New SPN story: No Need of Dreams
Happy birthday, killabeez! I wrote Stanford scenario #2 for you. *g*
No Need of Dreams
Supernatural; Sam/Dean, adult, 3,824 words
Summary: Nothing fills the empty space Sam left behind.
No Need of Dreams
by Destina
Dean shifted on his side and listened to his father's labored breathing in the next bed. Nothing he could do about it; Dad wouldn't let him touch the claw marks. Said they were no big deal, though Dean had listened to him grunt and hiss behind the closed bathroom door while he bandaged them himself.
That didn't fly where it came to Dean's own wounds - the ones currently throbbing across Dean's side and lower back, five identical claw marks. He'd had to endure having them cleaned, stitched, dressed, but that wasn't the worst part. Not by a longshot.
"Where the hell was your head tonight, son?" Dad's fingers were gentle when he cleaned the gashes, brisk motions designed to keep the pain to a dull riot in Dean's skin, but his lips had been tight over the words. "You stepped right into its path."
"I thought you were in front of me," Dean had answered. Not an excuse. Not exactly. And that had been the end of the conversation, nothing else to say, everything tidied up like bloody towels and gauze and clipped tape, stowed neatly away. Just like the supplies, though, it could be broken out at any time. It was telling that Dad didn't even bother to deliver the lecture. Dean already knew. He'd fucked up, been too slow to fire, too much in the way.
It had seemed much easier when Sam was with them. Dad didn't want to hear that, didn't want to know that Dean's rhythms were all screwed up because two years later, that space at Dean's back, at his side, that Sam-shaped space was still empty.
He hadn't thought Sam really meant to stay away more than a few months. "He's just proving a point," he'd said, once, just once, because his father hurled a jar of peanut butter across the room and then left the motel for two days. It was the last time they'd talked about it. Dean had called Sam once in a while that first year - birthday, Christmas, random moments of boredom on the road. Sam had called, once or twice, but never for anything important, and once just to find out if Dean had been spying on him. Which he had been, though he didn't think Sam had caught on, but he forgot Sam was older now, smarter than Dean in his DNA, probably, and that was the end of Sam calling, of friendly chats about chicks and the price of textbooks and oh, by the way, it's fucking weird doing this without you, man.
Sam was twenty-one, now. Dean hadn't called, hadn't said a word on his birthday. At 11:59 on that long night, Dean's cell had started to jingle, soft, like an accusation. He'd clenched his hands around the wheel of the Impala and hit the gas, hit it and run until the soft ringing stopped, stopped and never started again.
With a grunt, Dean turned over again, gasping out loud when he pulled at the stitches his father had laced into his skin. His father stirred, but didn't wake. Dean had only had a glimpse of what the thing had done to Dad, but it was way worse than Dean's little scrapes. Otherwise, Dad wouldn't have chased two Vicodin with a full glass of whiskey. He'd be out for a while.
It was Dean's fault, and that made it twice as bad.
The silence in the room stretched in the darkness, growing so deep Dean felt like he was smothering. In the quiet, he could almost hear Sam's whisper: it wasn't your fault. You know he's just pissed because he got hurt. Funny how he had hated the way Sam bashed their dad until he wasn't there to do it anymore, so he had to make it up for himself, but it wasn't the same without Sam there.
Sam's absence was nagging at him, worse than Sam's grumpy little bitch-voice ever had.
He rolled out of bed and looked at Dad for a long moment, then began pulling his clothes toward him, one item at a time. Fifteen long minutes later he was dressed, but the boots...fuck it, he didn't need tied boots to drive. His baby had seen him with less on.
By the bathroom light, he left a note for his father, seven words: Errands to run, meet you in Barstow. He stuck it beside the keys to the truck and the bottle of Vicodin, so no matter which Dad wanted first, he'd figure it out.
**
He made it to Sam's dorm around 3:30 in the morning, and the fucking stairs nearly did him in, but he took a break in the hallway outside Sam's door. It wasn't hard to find; he'd been there before, five or six times. Six. Maybe seven. Doing that spying thing, and just checking up on Sam, because that's what brothers do, and he never had been good at letting go.
The carpet was the ugliest shade of blood-vomit he'd ever seen, and it was so rough it actually hurt his ass on principle. The whole place was quiet, which was unnatural, considering that it was a dorm. Every door was decorated with message boards and stick-on flowers and other shit like that, and it was so teenage it made his teeth ache and his chest hurt.
Or possibly that was because he was bleeding to death.
He got his breath back, got to his feet and banged on the door. When no one answered, he banged again. Sam was there. Had to be. Sam never did anything fun. "Sammy. Get your ass out of bed and answer the door." One more bang. "Sammy!"
The door flew open so fast that Dean was deprived of his leaning post, and he staggered forward into a rumpled, squint-eyed Sam, still warm from bed and smelling of sweat and peppermint, which was just weird. "Dean, what the fuck?" Sam pushed him back, and Dean couldn't stop his face from doing that thing, that twisty contortion that gave everything away, and right then Sam was wide awake. "Jesus Christ, are you hurt?"
"Not til you started pawing me, you little bitch," Dean said, but it came out so weak, he wanted to rip his tongue out. Sam's eyes were wide and anxious, and he pushed the door open.
"Get in here," he ordered.
"Thought I left Dad back at the motel," Dean said, but he went, having achieved full glower on Sam's face.
There was no one else in the room; the other bed was stripped bare. "No roommate?" he asked, surprised.
"It's the end of the term, Dean. You know, summer break? Everyone's gone home."
Dean sank down on the bare mattress and looked up at Sam, trying to ignore the resonance of that, what it actually meant that Sam was still sleeping in an empty dorm rather than come to...wherever Dean and his dad were currently paying for a room. "Oh," was all he said.
Sam ran a hand through his messy hair and sat down on the other bed. "Where's Dad?"
"Not here?" Dean tried, and scored a return of that bitchy look. "Got hurt today. He's sleeping it off."
"Like you should be." Sam leaned forward. "I don't see you for two years and you show up completely fucked up? What do you want?"
Dean looked at Sam, and at the floor, and at that moment, it all seemed like such a stupid idea, he had no idea why he was there. No idea at all. "You're right," he said, and stood up, but the world chose that moment to turn sideways and slide off its axis, and he crashed to one knee, holding his side.
"Dean," Sam said, and then he was right there, pushing shirts and flailing hands aside so he could see. "Oh my god. You've torn all your stitches."
"Huh," Dean said, and passed out.
**
When he woke up it was sunny, and he was thirsty, and he was laid out between scratchy sheets that were still softer than anything he'd been on in months. He blinked and turned his head, and Sam sat forward in the tiny desk chair beside his bed. "About time," Sam said, without a smile, and it dawned on Dean that this wasn't the next morning. In fact, he wasn't sure it was even the next day; judging by the look on Sam's face, he'd been close to ending up in a hospital.
"Thanks," Dean said, without preamble.
"Dad's idea to just sew you up like that?" Sam asked, and Dean marveled for a second at how much he looked like Dad when he did that tight-lip thing with his mouth.
"He was more worried about his own," Dean said. "They were worse."
"I re-stitched you. It's rough, I had to use sewing thread," Sam said, but it didn't matter. Sam's stitches were the neatest anyone would find outside an actual ER.
"It feels pretty good," Dean lied. He peeled back the sheet and lifted his arm. Aside from the fact that he was purple and black from his neck to his abdomen, he did feel better than he had on the drive out.
"After two days of sleep, it ought to." Sam stood up and grabbed his room key. "I'm going to the dining hall to get you something to eat. Stay in bed or I swear I will kick your ass, Dean. I mean it."
"You'll try," Dean said, flashing him some teeth, but Sam just snorted and left him there, oozing blood into itchy gauze.
Dean sat up and looked around. He was in Sam's bed; the other bed was still empty. He couldn't tell where Sam had slept, and the thought that Sam had been curled up next to him threw him back to the week before Sam left for Stanford: awkward silences, quiet touches, soft apologies mixed with a rough plea for Sam not to leave. It had only been the once, the night before Sam left, when Sam was nineteen and Dean was old enough to know better, and it hadn't seemed to matter, until after it was done. Just once.
Dean tried never to think about that, but it was harder to do when he was in Sam's bed and in Sam's sweats, which hung on him like the clothes of a giant.
With his good arm, he stripped off the sweatshirt and then flopped back down on the pillows, intending to get up, call Dad, find his shirt.
When he opened his eyes again, the sun had shifted position where it streamed into the window, and Sam was beside him on the bed, one leg up and a book resting on his knee while he read. "Hey," he said softly, looking down at Dean.
"Hey," Dean said. This time, he didn't move. Lesson learned. He was back in the sweatshirt, he noticed. Persistent bastard. "You got a thing for dressing me in my sleep?"
"I've got a thing for keeping you warm while you heal. Field medic 101," Sam said. "Want something to eat?" He pointed at the desk, where a sandwich sat wilting on a paper plate.
Dean swallowed hard. His stomach wasn't in the mood, so he shook his head. "Later, maybe."
Sam scooted down on the bed so he was full-length laying on it, one hand propped up under his head, and looked at Dean. "So, two years. You'd think there'd be a lot we should talk about."
"You'd think," Dean said, shifting oh so carefully on his side and bunching the pillow up under his head.
"You start," Sam said, with half a smile.
Dean looked at the way Sam's hair fell into his eyes - Dad would have a fit - and at the way his body seemed to have finally caught up with his big head, and it made him smile. "You finally stop growing?"
"Yet to be determined," Sam said. "I eat my vegetables now."
"That figures."
A beat of silence, and then: "So what have you been hunting lately?"
"Why would you care about that?" Dean asked, less pissy retort than earnest curiosity.
Sam shrugged, and Dean could see it in his eyes: I've missed you, too. "It's not like I've forgotten where I came from."
"Could've fooled me," Dean said. "Dad, too." He wouldn't have called it back even if he could, but Sam's eyes shuttered then, the warmth changing to wary caution.
"We about to fight?" Sam asked, almost resigned. "Because I can go somewhere else until you're strong enough to get in your car and go back to killing things."
"I'm strong enough now," Dean snapped, and started to push himself up, but Sam held him in place with just the heel of his hand against Dean's shoulder.
"Maybe not," Sam said. He kept the pressure up until Dean stopped resisting, but he didn't move his hand. It rested against Dean's body, a warm, familiar weight.
"You learning anything here?" Dean asked, thinking of Sam's straight A's and the report cards he'd signed Dad's name to and the homework he'd tried to help Sammy with, no matter how stupid it made him feel.
"Couple things."
"Like?"
Sam's fingertips smoothed over Dean's eyebrow. "You know. Alchemy. Reading tea leaves. That kind of stuff."
They smiled at each other.
"Any new scars?" Sam asked. "Besides the obvious, I mean."
Nothing you can see, thought Dean. "Nothing major. No chunks taken out the last couple years. Not until this thing," he amended, glancing down at his side. "How 'bout you? Some deep paper cuts? Maybe a concussion from a falling library book?"
Sam just looked at him, long enough for Dean to miss one or two breaths. "It isn't all sunshine and roses here, you know."
"No, I don't," Dean said softly.
Sam looked away. "Yeah." He took a deep breath. "I work a lot. Two jobs. Full ride only pays tuition, room and board. Not books, not clothes, other stuff like that."
An overdue pang of guilt tore right through Dean. "Have you missed work because of me?"
"Called in sick. Since I've never done that before, I was due." Sam nodded, as if convincing himself. "Don't worry about it," he added, which made Dean want to smack him upside his head, but it wasn't his life to worry about.
Except for how it totally was.
Sam met his eyes again. "Dad must be worried." He sounded so insincere that Dean thought perhaps Sam's tongue might fall out in penance.
"He does worry, Sam. About you, too."
"Which is why he's called every week and-"
"Shut up," Dean said, low. "You haven't fucking called, either."
"That makes three of us."
"I tried," Dean hissed. "You shut me down."
"Here we go," Sam said, and he was right, it was just as it was in the weeks before Sam left, and Dean was back there in an instant. He could remember every painful second of it: Sam stalking and storming around the apartment, angry and resentful; sleeping with his back to Sam's, the heat of Sam's body enfolding his own; not talking, not listening, not being a family. It had already started, even then.
"Forget it," Dean said, weary. He looked at Sam's face, at his bruise-free neck and arms and hands, no war wounds, no circles under his eyes from being roused at 2AM to hit the road, and a part of him was secretly, fiercely glad.
Then it was his turn to look away, before he opened his mouth and spilled something embarrassing like it's never going to be the same without you and god, Sammy, I can't even fucking fight without you there and when are you coming home? He bit his lower lip hard, because he had to push all that crap away, or by the time he left this room he would hate himself again.
"Hey," Sam said, and he glanced up, forgetting, he'd forgotten how Sam would get that look, the narrowed eyes, the one that said he'd already looked right into your fucking soul and seen, and Dean flinched. "Hey," and Sam's mouth closed over his, forcing him to stop worrying his own lip, soothing the tiny cut Dean had made there with his tongue.
He had tried not to remember, but this was the heart of it, Sam warm and there and everything, and it was fucked up, but Dean didn't really want anything else, and he'd stopped hating himself for it because it was all he could do.
Sam was so careful, with his big rough hands and his gentle, wide mouth, softly exploring Dean like he was some kind of new assignment he could just chart and graph and figure out by touch. Dean knew exactly who had taught Sam to kiss - Tricia Gelfland, behind the dumpsters at Pic n Save when Sam was twelve - but he'd unlearned and learned a lot since then.
Even so, Dean knew more.
It took him three minutes to have his shirt and Sam's shirt off, Sam moaning against his lips, quiet sounds of pleasure that Dean kissed away before causing more of them. "Jesus, Dean," Sam gasped, his hand sliding down Dean's back, so careful not to touch any place he might be hurting, but he couldn't reach inside and soothe the most-wounded parts. Dean rolled his eyes and closed them, because he was turning into a girl and that was an unpardonable sin. One among many.
"Let me," he demanded, but Sam had other ideas. Dean found himself on his back, hips pinned firmly by Sam's hands while Sam pulled his sweats off and kissed his belly, the point of his hip.
"Don't squirm," Sam said, voice rough and low, and Dean forced himself to be still. His side was aching, but he was so hard and Sam's mouth, oh, Jesus, Sam's mouth, he'd never had any idea Sam knew how to do that. Slow suction, no teeth, his hand tight around Dean's cock, following his mouth with hard strokes. Dean arched into it, was met with Sam's hand splayed across his belly, pushing him back down. He hit the bed with a hiss and came, mouth open, no sounds emerging, no way to find enough air to even say Sam's name.
Sam shucked off his jeans and raised up over Dean, straddled his thighs, an intense look on his face. Dean took hold of Sam's cock in his hand, met his eyes; he touched Sam the way he knew Sam wanted it, hard, fast, rough. Sam watched him, hands braced on Dean's thighs, leaning back over Dean's legs, until finally he threw his head back and let it happen, coming so hard his body shook under Dean's steadying hand.
Dean looked at the line of his throat, listened to the soft sounds he was making, and wondered how the hell he was ever going to leave Sam's goddamned bed.
Eventually Sam moved, slid back down the bed to press himself against Dean's body, careful.
"Guess you were tired of talking then, huh," Dean said. He could feel it when Sam smiled against the skin of his shoulder.
"No, but I could tell you were."
"Right," Dean slurred, and just before he fell asleep, he felt Sam's arm slip around him.
**
Morning. Sunshine. Three days without coffee. No post-sex shower. These things brought Dean to a slow, cranky consciousness, and he found Sam was up and dressed and watching him in that way, the way that said Sam had been awake too long already and had been thinking way too hard.
"What?" Dean asked, as he carefully sat up. His side was killing him, but it wasn't the bleed-out-any-minute kind of pain, it was the steal-some-good-drugs-and-get-moving pain. He could handle that.
That's when he noticed that his clothes had been washed, and were folded neatly on the foot of the bed. Like they'd been waiting there for him to wake up. Like a message.
"You didn't just show up here because you were hurt," Sam said, as if that wasn't completely obvious.
"Well, no," Dean said. He glanced at the clothes again. The shower was apparently out. He raised his arm and looked down; he'd slept through being re-bandaged, and cleaned up, too, from the smell of him. Ivory Soap. He couldn't remember the last time he'd slept through being tended to.
"Dean, when are we going to talk about this?"
"By this, you mean..." Dean picked up his shirt and pulled it on, because damned if he was going to have that kind of conversation. Doing it was one thing. Talking about it, just, no. Hell no.
"Two years, Dean. Two years, and then this." Sam shifted uncomfortably in the chair. "Is this how it's always going to be?"
"Dunno," Dean answered. He swung his legs gingerly out of the bed and concentrated on getting the underwear on without pulling anything. "You planning to make staying away from home a habit?"
"Home?"
"Aw, Sam. Don't, okay?" Dean managed to get one leg into his jeans before he needed a break. Sam hesitated, then came to help, but Dean swatted him away. Sam sat down beside him on the bed. "It is what it is. It ain't perfect, but it's our family. You don't want to accept it."
"I don't have to accept it." Sam's chin lifted. So stubborn. Dean hated it when he was stubborn.
"Whatever. You don't have to do a fucking thing." Both legs in his jeans, and then he realized, socks and boots. He winced.
Sam rested his hand on Dean's knee, and then he was on his knees, efficiently pulling on the right sock, then the boot, then lacing it. Lather, rinse, repeat. Dean had a flash of teaching Sam how to tie his shoes, Sam's frowning face turned up to his in confusion as Dean patiently untied and re-tied the knots.
Seemed like not much had changed, actually.
Sam never did ask him why, exactly, he'd shown up. Dean thought that was just as well, because he wasn't going to tell him. But he noticed Sam didn't ask, and that was enough to get him moving, off the bed and toward the door. "Keys?" he asked, feeling the pockets of the just-washed jeans.
"Dean. You can stay. I wish... This doesn't - you don't have to -"
"You said it, Sammy. Dad's probably worried." His cell hadn't rung in three days; there were no messages.
"Dean."
He didn't dare look back, because he knew what he'd see, and then he would stay, and it would be a mess, and Dean Winchester didn't make those kinds of messes. So he stretched out his hand and took the keys, and he twisted his fingers around Sam's for a millisecond longer than was necessary, and then he let go.
~end~
December 3-4, 2006
This story is for Killa, who made this request once upon a time: Also love and adore anything where Dean shows up during the Stanford years, especially if it's angsty and maybe there's badwrongsex and ends badly. The title is from the gorgeous poem 'the two of us together have no need' by Andrea Inglese: The two of us together have no need/of dreams, nor sagas, legends, or rites
No Need of Dreams
Supernatural; Sam/Dean, adult, 3,824 words
Summary: Nothing fills the empty space Sam left behind.
No Need of Dreams
by Destina
Dean shifted on his side and listened to his father's labored breathing in the next bed. Nothing he could do about it; Dad wouldn't let him touch the claw marks. Said they were no big deal, though Dean had listened to him grunt and hiss behind the closed bathroom door while he bandaged them himself.
That didn't fly where it came to Dean's own wounds - the ones currently throbbing across Dean's side and lower back, five identical claw marks. He'd had to endure having them cleaned, stitched, dressed, but that wasn't the worst part. Not by a longshot.
"Where the hell was your head tonight, son?" Dad's fingers were gentle when he cleaned the gashes, brisk motions designed to keep the pain to a dull riot in Dean's skin, but his lips had been tight over the words. "You stepped right into its path."
"I thought you were in front of me," Dean had answered. Not an excuse. Not exactly. And that had been the end of the conversation, nothing else to say, everything tidied up like bloody towels and gauze and clipped tape, stowed neatly away. Just like the supplies, though, it could be broken out at any time. It was telling that Dad didn't even bother to deliver the lecture. Dean already knew. He'd fucked up, been too slow to fire, too much in the way.
It had seemed much easier when Sam was with them. Dad didn't want to hear that, didn't want to know that Dean's rhythms were all screwed up because two years later, that space at Dean's back, at his side, that Sam-shaped space was still empty.
He hadn't thought Sam really meant to stay away more than a few months. "He's just proving a point," he'd said, once, just once, because his father hurled a jar of peanut butter across the room and then left the motel for two days. It was the last time they'd talked about it. Dean had called Sam once in a while that first year - birthday, Christmas, random moments of boredom on the road. Sam had called, once or twice, but never for anything important, and once just to find out if Dean had been spying on him. Which he had been, though he didn't think Sam had caught on, but he forgot Sam was older now, smarter than Dean in his DNA, probably, and that was the end of Sam calling, of friendly chats about chicks and the price of textbooks and oh, by the way, it's fucking weird doing this without you, man.
Sam was twenty-one, now. Dean hadn't called, hadn't said a word on his birthday. At 11:59 on that long night, Dean's cell had started to jingle, soft, like an accusation. He'd clenched his hands around the wheel of the Impala and hit the gas, hit it and run until the soft ringing stopped, stopped and never started again.
With a grunt, Dean turned over again, gasping out loud when he pulled at the stitches his father had laced into his skin. His father stirred, but didn't wake. Dean had only had a glimpse of what the thing had done to Dad, but it was way worse than Dean's little scrapes. Otherwise, Dad wouldn't have chased two Vicodin with a full glass of whiskey. He'd be out for a while.
It was Dean's fault, and that made it twice as bad.
The silence in the room stretched in the darkness, growing so deep Dean felt like he was smothering. In the quiet, he could almost hear Sam's whisper: it wasn't your fault. You know he's just pissed because he got hurt. Funny how he had hated the way Sam bashed their dad until he wasn't there to do it anymore, so he had to make it up for himself, but it wasn't the same without Sam there.
Sam's absence was nagging at him, worse than Sam's grumpy little bitch-voice ever had.
He rolled out of bed and looked at Dad for a long moment, then began pulling his clothes toward him, one item at a time. Fifteen long minutes later he was dressed, but the boots...fuck it, he didn't need tied boots to drive. His baby had seen him with less on.
By the bathroom light, he left a note for his father, seven words: Errands to run, meet you in Barstow. He stuck it beside the keys to the truck and the bottle of Vicodin, so no matter which Dad wanted first, he'd figure it out.
**
He made it to Sam's dorm around 3:30 in the morning, and the fucking stairs nearly did him in, but he took a break in the hallway outside Sam's door. It wasn't hard to find; he'd been there before, five or six times. Six. Maybe seven. Doing that spying thing, and just checking up on Sam, because that's what brothers do, and he never had been good at letting go.
The carpet was the ugliest shade of blood-vomit he'd ever seen, and it was so rough it actually hurt his ass on principle. The whole place was quiet, which was unnatural, considering that it was a dorm. Every door was decorated with message boards and stick-on flowers and other shit like that, and it was so teenage it made his teeth ache and his chest hurt.
Or possibly that was because he was bleeding to death.
He got his breath back, got to his feet and banged on the door. When no one answered, he banged again. Sam was there. Had to be. Sam never did anything fun. "Sammy. Get your ass out of bed and answer the door." One more bang. "Sammy!"
The door flew open so fast that Dean was deprived of his leaning post, and he staggered forward into a rumpled, squint-eyed Sam, still warm from bed and smelling of sweat and peppermint, which was just weird. "Dean, what the fuck?" Sam pushed him back, and Dean couldn't stop his face from doing that thing, that twisty contortion that gave everything away, and right then Sam was wide awake. "Jesus Christ, are you hurt?"
"Not til you started pawing me, you little bitch," Dean said, but it came out so weak, he wanted to rip his tongue out. Sam's eyes were wide and anxious, and he pushed the door open.
"Get in here," he ordered.
"Thought I left Dad back at the motel," Dean said, but he went, having achieved full glower on Sam's face.
There was no one else in the room; the other bed was stripped bare. "No roommate?" he asked, surprised.
"It's the end of the term, Dean. You know, summer break? Everyone's gone home."
Dean sank down on the bare mattress and looked up at Sam, trying to ignore the resonance of that, what it actually meant that Sam was still sleeping in an empty dorm rather than come to...wherever Dean and his dad were currently paying for a room. "Oh," was all he said.
Sam ran a hand through his messy hair and sat down on the other bed. "Where's Dad?"
"Not here?" Dean tried, and scored a return of that bitchy look. "Got hurt today. He's sleeping it off."
"Like you should be." Sam leaned forward. "I don't see you for two years and you show up completely fucked up? What do you want?"
Dean looked at Sam, and at the floor, and at that moment, it all seemed like such a stupid idea, he had no idea why he was there. No idea at all. "You're right," he said, and stood up, but the world chose that moment to turn sideways and slide off its axis, and he crashed to one knee, holding his side.
"Dean," Sam said, and then he was right there, pushing shirts and flailing hands aside so he could see. "Oh my god. You've torn all your stitches."
"Huh," Dean said, and passed out.
**
When he woke up it was sunny, and he was thirsty, and he was laid out between scratchy sheets that were still softer than anything he'd been on in months. He blinked and turned his head, and Sam sat forward in the tiny desk chair beside his bed. "About time," Sam said, without a smile, and it dawned on Dean that this wasn't the next morning. In fact, he wasn't sure it was even the next day; judging by the look on Sam's face, he'd been close to ending up in a hospital.
"Thanks," Dean said, without preamble.
"Dad's idea to just sew you up like that?" Sam asked, and Dean marveled for a second at how much he looked like Dad when he did that tight-lip thing with his mouth.
"He was more worried about his own," Dean said. "They were worse."
"I re-stitched you. It's rough, I had to use sewing thread," Sam said, but it didn't matter. Sam's stitches were the neatest anyone would find outside an actual ER.
"It feels pretty good," Dean lied. He peeled back the sheet and lifted his arm. Aside from the fact that he was purple and black from his neck to his abdomen, he did feel better than he had on the drive out.
"After two days of sleep, it ought to." Sam stood up and grabbed his room key. "I'm going to the dining hall to get you something to eat. Stay in bed or I swear I will kick your ass, Dean. I mean it."
"You'll try," Dean said, flashing him some teeth, but Sam just snorted and left him there, oozing blood into itchy gauze.
Dean sat up and looked around. He was in Sam's bed; the other bed was still empty. He couldn't tell where Sam had slept, and the thought that Sam had been curled up next to him threw him back to the week before Sam left for Stanford: awkward silences, quiet touches, soft apologies mixed with a rough plea for Sam not to leave. It had only been the once, the night before Sam left, when Sam was nineteen and Dean was old enough to know better, and it hadn't seemed to matter, until after it was done. Just once.
Dean tried never to think about that, but it was harder to do when he was in Sam's bed and in Sam's sweats, which hung on him like the clothes of a giant.
With his good arm, he stripped off the sweatshirt and then flopped back down on the pillows, intending to get up, call Dad, find his shirt.
When he opened his eyes again, the sun had shifted position where it streamed into the window, and Sam was beside him on the bed, one leg up and a book resting on his knee while he read. "Hey," he said softly, looking down at Dean.
"Hey," Dean said. This time, he didn't move. Lesson learned. He was back in the sweatshirt, he noticed. Persistent bastard. "You got a thing for dressing me in my sleep?"
"I've got a thing for keeping you warm while you heal. Field medic 101," Sam said. "Want something to eat?" He pointed at the desk, where a sandwich sat wilting on a paper plate.
Dean swallowed hard. His stomach wasn't in the mood, so he shook his head. "Later, maybe."
Sam scooted down on the bed so he was full-length laying on it, one hand propped up under his head, and looked at Dean. "So, two years. You'd think there'd be a lot we should talk about."
"You'd think," Dean said, shifting oh so carefully on his side and bunching the pillow up under his head.
"You start," Sam said, with half a smile.
Dean looked at the way Sam's hair fell into his eyes - Dad would have a fit - and at the way his body seemed to have finally caught up with his big head, and it made him smile. "You finally stop growing?"
"Yet to be determined," Sam said. "I eat my vegetables now."
"That figures."
A beat of silence, and then: "So what have you been hunting lately?"
"Why would you care about that?" Dean asked, less pissy retort than earnest curiosity.
Sam shrugged, and Dean could see it in his eyes: I've missed you, too. "It's not like I've forgotten where I came from."
"Could've fooled me," Dean said. "Dad, too." He wouldn't have called it back even if he could, but Sam's eyes shuttered then, the warmth changing to wary caution.
"We about to fight?" Sam asked, almost resigned. "Because I can go somewhere else until you're strong enough to get in your car and go back to killing things."
"I'm strong enough now," Dean snapped, and started to push himself up, but Sam held him in place with just the heel of his hand against Dean's shoulder.
"Maybe not," Sam said. He kept the pressure up until Dean stopped resisting, but he didn't move his hand. It rested against Dean's body, a warm, familiar weight.
"You learning anything here?" Dean asked, thinking of Sam's straight A's and the report cards he'd signed Dad's name to and the homework he'd tried to help Sammy with, no matter how stupid it made him feel.
"Couple things."
"Like?"
Sam's fingertips smoothed over Dean's eyebrow. "You know. Alchemy. Reading tea leaves. That kind of stuff."
They smiled at each other.
"Any new scars?" Sam asked. "Besides the obvious, I mean."
Nothing you can see, thought Dean. "Nothing major. No chunks taken out the last couple years. Not until this thing," he amended, glancing down at his side. "How 'bout you? Some deep paper cuts? Maybe a concussion from a falling library book?"
Sam just looked at him, long enough for Dean to miss one or two breaths. "It isn't all sunshine and roses here, you know."
"No, I don't," Dean said softly.
Sam looked away. "Yeah." He took a deep breath. "I work a lot. Two jobs. Full ride only pays tuition, room and board. Not books, not clothes, other stuff like that."
An overdue pang of guilt tore right through Dean. "Have you missed work because of me?"
"Called in sick. Since I've never done that before, I was due." Sam nodded, as if convincing himself. "Don't worry about it," he added, which made Dean want to smack him upside his head, but it wasn't his life to worry about.
Except for how it totally was.
Sam met his eyes again. "Dad must be worried." He sounded so insincere that Dean thought perhaps Sam's tongue might fall out in penance.
"He does worry, Sam. About you, too."
"Which is why he's called every week and-"
"Shut up," Dean said, low. "You haven't fucking called, either."
"That makes three of us."
"I tried," Dean hissed. "You shut me down."
"Here we go," Sam said, and he was right, it was just as it was in the weeks before Sam left, and Dean was back there in an instant. He could remember every painful second of it: Sam stalking and storming around the apartment, angry and resentful; sleeping with his back to Sam's, the heat of Sam's body enfolding his own; not talking, not listening, not being a family. It had already started, even then.
"Forget it," Dean said, weary. He looked at Sam's face, at his bruise-free neck and arms and hands, no war wounds, no circles under his eyes from being roused at 2AM to hit the road, and a part of him was secretly, fiercely glad.
Then it was his turn to look away, before he opened his mouth and spilled something embarrassing like it's never going to be the same without you and god, Sammy, I can't even fucking fight without you there and when are you coming home? He bit his lower lip hard, because he had to push all that crap away, or by the time he left this room he would hate himself again.
"Hey," Sam said, and he glanced up, forgetting, he'd forgotten how Sam would get that look, the narrowed eyes, the one that said he'd already looked right into your fucking soul and seen, and Dean flinched. "Hey," and Sam's mouth closed over his, forcing him to stop worrying his own lip, soothing the tiny cut Dean had made there with his tongue.
He had tried not to remember, but this was the heart of it, Sam warm and there and everything, and it was fucked up, but Dean didn't really want anything else, and he'd stopped hating himself for it because it was all he could do.
Sam was so careful, with his big rough hands and his gentle, wide mouth, softly exploring Dean like he was some kind of new assignment he could just chart and graph and figure out by touch. Dean knew exactly who had taught Sam to kiss - Tricia Gelfland, behind the dumpsters at Pic n Save when Sam was twelve - but he'd unlearned and learned a lot since then.
Even so, Dean knew more.
It took him three minutes to have his shirt and Sam's shirt off, Sam moaning against his lips, quiet sounds of pleasure that Dean kissed away before causing more of them. "Jesus, Dean," Sam gasped, his hand sliding down Dean's back, so careful not to touch any place he might be hurting, but he couldn't reach inside and soothe the most-wounded parts. Dean rolled his eyes and closed them, because he was turning into a girl and that was an unpardonable sin. One among many.
"Let me," he demanded, but Sam had other ideas. Dean found himself on his back, hips pinned firmly by Sam's hands while Sam pulled his sweats off and kissed his belly, the point of his hip.
"Don't squirm," Sam said, voice rough and low, and Dean forced himself to be still. His side was aching, but he was so hard and Sam's mouth, oh, Jesus, Sam's mouth, he'd never had any idea Sam knew how to do that. Slow suction, no teeth, his hand tight around Dean's cock, following his mouth with hard strokes. Dean arched into it, was met with Sam's hand splayed across his belly, pushing him back down. He hit the bed with a hiss and came, mouth open, no sounds emerging, no way to find enough air to even say Sam's name.
Sam shucked off his jeans and raised up over Dean, straddled his thighs, an intense look on his face. Dean took hold of Sam's cock in his hand, met his eyes; he touched Sam the way he knew Sam wanted it, hard, fast, rough. Sam watched him, hands braced on Dean's thighs, leaning back over Dean's legs, until finally he threw his head back and let it happen, coming so hard his body shook under Dean's steadying hand.
Dean looked at the line of his throat, listened to the soft sounds he was making, and wondered how the hell he was ever going to leave Sam's goddamned bed.
Eventually Sam moved, slid back down the bed to press himself against Dean's body, careful.
"Guess you were tired of talking then, huh," Dean said. He could feel it when Sam smiled against the skin of his shoulder.
"No, but I could tell you were."
"Right," Dean slurred, and just before he fell asleep, he felt Sam's arm slip around him.
**
Morning. Sunshine. Three days without coffee. No post-sex shower. These things brought Dean to a slow, cranky consciousness, and he found Sam was up and dressed and watching him in that way, the way that said Sam had been awake too long already and had been thinking way too hard.
"What?" Dean asked, as he carefully sat up. His side was killing him, but it wasn't the bleed-out-any-minute kind of pain, it was the steal-some-good-drugs-and-get-moving pain. He could handle that.
That's when he noticed that his clothes had been washed, and were folded neatly on the foot of the bed. Like they'd been waiting there for him to wake up. Like a message.
"You didn't just show up here because you were hurt," Sam said, as if that wasn't completely obvious.
"Well, no," Dean said. He glanced at the clothes again. The shower was apparently out. He raised his arm and looked down; he'd slept through being re-bandaged, and cleaned up, too, from the smell of him. Ivory Soap. He couldn't remember the last time he'd slept through being tended to.
"Dean, when are we going to talk about this?"
"By this, you mean..." Dean picked up his shirt and pulled it on, because damned if he was going to have that kind of conversation. Doing it was one thing. Talking about it, just, no. Hell no.
"Two years, Dean. Two years, and then this." Sam shifted uncomfortably in the chair. "Is this how it's always going to be?"
"Dunno," Dean answered. He swung his legs gingerly out of the bed and concentrated on getting the underwear on without pulling anything. "You planning to make staying away from home a habit?"
"Home?"
"Aw, Sam. Don't, okay?" Dean managed to get one leg into his jeans before he needed a break. Sam hesitated, then came to help, but Dean swatted him away. Sam sat down beside him on the bed. "It is what it is. It ain't perfect, but it's our family. You don't want to accept it."
"I don't have to accept it." Sam's chin lifted. So stubborn. Dean hated it when he was stubborn.
"Whatever. You don't have to do a fucking thing." Both legs in his jeans, and then he realized, socks and boots. He winced.
Sam rested his hand on Dean's knee, and then he was on his knees, efficiently pulling on the right sock, then the boot, then lacing it. Lather, rinse, repeat. Dean had a flash of teaching Sam how to tie his shoes, Sam's frowning face turned up to his in confusion as Dean patiently untied and re-tied the knots.
Seemed like not much had changed, actually.
Sam never did ask him why, exactly, he'd shown up. Dean thought that was just as well, because he wasn't going to tell him. But he noticed Sam didn't ask, and that was enough to get him moving, off the bed and toward the door. "Keys?" he asked, feeling the pockets of the just-washed jeans.
"Dean. You can stay. I wish... This doesn't - you don't have to -"
"You said it, Sammy. Dad's probably worried." His cell hadn't rung in three days; there were no messages.
"Dean."
He didn't dare look back, because he knew what he'd see, and then he would stay, and it would be a mess, and Dean Winchester didn't make those kinds of messes. So he stretched out his hand and took the keys, and he twisted his fingers around Sam's for a millisecond longer than was necessary, and then he let go.
~end~
December 3-4, 2006
This story is for Killa, who made this request once upon a time: Also love and adore anything where Dean shows up during the Stanford years, especially if it's angsty and maybe there's badwrongsex and ends badly. The title is from the gorgeous poem 'the two of us together have no need' by Andrea Inglese: The two of us together have no need/of dreams, nor sagas, legends, or rites