MASTERPOST: All the Times I Let You Down - (Sam/Dean, R)
Title: All the Times I Let You Down
Artist: jdl71
Author: amypond45
Other Pairing(if applicable): none
Rating: R
Warnings/Spoilers: witch!Sam, magic powers!Dean, post-15x19, pov: Sam
Summary: Shortly after they defeat Chuck, Dean begins to exhibit sudden, unpredictable bursts of magic. To help control it, he performs a spell to summon a familiar and is shocked to discover his familiar is Sam. But the spell has the unintended consequence of opening a psychic link between the Winchesters, forcing them to face feelings long suppressed. Dean doesn’t deal well.
Art: A03
Story: LJ | Ao3
A/N: Many thanks to jdl71 for the amazing art that inspired this story, as well as for being such a wonderful, patient beta, Many thanks also to bluefire986 for moderating this bang for another year. Check out wincest_reverse for this and other wonderful fics and art!
It starts small, with little things that Sam almost ignores because they seem so insignificant.
The toaster goes missing, only to show up in Dean’s room.
The garage grows an extra door that opens onto a street in downtown Lebanon.
When Sam opens the refrigerator to check the contents before a grocery run, it’s already full of Dean’s favorite beer.
“Dude, we need to put actual food in here,” Sam complains.
Dean frowns and glances around Sam’s arm, into the fridge, then gives a satisfied nod.
Sam rolls his eyes. “Just clear some space before I get back with the groceries.”
Then, weird stuff starts happening on hunts. Weirder than usual.
A garage door comes down on a vampire, effectively decapitating it and ending the hunt without either Winchester raising a blade.
A trio of werewolves fall dead of apparent heart attacks just as the Winchesters break into their cabin to accost them.
A vengeful spirit that’s attacking Sam suddenly explodes in a splatter of ectoplasm, covering him in dripping, black goo.
“What the hell just happened?” he yells at Dean, who’s run into the room, sawed-off loaded with salt rounds in his hands.
“Oh.” Dean stops short, startled, but weirdly unsurprised. “Well, at least now we don’t need to burn the bones, right?”
Sam frowns, spitting goo out of his mouth and wiping it off his cheeks with a grimace. “Wait. Did you know that was gonna happen?”
“What? No! Of course not!”
Sam gets the distinct impression Dean’s lying, which doesn’t make any sense, so he shakes his head irritably and heads out to the car to find a washcloth.
Back at the bunker, Sam finds evidence of spells cast in various rooms, obviously not intended for Sam to find. When he confronts Dean about it, Dean vehemently denies any spell-casting, repeating his long-held distaste for witches and magic.
But it’s what he says when he’s denying the spells that makes Sam most suspicious.
“Except you, Sam. You’re the obvious exception. I like you, most of the time. Not when you ask me about spells, though. I definitely don’t like it when you ask me about witches. Yech!”
Sam shakes his head. “Somebody’s doing something,” he insists. “There are spell residuals all over the bunker.”
That night, Sam senses something so powerful that it wakes him up. He sits up, realizing he’s no longer in his bed. He’s in Dean’s. Naked. Dean stands over him, smoking spell bowl in his hand, looking shocked.
It’s not like Sam’s never been naked in front of Dean before. But this is different. Suddenly, all the times they’ve transgressed in the past flood to the fore:
The summer before Sam left for Stanford, when Sam’s pent-up desire and frustration got the better of him and he slammed Dean up against the door and kissed him.
That night two years later, when Dean showed up at Sam’s dorm, drunk and miserable and desperate. Sam was just starting to get over him, but he couldn’t resist and they fucked right there on Sam’s little twin-size bed for the first time.
That terrible night after Jess died, when Dean offered comfort and Sam took it, still smelling of smoke, fucking into his brother with tears of grief and more than a little relief rolling down his cheeks.
The night before Dean’s deal was due, desperate and sloppy.
The night after the siren tried to make them kill each other and Dean was angry and jealous of Ruby, sure Sam was going down the wrong path, so Sam showed him both how fucked up he was and how much he still wanted Dean with everything he had.
Soulless Sam, who had no chill and no filter, announcing to Dean that they needed to fuck, telling Dean how he never stopped wanting him, even through all the mess they’d made of their lives, and Dean giving in because he was still hoping there was something left of his little brother inside this creepy, sleepless robot.
The week after Sam’s wall came crashing down and all hell broke loose because Sam was hallucinating and needed to believe that Dean was real, that this was real.
Various other moments, always fraught, always suppressed later, or just never mentioned again.
Now, all those times flood Sam’s memory, vivid and intense, as if they all happened yesterday.
“What the hell?”
Sam yanks the blanket over his junk and glares up at his brother.
“Dean? Seriously. What the hell?”
Dean’s mouth works, but no sound comes out.
“Dean? What did you do?” Sam demands.
He slides off the bed on the opposite side from Dean, awkwardly dragging the blanket with him. It’s too big to wrap around his waist, but he’s damned if he’s going to confront his brother and whatever magic he’s just committed without it.
“This - This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Dean stammers. “You’re not. It’s not supposed to be you.”
“What? What wasn’t supposed to happen? What the hell were you trying to do?”
Dean shakes his head. “No, no, no. It can’t be. You can’t be here, Sammy. That’s not supposed to be how this goes.”
Sam recognizes the signs of an imminent freak-out and immediately changes his tone. He puts out a hand, as he would to gentle a skittish horse, and hunches, deliberately making himself smaller, less imposing.
“It’s okay, Dean, it’s okay. We’ll figure it out, okay? Whatever you were trying to do, it obviously didn’t turn out the way you intended. Just tell me what you were trying to do and let me help you fix it, okay?”
Sam moves closer, slowly removes the spell bowl from Dean’s trembling hands and places it on the bureau, then sits down on the edge of the bed.
Dean’s still staring, glassy-eyed, so Sam reaches out and touches his forearm.
Dean blinks, lifts his eyes to Sam, and swallows.
“There’s something inside me, Sammy,” he says, voice hoarse and broken, gesturing at his own chest. “Some kind of magic, I think. I can’t control it, and it’s been getting stronger, so I read about a spell that could summon a - a familiar.”
He looks away, blinking, and Sam sees tears on his cheeks.
And now Sam knows. He can feel it, even if Dean hasn’t explicitly stated it. Sam knows.
“It was a bonding spell,” he says, nodding. “Not just a summoning spell.”
Dean’s mouth closes. He nods, eyes widening as he stares at Sam. His hands are shaking.
“A familiar is supposed to ground the magic, keep it from bursting out of me like some kind of cosmic grenade launcher.”
Sam nods, fighting down the panic rising in his chest. He can feel the bond, feel it tugging at him, Dean’s need for him to help like a physical rope pulling at him. Controlling him.
“Okay,” he says. “That’s okay. We can deal with that. Hey, hey, Dean. You should sit down. That spell took a lot out of you.”
Dean does. He’s shaking all over now, obviously exhausted and overwrought. He sits in the room’s only chair, knees almost touching Sam’s.
“Look, I’m gonna go get some clothes, okay? And then - Then we can talk some more.”
Dean looks up, eyes wide and pleading, and Sam can feel his need, his desire to grab hold of Sam and not let him go.
“It’s gonna be okay, Dean, I promise. I’ll be right back.”
Shit. Fuck. What the hell? Damn it.
Sam swallows down his panic as he rises to leave the room. He resists the urge to run, to get as far away from Dean as he can possibly go. He’s never felt as trapped and helpless as he feels right now, at least not since the Cage, and he can’t even be angry with Dean because Dean didn’t mean to do it. Dean didn’t intend to trap Sam or bind him. Dean can’t possibly know how it feels.
Dean can’t possibly know that being tied down and unable to escape has always been Sam’s greatest fear.
Just a couple of months after they defeated Chuck and finally won their freedom, this feels like the worst kind of cruel joke. They were finally free, and now this.
As Sam gets dressed in his own room, he ignores the pull of the bond, Dean’s need radiating into Sam until he can barely extract his own feelings from Dean’s. He forces himself to take deep breaths, to surround himself with an aura of calm and confidence that he doesn’t feel in the least.
He’ll figure out a way to reverse the binding spell, he tells himself. It can’t be that difficult. Sam and Dean are already soulmates, closer than any two normal people can ever be, destined to spend eternity together. The Winchesters don’t need magic to bind them. Their natural bond is already stronger than any spell.
Sam can fix this.
As he leaves his room, Dean’s right there.
“Jesus, Sammy, I didn’t know. I’m so fuckin’ sorry. I should’ve figured it out sooner.”
Sam gasps as he understands what Dean’s saying. The bond goes both ways. Dean can sense Sam’s feelings as if they’re his own, just as Sam can sense Dean’s need for him. Dean’s desire.
No wonder those memories of all the times they were physically intimate crashed into Sam’s mind as he woke up. They were Dean’s memories, the first things he thought of when he saw naked Sam on his bed.
Dean still wants him. Dean never stopped wanting them to have that.
“Dean, it’s okay,” Sam insists, resisting the urge to flee. “We’ll figure it out.”
But Dean’s lost in self-pity, his old self-loathing pushing to the foreground as it usually does when he does something stupid.
“I’m just this weight around your neck, holding you back, keeping you from having a normal life.”
Sam puts his hands up, shakes his head.
“Dean, stop. You’re my stone number one, remember? My brother. And I love you. I just don’t want to be bound to you.”
“Of course you don’t,” Dean agrees too readily. “I’m a liability, Sammy. I’m poison. Everything I do either fucks everything up or kills people. Or both.”
“That’s enough!” Sam puts his hands on either side of Dean’s neck, forcing him to look at Sam. “We’ll figure it out, okay? Together.”
Sam closes his eyes for a moment, just to focus on getting a grip, on not letting Dean’s feelings of guilt and self-doubt overwhelm him.
“Let’s have a drink and think this through,” he says as he opens his eyes.
Dean stares at him, big green eyes watery and scared, and Sam feels so out of his element. He depends on Dean to be the big brother, the one who always has everything under control, and this is not that. This is anything but that. This is Dean feeling like a freak. A monster. Weak and terrified and helpless.
“Tell me how it started,” Sam says when they’re sitting across the table in the library, whisky poured.
Dean slams back his whisky in one swallow and reaches for the bottle to pour another.
“The day after Chuck,” Dean says. “At first, I figured maybe we didn’t get the job done after all. It felt like something was wrong, inside, you know?”
Sam huffs out an irritated breath. “Yeah, Dean, I do. Then what happened?”
“Well, you know what happened,” Dean says. “I mean, you must’ve noticed. Little bits of magic kept bursting out. I could feel it when it happened, so I know it was me.”
Sam recalls the toaster, the garage door, the beer-stocked refrigerator.
“Yeah, okay,” Sam nods. “What else?”
“Then it started happening on hunts.”
Sam nods, recalling the conveniently decapitated vampire, the three heart attacks in the werewolves’ cabin.
“So you tried to figure out how to contain it,” Sam suggests.
Dean nods. “But everything I did kept backfiring. Little bits of magic kept popping out, and I couldn’t seem to control it.”
“So you figured out a binding spell.”
Dean nods.
“The spell was supposed to summon a familiar,” Dean says. “Someone who could ground the magic. An anchor for all the weird shit that’s been happening. I had no clue it would bind me to you, Sammy, I swear.”
Sam frowns, shakes his head. He doesn’t doubt Dean’s sincerity in the least. Dean couldn’t lie to him now if he wanted to.
“I just wish you’d told me,” he says.
Shame flows out of Dean into Sam, making Sam wince.
“I didn’t want you to know,” Dean says. “I thought I could handle it. You’ve always counted on me to be strong, and I - I haven’t felt this out of control since the whole thing with Michael.”
He swallows down the whisky in his glass and reaches for the bottle.
“I was expecting a cat, or even a dog,” Dean says as he pours another drink. “Something supernatural. A complete stranger.”
Sam closes his eyes, clenches his jaw as he struggles to contain his irritation.
“Just show me what you did, so that we can figure out how to reverse it,” he says. “Then we’ll work on containing your magic.”
As Dean explains the spell he performed that got them into the mess they’re in, Sam wades through the morass of thoughts and feelings that now flow freely between the brothers. Dean loves him, of course, but Sam has always done his best to ignore how obsessive and possessive that love could be. Now there’s no way to avoid it. Dean wants every part of Sam, every inch. He wants to keep him, to hold him tight, even while he understands mentally that he needs to let Sam be free to be his own man.
There’s no way Dean can ever let Sam go. He would die first. He thinks he will die, one day, sooner rather than later, and that his death will set Sam free. With Dean dead and gone, Sam can go on to live a normal life, the way he deserves to do. Dean thinks Sam wants that, although Sam might never admit it. Dean’s convinced Sam would be better off without him.
“Okay, stop.” Sam puts his hand up, closes his eyes to focus.
Dean halts, mid-sentence, and looks up, flinching when he recognizes the look of annoyance on Sam’s face.
“I get it,” Sam says, more sharply than he intended. “I think I can work a reverse spell that would work.” He rolls his eyes. “If I can just think straight for two minutes.”
He feels Dean’s sadness as he leaves the room, retreating to the basement storage room where he keeps the spell ingredients he inherited from Rowena. He stops along the way to retrieve the spell bowl that Dean used to summon him, trying not to think about those first moments on Dean’s bed.
Sam loves his brother, he really does. If truth be told, it’s something of a relief to learn that Dean still wants him in every way and has always done so. Sam never stopped wanting that from Dean, and now Dean can probably sense that, too, since their bond flows both ways.
It’s just irritating and embarrassing to have that secret exposed without Sam’s consent, that’s all. Dean needs to understand that.
As a fresh surge of remorse flows into Sam through the bond, he huffs out a sigh. He wishes Dean’s guilt didn’t feel so much like self-pity. Sam will forgive Dean for this, just as he forgives him for everything, eventually. But for now, it feels too much like a violation, too much of an infringement on his privacy, too much like being possessed. Too much, period.
Besides. Sam can’t shake the notion that this is something Dean wants, that the spell used Dean’s deepest desire, to be as close to Sam as possible, to create this bond in the first place.
Dean might not have bound Sam to him deliberately, but it’s totally something he would do. If he could slip inside Sam’s body and mind and soul, just nestle in there and hold him good and tight, Dean would. Or, a part of him would, anyway.
But that’s not the worst of it. Not by a long shot.
Sam feels Dean’s flicker of hope, dashed by more guilt. Sam’s feelings can’t just be his own. Dean must’ve somehow forced Sam to feel those feelings. Dean infected his little brother. It’s all his fault.
“Argh. Stop!” Sam yells out loud, although he’s too far away from Dean physically now for Dean to hear him. “Just get out of my head for one second, jerk!”
Dean withdraws, cowering, but Sam can still feel him, hovering inside the bond like a mother bird, ready to pounce.
“Bitch.”
The little voice in Sam’s head isn’t his own, but he recognizes it, rolls his eyes as he continues to rifle through Rowena’s spell ingredients, all neatly organized in the small wooden drawers of what was once a library card catalog.
When he collects what he needs, he lays the items on the table in the center of the room, alongside the spell bowl and pestle, then hesitates.
He needs a piece of Dean to complete the spell. Hair, fingernail, saliva, something.
As soon as he has that thought, Sam senses Dean closing in on him, coming to save the day and complete the spell. Sam clenches his fists, fights the anger and frustration rising in his chest as he hears Dean’s footsteps outside the door.
“Here.” Sam holds the spell bowl out as Dean slips into the room. “Spit into this.”
“Witches and their skeevy bodily fluids,” Dean mutters, but he does as he’s told.
Sam seethes. He can’t even look Dean in the eye right now. Having him in the room messes with Sam’s concentration. He can’t tell where he, Sam, ends and Dean begins.
“I’ll be in the garage,” Dean says, voice shaky as he senses Sam’s emotional turmoil.
As soon as he’s gone, Sam takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, and goes to work.
The spell goes smoothly. Sam can feel the mind link weakening, then falling away entirely. Afterward, Sam’s left hovering over the still-smoking spell bowl, flooded with relief. He can still sense Dean at the edges of his peripheral psychic vision, but that’s normal. That’s just their soulbond, which has always been there. Sam’s always been able to feel that, even if he didn’t recognize it when they were young. He suspects Dean has always sensed it, too, although he’s never mentioned it.
Just like they never talk about their soulbond. It’s too much.
Now that the spell is done, Sam’s exhausted. He’s still got to solve the problem of Dean’s sudden and unpredictable magic jags, or whatever they are, but for now, Sam needs a nap. And a shower. And probably a good, long run and another shower. He needs to shed the residual effects of that intense, too-close-for-comfort bond.
Sam quickly cleans up, then heads to his room. The bunker is silent, Dean still hiding in the garage, Sam assumes. He strips down quickly, heads into the bathroom for a long, hot shower. Afterward, he pulls on sweatpants and a t-shirt, curls up in bed, and is out almost before his dripping head hits the pillow.
When he wakes up, Sam gets the feeling he’s been sleeping for hours. He gets up and pads down the corridor to the kitchen in his bare feet, tucking his hair out of the way behind his ears. He needs a shave, probably looks like a sleepy mess. But he needs coffee. Protein.
The kitchen is deserted. Sam makes coffee, a quick omelet out of the eggs and remaining vegetables in the refrigerator, and makes a note to himself to go shopping later. He slips a piece of whole wheat bread into the toaster. He considers cooking enough for Dean, but dismisses that idea. His brother will be hiding for a while, Sam suspects, recovering from the overstimulation of being inside Sam’s head for too long, even if it was only a couple of hours.
Sam has no doubt Dean’s feeling hurt and rejected right now, as well as guilty as hell. He understands too well how that binding spell made Sam feel confined, possessed, back in the cage.
Good. Let him stew in his own self-pity and guilt for a while. Maybe he’ll gain a little understanding of Sam’s point of view for once.
Dean’s probably drowning his sorrows at one of the bars in town at this very moment. That would explain why Sam can’t sense him in the bunker anywhere. Fine. Let him drink. Maybe he’ll drive into a ditch on the way home. Serves him right if he has to spend the night in the car and wake up tomorrow hungover, stiff and cramped and achy.
Jerk.
Running improves Sam’s mood, clears his head, and by the time he’s finished his shower he’s feeling more charitable toward his brother. After all, Dean didn’t intend to hurt Sam. He couldn’t have known before he did that binding spell that it would produce the worst possible outcome.
Plus, now Sam knows that Dean’s desire for him has never waned. That’s something he hadn’t expected. After all these years, after everything the Winchesters have been through, Sam assumed Dean didn’t feel that way anymore. He’d always imagined that the only reason they’d crossed that line in the first place was out of the desperation and insanity of the situation, when one of them was dying or selling his soul or becoming a demon or being possessed by an archangel, not because there was any lasting desire for intimacy.
Apparently, Sam got it wrong.
He strongly suspects that Dean got it wrong, too. Due to his proclivity for self-pity and martyrdom, amplified by his conviction that his family would be better off if he was dead, Dean was sure that Sam’s life would be better without him.
Without Dean.
Sam spends the better part of the afternoon in the library, researching possible hunts, then getting lost in reading about containment spells for itinerant, uncontrolled magic.
He wonders again how Dean’s magic started. Did he always have a latent ability? If so, what triggered it? Why now?
Sam decides there are two possibilities. Either Dean’s magic was triggered by Chuck’s defeat, meaning he’d been born with it but Chuck deliberately suppressed it, or Sam’s magic ability was the trigger. Since Rowena’s death, Sam’s powers have increased to the point where even Rowena would be proud, and she was already confident enough in Sam’s innate abilities that she left her entire magic library to him.
If that’s the case, then Dean’s uncontrolled magic is Sam’s responsibility.
He shakes his head irritably. Dean’s instincts were right. He needs a familiar, or at least the kind of stability that only a familiar can provide.
And with Sam’s own magic abilities being stabilized, he’s the logical person to serve in that capacity. Through their soulbond, Sam can sense when Dean’s magic is about to lash out. Sam can ground his brother. He can help Dean control his own power. Over time, with practice, Dean can learn to contain his magic on his own.
It takes a few more hours of Sam’s special brand of obsessive concentration, but eventually he’s certain he’s devised the right spell.
His rumbling stomach tells him it’s well past supper time, which means Dean’s been gone a very long time.
“Dude, where u at?” He texts, then calls and leaves a voicemail before heading into the kitchen to make himself a sandwich.
After an hour with no response, Sam sends a video message.
“Dean, come on, man. Don’t make me do a location spell to find you.” He clears his throat, puts on his best pleading expression, the one Dean calls his puppy-dog eyes. “I found something that can help. Please come home, man. Let me help you.”
After another hour with no response, Sam’s had enough. He’ll magic or hot-wire one of the cars in the bunker’s garage, go after his brother. He can’t be far. Maybe he really did drive off the road, or fall asleep at the wheel.
No. Dean would never put his baby in danger. He likely just pulled the car over safely, then passed out in the driver’s seat.
As Sam heads down the corridor to the garage, he passes Dean’s bedroom door, and something makes him pause. The door’s closed, but Sam doesn’t knock. He’d sense Dean if he was in there, wouldn’t he?
On instinct, he opens the door. Dean lies fully clothed on the bed, eyes closed, still as death.
“Shit.”
Sam crosses the room so quickly he’s barely aware of doing it.
Dean’s pulse is faint, his breathing shallow. He doesn’t respond to Sam’s frantic shaking or slapping. There’s no sign of wounds and no tell-tale glass of poison or half-consumed bottle of pills. This isn’t an attempted suicide, although Sam’s convinced it’s self-inflicted.
Out of an abundance of self-pity and self-recrimination over everything he’s done to Sam but only just realized through that stupid binding spell, Dean’s put himself into a magical coma.
“Why would you do this?” Sam demands, although he knows the answer. He understands Dean too well, although he now knows he didn’t understand everything about his brother.
The depths of Dean’s self-loathing know no bottom. It’s an endless pit of despair and misery in there. Not too long ago, Dean was ready to lock himself in a box and get Sam to drop him into the ocean. He spent forty years in Hell, being tortured and learning to be a master torturer. He let Rowena put a bomb in his chest.
Sam closes his eyes, reaches across the psychic bond between the brothers, seeking any sign that Dean can hear him.
Now that he knows Dean’s here, Sam can sense the faintest flutter from his soul. He’s definitely still here, hasn’t left his body. He’s just locked down so tight and deep that it’s hard for Sam to find him.
Much less to bring him back.
“Oh my God, Dean.”
Sam briefly considers attempting a Vulcan mind-meld, or piggy-backing on the reversed binding spell to get into Dean’s head. He also considers African dream root, mostly because he wants to pull Dean’s hair out to mix the drink.
In the end, he uses old-fashioned meditation, confident that his own magical powers are advanced enough after all the training Rowena gave him, combined with the Winchesters’ natural soulbond.
He pushes Dean over on the bed, lies down beside him, and closes his eyes.
Sam opens his eyes to a darkness so complete at first he thinks he didn’t open his eyes at all. Then he feels Dean, his massive guilt and self-hatred like a wet blanket, threatening to smother Sam, holding him down so he can’t move. When he opens his mouth, something presses into it, gagging him.
“Dean!”
With tremendous effort, Sam manages to get his tongue to move, gets the one word out in a desperate cry.
The weight on top of him shifts. Sam can sense Dean’s awareness of him, his wariness and doubt as he senses Sam’s presence.
“Dean! We need to talk!”
The darkness gives way to a sourceless flickering reddish glow that reveals stone walls, a stone floor, slicked with fresh red paint.
Or blood.
Sounds of distant moaning, then a sudden scream, reach Sam’s ears. He smells sulfur and copper.
He’s in Hell. This is one of Dean’s hell-memories.
Just ahead, down a short corridor, he hears a familiar voice, screaming in pain.
“No, no, no, no. Please!”
Sam takes a step, and a gruesome scene opens up directly in front of him.
Dean lies bound, skewered, and spread-eagled on a kind of torture device that can only be the rack he described to Sam all those years ago. There are iron meat-hooks through his shoulders and ankles, blood running in rivulets down his shredded bare chest.
His torturer has his back turned to Sam, but Sam would know that back anyway.
“Dean, stop!”
Dean the master torturer starts at the sound of Sam’s voice, the bloodied knife in his hand still poised above the other Dean’s body. He turns to look over his shoulder at Sam, who shivers at the dead look in his brother’s eyes, the sadistic gleam.
“Think you can make me stop, Sammy?”
Sam shakes his head. “I don’t wanna make you do anything, Dean. You know that.”
Dean-on-the-rack moans deliriously. He doesn’t seem to know Sam’s there. Or maybe he can sense Sam’s presence and it’s adding to his suffering.
“You think this is self-pity, don’t you?” Torturer-Dean accuses. “But it’s not. Nobody’s getting hurt here. Not much, anyway.”
He turns back to his doppelgänger on the rack.
“Isn’t that right, Dean?” He sneers. “Doesn’t hurt much, does it?”
He raises the knife again, poised to take another slice out of tortured-Dean’s chest.
Sam slides up behind him, one arm around his waist, pressing tightly against his back. He closes his hand over Dean’s right first, holds on to keep the knife from descending.
“Enough,” Sam rumbles into Dean’s ear.
For a moment, Sam feels Dean’s body resist, tensing up like he’s ready to fight.
Then he feels Sam’s erection, pressed against his ass, and he relents. He releases his grip on the knife and lets Sam take the hilt. He presses back against Sam’s chest, letting out a puff of air like a sigh as his eyes flutter closed. His whole body shivers.
“That’s right, big brother,” Sam murmurs. “Let it go.”
Sam drops the knife, not even caring where it lands, and slides his right hand up Dean’s chest to his jaw. He turns his head just enough so that Sam can reach his mouth. He kisses with concentration, pushing his tongue against Dean’s lush lips until Dean lets him in with a gasp.
Dean twists in his arms so they’re chest to chest, mouths slotted together hungrily, hands roaming over each other’s bodies. Dean’s still shivering, but Sam’s trembling, too, more turned on than he can remember feeling in a very long time.
“Love you so much, Sammy,” Dean murmurs against Sam’s mouth when he comes up for air. “I’m so sorry, little brother. Never meant to hurt you.”
Sam’s hands close around Dean’s head, holding him still so Sam can plunder his mouth, shut him up.
“Come home to me,” Sam murmurs when he finally pulls back. “I need you.”
And they both know that’s true. Dean’s annoying, infuriating, makes stupid mistakes, does awful things in the name of love and his own selfish need for Sam.
But through it all, Sam needs him. Sam loves him. Sam will always want him.
“You were always my anchor,” Dean says as if he can read Sam’s mind. “I see that now.”
“Then come back to me,” Sam growls, the words coming out like an order, which is the only thing Dean will respond to, here in this dark, bloody place.
“I’m not a good man, Sammy,” Dean breathes, trembling. “I’ve done terrible things.”
“There is nothing you could ever do that would make me love you less,” Sam insists. “Nothing.”
Dean blinks up at him, lashes thick and lacy, eyes deep pools of green water. His lips are red and puffy, slick. Sam holds his face, draws his thumbs along Dean’s cheekbones, marveling at how beautiful he is, even like this, in this place.
“Come back to me, Dean.”
“Okay.”
The walls and floor darken and fall away, the sounds of screams and moans fade. Tortured-Dean on the rack disappears. They’re back in the dark-as-night anteroom of Dean’s mind, where Sam first found himself when he came to look for his brother.
Sam pulls Dean against him so that they can feel each other’s bodies from head to hip.
“Take us home, Dean,” Sam rasps, his voice hoarse, as if he’s been screaming.
He feels rather than sees Dean close his eyes, concentrating. Sam feels a little bump, then he’s aware he isn’t in Dean’s arms anymore. He’s lying on the bed next to him.
Sam blinks up at the ceiling, then turns his head to look at his brother. Their hands lie back-to-back on the bed between them, but when Sam tries to take Dean’s hand, he pulls away. He won’t look Sam in the eye.
“Hey.” Sam’s voice is hoarse, as it was in the dreamworld, and he wonders if he was vocalizing in his sleep. Screaming, maybe. Shouting for Dean in the darkness.
Dean rolls away from him, sits up with his back to him. His shoulders are tense.
Okay.
“I figured out a spell,” Sam says. He folds one arm under his head, places the other on his belly, stays lying down, hoping Dean will stay put and not run away.
“It’s something that should ground your magic,” Sam goes on. “Without binding it to me, that is. We’ve already had enough of that, obviously.”
Dean snorts out a humorless laugh.
“Yeah,” he agrees. “No more mind-raping.”
“And no more self-flagellation,” Sam snaps. “We’ve had enough of that, too.”
Dean shakes his head. “What I did to you, Sam, now that I know how it felt.”
Sam sighs. “It’s over, Dean. In the past. I’ve learned to live with it, and so can you.”
Dean shakes his head. His shoulders tremble and his head bows. He’s crying, or maybe struggling to hold back tears.
Sam resists the urge to reach out, to run his hand down Dean’s back.
“I forgave you, a long time ago,” he says instead, keeping his voice steady.
Dean shakes his head, takes a shaky breath, and scrubs a hand over his face.
“Come on,” Sam urges, getting up to lead the way out of the room.
He doesn’t look back, but he can hear Dean following him. Dean was always good at taking orders. Now he feels compelled to do whatever Sam tells him to do.
In the library, Sam’s got the spell bowl and ingredients all laid out, the Latin memorized.
“Stand there,” he directs, and Dean obeys, blinking nervously.
“No more mind-melding,” Sam promises. “This spell will alert me when your magic threatens to lash out against your will, so I can help you contain it. Like a magical circuit breaker.”
Dean nods. “Okay.”
Sam closes his eyes, reaches out with his mind until he feels the Winchesters’ bond, sensing Dean’s nervousness and fear. He’s still afraid of losing Sam, after everything. After this.
Sam opens his eyes and frowns at his brother.
“Stop that,” he growls. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Dean’s wide, frightened eyes get wider. He nods. “Okay.”
“You need to believe in us, believe in me, for this to work,” Sam reminds him.
Dean nods again, swipes his eyes with the back of his hand, and takes a deep breath.
“Okay. I’m ready. Let’s do this.”
Sam’s more touched by Dean’s attempt at bravado than he’s willing to admit. Dean’s doing his best to pretend to be the brave big brother he thinks Sam expects him to be.
The thing is, after their mind-meld, Dean knows better.
Sam, of course, has known better since he became an adult.
Sam takes a deep breath and starts the spell.
By the time he’s finished, he’s exhausted. He checks his watch, realizes he hasn’t slept in twenty-four hours, and yawns.
“Did it work?” Dean asks. “I don’t feel anything.”
“Yeah, it worked,” Sam says. “And you won’t feel anything until your magic does its thing.”
“Then what?”
“Then nothing,” Sam says with a shrug. “Nothing will happen, because I’ll be there to ground it, to keep it from leaping out chaotically.”
“Oh.” Dean blinks, gives a tiny smile. “Thank you.”
Sam rolls his eyes. “Dean, stop.”
“Stop what?” Dean blinks cluelessly.
Sam gestures. “This. This thing you’re doing. This walking-on-eggshells thing. I’m not some fragile victim, Dean. Everything you saw and felt in that overblown bond between us? I’m handling it. I’ve been handling it for a long time. You can stop treating me with kid gloves. I’m not going to collapse or crumble under the burden of what I’ve been through. And for the last time, I’m not going to leave you.”
Dean flushes, shakes his head. His chin dips down to his chest as he stares at his shoes. He looks like a five-year-old who just got caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
Or playing with matches.
“I’m just so sorry for what I did, Sam,” he mutters finally, voice small and trembling.
Sam sighs. “I know you are, Dean. I forgive you. I forgave you a long time ago.”
“I never really faced how wrong it was.”
“I know you didn’t,” Sam says. “I’m not going to tell you it’s okay because in some ways it never will be. But I’ve learned to deal with it, Dean. I’ve learned to deal with you. And I love you. I always will. Nothing you did can change that.”
Sam takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly.
“Now I need you to be my brother again,” he goes on. “I’ve always needed that. You’re my anchor, too, Dean. My stone number one.”
Dean frowns, shakes his head. “I don’t see how you can trust me, after what I did.”
Sam throws up his hands, exasperated.
“Yes, you can. You were in my head, Dean! You know exactly how I can trust you. How I need to trust you. Just like I’ve always needed you to trust me, even when I make mistakes. Even when I do stupid things. Especially when I do stupid things.”
He widens his stance, puts his hands on his hips, shakes his head.
“It’s never been perfect between us, Dean,” Sam says. “It probably never will be.”
“I just don’t understand how you can be okay with that,” Dean admits. “After the things I did to you.”
Sam takes a deep breath.
“This isn’t all about you, Dean,” he reminds his brother.
Dean lifts his eyes, gazes at Sam helplessly for a moment, and at that moment, Sam’s afraid he’ll never get it. Dean will never get over his own self-pity and self-hatred. He’ll never be able to get beyond it. He’ll shut down.
Then his face clears. As if a switch has been flipped, his expression changes. He nods, looks away.
“I know that,” he insists.
Sam nods, smiling just enough to be reassuring.
“Good. So now we can go to bed,” Sam says.
Dean’s eyes widen comically, and Sam realizes what he’s said, what Dean thinks he means.
“Sleep, Dean,” Sam clarifies. “I need sleep.”
Dean’s expression shifts immediately. His eyes skitter away. He looks so crest-fallen and rejected Sam can’t stand it.
“You can come if you want, but I really do need to sleep,” Sam adds. “I’m exhausted.”
In Sam’s room, they strip down to t-shirts and boxers. Sam pulls on his soft, flannel sleep pants. They brush their teeth side by side in the communal bathroom, crawl into bed together the way they used to do when they were kids, when the motel room only had two beds and Dad slept in the other one. Sam turns off the light, casting the room into near-darkness, the only light coming in under the door from the hallway.
Sam turns on his side, away from Dean, and he can feel Dean do the same thing. He dozes as he listens to Dean’s breathing, half-hard, knowing Dean’s right there, knowing he’ll still be there when Sam wakes up.
Once he’s sleeping, Sam will turn onto his stomach, of course. Dean will hog the blankets, but he’ll still wake up cold, so he’ll snuggle up close to Sam so he can absorb some of Sam’s heat.
That’s the way it was, when they were kids. Once Dean hit puberty, he would get up first, and when Sam hit puberty himself he understood why. They never talked about it, definitely never acted on it, but they both knew it was there, that erotic energy buzzing between them, just under the surface.
At a certain point, Dad made them sleep in separate beds, got two rooms, or had a cot brought in so they could all sleep in their own beds.
“You’re too big to share,” he told them, but Sam flushed with shame, thinking maybe Dad could tell, maybe that was the real reason he made them sleep separately.
And although Sam was pretty sure Dean felt the same way, Sam also knew that his good, honorable, protective big brother would never act on those feelings. At least part of the reason Sam left for college was to put some distance between them, to give Dean a chance at a normal life, one in which he wasn’t so erotically co-dependent with his brother.
Sam knew better, of course. Nothing about the Winchesters would ever be normal. But Sam had hope, for a while, even after Jessica’s death. Even after he hit the road with Dean. Even when it was just the two of them, day in and day out, night after night.
Sam’s not sure exactly when he stopped hoping they’d get out someday. Maybe he still does, on some level, although he knows now that neither of them could really live without the other. He still hopes for retirement someday, but he knows Dean would never willingly leave hunting. As long as there’s anything evil in the world, Dean will hunt it. He won’t stop until he gets permanently injured, or killed.
When Sam wakes up in the night, he’s spooning his brother, morning wood parked snuggly against Dean’s ass. When he tries to move back, to extricate himself, Dean snuggles back against him, letting out a contented hum in his sleep.
Sam gives into it, pushing his nose into Dean’s hair and breathing deeply.
Dean smells like whisky and Old Spice and sweat and cheap shampoo.
Home.
fin