A Very Supernatural Sing Along 3/? [NC17] Sam/Dean
Sam blinked at what was probably the record breaking least amount of time it had ever taken Dean to leave a girl’s side to check on him. Ever. The bell hadn’t even finished jingling before Dean was well into his personal space, eyes methodically flicking over Sam in search of injuries.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he muttered, startled and kind of feeling inexplicably better, and to prove just how fine he was he used his injured hand to scratch at the back of his neck. (Smart move, but he was distracted by Katie puzzling over them through the Laundromat’s windows before she shook her head and moved on.)
“Aw, Christ, Sam. What’d you do?” Dean had Sam’s wrist at eye level before Sam knew he was moving, hissing in sympathy at the cuts along his knuckles even as his eyebrow arched. "Hit me baby one more time?"
“What? No, Dean.” Sam shook off his grasp but stopped himself from moving the eight inches of cursory brotherly space Dean was ignoring. “It-I wasn’t singing.”
“Uh-huh…” Something flickered in Dean’s eyes, but when glanced away and back it was gone. “And I didn’t just rattle off the first three verses of some shit song called Superman. By the way, why does the guy from Five For Fighting sing like he has his balls in a vice?”
“I don’t know who that is,” Sam said, falteringly, ignoring the faint buzz of something warm at the realization that Dean hadn’t been talking to Katie that long.
“Yeah, well, neither do I. That’s what I was trying to tell you before-I keep getting these crazy little announcements in my head with the song and the band name. That’s not normal, right? That can be one of your little clues?”
“I-I guess. Hey…” A light bulb went off. “I think I get them too.”
“You think?” Dean pressed, eyebrow arching so far up his forehead it was likely to fall off. “And you just realized now?”
“Well…yeah.” Was it his fault he’d actually heard of most of the songs they’d been forced to sing?
Dean pulled his oh-I’m-so-glad-we’re-finally-on-the-same-page-you-freaking-moron expression, but it was a little hurried. Anyone else wouldn’t have noticed Dean was less than okay with this entire situation, though he couldn’t understand what the hell Dean had to worry about.
“So what was the song about?” Sam asked, trying to distract them both (and belatedly aware this was not the best topic of conversation to bring up, not with the echoes of go-go dancing still ringing in the bathroom).
Dean looked a little surprised, but answered the question. “Well, no-balls is well on his way to a full-blown hero complex, I’ll tell you that. I mean, ‘More than a bird, more than a plane,’ what the hell is that?”
Sam snorted. And yeah, maybe he had heard this song before.
“What?”
“Dean…you really haven’t figured it out?”
“Figured what out?” he asked, working at something between his teeth with his tongue. Sam focused on the disgust that elicited (and not the more creative uses for Dean’s tongue) when he answered.
“Dude, these songs are all about what we’re feeling at the time.” Blank stare. “Like this Superman song-did it maybe happen to mention how much you’re scared of flying?”
“I’m not scared, just… Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Huh.” Dean was quiet for a minute, tongue still running amuck in his mouth (so much so that Sam had to clench his teeth to keep his own where it belonged), then, “So what’d you sing about?” Like there wasn’t a doubt Sam had sung something.
It was very lucky Sam was such a genius, and that he’d had part of his brain working on this problem since he’d left the bathroom. “Berries and Cream.”
Dean shook his head, choking on a snort. “Wh-what?”
“Berries and freaking Cream, alright?”
Dean’s jaw literally dropped, at least until his grin stretched so wide he had to shut it while he spoke. “And you hid that from me?”
“Didn’t want you to see me skipping,” Sam mumbled, but the blush was real, turning him pink from hair-line to jaw. Better to let Dean think he’d hurt himself prancing around a lavatory with a bad English accent than punching a mirror to vent his frustration because a Disney song made him confess his less-than-platonic brotherly love.
Their dryer dinged, cutting off Dean’s next jibe before he could make himself stop grinning long enough to say it. Or at least long enough to lull Sam into thinking he’d cut it off, before looping an arm around Sam’s head and hauling him down so fast he almost fell over. Sam stumbled, choking on a squawk of protest as his senses flooded with the scent of Dean and leather.
“Ahhh, Sammy,” Dean rumbled, knuckling through his hair, “This might not be so bad!”
“Geddoff,” Sam growled, shoving him off a little harder than necessary, though he couldn’t bring himself to glare at anything other than their dryer as he jerked out their laundry into a duffle. Forty years in hell…sometimes it felt like Dean kept forgetting Sam wasn’t a kid anymore. Like he wasn’t sure how to act around a brother who wasn’t thirteen.
Sam caught himself staring at the tangle of unremarkable clothing in his hands. After their last run-in with the awesomely corporeal, separating whites and colors seemed like a really dumb exercise in futility. All their clothes were the same shades of grey, green, blue and black anyway. One time when he was eight Sam came home with a red t-shirt he’d won at school for being the first to pass the multiplication test, and that night his Dad had it in pieces, rags for cleaning guns, not a single explanation past, “That’ll get you noticed.”
“Hey!” Dean’s fingers snapped in front of his face. “No trips to your head space. Hearing you warbling ‘Memories, all alone in the moonlight,’ is something I never want to be subjected to, got me?”
Sam blinked a little blearily. “What, from Cats?”
Dean stared at him. “How do you even know that?”
“How do you even know that?”
“I asked first.”
“Fine.” Sam tucked his hands back in his pockets and shrugged with every muscle in his body besides his shoulders-it was an art. “Jess.”
Dean looked like he was about to argue, maybe point out that he couldn’t just whip out Jess’s name every time he didn’t want to talk about something (especially three years after the fact), so Sam added, “Same way I know about fairy tales when you haven’t even seen the non-porno version of Snow White. She-found out I didn’t exactly have the model childhood. Figured I was culturally deprived, and took it upon herself to…educate me or whatever. It’s no big deal.”
He knew something was up when his brother started folding socks-because, seriously? What the hell?-but he really didn’t want to get into the whole, ‘What did you tell her about our family?’ fight or, ‘What? You really thought our childhood sucked so bad you whined about it to your girlfriend?’ or, worst of all, ‘Dad did the best he could, Sam’ which roughly translated meant, ‘I did the best I could, and now you think I fucked it up and failed you.’ So instead, Sam steeled himself and cut Dean off.
“So what about you? How’d you know about Cats?”
“Bite me, that’s how.” Dean shoved their laundry (folded socks forgotten) into a duffle one-handed, slung the whole thing over his shoulder with a tacked-on smile. “C’mon, fairy princess, back to the evil castle we go.”
The disturbed part of Sam that never got enough hugs as a child wanted to ask if Dean was his knight in shining armor, but luckily the logical part won jurisdiction over his mouth. “What, back to Hotel California?”
“You’re really gonna have to get over that-I told you it’s the only place around. The Best Western shut down because the electricity fluctuations are ‘not up to the standards their guests expect.’”
“Good to know our place cares so little about our standards.”
“Hell yeah, Sam, otherwise we’d be sleeping in the car.”
“Hey,” Sam forced himself to ask after the Impala doors had shut on their previous conversation, “What were you talking to Katie about?”
“Who?” The eye-flick sent Sam an engraved letter announcing:
“You know who.” It was worth the effort to make his tone light and uncaring, but it took more out of him than he was honestly expecting. Sam kept his own eyes half-lidded and focused on the laundry bag he was chucking in the backseat so Dean wouldn’t notice anything wrong.
“Oh, right. I needed to get detailed directions to the energy plant for tomorrow, you know, so we don’t get lost in Bumfuck, Nowhere. Plus,” he added with a look that was supposed to make Sam flinch, “you dropped my pie.”
“Mmhm.” Sam was already looking elsewhere. “So…any luck?”
“With what?”
“Getting some?”
“Why, Sam, you sly dog!”
“I’m-I meant more pie,” Sam stammered, the blush he’d almost managed to calm down burning even hotter on his face.
“Yeah, bet you did,” Dean cackled in a low rumble of laughter that did absolutely nothing for Sam’s flush. His seat belt snapped close with a heavy metallic clink, and then Dean was reaching for the keys, twisting nimbly to hear his baby purr.
“You’re the oooonly one for meee!!”
Dean broke a nail lunging for the radio, but only because Sam jammed his finger getting there first.
“God fucking shit goddamn!” Dean snarled, giving his hand a hard shake. “Ow.”
Sam’s weak, obligatory chuckle was the last sound in the car for what felt like the longest ten minutes since…well. Dean was utterly silent, the kind of silent that was designed to make Sam think he was thinking deep, life-altering thoughts until he’d blurt out, “Which do you think would win in a fight: pumpkin pie or strawberry-rhubarb?”
The silence made Sam’s skin crawl, listening to tics in the Impala’s engine and the muffled roll of tires on rain-damp asphalt. He expected-kind of needed-Dean to tease him some more, give him grief about the Berries and Cream incident. That was the Winchester Way. If Dean wasn’t leaping on the opportunity for harassment, it was because he was mad, or because he was hiding something. And the absolute last thing they needed was for Dean to backslide into drinking himself to sleep again.
Sam closed his eyes and prayed for sun tomorrow, so they wouldn’t have to sing in any rain.
Twenty-one years (even with a four year break) sheltered in this car, and Sam developed a fine-tuned system to gauge Dean’s mood by the music. Yeah, they had a limited number of tapes, but Sam doubted Dean realized he DJ-ed to the tune of his emotions. Which songs he skipped, the tapes he picked, even the words he chose to sing along to. Sam planted his knees against the dashboard so he wouldn’t sink in his seat. He hadn’t realized how much they needed the radio to fill in the silence between them until it was gone. Not that he was will to risk punching the power button but-
It hit the same time Dean’s skin visibly crawled at the sound of his baby’s undercarriage brushing the concrete as they pulled into the Danschonne Inn: The song they’d cut off was the same one playing the first time they’d climbed in the Impala after Dean got back from hell.
Fingers fumbling with the packaging, trying to slice open his skin as he tore the converter free and shoved it in place, something aching with hope that Dean wouldn’t allow this to happen, douching up his baby, that he’d come b-
Sam hadn’t actually heard anything the ipod played until Dean turned the ignition.
When he made himself look, Dean was staring thoughtfully up at their hotel, ring thunk-thunking quietly against the steering wheel, tongue back to digging at his right canine. The neon lights stared bleakly back, flickering softly down on Beefy (who still hadn’t finished his car magazine in three fucking hours)-not menacingly, just enough to show they could. The worn carpet in the lobby was a grey reminiscent of zombie skin, and the lone plant in the window had long ago breathed its last. Even though Sam was pretty sure it was plastic.
“Wanna go get a drink?”
“Yeah, that sounds good,” he answered before the question even finished leaving his brother’s mouth. When Dean hit reverse the sound of tires squealing as they tore out of the parking lot could almost be considered music, depending on your opinion of heavy metal.
~*~
Normally, they didn’t drink on a job. But normally they weren’t hoarse from lyrics spilling out of their mouths or blisters from kicking their heels together. What the fuck ever, Sam’s plan was to get drunk. And Dean was screwing with the plan.
He’d already aborted “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk, “Save a Horse, Ride a-Winchester!” (which Dean still thought was hilarious four shots of tequila later), and, even more memorably, “Land Down Under,” after a commercial for Outback Steakhouse struggled through the static on the bar’s TV, and all this was maybe forty-five minutes after the doors swung shut behind them.
All these songs were narrow misses, and the more alcohol Dean pumped into his bloodstream, the harder it was to distract him with a hand over his mouth. The last time his eyes sparked just before he dragged his tongue across Sam’s palm in a long slobbery lick. Which was gross and wrong and yeah, the second time tonight, so he wiped it on Dean’s jacket and made sure his free one was covering his lap.
Sam had a really bad feeling that his own shots were going to make him call Dean a manwhore-and quite possibly stupid and bossy-by the end of the night, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to care. The nausea from near-constant humiliation was wearing off, easing the tension out of muscles that felt tight enough to snap. How could that be wrong?
But with all these stupid songs, Dean was seriously killing his buzz. How the hell was he supposed to enjoy being drunk when he was constantly smashing his injured hand between his knee and their table to kill the words in his own mouth and Dean’s? Especially since-and yeah, this was fun-the first time he’d swallowed a song of his own (‘…maybe we’ll fall before we take flight, maybe you’re all I’ve got to lose…’), something clenched tight in his chest like a demonic two-year-old tugging his ribs into internal organs. And it only got worse the second and third times, too.
So he knew why Dean’s eyes had gone tight in the diner. Awesome.
“Screw it,” he finally snapped, dropping his third empty beer bottle somewhere in the vicinity of a coaster. “’M goin’ for another. Go ahead an’ lose your voice-see if I care.”
“Don’t-leave me this way…" Dean’s fingers caught in his sleeve as Sam stumbled to his feet, but Sam couldn’t hear any music over the dull roar of the crowd. Was Dean just screwing with him? The lopsided smirk kinda supported that idea, especially with Dean sprawling the width of their table, flaunting and languid and acting much drunker than he was, like he thought Sam couldn’t tell. “I can’t survive without your sweet love. Oh, baby, don’t leave me this way…”
“Oops!” A bottle hit the floor and shattered inches from Dean’s boots, shards of glass skittering across the floor as the barmaid (her nametag said Cleo) muttered a couple curse words and sighed in frustration. It was that same redhead from the bathroom, her hair still in twin braids over her shoulders that curled just over her breasts, blue eyes wide and tired and earnestly apologetic. And Sam knew that should mean something, but he could not for the life of him figure out what before she turned away for a broom.
Waitresses dropping things that shattered was apparently always going to short-circuit his brain.
“Great,” he bit off, staring at the mess while his skin pretended not to call. I’ll send the Trickster a fruit basket stayed in his head by the skin of his teeth and a curl of his tongue, and the fact that Dean was touching him.
“Sam.” His brother said his name just a little too…something, but the hand on his shoulder was wide and warm and jerked Sam out of his headspace like nobody’s business. And there was the start of a big ol’ grin on Dean’s face that was gonna be murder to ignore when it spread-kind of like that. “Come on…You know you’re never fully dressed without a smile.”
“Do you honestly think quoting song lyrics is the best plan right now?” Sam demanded a little desperately. He really didn’t want to sing anything from Annie, but also, he wasn’t drunk enough not to notice Dean was trying too hard to make this an enjoyable experience.
“Lighten up, man! This whole singing in the rain trip is kinda fun, don’t you think?”
“Maybe for you,” he grumbled rubbing his chest where the burn from the last song he’d choked back was still gnawing at his sternum.
“What, you got something to hide? Maybe an unhealthy fascination for Disney songs, ehh? C’mon, Sammay…” Sam cringed but Dean seemed oblivious as he backed up, arms spreading wide as the plucked guitar string throbbed out between them, grin lighting up the room as someone in the back blew on a police whistle and Cleo spun on her heels just in time to clap as every patron of the bar slammed down their beers and called, Hoo.
Sam was so fucked.
“Whether it’s rock and roll or old soul,” Dean started, and Sam felt that jello sensation wash over him like he was drowning, that the only thing keeping his head above water was the way he was tied, instantly and permanently, to Dean. There was a lurch somewhere beneath his bellybutton and that tie dragged him to his brother even as he turned away, so he was right there when Dean rocked his hips back.
And later, when the song was winding down and the magic was dripping off his body in beads of sweat, Sam knew the exact moment when Dean came back to himself.
“Kinda missing those conversations that start with, ‘So this killer truck.’”
Dean’s grin slipped when Sam stayed silent, eyes turned down at the edges, fingernails cutting into the slice of Sam’s hips bared by Dean’s grip until he shoved him away with a laugh that was half real cringe and half fake. Sam wasn’t sure which part was worse.
“Grabby bitch,” Dean slurred to Cleo as he slung an arm around her shoulders without skipping a beat. “Always has been. I ‘member this one time when he was four…”
Sam grabbed his coat and left.
~*~
He found the bottle of Jack under Dean’s bag in the backseat, nestled cozily between a Wendy’s wrapper and a cloth for changing oil, and started chugging.
The first time he’d come home from a college party drunk, Jess had informed him that whiskey turned him into a petulant two-year-old. A 6-foot-4 petulant two-year-old. With hair. (Okay, so she’d been a little smashed at the time too.) What he didn’t tell her was that it was November fucking 2nd and the ache in his side from missing his brother felt like someone had torn out his internal organs and told him to carry on as normal.
And now Dean was right there-not twenty feet and one bar door away-and Sam had never missed him more in his life.
Okay, that was not in the least bit true. Whiskey also thrashed his chronological order. Remember that time Dean was ripped to shreds at your feet and his soul dragged kicking and screaming to hell for four months? Yeah, you missed him more then. Or when Dean was gunned down for no fucking good reason after a lifetime of Tuesdays? Life sucked way more then, too. This was just a teeny little gnat on the windshield of his existence. Nothing was gonna change because he’d danced with his brother-granted, a little more on the side of pleasurable than platonic, but still. Nothing to rock the house.
Whiskey fucked with his metaphors too.
“Whoa, Sammy, save some for the road.”
It did, however, put him in a numb sort of zen space that prevented Dean’s face from being smashed in, so Dean should be really freaking grateful and leave him the hell alone.
“Just-go fuck Cleo. Or Katie. Or, y’know, both,” Sam said, almost cheerfully, when Dean started to say something else (he might’ve shoved his hand in Dean’s face for emphasis but that was neither here nor there). “I’ll wait innnn the car.” Huh. When did the word ‘in’ grow so many extra letters?
“Dude.” There was something dark in Dean’s tone, almost warning, and Sam swallowed down a surge of annoyance that noticed Dean was barely tipsy let alone smashed enough to get away with what he’d said in the bar. “What’s your problem?” Translation: “Do we need to talk about this?”
“No!” Sam protested (answering the real question), and whoa, his arms must weigh a ton to throw him off balance when he flung them out like that. “I’m fiiiine. Really! Sppf. Why wouldn’t I be fine? Go. Dude! Assert your masculininity. ‘M fine.” Never mind that he could feel the opening chords to Mr. Brightside thrumming through his veins. Now that one he didn’t need Mister DJ to announce, not when it’d played practically nonstop on the radio the month after Dad died, when neither of them could listen to anything resembling cock rock without going deathly pale.
Good times.
There was an interesting play of emotions skittering around Dean’s expression at the moment: Confusion, mostly, with a healthy dollop of my-brother’s-obviously-lost-his mind and something else Dean wouldn’t make eye-contact for. Then Dean’s head tilted like he was pouring everything out of his skull, and the momentum pulled him toward the Impala. Or something. Sam’s tongue was having fun lapping at the inside of the whiskey bottle, so he was a little distracted.
“Get in the car, Sam.”
“You don’t have to lock me in,” Sam said, caught between a laugh and a pout, “I told you that’d be where I was waiting. Unless…” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder (in the wrong direction) and nearly stumbled back a step. “Want me to meet you at the hotel?”
He thought he was being very reasonable. Far too reasonable for the look Dean was giving him now. His ‘What do you think, moron?’ glare with a twist of ‘Just do what I freaking tell you.’ It was familiar, even brought out and showcased in the post-hell months, but Sam beamed anyway because it was just so nice and awesome that Dean was alive enough to scowl at him.
“Get in the fucking car.” For a moment Dean looked uncertain, staring down at the keys he flipped in his hand before yanking on the driver’s side door. “’M dropping you off.”
Dropping you off. That meant, Leaving you there. That meant, Going back out. Sam hadn’t realized how much he’d been counting on Dean calling it a night. Because Going back out, meant, Fucking Cleo.
He was pretty damn sure Dean couldn’t see his smile turn to ash and blow away through the car as he sat, but his fingers tightened on the steering wheel like he could feel it. It still didn’t change his mind.
Sam took another long, sloppy pull off the bottle before letting it fall out of his hand. And yup, shattered bottles still short-circuited his brain. But it wasn’t enough to completely derail it from the fact that-
Dean was being Dean. How could Dean acting normal be utter and stupid bliss one moment and tear his chest to ribbons the next?
Sam got in the fucking car. When she purred quietly to life, almost like she was afraid to break the silence, neither one of them reached for the radio. But they stared at it hard for a couple of seconds, Dean like he was daring it to come on, Sam daring it to stay silent.
“You know what tomorrow is?” Dean asked suddenly, blunt, fast, low, almost like he didn’t want an answer.
Sam stared at him, willing his eyes not to blur before he scrubbed a hand across them. It wasn’t…Dean’s birthday, or his, or November 2nd, or- “Gimme a hint?”
Dean shook his head, revved the engine, and pulled carefully out of the parking lot. Double careful, actually, since he wasn’t on the sober side of driving.
Sam wanted to pout about his brother caring more about the car than his own well-being, but the whiskey zen made that seem like far too much effort. Especially when he could sprawl against the passenger door and stare at Dean the whole ride back.
With his broodface firmly in place, Dean looked good. With his clothes rumpled from dancing, sweat still sparkling lightly at the curve of his neck where it disappeared into a shirt Sam had been intimately familiar with not twenty minutes ago, Dean looked better. With the scent of Dean still so close to sense memory, Dean was nigh on irresistible.
Okay, bad plan. Sam didn’t realize he was clutching the door handle until Dean asked him if he was gonna puke. He tried to muster a ‘Dude, not that drunk’ roll of the eyes, but it was really better for everyone if he didn’t look at Dean right now. Especially when he was talking, that low voice just the tiniest bit husky from the extra work it’d been through in the last couple hours, and okay husky was not good for Sam to listen too right now ‘cause-
“Sammy?” Dean asked when he didn’t answer, leaning over the steering wheel to get a look at Sam’s face, amulet swinging free of his collar to glint in the dim streetlight. And hell, it was only six inches from that amulet to Dean’s face, less than a flick of the eyelids.
Oh come on.
“I want-" Sam felt his eyes bulge just as he managed to clamp a hand over his own mouth. The jello feeling was back before he knew what was happening, only it was hot this time, like sinking into a tub of near boiling water after standing in the snow, almost-no, definitely painful. He heaved in a breath, lungs shuddering, then just as he thought it wasn’t unbearable, Sam’s veins flooded with heat, yanking, dragging at every cell in him, screaming him towards Dean.
It wasn’t enough to stifle the song with a hand-he hand to clamp his teeth down, ignoring the lip in their way, trying to watch expressions ricochet across Dean’s face as the blood drained out of his own. “F-fuck,” he stammered through his bit lip, doubling over in the seat, “Fuck, Dean, I want-”
“Sam?!” Whoa, that tone meant trouble. Except, wait, Dean was outside his window, tearing open the passenger side door-and you can’t do that while you’re driving. Were they there already? Sam groaned and clutched his gut, falling sideways against Dean-and the heat flared white hot, searing.
“Ow, fuck, ow want-" Sam cut himself off with a cry that sounded a lot more agonized than it was, until it actually did what he wanted it too and the desperation cut through him like a knife. Dean was dragging him to their room (bottom floor, in the back, like always), one arm around his back and the other clutching hard to Sam’s wrist to keep it trapped against his shoulder. Hip to hip, he fumbled with the keys, shirts riding up the smallest bit to press bare skin against bare skin. Sam strangled on a noise that made everything in him feel like it was breaking.
The instant the door was open, Sam broke free of Dean’s grip and shoved him as hard as he could, dropping to a crouch in front of their now closed door. Telekinesis might have been involved. In any case, it was the last shred of control he had left, trying to get Dean as far from him as he possibly could before-
“I want you.”
His heart slammed against his ribcage to the sound of three sharp jerks of a chord. One of his arms stretched out pale and feline in the stuttering lamplight outside their window, palm flat against the floor, nails digging into the cheap green carpet. “I want you so bad…”
Dean was frozen in the shadows, back against the farthest wall where Sam had thrown him, but the shudder that ripped through the room was impossible to decipher. Lust or revulsion-which was worse-it was too fucking dark and Sam’s eyes couldn’t focus long enough to see.
“I want you…” Sam’s shoulders rolled, forcing him to shift on his haunches, awkward angle of his legs dragging a moan from his lungs. “I want you so bad it’s driving me mad, it’s driving me…”
“Sam,” Dean rasped, the older brother tone struggling to break through.
You just need to see Dean’s face. Mr. DJ’s voice stuck in Sam’s ears like they needed to be popped, so unexpected it was enough of a shock to Sam’s system to just barely clear his head. Just get a little closer, just-
Sam threw himself back, away, slamming his shoulder blades and spine against the door, trying to snap himself completely out of it. All it did was force the air out of his lungs.
“I want you,” he gasped, dimly aware that his fist was open-closing, grasping at his side for something across the room. “I want you so bad…”
He just had to make it through the song. The only ‘just’ he needed to accomplish. Dealing with Dean couldn’t even register on his conscience. Except it did.
Oh, god. Sam couldn’t even close his eyes-it took everything he had to stay on his side of the room and not crush Dean against the wall with his extra weight and height and just take him, grind against him until he couldn’t remember anything but Sam’s name, choked out on a gasp as he came wet and hot against the relentless friction of Sam’s hips against his-
The music faltered as a plaintive whine tore its way from Sam’s throat because it hurt, this need, this crazy fucking thing in his guts, burning and pulling and-couldn’t even breathe anymore, had to-
“Sam? Sammy?” Dean caught him when he started crumpling (across the room in a single bound), and Sam thought that was a really stupid idea, which he was going to tell him as soon as he got his tongue out of Dean’s mouth.
What? No…no, no, NO! He ripped his body from Dean’s, dragging in a breath that tore at his lungs like he was drowning. He hadn’t actually kissed him, but god, the thought of it was so vividly imprinted in his brain he might as well have. The hurt was even worse because he hadn’t given in, each word shredding at his tongue and the roof of his mouth trying to claw free.
“I...I want…” Fuck, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t talk let alone sing and it hurt-"G…hurts, De-Ah!”-and the music was furious, boiling, louder and louder every time it skipped because he failed to sing.
“Shh…shh… Sam.” Dean’s voice was rough on Sam’s name, just like the rasp of day-old stubble against Sam’s cheek. Dean had somehow managed to force his hand between the door and Sam’s skull (when or why was a little fuzzy), forcing him to stay still as he brought their heads together, forehead to forehead, solid and unwavering. He’d pinned Sam to the door, shoulder to Sam’s sternum, sideways between splayed, gangly legs, left hand bruising against his little brother’s chest. Bracing.
Sam’s nails sliced through his palms as he tried to keep them to himself and not paw at Dean like a horny cheerleader (then again, knowing Dean, he’d kind of like it. Which was not helping) but he couldn’t help the way his brother had to feel his hardness pressed to Dean’s hip, just enough to feel Dean’s heartbeat thrum against his cock, not enough room to move.
Dean kept him as still as he could, bracing for limited self-inflicted injuries just like the good old times in Sam’s psychic vision heydays. Even though Sam was hard and panting against Dean’s cheek, lips brushing skin as he greedily sucked in Dean-saturated air.
“C’mon, Sam, finish it,” Dean murmured, low and gruff like he was hurting just as much. “Come on…Its driving me mad its-”
“…driving me…” Sam gasped, moaning along with the music as it finally stopped skipping and turned to static mush.
Dean shifted a fraction of an inch, trying to get more comfortable on the floor, and Sam clutched at him, hips stuttering up once, twice, and god he was high on Dean’s scent, the purring tone of his voice, just being so fucking close that-
He froze. There was absolutely nothing that would make this (his head couldn’t even find words for it) okay. One thing to do it under the thrall of a magic spell (yeah words still not working so well) or even a little bit whiskey-saturated, but just to get off… Dean might eventually forgive him, but there was no way they’d be the same. And Sam needed things to be the same. More than he needed an accidental rub off.
Course, it might’ve helped that fighting the song had pretty much drained him of every desire besides the need to sleep, but Sam was going to swear nobility had something to do with it too.
It would be really awesome to pass out now, Sam thought, dimly amused that he was still panting and aching against Dean, just not in the good way.
“Yeah, yeah, hold your horses,” Dean muttered, which made Sam flinch and reconsider how much he’d said out loud. Then Dean’s heat was gone, and Sam struggled to lift his eyelids far enough to see where he went before Dean appeared again under one arm, hands hard over the bruises he’d left the last time he’d hauled him somewhere. Something tugged at Sam’s chest, already battered and raw-Dean shouldn’t have to deal with his crazy ass shit.
“Yeah, well, your crazy ass shit has been part of my life since I hauled your crazy ass out of the fire so-life aint fair.”
He really had to stop saying his thoughts aloud.
“Dude, tell me about it.”
He rolled onto his stomach the instant Dean dropped him on the bed, arms sliding up under the pillow so he could mash it to his face, shirt riding up past his bellybutton. Exhaustion and alcohol swirled through his brain, dragging him under as another emotion pulled him up.
Terror. Oh, fuck. The room was too quiet. Was Dean breathing?
“Dean.” Gruff. Not whiney. “Deeeeeeeeean.” Okay, that was still firmly in his lower register, so not a whine.
“Whaaaaaat?” Dean mocked, and Sam flicked open an eye long enough to see that he was sitting on the other bed, facing him with his elbows on his knees. His heartbeat didn’t really slow all that much.
“Singame?”
“What?”
Yeah, he didn’t really understand that either. Sam frowned, nudging his burning face even further into the pillows as his eyes fell shut, part exhaustion, part humiliation. “Sing. To. Me.”
Dean’s head dropped with a surprised, stifled groan. “Dammit, Sam, what do you think I’ve been doing all day?”
“Singinat other peepol,” Sam muttered into his pillow. Still not whiny, just matter of fact. And if there were tears stinging at his eyelids, he didn’t think Dean saw.
Time passed slowly, like molasses, warm and sticky and uncomfortably dark as Sam slip-slid into memories of Dean, so fucking little and still so big to Sam, tucking him against his side in cheap motel room after cheap motel room, familiar voice turning familiar words into something so much like home that when it was gone- He remembered the look on his father’s face when he whispered, almost in tears around his thumb, that Dean wouldn’t sleep in the same bed with him anymore. Remembered the way John had asked, frowning and surprised, “Do you want him to?”
And Sam said the right answer, even though it was the one that felt wrong.
It’d been quiet so long Sam almost thought Dean wasn’t going to sing when he just…did, voice low and murmured, something about clouds and lines and the color blue. But by that time, Sam was too far gone to do anything but curl up in the melody and let it send him to sleep.
THE END (of part three!)
If you'd like a reminder for the next chapter, go here!
And as always, comments are buckets of love!
ON TO PART FOUR!!
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he muttered, startled and kind of feeling inexplicably better, and to prove just how fine he was he used his injured hand to scratch at the back of his neck. (Smart move, but he was distracted by Katie puzzling over them through the Laundromat’s windows before she shook her head and moved on.)
“Aw, Christ, Sam. What’d you do?” Dean had Sam’s wrist at eye level before Sam knew he was moving, hissing in sympathy at the cuts along his knuckles even as his eyebrow arched. "Hit me baby one more time?"
“What? No, Dean.” Sam shook off his grasp but stopped himself from moving the eight inches of cursory brotherly space Dean was ignoring. “It-I wasn’t singing.”
“Uh-huh…” Something flickered in Dean’s eyes, but when glanced away and back it was gone. “And I didn’t just rattle off the first three verses of some shit song called Superman. By the way, why does the guy from Five For Fighting sing like he has his balls in a vice?”
“I don’t know who that is,” Sam said, falteringly, ignoring the faint buzz of something warm at the realization that Dean hadn’t been talking to Katie that long.
“Yeah, well, neither do I. That’s what I was trying to tell you before-I keep getting these crazy little announcements in my head with the song and the band name. That’s not normal, right? That can be one of your little clues?”
“I-I guess. Hey…” A light bulb went off. “I think I get them too.”
“You think?” Dean pressed, eyebrow arching so far up his forehead it was likely to fall off. “And you just realized now?”
“Well…yeah.” Was it his fault he’d actually heard of most of the songs they’d been forced to sing?
Dean pulled his oh-I’m-so-glad-we’re-finally-on-the-same-page-you-freaking-moron expression, but it was a little hurried. Anyone else wouldn’t have noticed Dean was less than okay with this entire situation, though he couldn’t understand what the hell Dean had to worry about.
“So what was the song about?” Sam asked, trying to distract them both (and belatedly aware this was not the best topic of conversation to bring up, not with the echoes of go-go dancing still ringing in the bathroom).
Dean looked a little surprised, but answered the question. “Well, no-balls is well on his way to a full-blown hero complex, I’ll tell you that. I mean, ‘More than a bird, more than a plane,’ what the hell is that?”
Sam snorted. And yeah, maybe he had heard this song before.
“What?”
“Dean…you really haven’t figured it out?”
“Figured what out?” he asked, working at something between his teeth with his tongue. Sam focused on the disgust that elicited (and not the more creative uses for Dean’s tongue) when he answered.
“Dude, these songs are all about what we’re feeling at the time.” Blank stare. “Like this Superman song-did it maybe happen to mention how much you’re scared of flying?”
“I’m not scared, just… Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Huh.” Dean was quiet for a minute, tongue still running amuck in his mouth (so much so that Sam had to clench his teeth to keep his own where it belonged), then, “So what’d you sing about?” Like there wasn’t a doubt Sam had sung something.
It was very lucky Sam was such a genius, and that he’d had part of his brain working on this problem since he’d left the bathroom. “Berries and Cream.”
Dean shook his head, choking on a snort. “Wh-what?”
“Berries and freaking Cream, alright?”
Dean’s jaw literally dropped, at least until his grin stretched so wide he had to shut it while he spoke. “And you hid that from me?”
“Didn’t want you to see me skipping,” Sam mumbled, but the blush was real, turning him pink from hair-line to jaw. Better to let Dean think he’d hurt himself prancing around a lavatory with a bad English accent than punching a mirror to vent his frustration because a Disney song made him confess his less-than-platonic brotherly love.
Their dryer dinged, cutting off Dean’s next jibe before he could make himself stop grinning long enough to say it. Or at least long enough to lull Sam into thinking he’d cut it off, before looping an arm around Sam’s head and hauling him down so fast he almost fell over. Sam stumbled, choking on a squawk of protest as his senses flooded with the scent of Dean and leather.
“Ahhh, Sammy,” Dean rumbled, knuckling through his hair, “This might not be so bad!”
“Geddoff,” Sam growled, shoving him off a little harder than necessary, though he couldn’t bring himself to glare at anything other than their dryer as he jerked out their laundry into a duffle. Forty years in hell…sometimes it felt like Dean kept forgetting Sam wasn’t a kid anymore. Like he wasn’t sure how to act around a brother who wasn’t thirteen.
Sam caught himself staring at the tangle of unremarkable clothing in his hands. After their last run-in with the awesomely corporeal, separating whites and colors seemed like a really dumb exercise in futility. All their clothes were the same shades of grey, green, blue and black anyway. One time when he was eight Sam came home with a red t-shirt he’d won at school for being the first to pass the multiplication test, and that night his Dad had it in pieces, rags for cleaning guns, not a single explanation past, “That’ll get you noticed.”
“Hey!” Dean’s fingers snapped in front of his face. “No trips to your head space. Hearing you warbling ‘Memories, all alone in the moonlight,’ is something I never want to be subjected to, got me?”
Sam blinked a little blearily. “What, from Cats?”
Dean stared at him. “How do you even know that?”
“How do you even know that?”
“I asked first.”
“Fine.” Sam tucked his hands back in his pockets and shrugged with every muscle in his body besides his shoulders-it was an art. “Jess.”
Dean looked like he was about to argue, maybe point out that he couldn’t just whip out Jess’s name every time he didn’t want to talk about something (especially three years after the fact), so Sam added, “Same way I know about fairy tales when you haven’t even seen the non-porno version of Snow White. She-found out I didn’t exactly have the model childhood. Figured I was culturally deprived, and took it upon herself to…educate me or whatever. It’s no big deal.”
He knew something was up when his brother started folding socks-because, seriously? What the hell?-but he really didn’t want to get into the whole, ‘What did you tell her about our family?’ fight or, ‘What? You really thought our childhood sucked so bad you whined about it to your girlfriend?’ or, worst of all, ‘Dad did the best he could, Sam’ which roughly translated meant, ‘I did the best I could, and now you think I fucked it up and failed you.’ So instead, Sam steeled himself and cut Dean off.
“So what about you? How’d you know about Cats?”
“Bite me, that’s how.” Dean shoved their laundry (folded socks forgotten) into a duffle one-handed, slung the whole thing over his shoulder with a tacked-on smile. “C’mon, fairy princess, back to the evil castle we go.”
The disturbed part of Sam that never got enough hugs as a child wanted to ask if Dean was his knight in shining armor, but luckily the logical part won jurisdiction over his mouth. “What, back to Hotel California?”
“You’re really gonna have to get over that-I told you it’s the only place around. The Best Western shut down because the electricity fluctuations are ‘not up to the standards their guests expect.’”
“Good to know our place cares so little about our standards.”
“Hell yeah, Sam, otherwise we’d be sleeping in the car.”
“Hey,” Sam forced himself to ask after the Impala doors had shut on their previous conversation, “What were you talking to Katie about?”
“Who?” The eye-flick sent Sam an engraved letter announcing:
“You know who.” It was worth the effort to make his tone light and uncaring, but it took more out of him than he was honestly expecting. Sam kept his own eyes half-lidded and focused on the laundry bag he was chucking in the backseat so Dean wouldn’t notice anything wrong.
“Oh, right. I needed to get detailed directions to the energy plant for tomorrow, you know, so we don’t get lost in Bumfuck, Nowhere. Plus,” he added with a look that was supposed to make Sam flinch, “you dropped my pie.”
“Mmhm.” Sam was already looking elsewhere. “So…any luck?”
“With what?”
“Getting some?”
“Why, Sam, you sly dog!”
“I’m-I meant more pie,” Sam stammered, the blush he’d almost managed to calm down burning even hotter on his face.
“Yeah, bet you did,” Dean cackled in a low rumble of laughter that did absolutely nothing for Sam’s flush. His seat belt snapped close with a heavy metallic clink, and then Dean was reaching for the keys, twisting nimbly to hear his baby purr.
“You’re the oooonly one for meee!!”
Dean broke a nail lunging for the radio, but only because Sam jammed his finger getting there first.
“God fucking shit goddamn!” Dean snarled, giving his hand a hard shake. “Ow.”
Sam’s weak, obligatory chuckle was the last sound in the car for what felt like the longest ten minutes since…well. Dean was utterly silent, the kind of silent that was designed to make Sam think he was thinking deep, life-altering thoughts until he’d blurt out, “Which do you think would win in a fight: pumpkin pie or strawberry-rhubarb?”
The silence made Sam’s skin crawl, listening to tics in the Impala’s engine and the muffled roll of tires on rain-damp asphalt. He expected-kind of needed-Dean to tease him some more, give him grief about the Berries and Cream incident. That was the Winchester Way. If Dean wasn’t leaping on the opportunity for harassment, it was because he was mad, or because he was hiding something. And the absolute last thing they needed was for Dean to backslide into drinking himself to sleep again.
Sam closed his eyes and prayed for sun tomorrow, so they wouldn’t have to sing in any rain.
Twenty-one years (even with a four year break) sheltered in this car, and Sam developed a fine-tuned system to gauge Dean’s mood by the music. Yeah, they had a limited number of tapes, but Sam doubted Dean realized he DJ-ed to the tune of his emotions. Which songs he skipped, the tapes he picked, even the words he chose to sing along to. Sam planted his knees against the dashboard so he wouldn’t sink in his seat. He hadn’t realized how much they needed the radio to fill in the silence between them until it was gone. Not that he was will to risk punching the power button but-
It hit the same time Dean’s skin visibly crawled at the sound of his baby’s undercarriage brushing the concrete as they pulled into the Danschonne Inn: The song they’d cut off was the same one playing the first time they’d climbed in the Impala after Dean got back from hell.
Fingers fumbling with the packaging, trying to slice open his skin as he tore the converter free and shoved it in place, something aching with hope that Dean wouldn’t allow this to happen, douching up his baby, that he’d come b-
Sam hadn’t actually heard anything the ipod played until Dean turned the ignition.
When he made himself look, Dean was staring thoughtfully up at their hotel, ring thunk-thunking quietly against the steering wheel, tongue back to digging at his right canine. The neon lights stared bleakly back, flickering softly down on Beefy (who still hadn’t finished his car magazine in three fucking hours)-not menacingly, just enough to show they could. The worn carpet in the lobby was a grey reminiscent of zombie skin, and the lone plant in the window had long ago breathed its last. Even though Sam was pretty sure it was plastic.
“Wanna go get a drink?”
“Yeah, that sounds good,” he answered before the question even finished leaving his brother’s mouth. When Dean hit reverse the sound of tires squealing as they tore out of the parking lot could almost be considered music, depending on your opinion of heavy metal.
~*~
Normally, they didn’t drink on a job. But normally they weren’t hoarse from lyrics spilling out of their mouths or blisters from kicking their heels together. What the fuck ever, Sam’s plan was to get drunk. And Dean was screwing with the plan.
He’d already aborted “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk, “Save a Horse, Ride a-Winchester!” (which Dean still thought was hilarious four shots of tequila later), and, even more memorably, “Land Down Under,” after a commercial for Outback Steakhouse struggled through the static on the bar’s TV, and all this was maybe forty-five minutes after the doors swung shut behind them.
All these songs were narrow misses, and the more alcohol Dean pumped into his bloodstream, the harder it was to distract him with a hand over his mouth. The last time his eyes sparked just before he dragged his tongue across Sam’s palm in a long slobbery lick. Which was gross and wrong and yeah, the second time tonight, so he wiped it on Dean’s jacket and made sure his free one was covering his lap.
Sam had a really bad feeling that his own shots were going to make him call Dean a manwhore-and quite possibly stupid and bossy-by the end of the night, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to care. The nausea from near-constant humiliation was wearing off, easing the tension out of muscles that felt tight enough to snap. How could that be wrong?
But with all these stupid songs, Dean was seriously killing his buzz. How the hell was he supposed to enjoy being drunk when he was constantly smashing his injured hand between his knee and their table to kill the words in his own mouth and Dean’s? Especially since-and yeah, this was fun-the first time he’d swallowed a song of his own (‘…maybe we’ll fall before we take flight, maybe you’re all I’ve got to lose…’), something clenched tight in his chest like a demonic two-year-old tugging his ribs into internal organs. And it only got worse the second and third times, too.
So he knew why Dean’s eyes had gone tight in the diner. Awesome.
“Screw it,” he finally snapped, dropping his third empty beer bottle somewhere in the vicinity of a coaster. “’M goin’ for another. Go ahead an’ lose your voice-see if I care.”
“Don’t-leave me this way…" Dean’s fingers caught in his sleeve as Sam stumbled to his feet, but Sam couldn’t hear any music over the dull roar of the crowd. Was Dean just screwing with him? The lopsided smirk kinda supported that idea, especially with Dean sprawling the width of their table, flaunting and languid and acting much drunker than he was, like he thought Sam couldn’t tell. “I can’t survive without your sweet love. Oh, baby, don’t leave me this way…”
“Oops!” A bottle hit the floor and shattered inches from Dean’s boots, shards of glass skittering across the floor as the barmaid (her nametag said Cleo) muttered a couple curse words and sighed in frustration. It was that same redhead from the bathroom, her hair still in twin braids over her shoulders that curled just over her breasts, blue eyes wide and tired and earnestly apologetic. And Sam knew that should mean something, but he could not for the life of him figure out what before she turned away for a broom.
Waitresses dropping things that shattered was apparently always going to short-circuit his brain.
“Great,” he bit off, staring at the mess while his skin pretended not to call. I’ll send the Trickster a fruit basket stayed in his head by the skin of his teeth and a curl of his tongue, and the fact that Dean was touching him.
“Sam.” His brother said his name just a little too…something, but the hand on his shoulder was wide and warm and jerked Sam out of his headspace like nobody’s business. And there was the start of a big ol’ grin on Dean’s face that was gonna be murder to ignore when it spread-kind of like that. “Come on…You know you’re never fully dressed without a smile.”
“Do you honestly think quoting song lyrics is the best plan right now?” Sam demanded a little desperately. He really didn’t want to sing anything from Annie, but also, he wasn’t drunk enough not to notice Dean was trying too hard to make this an enjoyable experience.
“Lighten up, man! This whole singing in the rain trip is kinda fun, don’t you think?”
“Maybe for you,” he grumbled rubbing his chest where the burn from the last song he’d choked back was still gnawing at his sternum.
“What, you got something to hide? Maybe an unhealthy fascination for Disney songs, ehh? C’mon, Sammay…” Sam cringed but Dean seemed oblivious as he backed up, arms spreading wide as the plucked guitar string throbbed out between them, grin lighting up the room as someone in the back blew on a police whistle and Cleo spun on her heels just in time to clap as every patron of the bar slammed down their beers and called, Hoo.
Sam was so fucked.
“Whether it’s rock and roll or old soul,” Dean started, and Sam felt that jello sensation wash over him like he was drowning, that the only thing keeping his head above water was the way he was tied, instantly and permanently, to Dean. There was a lurch somewhere beneath his bellybutton and that tie dragged him to his brother even as he turned away, so he was right there when Dean rocked his hips back.
And later, when the song was winding down and the magic was dripping off his body in beads of sweat, Sam knew the exact moment when Dean came back to himself.
“Kinda missing those conversations that start with, ‘So this killer truck.’”
Dean’s grin slipped when Sam stayed silent, eyes turned down at the edges, fingernails cutting into the slice of Sam’s hips bared by Dean’s grip until he shoved him away with a laugh that was half real cringe and half fake. Sam wasn’t sure which part was worse.
“Grabby bitch,” Dean slurred to Cleo as he slung an arm around her shoulders without skipping a beat. “Always has been. I ‘member this one time when he was four…”
Sam grabbed his coat and left.
~*~
He found the bottle of Jack under Dean’s bag in the backseat, nestled cozily between a Wendy’s wrapper and a cloth for changing oil, and started chugging.
The first time he’d come home from a college party drunk, Jess had informed him that whiskey turned him into a petulant two-year-old. A 6-foot-4 petulant two-year-old. With hair. (Okay, so she’d been a little smashed at the time too.) What he didn’t tell her was that it was November fucking 2nd and the ache in his side from missing his brother felt like someone had torn out his internal organs and told him to carry on as normal.
And now Dean was right there-not twenty feet and one bar door away-and Sam had never missed him more in his life.
Okay, that was not in the least bit true. Whiskey also thrashed his chronological order. Remember that time Dean was ripped to shreds at your feet and his soul dragged kicking and screaming to hell for four months? Yeah, you missed him more then. Or when Dean was gunned down for no fucking good reason after a lifetime of Tuesdays? Life sucked way more then, too. This was just a teeny little gnat on the windshield of his existence. Nothing was gonna change because he’d danced with his brother-granted, a little more on the side of pleasurable than platonic, but still. Nothing to rock the house.
Whiskey fucked with his metaphors too.
“Whoa, Sammy, save some for the road.”
It did, however, put him in a numb sort of zen space that prevented Dean’s face from being smashed in, so Dean should be really freaking grateful and leave him the hell alone.
“Just-go fuck Cleo. Or Katie. Or, y’know, both,” Sam said, almost cheerfully, when Dean started to say something else (he might’ve shoved his hand in Dean’s face for emphasis but that was neither here nor there). “I’ll wait innnn the car.” Huh. When did the word ‘in’ grow so many extra letters?
“Dude.” There was something dark in Dean’s tone, almost warning, and Sam swallowed down a surge of annoyance that noticed Dean was barely tipsy let alone smashed enough to get away with what he’d said in the bar. “What’s your problem?” Translation: “Do we need to talk about this?”
“No!” Sam protested (answering the real question), and whoa, his arms must weigh a ton to throw him off balance when he flung them out like that. “I’m fiiiine. Really! Sppf. Why wouldn’t I be fine? Go. Dude! Assert your masculininity. ‘M fine.” Never mind that he could feel the opening chords to Mr. Brightside thrumming through his veins. Now that one he didn’t need Mister DJ to announce, not when it’d played practically nonstop on the radio the month after Dad died, when neither of them could listen to anything resembling cock rock without going deathly pale.
Good times.
There was an interesting play of emotions skittering around Dean’s expression at the moment: Confusion, mostly, with a healthy dollop of my-brother’s-obviously-lost-his mind and something else Dean wouldn’t make eye-contact for. Then Dean’s head tilted like he was pouring everything out of his skull, and the momentum pulled him toward the Impala. Or something. Sam’s tongue was having fun lapping at the inside of the whiskey bottle, so he was a little distracted.
“Get in the car, Sam.”
“You don’t have to lock me in,” Sam said, caught between a laugh and a pout, “I told you that’d be where I was waiting. Unless…” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder (in the wrong direction) and nearly stumbled back a step. “Want me to meet you at the hotel?”
He thought he was being very reasonable. Far too reasonable for the look Dean was giving him now. His ‘What do you think, moron?’ glare with a twist of ‘Just do what I freaking tell you.’ It was familiar, even brought out and showcased in the post-hell months, but Sam beamed anyway because it was just so nice and awesome that Dean was alive enough to scowl at him.
“Get in the fucking car.” For a moment Dean looked uncertain, staring down at the keys he flipped in his hand before yanking on the driver’s side door. “’M dropping you off.”
Dropping you off. That meant, Leaving you there. That meant, Going back out. Sam hadn’t realized how much he’d been counting on Dean calling it a night. Because Going back out, meant, Fucking Cleo.
He was pretty damn sure Dean couldn’t see his smile turn to ash and blow away through the car as he sat, but his fingers tightened on the steering wheel like he could feel it. It still didn’t change his mind.
Sam took another long, sloppy pull off the bottle before letting it fall out of his hand. And yup, shattered bottles still short-circuited his brain. But it wasn’t enough to completely derail it from the fact that-
Dean was being Dean. How could Dean acting normal be utter and stupid bliss one moment and tear his chest to ribbons the next?
Sam got in the fucking car. When she purred quietly to life, almost like she was afraid to break the silence, neither one of them reached for the radio. But they stared at it hard for a couple of seconds, Dean like he was daring it to come on, Sam daring it to stay silent.
“You know what tomorrow is?” Dean asked suddenly, blunt, fast, low, almost like he didn’t want an answer.
Sam stared at him, willing his eyes not to blur before he scrubbed a hand across them. It wasn’t…Dean’s birthday, or his, or November 2nd, or- “Gimme a hint?”
Dean shook his head, revved the engine, and pulled carefully out of the parking lot. Double careful, actually, since he wasn’t on the sober side of driving.
Sam wanted to pout about his brother caring more about the car than his own well-being, but the whiskey zen made that seem like far too much effort. Especially when he could sprawl against the passenger door and stare at Dean the whole ride back.
With his broodface firmly in place, Dean looked good. With his clothes rumpled from dancing, sweat still sparkling lightly at the curve of his neck where it disappeared into a shirt Sam had been intimately familiar with not twenty minutes ago, Dean looked better. With the scent of Dean still so close to sense memory, Dean was nigh on irresistible.
Okay, bad plan. Sam didn’t realize he was clutching the door handle until Dean asked him if he was gonna puke. He tried to muster a ‘Dude, not that drunk’ roll of the eyes, but it was really better for everyone if he didn’t look at Dean right now. Especially when he was talking, that low voice just the tiniest bit husky from the extra work it’d been through in the last couple hours, and okay husky was not good for Sam to listen too right now ‘cause-
“Sammy?” Dean asked when he didn’t answer, leaning over the steering wheel to get a look at Sam’s face, amulet swinging free of his collar to glint in the dim streetlight. And hell, it was only six inches from that amulet to Dean’s face, less than a flick of the eyelids.
Oh come on.
“I want-" Sam felt his eyes bulge just as he managed to clamp a hand over his own mouth. The jello feeling was back before he knew what was happening, only it was hot this time, like sinking into a tub of near boiling water after standing in the snow, almost-no, definitely painful. He heaved in a breath, lungs shuddering, then just as he thought it wasn’t unbearable, Sam’s veins flooded with heat, yanking, dragging at every cell in him, screaming him towards Dean.
It wasn’t enough to stifle the song with a hand-he hand to clamp his teeth down, ignoring the lip in their way, trying to watch expressions ricochet across Dean’s face as the blood drained out of his own. “F-fuck,” he stammered through his bit lip, doubling over in the seat, “Fuck, Dean, I want-”
“Sam?!” Whoa, that tone meant trouble. Except, wait, Dean was outside his window, tearing open the passenger side door-and you can’t do that while you’re driving. Were they there already? Sam groaned and clutched his gut, falling sideways against Dean-and the heat flared white hot, searing.
“Ow, fuck, ow want-" Sam cut himself off with a cry that sounded a lot more agonized than it was, until it actually did what he wanted it too and the desperation cut through him like a knife. Dean was dragging him to their room (bottom floor, in the back, like always), one arm around his back and the other clutching hard to Sam’s wrist to keep it trapped against his shoulder. Hip to hip, he fumbled with the keys, shirts riding up the smallest bit to press bare skin against bare skin. Sam strangled on a noise that made everything in him feel like it was breaking.
The instant the door was open, Sam broke free of Dean’s grip and shoved him as hard as he could, dropping to a crouch in front of their now closed door. Telekinesis might have been involved. In any case, it was the last shred of control he had left, trying to get Dean as far from him as he possibly could before-
“I want you.”
His heart slammed against his ribcage to the sound of three sharp jerks of a chord. One of his arms stretched out pale and feline in the stuttering lamplight outside their window, palm flat against the floor, nails digging into the cheap green carpet. “I want you so bad…”
Dean was frozen in the shadows, back against the farthest wall where Sam had thrown him, but the shudder that ripped through the room was impossible to decipher. Lust or revulsion-which was worse-it was too fucking dark and Sam’s eyes couldn’t focus long enough to see.
“I want you…” Sam’s shoulders rolled, forcing him to shift on his haunches, awkward angle of his legs dragging a moan from his lungs. “I want you so bad it’s driving me mad, it’s driving me…”
“Sam,” Dean rasped, the older brother tone struggling to break through.
You just need to see Dean’s face. Mr. DJ’s voice stuck in Sam’s ears like they needed to be popped, so unexpected it was enough of a shock to Sam’s system to just barely clear his head. Just get a little closer, just-
Sam threw himself back, away, slamming his shoulder blades and spine against the door, trying to snap himself completely out of it. All it did was force the air out of his lungs.
“I want you,” he gasped, dimly aware that his fist was open-closing, grasping at his side for something across the room. “I want you so bad…”
He just had to make it through the song. The only ‘just’ he needed to accomplish. Dealing with Dean couldn’t even register on his conscience. Except it did.
Oh, god. Sam couldn’t even close his eyes-it took everything he had to stay on his side of the room and not crush Dean against the wall with his extra weight and height and just take him, grind against him until he couldn’t remember anything but Sam’s name, choked out on a gasp as he came wet and hot against the relentless friction of Sam’s hips against his-
The music faltered as a plaintive whine tore its way from Sam’s throat because it hurt, this need, this crazy fucking thing in his guts, burning and pulling and-couldn’t even breathe anymore, had to-
“Sam? Sammy?” Dean caught him when he started crumpling (across the room in a single bound), and Sam thought that was a really stupid idea, which he was going to tell him as soon as he got his tongue out of Dean’s mouth.
What? No…no, no, NO! He ripped his body from Dean’s, dragging in a breath that tore at his lungs like he was drowning. He hadn’t actually kissed him, but god, the thought of it was so vividly imprinted in his brain he might as well have. The hurt was even worse because he hadn’t given in, each word shredding at his tongue and the roof of his mouth trying to claw free.
“I...I want…” Fuck, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t talk let alone sing and it hurt-"G…hurts, De-Ah!”-and the music was furious, boiling, louder and louder every time it skipped because he failed to sing.
“Shh…shh… Sam.” Dean’s voice was rough on Sam’s name, just like the rasp of day-old stubble against Sam’s cheek. Dean had somehow managed to force his hand between the door and Sam’s skull (when or why was a little fuzzy), forcing him to stay still as he brought their heads together, forehead to forehead, solid and unwavering. He’d pinned Sam to the door, shoulder to Sam’s sternum, sideways between splayed, gangly legs, left hand bruising against his little brother’s chest. Bracing.
Sam’s nails sliced through his palms as he tried to keep them to himself and not paw at Dean like a horny cheerleader (then again, knowing Dean, he’d kind of like it. Which was not helping) but he couldn’t help the way his brother had to feel his hardness pressed to Dean’s hip, just enough to feel Dean’s heartbeat thrum against his cock, not enough room to move.
Dean kept him as still as he could, bracing for limited self-inflicted injuries just like the good old times in Sam’s psychic vision heydays. Even though Sam was hard and panting against Dean’s cheek, lips brushing skin as he greedily sucked in Dean-saturated air.
“C’mon, Sam, finish it,” Dean murmured, low and gruff like he was hurting just as much. “Come on…Its driving me mad its-”
“…driving me…” Sam gasped, moaning along with the music as it finally stopped skipping and turned to static mush.
Dean shifted a fraction of an inch, trying to get more comfortable on the floor, and Sam clutched at him, hips stuttering up once, twice, and god he was high on Dean’s scent, the purring tone of his voice, just being so fucking close that-
He froze. There was absolutely nothing that would make this (his head couldn’t even find words for it) okay. One thing to do it under the thrall of a magic spell (yeah words still not working so well) or even a little bit whiskey-saturated, but just to get off… Dean might eventually forgive him, but there was no way they’d be the same. And Sam needed things to be the same. More than he needed an accidental rub off.
Course, it might’ve helped that fighting the song had pretty much drained him of every desire besides the need to sleep, but Sam was going to swear nobility had something to do with it too.
It would be really awesome to pass out now, Sam thought, dimly amused that he was still panting and aching against Dean, just not in the good way.
“Yeah, yeah, hold your horses,” Dean muttered, which made Sam flinch and reconsider how much he’d said out loud. Then Dean’s heat was gone, and Sam struggled to lift his eyelids far enough to see where he went before Dean appeared again under one arm, hands hard over the bruises he’d left the last time he’d hauled him somewhere. Something tugged at Sam’s chest, already battered and raw-Dean shouldn’t have to deal with his crazy ass shit.
“Yeah, well, your crazy ass shit has been part of my life since I hauled your crazy ass out of the fire so-life aint fair.”
He really had to stop saying his thoughts aloud.
“Dude, tell me about it.”
He rolled onto his stomach the instant Dean dropped him on the bed, arms sliding up under the pillow so he could mash it to his face, shirt riding up past his bellybutton. Exhaustion and alcohol swirled through his brain, dragging him under as another emotion pulled him up.
Terror. Oh, fuck. The room was too quiet. Was Dean breathing?
“Dean.” Gruff. Not whiney. “Deeeeeeeeean.” Okay, that was still firmly in his lower register, so not a whine.
“Whaaaaaat?” Dean mocked, and Sam flicked open an eye long enough to see that he was sitting on the other bed, facing him with his elbows on his knees. His heartbeat didn’t really slow all that much.
“Singame?”
“What?”
Yeah, he didn’t really understand that either. Sam frowned, nudging his burning face even further into the pillows as his eyes fell shut, part exhaustion, part humiliation. “Sing. To. Me.”
Dean’s head dropped with a surprised, stifled groan. “Dammit, Sam, what do you think I’ve been doing all day?”
“Singinat other peepol,” Sam muttered into his pillow. Still not whiny, just matter of fact. And if there were tears stinging at his eyelids, he didn’t think Dean saw.
Time passed slowly, like molasses, warm and sticky and uncomfortably dark as Sam slip-slid into memories of Dean, so fucking little and still so big to Sam, tucking him against his side in cheap motel room after cheap motel room, familiar voice turning familiar words into something so much like home that when it was gone- He remembered the look on his father’s face when he whispered, almost in tears around his thumb, that Dean wouldn’t sleep in the same bed with him anymore. Remembered the way John had asked, frowning and surprised, “Do you want him to?”
And Sam said the right answer, even though it was the one that felt wrong.
It’d been quiet so long Sam almost thought Dean wasn’t going to sing when he just…did, voice low and murmured, something about clouds and lines and the color blue. But by that time, Sam was too far gone to do anything but curl up in the melody and let it send him to sleep.
THE END (of part three!)
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ON TO PART FOUR!!