SPN Fic: In Louisiana (Sam/Dean)
Title: In Louisiana
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: R
Length: 2500 words
Spoilers for the beginning of Season 2.
Summary: By the middle of the summer, Dean’s hustled enough money for tuition and a one-way plane ticket to San Francisco.
Notes: For audrarose. :D Without her, I’d be adrift in the sea of fandom. Thanks for the beta, hon! *hugs*
In Louisiana by Sori
In May, Sam looks at Dean and says, “Dude, you’re just like Dad,” and Dean stands there, shocked, knowing that it’s true and hating what it implies. He doesn’t have to wonder what that’ll mean for their future; he’s already seen it happen once. So at their next stop, he pulls out his hidden wad of hundreds and hits the first pool hall he finds.
By the middle of the summer, Dean’s hustled enough money for tuition and a one-way plane ticket to San Francisco. He stuffs the ticket receipt in the side pocket of his duffle, the cash thick and almost bursting out of the airline envelope where it’s jammed between the pages of January’s Playboy.
Occasionally, he pulls the ticket receipt out, rolls it between his fingers, smudging the ink and scuffing up the white with dirty fingerprints. He reads the words, over and over, until he’s memorized the way the ‘a’ hooks and the way the printer cuts off the bottom of the letters and the way that his fingerprints have lingered over Sam’s name. Sometimes, he balls it up and it’ll make it all the way into some random hotel trashcan before he yanks it out, smoothing it down and refolding it carefully.
He’s spent a lifetime knowing fear, but he doesn’t truly understand it until he’s faced with smudged white paper with the words American Airlines stamped across the top.
**
“Here,” Dean says, pushing the envelope into Sam’s hands. He shoves his hands in his pants pocket and wanders over to the jukebox at the front of the bar. The place is crowded, bodies packed in, smothered by the smell of swamp and booze hanging heavy in the air.
“The hell?” He hears Sam ask. It’s not hard to ignore him; Dean just stops and stares at the jukebox, pretending that there’s actually some sort of choice between Guns n’ Roses and Faith Hill.
“Hey?”
It’s harder to ignore Sam when he steps up next to Dean, standing right the fuck there, shoulder brushing against him, close enough that Dean can smell the gunpowder on Sam’s fingers and the beer on his breath and the dirt from the open windows on the interstate just this side of the Louisiana border.
“Want to explain?” Sam shoves the envelope toward Dean and he sees a wet beer thumbprint on the edge and a new tear in the top slit near the corner.
“Dude. You’re the college boy. Figure it out.” Dean pushes two more quarters into the jukebox and hits the button for Welcome to the Jungle. He rolls his neck, feeling the sharp crack more than hearing it over the opening beat.
He starts to turn away when Sam’s hand slams down on his shoulder. “A plane ticket? To San Francisco?” Sam pauses for a second and Dean thinks - hopes, and fuck, hasn’t he learned by now - that maybe Sam will drop the whole thing and just go without all the talk.
Dean sighs and walks back to the bar, sliding onto the barstool and calling to the bartender for another two beers. He’s picking at the pretzels when he feels Sam slide up next to him, too close, legs taking up all the space under the counter.
“So. Plane ticket,” Sam says, stroking the condensation off his mug of beer, bringing the conversation back, again, to exactly the place Dean doesn’t want it to be.
“Let it go. Just -.” And Dean tosses back the rest of his beer, wiping his mouth on his sleeve and signaling the bartender. “Whatever.”
Sam stares at him and Dean can’t seem to stay still, straightening his shoulders and crumpling up the beer soaked napkin on the table. It’s stupid, damn it, so stupid, that Sam’s making him twitch.
He hops off the stool; there’s a bed in the motel next door that’s calling his name. Maybe not his real name, but it’s close-the-fuck-enough since he’s already spent a lifetime being someone other than just Dean Winchester.
“I’m hitting the sack. Don’t do anything stupid.”
He doesn’t even make it to the end of the bar before Sam’s got a hold of his arm, pulling him roughly toward a table in the back corner. It’s dark and the music’s not so much music anymore but a strange thumping that vibrates along the floor and shakes the hazy film of cigarette smoke that hangs in the air.
“Sit,” Sam says, and Dean flops down in the chair. He spreads out his legs and crosses his arms and remembers too late that Sam’s more than a few years past intimidation. “Dean, what the hell?”
Sam pulls out the battered envelope and tosses it on the table between them. Dean can just see the green of the bills, the corner of the ticket, ‘FLT 943’; he can’t see the destination or the time or even the fucking date (which is two weeks from today, two days before the last day to register, and maybe he’s not a Stanford graduate but he can still use the damn internet).
“Sammy,” Dean starts, but what can he say? Sam should already know why, and he should already know what, because, seriously, there are not that many reasons to be given a fucking plane ticket. “What’s the problem? It’s a ticket and money. Get on a plane, go to law school. Go home.”
Dean thinks he nailed the explanation until Sam rolls his eyes and chugs back the beer that the waitress just set down on the table.
“I can’t -,” Sam starts and Dean wants nothing more than to reach across the table and slap him upside the head.
Fuck.
“Look, I -,” don’t want you to give up your dreams Dean wants to say, but won’t, because, man, he is just not that big of a girl. “Hell, Sammy. This is what you’ve always wanted. There’s nothing here for you.”
Dean shoves his empty glass away and moves to stand.
“Dean.” Sam’s voice stops him. “Dean…I mean, thanks. Okay? Thanks.”
Dean’s chest clenches tight, his stomach rolls, and, goddamnit, he knew this was coming but it’s still crappy to hear.
“Yeah, anytime.” He shrugs, tries to smile and probably fails, because two more weeks isn’t nearly long enough.
“Right. So, drink?” Sam waves the waitress over, flashes his stupid, shy smile that makes her grin and bend low over the table to flash some cleavage. “Shots,” he says to her. “Tequila. The whole bottle, please.”
She nods her head and Dean’s sure that when she comes back she’s going to be dropping a napkin with her phone number into Sam’s pocket.
Sam, who hasn’t gotten laid since before Jess died almost two years ago.
Fucking fantastic.
Sam pours the first shot and Dean pours the next. Sam moves closer, shoving his chair up against Dean’s until their shoulders are touching and their legs are brushing, and they’re sitting like there isn’t an entire table around them.
“To Dad,” Sam says, and Dean probably shouldn’t be surprised but he is. Mostly, he still remembers Sam and Dad, and the yelling and the fighting, and Sam running out of a hotel room door screaming, “You can’t stop me,” and Dad throwing an unopened box of ammuntion across the room.
“To college,” Dean says next and tries to ignore how even saying the words hurts.
“To us,” Sam says after, and Dean raises his glass and slugs it back. Because he’s just drunk enough, that the pain is almost bearable.
Two shots later, Dean’s starting to feel the burn, low in his throat, deep in his chest. The smoky haze is making the room warm and just dark enough that Dean’s only thinking about the heat of Sam’s thigh, and the sound of Sam’s voice, and the way he’s always needed the things that he should never have even wanted.
Sam looks over at him and says “I’ll drink you for it,” and Dean says, “Hell, yeah,” because what else is he going to say? This is Sam.
Then he scratches his head and nods blearily over at Sam. “Wait. What are we drinking for?”
“Stanford. Law school. Me getting on the plane. Take your pick.” Sam refills his shot glass from the half-empty bottle of Cuervo and toasts Dean silently before tossing it back.
He must be more drunk than he thought because he’s got no fucking clue what Sam’s talking about. “What?”
Sam pours him another shot and pushes the shot glass toward him. “You win and I go back to Stanford. I win and I stay here.” Sam tosses back his own drink and Dean scrambles to keep up, confused and not entirely sure what’s going on, and thinking that, maybe, Sam’s too drunk to understand what he’s saying.
He can already see how this is going to play out: Sam’s going to pound back shot after shot, and Dean’s going to play like he’s trying to keep up, even though he hasn’t been able to out drink Sam in years. Sam’s going to win, as he always does; he knows it and Dean knows it.
And, fuck, for the first time, Dean wants to lose. Wants to lose the game and keep Sam here so bad that he can taste it.
Dean can still remember the first time he fired a weapon. He was eight and Sam was four, and Dad had leaned over and whispered, “Through the heart, Dean. Don’t miss. If you do, it’ll kill us all.” They’d celebrated that night with McDonald’s, Dad’s arm slung across his shoulder and Sam watching them wide-eyed and grinning with his Duck Tales Happy Meal toy.
It’d been Sam he’d watched when he was eight and Sam he’d protected when he was 20 and Sam who was now going to leave, again. Maybe Dean would get a week with him in the summer; a vacation, two brothers on the open road, Sam clinging to the last of his family in the only way that wouldn’t interfere with his real life.
More than he’d gotten when Sam had been at Stanford the first time, but now -
His whole life has been almost, and so close, and not nearly enough, and it’s not like he should’ve expected that it would ever change.
“No,” he says, because this is what he’s always done. “You’re going, Sam. You’re not going to end up hating me - not like with Dad.”
“I never hated Dad.” The lie’s there in Sam’s eyes, hanging between them. “I mean…he let me go, you know.”
“He didn’t.” Dean swallows another shot and pushes the glass away. “He just couldn’t stop you from going. There’s a difference, Sammy.”
“Yeah,” Sam says and maybe that hate is still there, made even worse by guilt.
Who wants to hate a dead man?
Dean lets his shoulder push against Sam, lets his hand reach out, and Christ he wants to touch, rub his fingers along Sam’s cheek and wrap him up in arms and legs and hold on tight, but he can’t, Sam’s leaving and Dean’s staying, and they’ve got family and blood and two-lifetimes worth of history between them.
He squeezes Sam’s shoulder, quick, rough, then slides into his jacket and digs two twenties out of his pocket.
“You should go. That’s what you’ve always wanted, right? Your own life?”
Dean doesn’t wait for answer. He’s not sure he wants to know what freedom looks like in his brother’s eyes.
**
Dean’s in the alley next to the bar, hidden from the street, hiding from himself maybe, when he feels arms wrap around him, slamming him back into a wall. Fuck, he thinks, until he realizes that it’s Sam who’s biting at his lips and kissing down his neck, grinding their bodies together and whispering into Dean’s ear, quiet and needy. Dean can’t understand the words but he can understand the hardness against his stomach and the bitter taste of desperation in the sounds.
Sam’s licking into his mouth, no hint of innocence, and Dean groans, pushing away until there’s a whisper of space between them. He wants to say, wait and Sam and more but all that escapes is, “fuck,” as he tries to catch his breath.
“Christ, Dean. Did you really think I would just leave? Where the fuck have you been for the last two years?”
Sam’s kisses are angry and too rough, his hands opening and closing against Dean’s body, but he’s moving closer, forcing the space between them to give way to nothingness, until he’s close enough that Dean can see the heat in his eyes, feel the need in his body.
“I can’t leave. I don’t want to leave,” he’s saying, like it’s something that Dean should’ve already known.
He pulls Dean closer and Dean’s saying, “Sam, no -,” and Sam’s stopping him with a slow grind and a long kiss and soft words.
“How can you say there’s nothing here for me?” He licks at Dean’s lips and pulls him in, and Sam’s always wanted too much. From Dad and from Dean and from life, and Dean’s shaking with his own anger because he’s trying to fix things and Sam’s not letting him.
This is everything Dean’s spent the last year wanting, and nothing like it should ever be, and for once, just once, Dean wants to throw away everything else and just take. But this is Sam, and he can’t just take.
Dean shoves him away, gasping for breath, trying not to feel guilty for the hurt in Sam’s eyes.
“What? You’re going to stay for a quick fuck?” Dean shoves his hands in his pocket and leans back against the wall. “That’s what you want?”
“I’m staying,” Sam says.
“You’re going.” Dean closes the stalemate and tries not to laugh, bitter and sarcastic, at his life.
“Dean?” There’s no anger in Sam’s tone. He takes a slow step closer, reaching out and touching Dean softly on the arm, a quick, fleeting touch. “Not a quick fuck. You know that.”
Yeah. Dean knows that. It’s never been anything that simple between them.
Impossible for Dean not to move, right into Sam’s space, fisting his hands into Sam’s jacket and pulling them together.
“Is this why you’re staying?” Dean pushes the question into Sam’s mouth with a kiss.
“No.” Sam sighs, and smiling, he bites down Dean’s neck, licking behind his ears, answering the question as if it was never really a question at all. “Well, not entirely. It’s just…that’s not me anymore.”
“Right.” Dean gasps, wanting to say something, one more time, because he needs to say it again, will probably regret it forever if he doesn’t.
Sam, you should go.
Sam, this is your chance.
Sam, I can do this without you.
But his words are swallowed by Sam’s lips and Sam’s kisses and his soft, panting gasps. “Dean” and “yes” and “fuck” and between one touch and another, Dean is lost.
Sam pulls back, just enough so he could look at Dean. “I’m staying because you are my home.” He bats his eyes at Dean and Dean snorts and pounds him on the ass.
“Dude. You are such an asshole.” The words rush out of him relief. He knows this: the give-and-take, the arguing and the fighting, the ass slaps and rude remarks. This is them, just like they’ve always been, and it’s the one thing in his life that Dean never wants to change.
And for once, Dean lets himself believe.
-End-
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: R
Length: 2500 words
Spoilers for the beginning of Season 2.
Summary: By the middle of the summer, Dean’s hustled enough money for tuition and a one-way plane ticket to San Francisco.
Notes: For audrarose. :D Without her, I’d be adrift in the sea of fandom. Thanks for the beta, hon! *hugs*
In Louisiana by Sori
In May, Sam looks at Dean and says, “Dude, you’re just like Dad,” and Dean stands there, shocked, knowing that it’s true and hating what it implies. He doesn’t have to wonder what that’ll mean for their future; he’s already seen it happen once. So at their next stop, he pulls out his hidden wad of hundreds and hits the first pool hall he finds.
By the middle of the summer, Dean’s hustled enough money for tuition and a one-way plane ticket to San Francisco. He stuffs the ticket receipt in the side pocket of his duffle, the cash thick and almost bursting out of the airline envelope where it’s jammed between the pages of January’s Playboy.
Occasionally, he pulls the ticket receipt out, rolls it between his fingers, smudging the ink and scuffing up the white with dirty fingerprints. He reads the words, over and over, until he’s memorized the way the ‘a’ hooks and the way the printer cuts off the bottom of the letters and the way that his fingerprints have lingered over Sam’s name. Sometimes, he balls it up and it’ll make it all the way into some random hotel trashcan before he yanks it out, smoothing it down and refolding it carefully.
He’s spent a lifetime knowing fear, but he doesn’t truly understand it until he’s faced with smudged white paper with the words American Airlines stamped across the top.
**
“Here,” Dean says, pushing the envelope into Sam’s hands. He shoves his hands in his pants pocket and wanders over to the jukebox at the front of the bar. The place is crowded, bodies packed in, smothered by the smell of swamp and booze hanging heavy in the air.
“The hell?” He hears Sam ask. It’s not hard to ignore him; Dean just stops and stares at the jukebox, pretending that there’s actually some sort of choice between Guns n’ Roses and Faith Hill.
“Hey?”
It’s harder to ignore Sam when he steps up next to Dean, standing right the fuck there, shoulder brushing against him, close enough that Dean can smell the gunpowder on Sam’s fingers and the beer on his breath and the dirt from the open windows on the interstate just this side of the Louisiana border.
“Want to explain?” Sam shoves the envelope toward Dean and he sees a wet beer thumbprint on the edge and a new tear in the top slit near the corner.
“Dude. You’re the college boy. Figure it out.” Dean pushes two more quarters into the jukebox and hits the button for Welcome to the Jungle. He rolls his neck, feeling the sharp crack more than hearing it over the opening beat.
He starts to turn away when Sam’s hand slams down on his shoulder. “A plane ticket? To San Francisco?” Sam pauses for a second and Dean thinks - hopes, and fuck, hasn’t he learned by now - that maybe Sam will drop the whole thing and just go without all the talk.
Dean sighs and walks back to the bar, sliding onto the barstool and calling to the bartender for another two beers. He’s picking at the pretzels when he feels Sam slide up next to him, too close, legs taking up all the space under the counter.
“So. Plane ticket,” Sam says, stroking the condensation off his mug of beer, bringing the conversation back, again, to exactly the place Dean doesn’t want it to be.
“Let it go. Just -.” And Dean tosses back the rest of his beer, wiping his mouth on his sleeve and signaling the bartender. “Whatever.”
Sam stares at him and Dean can’t seem to stay still, straightening his shoulders and crumpling up the beer soaked napkin on the table. It’s stupid, damn it, so stupid, that Sam’s making him twitch.
He hops off the stool; there’s a bed in the motel next door that’s calling his name. Maybe not his real name, but it’s close-the-fuck-enough since he’s already spent a lifetime being someone other than just Dean Winchester.
“I’m hitting the sack. Don’t do anything stupid.”
He doesn’t even make it to the end of the bar before Sam’s got a hold of his arm, pulling him roughly toward a table in the back corner. It’s dark and the music’s not so much music anymore but a strange thumping that vibrates along the floor and shakes the hazy film of cigarette smoke that hangs in the air.
“Sit,” Sam says, and Dean flops down in the chair. He spreads out his legs and crosses his arms and remembers too late that Sam’s more than a few years past intimidation. “Dean, what the hell?”
Sam pulls out the battered envelope and tosses it on the table between them. Dean can just see the green of the bills, the corner of the ticket, ‘FLT 943’; he can’t see the destination or the time or even the fucking date (which is two weeks from today, two days before the last day to register, and maybe he’s not a Stanford graduate but he can still use the damn internet).
“Sammy,” Dean starts, but what can he say? Sam should already know why, and he should already know what, because, seriously, there are not that many reasons to be given a fucking plane ticket. “What’s the problem? It’s a ticket and money. Get on a plane, go to law school. Go home.”
Dean thinks he nailed the explanation until Sam rolls his eyes and chugs back the beer that the waitress just set down on the table.
“I can’t -,” Sam starts and Dean wants nothing more than to reach across the table and slap him upside the head.
Fuck.
“Look, I -,” don’t want you to give up your dreams Dean wants to say, but won’t, because, man, he is just not that big of a girl. “Hell, Sammy. This is what you’ve always wanted. There’s nothing here for you.”
Dean shoves his empty glass away and moves to stand.
“Dean.” Sam’s voice stops him. “Dean…I mean, thanks. Okay? Thanks.”
Dean’s chest clenches tight, his stomach rolls, and, goddamnit, he knew this was coming but it’s still crappy to hear.
“Yeah, anytime.” He shrugs, tries to smile and probably fails, because two more weeks isn’t nearly long enough.
“Right. So, drink?” Sam waves the waitress over, flashes his stupid, shy smile that makes her grin and bend low over the table to flash some cleavage. “Shots,” he says to her. “Tequila. The whole bottle, please.”
She nods her head and Dean’s sure that when she comes back she’s going to be dropping a napkin with her phone number into Sam’s pocket.
Sam, who hasn’t gotten laid since before Jess died almost two years ago.
Fucking fantastic.
Sam pours the first shot and Dean pours the next. Sam moves closer, shoving his chair up against Dean’s until their shoulders are touching and their legs are brushing, and they’re sitting like there isn’t an entire table around them.
“To Dad,” Sam says, and Dean probably shouldn’t be surprised but he is. Mostly, he still remembers Sam and Dad, and the yelling and the fighting, and Sam running out of a hotel room door screaming, “You can’t stop me,” and Dad throwing an unopened box of ammuntion across the room.
“To college,” Dean says next and tries to ignore how even saying the words hurts.
“To us,” Sam says after, and Dean raises his glass and slugs it back. Because he’s just drunk enough, that the pain is almost bearable.
Two shots later, Dean’s starting to feel the burn, low in his throat, deep in his chest. The smoky haze is making the room warm and just dark enough that Dean’s only thinking about the heat of Sam’s thigh, and the sound of Sam’s voice, and the way he’s always needed the things that he should never have even wanted.
Sam looks over at him and says “I’ll drink you for it,” and Dean says, “Hell, yeah,” because what else is he going to say? This is Sam.
Then he scratches his head and nods blearily over at Sam. “Wait. What are we drinking for?”
“Stanford. Law school. Me getting on the plane. Take your pick.” Sam refills his shot glass from the half-empty bottle of Cuervo and toasts Dean silently before tossing it back.
He must be more drunk than he thought because he’s got no fucking clue what Sam’s talking about. “What?”
Sam pours him another shot and pushes the shot glass toward him. “You win and I go back to Stanford. I win and I stay here.” Sam tosses back his own drink and Dean scrambles to keep up, confused and not entirely sure what’s going on, and thinking that, maybe, Sam’s too drunk to understand what he’s saying.
He can already see how this is going to play out: Sam’s going to pound back shot after shot, and Dean’s going to play like he’s trying to keep up, even though he hasn’t been able to out drink Sam in years. Sam’s going to win, as he always does; he knows it and Dean knows it.
And, fuck, for the first time, Dean wants to lose. Wants to lose the game and keep Sam here so bad that he can taste it.
Dean can still remember the first time he fired a weapon. He was eight and Sam was four, and Dad had leaned over and whispered, “Through the heart, Dean. Don’t miss. If you do, it’ll kill us all.” They’d celebrated that night with McDonald’s, Dad’s arm slung across his shoulder and Sam watching them wide-eyed and grinning with his Duck Tales Happy Meal toy.
It’d been Sam he’d watched when he was eight and Sam he’d protected when he was 20 and Sam who was now going to leave, again. Maybe Dean would get a week with him in the summer; a vacation, two brothers on the open road, Sam clinging to the last of his family in the only way that wouldn’t interfere with his real life.
More than he’d gotten when Sam had been at Stanford the first time, but now -
His whole life has been almost, and so close, and not nearly enough, and it’s not like he should’ve expected that it would ever change.
“No,” he says, because this is what he’s always done. “You’re going, Sam. You’re not going to end up hating me - not like with Dad.”
“I never hated Dad.” The lie’s there in Sam’s eyes, hanging between them. “I mean…he let me go, you know.”
“He didn’t.” Dean swallows another shot and pushes the glass away. “He just couldn’t stop you from going. There’s a difference, Sammy.”
“Yeah,” Sam says and maybe that hate is still there, made even worse by guilt.
Who wants to hate a dead man?
Dean lets his shoulder push against Sam, lets his hand reach out, and Christ he wants to touch, rub his fingers along Sam’s cheek and wrap him up in arms and legs and hold on tight, but he can’t, Sam’s leaving and Dean’s staying, and they’ve got family and blood and two-lifetimes worth of history between them.
He squeezes Sam’s shoulder, quick, rough, then slides into his jacket and digs two twenties out of his pocket.
“You should go. That’s what you’ve always wanted, right? Your own life?”
Dean doesn’t wait for answer. He’s not sure he wants to know what freedom looks like in his brother’s eyes.
**
Dean’s in the alley next to the bar, hidden from the street, hiding from himself maybe, when he feels arms wrap around him, slamming him back into a wall. Fuck, he thinks, until he realizes that it’s Sam who’s biting at his lips and kissing down his neck, grinding their bodies together and whispering into Dean’s ear, quiet and needy. Dean can’t understand the words but he can understand the hardness against his stomach and the bitter taste of desperation in the sounds.
Sam’s licking into his mouth, no hint of innocence, and Dean groans, pushing away until there’s a whisper of space between them. He wants to say, wait and Sam and more but all that escapes is, “fuck,” as he tries to catch his breath.
“Christ, Dean. Did you really think I would just leave? Where the fuck have you been for the last two years?”
Sam’s kisses are angry and too rough, his hands opening and closing against Dean’s body, but he’s moving closer, forcing the space between them to give way to nothingness, until he’s close enough that Dean can see the heat in his eyes, feel the need in his body.
“I can’t leave. I don’t want to leave,” he’s saying, like it’s something that Dean should’ve already known.
He pulls Dean closer and Dean’s saying, “Sam, no -,” and Sam’s stopping him with a slow grind and a long kiss and soft words.
“How can you say there’s nothing here for me?” He licks at Dean’s lips and pulls him in, and Sam’s always wanted too much. From Dad and from Dean and from life, and Dean’s shaking with his own anger because he’s trying to fix things and Sam’s not letting him.
This is everything Dean’s spent the last year wanting, and nothing like it should ever be, and for once, just once, Dean wants to throw away everything else and just take. But this is Sam, and he can’t just take.
Dean shoves him away, gasping for breath, trying not to feel guilty for the hurt in Sam’s eyes.
“What? You’re going to stay for a quick fuck?” Dean shoves his hands in his pocket and leans back against the wall. “That’s what you want?”
“I’m staying,” Sam says.
“You’re going.” Dean closes the stalemate and tries not to laugh, bitter and sarcastic, at his life.
“Dean?” There’s no anger in Sam’s tone. He takes a slow step closer, reaching out and touching Dean softly on the arm, a quick, fleeting touch. “Not a quick fuck. You know that.”
Yeah. Dean knows that. It’s never been anything that simple between them.
Impossible for Dean not to move, right into Sam’s space, fisting his hands into Sam’s jacket and pulling them together.
“Is this why you’re staying?” Dean pushes the question into Sam’s mouth with a kiss.
“No.” Sam sighs, and smiling, he bites down Dean’s neck, licking behind his ears, answering the question as if it was never really a question at all. “Well, not entirely. It’s just…that’s not me anymore.”
“Right.” Dean gasps, wanting to say something, one more time, because he needs to say it again, will probably regret it forever if he doesn’t.
Sam, you should go.
Sam, this is your chance.
Sam, I can do this without you.
But his words are swallowed by Sam’s lips and Sam’s kisses and his soft, panting gasps. “Dean” and “yes” and “fuck” and between one touch and another, Dean is lost.
Sam pulls back, just enough so he could look at Dean. “I’m staying because you are my home.” He bats his eyes at Dean and Dean snorts and pounds him on the ass.
“Dude. You are such an asshole.” The words rush out of him relief. He knows this: the give-and-take, the arguing and the fighting, the ass slaps and rude remarks. This is them, just like they’ve always been, and it’s the one thing in his life that Dean never wants to change.
And for once, Dean lets himself believe.
-End-