The Heart of Life [pg13] Sam/Dean
This is for flyingsoftly , because i promised her a b-day drabble (LJ does NOT keep me informed of these things, grr) and then she got eated by RL before she could prompt me. So.
So that human heart thing-Dean almost little-kid-coy as he nudged the tupperwear closer to Sam and asked, “Be my Valentine?”-morbid as fuck, but kind of…sweet.
Sam had no idea what to do with that, so he ignored it. Later that night, he pinned Dean’s wrists to the bed and sucked a dark purple hickey on Dean’s chest right over his heart, thinking, God, don’t ever let me see this in a plastic box. He didn’t let himself think about it again.
Until Dean-Dean Winchester, THE Dean-turned down the opportunity to celebrate Valentine’s Day in the manner to which they had all become accustomed. Then suddenly? The heart thing was back in the very back corner of his brain, niggling away.
Almost instantly flooded over with thoughts of sucking down demon blood, but still.
It took him four days to detox. 345,600 seconds, each one of them excruciating. There was always someone sitting outside the door for him, and Sam knew every time it was Dean-it was mostly Dean-even though no one ever said a word. Sam said plenty of words, most of them awful, until he ran out of voice and just curled up by the door, imagining he could feel Dean with his back against the other side.
Tap tap
Sam twitched in the middle of gut-wrenching shakes.
Tap tap tap
He put his fingers to the metal and felt the tap again, and it was just like Dean saying his name, desperate and longing and god, are you there? Tell me you’re there, even when he couldn’t bring himself to say it.
Sam tapped back, once, and felt the relief on the other side of the door like he was breathing different air. Dean tapped, Sam tapped. They’d never needed words before, why start now? And Sam thought about that heart.
The next day he knew the worst of it was over, but he didn’t and couldn’t expect them to trust that, so he scraped up enough vocal chords to ask for a book. He didn’t get an answer-it was dead silent for almost an hour-but when his food tray slid through the slot there was a battered old copy of Slaughterhouse-Five, which Sam couldn’t help laughing hoarsely at as he turned it over in his hands.
“What kind of Vonnegut,” he murmured to himself, and started reading it aloud.
He’d just gotten to the Tralfamadorians-“…‘If I hadn’t spent so much time studying Earthlings…’”-when a soft noise brought him up short, hard, like his own heart was stuck somewhere in his throat.
“Sam?”
Dean sounded even worse than Sam did, like he’d been doing his own fair share of screaming those times when it was Bobby on the other side of the door.
Sam tapped out Dean’s name, solid and sure, but the air was still tense on the other side of the door so he dragged in a breath and asked, “Got a pen?”
There was hesitation like a held breath, then soft scuffling, then a piece of charcoal dropped through the bars above Sam’s head, bouncing off his head. “Nice,” he laughed quietly, catching the totally-not-sharp-enough-to-kill-yourself-with writing implement against his chest before he got to work.
He passed the rag-tag book back without moving, stretching one arm high over his head.
Dean let out a choked, muffled sound. Sam settled back against the door to wait.
They let him out the night after, and Dean pressed him against the side of the Impala under the stars and whispered, “Fuck, so close, Sammy, too close,” against his mouth while he shook apart and Sam kissed him back and curled his hand over the fading bruise on Dean’s heart and thought, Mine.