Coldblooded
They’re not retiring, Dean’d told him. “Jesus, Sam, of course not.” Just. They’re just getting away for a while.
With the apocalypse looming over their heads ready to fall from the sky and shatter into a million pieces around them; and blazing unsettlingly in the distance whenever they face forward, Dean had dragged Sam away to some cabin in the backwoods of Wisconsin.
“Yeah, okay, so while we’re off Bon Iver-ing it up, the end of the world is just going to sit patiently, twiddle its thumbs, maybe knit a scarf, and let us take our time… until I’m ‘strong enough to return to hunting’, ‘til we’re good and ready…?” Sam had said.
Dean, he’d asked what the hell a Bon Iver was and blasted Highway to Hell through the speakers as they sped down the highway to the middle of nowhere.
+
It’s early, Sam thinks. God, it’s so early, he’ll just roll over, sleep a hundred hours more, he’ll wrap himself around his brother and they’ll stay like that a month, maybe. Sam reaches for Dean’s waist to drag him closer. His hand closes around air.
He sits up.
“Dean?”
Doesn’t know why he’d said it, he can see the whole world now, and Dean isn’t beside him. His eyes fall on the clock and the window at the same time.
10:34, and outside there’s gotta be nearly half a foot of snow, and more swirls round and round through the gray-white sky. Sam calls Dean’s name again, louder now, in a real attempt to find him, then pulls back the covers at the silence that follows.
He’s down the hall in seconds.
“Dean,” he says and can breathe easy now. Dean’s there, turns around.
“Merry Christmas, Sam!” he says, his face a little too lit-up.
“Dean what… it’s not even Christmas… what are you-”
“Made pancakes,” Dean says and looks real proud. “Or… uh… pancake. They kinda got stuck together, they-”
He shoves a fork into the pan on the stove and slides the contents onto a plate, holding it out to Sam, his eyes brighter than the Christmas tree they hadn’t bothered to get.
“There’s, uh… there’s maple syrup, and there’s blueberry. I figured it’s a bit too soon for strawberry, considering-”
He thrusts the plate into Sam’s hands. Sam takes a forkful, sets it on the table.
“’s’good,” he says. “Dean, what-”
The bite he’d eaten almost catches in his throat when Dean grabs a handful of his shirt and kisses him. Sam opens his mouth for him, though, and lets his brother lick pancake crumbs off his teeth.
“Sammy,” Dean says into his hair. He walks Sam backwards, pushes him up against the fridge. He tilts his head up to kiss Sam more. Sam puts his hands on his Dean’s waist, then licks gently at his mouth a while. Dean presses his lips to the corner of Sam’s.
After too soon, Dean says, “So.” He says, “Christmas Eve. What d’you wanna do?”
“Uh,” Sam says. “Uh, this is good.”
Dean looks like he’s considering it, but then,
“I was thinkin’ we’d go out.”
Sam raises his eyebrows. “Out.”
“Yeah,” Dean says, “y’know. Go for a walk. Become one with nature and-”
“One with… Dean, have you looked out the window today?”
Dean is sighing, he says, “Look. Sam. I know you don’t wanna to be here. You’d rather be… putting your life on the line for the goddamn world. So I thought you’d… want some I don’t know… fresh air…somethin’…”
Sam puts a hand on Dean’s cheek, forces eye contact.
“Don’t… don’t strain yourself, Dean.”
He watches the eager expression on Dean’s face fade, watches his eyes go dim. He should say “okay”, he knows. Instead he says,
“Dean that’s not gonna-”
The look on Dean’s face is almost a grimace. Sam thinks of what it’d been just seconds ago, he thinks of those goddamn pancakes.
Deep breath.
“Okay.”
+
Sam stands on cold tile. They are, him and Dean, in the process of getting ready for the snowstorm of both their lifetimes that he knows neither of them actually wants to face. He takes his shirt off, tosses it on the floor. Feels dizzy then, and pretends he hadn’t been feeling that way since he’d woken up that morning. Since longer.
He grips the edge of the sink and watches his knuckles go white. Then he turns on the facet. Hot water flows and steam rises up to cloud the mirror. When he runs his hands under the water, it’s a good kind of pain that he needs sometimes, he thinks. Thinks if anyone deserves a little pain, it’s him.
Sam scrubs his hands over his face, runs them through his hair. Finally he stares at himself in the mirror. It’s too unrecognizable, what he sees, though it’s like nothing’s changed. There’s this darkness in his eyes that he’s not sure is real. If Dean can see it, if anyone can, they act like it’s nothing new. Maybe it’s always been there.
Sam carefully avoids his reflection after that. He brushes his teeth. He rinses his mouth.
He puts on a shirt.
+
They’re ready in an hour.
Dean comes out of their room dressed in his usual twelve layers, no hat no gloves no anything he wouldn’t have worn if it were a hundred degrees out.
“Dude, you’re gonna freeze your ass off,” Sam tells him.
“Might,” Dean agrees. “At least when it comes to what’s really important-” he pulls a gun out of the waistband of his jeans “-I’ve come prepared.”
As it turns out, they’re got three guns, a knife and two flasks of holy water between them.
+
They trek through the snow on the ground and the snow in the air. It’s not as bad, Sam supposes, as he’d expected. It’s peaceful, a word Sam has never really known. There’s nobody, not for miles and miles. Or at least he can pretend there’s not. Just him and Dean. Dean and him. How it was always supposed to be.
They’re these two dark shadows on an endless stretch of white. Out here it’s easy to imagine the apocalypse has already happened and Sam thinks maybe it’ll be just like this.
There’s snow fucking everywhere. The sky’s so bleak it couldn’t be noon. Couple hundred yards away there are trees, they’re dauntingly giant and Sam feels small in their shadows. He looks back and there are two sets of footprints in a near-straight line from the door of their cabin to where they stand. Sam wishes he could think of their lives that way. Two sets of footprints leading up to where they stand at the end of the world at the end of the world. He knows he’s left Dean one too many times and so that doesn’t fit at all.
He wants to cling to Dean’s arm. Maybe he wants to hold his hand. But his breath and Dean’s jet out in foggy streams every time they exhale, swirling together and around one another, and it means the same thing.
They walk like that a while, finally turn to give each other looks of love and longing.
Sam says, “Cold.”
Dean says “Yeah.” They trudge on.
+
It’s on the way back that Sam loses it a little. His heart feels too heavy in his chest and with each beat he swears he can hear his blood rushing around inside of him. His head’d been getting cloudy since the moment he’d stepped outside but now he thinks it could fall off his neck and thump down to be lost forever in the snow. He wishes it would, anyway.
His breath comes in unsteady, shallows heaves. He can see it rushing out and out and out of him.
“Sam?” Dean says. He stops, he grabs Sam’s shoulders.
“Sam what… what’s wrong… Sam…”
Sam can’t look him in the eyes.
“Dean, I think…” His throat feels like it’s closing up and if those were the last words he’d ever speak, he thinks that wouldn’t be so bad.
“Think it’s the-”
Sam stumbles, he’s falling. But Dean is there and catches him, pulls Sam against him.
“Sam, what,” Dean says and he looks so much like this is something he can fix that Sam almost can’t bring himself to say the words.
“The demon blood,” he finally says. “It’s-”
Dean lets him go, he turns away. Sam watches him carefully. The way he clenches his jaw and tightens his fists.
“Dean, I-”
“It been this bad all day?” Dean asks. He turns back around.
“What?”
“All week?”
“Dean it’s… I can handle it. Am handling it. I just need-” He stops. Doesn’t know what he needs.
Dean has an arm around him then.
“C’mon,” he says. “Gonna carry you.”
Sam pulls away.
“Dean, no,” he says. “You can’t.”
“Well then what do you want me to do, Sam, huh? Leave you here?”
Sam’s shaking his head, says, “I’ll be fine, just-”
He sees desperation and a million other things pass over Dean’s face then.
He says, “You need blood…”
“Yeah…” Sam says. “But I’m not going to… ‘m stronger than that. And even if… there aren’t any-”
“Well,” Dean says quietly. “Well I got blood”
Sam, he just stares at him.
“You-”
“You need blood, Sammy, drink mine. It’s... it’s not… but better’n nothin’.”
Sam almost laughs. Or maybe cries. He can see what this is a little too well, knows how hard Dean tries to be everything to him. He just gives and gives and gives and now he’s standing there, shivering in too few clothes, holding his arm out to Sam, ready to give him that too.
“I… I don’t think it works like that, Dean,” Sam says. “It’s not… not the blood, it’s the-”
“But.” Dean is quick. “I been to hell. Maybe… maybe it’s-”
“No. No, it’s not… Dean, you’re not-”
“Come on,” Dean says. “Sammy. We can try. Sam. We gotta. Know it’s not…what you need. I know I can’t give you that but we can… some of it’s gotta be… you can trick yourself into thinking… into… come on Sam do it just like you did with… with…”
Sam is nodding because he’s unsteady on his feet and if he hears anymore he thinks he’ll fall. Dean’s inches too far to catch him this time.
“Okay,” he says. “Dean, okay.”
Dean nods, uncomfortably. He takes off his jacket, pushes up the sleeves on his right arm. He pulls a knife out of somewhere.
“Dean, wait,” Sam says. “I wanna.”
Dean, he looks almost amused, he says, “Don’t gotta make a big deal out of it,” but he hands Sam the knife anyway. Sam’s hand shakes a little but he clutches tight around the handle and the it nearly stops.
When Sam holds the knife against his skin, Dean flinches. Sam knows it’s not the pain.
He drags the blade across Dean’s forearm. Watches the way his blood bubbles up against his pale skin. He pulls the knife away and holds it out over the untouched bank of snow beside their footprints. A drop lands in the snow and Sam can’t look away. Another lands beside it. Sam raises his eyes to meet Dean’s gaze, as he lifts the knife over his mouth. Blood falls onto this tongue. Then more.
Carefully, he licks along one side of it. He’s so aware of Dean’s eyes on him and he can almost hear the if you cut your tongue open, Sam, I fucking swear.
Sam sinks to his knees. The snow soaks through his jeans all the way down to his bones. Maybe on purpose, one knee ends up right against the spot where Dean’s blood had fallen. He can see it beginning to stain him.
When he presses his mouth to the cut on Dean’s arm, Dean hisses at the contact.
“’s’okay” Dean tells him. Sam knows it’s not. He knows nothing about this is okay and Dean will never be okay and he won’t either.
Sam starts to suck his brother’s blood.
+
Somehow, it fills him up in a way demon blood never could. It feels right as it gushes down his throat. Feels good like Dean is the embodiment of everything righteous in the entire world. Sam thinks he probably is.
And it belongs there, Sam thinks. His brother’s blood, his, it’s all the same.
Sam sits back against his heels. He knows he looks like something they would hunt with blood dripping down his chin and eyes inhuman, but he brings himself to tilt his head up and look at Dean.
“Jesus,” Dean says. “Sam, you, uh… you done?” Sam doesn’t say anything a minute. He sits there letting the blood course through him, he can feel it, feel it making him stronger and shock washes over him when he remembers that it wasn’t supposed to work.
“Yeah,” he says at last. “Think so. But-”
Do it just like you did with…
If it were Ruby, he’d already have her stripped bare and on her back.
He reaches for Dean’s hip, grabs it firmly. Moves his hand down in a slow caress. Dean’s eyes follow the movement.
“Sam…” he says.
“Dean, let me. Wanna… wanna give you something in return.”
“Consider it my gift to you. Merry Christmas.”
Sam grins. “Well, I didn’t get you anything either.”
His hand lands on Dean’s fly. He presses his thumb against the button there and undoes it carefully. The zipper slides down too easily.
Dean kinda gasps when Sam pulls his boxers down.
“’s’too cold, Sammy,” he says. “Don’t think I’m gonna-”
But Sam can see how much he wants it.
He wraps his hand around Dean’s cock cautiously. He has some of Dean’s blood on his fingertips and he watches with fascination as they leave red marks on the end of his cock. He leans forward and darts his tongue out to lick at the blood. The noise Dean makes this time is more of a whine.
Sam meets his eyes and takes the head of his cock in his mouth. This, too, feels like it belongs there. He lets Dean’s dick slide deep into his mouth and grins around it when he feels its growing hardness.
“Fuck,” Dean lets out. “Fuck, Sam-”
Sam works his mouth up the length of Dean’s cock then back down. He licks around the head of it and the underside. When he feels Dean grab his hair, he tilts his head back ‘til it hurts. He brings his head forward so Dean’s cock is as far in as it will go. And that hurts too.
Faster, Sam works his cock. A snowflake falls and lands in the corner of his eye. He sucks and sucks until he’s nothing but the rhythm he’d set and that one blinding snowflake.
Dean is making these noises and Sam’s been doing this long enough to know it means he’s close.
“Sam, I’m gonna-” Dean says anyway. Sam releases Dean and looks up at him.
“It’s okay,” he says. “Come for me, Dean. Come in my mouth, like I need this too.”
He swallows Dean’s cock again and Dean is coming and shaking from the cold and from the orgasm ripping through him. His come coats Sam’s mouth and eases down his throat.
Dean’s breath flows out just the same and he says Sam’s name a couple times. Sam stands, pulling Dean’s pants up as he goes. He has Dean’s blood, Dean’s come in his mouth. So he cups the back of his head, pulls him forward, and presses his lips to Dean’s.
Dean makes a noise of surprise but it’s lost on the thrust of Sam’s tongue into his mouth. He kisses him real deep, real slow, licking Dean’s tongue and his teeth, sucking on his lip. Sam pulls back and takes in the sight of Dean. That tongue, those teeth and his slick bottom lip stained red by his own blood.
There was something wrong, Sam thinks, about the way Dean had gone along with the whole thing. The kiss that had wrecked his perfect mouth, the blowjob too. He’d been a little too quiet, little too willing. His voice shakes some when he says “Can we go now?”
Sam nods. He picks up the knife and uses it to scrape snow off his jeans. Dean looks unsteady as he bends down to grab his jacket but he slings Sam’s arm around his neck like he’s fine and they begin the slow walk home.
+
Dean deposits Sam down on their bed when they get there, millions of years later. Sam reaches up, grabs a handful of Dean’s shirt. He pulls him down on top of him. Dean makes a move to roll off but Sam wraps his arms around him too quick. Holds him tight.
“Sam, your jeans are fucking soaked,” Dean says. “Real dumb of you, kneeling in the snow like that.”
Sam says “Fine.” He releases Dean and pushes at his chest until he sits up. He makes a show of unbuttoning his jeans and pulling them off nice and slow. Tosses them on the floor.
“Your jacket,” he says, tugging at his brother, “is soaking, Dean. Throwing it in the snow like that, real dumb of you, real dumb.”
He’s grinning as he pulls it off Dean’s shoulders, drops it next to his jeans. Then he gets a hand under Dean’s shirt. He runs his fingertips lightly up Dean’s stomach, down again. With his other hand he undoes a button.
The pile of clothes on the floor grows quick to include everything Dean’d been wearing. Sam lies on his side, he leans on one arm and looks at his brother he’d stripped bare. Dean is on his back, lying still and on display and Sam’s breath kinda catches.
Dean’s got blood drying on his cock, his arm, lips. It’s splattered across the side of his face, somehow, and there’s a kind of beauty in the way it blends in with his freckles.
“Jesus, Dean,” Sam says. “Should look at yourself. You’re a mess and we haven’t even fucked yet. ‘less you count-”
“Don’t think we should… you need to rest-”
Sam can see it all over his face that that’s not what this is about. He puts a hand on Dean’s bicep, drags it down his arm, stops when he gets to the cut towards the bottom.
“I’ll sew this up, then,” Sam says, running one finger along the line he’d cut. “Put something on it.”
Dean pulls his arm away.
“I’m fine.”
Sam can count on one hand - on no hands at all - the number of times Dean had said those words and meant them. He isn’t sure Dean knows what they mean.
“Dean,” he says. “What?”
“Nothin’, Sammy. Let’s just put out cookies and milk for Santa, then go to bed.”
“Okay,” Sam agrees. “But I’m not giving you your clothes back. And I don’t think Santa gives presents to little boys and girls who let their brothers give them blowjobs in the middle of a blizzard.
“Sam,” is all Dean says. He pulls Sam towards him and says against his neck,
“I should’ve known.” Sam wriggles out of Dean’s grip to look at him.
“What, Dean? Known what?”
Dean doesn’t answer and Sam bites his lip in frustration. It’s like Dean’s five, sometimes.
“You could’ve…” Dean says after a thousand deep breaths. “This wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t suggested… Sam next time we’re out in the middle of nowhere this ain’t gonna work again.”
Sam doesn’t think he wants to hear this. He wants to say a hundred things at once and doesn’t have words for any of them.
So he says, “Roll over.”
Dean blinks at him in surprise. Sam sees some relief there, too. Of course Dean would want to avoid having a conversation he’d started in the first place. It surprises Sam less than it should when his brother pushes himself up on his elbows for a second then turns over slowly and spreads himself out on his stomach.
Sam’s eyes travel down Dean’s body for too long. He can’t believe it, sometimes. Nothing about Dean had ever seemed real. When he was fifteen and didn’t know much about life, only thing he did know was the way Dean looked when he hadn’t gotten enough sleep and the way Dean’s arm felt around his neck; then he’d thought of Dean as look but don’t touch no don’t even look. Now, Sam’s allowed to touch him like this, look at him like that, put his fingers on him and inside of him and Sam thinks maybe demon blood isn’t the only thing he’s addicted to.
Dean glances at him over his shoulder saying hurry up without any words. Sam gets a hand on him, the curve of his back right above his ass. Dean says,
“You gonna fuck me, Sammy?” His face is near-pressed into a pillow and the sound is muffled. “Or just sit there and breathe at me?”
Sam pulls off his shirt. Only thing left’s his boxers. Weighing down against his quickly hardening cock. He peels them off. Then lies down half on top of Dean and runs his fingers over the short hairs at the nape of his neck. His other hand is back on that dip of skin and bone.
Long as he lives, he’ll never be able to get over the endless expanse of Dean’s back, Sam knows. The lightly freckled skin, the way his muscles move and tell every story Dean’s ever lived through.
His hand goes lower.
Sam says, “Wait.” Climbs off Dean because he knows he should. Grabs lube from the bathroom, he almost trips over the pile of clothes scrambling back onto the bed. He presses his entire body against Dean and licks, then bites at the back of his shoulder. Dean turns his head to the side, tries to look at Sam.
“Sam, christ” he says. “You already carved your name into my arm. Don’t need to-” Sam’s mouth is on his right then and if Dean could finish his sentence like this, Sam thinks he wouldn’t. They sigh into each other’s mouths and their tongues lock together.
He moves back to Dean’s neck. Just presses his lips to the soft skin there. Then he lets himself, finally, slide his hand down Dean. He fumbles with the lube, gets it everywhere but it’s just one more thing they’ll have to scrub off each other in the shower in maybe a week.
Dean lets out a long “Nrrrrrrrgghhjshdhfcj” when Sam pushes his lube-covered pointer finger into him and hooks it, right away, over Dean’s prostate. Dean squirms a little and Sam presses his other hand against his shoulder blades to steady him.
“Wasn’t your fault, Dean.” Sam whispers against him. Quietly.
“Wh…what…” Dean says. “What are you talking…Sam can you…another finger…”
Sam grins into Dean’s neck. He pulls his finger out some, so it’s barely inside him, so Dean can think straight.
“You said…said it was your fault, what happened out there.”
Sam slides another finger in beside the first. He pulls them apart, and then together. Watches the way Dean’s hole stretches then contracts and he thinks of all he’s ever seen and nothing else has ever looked like this.
“Let me guess. It’s your fault I got addicted to the stuff in the first place.”
Dean says “Let it go, let it go.” He’s writhing a little beneath Sam.
“You’re shaking, Dean.” Then, “I feel like…all the time, I feel like I’m dying. When I’m with you, like this or…or…I feel like that even more. Letting you down, and all. But-”
One more finger. He’s sure it isn’t necessary.. But he’s hurt Dean enough for one lifetime, he thinks, and so he risks it.
“-you were right. Dragging me out here. Dragging me out there.” He waves vaguely towards the window. “Couldn’t do this any other way.”
Dean, he, all he says is “Yeah, okay,” Dismissively. “Now would you hurry up?”
Sam raises his eyebrows, amused, says, “You gonna beg?”
“Please,” Dean says flatly. “Please shut up your stupid girly confession and fucking fuck me.”
Sam pulls out his fingers, all at once, says, “No.”
“Sam.” Dean says like he’s trying to be firm but it comes out like a whine. Sam moves over Dean more, until he’s flat against him. He covers himself with more and more lube, then lines his cock up with the crease of Dean’s ass.
“Tell me…tell me I’m right tell me you’re right tell me something.” Sam’s all ready to push inside him the moment he does.
“Something. Wanna know something, Sam? Was s’possed to protect you. My whole life, that was…then you go and get yourself addicted to that crap. How can I not think it’s my fault.” He smiles and it’s crooked and the saddest thing Sam’s ever seen. “Must’ve done a few things wrong.”
Sam closes his eyes tight. He bows his head so his forehead rests against Dean’s back. Doesn’t say anything. He gets himself up on his elbows then his hands, and with one rough thrust, drives himself into Dean.
Dean is uncharacteristically silent at first. Sam wonders if he’s just going to lie there and take it and it wasn’t supposed to be like that. But then Dean says his name all quiet. And Sam lifts up with almost his whole body until he’s holding Dean open with just the head of his cock. He eases back in and works up a steady rhythm, then grins when the sound of Dean’s breathing starts to match it. Dean is hot all around him, and under him. He tries to think of the hours they’d spent in that freezing air and it doesn’t make sense, that something could be cold. He doesn’t know what that’d be like. The slap of his hips against Dean’s ass is the only thing he knows for sure.
He licks at the sweat on Dean’s shoulders, then sucks on his mouth, some, and adds that sweat to the come, the blood already lingering on Dean’s tongue. He wonders if there’s anything else he could get away with drawing out of Dean’s body then forcing back inside of him.
When Sam comes, it takes him by surprise. He’s got Dean’s name on his lips, spurting streams of come into his brother. He fills him up and up, hopes it feels like it’d felt when Dean’s warm blood’d been sliding down his throat.
He thinks, probably, it doesn’t.
Sam pulls out, Dean says, “Sam.”
Then, “I need-”
Sam pushes at his shoulder, and Dean allows himself to be turned over. Dean lies there and tilts his head back against the headboard, bites his lip. How Dean looks now, completely wrecked and on the edge of becoming even more, Sam thinks he could come again just from looking at him.
He grabs Dean’s cock, starts jacking it faster, faster. Dean groans and groans and grabs handfuls of the quilt beneath him.
“Fuck, Sam, marry me,” Dean says. And other nonsense.
Too soon, Dean is coming. Sam would’ve been okay with watching him fall apart a while longer. But he works him through it saying “Yeah Dean, yeah”, while Dean says “Sammy Sammy Sammy.”
Sam wipes his hand surreptitiously on Dean’s side of the bed. He draws a leg over Dean’s hip and slides him closer. Grabs Dean’s arm, it doesn’t look so good.
“Sam, I’m fine,” Dean warns. Sam rolls over then lifts himself off the bed.
“Wait, wait!” Dean says, trying to grab him. “I didn’t mean it! I… I’m not okay! I’m in pain I’m dying just. Just get back here.
Sam gets back there.
He has some bandages and a bottle of alcohol and Dean groans a little. He holds his arm out, though and lets Sam put him back together.
“I would, you know,” Sam says after too much silence.
Dean looks up at him.
“Would what?”
“Marry you.” Dean groans louder than he had at the sight of the bandages. He squeezes his eyes shut, shakes his head.
“Shut up.”
“No Dean, let me-” Sam empties the bottle over Dean’s arm and it’s like Dean doesn’t feel it.
“Sam,” he says. “No goddamn-”
“Dean. There are no goddamn chick flicks about incest. Can I-” He starts wrapping the bandage around Dean’s arm, and Dean is focusing all his attention on this, now.
“The things you’ve done for me man…” He tapes the bandage closed and rests Dean’s arm in his lap, trailing his fingers lightly over his wrist.
“If you only knew how much I -”
“Jesus,” Dean says. “Okay. I get it. You… you love me this much wanna never let me go. If only we weren’t brothers you’d be down on one knee but we mean so much more than that blah blah blah.” His tone is dry but Sam knows. He knows. Dean means every word.
+
“’twas the night before Christmas and all through the house. Not a creature was stirring not even a mouse. Uh. The. Fuck. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care. Something something something something something that rhymes with care.”
There’s this fireplace in the living room. Dean’d gotten it going no problem and they’re sitting beside it like they’d been there all day. They’re inches apart on the couch that’s almost too small for that, because Dean’s had enough cuddling for one day, apparently. Still, he drums his fingers on Sam’s thigh and brushes their knees together in the process of readjusting himself.
The day is collapsing around them and the snow’s still falling. Sam’s starting to feel worse again, that addiction thing, and all. But he knows, now, he’ll get through it. And so he grins against the hand he’s got resting on the arm of the couch and lets the fire and his brother become the only things that matter.
“Thanks Dean” Sam says. For the story. And he means for a whole lot more.
With the apocalypse looming over their heads ready to fall from the sky and shatter into a million pieces around them; and blazing unsettlingly in the distance whenever they face forward, Dean had dragged Sam away to some cabin in the backwoods of Wisconsin.
“Yeah, okay, so while we’re off Bon Iver-ing it up, the end of the world is just going to sit patiently, twiddle its thumbs, maybe knit a scarf, and let us take our time… until I’m ‘strong enough to return to hunting’, ‘til we’re good and ready…?” Sam had said.
Dean, he’d asked what the hell a Bon Iver was and blasted Highway to Hell through the speakers as they sped down the highway to the middle of nowhere.
+
It’s early, Sam thinks. God, it’s so early, he’ll just roll over, sleep a hundred hours more, he’ll wrap himself around his brother and they’ll stay like that a month, maybe. Sam reaches for Dean’s waist to drag him closer. His hand closes around air.
He sits up.
“Dean?”
Doesn’t know why he’d said it, he can see the whole world now, and Dean isn’t beside him. His eyes fall on the clock and the window at the same time.
10:34, and outside there’s gotta be nearly half a foot of snow, and more swirls round and round through the gray-white sky. Sam calls Dean’s name again, louder now, in a real attempt to find him, then pulls back the covers at the silence that follows.
He’s down the hall in seconds.
“Dean,” he says and can breathe easy now. Dean’s there, turns around.
“Merry Christmas, Sam!” he says, his face a little too lit-up.
“Dean what… it’s not even Christmas… what are you-”
“Made pancakes,” Dean says and looks real proud. “Or… uh… pancake. They kinda got stuck together, they-”
He shoves a fork into the pan on the stove and slides the contents onto a plate, holding it out to Sam, his eyes brighter than the Christmas tree they hadn’t bothered to get.
“There’s, uh… there’s maple syrup, and there’s blueberry. I figured it’s a bit too soon for strawberry, considering-”
He thrusts the plate into Sam’s hands. Sam takes a forkful, sets it on the table.
“’s’good,” he says. “Dean, what-”
The bite he’d eaten almost catches in his throat when Dean grabs a handful of his shirt and kisses him. Sam opens his mouth for him, though, and lets his brother lick pancake crumbs off his teeth.
“Sammy,” Dean says into his hair. He walks Sam backwards, pushes him up against the fridge. He tilts his head up to kiss Sam more. Sam puts his hands on his Dean’s waist, then licks gently at his mouth a while. Dean presses his lips to the corner of Sam’s.
After too soon, Dean says, “So.” He says, “Christmas Eve. What d’you wanna do?”
“Uh,” Sam says. “Uh, this is good.”
Dean looks like he’s considering it, but then,
“I was thinkin’ we’d go out.”
Sam raises his eyebrows. “Out.”
“Yeah,” Dean says, “y’know. Go for a walk. Become one with nature and-”
“One with… Dean, have you looked out the window today?”
Dean is sighing, he says, “Look. Sam. I know you don’t wanna to be here. You’d rather be… putting your life on the line for the goddamn world. So I thought you’d… want some I don’t know… fresh air…somethin’…”
Sam puts a hand on Dean’s cheek, forces eye contact.
“Don’t… don’t strain yourself, Dean.”
He watches the eager expression on Dean’s face fade, watches his eyes go dim. He should say “okay”, he knows. Instead he says,
“Dean that’s not gonna-”
The look on Dean’s face is almost a grimace. Sam thinks of what it’d been just seconds ago, he thinks of those goddamn pancakes.
Deep breath.
“Okay.”
+
Sam stands on cold tile. They are, him and Dean, in the process of getting ready for the snowstorm of both their lifetimes that he knows neither of them actually wants to face. He takes his shirt off, tosses it on the floor. Feels dizzy then, and pretends he hadn’t been feeling that way since he’d woken up that morning. Since longer.
He grips the edge of the sink and watches his knuckles go white. Then he turns on the facet. Hot water flows and steam rises up to cloud the mirror. When he runs his hands under the water, it’s a good kind of pain that he needs sometimes, he thinks. Thinks if anyone deserves a little pain, it’s him.
Sam scrubs his hands over his face, runs them through his hair. Finally he stares at himself in the mirror. It’s too unrecognizable, what he sees, though it’s like nothing’s changed. There’s this darkness in his eyes that he’s not sure is real. If Dean can see it, if anyone can, they act like it’s nothing new. Maybe it’s always been there.
Sam carefully avoids his reflection after that. He brushes his teeth. He rinses his mouth.
He puts on a shirt.
+
They’re ready in an hour.
Dean comes out of their room dressed in his usual twelve layers, no hat no gloves no anything he wouldn’t have worn if it were a hundred degrees out.
“Dude, you’re gonna freeze your ass off,” Sam tells him.
“Might,” Dean agrees. “At least when it comes to what’s really important-” he pulls a gun out of the waistband of his jeans “-I’ve come prepared.”
As it turns out, they’re got three guns, a knife and two flasks of holy water between them.
+
They trek through the snow on the ground and the snow in the air. It’s not as bad, Sam supposes, as he’d expected. It’s peaceful, a word Sam has never really known. There’s nobody, not for miles and miles. Or at least he can pretend there’s not. Just him and Dean. Dean and him. How it was always supposed to be.
They’re these two dark shadows on an endless stretch of white. Out here it’s easy to imagine the apocalypse has already happened and Sam thinks maybe it’ll be just like this.
There’s snow fucking everywhere. The sky’s so bleak it couldn’t be noon. Couple hundred yards away there are trees, they’re dauntingly giant and Sam feels small in their shadows. He looks back and there are two sets of footprints in a near-straight line from the door of their cabin to where they stand. Sam wishes he could think of their lives that way. Two sets of footprints leading up to where they stand at the end of the world at the end of the world. He knows he’s left Dean one too many times and so that doesn’t fit at all.
He wants to cling to Dean’s arm. Maybe he wants to hold his hand. But his breath and Dean’s jet out in foggy streams every time they exhale, swirling together and around one another, and it means the same thing.
They walk like that a while, finally turn to give each other looks of love and longing.
Sam says, “Cold.”
Dean says “Yeah.” They trudge on.
+
It’s on the way back that Sam loses it a little. His heart feels too heavy in his chest and with each beat he swears he can hear his blood rushing around inside of him. His head’d been getting cloudy since the moment he’d stepped outside but now he thinks it could fall off his neck and thump down to be lost forever in the snow. He wishes it would, anyway.
His breath comes in unsteady, shallows heaves. He can see it rushing out and out and out of him.
“Sam?” Dean says. He stops, he grabs Sam’s shoulders.
“Sam what… what’s wrong… Sam…”
Sam can’t look him in the eyes.
“Dean, I think…” His throat feels like it’s closing up and if those were the last words he’d ever speak, he thinks that wouldn’t be so bad.
“Think it’s the-”
Sam stumbles, he’s falling. But Dean is there and catches him, pulls Sam against him.
“Sam, what,” Dean says and he looks so much like this is something he can fix that Sam almost can’t bring himself to say the words.
“The demon blood,” he finally says. “It’s-”
Dean lets him go, he turns away. Sam watches him carefully. The way he clenches his jaw and tightens his fists.
“Dean, I-”
“It been this bad all day?” Dean asks. He turns back around.
“What?”
“All week?”
“Dean it’s… I can handle it. Am handling it. I just need-” He stops. Doesn’t know what he needs.
Dean has an arm around him then.
“C’mon,” he says. “Gonna carry you.”
Sam pulls away.
“Dean, no,” he says. “You can’t.”
“Well then what do you want me to do, Sam, huh? Leave you here?”
Sam’s shaking his head, says, “I’ll be fine, just-”
He sees desperation and a million other things pass over Dean’s face then.
He says, “You need blood…”
“Yeah…” Sam says. “But I’m not going to… ‘m stronger than that. And even if… there aren’t any-”
“Well,” Dean says quietly. “Well I got blood”
Sam, he just stares at him.
“You-”
“You need blood, Sammy, drink mine. It’s... it’s not… but better’n nothin’.”
Sam almost laughs. Or maybe cries. He can see what this is a little too well, knows how hard Dean tries to be everything to him. He just gives and gives and gives and now he’s standing there, shivering in too few clothes, holding his arm out to Sam, ready to give him that too.
“I… I don’t think it works like that, Dean,” Sam says. “It’s not… not the blood, it’s the-”
“But.” Dean is quick. “I been to hell. Maybe… maybe it’s-”
“No. No, it’s not… Dean, you’re not-”
“Come on,” Dean says. “Sammy. We can try. Sam. We gotta. Know it’s not…what you need. I know I can’t give you that but we can… some of it’s gotta be… you can trick yourself into thinking… into… come on Sam do it just like you did with… with…”
Sam is nodding because he’s unsteady on his feet and if he hears anymore he thinks he’ll fall. Dean’s inches too far to catch him this time.
“Okay,” he says. “Dean, okay.”
Dean nods, uncomfortably. He takes off his jacket, pushes up the sleeves on his right arm. He pulls a knife out of somewhere.
“Dean, wait,” Sam says. “I wanna.”
Dean, he looks almost amused, he says, “Don’t gotta make a big deal out of it,” but he hands Sam the knife anyway. Sam’s hand shakes a little but he clutches tight around the handle and the it nearly stops.
When Sam holds the knife against his skin, Dean flinches. Sam knows it’s not the pain.
He drags the blade across Dean’s forearm. Watches the way his blood bubbles up against his pale skin. He pulls the knife away and holds it out over the untouched bank of snow beside their footprints. A drop lands in the snow and Sam can’t look away. Another lands beside it. Sam raises his eyes to meet Dean’s gaze, as he lifts the knife over his mouth. Blood falls onto this tongue. Then more.
Carefully, he licks along one side of it. He’s so aware of Dean’s eyes on him and he can almost hear the if you cut your tongue open, Sam, I fucking swear.
Sam sinks to his knees. The snow soaks through his jeans all the way down to his bones. Maybe on purpose, one knee ends up right against the spot where Dean’s blood had fallen. He can see it beginning to stain him.
When he presses his mouth to the cut on Dean’s arm, Dean hisses at the contact.
“’s’okay” Dean tells him. Sam knows it’s not. He knows nothing about this is okay and Dean will never be okay and he won’t either.
Sam starts to suck his brother’s blood.
+
Somehow, it fills him up in a way demon blood never could. It feels right as it gushes down his throat. Feels good like Dean is the embodiment of everything righteous in the entire world. Sam thinks he probably is.
And it belongs there, Sam thinks. His brother’s blood, his, it’s all the same.
Sam sits back against his heels. He knows he looks like something they would hunt with blood dripping down his chin and eyes inhuman, but he brings himself to tilt his head up and look at Dean.
“Jesus,” Dean says. “Sam, you, uh… you done?” Sam doesn’t say anything a minute. He sits there letting the blood course through him, he can feel it, feel it making him stronger and shock washes over him when he remembers that it wasn’t supposed to work.
“Yeah,” he says at last. “Think so. But-”
Do it just like you did with…
If it were Ruby, he’d already have her stripped bare and on her back.
He reaches for Dean’s hip, grabs it firmly. Moves his hand down in a slow caress. Dean’s eyes follow the movement.
“Sam…” he says.
“Dean, let me. Wanna… wanna give you something in return.”
“Consider it my gift to you. Merry Christmas.”
Sam grins. “Well, I didn’t get you anything either.”
His hand lands on Dean’s fly. He presses his thumb against the button there and undoes it carefully. The zipper slides down too easily.
Dean kinda gasps when Sam pulls his boxers down.
“’s’too cold, Sammy,” he says. “Don’t think I’m gonna-”
But Sam can see how much he wants it.
He wraps his hand around Dean’s cock cautiously. He has some of Dean’s blood on his fingertips and he watches with fascination as they leave red marks on the end of his cock. He leans forward and darts his tongue out to lick at the blood. The noise Dean makes this time is more of a whine.
Sam meets his eyes and takes the head of his cock in his mouth. This, too, feels like it belongs there. He lets Dean’s dick slide deep into his mouth and grins around it when he feels its growing hardness.
“Fuck,” Dean lets out. “Fuck, Sam-”
Sam works his mouth up the length of Dean’s cock then back down. He licks around the head of it and the underside. When he feels Dean grab his hair, he tilts his head back ‘til it hurts. He brings his head forward so Dean’s cock is as far in as it will go. And that hurts too.
Faster, Sam works his cock. A snowflake falls and lands in the corner of his eye. He sucks and sucks until he’s nothing but the rhythm he’d set and that one blinding snowflake.
Dean is making these noises and Sam’s been doing this long enough to know it means he’s close.
“Sam, I’m gonna-” Dean says anyway. Sam releases Dean and looks up at him.
“It’s okay,” he says. “Come for me, Dean. Come in my mouth, like I need this too.”
He swallows Dean’s cock again and Dean is coming and shaking from the cold and from the orgasm ripping through him. His come coats Sam’s mouth and eases down his throat.
Dean’s breath flows out just the same and he says Sam’s name a couple times. Sam stands, pulling Dean’s pants up as he goes. He has Dean’s blood, Dean’s come in his mouth. So he cups the back of his head, pulls him forward, and presses his lips to Dean’s.
Dean makes a noise of surprise but it’s lost on the thrust of Sam’s tongue into his mouth. He kisses him real deep, real slow, licking Dean’s tongue and his teeth, sucking on his lip. Sam pulls back and takes in the sight of Dean. That tongue, those teeth and his slick bottom lip stained red by his own blood.
There was something wrong, Sam thinks, about the way Dean had gone along with the whole thing. The kiss that had wrecked his perfect mouth, the blowjob too. He’d been a little too quiet, little too willing. His voice shakes some when he says “Can we go now?”
Sam nods. He picks up the knife and uses it to scrape snow off his jeans. Dean looks unsteady as he bends down to grab his jacket but he slings Sam’s arm around his neck like he’s fine and they begin the slow walk home.
+
Dean deposits Sam down on their bed when they get there, millions of years later. Sam reaches up, grabs a handful of Dean’s shirt. He pulls him down on top of him. Dean makes a move to roll off but Sam wraps his arms around him too quick. Holds him tight.
“Sam, your jeans are fucking soaked,” Dean says. “Real dumb of you, kneeling in the snow like that.”
Sam says “Fine.” He releases Dean and pushes at his chest until he sits up. He makes a show of unbuttoning his jeans and pulling them off nice and slow. Tosses them on the floor.
“Your jacket,” he says, tugging at his brother, “is soaking, Dean. Throwing it in the snow like that, real dumb of you, real dumb.”
He’s grinning as he pulls it off Dean’s shoulders, drops it next to his jeans. Then he gets a hand under Dean’s shirt. He runs his fingertips lightly up Dean’s stomach, down again. With his other hand he undoes a button.
The pile of clothes on the floor grows quick to include everything Dean’d been wearing. Sam lies on his side, he leans on one arm and looks at his brother he’d stripped bare. Dean is on his back, lying still and on display and Sam’s breath kinda catches.
Dean’s got blood drying on his cock, his arm, lips. It’s splattered across the side of his face, somehow, and there’s a kind of beauty in the way it blends in with his freckles.
“Jesus, Dean,” Sam says. “Should look at yourself. You’re a mess and we haven’t even fucked yet. ‘less you count-”
“Don’t think we should… you need to rest-”
Sam can see it all over his face that that’s not what this is about. He puts a hand on Dean’s bicep, drags it down his arm, stops when he gets to the cut towards the bottom.
“I’ll sew this up, then,” Sam says, running one finger along the line he’d cut. “Put something on it.”
Dean pulls his arm away.
“I’m fine.”
Sam can count on one hand - on no hands at all - the number of times Dean had said those words and meant them. He isn’t sure Dean knows what they mean.
“Dean,” he says. “What?”
“Nothin’, Sammy. Let’s just put out cookies and milk for Santa, then go to bed.”
“Okay,” Sam agrees. “But I’m not giving you your clothes back. And I don’t think Santa gives presents to little boys and girls who let their brothers give them blowjobs in the middle of a blizzard.
“Sam,” is all Dean says. He pulls Sam towards him and says against his neck,
“I should’ve known.” Sam wriggles out of Dean’s grip to look at him.
“What, Dean? Known what?”
Dean doesn’t answer and Sam bites his lip in frustration. It’s like Dean’s five, sometimes.
“You could’ve…” Dean says after a thousand deep breaths. “This wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t suggested… Sam next time we’re out in the middle of nowhere this ain’t gonna work again.”
Sam doesn’t think he wants to hear this. He wants to say a hundred things at once and doesn’t have words for any of them.
So he says, “Roll over.”
Dean blinks at him in surprise. Sam sees some relief there, too. Of course Dean would want to avoid having a conversation he’d started in the first place. It surprises Sam less than it should when his brother pushes himself up on his elbows for a second then turns over slowly and spreads himself out on his stomach.
Sam’s eyes travel down Dean’s body for too long. He can’t believe it, sometimes. Nothing about Dean had ever seemed real. When he was fifteen and didn’t know much about life, only thing he did know was the way Dean looked when he hadn’t gotten enough sleep and the way Dean’s arm felt around his neck; then he’d thought of Dean as look but don’t touch no don’t even look. Now, Sam’s allowed to touch him like this, look at him like that, put his fingers on him and inside of him and Sam thinks maybe demon blood isn’t the only thing he’s addicted to.
Dean glances at him over his shoulder saying hurry up without any words. Sam gets a hand on him, the curve of his back right above his ass. Dean says,
“You gonna fuck me, Sammy?” His face is near-pressed into a pillow and the sound is muffled. “Or just sit there and breathe at me?”
Sam pulls off his shirt. Only thing left’s his boxers. Weighing down against his quickly hardening cock. He peels them off. Then lies down half on top of Dean and runs his fingers over the short hairs at the nape of his neck. His other hand is back on that dip of skin and bone.
Long as he lives, he’ll never be able to get over the endless expanse of Dean’s back, Sam knows. The lightly freckled skin, the way his muscles move and tell every story Dean’s ever lived through.
His hand goes lower.
Sam says, “Wait.” Climbs off Dean because he knows he should. Grabs lube from the bathroom, he almost trips over the pile of clothes scrambling back onto the bed. He presses his entire body against Dean and licks, then bites at the back of his shoulder. Dean turns his head to the side, tries to look at Sam.
“Sam, christ” he says. “You already carved your name into my arm. Don’t need to-” Sam’s mouth is on his right then and if Dean could finish his sentence like this, Sam thinks he wouldn’t. They sigh into each other’s mouths and their tongues lock together.
He moves back to Dean’s neck. Just presses his lips to the soft skin there. Then he lets himself, finally, slide his hand down Dean. He fumbles with the lube, gets it everywhere but it’s just one more thing they’ll have to scrub off each other in the shower in maybe a week.
Dean lets out a long “Nrrrrrrrgghhjshdhfcj” when Sam pushes his lube-covered pointer finger into him and hooks it, right away, over Dean’s prostate. Dean squirms a little and Sam presses his other hand against his shoulder blades to steady him.
“Wasn’t your fault, Dean.” Sam whispers against him. Quietly.
“Wh…what…” Dean says. “What are you talking…Sam can you…another finger…”
Sam grins into Dean’s neck. He pulls his finger out some, so it’s barely inside him, so Dean can think straight.
“You said…said it was your fault, what happened out there.”
Sam slides another finger in beside the first. He pulls them apart, and then together. Watches the way Dean’s hole stretches then contracts and he thinks of all he’s ever seen and nothing else has ever looked like this.
“Let me guess. It’s your fault I got addicted to the stuff in the first place.”
Dean says “Let it go, let it go.” He’s writhing a little beneath Sam.
“You’re shaking, Dean.” Then, “I feel like…all the time, I feel like I’m dying. When I’m with you, like this or…or…I feel like that even more. Letting you down, and all. But-”
One more finger. He’s sure it isn’t necessary.. But he’s hurt Dean enough for one lifetime, he thinks, and so he risks it.
“-you were right. Dragging me out here. Dragging me out there.” He waves vaguely towards the window. “Couldn’t do this any other way.”
Dean, he, all he says is “Yeah, okay,” Dismissively. “Now would you hurry up?”
Sam raises his eyebrows, amused, says, “You gonna beg?”
“Please,” Dean says flatly. “Please shut up your stupid girly confession and fucking fuck me.”
Sam pulls out his fingers, all at once, says, “No.”
“Sam.” Dean says like he’s trying to be firm but it comes out like a whine. Sam moves over Dean more, until he’s flat against him. He covers himself with more and more lube, then lines his cock up with the crease of Dean’s ass.
“Tell me…tell me I’m right tell me you’re right tell me something.” Sam’s all ready to push inside him the moment he does.
“Something. Wanna know something, Sam? Was s’possed to protect you. My whole life, that was…then you go and get yourself addicted to that crap. How can I not think it’s my fault.” He smiles and it’s crooked and the saddest thing Sam’s ever seen. “Must’ve done a few things wrong.”
Sam closes his eyes tight. He bows his head so his forehead rests against Dean’s back. Doesn’t say anything. He gets himself up on his elbows then his hands, and with one rough thrust, drives himself into Dean.
Dean is uncharacteristically silent at first. Sam wonders if he’s just going to lie there and take it and it wasn’t supposed to be like that. But then Dean says his name all quiet. And Sam lifts up with almost his whole body until he’s holding Dean open with just the head of his cock. He eases back in and works up a steady rhythm, then grins when the sound of Dean’s breathing starts to match it. Dean is hot all around him, and under him. He tries to think of the hours they’d spent in that freezing air and it doesn’t make sense, that something could be cold. He doesn’t know what that’d be like. The slap of his hips against Dean’s ass is the only thing he knows for sure.
He licks at the sweat on Dean’s shoulders, then sucks on his mouth, some, and adds that sweat to the come, the blood already lingering on Dean’s tongue. He wonders if there’s anything else he could get away with drawing out of Dean’s body then forcing back inside of him.
When Sam comes, it takes him by surprise. He’s got Dean’s name on his lips, spurting streams of come into his brother. He fills him up and up, hopes it feels like it’d felt when Dean’s warm blood’d been sliding down his throat.
He thinks, probably, it doesn’t.
Sam pulls out, Dean says, “Sam.”
Then, “I need-”
Sam pushes at his shoulder, and Dean allows himself to be turned over. Dean lies there and tilts his head back against the headboard, bites his lip. How Dean looks now, completely wrecked and on the edge of becoming even more, Sam thinks he could come again just from looking at him.
He grabs Dean’s cock, starts jacking it faster, faster. Dean groans and groans and grabs handfuls of the quilt beneath him.
“Fuck, Sam, marry me,” Dean says. And other nonsense.
Too soon, Dean is coming. Sam would’ve been okay with watching him fall apart a while longer. But he works him through it saying “Yeah Dean, yeah”, while Dean says “Sammy Sammy Sammy.”
Sam wipes his hand surreptitiously on Dean’s side of the bed. He draws a leg over Dean’s hip and slides him closer. Grabs Dean’s arm, it doesn’t look so good.
“Sam, I’m fine,” Dean warns. Sam rolls over then lifts himself off the bed.
“Wait, wait!” Dean says, trying to grab him. “I didn’t mean it! I… I’m not okay! I’m in pain I’m dying just. Just get back here.
Sam gets back there.
He has some bandages and a bottle of alcohol and Dean groans a little. He holds his arm out, though and lets Sam put him back together.
“I would, you know,” Sam says after too much silence.
Dean looks up at him.
“Would what?”
“Marry you.” Dean groans louder than he had at the sight of the bandages. He squeezes his eyes shut, shakes his head.
“Shut up.”
“No Dean, let me-” Sam empties the bottle over Dean’s arm and it’s like Dean doesn’t feel it.
“Sam,” he says. “No goddamn-”
“Dean. There are no goddamn chick flicks about incest. Can I-” He starts wrapping the bandage around Dean’s arm, and Dean is focusing all his attention on this, now.
“The things you’ve done for me man…” He tapes the bandage closed and rests Dean’s arm in his lap, trailing his fingers lightly over his wrist.
“If you only knew how much I -”
“Jesus,” Dean says. “Okay. I get it. You… you love me this much wanna never let me go. If only we weren’t brothers you’d be down on one knee but we mean so much more than that blah blah blah.” His tone is dry but Sam knows. He knows. Dean means every word.
+
“’twas the night before Christmas and all through the house. Not a creature was stirring not even a mouse. Uh. The. Fuck. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care. Something something something something something that rhymes with care.”
There’s this fireplace in the living room. Dean’d gotten it going no problem and they’re sitting beside it like they’d been there all day. They’re inches apart on the couch that’s almost too small for that, because Dean’s had enough cuddling for one day, apparently. Still, he drums his fingers on Sam’s thigh and brushes their knees together in the process of readjusting himself.
The day is collapsing around them and the snow’s still falling. Sam’s starting to feel worse again, that addiction thing, and all. But he knows, now, he’ll get through it. And so he grins against the hand he’s got resting on the arm of the couch and lets the fire and his brother become the only things that matter.
“Thanks Dean” Sam says. For the story. And he means for a whole lot more.