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mostlysignssomeportents · 10 months

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Podcasting "Let the Platforms Burn"

This week on my podcast, I read “Let the Platforms Burn,” a recent Medium column making the case that we should focus more on making it easier for people to leave platforms, rather than making the platforms less terrible places to be:

https://doctorow.medium.com/let-the-platforms-burn-6fb3e6c0d980

The platforms used to be source of online stability, and many argued that by consolidating the wide and wooly web into a few “curated” silos, the platforms were replacing chaos with good stewardship. If we wanted to make the internet hospitable to normies, we were told, we had to accept that Apple and Facebook’s tightly managed “simplicity” were the only way to get there.

But today, all the platforms are on fire, all the time. They are rocked by scandals every bit as awful as the failures of the smaller sites of yesteryear, but while harms of a Geocities or Livejournal moderation failure were confined to a small group of specialized users, failures in the big silos reach hundreds of millions or even billions of people.

What should we do about the rolling crisis of the platforms? The default response — beloved of Big Tech’s boosters and critics alike — is to impose rules on the platforms to make them more hospitable places for the billions they’ve engulfed. But I think that will fail. Instead, I think we should make the platforms less important places by freeing those billions.

That’s the argument of the column.

Think of California’s wildfires. While climate change has increased the intensity and frequency of our fires, climate (and neglect by PG&E) is merely part of the story. The other part of the story is fire-debt.

For millennia, the original people of California practiced controlled burns of the forests they lived, hunted, and played in. These burns cleared out sick and dying trees, scoured the forest floor of tinder, and opened spaces in the canopy that gave rise to new growth. Forests need fire — literally: the California redwood can’t reproduce without it:

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/giant-sequoia-needs-fire-grow/15094/

But this ended centuries ago, when settlers stole the land and declared an end to “cultural burning” by the indigenous people they expropriated, imprisoned, and killed. They established permanent settlements within the fire zone, and embarked on a journey of escalating measures to keep that smouldering fire zone from igniting.

These heroic measures continue today, and they’ve set up a vicious cycle: fire suppression creates the illusion that it’s safe to live at the wildlife urban interface. Taken in by this illusion, more people move to the fire zone — and their presence creates political pressure for even more heroic measures.

The thing is, fire suppression doesn’t mean no fires — it means wildfires. The fire debt mounts and mounts, and without an orderly bankruptcy — controlled burns — we get chaotic defaults, the kind of fire that wipes out whole towns.

Eventually, we will have to change tacks: rather than making it safe to stay in the fire zone, we’re going to have to make it easy to leave, so that we can return to those controlled burns and pay down those fire-debts.

And that’s what we need to do with the platforms.

For most of the history of consumer tech and digital networks, fire was the norm. New platforms — PC companies, operating systems, online services — would spring up and grow with incredible speed, only to collapse, seemingly without warning.

To get to the bottom of this phenomenon, you need to understand two concepts: network effects and switching costs.

Network effects: A service enjoys network effects if it increases in value as more people use it. AOL Instant Messenger grows in usefulness every time someone signs up for it, and so does Facebook. The more users, the more reasons to join. The more people who join, the more people will join.

Switching costs: The things you have to give up when you leave a product or service. When you quit Audible, you have to throw away all your audiobooks (they will only play on Audible-approved players). When you leave Facebook, you have to say goodbye to all the friends, family, communities and customers that brought you there.

Tech has historically enjoyed enormous network effects, which propelled explosive growth. But it also enjoyed low switching costs, which underpinned implosive contraction. Because digital systems are universal (all computers can run all programs; all nodes on the network can connect to one another), it was historically very easy to switch from one service to another.

Someone building a new messenger service or social media platform could import your list of contacts, or even use bots to fetch the messages left for you on the old service and put them in the inbox on the new one, and then push your replies back to the people you left behind. Likewise, when Apple made its iWork office suite, it could reverse-engineer the Microsoft Office file formats so you could take all your data with you if you quit Windows and switched to MacOS:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay

This dynamic — network effects growth and low switching costs contraction — is why we think of tech as so dynamic. It’s companies like DEC were able to turn out minicomputers that shattered the dominance of mainframes. But it’s also why DEC was brought so low that a PC company, Compaq — was able to buy it for pennies on the dollar. Compaq — a company that built an empire by making interoperable IBM PC clones — was itself “disrupted” a few years later, and HP bought it for spare change found in the sofa cushions.

But HP didn’t fall to Compaq’s fate. It survived — as did IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Google and Facebook. Somehow, the cycle of “good fire” that kept any company from growing too powerful was interrupted.

Today’s tech giants run “walled gardens” that are actually walled prisons that entrap their billions of users by imposing high switching costs on them. How did that happen? How did tech become “five giant websites filled with screenshots from the other four?”

https://twitter.com/tveastman/status/1069674780826071040

The answer lies in the fact that tech was born as antitrust was dying. Reagan hit the campaign trail the same year the Apple ][+ hit shelves. With every presidency since, tech has grown more powerful and antitrust has grown weaker (the Biden administration has halted this decay, but it must repair 40 years’ worth of sabotage).

This allowed tech to “merge to monopoly.” Google built a single successful product — a search engine — and then conquered the web by buying other peoples’ companies, even as their own internal product development process produced a nearly unbroken string of flops. Apple buys 90 companies a year — Tim Cook brings home a new company more often than you bring home a bag of groceries:

https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/6/18531570/apple-company-purchases-startups-tim-cook-buy-rate

When Facebook was threatened by an upstart called Instagram, Mark Zuckerberg sent a middle-of-the-night email to his CFO defending his plan to pay $1b for the then-tiny company, insisting that the only way to secure eternal dominance was to eliminate competitors — by buying them out, not by being better than them. As Zuckerberg says, “It is better to buy than compete”:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/29/21345723/facebook-instagram-documents-emails-mark-zuckerberg-kevin-systrom-hearing

As tech consolidated into a cozy oligopoly whose execs hopped from one company to another, they rigged the game. They colluded on a criminal “no-poach” deal to suppress their workers’ wages:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation

And they colluded to illegally rig the ad-market:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_Blue

This collusion is the inevitable result of market concentration. 100 squabbling tech companies will be at each others’ throats, unable to agree on catering for their annual meeting much less a common lobbying agenda. But boil those companies down to a bare handful and they’ll quickly converge on a single hymn and twine their voices in eerie harmony:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/16/compulsive-cheaters/#rigged

Eliminating antitrust enforcement — letting companies buy and merge with competitors, permitting predatory pricing and other exclusionary tactics — was the first step towards unsustainable fire suppression. But, as on the California wildland-urban interface, this measure quickly gave way to ever-more-extreme ones as the fire debt mounted.

The tech’s oligarchs have spent decades both suppressing laws that would limit their extractive profits (there’s a reason there’s no US federal privacy law!), and, crucially, getting new law made to limit anyone from “disrupting” them as they disrupted their forebears.

Today, a thicket of laws and rules — patent, copyright, anti-circumvention, tortious interference, trade secrecy, noncompete, etc — have been fashioned into a legal superweapon that tech companies can use to control the conduct of their competitors, critics and customers, and prevent them from making or using interoperable tools to reduce their switching costs and leave their walled gardens:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

Today, these laws are being bolstered with new ones that make it even more difficult for users to leave the platforms. These new laws purport to protect users from each other, but they leave them even more at the platforms’ mercy.

So we get rules requiring platforms to spy on their users in the name of preventing harassment, rather than laws requiring platforms to stand up APIs that let users leave the platform and seek out a new online home that values their wellbeing:

https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/publication/lawful-awful-control-over-legal-speech-platforms-governments-and-internet-users

We get laws requiring platforms to “balance” the ideology of their content moderation:

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09/16/texas-social-media-law/

But not laws that require platforms to make it easy to seek out a new server whose moderation policies are more hospitable to your ideas:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/07/right-or-left-you-should-be-worried-about-big-tech-censorship

The platforms insist — with some justification — that we can’t ask them to both control their users and give their users more freedom. If we want a platform to detect and block “bad content,” we can’t also require the platform to let third party interoperators plug into the system and exchange messages with it.

They’re right — but that doesn’t mean we should defend them. The problem with the platforms isn’t merely that they’re bad at defending their users’ interests. The problem is that they can’t defend those interests. Mark Zuckerberg isn’t merely monumentally, personally unsuited to serving as the unelected, unaacountable social media czar for billions of people in hundreds of countries, speaking thousands of languages. No one should have that job.

We don’t need a better Mark Zuckerberg. We need no Mark Zuckerbergs. We don’t need to perfect Zuck — we need to abolish Zuck.

Rather than pouring our resources into making life in the smoldering wildlife-urban interface safe, we should help people leave that combustible zone, with policies that make migration easy.

This month, we got an example of how just easy that migration could be. Meta launched Threads, a social media platform that used your list of Instagram followers and followees to get you set up. Those low switching costs made it easy for Instagram users to become Threads users — and the network effects meant it happened fast, with 30m signups in the first morning:

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/06/meta-launches-threads-and-its-important-for-reasons-that-most-people-wont-care-about/

Meta says it was able to do this because it owns both Insta and Threads. But Meta doesn’t own the list of accounts that you trust and value enough to follow, or the people who feel the same way about you. That’s yours. We could and should force Meta to let you have it.

But that’s not enough. Meta claims that it will someday integrate Threads into the Fediverse, the collection of services based on the ActivityPub standard, whose most popular app is Mastodon. On Mastodon, you not only get to export your list of followers and followees with one click, but you can import those followers and followees to a new server with one click.

Threads looks incredibly stupid, a “Twitter alternative you would order from Brookstone,” but there are already tens of millions of people establishing relationships with each other there:

https://jogblog.substack.com/p/facebooks-threads-is-so-depressing

When they get tired of “brand-safe vaporposting,” they’ll have to either give up those relationships, or resign themselves to being trapped inside another walled-garden-cum-prison operated by a mediocre tech warlord:

https://www.garbageday.email/p/the-algorithmic-anti-culture-of-scale

But what if, instead of trying to force Zuck to be a better emperor-for-life, we passed rules requiring him to let his subjects flee his tyrannical reign? We could require Threads to stand up a Fediverse gateway that let users leave the service and set up on any other Fediverse servers (we could apply this rule to all Fediverse servers, preventing petty dictators from tormenting their users, too):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/platforms-decay-lets-put-users-first

Zuck founded an empire of oily rags, and so of course it’s always on fire. We can’t make it safe to stay, but we can make it easy to leave:

https://locusmag.com/2018/07/cory-doctorow-zucks-empire-of-oily-rags/

This is the thing platforms fear the most. Network effects work in both directions: if your service grows quickly because people value one another, then it will shrink quickly when the people your users care about leave. As @zephoria-blog recounts, this is what happened when Myspace imploded:

http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2022/12/05/what-if-failure-is-the-plan.html

When I started seeing the disappearance of emotionally sticky nodes, I reached out to members of the MySpace team to share my concerns and they told me that their numbers looked fine. Active uniques were high, the amount of time people spent on the site was continuing to grow, and new accounts were being created at a rate faster than accounts were being closed. I shook my head; I didn’t think that was enough. A few months later, the site started to unravel.

Platforms collapse “slowly, then all at once.” The only way to prevent sudden platform collapse syndrome is to block interoperability so users can’t escape the harms of your walled garden without giving up the benefits they give to each other.

We should stop trying to make the platforms good. We should make them gone. We should restore the “good fire” that ended with the growth of financialized Big Tech empires. We should aim for soft landings for users, and stop pretending that there’s any safe way to life in the fire zone.

We should let the platforms burn.

Here’s the podcast:

https://craphound.com/news/2023/07/16/let-the-platforms-burn-the-opposite-of-good-fires-is-wildfires/

And here’s a direct link to the MP3 (hosting courtesy of the @internetarchive; they’ll host your stuff for free, forever):

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_446/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_446_-_Let_the_Platforms_Burn.mp3

And here’s my podcast feed:

https://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast

Tonight (July 18), I’m hosting the first Clarion Summer Write-In Series, an hour-long, free drop-in group writing and discussion session. It’s in support of the Clarion SF/F writing workshop’s fundraiser to offer tuition support to students:

https://mailchi.mp/theclarionfoundation/clarion-write-ins

[Image ID: A forest wildfire. Peeking through the darks in the stark image are hints of the green Matrix "waterfall" effect.]

Image: Cameron Strandberg (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fire-Forest.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #mp3s #saving the news from big tech #platform decay #enshittification #fire debt #good fire #big tech #lawful but awful #content moderation #content moderation at scale #antitrust #trustbusting #podcasts

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jinkieswouldyoulookatthis · 8 months

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Make a Wish

This fic was inspired by The Time Dean was Sam’s Girlfriend by fleshflutter on LiveJournal

This is it! The thing I've been working on writing all year. It's finally done!

Dean and Jessica share a birthday, so what would happen if they both made birthday wishes at the same time that caused them to swap bodies? The inspiration story was fluffy and silly and adorable, but what if things were more explicit? Like, way more explicit?

This is a gender-bending body swap fic were the characters' sexual partners do not know who is actually inhabiting the body they are having sex with, so it's non-con. It's a bit of a dead dove, so if you don't think you'd be okay with the tags, please don't read. If you do read, I hope you enjoy it!

Relationships: Dean/Sam, Sam/Jessica, Jessica/omc

Warnings: Non-Con resulting from body swap situation and characters not making good choices

Read on AO3

Words: 14,476

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

January 24th, 2004

If anyone had ever tried to tell Dean that he would be spending his 25th birthday alone in some dive bar off the highway somewhere between Bumfuck and Podunk, middle America, he would have said that sounded about right. Especially after the last few years. Being alone had become, more and more, par for the course.

His dad, increasingly absent, which was fucking saying something when you considered John Winchester’s stellar trackrecord in that particular department, had been off on a solo hunt for a week now. Before heading out, he’d tasked Dean with a simple salt ‘n’ burn, a milk run that had taken all of a day and a half to complete. So now Dean was expected to just sit here, in this rest stop that was pretending to be a town, and fucking wait.

Dean hated waiting. Waiting gave you too much time to think, even though he had nothing good to think about, and thinking like that got you into trouble.

It was a Saturday night and, other than Dean, there were only four other people in the bar, three other patrons who all looked to be well into their fifties and the bartender, who was a decently handsome guy, probably did well enough with the ladies, but he had a beard and skinny jeans that gave off hipster vibes that made Dean decide right off the bat that he didn’t particularly like the guy.

He pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and flipped it open with his thumb. The screen lit up, his thumb hovered over the button that would pull up his contacts. Once again, Sam hadn’t bothered to call him on his birthday and the urge to give his brother shit about it was strong.

Eight months.

He flipped the phone shut and sat it on the surface of the bar to the right of his beer, and tapped his ring against it twice, the silver making a satisfying clink against the hard plastic. It’d been eight months since they’d spoken.

Dean had called on Sam’s birthday, no answer, so he’d left a message, “Happy Birthday, Bitch. Call sometime, let me know you’re still alive.”

It’d taken almost another month before he’d worked up the nerve, which was almost entirely worry-fueled anger at that point, to call again. It only rang twice.

“Dean?”

Fear that had been slowly choking him from the inside let go all at once, replaced just as suddenly by irritation. “So you are alive.”

“Yeah, sorry I haven’t called you back. I’ve been drowning in finals.”

“Yeah right, you know you aced ‘em.” He could hear Sam smile, without him saying anything, and that should have made things better but it really didn’t. But they’d shot the shit for a bit, conversation light and barely surface deep, a shallow script whose only consolation was the reassurance that Sam was okay, better even, he sounded like he was thriving. A weird lump suddenly formed in Dean’s throat. “Hey, I gotta go, but happy belated.”

“Oh? Okay, thanks.”

“Later. Hey? Pick up the damn phone sometime.”

“Yeah, yeah. Bye, Jerk.”

“Bitch.”

That had been in June. Neither of them had reached out since. He gave the phone a spin on the heavily varnished wood, set it twirling in place like a top before reaching for his beer. One long pull and it was drained.

“‘Nother one?” The bartender asked as Dean sat the empty bottle down.

“You know what? Fuck it, it’s my birthday, let’s step it up to bourbon.”

“Birthday, huh? And you’re lucky enough to be drinking here?” There was a barely restrained chuckle at the end.

“Yep.” Dean said with a little extra pop at the end of the word.

“Damn.” The bartender said as he turned and selected a bottle, grabbed a glass, and was back pouring two fingers of amber liquid with practiced ease. “This one’s on the house, birthday boy.”

Dean’s face lit up in a genuine, if somewhat rueful smile, “Thanks.”

The bartender nodded and busied himself further down the bar.

Dean slowly swirled the glass a few times. “Yeah.” he said, quietly, “Happy birthday.” Looking down at his phone again, he raised the glass to his lips and took a drink. He closed his eyes as the smokey, thick burn chased a wish for something out of reach down his throat.

A wave of vertigo crashed over him, so sudden and hard that he was glad he’d been sitting down. Even though he’d watched him pour the drink, the idea that maybe the bartender had drugged him suddenly seemed like a very real possibility.

Wait, why did he smell candle smoke? Shit, was he having a stroke or something?

He opened his eyes and had to grab onto the edge of the table to steady himself as his legs threatened to give out. Bar and barstool were gone, replaced with a house and a small dining table. The room he was now in was full of people looking at him with bright smiles, who all started clapping and cheering as soon as he opened his eyes. Smoke curled up from a forest of little, thin candles sticking out of a flowery cake on the table right in front of him that had, “Happy Birthday, Jessica!” written on it in fancy, blue, cursive icing.

There was a flurry of movement to his left and a pair of pretty brunettes started cutting into the cake and passing slices around. Everyone was smiling and laughing and acting incredibly… normal, like nothing weird had just happened.

Something moved way too close to Dean’s face and he flinched and tried to swat it away. As he touched it, he froze, eyes fixed on his fingers and the lock of long, wavy, blonde hair that tugged on his scalp as he tried to get it away from him. Long blonde hair that was being held not by his own fingers but by delicate, slender, fingers with nails painted pale pink, all glossy and graceful and… soft.

To say it was disconcerting would have been the understatement of all time. He was looking at a hand that was very obviously not his own, but that moved and felt as if it were. He gave another tug to the lock of hair, harder this time, and although it didn’t exactly hurt, it was definitely attached to his head, not a wig or anything like that. He brushed it back and confirmed he now had a full head of hair that came down way past his shoulders.

Chick hands, chick hair… his eyes went wide and he looked down his chest and stared right into cleavage.

He had tits!?

“Oh fuck.” he said in a chick’s voice.

“Hey?” A warm touch to his upper arm caused Dean to turn and look right into the throat of a massive guy standing behind him. Tilting his head back to look up he was met with bright eyes and a dimpled smile that he knew better than his own reflection.

“Sam?”

“Happy Birthday, Jess.” That smile, still sweet but with a gleam, a glint that Dean hadn’t seen since they were both teenagers. One of Sam’s hands came up, jesus he had big hands, and gently brushed along Dean’s jawline, thumb sweeping his cheek as long fingers slipped into his hair behind his ear. Sam’s gaze held Dean’s focus as he leaned down.

Had Sam gotten even taller?

Everything was moving in slow motion, Dean couldn’t feel his heart beating, wasn’t breathing, but his mind was spinning, scrambling to sort through way too much information, too much change, just too much, way too fast. So perhaps it was understandable that he didn’t react in time to pull back.

Just a fleeting, Oh fuck, before their lips met and Dean’s heart leapt into action like he’d been shocked awake. Sam was warm and familiar, but the way he pressed and pulled at Dean’s bottom lip, just a promising hint of more, made a small noise escape Dean’s throat that didn’t sound at all like disgust, like it should have.

Someone wolf whistled loudly nearby, eliciting another round of clapping and cheers from the crowd and Sam pulled back, twin spots of red blazing on his cheeks. He laughed in a way that Dean hadn’t seen in ages, playful and easy and open, as he glanced around at these people who were obviously his friends. A spark of something anxious twisted up in his chest. Dean blinked a few times, licked his lips, and swallowed, winded like he’d just sprinted up a hill too fast.

“Get it, Winchester!” a guy hooted from somewhere behind Dean.

“That’s real mature, Brady.” Sam said, his hand sliding down Dean’s shoulder and the back of his arm, coming to rest low on his back, fingertips brushing against the strip of bare skin between his top and skirt. The skirt thing was weird… drafty, but the warm press of Sam’s fingers sent little static sparks through him and a blush heated his cheeks, spread down his chest, and he was once again very aware of the fact that he currently had boobs… and a pussy instead of a dick.

This was bad, his mind raced like a cartoon character running in place before his thoughts finally caught traction with the ground and lunged forward. He wasn’t him, wasn’t in his own body. He was somehow in the body of Sam’s girlfriend?

Of all the bodies in all the world, I had to end up in this one?

But Sam hadn’t kissed him, he’d kissed his girlfriend, who’s birthday just happened to be the same as Dean’s? Which was… okay, yeah, that was weird as fuck. But she’d obviously just blown out the candles on her cake, which would have been the same time that he’d had swallowed down his own wishful thoughts.

Shit. He swallowed again. Shit, shit, shit.

“I, uh,” he cleared his throat, “I’ll be right back.” He said, trying not to show how unsettled he was at sounding like a chick, reminding himself that he looked like a chick, sort of was one right now. He took a breath, and told himself to play it calm and poker face the situation.

“You okay?” Sam asked, his eyes squinting slightly the way they did when he was concerned, or getting suspicious, his thumb rubbing against Dean’s skin, sending those sparks flying all through him again.

Oh, so not good. This is bad.

“Yeah, good, I just need to go to the bathroom.” Dean smiled as he felt for pockets in the clothes he was wearing, but found none. Where would she keep her cellphone? “Did you see where I put my purse?”

“Yeah, it’s right over there.” Sam looked at an end table by the sofa in the adjoining room.

“Thanks!” Dean said as he broke away from Sam and grabbed the purse.

Taking stock of his surroundings, it looked like they were in a two-story house. It was a little worn and run down, but decorated in a way that practically screamed college kids lived here. Probably a rental near campus, it had that vibe. It was also older, which meant that the bathroom was likely upstairs. He unzipped the purse as he went up the stairs, and thanked whatever luck he had that there was a little flip phone tucked inside. He found the bathroom and was punching in his number as he closed the door.

~~~

“Happy Birthday, tooooooo, yooooouuuuuuuuu!!!!”

Jessica thought of a wish and blew out the candles on her cake, then blinked and started coughing at a sudden burning in her throat. She must have inhaled the candle smoke. While her eyes were closed the room gave a lurch and she was suddenly sitting down.

A loud solid thunk made her flinch as she opened her eyes. Dark amber liquid sloshed in a thick bottomed glass that had just dropped onto a heavily varnished wood bartop a few inches below an outstretched man’s hand in front of her. Whiskey and the lingering, stale ashtray smell of old cigarette smoke hit her all at once. Looking quickly to her right, to see who had dropped the glass, she found that the man's arm that was connected to the hand that’d dropped the glass, was attached to her?

“What the…?” The voice that came out was not hers. It wasn’t even close. It was a man’s voice, with a timbre that resonated deep in her chest. She covered her mouth with her hand but then immediately jerked her hand away at the feel of a man’s fingers touching her lips and the feel of scratchy stubble against her fingertips. Her mouth tasted like whiskey, that’s what was burning in her throat, like she’d just taken a drink from the glass in front of her.

She looked down at herself and saw a broad, flat chest filling out an oversized leather jacket with a thermal shirt underneath, and long, muscular, denim-clad legs. Her hands were thicker, wider, than they should be, with short-trimmed nails, and a few scrapes and scabbed cuts across the knuckles.

Over the sound of Guns ’n’ Roses’ Welcome to the Jungle she could hear a couple of voices talking not too far away. She looked around. She was in some ratty, hole-in-the-wall bar that smelled like a lifetime of regret and spilled beer. There were only a few other people. An older couple that looked like they’d probably gotten here on a Harley, were sitting down the bar to her left, they were the ones talking, but they weren’t close enough for Jess to hear what they were saying. And there was a middle-aged guy who looked like he might be a trucker way down off to her right. He was drinking a Budwiser and staring into space, lost in his own thoughts. There was also a bartender busying himself with restocking the bar. He was probably in his mid-20’s, with a neatly trimmed beard, blue plaid flannel shirt that was buttoned up but not tucked into his well-fitting, black jeans that were rolled into wide cuffs above hiking boots. She watched him move some bottles around on the shelf along the wall and realized that there was a mirror there that ran the entire length of the bar.

Slowly standing and looking ahead into the mirror, she watched as a guy stood up and stared back at her. He had short, sandy brown hair, spiked a little in the front, and big light colored eyes. The dim lighting and collection of various neon in the room made it hard to tell if they were blue, gray, or green, but they were wide. He looked like he was also in his 20’s, handsome, really handsome, but no one she’d ever seen before. She raised her hand and watched as the guy in the reflection did too. She touched her face… his face? He mirrored the movement.

“What the hell?” She said, in a voice that seemed to fit the reflection.

“Everything okay, man?”

It took a few seconds to realize that the bartender was looking at her, that he’d been speaking to her.

“Uh?” What in the hell was happening? Was she dreaming? Was this some weird hallucination? A byproduct of having a stroke? Had she somehow fallen and hit her head? “I don’t know…”

The bartender’s brow furrowed. “Something wrong with the drink?”

She looked down at the glass again. Should she say anything? Say something to get some help? What would she say? Her heart was racing. Maybe she should slow down, take a minute before letting the looming panic take over. “No, it’s uh, it’s fine, it’s good. I’m good. Um, how long have I been here?”

“I don’t know, maybe about an hour.” He poured water in a glass and sat it down in front of her, next to the whiskey. “I know the bourbon here isn’t that great,” he shrugged and gestured around as if that explained it, “maybe take it easy?”

“Yeah. Sorry. I’m okay. Just had a weird… um sort of deja vu thing for a minute there.”

He nodded at her and moved away down the bar again.

Okay, something is going on, but it’ll be okay, I can figure this out, she thought as she sat back down on the stool. That’s when she noticed the hard press of a wallet in one of her pockets. Pulling it out and flipping it open revealed a driver’s license with her reflection’s photo on it.

“James Page, huh?” She said quietly to herself as she looked through the rest of the wallet. There were a few credit cards, about a hundred and fifty dollars in cash, and a condom… classy. She looked at the ID again, it listed his birthday as 01-24-1979, “What?”

Okay, so today was also his birthday. That felt too coincidental to be a coincidence.

Absently, she took a drink of water. If this was a dream, it was the most mundanely detailed dream she’d ever had, the water tasted like chlorinated tap water. She started to pull one of the credit cards out when a cell phone sitting on the bar in front of her, had that been sitting there this whole time, started to ring with an obnoxious metal guitar riff. She grabbed it up and looked at the caller ID. It was her own cell number!

Quickly answering she said, “Hello?”

“Please tell me your name is Jessica.” a woman’s voice said.

“Um…”

“My name is De… uh… James Page, that’s my phone you’re talking on, please tell me that you’re Jessica Moore?”

It sounded weird when heard from the wrong end of a phone call, but she recognized her own voice speaking back to her.

“Yeah, yes, that’s me… what’s happening?”

The woman on the other end of the phone gave a loud sigh before continuing. “Thank god, it’s just a straight swap. Okay, so, this would normally sound really unbelievable, but you already seem kinda freaked so I’m guessing you’ve noticed that we seem to have switched bodies.”

“But, I mean how is that, how is this even possible?” Her heart was pounding in her ears. This is crazy, it’s crazy…

“Did you make a wish when you blew out your birthday candles, Jessica?”

“What? Why is that important?”

“Well, you see, today is my birthday too. Happy Birthday by the way. And I uh, I made a wish right before I opened my eyes in your body. So I’m wondering, since I know you’d just blown out the candles on your cake, did you make a wish too?”

“I… I did, yeah.”

“Okay, good. What did you wish for, exactly?”

She looked around to make sure no one was paying attention to her conversation before replying. “I wished I knew more about my boyfriend’s family.”

“Huh. Okay. Who’s, uh, who’s your boyfriend? What’s his name?”

“Sam… Winchester. Do you know him?”

There was a slight pause. “No. But I’m guessing he’s the really tall guy, soulful eyes, needs a haircut?”

“He doesn’t… I like his hair, but, yeah I guess that sounds like him.”

“Hmm. Okay.”

“Wait, what did you wish for?”

There was a longer pause before James continued, “To find someone I haven’t seen in a while. I dunno maybe they’re around here somewhere? Where am I?”

“Palo Alto. Uh, that’s in California. Sorry, maybe you already knew that. Where am I?”

“Missouri, kinda middle of nowhere honestly. Sorry about that. Look this may not have anything to do with our specific wishes, right? Maybe things just got mixed up because we both made wishes at the exact same time? I don’t really know how all this Freaky Friday stuff works. But with any luck it’s temporary and everything will be back to normal tomorrow.”

She closed her eyes and rubbed her hand over her face, pinching the bridge of her nose. “How is this even real?”

“I don’t know. Look, there’s a set of car keys in my right front pocket, they’re to a black ‘67 Chevy Impala parked out front. It’s an automatic, can you drive?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Okay, good. If you turn right out of the parking lot, go about a mile down the road to the Sleep EZ Motel, I’m checked into room 12. The room key is in my other pocket. My stuff is already inside and the room is paid up until the end of the week, so you shouldn’t have anything to worry about. Just don’t hurt my car and don’t get me killed, okay?”

“Wait, that’s it? I’m just supposed to wait?”

“Unless you’ve got any other bright ideas?”

“What about Sam? My friends? What are you going to do?”

“Hopefully? Nothing. I’ll pretend to be you, promise not to get you hurt or screw up your life, okay? And like I said, with any luck this’ll all sort itself out in the morning.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Well, I guess we’ll deal with that tomorrow.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. Hey, Jessica?”

“Yeah?”

“Tell me a little about yourself.”

~~~

Dean hung up the call and deleted it from the phone’s call history. When this was all over, the last thing he wanted was for there to be any way for this to get traced back to him. He tucked the phone back in Jessica’s purse and looked in the mirror.

She was a hottie, Sammy had good taste. Long blonde hair, big blue eyes, full pouty lips, and with a body… Dean gave a quiet whistle. Then he looked around furtively, as if anyone else could see him in the bathroom and somehow suspect him of doing something pervy, but then he thought, fuck it, possession is 9/10ths of the law, right?

Biting his bottom lip and pulling his shirt up, exposing a lacy bra and a really nice set of tits. Cupping them with his hands, feeling their weight, massaging them a bit and feeling his nipples get hard in response was hot enough but looking in the mirror was almost too much, like watching porn that you could actually feel. Until he caught his own stare, the face of some girl that he’d just spoken to on the phone looking back at him, and it hit home that this was someone else’s body that he was a guest in.

“Ah, shit.” he said to the reflection and pulled the shirt back down, smoothed it into place. He looked down, thinking about how weird it felt to not have a dick. He looked at the toilet reflected behind him. Maybe he should at least try to pee while he was in here.

“Sorry, Jessica, but somehow I don’t think either of us is going to be able to avoid peeing all night.” It took him longer than he'd anticipated, what’s so hard about peeing after all, but there was the confusing clothing and then the wiping, and new sensations that came with that, which he definitely tried to not pay too much attention to, and then the readjustment of the clothing.

When he was done and verified in the mirror that he looked normal, you know, for being someone completely different, he took a step towards the door and froze with his hand on the doorknob.

Okay, you can do this. Just go downstairs and pretend to be a girl. How hard can that be? Just go pretend to be Sam’s girlfriend. He’s only, like, the smartest guy you’ve ever known, who’s been trained since he was a kid to notice when a situation isn’t right, when someone isn’t themselves, when they’re actually a monster… Fuck.

He took a deep breath and opened the bathroom door. No, it’s cool. You’re cool. You can do this. You’ve bluffed your way through more dangerous situations with less information to go off of. And Jessica told you enough to fake it for one night. It’s just one night…

“Jess,” Sam was looking at him when he came down the stairs, his face lit up despite a shadow of concern. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.” Dean smiled and walked towards him.

As he got within reach, Sam wrapped one arm around Dean and pulled him in snug against his side. Then Sam leaned in and kissed the top of his head, just like Dean used to do before Sam had the audacity to get taller than him. Dean didn’t need to fake his smile but then a wave of guilt threatened to well up, he thinks you’re her, and he had to look down, swallowing thickly. Sam gently squeezed him in a one armed hug.

When they were kids, Sam had been very touchy-feely, clingy, always in close contact with Dean, casual, almost unconscious, but now, unlike then, it seemed a lot less casual. Heat, of a sort that wasn’t just physical, flared up with every touch. And Dean could have convinced himself that it was just Jessica’s body responding in a sort of pavlovian way to a still newish lover. But the problem was, Dean knew better.

Sam’s hands were huge and gentle and warm, so fucking warm, against his side, Jessica’s side, his arm, her arm, his back, not his, his hip… It was maddening but he just needed to play along, like it wasn’t destroying him. Over the years Dean had fine tuned his resolve to push all of this away and shut it up behind a door marked “Stuff You Don’t Get to Have", and now, with a series of simple touches, Sam had unknowingly jimmied the lock and opened the door. Sam was always so good at opening doors.

The summer between Sam’s junior and senior years of high school, before the Stanford bomb had been dropped on their lives, John had been chasing down yet another lead on what had killed mom. Dean had no idea what it was, where he went, because he’d given him practically no information, which was beyond frustrating, but kinda par for the course. But John had left them with Bobby because it had been on his way, apparently.

While they were there, Dean helped Bobby fix cars, and what they couldn’t fix, they’d strip down for parts. Sam had gotten a job at a restaurant washing dishes. It was grueling in the heat and he’d be reeking of garbage from taking out the trash at the end of the night. But Dean would always be there, waiting to drive him back to Bobby’s. He’d have a cold beer open and waiting for Sam when he was showered and in clean clothes. More often than not, they’d watch a movie on the tv, choosing from Bobby’s collection of vhs tapes. They’d take over Bobby’s couch, sprawling and slowly gravitating towards each other, leaning together and laughing over what they were watching. They kept their voices quiet so as to not wake Bobby, who inevitably fell asleep in his armchair or was already up in bed. Sam had been more relaxed and at ease than he had been in a couple of years.

Life was simple and Dean felt just about as free as he could ever remember feeling, without the weight of expectations, there in that safe place and time.

When John came back he was short-tempered and easily bristled. Things between John and Sam, always rough, had gotten steadily worse. John was harder on them both, trying to establish his authority, which only made Sam withdraw when dad was around.

Sam started talking about leaving together, just going somewhere and getting real jobs, the kind that paid in cash instead of scars. But Dean wouldn’t think about it, well, he wouldn’t let Sam think that he was thinking about it. Kept putting it off, until it was too late and Sam was leaving for real, full ride to fucking Stanford, and one last attempt to get Dean to come with him. He’d pulled Dean aside while he was packing, held onto his hand like they were still little kids, “Come with me.”

“What?”

“You don’t have to stay here, you can come to California…”

“I can’t just leave.”

“Why not?”

“Because Dad…”

“Dad is going to self-destruct, Dean, this life is going to kill him and if you stay… if you stay,” Sam’s eyes were swimming in unshed tears that he swallowed back before continuing, “You don’t have to stay. You can do anything, Dean, anything.”

And Dean almost believed that, for one long torturous moment, looking at his brother, the only person that stood any chance of convincing him to break away from his dad, from this life, Dean could almost see it. Sam pulled him closer, slid his hands behind Dean’s neck and rested their foreheads together, silently begging. And that door in Dean’s mind cracked a bit and threatened to break open. Sam didn’t want all that, didn’t want… no. Dean slammed the door closed and locked it.

“You don’t know what you’re asking.” Dean took a deep breath and placing his hands on Sam’s shoulders did the hardest thing he’d ever done, he pushed Sam back enough so he could clearly see his face and said, “I’m not going.”

Shock, grief, embarrassment, hurt and anger all seemed to flash across Sam’s face at once, but it was the anger that stayed long after the others had been packed away. The anger was what Dean had seen when he closed his eyes that night, thinking about Sam on a Greyhound to California.

But here, now, he leaned in and closed his eyes, drinking in the feel of being next to his brother for the first time in years. He breathed in and could smell Sam,even though his mind was having trouble processing the scent. It was Sam, he smelled just like he always did, but it was like this body, which didn’t have the same sensory memory of a childhood spent together in the Impala and rundown motels, processed the scent through different filters, all of which were good, all of which lit up like fireworks with each breath, and shot that giddy, new love/lust feeling through him mixing with his memories.

Sam’s hand was curled loosely around Dean’s, Jessica’s, hip, his thumb resting on the waistband of his skirt again, long fingers flexing in and gently pressing into the hollow of his hip bone, and it was doing things that were steadily eroding what tenuous self-respect Dean had.

Sam would kill him if he found out that this was him and not Jessica. Shit, maybe he should have said something right away.

“Wait, so if the wish is what switched you then that means that when I kissed… Dean, you kissed me back!”

Yeah, no, too late for that now, he just needs to make sure that Sam never finds out.

They made small talk and drank. Jessica was a lightweight, which Dean found out as he was finishing off his third beer. He couldn’t remember the last time he had a room lurch that hard on three beers. He stumbled slightly as he stood up to get another. Sam reached out a steadying hand.

“Whoa. Easy there.”

Dean laughed it off, “I got it, I’m good.. Anyone ever tell you that you worry too much?” Dean said, softening it with a smile that may have been a bit more shmoopy than he’d intended, but it seemed to do the trick as Sam held up his hand in an “I give up” sort of gesture and let Dean duck into the kitchen.

There were photos stuck all over the fridge, and Dean recognized several of the people from tonight, including Sam. He studied them all while he drank a glass of water before grabbing a couple more beers from the fridge. There was a bottle opener on the coffee table and, sitting back down next to Sam on the sofa, Dean popped the top off one beer and sat it in front of Sam before popping the top of the other for himself.

Sam huffed an amused breath through his nose. Dean looked at him, took in the bemused look and asked, “What?”

“It’s nothing, just,” Sam laughed and shook his head, “you just reminded me of someone.”

Shit. “Oh? Who?”

Before Sam could answer, the conversation in the room reached shrill levels when Bria announced that her boyfriend Brad had proposed to her.

“Jess, I’m sorry, I wasn’t going to say anything because tonight’s your night, but…” the bottle blonde held out her left hand to show off a glittering diamond.

Everyone spent the next half an hour or so congratulating Bria and Dean tried his best to play at being interested. He was worried that that somehow he’d given himself away but Sam was smiling at him again, all dimples and teeth and just pure fucking sunshine, and Dean inwardly breathed a sigh of relief and smiled back. He was simultaneously too drunk and way too sober for this situation.

~~~

Jess should have left and found the motel, but what was she going to do in some guy’s random motel room until morning? Pace around and worry? Staying put seemed like an easier option, doing nothing usually was, at least for now. Absentmindedly she picked up the glass of bourbon and took a sip. It burned a bit but tasted surprisingly okay. She thought that James obviously drank the stuff and his taste buds must be used to it. She kept sipping at it.

This couldn’t be happening, it had to be a dream.

She realized that she had to pee. She’d had to for a little while now but had been unconsciously putting off dealing with it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the sort of thing that could be ignored forever. Looking around, she spotted the restrooms. She turned around on the stool and stood up, ready to be wobbly after drinking and being in someone else’s skin. But she felt solid, and strong. Glancing at her reflection in the mirror behind the bar again it occurred to her that she was going to have to use the men’s room.

This was most likely just a dream, she could do this.

Luckily, since the bar was practically empty, the bathroom was too. Stall or urinal, that was the question. She opted for a stall, just in case someone came in, it felt less weird that way. Closing the door behind her, she stared down at the toilet before looking at the front of the jeans she was wearing. For the first time she thought about the fact that some guy was in her body and would probably have to pee at some point too. Ugh.

Well, she could do this, it was just peeing, everyone does it, right? She unbuckled, unbuttoned and unzipped, then pulled the waistband of the boxer briefs away and down with her left hand while reaching in with her right.

Okay, yeah, weird.

A couple moments later, she was washing her hands at the sink. That was definitely an experience, odd but kinda fun in a rather intrusive feeling way.

She looked at her reflection, really studied it since she wasn’t being watched. She smiled, frowned, and tried a whole range of emotions. Damn, this guy was attractive. Big green eyes with lashes she would have killed for, freckles, perfect lips, and he was tall too, although not as tall as Sam. And he was in great condition, not like one of those guys that works out in a gym all the time, but strong and lean, solid. His hands were callused, knuckles scarred, like he worked with his hands.

“Who are you?” She asked as she looked in the mirror again before leaving the bathroom.

Sitting back down on the barstool, she caught the bartender’s attention. “I’m sorry, what’s your name?”

“Jeremy.”

She nodded. “Can I get another, Jeremy?” and she tapped the empty bourbon glass with the silver ring on her right hand before sliding it forward.

He nodded, grabbed a bottle and poured a generous amount in the glass. “You feeling better?” he asked as he slid the glass back towards her.

She nodded, “Eh. It’s been a weird night.”

“Not the best birthday?”

“No. I was supposed to spend it with my boyf…” she stopped herself suddenly and tried to switch gears, “I had plans, that, no offense, didn’t include this fine establishment.” Shit, she’d almost outed this guy that she didn’t even know. Maybe he was into guys, but maybe not, how would she know, and it was always better to be safe than sorry when literally walking in someone else’s shoes.

Jeremy, if he noticed the slip, didn’t give any indication of being bothered by it. He leaned on one elbow against his side of the bar. “Are you traveling for work or something?”

She looked at him, honestly not sure how to answer that question. She knew she had a room at a motel nearby, but why?

Before she could answer, Jeremy continued, “I mean, there’s not a whole lot of here here, you know? This is not really a destination. And,“ he leaned a little closer and spoke in a more conspiratorial tone, “you’re like an eleven compared to the locals.” He nodded at the few other patrons and cracked a smile.

Okay, so maybe he had picked up on her little slip, but she didn’t think he was a threat, so she just laughed it off and took a sip of her drink.

~~~

Later, standing in the kitchen trying to follow some random friend group drama that could have almost been a telenovela storyline, Sam had come up behind Dean and wrapped him in a hug, hands crossed over his waist, his face nuzzled into his hair behind his ear. Dean’s eyes closed as a delightful shiver ran through him and settled between his legs.

“Ugh, get a room, you two!” Sam’s friend Brady said, teasingly.

Without looking, Sam grabbed a handful of chips out of the open bag on the counter and threw them right at the guy’s face, who actually managed to catch one in his mouth to raucous applause.

“Come on.” Sam breathed, low and quiet in Dean’s ear, and threading their fingers together, steered him out of the room.

“What? Where?”

“It’s getting late and I promised, didn’t I?”

Dean didn’t know how to respond because he had no idea what Sam was talking about.

~~~

Jessica sipped at the bourbon, not sure if she enjoyed the taste or not but the smooth burn was sort of growing on her. She sipped and she thought about what she should, or even could, do. Trapped in a stranger’s body, in an unknown town, states away from anyone she knows, what were her options? She could go find the motel room that matched the key in her pocket, and what? Watch crappy motel tv until she falls asleep in some stranger’s bed, hoping that she wakes up in her own body in the morning? That honestly sounded depressing as fuck. So she stalled, and sipped, and sat, and tried not to completely freak out.

~~~

His little brother was all hands, huge, long, spidery, gentle hands. Hands that covered so much, especially on Jessica’s smaller body. He smoothed over his… her long hair, down his… dammit, her arms, down her back. Eyes shining and bright, open as if to not miss anything, to catch every reaction as he walked backwards into a room to the right of the bathroom, Sam finally stepped back out of Dean’s space enough to let the warm flickering glow light up his face. The room was lit by half a dozen candles, on the dresser, the nightstand, on top of the bookshelf. Dean’s eyes went wide. Oh.

Oh no. This was, shit, this was… he looked at Sam. This was bad, he told himself. He couldn’t, it was too much, too far.

Sam, still smiling, was now a little unsure, a little embarrassed, “Too much?” His hand was rubbing gently up and down on Dean’s back, Jessica’s back, fuck, like he just couldn’t stop touching her.

Dean tried to say something, screaming internally at himself to find a way out of this, screwing things up between Jessica and Sam would be better than… He swallowed and opened his mouth, piecing together some sort of excuse, but all thought evaporated as Sam bit his bottom lip, all dimples and glinting eyes, and leaned in. Dean didn’t mean to smile, it was a reflex, a reaction to the extreme absurdity of the situation, that’s all, it wasn’t because his heart fucking swelled at seeing Sam all lit up and happy, looking at him like that.

Oh, I’m a bad, bad person.

He couldn’t look away from Sam’s mouth. And then Sam was too close to see and he nosed into his hair, speaking right into his ear, warm breath sending shivers through him, “I promised you, tonight is all about you. I want to make you feel so good, see how many times I can make you come.”

And Dean felt hellfire flare up through him, burning his cheeks, making his thighs and inner muscles clench around a deep needful longing. A gasp escaped, unbidden, from his open mouth.

You do this and you really are the scumbag you’ve always felt like. This is the line, right here, right now.

But this was something that he would never get to have normally, only this freaky occurrence giving him an impossible chance to have everything he’d ever wanted, even if just for one night, even if under duplicitous circumstances, in someone else’s body, even if it meant burning in Hell eternally for it.

One of Sam’s thumbs brushed lightly over Dean’s lips, as his fingers curled into his hair, turning his head and mouthing at his ear, nipping at and rolling his earlobe between his teeth before tracing kisses along the underside of his jaw. Dean breathed out a shiver that went all the way down to his knees. Sam kissed right up to the corner of his open mouth.

Dean didn’t believe Hell was real, not really, not an actual place like the bible thumpers would have you believe, but this, even ignoring every other horrible thing he’d ever done, this would surely damn him… but maybe it would be worth it. He could have this, and Sam never needed to know.

He turned his head just a little and caught Sam’s lips with his own.

~~~

With the bar being as quiet as it was, Jeremy took to making small talk as the evening wore on, nothing heavy, nothing too personal, just talking about sports teams (luckily a topic she knew a fair amount about) and cars (which she didn’t but luckily most guys didn’t take much encouragement to go on about that sort of thing without much more than a few interested prompts), but he was nice and kind of funny. It was better than stewing alone in her thoughts.

By the time Jess had had another bourbon, man did this James guy have a higher tolerance than she did, she had loosened up a lot.

So what if she’d probably experienced a psychotic break or something and was now trapped in this weird-ass dream, or maybe worse that she was really stuck in some dude’s body on her birthday and was now drinking alone in some shitty bar. She blinked, god was this what James’ life was like? Hopefully this was just a bad day or something. She at least had a party with all her college friends and Sam… Sam. Shit, James better be playing it cool, like he’d said he would, and not be doing anything to fuck things up between her and Sam.

~~~

For a moment, when he kissed Sam, SammySam oh fuck SAM, he’d forgotten all about his hands, like they didn’t even exist, like nothing existed outside of the bursts of confused chaos in his mind and how kissing Sam seemed to short circuit everything.

Good! No, no! I can’t. Stop. Ohhh god, right, this is right. Can’t. Fuck, finally!

Every part of his borrowed body felt like it was blushing, like he should be legit glowing, and there was this warm, aching, wetness that he was suddenly very aware of between his legs. It was a lot like how he normally felt when turned on, just not as focused, deeper inside and suffused throughout his body. He also found that he was very, very aware of his tits, every move, each breath as they lifted and fell, the way the fabric of the bra and shirt moved, every touch against Sam, he could feel all of it, and was aware of it all at once, and yet craved more. Sam’s hands were in his hair, cradling his head as they kissed. His lips tasted like home.

You can touch him!

And just like that, a lifetime of suppressed impulses and denied wants let loose as he placed his hands on Sam’s sides. Lightning-like desire, in all its terrifying glory, zapped through him, along his fingers and up his arms at the contact. Sam was solid, still lean and lanky with youth, but no longer a kid, not his little brother. Big.

It wasn’t like Dean never touched him, hell, he’d probably touched him more than anyone else. But that was different, it was checking on him, cleaning him up, bandaging and mending, little kid snuggles and hugs, holding his hand as they crossed the street, shoulders leaning together as they sat and joked quietly, just the two of them. This, though, this, was the edge of the map. Here, there be monsters, and his pulse pounded like he was on a hunt.

He ran his hands up over Sam’s chest, feeling the lines of the muscles beneath his shirt as Sam slid one of his hands down Dean’s back, pulling him closer, pressing them together. He didn’t stop at his waist this time, his hand continuing down over Dean’s ass to cup and squeeze. Dean moaned, just a little and in a way that he hadn’t expected, and his hands moved up across Sam’s shoulders and neck and into his hair, fingers tangling in his nape and pulling Sam down, or himself up, it didn’t matter which as long as they somehow got closer. Dean instinctively wrapped his legs around Sam’s hips when he lifted him up, one hand under Dean’s ass, across the back of his thighs, the other still cradling the back of his head. Sam shifted, holding Jessica’s weight easily and Dean wondered if Sam had gotten strong enough to lift his own actual body the same way. That thought made his breath hitch.

Sam pushed the door shut with one foot and then took three strides to cross the room before he dropped them both down onto the bed. Sam caught himself with his elbows, so his weight didn’t come down on Dean all at once as he bounced, a laugh bubbling out of Dean, met with a smile from Sam.

Sam looked at him for a moment, brushing hair from Dean’s face, Jessica’s face, Dean reminded himself. Sam was looking at Jessica like that, like she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, and like he wanted to eat her up. Jealousy at the realization sparked in Dean, but it was quickly quelled because Sam looking at Jessica like that meant that Dean could look back through her in a way he never could through his own eyes.

He took in Sam’s bright, clever, magic-colored eyes, and his pointed nose that made him look fox-like and clever. That mole beside his nose, that Dean always wanted poke or to kiss, depending on the day. His hair that, from this angle, spread around his face like a dark halo and reminded Dean of that photo of Jim Morrison, the one where his arms were spread and his chest was bare. He looked like the hero of some Greek myth and he was painfully beautiful.

Then Sam was kissing him again, little nibbling kisses that wandered along his jaw, sending delicious shivers through him. Sam’s hand found the bare skin at his waist, fingers spread out across his stomach, up under his shirt to his ribs as he kissed his way down Dean’s throat.

Dean leaned his head to the side, stretching his neck as he arched up into Sam’s touch. Sam’s fingertips traced along the bottom of his bra, brushed the underside of his breast. Holy shit.

He’d gotten so caught up in the fact that this was Sam, SamSammy, that he’d almost completely glossed over the fact that he was in a woman’s body and was going to experience sex, with Sam, in a body with girl parts! What was, possibly, most disturbing was how onboard he was for this ride. Like, if he was completely honest with himself, the Sam thing had always been there, usually it was forcibly shoved into the furthest, deepest, darkest corner of his brain, and locked down tight, but sometimes it escaped and made it almost to the surface before he’s wrestle it back down again and did his best to ignore it. But beyond an occasional fleeting thought about what the woman he was with was feeling as he went down on her, thrust into her, well, he’d never actually fantasized about actually feeling whatever they felt. The prospect was surprisingly thrilling.

And this isn’t gay (or incest) if it’s Jessica’s body. That thought sent a cold shiver through him, followed very closely by a rancid tendril of self-disgust. What the hell was the matter with him?

But then Sam was cupping his breast, warm hand giving a massaging little squeeze, the nipple genty pinched in the V between his thumb and index finger, sending sparks of pleasure through him and distracting him from his thoughts. Dean had always liked having his nipples played with during sex, well, he really liked having everything played with during sex, but now, though? It was just so much more.

Sam pushed his shirt up, kissed him through the fabric of the bra, before giving a little, demanding “Off.” and worked both the shirt and bra off, undoing the back clasp one handed, that’s my boy. And then his mouth was on him again. Dean’s hands were on Sam’s shoulders, then in his hair as he lavished attention on his tits. And, yeah, definitely an area deserving of all the attention Dean was prone to give because it felt fucking awesome. Before the sensations could become too much, Sam would shift his focus to the other side, kissing and sucking, biting (which felt amazing) and pulling little gasps out of Dean.

Dean squirmed a bit, suddenly desperate for some sort of friction between his legs. Like he’d sensed it, Sam ran one hand down, using little more than the weight of his hand, over the fabric of his skirt, and rubbed, pushing a bit more with his middle and ring fingers, curving with his body, right down between Dean’s legs. It wasn’t quite like having his dick rubbed, the feeling a little more muted, more spread out. But the warmth that spread through him felt familiar as did the desire it inflamed. And he pushed his hips against Sam’s hand seeking more pressure.

The biggest difference Dean felt was where he normally would have wanted to push into his partner, to thrust into them, all he wanted now, the desire that consumed his mind, was that he needed something inside him, stretching him, filling him. This hollow, wanting, ache was new but made him unbearably warm and desperate. And he wondered, not for the first time, about how much of it was coming from Jessica’s muscle memory, because while it was new to him, it felt so perfectly right and natural in this body.

With a final playful pull on one of his nipples, sucking hard before letting it drop and the weight of the breast bounce back against Dean’s chest, Sam kissed his way down across his stomach. Jessica was a bit ticklish, it would seem, because the light scrape of Sam’s stubble sent delightful tremors through Dean. Not enough to make him laugh or pull away, but enough to make him smile.

This is crazy. This is crazy. This can’t be real. I must be dreaming. This is some weirdass fever dream. What the fuck is wrong with me?

Sam reached the waistband of Jessica’s skirt, kissing and tonguing over Dean’s belly button as he worked loose the zipper and slid the fabric down, chasing it with his mouth. Dean lifted his hips so Sam could slide it the rest of the way down and off his legs, leaving him in just delicate, barely there, panties. They were silky and pink and Dean flashed back hard to six years ago, to Rhonda Hurley looking at him wearing her panties like she wanted to eat him alive, a look that was mirrored now in Sam’s eyes as he slowly looked up his… Jessica’s body. Dammit.

That look wasn’t Dean’s, it wasn’t for him. Sam was looking at Jessica like that. Fuck he shouldn’t do this. He needed to say something, stop this somehow.

“Sam…” He pleaded, but it came out too breathless and wanting, needing, and Sam smiled and leaned down, placed a kiss right on the silky pink stretched over the center of all the warmth Dean was feeling and hummed against him.

“Hmm?” and then he kissed a little lower and looked up from under his bangs as he gently stroked one hand up Dean’s thigh, fingers spreading so wide, hot and thrilling. He placed another kiss, this time below the curve of where Dean could see, so he couldn’t see Sam’s mouth as it pressed the fabric right into the wetness between his legs. Sam nosed in then and breathed deep. “All this for me?”

Dean bit down on his bottom lip, part of his mind still desperately trying to get control of this situation, to somehow, miraculously pull back before it was too late, when Sam looked up and locked eyes with him as he slowly, gently, bit the fabric covered mound, worrying it so slowly with his teeth before saying, in a voice deeper than Dean had ever heard him use, “God I want to eat you up. Will you let me? Let me just,” he licked, his tongue spread wide, right up over the now sodden crotch of those pink panties, “devour you?”

And the last vestiges of Dean’s attempts to be a better person crumbled. If he was going to hell, and he was definitely going, then he was going to make damn sure that he got the maximum value out of the trip.

“Yeah.” he said as he reached out and ran his fingers down Sam’s hair, his thumb brushing Sam’s cheek as Sam, SamMySammyMine, smiled his sharp, clever, mischievous smile and pulled the panties off and settled back between Dean’s legs, bending Dean’s knees up and over Sam’s shoulders. One hand going up Dean’s side, his long arm easily allowing him to cup around one breast, while the other spread, fingers splayed, across the tight skin below Dean’s navel, pressing down with gentle pressure to still the squirming Dean hadn’t even realized he was doing.

~~~

The last of the other customers paid up his tab and left. Jessica threw back the rest of her drink.

“What do I owe you?” she asked as she stood up to pull James’ wallet out of his pocket. The gravity in the room lurched violently to the left and she had to catch herself by clutching the edge of the bar. She barked out a laugh and sat back down on the stool. “Whoa.”

“Easy there.” Jeremy said. “No rush.”

He slid another glass of water over to her with a smile. She nodded and gratefully took a drink. It was cold and even though it still tasted a little too much like chlorine to be called good, she knew it would help.

“It’s cool, take your time, I’ve got a bunch of things to do to close up so you don’t have to leave just yet.” He said with a smile.

~~~

Sam’s attention focused between Dean’s spread legs, nosing into the trimmed little bush before licking along the folds of his pussy. His tongue, a wide and warm pressure, different from anything Dean had experienced before. It wasn’t like having his dick licked, which felt good right from the start. But the act was insanely intimate and definitely felt good, and the fact that it was Sam, samsamsam, made him shiver. And then the tip of Sam’s tongue dipped in and flicked across Dean’s clit and there it was! A burst of pleasure followed immediately by a desire for more.

A keening slipped from Dean’s throat, so much higher pitched than felt right to him. Looking down, all he could see was Sam’s shaggy brown hair and his fox-like eyes, pupils wide in the darkened room, looking back at him. Sam slid his hand down, long fingers spreading Dean open. Dean felt the air stir between his legs, cooling around the edges, and he realized just how wet he was. Sam licked again, taking his time, dipping in and flicking across before gently kissing that swollen bud of nerves and then doing it again, and again. Dean gasped when he used his teeth, normally something, as a guy, that would be a complete no-go, but the nipping and nibbling here felt good, really good, primal and hungry, and Dean wanted more.

Sam pushed his tongue in, deeper each time, as he rubbed Dean’s clit, pressing and circling, circling and pressing, sucking, biting, again and again until Dean’s hands had to move because Sam was holding his hips still, so he reached down and brushed Sam’s hair back, so he could see him better, then stayed in his hair, just holding, trying not pull. And his other hand went to his breast, kneading and then pinching the sensitive nipple. Everything combined and built up like a wave swelling, growing more and more, frantic, urgent, faster, and then he was pulling on Sam’s hair, which made him groan into Dean, the vibrations sending Dean crashing over. Sam continued to gently massage Dean’s clit, while fucking into him with his tongue, as wave after wave rolled through Dean.

Just as Dean was able to breathe again, Sam shifted around a bit so that he had both hands working, the one still spreading Dean open and working his clit in slow circles, while he pressed first one finger then two into him.

There was a punk rock girl out near Salt Lake, what was her name? Brenda something, shit he couldn’t think, but she’d had a thing for sticking her finger in her partner’s ass when they fucked her, and while she’d been enthusiastically into it, and it hadn’t been bad, it was weird, kinda good weird, but weird. It was nothing like this.

Sam leaned back in as he worked up a steady rhythm, and started tonguing and sucking his clit again. Dean was so sensitive it didn’t take long for him to feel everything building again. Sam had worked another finger in and curled them forward. It was a tried and true move that Dean had used on many, many occasions, and now he knew why it always worked so well, as he gasped and came hard, muscles fluttering hard around Sam’s hand.

“Samm… Sam,” remembering just in time, “please, oh fuck, mmm, I…”

“Hmm?”

“I need,” but he hesitated before voicing the rest, bit his bottom lip, was he really going to ask for it? From Sam?

“What? What do you need, baby?” Sam asked, his voice lower than Dean had ever heard it, deep but tender and pressed right between his legs, and damn if that didn’t light something up on the switchboard in Dean’s head.

No one but Dean would ever know if he just asked for what he wanted.

“Fuck me?” he said, quiet and unsure.

“Hmm, thought I’d stay here for a little longer, make you scream my name.” Sam slowly nosed in again and licked. “You taste so good.”

“Sam.”

Bright eyes staring up at him. “Mmm?”

“Are you really going to make me beg… on my birthday?”

Sam nodded as he nipped at the inner crease of Dean’s hip.

Dean let out a frustrated groan, “Please? Get up here and fuck me, Sam.”

Sam smiled, “Well, since you asked so nicely.” He sat back, pulled his shirt off and used it to wipe his hand and face before tossing it onto the floor. Shit, Sammy had filled out since the last time Dean had seen him and, reminding himself that he could look, he let his eyes linger on his brother’s torso. He realized he was mentally inventorying the scars he could see, there were no new ones, which was good. Sam’s belt buckle jangled a little as it came undone and he unbuttoned his jeans. Sam stood and pushed them down along with his underwear, black boxer briefs, and then was kicking them off to the side and slowly crawling back onto the bed.

Holy shit! HIs baby brother was built like a Greek god! How often was he working out? He was all slick, cut muscle, long limbs, and… In what universe was it even remotely fair that his little (no longer the operative word) brother had gotten bigger than him, apparently in every way? Dean was not a small guy, over six feet and packing a generously sized dick that he’d never, not once, gotten any complaints about. In fact, he’d received more than enough compliments to give him a, possibly, over-inflated sense of pride. Dean had an amazing cock, that he knew how to use. It was a source of great joy for him. And, he soothed his ego, it was hard to get a proper sense of scale, not having access to his own hands. But then Sam was grinning at him with his wickedly clever eyes and bright, dimpled smile again and Dean felt himself smiling back, his cheeks flushing as Jessica’s body responded to a new wave of want.

Sam crawled up over Dean, stretching his long body and skimming, not quite touching, over him, supporting his weight on his knees and hands. Just as Sam zeroed in on his lips and when Dean anticipated he would kiss him, Sam kept stretching past, reaching over and easily sliding open then closing the nightstand drawer. When he pulled back, a condom packet held by a corner in his mouth, he dragged it lightly across Dean’s skin, tickling slightly and forcing a giggle out of him that Dean would cringe over later when he replayed the moment. Sam sat back on his heels and tore open the packet. A wild thought, a desire, flashed through Dean, causing his cheeks to burn.

“Wait,” he said breathlessly.

Sam stopped and looked at him, concern overriding some of the confidence he’d shown just seconds before. But Dean was sitting up and reaching out, running his hand down Sam’s thigh as he smiled Jessica’s wide smile.

“Just, let me…” and he slid his hand up, his gaze meeting his grasp as he stroked Sam’s length. Hot, velvety soft skin twitched in the circle of Jessica’s manicured fingers. Dean blinked slowly, his eyes threatening to close, to block out such a transgression, but he made himself look, burning the image into his memory. He licked his lips as he shifted so he could lean forward. He just needed to know… if he was here, if he was doing this, then he needed it all, there’d never be another chance. He rubbed his thumb through the drop of precum beaded up on the head of Sam’s cock, spreading it slick across the head, and then kissed there. He looked up to find Sam staring down, eyes dark, mouth open, a blush high on his cheeks like he was drunk, and Dean licked slowly, tasting as he stared up at him.

Dean had never gone down on a guy before, although he’d received plenty of propositions over the years. But he’d eaten out more than his fair share of women and every one had tasted different, each one unique and special and divine, and this really wasn’t much different from that. Salty, a little bitter, not bad, just intimate. And he’d be lying if he said there wasn’t a deep satisfaction to sucking the head of Sam’s cock into his mouth. Sam’s fingers slipped into Jessica’s hair, fingers spanning the width of her head and gently holding there, not pressing, not pulling, as he let out a slow breath.

Dean reached up with his free hand and took the opened condom packet from Sam as he swirled his tongue against the vein on the underside of his cock. And then he pulled back and slid the condom down and gave it a couple slow pumps with his fist to make sure it was rolled all the way down.

He sat up and crawled forward, capturing Sam’s bottom lip as he pressed against him. Sam’s hand let go of his hair and like earlier, he pulled Dean in like he weighed nothing, hands engulfing his hips as he settled Dean on his lap. Dean wrapped his arms around Sam’s neck, reveling in the feel of his tits crushed up against Sam’s chest and Sam’s erection hot and hard between them. His hips rubbed forward, like they were seeking friction on autopilot.

“Sam,” he keened.

Sam lifted him again and lined himself up and lowered Dean onto him. Dean’s eyes rolled closed as he stretched and was filled in a way he’d never even dreamed. He’d never be able to claim that again, he was sure he’d never get the perfect feeling of them fitting together like this out of his mind. And as his hips once again seemed more in control of things than he was, he gave some experimental grinds, and looked at Sam whose eyes were closed, his brow furrowed a little in concentration, and he looked… beautiful.

“Sam?”

Sam opened his eyes, his pupils blown wide in the candlelight and a look of pure want on his face, and he was the most gorgeous thing that Dean had ever seen. He circled his hips, trying to find the leverage to do more when Sam lifted him again, easily taking Jessica’s weight in his arms and began to thrust up. As he repeated the movement, again and again, Dean let his head fall back, his eyes closing, Sam’s mouth kissing hungrily along his jaw and down his neck, teeth nipping, stubble on his chin rough, but never hurting, never bruising, no it was just enough to feel all the way down through to where they were connected.

With his eyes closed and head tipped back, the weight of Jessica’s hair hanging down, bouncing with every forceful thrust, Dean could only hold on, losing himself in the sensations. Sam ran a hand up Dean’s back, his hand tangling in and gently but insistently pulling, causing Dean to arch further back. Sam kissed down, captured one of his nipples, his other hand sliding low across Dean hips, thumb finding and pressing into his clit and the combination of all those sensations pushed him up and over that cliff again. Being so full, having something… his brother’s cock, a thought that he really shouldn’t be so completely good with… inside him, for his muscles to squeeze, and with so much skin-on-skin contact for him to clutch onto, pushed everything up, and up, and over.

When Dean could focus again, he lifted his head, eyes meeting Sam’s, Sam who was still fucking him, and holy hell if his (not so) little brother wasn’t a goddamn freight train. The thought brought a ridiculous swelling of pride with it, some misguided feeling that he’d had a hand in raising this absolute god of a man. Dean smiled, his mouth open with every breath that Sam pushed out of him, and he traced his fingers across Sam’s face, thumb dragging across his bottom lip before Dean leaned in and kissed him.

“Come on, Baby. Come for me? I want to feel you, come on.” he said in between kisses. Sam’s arms tightened around him, his pace speeding up. “ Come on, Sammy.” Dean breathed and he felt Sam’s body tense. He leaned back enough to see Sam’s face as he climaxed. Little aftershocks from Dean’s last orgasm were still pulsing through him as Sam twitched inside him.

When their heavy breaths slowed down to contented sighs, Sam pulled out, removed the condom and tossed it in a small trash can by the nightstand and twisted the two of them so they could fall onto their sides on the bed, his arms still around Dean, facing each other.

Sam brushed a thick lock of hair out of Dean’s face, his eyes alight with reflected, flickering candlelight. He was sweaty and his cheeks were still flushed and he looked contentedly fucked out and Dean couldn’t stop staring at him.

A bemused smile flashed across Sam’s face after a moment. “What?”

Dean didn’t have the words, so he just smiled with his borrowed face, hoping it conveyed the best part of the crazed tangle of things he was feeling. When Sam returned the smile, Dean leaned in and kissed him one last time before snuggling into his brother’s broad chest, his eyelids growing heavy.

Sam placed a kiss on the top of his head. “Happy birthday, Jess.”

Dean was glad that Sam couldn’t see his face because he knew the smile wasn’t reaching his eyes anymore.

Dean lay there until Sam’s breathing evened out into sleep. And then he steadfastly refused to give into the looming tidal wave of guilt that was threatening to drown him, closing his eyes, he breathed in the smell of Sam, letting all the memories it triggered carry him, finally, to sleep.

~~~

“So, I’m curious,” she asked, “you don’t seem too enthused about… wait, where are we again?”

Jeremy laughed, “Eastfield.”

“Right, right. You don’t seem too enthused about Eastfield. And you’re young, seem intelligent, so why…” she gestured around the bar. “You from here? Got family or something?”

“Nah, I mean, not exactly. I grew up near here. Went to college. While I was there, my dad got sick, cancer, so I came home to take care of him. And, I don’t know, after he passed I just didn’t go right back and now,” he shrugged as he moved glasses around, “I don’t know. I’m just sort of here because here feels as good as anywhere to be.”

Jessica nodded and took a sip of water.

“What about you? You’ve been here all night and haven’t mentioned what you do for a living once.” Jeremy carried a crate of glasses into the back, Jessica could hear it being set down, and then he was back again, leaning up against the bar across from her. “Most people don’t shut up about their jobs when they get talking here. It’s just a safe topic, you know? Not too personal but something that eats up most of their lives. But you?”

Jessica shrugged and smiled, taking another drink of water. Jeremy squinted his eyes a bit, pursed his lips.

“What if I guess?” He looked her up and down, clucking his tongue quietly. “A hit man for the Mafia? Is the Mafia still a thing?” He smiled.

She laughed, “I don’t know. But no, I’m not in the Mafia.” I think, she added internally.

Jeremy looked at her, watched her mouth as she smiled. “Are you a model or something… which as I’m saying it, sounds super cheesy.” he said with a bit of a blush rising high on his cheeks above his beard. He was flirting and she suddenly remembered that she wasn’t herself. He was flirting with the gorgeous guy who’d been drinking alone at his bar all evening.

“I don’t really want to talk about what I do, it’s just not…” she shrugged and took another drink of water, licking her lips. The room was still spinning a bit and she felt all warm and fuzzy, like this was all a weird but pleasant dream.

Jeremy leaned forward onto his elbows, only a foot or so of distance between them now. “SInce I’m already kinda making a fool of myself… you are, you know… really hot and it seems like a crime against humanity for you to be alone on your birthday.”

He had nice brown eyes, wide and clear and kind, and what should have been an overdone line came across as genuine. The only other guy she knew that could have pulled that off was Sam. Thinking of him caused a heavy lump of guilt to form in her stomach.

“And yet, here I am.”

He slid one hand closer, fingertips just brushing the backs of her knuckles where her hand was still curled around the glass.

She stared at his hand and thought about Sam, who was the best man she’d ever known, smart, sweet, funny, weirdly mysterious, how did he even know half the shit he knew? And she knew so little about his life, his childhood, just enough to know that it had been nomadic and traumatic. His mom had died when he was a baby, his dad hadn’t handled that well, and he had a brother, but he never wanted to talk about them. He was home, thinking he was with her (hopefully) if James wasn’t screwing everything up. But at the same time, the idea that Sam might not be able to tell that it wasn’t her… well, it rankled.

She looked over Jeremy’s shoulder and saw James’ reflection looking back. Maybe it was the drinks, she thought as she shifted her gaze back to Jeremy, or the dream-like unrealness of the entire evening, but she slowly licked her lips thinking about what it would feel like to kiss a guy using someone else’s mouth, a man’s mouth? Would it feel different?

There was only one way to find out.

She pushed up and forward slightly as Jeremy leaned further across the bar. They both hesitated when there were only a couple of inches of space between them, giving the other a chance to back out. Shyness was never something that Jessica suffered from. Quite the opposite. Throughout her life she’d been accused of being too forward, too bold and daring, too aggressive when she wanted something. She knew she was impulsive, but YOLO, right? She slid her hand around the back of Jeremy’s neck and pulled him into a kiss.

The beard was something new to her. It was scratchy-soft and tickly in a way that was not entirely unpleasant. His lips were soft though and he knew what to do with them. After a moment, they broke apart.

“Hey, come around. I, uh, I want to give you something.”

When she stood up this time she was steady. Walking around the bar, she felt a flush of excitement, like a spreading fire flowing from her cheeks, down her chest, and into her gut. She followed him through the doorway and into the back room where Jeremy turned and pushed her up against a wall with a big, laminated, OSHA poster taped to it.

He was a couple inches shorter, so she had to tip her head down to meet his lips, a feeling so opposite of what she was used to that it added to the overall surrealness of the situation. And then he stepped even closer, one leg wedging between hers, pressing against her, his hands cupping her head, fingers rubbing into her scalp, such a different experience with James’ short hair, but pulling a pleased noise from somewhere deep in her chest. When his hips ground against hers, she was startled at the sensation. All that pooling warmth in her gut was suddenly rushing to her groin, focusing with growing insistence. She could feel Jeremy, already so hard, pressing back and the sensation left her breathless.

“Can I?” He tipped his head down as his hand skated over the front of her jeans, lightly tracing the bulge of her cock. Shit, she had a cock and this guy wanted to…

Okay, so she didn’t know if James was gay, or into guys at all, and she was seriously dating Sam, she was, but when would she ever be given the chance to experience this from this side of the equation again?

“Yeah.” she said.

Jeremy kissed her again as he undid her belt and jeans, sliding his hand down to feel her through her briefs. Her hips pressed forward, chasing the warmth and touch of his hand. And then his mouth was gone. He sank to his knees as he pulled the waistband of her briefs down and freed her straining cock. And it was like watching porn that she could feel, looking down the long stretch of her borrowed body, flat stomach and hard on, flushed dark pink with short, dark curls around the base. And then Jeremy’s tongue licked slowly up along the bottom of her shaft before flicking across the tip. Oh! That felt… good! One hand gently held the base, angling the length for better access, while his other hand cupped warm around her balls, lifting and squeezing in a way that made a small gasp escape her lips. Jeremy stared up at her as his tongue darted out again and swirled around the head of her cock, like he was trying to burn the image into his memory. But when he sucked her into his mouth and she groaned and placed a hand gently in his hair, her mouth falling open, his eyes sank closed and he got to work.

Jessica had given head, she knew her way around a blowjob and took pride in the responses she got, but to feel it, oh it added an entire other level. She couldn’t help but note what worked vs. what didn’t work vs. what really worked. She had also been on the receiving end of oral in her own body many times, something that Sam was particularly fond of (and extremely good at), but while this was similar, it was also so completely different, everything sort of flipped around in a delightful way. Her head tipped back against the wall as she let the feelings take over. Despite having no direct experience on this side of a blowjob, she felt confident that Jeremy seemed to know what he was doing. She didn’t hold back her responses and he picked them up and ran with them.

She was still tipsy enough and this was all still so new and weird, she had no idea how long it lasted before she felt herself tensing up, everything building as he worked at an increasingly frantic pace. As if he could sense how close she was, and he probably knew better than she did, he pulled back just enough to look up and say, “Come on” before swallowing as much of her as he could. A couple more pumps and the pressure in her burst, flooding out of her in deliciously violent spurts, all of which Jeremy greedily took.

When she could focus again, and looked down, he had his own dick out and was coming in his hand, his forehead resting against her thigh, still on his knees. She ran her hand through his hair, unconsciously petting him as they both came down.

When he sat back and fixed himself back into his pants, she did the same. She offered him a hand and pulled him back up to his feet. Awkwardness threatening to set in, she just smiled at him, “Thanks seems like a bit of an understatement.”

“What can I say, I’m a sucker for hot birthday boys.” He laughed, cheeks glowing with a deep flush. “No pun intended.”

Her smile spread wider.

Walking out of the bar a few minutes later, Jeremy’s number written on the receipt in her pocket, only feeling a little awkward at how quickly the whole interaction wrapped up because he seemed honestly content, Jessica looked around the parking lot. James had said it was a classic car, but she wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting. The long, shiny, sleek lines of the absolute beast of a vehicle that was waiting for her was a surprise though.

She fished the keys out of her pocket and opened the door with a creaking squeak that spoke of old joints formed from heavy, solid, metal. She slid in behind the wheel and pulled the door shut.

“Okay. Just an easy drive over to the motel. You can do this.” Turning the key in the ignition, the engine roared to life. Nothing quiet or subtle about this car, but it felt right on a weird, deep level that she wasn’t sure was coming from her. She eased out of the bar’s parking lot and onto the blessedly deserted street, keeping it a bit below the speed limit, even though she could feel the car practically begging to go faster.

Then there was the motel, and she parked outside room 12, locked the car and went inside. The place was… well it wasn’t going to ever earn even three stars on any travel guide ever again, but it was sorta clean and had the basics covered, a bed, nightstand, little desk with a chair next to a dresser with a tv on it, open closet, and a dingy bathroom. She dropped the keys onto the nightstand, along with James’s wallet and phone, as she sat heavily on the side of the bed.

Exhaustion settled heavily on her and she felt like she was made of lead, but still managed to pull off her boots and started to lay down before stopping herself and grabbing the cheap pen with the motel name on it. She scribbled a quick note on the receipt, under Jeremy’s name and number. And then was asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.

~~~

The distinctive smell of stale, decades old, cigarette smoke and bleach hit him as Dean woke with a start. Sitting up and taking immediate stock of himself and his surroundings. Sunlight streamed in around the curtains, lighting up copious dust motes. The distant sound of a door banging shut reverberated through the walls.

He was still wearing what he’d been wearing when he’d left his body last night and had been sleeping stretched out on top of the covers on the bed in his motel room. His duffle bag lay seemingly untouched on the floor at the foot of the bed.

He rubbed his hands over his face and scrubbed at his hair a few times.

His wallet, keys, and phone were on the nightstand next to a note, which he picked up and read. The handwriting wasn’t his. And as he looked he realized it was likely written by two different people.

Jeremy 555-823-3467 was written in one hand, while the rest was another, messy and unsure.

You may not want to go back to that bar.

“Huh.” he tossed the note onto the bed, got up and walked to the window. A quick check outside verified that his car was there and seemed in one piece.

~~~

Jessica woke up slowly, warm and comfortable. She stretched and felt the familiar feel of her own body and smiled. The smile dropped entirely as she realized that she was naked and not alone. Sam, also naked, stirred next to her as she moved.

The night before settling like a brick in her stomach. She knew what she’d done, and would carry the guilt of cheating on Sam, but if she was honest with herself, which she tried hard to be, she believed that the extraordinary circumstances were something that she would have regretted not taking advantage of. Right or wrong, she’d made her choice and she’d live with that. But the idea that some random guy had used her body the same way, with her boyfriend, and that it turned out that Sam hadn’t noticed anything wrong, which either said a lot about how poorly he knew her, or about how good James was at pretending to be someone he didn’t really know, well, that weighed on her in a much more unpleasant way.

It wouldn’t be for another year and a half before that strange, surreal night would come sneaking back into her life in a fittingly bizarre and unexpected way.

Looking at that too handsome face again standing so close to Sam as she flipped on the light in their living room, made the floor feel like it was going to drop out from under her.

“Sam?”

“Jess. Hey. Dean, this is my girlfriend, Jessica.” Sam said, still slightly out of breath.

She blinked in surprise, “Wait, your brother Dean?”

Sam had never shown her any pictures of his brother, had only spoken about him a few times, and had made it sound like they were distant, estranged. She hadn’t ever questioned… why would she have questioned? This, what the hell was this? But before she could form any of her swirling thoughts into words, Dean stepped forward, an over-the-top leering grin on his face.

“Oh, I love the Smurfs. You know, I gotta tell you. You are completely out of my brother's league.”

There wasn’t even a hint of recognition in his eyes, but she still felt the hairs on her arms rise with a sense of danger at the aggressive eye contact he’d fixed on her.

Later, as she watched Sam pack and assure her that he would be back in time for his interview on Monday, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was looming nearby. But she’d never told Sam about that night, it was insane, how could she have even begun to explain it? So she didn’t know now how to articulate why she didn’t want Sam to go. The idea that James was actually Sam’s brother, that he’d… that they’d…

Sam kissed her goodbye with promises of seeing her soon and then was out the door. A familiar rumble of an engine starting up outside, and then they were gone.

#wincest #wincest fanfiction #non con #extremely dubious consent #body swap #gender swap #sam/jessica #dean/sam #long post

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