New SPN Fic: Practical Men of the World
Practical Men of the World
SPN Sam/Dean
7,609 words
Notes: Down to the End 'verse, companion piece to Stumbling Across Its Bleak Ending -- this will work a lot better if you read that first. Spoilers for Devil's Trap, rather heavy on the schmoop scale. Further notes at the end of the story.
Many, many thanks to ladyjaida for a thorough and lightning-fast beta.
Sam wakes slowly. His head is pounding and his stomach is churning, charming little reminders of last night's binge. It's been a long time since he was that drunk. Fucking Dean and his fucking trash-talking... Sam's almost 25, for god's sake, he shouldn't still react like a kid trying to prove himself when his older brother goads him. But he's never had a whole lot of perspective where Dean is concerned -- the loose, well-fucked thrum of his muscles and his own dried come on his belly are more than testament to that -- and it's not like they have anywhere to be.
Dean's not in bed beside him, and Sam can't hear the shower running. He keeps his eyes closed, focuses on his brother and reaches out a bit with his mind, but he can't feel Dean anywhere near. That isn't worrisome in and of itself -- Dean could easily be out getting coffee or donuts, or hell, an air horn, if he's feeling vindictive -- but something in the room feels wrong, and Sam sits up and forces his eyes open.
He notices several things at once. The room is emptier than it was; Dean's clothes, usually spread over half the room, are gone, and so is his pack. Sam's Glock is still on the table, next to his laptop and a box of bullets, but Dean's knives are gone. There's a pile of bills on the nightstand that Sam's pretty damn sure wasn't there when he went to sleep, and he's wearing Dean's amulet.
Understanding crashes in all at once, and Sam's never been so fucking pissed in his life.
"You... you... FUCK!" he snarls. His voice cuts through the silence like a knife, and it only deepens the ache in his head, but that's a minor concern. All that matters at the moment is finding Dean and beating the shit out of him. Maybe breaking his legs for good measure. He's literally shaking with rage, something he didn't even know was physically possible, and he stomps naked to the door, yanks his phone out of his jacket pocket, and dials Dean's number.
It takes five rings to get to voicemail -- the fucker hasn't even turned off his phone -- and the sound of Dean's voice when it clicks on only makes Sam angrier.
"Get your ass back here," he spits. "I don't know what the fuck you think you're doing and I don't even care, just get your ass back here and maybe I won't feed you to the next wendigo I come across."
There's no effective way to slam down a cell phone, but Sam compensates by hurling the phone across the room after he clicks off.
He pulls clothes on without showering, which is kind of gross given the state of his body, but he can hardly risk being away from his phone when Dean calls back. When. Not if. Dean may be campaigning for a Darwin award at the moment, but he'll come to his senses before too long, and Sam is going to be there to break his jaw for him when he does.
He manages a full three minutes before retrieving his phone and calling again. "Pick up your fucking phone, dickhead. Call me back and tell me there's a camera hidden here somewhere or you got confused and thought April Fool's Day happens in May or something that makes this okay, and you better come up with something good, or you are not going to make it through this one with your pretty face intact."
He clicks off and dials again. "Fucking now, Dean."
The white-hot fury is starting to cool a bit, but the stark terror seeping into its place is far worse, and his fingers stutter on the keypad when he dials a fifth time. "Don't you do this to me," he says. "Don't you do this. You're the only goddamn thing I have."
He calls again, and again, threats giving way to pleas, and finally he just begs -- "Dean, please, I can't do this without you, I need you here, please -- until the system cuts him off and he falls into a chair and puts his head in his hands.
***
When he finally makes himself stand up, he sees the money and gets pissed all over again. Bad enough for Dean to leave, fuck him and leave him sleeping naked like he's one of the endless parade of skanks Dean banged before... before. But money on the nightstand adds a whole new level of tawdriness, makes it so cheap and ugly that Sam can't decide if he's more livid or disgusted.
They don't talk about whatever this thing is between them. They never have, and Sam's just fine with that. He knows what Dean is to him and he knows -- or thought he knew -- what he is to Dean, and that's all that's ever mattered. The physical aspect is in some ways almost beside the point; Sam's pretty sure the last few years would have gone exactly the same without it. He's pretty sure he'd still feel like someone just ripped his heart out and fed it to him even if he didn't know what his brother tastes like, or the spot on his neck that makes him instantly hard whenever Sam sinks his teeth into it, or the way his face looks when he comes.
But in some ways, it's everything. It's not what keeps him and Dean together after they killed the thing that killed Mom and Dad and Jess, but it gives him more of his brother than he ever thought he could have, and when Dean's above him or against him or inside him, he feels whole. They blend and merge and melt into each other when they fuck, they get closer than should be physically possible, they lose themselves in each other, again and again and again. Sam's never been a religious man, and he knows the thought is six kinds of blasphemous anyway, but when he and Dean are locked together, it's the closest thing to sacred he's ever known.
And Dean just tossed it all away. Paid him like a whore and walked out the door like he meant nothing. He knows that's not what the money's for -- Dean would never leave Sam truly stranded, and he'd never shell out that much cash on a "fuck you" anyway -- but he has no fucking doubt leaving it on the nightstand was Dean's idea of a joke, and it makes him want to break things. Mostly Dean's stupid, smug face.
He grabs Dean's amulet, to yank it off and stomp on it or throw it out the window or maybe flush it down the toilet, but when his hand closes around it he gets blinding flash of Dean. Dean driving, faster than the Impala can safely take, clutching the wheel so tightly it's cutting into his palms. The radio's silent and Dean's barely looking at the road; his whole focus is on the phone beside him, blinking 12 new messages. Sam can feel Dean's want like it's a physical thing.
Sam sinks to the floor almost without noticing. He lifts his other hand, presses the amulet between his palms, and watches Dean pull to the side of the road and delete the messages one by one. Dean's hands are shaking and he's bitten his lip bloody; he's taking deep, careful breaths, and after he drops the phone onto the passenger seat he just sits still, staring blankly forward.
Dean's gone as suddenly as he appeared, leaving Sam gasping. His head feels like someone took a jack-hammer to it, and his whole body drags with a bone-deep exhaustion he hasn't felt since the early days of the visions, but he still tries to get the picture back, clutching the amulet so hard he can feel it biting into the flesh on his palms. But there's nothing. Dean's gone like he never existed, and that -- along with the sudden understanding throbbing in his head -- makes the physical pain seem trifling.
Dean was clingier, the last few weeks, inviting and allowing more physical contact -- normally he's prone to push Sam away when they're not in bed -- and fucking Sam like his life depended on it. Sam hadn't thought much of it, at the time; it's been nearly a year since Dad's death, which was hard enough for Sam but left Dean in broken, bloody pieces on the floor. It only made sense that Dean would be hurting as the anniversary approached, and Sam had been quietly touched that his brother would turn to him, if only wordlessly.
But it wasn't Dad, and it wasn't the date, and the knowledge makes Sam ache. Dean had planned this, schemed and plotted, and he'd touched Sam more, loved him more, because he knew their time was running out. And after he got them close enough to California, he'd gotten Sam drunk and fucked him into oblivion and then walked away, even though it ripped him apart to do it.
If he'd had a thousand years, Sam couldn't have imagined his brother hurting like that. If he'd had a thousand years, he couldn't have imagined anyone -- even Dean, and Sam knows just how much his brother loves him -- hurting like that over him, and the revelation is both humbling and terrifying. It's also infuriating, that Dean could do that to himself, to Sam, without even asking Sam what he wanted, that Dean could even think Sam would ask that of him, after everything. He's going to beat the shit out of Dean when he finds him. And then he's going to fuck him until Dean can't remember how to breathe.
***
The room's paid for for another night, and Sam stays, as much as at loss for where to go as hopeful that Dean will have a change of heart, swagger back through the door with a smirk and a joke and make everything all right again.
He searches the browser history on his laptop, hoping for something that will tell him where Dean planned to go, but there's nothing beyond Dean's furtive visits to Metallica fan sites, which would be pretty damn funny any other day. He scours the stack of newspapers for anything Dean might have wanted to follow up on, but he'd come up empty the day before, and he doesn't think Dean would be stupid enough to head straight to a hunt when he has to know Sam will come after him. He manages sporadic glimpses of Dean; sometimes clasping the amulet gives him a crystal-clear display, sometimes fuzzy images, but more often it's just cold metal in his hand.
He paces. When he can't stand it anymore, he swears and stomps and throws things, and then he paces some more. He tries to plot just how much pain he's going to inflict on his brother when he gets his hands on him, but thoughts of seeing Dean again inevitably end with Sam holding on like he's drowning and Dean's the only thing that can keep him afloat, making Dean swear again and again that he won't leave until he's dead and not even then, if he can help it.
Sam's not sure exactly when he turned into a twelve-year-old girl, but he's pretty damn certain Dean's to blame for that, too.
***
He takes a bus to Portland and flies to Kansas City, then hitches a ride to Lawrence.
Missouri doesn't look surprised to see him, and she doesn't ask where Dean is, which Sam thinks says an awful lot in itself. She brings him coffee and sits back and waits for him to talk, and Sam says, "I need to find my brother."
Missouri raises one expressive eyebrow, but she stays silent.
Sam squirms a little under her cool regard, and his next attempt is a little too close to babbling. "He left. He took the car and he left me in some godforsaken town in Oregon and I don't know where he went and I'm going crazy."
"You always could wrap your brother around your little finger," Missouri says reflectively. "And he never could see straight with you around."
It's been the longest three days of Sam's life, and the last thing he needs is cryptic crap. "What the hell are you--"
"Language," Missouri snaps.
"Do you understand what I'm telling you?" Sam yells. "He's gone. I don't know how to find him, and I have to. It doesn't have anything to do with... that," he trails off lamely. Missouri just looks at him like he's a particularly stupid child, and Sam thinks about yelling again, but he doesn't have the energy to stay angry. "Just tell me what to do," he says. "Tell me how to find him."
"Are you so sure he wants to be found, sugar?"
"He left for me," Sam says. Speaking it aloud makes it real, a hard, unavoidable truth, and the ache in his chest, omnipresent since Dean disappeared, swells like a balloon. "He left so I could go have a normal life, and he's miserable and he's alone and I can't find him but I can feel him hurting and I just want him back, Missouri. Just help me get him back."
"But nothing to do with 'that,'" Missouri says. Her tone is mocking, but her eyes are kind, and she asks, "What do you have of his?"
"Just this," Sam says, pulling the amulet out from under his shirt.
Missouri looks faintly horrified. "Boy, you can't be wearing that next to your skin and still hope to find him with it!"
The thought of taking if off, the one thing he has left, is somehow the worst thing yet, and Sam's hand tightens reflexively. "It's where he left it," he says, stubbornly. "I can feel him better with it on."
Missouri looks at him sharply, sudden understanding in her face, and Sam feels his face go hot, but he refuses to look away. She says, "There isn't any normal, after this. Not for you. This is your chance, Sam Winchester, and it's the only one you get."
Sam doesn't even hesitate. "I don't need normal. I just need Dean." He thinks it should be harder to say, that it should feel like a momentous decision, but it's just a simple fact, as unremarkable as the blue of the sky or the heat of the sun.
The look Missouri gives him in return feels like it goes straight into his soul. "You do this, you drag him back after he's made the biggest sacrifice he ever could, and then you leave again, you'll kill him. You understand?"
"There's nowhere I want to go without him with me," Sam says, and it's nothing more than the truth.
He can't read into Missouri -- which seems distinctly unfair, when she can so easily pin him like a bug -- but he can see the moment when she makes her decision. The relief is staggering, though it doesn't stop him from wincing when she reaches for Dean's amulet.
Missouri huffs impatiently. "Don't look like that. You can survive five minutes without it and I won't get any of your brother while it's around your neck."
"Yeah, okay, just..." Sam trails off, unsure of what it is he wants to say.
Missouri just rolls her eyes and snatches it off, then presses it tightly between both her palms and closes her eyes. She's silent for long moments, and then a spasm crosses her face, and she says, "Oh, baby."
The pained sympathy in her voice hurts. "What?" Sam says. "What do you--"
"Hush," she says sharply. And then, "He's in a bad way, your brother."
Sam opens his mouth to tell her he already knows that, that he can feel Dean bleeding just fine on his own and what he needs is a location, but her eyes snap open and the glare she shoots him is more effective than a gag.
"He's in a bad way," Missouri says again. "He's just moving, no direction, no plan. There are flashes, but where he's going... it's like trying to track a raindrop in a lake."
"No," Sam says. "No, you can't tell me--"
"I'm sorry," Missouri says. "He's too unfocused, and this," she gestures at the amulet, "has too much of you all over it." And then, "Boy, what did you do to him?"
Sam stares at her. "I didn't... he just..."
"Fix it," she says sharply. "And fix it fast, because he's not all that worried about keeping himself in one piece, and hunters without the survival instinct don't last long."
Panic rises like bile in Sam's throat. "I don't know what to do!" he yells. "I don't--"
"He's your blood," Missouri says fiercely. "He's your blood and your flesh and he's locked onto you with everything he is. If you can't find him you're a waste of the talent god gave you."
And there's nothing Sam can say to that. Nothing at all.
When she hands the amulet back, he gets the strongest flash of Dean he's had since the first one, a surround-sound high-definition picture show of Dean in a shabby roadside diner, poking at the entire world's supply of cholesterol on a plate. Sam doubles over and clutches his head, and it's a good minute before he can make himself sit straight again.
When he does, Missouri is looking at him coolly. "You're going to need to learn better control than that," she says.
***
He stays for a week, and Missouri puts him through a regimen that makes John Winchester's grueling training sessions look like a child's tea party. He'd thought he had the psychic thing down to a science -- easily plucking things from people's heads, moving objects from across the room without breaking a sweat, tormenting Dean to aching hardness in completely inappropriate situations whenever Dean deserved it or Sam was bored enough -- but he feels like a novice when it comes to this. He doesn't know what's different, if it's the distance or the intent or the simple fact that it's Dean, and nothing ever behaves like it's supposed to when Dean is involved. But whatever the reason, beyond the random uncontrollable flashes, Dean's head is locked up tighter than the Pentagon, and trying to push inside leaves Sam shaking and exhausted.
Missouri is relentless, though, not to be denied, and he pushes himself to the limit again and again as she watches and commands and scolds. By the time he leaves, he's tired enough that he could sleep for a month, but he can see Dean every time he tries with the amulet in his hand, and sometimes without touching it at all. He still can't discern locations, and there's no hope of knowing where Dean's going until Dean starts choosing destinations instead of just moving endlessly, but the more he sees Dean the more chance he's got of seeing something useful, and it's enough of a start.
Missouri hugs him when he leaves, says, "I'm sorry about your daddy, Sam. He was a good man. And you tell your brother so, when you find him."
Sam feels tears prick the back of his eyelids for the first time since he held a plain cardboard box full of ash that had been his father, and he clings to Missouri a little harder than he'd ever admit.
***
He goes to South Dakota next. Bobby's got a new woman -- a muscular and somewhat grizzled but still surprisingly attractive brunette named Bobbie, and Sam can hear Dean's cackle at that -- and a new pup, a German Shepard named Yoo to go with his Rottweiler Ashcroft, and he doesn't ask for particulars. He just sets Sam up in the same room he shared with Dean the summer before, gives him the keys to his father's truck, and stays out of his way.
Sam spends three days poring through Bobby's books, trying to find anything that will help him locate Dean. Bobbie brings him coffee and reminds him to eat, drags him out for target practice when she thinks he needs a break. She can throw a dagger with more precision than he can, and Sam thinks there was a time when Dean would have tried to bang her on principle alone.
There isn't a location spell in Bobby's collection that doesn't require a piece of the person to be found, and Sam wonders once again how he could have lived with Dean, spent the entirety of every day with him, for years, and ended up with nothing but a single amulet deliberately left behind. Bobbie gives him the next best thing, a charm she learned from her grandmother, an intricate little symbol that, when laid on the skin with the appropriate incantation, lets the wearers find each other instantly, regardless of distance. It won't help him find Dean, but it'll make damn sure he never loses him again once he does, and Sam kisses Bobbie on the mouth when she explains it to him. When Bobby growls at him, only half-joking, Sam kisses him, too.
***
Sam can see Dean more easily with each day that passes, longer, clearer views, less pain and tiredness after. It's mostly useless: Dean in diners and nondescript motel rooms, Dean hustling pool and gassing the Impala. One morning he gets a view of Dean with his head buried between the legs of a woman with spiky blonde hair and a stud in her nose, and his chest goes tight with rage even as his dick gets instantly, blindingly hard. Dean's whore is moaning like she's never had a mouth on her cunt before, and Sam hates her, and he hates Dean, and for the first time in his life, he desperately wants something to kill.
He jerks off instead, jerks his dick so hard it's more pain than pleasure and orgasm is nothing but a relief, then goes outside and throws knives at Bobby's practice dummy until his arms ache. His aim is shot to hell and he misses more than he connects, but he feels a little better when he's done.
He doesn't reach for Dean for a solid week, and when he leaves Bobby's, he nearly leaves the sketched charm behind. But he isn't stupid -- or angry -- enough not to realize he'll want it again. Furious as he is, he still misses Dean like he'd miss an arm, and the paper is safely pressed into his journal when he claps Bobby on the back and hugs Bobbie goodbye.
When he finally breaks down and feels for his brother again, Dean's in bed, half-drunk, wide awake and maudlin, so focused on Sam that Sam can feel the back of his neck prickle. Sam hates these moments -- both because seeing his brother so broken hurts like hell and because he knows Dean would eat his own liver before willingly letting Sam see it -- but the last of the jealousy and betrayal slip away, and he thinks there's nothing he wouldn't do, no one he wouldn't kill, just to be able to touch Dean again.
***
Sam misses the fact that Dean's stopped hunting until Dean starts again, and it's easier after that. Dean with a purpose is easier to read, easier to track, easier to predict. The first time Sam gets a solid location he actually whoops aloud, then looks around in embarrassment, even though he's alone in his motel room.
It's not so simple as all that, though -- Dean's hunting like he's going for the world record, killing things and moving on before Sam can get within five hundred miles of him, and it's complicated further by the fact that flashes with specifics are sporadic at best. It's long and frustrating and it's nothing but sheer force of will that keeps Sam from putting his fist through a few cardboard motel walls after missing Dean again, but he's getting closer, always closer, and he knows it's only a matter of time now.
He finally catches a break in New Orleans, nearly six months after Dean left. Dean's moved on, but he's barely been gone a day and Sam gets a pure, perfect look at the The Charlotte Observer sitting on Dean's diner table as he eats tough steak and runny eggs, THIRD UNSOLVED MURDER IN POLKVILLE blazoned above the fold.
One quick google search later and Sam has the article up on his screen, the subhead, "Victims' Heads Still Missing," neatly explaining Dean's interest.
He leaves Dad's truck in long-term parking at the New Orleans airport and flies to Charlotte, sweet-talks the matronly woman -- Nancy, her name is -- in the aisle seat next to him into driving him to Polkville, though it's a good thirty miles out of her way. He has a list of cheap motels in the area -- only eight in a twenty-mile radius, which makes things significantly easier -- but he hardly needs it; he can feel Dean from the moment the plane lands. For the hundredth time he silently thanks Missouri for her training as he zeroes in on Dean, so effortless now, with Dean only a few miles away.
He finds the motel and Dean's room easily -- Dean isn't there, but he's close, and he'll be back. Sam refuses to track him any more specifically than that, too afraid he'll break and find his brother now, and he's pretty sure the locals won't take kindly to him breaking Dean's jaw or kissing him senseless. Or both. Much better to wait, and it's easier to explain a motel to Nancy anyway. She hugs him when she drops him off, refuses payment once again, and sincerely wishes him luck finding his missing brother. Sam, not for the first time, wonders if there's something to Dean's theory that there's no one he can't charm. But he never told her more than the truth, if a very abbreviated version, and he refuses to feel guilty for taking help he needs.
Picking the lock is easy, and the moment he's inside he's hit with a sense of Dean so strong it almost bowls him over. His brother might not be in the room, but it's Dean's pack on the chair, his leather jacket across the bed. There's a wet towel on the bathroom floor, and Dean's ridiculously complex razor -- his brother never skimps on anything he regards as highly as his own face -- is in its immaculate case on the sink.
It's like a wave, huge and overpowering, Dean and Dean and Dean. It's been five months, twenty-seven days, and sixteen hours since he's seen his brother, and he thinks going to die if he can't touch Dean rightfuckingnow. He drops his bag by the door and walks to the bed, picks up Dean's jacket and buries his face in it. It's revolting, and Dean would never let him live it down if he knew, never, but Sam can't help himself. He can smell Dean, sharp soap and aftershave overlying a subtler, spicier scent, and he holds the jacket and breathes it in for what feels like an eternity.
It's only with real effort that he manages to put it down again. He's not sure how Dean will react to seeing him -- though he suspects "not well" is the understatement of the year -- and he has a simple sleeping spell to knock Dean out and rope to tie him down if Dean tries to run. But neither one will do anything at all if he can't get close enough, and he'll be damned if he lets Dean slip away again because he was distracted by his goddamn jacket.
Sam moves to the bed closest to the door, and sits facing it to wait. His heart is beating too fast and there's a gnawing ache in his belly, anticipation and fear and simple, overwhelming want. It's a half an hour and a few millennia before he hears Dean's key in the lock. He's planned this scene a million times, played out a million different scenarios, but they all slide out of his head as the door opens, and when he sees Dean he reacts on autopilot, smashing his fist into his brother's smarmy, pretty, stupid face.
Dean reels and staggers backwards. He's already reacting, hand moving to the small of his back for the gun that's undoubtedly secreted there as his body tenses and prepares for a fight, but then he sees Sam and freezes. There's a look that crosses his face, wonder and joy and fierce, desperate longing, for the space of a second before his mask falls back into place, and Sam knows then that the sleeping spell was completely unnecessary.
"I'm psychic, you stupid son of a bitch," he says. "Did you really think I wouldn't find you?" He drives his fist into Dean's face again before Dean has time to so much as blink, and Dean goes down.
Guilt hits almost immediately. Dean's face is going to be bruised to hell tomorrow, and there's a knot already rising where his head hit the floor when he fell. Sam can never stand to see Dean in pain, and pain he's caused is damned near unbearable.
Sam drops to the floor, and for long moments, he just cradles his brother in his arms. Dangerous -- Dean's every bit as tough as he pretends, physically, at least, and there's no telling when he'll come to -- but letting go of him seems like a physical impossibility. Sam holds Dean tight against his chest, drops kisses into his hair, whispers, "You ever leave me again I really will kill you, you asshole," and for the first time since Sam woke to a hangover and an empty bed, the world feels right again.
He carries Dean to the bed -- Dean sprawls in his arms like a sleeping child, and Sam feels a pang of momentary regret that there's no way to capture the moment to torment Dean with later on -- and lays him gently on his back. He pulls off Dean's boots, then his jeans and t-shirt, unable to shake the image of a frat boy preparing a rufied coed, especially when each newly revealed bit of Dean's body sends a guilty jolt to his cock. But he needs access to Dean's skin for the charm, and he doubts Dean's going to willingly sit still for it after Sam's version of the welcome wagon.
Once he's stripped Dean to his boxers, Sam retrieves the rope and ties him tightly to the bed. He winces a little at the sight of the bonds biting into his brother's skin, winces a little more when he looks at Dean stretched out and realizes just how much weight he's dropped since Sam saw him last, but there will time to worry about all that later.
There's a fresh bite mark on Dean's inner thigh, and it's only with real effort that Sam manages to swallow down his anger. He's here, and Dean's here, and he's not letting Dean go until he knows damn well Dean's not going anywhere. There won't be any marks like that on Dean's body that aren't from him, ever again. Not for the rest of their lives, if Sam has anything to say about it.
When Dean is secure, Sam retrieves Dean's room key from where he dropped it when Sam hit him the first time, and goes to find the ice machine. Leaving -- even knowing he'll be gone two or three minutes at the most -- takes so much conviction it's ridiculous; Sam can't shake the feeling that Dean will disappear the moment he looks away. But he's knocked Dean out and tied him up, and yeah, maybe the fucker deserved it and then some, but that doesn't mean he's not going to make Dean as comfortable as possible when he wakes up.
He breathes a sigh of relief when he gets back and Dean's still stretched across the bed, out like a light. He wraps the ice in a towel and presses it against the side of Dean's head, and then he takes his journal from his bag, retrieves the paper with the charm and the incantation in Bobbie's neat, sloping handwriting.
He can't quite stop himself from pressing a kiss to Dean's forehead before he starts, and then, after nudging aside the waistband of Dean's boxers, to the small expanse of skin of Dean's hip where the charm will go. He whispers the incantation, committed to memory long ago, into Dean's skin, and kisses the spot again, then begins to draw the charm, carefully copying the drawing.
Dean wakes when he's nearly finished -- Sam can feel his slow slide to consciousness, which is actually kind of cool. The connection will be all the stronger once they have their tattoos, and he's rather looking forward to experimenting with it. Dean, however, is unsurprisingly not pleased. "Get off me," he says, voice hoarse and not particularly strong, and then, "What the fuck are you doing?"
And Sam doesn't intend to be smug, he really doesn't, but Dean's here and Dean's tied down and Sam has found the one way to make sure he never slips away again, and he can't quite help the pleased tone of his voice when he says, "Location charm. Don't want you getting lost again."
Dean glowers, growls, "Ink washes off, Sammy," and yeah, okay, clearly he's going to need some convincing to accept the whole Sam and Dean 'til the world ends plan.
Sam nods briefly, says, "There's a tattoo parlor two towns over. We'll make it permanent before we move on."
Dean's face slides from angry to disbelieving almost too fast for Sam to mark the change. "What? No."
Sam ignores him. "One for me too. It'll be stronger when we're linked. I can find you anyway, obviously" -- no need to tell Dean just how fucking difficult it had been just yet, plenty of time to make him pay (and pay, and pay) later on -- "but this is quicker. Should help with hunting, too."
Dean's face says You are out of your fucking mind so clearly Sam nearly laughs, though he manages to bite it back -- Dean's pissed enough, and it isn't really funny. He's just so hugely relieved to have Dean in front of him, alive and whole, that laughter comes easily. "You honestly think you're going to drag me into a tattoo parlor and make me sit still for that?" Dean says.
Sam shakes his head impatiently. "No. I think you're going to walk in and hold still on your own, and if you do it without too much bitching I'll suck your cock when you're done."
Dean mutters something about being the one with a head injury, and Sam's earlier guilt comes flooding back. He wants to hug Dean, to run soft hands over his head, to untie him and kiss the abused skin where the rope has bitten in. But Dean won't sit still for him if he's not tied, so he mumbles an apology instead.
He can see the disbelief in Dean's eyes, and suddenly it's all too much. He's finally, fucking finally, in control, Dean can't run or deflect or hide, and it's way past time to lay the cards on the fucking table. "No, Dean," he says. "No. For once in your goddamn miserable stubborn life, you are going to listen to me. You can keep your mouth shut or I can gag you, I don't really care which."
Dean makes some lame comment about kinks, but he's smart enough to shut his mouth when Sam glares at him.
Sam says, "I love you." It's simultaneously the hardest thing he's ever said and the truest, and even Dean's groan and "Oh, christ, Sammy," can't make him sorry he said it. Or keep him from saying it again, once he's silenced Dean by threatening the gag again. "I love you. I love you, and I need you, and this is where I belong. And if you ever try to leave for my own good again I swear to god I will put you in the fucking hospital."
Dean says, "Who says I left for you?" but his voice is low and rough and he won't meet Sam's eyes, and Sam knows he's hit the mark.
"Psychic, freak show," he says, rolling his eyes. "I could feel you angsting from three states away."
"Bullshit," Dean says, and Sam can feel his anger, rising hot and sudden and nearly overpowering. "That's fucking bullshit, Sammy, I planned for weeks and you never--"
And all Sam's fury comes boiling up again. That Dean could even think that, that he could actually think Sam could do that, invade him in such a thoughtless and fundamental way for no reason at all, and he's yelling before he can stop himself. "You think I'd root around in your head just because I can?" Dean winces, the tiniest movement Sam's sure Dean doesn't even realize he's made, and Sam can't hold on to his anger. "Jesus, Dean," he says. He sits down beside Dean and lays a gentle hand on Dean's chest. "I want what you'll give me, not what I can take."
"Didn't bother you this time around," Dean says, but he's not angry anymore, and Sam takes that as a victory.
"Special circumstances," he says. He can feel Dean's heartbeat, slow and steady, beneath his palm, and he lifts his other hand, traces his fingertips softly over Dean's face, relearning what he's never forgotten. "God, I missed you," he whispers. "Felt like I was being ripped apart." And he knows -- he knows -- better than to open himself that far, give Dean that kind of ammunition, but somehow he doesn't think Dean will ever cast this up to him, automatic quip about romance novels notwithstanding, and Dean's soft sigh backs him up on that.
"Are you going to untie me?" Dean says.
"Are you going to stay put?" Sam counters, and when Dean sighs again and nods, Sam knows he's won.
***
It's easy, after that. Dean manages to play it cool for about two point five seconds after he's free before his face crumples and he whispers, "Sammy," and Sam just falls into him. The first time is fast, hard and messy, layers of cloth between them and not enough air in the room.
The second time -- after Sam's stripped them, pressed himself into the hollow of Dean's shoulder he could swear was made for him, and lazily teased them both to hardness again -- is slow and sweet, endless luxurious kisses before Dean slides down Sam's body and wraps his mouth around Sam's cock. Sam strokes his hair and moans, but it's not enough, not nearly enough, and he pushes Dean off, ignoring Dean's strangled protests, coaxes him around and down until he can reach Dean's cock with his mouth. Dean cries out, short and sharp, and then he swallows Sam down again, and Sam loses himself in his brother, the amazing heat of Dean's mouth on his cock, the blunt hardness and slick, salty musk of Dean's cock on his tongue. They come together, and when Dean shifts around for a kiss, Sam can taste his own come in Dean's mouth. It tastes like Dean's, and Sam thinks, hazy and contented, that that's exactly as it should be.
The third time is interrupted when Sam mentions the tattoo again and Dean decides he's not quite finished with his idiot act, and there's bristling and shouting and glowering, but Dean's already given in, even if he doesn't know it yet, and Sam doesn't even have to try that hard to break him down completely. They sleep after that, or Dean does, pressed into Sam's arms, his cheek directly over Sam's heart, a mirror image of their usual position. Sam lies awake most of the night, holding Dean and feeling like there's nothing in the world the two of them couldn't do.
The fourth time, Sam wakes to the feel of Dean's morning hard-on against his hip, and the soft, sleepy sounds Dean makes when Sam kisses him awake are about the sexiest things Sam's ever heard. He says, "Fuck me?" and Dean drops his eyes, mutters something about not having lube, but Sam just grins him at him and slips out of bed, finds his bag and returns with a tube.
"You planned this out?" Dean says, looking both pleased and vaguely disturbed, and Sam laughs at him.
"Like there was any other way this was going to end," he says. He climbs back into bed and tries to pull Dean on top of him, but Dean resists, and when he looks at Sam, his eyes are burning.
"I didn't think this was how it would end," he says, voice quiet and hoarse, and Sam's chest aches. There's so much he wants to say, promises, declarations, "always" and "never again" and "nothing but us," but any of it will make Dean bolt like a spooked animal.
"You're an idiot," he says instead. "Good thing you've got me around to do the thinking, huh?" and after a moment Dean's face relaxes into a slow smile. Sam grins back. "Are you going to fuck me or what?"
And there may be better things than Dean above him, buried inside him, breathing "Sammy" again and again like Sam's the only thing in the world, but Sam's never found a single one.
***
Sam teaches Dean the incantation, and Dean says it over him and draws the charm onto Sam's hip before they leave. Sam's ticklish, and he can't stop laughing; Dean grins up at him, wide and open, and kisses the skin around the charm once he's done.
Dean whines the entire time the tattoo artist is working, and Sam laughs himself sick, then sits in complete silence for his own just to show Dean how it's done.
Dean's furious -- even more so when Sam refuses the promised blowjob on the grounds of Dean being a whiny little bitch -- but Sam can feel the connection between them strengthening, deepening, before his tattoo is even finished, and he's pretty damned sure, from the way Dean slams him against the wall and shoves his tongue down Sam's throat the moment they're back in the motel room, that Dean feels it, too.
Sam lays Dean out on the bed, worships him, tortures him, reduces him to a quivering mess with his hands and mouth. He bites Dean's nipples until Dean whines, teases the skin of his chest and belly with his tongue, draws Dean's cock into his mouth for one hard tantalizing suck before letting it go again, relishing the hungry, pleading noise Dean makes. And then he slides his face between Dean's legs, pushes his thighs apart and kisses the tight ring of muscle, licks at it delicately and then slips his tongue inside. Dean makes a noise Sam's never heard before, a high, sharp, desperate cry, and Sam sucks and licks and tongue-fucks Dean until Dean sounds like he's dying.
Dean is so hot inside, musky and rich with just the hint of cheap motel soap. He's moaning so loudly Sam hopes the rooms around them are empty, and his hips are bucking, trying to work Sam's tongue deeper inside. He's getting close -- Sam can hear the tell-tale whine in his voice, feel his body tensing -- and there's no fucking way Sam's letting him come yet. He wraps a hand around Dean's balls and the base of his cock and squeezes, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to hold Dean back, and snarls, "You don't get to come until I fuck you."
Dean whines, and Sam melts. He calls Dean baby, something he's never done before and might never do again, but it just feels right as Dean sparks under his touch, and the slow shiver that goes through Dean's body when he says it takes Sam's breath away.
Sliding into Dean is like coming home. His groan blends with Dean's and they thrust in counterpoint, slow at first and then harder and faster, until Dean's keening and Sam can't hold back anymore. He grabs Dean's cock and jerks it hard, twisting slightly at the end of each pull just the way Dean likes it, and grates out, "C'mon, Dean, come for me." And Dean, obedient for maybe the first time in his life, bucks beneath him and comes.
Sam can only dimly hear his own cries as Dean spasms around him. He thrusts again, and again, all control gone, and when Dean breathes, "Sammy," so soft it barely reaches Sam's ears, he comes and comes and comes.
***
Afterwards he licks Dean's come from his own hand and Dean's chest and belly, while Dean runs gentle fingers through his hair. When Dean's clean, Sam presses comfortably against him, rests his head on Dean's chest where he can hear Dean's heartbeat. "We're probably not that popular with our neighbors," he says ruefully, and he feels Dean's rumble of laughter beneath his cheek.
"Fuck 'em," Dean says, drawing a finger along the length of Sam's spine. "You and me, right?"
And Sam blinks furiously, suddenly thankful for the dark. "Yeah, Dean," he says. "You and me."
Notes, part 2: The dialogue in the repeated scenes from Stumbling Across Its Bleak Ending is largely identical, but the small discrepancies are intentional -- I wanted to allow for differing memories and perceptions. I have no idea if there is a tattoo parlor in Polkville, North Carolina -- I suspect not, as the population is less than 600, but I could certainly be wrong -- or in any of the surrounding towns. All references to charms and spells are, as I'm sure is blindingly obvious, pulled from thin air.
Next chronologically:
The Only Song I Want to Hear
SPN Sam/Dean
7,609 words
Notes: Down to the End 'verse, companion piece to Stumbling Across Its Bleak Ending -- this will work a lot better if you read that first. Spoilers for Devil's Trap, rather heavy on the schmoop scale. Further notes at the end of the story.
Many, many thanks to ladyjaida for a thorough and lightning-fast beta.
Sam wakes slowly. His head is pounding and his stomach is churning, charming little reminders of last night's binge. It's been a long time since he was that drunk. Fucking Dean and his fucking trash-talking... Sam's almost 25, for god's sake, he shouldn't still react like a kid trying to prove himself when his older brother goads him. But he's never had a whole lot of perspective where Dean is concerned -- the loose, well-fucked thrum of his muscles and his own dried come on his belly are more than testament to that -- and it's not like they have anywhere to be.
Dean's not in bed beside him, and Sam can't hear the shower running. He keeps his eyes closed, focuses on his brother and reaches out a bit with his mind, but he can't feel Dean anywhere near. That isn't worrisome in and of itself -- Dean could easily be out getting coffee or donuts, or hell, an air horn, if he's feeling vindictive -- but something in the room feels wrong, and Sam sits up and forces his eyes open.
He notices several things at once. The room is emptier than it was; Dean's clothes, usually spread over half the room, are gone, and so is his pack. Sam's Glock is still on the table, next to his laptop and a box of bullets, but Dean's knives are gone. There's a pile of bills on the nightstand that Sam's pretty damn sure wasn't there when he went to sleep, and he's wearing Dean's amulet.
Understanding crashes in all at once, and Sam's never been so fucking pissed in his life.
"You... you... FUCK!" he snarls. His voice cuts through the silence like a knife, and it only deepens the ache in his head, but that's a minor concern. All that matters at the moment is finding Dean and beating the shit out of him. Maybe breaking his legs for good measure. He's literally shaking with rage, something he didn't even know was physically possible, and he stomps naked to the door, yanks his phone out of his jacket pocket, and dials Dean's number.
It takes five rings to get to voicemail -- the fucker hasn't even turned off his phone -- and the sound of Dean's voice when it clicks on only makes Sam angrier.
"Get your ass back here," he spits. "I don't know what the fuck you think you're doing and I don't even care, just get your ass back here and maybe I won't feed you to the next wendigo I come across."
There's no effective way to slam down a cell phone, but Sam compensates by hurling the phone across the room after he clicks off.
He pulls clothes on without showering, which is kind of gross given the state of his body, but he can hardly risk being away from his phone when Dean calls back. When. Not if. Dean may be campaigning for a Darwin award at the moment, but he'll come to his senses before too long, and Sam is going to be there to break his jaw for him when he does.
He manages a full three minutes before retrieving his phone and calling again. "Pick up your fucking phone, dickhead. Call me back and tell me there's a camera hidden here somewhere or you got confused and thought April Fool's Day happens in May or something that makes this okay, and you better come up with something good, or you are not going to make it through this one with your pretty face intact."
He clicks off and dials again. "Fucking now, Dean."
The white-hot fury is starting to cool a bit, but the stark terror seeping into its place is far worse, and his fingers stutter on the keypad when he dials a fifth time. "Don't you do this to me," he says. "Don't you do this. You're the only goddamn thing I have."
He calls again, and again, threats giving way to pleas, and finally he just begs -- "Dean, please, I can't do this without you, I need you here, please -- until the system cuts him off and he falls into a chair and puts his head in his hands.
***
When he finally makes himself stand up, he sees the money and gets pissed all over again. Bad enough for Dean to leave, fuck him and leave him sleeping naked like he's one of the endless parade of skanks Dean banged before... before. But money on the nightstand adds a whole new level of tawdriness, makes it so cheap and ugly that Sam can't decide if he's more livid or disgusted.
They don't talk about whatever this thing is between them. They never have, and Sam's just fine with that. He knows what Dean is to him and he knows -- or thought he knew -- what he is to Dean, and that's all that's ever mattered. The physical aspect is in some ways almost beside the point; Sam's pretty sure the last few years would have gone exactly the same without it. He's pretty sure he'd still feel like someone just ripped his heart out and fed it to him even if he didn't know what his brother tastes like, or the spot on his neck that makes him instantly hard whenever Sam sinks his teeth into it, or the way his face looks when he comes.
But in some ways, it's everything. It's not what keeps him and Dean together after they killed the thing that killed Mom and Dad and Jess, but it gives him more of his brother than he ever thought he could have, and when Dean's above him or against him or inside him, he feels whole. They blend and merge and melt into each other when they fuck, they get closer than should be physically possible, they lose themselves in each other, again and again and again. Sam's never been a religious man, and he knows the thought is six kinds of blasphemous anyway, but when he and Dean are locked together, it's the closest thing to sacred he's ever known.
And Dean just tossed it all away. Paid him like a whore and walked out the door like he meant nothing. He knows that's not what the money's for -- Dean would never leave Sam truly stranded, and he'd never shell out that much cash on a "fuck you" anyway -- but he has no fucking doubt leaving it on the nightstand was Dean's idea of a joke, and it makes him want to break things. Mostly Dean's stupid, smug face.
He grabs Dean's amulet, to yank it off and stomp on it or throw it out the window or maybe flush it down the toilet, but when his hand closes around it he gets blinding flash of Dean. Dean driving, faster than the Impala can safely take, clutching the wheel so tightly it's cutting into his palms. The radio's silent and Dean's barely looking at the road; his whole focus is on the phone beside him, blinking 12 new messages. Sam can feel Dean's want like it's a physical thing.
Sam sinks to the floor almost without noticing. He lifts his other hand, presses the amulet between his palms, and watches Dean pull to the side of the road and delete the messages one by one. Dean's hands are shaking and he's bitten his lip bloody; he's taking deep, careful breaths, and after he drops the phone onto the passenger seat he just sits still, staring blankly forward.
Dean's gone as suddenly as he appeared, leaving Sam gasping. His head feels like someone took a jack-hammer to it, and his whole body drags with a bone-deep exhaustion he hasn't felt since the early days of the visions, but he still tries to get the picture back, clutching the amulet so hard he can feel it biting into the flesh on his palms. But there's nothing. Dean's gone like he never existed, and that -- along with the sudden understanding throbbing in his head -- makes the physical pain seem trifling.
Dean was clingier, the last few weeks, inviting and allowing more physical contact -- normally he's prone to push Sam away when they're not in bed -- and fucking Sam like his life depended on it. Sam hadn't thought much of it, at the time; it's been nearly a year since Dad's death, which was hard enough for Sam but left Dean in broken, bloody pieces on the floor. It only made sense that Dean would be hurting as the anniversary approached, and Sam had been quietly touched that his brother would turn to him, if only wordlessly.
But it wasn't Dad, and it wasn't the date, and the knowledge makes Sam ache. Dean had planned this, schemed and plotted, and he'd touched Sam more, loved him more, because he knew their time was running out. And after he got them close enough to California, he'd gotten Sam drunk and fucked him into oblivion and then walked away, even though it ripped him apart to do it.
If he'd had a thousand years, Sam couldn't have imagined his brother hurting like that. If he'd had a thousand years, he couldn't have imagined anyone -- even Dean, and Sam knows just how much his brother loves him -- hurting like that over him, and the revelation is both humbling and terrifying. It's also infuriating, that Dean could do that to himself, to Sam, without even asking Sam what he wanted, that Dean could even think Sam would ask that of him, after everything. He's going to beat the shit out of Dean when he finds him. And then he's going to fuck him until Dean can't remember how to breathe.
***
The room's paid for for another night, and Sam stays, as much as at loss for where to go as hopeful that Dean will have a change of heart, swagger back through the door with a smirk and a joke and make everything all right again.
He searches the browser history on his laptop, hoping for something that will tell him where Dean planned to go, but there's nothing beyond Dean's furtive visits to Metallica fan sites, which would be pretty damn funny any other day. He scours the stack of newspapers for anything Dean might have wanted to follow up on, but he'd come up empty the day before, and he doesn't think Dean would be stupid enough to head straight to a hunt when he has to know Sam will come after him. He manages sporadic glimpses of Dean; sometimes clasping the amulet gives him a crystal-clear display, sometimes fuzzy images, but more often it's just cold metal in his hand.
He paces. When he can't stand it anymore, he swears and stomps and throws things, and then he paces some more. He tries to plot just how much pain he's going to inflict on his brother when he gets his hands on him, but thoughts of seeing Dean again inevitably end with Sam holding on like he's drowning and Dean's the only thing that can keep him afloat, making Dean swear again and again that he won't leave until he's dead and not even then, if he can help it.
Sam's not sure exactly when he turned into a twelve-year-old girl, but he's pretty damn certain Dean's to blame for that, too.
***
He takes a bus to Portland and flies to Kansas City, then hitches a ride to Lawrence.
Missouri doesn't look surprised to see him, and she doesn't ask where Dean is, which Sam thinks says an awful lot in itself. She brings him coffee and sits back and waits for him to talk, and Sam says, "I need to find my brother."
Missouri raises one expressive eyebrow, but she stays silent.
Sam squirms a little under her cool regard, and his next attempt is a little too close to babbling. "He left. He took the car and he left me in some godforsaken town in Oregon and I don't know where he went and I'm going crazy."
"You always could wrap your brother around your little finger," Missouri says reflectively. "And he never could see straight with you around."
It's been the longest three days of Sam's life, and the last thing he needs is cryptic crap. "What the hell are you--"
"Language," Missouri snaps.
"Do you understand what I'm telling you?" Sam yells. "He's gone. I don't know how to find him, and I have to. It doesn't have anything to do with... that," he trails off lamely. Missouri just looks at him like he's a particularly stupid child, and Sam thinks about yelling again, but he doesn't have the energy to stay angry. "Just tell me what to do," he says. "Tell me how to find him."
"Are you so sure he wants to be found, sugar?"
"He left for me," Sam says. Speaking it aloud makes it real, a hard, unavoidable truth, and the ache in his chest, omnipresent since Dean disappeared, swells like a balloon. "He left so I could go have a normal life, and he's miserable and he's alone and I can't find him but I can feel him hurting and I just want him back, Missouri. Just help me get him back."
"But nothing to do with 'that,'" Missouri says. Her tone is mocking, but her eyes are kind, and she asks, "What do you have of his?"
"Just this," Sam says, pulling the amulet out from under his shirt.
Missouri looks faintly horrified. "Boy, you can't be wearing that next to your skin and still hope to find him with it!"
The thought of taking if off, the one thing he has left, is somehow the worst thing yet, and Sam's hand tightens reflexively. "It's where he left it," he says, stubbornly. "I can feel him better with it on."
Missouri looks at him sharply, sudden understanding in her face, and Sam feels his face go hot, but he refuses to look away. She says, "There isn't any normal, after this. Not for you. This is your chance, Sam Winchester, and it's the only one you get."
Sam doesn't even hesitate. "I don't need normal. I just need Dean." He thinks it should be harder to say, that it should feel like a momentous decision, but it's just a simple fact, as unremarkable as the blue of the sky or the heat of the sun.
The look Missouri gives him in return feels like it goes straight into his soul. "You do this, you drag him back after he's made the biggest sacrifice he ever could, and then you leave again, you'll kill him. You understand?"
"There's nowhere I want to go without him with me," Sam says, and it's nothing more than the truth.
He can't read into Missouri -- which seems distinctly unfair, when she can so easily pin him like a bug -- but he can see the moment when she makes her decision. The relief is staggering, though it doesn't stop him from wincing when she reaches for Dean's amulet.
Missouri huffs impatiently. "Don't look like that. You can survive five minutes without it and I won't get any of your brother while it's around your neck."
"Yeah, okay, just..." Sam trails off, unsure of what it is he wants to say.
Missouri just rolls her eyes and snatches it off, then presses it tightly between both her palms and closes her eyes. She's silent for long moments, and then a spasm crosses her face, and she says, "Oh, baby."
The pained sympathy in her voice hurts. "What?" Sam says. "What do you--"
"Hush," she says sharply. And then, "He's in a bad way, your brother."
Sam opens his mouth to tell her he already knows that, that he can feel Dean bleeding just fine on his own and what he needs is a location, but her eyes snap open and the glare she shoots him is more effective than a gag.
"He's in a bad way," Missouri says again. "He's just moving, no direction, no plan. There are flashes, but where he's going... it's like trying to track a raindrop in a lake."
"No," Sam says. "No, you can't tell me--"
"I'm sorry," Missouri says. "He's too unfocused, and this," she gestures at the amulet, "has too much of you all over it." And then, "Boy, what did you do to him?"
Sam stares at her. "I didn't... he just..."
"Fix it," she says sharply. "And fix it fast, because he's not all that worried about keeping himself in one piece, and hunters without the survival instinct don't last long."
Panic rises like bile in Sam's throat. "I don't know what to do!" he yells. "I don't--"
"He's your blood," Missouri says fiercely. "He's your blood and your flesh and he's locked onto you with everything he is. If you can't find him you're a waste of the talent god gave you."
And there's nothing Sam can say to that. Nothing at all.
When she hands the amulet back, he gets the strongest flash of Dean he's had since the first one, a surround-sound high-definition picture show of Dean in a shabby roadside diner, poking at the entire world's supply of cholesterol on a plate. Sam doubles over and clutches his head, and it's a good minute before he can make himself sit straight again.
When he does, Missouri is looking at him coolly. "You're going to need to learn better control than that," she says.
***
He stays for a week, and Missouri puts him through a regimen that makes John Winchester's grueling training sessions look like a child's tea party. He'd thought he had the psychic thing down to a science -- easily plucking things from people's heads, moving objects from across the room without breaking a sweat, tormenting Dean to aching hardness in completely inappropriate situations whenever Dean deserved it or Sam was bored enough -- but he feels like a novice when it comes to this. He doesn't know what's different, if it's the distance or the intent or the simple fact that it's Dean, and nothing ever behaves like it's supposed to when Dean is involved. But whatever the reason, beyond the random uncontrollable flashes, Dean's head is locked up tighter than the Pentagon, and trying to push inside leaves Sam shaking and exhausted.
Missouri is relentless, though, not to be denied, and he pushes himself to the limit again and again as she watches and commands and scolds. By the time he leaves, he's tired enough that he could sleep for a month, but he can see Dean every time he tries with the amulet in his hand, and sometimes without touching it at all. He still can't discern locations, and there's no hope of knowing where Dean's going until Dean starts choosing destinations instead of just moving endlessly, but the more he sees Dean the more chance he's got of seeing something useful, and it's enough of a start.
Missouri hugs him when he leaves, says, "I'm sorry about your daddy, Sam. He was a good man. And you tell your brother so, when you find him."
Sam feels tears prick the back of his eyelids for the first time since he held a plain cardboard box full of ash that had been his father, and he clings to Missouri a little harder than he'd ever admit.
***
He goes to South Dakota next. Bobby's got a new woman -- a muscular and somewhat grizzled but still surprisingly attractive brunette named Bobbie, and Sam can hear Dean's cackle at that -- and a new pup, a German Shepard named Yoo to go with his Rottweiler Ashcroft, and he doesn't ask for particulars. He just sets Sam up in the same room he shared with Dean the summer before, gives him the keys to his father's truck, and stays out of his way.
Sam spends three days poring through Bobby's books, trying to find anything that will help him locate Dean. Bobbie brings him coffee and reminds him to eat, drags him out for target practice when she thinks he needs a break. She can throw a dagger with more precision than he can, and Sam thinks there was a time when Dean would have tried to bang her on principle alone.
There isn't a location spell in Bobby's collection that doesn't require a piece of the person to be found, and Sam wonders once again how he could have lived with Dean, spent the entirety of every day with him, for years, and ended up with nothing but a single amulet deliberately left behind. Bobbie gives him the next best thing, a charm she learned from her grandmother, an intricate little symbol that, when laid on the skin with the appropriate incantation, lets the wearers find each other instantly, regardless of distance. It won't help him find Dean, but it'll make damn sure he never loses him again once he does, and Sam kisses Bobbie on the mouth when she explains it to him. When Bobby growls at him, only half-joking, Sam kisses him, too.
***
Sam can see Dean more easily with each day that passes, longer, clearer views, less pain and tiredness after. It's mostly useless: Dean in diners and nondescript motel rooms, Dean hustling pool and gassing the Impala. One morning he gets a view of Dean with his head buried between the legs of a woman with spiky blonde hair and a stud in her nose, and his chest goes tight with rage even as his dick gets instantly, blindingly hard. Dean's whore is moaning like she's never had a mouth on her cunt before, and Sam hates her, and he hates Dean, and for the first time in his life, he desperately wants something to kill.
He jerks off instead, jerks his dick so hard it's more pain than pleasure and orgasm is nothing but a relief, then goes outside and throws knives at Bobby's practice dummy until his arms ache. His aim is shot to hell and he misses more than he connects, but he feels a little better when he's done.
He doesn't reach for Dean for a solid week, and when he leaves Bobby's, he nearly leaves the sketched charm behind. But he isn't stupid -- or angry -- enough not to realize he'll want it again. Furious as he is, he still misses Dean like he'd miss an arm, and the paper is safely pressed into his journal when he claps Bobby on the back and hugs Bobbie goodbye.
When he finally breaks down and feels for his brother again, Dean's in bed, half-drunk, wide awake and maudlin, so focused on Sam that Sam can feel the back of his neck prickle. Sam hates these moments -- both because seeing his brother so broken hurts like hell and because he knows Dean would eat his own liver before willingly letting Sam see it -- but the last of the jealousy and betrayal slip away, and he thinks there's nothing he wouldn't do, no one he wouldn't kill, just to be able to touch Dean again.
***
Sam misses the fact that Dean's stopped hunting until Dean starts again, and it's easier after that. Dean with a purpose is easier to read, easier to track, easier to predict. The first time Sam gets a solid location he actually whoops aloud, then looks around in embarrassment, even though he's alone in his motel room.
It's not so simple as all that, though -- Dean's hunting like he's going for the world record, killing things and moving on before Sam can get within five hundred miles of him, and it's complicated further by the fact that flashes with specifics are sporadic at best. It's long and frustrating and it's nothing but sheer force of will that keeps Sam from putting his fist through a few cardboard motel walls after missing Dean again, but he's getting closer, always closer, and he knows it's only a matter of time now.
He finally catches a break in New Orleans, nearly six months after Dean left. Dean's moved on, but he's barely been gone a day and Sam gets a pure, perfect look at the The Charlotte Observer sitting on Dean's diner table as he eats tough steak and runny eggs, THIRD UNSOLVED MURDER IN POLKVILLE blazoned above the fold.
One quick google search later and Sam has the article up on his screen, the subhead, "Victims' Heads Still Missing," neatly explaining Dean's interest.
He leaves Dad's truck in long-term parking at the New Orleans airport and flies to Charlotte, sweet-talks the matronly woman -- Nancy, her name is -- in the aisle seat next to him into driving him to Polkville, though it's a good thirty miles out of her way. He has a list of cheap motels in the area -- only eight in a twenty-mile radius, which makes things significantly easier -- but he hardly needs it; he can feel Dean from the moment the plane lands. For the hundredth time he silently thanks Missouri for her training as he zeroes in on Dean, so effortless now, with Dean only a few miles away.
He finds the motel and Dean's room easily -- Dean isn't there, but he's close, and he'll be back. Sam refuses to track him any more specifically than that, too afraid he'll break and find his brother now, and he's pretty sure the locals won't take kindly to him breaking Dean's jaw or kissing him senseless. Or both. Much better to wait, and it's easier to explain a motel to Nancy anyway. She hugs him when she drops him off, refuses payment once again, and sincerely wishes him luck finding his missing brother. Sam, not for the first time, wonders if there's something to Dean's theory that there's no one he can't charm. But he never told her more than the truth, if a very abbreviated version, and he refuses to feel guilty for taking help he needs.
Picking the lock is easy, and the moment he's inside he's hit with a sense of Dean so strong it almost bowls him over. His brother might not be in the room, but it's Dean's pack on the chair, his leather jacket across the bed. There's a wet towel on the bathroom floor, and Dean's ridiculously complex razor -- his brother never skimps on anything he regards as highly as his own face -- is in its immaculate case on the sink.
It's like a wave, huge and overpowering, Dean and Dean and Dean. It's been five months, twenty-seven days, and sixteen hours since he's seen his brother, and he thinks going to die if he can't touch Dean rightfuckingnow. He drops his bag by the door and walks to the bed, picks up Dean's jacket and buries his face in it. It's revolting, and Dean would never let him live it down if he knew, never, but Sam can't help himself. He can smell Dean, sharp soap and aftershave overlying a subtler, spicier scent, and he holds the jacket and breathes it in for what feels like an eternity.
It's only with real effort that he manages to put it down again. He's not sure how Dean will react to seeing him -- though he suspects "not well" is the understatement of the year -- and he has a simple sleeping spell to knock Dean out and rope to tie him down if Dean tries to run. But neither one will do anything at all if he can't get close enough, and he'll be damned if he lets Dean slip away again because he was distracted by his goddamn jacket.
Sam moves to the bed closest to the door, and sits facing it to wait. His heart is beating too fast and there's a gnawing ache in his belly, anticipation and fear and simple, overwhelming want. It's a half an hour and a few millennia before he hears Dean's key in the lock. He's planned this scene a million times, played out a million different scenarios, but they all slide out of his head as the door opens, and when he sees Dean he reacts on autopilot, smashing his fist into his brother's smarmy, pretty, stupid face.
Dean reels and staggers backwards. He's already reacting, hand moving to the small of his back for the gun that's undoubtedly secreted there as his body tenses and prepares for a fight, but then he sees Sam and freezes. There's a look that crosses his face, wonder and joy and fierce, desperate longing, for the space of a second before his mask falls back into place, and Sam knows then that the sleeping spell was completely unnecessary.
"I'm psychic, you stupid son of a bitch," he says. "Did you really think I wouldn't find you?" He drives his fist into Dean's face again before Dean has time to so much as blink, and Dean goes down.
Guilt hits almost immediately. Dean's face is going to be bruised to hell tomorrow, and there's a knot already rising where his head hit the floor when he fell. Sam can never stand to see Dean in pain, and pain he's caused is damned near unbearable.
Sam drops to the floor, and for long moments, he just cradles his brother in his arms. Dangerous -- Dean's every bit as tough as he pretends, physically, at least, and there's no telling when he'll come to -- but letting go of him seems like a physical impossibility. Sam holds Dean tight against his chest, drops kisses into his hair, whispers, "You ever leave me again I really will kill you, you asshole," and for the first time since Sam woke to a hangover and an empty bed, the world feels right again.
He carries Dean to the bed -- Dean sprawls in his arms like a sleeping child, and Sam feels a pang of momentary regret that there's no way to capture the moment to torment Dean with later on -- and lays him gently on his back. He pulls off Dean's boots, then his jeans and t-shirt, unable to shake the image of a frat boy preparing a rufied coed, especially when each newly revealed bit of Dean's body sends a guilty jolt to his cock. But he needs access to Dean's skin for the charm, and he doubts Dean's going to willingly sit still for it after Sam's version of the welcome wagon.
Once he's stripped Dean to his boxers, Sam retrieves the rope and ties him tightly to the bed. He winces a little at the sight of the bonds biting into his brother's skin, winces a little more when he looks at Dean stretched out and realizes just how much weight he's dropped since Sam saw him last, but there will time to worry about all that later.
There's a fresh bite mark on Dean's inner thigh, and it's only with real effort that Sam manages to swallow down his anger. He's here, and Dean's here, and he's not letting Dean go until he knows damn well Dean's not going anywhere. There won't be any marks like that on Dean's body that aren't from him, ever again. Not for the rest of their lives, if Sam has anything to say about it.
When Dean is secure, Sam retrieves Dean's room key from where he dropped it when Sam hit him the first time, and goes to find the ice machine. Leaving -- even knowing he'll be gone two or three minutes at the most -- takes so much conviction it's ridiculous; Sam can't shake the feeling that Dean will disappear the moment he looks away. But he's knocked Dean out and tied him up, and yeah, maybe the fucker deserved it and then some, but that doesn't mean he's not going to make Dean as comfortable as possible when he wakes up.
He breathes a sigh of relief when he gets back and Dean's still stretched across the bed, out like a light. He wraps the ice in a towel and presses it against the side of Dean's head, and then he takes his journal from his bag, retrieves the paper with the charm and the incantation in Bobbie's neat, sloping handwriting.
He can't quite stop himself from pressing a kiss to Dean's forehead before he starts, and then, after nudging aside the waistband of Dean's boxers, to the small expanse of skin of Dean's hip where the charm will go. He whispers the incantation, committed to memory long ago, into Dean's skin, and kisses the spot again, then begins to draw the charm, carefully copying the drawing.
Dean wakes when he's nearly finished -- Sam can feel his slow slide to consciousness, which is actually kind of cool. The connection will be all the stronger once they have their tattoos, and he's rather looking forward to experimenting with it. Dean, however, is unsurprisingly not pleased. "Get off me," he says, voice hoarse and not particularly strong, and then, "What the fuck are you doing?"
And Sam doesn't intend to be smug, he really doesn't, but Dean's here and Dean's tied down and Sam has found the one way to make sure he never slips away again, and he can't quite help the pleased tone of his voice when he says, "Location charm. Don't want you getting lost again."
Dean glowers, growls, "Ink washes off, Sammy," and yeah, okay, clearly he's going to need some convincing to accept the whole Sam and Dean 'til the world ends plan.
Sam nods briefly, says, "There's a tattoo parlor two towns over. We'll make it permanent before we move on."
Dean's face slides from angry to disbelieving almost too fast for Sam to mark the change. "What? No."
Sam ignores him. "One for me too. It'll be stronger when we're linked. I can find you anyway, obviously" -- no need to tell Dean just how fucking difficult it had been just yet, plenty of time to make him pay (and pay, and pay) later on -- "but this is quicker. Should help with hunting, too."
Dean's face says You are out of your fucking mind so clearly Sam nearly laughs, though he manages to bite it back -- Dean's pissed enough, and it isn't really funny. He's just so hugely relieved to have Dean in front of him, alive and whole, that laughter comes easily. "You honestly think you're going to drag me into a tattoo parlor and make me sit still for that?" Dean says.
Sam shakes his head impatiently. "No. I think you're going to walk in and hold still on your own, and if you do it without too much bitching I'll suck your cock when you're done."
Dean mutters something about being the one with a head injury, and Sam's earlier guilt comes flooding back. He wants to hug Dean, to run soft hands over his head, to untie him and kiss the abused skin where the rope has bitten in. But Dean won't sit still for him if he's not tied, so he mumbles an apology instead.
He can see the disbelief in Dean's eyes, and suddenly it's all too much. He's finally, fucking finally, in control, Dean can't run or deflect or hide, and it's way past time to lay the cards on the fucking table. "No, Dean," he says. "No. For once in your goddamn miserable stubborn life, you are going to listen to me. You can keep your mouth shut or I can gag you, I don't really care which."
Dean makes some lame comment about kinks, but he's smart enough to shut his mouth when Sam glares at him.
Sam says, "I love you." It's simultaneously the hardest thing he's ever said and the truest, and even Dean's groan and "Oh, christ, Sammy," can't make him sorry he said it. Or keep him from saying it again, once he's silenced Dean by threatening the gag again. "I love you. I love you, and I need you, and this is where I belong. And if you ever try to leave for my own good again I swear to god I will put you in the fucking hospital."
Dean says, "Who says I left for you?" but his voice is low and rough and he won't meet Sam's eyes, and Sam knows he's hit the mark.
"Psychic, freak show," he says, rolling his eyes. "I could feel you angsting from three states away."
"Bullshit," Dean says, and Sam can feel his anger, rising hot and sudden and nearly overpowering. "That's fucking bullshit, Sammy, I planned for weeks and you never--"
And all Sam's fury comes boiling up again. That Dean could even think that, that he could actually think Sam could do that, invade him in such a thoughtless and fundamental way for no reason at all, and he's yelling before he can stop himself. "You think I'd root around in your head just because I can?" Dean winces, the tiniest movement Sam's sure Dean doesn't even realize he's made, and Sam can't hold on to his anger. "Jesus, Dean," he says. He sits down beside Dean and lays a gentle hand on Dean's chest. "I want what you'll give me, not what I can take."
"Didn't bother you this time around," Dean says, but he's not angry anymore, and Sam takes that as a victory.
"Special circumstances," he says. He can feel Dean's heartbeat, slow and steady, beneath his palm, and he lifts his other hand, traces his fingertips softly over Dean's face, relearning what he's never forgotten. "God, I missed you," he whispers. "Felt like I was being ripped apart." And he knows -- he knows -- better than to open himself that far, give Dean that kind of ammunition, but somehow he doesn't think Dean will ever cast this up to him, automatic quip about romance novels notwithstanding, and Dean's soft sigh backs him up on that.
"Are you going to untie me?" Dean says.
"Are you going to stay put?" Sam counters, and when Dean sighs again and nods, Sam knows he's won.
***
It's easy, after that. Dean manages to play it cool for about two point five seconds after he's free before his face crumples and he whispers, "Sammy," and Sam just falls into him. The first time is fast, hard and messy, layers of cloth between them and not enough air in the room.
The second time -- after Sam's stripped them, pressed himself into the hollow of Dean's shoulder he could swear was made for him, and lazily teased them both to hardness again -- is slow and sweet, endless luxurious kisses before Dean slides down Sam's body and wraps his mouth around Sam's cock. Sam strokes his hair and moans, but it's not enough, not nearly enough, and he pushes Dean off, ignoring Dean's strangled protests, coaxes him around and down until he can reach Dean's cock with his mouth. Dean cries out, short and sharp, and then he swallows Sam down again, and Sam loses himself in his brother, the amazing heat of Dean's mouth on his cock, the blunt hardness and slick, salty musk of Dean's cock on his tongue. They come together, and when Dean shifts around for a kiss, Sam can taste his own come in Dean's mouth. It tastes like Dean's, and Sam thinks, hazy and contented, that that's exactly as it should be.
The third time is interrupted when Sam mentions the tattoo again and Dean decides he's not quite finished with his idiot act, and there's bristling and shouting and glowering, but Dean's already given in, even if he doesn't know it yet, and Sam doesn't even have to try that hard to break him down completely. They sleep after that, or Dean does, pressed into Sam's arms, his cheek directly over Sam's heart, a mirror image of their usual position. Sam lies awake most of the night, holding Dean and feeling like there's nothing in the world the two of them couldn't do.
The fourth time, Sam wakes to the feel of Dean's morning hard-on against his hip, and the soft, sleepy sounds Dean makes when Sam kisses him awake are about the sexiest things Sam's ever heard. He says, "Fuck me?" and Dean drops his eyes, mutters something about not having lube, but Sam just grins him at him and slips out of bed, finds his bag and returns with a tube.
"You planned this out?" Dean says, looking both pleased and vaguely disturbed, and Sam laughs at him.
"Like there was any other way this was going to end," he says. He climbs back into bed and tries to pull Dean on top of him, but Dean resists, and when he looks at Sam, his eyes are burning.
"I didn't think this was how it would end," he says, voice quiet and hoarse, and Sam's chest aches. There's so much he wants to say, promises, declarations, "always" and "never again" and "nothing but us," but any of it will make Dean bolt like a spooked animal.
"You're an idiot," he says instead. "Good thing you've got me around to do the thinking, huh?" and after a moment Dean's face relaxes into a slow smile. Sam grins back. "Are you going to fuck me or what?"
And there may be better things than Dean above him, buried inside him, breathing "Sammy" again and again like Sam's the only thing in the world, but Sam's never found a single one.
***
Sam teaches Dean the incantation, and Dean says it over him and draws the charm onto Sam's hip before they leave. Sam's ticklish, and he can't stop laughing; Dean grins up at him, wide and open, and kisses the skin around the charm once he's done.
Dean whines the entire time the tattoo artist is working, and Sam laughs himself sick, then sits in complete silence for his own just to show Dean how it's done.
Dean's furious -- even more so when Sam refuses the promised blowjob on the grounds of Dean being a whiny little bitch -- but Sam can feel the connection between them strengthening, deepening, before his tattoo is even finished, and he's pretty damned sure, from the way Dean slams him against the wall and shoves his tongue down Sam's throat the moment they're back in the motel room, that Dean feels it, too.
Sam lays Dean out on the bed, worships him, tortures him, reduces him to a quivering mess with his hands and mouth. He bites Dean's nipples until Dean whines, teases the skin of his chest and belly with his tongue, draws Dean's cock into his mouth for one hard tantalizing suck before letting it go again, relishing the hungry, pleading noise Dean makes. And then he slides his face between Dean's legs, pushes his thighs apart and kisses the tight ring of muscle, licks at it delicately and then slips his tongue inside. Dean makes a noise Sam's never heard before, a high, sharp, desperate cry, and Sam sucks and licks and tongue-fucks Dean until Dean sounds like he's dying.
Dean is so hot inside, musky and rich with just the hint of cheap motel soap. He's moaning so loudly Sam hopes the rooms around them are empty, and his hips are bucking, trying to work Sam's tongue deeper inside. He's getting close -- Sam can hear the tell-tale whine in his voice, feel his body tensing -- and there's no fucking way Sam's letting him come yet. He wraps a hand around Dean's balls and the base of his cock and squeezes, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to hold Dean back, and snarls, "You don't get to come until I fuck you."
Dean whines, and Sam melts. He calls Dean baby, something he's never done before and might never do again, but it just feels right as Dean sparks under his touch, and the slow shiver that goes through Dean's body when he says it takes Sam's breath away.
Sliding into Dean is like coming home. His groan blends with Dean's and they thrust in counterpoint, slow at first and then harder and faster, until Dean's keening and Sam can't hold back anymore. He grabs Dean's cock and jerks it hard, twisting slightly at the end of each pull just the way Dean likes it, and grates out, "C'mon, Dean, come for me." And Dean, obedient for maybe the first time in his life, bucks beneath him and comes.
Sam can only dimly hear his own cries as Dean spasms around him. He thrusts again, and again, all control gone, and when Dean breathes, "Sammy," so soft it barely reaches Sam's ears, he comes and comes and comes.
***
Afterwards he licks Dean's come from his own hand and Dean's chest and belly, while Dean runs gentle fingers through his hair. When Dean's clean, Sam presses comfortably against him, rests his head on Dean's chest where he can hear Dean's heartbeat. "We're probably not that popular with our neighbors," he says ruefully, and he feels Dean's rumble of laughter beneath his cheek.
"Fuck 'em," Dean says, drawing a finger along the length of Sam's spine. "You and me, right?"
And Sam blinks furiously, suddenly thankful for the dark. "Yeah, Dean," he says. "You and me."
Notes, part 2: The dialogue in the repeated scenes from Stumbling Across Its Bleak Ending is largely identical, but the small discrepancies are intentional -- I wanted to allow for differing memories and perceptions. I have no idea if there is a tattoo parlor in Polkville, North Carolina -- I suspect not, as the population is less than 600, but I could certainly be wrong -- or in any of the surrounding towns. All references to charms and spells are, as I'm sure is blindingly obvious, pulled from thin air.
Next chronologically:
The Only Song I Want to Hear