Boys of Summer; Summer out of Reach by Liath.

Slash.

Two lovely stories that tell the about the last four years before Sam goes to Stanford. Naturally, they are sad, mournful works that make me feel so bad for Sam, and just as bad for Dean. Of course, this particular story can’t (or hasn’t) been told any other way – not with episodes like Dead Man’s Blood that give clear and canonical evidence that Sam left home (such as it was) under a cloud and that his father (The Dad) told him if he was going he should stay gone. This has given rise to many many fanfic about how subversive Sam was while going about applying for Standford, how he kept it a secret, how he needed to get away, how badly he wanted normal.

The topic is a big lump of delicious clay that keeps getting reworked, and each time aknew, and it’s always sad. I’ve yet to read a fanfic where the going away was happy between Sam and Dean (and, because of canon, it can never be between Sam and The Dad), and frankly if I did encounter it, I wouldn’t believe it.

Enough of that. The strength of these two stories, one from Sam’s POV, the other from Dean’s, is the description. Weather comes into play a lot, creating an atmosphere where you get the feeling that the sky over their heads is the only constant in their lives. The Dad is gone a lot, but even when he’s there, the boys can’t take their eyes off each other. Dean does his best to resist Sammy, pushes him away even, but you know, no one can resist Sam. The writing is lyrical, and even though each story mirrors the other, they don’t repeat, which is difficult to do. Marvelous phrasing, though I got lost a bit in Sam’s story, mostly because Sam himself doesn’t have the maturity of thought that his older brother does. They certainly look at the small towns they stay in in different ways.

Some good quotes:

“That night Sam looks out at the moon shining off the Impala’s hood, and he wonders what it looks like flying through the New Mexico desert at a hundred miles an hour.” (What an image. It’s like a complete painting, or a photograph, all in one sentence.)

“It’s just past dusk, and the crickets are out full force, complementing the rattle of the cicadas in the thick spread of trees and kudzu. The only lights beyond the house are the lazy blink of fireflies in the field. Sam joins Dean on the porch, hands shoved deep in his pockets. He’s given up trying to keep his hair out of his face. No matter what he does it curls and plasters itself back across his forehead. He misses being teased for it.”

“It’s day by day now, and Sam doesn’t know anymore, doesn’t know if he’s what Dean is really looking for, what he will be content to find. Some nights, when Dean fucks him into the mattress and leaves him raw and spent, stomach slick with his own come, Sam thinks that something’s gone terribly wrong. Then Dean’s arms wrap around him, crush Sam against his chest so tightly that it almost, almost makes sense. But Sam thinks what he needs and what he wants to be are supposed to be the same thing.”

“He stands, Sam a wall in front of him, and all he has is, “You’re my brother, Sam.” And it’s the sickest thing he’s ever said.”

That last one gets to me very much. It’s a sick thing to say because it admits what is going on between them WITHOUT Dean acutally saying it. How clever is that, I ask you?