FIC: It Would Break This Heart of Mine (Supernatural, Sam/Dean, NC-17)
I can't believe I've been writing in Supernatural fandom for about a year and a half and this is my first bona fide Sam/Dean story. I guess I just usually focus a whole lot on the women. This was written for kink bingo, for the square "silence".
It Would Break This Heart of Mine
When Sam and Dean weren't touching, it was like the other didn't even exist.
Supernatural. 4,900 words. Sam/Dean. NC-17. Contains: underage sexual activity (15)
Dean knew something was up, but his father wasn't telling him a damn thing. He barely even saw him, except in passing as he and Bobby set some ritual implements up in the hallway and walked the perimeter of the house. The most he got out of him all day was, "Something's got my scent," which could've meant a whole hell of a lot of things, and none of them good.
They should've been letting Dean help. He wasn't a kid anymore; he'd been hunting full-time since he finished high school last year. And John Winchester had been relying on Dean in nearly every way for years before that.
But not only were they not letting Dean help, they weren't even telling him what the hunt was.
"Dad says he's pulling me out of school this week," said Sam, slamming a book down on an overflowing desk in the entry hall. "You're not going to let him, right? He said we were only coming out here for the weekend."
"We heading somewhere else?" said Dean, looking out the window at where his father's head was bent close to Bobby's, discussing something out of his earshot.
"Probably a hunt," muttered Sam. "Dean, he can't keep doing this."
"You got anything important you're going to be missing this week?"
"You mean except everything?" said Sam. "I don't have any tests or anything, if that's what you mean."
"You know that's what I mean," said Dean, but it wasn't like he didn't get it. Yeah, he never batted an eye when Dad pulled him out of school, but he knew it meant something to Sammy. "You're probably a few chapters ahead anyway."
"That's not the point," said Sam, which Dean translated as 'yes'.
"Well, if we've got a hunt on the line, then I've got work to do," said Dean. He gave Sammy a punch in the shoulder on his way by and headed into the back where he'd stashed his duffel. There was nothing that needed cleaning or sharpening, but he did it anyway.
When he came back out again, duffel in hand, Bobby and his father were finally wrapping up their little pow-wow and heading back inside.
"Gather round, boys," said John, setting out three candles on top of a pile of books as he talked, some new part of this ritual he and Bobby'd had going on all day. "I need to talk to you."
Sam sighed dramatically. "Just tell us where we're going."
"Nowhere," said John, lighting the first candle. "Now listen up. This thing I've got on my tail, it's not going to let up, not for anything. I need to get it before it gets me."
"So how do we kill it then?" said Dean.
"We don't," said John. "Now don't you look at me that way, Dean. The first thing this thing is going to do to get to me is go after you boys. Not only can you not be with me, it can't know you exist at all. You aren't to leave this house, not for anything."
"Are you kidding me?" said Dean.
"What are we supposed to do?" said Sam.
"Don't think I'm doing this lightly," said John, lighting the second candle. "This is for your protection and mine. It cannot know you are here. There can't be any sign of you, not one peep." Then he looked directly at Dean. "That's an order."
"Yes, sir," said Dean, and already felt a little stir crazy before his father was even gone. Sam just scowled, but at least it wasn't an argument.
"Bobby and me, we should be back in a couple days, but give us a week at the outside. If we're not back in a week then the whole thing's gone south. You boys are to go straight to Pastor Jim and tell him everything, and do not coming looking for us. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir," said Dean.
"Not one peep," he said again. "As far as this creature is concerned, the two of you are not on the face of this earth. You understand me, Sam?"
"Yes, sir," mumbled Sam.
John looked at the both for a long time, then sighed and for a moment Dean could see something like regret in his expression.
"I hope you boys will forgive me for this one day," said John, and lit the last candle.
"Forgive you for wha--" said Dean, but he had a pretty good idea what when, mere moments later, the front door closed behind his father and his last word died in his throat.
Literally.
"Dean?" said Sam, but he made no sound, Dean only recognized the shape of the name on his lips.
It was then he let loose an impressive string of expletives in his father's direction, but none of them were ever heard. By anyone.
:::
Promise be damned, the first thing Dean did was throw the door open and head after them. They might've already been heading off down the lane in his father's truck, but Dean'd have no trouble catching up with them if he set his mind to it. But he only got as far as the edge of Bobby's porch before he couldn't get any further.
There was no invisible barrier that he could reach out and touch, but the moment he tried to take a step off the porch he found himself two steps back from where he started, beside the door and watching the diminishing dust kicked up by the truck.
Three tries later, Dean figured it was a lost cause.
"Sammy?" he said but there was no sound. And his voice wasn't all that had gone missing; the front door hadn't squeaked when he'd opened it and his feet made no sound on the uneven wood of the porch. There was a complete absence of anything audible within the boundaries of Bobby's house.
Dean jumped when he felt something press against his back, and whirled to see his brother standing there, his mouth forming Dean's name over and over again.
Screaming it.
Sammy, he mouthed at him without even trying to make sound, reaching out to grab his hand and hold it tight. Sammy, it's okay.
He didn't know if it was the words or the touch that calmed him down, but Sam licked his lips and stopped screaming, looking past Dean and onto the road. Dean looked over his shoulder and couldn't see any sign of his father anymore.
Inside, he said when he turned back, but Sam took a long time before he moved back through the door again. When Dean let go of his hand he stormed away and knocked over all three candles, stomping on them long after the flames were out.
A couple of days. They could do this for a couple of days.
Dean left Sam by the candles, his shoulders heaving with each hard breath, and stalked over to the old television Bobby kept in the corner of the room. It didn't get any reception but that wasn't the point. He plugged it in and switched it on and turned the volume knob as high as it would go.
He didn't hear the sound of the static that buzzed across the screen and hadn't been expecting to. But as he laid his hand on the top of the set, he didn't feel the vibrations that should have accompanied the high volume either.
They weren't just hearing no sound; nothing was making any.
He yanked the cord back out of the wall and headed straight back to Sam, laying a hand between his shoulder blades. Sam jerked away, even though he looked like he'd been waiting for Dean to do just that. He stumbled over a candlestick and then just kicked it out of his way; it hit the corner of the fireplace and should have clanged, but didn't.
Sam headed straight for Bobby's study and Dean didn't try to stop him, just followed and watched dust particles fly up into stray sunbeams while his boots didn't make a sound.
Sam tore a page out of the back of his notebook and scrawled across the entire surface, 'What did they do?'
I don't know, said Dean while Sam looked up at his face. Sam pressed his lips together and went straight back to Bobby's desk, piled high with books and instruments.
He didn't need to spell out what he was doing. Whatever ritual Bobby and his father had done, they had to have researched it. And if they'd researched it, then if Sam searched Bobby's things hard enough he might be able find out what it was. And if Sam found out what it was, then maybe they could reverse it.
Which was exactly what their father would not want them doing.
Sam, he said, forgetting, then unnecessarily cleared his throat and touched Sam's shoulder. Sam must've been watching him out of the corner of his eye, because he didn't flinch.
Instead, he flipped the paper over and scrawled across the other side, 'You can't make me stop.'
Dean snatched the paper and claimed a corner of it to write. 'It's only a couple of days.'
'And what if it isn't?'
Dean never forgot an order, and what his father had said was that if they weren't back in a week to go straight to Pastor Jim.
'A week at most.'
Sam pinched his face up again and didn't look at all happy with that answer, but it was the only answer they had. If they were expected to go to Pastor Jim, then within that week they'd be able to leave this house. Within a week they'd be able to speak again.
In the last remaining space on the paper Dean wrote 'We don't want to put them in danger,' then got up to look for something more substantial to write in. Bobby didn't have any notebooks that weren't at least partially used up, but Dean found an old spiral notepad, the kind he would've had for school once upon a time, that was mostly empty. It would do.
When he turned back to the desk, Sam wasn't there anymore, and Dean instinctively tried to call his name before starting a room to room search.
He found him in the bedroom, tearing through his bag and looking for God only knew what. Sam! he snapped, but Sam wasn't looking at him and didn't hear a thing. Dean's shadow fell right in front of Sam's face, though, and Sam was sharp. He knew Dean was there, he just refused to look up.
Dean grabbed his chin and made him, meeting his eyes fiercely for a moment before scrawling in his found notepad, 'When you run off, I can't call you!' Then he added, for emphasis. 'Jerk.'
Sam pushed the notepad away but he looked a little contrite, even though Dean figured he knew damn well what he'd been doing when he disappeared.
'I know this sucks,' Dean wrote a few moments later, 'but we need to stick together.'
At this, at least, Sam nodded, but Dean was fairly sure he hadn't heard the last of Sam looking for a way to end this ritual. He just wasn't that lucky.
:::
After a long afternoon of reading together, of passing notes back and forth, of lingering outside the bathroom door just to make sure everyone stayed where they were supposed to be, Dean began to feel a new kind of uneasiness.
He knew enough to be afraid of the things that came out in darkness, but he'd never been afraid of the dark itself. Even when he couldn't see, he could always hear something coming. This time when night fell he would be losing both senses. As the sun went down both of them turned on every light in the house and began to stockpile candles in the study (no shortage of those, thanks Bobby) and tried to prepare for the many hours of darkness that were to come.
If they hadn't been sharing a room already, the one room upstairs that had two beds, twins separated by a book-covered table, they would have been tonight. Dean wasn't sure he was going to be able to get any sleep, but he knew he wouldn't be sleeping without his brother within arm's reach of him in the night.
'I didn't find anything,' Sam passed to him, laying flat on his back on his bed and staring up at the ceiling.
Dean already knew that.
'They weren't going to leave it out in the open. You know that,' he passed back. If he was lucky, they'd done more than put it back on the shelf. John Winchester was more careful than that, and even if he wasn't, Bobby Singer sure was.
'I wasn't looking out in the open,' said Sam, an angrier scrawl this time. But out in the open was a pretty broad concept; if Bobby and John didn't want them to find something, they weren't likely to find it. For all they knew there wasn't even any evidence of it in the house anymore.
Dean would never say so, but he hoped there wasn't. That way he could stop feeling guilty about not stopping Sam from looking for it. A curious Sam was dangerous, but an angry and curious Sam was more so.
'You can start again tomorrow,' Dean passed back. This time Sam didn't have a response for him, so either he was pissed off or he was satisfied. The kid was of an age now where the two things were pretty damn hard to tell apart.
This was the point when he should've closed his eyes, pulled the covers up and tried to fall asleep. But every time Dean did a tiny bit of panic rose up in him and he opened them again just to make sure everything was okay.
He didn't fall asleep until Sam did, until he was too exhausted to even keep his eyes open anymore.
There was no alarm to wake them up in the morning, and no noises to trigger an instinctive waking reaction. Dean expected he would wake up with the sun but he was too unnerved to sleep even that long. When he first woke at some dark, early hour of the morning he found Sam in his bed, just like he would've when they were kids. He had to admit, before he'd finally fallen asleep, he'd thought about doing the same thing.
This time when Dean closed his eyes again, he was secure enough in the knowledge that Sam was safe he managed to get a few more hours of sleep.
:::
At breakfast late the next morning - pancakes and syrup and for once neither one of them complaining about chewing noises or the piercing scrape of a fork against a ceramic plate - they didn't try to talk at all, and the mutual lack of communication lasted most of the day. Dean shadowed Sam throughout the house and Sam pretended he wasn't doing it, but the one time Sam left the room without Dean following he was back less than a minute later, lingering in the doorway until Dean caught up.
When Dean finished cleaning and sharpening all his weapons - again - and when he finished washing all of his and Sam's and even his father's remaining clothes, Dean gave in and sat down with Sam and started doing some research of his own.
Before long they were hip to hip, just so they wouldn't have to keep looking up to ensure the other was still there.
'So you stopped being afraid of the big bad books?' Sam shoved at him after a little while.
'Hey I read,' Dean slid back at him. Usually only when he needed to - which on this occasion he felt that he did not - but he was as good at research as the next hunter. Except maybe when the next hunter was Sam Winchester.
'The Joy of Sex maybe,' Sam wrote back. Dean looked up to catch the smirk on his face, and couldn't even be annoyed because it was the first time he'd seen anything like a smile on Sam's face since before his father set the spell.
'No I only keep that for the diagrams,' he shoved at him, just to see Sam blush. Sam didn't come back with a smart remark that time, instead going back to the pile of books he'd amassed from God only knew where. (Dean even followed him into the old linen closet at one point, and didn't pay too much attention to exactly what Sam came back out with.)
Before long Sam tangled his leg with Dean's, and the solid contact relaxed him enough that he actually began to be able to pay attention to what he was reading. And hey, he hadn't known that particular Latin incantation, so at least he was making good use of his time.
It couldn't last, not with Sam as edgy as he was. Another hour and Sam was up out of his chair, stalking around the room and searching for something, anything, or maybe nothing at all. Maybe he just needed to prowl a little, knock a few books off a shelf and yell something that Dean couldn't lip read at them.
He went back to following Sam around the house until finally, after a late dinner that Dean threw together when his hunger grew strong enough to let Sam out of his sight for more than a minute at a time, they settled on Bobby's dusty couch with Sam's legs on his lap and Sam told him about his research until his hand started to cramp.
Sam crawled into bed with him again that night, and didn't even pretend he wasn't going to. Dean wrapped an arm around him and held on tight, all night long.
:::
Dean thought he would get used to it within a day or two, he thought he would adapt, but the longer they lived in silence the less he was able to cope with it. He just wanted to hear something, anything, or at least be reminded that sound existed in the world. He wanted to see a startled mouse, or watch someone dancing to unheard music, or just watch a penny bounce on top of a speaker turned way too loud.
He had nothing, absolutely nothing, and it was starting to drive him crazy.
It was starting to drive both of them crazy. Half the time Sam was wrapped around him, fingers or legs entwined, hands on arms or slipped up under the backs of shirts or resting on thighs, taking in the comfort of knowing, of being sure, that someone else still existed in the world.
And half the time he was stubbornly going off on his own, determined that this unnatural silence was not going to stop him, was not going to deter him from doing exactly what he would have otherwise done.
It got worse when Sam found the book he was looking for exactly where it should never have been, on a shelf in Bobby's study, looking completely innocuous.
'It can't be undone,' Sam wrote, his furious scrawl almost unreadable, 'without speaking.' The last two words were underlined three times.
Dean couldn't even blame him. The cruel irony of that made him pretty damn furious himself. It had been easier at first, to believe that John had done what he had in order to keep them safe. It had been something of a comfort to have clear orders to follow, even if he didn't understand. It was all a lot harder after trying to live with hour after endless hour of a completely silent world.
Sam threw down the pad of paper and stalked out of the room and it used every bit of Dean's thin self-control not to follow him. It was like a physical ache, a nameless terror, to have Sam out of sight and out of arm's reach, but if Dean didn't give him this moment all he was going to have was a fight on his hands.
It was ten long minutes before Sam came back, flinging himself at Dean and punching him at the same time as he clutched him too tightly. Dean held him in his lap for the next while, as Sam read the pertinent passages in the book again and again, in case he missed some detail, some nuance. He didn't even feel weird about pressing his cheek to Sam's back and closing his eyes, not needing to see anything when everything he needed was in his arms.
Two hours later Sam was stubbornly gone again, and this time he didn't come back. Dean found him too many minutes later up in Bobby's attic hurling books at the wall. Dust flew up with each impact and pages fluttered to the rotting floor.
Dean grabbed hold of him and shook him hard and Sam didn't even fight him. He just let himself be shaken, and when Dean was done he wrapped his arms around him and pounded his fists into Dean's back and didn't let go.
Don't fucking go anywhere, Dean said, over and over again, even though Sam couldn’t even feel the vibrations in his chest and throat that should have accompanied the sound. Don't you fucking go anywhere, Sam, don't you go.
Sam slipped his hands up under Dean's shirt and sank his fingers into his hips, and after that he stopped letting go.
:::
The light bulb in the study flickered out around eleven at night on the third day, while Sam had his face buried in a book and Dean was looking out the window at a world they couldn't touch.
The first thing he did was reach for the space where Sam had last been, grabbing for whatever body part came to hand first, but Sam wasn't there.
Sam! he shouted without even thinking about it, the instinct too ingrained in him.
He glanced at the dark window again and felt cold all over when something moved past it. It was dark outside and dark inside and he couldn’t be sure yet he was, he felt it in his gut. He was sure something moved past the window, just a shadow on a shadow but he saw it, it wasn't just his imagination.
It wasn't often that Dean froze but he froze in that moment and stared into the utter darkness for too long before tearing out of the room. He knocked a pile of books off the coffee table when his leg grazed it and it didn't even make him pause.
He shouted ineffectually and banged the walls as he went, groped his way through every room. He tried every light but none of them worked, none of them so much as flickered. The lines were down or the generator was out or... or he didn't want to think about what else it could be. Sam wasn't there, he wasn't there, he wasn't anywhere until suddenly he was. There he was at the mantle in the study holding a lit candle in front of his face and staring at Dean like he couldn't understand why he was breathless and panicked.
Dean didn't care, he just stalked across the room and pushed Sam against the wall and held him there. He couldn't hear a thing but Sam's lips were moving, and his hands were moving, and Dean could imagine his words.
I just went to get the candles. I just went to get the candles.
He knew that and still he couldn't shake the panic, the adrenaline spike of Sam's not okay. He was supposed to look after Sam, he was always supposed to look after Sam, and he almost let the thing in the darkness swallow him whole.
When Sam's lips found his, the only thing Dean did was kiss him back, hard and desperate. And he touched him like Sam was the only other person left in the world.
I'm not letting go, he said, lips moving against Sam's throat. The darkness and silence still loomed, and whether there was actually anything out there or not, it felt like it was suffocating them, pressing in on the walls of the house like it was going to consume them the moment they separated.
When Sam wasn't touching him, it was like he didn't exist.
Sam grappled him fiercely and rocked against his leg and Dean could feel that he was hard, that he was just as keyed up as Dean was. The way the candle moved through the air, leaving streaks of precious light, it was a wonder that nothing ignited.
Dean put one hand on each side of Sam's face and held him just far enough away that he could speak and be seen.
It's late, he said. It's late and it's dark. Come to bed.
Sam reached up and clung to Dean's hand and led the way out of the study, thrusting the candle in front of him like it could fend off anything in the darkness. Whether it could or not, they made their way safely to the room they shared, to the bed they shared. Sam put the candle in the holder on the table and pushed Dean onto the bed, not waiting a single moment. He followed right after, never losing contact, skin never leaving skin.
Dean didn't close his eyes as he pulled Sam's shirt off, pulled his own shirt off, pressed his skin to Sam's skin to be sure they still existed. His fingers moved over Sam's sides, spelling out letters and words, all the things he wanted to say to him but couldn't.
He could feel Sam breathing, the steady rise and fall of his chest as they lay together, and they were both too far gone to stop now, to think about this now. He tore the rest of their clothes off and tossed them aside and tangled with him under the covers, shadows flickering around the room from the guttering candle and none of them as fearsome as what lurked outside this cocoon, seeking them out.
Dean dragged his hands over Sam's body, everywhere, feeling his shape, his angles, every nuance that made his body his. His fingers should have made noises as they shoved the blankets out of the way, as they pressed into Sam's skin, but instead he could only feel it, could only make out the outlines in the dim light.
I'm sorry, he said, and it didn't matter if Sam couldn't hear him or see him, it just mattered that he said it.
He couldn't let go, he couldn't, and he couldn't stop rocking against Sam any more than Sam could stop rocking against him, any more than Sam could stop tracing letters into Dean's back with his fingers and into Dean's collarbone with his tongue.
It was all desperate and unsentimental and as necessary as breathing.
He couldn't hear Sam's panting in his ear but he could feel it, the hot air blowing against his skin, the hard push and pull of his chest against Dean's. And he couldn't hear it when Sam came but he could feel the hot, wet rush against his skin, could see Sam's mouth fall open into an imperfect O.
He shouted Sam's name because he could, and because just this once he could know for certain that no one would ever hear it.
:::
Dean woke to the sound of Sam snuffling into the pillow by his ear and almost immediately rolled out of bed, reaching for the nearest weapon. The sound his feet made as they hit the floor seemed impossibly loud.
"Dean?" said Sam, and Dean had never been so damn happy to hear the sound of his own name.
"Those motherfuckers," said Dean, and barely paused to give Sam a sloppy kiss before throwing on his shorts and tearing down the stairs, shotgun in hand in case it wasn't his father returning and something had breached whatever protection they'd put on the house.
But no, it was them.
"Dean," said John, not smiling but looking at Dean with a certain amount of satisfaction. Dean drew back and decked him without a single word. His father just took it without a word in return.
"We got the thing," said Bobby after a moment, looking completely unsurprised by the greeting.
"I figured, since you didn't show up on the doorstep dead," said Dean.
"Wouldn't have shown up at all," said John, actually taking a moment to rub his jaw. Dean must've got him good. "Your brother okay?"
"I might be able to convince him to aim for the other side when he comes down," said Dean. But yeah, Sam was okay. As okay as they ever were. As okay as anyone had any right to expect.
John nodded and that was that. That was probably the last thing they were ever going to say about it, or about any of this. There would never be an apology and there would never be an explanation.
Nor would Dean ever explain or apologize to him.
Because now in the afterwards, when he could hear his brother's voice again, the sound of his own breathing, the mice in the attic and the birds outside the window, Dean realized that with everything he and Sam had done, they'd now irrevocably committed to a different kind of silence.
It Would Break This Heart of Mine
When Sam and Dean weren't touching, it was like the other didn't even exist.
Supernatural. 4,900 words. Sam/Dean. NC-17. Contains: underage sexual activity (15)
Dean knew something was up, but his father wasn't telling him a damn thing. He barely even saw him, except in passing as he and Bobby set some ritual implements up in the hallway and walked the perimeter of the house. The most he got out of him all day was, "Something's got my scent," which could've meant a whole hell of a lot of things, and none of them good.
They should've been letting Dean help. He wasn't a kid anymore; he'd been hunting full-time since he finished high school last year. And John Winchester had been relying on Dean in nearly every way for years before that.
But not only were they not letting Dean help, they weren't even telling him what the hunt was.
"Dad says he's pulling me out of school this week," said Sam, slamming a book down on an overflowing desk in the entry hall. "You're not going to let him, right? He said we were only coming out here for the weekend."
"We heading somewhere else?" said Dean, looking out the window at where his father's head was bent close to Bobby's, discussing something out of his earshot.
"Probably a hunt," muttered Sam. "Dean, he can't keep doing this."
"You got anything important you're going to be missing this week?"
"You mean except everything?" said Sam. "I don't have any tests or anything, if that's what you mean."
"You know that's what I mean," said Dean, but it wasn't like he didn't get it. Yeah, he never batted an eye when Dad pulled him out of school, but he knew it meant something to Sammy. "You're probably a few chapters ahead anyway."
"That's not the point," said Sam, which Dean translated as 'yes'.
"Well, if we've got a hunt on the line, then I've got work to do," said Dean. He gave Sammy a punch in the shoulder on his way by and headed into the back where he'd stashed his duffel. There was nothing that needed cleaning or sharpening, but he did it anyway.
When he came back out again, duffel in hand, Bobby and his father were finally wrapping up their little pow-wow and heading back inside.
"Gather round, boys," said John, setting out three candles on top of a pile of books as he talked, some new part of this ritual he and Bobby'd had going on all day. "I need to talk to you."
Sam sighed dramatically. "Just tell us where we're going."
"Nowhere," said John, lighting the first candle. "Now listen up. This thing I've got on my tail, it's not going to let up, not for anything. I need to get it before it gets me."
"So how do we kill it then?" said Dean.
"We don't," said John. "Now don't you look at me that way, Dean. The first thing this thing is going to do to get to me is go after you boys. Not only can you not be with me, it can't know you exist at all. You aren't to leave this house, not for anything."
"Are you kidding me?" said Dean.
"What are we supposed to do?" said Sam.
"Don't think I'm doing this lightly," said John, lighting the second candle. "This is for your protection and mine. It cannot know you are here. There can't be any sign of you, not one peep." Then he looked directly at Dean. "That's an order."
"Yes, sir," said Dean, and already felt a little stir crazy before his father was even gone. Sam just scowled, but at least it wasn't an argument.
"Bobby and me, we should be back in a couple days, but give us a week at the outside. If we're not back in a week then the whole thing's gone south. You boys are to go straight to Pastor Jim and tell him everything, and do not coming looking for us. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir," said Dean.
"Not one peep," he said again. "As far as this creature is concerned, the two of you are not on the face of this earth. You understand me, Sam?"
"Yes, sir," mumbled Sam.
John looked at the both for a long time, then sighed and for a moment Dean could see something like regret in his expression.
"I hope you boys will forgive me for this one day," said John, and lit the last candle.
"Forgive you for wha--" said Dean, but he had a pretty good idea what when, mere moments later, the front door closed behind his father and his last word died in his throat.
Literally.
"Dean?" said Sam, but he made no sound, Dean only recognized the shape of the name on his lips.
It was then he let loose an impressive string of expletives in his father's direction, but none of them were ever heard. By anyone.
:::
Promise be damned, the first thing Dean did was throw the door open and head after them. They might've already been heading off down the lane in his father's truck, but Dean'd have no trouble catching up with them if he set his mind to it. But he only got as far as the edge of Bobby's porch before he couldn't get any further.
There was no invisible barrier that he could reach out and touch, but the moment he tried to take a step off the porch he found himself two steps back from where he started, beside the door and watching the diminishing dust kicked up by the truck.
Three tries later, Dean figured it was a lost cause.
"Sammy?" he said but there was no sound. And his voice wasn't all that had gone missing; the front door hadn't squeaked when he'd opened it and his feet made no sound on the uneven wood of the porch. There was a complete absence of anything audible within the boundaries of Bobby's house.
Dean jumped when he felt something press against his back, and whirled to see his brother standing there, his mouth forming Dean's name over and over again.
Screaming it.
Sammy, he mouthed at him without even trying to make sound, reaching out to grab his hand and hold it tight. Sammy, it's okay.
He didn't know if it was the words or the touch that calmed him down, but Sam licked his lips and stopped screaming, looking past Dean and onto the road. Dean looked over his shoulder and couldn't see any sign of his father anymore.
Inside, he said when he turned back, but Sam took a long time before he moved back through the door again. When Dean let go of his hand he stormed away and knocked over all three candles, stomping on them long after the flames were out.
A couple of days. They could do this for a couple of days.
Dean left Sam by the candles, his shoulders heaving with each hard breath, and stalked over to the old television Bobby kept in the corner of the room. It didn't get any reception but that wasn't the point. He plugged it in and switched it on and turned the volume knob as high as it would go.
He didn't hear the sound of the static that buzzed across the screen and hadn't been expecting to. But as he laid his hand on the top of the set, he didn't feel the vibrations that should have accompanied the high volume either.
They weren't just hearing no sound; nothing was making any.
He yanked the cord back out of the wall and headed straight back to Sam, laying a hand between his shoulder blades. Sam jerked away, even though he looked like he'd been waiting for Dean to do just that. He stumbled over a candlestick and then just kicked it out of his way; it hit the corner of the fireplace and should have clanged, but didn't.
Sam headed straight for Bobby's study and Dean didn't try to stop him, just followed and watched dust particles fly up into stray sunbeams while his boots didn't make a sound.
Sam tore a page out of the back of his notebook and scrawled across the entire surface, 'What did they do?'
I don't know, said Dean while Sam looked up at his face. Sam pressed his lips together and went straight back to Bobby's desk, piled high with books and instruments.
He didn't need to spell out what he was doing. Whatever ritual Bobby and his father had done, they had to have researched it. And if they'd researched it, then if Sam searched Bobby's things hard enough he might be able find out what it was. And if Sam found out what it was, then maybe they could reverse it.
Which was exactly what their father would not want them doing.
Sam, he said, forgetting, then unnecessarily cleared his throat and touched Sam's shoulder. Sam must've been watching him out of the corner of his eye, because he didn't flinch.
Instead, he flipped the paper over and scrawled across the other side, 'You can't make me stop.'
Dean snatched the paper and claimed a corner of it to write. 'It's only a couple of days.'
'And what if it isn't?'
Dean never forgot an order, and what his father had said was that if they weren't back in a week to go straight to Pastor Jim.
'A week at most.'
Sam pinched his face up again and didn't look at all happy with that answer, but it was the only answer they had. If they were expected to go to Pastor Jim, then within that week they'd be able to leave this house. Within a week they'd be able to speak again.
In the last remaining space on the paper Dean wrote 'We don't want to put them in danger,' then got up to look for something more substantial to write in. Bobby didn't have any notebooks that weren't at least partially used up, but Dean found an old spiral notepad, the kind he would've had for school once upon a time, that was mostly empty. It would do.
When he turned back to the desk, Sam wasn't there anymore, and Dean instinctively tried to call his name before starting a room to room search.
He found him in the bedroom, tearing through his bag and looking for God only knew what. Sam! he snapped, but Sam wasn't looking at him and didn't hear a thing. Dean's shadow fell right in front of Sam's face, though, and Sam was sharp. He knew Dean was there, he just refused to look up.
Dean grabbed his chin and made him, meeting his eyes fiercely for a moment before scrawling in his found notepad, 'When you run off, I can't call you!' Then he added, for emphasis. 'Jerk.'
Sam pushed the notepad away but he looked a little contrite, even though Dean figured he knew damn well what he'd been doing when he disappeared.
'I know this sucks,' Dean wrote a few moments later, 'but we need to stick together.'
At this, at least, Sam nodded, but Dean was fairly sure he hadn't heard the last of Sam looking for a way to end this ritual. He just wasn't that lucky.
:::
After a long afternoon of reading together, of passing notes back and forth, of lingering outside the bathroom door just to make sure everyone stayed where they were supposed to be, Dean began to feel a new kind of uneasiness.
He knew enough to be afraid of the things that came out in darkness, but he'd never been afraid of the dark itself. Even when he couldn't see, he could always hear something coming. This time when night fell he would be losing both senses. As the sun went down both of them turned on every light in the house and began to stockpile candles in the study (no shortage of those, thanks Bobby) and tried to prepare for the many hours of darkness that were to come.
If they hadn't been sharing a room already, the one room upstairs that had two beds, twins separated by a book-covered table, they would have been tonight. Dean wasn't sure he was going to be able to get any sleep, but he knew he wouldn't be sleeping without his brother within arm's reach of him in the night.
'I didn't find anything,' Sam passed to him, laying flat on his back on his bed and staring up at the ceiling.
Dean already knew that.
'They weren't going to leave it out in the open. You know that,' he passed back. If he was lucky, they'd done more than put it back on the shelf. John Winchester was more careful than that, and even if he wasn't, Bobby Singer sure was.
'I wasn't looking out in the open,' said Sam, an angrier scrawl this time. But out in the open was a pretty broad concept; if Bobby and John didn't want them to find something, they weren't likely to find it. For all they knew there wasn't even any evidence of it in the house anymore.
Dean would never say so, but he hoped there wasn't. That way he could stop feeling guilty about not stopping Sam from looking for it. A curious Sam was dangerous, but an angry and curious Sam was more so.
'You can start again tomorrow,' Dean passed back. This time Sam didn't have a response for him, so either he was pissed off or he was satisfied. The kid was of an age now where the two things were pretty damn hard to tell apart.
This was the point when he should've closed his eyes, pulled the covers up and tried to fall asleep. But every time Dean did a tiny bit of panic rose up in him and he opened them again just to make sure everything was okay.
He didn't fall asleep until Sam did, until he was too exhausted to even keep his eyes open anymore.
There was no alarm to wake them up in the morning, and no noises to trigger an instinctive waking reaction. Dean expected he would wake up with the sun but he was too unnerved to sleep even that long. When he first woke at some dark, early hour of the morning he found Sam in his bed, just like he would've when they were kids. He had to admit, before he'd finally fallen asleep, he'd thought about doing the same thing.
This time when Dean closed his eyes again, he was secure enough in the knowledge that Sam was safe he managed to get a few more hours of sleep.
:::
At breakfast late the next morning - pancakes and syrup and for once neither one of them complaining about chewing noises or the piercing scrape of a fork against a ceramic plate - they didn't try to talk at all, and the mutual lack of communication lasted most of the day. Dean shadowed Sam throughout the house and Sam pretended he wasn't doing it, but the one time Sam left the room without Dean following he was back less than a minute later, lingering in the doorway until Dean caught up.
When Dean finished cleaning and sharpening all his weapons - again - and when he finished washing all of his and Sam's and even his father's remaining clothes, Dean gave in and sat down with Sam and started doing some research of his own.
Before long they were hip to hip, just so they wouldn't have to keep looking up to ensure the other was still there.
'So you stopped being afraid of the big bad books?' Sam shoved at him after a little while.
'Hey I read,' Dean slid back at him. Usually only when he needed to - which on this occasion he felt that he did not - but he was as good at research as the next hunter. Except maybe when the next hunter was Sam Winchester.
'The Joy of Sex maybe,' Sam wrote back. Dean looked up to catch the smirk on his face, and couldn't even be annoyed because it was the first time he'd seen anything like a smile on Sam's face since before his father set the spell.
'No I only keep that for the diagrams,' he shoved at him, just to see Sam blush. Sam didn't come back with a smart remark that time, instead going back to the pile of books he'd amassed from God only knew where. (Dean even followed him into the old linen closet at one point, and didn't pay too much attention to exactly what Sam came back out with.)
Before long Sam tangled his leg with Dean's, and the solid contact relaxed him enough that he actually began to be able to pay attention to what he was reading. And hey, he hadn't known that particular Latin incantation, so at least he was making good use of his time.
It couldn't last, not with Sam as edgy as he was. Another hour and Sam was up out of his chair, stalking around the room and searching for something, anything, or maybe nothing at all. Maybe he just needed to prowl a little, knock a few books off a shelf and yell something that Dean couldn't lip read at them.
He went back to following Sam around the house until finally, after a late dinner that Dean threw together when his hunger grew strong enough to let Sam out of his sight for more than a minute at a time, they settled on Bobby's dusty couch with Sam's legs on his lap and Sam told him about his research until his hand started to cramp.
Sam crawled into bed with him again that night, and didn't even pretend he wasn't going to. Dean wrapped an arm around him and held on tight, all night long.
:::
Dean thought he would get used to it within a day or two, he thought he would adapt, but the longer they lived in silence the less he was able to cope with it. He just wanted to hear something, anything, or at least be reminded that sound existed in the world. He wanted to see a startled mouse, or watch someone dancing to unheard music, or just watch a penny bounce on top of a speaker turned way too loud.
He had nothing, absolutely nothing, and it was starting to drive him crazy.
It was starting to drive both of them crazy. Half the time Sam was wrapped around him, fingers or legs entwined, hands on arms or slipped up under the backs of shirts or resting on thighs, taking in the comfort of knowing, of being sure, that someone else still existed in the world.
And half the time he was stubbornly going off on his own, determined that this unnatural silence was not going to stop him, was not going to deter him from doing exactly what he would have otherwise done.
It got worse when Sam found the book he was looking for exactly where it should never have been, on a shelf in Bobby's study, looking completely innocuous.
'It can't be undone,' Sam wrote, his furious scrawl almost unreadable, 'without speaking.' The last two words were underlined three times.
Dean couldn't even blame him. The cruel irony of that made him pretty damn furious himself. It had been easier at first, to believe that John had done what he had in order to keep them safe. It had been something of a comfort to have clear orders to follow, even if he didn't understand. It was all a lot harder after trying to live with hour after endless hour of a completely silent world.
Sam threw down the pad of paper and stalked out of the room and it used every bit of Dean's thin self-control not to follow him. It was like a physical ache, a nameless terror, to have Sam out of sight and out of arm's reach, but if Dean didn't give him this moment all he was going to have was a fight on his hands.
It was ten long minutes before Sam came back, flinging himself at Dean and punching him at the same time as he clutched him too tightly. Dean held him in his lap for the next while, as Sam read the pertinent passages in the book again and again, in case he missed some detail, some nuance. He didn't even feel weird about pressing his cheek to Sam's back and closing his eyes, not needing to see anything when everything he needed was in his arms.
Two hours later Sam was stubbornly gone again, and this time he didn't come back. Dean found him too many minutes later up in Bobby's attic hurling books at the wall. Dust flew up with each impact and pages fluttered to the rotting floor.
Dean grabbed hold of him and shook him hard and Sam didn't even fight him. He just let himself be shaken, and when Dean was done he wrapped his arms around him and pounded his fists into Dean's back and didn't let go.
Don't fucking go anywhere, Dean said, over and over again, even though Sam couldn’t even feel the vibrations in his chest and throat that should have accompanied the sound. Don't you fucking go anywhere, Sam, don't you go.
Sam slipped his hands up under Dean's shirt and sank his fingers into his hips, and after that he stopped letting go.
:::
The light bulb in the study flickered out around eleven at night on the third day, while Sam had his face buried in a book and Dean was looking out the window at a world they couldn't touch.
The first thing he did was reach for the space where Sam had last been, grabbing for whatever body part came to hand first, but Sam wasn't there.
Sam! he shouted without even thinking about it, the instinct too ingrained in him.
He glanced at the dark window again and felt cold all over when something moved past it. It was dark outside and dark inside and he couldn’t be sure yet he was, he felt it in his gut. He was sure something moved past the window, just a shadow on a shadow but he saw it, it wasn't just his imagination.
It wasn't often that Dean froze but he froze in that moment and stared into the utter darkness for too long before tearing out of the room. He knocked a pile of books off the coffee table when his leg grazed it and it didn't even make him pause.
He shouted ineffectually and banged the walls as he went, groped his way through every room. He tried every light but none of them worked, none of them so much as flickered. The lines were down or the generator was out or... or he didn't want to think about what else it could be. Sam wasn't there, he wasn't there, he wasn't anywhere until suddenly he was. There he was at the mantle in the study holding a lit candle in front of his face and staring at Dean like he couldn't understand why he was breathless and panicked.
Dean didn't care, he just stalked across the room and pushed Sam against the wall and held him there. He couldn't hear a thing but Sam's lips were moving, and his hands were moving, and Dean could imagine his words.
I just went to get the candles. I just went to get the candles.
He knew that and still he couldn't shake the panic, the adrenaline spike of Sam's not okay. He was supposed to look after Sam, he was always supposed to look after Sam, and he almost let the thing in the darkness swallow him whole.
When Sam's lips found his, the only thing Dean did was kiss him back, hard and desperate. And he touched him like Sam was the only other person left in the world.
I'm not letting go, he said, lips moving against Sam's throat. The darkness and silence still loomed, and whether there was actually anything out there or not, it felt like it was suffocating them, pressing in on the walls of the house like it was going to consume them the moment they separated.
When Sam wasn't touching him, it was like he didn't exist.
Sam grappled him fiercely and rocked against his leg and Dean could feel that he was hard, that he was just as keyed up as Dean was. The way the candle moved through the air, leaving streaks of precious light, it was a wonder that nothing ignited.
Dean put one hand on each side of Sam's face and held him just far enough away that he could speak and be seen.
It's late, he said. It's late and it's dark. Come to bed.
Sam reached up and clung to Dean's hand and led the way out of the study, thrusting the candle in front of him like it could fend off anything in the darkness. Whether it could or not, they made their way safely to the room they shared, to the bed they shared. Sam put the candle in the holder on the table and pushed Dean onto the bed, not waiting a single moment. He followed right after, never losing contact, skin never leaving skin.
Dean didn't close his eyes as he pulled Sam's shirt off, pulled his own shirt off, pressed his skin to Sam's skin to be sure they still existed. His fingers moved over Sam's sides, spelling out letters and words, all the things he wanted to say to him but couldn't.
He could feel Sam breathing, the steady rise and fall of his chest as they lay together, and they were both too far gone to stop now, to think about this now. He tore the rest of their clothes off and tossed them aside and tangled with him under the covers, shadows flickering around the room from the guttering candle and none of them as fearsome as what lurked outside this cocoon, seeking them out.
Dean dragged his hands over Sam's body, everywhere, feeling his shape, his angles, every nuance that made his body his. His fingers should have made noises as they shoved the blankets out of the way, as they pressed into Sam's skin, but instead he could only feel it, could only make out the outlines in the dim light.
I'm sorry, he said, and it didn't matter if Sam couldn't hear him or see him, it just mattered that he said it.
He couldn't let go, he couldn't, and he couldn't stop rocking against Sam any more than Sam could stop rocking against him, any more than Sam could stop tracing letters into Dean's back with his fingers and into Dean's collarbone with his tongue.
It was all desperate and unsentimental and as necessary as breathing.
He couldn't hear Sam's panting in his ear but he could feel it, the hot air blowing against his skin, the hard push and pull of his chest against Dean's. And he couldn't hear it when Sam came but he could feel the hot, wet rush against his skin, could see Sam's mouth fall open into an imperfect O.
He shouted Sam's name because he could, and because just this once he could know for certain that no one would ever hear it.
:::
Dean woke to the sound of Sam snuffling into the pillow by his ear and almost immediately rolled out of bed, reaching for the nearest weapon. The sound his feet made as they hit the floor seemed impossibly loud.
"Dean?" said Sam, and Dean had never been so damn happy to hear the sound of his own name.
"Those motherfuckers," said Dean, and barely paused to give Sam a sloppy kiss before throwing on his shorts and tearing down the stairs, shotgun in hand in case it wasn't his father returning and something had breached whatever protection they'd put on the house.
But no, it was them.
"Dean," said John, not smiling but looking at Dean with a certain amount of satisfaction. Dean drew back and decked him without a single word. His father just took it without a word in return.
"We got the thing," said Bobby after a moment, looking completely unsurprised by the greeting.
"I figured, since you didn't show up on the doorstep dead," said Dean.
"Wouldn't have shown up at all," said John, actually taking a moment to rub his jaw. Dean must've got him good. "Your brother okay?"
"I might be able to convince him to aim for the other side when he comes down," said Dean. But yeah, Sam was okay. As okay as they ever were. As okay as anyone had any right to expect.
John nodded and that was that. That was probably the last thing they were ever going to say about it, or about any of this. There would never be an apology and there would never be an explanation.
Nor would Dean ever explain or apologize to him.
Because now in the afterwards, when he could hear his brother's voice again, the sound of his own breathing, the mice in the attic and the birds outside the window, Dean realized that with everything he and Sam had done, they'd now irrevocably committed to a different kind of silence.