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Thirteen-year-old Sam returned to the motel after spending the evening studying at their current town’s library. As soon as he opened the door to their motel room, he identified the smell of marijuana. Smoke poured out around the edges of the closed bathroom door and the sound of muffled Led Zeppelin could be heard. Sam dropped his school bag on his temporary bed and crossed the room. He stood outside the bathroom for a moment, wondering if he should pretend that he hadn’t noticed what Dean was doing.
“Dean,” Sam eventually called through the bathroom door, too intrigued to pretend he hadn’t noticed. He wanted to see what Dean was like stoned. More than that, Sam wanted to get stoned with Dean. He always wanted to spend time with Dean. Even when they argued, even when he complained about Dean telling him what to do, it was Dean’s time and attention that Sam desired more than anyone else’s. Sam wanted Dean’s attention even more than he wanted their dad’s attention. Their dad’s attention was a sparse thing, always bittersweet because Sam knew it would end at any minute and be gone again for an indeterminate period of time; Dean, on the other hand, was always there when Sam needed him, and Sam knew he always would be. This made Dean’s attention an intrinsically joyful and precious thing, even when Dean was at his most obnoxious.
“Uh, Sammy, I thought you were at the library,” Sam heard seventeen-year-old Dean’s voice reply through the bathroom door. Dean sounded mildly concerned that he had been caught, but an instant later he giggled, and Sam heard the bathroom door unlock. “Come in, Sammy,” Dean invited.
Sam opened the door and stepped into the smoky bathroom. He found Dean sitting cross-legged on the floor with a joint in his hand, his back leaning against the wall and a grin on his face that was dopey but somehow still cool. On the floor beside him was a small plastic ashtray, a package of rolling papers, a lighter and a little sandwich bag of weed. Next to the drugs and paraphernalia was the small boombox that Sam knew Dean had stollen many towns back. Their dad never seemed to notice when Dean stole things, and Sam wondered how many times their dad had failed to notice Dean getting high. Sam had never noticed Dean smoking weed before either, but in Sam’s defense he had only recently learned to identify the smell when he had walked past a few older kids smoking a joint under the bleachers one school ago.
“You can’t tell dad,” Dean said with a vague sternness. He turned the music down just a little.
“I won’t,” Sam replied. “Why are you smoking it in the bathroom when Dad’s away on a hunt anyway?”
“You never know when he’s gonna pop up for a minute or two,” Dean answered. “The smell is contained in here and there’s a window so it’ll go outside,” Dean explained as he gestured toward the open bathroom window.
“I hate to break it to you,” Sam told him with mild sass, “but the entire motel room smells too. How do you think I guessed what you were doing in here?”
Dean made an exasperated sound.
“Stop ruining it, Sammy,” Dean said, “I’m tryna enjoy myself here.”
Sam didn’t say anything in reply. He watched Dean take another puff of his joint. Sam was eager to try it, to be stoned with Dean, but he wasn’t sure if he should ask for some or not. Dean might say he was too young.
“Have you smoked weed before?” Dean asked him.
“No,” Sam admitted, “but I’m not, you know, against it or anything.”
“You can have some if you want,” Dean told him after a pause, “but only a little, and you have to stay with me till you’re not high anymore so I can make sure you don’t do anything stupid.”
“Oh, you’re going to make sure I don’t do anything stupid?” Sam replied playfully as he sat beside Dean on the bathroom floor. Dean laughed and gave Sam a friendly shove, then passed him the joint.
“You’re such a brat,” Dean said affectionately. “Do you know how to smoke that?” he asked as an afterthought.
“Not really,” Sam replied with embarrassment. He held the joint awkwardly between his fingers.
“So, okay, you hold it like this,” Dean began, and he moved Sam’s hand into position, “then you put the tip between your lips, but try not to slobber on it, and slowly inhale deep, like pull it deep down into your lungs, filling them up with the smoke. Then you hold it in your lungs for a sec and then breathe it out your mouth nice and slow. But don’t inhale too deep or hold it in too long cause I don’t want you to get too big a hit.”
Sam nodded and followed Dean’s directions with success, save for a few heavy coughs afterwards. He was embarrassed by them at first, but Dean appeared to take them in stride. He took the joint back from Sam and took another puff himself.
“Now let’s just wait a little before you have more,” Dean told him. “That looked like kinda a big hit and I’m gonna hate myself if you get too stoned and don’t enjoy it.”
“I’m fine,” Sam said. He didn’t feel any different.
“Just wait a few minutes. This is some good quality stuff, and you have no tolerance built up.”
Sam was annoyed, feeling babied - he was a teenager now and he hated when Dean treated him like a little kid - but he didn’t argue further.
“Tell me when you feel anything,” Dean instructed.
Sam nodded and watched Dean continue to smoke. He was just about to conclude that he wasn’t going to feel anything from the single hit and needed a second one when he noticed that Dean was talking to him in a panicked tone.
“Sammy, hey, hey, you there?”
Suddenly Sam realized that he had been staring at Dean’s face for a long time. Or had it been a short time? Sam found time disturbingly confusing. He also noticed that he liked Dean’s music a lot more than he usually did.
“I’m here,” Sam replied, then laughed and nodded enthusiastically.
“Jesus christ, thank god you’re fine,” Dean said with relief.
Sam giggled, not sure what was funny about the fact that Dean had worried about him. He reached out and touched Dean’s face as his giggling continued. He felt his love for Dean in a sweet, warm way.
“Aww,” Dean said fondly, and he wrapped his arm around Sam’s shoulders, “so cute. How do you feel, Sammy?”
“Um,” Sam began, struggling to stop giggling and find the right words, “like, dreamy and happy and kind of, like tingly?”
“That’s good,” Dean replied with a pleased sigh, “enjoy it.”
Sam found himself leaning his head against Dean’s shoulder without thinking about it. After a period of time that seemed completely unmeasurable, Sam realized that Dean was stroking his hair. With his other hand Dean was holding the nearly finished joint, his head bobbing gently to the music as he smoked what was left. Sam wondered if he should say something to fill the wordless space, but he found it to be a comfortable wordlessness and so he simply let himself enjoy each moment. He enjoyed the music, but more than that he enjoyed the soothing sensation of Dean’s hand in his hair and the warmth of Dean’s shoulder against the side of his face. He enjoyed Dean’s familiar scent, which he could still detect amidst the smell of the weed. He enjoyed every aspect of Dean’s nearness, and the sheer fact of it. Cuddling with Dean in their smoky little space, alone together in their bubble of timelessness, Sam wasn’t afraid of anything.
Dean leaned away then and Sam was stricken - but then he saw that Dean had only leaned away to put out the butt of the finished joint in the ashtray that was on the floor beside the boombox. After he had extinguished the stub of the joint, Dean pulled Sam near again in a gesture that seemed entirely innocent. It seemed like Dean meant their stoned cuddling as nothing more than an expression of familial love amidst the haze of their high - but Sam felt a wave of lust that startled him. He thought he ought to move away from Dean’s touch; it was wrong to feel that way while cuddling with your own brother. Wasn’t it?
Sam told himself to move, but his body only stayed where it was. He knew he could have moved if he really had to, that if there was an emergency he would react as needed, but moving felt difficult enough that it didn’t seem worth it just for the sake of propriety. The idea of feeling arousal from the nearness of his brother was alarming, but for some reason it was also not that hard to accept. Sam figured that was the weed; he wondered if he would be ashamed later, when he was no longer high.
He decided not to worry about later. The future didn’t seem to matter at all now, only the moment, and all he wanted in the moment was more of the nearness that felt so good. He reached up and took Dean’s face into his hands and kissed his lips. He felt a rush of pleasure and joy - but after the briefest of moments Dean jerked away.
“What are you doing?”
“Sorry, sorry,” Sam said hurriedly, “it must be the weed. I just, I thought it would feel nice.”
Dean didn’t say anything for what felt like a very long time. He stared at Sam’s face with an expression that Sam could only sort of read - there was interest and desire, but also concern and trepidation. There was more in Dean’s expression too, much more, but Sam found himself too hazy to work out what it was. He tried his best, but he only grew increasingly lost in the act of examining every detail of Dean’s handsome face. He kept forgetting that he was meant to be decoding the expression, not simply admiring Dean’s attractiveness.
Sam could feel that his own expression was far more unguarded than it usually was, and he let it stay that way. He felt no desire to hide from Dean. He felt unmasked, but not scared to be visible because it was only Dean who could see him. He felt a freeness that he didn’t remember ever feeling before. The weed eased the anxiety that gripped him on a regular basis, but it was also his nearness to Dean that made him blissful. He was stoned in a safe space with the one person who made him feel safer than anyone else could ever make him feel, and Sam felt as though everything would be alright forever.
“I guess it did feel kind of nice, didn’t it?” Dean eventually spoke, his voice soft.
Sam nodded fervently.
“So nice,” he spoke, feeling his lust increase and mix with his deep love for his big brother, feeling all of it like a precious dream, “and thirteen is old enough to kiss. Just a kiss, I won’t ask for more, promise. Please, just a kiss.”
Dean didn’t reply at first, but Sam could detect the increased longing in his eyes, could read the hunger in the part of his lips.
“Are you really sure you want to?” Dean finally asked, which confused Sam since it had been Sam’s idea and Sam was literally begging for it.
“Yes, yes, please, Dean,” Sam implored, trying to show with the tone of his voice how much he wanted it since Dean apparently doubted his words, “will you please kiss me?”
“Sammy,” Dean whispered, and he placed his hand gently on Sam’s cheek. Sam felt like his skin was glowing at every point Dean’s hand touched. “Don’t tell dad,” Dean whispered even more quietly, then hugged Sam close and reunited their lips.
The moment their mouths made contact both brothers uttered muffled sounds against each other’s lips. Sam’s was a sound of pleasure and of relief, and of joyful shock that this was really happening. Sam could only guess at precisely what Dean’s noise meant, but it seemed like a happy sound, and Sam was glad; he wanted to please Dean, to make him happy that this was happening, as happy as Sam was.
Sam and Dean’s tongues slid past each other’s parted lips as Dean slid his hand into Sam’s hair. Sam found himself climbing onto Dean’s lap so that he could more easily reach the height of Dean’s mouth. Dean wrapped his arms around him and held him close as their lips pressed, as their tongues danced, as they breathed each other’s breath. Sam clung to him, wanting to press to him so hard that their forms merged into one. He kissed Dean with deeper and deeper passion, his movements soon growing frantic with his need. Sam wanted to be cool for Dean; he tried to calm down and be smooth, but he could tell that he was failing more and more spectacularly with each passing instant, that he was kissing Dean with keen, obvious desperation.
Dean stroked Sam’s hair and tenderly rubbed the back of his neck as he kissed Sam back with matched fervor. His intense fondness and arousal were clear, but he was still smooth, not panicked with the strength of his desire like Sam was. Dean’s mouth was clearly skilled, far more skilled than Sam’s was, as Sam had expected it to be. Dean had been kissing people passionately and frequently for years; Sam had kissed before, but only a few times and never this intensely. He hoped he wasn’t disappointing Dean with his lack of skill as their kiss grew increasingly heavy, laden with their lust and their profound affection for one another. The weed helped Sam not worry too much about it - about anything - and he found himself more and more lost in the merging of their mouths, in their exquisite closeness. He caressed Dean’s tongue with his own. He sucked Dean’s bottom lip into his mouth. He pressed his mouth to Dean’s mouth so hard that he could barely breathe. Dean held him like he was precious, and Sam felt safe.
At last Dean broke the kiss and Sam whimpered. Dean chuckled and ruffled Sam’s hair, then kissed his cheek.
“That felt nice, Sammy,” Dean murmured, “really nice.”
Sam nodded with enthusiasm, unable to find his words. He giggled, then kissed Dean’s cheek too before climbing off his lap. He smiled blissfully at Dean for a long moment, and Dean smiled back with great warmth. Sam opened his mouth to speak, thinking for a moment that he had found coherency after all, then realized he still had no idea what to say and simply giggled again. Dean made a free, joyful laugh in response and gave Sam a quick peck on the lips. Sam realized he felt sleepy even though he was aroused, and he guessed it was the weed. He lay on the floor with his head on Dean’s lap. Dean stroked Sam’s hair and they listened to the music together.
~
Sam wasn’t sure what time it was when he woke up, but he found himself on the bed with a blanket spread over him. Dean was sitting beside him with his eyes glued to the television and a half-full bag of chips in his hands. There was a pile of candy bar wrappers and empty chip bags at Dean’s feet. Sam was happy to be beside his big brother, to know that Dean was watching over him while he slept. He pulled the blanket that Dean had covered him with up to his chin and snuggled against his pillow. It felt much more comfortable than it had the nights prior, and Sam didn’t know if it was because of the weed or because of Dean’s presence in his bed. Either way, Sam closed his eyes again and happily drifted back to sleep.