Something More Than This (1/?)
Something More Than This
Author: Dimitri Aidan
Follow up to ‘Falling is Easy’ and ‘Sweet Dreams’
Rating: I’d say Hard R/NC-17 depending on where you pick it up.
Unbetaed at the moment, please excuse my poor editing skills.
Dedicated: Mechante Fille and La Folle Allure.
Warnings: Slutty!Sam, Dark!Sam, Possessive!Dean, VaguelyDisgusted!Dean, violence, mentions of unprotected sex, and the beginnings of a D/s relationship.
Notes: Ways to get Sam on His Knees: 2) Go "Bitch, LOOK AT ME" and Sam just drops to his knees and worships. La Folle Allure (Truth)
Dean needs to march him to a clinic, first thing. You know, when he reasserts himself as number one in Sam's life. Mechante Fille (Logic)
I wrote this with the X-Files Soundtrack on loop, the title comes from The Cure’s track from that. It’s…oh my god, too great for words.
Summary: Dean’s fed up, but Sam isn’t quite there yet. Dean decides to change everything.
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Part the First
Your lips lies the secret
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Dean didn’t think about it…or at least he pretended not to think about it. Then again Sam didn’t know that he knew what he was actually up to when he went vanishing at random points, and so Dean’s fantastic acting job was kind of lost on him.
And was thus totally lost, because Dean couldn’t very well deny thinking about it to himself.
They were in Dallas and it made Dean very uneasy for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was the crazed demon snake thing that was somehow coming out of toilets and drains and eating people whole in one of the Dallas suburbs. Dean had flunked Physics, twice, and even he knew that just didn’t make any kind of sense.
Still they were tracking it and doing a pretty good job except for one small detail: Sam was sick. He’d written it off at first, claiming it was probably due to that flood they had gotten caught in ten days back. Dean had been counting from the moment he woke up in the Impala to find they had pulled over and Sam was outside of the car, on his hands and knees, retching. He could have believed it, they had, after all, been up against the spirit of a little girl who had drowned fifty years ago when a storm made the river level rise and swept her house away with her still inside.
To say she’d been pissed was a gross understatement. The river along where her house had once been, but now a library stood, had been spilling over the banks faster than was possible and she’d been tossing them around like rag dolls, having the nerve to giggle as she did it. Though, considering how mad she’d been, giggle may have been the wrong term for it.
Dean hadn’t been worried about it though. Once upon a time seeing his brother slam into a wall and vanish underneath churning black waters for almost an entire minute would have killed him, clawed at his heart and sent him down there after Sam, fuck the ghost.
But he didn’t worry about Sam drowning anymore. Had simply finished burning the bones, buried in a small tomb next to the library, and a few of the girl’s possessions and by then Sam had hauled himself back out.
They, and by they Dean meant he, drove from Mississippi to Texas. Sam had begun shivering, coughing, and throwing up along the way and Dean had more or less told him to stay in the motel room and research. It was nerve wracking, having to do the hunting and interviewing alone, but he knew he couldn’t take Sam along either. He couldn’t risk Sam’s health.
Of course part of him wondered if it was just something he caught due to the flood. Sam was just getting worse and worse, wandering off more often and becoming even more indiscriminate in with whom he wandered off with. He wasn’t even putting as much effort into being discreet anymore.
Dean wasn’t disgusted or angry about it anymore, he was just…afraid, which was by far more annoying than Sam’s actions on their own. The fact that Dean was now more worried that Sam would pick something up from one of the men he let touch him, than he was about Sam being eaten or possessed or killed by an angry spirit who could spontaneously make buildings flood and rivers overflow, was fucking annoying.
There were simply no other words for it.
But still he wasn’t thinking about it, because thinking about it meant his slightly overactive imagination would force him to see it and it was bad enough that every time he looked at Sam he was taken back to that bathroom in that pool hall. Beating up the guy had made him feel better, after dragging Sam out of the pool hall and sending him back to the motel, but not by much. It wasn’t like it made a difference or that Sam had ever intended to see the guy again. Just a quick bit of fun…
For the guy anyway. Right up until Dean’s fist had come slamming into his nose. He’d apologized the minute he had explained why he was kicking his ass, swearing he hadn’t known that the guy in the bathroom was with anyone and that he hadn’t wanted to hurt him or anything.
“He practically begged for it man! Look, I’m sorry.”
Dean had only hit him harder, seeing red at the first mention that this guy had not only touched his brother, but had hurt him as well. When it was all said and done he’d stumbled back to the motel down the street with blood that wasn‘t his own covering his hands and shirt. He’d sent Sam off with the Impala and had needed the walk to clear his head anyway. Sam had already been peacefully asleep and Dean had managed to resist the urge to kick him out of the bed and beat him senseless as well.
Now however he wondered if that would have helped things. He was covered in slime, sewer water, and dead serpent bits plus his back was sore from where he‘d hit the service ladder. He’d had to walk from the reservoir since he’d left the Impala here in case he was covered in crap yet again and so his feet hurt as well. He was just having a shitty day, aside from killing the serpent. He’d taken Sam’s suggestion and blown the thing straight to hell with some handy homemade explosives. (Other kids had made volcanoes with their dads, but they had learned how to make something with the explosive force of C4 with household stuff.) Unfortunately he’d failed to factor in how the resulting explosion would affect him.
He unlocked the door and stopped, staring. Sam was sitting on his bed, pointedly not looking in his direction while Random Guy number whothefuckknewanymore scrambled to get off of his brother‘s bed. Dean considered the situation for a moment, forcing himself to not get mad. Enough things had exploded today without him joining the ranks. Sam, some guy, in their motel room. Not even being so sick he couldn’t hunt was a deterrent.
He should have kicked his ass the first time. Or the second…or any time, really. He shouldn’t have let it go this far.
He tried to count backwards from thirty, because ten just wasn’t going to cut it, but the guy was still hopping around like a moron trying to get his clothes on and beat a hasty escape, only ‘hasty’ had gone to hell and now he’d be lucky if he managed ‘timely’. Every time he moved made Dean go back to thirty and he kept shooting these little looks at Sam and…
Maybe fifty would work.
“Dean?” Sam’s voice was thin and tinged with worry. Dean almost laughed; worry. Sam should, at the very least, be terrified because this whole calming himself down thing wasn’t working so well. He looked over, eyebrow arching. “I…didn’t think you’d be back so soon.”
Obviously. It was clearly his fault for coming back so soon, he should have been more considerate of the fact Sam was being a whore. Silly him.
Dean didn’t say his out loud because he knew he’d start yelling. He was probably going to yell anyway, he could feel a hundred things that begged to be said very loudly and with lots of curse words mixed in, itching the back of his throat.
The guy tripped, slamming into the table and Dean growled. He was moving across the room and had the guy against the wall with his elbow colliding with his nose solidly before he‘d made the conscious decision to quit trying to calm down. Dean could hear the crack and crunch that could only mean he’d broken it. The guy shouted, hands going up to push Dean away.
He just batted the hands away and dragged the guy out of the room before dropping him none too gently on the ground. Dean glared down at him, taking a moment to delight in the expression of fear on the man’s face. He had one hand on his nose as if to stop the stream of blood flowing from it and another on the pavement, which he was trying to backpedal across. Dean kicked him as hard as he could manage and he went sprawling. He coughed and blood splattered on the pavement.
Dean stepped on his hand, hard, and was rewarded with another scream. He put all his weight on the hand, crouching down to see the look of pain and probably would have broken it if a hand hadn’t grabbed his arm and pulled him back. He knew it was Sam and that was the only thing that kept him from lashing out.
Barely, because he really wanted to knock the shit out of Sam as well.
“Dean! What the hell are you doing?”
Good question. Dean turned to look at Sam, who was wearing only a pair of loose sweatpants, Dean’s sweatpants actually, and glaring at him like he’d kicked a puppy or something equally defenseless. A glance at the man who was clutching his hand to his chest and Dean could kind of see his point. He opened his mouth, anger wavering enough for him to acknowledge that this wasn’t helping, then stopped, reached out and forcibly pushed Sam’s head to the side, exposing his neck. Sam twitched, as if he was going to try and stop him but one glare made him go still. There were dark marks around his neck and Dean could count five of them, oval smudges. He was sure if he turned Sam’s head the other way he’d see the same thing.
Out in the light of day he could see bruises, some old and some new, overlapping over his chest and arms, long scratches just beginning to heal up, and finger shaped smudges on his hips where the pants went low.
“Inside.” Dean kept his voice even, forgetting about the man on the ground. He’d either stay there and pass out or he’d get up and run away. Dean didn’t care because he’d just come to a very important revelation.
Misplaced rage was wrong.
Sure, this guy had touched Sam, bruised him even, and Dean wanted to kill him and then drag him into the middle of the desert, skin him, and leave him for buzzards to pick at, but that was wrong. It wasn’t like he knew that Sam was his and that touching him was pretty much admitting to a death wish.
This was information Sam wasn’t giving out. Maybe he didn’t know it either. Dean was just going to have to make it absolutely clear who Sam belonged to. He should have done this before. In a weird sort of way this was Dean’s fault for pulling away like he had. The visions had freaked him out and he’d distanced himself and the fact Sam was doing…this had freaked him out even worse. He couldn’t even look at his brother sometimes without feeling sick and so he’d let it get like this so he wouldn’t have to deal with it. Dean was the king of not dealing; it was so much easier to just ignore a problem until it got to big to be disregarded.
“What-”
“I said get inside. Now.” Sam hesitated a moment, eyes flicking over Dean’s shoulder but he moved to block his view. “Look at him and I will break his legs, throw him in the trunk, and dump him somewhere no one will ever find him.”
That was all the incentive Sam needed. He turned and went inside, Dean following after him closely. He shut and locked the door. Sam walked into the middle of the room, watching as Dean closed the blinds and flicked on the light.
Finally Sam sighed. “Dean-”
“Shut up.” Dean didn’t want to hear him. He didn’t know what would happen if Sam tried to talk to him but he doubted it would be good and apparently his brother understood because he shut his mouth and blinked at him slowly.
He walked over to him, noting the way Sam stiffened and narrowed his eyes. He reached out, let his fingers touch bruises and scabs lightly and could feel his brother trembling under his touch. Sam’s lips were parted and his eyes were so dark they were almost black, breathe escaping him in quick bursts.
His tongue darted out, wetting his lips and Dean watched the action intently.
He couldn’t lie and say he’d never wondered what it’d be like to be with Sam, more lately than ever before. He’d just never acted on it because it was wrong on so many obvious levels and probably a few Dean wouldn’t let him think about. He was supposed to protect his brother, not want to fuck him until the other man couldn’t move. He wasn’t supposed to wish it were him Sam was on his knees for. He fucked other people and thought about Sam and felt as if he’d done some kind of great sacrilege afterwards, and so they were always gone by the time the sun came up so he wouldn’t be reminded in the light of day.
Sam was his entire world, the light and the darkness, everything that made him happy and tore him apart in one person and he’d told himself that he couldn’t want it. Couldn’t have it. He’d tried to make himself not want him.
But Sam was wrong on just as many levels and while two wrongs didn’t exactly make a right, Dean supposed they made something he could live with. He clenched his fist for a moment and then did something he had never thought he’d do.
He smacked his brother, a solid backhand that sent Sam stumbling backwards. A misplaced shoe had his brother tripping and hitting the ground but he didn’t seem to notice, too busy staring up at Dean with eyes too wide for his face. His tongue flicked out again, licking over his lip and gathering a spot of blood. His hand followed his tongue, touching his lip carefully, but never looking away from Dean.
He’d hit Sam before; they’d had some serious fights over the years, which had resulted in numerous broken bones, scars, and bruises. They had hurt each other worse than most of the things they hunted in those days, but their father allowed it because it was good practice, or something along those lines. That was just how they’d dealt with things when they were younger, and even now when they got frustrated with each other and flinging insults back and forth didn’t cut it, coming to blows was a perfectly reasonable outcome.
This was different. He couldn’t explain it in words how it was different but the way Sam was staring at him, as if Dean had just totally sent his world off axis and that he didn’t get up or go to hit him back, said it loud and clear. Dean moved so he was standing over him, feet planted on either side of Sam’s body.
A perverse kind of thrill went through him as he watched Sam watch him, chest heaving and fingers fisted in the carpet. If he didn’t know better he’d think that Sam liked it…who was he kidding, he probably did liked it.
Dean kind of liked it too.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with you or why you’re doing this but it’s going to stop.” Sam swallowed, throat moving, but he didn’t say anything. “I swear to God, the next person to touch you who isn’t me is going to wish they had never met you. No more of this shit Sam; you’re going to get yourself killed like this, or worse. If you want someone to hurt you, fine, you’ve got me but don’t forget you brought it on yourself.”
Sam’s mouth worked for a moment, but no sound was forthcoming. After a few seconds he just shut it and looked away. He was shivering and still breathing deeply but other than that wasn’t moving at all. Dean nudged him lightly with the toe of his shoe.
“Get up.”
Sam scrambled to his feet, ending up with his face scant inches from Dean. Dean reached out for a moment, fingers twining in Sam’s hair. His brother reacted, moving into his hand, and Dean drew back before shaking his head.
“I can’t…touch you.” Touching him, after seeing that…he couldn’t. Not after someone else had,; it made him feel sick. Sam’s eyes reflected hurt and something else that Dean couldn’t read. He let his hand fall away. “Take a shower.”
Sam looked like he might speak for a moment but just turned and walked into the bathroom, door slamming after him. Dean ignored it and walked over to the table, where a phone book was sitting. Every room he had ever stayed in either had a phone book or a bible, but rarely both.
He sat down and flipped it open, eyes scanning the headings until he found what he was looking for. Free clinics. He ran down the list until he found one on a street that he could recall driving along once, which was more than he could say for the rest of them.
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Sam had argued and Dean had pointed out, in what he felt was a very calm and rational tone, that they wouldn’t have to fucking do this if Sam hadn’t taken to doing people in rest stop bathrooms every other day. He’d gone silent after that, leaving Dean to shower, check themselves out of the motel and into a new one, least Sam’s ‘friend’ decide to turn them in, and drive to the clinic.
Sam had gone in and, as far as he knew, Dean had sat outside in the parking lot and waited. While it was true the car never moved Dean figured that the fact he was supposedly waiting would be enough to keep Sam from doing something stupid, and had made a quick run to the drug store down the street.
Now, a few very tense hours later, Dean was looking through the newspaper for anything else that seemed to be up their alley while Sam stared at his bowl of soup dispassionately, looking over at Dean whenever he thought Dean wouldn’t notice and then looking back down just as fast.
After staring at the Obituaries for thirty minutes and not really absorbing anything Dean looked up, catching Sam’s eye and rolling his own when Sam blushed and looked away. He supposed they were kind of required to talk now, which was why Dean hated confrontation. It always lead to having to talk about things and Dean wasn’t much of a talker…or a listener. He didn’t actually like other people all that much and avoided sappy emotional moments as much as possible.
He blamed his father and severely stunted emotional growth. He was almost positive that Dr. Phil would agree with him.
Dean stood up and dragged his chair over to the bed, the one bed, in the room, then sat back down, crossing his arms over his chest. “Lets hear it Sammy.”
“Hear what?”
“I’m not in the mood.” Dean said, tone deliberately dull. Sam sighed, setting the bowl on the bedside table and drawing his legs up to his chest.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I don’t care.” He said, tone harsher than he meant it to be. Sam flinched then nodded slowly.
“It’s the nightmares I guess. They’re getting worse, almost every night and the more I have, the more real…it’s not just being there anymore, seeing it, it’s like living it. Sometimes I can’t tell if I’m awake or dreaming or having a vision. Sometimes I think I‘m going crazy.” He didn’t look at Dean as he spoke, but at the cover he was on top of, slowly drawing a loose thread out of it. “It was never like this before, when I was with Jess.”
“So it’s about Jess?”
“No. Jess…I loved her, but not…not her. She’s was…she…”
“Looked almost exactly like mom?” Dean had noticed, he just hadn’t said anything. If Sam needed to find himself a ‘Mommy replacement’ far be it from Dean to rag on him about it after the girl died. Sam’s lips quirked slightly.
“A lot like you.” Sam looked up at him for a moment, eyes reflecting so many things all at once that Dean couldn’t even begin to sort them all out. “She would have really liked you. You…you would have wondered why I was dating a girl who was almost exactly like you. She kept the nightmares away, just by being there. Being with me. If I had a nightmare I could wake up and she’d be right there, real, like…an anchor. Exactly the way it had been before I went to sleep and so I knew it was the truth.
“The marks…the pain. It’s all there when I go to sleep and its there when I wake up and I know it’s real. It helps keep me here. At first it was easy, just once and I‘d be fine for days but now…it‘s like its compounding, building up inside of me and the only way to keep it from just burning me up on the inside is to get it out and this is the only way, but as things go it starts to build up faster and faster.”
Sam did sound like he was going crazy, or at least starting to lose it.
“You should have said something.”
“Like what? ‘Dean, I’m going insane and I need you to either fuck me or hurt me to stop it. Preferably both.’ Right.” Sam snorted darkly while resting his head on his knees. “I don’t understand it really. With Jess if she was just there it was fine but now…I don’t think that would be enough. I think it’s out of control.”
“Obviously, dumbass. You should have told me before it got like this.”
“What would you have done?”
Dean watched him for a moment, already knowing the answer and strangely…offended that Sam didn’t already know it as well. “I would have done anything you asked.”
Sam bowed his head, looking ever inch the scolded child. Dean sincerely hoped that the way he felt now wasn’t similar to the way a deeply disappointed parent felt because the whole scenario was messed up enough without throwing in those parental feelings he’d only admit to having under extreme duress.
His relationship with Sam pretty much spanned the entire scope of things. They were a psychologist’s wet dream. The fact that he was being slightly dishonest and didn’t exactly hate the way this was turning out would only add to that. He wasn’t happy about it but he wouldn’t have been happy about any of those other things either; he was…not entirely adverse to any of them though.
“…Dean.”
Until now they hadn’t touched since Dean had hit him, Sam carefully in the center of the bed and trying to shy away without it being obvious. But now he seemed to just deflate and Dean jumped up to grab him before he just slumped over. He turned, burying his face in Dean’s shirt while curling closer. Dean held him, fingers threading through his hair. The feelings from earlier, disgust and anger, were gone and it was easy to touch him.
“I’d never hurt you.”
“I know…” Sam sounded apologetic and distressed all at once. “You would never, and I shouldn‘t-”
“Unless you asked.” Dean finished, feeling Sam jerk slightly in surprise before going still again.
Things were going to change, veer off in a direction that Dean probably wouldn’t have even entertained in his wildest dreams. But, as his free hand moved over Sam’s marked back, he figured it was the only direction they could go now.
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Happy endings are for suckers!
There we go, three parts, I think my moral obligation is now fulfilled, don’t you?