[Fic] To His Grim Idol
Title: To His Grim Idol
Genre: Hurt/comfort (entirely the aftermath) with protective!hurt!Sam and bitchy!hurt!Dean, extra emphasis on the hurt!Dean. Set roughly in S2.
Pairings or Characters: Dean and Sam, Sam's POV, gen
Length: 4750 words, complete
Warnings: Salty language, semi-graphic description of the effects of torture, mention of possible unconfirmed offscreen non-con
Summary: Following a week of captivity in the hands of a 3,000 year old cult, Sam and Dean manage to get to a motel room. Sam tries to patch his brother up, much to Dean's extreme displeasure.
Author's notes: A thousand thank yous to my betas! traciaknows, lapillus, and particularly muffaletta, who was awesome enough to go through line by line to let me know what worked, what didn't, and what desperately needed to be changed. You guys rock! Originally posted here in response to a prompt on the spnkink_meme community but the story itself is very much gen.
"And they built the high places of the Ba‘al, which are in the valley of Ben-hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire l'Molech; which I did not command them, nor did it come into my mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin." -- Jeremiah 32:35
"I swear to God, Sam, if you don't get your hand the fuck off me, I will end you."
Sam winced and pulled back obediently. His brother glared at him a moment longer, a flash of irritation that might have looked more impressive without the matching pair of black eyes. When Sam didn't reach forward to try and help again, Dean snorted and turned away.
Sam watched him go. Dean weaved a little bit on the journey from the Impala to the motel room door, footsteps heavy and awkward around the limp, but he didn't once stumble. At least Dean hadn't tried to get the bags. He might be in general denial over his current physical condition, but Sam didn't even want to consider what would have happened if Dean had attempted to carry his usual share of their baggage and then collapsed on the way to their room.
Instead, Sam popped the trunk and hauled out both of their duffels, one for each shoulder, and then snagged his laptop bag for good measure. He wasn't about to go looking for a case; Dean wasn't up for it and Sam couldn't handle it, not just yet, but there were other things to research.
Dean didn't need to be hunting. Not yet, at any rate. Sam knew down to the marrow in his bones that Dean needed to recuperate and recover and for that they'd needed a place to stay. One place, not a bevvy of motel rooms after motel rooms. There was even past precedence; Dad had occasionally shelled out for actual apartments when they were kids, if there had been reason for it. And in Dean's case, there was reason aplenty.
He slammed the trunk closed and made his way towards the motel. It said something about how slowly his brother was moving because Sam managed to get their bags and make it over before Dean had even finished inserting the key into the lock.
Sam had to force himself to wait it out when it became apparent that even opening the door was causing his brother trouble. It was hard; it was already past midnight and Dean needed to be in a bed already. Before they could even get that far, Sam wanted to check on Dean's bandages and make sure that none of them had unraveled or bled through on the last three hour trek of the journey.
Which might be easier said than done. Dean had made his opinion on the matter of receiving assistance abundantly clear. If Sam wanted a ghost of a chance of checking on Dean's injuries himself rather than having his brother take off to the bathroom to lick his wounds in private, he needed to give him this much space.
Dean's hands trembled, making the key jerk in the lock, and Sam could feel the tension radiating off of his brother's form increase as the seconds ticked by. Casually, he leaned against the wall and looked away. He could almost see Dean eying him, suspicious, but Sam schooled his face into an expression of perfect neutrality and did his best to ignore the hostile figure beside him.
He couldn't hold back a slight sigh of relief when the lock finally clicked open. Next motel, he would make sure they had those modern key cards. Click and swipe, no need to worry about a sticky lock, nor his brother's prickly pride.
Dean made it in and Sam followed, fumbling to lock and bolt the door before tossing his bag on the bed nearest to him, silently laying claim to it. The other was dropped on the floor.
Dean raised eyebrow at that. Dean almost always took the bed closest to the door, but even though Sam knew it might start something he had no intention of finishing, he couldn't let Dean take point. Dean could take it back later on, if he wanted to. For now though, it was important. Sam could stand guard. Almost had to, just like he had to breathe.
Tonight, he needed to be between his brother and the rest of the world.
"Whatever." Dean mumbled and jerked his gaze away. He twisted and began to hobble towards the back of the room. "Bring me over the first aid kit, wouldya? And then why don't you go and find us something to eat?"
"Dean." Sam said irritably. He could almost feel himself pulling a face which made him feel all of two years old, but he ached and his patience had already been tried by the hours long car ride. "I'm not leaving you to go get food. Let me take a look at it."
Dean stiffened and inwardly Sam winced again. Okay, perhaps that hadn't been the best tone to take, but dammit, he was tired and although Dean had been the more fully battered between the two of them, Sam hadn't exactly gotten off lightly himself.
"I don't need your help on this, little brother." Dean's voice could have cut glass.
"No, but you're getting it anyway." Sam closed his eyes hard for a moment. At some point, he was going to learn to keep his foot out of his mouth. Twenty three years old and he still hadn't quite mastered the art of handling his brother when he was in pain.
When he opened them, Dean was watching him with a blank expression. Not a good sign. He'd looked like that before, when the cultists had come for them and it had become obvious that there was no getting out of it. Not the first time, when he'd been full of angry bluster and posturing, nor the second, when he'd moved instead onto full on insults of parentage and anatomically unlikely things that they could do with themselves. It was the look that he'd taken on more often towards the end, refusing to show any weakness, gathering his reserves.
"Fuck you, Sam." Dean said evenly. "I'll get it myself. Go find us some food."
Sam's heart sank, but he still had a card left to play.
"I just meant," he said hesitantly, "that we could check each other out. I can't get to that one on my back. Let me look you over and you can get me right afterward."
Dean didn't speak for a moment, but something in his expression cracked a touch. Sam followed it up with his trump card, the one that had worked each time when they were kids.
"I need to make sure you're okay, Dean." It was cheating and he knew it, but that didn't stop him from begging with his eyes. "I need to see it for myself."
Dean's gaze cut away and his face twisted into a scowl. It was obvious that he knew Sam was playing him, but it still felt like a weight lifted off Sam's shoulders when he shrugged jerkily, spat another "whatever" and limped on to the bathroom, leaving the door open behind him.
It didn't take long to find the first aid kit, though of course it had managed to work itself to the bottom of Sam's bag which meant scattering clothing across the bed. He didn't bother to straighten any of it back up, just found what he needed and made his way into the bathroom.
Dean was leaning over the sink when he got there, splashing water on his face. He didn't bother to look up at Sam when he came in, but that was just as well. He'd managed to shrug out of his shirt and what it revealed caused Sam's stomach to knot itself together, tight and hot.
There was a mottled mass of bruises covering his brother's skin, a map etching out days worth of pain. Sam had to suck in a deep breath at the sight and he'd been there when most of those had been delivered. Had been bound to the opposite wall, gagged into silence and forced to watch as the men of the Cult of Divine Moloch had worked his brother over to "purify" him. The cultists were working off of ancient texts stating that Moloch demanded the sacrifice of children by "passing them through the fire" but some bright individual somewhere down the line had had the brilliant idea of using scapegoats instead. Dean had just had the misfortune of being the latest lucky person selected for the "honor".
No doubt they would have done the same with Sam given enough time. They'd started to prepare him, as Sam's recently relocated shoulder and newly loosened molars could attest to. They'd just paid more attention to Dean, something Dean had done his damnedest to ensure remained the status quo. With Sam silenced and bound, there hadn't been much he could do to prevent anything.
What made the clusterfuck complete was that the bruises were far from the worst of it. Moloch was a fire god and they both sported burns as a result. Those had happened in private and out of everything that had happened, the times when they'd pulled Dean away had been the harshest, the ones where Sam had most wanted to scream. Minutes on minutes of sitting alone in the dark, waiting, straining for a sound to try and figure out what was happening, uncertain whether they'd be bringing Dean back at all, followed by the sharp, sick sense of relief when they'd dropped his brother back in place, the sick scent of cooked meat perfuming the air.
It was the same awful stench that had lingered on his own skin even after the burns faded from agonizing to mere angry throbbing.
Those were wounds he was most interested in. The ones he knew he had to trace out and find, that had to be treated. He was also pretty sure that they were the ones Dean would be most likely to try and hide away. He knew that Dean had hated Sam watching when the men had hurt him, the same as it had wrenched Sam apart to hear his brother's futile, enraged threats on the occasions when their focus had turned to him instead. The difference was that Dean hoarded his wounds like a miser with his gold, had even when they were kids.
"You going to stand there looking all day?" Dean asked idly. "Because I know I'm pretty and all, but if you're checking me out, Sammy, then I think we need to have a long-"
Sam interrupted him before he could go much further. "I got the kit."
Dean glanced up at him through the reflection on the mirror. In the light of the motel, the bruising on his face made his eyes practically glow bright green in stark contrast to the purple and black of his skin.
"Fine, but you're still going for food so do whatever you need to in order to stop acting like such a freaking girl and get moving."
Sam snorted but didn't bother to reply to the insult, nor the thought that he'd be leaving Dean alone any time soon. Assuming that either of them were still on their feet when they'd finished patching each other up, they'd be ordering delivery courtesy of a stolen card.
Instead he slapped the kit down on the counter, opened it up, and fished through it to find the gauze and antibiotic burn ointment. Last of all, he went for the pain pills: a half full prescription bottle of Vicodin, courtesy of their last ER visit.
He tipped two of the pills out into one hand, then thrust them at his brother. Dean stared at him in annoyance for several seconds, then huffed and finally reached out for them with an exaggerated roll of his eyes.
"You're a pushy little bitch," Dean complained but either he was too tired himself to belabor the point or the pain had worn down his resistance because he didn't protest the necessity. Sam watched carefully to be sure that Dean didn't try to palm either of the pills and felt a surge of satisfaction when they went down without issue.
"Where are they?" Sam asked in lieu of responding, turning to cock one hip against the counter and stare down at his brother. Dean fiddled with the faucet for a moment and Sam could sense his unease.
"Where's what?" Dean returned eventually, shoulders tightening back up again.
Sam didn't even bother to pull his look. Dean had agreed to allow (or been guilt-tripped into allowing, same difference) Sam to take care of his wounds. That meant all of them. He'd obviously intended that Sam would get caught up fussing over his back, which really was just bruising as nasty as they looked, and therefore wouldn't be concerned with anything else he might be hiding.
It would have worked, in the days before Sam had left for Stanford. He'd have taken Dean at his word that, no really, this was the worst of it and so Sam shouldn't worry about him. Things had changed though. Sam wasn't so innocent any longer.
It didn't help that this time Sam had actually been there, had watched with futile rage as those men had purposefully hurt his brother time and again. That changed everything. He'd hold Dean down and strip him naked himself if it meant ensuring that Dean wouldn't be able to hide anything from him now.
There was no point in trying to express this though. At best, Dean wouldn't believe him or wouldn't understand. At worst, he'd get his back riled up again and try to storm out and Sam really would have to force the issue.
"They burned me too," he offered, voice carefully low and without heat. "And I could smell it on you, when they brought you back sometimes."
Dean's eyes fell shut, dark lashes still wet and clumped together from the water. He frowned, looking decidedly displeased, but he was standing down again. It was like a game of tug of war, trying to pull his brother in where Sam could take care of him for once, with Dean pulling against him every step of the way, never certain which words would make Dean dig in his heels and which would allow him to yank him in an inch or two closer.
Finally, Dean cracked an eye open and turned to look at him. For the first time that evening, hell in days, the defiance in his visage was completely gone. In its place was a bone deep look of exhaustion.
"If I let you do this," he said quietly, "I don't want to hear a single word about it. Not one. We clear?"
Sam nodded. There wasn't really much of a choice and anyway, he'd broken promises to Dean before. If he had to, for Dean's sake, he'd do it again.
"Fine." Dean exhaled slowly, then his expression firmed. "But you're going first."
"Dean!" Sam protested immediately. "No, you're the one who-"
Dean interrupted him again, a mulish expression back on his face. "Once we're done with me, I'm gonna be wiped, Sam. You're going first."
Sam opened his mouth again, ready to argue in earnest, but Dean didn't look inclined to back down. Debating it wasn't helping matters. The burns on his back were generally superficial and a quick going over with ointment should serve most of them fine. And maybe Dean needed to touch and reassure himself of his brother's survival as much as Sam himself did.
It actually hurt to capitulate, a gnawing pang deep in his chest, then it really hurt like a sonavabitch when he pulled his shirt over his head. Dean commanded him to lean forward against the counter and started his exam with practiced hands the moment Sam had done so. The ointment he slathered on was unpleasantly cool and probably a couple of days too late to really do much good. Sam would be taking his fair share of scars away from this little adventure, no matter what efforts Dean made to patch him up now.
He had to shift on his feet a couple of times to keep his balance. Their captors might have given more of their attention to Dean, but they hadn't exactly treated Sam like a guest of honor either. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd eaten. Fasting, apparently, was just one more way to be purified.
Dean worked quickly and silently, cleaning and then treating each of the burns. Sam couldn't help hissing in pain occasionally; it wasn't the worst he'd ever hurt, not by far, but it felt like Dean's efforts were causing his body to recognize that they were finally someplace safe and it took that as license to start complaining.
It wasn't just the burns, though they were currently the loudest injury to deal with. Sam's shoulders began to twinge, particularly the right one because his life sucked enough that his dominant arm was the one that had been disabled. His ribs didn't hesitate to get in on the action either, the pressure from leaning forward enough to remind him of the crack to his chest he'd taken when they'd first been captured. He was tired and aching and he just wanted Dean to be done already so that he could help his brother and then the both of them could crash, long and hard. Preferably for a week.
Sam counted the burns as Dean attended each one, seven in total, one for each day they'd been held captive. In Sam's case, the burns had been smooth lines of various lengths, starting small at the top and growing longer and thicker with each passing day. The largest was at least an inch thick, perhaps seven or eight inches in length. It had been the fifth one branded into him, a searing block pressed against his skin while the cult members had held him down, ignoring his jerking and cursing.
He was pretty sure that there would have been a few more to go in order to complete the design, but they'd taken their leave before that was an option. The smallest one at the top didn't even hurt anymore and all of them had been generally thin, made by tools that were designed, one of the cultists had graciously explained at one point, to be visible without scarring too thickly or hindering mobility.
Sam hadn't had the chance to ask why it was important that his scars be for the sake of ornamentation or why limited movement might be an issue. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.
It seemed to take forever before Dean finally pulled away. He was fairly sure his brother had lingered over the last one on purpose, reluctant, perhaps, to take his turn for medical treatment. Still, Sam was grateful when it was done. The sting of the worst burns was still there, muted and irritable on his skin, but he could ignore it. Had ignored it, in fact, for the last several days. He could make it another half hour or so to patch Dean up before taking some heavy duty painkillers of his own and finding his bed.
Sam couldn't hold in a groan as he straightened, muscles twanging in protest at the movement. He peered at Dean blearily, then held out his hand for the ointment. Dean wavered for a moment before dropping it into Sam's hand with a solid thunk.
"Your turn." Sam reminded him when Dean looked longingly at the door. Dean swung his gaze back over.
"Not a damn word." He reminded Sam in a mutinous voice, then leaned up against the edge of the counter. Laboriously, Dean moved his hands to his fly and unbuttoned. His jeans didn't slide off easily, sticking to something on his right hip and Dean's face actually went white as he pulled the fabric away.
Sam swallowed hard; there was a patch on the side Dean's boxers that was wet and glistening, stuck firmly to his skin and bunching up over what had to be a bandage of some sort.
"Guess it soaked through." Dean said thinly. He leaned back against the sink and didn't resist when Sam moved in closer, fingers brushing against cloth. Sam peered up at his brother questioningly, and Dean nodded. "Just do it."
He grunted when Sam began to gently shift the damp fabric away. Blood streaked plasma coated his fingers as he worked and Dean's knuckles curled white against the counter's edge. He edged the waistband down, getting at the wet, thick gauze beneath it. Dean must have slapped it on soon after their escape, or maybe it had even been done by their captors in an effort to keep their sacrifice alive until the moon was in the right position or the equinox was reached or whatever the hell it had been that they'd been waiting for.
The edges of the bandage peeled away smoothly, but Dean made a tight noise in the back of his throat when Sam actually began to remove it from the wound itself. Sam flinched at the sound but grimly kept going. Not one word, just as commanded.
His vow of silence didn't stop nausea from rising up when he actually managed to see what was underneath. The bandage had been hiding what looked like a poorly cauterized drawing, dug into the top of his brother's right hip. It oozed blood and clear fluid, large enough that Sam could make out the details of the eyes and nose and horns. Moloch stared up at him from Dean's skin and Sam wanted, in that instant, nothing more than to track down every last one of the sons of bitches who had done this and burn them all.
"Sam," Dean's voice brought Sam back to himself. "You going to get on with it already? I can still do this myself, you know."
His voice was probably as authoritative as he could make it, but Sam noticed that he wasn't reaching for the first aid kit. Wasn't even pulling away.
"I got it," Sam replied in as level a voice as he could manage and went to work.
It would have been easier if Dean could have bent his pride enough to lay down for the process, but Sam knew better than to suggest it. Instead he carefully rinsed the wound with holy water, catching the bloody trickle underneath with a clean towel pressed lightly against Dean's thigh. It didn't need to be stitched; it looked like the bastards had first sliced the design in, then had gone over it again with a hot knife, sealing the wound. It probably wouldn't have bled at all if they hadn't been forced to run on their escape. That Dean had been able to at all was nothing sort of miraculous. Sam didn't even want to contemplate how much that must have hurt.
"This the only one?" He asked hoarsely.
"Yeah," Dean's voice said from above him. "Fuckers-" He cut off for a moment gasping as Sam began to apply the ointment to the outer edges. "Fuckers kept going back to the same place."
Sam nodded but didn't trust himself to speak again, turning his full attention to the job at hand. He had to go for the tweezers eventually to fish out the bits of fabric that had been ground down into the deepest parts of the burn. The movement caused the skin to crack again and Sam flinched at the sight before hurriedly moving on.
By the time that he was done, Dean's face had turned grey under the bruising and he was swaying on his feet. The drugs had obviously cut in and Dean didn't complain when Sam began to shepherd him back towards the bed.
He propped his brother up against the wall, turned the sheets back, ignoring the hands that batted at him and the low grumbling complaints to help Dean into bed. If he had been any less exhausted, he might have felt a twinge of discomfort when he worked Dean's boxers all the way off, but he was too damned tired to give a fuck just then and they were wet with blood and fluids. He didn't want Dean sleeping in them.
Sam turned the covers back up, hiding his brother's nakedness. It only took a minute to stumble back over towards his own bed and kick off his jeans, though a sudden bout of clumsiness made him nearly fall over as he tried to toe his boots off. He sprawled out on top of the covers, not even wanting to spend the energy necessary to get underneath them and fuck the clothing that was still scattered about. The sheets would only stick to his back anyway. Better to leave the burn stripes on his back exposed to the air.
Sam was already drifting off, more than halfway asleep when Dean's spoke again.
"Sam..." He didn't sound quite right. A bit fuzzy, maybe thanks to the Vicodin. "That's all they did when they took you back, right? Those burns?"
Sam groaned aloud, not even wanting to think about it.
"Yeah," he mumbled into his pillow. "Just held me down and did them."
"Oh." Dean said and was that a hint of relief in his voice?
Sam forced his eyes back open again and pushed himself up on his elbows, ignoring the ripple of pain that ran through his back at the movement. He peered muzzily over at the other bed.
Dean was lying on his side, facing away from Sam out of necessity thanks to the burn on his hip and the bruises on his back. It meant that he couldn't see his brother's face and right at that moment, Sam really wanted to know Dean's expression.
"Why?" Sam asked slowly. "Did they do anything else to you?"
Dean had said that there was only the one burn and Sam had believed him. But Sam had only asked about other burns, not other injuries, and Dean was a master at not bringing up things he didn't feel to be pertinent information.
"You don't think that was enough?" Dean said around a yawn. "Go to sleep, Sammy. You're buying breakfast tomorrow."
It was enough. It had to be enough. Sam cautiously leaned back down again but the earlier comfort he'd had had vanished. Dean's words had sparked a new wave of suspicion in him and with it a new, fiercer rise of protectiveness that was just as energizing as being drenched by a bucket of ice water.
Lying in the dark, watching his brother's still form, he tried to piece it together. Dean had sounded normal, or as close to it as he ever got, anyway. He tried to think back to what Dean had acted like when they'd dragged him back into their mutual cell but there wasn't anything that he could remember that had been truly out of the ordinary. Not more than being kidnapped and tortured by a 3,000 year old cult with a hard on for purification rituals at any rate.
The fact that he could add qualifiers like that was somewhat less than comforting.
A few feet away, Dean's breathing evened out into slumber and Sam turned his head to watch his brother's now silent form. If there had been something else, Sam would just have to ferret it out. Dean sucked at keeping secrets, especially when Sam was on to him.
He'd find out the truth. And if necessary, they'd go back after Dean had healed up enough and finish the job they'd started when they'd shot their way out. The ritual had been interrupted and several of the priests had been killed in the process. At the time, that was all that had seemed important - stopping an ancient god from rising and getting out of dodge. In retrospect though, Sam was fairly certain that a few of them had survived. They could be found, if the situation warranted it. If necessary, there were a handful remaining that justice could be meted out on.
In the meantime, he'd keep watch over his brother.
Genre: Hurt/comfort (entirely the aftermath) with protective!hurt!Sam and bitchy!hurt!Dean, extra emphasis on the hurt!Dean. Set roughly in S2.
Pairings or Characters: Dean and Sam, Sam's POV, gen
Length: 4750 words, complete
Warnings: Salty language, semi-graphic description of the effects of torture, mention of possible unconfirmed offscreen non-con
Summary: Following a week of captivity in the hands of a 3,000 year old cult, Sam and Dean manage to get to a motel room. Sam tries to patch his brother up, much to Dean's extreme displeasure.
Author's notes: A thousand thank yous to my betas! traciaknows, lapillus, and particularly muffaletta, who was awesome enough to go through line by line to let me know what worked, what didn't, and what desperately needed to be changed. You guys rock! Originally posted here in response to a prompt on the spnkink_meme community but the story itself is very much gen.
"And they built the high places of the Ba‘al, which are in the valley of Ben-hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire l'Molech; which I did not command them, nor did it come into my mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin." -- Jeremiah 32:35
"I swear to God, Sam, if you don't get your hand the fuck off me, I will end you."
Sam winced and pulled back obediently. His brother glared at him a moment longer, a flash of irritation that might have looked more impressive without the matching pair of black eyes. When Sam didn't reach forward to try and help again, Dean snorted and turned away.
Sam watched him go. Dean weaved a little bit on the journey from the Impala to the motel room door, footsteps heavy and awkward around the limp, but he didn't once stumble. At least Dean hadn't tried to get the bags. He might be in general denial over his current physical condition, but Sam didn't even want to consider what would have happened if Dean had attempted to carry his usual share of their baggage and then collapsed on the way to their room.
Instead, Sam popped the trunk and hauled out both of their duffels, one for each shoulder, and then snagged his laptop bag for good measure. He wasn't about to go looking for a case; Dean wasn't up for it and Sam couldn't handle it, not just yet, but there were other things to research.
Dean didn't need to be hunting. Not yet, at any rate. Sam knew down to the marrow in his bones that Dean needed to recuperate and recover and for that they'd needed a place to stay. One place, not a bevvy of motel rooms after motel rooms. There was even past precedence; Dad had occasionally shelled out for actual apartments when they were kids, if there had been reason for it. And in Dean's case, there was reason aplenty.
He slammed the trunk closed and made his way towards the motel. It said something about how slowly his brother was moving because Sam managed to get their bags and make it over before Dean had even finished inserting the key into the lock.
Sam had to force himself to wait it out when it became apparent that even opening the door was causing his brother trouble. It was hard; it was already past midnight and Dean needed to be in a bed already. Before they could even get that far, Sam wanted to check on Dean's bandages and make sure that none of them had unraveled or bled through on the last three hour trek of the journey.
Which might be easier said than done. Dean had made his opinion on the matter of receiving assistance abundantly clear. If Sam wanted a ghost of a chance of checking on Dean's injuries himself rather than having his brother take off to the bathroom to lick his wounds in private, he needed to give him this much space.
Dean's hands trembled, making the key jerk in the lock, and Sam could feel the tension radiating off of his brother's form increase as the seconds ticked by. Casually, he leaned against the wall and looked away. He could almost see Dean eying him, suspicious, but Sam schooled his face into an expression of perfect neutrality and did his best to ignore the hostile figure beside him.
He couldn't hold back a slight sigh of relief when the lock finally clicked open. Next motel, he would make sure they had those modern key cards. Click and swipe, no need to worry about a sticky lock, nor his brother's prickly pride.
Dean made it in and Sam followed, fumbling to lock and bolt the door before tossing his bag on the bed nearest to him, silently laying claim to it. The other was dropped on the floor.
Dean raised eyebrow at that. Dean almost always took the bed closest to the door, but even though Sam knew it might start something he had no intention of finishing, he couldn't let Dean take point. Dean could take it back later on, if he wanted to. For now though, it was important. Sam could stand guard. Almost had to, just like he had to breathe.
Tonight, he needed to be between his brother and the rest of the world.
"Whatever." Dean mumbled and jerked his gaze away. He twisted and began to hobble towards the back of the room. "Bring me over the first aid kit, wouldya? And then why don't you go and find us something to eat?"
"Dean." Sam said irritably. He could almost feel himself pulling a face which made him feel all of two years old, but he ached and his patience had already been tried by the hours long car ride. "I'm not leaving you to go get food. Let me take a look at it."
Dean stiffened and inwardly Sam winced again. Okay, perhaps that hadn't been the best tone to take, but dammit, he was tired and although Dean had been the more fully battered between the two of them, Sam hadn't exactly gotten off lightly himself.
"I don't need your help on this, little brother." Dean's voice could have cut glass.
"No, but you're getting it anyway." Sam closed his eyes hard for a moment. At some point, he was going to learn to keep his foot out of his mouth. Twenty three years old and he still hadn't quite mastered the art of handling his brother when he was in pain.
When he opened them, Dean was watching him with a blank expression. Not a good sign. He'd looked like that before, when the cultists had come for them and it had become obvious that there was no getting out of it. Not the first time, when he'd been full of angry bluster and posturing, nor the second, when he'd moved instead onto full on insults of parentage and anatomically unlikely things that they could do with themselves. It was the look that he'd taken on more often towards the end, refusing to show any weakness, gathering his reserves.
"Fuck you, Sam." Dean said evenly. "I'll get it myself. Go find us some food."
Sam's heart sank, but he still had a card left to play.
"I just meant," he said hesitantly, "that we could check each other out. I can't get to that one on my back. Let me look you over and you can get me right afterward."
Dean didn't speak for a moment, but something in his expression cracked a touch. Sam followed it up with his trump card, the one that had worked each time when they were kids.
"I need to make sure you're okay, Dean." It was cheating and he knew it, but that didn't stop him from begging with his eyes. "I need to see it for myself."
Dean's gaze cut away and his face twisted into a scowl. It was obvious that he knew Sam was playing him, but it still felt like a weight lifted off Sam's shoulders when he shrugged jerkily, spat another "whatever" and limped on to the bathroom, leaving the door open behind him.
It didn't take long to find the first aid kit, though of course it had managed to work itself to the bottom of Sam's bag which meant scattering clothing across the bed. He didn't bother to straighten any of it back up, just found what he needed and made his way into the bathroom.
Dean was leaning over the sink when he got there, splashing water on his face. He didn't bother to look up at Sam when he came in, but that was just as well. He'd managed to shrug out of his shirt and what it revealed caused Sam's stomach to knot itself together, tight and hot.
There was a mottled mass of bruises covering his brother's skin, a map etching out days worth of pain. Sam had to suck in a deep breath at the sight and he'd been there when most of those had been delivered. Had been bound to the opposite wall, gagged into silence and forced to watch as the men of the Cult of Divine Moloch had worked his brother over to "purify" him. The cultists were working off of ancient texts stating that Moloch demanded the sacrifice of children by "passing them through the fire" but some bright individual somewhere down the line had had the brilliant idea of using scapegoats instead. Dean had just had the misfortune of being the latest lucky person selected for the "honor".
No doubt they would have done the same with Sam given enough time. They'd started to prepare him, as Sam's recently relocated shoulder and newly loosened molars could attest to. They'd just paid more attention to Dean, something Dean had done his damnedest to ensure remained the status quo. With Sam silenced and bound, there hadn't been much he could do to prevent anything.
What made the clusterfuck complete was that the bruises were far from the worst of it. Moloch was a fire god and they both sported burns as a result. Those had happened in private and out of everything that had happened, the times when they'd pulled Dean away had been the harshest, the ones where Sam had most wanted to scream. Minutes on minutes of sitting alone in the dark, waiting, straining for a sound to try and figure out what was happening, uncertain whether they'd be bringing Dean back at all, followed by the sharp, sick sense of relief when they'd dropped his brother back in place, the sick scent of cooked meat perfuming the air.
It was the same awful stench that had lingered on his own skin even after the burns faded from agonizing to mere angry throbbing.
Those were wounds he was most interested in. The ones he knew he had to trace out and find, that had to be treated. He was also pretty sure that they were the ones Dean would be most likely to try and hide away. He knew that Dean had hated Sam watching when the men had hurt him, the same as it had wrenched Sam apart to hear his brother's futile, enraged threats on the occasions when their focus had turned to him instead. The difference was that Dean hoarded his wounds like a miser with his gold, had even when they were kids.
"You going to stand there looking all day?" Dean asked idly. "Because I know I'm pretty and all, but if you're checking me out, Sammy, then I think we need to have a long-"
Sam interrupted him before he could go much further. "I got the kit."
Dean glanced up at him through the reflection on the mirror. In the light of the motel, the bruising on his face made his eyes practically glow bright green in stark contrast to the purple and black of his skin.
"Fine, but you're still going for food so do whatever you need to in order to stop acting like such a freaking girl and get moving."
Sam snorted but didn't bother to reply to the insult, nor the thought that he'd be leaving Dean alone any time soon. Assuming that either of them were still on their feet when they'd finished patching each other up, they'd be ordering delivery courtesy of a stolen card.
Instead he slapped the kit down on the counter, opened it up, and fished through it to find the gauze and antibiotic burn ointment. Last of all, he went for the pain pills: a half full prescription bottle of Vicodin, courtesy of their last ER visit.
He tipped two of the pills out into one hand, then thrust them at his brother. Dean stared at him in annoyance for several seconds, then huffed and finally reached out for them with an exaggerated roll of his eyes.
"You're a pushy little bitch," Dean complained but either he was too tired himself to belabor the point or the pain had worn down his resistance because he didn't protest the necessity. Sam watched carefully to be sure that Dean didn't try to palm either of the pills and felt a surge of satisfaction when they went down without issue.
"Where are they?" Sam asked in lieu of responding, turning to cock one hip against the counter and stare down at his brother. Dean fiddled with the faucet for a moment and Sam could sense his unease.
"Where's what?" Dean returned eventually, shoulders tightening back up again.
Sam didn't even bother to pull his look. Dean had agreed to allow (or been guilt-tripped into allowing, same difference) Sam to take care of his wounds. That meant all of them. He'd obviously intended that Sam would get caught up fussing over his back, which really was just bruising as nasty as they looked, and therefore wouldn't be concerned with anything else he might be hiding.
It would have worked, in the days before Sam had left for Stanford. He'd have taken Dean at his word that, no really, this was the worst of it and so Sam shouldn't worry about him. Things had changed though. Sam wasn't so innocent any longer.
It didn't help that this time Sam had actually been there, had watched with futile rage as those men had purposefully hurt his brother time and again. That changed everything. He'd hold Dean down and strip him naked himself if it meant ensuring that Dean wouldn't be able to hide anything from him now.
There was no point in trying to express this though. At best, Dean wouldn't believe him or wouldn't understand. At worst, he'd get his back riled up again and try to storm out and Sam really would have to force the issue.
"They burned me too," he offered, voice carefully low and without heat. "And I could smell it on you, when they brought you back sometimes."
Dean's eyes fell shut, dark lashes still wet and clumped together from the water. He frowned, looking decidedly displeased, but he was standing down again. It was like a game of tug of war, trying to pull his brother in where Sam could take care of him for once, with Dean pulling against him every step of the way, never certain which words would make Dean dig in his heels and which would allow him to yank him in an inch or two closer.
Finally, Dean cracked an eye open and turned to look at him. For the first time that evening, hell in days, the defiance in his visage was completely gone. In its place was a bone deep look of exhaustion.
"If I let you do this," he said quietly, "I don't want to hear a single word about it. Not one. We clear?"
Sam nodded. There wasn't really much of a choice and anyway, he'd broken promises to Dean before. If he had to, for Dean's sake, he'd do it again.
"Fine." Dean exhaled slowly, then his expression firmed. "But you're going first."
"Dean!" Sam protested immediately. "No, you're the one who-"
Dean interrupted him again, a mulish expression back on his face. "Once we're done with me, I'm gonna be wiped, Sam. You're going first."
Sam opened his mouth again, ready to argue in earnest, but Dean didn't look inclined to back down. Debating it wasn't helping matters. The burns on his back were generally superficial and a quick going over with ointment should serve most of them fine. And maybe Dean needed to touch and reassure himself of his brother's survival as much as Sam himself did.
It actually hurt to capitulate, a gnawing pang deep in his chest, then it really hurt like a sonavabitch when he pulled his shirt over his head. Dean commanded him to lean forward against the counter and started his exam with practiced hands the moment Sam had done so. The ointment he slathered on was unpleasantly cool and probably a couple of days too late to really do much good. Sam would be taking his fair share of scars away from this little adventure, no matter what efforts Dean made to patch him up now.
He had to shift on his feet a couple of times to keep his balance. Their captors might have given more of their attention to Dean, but they hadn't exactly treated Sam like a guest of honor either. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd eaten. Fasting, apparently, was just one more way to be purified.
Dean worked quickly and silently, cleaning and then treating each of the burns. Sam couldn't help hissing in pain occasionally; it wasn't the worst he'd ever hurt, not by far, but it felt like Dean's efforts were causing his body to recognize that they were finally someplace safe and it took that as license to start complaining.
It wasn't just the burns, though they were currently the loudest injury to deal with. Sam's shoulders began to twinge, particularly the right one because his life sucked enough that his dominant arm was the one that had been disabled. His ribs didn't hesitate to get in on the action either, the pressure from leaning forward enough to remind him of the crack to his chest he'd taken when they'd first been captured. He was tired and aching and he just wanted Dean to be done already so that he could help his brother and then the both of them could crash, long and hard. Preferably for a week.
Sam counted the burns as Dean attended each one, seven in total, one for each day they'd been held captive. In Sam's case, the burns had been smooth lines of various lengths, starting small at the top and growing longer and thicker with each passing day. The largest was at least an inch thick, perhaps seven or eight inches in length. It had been the fifth one branded into him, a searing block pressed against his skin while the cult members had held him down, ignoring his jerking and cursing.
He was pretty sure that there would have been a few more to go in order to complete the design, but they'd taken their leave before that was an option. The smallest one at the top didn't even hurt anymore and all of them had been generally thin, made by tools that were designed, one of the cultists had graciously explained at one point, to be visible without scarring too thickly or hindering mobility.
Sam hadn't had the chance to ask why it was important that his scars be for the sake of ornamentation or why limited movement might be an issue. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.
It seemed to take forever before Dean finally pulled away. He was fairly sure his brother had lingered over the last one on purpose, reluctant, perhaps, to take his turn for medical treatment. Still, Sam was grateful when it was done. The sting of the worst burns was still there, muted and irritable on his skin, but he could ignore it. Had ignored it, in fact, for the last several days. He could make it another half hour or so to patch Dean up before taking some heavy duty painkillers of his own and finding his bed.
Sam couldn't hold in a groan as he straightened, muscles twanging in protest at the movement. He peered at Dean blearily, then held out his hand for the ointment. Dean wavered for a moment before dropping it into Sam's hand with a solid thunk.
"Your turn." Sam reminded him when Dean looked longingly at the door. Dean swung his gaze back over.
"Not a damn word." He reminded Sam in a mutinous voice, then leaned up against the edge of the counter. Laboriously, Dean moved his hands to his fly and unbuttoned. His jeans didn't slide off easily, sticking to something on his right hip and Dean's face actually went white as he pulled the fabric away.
Sam swallowed hard; there was a patch on the side Dean's boxers that was wet and glistening, stuck firmly to his skin and bunching up over what had to be a bandage of some sort.
"Guess it soaked through." Dean said thinly. He leaned back against the sink and didn't resist when Sam moved in closer, fingers brushing against cloth. Sam peered up at his brother questioningly, and Dean nodded. "Just do it."
He grunted when Sam began to gently shift the damp fabric away. Blood streaked plasma coated his fingers as he worked and Dean's knuckles curled white against the counter's edge. He edged the waistband down, getting at the wet, thick gauze beneath it. Dean must have slapped it on soon after their escape, or maybe it had even been done by their captors in an effort to keep their sacrifice alive until the moon was in the right position or the equinox was reached or whatever the hell it had been that they'd been waiting for.
The edges of the bandage peeled away smoothly, but Dean made a tight noise in the back of his throat when Sam actually began to remove it from the wound itself. Sam flinched at the sound but grimly kept going. Not one word, just as commanded.
His vow of silence didn't stop nausea from rising up when he actually managed to see what was underneath. The bandage had been hiding what looked like a poorly cauterized drawing, dug into the top of his brother's right hip. It oozed blood and clear fluid, large enough that Sam could make out the details of the eyes and nose and horns. Moloch stared up at him from Dean's skin and Sam wanted, in that instant, nothing more than to track down every last one of the sons of bitches who had done this and burn them all.
"Sam," Dean's voice brought Sam back to himself. "You going to get on with it already? I can still do this myself, you know."
His voice was probably as authoritative as he could make it, but Sam noticed that he wasn't reaching for the first aid kit. Wasn't even pulling away.
"I got it," Sam replied in as level a voice as he could manage and went to work.
It would have been easier if Dean could have bent his pride enough to lay down for the process, but Sam knew better than to suggest it. Instead he carefully rinsed the wound with holy water, catching the bloody trickle underneath with a clean towel pressed lightly against Dean's thigh. It didn't need to be stitched; it looked like the bastards had first sliced the design in, then had gone over it again with a hot knife, sealing the wound. It probably wouldn't have bled at all if they hadn't been forced to run on their escape. That Dean had been able to at all was nothing sort of miraculous. Sam didn't even want to contemplate how much that must have hurt.
"This the only one?" He asked hoarsely.
"Yeah," Dean's voice said from above him. "Fuckers-" He cut off for a moment gasping as Sam began to apply the ointment to the outer edges. "Fuckers kept going back to the same place."
Sam nodded but didn't trust himself to speak again, turning his full attention to the job at hand. He had to go for the tweezers eventually to fish out the bits of fabric that had been ground down into the deepest parts of the burn. The movement caused the skin to crack again and Sam flinched at the sight before hurriedly moving on.
By the time that he was done, Dean's face had turned grey under the bruising and he was swaying on his feet. The drugs had obviously cut in and Dean didn't complain when Sam began to shepherd him back towards the bed.
He propped his brother up against the wall, turned the sheets back, ignoring the hands that batted at him and the low grumbling complaints to help Dean into bed. If he had been any less exhausted, he might have felt a twinge of discomfort when he worked Dean's boxers all the way off, but he was too damned tired to give a fuck just then and they were wet with blood and fluids. He didn't want Dean sleeping in them.
Sam turned the covers back up, hiding his brother's nakedness. It only took a minute to stumble back over towards his own bed and kick off his jeans, though a sudden bout of clumsiness made him nearly fall over as he tried to toe his boots off. He sprawled out on top of the covers, not even wanting to spend the energy necessary to get underneath them and fuck the clothing that was still scattered about. The sheets would only stick to his back anyway. Better to leave the burn stripes on his back exposed to the air.
Sam was already drifting off, more than halfway asleep when Dean's spoke again.
"Sam..." He didn't sound quite right. A bit fuzzy, maybe thanks to the Vicodin. "That's all they did when they took you back, right? Those burns?"
Sam groaned aloud, not even wanting to think about it.
"Yeah," he mumbled into his pillow. "Just held me down and did them."
"Oh." Dean said and was that a hint of relief in his voice?
Sam forced his eyes back open again and pushed himself up on his elbows, ignoring the ripple of pain that ran through his back at the movement. He peered muzzily over at the other bed.
Dean was lying on his side, facing away from Sam out of necessity thanks to the burn on his hip and the bruises on his back. It meant that he couldn't see his brother's face and right at that moment, Sam really wanted to know Dean's expression.
"Why?" Sam asked slowly. "Did they do anything else to you?"
Dean had said that there was only the one burn and Sam had believed him. But Sam had only asked about other burns, not other injuries, and Dean was a master at not bringing up things he didn't feel to be pertinent information.
"You don't think that was enough?" Dean said around a yawn. "Go to sleep, Sammy. You're buying breakfast tomorrow."
It was enough. It had to be enough. Sam cautiously leaned back down again but the earlier comfort he'd had had vanished. Dean's words had sparked a new wave of suspicion in him and with it a new, fiercer rise of protectiveness that was just as energizing as being drenched by a bucket of ice water.
Lying in the dark, watching his brother's still form, he tried to piece it together. Dean had sounded normal, or as close to it as he ever got, anyway. He tried to think back to what Dean had acted like when they'd dragged him back into their mutual cell but there wasn't anything that he could remember that had been truly out of the ordinary. Not more than being kidnapped and tortured by a 3,000 year old cult with a hard on for purification rituals at any rate.
The fact that he could add qualifiers like that was somewhat less than comforting.
A few feet away, Dean's breathing evened out into slumber and Sam turned his head to watch his brother's now silent form. If there had been something else, Sam would just have to ferret it out. Dean sucked at keeping secrets, especially when Sam was on to him.
He'd find out the truth. And if necessary, they'd go back after Dean had healed up enough and finish the job they'd started when they'd shot their way out. The ritual had been interrupted and several of the priests had been killed in the process. At the time, that was all that had seemed important - stopping an ancient god from rising and getting out of dodge. In retrospect though, Sam was fairly certain that a few of them had survived. They could be found, if the situation warranted it. If necessary, there were a handful remaining that justice could be meted out on.
In the meantime, he'd keep watch over his brother.