John refuses to fuck Dean. He just can't bring himself to cross that last line even though they've done everything except that for years. It's the last shred of sanity he has left. It's his only saving grace when the guilt eats him alive, when Dean is curled up with his head on his chest, naked and trusting and so, so endlessly loving, and he can't stop thinking this is my son, this is my baby boy, and I touch him like I touched his mother. If he doesn't fuck Dean then he hasn't ruined him completely. If he doesn't fuck Dean then they can come back from this. If he doesn't fuck Dean then he isn't entirely a monster, even if he feels like one most days.
It's killing him. Dean is killing him.
He wants it so bad. He's wanted it for years, for longer than he should have ever even been thinking about something like that. He's tried everything: begging, bargaining, insisting that he wants it, that it will be good, he will be good, he won't be hurt by it, he won't be damaged.
He's already irreparably damaged. If he wasn't, he wouldn't want it.
Dean loses his patience eventually. He's curious and full of teenage hormones and John knows he's been burned by his denial one too many times, so he's out to hurt John, to make him jealous.
It works. He disappears one evening and returns in the early morning before dawn, walking a little more bow-legged than usual, and John knows. He knows by the defiant glint in his eye that gives way to a wobble of his lips and then a flood of tears and apologies.
He holds Dean while he cries and begs for forgiveness. He smells like another man, and he can't stop thinking about it: was he good to Dean? Did he make it feel good? Did he make sure he was ready? Did he appreciate the impossible gift he was being given? Or did he just use him like any of those malnourished boys that haunted truck stops?
Grief curdles in his stomach and he wonders if this was really better than just giving in.
