Caught Between Snow and Sky (Slash, Adult)
Title: Caught Between Snow and Sky
Rating: Adult
Category: Pre-series slash (Wincest) oneshot
Word Count: 8329
Characters: Dean/Sam, John, and Bobby
Spoilers: None
Summary: For them, growing up has never been about learning how to let go.
Warnings: Underage brother incest
Author’s Notes: Written for angstpuppy with the following prompts: “shaving (face, groin, anywhere!!!), innocent but unknowingly sexual Sammy, blowjobs.” Thank you to drvsilla for the overthinky and to Tracy Chapman for the music. Any remaining mistakes are mine alone.
Disclaimer: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the television show, Supernatural, to whom they rightly belong. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.
- - - - -
Winter
The snow clicks against the windshield, little crystal fingernails against the glass, and the radio glows in the darkness of the car.
Dean sighs and pulls back the sleeve of his coat to look at his watch, reading that it’s been over an hour since Dad said he’d be back.
As the wipers swipe noisily across the windshield, clearing away the gathering snow and ice, Dean chews on his bottom lip. Dad wouldn’t want Dean to come after him, but Dad’s never been an hour late like this before. The weather’s bad and the monster even worse.
Worry rising in his belly, Dean exhales sharply in frustration, his breath a cloud of steam in the car’s chilly interior, and he yanks the keys from the ignition. The car is pitched in the darkness when the radio dies, and the wipers lie, paralyzed in mid-sweep.
He climbs out of the car, biting back a curse at the coldness, the way the frigid wind whips through his clothes and bones. At the trunk of the car, he gathers a gun and a machete with its blade long and thick. Slamming the lid shut, he turns and heads off into the forest, his flashlight a beam of light slicing its way through the inky black of the trees.
- - - - -
His finds Dad in the monster’s den, which is a musty cave in the side of a hill. The creature’s nowhere to be seen, but Dad’s lying unconscious on the ground. In the pale illumination of Dean’s flashlight, he can see blood speckled on Dad’s face like red freckles, and his leg looks chewed to hell. Dean doubts he’ll be able to walk on it for a long time-if ever again.
Carefully, body prickling with awareness that the monster might be close by, Dean hurries over to Dad to check if he's even still breathing. After Dean places his cheek close to Dad's lips and feels the soft puff of air, he shakes him by the shoulder in an attempt to rouse him.
“Dad?” Dean whispers, glancing over his back. “C’mon, Dad, it’s me. You gotta get up.”
Dad groans, and when his head lolls on his shoulders, his eyes open for the briefest of a moment. They’re bleary and faraway, and they tell Dean that he’s all alone in this right now.
Dean moves closer to Dad, to try and pick him up when suddenly, Dean’s slammed to the ground from behind with a roar. The wind is knocked out of him, and he gasps and wheezes, watching the flashlight clatter away and machete tumble from his fingers.
Whatever the hell it is-Dean can’t remember the exact name of the monster now-has its mouth clamped on his arm, jaws working madly. The taste of his blood has sent it into a wild frenzy, and it’s snarling as it tries to eat away at him.
When something crunches in his arm-a bone, a joint-he screams, out of pain, out of fear and anger, and he kicks at the creature and rips at its fur with his free hand, but he can’t loosen its grip. Lying on his back, he can feel skin being torn, and the hot slick of his blood and its saliva running up his arm, pooling in his armpit.
Frantically, he twists, trying to throw it, trying to save himself, and in the murky shadows, his fingers bump against something familiar and blessed. The smooth handle of his machete.
The pain and fear are nearly driving him senseless, into a blind panic, but he wraps his hand around the handle, and he brings the blade down as hard as he can manage, slicing through the monster’s neck. The beast spasms, jerks and twitches, before the torso collapses in a dead weight on top of him.
With a groan, Dean pushes up on its snout until the jaws encasing his arm loosen, and he can shake free. The head thumps to the ground beside him, and he lies there, on his back, trying to breathe against the white hot pain ripping its way through his body. He feels dizzy, sick like he’s going to vomit, and he simply tries to remember how to breathe. In. Out. In. Out.
Then he hears a low groan from beside him, and he remembers: Dad.
Dean staggers drunkenly to his feet, swaying for a moment. Once he’s regained his balance, he retrieves the flashlight, keeping his damaged arm close to his body as he moves. He leaves the machete and figures he’ll come back for it later. He can’t carry Dad, the flashlight, and the machete now with only one arm.
“Dad, c’mon, get up,” Dean says, wrapping his good hand in Dad’s collar, tugging him to his feet.
Dad rocks on his feet and groans again. Something that sounds like Dean, but might be damn, given the circumstances. He stands, bobbing on his one leg and putting his full weight against Dean, but he’s standing and right now, that’s enough. His ruined foot trails behind him dumbly like a dead limb.
Dean squeezes the flashlight up into his armpit, holding it there because his other arm is too hurt to do much of anything beyond bleed and throb right now. The illumination of the flashlight bobs through the trees as Dean and Dad stagger slowly, weakly, back to the car, with the snow falling on their faces.
- - - - -
After laying Dad down in the backseat, Dean drives to the nearest gas station with his bad right arm curled clumsily in his lap. At the store, he stumbles to the phone booth where he shakily shoves quarters into the machine. His fingers are cold and feel too thick to be of any use.
The line rings two, three times, and by the fifth ring, Dean’s beginning to lose hope when, “Hello?”
“Bobby?”
A pause. “Dean?”
“Yeah. Bobby, Dad’s hurt real bad. Me too. I-I don’t know if I can drive much farther. I…”
“Where are you?”
Tiredly, Dean gives him directions, and Bobby says, “I’m on my way, kid. Be there real soon. Hang on,” before he hangs up with a sharp click.
Dean replaces the receiver, pauses to right his tipping self, and trudges back to the Impala where he collapses into the passenger seat. From the back, Dad breathes in light, but steady, sighs.
Dean looks out his window where the snow is falling faster now, coming down in thick gusts and swirls. His head spins, agony eating away at him, and he focuses on keeping awake. It’d be too easy to go under now, he knows. Too easy to let the pain take hold of him. All the same, he cannot stop the hot water from rising to his eyes.
He flops his head back against the seat and sighs heavily. Yesterday, he turned seventeen years old. Today, he could have died.
- - - - -
Bobby arrives soon, just like he promised, and he leaves his own car in a far corner of the parking lot. Says he knows the owner of the gas station and besides, nobody’s going to run off with that hunk of junk anyway.
He climbs into the driver’s seat of the Impala, the car dipping with his weight, and once he shuts the door, he glances from Dean to Dad and back to Dean.
“How’re you doing?” Bobby asks, starting the car.
Dean nods. He knows Bobby can’t see his arm tucked next to the door in the darkened shadows of the parking lot. The pain’s a low beat, thrumming through him, but a headache’s formed, dark and vicious, behind his eyes.
He licks his lips. “Been better,” he manages to croak out.
Bobby’s face tightens. Worry, anxiety, maybe even fear all mixing together.
“Yeah,” he replies as they pull onto the street, “I’m sure you have been.”
- - - - -
When they roll into Bobby’s driveway, snow crunching under their tires, Sam’s already running out of the house and up to the car. In the stark illumination of the porch light, Dean can see he’s wearing only a t-shirt and jeans too baggy over unlaced tennis shoes. His cheeks are bright pink and there are goosebumps on his bare arms in the cold.
“Get your brother inside,” Bobby instructs, slamming the driver’s door closed. “I’ll get your dad.”
Sam nods. Doesn’t question Bobby, and he hurries around the front of the car to where Dean’s pushing open the passenger door. But, even the littlest movement of his torso’s muscles sends the pain flaring into his arm and side again, so that opening the door is a struggle for Dean.
“Take him into the side room you cleaned out,” Bobby says to Sam. “I’ll get to him in a minute after I get John cleaned up.”
Sam reaches for Dean, snowing melting in small droplets when it hits the skin of his bare arms. “Lemme,” he says, “lemme help you.”
Normally, Dean would say no and protest because it’s not Sammy’s job to protect him. Always been the other way around. But he can’t argue, not when his good side is slumped against Sam, and he's breathing sporadically, raggedly, while wondering if the taste of copper on his tongue might be blood.
“Can you walk?” Sam asks. Hair falls in his eyes when he looks up.
“Yeah,” Dean breathes, his breath a hot cloud in the air.
“Okay, c’mon. We’ll go slow. No hurry.”
Leaning heavily into Sam, Dean walks with him up to the house where Sam pushes the doors open with his hip, refusing to let go of Dean.
They finally step in one of Bobby’s side rooms where the books have been cleared out and shoved aside to reveal a large bed.
“Sit down,” Sammy says, helping to ease Dean on the bed. As soon as Dean sits, he crashes down, face mashing into the covers and fatigue overtaking him.
Without being asked, Sam unties Dean’s boots and lifts his legs onto the bed. Then, gently, ever so carefully, he tugs Dean to the center of the bed to place his head on the pillows there.
“Thanks, Sammy,” Dean says. His voice is weaker, fading, now that he feels safe and secure. That he can simply give in and not fight to stay strong.
“Don’t mention it,” Sam replies, looking down at Dean. His lips are pinched together in obvious distress. “You want me to get you anything? Something to drink?”
“No, ‘m okay.”
Sam nods and sits down at the end of the bed beside Dean’s feet. Together, they wait in silence for a moment or two before Sam tentatively reaches out and begins rubbing Dean’s leg. His hand moves slowly, lightly, and Dean closes his eyes against the feeling. His arm still hurts, but the comfort of Sam helps to diminish that pain.
After what seems like ages, Dean hears footsteps and Bobby say, “All right, I’ll take a look at him.” A pause and the steps grow louder, closer. “Sam, you should probably wait outside for this.”
“No, I’ll stay. I’m not going to leave Dean.”
Dean hears the shrug in Bobby’s voice when he answers, “Suit yourself, I guess.” Something rattles and then Bobby says, “Give your brother these, Sam.”
Suddenly, Sam’s offering Dean an assortment of pills and a bottle of Jack Daniels. “Here, drink,” Sam says, his adolescent hand seeming silly and small on the neck of the whiskey bottle.
Without questioning, Dean swallows down the pills with a slug of Jack. He winces as the alcohol burns his throat.
As Bobby goes to work on his arm, carefully clipping the matted fabric and washing away the dried blood, Sam lies down beside Dean so they’re eye to eye on the bed. His eyes are big, wide and wondering so close like this.
Sam reaches for Dean and finds his good hand tucked up beneath his chest, closed into a tight, sweaty fist.
“Dean,” Sam says, wrapping his fingers around Dean’s hand, “remember what you used to tell me when I was little?”
“Hm?” Dean mumbles because the drugs are washing over him and pulling him under. Their warmth spreads through his body, only strengthened by the feeling of Sam holding his hand, Sam so close.
“You said, ‘Hold my hand. Hold my hand if it hurts.’” Sam smiles, faint and small, and bit by bit, the memories come back to Dean of when they were younger, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as the old saying goes, and how Dean used to hold Sam’s hand. When Sam scraped his knee, cut his finger or fell from a tree. When he received a bad grade, was picked last for kickball, or teased by the pimple-faced bullies at the end of the blacktop. All those times and more, Dean held his hand.
Now, Sam whispers softly, “Hold my hand, Dean. Hold my hand if it hurts.”
Dean squeezes Sam’s hand and sighs. “Okay,” he whispers. “Okay.”
- - - - -
When he wakes, the sun is rising, a soft pink blush behind antique lace curtains. It’s stopped snowing, and the white hills roll over each other, disappearing until their backs touch the sun. Beside him, Sam sleeps, mouth open and lax, features softened in rest. Their fingers, still entwined, rest between them.
Dean glances at his arm and sees that it’s encased in a hard plaster from his fingertips to halfway up his upper arm. Must have been a fracture of some sort, he figures, meaning that he won’t be using it for quite a while. He sighs and tries not to worry about how hard things are going to be without his dominant right hand, believing that it can't be that difficult to gain control of his left hand.
He turns his attention back to Sam and stares at his face. Pudgy baby cheeks starting to give way to the harder lines of a future, someday man. Childhood freckles beginning to disappear into smooth, unblemished skin. In this quiet moment, Dean thinks Sam’s beautiful, even if that’s not quite the word he uses when he says it inside his head. Not quite the word he uses when he feels it inside his heart.
Sammy stirs, body shifting and fingers slipping away from Dean’s. He yawns before opening his eyes. When he’s finally awake, he smiles at Dean.
“Feeling better?” he asks, voice still sleep-thick and dreamy.
“More or less.”
Sam nods, and then something shifts on his face, tension rising behind his brightening eyes.
“Sammy?” Dean whispers, worried.
“I-uh-I gotta use the bathroom,” Sam stutters before he quickly rolls away from Dean and hurries out the door.
Alone, Dean swallows at the brief flash of how Sam’s jeans were stretched over the hard line of his dick. It shouldn’t be that big of a deal. Morning wood. Sure, it happens to every guy, and what, with Sammy growing up now, it’s bound to happen to him, too.
But, now, Dean thinks of Sam in the bathroom, pants around his ankles, fisting his cock, willing it down and-Dean throws his good arm over his eyes. Tries to push the image out of his mind. Tries not to think about why he’s thinking about Sam like this.
- - - - -
Sam returns to school that Monday, driven by Bobby, who enrolled him earlier last week when Dad first started on this case. The house is left silent during the day except for Dad’s grumblings and the radio Bobby keeps on in the kitchen. Dean spends most of his time in bed with one of Bobby’s books propped in his lap. His ribs are bruised and so is his leg. Nasty son of a bitch monster really beat him up good.
But as afternoon draws to a close, Bobby picks Sam up from school, and the bedroom isn’t so dark and quiet anymore.
Sam throws his homework at the foot of Dean’s bed and shakes snow from his hair.
“Here,” he says, shoving a pack of index cards at Dean, “help me study.”
“What?”
“I got a test tomorrow. Hold up the flashcard so I can study. I wanna ace this one. I don’t want the other kids to think I’m the stupid new kid.”
Dean rolls his eyes but can’t contain his grin. “You’re such a dork.”
Sam smiles back, big and open, and says, “Takes one to know one, dorkface.”
- - - - -
Late one night, a little over a week since they’ve been here, Dean gets up for a drink of water. Even though Sam sleeps in the same bed right next to him since Bobby doesn’t have enough spare bedrooms, Dean can’t bear to wake him to ask for the favor.
As he approaches the kitchen, he hears voices. Bobby’s and Dad’s. Dean freezes outside the cracked door.
“I think we’ll head out this weekend,” Dad is saying.
“Like hell you will,” Bobby snaps back.
“What? You want me to just stay here and move in? I’ll be all right, busted leg or not. Worked with worse.”
“It’s not about you, you stupid ass. You’re a parent now. Got two kids. Dean’s in no condition to go hunting again. Have you looked at his arm? It’s a mess. He needs some time off.”
“He’ll be fine,” Dad starts, but Bobby quickly interrupts.
“Bullshit.” Footsteps and there’s the sound of a cupboard slamming shut. “You gonna drag Dean off? What about Sam?”
“Sam can stay. Let him stay in school. I need Dean with me.”
“Fuck you,” Bobby spits, and Dean holds back a gasp. It’s rare to hear Bobby use that word, rarer still to hear Bobby in such anger. “Those boys need some rest. You can’t give them a normal life like they deserve, so at least give them this now while you can.”
John growls something vicious Dean doesn’t catch and then falls silent. At that point, Dean decides not to listen anymore. He turns and goes back to the bedroom, where he slides under the covers next to Sammy.
- - - - -
Dad doesn’t leave that weekend. The next day, he announces they’ll stay a while longer.
Dean never finds out why he decided to stay. He doesn’t ask. He’s simply grateful for the reprieve in however it comes.
- - - - -
Spring
Early spring looks the same as winter here at Bobby’s; it could be the same month, really, except the tattered calendar on the side of the refrigerator says otherwise. Dean looks out the window and then back to the calendar. He’s not sure which one to believe.
All that matters is that his arm still hurts more than it should, and his ribs ache if he laughs with Sam just a little too long and little too hard.
He’s gotten better at eating with his left hand, but he’s too afraid of what his writing will look like to try that. Nevertheless, he decides that he’ll try one more thing with his left hand to see if maybe he has some sort of ambidextrous power. Can’t be Superman, but hey, he figures he’s got to have his own set of special talents, too.
In the bathroom, he looks at himself in the mirror and decides he needs to give shaving a shot. It’s been a while since he’s done it, well before the accident that left him with one good hand. Not that he grows facial hair all that fast yet. Not like Dad, who can go to bed clean-shaven and wake up with a full beard.
But, it’s been a while for Dean nonetheless, and the hair’s starting to get scratchy; it prickles whenever he rolls against his pillow at night. He’s got to do something about it, he decides.
Which is why he’s now standing in the bathroom, fumbling with the medicine cabinet with his stupid, clumsy left hand because his right one is still wrapped in the gauze and plaster. There’s a latch on the side of the cabinet door, one that he has to lift up and twist, that is suddenly more difficult than it should be.
As if able to telepathically understand Dean’s troubles, Sammy pushes the door open and peeks his head inside.
“You need some help? Sounds like you’re swearing a lot.”
“I’m…I’m fine,” Dean says impatiently, more upset at himself instead of Sam.
“Yeah, ‘course you are,” Sammy replies sarcastically. He pushes past Dean and pops open the medicine cabinet effortlessly. “What’d you need?” he asks, looking over his shoulder to Dean, who lowers himself to the edge of the bathtub.
“Stuff.”
“Stuff?”
Dean sighs. He’s not getting out of this one. Can’t sneak or lie. “I was going to try to clean myself up.” He makes a weak motion to his face.
Sam nods and pulls out a new razor from the opened pack on the second shelf along with a can of shaving cream. “I’ll help you,” he says.
“I can do it.”
“Yeah? With your left hand? As if you won’t cut yourself fifty times in the first ten minutes.” Sam shakes his head, and he pulls a chair up to the edge of the sink. “Sit down.”
Instead of arguing, Dean simply plops down in the chair as Sam squirts a generous amount of shaving cream on his palms.
“You know what you’re doing?” Dean asks, knowing that Sam’s still too young to grow any facial hair of his own.
“Watched you and Dad enough. Can’t be hard.” He leans down and gently smears the cream on Dean’s face, covering his cheeks and chin, upper lip and below his ears. The cream is cool against Dean’s skin, and it warms slowly as Sam spreads it. Dean holds his breath, watching Sam’s concentrated face with a curious fascination.
Then, Sam pops the plastic protective cap off the razor and runs the blade underneath water from the faucet.
“Gentle, just...man, be careful,” Dean says.
“I know,” Sam whispers, like they’re sharing something that’s a secret. Something that Dad and Bobby shouldn’t know about.
He lifts the razor to Dean’s cheek and lightly, cuts through the shaving cream. Dean can hear the low scratch as the hairs are sliced away. When Sammy pulls the razor away, its head is covered in clouds of the cream. He taps it on the edge of the sink, turns on the faucet and lets the water wash away the rest. Then he repeats this. One stripe, two stripes.
The cheeks are the easiest for him. Big, open planes of skin. When he gets to Dean’s chin, how it dips in the middle, Sam pauses, considering.
“Do it in littler pieces,” Dean says. “Just to be careful, y’know.”
“Okay.” Sammy nods. Instead of long, unbroken strips, he moves the razor slower, removing smaller pieces of the cream.
When he finishes, he runs a washcloth under the water and wipes off Dean’s face, cleaning away any remaining residue. The whole time, Dean doesn’t move. He watches Sam’s perfection, his intent focus to make this absolutely right.
“Better?” Dean asks, twisting his head and pretending to model, as Sam rinses off the washcloth, the cream clouding the water that dribbles from it.
Sam turns to look at him, and he places both of his hands on Dean’s face, one hand on each cheek. “Feels better,” he remarks, grinning. “Like a baby’s bottom.”
“Maybe you should go to cosmetology school then.”
Rolling his eyes, Sam huffs, “Ha-ha, Dean. You’re so funny.”
Dean looks up at him, smiling. “I know it.”
- - - - -
This, it becomes their time. When they can close the bathroom door and be able to talk without worrying that Dad’s listening or Bobby’s peeking. Every Saturday morning while Dad and Bobby take their coffee to the kitchen and talk over opened newspapers, Sam and Dean go into the bathroom.
Sammy’s always so precise, so focused and sometimes, Dean thinks Sam forgets he’s there at all. Like Dean himself has slipped out of the room and Sam’s not seeing anything but the skin in front of him. It’s a different side of Sam here. One that doesn’t normally appear around the house unless he’s doing schoolwork with his nose in a book.
Now, so close, feeling Sammy’s warm breath on his skin, Dean can see how Sam’s tongue peeks out between his lips, eyebrows brought together in concentration. His t-shirt sags down when he bends forward, revealing the smooth, pale skin around his collarbone and upper chest. Not like Dean’s never seen Sam naked before. Has seen him naked lots of times. It’s just different, this, these little peeks of skin between layers of clothing. It’s just different, this, because they’re older now, and seeing your brother naked was supposed to be something that stopped after turning three years old.
“There, finished,” Sam says, pulling Dean out of thoughts he knows he’s better off not exploring.
Dean nods as Sam hands him a washcloth. “Thanks,” he says.
“Yeah, no problem.” Sam pauses, watches him as he wipes his face off, awkwardly with his left hand. “I still think it’s funny.”
“What’s funny?”
“Dean Winchester, mighty hunter, all bandaged up.”
Dean glowers and tries to whip the washcloth at Sam, who giggles and darts out of the way. Sam snickers as he leaves the bathroom. “So cute when you get angry,” he singsongs, stupid thirteen year old boy voice, imitating something off one of Dean’s TV shows.
Still. Dean’s not angry. Never could be with Sammy.
- - - - -
The morning Dad gets out of bed without the cane is the morning Dean knows they’re leaving the next day. Won’t matter one bit what Bobby says this time.
Dean tells Sam this during their Saturday morning together.
The razor in Sam’s hand freezes in mid-air, its top still glopped in cream.
“We’re leaving?” Sam says, wide-eyed.
“Well, me and Dad are leaving, I think. Not you. Dad’s up and walking. Limping, but walking.” Dean shrugs. “Don’t see why he’d stick around here much longer.”
“Well, what am I going to do? Should I stay here with Bobby so I can finish up the school year or do I have to transfer again?” He rinses off the razor blade, but in his frustration, he turns the faucet on too high and water splashes over the edge of the sink.
“What do you want to do?” Dean asks carefully.
“I don’t know. I don’t know!” Sam shouts. He breathes out, hard and edgy, fighting back his anger. “I just want to stay at school instead of transferring again. I just got here! But-” He stops instantly, whips away from Dean and washes the still clean razor again.
“But…?”
“But then I don’t get to see you because Dad’s going to take you with him while I’m stuck here, and I don’t want to have to choose between school and you!” He turns back to Dean, face flushed and eyes wet.
In that moment of Sam’s admission and Dean’s overwhelming need to comfort his younger brother, something in the air shifts and pushes Dean to his feet. He leans, bends near Sam, their faces coming closer, and the smell of the shaving cream is filling the room. Can’t see anything but Sammy, can’t smell anything but the shaving cream, can’t feel anything but wanting to make it better for Sam-
Suddenly Dad yells for them.
“Boys!”
Sam turns his head before Dean can get any closer and yells back, “Yeah, comin’!”
Dean freezes as realization chills him in what he almost did. He suddenly feels sick and sinks dumbly back to his chair.
“Dean,” Sam says, turning back to him.
“Just…go,” Dean replies, unable to meet Sam’s eyes.
“But Dean…”
“Go on. Dad’ll be wondering what’s keeping you. I’ll catch up in a minute.”
Sam sighs, torn, before Dad hollers again, and he exits the bathroom, leaving Dean alone in the chair. By himself, Dean lifts his free hand to his face, the skin damp and clean by Sam’s own steady hand. He touches his cheeks and chin before his fingers finally settle on his lips.
- - - - -
Later that night when they’re getting ready for bedtime, well after Dad’s told them both that they’re heading out tomorrow morning, Dean sits down on the bed and says to Sam, “Hey, about that thing earlier today…in the bathroom?”
Sammy looks up from where he’s tugging off his pants. He stands in front of Dean now in only his briefs and socks. His knees are still as knobby as they were when he was eight, but his legs are longer, much longer, and a semblance of muscle is beginning to form underneath his pale skin.
“What thing?” Sam asks, pulling off a sock and tossing it in the heap with his pants.
“Nev-never mind,” Dean replies with a shake of his head. If Sam doesn’t remember it, he isn’t going to talk about it. No need for them to have to talk about it anyway. It could have happened. It didn’t happen, though. There’s a difference.
“You mean when you tried to kiss me?” Sam says evenly.
Dean looks up quickly, head nearly snapping off his neck. He doesn’t know what to say to that. Instead, he opens and closes his mouth, startled, like a fish just yanked from the water.
Calmly, Sam pulls on his flannel pajama pants and an old t-shirt of Bobby’s before he climbs onto the bed, not saying a word until he kneels on top of the covers, looking down at Dean.
“That’s what you were going to do, right?” Sam says, eyes focused and clear. Not questioning, not afraid.
Dean raises his hand in a dismissive gesture then shrugs. “It was nothing.”
“It was something,” Sam shoots back. “You just…you just can’t do something like that…almost do something like that and pretend it didn’t happen.”
Dean wants to roll away from Sam, but to do that, he would have to roll onto his bad arm. Instead, he merely sinks lower in a deluded hope that the pillows and blankets will pull him under and allow him to escape.
Sammy looks away, hands on his thighs as he kneels there, and he swallows, his throat bobbing over the small Adam’s apple.
“Did you want to?” he asks after a long while, face still turned away.
“What?”
He looks back to Dean. “Did you want to?” he repeats.
The tension rises in the room, filling their silence, before Dean says, “Maybe. Yes. I don’t know.” He shakes his head, face scrunching in confusion and anxiety. His heart beats rapidly, almost leaving him breathless.
Sam exhales, says, “Well, I do know,” and he leans down, and he kisses Dean.
It’s soft, light, and fleeting. Nothing like the girls’ opened-mouth, sloppy kisses Dean’s experienced in the backseats of cars and below the bleachers. Nothing dirty or foul or even broken in it.
Sam pulls away as quickly as he bent down, and he says, “There. Lightning didn’t hit us. And it was what you wanted.”
“Was it what you wanted?” Dean asks as Sam slips beneath the covers, bumping against Dean as he wiggles and squirms, trying to get comfortable.
Sam rolls over to face Dean, and very simply, unashamed, he says, “Yes.”
- - - - -
Instead of making Sam choose between school and him, Dean makes the choice the next morning. He goes to Dad and says, “I need to stay here.”
Dad looks up from where he’s tying his boot. “What?” he says, the laces still wrapped around his fingers. “I thought you were coming with me. I know your arm’s not fully healed yet, but I thought…”
“Well. I think it’s best…for Sam if I stay behind. Bobby’s gone too much, and somebody’s got to take care of Sam. Do what’s best for him.”
Dad doesn’t speak for a long moment, thinking, and then-much to Dean’s surprise-he says, “Yeah, I think you’re right on this one.” He scratches the back of his head. “Probably good for someone to keep an eye on Sam. He is still pretty young, I guess.”
Dean nods, fights down the urge to throw himself at Dad and break into a ramble of gratitude. “I’ll let Sam know,” he says quietly.
He turns away to where Sam’s peeking around the corner of the bedroom, grinning from ear to ear. Dean breaks into a triumphant smile, hurrying towards Sam where they crash into each other and he wraps his one arm around Sam to pull them happily onto the bed.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Sam says, giggling as they sink into the old mattress. Their feet twist together as they fall and roll on the bed. “Thank you so much, Dean, thank you.”
Dean just laughs.
When both have quieted, Sam looks up at him from where he’s lying beneath Dean. He runs a finger over Dean’s face, tracing his eyebrows and line of his jaw.
“I want to try it again,” Sam says.
“Try what?” Dean asks, because for as much as he’ll always be four year older, Sam’s mind will always be four years ahead.
“What we did last night,” Sam says, moving his hand to Dean’s lips.
“Oh,” Dean breathes, soft and smiling.
“Yeah,” Sam replies. His eyes are mischievous but warm beneath his bangs. Dean watches those eyes grow bigger then close completely, as he leans in to kiss Sam over and over.
- - - - -
Summer
At the end of the school year, John comes to get them at Bobby’s. He thanks Bobby for watching them, and he asks Dean how his arm’s feeling. Bobby took the cast off weeks ago, and the bright pink ridges have now faded to glassy white streaks on his skin.
For Dad, Dean wiggles his fingers and says, “Feels almost as good as new.”
Dad nods and says, “Well, that’s great then.”
He drives Sam and Dean three states away where he can rent a house for dirt cheap and still be close enough to a few unsolved cases. The house doesn’t have air conditioning, and it’s here, during these summer months as the temperatures soar and the humidity swells, that Sam and Dean discover they can’t get enough of each other. Dad leaves for days at a time, trusting the both of them to be all right on their own. Dean gets a job down at the garage, just a few days a week, and Sammy becomes a newspaper boy, just a few mornings a week.
But the rest of the time, the days they both have off or in the evenings after Dean comes home from work, they’re all over each other, insatiable hunger tearing at their bellies and filling their heads.
They spend all day in bed one lazy Monday morning when they both have work off. They’re naked, too hot to sleep in clothes, and Sam rests his hand on the soft rise of Dean’s stomach, fingers resting, playing in the thatch of hair that goes lower to where Dean’s cock rests soft against his leg.
“Show me,” Sammy says.
“Show you what?”
“How you do it.” He lifts his hand, and his knuckles graze over the line of Dean’s dick, which twitches at the touch. “I wanna see.”
“Not like you haven’t before,” Dean replies, referring to all the late nights he’s jacked off with Sam in the next bed over, both knowing Sam was awake and listening.
“No. Not like this. Not in the light. I wanna see how you do it.” When Dean doesn’t move, Sam bends his head and kisses him on the ear. “Please.”
They spend the rest of the afternoon in bed, hands on their cocks, watching, but never touching the other, until the sheets are filthy with sweat and spunk, and Dean says, breathless and hot, “We should go. Get something done.”
But Sam smiles and says, “One more time. Let’s do it one more time.”
- - - - -
Then there’s the Wednesday when Dean comes home from the garage. He’s covered in grease and smells of gasoline. But as soon as he enters the house, Sammy leaps on him, wraps his legs around Dean’s back and twists his fingers in Dean’s hair to make Dean stagger, catching himself on the edge of the counter before they fall to the floor together.
“Missed me?” Dean says, laughing, as they kiss, open-mouthed and frantic. Sam tastes like the peanut-butter sandwich that’s half-eaten and now forgotten on the countertop.
“You have no idea,” Sammy says, long wiry limbs clutching Dean fiercely. He’s almost too tall to be clinging to Dean like this, but then he jerks his hips up against Dean’s belly and-oh. Right there. The hard bump of Sam’s cock pushing out, against his red cotton shorts.
“Oh, God, Sam,” Dean breathes, and he twists around to seat Sam on the countertop where he yanks down Sam’s shorts and wraps a fist around his cock. He holds Sam’s face in one hand and jacks him off with the other, leaving Sam coming and covered in black grease smudges.
- - - - -
Dean would like to think he has more self-control than Sam. After all, he’s seventeen-almost eighteen, an adult-and Sam’s younger, lacking any rational thinking to say no to this, to them.
Dean knows he’s full of shit in thinking he has any self-control when it comes to Sam the day he passes by Sammy in the bathroom, door slightly cracked.
Sam’s standing at the sink, squirting shaving cream on his palms and rubbing it on his cheeks. The smell of the cream, crisp and slightly perfumed, pulls Dean back to where this all started, and he throws the door open completely, dropping the mail he was holding right there in the hallway. The envelopes flutter to the ground, forgotten.
He shoves Sammy against the opposite wall, kissing him greedily as little, breathless moans escape from Sam’s mouth.
The smell of the shaving cream is overwhelming, filling Dean’s head and driving him mad. It’s smeared on his hands where he cups Sam’s cheeks, and he kisses his way down Sam’s neck and runs his hands up beneath Sam’s shirt to spread the cream as he goes.
Then he drops to his knees and undoes the button on Sam’s shorts. They’re never done this before, even if it’s something they’ve talked about in pinched, secretive whispers, and Dean looks up at Sam before going on.
Sam swallows as he nods, shaving cream smeared messily on his face, some dotting his eyebrows and hair.
Dean lowers the zipper and pulls down his shorts to reveal Sam’s cock, already rising pink and hard. He doesn’t waste any time. Doesn’t want to change his mind. Wants to give this to Sammy, so he wraps his hand around the base of Sam’s cock and his lips over the top.
Instantly, Sam jerks like he’s been electrified, whining high and needy as he slaps a hand against the wall behind him. “Dean…” he whimpers. His legs twitch, dancing uncontrolled.
Dean gradually slides his mouth down farther, taking as much of Sam as he can. It tastes different than he expected, stronger and stranger, but not bad. Just Sam.
When he pulls back, he sucks lightly as Sam whispers, “Dean, please, Dean, Dean, please, Dean, please…” The same two words rolling together as Dean licks his cock and tongues his slit, hand holding him steady at the base. His fingers reach back and cup Sam’s balls, drawn tight and hot between his legs.
Then Sam chokes and stiffens and says, “Dean, I-”
Dean nods. He knows and pulls off, pumping Sam’s spit-slicked cock with a tight fist.
“Yeah, c’mon, Sammy, c’mon,” he whispers, and then Sam shouts and spills over, grabbing Dean’s shoulder to stay upright. His come hits the front of Dean’s t-shirt, splatters and sticks.
When he’s finished, Dean stands and embraces Sam to kiss again. They’re both covered in shaving cream and spunk, but Dean lifts and carries Sammy back to bed. There, on pulled back covers and a faded fitted sheet, Sam twists and turns until he's on top of Dean, straddling his waist.
"Can I try?" he asks as his hands settle on the brass buckle of Dean's belt.
"Mmm, if you want," Dean says, although he's not sure exactly what Sam will be trying. Right now, he's happy to give Sam whatever he wants. Whatever will make Sam happy.
Sam undoes Dean's belt and button, pulls down his zipper and tugs at his pants. To help him, Dean arches his back to raise his hips so that Sam can pull his jeans to his knees. Then, Sam slinks down until he's kneeling over top Dean's ankles. He bends forward, grasping Dean's cock, and licks the top experimentally.
Dean inhales sharply and clutches the blankets with white knuckles to stop himself from shooting off the bed in shock.
"Like that?" Sam asks. He smiles slightly.
"Uh...yeah," Dean replies, as Sam gives another long lick up the shaft. He runs the tip of his tongue below the ridge of the head and then back down to the base again. After a few times of this, he looks up at Dean, who's breathing in quick, little gulps.
Sam looks as though he's about to say something, but he changes his mind and lowers his head to wrap his mouth around Dean's dick.
Shivering, Dean whispers, "Yeah, right there, yeah." He's not going to last much longer, watching Sam like this, feeling his mouth on him and the soft brush of Sam's hair when he bends his head down closer.
Sam bobs his head in an awkward fashion, and when he tries to take in all of Dean, he gags slightly before pulling back to the head where he runs his tongue over the top and sides.
"Sam…Sammy…Sam, pull off," Dean whispers, hoarse and fragile, as he shoves feebly at Sam's shoulder. Fortunately, Sam pulls back just as the heat rolls up and through Dean, and he comes with a strangled shout. Sam watches Dean's cock pulse and twitch, leaking where it rests on Dean's belly.
While Dean catches his breath, Sam smiles and wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand before flopping back down on top of Dean to make out until their stomachs growl as a reminder that it’s two hours past dinner.
- - - - -
They spend the summer exploring nearby caves and abandoned houses, misty marshes and thick forests. They spend the summer exploring each other in touches and kisses, gasps and groans.
One morning when it’s still dark outside and Dad’s bustling around in the kitchen, preparing for the next hunt, Sam rolls over in bed and says to Dean the words no teenage boy ever says: “I love you, you know.”
Right there, Dean knows that any illusions he ever had of going back and pretending this never happened are gone forever.
He couldn’t be happier.
- - - - -
Autumn
On the weekends that Sam doesn’t have too much homework or any extracurricular activities to grumble over, Dad drags him along on hunts. This weekend is one of those where Dad admitted to needing an extra pair of eyes. They enter the forest as the sun sets, turning the trees from green to black with shadows, and Dad says, “I’m taking Sam with me. Dean, you head north and see if you can find that house.”
“Sir?” Dean asks, confused. Dad’s never asked them to separate before.
“We’ve got to find the house. The one that I showed you in that book at the diner? It’s where this thing lives. It’ll be faster if we split up. If you find the house, don’t go inside. We’ll meet back at the car in an hour with updates, okay?”
Dean nods, looking to Sam instead of Dad. Sam appears uncomfortable, most likely not wanting to be left alone with Dad, who could launch into a lecture of the importance of hunting versus schoolwork at any point. But, this is no time to argue with Dad. This is time to get to work.
Alone, gun in hand, Dean treks through the part of the forest he’s been assigned. He finds no house. Nothing even close, and he sighs and turns back to go to the car. He hopes that Dad and Sammy had more luck.
- - - - -
He slides onto the hood of the car and pulls his knees up to his chest. The leaves swirl around him, tapping on the metal noisily. The sun has almost completely set, darkening the world, and Dean sighs and pulls back the sleeve of his coat to look at his watch, reading that it’s been over half an hour since Dad said he’d be back.
Dean remembers last time he waited for Dad like this. Remembers that he almost waited too long. This time, though, Sammy is with Dad. If Dad’s hurt, Sam could be in trouble.
Without thinking further, he climbs off the car and runs back into the forest, his flashlight a beam of light slicing its way through the murky black of the trees.
- - - - -
He can’t see Dad when he bursts into the room, gun drawn and Sam screaming. He can see Sam, though, see him running away with blood wetting his back as the shadow monster rips into him again.
“Hey!” Dean bellows. The monster pivots in the air, and its glowing eyes fix on Dean. It lets out a pleased warble and moves closer. “Yeah, that’s right,” Dean sneers, until he can smell the rotting, rank breath of this bitch, and then he shoots. The creature screams, its shadowed form scattering into infinite particles. It’s not dead, just gone and scared away, but that’s good enough for Dean right now. He runs over to Sam, who’s standing, leaning against the wall, breathing hard.
“How’re you?” Dean asks, reaching out for Sam, who immediately collapses into him.
Sam nods jerkily, once, twice, and Dean knows he’s hurting even if he won’t admit it. He wraps an arm around Sam’s waist, mindful of the marks the creature left on his back. “C’mon, I’ll get you to the car.”
“Dad,” Sam says, stopping as they make their way down the stairs.
“Where’s he at?”
“Basement, I think. Got locked down there when we entered. Said he wasn’t going to wait for you…could, could take care of it on his own.”
“Shit. Okay. I’ll get him in a minute. Need to get you out of here, though, before it comes back, smelling your blood.”
They move carefully, slowly, back to the car as Sam hisses and winces all the way.
“Ssh, ssh,” Dean says, leaning over and pressing his face in Sam’s hair as they walk. “It’ll be over soon. Just hang in there, Sammy. Just hang on.”
At the car, Dean helps Sammy into the backseat and lays a blanket over him. “I’ll be right back,” Dean tells him. “Just gotta get Dad.”
Sam nods, burying his face into the soft material of the blanket and curling his legs up to keep warm. His eyes are pinched shut against the pain in a feeling that Dean remembers all too well.
Hating to leave Sam behind, Dean has to force himself to return to the house. He finds Dad in the basement as Sam had said, behind a set of latched doors. When Dean opens the last one, Dad’s more angry and dusty than anything, and he gruffly snatches the gun that Dean offers him.
“Where’s Sam?” Dad snaps, wiping cobwebs from his face.
“In the car. His back’s really bad. Tore up.”
“All right, I’m going after it. Show it who it messed with.”
“We should get back to the motel…”
“In a minute, Dean, let me take care of this now.”
“Dad!”
“What?!” Dad growls, spinning around.
“Dad, we need to take care of Sam first. Get him back to the motel. It’s really bad, his back. He needs to be taken care of first…Please.”
Dad stiffens, and Dean braces himself for a verbal assault, but instead Dad grits out, “Fine. Let’s go then.” He may not be happy about leaving, but he’s leaving all the same, which is all that matters right now to Dean.
- - - - -
At the motel, Dad opens up the first aid kit and rests it on the nightstand while Dean helps Sam onto the bed. Resting Sam on his side so that his back is near the edge of the bed, Dean has to be careful not to touch the wounds when he moves him on the mattress. Sam groans, biting down not to scream, and his face is pale, shiny with sweat.
“Is he going to be okay?” Dean asks as Dad cuts open Sam’s shirt, moving it away from the lacerations. Outside, through the window, Dean can see snow beginning. Big, fat flakes that will melt as soon as they hit the ground, leaving no trace that they existed at all. Winter, though, is on its way.
“Yeah. He’ll be fine. Just need to get these bandaged up and cleaned and then he can rest.”
While Dad cleans away the blood in gentle strokes of a warm washcloth, Dean climbs onto the bed, ignoring his muddy boots and dirty coat, and he lies on his side to face Sam.
“Hi,” he whispers.
“Hi,” Sam says back. His eyes are closed against the pain, but he still manages a small smile.
Dean reaches for him, reaches for Sam’s hands and pulls them to his chest, forming a tight ball of their gathered fists.
“Remember what I used to tell you?”
“As if I could forget,” Sam says softly. There might be a laugh in there, hidden beneath his words, but Dean can’t be sure.
Dean leans in and kisses Sam on the forehead, knowing Dad will be none the wiser for it. He runs his fingers through Sam’s hair. “Hold on, Sammy,” he whispers, his nose brushing against Sam’s own. “Hold on if it hurts and never let go.”
Sam sighs. “Never, Dean...never.”
End
Rating: Adult
Category: Pre-series slash (Wincest) oneshot
Word Count: 8329
Characters: Dean/Sam, John, and Bobby
Spoilers: None
Summary: For them, growing up has never been about learning how to let go.
Warnings: Underage brother incest
Author’s Notes: Written for angstpuppy with the following prompts: “shaving (face, groin, anywhere!!!), innocent but unknowingly sexual Sammy, blowjobs.” Thank you to drvsilla for the overthinky and to Tracy Chapman for the music. Any remaining mistakes are mine alone.
Disclaimer: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the television show, Supernatural, to whom they rightly belong. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.
- - - - -
Winter
The snow clicks against the windshield, little crystal fingernails against the glass, and the radio glows in the darkness of the car.
Dean sighs and pulls back the sleeve of his coat to look at his watch, reading that it’s been over an hour since Dad said he’d be back.
As the wipers swipe noisily across the windshield, clearing away the gathering snow and ice, Dean chews on his bottom lip. Dad wouldn’t want Dean to come after him, but Dad’s never been an hour late like this before. The weather’s bad and the monster even worse.
Worry rising in his belly, Dean exhales sharply in frustration, his breath a cloud of steam in the car’s chilly interior, and he yanks the keys from the ignition. The car is pitched in the darkness when the radio dies, and the wipers lie, paralyzed in mid-sweep.
He climbs out of the car, biting back a curse at the coldness, the way the frigid wind whips through his clothes and bones. At the trunk of the car, he gathers a gun and a machete with its blade long and thick. Slamming the lid shut, he turns and heads off into the forest, his flashlight a beam of light slicing its way through the inky black of the trees.
- - - - -
His finds Dad in the monster’s den, which is a musty cave in the side of a hill. The creature’s nowhere to be seen, but Dad’s lying unconscious on the ground. In the pale illumination of Dean’s flashlight, he can see blood speckled on Dad’s face like red freckles, and his leg looks chewed to hell. Dean doubts he’ll be able to walk on it for a long time-if ever again.
Carefully, body prickling with awareness that the monster might be close by, Dean hurries over to Dad to check if he's even still breathing. After Dean places his cheek close to Dad's lips and feels the soft puff of air, he shakes him by the shoulder in an attempt to rouse him.
“Dad?” Dean whispers, glancing over his back. “C’mon, Dad, it’s me. You gotta get up.”
Dad groans, and when his head lolls on his shoulders, his eyes open for the briefest of a moment. They’re bleary and faraway, and they tell Dean that he’s all alone in this right now.
Dean moves closer to Dad, to try and pick him up when suddenly, Dean’s slammed to the ground from behind with a roar. The wind is knocked out of him, and he gasps and wheezes, watching the flashlight clatter away and machete tumble from his fingers.
Whatever the hell it is-Dean can’t remember the exact name of the monster now-has its mouth clamped on his arm, jaws working madly. The taste of his blood has sent it into a wild frenzy, and it’s snarling as it tries to eat away at him.
When something crunches in his arm-a bone, a joint-he screams, out of pain, out of fear and anger, and he kicks at the creature and rips at its fur with his free hand, but he can’t loosen its grip. Lying on his back, he can feel skin being torn, and the hot slick of his blood and its saliva running up his arm, pooling in his armpit.
Frantically, he twists, trying to throw it, trying to save himself, and in the murky shadows, his fingers bump against something familiar and blessed. The smooth handle of his machete.
The pain and fear are nearly driving him senseless, into a blind panic, but he wraps his hand around the handle, and he brings the blade down as hard as he can manage, slicing through the monster’s neck. The beast spasms, jerks and twitches, before the torso collapses in a dead weight on top of him.
With a groan, Dean pushes up on its snout until the jaws encasing his arm loosen, and he can shake free. The head thumps to the ground beside him, and he lies there, on his back, trying to breathe against the white hot pain ripping its way through his body. He feels dizzy, sick like he’s going to vomit, and he simply tries to remember how to breathe. In. Out. In. Out.
Then he hears a low groan from beside him, and he remembers: Dad.
Dean staggers drunkenly to his feet, swaying for a moment. Once he’s regained his balance, he retrieves the flashlight, keeping his damaged arm close to his body as he moves. He leaves the machete and figures he’ll come back for it later. He can’t carry Dad, the flashlight, and the machete now with only one arm.
“Dad, c’mon, get up,” Dean says, wrapping his good hand in Dad’s collar, tugging him to his feet.
Dad rocks on his feet and groans again. Something that sounds like Dean, but might be damn, given the circumstances. He stands, bobbing on his one leg and putting his full weight against Dean, but he’s standing and right now, that’s enough. His ruined foot trails behind him dumbly like a dead limb.
Dean squeezes the flashlight up into his armpit, holding it there because his other arm is too hurt to do much of anything beyond bleed and throb right now. The illumination of the flashlight bobs through the trees as Dean and Dad stagger slowly, weakly, back to the car, with the snow falling on their faces.
- - - - -
After laying Dad down in the backseat, Dean drives to the nearest gas station with his bad right arm curled clumsily in his lap. At the store, he stumbles to the phone booth where he shakily shoves quarters into the machine. His fingers are cold and feel too thick to be of any use.
The line rings two, three times, and by the fifth ring, Dean’s beginning to lose hope when, “Hello?”
“Bobby?”
A pause. “Dean?”
“Yeah. Bobby, Dad’s hurt real bad. Me too. I-I don’t know if I can drive much farther. I…”
“Where are you?”
Tiredly, Dean gives him directions, and Bobby says, “I’m on my way, kid. Be there real soon. Hang on,” before he hangs up with a sharp click.
Dean replaces the receiver, pauses to right his tipping self, and trudges back to the Impala where he collapses into the passenger seat. From the back, Dad breathes in light, but steady, sighs.
Dean looks out his window where the snow is falling faster now, coming down in thick gusts and swirls. His head spins, agony eating away at him, and he focuses on keeping awake. It’d be too easy to go under now, he knows. Too easy to let the pain take hold of him. All the same, he cannot stop the hot water from rising to his eyes.
He flops his head back against the seat and sighs heavily. Yesterday, he turned seventeen years old. Today, he could have died.
- - - - -
Bobby arrives soon, just like he promised, and he leaves his own car in a far corner of the parking lot. Says he knows the owner of the gas station and besides, nobody’s going to run off with that hunk of junk anyway.
He climbs into the driver’s seat of the Impala, the car dipping with his weight, and once he shuts the door, he glances from Dean to Dad and back to Dean.
“How’re you doing?” Bobby asks, starting the car.
Dean nods. He knows Bobby can’t see his arm tucked next to the door in the darkened shadows of the parking lot. The pain’s a low beat, thrumming through him, but a headache’s formed, dark and vicious, behind his eyes.
He licks his lips. “Been better,” he manages to croak out.
Bobby’s face tightens. Worry, anxiety, maybe even fear all mixing together.
“Yeah,” he replies as they pull onto the street, “I’m sure you have been.”
- - - - -
When they roll into Bobby’s driveway, snow crunching under their tires, Sam’s already running out of the house and up to the car. In the stark illumination of the porch light, Dean can see he’s wearing only a t-shirt and jeans too baggy over unlaced tennis shoes. His cheeks are bright pink and there are goosebumps on his bare arms in the cold.
“Get your brother inside,” Bobby instructs, slamming the driver’s door closed. “I’ll get your dad.”
Sam nods. Doesn’t question Bobby, and he hurries around the front of the car to where Dean’s pushing open the passenger door. But, even the littlest movement of his torso’s muscles sends the pain flaring into his arm and side again, so that opening the door is a struggle for Dean.
“Take him into the side room you cleaned out,” Bobby says to Sam. “I’ll get to him in a minute after I get John cleaned up.”
Sam reaches for Dean, snowing melting in small droplets when it hits the skin of his bare arms. “Lemme,” he says, “lemme help you.”
Normally, Dean would say no and protest because it’s not Sammy’s job to protect him. Always been the other way around. But he can’t argue, not when his good side is slumped against Sam, and he's breathing sporadically, raggedly, while wondering if the taste of copper on his tongue might be blood.
“Can you walk?” Sam asks. Hair falls in his eyes when he looks up.
“Yeah,” Dean breathes, his breath a hot cloud in the air.
“Okay, c’mon. We’ll go slow. No hurry.”
Leaning heavily into Sam, Dean walks with him up to the house where Sam pushes the doors open with his hip, refusing to let go of Dean.
They finally step in one of Bobby’s side rooms where the books have been cleared out and shoved aside to reveal a large bed.
“Sit down,” Sammy says, helping to ease Dean on the bed. As soon as Dean sits, he crashes down, face mashing into the covers and fatigue overtaking him.
Without being asked, Sam unties Dean’s boots and lifts his legs onto the bed. Then, gently, ever so carefully, he tugs Dean to the center of the bed to place his head on the pillows there.
“Thanks, Sammy,” Dean says. His voice is weaker, fading, now that he feels safe and secure. That he can simply give in and not fight to stay strong.
“Don’t mention it,” Sam replies, looking down at Dean. His lips are pinched together in obvious distress. “You want me to get you anything? Something to drink?”
“No, ‘m okay.”
Sam nods and sits down at the end of the bed beside Dean’s feet. Together, they wait in silence for a moment or two before Sam tentatively reaches out and begins rubbing Dean’s leg. His hand moves slowly, lightly, and Dean closes his eyes against the feeling. His arm still hurts, but the comfort of Sam helps to diminish that pain.
After what seems like ages, Dean hears footsteps and Bobby say, “All right, I’ll take a look at him.” A pause and the steps grow louder, closer. “Sam, you should probably wait outside for this.”
“No, I’ll stay. I’m not going to leave Dean.”
Dean hears the shrug in Bobby’s voice when he answers, “Suit yourself, I guess.” Something rattles and then Bobby says, “Give your brother these, Sam.”
Suddenly, Sam’s offering Dean an assortment of pills and a bottle of Jack Daniels. “Here, drink,” Sam says, his adolescent hand seeming silly and small on the neck of the whiskey bottle.
Without questioning, Dean swallows down the pills with a slug of Jack. He winces as the alcohol burns his throat.
As Bobby goes to work on his arm, carefully clipping the matted fabric and washing away the dried blood, Sam lies down beside Dean so they’re eye to eye on the bed. His eyes are big, wide and wondering so close like this.
Sam reaches for Dean and finds his good hand tucked up beneath his chest, closed into a tight, sweaty fist.
“Dean,” Sam says, wrapping his fingers around Dean’s hand, “remember what you used to tell me when I was little?”
“Hm?” Dean mumbles because the drugs are washing over him and pulling him under. Their warmth spreads through his body, only strengthened by the feeling of Sam holding his hand, Sam so close.
“You said, ‘Hold my hand. Hold my hand if it hurts.’” Sam smiles, faint and small, and bit by bit, the memories come back to Dean of when they were younger, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as the old saying goes, and how Dean used to hold Sam’s hand. When Sam scraped his knee, cut his finger or fell from a tree. When he received a bad grade, was picked last for kickball, or teased by the pimple-faced bullies at the end of the blacktop. All those times and more, Dean held his hand.
Now, Sam whispers softly, “Hold my hand, Dean. Hold my hand if it hurts.”
Dean squeezes Sam’s hand and sighs. “Okay,” he whispers. “Okay.”
- - - - -
When he wakes, the sun is rising, a soft pink blush behind antique lace curtains. It’s stopped snowing, and the white hills roll over each other, disappearing until their backs touch the sun. Beside him, Sam sleeps, mouth open and lax, features softened in rest. Their fingers, still entwined, rest between them.
Dean glances at his arm and sees that it’s encased in a hard plaster from his fingertips to halfway up his upper arm. Must have been a fracture of some sort, he figures, meaning that he won’t be using it for quite a while. He sighs and tries not to worry about how hard things are going to be without his dominant right hand, believing that it can't be that difficult to gain control of his left hand.
He turns his attention back to Sam and stares at his face. Pudgy baby cheeks starting to give way to the harder lines of a future, someday man. Childhood freckles beginning to disappear into smooth, unblemished skin. In this quiet moment, Dean thinks Sam’s beautiful, even if that’s not quite the word he uses when he says it inside his head. Not quite the word he uses when he feels it inside his heart.
Sammy stirs, body shifting and fingers slipping away from Dean’s. He yawns before opening his eyes. When he’s finally awake, he smiles at Dean.
“Feeling better?” he asks, voice still sleep-thick and dreamy.
“More or less.”
Sam nods, and then something shifts on his face, tension rising behind his brightening eyes.
“Sammy?” Dean whispers, worried.
“I-uh-I gotta use the bathroom,” Sam stutters before he quickly rolls away from Dean and hurries out the door.
Alone, Dean swallows at the brief flash of how Sam’s jeans were stretched over the hard line of his dick. It shouldn’t be that big of a deal. Morning wood. Sure, it happens to every guy, and what, with Sammy growing up now, it’s bound to happen to him, too.
But, now, Dean thinks of Sam in the bathroom, pants around his ankles, fisting his cock, willing it down and-Dean throws his good arm over his eyes. Tries to push the image out of his mind. Tries not to think about why he’s thinking about Sam like this.
- - - - -
Sam returns to school that Monday, driven by Bobby, who enrolled him earlier last week when Dad first started on this case. The house is left silent during the day except for Dad’s grumblings and the radio Bobby keeps on in the kitchen. Dean spends most of his time in bed with one of Bobby’s books propped in his lap. His ribs are bruised and so is his leg. Nasty son of a bitch monster really beat him up good.
But as afternoon draws to a close, Bobby picks Sam up from school, and the bedroom isn’t so dark and quiet anymore.
Sam throws his homework at the foot of Dean’s bed and shakes snow from his hair.
“Here,” he says, shoving a pack of index cards at Dean, “help me study.”
“What?”
“I got a test tomorrow. Hold up the flashcard so I can study. I wanna ace this one. I don’t want the other kids to think I’m the stupid new kid.”
Dean rolls his eyes but can’t contain his grin. “You’re such a dork.”
Sam smiles back, big and open, and says, “Takes one to know one, dorkface.”
- - - - -
Late one night, a little over a week since they’ve been here, Dean gets up for a drink of water. Even though Sam sleeps in the same bed right next to him since Bobby doesn’t have enough spare bedrooms, Dean can’t bear to wake him to ask for the favor.
As he approaches the kitchen, he hears voices. Bobby’s and Dad’s. Dean freezes outside the cracked door.
“I think we’ll head out this weekend,” Dad is saying.
“Like hell you will,” Bobby snaps back.
“What? You want me to just stay here and move in? I’ll be all right, busted leg or not. Worked with worse.”
“It’s not about you, you stupid ass. You’re a parent now. Got two kids. Dean’s in no condition to go hunting again. Have you looked at his arm? It’s a mess. He needs some time off.”
“He’ll be fine,” Dad starts, but Bobby quickly interrupts.
“Bullshit.” Footsteps and there’s the sound of a cupboard slamming shut. “You gonna drag Dean off? What about Sam?”
“Sam can stay. Let him stay in school. I need Dean with me.”
“Fuck you,” Bobby spits, and Dean holds back a gasp. It’s rare to hear Bobby use that word, rarer still to hear Bobby in such anger. “Those boys need some rest. You can’t give them a normal life like they deserve, so at least give them this now while you can.”
John growls something vicious Dean doesn’t catch and then falls silent. At that point, Dean decides not to listen anymore. He turns and goes back to the bedroom, where he slides under the covers next to Sammy.
- - - - -
Dad doesn’t leave that weekend. The next day, he announces they’ll stay a while longer.
Dean never finds out why he decided to stay. He doesn’t ask. He’s simply grateful for the reprieve in however it comes.
- - - - -
Spring
Early spring looks the same as winter here at Bobby’s; it could be the same month, really, except the tattered calendar on the side of the refrigerator says otherwise. Dean looks out the window and then back to the calendar. He’s not sure which one to believe.
All that matters is that his arm still hurts more than it should, and his ribs ache if he laughs with Sam just a little too long and little too hard.
He’s gotten better at eating with his left hand, but he’s too afraid of what his writing will look like to try that. Nevertheless, he decides that he’ll try one more thing with his left hand to see if maybe he has some sort of ambidextrous power. Can’t be Superman, but hey, he figures he’s got to have his own set of special talents, too.
In the bathroom, he looks at himself in the mirror and decides he needs to give shaving a shot. It’s been a while since he’s done it, well before the accident that left him with one good hand. Not that he grows facial hair all that fast yet. Not like Dad, who can go to bed clean-shaven and wake up with a full beard.
But, it’s been a while for Dean nonetheless, and the hair’s starting to get scratchy; it prickles whenever he rolls against his pillow at night. He’s got to do something about it, he decides.
Which is why he’s now standing in the bathroom, fumbling with the medicine cabinet with his stupid, clumsy left hand because his right one is still wrapped in the gauze and plaster. There’s a latch on the side of the cabinet door, one that he has to lift up and twist, that is suddenly more difficult than it should be.
As if able to telepathically understand Dean’s troubles, Sammy pushes the door open and peeks his head inside.
“You need some help? Sounds like you’re swearing a lot.”
“I’m…I’m fine,” Dean says impatiently, more upset at himself instead of Sam.
“Yeah, ‘course you are,” Sammy replies sarcastically. He pushes past Dean and pops open the medicine cabinet effortlessly. “What’d you need?” he asks, looking over his shoulder to Dean, who lowers himself to the edge of the bathtub.
“Stuff.”
“Stuff?”
Dean sighs. He’s not getting out of this one. Can’t sneak or lie. “I was going to try to clean myself up.” He makes a weak motion to his face.
Sam nods and pulls out a new razor from the opened pack on the second shelf along with a can of shaving cream. “I’ll help you,” he says.
“I can do it.”
“Yeah? With your left hand? As if you won’t cut yourself fifty times in the first ten minutes.” Sam shakes his head, and he pulls a chair up to the edge of the sink. “Sit down.”
Instead of arguing, Dean simply plops down in the chair as Sam squirts a generous amount of shaving cream on his palms.
“You know what you’re doing?” Dean asks, knowing that Sam’s still too young to grow any facial hair of his own.
“Watched you and Dad enough. Can’t be hard.” He leans down and gently smears the cream on Dean’s face, covering his cheeks and chin, upper lip and below his ears. The cream is cool against Dean’s skin, and it warms slowly as Sam spreads it. Dean holds his breath, watching Sam’s concentrated face with a curious fascination.
Then, Sam pops the plastic protective cap off the razor and runs the blade underneath water from the faucet.
“Gentle, just...man, be careful,” Dean says.
“I know,” Sam whispers, like they’re sharing something that’s a secret. Something that Dad and Bobby shouldn’t know about.
He lifts the razor to Dean’s cheek and lightly, cuts through the shaving cream. Dean can hear the low scratch as the hairs are sliced away. When Sammy pulls the razor away, its head is covered in clouds of the cream. He taps it on the edge of the sink, turns on the faucet and lets the water wash away the rest. Then he repeats this. One stripe, two stripes.
The cheeks are the easiest for him. Big, open planes of skin. When he gets to Dean’s chin, how it dips in the middle, Sam pauses, considering.
“Do it in littler pieces,” Dean says. “Just to be careful, y’know.”
“Okay.” Sammy nods. Instead of long, unbroken strips, he moves the razor slower, removing smaller pieces of the cream.
When he finishes, he runs a washcloth under the water and wipes off Dean’s face, cleaning away any remaining residue. The whole time, Dean doesn’t move. He watches Sam’s perfection, his intent focus to make this absolutely right.
“Better?” Dean asks, twisting his head and pretending to model, as Sam rinses off the washcloth, the cream clouding the water that dribbles from it.
Sam turns to look at him, and he places both of his hands on Dean’s face, one hand on each cheek. “Feels better,” he remarks, grinning. “Like a baby’s bottom.”
“Maybe you should go to cosmetology school then.”
Rolling his eyes, Sam huffs, “Ha-ha, Dean. You’re so funny.”
Dean looks up at him, smiling. “I know it.”
- - - - -
This, it becomes their time. When they can close the bathroom door and be able to talk without worrying that Dad’s listening or Bobby’s peeking. Every Saturday morning while Dad and Bobby take their coffee to the kitchen and talk over opened newspapers, Sam and Dean go into the bathroom.
Sammy’s always so precise, so focused and sometimes, Dean thinks Sam forgets he’s there at all. Like Dean himself has slipped out of the room and Sam’s not seeing anything but the skin in front of him. It’s a different side of Sam here. One that doesn’t normally appear around the house unless he’s doing schoolwork with his nose in a book.
Now, so close, feeling Sammy’s warm breath on his skin, Dean can see how Sam’s tongue peeks out between his lips, eyebrows brought together in concentration. His t-shirt sags down when he bends forward, revealing the smooth, pale skin around his collarbone and upper chest. Not like Dean’s never seen Sam naked before. Has seen him naked lots of times. It’s just different, this, these little peeks of skin between layers of clothing. It’s just different, this, because they’re older now, and seeing your brother naked was supposed to be something that stopped after turning three years old.
“There, finished,” Sam says, pulling Dean out of thoughts he knows he’s better off not exploring.
Dean nods as Sam hands him a washcloth. “Thanks,” he says.
“Yeah, no problem.” Sam pauses, watches him as he wipes his face off, awkwardly with his left hand. “I still think it’s funny.”
“What’s funny?”
“Dean Winchester, mighty hunter, all bandaged up.”
Dean glowers and tries to whip the washcloth at Sam, who giggles and darts out of the way. Sam snickers as he leaves the bathroom. “So cute when you get angry,” he singsongs, stupid thirteen year old boy voice, imitating something off one of Dean’s TV shows.
Still. Dean’s not angry. Never could be with Sammy.
- - - - -
The morning Dad gets out of bed without the cane is the morning Dean knows they’re leaving the next day. Won’t matter one bit what Bobby says this time.
Dean tells Sam this during their Saturday morning together.
The razor in Sam’s hand freezes in mid-air, its top still glopped in cream.
“We’re leaving?” Sam says, wide-eyed.
“Well, me and Dad are leaving, I think. Not you. Dad’s up and walking. Limping, but walking.” Dean shrugs. “Don’t see why he’d stick around here much longer.”
“Well, what am I going to do? Should I stay here with Bobby so I can finish up the school year or do I have to transfer again?” He rinses off the razor blade, but in his frustration, he turns the faucet on too high and water splashes over the edge of the sink.
“What do you want to do?” Dean asks carefully.
“I don’t know. I don’t know!” Sam shouts. He breathes out, hard and edgy, fighting back his anger. “I just want to stay at school instead of transferring again. I just got here! But-” He stops instantly, whips away from Dean and washes the still clean razor again.
“But…?”
“But then I don’t get to see you because Dad’s going to take you with him while I’m stuck here, and I don’t want to have to choose between school and you!” He turns back to Dean, face flushed and eyes wet.
In that moment of Sam’s admission and Dean’s overwhelming need to comfort his younger brother, something in the air shifts and pushes Dean to his feet. He leans, bends near Sam, their faces coming closer, and the smell of the shaving cream is filling the room. Can’t see anything but Sammy, can’t smell anything but the shaving cream, can’t feel anything but wanting to make it better for Sam-
Suddenly Dad yells for them.
“Boys!”
Sam turns his head before Dean can get any closer and yells back, “Yeah, comin’!”
Dean freezes as realization chills him in what he almost did. He suddenly feels sick and sinks dumbly back to his chair.
“Dean,” Sam says, turning back to him.
“Just…go,” Dean replies, unable to meet Sam’s eyes.
“But Dean…”
“Go on. Dad’ll be wondering what’s keeping you. I’ll catch up in a minute.”
Sam sighs, torn, before Dad hollers again, and he exits the bathroom, leaving Dean alone in the chair. By himself, Dean lifts his free hand to his face, the skin damp and clean by Sam’s own steady hand. He touches his cheeks and chin before his fingers finally settle on his lips.
- - - - -
Later that night when they’re getting ready for bedtime, well after Dad’s told them both that they’re heading out tomorrow morning, Dean sits down on the bed and says to Sam, “Hey, about that thing earlier today…in the bathroom?”
Sammy looks up from where he’s tugging off his pants. He stands in front of Dean now in only his briefs and socks. His knees are still as knobby as they were when he was eight, but his legs are longer, much longer, and a semblance of muscle is beginning to form underneath his pale skin.
“What thing?” Sam asks, pulling off a sock and tossing it in the heap with his pants.
“Nev-never mind,” Dean replies with a shake of his head. If Sam doesn’t remember it, he isn’t going to talk about it. No need for them to have to talk about it anyway. It could have happened. It didn’t happen, though. There’s a difference.
“You mean when you tried to kiss me?” Sam says evenly.
Dean looks up quickly, head nearly snapping off his neck. He doesn’t know what to say to that. Instead, he opens and closes his mouth, startled, like a fish just yanked from the water.
Calmly, Sam pulls on his flannel pajama pants and an old t-shirt of Bobby’s before he climbs onto the bed, not saying a word until he kneels on top of the covers, looking down at Dean.
“That’s what you were going to do, right?” Sam says, eyes focused and clear. Not questioning, not afraid.
Dean raises his hand in a dismissive gesture then shrugs. “It was nothing.”
“It was something,” Sam shoots back. “You just…you just can’t do something like that…almost do something like that and pretend it didn’t happen.”
Dean wants to roll away from Sam, but to do that, he would have to roll onto his bad arm. Instead, he merely sinks lower in a deluded hope that the pillows and blankets will pull him under and allow him to escape.
Sammy looks away, hands on his thighs as he kneels there, and he swallows, his throat bobbing over the small Adam’s apple.
“Did you want to?” he asks after a long while, face still turned away.
“What?”
He looks back to Dean. “Did you want to?” he repeats.
The tension rises in the room, filling their silence, before Dean says, “Maybe. Yes. I don’t know.” He shakes his head, face scrunching in confusion and anxiety. His heart beats rapidly, almost leaving him breathless.
Sam exhales, says, “Well, I do know,” and he leans down, and he kisses Dean.
It’s soft, light, and fleeting. Nothing like the girls’ opened-mouth, sloppy kisses Dean’s experienced in the backseats of cars and below the bleachers. Nothing dirty or foul or even broken in it.
Sam pulls away as quickly as he bent down, and he says, “There. Lightning didn’t hit us. And it was what you wanted.”
“Was it what you wanted?” Dean asks as Sam slips beneath the covers, bumping against Dean as he wiggles and squirms, trying to get comfortable.
Sam rolls over to face Dean, and very simply, unashamed, he says, “Yes.”
- - - - -
Instead of making Sam choose between school and him, Dean makes the choice the next morning. He goes to Dad and says, “I need to stay here.”
Dad looks up from where he’s tying his boot. “What?” he says, the laces still wrapped around his fingers. “I thought you were coming with me. I know your arm’s not fully healed yet, but I thought…”
“Well. I think it’s best…for Sam if I stay behind. Bobby’s gone too much, and somebody’s got to take care of Sam. Do what’s best for him.”
Dad doesn’t speak for a long moment, thinking, and then-much to Dean’s surprise-he says, “Yeah, I think you’re right on this one.” He scratches the back of his head. “Probably good for someone to keep an eye on Sam. He is still pretty young, I guess.”
Dean nods, fights down the urge to throw himself at Dad and break into a ramble of gratitude. “I’ll let Sam know,” he says quietly.
He turns away to where Sam’s peeking around the corner of the bedroom, grinning from ear to ear. Dean breaks into a triumphant smile, hurrying towards Sam where they crash into each other and he wraps his one arm around Sam to pull them happily onto the bed.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Sam says, giggling as they sink into the old mattress. Their feet twist together as they fall and roll on the bed. “Thank you so much, Dean, thank you.”
Dean just laughs.
When both have quieted, Sam looks up at him from where he’s lying beneath Dean. He runs a finger over Dean’s face, tracing his eyebrows and line of his jaw.
“I want to try it again,” Sam says.
“Try what?” Dean asks, because for as much as he’ll always be four year older, Sam’s mind will always be four years ahead.
“What we did last night,” Sam says, moving his hand to Dean’s lips.
“Oh,” Dean breathes, soft and smiling.
“Yeah,” Sam replies. His eyes are mischievous but warm beneath his bangs. Dean watches those eyes grow bigger then close completely, as he leans in to kiss Sam over and over.
- - - - -
Summer
At the end of the school year, John comes to get them at Bobby’s. He thanks Bobby for watching them, and he asks Dean how his arm’s feeling. Bobby took the cast off weeks ago, and the bright pink ridges have now faded to glassy white streaks on his skin.
For Dad, Dean wiggles his fingers and says, “Feels almost as good as new.”
Dad nods and says, “Well, that’s great then.”
He drives Sam and Dean three states away where he can rent a house for dirt cheap and still be close enough to a few unsolved cases. The house doesn’t have air conditioning, and it’s here, during these summer months as the temperatures soar and the humidity swells, that Sam and Dean discover they can’t get enough of each other. Dad leaves for days at a time, trusting the both of them to be all right on their own. Dean gets a job down at the garage, just a few days a week, and Sammy becomes a newspaper boy, just a few mornings a week.
But the rest of the time, the days they both have off or in the evenings after Dean comes home from work, they’re all over each other, insatiable hunger tearing at their bellies and filling their heads.
They spend all day in bed one lazy Monday morning when they both have work off. They’re naked, too hot to sleep in clothes, and Sam rests his hand on the soft rise of Dean’s stomach, fingers resting, playing in the thatch of hair that goes lower to where Dean’s cock rests soft against his leg.
“Show me,” Sammy says.
“Show you what?”
“How you do it.” He lifts his hand, and his knuckles graze over the line of Dean’s dick, which twitches at the touch. “I wanna see.”
“Not like you haven’t before,” Dean replies, referring to all the late nights he’s jacked off with Sam in the next bed over, both knowing Sam was awake and listening.
“No. Not like this. Not in the light. I wanna see how you do it.” When Dean doesn’t move, Sam bends his head and kisses him on the ear. “Please.”
They spend the rest of the afternoon in bed, hands on their cocks, watching, but never touching the other, until the sheets are filthy with sweat and spunk, and Dean says, breathless and hot, “We should go. Get something done.”
But Sam smiles and says, “One more time. Let’s do it one more time.”
- - - - -
Then there’s the Wednesday when Dean comes home from the garage. He’s covered in grease and smells of gasoline. But as soon as he enters the house, Sammy leaps on him, wraps his legs around Dean’s back and twists his fingers in Dean’s hair to make Dean stagger, catching himself on the edge of the counter before they fall to the floor together.
“Missed me?” Dean says, laughing, as they kiss, open-mouthed and frantic. Sam tastes like the peanut-butter sandwich that’s half-eaten and now forgotten on the countertop.
“You have no idea,” Sammy says, long wiry limbs clutching Dean fiercely. He’s almost too tall to be clinging to Dean like this, but then he jerks his hips up against Dean’s belly and-oh. Right there. The hard bump of Sam’s cock pushing out, against his red cotton shorts.
“Oh, God, Sam,” Dean breathes, and he twists around to seat Sam on the countertop where he yanks down Sam’s shorts and wraps a fist around his cock. He holds Sam’s face in one hand and jacks him off with the other, leaving Sam coming and covered in black grease smudges.
- - - - -
Dean would like to think he has more self-control than Sam. After all, he’s seventeen-almost eighteen, an adult-and Sam’s younger, lacking any rational thinking to say no to this, to them.
Dean knows he’s full of shit in thinking he has any self-control when it comes to Sam the day he passes by Sammy in the bathroom, door slightly cracked.
Sam’s standing at the sink, squirting shaving cream on his palms and rubbing it on his cheeks. The smell of the cream, crisp and slightly perfumed, pulls Dean back to where this all started, and he throws the door open completely, dropping the mail he was holding right there in the hallway. The envelopes flutter to the ground, forgotten.
He shoves Sammy against the opposite wall, kissing him greedily as little, breathless moans escape from Sam’s mouth.
The smell of the shaving cream is overwhelming, filling Dean’s head and driving him mad. It’s smeared on his hands where he cups Sam’s cheeks, and he kisses his way down Sam’s neck and runs his hands up beneath Sam’s shirt to spread the cream as he goes.
Then he drops to his knees and undoes the button on Sam’s shorts. They’re never done this before, even if it’s something they’ve talked about in pinched, secretive whispers, and Dean looks up at Sam before going on.
Sam swallows as he nods, shaving cream smeared messily on his face, some dotting his eyebrows and hair.
Dean lowers the zipper and pulls down his shorts to reveal Sam’s cock, already rising pink and hard. He doesn’t waste any time. Doesn’t want to change his mind. Wants to give this to Sammy, so he wraps his hand around the base of Sam’s cock and his lips over the top.
Instantly, Sam jerks like he’s been electrified, whining high and needy as he slaps a hand against the wall behind him. “Dean…” he whimpers. His legs twitch, dancing uncontrolled.
Dean gradually slides his mouth down farther, taking as much of Sam as he can. It tastes different than he expected, stronger and stranger, but not bad. Just Sam.
When he pulls back, he sucks lightly as Sam whispers, “Dean, please, Dean, Dean, please, Dean, please…” The same two words rolling together as Dean licks his cock and tongues his slit, hand holding him steady at the base. His fingers reach back and cup Sam’s balls, drawn tight and hot between his legs.
Then Sam chokes and stiffens and says, “Dean, I-”
Dean nods. He knows and pulls off, pumping Sam’s spit-slicked cock with a tight fist.
“Yeah, c’mon, Sammy, c’mon,” he whispers, and then Sam shouts and spills over, grabbing Dean’s shoulder to stay upright. His come hits the front of Dean’s t-shirt, splatters and sticks.
When he’s finished, Dean stands and embraces Sam to kiss again. They’re both covered in shaving cream and spunk, but Dean lifts and carries Sammy back to bed. There, on pulled back covers and a faded fitted sheet, Sam twists and turns until he's on top of Dean, straddling his waist.
"Can I try?" he asks as his hands settle on the brass buckle of Dean's belt.
"Mmm, if you want," Dean says, although he's not sure exactly what Sam will be trying. Right now, he's happy to give Sam whatever he wants. Whatever will make Sam happy.
Sam undoes Dean's belt and button, pulls down his zipper and tugs at his pants. To help him, Dean arches his back to raise his hips so that Sam can pull his jeans to his knees. Then, Sam slinks down until he's kneeling over top Dean's ankles. He bends forward, grasping Dean's cock, and licks the top experimentally.
Dean inhales sharply and clutches the blankets with white knuckles to stop himself from shooting off the bed in shock.
"Like that?" Sam asks. He smiles slightly.
"Uh...yeah," Dean replies, as Sam gives another long lick up the shaft. He runs the tip of his tongue below the ridge of the head and then back down to the base again. After a few times of this, he looks up at Dean, who's breathing in quick, little gulps.
Sam looks as though he's about to say something, but he changes his mind and lowers his head to wrap his mouth around Dean's dick.
Shivering, Dean whispers, "Yeah, right there, yeah." He's not going to last much longer, watching Sam like this, feeling his mouth on him and the soft brush of Sam's hair when he bends his head down closer.
Sam bobs his head in an awkward fashion, and when he tries to take in all of Dean, he gags slightly before pulling back to the head where he runs his tongue over the top and sides.
"Sam…Sammy…Sam, pull off," Dean whispers, hoarse and fragile, as he shoves feebly at Sam's shoulder. Fortunately, Sam pulls back just as the heat rolls up and through Dean, and he comes with a strangled shout. Sam watches Dean's cock pulse and twitch, leaking where it rests on Dean's belly.
While Dean catches his breath, Sam smiles and wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand before flopping back down on top of Dean to make out until their stomachs growl as a reminder that it’s two hours past dinner.
- - - - -
They spend the summer exploring nearby caves and abandoned houses, misty marshes and thick forests. They spend the summer exploring each other in touches and kisses, gasps and groans.
One morning when it’s still dark outside and Dad’s bustling around in the kitchen, preparing for the next hunt, Sam rolls over in bed and says to Dean the words no teenage boy ever says: “I love you, you know.”
Right there, Dean knows that any illusions he ever had of going back and pretending this never happened are gone forever.
He couldn’t be happier.
- - - - -
Autumn
On the weekends that Sam doesn’t have too much homework or any extracurricular activities to grumble over, Dad drags him along on hunts. This weekend is one of those where Dad admitted to needing an extra pair of eyes. They enter the forest as the sun sets, turning the trees from green to black with shadows, and Dad says, “I’m taking Sam with me. Dean, you head north and see if you can find that house.”
“Sir?” Dean asks, confused. Dad’s never asked them to separate before.
“We’ve got to find the house. The one that I showed you in that book at the diner? It’s where this thing lives. It’ll be faster if we split up. If you find the house, don’t go inside. We’ll meet back at the car in an hour with updates, okay?”
Dean nods, looking to Sam instead of Dad. Sam appears uncomfortable, most likely not wanting to be left alone with Dad, who could launch into a lecture of the importance of hunting versus schoolwork at any point. But, this is no time to argue with Dad. This is time to get to work.
Alone, gun in hand, Dean treks through the part of the forest he’s been assigned. He finds no house. Nothing even close, and he sighs and turns back to go to the car. He hopes that Dad and Sammy had more luck.
- - - - -
He slides onto the hood of the car and pulls his knees up to his chest. The leaves swirl around him, tapping on the metal noisily. The sun has almost completely set, darkening the world, and Dean sighs and pulls back the sleeve of his coat to look at his watch, reading that it’s been over half an hour since Dad said he’d be back.
Dean remembers last time he waited for Dad like this. Remembers that he almost waited too long. This time, though, Sammy is with Dad. If Dad’s hurt, Sam could be in trouble.
Without thinking further, he climbs off the car and runs back into the forest, his flashlight a beam of light slicing its way through the murky black of the trees.
- - - - -
He can’t see Dad when he bursts into the room, gun drawn and Sam screaming. He can see Sam, though, see him running away with blood wetting his back as the shadow monster rips into him again.
“Hey!” Dean bellows. The monster pivots in the air, and its glowing eyes fix on Dean. It lets out a pleased warble and moves closer. “Yeah, that’s right,” Dean sneers, until he can smell the rotting, rank breath of this bitch, and then he shoots. The creature screams, its shadowed form scattering into infinite particles. It’s not dead, just gone and scared away, but that’s good enough for Dean right now. He runs over to Sam, who’s standing, leaning against the wall, breathing hard.
“How’re you?” Dean asks, reaching out for Sam, who immediately collapses into him.
Sam nods jerkily, once, twice, and Dean knows he’s hurting even if he won’t admit it. He wraps an arm around Sam’s waist, mindful of the marks the creature left on his back. “C’mon, I’ll get you to the car.”
“Dad,” Sam says, stopping as they make their way down the stairs.
“Where’s he at?”
“Basement, I think. Got locked down there when we entered. Said he wasn’t going to wait for you…could, could take care of it on his own.”
“Shit. Okay. I’ll get him in a minute. Need to get you out of here, though, before it comes back, smelling your blood.”
They move carefully, slowly, back to the car as Sam hisses and winces all the way.
“Ssh, ssh,” Dean says, leaning over and pressing his face in Sam’s hair as they walk. “It’ll be over soon. Just hang in there, Sammy. Just hang on.”
At the car, Dean helps Sammy into the backseat and lays a blanket over him. “I’ll be right back,” Dean tells him. “Just gotta get Dad.”
Sam nods, burying his face into the soft material of the blanket and curling his legs up to keep warm. His eyes are pinched shut against the pain in a feeling that Dean remembers all too well.
Hating to leave Sam behind, Dean has to force himself to return to the house. He finds Dad in the basement as Sam had said, behind a set of latched doors. When Dean opens the last one, Dad’s more angry and dusty than anything, and he gruffly snatches the gun that Dean offers him.
“Where’s Sam?” Dad snaps, wiping cobwebs from his face.
“In the car. His back’s really bad. Tore up.”
“All right, I’m going after it. Show it who it messed with.”
“We should get back to the motel…”
“In a minute, Dean, let me take care of this now.”
“Dad!”
“What?!” Dad growls, spinning around.
“Dad, we need to take care of Sam first. Get him back to the motel. It’s really bad, his back. He needs to be taken care of first…Please.”
Dad stiffens, and Dean braces himself for a verbal assault, but instead Dad grits out, “Fine. Let’s go then.” He may not be happy about leaving, but he’s leaving all the same, which is all that matters right now to Dean.
- - - - -
At the motel, Dad opens up the first aid kit and rests it on the nightstand while Dean helps Sam onto the bed. Resting Sam on his side so that his back is near the edge of the bed, Dean has to be careful not to touch the wounds when he moves him on the mattress. Sam groans, biting down not to scream, and his face is pale, shiny with sweat.
“Is he going to be okay?” Dean asks as Dad cuts open Sam’s shirt, moving it away from the lacerations. Outside, through the window, Dean can see snow beginning. Big, fat flakes that will melt as soon as they hit the ground, leaving no trace that they existed at all. Winter, though, is on its way.
“Yeah. He’ll be fine. Just need to get these bandaged up and cleaned and then he can rest.”
While Dad cleans away the blood in gentle strokes of a warm washcloth, Dean climbs onto the bed, ignoring his muddy boots and dirty coat, and he lies on his side to face Sam.
“Hi,” he whispers.
“Hi,” Sam says back. His eyes are closed against the pain, but he still manages a small smile.
Dean reaches for him, reaches for Sam’s hands and pulls them to his chest, forming a tight ball of their gathered fists.
“Remember what I used to tell you?”
“As if I could forget,” Sam says softly. There might be a laugh in there, hidden beneath his words, but Dean can’t be sure.
Dean leans in and kisses Sam on the forehead, knowing Dad will be none the wiser for it. He runs his fingers through Sam’s hair. “Hold on, Sammy,” he whispers, his nose brushing against Sam’s own. “Hold on if it hurts and never let go.”
Sam sighs. “Never, Dean...never.”
End