A Silver Thread on Darkened Dune, Part 1/2
Today is Sammy’s half-birthday, which deserves celebration. Sammy doesn’t know this, because he’s just a baby, so he has to rely on Dean to notice all the important days for him, and Dean isn’t going to disappoint him. Dean’s four (and a half) now, and he knows how important that half a year is. He asks his teacher how to spell “Sam”, and it takes him a long time, because he only knows half of the alphabet right now, but by the time Mom picks him up, Miss Deb smiles at him and says that he’s doing a “wonderful job”. She gives him a special candy, and he has to stick it in his pocket really quick so that none of the other kids get jealous.
Mom has Sammy with her when she picks Dean up, both of them smiling in the Kansas sun streaming in through the windows. Dean rushes into the van (new enough that it has that new-car smell, still) , sliding the door shut behind him while Mom tucks Sammy into his seat. Dean pops the caramel candy into his mouth while Mom’s walking around to the driver side. Sammy starts to squirm unhappily when the car starts up, so Mom shushes him quietly and pushes a little cassette in right before the speakers start to gently sing out Hey Jude. Sammy snuffles and quiets down enough that Dean can tell Mom that he’s got a surprise for Sammy when he wakes up again. Mom hmms in that way that she does now, responding without actually saying anything.
Dad’s home early, already waiting for them by the time they get home. He gives Mom and Sammy quick kisses before racing Dean outside to play football.
An hour later, they trip back inside, covered in dirt and sweat and grass stains. Mom’s out of sight, but her voice carries to where they are, singing a song that Dean doesn’t recognize. Dad winks at him and presses one finger to his lips. Dean nods excitedly, smothering a giggle by clapping his hands over his mouth.
Dad sneaks into the kitchen, and for a moment, there’s nothing but that unfamiliar song carried in the air. Then--
“Shit!”
Dean can’t press down the laugh this time. Dad laughs loudly and Dean races into the kitchen, where Mom is smacking Dad across the chest with a dishtowel.
“John Winchester, you scared the--” (her eyes catch on Dean) “--the, um, scared the jeepers out of me.” Dad laughs again and pulls her into a hug. He swings her around the kitchen, and somehow he manages to pick up Dean, too, and they’re all spinning circles around the linoleum floor while a pot of macaroni bubbles on the stove. Dean doesn’t think he’ll ever be happier. He’s wrong, and he doesn’t know it yet, but this is the moment he will always look back on when he tries to remember what it was like: them, Dean and Mom and Dad, happy and smiling and perfect.
Later, Dean kisses Sammy goodnight, all thoughts of a special half-birthday present entirely forgotten.
He’s almost asleep when the screams bring him out of bed.
He runs down the hall, confused and scared and too warm. There’s screaming and smoke filling the air, thick and black and horrible. Dean feels the heat of the fire, but the smoke is what claws its way into his lungs, filling every part of him and then pressing against his eyes, making them water so much that they overflow. In front of him, Dad is pulling Mom back, away from the nursery, but she’s fighting him, trying to get in. Everything after that happens in snapshots:
Mom, screaming at Dad, pushing him away. Dad, grabbing Mom again, yelling over the roar of the fire. Dean, screaming, his throat burning, until they look at him. Hands, he doesn’t know whose, scooping him up. Heat, fire, smoke, and then-- air, cold and refreshing and the best thing he’s ever felt. He realizes belatedly that it’s Dad carrying him. He thinks he hears voices,
jumbled and indistinct, but he doesn’t really pay attention until he hears Mom crying. He lifts his head wearily from Dad’s chest and looks to where mom is standing beside them, tugging on her hair and sobbing. Dean reaches out for her, gripping her shoulder weakly. She takes him, hugging Dean to her chest. His face is smashed against her neck, and her hair smells like strawberries and smoke.
His voice doesn’t really work, but he asks anyway. “Why’re you crying?”
Then:
“Where’s Sammy?”
She grips him tighter, so much that it’s painful, and starts crying all over again. She doesn’t answer right away. After a second, she takes a deep, shaky breath, and then breaks down into more tears. Dad wraps his arms around both of them, and even though Dean’s never heard it before, he can tell that Dad’s crying, too.
“Sammy’s not here, anymore, Dean. Went to heaven, like you Grandma and Grandpa. You remember?”
His stomach rolls; he thinks he’s going to throw up.
He falls asleep instead.
He wakes up with a start, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stickers (just plain white- green now, though). Mom walks in, says Morning, Dean, and Sammy gurgles happily. Dean jumps up and runs to them, grabbing Mom’s legs and holding on until she pries
him off with a laugh. Dean bursts into tears, and Mom kneels so that they’re all on the same level, shushing and cooing until Dean can breathe again.
“What’s wrong, sweetie?” She shifts so that she can hold Sammy against her with one arm and run her fingers through Dean’s hair.
“Nightmare,” he mumbles, wrapping his arms around her neck and burying his face in her hair. It smells like strawberry shampoo and baby powder. She smells wonderful.
“Oh, Dean. It was just a dream, okay?” She tugs gently on his arm until he releases her. She smiles and presses their foreheads together. “You’re safe, Dean. Mommy’s not going to let anything happen to you, okay?”
He nods and swipes his sleeve across his face, clearing it of spit and snot that had dripped down while he was crying. Mom makes a little face at that, but doesn’t say anything.
“I forgot, but I have a present for you, Sammy, kay?” Sammy gurgles ambiguously. “You’re zero and a half, Sammy, so you’re getting real big. Miss Deb told me how to spell your name. S-A-M. Okay?” Mom smiles.
“Learned how to spell his name, Dean? That’s so nice of you!” Dean ignores her, because the present was for Sammy, not for Mom.
Sammy gurgles, sounding a little happier than he did before, his big green-blue eyes lighting up, so Dean rubs his nose against Sammy’s.
“You’re welcome.”
He did it right this time. He knows he did.
Except that the smoke still comes for him.
This time, the snapshots are different:
Dad, screaming and backing up. Dad, rushing into the nursery. Fire filling the hallway. Dean screaming for Sammy, and then for Mom, then Dad. Dad pushing something heavy into his arms-- Take your brother outside as fast as you can. Running, almost
tripping. Trying to make soothing baby noises while he’s choking. The wall of night air rushing into him, and the feel of dewy grass under his bare feet. He turns around, staring uncertainly at his house. Sammy is silent where he’s pressed against Dean’s
pajama top.
Dad comes swooping out of the house, leaping out of the fire like some cartoon character, picking Dean and Sammy up just before a wave of heat blasts through the front door.
Dad doesn’t cry this time. He just stares ahead, rocking Sammy gently, holding Dean against his side.
Dean doesn’t ask this time. He knows what happened.
So he goes to sleep.
He wakes up to the smell of strawberries and smoke and that sterile smell that is unique to hospitals.
Later, he falls asleep; he wakes up to the smell of smoke and aftershave and baby shampoo, to Sammy sleeping in his lap.
He gets used to it. He doesn’t want to tell anyone, because it’s his, and he, only knowing that the thought of talking about it makes him feel uncomfortable, doesn’t want to share.
*
He does try to talk about it. Once. He’s seven years old, and it’s Sammy’s birthday, and Mom’s crying. Dean tries to tell her what Sam’s like now. He tells her that Sam’s first word was “Dean”. She sends him to his room and then has the school counselor pull him out of Mrs. Ellis’s class during Math.
He doesn’t try to talk about it after that.
Except with Sam.
Sam grows up hearing about Dean’s double life, because Sam believes that Dean has another life. Sam doesn’t call him crazy, and he doesn’t think that Dean’s lying, either. He just-- he just believes, easy as that.
Dean keeps Sam up to date on most everything that happens. It’s like their own little bedtime story: Once upon a time, Mom was alive, and only I got to see her, but that’s okay because now I’m telling you about her perfume and her pancakes and how
awesome her pies are.
It’s the only thing that gets Sam to sleep faster than a little Journey or Bonnie Tyler.
Really, the only thing that Dean doesn’t adjust to? Dates. He never quite gets the hang of having every day twice-over. It’s more of a problem than it should be: teachers call Mom over and over again, talking about how Dean’s “such a good student” with “a little hitch” in his learning. Dad says he’ll be back from Who-Knows-Where on the twenty-sixth, and Dean goes to sleep on the twenty-fifth, wakes up on the twenty-fifth, and excitedly tells Sam that Dad’s gonna be home later that day.
Then, there are bigger problems. He forgets Sam’s birthday more than once, gets him his present a day late or a day early. It’s always something cheap (candy bar, magazine, flashlight), but that’s never a problem until it looks like Dean forgot Sammy’s fourth and fifth and seventh birthdays and got him cruddy presents at the last second.
Sam gets over it, but he can feel Dad’s gaze heavy on him, those days, like it’s one piece of a puzzle that just won’t fit.
When Dean is thirteen, his mom gets him a corded leather bracelet for Christmas. It’s unusually nice, and he knows they’re strapped for cash. Even if they weren’t, he’d love the bracelet all the same. It fits him perfectly, five strands woven all around his wrist, chocolate-brown and smooth against his skin, and it’s so obvious that she spent days trying to make it perfect (and in that
effort, she succeeded). Her face falls into an expression of relief when he tackles her with a hug, and she gets teary-eyed when she sees the card he made for her.
When Dean is thirteen, Sam throws a little golden amulet at him that hangs snugly around Dean’s chest. Sam didn’t even get it for him, but he can’t remember the last time he was this happy. It hangs by his heart, a constant reminder that Sam is there
beside him.
The two presents become his twenty-four hour anchors, an instant memo for himself, letting him know as soon as he wakes up that his mom is alive or Sam is alive.
He doesn’t know what it says about him, that the feeling of a little piece of string around his neck will send a surge of happiness through him more than the feather-light weight of the woven bracelet on his wrist.
*
He doesn’t mix up his dads often, but when he does-- it’s obvious. It’s so much worse than any date screw-up. When he was little, no more than five or six, he would be able to tell the difference in their smells: one reeks constantly of herbs and whiskey, while the other carries motor oil and the faintest trail of Mom’s perfume everywhere. He used to bury himself in his dad’s neck, and no matter where he was or how confusing everything around him got, he would just breathe in and know that everything was alright.
Of course, as he got older, the hugs trailed off, and the two began to blend together.
Dad’s been gone too long on a hunt, far too long, and even though he knows it isn’t his fault, he’s pissy at him, at both of his dads. He’s in the kitchen with his mom, and Dean’s toying with his bracelet while she washes her plate in the sink. His dad comes rushing down the stairs, planting a quick kiss on Mom’s cheek before ruffling Dean’s hair.
“Late night, but I’ll be home in time for dinner, hon.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” Dean barks. Dad stops, obviously thrown off by the attack, watching him with a half-stunned, half-amused expression, but he shrugs it off easily enough.
“Gonna keep it, Deano. Love you guys.” He’s out the door without another word, and when Dean gets up to wash his own plate, Mom’s staring at him open-mouthed.
“What?”
She shakes her head, frowning, and turns off the water before carefully setting her plate down on the drying rack.
Dean ignores them both for the rest of the day, not even bothering to eat dinner with them.
The next morning, Dad comes home, ruffling Sam’s hair fondly where he’s still sleeping in the garish green sheet.
His mom and dad tiptoe around him the next day, and their silence hangs on Dean, feeling like a stab of guilt every time their eyes skitter away. It isn’t their fault-- any of them. All three are trying their best, he knows that. He just-- He just hates this. He’s fine most days, but some days, like today, he’s tired. He’s so tired of see-sawing back and forth. He’s tired of having two dads and having to constantly differentiate between the two, forgive transgressions one day and then be allowed to hold his grudge the
next.
He swallows past the self-pity and practically inhales his waffles, planting kisses on both of their cheeks before running out the door.
He vents the only way he knows how: he pulls Sam aside and complains to him, dumping all the worries and woes of having two dads on his little brother’s thin shoulders. Sam gives him a funny look after, but listens the way he always does: eyes on Dean’s, legs crossed on top of the thin sheets, hands fiddling with the hem of his shirt, and mouth closed.
He gets the call in his third-period Biology class. They’re dissecting worms.
Dean and Jamie managed to weasel their way into the same lab group, and the other three are busy cataloging the different organs on their worksheets while Dean dangles the split-open earthworm in front of Jamie’s nose.
“Get it the hell away!”
“What’s the matter, Jamie, you a girl or somethin’?”
“Dean!” His teacher’s voice is shrill and a little piercing. He jerks his head in her direction, an apology on behalf of all men balancing on the tip of his tongue, but her expression stops him short. Miss Lindley’s eyes are wide and glassy, her hands clasped together in front of her. Beside her is the school nurse, a stern woman with cropped black hair and an infamous lack of sympathy for the student body.
The nurse looks at him and folds the slip of paper in her hand once, twice, three times. “Come with me.”
Jamie laughs and “ooooooooooh”s with the rest of the class, shoving him lightly toward the door.
The nurse doesn’t say anything. She leads him down the halls, her pumps clack clack clacking against the tile as they make their way towards the attendance office.
His mom is waiting for him there, her hair falling limply to her shoulders, knotted and a little ratty, the way it gets when she’s stressed and runs her fingers through it too much.
He doesn’t really hear what she tells him. It’s like she’s talking at him through water or a bad connection. He wants to laugh, wants to tell her that it’s not a good joke. She says it again, quieter, and he can’t do anything but fall against her and cry.
He cries the whole way home, but eventually the tears trail off. He feels terrible, because his mom is still crying silently, and he thinks that he should be crying too, that if he doesn’t cry, she’ll think that he’s not sad, that he doesn’t feel like there’s a hole in his chest that makes every breath just shy of full. Still, he can’t muster any more tears cry until he gets to his room later and shuts the door.
The darkness there seems suffocating, pressing against him, begging to be let in. He gasps and it shoves down his throat, twisting his lungs. He collapses onto the floor, crying and trying to remember how to breathe. He has to force himself to open his mouth, suck air in, let it out, but it’s hard, and he doesn’t know how, can’t figure out how to breathe, how to walk or run or do anything, and he has the insane urge to ask his dad, and that thought sends him spiraling further into the darkness.
He doesn’t know when he falls asleep.
He only knows that he wakes up and scrambles over to their dad and slams into him and starts crying all over again. His dad freezes, obviously unsure of what to do with him, before slowly wrapping his arms around him and hugging Dean for the first time in five years (not counting one-shouldered, half-assed embraces just before he passes out). Dean breathes in deeply.
His Dad smells like gunpowder and smoke and sigil paint.
He smells wrong.
The funeral is a week later, and Dean stumbles halfway through his speech, fondly recounting when he was seven and his dad surprised him by coming home for Christmas when he’d said that he wouldn’t be back until after New Year’s. His mom looks at him with a slight frown and a tilt to her head, and Dean realizes with a kick that he’s been subconsciously mourning the loss of both of his fathers when he only lost the one. It’s with another, quieter jolt, that he realizes he must redefine his separate worlds.
If he wakes up with his amulet around his neck, his mom is dead.
If he wakes up with a leather bracelet around his wrist, Sam is dead, and so is his dad.
He finishes his speech quickly, returning to his place by his mom’s side, and doesn’t say anything at all for the rest of the day.
He throws himself into hunting after that. He never questions his dad’s orders, never bats an eye when he gets a call saying that he and Sam’ll have to fend for themselves for a week longer than expected. He doesn’t ever tell Sam what happened.
If Sam notices that Dean’s sporadic recounts of his other life stop featuring his dad, he never says.
Dean forgets Sam’s fourteenth birthday, and Sam says nothing to remind him; his retaliation comes after, in the form of prolonged silences and a quick temper that flares whenever Dean tries to pull him in for a hug or calls him “Sammy”. Dean thinks that this is what he gets. This is his way of paying a price for complaining that he had so many people who cared about him.
Dean meets Carmen in English IV
She sits in front of him, and although he tries to pay attention to Mr. Arson’s (real name, and Sam had laughed when Dean told him) speech about Learning To Appreciate The Finer Points of Turn-of-the-Century Literature, he finds himself distracted by the tiny moles scattered around the back of her neck, exposed today because she’d pulled her long black hair into a loose bun
on the top of her head. They remind him a little of the mole by Sam’s nose, and the way Dean used to kiss it melodramatically when he was younger.
He doesn’t even realize that Arson’s calling on him until Jamie coughs loudly behind him, and Dean looks up to see his teacher looking at him expectantly, eyebrows raised.
“Uh--” He mumbles, eyes bouncing around the room for anything that would clue him in to the question he’s supposed to be answering. The only thing written on the chalkboard is an empty five-point list, titled Five Most Commonly Used Symbols in Literature. Shit. He wracks his brain, vaguely recalls reading something about this in his textbook two nights before, but can’t for the life of him get any specifics from his memory. Arson starts tapping his foot impatiently, and Carmen turns around to face him, and Dean is struck by her eyes, warm and brown and a little bit squinted because she’s drawing her eyebrows closer together in her confusion.
“Eyes?” That sounds right. All the good people have pretty, blue, big eyes, and all the villains he’s ever heard of have slanted eyes or squinty eyes or eyes clouded over with thick black smoke.
Arson sighs his trademark put-out sigh, moving to the board and tapping a piece of chalk beside the “#1” mark. “Has anyone else been paying attention? Miss Nablinez?”
Carmen doesn’t hesitate before turning around, mumbling “Color” just loud enough for everyone to hear. Arson lights up, scratching the word in slot one.
“Good, very good. Now, why don’t we talk about some specifics? What does blue usually represent?”
*
Carmen is waiting by the door when the final bell rings. Her hair is loose now, spilling over her shoulders in dark waves. She snatches his shirt sleeve when Dean passes, keeping him from leaving the classroom, and all of a sudden a surge of frustration crashes through him. Who the hell is she to keep him from getting home? He’s never even talked to this girl before.
“What’s your problem?” He snaps.
She frowns at him again, her lips twisting and her nose scrunching up the same way Sam’s does. “You first.” She insists.
Dean shrugs but keeps walking, and she follows, her slim fingers pressing a little firmer into the worn cotton of his sleeve. “Nothing really. Why?”
Carmen huffs. “Bullshit. I may not be Oprah freakin Winfrey, but I can sure as shit tell when you’re off your game.”
It’s only a beat too long before Dean turns his best shit-eating grin in her direction. “You pay attention to me in class? Got somethin’ you wanna tell me, sweetheart?” He lays on as thick a southern accent as he can, going for humorous, but her incredulous expression is an easy indicator that he landed somewhere a few miles south of that.
Carmen snorts and rolls her eyes. “Not a chance in Hell, Winchester.” She lets go of his arm to push the door open, propping it open long enough that Dean can slip through and into the cool September breeze. She lets it fall shut behind her to reclaim her place at Dean’s side, apparently letting someone else walk right into the newly closed door (if the quiet thunk and quieter “Shit!” are anything to go by). She steps in front of him and plants her feet firmly at shoulder-width, her hands pressed to her hips in a way that looks a little ridiculous but a lot more intimidating and more than a little like a five-year-old Sam demanding more ThunderCats.
“Spill.”
“Nothing to spill.”
“Bullshit.” She pokes him hard in the chest. “You’re not exactly top of the class, but you’re savvy enough that you pay attention when teachers talk to you, and I’ve never seen you fumble like that. Not once.” When Dean doesn’t respond, Carmen huffs dramatically. “You’re Jamie’s friend, okay? And you seem nice, even if you hang out with a douchebag like that, and I just-
- I like you, alright? I know Jamie and I know that he’s really your only friend and I know when somebody’s hiding some sorta trouble. And Jamie may be your best friend, but he couldn’t comfort somebody if he had a fucking manual.”
Dean brushes her hand away irritably. He knows she means well, knows she’s trying to help, but how is he supposed to explain to Carmen that the problem is that his nonexistent baby brother is growing up too goddamn fast for Dean to handle? That what is essentially half of the people he loves above all others has suddenly decided that Dean isn’t allowed to hug him or
hang out with him or watch the same shows he does?
He can’t, and he doesn’t, and he walks away, trying desperately to ignore Carmen’s shouts.
She appears in front of him once more, hands held out placatingly, less angry now and more pleading. Dean groans and drags his hand down his face.
“Look, Carmen, I get that you’re trying to help. I just-- I just can’t, okay? This isn’t something that I can talk out.”
She purses her lips for a moment, then seems to take his words as final. She nods curtly, and then her whole face transforms and lights up, smiling big and wide and flashing dimples at him.
“So, wanna go get a burger tomorrow?”
Dean says nothing for a moment, stunned by her shift. “Uh--”
“Awesome! I’ll see you then!” Carmen dashes off, still smiling, her hair flying out behind her.
The next day, Dean tries to pull Sam into a hug, but his brother squirms away. “Get the hell off me, Dean, I gotta go! Dean-- ow-- fucking jerk!” Sam shoves him away and bolts for the motel door, slamming it shut behind him before Dean can get out so much as a word about Sam’s language. The sound echoes in the almost empty room, and Dean lies back on his bed, overcome with exhaustion from training the night before. He’d forgotten about it, in the wake of Carmen’s sudden interest in him, but it’s clear that his muscles-- this set of them, anyway-- have done no such thing.
He can’t sleep. He lies in bed for seven hours, exhausted, eyes closed, but he doesn’t fall asleep until it’s dark outside and Sam is snoring beside him.
Carmen is, in a word, amazing.
She practically drags him into her-- very, very nice-- car after school, and doesn’t say a word to him until they pull into some place with a wide window out front and ‘CASBAH BURGER STAND’ emblazoned on the glass. The words have a strange sort of new-age feel to them, and Dean’s more than a little dubious when he peers in from his spot in the passenger seat and sees what looks like some lounge-y cafe inside.
Carmen gets out of the car, but Dean hesitates, not even bothering to unbuckle his seat belt. She circles around the front of the car and reaches through his open window to slap the back of his head lightly.
“Come on, they don’t do takeout.”
She flashes him a winning smile before she dashes inside, her hair flying behind her. Dean follows after, and his stomach grumbles moodily as he barrels headfirst into the smells of grill smoke and meat sizzling while it cooks. Carmen’s already up at the front, swinging her hand about while she points to different items on the menu hanging above. By the time Dean gets
to her side, she’s already finished ordering. She’s smiling, again, although Dean’s not sure she ever actually stopped. He finds himself grinning back, and already, he feels so much better, all worries about Sam’s sudden disinterest in Dean curling up like smoke and vanishing against the dark ceiling tiles.
“What’d we get?”
“Fire and Black’n’Blue. Burgers,” She amends, when Dean doesn’t add anything. “Then fries for dessert.” Dean raises an eyebrow, and Carmen laughs, all bright and open and wonderful. “Oh, you’re in for a treat.”
By the end of the day, they’ve collectively downed seven glasses of water trying to douse the pain from the Fire Burger angrily scorching their tongues and throats. The sweet potato fries are, as promised, a treat, and Dean can’t remember the last time he laughed this long in one sitting.
She drives him home, and they sing loudly and poorly with whatever comes on the fuzzy radio. The sun has almost set, and Carmen’s skin glows in the late afternoon light. She walks him to the door, “Like a proper gentleman,” and ruffles his hair before turning and running to her car. Carmen is always running, always moving fast, and now, with her skin catching light like it’s
caught fire and her hair trailing behind her like smoke, Dean doesn’t think he’s seen anything more beautiful.
Carmen keeps that title for a whole year.
Dean is nineteen when Sam comes out of a lake dripping wet, and Dean can’t tear his eyes away from Sam’s long, long (gonna be tall as hell) legs where they disappear into the ratty swimming trunks.
Sam laughs at something their dad says, shaking his wet hair out, spraying Dad with a fine mist of water. Dad raises his hands to shield himself, laughing with his youngest son.
It’s like something out of a movie or a fairy tale. Everything is in slow motion, with a golden-hued, scratched-up filter that makes everything look like it’s glowing. For a moment, Dean’s heart catches in his chest, and he doesn’t want to say anything,
nothing at all to break this moment in time.
Their father is so wrapped up in the hunt, in tracking down things and saving people, that he’s always butting heads with Sam lately, always snapping and half-drunk and yelling himself hoarse, and Sam’s always right there with him, snapping and half-
asleep and yelling until his voice cracks and fizzles out to a faint wheeze. Seeing them laughing together, seeing them happy-- Dean thinks it’s almost like having his other dad back, like this is a cross between his worlds, and the only thing that could make
this moment better would be for his mom to come out from behind the line of trees, tossing her wheat-colored hair over her shoulder and smiling.
So, of course, this is exactly when the moment twists and shatters into a hundred thousand glowing, scratched shards at Dean’s feet; this is exactly when Dad claps his hand to Sam’s back, and Sam’s mouth forms this perfect, pink ‘o’ of surprise and pain.
This is exactly when Dean starts staring at Sam’s mouth, and this moment, right now, this is exactly when Dean realizes that what he wants more than anything is to pin Sam to the ground and kiss and kiss and kiss that mouth until Sam’s lips are swollen
and red and numb.
Sam catches his eye, then, and something in Dean’s half shell-shocked, half disgusted feeling must show on his face, because Sam’s mouth twists in a teasing grin.
If Dean avoids touching Sam for the rest of the day, falling asleep with as much distance between them as possible, that’s nobody’s business but his own.
-Part 2-