Traces >> Four
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Dean didn’t talk to Sam for almost a month after that. Whenever Sam came into a room, he immediately left it. If Sam tried to talk, he pretended he wasn’t listening. If Sam made dinner, Dean made a point of not eating it or eating it later when he was certain Sam was asleep. Sam pretended it didn’t bother him. He continued researching, trying to find a solution to Dean’s loss of sight that wasn’t a witch, a doctor, a faith healer, or anything that might involve human sacrifices, but nothing came up on Google, Bing, Yahoo!, or any of the other search websites he’d become so accustomed to using. He tried a few other searches, rephrasing his words and using different ones, but, no matter what he did, nothing came up.
“Just apologize to Dean,” Lucifer said, plopping down next to him when he’d tried searching for help for his brother for the umpteenth time.
“You’re not going to find anything that will help him. You might as well, just try to make things up to him.”
Sam didn’t want to admit defeat so easily, but after searching for a way to help his brother for nearly two months to no avail, he was starting to wonder if he would ever find a way to get his sight back. He ran his fingers through his hair and glanced in the direction his brother had last gone. Most of the time he felt he was alone in this big house. Dean spent most of his time in his room doing who knew what. Sam didn’t dare go upstairs and try to find out. He was certain Dean was on the verge of snapping at him and the last thing he wanted was more conflict between the two of them. That wasn’t really what they needed right now.
“Maybe he’s concocting a potion to kill himself with,” Lucifer suggested, glancing up at the ceiling. Dean’s room was right above the kitchen.
“Shut up,” Sam said fiercely and opened his laptop once more. He didn’t need the devil telling him things to heighten his anxiety. A part of him wanted to go upstairs and make sure that was exactly what Dean wasn’t doing, but another part of him, a larger part, didn’t want to indulge in the devil’s tormenting of his mind. As he searched things he’d already run through search websites ten times over, he reasoned that he hadn’t seen Dean bringing anything up to his room so there was no way he could be coming up with any sort of deadly potion to kill himself with.
And, besides, why would Dean want to kill himself? He couldn’t see, but Sam was alive and, as vain as it sounded, Sam knew the only times that Dean had wanted to end his own life had been when he wasn’t around.
Letting out a heavy sigh, Sam followed Lucifer’s gaze to the ceiling and wondered what his brother was doing, thinking, wondered how he was coping with his loss of sight. He could argue that seeing the devil was worse than losing one’s vision, but a part of Sam felt he deserved this. Ever since the night they’d attacked the Leviathan and Dean had become blind, Sam had been forcing down a guilt that this was his fault, that he’d been the one to throw the bleach at his brother and therefore what had happened to him as a result, despite his good intentions, was his fault and that was all there was to it. So far he’d been able to keep a tight lid on those emotions, but now that they weren’t speaking, now that Dean was staying away from him, the emotions were beginning to surface and he was beginning to wonder if Dean had, at last, managed to put two and two together.
-
The bedroom wasn’t that small from what Dean could tell. It had four walls and a door into a bathroom. There was a bed near what he figured was the window. There was a small walk-in closet. And there was a nightstand with a lamp and a book that felt dusty sitting on top of it. The house had been abandoned in a hurry Sam had told him, that was the only reason he’d selected this as their base of choice for the time being. Personally, Dean would’ve preferred a motel room. He was more familiar with their layouts and he would’ve have spent the first couple of weeks in the place bumping into things. It was a lot smaller. There wouldn’t have been as much to bump into.
Though he had no knowledge of Sam’s thoughts on the floor below, he had, more than once, thought about ending his life, but, in the end, had decided he was being too melodramatic. Sam was searching for a way to return his sight to him and even if he found nothing, why would he kill himself over the loss of his sight, especially after all of the things he’d been through? At first, he’d reasoned that it was because it was just another thing on top of everything else, but decided that was bullshit and figured if Sam could endure while being tormented by hallucinations of Lucifer, why the hell could he not do the same with no vision?
Because you rely on your eyes for everything, a voice reminded him. Sam can ignore Lucifer if he chooses, but you can never ignore the fact that you’re blind.
Dean fisted his fingers in his hair and let out a strangled cry of frustration. He pushed himself to his feet and kicked what he thought was the wall, but ended up being his nightstand. He heard something fall off and crash to the ground and his irritation grew. He slammed his fist into the wall over and over and over again, until he felt his knuckles would break. Then he pulled them away and, letting out a gasp, began kicking the bed until he heard one of the legs splinter.
It wasn’t fair! Why should he be stuck with blindness when others who’d done things, terrible things, should be left alive and well and happy? He thought of a hunt he’d gone on years ago when Sam was at Stanford. There’d been a little girl who had bruises appear on her without anyone touching her, a family had said, and she was scared of everyone. But in the end, it turned out the family was lying. Her parents were beating her and her father was doing things to her that no father ever should. Just when Dean had figured out what was happening, how to save her, he’d wound up at their house and watched as the little girl was put in a body bag and driven away in an ambulance. He’d been too late to save her. The terrible people she’d been born to had killed her. Why weren’t they the ones being punished?
Because you couldn’t save her, the horrid voice replied. You couldn’t do what you were supposed to do. You let her die. You’ve let so many people die. You deserve to be in pain.
He smashed his fist into the wall again and cried out as he felt the plaster give way beneath his fingers and the bones crack.
The door burst open behind him and he shouted, “Go away! I don’t want to talk to you!” But he didn’t sound like himself. Maybe if he had, Sam would’ve listened to him. Instead, of strong and sure, he sounded broken and doubtful. He sounded like a man ready to give up on everything.
He expected Sam to tell him to calm down, to take deep breaths and try to forget about his pain, but he said nothing and did nothing. And, for a while, that was all Dean thought he would do and he wasn’t sure if he was alright with that or not. Then, he heard padded footsteps and, before he knew it, arms were wrapping around him. He let Sam hug him, comfort him, he let him lead him to the bed and sit him down. He kept his face passive the entire time, refusing to let the tears that threatened in his green eyes-turned-pale-blue to fall.
There was silence in the room for a long time, neither of them wanting to speak first, neither of them wanting to discuss the elephant in the room that was punctuated each time Dean looked up not quite at Sam when he thought about speaking before he decided against it. Both of them had too much to say to the other. Both of them wanted to say it all because now seemed like a good time. And both of them were afraid how the other would react if they spoke.
Finally, after what felt like far too long, Sam said softly, staring at his hands, “I’m sorry.”
Dean looked up, trying to gauge exactly where Sam’s voice was coming from and ending up looking just past him instead as he asked, “What for?”
Sam swallowed. “Everything,” he said, trying to force a smile and then, remembering Dean couldn’t see it, dropping it just as quickly. “For making you blind, for saying those…insensitive things, for…everything.” He wasn’t exactly sure how to elaborate. He felt Dean would know what he was saying, know what he meant. He’d screwed his brother over too many times to count and, knowing him, he’d just continue to do it, no matter how hard he tried not to, no matter how much he told himself he would do better. He was nothing more than a screw up and that was all he’d ever been.
There was another silence during which Dean tried to find the words to say something, anything to comfort his brother, reassure him that this wasn’t his fault, but he couldn’t. A part of him did blame Sam for his current condition and, no matter how unfair it was, he couldn’t bring himself to lie to him and tell him that he didn’t. He turned away from Sam and he heard his brother let out a breath of sadness. He’d let him down, confirmed his worst fears. He heard the bed creak, felt Sam start to get up, but he didn’t want him to leave. Not yet. He couldn’t go through another two months not talking to him. As much as he knew it was his fault that’d happened in the first place, it had hurt and he didn’t want it to happen again. The only thing keeping him going at the moment was Sam. He couldn’t lose him, too.
“What do you want me to say, Sammy?” He blurted out before he could think better of it. The tears he’d kept at bay thus far were leaking out of the corners of his sightless eyes now. “You want me to tell you how I miss driving my baby, how I miss seeing your stupid grin when you geek out on me, or we could skip to the part where we talk about how I really never appreciated a sunset when I was too busy ganking every son of a bitch that tried to take a bite out of us.”
It was the second part of statement that caused it, though it took until Dean was finished speaking for Sam to fully register what his brother had said and once he did, he didn’t think, he didn’t respond, he only took Dean’s face in his hands, and pressed their lips together. For a moment, both of them were tense with shock and surprise, half worried that one of the two of them would pull away and anxiously waiting for them to do so, but when they didn’t, when they realized this was mutual and something they’d both wanted without saying as much for far too long, their eyelids fluttered shut and the kiss deepened.
Dean was sloppy because he couldn’t see.
Sam was sloppy because he was desperate.
Dean’s hands ran up Sam’s back and his fingers curled in the ends of Sam’s hair.
Sam ran his fingers up under Dean’s shirt, feeling his not-quite-as-firm stomach.
Dean pressed his forehead to Sam’s closing his eyes and whispering, “I love you.”
Sam did the same.
There was a moment of silence after that where they both sat there, locked together, playing with the ends of each other’s hair, stroking each other’s faces. They knew what was going to happen next and neither knew why they were delaying it, but they were both pretty sure it had something to do with the fact they were nervous about various things and wondering how much their lives would change if they did this.
Then, all at once, they decided it didn’t matter and they began kissing again just as fiercely as before. The kisses became more desperate. Dean pushed Sam back on the bed, straddling him as his hands moved up under his shirt, splaying across his solid belly. He pushed up his little brother’s shirt and saw his brother the only way he could now: through his fingertips. He pulled his lips away from Sam’s and stared not quite at his torso as he traced the contours of his chest and stomach, trying to memorize every line and crevice through the tips of his fingers, wanting to know his brother in a way he never really could before he’d lost his sight. He moved his hands to his face, tracing his long nose, his thin lips, his soft eyelids. He ran his fingers through his hair, rubbing the strands between his thumb, middle, and forefinger. He slid his hands down his arms, ghosting over his palms and each individual finger, pulling them to his mouth and kissing his knuckles tenderly, carefully, almost as though he were terrified he would break if he weren’t so gentle.
Sam didn’t move a muscle while Dean did this. He stayed as still and as silent as a rock as his brother studied him through touch alone. When Dean’s hands dropped his own and moved back to his face, ghosting over his cheeks, his brother started when he felt the wetness there and, when Sam realized he was crying, he seemed just as surprised as his brother.
“Sammy?” Dean asked, looking in the direction he thought Sam’s face was. “Are you okay? Is-is this okay? If it’s too much, I’ll back off…”
He started to move away, started to get off of Sam, but Sam placed his hands on Dean’s thighs, holding him in place, saying, “No. It’s not that. I promise.”
“Then what is it?” his older brother asked, placing his hands over Sam’s pecs.
Sam swallowed. They’d already had this conversation. But that didn’t change how he felt or that his feelings were justified. He closed his eyes tightly for a brief moment, trying to make his world completely black, trying, for that one moment, to understand how it must be like for Dean always and know that he was the one that had caused it. He took a shuddering breath and said, “This is my fault, Dean…what happened to you…if I’d just waited, just a second or two longer, I could’ve gauged the situation better and you would be alright. You wouldn’t be blind. We wouldn’t be stuck in this house. We’d be out hunting Dick Roman and avenging Bobby and everything would be okay, but I…I fucked up again and now...because of it…you can’t see...and I’ve been -”
He was cut off abruptly by Dean’s lips on his own. His eyelids fluttered shut, not with pain as they had before, but from the ecstasy of the kiss. When he opened them again and Dean opened his, revealing the pale-blue that his brilliantly green eyes had become, his brother said, “I don’t want to hear that anymore. It wasn’t your fault, Sammy. You had no idea I was going to turn at the last second. If you had, you never would’ve thrown the bleach.” He placed his hands on either side of Sam’s face. “This isn’t your fault, Sam. I don’t blame you.” It wasn’t entirely the truth, but it wasn’t exactly a lie either and right now, a half-truth was better than a full one.
Sam knew that was all it was. He knew there was a part of Dean that blamed him. He wasn’t sure how big that part was, but, right now, he didn’t want to dwell on it. He let Dean’s acceptance of his apology and reassurance that he didn’t think what had happened was his fault wash over him completely. He let out a soft sigh as he pressed his lips to Dean’s once more, lying back down on the bed as he did so, wrapping his arms around his brother, reveling in the passion he was being given before deciding they’d waited long enough and it was time to get down to business.
They made short work of their clothes. Sam’s shirt was already almost off and Dean’s fingers were already fumbling with Sam’s belt by the time he registered his brother had discarded it. He interrupted Dean’s unbuckling by shoving off his shirt as well. Dean slipped off Sam’s belt just as he began to undo his. By the time Sam’s pants were down around his ankles, his cock straining against the thin cloth of his boxers, Dean was still half clothed and finished undressing by himself.
“You’re too slow, Sammy,” he teased.
“Fuck you,” Sam retorted.
“I plan to,” Dean grinned, looking almost directly at Sam as he said this.
If he’d had his vision, he would’ve seen his little brother’s cheeks turn a bright pink. In fact, just thinking about it made the smile on face falter, but he forgot about it a moment later when their lips connected once more.
They kissed for a while, knotting their fingers in each other’s hair, running their hands across each other’s chests before finally they strayed below the waist and they clumsily palmed one another, gasping in pleasure as they did so. Dean ground his crotch against Sam’s and Sam moaned into Dean’s shoulder. Dean’s grin returned at the sound his little brother made, the sound he made him make. He knew he was far too proud of himself for this, he knew he should be disgusted by the thought of fucking Sam and making him come, but he wasn’t, hadn’t been for a long time, but they could discuss that later. Right now, he wanted to get down to business.
Pushing off of Sam’s lap, Dean kissed Sam’s lips, his chin, his jaw, and his collarbone. He kissed down his chest to his bellybutton and the waistband of his boxers. He moved his fingers just under the elastic, feeling the coarse hairs that he knew trailed down from Sam’s bellybutton on the tips of his fingers. Then, in one swift movement, he shucked off the last article of clothing separating him from Sam’s cock and released it.
Maybe it was a perverted desire to want to see your brother’s penis, but in that moment, Dean wished more than ever that he had his sight back. A part of him considered that maybe it was due to the fact he no longer had his sight that this was happening, but that didn’t stop the wish from being there. He wanted to see what his brother looked like completely naked. He wanted to stare at him for a long time and not look away now that he no longer had to pretend he was disgusted by seeing his brother without clothes. But his blindness remained and no amount of silent wishing or praying was going to change that just now.
After only a few milliseconds of awkward fumbling, Dean’s fingers again found Sam’s cock. He moved his hand up and down the shaft a few times, listening to Sam moan, imagining him tilting his head back in pleasure, before he wrapped his lips around the head and swirled his tongue over the slit. He could feel Sam shuddering beneath him. He felt his brother’s fingers pull as his short hair. He smiled around Sam’s cock and took more of him into his mouth. He moved his head up and down, fucking him with his mouth, loving the sounds he made as he did so.
“You gonna come for me,” Dean asked at one point, pulling off of Sam’s cock just long enough to ask the question. “You gonna come in my mouth?”
“F-fuck yes,” Sam moaned, struggling to form coherent words around the pleasure he was being given.
Dean managed a grin before he got back to work.
Sam cried out and thrust his hips upward almost choking his brother as he came only a short time later. When Dean had finished swallowing everything Sam shot down his throat, he crawled back up the bed and kissed him. Sam, spent from his orgasm, responded sloppily.
“I thought…you wanted to…fuck me…” he gasped out in between deep breaths.
“I know a thing or two about men fucking,” Dean replied, kissing Sam again. “And we don’t have any kind of lube.”
He didn’t need to say anymore.
“C’mere,” Sam said, still slightly breathless.
“Sam, I just said -”
Sam rolled his eyes and pulled Dean towards him, placing his hand on his crotch, as he said, “I heard you, but you haven’t been taken care of yet.”
“You don’t have to take care of me,” Dean replied as Sam kissed him.
“I know,” Sam said against his lips. “But I want to.”
He moved his hand a bit, feeling his brother’s hard cock still sheathed in his underwear. He could see a wet spot where precome had dampened the cloth. Unlike Dean, he took his brother’s boxers off slowly, easing them down his thighs and calves and over his feet as though he had all the time in the world. Dean was trembling with anticipation and Sam loved it. However, once he’d thrown Dean’s boxers on the pile of the rest of their clothes, littering the floor, he did what Dean hadn’t been able to do and stared at him.
Sam took in the sight of his brother, considered beautiful by every girl, naked before him. He thought about how jealous he was every time Dean went home with one of them or brought them back to the motel. He thought about how much he hated his brother for fucking them. He remembered when he’d realized why that was. But now he had him all to himself and he planned to take full advantage of it.
Unwilling to get Dean off the same way his brother had gotten him off, Sam took Dean’s cock in his hand and began to stroke him. Slowly, at first, feeling every inch of him, his thumb moving around the soft skin of the head, spreading the wetness leaking from the slit around it. He grinned when Dean let out a gasp and a shuddering moan. It let him know whatever he was doing, he was doing it right.
It took Dean a lot longer to come than it had Sam. Maybe it was because Dean had just had a lot more sex in general than Sam had. Or maybe it was because Sam was stroking him and not fucking him with his mouth. Either way, Sam was glad. He got to watch Dean’s pleasured expressions longer.
Once Dean had finished and they’d both cleaned themselves up in the small bathroom down the hall - Sam having to help Dean here and there - they lay down in Dean’s small single bed, wrapping in each other and saying nothing for a long time, but thinking about a lot of things that neither of them had the courage to voice. Finally, Sam said, his voice soft and tentative, “I need to keep looking for a way to help you.”
He started to get up, ready to head back down to the computer and his fruitless searching, but Dean wrapped his fingers around his upper arm and pulled him back down. It shocked Sam a little that, though Dean had been out of commission for a few months, he still hadn’t lost his strength. He’d never had the muscles Sam had, but he’d always been strong enough for both their job and keeping Sam in check.
Normally, this thought might’ve made Sam smile, but, as it stood, he turned to his brother, looking into his foggy pale blue eyes, though he could not see him, wondering what would keep him from trying to fix what he’d done.
“Just lay with me for a little bit, Sam,” Dean said softly, and this time when he turned to look at his brother, he looked directly at him. Sam could almost pretend Dean wasn’t blind, he was just wearing stupid contacts because he was trying to impress his little brother again in some stupid way that would only make Sam roll his eyes but smile, too.
But that wasn’t what was going on.
Dean was blind and it was Sam’s fault.
“I-I can’t, Dean,” Sam said softly, pain etching itself into his features. “I have to fix this. I’m the one that did this to you and I have to fix it.”
“Didn’t you hear me, when I told you I don’t blame you?” Dean asked, sounding slightly angry and frustrated now. “What happened isn’t your fault. It was an accident, a stupid coincidence and that couldn’t have been avoided.”
“But I still blame myself, Dean,” Sam said firmly before his brother could say anything else. “I’m the one that threw the bleach and if I’d just waited a few seconds longer, it wouldn’t have gotten in your eyes and you wouldn’t be blind. I’m glad you’ve forgiven me, but I can’t forgive myself…not until I fix this.”
This time when Sam pulled away, he didn’t stop him. They were both thinking the same thing: What if he couldn’t fix this? What then? Sam had been able to fix every mistake he’d ever made up to this point, but this one was different. It was something that couldn’t be healed with time, only a medicine that he wasn’t even really sure he could find.
On to Ch. 5
Dean didn’t talk to Sam for almost a month after that. Whenever Sam came into a room, he immediately left it. If Sam tried to talk, he pretended he wasn’t listening. If Sam made dinner, Dean made a point of not eating it or eating it later when he was certain Sam was asleep. Sam pretended it didn’t bother him. He continued researching, trying to find a solution to Dean’s loss of sight that wasn’t a witch, a doctor, a faith healer, or anything that might involve human sacrifices, but nothing came up on Google, Bing, Yahoo!, or any of the other search websites he’d become so accustomed to using. He tried a few other searches, rephrasing his words and using different ones, but, no matter what he did, nothing came up.
“Just apologize to Dean,” Lucifer said, plopping down next to him when he’d tried searching for help for his brother for the umpteenth time.
“You’re not going to find anything that will help him. You might as well, just try to make things up to him.”
Sam didn’t want to admit defeat so easily, but after searching for a way to help his brother for nearly two months to no avail, he was starting to wonder if he would ever find a way to get his sight back. He ran his fingers through his hair and glanced in the direction his brother had last gone. Most of the time he felt he was alone in this big house. Dean spent most of his time in his room doing who knew what. Sam didn’t dare go upstairs and try to find out. He was certain Dean was on the verge of snapping at him and the last thing he wanted was more conflict between the two of them. That wasn’t really what they needed right now.
“Maybe he’s concocting a potion to kill himself with,” Lucifer suggested, glancing up at the ceiling. Dean’s room was right above the kitchen.
“Shut up,” Sam said fiercely and opened his laptop once more. He didn’t need the devil telling him things to heighten his anxiety. A part of him wanted to go upstairs and make sure that was exactly what Dean wasn’t doing, but another part of him, a larger part, didn’t want to indulge in the devil’s tormenting of his mind. As he searched things he’d already run through search websites ten times over, he reasoned that he hadn’t seen Dean bringing anything up to his room so there was no way he could be coming up with any sort of deadly potion to kill himself with.
And, besides, why would Dean want to kill himself? He couldn’t see, but Sam was alive and, as vain as it sounded, Sam knew the only times that Dean had wanted to end his own life had been when he wasn’t around.
Letting out a heavy sigh, Sam followed Lucifer’s gaze to the ceiling and wondered what his brother was doing, thinking, wondered how he was coping with his loss of sight. He could argue that seeing the devil was worse than losing one’s vision, but a part of Sam felt he deserved this. Ever since the night they’d attacked the Leviathan and Dean had become blind, Sam had been forcing down a guilt that this was his fault, that he’d been the one to throw the bleach at his brother and therefore what had happened to him as a result, despite his good intentions, was his fault and that was all there was to it. So far he’d been able to keep a tight lid on those emotions, but now that they weren’t speaking, now that Dean was staying away from him, the emotions were beginning to surface and he was beginning to wonder if Dean had, at last, managed to put two and two together.
-
The bedroom wasn’t that small from what Dean could tell. It had four walls and a door into a bathroom. There was a bed near what he figured was the window. There was a small walk-in closet. And there was a nightstand with a lamp and a book that felt dusty sitting on top of it. The house had been abandoned in a hurry Sam had told him, that was the only reason he’d selected this as their base of choice for the time being. Personally, Dean would’ve preferred a motel room. He was more familiar with their layouts and he would’ve have spent the first couple of weeks in the place bumping into things. It was a lot smaller. There wouldn’t have been as much to bump into.
Though he had no knowledge of Sam’s thoughts on the floor below, he had, more than once, thought about ending his life, but, in the end, had decided he was being too melodramatic. Sam was searching for a way to return his sight to him and even if he found nothing, why would he kill himself over the loss of his sight, especially after all of the things he’d been through? At first, he’d reasoned that it was because it was just another thing on top of everything else, but decided that was bullshit and figured if Sam could endure while being tormented by hallucinations of Lucifer, why the hell could he not do the same with no vision?
Because you rely on your eyes for everything, a voice reminded him. Sam can ignore Lucifer if he chooses, but you can never ignore the fact that you’re blind.
Dean fisted his fingers in his hair and let out a strangled cry of frustration. He pushed himself to his feet and kicked what he thought was the wall, but ended up being his nightstand. He heard something fall off and crash to the ground and his irritation grew. He slammed his fist into the wall over and over and over again, until he felt his knuckles would break. Then he pulled them away and, letting out a gasp, began kicking the bed until he heard one of the legs splinter.
It wasn’t fair! Why should he be stuck with blindness when others who’d done things, terrible things, should be left alive and well and happy? He thought of a hunt he’d gone on years ago when Sam was at Stanford. There’d been a little girl who had bruises appear on her without anyone touching her, a family had said, and she was scared of everyone. But in the end, it turned out the family was lying. Her parents were beating her and her father was doing things to her that no father ever should. Just when Dean had figured out what was happening, how to save her, he’d wound up at their house and watched as the little girl was put in a body bag and driven away in an ambulance. He’d been too late to save her. The terrible people she’d been born to had killed her. Why weren’t they the ones being punished?
Because you couldn’t save her, the horrid voice replied. You couldn’t do what you were supposed to do. You let her die. You’ve let so many people die. You deserve to be in pain.
He smashed his fist into the wall again and cried out as he felt the plaster give way beneath his fingers and the bones crack.
The door burst open behind him and he shouted, “Go away! I don’t want to talk to you!” But he didn’t sound like himself. Maybe if he had, Sam would’ve listened to him. Instead, of strong and sure, he sounded broken and doubtful. He sounded like a man ready to give up on everything.
He expected Sam to tell him to calm down, to take deep breaths and try to forget about his pain, but he said nothing and did nothing. And, for a while, that was all Dean thought he would do and he wasn’t sure if he was alright with that or not. Then, he heard padded footsteps and, before he knew it, arms were wrapping around him. He let Sam hug him, comfort him, he let him lead him to the bed and sit him down. He kept his face passive the entire time, refusing to let the tears that threatened in his green eyes-turned-pale-blue to fall.
There was silence in the room for a long time, neither of them wanting to speak first, neither of them wanting to discuss the elephant in the room that was punctuated each time Dean looked up not quite at Sam when he thought about speaking before he decided against it. Both of them had too much to say to the other. Both of them wanted to say it all because now seemed like a good time. And both of them were afraid how the other would react if they spoke.
Finally, after what felt like far too long, Sam said softly, staring at his hands, “I’m sorry.”
Dean looked up, trying to gauge exactly where Sam’s voice was coming from and ending up looking just past him instead as he asked, “What for?”
Sam swallowed. “Everything,” he said, trying to force a smile and then, remembering Dean couldn’t see it, dropping it just as quickly. “For making you blind, for saying those…insensitive things, for…everything.” He wasn’t exactly sure how to elaborate. He felt Dean would know what he was saying, know what he meant. He’d screwed his brother over too many times to count and, knowing him, he’d just continue to do it, no matter how hard he tried not to, no matter how much he told himself he would do better. He was nothing more than a screw up and that was all he’d ever been.
There was another silence during which Dean tried to find the words to say something, anything to comfort his brother, reassure him that this wasn’t his fault, but he couldn’t. A part of him did blame Sam for his current condition and, no matter how unfair it was, he couldn’t bring himself to lie to him and tell him that he didn’t. He turned away from Sam and he heard his brother let out a breath of sadness. He’d let him down, confirmed his worst fears. He heard the bed creak, felt Sam start to get up, but he didn’t want him to leave. Not yet. He couldn’t go through another two months not talking to him. As much as he knew it was his fault that’d happened in the first place, it had hurt and he didn’t want it to happen again. The only thing keeping him going at the moment was Sam. He couldn’t lose him, too.
“What do you want me to say, Sammy?” He blurted out before he could think better of it. The tears he’d kept at bay thus far were leaking out of the corners of his sightless eyes now. “You want me to tell you how I miss driving my baby, how I miss seeing your stupid grin when you geek out on me, or we could skip to the part where we talk about how I really never appreciated a sunset when I was too busy ganking every son of a bitch that tried to take a bite out of us.”
It was the second part of statement that caused it, though it took until Dean was finished speaking for Sam to fully register what his brother had said and once he did, he didn’t think, he didn’t respond, he only took Dean’s face in his hands, and pressed their lips together. For a moment, both of them were tense with shock and surprise, half worried that one of the two of them would pull away and anxiously waiting for them to do so, but when they didn’t, when they realized this was mutual and something they’d both wanted without saying as much for far too long, their eyelids fluttered shut and the kiss deepened.
Dean was sloppy because he couldn’t see.
Sam was sloppy because he was desperate.
Dean’s hands ran up Sam’s back and his fingers curled in the ends of Sam’s hair.
Sam ran his fingers up under Dean’s shirt, feeling his not-quite-as-firm stomach.
Dean pressed his forehead to Sam’s closing his eyes and whispering, “I love you.”
Sam did the same.
There was a moment of silence after that where they both sat there, locked together, playing with the ends of each other’s hair, stroking each other’s faces. They knew what was going to happen next and neither knew why they were delaying it, but they were both pretty sure it had something to do with the fact they were nervous about various things and wondering how much their lives would change if they did this.
Then, all at once, they decided it didn’t matter and they began kissing again just as fiercely as before. The kisses became more desperate. Dean pushed Sam back on the bed, straddling him as his hands moved up under his shirt, splaying across his solid belly. He pushed up his little brother’s shirt and saw his brother the only way he could now: through his fingertips. He pulled his lips away from Sam’s and stared not quite at his torso as he traced the contours of his chest and stomach, trying to memorize every line and crevice through the tips of his fingers, wanting to know his brother in a way he never really could before he’d lost his sight. He moved his hands to his face, tracing his long nose, his thin lips, his soft eyelids. He ran his fingers through his hair, rubbing the strands between his thumb, middle, and forefinger. He slid his hands down his arms, ghosting over his palms and each individual finger, pulling them to his mouth and kissing his knuckles tenderly, carefully, almost as though he were terrified he would break if he weren’t so gentle.
Sam didn’t move a muscle while Dean did this. He stayed as still and as silent as a rock as his brother studied him through touch alone. When Dean’s hands dropped his own and moved back to his face, ghosting over his cheeks, his brother started when he felt the wetness there and, when Sam realized he was crying, he seemed just as surprised as his brother.
“Sammy?” Dean asked, looking in the direction he thought Sam’s face was. “Are you okay? Is-is this okay? If it’s too much, I’ll back off…”
He started to move away, started to get off of Sam, but Sam placed his hands on Dean’s thighs, holding him in place, saying, “No. It’s not that. I promise.”
“Then what is it?” his older brother asked, placing his hands over Sam’s pecs.
Sam swallowed. They’d already had this conversation. But that didn’t change how he felt or that his feelings were justified. He closed his eyes tightly for a brief moment, trying to make his world completely black, trying, for that one moment, to understand how it must be like for Dean always and know that he was the one that had caused it. He took a shuddering breath and said, “This is my fault, Dean…what happened to you…if I’d just waited, just a second or two longer, I could’ve gauged the situation better and you would be alright. You wouldn’t be blind. We wouldn’t be stuck in this house. We’d be out hunting Dick Roman and avenging Bobby and everything would be okay, but I…I fucked up again and now...because of it…you can’t see...and I’ve been -”
He was cut off abruptly by Dean’s lips on his own. His eyelids fluttered shut, not with pain as they had before, but from the ecstasy of the kiss. When he opened them again and Dean opened his, revealing the pale-blue that his brilliantly green eyes had become, his brother said, “I don’t want to hear that anymore. It wasn’t your fault, Sammy. You had no idea I was going to turn at the last second. If you had, you never would’ve thrown the bleach.” He placed his hands on either side of Sam’s face. “This isn’t your fault, Sam. I don’t blame you.” It wasn’t entirely the truth, but it wasn’t exactly a lie either and right now, a half-truth was better than a full one.
Sam knew that was all it was. He knew there was a part of Dean that blamed him. He wasn’t sure how big that part was, but, right now, he didn’t want to dwell on it. He let Dean’s acceptance of his apology and reassurance that he didn’t think what had happened was his fault wash over him completely. He let out a soft sigh as he pressed his lips to Dean’s once more, lying back down on the bed as he did so, wrapping his arms around his brother, reveling in the passion he was being given before deciding they’d waited long enough and it was time to get down to business.
They made short work of their clothes. Sam’s shirt was already almost off and Dean’s fingers were already fumbling with Sam’s belt by the time he registered his brother had discarded it. He interrupted Dean’s unbuckling by shoving off his shirt as well. Dean slipped off Sam’s belt just as he began to undo his. By the time Sam’s pants were down around his ankles, his cock straining against the thin cloth of his boxers, Dean was still half clothed and finished undressing by himself.
“You’re too slow, Sammy,” he teased.
“Fuck you,” Sam retorted.
“I plan to,” Dean grinned, looking almost directly at Sam as he said this.
If he’d had his vision, he would’ve seen his little brother’s cheeks turn a bright pink. In fact, just thinking about it made the smile on face falter, but he forgot about it a moment later when their lips connected once more.
They kissed for a while, knotting their fingers in each other’s hair, running their hands across each other’s chests before finally they strayed below the waist and they clumsily palmed one another, gasping in pleasure as they did so. Dean ground his crotch against Sam’s and Sam moaned into Dean’s shoulder. Dean’s grin returned at the sound his little brother made, the sound he made him make. He knew he was far too proud of himself for this, he knew he should be disgusted by the thought of fucking Sam and making him come, but he wasn’t, hadn’t been for a long time, but they could discuss that later. Right now, he wanted to get down to business.
Pushing off of Sam’s lap, Dean kissed Sam’s lips, his chin, his jaw, and his collarbone. He kissed down his chest to his bellybutton and the waistband of his boxers. He moved his fingers just under the elastic, feeling the coarse hairs that he knew trailed down from Sam’s bellybutton on the tips of his fingers. Then, in one swift movement, he shucked off the last article of clothing separating him from Sam’s cock and released it.
Maybe it was a perverted desire to want to see your brother’s penis, but in that moment, Dean wished more than ever that he had his sight back. A part of him considered that maybe it was due to the fact he no longer had his sight that this was happening, but that didn’t stop the wish from being there. He wanted to see what his brother looked like completely naked. He wanted to stare at him for a long time and not look away now that he no longer had to pretend he was disgusted by seeing his brother without clothes. But his blindness remained and no amount of silent wishing or praying was going to change that just now.
After only a few milliseconds of awkward fumbling, Dean’s fingers again found Sam’s cock. He moved his hand up and down the shaft a few times, listening to Sam moan, imagining him tilting his head back in pleasure, before he wrapped his lips around the head and swirled his tongue over the slit. He could feel Sam shuddering beneath him. He felt his brother’s fingers pull as his short hair. He smiled around Sam’s cock and took more of him into his mouth. He moved his head up and down, fucking him with his mouth, loving the sounds he made as he did so.
“You gonna come for me,” Dean asked at one point, pulling off of Sam’s cock just long enough to ask the question. “You gonna come in my mouth?”
“F-fuck yes,” Sam moaned, struggling to form coherent words around the pleasure he was being given.
Dean managed a grin before he got back to work.
Sam cried out and thrust his hips upward almost choking his brother as he came only a short time later. When Dean had finished swallowing everything Sam shot down his throat, he crawled back up the bed and kissed him. Sam, spent from his orgasm, responded sloppily.
“I thought…you wanted to…fuck me…” he gasped out in between deep breaths.
“I know a thing or two about men fucking,” Dean replied, kissing Sam again. “And we don’t have any kind of lube.”
He didn’t need to say anymore.
“C’mere,” Sam said, still slightly breathless.
“Sam, I just said -”
Sam rolled his eyes and pulled Dean towards him, placing his hand on his crotch, as he said, “I heard you, but you haven’t been taken care of yet.”
“You don’t have to take care of me,” Dean replied as Sam kissed him.
“I know,” Sam said against his lips. “But I want to.”
He moved his hand a bit, feeling his brother’s hard cock still sheathed in his underwear. He could see a wet spot where precome had dampened the cloth. Unlike Dean, he took his brother’s boxers off slowly, easing them down his thighs and calves and over his feet as though he had all the time in the world. Dean was trembling with anticipation and Sam loved it. However, once he’d thrown Dean’s boxers on the pile of the rest of their clothes, littering the floor, he did what Dean hadn’t been able to do and stared at him.
Sam took in the sight of his brother, considered beautiful by every girl, naked before him. He thought about how jealous he was every time Dean went home with one of them or brought them back to the motel. He thought about how much he hated his brother for fucking them. He remembered when he’d realized why that was. But now he had him all to himself and he planned to take full advantage of it.
Unwilling to get Dean off the same way his brother had gotten him off, Sam took Dean’s cock in his hand and began to stroke him. Slowly, at first, feeling every inch of him, his thumb moving around the soft skin of the head, spreading the wetness leaking from the slit around it. He grinned when Dean let out a gasp and a shuddering moan. It let him know whatever he was doing, he was doing it right.
It took Dean a lot longer to come than it had Sam. Maybe it was because Dean had just had a lot more sex in general than Sam had. Or maybe it was because Sam was stroking him and not fucking him with his mouth. Either way, Sam was glad. He got to watch Dean’s pleasured expressions longer.
Once Dean had finished and they’d both cleaned themselves up in the small bathroom down the hall - Sam having to help Dean here and there - they lay down in Dean’s small single bed, wrapping in each other and saying nothing for a long time, but thinking about a lot of things that neither of them had the courage to voice. Finally, Sam said, his voice soft and tentative, “I need to keep looking for a way to help you.”
He started to get up, ready to head back down to the computer and his fruitless searching, but Dean wrapped his fingers around his upper arm and pulled him back down. It shocked Sam a little that, though Dean had been out of commission for a few months, he still hadn’t lost his strength. He’d never had the muscles Sam had, but he’d always been strong enough for both their job and keeping Sam in check.
Normally, this thought might’ve made Sam smile, but, as it stood, he turned to his brother, looking into his foggy pale blue eyes, though he could not see him, wondering what would keep him from trying to fix what he’d done.
“Just lay with me for a little bit, Sam,” Dean said softly, and this time when he turned to look at his brother, he looked directly at him. Sam could almost pretend Dean wasn’t blind, he was just wearing stupid contacts because he was trying to impress his little brother again in some stupid way that would only make Sam roll his eyes but smile, too.
But that wasn’t what was going on.
Dean was blind and it was Sam’s fault.
“I-I can’t, Dean,” Sam said softly, pain etching itself into his features. “I have to fix this. I’m the one that did this to you and I have to fix it.”
“Didn’t you hear me, when I told you I don’t blame you?” Dean asked, sounding slightly angry and frustrated now. “What happened isn’t your fault. It was an accident, a stupid coincidence and that couldn’t have been avoided.”
“But I still blame myself, Dean,” Sam said firmly before his brother could say anything else. “I’m the one that threw the bleach and if I’d just waited a few seconds longer, it wouldn’t have gotten in your eyes and you wouldn’t be blind. I’m glad you’ve forgiven me, but I can’t forgive myself…not until I fix this.”
This time when Sam pulled away, he didn’t stop him. They were both thinking the same thing: What if he couldn’t fix this? What then? Sam had been able to fix every mistake he’d ever made up to this point, but this one was different. It was something that couldn’t be healed with time, only a medicine that he wasn’t even really sure he could find.
On to Ch. 5