Chapter 4

The phone starts ringing the moment Dean walks in the door after work. Dean sees the look in Sam's eye from across the room, and he launches himself across the room before Sam can get to it first.

"Hello?"

"Dean."

Dean waves at Sam, arm flailing, looks daggers at him to clear him out of the room. He told him about Ethan, sure, but it doesn't mean he wants to deal with the look on Sam's face while Dean tries to speak to him. "Ethan," he breathes, as Sam gathers up his books, rolls his eyes, and slams the door to his bedroom after him. "Hey."

"Do you have plans tonight?"

It's Friday, and once, if they had some kind of base of operations and they weren't actively on a job, Friday nights Dean would take every opportunity to go out, get drunk, hopefully pick up a girl. It hasn't happened since Dad disappeared, though, and it definitely hasn't happened since Dean met Ethan. Every Friday night Dean's wanted to go out, but he was trying to get the money together just to pay Ethan back before he went looking for him again.

"Nope," Dean says, a little breathless. "No plans. Unless you count having dinner with my brother and then staring at the TV alone for the rest of the night."

"I'd like to see you again," Ethan says.

Dean grins, staring off into space.

"Dean?"

"What? Oh. Yeah. Good. Me too." Dean shakes his head, laughing at himself. It's weird. He never got like this over a girl. Most times he'd forgotten all about them as soon as he left town. "I wanna do that, too. See you. Not me. Cos I do that every day." Dean closes his eyes and drops his head in horror. "Oh my god. I'm gonna shut up now."

But Ethan's laughing down the phone line, and it sounds really really nice. "Okay. Why don't you come here after you've had dinner, and we'll go from there?"

There's nothing behind the words, no implication in Ethan's tone, but Dean's mind still goes to the taste of Ethan's lips and the feeling of Ethan's cock, pulsing in his hand, and he has to suppress a groan. "Yeah. Okay. See you then. Bye."

Dean hangs up the phone, has to hold back the urge to pump his fist in the air and whoop. Be cool, he tells himself, even though he's already failing miserably.

---

Sam's on the couch, TV remote in his hand, when Dean emerges from the bathroom after dinner. He looks Dean up and down, raises his eyebrows. "I won't wait up," he says.

Dean looks down at himself, wonders what Sam saw that he can't. He's wearing a new shirt, and it feels crisp and uncomfortable. A pair of jeans that've seen more hunts than Dean would like. His boots are clean, even if his socks are due to be replaced. "What."

Sam shrugs. "If I'm not here when you do the walk of shame, I'll be at the library."

"I won't be doing the walk of shame," Dean growls.

Sam turns back to the TV. "You and Dad left me alone when you went out of state enough times. I can manage one night when you're in the same town. I'm just saying. You deserve this, Dean. Don't come home just because of me."

Dean watches as Sam flicks the channels. "You salt the doors and windows when I'm gone."

"You know I will."

Dean takes a deep breath and lets it out slow. "Okay. Thanks, Sam."

Sam turns around and looks at Dean over the back of the couch. "What for?"

"For being so cool about this."

Feigned confusion spreads over Sam's face, and he shakes his head. "I don't know what you mean." He can't stop the slight smile, though.

Dean turns away. "Right." He's smiling too. "No keggers."

Sam laughs out loud as Dean disappears through the door.

---

Ethan's got the front door of his house open before Dean even gets out of the car. She's better than a door bell in that way, but he still cringes at the knocking as he pulls up.

"You look fantastic," Ethan says, stepping back to let Dean in, closing the door behind him.

Dean turns around, and he's blushing, his face burning, and he drops his eyes to the floor.

He feels a little overdressed, he always will in a shirt that isn't made of flannel. He's chilly, too, the cold night air hitting him as soon as he got out of the car, because he left Dad's jacket on the front seat. "You look good, too," he says, as he lets his eyes slide back up.

Ethan's wearing pants, not jeans, but instead of looking like a dork, like Dean would, if he was wearing pants like that, he just looks...

"Hot." Dean chokes, horrified, because, yep, he said that out loud. He turns away before he can blush even more, looks around at the same room he was in last night, the same couch where Ethan got down on his knees and sucked Dean off. "Whoa, I mean. It's warm in here."

"Too warm?" Ethan asks. "I can turn it down."

A little more composed, Dean turns back. "No. It's fine. It's good to be warm. Cos it's cold outside."

"It is." Ethan's hands are in his pockets when he takes a step forward, and his teeth are pressed into his lower lip. His own eyes rake over Dean, all the way up to his face, where they linger on his mouth. "I've been thinking about you all day."

Dean sucks in a deep breath of warm air, but it doesn't help. His heart is pounding, and it's a struggle to breathe. "Yeah. Me too." He zoned out a few times while sweeping the floor at work. Stopped dead and earned a clip to the back of the head from Jimmy to snap him out of it. "About you, I mean. God. You must think I'm an idiot."

Ethan smiles, takes another step toward Dean. "I think you're amazing."

As Ethan gets closer, there's a little something in the back of Dean's mind that urges him to back away. It's an ingrained sense of space, of needing to be able to move, hunter's reflexes or something. His heart, though, it wants him to stay right where he is, wait for Ethan to close the space, and his hands, well, they just want to reach out and touch.

He glances behind him, then he backs himself up against the kitchen island, and despite the lingering warmth in his face, in his ears, the flush he feels spreading down over his chest, he pulls an intensity into his expression. "Come here," he says, sucking in great gulps of air. His jeans are already uncomfortably tight, and he needs the counter behind him so he won't back away, because he wants Ethan pressed up against him.

Dean reaches out, slips his fingers into Ethan's hand, fingertips resting, barely touching, in the center of Ethan's palm. He draws Ethan close, like that, light and slow. Ethan stares down at him, and his pupils are big and black, rimmed with a narrow ring of blue, and their bodies are pressed together from knee to chest, and it's just so different.

Dean hasn't been this excited or nervous since his first awkward fumblings with a girl. He doesn't know what this means. "I've figured it out," he whispers, lips brushing the edge of Ethan's jaw. The rough rasp of stubble is delicious, thrilling.

Ethan drops his chin, catches Dean's mouth in a light, barely there kiss, just a brush of lips against lips. "What've you figured out?"

Dean lets out a soft moan and rolls his hips, and his head falls back, exposing his throat. "You're a witch. Gotta be. No other explanation." He watches Ethan from beneath his eyelashes, waits for his reaction, because he might be as high as a kite on the mere promise of sex, but he's still a hunter, and it's his ability to read people—and other things—that he's relying on right now. "I never wanted to have sex with a dude before."

Ethan's only reaction is a vague look of confusion that quickly passes. "Are you calling me a woman?"

It's interesting, Dean thinks, that he's pleased, relieved, that Ethan doesn't show any indication of guilt, or even that he knows what Dean is talking about. Magic would have been a logical explanation, and Dean would have known what to do about it, but apparently he prefers this. "Just called you a dude." He shifts his hips again, rising up on his toes this time, pushing against the hard length beneath Ethan's pants. "Yep. Definitely a dude."

Ethan's eyes roll back in his head, and his fingers interlock with Dean's, and he grips tight and presses them back onto the counter. "Called me a witch."

"Calling you a wizard would just be stupid." Dean's basically pinned by his hips and his hands, and he can hardly breathe, every word coming with a harsh pant. There's a half-dozen ways he could throw Ethan off of him, but there's no way in hell he's gonna do it.

Ethan lifts an eyebrow, and then grinds Dean into the island. "You think I put a spell on you." His lips twitch in amusement. "You kissed me first."

"Exactly," Dean says, staring at Ethan's lips. "That's weird."

Ethan goes still, suddenly, and he looks down at Dean with a serious expression on his face and a crease between his brows. He doesn't pull away, though, his hands gripping even tighter to Dean's, and Dean's still locked to the island by Ethan's hips. "Do you want to take it back?"

It's worry, on Ethan's face. It's fear. It takes a lot to scare Dean, monsters don't do it anymore. But he's seen that look on Sam's face enough times when Dean and his father left on a hunt, that he knows what it is. It's the fear of loss, of losing someone you care about. And how is it even possible? They barely know each other.

Regardless, Dean's heart swells in his chest and he chokes on his words. "No," he manages. "No fucking way."

The fear on Ethan's face crumples, dissolves into something so open and honest, a relief that would have Dean in tears if he was the one feeling it.

Ethan stares, for long moments, that same look of relief on his face. He's breathing hard, chest rising and falling like he's just run a marathon. His fingers flex in Dean's hands, squeeze, and release, and then he leans in and he captures Dean's lips.

There's a barely controlled passion in his kiss that Dean responds to. It's like they've been teetering on the brink of this since Dean walked through the door, and now the dam is broke. Dean whines, moans into Ethan's mouth, and he fights the grip Ethan has on his hands.

Ethan releases him, and Dean immediately puts his arms around Ethan's neck, the better to pull him closer, the better to twist his body and rub against him.

Dean gasps into the kiss as Ethan wraps his arms around Dean's waist and jerks him up off the floor and onto the counter without breaking the kiss. It's weird, but he parts his knees almost instinctively to let Ethan back in.

Their height difference has been reversed, Dean now the one who's half a head taller.

Ethan's fingers are at the collar of Dean's shirt, and he feels the buttons fall away, the two edges of his shirt front parting easy beneath Ethan's fingers. Ethan pushes it back, over Dean's shoulders, and he's forced to put his arms behind him as the sleeves slide down to his elbows.

"Is this okay?" Ethan huffs, breathless, as he breaks the kiss.

Dean stares down at him with his arms locked behind his back.

He's been breaking out of handcuffs since he was seventeen. This is just a bit of crisp shirt fabric, and he doesn't want to move at all. He swallows hard, rolls his shoulders back. "Anything," he says, and his voice is low and rough. It locks up, then, his voice, his throat, a lump forming as he realizes that he means it, that he trusts Ethan like he doesn't trust anyone else except maybe Sam. He coughs to dislodge it, turns his head and yanks his sleeves off, drops his shirt to the floor.

Then he lifts his head, and his hands go to his belt.

Ethan's eyes are on his hands as Dean unbuckles it, and it's not until Dean pops the button that his eyes flick up. He starts to back away. "Don't say that."

Dean clenches his jaw, then launches himself off the counter. He lands perfect, three feet from the island, right in front of Ethan, who flinches, eyes wide. "Why not?" Dean takes a step to match every one of Ethan's as he backs off. "It's true." He reaches out, takes a handful of Ethan's shirt, and he stops walking. So does Ethan. Dean releases the fist, spreads his palm out over Ethan's belly, smiles at the slight softness there. "God, it's true."

"Dean?"

Dean looks up. "I'm not freaking out. I trust you."

"You barely know me."

"I'm a good judge of people. And you helped me out when I needed it. I've got every reason to trust you."

Ethan shakes his head. "Still. Don't say that, Dean. Don't give me a free pass." He swallows, hard. "I might take advantage of it. I don't want you to feel like you have to—"

Dean's lips twitch into a smile. "You think I can't look after myself?" The smile turns into a grin, because Ethan's just a man. And while Dean might, maybe, like the idea of being pressed down into a mattress under his weight, there's very little he could do to force Dean to do anything he didn't want to do.

He wants to prove it, but throwing Ethan to the ground and pinning him there might just scare Ethan away, so he resists. He shakes his head, but he can't shift the smile on his face. "I can look after myself." He drops his chin, looks up at Ethan from beneath his eyelashes, smiles wider when Ethan's lips part on a sigh. "And I think we both want the same thing."

Ethan's head shakes, almost imperceptibly, and he swallows again. "You're so young. You've never been with a man before. You've got no idea—"

"I know how it works."

"I didn't mean—" Ethan snaps his jaw shut, and he grunts in frustration, and he pushes his fingers through his hair. "That's not what I meant."

"I know."

"Dean." Ethan almost turns away, stops mid-turn, and then he comes at Dean, grabs him by the wrists, and he tries to push him backward.

Dean doesn't move. He lifts an eyebrow when Ethan bares his teeth in frustration. "You're trying to scare me away," he realizes. "I told you last night, it's not gonna happen."

"Last night you told me there were things you weren't ready for."

With a flick of his wrists, Dean frees himself from Ethan's grip, takes hold of Ethan's wrists, and he pushes.

Ethan hits the wall behind him, the wall right next to the bedroom door. It punches a breath out of him, and he gapes down at Dean as Dean lets go of him and steps back.

"And I'm capable of telling you if you're doing something I don't like." He sighs and turns around, spots his shirt on the floor. Maybe he should be putting it back on, maybe he should be leaving. Just the thought of walking out now makes his heart hurt in a way he barely recognizes.

"I want to be inside you."

It's barely a whisper, but Ethan's words are clear. Dean's head jerks around, and he stares. Ethan's eyes are wide, and he looks afraid, and Dean can't figure out why. Dean tries to speak, but there's a lump in his throat he can't shift. So he nods. Just nods his head, and walks, slow, back toward Ethan.

He tries to speak again, but this time he doesn't know what to say. Sure, there's a part of him that's afraid, uncertain, wary of the ultimate unfamiliar territory. There's a part of him that can't process the fact that he wants it, too. But that trust, the pure and perfect belief that Ethan's not out to hurt him, he's not running away. There's nothing to run from.

The part of him that's hungry for new experience, hungry to connect, to feel part of something else, that part of him wants it now, before it all gets torn away.

Long years of leaving things behind, enjoy it now, because tomorrow we'll be back on the road and it won't fit in the car, years of brief personal connections, of phone numbers left behind in motels, because they were never in the same place long enough for anything more to come of it.

Do it now, or you won't get the chance to do it at all.

Dean's whole life was ephemeral, the only constants were the road and Sam and Dad.

Then Dad didn't come back.

Dean forces back the lump in his throat, and he lifts his chin, and he kisses Ethan, eyes shut tight so tears don't fall, and he shouldn't be fucking thinking about his father while he's doing this, has to tell himself that if Dad wasn't gone, he wouldn't be here now, he wouldn't be with Ethan, and he's got to completely block his father from his mind because Dean isn't sure he'd give this up just to have his father back, and that, that's the only thing that scares him right now.

Ethan grabs Dean by the shoulders, pushes him away, stares down into his eyes. Fuck knows what he sees there, but then, without looking away from Dean's face, Ethan gets the bedroom door open, and he pulls them both through it.

---

Ethan's putting a more weight behind it as he pushes Dean around this time. Also, Dean lets him.

Ethan guides him toward the bed. The edge of it hits the back of Dean's knees, and he goes down, slow, controlled. He lies back, propped up on his elbows, stares up at Ethan as he takes a couple steps back.

Ethan peels off his t-shirt, drops it to the floor.

Dean stares, because he's seen Ethan's dick, but that's all. He wants to get his hands on Ethan's skin, feel the hair on his chest, clamp his lips around a nipple and suck. His belly twists up as the urge to rise up on his knees and pull Ethan down becomes overwhelming.

He resists. He drops his eyes, looks down at himself, at his jeans, straining over his cock. He unzips them, bites his lip as he wriggles out of them and kicks them to the floor.

He's exposed. Naked, and spread out on another man's bed. He's hard, dribbling precome onto his belly.

He lifts his eyes, sucks in a harsh breath at the expression on Ethan's face.

It's hungry, almost predatory. But Dean knows predators, knows how to deal with predators. "Come on," he whispers. "Come and get it."

Ethan's eyes flick up to Dean's face. His lips are parted and he's breathing hard. He looks like he's about to speak, but the words die in his throat, and his eyes, his hands, fall to his belt.

He takes his pants off slow, almost reluctant. It's a tease, every inch of his skin exposed a bit at a time. Dean drinks it all in, still surprised at how much Ethan affects him, because he's looked at men before, he knows what looks good, but he's never ever wanted to be in this situation before.

All of him is beautiful, but there's one part of Ethan's body Dean focuses in on, and it's not even a part that was hidden from him before. His hands.

They're large, long-fingered and strong, but clean and soft and perfect. Entirely unmarred by the scars and callouses and ingrained grease and oil of Dean's hands.

They're the hands of a man that sits at a desk, the worst injury he could expect is a paper cut. And Dean, who's been raised to respect a good hunter, to read scars like a trophy shelf, it's different, and maybe that's part of what he wants. "Please," he says, as Ethan steps out of his pants and looks back up at him. "Touch me. I want your hands on me."

Ethan still moves slow, but with a new confidence. He kneels on the edge of the bed, and he puts his hands on Dean's thighs, just above his knees.

Dean lets out a breath, as fire spreads over his skin from where Ethan touches him, and he lets out a soft grunt as his thighs part, as if on their own.

His brain might not be totally convinced, but his body is completely on board, and, with his eyes on Ethan's long, thick fingers, he imagines them inside him.

Because if Ethan fucks him, it'll be those fingers inside him first. "Oh, god."

Dean's head falls back, and he closes his eyes. The bed shifts beneath him as Ethan moves up, and then there are kisses, soft lips, on the inside of his knee. Dean moans and spreads his thighs further apart. "Yeah," he gasps, as Ethan's mouth moves up the inside of his thigh. "Oh, fuck yeah."

Stubble rasps the soft skin of Dean's inner thigh as Ethan's tongue dips into the crease. Dean shakes as Ethan laps at his balls, and spreads his legs further with his hands. He drops his shoulders to the mattress, slides his feet up the bed, lets his knees fall apart, and he gets his fingers into Ethan's hair.

He wants to guide him to his cock, cups the back of Ethan's head, tries to pull him up.

But Ethan twists away, skips Dean's cock entirely, and licks a long stripe up Dean's belly. Dean arches up when he finds a nipple and sucks it into his mouth, cries out in a long, low moan as Ethan draws on it, swirls his tongue.

Then he pulls Ethan's head up, wraps his thighs around Ethan's waist, and he thrusts upward.

Ethan gasps as he feels the strength in Dean's thighs, grabs him behind the knees, and peels them away, pushes them into Dean's chest, almost folding him in half. "Dammit, Dean. Do you want me to fuck you?"

"Yes." Dean grabs Ethan by the back of the neck, pulls him down, kisses him hard. Then he frees his legs, and he rolls them both, comes down straddling Ethan's hips. "I know you're not gonna hurt me." He looks down at their cocks, both still hard, and pressed together. Dean rocks his hips, slides his cock against Ethan's, throws his head back and groans at the feeling.

Ethan moans and writhes. "I don't think I could hurt you if I tried," he croaks. His hands go to Dean's waist, try to guide him. "Jesus, Dean."

Dean's grin fades off his face as he thrusts against Ethan's cock again. "Now do you believe I can look out for myself?" He wraps his hand around the both of them, thrusts into his fist and groans. "Oh, my god, this feels good. How come no one tells you about this?"

Dean can feel Ethan relax beneath him, hadn't even realized that the man was so tense. He smiles a little, but it fades quick. "'Cause most men, especially in a town like this, would punch you in the face if you suggested it."

"Right." Dean's thrusts have gone long and slow, and it's so good, a simmering pleasure that makes him shudder. "Small towns. Spent most of my life in small towns." He lets his eyes roam over Ethan's face, his upper body. "Might have been different if I'd spent some time in the city." He looks down, shivers as the head of his cock emerges from his fist. "Might have figured out some stuff about myself sooner."

Ethan puts his hand on Dean's cheek, traces his lower lip with his thumb. "Perhaps it's not as obvious if you like women, too. I wouldn't know."

Dean turns his head, opens his mouth, closes his eyes. He might have a thing for Ethan's hands, because he sucks Ethan's thumb into his mouth, wraps his tongue around it.

It's soft and smooth, and Dean can't feel any scars, and it tastes like salt and soap. His hips jerk forward, because sucking Ethan's thumb turns him on.

With his free hand, he grabs Ethan's wrist, pulls his thumb out of his mouth, replaces it with his middle and index fingers. He moans around them, shocked by how much it turns him on to do this.

Ethan's cock twitches in Dean's other hand, so Dean figures he likes it, too.

He locks eyes with Ethan, and he spits out Ethan's fingers, lets go of their cocks, and he moves down the bed, crawling backward on his hands and knees. "I wanna suck your dick," he says, looking up for permission.

Ethan just stares at him, wide-eyed, and he nods. "I'll warn you." He's short of breath again. "Before I come."

Dean chews his lip and gives him a one-shouldered shrug, then he drops his head, and he presses his lips, experimentally, to the base of Ethan's cock.

His hum turns into a moan as he inhales, the smell of cock immediately recognizable, and intoxicating. He opens his mouth without conscious thought, drags his tongue up the length of it, holds the base with one hand, and sucks the head into his mouth.

The taste of Ethan explodes on his tongue, and he moans, slides down further. There's a thought on the edge of his awareness, that he should try to make this good, that he should know how to make this good, because he knows what he likes, where to lick to make Ethan arch up off the bed and cry out, how much suction to apply and when to change things up and keep it interesting.

Dean ignores it. It's selfish, maybe, but Dean's doing this for himself. His eyes flick up at Ethan's face as he pushes down on his cock, taking the head right to the back of his throat, till his lips hit the finger and thumb of his own, closed, fist.

Dean finds his limits quickly as he locks eyes with Ethan, as Ethan looks down at him with wide eyes and lips parted. The tickle at the back of his throat that's the warning he's about to trigger his gag reflex, and he pulls back up, lets Ethan's cock slip from between his lips so he can speak. "Taste so good," he moans, then pulls Ethan back into his mouth, all the way down to the back of his tongue, and off again. "You feel so good in my mouth, Ethan."

That's all he's gonna say, as he sucks Ethan back in, starts to learn the shape of Ethan's dick with his lips and tongue, and Ethan moans and writhes beneath him. Ethan puts his hand on the back of Dean's head, and there's pressure behind it, but not enough to bother him. In fact, it just arouses Dean more, along with the sounds Ethan's making and the taste of precome on his tongue.

Dean gets his knees beneath him, holds himself up with his one free hand, and he can move better like this, and he should feel something about having his ass in the air like this, exposed and on display, but when he glances up at Ethan's face again, and Ethan's not looking at what he's doing with his mouth anymore, he's looking up, at Dean's ass in the air, and Dean just feels powerful.

Ethan's fingers tighten in his hair, and he starts to guide Dean more forcefully. Dean sucks air in through his nose as the head of Ethan's cock nudges the back of his throat. Ethan's hips start to twitch, and he starts to thrust into Dean's mouth. His moans turn to grunts and strangled sobs.

Dean reaches for his own cock, starts to stroke it quickly, spreading the precome that dribbles out the length. His eyes start to water as Ethan fucks his mouth, and his balls draw up, and then he's coming, groaning and dribbling around the cock in his mouth.

"Fuck," Ethan growls, pulling Dean's mouth onto his cock as he stiffens. His cock jerks, and Dean's throat fills with come, thick and hot and bitter, and Dean tries to swallow, but it's coming too fast, and it spills out over his lips and down his chin.

He's still shuddering with the aftershocks of his own orgasm when Ethan pushes him off, and Dean swallowed some, but it feels like Ethan's just come all over his mouth and chin, there's so much of it, and his hand is sticky with his own come and there's a mess on the bed beneath him.

Dean collapses, falls sideways, eyes closed and a smile on his face.

The bed moves beneath him, Ethan's long limbs shifting against his skin. Then Dean's being kissed, covered in come, but Ethan's kissing him, and Dean opens up and lets Ethan in as his tongue dips into Dean's mouth.

Dean reaches up, holds Ethan by the back of his neck, smearing his own come through Ethan's hair as he rolls onto his back. Ethan licks at Dean's face, cleaning up all the come, dipping down to lap at his throat.

"Thanks for the warning, asshole." Dean grins, and he opens his eyes.

Ethan looks suitably contrite as he lifts his head. "I got carried away."

"Yeah. So did I." Dean pushes Ethan off of him, and he lifts himself up on his elbows, looks down at the mess, their bodies, the bed. He glances up at Ethan's face. "I really like sucking cock," he says. "Who'd have thought?"

"Thank you," Ethan says, very serious.

Dean shakes his head. "It's nothing. Like I said, it was my pleasure."

Ethan's lips twitch into a smile. "No, I mean..." The smile fades again. "I feel very privileged. That you're here with me." He touches Dean's face, fingertips tracing his cheekbone, thumb at the corner of his lips. "You're remarkable." His eyes slide from Dean's face, down the length of his naked body. "You're a beautiful man. You could be with anyone right now."

"I want to be with you." Dean says it without thinking, and he feels immediately vulnerable once it's out of his mouth. His face burns, and a lump forms in his throat when he realizes it's true. He coughs, but the thickness won't clear.

Ethan smiles, and then he takes Dean's hand. "Come on. I think we both need a shower."