Part III: Beneath the Red Hills
Part III
Dean sleeps for twelve hours straight. Sam dozes in the other bed while Castiel comes and goes. Sam wakes once to see him leaning over Dean, a hand on Dean’s temple.
“What are you doing?” he mumbles.
“Healing,” is Castiel’s succinct reply. “His cells have been damaged from days without food or water. I’m repairing them.”
Sam isn’t proud of the jealousy that works its way into his chest, sharp and insidious. It calls up reminders of Castiel’s handprint seared into Dean’s arm, branding him. Castiel can save Dean in ways that Sam can’t, and it feels like another failure, one more wedge between them.
“Thanks,” he says, and feels like an asshole.
He spends most of his time watching Dean, cataloging the changes. There are glints of gray at Dean’s temples, deeper lines bracketing his mouth. He looks whittled and lean, dangerous and fragile as the tip of a dagger. Sam supposes he’s always been that way, but after five years it’s like discovering him all over again. He sleeps, face slack and pale against the pillow, Sam chanting wake up, wake up in his brain. He doesn’t know what he’s going to say, doesn’t know what might be hurled his way, but he knows it’s not really Dean until he’s opened his eyes and said Sam’s name again.
Once, after they’d failed the trials, Sam lost himself carving up a demon. It had said something - some tired taunt, some snarky comment on their ineptitude - and the twist of Ruby’s knife in its heart hadn’t been enough. He’d kept going, gutted it until he was tangled in entrails, slipping in the blood on his hands and feet. He’d kept cutting long after the light had gone out from its eyes, and he’d only come back to himself when he’d heard Dean shouting his name, hands tight on Sam’s face.
He’d looked up, and Dean had been panicked, splattered with blood that wasn’t his own, shaking and wide-eyed. And Sam had been empty and sick and short of breath but devoid of the fear that should have been there. He wouldn’t have cared if the demon had clawed out his heart, and he remembers thinking it was Dean’s fault that he’d come to that.
“The girl was dead anyway,” Dean had said later. “It’s…you didn’t kill anything that didn’t deserve to die, Sam.”
Sam hadn’t been so sure. But if the confession of all his sins, all his guilt in all its enormity hadn’t been enough to save the world, what was one more death, really?
Dean wakes up at dusk. Sam is propped against the headboard with his laptop, and Dean rolls over and moans, “Fuck.”
Sam fights the urge to hover like a mother hen and stays where he is on the bed. “Hey.”
“What the hell is wrong with my head?”
“Probably dehydration. Cas says he healed most of the damage, but you’re gonna feel like you spent the night at a frat party for a while.”
Sam goes to the bathroom and gets him a glass of water and a couple painkillers. When he comes back, Dean has buried himself under the covers and is groaning intermittently.
“Dude.” Sam nudges him, and a hand snakes out for the pills and water. They disappear back under the covers, and Sam sighs.
“You want to sleep some more?”
“Screw sleep. I want eggs and bacon,” comes the muffled reply.
“You get an energy bar,” Sam says. “If you manage that, we’ll see.”
“Fuck you, Florence Nightingale.”
“Yeah, well. You’ll thank me later.”
Dean flips the covers back so Sam can see him, finally. “Did Cas find you?”
“Showed up in a cemetery in San Diego. I almost shot him by accident.”
Dean’s eyes slide away. “Sorry ‘bout that.”
It’s too soon to call Dean the idiot that he is, so Sam just shakes his head and says, “I’m glad he did.”
Dean shoves two energy bars in his mouth, then spends the next half hour throwing them back up in the bathroom. By the time Castiel returns, he’s managed to clean up and change, only to sink exhaustedly into a chair.
Sam can’t stop looking at him, at the lines of his shoulders and the familiar curve of his mouth and his sharp green eyes.
“What do you remember?” Sam asks.
“Goddamn mutt got me in the parking lot.” He rubs a frustrated hand over his forehead. “I had two guns and a machete on me, but the eyes on that thing… It’s like I was paralyzed.”
Sam swallows, remembering. “It’s not your fault. It messes with your brain. Once you lock eyes with it, you’re done.”
“A new kind of monster. Awesome.”
“A really old kind, actually.” Sam tosses him the notebook with the specs on the Barghest. While he’s poring over the information, Sam takes a deep breath and braces himself.
“Dean…we didn’t just find you. We found all the missing victims. Most were dead, but a couple were still alive when I left.” Dean’s head shoots up.
“You Ieft someone there? Jesus Christ, Sam.” He’s on his feet before Sam can respond, tossing the notebook aside, up and moving toward his duffel.
Sam clenches his jaw, stung. “If you’d wait long enough to let me finish…”
“We’re wasting time,” Dean says impatiently. “We have to - ”
“Dean,” Castiel says calmly, and Dean stops.
It shouldn’t still hurt so much. Sam’s seen heaven, hell, and everything in between; Dean’s disapproval shouldn’t have the power to reduce him to a sulky teenager, but it does. Sam can feel the old shame settling on him like a cloak.
“I didn’t have a choice,” he says, deliberately calm. “The only way to save those people is to kill the Barghest, and I needed you to do that.”
“Then let’s - ”
“Sunlight, Dean. It only works in direct sunlight.” Sam hurls the notebook back at Dean with more force than necessary. It hits Dean in the chest, and Dean catches it, wary surprise on his face.
“Finish reading,” Sam bites out. “I’ll be back.” He grabs Castiel by the elbow and starts pulling him toward the door.
“Don’t think I don’t know you’re talking about me,” Dean calls after them, and Sam slams the door hard enough to rattle the frame. Less than an hour, and Sam’s not sure if he wants to strangle Dean or press him back against the bed frame and kiss him until they both drown.
Castiel is staring at him, concern in his ageless face. “If you’d rather I stay…”
Sam is tempted, if only so he’ll have someone else for Dean to harangue. But the truth is that if he and Dean are going to hunt together in the morning, there are things that need to be said. Truces that need to be called.
“No…thanks, man. Sun should be up around six. We’ll be ready to go. Is there anything I can feed him that he won’t throw back up?”
Castiel smiles briefly. “Your brother is ordering takeout at the moment. I’m guessing that’s what you’ll both be eating.”
Sam looks the way he came, and sure enough he can see Dean through the window, on his cell and reading off the laptop screen. If he forgets the crab rangoons, Sam is going to kill him.
The air stirs, and when Sam looks back Castiel is gone.
Dean is propped against his bed's headboard when Sam steps back inside, clicking idly through the channels. The notebook is still on his lap, Sam’s messy, looping handwriting and Dean’s blocky letters crawling all over the page.
“Dean…”
“I ordered Chinese, and before you ask, yes I remembered your gross little crab thingies.”
“Dean - ”
“Twenty-minute delivery. Said he’d ring from the main desk when it got here.”
“Dean, we have to talk.”
“Yeah, that sounds fun and all, but I think I’ll pass.” Dean stretches idly, and a pale strip of skin catches Sam’s attention where his shirt has ridden up. Sam takes care not to look too long.
“It's been five years. You don’t think we should talk before we try and take down an ancient dog monster?”
Dean shrugs. “Blood, Welsh, sun. I read the files. Nothing to it.”
Sam tries to keep hold of his tenuous patience. “Nothing? What about new injuries you’ve gotten in the last five years? New techniques? Anything that might get us killed? Unless there’s something else you want to talk about.”
Sam knows he’s baiting; he knows it, and he hates it, and he can’t stop himself anyway. Fuck Dean and his avoidance and his macho bullshit.
“You know what?” Dean’s mouth twists sourly. “I changed my mind about the food.” He swipes his keys from the bedside table. “I just got un-comatose - I’ll be celebrating at the roadhouse down the street. Thanks for the rescue, don’t forget to put my leftovers in the fridge.” He lifts his jacket off the back of the chair and heads for the door.
Sam thinks about blocking his way, but he has a feeling that putting his hands on Dean would be a bad idea right about now. The room is snapping with tension, and touching Dean is a sure way to bring everything down around them. Sam's heart is pounding, and at least half of it is painful relief that Dean is still alive to get pissed at.
He fights for a neutral tone. “In seven hours, we have to hunt together. This thing is no joke - there are no records of it, because almost everyone who goes to fight it ends up dead. We can’t afford to go in there unless we’re ready.”
“First of all, I was born ready. Second of all, we’ve both been hunting - it’s not like we’re rusty. The basics don’t change, Sam. We can shoot, we can aim a knife, we can ritualize like a boss. We’re ready.” Dean raises his eyebrows - in challenge or exasperation - and Sam runs a frustrated hand through his hair.
Dean's stopped moving, but he’s side-eyeing the door, and Sam doesn’t want him to go. He doesn’t want to hunt with Dean when everything is so unsettled, and he doesn’t want to end up in another vicious fight, but most of all he doesn’t want to eat crappy takeout by himself in a motel room while Dean is a mile away getting shitfaced and brooding.
He can’t think of anything else to say, and so he gives up. “Okay,” he says, wishing he didn’t sound so lost. “If that’s all you have to say, then okay.”
Dean freezes, and for a second, Sam’s not sure which way he’ll go. Then he sighs and hangs his head. “Shit. Fine, talk.”
“I just…” The words stick in Sam’s throat. He can’t say what he wants. He can remember Dean five years ago, the defiant guilt on his face, the way he’d arched and moaned under Sam even when they'd hated each other. The tight, desperate way he’d grabbed onto Sam’s face, during the trials and after. Sam can’t say how could you and where have you been and I didn’t mean to leave, so he says:
“I know I’m probably the last person you want to work with right now, and I just wanted to let you know…I’ll be gone once this is over. I just came to finish the job.”
Dean barely moves, but Sam sees his jaw tick once. He doesn’t know if it means thanks or good or fuck you.
“Great,” Dean says bitterly. “Talk over?”
“No. I also need you to know that I haven’t changed my mind. About what I did five years ago. And what you did.”
“You know, all of this could have fit in a text message.”
“Jesus, Dean. I’m trying to get something out, here. Could you stop being an asshole for five seconds?”
“Let me get this straight. Five years ago, you said ‘Don’t follow me.’ And I didn’t. Now you’re saying nothing’s changed. So why the fuck are you here, Sam?” His eyes are brimming with anger and hurt, and this isn’t the way Sam meant for this conversation to go.
“I’m just trying to say....” He swallows. No way around it. “I was scared when I couldn’t find you. When Cas couldn’t find you. And I’m still pissed, and I know you are, too. But I’m…just happy you’re okay, okay? Because if I had been too late…”
He stops. If he goes any further he might be apologizing, and that’s the one thing he swore he’d never do. But he can still feel the way fear and despair wrapped around him in those few seconds before he felt Dean’s heart beating. He thinks, when Dean dies for good, he’ll probably rip the thing responsible limb from limb, be it demon, monster, or human. He’s John Winchester’s legacy after all, no matter how hard he’s tried to break free.
Dean’s face has softened the slightest bit. “We haven’t exactly been partners in a while. You were in time, Sam. But even if you hadn't made it... Wouldn't have changed anything. You’ve been fine without me.”
“Don’t you say that. You don’t know - ”
Dean’s cell rings, and Dean smiles a little. A real one. “Food,” he says. Sam gears up to protest, but Dean holds up a halting hand. “Don’t blow your top,” he says. “I’ll be right back.”
The air goes out of the room the moment the door slams behind Dean.
Sam sinks shakily onto the bed. He didn’t manage to say anything - not really. But he feels better anyway, light in a way that has nothing to do with blood or guilt or sin. He thinks it probably has something to do with the simple fact of Dean, coming back with food and warmth, the only constant Sam’s ever had.
Then his eyes drift toward the muted television, and all thoughts of food fly from his brain.
Dean's back a minute later, balancing a brown bag of food and a two-liter bottle of soda. He’s humming slightly, but he freezes when he sees Sam’s face.
Sam hitches his head toward the reporter on TV.
“Eleven ‘o clock news,” he says grimly. “Another kid’s gone missing.”
*
5 years ago
Lebanon, Kansas
Dean swallows. “Confess something.”
Sam takes a deep breath. Might as well begin at the beginning. “Jess,” he says.
Pain slashes across his forearm, deep and white-hot. He hisses and makes a fist, forcing blood out of the wound. His shirt is ripped over the cut, fabric hanging like loose skin.
On the outskirts of the sigil, Dean’s fists are balled at his sides. Sam forces a tight smile to his face, despite the throbbing pain in his arm. “I guess it’s working.”
“You okay?”
“I’m good.”
“I don’t like this.”
“You’ve mentioned.” He takes another deep breath and braces himself. He thinks of his father, on the floor in agony, Sam’s shotgun a foot from his face. “Dad.”
The cut opens on his thigh this time, jeans ripping like tissue paper. Blood darkens the edges.
Dean is cursing in a low, steady stream.
“I’m good, I’m okay,” Sam says, but he feels a little faint. It’s not like he’s unused to the sight of his own blood, but the helplessness of watching it pool on the floor around him makes his fingers twitch.
Cleansing, Sam tells himself. These are your sins, this is what you’ve done.
“Mom.”
A shallow slice down the side of his cheek, warm wetness running down in rivulets.
“Fuck,” Dean explodes. “Why don’t you confess to the Lindbergh baby next? You had about as much to do with that as you did with Mom’s death. You were six months old!”
Sam clenches his jaw, trying to think through the throbbing pain. “Doesn’t matter.”
“So…what? No matter what you say in there, you get sliced up? That’s bullshit. I’m stopping this.” He takes a determined step forward, and Sam holds up a hand to still him.
“Wait.” He racks his brain. “JFK’s assassination.”
Nothing.
Dean’s jaw is still taut, but Sam raises his eyebrows. “See? This is about me, Dean. If I feel guilt for it, I get cleansed. That’s all that matters.”
Dean shakes his head angrily, but he stays outside the circle, shoulders tense.
Sam thinks of the smell of leather and ash, of a blue trucker’s cap shimmering and blinking out of sight.
“Bobby,” he says.
A slash into the meat of his shoulder, and Sam grabs at the burning pain without thinking. His fingers come away shiny and red. There are four places pulsing on his skin now, four touchstones of guilt and loss. His whole family outside of Dean, branded permanently into him now.
Amelia’s name opens a cut across his heart, Ellen’s slices open his palm. Jo, Ash, and Pamela burn pain into his arms. Madison. Benny. Rufus. He stops trying to predict where the next attack will come from. Every confession brings a new cut, until he can’t pinpoint the wounds anymore. His whole body is burning up. He’s never cataloged his dead before. That’s always been Dean’s burden, and now Sam can almost understand the self-loathing Dean carries around like armor. The bleak stretch of names is worse than the cuts laying him open.
His eyes are stinging with blood and sweat, and he can feel Dean’s desperate gaze on him, even if he refuses to look.
“Ruby,” he manages, and he’s unprepared for way the attack flays his back open. He gasps and twists onto his side, writhing. There’s blood coating the floor now, and his hands slip in it as he tries to lever himself back into a sitting position. His ears are ringing, but through it all, he can hear Dean’s voice.
“Sam! Look at me, goddammit.”
Sam opens his eyes and manages to stretch out a hand again. Stay. Dean’s face is a thundercloud of rage and helplessness, but he stays. Sam’s starting to shiver, and his arms feel very heavy.
There are more names - victims he never managed to save, good people sacrificed in the war. Martin, Cindy, Steve Wandell, Meg Masters. Jake, gunned down for revenge. Ava, twisted by power because Sam couldn’t get to her in time. Andy. Max. Lenore. People he can’t put a name to, but whose deaths he can describe with intimate detail. His fault, and maybe it’s the pain, but his blood feels cleaner already. Maybe he really is being forgiven.
Dean is on his hands and knees, eyes locked on Sam. Sam’s not sure when it happened, but he’s somehow on the floor, slumped on his side. His limbs are trembling. He’s clean enough now; he can say it.
“Purgatory,” he rasps, and it draws a long slice down his exposed side. He barely even feels it. Dean jerks back, startled.
“I’m sorry I left you there,” he mumbles.
“Jesus,” Dean breathes. “Enough, Sammy.”
“Hell. I couldn’t get you out.” Another cut, sideways across his thigh, he thinks.
“Heaven. It made you feel like shit, and I didn’t mean…” His lips are numb, and the rest of the words get lost in the space between his breath and the floor. He feels weighted down, pinned to the rough boards by the bulk of his own body, cut open to Dean’s eyes. The tips of his fingers are very cold.
“Stanford,” he whispers, and he thinks Dean gets it, though. Not sorry for escaping - never that. But sorry for leaving. For all the things he’s chosen over family, for all the times he’s strayed. He can’t bring himself to regret it, but he can do this - confess, cleanse, atone.
There’s more, but he can’t make his mouth work. His blood is drying to a crust around him, the dampness of his clothes making him shiver. His eyes won’t focus, and be blinks slowly. He doesn’t know if this is enough, if this is what God wants, but he doesn’t have anything left to give.
Dean’s low voice is a buzz in the back of his head, the words immaterial. Dean’s heard the worst now, and he’s still here.
He wants to ask if it worked. He needs to get up, to say the ritual and finish this, but he’s too cold to move. Dean’s saying his name over and over, and Sam turns his head away. He’s not about to fail at this while Dean is watching. He just needs a few minutes to rest, to close his eyes and get warm and get his strength back.
The room fades in and out. The ceiling is turning in slow circles above him, swooping like the panels of a fan. The pain is fading to numbness, and it’s a slow seeping relief. Hands are under his shoulders, lifting him up.
“I can’t, I’m sorry. Sam…damn it, don’t you die on me.” Dean’s talking again. There’s something wrong about what’s happening, but Sam can’t figure it out right now. His world spins, and Dean’s terrified face is the last thing he sees.
*
Joanie Miller is three years old, blond and blue-eyed and pig-tailed. Her mother died five months ago in an armed burglary, and she’s been a ward of the state ever since. She’d been in town visiting the St. Agnes church when she was taken. The news says she disappeared from the church's parking lot, there one second and gone the next.
“To replace me,” Dean says in a very low voice. “Shit. I guess it ran out of chow.”
“It’s not your fault. We were going in anyway,” Sam tells him. He tries to believe it. “Now it’s just…one more person to save.” He feels a little sick at the idea of a toddler chained in that cave. What kind of bad memories could a toddler possibly have? In three years of living, how many nightmares could she really have accumulated?
“We can’t screw this up,” Dean says viciously.
“We won’t.”
The food is long gone. The clock on the wall is edging toward two in the morning, which means Cas will be there in four hours. Sam thinks he’s too wound up to sleep, but there’s nothing left to do except wait for daylight. Sam reads and re-reads the ritual, tries to memorize it and all its contingencies, all its possible disasters.
If he or Dean gets caught they’ll have to start all over again. Assuming the other one makes it out alive. The photo Sam stole from St. Agnes burns a hole in his pocket. Rachel and Colin are probably dead by now, but Joanie…Joanie could be saved. And no matter what, they have to kill the Barghest so it can’t take anyone else.
Dean still looks pale, but his hands are steady and his eyes clear as he flicks mindlessly from one channel to another.
“Quit staring,” Dean says without looking. “I’m not gonna fall apart.”
“I wasn’t staring,” Sam lies, and Dean snorts. “You were puking your guts out this morning. I just want to make sure - ”
“I’m fine.”
Sam takes a long breath. “Okay.” He rises from his chair, cracking the cramped joints in his shoulders. “Four hours left. I’m gonna try and - ”
“Sam.” He turns his head, and Dean is looking at him, the television a low buzz in the background.
“Thanks. I mean it. That would've been it for me if you hadn’t shown up.”
He nods, opens his mouth to say he would come again if Dean would just let him, would trust him, would stop being so stubbornly overbearing every second of every…
“But I need you to go when this is done,” Dean continues. “And not to come back.”
There’s silence in the room as all of Sam’s tumbling thoughts come to a slow stop.
“What?”
“You need to stay away. I just barely got used to having you gone and now…” Dean’s lips turn up in a ghost of a smile. “I need you to be okay. And I need to be okay. And that can’t happen when we’re around each other.”
His brain, shocked into silence, flares back into roaring, angry life. Dean would have died if Sam hadn’t come. Dean could die any day, and Sam could stop it just by being here, by stopping Dean from drinking when he shouldn’t and using a gun to solve a problem when he should be using words and making him want to live. Sam stayed away, only came when Dean called. Who the fuck is Dean to tell him…
And then he stops again, because Dean is looking somewhere past him, face tight and pained. And he knows that Dean hasn’t been okay, just like Sam hasn’t been okay. Dean has never healed from all the times Sam has left, and he never will. And Sam’s beginning to realize he doesn't want him to. If Sam has to be empty and useless on his own, raw and aimless and half-alive, then Dean does too. It's fucking fair, is what it is. Tit for tat, and Dean somehow hasn't realized it yet.
Dean's always been a little slow.
“Okay,” he says, and Dean blinks.
“Okay? That’s it?”
“That’s it.” He sits on the edge of Dean’s bed and watches Dean’s shoulders pull together. He could keep arguing, but the sad truth is that they could both die in a few hours and the point will be moot anyway.
“You know, I saw you once,” Sam says abruptly.
“What do you mean?”
“At a crime scene. About a year after I left. I looked up and you were there. It was just a coincidence but…”
“It wasn’t a coincidence,” Dean interrupts. “I knew you were there, and I went.” He shakes his head, jaw jutting subbornly. “And you know what? I saw you, too. I saw your back booking it in the other direction.”
Sam doesn’t know how to explain it, can’t quite describe the way the ground had gone out from under him at the sight of Dean’s face back then. Relief and loneliness and the sudden, dangerous inclination to apologize, to say something that would bring them both crashing back into each other.
He’d run the other way.
He looks at Dean now, the familiar clear green of his eyes. He touched Dean in the cave, and he hasn’t touched him since. He’s watched, fingers itching, as Dean slept and breathed and swore and frowned. He’s been waiting for Dean’s permission, but he knows now that he’s not going to get it.
“You gonna sleep?” Dean asks without breaking his gaze.
Instead of answering, Sam hooks a hand around Dean’s neck and pulls him forward. Dean lets himself be pulled, coming easily if warily. Sam takes his time with the kiss, remembering. Dean’s lips are warm and honey-sweet, and Sam finds himself pressing in deeper and harder, searching for that one spot where he’ll be able to get all of Dean, hold him still and take and take and take until they’re both gasping.
It’s useless; Dean is frustratingly mobile under his lips, and Sam doesn’t have the patience anyway. He comes up for air, and then Dean’s lips are on his face, dragging over his cheek, his temple, his eyelids. Sam settles between Dean’s spread legs, feeling Dean hard as a rock against his thigh.
“This is a ‘we’re both gonna die’ fuck, isn’t it?” he hears Dean murmur. Sam thinks he should have some retort for that, but he’s too dazed by Dean’s hands instead, sliding up into his hair. Then Dean is kissing him again, and Sam is reaching for his own fly.
Dean pushes him face down on the bed like he used to when they were teenagers, before Sam got bigger and more impatient and started yearning for elsewhere. Sam can’t quite remember why they ever stopped. The roll of Dean’s hips against him is steady and sure, his breath hot and damp on the back of Sam’s neck. It’s been a long time, and it’s not an easy fit, but the discomfort somehow becomes mixed up in the pleasure, spiking it higher.
Sam’s had plenty of girls, even outside of Jess and Amelia, but Dean’s the only one who’s ever had him like this, face down and spread open. He can’t be sure, but he likes to think he’s the only one for Dean, too. Who else would take them and all their dysfunction?
Sam curls his arms around the pillow to keep himself from reaching back and touching. He knows, somewhere in his sex-soaked brain, that it can’t always be this easy. He forgets, though, when Dean is inside of him, around him and covering him, why he fought so hard to get away from this.
Dean comes with a grunt, hips pushing flush to Sam’s ass, and Sam lays very still until he feels Dean soften and pull out. It’s almost messy enough to put a dent in Sam’s hard-on, and he’s considering saying something bitchy when he feels Dean’s hand creep under his chest. Dean pushes him over, and Sam gets a look at his face, at the raw want there. It’s only a glance, because then Dean’s head is dipping down, down, out of Sam’s sightline until all he can see is the broad bunch of Dean’s shoulders.
Dean’s mouth feels stupidly perfect around Sam’s cock, all wet satin and sucking pressure. Everything except fuck and Dean’s name flees Sam’s brain for a few moments. Dean’s stubble scratches his stomach and his fingers dig into Sam’s hips. Sam tries to keep his breathing under control, but he’s never had Dean’s discipline. He loses himself and thrusts up once into Dean’s mouth; Dean just adjusts his position and keeps going. Patient big brother, Sam thinks, always forgiving, always accommodating for Sam’s mistakes. For once the thought is comforting rather than humiliating.
Sam arches up when he comes, heels digging into the mattress. Dean swallows it, because he’s awesome, and then keeps sucking. Sam shudders at the feel of Dean’s mouth drifting aimlessly, along the underside of his shaft, over the rough sack of his balls. He nuzzles until Sam is completely soft in his mouth, spent and licked clean.
Sam is still shivering. “Jesus,” he whispers. He’s drenched in sweat, he can feel Dean’s come leaking out of him, and his dick is cool and damp from Dean’s mouth. He can’t tell if he wants to sleep or shower or wait ten minutes and go again, this time his dick in Dean, Dean’s thighs open for him.
Dean looks up at him, and Sam almost spills everything: his fear, his regret, the precise shade of loneliness of the last five years. Instead, he forces a laugh and says, “You’ve been practicing.”
The moment breaks. Dean blinks, then smiles crookedly. “Jealous, Sammy?”
“After that blowjob? Where can I send the thank you card?”
Dean crawls back up to the pillow. Everything feels strangely jagged, Dean’s face both weapon and balm. It’s a fucked-up, codependent thing they have; it’s not a harlequin romance, and it never has been. But this, this is what’s been calling Sam back all these years.
Dean’s already turning over, showing his freckled back to Sam. Five years forgotten like nothing, tracks in the sand swept away by sex and family and Dean.
“Sleep, dude,” Dean says through a yawn. “In a few hours we’re hunting.”
*
5 Years Ago
US-119, West Virginia
“Pull over,” Sam orders.
“I can make it until Kentucky. We’re fine.”
“Dean, if you don’t pull us over now, I swear to god…”
“Jesus, fine.”
Dean jerks the car off the highway and follows the lodging signs until they roll up to a gritty motel with a flashing vacancy sign. They don’t talk as Dean checks them in and Sam unloads the car. Sam can feel Dean’s eyes on him, and he doesn’t give a shit. His chest still aches from the coughing fit he had earlier today.
All for nothing, he thinks bitterly.
“I’m going out,” Dean says before Sam has even managed to get his duffel unzipped.
“Where?”
“Out. You can come or you can stay.”
Dean has been doing that for the last month - throwing down ultimatums between them like a challenge. Like he’s just waiting to see which one will make Sam crack.
The anger suffuses Sam like a haze. “Out? You almost just drove us into a tree because you were too stubborn to take a rest. Now you’re going out to drink yourself stupid?”
“Better than sitting here and listening to you bitch the whole night.” Dean’s voice is cold, and Sam wants nothing more than to shove him into a wall, punch him and grab at him and hurt him until he admits that this is his fault, that he fucked them over for good and forever.
“I’m so sorry,” he seethes. “I guess I’m a little touchy about the fact that I’m coughing blood and throwing up half my food for no fucking reason.”
Dean takes a step forward. “I warned you,” he says, low and deadly. “I told you exactly what was gonna happen if you took on those trials, and you did it anyway.”
“It didn’t have to go the way it went, and you know it.”
“Yeah? And what was the alternative? A dead brother?”
“Well, you know what? Now you get no brother. I’m out of here.” Sam grabs his bag, and Dean throws his hands up in exasperation.
“That’s great. Run again. ‘Cause that’s always worked so well before.”
Sam drops his bag and fists Dean’s collar instead, slamming him back against the wall. “Shut up, shut up, god. Shut your fucking mouth.”
“Make me,” Dean says, pushing back, and it’s so stupid and juvenile and ridiculous that Sam can’t be held responsible for his temper. He can’t be blamed for liking the dull, angry noise of his fist against Dean’s jaw, can’t be blamed for the way Dean’s lip splits against his teeth.
Dean staggers back, and then Sam’s shoving at him, pulling at his hair and jerking him forward and shaking him relentlessly.
Dean’s holding him back, but his grip is gentle, and that makes Sam even crazier.
He pushes Dean backward until Dean’s knees hit the bed, and it’s only then that Sam realizes he’s hard. Because he’s so fucking furious at his brother, and his stupid body can’t tell the difference. It’s adrenaline and violence and Dean, and his brain can only think of Dean’s skin bruising under his, the give of Dean’s body to his own.
He leans over and slams his lips against Dean’s, and Dean goes with it, tumbling easily backward. It’s so simple to turn this violence into something else, so simple to shove and bite and pull at Dean until he’s face down on the bed, fingers denting the flattened pillows.
Dean tries to push up onto his knees, and Sam shoves him back down. He makes a little gut-punched sound when his chest hits the mattress, and Sam feels his dick twitch in a spurt of arousal.
“Stay down,” Sam hisses in his ear. “I don’t want to see your face.”
Dean goes still, face turned to the side. From above him, Sam can see his long lashes brushing his cheeks, the smirking curve of his lips. There’s a fury riding him that he hasn’t felt since Ruby’s blood ran through his veins. He jerks roughly at the waist of Dean’s jeans, ready to tear them off if he has to.
“You tell those pants who’s boss,” Dean mumbles, and Sam yanks so hard he drags Dean back onto his side.
“Shut up,” Sam snarls. He pulls Dean backwards to reach his buckle, and he feels Dean’s heart fluttering under his ribs. Dean’s cock is stiff when Sam drags his pants down.
He shoves Dean forward again and grabs his wrists in one hand. The leather of Dean’s belt leaves red streaks on Dean’s skin when Sam tightens it. Dean’s laughing into the mattress, something low and ugly.
“This what it takes to get you off, Sammy? This make you feel in control?”
Sam yanks his head back by the hair and shoves the head of his dick into Dean. Dean grunts, a brief admission of pain, and Sam has to grit his teeth against his own discomfort. Dean’s dry, and it chafes.
Dean’s fingers are twitching in their leather prison, and panic washes through Sam in a brief moment of lucidity. What the fuck is he doing?
In a strained voice, Dean says, “Is that all you got?”
Red washes over him. He grabs Dean’s shoulder and shoves the rest of the way in, drawing a groan out of both of them.
“Fuck,” Dean whispers, shuddering. Sam starts to pump his hips rhythmically, driven more by the pounding in his head than any pleasure. Dean’s entrance loosens and grows slick, and Sam knows its blood. Dean keeps trying to gets his knees under him, get a better angle, but Sam drags his thighs back every time. It’s brutal, and quick, and when Sam comes it’s nausea that sweeps through him instead of relief. Dean’s back is rising and falling in jerky pants, and he’s limp when Sam rolls him over.
They’re still attached, and Sam lowers himself onto Dean, teeth scraping at his jaw and neck. Dean’s wrists are still bound, and he has no choice but to let Sam jerk him off, slow and rough. Sam lets his hand rest over Dean’s throat, wondering what would happen if he pressed. He thinks he could choke Dean out and fuck him again, and Dean would never say a thing. Dean’s been broken since he was four years old, and he’s finally broken Sam along with him. Dean would let the world burn before he disobeyed Dad and let Sam die; Dean would fuck them both over before he faced his own demons.
He’s still so fucking angry, but Dean is Dean, infuriating and wrong and more addictive than blood or drugs or power. Dean comes over Sam’s fingers, and Sam presses his forehead into Dean’s chest hard enough to hurt. He eases himself away, and Dean arches convulsively at the shock of cold air and pain. Sam moves down his body, dragging teeth and lips over his chest and stomach as he keeps stroking. He does it until they’re both shuddering, fucked out and furious.
Sam stays there for a minute, letting them both come down. Sam loosens the belt, and Dean barely acknowledges it. His green eyes are hazy, and Sam takes it as permission to keep touching, keep tasting, keep owning. Because he can’t take Dean’s betrayal, and he can't make Dean trust him. He’s never felt so trapped, or so fucking helpless.
Dean sleeps, but Sam doesn’t. By the time the sun rises, he’s gone, duffel packed and headed for the coast.
Part IV | Masterpost