.0011 - One Summer's Day
Dean/Sam
2,960 words
Teaser: Dean struggles to stop him, but his protest turns into a moan, encouraging and almost pleading, when Sam’s slender fingers grasp his belt buckle, working it loose.
“Dragon,” Dean says, as he pulls the lollipop out of his mouth, and points up with the red and white stripped ball to the cyan blue sky above, describing the irregular shape of the fluffy white cloud.
Fingers coated with a rich white froth, Sam looks up confusedly. “Huh?”
“Dragon,” Dean repeats, once again copying the outlines.
“Sea lion,” Sam argues, returning to the task at hand.
“Nah,” Dean shakes his head, causing Sam’s fingers to slip through his hair and drop the foam onto his eyebrows. “It’s a dragon.”
“Sea lion.” Sam brushes the flecks of white off Dean’s forehead and buries his fingers into the soft, short strands of dark blonde hair again, massaging Dean’s scalp with careful, gentle strokes, and washing off the last remnants of dried blood. “This okay?”
“Feels good,” Dean mumbles around the lollipop; finally starting to relax into Sam’s care.
“Yeah?” Sam grins, putting a little more pressure into his touch, and making Dean close his eyes in pleasure and let out a contented sigh, sounding very like a purring kitten.
Sam shakes up his fingers after a while, sending wet drops onto the blooming flowers and long grass, then picks up the plastic bottle filled with water, and brings it above Dean’s head. “Close your eyes,” he instructs, as he presses the heel of his hand against Dean’s forehead.
“It’s a dragon,” Dean insists, although the cloud has already shifted and completely transformed in the lazy air, and looks like something completely different, and even more mysterious. He crushes the leftover piece of candy between his teeth, and tosses the superfluous stick onto the ground, not even bothering to look where it lands.
“Of course it is,” Sam smiles. “Now close them.”
Dean obeys eventually, tilting his head further back to allow Sam to pour the water onto his hair and wash off the cheap, wannabe lemon scented shampoo.
Despite Sam’s efforts, the water follows its own path, trickling down Dean’s back and through Sam’s fingers, slipping over Dean’s tightly shut eyes, and fluttering eyelashes. Along the line of his nose, and behind the neckline of his white, threadbare wife beater. It’s unlikely Dean minds, or notices at all, though, because the afternoon is burning hot, promising lightning and guaranteeing thunder for the night. The wind is so soft it doesn’t even ruffle up the floss of the dandelions, and there’s no promise of rain for the next few days.
“We’re done.” Sam says, when all the foam is gone from Dean’s hair, slowly soaking into the dry land instead, and he helps Dean to sit up again. The wooden chair squeaks disapprovingly underneath.
“Thanks,” Dean mumbles; even though he didn’t ask for it, had actually spent the whole morning bitching that he wasn’t a freaking invalid, who needed to be taken care of, and refusing Sam’s offer of help.
“How does it look?” he wonders, cool and careless, with only a hint of underlying worry seeping into his voice, as he reaches out to touch the back of his head.
“Looks good.” Sam takes Dean’s hand into his, guiding his touch to the right place. “Sealed and healing... It’ll look okay soon.”
Dean nods and pulls his fingers from Sam’s grasp, then stands up. He staggers slightly, balancing on one foot and the tips of his toes of the other, and grabs Sam’s arm for support, just before he loses his equilibrium completely.
“My leg fell asleep,” he says. It’s half an explanation of his momentary and rarely glimpsed weakness, and half a complaint from his own body, which hasn’t been acting the way he wanted it to.
Sam nods, although he doesn’t believe a single word Dean says, because he can see. Because he knows that his brother is constantly in pain, since his broken bones have their own mind and knit together only very slowly. And not entirely in the right way. The muscles in his other leg are tensed and under stress, compelled to take most of his weight, bringing another dose of anguish.
Sam lets, or more like forces, Dean to lean his weight on him, and helps him to cross the short distance to the spread bed sheet, used only to keep their clothes clean for a little longer.
There’s a real wildwood surrounding them; high grass and overgrown weeds, and just a part worn footpath leading to the back entrance of the half ruined, creaky house. It’s a hell of a place to spend the summer in, but they’re used to everything but comfort and neatness. And they’ve seen worse already.
Hissing with the pain that shoots from his ankle up to his thigh, and from his belly all the way up to his head, Dean wriggles until he’s settled as comfortably as he can be, and then pulls a black scarf out of the pocket of his jeans and wraps it around his head, tying it up.
“Dean,” Sam starts carefully, like Dean is some exotic and nasty predator, ready to bite if someone strokes its fur in the wrong direction. He drops onto the cloth beside Dean and reaches for the scarf, trying to wrench it from Dean’s fingers. “It’s only a few inches; you don’t need to hide it... Let it breathe.”
Dean shakes his head and finishes the bundle. “I’m not the one who keeps staring at my shaved head as if waiting for my brain to start leaking out,” he snaps.
“Like that’s so far from the truth,” Sam objects bitterly.
Dean smiles, only a little, but with his eyes as well as his mouth, like a weak apology for making Sam worried, and strokes Sam’s face with his fingers, caressing the soft, barely there stubble, and wiping away the stray dab of shampoo on his chin. He pulls back, too soon for Sam’s liking, and lies down onto the grass. He folds one hand under his head and splays the other across his belly, drumming an unidentifiable melody upon his stomach.
Heaving a sigh, Sam settles beside him, gazing up at the endless abyss above them, occasionally zig-zagged with white lines from planes. He watches the distant steel birds for a while, trying to figure out how many travellers there are up there, how old they are, and where they’re heading. Whether they’re scared that the plane will crash, whether they’re scared that it won’t. He props himself up onto his elbow, his head resting on his hand, and looks down at Dean. His eyes are closed and his face relaxed, and a little smile plays across his lips. Sam reaches out to brush his fingertips down Dean’s cheek, over the deep, long, and still raw lines of the werewolf’s claws that trace down over his throat and end just a few inches under his collarbone. He lets his touch slide a little lower, and spreads his fingers where he can feel the rhythmical, soothing beat of Dean’s heart; a soft lullaby he’s been falling asleep to every night since the accident.
Sam wasn’t there to see it, to stop it from happening, he’d just nearly fainted when Dad had dragged Dean home, barely conscious and in shock, shaking and bleeding so badly he was staining the tilled floor. Sam was sick with seeing so much blood, sick with worry about Dean, and anger at Dad, who’d let it go that far, too far. The moment Dean’s body hit the hard, rather scrunchy mattress of the hotel bed, he’d closed his pain-glazed eyes and passed out, as though finally being able to let his guard down, knowing Sam was still okay, and that Dad was now, too.
Dean’s injuries aren’t the most terrible ones that a hunter has ever received, of which death isn’t necessarily the worst one, but they’re definitely the worst ones that Dean has suffered in his four years as a hunter, and twenty years of life.
“You’re thinking too loud,” Dean complains, voice low and words slurred, like they’re too sluggish to carry their own weight.
“I was so terrified,” Sam whispers back, too scared to say it aloud, too scared of what the words really mean, and could have meant, as he snuggles a little closer to Dean; closing the one inch of space that was left between them.
Dean opens his eyes and turns his head to look at Sam, and smiles; just a small upturn of his lips, because the cuts won’t allow him more. Because he knows, still remembers, the fear and pain reflected in Sam’s red-rimmed eyes, when he’d finally come back around, patched up and drugged, still more dead than alive. He touches Sam’s lower lip with his index finger, feeling the soft flesh give under his touch, opening Sam’s mouth a little. “I’m okay.” He says, reassuringly, and yet unconvincingly. A promise they both know he won’t be able to keep for too long. For, just before his wounds close and heal, Dad will tow him out again, somewhere else, to kill some other beast, to suffer some other pain. A pledge that is only a quiet whisper among the yelling of all the bruises and cuts, and wounds scattered across Dean’s body. Dean seems to realize this too, as he pauses. “I’m not dyin’.”
Not today. Not yet.
Sam kisses Dean’s finger, then pushes the tip of his tongue against the rough skin, copying the faint lines printed into it, which he more imagines than really feels. He watches Dean swallow hard, notices the flabbergasted expression in his eyes, right before they cloud, like the skies before a storm, and Dean yanks his hand back.
And Sam doesn’t understand how he’s able to just lay there, so calm and composed, when every cell in Sam’s body feels like it’s too big for the place where it’s settled, through all the miles of his body. His skin’s prickling, like it’s too hot to even wear it, he feels like there are ants crawling underneath it, making him all restless and needy, and he wants. He just desperately wants.
“Dean.” It’s no more than a breath that ghosts across Dean’s lips when Sam rises above him, but it screams Sam’s frustration and desire to touch, feel and taste louder than a thunder. He shifts his hand down Dean’s chest and over his belly, across the bandage wrapped around Dean’s waist, which bulges underneath the wife beater, and lower.
“Sammy.” Dean struggles to stop him, but his protest turns into a moan, encouraging and almost pleading, when Sam’s slender fingers grasp his belt buckle, working it loose. Sam leans in and strokes Dean’s lips with his, a kiss as light as the grass underneath them, filled up with promises of heated, secret nights, and all the things he can’t quite describe yet, although they’re searing them both from the inside. Have been for a while. Dean’s lips are reddened and swollen from the lollipop, sticky, and smell and taste like the freshest, sweetest raspberries. Like the sweetest sin. Sam pushes his tongue in between them, licking his way into the velvet heat of Dean’s mouth; urgent and insistent, and drawing a breathless sigh out of Dean, whose fingers spread at the nape of Sam’s neck, tugging him closer. His lips part to allow Sam’s kiss, for Sam, for all the desire and love he’s offering, and Dean was never even supposed to know about. Let alone return. Thrusting his tongue deeper, Sam shifts atop Dean, careful to avoid all his healing injuries, and letting Dean’s hands guide him, until he’s settled above him, resting on his arms and knees, as close as he can get without hurting Dean any further. His hips are rolling in slow, almost-circles, awakening and thrilling every muscle, every pore of his being, meeting Dean’s hips moving against him, with him; making him want more, take more, take everything. Out of his breath, and partially out of his skin and mind, Sam breaks their wet, slick connection to draw in some air. He breaths Dean and earth in instead, but he doesn’t mind. He drops his head on Dean’s shoulder, mapping the tiny spots of freckles dusted on Dean’s neck with his tongue, and smiling as he feels Dean’s chest rise and fall, raggedly, but in complete sync with Sam’s own breathing.
“You’re thinking too loud,” he complains, troubled by Dean’s silence.
Dean closes his eyes, shaking his head, and takes in a shallow breath, before he opens them again. “You know it’s wrong.”
“Right,” Sam chuckles bitterly. Painfully aware of Dean’s hands holding onto his hips, burning through the cotton of his T-shirt, and rebelling against the barriers Dean’s words shape. Dean’s actions being always louder and more powerful than his voice.
Sam knows it’s wrong. Incest. Sodomy. Age-long drawn sins to pay for. But for him, it’s none of that. For Sam, it’s love. The only love he’s ever known, felt, was given - openly and unconditionally. For Sam it’s Dean - beautiful, brave, suicidal, funny, annoying Dean. The Dean who stops a blow coming to Sam with his own body. Who makes him laugh when no one else sees he’s falling apart. Who puts on masks and builds up brick walls, to hide and deny he’s only human. Sam holds onto every moment they share, clings to every second they breathe the same air, enjoying it like it’s the last one, like there’s no tomorrow. Like there’s no more dawn for Dean. And every night he thanks God for giving him another day, for giving Dean another day, before he smites him. For Sam knows he will. Hunters die, and one day his Guardian angels won’t be strong enough, or quick enough, and no miracle will stop Dean from vanishing from Sam’s arms forever.
“While everything else in our lives is so freaking perfect,” Sam points out, as he shifts back a little. “We’re not hurting anyone.”
“We’re hurting Dad at least.”
“How?”
“Jeez, I don’t know,” Dean sighs, propping himself up onto his elbows to look at Sam properly. “In every way… This is just completely, totally fucked up.” His eyes slide to Sam’s puffed lips, and he huffs a frustrated breath. “And I wish I was God damn strong enough to stop it.”
“It’s his fault,” Sam spits, anger and hopelessness bubbling within his veins, and Dean’s proximity and the heat scorching his skin making it only worse. “Maybe he deserves that.”
“You don’t mean it,” Dean lectures with a dark, warning look.
Sam pulls away and sits up, shaking his head. He does and doesn’t mean it; he just doesn’t know what to do with himself. He doesn’t want to want Dean, but he does. Loves him. More than he lets Dean know. More than he allows himself to admit. He longs to change the world, or at least the path of his life that’s lying in front of him, only being confronted, over and over again, with the impenetrable wall of truth that he simply can’t.
Dean bites onto his swollen lower lip to keep himself from making too much noise, and groaning too loud, as he sits up with a real effort, closing his eyes against the dizziness that makes his head spin like a merry-go-round. Finally settled, more or less comfortably, he lets out a drained sigh. “You can do better, you know?”
“What?” Sam snaps out of his thoughts, a little confused and alarmed.
“Much better than this,” Dean explains, in a vague, eloquent gesture pointing at his beaten up body; broken leg and cracked ribs, the cuts on his face, the scarf on his head that hides the bald place and the seven stitches underneath. Including what he is, or rather, what he’s convinced he’s not.
“Stop it,” Sam warns, hating it when Dean talks about himself like this. With all his heart loathing Dean’s low self-esteem, for which Sam - he can’t really help it- blames Dad and his orders. Do this, and don’t do that. Run faster, think better, aim more precisely, shoot earlier. Don’t argue with me, boy. Keep your smart-ass comments for someone who’s interested in them... “Just... don’t.”
“I’m just... I’m who I am, but you... you’re different,” Dean conveys quietly, staring somewhere across the lawn and further away. “You can still achieve something more. No matter what he says... All I’m saying, is that I’m the only one you know. That’s not a choice, just a lack of other options.”
Shaking his head vehemently, Sam leans closer and rests his fingers on Dean’s chin, turning his face and making Dean meet his eyes. “I’d still choose you,” he whispers resolutely, before he presses his lips on Dean’s, burying any possible forthcoming objection with his kiss. To Heaven forbidden, and promised to Hell, he knows he’ll be always reaching up to Dean. “I’ll always choose you.”
2,960 words
Teaser: Dean struggles to stop him, but his protest turns into a moan, encouraging and almost pleading, when Sam’s slender fingers grasp his belt buckle, working it loose.
“Dragon,” Dean says, as he pulls the lollipop out of his mouth, and points up with the red and white stripped ball to the cyan blue sky above, describing the irregular shape of the fluffy white cloud.
Fingers coated with a rich white froth, Sam looks up confusedly. “Huh?”
“Dragon,” Dean repeats, once again copying the outlines.
“Sea lion,” Sam argues, returning to the task at hand.
“Nah,” Dean shakes his head, causing Sam’s fingers to slip through his hair and drop the foam onto his eyebrows. “It’s a dragon.”
“Sea lion.” Sam brushes the flecks of white off Dean’s forehead and buries his fingers into the soft, short strands of dark blonde hair again, massaging Dean’s scalp with careful, gentle strokes, and washing off the last remnants of dried blood. “This okay?”
“Feels good,” Dean mumbles around the lollipop; finally starting to relax into Sam’s care.
“Yeah?” Sam grins, putting a little more pressure into his touch, and making Dean close his eyes in pleasure and let out a contented sigh, sounding very like a purring kitten.
Sam shakes up his fingers after a while, sending wet drops onto the blooming flowers and long grass, then picks up the plastic bottle filled with water, and brings it above Dean’s head. “Close your eyes,” he instructs, as he presses the heel of his hand against Dean’s forehead.
“It’s a dragon,” Dean insists, although the cloud has already shifted and completely transformed in the lazy air, and looks like something completely different, and even more mysterious. He crushes the leftover piece of candy between his teeth, and tosses the superfluous stick onto the ground, not even bothering to look where it lands.
“Of course it is,” Sam smiles. “Now close them.”
Dean obeys eventually, tilting his head further back to allow Sam to pour the water onto his hair and wash off the cheap, wannabe lemon scented shampoo.
Despite Sam’s efforts, the water follows its own path, trickling down Dean’s back and through Sam’s fingers, slipping over Dean’s tightly shut eyes, and fluttering eyelashes. Along the line of his nose, and behind the neckline of his white, threadbare wife beater. It’s unlikely Dean minds, or notices at all, though, because the afternoon is burning hot, promising lightning and guaranteeing thunder for the night. The wind is so soft it doesn’t even ruffle up the floss of the dandelions, and there’s no promise of rain for the next few days.
“We’re done.” Sam says, when all the foam is gone from Dean’s hair, slowly soaking into the dry land instead, and he helps Dean to sit up again. The wooden chair squeaks disapprovingly underneath.
“Thanks,” Dean mumbles; even though he didn’t ask for it, had actually spent the whole morning bitching that he wasn’t a freaking invalid, who needed to be taken care of, and refusing Sam’s offer of help.
“How does it look?” he wonders, cool and careless, with only a hint of underlying worry seeping into his voice, as he reaches out to touch the back of his head.
“Looks good.” Sam takes Dean’s hand into his, guiding his touch to the right place. “Sealed and healing... It’ll look okay soon.”
Dean nods and pulls his fingers from Sam’s grasp, then stands up. He staggers slightly, balancing on one foot and the tips of his toes of the other, and grabs Sam’s arm for support, just before he loses his equilibrium completely.
“My leg fell asleep,” he says. It’s half an explanation of his momentary and rarely glimpsed weakness, and half a complaint from his own body, which hasn’t been acting the way he wanted it to.
Sam nods, although he doesn’t believe a single word Dean says, because he can see. Because he knows that his brother is constantly in pain, since his broken bones have their own mind and knit together only very slowly. And not entirely in the right way. The muscles in his other leg are tensed and under stress, compelled to take most of his weight, bringing another dose of anguish.
Sam lets, or more like forces, Dean to lean his weight on him, and helps him to cross the short distance to the spread bed sheet, used only to keep their clothes clean for a little longer.
There’s a real wildwood surrounding them; high grass and overgrown weeds, and just a part worn footpath leading to the back entrance of the half ruined, creaky house. It’s a hell of a place to spend the summer in, but they’re used to everything but comfort and neatness. And they’ve seen worse already.
Hissing with the pain that shoots from his ankle up to his thigh, and from his belly all the way up to his head, Dean wriggles until he’s settled as comfortably as he can be, and then pulls a black scarf out of the pocket of his jeans and wraps it around his head, tying it up.
“Dean,” Sam starts carefully, like Dean is some exotic and nasty predator, ready to bite if someone strokes its fur in the wrong direction. He drops onto the cloth beside Dean and reaches for the scarf, trying to wrench it from Dean’s fingers. “It’s only a few inches; you don’t need to hide it... Let it breathe.”
Dean shakes his head and finishes the bundle. “I’m not the one who keeps staring at my shaved head as if waiting for my brain to start leaking out,” he snaps.
“Like that’s so far from the truth,” Sam objects bitterly.
Dean smiles, only a little, but with his eyes as well as his mouth, like a weak apology for making Sam worried, and strokes Sam’s face with his fingers, caressing the soft, barely there stubble, and wiping away the stray dab of shampoo on his chin. He pulls back, too soon for Sam’s liking, and lies down onto the grass. He folds one hand under his head and splays the other across his belly, drumming an unidentifiable melody upon his stomach.
Heaving a sigh, Sam settles beside him, gazing up at the endless abyss above them, occasionally zig-zagged with white lines from planes. He watches the distant steel birds for a while, trying to figure out how many travellers there are up there, how old they are, and where they’re heading. Whether they’re scared that the plane will crash, whether they’re scared that it won’t. He props himself up onto his elbow, his head resting on his hand, and looks down at Dean. His eyes are closed and his face relaxed, and a little smile plays across his lips. Sam reaches out to brush his fingertips down Dean’s cheek, over the deep, long, and still raw lines of the werewolf’s claws that trace down over his throat and end just a few inches under his collarbone. He lets his touch slide a little lower, and spreads his fingers where he can feel the rhythmical, soothing beat of Dean’s heart; a soft lullaby he’s been falling asleep to every night since the accident.
Sam wasn’t there to see it, to stop it from happening, he’d just nearly fainted when Dad had dragged Dean home, barely conscious and in shock, shaking and bleeding so badly he was staining the tilled floor. Sam was sick with seeing so much blood, sick with worry about Dean, and anger at Dad, who’d let it go that far, too far. The moment Dean’s body hit the hard, rather scrunchy mattress of the hotel bed, he’d closed his pain-glazed eyes and passed out, as though finally being able to let his guard down, knowing Sam was still okay, and that Dad was now, too.
Dean’s injuries aren’t the most terrible ones that a hunter has ever received, of which death isn’t necessarily the worst one, but they’re definitely the worst ones that Dean has suffered in his four years as a hunter, and twenty years of life.
“You’re thinking too loud,” Dean complains, voice low and words slurred, like they’re too sluggish to carry their own weight.
“I was so terrified,” Sam whispers back, too scared to say it aloud, too scared of what the words really mean, and could have meant, as he snuggles a little closer to Dean; closing the one inch of space that was left between them.
Dean opens his eyes and turns his head to look at Sam, and smiles; just a small upturn of his lips, because the cuts won’t allow him more. Because he knows, still remembers, the fear and pain reflected in Sam’s red-rimmed eyes, when he’d finally come back around, patched up and drugged, still more dead than alive. He touches Sam’s lower lip with his index finger, feeling the soft flesh give under his touch, opening Sam’s mouth a little. “I’m okay.” He says, reassuringly, and yet unconvincingly. A promise they both know he won’t be able to keep for too long. For, just before his wounds close and heal, Dad will tow him out again, somewhere else, to kill some other beast, to suffer some other pain. A pledge that is only a quiet whisper among the yelling of all the bruises and cuts, and wounds scattered across Dean’s body. Dean seems to realize this too, as he pauses. “I’m not dyin’.”
Not today. Not yet.
Sam kisses Dean’s finger, then pushes the tip of his tongue against the rough skin, copying the faint lines printed into it, which he more imagines than really feels. He watches Dean swallow hard, notices the flabbergasted expression in his eyes, right before they cloud, like the skies before a storm, and Dean yanks his hand back.
And Sam doesn’t understand how he’s able to just lay there, so calm and composed, when every cell in Sam’s body feels like it’s too big for the place where it’s settled, through all the miles of his body. His skin’s prickling, like it’s too hot to even wear it, he feels like there are ants crawling underneath it, making him all restless and needy, and he wants. He just desperately wants.
“Dean.” It’s no more than a breath that ghosts across Dean’s lips when Sam rises above him, but it screams Sam’s frustration and desire to touch, feel and taste louder than a thunder. He shifts his hand down Dean’s chest and over his belly, across the bandage wrapped around Dean’s waist, which bulges underneath the wife beater, and lower.
“Sammy.” Dean struggles to stop him, but his protest turns into a moan, encouraging and almost pleading, when Sam’s slender fingers grasp his belt buckle, working it loose. Sam leans in and strokes Dean’s lips with his, a kiss as light as the grass underneath them, filled up with promises of heated, secret nights, and all the things he can’t quite describe yet, although they’re searing them both from the inside. Have been for a while. Dean’s lips are reddened and swollen from the lollipop, sticky, and smell and taste like the freshest, sweetest raspberries. Like the sweetest sin. Sam pushes his tongue in between them, licking his way into the velvet heat of Dean’s mouth; urgent and insistent, and drawing a breathless sigh out of Dean, whose fingers spread at the nape of Sam’s neck, tugging him closer. His lips part to allow Sam’s kiss, for Sam, for all the desire and love he’s offering, and Dean was never even supposed to know about. Let alone return. Thrusting his tongue deeper, Sam shifts atop Dean, careful to avoid all his healing injuries, and letting Dean’s hands guide him, until he’s settled above him, resting on his arms and knees, as close as he can get without hurting Dean any further. His hips are rolling in slow, almost-circles, awakening and thrilling every muscle, every pore of his being, meeting Dean’s hips moving against him, with him; making him want more, take more, take everything. Out of his breath, and partially out of his skin and mind, Sam breaks their wet, slick connection to draw in some air. He breaths Dean and earth in instead, but he doesn’t mind. He drops his head on Dean’s shoulder, mapping the tiny spots of freckles dusted on Dean’s neck with his tongue, and smiling as he feels Dean’s chest rise and fall, raggedly, but in complete sync with Sam’s own breathing.
“You’re thinking too loud,” he complains, troubled by Dean’s silence.
Dean closes his eyes, shaking his head, and takes in a shallow breath, before he opens them again. “You know it’s wrong.”
“Right,” Sam chuckles bitterly. Painfully aware of Dean’s hands holding onto his hips, burning through the cotton of his T-shirt, and rebelling against the barriers Dean’s words shape. Dean’s actions being always louder and more powerful than his voice.
Sam knows it’s wrong. Incest. Sodomy. Age-long drawn sins to pay for. But for him, it’s none of that. For Sam, it’s love. The only love he’s ever known, felt, was given - openly and unconditionally. For Sam it’s Dean - beautiful, brave, suicidal, funny, annoying Dean. The Dean who stops a blow coming to Sam with his own body. Who makes him laugh when no one else sees he’s falling apart. Who puts on masks and builds up brick walls, to hide and deny he’s only human. Sam holds onto every moment they share, clings to every second they breathe the same air, enjoying it like it’s the last one, like there’s no tomorrow. Like there’s no more dawn for Dean. And every night he thanks God for giving him another day, for giving Dean another day, before he smites him. For Sam knows he will. Hunters die, and one day his Guardian angels won’t be strong enough, or quick enough, and no miracle will stop Dean from vanishing from Sam’s arms forever.
“While everything else in our lives is so freaking perfect,” Sam points out, as he shifts back a little. “We’re not hurting anyone.”
“We’re hurting Dad at least.”
“How?”
“Jeez, I don’t know,” Dean sighs, propping himself up onto his elbows to look at Sam properly. “In every way… This is just completely, totally fucked up.” His eyes slide to Sam’s puffed lips, and he huffs a frustrated breath. “And I wish I was God damn strong enough to stop it.”
“It’s his fault,” Sam spits, anger and hopelessness bubbling within his veins, and Dean’s proximity and the heat scorching his skin making it only worse. “Maybe he deserves that.”
“You don’t mean it,” Dean lectures with a dark, warning look.
Sam pulls away and sits up, shaking his head. He does and doesn’t mean it; he just doesn’t know what to do with himself. He doesn’t want to want Dean, but he does. Loves him. More than he lets Dean know. More than he allows himself to admit. He longs to change the world, or at least the path of his life that’s lying in front of him, only being confronted, over and over again, with the impenetrable wall of truth that he simply can’t.
Dean bites onto his swollen lower lip to keep himself from making too much noise, and groaning too loud, as he sits up with a real effort, closing his eyes against the dizziness that makes his head spin like a merry-go-round. Finally settled, more or less comfortably, he lets out a drained sigh. “You can do better, you know?”
“What?” Sam snaps out of his thoughts, a little confused and alarmed.
“Much better than this,” Dean explains, in a vague, eloquent gesture pointing at his beaten up body; broken leg and cracked ribs, the cuts on his face, the scarf on his head that hides the bald place and the seven stitches underneath. Including what he is, or rather, what he’s convinced he’s not.
“Stop it,” Sam warns, hating it when Dean talks about himself like this. With all his heart loathing Dean’s low self-esteem, for which Sam - he can’t really help it- blames Dad and his orders. Do this, and don’t do that. Run faster, think better, aim more precisely, shoot earlier. Don’t argue with me, boy. Keep your smart-ass comments for someone who’s interested in them... “Just... don’t.”
“I’m just... I’m who I am, but you... you’re different,” Dean conveys quietly, staring somewhere across the lawn and further away. “You can still achieve something more. No matter what he says... All I’m saying, is that I’m the only one you know. That’s not a choice, just a lack of other options.”
Shaking his head vehemently, Sam leans closer and rests his fingers on Dean’s chin, turning his face and making Dean meet his eyes. “I’d still choose you,” he whispers resolutely, before he presses his lips on Dean’s, burying any possible forthcoming objection with his kiss. To Heaven forbidden, and promised to Hell, he knows he’ll be always reaching up to Dean. “I’ll always choose you.”