His Brother's Image
His Brother's Image
He didn’t know when their words stopped working, just that they had. Was it somewhere in between the demon blood and angelic intervention, or was their inability to speak something of Lucifer's making? He wanted to blame it on that, but in the end, he knew that the only fault was his own.
He knew the message was false, that heaven helped pull them apart and he wondered if it was his powers or some need to see an end to the Winchester boys and their blasphemy, but he doesn’t believe that God would destroy them because they loved each other too much. Or maybe that’s the real reason their love was taboo. Maybe God knew that something this strong, this powerful, was the beginning of the end.
It had certainly been for them. He doesn’t remember a breath in his life without Dean though. His first memory is of Dean. Every important event of his life involved Dean. Even when he wasn't there, it was always in the back of his mind, Dean would have loved this, or Dean would have thought that, or Dean should be here.
In the end, he was there. Demon blood on his hands and forgiveness in his eyes. When light blinded them, they gripped one another, but like the demons released in the world, the light was only a prelude. Lucifer was far from them and while Sam thought he deserved to die for his part in it all, he was glad that his brother wasn’t there when the devil came to kill him. Instead, they were halfway to Bobby's, sitting in a motel because even with the apocalypse on their tail they could only go so far before exhaustion hit and neither had been at their best before this happened.
He looked at his brother, took in the tense set of his shoulders as he sat at the end of the bed, head in his hands as he tried to regroup his thoughts. Dean seemed to feel his eyes because he looked back then. He took a deep breath and nodded towards the shower. Sam just shook his head, too tired to get in the shower and afraid to hear his own voice.
Dean got off the bed and closed the bathroom door softly behind him. Sam sat there for more than a few minutes before he closed his eyes. When he opened them he slipped out of his clothes, sliding on a soft tee and boxers to sleep in. He didn't want to think about Ruby's words, about the devotion and joy in her voice as she'd maneuvered him into doing her dirty work. He snorted, wondering if the Yellow Eyed bastard had planned all of it, Sam's death at Jake's hands, Dean selling his soul. He wondered if Meg was in hell then, helping them torment his brother, making him break so that it was the Winchester family that started and finished the whole thing.
The door to the bathroom opened and Dean came out, steam rising behind him. He loved Dean like that. Soft and relaxed, the water playing tricks and connecting freckle to freckle over his silky skin, pale light blurred in the heat and making his eyes appear even more green than usual. He was a thing of beauty and to Sam it seemed these glimpses of otherworldliness in his brother's nature were the only form of divinity he'd ever known.
Dean caught his eyes and even with all the pain between them, without the words to strip away the lies and bravado, he was at Sam's side, hands caressing his arms and pulling him close. Lips melding with his own, souls colliding, breaking, embracing, becoming one in a way that remade them both.
They had no words. They didn't need them tonight. Tonight, it was the divine in them both that sought healing, and Sam opened to it, opened to be remade into the man his brother thought him to be, to be remade into his brother’s image.