Supernatural: Consider the Hairpin Turn [3/3]
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PART THREE
Sam doesn't know where they come from, but he wakes up three days and two states later to a bottle of prescription pills on his nightstand. He sits up, blinking at the bright orange container, picks them up and shakes them.
"Morning," Dean says. He's standing over his duffel, digging for something in a white towel and nothing else. The room is thick with steam coming from the bathroom, because it's too small and Dean never got the lesson about sharing hot water, not even to make the day just a bit easier on his traumatized little brother.
Dean's been tiptoeing around, doing every nice thing he can think of for Sam since he woke up, and it’s been making Sam uncomfortable. He isn't particularly in the mood for any temperature extremities, hot or cold, so he isn’t actually that upset. It's the lack of thought that counts.
"Nice to see you're back to making our entire room smell like mold," he says, holding the pills up. "What's this?"
"Christmas present," Dean says with a grin. "Picked them up at the local pharmacy while I was on the breakfast run."
"It's not Christmas," Sam replies. And then the really important part hits him. "There's breakfast?"
"I ate yours," Dean replies. "And mine. Good stuff!"
Sam shakes his head and puts the pills back on the nightstand. "You'd better be lying."
Dean finds the boxers and shirt he's been looking for, and Sam is a very good, manages to turn away without trying to peek as Dean gets dressed.
"Naw, there's breakfast in the fridge since you took so damn long to wake up," Dean says from behind him as Sam stands and begins to pad toward the half foot of counter space and mini fridge that passes for a kitchen in their lives. He bends down and grabs the handle before Dean's hand is covering Sam's, stopping him from opening it.
"Dude, what do you want? I'm hungry." He looks over and regrets it, sees Dean watching at him, serious and worried. Sam knows where this is going.
Dean takes Sam's hand away from the fridge and presses the bottle into his palm. "You take them with food, Sammy. I looked it up before-"
"Before you stole them from someone who actually needed them?" Sam snaps. "I'm not crazy, Dean."
"Of course you are," he replies calmly. "Of course we both are. Look, Sam, it’s not that big a deal, okay? I faked a prescription. I didn't steal them from anyone. I got this idea a while ago."
"There's no hunt in this town, is there?"
Dean smiles weakly. "Had to get you here to pick them up, didn't I?"
"How could you not talk to me about something like this?" Sam frowns. "What, am I that pathetic to you? I can't even be consulted about my own damn life?"
"I'm not going to force you to take them." Dean's voice is measured and Sam might be imagining how close his brother seems to snapping. "It was an idea, Sam. Just an idea. If I found a spell for this, you'd let me try that, wouldn't you?"
Grudgingly, Sam nods.
"So why's it so different with a few pills? What if this is all it takes? Think of it, you could stop hallucinating and stop thinking of Lucifer and…" Dean licks his lips. "Can't you just try them for me?"
Sam does. Sam does and Dean thinks they work and Sam doesn’t know how to correct him. He stays on the meds for a week and a half. During that time, he doesn’t wake Dean up with his nightmares, doesn't freeze on hunts-doesn't do much of anything.
He gets his brother back.
Dean thinks he's all better, thinks Sam is just some regular headcase when really crazy would be a relief to Sam. Normal people can go crazy. Normal people can survive crazy. Sam's problems are outside the realm of science. All the pills do are slow his brain down too much to react. He's scared out of his fucking wits and he can't even pull it together enough to scream.
"When are you going to tell him I'm here?"
Sam stares at the diner table in front of him. Does not look up. Don't look up.
"Can't just stare at the table forever," Lucifer teases.
"I'm not hungry," Sam says in a rush. "That's why I'm not eating. I'm not hungry."
"You've gotta be, Sammy," Dean says easily. "You didn't eat enough yesterday, either."
"Mind your own business," Lucifer tells Dean. "Your brother's even bossier than mine," he says in a confidential tone, like he and Sam are old buddies. "You remember my brother, don't you? He's still chewing on little Adam."
"Shut up," Sam says.
"Uh, all right," Dean answers. Sam hears his brother's fork scraping the plate across the table. "Just didn't want you to offend our lovely waitress. Make her think the food wasn't good."
"Aww, look," Lucifer says. He's wearing Sam's face. Always Sam's face. He's wearing Sam's jealousy, too. "He thinks she's pretty. Bet he's gonna fuck her, Sammy. Leave you here to drool on yourself."
Sam finally looks up. The woman at the end of the table has long brown hair and a sweet face. She looks smart, not like the kind of girl who follows guys like Dean to alleys. Then again, who the fuck wouldn't follow Dean?
"Can I get you anything else?" she asks, ducking her head a bit and smiling at Sam.
Across the table, Dean is grinning wide. "My brother's just shy," he says.
Sam shakes his head. "I'm fine, thanks."
The girl turns to leave and Sam's eyes dodge back to Dean. Dean, not Lucifer, though it's an effort to keep his eyes trained away from the threat. "She likes you," Dean says. "She must be crazy. You should get her number."
"Got all the crazy I can handle," Sam says. "I'm hungry."
Dean lifts one eyebrow. "Well, you've got a plate of perfectly good, untouched food in front of you."
"I don't want to eat until he leaves."
Dean's face falls. "Until who leaves, Sam?"
Sam's mouth falls open a little and he tries to stutter out a response. "I didn't say-"
Dean leans in. "Sam. Do you see Lucifer right now?"
Sam swallows hard and nods.
"Where is he?"
"He's sitting right next to you," Sam says. "He looks just like me."
Dean looks to the side, maybe out of instinct. Sam knows Dean isn't expecting to see Lucifer, and, somewhere deep down, Sam also knows there's a perfectly good reason for that.
"Okay," Dean says, rubbing his hand over his face. "Okay, Sam. Just." He slides out of the booth, Lucifer vanishing in a cloud of smoke as Dean moves through him, and pulls his wallet out. He leaves way too many bills on the table, but Sam figures the waitress deserves that much. He can imagine the hurt look on her face when she realizes Dean left without her, and she seemed much too nice not to get a consolation prize.
Sam follows when Dean pulls him up and out, folds into the front seat of the Impala just as easily. Sam feels like cardboard and has for days.
"How long have you been seeing him?" Dean asks when he gets behind the wheel.
Sam presses his forehead against the window. There are drops of water from rain stuck to it, and Sam watches them race down instead of answering his brother.
"God dammit, Sam," Dean slaps the wheel, "answer me."
"Two hundred," Sam says. "Forty something. Fifty? Years. A long time. Look at the little guys go," he says, pointing to water drops.
"No, I mean." Dean is a flurry of nervous movement in the corner of Sam's eye, but luckily, Sam hasn’t been easy to agitate in a week and a half. He's feeling pretty calm. Just watching the water and wondering if they'll get back to the motel before Lucifer pops into the backseat. "Jesus, Sam. The pills. I thought they were working. How long have they not been working?"
Dean slides his hand onto Sam's thigh, and Sam wakes up for the first time in a long time. He looks at his brother, his mind clear enough for the moment to realize he's as scary to Dean right now as Lucifer is to him.
"Depends on how we're judging success."
"The visions. The nightmares. Lucifer. How long were they gone?"
"Oh!" Sam says, smiling. Dean's face relaxes a little. "They never worked, Dean," Sam tells him with a laugh. "They just helped me pretend he was gone."
"Fuck, Sammy. Fuck! How could you lie to me about-?"
"Never said they worked." Sam pokes at Dean's hand.
"You never said they didn't." Dean bites his lip. "Shit, man, I thought you were okay. How could you not tell me?"
"I meant to," Sam replies. "I just kept forgetting."
Dean actually laughs at that. "How do you forget to tell me goddamn Lucifer is joining us for lunch?"
"You were happy, Dean. You were trusting me on the job again. You were hitting on waitresses again." Sam shrugs. "I don't know. They did stop me from panicking on hunts or freaking out in public. It just didn't seem that important."
Dean's lips are a thin line all the way back to the room. He throws the pills out first thing when they get inside.
They spend the next three days in that room, Sam shaking and shivering his way back as the medicine wears off. He probably looks worse than he has in a month from where Dean's sitting. It's like all the muscles in his body are making up for the week they spent not responding to what was happening to them. But it's nice for Sam, in a weird way. He doesn't feel any worse than he has the whole time, and getting to vocalize it means Dean is there every moment, trying to soothe out the pain and cheer Sam up.
The door closes with a snick, and Sam bolts upright in bed. Dean is standing in the doorway holding greasy bags and looking relieved to see Sam didn't explode into flames while he was gone. But all Sam can think of is the snapping sound the door made as it shut. He puts a hand to his throat, feels around his neck, sinks back into the covers with a sigh.
"That's the worst," he says.
Dean looks down, then back up. "It's not a big town, you diva. It's Burger King or it's nothing."
"No, not the food. The sound."
"What sound?"
"Don't mind the pain so much, you know? I can get used to the hooks in my skin and staring at my body scattered all over a room, but the sound my spine makes when it cracks." Sam shakes his head. "Gives me the willies."
Dean is still standing there staring at Sam with his hands full and his mouth open; Sam swallows and looks away. "The door just. I was having a nightmare and I woke up, and…"
Dean takes a few careful steps forward and sets one bag down in front of Sam, pulling away like Sam's some monster about to attack. "I didn't mean to scare you," he says.
Sam nods, uncurling the top of his bag and stealing a few fries.
"I'll be careful with the door."
"That'd be good," says Sam through a bite of cheeseburger.
Dean sets the rest of the things he's carrying on the table and throws a glance over his shoulder at Sam. "Sure are hungry now, huh?"
Sam knows what he means is I'm sorry and don't eat so much so fast, you'll choke. He smiles around stuffed cheeks.
They turn on the TV and don't talk much as they eat. It's the first peaceful night they've had in a while, so Sam doesn't push it. Doesn’t try to force a conversation. He's actually feeling okay, though he wishes he'd been thinking clearly enough earlier not to freak Dean out so much.
When the TV goes off a few hours later, Dean turns to look at Sam. "I remember that sound," he says.
It takes Sam a few moments to catch up to what he's referring to. He almost forgets sometimes that Dean's been to Hell, too. Selfish, but Sam always has been.
"It didn't bother me as much as the hooks, though," Dean continues, a wry twist to his lips.
Sam smiles at that. He's always admired that in Dean, always envied it a little. Dean understands physical, the pain and the pleasure; he's here and now, two feet firmly on the ground. A beer, a fuck, and a good fight and Dean's over what's bothering him. Sam's the one who gets caught up on the little things. He can't help thinking it would be easier to leave Hell behind now that the pain has stopped if he was more like his brother.
"Sam, if you need to talk about it, I can listen."
"Talking isn't going to make it go away, Dean."
Dean looks over at him. "Did you just say that?"
Sam grins. "I'm serious. If there were something I wanted to talk about, I would."
"I didn't say want, I said need." Dean moves from his bed to sit next to Sam. "I don't know how to help you anymore, man. I'm all out of ideas. Those stupid pills were my last idea and they just made everything worse."
Sam reaches up, grabs Dean's forearm and holds on. Dean shifts so he can catch Sam's eye, and Sam smiles. "Do you promise not to make fun of me?"
"You know I can't promise that," Dean says, smiling weakly when Sam lets go of him and rolls his eyes.
"Just stay here, okay? Right here. That's how you're helping. Just stay with me."
Dean moves a few hairs off Sam's face, and his smile shifts to something elusively tender. "I'm not going anywhere, Sammy."
"I know," Sam says. "That's why I'm bound to get better."
Dean is still sitting there when Sam falls asleep.
_______________________________________________________________
He's pressing kisses up Sam's thighs, and Sam is so hard he's on the verge of tears. Begging, for some kind of relief until Dean's low, rich laugh vibrates against his bare skin.
"You want me to suck you?" he asks.
Sam laughs. "Has anyone ever answered that with a no?"
Dean smiles against him. "You sure haven't."
"Is this a dream?" Sam asks.
Dean raises his head. "Does it matter? Right now, does it really matter?"
"I suppose not," Sam replies, fingers curling in Dean's short hairs, tugging him up. Dean comes willingly, kisses Sam lightly. "I don't have good dreams like this anymore. You think maybe it means something?"
"Probably," Dean answers, "but I'm not your shrink."
Sam lets Dean pull his face back enough to give Sam a smirk and Sam laughs and shoves him back down. "You're only good for one thing," he says.
Dean wraps his lips around Sam then, apparently determined to prove him right.
_______________________________________________________________
He wakes up with Dean's back pressed against his side. Dean's not under the covers, he’s crammed all the way into the nightstand, but he's curled up on Sam's bed like he hasn't moved all night. And yeah, that would explain the good dreams. Sam reaches out, feeling just a little bit self-indulgent, strokes his fingers over the spiky ends of his brother's hair.
Dean makes an mmm sound and rolls over. His eyes are heavy, he's glaring blearily at Sam for waking him, and Sam can't help remembering him in the dreamscape, all those mornings he refused to get out of bed until Sam brought him coffee.
"I can make coffee," Sam says. He bends a little to kiss Dean, then remembers where and who he is and pulls back.
Dean glares a few seconds longer, pulls his pillow over his head, and leaves Sam to it.
All is well until they get on the job that day. Sam has smoothed out the glitches that tripped him up when they first started hunting again, even the cold spots don't bother him so much anymore. But this hunt…this was a demon, and now the demon is lying face flat in a puddle of his own blood.
Sam tries not to stare at it. Tries not to think of falling to his knees and licking it off the floor. But he was strong once, unbelievably so. Demons feared him. Hell, angels feared him. Sam was strong once, and now he's something to be pitied. Now he cries for no reason. Now he wakes up every morning and has to check the sheets for piss. Sam can smell the damn blood, can feel a spark of the power it would give him.
He would be okay. It would make him okay.
Dean's hands curl around Sam's bicep and shake him. Reluctantly, Sam pulls his eyes away from the blood and sees a look in his brother's eyes he hasn’t seen in years. Doubt. Disappointment. He's scared of Sam, he's scared of what Sam will do. And Sam's sure he could talk Dean into letting him drink it. If he can convince his brother it's the only thing that could make him better, Dean would let him. Maybe that's part of what Dean looks so afraid of.
"Let's go, Sam," he says.
Sam looks back at the demon and licks his lips. "Yeah," he says. "We should definitely go."
He waits until they're in the car, driving to a new city, the demon safely secured out of his reach before he lets out all the tenseness in his muscles and tries to think of something other than the taste of sulfur and metal and electricity. "So," he says, a little shaky, but a little playful, too. "No more demon hunts."
Dean barks out a laugh. "No more demon hunts," he agrees, foot to the pedal with just a little extra force.
They don't drive long, just long enough. The music between them and the occasional insult is the best way to unwind, and by the time they stop for the night, Sam has mostly forgotten what they're running from.
Dean approaches the front counter, asks for a room for two. The middle-aged lady behind the counter steps back to grab keys off the wall, asks the inevitable 'one bed or two' question. She turns to look at Dean when he hesitates, and he averts his eyes.
"One," he says, almost a challenge.
The woman picks a key, her eyes dodging over to Sam as she drops it into Dean's palm. Sam wants to throw a 'yeah, lady, I wish' to her knowing smirk, but instead he looks down at his toes and follows when Dean picks his duffel up off the floor and leads them to their room.
They order Chinese, sit on the king mattress with carry-out boxes spread over the extra space. "Next hunt?" Sam asks, slurping a noodle.
"Dunno," Dean replies. "Back to Bobby's?"
"What about Castiel?"
Dean snickers, poking a fork into a container of sticky rice. "What about Castiel?"
"Shouldn't we be trying to stop him?"
"One major problem at a time, Sammy," Dean says. "Let's get you all better and then go kill ourselves hunting God. Sound good?"
"No."
"Glad we agree." Dean pauses, then shrugs. "He's calmed down since you woke up, anyway. Hardly causing trouble lately."
"Yeah, why do you think that is, anyway?"
Dean’s expression doesn’t change much, but Sam can't help noticing that he's stabbing at his rice with a little more enthusiasm. "Guilty conscience, maybe."
Sam reaches for the rice and forces it out of Dean's hand. "I bet we can get through to him, then."
Dean watches Sam eat the rice, and Sam throws him a triumphant smile. "Maybe," he agrees. "But we ain't trying until you're back to speed." Sam sighs. "I'm serious, Sam. It's only been a month and a half since you woke up. We've taken longer to save the world."
Sam laughs. "Yeah, okay."
Dean picks up a fortune cookie and tosses the other at Sam. "Anyway," he says. "This is much more important."
He cracks the shell and shoves half in his mouth before he even looks at the thin strip of paper inside. Sam holds his up. "Long life is in store for you," he reads. He laughs and drops the paper in an empty container. "God, I hope not."
"Smiley face. There is no failure, just the opportunity to begin again. Smiley face," Dean says with surprising dignity before adding, "in bed."
"Yes, that we are," Sam replies, feeling his cheeks burning when he realizes what he's just pointed out. It’s not fair-he and Dean used to do this kind of shit all the time when Sam was dreaming, Dean should stop acting so much like his boyfriend if Sam's not supposed to get the wrong idea.
"Mmm, you know what's missing, Sammy?"
Sam looks over at him and smiles. "A fair chunk of my sanity?"
Dean laughs, rolling over to shove Sam's side. He lifts his hand so it's just in front of Sam's face and wiggles his fingers. "Magic fingers."
"You have a problem," Sam mutters.
"No, seriously, when was the last time we stayed at a respectable motel?"
"Okay, see, that, that right there. That's not normal." Dean looks at Sam, innocent and puzzled and so full of shit it's coming out of his ears. "Normal people don't judge respectable motels by your standards, Dean."
"I think it was the kid," Dean continues, off on his own train of thought. "Remember little Bobby John, Sam?"
Sam frowns. "I remember handing him over to hunters."
Dean's eyes fly open. "That was-shit, I forgot."
Sam shakes his head. "One thing I can safely say is that I am over the soulless thing. Not my fault, blah blah, and so forth. Much more interesting things to be screwed up over these days."
Dean doesn't look entirely convinced, but he smiles just a little. "That's good, Sammy. That's real good. I don't think I could have-"
"Handled it?" Dean nods. "I don't think I could have, either. Not all at once. But luckily, I got the soulless luggage out of the way before I woke up to deal with the Hell luggage."
"How?" Dean asks. "Maybe we can replicate it."
Sam laughs. "It was, uh. You, actually. In the dream. You were there, and you helped me. Like I told you, I couldn't have done it on my own. Not that strong."
Dean sits up, very serious all of a sudden and looks Sam in the eye. "You don't give yourself enough credit, Sam. You're strong enough for anything."
"Okay, I'm waiting for the insult," Sam replies.
Dean looks back down. "I'm not joking this time. The things you've beaten. Sammy, you're the strongest damn person ali-"
"Don't, okay?" Sam stands to clean up their dinner, looking for a distraction. "Just don’t."
"All I'm saying is-"
"Don't say it. You don't know anything about it." Sam turns to face him. "You wanna hear how strong I am, Dean? You really wanna know about Hell?"
Dean gets to his feet, crosses the room in three long steps and takes the things Sam's carrying out of his hands. He sets them on the counter and turns back to grab Sam's hands. "You know I don't want to," he says. "And yet I've been telling you for a month and a half that I'll listen if you'll just fucking talk to me."
"You remember what you did, Dean? You remember how weak you felt, how long you hated yourself for it?"
"Of course I do." Sam sees the muscles in Dean's jaw tighten. "But you didn't, Sam."
"No, I didn't. They didn't give that option where I was." Sam feels himself losing his grip, and Dean holds him steady, steers him to the bed. Dean sits him down on the edge, and Sam reaches up for him. "I begged for it, Dean. You took 30 years to break? Michael and Lucifer had me for an hour before I was begging them to let me torture someone."
Dean pulls Sam's face against him and strokes his hands in Sam's hair, and Sam doesn’t care that he looks and feels like a child. Dean is the only thing holding Sam together. "It was different, Sammy. It was worse for you. So much worse."
"That blood." Sam turns his face, snot and tears rubbing into his brother's shirt. "They gave me blood sometimes, Dean. They let me drink my own when they’d cut into me, and I could taste the demon in it, and I liked it. It was the only thing I got down there that made me happy."
"What happens in Hell, it doesn't count up here." Dean nods, turns Sam's face up and looks down into his eyes. "You told me that yourself."
"Up here," Sam scoffs. "I'm no better. You know what I was thinking on that hunt, Dean. You know."
"Shh, Sam. It's bedtime, okay?"
Dean pulls Sam up the bed to his pillow, and Sam is still crying too hard to fight it. Dean gets in behind him, wraps an arm around Sam's waist and pulls every inch of Sam against him. The embrace is so tight it's almost not affectionate, like Dean is claiming Sam, holding on to him so that whatever tries to drag him in another direction can't beat the grip.
"You think I'm your brother," Sam says. "But he's better than I am. Whoever you think I am, he's too good to be me. I don't think I ever was him, but I'm definitely not now."
Dean breathes out against Sam's neck. "Sammy, you're my little brother. You're exactly who I want my little brother to be."
"I don't believe you," Sam replies.
"Go to sleep, okay?" Dean pulls Sam even closer. "You'll believe me in the morning."
At some point in the night, Sam wakes up and peers around the motel room. There’s just enough light coming in from the street outside their window for shadows to cut across the floor. Sam sees a Dean-shaped silhouette hug a bottle to its chest, watches it rest its face in its hands. He hears when Dean breaks down, when a sob rips through him, and Sam doesn’t know if it’s exhaustion or bitterness or a mix of the two making his brother cry like that, but he can’t help thinking that other Sam was right. Waking up from that coma was the worst thing he could have done to Dean.
The next time he wakes up, he’s in a sunny room, wrapped in 200 pounds of Dean, and he lets out a long sigh of relief. He thinks he's home. He thinks he'll open his eyes and see the same old blue quilt and maybe he'll finally convince Dean they need a new one and maybe Dean will stay as stubbornly attached to the stupid thing as always, but that’s okay. Sam doesn’t really care about the quilt. He wants to have the fight. He’s happy to let Dean win when they’re fighting over stupid things like that. They'll go about their daily lives and Sam will never tell his brother that he thought this was a dream and what he woke up to was horrible and full of Hell and somehow a little better, too.
Dean shifts behind him. Sam turns, smiling wide, and catches a glimpse of the surprised happiness on Dean's face before he presses their lips together, sliding a hand over his brother's cheek. It's not until Dean reacts, shoving Sam away immediately-not like he has something to say before they go at it; like it's instinct-that Sam realizes he was half-awake and deluding himself. Dean isn't his; Dean is watching him with a horrified look on his face, like Sam just did the worst thing imaginable.
"Dean, I-"
"What did they do?" Dean asks, bringing his fingers to his lips. "Jesus, Sammy, in Hell did they-did they make you-?"
Sam watches him, watches Dean's concerned expression, and, for the first time in over a month, wishes he was dead. That's Dean's Hell.
"I thought it was Heaven," Sam says, laughing. He doesn't know why, he certainly doesn't think it's funny, and Dean doesn't join him, doesn't pretend it's something they can laugh away.
_______________________________________________________________
They don't talk about it, of course. They just go on with their hunt, and with the next one, and the one after that. Dean doesn't stop sharing Sam's bed, but he puts the most space between them possible. He doesn't stop touching Sam-that would be far too obvious-but the easiness that has always characterized Dean's touch is gone.
Now they're fighting some kind of tentacle plant monster, and Dean is a few seconds from being asphyxiated by the damn thing. Sam slices the vines where they've got Dean's hands pinned, and Dean starts hacking at the rest of them while Sam runs for the spell they need to kill it. Dean had dropped it when the tendrils surprised him, but it's easy to spot the white sheet against a sea of green.
When all is said and done, the damn plant bursts into flames, and Sam gets to help Dean cough and splutter his way back to the Impala. His face is still a little blue from the choking, but it's nothing they both haven't been through, and the motel is only a few blocks away from the park entrance.
Sam drives, the first time since he got out of Hell, he realizes, and Dean only seems to give him the keys to keep Sam from putting his perverted hands where they don't belong.
When they get to the motel, Dean rushes to the bathroom, his shirt coming off in front of the mirror. He's in too much of a rush to remember to close the door, and Sam looks, not because he wants to see but because he needs to know how bad the damage is. There are thin red lines across Dean's chest, but the stitches on his side didn't break, and Sam takes that as a sign they're ready to come off.
He steps into the bathroom behind Dean. "Those look just like the rattlesnake monster," Sam says, laughing. "Remember?"
"No," Dean replies. He shifts away from Sam a little, but he smiles, too. "What rattlesnake monster?"
"The one we fought just before we went to the Grand Canyon," Sam answers. Dean only looks more confused, and suddenly Sam remembers what they did after the Grand Canyon, all the hands and the lips and Sam licking at the red lines on Dean's chest. He scrubs a hand over his face. "We've never been to the Grand Canyon, have we?"
"No, Sammy," Dean says dejectedly. "Always wanted to go."
"Of course," Sam mutters. "It's only the really good memories that are fake."
"And the bad ones," Dean reminds him.
Sam smiles thinly. "Yeah, I guess those, too. In a way."
They stand there opposite each other for a long minute before Dean smiles and shrugs. "This isn't so bad, though. I can sleep it off. In a few days it won't even be visible."
Sam nods, steps forward and traces the line of scar tissue on Dean's side. "The stitches from the ghost hunt are about done."
Dean sucks in a breath as soon as Sam touches him, doesn’t pull away immediately. He closes his eyes and Sam steps closer, and that must break the spell, because Dean turns away.
"Don't touch me, Sam."
Sam tries to hide how much that hurts. "Jesus, Dean, I'm just offering to help with your stitches. I'm not gonna-"
"I know that," Dean says, fingers wrapping around Sam's wrist and pushing him away. "I know that. Just don't, okay?"
"No, not okay." Sam frowns. "I get that I shouldn't have kissed you but-"
"You shouldn't have," he says. "You really fucking shouldn't have."
Sam steps away. "All the things you've forgiven me for, and this is what you're going to hate me over? I will never make you do anything you don't want to do, if you don’t know that-"
Dean shakes his head, gripping the sink. Sam watches his face in the mirror, even though Dean isn't looking directly at it. It's better than his absolute refusal to even glance in Sam's direction. "Of course I know that, Sam, Jesus. But I know why they forced you." He swallows. "It's my fault, Sam, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But you shouldn't have kissed me."
"I know that, Dean. I just…couldn't help it."
"I know you couldn't, Sammy. I know they made you, and you thought you were there again-"
"No. You're wrong. Dean, I've always wanted-"
Dean laughs shakily, and Sam catches his brother's eye in the mirror for a second before Dean deflects. He sees something dark and heated, and suddenly, Sam thinks he understands why Dean has been so quick to look away since that kiss.
Sam takes a step and puts himself directly behind Dean, watching his brother's reactions in the mirror. Dean seems to stop breathing.
"You want me, don't you?" Sam crowds into him, puts his hands on his brother's hips. "God, you do, I can tell."
Dean drops his head. "Sam, please. Just leave me alone."
"Why do it alone when you can have the real thing?" Sam asks, bending low to press his lips to Dean's ear. Dean is shaking, and Sam can feel every tremor through him, and he can't remember the last time he was this turned on.
Dean moves back, into Sam, and Sam groans. But he watches Dean's mind change in the mirror, watches Dean get a grip of himself and turn in the small amount of space Sam's given him.
"Not ever, Sam," he says. "I won't do that to you. I swore I would never do that to you."
Sam's eyebrows draw together. "I'm pretty sure it was my idea."
"I'm pretty sure it wasn't," Dean replies coolly.
"Dean, I've wanted you since-I don't even remember. Believe me."
"I believe that you think that's true," Dean says. "But I know it isn't."
"How do you figure?"
Dean shrugs. "Because I…you never said anything about it before. Now you get back from Hell and suddenly you won’t stop looking at me like-you don't have to go to college to figure it out."
"You never said anything, either," Sam says. "How long have you wanted it?"
Dean makes a dismissive sound. "That's not the point. You've always been the one to ask, Sammy. I'm the one who can't say no. Remember?"
You're saying no now, Sam thinks, almost amused, but he keeps the observation to himself. "I never said anything because I was scared of it before. Scared what you'd think of me. I never would have kissed you if I'd been thinking straight, but I'm not sorry. Not if you want me back."
"This conversation is over," Dean says. "Get outta here, I need to piss."
"You can’t just decide it's over." Sam reaches out, trying to keep his touch gentle despite how hard he wants to throttle his brother. "This isn't something-"
"We ever need to talk about. Because the answer is no. The answer is always going to be no. Jesus, Sam, do you have any fucking idea how hard I've fought not to want you?"
"Yes," Sam replies. "I fought it, too. I know."
"Whenever the idea even popped into my head, I would squash it. I didn't ever let it keep going or try to work it out of my system. I killed it. And if I had a dream, I told myself, well, it's a dream. It doesn't mean anything. Nothing I can do to control it. Even if it's not a nightmare, that doesn't mean-" He shakes his head. "And then you wake up, and you wake up like this. You wake up and you need me to take care of you and the last thing I should do is want you. Why'd you have to go and kiss me, Sam? I can't stop thinking about it. I can't stop wanting you. No matter what I try-"
"But Dean it'll make me-"
"I'm not taking advantage of you. I promise. I'd rather die."
"I don't want that promise. It's-not dirty. You don't have to be ashamed."
"I'm not ashamed, I was never ashamed of it. Hell, it made sense to me. I just wasn’t going there unless you asked for it. And now you can’t ask for it. I’ve got no way of knowing Lucifer didn’t put this in your head. Because of me, maybe. If there was some way I could be sure, I would-" He reaches out and cups Sam's cheek, and Sam leans into it. Dean nearly whimpers. "But there isn't. You gotta understand that."
Sam sighs and lets his arms drop. "I understand," he says gloomily.
Dean smiles, maybe the fakest smile since Sam woke up and that's not without competition. "Good. Okay. You can-bathroom's yours."
By the time Sam gets back out, Dean is already huddled on one side of the bed pretending to sleep. Sam sighs, sliding under the covers, his brother's body heat more present than ever.
It's a long night.
_______________________________________________________________
Dean is good to Sam the next day. Probably better than Sam deserves. Sam doesn't know if it's guilt for disappointing Sam or nearly giving into him, but he lets Sam drive, and pick their stops, and Sam is just not above using it to his advantage.
They haven't done this in a while-not since a few nights before Sam jumped into the cage-but Dean agrees easily, buys the beer the first time they stop for gas after Sam throws the idea out and bounces like an excited kid all day.
Now the sun has finally set, Sam couldn't have hoped for a clearer night, and they pull off the road the first chance they get. Sam is nervous, reciting the speech he's been writing, unwriting, rewriting in his head since Dean left him standing alone in that bathroom last night, half-hard and rejected, but oddly optimistic, as well. He never dreamed Dean could want him-or at least, he never dreamed Dean could want him outside of dreaming.
Dean, blissfully ignorant to the trap he's just walked into, is rounding the car, opening the trunk to pull beers out. Sam climbs onto the Impala's hood, his head tipped all the way back, and takes in the stars until Dean joins him, a cold beer pressing into his side.
"Thanks," Sam says.
"Yeah, no problem," Dean answers, hiss of a bottle cap under his words. "Wanna hear something funny?"
Sam grins and brings the bottle to his lips. "Sure," he says. "Tell me something funny."
"I tried doing this with you when you'd just gotten back from Hell. 'Cause I was missing Lisa and glad to have you back, or whatever." Dean shakes his head, a rueful smile on his lips.
Sam snorts. "And I said, 'What's the point?'"
Dean nods. "You know, I actually didn't have an answer for that one."
Sam laughs. "Yeah, that's, uh…that's funny."
Dean looks over fondly and pats Sam's thigh very quickly. "I missed you, man."
"Want a tissue?"
"Fuck off," Dean answers, shoving Sam hard enough that he loses balance, has to grab Dean's shoulder to keep from falling off the car.
They go quiet then, which is how it's supposed to go, generally. A few introductory insults and then a nice, long, comfortable silence. This is not supposed to be caring and sharing time, and Sam knows that, but with Dean there is no caring and sharing time, and Sam has a lot to say.
He still feels like he's breaking a sacred rule when he speaks. "Can I tell you something, Dean?"
"Anything," he answers, though he doesn't take his eyes off the sky.
"Do you remember Kaylee Walters?"
Dean shoots Sam a look like that was the last thing he expected to come out of his brother's mouth but he nods. "Your little friend, right? The hot one who wasn't into me for no discernible reason?"
Sam laughs. "She was into you," he says.
"Ah, well. She had a funny way of showing it." He shrugs and takes a sip. "No worries, my ego has recovered."
"More than it should have, even."
Dean sticks his tongue out.
"She thought you were joking when you hit on her," Sam tells him. "That's why she giggled so much."
"Yeah? Why'd she think that?"
Sam picks at the label of his beer. "I told her you were my boyfriend."
Dean chokes. "You what?" he asks once he's finally swallowed his beer.
"I told her you were my boyfriend, Dean."
"What the hell'd you do that for?"
Sam smiles. "She saw you waiting for me one day after school. You know, leaning against the car, leather jacket, the way you always did."
Dean nods.
"She thought you were hot. She asked if I knew you and I said 'yeah' and then, I don't know. The lie just came out." Sam swallows, looks down at the beer wrapper littered in his lap. "I wanted so badly for it to be true, Dean. Even then." He looks over and finds Dean watching him. "I thought…just once I'd like to leave someone behind who didn't feel bad for us. One person in the whole world who thought, 'Sam Winchester? He's the luckiest boy in the world.'"
"There are more exciting lies to tell people," Dean says, looking away.
"You'd think that, but I still haven’t thought of one." Sam shrugs, hoping at least some of the easiness he's faking seems genuine. "Anyway, I've spent all day thinking, and this is the only evidence I've got to prove I'm not confused about this. It's not Lucifer. You are seeing it, aren't you?"
Dean shifts a little next to him, takes a long pull from his drink. Finally he answers, "Would explain a few questions I had about her."
"I'm not going to kiss you again, Dean. I'm not going to bring this up again. I'm not going to force you to do anything you don't feel comfortable with. But I think you should listen. I think you should give me a chance because…we can be happy. I've seen it, Dean. I spent six months in my head because I couldn't stand to let it go."
Dean opens his mouth and Sam cuts him off before he can start.
"I know what you're going to say. It was a dream, it wasn't real. And I know that. I know what was and wasn't. I don't want it anymore. It's not-it was great, I wish you'd seen it. I was a lawyer and you wore suspenders and it was perfect, but it wasn't real and I can tell the difference, whatever you may think."
"So what are you telling me for, if none of it was real and you don't even want it to be?"
"Exactly like I said, I know what I was making up and what I wasn't. Dean, I know you. It was you, but it was you so happy…" Sam shakes his head. "And I woke up knowing that if you could ever want me, we really could be that happy, but I thought you never would." Sam lowers his voice almost to a whisper. "I don't think I'll ever be happy like that without it."
"You saying I'm the cure to Hell?" Dean asks, one eyebrow arched. "That's a new one."
"No, I don't think there is a cure to Hell." Dean frowns, but Sam smiles. "I'm not saying that in a bad way, just, I dunno. Some days I'm going to be fine, and some days I'm not. I'll have nightmares and I'll burst into spontaneous tears and it'll be embarrassing and scary and we'll hate it, but," Sam lifts his hands, "What can we do, right? We were always gonna be a little worse for wear."
"But you said-"
"I said happy, not normal. Not like before, and that wasn't really the pinnacle of mental stability to begin with." Dean laughs. Sam realizes then that it's funny, and he laughs too. He feels good. Even if Dean still rejects him, Sam is glad to get this off his chest. And maybe he gets too excited from the lightness, wants to say everything that pops into his head. It comes out in a rush. "We’ve never been happy, have we? Not really. I think we could be. The rest of the time, you know? When I'm not in the pit. And when I am, I'll still have you to help me through."
Dean stays quiet but he does look like he's mulling things over, so Sam puts that in the win column.
"I know you're going to want to think this is because you did something wrong. Screwed me up or something-"
"Sam-"
"No, I know you are. But I want you to know it's not anything you did wrong. It's because of everything you did…"
Sam is about to add right, but that's not true, either. It's because of all the things Dean did that Sam wanted to hate him for as much as anything. For pulling him away from Stanford because he missed him. For selling his soul when Sam was better off dead. For asking Sam to wake up when he was finally happy, because someone has to look out, someone has to make sure Sam does the right thing. Sam nods and leaves it at 'everything you did.'
"Look, just, know that I've loved you. I've loved you in every way that a person can and maybe in ways a person shouldn't. Even when I was running from it. Even when I loved someone else. Even with Jess, Dean. You're the love of my life. You've always been and you always will be."
Dean leans forward, a look on his face like he's trying very hard to think of something to say, is maybe getting uncomfortable because he can't. Sam doesn't want to make Dean's night any more awkward than he already has, so he stands, smiling at Dean as he walks away.
"I've said my piece," he says. "I'm done. Please, just think it over for a while before you say no again."
Dean watches Sam leave, but he doesn't get up to follow. Sam sits in the passenger's seat for a long while, watching his brother. Dean finishes his beer slowly, eyes searching the sky for something. Then finally he gets up and joins Sam in the car and they drive to the next motel down the road, Zeppelin familiar between them, something else buzzing underneath it-not known, but not entirely new, either.
When they find a place to stay, Dean still gets one bed. They fall asleep in each other's space, like they have been for weeks. Nothing changes, and Sam doesn't know whether he's relieved or heartbroken by that.
_______________________________________________________________
Sam spends the next day pretty sure Dean thought it over and decided incest just wasn't for him after all. Which, okay, Sam is pretty sure that's the wrong choice. Sam will definitely be damned to a lonely, sexless existence, and Dean probably will be, too. But Sam said he wasn't going to bring it up, so he's not bringing it up.
Dean is his regular, pain-in-the-ass-big-brother self until they're settling into bed, and Dean turns into Sam and kisses him. Sam waits for him to pull away or for the dream to end, but Dean keeps going, cupping Sam's face, lips and tongue insistent. Sam responds because he has to, he's under a spell. All those years he spent imagining, all those months he spent dreaming, nothing compares to the actual feel of Dean, real Dean, kissing Sam, long bruising kisses that say Dean has all the time in the world and wants to spend every second of it just like this.
Dean's arms are strong on Sam's hips as he presses in, and Sam can’t help how turned on he gets. He pushes up into Dean, and when Dean thrusts back, Sam can feel his brother's dick hardening against his thigh.
Sam pulls away. "You wanna fuck me?"
Dean laughs and rests his forehead on Sam's shoulder. "Don't waste time, do you?"
Sam can feel a goofy grin taking over his features. "We've wasted a lot of time, Dean."
"Yeah, I know, Sammy," he says, nodding against Sam.
He kisses Sam again and just keeps kissing. Kisses until Sam is sure he's never been so thoroughly kissed in his life. Then Dean sits back, scanning Sam's face for something. Sam doesn't know what he's supposed to do, but Dean must find what he's looking for, because after a bit he nods-just once, like he's admiring a job well done-and turns over to sleep.
It goes on this way for a few nights, and the days don't change much. Dean is still Dean and Sam is still a work in progress and hunting is still a pretty shitty job. The kissing is the only thing that's new, and it's enough-hell, it's more than enough, more than Sam ever actually intended to ask for.
Yeah, sure, he wants to fuck Dean, and he wants Dean to break him open, and he wants to gag on his brother's dick and watch Dean's mouth get sloppy and swollen around him. But Sam has learned patience, and if Dean is still unsure, Sam's going to do everything it takes not to spook him.
Or just not do the one thing he really wants to.
On the fourth day, Dean takes Sam by surprise. Sam's kissing a line down Dean's throat and is happily distracted, and then suddenly there's a palm on his crotch, insistently kneading through Sam's boxers. Sam's breath is heavy when Dean pulls away. He sits back with his head against the wall and keeps his eyes trained on Dean. Dean smiles wickedly and gives Sam another couple of fast, teasing kisses as he pulls Sam's cock out.
"Got big, didn't you?" Dean says, eyes moving down. Sam can't get over that, the fact that his brother is really here, really saying this and looking at Sam like he's hungry. "You're gonna fucking hurt me with all that, aren’t you?"
Sam shakes his head, but Dean laughs, wearing a fascinated look as he wraps his hand around Sam's shaft. "Mmm, you are. Gonna split me right in half." Dean ducks his head, sucking a mark into Sam's neck. "I want that," he says. "I want it, I want it so bad."
Sam groans. Dean's hand is rough and calloused and not like anything Sam's ever felt. And he's moving it so fast, gripping tighter at the head, thumb pushing and collecting precome the way Dean used to do for himself. Sam learned this from Dean, but he's about ready to admit that, even with years of practice, he hasn't quite surpassed his brother yet.
"Dean," Sam gasps. "You're too-I'm gonna-"
Dean shuts him up with a kiss, his already frantic pace only gets faster. Maybe Sam should be annoyed-Dean is fast-forwarding through a first here-but it only makes him hotter. The way Dean is touching him-Sam feels like he's irresistible, like Dean couldn't stop fucking him if he tried. And Dean, Dean is grinning, still staring at his hand as it reduces Sam to needy thrusts and whines.
"Shit, yeah," Dean whispers. "Show me what you look like when you come for me."
Sam closes his eyes. The heat building in his stomach is white hot, like stars before they die. He cries out, Dean's name, and he's loud enough that everyone in the motel probably hears him. Maybe he should take that into consideration, but damn if it doesn't turn him on. So Sam decides fuck it, throws his head back and yells Dean's name over and over, so that anyone who's interested can know what he and his brother are doing.
Dean laughs then, a light giddy sound as Sam shoots all over his fist, and Sam is still broken as he watches Dean lift that hand up to his lips and lick Sam's mess off him. About half a minute later, when Sam's brain gets back online, he realizes that he should return the favor.
"Should-can I-?" Sam reaches for the fly of Dean's jeans, but Dean just half-smiles, looks away almost shyly.
"Let's just say you owe me one," he says.
Sam looks down, sees that Dean's jeans are already open just enough for a hand to slide in, and there's a wet spot in the fabric. Sam laughs. "Wow," he says, still rasping for breath. "I feel young again."
"Oh, shut up," Dean replies. He leans forward for a kiss. "You would have come, too, if you saw what I was looking at."
Sam smirks. "That's weirdly sweet, coming from you."
"Not really," Dean answers. "There's a mirror over the bed."
Sam snorts and rolls his eyes. He knows Dean wasn't looking in the mirror, and Dean knows he knows.
Dean rolls over, climbing out of bed just long enough to shuck his sticky clothes. Sam watches him, still too worn out to take a real interest, but appreciative nonetheless.
"Tired, Sammy?" he asks.
Sam smiles lazily and nods. He is, and he can't remember the last time he felt so sure he'd get a good night's sleep.
_______________________________________________________________
The next morning, Sam wakes in a state of panic. He knows what's coming, it's happened too many times for him not to. That was a dream, a really lovely dream, and Sam is going to wake up to find out he never kissed Dean at all, never woke up, never left Hell. Last night must have been a joke Lucifer was playing. This is Sam's life, after all.
He reaches out, arms flailing as they search for Dean. There's a slapping sound, Sam's skin meeting Dean, and Dean turns over, looking like he's about ready to plant a bullet in Sam for waking him.
It's the happiest Sam's ever felt when death by gunshot was a distinct possibility.
"Hi," he says cheekily. "Did I wake you?"
"Curse upon you and all your kin," Dean mumbles.
"That sounds about right," Sam says, bending back down for a kiss. Dean rouses enough to return it, somehow already eager despite the fact that the rest of him is still lying like Jello. Dean tastes bitter, like sleep and come and the stale pizza and beer they had last night. It's really pretty disgusting, but he doesn't pull away. Sam can't taste any better, but Dean wraps his hand tightly around Sam's neck and throws his whole body into kissing him, anyway.
Sam lets Dean draw him back to bed, doesn't care if they're burning daylight. The sounds Dean makes when Sam moves against him are making Sam feel plenty productive already. Sam can't really get over it, wants to bask in this all day. This is real-not perfect, much better. If salvation tastes like Dean's morning breath, Sam won't be disappointed. Dean touches him, warm without burning. Hell freezes over.
End.
PART THREE
Sam doesn't know where they come from, but he wakes up three days and two states later to a bottle of prescription pills on his nightstand. He sits up, blinking at the bright orange container, picks them up and shakes them.
"Morning," Dean says. He's standing over his duffel, digging for something in a white towel and nothing else. The room is thick with steam coming from the bathroom, because it's too small and Dean never got the lesson about sharing hot water, not even to make the day just a bit easier on his traumatized little brother.
Dean's been tiptoeing around, doing every nice thing he can think of for Sam since he woke up, and it’s been making Sam uncomfortable. He isn't particularly in the mood for any temperature extremities, hot or cold, so he isn’t actually that upset. It's the lack of thought that counts.
"Nice to see you're back to making our entire room smell like mold," he says, holding the pills up. "What's this?"
"Christmas present," Dean says with a grin. "Picked them up at the local pharmacy while I was on the breakfast run."
"It's not Christmas," Sam replies. And then the really important part hits him. "There's breakfast?"
"I ate yours," Dean replies. "And mine. Good stuff!"
Sam shakes his head and puts the pills back on the nightstand. "You'd better be lying."
Dean finds the boxers and shirt he's been looking for, and Sam is a very good, manages to turn away without trying to peek as Dean gets dressed.
"Naw, there's breakfast in the fridge since you took so damn long to wake up," Dean says from behind him as Sam stands and begins to pad toward the half foot of counter space and mini fridge that passes for a kitchen in their lives. He bends down and grabs the handle before Dean's hand is covering Sam's, stopping him from opening it.
"Dude, what do you want? I'm hungry." He looks over and regrets it, sees Dean watching at him, serious and worried. Sam knows where this is going.
Dean takes Sam's hand away from the fridge and presses the bottle into his palm. "You take them with food, Sammy. I looked it up before-"
"Before you stole them from someone who actually needed them?" Sam snaps. "I'm not crazy, Dean."
"Of course you are," he replies calmly. "Of course we both are. Look, Sam, it’s not that big a deal, okay? I faked a prescription. I didn't steal them from anyone. I got this idea a while ago."
"There's no hunt in this town, is there?"
Dean smiles weakly. "Had to get you here to pick them up, didn't I?"
"How could you not talk to me about something like this?" Sam frowns. "What, am I that pathetic to you? I can't even be consulted about my own damn life?"
"I'm not going to force you to take them." Dean's voice is measured and Sam might be imagining how close his brother seems to snapping. "It was an idea, Sam. Just an idea. If I found a spell for this, you'd let me try that, wouldn't you?"
Grudgingly, Sam nods.
"So why's it so different with a few pills? What if this is all it takes? Think of it, you could stop hallucinating and stop thinking of Lucifer and…" Dean licks his lips. "Can't you just try them for me?"
Sam does. Sam does and Dean thinks they work and Sam doesn’t know how to correct him. He stays on the meds for a week and a half. During that time, he doesn’t wake Dean up with his nightmares, doesn't freeze on hunts-doesn't do much of anything.
He gets his brother back.
Dean thinks he's all better, thinks Sam is just some regular headcase when really crazy would be a relief to Sam. Normal people can go crazy. Normal people can survive crazy. Sam's problems are outside the realm of science. All the pills do are slow his brain down too much to react. He's scared out of his fucking wits and he can't even pull it together enough to scream.
"When are you going to tell him I'm here?"
Sam stares at the diner table in front of him. Does not look up. Don't look up.
"Can't just stare at the table forever," Lucifer teases.
"I'm not hungry," Sam says in a rush. "That's why I'm not eating. I'm not hungry."
"You've gotta be, Sammy," Dean says easily. "You didn't eat enough yesterday, either."
"Mind your own business," Lucifer tells Dean. "Your brother's even bossier than mine," he says in a confidential tone, like he and Sam are old buddies. "You remember my brother, don't you? He's still chewing on little Adam."
"Shut up," Sam says.
"Uh, all right," Dean answers. Sam hears his brother's fork scraping the plate across the table. "Just didn't want you to offend our lovely waitress. Make her think the food wasn't good."
"Aww, look," Lucifer says. He's wearing Sam's face. Always Sam's face. He's wearing Sam's jealousy, too. "He thinks she's pretty. Bet he's gonna fuck her, Sammy. Leave you here to drool on yourself."
Sam finally looks up. The woman at the end of the table has long brown hair and a sweet face. She looks smart, not like the kind of girl who follows guys like Dean to alleys. Then again, who the fuck wouldn't follow Dean?
"Can I get you anything else?" she asks, ducking her head a bit and smiling at Sam.
Across the table, Dean is grinning wide. "My brother's just shy," he says.
Sam shakes his head. "I'm fine, thanks."
The girl turns to leave and Sam's eyes dodge back to Dean. Dean, not Lucifer, though it's an effort to keep his eyes trained away from the threat. "She likes you," Dean says. "She must be crazy. You should get her number."
"Got all the crazy I can handle," Sam says. "I'm hungry."
Dean lifts one eyebrow. "Well, you've got a plate of perfectly good, untouched food in front of you."
"I don't want to eat until he leaves."
Dean's face falls. "Until who leaves, Sam?"
Sam's mouth falls open a little and he tries to stutter out a response. "I didn't say-"
Dean leans in. "Sam. Do you see Lucifer right now?"
Sam swallows hard and nods.
"Where is he?"
"He's sitting right next to you," Sam says. "He looks just like me."
Dean looks to the side, maybe out of instinct. Sam knows Dean isn't expecting to see Lucifer, and, somewhere deep down, Sam also knows there's a perfectly good reason for that.
"Okay," Dean says, rubbing his hand over his face. "Okay, Sam. Just." He slides out of the booth, Lucifer vanishing in a cloud of smoke as Dean moves through him, and pulls his wallet out. He leaves way too many bills on the table, but Sam figures the waitress deserves that much. He can imagine the hurt look on her face when she realizes Dean left without her, and she seemed much too nice not to get a consolation prize.
Sam follows when Dean pulls him up and out, folds into the front seat of the Impala just as easily. Sam feels like cardboard and has for days.
"How long have you been seeing him?" Dean asks when he gets behind the wheel.
Sam presses his forehead against the window. There are drops of water from rain stuck to it, and Sam watches them race down instead of answering his brother.
"God dammit, Sam," Dean slaps the wheel, "answer me."
"Two hundred," Sam says. "Forty something. Fifty? Years. A long time. Look at the little guys go," he says, pointing to water drops.
"No, I mean." Dean is a flurry of nervous movement in the corner of Sam's eye, but luckily, Sam hasn’t been easy to agitate in a week and a half. He's feeling pretty calm. Just watching the water and wondering if they'll get back to the motel before Lucifer pops into the backseat. "Jesus, Sam. The pills. I thought they were working. How long have they not been working?"
Dean slides his hand onto Sam's thigh, and Sam wakes up for the first time in a long time. He looks at his brother, his mind clear enough for the moment to realize he's as scary to Dean right now as Lucifer is to him.
"Depends on how we're judging success."
"The visions. The nightmares. Lucifer. How long were they gone?"
"Oh!" Sam says, smiling. Dean's face relaxes a little. "They never worked, Dean," Sam tells him with a laugh. "They just helped me pretend he was gone."
"Fuck, Sammy. Fuck! How could you lie to me about-?"
"Never said they worked." Sam pokes at Dean's hand.
"You never said they didn't." Dean bites his lip. "Shit, man, I thought you were okay. How could you not tell me?"
"I meant to," Sam replies. "I just kept forgetting."
Dean actually laughs at that. "How do you forget to tell me goddamn Lucifer is joining us for lunch?"
"You were happy, Dean. You were trusting me on the job again. You were hitting on waitresses again." Sam shrugs. "I don't know. They did stop me from panicking on hunts or freaking out in public. It just didn't seem that important."
Dean's lips are a thin line all the way back to the room. He throws the pills out first thing when they get inside.
They spend the next three days in that room, Sam shaking and shivering his way back as the medicine wears off. He probably looks worse than he has in a month from where Dean's sitting. It's like all the muscles in his body are making up for the week they spent not responding to what was happening to them. But it's nice for Sam, in a weird way. He doesn't feel any worse than he has the whole time, and getting to vocalize it means Dean is there every moment, trying to soothe out the pain and cheer Sam up.
The door closes with a snick, and Sam bolts upright in bed. Dean is standing in the doorway holding greasy bags and looking relieved to see Sam didn't explode into flames while he was gone. But all Sam can think of is the snapping sound the door made as it shut. He puts a hand to his throat, feels around his neck, sinks back into the covers with a sigh.
"That's the worst," he says.
Dean looks down, then back up. "It's not a big town, you diva. It's Burger King or it's nothing."
"No, not the food. The sound."
"What sound?"
"Don't mind the pain so much, you know? I can get used to the hooks in my skin and staring at my body scattered all over a room, but the sound my spine makes when it cracks." Sam shakes his head. "Gives me the willies."
Dean is still standing there staring at Sam with his hands full and his mouth open; Sam swallows and looks away. "The door just. I was having a nightmare and I woke up, and…"
Dean takes a few careful steps forward and sets one bag down in front of Sam, pulling away like Sam's some monster about to attack. "I didn't mean to scare you," he says.
Sam nods, uncurling the top of his bag and stealing a few fries.
"I'll be careful with the door."
"That'd be good," says Sam through a bite of cheeseburger.
Dean sets the rest of the things he's carrying on the table and throws a glance over his shoulder at Sam. "Sure are hungry now, huh?"
Sam knows what he means is I'm sorry and don't eat so much so fast, you'll choke. He smiles around stuffed cheeks.
They turn on the TV and don't talk much as they eat. It's the first peaceful night they've had in a while, so Sam doesn't push it. Doesn’t try to force a conversation. He's actually feeling okay, though he wishes he'd been thinking clearly enough earlier not to freak Dean out so much.
When the TV goes off a few hours later, Dean turns to look at Sam. "I remember that sound," he says.
It takes Sam a few moments to catch up to what he's referring to. He almost forgets sometimes that Dean's been to Hell, too. Selfish, but Sam always has been.
"It didn't bother me as much as the hooks, though," Dean continues, a wry twist to his lips.
Sam smiles at that. He's always admired that in Dean, always envied it a little. Dean understands physical, the pain and the pleasure; he's here and now, two feet firmly on the ground. A beer, a fuck, and a good fight and Dean's over what's bothering him. Sam's the one who gets caught up on the little things. He can't help thinking it would be easier to leave Hell behind now that the pain has stopped if he was more like his brother.
"Sam, if you need to talk about it, I can listen."
"Talking isn't going to make it go away, Dean."
Dean looks over at him. "Did you just say that?"
Sam grins. "I'm serious. If there were something I wanted to talk about, I would."
"I didn't say want, I said need." Dean moves from his bed to sit next to Sam. "I don't know how to help you anymore, man. I'm all out of ideas. Those stupid pills were my last idea and they just made everything worse."
Sam reaches up, grabs Dean's forearm and holds on. Dean shifts so he can catch Sam's eye, and Sam smiles. "Do you promise not to make fun of me?"
"You know I can't promise that," Dean says, smiling weakly when Sam lets go of him and rolls his eyes.
"Just stay here, okay? Right here. That's how you're helping. Just stay with me."
Dean moves a few hairs off Sam's face, and his smile shifts to something elusively tender. "I'm not going anywhere, Sammy."
"I know," Sam says. "That's why I'm bound to get better."
Dean is still sitting there when Sam falls asleep.
_______________________________________________________________
He's pressing kisses up Sam's thighs, and Sam is so hard he's on the verge of tears. Begging, for some kind of relief until Dean's low, rich laugh vibrates against his bare skin.
"You want me to suck you?" he asks.
Sam laughs. "Has anyone ever answered that with a no?"
Dean smiles against him. "You sure haven't."
"Is this a dream?" Sam asks.
Dean raises his head. "Does it matter? Right now, does it really matter?"
"I suppose not," Sam replies, fingers curling in Dean's short hairs, tugging him up. Dean comes willingly, kisses Sam lightly. "I don't have good dreams like this anymore. You think maybe it means something?"
"Probably," Dean answers, "but I'm not your shrink."
Sam lets Dean pull his face back enough to give Sam a smirk and Sam laughs and shoves him back down. "You're only good for one thing," he says.
Dean wraps his lips around Sam then, apparently determined to prove him right.
_______________________________________________________________
He wakes up with Dean's back pressed against his side. Dean's not under the covers, he’s crammed all the way into the nightstand, but he's curled up on Sam's bed like he hasn't moved all night. And yeah, that would explain the good dreams. Sam reaches out, feeling just a little bit self-indulgent, strokes his fingers over the spiky ends of his brother's hair.
Dean makes an mmm sound and rolls over. His eyes are heavy, he's glaring blearily at Sam for waking him, and Sam can't help remembering him in the dreamscape, all those mornings he refused to get out of bed until Sam brought him coffee.
"I can make coffee," Sam says. He bends a little to kiss Dean, then remembers where and who he is and pulls back.
Dean glares a few seconds longer, pulls his pillow over his head, and leaves Sam to it.
All is well until they get on the job that day. Sam has smoothed out the glitches that tripped him up when they first started hunting again, even the cold spots don't bother him so much anymore. But this hunt…this was a demon, and now the demon is lying face flat in a puddle of his own blood.
Sam tries not to stare at it. Tries not to think of falling to his knees and licking it off the floor. But he was strong once, unbelievably so. Demons feared him. Hell, angels feared him. Sam was strong once, and now he's something to be pitied. Now he cries for no reason. Now he wakes up every morning and has to check the sheets for piss. Sam can smell the damn blood, can feel a spark of the power it would give him.
He would be okay. It would make him okay.
Dean's hands curl around Sam's bicep and shake him. Reluctantly, Sam pulls his eyes away from the blood and sees a look in his brother's eyes he hasn’t seen in years. Doubt. Disappointment. He's scared of Sam, he's scared of what Sam will do. And Sam's sure he could talk Dean into letting him drink it. If he can convince his brother it's the only thing that could make him better, Dean would let him. Maybe that's part of what Dean looks so afraid of.
"Let's go, Sam," he says.
Sam looks back at the demon and licks his lips. "Yeah," he says. "We should definitely go."
He waits until they're in the car, driving to a new city, the demon safely secured out of his reach before he lets out all the tenseness in his muscles and tries to think of something other than the taste of sulfur and metal and electricity. "So," he says, a little shaky, but a little playful, too. "No more demon hunts."
Dean barks out a laugh. "No more demon hunts," he agrees, foot to the pedal with just a little extra force.
They don't drive long, just long enough. The music between them and the occasional insult is the best way to unwind, and by the time they stop for the night, Sam has mostly forgotten what they're running from.
Dean approaches the front counter, asks for a room for two. The middle-aged lady behind the counter steps back to grab keys off the wall, asks the inevitable 'one bed or two' question. She turns to look at Dean when he hesitates, and he averts his eyes.
"One," he says, almost a challenge.
The woman picks a key, her eyes dodging over to Sam as she drops it into Dean's palm. Sam wants to throw a 'yeah, lady, I wish' to her knowing smirk, but instead he looks down at his toes and follows when Dean picks his duffel up off the floor and leads them to their room.
They order Chinese, sit on the king mattress with carry-out boxes spread over the extra space. "Next hunt?" Sam asks, slurping a noodle.
"Dunno," Dean replies. "Back to Bobby's?"
"What about Castiel?"
Dean snickers, poking a fork into a container of sticky rice. "What about Castiel?"
"Shouldn't we be trying to stop him?"
"One major problem at a time, Sammy," Dean says. "Let's get you all better and then go kill ourselves hunting God. Sound good?"
"No."
"Glad we agree." Dean pauses, then shrugs. "He's calmed down since you woke up, anyway. Hardly causing trouble lately."
"Yeah, why do you think that is, anyway?"
Dean’s expression doesn’t change much, but Sam can't help noticing that he's stabbing at his rice with a little more enthusiasm. "Guilty conscience, maybe."
Sam reaches for the rice and forces it out of Dean's hand. "I bet we can get through to him, then."
Dean watches Sam eat the rice, and Sam throws him a triumphant smile. "Maybe," he agrees. "But we ain't trying until you're back to speed." Sam sighs. "I'm serious, Sam. It's only been a month and a half since you woke up. We've taken longer to save the world."
Sam laughs. "Yeah, okay."
Dean picks up a fortune cookie and tosses the other at Sam. "Anyway," he says. "This is much more important."
He cracks the shell and shoves half in his mouth before he even looks at the thin strip of paper inside. Sam holds his up. "Long life is in store for you," he reads. He laughs and drops the paper in an empty container. "God, I hope not."
"Smiley face. There is no failure, just the opportunity to begin again. Smiley face," Dean says with surprising dignity before adding, "in bed."
"Yes, that we are," Sam replies, feeling his cheeks burning when he realizes what he's just pointed out. It’s not fair-he and Dean used to do this kind of shit all the time when Sam was dreaming, Dean should stop acting so much like his boyfriend if Sam's not supposed to get the wrong idea.
"Mmm, you know what's missing, Sammy?"
Sam looks over at him and smiles. "A fair chunk of my sanity?"
Dean laughs, rolling over to shove Sam's side. He lifts his hand so it's just in front of Sam's face and wiggles his fingers. "Magic fingers."
"You have a problem," Sam mutters.
"No, seriously, when was the last time we stayed at a respectable motel?"
"Okay, see, that, that right there. That's not normal." Dean looks at Sam, innocent and puzzled and so full of shit it's coming out of his ears. "Normal people don't judge respectable motels by your standards, Dean."
"I think it was the kid," Dean continues, off on his own train of thought. "Remember little Bobby John, Sam?"
Sam frowns. "I remember handing him over to hunters."
Dean's eyes fly open. "That was-shit, I forgot."
Sam shakes his head. "One thing I can safely say is that I am over the soulless thing. Not my fault, blah blah, and so forth. Much more interesting things to be screwed up over these days."
Dean doesn't look entirely convinced, but he smiles just a little. "That's good, Sammy. That's real good. I don't think I could have-"
"Handled it?" Dean nods. "I don't think I could have, either. Not all at once. But luckily, I got the soulless luggage out of the way before I woke up to deal with the Hell luggage."
"How?" Dean asks. "Maybe we can replicate it."
Sam laughs. "It was, uh. You, actually. In the dream. You were there, and you helped me. Like I told you, I couldn't have done it on my own. Not that strong."
Dean sits up, very serious all of a sudden and looks Sam in the eye. "You don't give yourself enough credit, Sam. You're strong enough for anything."
"Okay, I'm waiting for the insult," Sam replies.
Dean looks back down. "I'm not joking this time. The things you've beaten. Sammy, you're the strongest damn person ali-"
"Don't, okay?" Sam stands to clean up their dinner, looking for a distraction. "Just don’t."
"All I'm saying is-"
"Don't say it. You don't know anything about it." Sam turns to face him. "You wanna hear how strong I am, Dean? You really wanna know about Hell?"
Dean gets to his feet, crosses the room in three long steps and takes the things Sam's carrying out of his hands. He sets them on the counter and turns back to grab Sam's hands. "You know I don't want to," he says. "And yet I've been telling you for a month and a half that I'll listen if you'll just fucking talk to me."
"You remember what you did, Dean? You remember how weak you felt, how long you hated yourself for it?"
"Of course I do." Sam sees the muscles in Dean's jaw tighten. "But you didn't, Sam."
"No, I didn't. They didn't give that option where I was." Sam feels himself losing his grip, and Dean holds him steady, steers him to the bed. Dean sits him down on the edge, and Sam reaches up for him. "I begged for it, Dean. You took 30 years to break? Michael and Lucifer had me for an hour before I was begging them to let me torture someone."
Dean pulls Sam's face against him and strokes his hands in Sam's hair, and Sam doesn’t care that he looks and feels like a child. Dean is the only thing holding Sam together. "It was different, Sammy. It was worse for you. So much worse."
"That blood." Sam turns his face, snot and tears rubbing into his brother's shirt. "They gave me blood sometimes, Dean. They let me drink my own when they’d cut into me, and I could taste the demon in it, and I liked it. It was the only thing I got down there that made me happy."
"What happens in Hell, it doesn't count up here." Dean nods, turns Sam's face up and looks down into his eyes. "You told me that yourself."
"Up here," Sam scoffs. "I'm no better. You know what I was thinking on that hunt, Dean. You know."
"Shh, Sam. It's bedtime, okay?"
Dean pulls Sam up the bed to his pillow, and Sam is still crying too hard to fight it. Dean gets in behind him, wraps an arm around Sam's waist and pulls every inch of Sam against him. The embrace is so tight it's almost not affectionate, like Dean is claiming Sam, holding on to him so that whatever tries to drag him in another direction can't beat the grip.
"You think I'm your brother," Sam says. "But he's better than I am. Whoever you think I am, he's too good to be me. I don't think I ever was him, but I'm definitely not now."
Dean breathes out against Sam's neck. "Sammy, you're my little brother. You're exactly who I want my little brother to be."
"I don't believe you," Sam replies.
"Go to sleep, okay?" Dean pulls Sam even closer. "You'll believe me in the morning."
At some point in the night, Sam wakes up and peers around the motel room. There’s just enough light coming in from the street outside their window for shadows to cut across the floor. Sam sees a Dean-shaped silhouette hug a bottle to its chest, watches it rest its face in its hands. He hears when Dean breaks down, when a sob rips through him, and Sam doesn’t know if it’s exhaustion or bitterness or a mix of the two making his brother cry like that, but he can’t help thinking that other Sam was right. Waking up from that coma was the worst thing he could have done to Dean.
The next time he wakes up, he’s in a sunny room, wrapped in 200 pounds of Dean, and he lets out a long sigh of relief. He thinks he's home. He thinks he'll open his eyes and see the same old blue quilt and maybe he'll finally convince Dean they need a new one and maybe Dean will stay as stubbornly attached to the stupid thing as always, but that’s okay. Sam doesn’t really care about the quilt. He wants to have the fight. He’s happy to let Dean win when they’re fighting over stupid things like that. They'll go about their daily lives and Sam will never tell his brother that he thought this was a dream and what he woke up to was horrible and full of Hell and somehow a little better, too.
Dean shifts behind him. Sam turns, smiling wide, and catches a glimpse of the surprised happiness on Dean's face before he presses their lips together, sliding a hand over his brother's cheek. It's not until Dean reacts, shoving Sam away immediately-not like he has something to say before they go at it; like it's instinct-that Sam realizes he was half-awake and deluding himself. Dean isn't his; Dean is watching him with a horrified look on his face, like Sam just did the worst thing imaginable.
"Dean, I-"
"What did they do?" Dean asks, bringing his fingers to his lips. "Jesus, Sammy, in Hell did they-did they make you-?"
Sam watches him, watches Dean's concerned expression, and, for the first time in over a month, wishes he was dead. That's Dean's Hell.
"I thought it was Heaven," Sam says, laughing. He doesn't know why, he certainly doesn't think it's funny, and Dean doesn't join him, doesn't pretend it's something they can laugh away.
_______________________________________________________________
They don't talk about it, of course. They just go on with their hunt, and with the next one, and the one after that. Dean doesn't stop sharing Sam's bed, but he puts the most space between them possible. He doesn't stop touching Sam-that would be far too obvious-but the easiness that has always characterized Dean's touch is gone.
Now they're fighting some kind of tentacle plant monster, and Dean is a few seconds from being asphyxiated by the damn thing. Sam slices the vines where they've got Dean's hands pinned, and Dean starts hacking at the rest of them while Sam runs for the spell they need to kill it. Dean had dropped it when the tendrils surprised him, but it's easy to spot the white sheet against a sea of green.
When all is said and done, the damn plant bursts into flames, and Sam gets to help Dean cough and splutter his way back to the Impala. His face is still a little blue from the choking, but it's nothing they both haven't been through, and the motel is only a few blocks away from the park entrance.
Sam drives, the first time since he got out of Hell, he realizes, and Dean only seems to give him the keys to keep Sam from putting his perverted hands where they don't belong.
When they get to the motel, Dean rushes to the bathroom, his shirt coming off in front of the mirror. He's in too much of a rush to remember to close the door, and Sam looks, not because he wants to see but because he needs to know how bad the damage is. There are thin red lines across Dean's chest, but the stitches on his side didn't break, and Sam takes that as a sign they're ready to come off.
He steps into the bathroom behind Dean. "Those look just like the rattlesnake monster," Sam says, laughing. "Remember?"
"No," Dean replies. He shifts away from Sam a little, but he smiles, too. "What rattlesnake monster?"
"The one we fought just before we went to the Grand Canyon," Sam answers. Dean only looks more confused, and suddenly Sam remembers what they did after the Grand Canyon, all the hands and the lips and Sam licking at the red lines on Dean's chest. He scrubs a hand over his face. "We've never been to the Grand Canyon, have we?"
"No, Sammy," Dean says dejectedly. "Always wanted to go."
"Of course," Sam mutters. "It's only the really good memories that are fake."
"And the bad ones," Dean reminds him.
Sam smiles thinly. "Yeah, I guess those, too. In a way."
They stand there opposite each other for a long minute before Dean smiles and shrugs. "This isn't so bad, though. I can sleep it off. In a few days it won't even be visible."
Sam nods, steps forward and traces the line of scar tissue on Dean's side. "The stitches from the ghost hunt are about done."
Dean sucks in a breath as soon as Sam touches him, doesn’t pull away immediately. He closes his eyes and Sam steps closer, and that must break the spell, because Dean turns away.
"Don't touch me, Sam."
Sam tries to hide how much that hurts. "Jesus, Dean, I'm just offering to help with your stitches. I'm not gonna-"
"I know that," Dean says, fingers wrapping around Sam's wrist and pushing him away. "I know that. Just don't, okay?"
"No, not okay." Sam frowns. "I get that I shouldn't have kissed you but-"
"You shouldn't have," he says. "You really fucking shouldn't have."
Sam steps away. "All the things you've forgiven me for, and this is what you're going to hate me over? I will never make you do anything you don't want to do, if you don’t know that-"
Dean shakes his head, gripping the sink. Sam watches his face in the mirror, even though Dean isn't looking directly at it. It's better than his absolute refusal to even glance in Sam's direction. "Of course I know that, Sam, Jesus. But I know why they forced you." He swallows. "It's my fault, Sam, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But you shouldn't have kissed me."
"I know that, Dean. I just…couldn't help it."
"I know you couldn't, Sammy. I know they made you, and you thought you were there again-"
"No. You're wrong. Dean, I've always wanted-"
Dean laughs shakily, and Sam catches his brother's eye in the mirror for a second before Dean deflects. He sees something dark and heated, and suddenly, Sam thinks he understands why Dean has been so quick to look away since that kiss.
Sam takes a step and puts himself directly behind Dean, watching his brother's reactions in the mirror. Dean seems to stop breathing.
"You want me, don't you?" Sam crowds into him, puts his hands on his brother's hips. "God, you do, I can tell."
Dean drops his head. "Sam, please. Just leave me alone."
"Why do it alone when you can have the real thing?" Sam asks, bending low to press his lips to Dean's ear. Dean is shaking, and Sam can feel every tremor through him, and he can't remember the last time he was this turned on.
Dean moves back, into Sam, and Sam groans. But he watches Dean's mind change in the mirror, watches Dean get a grip of himself and turn in the small amount of space Sam's given him.
"Not ever, Sam," he says. "I won't do that to you. I swore I would never do that to you."
Sam's eyebrows draw together. "I'm pretty sure it was my idea."
"I'm pretty sure it wasn't," Dean replies coolly.
"Dean, I've wanted you since-I don't even remember. Believe me."
"I believe that you think that's true," Dean says. "But I know it isn't."
"How do you figure?"
Dean shrugs. "Because I…you never said anything about it before. Now you get back from Hell and suddenly you won’t stop looking at me like-you don't have to go to college to figure it out."
"You never said anything, either," Sam says. "How long have you wanted it?"
Dean makes a dismissive sound. "That's not the point. You've always been the one to ask, Sammy. I'm the one who can't say no. Remember?"
You're saying no now, Sam thinks, almost amused, but he keeps the observation to himself. "I never said anything because I was scared of it before. Scared what you'd think of me. I never would have kissed you if I'd been thinking straight, but I'm not sorry. Not if you want me back."
"This conversation is over," Dean says. "Get outta here, I need to piss."
"You can’t just decide it's over." Sam reaches out, trying to keep his touch gentle despite how hard he wants to throttle his brother. "This isn't something-"
"We ever need to talk about. Because the answer is no. The answer is always going to be no. Jesus, Sam, do you have any fucking idea how hard I've fought not to want you?"
"Yes," Sam replies. "I fought it, too. I know."
"Whenever the idea even popped into my head, I would squash it. I didn't ever let it keep going or try to work it out of my system. I killed it. And if I had a dream, I told myself, well, it's a dream. It doesn't mean anything. Nothing I can do to control it. Even if it's not a nightmare, that doesn't mean-" He shakes his head. "And then you wake up, and you wake up like this. You wake up and you need me to take care of you and the last thing I should do is want you. Why'd you have to go and kiss me, Sam? I can't stop thinking about it. I can't stop wanting you. No matter what I try-"
"But Dean it'll make me-"
"I'm not taking advantage of you. I promise. I'd rather die."
"I don't want that promise. It's-not dirty. You don't have to be ashamed."
"I'm not ashamed, I was never ashamed of it. Hell, it made sense to me. I just wasn’t going there unless you asked for it. And now you can’t ask for it. I’ve got no way of knowing Lucifer didn’t put this in your head. Because of me, maybe. If there was some way I could be sure, I would-" He reaches out and cups Sam's cheek, and Sam leans into it. Dean nearly whimpers. "But there isn't. You gotta understand that."
Sam sighs and lets his arms drop. "I understand," he says gloomily.
Dean smiles, maybe the fakest smile since Sam woke up and that's not without competition. "Good. Okay. You can-bathroom's yours."
By the time Sam gets back out, Dean is already huddled on one side of the bed pretending to sleep. Sam sighs, sliding under the covers, his brother's body heat more present than ever.
It's a long night.
_______________________________________________________________
Dean is good to Sam the next day. Probably better than Sam deserves. Sam doesn't know if it's guilt for disappointing Sam or nearly giving into him, but he lets Sam drive, and pick their stops, and Sam is just not above using it to his advantage.
They haven't done this in a while-not since a few nights before Sam jumped into the cage-but Dean agrees easily, buys the beer the first time they stop for gas after Sam throws the idea out and bounces like an excited kid all day.
Now the sun has finally set, Sam couldn't have hoped for a clearer night, and they pull off the road the first chance they get. Sam is nervous, reciting the speech he's been writing, unwriting, rewriting in his head since Dean left him standing alone in that bathroom last night, half-hard and rejected, but oddly optimistic, as well. He never dreamed Dean could want him-or at least, he never dreamed Dean could want him outside of dreaming.
Dean, blissfully ignorant to the trap he's just walked into, is rounding the car, opening the trunk to pull beers out. Sam climbs onto the Impala's hood, his head tipped all the way back, and takes in the stars until Dean joins him, a cold beer pressing into his side.
"Thanks," Sam says.
"Yeah, no problem," Dean answers, hiss of a bottle cap under his words. "Wanna hear something funny?"
Sam grins and brings the bottle to his lips. "Sure," he says. "Tell me something funny."
"I tried doing this with you when you'd just gotten back from Hell. 'Cause I was missing Lisa and glad to have you back, or whatever." Dean shakes his head, a rueful smile on his lips.
Sam snorts. "And I said, 'What's the point?'"
Dean nods. "You know, I actually didn't have an answer for that one."
Sam laughs. "Yeah, that's, uh…that's funny."
Dean looks over fondly and pats Sam's thigh very quickly. "I missed you, man."
"Want a tissue?"
"Fuck off," Dean answers, shoving Sam hard enough that he loses balance, has to grab Dean's shoulder to keep from falling off the car.
They go quiet then, which is how it's supposed to go, generally. A few introductory insults and then a nice, long, comfortable silence. This is not supposed to be caring and sharing time, and Sam knows that, but with Dean there is no caring and sharing time, and Sam has a lot to say.
He still feels like he's breaking a sacred rule when he speaks. "Can I tell you something, Dean?"
"Anything," he answers, though he doesn't take his eyes off the sky.
"Do you remember Kaylee Walters?"
Dean shoots Sam a look like that was the last thing he expected to come out of his brother's mouth but he nods. "Your little friend, right? The hot one who wasn't into me for no discernible reason?"
Sam laughs. "She was into you," he says.
"Ah, well. She had a funny way of showing it." He shrugs and takes a sip. "No worries, my ego has recovered."
"More than it should have, even."
Dean sticks his tongue out.
"She thought you were joking when you hit on her," Sam tells him. "That's why she giggled so much."
"Yeah? Why'd she think that?"
Sam picks at the label of his beer. "I told her you were my boyfriend."
Dean chokes. "You what?" he asks once he's finally swallowed his beer.
"I told her you were my boyfriend, Dean."
"What the hell'd you do that for?"
Sam smiles. "She saw you waiting for me one day after school. You know, leaning against the car, leather jacket, the way you always did."
Dean nods.
"She thought you were hot. She asked if I knew you and I said 'yeah' and then, I don't know. The lie just came out." Sam swallows, looks down at the beer wrapper littered in his lap. "I wanted so badly for it to be true, Dean. Even then." He looks over and finds Dean watching him. "I thought…just once I'd like to leave someone behind who didn't feel bad for us. One person in the whole world who thought, 'Sam Winchester? He's the luckiest boy in the world.'"
"There are more exciting lies to tell people," Dean says, looking away.
"You'd think that, but I still haven’t thought of one." Sam shrugs, hoping at least some of the easiness he's faking seems genuine. "Anyway, I've spent all day thinking, and this is the only evidence I've got to prove I'm not confused about this. It's not Lucifer. You are seeing it, aren't you?"
Dean shifts a little next to him, takes a long pull from his drink. Finally he answers, "Would explain a few questions I had about her."
"I'm not going to kiss you again, Dean. I'm not going to bring this up again. I'm not going to force you to do anything you don't feel comfortable with. But I think you should listen. I think you should give me a chance because…we can be happy. I've seen it, Dean. I spent six months in my head because I couldn't stand to let it go."
Dean opens his mouth and Sam cuts him off before he can start.
"I know what you're going to say. It was a dream, it wasn't real. And I know that. I know what was and wasn't. I don't want it anymore. It's not-it was great, I wish you'd seen it. I was a lawyer and you wore suspenders and it was perfect, but it wasn't real and I can tell the difference, whatever you may think."
"So what are you telling me for, if none of it was real and you don't even want it to be?"
"Exactly like I said, I know what I was making up and what I wasn't. Dean, I know you. It was you, but it was you so happy…" Sam shakes his head. "And I woke up knowing that if you could ever want me, we really could be that happy, but I thought you never would." Sam lowers his voice almost to a whisper. "I don't think I'll ever be happy like that without it."
"You saying I'm the cure to Hell?" Dean asks, one eyebrow arched. "That's a new one."
"No, I don't think there is a cure to Hell." Dean frowns, but Sam smiles. "I'm not saying that in a bad way, just, I dunno. Some days I'm going to be fine, and some days I'm not. I'll have nightmares and I'll burst into spontaneous tears and it'll be embarrassing and scary and we'll hate it, but," Sam lifts his hands, "What can we do, right? We were always gonna be a little worse for wear."
"But you said-"
"I said happy, not normal. Not like before, and that wasn't really the pinnacle of mental stability to begin with." Dean laughs. Sam realizes then that it's funny, and he laughs too. He feels good. Even if Dean still rejects him, Sam is glad to get this off his chest. And maybe he gets too excited from the lightness, wants to say everything that pops into his head. It comes out in a rush. "We’ve never been happy, have we? Not really. I think we could be. The rest of the time, you know? When I'm not in the pit. And when I am, I'll still have you to help me through."
Dean stays quiet but he does look like he's mulling things over, so Sam puts that in the win column.
"I know you're going to want to think this is because you did something wrong. Screwed me up or something-"
"Sam-"
"No, I know you are. But I want you to know it's not anything you did wrong. It's because of everything you did…"
Sam is about to add right, but that's not true, either. It's because of all the things Dean did that Sam wanted to hate him for as much as anything. For pulling him away from Stanford because he missed him. For selling his soul when Sam was better off dead. For asking Sam to wake up when he was finally happy, because someone has to look out, someone has to make sure Sam does the right thing. Sam nods and leaves it at 'everything you did.'
"Look, just, know that I've loved you. I've loved you in every way that a person can and maybe in ways a person shouldn't. Even when I was running from it. Even when I loved someone else. Even with Jess, Dean. You're the love of my life. You've always been and you always will be."
Dean leans forward, a look on his face like he's trying very hard to think of something to say, is maybe getting uncomfortable because he can't. Sam doesn't want to make Dean's night any more awkward than he already has, so he stands, smiling at Dean as he walks away.
"I've said my piece," he says. "I'm done. Please, just think it over for a while before you say no again."
Dean watches Sam leave, but he doesn't get up to follow. Sam sits in the passenger's seat for a long while, watching his brother. Dean finishes his beer slowly, eyes searching the sky for something. Then finally he gets up and joins Sam in the car and they drive to the next motel down the road, Zeppelin familiar between them, something else buzzing underneath it-not known, but not entirely new, either.
When they find a place to stay, Dean still gets one bed. They fall asleep in each other's space, like they have been for weeks. Nothing changes, and Sam doesn't know whether he's relieved or heartbroken by that.
_______________________________________________________________
Sam spends the next day pretty sure Dean thought it over and decided incest just wasn't for him after all. Which, okay, Sam is pretty sure that's the wrong choice. Sam will definitely be damned to a lonely, sexless existence, and Dean probably will be, too. But Sam said he wasn't going to bring it up, so he's not bringing it up.
Dean is his regular, pain-in-the-ass-big-brother self until they're settling into bed, and Dean turns into Sam and kisses him. Sam waits for him to pull away or for the dream to end, but Dean keeps going, cupping Sam's face, lips and tongue insistent. Sam responds because he has to, he's under a spell. All those years he spent imagining, all those months he spent dreaming, nothing compares to the actual feel of Dean, real Dean, kissing Sam, long bruising kisses that say Dean has all the time in the world and wants to spend every second of it just like this.
Dean's arms are strong on Sam's hips as he presses in, and Sam can’t help how turned on he gets. He pushes up into Dean, and when Dean thrusts back, Sam can feel his brother's dick hardening against his thigh.
Sam pulls away. "You wanna fuck me?"
Dean laughs and rests his forehead on Sam's shoulder. "Don't waste time, do you?"
Sam can feel a goofy grin taking over his features. "We've wasted a lot of time, Dean."
"Yeah, I know, Sammy," he says, nodding against Sam.
He kisses Sam again and just keeps kissing. Kisses until Sam is sure he's never been so thoroughly kissed in his life. Then Dean sits back, scanning Sam's face for something. Sam doesn't know what he's supposed to do, but Dean must find what he's looking for, because after a bit he nods-just once, like he's admiring a job well done-and turns over to sleep.
It goes on this way for a few nights, and the days don't change much. Dean is still Dean and Sam is still a work in progress and hunting is still a pretty shitty job. The kissing is the only thing that's new, and it's enough-hell, it's more than enough, more than Sam ever actually intended to ask for.
Yeah, sure, he wants to fuck Dean, and he wants Dean to break him open, and he wants to gag on his brother's dick and watch Dean's mouth get sloppy and swollen around him. But Sam has learned patience, and if Dean is still unsure, Sam's going to do everything it takes not to spook him.
Or just not do the one thing he really wants to.
On the fourth day, Dean takes Sam by surprise. Sam's kissing a line down Dean's throat and is happily distracted, and then suddenly there's a palm on his crotch, insistently kneading through Sam's boxers. Sam's breath is heavy when Dean pulls away. He sits back with his head against the wall and keeps his eyes trained on Dean. Dean smiles wickedly and gives Sam another couple of fast, teasing kisses as he pulls Sam's cock out.
"Got big, didn't you?" Dean says, eyes moving down. Sam can't get over that, the fact that his brother is really here, really saying this and looking at Sam like he's hungry. "You're gonna fucking hurt me with all that, aren’t you?"
Sam shakes his head, but Dean laughs, wearing a fascinated look as he wraps his hand around Sam's shaft. "Mmm, you are. Gonna split me right in half." Dean ducks his head, sucking a mark into Sam's neck. "I want that," he says. "I want it, I want it so bad."
Sam groans. Dean's hand is rough and calloused and not like anything Sam's ever felt. And he's moving it so fast, gripping tighter at the head, thumb pushing and collecting precome the way Dean used to do for himself. Sam learned this from Dean, but he's about ready to admit that, even with years of practice, he hasn't quite surpassed his brother yet.
"Dean," Sam gasps. "You're too-I'm gonna-"
Dean shuts him up with a kiss, his already frantic pace only gets faster. Maybe Sam should be annoyed-Dean is fast-forwarding through a first here-but it only makes him hotter. The way Dean is touching him-Sam feels like he's irresistible, like Dean couldn't stop fucking him if he tried. And Dean, Dean is grinning, still staring at his hand as it reduces Sam to needy thrusts and whines.
"Shit, yeah," Dean whispers. "Show me what you look like when you come for me."
Sam closes his eyes. The heat building in his stomach is white hot, like stars before they die. He cries out, Dean's name, and he's loud enough that everyone in the motel probably hears him. Maybe he should take that into consideration, but damn if it doesn't turn him on. So Sam decides fuck it, throws his head back and yells Dean's name over and over, so that anyone who's interested can know what he and his brother are doing.
Dean laughs then, a light giddy sound as Sam shoots all over his fist, and Sam is still broken as he watches Dean lift that hand up to his lips and lick Sam's mess off him. About half a minute later, when Sam's brain gets back online, he realizes that he should return the favor.
"Should-can I-?" Sam reaches for the fly of Dean's jeans, but Dean just half-smiles, looks away almost shyly.
"Let's just say you owe me one," he says.
Sam looks down, sees that Dean's jeans are already open just enough for a hand to slide in, and there's a wet spot in the fabric. Sam laughs. "Wow," he says, still rasping for breath. "I feel young again."
"Oh, shut up," Dean replies. He leans forward for a kiss. "You would have come, too, if you saw what I was looking at."
Sam smirks. "That's weirdly sweet, coming from you."
"Not really," Dean answers. "There's a mirror over the bed."
Sam snorts and rolls his eyes. He knows Dean wasn't looking in the mirror, and Dean knows he knows.
Dean rolls over, climbing out of bed just long enough to shuck his sticky clothes. Sam watches him, still too worn out to take a real interest, but appreciative nonetheless.
"Tired, Sammy?" he asks.
Sam smiles lazily and nods. He is, and he can't remember the last time he felt so sure he'd get a good night's sleep.
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The next morning, Sam wakes in a state of panic. He knows what's coming, it's happened too many times for him not to. That was a dream, a really lovely dream, and Sam is going to wake up to find out he never kissed Dean at all, never woke up, never left Hell. Last night must have been a joke Lucifer was playing. This is Sam's life, after all.
He reaches out, arms flailing as they search for Dean. There's a slapping sound, Sam's skin meeting Dean, and Dean turns over, looking like he's about ready to plant a bullet in Sam for waking him.
It's the happiest Sam's ever felt when death by gunshot was a distinct possibility.
"Hi," he says cheekily. "Did I wake you?"
"Curse upon you and all your kin," Dean mumbles.
"That sounds about right," Sam says, bending back down for a kiss. Dean rouses enough to return it, somehow already eager despite the fact that the rest of him is still lying like Jello. Dean tastes bitter, like sleep and come and the stale pizza and beer they had last night. It's really pretty disgusting, but he doesn't pull away. Sam can't taste any better, but Dean wraps his hand tightly around Sam's neck and throws his whole body into kissing him, anyway.
Sam lets Dean draw him back to bed, doesn't care if they're burning daylight. The sounds Dean makes when Sam moves against him are making Sam feel plenty productive already. Sam can't really get over it, wants to bask in this all day. This is real-not perfect, much better. If salvation tastes like Dean's morning breath, Sam won't be disappointed. Dean touches him, warm without burning. Hell freezes over.
End.