SPN Fic: Battles
Title: Battles
Rating: R for naughty boys ‘taking care of themselves’
Disclaimer: I’ve got no claim on the boys, they’re WB’s playthings.
Pairing: Sam/Dean if you squint and tilt your head, or if you’re Veronika ;)
Word count: 1621
Notes: Huge and effusive thanks go to my three wonderful betas,
kentucka,
moonfairyhime and
acostilow. I kept most of their changes, but added a few of my own after the fact, so any mistakes are mine, all mine!
Summery: Tension manifests itself in many ways. Girls bite their nails and eat chocolate; boys punch each other and jerk off. This is an exploration of the latter.
Battles
Sam, in a fit of frustration with the road, the car, life, everything, slams on the brakes and announces to Dean’s startled face that he’s not going one more damned bitch mile until he has a fucking shave.
Dean’s kinda impressed by the cussing, like he hasn’t been since Sam was eight and, in great excitement, whispered the word ‘fuck!’ in his ear with wide eyes and a guilty grin. Instead of bitching like he wants, Dean rummages around in the backseat and comes up with a tin cup and a flask of water. In a fit of spite or revenge or whatever, he does insist that Sam get out of the car to shave so he doesn’t get the seats wet.
Considering the seats have been covered in worse than water, Sam knows his brother’s being ornery, but he also knows when to keep his mouth shut, knows when to pick his battles. Win one, lose one, but as long as he makes sure the wins are important and the losses aren’t, he comes out on top.
He gets razor burn like a motherfucker.
~
Dean pops the seat up, turns the key, and feels slightly guilty that the blast of Led Zep from the stereo wakes Sam up. His hand automatically goes to turn it down anyway, Sam doesn’t need to repeatedly punch him in the arm like that. “Alright, alright, it’s off, geez,” he mutters, shoving his brother back, but not hard. “Go back to sleep, princess.”
“’S’time?”
“Three thirty seven. We’ll hit civilization by dawn, probably. Get a motel with real beds, get a shower…”
But Sam’s already fallen back asleep, and Dean smiles ruefully as he eases the Impala back onto the road, resisting the temptation to impressively spin the tires and send up a spray of dirt and gravel behind him. The things he does for that little bitch, honestly.
~
The motel was everything they’d hoped for, in that it included beds and hot water. Dean is feeling just so kind hearted lately that he lets Sam have the first shower, which has nothing at all to do with the fact that he’s passed out in bed thirty seconds after they walk in the door, no way.
Sam thinks he might come just from feeling the warm spray over his body; he’s been so cold and cramped and dirty for so long that a shower actually started seeming like an impossible fantasy. They can’t afford the type of motel that provides little toiletries wrapped up all fancy, but the bar of yellow Sunshine soap does the trick, and he tries to ignore the fact that the smell of Sunshine always reminds him of his brother. He lathers it up and jerks off under the spray anyway, leisurely running his hand up and down his cock and resting the back of his head against the tiles, letting the water run down over his neck and chest. Sam knows this must be what Heaven feels like.
When he’s done, about fifty years of tension has been drained from his body, and he’s so tired he can barely turn the tap. Not bothering to dry himself properly, and knowing his hair will hate him for it later, he slips on his last pair of clean boxers and collapses on the other bed, boneless and satisfied and actually at peace with the world for five minutes.
Ten minutes after hitting Dean with a pillow until he stops snoring, he even falls asleep.
~
Dean wakes up with a droplet of sweat inching its way down his back and a hard on the size of Texas between his legs. A furtive glance shows that Sam is nowhere in sight, and he’s up and in the shower so fast he gets a little dizzy. Ignoring his slight squeamishness about soap his brother’s already used (and for the same purpose, more likely than not), he grips it in his hand alongside his cock, braces his arm against the cold tiles, and sets to. It’s good, the water beats down on his shoulders and back, massaging his tensing muscles, and everything blurs and twists for a moment until he’s coming so damn hard he sees stars. He stays there for a while, forehead against the wall, until his brain starts working again, then cleans up and steps out.
“Dude, you’ve been in there for like ten years, hurry up!”
So, Sam’s back. Pushing away his slight embarrassment (did he make much noise? Had he been heard?) he yells out something involving good natured abuse and gets dressed. Barging out of the bathroom, he shoots his brother a grin and gracefully accepts the offered coffee. It’s a beautiful day and nothing, not even Sam’s suspicious frown, is bringing him down.
“What took you so long?”
“You’ll understand when you’re older,” Dean replies with a wink, and settles down with the paper.
~
The next time they walk in the door, they’re covered in blood and bruises and mud, and this time there is a fight for the shower. Dean, typically, calls the ‘older’ card, and Sam, typically, calls the ‘taller’ card, and there’s no mistaking in their peculiar little life what ‘shower’ means. Adrenaline works in funny ways like that.
Sam picks his battle. “I’m not waiting twenty minutes out here while you’re in there jerking off,” he says hotly.
“Yeah well, neither am I, Sammy, so just suck it up.” Dean has the arrogance to gather up some clothes on the cleaner side of filthy and head for the door, and Sam isn’t taking that. Not this time.
He’s in front of him and ripping the clothes out of his arms in seconds, and Dean looks so surprised it’d almost be funny if Sam weren’t so damn horny. “Quit being such a dick.”
Dean stands his ground, and he makes it look like he isn’t craning his neck, even though he so obviously is. “You had first shower this morning,” he says, and knows it’s his trump card.
Sam isn’t buying it, he bites back “Like that counts, you were asleep,” and wonders why all the childish squabbling isn’t killing his hard on.
Dean seems to realise the same thing at the same instant, and suddenly the air is hot between them. They stand stock still, staring and panting until the line of blood running down Sam’s neck starts tickling so much he has to wipe it away. Dean steps back, hands raised, and Sam, inexplicably, feels like he just lost a battle even though he hasn’t.
“Thank you,” he says, his voice tight and stiff, and the bathroom door locks behind him.
~
In a fit of revenge, or spite, or something, Dean chooses to jerk off in Sam’s bed. Shower Only is the unspoken rule, but fuck that. Dean’s not going to wait for his punk brother to finish, not with his dick this hard and hot, not with all this adrenalin still pounding in his blood. The shower is white noise and he lets it fill him up and consume him as he feverishly pulls off, eyes squeezed shut against the images rising unbidden to his mind.
Sam uses the soap again, it looks strangely worn down for only being used twice, but he stops himself from thinking about it and bites his lip so hard he’s afraid he might cut through, bites it against the image of what Dean might be doing. The soap’s smooth and slick against him, rubbing up and down his length, and somehow it doesn’t exactly feel clean. But he kinda likes it anyway.
Dean comes like a steam train, fingers of his free hand flexing against his stomach, head grinding back into Sam’s pillow, and it’s not until he’s spent that he realises he’s probably ruined this tee-shirt for good.
Sam comes like it’s the end of the world, splattering the shower curtain. One part of him is wondering how loud he was while the other part is vaguely wondering how the hell he’s gonna clean that off without getting water all over the floor.
~
The road is laid out in front of them like a river, and they’ve both been unusually quiet. Sam doesn’t complain about Dean’s music, and Dean keeps it to a reasonable level, and things are almost pleasant between them. It’s making Sam itchy. He wants to punch Dean for no reason, give him a dead-leg or something, or just, maybe, flick the cartilage of his ear really hard. But Dean hasn’t given him an excuse for it all day, and everything’s weird. Tension is right, tension is normal, tension feels kinda good, actually, but not this being nice to each other shit.
Dean just feels like doing something really impressive with his car.
~
After a while they pass a café, and Dean suggests they get some coffee. His brother looks kinda despondent, he’s got that pissy, depressed look he gets sometimes, and God, but it makes Dean just want to poke at him.
“Yeah, sure,” Sam says, tapping restlessly on his thigh, making Dean wanna strangle this newfound niceness out of the bastard. “Coffee’s good.”
The night at the motel is over, ferchrissakes.
“But Sammy, this place isn’t full of beret wearing yuppies, so they probably don’t have a half-caf-double-milk-caramel-latte with sprinkles for you. Are you gonna be ok? Can you handle that?”
He’s relieved as Sam’s face breaks into a sarcastic smile, and when his brother leans over and punches him, hard, on the shoulder, it feels strangely good.
~
Sam knows when to pick his battles. But Dean, Dean brings the skirmishes right to him. And Christ, that’s the way it should be.