Fic: the custom of fell deeds
Good morning, everyone! I AM SO HAPPY WITH LAST NIGHT'S EPISODE! SAM IS BACK.
...okay, okay. Moving on. For now.
title. the custom of fell deeds
pairing. Sam/Dean
rating. NC-17
word count. 4700
note. Written for cordelia_gray’s prompt of “bite me” in salt_burn_porn. Not really a PWP, though.
summary. After Dean made his deal, Sam opened the gates of Hell, and he fell into its depths to get Dean out. Together, they survive.
warnings. Extreme violence. Possible dub-con. Vague mention of non-con.
****
“You freakin’ idiot,” Dean whispers. He kisses Sam’s wet, open mouth, tasting the bitter-iron of the lifeblood that slicks Sam’s lips. There is salt on his tongue, and Dean moves up to trace the tears that escape across Sam’s cheekbones.
Dean’s face is smeared with his brother’s viscera. The skin on Sam’s belly is flayed open and apart, and the mess gets everywhere. Dean is covered with it--Sam’s flesh, his bone, his blood. Sam’s guts are unconfined and wrapped loosely around Dean’s fingers, and Dean squeezes them gently, seeing the look of perfect agony that crosses his brother’s face. Dean uses Sam’s wrenched-out gasp to kiss him more deeply-Dean is not satisfied. He wants everything. Sam’s breath and blood are only the beginning.
It’s wrong, perfect, the way that Sam still kisses him back. “God damn it, Sammy,” Dean murmurs, taking just one moment for the uselessness of regret. “You shouldn’t have come.”
There are tears running down Dean’s face, but that doesn’t matter. It hasn’t mattered in years, not with the dark presence Dean still feels at his back. Dean freed himself of Alastair’s shackles long ago, the pupil ready and set loose upon the world, but the lessons remain. The threat remains. Any day now-- any single, solitary, stupidly hesitant instant--and Dean knows he’ll find himself back on the rack. Then it will be someone else’s hands in Sam’s insides, someone who doesn’t care about him, who doesn’t appreciate the wonderful sounds he makes, and Dean can’t have that.
It might take decades otherwise, and then where would Sammy be?
“Stop.” Sam’s voice is weak, thready. Confused. Dean closes his eyes against it. “Please Dean, why--”
Next to Sam is a knife, one that’s never been used. Dean made it as soon as Sam arrived--but it’s too early for this moment, and he knows it. Sam would reject the idea out of hand. The time is coming, it is fast approaching, and Dean knows what it means to be a Winchester brother: They’re a two-for-one deal. Love makes them do the most depraved of things, but Sam isn’t ready yet.
Dean puts away the knife, and he doesn’t answer. It is Year Forty in Hell, and every year after it is a lie waiting to be told. Forty--a nice round number--and no angel comes for him.
-------
Sam picks up the knife in his tenth year. When he does, Dean closes his eyes and rests his forehead on Sam’s chest; he is unwilling to show how thankful he is. He also climbs back on the rack. It’s only a temporary deal-it’s only for Sam, and just this one time-but it’s all the forgiveness he can bring himself to ask for.
Sam doesn’t spare him.
It doesn’t make them even.
“Well,” Sam says afterward, and they’re sitting next to each other, both of them bloodless. They’re wearing jeans, T-shirts, and flannels, just like always-or at the least, good approximations of jeans, T-shirts, and flannels. “That happened.”
Dean snorts. It’s almost like old times-well, not really, but it’s nice to pretend.
Sam looks up and away from Dean; he searches the skies of Hell. There’s really nothing there, and it looks different to each of them. Dean wonders if the world looks as red-red-red to Sam as it does to him, wonders if Sam hears the constant screaming, but he’s not about to ask. “What now?” Sam murmurs.
“That’s the question.” Dean looks down. There’s nothing in the sky he wants to see. “Isn’t it?”
“There’s just--I don’t understand,” Sam says, his voice sounding tired. “I did my research, I did everything. Why couldn’t I bring you back? All the old stories-I know it’s possible. I know it is.”
“Come on, Sam,” Dean laughs softly. He reaches out and draws Sam to him, and if Sam starts a little, if there’s something in his eyes that flashes with resentment, with fear, with hatred--he still comes near. Dean kisses him, bites Sam’s lip, and then licks at the blood that flows from his mouth. It’s familiar. It’s become comforting. “That one’s easy. Your protections--what we feel, no one could call that pure.”
Sam kisses him again, taking control for just one second, and then he draws away. One of his hands finds its way to Dean’s thigh, and he squeezes hard. His nails draw blood. Quid pro quo, Dean thinks, and he laughs again. Sam with his object lessons.
“No,” Sam agrees quietly.
“You always were an optimist,” Dean tells him.
------
In his twentieth (and Dean’s sixtieth) year in Hell, Sam sells him out. Really sells him out-whips, chains, shackles, abandonment. Enemy demons and gangbangs, the whole deal. Dean comes limping back half-a-decade later, revenge on his mind, his fists clenched and his teeth bloody.
When Sam sees him again, his mouth twists. There’s no greeting in his eyes, but though it is well-hidden, there is the ever-present fear. Dean should feel gratified by that, but he’s not surprised at the nausea that wells up in his stomach. He stumbles over to Sam, and he’s not shocked when all he can manage is collapsing by his brother’s feet.
Sam kneels down next to him. Dean feels strong fingers carding through his hair, feels the gentleness in them, the acceptance, and he closes his eyes to prevent his tears from coming through. “I owed you one,” Sam tells him quietly.
“Yeah,” Dean answers.
“Couldn’t do it myself.”
“I figured.”
And that’s that. They don’t talk about it ever again.
-----
In Sam’s thirtieth year in Hell, they’re soldiers on the line.
For some reason, there are a bunch of goddamned angels trying to get into Hell. No one knows why--Dean watches the assaults, day after day, night after night, and he wonders what they could possibly want. He sees the flaring fires, the demons and souls destroyed with a touch-and he watches Sam with his heart in his throat, thinks about Sam lit from the inside out, and he swears it won’t ever happen. He wonders if the war has something to do with Lilith’s secret mission on Earth. There’s something going on there.
“Maybe ten years ago,” Sam says groggily, “I would have ran out there.” A loud blast of something had rocked the arteries of Hell and woken him up. They still need sleep; it makes Dean laugh. “Expecting something. Maybe help.”
Dean doesn’t let his eyes move away from the line-they’ve escaped the fighting for the moment, but someone will eventually come by to round them up. Make them contribute. Probably Alastair; he makes Dean jump the easiest, and everyone fucking knows it. Angels on one side, Alastair on the other, it’s fucking fantastic. “But not now.”
Sam shakes his head, waves a hand toward Dean’s face. “Not now. Not much point.”
“Aw, Sammy,” Dean tells him. A flare of red flashes across the sky, the blue, then green. He wonders what in the hell angels use to fight. Wonders if it’s something the demons can reproduce. “I’m touched.”
Sam’s fingers find his face, and Dean knows Sam is staring at his new fascination. Dean can’t blame him--it had happened, weirdest of all, while Sam was fucking him. Balls deep and groaning with abandon, god only knew how many demons and tortured souls were watching them, but it was war and you got laid when you could. It wasn’t anything special, nothing out of the ordinary, but when Sam had him out of his mind and screaming his name, Dean looked up and Sam gasped, jerked out, and inadvertently came all over him.
“Your eyes,” he said, panting into Dean’s shoulder. The ever-present fear was still in his voice-Dean hadn’t been able to shake Sam of that-but there was awe there, too. “Look at your eyes.”
Dean feels cheated when he thinks about it too hard. Becoming a demon-there should have been some trigger, some catalyst. It shouldn’t have been such a mundane consequence: Get pulled down, get tortured, get turned. It was all so boring. No wonder those damned Lucifer-freaks made a religion out of it; they just wanted to feel special. At least Dean was white-eyed--it would be so embarrassing otherwise. Alastair would have been so disappointed.
“I should, though, shouldn’t I?” Sam says after a moment, his mind apparently running back to its previous train of thought. “Run out there. Get my ass handed to me. You killed my body a long time ago, and the only thing left for me is…” He waves a hand at Dean’s eyes again.
There are only two ways out of Hell, and Sammy, possessing someone-Dean still doesn’t like to think about it. Dean’s never going to Earth himself, can’t bear the thought, but that will probably change some day.
“Maybe you should,” he tells Sam stiffly. Sam’s destruction would be worse, but Dean lost any right to that decision a long time ago.
“Yeah.”
“You’re still human,” Dean points out. The idea dawns on him slowly, hopefully. “They might have pity-hell, Sammy, imagine if they got you out. You didn’t get here on your own merits. I mean, you didn’t deserve-“
Sam interrupts him quietly. “You have no idea what I did to get here.”
Dean thinks of all the people he’s tortured, every single person who ended up on his rack. Thinks of the way their blood congealed on his table, the way their fat had solidified and turned yellow, turned rank, the way he’d had to scrape it away to get at red-brown rigid muscle. Dead bodies with living souls, with sightless eyes until he willed otherwise, trapped with nothing but the pain inside their minds. He hadn’t done that to Sam-couldn’t bring himself to do it-but the others, they hadn’t deserved it either. Deserved death, sure, but not that.
“Maybe you should try anyway,” Dean says.
Sam smiles a little, that crooked little grin that used to tear at Dean’s heart, back when he was allowed the luxury of having one. It makes Dean want to reach out, brush Sam’s too-soft, too-fine hair away from his still-green eyes. He wants to grab Sam by the shoulders and tell him all the lies he can think of, that the low-lying fear they share will someday disappear, that they’ll one day feel like men and not like prey. That soon, they’ll work something out, and they’ll both be happy again.
Dean punches him in the shoulder instead. The lies wouldn’t measure up, not even close.
“Asshole,” Sam mutters under his breath.
“Douche-nozzle.”
“You wish.”
“What?” Dean frowns at him. “Dude, that doesn’t even make sense.”
“Your face doesn’t make sense.”
Dean grumbles a little, but Sam is smiling, so Dean lets it go. Sam returns to lying on the hard, uneven ground, staring up at the sky. There are no stars, but the angel-light flashes over his face, and it’s not blood, but it’s just as beautiful. Dean traces the lines with his fingers, pretends he can feel the slickness of his brother’s heat.
“Even if they let me out,” Sam tells him quietly, “you wouldn’t be there.”
Dean grunts in return. There’s no good response to that. He doesn’t say, so what? He can’t say, maybe it would be better for you. He won’t say, what makes you stay with me even after everything I’ve done? He’s a demon; he’s innately selfish.
“I wish it didn’t matter to me,” Sam continues. Dean sees him blinking back tears, and he looks away, giving his brother privacy. “Is it okay, Dean, that I wish I could leave you to rot? That I wish I could hate you? Is it, would that be--could you forgive me for that?”
Dean closes his eyes.
“Yeah, Sammy,” he says after a moment. At the very least, he owes Sam that much. “It’s okay.”
“Good.”
Sam curls around him then, using Dean’s thigh as a pillow. He eventually falls back to sleep, and Dean watches over him.
----
In Sam’s fortieth year in Hell, he walks into the space-neither of them could really call it a house-he shares with Dean. Dean takes one look at him, and it’s all over. “Oh God, no, stop it,” Dean begins, laughing too hard for his words to make much sense. Sam’s face grows more thunderous by the second. “Yellow-eyes, it’s too much-“
Sam punches him, smack in the jaw.
Dean lets it carry him to the ground. He clutches at his stomach, the hysteria overwhelming him. But when he reaches out, Sam is there. Dean draws him closer, and he kisses Sam’s eyelids, one and then the other. “It’s okay, Sammy,” he tells his brother. “It doesn’t matter.”
Sam starts laughing then as well, the madness spreading. “Doesn’t matter?” he asks, and his tone is incredulous. “Really, Dean? My yellow eyes don’t matter--is that the best you can come up with? Seriously?”
Hours later, they’re still on the ground. They destroy any demon that comes to look for them-with this new development, everyone will want Sam up front on the battle lines. But they don’t have to listen anymore. They’re still laughing, and if tears are mixed in there as well, neither of them decides to notice.
-----
In Sam’s fiftieth year below, one of the angels breaks through into Hell.
Dean sees her only briefly--she quickly goes into hiding. She’s obviously looking for something, but nobody discovers what. No one ever figures it out. It’s pure coincidence, the way she runs into Sam and Dean. She looks at Dean and pulls her sword, and Sam steps protectively between them.
Bad luck, Dean thinks. It happens.
-----
It is Sam’s sixtieth year in Hell. Dean has been there a hundred years.
He is standing on a building. It wasn’t there yesterday, and it probably won’t be there tomorrow-nothing lasts very long in Hell-but it suits Dean’s purposes for the moment. He is on the roof, one leg bent with his foot on the short balustrade that runs along the building’s edge; he’s crouched over pensively, elbow on knee, as he watches the battle lines. The angels get closer every day. More and more of them break through. There is death, there is chaos, and demons are dying by the handful.
Sam runs, flies, almost isn’t fast enough…
Dean clenches his jaw. After everything they’ve been through, after everything they’ve suffered, they’re supposed to be on the top of the food-chain. Bad luck, Dean thinks, can quit biting his ass any day now--but maybe, just maybe, it will hold off for long enough.
He doesn’t look up at the searing hot wind that suddenly blows across his face, that envelops him for long, dangerously sightless moments. He doesn’t move, because he isn’t afraid: It is black soot and ash, the smell of one man’s charred, broken flesh, and those are comforting textures, familiar smells. Sam materializes out of the cyclone, his hand on Dean’s shoulder, and Dean waits patiently as Sam finishes pulling himself back into his old shape.
“Done for the day?” Dean asks finally.
There is no blood on Sam’s hand; Sam is still very fastidious about that sort of thing. “Yes,” Sam says, and he steps next to Dean, his focus already elsewhere. His eyes scan the landscape below them. “Three souls made demon-“
Dean nods, thinks fodder for the angels--
“-and a couple of others close to breaking. We should have them in a few weeks.”
“Any strong ones, you think?” Dean asks.
“No,” Sam says, his voice hard. “Just children.”
Dean looks at his brother. He thinks, sixty years. It’s nothing he ever would have wanted for Sam. “Let’s go home.”
Sam’s nostrils flare-he isn’t happy. But they go.
It’s the only time they take for themselves, the only time they fully pretend. It’s meant for remembrance. Dean gathers Sam close, and he tries to recall the feel of his human skin as he runs hands over Sam’s body. He wonders if they get it right-was Sam’s skin this soft? Was his body this breakable? Did his heat feel like this against Dean’s fingers?
“I’m twenty-three,” Sam whispers, his mouth skimming over Dean’s ear, “and you’re helping me. I hurt everywhere, because she’s just died--”
“Say it,” Dean insists, just like he always does. “Her name, Sam. It’s important--”
“Jessica,” Sam says, but there’s no change in his voice--it’s just a name. He’s forgotten the feeling of it, and Dean closes his eyes. Tries not to mourn. “Jessica. But you’re there,” and now Sam’s voice turns eager, “and you make me happy.”
“Yeah,” Dean says. He can’t argue with that. He runs his hands gently down Sam’s back and draws him closer, and Sam crowds in, pressing their bodies together. It’s just like Dean’s memory, faulty as it is: Sam’s knees knocking against his own. Sam’s thigh shoving between his legs. Sam’s face against his neck, Sam's spine ridiculously curved as he tries to shove himself under Dean’s arms. “You’re happy.”
“And you laugh all the time.”
“Did I?” Dean draws back. He tilts Sam’s face up.
“At the stupidest stuff.” Sam untucks himself from Dean’s body, and Dean kisses him, sweet and soft and hungry. Sam speaks against his lips. “Like this one time: There was this dog, Dean. And this waitress…”
He trails off uncertainly.
“Yeah,” Dean tells him quietly. He can’t remember either. “I’m sure there was.”
He draws his brother down to the ground-it’s still a lousy shit-hole, their home, but there’s really nothing to be done about it-and he man-handles Sam on top of him. They’re twenty-three and twenty-six, and he makes Sam happy, and this was their first time. Please, Dean thinks, let me get this right. Let me keep this.
“You tell me no,” Sam prompts him, and he settles his weight fully on Dean. “But when I try to get up, you don’t let me.”
Dean grabs handfuls of Sam’s hair. He had loved the feeling of it. “I remember that.”
“So damned confusing,” Sam says, and he rocks against Dean slowly. He mouths at Dean’s chin, trails his lips down Dean’s neck, and nips at Dean’s collarbone. Sets his teeth there, waits. Dean rolls his hips, tugs at Sam’s hair.
“C’mon,” Dean tells him.
Sam bites down hard, and it rockets through Dean’s body. It’s almost nothing, that pain-they’ve done worse to each other over the years. But back then, it had been startling. Innocent. “Shouldn’t do this,” he says, because it is what he’d said that first time.
“Yeah, yeah,” Sam sing-songs into his ear, playing his role. He'd been such a cheeky little bastard. “Brother.” And then his mouth is on Dean’s, and his tongue is sliding past Dean’s lips.
Dean doesn’t remember what he’d felt at that point. He’s sure there must have been some disgust, some noxious twisting in his gut, but it’s not what he feels now. Sam, brother, the only word that means anything, the only love that’s lasted-Dean twines his tongue with Sam’s, wanting the taste of him, the smell of his breath.
Sam undulates against him, a full-body rub. Dean feels the hard strength of his stomach, the sharp edges of his hips, the full curve of Sam’s cock. Unhurried and slow, clothing not even removed, Sam takes him to pieces. Dean holds on to him, fingers twisting in the sweaty hair at the nape of Sam’s neck. Yes, that’s right-Sam’s smell everywhere. Dirty from the hunt, but no blood. Just Sam.
Dean closes his eyes. He breathes in. The smell is different now, but it’s still good. It’s still right. Just Sam.
Sam slides one hand into Dean’s pants, and when Dean instinctively jerks closer, Sam laughs into his mouth. It’s a teasing sound, and so Dean only rolls his eyes in return, shoves his own hand down Sam’s jeans--he’s the one laughing now. Sam breaks their kiss, moans into the air between them. “Come on, Sammy,” Dean says, smiling. “If you show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”
Dean’s always liked this part-likes his first glimpse of Sam’s shiny, red dick. The head the first thing he sees when he finally has Sam’s jeans undone, it pops through his fingers, all wet and hard, already a mess. Dean smooths his hand over it, rolls it over his palm, but then he reaches for Sam’s thighs. He hooks his hands under Sam’s knees, and with a quick burst of effort he is flipping them over, because he needs Sam’s cock in his mouth yesterday.
Dean only takes a moment to look-Sam spread wide and open, his limbs far-flung and his cheeks flushed, his chest heaving-and then he bends down.
“No, no, no,” Sam chants at him, holding him off. Sam is breaking the script-that part never happened--but before Dean can protest, he pushes Dean off. He wheels himself around, does his own pawing at Dean’s jeans, but his dick is still right there, flush with Dean’s face. Oh yeah, Dean thinks dazedly. Sixty-nine, a classic.
“Like this,” Sam tells him, and he sucks Dean down.
Wet heat slides slowly down his cock, and Dean gasps against it. He noses forward instinctively, his own mouth watering--the smell of Sam is there, so fucking strong, so very familiar. Dean rubs his face into Sam’s crotch, wanting it all over him, wanting Sam’s scent to be so entwined with his that there’s no telling them apart--but it’s not enough. Not even close. He needs to taste it. He opens his mouth, sliding his tongue along Sam’s length.
Sam moans around Dean’s dick, the sound vibrating up Dean’s spine. Dean feels his eyes roll back into his head, but he tries to pet Sam’s ribs soothingly. Still here, he thinks at Sam, for all the good that will do him. Not going anywhere.
The thought makes Dean’s lungs seize, his heart clench, just for a second. Sam can’t say the same, but he doesn’t know it yet. “Little brother,” Dean reminds himself, whispering the words against Sam’s cock. That’s the way it is, the way Dean has made it: Big brother’s heart breaks first. Big brother’s heart breaks alone, if he can help it. He slides Sam’s dick into his mouth, and for that second, it’s nothing more than comfort.
The melancholy thoughts can’t last--Sam’s head is between his thighs, and it makes the world awesome. Dean sucks when Sam does, licks when Sam licks, and Dean’s little brother had always been one to catch on quickly. Soon they’re both gasping, they’re both desperate. Dean grabs handfuls of Sam’s ass and holds on for the ride.
Sam’s hips are surging against him, wild and abandoned, and his cock spears into Dean’s mouth over and over again. His arms come up to hold Dean firm, and then he is breaking Dean’s rhythm, changing the rules of the game. Dean tries to struggle, just for the feel of it, but he can’t get away--Sam keeps him captured, keeps him close. Sam suckles on his dick, taking his own sweet time and driving Dean crazy, but his own cock in Dean’s mouth remains demanding and fierce.
“Goddamn it, Sam,” Dean tries to say, but his words are garbled and caught back in his throat; Sam doesn’t stop in his thrusting. It’s enough, it’s more than enough--Dean slaps Sam’s ass, his sad excuse for a reprimand, as Sam drives him over the edge.
The world is all light and tight, wet heat. It is perfection, even in Hell. Dean feels Sam’s chest move against his legs, feels Sam’s warm laughter.
When Dean can finally bring himself to open his eyes, Sam is pressed up on his hands and knees, spread out over Dean’s body. He is not far. He is only hovering by inches, the tip of his cock wavering by Dean’s face, and Dean finds that he can’t breathe: Sam is stripping his cock, fast and desperate. Dean could lick out and taste it--as it is, Sam drips pre-come all over Dean’s chin and cheekbones--but Dean’s eyes are drawn down his own body to Sam’s head hanging by his knees. Sam’s hair half-obscures his features, but Dean can see that his gaze never wavers. His yellow, preternatural eyes are fixated on Dean's face.
Dean doesn’t look away. He lets Sam take whatever it is he is looking for. He lets Sam have everything.
Sam comes all over his face.
Yeah, Dean thinks, letting Sam collapse against him, he’s going to miss this guy. This Sam has been with him for decade upon decade, and Dean loves any and all incarnations of his brother. He will mourn this version, too.
Dean twists and turns himself around, gathering Sam close into his arms. He presses Sam’s face into his neck, and he waits for Sam to come down. It’s time. They have both of them, as they are, had their last hooray.
“I’ve got good news,” Dean says finally. He isn’t sure how Sam will take the information, but Dean will make Sam accept it, will push Sam past any reluctance, because it is a good deal, it is once in a lifetime. “I’ve made a deal with an angel.”
It happens just as Dean planned-Sam squawks, protests, and fights, and Dean forces him to remember all of Hell’s injustices, even to the little pinprick pains that can drive apart the most devoted. We’re all we have left, he says to Sam. What we feel-it’s the only thing worth taking from us. Then he tells Sam the rest of it: He tells Sam about Castiel.
“He can make you forget,” Dean pleads with him. “He can change everything. You’ll never come here to save me--you’ll never get caught. You’ll never be lost.”
Sam’s face is anguished, torn. “He can’t be here to help us.”
Dean looks at his brother. Sixty years. “It’s worth the risk.”
Sam reaches for him. He touches Dean’s face with grasping, greedy fingers, and when Dean is close enough, he rests his forehead against Dean’s own. “And then what?” Sam whispers. “The me up there, the me before, he never learned. He won’t leave you down here. To save you, to keep you--you know I’ll just do something worse.”
Dean laughs at that, because there is always worse, there’s no avoiding it. He grabs Sam’s wrists joyfully and squeezes them hard, just for the pleasure of hearing bone scrape on bone. Sam grins against his mouth, a trained and helpless response, the love between them still unwanted, still enduring.
“That’s the best part,” Dean tells him, kissing him as gently as he can. It isn’t gentle enough; he thinks about the Champion of Heaven that Castiel expects. He thinks about Sam up there, unknowing. And he wonders. “I’ll be with you, Sammy. The angels-they want me topside.”
------
Months later, when they’re both alive again and human, Sam asks Dean what he remembers from Hell. Dean lies, and then he lies again. Once upon a time, in a place far, far away, Sam was on his rack. In all the ways that matter, Dean kept him there.
Dean has a lot to make up for. The scales won’t ever be even.
END
...okay, okay. Moving on. For now.
title. the custom of fell deeds
pairing. Sam/Dean
rating. NC-17
word count. 4700
note. Written for cordelia_gray’s prompt of “bite me” in salt_burn_porn. Not really a PWP, though.
summary. After Dean made his deal, Sam opened the gates of Hell, and he fell into its depths to get Dean out. Together, they survive.
warnings. Extreme violence. Possible dub-con. Vague mention of non-con.
****
“You freakin’ idiot,” Dean whispers. He kisses Sam’s wet, open mouth, tasting the bitter-iron of the lifeblood that slicks Sam’s lips. There is salt on his tongue, and Dean moves up to trace the tears that escape across Sam’s cheekbones.
Dean’s face is smeared with his brother’s viscera. The skin on Sam’s belly is flayed open and apart, and the mess gets everywhere. Dean is covered with it--Sam’s flesh, his bone, his blood. Sam’s guts are unconfined and wrapped loosely around Dean’s fingers, and Dean squeezes them gently, seeing the look of perfect agony that crosses his brother’s face. Dean uses Sam’s wrenched-out gasp to kiss him more deeply-Dean is not satisfied. He wants everything. Sam’s breath and blood are only the beginning.
It’s wrong, perfect, the way that Sam still kisses him back. “God damn it, Sammy,” Dean murmurs, taking just one moment for the uselessness of regret. “You shouldn’t have come.”
There are tears running down Dean’s face, but that doesn’t matter. It hasn’t mattered in years, not with the dark presence Dean still feels at his back. Dean freed himself of Alastair’s shackles long ago, the pupil ready and set loose upon the world, but the lessons remain. The threat remains. Any day now-- any single, solitary, stupidly hesitant instant--and Dean knows he’ll find himself back on the rack. Then it will be someone else’s hands in Sam’s insides, someone who doesn’t care about him, who doesn’t appreciate the wonderful sounds he makes, and Dean can’t have that.
It might take decades otherwise, and then where would Sammy be?
“Stop.” Sam’s voice is weak, thready. Confused. Dean closes his eyes against it. “Please Dean, why--”
Next to Sam is a knife, one that’s never been used. Dean made it as soon as Sam arrived--but it’s too early for this moment, and he knows it. Sam would reject the idea out of hand. The time is coming, it is fast approaching, and Dean knows what it means to be a Winchester brother: They’re a two-for-one deal. Love makes them do the most depraved of things, but Sam isn’t ready yet.
Dean puts away the knife, and he doesn’t answer. It is Year Forty in Hell, and every year after it is a lie waiting to be told. Forty--a nice round number--and no angel comes for him.
-------
Sam picks up the knife in his tenth year. When he does, Dean closes his eyes and rests his forehead on Sam’s chest; he is unwilling to show how thankful he is. He also climbs back on the rack. It’s only a temporary deal-it’s only for Sam, and just this one time-but it’s all the forgiveness he can bring himself to ask for.
Sam doesn’t spare him.
It doesn’t make them even.
“Well,” Sam says afterward, and they’re sitting next to each other, both of them bloodless. They’re wearing jeans, T-shirts, and flannels, just like always-or at the least, good approximations of jeans, T-shirts, and flannels. “That happened.”
Dean snorts. It’s almost like old times-well, not really, but it’s nice to pretend.
Sam looks up and away from Dean; he searches the skies of Hell. There’s really nothing there, and it looks different to each of them. Dean wonders if the world looks as red-red-red to Sam as it does to him, wonders if Sam hears the constant screaming, but he’s not about to ask. “What now?” Sam murmurs.
“That’s the question.” Dean looks down. There’s nothing in the sky he wants to see. “Isn’t it?”
“There’s just--I don’t understand,” Sam says, his voice sounding tired. “I did my research, I did everything. Why couldn’t I bring you back? All the old stories-I know it’s possible. I know it is.”
“Come on, Sam,” Dean laughs softly. He reaches out and draws Sam to him, and if Sam starts a little, if there’s something in his eyes that flashes with resentment, with fear, with hatred--he still comes near. Dean kisses him, bites Sam’s lip, and then licks at the blood that flows from his mouth. It’s familiar. It’s become comforting. “That one’s easy. Your protections--what we feel, no one could call that pure.”
Sam kisses him again, taking control for just one second, and then he draws away. One of his hands finds its way to Dean’s thigh, and he squeezes hard. His nails draw blood. Quid pro quo, Dean thinks, and he laughs again. Sam with his object lessons.
“No,” Sam agrees quietly.
“You always were an optimist,” Dean tells him.
------
In his twentieth (and Dean’s sixtieth) year in Hell, Sam sells him out. Really sells him out-whips, chains, shackles, abandonment. Enemy demons and gangbangs, the whole deal. Dean comes limping back half-a-decade later, revenge on his mind, his fists clenched and his teeth bloody.
When Sam sees him again, his mouth twists. There’s no greeting in his eyes, but though it is well-hidden, there is the ever-present fear. Dean should feel gratified by that, but he’s not surprised at the nausea that wells up in his stomach. He stumbles over to Sam, and he’s not shocked when all he can manage is collapsing by his brother’s feet.
Sam kneels down next to him. Dean feels strong fingers carding through his hair, feels the gentleness in them, the acceptance, and he closes his eyes to prevent his tears from coming through. “I owed you one,” Sam tells him quietly.
“Yeah,” Dean answers.
“Couldn’t do it myself.”
“I figured.”
And that’s that. They don’t talk about it ever again.
-----
In Sam’s thirtieth year in Hell, they’re soldiers on the line.
For some reason, there are a bunch of goddamned angels trying to get into Hell. No one knows why--Dean watches the assaults, day after day, night after night, and he wonders what they could possibly want. He sees the flaring fires, the demons and souls destroyed with a touch-and he watches Sam with his heart in his throat, thinks about Sam lit from the inside out, and he swears it won’t ever happen. He wonders if the war has something to do with Lilith’s secret mission on Earth. There’s something going on there.
“Maybe ten years ago,” Sam says groggily, “I would have ran out there.” A loud blast of something had rocked the arteries of Hell and woken him up. They still need sleep; it makes Dean laugh. “Expecting something. Maybe help.”
Dean doesn’t let his eyes move away from the line-they’ve escaped the fighting for the moment, but someone will eventually come by to round them up. Make them contribute. Probably Alastair; he makes Dean jump the easiest, and everyone fucking knows it. Angels on one side, Alastair on the other, it’s fucking fantastic. “But not now.”
Sam shakes his head, waves a hand toward Dean’s face. “Not now. Not much point.”
“Aw, Sammy,” Dean tells him. A flare of red flashes across the sky, the blue, then green. He wonders what in the hell angels use to fight. Wonders if it’s something the demons can reproduce. “I’m touched.”
Sam’s fingers find his face, and Dean knows Sam is staring at his new fascination. Dean can’t blame him--it had happened, weirdest of all, while Sam was fucking him. Balls deep and groaning with abandon, god only knew how many demons and tortured souls were watching them, but it was war and you got laid when you could. It wasn’t anything special, nothing out of the ordinary, but when Sam had him out of his mind and screaming his name, Dean looked up and Sam gasped, jerked out, and inadvertently came all over him.
“Your eyes,” he said, panting into Dean’s shoulder. The ever-present fear was still in his voice-Dean hadn’t been able to shake Sam of that-but there was awe there, too. “Look at your eyes.”
Dean feels cheated when he thinks about it too hard. Becoming a demon-there should have been some trigger, some catalyst. It shouldn’t have been such a mundane consequence: Get pulled down, get tortured, get turned. It was all so boring. No wonder those damned Lucifer-freaks made a religion out of it; they just wanted to feel special. At least Dean was white-eyed--it would be so embarrassing otherwise. Alastair would have been so disappointed.
“I should, though, shouldn’t I?” Sam says after a moment, his mind apparently running back to its previous train of thought. “Run out there. Get my ass handed to me. You killed my body a long time ago, and the only thing left for me is…” He waves a hand at Dean’s eyes again.
There are only two ways out of Hell, and Sammy, possessing someone-Dean still doesn’t like to think about it. Dean’s never going to Earth himself, can’t bear the thought, but that will probably change some day.
“Maybe you should,” he tells Sam stiffly. Sam’s destruction would be worse, but Dean lost any right to that decision a long time ago.
“Yeah.”
“You’re still human,” Dean points out. The idea dawns on him slowly, hopefully. “They might have pity-hell, Sammy, imagine if they got you out. You didn’t get here on your own merits. I mean, you didn’t deserve-“
Sam interrupts him quietly. “You have no idea what I did to get here.”
Dean thinks of all the people he’s tortured, every single person who ended up on his rack. Thinks of the way their blood congealed on his table, the way their fat had solidified and turned yellow, turned rank, the way he’d had to scrape it away to get at red-brown rigid muscle. Dead bodies with living souls, with sightless eyes until he willed otherwise, trapped with nothing but the pain inside their minds. He hadn’t done that to Sam-couldn’t bring himself to do it-but the others, they hadn’t deserved it either. Deserved death, sure, but not that.
“Maybe you should try anyway,” Dean says.
Sam smiles a little, that crooked little grin that used to tear at Dean’s heart, back when he was allowed the luxury of having one. It makes Dean want to reach out, brush Sam’s too-soft, too-fine hair away from his still-green eyes. He wants to grab Sam by the shoulders and tell him all the lies he can think of, that the low-lying fear they share will someday disappear, that they’ll one day feel like men and not like prey. That soon, they’ll work something out, and they’ll both be happy again.
Dean punches him in the shoulder instead. The lies wouldn’t measure up, not even close.
“Asshole,” Sam mutters under his breath.
“Douche-nozzle.”
“You wish.”
“What?” Dean frowns at him. “Dude, that doesn’t even make sense.”
“Your face doesn’t make sense.”
Dean grumbles a little, but Sam is smiling, so Dean lets it go. Sam returns to lying on the hard, uneven ground, staring up at the sky. There are no stars, but the angel-light flashes over his face, and it’s not blood, but it’s just as beautiful. Dean traces the lines with his fingers, pretends he can feel the slickness of his brother’s heat.
“Even if they let me out,” Sam tells him quietly, “you wouldn’t be there.”
Dean grunts in return. There’s no good response to that. He doesn’t say, so what? He can’t say, maybe it would be better for you. He won’t say, what makes you stay with me even after everything I’ve done? He’s a demon; he’s innately selfish.
“I wish it didn’t matter to me,” Sam continues. Dean sees him blinking back tears, and he looks away, giving his brother privacy. “Is it okay, Dean, that I wish I could leave you to rot? That I wish I could hate you? Is it, would that be--could you forgive me for that?”
Dean closes his eyes.
“Yeah, Sammy,” he says after a moment. At the very least, he owes Sam that much. “It’s okay.”
“Good.”
Sam curls around him then, using Dean’s thigh as a pillow. He eventually falls back to sleep, and Dean watches over him.
----
In Sam’s fortieth year in Hell, he walks into the space-neither of them could really call it a house-he shares with Dean. Dean takes one look at him, and it’s all over. “Oh God, no, stop it,” Dean begins, laughing too hard for his words to make much sense. Sam’s face grows more thunderous by the second. “Yellow-eyes, it’s too much-“
Sam punches him, smack in the jaw.
Dean lets it carry him to the ground. He clutches at his stomach, the hysteria overwhelming him. But when he reaches out, Sam is there. Dean draws him closer, and he kisses Sam’s eyelids, one and then the other. “It’s okay, Sammy,” he tells his brother. “It doesn’t matter.”
Sam starts laughing then as well, the madness spreading. “Doesn’t matter?” he asks, and his tone is incredulous. “Really, Dean? My yellow eyes don’t matter--is that the best you can come up with? Seriously?”
Hours later, they’re still on the ground. They destroy any demon that comes to look for them-with this new development, everyone will want Sam up front on the battle lines. But they don’t have to listen anymore. They’re still laughing, and if tears are mixed in there as well, neither of them decides to notice.
-----
In Sam’s fiftieth year below, one of the angels breaks through into Hell.
Dean sees her only briefly--she quickly goes into hiding. She’s obviously looking for something, but nobody discovers what. No one ever figures it out. It’s pure coincidence, the way she runs into Sam and Dean. She looks at Dean and pulls her sword, and Sam steps protectively between them.
Bad luck, Dean thinks. It happens.
-----
It is Sam’s sixtieth year in Hell. Dean has been there a hundred years.
He is standing on a building. It wasn’t there yesterday, and it probably won’t be there tomorrow-nothing lasts very long in Hell-but it suits Dean’s purposes for the moment. He is on the roof, one leg bent with his foot on the short balustrade that runs along the building’s edge; he’s crouched over pensively, elbow on knee, as he watches the battle lines. The angels get closer every day. More and more of them break through. There is death, there is chaos, and demons are dying by the handful.
Sam runs, flies, almost isn’t fast enough…
Dean clenches his jaw. After everything they’ve been through, after everything they’ve suffered, they’re supposed to be on the top of the food-chain. Bad luck, Dean thinks, can quit biting his ass any day now--but maybe, just maybe, it will hold off for long enough.
He doesn’t look up at the searing hot wind that suddenly blows across his face, that envelops him for long, dangerously sightless moments. He doesn’t move, because he isn’t afraid: It is black soot and ash, the smell of one man’s charred, broken flesh, and those are comforting textures, familiar smells. Sam materializes out of the cyclone, his hand on Dean’s shoulder, and Dean waits patiently as Sam finishes pulling himself back into his old shape.
“Done for the day?” Dean asks finally.
There is no blood on Sam’s hand; Sam is still very fastidious about that sort of thing. “Yes,” Sam says, and he steps next to Dean, his focus already elsewhere. His eyes scan the landscape below them. “Three souls made demon-“
Dean nods, thinks fodder for the angels--
“-and a couple of others close to breaking. We should have them in a few weeks.”
“Any strong ones, you think?” Dean asks.
“No,” Sam says, his voice hard. “Just children.”
Dean looks at his brother. He thinks, sixty years. It’s nothing he ever would have wanted for Sam. “Let’s go home.”
Sam’s nostrils flare-he isn’t happy. But they go.
It’s the only time they take for themselves, the only time they fully pretend. It’s meant for remembrance. Dean gathers Sam close, and he tries to recall the feel of his human skin as he runs hands over Sam’s body. He wonders if they get it right-was Sam’s skin this soft? Was his body this breakable? Did his heat feel like this against Dean’s fingers?
“I’m twenty-three,” Sam whispers, his mouth skimming over Dean’s ear, “and you’re helping me. I hurt everywhere, because she’s just died--”
“Say it,” Dean insists, just like he always does. “Her name, Sam. It’s important--”
“Jessica,” Sam says, but there’s no change in his voice--it’s just a name. He’s forgotten the feeling of it, and Dean closes his eyes. Tries not to mourn. “Jessica. But you’re there,” and now Sam’s voice turns eager, “and you make me happy.”
“Yeah,” Dean says. He can’t argue with that. He runs his hands gently down Sam’s back and draws him closer, and Sam crowds in, pressing their bodies together. It’s just like Dean’s memory, faulty as it is: Sam’s knees knocking against his own. Sam’s thigh shoving between his legs. Sam’s face against his neck, Sam's spine ridiculously curved as he tries to shove himself under Dean’s arms. “You’re happy.”
“And you laugh all the time.”
“Did I?” Dean draws back. He tilts Sam’s face up.
“At the stupidest stuff.” Sam untucks himself from Dean’s body, and Dean kisses him, sweet and soft and hungry. Sam speaks against his lips. “Like this one time: There was this dog, Dean. And this waitress…”
He trails off uncertainly.
“Yeah,” Dean tells him quietly. He can’t remember either. “I’m sure there was.”
He draws his brother down to the ground-it’s still a lousy shit-hole, their home, but there’s really nothing to be done about it-and he man-handles Sam on top of him. They’re twenty-three and twenty-six, and he makes Sam happy, and this was their first time. Please, Dean thinks, let me get this right. Let me keep this.
“You tell me no,” Sam prompts him, and he settles his weight fully on Dean. “But when I try to get up, you don’t let me.”
Dean grabs handfuls of Sam’s hair. He had loved the feeling of it. “I remember that.”
“So damned confusing,” Sam says, and he rocks against Dean slowly. He mouths at Dean’s chin, trails his lips down Dean’s neck, and nips at Dean’s collarbone. Sets his teeth there, waits. Dean rolls his hips, tugs at Sam’s hair.
“C’mon,” Dean tells him.
Sam bites down hard, and it rockets through Dean’s body. It’s almost nothing, that pain-they’ve done worse to each other over the years. But back then, it had been startling. Innocent. “Shouldn’t do this,” he says, because it is what he’d said that first time.
“Yeah, yeah,” Sam sing-songs into his ear, playing his role. He'd been such a cheeky little bastard. “Brother.” And then his mouth is on Dean’s, and his tongue is sliding past Dean’s lips.
Dean doesn’t remember what he’d felt at that point. He’s sure there must have been some disgust, some noxious twisting in his gut, but it’s not what he feels now. Sam, brother, the only word that means anything, the only love that’s lasted-Dean twines his tongue with Sam’s, wanting the taste of him, the smell of his breath.
Sam undulates against him, a full-body rub. Dean feels the hard strength of his stomach, the sharp edges of his hips, the full curve of Sam’s cock. Unhurried and slow, clothing not even removed, Sam takes him to pieces. Dean holds on to him, fingers twisting in the sweaty hair at the nape of Sam’s neck. Yes, that’s right-Sam’s smell everywhere. Dirty from the hunt, but no blood. Just Sam.
Dean closes his eyes. He breathes in. The smell is different now, but it’s still good. It’s still right. Just Sam.
Sam slides one hand into Dean’s pants, and when Dean instinctively jerks closer, Sam laughs into his mouth. It’s a teasing sound, and so Dean only rolls his eyes in return, shoves his own hand down Sam’s jeans--he’s the one laughing now. Sam breaks their kiss, moans into the air between them. “Come on, Sammy,” Dean says, smiling. “If you show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”
Dean’s always liked this part-likes his first glimpse of Sam’s shiny, red dick. The head the first thing he sees when he finally has Sam’s jeans undone, it pops through his fingers, all wet and hard, already a mess. Dean smooths his hand over it, rolls it over his palm, but then he reaches for Sam’s thighs. He hooks his hands under Sam’s knees, and with a quick burst of effort he is flipping them over, because he needs Sam’s cock in his mouth yesterday.
Dean only takes a moment to look-Sam spread wide and open, his limbs far-flung and his cheeks flushed, his chest heaving-and then he bends down.
“No, no, no,” Sam chants at him, holding him off. Sam is breaking the script-that part never happened--but before Dean can protest, he pushes Dean off. He wheels himself around, does his own pawing at Dean’s jeans, but his dick is still right there, flush with Dean’s face. Oh yeah, Dean thinks dazedly. Sixty-nine, a classic.
“Like this,” Sam tells him, and he sucks Dean down.
Wet heat slides slowly down his cock, and Dean gasps against it. He noses forward instinctively, his own mouth watering--the smell of Sam is there, so fucking strong, so very familiar. Dean rubs his face into Sam’s crotch, wanting it all over him, wanting Sam’s scent to be so entwined with his that there’s no telling them apart--but it’s not enough. Not even close. He needs to taste it. He opens his mouth, sliding his tongue along Sam’s length.
Sam moans around Dean’s dick, the sound vibrating up Dean’s spine. Dean feels his eyes roll back into his head, but he tries to pet Sam’s ribs soothingly. Still here, he thinks at Sam, for all the good that will do him. Not going anywhere.
The thought makes Dean’s lungs seize, his heart clench, just for a second. Sam can’t say the same, but he doesn’t know it yet. “Little brother,” Dean reminds himself, whispering the words against Sam’s cock. That’s the way it is, the way Dean has made it: Big brother’s heart breaks first. Big brother’s heart breaks alone, if he can help it. He slides Sam’s dick into his mouth, and for that second, it’s nothing more than comfort.
The melancholy thoughts can’t last--Sam’s head is between his thighs, and it makes the world awesome. Dean sucks when Sam does, licks when Sam licks, and Dean’s little brother had always been one to catch on quickly. Soon they’re both gasping, they’re both desperate. Dean grabs handfuls of Sam’s ass and holds on for the ride.
Sam’s hips are surging against him, wild and abandoned, and his cock spears into Dean’s mouth over and over again. His arms come up to hold Dean firm, and then he is breaking Dean’s rhythm, changing the rules of the game. Dean tries to struggle, just for the feel of it, but he can’t get away--Sam keeps him captured, keeps him close. Sam suckles on his dick, taking his own sweet time and driving Dean crazy, but his own cock in Dean’s mouth remains demanding and fierce.
“Goddamn it, Sam,” Dean tries to say, but his words are garbled and caught back in his throat; Sam doesn’t stop in his thrusting. It’s enough, it’s more than enough--Dean slaps Sam’s ass, his sad excuse for a reprimand, as Sam drives him over the edge.
The world is all light and tight, wet heat. It is perfection, even in Hell. Dean feels Sam’s chest move against his legs, feels Sam’s warm laughter.
When Dean can finally bring himself to open his eyes, Sam is pressed up on his hands and knees, spread out over Dean’s body. He is not far. He is only hovering by inches, the tip of his cock wavering by Dean’s face, and Dean finds that he can’t breathe: Sam is stripping his cock, fast and desperate. Dean could lick out and taste it--as it is, Sam drips pre-come all over Dean’s chin and cheekbones--but Dean’s eyes are drawn down his own body to Sam’s head hanging by his knees. Sam’s hair half-obscures his features, but Dean can see that his gaze never wavers. His yellow, preternatural eyes are fixated on Dean's face.
Dean doesn’t look away. He lets Sam take whatever it is he is looking for. He lets Sam have everything.
Sam comes all over his face.
Yeah, Dean thinks, letting Sam collapse against him, he’s going to miss this guy. This Sam has been with him for decade upon decade, and Dean loves any and all incarnations of his brother. He will mourn this version, too.
Dean twists and turns himself around, gathering Sam close into his arms. He presses Sam’s face into his neck, and he waits for Sam to come down. It’s time. They have both of them, as they are, had their last hooray.
“I’ve got good news,” Dean says finally. He isn’t sure how Sam will take the information, but Dean will make Sam accept it, will push Sam past any reluctance, because it is a good deal, it is once in a lifetime. “I’ve made a deal with an angel.”
It happens just as Dean planned-Sam squawks, protests, and fights, and Dean forces him to remember all of Hell’s injustices, even to the little pinprick pains that can drive apart the most devoted. We’re all we have left, he says to Sam. What we feel-it’s the only thing worth taking from us. Then he tells Sam the rest of it: He tells Sam about Castiel.
“He can make you forget,” Dean pleads with him. “He can change everything. You’ll never come here to save me--you’ll never get caught. You’ll never be lost.”
Sam’s face is anguished, torn. “He can’t be here to help us.”
Dean looks at his brother. Sixty years. “It’s worth the risk.”
Sam reaches for him. He touches Dean’s face with grasping, greedy fingers, and when Dean is close enough, he rests his forehead against Dean’s own. “And then what?” Sam whispers. “The me up there, the me before, he never learned. He won’t leave you down here. To save you, to keep you--you know I’ll just do something worse.”
Dean laughs at that, because there is always worse, there’s no avoiding it. He grabs Sam’s wrists joyfully and squeezes them hard, just for the pleasure of hearing bone scrape on bone. Sam grins against his mouth, a trained and helpless response, the love between them still unwanted, still enduring.
“That’s the best part,” Dean tells him, kissing him as gently as he can. It isn’t gentle enough; he thinks about the Champion of Heaven that Castiel expects. He thinks about Sam up there, unknowing. And he wonders. “I’ll be with you, Sammy. The angels-they want me topside.”
------
Months later, when they’re both alive again and human, Sam asks Dean what he remembers from Hell. Dean lies, and then he lies again. Once upon a time, in a place far, far away, Sam was on his rack. In all the ways that matter, Dean kept him there.
Dean has a lot to make up for. The scales won’t ever be even.
END