SPN Fic: And happiness is what you need so bad
Title: And happiness is what you need so bad
Author: deirdre_c
Pairings: Sam/Dean
Rating: R
Word Count: ~4,500
Summary: Upon discovering a hidden room in the Men of Letters’ library, Sam accidentally releases a djinn.
A/N: Written for de_nugis on the (very belated) occasion of her birthday. It once was lost (oh, the misery of a hard drive crash), but now is found. Special and bottom-of-my-heart felt thanks to the most magnificent cherie_morte for taking the time to beta for me at a moment's notice. Title from a lyric by Plant and Page, naturally.
*****
Don’t do anything stupid.
It was the last thing Dean had said before he’d yanked the exterior door closed behind him, off on his latest Kevin-check-and-grocery-supply run, leaving Sam to continue his cataloging project in the Men of Letters’ library.
Sam had huffed into the quiet stillness left behind. Of course he was being extremely careful. He’d already stumbled across a number of grimoires shelved casually among the other volumes, ones that contained enough dark magic- seriously foul, evil stuff- to make him wish Bobby were here to ward the hell out of them. But Sam did the best he could, isolating them in a far corner section of the library, setting some rudimentary seals he’d discovered in an only slightly less-questionable text.
So when- in a scene right out of Abbott and Costello Meet the Men of Letters- Sam went to pull another book off the shelf and jostled a tiny bust of Caesar and the whole bookcase in front of him slid aside to reveal a hidden compartment, a little voice in the back of his head cautioned him to wait for Dean before investigating. Anything the old owners of this library believed dangerous enough to be shut behind a wall must be pretty damn toxic, not something to be tackled alone.
He held off a whole seven minutes before wedging the bookcase open with an iron poker from the fireplace and venturing cautiously through the opening just wide enough for a person to slip through.
It was pitch black, so Sam flicked on the flashlight he held in his right hand, open flask of holy water ready in his left, and crept forward through a narrow passage that opened up into a storeroom. It wasn’t big, ten feet by ten at most, and the beam from his light revealed cinderblock walls ringed by a single, chest-high plywood shelf upon which sat a series of dull-gray metal boxes, quite at odds with the fancy décor of the bunker outside. As he hesitated in the passageway, dank air and the mustiness of decades swirled outward, surprising a sharp sneeze out of him.
He froze, heart skittering, waiting for the entire place to fall down around his ears.
When nothing happened, he turned, setting the flask down on the shelf immediately to the right of the door and tucking his flashlight between shoulder and cheek. He ran fingers gingerly over the front of the first box, brushing away dust, searching for a label. It was blank, smooth, mysterious, as was the next, and the next.
Sam methodically worked his way around the room, finding each box as seamless as an egg, until, on the third from last, he noticed a faint line along the top edge and something that looked like lettering, barely visible. Tugging the box forward on the shelf- it was heavier than it looked- he joggled his shoulder to redirect the flashlight and accidentally pressed with both his thumbs against the slit.
The metal broke open with a hiss, blinding Sam with a strobe of unnatural blue light. He threw his hands up instinctively in a futile attempt to ward off the thick smoke billowing out to engulf him and heard the flashlight clatter to the concrete. A disembodied arm thrust out from the smoke, its hand gripping Sam’s face, lifting him and nearly crushing his jaw. He tried to wrench away, beat at the box, felt his toes scrabble against the floor. Through swimming vision, he saw branching, snaking tattoos slowly work their way up the length of the arm that held him captive.
A thought flittered up from the depths of his brain, Well, this was pretty stupid after all. Then he lost consciousness.
*****
Sam woke up in the library’s Great Room, slumped over in his chair, his head pillowed on the latest stack of volumes he’d been reviewing. He sat up and quickly wiped at his face; the last thing he wanted was for drool to ruin some ancient, irreplaceable text.
Still muzzy with sleep, it took him a moment to grasp the unexpected sound of footsteps on the stairs, and he didn’t even have time to push the chair back and get to his feet before a strange man entered the library. Sam automatically reached for the gun he’d secured under the table as a precaution, but, although he knew it must be there, his hand came up empty.
The intruder was old, at least in his seventies, hair snow-white but features sharp beneath the wrinkles and jowls of age. He took a handkerchief out of his suit coat pocket and dabbed it primly against his brow.
“Hey, Sam,” he said. “I know you’re in the middle of something, but I’m wondering if I might get a hand moving a box of test tubes up from the cellar to the lab?”
Sam blinked. The man obviously-well, probably-wasn’t a threat, but where had he come from? How did he know Sam’s name? He stood up slowly. “Who-?“
But before Sam could get the question out, he heard the main door to the hideout swing open and a familiar voice call, “Honey, we’re home!”
Sam and the stranger both turned simultaneously, and there was Dean, walking in side-by-side with… Dad.
It was a mule-kick to the chest, sharp pain and all the wind knocked out of him. He swayed in light-headed disbelief as Dad, or something that looked like Dad, grinned and clapped a hand to Dean’s, or something that looked like Dean, leather-clad shoulder, saying, “You should’ve seen him, Pop. You too, Sammy. Practically took the whole vamps’ nest out by himself. I could’ve stayed home and saved myself twenty hours in the car.”
Sam heard the old man reply along the lines of, “If the boy won’t be a Man of Letters, he might as well be good at something.” But Sam wasn’t paying attention, because Dean was sauntering toward him, a soft, fond grin on his face, hair longer than he’d worn it in years, the fucking amulet swinging around his neck, and even as Sam was taking it all in- the differences, the nostalgic familiarities-Dean stepped up right into his space, grabbed him by the back of the neck, and drew him down for a kiss. Right on the lips. Not a peck, either, but at least three sublime, shocking, wonderful seconds. Who could blame Sam for losing himself in it, the actual feel of Dean’s mouth hot and chapped and softly moving against his, before his brain kicked back online.
Dean. Was kissing him. Sam reared back, stuffed a hand between their chests and pushed away. “What the hell?” He glanced quickly over at Dad and the other man who was apparently … Henry Winchester? If he’d lived? If both had lived? They appeared to be flesh-and-blood. And neither seemed to be outraged by, or even paying attention to the not-so-fraternal performance right in front of them.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Dean protested, as if Sam was the one who was acting crazy, wrapping a hand around Sam’s wrist, drawing him close again. And his pulse jacked up under Dean’s familiar, calloused palm, because everything was seriously, impossibly fucked up. Trickster pranks, Dreamwalking, Wall-Come-Tumbling-Down levels of fucked, given the impossible, long-coveted taste of Dean lingering on his mouth.
Sam had to go to ground to figure out what was going on. Right now.
He spun, wrenching his arm away, to race down the hall toward the living quarters, hoping he wasn’t about to run into any more unexpected guests. In search of a temporary haven, Sam jerked open the door to his room but pulled up short when he found it crammed floor to ceiling with cardboard boxes and bedframes, stacks of folding chairs, a bike frame with no wheels, mysterious spindle-legged metal devices, and other miscellaneous junk.
He turned to face Dean striding down the hall after him. “What happened to my room?” Sam demanded fiercely, channeling alarm into anger.
Dean stopped short, head tilted in dog-like confusion, then turned the knob on the door across the hall, Dean’s own door. He stepped carefully aside so Sam could see in. “This is our room, man.”
Sam strode through the doorway, peering around. The one side of the room was just as it always was, Dean’s Guns & Ammo chic lining the walls. But the other side? The other side was hung with colorful celestial and topographical maps and what looked like an original Edward Hopper that he remembered from Sarah’s auction house. There was a bookshelf stuffed with trade paperbacks, and arrayed on top a thicket of framed photographs: him and Dean on a swing set as little kids, him and Dean in front of Toyon Hall with their arms slung across Becky’s and Zach’s shoulders, Jody Mills in uniform with what must be her husband and son, Bela and Gordon sitting together on the hood of a car, Andy Gallagher holding a giant snake, one of Jo, another of Missouri, a close-up shot of Bobby and Pamela, both smiling at the camera.
He felt like he could stare at those faces forever, but inevitably, his eye was drawn away, over to the unmade bed-the king-sized bed. On one side, Sam recognized his own precise method of stacking pillows for reading. On the other, on the side table, he spotted Dean’s habit of stuffing empty bags of chips into a stray glass, along with a stack of magazines and a goofy Batman-shaped alarm clock with digital numbers on his utility belt. It took him a second to notice that the little plastic bottle next to the lamp was actually Astroglide, sitting right out in the open, and he quickly looked away.
“I don’t understand,” he muttered to himself.
“What’s wrong with you?” Dean asked again softly, matching Sam’s low tone. “I gotta tell you, you’re really beginning to freak me out.”
“I know. I’m sorry,” Sam said, starting to pace back and forth in the small space. “It’s just… None of this is real. This isn’t my room. You’re not my Dean.”
A look of hurt flashed in Dean’s eyes, turning quickly to annoyance. “Very funny. Look, is this because I didn’t bring you a smoothie like I said I would? Don’t bitch at me, we didn’t stop because Dad was in a hurry to get back before Mom got home.”
“Mom?” Sam repeated faintly. The distance between Mom and this place seemed unbridgeable.
“Yeah,” Dean said. “She just finished up that hunt with Rufus and Gwen in Columbus. You know that.”
“But I don’t,” Sam insisted, his voice rising. “I don’t know! In my world, Mom is dead. Dad is dead. This place is an abandoned museum. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m not messing with you, Dean!”
“Okay, okay. We’ll figure it out.” Dean reached out to stop Sam’s increasingly desperate strides, and, natural as anything, cupped Sam’s face in his hand, his thumb soothing across his cheek.
Sam flinched away, and Dean raised an eyebrow. Sam could feel his face flush, although he wasn’t sure why he should be embarrassed. Except for the way his thoughts darted instantly back to that little bottle on the nightstand, and all that it implied. “I’m not used to-“ and he flapped a hand between them and then toward the bed, “-all this.”
“Wait. So in ‘your world’-“ Sam could practically hear the quotation marks in Dean’s voice. “-we’re just, what? Regular brothers?”
“Yes!” Sam said. No, he thought. “Kind of,” he amended. “It’s complicated.”
“I’ll bet.”
“But we’re not… together. I mean, when did this even start? How did I-? Did you-?” Sam didn’t even know what he was asking, how to say such words out loud. It seemed like all his life he’d been laboring under the lead-lined burden of secrecy, constantly digging and filling, burying his feelings for Dean, his attraction, his need so deep it could never be revealed. Even the language for it was inaccessible.
And it wasn’t even all about sex- although god knows Sam could barely remember a time his most private fantasies didn’t feature Dean in a pornographic starring role - but about exactly this: intimacy and honesty, a space of their own and a simple touch to ease distress. Things he’d always wanted with Dean, but rarely, so rarely, found.
“Well,” Dean started, blushing a bit himself, high on his cheekbones and along the tips of his ears, like he always did, a small smile playing around his lips. “Remember how you were a pushy little bitch all through high school, all over me, and me trying to fend you off, like the noble big brother I am? But it wasn’t until we left for college-“
“We?” Sam broke in, astonishment growing with every word.
“You got into Stanford. I moved out there with you to work West Coast hunts while you studied with the local Men of Letters scout troop.” His eyes narrowed, reading Sam’s confusion. “Four years in Palo Alto? Dude, none of this rings a bell?”
But then suddenly the bell did ring. But it wasn’t a memory of California; it was a memory of blue light and a tattooed hand. It felt as vivid and urgent as the visions he once had.
Sam turned the image over in his mind-no denying what it was-and his foolish heart sank. He knew better, but a part of him must’ve been hoping, unconsciously, somehow, that a life like this could truly be. How obvious that this precious, too-perfect world was all in his head, that he had somehow stumbled upon a djinn which had then constructed a trap woven wholly from Sam’s own desires. If life had taught him nothing else, it was that nothing this good could exist. At least not for Winchesters.
While his eyes were busy shedding scales, Dean led him over to the edge of the mattress and nudged him to sit, looking down to search Sam’s face anxiously. “Do you remember eating or drinking anything hinky? Reciting something from one of your books out there? Did you go outside today?”
“No, that’s not it,” Sam replied vaguely, mulling over what he’d have to do next, knowing and trying not to lament it.
Dean gave his shoulder a little shake. “I think it’s time to go get Granddad and have him take a look at you. Stay here, okay? I’ll be right back.”
“Wait,” Sam said. Dean turned before he got to the door.
“Would you-“ Sam swallowed around the hot knot in his throat. This wasn’t real, it didn’t matter. It wouldn’t hurt anyone. “Would you kiss me before you go?”
Dean paused for a moment, still as stone. “I thought you said you couldn’t remember?”
“I can’t,” Sam said. “But I want to.” Later. After. Give me something to remember.
Dean didn’t say anything more, simply advanced toward Sam, towering for a moment before crouching down in front of him, a palm heavy on each of Sam’s thighs. Sam shivered at the feel of it, had to force himself not to draw back automatically, and not to lean in to finally take what would never be offered again. There is no offer. There is no again. This is just another fantasy, he told himself. But as he waited, he felt his dick rouse, blood and heat pooling low, just from the simple touch of those hands.
This close, he could feel the warmth of Dean’s body, see the cotton cling of Henley over bunched shoulders, the scent of faded, familiar aftershave, old coffee on his breath. Dean leaned in, watchful, their mouths inches away from each other, but Sam held still, wanting to stretch every moment out, wanting Dean to come to him. And finally Dean did, leaning in and closing the tiny distance, licking gently into Sam’s mouth to curl his tongue around Sam’s.
It was soft, full of passion, and Sam thought no kiss could ever equal it. He opened for Dean, because he wanted to, because he wanted this, because if he was going to return to the anguish and death that stalked them in the real world, he wanted to take this with him as a treasured keepsake. He would replay this moment in his head again and again, wear it out: what it was like to have Dean’s hands slide up to spread wide on his back, would picture Dean’s eyelashes dark against his cheek and the husky hitch in his breath when Sam teased his lower lip between his teeth.
Sam spread his legs wide, his hands daring to cup Dean’s ass, to press him closer, and allowed himself a long, low moan.
"Sammy, I-“ Sam could feel Dean’s fingers at the edge of his t-shirt, rucking it up, "- I like where this is going," both of his hands now roving over the hot skin of Sam’s belly. He laughed as Sam hungrily nipped along the rough stubble of Dean’s jaw, teeth closing on his earlobe. "Guess it’s like riding a bike?" And when Dean slid a hand between them, running a knuckle straight down Sam’s sternum over his belt buckle right down the stiff length of Sam’s cock, Sam felt his whole body shudder, every nerve spitting sparks, spine arching as he curved into Dean’s touch.
Fuck, he needed to stop this. This wasn’t just a kiss, it was drug shot straight into Sam’s veins. And he realized it was a slippery slope from fantasy to obsession, to the point where feeding this fire would leave Sam unable to contain it again in reality. It was just that Sam… couldn’t exactly think straight when Dean was handling him like this, a thumb feathering over one nipple, the other kneading and working Sam’s aching dick through his jeans. Couldn’t control his breathing. Couldn’t not say please please, Dean, god, please like a prayer to the only one who could save him.
So Sam bit harder at Dean’s earlobe, just to hear the hissed, “Goddamn!” that it produced. His hands slid from Dean’s ass to his hips, anchored there, clinging to his last shred of restraint and sanity to keep himself from flipping Dean over onto the bed, stripping his jeans off and pounding into him. Demolishing every barrier between them. A point of no return. He couldn't help the desperation that slipped into his tone as he whispered in Dean’s ear, "How am I ever going face the real you?"
He felt Dean’s body tense, and the hands that had been toying with the button of Sam’s fly were suddenly being used to push him back a few inches. Dean’s lips were red and wet and beautifully swollen, but his expression turned rueful as his eyes roamed Sam’s face. "Who am I, if not the real me?” He looked away, sucking in a shuddering breath, leaving Sam to stare at his flushed cheek and the corded curve of his neck. A long moment of silence passed, and he almost missed Dean’s low murmur. "This isn’t right. I’m going to have to take a raincheck until we get you back to normal."
Sam closed his eyes, grateful and miserable, willing his fever to cool, his nerves to turn to ash and sink back under his skin. Normal. He laughed a bit manically, “Raincheck, okay.”
Dean leaned forward, pressed his lips to Sam’s eyebrow. Sam sank down into Dean’s collarbone and breathed against it. It was as good a goodbye as any.
After a minute, Dean said again, “I’ll be right back. Wait here.”
Sam didn’t answer, didn’t want to lie if he didn’t have to. He watched as Dean straightened his clothes and adjusted things, ran a hand through his hair, smiled tightly at Sam, and walked out.
The door shut behind him with a soft snick.
Sam could’ve thrown himself onto the bed and howled, but instead he rolled his shoulders back and stood, gazing around. About the only good thing he could say regarding Dean’s decorating tastes was that it was nice to have necessary tools right at hand. He reached out and took down a pistol from where it hung on the wall, checking the chamber and then rummaging through several desk drawers, discovering a box of bullets conveniently in the third one down.
As he loaded them, he remembered Dean sitting on a crummy motel bed, telling Sam how badly he’d wanted to stay in the djinn’s world, even once he’d known it was a dream. Sam hadn’t really understood then. He certainly got it now.
The steel barrel was cold underneath his chin.
*****
He arrived back in the hidden storeroom, freezing, his lungs filled with ice shards, his joints aching where they pressed into the cement floor. He sucked in a shallow breath of fetid air, and cracked his eyelids, although it felt like lifting barbells. He was lying on the floor, shoved into a corner, the faint light dimly showing the direction back toward the library beyond seemed an unobtainable warmth.
It was hard to tell, he couldn’t really feel his hands and feet, but he thought that they were tied.
That focused him, pulse pounding. Where was the djinn? Was it in here with him? He needed a plan before it discovered he was awake.
But then he heard Dean’s voice echo from far away, out in the library or beyond. “Sam! Where are you?” Dean was back, back early. Or maybe days had passed, Sam didn’t know.
“Here,” he tried to shout, nothing coming out but a miserable croak.
Would the djinn leave the dark safety of this chamber to attack Dean? Fuck, Sam needed to get eyes on it, or at least warn Dean it was here. He tried to roll up onto his elbows and knees, but his poison-weakened muscles wouldn’t support him. Quaking with effort, he pushed with his feet against the wall and scooted a few inches out toward the center of the room, reaching out with bound hands to grasp at his dead flashlight. For a second he thought it would roll out from under his fumbling fingers, but then he got it and started beating it against the floor, the sharp sound of the code ringing out-dah dit dit- D for danger.
He hammered it out six or seven times, certain that the sound was as likely to draw the djinn’s attention as Dean’s, and he gasped when he caught a shadow flit in the corner of his eye. But it was Dean, gliding cautiously into the dark room, gun at the ready.
Dean didn’t even see Sam at first, weapon automatically drawing a bead on Sam when he whispered, “I’m down. To your right. But I’m fine, we’ve got to take care of the djinn.”
“What? Why are you on the floor?” Dean asked, stowing his gun and feeling his way over to Sam. “Son-of-a-bitch,” he muttered when he found the ropes binding Sam’s feet and started tugging at them.
“Don’t bother with that now,” Sam urged, rough and coughing. “Silver knife. Dried lamb’s blood. In the laboratory, in one of the clear jars, fifth one from the right. You’ll have to-“ more damn coughing, “- to reconstitute it.” Dean had managed to get his hands untied, and Sam pushed feebly at him. “Go!”
Dean swore again and took off running. A hundred needles stabbed through Sam’s hands as the blood came flowing back, interfering with his fumbling attempts to free his legs. His head spun and he couldn’t breathe and when he went to stand, he fell, sprawling hard again onto the floor.
A figure hurtled into the room, but Sam had no trouble recognizing it this time.
“Sammy. Sam,” his brother was saying, falling to his knees beside Sam and pulling him up so that he was half-sitting, half-leaning into Dean. Real Dean. True Dean. “I got it. It’s dead. You okay?” His hands rubbed up and down Sam’s arms, trying to generate some warmth.
“Yeah. I’m good.” Sam couldn’t quite hide the break in his voice.
Dean snorted. “Sure you are.” He shifted as if to get his feet back under him, preparing to move away, and Sam, well, he couldn’t help it.
“Wait,” he said, slumping just a bit more into Dean’s space. He couldn’t ask for what he’d asked for back there, from that figment Dean, but he couldn’t help wanting something. Fucking slippery slope. “Can we just sit here for a second longer?”
Dean was silent, then, “Yeah. I guess.” He settled again, scooting so his back was to the wall and tugging Sam with him so that his head was against Dean’s shoulder. There in the darkness, light barely filtering in from the room beyond the passageway, he could feel a rigidity in Dean’s arms, an awkwardness where his hands rested against Sam.
Welcome back to the real world.
Sam knew should get up, liberate Dean from this weird situation and put the customary distance between them, but something, maybe the blood loss or residual hallucinogenic in his system, made him turn his head, just slightly, just enough that his face rested in the crook of Dean’s neck, his lips barely brushing Dean's skin. Sam breathed deeply the scent of him, exactly as it had smelled in that other place. Goodbye.
“What are you doing?” Dean murmured, then caught at Sam to keep him from tumbling over when he promptly jerked away.
“Nothing,” Sam said quickly, trying to keep a guilty note out of his voice. “Just… let me up and I’ll go lay down for awhile.”
And then it was Dean’s turn to say, “Wait.” He was still holding on, tighter now. Sam didn’t move a muscle, tripwire tense. “What did you see? In there? While it had you?”
Sam closed his eyes, scrabbling for his defenses. “I don’t want to talk about it, Dean. Not now.”
“Was I there with you?”
“I said-“ But before he could deflect further, he felt Dean’s fingers skate up the back of his neck and twine themselves in his hair, his palm resting along Sam’s jaw. It was a trap, and Sam fell for it, tilting his face into the touch before he could even think about what he was doing, what he was giving away.
He heard Dean release a slow, shaky breath. Then he reeled Sam back in, pulling him against his chest and resting his cheek on the top of Sam’s head. What Dean said next was barely more than a whisper, but the sound of it reverberated through Sam’s whole body. “Well, fuck. This may be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, but-” he broke off for the longest seconds of Sam’s life, the darkness like a blanket over them, “-fuck it. Let me tell you what I really saw, the time that djinn had me.”
Needless to say, Sam didn’t find it stupid at all.
Author: deirdre_c
Pairings: Sam/Dean
Rating: R
Word Count: ~4,500
Summary: Upon discovering a hidden room in the Men of Letters’ library, Sam accidentally releases a djinn.
A/N: Written for de_nugis on the (very belated) occasion of her birthday. It once was lost (oh, the misery of a hard drive crash), but now is found. Special and bottom-of-my-heart felt thanks to the most magnificent cherie_morte for taking the time to beta for me at a moment's notice. Title from a lyric by Plant and Page, naturally.
*****
Don’t do anything stupid.
It was the last thing Dean had said before he’d yanked the exterior door closed behind him, off on his latest Kevin-check-and-grocery-supply run, leaving Sam to continue his cataloging project in the Men of Letters’ library.
Sam had huffed into the quiet stillness left behind. Of course he was being extremely careful. He’d already stumbled across a number of grimoires shelved casually among the other volumes, ones that contained enough dark magic- seriously foul, evil stuff- to make him wish Bobby were here to ward the hell out of them. But Sam did the best he could, isolating them in a far corner section of the library, setting some rudimentary seals he’d discovered in an only slightly less-questionable text.
So when- in a scene right out of Abbott and Costello Meet the Men of Letters- Sam went to pull another book off the shelf and jostled a tiny bust of Caesar and the whole bookcase in front of him slid aside to reveal a hidden compartment, a little voice in the back of his head cautioned him to wait for Dean before investigating. Anything the old owners of this library believed dangerous enough to be shut behind a wall must be pretty damn toxic, not something to be tackled alone.
He held off a whole seven minutes before wedging the bookcase open with an iron poker from the fireplace and venturing cautiously through the opening just wide enough for a person to slip through.
It was pitch black, so Sam flicked on the flashlight he held in his right hand, open flask of holy water ready in his left, and crept forward through a narrow passage that opened up into a storeroom. It wasn’t big, ten feet by ten at most, and the beam from his light revealed cinderblock walls ringed by a single, chest-high plywood shelf upon which sat a series of dull-gray metal boxes, quite at odds with the fancy décor of the bunker outside. As he hesitated in the passageway, dank air and the mustiness of decades swirled outward, surprising a sharp sneeze out of him.
He froze, heart skittering, waiting for the entire place to fall down around his ears.
When nothing happened, he turned, setting the flask down on the shelf immediately to the right of the door and tucking his flashlight between shoulder and cheek. He ran fingers gingerly over the front of the first box, brushing away dust, searching for a label. It was blank, smooth, mysterious, as was the next, and the next.
Sam methodically worked his way around the room, finding each box as seamless as an egg, until, on the third from last, he noticed a faint line along the top edge and something that looked like lettering, barely visible. Tugging the box forward on the shelf- it was heavier than it looked- he joggled his shoulder to redirect the flashlight and accidentally pressed with both his thumbs against the slit.
The metal broke open with a hiss, blinding Sam with a strobe of unnatural blue light. He threw his hands up instinctively in a futile attempt to ward off the thick smoke billowing out to engulf him and heard the flashlight clatter to the concrete. A disembodied arm thrust out from the smoke, its hand gripping Sam’s face, lifting him and nearly crushing his jaw. He tried to wrench away, beat at the box, felt his toes scrabble against the floor. Through swimming vision, he saw branching, snaking tattoos slowly work their way up the length of the arm that held him captive.
A thought flittered up from the depths of his brain, Well, this was pretty stupid after all. Then he lost consciousness.
*****
Sam woke up in the library’s Great Room, slumped over in his chair, his head pillowed on the latest stack of volumes he’d been reviewing. He sat up and quickly wiped at his face; the last thing he wanted was for drool to ruin some ancient, irreplaceable text.
Still muzzy with sleep, it took him a moment to grasp the unexpected sound of footsteps on the stairs, and he didn’t even have time to push the chair back and get to his feet before a strange man entered the library. Sam automatically reached for the gun he’d secured under the table as a precaution, but, although he knew it must be there, his hand came up empty.
The intruder was old, at least in his seventies, hair snow-white but features sharp beneath the wrinkles and jowls of age. He took a handkerchief out of his suit coat pocket and dabbed it primly against his brow.
“Hey, Sam,” he said. “I know you’re in the middle of something, but I’m wondering if I might get a hand moving a box of test tubes up from the cellar to the lab?”
Sam blinked. The man obviously-well, probably-wasn’t a threat, but where had he come from? How did he know Sam’s name? He stood up slowly. “Who-?“
But before Sam could get the question out, he heard the main door to the hideout swing open and a familiar voice call, “Honey, we’re home!”
Sam and the stranger both turned simultaneously, and there was Dean, walking in side-by-side with… Dad.
It was a mule-kick to the chest, sharp pain and all the wind knocked out of him. He swayed in light-headed disbelief as Dad, or something that looked like Dad, grinned and clapped a hand to Dean’s, or something that looked like Dean, leather-clad shoulder, saying, “You should’ve seen him, Pop. You too, Sammy. Practically took the whole vamps’ nest out by himself. I could’ve stayed home and saved myself twenty hours in the car.”
Sam heard the old man reply along the lines of, “If the boy won’t be a Man of Letters, he might as well be good at something.” But Sam wasn’t paying attention, because Dean was sauntering toward him, a soft, fond grin on his face, hair longer than he’d worn it in years, the fucking amulet swinging around his neck, and even as Sam was taking it all in- the differences, the nostalgic familiarities-Dean stepped up right into his space, grabbed him by the back of the neck, and drew him down for a kiss. Right on the lips. Not a peck, either, but at least three sublime, shocking, wonderful seconds. Who could blame Sam for losing himself in it, the actual feel of Dean’s mouth hot and chapped and softly moving against his, before his brain kicked back online.
Dean. Was kissing him. Sam reared back, stuffed a hand between their chests and pushed away. “What the hell?” He glanced quickly over at Dad and the other man who was apparently … Henry Winchester? If he’d lived? If both had lived? They appeared to be flesh-and-blood. And neither seemed to be outraged by, or even paying attention to the not-so-fraternal performance right in front of them.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Dean protested, as if Sam was the one who was acting crazy, wrapping a hand around Sam’s wrist, drawing him close again. And his pulse jacked up under Dean’s familiar, calloused palm, because everything was seriously, impossibly fucked up. Trickster pranks, Dreamwalking, Wall-Come-Tumbling-Down levels of fucked, given the impossible, long-coveted taste of Dean lingering on his mouth.
Sam had to go to ground to figure out what was going on. Right now.
He spun, wrenching his arm away, to race down the hall toward the living quarters, hoping he wasn’t about to run into any more unexpected guests. In search of a temporary haven, Sam jerked open the door to his room but pulled up short when he found it crammed floor to ceiling with cardboard boxes and bedframes, stacks of folding chairs, a bike frame with no wheels, mysterious spindle-legged metal devices, and other miscellaneous junk.
He turned to face Dean striding down the hall after him. “What happened to my room?” Sam demanded fiercely, channeling alarm into anger.
Dean stopped short, head tilted in dog-like confusion, then turned the knob on the door across the hall, Dean’s own door. He stepped carefully aside so Sam could see in. “This is our room, man.”
Sam strode through the doorway, peering around. The one side of the room was just as it always was, Dean’s Guns & Ammo chic lining the walls. But the other side? The other side was hung with colorful celestial and topographical maps and what looked like an original Edward Hopper that he remembered from Sarah’s auction house. There was a bookshelf stuffed with trade paperbacks, and arrayed on top a thicket of framed photographs: him and Dean on a swing set as little kids, him and Dean in front of Toyon Hall with their arms slung across Becky’s and Zach’s shoulders, Jody Mills in uniform with what must be her husband and son, Bela and Gordon sitting together on the hood of a car, Andy Gallagher holding a giant snake, one of Jo, another of Missouri, a close-up shot of Bobby and Pamela, both smiling at the camera.
He felt like he could stare at those faces forever, but inevitably, his eye was drawn away, over to the unmade bed-the king-sized bed. On one side, Sam recognized his own precise method of stacking pillows for reading. On the other, on the side table, he spotted Dean’s habit of stuffing empty bags of chips into a stray glass, along with a stack of magazines and a goofy Batman-shaped alarm clock with digital numbers on his utility belt. It took him a second to notice that the little plastic bottle next to the lamp was actually Astroglide, sitting right out in the open, and he quickly looked away.
“I don’t understand,” he muttered to himself.
“What’s wrong with you?” Dean asked again softly, matching Sam’s low tone. “I gotta tell you, you’re really beginning to freak me out.”
“I know. I’m sorry,” Sam said, starting to pace back and forth in the small space. “It’s just… None of this is real. This isn’t my room. You’re not my Dean.”
A look of hurt flashed in Dean’s eyes, turning quickly to annoyance. “Very funny. Look, is this because I didn’t bring you a smoothie like I said I would? Don’t bitch at me, we didn’t stop because Dad was in a hurry to get back before Mom got home.”
“Mom?” Sam repeated faintly. The distance between Mom and this place seemed unbridgeable.
“Yeah,” Dean said. “She just finished up that hunt with Rufus and Gwen in Columbus. You know that.”
“But I don’t,” Sam insisted, his voice rising. “I don’t know! In my world, Mom is dead. Dad is dead. This place is an abandoned museum. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m not messing with you, Dean!”
“Okay, okay. We’ll figure it out.” Dean reached out to stop Sam’s increasingly desperate strides, and, natural as anything, cupped Sam’s face in his hand, his thumb soothing across his cheek.
Sam flinched away, and Dean raised an eyebrow. Sam could feel his face flush, although he wasn’t sure why he should be embarrassed. Except for the way his thoughts darted instantly back to that little bottle on the nightstand, and all that it implied. “I’m not used to-“ and he flapped a hand between them and then toward the bed, “-all this.”
“Wait. So in ‘your world’-“ Sam could practically hear the quotation marks in Dean’s voice. “-we’re just, what? Regular brothers?”
“Yes!” Sam said. No, he thought. “Kind of,” he amended. “It’s complicated.”
“I’ll bet.”
“But we’re not… together. I mean, when did this even start? How did I-? Did you-?” Sam didn’t even know what he was asking, how to say such words out loud. It seemed like all his life he’d been laboring under the lead-lined burden of secrecy, constantly digging and filling, burying his feelings for Dean, his attraction, his need so deep it could never be revealed. Even the language for it was inaccessible.
And it wasn’t even all about sex- although god knows Sam could barely remember a time his most private fantasies didn’t feature Dean in a pornographic starring role - but about exactly this: intimacy and honesty, a space of their own and a simple touch to ease distress. Things he’d always wanted with Dean, but rarely, so rarely, found.
“Well,” Dean started, blushing a bit himself, high on his cheekbones and along the tips of his ears, like he always did, a small smile playing around his lips. “Remember how you were a pushy little bitch all through high school, all over me, and me trying to fend you off, like the noble big brother I am? But it wasn’t until we left for college-“
“We?” Sam broke in, astonishment growing with every word.
“You got into Stanford. I moved out there with you to work West Coast hunts while you studied with the local Men of Letters scout troop.” His eyes narrowed, reading Sam’s confusion. “Four years in Palo Alto? Dude, none of this rings a bell?”
But then suddenly the bell did ring. But it wasn’t a memory of California; it was a memory of blue light and a tattooed hand. It felt as vivid and urgent as the visions he once had.
Sam turned the image over in his mind-no denying what it was-and his foolish heart sank. He knew better, but a part of him must’ve been hoping, unconsciously, somehow, that a life like this could truly be. How obvious that this precious, too-perfect world was all in his head, that he had somehow stumbled upon a djinn which had then constructed a trap woven wholly from Sam’s own desires. If life had taught him nothing else, it was that nothing this good could exist. At least not for Winchesters.
While his eyes were busy shedding scales, Dean led him over to the edge of the mattress and nudged him to sit, looking down to search Sam’s face anxiously. “Do you remember eating or drinking anything hinky? Reciting something from one of your books out there? Did you go outside today?”
“No, that’s not it,” Sam replied vaguely, mulling over what he’d have to do next, knowing and trying not to lament it.
Dean gave his shoulder a little shake. “I think it’s time to go get Granddad and have him take a look at you. Stay here, okay? I’ll be right back.”
“Wait,” Sam said. Dean turned before he got to the door.
“Would you-“ Sam swallowed around the hot knot in his throat. This wasn’t real, it didn’t matter. It wouldn’t hurt anyone. “Would you kiss me before you go?”
Dean paused for a moment, still as stone. “I thought you said you couldn’t remember?”
“I can’t,” Sam said. “But I want to.” Later. After. Give me something to remember.
Dean didn’t say anything more, simply advanced toward Sam, towering for a moment before crouching down in front of him, a palm heavy on each of Sam’s thighs. Sam shivered at the feel of it, had to force himself not to draw back automatically, and not to lean in to finally take what would never be offered again. There is no offer. There is no again. This is just another fantasy, he told himself. But as he waited, he felt his dick rouse, blood and heat pooling low, just from the simple touch of those hands.
This close, he could feel the warmth of Dean’s body, see the cotton cling of Henley over bunched shoulders, the scent of faded, familiar aftershave, old coffee on his breath. Dean leaned in, watchful, their mouths inches away from each other, but Sam held still, wanting to stretch every moment out, wanting Dean to come to him. And finally Dean did, leaning in and closing the tiny distance, licking gently into Sam’s mouth to curl his tongue around Sam’s.
It was soft, full of passion, and Sam thought no kiss could ever equal it. He opened for Dean, because he wanted to, because he wanted this, because if he was going to return to the anguish and death that stalked them in the real world, he wanted to take this with him as a treasured keepsake. He would replay this moment in his head again and again, wear it out: what it was like to have Dean’s hands slide up to spread wide on his back, would picture Dean’s eyelashes dark against his cheek and the husky hitch in his breath when Sam teased his lower lip between his teeth.
Sam spread his legs wide, his hands daring to cup Dean’s ass, to press him closer, and allowed himself a long, low moan.
"Sammy, I-“ Sam could feel Dean’s fingers at the edge of his t-shirt, rucking it up, "- I like where this is going," both of his hands now roving over the hot skin of Sam’s belly. He laughed as Sam hungrily nipped along the rough stubble of Dean’s jaw, teeth closing on his earlobe. "Guess it’s like riding a bike?" And when Dean slid a hand between them, running a knuckle straight down Sam’s sternum over his belt buckle right down the stiff length of Sam’s cock, Sam felt his whole body shudder, every nerve spitting sparks, spine arching as he curved into Dean’s touch.
Fuck, he needed to stop this. This wasn’t just a kiss, it was drug shot straight into Sam’s veins. And he realized it was a slippery slope from fantasy to obsession, to the point where feeding this fire would leave Sam unable to contain it again in reality. It was just that Sam… couldn’t exactly think straight when Dean was handling him like this, a thumb feathering over one nipple, the other kneading and working Sam’s aching dick through his jeans. Couldn’t control his breathing. Couldn’t not say please please, Dean, god, please like a prayer to the only one who could save him.
So Sam bit harder at Dean’s earlobe, just to hear the hissed, “Goddamn!” that it produced. His hands slid from Dean’s ass to his hips, anchored there, clinging to his last shred of restraint and sanity to keep himself from flipping Dean over onto the bed, stripping his jeans off and pounding into him. Demolishing every barrier between them. A point of no return. He couldn't help the desperation that slipped into his tone as he whispered in Dean’s ear, "How am I ever going face the real you?"
He felt Dean’s body tense, and the hands that had been toying with the button of Sam’s fly were suddenly being used to push him back a few inches. Dean’s lips were red and wet and beautifully swollen, but his expression turned rueful as his eyes roamed Sam’s face. "Who am I, if not the real me?” He looked away, sucking in a shuddering breath, leaving Sam to stare at his flushed cheek and the corded curve of his neck. A long moment of silence passed, and he almost missed Dean’s low murmur. "This isn’t right. I’m going to have to take a raincheck until we get you back to normal."
Sam closed his eyes, grateful and miserable, willing his fever to cool, his nerves to turn to ash and sink back under his skin. Normal. He laughed a bit manically, “Raincheck, okay.”
Dean leaned forward, pressed his lips to Sam’s eyebrow. Sam sank down into Dean’s collarbone and breathed against it. It was as good a goodbye as any.
After a minute, Dean said again, “I’ll be right back. Wait here.”
Sam didn’t answer, didn’t want to lie if he didn’t have to. He watched as Dean straightened his clothes and adjusted things, ran a hand through his hair, smiled tightly at Sam, and walked out.
The door shut behind him with a soft snick.
Sam could’ve thrown himself onto the bed and howled, but instead he rolled his shoulders back and stood, gazing around. About the only good thing he could say regarding Dean’s decorating tastes was that it was nice to have necessary tools right at hand. He reached out and took down a pistol from where it hung on the wall, checking the chamber and then rummaging through several desk drawers, discovering a box of bullets conveniently in the third one down.
As he loaded them, he remembered Dean sitting on a crummy motel bed, telling Sam how badly he’d wanted to stay in the djinn’s world, even once he’d known it was a dream. Sam hadn’t really understood then. He certainly got it now.
The steel barrel was cold underneath his chin.
*****
He arrived back in the hidden storeroom, freezing, his lungs filled with ice shards, his joints aching where they pressed into the cement floor. He sucked in a shallow breath of fetid air, and cracked his eyelids, although it felt like lifting barbells. He was lying on the floor, shoved into a corner, the faint light dimly showing the direction back toward the library beyond seemed an unobtainable warmth.
It was hard to tell, he couldn’t really feel his hands and feet, but he thought that they were tied.
That focused him, pulse pounding. Where was the djinn? Was it in here with him? He needed a plan before it discovered he was awake.
But then he heard Dean’s voice echo from far away, out in the library or beyond. “Sam! Where are you?” Dean was back, back early. Or maybe days had passed, Sam didn’t know.
“Here,” he tried to shout, nothing coming out but a miserable croak.
Would the djinn leave the dark safety of this chamber to attack Dean? Fuck, Sam needed to get eyes on it, or at least warn Dean it was here. He tried to roll up onto his elbows and knees, but his poison-weakened muscles wouldn’t support him. Quaking with effort, he pushed with his feet against the wall and scooted a few inches out toward the center of the room, reaching out with bound hands to grasp at his dead flashlight. For a second he thought it would roll out from under his fumbling fingers, but then he got it and started beating it against the floor, the sharp sound of the code ringing out-dah dit dit- D for danger.
He hammered it out six or seven times, certain that the sound was as likely to draw the djinn’s attention as Dean’s, and he gasped when he caught a shadow flit in the corner of his eye. But it was Dean, gliding cautiously into the dark room, gun at the ready.
Dean didn’t even see Sam at first, weapon automatically drawing a bead on Sam when he whispered, “I’m down. To your right. But I’m fine, we’ve got to take care of the djinn.”
“What? Why are you on the floor?” Dean asked, stowing his gun and feeling his way over to Sam. “Son-of-a-bitch,” he muttered when he found the ropes binding Sam’s feet and started tugging at them.
“Don’t bother with that now,” Sam urged, rough and coughing. “Silver knife. Dried lamb’s blood. In the laboratory, in one of the clear jars, fifth one from the right. You’ll have to-“ more damn coughing, “- to reconstitute it.” Dean had managed to get his hands untied, and Sam pushed feebly at him. “Go!”
Dean swore again and took off running. A hundred needles stabbed through Sam’s hands as the blood came flowing back, interfering with his fumbling attempts to free his legs. His head spun and he couldn’t breathe and when he went to stand, he fell, sprawling hard again onto the floor.
A figure hurtled into the room, but Sam had no trouble recognizing it this time.
“Sammy. Sam,” his brother was saying, falling to his knees beside Sam and pulling him up so that he was half-sitting, half-leaning into Dean. Real Dean. True Dean. “I got it. It’s dead. You okay?” His hands rubbed up and down Sam’s arms, trying to generate some warmth.
“Yeah. I’m good.” Sam couldn’t quite hide the break in his voice.
Dean snorted. “Sure you are.” He shifted as if to get his feet back under him, preparing to move away, and Sam, well, he couldn’t help it.
“Wait,” he said, slumping just a bit more into Dean’s space. He couldn’t ask for what he’d asked for back there, from that figment Dean, but he couldn’t help wanting something. Fucking slippery slope. “Can we just sit here for a second longer?”
Dean was silent, then, “Yeah. I guess.” He settled again, scooting so his back was to the wall and tugging Sam with him so that his head was against Dean’s shoulder. There in the darkness, light barely filtering in from the room beyond the passageway, he could feel a rigidity in Dean’s arms, an awkwardness where his hands rested against Sam.
Welcome back to the real world.
Sam knew should get up, liberate Dean from this weird situation and put the customary distance between them, but something, maybe the blood loss or residual hallucinogenic in his system, made him turn his head, just slightly, just enough that his face rested in the crook of Dean’s neck, his lips barely brushing Dean's skin. Sam breathed deeply the scent of him, exactly as it had smelled in that other place. Goodbye.
“What are you doing?” Dean murmured, then caught at Sam to keep him from tumbling over when he promptly jerked away.
“Nothing,” Sam said quickly, trying to keep a guilty note out of his voice. “Just… let me up and I’ll go lay down for awhile.”
And then it was Dean’s turn to say, “Wait.” He was still holding on, tighter now. Sam didn’t move a muscle, tripwire tense. “What did you see? In there? While it had you?”
Sam closed his eyes, scrabbling for his defenses. “I don’t want to talk about it, Dean. Not now.”
“Was I there with you?”
“I said-“ But before he could deflect further, he felt Dean’s fingers skate up the back of his neck and twine themselves in his hair, his palm resting along Sam’s jaw. It was a trap, and Sam fell for it, tilting his face into the touch before he could even think about what he was doing, what he was giving away.
He heard Dean release a slow, shaky breath. Then he reeled Sam back in, pulling him against his chest and resting his cheek on the top of Sam’s head. What Dean said next was barely more than a whisper, but the sound of it reverberated through Sam’s whole body. “Well, fuck. This may be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, but-” he broke off for the longest seconds of Sam’s life, the darkness like a blanket over them, “-fuck it. Let me tell you what I really saw, the time that djinn had me.”
Needless to say, Sam didn’t find it stupid at all.