.0025 - The Dark Will Follow Us
Dean/Sam
3,983 words
Teaser: Never has he thought about Dean, about them this way, but maybe it has always been there, just not in literal words and thoughts - the darkness, the sin, the wild lust.
It’s the sudden silence that interlopes into Sam’s dream and drags him out of the fight with a bunch of blood-thirsty vampires. There’s no water running and splashing against the cold porcelain, no shower door cracking, sliding close, no tinkling of keys as they slip against each other, no bare feet padding across the downtrodden myrtle-colored carpet he had heard a few minutes ago.
Still a little asleep, and a lot dazed, Sam props himself up onto his elbows and looks across the early-sun lit room to find Dean’s bed empty and unmade. Again. He sighs and shakes his head, clueless, and then jerks as his eyes settle upon the shadow standing in front of the window and shading the rising sun.
“Dean?” he asks. His voice, albeit quiet and a little raspy, sounds like a gunshot to his own ears, but the chassis doesn’t move, doesn’t stir a single inch.
Wrinkles of confusion and worry are drawn across Sam’s forehead, and he tilts his head to the side, then to the other, trying to see more than the faint light allows. He sits up and yawns, stroking his arms to keep himself warm as the chilly air of the motel room hits his skin. The freaking heating doesn’t work again and the fact they rebated on the price is just as useful as a winter coat to a dead man.
“Dean,” he tries again, as his eyes slowly adjust to the twilight and he can finally see enough to be sure it’s really him. There’s still no response though. Sam throws the sheets aside and lowers his legs off the bed, hissing at the cold floor under his feet. He walks quietly over to where Dean’s standing; wearing only jeans, with the last button undone and his belt unhooked, and a white, long-sleeved shirt, and even that only partly, looking as if he was nailed to the spot and frozen in time. His feet are bare and there’s gooseflesh that has showered his pallid skin, but he’s oblivious to all of this; to the cold around or Sam’s voice calling his name. He stares out the window, at the long icicles hanging from the eaves and glistening in the sunlight, over the snow-sugared roofs, but Sam doubts he really sees any of that.
“Dean.” Sam’s hand touches Dean’s shoulder lightly, barely grazing the fingerprint from the angel; faded, but still screaming of pain, and Dean skips with trepidation, dropping the shirt to the floor and turning his head to look at the spook behind his back.
“Sorry, sorry,” Sam says quickly, a little startled of Dean’s fright. “Didn’t mean to scare you... I called your name, but you didn’t--” Sam dies away, when he realizes Dean isn’t listening, looking back at Sam with far-away eyes that don’t say anything, don’t seem to behold a damn thing.
Dean looks back at the reddish and azure skies, watching the tiny snowflakes flutter in the timid wind, leisurely settling down on the pavement and washy dying grass. His voice is hoarse and barely there when he speaks up. “It’s Christmas,” he states in disbelief, stunned.
Sam doesn’t follow Dean’s gaze, his eyes are firmly and inquisitively fixed upon his brother’s face; unhealthy pale with dark shades underneath his eyes, and taut as if he was waiting for something, expecting a deadly blow just not knowing from what direction it will come.
“Right.” Sam nods, although Dean isn’t looking at him, only now realizing what day has just crawled from behind the horizon and finally understanding what has made Dean that upset.
A year ago, they were both sure Dean would never celebrate Christmas again.
“I thought,” Dean goes on, his voice dropping to only a whisper. “I didn’t think... I--” He trails off and shakes his head then, as if unable to put his thoughts into real words. As if too scared to say them aloud.
“I know.” Sam steps closer again, shielding Dean’s body from the cold partly, and following his gaze out to the white toned streets.
He can see the hued fairy lights flickering in almost every window, somewhere even the darkened silhouette of a Christmas tree. The few pedestrians huddled in bulky coats and woolen scarf’s walking down there; disturbing the uneven snowy duvet that has covered the foot-path and leaving stamps that the wind and snow cover up almost immediately. Happy faces, so innocent and free in their blind ignorance.
Sam’s fingers run up Dean’s forearms, feel the protruding lines of pain under his finger pads; the map of depression and reproofs that spreads in dark red and faded white cuts across both of Dean’s arms, occasionally stomach and legs, practically everywhere he can reach. Everywhere he can dig the knife into his skin and release the inner anguish that is devouring him from inside in a pain that pours upon his skin in red, thick tears. Every day there is a new snick, or freshly re-opened older one, speaking silently of the terror unwinding behind the stony expression and distant looks, screaming of the helplessness Sam feels while he watches; knowing there’s nothing he can do, no way to stop Dean from doing it.
He tried, he did. The first time he noticed the blood on Dean’s hands and his brain slowly put together all the pieces of portents he didn’t see before into one macabre jigsaw, Sam delivered him a blow so hard Dean bit his lower lip through and collected another stroke from the mirror cabinet above the sink. Sam’s hand throbbed with pain for the next two days. Dean’s eyebrow needed four stitches, his lip two. Dean didn’t say anything, didn’t try to hit Sam back or defend himself.
After a while Sam has learned, was forced, to understand; manner agreeing, just understand.
“Neither did I,” Sam admits, constrained, stroking Dean’s arms to warm his chilly skin. “But you are.”
He pulls away and bends down to pick up the abandoned shirt off the ground. “And now you need to get dressed before you catch a cold.” He shakes the soft cotton out a bit to oust of the invisible dirt and then hands it to Dean, who looks down at it and then back at Sam with a completely disconsolate expression on his face.
"Sammy, I... I can’t,” he whispers.
“Huh-wha...?” Sam stammers with confusion, unable to understand why putting on a shirt is suddenly so difficult. “Just... just shove your hands into the sleeves,” he advises, holding the shirt up for Dean to do so.
“I can’t,” Dean repeats; again in the choked, desperate voice. His fingers grab the front of Sam’s shirt in a tight grip, munching the material and digging his fingernails into it until his knuckles turn white, hauling Sam closer. “I can’t.” His lower lip starts trembling and he shakes his head, only repeating his words voicelessly. His eyes are open wide and pleading for... something, and tears like a barrier of salted water stand up in between the two of them.
Sam feels like somebody grabbed his heart and squeezed tight, trying to wrench it out of his chest through the crevice in between his ribs and the layers of flesh and skin. He swallows hard, finally seeing through and beyond Dean’s words and understanding what he’s saying.
And who is this shadow stagnating in front of him anyway? Surely not the Dean Sam used to look up to and tried to be. Because that Dean doesn’t say, I can’t, he doesn’t say, There’s no way, he doesn’t give up… He didn’t use to. But the Dean from before and the Dean Sam is looking at now are two completely different people. It’s the same case, but the creature living inside is not the same, and its shell is day by day more breakable.
Sam is scared to know so less, and too scared to learn any more. And how could he ever think that Dean being yanked from the claws of the inferno would mean he’s okay. He’s alive. His body is, but his soul is still wandering in the darkness and despair, standing up and falling down again as the memories of what he was forced to do crush upon his shoulders and press him to the shattering ground. He’s not happy, he seldom smiles. He fights sleep and curses when he awakes. And Sam doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t think there’s anything he can do.
All of a sudden Dean’s grip on Sam’s shirt grows slack and he totters, his body inclining to the side dangerously.
“Jesus!” Sam breaks free from his muse with a startled yelp, and wraps his arms around Dean’s torso to keep him upright. Gobbets of sweat appear on Dean’s skin and he sinks into Sam’s embrace like a rag-doll, and doesn’t protest the least when Sam leads him to the bed and sits him down.
Sam drops to his knees in front of Dean and pulls the shirt over his head, helping him to get his arms into it; distantly remembering that, so many years ago, Dean used to help him dress, too. What they’ve sacrificed and gone through, what they’ve witnessed and become from that juncture in time up to this day... Sam knows is better not to think about at all.
“Tell me, Dean,” he asks him, still not sure if he wants to really hear it and grow into that part of Dean’s past, yet knowing that Dean paid for his life - the highest price possible - and the last thing he can offer is listening. “Tell me everything.”
“No,” Dean squeezes his eyes shut, letting a few hot tears slip down his ashy cheeks and shakes his head. “No.”
Sam watches as the shadows of Dean’s lashes fall upon his freckle-stained cheeks; still amazed by the length and the feminine fragility they impart to his face. He reaches out to brush the truth-telling dribbles away with his thumb, and Dean startles once again, opening his eyes and finding Sam’s own; looking straight through them, without the tiniest try to focus and reveal what’s hiding deep inside of him.
“Dean, please,” Sam begs, only miraculously resisting the urgency to shake him and make him listen. “You can’t keep it inside, it’s eating you alive... it’s killing you.”
Dean withdraws from Sam’s touch and his hands curl into fists at his sides. “Telling you won’t change that,” he objects. “You can’t make it disappear. It’ll still be there... You’d only hate me if you knew.”
“What?” Sam can feel the blood warming up within his veins with anger and desperation. “How can you even think something like that?!”
“Because I do.” Dean’s voice is nothing but a sharp stab of self-scorn and reproof. “With every damned breath I take. Every fucking second I live.” His sigh turns up into a yawn and he rubs at his eyes tiredly, and Sam’s sure it’s just and only the rage blustering inside of him that has been keeping him awake and more or less focused for the last few days.
“Alright, man.” Sam says resolutely as he stands up. “Time to sleep.”
Dean shakes his head, but whether it’s because he doesn’t agree with Sam or at some quarrel occurring in his mind, Sam can only guess.
“It’s useless,” he states then. “Everything’s fucked up already.”
“What?” Sam pauses in the middle of movement. “What are you talking about?”
“We’re losing.” Dean goes on, punctuating every single word and sending sparks of terror over Sam’s back. “We’re all damned.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Sam asks. Uselessly.
“The battle’s lost... for good.”
“No, it’s not,” Sam protests, dropping back down onto his knee. “He brought you back for a reason... because He knows there’s still hope and He wants you to fight. He needs you alive.”
“Kill or be killed? That’s not a life, Sam, that’s combat.” Dean snorts as if he has only now realized what their life is, and always has been, about. “And we can’t stop the Hell from spreading above... They know. You know... We cannot win this fight.”
“You need to sleep,” Sam repeats, refusing to listen to Dean’s alien words any longer. Declining to let Dean lose his hope, because if Dean breaks... who’ll keep Sam from slipping off the right path? “You’re exhausted, is all. This is not you.”
Dean rolls his eyes at Sam’s words and shifts further away, when Sam sits back down. But Sam doesn’t let him have the space in between, moving after Dean to take his cold hands in his and blinking away the tears stinging in his eyes. “Don’t give it up, Dean,” he pleads. “For me. I need you to hope. I need you to believe... in God, in me. I’m begging you... don’t give up.”
Dean heaves a sigh and the emptiness disappears from his eyes like a vapor, leaving just fear and pain. It’s a scary picture, but Sam selfishly welcomes it this time. “Sleep.”
“No,” Dean protests weakly.
“Yes, sleep,” Sam goes on, putting his palms on Dean’s shoulders to push him down. “Now.”
A sudden wave of objection arises inside of Dean and he starts shoving Sam off and kicking around with a blast of energy Sam would never thought was possible to muster after such a long time without rest. “No. No!” Dean yells, wriggling underneath Sam like a skein of vipers. “You don’t understand - I can’t sleep! Don’t want to!”
“Dean, Dean!... Calm down!”
“Get off me,” Dean hisses. And gone is the scare and anguish; there’s nothing more than anger and rage flickering in his eyes. “Get off me!”
He tries to push Sam’s arm away, but his wrist grazes against Sam’s watch and he tears his skin with one of the damaged metal particles of the band. They both stare in daze as the thin white line yields in ruby red drops, rolling down Dean’s skin and onto the cheap yellow sheets.
“God damn it, Dean,” Sam sighs.
Dean jerks under Sam and tries to buck him off, but, being taller and stronger, Sam doesn’t let him. He grabs Dean’s wrists and raises them above Dean’s head, pinning him down with the weight of his body; determined to keep him like that until he calms down. Because he knows where Dean will go if he releases him now, what he’ll do, and he can’t let him. “I won’t let you do it, Dean,” he hisses darkly, shifting his weight onto his knees resting on each side of Dean’s thigh. “Not this time. Not now when I can stop it.”
“Drop it!” Dean warns, trying to kick Sam with his non-flatten knee. “Lemme go!”
“Fight all you want,” Sam replies, successfully dodging every one of Dean’s blows. “You’re not gonna win. Not this game.”
Dean clenches his jaw, so tight his teeth grind against each other, and his hands curl into fists. Even his breath sounds angry; long inhales and loud expirations, as he keeps rearing up against Sam, burning Sam’s eyes through with his hate-filled ones.
A couple of minutes pass, and slowly the strength behind Dean’s twists and tugs fade and he stops struggling, instead he just stares blankly into the opposite wall, at the pale and dark green contours of painted flowers trailing all across the room.
The air is still chilly, but sweat has poured upon Sam’s skin, and it’s hardly only from the wrestle... and damn this cannot be happening. Dean might not be fighting anymore, but he’s panting hard; his breath caresses Sam’s arm with hot, heavy puffs, making all the soft hair there stand up. His body is heating and firm underneath Sam and his heart’s racing, beating a thump thump song against Sam’s chest.
Sam closes his eyes, trying to slow his breath down, will his nerves to calm down, but it’s not working the least. It’s like Dean’s body was calling to him; in a silent, foreign language, unknown to Sam and maybe even to Dean himself, and Sam’s suddenly, frighteningly and painfully aware of every inch their bodies touch, every sharp bone of Dean’s body pressing against him. He feels as if he was locked up inside his own flesh and couldn’t do anything, but watch and follow as his body sinks lower, transferring his weight onto his elbows and dropping his head on Dean’s shoulder. Almost inadvertently he breaths in Dean’s warmth, his scent; the mixture of an ordinary soap and sweat and pure fragrance of Dean’s skin, and lets out a tremulous breath that draws a sigh out of Dean and makes his hands twitch in Sam’s hold.
Dean tilts his head back, making Sam’s wet lips slide down his throat and his hips arch off the bed - the one, half inch he’s allowed - moving deliberately against Sam, causing his breath to hitch in his throat and his heart pause at the feeling of Dean’s erection brushing against his own.
Sam props himself up and look into Dean’s eyes, surprised and confused; unable to put together a simple question. Two, endless wells of emerald green stare back at him, just as startled and puzzled, but Dean’s knee, until now pressing against Sam’s hip to push him away, cants to the opposite direction in an unspoken invitation. Every muscle in his body tightens against the restrains of Sam’s grip then and he raises his head to look Sam square in the eyes. The words rolling off his tongue might be a request, a plead or a swear, an oath, and Sam still wouldn’t understand their meaning.
“Make them go away,” Dean says before he presses his lips against Sam’s; trembling and salty all of a sudden, seeking solution and more than Sam ever thought he has to offer. Dean’s tongue sneaks in between Sam’s parted lips, just the tip touching Sam’s; slick, smooth and hot, sending sizzling, aching sensation along his spine. Dean’s head falls back onto the pillow before Sam can respond and he closes his eyes shortly, scowling as the pictures of his memories he doesn’t want to remember and call his own mirror at the back of his eyelids.
Sam releases one of Dean’s hands from his grip and touches Dean’s face with the tips of his fingers, trying to read in the soft lines and persisting wrinkles what he doesn’t say, refuses to share. His touch lingers and slips lower, following the nearly faded scar on Dean’s lower lip.
Never has he thought about Dean, about them this way, but maybe it has always been there, just not in literal words and thoughts - the darkness, the sin, the wild lust spreading through his veins like a poison, like the drops of blood that aren’t his. Now he thinks he couldn’t stop himself, or his body from inclining closer, even if he tried.
Because Dean’s there, warm and breathing. Alive. Maybe bent and broken, but still beautiful. And even more mysterious than ever before. His shirt is crumpled and rolled up from their fight, displaying flat stomach and defined muscles, occasionally interrupted with crimson scrawl of self-loathing, and his jeans, still undone and riding very low on his narrow hips, haul Sam in like a piece of rouge cloth to a mad bull. Dean’s face is flushed, his hair sweaty and wild, and his eyes watch Sam with the observing gaze of a hunter and frightened, fidgety look of a doe. He looks fragile suddenly, young and so lost Sam just wants to hold him and keep him safe. Wishes he could.
His fingers still wrapped around Dean’s wrist above his head, Sam traces his free hand over Dean’s bared hipbone, grazing just a little lower with his fingertips, and a new dose of goose pumps follow the invisible mark of his fingers.
Dean’s body shudders and he moans, a surprised, uncontrolled noise that powders another brick in Sam’s bad!stop!wrong! wall.
Maybe Dean is possessed, Sam ponders. Maybe he is. Maybe they both are. He almost wishes it was true, so he could blame the black, ravenous smoke for their slow and yet now already unavoidable steps into the forbidden garden. Notwithstanding he can clearly see the dark outlines shining through Dean’s shirt; the blazing sun made in a coal black that now practically sears his own chest, crushing his blind hopes in possession and naive excuses. A little part of his brain, still tolerably functional, flashes a red, warning signal and something inside him screams, egging on to him to open his mouth and yell, No! I can’t! We can’t! This is wrong!, but all of that is brutally slashed with the plead reflecting in Dean’s eyes, with the raging storm of lust and need unwinding inside of Sam. For he can and wants, and because it doesn’t feel wrong, quite the other way around, better than anything he felt in a damn long time. If ever.
Sam rests his forehead against Dean’s, staring down into his eyes and endeavoring to understand, asking wordlessly. Dean nods and his cold fingers slip down Sam’s back, copying the protruding puckers of his vertebra and sending shivers through his whole body.
“Make them go away,” he repeats quietly. “If-if just for a while.... Please.”
Sam doesn’t know who or what, or whether he can, but he swears he’ll try.
And maybe they are possessed after all; with dread and pain, with memories that barely hold a thin stripe of happiness, of luck, and with future that’s already written in the stars, but try as they might, they can’t read it. And perhaps it’s better. Possessed with the desperate clinging to the little they have left; each other.
“Want you,” Dean whispers urgently, but so quietly that if his lips weren’t tickling Sam’s ear, he would never hear him.
Sam trembles and groans, and takes the last, fatal step by pressing his lips against Dean’s, opening them up and mumbling his own words of malediction, of salvation into the heat of Dean’s mouth, “Want you, too. God help me, I want you.”
He tries, as he promised, kissing away Dean’s tears and soothing the ache hidden in his scars. Sharing his heat and making him moan, not in pain for a change. Holding him tight when he cries and shatters, hoping he’d be able to gather up all the pieces in the end and compound a picture of a man that would at least remotely resemble the one he used to know.
Crossing probably the last line that was dividing him from the eternal eclipse, Sam lights up a candle of hope. Hope that maybe there’s still something left worth fighting for, even if it should be just another sin, another step to perdition.
3,983 words
Teaser: Never has he thought about Dean, about them this way, but maybe it has always been there, just not in literal words and thoughts - the darkness, the sin, the wild lust.
It’s the sudden silence that interlopes into Sam’s dream and drags him out of the fight with a bunch of blood-thirsty vampires. There’s no water running and splashing against the cold porcelain, no shower door cracking, sliding close, no tinkling of keys as they slip against each other, no bare feet padding across the downtrodden myrtle-colored carpet he had heard a few minutes ago.
Still a little asleep, and a lot dazed, Sam props himself up onto his elbows and looks across the early-sun lit room to find Dean’s bed empty and unmade. Again. He sighs and shakes his head, clueless, and then jerks as his eyes settle upon the shadow standing in front of the window and shading the rising sun.
“Dean?” he asks. His voice, albeit quiet and a little raspy, sounds like a gunshot to his own ears, but the chassis doesn’t move, doesn’t stir a single inch.
Wrinkles of confusion and worry are drawn across Sam’s forehead, and he tilts his head to the side, then to the other, trying to see more than the faint light allows. He sits up and yawns, stroking his arms to keep himself warm as the chilly air of the motel room hits his skin. The freaking heating doesn’t work again and the fact they rebated on the price is just as useful as a winter coat to a dead man.
“Dean,” he tries again, as his eyes slowly adjust to the twilight and he can finally see enough to be sure it’s really him. There’s still no response though. Sam throws the sheets aside and lowers his legs off the bed, hissing at the cold floor under his feet. He walks quietly over to where Dean’s standing; wearing only jeans, with the last button undone and his belt unhooked, and a white, long-sleeved shirt, and even that only partly, looking as if he was nailed to the spot and frozen in time. His feet are bare and there’s gooseflesh that has showered his pallid skin, but he’s oblivious to all of this; to the cold around or Sam’s voice calling his name. He stares out the window, at the long icicles hanging from the eaves and glistening in the sunlight, over the snow-sugared roofs, but Sam doubts he really sees any of that.
“Dean.” Sam’s hand touches Dean’s shoulder lightly, barely grazing the fingerprint from the angel; faded, but still screaming of pain, and Dean skips with trepidation, dropping the shirt to the floor and turning his head to look at the spook behind his back.
“Sorry, sorry,” Sam says quickly, a little startled of Dean’s fright. “Didn’t mean to scare you... I called your name, but you didn’t--” Sam dies away, when he realizes Dean isn’t listening, looking back at Sam with far-away eyes that don’t say anything, don’t seem to behold a damn thing.
Dean looks back at the reddish and azure skies, watching the tiny snowflakes flutter in the timid wind, leisurely settling down on the pavement and washy dying grass. His voice is hoarse and barely there when he speaks up. “It’s Christmas,” he states in disbelief, stunned.
Sam doesn’t follow Dean’s gaze, his eyes are firmly and inquisitively fixed upon his brother’s face; unhealthy pale with dark shades underneath his eyes, and taut as if he was waiting for something, expecting a deadly blow just not knowing from what direction it will come.
“Right.” Sam nods, although Dean isn’t looking at him, only now realizing what day has just crawled from behind the horizon and finally understanding what has made Dean that upset.
A year ago, they were both sure Dean would never celebrate Christmas again.
“I thought,” Dean goes on, his voice dropping to only a whisper. “I didn’t think... I--” He trails off and shakes his head then, as if unable to put his thoughts into real words. As if too scared to say them aloud.
“I know.” Sam steps closer again, shielding Dean’s body from the cold partly, and following his gaze out to the white toned streets.
He can see the hued fairy lights flickering in almost every window, somewhere even the darkened silhouette of a Christmas tree. The few pedestrians huddled in bulky coats and woolen scarf’s walking down there; disturbing the uneven snowy duvet that has covered the foot-path and leaving stamps that the wind and snow cover up almost immediately. Happy faces, so innocent and free in their blind ignorance.
Sam’s fingers run up Dean’s forearms, feel the protruding lines of pain under his finger pads; the map of depression and reproofs that spreads in dark red and faded white cuts across both of Dean’s arms, occasionally stomach and legs, practically everywhere he can reach. Everywhere he can dig the knife into his skin and release the inner anguish that is devouring him from inside in a pain that pours upon his skin in red, thick tears. Every day there is a new snick, or freshly re-opened older one, speaking silently of the terror unwinding behind the stony expression and distant looks, screaming of the helplessness Sam feels while he watches; knowing there’s nothing he can do, no way to stop Dean from doing it.
He tried, he did. The first time he noticed the blood on Dean’s hands and his brain slowly put together all the pieces of portents he didn’t see before into one macabre jigsaw, Sam delivered him a blow so hard Dean bit his lower lip through and collected another stroke from the mirror cabinet above the sink. Sam’s hand throbbed with pain for the next two days. Dean’s eyebrow needed four stitches, his lip two. Dean didn’t say anything, didn’t try to hit Sam back or defend himself.
After a while Sam has learned, was forced, to understand; manner agreeing, just understand.
“Neither did I,” Sam admits, constrained, stroking Dean’s arms to warm his chilly skin. “But you are.”
He pulls away and bends down to pick up the abandoned shirt off the ground. “And now you need to get dressed before you catch a cold.” He shakes the soft cotton out a bit to oust of the invisible dirt and then hands it to Dean, who looks down at it and then back at Sam with a completely disconsolate expression on his face.
"Sammy, I... I can’t,” he whispers.
“Huh-wha...?” Sam stammers with confusion, unable to understand why putting on a shirt is suddenly so difficult. “Just... just shove your hands into the sleeves,” he advises, holding the shirt up for Dean to do so.
“I can’t,” Dean repeats; again in the choked, desperate voice. His fingers grab the front of Sam’s shirt in a tight grip, munching the material and digging his fingernails into it until his knuckles turn white, hauling Sam closer. “I can’t.” His lower lip starts trembling and he shakes his head, only repeating his words voicelessly. His eyes are open wide and pleading for... something, and tears like a barrier of salted water stand up in between the two of them.
Sam feels like somebody grabbed his heart and squeezed tight, trying to wrench it out of his chest through the crevice in between his ribs and the layers of flesh and skin. He swallows hard, finally seeing through and beyond Dean’s words and understanding what he’s saying.
And who is this shadow stagnating in front of him anyway? Surely not the Dean Sam used to look up to and tried to be. Because that Dean doesn’t say, I can’t, he doesn’t say, There’s no way, he doesn’t give up… He didn’t use to. But the Dean from before and the Dean Sam is looking at now are two completely different people. It’s the same case, but the creature living inside is not the same, and its shell is day by day more breakable.
Sam is scared to know so less, and too scared to learn any more. And how could he ever think that Dean being yanked from the claws of the inferno would mean he’s okay. He’s alive. His body is, but his soul is still wandering in the darkness and despair, standing up and falling down again as the memories of what he was forced to do crush upon his shoulders and press him to the shattering ground. He’s not happy, he seldom smiles. He fights sleep and curses when he awakes. And Sam doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t think there’s anything he can do.
All of a sudden Dean’s grip on Sam’s shirt grows slack and he totters, his body inclining to the side dangerously.
“Jesus!” Sam breaks free from his muse with a startled yelp, and wraps his arms around Dean’s torso to keep him upright. Gobbets of sweat appear on Dean’s skin and he sinks into Sam’s embrace like a rag-doll, and doesn’t protest the least when Sam leads him to the bed and sits him down.
Sam drops to his knees in front of Dean and pulls the shirt over his head, helping him to get his arms into it; distantly remembering that, so many years ago, Dean used to help him dress, too. What they’ve sacrificed and gone through, what they’ve witnessed and become from that juncture in time up to this day... Sam knows is better not to think about at all.
“Tell me, Dean,” he asks him, still not sure if he wants to really hear it and grow into that part of Dean’s past, yet knowing that Dean paid for his life - the highest price possible - and the last thing he can offer is listening. “Tell me everything.”
“No,” Dean squeezes his eyes shut, letting a few hot tears slip down his ashy cheeks and shakes his head. “No.”
Sam watches as the shadows of Dean’s lashes fall upon his freckle-stained cheeks; still amazed by the length and the feminine fragility they impart to his face. He reaches out to brush the truth-telling dribbles away with his thumb, and Dean startles once again, opening his eyes and finding Sam’s own; looking straight through them, without the tiniest try to focus and reveal what’s hiding deep inside of him.
“Dean, please,” Sam begs, only miraculously resisting the urgency to shake him and make him listen. “You can’t keep it inside, it’s eating you alive... it’s killing you.”
Dean withdraws from Sam’s touch and his hands curl into fists at his sides. “Telling you won’t change that,” he objects. “You can’t make it disappear. It’ll still be there... You’d only hate me if you knew.”
“What?” Sam can feel the blood warming up within his veins with anger and desperation. “How can you even think something like that?!”
“Because I do.” Dean’s voice is nothing but a sharp stab of self-scorn and reproof. “With every damned breath I take. Every fucking second I live.” His sigh turns up into a yawn and he rubs at his eyes tiredly, and Sam’s sure it’s just and only the rage blustering inside of him that has been keeping him awake and more or less focused for the last few days.
“Alright, man.” Sam says resolutely as he stands up. “Time to sleep.”
Dean shakes his head, but whether it’s because he doesn’t agree with Sam or at some quarrel occurring in his mind, Sam can only guess.
“It’s useless,” he states then. “Everything’s fucked up already.”
“What?” Sam pauses in the middle of movement. “What are you talking about?”
“We’re losing.” Dean goes on, punctuating every single word and sending sparks of terror over Sam’s back. “We’re all damned.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Sam asks. Uselessly.
“The battle’s lost... for good.”
“No, it’s not,” Sam protests, dropping back down onto his knee. “He brought you back for a reason... because He knows there’s still hope and He wants you to fight. He needs you alive.”
“Kill or be killed? That’s not a life, Sam, that’s combat.” Dean snorts as if he has only now realized what their life is, and always has been, about. “And we can’t stop the Hell from spreading above... They know. You know... We cannot win this fight.”
“You need to sleep,” Sam repeats, refusing to listen to Dean’s alien words any longer. Declining to let Dean lose his hope, because if Dean breaks... who’ll keep Sam from slipping off the right path? “You’re exhausted, is all. This is not you.”
Dean rolls his eyes at Sam’s words and shifts further away, when Sam sits back down. But Sam doesn’t let him have the space in between, moving after Dean to take his cold hands in his and blinking away the tears stinging in his eyes. “Don’t give it up, Dean,” he pleads. “For me. I need you to hope. I need you to believe... in God, in me. I’m begging you... don’t give up.”
Dean heaves a sigh and the emptiness disappears from his eyes like a vapor, leaving just fear and pain. It’s a scary picture, but Sam selfishly welcomes it this time. “Sleep.”
“No,” Dean protests weakly.
“Yes, sleep,” Sam goes on, putting his palms on Dean’s shoulders to push him down. “Now.”
A sudden wave of objection arises inside of Dean and he starts shoving Sam off and kicking around with a blast of energy Sam would never thought was possible to muster after such a long time without rest. “No. No!” Dean yells, wriggling underneath Sam like a skein of vipers. “You don’t understand - I can’t sleep! Don’t want to!”
“Dean, Dean!... Calm down!”
“Get off me,” Dean hisses. And gone is the scare and anguish; there’s nothing more than anger and rage flickering in his eyes. “Get off me!”
He tries to push Sam’s arm away, but his wrist grazes against Sam’s watch and he tears his skin with one of the damaged metal particles of the band. They both stare in daze as the thin white line yields in ruby red drops, rolling down Dean’s skin and onto the cheap yellow sheets.
“God damn it, Dean,” Sam sighs.
Dean jerks under Sam and tries to buck him off, but, being taller and stronger, Sam doesn’t let him. He grabs Dean’s wrists and raises them above Dean’s head, pinning him down with the weight of his body; determined to keep him like that until he calms down. Because he knows where Dean will go if he releases him now, what he’ll do, and he can’t let him. “I won’t let you do it, Dean,” he hisses darkly, shifting his weight onto his knees resting on each side of Dean’s thigh. “Not this time. Not now when I can stop it.”
“Drop it!” Dean warns, trying to kick Sam with his non-flatten knee. “Lemme go!”
“Fight all you want,” Sam replies, successfully dodging every one of Dean’s blows. “You’re not gonna win. Not this game.”
Dean clenches his jaw, so tight his teeth grind against each other, and his hands curl into fists. Even his breath sounds angry; long inhales and loud expirations, as he keeps rearing up against Sam, burning Sam’s eyes through with his hate-filled ones.
A couple of minutes pass, and slowly the strength behind Dean’s twists and tugs fade and he stops struggling, instead he just stares blankly into the opposite wall, at the pale and dark green contours of painted flowers trailing all across the room.
The air is still chilly, but sweat has poured upon Sam’s skin, and it’s hardly only from the wrestle... and damn this cannot be happening. Dean might not be fighting anymore, but he’s panting hard; his breath caresses Sam’s arm with hot, heavy puffs, making all the soft hair there stand up. His body is heating and firm underneath Sam and his heart’s racing, beating a thump thump song against Sam’s chest.
Sam closes his eyes, trying to slow his breath down, will his nerves to calm down, but it’s not working the least. It’s like Dean’s body was calling to him; in a silent, foreign language, unknown to Sam and maybe even to Dean himself, and Sam’s suddenly, frighteningly and painfully aware of every inch their bodies touch, every sharp bone of Dean’s body pressing against him. He feels as if he was locked up inside his own flesh and couldn’t do anything, but watch and follow as his body sinks lower, transferring his weight onto his elbows and dropping his head on Dean’s shoulder. Almost inadvertently he breaths in Dean’s warmth, his scent; the mixture of an ordinary soap and sweat and pure fragrance of Dean’s skin, and lets out a tremulous breath that draws a sigh out of Dean and makes his hands twitch in Sam’s hold.
Dean tilts his head back, making Sam’s wet lips slide down his throat and his hips arch off the bed - the one, half inch he’s allowed - moving deliberately against Sam, causing his breath to hitch in his throat and his heart pause at the feeling of Dean’s erection brushing against his own.
Sam props himself up and look into Dean’s eyes, surprised and confused; unable to put together a simple question. Two, endless wells of emerald green stare back at him, just as startled and puzzled, but Dean’s knee, until now pressing against Sam’s hip to push him away, cants to the opposite direction in an unspoken invitation. Every muscle in his body tightens against the restrains of Sam’s grip then and he raises his head to look Sam square in the eyes. The words rolling off his tongue might be a request, a plead or a swear, an oath, and Sam still wouldn’t understand their meaning.
“Make them go away,” Dean says before he presses his lips against Sam’s; trembling and salty all of a sudden, seeking solution and more than Sam ever thought he has to offer. Dean’s tongue sneaks in between Sam’s parted lips, just the tip touching Sam’s; slick, smooth and hot, sending sizzling, aching sensation along his spine. Dean’s head falls back onto the pillow before Sam can respond and he closes his eyes shortly, scowling as the pictures of his memories he doesn’t want to remember and call his own mirror at the back of his eyelids.
Sam releases one of Dean’s hands from his grip and touches Dean’s face with the tips of his fingers, trying to read in the soft lines and persisting wrinkles what he doesn’t say, refuses to share. His touch lingers and slips lower, following the nearly faded scar on Dean’s lower lip.
Never has he thought about Dean, about them this way, but maybe it has always been there, just not in literal words and thoughts - the darkness, the sin, the wild lust spreading through his veins like a poison, like the drops of blood that aren’t his. Now he thinks he couldn’t stop himself, or his body from inclining closer, even if he tried.
Because Dean’s there, warm and breathing. Alive. Maybe bent and broken, but still beautiful. And even more mysterious than ever before. His shirt is crumpled and rolled up from their fight, displaying flat stomach and defined muscles, occasionally interrupted with crimson scrawl of self-loathing, and his jeans, still undone and riding very low on his narrow hips, haul Sam in like a piece of rouge cloth to a mad bull. Dean’s face is flushed, his hair sweaty and wild, and his eyes watch Sam with the observing gaze of a hunter and frightened, fidgety look of a doe. He looks fragile suddenly, young and so lost Sam just wants to hold him and keep him safe. Wishes he could.
His fingers still wrapped around Dean’s wrist above his head, Sam traces his free hand over Dean’s bared hipbone, grazing just a little lower with his fingertips, and a new dose of goose pumps follow the invisible mark of his fingers.
Dean’s body shudders and he moans, a surprised, uncontrolled noise that powders another brick in Sam’s bad!stop!wrong! wall.
Maybe Dean is possessed, Sam ponders. Maybe he is. Maybe they both are. He almost wishes it was true, so he could blame the black, ravenous smoke for their slow and yet now already unavoidable steps into the forbidden garden. Notwithstanding he can clearly see the dark outlines shining through Dean’s shirt; the blazing sun made in a coal black that now practically sears his own chest, crushing his blind hopes in possession and naive excuses. A little part of his brain, still tolerably functional, flashes a red, warning signal and something inside him screams, egging on to him to open his mouth and yell, No! I can’t! We can’t! This is wrong!, but all of that is brutally slashed with the plead reflecting in Dean’s eyes, with the raging storm of lust and need unwinding inside of Sam. For he can and wants, and because it doesn’t feel wrong, quite the other way around, better than anything he felt in a damn long time. If ever.
Sam rests his forehead against Dean’s, staring down into his eyes and endeavoring to understand, asking wordlessly. Dean nods and his cold fingers slip down Sam’s back, copying the protruding puckers of his vertebra and sending shivers through his whole body.
“Make them go away,” he repeats quietly. “If-if just for a while.... Please.”
Sam doesn’t know who or what, or whether he can, but he swears he’ll try.
And maybe they are possessed after all; with dread and pain, with memories that barely hold a thin stripe of happiness, of luck, and with future that’s already written in the stars, but try as they might, they can’t read it. And perhaps it’s better. Possessed with the desperate clinging to the little they have left; each other.
“Want you,” Dean whispers urgently, but so quietly that if his lips weren’t tickling Sam’s ear, he would never hear him.
Sam trembles and groans, and takes the last, fatal step by pressing his lips against Dean’s, opening them up and mumbling his own words of malediction, of salvation into the heat of Dean’s mouth, “Want you, too. God help me, I want you.”
He tries, as he promised, kissing away Dean’s tears and soothing the ache hidden in his scars. Sharing his heat and making him moan, not in pain for a change. Holding him tight when he cries and shatters, hoping he’d be able to gather up all the pieces in the end and compound a picture of a man that would at least remotely resemble the one he used to know.
Crossing probably the last line that was dividing him from the eternal eclipse, Sam lights up a candle of hope. Hope that maybe there’s still something left worth fighting for, even if it should be just another sin, another step to perdition.