Chapter 6

With the curtains open to let the sunlight in, the Graeme's living room is lighter than it was on Saturday. The scent of stale beer is only faintly discernible. It turns Dean's stomach, but taking a day off to eat only candy bars and drink only whiskey will have that effect. His head is pounding, and it's hard to think.

Hope Graeme loved her sons, that much is perfectly clear. They've seen yearbooks and awards, trophies and photographs. Everything comes out of a dusty cardboard box they hauled up from the basement. Dean figures Jim doesn't know this stuff is still in the house.

Everything points to Alex and Hayden being normal brothers, from the black eye Hayden sported at the age of ten when Alex was learning to fight back, to Alex's broken ankle when Hayden dared him to jump off the roof of the garage.

"They fought," Hope says. "All brothers fight, don't they?"

Sam and Dean share a look.

"It's not true what Jim says. My boys loved each other."

Dean studies every nuance of Hope's expression, but there's nothing there that might indicate she knew that how her sons felt about each other far surpassed that of normal siblings.

Something makes him look over at Sam, because in that way, yeah, they are a little like Hayden and Alex. They're not like normal brothers, never have been. His whole life, Dean's focus, his mission, has been Sam. Nothing has ever been more important to him.

As though he can feel Dean's eyes on him, Sam turns his head. At first he looks puzzled, and then, with that same puzzlement still tense in his eyes, he offers Dean a tentative smile.

"Hayden was proud of Alex, how smart he was." Hope reaches into the box again, right down into the bottom. "He had his own computer, you know." She pulls out a boxy laptop, lays it on the coffee table. "I used some of the money my mother left me to buy it for him when he was fourteen. Hayden used his share to put towards a car, but Alex, he had to have this computer."

Sam's fingers twitch as he reaches for it. "Did you find anything on it? Or any journals he kept that might give any indication that there was something between them that led to what happened?"

Hope shakes her head. "Neither of them kept journals. And the computer has a password. It was more than a year before I could bear to look, and I couldn't get it to work anyway."

"Do you mind if we take this? We might be able to get it going. We'll make sure you get it back."

Hope purses her lips, but finally nods. "It's fine. Anything that can stop other parents from having to go through what I went through."

---

"I need a password," Sam says, tapping his thumb against the edge of the screen. "Any ideas?"

Dean pulls a face at him. "How the hell would I know the password? I thought you knew what you were doing, Sam."

It's hard not to snap, to keep the bitter out of his voice. Dean knows he's closing off, putting up walls. He's not qualified to deal with the feelings he's having, the emotions that flood his body with chemicals whenever he so much as glances at his brother.

Sam seems to understand. Despite Dean's tone, he gives him a small, awkward smile. "I thought maybe... You had Alex in your head. I figure you know him better than I do."

"He's nuts. And a fucking liar."

Sam gives Dean a tight, tolerant smile. His eyes focus on the screen and his fingers tap against the laptop casing.

Dean's chest tightens. Guilt sucks just about as bad as fear. "Try 'Hayden'," he says, because sometimes the first word he thinks when he wakes up in the morning is 'Sam'.

Sam's eyes flick up, questioning.

"Kid was in love with his brother."

Sam types it in, then sighs. "Nope."

"Try it with his birthday."

Sam reaches for the police files. He flicks through until he finds the right page, then taps another series of keys. His eyes go wide and he leans back in the chair. "Bingo."

Dean stands up and drags his chair around to the other side of the table so he can see the screen. Sam clicks an icon on the desktop, a window opens, and a list of files and folders appears. None of the names mean anything to Dean, but Sam opens a file.

The text it reveals seems to be a series of random words and letters and symbols. "What the hell—"

"It's code," Sam explains. "I think he was writing software." He closes the file, opens a folder, and finds more of the same. Every folder he checks holds the same kind of thing.

After a while, Sam sighs and leans back in his chair. "I don't even know what we're looking for."

Dean pulls the computer toward himself. He clicks in the location bar and types 'porn'. Then he hits enter.

Sam lifts an eyebrow.

"Come on, Sammy. He's a teenage boy. And apparently a gigantic nerd. He's gotta have porn on his computer, and where there's porn, there's other stuff he doesn't want people seeing." Dean grins when a folder labeled 'Porn' appears a few seconds later.

He opens it, taking note of the path in the location bar. It's hidden deep, folder within folder within folder. "If he was so smart, you'd think he'd hide it better."

"He probably wasn't counting on someone as familiar as you with hiding porn to be able to get past the password," Sam teases.

Dean grins. Then, before he backtracks to find the folder holding all the things Alex wanted hidden, curiosity makes him click an image file. It takes a few seconds to open, while Sam gapes at him and shoves back in his chair.

Then, filling the screen, is a photograph of two, young, naked men, one on his knees in front of the other.

"Dean," Sam chokes.

The image burns itself into the back of Dean's eyes in the split second before he slaps one hand over the screen and clicks madly with the other. "Go away. Oh my god, please go away."

The window disappears, and Dean's left staring at the folder full of icons. "Whoa," he says.

Sam stares at him, mouth hanging open, eyes wide. "You knew he was into guys, Dean. It didn't occur to you that he might have gay porn on his computer?"

"I didn't think—" Dean stammers. "I don't— I don't know what I was doing." The image is stuck in his brain, the guy on his knees staring up with an expression somewhere between bliss and adoration, lips stretched around the other guy's dick... He shudders.

Sam lifts his eyes to the ceiling and rolls his shoulders. "Just go up a goddamn directory, Dean. This is starting to feel weird."

"Just starting for you?" Dean clicks up, finds the folder named with a random mix of letters and numbers and opens it. "It's been weird since we drove into this town. Aha."

The folder contains only two subdirectories. 'Porn', and another folder, named with a random keysmash of letters. With only a small amount of trepidation, Dean opens it. He groans when all he sees are text files. "More of that code shit? Why's it stuffed way down in here?"

Sam knocks Dean's hand off the mouse and double clicks a file. This time, it's not unintelligible code. It's actual words, the occasional typo that indicates quickly typed notes that may never have been looked at again.

Dean's eyes go to the title bar. "Huh. It's the date." He points at the screen. "He's named them with dates. This one goes back...two years before he died?"

Sam clicks back to the directory window and scans the lists of files. He brings his finger to the screen, drags his fingernail under it. "The last one," he says. "That's a week before he died." He looks at Dean.

"Dude," Dean says. "We found his diary."

Sam lets out a long, slow breath. "There could be something in here, Dean. We've got to read them."

Dean shivers, a cold breeze washing over his skin. Sam's breath turns to mist. Dean turns his head, scanning the room. "Feel that, Sammy?"

Sam nods. "He's not stopping us. We'll know if he really doesn't want us in there."

Cold air swirls around them, and then fades away to nothing. "Dammit. God knows what messed up fantasies he plays out in there."

"I'll take the first shift, see what I can find. I'll go backwards, more likely to be something we can use at the end."

Sam starts reading, and Dean lies down on his bed and rests his eyes. The picture is still burned into the back of his eyelids, and his heart is beating just a little faster than it should be.

---

"Wake up, Dean."

Dean opens his eyes, and Sam comes into focus. He's a little red in the face, and breathing quick. "My turn?" Dean asks.

Sam nods and heads for the bathroom. "I've marked where I'm up to, just go back from there."

Sam turns the shower on, and with the sound of running water in the background, Dean starts to read.

He gets through three entries filled with teenage angst and school pressure before he realizes Sam is still in the shower. Sam and long showers aren't remarkable, but really long showers? There's only one reason for that.

"What the hell were you reading, Sammy?" Dean mutters. He closes the third file, goes back a few, and opens the last one Sam read before asking Dean to take over.

He's a few sentences in before it becomes clear that this isn't about schoolwork when Alex starts to describe, in lurid detail, the taste of his brothers cock and the way it felt in his mouth.

He should close it. Sam's already read it, Dean doesn't need to skim to the end to see if there's anything important here. But he keeps reading, every filthy detail, the image of the two young men in the photograph lodged firmly in his mind, along with the smell, and the heat, and the feeling of Sam's dick through his jeans as Alex rubbed Dean's face all over it.

When he's done, he can barely breathe. He closes the file when the bathroom door pops open, clouds of steam billowing out as Sam comes through into the room and heads for his own bed.

Dean goes back to what he's supposed to be doing. He reads about their first kiss, Alex's realization that it wasn't just him wanting his brother. Further back, he reads Alex's pining, angst-ridden words, so many of them that he starts to skim. One sticks out, though, forces him to slow down and absorb every word, while Alex writes that he wishes Hayden could be his first, how much he wants to feel Hayden inside him, because he trusts Hayden more than anyone.

Even these few words, nothing as detailed as those that came after, leaves Dean gasping, because he knows how Alex felt. There's no one Dean trusts more than Sam, and if that was something Dean had ever wanted, he might have wished for the same thing.

How would it feel? To be so close like that, to feel Sam's pulse from within, for it to be so intense that he couldn't think.

Sweat beads on Dean's skin, slides down his spine and drips off his upper lip. It cools fast, and he shivers. There's pressure in his chest, his heart is pounding and he can't breathe. It feels like something—someone—trying to force its way in.

"No," he says. "Alex, no." When he tries to speak again, nothing comes out. He screams inside his own head as Alex picks them up off the chair and crosses the room toward the bed where Sam is sleeping. "Hayden," Alex says. "Let me see you. Let me touch you."

Sam shifts and opens his eyes when Alex sits down on the edge of the bed. "Dean?"

"Let him in," Alex says.

Sam's eyes open wide, and he sits bolt upright. "Alex? No." His eyes flick around the room, but they settle on nothing. "I won't," he says. "Hayden, don't you dare, you're not welcome, do you hear me? Dean doesn't want this."

"He does," Alex spits. "Wants it so bad he's about to explode inside." He reaches out, takes Sam's face in his hands and tries to kiss him. "He wants you, that's why I came. This is what he needs."

Sam shoves against him, hard, and Dean's body falls back onto the floor, the breath rushing out of his lungs. Sam is on him in a second, flips him onto his stomach and holds him there. "Let go of my brother," he hisses.

"He knows," Alex whispers. "Dean knows what you were doing in the shower, Sammy. He wants what I had with my brother, wants that with you."

Sam collapses onto Dean's back, a heavy weight holding him down. He breathes, heavy against the back of Dean's neck. "Dean said no," he says, his voice gone rough and desperate.

The tight pressure in Dean's chest and in his head starts to fade. "But he knows," Alex says. "Now you both know."

Then Alex is gone.

Dean's forehead hits the floor. He closes his eyes and tries to breathe past the tightness in his lungs. "It's me, Sam," he says. "Get the hell off."

Sam rolls off, scrambles away to sit with his back against the bed. He wraps his arms around his bent knees and stares at nothing, looking horrified.

Dean pulls himself up onto the edge of the bed. "Sam, he's lying. We can't trust anything he says, okay? We just..." He grasps at anything he can get. "We just pretend it never—"

"Of course." Sam licks his lips. "But Dean, I need you to know—"

"No, Sammy. These ghosts, they're messing with our heads. They're making us feel like this."

Sam throws his head back, laughs, but he's not happy, and it's not funny. "So it'll just go away when this is done?" His posture slumps, and he looks Dean right in the eye. "I don't know if I want it to."

Dean slides down off the bed, hits the floor on his knees. "What the hell are you saying?"

Sam looks up, right into Dean's eyes, his focus so intense it stops Dean in his tracks. He reaches out, wraps his hand around the back of Dean's neck and slowly draws him in.

Dean could pull away, but he doesn't. He's going to regret this in the morning, he's going to regret this when the job is done, when the ghosts are gone, but when Sam's lips brush over Dean's mouth, he doesn't care. He opens his mouth, sighs into a kiss that tastes like the salt of Sam's tears.

Sam pants into Dean's mouth, and he pulls him closer, holds him tighter. Then he lets Dean go. "Sorry," he gasps, as he tries to slide away.

Dean grabs his arm. "It's okay." The taste of Sam lingers on his lips. "Jesus, Sammy."

Sam climbs back into his bed, but he doesn't roll over. His eyes stay on Dean.

"We gotta get this job done," Dean says. "So we can get these goddamn ghosts to move the fuck on, all right?"

"Yeah," Sam whispers, still watching.