You and Me and No One Else We Know

Dec 16, 2012 22:12

Dean’s hurting.

His ribs-and he knows some are cracked-are throbbing. His lip-which is swollen-is throbbing. His eye-which he knows is half-black-is throbbing.

He’s lying alone in the apartment Bobby and Ellen co-signed on, and he’s feeling like hell, and he hates himself and he hates the world and he’s not leaving the house like this, Jay and the bills be damned.

He knows it’s not Gordon when a key hits the lock: Gordon tossed his key in Dean’s face when Dean hollered at him to do so. He knows by the footfalls that it’s not the landlord either. It’s Sammy, here because he’s worried, because Dean hasn’t answered his calls or his texts.

“Dean?” his brother calls. Dean sighs. Sometimes it sucked being an awesome brother. “Dean? It’s me. I called the garage, and Bobby. Are you okay?”

“M’fine,” Dean calls. “go away.”

Sammy doesn’t, of course: he opens the door and gasps. “Dean! Oh God...what happened?”

“You got your wish,” Dean said bitterly.

“What?”

"I broke up with Gordon.”

Sam went white. “Oh, no. Oh...Dean.”

“Would you shutup and get out of here? I’m fine. I’m gonna sleep it off.”

Sam turns and leaves, obedient for once in his life. Dean’s hope is crushed when he hears him rustling around in the bathroom and kitchen, when his brother comes back with the Advil, ice, water, washcloths, and bandaids of yesteryear. Sam shakes out some ancient thermometer and gets a good sharp smack when he tries to stick it in Dean’s mouth.

“Asshole,” Dean grumbles, and shoves it under his own tongue.

“You should of called me,” Sam snaps. “I was worried, jerk.”

“Shuth’up.”

“Seriously. When did this happen? You’ve been here by yourself? What if you have a concussion? Did you go to the ER?”

“Shuth’up Thammy!”

Sam whacks him, hard. “Damnit, Dean! Why can’t you, for once, take care of yourself!”

Dean spat the thermometer at him. “Maybe because I’ve spent my whole damn life trying to take care of you!”

Sammy frowns, checks the thermometer, and then toes off his sneakers and crosses around to the other side of the bed. Dean huffs and kicks weakly at him when he slides in and presses up against his back, all love and warmth, but the truth is, his brother is his life, is his anchor, and feeling him soothes some lost and lonely part of Dean he didn’t even know was there until Sam slips in and heals it.

“You can call me,” Sam says.

“Go away.”

“Or text if you’re too damn prideful.”

“Shutup.”

“This wasn’t your fault, Dean. You know that, right?” Sam moved even closer. “It’s all his. Whatever he told you, he’s wrong.”

“Stupid bitch,” Dean grumbled. He’d forgotten just how good it felt to have Sam close when he was hurting like this. Already his ribs feel better. And his back. And his shoulder, where Sam’s hand rests over it.

“It’s okay if he wasn’t right for you,” Sam murmurs. “You’re gonna find someone who is. You’re gonna find someone who’s great, who you love, who loves you. I know you will.”

“Easy for you to say,” Dean huffs, thinking of Jess.

“No, Dean...it isn’t. Jess and me...we have to work at it. I love her and she loves me, but we both have our issues, and we have to work together to get through them. That’s what I want for you.”

“Screw you,” Dean says, wiggling free of his kid brother. “Get lost. I don’t want you here.”

“Too bad,” Sam counters, pressing close once more. “I won’t leave you, jerk. And you are a jerk.”

“And you’re a whiny, stupid tampon.” Dean feels something give in his chest and grabs onto Sam’s arm, not wanting him to pull away. Sam hooks his chin onto his brother’s shoulder and Dean feels a rush of peace. Sam could be damn stubborn when he felt like it, and right then, Dean really needs him to feel like it.

“I brought my things,” Sam murmurs. “I’m staying the weekend. Longer, if you want. Whatever you need, just tell me. It’s just me, man.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t see him for what he was.”

“That’s because he wasn’t dating me,” Sam says, affection clear in his voice. “Then you’d have run him out of town with a shotgun.”

“Yeah, well. S’not my fault you have the judgment of a gnat.”

“No. But how is it you can’t apply a little of what you do for me to you?”

Because I’m not worth what you are. Dean feels tears in his eyes. Let’s a few escape. “I...I feel so...bad, Sammy. Sometimes...I don’t...want to feel anything. At all.”

“I hate-” Sam’s voice cracks, “God, Dean, I can’t tell you how much I hate that you hurt. That people hurt you.” Sammy presses into his back. “It’s wrong, Dean.” Sam tucks his knees into the back of Dean’s and holds his brother tightly. It’s not right that it should sooth him, but sooth him it does. They’re quiet for awhile, and then Sam says, softly, “Jess told me that, when we first started dating, sometimes she had sex with me even when she didn’t want to.”

“Ew. TMI,” Dean spat. A beat. Then “really?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“She said she was scared I’d dump her if she didn’t.”

“What? You? Dude, you probably had sex when you didn’t want to.”

Sam smacked him playfully on the arm. “Shutup! I’m confiding.”

“I’m listening!”

“I was so mad. I felt horrible. I’d never do that to anyone. I felt like...like she made me force her somehow. I almost broke up with her.”

Dean turned, stunned. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why didn’t you tell me about Gordon?”

“Because it’s not your place to worry about me.”

“The hell it isn’t.”

“Because...because.”

“You were embarrassed.”

“I don’t get embarrassed.”

“I was embarrassed too.”

“Jesus, Sam.” It’s ridiculous. Dean has seen Sam at his weakest, at his sickest, at his most helpless. He’s bathed and changed him, cleaned his puke and pee, dressed him, even way past puberty.

And then, when he thinks of their childhood, he realizes Sam’s probably done a fair amount of that for him. For most people, it’s their parents who have seen and cared for them in these states, but for Sam and Dean, it’s one another.

They’re as messed up as Gordon used to say, but Dean can’t bring himself to regret it.

“Sammy,” he says, his voice wavering. Sam pulls himself closer.

“You know...you’re a big fat jerk, and you’ll always be, but you’re my jerk.”

Dean smiles and closes his eyes, letting the world go, letting the hurt go, and letting his little brother take over, for just a little while.

***

When he wakes, he smells something amazing. He drags himself up, showers, changes, and comes into the kitchen to find Sammy spreading out a buffet of meat, cheese, tomatoes, taco shells.

And, of course, Coronas.

“You’ll make a great wife for Jess,” Dean says, scooping Sam’s seasoned beef onto a plate.

“Shove it, jackass,” Sam counters, sauce dribbling down his chin.

They eat like kids-shoving it all in. They drink like it’s going out of style. Sam’s bought a pie and they eat it with their hands, drinking beer alongside it, laughing as they stumble to the TV and tune in to some crap comedy, Sammy curling up into Dean’s aching side and easing the hurt with his warmth.

“Y’know y’er my hero, right?” Sam mumbles.

“Shut it,” Dean says.

“Y’are. Y’know every’thing. Y’take care of everything. You’re the best.”

“And you’re a lightweight.”

“Hm,” Sam sighs, smiling against him. Dean reaches down and pets his brother’s head. Sammy’s eyes fall downward a bit, drunk and sleepy and happy. “a’love you,” Sam mumbles.

Dean couldn’t remember the last time Gordon had told him that.

He wondered if he ever had.

Dean pulls his little brother closer, rests his cheek on the mop of stupid of hair on the top of the kid’s head, and lets his own eyes drift closed while the TV blares all the lullabies they never had.

spn, 3 kings verse, fic, h/c, supernatural

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