I went over this little thing so often that I think if I have to read it one more time I'm going to start hating it. So I'll just leave it like this. The title comes from the Roy Orbison song Love Hurts. (I hope that's the original.)
Rated R.
Warnings for kink and no sex. No, really.
Maybe a tiny spoiler for 2.21 and 2.22.
1335 words.
hurts, scars
by mira
The adrenaline high that makes Dean keep his foot pressed down on the gas and his hands clenched around the steering wheel lasts about five miles out of Glencoe, Minnesota, before it makes way to blood boiling anger. If Sam just opens his mouth - or hell, breathes wrong - Dean will punch him in the face. After another ten miles he's sure it doesn't even take that anymore.
He pulls over to the side of the road, dust rising up in the headlights, gravel plinking against metal. He breaks and turns the key but doesn't take his left hand from the steering wheel. "Get out," he tells Sam quietly, and when Sam doesn't make a move he repeats it, louder, opening his own door. "Get out of the goddamn car, Sam."
Sam sits in the car for a few seconds, confused or maybe just out of spite, before he gets out, slowly, reluctance evident in every step. He walks to the front where Dean's waiting for him and makes a move to sit down on the hood, but Dean says, "No. Bend over, hands on the hood."
"What?" Sam says, face flushing red, and swallows when Dean unbuckles his belt, yanks it out of the loops. "I'm not a kid anymore, Dean! You can't just -"
"It's either that or spending the next three hundred miles plotting your demise," Dean says. "Now push your pants down and get your damn hands on the hood."
Sam looks at him with wide eyes, disbelieving, Dean looking back, both locked in some perverse staring contest. For a second Dean thinks Sam will make a run for it. Slip in the car and drive away himself, leave Dean here on the side of the road. Then Sam drops his eyes, fingers fumbling at the button of his jeans, finally getting it through the hole. He starts to take off his boxers, too, but Dean stops him, touching the waistband with two fingers. "No. Leave them on."
The pants are still hanging around Sam's knees when he turns and braces his hands on the hood. He's squirming, shivering in the cool night air. "Dean, please, " he mutters as he spreads his legs for better balance. "Not here. People might see -"
"They won't." It's dark around them, open fields on one side, a couple of trees on the other, nothing but the long stretch of road ahead. The Impala's headlights are the only light out here, even though Dean can still see the flames rising quickly, smell the stench of burning bones and wood when he closes his eyes. They haven't seen another car since they left, and the few farmhouses scattered here and there were dark as they passed them.
"Hold still now." Dean stands beside Sam as he doubles his belt, swings it a few times experimentally to get a feel for its weight and movement. He doesn't give Sam a warning, just raises his arm and lets the belt come down sharply. Sam gasps at the first smack and then whimpers when the second hits him even harder.
I gave you your life back, you fucking idiot, this is what you do with it? Dean wants to scream at Sam but doesn't. Throw yourself at the next monster you come across? Instead he hits him again and again until Sam's jerking even between the blows - toward Dean or away, Dean doesn't know. Doesn't want to know, doesn't want to think about how this is equal parts punishment and I love you.
It's different now, from the few times they did this before, once or twice when Dad wasn't there and Dean was so scared he didn't know how else to show Sam to never ever do something so stupid again. Sam's bigger now, he can take more, and instead of crying quietly he's making noises, moaning softly. It's different because it didn't make Dean hard before, hurting his brother, seeing him bend over and take it just like that, not once struggling to get up since Dean started.
Dean counts twenty-five strokes before he stops, trembling, as if he's the one who jut took a beating. "Enough?" he asks.
Sam nods but doesn't stand.
The belt feels heavy in Dean's hands, dropping from his fingers. It wasn't cheap, but it's not like he can't afford to buy a new one and he doesn't want to wear this one again.
"Get back in," Dean says. Sam's still bent over, pants having slipped down to his ankles, hair hanging over his face so Dean can't see his eyes. He doesn't watch Sam pull his pants back up, turns away, lying, "I gotta pee, be back in a minute."
He marches off until he's out of the light and leans against a tree, breathing heavily. His cock is insistent between his legs, heavy and twitching, and he runs a hand over his face. It takes a long time to fight down the urge to finish himself off right there.
When Dean comes back Sam's sitting in the passenger seat, dressed, quiet and rigid. "Dean -" he says when Dean climbs behind the wheel. He shifts on the seat, then winces. Dean tries not to think about how sore his ass must be, red and aching with every movement.
"We're not talking about it," Dean snaps and shoves Journey into the tape deck, cranking the volume up. They drive without speaking to each other until they check into a motel some hundred miles down the road.
Sam brushes by him on the way into the room without a word, his fingers lingering just a little too long on Dean's back for the touch to be accidental. He nearly turns around, asks Sam what the fuck he wants, but Sam's already in the bathroom, stripping down. He lets Sam have the shower and washes up in the sink, figures he owes him that much, his anger mostly gone. Sam got most of the dirt anyway, when he threw himself in front of Dean as the spirit attacked him.
Dean's already lying in bed when Sam comes out of the bathroom, eyes closed but unable to fall asleep for a while yet. Sam putters around the room, still not saying anything - though Dean can't hold it against him - until he finally settles down in his own bed, clicking off the light.
He listens to Sam breathing, knowing that Sam listens to his, when Sam's voice rings like a shout in the silent room. "Dean. What you did earlier -" he says and Dean cuts him off.
"We're not talking about it."
"We're not talking about it, I am," Sam says. "And you will fucking listen to me." Dean grunts, but Sam doesn't go on for so long that Dean almost thinks he did drop it after all. Then Sam says softly, "I liked it." He takes a deep breath, then says, matter-of-factly, as if he's announcing that the car needs gas, "And so did you."
"Sam -"
"Shut up," Sam growls. "I could see how hard you were when you walked away. Did you really have to pee or did you go jerk off, Dean?" He pauses, Dean's heart hammering in his throat. He's desperately hard suddenly, just from hearing Sam talking about it. He listens in the darkness, for rustling, for a sound, a quiet moan, anything that that would tell that Sam is touching himself over there in his bed, that would make it okay for Dean to slip his hand into his boxers, too, but Sam isn't doing anything, just keeps talking. "I did. I came all over your precious car and hoped you wouldn't notice. Or that you would so you'd bend me over again and smack me some more."
Dean thinks he actually stops breathing for a second, and then Sam's sheets do rustle, just before something small and coiled sails through the space between them and lands on Dean's stomach. "I picked up your belt."
End.