And I Will Sing a Lullaby
Title: And I Will Sing a Lullaby
Summary: Curtain!fic. It's not raining, and Sam's not sleeping. Dean can fix one of those, at least.
Characters: Dean/Sam
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 3,104
Disclaimer: Still not mine
Warnings: Consensual adult sibling incest, no graphic sexual content though
Neurotic Author's Note #1: A long, long time ago, the lovely and talented de_nugis gave me a prompt in her own LJ. It was so long ago that I have, in fact, lost the link. She wanted me to inflict insomnia on one of the boys, and so that's what I did.
Neurotic Author's Note #2: It has been so very long since that prompt, that I am no longer sure this was exactly what was asked. Also, I realize I have been very much leaning Samwards these past few weeks, but that should change in the next little while. Poor Dean's been neglected. ;)
Neurotic Author's Note #3: Unbeta'd, as usual.
Dean isn't surprised to find Sam's side of the bed empty when a nightmare jolts him awake. His heart is hammering painfully against his ribs, saliva pooling unpleasantly under his tongue. He wipes his hands on the bedspread, untangles the sheets where they're wrapped around his calves. He doesn't remember kicking them off. He wonders if he's the reason Sam isn't in bed, if he kicked him or maybe yelled too loudly, even though reason reminds him that Sam wouldn't let him stay asleep if he knew he was trapped in a nightmare.
It takes two tries to switch on the bedside lamp. He swings his legs off the side of the bed, traps his hands between his knees until they stop shaking, feels the sweat cooling on his back in the tiny breeze wafting in through their bedroom window. He's not going to get back to sleep, not now, not like this. Not with the scent of blood still lingering at the back of his nose, even though he knows it's just a memory, the ghost of something long since past.
The house is silent, which means Sam must be outside. Even when he's downstairs, Dean can tell where he is just by the quality of the silence. This silence is filled with Sam's absence, and because he's all by himself with no one to read his expression or his body language Dean lets himself wish Sam was still in bed next to him, too big and too hot, his massive frame sheltering them both from the intrusions of the outside world.
Dean pads down the stairs, kind of absurdly proud that even after all these years and with a bad knee he's still like a fucking cat in the shadows, silent and deadly. Dean Winchester is a goddamned predator, is what he is. He makes a point of opening the front door with no finesse at all, making sure the hinges squeak a little, so Sam will know he's coming. The last thing they need is for him to spook when he's probably already having a bad time of it.
"Sam? You out here?"
It's a stupid question. Of course Sam is out here, perched on the second-to-top step of the veranda, staring up at the sky. The stars aren't visible tonight, hidden behind a thick layer of storm clouds that have been hanging, heavy with promised rain, over half the county for two days or so now. The barometer's been all over the place, resulting in a Sam who's been both extra pissy and withdrawn, trying not to let on that his head is aching even though Dean can see right through him, that he's been sleeping for shit because his whole body is rebelling at this upset of his normal routine.
Dean drops to sit next to his brother, bumps shoulders with him. "You okay?"
Sam turns his head ever so slightly, his forehead already doing that scrunchy thing it does when he's concerned or worried or anxious or sad. "Why are you awake? Did I wake you? I was trying to be quiet..." he starts, when realisation hits. "Oh, God, you had a nightmare and I wasn't -Christ, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have left..."
Dean rolls his eyes and jabs Sam in the ribs with an elbow. "Shut up, Sam, it's fine. I just wondered where you were at, okay? You feeling all right?"
Sam just shrugs, dropping his head just a fraction of an inch. "Couldn't sleep. Sorry," he adds, fiddling with his fingers, like he's trying to rub invisible dirt off them. When Dean leans a little closer, he can feel Sam shaking a little, all his muscles tensed like he's waiting for the sky to fall on his head.
It's been a while since Sam has had a truly bad night. Nightmares are par for the course for both of them, even if they're not as bad as they used to be, but Dean was under the impression that things were starting to get better. But sleep has always been the enemy, as far as Sam is concerned. Dean doesn't know how he's managed it, all these years. He spent one almost entirely sleepless year after Hell, but after that it started to come back, in tiny increments at first, and now he only wakes up from the worst nightmares, maybe one every few months. He can't fathom the notion of living his entire life without sleep.
"You try hot milk?" he jokes, and that gets a smile out of Sam, at least.
It's been the advice of every well-meaning person they've come across in the past ten years, whenever Sam has been too wired to sleep, caught up in flashbacks and half-suppressed memories, walking aimlessly through the streets until exhaustion won out over everything else warring inside his head. At the beginning, it was every single night, Dean remembers. He supposes they're lucky, now.
"You try hot milk," Sam counters, rolling his eyes.
"Or you could come back to bed," Dean offers instead.
It's not a welcome suggestion. He can see that right off the bat. What Sam really wants to do, he knows, is to take off at top speed and just run until he's winded like a horse that's been ridden too hard, until his muscles give out and force him to his knees. Dean used to have to half-carry him home after one of his 'runs,' urge him onto the sofa and ice his feet and ankles before they swelled too badly to allow him to even walk while Sam lay back, one arm draped over his face as though he could somehow shut out the entire world, his whole body still wracked with tremors. At least those days are past, but they're still a long way from being all right. Privately, Dean sometimes thinks that they're never going to be all right ever again, not either of them, and he thinks that Sam thinks the same way, only neither one of them is ever going to admit it to the other. It smacks too much of despair, of giving up, of simply laying down and waiting to die. Neither one of them is ready for that, either.
Sam takes a breath, holds it, considering. Then, slowly, he shakes his head. "I just... I can't. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm trying, I am, I swear. I just... shit."
Dean doesn't say anything. Really, what is there left to say? He just nods, knocks their shoulders together and is just thankful that they've got this, their own front porch and the stars still above their heads, and Sam sitting down and not running off until his feet are bleeding from torn blisters. The porch isn't all that comfortable, and he shifts his weight a few times when splinters threaten to dig into the more vulnerable portions of his anatomy. Sometimes he thinks back longingly to the days when he could still sleep in the Impala and not feel it, but then he thinks about everything else that was happening at the same time and decides it's a pretty good tradeoff.
"You should go back to bed," Sam says softly. What he really means is that he's not going to sleep and that one of them needs to be functional in the morning.
"How's your head?"
Sam shrugs. "Hurts. It'll pass when it rains."
"You want something for it?"
"Hot milk." Sam forces a grin, and Dean rolls his eyes because that's what's expected of him. "Seriously, go sleep. I'm okay."
He's not okay, but he needs Dean to believe it, and so Dean does. He claps him gently on the shoulder, gets painfully to his feet and curses every minute of their stupid lifestyle that wrecked all his joints at an early age -he remembers laughing at a doctor who once asked him if he'd been a professional gymnast- and goes back to bed, leaving Sam alone with the night stars.
It doesn't rain after that, and Sam doesn't sleep. He barely answers when Dean talks to him, pops the pills he takes for his migraines like they're M&Ms, doesn't bother denying it when Dean catches him staring off into space and calls him on it. He plants himself in the tiny office he's set up for himself in the living room, cradles his head in one hand and pretends to work on the website and chat forum he's set up. Dean is the one who holds down the regular job between the two of them, but Sam is the one who mans the phones now, who inherited Bobby's ridiculous and utterly disorganized collection of books and manuscripts and hunting journals and the contents of all four of Bobby's storage lockers. It took the better part of two years for Sam to sort through all of it, but he spent twelve hours a day putting up shelves, sorting papers and labelling folders, setting up filing cabinets and essentially keeping himself busy. Dean saw no reason to stop him then, sees even less reason to stop him now. Sam collects books, does favours for hunters, mans the phones in exchange for all the information they're willing to give him. He's become the go-to guy these days, the guy who knows a guy, and somehow, without Dean ever figuring out how he did it, a million guys 'owe them one' now. Sam calls in favours from people Dean's never even heard of, sometimes, and it makes his whole chest fill with warmth and clench up at the same time, pride and anxiety warring with each other.
On the third night Sam doesn't even bother going to bed, and Dean doesn't sleep either. He sits up with a book, the bedside lamp casting weird shadows on the wall. Clouds have formed, dark and heavy in the sky with no sign of cutting loose, and Sam is pacing in the living room downstairs. At two o'clock Dean gives up, goes down the stairs, interrupts Sam in the middle of a loop. His brother jerks back as though he never even saw him coming, tries to go around him until Dean stops him with a hand on his wrist.
"Hey, that's enough," he says sharply when Sam pulls away. "Come on."
Sam just shakes his head. "No, I just -I need..." he stops, looks away, probably can't even articulate what it is he wants.
"Sammy. Sammy, relax. Just... you've been at this three days straight. Look at you, you're practically vibrating, here."
Sam yanks his hand away, goes back to pacing. "I wish it would rain, already."
"Don't we all. Seriously, come to bed. If I have to, I will force sedatives down your throat like a dog."
Sam's not listening to him, he's just pacing in careful circles. He reaches out every so often to touch a wall, a chair, just enough contact to anchor himself. Dean doesn't know what's going through his mind when he gets like this, but he'd do almost anything to get a glimpse, just so he knows what he's dealing with. He steps in front of Sam again, grabs both his arms.
"Sam!"
His brother bucks like a spooked horse at that, but Dean's always known his weak spots, exploits them shamelessly now to knock him right off his feet onto the floor and holds him there, writhing like a pinned insect. Sam is sleep-deprived and half out of his head, and it makes it all depressingly easy, except for the way his eyes go bright with fear and unshed tears and he shakes his head and just trembles, like he's waiting for something terrible to happen now that he can't move anymore.
"Dean," he whispers. "Dean please. Please, Dean."
It's been ten years and Dean still doesn't know what he wants, so he kisses Sam instead, because that's always been a pretty good substitute for whatever Sam is really missing. Sam kisses him back, even though he's still shaking, raises his head and then lets it fall back hard enough that Dean can hear his skull crack painfully against the floorboards. He lifts his head again, and this time Dean is ready for him, slips his hand behind Sam's head before he can slam it back again, winces as his fingers collide painfully with the floor.
"Hey, quit it," he tells Sam, trying to lock eyes with him. He leans in to kiss him again, cradles the back of his head, holds him close, catches Sam's lip in his teeth and worries at it gently until Sam's distracted enough to simply start moving against him. "There you go," he murmurs against Sam's mouth. "You ready to come with me?"
Sam squirms, shoots a desperate look in the direction of the door. "I don't-"
"We can do this right here, if you want. Would you like that?"
"Dean."
"Sam," Dean mocks.
Sam blinks hard, stares at the ceiling, swallows visibly. "Let go."
"No."
"Dean."
"Sam."
Sam squirms, breath hitching miserably. "Dean, I can't -please."
He rubs at Sam's temple with his thumb. "Okay," he says softly. "Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to let go, and you're going to get up. We're going to go upstairs, you're going to take more meds for your migraine. You're not -and I mean this- going to try to brain yourself on the floor, or on any other hard surface. You are going to lie down on the nice, soft bed, and you are going to stay there, even if you don't sleep, got it?"
He gets a half-nod, and that's good enough for him. He yanks Sam to his feet, braces him when he wavers, nudges him up the stairs, nudges harder every time it feels like Sam is balking. He can feel the moment in which the last of the fight goes out of his brother, the moment in which Sam goes pliant, docile, lets him shove him onto the bed. Dean checks the time, figures it's been long enough since Sam last took his migraine meds, slides one of the tablets under Sam's tongue.
"Hold it there," he tells Sam, but it's not even necessary. "Okay?" he asks, but Sam's too out of it to give him a coherent response. "Okay, not okay. Hold still," he pulls off Sam's clothes, tosses them to the floor -Sam will bitch at him later, no doubt- and reaches for the tube of Icy/Hot he keeps next to the KY in the top drawer. He squirts out a little too much on his hands, but it hardly matters. He nudges Sam's hip with his knee. "Flip," he orders, and Sam, thank God, does as he's told.
It's not the first time he's done this for Sam. The fact of the matter is, his brother's a high-maintenance drama queen control freak, and stupid things like the weather set off every bad thing that still lurks in his mind: Hell and Lucifer and the Cage, and everything before and after that. And sometimes the only thing that works is the very physical reminder that Sam is here, that he's back among the living with Dean, that even if he spent longer down there than up here, up here is more real than down there ever was. And no, he's not going to do it with sex, no matter what the porn online says, Dean is not that kind of guy, okay? Even if both he and Sam really like it otherwise, that's not what this is about.
"Here?" he asks, putting his thumbs where the knots are usually at their worst.
Sam shifts wordlessly, and Dean takes it as a yes. He smooths his hands over Sam's back, spreading the Icy/Hot as evenly as he can, using his palms to smear it over the smooth expanse of skin. He digs his thumbs into the muscles in Sam's back, feels him shudder once and go still under his hands. He starts high on the shoulders, works out each knot as he comes to it, tries not to notice when Sam breaks out in a cold sweat every time he hits a tender spot, makes his touch as gentle as possible when he gets to the thick scar in the middle of his brother's back. Sam makes a muted choking sound, swallows and shifts until Dean places a hand between his shoulder blades to quiet him again.
When all the cream has vanished, absorbed into the skin, Dean moves his hands back up to the back of Sam's head, places his fingertips along the pressure points in his skull, moves his fingers in gentle circles. He can feel Sam's breathing evening out under him, matching his own breaths -not asleep, but easier than he's been in days. Outside, there's a rumble of distant thunder, coming closer with every passing minute. Thank fuck, Dean thinks, and digs his thumbs into the pressure points again, trying to just will Sam to sleep, already.
"I was thinking we should get a swing for the porch, since you like sitting out there so much."
"Yeah, okay." Sam's voice sounds strangled. Dean is willing to bet anything he feels like his head is about to explode from the pressure, and Jesus, why won't it rain already?
"That way you'll be able to rock yourself to sleep there. I could get you a blanky." Outside there's a flash of lightning followed by another crash of thunder, right overhead this time, and Dean breathes a sigh of relief to match Sam's own when the first raindrops hit the roof above them. "It worked when you were three after all."
"Fuck you," Sam manages, but the worst is over now. His eyes are closed, the lines of pain and tension gone from his face. Any second now, Dean tells himself.
"Attaboy."
Dean doesn't bother trying to move Sam from where he is, just settles next to him and pulls the covers over them both, lets his hand stay on Sam's back, where he can feel the rise and fall of his ribcage. Sometime in the night Sam will roll over anyway and wrap himself around Dean like a blanket, a little too hot and a little too heavy and just the right amount of reassuring. Dean lets himself drift, the irregular patter of the rain against the shingles as soothing as the steady sound of Sam's breathing next to him. He smiles up at the ceiling promises himself that, tomorrow, they're both going to sleep in as long as they like.
This entry was originally posted at http://ratherastory.dreamwidth.org/210621.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Summary: Curtain!fic. It's not raining, and Sam's not sleeping. Dean can fix one of those, at least.
Characters: Dean/Sam
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 3,104
Disclaimer: Still not mine
Warnings: Consensual adult sibling incest, no graphic sexual content though
Neurotic Author's Note #1: A long, long time ago, the lovely and talented de_nugis gave me a prompt in her own LJ. It was so long ago that I have, in fact, lost the link. She wanted me to inflict insomnia on one of the boys, and so that's what I did.
Neurotic Author's Note #2: It has been so very long since that prompt, that I am no longer sure this was exactly what was asked. Also, I realize I have been very much leaning Samwards these past few weeks, but that should change in the next little while. Poor Dean's been neglected. ;)
Neurotic Author's Note #3: Unbeta'd, as usual.
Dean isn't surprised to find Sam's side of the bed empty when a nightmare jolts him awake. His heart is hammering painfully against his ribs, saliva pooling unpleasantly under his tongue. He wipes his hands on the bedspread, untangles the sheets where they're wrapped around his calves. He doesn't remember kicking them off. He wonders if he's the reason Sam isn't in bed, if he kicked him or maybe yelled too loudly, even though reason reminds him that Sam wouldn't let him stay asleep if he knew he was trapped in a nightmare.
It takes two tries to switch on the bedside lamp. He swings his legs off the side of the bed, traps his hands between his knees until they stop shaking, feels the sweat cooling on his back in the tiny breeze wafting in through their bedroom window. He's not going to get back to sleep, not now, not like this. Not with the scent of blood still lingering at the back of his nose, even though he knows it's just a memory, the ghost of something long since past.
The house is silent, which means Sam must be outside. Even when he's downstairs, Dean can tell where he is just by the quality of the silence. This silence is filled with Sam's absence, and because he's all by himself with no one to read his expression or his body language Dean lets himself wish Sam was still in bed next to him, too big and too hot, his massive frame sheltering them both from the intrusions of the outside world.
Dean pads down the stairs, kind of absurdly proud that even after all these years and with a bad knee he's still like a fucking cat in the shadows, silent and deadly. Dean Winchester is a goddamned predator, is what he is. He makes a point of opening the front door with no finesse at all, making sure the hinges squeak a little, so Sam will know he's coming. The last thing they need is for him to spook when he's probably already having a bad time of it.
"Sam? You out here?"
It's a stupid question. Of course Sam is out here, perched on the second-to-top step of the veranda, staring up at the sky. The stars aren't visible tonight, hidden behind a thick layer of storm clouds that have been hanging, heavy with promised rain, over half the county for two days or so now. The barometer's been all over the place, resulting in a Sam who's been both extra pissy and withdrawn, trying not to let on that his head is aching even though Dean can see right through him, that he's been sleeping for shit because his whole body is rebelling at this upset of his normal routine.
Dean drops to sit next to his brother, bumps shoulders with him. "You okay?"
Sam turns his head ever so slightly, his forehead already doing that scrunchy thing it does when he's concerned or worried or anxious or sad. "Why are you awake? Did I wake you? I was trying to be quiet..." he starts, when realisation hits. "Oh, God, you had a nightmare and I wasn't -Christ, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have left..."
Dean rolls his eyes and jabs Sam in the ribs with an elbow. "Shut up, Sam, it's fine. I just wondered where you were at, okay? You feeling all right?"
Sam just shrugs, dropping his head just a fraction of an inch. "Couldn't sleep. Sorry," he adds, fiddling with his fingers, like he's trying to rub invisible dirt off them. When Dean leans a little closer, he can feel Sam shaking a little, all his muscles tensed like he's waiting for the sky to fall on his head.
It's been a while since Sam has had a truly bad night. Nightmares are par for the course for both of them, even if they're not as bad as they used to be, but Dean was under the impression that things were starting to get better. But sleep has always been the enemy, as far as Sam is concerned. Dean doesn't know how he's managed it, all these years. He spent one almost entirely sleepless year after Hell, but after that it started to come back, in tiny increments at first, and now he only wakes up from the worst nightmares, maybe one every few months. He can't fathom the notion of living his entire life without sleep.
"You try hot milk?" he jokes, and that gets a smile out of Sam, at least.
It's been the advice of every well-meaning person they've come across in the past ten years, whenever Sam has been too wired to sleep, caught up in flashbacks and half-suppressed memories, walking aimlessly through the streets until exhaustion won out over everything else warring inside his head. At the beginning, it was every single night, Dean remembers. He supposes they're lucky, now.
"You try hot milk," Sam counters, rolling his eyes.
"Or you could come back to bed," Dean offers instead.
It's not a welcome suggestion. He can see that right off the bat. What Sam really wants to do, he knows, is to take off at top speed and just run until he's winded like a horse that's been ridden too hard, until his muscles give out and force him to his knees. Dean used to have to half-carry him home after one of his 'runs,' urge him onto the sofa and ice his feet and ankles before they swelled too badly to allow him to even walk while Sam lay back, one arm draped over his face as though he could somehow shut out the entire world, his whole body still wracked with tremors. At least those days are past, but they're still a long way from being all right. Privately, Dean sometimes thinks that they're never going to be all right ever again, not either of them, and he thinks that Sam thinks the same way, only neither one of them is ever going to admit it to the other. It smacks too much of despair, of giving up, of simply laying down and waiting to die. Neither one of them is ready for that, either.
Sam takes a breath, holds it, considering. Then, slowly, he shakes his head. "I just... I can't. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm trying, I am, I swear. I just... shit."
Dean doesn't say anything. Really, what is there left to say? He just nods, knocks their shoulders together and is just thankful that they've got this, their own front porch and the stars still above their heads, and Sam sitting down and not running off until his feet are bleeding from torn blisters. The porch isn't all that comfortable, and he shifts his weight a few times when splinters threaten to dig into the more vulnerable portions of his anatomy. Sometimes he thinks back longingly to the days when he could still sleep in the Impala and not feel it, but then he thinks about everything else that was happening at the same time and decides it's a pretty good tradeoff.
"You should go back to bed," Sam says softly. What he really means is that he's not going to sleep and that one of them needs to be functional in the morning.
"How's your head?"
Sam shrugs. "Hurts. It'll pass when it rains."
"You want something for it?"
"Hot milk." Sam forces a grin, and Dean rolls his eyes because that's what's expected of him. "Seriously, go sleep. I'm okay."
He's not okay, but he needs Dean to believe it, and so Dean does. He claps him gently on the shoulder, gets painfully to his feet and curses every minute of their stupid lifestyle that wrecked all his joints at an early age -he remembers laughing at a doctor who once asked him if he'd been a professional gymnast- and goes back to bed, leaving Sam alone with the night stars.
It doesn't rain after that, and Sam doesn't sleep. He barely answers when Dean talks to him, pops the pills he takes for his migraines like they're M&Ms, doesn't bother denying it when Dean catches him staring off into space and calls him on it. He plants himself in the tiny office he's set up for himself in the living room, cradles his head in one hand and pretends to work on the website and chat forum he's set up. Dean is the one who holds down the regular job between the two of them, but Sam is the one who mans the phones now, who inherited Bobby's ridiculous and utterly disorganized collection of books and manuscripts and hunting journals and the contents of all four of Bobby's storage lockers. It took the better part of two years for Sam to sort through all of it, but he spent twelve hours a day putting up shelves, sorting papers and labelling folders, setting up filing cabinets and essentially keeping himself busy. Dean saw no reason to stop him then, sees even less reason to stop him now. Sam collects books, does favours for hunters, mans the phones in exchange for all the information they're willing to give him. He's become the go-to guy these days, the guy who knows a guy, and somehow, without Dean ever figuring out how he did it, a million guys 'owe them one' now. Sam calls in favours from people Dean's never even heard of, sometimes, and it makes his whole chest fill with warmth and clench up at the same time, pride and anxiety warring with each other.
On the third night Sam doesn't even bother going to bed, and Dean doesn't sleep either. He sits up with a book, the bedside lamp casting weird shadows on the wall. Clouds have formed, dark and heavy in the sky with no sign of cutting loose, and Sam is pacing in the living room downstairs. At two o'clock Dean gives up, goes down the stairs, interrupts Sam in the middle of a loop. His brother jerks back as though he never even saw him coming, tries to go around him until Dean stops him with a hand on his wrist.
"Hey, that's enough," he says sharply when Sam pulls away. "Come on."
Sam just shakes his head. "No, I just -I need..." he stops, looks away, probably can't even articulate what it is he wants.
"Sammy. Sammy, relax. Just... you've been at this three days straight. Look at you, you're practically vibrating, here."
Sam yanks his hand away, goes back to pacing. "I wish it would rain, already."
"Don't we all. Seriously, come to bed. If I have to, I will force sedatives down your throat like a dog."
Sam's not listening to him, he's just pacing in careful circles. He reaches out every so often to touch a wall, a chair, just enough contact to anchor himself. Dean doesn't know what's going through his mind when he gets like this, but he'd do almost anything to get a glimpse, just so he knows what he's dealing with. He steps in front of Sam again, grabs both his arms.
"Sam!"
His brother bucks like a spooked horse at that, but Dean's always known his weak spots, exploits them shamelessly now to knock him right off his feet onto the floor and holds him there, writhing like a pinned insect. Sam is sleep-deprived and half out of his head, and it makes it all depressingly easy, except for the way his eyes go bright with fear and unshed tears and he shakes his head and just trembles, like he's waiting for something terrible to happen now that he can't move anymore.
"Dean," he whispers. "Dean please. Please, Dean."
It's been ten years and Dean still doesn't know what he wants, so he kisses Sam instead, because that's always been a pretty good substitute for whatever Sam is really missing. Sam kisses him back, even though he's still shaking, raises his head and then lets it fall back hard enough that Dean can hear his skull crack painfully against the floorboards. He lifts his head again, and this time Dean is ready for him, slips his hand behind Sam's head before he can slam it back again, winces as his fingers collide painfully with the floor.
"Hey, quit it," he tells Sam, trying to lock eyes with him. He leans in to kiss him again, cradles the back of his head, holds him close, catches Sam's lip in his teeth and worries at it gently until Sam's distracted enough to simply start moving against him. "There you go," he murmurs against Sam's mouth. "You ready to come with me?"
Sam squirms, shoots a desperate look in the direction of the door. "I don't-"
"We can do this right here, if you want. Would you like that?"
"Dean."
"Sam," Dean mocks.
Sam blinks hard, stares at the ceiling, swallows visibly. "Let go."
"No."
"Dean."
"Sam."
Sam squirms, breath hitching miserably. "Dean, I can't -please."
He rubs at Sam's temple with his thumb. "Okay," he says softly. "Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to let go, and you're going to get up. We're going to go upstairs, you're going to take more meds for your migraine. You're not -and I mean this- going to try to brain yourself on the floor, or on any other hard surface. You are going to lie down on the nice, soft bed, and you are going to stay there, even if you don't sleep, got it?"
He gets a half-nod, and that's good enough for him. He yanks Sam to his feet, braces him when he wavers, nudges him up the stairs, nudges harder every time it feels like Sam is balking. He can feel the moment in which the last of the fight goes out of his brother, the moment in which Sam goes pliant, docile, lets him shove him onto the bed. Dean checks the time, figures it's been long enough since Sam last took his migraine meds, slides one of the tablets under Sam's tongue.
"Hold it there," he tells Sam, but it's not even necessary. "Okay?" he asks, but Sam's too out of it to give him a coherent response. "Okay, not okay. Hold still," he pulls off Sam's clothes, tosses them to the floor -Sam will bitch at him later, no doubt- and reaches for the tube of Icy/Hot he keeps next to the KY in the top drawer. He squirts out a little too much on his hands, but it hardly matters. He nudges Sam's hip with his knee. "Flip," he orders, and Sam, thank God, does as he's told.
It's not the first time he's done this for Sam. The fact of the matter is, his brother's a high-maintenance drama queen control freak, and stupid things like the weather set off every bad thing that still lurks in his mind: Hell and Lucifer and the Cage, and everything before and after that. And sometimes the only thing that works is the very physical reminder that Sam is here, that he's back among the living with Dean, that even if he spent longer down there than up here, up here is more real than down there ever was. And no, he's not going to do it with sex, no matter what the porn online says, Dean is not that kind of guy, okay? Even if both he and Sam really like it otherwise, that's not what this is about.
"Here?" he asks, putting his thumbs where the knots are usually at their worst.
Sam shifts wordlessly, and Dean takes it as a yes. He smooths his hands over Sam's back, spreading the Icy/Hot as evenly as he can, using his palms to smear it over the smooth expanse of skin. He digs his thumbs into the muscles in Sam's back, feels him shudder once and go still under his hands. He starts high on the shoulders, works out each knot as he comes to it, tries not to notice when Sam breaks out in a cold sweat every time he hits a tender spot, makes his touch as gentle as possible when he gets to the thick scar in the middle of his brother's back. Sam makes a muted choking sound, swallows and shifts until Dean places a hand between his shoulder blades to quiet him again.
When all the cream has vanished, absorbed into the skin, Dean moves his hands back up to the back of Sam's head, places his fingertips along the pressure points in his skull, moves his fingers in gentle circles. He can feel Sam's breathing evening out under him, matching his own breaths -not asleep, but easier than he's been in days. Outside, there's a rumble of distant thunder, coming closer with every passing minute. Thank fuck, Dean thinks, and digs his thumbs into the pressure points again, trying to just will Sam to sleep, already.
"I was thinking we should get a swing for the porch, since you like sitting out there so much."
"Yeah, okay." Sam's voice sounds strangled. Dean is willing to bet anything he feels like his head is about to explode from the pressure, and Jesus, why won't it rain already?
"That way you'll be able to rock yourself to sleep there. I could get you a blanky." Outside there's a flash of lightning followed by another crash of thunder, right overhead this time, and Dean breathes a sigh of relief to match Sam's own when the first raindrops hit the roof above them. "It worked when you were three after all."
"Fuck you," Sam manages, but the worst is over now. His eyes are closed, the lines of pain and tension gone from his face. Any second now, Dean tells himself.
"Attaboy."
Dean doesn't bother trying to move Sam from where he is, just settles next to him and pulls the covers over them both, lets his hand stay on Sam's back, where he can feel the rise and fall of his ribcage. Sometime in the night Sam will roll over anyway and wrap himself around Dean like a blanket, a little too hot and a little too heavy and just the right amount of reassuring. Dean lets himself drift, the irregular patter of the rain against the shingles as soothing as the steady sound of Sam's breathing next to him. He smiles up at the ceiling promises himself that, tomorrow, they're both going to sleep in as long as they like.
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