Fic: Sleeping Desire (Sam/Dean, NC-17) Part 2 of 2
Back to Part One
*****
Sam comes to slowly, head aching like there are spikes driving into his brain. He doesn’t open his eyes or change his breathing, uses his other senses to figure out where he is. He can feel the rope around his wrists and ankles, he’s upright, tied to a chair. It smells like a basement, there’s a little dampness and the smell of laundry detergent, the specific scent of the one Amelia had always insisted on using. Probably in Amelia’s house then. There are no sounds, until he hears water running in the laundry sink, it’s hitting metal, some kind of bucket he guesses.
There’s no Amelia, and no Riot. It’s just him and Don in the basement.
“I know you’re awake, Sam,” Don says, grunting with the effort of hefting the large bucket out of the sink. “Amelia’s out of town on her rural rounds overnight, so let’s get the party started.”
“What are you doing, Don?” Sam asks, trying to remain calm.
“I’m getting payback,” Don says in a monotone.
“Payback for what?” Sam asks, getting even more concerned as he can see Don’s face, blank and expressionless.
“For you taking my woman away from me,” Don says.
“I didn’t though, she’s still yours, like you said, she chose you. Please, just let me go, I won’t come back,” Sam says.
“I don’t believe you. You can beg all you want, but I’m getting what I’m due,” Don says in a flat voice, devoid of all humanity. He turns on some loud thrash metal on a boom box, presumably to drown out the noise that Sam will be making.
Sam’s been here and done this way too many times. He knows he just has to endure. Most human torturers are very uncreative, no one ever comes close to what Lucifer and Michael had been able to come up with in the Cage. He lets himself dissociate and slips into an observer mode. It frustrates Don, because no matter what he throws at Sam, he doesn’t get any responses like he wants. Waterboarding, slicing him with sharp knives, ripping out the stitches Amelia had given him, even a few pulled-out toenails, it’s all so routine, boring even. Sure, Sam is bloody and beaten, but that’s just part of how it goes.
“I don’t love her, I don’t know if I ever did, she was just a substitute. Just like I was a substitute for you I guess. Don, she really loves you,” Sam says, voice even and sure. He’s proud of himself for not begging or falling apart or telling the truth Amelia had spilled last night.
“No-no she doesn’t, she still loves you. It’s different, she’s different, you fucked up everything, Sam!” Don yells.
“You learned how to do all this in Afghanistan, because they did it to you. I get it man, I do. I’m sorry it happened this way, you didn’t deserve this, neither did she. I’ve only ever loved one person, and I shouldn’t have made her think I could love her like that.”
“I can,” Don says.
“Then do it, she told me last night that she loves you,” Sam says.
“She did?” Don lowers the knife he was raising towards Sam’s forearm.
“Yeah, and I told her I was glad for her, for both of you. We all ended up back with the person we love the most in the whole world, right?”
Sam smiles as he sees Dean sneaking in, and hitting Don from behind. He has no idea if Dean heard what he’d just said to Don. There’s a scuffle and he can’t see what happens and he kind of forgets to worry about it.
“Dean? How’d you know where to find me?” Sam asks as Dean’s cutting him loose from the restraints.
“You didn’t call me while I was driving like you said you wanted to. And you weren’t waiting at the Buc-Ee’s like we said, so I knew something was up. I found her address listed in the phone book. Figured something had gone down to make you not call me. Didn’t think it’d be the army man though.”
“You didn’t kill him, right?” Sam asks, peering over Dean’s shoulder at the still figure on the basement floor. He can see the glimmer of blood all over Don’s face and the cement too.
Dean growls under his breath. “I should have, given what he did to you, but no, I just knocked him out. I’m going to tie him up in the place he had you here in the basement. She’ll find him when she gets back, and he’ll probably tell her you did it to him.”
“That’s fine, turns out she was still having trouble moving on,” Sam says, helping Dean secure Don to the chair. He pulls the ropes extra tight because he can’t help himself, the guy was just torturing him after all.
“I’m not one bit surprised,” Dean says, pulling Sam up to standing and herding him up the basement stairs.
“Oh because I’m just that lovable and unforgettable, huh?” Sam says over his shoulder, so glad to be getting out of here with Dean.
“Pretty much, yeah,” Dean says.
Sam pauses on the front porch as he closes the door behind him, not sure what to do with that comment. “I don’t know what happened, Dean. I remember the note I left you back in Kentucky, and walking out of the motel room, and that’s it. A month later I woke up on this porch, and I was all beaten up. Amelia stitched me up.”
“Let’s just get out of here, we’re going to have to stop and get you re-stitched again.”
“Can we just go home and you do it there?” Sam says, uncaring that he’s whining.
“It’s your face, Sam, I don’t want you to have a scar if I can help it,” Dean says.
“I’ll just grow my hair longer or something,” Sam says.
“Sam,” Dean says.
“Fine, whatever, but you do it,” Sam says. “You’re better at sutures than most ER docs.”
“I am, but what about the rest of this, what he did to you, I ought to go back and do the same to him.”
“He was just venting, hope he gets some help from the VA or whatever, the dude has issues, which is understandable after being a POW for two years.”
“Doesn’t excuse what he did to you though,” Dean says.
“No, it doesn’t excuse it, but I’m saying that I understand it, from personal experience.”
Dean clears his throat, obviously thinking about all the personal experience his little brother has with torture. “I still think you’re being way too forgiving,” Dean says. “In my opinion.”
“And you’re not? Dean you just drove ten hours to pick me up when I left you with that horrible note more than a month ago.”
“It’s because it wasn’t you, Sammy,” Dean says.
Sam falls asleep in the Impala, not caring that there’s no headrest. And Dean doesn’t explain the rest until after they’re in a motel outside of Lubbock, pizza on the way, cold beers uncapped. He’s holding Sam’s face, checking the damage and digging in their med kit for the container of sutures.
Sam watches his brother over at the sink, washing his hands like a surgeon, taking care to scrub under his fingernails. He can see Dean’s face in the mirror, and the bags under his eyes are truly impressive. He hasn’t been sleeping, probably not much since Sam disappeared.
Dean turns and sees Sam watching him, he smiles, putting on a brave big brother face mostly out of habit. But Sam saw how his own face looks, he’s practically skeletal, and with all those cuts, his face is seriously messed up. It’s going to take a lot of work to stitch him back together. But that’s what Dean does, and that’s what Sam needs.
“You want a pill before I start?” Dean asks, handing him one from the med kit.
Sam grabs for Dean’s duffel and pulls out the whisky bottle. He uncaps it and drinks down a mouthful or two with the pill. It burns a familiar fiery path down his throat. He looks up at his big brother standing over him with that concerned look on his face. Sam feels his eyes well up with tears that he didn’t expect.
Both of Dean’s hands are holding his face then, thumbs swiping the tears away from Sam’s cheeks. “You’re okay, Sammy. You’re right here with me.”
Sam can’t help the relieved sob that he lets out, he closes his eyes and lowers his head, butting it into Dean’s stomach. Dean’s hands rub gentle circles on his shoulders. “I got you, little brother, don’t worry, I got you.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam mumbles into the soft flannel shirt covering his brother’s belly. He wishes he had enough energy to lift his arms and wrap them around Dean’s waist.
Dean leans back a little and one hand goes under Sam’s chin, gently tipping it up. “You have nothing to be sorry about. You are not going to believe what happened. I’ll tell you the whole thing while I’m stitching you up, okay?”
Sam lets the weight of his head sink into Dean’s hold and then he nods. Dean lets go to pick up the suture kit and Sam takes a deep breath in, filling himself up with the comforting and familiar smell of his brother.
“So you remember the cryptid we were hunting, right?”
Sam nods just before Dean takes his first stitch.
“You were right about it being related to djinn. All the people that were missing in the town had blown up their lives in a spectacular way before they disappeared. It turns out that the thing had a poison that made people want to get away from everyone they loved. It then would make them forget their previous lives or even who they were if they got enough of the poison. It was basically a way to isolate people so it could easily feed.”
“So I got stung?”
“Yeah, but since we killed the thing, you at least didn’t get the life force sucked out of you.”
“I blew up my life, lost my memory and myself, but at least I didn’t die, got it.”
“That note you left me was the main clue that you’d been stung. I mean, the fight we had wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, and sure sometimes we overreact to stuff, but I wasn’t buying it that you were gone for good.”
“God, I’m so sorry, Dean.”
“I’ve been searching for more than a month, Sammy. I had nothing to go on, you didn’t have your phone or use any of our credit cards. You just disappeared off the map.”
“I wonder where I was, and how I ended up in Kermit on Amelia’s porch? There’s some random flashes of stuff, but none of it makes sense.”
“There was the guy, remember, the one we rescued? I talked to him a couple of days ago and he said his memories came back in a very strange way. The least important ones resurfaced first, the guy didn’t remember his wife of thirty years until just this week.”
“That explains why I ended up in Kermit instead of Lebanon.”
“I’m guessing you were probably pool hustling to survive. Most of this non-Don related stuff looks like classic bar-fight injuries to me.”
“Yeah, I figured it was a bar fight given my hamburger knuckles,” Sam lifts his right hand and tries to flex his fingers. Dean takes his hand and examines it closely under the light. He whistles softly under his breath when he sees the state of Sam’s knuckles.
“Can you move all the fingers? C’mon, show me,” Dean says.
Sam complies, making a fist even though bending his fingers is excruciating.
“Well, probably no tendon damage, that’s good news, right? Any sharp pain, like a broken bone, or is it just the skin?”
Sam flexes and stretches his hand, there’s some deep bruising, but nothing sharp, the skin is the issue. “Just the skin, this is stupid, let me do it myself.” He tries to grab the box of bandaids out of the med kit and fumbles it.
Dean picks the box up and digs for the bendy-knuckle bandaids they always keep in stock. “Did I come all this way just to watch you try to put bandaids on your own freaking right hand, no I did not, but if that’s what you really want-go for it.”
“I could have taken the bus,” Sam says with a pout, sticking his hand out on the bedside table so Dean can apply the bandaids.
“Dude, you wouldn’t have been on the bus, you’d still be tied to that chair, with that asshole doing who knows what else to you,” Dean says.
“You’re…you’re right. I’m just sorry you had to drive all this way.”
“Hearing what you said to that asshole in his basement, I’m feeling…no, now I know it was worth the trip.”
“What’d you hear?” Sam asks, struggling to remember what just happened a few hours ago in Amelia’s basement.
“You were talking about how you’d both ended up with the right people,” Dean says.
“I remember, I said we ended up with the person we each love most in the world, yeah,” Sam says.
“You said that to someone, about me, and I happened to hear it. But I didn’t know, if you were just laying it on to get to him or if that-if you meant…aw, never mind,” Dean trails off and steps away, his hand went to the back of his neck, in the familiar self-comforting give-away.
“I meant it like you thought, Dean. Did you hear the part about how I was happy, the happiest I’ve been in years?”
Dean nods.
“That was about you too, in case you’re wondering,” Sam says. “Listen, I know this is messed up, and I don’t deserve you just letting me back in after what I did, but I hope you will.”
“You’re back in, of course you are, you were never out. What are you really saying here?”
“I mean…I guess I hope you can still trust me,” Sam says.
“Sammy, it wasn’t the real you leaving me like that. I know you wouldn’t do that to me, it was that thing’s poison.”
“That’s…thank you,” Sam says in a whisper, he can feel the tears start to well back up in his eyes and he struggles to hold them back.
“Hey, c’mon now, let’s get this finished up, pizza should be here soon. Where else are you hurting?”
Sam gestures at his torso. Dean unbuttons Sam’s bloody and ripped-up flannel and carefully takes it off over his injured hands. Sam shivers with the coldness in the room, and the feeling of Dean’s hands ghosting over him so close to his skin. Dean gets up and turns the room heater on. There’s a knock at the door and Sam guesses it’s the pizza delivery, he misses most of that when he falls asleep or passes out from the pain and the whisky and everything else.
Sam wakes up to the lovely feeling of being warm for the first time in ages. He’s on a soft bed, under some scratchy sheets in just a t-shirt and boxers. His back is the warmest and he realizes it’s the warmth of another person. He knows who he wishes it to be, but he doesn’t think he’s that lucky. There’s an arm draped over him and he can see the hand, familiar blunt fingertips, strong looking. He is just exactly that lucky.
There’s another hand tucked under him, under his head and the pillow. He can move his face and brush his lips against it, Dean will never have to know. Besides he’s the one being the cuddle monster. He kisses Dean’s hand, more than once, wishing he had the guts to do it when it counted. There’s a sharp intake of brief behind him and then a gust when it blows out, warm against the back of his neck.
“It was a long month,” Dean says in a quiet, shaky voice.
“I don’t mind it, I think I actually got some real sleep,” Sam says, pressing his body back into alignment with Dean’s. It’s impossible to mistake his brother’s reaction for anything else. “What’d I miss last night?”
“Some of the worst pizza I’ve ever had, and nothing worth talking about on the tube.”
Sam can see the now empty whisky bottle in the trashcan. “Can we go home, I’d rather…uh do this there,” Sam says, turning around in Dean’s arms to face him.
“Do what?” Dean asks, face creased from the pillow, hair spiking up all over the place. In other words, adorable.
“I want to take you to bed, Dean,” Sam says. “Be with you, how we both want. But I need it to be at home-our home.”
Sam can hear Dean swallow, the click in his throat audible in the quiet room. “It’s going to be a long drive, we better get going.”
He leans in and presses his lips to Dean’s, it’s warm and wet and delicious, the sleeping desire now awakened between them. It’s unstoppable once they start, everything is in motion. Sam’s skin feels like he’s going to be unable to hold it all inside.
“You’re right, we should do this at home,” Dean murmurs against his lips. “It’s gonna be a long drive though.”
Sam’s shocked when he feels Dean’s hand in his boxers, holding him, gentle at first and then a real grip, a smooth rhythm. He tries to respond, but bending his knuckles doesn’t work, instead he pulls Dean’s hips into his, pressing them together and grinding.
Dean gasps with the extra contact and strokes Sam even faster. “C’mon, Sammy.”
Sam does just that, coming long and hard all over Dean’s hand and wrist. Dean surprises him by flopping back and using the mess on his hand to slick himself up, his hand flying. Sam watches Dean’s face, their eyes locked as Sam wills him to let go.
“C’mon, Dean, your turn.”
Dean does just that, coming all over his own belly. Sam’s hand immediately lands in the mess, painting designs and sigils into his brother’s skin. He licks his fingers clean and laughs when Dean’s jaw drops open.
“Good god, that’s the hottest thing I think I’ve ever seen,” Dean says in an awed voice.
“Better get me home then, huh?”
Dean’s answer is to roll over onto Sam and press their bodies together, his face landing in the crook of Sam’s neck. There are words being said, and Sam wishes he could make them out. He sends that wish to Dean with everything he has left in him. Say it, please, c’mon just say it.
Sam knows he got the message when Dean presses himself up, staring down into Sam’s face. “How lucky are we, huh? You, me and we finally get this.”
“Finally, yeah,” Sam says, pulling Dean back down. There hasn’t been a knock from housekeeping yet, so that can take a little more time. After all the time they’ve waited to go here, and do this with each other, taking a few minutes to revel in it all seems like a good call.
The End
*****
Sam comes to slowly, head aching like there are spikes driving into his brain. He doesn’t open his eyes or change his breathing, uses his other senses to figure out where he is. He can feel the rope around his wrists and ankles, he’s upright, tied to a chair. It smells like a basement, there’s a little dampness and the smell of laundry detergent, the specific scent of the one Amelia had always insisted on using. Probably in Amelia’s house then. There are no sounds, until he hears water running in the laundry sink, it’s hitting metal, some kind of bucket he guesses.
There’s no Amelia, and no Riot. It’s just him and Don in the basement.
“I know you’re awake, Sam,” Don says, grunting with the effort of hefting the large bucket out of the sink. “Amelia’s out of town on her rural rounds overnight, so let’s get the party started.”
“What are you doing, Don?” Sam asks, trying to remain calm.
“I’m getting payback,” Don says in a monotone.
“Payback for what?” Sam asks, getting even more concerned as he can see Don’s face, blank and expressionless.
“For you taking my woman away from me,” Don says.
“I didn’t though, she’s still yours, like you said, she chose you. Please, just let me go, I won’t come back,” Sam says.
“I don’t believe you. You can beg all you want, but I’m getting what I’m due,” Don says in a flat voice, devoid of all humanity. He turns on some loud thrash metal on a boom box, presumably to drown out the noise that Sam will be making.
Sam’s been here and done this way too many times. He knows he just has to endure. Most human torturers are very uncreative, no one ever comes close to what Lucifer and Michael had been able to come up with in the Cage. He lets himself dissociate and slips into an observer mode. It frustrates Don, because no matter what he throws at Sam, he doesn’t get any responses like he wants. Waterboarding, slicing him with sharp knives, ripping out the stitches Amelia had given him, even a few pulled-out toenails, it’s all so routine, boring even. Sure, Sam is bloody and beaten, but that’s just part of how it goes.
“I don’t love her, I don’t know if I ever did, she was just a substitute. Just like I was a substitute for you I guess. Don, she really loves you,” Sam says, voice even and sure. He’s proud of himself for not begging or falling apart or telling the truth Amelia had spilled last night.
“No-no she doesn’t, she still loves you. It’s different, she’s different, you fucked up everything, Sam!” Don yells.
“You learned how to do all this in Afghanistan, because they did it to you. I get it man, I do. I’m sorry it happened this way, you didn’t deserve this, neither did she. I’ve only ever loved one person, and I shouldn’t have made her think I could love her like that.”
“I can,” Don says.
“Then do it, she told me last night that she loves you,” Sam says.
“She did?” Don lowers the knife he was raising towards Sam’s forearm.
“Yeah, and I told her I was glad for her, for both of you. We all ended up back with the person we love the most in the whole world, right?”
Sam smiles as he sees Dean sneaking in, and hitting Don from behind. He has no idea if Dean heard what he’d just said to Don. There’s a scuffle and he can’t see what happens and he kind of forgets to worry about it.
“Dean? How’d you know where to find me?” Sam asks as Dean’s cutting him loose from the restraints.
“You didn’t call me while I was driving like you said you wanted to. And you weren’t waiting at the Buc-Ee’s like we said, so I knew something was up. I found her address listed in the phone book. Figured something had gone down to make you not call me. Didn’t think it’d be the army man though.”
“You didn’t kill him, right?” Sam asks, peering over Dean’s shoulder at the still figure on the basement floor. He can see the glimmer of blood all over Don’s face and the cement too.
Dean growls under his breath. “I should have, given what he did to you, but no, I just knocked him out. I’m going to tie him up in the place he had you here in the basement. She’ll find him when she gets back, and he’ll probably tell her you did it to him.”
“That’s fine, turns out she was still having trouble moving on,” Sam says, helping Dean secure Don to the chair. He pulls the ropes extra tight because he can’t help himself, the guy was just torturing him after all.
“I’m not one bit surprised,” Dean says, pulling Sam up to standing and herding him up the basement stairs.
“Oh because I’m just that lovable and unforgettable, huh?” Sam says over his shoulder, so glad to be getting out of here with Dean.
“Pretty much, yeah,” Dean says.
Sam pauses on the front porch as he closes the door behind him, not sure what to do with that comment. “I don’t know what happened, Dean. I remember the note I left you back in Kentucky, and walking out of the motel room, and that’s it. A month later I woke up on this porch, and I was all beaten up. Amelia stitched me up.”
“Let’s just get out of here, we’re going to have to stop and get you re-stitched again.”
“Can we just go home and you do it there?” Sam says, uncaring that he’s whining.
“It’s your face, Sam, I don’t want you to have a scar if I can help it,” Dean says.
“I’ll just grow my hair longer or something,” Sam says.
“Sam,” Dean says.
“Fine, whatever, but you do it,” Sam says. “You’re better at sutures than most ER docs.”
“I am, but what about the rest of this, what he did to you, I ought to go back and do the same to him.”
“He was just venting, hope he gets some help from the VA or whatever, the dude has issues, which is understandable after being a POW for two years.”
“Doesn’t excuse what he did to you though,” Dean says.
“No, it doesn’t excuse it, but I’m saying that I understand it, from personal experience.”
Dean clears his throat, obviously thinking about all the personal experience his little brother has with torture. “I still think you’re being way too forgiving,” Dean says. “In my opinion.”
“And you’re not? Dean you just drove ten hours to pick me up when I left you with that horrible note more than a month ago.”
“It’s because it wasn’t you, Sammy,” Dean says.
Sam falls asleep in the Impala, not caring that there’s no headrest. And Dean doesn’t explain the rest until after they’re in a motel outside of Lubbock, pizza on the way, cold beers uncapped. He’s holding Sam’s face, checking the damage and digging in their med kit for the container of sutures.
Sam watches his brother over at the sink, washing his hands like a surgeon, taking care to scrub under his fingernails. He can see Dean’s face in the mirror, and the bags under his eyes are truly impressive. He hasn’t been sleeping, probably not much since Sam disappeared.
Dean turns and sees Sam watching him, he smiles, putting on a brave big brother face mostly out of habit. But Sam saw how his own face looks, he’s practically skeletal, and with all those cuts, his face is seriously messed up. It’s going to take a lot of work to stitch him back together. But that’s what Dean does, and that’s what Sam needs.
“You want a pill before I start?” Dean asks, handing him one from the med kit.
Sam grabs for Dean’s duffel and pulls out the whisky bottle. He uncaps it and drinks down a mouthful or two with the pill. It burns a familiar fiery path down his throat. He looks up at his big brother standing over him with that concerned look on his face. Sam feels his eyes well up with tears that he didn’t expect.
Both of Dean’s hands are holding his face then, thumbs swiping the tears away from Sam’s cheeks. “You’re okay, Sammy. You’re right here with me.”
Sam can’t help the relieved sob that he lets out, he closes his eyes and lowers his head, butting it into Dean’s stomach. Dean’s hands rub gentle circles on his shoulders. “I got you, little brother, don’t worry, I got you.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam mumbles into the soft flannel shirt covering his brother’s belly. He wishes he had enough energy to lift his arms and wrap them around Dean’s waist.
Dean leans back a little and one hand goes under Sam’s chin, gently tipping it up. “You have nothing to be sorry about. You are not going to believe what happened. I’ll tell you the whole thing while I’m stitching you up, okay?”
Sam lets the weight of his head sink into Dean’s hold and then he nods. Dean lets go to pick up the suture kit and Sam takes a deep breath in, filling himself up with the comforting and familiar smell of his brother.
“So you remember the cryptid we were hunting, right?”
Sam nods just before Dean takes his first stitch.
“You were right about it being related to djinn. All the people that were missing in the town had blown up their lives in a spectacular way before they disappeared. It turns out that the thing had a poison that made people want to get away from everyone they loved. It then would make them forget their previous lives or even who they were if they got enough of the poison. It was basically a way to isolate people so it could easily feed.”
“So I got stung?”
“Yeah, but since we killed the thing, you at least didn’t get the life force sucked out of you.”
“I blew up my life, lost my memory and myself, but at least I didn’t die, got it.”
“That note you left me was the main clue that you’d been stung. I mean, the fight we had wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, and sure sometimes we overreact to stuff, but I wasn’t buying it that you were gone for good.”
“God, I’m so sorry, Dean.”
“I’ve been searching for more than a month, Sammy. I had nothing to go on, you didn’t have your phone or use any of our credit cards. You just disappeared off the map.”
“I wonder where I was, and how I ended up in Kermit on Amelia’s porch? There’s some random flashes of stuff, but none of it makes sense.”
“There was the guy, remember, the one we rescued? I talked to him a couple of days ago and he said his memories came back in a very strange way. The least important ones resurfaced first, the guy didn’t remember his wife of thirty years until just this week.”
“That explains why I ended up in Kermit instead of Lebanon.”
“I’m guessing you were probably pool hustling to survive. Most of this non-Don related stuff looks like classic bar-fight injuries to me.”
“Yeah, I figured it was a bar fight given my hamburger knuckles,” Sam lifts his right hand and tries to flex his fingers. Dean takes his hand and examines it closely under the light. He whistles softly under his breath when he sees the state of Sam’s knuckles.
“Can you move all the fingers? C’mon, show me,” Dean says.
Sam complies, making a fist even though bending his fingers is excruciating.
“Well, probably no tendon damage, that’s good news, right? Any sharp pain, like a broken bone, or is it just the skin?”
Sam flexes and stretches his hand, there’s some deep bruising, but nothing sharp, the skin is the issue. “Just the skin, this is stupid, let me do it myself.” He tries to grab the box of bandaids out of the med kit and fumbles it.
Dean picks the box up and digs for the bendy-knuckle bandaids they always keep in stock. “Did I come all this way just to watch you try to put bandaids on your own freaking right hand, no I did not, but if that’s what you really want-go for it.”
“I could have taken the bus,” Sam says with a pout, sticking his hand out on the bedside table so Dean can apply the bandaids.
“Dude, you wouldn’t have been on the bus, you’d still be tied to that chair, with that asshole doing who knows what else to you,” Dean says.
“You’re…you’re right. I’m just sorry you had to drive all this way.”
“Hearing what you said to that asshole in his basement, I’m feeling…no, now I know it was worth the trip.”
“What’d you hear?” Sam asks, struggling to remember what just happened a few hours ago in Amelia’s basement.
“You were talking about how you’d both ended up with the right people,” Dean says.
“I remember, I said we ended up with the person we each love most in the world, yeah,” Sam says.
“You said that to someone, about me, and I happened to hear it. But I didn’t know, if you were just laying it on to get to him or if that-if you meant…aw, never mind,” Dean trails off and steps away, his hand went to the back of his neck, in the familiar self-comforting give-away.
“I meant it like you thought, Dean. Did you hear the part about how I was happy, the happiest I’ve been in years?”
Dean nods.
“That was about you too, in case you’re wondering,” Sam says. “Listen, I know this is messed up, and I don’t deserve you just letting me back in after what I did, but I hope you will.”
“You’re back in, of course you are, you were never out. What are you really saying here?”
“I mean…I guess I hope you can still trust me,” Sam says.
“Sammy, it wasn’t the real you leaving me like that. I know you wouldn’t do that to me, it was that thing’s poison.”
“That’s…thank you,” Sam says in a whisper, he can feel the tears start to well back up in his eyes and he struggles to hold them back.
“Hey, c’mon now, let’s get this finished up, pizza should be here soon. Where else are you hurting?”
Sam gestures at his torso. Dean unbuttons Sam’s bloody and ripped-up flannel and carefully takes it off over his injured hands. Sam shivers with the coldness in the room, and the feeling of Dean’s hands ghosting over him so close to his skin. Dean gets up and turns the room heater on. There’s a knock at the door and Sam guesses it’s the pizza delivery, he misses most of that when he falls asleep or passes out from the pain and the whisky and everything else.
Sam wakes up to the lovely feeling of being warm for the first time in ages. He’s on a soft bed, under some scratchy sheets in just a t-shirt and boxers. His back is the warmest and he realizes it’s the warmth of another person. He knows who he wishes it to be, but he doesn’t think he’s that lucky. There’s an arm draped over him and he can see the hand, familiar blunt fingertips, strong looking. He is just exactly that lucky.
There’s another hand tucked under him, under his head and the pillow. He can move his face and brush his lips against it, Dean will never have to know. Besides he’s the one being the cuddle monster. He kisses Dean’s hand, more than once, wishing he had the guts to do it when it counted. There’s a sharp intake of brief behind him and then a gust when it blows out, warm against the back of his neck.
“It was a long month,” Dean says in a quiet, shaky voice.
“I don’t mind it, I think I actually got some real sleep,” Sam says, pressing his body back into alignment with Dean’s. It’s impossible to mistake his brother’s reaction for anything else. “What’d I miss last night?”
“Some of the worst pizza I’ve ever had, and nothing worth talking about on the tube.”
Sam can see the now empty whisky bottle in the trashcan. “Can we go home, I’d rather…uh do this there,” Sam says, turning around in Dean’s arms to face him.
“Do what?” Dean asks, face creased from the pillow, hair spiking up all over the place. In other words, adorable.
“I want to take you to bed, Dean,” Sam says. “Be with you, how we both want. But I need it to be at home-our home.”
Sam can hear Dean swallow, the click in his throat audible in the quiet room. “It’s going to be a long drive, we better get going.”
He leans in and presses his lips to Dean’s, it’s warm and wet and delicious, the sleeping desire now awakened between them. It’s unstoppable once they start, everything is in motion. Sam’s skin feels like he’s going to be unable to hold it all inside.
“You’re right, we should do this at home,” Dean murmurs against his lips. “It’s gonna be a long drive though.”
Sam’s shocked when he feels Dean’s hand in his boxers, holding him, gentle at first and then a real grip, a smooth rhythm. He tries to respond, but bending his knuckles doesn’t work, instead he pulls Dean’s hips into his, pressing them together and grinding.
Dean gasps with the extra contact and strokes Sam even faster. “C’mon, Sammy.”
Sam does just that, coming long and hard all over Dean’s hand and wrist. Dean surprises him by flopping back and using the mess on his hand to slick himself up, his hand flying. Sam watches Dean’s face, their eyes locked as Sam wills him to let go.
“C’mon, Dean, your turn.”
Dean does just that, coming all over his own belly. Sam’s hand immediately lands in the mess, painting designs and sigils into his brother’s skin. He licks his fingers clean and laughs when Dean’s jaw drops open.
“Good god, that’s the hottest thing I think I’ve ever seen,” Dean says in an awed voice.
“Better get me home then, huh?”
Dean’s answer is to roll over onto Sam and press their bodies together, his face landing in the crook of Sam’s neck. There are words being said, and Sam wishes he could make them out. He sends that wish to Dean with everything he has left in him. Say it, please, c’mon just say it.
Sam knows he got the message when Dean presses himself up, staring down into Sam’s face. “How lucky are we, huh? You, me and we finally get this.”
“Finally, yeah,” Sam says, pulling Dean back down. There hasn’t been a knock from housekeeping yet, so that can take a little more time. After all the time they’ve waited to go here, and do this with each other, taking a few minutes to revel in it all seems like a good call.
The End