Bonnie Tyler – I Need a Hero

Tina Turner – Private Dancer