Fic: ‘Scripts and Cures (1/1)
Title: ‘Scripts and Cures
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Dean/Sam
Word Count: 2,859
Summary: There’s one thing that can answer Dean’s questions about his brother, about how much of his brother might be left, and if Dean wasn’t sure what to think about Sam -- well, being with him like this makes it pretty damn clear. Spoilers through 6.07 - Family Matters.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: Self-indulgent angsty-schmoopy kinda-porn; no more, no less.
‘Scripts and Cures
The comforter smells like stale smoke, and it’s all that Dean can process, all that Dean knows for sure when he pushes, traps Sam him between his thighs and leans, bears down until there’s no more balance, no more give; until the springs creak below them with tired momentum, an echo of the ruckus in his chest.
He doesn’t know how many seconds there are, doesn’t hear the crack of his joints or the shuck of his clothes hitting the floor -- he doesn’t know if the press of skin, if the bite of jagged fingernails at his hips, dug tight to bruise, is the same as it always was, or if it’s just wishful thinking. He doesn’t know if there’s familiarity; he’s not sure he wants it, either way. He doesn’t know much except for the sweat on his torso and the ribs stark in Sam’s, the way it all gets tangled and hits, barely misses when they breathe, when they can’t look each other in the eye.
The comforter, though; it smells like smoke.
----------
The first time they did this, the first time the world was too much and judgement too fickle; the first time Dean’s chest slid against his brother’s, the first time he felt the shape, the curve of his Sam’s cock straining hot through worn denim, proud against his groin -- the first time they did this, Sammy trembled.
Dean never mentioned it, never reacted; pretended he didn’t see.
----------
Dean doesn’t think to wonder about the how, about whether they’ll fit like they always wanted to and never did -- he doesn’t ease or test his brother’s body, see if he’s ready, if he’ll manage; there’s something cold in the pit of Dean’s gut that tells him, lets him know there’s nothing left to hurt.
So he pushes in, one smooth motion, and there’s no sound, nothing but the way the thumbs at his sides grip down toward the bone, tight where Sam’s loose, and he knew it; he knows.
Sam doesn’t arch up; Dean doesn’t lean down. His lips feel numb, and he takes a moment before he sets the cadence -- the one he keeps when he’s had too much to drink, when he can’t make out the features of the face below him, when he won’t remember in the morning.
If Sam notices, he doesn’t protest; doesn’t complain.
If Sam even notices.
----------
One time -- one time -- before it all came down, Dean broke the skin because Sam asked him to, sucked slow on the fractured flesh until it swelled so red he couldn’t tell it from the blood in the dark; let the tang of metal and smoke linger on his tongue because the two of them were the same, cut sharp and sure: flesh and blood -- and Sam couldn’t forget it.
Dean wouldn’t let him.
And he let Sam see it, remembers the way he’d measured the quick stumble of a pulse against the bridge of his nose as Sam had threaded fingers, desperate, slipping in the sweat-slick strands of Dean’s hair, remembers how he brought Dean in close and choked down emotions they weren’t allowed to feel, the weight of it pushing out hard with every breath as he held Dean flush against him, bowed into the line of his sternum for every taut beat, every shuddering rush.
Dean remembers, better than he cares to admit; and Sammy -- his Sammy -- didn’t taste nothing like Hell.
‘Thank you,’ Sam had whispered, as he clutched and clung to Dean like the world was ending too late, and if Dean was tainted by the blood in Sam’s veins, he’d never know it; if he was damned by the touch of his brother’s skin, he’d never care.
----------
Dean keeps the heel of one hand flush against Sam’s sternum, braced to maintain the distance, to keep himself from falling too close -- giving, trusting too much. Sam’s heart feels like it sounded when it was all he could hear, all he could know in a room too small with his blood too thick: foreign and detached, untouched where it used to race when Dean so much as scraped teeth against the line of his jaw, the bud of a nipple -- alive, but nothing more.
Alive -- and it used to be enough. He used to imagine it would always be enough, that they got out alive.
It’s not.
He feels it when the exertion, the physical motion eggs on that metronome pulse, brings it up to count out seconds, keeps it from lagging slow behind the clock on the wall, peripheral -- and Dean could pretend that he’s not looking for a flash, a spark in those eyes; that he’s not waiting for Sam to reach out and cup at his neck with the desperate, deep sort of fierceness he sometimes does, always did; that he’s not waiting for Sam’s heart to start beating like it’s trying to burst from his fucking chest, like his soul’s trying to break through a cage tighter than his ribs; that there’s not a part of him that wants to move his hand just that little bit higher, squeeze a little bit harder -- that there’s not a part of him that wants to wring his brother’s fucking neck, and that it doesn’t scare the shit out of him.
He snaps his hips hard, fast and unforgiving as he sheaths, draws back, slides home; wincing through the raw drag of air in his throat; swallowing bile as he thinks about how this is now, how Sam is, always -- yeah, Dean could pretend.
But he won’t.
----------
When Dean got back, it took them a long time to be -- to lie and stay and still; to breathe the same air and take each other in -- to look and see and touch.
Sam keeps his palm pressed hard against scarred flesh, the places where the ink on his skin should be battered, should be broken, but isn’t. Some things sink deeper, he thinks; he knows.
Dean doesn’t believe in fate; his hand sweats, twitches when the creases in his palm start to vibrate with the quicksilver stutter under the surface, too hard, too wild to stay there, to stay his -- Dean doesn’t believe in anything, anymore, but it’s alright.
It’s as alright as it’s ever gonna get.
But Sam doesn’t waver, doesn’t falter -- rides Dean smooth, familiar like it’s the only thing he’ll never forget, never give up on; and his fingertips never stop pressing down on where the shudders, the reverberations of Dean’s pulse give way, echo out beneath the skin. He measures it, his grip clenching ever so slightly, every so often; he moves steady, low at a good fourth of its pace, and Dean bites his lip so that he doesn’t cry out, so that the wrong words don’t slip.
Dean comes as he watches his brother’s eyes burn hot, dark -- a blackness that’s beautiful, now, that doesn’t remind him of violence and rage, too bright for that -- and Sam follows soon after, painting their chests as he falls forward, the tips of his hair just out of reach. He breathes heavy, catches cool on the sheen that’s coating Dean’s skin, and Dean can see the beat, the jump at the side of Sam’s neck, fixates on it like a lifeline as he remembers; remembers.
And Sam, he reaches out with his free hand, leans his weight into the center of Dean’s chest just a little harder, a little painful -- suffocating, but it’s okay; he untangles Dean’s hands from the sheets underneath them, slowly loosens his grip until Dean’s palm is limp in his own.
Dean just stares when Sam gathers his hands, locks his gaze and doesn’t relent; when Sam brings their fingers up -- traps them against his chest, splayed just a little to the left -- Dean wants to flinch, wants to recoil and pull himself back, keep himself close, but Sam won’t let him, won’t have it. And the beat, when it takes him over, breathes him in: it kind of shakes, kind of hits and rolls and trembles in the places Dean left behind, the dead places that are still hollow -- it’s quick, if slowing, and it’s doesn’t last, but for a moment in time, those places are filled.
Sam slides off, lets Dean slip soft from him as he pulls himself closer, keeps the contact between them and their hands where they are; he leans forward and sucks Dean’s lips against his own, and Dean can’t stand it, can’t risk it even as he can’t resist, and if he crumbles, if parts of him wither and fall into that kiss -- if Sam takes them in and keeps them warm, the lost pieces, the broken parts -- then Dean’s too far gone to stop it, to regret.
He doesn’t know how much time slips by, but Dean can feel when Sam falls asleep next to him for the sluggish rhythm under his palm, the way Dean knows it, what it means -- he’d forgotten the little things, after so many years Below.
He’d forgotten, but he remembers now.
They don’t talk about it, after -- but in Dean’s head, it’s not a chick flick moment, not something he’s ashamed of. In Dean’s head, it’s the first time he felt human after too long in the dark.
----------
Sam’s brow is furrowed, like he’s concentrating, like this is a routine to perfect, to maintain; Dean swallows, tastes soot at the back of his throat and has to blink away the shadows, the vile tease of something fierce, not worse, that lingers when he stares, dares to meet Sam’s gaze if only by accident, if only just.
Dean closes his eyes and tries to lose himself somewhere else, tries to sink into what he can hold to, what he can grasp: he remembers the last time he looked at a man’s soul through his eyes, and he’s tensing, he’s peaking, he’s coming and it’s quick, and too fucking long; it’s release, except he’s empty to begin with -- feels heavy when it’s done.
The stubs of his fingernails reach out to grip in Sam’s skin, carve at his shoulder blades, and he can’t help it, can’t help but to press and feel the familiar lines, the muscles like a touchstone, and it’s a weakness, fucking weakness; gonna get him killed one of these days.
He’s just indulging denial, really; delaying the inevitable.
----------
The first time -- their last time -- Sam had begged, Dean had been holding out, for both their sakes.
He’d been keeping his distance, telling himself it was just the disappointment, just the betrayal and the loss that was eating away at him, that was gnawing a gaping hole at the core of him that was sucking everything in, killing him from the inside out. He’d been trying to keep the space, to stay away -- to make it hurt less, when this was all over: when he said yes.
He’d almost convinced himself that it would work, too.
And Sam, he’d been trying -- he’d done everything he could to prove his remorse, to make unfixable wrongs as right as he could manage; and Dean wasn’t blind -- the longing in his eyes across car seats, diner booths, across beds in rooms in the dark: it seared like a brand, undeniable. But Dean would look away, change the station, order an extra coffee with the cream and sugar Sam liked and he hated, just to punish himself, to remind himself what it was he wasn’t allowed to have -- and Sam, he’d never push. Just shrink a little.
Die a little.
And Dean had known it was a lost cause, of course; if he was gonna be honest, he’d always known. But he’d never realized it with the kind of heart-stopping, bone-aching clarity as he did when it knocked him upside the fucking head; as when Sam leaned next to him and told him, back against the windshield, that this was it.
This was it.
And the night before -- after Sam pulled some bullshit about moving on and apple pies that neither of them believed, because they knew themselves, each other, one and the same: the night before, the levee broke, and Dean never realized how many lies they told each other, how many never even took, until they were gone, until Sam’s face was in front of him, and Dean’s heart was on his sleeve, and they just had to look at one another, just had to see to know.
This was the end, and regardless of what happened, who fell and who stood, whose blood won or lost the day -- regardless of who lived and died, neither of them would survive.
So the last time, Sam had begged: eyes too bright and skin pale, heart weak. Sam had begged, and Dean might not ever forgive himself for making him go that far, stoop that low.
They’d both done the unforgivable, in their own way.
It’d been rough: violent and tender and fast and slow and it was rusted metal and careful grace cutting them open and spreading them wide, leaving them to bleed and rot and wait; wait forever for damnation and salvation and hesitation on the brink -- and it was only bearable, only endurable at all because Dean’s hands were on Sam, whose hands were on Dean, and they’d breathed the same air through their last night on earth.
When Sam’s fists -- Sam’s fists, not Sam -- had crushed the bones of Dean’s face, they caught the broken vessels bit by Sam’s teeth the night before; and it’s that thought that keeps Dean conscious, that keeps him saying it, telling it -- it’s okay, Sammy; I’m here, Sammy; I’m not gonna leave you, Sammy, Sammy -- what keeps him steady for the man who keeps him whole.
Once it’s over, and Cas takes the blood, the scars away, the bite marks are gone as well; and he’d thought everything worth anything in him had already been broken.
He’d been wrong.
----------
It’s a breath and a half longer than Sam ever holds out, but he comes, hard -- Dean doesn’t watch, tucks his chin in and knows not because Sam’s eyes slide back, not because the muscles in his neck cord and thrum as he strains; no, Dean knows because the slits of his eyes are fixed on Sam’s dick, watching as he spills, head bowed low and lips parted, and he can’t help but catch some spunk on the corner of his lip from the angle, from the way Sam shoots -- and he tries, fuck, he tries not to lap it up, but he does, he does and it tastes like it always does, always has.
Tastes like brine and green and safe and sure; tastes like Sam.
It spears something in him, straight through the gut to find it, to know it, and he stills against Sam’s frame -- boneless and rigid somehow, all at once -- and Sammy doesn’t spare him a glance, because Sammy’s gone for fucking good.
He lets out the breath he’s holding; forgot he was holding on to anything, really -- holding out for anything.
“Feel that?” Dean asks on the exhale, the sigh, because he doesn’t know how not to, doesn’t know how to stop.
Sam stares blank at the ceiling, the jaundiced light from the parking lot spilling cold through curtains they never bothered to close, catching drops of sweat until Sam blinks, until his chest rises once, sharp before it falls. It could mean a million things, could mean nothing; and it’s all salt and mourning, really -- Dean wants more than anything to lean over and run his tongue against the tracks, up to the hairline and the corners of Sam’s eyes, taste friction and tears off his brother’s skin.
He wants to.
He can’t.
So Dean stares blank at the ceiling, too -- tries to find what there is to see in the shadows, the stains in the paint as he listens, waits.
He can’t tell the sobs from the breaths, anymore, doesn’t know the difference -- can’t help but hope there’s one to make.
And that's what kills him; that’s what hurts the most.
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Dean/Sam
Word Count: 2,859
Summary: There’s one thing that can answer Dean’s questions about his brother, about how much of his brother might be left, and if Dean wasn’t sure what to think about Sam -- well, being with him like this makes it pretty damn clear. Spoilers through 6.07 - Family Matters.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: Self-indulgent angsty-schmoopy kinda-porn; no more, no less.
‘Scripts and Cures
The comforter smells like stale smoke, and it’s all that Dean can process, all that Dean knows for sure when he pushes, traps Sam him between his thighs and leans, bears down until there’s no more balance, no more give; until the springs creak below them with tired momentum, an echo of the ruckus in his chest.
He doesn’t know how many seconds there are, doesn’t hear the crack of his joints or the shuck of his clothes hitting the floor -- he doesn’t know if the press of skin, if the bite of jagged fingernails at his hips, dug tight to bruise, is the same as it always was, or if it’s just wishful thinking. He doesn’t know if there’s familiarity; he’s not sure he wants it, either way. He doesn’t know much except for the sweat on his torso and the ribs stark in Sam’s, the way it all gets tangled and hits, barely misses when they breathe, when they can’t look each other in the eye.
The comforter, though; it smells like smoke.
----------
The first time they did this, the first time the world was too much and judgement too fickle; the first time Dean’s chest slid against his brother’s, the first time he felt the shape, the curve of his Sam’s cock straining hot through worn denim, proud against his groin -- the first time they did this, Sammy trembled.
Dean never mentioned it, never reacted; pretended he didn’t see.
----------
Dean doesn’t think to wonder about the how, about whether they’ll fit like they always wanted to and never did -- he doesn’t ease or test his brother’s body, see if he’s ready, if he’ll manage; there’s something cold in the pit of Dean’s gut that tells him, lets him know there’s nothing left to hurt.
So he pushes in, one smooth motion, and there’s no sound, nothing but the way the thumbs at his sides grip down toward the bone, tight where Sam’s loose, and he knew it; he knows.
Sam doesn’t arch up; Dean doesn’t lean down. His lips feel numb, and he takes a moment before he sets the cadence -- the one he keeps when he’s had too much to drink, when he can’t make out the features of the face below him, when he won’t remember in the morning.
If Sam notices, he doesn’t protest; doesn’t complain.
If Sam even notices.
----------
One time -- one time -- before it all came down, Dean broke the skin because Sam asked him to, sucked slow on the fractured flesh until it swelled so red he couldn’t tell it from the blood in the dark; let the tang of metal and smoke linger on his tongue because the two of them were the same, cut sharp and sure: flesh and blood -- and Sam couldn’t forget it.
Dean wouldn’t let him.
And he let Sam see it, remembers the way he’d measured the quick stumble of a pulse against the bridge of his nose as Sam had threaded fingers, desperate, slipping in the sweat-slick strands of Dean’s hair, remembers how he brought Dean in close and choked down emotions they weren’t allowed to feel, the weight of it pushing out hard with every breath as he held Dean flush against him, bowed into the line of his sternum for every taut beat, every shuddering rush.
Dean remembers, better than he cares to admit; and Sammy -- his Sammy -- didn’t taste nothing like Hell.
‘Thank you,’ Sam had whispered, as he clutched and clung to Dean like the world was ending too late, and if Dean was tainted by the blood in Sam’s veins, he’d never know it; if he was damned by the touch of his brother’s skin, he’d never care.
----------
Dean keeps the heel of one hand flush against Sam’s sternum, braced to maintain the distance, to keep himself from falling too close -- giving, trusting too much. Sam’s heart feels like it sounded when it was all he could hear, all he could know in a room too small with his blood too thick: foreign and detached, untouched where it used to race when Dean so much as scraped teeth against the line of his jaw, the bud of a nipple -- alive, but nothing more.
Alive -- and it used to be enough. He used to imagine it would always be enough, that they got out alive.
It’s not.
He feels it when the exertion, the physical motion eggs on that metronome pulse, brings it up to count out seconds, keeps it from lagging slow behind the clock on the wall, peripheral -- and Dean could pretend that he’s not looking for a flash, a spark in those eyes; that he’s not waiting for Sam to reach out and cup at his neck with the desperate, deep sort of fierceness he sometimes does, always did; that he’s not waiting for Sam’s heart to start beating like it’s trying to burst from his fucking chest, like his soul’s trying to break through a cage tighter than his ribs; that there’s not a part of him that wants to move his hand just that little bit higher, squeeze a little bit harder -- that there’s not a part of him that wants to wring his brother’s fucking neck, and that it doesn’t scare the shit out of him.
He snaps his hips hard, fast and unforgiving as he sheaths, draws back, slides home; wincing through the raw drag of air in his throat; swallowing bile as he thinks about how this is now, how Sam is, always -- yeah, Dean could pretend.
But he won’t.
----------
When Dean got back, it took them a long time to be -- to lie and stay and still; to breathe the same air and take each other in -- to look and see and touch.
Sam keeps his palm pressed hard against scarred flesh, the places where the ink on his skin should be battered, should be broken, but isn’t. Some things sink deeper, he thinks; he knows.
Dean doesn’t believe in fate; his hand sweats, twitches when the creases in his palm start to vibrate with the quicksilver stutter under the surface, too hard, too wild to stay there, to stay his -- Dean doesn’t believe in anything, anymore, but it’s alright.
It’s as alright as it’s ever gonna get.
But Sam doesn’t waver, doesn’t falter -- rides Dean smooth, familiar like it’s the only thing he’ll never forget, never give up on; and his fingertips never stop pressing down on where the shudders, the reverberations of Dean’s pulse give way, echo out beneath the skin. He measures it, his grip clenching ever so slightly, every so often; he moves steady, low at a good fourth of its pace, and Dean bites his lip so that he doesn’t cry out, so that the wrong words don’t slip.
Dean comes as he watches his brother’s eyes burn hot, dark -- a blackness that’s beautiful, now, that doesn’t remind him of violence and rage, too bright for that -- and Sam follows soon after, painting their chests as he falls forward, the tips of his hair just out of reach. He breathes heavy, catches cool on the sheen that’s coating Dean’s skin, and Dean can see the beat, the jump at the side of Sam’s neck, fixates on it like a lifeline as he remembers; remembers.
And Sam, he reaches out with his free hand, leans his weight into the center of Dean’s chest just a little harder, a little painful -- suffocating, but it’s okay; he untangles Dean’s hands from the sheets underneath them, slowly loosens his grip until Dean’s palm is limp in his own.
Dean just stares when Sam gathers his hands, locks his gaze and doesn’t relent; when Sam brings their fingers up -- traps them against his chest, splayed just a little to the left -- Dean wants to flinch, wants to recoil and pull himself back, keep himself close, but Sam won’t let him, won’t have it. And the beat, when it takes him over, breathes him in: it kind of shakes, kind of hits and rolls and trembles in the places Dean left behind, the dead places that are still hollow -- it’s quick, if slowing, and it’s doesn’t last, but for a moment in time, those places are filled.
Sam slides off, lets Dean slip soft from him as he pulls himself closer, keeps the contact between them and their hands where they are; he leans forward and sucks Dean’s lips against his own, and Dean can’t stand it, can’t risk it even as he can’t resist, and if he crumbles, if parts of him wither and fall into that kiss -- if Sam takes them in and keeps them warm, the lost pieces, the broken parts -- then Dean’s too far gone to stop it, to regret.
He doesn’t know how much time slips by, but Dean can feel when Sam falls asleep next to him for the sluggish rhythm under his palm, the way Dean knows it, what it means -- he’d forgotten the little things, after so many years Below.
He’d forgotten, but he remembers now.
They don’t talk about it, after -- but in Dean’s head, it’s not a chick flick moment, not something he’s ashamed of. In Dean’s head, it’s the first time he felt human after too long in the dark.
----------
Sam’s brow is furrowed, like he’s concentrating, like this is a routine to perfect, to maintain; Dean swallows, tastes soot at the back of his throat and has to blink away the shadows, the vile tease of something fierce, not worse, that lingers when he stares, dares to meet Sam’s gaze if only by accident, if only just.
Dean closes his eyes and tries to lose himself somewhere else, tries to sink into what he can hold to, what he can grasp: he remembers the last time he looked at a man’s soul through his eyes, and he’s tensing, he’s peaking, he’s coming and it’s quick, and too fucking long; it’s release, except he’s empty to begin with -- feels heavy when it’s done.
The stubs of his fingernails reach out to grip in Sam’s skin, carve at his shoulder blades, and he can’t help it, can’t help but to press and feel the familiar lines, the muscles like a touchstone, and it’s a weakness, fucking weakness; gonna get him killed one of these days.
He’s just indulging denial, really; delaying the inevitable.
----------
The first time -- their last time -- Sam had begged, Dean had been holding out, for both their sakes.
He’d been keeping his distance, telling himself it was just the disappointment, just the betrayal and the loss that was eating away at him, that was gnawing a gaping hole at the core of him that was sucking everything in, killing him from the inside out. He’d been trying to keep the space, to stay away -- to make it hurt less, when this was all over: when he said yes.
He’d almost convinced himself that it would work, too.
And Sam, he’d been trying -- he’d done everything he could to prove his remorse, to make unfixable wrongs as right as he could manage; and Dean wasn’t blind -- the longing in his eyes across car seats, diner booths, across beds in rooms in the dark: it seared like a brand, undeniable. But Dean would look away, change the station, order an extra coffee with the cream and sugar Sam liked and he hated, just to punish himself, to remind himself what it was he wasn’t allowed to have -- and Sam, he’d never push. Just shrink a little.
Die a little.
And Dean had known it was a lost cause, of course; if he was gonna be honest, he’d always known. But he’d never realized it with the kind of heart-stopping, bone-aching clarity as he did when it knocked him upside the fucking head; as when Sam leaned next to him and told him, back against the windshield, that this was it.
This was it.
And the night before -- after Sam pulled some bullshit about moving on and apple pies that neither of them believed, because they knew themselves, each other, one and the same: the night before, the levee broke, and Dean never realized how many lies they told each other, how many never even took, until they were gone, until Sam’s face was in front of him, and Dean’s heart was on his sleeve, and they just had to look at one another, just had to see to know.
This was the end, and regardless of what happened, who fell and who stood, whose blood won or lost the day -- regardless of who lived and died, neither of them would survive.
So the last time, Sam had begged: eyes too bright and skin pale, heart weak. Sam had begged, and Dean might not ever forgive himself for making him go that far, stoop that low.
They’d both done the unforgivable, in their own way.
It’d been rough: violent and tender and fast and slow and it was rusted metal and careful grace cutting them open and spreading them wide, leaving them to bleed and rot and wait; wait forever for damnation and salvation and hesitation on the brink -- and it was only bearable, only endurable at all because Dean’s hands were on Sam, whose hands were on Dean, and they’d breathed the same air through their last night on earth.
When Sam’s fists -- Sam’s fists, not Sam -- had crushed the bones of Dean’s face, they caught the broken vessels bit by Sam’s teeth the night before; and it’s that thought that keeps Dean conscious, that keeps him saying it, telling it -- it’s okay, Sammy; I’m here, Sammy; I’m not gonna leave you, Sammy, Sammy -- what keeps him steady for the man who keeps him whole.
Once it’s over, and Cas takes the blood, the scars away, the bite marks are gone as well; and he’d thought everything worth anything in him had already been broken.
He’d been wrong.
----------
It’s a breath and a half longer than Sam ever holds out, but he comes, hard -- Dean doesn’t watch, tucks his chin in and knows not because Sam’s eyes slide back, not because the muscles in his neck cord and thrum as he strains; no, Dean knows because the slits of his eyes are fixed on Sam’s dick, watching as he spills, head bowed low and lips parted, and he can’t help but catch some spunk on the corner of his lip from the angle, from the way Sam shoots -- and he tries, fuck, he tries not to lap it up, but he does, he does and it tastes like it always does, always has.
Tastes like brine and green and safe and sure; tastes like Sam.
It spears something in him, straight through the gut to find it, to know it, and he stills against Sam’s frame -- boneless and rigid somehow, all at once -- and Sammy doesn’t spare him a glance, because Sammy’s gone for fucking good.
He lets out the breath he’s holding; forgot he was holding on to anything, really -- holding out for anything.
“Feel that?” Dean asks on the exhale, the sigh, because he doesn’t know how not to, doesn’t know how to stop.
Sam stares blank at the ceiling, the jaundiced light from the parking lot spilling cold through curtains they never bothered to close, catching drops of sweat until Sam blinks, until his chest rises once, sharp before it falls. It could mean a million things, could mean nothing; and it’s all salt and mourning, really -- Dean wants more than anything to lean over and run his tongue against the tracks, up to the hairline and the corners of Sam’s eyes, taste friction and tears off his brother’s skin.
He wants to.
He can’t.
So Dean stares blank at the ceiling, too -- tries to find what there is to see in the shadows, the stains in the paint as he listens, waits.
He can’t tell the sobs from the breaths, anymore, doesn’t know the difference -- can’t help but hope there’s one to make.
And that's what kills him; that’s what hurts the most.