What I've Known
Title: What I've Known
Pairing: Sam/Dean. Sort of.
Rating: R
Warnings: References to non-con. Angst. Language. The works.
Summary: Sam really should know better than to tangle with witches.
A/N: Seriously, I don't know what the hell is wrong with me. Um. This is what happens when you are NOT a wincest shipper and a friend double-dog-dares you to write a wincest fic. Not really a happy little story. Title from 'The Unforgiven', which can be found on Metallica's Black Album.
Sam comes awake faceplanted in a musty pillow with a strip of pale sunlight cutting across the bed. His mouth tastes like he's been sucking on dirty socks all night and his shoulder is at a really weird angle because he's...
...handcuffed to the headboard. Huh.
"Morning, sunshine."
"Wha--?" Sam mumbles into the pillow. He spits out a mouthful of grubby cotton and manages to get himself turned over without wrenching his shoulder too much. Dean's leaning against the kitchenette sink in jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt, holding a cracked coffee mug in both hands and wearing a cautious expression.
"How's your head?" he asks.
Sam rubs his free hand across his forehead. "Lousy. What happened last night?"
He looks back at Dean just in time to see relief, painful and unmistakable, spill across his brother's face. Just for a second, and then Dean's raising one mocking eyebrow. "You tangled with a couple of witches. They cursed you. I'd avoid that in the future."
"No, I meant--" Sam rattles the handcuff against the headboard. There are deep fresh notches in the wood and his wrist is scraped raw. "Why am I chained to the bed?"
And that? That is a golden opening. There's no way Dean's gonna pass that up, no matter what the real reason is. But he does. Shrugs, sips his coffee and says, "Dude, you were pretty messed up last night. Didn't want you running off to wreak havoc. You're, uh, okay now, right?"
"Yeah," Sam says slowly. "I'm fine. Well, my head hurts, but I'm--fine."
"Good." He takes another long swallow of coffee.
"Uh." Sam rattles the cuff again, hopefully. "You want to let me up now?"
Dean actually starts, spills coffee on his hand, swears. "Yeah," he says after a long pause, digging a key out of his pocket. "Sorry."
He circles the bed warily, and Sam watches him, trying to calculate the reason for his tension, for the stiffness and caution in the way he moves. It's all wrong in some way he's not actually sure he wants to put his finger on. And then Dean's leaning over him to unlock the cuff, close enough that Sam can smell cheap motel soap, and he's struck with a sudden sense memory so vivid it feels a little like being hit with a sledgehammer.
Sheets sticking to his sweaty back, the sudden sharp click of the cuff snapping shut and Dean kneeling on his chest while he struggled--
--not to escape. To touch. Fingers stretching, reaching with his free hand to grasp at Dean's hip as he pulled away. And heat. Heat everywhere, a heavy, liquid heat that he knows too well.
What the hell?
He doesn't realize he said it out loud until Dean backs off warily, says, "What?"
"Nothing," Sam mutters, rubbing at his wrist. The headboard is actually cracked along the joints, pale wood exposed under the lacquer. His wrist is so raw that he bled sometime during the night; there are rusty drips of red on the grubby sheets next to his head. He blinks again, reaches for the memory, but it's no good. "What happened last night?"
"I told you--"
"Witches, right."
"Yeah." Dean hesitates, then drops the cuffs into his open duffel bag. "No offense, man, but you need a shower. I'm gonna get some more coffee."
And then he's retreating out of the room so fast Sam's a little surprised he doesn't run into anything, leaving Sam alone with a sore wrist and a mouthful of questions.
He pulls himself slowly into a sitting position, and the resulting stab of pain through his temples is almost enough to make him retch. This feels like the aftermath of the worst hangover he can remember, times ten. Complete with the foggy memory and the sinking feeling that he did something really fantastically stupid the night before. He's shirtless and barefoot, wearing just a pair of jeans, and he's been dressed while he was unconscious enough times to know what it feels like. The denim bunches in the wrong places, and the waistband doesn't sit quite right on his hips. Dean must have put these on him at some point last night.
These are not the jeans he was wearing yesterday. He can see the jeans he was wearing yesterday. They're tangled up in the blankets at the foot of the bed. And Sam knows exactly how clothes get tangled in blankets like that, just like he knows why the sheets are sticky and how come he needs a shower, but it doesn't make any goddamn sense. Not any sense that he wants it to make, anyway.
Not with the skittish way Dean was not-quite-looking at him, the way he didn't tease or check Sam over for lasting damage before he hightailed it out of the room. To get coffee, when there's a mostly-full cup of it still steaming on the edge of the sink.
What the hell happened, he wonders. And then, cautiously, What the hell did I do?
Eventually, he climbs out of bed and finds boxers and jeans and a t-shirt and locks himself in the bathroom. There's semen dried on his belly and when he looks at himself in the mirror his face is blooming a spectacular black eye. He scrubs until his skin is raw and the hot steam chokes him and tries desperately not to think.
***
He doesn't hear Dean come back in, but when he opens the door Dean's there, duffel bag slung over one shoulder, leaning against the wall in a way that's too casual to be accidental. "Packed your bag," he says.
Now that Sam's fully awake, he can hear the rasp in Dean's voice. His sleeve is bunched up slightly on one arm, and there are bruises like fingerprints wrapped around his wrist. What happened? he thinks again, but all he says is, "Thanks."
"Don't mention it. Ready to hit the road?"
"Yeah."
His bag is sitting on the computer chair. He picks it up without looking in the direction of the bed.
***
"You punched me in the face, didn't you," Sam says. It's not a question. "Last night."
Dean slants him a look across the top of the Impala, breath pluming around his face, and unlocks the driver's side door. "Yeah. I did."
He doesn't apologize or explain, but that's actually more than okay.
***
On the road, Dean turns the music up just a little louder than he usually does. Just loud enough that Sam will have to turn it down again if he wants to say something. He can't. Like, literally, physically, can't bring himself to move. His fingers are digging into his knees hard enough to leave bruises. They'll match the ones Dean has on his wrist. Wrists, maybe. Sam only saw the one.
He still can't remember what happened, but it's the kind of not-remembering that you get after a night of drinking where the information's there, all right, but your brain's just giving you a temporary reprieve. Emphasis on temporary.
He could ask Dean, but then he'd have to reach out and turn down Judas Priest, and he's already established that he can't move. And even if he manages it, Dean might punch him again.
Sam thinks he might welcome that.
***
He sure as hell doesn't mean to fall asleep, not with his shoulder throbbing and his head spinning and Dean sitting like a stone in the driver's seat. And it's not for long, just a couple of minutes, forehead listing against the cool glass window while the road slides along beneath them and
touch
there's something wrong--
just want. want.
sam what
slam hit the wall shut the door dean
the hell are you
dean i'm sorry
doing stop. damn it stop.
punch hard knuckles. pain. my eye. focus. what the hell
can smell him so close, too close are you okay sammy what the fuck are you
i'm sorry.
and then no words. no words no fucking words just hands and skin and sweat and
He comes awake flailing, skull slamming back into the headrest with punishing force. His eyes drop shut for a second, stinging, then fly open. In his peripheral vision, Dean makes an abortive movement toward him, then reaches out and turns the music down.
"Sam, what--" His voice is startled and concerned and it sounds exactly like it did last night when Sam--when he--
"Pull over," Sam says croakily.
"Sam."
Pull over, damn it, pull over right NOW.
If he opens his mouth again, he's going to puke all over Dean's meticulously clean original leather interior.
Dean brakes, veers off the highway, rumble strip vibrating up through Sam's feet to his roiling belly and he's shoving the door open before Dean can even put the Impala in park, falling out on his hands and knees and retching into the frosty grass by the side of the road.
He doesn't hear the driver's side door close or footsteps on gravel but when he finally spits and gets his knees under him, Dean's there, sitting on his heels and watching him with an unreadable expression. He holds out a clean rag that looks like it might once have been an AC/DC t-shirt.
"Thanks," Sam whispers. He takes it, wipes his mouth, looks away. The highway is pretty deserted out here in the miles between towns, surrounded by cold bare hills. Thank God--or Someone--for small favors.
"No problem." Dean is silent for a long moment, then sighs. "I'd give you something to wash out the taste, but all we got is whiskey."
Sam lets out a shaky bark of laughter, staring at his denim-clad knees. "I can't--I'm--Jesus, Dean."
"Hey, don't take my name in vain," Dean says gently, and Sam can't quite make himself laugh again.
"Dean, I'm--God, I'm so sorry, I don't--"
"Don't worry about it, okay?"
"Don't worry about it? Don't worry about it?" He can hear the hysteria loud and clear, thanks, and when Dean reaches out and grips his shoulder hard it doesn't help at all. Because he remembers. He remembers everything. He remembers Dean punching him and how it only made him back off for a second. Remembers Dean pushing him back, pushing him away but Sam has three inches and thirty pounds on him, and Dean didn't really want to hurt him.
Remembers--God--
"Don't worry about it," Dean says again, fingers digging into the muscle. "Sammy, it wasn't you, okay? It wasn't you. I know that."
Remembers that, too, from last night. When Dean stopped fighting--he did stop fighting, eventually--he started talking. Saying just that. It's not your fault, Sammy, this isn't you Sammy, it's gonna be okay. Like Sam was the one getting hurt.
Dean will forgive him. Probably already has forgiven him. It doesn't make him feel even a little bit better.
He's crying. Doesn't even notice until Dean shoves the rag back at him. "Jesus, you're such a girl. Clean yourself up or I'll do it for you." It's that brisk, exasperated voice he always used when they were kids and Sam got into some kind of dumb trouble, like a fight at school or a bicycle accident. Somewhere in the back of his mind he's aware that this is Dean's way of dealing with it, falling back into the comfort of a familiar role. Taking care of Sam. Like always.
"Dean, what I did to you--" he can't get the word out.
"Told you, it wasn't you."
"So that makes it okay?"
"No." Sam scrubs at his eyes, blinks; Dean is blur of denim and leather crouched on the pale gray pavement. His fingers make five points of heat through Sam's flannel shirt. "No, dude, of course it's not okay. It's a whole goddamn world of not okay, but it wasn't your fault." He lets out another sigh, shifts his weight awkwardly. He's got to be sore. Sam wasn't exactly gentle even after he stopped resisting. "Tell you the truth, I was kinda hoping you wouldn't remember."
"You weren't going to tell me," Sam says, and Dean doesn't even try to deny it. "Dean--"
"My choice, Sammy. Not yours."
"You should hate me."
"Yeah, well, I don't. Come on." He shifts his grip, gives Sam a gentle tug. "Dude, come on. It's fucking freezing out here."
Sam lets himself be helped to his feet, but he still can't look at Dean. Can't. Last night, after he--
After. Laying on the bed with his jeans around his ankles, breathing quick and hard, sticky and sweaty and not at all sated and Dean took advantage of his momentary distraction to pin him down, one knee on his chest, one on his neck, cutting off his air for a crucial moment while he cuffed him to the headboard.
Then scrambled off the bed, disheveled and wild-eyed, and didn't take his eyes off Sam while he pulled his clothes back into place.
"If you're not careful, your face'll freeze like that," Dean remarks easily, shoving him into the passenger seat. Sam lets himself be shoved. It feels good to let Dean boss him around, for a change. Comfortable. "And you're too ugly to take any chances." He slams the door shut and crosses in front of the car with a weak imitation of his usual swagger.
Sam remembers the bruises on his wrists. That was when Dean was still fighting him, up against the motel door. Trying to get to his cuffs, he realizes. He wonders when Dean managed to palm them.
There are other bruises, on his hips, on his legs. In the shape of Sam's hands.
He has big hands. Hell, he's a big guy. He probably hurt Dean a whole lot. Besides the obvious.
"I'm sorry," he says again when Dean slides behind the wheel. There are more tears spilling down his face, and the rag in his hand is soggy.
"Blow your nose, for chrissake. You're gonna be emo about this forever, aren't you?" Dean says, and Sam would give almost anything not to see right through his mocking tone. Maybe a couple of years ago he wouldn't have, but he knows his brother better now. Dean's calloused, capable hands are shaking on the steering wheel.
Sam remembers them shaking when Dean clumsily re-dressed him, ignoring the way he was jerking into the touch and writhing against the handcuffs, remembers the tremor of them against his skin, Dean's knuckles brushing his hipbone while he buttoned the fly of his jeans.
Remembers Dean sitting on the other bed. Just sitting, watching him struggle and curse and sweat. He didn't even have a gun on him, and Sam wonders what the hell he was planning to do if the headboard didn't hold.
Truth be told, he doesn't really want to know the answer.
*** Dean puts the Impala in gear and pulls back onto the highway without even bothering to check for traffic. He doesn't turn the music back up, and the quiet is oppressive. After several miles of empty road, he clears his throat, and Sam looks over involuntarily.
Dean's profile is impassive and achingly familiar. "We're gonna get through this, Sam. Been through worse, right?"
Sam's not actually sure about that, but he knows his lines in this play and he chokes down yet another apology. "Yeah," he manages. His voice sounds raspy and unfamiliar. It takes a gargantuan effort to add, "Jerk."
Dean's grin, startled and genuine, almost makes it okay again. Almost. "Good. Bitch."
The road keeps spinning out ahead of them, and all they can do now is drive it.
Sequel: In Restless Dreams
Pairing: Sam/Dean. Sort of.
Rating: R
Warnings: References to non-con. Angst. Language. The works.
Summary: Sam really should know better than to tangle with witches.
A/N: Seriously, I don't know what the hell is wrong with me. Um. This is what happens when you are NOT a wincest shipper and a friend double-dog-dares you to write a wincest fic. Not really a happy little story. Title from 'The Unforgiven', which can be found on Metallica's Black Album.
Sam comes awake faceplanted in a musty pillow with a strip of pale sunlight cutting across the bed. His mouth tastes like he's been sucking on dirty socks all night and his shoulder is at a really weird angle because he's...
...handcuffed to the headboard. Huh.
"Morning, sunshine."
"Wha--?" Sam mumbles into the pillow. He spits out a mouthful of grubby cotton and manages to get himself turned over without wrenching his shoulder too much. Dean's leaning against the kitchenette sink in jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt, holding a cracked coffee mug in both hands and wearing a cautious expression.
"How's your head?" he asks.
Sam rubs his free hand across his forehead. "Lousy. What happened last night?"
He looks back at Dean just in time to see relief, painful and unmistakable, spill across his brother's face. Just for a second, and then Dean's raising one mocking eyebrow. "You tangled with a couple of witches. They cursed you. I'd avoid that in the future."
"No, I meant--" Sam rattles the handcuff against the headboard. There are deep fresh notches in the wood and his wrist is scraped raw. "Why am I chained to the bed?"
And that? That is a golden opening. There's no way Dean's gonna pass that up, no matter what the real reason is. But he does. Shrugs, sips his coffee and says, "Dude, you were pretty messed up last night. Didn't want you running off to wreak havoc. You're, uh, okay now, right?"
"Yeah," Sam says slowly. "I'm fine. Well, my head hurts, but I'm--fine."
"Good." He takes another long swallow of coffee.
"Uh." Sam rattles the cuff again, hopefully. "You want to let me up now?"
Dean actually starts, spills coffee on his hand, swears. "Yeah," he says after a long pause, digging a key out of his pocket. "Sorry."
He circles the bed warily, and Sam watches him, trying to calculate the reason for his tension, for the stiffness and caution in the way he moves. It's all wrong in some way he's not actually sure he wants to put his finger on. And then Dean's leaning over him to unlock the cuff, close enough that Sam can smell cheap motel soap, and he's struck with a sudden sense memory so vivid it feels a little like being hit with a sledgehammer.
Sheets sticking to his sweaty back, the sudden sharp click of the cuff snapping shut and Dean kneeling on his chest while he struggled--
--not to escape. To touch. Fingers stretching, reaching with his free hand to grasp at Dean's hip as he pulled away. And heat. Heat everywhere, a heavy, liquid heat that he knows too well.
What the hell?
He doesn't realize he said it out loud until Dean backs off warily, says, "What?"
"Nothing," Sam mutters, rubbing at his wrist. The headboard is actually cracked along the joints, pale wood exposed under the lacquer. His wrist is so raw that he bled sometime during the night; there are rusty drips of red on the grubby sheets next to his head. He blinks again, reaches for the memory, but it's no good. "What happened last night?"
"I told you--"
"Witches, right."
"Yeah." Dean hesitates, then drops the cuffs into his open duffel bag. "No offense, man, but you need a shower. I'm gonna get some more coffee."
And then he's retreating out of the room so fast Sam's a little surprised he doesn't run into anything, leaving Sam alone with a sore wrist and a mouthful of questions.
He pulls himself slowly into a sitting position, and the resulting stab of pain through his temples is almost enough to make him retch. This feels like the aftermath of the worst hangover he can remember, times ten. Complete with the foggy memory and the sinking feeling that he did something really fantastically stupid the night before. He's shirtless and barefoot, wearing just a pair of jeans, and he's been dressed while he was unconscious enough times to know what it feels like. The denim bunches in the wrong places, and the waistband doesn't sit quite right on his hips. Dean must have put these on him at some point last night.
These are not the jeans he was wearing yesterday. He can see the jeans he was wearing yesterday. They're tangled up in the blankets at the foot of the bed. And Sam knows exactly how clothes get tangled in blankets like that, just like he knows why the sheets are sticky and how come he needs a shower, but it doesn't make any goddamn sense. Not any sense that he wants it to make, anyway.
Not with the skittish way Dean was not-quite-looking at him, the way he didn't tease or check Sam over for lasting damage before he hightailed it out of the room. To get coffee, when there's a mostly-full cup of it still steaming on the edge of the sink.
What the hell happened, he wonders. And then, cautiously, What the hell did I do?
Eventually, he climbs out of bed and finds boxers and jeans and a t-shirt and locks himself in the bathroom. There's semen dried on his belly and when he looks at himself in the mirror his face is blooming a spectacular black eye. He scrubs until his skin is raw and the hot steam chokes him and tries desperately not to think.
***
He doesn't hear Dean come back in, but when he opens the door Dean's there, duffel bag slung over one shoulder, leaning against the wall in a way that's too casual to be accidental. "Packed your bag," he says.
Now that Sam's fully awake, he can hear the rasp in Dean's voice. His sleeve is bunched up slightly on one arm, and there are bruises like fingerprints wrapped around his wrist. What happened? he thinks again, but all he says is, "Thanks."
"Don't mention it. Ready to hit the road?"
"Yeah."
His bag is sitting on the computer chair. He picks it up without looking in the direction of the bed.
***
"You punched me in the face, didn't you," Sam says. It's not a question. "Last night."
Dean slants him a look across the top of the Impala, breath pluming around his face, and unlocks the driver's side door. "Yeah. I did."
He doesn't apologize or explain, but that's actually more than okay.
***
On the road, Dean turns the music up just a little louder than he usually does. Just loud enough that Sam will have to turn it down again if he wants to say something. He can't. Like, literally, physically, can't bring himself to move. His fingers are digging into his knees hard enough to leave bruises. They'll match the ones Dean has on his wrist. Wrists, maybe. Sam only saw the one.
He still can't remember what happened, but it's the kind of not-remembering that you get after a night of drinking where the information's there, all right, but your brain's just giving you a temporary reprieve. Emphasis on temporary.
He could ask Dean, but then he'd have to reach out and turn down Judas Priest, and he's already established that he can't move. And even if he manages it, Dean might punch him again.
Sam thinks he might welcome that.
***
He sure as hell doesn't mean to fall asleep, not with his shoulder throbbing and his head spinning and Dean sitting like a stone in the driver's seat. And it's not for long, just a couple of minutes, forehead listing against the cool glass window while the road slides along beneath them and
touch
there's something wrong--
just want. want.
sam what
slam hit the wall shut the door dean
the hell are you
dean i'm sorry
doing stop. damn it stop.
punch hard knuckles. pain. my eye. focus. what the hell
can smell him so close, too close are you okay sammy what the fuck are you
i'm sorry.
and then no words. no words no fucking words just hands and skin and sweat and
He comes awake flailing, skull slamming back into the headrest with punishing force. His eyes drop shut for a second, stinging, then fly open. In his peripheral vision, Dean makes an abortive movement toward him, then reaches out and turns the music down.
"Sam, what--" His voice is startled and concerned and it sounds exactly like it did last night when Sam--when he--
"Pull over," Sam says croakily.
"Sam."
Pull over, damn it, pull over right NOW.
If he opens his mouth again, he's going to puke all over Dean's meticulously clean original leather interior.
Dean brakes, veers off the highway, rumble strip vibrating up through Sam's feet to his roiling belly and he's shoving the door open before Dean can even put the Impala in park, falling out on his hands and knees and retching into the frosty grass by the side of the road.
He doesn't hear the driver's side door close or footsteps on gravel but when he finally spits and gets his knees under him, Dean's there, sitting on his heels and watching him with an unreadable expression. He holds out a clean rag that looks like it might once have been an AC/DC t-shirt.
"Thanks," Sam whispers. He takes it, wipes his mouth, looks away. The highway is pretty deserted out here in the miles between towns, surrounded by cold bare hills. Thank God--or Someone--for small favors.
"No problem." Dean is silent for a long moment, then sighs. "I'd give you something to wash out the taste, but all we got is whiskey."
Sam lets out a shaky bark of laughter, staring at his denim-clad knees. "I can't--I'm--Jesus, Dean."
"Hey, don't take my name in vain," Dean says gently, and Sam can't quite make himself laugh again.
"Dean, I'm--God, I'm so sorry, I don't--"
"Don't worry about it, okay?"
"Don't worry about it? Don't worry about it?" He can hear the hysteria loud and clear, thanks, and when Dean reaches out and grips his shoulder hard it doesn't help at all. Because he remembers. He remembers everything. He remembers Dean punching him and how it only made him back off for a second. Remembers Dean pushing him back, pushing him away but Sam has three inches and thirty pounds on him, and Dean didn't really want to hurt him.
Remembers--God--
"Don't worry about it," Dean says again, fingers digging into the muscle. "Sammy, it wasn't you, okay? It wasn't you. I know that."
Remembers that, too, from last night. When Dean stopped fighting--he did stop fighting, eventually--he started talking. Saying just that. It's not your fault, Sammy, this isn't you Sammy, it's gonna be okay. Like Sam was the one getting hurt.
Dean will forgive him. Probably already has forgiven him. It doesn't make him feel even a little bit better.
He's crying. Doesn't even notice until Dean shoves the rag back at him. "Jesus, you're such a girl. Clean yourself up or I'll do it for you." It's that brisk, exasperated voice he always used when they were kids and Sam got into some kind of dumb trouble, like a fight at school or a bicycle accident. Somewhere in the back of his mind he's aware that this is Dean's way of dealing with it, falling back into the comfort of a familiar role. Taking care of Sam. Like always.
"Dean, what I did to you--" he can't get the word out.
"Told you, it wasn't you."
"So that makes it okay?"
"No." Sam scrubs at his eyes, blinks; Dean is blur of denim and leather crouched on the pale gray pavement. His fingers make five points of heat through Sam's flannel shirt. "No, dude, of course it's not okay. It's a whole goddamn world of not okay, but it wasn't your fault." He lets out another sigh, shifts his weight awkwardly. He's got to be sore. Sam wasn't exactly gentle even after he stopped resisting. "Tell you the truth, I was kinda hoping you wouldn't remember."
"You weren't going to tell me," Sam says, and Dean doesn't even try to deny it. "Dean--"
"My choice, Sammy. Not yours."
"You should hate me."
"Yeah, well, I don't. Come on." He shifts his grip, gives Sam a gentle tug. "Dude, come on. It's fucking freezing out here."
Sam lets himself be helped to his feet, but he still can't look at Dean. Can't. Last night, after he--
After. Laying on the bed with his jeans around his ankles, breathing quick and hard, sticky and sweaty and not at all sated and Dean took advantage of his momentary distraction to pin him down, one knee on his chest, one on his neck, cutting off his air for a crucial moment while he cuffed him to the headboard.
Then scrambled off the bed, disheveled and wild-eyed, and didn't take his eyes off Sam while he pulled his clothes back into place.
"If you're not careful, your face'll freeze like that," Dean remarks easily, shoving him into the passenger seat. Sam lets himself be shoved. It feels good to let Dean boss him around, for a change. Comfortable. "And you're too ugly to take any chances." He slams the door shut and crosses in front of the car with a weak imitation of his usual swagger.
Sam remembers the bruises on his wrists. That was when Dean was still fighting him, up against the motel door. Trying to get to his cuffs, he realizes. He wonders when Dean managed to palm them.
There are other bruises, on his hips, on his legs. In the shape of Sam's hands.
He has big hands. Hell, he's a big guy. He probably hurt Dean a whole lot. Besides the obvious.
"I'm sorry," he says again when Dean slides behind the wheel. There are more tears spilling down his face, and the rag in his hand is soggy.
"Blow your nose, for chrissake. You're gonna be emo about this forever, aren't you?" Dean says, and Sam would give almost anything not to see right through his mocking tone. Maybe a couple of years ago he wouldn't have, but he knows his brother better now. Dean's calloused, capable hands are shaking on the steering wheel.
Sam remembers them shaking when Dean clumsily re-dressed him, ignoring the way he was jerking into the touch and writhing against the handcuffs, remembers the tremor of them against his skin, Dean's knuckles brushing his hipbone while he buttoned the fly of his jeans.
Remembers Dean sitting on the other bed. Just sitting, watching him struggle and curse and sweat. He didn't even have a gun on him, and Sam wonders what the hell he was planning to do if the headboard didn't hold.
Truth be told, he doesn't really want to know the answer.
*** Dean puts the Impala in gear and pulls back onto the highway without even bothering to check for traffic. He doesn't turn the music back up, and the quiet is oppressive. After several miles of empty road, he clears his throat, and Sam looks over involuntarily.
Dean's profile is impassive and achingly familiar. "We're gonna get through this, Sam. Been through worse, right?"
Sam's not actually sure about that, but he knows his lines in this play and he chokes down yet another apology. "Yeah," he manages. His voice sounds raspy and unfamiliar. It takes a gargantuan effort to add, "Jerk."
Dean's grin, startled and genuine, almost makes it okay again. Almost. "Good. Bitch."
The road keeps spinning out ahead of them, and all they can do now is drive it.
Sequel: In Restless Dreams