Indian Summer
Title: Indian Summer
Characters: Sam/Dean
Warnings: AU non-graphic wincest
Word count: 2,200
Disclaimed: None of these characters are mine and no one is paying me anything.
Notes: Reposted from the autumn-themed Dean-focused h/c meme for mad_server, who totally deserves schmoopy goodness.
By seven, he’s a little annoyed. Dean left to grab burgers over an hour ago; did he decide to take out someone’s cow and cook it fresh over a campfire?
By eight, he’s irritated. He’s left a dozen messages and gotten nothing in return. Dean probably let his cell phone battery die again. Utterly thoughtless, as usual.
By nine, he’s frantic. He’s paced back and forth across the cheap motel carpet so many times that he can almost see the trail he’s leaving in his wake. He pauses every few minutes to peer anxiously out the window, tearing apart the filthy old blinds and pressing his face against icy glass. It cools his feverishly hot face but he sees nothing but darkness and the occasional arrival of a car Dean wouldn’t be caught dead in. Even so, the sound of every approaching engine sets his heart skitter-thumping with hope. Where could he be? Dean must be in trouble. Serious trouble. He finally tugs on his jacket and strides outside because he can’t stay in this empty, silent room another moment.
He swings open the door and rushes out so quickly he nearly plows right over his brother.
Dean staggers, head down and shoulders slumped. Somehow the two manage not to topple over into a heap, but it’s a close thing.
“Dean!” Sam is shouting in spite of himself, unable to stop the furious words bubbling forth even as he takes stock of Dean’s dejected stance. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been out of my mind here! Don’t you check your messages anymore? And since when does getting dinner take four fucking hours?”
He expects Dean to retaliate with angry words of his own about Sam’s ongoing lack of gratitude, but instead he turns his head away and leans against the wall. His shoulders shake. His breathing is uneven.
“Dean, wha--?” But he realizes that maybe further interrogation aren’t going to help. He quickly closes the distance between them and folds Dean into his arms, mashing his cold, wet face against his neck. Dean feels like he’s been chiseled from ice. He feels like the walking dead.
“My god, Dean,” he breathes as he tugs him into the relative warmth of their room. “How long have you--” Again with the questions. Sam snaps his mouth shut, yanks off his jacket and gently wraps it around Dean’s shoulders. He slides his arms in beneath layers of too-thin fabric and pulls him close to share his own warmth.
Dean continues to tremble, and his teeth begin chattering in tempo with the shudders that run the length of his body.
“Dean,” Sam murmurs. “It’s okay.” But after what seems like an eternity of standing there pressed close, Dean’s shivering continues unabated and his skin remains clammy-cold. “Come on,” Sam orders as gently as he can. “Into the bathroom.”
The dumpy little room doesn’t have a separate heater but Sam closes the door and runs the bath water as hot as possible, filling the room with steam. He nudges Dean down onto the toilet seat to unlace his boots.
“M’okay, Sammy.” The words are forced around chattering teeth and barely audible over the rush of water filling the tub.
“Obviously,” Sam agrees dryly. “Come on, out of those clothes. My god, your fingers are blue.” His expression must be comically horrified because Dean manages a shaky little laugh.
“You’ve seen them in worse condition. Covered in blood, nails ripped off, ring finger dangling by a flap of skin...”
“Don’t remind me,” Sam snaps. “Can you get undressed or do you want help?”
Dean manages to look indignant while unwrapping Sam’s coat and shrugging out of his own jacket, but by the time he reaches his t-shirt he just lifts his arms up like a little kid and waits for Sam to assist him.
“You wear the whole clothing-lasagna but leave without a warm coat,” he complains as lightly as he’s able. “Of course if you’d gotten dinner in a reasonable timeframe you wouldn’t need winter gear.”
“T-t-t-t-t-t-ture.”
Dean doesn’t want his help getting into the tub but Sam keeps a stubborn grip on his arm until he’s seated within the hot water. He’s about to rise when Dean leans back against the enamel and lets out a sudden yelp.
“Dean! Are you okay? Where does it hurt? Do you need…”
His brother shakes his head, clearly trying not to laugh at his panicked deluge of questions. “No, I’m fine. Just that the tub’s fucking cold, Sammy.” Imploring green eyes turn beseechingly up towards him and Sam manages to resist for several full seconds before reaching for a towel.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” he mutters while dunking it into the water, wringing it out and carefully laying it against the back of the tub. “Okay, princess: you let me know if any more peas are disturbing your beauty treatment.” Couching down, he guides Dean back until he’s comfortably stretched out along the length of the bathtub. “Because here at Sam’s Sweet Salon, we aim to please. Some lavender bubbles, perhaps?”
“This is more like it,” Dean replies with a smug smile that untwists something within Sam’s chest. His lips are no longer blue and his trembling has eased, but his teeth continue to chatter away like a possessed wind-up toy. Sam pauses to give his hair a quick ruffle before striding out of the bathroom.
“Hey, where are you going?” Dean calls as Sam carries one of the cheap plastic cups into their main living area. “We haven’t even discussed my happy ending!” Laughing, Sam fills the cup with a mixture of hot water from the tap and whatever Dean’s got in his flask. It smells like lighter fluid, but Sam’s reasonably confident that it’s just the cheapest intoxicant Dean could find at the discount liquor store.
“Don’t worry, I’m not done with you,” he informs his brother as he re-enters the bathroom. It’s warm and humid as a jungle and he’s instantly overheated, but Dean is looking better by the moment - no longer trembling, lips no longer an alarming shade of zombie and his cheeks now flushed with color. He shoves the cup into Dean’s hands and orders him to drink up, which - much to his surprise - Dean does without question.
Two swallows and he’s coughing and sputtering, eyes watering. “What the…” he peers down into the cup and makes a face. “If you want this salon of yours to make it, I suggest hiring a decent bartender.” Pinching his nostrils shut with one hand, he polishes off the contents and grins up at him with an almost childlike expression of pride. “Anything else? Or should I just lay here until I prune up?”
Sam rolls his eyes and crouches down beside the tub again. “Dean, you scared me.” He’s no longer smiling and now that his immediate concern for his brother’s well-being has faded, irritation returns. “You were gone for hours and you return half-frozen. You gonna tell me what happened or do I have to spray you with the cold stuff until you start talking?”
Dean’s smile fades and he closes his eyes and dips as far down into the water as he can. It isn’t very far - the motel tub is a better size for a four-year-old than a grown man. When he finally speaks again, he sounds tired and far away. “Wasn’t my plan, Sammy. The car broke down, I’ve got no idea what her problem is and I couldn’t see a damn thing once the sun went down. It’s not like we carry around an arsenal of spare parts anyhow, but without someone to hold the flashlight for me…”
Sam is immediately overwhelmed with irrational guilt. “I should have gone with you,” he interjects, reaching awkwardly into the water to rest his hand against Dean’s shoulder.
Dean’s response is a quick shake of his head and a tired sigh. “I can manage a trip across town by myself just fine, Sammy. Well, usually. Today wasn’t my best demonstration but still, I don’t need babysitting. You mind if I get out of here now? I’m all warmed up. You don’t even need to worry about cold feet on your back tonight.”
Sam grabs a towel off the shelf and offers his hand for assistance. Dean waves it away and uses the tub’s ledge for leverage, but once he’s standing he sways alarmingly on his feet. “Woah,” he manages just before Sam lunges forward to grab him. He starts to say something else, but whatever it was is lost in an enormous sneeze. “…damnit it,” he mutters, dropping his head against Sam’s chest.
“You’re getting sick,” Sam remarks with careful neutrality. “Which I suppose is the natural response to wandering around in the freezing cold for hour after hour. Come on, let’s get you into bed.” He wraps the towel around Dean’s shoulders and uses the remaining one - a tiny hand towel - in an attempt to blot him dry.
“Naw. This is just me being nice, giving you an excuse to get your hands all over my hot body.”
Sam continues blotting at Dean’s back as he guides him towards the bed. “Next time you’re in such a charitable mood, let me know and I’ll give you some better suggestions. Now get dressed, I don’t want you getting chilled again.”
Dean makes a face as he finishes toweling himself off and crawls beneath the covers buck naked. “If you don’t want me chilled, you better get in here and keep me warm.”
Sam rolls his eyes again but kicks off his shoes and strips out of his flannel before crawling in beside Dean. He immediately relaxes into his brother’s warmth and smiles as he rests his head against his soft, clean hair.
“Hey Dean?”
“Yeah.”
“That ever happens again, you call me. Got it?”
There’s a long pause followed by a sigh. “I got it,” Dean agrees, sounding tired and sad. Sam pulls him closer, wrapping his arms tightly around bare skin and pressing his face against his ear. “Tell me,” he whispers.
He waits for the wisecrack or the annoyed retort, but for a long time there’s nothing but the sound of Dean’s steady breathing, and when he finally speaks his voice is strangely muted. “It was just bad luck. Some little thing going wrong with my baby at the wrong moment. It just got me thinking, while I was freezing my ass off on the way home…” He trails off with a laugh that’s so uncharacteristically bitter that Sam stiffens. “Home,” he repeats sardonically. “Isn’t that a joke.”
“Not really.” Sam manages to keep his voice even and neutral. “Where ever I am, that’s where home is. I thought you knew that.”
“I do,” Dean sighs. “I do, Sammy.” He drapes one leg over Sam’s hips, drawing them into a knot of close contact. “It’s just that I wanted to give you a better life than this: diners and cheap motels and breakdowns and no one in your bed but your brother-“
“Stop it,” Sam hisses directly into his ear. “Just stop. Listen to me, Dean: I don’t want anyone but you in my bed and I don’t care if that bed is in the cheapest, most roach-infested motel in the country. And if anyone else tries to climb in here, I’ve got a knife under my pillow.”
Dean relaxes by incremental degrees as he listens. “That’s my knife you’ve got under your pillow,” he reminds Sam.
“Don’t be a jerk,” Sam mutters into his hair. “How about you humor me and call it our knife?”
“I can do that,” Dean agrees magnanimously before leaning in with an uncertain kiss. Even after all this time he still begins like this, tentative and uncertain, as if Sam might shove him away. He’s about to respond with his tongue and escalate with his hands when a thought occurs to him.
“Hey Dean?”
“Mmmm. I thought we were making out?”
“And I thought you said you were on your way back from the diner when the car broke down.”
“I was.”
Sam pulls back just far enough to fix his brother with a hard look.
“So where’s my burger?”
“I, uh, umm… well. It was a long walk, Sammy. I, uh, well, I-“
Sam stabs him with his elbow and shakes his head in disbelief. “You ate my dinner?”
“Yeah.”
“Jerk.”
“Stop being a whiny bitch and kiss me already. I’m starting to get a cold chill over here.”
“It’s colder on the floor.”
“Awww, Sammy.” He pulls back far enough to cover his face as he explodes into a arrggg-gXhhooo. “If this cold turns into pneumonia and I croak, just think how much you’re going to regret not taking advantage of me tonight. Besides, I’m still a little sad.”
Sam pulls him close again and gently kisses his nose before trailing a line of kisses along his cheek. “You’re awfully lucky that I love you. I hope you know that.”
“I do, Sammy.” Dean closes his eyes and presses himself closer. “I really do.”
Characters: Sam/Dean
Warnings: AU non-graphic wincest
Word count: 2,200
Disclaimed: None of these characters are mine and no one is paying me anything.
Notes: Reposted from the autumn-themed Dean-focused h/c meme for mad_server, who totally deserves schmoopy goodness.
By seven, he’s a little annoyed. Dean left to grab burgers over an hour ago; did he decide to take out someone’s cow and cook it fresh over a campfire?
By eight, he’s irritated. He’s left a dozen messages and gotten nothing in return. Dean probably let his cell phone battery die again. Utterly thoughtless, as usual.
By nine, he’s frantic. He’s paced back and forth across the cheap motel carpet so many times that he can almost see the trail he’s leaving in his wake. He pauses every few minutes to peer anxiously out the window, tearing apart the filthy old blinds and pressing his face against icy glass. It cools his feverishly hot face but he sees nothing but darkness and the occasional arrival of a car Dean wouldn’t be caught dead in. Even so, the sound of every approaching engine sets his heart skitter-thumping with hope. Where could he be? Dean must be in trouble. Serious trouble. He finally tugs on his jacket and strides outside because he can’t stay in this empty, silent room another moment.
He swings open the door and rushes out so quickly he nearly plows right over his brother.
Dean staggers, head down and shoulders slumped. Somehow the two manage not to topple over into a heap, but it’s a close thing.
“Dean!” Sam is shouting in spite of himself, unable to stop the furious words bubbling forth even as he takes stock of Dean’s dejected stance. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been out of my mind here! Don’t you check your messages anymore? And since when does getting dinner take four fucking hours?”
He expects Dean to retaliate with angry words of his own about Sam’s ongoing lack of gratitude, but instead he turns his head away and leans against the wall. His shoulders shake. His breathing is uneven.
“Dean, wha--?” But he realizes that maybe further interrogation aren’t going to help. He quickly closes the distance between them and folds Dean into his arms, mashing his cold, wet face against his neck. Dean feels like he’s been chiseled from ice. He feels like the walking dead.
“My god, Dean,” he breathes as he tugs him into the relative warmth of their room. “How long have you--” Again with the questions. Sam snaps his mouth shut, yanks off his jacket and gently wraps it around Dean’s shoulders. He slides his arms in beneath layers of too-thin fabric and pulls him close to share his own warmth.
Dean continues to tremble, and his teeth begin chattering in tempo with the shudders that run the length of his body.
“Dean,” Sam murmurs. “It’s okay.” But after what seems like an eternity of standing there pressed close, Dean’s shivering continues unabated and his skin remains clammy-cold. “Come on,” Sam orders as gently as he can. “Into the bathroom.”
The dumpy little room doesn’t have a separate heater but Sam closes the door and runs the bath water as hot as possible, filling the room with steam. He nudges Dean down onto the toilet seat to unlace his boots.
“M’okay, Sammy.” The words are forced around chattering teeth and barely audible over the rush of water filling the tub.
“Obviously,” Sam agrees dryly. “Come on, out of those clothes. My god, your fingers are blue.” His expression must be comically horrified because Dean manages a shaky little laugh.
“You’ve seen them in worse condition. Covered in blood, nails ripped off, ring finger dangling by a flap of skin...”
“Don’t remind me,” Sam snaps. “Can you get undressed or do you want help?”
Dean manages to look indignant while unwrapping Sam’s coat and shrugging out of his own jacket, but by the time he reaches his t-shirt he just lifts his arms up like a little kid and waits for Sam to assist him.
“You wear the whole clothing-lasagna but leave without a warm coat,” he complains as lightly as he’s able. “Of course if you’d gotten dinner in a reasonable timeframe you wouldn’t need winter gear.”
“T-t-t-t-t-t-ture.”
Dean doesn’t want his help getting into the tub but Sam keeps a stubborn grip on his arm until he’s seated within the hot water. He’s about to rise when Dean leans back against the enamel and lets out a sudden yelp.
“Dean! Are you okay? Where does it hurt? Do you need…”
His brother shakes his head, clearly trying not to laugh at his panicked deluge of questions. “No, I’m fine. Just that the tub’s fucking cold, Sammy.” Imploring green eyes turn beseechingly up towards him and Sam manages to resist for several full seconds before reaching for a towel.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” he mutters while dunking it into the water, wringing it out and carefully laying it against the back of the tub. “Okay, princess: you let me know if any more peas are disturbing your beauty treatment.” Couching down, he guides Dean back until he’s comfortably stretched out along the length of the bathtub. “Because here at Sam’s Sweet Salon, we aim to please. Some lavender bubbles, perhaps?”
“This is more like it,” Dean replies with a smug smile that untwists something within Sam’s chest. His lips are no longer blue and his trembling has eased, but his teeth continue to chatter away like a possessed wind-up toy. Sam pauses to give his hair a quick ruffle before striding out of the bathroom.
“Hey, where are you going?” Dean calls as Sam carries one of the cheap plastic cups into their main living area. “We haven’t even discussed my happy ending!” Laughing, Sam fills the cup with a mixture of hot water from the tap and whatever Dean’s got in his flask. It smells like lighter fluid, but Sam’s reasonably confident that it’s just the cheapest intoxicant Dean could find at the discount liquor store.
“Don’t worry, I’m not done with you,” he informs his brother as he re-enters the bathroom. It’s warm and humid as a jungle and he’s instantly overheated, but Dean is looking better by the moment - no longer trembling, lips no longer an alarming shade of zombie and his cheeks now flushed with color. He shoves the cup into Dean’s hands and orders him to drink up, which - much to his surprise - Dean does without question.
Two swallows and he’s coughing and sputtering, eyes watering. “What the…” he peers down into the cup and makes a face. “If you want this salon of yours to make it, I suggest hiring a decent bartender.” Pinching his nostrils shut with one hand, he polishes off the contents and grins up at him with an almost childlike expression of pride. “Anything else? Or should I just lay here until I prune up?”
Sam rolls his eyes and crouches down beside the tub again. “Dean, you scared me.” He’s no longer smiling and now that his immediate concern for his brother’s well-being has faded, irritation returns. “You were gone for hours and you return half-frozen. You gonna tell me what happened or do I have to spray you with the cold stuff until you start talking?”
Dean’s smile fades and he closes his eyes and dips as far down into the water as he can. It isn’t very far - the motel tub is a better size for a four-year-old than a grown man. When he finally speaks again, he sounds tired and far away. “Wasn’t my plan, Sammy. The car broke down, I’ve got no idea what her problem is and I couldn’t see a damn thing once the sun went down. It’s not like we carry around an arsenal of spare parts anyhow, but without someone to hold the flashlight for me…”
Sam is immediately overwhelmed with irrational guilt. “I should have gone with you,” he interjects, reaching awkwardly into the water to rest his hand against Dean’s shoulder.
Dean’s response is a quick shake of his head and a tired sigh. “I can manage a trip across town by myself just fine, Sammy. Well, usually. Today wasn’t my best demonstration but still, I don’t need babysitting. You mind if I get out of here now? I’m all warmed up. You don’t even need to worry about cold feet on your back tonight.”
Sam grabs a towel off the shelf and offers his hand for assistance. Dean waves it away and uses the tub’s ledge for leverage, but once he’s standing he sways alarmingly on his feet. “Woah,” he manages just before Sam lunges forward to grab him. He starts to say something else, but whatever it was is lost in an enormous sneeze. “…damnit it,” he mutters, dropping his head against Sam’s chest.
“You’re getting sick,” Sam remarks with careful neutrality. “Which I suppose is the natural response to wandering around in the freezing cold for hour after hour. Come on, let’s get you into bed.” He wraps the towel around Dean’s shoulders and uses the remaining one - a tiny hand towel - in an attempt to blot him dry.
“Naw. This is just me being nice, giving you an excuse to get your hands all over my hot body.”
Sam continues blotting at Dean’s back as he guides him towards the bed. “Next time you’re in such a charitable mood, let me know and I’ll give you some better suggestions. Now get dressed, I don’t want you getting chilled again.”
Dean makes a face as he finishes toweling himself off and crawls beneath the covers buck naked. “If you don’t want me chilled, you better get in here and keep me warm.”
Sam rolls his eyes again but kicks off his shoes and strips out of his flannel before crawling in beside Dean. He immediately relaxes into his brother’s warmth and smiles as he rests his head against his soft, clean hair.
“Hey Dean?”
“Yeah.”
“That ever happens again, you call me. Got it?”
There’s a long pause followed by a sigh. “I got it,” Dean agrees, sounding tired and sad. Sam pulls him closer, wrapping his arms tightly around bare skin and pressing his face against his ear. “Tell me,” he whispers.
He waits for the wisecrack or the annoyed retort, but for a long time there’s nothing but the sound of Dean’s steady breathing, and when he finally speaks his voice is strangely muted. “It was just bad luck. Some little thing going wrong with my baby at the wrong moment. It just got me thinking, while I was freezing my ass off on the way home…” He trails off with a laugh that’s so uncharacteristically bitter that Sam stiffens. “Home,” he repeats sardonically. “Isn’t that a joke.”
“Not really.” Sam manages to keep his voice even and neutral. “Where ever I am, that’s where home is. I thought you knew that.”
“I do,” Dean sighs. “I do, Sammy.” He drapes one leg over Sam’s hips, drawing them into a knot of close contact. “It’s just that I wanted to give you a better life than this: diners and cheap motels and breakdowns and no one in your bed but your brother-“
“Stop it,” Sam hisses directly into his ear. “Just stop. Listen to me, Dean: I don’t want anyone but you in my bed and I don’t care if that bed is in the cheapest, most roach-infested motel in the country. And if anyone else tries to climb in here, I’ve got a knife under my pillow.”
Dean relaxes by incremental degrees as he listens. “That’s my knife you’ve got under your pillow,” he reminds Sam.
“Don’t be a jerk,” Sam mutters into his hair. “How about you humor me and call it our knife?”
“I can do that,” Dean agrees magnanimously before leaning in with an uncertain kiss. Even after all this time he still begins like this, tentative and uncertain, as if Sam might shove him away. He’s about to respond with his tongue and escalate with his hands when a thought occurs to him.
“Hey Dean?”
“Mmmm. I thought we were making out?”
“And I thought you said you were on your way back from the diner when the car broke down.”
“I was.”
Sam pulls back just far enough to fix his brother with a hard look.
“So where’s my burger?”
“I, uh, umm… well. It was a long walk, Sammy. I, uh, well, I-“
Sam stabs him with his elbow and shakes his head in disbelief. “You ate my dinner?”
“Yeah.”
“Jerk.”
“Stop being a whiny bitch and kiss me already. I’m starting to get a cold chill over here.”
“It’s colder on the floor.”
“Awww, Sammy.” He pulls back far enough to cover his face as he explodes into a arrggg-gXhhooo. “If this cold turns into pneumonia and I croak, just think how much you’re going to regret not taking advantage of me tonight. Besides, I’m still a little sad.”
Sam pulls him close again and gently kisses his nose before trailing a line of kisses along his cheek. “You’re awfully lucky that I love you. I hope you know that.”
“I do, Sammy.” Dean closes his eyes and presses himself closer. “I really do.”