Author:
deirdre_cTitle: Building on Stone Number One
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: hard R
Word Count: ~2,500
Summary: Sam’s obsession with his brother’s hands was Dean’s own damn fault. Slightly AU for S7, spoilers through episode 7.20.
A/N: written as a pinch hit for the
spnspringfling challenge; the lovely
majestic_shriek's prompt was "hand holding." My gratitude is beyond words to my amazing friends
__tiana__ and
electricalgwen for taking the time out of their own crazy schedules to look this over at the last minute. I spent less than a day writing it and more than a day and a half trying to edit out a measly 300 words to get it down to the challenge max!
****
It was Dean’s fault.
When the Wall came down, Sam had lost it, Lucifer’s hallucinations overwhelming him, eating holes in his psyche like a splatter of acid. But just before he’d dissolved completely, Dean had cupped Sam’s hand in his own, pressing deep into the wound with his thumb as if he was sinking an anchor into Sam’s palm that would tether Sam to reality.
From that moment on all Sam could focus on was those hands.
It wasn’t as if Sam had never noticed Dean’s hands before-powerful, gentle, calloused and scarred in some places, oddly smooth in others- they were as familiar as his own.
But lately, like when Dean unwrapped his bandage to check the stitches, the touch of his fingers on Sam’s skin sent unfortunate tingles dancing up his arm and into his chest, and he was caught between the impulse to jerk away and to beg for Dean never to let go.
Days went by and, no matter how annoying Lucifer tried to be, there was something far more distracting to Sam. Like Dean’s fingers tapping against his lips in thought. Or pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance. Or the soft shrrush when he rubbed his palms against jean-clad thighs. Commonplace things Dean had done every day of Sam’s life, but now drew Sam’s attention like gravity.
Things only got worse when they started holding hands.
****
Dean picked up pretty quickly on the way Sam used pressure on his scar to fend off Lucifer.
“That working for you?” he asked through a mouthful of cheeseburger.
Sam clenched and flexed his hand automatically. “Most of the time.”
Dean abruptly reached across the diner table, grabbed Sam’s wrist, and poked his index finger into the scar.
“What are you doing?” Sam protested, trying to pull away.
Dean didn’t answer, just stared into Sam’s eyes in that way he had that made Sam feel transparent, his thoughts blazoned in thirty-point font for Dean to read at will. Dean poked once more, hard, then grazed the tip of his finger whisper-light down the barely-healed seam.
“What the hell, Dean?” He pulled futilely again, squirming, hoping Dean couldn’t feel his pulse leap and skitter.
“Just trying to figure out how this works,” he said. “You see something hinky, but it goes away when you do this?”
When he pushed down it was exquisite, alarming, like all the nerves in Sam’s body were wired to the scar. But that certainly did shut everything else out. “Yeah,” Sam gritted. “It helps.”
Dean finally allowed him to snatch his hand away, and he tucked it quickly under the table, scrubbing at it until the phantom heat of contact started to fade. Dean went back to stuffing his face, but Sam could tell that he wasn’t dropping it.
What Sam did not see coming was Dean, as they stood to leave, pulling Sam’s hand into his, twining their fingers together like… like a date.
“Again, man, what the hell?” Sam tried to shake him off, but Dean gripped so tight Sam could feel the bones in their fingers grind together and people were starting to stare. Sam shut up, dragging Dean out the door.
It turned out Dean had, in some fucked-up twist of logic, decided that to head trouble off at the pass, he’d start holding Sam’s hand. Simple as that. No matter how Sam complained or argued or resisted, Dean had him by the hand wherever they went: in the car, in the aisle of the convenience store, while watching crap television in random motel rooms.
“Whenever practical,” Dean explained mildly, “not on a hunt or anything.” As if walking down the street with his hand casually entangled in Sam’s could ever be called practical. Or normal. Or sane.
But-speaking of sanity -Sam had to admit that the tactic appeared to be working. Lucifer rarely came calling anymore, and never when Dean was holding onto him. Plus, as Sam became more present, the thick fog that hung around him clearing away, he noticed Dean drinking less, smiling more. They were still stressed over how to defeat the Leviathans, but it seemed the continual contact was grounding Dean, too: as if after so much unwanted separation, Dean’s subconscious was soothed by keeping actual, physical tabs on Sam’s whereabouts.
Sam soon discovered that Leviathans didn’t care if brothers held hands. Egyptian gods didn’t either. The witches they met didn’t blink an eye, nor did the vetalas, demons, or any other monsters they ran across. As for people, some glared at their clasped hands, but others nodded, grinning approvingly.
Most days it seemed like the only person who was really bothered by the whole thing was Sam, being towed around like he was four years old and needed Dean to guide him across the street.
That wasn’t the root of the problem, though. The real problem wasn’t that Sam felt four again, but like he was fourteen. The itchy, shameful, urgent feeling of being squeezed into a steamy motel bathroom watching Dean shave and desperately willing a boner to disappear, or sparring in the backyard weeds, Dean’s solid weight pressing down on him, carnal and inescapable.
Sam had successfully buried those feelings a long, long time ago, kept them six feet under throughout all these years.
Until now, when he was skin-to-skin with Dean every day.
Oh, it was all very platonic-- no meaningful stroking of thumb over knuckles or other hint that Dean considered the hand-holding anything other than medicinal-- but Sam found it didn’t matter, he didn’t have the strength anymore to hold those old feelings at bay. Every time Dean reached for him, he ached. And every time he jerked off in the shower, it involved Dean’s hands in some way or the other.
Sam would imagine it in detail, pretending that his fingers were shorter, blunter, more capable. He pretended that instead of his own thumb, it was Dean’s, circling around the tip of his cock, a hint of ragged nail catching on the ridge, rivers of water streaming down the tendons on the back of Dean’s hand as they shifted and released. He imagined the way Dean’s palm would feel when it squeezed Sam’s full length, fingers firm, wrist twisting, coaxing out an orgasm so intense that Sam had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop from calling out Dean’s name.
Sam took a lot of showers.
****
Months went by, and Sam had almost forgotten about the hallucinations. Well, not forgotten, but he was more concerned with hiding his unnatural desire for Dean than dealing with the declawed threat of Lucifer.
Colorado had never been a good-luck state for Winchesters. And, yes, stranger things had happened to them, but Sam was still utterly astonished when they ran into Cas-a resurrected, amnesic, married Cas-while tracking down a healer for a whole town of bystanders they’d been able to rescue from the latest Leviathan infestation.
When his wife-wife -Daphne introduced him to them as Emmanuel, Cas didn’t seem to remember what he was, but he took one look at Sam and said, “It’s better this way.”
He strode down the stairs of the porch and reached out to place his hand on Sam’s forehead. Inside his skull, Sam felt a tug, a pop, then a rush of pain and disorientation, like a plane depressurized in mid-flight or pus draining from an infected blister. He heard Dean shout, saw red light go shooting up Castiel’s arm, spitting and crackling, and then there was silence.
Dean grabbed his arm in support, but Sam shook his head. “I’m good.”
They both turned to Cas. “What was that?” Dean demanded.
Cas stumbled back, cringing, no longer looking at them with a stranger’s equanimity, but with stark fear across his face. Daphne broke Cas’s collapse down onto the steps, calling over her shoulder. “Get out of here!”
“But-“ Sam said, concerned and confused, unwilling to abandon Cas in this strange state.
“Now!” she hissed.
Sam glanced at Dean for support. “We can’t just leave him.”
Dean simply shrugged. “Well, we can't bring him with us. Everything on the planet's out for us.”
Sam had no answer for that. Dean was right, they were no safe haven. They’d have to come back when all this was over.
They turned to walk back to the car of the week, Dean automatically reaching out to take Sam’s hand. But there was no jolt at the touch, no echo of Lucifer’s anger at being shut out again ringing in the back of his brain. He hadn’t even noticed that the constant low-level clamor was still there until it was silenced.
Sam stopped, pulled his hand from Dean’s and prodded it, the scar a near-invisible white ridge. “It’s-“ He looked at Dean uncertainly. “I think I’m cured.”
****
The timing of the cure was perfect, what with things coming to a head with Dick Roman.
So the hand-holding stopped. Sam sat on his own bed when they watched reruns of South Park. He took to walking a half-step behind Dean, no longer needing to be within arm’s reach. Sam hoped that the extra physical space between them would help him reconstruct the fraternal boundaries he’d once had so firmly in place.
It might have worked, except that Dean kept finding excuses to touch him. Passing the salt, waking him at gas stations, little bursts of contact, every day, all the time. Sam tried to remember if it had been like this before, but the past was so mixed up in soullessness and grief and deals and demon blood, Sam couldn’t point to a particular time and say, “There. That was how we normally are.”
Pulling away didn’t seem to be helping, anyway. Every extra inch Sam put between them seemed to add an extra layer of tension. Dean started drinking again, Sam snapped at him.
They were hunting a shojo, sharing a rare moment of ease together, when Dean admitted, “I miss these talks.” What Sam heard was, “I miss the old you.”
****
Back at the motel after seeing Charlie off at the bus station, Dean didn’t even bother taking off his jacket. “I’m going to scope out a location where we can safely mess around with Dick’s rock. Be back in a couple of hours.”
Sam nodded. He figured Dean needed a break from Sam’s disarray.
He eased himself down on the bed, weary but edgy. Relieved Dean was gone because the tension was so high, but missing him already. He thought about the moment in the van, talking to Charlie through her earpiece, Dean grabbing Sam’s hand with the mic in it to get his attention. Sam had flinched away, violently. Both of them had sat frozen, Sam certain Dean had caught on to him at last. Even hours later, here in the motel, he could still feel the electricity that had pinged through him, and his breath started to quicken.
Fuck it, he thought, and unbuttoned his jeans.
He hitched up so that he could shove them down around his thighs, kneading at his cock through the thin cotton of his briefs. He didn’t know how long Dean would be gone, had to make this quick.
He closed his eyes, recalling Dean’s voice as he coached Charlie on flirting, and started jerking himself slowly, steadily.
He had about half a second’s warning of a key scraping and then Dean flung open the door, breezing through. “Hey, Sammy, I-“
It was like a nightmare, Sam paralyzed, staring dumbly at Dean with a hand full of stiff, sticky cock. But then it morphed into a wet dream, as Dean kicked the door shut with a slam and strode over to the bed, falling to his knees between Sam’s spread-wide thighs.
“Tell me to get out,” Dean said, voice low and rougher than gravel road, making Sam’s still-hard dick twitch in his hand.
“Stay,” Sam whispered in reply. “God, please stay.” But even as he said it, he tried to scoot away, close his legs and cover himself so that Dean wouldn’t see that having him there, on the floor in front of him, his mouth-that mouth-so close to Sam’s crotch, was making him crazy with want.
Dean stopped him with a hand on Sam’s bare thigh that seared like a brand, fingers digging in to hold him still. He reached up with his other hand and tugged Sam’s wrist, making him let go of his erection. Dean raised that hand to his lips.
Eyes locked deliberately with his, Dean licked Sam’s palm, tasting the sheen of precome that coated it, his spit leaving it wetter than before. His tongue traced the heel of Sam’s hand, then sucked his whole thumb into his mouth, making Sam yelp and arch up off the bed. Dean moaned in response and swirled his tongue around a few times, scraping the pad of Sam’s thumb with his teeth before he let it go.
Sam panted for air as he looked down at Dean, dazed, shock and lust rocketing through him. Dean twined his fingers with Sam’s and lowered them back toward Sam’s cock. “Show me. Show me what you do.”
He could feel his mouth gape open. What was he supposed to say to that?
“Dean,” was all that came out. It wasn’t no. It wasn’t I’m sorry. It was yes and I’m yours.
He let their hands wrap around his cock, gliding down easily, palm slick with Dean’s saliva. Every inch of him felt ten times more sensitive than usual, every movement of their entwined hands had him whining in the back of his throat, his hips punching up uncontrollably to meet each downstroke. Dean watched, his hand curved around Sam’s, learning Sam’s rhythm, thumb moving in tandem with his over the leaking head.
Sam could barely stand it. He closed his eyes to block out the sight of Dean’s hand on him, but that just made it worse because he could feel everything so much clearer. Way too soon, he was clutching at Dean’s shoulder, groaning, coming in long pulses that radiated out from his spine, sharp and deep. He shivered through the aftershocks, eyes flying open when Dean guided their joined hands back to his lips, where he drew Sam’s come-covered index and middle fingers into his mouth.
It was hotter than any fantasy, Dean with his own jeans open already, fist flying over his thick cock as he sucked desperately at Sam’s fingers. Then Dean was hunching over, gasps of breath hot on Sam’s hand and the smell of sex filling the room.
“I, um,” Dean sat back on his haunches, face flushed, looking conscience-stricken. “I have kind of a thing for your hands.”
Sam grabbed Dean’s shirt and hauled him to kiss the remorse right off of him, kiss him and bite him and get him naked in this bed for at least a week straight. “I know--” he murmured, “--exactly what you mean.”