I’d like to say the things that I could never say to your face*
* Beside Me by Forty Foot Echo
Summary: [Season 1: Pilot - pre-Wendigo] It’s been a few days since the Lady in White in Jericho, a few hundred miles since California and one quiet trip since Jess.
Fandom:: Supernatural (Sam/Dean)
Rating: NC-17
Characters: Sam, Dean
Word Count: 2039
Warnings: Wincest, male/male, sex
Author’s Notes: Part of the Headlights, Highways ‘verse; read in order.
1.
Headlights, Highways (Your Life Collides With Mine)
2.
We don’t need anything or anyone - - -
Dean feels a little betrayed when he sees Jess. He doesn’t tell Sam, but gives him a look that he hopes Sam will understand. They made a promise together, to each other. Dean kept that promise - Sam hadn’t.
Dean doesn’t say anything as Sam kisses Jess good-bye - first kiss, first time, first everything with Sam and Sam’s forgotten that - and climbs into the Impala, lips pursed. Dean tears away in the middle of night, fingers curling over the steering wheel; his mouth runs dry trying to figure out what to say. What to ask, where to start. It’s been so long and Sam’s been telling lies, keeping secrets - Dean didn’t know they were like that.
So, he brings up the obvious reason he’s there for Sam and tells him about the hunt and John and he’s missing as they head to Jericho because it’s easier then telling him the other reason.
- - -
Together, Sam and Dean watch Constance disappear into the floorboards. For some reason, Dean wants to pull Sam close to him and feel his heart beat just to convince him Sam’s alive. To convince himself that he’s alive. It doesn’t seem real having little pieces of Sam so close to him - the pieces Dean never knew existed. Broken shards of everything that’s Sam that means nothing to Dean. Sam wasn’t Sam anymore - he wasn’t anyone Dean knew.
Dean looks at Sam, contemplating telling him. But Sam’s staring at the floorboard, his eyes wide from shock. Dean forgets what he was going to say.
So, he makes a snide remark about his car and Sam and never letting you drive again as they start pushing the car from the rubble, being very conscious of how close they got to each other.
- - -
Somehow, Sam’s different when Dean drops him off. He waits in the car, fingers wrapped right around his duffle bag straps. Dean resists the urge to reach out, to touch him, to feel Sam as his again. All his.
Sam tells him they could meet up again; Dean doesn’t think he will. He’s seen how Sam’s moved on and Dean’s happy for him, he really is. For Sam to have something normal, something pure in his life is good. Dean just wishes he was the reason Sam was happy. Dean feels a little more disconnected from Sam like they’re walking on thin ice and Sam is running, fighting for his own survival - Dean doesn’t feel he’s going to make it without Sam’s help.
So, Dean drives away, back on his search for his dad and stops and turns around just for the what if’s; but when he looks back something doesn’t look right. Something doesn’t feel right - time has stopped. His watch doesn’t tick anymore; the red hand still as the night pressed in around him and the wind whistled through the car door.
Sam’s dragged away, back into a life he never chose because of fire and Dean. Dean is always the one dragging him back. And even though he has no other choice, Dean feels the guilt burn deep.
- - -
Dean notices that Sam is breathing slowly; like he’s questioning each breath, whether it’s worth the extra effort to open his mouth, to suck in the air, to let it go… Dean tries to let Sam know that he shouldn’t question his existence because Jess would never want that. Dean doesn’t want that.
Maybe Sam talks, Dean doesn’t know; he has the music turned up too loud to hear anything but the distant rush of static occasionally and the smack of rubber hitting pavement below him. It helps him not think about Sam even though he’s so close and he taps his fingers along to the radio, mouthing the words like a somber prayer spoken only by the desperate. Dean tries to hide his desperation from Sam; that’s why he sings silently to himself.
Dean doesn’t dare look at Sam - never at his face, never at a time like this - because he doesn’t want to see what stories his brother’s face will tell with just one look. More regrets, more mystery, more secrets, more answers that Dean wants and at the same time, doesn’t.
He tries to bring up why but it never seems like a good time; it will never be a good time because Dean doesn’t want to break the strange warmth Sam has found in silence and distance with his vicious, cutting words and demanding questions. Dean doesn’t think Sam could handle it - or if he, himself, could handle the outcome.
Dean thinks he’ll never get his answer, so he keeps on driving, fingers fiddling on the radio dial and wonders why; why us?
- - -
Sam folds and refolds his shirts methodically. Precise in the creases and where they lay; Dean watched the back of Sam’s head bob up and down as he folded the shirts over and over.
"Sam?"
Sam paused, only for half a moment, before he continued bobbing his head a song all in his head, folding the shirts, acting like he didn’t even know Dean was there.
Their motel is a ward of tortured souls; screams in the dark and white eyes that plague your dreams. Room after room down sterile hallways, telling different stories about why, why. Not all of them are as fucked up as they seem, some can make it out alive, but Dean never will. He will never leave the awkward glances and long days of strange silence behind again; he doesn’t know how he ever made it without the pain. To step out into the world without the crumbling world that was him and Sam, that finally defined him, Dean thought life would be easier - but it wasn’t. That life kept him sane. Or, as sane as he can be.
"Sam, you gonna talk to me anytime soon?"
Dean knew there was nothing to say. And if there ever was, how could they speak? There were times when they could talk to each other without words, just knowing glances and a different movement in their eyes and they just know. But Dean doesn’t know what Sam’s trying to say anymore - he can’t see Sam in the skin that carries his face. That used to carry Sam.
Dean’s watching an empty shell fold shirts and forget life and forget wanting life and he’s just an empty shell. Empty.
They don’t talk to each other - not with words and not with their glances. Not with touches, not with kisses. They never talk because one doesn’t know what to say and the other isn’t sure if he can speak.
- - -
Dean’s wide awake when Sam’s leg wraps around his. He doesn’t pretend to sleep any longer because what’s the use in pretending when the reason why you began deceiving everyone around you wasn’t even paying attention?
Dean stays still when Sam crawls onto his body, shaking from the cold and the sudden feel of human skin against his own. Dean stays silent because there is nothing to say - he’s sure Sam knows that by now that silence means everything.
"I need this," Sam whispers, his voice hoarse and cracked. "Just - I need it."
Dean wants; there’s a difference. Sam knows there’s a difference, but Dean doesn’t say anything. He won’t ever say anything about the difference between need and want, Sam and him. It’s far too great for either of them. All that matters is that they’re both taking it and it fills both differences like cheap alcohol fills drunks, relieving the pain that plagues them like dark clouds temporarily until their skin is left naked and cold and they’re alone, the need and the want back to fill the void where their addictions used to be.
Sam needs Dean inside him to fill the void; Dean wants to hear Sam speak, even if it is without words, just to make all of it - all of this - go away. Sam needs to make Dean bleed so he knows he’s not the only one; Dean wants to see Sam laugh again, so he can convince himself Sam’s not empty. Sam needs, Dean wants.
Dean doesn’t like the difference.
Dean is all alone in his own twisted black cloud before he can protest - he’s not sure if he will anymore. Sam’s nimble fingers brush across the head of his cock, sending shudders throughout Dean’s body and his back arching, hips pushing into Sam’s like it’s all he’s ever wanted. And it is.
The hotel room is sticky hot, broken words and sinful wants hanging in the air like a reminder of what they’re doing. Dean can’t seem to find it in himself to make Sam stop, to tell him no, we shouldn’t. He just holds on tight, fingers digging into Sam’s shoulders, hard enough to leave bruises, as Sam needs and Dean just wants and wants and wants.
Sam’s jaw is clenched and he’s thrusting down harder into Dean, almost like it will make the world better for at least one minute. But he only finds himself wondering more and more why the world had to turn on him like this, to kill the only person he truly loved and the only way for him to find peace if his cock is deep inside his brother, forcing out pleas and cries that he never wants to hear. He doesn’t know what he did to deserve this.
Dean has to bite his lip because he knows he’s loud - his feet are wrapped around Sam’s waist, so he push up with every move, every need, every want. He can’t look Sam in the eye - not yet. He can never ask why Sam moved on, even if it seems like Sam had come back.
When Sam comes, Dean can feel it down to his bones. He wants Sam to stay near him, but Sam pushes away and off him, rolling to his side of the double bed. Dean reaches out for Sam’s elbow and squeezes hard.
"Tell me Sammy," Dean whispers. "Tell me you love me."
Dean wants to hear it, because he can say it and he means it.
Sam doesn’t say anything and somehow, Dean knows exactly what he wants to say.
- - -
I need it.
Dean stays up all night. He just can’t sleep.
I need this. I need it.
He watches Sam sleep, hoping he will wake up and want to need all over again.
I need it.
Dean realizes that Sam said it, not you. Dean knows he should wonder what the means, but he knows. He already knew.
When Sam wakes, Dean’s staring at him without even knowing. Sam slowly sits up and rubs his eyes, averting his eyes. He stretches, yawns and rubs his arms - the hotel room is cold. Colder than it should be.
"You sleep okay?" Dean asks conversationally, like any good brother should. He’s a good brother still, isn’t he?
Sam shrugs. "I guess." He looks away, down to his lap, carefully avoiding Dean.
Dean pauses; he can feel something darker than early morning settle across the room, making the room seem so much more unbearable to stay in. Dean shifts in his chair, pulling at his collar - suddenly, he can’t breathe. The room is suffocating him.
"So. Is this over?" Dean doesn’t need to explain, because there is only one this in their life; Dean never needs to explain because Sam always knows.
Sam looks at him, jaw clenched. Dean waits for the answer. The dark is beginning to squeeze the life out of Dean.
"I guess." Sam looks back to his lap.
The dark gives one last squeeze and Dean stops breathing all together.
Their gone the same day, forgetting that anything had happened between them like all the times before and going back to just being Sam and Dean, brothers, no strings attached. They are nothing more and nothing less than what they started out to be and Dean thinks he should be able to move on, he doesn’t have to live with the guilt that he’s hurting Sam because of this, but he can’t.
He never will and he knows that.
- - -
Cont’d:
Build my walls up, concrete castle