New SPN Fic: Sinking Toward a Deeper Blue (Sam/Dean)
Sinking Toward a Deeper Blue
Sam/Dean, 4,452 words
Notes: This is a sequel of sorts to ygrawn's utterly amazing and desperately sad And the Complications You Could Do Without (with many thanks to her for letting me play a bit in her sandbox), and it will make no sense whatsoever if you haven't read that first. Thanks to luzdeestrellas and merryish for the beta, even if they are totally going to hell for being mean to me.
I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.
-Variations on the Word Sleep, Margaret Atwood
It doesn't change things, knowing why. It doesn't make it better; it doesn't make it easier. Sam wants -- he wants -- and it doesn't matter that he already has Dean in every other way.
Things are strained at first, awkward; they grate against each other instead of moving together, but then the status quo is reestablished. They fight, they fuck, they hunt; they don't kiss and they don't touch except for sex and they don't talk about anything that matters. Dean still picks up townies and waitresses, still kisses them publicly and extravagantly while Sam stares into his beer and tries to pretend it's not a punch to the gut. Nothing changes at all.
But he watches Dean a little more closely, or maybe it's just that he finally understands what he's seeing. It all makes sense now -- the hard, dead look in Dean's eyes when Sam tries to curl against him while they're both still shivering with orgasm, the blank expression that slams across his face sometimes when Sam reaches for him. And it's worse than all the walls Dean's constructed around himself, worse than the flashing neon "This far and no farther" sign he keeps permanently illuminated, because it means he doesn't trust Sam, can't believe Sam loves him the way he loves Sam, and Sam doesn't know how to fix that, doesn't even know if it's possible.
It takes a month and three states for Sam to break. They're in West Virginia, way out in the middle of nowhere, and after they kill something that's been eating parked teenagers like a monster out of a bad horror movie, they come home and fuck like it's the end of the world, high on adrenaline and the thrill of the hunt. Sam comes and comes, impaled on Dean's fingers and cock and tongue, and when it's over, when he's too spent to move or think or even breathe, Dean rolls off, as far away as he can get without falling off the bed, leaves Sam with nothing but empty space and the blank expanse of his back, and grief and anger and want rise up in Sam's throat like bile.
He forces himself to stand, stagger on shaky legs to the bathroom, and he shuts the door firmly behind him before turning on the light. He doesn't want Dean to see him, doesn't think he can stand to feel so naked, and maybe it's stupid when he can still feel the sluggish trickle of come between his legs, but if Dean's allowed to kiss every piece of trailer trash he can get to hold still long enough while pushing Sam back like a cheap whore, Sam figures he's entitled to some pointless modesty.
Dean's taste is in his mouth, bitter and flat, and he fills the glass on the sink, but he catches his own reflection before he can drink. There's no question of what he's been doing for the last few hours -- his eyes are heavy lidded, his lips swollen enough that they almost look kissed. Livid bite marks cover his neck and collarbone; there are deep red marks on his shoulders where Dean held him down, and he's got a smear of his brother's come across his belly. He looks fucked, used, owned, and the lie of it burns in his chest.
He forces his eyes away, rinses out his mouth until he can't taste anything but the tepid tap water, and then he turns on the shower as hot as he can make it and climbs in. He wants Dean gone, his smell and his taste and his sweat and his come, every piece of him that's branded into Sam's skin, silent promises of another day or month or year like this one, a lifetime of wanting, needing something Dean won't trust him enough to give.
It would be easier to leave, he thinks, to wait until the next time Dean disappears with someone blonde and skanky and then just go, take his bag and the laptop and a few weapons and hit the road, disappear into the heartland. Choose a name, find a job and make a life somewhere Dean would never think to look; find a nice girl or a nice boy and try to remember how to share the kind of love you don't go to hell for.
But he knows he won't, even as he builds the town in his mind, and not just because it would kill Dean. He couldn't. He's too gone, so wrapped up in his brother he's no longer sure where he ends and Dean begins. Too fucking in love -- and he doesn't shrink from the words anymore, he can't. It just is, a fact like any other: the sky is blue, water is wet, and Sam's in love with his brother.
He stands under the spray until the last of the heat is gone. He doesn't want to go back -- the room reeks of sex, of them, and the thought of choosing between the wreck of the bed he and Dean just fucked in and the cold, empty bed beside it makes his stomach roil. But there's nowhere else to go.
Dean's still on the edge of the mattress when Sam opens the door, and his eyes are closed, but he's not asleep. His shoulders are tense, his breathing too shallow; it's the kind of pretending he always does after sex, his unsubtle way of making sure Sam doesn't try to talk. Sam wants to climb in next to him, and he kind of wants to hit him, but mostly, always, he just wants to kiss him, kiss Dean and then curl up against him, bury his head against Dean's throat so Dean is all he can smell and taste and see.
He stumbles to the chair by the window instead, gropes for his bag. He finds jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt, probably none-too-clean, and pulls them on, yanks his boots on without lacing them up. He's halfway out before Dean moves, but it's too late by then, far too easy to let the door slam behind him, cutting off Dean's weary, "Where the hell are you going, Sam?"
Sam nearly kills himself getting down the steps, and the hurry is pointless anyway, because Dean doesn't follow, doesn't even open the door to watch him go. He thinks, bitterly, that Dean doesn't care, that he'll just roll over and go back to sleep, but he can't really believe it, even as tired and worn down as he is. Dean's going to stay awake until he gets back, sitting in the dark because turning on a light would be admitting he was worried, waiting for Sam and trying not to believe this will be the time he doesn't come back.
It makes a hard, mean little part of Sam glad, that he can still hurt Dean like this, still scare him, that if Dean is going to rip his guts out every fucking day, he can at least get some of his own back. He thinks he should be more ashamed of that than he is.
There's nothing to the town -- two stoplights, a strip mall, a slaughterhouse -- so he follows the highway, walking along the narrow shoulder. The wind blows, hard and cold, and he shivers, listens to the rustling in the woods on either side of him, small, sinister noises that could be anything. He thinks of wolves, of vengeful ghosts, lost and angry and desperate. They seem small in the face of the dead, stale air waiting for him in the motel.
He walks for an hour, maybe two, and then he sits in the motel parking lot, shivering on the hood of the car, cursing Dean for the hundredth time for not giving him his own key. He waits until the light starts to change, inky black sliding to bluish gray, before he walks back to the (their) room.
Dean hasn't moved, or at least, he's managed to twist himself back into the same position. He's still faking sleep, but Sam can feel the shift in his breathing when the door shuts behind him, the relief flowing off him, huge and silent. And he can't -- he can't -- stay angry. It just slides out of him, nothing left but bone-deep exhaustion and something like despair. "Dean," he says. "I know you're not asleep."
Dean doesn't move, doesn't speak, but Sam presses forward, nowhere else to go. "Keep pretending, then," he says. "I know you don't... I know this isn't the same to you as it is to me. Or maybe you just want to pretend it isn't. And I know it's easier to make this about fucking, but I don't... I want more than that. And I hate that you won't give it to me."
Sam runs a hand through his hair, feeling stupid and small, more alone than he has since he climbed on a Greyhound to California and watched his brother shrink into the distance. "I can't leave, and I can't even say I'm done fucking you, even though it's fucking killing me to have that and nothing else, because I can't keep my hands off you, never could. So I just... I'm not gonna try anymore, Dean, but it's not because I don't want it. Not because I don't want you."
He walks to the other bed, strips off his clothes and climbs in. Dean's breath sounds different, shorter, sharper, but Sam thinks if he tries to analyze that he'll probably go crazy. Crazier. "I just wanted you to know that," he says, and then he turns his back to Dean, tries not to listen to him breathe as he falls asleep.
***
Sam's not sure what he expected to happen, but nothing does. He wakes in the morning to find Dean in his bed, teasing him to hardness before straddling his hips and riding him, but twelve hours later they're in a bar, Sam hunched over his laptop and trying desperately not to watch as Dean insinuates himself into a bachelorette party, kissing the bridesmaids extravagantly in turn and eventually leaving with two of them. He doesn't give Sam so much as a backward glance, and he doesn't get back to the motel until 4 a.m., reeking of whiskey and sex.
It makes it worse, almost, that Sam peeled himself open, stood raw and bleeding in front of Dean, and it wasn't enough. Worse still when Dean starts whoring around like his soul's still got a lien on it, picking up a new girl in every bar, fucking waitresses and motel clerks and librarians, coming home with scratches and bite-marks and kiss-swollen lips. He still fucks Sam easily enough, when there's no one else around or no one else he wants, or when Sam can't stand it anymore and throws him down to the bed or the floor or against the wall, but that's harder, too. They fuck as often as they ever did, and it's not any less mind-blowing, but it hurts more when Dean's covered in someone else's marks, all the little reminders of what he gives so easily to everyone but Sam.
In Albuquerque, Dean brings a girl back to the motel, muttering, "He can sleep through anything" dismissively when she asks about Sam in the next bed. There's a dark sort of amusement in his voice, and Sam knows, sure as he's ever known anything, that Dean knows he's awake. But leaving is more of an admission than he's willing to make, so he just lies silently, teeth sinking into his own lip until he tastes blood, and listens to Dean fuck her, hard and long and loud, listens to her shrill giggles and the heavy, wet kisses they share when they're done.
It's the first time Sam has ever hated his brother, really fucking hated him, and he lies awake, angry and humiliated and fucking hurt, for the rest of the night, long after Dean's latest conquest has vanished and Dean's breathing has deepened and evened. He doesn't know what the hell Dean's little performance was supposed to be, but it was something, some kind of warning or punishment or maybe just a simple 'fuck you,' because Dean's never brought a girl back to their room, not even before they were... whatever the hell it is they're doing, and he doesn't fucking care anymore.
He thinks about going, just walking out the door and away, finding his little Midwestern town, building his little Midwestern life. Thinks about how Dean would react, when he woke up in the morning and found Sam gone, if he'd try to track Sam down or just shrug and keep driving, the next hunt always on the horizon. Even angry as he is, betrayed as he feels, he can't pretend it wouldn't rip Dean apart, but if Dean's so fucking determined to bring about his own self-fulfilling prophecies, who the hell is Sam to deny him?
And then he thinks of Dean's dead eyes, the flatness in his voice when he said, "So leave," and he knows that none of it matters; they're conjoined fucking twins, chained together until it kills them both.
Dean grins at him at breakfast the next morning, a hard, mirthless smirk Sam's never seen before, and he wonders how much more he can take before Dean breaks him.
***
They don't fuck for more than a week afterward. They're between hunts, driving aimlessly toward god knows what, and Sam sits sullenly in the passenger seat while Dean blasts Led Zeppelin at ear-splitting levels. There's a new bar every night, a new girl or two or three, and sometimes Dean isn't back until dawn, drenched in the scent of pussy and cheap perfume.
Sam holds out until he can't stand it, and when he finally crawls back into his brother's bed, nothing's changed at all. Dean grunts and shoves Sam's hand between his legs, and they fuck silently, hard and slow, and then Sam slips out of Dean and moves to the other bed before he's even stopped shaking. But he wakes in the morning to Dean's head between his legs, Dean's soft moans as he sucks Sam like he needs it to live, and the air in the room feels lighter, somehow, like thick humidity washed away by rain.
There's a barfly that night, and a checkout girl the next, but the night after that Dean comes back to the motel after they salt and burn the bones of some frat-boy asshole terrorizing a college campus, even though there's a bar full of jailbait three blocks away. They order Thai and watch Beetlejuice, and Dean lets Sam fuck him, after, even lies on his back for it.
Dean goes home with a stripper after they kill a reptilian nightmare pulling people into the sewers in Miami, but he showers when he gets back, and there are no bite marks anywhere that show. It's the off-season and they've got a fresh credit card, and Sam doesn't have to push too hard to talk Dean into a mini-vacation. They get a real hotel room and spend three days doing stupid tourist shit, walking on the beach and exploring the city. There's a string of bars the first night, and Dean disappears for an hour with a curvy redhead, but the second night they stay in, order room service and watch badly dubbed kung-fu, the sound of waves and sweet salt air drifting in from the balcony.
They kill a harpy in Mississippi, buy a bottle of Jack to celebrate, and when Sam is so drunk the floor won't stand still, Dean pushes him down on the bed and rims him until Sam thinks he'll die from the pleasure of it. He moans and gasps and pushes his hips against Dean's face, and Dean doesn't stop, keeps tongue-fucking him until he's begging in a raw, broken voice that sounds nothing like his own. When Sam can't come anymore, reduced to a boneless puddle spread across the sheets, Dean fucks him, slow and almost gentle, eyes locked on Sam's face whenever Sam forces his eyes open.
There's a chupucabra in Texas, and the rancher hit hardest has a daughter, a rodeo rider with thick black hair and sly, knowing eyes. Dean spends a weekend with her after they kill the thing, while Sam cools his heels and tries not to think too much. He escapes the horror of their motel, all peeling purple wallpaper and fat, ugly cherubs, in a cafe with free Wi-Fi and a waitress who looks a little like Sarah. She's hot and she's funny and at the end of the second day, she sits down at his table and smiles, hopeful and promising, and says her shift is over. He opens his mouth to ask if she wants to get out of there, but the words get stuck in his throat, and he makes an excuse instead, throws her number in the dumpster behind the motel before going up to the room. Dean's waiting, and he blows Sam before they hit the road.
In Arizona, they cleanse a poltergeist from a group home for developmentally disabled adults. Dean ignores the nurse's unsubtle hints about the ways she'd like to thank him and drags Sam to a steakhouse instead. They eat big slabs of meat, drink too much beer and share a piece of cake the size of Gibraltar; Dean ends up with chocolate frosting smeared at the corner of his mouth, and Sam doesn't stop to think, he just scoops it up and then sucks his finger into his mouth. They barely make it back to the motel room, and Sam gets slammed against the door and fucked, no lube and both of them still dressed. He's sore for three days afterward, and the heat that flares in Dean's eyes whenever he winces is almost as hot as the sex.
There are witches in Oregon, and Sam and Dean spend four days trying to tie them to the disappearance of two first-graders before realizing the coven is tracking whatever took the kids. They pool resources, and when they find the answer, it's sadder and more horrifying than Sam could have imagined, just an evil old man and a video camera, nothing supernatural at all. He's as cowardly as he is sick, and he shoots himself when they find him, splatters his brains across his basement wall while two little boys huddle in a cage behind him. They take the kids back to their parents, to a lifetime of nightmares and distrust, and they don't talk that night. They don't fuck, either, but when Sam crawls into Dean's bed, Dean lets him, even lets Sam sleep with his head on his chest. Sam's still in Dean's arms when he wakes, and it feels like a beginning.
***
They wipe out a nest of vampires in Montana, and then they find a diner with the best fried chicken Sam's ever tasted. Dean ignores his burger in favor of stealing pieces off Sam's plate, smirking when Sam bitches, and he kicks Sam under the table when Sam takes a handful of fries in revenge. It's easy, familiar, and when he smiles at Dean, Dean grins back, open and bright.
It's still early when they get back to the motel, enough time for Sam to get some research in before Dean drags him to the bar across the street. He pulls off his boots and throws his coat over the back of the chair, reaches for the laptop, but suddenly Dean's behind him, strong hands on his shoulders turning him around, and then Dean's lips are on his.
It's a shock and it's not, both at the same time, and Sam's legs almost give out beneath him. He pulls away, staring into Dean's face, and Dean stares back, brazen and hungry and almost unsure all at once. "Dean," Sam whispers, and he can see it start to happen, Dean's face closing, defenses slamming back into place. "Dean," he says again, putting everything into the word, his heart and soul and fucking life, all the want and need and desperation that have threatened to drown him since the first time he touched Dean as something more than a brother.
And it's enough. It's enough, because Dean says, "Sammy," in a voice like broken glass, and then they're kissing again, and it's strange and sudden and right and inevitable.
Dean tastes like salt and the pie he had for dessert. His mouth is hot and wet and perfect, exactly what Sam imagined it would be and somehow more, almost too much to take. He clings to Dean and tries to remember how to breathe, and Dean walks him backward, pulling them both down across the bed, kissing and kissing and kissing.
It's awkward and messy and wonderful. The bed is made, and they're both fully dressed, but fixing either of those things would involve letting go of Dean, and there's no chance in hell that's going to happen any time soon. Sam shifts until they're both on their sides, pressed as close together as humanly possible, groans when his rock-hard dick brushes against Dean's through the layers of denim. Dean moans back at him, but their dicks are almost beside the point; Sam's had that, but this, Dean's mouth against his, Dean's tongue stroking his own... this is new, this is everything, the whole ballgame, he and Dean together like they were always meant to be. There's no coming back from this, and if Dean freaks out later, Sam is going to tie him down and smack him upside the head until he sees reason, because Sam's not giving this up again, not ever.
They make out like teenagers, panting every time they break apart and diving back in before they've even begun to catch their breath. Dean bites his lips and nips along his jaw, licks at the corner of his mouth before sliding his tongue in again, and Sam clutches his shoulders hard enough to leave bruises. They kiss until Sam loses track of time, loses all track of anything that isn't his brother's mouth. Hours pass, or maybe days, before Dean snugs their hips together and starts thrusting, and they kiss all the way through.
They don't stop even then, gasping for air with come cooling uncomfortably in their pants. Sam says, "Jesus, Dean," against Dean's lips, and Dean laughs and rolls on top of him. They kiss until they're hard again, kiss until they come again, and it's only then that they manage to pull apart long enough to get each other's clothes off. They shower, kissing slow and lazy until the water cools around them, and then climb naked into bed, wrapped around each other. There's no question of coming again so soon, but they kiss anyway, half asleep and laughing into each other's mouths, until they can't stay awake anymore.
***
Sam wakes with his face against Dean's throat and Dean's cock hard against his hip, and he resolutely pushes aside the spike of momentary fear that Dean will have changed his mind. He kisses his brother awake, hard and hungry and desperate, and Dean doesn't fight; he moans into Sam's mouth before he's even fully conscious, wraps his legs around Sam's waist and whispers into his mouth while Sam fucks him, indistinct syllables that could be "yes" or "god" or just Sam's name.
They shower separately, Sam's cursory attempt not to push too hard, but he spoils it all by catching Dean before he can open the door to go to breakfast and kissing him until he sags against Sam.
"You're pushing it," Dean growls, but there's no bite to it, and Sam just mutters, "Yeah, yeah," and kisses him again.
Breakfast is surreal. Nothing's changed and everything's changed and Dean is here and Dean is his, all of him, not just the fractured bits he's given Sam before. The waitress sits them in the same booth they shared the night before, and it takes all of Sam's not-inconsiderable powers of concentration to keep from staring at his brother like a lovestruck puppy.
Dean mocks him relentlessly, about everything and nothing -- his choice of fruit over hash browns, the burn mark on his t-shirt, the way his hair flips up like wings since he didn't bother to brush it properly -- and Sam is so happy it takes him most of the meal to realize Dean's putting on a show. It's subtle, small enough that no one in the world but Sam would be able to see it, but it's there, in the way Dean's eyes slide away from his when he's not mid-insult, the tense line of his shoulders.
It makes Sam feel stupid and small, angry at himself for taking so long to notice, because Dean's just given him everything, laid everything on the table, and there's no going back, not for either of them. He knows how much Dean has to trust him to lay himself bare that way, but it's not absolute, not yet, and once Sam sees it, it shines like a beacon in every stupid thing Dean says, every too-casual move he makes.
Sam wants to kiss him again, or maybe take his hand, even if Dean would never forgive him, or climb into his lap and get fucked right there at the table, but he can't do any of those things, and he doesn't know how to push Dean those final few paces, show him that Sam belongs to him every bit as much as he belongs to Sam. Dean's still talking about Sam's stupid hair, about the clippers that Sam will never see coming. His hands lie on the table in front of him, stiff and still, and Sam stops thinking. He reaches forward, grabs Dean's hand in both of his and tugs off his thick silver ring.
Dean stares. "What the fuck are you doing?"
Sam doesn't answer. He turns the ring over in his hands, feeling the metal still warm from Dean's skin, and then he slides it onto his own finger and lays his hand down on the table. Dean gapes at him like he's grown a second head, and Sam smiles at him. "What was that about Nair?" he says.
Dean looks at Sam's hand, at his face, and then back at his hand again. "That's mine," he says.
"Yeah," Sam says. "It is."
Dean keeps staring for a long moment, and then he slowly starts to smile. It feels, somehow, exactly like a kiss.
Notes, pt. 2: Variations on the Word Sleep is one of my favorite poems, and if you've never read it, you really should. Also, I spent way too much time staring at this gorgeous manip while writing this, because it makes me really happy, and it will make you happy, too.
And ALSO, this TOTALLY does not count as promise-ring fic, no matter what Laura or Susan may tell you. It is spectacularly NOT MY FAULT that Dean is so needy he requires this kind of validation and IF YOU JUDGE ME AS GOD IS MY WITNESS DEAN WILL DO BAD THINGS TO YOU IN SECOND-PERSON.
Sam/Dean, 4,452 words
Notes: This is a sequel of sorts to ygrawn's utterly amazing and desperately sad And the Complications You Could Do Without (with many thanks to her for letting me play a bit in her sandbox), and it will make no sense whatsoever if you haven't read that first. Thanks to luzdeestrellas and merryish for the beta, even if they are totally going to hell for being mean to me.
I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.
-Variations on the Word Sleep, Margaret Atwood
It doesn't change things, knowing why. It doesn't make it better; it doesn't make it easier. Sam wants -- he wants -- and it doesn't matter that he already has Dean in every other way.
Things are strained at first, awkward; they grate against each other instead of moving together, but then the status quo is reestablished. They fight, they fuck, they hunt; they don't kiss and they don't touch except for sex and they don't talk about anything that matters. Dean still picks up townies and waitresses, still kisses them publicly and extravagantly while Sam stares into his beer and tries to pretend it's not a punch to the gut. Nothing changes at all.
But he watches Dean a little more closely, or maybe it's just that he finally understands what he's seeing. It all makes sense now -- the hard, dead look in Dean's eyes when Sam tries to curl against him while they're both still shivering with orgasm, the blank expression that slams across his face sometimes when Sam reaches for him. And it's worse than all the walls Dean's constructed around himself, worse than the flashing neon "This far and no farther" sign he keeps permanently illuminated, because it means he doesn't trust Sam, can't believe Sam loves him the way he loves Sam, and Sam doesn't know how to fix that, doesn't even know if it's possible.
It takes a month and three states for Sam to break. They're in West Virginia, way out in the middle of nowhere, and after they kill something that's been eating parked teenagers like a monster out of a bad horror movie, they come home and fuck like it's the end of the world, high on adrenaline and the thrill of the hunt. Sam comes and comes, impaled on Dean's fingers and cock and tongue, and when it's over, when he's too spent to move or think or even breathe, Dean rolls off, as far away as he can get without falling off the bed, leaves Sam with nothing but empty space and the blank expanse of his back, and grief and anger and want rise up in Sam's throat like bile.
He forces himself to stand, stagger on shaky legs to the bathroom, and he shuts the door firmly behind him before turning on the light. He doesn't want Dean to see him, doesn't think he can stand to feel so naked, and maybe it's stupid when he can still feel the sluggish trickle of come between his legs, but if Dean's allowed to kiss every piece of trailer trash he can get to hold still long enough while pushing Sam back like a cheap whore, Sam figures he's entitled to some pointless modesty.
Dean's taste is in his mouth, bitter and flat, and he fills the glass on the sink, but he catches his own reflection before he can drink. There's no question of what he's been doing for the last few hours -- his eyes are heavy lidded, his lips swollen enough that they almost look kissed. Livid bite marks cover his neck and collarbone; there are deep red marks on his shoulders where Dean held him down, and he's got a smear of his brother's come across his belly. He looks fucked, used, owned, and the lie of it burns in his chest.
He forces his eyes away, rinses out his mouth until he can't taste anything but the tepid tap water, and then he turns on the shower as hot as he can make it and climbs in. He wants Dean gone, his smell and his taste and his sweat and his come, every piece of him that's branded into Sam's skin, silent promises of another day or month or year like this one, a lifetime of wanting, needing something Dean won't trust him enough to give.
It would be easier to leave, he thinks, to wait until the next time Dean disappears with someone blonde and skanky and then just go, take his bag and the laptop and a few weapons and hit the road, disappear into the heartland. Choose a name, find a job and make a life somewhere Dean would never think to look; find a nice girl or a nice boy and try to remember how to share the kind of love you don't go to hell for.
But he knows he won't, even as he builds the town in his mind, and not just because it would kill Dean. He couldn't. He's too gone, so wrapped up in his brother he's no longer sure where he ends and Dean begins. Too fucking in love -- and he doesn't shrink from the words anymore, he can't. It just is, a fact like any other: the sky is blue, water is wet, and Sam's in love with his brother.
He stands under the spray until the last of the heat is gone. He doesn't want to go back -- the room reeks of sex, of them, and the thought of choosing between the wreck of the bed he and Dean just fucked in and the cold, empty bed beside it makes his stomach roil. But there's nowhere else to go.
Dean's still on the edge of the mattress when Sam opens the door, and his eyes are closed, but he's not asleep. His shoulders are tense, his breathing too shallow; it's the kind of pretending he always does after sex, his unsubtle way of making sure Sam doesn't try to talk. Sam wants to climb in next to him, and he kind of wants to hit him, but mostly, always, he just wants to kiss him, kiss Dean and then curl up against him, bury his head against Dean's throat so Dean is all he can smell and taste and see.
He stumbles to the chair by the window instead, gropes for his bag. He finds jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt, probably none-too-clean, and pulls them on, yanks his boots on without lacing them up. He's halfway out before Dean moves, but it's too late by then, far too easy to let the door slam behind him, cutting off Dean's weary, "Where the hell are you going, Sam?"
Sam nearly kills himself getting down the steps, and the hurry is pointless anyway, because Dean doesn't follow, doesn't even open the door to watch him go. He thinks, bitterly, that Dean doesn't care, that he'll just roll over and go back to sleep, but he can't really believe it, even as tired and worn down as he is. Dean's going to stay awake until he gets back, sitting in the dark because turning on a light would be admitting he was worried, waiting for Sam and trying not to believe this will be the time he doesn't come back.
It makes a hard, mean little part of Sam glad, that he can still hurt Dean like this, still scare him, that if Dean is going to rip his guts out every fucking day, he can at least get some of his own back. He thinks he should be more ashamed of that than he is.
There's nothing to the town -- two stoplights, a strip mall, a slaughterhouse -- so he follows the highway, walking along the narrow shoulder. The wind blows, hard and cold, and he shivers, listens to the rustling in the woods on either side of him, small, sinister noises that could be anything. He thinks of wolves, of vengeful ghosts, lost and angry and desperate. They seem small in the face of the dead, stale air waiting for him in the motel.
He walks for an hour, maybe two, and then he sits in the motel parking lot, shivering on the hood of the car, cursing Dean for the hundredth time for not giving him his own key. He waits until the light starts to change, inky black sliding to bluish gray, before he walks back to the (their) room.
Dean hasn't moved, or at least, he's managed to twist himself back into the same position. He's still faking sleep, but Sam can feel the shift in his breathing when the door shuts behind him, the relief flowing off him, huge and silent. And he can't -- he can't -- stay angry. It just slides out of him, nothing left but bone-deep exhaustion and something like despair. "Dean," he says. "I know you're not asleep."
Dean doesn't move, doesn't speak, but Sam presses forward, nowhere else to go. "Keep pretending, then," he says. "I know you don't... I know this isn't the same to you as it is to me. Or maybe you just want to pretend it isn't. And I know it's easier to make this about fucking, but I don't... I want more than that. And I hate that you won't give it to me."
Sam runs a hand through his hair, feeling stupid and small, more alone than he has since he climbed on a Greyhound to California and watched his brother shrink into the distance. "I can't leave, and I can't even say I'm done fucking you, even though it's fucking killing me to have that and nothing else, because I can't keep my hands off you, never could. So I just... I'm not gonna try anymore, Dean, but it's not because I don't want it. Not because I don't want you."
He walks to the other bed, strips off his clothes and climbs in. Dean's breath sounds different, shorter, sharper, but Sam thinks if he tries to analyze that he'll probably go crazy. Crazier. "I just wanted you to know that," he says, and then he turns his back to Dean, tries not to listen to him breathe as he falls asleep.
***
Sam's not sure what he expected to happen, but nothing does. He wakes in the morning to find Dean in his bed, teasing him to hardness before straddling his hips and riding him, but twelve hours later they're in a bar, Sam hunched over his laptop and trying desperately not to watch as Dean insinuates himself into a bachelorette party, kissing the bridesmaids extravagantly in turn and eventually leaving with two of them. He doesn't give Sam so much as a backward glance, and he doesn't get back to the motel until 4 a.m., reeking of whiskey and sex.
It makes it worse, almost, that Sam peeled himself open, stood raw and bleeding in front of Dean, and it wasn't enough. Worse still when Dean starts whoring around like his soul's still got a lien on it, picking up a new girl in every bar, fucking waitresses and motel clerks and librarians, coming home with scratches and bite-marks and kiss-swollen lips. He still fucks Sam easily enough, when there's no one else around or no one else he wants, or when Sam can't stand it anymore and throws him down to the bed or the floor or against the wall, but that's harder, too. They fuck as often as they ever did, and it's not any less mind-blowing, but it hurts more when Dean's covered in someone else's marks, all the little reminders of what he gives so easily to everyone but Sam.
In Albuquerque, Dean brings a girl back to the motel, muttering, "He can sleep through anything" dismissively when she asks about Sam in the next bed. There's a dark sort of amusement in his voice, and Sam knows, sure as he's ever known anything, that Dean knows he's awake. But leaving is more of an admission than he's willing to make, so he just lies silently, teeth sinking into his own lip until he tastes blood, and listens to Dean fuck her, hard and long and loud, listens to her shrill giggles and the heavy, wet kisses they share when they're done.
It's the first time Sam has ever hated his brother, really fucking hated him, and he lies awake, angry and humiliated and fucking hurt, for the rest of the night, long after Dean's latest conquest has vanished and Dean's breathing has deepened and evened. He doesn't know what the hell Dean's little performance was supposed to be, but it was something, some kind of warning or punishment or maybe just a simple 'fuck you,' because Dean's never brought a girl back to their room, not even before they were... whatever the hell it is they're doing, and he doesn't fucking care anymore.
He thinks about going, just walking out the door and away, finding his little Midwestern town, building his little Midwestern life. Thinks about how Dean would react, when he woke up in the morning and found Sam gone, if he'd try to track Sam down or just shrug and keep driving, the next hunt always on the horizon. Even angry as he is, betrayed as he feels, he can't pretend it wouldn't rip Dean apart, but if Dean's so fucking determined to bring about his own self-fulfilling prophecies, who the hell is Sam to deny him?
And then he thinks of Dean's dead eyes, the flatness in his voice when he said, "So leave," and he knows that none of it matters; they're conjoined fucking twins, chained together until it kills them both.
Dean grins at him at breakfast the next morning, a hard, mirthless smirk Sam's never seen before, and he wonders how much more he can take before Dean breaks him.
***
They don't fuck for more than a week afterward. They're between hunts, driving aimlessly toward god knows what, and Sam sits sullenly in the passenger seat while Dean blasts Led Zeppelin at ear-splitting levels. There's a new bar every night, a new girl or two or three, and sometimes Dean isn't back until dawn, drenched in the scent of pussy and cheap perfume.
Sam holds out until he can't stand it, and when he finally crawls back into his brother's bed, nothing's changed at all. Dean grunts and shoves Sam's hand between his legs, and they fuck silently, hard and slow, and then Sam slips out of Dean and moves to the other bed before he's even stopped shaking. But he wakes in the morning to Dean's head between his legs, Dean's soft moans as he sucks Sam like he needs it to live, and the air in the room feels lighter, somehow, like thick humidity washed away by rain.
There's a barfly that night, and a checkout girl the next, but the night after that Dean comes back to the motel after they salt and burn the bones of some frat-boy asshole terrorizing a college campus, even though there's a bar full of jailbait three blocks away. They order Thai and watch Beetlejuice, and Dean lets Sam fuck him, after, even lies on his back for it.
Dean goes home with a stripper after they kill a reptilian nightmare pulling people into the sewers in Miami, but he showers when he gets back, and there are no bite marks anywhere that show. It's the off-season and they've got a fresh credit card, and Sam doesn't have to push too hard to talk Dean into a mini-vacation. They get a real hotel room and spend three days doing stupid tourist shit, walking on the beach and exploring the city. There's a string of bars the first night, and Dean disappears for an hour with a curvy redhead, but the second night they stay in, order room service and watch badly dubbed kung-fu, the sound of waves and sweet salt air drifting in from the balcony.
They kill a harpy in Mississippi, buy a bottle of Jack to celebrate, and when Sam is so drunk the floor won't stand still, Dean pushes him down on the bed and rims him until Sam thinks he'll die from the pleasure of it. He moans and gasps and pushes his hips against Dean's face, and Dean doesn't stop, keeps tongue-fucking him until he's begging in a raw, broken voice that sounds nothing like his own. When Sam can't come anymore, reduced to a boneless puddle spread across the sheets, Dean fucks him, slow and almost gentle, eyes locked on Sam's face whenever Sam forces his eyes open.
There's a chupucabra in Texas, and the rancher hit hardest has a daughter, a rodeo rider with thick black hair and sly, knowing eyes. Dean spends a weekend with her after they kill the thing, while Sam cools his heels and tries not to think too much. He escapes the horror of their motel, all peeling purple wallpaper and fat, ugly cherubs, in a cafe with free Wi-Fi and a waitress who looks a little like Sarah. She's hot and she's funny and at the end of the second day, she sits down at his table and smiles, hopeful and promising, and says her shift is over. He opens his mouth to ask if she wants to get out of there, but the words get stuck in his throat, and he makes an excuse instead, throws her number in the dumpster behind the motel before going up to the room. Dean's waiting, and he blows Sam before they hit the road.
In Arizona, they cleanse a poltergeist from a group home for developmentally disabled adults. Dean ignores the nurse's unsubtle hints about the ways she'd like to thank him and drags Sam to a steakhouse instead. They eat big slabs of meat, drink too much beer and share a piece of cake the size of Gibraltar; Dean ends up with chocolate frosting smeared at the corner of his mouth, and Sam doesn't stop to think, he just scoops it up and then sucks his finger into his mouth. They barely make it back to the motel room, and Sam gets slammed against the door and fucked, no lube and both of them still dressed. He's sore for three days afterward, and the heat that flares in Dean's eyes whenever he winces is almost as hot as the sex.
There are witches in Oregon, and Sam and Dean spend four days trying to tie them to the disappearance of two first-graders before realizing the coven is tracking whatever took the kids. They pool resources, and when they find the answer, it's sadder and more horrifying than Sam could have imagined, just an evil old man and a video camera, nothing supernatural at all. He's as cowardly as he is sick, and he shoots himself when they find him, splatters his brains across his basement wall while two little boys huddle in a cage behind him. They take the kids back to their parents, to a lifetime of nightmares and distrust, and they don't talk that night. They don't fuck, either, but when Sam crawls into Dean's bed, Dean lets him, even lets Sam sleep with his head on his chest. Sam's still in Dean's arms when he wakes, and it feels like a beginning.
***
They wipe out a nest of vampires in Montana, and then they find a diner with the best fried chicken Sam's ever tasted. Dean ignores his burger in favor of stealing pieces off Sam's plate, smirking when Sam bitches, and he kicks Sam under the table when Sam takes a handful of fries in revenge. It's easy, familiar, and when he smiles at Dean, Dean grins back, open and bright.
It's still early when they get back to the motel, enough time for Sam to get some research in before Dean drags him to the bar across the street. He pulls off his boots and throws his coat over the back of the chair, reaches for the laptop, but suddenly Dean's behind him, strong hands on his shoulders turning him around, and then Dean's lips are on his.
It's a shock and it's not, both at the same time, and Sam's legs almost give out beneath him. He pulls away, staring into Dean's face, and Dean stares back, brazen and hungry and almost unsure all at once. "Dean," Sam whispers, and he can see it start to happen, Dean's face closing, defenses slamming back into place. "Dean," he says again, putting everything into the word, his heart and soul and fucking life, all the want and need and desperation that have threatened to drown him since the first time he touched Dean as something more than a brother.
And it's enough. It's enough, because Dean says, "Sammy," in a voice like broken glass, and then they're kissing again, and it's strange and sudden and right and inevitable.
Dean tastes like salt and the pie he had for dessert. His mouth is hot and wet and perfect, exactly what Sam imagined it would be and somehow more, almost too much to take. He clings to Dean and tries to remember how to breathe, and Dean walks him backward, pulling them both down across the bed, kissing and kissing and kissing.
It's awkward and messy and wonderful. The bed is made, and they're both fully dressed, but fixing either of those things would involve letting go of Dean, and there's no chance in hell that's going to happen any time soon. Sam shifts until they're both on their sides, pressed as close together as humanly possible, groans when his rock-hard dick brushes against Dean's through the layers of denim. Dean moans back at him, but their dicks are almost beside the point; Sam's had that, but this, Dean's mouth against his, Dean's tongue stroking his own... this is new, this is everything, the whole ballgame, he and Dean together like they were always meant to be. There's no coming back from this, and if Dean freaks out later, Sam is going to tie him down and smack him upside the head until he sees reason, because Sam's not giving this up again, not ever.
They make out like teenagers, panting every time they break apart and diving back in before they've even begun to catch their breath. Dean bites his lips and nips along his jaw, licks at the corner of his mouth before sliding his tongue in again, and Sam clutches his shoulders hard enough to leave bruises. They kiss until Sam loses track of time, loses all track of anything that isn't his brother's mouth. Hours pass, or maybe days, before Dean snugs their hips together and starts thrusting, and they kiss all the way through.
They don't stop even then, gasping for air with come cooling uncomfortably in their pants. Sam says, "Jesus, Dean," against Dean's lips, and Dean laughs and rolls on top of him. They kiss until they're hard again, kiss until they come again, and it's only then that they manage to pull apart long enough to get each other's clothes off. They shower, kissing slow and lazy until the water cools around them, and then climb naked into bed, wrapped around each other. There's no question of coming again so soon, but they kiss anyway, half asleep and laughing into each other's mouths, until they can't stay awake anymore.
***
Sam wakes with his face against Dean's throat and Dean's cock hard against his hip, and he resolutely pushes aside the spike of momentary fear that Dean will have changed his mind. He kisses his brother awake, hard and hungry and desperate, and Dean doesn't fight; he moans into Sam's mouth before he's even fully conscious, wraps his legs around Sam's waist and whispers into his mouth while Sam fucks him, indistinct syllables that could be "yes" or "god" or just Sam's name.
They shower separately, Sam's cursory attempt not to push too hard, but he spoils it all by catching Dean before he can open the door to go to breakfast and kissing him until he sags against Sam.
"You're pushing it," Dean growls, but there's no bite to it, and Sam just mutters, "Yeah, yeah," and kisses him again.
Breakfast is surreal. Nothing's changed and everything's changed and Dean is here and Dean is his, all of him, not just the fractured bits he's given Sam before. The waitress sits them in the same booth they shared the night before, and it takes all of Sam's not-inconsiderable powers of concentration to keep from staring at his brother like a lovestruck puppy.
Dean mocks him relentlessly, about everything and nothing -- his choice of fruit over hash browns, the burn mark on his t-shirt, the way his hair flips up like wings since he didn't bother to brush it properly -- and Sam is so happy it takes him most of the meal to realize Dean's putting on a show. It's subtle, small enough that no one in the world but Sam would be able to see it, but it's there, in the way Dean's eyes slide away from his when he's not mid-insult, the tense line of his shoulders.
It makes Sam feel stupid and small, angry at himself for taking so long to notice, because Dean's just given him everything, laid everything on the table, and there's no going back, not for either of them. He knows how much Dean has to trust him to lay himself bare that way, but it's not absolute, not yet, and once Sam sees it, it shines like a beacon in every stupid thing Dean says, every too-casual move he makes.
Sam wants to kiss him again, or maybe take his hand, even if Dean would never forgive him, or climb into his lap and get fucked right there at the table, but he can't do any of those things, and he doesn't know how to push Dean those final few paces, show him that Sam belongs to him every bit as much as he belongs to Sam. Dean's still talking about Sam's stupid hair, about the clippers that Sam will never see coming. His hands lie on the table in front of him, stiff and still, and Sam stops thinking. He reaches forward, grabs Dean's hand in both of his and tugs off his thick silver ring.
Dean stares. "What the fuck are you doing?"
Sam doesn't answer. He turns the ring over in his hands, feeling the metal still warm from Dean's skin, and then he slides it onto his own finger and lays his hand down on the table. Dean gapes at him like he's grown a second head, and Sam smiles at him. "What was that about Nair?" he says.
Dean looks at Sam's hand, at his face, and then back at his hand again. "That's mine," he says.
"Yeah," Sam says. "It is."
Dean keeps staring for a long moment, and then he slowly starts to smile. It feels, somehow, exactly like a kiss.
Notes, pt. 2: Variations on the Word Sleep is one of my favorite poems, and if you've never read it, you really should. Also, I spent way too much time staring at this gorgeous manip while writing this, because it makes me really happy, and it will make you happy, too.
And ALSO, this TOTALLY does not count as promise-ring fic, no matter what Laura or Susan may tell you. It is spectacularly NOT MY FAULT that Dean is so needy he requires this kind of validation and IF YOU JUDGE ME AS GOD IS MY WITNESS DEAN WILL DO BAD THINGS TO YOU IN SECOND-PERSON.