Fic: Mercy and Forbearance
or, Four Times the Winchesters Kept their Vows, and One Time They Didn't
Fandom: SPN, Dean/Sam
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Nope.
Notes: A whack of porn and almost-porn, unfortunately a few days late for onthecontrary's birthday. Still, I promised AND delivered! Just, late. Thanks go to delighter who came up with enough USTy ideas to last through twenty times, when my brain went on hiatus; and to stephanometra who made this 80x better with her beta work, Catholic and otherwise.
Also see: Vocation and Our Lady of Lies and Wide Rivers.
ONE
At night, rather than sleep, Sam stands vigils in the south chapel. He can pray longer than anyone else, and therefore better than anyone else, because each night is pretty much a contest between him and Dean. Right and wrong. Who's righter, who's wronger. As manifested in: who can show up to bed later. Sam from the pews or Dean from the bar.
Sam assumes it's the bar, anyway. He doesn't really know where Dean goes after vespers. No one ever asks, because no one's ever snuck out of the Seminary, before. But then, no one else has been trapped here for the past six years like princesses in a witch's tower. And why suspect Dean, who learns the lessons he likes better than well, and the ones he doesn't like to passing fair quality, bolstered by Sam - Sam, who learns everything.
Sometimes, without even realizing it, Sam prays practically into lauds. Somewhere in the east the sun rises. The saints in their stained glass light up with pinprick clarity, high above. Salve Regina runs over Sam's tongue and down into his lungs, a river of warmth. Sometimes he thinks he could eat Latin rather than oatmeal, fill himself with purple-orange light and the tidal rhythm of the mysteries. He has his faith memorized, and he can chant it like a spell. He uses it to summon Dean home.
But this morning he's alone under the cross and the vault when the acolytes start stirring behind the pulpit, blessing their vestments and preparing for the morning office. Sam's mouth tastes like a dead rat. His hair is flat on his head and he's dressed for bed, because normally that's where he ends up, by two or three in the morning.
But now it's five, and on soft feet the pre-theology students are filing in. Sam is in the front row, facing a bank of unlit tapers, and he can't leave. They're all older than him, early twenties, filled with the heat and smugness of their vocation, and he's fourteen, basically an urchin with a big mouth who shows up in their seminars and always signs up for extra devotions. They'd see him cutting out and tell the Dean of Students, probably, they'd be so concerned for his soul.
So Sam coils his rosary round his wrist, and mashes the heel of his hand into his eyeball. He clamps his jaw over a threatening yawn.
Dean comes in during the Benedictus, and takes a place beside Sam in the front. He is docile, but he smells like mold and sugar, for all that he's showered and put on a fresh shirt. Short-sleeved, blue, collared tight around the neck. He's still drunk. Sam knows because he can actually hear Dean mumbling Pater Noster for once, not just miming or mouthing it.
Sam watches him as their lips move, and watches him when he should be watching the Rector, or at least the cross. Dean is half-asleep, voice rough over the syllables. Sam wishes they could both just sleep.
But he already knows they'll have to skip breakfast. They get up, and he hovers while Dean slouches down the aisle to the chapel doors. He prays a Memorare, or maybe a third of it, that Dean will not stumble. Or laugh sudden and loud. Or throw up. Sam can't remember the last time he saw a drunk person, but he knows how they're supposed to act. He fears for Dean, he fears so much that when finally, they smilingly pass through the gates and out of purgatory, he pushes him aside and into the garden with force, hissing: “You can't come here like this. What are you doing?”
Dean smiles, and leans against the brick wall that shields them from view. It's still early enough that the leaves seem bluer than green and the wolf willow drenches everything with the smell of eager spring.
Sam follows him, closer, aware that his fear is speaking through his own mouth. Fear of reprimand, mostly, but also fear of consequence. Dean would be kicked out instantly. Pastor Jim wouldn't have a say, and neither would Sam, no matter how many vigils he stood. “Is this what you do every night? Is this honestly better than sleeping, or studying? How late were you out? Have you even slept?”
Dean rolls his head against the wall, a slow shake. “None of your business. How late were you praying?”
“Until about half a minute before they started the Invitatory,” Sam is bitter, but proud. For every lukewarm beer, a decade of Ave Maria.
Dean's smile melts into a laugh, curling out of him as he lolls his head back against the brick. He closes his eyes against the filtered sun. “For me, I bet. You were using your righteous power to advocate for my poor soul.”
“You could use it,” Sam hisses, sidling closer and grasping Dean's wrist, pincering him back to wide-eyed consciousness.
Dean's lips don't lose their curl. “Not as much as some people out there.”
“I don't care about some people, I care about you.”
“That's not very Christian of you, Sammy.”
Sam clenches his grip on Dean's forearms to claws, ripping his nails into skin, pinning Dean's recoiling frame with his own. “If they even suspect. They will find out about this. You can't go out there anymore. Alright? You have to stay here at night.”
Dean is eighteen, but Sam is almost his size, and zealous where Dean is drained. “Alright?” he asks again, cementing Dean's acquiescence with his eyes. Dean nods.
“I won't even ask you,” Sam starts and stops. Still pressing his advantage. Still face-to-face and smelling the sugar, the liquor. Pray for forgiveness he almost said. Almost forgot who he was talking to, the method actor himself, the complete and utter fake. Vocation declared. A few short years from the collar. Dean Winchester, who invited three high school girls from the Mater Dei Society up to the dormitory to play spin the bottle, and didn't get caught. Dean will have broken his vows a hundred times over before he takes them, Sam knows that. And who knows what after.
“You'll do it for me anyway,” Dean casts his lazy glance up. “Always looking out for me.”
Sam looks out for Dean, because he fears for his soul. Fears for his own. He fears even Dean's gaze right now, and the heat in it. There are codes that jump across, eye to eye, synapse to synapse. There is a flush under his hands and a burn in his chest that he knows is hellfire.
“Yeah,” says Sam, releasing him and pulling back.
Dean's hand stutters as he raises it, and Sam feels it brush against his hip, through the linen shirt and thin cotton trousers. He looks at the hand, and Dean looks at it. Wires snap in Sam's chest, sparking.
And like before, Sam wishes for sleep, the drowsy, dead sleep of children. Dean drops his hand, to rub at his raw elbows and the half-moon marks where Sam's fingernails bit in.
From then on, they both do their nightly devotions in the matchstick bunk beds of their dorm. They rise for lauds and eat their oatmeal together.
TWO
Three days into the new year, someone drops a dump of snow on Blue Earth that could probably rival Lake Superior for depth and breadth. The entire town shuts down - like climbing out of the holiday torpor was hard enough already - and now no one just feels like bothering going to work, what with their cars drowned in snow banks and the roads knee-deep and rising.
Dean spends the morning reading month-old copies of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, which he snags from the tinder box on his second listless round of the house. The snow pours like rain, big and fast and wiping out all the color in the bare hedge and smothered yard. The ground and the sky are the exact same shade of empty.
Sam's been gone since before he got up. And he kind of worries, but more is just relieved that he doesn't have to deal with the New Year vigor. All projects and missions. Budgets. Plans. Fixing stuff. Cleaning. Sam considers the last two Dean's responsibility. Sam is probably sitting at his desk in the church basement right now, wearing his dumb visor, making a list of things Dean should clean.
Dean gets up from his place by the pot-bellied stove, pausing to shove his ancient sports section into the flames, and goes to the kitchen. He makes bacon and French toast, and leaves all the dirty dishes on the counter. He eats his meal, smirking at them. He leaves his plate on the table and does another circuit of the bungalow, pausing to look at the cross-stitched psalms framed in the hall, the little tokens of appreciation crafted and gifted by parishioners. They have doilies from the sixties sitting on the battered end tables, home-made curtains in mustard yellow and avocado green.
Dean haunts the little bungalow for as long as he can stand it. Finally, he goes to the hall closet and drags out his down jacket, buttons it up to his throat and pulls down his shirtsleeves from where they hitched at his elbows. He puts on his hat. But before he puts on his boots he drags himself back into the kitchen, and cleans up the dishes.
Sam is in the basement. Dean enters the hall and can see the yellow light coming up the stairs. It's inviting against the dim shadows of the pews, an echo of the hundred parishioners that packed the house over the Christmas celebrations. Curly-haired kids and strained smiles from parents, all the old ladies absolutely gabbling over all the singing and baking and handing out the hampers and the buffets at the community center.
Never mind how he and Sam and Jim spend the remainder of their holidays. Dean doesn't often dwell on Mom or Dad - except as impetus for extra knife-polishing or leaving without Jim's permission to hunt down the odd bogeyman - but watching all the faithful file out of the church on Christmas Day, he felt envy. For closeness and family. For comfort.
Dean slips down the stairs. There's a tiny rise in temperature as he cracks the door to Sam's office. Boy has his sock feet perched against a yellow space heater, and is negotiating with the antique computer's keyboard in his mittens. He looks up, hair in his eyes, his smile half a frown.
“You can't freeze out the devil, Sammy,” Dean says, entering. “But good on ya for trying.”
Sam twists his mouth, “Thanks. Actually, I'm making next year's lector schedule.”
Dean purses his lips as he clears a spot in Sam's paperwork for the silver thermos he carried in. “Yeah, 'cause the current one expires in June,” he says. “Need to get on that quick.”
Sam ignores that, eyes following the steam rising out of the open mouth of the thermos. “What'd you bring?”
“Hot chocolate,” says Dean, producing Sam's mug out of his coat and pouring his share. “Little did I know you'd be experimenting in cryogenics down here.”
Sam sips, mittens wrapped round the mug. His nose is pink, Dean notices. He pulls up a chair and Sam makes room by the space heater.
“You planning on turning the heat back on anytime soon?” Dean asks.
“Mass tomorrow,” says Sam. “But not much. I figure we get enough people in here, they'll warm it up with body heat.”
Dean smirks a little, and leans back to sip from the thermos. He added some Bailey's, back at the house. But Sam doesn't notice, unable to recognize the taste, mistaking the alcohol's warmth for well, warmth.
There's a quietness down here that Dean associates with Sam and his studies and his diligence. It's like they can almost hear the snow falling outside. The room, with its exposed pipes and drywall, is dark except for the yellow desk lamp and the faded glow of the monitor. Sam swallows his share of the hot chocolate quickly, and Dean pours him some more.
“You ever think about Mom and Dad?” Sam asks, and his voice isn't low, but kind of strained, embarrassed.
Dean looks over at lowered lashes, pressed lips. Sam isn't asking because he thinks about Mom and Dad, but because he knows Dean does. Sam's father is God, Sam's children are the people of Blue Earth. Sam is a man undivided in his loyalties, Dean knows. He never decided whether to envy or despise that.
“Yep,” says Dean.
“I was thinking,” says Sam, “that maybe we could ask Pastor Jim to say a Mass for them next week. So we could remember them.”
“You could ask him,” Dean hears his voice, how it's colder and sharper than the air, practically dripping icicles. He can't help it. He feels pitied. Every prayer he's ever meant has included his mother's name. Holy Mary, pray for us. Mother of Divine Grace, Mother most pure, Mother inviolate. He is not in Sam's position, where it is easy to forget that a demon killed her, and a demon might have her soul. In that regard, Sam's innocence is a smack in the face, a waft of smoke that stinks of smug privilege. The younger son that takes and takes and takes, always remembering to smile in gratitude.
Sam subsides, shrinks into his chair. Dean feels his eyes on him, hesitant.
“I was thinking,” Dean can feel the liquor, now, hot in his belly. His mouth is twisted, voice mocking. “Maybe we could ask Pastor Jim to let us get the fuck out of here. Hunt down the bastard thing that killed them. Remember them that way.”
Sam has all but withered away. Dean hates that solemn, sympathetic gaze. He leans forward and bangs the thermos down on the table. He stands.
Sam lets him get halfway up the stairs before he comes after him, all platitudes and that calm, serious voice he uses on penitents and teenagers. Dean keeps walking. Sam's voice rises, and at the top of the stairs, under the rail of the altar, he grabs Dean's elbow to stop him.
“I'm sorry,” he says, trying to duck into Dean's line of sight. “I'm not trying to belittle their memory.”
“You're not trying to do anything, except write schedules and nice homilies,” Dean is a little drunk, he knows this is ridiculous. The way Sam grips his arm and props himself against the railing, he knows Sam is a little intoxicated himself. That makes him feel sorry, a bit.
“Don't you dare-” says Sam, his voice clipped, but eloquence failing, “make light of this, this.”
Dean, backed up against the railing, lets Sam lean closer as he gestures to the entire dark spread of the church. He is awash in guilt for Sam's state, and it tempers him. “I'm not,” he says. He half means it.
Sam is wearing thick woollen blacks, but no coat, and the building is barely any better than outside. Dean can't help it. He puts his hands on Sam's waist and pulls him close, into the warmth of his own open jacket. He puts his hands around Sam's back and his face in Sam's neck. He holds him there, and immediately, Sam's arms are around him, too. Some comfort, that last little bit of family.
One of them is shaking. Or both. Dean feels the shudder in his ribcage, and he opens his mouth against the warm skin of Sam's throat to say something, but it's just the press of lips there. Again, and again. One of them groans, almost a whimper. He pulls back for a better angle, stretching for Sam's jaw, Sam's mouth, lips, tongue. And then Sam pulls away.
They don't look at each other. Sam flees back downstairs, stumbling. Dean coughs, closes his coat. Walks down the rows of pews, and out into the fading light.
THREE
The bus pulls over onto the shoulder and opens its doors just north of Beaver, Utah. Across a strip of baking asphalt, a gas station with a row of blue plastic seats under the awning advertises the coldest drinks north of Vegas. Two gloved women with one little boy between them stand up from their seats in the shade, expectant and stiff-backed as soldiers.
Sam stumps down the steps opposite with his backpack slung over one shoulder. Five hours beside an old man popping garlic cloves like spearmint to get down 200 miles of interstate was an exercise in patience and forbearance near beyond him, these days. But the wind rolling down off the saw-backed hills wipes away the cling of stale breath and greasy upholstery, replaces it with a rush of dry, hot-smelling air.
Other passengers are coming down, too, heading for the toilets or the cooler. Sam steps away from them and their shy glances at his collar. Takes a few sliding steps down the embankment to hold a lungful of air and an eyeful of the long view. A thousand different browns so varied as to be their own spectrum.
Two days ago he killed a man. Or he - he did something close enough.
Again, Sam can feel the burn in his skull. Right behind his eyes. The build of tension there like the press of a knotted rope against skin. That burn made an incision in the air with an invisible knife, and cut free the grip the kid had held over everyone in the house.
The kid wasn't any older than him. James Conover, born Wilcox-Carver. Sam spent weeks with him. Talking like he used to talk to parishioners in need of a friend. Just an open ear, some guidance. James was a troubled man, and Sam had a lot of practice telling people what they needed to hear about themselves. James, though, had a lot of practice telling people what he needed from them, and taking it.
He must have taken something dear from the girl who'd stood up from the floor, one arm hanging useless from the socket, and loaded him full of buckshot, point blank. One-handed, she'd had to use the kid's chest to steady the rifle's barrel. Sam was sitting against the far wall, eyes burning, watching.
He held James against the wall with an invisible hand while she did it.
And hasn't prayed since. There'll be no confession for this. He cannot reconcile this kind of demonic influence with God. The visions are bad enough, and now he's killed a man for no worse sins than his own. Sam knows he won't be forgiven. He'll be defrocked and excommunicated when he tells.
For now, he wears his collar because he cannot bear the thought of removing it. This morning at the hostel, he tried to put it in his bag. Then took it out again. He will stop wearing it when they take it from him.
Behind him, the driver closes the door and the bus pulls away. The gloved women are gone, and the gas station is empty. The rumble of the interstate, a quarter mile off, growls a harmony with the shifting wind.
When the Impala pulls up, a low black line of metal with heat wavering off the hood, Sam isn't near ready yet. But he turns to face it.
Dean crawls out of the driver's seat - sunglasses, in need of a shave, wearing an undershirt and no blacks at all - and it's the first time Sam's seen him in a month. Their first and only month apart since - since ever - and Sam's hands are damp at his sides.
Dean doesn't come past the hood of the car. He stretches, cracking his back and turning a slow circle to take in the dusty trees and sun-glazed sky, like Sam isn't even there.
They wait there a moment. Dean ignoring him, staring into the distance. Sam speechless with guilt and want, practically slack-jawed, taking him in.
Until Dean, leaning against the hood with his hands behind his head says across the road, “You gonna get in, or what?”
Sam adjusts his bag and starts walking. It's more nervous a distance than their entrance procession at ordination, when hundreds of eyes had been on him. Dean's alone are worse.
Sam stops too soon, scuffles forward another few steps 'till he's standing square in front. He feels he should kneel, or prostate himself, penitent. “Thanks for picking me up.”
“You're welcome.”
“For coming all the way out here again.”
“No problem.”
“Even though.” Sam says. He wants to recite for Dean a thousand thanksgivings. Beg him a thousand forgivenesses. But each one of them, if voiced, would give him away. He can no more confess to Dean than to a priest. “Even though I was such a dick.”
“Yeah, you were,” Dean gives him a tight little grimace that's half a smirk. “Nothing new.”
Sam turns and walks around to the passenger side. Tosses his bag in the back seat, gets in. Dean goes inside for water and root beer.
When he gets back out he passes Sam a plastic bottle half-hard with ice through the passenger side window. “Coldest north of Vegas, that's for sure,” Dean says and, leaning, folds his bare arms on the roof to drink his. His frame fills the open window, and Sam sees how the damp white cotton of his undershirt sticks to hard muscle.
Sam mumbles, placing a palm on the hot rubber sill, “I'm so sorry, Dean.” His fingers extend to brush against the cotton's lower edge. There's skin there, and his fingertips rest atop Dean's belt buckle.
Dean bends down, pauses, muttering “Pardon?” and Sam's whole hand is pressed against stomach then chest, under the shirt, sticky and hot. A quick caress that passes over all the hard lines of him, reaches practically up to his throat. The shirt is rucked up, and Dean's face in the window is open-mouthed, and nakedly clear.
Sam can barely avert his face in time, snatch his hand away.
They drive west to Denver. And somewhere in that afternoon, he finds it in himself to start praying for forgiveness.
FOUR
Sam never thought it would be so easy, after Wisconsin. He figured at best Dean would keep quiet about the visions, and at worst he'd start actively resisting when Sam opened up the road atlas and circled all the small towns on the eastern seaboard with the word 'port' in their name.
But in Maine, when they find that red maple tree and there's no man hanging in pieces from it, Dean just nods his head and starts asking questions. Keeps asking them until they've tracked Ed Proulx down to his farmhouse, and figured out why it might be that he'd end up that way in Sam's head. Turns out it's nothing new, just another kid Sam's age. Left home last spring, swore she'd never come back.
But she is back. And Dean tracks her down just as easy. She certainly does seem good and ready to cut her pa up with invisible knives. Tormented, is the word. But she's just as ready to go home shame-faced and teary-eyed, say a few apologies once Sam explains what he knows. The visions. The invisible hands. The other kids. He uses that voice, and the thing with the eye contact they taught at Seminary for when he started volunteering at the terminal illness ward. She says yellow eyes and Dean says, don't you worry, we got old yellow-eyes covered.
That night they turn down Mrs. Proulx's hospitality, but not her apple custard pie, and they check themselves into one of the tiny seaside hotels that stay dead even during high season because they're too damn ugly for tourists, and too damn creepy for locals.
Dean opens the door to their room and grins like a kid, examining the yellowing lace curtains and crocheted doilies. “Remind you of home?” he asks, holding one up for Sam's perusal.
Sam snatches it out of the air and places it back on the polished bed table. “Someone made that, Dean. Have a freaking heart.”
Dean's eyebrows raise, but he doesn't come back with anything lippy. He settles his duffel beside the bed, flops down and asks, twenty minutes later: “You wanna go to mass tomorrow, or something?”
Sam wants to say no, just to be contrary. But he does want to go. So he doesn't say anything.
Dean leans over and sets the alarm for 6:30, early enough to get them back into town on time.
It's the closeness that's bothering him, Sam knows. He spent a year and a half hiding everything: thoughts, feelings, actions. And now half the things that come out of Dean's mouth scare him, the way they echo his own thoughts, anticipate them. With the visions out in the open, Sam feels like he's walking around naked and Dean's sitting on the bed watching. There's not much left to hide. Anything asked gets answered. Sam has to seize on the petty differences just to remind himself who he is, sometimes. Someone separate from Dean.
He falls asleep while Dean's in the shower, and when he wakes up, the little room is hotter and blacker than hell. He's a sweaty mess, still wearing his pants and belt but half under the comforter. The sheets are tangled, his shirt is gone. His limbs are stiff with adrenaline, his heart is banging through his ribcage.
He saw Dean dead, shot in the head with an antique revolver, yellow eyes fading out to hazel.
He saw himself shoot Dean.
In the black, he crawls out of bed, hands groping blind and mad. He feels the table, bumps the glass of water there, reaches across to the bed opposite. Turned to face the other wall, Dean is still damp from the shower and humidity, but Sam has a desperate fear that it's blood in his hair, on his temple, soaking into the pillow. If he turned on the light it would all be blood.
He bends his face down close, turns his nose to the base of Dean's skull, sniffing out the red copper smell. His mouth is under Dean's ear, his tongue licking there, urgent, seeking confirmation. He travels down Dean's throat. Salt of sweat; bitter soap. He presses his lips against Dean's jugular, tasting the hot pulse there, not believing it. He lowers down, his body clamped, his fingers still scraping through damp hair, searching out the damning wound.
Dean's hand finds his, and under the covers Dean rolls to face him. Mouth open, a sound coming from deep in his throat. Alive, and everything is just sweat and condensation.
Sam jerks back. He's hard, hotter than he's ever been in his life and his brother's hands are manacles over his wrists. He can hear Dean's negating whimper, a high, needy thing. Under him, Dean writhes in a way that makes Sam's blood burn up in his veins.
He falls off the bed, getting away. The blankets come with him and he scrambles across the floor, blind and terrified. He pauses when he finds the door, knows through some preternatural sense that Dean is sitting up in bed with his head in his hands.
“Sam,” he says, once. A small voice.
Sam slips through the door, and spends the rest of the night in the back seat of the car.
FIVE.
They're eating burgers at a rest-stop midway across the Ohio Turnpike when Dean decides it's time to come clean. He promised himself. He promised Sam. He meant it, even if it was weeks ago and there's been plenty of molly-coddling and dancing around since then. It's just taken that long to work up the right combination of courage and nonchalance. They're picking at their fries, and Sam's sucking back the last dregs of juice box when Dean licks a smear of ketchup off his thumb, leans back and says:
“We should do it.”
There's no question what it might be. From across the picnic table Sam looks at Dean completely blank-faced. Just, empty. Like he's staring at a stranger he doesn't even care enough about to be polite to.
Dean barks out a laugh, raises his hands behind his head and grins his charming best. “Hoo,” he says, eyebrows up, “That sure came out quick.”
Sam says, “Sure did.”
Dean balls up his foil wrapper and tosses it into the nearest can, barely ruffling the feathers of the pair of dirty crows perched on top, much less the flies. The entire parking lot is full of vacationers with thirty-foot trailers and packs of roving pre-teens, but Dean isn't about to tone it down for them.
“I'm just saying,” he says to Sam, “In the eyes of God and man, I keep waking up every morning with-”
“Don't.” Sam is sitting straight up and straight-mouthed - all kinds of straight - wearing dollar store flip-flops and a t-shirt for once, the plain white t-shirt that Dean watches him put on every morning under his shirt and collar. He took those off in the car after the maple syrup incident at breakfast. Now Sam looks like some dumb-ass college kid. His hair is clean and wind-whipped and the shirt's a little too tight.
Dean chews his lip. Sam doesn't even look at him again, just gets up and walks the hundred feet to the recycling bin to toss away his juice. He is pissed. He's more than pissed. He's scared. Dean can see it in every line of his body, and feels terrible. And also, horny.
Sam's silence lasts approximately half an hour, through another toll booth and past three dead prairie dogs, each of which gets a growl of prayer sent up for them. Embarrassing. And a bit sacrilegious, but Dean can't stop the habit, he's been doing it since he was twelve. When Dad died in Louisiana Pastor Jim said without last rites, his soul would be in peril, but the least they could do was pray for him. He prayed the whole way back to St. Louis. For Dad, and then for every single squirrel and stiff-legged deer on the shoulder. So add that to his list of indiscretions worth a defrocking.
But then Sam says, “Pull over.”
There's not much to pull over for except more grasslands: flat, green and boring. But Dean slows and pulls the Impala as far right as he can without ditching her, because there's a lot of wide loads and bad drivers on the road home from summer vacation.
Dean looks over, and Sam's staring at the dash. His mouth is parted, but no words are coming out.
“Yeah?” Dean prompts. He should be more helpful or something, but Sam turns his eyes on him, and there's a heat there that doesn't bear explanation.
Sam unbuckles himself, licks his lips and crawls across the seat. Dean can barely look at him. Definitely can't look away. For a second he feels sorry for whatever passing vehicles have to perform an early explanation of the birds and the bees to sharp-eyed toddlers.
He forgets it as Sam gets close, closer, and then places his lips on him like Dean's the blessed fucking virgin, like he's kissing a parishioner on the cheek, all tight lines, closed mouth. And when he pulls back, eyes wide, Dean swallows a smirk. Slowly, so as not to startle the kid who's redefined the word cocktease more times and in more ways than Dean cares to count, he wraps a hand around Sam's neck, strokes his jaw open with a thumb and gives him the kiss - and the tongue - they both deserve.
Sam - so tense he's practically rattling the car - almost bites his tongue off at first. But if Dean mastered one skill before ordination cut off his access to bar girls, it was heavy petting, and he has a good bit of patience. And Sam's an attentive student. He's leaning with one knee on the seat, one hand balanced on the driver side door, and his other hand starting at Dean's ear, then his shoulder, then his chest. Dean can tell how good it is based on how hard Sam is pushing down on him. Dean bites his lip, and Sam moans, practically punching Dean straight through the seat.
Again, Sam pulls back, and he still has that look. That Sam look, like he's about to do something far too clever for anyone's good. His hands are already down at Dean's crotch, pulling apart the seatbelt and the regular belt and thumbing open the button and zipper. He spreads open Dean's slacks without looking up, just intent on the task, the boxer-briefs, the massive fucking jumping erection Dean has going.
Dean can see the - yes, the honest-to-god blush - over Sam's cheekbones and ears as he lays a firm palm down on Dean's hard-on. Dean groans into the pressure, and Sam at least knows what that feels like, because he fists him once, twice through the cotton. And then he just crams himself down into the floorspace like a cat in a shoebox, pulls Dean's cock out, wraps a few fingers around the base and starts sucking.
It's like - it's like Dean's entire world inverts itself right there, turning the blue sky magenta and his lungs into huge wide balloons of fuck fuck fuck, and his heart into a black hole of sheer whorish lust. Sam can keep a rhythm, at least, and even if it takes him a while - and a bit of monosyllabic coaching - to set his teeth back the right way and get his lips to the perfect soft circle Dean loves, he's damn efficient.
Dean actually has to stop him. Stop him, maybe thirty seconds, maybe thirty years in. “You'll make me come,” he chokes, touching Sam's ear, pulling him up. Sam's mouth is shiny and wet, and he wipes at it with his wrist. The gesture makes him look like such a filthy little wanton that Dean almost loses it right there. He leans forward and shoves a hungry tongue in Sam's wet mouth, lapping up everything he can reach.
When he pulls back, it's because he's set to come straight onto the upholstery, or barring that, the steering wheel, and Sam's showing no signs of slowing down, all eager tongue and vagrant hands.
“You're like a freaking porno star, Sammy,” Dean pushes Sam down beside him, back into something resembling a comfortable position: ass on seat, feet on floor. “You been holding onto that talent since puberty or what?”
Sam doesn't say anything, but he snorts even as the blushes resurfaces, and tries to adjust what Dean can't help noticing is a massive mother of a boner.
Dean starts the engine, shaking his head. He's not sure he should even be driving. But they sure can't stay here. Any second now some heartland baptist-type will be calling the staties for public indecency, and then try selling the collar as a costume and the gay as brotherly affection.
There are campgrounds in Pennsylvania where for thirty bucks a night they give you a fire pit, a picnic table, a little cabin the same shape as a good-sized crypt, a view of a tepid little stream, and a number of flowering lilac bushes between you and your neighbours.
They pull up to their cabin, and before Sam lets him get out of the car he says, “Wait.” And then there's another few minutes of unbuttoning Dean's shirt and setting aside the collar and replacing it with a wet necklace of bites and mouthings that run down from jaw to nipple and back up.
Then Sam is up and out. He rummages in the back seat, pulling out the natty old sleeping bag they keep back there, the bedsheet Dean uses as an altar cloth whenever they do blessings, and the fleece blanket that smells like gasoline. They aren't exactly equipped for camping, but whatever, Dean goes for his duffel and gets out the equipment they do need.
When he goes and tips open the door to the cabin, he thinks they might make do. Inside there's an iron bed frame with a rubber mattress big enough for two. The single plastic window blurs the light to something noncommittal, and there are tiny rodent poos all along the shelving unit, but maybe with the blankets-
Sam touches the small of his back. He's got his armful of nesting material and he jerks his head down the hill toward the stream. “C'mon,” he says, and he's smiling with those dimples, his teeth bared in a way that makes Dean nervous as a bunny rabbit.
Down the hill and under the lilac bushes Sam finds a spot that's all grass and dappled shade. He drops his bundle, and tries again with the tongue. Just steps forward and puts his hands around Dean's face and kisses him. Dean feels like a corseted dame, the way Sam towers and guides without meaning to. Some of his hesitance is gone, but not much, because even though they both want to be on the ground - naked, rutting - he keeps peeking at Dean, brow furrowed.
So Dean pushes him down by the shoulders, back onto the clump of blankets, crawling down after him. He places a knee between Sam's legs and presses down on Sam's bulge with his thigh as he stretches forward to rub and neck.
But Sam's running hot and cold - getting strange and passive, then throaty and salacious as if to make up for it. Dean has to stop, not knowing what's fake and what's not.
“Are you okay?” he asks. He stares right down, afraid to see the flinch there, the flick of Sam's eyes away. Sam the liar has certain tells. Dean's seen them all.
But Sam just blinks, looks right back. He's a little white around the eyes. His face is flushed, his hair matted. He grimaces in the smallest way and says in half a voice, “I'm going to hell.”
Dean can't laugh. If he did, it would be a shriek and a wail straight up the vaults of heaven. “If you really believe that,” he says, and puts his mouth down to Sam's ear because he can't bear to say it straight to his face, “You know I'll be down there with you.”
He knows it's no comfort for someone like Sam. He lingers with his eyes closed, taking in this last second, and then sits up, telling himself he can spend the rest of his life with this. Never touch his brother again. Rededicate himself to the faith, if that's what Sam wants. Try harder, stick to the narrowest path.
Sam sits up with him, breathing deep. Dean can almost hear the tiny rivulets of prayer in the air - a habit, sancta maria, mater dei.
“Pray for us sinners,” says Dean, and Sam tugs him back.
“Don't.”
The naked and the rutting happens quick. Dean pops a button in his haste, Sam gets momentarily stuck in his t-shirt and Dean near rips it off him. Their pants are around their ankles. Their feet are dirty.
Sam's limbs are warm and fluid, his hands a river of pressure over Dean's body, connecting them. No tells, no lies. Sam is eager, breathing heavy, abstract words slipping out under the pressure. Dean believes all of them. Especially the ones that are his name.
Their spot is dangerous. Any kid tootling down the stream could look up and see them through the leaves. It doesn't make them go any faster, though. Dean fingers Sam's ass for a solid ten minutes before he flips him over, and squeezes out more lube. Sam is begging for it. Dean's heard Sam begging all his life, but never like this. This is a rush of whispered injunctions, no question marks, no pleases. No wants, just needs.
Dean takes it so slow - hovering, shocked by the flex of Sam's ass, the impossible tightness of him - that it's Sam who pushes him all the way in. Sam arching against him, grinding against the ground, jerking at himself, mewling. Dean lets out something like a hoarse sob, choked by the shuddering trills of it, that tiny mouth eating his cock. He clenches a fist in Sam's hair, forcing his head down. Sam moans like a whore, his face twisted around, so Dean can see his face, vacant of everything except pleasure. His mouth gapes, eyes squinted shut as he takes it.
Dean leans back for just a second, to control himself, and the new angle makes Sam jump like a shot thing. Sam turns his face to muffle the low wail that bites out of him as he comes into the dirt and grass, rutting helplessly against the ground. The humping does Dean no good, and Sam's ass clenching down hard on his dick breaks him down, too. He pulls out, shooting out long ropes of come down Sam's back, into the damp tendrils of his hair.
There's a moment. And then Sam is shaking, laughing. Reaching a hand to touch the mess in his hair.
Dean swings a leg off and drops to his back. Sam rolls over, too. His belly and pelvis are sticky with blades of grass and soil, a morass of hot goo that looks like a damn nature collage, missing only a daisy or a pine cone.
“Dude, you're gonna get lyme disease, you don't watch out for ticks,” Dean says, putting his hands behind his head, using the forgotten blankets as a pillow.
Sam, lolling on one side, face propped up on one hand, picks the grass off himself. “I thought it was kinda romantic out here,” his face is all innocence. “But we can go back and try out that mattress instead, if you're so worried.”
“I hope you're not being clever, because I was planning on it,” says Dean, watching the stream trickle by.
“I kinda figured,” Sam says. But he doesn't sound too upset about it. He lays his head down beside Dean's, smears his dirty fingers on Dean's chest and leaves his hand there. Dean kinda suspects there isn't anything in the world to be upset about, right now.
Fandom: SPN, Dean/Sam
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Nope.
Notes: A whack of porn and almost-porn, unfortunately a few days late for onthecontrary's birthday. Still, I promised AND delivered! Just, late. Thanks go to delighter who came up with enough USTy ideas to last through twenty times, when my brain went on hiatus; and to stephanometra who made this 80x better with her beta work, Catholic and otherwise.
Also see: Vocation and Our Lady of Lies and Wide Rivers.
ONE
At night, rather than sleep, Sam stands vigils in the south chapel. He can pray longer than anyone else, and therefore better than anyone else, because each night is pretty much a contest between him and Dean. Right and wrong. Who's righter, who's wronger. As manifested in: who can show up to bed later. Sam from the pews or Dean from the bar.
Sam assumes it's the bar, anyway. He doesn't really know where Dean goes after vespers. No one ever asks, because no one's ever snuck out of the Seminary, before. But then, no one else has been trapped here for the past six years like princesses in a witch's tower. And why suspect Dean, who learns the lessons he likes better than well, and the ones he doesn't like to passing fair quality, bolstered by Sam - Sam, who learns everything.
Sometimes, without even realizing it, Sam prays practically into lauds. Somewhere in the east the sun rises. The saints in their stained glass light up with pinprick clarity, high above. Salve Regina runs over Sam's tongue and down into his lungs, a river of warmth. Sometimes he thinks he could eat Latin rather than oatmeal, fill himself with purple-orange light and the tidal rhythm of the mysteries. He has his faith memorized, and he can chant it like a spell. He uses it to summon Dean home.
But this morning he's alone under the cross and the vault when the acolytes start stirring behind the pulpit, blessing their vestments and preparing for the morning office. Sam's mouth tastes like a dead rat. His hair is flat on his head and he's dressed for bed, because normally that's where he ends up, by two or three in the morning.
But now it's five, and on soft feet the pre-theology students are filing in. Sam is in the front row, facing a bank of unlit tapers, and he can't leave. They're all older than him, early twenties, filled with the heat and smugness of their vocation, and he's fourteen, basically an urchin with a big mouth who shows up in their seminars and always signs up for extra devotions. They'd see him cutting out and tell the Dean of Students, probably, they'd be so concerned for his soul.
So Sam coils his rosary round his wrist, and mashes the heel of his hand into his eyeball. He clamps his jaw over a threatening yawn.
Dean comes in during the Benedictus, and takes a place beside Sam in the front. He is docile, but he smells like mold and sugar, for all that he's showered and put on a fresh shirt. Short-sleeved, blue, collared tight around the neck. He's still drunk. Sam knows because he can actually hear Dean mumbling Pater Noster for once, not just miming or mouthing it.
Sam watches him as their lips move, and watches him when he should be watching the Rector, or at least the cross. Dean is half-asleep, voice rough over the syllables. Sam wishes they could both just sleep.
But he already knows they'll have to skip breakfast. They get up, and he hovers while Dean slouches down the aisle to the chapel doors. He prays a Memorare, or maybe a third of it, that Dean will not stumble. Or laugh sudden and loud. Or throw up. Sam can't remember the last time he saw a drunk person, but he knows how they're supposed to act. He fears for Dean, he fears so much that when finally, they smilingly pass through the gates and out of purgatory, he pushes him aside and into the garden with force, hissing: “You can't come here like this. What are you doing?”
Dean smiles, and leans against the brick wall that shields them from view. It's still early enough that the leaves seem bluer than green and the wolf willow drenches everything with the smell of eager spring.
Sam follows him, closer, aware that his fear is speaking through his own mouth. Fear of reprimand, mostly, but also fear of consequence. Dean would be kicked out instantly. Pastor Jim wouldn't have a say, and neither would Sam, no matter how many vigils he stood. “Is this what you do every night? Is this honestly better than sleeping, or studying? How late were you out? Have you even slept?”
Dean rolls his head against the wall, a slow shake. “None of your business. How late were you praying?”
“Until about half a minute before they started the Invitatory,” Sam is bitter, but proud. For every lukewarm beer, a decade of Ave Maria.
Dean's smile melts into a laugh, curling out of him as he lolls his head back against the brick. He closes his eyes against the filtered sun. “For me, I bet. You were using your righteous power to advocate for my poor soul.”
“You could use it,” Sam hisses, sidling closer and grasping Dean's wrist, pincering him back to wide-eyed consciousness.
Dean's lips don't lose their curl. “Not as much as some people out there.”
“I don't care about some people, I care about you.”
“That's not very Christian of you, Sammy.”
Sam clenches his grip on Dean's forearms to claws, ripping his nails into skin, pinning Dean's recoiling frame with his own. “If they even suspect. They will find out about this. You can't go out there anymore. Alright? You have to stay here at night.”
Dean is eighteen, but Sam is almost his size, and zealous where Dean is drained. “Alright?” he asks again, cementing Dean's acquiescence with his eyes. Dean nods.
“I won't even ask you,” Sam starts and stops. Still pressing his advantage. Still face-to-face and smelling the sugar, the liquor. Pray for forgiveness he almost said. Almost forgot who he was talking to, the method actor himself, the complete and utter fake. Vocation declared. A few short years from the collar. Dean Winchester, who invited three high school girls from the Mater Dei Society up to the dormitory to play spin the bottle, and didn't get caught. Dean will have broken his vows a hundred times over before he takes them, Sam knows that. And who knows what after.
“You'll do it for me anyway,” Dean casts his lazy glance up. “Always looking out for me.”
Sam looks out for Dean, because he fears for his soul. Fears for his own. He fears even Dean's gaze right now, and the heat in it. There are codes that jump across, eye to eye, synapse to synapse. There is a flush under his hands and a burn in his chest that he knows is hellfire.
“Yeah,” says Sam, releasing him and pulling back.
Dean's hand stutters as he raises it, and Sam feels it brush against his hip, through the linen shirt and thin cotton trousers. He looks at the hand, and Dean looks at it. Wires snap in Sam's chest, sparking.
And like before, Sam wishes for sleep, the drowsy, dead sleep of children. Dean drops his hand, to rub at his raw elbows and the half-moon marks where Sam's fingernails bit in.
From then on, they both do their nightly devotions in the matchstick bunk beds of their dorm. They rise for lauds and eat their oatmeal together.
TWO
Three days into the new year, someone drops a dump of snow on Blue Earth that could probably rival Lake Superior for depth and breadth. The entire town shuts down - like climbing out of the holiday torpor was hard enough already - and now no one just feels like bothering going to work, what with their cars drowned in snow banks and the roads knee-deep and rising.
Dean spends the morning reading month-old copies of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, which he snags from the tinder box on his second listless round of the house. The snow pours like rain, big and fast and wiping out all the color in the bare hedge and smothered yard. The ground and the sky are the exact same shade of empty.
Sam's been gone since before he got up. And he kind of worries, but more is just relieved that he doesn't have to deal with the New Year vigor. All projects and missions. Budgets. Plans. Fixing stuff. Cleaning. Sam considers the last two Dean's responsibility. Sam is probably sitting at his desk in the church basement right now, wearing his dumb visor, making a list of things Dean should clean.
Dean gets up from his place by the pot-bellied stove, pausing to shove his ancient sports section into the flames, and goes to the kitchen. He makes bacon and French toast, and leaves all the dirty dishes on the counter. He eats his meal, smirking at them. He leaves his plate on the table and does another circuit of the bungalow, pausing to look at the cross-stitched psalms framed in the hall, the little tokens of appreciation crafted and gifted by parishioners. They have doilies from the sixties sitting on the battered end tables, home-made curtains in mustard yellow and avocado green.
Dean haunts the little bungalow for as long as he can stand it. Finally, he goes to the hall closet and drags out his down jacket, buttons it up to his throat and pulls down his shirtsleeves from where they hitched at his elbows. He puts on his hat. But before he puts on his boots he drags himself back into the kitchen, and cleans up the dishes.
Sam is in the basement. Dean enters the hall and can see the yellow light coming up the stairs. It's inviting against the dim shadows of the pews, an echo of the hundred parishioners that packed the house over the Christmas celebrations. Curly-haired kids and strained smiles from parents, all the old ladies absolutely gabbling over all the singing and baking and handing out the hampers and the buffets at the community center.
Never mind how he and Sam and Jim spend the remainder of their holidays. Dean doesn't often dwell on Mom or Dad - except as impetus for extra knife-polishing or leaving without Jim's permission to hunt down the odd bogeyman - but watching all the faithful file out of the church on Christmas Day, he felt envy. For closeness and family. For comfort.
Dean slips down the stairs. There's a tiny rise in temperature as he cracks the door to Sam's office. Boy has his sock feet perched against a yellow space heater, and is negotiating with the antique computer's keyboard in his mittens. He looks up, hair in his eyes, his smile half a frown.
“You can't freeze out the devil, Sammy,” Dean says, entering. “But good on ya for trying.”
Sam twists his mouth, “Thanks. Actually, I'm making next year's lector schedule.”
Dean purses his lips as he clears a spot in Sam's paperwork for the silver thermos he carried in. “Yeah, 'cause the current one expires in June,” he says. “Need to get on that quick.”
Sam ignores that, eyes following the steam rising out of the open mouth of the thermos. “What'd you bring?”
“Hot chocolate,” says Dean, producing Sam's mug out of his coat and pouring his share. “Little did I know you'd be experimenting in cryogenics down here.”
Sam sips, mittens wrapped round the mug. His nose is pink, Dean notices. He pulls up a chair and Sam makes room by the space heater.
“You planning on turning the heat back on anytime soon?” Dean asks.
“Mass tomorrow,” says Sam. “But not much. I figure we get enough people in here, they'll warm it up with body heat.”
Dean smirks a little, and leans back to sip from the thermos. He added some Bailey's, back at the house. But Sam doesn't notice, unable to recognize the taste, mistaking the alcohol's warmth for well, warmth.
There's a quietness down here that Dean associates with Sam and his studies and his diligence. It's like they can almost hear the snow falling outside. The room, with its exposed pipes and drywall, is dark except for the yellow desk lamp and the faded glow of the monitor. Sam swallows his share of the hot chocolate quickly, and Dean pours him some more.
“You ever think about Mom and Dad?” Sam asks, and his voice isn't low, but kind of strained, embarrassed.
Dean looks over at lowered lashes, pressed lips. Sam isn't asking because he thinks about Mom and Dad, but because he knows Dean does. Sam's father is God, Sam's children are the people of Blue Earth. Sam is a man undivided in his loyalties, Dean knows. He never decided whether to envy or despise that.
“Yep,” says Dean.
“I was thinking,” says Sam, “that maybe we could ask Pastor Jim to say a Mass for them next week. So we could remember them.”
“You could ask him,” Dean hears his voice, how it's colder and sharper than the air, practically dripping icicles. He can't help it. He feels pitied. Every prayer he's ever meant has included his mother's name. Holy Mary, pray for us. Mother of Divine Grace, Mother most pure, Mother inviolate. He is not in Sam's position, where it is easy to forget that a demon killed her, and a demon might have her soul. In that regard, Sam's innocence is a smack in the face, a waft of smoke that stinks of smug privilege. The younger son that takes and takes and takes, always remembering to smile in gratitude.
Sam subsides, shrinks into his chair. Dean feels his eyes on him, hesitant.
“I was thinking,” Dean can feel the liquor, now, hot in his belly. His mouth is twisted, voice mocking. “Maybe we could ask Pastor Jim to let us get the fuck out of here. Hunt down the bastard thing that killed them. Remember them that way.”
Sam has all but withered away. Dean hates that solemn, sympathetic gaze. He leans forward and bangs the thermos down on the table. He stands.
Sam lets him get halfway up the stairs before he comes after him, all platitudes and that calm, serious voice he uses on penitents and teenagers. Dean keeps walking. Sam's voice rises, and at the top of the stairs, under the rail of the altar, he grabs Dean's elbow to stop him.
“I'm sorry,” he says, trying to duck into Dean's line of sight. “I'm not trying to belittle their memory.”
“You're not trying to do anything, except write schedules and nice homilies,” Dean is a little drunk, he knows this is ridiculous. The way Sam grips his arm and props himself against the railing, he knows Sam is a little intoxicated himself. That makes him feel sorry, a bit.
“Don't you dare-” says Sam, his voice clipped, but eloquence failing, “make light of this, this.”
Dean, backed up against the railing, lets Sam lean closer as he gestures to the entire dark spread of the church. He is awash in guilt for Sam's state, and it tempers him. “I'm not,” he says. He half means it.
Sam is wearing thick woollen blacks, but no coat, and the building is barely any better than outside. Dean can't help it. He puts his hands on Sam's waist and pulls him close, into the warmth of his own open jacket. He puts his hands around Sam's back and his face in Sam's neck. He holds him there, and immediately, Sam's arms are around him, too. Some comfort, that last little bit of family.
One of them is shaking. Or both. Dean feels the shudder in his ribcage, and he opens his mouth against the warm skin of Sam's throat to say something, but it's just the press of lips there. Again, and again. One of them groans, almost a whimper. He pulls back for a better angle, stretching for Sam's jaw, Sam's mouth, lips, tongue. And then Sam pulls away.
They don't look at each other. Sam flees back downstairs, stumbling. Dean coughs, closes his coat. Walks down the rows of pews, and out into the fading light.
THREE
The bus pulls over onto the shoulder and opens its doors just north of Beaver, Utah. Across a strip of baking asphalt, a gas station with a row of blue plastic seats under the awning advertises the coldest drinks north of Vegas. Two gloved women with one little boy between them stand up from their seats in the shade, expectant and stiff-backed as soldiers.
Sam stumps down the steps opposite with his backpack slung over one shoulder. Five hours beside an old man popping garlic cloves like spearmint to get down 200 miles of interstate was an exercise in patience and forbearance near beyond him, these days. But the wind rolling down off the saw-backed hills wipes away the cling of stale breath and greasy upholstery, replaces it with a rush of dry, hot-smelling air.
Other passengers are coming down, too, heading for the toilets or the cooler. Sam steps away from them and their shy glances at his collar. Takes a few sliding steps down the embankment to hold a lungful of air and an eyeful of the long view. A thousand different browns so varied as to be their own spectrum.
Two days ago he killed a man. Or he - he did something close enough.
Again, Sam can feel the burn in his skull. Right behind his eyes. The build of tension there like the press of a knotted rope against skin. That burn made an incision in the air with an invisible knife, and cut free the grip the kid had held over everyone in the house.
The kid wasn't any older than him. James Conover, born Wilcox-Carver. Sam spent weeks with him. Talking like he used to talk to parishioners in need of a friend. Just an open ear, some guidance. James was a troubled man, and Sam had a lot of practice telling people what they needed to hear about themselves. James, though, had a lot of practice telling people what he needed from them, and taking it.
He must have taken something dear from the girl who'd stood up from the floor, one arm hanging useless from the socket, and loaded him full of buckshot, point blank. One-handed, she'd had to use the kid's chest to steady the rifle's barrel. Sam was sitting against the far wall, eyes burning, watching.
He held James against the wall with an invisible hand while she did it.
And hasn't prayed since. There'll be no confession for this. He cannot reconcile this kind of demonic influence with God. The visions are bad enough, and now he's killed a man for no worse sins than his own. Sam knows he won't be forgiven. He'll be defrocked and excommunicated when he tells.
For now, he wears his collar because he cannot bear the thought of removing it. This morning at the hostel, he tried to put it in his bag. Then took it out again. He will stop wearing it when they take it from him.
Behind him, the driver closes the door and the bus pulls away. The gloved women are gone, and the gas station is empty. The rumble of the interstate, a quarter mile off, growls a harmony with the shifting wind.
When the Impala pulls up, a low black line of metal with heat wavering off the hood, Sam isn't near ready yet. But he turns to face it.
Dean crawls out of the driver's seat - sunglasses, in need of a shave, wearing an undershirt and no blacks at all - and it's the first time Sam's seen him in a month. Their first and only month apart since - since ever - and Sam's hands are damp at his sides.
Dean doesn't come past the hood of the car. He stretches, cracking his back and turning a slow circle to take in the dusty trees and sun-glazed sky, like Sam isn't even there.
They wait there a moment. Dean ignoring him, staring into the distance. Sam speechless with guilt and want, practically slack-jawed, taking him in.
Until Dean, leaning against the hood with his hands behind his head says across the road, “You gonna get in, or what?”
Sam adjusts his bag and starts walking. It's more nervous a distance than their entrance procession at ordination, when hundreds of eyes had been on him. Dean's alone are worse.
Sam stops too soon, scuffles forward another few steps 'till he's standing square in front. He feels he should kneel, or prostate himself, penitent. “Thanks for picking me up.”
“You're welcome.”
“For coming all the way out here again.”
“No problem.”
“Even though.” Sam says. He wants to recite for Dean a thousand thanksgivings. Beg him a thousand forgivenesses. But each one of them, if voiced, would give him away. He can no more confess to Dean than to a priest. “Even though I was such a dick.”
“Yeah, you were,” Dean gives him a tight little grimace that's half a smirk. “Nothing new.”
Sam turns and walks around to the passenger side. Tosses his bag in the back seat, gets in. Dean goes inside for water and root beer.
When he gets back out he passes Sam a plastic bottle half-hard with ice through the passenger side window. “Coldest north of Vegas, that's for sure,” Dean says and, leaning, folds his bare arms on the roof to drink his. His frame fills the open window, and Sam sees how the damp white cotton of his undershirt sticks to hard muscle.
Sam mumbles, placing a palm on the hot rubber sill, “I'm so sorry, Dean.” His fingers extend to brush against the cotton's lower edge. There's skin there, and his fingertips rest atop Dean's belt buckle.
Dean bends down, pauses, muttering “Pardon?” and Sam's whole hand is pressed against stomach then chest, under the shirt, sticky and hot. A quick caress that passes over all the hard lines of him, reaches practically up to his throat. The shirt is rucked up, and Dean's face in the window is open-mouthed, and nakedly clear.
Sam can barely avert his face in time, snatch his hand away.
They drive west to Denver. And somewhere in that afternoon, he finds it in himself to start praying for forgiveness.
FOUR
Sam never thought it would be so easy, after Wisconsin. He figured at best Dean would keep quiet about the visions, and at worst he'd start actively resisting when Sam opened up the road atlas and circled all the small towns on the eastern seaboard with the word 'port' in their name.
But in Maine, when they find that red maple tree and there's no man hanging in pieces from it, Dean just nods his head and starts asking questions. Keeps asking them until they've tracked Ed Proulx down to his farmhouse, and figured out why it might be that he'd end up that way in Sam's head. Turns out it's nothing new, just another kid Sam's age. Left home last spring, swore she'd never come back.
But she is back. And Dean tracks her down just as easy. She certainly does seem good and ready to cut her pa up with invisible knives. Tormented, is the word. But she's just as ready to go home shame-faced and teary-eyed, say a few apologies once Sam explains what he knows. The visions. The invisible hands. The other kids. He uses that voice, and the thing with the eye contact they taught at Seminary for when he started volunteering at the terminal illness ward. She says yellow eyes and Dean says, don't you worry, we got old yellow-eyes covered.
That night they turn down Mrs. Proulx's hospitality, but not her apple custard pie, and they check themselves into one of the tiny seaside hotels that stay dead even during high season because they're too damn ugly for tourists, and too damn creepy for locals.
Dean opens the door to their room and grins like a kid, examining the yellowing lace curtains and crocheted doilies. “Remind you of home?” he asks, holding one up for Sam's perusal.
Sam snatches it out of the air and places it back on the polished bed table. “Someone made that, Dean. Have a freaking heart.”
Dean's eyebrows raise, but he doesn't come back with anything lippy. He settles his duffel beside the bed, flops down and asks, twenty minutes later: “You wanna go to mass tomorrow, or something?”
Sam wants to say no, just to be contrary. But he does want to go. So he doesn't say anything.
Dean leans over and sets the alarm for 6:30, early enough to get them back into town on time.
It's the closeness that's bothering him, Sam knows. He spent a year and a half hiding everything: thoughts, feelings, actions. And now half the things that come out of Dean's mouth scare him, the way they echo his own thoughts, anticipate them. With the visions out in the open, Sam feels like he's walking around naked and Dean's sitting on the bed watching. There's not much left to hide. Anything asked gets answered. Sam has to seize on the petty differences just to remind himself who he is, sometimes. Someone separate from Dean.
He falls asleep while Dean's in the shower, and when he wakes up, the little room is hotter and blacker than hell. He's a sweaty mess, still wearing his pants and belt but half under the comforter. The sheets are tangled, his shirt is gone. His limbs are stiff with adrenaline, his heart is banging through his ribcage.
He saw Dean dead, shot in the head with an antique revolver, yellow eyes fading out to hazel.
He saw himself shoot Dean.
In the black, he crawls out of bed, hands groping blind and mad. He feels the table, bumps the glass of water there, reaches across to the bed opposite. Turned to face the other wall, Dean is still damp from the shower and humidity, but Sam has a desperate fear that it's blood in his hair, on his temple, soaking into the pillow. If he turned on the light it would all be blood.
He bends his face down close, turns his nose to the base of Dean's skull, sniffing out the red copper smell. His mouth is under Dean's ear, his tongue licking there, urgent, seeking confirmation. He travels down Dean's throat. Salt of sweat; bitter soap. He presses his lips against Dean's jugular, tasting the hot pulse there, not believing it. He lowers down, his body clamped, his fingers still scraping through damp hair, searching out the damning wound.
Dean's hand finds his, and under the covers Dean rolls to face him. Mouth open, a sound coming from deep in his throat. Alive, and everything is just sweat and condensation.
Sam jerks back. He's hard, hotter than he's ever been in his life and his brother's hands are manacles over his wrists. He can hear Dean's negating whimper, a high, needy thing. Under him, Dean writhes in a way that makes Sam's blood burn up in his veins.
He falls off the bed, getting away. The blankets come with him and he scrambles across the floor, blind and terrified. He pauses when he finds the door, knows through some preternatural sense that Dean is sitting up in bed with his head in his hands.
“Sam,” he says, once. A small voice.
Sam slips through the door, and spends the rest of the night in the back seat of the car.
FIVE.
They're eating burgers at a rest-stop midway across the Ohio Turnpike when Dean decides it's time to come clean. He promised himself. He promised Sam. He meant it, even if it was weeks ago and there's been plenty of molly-coddling and dancing around since then. It's just taken that long to work up the right combination of courage and nonchalance. They're picking at their fries, and Sam's sucking back the last dregs of juice box when Dean licks a smear of ketchup off his thumb, leans back and says:
“We should do it.”
There's no question what it might be. From across the picnic table Sam looks at Dean completely blank-faced. Just, empty. Like he's staring at a stranger he doesn't even care enough about to be polite to.
Dean barks out a laugh, raises his hands behind his head and grins his charming best. “Hoo,” he says, eyebrows up, “That sure came out quick.”
Sam says, “Sure did.”
Dean balls up his foil wrapper and tosses it into the nearest can, barely ruffling the feathers of the pair of dirty crows perched on top, much less the flies. The entire parking lot is full of vacationers with thirty-foot trailers and packs of roving pre-teens, but Dean isn't about to tone it down for them.
“I'm just saying,” he says to Sam, “In the eyes of God and man, I keep waking up every morning with-”
“Don't.” Sam is sitting straight up and straight-mouthed - all kinds of straight - wearing dollar store flip-flops and a t-shirt for once, the plain white t-shirt that Dean watches him put on every morning under his shirt and collar. He took those off in the car after the maple syrup incident at breakfast. Now Sam looks like some dumb-ass college kid. His hair is clean and wind-whipped and the shirt's a little too tight.
Dean chews his lip. Sam doesn't even look at him again, just gets up and walks the hundred feet to the recycling bin to toss away his juice. He is pissed. He's more than pissed. He's scared. Dean can see it in every line of his body, and feels terrible. And also, horny.
Sam's silence lasts approximately half an hour, through another toll booth and past three dead prairie dogs, each of which gets a growl of prayer sent up for them. Embarrassing. And a bit sacrilegious, but Dean can't stop the habit, he's been doing it since he was twelve. When Dad died in Louisiana Pastor Jim said without last rites, his soul would be in peril, but the least they could do was pray for him. He prayed the whole way back to St. Louis. For Dad, and then for every single squirrel and stiff-legged deer on the shoulder. So add that to his list of indiscretions worth a defrocking.
But then Sam says, “Pull over.”
There's not much to pull over for except more grasslands: flat, green and boring. But Dean slows and pulls the Impala as far right as he can without ditching her, because there's a lot of wide loads and bad drivers on the road home from summer vacation.
Dean looks over, and Sam's staring at the dash. His mouth is parted, but no words are coming out.
“Yeah?” Dean prompts. He should be more helpful or something, but Sam turns his eyes on him, and there's a heat there that doesn't bear explanation.
Sam unbuckles himself, licks his lips and crawls across the seat. Dean can barely look at him. Definitely can't look away. For a second he feels sorry for whatever passing vehicles have to perform an early explanation of the birds and the bees to sharp-eyed toddlers.
He forgets it as Sam gets close, closer, and then places his lips on him like Dean's the blessed fucking virgin, like he's kissing a parishioner on the cheek, all tight lines, closed mouth. And when he pulls back, eyes wide, Dean swallows a smirk. Slowly, so as not to startle the kid who's redefined the word cocktease more times and in more ways than Dean cares to count, he wraps a hand around Sam's neck, strokes his jaw open with a thumb and gives him the kiss - and the tongue - they both deserve.
Sam - so tense he's practically rattling the car - almost bites his tongue off at first. But if Dean mastered one skill before ordination cut off his access to bar girls, it was heavy petting, and he has a good bit of patience. And Sam's an attentive student. He's leaning with one knee on the seat, one hand balanced on the driver side door, and his other hand starting at Dean's ear, then his shoulder, then his chest. Dean can tell how good it is based on how hard Sam is pushing down on him. Dean bites his lip, and Sam moans, practically punching Dean straight through the seat.
Again, Sam pulls back, and he still has that look. That Sam look, like he's about to do something far too clever for anyone's good. His hands are already down at Dean's crotch, pulling apart the seatbelt and the regular belt and thumbing open the button and zipper. He spreads open Dean's slacks without looking up, just intent on the task, the boxer-briefs, the massive fucking jumping erection Dean has going.
Dean can see the - yes, the honest-to-god blush - over Sam's cheekbones and ears as he lays a firm palm down on Dean's hard-on. Dean groans into the pressure, and Sam at least knows what that feels like, because he fists him once, twice through the cotton. And then he just crams himself down into the floorspace like a cat in a shoebox, pulls Dean's cock out, wraps a few fingers around the base and starts sucking.
It's like - it's like Dean's entire world inverts itself right there, turning the blue sky magenta and his lungs into huge wide balloons of fuck fuck fuck, and his heart into a black hole of sheer whorish lust. Sam can keep a rhythm, at least, and even if it takes him a while - and a bit of monosyllabic coaching - to set his teeth back the right way and get his lips to the perfect soft circle Dean loves, he's damn efficient.
Dean actually has to stop him. Stop him, maybe thirty seconds, maybe thirty years in. “You'll make me come,” he chokes, touching Sam's ear, pulling him up. Sam's mouth is shiny and wet, and he wipes at it with his wrist. The gesture makes him look like such a filthy little wanton that Dean almost loses it right there. He leans forward and shoves a hungry tongue in Sam's wet mouth, lapping up everything he can reach.
When he pulls back, it's because he's set to come straight onto the upholstery, or barring that, the steering wheel, and Sam's showing no signs of slowing down, all eager tongue and vagrant hands.
“You're like a freaking porno star, Sammy,” Dean pushes Sam down beside him, back into something resembling a comfortable position: ass on seat, feet on floor. “You been holding onto that talent since puberty or what?”
Sam doesn't say anything, but he snorts even as the blushes resurfaces, and tries to adjust what Dean can't help noticing is a massive mother of a boner.
Dean starts the engine, shaking his head. He's not sure he should even be driving. But they sure can't stay here. Any second now some heartland baptist-type will be calling the staties for public indecency, and then try selling the collar as a costume and the gay as brotherly affection.
There are campgrounds in Pennsylvania where for thirty bucks a night they give you a fire pit, a picnic table, a little cabin the same shape as a good-sized crypt, a view of a tepid little stream, and a number of flowering lilac bushes between you and your neighbours.
They pull up to their cabin, and before Sam lets him get out of the car he says, “Wait.” And then there's another few minutes of unbuttoning Dean's shirt and setting aside the collar and replacing it with a wet necklace of bites and mouthings that run down from jaw to nipple and back up.
Then Sam is up and out. He rummages in the back seat, pulling out the natty old sleeping bag they keep back there, the bedsheet Dean uses as an altar cloth whenever they do blessings, and the fleece blanket that smells like gasoline. They aren't exactly equipped for camping, but whatever, Dean goes for his duffel and gets out the equipment they do need.
When he goes and tips open the door to the cabin, he thinks they might make do. Inside there's an iron bed frame with a rubber mattress big enough for two. The single plastic window blurs the light to something noncommittal, and there are tiny rodent poos all along the shelving unit, but maybe with the blankets-
Sam touches the small of his back. He's got his armful of nesting material and he jerks his head down the hill toward the stream. “C'mon,” he says, and he's smiling with those dimples, his teeth bared in a way that makes Dean nervous as a bunny rabbit.
Down the hill and under the lilac bushes Sam finds a spot that's all grass and dappled shade. He drops his bundle, and tries again with the tongue. Just steps forward and puts his hands around Dean's face and kisses him. Dean feels like a corseted dame, the way Sam towers and guides without meaning to. Some of his hesitance is gone, but not much, because even though they both want to be on the ground - naked, rutting - he keeps peeking at Dean, brow furrowed.
So Dean pushes him down by the shoulders, back onto the clump of blankets, crawling down after him. He places a knee between Sam's legs and presses down on Sam's bulge with his thigh as he stretches forward to rub and neck.
But Sam's running hot and cold - getting strange and passive, then throaty and salacious as if to make up for it. Dean has to stop, not knowing what's fake and what's not.
“Are you okay?” he asks. He stares right down, afraid to see the flinch there, the flick of Sam's eyes away. Sam the liar has certain tells. Dean's seen them all.
But Sam just blinks, looks right back. He's a little white around the eyes. His face is flushed, his hair matted. He grimaces in the smallest way and says in half a voice, “I'm going to hell.”
Dean can't laugh. If he did, it would be a shriek and a wail straight up the vaults of heaven. “If you really believe that,” he says, and puts his mouth down to Sam's ear because he can't bear to say it straight to his face, “You know I'll be down there with you.”
He knows it's no comfort for someone like Sam. He lingers with his eyes closed, taking in this last second, and then sits up, telling himself he can spend the rest of his life with this. Never touch his brother again. Rededicate himself to the faith, if that's what Sam wants. Try harder, stick to the narrowest path.
Sam sits up with him, breathing deep. Dean can almost hear the tiny rivulets of prayer in the air - a habit, sancta maria, mater dei.
“Pray for us sinners,” says Dean, and Sam tugs him back.
“Don't.”
The naked and the rutting happens quick. Dean pops a button in his haste, Sam gets momentarily stuck in his t-shirt and Dean near rips it off him. Their pants are around their ankles. Their feet are dirty.
Sam's limbs are warm and fluid, his hands a river of pressure over Dean's body, connecting them. No tells, no lies. Sam is eager, breathing heavy, abstract words slipping out under the pressure. Dean believes all of them. Especially the ones that are his name.
Their spot is dangerous. Any kid tootling down the stream could look up and see them through the leaves. It doesn't make them go any faster, though. Dean fingers Sam's ass for a solid ten minutes before he flips him over, and squeezes out more lube. Sam is begging for it. Dean's heard Sam begging all his life, but never like this. This is a rush of whispered injunctions, no question marks, no pleases. No wants, just needs.
Dean takes it so slow - hovering, shocked by the flex of Sam's ass, the impossible tightness of him - that it's Sam who pushes him all the way in. Sam arching against him, grinding against the ground, jerking at himself, mewling. Dean lets out something like a hoarse sob, choked by the shuddering trills of it, that tiny mouth eating his cock. He clenches a fist in Sam's hair, forcing his head down. Sam moans like a whore, his face twisted around, so Dean can see his face, vacant of everything except pleasure. His mouth gapes, eyes squinted shut as he takes it.
Dean leans back for just a second, to control himself, and the new angle makes Sam jump like a shot thing. Sam turns his face to muffle the low wail that bites out of him as he comes into the dirt and grass, rutting helplessly against the ground. The humping does Dean no good, and Sam's ass clenching down hard on his dick breaks him down, too. He pulls out, shooting out long ropes of come down Sam's back, into the damp tendrils of his hair.
There's a moment. And then Sam is shaking, laughing. Reaching a hand to touch the mess in his hair.
Dean swings a leg off and drops to his back. Sam rolls over, too. His belly and pelvis are sticky with blades of grass and soil, a morass of hot goo that looks like a damn nature collage, missing only a daisy or a pine cone.
“Dude, you're gonna get lyme disease, you don't watch out for ticks,” Dean says, putting his hands behind his head, using the forgotten blankets as a pillow.
Sam, lolling on one side, face propped up on one hand, picks the grass off himself. “I thought it was kinda romantic out here,” his face is all innocence. “But we can go back and try out that mattress instead, if you're so worried.”
“I hope you're not being clever, because I was planning on it,” says Dean, watching the stream trickle by.
“I kinda figured,” Sam says. But he doesn't sound too upset about it. He lays his head down beside Dean's, smears his dirty fingers on Dean's chest and leaves his hand there. Dean kinda suspects there isn't anything in the world to be upset about, right now.