Wincest | Roots Stronger Than You Know | NC-17
Title: Roots Stronger Than You Know
Words: 2200
Summary: Sam's outburst at the the therapist's office pushes Dean to remind his brother that he'll always be there for him. A coda to 12.04 The Big Empty
Notes: Written for smpc. Big thank you to my one and only cucharita cherie_morte for the lovely beta <333. Title and cut text from Foo Fighters' "Concrete and Gold" because of course it is ;-)
Read on AO3
you had something with her that I never had
The words echo in the empty of Dean’s heart, resonating through his cracked chest where meaning used to live.
Everything has changed in the last year: Mom resurfacing then disappearing, again and again, until finally falling into the rift between this world and a hundred others. Cas is gone, Kelly’s dead, along with a host of other folks caught in the dusty trail the Winchesters leave behind them everywhere they go.
The tattered remains of all the people they’ve met and saved along the way pile up to form the ache in the pit of Dean’s stomach.
And now Sam. His continued hope that Mom will return. The tension tearing between them whenever they speak of the devil’s son. Sam’s feelings rising to the surface.
Like a punch to the gut, Dean had been rendered silent when Sam admitted what lies beneath his hope for Mom to still be alive. That Sam seeks more with their mother, needs it, and prays for it to resurface along with her.
Dean empties the last of his beer and sets the bottle on the table in the library. He and Sam had shared a round after returning from their run in with the shifter, but Sam had remained mostly quiet, sticking to a book and his wild thoughts.
He couldn’t move until Sam had left the room with a muttered g’night trailing his quick escape. Now he can’t sit still and shifts in his seat. Dozens of notions and worries stir within, all of them spiraling back to his brother and the vigor of that troubled mind.
It would be so easy to turn out the lights and hit the sack. He could go to bed and wake with the next case on the horizon and this mess behind them, and they would continue to move forward.
Dean knows that’s never really worked for them, anyway, so he walks headfirst into the shambles of their family dynamics: to Sam’s room.
The door is wide open and Sam is perched at the side of his bed, big frame huddled down over a thick tome. His long fingers coast down the page, catching words on his fingernails, and his lips silently carve out the letters.
Dean watches from the doorway for countless moments, leaning against the wood and watching his brother. That little boy who’s grown up from scrawny and whiny and naïve into the strongest sonuvabitch Dean’s ever met.
Muscles twist together to make Sam a mean fighting machine, while the deep beating of his oversized heart make him human.
How many men could survive all the trials Sam has tackled in a lifetime and come out reasonably whole on the other end?
It’s painful and electrifying all at once to think about the pieces that make Sam … Sam. Not least of all is who he is for Dean …
Dean clears his throat when the feelings are too big for the hole inside him. Sam glances over, then returns to the book in his hands so quickly, it’s as if he doesn’t even notice Dean.
“Hey, about today …” Dean starts.
Sam stops him. “It’s fine.”
“Sam.”
“I’m fine,” he tosses over his shoulder. “We don’t have to talk about it.
Slowly, Dean nears the bed and tries his best to tiptoe into Sam’s sanctuary of introspection. “No. We absolutely should.”
“You …” Sam’s eyebrows furrow. “You want to talk about it. You feeling okay?
Dean smirks a little. Sam’s not wrong to think Dean wanting to talk is out of the range of normal for them; still, it hurts to know that it puts his brother on guard. “You want to talk about it.” He sits next to Sam and twists his hands together. “So let’s talk.”
“It’s fine. Really, Dean,” Sam brushes off. He stands up and moves towards his desk, a bundle of nerves and insecurities making him tick.
Immediately, Dean tugs at the back of Sam’s shirt, pulls him back down to the mattress where he was just seconds ago. “It’s not fine.” He sucks in a long breath and holds it, feels the way his ribs creak and scrape against his lungs with the new pressure. It’s welcome at the moment. “We never try to talk these things through-”
“We?”
“Okay, I. I never want to. But when has that worked for us? Dad. Ellen. Jo. Bobby. Cas … the few hundred times he’s disappeared.”
Sam flashes one of his awkward, tense smiles, yet can’t bring his eyes up to meet Dean’s.
“I get it now. Bottling it all up and just headbutting my way through the day doesn’t help anyone but me. And there’s two of us here.” When Sam’s head drops, hair shielding his face, Dean shuffles closer. He hesitantly sets his hand on Sam’s back, right between those broad shoulders that hold the weight of this messed-up world year after year. “I can’t bring Mom back. And I can’t replace what you’re missing.”
Sam points out, “I’m not asking you to.”
“You damn well know I want to, though.”
Through Sam’s quiet, Dean clears his throat and goes right for the root of his intentions.
“You were right. You never really had Mom. But you’ve always had me.”
Sam sighs in resignation. “It’s not the same.”
“And it shouldn’t be,” Dean says, placing his hands on Sam’s face and forcing them to stare each other in the eye. “I know it never could be the same thing. Not in a million years. But I don’t want you to forget that I’m here. You still have me. And I’ve got you. That’s the biggest thing I believe right now.”
“You said you didn’t believe in anything right now.”
Dean feels a crack in his chest, another piece of him crumbling for all that his words do to his brother. With a shaky hand, he touches the back of Sam’s head, lets his fingers slip through his hair. “I believe in you.”
Sam side-eyes him, and Dean supposes he deserves that. Their relationship hasn’t always been easy. Dean hasn’t always been the best big brother or explained his actions well. But he has to now.
“If I can’t believe in you … a skinny lil' gnat with floppy hair turning into freaking Luke Skywalker and leading the franchise, well then, what can I believe in?”
Sam’s eyes grow wet as the words sink in and Dean pulls him closer, wraps his arm around Sam’s neck to tuck him in tight.
He kisses the side of Sam’s head and murmurs reassurances that they have each other, then and now. “We’ve always got each other,” he whispers into Sam’s hair. “You’ve always got me.” With his other hand, he pats Sam’s chest, holding firm to the center of his heart. “No matter what happens, or what stupid shit I say, I’m always here for you.”
“Gonna have to prove it,” Sam says, a hint of a dare on the edge of his voice.
In the end, Dean will give Sam what he needs. And that’s all Dean really needs anyway. So he slides his hand down Sam’s chest, then scrambles at the edge of Sam’s shirts to touch the bare, tight skin of his stomach. Warmth seeps into Dean’s fingers and he spreads it around the smooth planes of Sam’s abdomen, then slips down. The tips of his fingers rest just beneath the waist of Sam’s jeans as Dean listens to the broken breathing of his brother, barely holding on in anticipation.
Sam shifts in Dean’s hold, yet doesn’t shrug him off, just settles more comfortably beneath Dean’s arm. With his head hung low, Dean can’t see his face; he imagines his little brother is watching and taking advantage of this front row seat to the action.
Dean presses his lips to Sam’s ear, mumbles, “I got you.” Then he proves it by working on Sam’s belt, button, and fly to get his heated, red cock in his hand.
Sam whistles out a breath as Dean closes his fist around the head of Sam’s dick. His shoulders rise under Dean’s arm as he does his best to remain positively still. Dean is the one that keeps moving as he slowly runs his hand up and down Sam’s dick, squeezing and tugging at the tip.
A soft rumles of Dean, Dean, Dean amplifies the staccato beat of Dean’s heart. Those four letters off Sam’s tongue can mean a million different things in the heat of any moment. Right now, Dean knows it’s his brother begging, needing, reaching out without moving a muscle. He gets a little rough and fast, yanking withered moans out of Sam’s mouth. Just like Dean imagines in the shower or dreams behind closed eyes.
“Got you,” Dean repeats as Sam comes apart from the inside out, shaking and stuttering a mess of noises.
He slowly fists Sam through the remnants of his orgasm, come easing the way and marking Dean’s fingers with this memory. He waits until Sam can get his tongue around any words and holds his breath as Sam tries to catch his.
“C’mere,” Sam grunts as he reaches for Dean, pulling on his face to bring him in, take over his mouth with a fierce, deep, dirty kiss. Like he’s dying of thirst and he can drink from Dean, lap at his soul and make them whole again. The rivers raging beneath the surface are dirtied from all they’ve been through, yet it seems to be Sam’s life source.
In the far recesses of his mind, Dean knows that Sam’s ferocity in bed is his outlet for all he buries inside. He knows that Sam reacts on instinct when they’re like this, rather than the contemplations he makes in the daylight. Also knows that Sam thinks he has to prove it right back to Dean, and maybe even himself, that they have each other like no one else can. Past, present, or future, no two souls will be theirs.
Sam pushes Dean down to the mattress and easily yanks his knees to get him into place so Sam can settle between his legs. He messily makes his way down Dean’s face, his neck, over the flannel of his shirt, and finally to the growing bulge in Dean’s pants. He sucks at the soft, worn denim as Dean kicks back on the mattress and tries to keep himself together before Sam makes him blow a load in his jeans.
“Sammy,” Dean says, hoping to soothe his brother. Slow him down a bit.
The response is Sam’s strong hands tearing at Dean’s belt and jeans like there’s a lost soul hidden beneath. And maybe there is, because Dean doesn’t often feel complete. Moments like this get him pretty close.
When Sam gets his mouth around Dean’s dick, the timeclock starts and Dean can’t hold on for long. He stretches out on the bed and reaches for the bed frame, sheets, anything to hold on as this tornado twists around him.
“Sammy,” he says now, hoping Sam can hear everything in the way the sounds tumble out of his mouth.
Sam pauses briefly. Just long enough to insist, “You got me,” before diving back in to lick and suck and tease at every line of Dean’s cock.
There’s no finesse to it. Sam is on a mission to take all of Dean like he’s reminding himself that they’re so deeply entangled he needs to always taste Dean at the back of his throat. Dean makes sure Sam does. As it builds to the finish, he wraps his hands into Sam’s hair and keeps his brother in his lap and he comes, taking what he wants while giving Sam all that he needs. Sam doesn’t fight it, seizing his reward and penance all at once. He sucks Dean clean, then drops beside him on the bed, chest rising high with every harsh breath.
As blood rushes through his body and his breathing comes back down to normal, Dean examines the room. He picks up on the barest touches of Sam in the room: a couple chewed up pencils on the desk, jackets neatly hung on hooks on the far wall, and a zippo lighter on the nightstand he picked up in New Orleans, with three Xs carved into the side for Voodoo’s highest priestess.
Then Dean notices the light breeze of air coming from the hallway. He huffs. “We should close the door.”
Sam gets busy fixing himself and putting his pants back into place. He stays completely silent.
“We’ve got your young Padawan down the hall.”
Belatedly, Sam remembers Jack. “Oh. Yeah.”
Dean zips up his jeans, yet lets the belt hang loose at his waist. Sits back a bit more comfortably and sighs as he glances at his brother. “Next time.”
“Yeah.”
They share a long look and Dean can see the color return to his brother’s cheeks and clarity in his eyes.
And he knows. Dean has something with Sam that no one will have. Ever.
Words: 2200
Summary: Sam's outburst at the the therapist's office pushes Dean to remind his brother that he'll always be there for him. A coda to 12.04 The Big Empty
Notes: Written for smpc. Big thank you to my one and only cucharita cherie_morte for the lovely beta <333. Title and cut text from Foo Fighters' "Concrete and Gold" because of course it is ;-)
Read on AO3
you had something with her that I never had
The words echo in the empty of Dean’s heart, resonating through his cracked chest where meaning used to live.
Everything has changed in the last year: Mom resurfacing then disappearing, again and again, until finally falling into the rift between this world and a hundred others. Cas is gone, Kelly’s dead, along with a host of other folks caught in the dusty trail the Winchesters leave behind them everywhere they go.
The tattered remains of all the people they’ve met and saved along the way pile up to form the ache in the pit of Dean’s stomach.
And now Sam. His continued hope that Mom will return. The tension tearing between them whenever they speak of the devil’s son. Sam’s feelings rising to the surface.
Like a punch to the gut, Dean had been rendered silent when Sam admitted what lies beneath his hope for Mom to still be alive. That Sam seeks more with their mother, needs it, and prays for it to resurface along with her.
Dean empties the last of his beer and sets the bottle on the table in the library. He and Sam had shared a round after returning from their run in with the shifter, but Sam had remained mostly quiet, sticking to a book and his wild thoughts.
He couldn’t move until Sam had left the room with a muttered g’night trailing his quick escape. Now he can’t sit still and shifts in his seat. Dozens of notions and worries stir within, all of them spiraling back to his brother and the vigor of that troubled mind.
It would be so easy to turn out the lights and hit the sack. He could go to bed and wake with the next case on the horizon and this mess behind them, and they would continue to move forward.
Dean knows that’s never really worked for them, anyway, so he walks headfirst into the shambles of their family dynamics: to Sam’s room.
The door is wide open and Sam is perched at the side of his bed, big frame huddled down over a thick tome. His long fingers coast down the page, catching words on his fingernails, and his lips silently carve out the letters.
Dean watches from the doorway for countless moments, leaning against the wood and watching his brother. That little boy who’s grown up from scrawny and whiny and naïve into the strongest sonuvabitch Dean’s ever met.
Muscles twist together to make Sam a mean fighting machine, while the deep beating of his oversized heart make him human.
How many men could survive all the trials Sam has tackled in a lifetime and come out reasonably whole on the other end?
It’s painful and electrifying all at once to think about the pieces that make Sam … Sam. Not least of all is who he is for Dean …
Dean clears his throat when the feelings are too big for the hole inside him. Sam glances over, then returns to the book in his hands so quickly, it’s as if he doesn’t even notice Dean.
“Hey, about today …” Dean starts.
Sam stops him. “It’s fine.”
“Sam.”
“I’m fine,” he tosses over his shoulder. “We don’t have to talk about it.
Slowly, Dean nears the bed and tries his best to tiptoe into Sam’s sanctuary of introspection. “No. We absolutely should.”
“You …” Sam’s eyebrows furrow. “You want to talk about it. You feeling okay?
Dean smirks a little. Sam’s not wrong to think Dean wanting to talk is out of the range of normal for them; still, it hurts to know that it puts his brother on guard. “You want to talk about it.” He sits next to Sam and twists his hands together. “So let’s talk.”
“It’s fine. Really, Dean,” Sam brushes off. He stands up and moves towards his desk, a bundle of nerves and insecurities making him tick.
Immediately, Dean tugs at the back of Sam’s shirt, pulls him back down to the mattress where he was just seconds ago. “It’s not fine.” He sucks in a long breath and holds it, feels the way his ribs creak and scrape against his lungs with the new pressure. It’s welcome at the moment. “We never try to talk these things through-”
“We?”
“Okay, I. I never want to. But when has that worked for us? Dad. Ellen. Jo. Bobby. Cas … the few hundred times he’s disappeared.”
Sam flashes one of his awkward, tense smiles, yet can’t bring his eyes up to meet Dean’s.
“I get it now. Bottling it all up and just headbutting my way through the day doesn’t help anyone but me. And there’s two of us here.” When Sam’s head drops, hair shielding his face, Dean shuffles closer. He hesitantly sets his hand on Sam’s back, right between those broad shoulders that hold the weight of this messed-up world year after year. “I can’t bring Mom back. And I can’t replace what you’re missing.”
Sam points out, “I’m not asking you to.”
“You damn well know I want to, though.”
Through Sam’s quiet, Dean clears his throat and goes right for the root of his intentions.
“You were right. You never really had Mom. But you’ve always had me.”
Sam sighs in resignation. “It’s not the same.”
“And it shouldn’t be,” Dean says, placing his hands on Sam’s face and forcing them to stare each other in the eye. “I know it never could be the same thing. Not in a million years. But I don’t want you to forget that I’m here. You still have me. And I’ve got you. That’s the biggest thing I believe right now.”
“You said you didn’t believe in anything right now.”
Dean feels a crack in his chest, another piece of him crumbling for all that his words do to his brother. With a shaky hand, he touches the back of Sam’s head, lets his fingers slip through his hair. “I believe in you.”
Sam side-eyes him, and Dean supposes he deserves that. Their relationship hasn’t always been easy. Dean hasn’t always been the best big brother or explained his actions well. But he has to now.
“If I can’t believe in you … a skinny lil' gnat with floppy hair turning into freaking Luke Skywalker and leading the franchise, well then, what can I believe in?”
Sam’s eyes grow wet as the words sink in and Dean pulls him closer, wraps his arm around Sam’s neck to tuck him in tight.
He kisses the side of Sam’s head and murmurs reassurances that they have each other, then and now. “We’ve always got each other,” he whispers into Sam’s hair. “You’ve always got me.” With his other hand, he pats Sam’s chest, holding firm to the center of his heart. “No matter what happens, or what stupid shit I say, I’m always here for you.”
“Gonna have to prove it,” Sam says, a hint of a dare on the edge of his voice.
In the end, Dean will give Sam what he needs. And that’s all Dean really needs anyway. So he slides his hand down Sam’s chest, then scrambles at the edge of Sam’s shirts to touch the bare, tight skin of his stomach. Warmth seeps into Dean’s fingers and he spreads it around the smooth planes of Sam’s abdomen, then slips down. The tips of his fingers rest just beneath the waist of Sam’s jeans as Dean listens to the broken breathing of his brother, barely holding on in anticipation.
Sam shifts in Dean’s hold, yet doesn’t shrug him off, just settles more comfortably beneath Dean’s arm. With his head hung low, Dean can’t see his face; he imagines his little brother is watching and taking advantage of this front row seat to the action.
Dean presses his lips to Sam’s ear, mumbles, “I got you.” Then he proves it by working on Sam’s belt, button, and fly to get his heated, red cock in his hand.
Sam whistles out a breath as Dean closes his fist around the head of Sam’s dick. His shoulders rise under Dean’s arm as he does his best to remain positively still. Dean is the one that keeps moving as he slowly runs his hand up and down Sam’s dick, squeezing and tugging at the tip.
A soft rumles of Dean, Dean, Dean amplifies the staccato beat of Dean’s heart. Those four letters off Sam’s tongue can mean a million different things in the heat of any moment. Right now, Dean knows it’s his brother begging, needing, reaching out without moving a muscle. He gets a little rough and fast, yanking withered moans out of Sam’s mouth. Just like Dean imagines in the shower or dreams behind closed eyes.
“Got you,” Dean repeats as Sam comes apart from the inside out, shaking and stuttering a mess of noises.
He slowly fists Sam through the remnants of his orgasm, come easing the way and marking Dean’s fingers with this memory. He waits until Sam can get his tongue around any words and holds his breath as Sam tries to catch his.
“C’mere,” Sam grunts as he reaches for Dean, pulling on his face to bring him in, take over his mouth with a fierce, deep, dirty kiss. Like he’s dying of thirst and he can drink from Dean, lap at his soul and make them whole again. The rivers raging beneath the surface are dirtied from all they’ve been through, yet it seems to be Sam’s life source.
In the far recesses of his mind, Dean knows that Sam’s ferocity in bed is his outlet for all he buries inside. He knows that Sam reacts on instinct when they’re like this, rather than the contemplations he makes in the daylight. Also knows that Sam thinks he has to prove it right back to Dean, and maybe even himself, that they have each other like no one else can. Past, present, or future, no two souls will be theirs.
Sam pushes Dean down to the mattress and easily yanks his knees to get him into place so Sam can settle between his legs. He messily makes his way down Dean’s face, his neck, over the flannel of his shirt, and finally to the growing bulge in Dean’s pants. He sucks at the soft, worn denim as Dean kicks back on the mattress and tries to keep himself together before Sam makes him blow a load in his jeans.
“Sammy,” Dean says, hoping to soothe his brother. Slow him down a bit.
The response is Sam’s strong hands tearing at Dean’s belt and jeans like there’s a lost soul hidden beneath. And maybe there is, because Dean doesn’t often feel complete. Moments like this get him pretty close.
When Sam gets his mouth around Dean’s dick, the timeclock starts and Dean can’t hold on for long. He stretches out on the bed and reaches for the bed frame, sheets, anything to hold on as this tornado twists around him.
“Sammy,” he says now, hoping Sam can hear everything in the way the sounds tumble out of his mouth.
Sam pauses briefly. Just long enough to insist, “You got me,” before diving back in to lick and suck and tease at every line of Dean’s cock.
There’s no finesse to it. Sam is on a mission to take all of Dean like he’s reminding himself that they’re so deeply entangled he needs to always taste Dean at the back of his throat. Dean makes sure Sam does. As it builds to the finish, he wraps his hands into Sam’s hair and keeps his brother in his lap and he comes, taking what he wants while giving Sam all that he needs. Sam doesn’t fight it, seizing his reward and penance all at once. He sucks Dean clean, then drops beside him on the bed, chest rising high with every harsh breath.
As blood rushes through his body and his breathing comes back down to normal, Dean examines the room. He picks up on the barest touches of Sam in the room: a couple chewed up pencils on the desk, jackets neatly hung on hooks on the far wall, and a zippo lighter on the nightstand he picked up in New Orleans, with three Xs carved into the side for Voodoo’s highest priestess.
Then Dean notices the light breeze of air coming from the hallway. He huffs. “We should close the door.”
Sam gets busy fixing himself and putting his pants back into place. He stays completely silent.
“We’ve got your young Padawan down the hall.”
Belatedly, Sam remembers Jack. “Oh. Yeah.”
Dean zips up his jeans, yet lets the belt hang loose at his waist. Sits back a bit more comfortably and sighs as he glances at his brother. “Next time.”
“Yeah.”
They share a long look and Dean can see the color return to his brother’s cheeks and clarity in his eyes.
And he knows. Dean has something with Sam that no one will have. Ever.