original by maharetr
Remix Title: Shines When
Remix Author: sevenfists
Original Story: Christo
Original Author: maharetr
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Sam/Dean
Summary: He could speak it to change things.
Warnings: none
There was a book: Sam remembers that-a hard-bound green book, stamped with gold letters on the cover, half of the paint flaked off. The pages smelled like Bobby's house, musty and ripe with the odor of sage. Sam remembers holding it in his hands, feeling the weight of it, and the way the cover was fraying at the bottom, the soft cloth of it against his thumb.
They were with Bobby that week, Dad somewhere up in southern Canada, hunting banshees. Sam was maybe seven or eight. Sam was still young enough that he took all his cues from Dean, and Dean sat there and listened, repeating words when Bobby asked him to; and so Sam listened too, eating frozen blueberries right out of the bag.
They started with Virgil, stumbling over the pronunciations, Bobby correcting them in his gruff Bobby way, not unkind but not coddling them either.
"Teach us some cuss words," Dean said the third day, when the novelty had worn off.
Bobby snorted. "Don't think you're old enough for that yet."
"I can drive the car," Dean said, scowling. "And kill a sliphorn all by myself."
"All that means is that your daddy's a damn fool," Bobby said, but they got it out of him eventually.
At Pastor Jim's the next week, they learned the Lord's Prayer, and chased each other around the house with holy water, shouting curses and benedictions, while Pastor Jim patiently tried to get them to stop sliding across the hardwood floors. They were still children back then, in every way that counted, and it hurts Sam to remember how wide-eyed and giddy Dean was, quoting Catullus to make Pastor Jim laugh in spite of himself.
That was how Sam learned Latin: as something practical, not a dead language, not vocabulary to be memorized. It was fluid, useful. He could speak it to change things, and he wielded it like a favorite weapon, one that fit perfectly in his hand.
He signed up for Latin his freshman year at Stanford, but dropped the course after two weeks, fed up with memorizing declensions. He took Spanish instead.
***
Sam remembers the first time Dean kissed him-he was sixteen, and they were in the back seat of the car, sleepy after driving all night to wherever Dad was. Sam can't recall the details, but he can still feel the hot splay of Dean's hand across his lower back, Dean's chapped lips hesitant and searching, Dean's tongue slick and unexpected, sliding into Sam's mouth.
It wasn't something he wanted until that very moment, but afterward, it was all he could think about: Dean's aftershave, the dried sweat on his throat, the way he hummed low and tilted his hips into Sam's. Sam had kissed three girls, and fucked one of them in the basement of her childhood home, but none of them could compare to Dean. It shocked Sam stupid, and he came in Dean's hand, head thrown back and gasping.
"Gotta work on that stamina," Dean mumbled, mouth against Sam's jaw.
"Shut up," Sam said. His fingers were still caught in Dean's t-shirt, clutching.
"You plannin' to reciprocate, Sammy?" Dean asked, and Sam flushed, feeling clumsy and stupid, but he dropped his hands to Dean's belt buckle, the metal cool against his skin.
They never talked about it, but it lasted until Sam left for Stanford. He remembers the bubbling, furtive glee it gave him to sneak into Dean's bed late at night, both of them biting sheets and shoulders to stay quiet, and Dean cussing in Latin under his breath, almost inaudible clicks of his tongue and throat while he arched into Sam's touch. Sam could never really hear what he was saying, but he knew the shape of Dean's mouth. He was a smart guy. He could deduce.
***
Getting back into the life-that was how Sam thought about it then, like it was some type of organized crime-was easier than he thought it would be, but his Latin was rusty after going years without saying much more than "habeas corpus." The first exorcism they did, his second month on the road with Dean, he had to read it right out of the book, stumbling over words and generally making a huge mess out of the whole thing.
"Dude," Dean said afterward, wiping dirt and rock salt dust off his face.
"Shut up, I know," Sam said.
It came back to him slowly. He practiced in the car, during those long, boring stretches of state highway with nothing to look at but corn fields and cattle fencing. He'd ignore Dean's grimaces and recite the Lord's Prayer, various psalms, parts of the Aeneid. In Des Moines, he found a battered copy of the Metamorphoses, and starting reading it to Dean, pausing every fourth or fifth word to consult his pocket dictionary.
"Read the part about the nymph again," Dean said, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel.
Sam rolled his eyes. "You're such a pervert."
"Whatever, just read it," Dean said, and Sam did.
Sometimes he thought about Bobby's book, the green one, its pages marked with the words of the first exorcism ritual Sam ever learned, and the one that still comes easiest to his tongue. He remembers Dean holding that book, using his thumbnail to pick at the worn lettering. In those first terrible months, still filled with grief for Jess, Sam wished he had that book with him, like it would somehow be easier to re-learn his old life if he had something familiar to guide him through it.
***
They started fucking again the winter after Dad died. Maybe it was inevitable, as messed-up and heartbroken as Dean was, and as stricken as Sam was, realizing that there was no way out and that maybe he didn't want one. Sam can't remember how it happened; it was just one of those things, a gravitational slide. He felt like an animal coming blindly back to its home, the place it knew best. He knew Dean best.
In March, they holed up for a few days, Sam run ragged and Dean fighting off a cold that he wouldn't admit to having. They ate a lot of Kraft macaroni and cheese and watched daytime soap operas, and fucked nonstop.
What Sam loved best was the afterglow, Dean sprawled on the mattress all sweaty and pliant, a dopey grin on his face. It was like being sixteen again, except without all the sneaking around.
"Ecce tu pulcher es dilecte mi et decorus," Sam said, dredging up his memory of the words. "Lectulus noster floridus." Our bed is flourishing.
Dean flushed and turned onto his side, facing away from Sam. "Stop it."
Sam touched Dean's back, each fragile knob of vertebra. "I don't. Um." He remembers how fragile Dean's bones felt beneath his skin, like they were decalcifying and might crumble beneath Sam's fingers.
"Turn off the light," Dean said, and when Sam didn't, he sat up and leaned over to yank the chain. Sam blinked against the sudden dark, nothing in the room discernible, and then he felt Dean's hand against his face, Dean's mouth against his own.
In the morning, they had eggs and toast at the truck stop diner, bacon for Dean. Dean drank his coffee black and wouldn't meet Sam's eyes, but their boots knocked together through the whole meal. Sam bit down on his fork, sucking on the metal to hide his smile.
Two days later, Sam got possessed in Texas, and all the Latin in the world couldn't help him after that-only the hot brand of Bobby's fire poker searing across his forearm, the stench of boiled flesh clinging to the back of his throat for weeks.
***
There was a book: Sam remembers that, remembers the words printed on the pages, exorcism rites, protection against evil. He thought about it constantly in the days after Bobby ripped the devil out of him, wondering if there was something in there that could seal him like a box and keep him safe from every godforsaken thing that wanted to claw its way inside him.
It was too late for wondering, though; he and Dean were five hundred miles away by then, the book dusty and undisturbed on one of Bobby's shelves. All Sam had was his brother and his own fear.
Dean stopped at a Wal-mart in Cheyenne that evening and bought a mixing bowl and a dish sponge, clomping through the aisles while Sam trailed numbly after him, hands in his pockets. The fluorescent lights were too much for him, and the white floor tile, and all the people staring at him in the checkout line, like they knew exactly what he'd done.
In the motel room later, Dean stripped them both and bathed Sam with holy water, the sponge rough and cold against Sam's skin. He shivered, cupping his nuts with both hands. "It's cold," he said.
"I know," Dean said, hand curled around Sam's ankle, passing the sponge over the bottom of Sam's foot. "You're doin' me next, so I guess that'll be your chance for revenge."
"I'm not-I don't want revenge, Dean," Sam said.
"Good, 'cause you're the one who fuckin' shot me," Dean said. He squeezed out the sponge and stood up, his bad arm held close to his body. "Your turn, sparky," he said, and handed the sponge to Sam.
"Dean," Sam said, stricken.
"It wasn't your fault," Dean said. "Jesus Christ. Spare me your guilt complex."
"I killed that guy," Sam said. He dipped the sponge in the mixing bowl and dragged it across Dean's shoulderblades, careful to avoid the bandage. "And I shot you. And I almost-Jo-"
"It wasn't you," Dean said. "Now quit talkin' about it."
Sam didn't reply. He washed Dean in silence, every familiar, freckled inch of his body, both of them naked in the cold motel room. He cupped a hand around Dean's hip, the other hand scrubbing the sponge up Dean's belly. Outside, a car engine turned on. Sam murmured blessings against the back of Dean's neck, breathing in the scent of Dean's hair.
They slept that night sprawled in the uncomfortable bed, Dean's hand on Sam's shoulder their only point of contact. Sam shifted under the sheets, his feet moving restlessly against the mattress. He closed his eyes, opened them, rolled over.
"Settle down," Dean mumbled. He turned his head and looked at Sam, the lines of his face softened by the dim light from the streetlamp outside. "You're gonna be okay, Sammy."
"Domine, exaudi vocem meam," Sam said.
"Stop it," Dean said. "Go to sleep."
"Okay," Sam said. He sighed and pressed his face into the pillow. Dean was warm beside him. It didn't take him long to fall asleep, after that. Dean said that Sam would be okay, and Sam, despite everything, believed him.
Remix Author: sevenfists
Original Story: Christo
Original Author: maharetr
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Sam/Dean
Summary: He could speak it to change things.
Warnings: none
There was a book: Sam remembers that-a hard-bound green book, stamped with gold letters on the cover, half of the paint flaked off. The pages smelled like Bobby's house, musty and ripe with the odor of sage. Sam remembers holding it in his hands, feeling the weight of it, and the way the cover was fraying at the bottom, the soft cloth of it against his thumb.
They were with Bobby that week, Dad somewhere up in southern Canada, hunting banshees. Sam was maybe seven or eight. Sam was still young enough that he took all his cues from Dean, and Dean sat there and listened, repeating words when Bobby asked him to; and so Sam listened too, eating frozen blueberries right out of the bag.
They started with Virgil, stumbling over the pronunciations, Bobby correcting them in his gruff Bobby way, not unkind but not coddling them either.
"Teach us some cuss words," Dean said the third day, when the novelty had worn off.
Bobby snorted. "Don't think you're old enough for that yet."
"I can drive the car," Dean said, scowling. "And kill a sliphorn all by myself."
"All that means is that your daddy's a damn fool," Bobby said, but they got it out of him eventually.
At Pastor Jim's the next week, they learned the Lord's Prayer, and chased each other around the house with holy water, shouting curses and benedictions, while Pastor Jim patiently tried to get them to stop sliding across the hardwood floors. They were still children back then, in every way that counted, and it hurts Sam to remember how wide-eyed and giddy Dean was, quoting Catullus to make Pastor Jim laugh in spite of himself.
That was how Sam learned Latin: as something practical, not a dead language, not vocabulary to be memorized. It was fluid, useful. He could speak it to change things, and he wielded it like a favorite weapon, one that fit perfectly in his hand.
He signed up for Latin his freshman year at Stanford, but dropped the course after two weeks, fed up with memorizing declensions. He took Spanish instead.
***
Sam remembers the first time Dean kissed him-he was sixteen, and they were in the back seat of the car, sleepy after driving all night to wherever Dad was. Sam can't recall the details, but he can still feel the hot splay of Dean's hand across his lower back, Dean's chapped lips hesitant and searching, Dean's tongue slick and unexpected, sliding into Sam's mouth.
It wasn't something he wanted until that very moment, but afterward, it was all he could think about: Dean's aftershave, the dried sweat on his throat, the way he hummed low and tilted his hips into Sam's. Sam had kissed three girls, and fucked one of them in the basement of her childhood home, but none of them could compare to Dean. It shocked Sam stupid, and he came in Dean's hand, head thrown back and gasping.
"Gotta work on that stamina," Dean mumbled, mouth against Sam's jaw.
"Shut up," Sam said. His fingers were still caught in Dean's t-shirt, clutching.
"You plannin' to reciprocate, Sammy?" Dean asked, and Sam flushed, feeling clumsy and stupid, but he dropped his hands to Dean's belt buckle, the metal cool against his skin.
They never talked about it, but it lasted until Sam left for Stanford. He remembers the bubbling, furtive glee it gave him to sneak into Dean's bed late at night, both of them biting sheets and shoulders to stay quiet, and Dean cussing in Latin under his breath, almost inaudible clicks of his tongue and throat while he arched into Sam's touch. Sam could never really hear what he was saying, but he knew the shape of Dean's mouth. He was a smart guy. He could deduce.
***
Getting back into the life-that was how Sam thought about it then, like it was some type of organized crime-was easier than he thought it would be, but his Latin was rusty after going years without saying much more than "habeas corpus." The first exorcism they did, his second month on the road with Dean, he had to read it right out of the book, stumbling over words and generally making a huge mess out of the whole thing.
"Dude," Dean said afterward, wiping dirt and rock salt dust off his face.
"Shut up, I know," Sam said.
It came back to him slowly. He practiced in the car, during those long, boring stretches of state highway with nothing to look at but corn fields and cattle fencing. He'd ignore Dean's grimaces and recite the Lord's Prayer, various psalms, parts of the Aeneid. In Des Moines, he found a battered copy of the Metamorphoses, and starting reading it to Dean, pausing every fourth or fifth word to consult his pocket dictionary.
"Read the part about the nymph again," Dean said, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel.
Sam rolled his eyes. "You're such a pervert."
"Whatever, just read it," Dean said, and Sam did.
Sometimes he thought about Bobby's book, the green one, its pages marked with the words of the first exorcism ritual Sam ever learned, and the one that still comes easiest to his tongue. He remembers Dean holding that book, using his thumbnail to pick at the worn lettering. In those first terrible months, still filled with grief for Jess, Sam wished he had that book with him, like it would somehow be easier to re-learn his old life if he had something familiar to guide him through it.
***
They started fucking again the winter after Dad died. Maybe it was inevitable, as messed-up and heartbroken as Dean was, and as stricken as Sam was, realizing that there was no way out and that maybe he didn't want one. Sam can't remember how it happened; it was just one of those things, a gravitational slide. He felt like an animal coming blindly back to its home, the place it knew best. He knew Dean best.
In March, they holed up for a few days, Sam run ragged and Dean fighting off a cold that he wouldn't admit to having. They ate a lot of Kraft macaroni and cheese and watched daytime soap operas, and fucked nonstop.
What Sam loved best was the afterglow, Dean sprawled on the mattress all sweaty and pliant, a dopey grin on his face. It was like being sixteen again, except without all the sneaking around.
"Ecce tu pulcher es dilecte mi et decorus," Sam said, dredging up his memory of the words. "Lectulus noster floridus." Our bed is flourishing.
Dean flushed and turned onto his side, facing away from Sam. "Stop it."
Sam touched Dean's back, each fragile knob of vertebra. "I don't. Um." He remembers how fragile Dean's bones felt beneath his skin, like they were decalcifying and might crumble beneath Sam's fingers.
"Turn off the light," Dean said, and when Sam didn't, he sat up and leaned over to yank the chain. Sam blinked against the sudden dark, nothing in the room discernible, and then he felt Dean's hand against his face, Dean's mouth against his own.
In the morning, they had eggs and toast at the truck stop diner, bacon for Dean. Dean drank his coffee black and wouldn't meet Sam's eyes, but their boots knocked together through the whole meal. Sam bit down on his fork, sucking on the metal to hide his smile.
Two days later, Sam got possessed in Texas, and all the Latin in the world couldn't help him after that-only the hot brand of Bobby's fire poker searing across his forearm, the stench of boiled flesh clinging to the back of his throat for weeks.
***
There was a book: Sam remembers that, remembers the words printed on the pages, exorcism rites, protection against evil. He thought about it constantly in the days after Bobby ripped the devil out of him, wondering if there was something in there that could seal him like a box and keep him safe from every godforsaken thing that wanted to claw its way inside him.
It was too late for wondering, though; he and Dean were five hundred miles away by then, the book dusty and undisturbed on one of Bobby's shelves. All Sam had was his brother and his own fear.
Dean stopped at a Wal-mart in Cheyenne that evening and bought a mixing bowl and a dish sponge, clomping through the aisles while Sam trailed numbly after him, hands in his pockets. The fluorescent lights were too much for him, and the white floor tile, and all the people staring at him in the checkout line, like they knew exactly what he'd done.
In the motel room later, Dean stripped them both and bathed Sam with holy water, the sponge rough and cold against Sam's skin. He shivered, cupping his nuts with both hands. "It's cold," he said.
"I know," Dean said, hand curled around Sam's ankle, passing the sponge over the bottom of Sam's foot. "You're doin' me next, so I guess that'll be your chance for revenge."
"I'm not-I don't want revenge, Dean," Sam said.
"Good, 'cause you're the one who fuckin' shot me," Dean said. He squeezed out the sponge and stood up, his bad arm held close to his body. "Your turn, sparky," he said, and handed the sponge to Sam.
"Dean," Sam said, stricken.
"It wasn't your fault," Dean said. "Jesus Christ. Spare me your guilt complex."
"I killed that guy," Sam said. He dipped the sponge in the mixing bowl and dragged it across Dean's shoulderblades, careful to avoid the bandage. "And I shot you. And I almost-Jo-"
"It wasn't you," Dean said. "Now quit talkin' about it."
Sam didn't reply. He washed Dean in silence, every familiar, freckled inch of his body, both of them naked in the cold motel room. He cupped a hand around Dean's hip, the other hand scrubbing the sponge up Dean's belly. Outside, a car engine turned on. Sam murmured blessings against the back of Dean's neck, breathing in the scent of Dean's hair.
They slept that night sprawled in the uncomfortable bed, Dean's hand on Sam's shoulder their only point of contact. Sam shifted under the sheets, his feet moving restlessly against the mattress. He closed his eyes, opened them, rolled over.
"Settle down," Dean mumbled. He turned his head and looked at Sam, the lines of his face softened by the dim light from the streetlamp outside. "You're gonna be okay, Sammy."
"Domine, exaudi vocem meam," Sam said.
"Stop it," Dean said. "Go to sleep."
"Okay," Sam said. He sighed and pressed his face into the pillow. Dean was warm beside him. It didn't take him long to fall asleep, after that. Dean said that Sam would be okay, and Sam, despite everything, believed him.