i wake and feel the fell of dark (1/?)
I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark (1/?)
part one
you don’t want to hurt me (see how deep the bullet lies)
Summary: When Sam disappears, Dean finds help in the last place he wanted to look.
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: NC-17
Pairings/Characters: Dean/Jo, implied Sam/Dean
Word Count: ~3,780
Warnings: implied incest, sexual content
Author’s Notes: Takes place after Born Under A Bad Sign; includes spoilers up to that episode.
Thanks to la_folle_allure for help with the porn. :D
-
Sam seems different in Arizona; Dean blames it on the heat because it’s easier then finding out the truth.
Sam’s on edge - they both are - and he sharpens around the edges with every step, every move and it seems to get darker when night falls. Dean tries to laugh it off, joke with Sam, but it never sticks. The laughter fades away, lost in the walls and the bed sheets before it can ever really mean anything.
They hunt down a pack of black dogs nesting in a den near the edge of the woods after hiding in Springerville for a few days - feds really on their ass now, tracking Dean like a wild animal and they want to lay low. Dean wonders if he’s known this far out in the boonies, if the news streams and wanted posters reached to these far corners. They sift through local deaths and mysterious tracks and forest ranger reports; the entire time, Sam is quiet and there is something different about him that Dean doesn’t understand.
They lie in mud - rain during the day, making everything damp and grey and dirty - and wait. Sam twitches, eyes flickering and his fingers run the length of his gun, caressing and holding. Dean tries not to let it bother him; just casts him a what the hell glance and settles down into the sinking earth, his shotgun resting against his shoulder.
Dean doesn’t see them, but Sam sure does. He kills them all, unloading his gun with a vehemence Dean rarely, if never, sees. It doesn’t scare him, really, just leaves him in a subdued state of shock.
Sam unloads six bullets into the dogs’ heads - for good measure - and stares at their lifeless bodies, gun dangling from his fingers. Dean watches from behind the cover of trees and shadows; how Sam kneels and runs his fingers gently over the mangled heads, cradling the dark, wet liquid in his hands. Blood stains his fingers, paints them sticky and dripping, and Dean jumps from behind the trees, fingers trembling around his shotgun.
“Sam.” His voice echoes, scared and tremulous, through the empty meadow. “Let’s go.”
Something in his eyes that Dean doesn’t understand and Sam’s walking back to the car, twisting his stained fingers into his jacket. The gun is sticky when Dean takes it in his hands, covered at the barrel and the trigger with blood. He doesn’t bother to clean it off, just throws it on top of the others.
When Dean gets in the car, Sam gives him a frightened look. Dean doesn’t say anything, just drives.
-
They’re in Lubbock, Texas because there’s no where else to go, sitting out in the sun on the hood of the Impala. They seem to be trailing through the hot states without even thinking and never considering taking a different path, feeling the waves of heat and humidity cover them like a second skin.
The hotel room air conditioner is broken and the manager is attempting to fix it. They have no new leads and Dean doesn’t mind it. He doesn’t mind slowing down, but Sam skitters around the room and itches to move. He doesn’t speak much, just glances around like he’s waiting for something.
Dean’s on his back, arm covering his eyes because it’s only sun and endless blue skies; he drums his fingers on the heated metal. Sam’s on the edge, hands shoved in his jean pockets, shoulders hunched.
The manager’s face and wispy peppered hair appears in the doorway to their room. “It should be only a few more minutes!”
Dean raises his hand in acknowledgment. He said that an hour ago, but Dean doesn’t mind.
There is a flicker of flame in the corner of his eye. Dean sits up. “Sam?”
Sam looks over his shoulder, a quick glance, and looks back. Dean slides down the hood as Sam pockets the lighter and leans back, pursing his lips.
“What’re you doing?” Dean asks. The heat is making him heavy and lethargic, running his hand down Sam’s bare arm, jumping over veins and faint scars.
Sam wriggles out of Dean’s grasp and inches away. “Nothing.”
Dean reaches quickly, hand diving into Sam’s pocket. Sam scrambles to grab at Dean when he pulls out a Zippo lighter. The lid is gone and the sides are burnt black. Dean gives Sam a weary look, almost comical.
“Give it back,” Sam demands, his palm open.
“Touchy, touchy.” Dean chuckles. “Fine, you big baby.”
Dean drops it into Sam’s hand and Sam’s fingers snap over it, shoving it back in his pocket. Sam stares at him with a threatening look before standing up, pushing off the Impala, rocking it slightly.
When Dean walks past the office to get something to drink some time later, he sees Sam sitting on the bench, bent over, staring into a red-flicker flame. Dean watches from a distance as Sam runs his fingers through the flames slowly, skin charring black.
Sam strips naked as soon as he steps in the door of the room, leaving his clothes pooling on the floor and heads for the shower. Dean digs in Sam’s pockets, throws out the lighter and watches football on the TV until Sam emerges from bathroom, just as naked as he went in.
Sam crawls in beside Dean, still dripping wet and bangs sticking to his forehead. He sits on Dean’s stomach and stares at him with wide, empty eyes. His hands run up Dean’s side until they’re resting on his neck, his head cocked to the side. Dean writhes beneath him, hips bucking up.
Sam locks his knees into Dean’s hips. He looks distantly anxious.
“Hey,” Dean says uncertainly.
Sam’s fingers tightens, nails digging into skin until it sears and rings through Dean’s head. He grits his teeth until Sam pulls away; his fingernails drag down into Dean’s chest - leaving gouges of raised skin - as he rolls off the bed and stumbles back to his own.
Dean’s breathing is ragged and cut around the corners; his hand falls on his lap, where his boxers are sticky-wet. He groans miserably and rolls over in the bed, pushing his half-hard cock into the mattress.
In the morning, Sam wraps his arms around Dean’s waist and pulls their bodies together. He whispers nonsense in Dean’s ear and kisses his neck, where the nail marks start to bruise in a sprinkle of fine, half-moon curves. Dean doesn’t know if there’s an apology hidden somewhere beneath the words and hot breath.
-
Nothing happens for days and they keep driving, reading newspapers and tapping into police radios for anything. They stop at the edge of Oklahoma and fall asleep in the Impala when the roadside motel manager refuses to give them a room until the morning.
Dean wakes up around midnight with Sam straddling his stomach and a knife positioned carefully over his eye. His muscles tighten, arms pinned down by Sam’s knees and he can feel the blood rushing to his head, pounding and throbbing.
“Sam,” Dean hisses through clenched teeth. He can feel the fear rising in the back of his throat.
Sam’s face is shadowed and Dean can’t understand. He watches the tip of the knife and tries to read into Sam and his brother’s fingers shake. Dean presses back into the seat, tries to distance himself but Sam leans in closer, teeth bared and all Dean sees is red.
“Sammy,” Dean whispers; almost begging.
Sam blinks, sitting up and his face is flooded in light. His eyes are peaceful, calm; he gasps and pushes off of Dean, throwing the knife to the floor. Dean pulls himself up and shoves himself against the door, breathing hard, chest heaving.
“Jesus Christ, Sam.” Dean’s eyes are wide and he can’t stop the sinking feeling in him.
Sam’s fingers shake. “What’s happening to me, Dean?”
Dean wants to blame it on the heat, but he can’t. It’s been raining for days.
-
The next morning, Dean tears through the library in the town just across the border; he balances textbooks and the laptop and his dad’s journal in his lap and he scans quickly over words. His eyes flicker towards Sam, towards the charm around his neck and he doesn’t know how this could happen. Sam’s scar is still visible on his arm; it’s healed, but Dean can trace the risen skin - ragged and pink - with his fingertips.
No, he’s not going to accept the alternative because he still has promises to keep and he still has time.
Sam sits in the corner, watching Dean with dulled interest. He doesn’t throw books to the ground with as much venom as Dean does, but just watches as Dean unravels and tightens just to fall apart again. He doesn’t say anything, just looks close to falling apart himself.
Dean falls asleep in the corner between two bookcases, eyes fluttering closed, watching Sam; so empty, so small. Not Sam. Dean drifts and dreams of things ending in fire and running for miles. It’s almost a relief.
He wakes up to see nothing but shadows and the feel of a note folded into his hand. He opens it with trembling fingers as the librarian yells at him to leave, because he already knows with the overwhelming absence in the room.
I’m sorry. Don’t come looking for me.
The scrawled words mix with the printed text and are blurred when Dean feels something pound at the back of his eyes. He runs from the library and he’s screaming Sam’s name, trying to call him back, but he knows Sam’s gone. The roads are desolate and deformed and all Dean can see is Sam running down them, running away.
Giving up.
Dean corners the librarian, a young woman with large glasses and hair sticking up at all angles. “Which way did he go?”
“Did who go?” she demands hotly, her eyes magnified in her glasses.
“The only other person who came in here today, besides me!” Dean yells, nerves dancing on edge, and the woman cowers, slinking behind her desk. “Which way did he go?”
“I don’t know!” the girl screams, pushing her glasses up her nose and moving to the phone. “He just left!”
-
The phone rings three times and he’s almost ready to break it by then. The line opens and he hears background noise - drinkers and music and voices rolling like thunder.
“Jo? It’s Dean.”
There’s a huff of irritated laughter. “Dean. I’m surprised you called.”
Dean grits his teeth and bends over to lace up his boots, holding the phone between his shoulder and ear. “You’re still in Duluth, right?”
There’s a pause and the sound of music swells and rises, mingling with clanking glasses and raucous laughter. “Yeah. Why?”
“Has… did Sam stop by?” Dean knows he’s heading in for a long shot and he knows Sam won’t follow, Sam won’t remember the pattern, but he has to start somewhere. And there’s no other alternative because it’s all denial and second chances and Dean makes himself believe in second chances just for this.
“No.” Another pause and Dean can almost hear Jo chewing her nails. “Dean, what’s going on?” She sounds angry; demanding.
“I don’t know yet.” Dean yanks hard on the laces, looping them around the hooks and pulling tighter.
“Dean, tell me what the hell is going on.” Jo’s voice is drawn out and low, like she’s huddling in a corner. The music is muffled and Dean can’t hear the drinkers. “You’re scaring me.”
Dean rubs his eyes with the back of his hand. “Sam, he -” Dean breathes deeply. “He ran off.”
There’s a sharp intake of breath and the sound of doors slamming and feet against floorboard replace the country music. “What happened?”
Dean stares at his shoes, tugging lazily at the laces before sighing and switching the phone to his other ear. “Nothing. Just wondering if he’s been by. I’ll call you later.”
“Dean, wait!”
Dean has his thumb over the cancel button and Jo’s voice sounds so far away when it drifts, cracked, through the ear piece:
“Dean, I’ll meet up with you.”
Dean brings the phone back to his ear. “What for?”
“To help you.”
“I don’t need help. I’ve found Sam fine on my own before.”
“If he’s possessed again, he could be stronger this time.”
Dean bites back a desperate cry. He’s gathering his clothes (Sam’s are already in the trunk, some stained with blood and smelling like smoke and fire) and this is going to eat him alive. No other alternative, not yet. “Jo.”
There’s only silence when Jo doesn’t speak. It’s suffocating. “I’ll meet you half-way.”
-
They meet in Nebraska, somewhere in the middle, and Dean buys them dinner. He pushes his food around the plate because he can’t stop thinking and it’s overwhelming. He watches Jo eat; how her nimble fingers wrap around her fork and her tiny lips licking away sauce from her fingers.
It reminds him of Sam and it makes him sick.
“I’ve tried everything.”
Jo pauses, taking a sip of water. “Did you try to call him?”
Dean shoots her an annoyed glare - that’s the first thing the demon would’ve gotten rid of and Jo knows that. Jo stares back at him like she knows exactly what he’s thinking.
“He doesn’t have it.” Dean curls his fingers into trembling fists underneath the table. “Look, Jo, I’ve checked every single damn thing I could - I’ve tried to track him under all his fake IDs and mine, but nothing’s turning up. Nothing.”
Jo stares at him. “We’ll find him, Dean.”
Dean looks out the window and watches the empty street light up with dead neon yellow and moonlight. “Somehow, I doubt that.”
He feels her fingers wrap around his and squeeze; he wants to pull them away, but he likes the lingering comfort, the warmth. Her hands aren’t as gentle or as big as Sam’s, but it reminds Dean so much of him it hurts.
-
Dean gets two beds at the nearest hotel and Jo falls asleep instantly, draping herself carelessly over the bed. Dean’s too full, too heavy to sleep and he takes endless cold showers to keep himself from thinking.
He tries to jerk off, fist tight around his limp cock, to find some hope that he can make it without Sam. He tries to remember the way Sam felt around him, in him. With him. But it only makes his head spin and he sinks to his knees, burying his face in his hands. The water beads down his back until its warm.
They drive out the next morning in any direction, Dean waiting for his second-wind and Jo curled up in the front seat, Sam’s laptop positioned between her bent legs and stomach. Just like Sam. Dean shoves in a Black Sabbath tape and blasts it loud enough so he doesn’t see Sam in everything.
-
Dean drinks while Jo searches huddled over a table, clicking away at the laptop and reading any newspaper she can get her hands on. The bars are always the same - always filled with desperate girls and desperate needs and desperate drinks and Dean knows he fits. There’s nowhere else for him to go, really.
He doesn’t take any girls back with him - he hasn’t in a year - but he tells them he’ll call and Jo gives the girls a sad look when they walk by looking proud of themselves.
“You shouldn’t do that to them,” Jo condemns one night when Dean slides in beside her, hand wound tightly around the neck of a warm beer.
“Why not?” The world blurs and he can only focus on Jo’s face - he’s too drunk to care about anything and he likes it that way.
Jo taps her pen against the table. She crosses and uncrosses her legs under the table. “Because I know what it feels like and it hurts.”
Dean glances at her, lowering his beer from his mouth. It hangs dangerously from the tips of his fingers. “M’sorry.”
Jo waves it off, laughing tightly. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Yeah, it does.” And Dean leans forward, pressing his lips into the corner of her mouth. He doesn’t know why, but he likes the way she shivers beneath him and how she gasps when he pulls away.
Jo looks at him, disbelieving. He can only stare back.
-
In the hotel room, Jo stands in a square of grey moonlight and takes off her clothes gradually, just like in the movies. Her eyes are wide and nervous and staring down at her own body - she shivers, startled, when Dean slides across the bed and runs his hands up her bare stomach, planting open-mouthed kisses down her navel.
Her skin is soft and pale and flawless; Dean’s used to dark shadows and scars, but he doesn’t mind. He runs his fingers gently, like he’s touching porcelain, and he knows how to handle this because every time Sam opened himself to Dean, allowing him in, he shakes like she does. Her bra slides off smoothly and Dean takes her breasts in his hands and revels in the small moan in the back of her throat.
Dean doesn’t know if he should be trusted with this - he doesn’t know if he should be trusted with anything, but people always seem to put them in his hands and the unshakable sense of faith and confidence doesn’t make it any easier to say no. He could hurt her, but she’s begging sweet and low in his hear, palming his throbbing cock through his jeans and he can’t say no.
She slides his zipper down, teeth clicking like thunder, and runs her fingers over the elastic of his boxers, slides her hand into his jeans and lets him step out of the legs. He pulls her close, presses her slender body against his, and can't stop thinking about how soft and smooth her curves are under the calluses on his fingers.
He tips her on the bed, lets her slide against the sheets and spread her legs, welcomes him inside. He kisses her belly and licks the damp material of her underwear, hands anchored on her thighs, both their fingers working the material off her body with frantic, desperate tugs.
She keens against him, squirms under his gaze and pants with every brush of his mouth against her hip. His presses into her with his fingers, slick and tight and opens her for his tongue. She buckles and cries with every teasing swipe against and in her, legs tightening against his ears, nails clawing at his scalp.
It's different but still the same taste, the same smell and sounds, except now he doesn't have Sam thrusting against the back of his throat, isn't gagging - just drowning.
He only really fucks her because she reminds him of Sam; her crying out when the pleasure washes over her, her arching off the bed with his name on her tongue. Her legs fall away from his head and she scrambles to pull him up, smaller fingers than he remembers closing around his dick, squeezing, stroking, guiding it in her as she bucks up and takes him all in. She rolls them over so she’s straddling his hips and licking her lips, staring down at him with lidded eyes.
She rides him nice and slow on the polyester hotel bed and it reminds him more and more of Sam; how he’s looking up at her and the way she cries and begs. He digs his nails into her hips and guides her, pulling her hips down as he pushes up. It’s an unsteady rhythm and his body is telling him to stop, but Dean can’t stop. He’s lost in her and the feel of her tight around him - nails digging into his shoulder blades - is enough to have him forgetting that it should be Sam.
She comes with a low moan, one that has Dean curling his toes and rolling his hips up into hers. She collapses, boneless and wasted, into him, her arms wrapping around his neck. He arches up into her, bites down on the inside of his cheeks and comes with Sam's name trapped in his mouth. He swallows it, holding it back no matter how desperately he wants to scream it out.
Jo raises her head, eyes fucked-out and blissful, to look at him - her fingers shake as she runs her thumb across his bottom lip. “Tell me this means something,” she whispers into his neck.
Dean runs to the bathroom, the bile rising in his throat and wretches into the toilet - just like the first night he fucked Sam and he felt so wrong, so fucked-up for it. Like he had hurt Sam and he could never, ever forgive himself for that. Sam didn’t look at him for days; Dean didn’t know if he was regretting it or just scared. Dean really never did find out.
-
He wakes on the bathroom floor, knees pulled to his chest and Jo kneeling beside him, fully clothed. He feels intimated and looks down at the floor as he sits up, still naked and shaking from the night before.
She stares at him for a moment before standing, her hands resting on her hips - she looks like she’s ready to kick him, but she walks away, slamming the door closed.
Dean jerks off in the shower, this time to the feeling of Jo around him, and he comes with a low moan. He punches the wall until his knuckles bleed and Jo screams at him through the door to hurry up. He washes away the evidence the best he can; he’s washing down the wall when Jo kicks open the door and pulls him out of the bathroom.
“Fucking girl, I swear,” Jo mutters as she throws some clothes at Dean and storms around the room, picking at things.
Dean wonders if he should say something; he sees the white-hot rage on her face and decides against it. He dresses silently, methodically doing up his buckle, pulling on his shirt, tying up his shoes - in, out, up, down; it all works out to a pattern Dean understands. Jo taps her foot impatiently until Dean swings his bag over his shoulder and moves to the door.
“Jo,” he whispers, laying a hand on the small of her back when she turns away. “I -”
Jo reaches around, grabbing his arm and throws him against the wall, pinning him there. He could throw her down and show her that she isn’t as tough as she thinks, but he’s finding it easier and easier to give in.
“Don’t say your sorry or some shit like that.” Jo bares her teeth and pushes away, stumbling back. She runs her hands through her hair - it’s tangled and knotted and her fingers get caught at the ends. “Cause you’re not.”
They start driving inland, where the trees grow thick and dense, where the roads crack and break and you can drive for miles without ever seeing another soul. Jo curls into the corner and sleeps - her eyes are puffy and there are dark circles underneath.
Dean doesn’t notice. Not really.
-
Part Two