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I spent the vast majority of the evening carving a pumpkin and now smell like one. In other news, I woke up this morning and decided to write 5000 words of Sam/Dean. Well, okay, I didn't actually choose to do it so much as it happened by accident, but in summary: Winchesters. What are you gonna do.
This is set after where we currently are (4.06) and contains some incredibly minor spoilers for Yellow Fever, but it's not a coda. This was vaguely inspired by one of winterlive's insightful darkside!Sam comments. Kudos to Clex for the beta.
Chinook, Sam/Dean, R, 5100 words. Wanting out, and getting there. Also: the pitfalls of using your demonic powers.
Like the salmon. And maybe the wind.
Dean finds the first real estate magazine when Sam pulls off the highway into an I-75 rest stop, stuffed down between the cushions of the backseat and buried underneath one of Sam's jackets. He almost tosses it along with the breakfast sandwich wrappers and empty coffee cups rattling around in the backseat, but something makes him stop and thumb through it. Sam carrying around pictures of houses isn't exactly something new, it's just a habit, like the way Sam takes his coffee - black with three sugars, a habit left over from twenty years of listening to someone else's drive-through window requests - or the inevitable slow descent of his hands down the steering wheel when he's been driving for hours. It's been a long time since Dean worried about it, so the red circles on pages 3 and 16 aren't terrifying, like they would have been at 21, and they don't ignite anything close to anger, like they might have at 25. They're just there - a two bedroom, one bath, outside Durham, and an apartment with a fireplace and an office, with a view of a park.
Dean looks up, not really thinking about anything - six more hours to Columbus, gas ought to be cheaper outside of Pittsburgh. When Sam moves into his field of vision, Dean's eyes find him automatically, walking back across the parking lot with two cups of coffee and a newspaper, turning up his collar against the sharp October wind.
Dean takes his coffee and passes over the magazine with an easy grin, pushing open the car door with his hip, reaching for his keys.
"Keep your goddamned house porn out of my backseat," Dean says, without any bite to it, and when Sam laughs, the last year seems inconceivable, a distant past in the rearview, and ever having been afraid of his brother seems a little inconceivable, too.
"Asshole," Sam says, reaching for his seatbelt, and Dean forgets all about the underlined summaries and boxed in pictures.
Then Sam waves off coffee at breakfast.
"Not hungry," he says, and frowns at the newspaper, rubbing his thumb over a section of text. "Their printing press is off."
Dean glances at the article before Sam folds the paper up. It looks fine to him, clear columns and grey print, but Sam's difficult to interpret at the best of times; their lines might be uneven, the word order might be wrong. Dean focuses on the stack of pancakes in front of him and ignores Sam, coding the colored sugar packets and rearranging the jelly in rows.
Sam's still restless in the car, obvious in the way he touches the fan, the radio, messes with the dial without changing the station. The window goes up then down twice, quarter of the way then just cracked, and Sam won't stop messing with the handle, vaguely irritating in Dean's peripheral vision. Dean spends five miles thinking a little absently about switching him to decaf before he remembers that Sam hasn't had any coffee at all.
Dean's thinking about saying something by the time they cross the Nebraska state line, but twenty-something years of this have taught him enough about Sam and the road to know better. He pulls off at a weighing station instead, nosing the Impala behind the trucks, up against the woods lining the back of the parking lot.
"I'm gonna stretch my legs," he says, hoping Sam will take the hint and walk it off.
When Dean comes back from a circle around some picnic area, kicking an abandoned pepsi bottle, he finds Sam on his knees in the thin line of grass before the trees, throwing up, and realizes that something's really fucking wrong.
Dean finds a jug of water in the trunk and kneels behind Sam, waiting for him to finish before he pours some water into Sam's cupped hands so he can wash his face. It takes him a second to process that Sam's shaking so badly that everything he's pouring is just spilling over. He's about to ask if it's maybe something he ate, does he feel like he's got the stomach flu when Sam looks at him over his shoulder and recoils, sharp and a little abrupt, and that's when Dean realizes that his eyes aren't the right color. Sam's fake driver's licenses all say hazel, but Dean knows it's closer to grey-brown. Now, they're too dark, his pupils blown. They're not demon-black or yellow or, god forbid, white, but there's something not right. Sam rubs his hands up and down his thighs, twice, and shuts his eyes like he's trying to ignore something, breathing hard.
"I'm hallucinating," he says, almost matter of fact.
"You think you have what I had?" Dean says, fear sudden and worse than almost anything he felt under the constant rush of adrenaline, and it's almost a relief when Sam shakes his head.
"I can -" he laughs, tight, almost bitter. "There's a demon the next town over and I can feel her."
"Bobby's maybe a hundred miles away," Dean says, fighting both the urge to lean in and the urge to pull away, and Sam makes the decision for him when he pulls himself up using the hood of the Impala and tugs the passenger side door open.
"Yeah," Sam says. "You drive."
They have to stop three more times for Sam to throw up, but even so, Dean makes it in an hour, pushing the speed limit, taking back roads. By the time he pulls into the yard, Sam's shaking hard enough that Dean can feel it through the seat.
"Stay here," he says, an old habit, and Dean feels a little guilty over the sheer relief of seeing Bobby taking the front porch steps two at a time.
"Something's wrong with Sam," he says, and Bobby pulls open the door and peels off two sweat-soaked blankets to wrap his hands around Sam's shoulders.
"Hey, Bobby," Sam says, and Dean watches him squeeze his eyes closed.
"Goddamn it, Sam," Bobby says, a tone that's familiar enough to pull at something in Dean's chest, and for once, Dean's okay with letting someone else take half of Sam's weight.
They get him into the twin in the guest bedroom, the one Dean turned down point blank at sixteen, the first time they got left here, because there wasn't enough room for Sam in with him. You're older, first choice, Bobby had said, an idea so foreign Dean hadn't known what to do with it. It had felt good at the time that Sam had said no too, even though back then, Dean had been pretty sure it was just because he didn't want to be left alone. Dean hasn't always been Sam's favorite - it took one long summer just the wrong side of thirteen for him to change his mind, when John left for too long and Dean was the only alternative available - but these days, he finds himself wondering if maybe it was because Sam wanted to be with him, after all.
Dean's not really sure when Bobby stopped offering, but Sam's always taken the couch and he's always gotten the sleeping bag. It's been a long time since he's been in this room, maybe four years since he didn't have to worry about sharing at all, and Dean's glad when Bobby pulls him out into the hallway and clicks the door shut behind them.
"He's not possessed," Dean says. "And we weren't working a haunting, but he says -"
"I've seen the way he's shaking before, Dean," Bobby says, looking older than Dean's ever seen him. "Those are DTs."
Dean thinks about every fight they've ever had about this, slamming his fist into Sam's jaw, and whether withdrawal from evil is going to look better or worse than the time that Bobby locked John in the downstairs bathroom and Dean spent a week waiting it out, playing solitaire in the kitchen while his father became someone recognizable again.
"Awesome," Dean says, low and maybe a little vicious, and Bobby puts a hand back on the doorknob.
"I'm going to sedate him," he says. "And Dean -"
"Yeah," Dean says, kind of flat.
"There's a Smith and Wesson on the kitchen table," Bobby says. "Can't quite get it to work right."
"I'll take a look," Dean says.
He leaves their things on the sofa and doesn't think about anything while he takes the gun apart, just the steady click of the mechanisms in his hands. It's not a familiar gun, not one out of Bobby's collection. The barrel's not in good shape but it's solid, and the grip fits up against the heel of his hand like it should, wood warming up beneath his palm. Dean thinks about how Sam's partial to the Beretta, but he knows he'd like this gun - it's easy, no kickback, and it feels good in Dean's hands. The problem's maybe too much gunpowder and too little attention, maybe the burr Dean can feel on the inside of the barrel if he puts the pad of his thumb in just the right place, and he's thinking about filing it down when he finds his hands loading the gun without thinking about it, his mind a few seconds behind. Dean puts four bullets into the gun and puts all four of them into Ruby, gore spattered across Bobby's blue wallpaper, and he notices a little clinically that she stumbles but doesn't bleed.
"Damn it, Dean," she says, and the fifth one goes through her forehead, the sixth into her heart.
"I don’t have the Colt," he says, "but don't think I can't take you down."
"Sam's got the knife, Dean," Ruby says, pointed, almost taunting, and Dean's too goddamned tired for anger.
"I'd use my bare hands," he says, and Dean knows there's something showing in his face, because Ruby gets a whole step backward before he pins her to the wall.
"We're not playing this game anymore," he says. "You're done manipulating him."
"Dean -" Ruby says, and in that moment, just for a split second, he feels sorry for her, because there's no pulse beneath his hands, and that's more than enough to answer any lingering questions about what Sam and Ruby did while he was in hell.
"I won't hunt you down," he says, "I won't put you down like the bitch you are, but so help me god, if you ever come near him again, I will put you back where you belong so fast you won't remember the exorcism."
Ruby looks at him, and Dean doesn't see fear, but there's acknowledgement, that Sam's his and no one else’s, that she knows she isn't going to be pulling anything else while he's around.
"Christo," he says, just to watch her flinch. Ruby spits in his face, cold, hard fury, but Dean doesn't care any more. He doesn't need to watch her leave out the kitchen window to know that she's going, just washes his face in the cool, clear water at the sink and goes back to the gun.
Bobby doesn't say anything about the wall when he comes downstairs, just opens up the icebox and starts lining up condiments. He's half way through cutting slices off a ham when Dean thinks about it, maybe, and Bobby puts the knife down and unties the bag around the bread.
"Give him a couple hours, boy," he says. "Nobody wants to be seen like that."
Dean finishes the gun and cleans the wall, trying not to let the dichotomy of brain matter and pine sol push him over into grief or insanity or somewhere in between, and Bobby puts him to work on a Ford without making Dean ask for it. It takes ten minutes to scrub the engine grease off his hands, ten minutes where Dean doesn't have to think about anything past soap and calluses and how he ought to keep his nails a little shorter. After dinner, Dean's thinking about sharpening the knives when Bobby passes him a cup of chicken broth.
"See if you can get any of this into him," Bobby says.
Dean forgets to be cautious when he unlocks the bedroom door.
The first rush of power feels like his bones are burning, pushing through him, and Dean slams the door shut behind him, only noticing the sigils etched on the back for the first time, the rosary hanging in the window. Things that might be meant to keep something in instead of out. All the air in the room feels used up, heavy like before a thunderstorm, and Dean can't breathe for a long moment. Sam's eyes are dark in the dull light spilling in through the window, and Dean's suddenly more than aware of the fact that Sam could make him do anything.
"Sammy," he manages, deliberate, and all at once the tension breaks.
Sam looks small somehow, tangled up in sheets with some floral pattern that seems so goddamned out of place, and in spite of everything, Dean doesn't hesitate when he sits down on the bed, brushing Sam's sweat-soaked hair off his face.
"Hey, kiddo," he says, "I brought you dinner."
"Promise me you won't let me out of here," Sam says. There's only one explanation for how hoarse his voice is, and Dean's stomach turns over at it.
"I promise," he says, even though he's not so sure he means it, and holds the cup so Sam can drink.
"I could bring you some clean sheets," Dean says; the room smells of sour sweat and vomit, and it'd be easier, he thinks -
"Yeah," Sam says, then stiffens, abruptly. "You should go."
"It's fine -" Dean says, then feels the mug jerk in his hands, Sam's face changing.
"Get out," he says, low and desperate, and Dean barely gets the door shut behind him before he hears Sam slam into it, over and over, and realizes what, exactly, they're up against.
He's still sitting against the door when Bobby brings him a pillow and a couple of blankets, handing over the old, familiar sleeping bag. "First night's the hardest," he says, and Dean dreams about hell and the summer Sam turned sixteen. He's teaching him to drive in West Texas, the road spread out across the landscape like a heat mirage, and there's something Dean can't quite touch, a piece of everything that's just out of reach. You just gotta learn the feel of it, Dean says, watching Sam's unsteady hands on the wheel of the Impala, and the look of understanding on Sam's face when the whole thing clicks over tangles itself through everything, like the red grit from the road and the slow burn of the late afternoon sun.
When he wakes up, the door's open. Dean can see the curve of Sam's shoulder, his head bent over a book, and it's easier than it should be to cross the threshold. Dean doesn't feel awake just yet, close to sleepwalking, and the only thing that tells him he's awake the way the room smells, sharp, like burned sage and salt. Dreams don't hit all his senses, these days. Sam's still shaking, his shoulders too far from still, and he looks worn thin and exhausted, skin too pale, his book almost slipping from his fingers, but his sudden smile is bright and easy, familiar, something Dean didn't know he was missing until he got it back.
"Morning," Sam says, pushing the book up against his thighs, and Dean takes it from his hands a little absently and props it against his stomach.
"Catch me up," he says. Sam's voice is low in his ear, unthreatening. Dean kicks off his boots, an arm going around Sam's shoulders, holding him steady, and starts to read, the morning sun spilling warm through the window.
Sam sleeps for almost all of the second day, running a fever, but for the first time, Dean can imagine that he's sleeping off something else; too many days of driving, maybe, or the flu. He changes the sheets without waking Sam, rolling him over like Sam's six again, the kind of kid who could sleep through anything, and Bobby doesn't protest when Dean retreats to the bedroom half way through the afternoon. Dean's never been that much of a reader, some kind of left over high school rebellion. Fiction always felt like cheating, some kind of pipe dream escape route that only lasted long enough to make you want something better before it slipped away. Here, though, with Sam pressed up against his side, solid as gunmetal, Dean doesn't mind. He lets the words blur together, comfortable and warm, and it's just pop fiction but it's close to reassuring.
Sam wakes up after dinner just long enough to let Dean help him shower, and Dean's surprised to find that he doesn't feel the usual burst of anger at the bruises across Sam's chest, the long scratches down his arms. He finds himself thinking that they might have time to heal, that the world can save itself for once, and when Sam crawls back in bed, Dean doesn't feel the usual compulsion to stay close in case something happens.
"Hey," he says, finding Bobby in the living room, and they play a couple rounds of cards until the sun goes down, then Bobby finds some old movie on cable, black and white, and Dean's half way through checking Sam's email on the laptop when he something makes him click a bookmarks folder marked "houses." It could be hauntings, but it isn't, just a scattering of real estate listings, and Dean's half way through reading the fourth when he realizes that something's different.
Sam likes suburbia, two car garages and lawns and three bedroom, two bath houses, good schools and proximity to libraries, the kind of houses with walk in closets and front porches and perfect backyards that are great for dogs. The fantasy is familiar, the same way Dean wishes for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and Dean's never resented him for it. But these houses are small, in less than perfect neighborhoods, the kinds of apartments the realtors don't list on the front page of their website. The ceilings dip and the paint is peeling and they're tucked away in the bad parts of town. But they're the kind of houses they could afford, imperfect but settled, and Dean only has to look at one more before he's suddenly sure.
"Do you think you could forgive us for wanting out?" Dean says, finally, and it comes out a little lower than he means it to, more desperate than he knows, and for a minute, the only thing filling the silence is the low hum of the voices on TV.
"When Sam was younger," Bobby says, "I remember - that goddamned kid wanted to do something else every time I saw him. One month he thought he'd be a fire fighter, the next it'd be a doctor. I think he even wanted to be a cop for a while, although your dad put a stop to that pretty damn fast. And you, boy, you just wanted to be your father. But neither of the two of you ever realized you had the exact same idea for what you wanted to do. You've both been caught up in saving people since you were too young to know better."
Dean thinks about protesting, but Bobby puts a hand up. "There comes a point where being a hero means you can't save the things you love most in the world, and most people miss that one the first time around. Your father sure as hell did."
"I'm getting really goddamned tired of being a hero," Dean says, finally, and Bobby's smile is close to bitter.
"You got lucky, boy," Bobby says. "Maybe you missed it then, but you're seeing it now."
"Yeah," Dean says.
"I think you know I'd do just about anything for either of you boys," Bobby says. "So how about you tell me what you need and we'll see where it goes."
"I was thinking about a house," Dean says, and Bobby starts to laugh.
Sam sleeps like the dead at the best of times, let alone when he's healing, so when Dean gets back from the nearest library and drops twenty or thirty print outs on the bed, he's not expecting him to wake up. Watching him come awake slowly pulls at something in Dean's chest and twists, until he has to breathe a little faster, and Sam's slow grin as he realizes what's on the bed takes a little more of his air.
"You know I'm not well enough to jerk off yet," Sam jokes, drowsily, reaching out to pick up a piece of paper, and Dean's suddenly nervous in a way that he's only been once in recent memory, sitting in the Impala on a street in Palo Alto in the middle of the night, checking a house number over and over again.
"Kidding," Sam says, face softening when he sees the way Dean's looking. Dean swallows and forces himself over the edge.
"Pick a couple, Sammy," he says. "We're gonna look at them when you're well."
"Spirits?" Sam says. "Cases? Haunted houses?"
"Just houses," Dean says, quieter than he means to be, and Sam looks at him for an unbearably long moment before his face changes, sliding from shuttered and unreadable to an expression that it takes Dean a moment to place as joy.
"I'll find some," Sam says. "Thanks," and it's just an ordinary moment, but Dean feels freer than he has since he was twenty, when his family was still intact and the open road hadn't found a way to break his heart.
There are five pieces of paper on the kitchen table when Dean wakes up the next morning, lined up like highway signs or gravestones, and Dean closes his eyes and picks one without looking, a rental in Vermont. First stop he thinks, and packs the car that afternoon.
"Call me about the paperwork," Bobby says the next morning, because dead people can't buy houses. Sam falls asleep in the passenger seat after twenty minutes on the highway, and Dean looks over a few hours later to find Sam watching him, unmoving.
"Hey, Sammy," he says, letting his hand fall off the steering wheel to reach out for Sam's shoulder.
"Thank you," Sam says, quietly, and Dean doesn't have to ask to know that it's for saving him, for Ruby, for driving all morning, for the past twenty-five years.
"Burger King in a couple of exits," Dean says, and Sam smiles.
"I was thinking putting in a garden," he says, and for the first time, it doesn't hurt, because for the first time, Dean's a part of this, too.
"No goddamned zucchini," he says, finally, grinning, and Sam sits up in the passenger seat, laughing.
"Like you're ever going to eat your vegetables," he says, stretching. "I know you," and for once, Dean thinks, it's probably true.
The house in Vermont doesn't feel right, a couple in Pennsylvania aren't structurally sound, and they're six down on an eight house list when Sam gets lost in Ohio. They're winding through some neighborhood when Dean suddenly stops caring about finding the interstate again.
"Make a left," he says, and maybe it says something that Sam doesn't question it, but two houses down, there's a for sale sign hanging in a tiny strip of lawn. It's nondescript and too quiet for the neighborhood, a dull butter yellow with grey shutters that Dean knows ought to be white, but there's a maple turning red in the front lawn, and Sam shuts off the engine.
Dean finds the key underneath the doormat without saying anything at all, and when Sam lets himself in, Dean just knows. It needs paint and better lighting and Dean's going to have to replace the doorframe, but the afternoon light in the kitchen is warm. He watches Sam run a hand through the dust on the mantle and starts thinking about how to stabilize the stairs.
"I'll make an offer in the morning," Bobby says, when Dean calls him with the realtor's number and the details.
The house has been on the market for two years, and it takes a week to close and two more days to have the electricity and water turned back on. The first day, Dean rents a moving truck and finds enough furniture in the town's thrift store to get by; there's a mattress and a box spring, an old couch and a couple of bookshelves. He finds a dining room table and some mismatched chairs the next town over, and it's nowhere near everything - nowhere near anything - but it's a start, and when he pulls up out front, the lights are on in the front of the house.
"Up here," Sam says, and the house smells like fresh paint and lemon cleaner. The living room's cream and the kitchen's blue, and Dean finds Sam upstairs, painting the bedroom ceiling white. The ceiling's low enough that Sam has to duck a little, and he's covered in paint, unpracticed, a couple of white paint marks on the pale green walls.
"Welcome home," Sam says, "I ordered pizza, so I hope you found something to eat it on -" and when Dean steps forward, it's almost involuntary, something clicking into place. Sam stops talking.
"Hey," he says, quietly, looking at Sam's mouth, and when Sam's open, unguarded hands find his hips, Dean feels Sam start to shake. They stand close until the eaves press in, comforting, until Dean finds the courage to take one final risk and kisses him.
Sam tastes of coffee and heat, something clean and simple, but Dean notices the smudge of paint underneath the thumb he has against Sam's jaw before he really realizes that they're kissing, Sam's hands tangled in his hair, his mouth warm underneath Dean's own. Sam steps back against the wall, Dean following. When they come up for air, Sam starts to laugh, soft and breathless.
"Asshole," Sam says. "That was wet paint."
Dean realizes what just happened and stops breathing. There's a long, caught moment where they stare, Dean watching Sam's cheeks suddenly flush, and Dean finally clears his throat, hand finding its way to the back of his neck in spite of himself.
"I didn't know that I," Dean starts, trying to find someplace better to put his hands.
Sam looks at him for a moment longer before he turns the flickering overhead light off. Dean waits to let his eyes adjust, watching Sam take shape from the soft darkness, and when Sam's hands come down on his shoulders, he's not afraid to lean into the touch.
"I did," Sam says, simply. It's hard to follow him into the tiny bathroom, but Dean makes himself do it anyway.
Dean's eyes find all the unfamiliar things: colored towels and a real bottle of shampoo, a plastic laundry basket in the corner. He kicks off his boots because it fills up the space, lets his jacket fall across the threshold of the door and turns the shower on.
"Sam," he says, finally, when there isn't anything else. Sam meets his gaze in the mirror, his eyes the only clear thing through the steam.
"Yeah," Sam says, quietly, and his soft, steady smile is all Dean needs to know that they've both been missing this for years.
Their second kiss doesn't end, just spins out into something seamless, Sam licking Dean's lips apart, Dean's tongue finding Sam's teeth. Dean pulls Sam's shirt over his head almost without noticing and Sam's hands are at his belt, pushing down. He doesn't know when he started needing this, but it feels intense and unavoidable, a head on collision of the way Sam's skin feels underneath his hands and the knowledge that he's finally home.
Sam's making noise against his mouth, soft, high pitched sounds that go straight to Dean's cock. He barely registers the shock of hot water against his back as Sam pushes him into the shower, up against the wall.
Dean knows better than to think this can be slow, but it's easier than it should be to close his eyes and map out Sam's body with his hands, holding on. Sam's fingers linger where Dean's scars ought to be on their way down, tiny pauses that bring back more memories than the physical marks ever did, and Dean tilts his head back and breathes, Sam's mouth hot against his neck. He spreads his thighs on instinct, barely enough to make room. Sam's hands find his hips again, his whole body pushing in close. Dean's eyes open at the electroshock feeling of Sam's cock up against his, sliding into the hollow of his hip, and when Sam wraps a hand around both of their erections and meets his eyes, smiling, Dean comes like Sam's asking him for it and forgets how to breathe all over again.
Sam follows thirty seconds later, pressed in so close Dean can see his pupils go wide. Dean has to look away for a second, following the water tracing over the familiar curves of Sam's face. It's just the safe side of out of control, but when he meets Sam's eyes again, Dean's surprised to realize that he's okay. That they're okay.
Sam stays in close, the corner of his mouth pulling up in a way that Dean recognizes as happiness. When he pushes Dean back with a hand on his shoulder, he's still smiling.
"I have to go pay for the pizza," he says, with one last kiss, and Dean closes his eyes and listens to him dry off and take the stairs.
Kissing Sam is a little like finding clean clothes hanging in the closet, knowing he still has to fix the second step from the top, and if Dean's terrified at the top of the stairs, every step down makes it a little easier, until he's standing in the kitchen, watching Sam flip open a pizza box and mess with a string of Christmas lights.
"The thing is," Sam says, not quite turning around, "it's been there since I came back."
"Longer," Dean says, rough, and it's easy to step behind Sam and plug the lights in, watching the pinpoint reflections in the glass, harder to admit it. "It's been longer."
"Longer," Sam says, quiet, and when he turns around, it's into Dean, like they're finally fitting together.
"I kind of," he says. "You know," and Dean looks out over his shoulder into their backyard, the dim glow of the neighbors' lights behind them, steady in the dark.
"Yeah," Dean says, "I know," and smiles.
This is set after where we currently are (4.06) and contains some incredibly minor spoilers for Yellow Fever, but it's not a coda. This was vaguely inspired by one of winterlive's insightful darkside!Sam comments. Kudos to Clex for the beta.
Chinook, Sam/Dean, R, 5100 words. Wanting out, and getting there. Also: the pitfalls of using your demonic powers.
Like the salmon. And maybe the wind.
Dean finds the first real estate magazine when Sam pulls off the highway into an I-75 rest stop, stuffed down between the cushions of the backseat and buried underneath one of Sam's jackets. He almost tosses it along with the breakfast sandwich wrappers and empty coffee cups rattling around in the backseat, but something makes him stop and thumb through it. Sam carrying around pictures of houses isn't exactly something new, it's just a habit, like the way Sam takes his coffee - black with three sugars, a habit left over from twenty years of listening to someone else's drive-through window requests - or the inevitable slow descent of his hands down the steering wheel when he's been driving for hours. It's been a long time since Dean worried about it, so the red circles on pages 3 and 16 aren't terrifying, like they would have been at 21, and they don't ignite anything close to anger, like they might have at 25. They're just there - a two bedroom, one bath, outside Durham, and an apartment with a fireplace and an office, with a view of a park.
Dean looks up, not really thinking about anything - six more hours to Columbus, gas ought to be cheaper outside of Pittsburgh. When Sam moves into his field of vision, Dean's eyes find him automatically, walking back across the parking lot with two cups of coffee and a newspaper, turning up his collar against the sharp October wind.
Dean takes his coffee and passes over the magazine with an easy grin, pushing open the car door with his hip, reaching for his keys.
"Keep your goddamned house porn out of my backseat," Dean says, without any bite to it, and when Sam laughs, the last year seems inconceivable, a distant past in the rearview, and ever having been afraid of his brother seems a little inconceivable, too.
"Asshole," Sam says, reaching for his seatbelt, and Dean forgets all about the underlined summaries and boxed in pictures.
Then Sam waves off coffee at breakfast.
"Not hungry," he says, and frowns at the newspaper, rubbing his thumb over a section of text. "Their printing press is off."
Dean glances at the article before Sam folds the paper up. It looks fine to him, clear columns and grey print, but Sam's difficult to interpret at the best of times; their lines might be uneven, the word order might be wrong. Dean focuses on the stack of pancakes in front of him and ignores Sam, coding the colored sugar packets and rearranging the jelly in rows.
Sam's still restless in the car, obvious in the way he touches the fan, the radio, messes with the dial without changing the station. The window goes up then down twice, quarter of the way then just cracked, and Sam won't stop messing with the handle, vaguely irritating in Dean's peripheral vision. Dean spends five miles thinking a little absently about switching him to decaf before he remembers that Sam hasn't had any coffee at all.
Dean's thinking about saying something by the time they cross the Nebraska state line, but twenty-something years of this have taught him enough about Sam and the road to know better. He pulls off at a weighing station instead, nosing the Impala behind the trucks, up against the woods lining the back of the parking lot.
"I'm gonna stretch my legs," he says, hoping Sam will take the hint and walk it off.
When Dean comes back from a circle around some picnic area, kicking an abandoned pepsi bottle, he finds Sam on his knees in the thin line of grass before the trees, throwing up, and realizes that something's really fucking wrong.
Dean finds a jug of water in the trunk and kneels behind Sam, waiting for him to finish before he pours some water into Sam's cupped hands so he can wash his face. It takes him a second to process that Sam's shaking so badly that everything he's pouring is just spilling over. He's about to ask if it's maybe something he ate, does he feel like he's got the stomach flu when Sam looks at him over his shoulder and recoils, sharp and a little abrupt, and that's when Dean realizes that his eyes aren't the right color. Sam's fake driver's licenses all say hazel, but Dean knows it's closer to grey-brown. Now, they're too dark, his pupils blown. They're not demon-black or yellow or, god forbid, white, but there's something not right. Sam rubs his hands up and down his thighs, twice, and shuts his eyes like he's trying to ignore something, breathing hard.
"I'm hallucinating," he says, almost matter of fact.
"You think you have what I had?" Dean says, fear sudden and worse than almost anything he felt under the constant rush of adrenaline, and it's almost a relief when Sam shakes his head.
"I can -" he laughs, tight, almost bitter. "There's a demon the next town over and I can feel her."
"Bobby's maybe a hundred miles away," Dean says, fighting both the urge to lean in and the urge to pull away, and Sam makes the decision for him when he pulls himself up using the hood of the Impala and tugs the passenger side door open.
"Yeah," Sam says. "You drive."
They have to stop three more times for Sam to throw up, but even so, Dean makes it in an hour, pushing the speed limit, taking back roads. By the time he pulls into the yard, Sam's shaking hard enough that Dean can feel it through the seat.
"Stay here," he says, an old habit, and Dean feels a little guilty over the sheer relief of seeing Bobby taking the front porch steps two at a time.
"Something's wrong with Sam," he says, and Bobby pulls open the door and peels off two sweat-soaked blankets to wrap his hands around Sam's shoulders.
"Hey, Bobby," Sam says, and Dean watches him squeeze his eyes closed.
"Goddamn it, Sam," Bobby says, a tone that's familiar enough to pull at something in Dean's chest, and for once, Dean's okay with letting someone else take half of Sam's weight.
They get him into the twin in the guest bedroom, the one Dean turned down point blank at sixteen, the first time they got left here, because there wasn't enough room for Sam in with him. You're older, first choice, Bobby had said, an idea so foreign Dean hadn't known what to do with it. It had felt good at the time that Sam had said no too, even though back then, Dean had been pretty sure it was just because he didn't want to be left alone. Dean hasn't always been Sam's favorite - it took one long summer just the wrong side of thirteen for him to change his mind, when John left for too long and Dean was the only alternative available - but these days, he finds himself wondering if maybe it was because Sam wanted to be with him, after all.
Dean's not really sure when Bobby stopped offering, but Sam's always taken the couch and he's always gotten the sleeping bag. It's been a long time since he's been in this room, maybe four years since he didn't have to worry about sharing at all, and Dean's glad when Bobby pulls him out into the hallway and clicks the door shut behind them.
"He's not possessed," Dean says. "And we weren't working a haunting, but he says -"
"I've seen the way he's shaking before, Dean," Bobby says, looking older than Dean's ever seen him. "Those are DTs."
Dean thinks about every fight they've ever had about this, slamming his fist into Sam's jaw, and whether withdrawal from evil is going to look better or worse than the time that Bobby locked John in the downstairs bathroom and Dean spent a week waiting it out, playing solitaire in the kitchen while his father became someone recognizable again.
"Awesome," Dean says, low and maybe a little vicious, and Bobby puts a hand back on the doorknob.
"I'm going to sedate him," he says. "And Dean -"
"Yeah," Dean says, kind of flat.
"There's a Smith and Wesson on the kitchen table," Bobby says. "Can't quite get it to work right."
"I'll take a look," Dean says.
He leaves their things on the sofa and doesn't think about anything while he takes the gun apart, just the steady click of the mechanisms in his hands. It's not a familiar gun, not one out of Bobby's collection. The barrel's not in good shape but it's solid, and the grip fits up against the heel of his hand like it should, wood warming up beneath his palm. Dean thinks about how Sam's partial to the Beretta, but he knows he'd like this gun - it's easy, no kickback, and it feels good in Dean's hands. The problem's maybe too much gunpowder and too little attention, maybe the burr Dean can feel on the inside of the barrel if he puts the pad of his thumb in just the right place, and he's thinking about filing it down when he finds his hands loading the gun without thinking about it, his mind a few seconds behind. Dean puts four bullets into the gun and puts all four of them into Ruby, gore spattered across Bobby's blue wallpaper, and he notices a little clinically that she stumbles but doesn't bleed.
"Damn it, Dean," she says, and the fifth one goes through her forehead, the sixth into her heart.
"I don’t have the Colt," he says, "but don't think I can't take you down."
"Sam's got the knife, Dean," Ruby says, pointed, almost taunting, and Dean's too goddamned tired for anger.
"I'd use my bare hands," he says, and Dean knows there's something showing in his face, because Ruby gets a whole step backward before he pins her to the wall.
"We're not playing this game anymore," he says. "You're done manipulating him."
"Dean -" Ruby says, and in that moment, just for a split second, he feels sorry for her, because there's no pulse beneath his hands, and that's more than enough to answer any lingering questions about what Sam and Ruby did while he was in hell.
"I won't hunt you down," he says, "I won't put you down like the bitch you are, but so help me god, if you ever come near him again, I will put you back where you belong so fast you won't remember the exorcism."
Ruby looks at him, and Dean doesn't see fear, but there's acknowledgement, that Sam's his and no one else’s, that she knows she isn't going to be pulling anything else while he's around.
"Christo," he says, just to watch her flinch. Ruby spits in his face, cold, hard fury, but Dean doesn't care any more. He doesn't need to watch her leave out the kitchen window to know that she's going, just washes his face in the cool, clear water at the sink and goes back to the gun.
Bobby doesn't say anything about the wall when he comes downstairs, just opens up the icebox and starts lining up condiments. He's half way through cutting slices off a ham when Dean thinks about it, maybe, and Bobby puts the knife down and unties the bag around the bread.
"Give him a couple hours, boy," he says. "Nobody wants to be seen like that."
Dean finishes the gun and cleans the wall, trying not to let the dichotomy of brain matter and pine sol push him over into grief or insanity or somewhere in between, and Bobby puts him to work on a Ford without making Dean ask for it. It takes ten minutes to scrub the engine grease off his hands, ten minutes where Dean doesn't have to think about anything past soap and calluses and how he ought to keep his nails a little shorter. After dinner, Dean's thinking about sharpening the knives when Bobby passes him a cup of chicken broth.
"See if you can get any of this into him," Bobby says.
Dean forgets to be cautious when he unlocks the bedroom door.
The first rush of power feels like his bones are burning, pushing through him, and Dean slams the door shut behind him, only noticing the sigils etched on the back for the first time, the rosary hanging in the window. Things that might be meant to keep something in instead of out. All the air in the room feels used up, heavy like before a thunderstorm, and Dean can't breathe for a long moment. Sam's eyes are dark in the dull light spilling in through the window, and Dean's suddenly more than aware of the fact that Sam could make him do anything.
"Sammy," he manages, deliberate, and all at once the tension breaks.
Sam looks small somehow, tangled up in sheets with some floral pattern that seems so goddamned out of place, and in spite of everything, Dean doesn't hesitate when he sits down on the bed, brushing Sam's sweat-soaked hair off his face.
"Hey, kiddo," he says, "I brought you dinner."
"Promise me you won't let me out of here," Sam says. There's only one explanation for how hoarse his voice is, and Dean's stomach turns over at it.
"I promise," he says, even though he's not so sure he means it, and holds the cup so Sam can drink.
"I could bring you some clean sheets," Dean says; the room smells of sour sweat and vomit, and it'd be easier, he thinks -
"Yeah," Sam says, then stiffens, abruptly. "You should go."
"It's fine -" Dean says, then feels the mug jerk in his hands, Sam's face changing.
"Get out," he says, low and desperate, and Dean barely gets the door shut behind him before he hears Sam slam into it, over and over, and realizes what, exactly, they're up against.
He's still sitting against the door when Bobby brings him a pillow and a couple of blankets, handing over the old, familiar sleeping bag. "First night's the hardest," he says, and Dean dreams about hell and the summer Sam turned sixteen. He's teaching him to drive in West Texas, the road spread out across the landscape like a heat mirage, and there's something Dean can't quite touch, a piece of everything that's just out of reach. You just gotta learn the feel of it, Dean says, watching Sam's unsteady hands on the wheel of the Impala, and the look of understanding on Sam's face when the whole thing clicks over tangles itself through everything, like the red grit from the road and the slow burn of the late afternoon sun.
When he wakes up, the door's open. Dean can see the curve of Sam's shoulder, his head bent over a book, and it's easier than it should be to cross the threshold. Dean doesn't feel awake just yet, close to sleepwalking, and the only thing that tells him he's awake the way the room smells, sharp, like burned sage and salt. Dreams don't hit all his senses, these days. Sam's still shaking, his shoulders too far from still, and he looks worn thin and exhausted, skin too pale, his book almost slipping from his fingers, but his sudden smile is bright and easy, familiar, something Dean didn't know he was missing until he got it back.
"Morning," Sam says, pushing the book up against his thighs, and Dean takes it from his hands a little absently and props it against his stomach.
"Catch me up," he says. Sam's voice is low in his ear, unthreatening. Dean kicks off his boots, an arm going around Sam's shoulders, holding him steady, and starts to read, the morning sun spilling warm through the window.
Sam sleeps for almost all of the second day, running a fever, but for the first time, Dean can imagine that he's sleeping off something else; too many days of driving, maybe, or the flu. He changes the sheets without waking Sam, rolling him over like Sam's six again, the kind of kid who could sleep through anything, and Bobby doesn't protest when Dean retreats to the bedroom half way through the afternoon. Dean's never been that much of a reader, some kind of left over high school rebellion. Fiction always felt like cheating, some kind of pipe dream escape route that only lasted long enough to make you want something better before it slipped away. Here, though, with Sam pressed up against his side, solid as gunmetal, Dean doesn't mind. He lets the words blur together, comfortable and warm, and it's just pop fiction but it's close to reassuring.
Sam wakes up after dinner just long enough to let Dean help him shower, and Dean's surprised to find that he doesn't feel the usual burst of anger at the bruises across Sam's chest, the long scratches down his arms. He finds himself thinking that they might have time to heal, that the world can save itself for once, and when Sam crawls back in bed, Dean doesn't feel the usual compulsion to stay close in case something happens.
"Hey," he says, finding Bobby in the living room, and they play a couple rounds of cards until the sun goes down, then Bobby finds some old movie on cable, black and white, and Dean's half way through checking Sam's email on the laptop when he something makes him click a bookmarks folder marked "houses." It could be hauntings, but it isn't, just a scattering of real estate listings, and Dean's half way through reading the fourth when he realizes that something's different.
Sam likes suburbia, two car garages and lawns and three bedroom, two bath houses, good schools and proximity to libraries, the kind of houses with walk in closets and front porches and perfect backyards that are great for dogs. The fantasy is familiar, the same way Dean wishes for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and Dean's never resented him for it. But these houses are small, in less than perfect neighborhoods, the kinds of apartments the realtors don't list on the front page of their website. The ceilings dip and the paint is peeling and they're tucked away in the bad parts of town. But they're the kind of houses they could afford, imperfect but settled, and Dean only has to look at one more before he's suddenly sure.
"Do you think you could forgive us for wanting out?" Dean says, finally, and it comes out a little lower than he means it to, more desperate than he knows, and for a minute, the only thing filling the silence is the low hum of the voices on TV.
"When Sam was younger," Bobby says, "I remember - that goddamned kid wanted to do something else every time I saw him. One month he thought he'd be a fire fighter, the next it'd be a doctor. I think he even wanted to be a cop for a while, although your dad put a stop to that pretty damn fast. And you, boy, you just wanted to be your father. But neither of the two of you ever realized you had the exact same idea for what you wanted to do. You've both been caught up in saving people since you were too young to know better."
Dean thinks about protesting, but Bobby puts a hand up. "There comes a point where being a hero means you can't save the things you love most in the world, and most people miss that one the first time around. Your father sure as hell did."
"I'm getting really goddamned tired of being a hero," Dean says, finally, and Bobby's smile is close to bitter.
"You got lucky, boy," Bobby says. "Maybe you missed it then, but you're seeing it now."
"Yeah," Dean says.
"I think you know I'd do just about anything for either of you boys," Bobby says. "So how about you tell me what you need and we'll see where it goes."
"I was thinking about a house," Dean says, and Bobby starts to laugh.
Sam sleeps like the dead at the best of times, let alone when he's healing, so when Dean gets back from the nearest library and drops twenty or thirty print outs on the bed, he's not expecting him to wake up. Watching him come awake slowly pulls at something in Dean's chest and twists, until he has to breathe a little faster, and Sam's slow grin as he realizes what's on the bed takes a little more of his air.
"You know I'm not well enough to jerk off yet," Sam jokes, drowsily, reaching out to pick up a piece of paper, and Dean's suddenly nervous in a way that he's only been once in recent memory, sitting in the Impala on a street in Palo Alto in the middle of the night, checking a house number over and over again.
"Kidding," Sam says, face softening when he sees the way Dean's looking. Dean swallows and forces himself over the edge.
"Pick a couple, Sammy," he says. "We're gonna look at them when you're well."
"Spirits?" Sam says. "Cases? Haunted houses?"
"Just houses," Dean says, quieter than he means to be, and Sam looks at him for an unbearably long moment before his face changes, sliding from shuttered and unreadable to an expression that it takes Dean a moment to place as joy.
"I'll find some," Sam says. "Thanks," and it's just an ordinary moment, but Dean feels freer than he has since he was twenty, when his family was still intact and the open road hadn't found a way to break his heart.
There are five pieces of paper on the kitchen table when Dean wakes up the next morning, lined up like highway signs or gravestones, and Dean closes his eyes and picks one without looking, a rental in Vermont. First stop he thinks, and packs the car that afternoon.
"Call me about the paperwork," Bobby says the next morning, because dead people can't buy houses. Sam falls asleep in the passenger seat after twenty minutes on the highway, and Dean looks over a few hours later to find Sam watching him, unmoving.
"Hey, Sammy," he says, letting his hand fall off the steering wheel to reach out for Sam's shoulder.
"Thank you," Sam says, quietly, and Dean doesn't have to ask to know that it's for saving him, for Ruby, for driving all morning, for the past twenty-five years.
"Burger King in a couple of exits," Dean says, and Sam smiles.
"I was thinking putting in a garden," he says, and for the first time, it doesn't hurt, because for the first time, Dean's a part of this, too.
"No goddamned zucchini," he says, finally, grinning, and Sam sits up in the passenger seat, laughing.
"Like you're ever going to eat your vegetables," he says, stretching. "I know you," and for once, Dean thinks, it's probably true.
The house in Vermont doesn't feel right, a couple in Pennsylvania aren't structurally sound, and they're six down on an eight house list when Sam gets lost in Ohio. They're winding through some neighborhood when Dean suddenly stops caring about finding the interstate again.
"Make a left," he says, and maybe it says something that Sam doesn't question it, but two houses down, there's a for sale sign hanging in a tiny strip of lawn. It's nondescript and too quiet for the neighborhood, a dull butter yellow with grey shutters that Dean knows ought to be white, but there's a maple turning red in the front lawn, and Sam shuts off the engine.
Dean finds the key underneath the doormat without saying anything at all, and when Sam lets himself in, Dean just knows. It needs paint and better lighting and Dean's going to have to replace the doorframe, but the afternoon light in the kitchen is warm. He watches Sam run a hand through the dust on the mantle and starts thinking about how to stabilize the stairs.
"I'll make an offer in the morning," Bobby says, when Dean calls him with the realtor's number and the details.
The house has been on the market for two years, and it takes a week to close and two more days to have the electricity and water turned back on. The first day, Dean rents a moving truck and finds enough furniture in the town's thrift store to get by; there's a mattress and a box spring, an old couch and a couple of bookshelves. He finds a dining room table and some mismatched chairs the next town over, and it's nowhere near everything - nowhere near anything - but it's a start, and when he pulls up out front, the lights are on in the front of the house.
"Up here," Sam says, and the house smells like fresh paint and lemon cleaner. The living room's cream and the kitchen's blue, and Dean finds Sam upstairs, painting the bedroom ceiling white. The ceiling's low enough that Sam has to duck a little, and he's covered in paint, unpracticed, a couple of white paint marks on the pale green walls.
"Welcome home," Sam says, "I ordered pizza, so I hope you found something to eat it on -" and when Dean steps forward, it's almost involuntary, something clicking into place. Sam stops talking.
"Hey," he says, quietly, looking at Sam's mouth, and when Sam's open, unguarded hands find his hips, Dean feels Sam start to shake. They stand close until the eaves press in, comforting, until Dean finds the courage to take one final risk and kisses him.
Sam tastes of coffee and heat, something clean and simple, but Dean notices the smudge of paint underneath the thumb he has against Sam's jaw before he really realizes that they're kissing, Sam's hands tangled in his hair, his mouth warm underneath Dean's own. Sam steps back against the wall, Dean following. When they come up for air, Sam starts to laugh, soft and breathless.
"Asshole," Sam says. "That was wet paint."
Dean realizes what just happened and stops breathing. There's a long, caught moment where they stare, Dean watching Sam's cheeks suddenly flush, and Dean finally clears his throat, hand finding its way to the back of his neck in spite of himself.
"I didn't know that I," Dean starts, trying to find someplace better to put his hands.
Sam looks at him for a moment longer before he turns the flickering overhead light off. Dean waits to let his eyes adjust, watching Sam take shape from the soft darkness, and when Sam's hands come down on his shoulders, he's not afraid to lean into the touch.
"I did," Sam says, simply. It's hard to follow him into the tiny bathroom, but Dean makes himself do it anyway.
Dean's eyes find all the unfamiliar things: colored towels and a real bottle of shampoo, a plastic laundry basket in the corner. He kicks off his boots because it fills up the space, lets his jacket fall across the threshold of the door and turns the shower on.
"Sam," he says, finally, when there isn't anything else. Sam meets his gaze in the mirror, his eyes the only clear thing through the steam.
"Yeah," Sam says, quietly, and his soft, steady smile is all Dean needs to know that they've both been missing this for years.
Their second kiss doesn't end, just spins out into something seamless, Sam licking Dean's lips apart, Dean's tongue finding Sam's teeth. Dean pulls Sam's shirt over his head almost without noticing and Sam's hands are at his belt, pushing down. He doesn't know when he started needing this, but it feels intense and unavoidable, a head on collision of the way Sam's skin feels underneath his hands and the knowledge that he's finally home.
Sam's making noise against his mouth, soft, high pitched sounds that go straight to Dean's cock. He barely registers the shock of hot water against his back as Sam pushes him into the shower, up against the wall.
Dean knows better than to think this can be slow, but it's easier than it should be to close his eyes and map out Sam's body with his hands, holding on. Sam's fingers linger where Dean's scars ought to be on their way down, tiny pauses that bring back more memories than the physical marks ever did, and Dean tilts his head back and breathes, Sam's mouth hot against his neck. He spreads his thighs on instinct, barely enough to make room. Sam's hands find his hips again, his whole body pushing in close. Dean's eyes open at the electroshock feeling of Sam's cock up against his, sliding into the hollow of his hip, and when Sam wraps a hand around both of their erections and meets his eyes, smiling, Dean comes like Sam's asking him for it and forgets how to breathe all over again.
Sam follows thirty seconds later, pressed in so close Dean can see his pupils go wide. Dean has to look away for a second, following the water tracing over the familiar curves of Sam's face. It's just the safe side of out of control, but when he meets Sam's eyes again, Dean's surprised to realize that he's okay. That they're okay.
Sam stays in close, the corner of his mouth pulling up in a way that Dean recognizes as happiness. When he pushes Dean back with a hand on his shoulder, he's still smiling.
"I have to go pay for the pizza," he says, with one last kiss, and Dean closes his eyes and listens to him dry off and take the stairs.
Kissing Sam is a little like finding clean clothes hanging in the closet, knowing he still has to fix the second step from the top, and if Dean's terrified at the top of the stairs, every step down makes it a little easier, until he's standing in the kitchen, watching Sam flip open a pizza box and mess with a string of Christmas lights.
"The thing is," Sam says, not quite turning around, "it's been there since I came back."
"Longer," Dean says, rough, and it's easy to step behind Sam and plug the lights in, watching the pinpoint reflections in the glass, harder to admit it. "It's been longer."
"Longer," Sam says, quiet, and when he turns around, it's into Dean, like they're finally fitting together.
"I kind of," he says. "You know," and Dean looks out over his shoulder into their backyard, the dim glow of the neighbors' lights behind them, steady in the dark.
"Yeah," Dean says, "I know," and smiles.