FIC: The truth is written in the curve of your lips and the bow of your head is a benediction to me
Title: The truth is written in the curve of your lips and the bow of your head is a benediction to me
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: 3,016
Warning: Coda-fic, SPOILERS for 4.22!!
Thanks: ignited for on the spot beta-ing! ♥
Summary: Sam sees what lies beneath his brother's skin and it would consume his every thought if Dean wasn't there to distract him.
The truth is written in the curve of your lips and the bow of your head is a benediction to me
"I missed you," is the last thing Dean can hear from Sam before the light consumes him and his ears are bleeding from the crush of sound and fury as it-whatever it is-tears at the core of the earth and comes out throwing mortar and steel and magma everywhere.
Dean can feel Sam's hands leaving his shoulder and he thinks for a moment it's over and gone and they walked right into it, they won't go down swinging but then he falls back on the springs of some crap motel bed and Chuck is there in the corner, looking like he's about to piss himself while Castiel speaks with his head to one side at a particularly nasty looking stain on the wall.
Sam coughs, but Dean doesn't hear it, still deaf from what happened to them at St. Mary's. But Sam taps him and shows him the ash on his fist when Dean sees it and starts to shout, his voice nothing but more white noise in the background.
Castiel's mouth is moving but nothing comes out and Dean just yells more and more, Sam's hand still clamped down tight on his arm and Castiel touches his and Sam's foreheads.
Sounds rush back to life.
"I said, you're safe for now," Castiel says. "We brought you here."
Dean looks to the cowering prophet in the corner. "You and him?"
"No, Michael and I."
"Michael? Like, Michael the archangel-Michael?" Sam asks.
"Yes, he held Lucifer off long enough to get you out of there."
"I thought you were on heaven's shit list now?" Dean says.
"Michael decided to help me once I explained-"
"He tried to kill me!" Chuck screams. "Keep him the fuck, fuck away from me!" Chuck says, darting behind Sam and Dean for protection. "He tried to throw me in the pit you opened!"
Castiel turns his head back to the stain on the motel wallpaper, something maroon red and shaped like a blood spatter. "He is listening to reason now, though."
"Well, good," Sam says, trying to shove Chuck off as Dean falls back down on the bed, exhaustion catching up with him.
"Wait, you can't just-that's my blood he put on the wall, guys! He's talking to my archangel through my blood and-" but Chuck can see the way the Winchesters are turning to one another, lips shut and eyes heavy and bodies. Chuck lets his own anxiety deflate a little and Castiel goes back to whispering to the blood on the wall.
**
The water of the shower falls down in-between Dean's shoulder blades and Sam's knee moves apart his thighs, palms flat on the wall tiles.
Sam's nose touches down to Dean's, just moving against him softly, water running in rivers and streams and connecting when they touch, making Dean close his eyes against the current. Dean can taste the warm water and tastes Sam's skin through it.
Dean puts his hands on Sam's stomach, not ready quite yet to embrace him, but letting him know he's there. Wants Sam to feel the weight of him, wants to wait for Sam to move down lower.
Sam makes a small noise down in the back of his throat and nuzzles the side of Dean's cheek.
**
It's more of a come-down than a withdrawal the second time around. Sam just lies there, back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Chuck's passed out from alcohol on the couch, and Castiel's been on the roof with Dean.
Sam doesn't notice Dean come in so much as feel him in the air as it shifts.
"What is he doing up there?" Sam asks.
Dean's weight dips the bed. "Talking to Anna. He wanted me to say a few words. Said she'd want to hear from me too. Give her the strength to fight her way back to us."
Sam closes his eyes. "I have a headache."
"You're not getting anything stronger than Children's Advil, dope fiend."
Sam shakes his head. "Not funny."
Dean's mouth at the shell of his ear. "It was kind of funny," he says and Sam cracks an eye open to catch sight of that stupid smile of his.
**
The headache isn't going to stop and Sam waits until Chuck is drunk enough, and Dean and Castiel are arguing enough about whether or not they should make a run to Bobby's and Sam gets the first swig of whiskey down before Chuck shouts and Dean is there and-
It's the truth, the way his vision clears and he can see the color and the light emanating from Chuck's fingertips, the wings Castiel holds caped around his body like armor and the light that comes from Dean.
The pure light, piercing through cracks of mud and blood and sulfur. The sword buried deep in his chest, the pulse of it synching up to Dean's heartbeat.
"You're going to save us all," Sam whispers before he falls.
**
"It wasn't just whiskey. Chuck's been taking stronger meds for his visions and he mixed it in there and he's an idiot and I've banned him from the room until he fucking calms down."
Sam doesn't respond to Dean, he just keeps staring at Castiel. "Your wings are beautiful," Sam says, voice hoarse.
Castiel raises an eyebrow and Dean shrugs. "What a long, strange trip it's going to be? Kid's never had something like LSD before. You just go make sure Chuck doesn't nosedive off a bridge or sell my car for PCP, okay?"
Castiel nods and leaves the room, Dean looks back down at Sam who's trying to sit up, clutching at his clothing.
"You, you're-it's in you, Dean. I saw it." Sam's eyes are wide, pupils dilated and mouth wet and parted.
"Stay down Sam, don't try to-Sam, what the hell?"
"I'll show you," Sam says, unbuttoning Dean's shirt and exposing his bare chest. "It's here, Dean, it's inside you. The sword-"
"Sam, you're drugged, lie down."
"You're going to stop it," Sam says, tracing the outline of the blade on Dean's skin.
**
The visions come back two days later. Sam watches as a barn where a priest and his followers are holding a demon hostage is razed to the ground.
"Can you bend spoons?" Chuck asks when he tells them in the morning.
**
The truth comes to light like the parting of a curtain, the raising of a veil or the way Dean throws the covers off Sam and tries to drag him kicking and fussing out of the room and out of the dream he's found himself lost in.
Sam pouts. "Just because you're the sword of God, doesn't mean you can treat me like I'm a kid again."
"Will you stop calling me that?" Dean shouts and then turns soft. "Sam, I'm sorry but you know what you saw wasn't real, right?"
"I saw the truth, I saw the revelation and I saw everything that was hiding came charging at me. I saw what's been buried deep inside of you, and I see how strong you are. You're the weapon."
Dean's expression is blank. "I am going to kill Chuck. Make him eat his last manuscript."
**
Sam calms down after a month of hiding, stops looking at Dean like he's got the moon in his arms and his eyes stop staring so wide. The visions come and Dean logs them into a new journal he's started.
Castiel deems it safe enough for them to leave and see Bobby. The sun beats down on the junkyard. Dean's under some old Ford model, maybe it was a T-Bird at one time.
"You know how much we can get for this once I get her running again?" Dean says, throwing a rag down after wiping the grease from his hands. The sun makes his hair catch the light and his freckles stand out from his skin.
Sam just puts his arm around Dean's waist and draws him near enough to kiss his temple.
**
Dean gets the car more than running, and it's a cool summer night, Sam brings him popcorn and they sit in the T-Bird, talking and watching some monster movie on the little black and white TV Dean found hidden in all the junk. They've got it propped up on the hood Sam had to do some clever hacking but he managed to convert it into a digital cable receiver.
Whose digital cable they were receiving, was another thing entirely. Sam wasn't going to tell.
"It's kind of like a drive-in," Dean says, leaning back, his arm over Sam's seat.
Sam gives Dean a look as he slowly chews the popcorn. "You're not getting to third base tonight, Dean."
"What? You've got no love for the sword of God here?"
Sam shoves Dean and he bumps him back. "Just watch the movie, Dean."
**
"The truth is, I think he knows about this. It's why he's so jumpy all the time," Sam says pulling his shirt off and leaning over Dean. He writhes back and forth beneath Sam, slipping out of his jeans, naked chest already exposed for Sam's mouth to run up and down.
"Who, Castiel?" Dean asks as he gets to work on Sam's zipper.
Sam shakes his head. "I meant Chuck, but hell, Castiel could know too."
"Are we still talking about my mighty sword? Or we talking about me totally getting past third base with you at the drive-in? Because everyone knows you're an easy lay at the drive-in, Sam." Dean says with a wicked smile and Sam leans in to make that smile work against his own mouth, when he realizes the top is still down.
"Dean, the top is still down, why isn't it going up?"
"Shit," Dean says, leaning up and fiddling with the buttons.
"I thought you fixed this!" Sam says, panicking now and picking up his clothes before Bobby has a chance to spot them.
"I did too!" Dean says.
**
Sam traces the lines of it like a cross running along Dean's chest, from sternum to ribcage.
Dean doesn't usually wake up when he does this, just keeps the rise and fall of his chest and the steady melody of his heart.
But tonight he grabs Sam's hand by the wrist and looks at him. "You're the only one who I will let hold it. You'll fight by his side."
Sam blinks, "What?"
"I said, what the hell are you doing all far away from the fun bits?" Dean says, reality clearing away the vision from Sam's eyes and ears.
Sam lets go of the breath he's holding and laughs as Dean lets him run his hand down the curve of his stomach, to rest on his groin and grab his cock, squeezing it tight and Dean's eyes roll back and he makes a satisfied moan.
**
"When I save the world, you're going to be officially in charge of thanking me. Y'know, before the accolades of grateful women come to ravish me," Dean says as Sam lifts his head up, swallowing down what's left of Dean in his mouth.
"You say the strangest fucking things when you come, you know."
"That wasn't so strange, it was a compliment. You're good with your mouth."
"No, you actually say weird shit when you come. Remember that time you shouted 'Pizza rolls'?"
"I remember you being celibate for a week until you apologized for laughing at me."
"I remember you eating frozen pizza rolls for a week until you admitted it was weird and I showed you where the microwave was in the motel."
Dean puts his index finger on Sam's lips, and Sam's mouth curves around them. Dean switches for his thumb, which Sam takes into his mouth and sucks on gently.
"Like that sailor kissing that girl in the old black and white photo, you'll be what I wanna do first when I get back from the battlefield."
"Ditto," Sam says.
**
The truth comes out in fire and light, with blood and bone tearing and muscles pulling apart. Sam thinks of them being shucked from a shell with some cosmic spatula, pulling out shellfish it wants to suck down.
The truth burns in his eyes and bleeds down his lips. The truth makes him wake up screaming and he won't come down until Dean's held him close enough and the reverberations of it quiet down enough that he can hear Dean talking to him.
The truth is the most beautiful thing he sees in his mind's eye, but he doesn't tell Dean. Doesn't tell him why he can't stop tracing the shape of it on the curve of his body. Doesn't tell him he can feel it when he's deep inside Dean, fucking him down into the bed or against the wall of the shower.
Doesn't tell him he can feel it making him stronger when he fights. Making all the darkness come to the surface and burn away. Feels it making him human again, for all the fragilities and weakness that state puts him in.
**
Sam's on his laptop in Bobby's study, trying to identify a symbol in one of the old apocrypha Bobby's yet to decipher. Dean comes in the room, looks around, not seeing anybody else nearby and leans down to kiss Sam right on the lips.
"Some day you'll reach down inside of me and pull it out, and then you'll cut off Lucifer's fucking head," Dean whispers to him.
"What did you say?" Sam says, brow furrowed.
"I said something?" Dean asks.
Sam bites his lower lip, and puts his hand on the back of Dean's neck, holding him there.
"I'm starting to-" Sam begins, but Dean cuts him off.
"Let go of me, Joan of Arc." Sam does and Dean readjusts himself, sitting back down on his lap, wrapping his arms around Sam. "Now, tell me what the voices are saying now, you French woman."
Sam tosses him off and smacks his ass, chasing him upstairs to the bedroom.
**
When Dean rides him, body stretching towards the ceiling Sam can taste the metal on his tongue. When Dean comes and kisses that away with his non-sequiturs and the way he grounds Sam back into reality and Sam can't feel the weight of it in his hands anymore. The way it feels when he turns it from one side to the other, the delicate balance the blade requires.
"The truth is, I know what I've been saying Sam, just let me pretend to be normal a little bit longer," Dean says before he rolls on top of him.
Sam swallows and rests his hand on Dean's head, rubbing his hair softly. "Sure."
**
One day Sam reaches down and pulls it out from bone and sinew and blood and turns to face him. Sam thinks he sees Lucifer flinch when the sword catches the light, shining silver and true and pointing directly at his heart.
The beauty of it is nothing compared to the curve of Dean's lips and the way he bows his head in benediction.
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: 3,016
Warning: Coda-fic, SPOILERS for 4.22!!
Thanks: ignited for on the spot beta-ing! ♥
Summary: Sam sees what lies beneath his brother's skin and it would consume his every thought if Dean wasn't there to distract him.
The truth is written in the curve of your lips and the bow of your head is a benediction to me
"I missed you," is the last thing Dean can hear from Sam before the light consumes him and his ears are bleeding from the crush of sound and fury as it-whatever it is-tears at the core of the earth and comes out throwing mortar and steel and magma everywhere.
Dean can feel Sam's hands leaving his shoulder and he thinks for a moment it's over and gone and they walked right into it, they won't go down swinging but then he falls back on the springs of some crap motel bed and Chuck is there in the corner, looking like he's about to piss himself while Castiel speaks with his head to one side at a particularly nasty looking stain on the wall.
Sam coughs, but Dean doesn't hear it, still deaf from what happened to them at St. Mary's. But Sam taps him and shows him the ash on his fist when Dean sees it and starts to shout, his voice nothing but more white noise in the background.
Castiel's mouth is moving but nothing comes out and Dean just yells more and more, Sam's hand still clamped down tight on his arm and Castiel touches his and Sam's foreheads.
Sounds rush back to life.
"I said, you're safe for now," Castiel says. "We brought you here."
Dean looks to the cowering prophet in the corner. "You and him?"
"No, Michael and I."
"Michael? Like, Michael the archangel-Michael?" Sam asks.
"Yes, he held Lucifer off long enough to get you out of there."
"I thought you were on heaven's shit list now?" Dean says.
"Michael decided to help me once I explained-"
"He tried to kill me!" Chuck screams. "Keep him the fuck, fuck away from me!" Chuck says, darting behind Sam and Dean for protection. "He tried to throw me in the pit you opened!"
Castiel turns his head back to the stain on the motel wallpaper, something maroon red and shaped like a blood spatter. "He is listening to reason now, though."
"Well, good," Sam says, trying to shove Chuck off as Dean falls back down on the bed, exhaustion catching up with him.
"Wait, you can't just-that's my blood he put on the wall, guys! He's talking to my archangel through my blood and-" but Chuck can see the way the Winchesters are turning to one another, lips shut and eyes heavy and bodies. Chuck lets his own anxiety deflate a little and Castiel goes back to whispering to the blood on the wall.
**
The water of the shower falls down in-between Dean's shoulder blades and Sam's knee moves apart his thighs, palms flat on the wall tiles.
Sam's nose touches down to Dean's, just moving against him softly, water running in rivers and streams and connecting when they touch, making Dean close his eyes against the current. Dean can taste the warm water and tastes Sam's skin through it.
Dean puts his hands on Sam's stomach, not ready quite yet to embrace him, but letting him know he's there. Wants Sam to feel the weight of him, wants to wait for Sam to move down lower.
Sam makes a small noise down in the back of his throat and nuzzles the side of Dean's cheek.
**
It's more of a come-down than a withdrawal the second time around. Sam just lies there, back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Chuck's passed out from alcohol on the couch, and Castiel's been on the roof with Dean.
Sam doesn't notice Dean come in so much as feel him in the air as it shifts.
"What is he doing up there?" Sam asks.
Dean's weight dips the bed. "Talking to Anna. He wanted me to say a few words. Said she'd want to hear from me too. Give her the strength to fight her way back to us."
Sam closes his eyes. "I have a headache."
"You're not getting anything stronger than Children's Advil, dope fiend."
Sam shakes his head. "Not funny."
Dean's mouth at the shell of his ear. "It was kind of funny," he says and Sam cracks an eye open to catch sight of that stupid smile of his.
**
The headache isn't going to stop and Sam waits until Chuck is drunk enough, and Dean and Castiel are arguing enough about whether or not they should make a run to Bobby's and Sam gets the first swig of whiskey down before Chuck shouts and Dean is there and-
It's the truth, the way his vision clears and he can see the color and the light emanating from Chuck's fingertips, the wings Castiel holds caped around his body like armor and the light that comes from Dean.
The pure light, piercing through cracks of mud and blood and sulfur. The sword buried deep in his chest, the pulse of it synching up to Dean's heartbeat.
"You're going to save us all," Sam whispers before he falls.
**
"It wasn't just whiskey. Chuck's been taking stronger meds for his visions and he mixed it in there and he's an idiot and I've banned him from the room until he fucking calms down."
Sam doesn't respond to Dean, he just keeps staring at Castiel. "Your wings are beautiful," Sam says, voice hoarse.
Castiel raises an eyebrow and Dean shrugs. "What a long, strange trip it's going to be? Kid's never had something like LSD before. You just go make sure Chuck doesn't nosedive off a bridge or sell my car for PCP, okay?"
Castiel nods and leaves the room, Dean looks back down at Sam who's trying to sit up, clutching at his clothing.
"You, you're-it's in you, Dean. I saw it." Sam's eyes are wide, pupils dilated and mouth wet and parted.
"Stay down Sam, don't try to-Sam, what the hell?"
"I'll show you," Sam says, unbuttoning Dean's shirt and exposing his bare chest. "It's here, Dean, it's inside you. The sword-"
"Sam, you're drugged, lie down."
"You're going to stop it," Sam says, tracing the outline of the blade on Dean's skin.
**
The visions come back two days later. Sam watches as a barn where a priest and his followers are holding a demon hostage is razed to the ground.
"Can you bend spoons?" Chuck asks when he tells them in the morning.
**
The truth comes to light like the parting of a curtain, the raising of a veil or the way Dean throws the covers off Sam and tries to drag him kicking and fussing out of the room and out of the dream he's found himself lost in.
Sam pouts. "Just because you're the sword of God, doesn't mean you can treat me like I'm a kid again."
"Will you stop calling me that?" Dean shouts and then turns soft. "Sam, I'm sorry but you know what you saw wasn't real, right?"
"I saw the truth, I saw the revelation and I saw everything that was hiding came charging at me. I saw what's been buried deep inside of you, and I see how strong you are. You're the weapon."
Dean's expression is blank. "I am going to kill Chuck. Make him eat his last manuscript."
**
Sam calms down after a month of hiding, stops looking at Dean like he's got the moon in his arms and his eyes stop staring so wide. The visions come and Dean logs them into a new journal he's started.
Castiel deems it safe enough for them to leave and see Bobby. The sun beats down on the junkyard. Dean's under some old Ford model, maybe it was a T-Bird at one time.
"You know how much we can get for this once I get her running again?" Dean says, throwing a rag down after wiping the grease from his hands. The sun makes his hair catch the light and his freckles stand out from his skin.
Sam just puts his arm around Dean's waist and draws him near enough to kiss his temple.
**
Dean gets the car more than running, and it's a cool summer night, Sam brings him popcorn and they sit in the T-Bird, talking and watching some monster movie on the little black and white TV Dean found hidden in all the junk. They've got it propped up on the hood Sam had to do some clever hacking but he managed to convert it into a digital cable receiver.
Whose digital cable they were receiving, was another thing entirely. Sam wasn't going to tell.
"It's kind of like a drive-in," Dean says, leaning back, his arm over Sam's seat.
Sam gives Dean a look as he slowly chews the popcorn. "You're not getting to third base tonight, Dean."
"What? You've got no love for the sword of God here?"
Sam shoves Dean and he bumps him back. "Just watch the movie, Dean."
**
"The truth is, I think he knows about this. It's why he's so jumpy all the time," Sam says pulling his shirt off and leaning over Dean. He writhes back and forth beneath Sam, slipping out of his jeans, naked chest already exposed for Sam's mouth to run up and down.
"Who, Castiel?" Dean asks as he gets to work on Sam's zipper.
Sam shakes his head. "I meant Chuck, but hell, Castiel could know too."
"Are we still talking about my mighty sword? Or we talking about me totally getting past third base with you at the drive-in? Because everyone knows you're an easy lay at the drive-in, Sam." Dean says with a wicked smile and Sam leans in to make that smile work against his own mouth, when he realizes the top is still down.
"Dean, the top is still down, why isn't it going up?"
"Shit," Dean says, leaning up and fiddling with the buttons.
"I thought you fixed this!" Sam says, panicking now and picking up his clothes before Bobby has a chance to spot them.
"I did too!" Dean says.
**
Sam traces the lines of it like a cross running along Dean's chest, from sternum to ribcage.
Dean doesn't usually wake up when he does this, just keeps the rise and fall of his chest and the steady melody of his heart.
But tonight he grabs Sam's hand by the wrist and looks at him. "You're the only one who I will let hold it. You'll fight by his side."
Sam blinks, "What?"
"I said, what the hell are you doing all far away from the fun bits?" Dean says, reality clearing away the vision from Sam's eyes and ears.
Sam lets go of the breath he's holding and laughs as Dean lets him run his hand down the curve of his stomach, to rest on his groin and grab his cock, squeezing it tight and Dean's eyes roll back and he makes a satisfied moan.
**
"When I save the world, you're going to be officially in charge of thanking me. Y'know, before the accolades of grateful women come to ravish me," Dean says as Sam lifts his head up, swallowing down what's left of Dean in his mouth.
"You say the strangest fucking things when you come, you know."
"That wasn't so strange, it was a compliment. You're good with your mouth."
"No, you actually say weird shit when you come. Remember that time you shouted 'Pizza rolls'?"
"I remember you being celibate for a week until you apologized for laughing at me."
"I remember you eating frozen pizza rolls for a week until you admitted it was weird and I showed you where the microwave was in the motel."
Dean puts his index finger on Sam's lips, and Sam's mouth curves around them. Dean switches for his thumb, which Sam takes into his mouth and sucks on gently.
"Like that sailor kissing that girl in the old black and white photo, you'll be what I wanna do first when I get back from the battlefield."
"Ditto," Sam says.
**
The truth comes out in fire and light, with blood and bone tearing and muscles pulling apart. Sam thinks of them being shucked from a shell with some cosmic spatula, pulling out shellfish it wants to suck down.
The truth burns in his eyes and bleeds down his lips. The truth makes him wake up screaming and he won't come down until Dean's held him close enough and the reverberations of it quiet down enough that he can hear Dean talking to him.
The truth is the most beautiful thing he sees in his mind's eye, but he doesn't tell Dean. Doesn't tell him why he can't stop tracing the shape of it on the curve of his body. Doesn't tell him he can feel it when he's deep inside Dean, fucking him down into the bed or against the wall of the shower.
Doesn't tell him he can feel it making him stronger when he fights. Making all the darkness come to the surface and burn away. Feels it making him human again, for all the fragilities and weakness that state puts him in.
**
Sam's on his laptop in Bobby's study, trying to identify a symbol in one of the old apocrypha Bobby's yet to decipher. Dean comes in the room, looks around, not seeing anybody else nearby and leans down to kiss Sam right on the lips.
"Some day you'll reach down inside of me and pull it out, and then you'll cut off Lucifer's fucking head," Dean whispers to him.
"What did you say?" Sam says, brow furrowed.
"I said something?" Dean asks.
Sam bites his lower lip, and puts his hand on the back of Dean's neck, holding him there.
"I'm starting to-" Sam begins, but Dean cuts him off.
"Let go of me, Joan of Arc." Sam does and Dean readjusts himself, sitting back down on his lap, wrapping his arms around Sam. "Now, tell me what the voices are saying now, you French woman."
Sam tosses him off and smacks his ass, chasing him upstairs to the bedroom.
**
When Dean rides him, body stretching towards the ceiling Sam can taste the metal on his tongue. When Dean comes and kisses that away with his non-sequiturs and the way he grounds Sam back into reality and Sam can't feel the weight of it in his hands anymore. The way it feels when he turns it from one side to the other, the delicate balance the blade requires.
"The truth is, I know what I've been saying Sam, just let me pretend to be normal a little bit longer," Dean says before he rolls on top of him.
Sam swallows and rests his hand on Dean's head, rubbing his hair softly. "Sure."
**
One day Sam reaches down and pulls it out from bone and sinew and blood and turns to face him. Sam thinks he sees Lucifer flinch when the sword catches the light, shining silver and true and pointing directly at his heart.
The beauty of it is nothing compared to the curve of Dean's lips and the way he bows his head in benediction.