Birds on a Wire and Beggars Would Ride by Killa.

Slash.

This story was the first SPN fiction I ever read. I remember that it was because I was looking at Amalthia’s rec list and being overwhelmed, selected the fiction that had the same title as a songvid I once made. I’ve always loved this song and what it was about, so click, off I went. Lucky, lucky me! I got a great story by which all other stories I read in this fandom will be judged. How’s that for subjective reading?

The writer keeps the boys boys. How obvious is that? But some writers feminize them, esp Sam. For some reason, he becomes very girly very easily in some stories. As if crying made him girly and weak. She keeps Sam strong, makes him powerful. The way she describes him through Dean’s eyes, I got hot for him myself, and I’m a Dean girl through and through. She phrases it like this, as Dean thinks it, “When did Sam get to be so big?” (I can’t find the exact quote, dangit.) Those long hard thighs of his, oh man. Thighs are such a sexy part of a man, especially when they are long….but Dean stays Dean. Seems like that would be easy, right? It’s not. I’ve read a lot of stories where Dean is…a characature of himself. As if someone had watched the show, seen the physical traits and stopped there. There’s meaning behind the movements, I think, and when Dean gets up and walks away, or punches something, or stares at Sam with those big eyes of his, it means something. This is captured so well here. 

Killa makes the slash real. The boys are wrestling and Dean realizes he’s all turned on? Some writers would have had him turning to Sam, saying, I love you, I love you. But she sticks to the truth, and Dean threatens Sam if he ever says a word! That’s perfect. That’s them. It’s also perfect that it’s not easy between them at any given point. The second Dean realizes that there’s something his body wants, he doesn’t look, he doesn’t look, and when he looks, Sam is looking back at him. What a beautiful tension that creates.
No easy “let’s be lovers forever,” but more along the lines of “now look what else we’ve fucked up!” The whole hand job against the wall…yeah. I dig that way long time, and it all starts with Dean walking in on Sam at the wrong time. Of course! That would happen, wouldn’t it. If you lived with someone the way these guys do, one brother is goign to catch the other doing something funky.

Have not been able to stop thinking about this story, and pretty much comparing it to everything else I’m reading now. The realism, the damp, dusty nights, the shadows on the wall, the motel….okay, here
are a few of my favorite lines: (my comments follow in parentheses)

And Dean’s pretty sure, as his brain skips several tracks and registers what he’s seeing — everything he’s seeing — that he’ll be getting mileage out of this one for years.

and

“Want me to wait outside?” he says, because it’s an unwritten rule that he has to give Sam a hard time on general principles. His eyes slide down meaningfully to the hand that isn’t in a cast. “Give you two some quality time?”

(Love the whole big brother obligatory teasing theme going on!)

There are a lot of things Dean could say to that, but most of them go places he doesn’t really want to go.

(Another good theme – the whole Dean and avoidance of things he’d ruther not deal with.)

Dean shoves him off, or tries to. “Dude, get off me.” It comes out all breathless, maybe as desperate as he feels. Even as he says it, it hits him down where it counts that if Sam doesn’t want to get off him he’s not a hundred percent sure he could make him, and it’s fucked up but he gets harder at the thought, pressing against the seam of his jeans and the solid muscle of Sam’s thigh. His face is hot and he feels his pulse pounding between his legs, at his temples. There’s not enough air.

(Love the whole wrestling scene to peices! So real – just the way siblings would do it. No part of the body is off limits. Phew! Where are those cigarettes! Is it hot in here or is it just me?)

He could have gone his whole life without knowing what it feels like to have Sam between his legs and pressing against him like that, without the intimate knowledge of how flushed Sam gets when he’s close to making himself come.

(Okay, this line is my very most favorite. I cannot get it out of my head. It is perfect and complete and sums up the whole business in one beautiful sentence. It’s the uber description. I’m glad I didn’t have to go my whole life without reading it!)

It’s not new, that feeling, but it’s a lot more intense and specific these days, and he’s been working hard to control the knee-jerk response that makes him sort of want to raze villages and torch the countryside every time Sam’s off his radar for more than five minutes.

(somehow, this bit has become cannon for me. Is it in the series that Dean gets this desperate when Sam disappears for even a minute? I think there are at least two eps that have it, but it’s captured so well.)

He stops. The memory’s bright and sharp at the back of his throat: six-year-old Sammy saying the same thing in the way of all little brothers, saying, wait up, Dean! — saying it at eight, at ten, until one day he’d been too old to say it, and Dean had looked back to see Sam had gone his own way, like it was never a question.

(This one kills me, makes me want to cry. Dean realizes, I think, that he’s wasted something he never knew he treasured…)

Sam looks back, steady, not saying anything, and a big part of Dean wants to grab him and pick him up and run with him, not stop until they’ve run far enough that nothing and no one will ever find them.

(what a beautiful description of the impulse that Dean has 24/7….)

And the whole sex scene. To quote my favorite bits would mean quoting the whole thing verbatim. I think it is true and real and realistic and very, very hot. This to me is how a sex scene should be written. Not tab a and slot b…but feelings behind the motions and the confusion behind the passion. For who would be more confused over this than Dean?