Holly, Ivy, Mistletoe (Part Two)
Outside the night is cool but not cold, because fucking California. There’s a yellow Prius almost parking him in, and-Dean’s hand goes to the pocket with his keys and touches fuzz instead, and he has to slam his eyes shut and make himself breathe because if he doesn’t he’ll find something to smash every single window of every single yuppy car he can find before the cops come haul him away.
The Impala’s hood is smooth and indifferent under his hands, glittering under the Christmas lights from the house. Shedding the god-awful sweater makes him feel like he can breathe again, even if it takes a lot of warmth with it. He doesn’t even feel all that drunk anymore, just empty and slightly dizzy. Fuck, fuck, fuck, what the hell did he just do?
“Dean! Dean, wait…”
He doesn’t really have a choice unless he bolts across the yard, but Dean is suddenly tired in a way that glues his feet to the ground better than his pride.
“Just-“ Sam looks frightened, and already half-resigned. “Please don’t leave like this.”
“Like what?” Dean snaps, lashing out, “Like you did? Dammit, Sam, it wouldn’t have killed you to pick up a fucking phone.”
“Yeah well I heard jack shit from you too! You made it pretty clear whose side you were on-“
“I shouldn’t have to choose sides,” Dean shouts. “You’re my family-god damn it, you’re my whole fucking world and you left.”
Sam catches him by the elbow hard enough to hurt, shakes him until Dean makes himself meet his eyes. “I left Dad,” Sam grits out like it’s costing him something vital, like a lung. “Dean, I-I had to get out of there. It was killing me. The way he treated us, the way he treated you, I couldn’t stay there. But I didn’t think-I just needed some room to breathe, I didn’t mean to write you out of my life. He’s the one who said never come back.”
“Right, he said it,” Dean points out. “Not me.”
“Is that why you haven’t talked to him since October?” Sam’s question is careful, coaxing; he’ll make one hell of a lawyer someday, and the thought makes Dean’s mouth snap shut. He can’t make himself say the word, but Sam must be able to read it off his face-he looks stunned, like Dean just told him he’d swallowed the moon.
“So I chose you,” Dean says, shoving his hands in his pockets as he looks away-it’s a stupid time to glance down and remember that he kissed that mouth, the mouth attached to his brother. That the reason it’s still flushed and red is because he pressed it too hard with his own. “Congratufuckinglations.”
“Dean,” Sam starts, but Dean can’t let him finish.
“Are you really that ashamed of me,” he makes himself ask, “that you won’t tell your friends that someone in your family actually gives a shit about you? That your brother drove all the way down here from fucking Arkansas so you wouldn’t have to spend your first Christmas alone?”
“You said you were just passing through,” Sam says, but he looks so heartbreakingly hopeful.
“Yeah, well, I lied.” Dean holds his hands out, palms up. “What the hell do you want to hear, Sam? That I missed you every single fucking day you were gone? That I’m that pathetic? Because it’s true.”
Sam makes a hurt noise in the back of his throat, the way he used to do when Dean pinned him during hand-to-hand combat practice and refused to tap out. He runs a hand through his already wild hair and clenches it into a fist. “I don’t-god, Dean, you’re not pathetic.”
“Pretty sure I am,” Dean counters. “Pretty sure normal guys don’t miss their little brothers like someone hacked off their hand. Pretty sure the number of times I almost called you is settled in the low thousands.”
“I did call you once,” Sam says, and Dean’s heart stops.
“What? Which number?” Sam rattles it off and Dean lets out a breath of-not relief, but something close. “That’s-shit, Sammy, that phone got stolen in a bar months ago. My other two phones were working just fine.”
“I couldn’t get up the nerve again.” Sam shrugs, shaking his head with a faint little laugh. “Man, someone found a really embarrassing message in that inbox.”
The flush on his face makes Dean think of the mistletoe with a jolt of something low in his stomach. “What message?” he asks, feet shifting him forward another inch into Sam’s space. They’re already closer than they should be, barely an arm’s length away.
Sam’s face scrunches up before he hides it behind his hands. “I thought you knew. I thought you were just waiting to call me out on being a sick fuck.”
“I wouldn’t do that.” Or if he did it’d be like calling him short, or a cucumber, something so untrue that it’s laughable. Even now, even with this kiss hanging between them, there’s not a cell in Dean’s body that doesn’t think Sam hangs the fucking moon, not at its core. It’s always been his problem.
Sam laughs, ugly and sad. “You don’t know what I said. What I-what I asked for.”
“Dude, I just made out with you under the mistletoe in front of your friends,” Dean points out, too loud for the quiet of the block, for all the music is softly drifting outside. “I’m pretty sure it doesn’t get weirder than this.”
“Um,” Sam says, expression going even more miserable, more pleading, like he wants Dean to pluck it right out of his brain. But Dean can’t, and he shrugs expressively at Sam. “It was. Sort of…more.”
“More than…kissing?” Dean guesses, basically at random. Somehow he really doesn’t expect Sam to set his mouth in a wretched line and nod. “From me?” he squeaks.
“No, from Santa Claus, who do you fucking think, Dean?” He starts to turn his back, yanking at the folds of his frosty sweater like he wants to rip it off and can’t make himself. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have-I can’t believe-“
Dean can’t let him leave. Not again, not possibly ever. He grabs Sam just above his wrist, yanks him back so fast they all-but stumble into each other, catching themselves against the cool breadth of the Impala.
Sam’s eyes are wide and his lips are slightly parted-Dean wishes they were somewhere cold enough to see his breath.
“That what’s on your Christmas list, Sammy?” he asks, dry mouthed and thick tongued.
Sam’s eyes go even wider. “That is the worst fucking line-“
So Dean kisses him. Partly to shut him up but also because it was really nice last time, frighteningly nice. It still is-Sam’s fingers knotting instantly in the thin t-shirt Dean’s wearing at his waist to haul him closer, Sam’s foot knocking between Dean’s boots as he pushes him flat against the car. He gets Dean’s wrists in his hands and pins them, pushes back just far enough to look at him.
“Do you mean it?” Sam asks, searching his face with eyes gone dark with desperation. “Fuck, Dean, do you want this?”
“It’s a Christmas miracle,” Dean tries, chuckling hoarsely-Sam squeezes his wrists just this side of too tight. He ducks his head until it rests against Sam’s, tries to breathe past his heart beating triple time. He feels like he could shake apart. “Yeah. I do, Sam, fuck, I really do.”
“This isn’t you just playing along because you think you have to, to keep me,” Sam presses, verbally and physically. “Because you’ve got me, you jerk. You’re my brother.”
Sam’s words send a thick shiver down his spine, coiling in his belly, three parts turned on and one part scared shitless, burning at the self-loathing that’s been building up there for a while now, who knows how long.
He grabs Sam by the hair and kisses him, hard and hungry because it shouldn’t be possible, he can’t be this lucky. But maybe Sammy’s lucky enough for the both of them, that this twisted wrong thing can be so much goddamn joy.
“Are you good to drive?” Sam asks after eons of kissing, and his mouth is so wet and used Dean can’t find his tongue for a long moment, even though he was just using it. It doesn’t help that Sam is asking him more than if he’s too drunk to get behind a wheel; his look says he’s wondering if Dean’s sober enough to be making any sorts of decisions, which-he’s barely feeling the buzz anymore, too much adrenaline and cookies soaking up the rest.
“I-yeah,” he says, then as his thoughts catch up to him, “I’ve driven her thirty miles bleeding out into the floorwell, I’m not going to crash her on some froofy alcoholic-“
“I’ve had less than you,” Sam cuts him off, eyebrow high, “and I know where we’re going. Keys?”
“I left them in my jacket,” Dean mutters sullenly, which is not agreeing to let Sam drive even though Sam takes off at a run back into the house, leaving Dean feeling cold and…bereft, fuck it, he doesn’t know how he managed with states in between them when Sam being out of his sight now feels like a wrench.
It takes Sam a few minutes to return, so Dean busies himself with giving the Prius a few shoves to see if he can budge it from being quite so far up his baby’s tailpipe-and then Sam is back, dropping Dean’s jacket on his shoulders and a kiss to the back of his head like they’re in some sappy feature film. Dean has to wrestle him, get him in a headlock, Sam laughing like he might shake apart as he tucks his head against Dean’s belly and holds on.
“Such a brat,” Dean murmurs, fond, and pushes him into the car.
~*~
Sam driving the Impala always makes Dean feel like his ribs are out of order, but it’s good, it’s great, he gets to look his fill and watch Sam handle his baby, and it feels like home, like a cricked vertebra slotting back where it should be.
“So what’ve you been up to?” Dean asks, taking his time with each word.
Sam’s eyebrows bump up, but Dean thinks he sees his throat flush in the shifting traffic lights. “What do you mean?”
“I mean college is a time for experimenting. Isn’t that the line?” He’s proud of himself for not sounding bitter out of habit. “Come on, Sammy, spill. What sort of kinky shit did you try while I couldn’t walk in on you, huh?”
Sam lets out an unsteady breath, but Dean didn’t know any other way to say what he was thinking without making it worse. “What, kinkier than incest?”
The word still makes Dean twist up, and he doesn’t know if it’s good or bad. He settles for sinking down lower in his seat, knees flush up against the glove compartment as he runs his hands down his thighs. “Yeah,” he says, voice rough, “Maybe.”
Sam glances over from his dead-set focus on the road, disbelieving. “You-you aren’t going to jerk off.”
He hadn’t been, but there’s a thought. “Not if you don’t give me something good to think about.” Sam just bites his lip, hands glued to the ten-and-two position. “Come on, Sammy, you weren’t a monk the whole time, were you?”
“I was busy!” Sam says, hunching his shoulders up a bit. “And I couldn’t stop-“
“Stop what?” Dean presses when Sam looks like he might give up. He slides a little closer on the bench seat as Sam takes a left, lets momentum drag his ass across the leather, hip caught by the seatbelt. Is this what girls felt like when he was taking them out on dates in high school? He can feel every vibration pulsing up from the engine, buzzing in his skin. “Couldn’t stop thinking about me? What you wanted to do to me? What you wanted me to do to you?”
“Jesus,” Sam breathes, strangled. “Fuck, Dean, don’t do this now, man, I’m driving.”
“You won’t crash the car,” Dean says with a certainty that sits in his bones. He slides a hand over Sam’s thigh, slips it down to finger the seam. “You think about this?”
“…Fuck.” Sam has to shift gears as the light turns green, legs rubbing all over Dean’s hand as he moves them, shoving it up a little higher almost to the growing bulge in Sam’s jeans. “Yes, yeah, I did, but Dean-“
“Shh, it’s okay.” Automatic, soothing Sammy. “’M not going anywhere.” And he doesn’t-doesn’t move his hand the whole rest of the drive, just lets his thumb stroke across Sam’s balls over the coarse drag of his jeans.
“I’m going to kill you,” Sam gets out through his teeth as he pulls into the dorm parking lot, shifting out of third, second, giving it up and coasting to a wobbly stop with one foot down hard on the brakes. He has it in park before Dean can blink, seatbelt off and Sam coming for him across the car, pushing him flat against the door.
Somehow through all that Dean keeps his hand on Sam’s dick, bringing him to a shuddering halt with an unforgivable amount of space still between them.
“What’d you say in that message? Huh?” Dean asks, lifting his chin in a challenge as he wrings a low, feral whine from Sam with the palm of his hand.
“Not. Here.” Sam rolls his hips against Dean’s hand, a hard, deliberate grind. His eyes are too clear, watching Dean’s face for any cracks in his expression. “Too big for the car. Dorm beds aren’t that much bigger but-“ He grins, showing his teeth as he leans in close enough Dean can feel his breath. “I’ll need to sign you in. Whatever sophomore desk jockey they’ve got in there is going to know what you’re here for.”
“Here for you, Sammy,” Dean says, “Came all this way for you,” and maybe some small part of him hoped Sam would take it like a gut punch but it still feels so fucking heady when he does.
Thank god there’s no one at the desk-bathroom break or they skipped out early after finals-Dean doesn’t care because Sam grabs a fistful of his shirt, low on his belly, and drags him into the elevator like he thinks Dean would ever try to run from this. And then it’s necking until the bell dings and the doors threaten to close on them again, falling out into the hallway, both of their hands stuffed in Sam’s back pocket because Sam is groping for the key and Dean’s just groping. He still gets the green light on the first swipe, and then they’re tripping into Sam’s dorm.
It’s grey and ugly and Dean hates how little of Sam he can see in here, even though he has the room to sprawl-one paper Christmas tree taped in the window and that’s all the glance he gets before Sam is on him again, kissing fierce and frantic.
“It’s okay, Sammy,” he gets out between kisses, soothing his hands down Sam’s sides. “’M not going anywhere.”
“Doesn’t feel real,” Sam says, pinning Dean to the door and crowding in close. “You shouldn’t want me back, this was never supposed to happen.”
Dean can’t think of the way this must’ve twisted like a knife in Sam’s belly, feeling so alone in this when Dean didn’t even realize what he’d wanted. Sam might deny it to his dying breath, but how much of leaving for school meant taking himself away from temptation to wreck their family? Thinking about it makes Dean’s chest ache.
“I killed a griffin last Friday,” he growls, gripping Sam by the back of his neck so he has to meet Dean’s eyes. “We grew up in the back seat of a car. What’s one more impossible thing?”
After a moment Sam gives a shaky nod, hair falling into his eyes and Dean’s eyes as their noses bump once, twice before Dean finds Sam’s mouth again, chases that sweet ache of being kissed too much.
“What do you want, Sammy?” Dean pants as Sam shifts down to kiss and nip at the pulse beating in his throat. “You want me here, huh? Against the door? You want me on your bed, on my knees?”
“Jesus, shut up,” Sam says, half-snapping, half-something-close-to-begging but Dean doesn’t have time to be smug, not when Sam yanks him toward the bed, shoving and wrestling with Dean’s muscle-memory the whole way and loving it, by the look on his face.
“That it, Sammy, you want to fight me for it?” Dean grins, baring his teeth as Sam gets him on his back, following after before Dean’s stopped bouncing on the mattress, snatching his breath away with one more growling kiss. So that’ll be a yes.
Dean gets his hands on Sam’s ass as quickly as possible, tries to splay his legs on instinct and-and can’t because Sam’s sitting on them, rocking forward into Dean’s lap as Dean’s grip reflexively tightens. Rubbing his ass along Dean’s cock through their jeans, seams dragging together, up on his arms with his hair in his eyes so he can get a look at the knocked-sideways expression on Dean’s face.
“Sam, you don’t wanna-“
“Yeah, I do,” Sam smirks.
Dean feels like he just licked the Sahara desert. “Really?”
“Want to see you,” Sam murmurs, rolling his hips in a move Dean hasn’t seen outside of lap dances; he bites back curses and clings on by his fingernails. “Want to feel it. Gonna make me feel it, Dean?”
“Fuck,” Dean hisses as his own hips give a juddering thrust against Sam at the thought. “Yeah, Sam, yes, whatever you want.”
“Shirt off,” Sam gets out, already shedding his own and wriggling out of his jeans, barely lifting up long enough to manage it. When Dean fumbles for his own buckle Sam gets him by the wrist, pins it up by Dean’s head. “Let me,” he says, low enough Dean feels it vibrate through his skin.
Sam’s fingers thread under his belt as he nuzzles Dean’s stomach, and maybe it should feel strange but mostly it feels vulnerable and fucking amazing. Sam only pinned the one hand so Dean figures the other is fair game; he cards it through Sam’s hair at the curve of his skull, and chokes on a whimper when Sam tears everything down without undoing a single button, a rough burn of tight clothing over his hard cock and Sam panting like he’s run a mile when he finally gets to see it.
Dean’s cock is nothing special but Sam touches it like it’s sacred, even though he’s seen it before, though maybe not like this. “God, Dean, fuck,” he grits between gasps, rubbing his mouth against the head, not even really a kiss as his eyes flutter shut.
“Sammy.” Jesus, Dean’s voice sounds wrecked but he can’t, he can’t. “Please, Sammy, please.”
Sam’s eyes flicker open slowly, like he’s drugged, as he licks his lips and drags his gaze up Dean’s body-he gets stuck on something. “You kept it,” he says, thickly.
“Huh?” Dean shoves up on his free elbow to look where Sam is looking-but it’s just his amulet, glittering in the red and green lights outside Sam’s window. “Of course I did,” Dean blurts, too surprised to hide his incredulity at the thought. “You gave it to me.”
“Yeah I did.” It’s a long, slow slide of skin as Sam shifts up along his body until Sam can catch the amulet in his teeth, eyes burning right through Dean to leave him a gibbering mess. Sam presses it into the hollow of his throat with a kiss. “Best Christmas ever.”
“Yeah,” Dean says, too blissfully dumb for a line about trying to top it this year. He’s got his hands on Sam’s skin again, the miles of muscle at Sam’s back under his palms and Sam’s dick rocking against his, just a thin layer of Sam’s briefs between them. “Fuck, Sammy, is that a giant candy cane in your pocket or are you happy to see me?” Okay, maybe not dumb enough.
Sam rumbles a laugh deep in his chest. “I’m really happy to see you,” he says, circling his hips like it won’t drive Dean out of his mind. Dean’s hand finds his ass again, and it slides so easy between Sam’s cheeks, a soft push of cotton around Sammy’s hole and inside, just a little bit, when Sam bucks and swears.
“Do you have anything?” Dean gets out somehow, tugging on Sam’s hair until his head bows back, baring the delicate skin of his neck. It might help Sam think but it derails Dean’s thought process entirely.
“Um, yeah,” Sam says after a moment of glassy blinking. “Hang on.”
Dean lets out a whine he refuses to be ashamed of when Sam peels off him, briefs so low on his hips they might as well be see-through for the way they cling to Sam’s cock, fucking nothing to the imagination. It’s a good thing Sam wants to play power-bottom tonight because Dean’s going to have to work at fitting a monster like that in his ass.
He could take the time to get out of his jeans, but he likes the snugness of the belt trapping his thighs, and then Sam is back with a tube of something that clicks open-actual honest-to-god lube. And it looks half empty.
“That’s yours?” Dean asks as Sam ditches his underwear and Dean tries not to swallow his own tongue. “’Cause I don’t know how I feel about using your ex-roommates leftovers or-“
“It’s mine, Dean,” Sam says, rolling his eyes. “For my own personal use.” He lifts his eyebrows significantly.
“Oh.” For some ungodly reason this-more than anything else they’ve done-makes him blush. “You, uh. With your.”
“Yeah.” Sam straddles him again, staying high on his knees. Dean’s hands fit to his hips like they were made to fit, like pieces of a gun snicking back together, and that’s Sam’s cock, those are Sam’s balls snug against Dean’s belly as Sam leans down to kiss him again, reaching behind himself.
He can’t see but he knows the instant Sam gets a slicked finger into his ass; his breath hitches against Dean’s tongue, and he can’t seem to help rubbing just a fraction of an inch against Dean as he works his way up to two. He has to pull off-Dean chasing the swell of his lower lip with his teeth-when he twists, trying to get that third finger in with the angle all wrong but Dean’s got this, leaves one hand at the nape of Sam’s neck and trails the other down where Sam is slickest, twining with Sam’s fingers as they both push inside. Sam’s forehead hits Dean’s clavicle with a groan, and Dean pushes his head back into the pillow, trying to get enough air so he doesn’t pass out from how searing hot and tight Sam is.
He’s never going to survive actually fucking him. The noises Sam is making and the wet squelch of their fingers tangled together inside… Dean keeps biting back moans and failing, trying not to fuck up against Sam’s cock and come right now.
“Sammy, please,” he gets out, strangled and fucked-out already.
“Yeah,” Sam pants, “yeah, yeah.” Dean almost forgets to pull his fingers free when Sam does, fingertip catching at the edge of Sam’s asshole and making Sam whine.
He has to lift up enough for Dean to get a condom on, grabbed from who the fuck knows where because at this point Dean is pretty sure Sam is magic. A long hiss slides out of Dean’s mouth as he rolls it down the base and gives himself a firm squeeze-he needs to last, needs to make this good, and Sam looking at him like there’s nothing else in the world is not helping. He holds his cock still, tries not to notice the precome blurting in the tip of the pinched condom, tries to think of graveyards and coffins as he guides Sammy down with his free hand on Sam’s hip, works the head past Sam’s grasping rim with grunt and a gasp and a flush of color all down Sam’s chest.
“Oh,” Sam says, head tipped back as he sinks lower, lifts up, slides down until Dean is splitting him open all the way to the root. Sam’s flush gets darker, nipples peaked and ruddy. “That’s-oh, wow.”
Dean swallows an embarrassing noise and tries not to clutch too hard at Sam’s thighs. “Good wow?”
“Yeah, good.” Sam gets this almost lazy smile on his face as he rocks up, grinds back down, rubbing Dean all over his insides, watching Dean’s face every second under his lashes. When Sam gets a fist around his own cock and gives it a slow tug Dean almost hiccups with how much he wants, how much he’s already getting.
This time when Sam pulls off almost to the head Dean can’t help the fuck of his hips back into his brother, hard enough he makes Sam gasp out, “A-ah!” His jeans are still trapping his thighs, fucking with his balance-without thinking about it Dean pulls himself up, arm around Sam’s waist to keep him seated with his other hand rips at his belt behind Sam’s back, trying to shove it down to his knees with Sam suddenly so much closer, stuttering his hips forward as his cock drags along Dean’s belly.
It’s too much, too much, and Dean buries his face in Sam’s shoulder and tries not to fall apart, amulet thunking between their chests as they move. Sam’s noises are hitching higher with each breath, but Dean can’t-he rolls them over, caught by the wall Sam’s tiny bed is shoved against, doesn’t separate them an inch but it gives him more room to make Sam feel it, like he asked, dick him deep and hard and fast and no room between them for anything but this. Sam’s hands on his ass and Sam’s thighs locked around his waist and Sam’s dick pressed between their bellies tight enough that Dean can feel him harden that much more, feel his ass clench tremblingly-tight around Dean’s cock as Sam moans out, “Dean, fuck, fuck, Dean-“
The first spurt of Sam’s come makes Dean flinch, it’s so hot, so wet, slicking the way as Dean’s rhythm judders, orgasm coiling in the back of his spine, something in him pulling too tight.
“Hey, I got you,” Sam gets out, almost soundless as his hand-the same hand that’s held knives and pens and Dean’s heart since he was born-fits to the nape of his neck, unsteady fingers tangling in the chord of his amulet. “I got you.”
Dean squeezes his eyes shut and comes, hard enough it hurts, hips slamming into Sam as some spark in his lizard brain tries to get his spunk in there so deep Sam will feel it, condom or no. Sam takes it-more than takes it, arches languidly into Dean’s thrusts even though it has to be sensory overload. He offers up his shoulder as he nips at Dean’s, and Dean sets his teeth to Sam’s skin just for something to focus on so he doesn’t fly apart at the seams.
Sam doesn’t seem to want to let him go, and Dean is so down with that plan but he has to pull out eventually, has to get rid of the condom and clean Sammy up with a clean sock he swiped from a drawer on his way to the bathroom stuffed in one corner of the room. When he comes back, wet sock in hand, Sam is on his side, arms pulled in kind of close to his chest.
“Hey, Sammy,” Dean says, kneeling down so he can brush the sweat-damp hair from Sam’s head and tap at his noggin. “What’s going on in there?”
Sam catches Dean’s wrist, stilling the make-shift washcloth Dean was using to swipe at the mess drying on his chest. “When do you have to leave for Washington?”
“Washington?” Dean blinks twice before it clicks, and then winces hard enough to squeeze his eyes shut. “Oh, the...the gig. Sam, I never had a hunt lined up in Washington. I never even had a hunt lined up here, I just-fuck, I just wanted to check in on you. I haven’t had a Christmas without you since you were born.”
Sam’s throat is working, and his eyes are wide and sappy-wet before he ducks his head. “Jesus. We really are a pair.” He says it half-murmured into the curve of Dean’s knuckles, and Dean thinks he should be crawling out of his skin with so much physical, casual contact but instead he feels half-starved for it, so many months apart not enough to account for the deep-seated hunger that’s always been twisted around his bones, quiet whispers of SamSamSam in his bloodstreams.
“Could we do Christmas here? Our way?” Sam asks, timid like he doesn’t know Dean would shoot down the moon if Sam wanted him to.
Dean can’t breathe, but he makes himself say, “What, with a beer can wreathe and shitty take out, grainy Christmas special on TV and shitty gas station gifts-“
“Yes, yeah,” Sam says, cutting him off as he surges forward for a kiss. “All of it. I never needed anything more than you.”
A hitching sort of whine hooks in the back of Dean’s throat that he’ll deny to his dying breath, but he has much better things to do with his mouth at the moment. He presses Sam back into the bed with kisses, nudges until Sam slides over and Dean can slot into his favorite place: between Sam and the door, the wall guarding Sam’s back.
“I’ve got three weeks,” Sam says just as Dean is drifting off, his head nudges against Dean’s on their shared pillow. “And then-“
“I know, Sammy,” Dean grumps, pinching sleepily at Sam’s side because that used to shut him up when Sam was thirteen and whined about having to share a bed. He knows Sam’s got to stick to the normal track, at least for now. But somehow it doesn’t feel so much like Sam’s not choosing Dean when he doesn’t choose hunting. Sam has always been able to see a difference between the two of them; Dean is still poking at the possibility in his head, the concept that he might be a person first, hunter second. It’s not what Dad taught him.
“No, listen.” Sam takes a breath and pushes up on one arm so he can look down at Dean’s face. “The reason you couldn’t find a hunt around here? I’ve been taking care of them.”
“You what?” Dean’s heartbeat is suddenly beating triple-time, more frightened by this-by the thought of Sam hunting things alone-than anything else that’s happened tonight. He has to fight to keep himself still and not throttle Sam until he promises to never pull that shit again.
Sam knows it, by the look on his face; he waits long enough that Dean has to calm down or give himself an ulcer, then says, “I only hunted alone when I had to, when I had time, which really wasn’t that often. Mostly I let other hunters know about it, but most of them aren’t local.” He raises his eyebrows.
“Are you asking me to stick around?” Something squirms in his belly, and he’s not sure it’s all good. He doesn’t know how to do permanent.
“I’m asking you to think about it.” Sam leans down as sets his teeth to Dean’s shoulder, just hard enough to feel it. “I could be your home base.”
Dean closes his eyes and breathes out, slow. “Yeah, Sammy,” he says, “I’ll think about it.” But Sam’s always been that pin in the map Dean orbits around, tied by string and blood and family.
Sam nods against his shoulder, just a brief little shiver of his head. Then, “Very least, there’s always spring break,” he says. Dean can hear his smile. “Jess’s family’s got a house boat down south. You could come with me.”
“As your boyfriend?” Dean asks the top of Sam’s bangs where they’re twisted in every direction.
Sam’s chuckle rumbles through them both as he toys with Dean’s amulet. “I’ll wear your letter jacket if you wear my class ring.”
They never stayed at a high school long enough to get either of those things, but Dean gets what he’s saying. “Man, what we really need now are matching tattoos.”
“Hmm.” Sam’s hand drifts over his heart.
Dean lets his eyes slide shut, lets the whirring of Sam’s brain and the steady thump of Sam’s heart carry him under. He dreams of snow.
The End
...except
Twas the week before Christmas and more often than most
Not a monster was creeping, not even a ghost
Sammy was hung, no stockings, all bare
In hopes that his brother soon would be there
The hunters soon nestled all snug in their bed,
While visions of killing things danced in their heads;
And Dean in his heart, after Sam’s many kisses,
Knew they’d done right by the family business.
happy holidays bbs! ♥