I feel flames again (Sam/Dean, r-rated, 11800 words)

[fleshflutter]

For giandujakiss, through Sweet Charity. <3333 Thanks to J for the beta!

When I am with you I feel flames again
(Sam/Dean, r-rated, 11800 words, non-con situations)
Following a failed apocalypse, Dean nurses Sam through his addiction to demon's blood, which has driven Sam to horrific things. Title from Vast.


In the end, it's not obvious to Dean who's won. He's pretty sure both sides have lost. While the angels and demons scramble to retreat, Dean hauls Sam out, bloodied and unmoving, from a heap of mutilated corpses and burnt out meatsuits. Maybe Sam's still breathing, maybe he's not; Dean's not leaving his little brother in a place like this.

His own leg playing up, Dean drags Sam back to the car, shoves him into the passenger seat, and climbs in beside him.

He doesn't take his foot off the accelerator until light blue sky appears beneath the smoke on the horizon and the smell of charred human flesh begins to fade.

Sam moans in the seat next to him. Dean smiles in bloodless triumph out at the empty road ahead of them.

:::

The people who lived here before are gone. There's a bloodstain on the porch and the mound of a shallow grave in the yard. The house is silent and open; a summer breeze sways in through the door, plucks at the sharp edges of the broken glass in the window, touches the floral drapes in the bedroom upstairs.

If Dean had a choice, no way would he have picked this place that's walls are made of coffin-wood.

He carries Sam up the stairs, his boots clattering against the wood and his knee screaming in agony, and he tosses him onto the bed. He leaves him for just two minutes. He turns his back on him and goes down the stairs to fetch rope and chain from the trunk of the Impala. His heart is in his throat the whole time, sick terror makes his vision wobble and his hands shake. He climbs back up the stairs and his belly is tight and the house is silent and -

Sam is still on the bed, unconscious, exactly how Dean left him.

But not until Dean chains him down, ties him to the bedposts, draws a devil's trap around the bed, salts the window and doorframe does he let out the breath he's holding. He drags a chair in from another bedroom - a bedroom with cartoon ponies on the wallpaper and deep gouges in the floorboards - sits down and waits.

:::

Sam regains consciousness while Dean is sponging the blood off his face. Dean dips the sponge in a bowl of warm, red-tinted water, squeezes out the excess, turns back and sees Sam looking up at him.

"Dean," Sam says. He lets out a small, sighing breath. "Huh," he says. "Thought you had to be dead." He works his mouth and the black, caked-on blood at the corner of his lips cracks. "Damn. Guess I'll have to try harder next time."

"Put a sock in it, Sam," Dean mutters.

Sam licks thoughtfully at a flake of blood, still staring up at Dean. He starts to smile and passes out again before he can manage it, leaving a wistful curl to his lips. Dean resumes carefully washing away the blood.

:::

Dean takes guns into the room and cleans them. He fires up Sam's laptop and surfs the Internet on an intermittent connection, skimming through news reports. He drags in the television from the other room and watches endless re-runs of The Simpsons.

He tries to get used to his own company.

:::

Some people remember where they were when 9/11 happened. Some people remember the exact moment they realised they were in - or out of - love. Dean remembers when he allowed himself to decide to fetch Sam from Stanford. It was forty minutes after the voicemail from Dad and Dean was in a diner just east of Baton Rouge, stirring sugar into his coffee and watching a sheet of newspaper roll down the street outside. He looked back, smiled at the waitress, made his decision, and ordered himself a slice of peach pie.

It seemed to him as though he'd only been waiting for an excuse to drag Sam back. He's called Sam selfish a hundred times but at least Sam's only selfish in making decisions for himself; Dean's selfish when it comes to what he'll let other people - Sam - do.

Once, Sam tried to thank Dean for selling his soul for him. This was before Sam realised the future he was facing and the rage set in. He tried to thank Dean and Dean stopped him, but he was too ashamed to tell Sam the truth: that as horrible as Sam being dead was, as horrible as Dean letting that happen was, worse still was the prospect of living without him. Dean couldn't admit it, so he told the only truth he had, that he didn't regret it, that he'd make the same decision again.

If Dean had lied more convincingly about the deal, if he'd disappeared from Sam's life in that last year, Sam might have been spared this, might have slipped back into too normal a life for Ruby and Heaven and Hell to wreck. But once again, Dean was too selfish to let go and he desperately clung on to Sam, and he brought them to this.

When he looks at Sam now, asleep or passed out in the bed, Dean can see the round-cheeked kid who worshipped him, and the surly teen, and the boy he picked up from Stanford, and he can see his hunting partner. And he can see the black-eyed creature that stood screaming on the battlefield, indiscriminately devouring demons to give itself the strength to rip angels apart.

"I should never have let this happen to you," he says, and his voice gets lost in the stillness of the abandoned house. "I should'a taken better care of you. Should'a thought less about what I wanted from you, what I wanted you to be."

He's struck by déjà vu. He remembers addressing Sam, cold and unresponsive, with a similar feeling of failure in his belly. He remembers the oily taste of loss and the heavy dampness in the air of the old cabin and the brown bloodstain on the thin, filthy mattress. Even then it was too late.

"I should never have let it get to this. How'd that little kid I remember get to thinking he was a monster? I should'a made sure you understood it was your life that was screwed up, not you, never you. Hell, I should'a stood up to Dad for you more often-"

"Oh, Dean," Sam mumbles. His eyes flutter open and fix on Dean instantly, like he's known exactly where Dean is in the room the whole time. "It's not your fault. You couldn't stand up to Dad when you were so busy sucking his cock to try and make him want you around. But it never worked, did it? 'Cause Dad saw what I see when I look at you: a weak and spineless coward. About the only thing you were good for was sucking cock."

"When you're feeling more yourself, I'm gonna kick your ass for talking this shit to me," Dean says amiably. He can't hang on to pretending it doesn't hurt and the lightness in his voice drops away. "It's the demon blood talking. It's not you."

"You pray for that to be true, don't you?" Sam says. "You're gonna break when you realise it's not. I wanna be there. I wanna see it in your eyes when you realise it's your Sammy that's done this." Sam stares up at the ceiling. "I hate you. The first thing I'm going to do when I get free is show you just how much. I want to be the last thing you see before I send you back to Hell."

"I'm sorry," Dean whispers. "I'm so sorry I let this happen to you."

Sam laughs: loud, sharp barks of laughter that chase Dean all the way down the bloodstained porch and the long, listlessly waving grass.

:::

The next morning, through the kitchen window, Dean sees a stray dog in the grass. The dog looks at him and Dean goes out to it. Outside is silent and Dean wonders where the birds have gone.

He approaches the dog slowly, hunkering over, hand low and outstretched.

"Hey, good boy, " he murmurs. "Good boy. "

The grass whispers against his legs. The dog doesn’t move. Dean smiles at the dog and drops lower into a crouch. Ribs are visible beneath the dog’s ash brown coat. It's a scruffy mix of more than a couple of breeds.

"That’s a good boy," Dean says. "Want something to eat? Find you something to eat, you like that?"

There's a noise somewhere back in the house: a cough or a cut-off shriek of rage, high like a bird cry.

The dog runs. Dean watches the grass sway in its wake. The silence is louder than it was before.

:::

It gets hot. The air stops moving through the house.

Sam's biology is screwed to hell, 'cause, as far as Dean knows, Sam's been living off nothing but demon-blood smoothies lately. Doesn't mean Dean's going to let him go without water when the air is bubbling with heat like this.

But the glass of water he pours cracks and shatters in Dean's hand. Dean's palm is sliced open as the shards slide wetly from his grip. The spilled water boils and hisses on the kitchen tiles. So do the drops of Dean's blood that fall.

Clenching his jaw, Dean wraps the dishcloth around his bloody palm. He fills a thick, china mug with water, steps over the broken glass and blood, and takes it up to Sam.

It's even hotter in Sam's room, which makes sense when Dean realises the heat is coming from him. Sam is drenched in sweat and his body twitches fretfully on the bed. As Dean moves through the door, Sam's black-eyed gaze snaps to him. Something Dean can't see pushes against him. He steps through it but it's got enough force that he stumbles slightly when it disappears.

"Fuck you to hell and back," Sam grinds out. "Let me go. Let me go so I can chew your pretty eyes out of your head."

"Now that's not real friendly," Dean says.

The room shudders and growls like there's a thundercloud living under the floorboards. Dean sits down on the side of Sam's bed. He grips Sam's chin, puts the rim of the mug at his mouth and tips. Sam's eyes stay black as they stare up at him hatefully. The water trickles over Sam's pressed-together lips and down his chin.

"C'mon, Sam," Dean says. "You need this. Take it now or I'll fucking bless it and try again."

The mug is wrenched from his hand, flies away to smash against the wall. That same invisible force from earlier shoves Dean across the room; it pins him to the wall while Sam watches. It's hard to breathe with the weight of it on him. Dean gasps and struggles.

"I want you to bleed," Sam hisses, his face still turned to the ceiling.

A thin hot line streaks across Dean's chest. It's a familiar kind of pain; the Yellow-Eyed demon did this to him when it was wearing John. The Yellow-Eyed demon did what Sam's doing to him now. Dean screws his eyes shut as something inside him is sliced open. He can’t breathe through the heat and the pain. His t-shirt grows damp, sticks to his slit-wide chest.

"You know what I’ve been thinking of when I jerk off lately?" Sam says. The bed to which he’s bound groans and jumps beneath him. The chains rattle. "I think about what Alastair and the others must'a done to you in Hell. I think about that and I come so hard, Dean. And when I get loose - and I am gonna get loose - I'm gonna do it to you all over again."

The room blurs and Dean's tears are wrung out of him, too hot on his flushed cheeks.

"I'm gonna find ways to make you scream that Alastair never even-" Sam's voice cuts off into a high, pained cry, the kind that still hits some instinct in Dean to protect him.

Whatever force was pinning Dean to the wall is gone. The pain in Dean's chest is the low, seething sting of the cuts Sam has already inflicted. He staggers forward and a splotch of his blood drips from his t-shirt and flecks the floorboards. One hand clasped to his aching chest, Dean moves to the side of Sam's bed.

Black-eyed and strung-out, Sam is shivering as he stares at the ceiling without seeing.

It only gets hotter.

:::

It's 11pm, still hot inside and silent outside, and Sam won't stop screaming. He's out of his head with pain and Dean doesn't know what to do, how to make it better. Sam's wrists and ankles are bloody where he's thrashed against the chains. Dean holds him still with his own body and begs him to please, be okay, while Sam screams and screams and screams.

Sam is still screaming when the demons come. They gather outside the house, faces tilted up to Sam's window, and Dean doesn't know where they came from but he knows why they've come.

"Not fucking happening," he mutters as he slots rounds into his shotgun, makes plans to defend the house, and prays to die before they let Sam loose.

The demons look up and they see Dean and they smile at him. Dean wishes he'd had chance to say goodbye to Sam, his Sam, and he promises himself that if he can just get Sam through this he won't be so selfish as to hang around for even a goodbye; he'll run as fast as he can in the opposite direction, so Sam will finally have a chance.

Sam keeps on screaming and the demons move in. Before they can cross the threshold, however, there's a crack of dead white light. Castiel appears before them. He looks up to where Dean is watching through the window, holds Dean's gaze in that faintly desperate way of his and then turns back to the demons. A humming light builds around him. It creeps across the ground and when it touches the demons they twist and writhe like wild animals being nailed down. They burn up in Castiel's brilliance, demon and meatsuit alike.

It's as bright as midday. Angelic light floods the room, sweeps over Sam, and Sam stops screaming, if only because he can't seem to breathe through the pain, reduced to gaping and gasping.

Turning his back to the blinding window, Dean places his own shadow over as much of Sam as he can. His body is limned white but turned black.

"Stop it! Goddamn it, stop! You're killing him!"

At Dean's shout, everything plummets back into darkness. Sam falls into hitching little sobs. Dean crawls close enough to kiss his sweaty temple, to whisper soothing words into the wet strands of his hair. Something creaks on the stairs and Castiel comes to stand in the doorway. Dean wipes angry tears from his face and looks back at him.

"You almost fucking killed him." Castiel doesn't answer and it gives Dean time and space to pull himself together. His voice settles into something less on edge. He takes a deep breath and says, "I didn't know you'd made it out alive. I lost sight of you after Lucifer when down. It's good, I'm real glad you made it through. I'd'a looked for you but I had to get to Sam."

Castiel's gaze flickers to Sam. "In trying to save him you might both die."

"I have to try," Dean says.

"Let me help."

"No offence but your help almost killed him just now. No, I'm his brother, I'll see him through this."

"And afterwards?" Castiel's eyes are inhuman in their clear perfection. They see right beneath Dean's skin. Dean can't hold his gaze.

"After is after. Talk to me then."

:::

When Dean wakes it's because of the cool breeze on his face. The sun is up and Sam is resting quietly. There's a bird singing somewhere outside the window.

In the kitchen Dean finds a basket of ripe fruit and fresh bread. While he wonders when Castiel left, how long he watched Dean sleep, Dean cuts off a couple of slices of bread, gathers cherries and strawberries in a bowl, and pours a glass of water. He contemplates the water for a moment or two before he pulls out his rosary and blesses it. He puts it all on a battered metal tray that was once red with yellow flowers but is now mostly silver and takes it up to Sam.

"Hey, kiddo," he says. "Breakfast. C'mon, let's see if we can get some real food in you."

Sam regards him with unfocused hazel eyes while Dean breaks off soft crumbs of bread and pushes them between Sam's lips. After Sam nearly chokes on a piece, Dean tries him with the fruit instead. He works half a cherry into Sam's mouth, swipes away the dark juice on Sam's lips and then sucks it off the pad of his thumb. He does it without thinking and it's only as he's tasting the cherry that he goes a little still and he thinks about Sam's mouth and about the way Sam's watching him. Dean shifts where he's perched on the edge of Sam's bed, clears his throat gruffly, and reaches for the holy water.

"Now you're not gonna like this," Dean says, "but Cas says it'll clean your system through, so don't go giving me grief about it."

He puts the glass to Sam's lips and tips it gently. He sighs and smiles as he watches Sam's throat work.

"That's my boy," he says.

Sam swallows the holy water, presses his lips together and then turns his head to the side and vomits everything back up. Dean puts the glass down.

"Okay," he says.

:::

It's not until Sam is visibly under the effects of the sedative Dean shot him up with that Dean dares unlock the chains. Each click of metal as Dean turns the key makes his heartbeat stutter.

The bed Sam's been chained to stinks but not quite as much Sam himself does. Dean's not going to all the trouble of nursing Sam through addiction to demon blood just to let him go down with some goddamn disease caught through poor personal hygiene.

Sam is conscious but he's dead weight while Dean strips him out of his filthy clothes and hauls him into the small, china-white bathroom. He manages to topple Sam into the shower but Sam just lolls in the corner on the floor. Dean clenches his jaw then removes his own clothes. Pinning Sam upright to the wall with his shoulder, Dean hits the water on. He gets some soap on his hands and works it into a lather before he efficiently begins cleaning Sam up.

Sam is heavy and out of it, content simply to sag, naked and intimate, into Dean. His hands and mouth and thighs press and rub into places Dean doesn't think they should be.

"Cut it out, you little pervert," he snaps when Sam's finger glides down his back and prods just between the cheeks of Dean's ass. Then Sam looks at him with reproachful innocence, water dribbling into his soft, dark eyes, and Dean feels like a jerk.

"I'm never gonna stop mocking you when this is all over." The words stick in his throat and he closes his eyes against the water and Sam's face. "Just don't," Dean mutters.

The only response he gets is Sam mindlessly plucking at the bandages on Dean's chest where he sliced him open. It's pricklingly sensitive having Sam's fingers on him there but Dean is willing to put up with it so long as it keeps Sam occupied while Dean washes him. Dean watches Sam watch his fingertips spider over the white gauze.

He has absolutely no idea what's going on inside Sam's head; he's felt this way most of his life.

:::

Once the sedatives start to wear off Dean has to work fast. He dumps Sam in a towel on the floor while he strips the stinking sheets off the bed and gets new ones on. Then he bundles Sam into t-shirt and shorts.

"Look," Sam says sleepily, as Dean is fastening the cuff at his wrist. Dean glances up at him. "Look," Sam says again.

Only once he's got Sam properly chained down again does Dean look at what Sam's directing him to. The television is on. It's not even plugged in. On the screen there's a grainy black and white image of a single, crooked tree, which somehow gives the inescapable impression of red. Its branches look like broken bones. There's no accompanying sound.

Dean stares at the screen. He knows where you'd find that tree. He knows where the world is black and white and red-red-red.

"I'm gonna throw you back down there," Sam tells him. "And I'm gonna follow you down and piss on your bones."

Dean turns his chair to put his back to the television and begins the soothing motions of cleaning guns and sharpening blades. There's the memory of heat on his back, of a wetness on his skin that could be sweat, could be blood. The silent image on the television screen seems unhappily like a door standing open behind him.

Dean stands up, meaning only to turn the television to the wall.

"Don't," Sam says. There's a tone in his voice Dean hasn't heard in a long time. He can't even be sure he's really hearing it now because he wants it so badly. "Please, don't go." The television screen blinks to black. "Dean. Stay with me."

Dean sits again. Because the best thing he can do for Sam is stay. Just for now. Just for a little bit longer.

:::

Holy water is still too much for Sam to take. He still watches Dean like he's working out where he wants to start with him. And he's developed the habit of scratching his wrists against the cuffs to break the skin and make himself bleed, because Dean really needs yet one more thing to worry about.

But Sam's better. He's recognisable as Sam. He's Sam in the worst mood Dean's ever seen, suffering a really nasty hangover, and things will never be the way they were. Dean knows he will never have his brother back the same as he went away. If Dean thinks about that too long, something inside himself starts to hurt too much for him to function, so he doesn't think about it. He just appreciates that 'Sam Winchester' no longer means that nightmarish thing that stood with the demons.

While he sits on the side of Sam's bed, stuffing cloth into the cuffs to protect Sam's wrists, Dean says, "So what now?" Sam gives him a sharp, long-suffering look that means he doesn't know what Dean's talking about and he couldn't care less either. Dean doesn't give up. "You killed Lilith, the Apocalypse ain't happening, and you're almost clean. What are you gonna do with yourself?"

Sam's brow twitches. "I don't know."

"Just don't think you can hunt anymore," Dean says. "Be like an alcoholic working in a bar. So, maybe you should start thinking what else you wanna do with your life."

"And what else exactly do you think I'm qualified to do? Seriously, what other kind of life do you think we can have? You gonna be a mechanic and I'm gonna be a librarian and we'll exchange cosy little how was your day, honey's at home? Is that what you're thinking?"

"You wanna be a librarian?" Dean offers, because that's the only part he can respond to. "You wanna go back to college?"

"I can't go back to college!" Sam scoffs like it's ridiculous but the look in his eyes says he's thinking about it.

"Why not? You're smart enough. Or you can get a job doing, I don't know, anything. And if you don't like it, you can find something else. C'mon, Sam, there's gotta be something you want. This is your chance to have it."

"I want you to go back to Hell and get out of my fucking face!" Sam snarls. His panting for breath softens into a moan. He closes his eyes. He's quiet, gathering himself from under the influence of the demon blood left in his system. "Can't we just make it up as we go along?" he says. "We'll think about the future when we get there."

It's a sign of how much better he is that he's thinking in terms of 'we', but Dean can't be happy about it.

:::

On the third day of Sam drinking his holy water and keeping it down, and being hungry enough to want real food, Dean unchains him to escort him to the bathroom and doesn't do the chains back up after.

Sam sits on the edge of the bed and looks at Dean. "You sure about this? 'Cause I'm still… Dean, I might still hurt you."

"Fact you're worrying about it says I'm sure."

Sam doesn't answer but he follows Dean down the stairs and into the kitchen. It's strange for Dean to have Sam so close and not have a weapon in his hands. It's even stranger for it to be strange.

While Sam sits at the kitchen table, big hands spread over the surface, Dean makes coffee. He puts the cup down in front of Sam, hesitates, then sits down across from him. The broken clock on the wall ticks steadily but the hands don't move; they judder over the same numbers, over and over again.

"These last few months," Sam says slowly. "The things I've done, the people I've killed…"

"You remember but it's like there's a glass wall between you and really feeling it," Dean says. "I've been there, Sam. After Hell. I know what it feels like."

"No," says Sam. " I don't care. I just can't make myself care about any of it. I'm trying but… I don't think I can promise you that I'm ever going to care."

Sam is not sorry for what he did. Dean thinks about the last few months and he is oh so sorry for his failure to stop it sooner. Sam is not sorry for the deaths and the cruelty and the betrayals. Sam is not sorry but Dean desperately takes comfort in believing that Sam is sorry he can't be sorry.

He nods at the dim surface of his coffee. "Don't expect you to promise me anything, just want you to keep trying."

Sam nods like it's exactly what he expected Dean to say and turns his face to the window, his attention back on the world outside. Dean doesn't know if he's allowed to touch him, doesn't know if Sam wants to hear his voice, so he doesn't do anything; he just sits there until Sam gets up and goes back to his room.

:::

It's even harder for Dean to know what to do with himself now he doesn't need to keep watch over Sam twenty-four hours of the day. It's not like Sam particularly seems to want Dean around. Last time Dean tried just being in the same room as him, Sam pointedly watched him without saying a word.

Sam hasn't tried leaving, which Dean guesses is all he can reasonably expect from him.

So he takes himself outside to the Impala, pops the hood and spends some quality time with his girl. She's as reliable as ever, ready to go whenever he is. He busies himself with basic maintenance and finds comfort in the sun-heated smoothness of the engine parts beneath his hands. It's a bright, warm day and eventually Dean strips down to his t-shirt. His eyes are shielded from the light by the shadow of the raised hood as he bends over the engine but he can feel the heat on his back, the light sheen of sweat gathering in the dip at the base of his spine.

It's more relaxed than he's felt in a long time.

When he straightens up to grab a rag, Sam is standing just behind him. Dean has no idea how long he’s been there. In his hands, Sam is turning a large wrench over and over. He's looking at Dean as he does it.

Dean's eyes drop to the wrench and then back to Sam’s face. "Forget it. No way am I letting you under the hood." He hides the nervous tremble of his hands in the rag.

Sam shifts just enough to be in Dean's way when he tries to walk around to the trunk.

"I met this guy in the Arizona desert," Sam says, still fretfully twisting the wrench in his hands. "He had this big white Cadillac. Too flashy for you, but, yeah, it was a nice car. And he had freckles." Sam touches the tip of the wrench to Dean's cheek and every muscle in Dean's body goes taut. "He gave me a ride to the next town. I don't remember his name. I just remember how he looked at me as I was pulling his guts out through his belly."

Dean flinches, eyes slammed shut. He pushes past Sam, who lets him go, and drops the hood on the car.

"What do you want, a pat on the back?" He shakes his head. "I don't wanna hear it, Sam."

He stalks towards the house but Sam comes after him. With a flash of instinctive panic, Dean realises that Sam is going to catch him before Dean can make it inside. He does the stupid thing, the thing that makes what comes next his own damn fault: he breaks, runs, and barely has time to shout before Sam is on him, dropping him painfully to his knees. Dean throws him off for a second but Sam gets him again at the steps. He grabs a handful of Dean's hair and uses his grip on him to bounce Dean's face off the top step.

"Stay down," Sam tells him, while blood fills Dean's mouth and nose. Sam holds him down, chest to back, a hand on Dean's shoulder and a knee at his hip, hot breath over Dean's throat.

"Get the fuck off me," Dean growls.

"Shouldn't run," Sam says, something bizarrely like desperation in his voice. "Only makes me want to chase you."

Dean drives an elbow back and Sam grunts but only clamps tighter around him, pressing into him in a sickeningly intimate way. The heat coming off his body is dizzying. All Dean can take in is the heat and the weight on his back crushing him breathless and the dull taste of his own blood.

"Fight if it makes you feel better," Sam tells him. "But it's still gonna happen."

The world spins briefly in the wrong direction as Sam mouths at Dean's neck. Something rolls queasily in Dean's belly. He can't be here; he needs to not be here. He needs to do something to make this not be happening. The next time he struggles it’s too frantic and scared to be effective, and Sam just laughs hysterically, groans as he pushes his hips into Dean's squirming. He's hard against Dean's ass.

Dean is saying no and don't and Sam, and Sam isn't stopping.

Sam keeps Dean's face mashed into the step while he manhandles him up onto his knees. He doesn't hesitate or fumble getting Dean's jeans down around his thighs, and Dean blankly wonders how long Sam's been thinking about doing this. Dean stares at the bloodstained porch steps and doesn't fight when Sam kicks his legs apart. He's grateful at least that Sam doesn't talk; he listens instead to the heavy rasp of Sam's breathing right by his ear and, more distantly, birdsong.

A small, punched out noise slips free from Dean's lips when he feels Sam's too-hot, bare skin on his. He's held down and spread wide, Sam heavy on top of him, and Dean just goes on staring at the porch steps and waiting for it to be over.

Sam shudders. His breathing catches.

He's crying.

Dean lies there and Sam's tears are hot on the back of his neck. Dean swallows down the thickness of blood and helplessness. Carefully, he pushes Sam off, but before Sam can roll away Dean catches him, pulls him in close, rearranging their position into lying side by side. He tucks Sam's head in against his chest. He holds him like that, his gaze still fixed and unseeing and both of them still half-dressed, while Sam sobs and clutches at him. He combs his fingers through Sam's hair and murmurs soothing nonsense-sounds.

Sam cries until there is nothing left and Dean holds him a while after that.

:::

"It's the blood," Dean whispers. "It's not your fault. It's the demon blood. That's what makes you do these crazy things, Sammy."

Sam closes his eyes, his lashes casting shadows over his cheeks in the moonlight, and his lower lip trembles as he breathes out a shuddering sigh. "No," he says. "It's not just the demon blood. It's my blood too."

:::

A few days later, the skinny dog shows up again. Dean finds Sam kneeling in the grass while he throws scraps of meat to the dog. The dog won't come too close to Sam but it's not shy about taking the food.

Sam doesn't look up at Dean's approach but Dean sees the tightening of his shoulders.

"Thought he'd died," Dean says. "Can't be much around for him to eat. Tough little guy."

"Tough little girl," Sam says quietly.

Sam leans forward, dangling a piece of chicken from his fingers. He makes low, soft kissy noises that Dean finds himself smiling at. The dog creeps forward. She snatches the meat from Sam's hand and immediately retreats again. In silence, they watch the dog eat.

"I'm sorry," Sam says.

Dean glances down at him. "For what?"

"You want the whole list or can I just say 'everything'?" Sam's smile isn't a pretty one.

Dean looks off towards the horizon. I'm sorry I let you do this, he thinks. I'm sorry I didn't stick with you, I'm sorry it took me so long to understand, I'm sorry I let this happen to you. He nods, wipes his hand over his mouth before the pathetic apology for his failure to protect Sam can start pouring out. He jerks his head in the direction of the dog.

"We should give her a name," he says.

"Delphi," Sam says without hesitation. "I wanna call her Delphi."

By the end of the evening, Delphi has submitted to Sam scratching behind her ears. She follows them into the house when they go in for the night.

:::

Two months after Dean brought Sam to the abandoned house, he, Sam and Delphi move to an apartment in the nearest town. It's not a big apartment and there are a lot of things wrong with it, like the plumbing's noisy and the window in Dean's bedroom keeps falling shut. Dean pays the first month's rent with the last of the loose cash he has and then sets about worrying a little where he's going to get the money for the next month.

The problem gets solved in a weird way when Sam announces he's got a job tending bar in some crappy little place frequented by townies and students from the nearby college. He doesn't tell Dean he's doing it and he doesn't want to talk about it afterwards, and Dean gets the message that the decisions Sam makes aren't necessarily any of his business. It hurts, sure it does, but it's how things should be, how they've got to be. It works out anyway, Sam getting himself a job.

"I'm not saying we're giving up hunting," Sam says. "We're not retiring. But what you said was right, I need time to get over my addiction before I put myself back in the way of temptation. We'll go back once I'm sure I can handle it."

Still talking the language of 'us' and 'we', Dean notes, even as he nods easily. "Sounds good."

He manages to pick up work at the garage down the road the next day. He does a couple of hours, works on a Ford so beat-up that looks like it could have been right there on the field when the final battle of the failed Apocalypse went down, and watches the clear sky for storm clouds. Wherever Sam is, he isn't ending the world.

Instead, when Dean gets back to the apartment, he finds Sam at the stove, one hand stirring a simmering pan of something and the other holding up a book he's reading, and Delphi standing at his feet, her face tilted up hopefully for scraps.

"Hey, honey, how was your day?" Sam says.

He doesn't look up from his book and there's no tone at all in his voice, so Dean doesn't know what to make of it and he just laughs a little. Then he doesn't know what to do with himself and ends up lingering uselessly at the edge of the kitchenette, his hands stuffed deep in his jeans pockets.

Sam looks up then, looks him over. "You'd better wash up. Dinner'll be ready in a moment."

While he's washing his hands at the sink in the bathroom, Dean stares into the mirror and mouths the words of all the reasons he can't stay.

:::

Dean dreams of something but he doesn't remember it clearly in the morning. He has images: the bloodstained porch, Hell on the television screen, and cherries and white gauze. It leaves him oddly sensitive the morning after. When he looks at Sam, he feels a vague sense of guilt and heat.

:::

Somehow, for someone who only a couple of months ago hated humanity enough to want to topple it all right down into Hell, Sam makes friends really easily at the bar.

Dean stops in one evening. Sam is fixing drinks for a small cluster of college kids who all know him by name. And Sam's grin looks so genuine that it's only because Dean has a clear mental image of that black-eyed monster that it even occurs to him to consider whether Sam really is enjoying himself.

Sam laughs while he prepares some ridiculous cocktail, drops a tiny umbrella in it and pushes it across the bar at this leggy, redheaded chick, who bites her lip and says something that makes Sam laugh even louder.

Delphi's in her basket behind the bar and she wags her tail lazily when Sam glances back over his shoulder at her.

Right then is when Dean should walk. He should turn around and walk. Get in the Impala, drive, let Sam live his life. If he stays beyond this moment, it's for him, not Sam. It's the same old selfishness. Before Dean can bring himself to do it, Sam glances over and sees him. Something tightens in Sam's smile but only for a second, and then he's fetching Dean a beer.

As he walks in, Dean promises himself he'll go soon. He will.

:::

Sam is standing by his bed when Dean wakes. An immediate flashback to uglier times has Dean reaching for the knife beneath his pillow before he catches himself, registers that Sam's just standing there. Dean sits up, rubbing his eyes, and glances at the digital clock on the nightstand. It's 4:42am.

"What is it?" Dean says.

Sam doesn't answer for a long minute. He's a tall, black shape by Dean's bed, carved into something unnatural by the bleached pre-dawn light that filters between the drapes. Dean really wishes he could make out the look on Sam's face.

"Couldn't sleep," Sam says at last.

"Oh," Dean says. Sam goes on standing there. "You want me to make you pancakes?" It's the surreal suggestion of a brain still fogged with sleep and functioning on the memory of what would have worked with the Sam from before, the little brother that Dean can tease and cajole into a better mood.

Oddly, Sam says, "Yeah."

He doesn't touch Dean as Dean gets to his feet, doesn't stand too close as he follows Dean to the kitchen. He sits down at the kitchen table and there's silence for a while, except for the sound of Dean cooking and the click-click of Delphi's claws on the floor.

Then, suddenly, Sam says, "I think Kirsten's boyfriend's cheating on her." When Dean gives him a bewildered look, Sam explains, "Kirsten works at the bar on Thursdays and Fridays. " He studies his hands and says, "I saw him with this college sophomore. Then again with some out-of-towner. Not, like, kissing, but, y'know, there was intent." He cards his hair off his face then looks over at Dean again.

Dean isn't able to speak for a second or two. He just looks at Sam, who's looking at him, expecting some kind of response. Then he turns his attention back to the pancakes, bites the inside of his cheek until his mouth isn't so dry. The kitchenette seems small in the stark glare of electric light, full up of Sam, sitting so close.

"You gonna tell her?" Dean says.

"Don't know. You think I should?"

Dean shrugs. "Could get messy. Depends how serious she is about him. Could maybe have a quiet word with him, let him know you're onto him." Dean slides the pancakes into a stack on a plate, drizzles blueberry sauce over them and then sets the plate in front of Sam. "That why you couldn't sleep?"

"No," Sam says, picking up his fork. "I was remembering this family I met in New Mexico."

Dean doesn't know specifically which family he's referring to; there were a lot of corpses piled up around Sam during those bad months. There's no need to ask.

Sam doesn't go back to bed. Dean doesn't either.

:::

At 6am every day Sam and Dean go jogging together. They have a route through town: past the bar and the library and the diner, down the hill to the park, and then looping back behind the high school. Most mornings they stop in the park to play ball with Delphi. Some days they'll do a double circuit. Back at the apartment, they alternate who gets first shower and who fixes breakfast.

It terrifies Dean how domestic they've become. He lies awake at night and plans how he can get out without disrupting Sam's routine too much.

This morning, while Dean is in the shower, Sam is at the mirror, shaving. Under the water, Dean thinks about the abstract idea of that: being butt-naked and weaponless and knowing Sam's in the room with a sharp object. He watches Sam's shadow loom and shift the other side of the frosted glass. His survival instinct is sick and stunted when it comes to Sam.

He doesn't kick Sam out though, because Sam has chosen to be in the room with Dean, and Dean's kind of grateful.

He listens to the scrape of the razor over Sam's stubble, the clinical click of metal on enamel as Sam taps the lather off, and he works out in his head how long it would take Sam to step into the shower and slit his throat. He wonders if he'd try to fight Sam off and how, and he wonders if the same species of thoughts are living in Sam's head and whether that's why he's elected to be just the other side of the glass from Dean.

The longer Dean fails to do the right thing and disappear, the more likely it is that one day he'll come right out and ask one of those questions.

Instead, when he gets out of the shower and wraps the towel around himself, he catches the dark glint of Sam's eyes in the mirror, before Sam looks away again, and he says nothing. They swap places with the wordless agreement of dancing, and Dean furtively watches the leanly muscled stretches of tanned skin that Sam bares.

One of those questions he wants to ask is if Sam was this beautiful when he was eating demons and killing angels. Because Dean had reasons not to notice at the time but now it's hard to miss it.

"OJ or coffee?" he asks instead.

:::

It takes Dean a horribly long few seconds to figure out why Sam's brought a girl back with him from the bar. He stands there in the kitchenette, in the middle of trying to teach Delphi to play dead, and watches Sam and the girl walk by: her jostling him a little drunkenly and him with his big hand curled around her wrist. Sam slants a look back over his shoulder at Dean, says, "We'll try not to keep you awake," and then closes his bedroom door behind them.

Sprawled on her back, Delphi whines and Dean feeds her the biscuit.

In all honesty, Dean thinks there's only a very small chance of the girl ending up a mangled corpse hanging out of the window. It's such a small chance that he really doesn't need to be around to keep it from happening. So he and Delphi go down to the park.

A ghostly fog hangs over the lake and Dean rubs his hands together to raise a little warmth. Delphi scampers through the lightly frosted grass, retrieves the ball from beneath a bench and brings it back to Dean. He gives it another good throw and she hurtles after it. While she's gone beyond the trees, towards the fence between the park and the high school running track, Dean scuffs to the edge of the water.

If he'd thought about it, he wouldn't have brought Delphi out for a walk; he'd have packed up his shit and gone. Perfect cue. Sam's settling into a normal life with a steady job and hooking up with chicks, and Dean's still standing there, letting Sam build him into his new routine. It feels a little dramatic though: walking out the first time Sam gets laid.

About an hour in the cold, deserted night with his own thoughts is all Dean can take. Even Delphi's enthusiasm levels have run low. Maybe they can't go back to the apartment but that doesn't mean there aren't other places they can go.

At Sam's bar, Kirsten gives Dean a sympathetic, wryly amused smile, and says, "Been sexiled, huh?" She sets a bottle of beer in front of him. "On the house." Then she crouches down to smother Delphi with affection. For a moment, Kirsten are an amorphous fall of blonde hair and an ecstatically wagging tail.

Dean takes a stool at the bar and nurses his beer. "Quiet tonight," he says to Kirsten.

She ushers Delphi to her basket and gets back to tending bar. "Couple exams coming up," she says. "All the students are in their dorms, cramming." She props herself up against the counter on her folded arms and surveys the abandoned karaoke machine and pool table. "I kind of hate it. Gives me too much time to think, y'know?"

Dean raises his beer bottle to that. He's still mid-drink when the door to the bar opens and some guy comes in, and he's definitely not a college kid or looking to kick back and relax. Dean watches him with laidback interest.

"Hey," the guy says to Kirsten. "You haven't been answering your cell. I've called you, like, eight times."

"Didn't think there was much to say," Kirsten says, short and sharp, before she walks away from him to start collecting empty glasses on a tray.

"Jesus, I've told you already, you're being fucking paranoid. There's nothing going on," says the guy. Dean doesn't even know him but he knows he's lying. Apparently so does Kirsten.

"I'm not getting into this with you, Scott," she says. She doesn't even look at him, just moves from table to table while he sticks to her elbow. "I know what I saw. We're over. So just get out and leave me alone."

Scott grabs Kirsten's elbow, wrenches it hard enough that the glasses on her tray wobble. "Why won't you just fucking listen to me?"

"Don't go grabbing at her like that," Dean says. He hasn't moved from his stool and the glass rim of his beer bottle is warm from touching his lips. "It's not nice."

"Stay out of this," Scott says.

Scott doesn't let go of Kirsten's arm so Dean gets to his feet and saunters in their direction. "Why don't you just go home, sleep on it, and hope that she gives you a call tomorrow?" he says. "She sounds pretty pissed. Why don't you give her some time to feel better?"

"Why don't you mind your own fucking business?"

"Scott, don't," Kirsten says, level but under pressure. Before she can get anything else out, Scott wrenches her arm again and a glass falls to the ground and smashes.

"Fuck you!" Scott spits at Dean.

And Dean has spent so much time dealing with demons and angels and antichrists that used to be his brother that he doesn't see the fist coming his way until it's slamming into his jaw. He stumbles backwards into the bar, aware of Kirsten's shocked cry and the fireburst of blood and pain in his mouth. Scott doesn't get a second punch; even as Dean's steadying himself on his feet, he's wrapping his fingers around his beer bottle. It makes a good, hard clunk as it connects with Scott's face. Kirsten's in the background, out of the picture, and Delphie's yapping frantically. Dean grabs Scott's hair and jerks him down onto the knee Dean's driving into his stomach.

Briefly, Dean is out of control. Dean wants to do some damage. He wants to make someone hurt. Scott groans as Dean hauls him up by his shirtfront. Dean cocks his head as he gazes down at Scott's face. Scott's not the one he wants to hurt. He can't get a lock on the one he wants to hurt; some days he sees the guy and some days he doesn’t.

"You're messing her up, buddy," he tells Scott. "If you really love her, stay the hell away from her."

It seems like Scott hasn't heard a single word Dean's tried to beat into him because when Dean lets him free he's ready to go for round two. Before he can try anything, Kirsten reappears and she's got Danny and Jed from out back with her.

Dean leaves them all to it and heads back to the apartment.

Sam's bedroom door is still closed but when Dean accidentally drops a few of the icecubes he's scooping into the dishcloth for his jaw, Delphie, still keyed up from the fight, starts barking. It's high, excitable yapping and Dean can't shut her up before Sam's coming out.

The top button on Sam's jeans is undone and Dean takes in the dark trail of hair over a muscled belly but he looks away before he can see how low it goes. Jeans are all Sam's wearing. His hair is unkempt and falling in his eyes.

"Sorry," Dean says. "Didn’t mean to interrupt."

"S'okay, just came to- Jesus, what happened to you?"

Dean laughs and presses the homemade icepack to the tenderest spot. "Just a little fight, so you can untwist your panties and go back to your girl."

Somehow, even though Sam's the one in nothing but jeans, when Sam puts his hand on the curve between Dean's neck and his shoulder to turn him into the light, Dean feels exposed. It's too intimate, too close. In the exact same second that Dean is remembering Sam holding him down on the bloodstained porch and nearly raping him, he's thinking how much the look on Sam's face is like genuine concern. It's a headtrip that leaves Dean dazed, almost oxygen-starved.

"Your girl," Dean says.

"Don't think it'll need stitches," Sam says, which isn't a proper response, or maybe it is.

Dean can't stop thinking about Sam's hand on his shoulder; his awareness has narrowed dizzily to the weight of it there, the warmth and strength of it. Sam eases the icepack out of Dean's hand and takes over touching it to Dean's aching jaw. In the silence, Sam's gaze rolls over Dean's face, before finally Sam looks straight at him.

"You're wondering whether I'm about to gouge your eyeball out with my thumb or something, aren't you?" Sam says. He doesn't sound hurt or even resigned. It's a simple statement of fact.

"Are you?" Dean says.

"Sam? Is everything okay?" the girl comes into the kitchenette. She smiles hesitantly at Dean but her attention is all for Sam.

"No," Sam says. He glances back over his shoulder at her. "I'm sorry, really, but you should go."

"Sam," Dean says, low under his breath. And then Sam's hand tightens on Dean's shoulder, just a little, just enough to make Dean's heartbeat shiver. Something in Dean's chest clenches in panic and Dean drags in a short breath, almost nothing beyond a catch in the natural rhythm. Instantly Sam's hand is gone. He's still got the icepack against Dean's face but he's apparently more focused on the girl, making apologies and giving her those big, dark eyes.

After she's gone, Dean's cheeks are still burning. He can't look Sam in the eye but looking down only affords him a really good view of Sam's bare chest and belly.

"Y'know, even when I hated you, I couldn't stop thinking about you," Sam says. He lifts the icepack away to examine the bruised skin. "No," he says. "I wasn't going to gouge your eyeball out with my thumb."

There are things about this new Sam that terrify Dean more than the black-eyed one ever did.

:::

When it finally happens Dean has been on edge for it all week. It's like he saw it coming into view and these last few days he's been watching it getting closer. And he's told himself to get out before it comes. But he can't. Because he's been waiting for it, waiting to see if it'll really happen.

He's driving at a brick wall, travelling at six hundred miles an hour, and he's not even trying the brakes, because part of him doesn't believe he's ever going to hit it and part of him wants to see what the impact feels like if he does.

Under an old Buick, trying to coax a few more years' life out of it, Dean hears rather than sees Sam approach. He watches Sam's shadow slant across the concrete, oil-stained floor of the garage, and his hands go still. Sam clears his throat, says, "Dean? You under there?", even though he knows. He always knows where Dean is; he just politely pretends not to.

Dean slides out. "Hey, what is it?"

"Can you take, like, an hour off?" Sam says. "There's something I want you to see."

Turns out, what Sam wants Dean to see is a house at the nice end of town. It has a white picket fence and a row of neatly trimmed rosebushes and a 'For Sale' sign in the front yard. Dean is not done frowning at the obnoxiously pleasant house when he realises Sam is getting out of the car and taking a set of keys out of his pocket. He follows Sam up to the door, hanging back a few steps and glancing around to check nobody's watching them. When Sam fits a key into the door and unlocks it, Dean finally catches up to him.

"Dude, what are we doing here?"

"I talked the real estate agent into letting me have the keys so I could show you the place. He's a regular at the bar. He says he can get us a good deal."

"A good deal?" Dean echoes. "On what?"

"The house," Sam says mildly.

Even unfurnished, it's the same bland, domestic perfection on the inside as it was on the outside. It's light and spacious and tastefully decorated. Dean can't imagine owning a single piece of furniture that would be suitable for a place like this. Sam has wandered into what is probably the main living room, and the burst of sunshine behind his head blacks out his face and turns Dean cold. And then Sam turns slightly and he's smiling like he used to when he was a small kid, before the novelty of a new house every six months wore thin.

"Sam, what are we doing?" Dean tries again.

"I think when we go back to hunting, we should have a home-base. Somewhere to come back to."

Dumbly, Dean follows Sam upstairs. He doesn't speak as Sam gestures out of the window at the back yard and says, Plenty of room for Delphi; he shows Dean an apple-green bedroom and says, I thought you'd want this one. You can see the lake from the window; stops in the cloud-blue bathroom to say, Look at the size of the shower, man. He follows Sam around in mute compliance.

And then Sam says, "I thought we'd keep this as a guest bedroom, y'know, just in case Bobby wants to visit."

"Bobby's not going to want to visit," Dean blurts out. "You set him on fire. He nearly died. He's not going to want to visit."

Sam's jaw tightens and then relaxes. He shrugs smoothly. "Fine. We'll turn it into a study or something. C'mon," he says, "I wanna show you the kitchen."

And Dean knows this is it. The boarding call is sounding and he needs to go. Sam is integrating him into his new life, slotting him into place. He needs to go now so there won't be a Dean-shaped hole left behind. Tears rise in his eyes, hot and unwelcome, because he doesn't want to go. He never wanted to go, not even when Sam was trying to kill him.

But if he stays, Sam will never be able to move on.

"Dean!" Sam calls from downstairs. "C'mon, you gotta see this kitchen!"

By the time he gets to the kitchen, Dean feels strangely detached, as if most of him has already gone and is halfway down the road, waiting for his flesh to catch up. His eyes are dry and everything is sharply in focus.

"Pretty fantastic, huh?" says Sam. He's leaning up against the counter, huge and smiling and beautiful.

There's just one last thing Dean's going to be selfish about. Just this and then he'll go. He walks steadily towards Sam and doesn't stop until all the space between their bodies is gone. Sam has gone still and intense, a hurricane held on a razor's edge. Dean kisses Sam - puts his mouth on Sam's and slowly licks between the line of Sam's lips.

Instantly, Sam jerks his face to the side but Dean doesn't move, lets his lips rest where they now touch Sam's cheek. They stand like that, Dean listening to Sam struggle lightly for breath, until Sam says, "I'm not doing this to you. Not after everything else I've done to you."

"Please," Dean says.

He feels the shift in Sam's muscles when he makes his decision, feels it just a moment before Sam shoves him back against the island and is on him, destroying Dean's mouth with the force behind his kiss. He kisses bruises onto Dean's skin and Dean surges into him to meet every one. There are words in the air and Dean's head is spinning but eventually he makes sense of them: Dean, I'm sorry, love you. Over and over as they kiss. Sam settles his hands on Dean's shoulder and his kisses start to drift from Dean's mouth to Dean's jaw and temple.

It feels good kissing Sam. It's worth the guilt that is going to colour this memory. If nothing else, Sam will never buy this house, because it's where Dean kissed him goodbye; he'll buy somewhere Dean has never set foot and where there's nothing to remind him of Dean.

The sound of their breathing - cut off gasps and moans - are loud in the stillness of the kitchen. Sam's hands burn wherever he touches Dean, but it's a good fire. Where he's got his hand on Dean's waist, Sam's fingers brush against Dean's back, and Dean kind of wants those fingertips to dig right in. Somehow though, despite the way Sam's devouring his mouth, Dean gets that Sam's holding back a little. It's in the needy thrusts of Sam's hips, the snarl in the curl of his lips.

Finally, Dean breaks away enough to breathe. He cups Sam's face in his hands and looks deep into his eyes. He smiles. He can go now. Sam is beautiful and happy, and he's going to be okay.

"Dean," Sam whispers, soft and warm. "I didn't think you… I don't deserve you."

No, Dean thinks, You deserve so much better, and I'm going to get out of the way so you can have it.

"Damn right, you don’t," is all he says.

:::

On the way back to the apartment, Dean gets Sam to drop him at the garage. He promises Sam they'll talk when Dean gets home. Instead, he lets Sam sail away in the Impala and he lets out a breath he's been holding for months.

The Buick's in such a sorry state it hardly counts as stealing to take it. It's sunny as Dean leaves town and he wipes the back of his hand over his eyes and knows he's doing the right thing. He drives until the Buick dies and Sam hasn't called, hasn't even realised he's gone yet.

He tries Sam's cell and gets voicemail, which is what he didn't even realise he was hoping for and is further proof he's doing the right thing. He stands by the side of the road and tries to explain something he knows Sam won't get just yet.

"Hey, Sam," he says. "I'm fine, just listen. I'm not leaving because of anything you did, okay? I kissed you because I wanted to and, yeah, thinking about it, it's kinda douchey of me to kiss you like that and then leave. But…" Dean swallows, chokes a little on the cool evening air. "You deserve not to be reminded of… of what happened. And if I'm around, you're always gonna be remembering. This way, you can just be you. Just… Sam. We're always gonna be brothers and I'm always gonna…" The words won't come, not those words. "Fresh start, Sammy. Take care of Delphi and take care of yourself." A pause, and then, "Bye."

He stands there a while longer, just to give himself time to recover. Then he throws the phone in the back of the car and starts walking.

:::

It's not surprising he dreams of Sam. What's surprising is how much he dreams of Sam.

There are the sex dreams; there are a lot of those: soft and hot and urgent. Dean wakes with the phantom memories of Sam's body hard against him, a fullness pushing up inside of Dean, a contentment that he can just about feel but can't quite reach.

Dean even dreams of the black-eyed Sam: smashing Dean's face into the pillow and brutalising him. Black-eyed Sam doesn't care whether Dean wants to be fucked, whether his dick up Dean's ass gets Dean's approval. Black-eyed Sam just uses Dean and Dean has no choice in the matter. Dean understands enough psychology to get what those dreams say about his subconscious, but they leave him shaky the mornings after anyway.

Mostly, they're just regular dreams starring Sam. Sam in a library, Sam riding shotgun, Sam throwing the ball for Delphi, Sam stitching Dean up after a hunt. Sam Sam Sam. It freaks Dean out at first until he realises he's always thought about Sam this much; he's just never noticed before because Sam has always been around in person to distract him.

:::

Each hunt runs Dean a little deeper into the ground. He takes a little longer to get back up each time he's knocked down. And for when he's not hunting, there's alcohol and bar fights. He's not suicidal, he's just done. Sam is safe, the world hasn't ended, and Dean's happy to let go now.

Three weeks ago he walked into a motel room, found Castiel waiting for him and walked right back out again. This isn't the 'after' he was talking about. When he said 'after', he meant it in a post mortem kind of way.

He's been up against two demons in the five months since leaving Sam. The third demon has white eyes. It's wearing a twinky college student and it gets Dean before Dean gets it. Its smile is cancerous on its face as it straps Dean down on the diner table. It tells Dean that after it's killed him, it's going after Sam and it's going to drag him off the wagon.

"You're not going anywhere near him, jerkoff," says Dean. He can't stop looking at the bodies of the diner's customers. They'd been alive when he walked in; he'd bent down to check the pie and when he straightened up their throats were slit and the demon was eating pancakes.

"Over your dead body?" the demon offers. "That fits in nicely with what I had planned."

It runs its thumb down the inside of Dean's arm and the pressure is a strange, hot ache. As Dean watches, the path it drew on his skin swells and discolours, going watery and brown like rotting fruit. Then it bursts and his blood washes over the tabletop.

"I'll tell Sam I fucked you, of course, even if there's not enough of you left for me to actually do the deed. I'll say you struggled and begged, tell him such a good story he won't know whether he's pissed off or turned on."

It runs its hand over Dean's bleeding arm, then grips it tight, and Dean's scream isn't loud enough to cover the sound of bone cracking.

"We should have killed you years ago," the demon says. "You distracted him. He kept thinking up petty new ways to hurt you when he should have been thinking about the war."

"And you're really taking prompt action on the whole 'killing me' thing," Dean mutters.

It smiles and puts its hand on Dean's chest. The hot throb builds again, then gives way to the sudden flood of blood.

"The war's over for now," it says. "All there is left is getting the best out of what remains."

:::

It hurts to breathe now. Dean's body looks like he's been dipped in blood from the neck down. One of his feet is twisted to a funny angle. Any minute now the demon's going to be playing this game with his corpse. He can't relax into dying though because the demon's going after Sam next. And Sam's happy and safe, and it will all be ruined. All Dean's ever wanted is for Sam to be okay.

He just wants Sam to be okay.

"Dean!" Sam shouts. He sounds far away and Dean thinks he might be imagining it.

"Sam," Dean says. His tongue is thick in his mouth and he can't see properly for sudden light. "S'okay, Sammy. Jus' don't look. Lotta blood."

Something shrieks, high and inhuman, and Dean can smell burning.

"Don't need your blood for this," Sam's voice is saying. The tone is ugly and it makes Dean cringe.

The light flares even brighter and the screaming gets even louder. And then it's gone, both of it. The diner is quiet and gloomy with the evening creeping in, yellow and grey. Dean's aware of Sam leaning over him and his mind is disoriented with pain and blood-loss and he can't work out if Sam has come to save him or to kill him. Is Sam still evil? Still drinking demon blood? Did Dean really save him? Is the world still ending?

Something wet hits Dean's mouth and he parts his lips for it without thinking, lets it hit his tongue. It's salty and warm. It’s tears. Sam's crying.

Dean tries to reach up and touch Sam's cheek but he passes out somewhere in the middle of the manoeuvre.

:::

It's a hospital. Dean knows the feel of a hospital bed, knows the sharp smell and the uneasy hush. His body is one big, dull throb. He watches his fingers flex on top of the covers and frowns at how detached his hand seems from the rest of him. His other arm is in a cast and responds to the command to move with only the feeblest twitch.

"Dean," Sam says. "Huh, you're still alive. Guess you'll have to try harder next time."

He's in the chair by the bed, chin resting on his interlaced fingers and his gaze pointedly not in Dean's direction.

"You had a punctured lung. Both your ankles are broken and your arm's broken in three places. And you suffered massive internal bleeding. Also, I'm fighting the urge to kick the shit out of you myself."

"Oh," says Dean. "Okay." He tries his hand again, the one not in a cast; it still doesn't belong to him. "Where's Delphi?"

"Motel manager's babysitting her, she's fine." Sam finally looks at Dean. His eyes are red-rimmed and he needs to shave. "Y'know, if you left because you didn't wanna live with me, I'd get it. Hell, I don't particularly wanna live with me. But leaving just so you can go die without me?"

Sam unlaces his fingers and stares down at them, and it's funny how Sam's hands - big and capable - seem so much more like Dean's than his own.

"I don't look at you and remember what I did. It's not like I ever forget. But when I look at you, I remember all the reasons I don't wanna do it again. Don't you get it? You're the good part of crazy. All those things I did, the ones I regret most are the ones I did to you. And if I don't have you-"

Dean can hardly bear the hurt in Sam's eyes. He opens his mouth to explain it again, to make Sam understand the chance Dean's offering him. But Sam talks over him like he doesn't even register Dean trying to speak.

"Come home," he says. "Just… come home. I came back to you, didn't I? Return the fucking favour and come back to me."

Blindly, Dean reaches out with his working hand, crawls it across the covers until it meets Sam's. Their fingers tangle together and Dean's hand seems more like his own when it's in Sam's.

And it's awkward and desperate but it's right then that Dean goes home.

~end