Gift For lizzywinks

[aramuin]

Title: Not To Keep
Author: aramuin
Rating: R
Warnings: Post-Apocalypic, First-Time
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Word Count: 4623
Summary: "Not even Dean at his brashest ever seriously planned for a future where they survived."
Disclaimer: Not mine, property of Kripke & Co.
Prompt: For lizzywinks: Micheal taking something from Dean,


Thirty seconds after the Apocalypse fails to happen, Sam has his brother's collar in his fist and he's running for the Impala. It isn't a plan, isn't anything but the burning need to get away. He leaves Heaven and Hell like fading ghosts behind him, the last of the angels and demons still trying to find a way to get to each other.

"Can't fuckin' believe that worked." He says as he opens the passenger door, fingers clumsy and Dean is dead weight against his shoulder. Sam curses again, fumbling to check for a pulse. Dean's throat is slick with blood and too-hot under his fingertips but Dean's breathing. He climbs in, dragging Dean across the seat; terrified to believe that it's actually over. He points the car south and floors it, hyper-aware of Dean's shallow breathing against his neck. He doesn't look back and he doesn't take his foot off the gas until they hit South Dakota.

The Impala's running on fumes and the sun's coming up as he pulls up outside Bobby's. Sam's eyes are red and sandy from the sleep he hasn't gotten. Dean is still slumped against him, breathing and warm but unresponsive. Sam doesn't know what he's going to do if Bobby slams the door in his face. God knows, they don't have anywhere else to go if Bobby does.

The fucked up part of it is that Sam wouldn't blame the man for not wanting to deal with yet another Winchester fuck-up but he's still capable of hope, which is surprising. He hopes that Bobby will put Dean's safety over his anger. Sam will take whatever Bobby wants to say, wants to do and more if Bobby will just help Dean. He leans into the wheel and closes his eyes. He'd pray, if he still believed there was anyone worth the effort. He feels used up and ragged with the effort of holding together. Dean's a solid, flesh-warm weight against him and Sam thinks that maybe he won't go knock on Bobby's door. He'll just stay here and thank blind dumb luck that his brother's alive.

It's a good plan and he's just about committed to it when he hears a wheel squeak near the door. It takes more effort to lift his head than it did to cast out Lucifer but the clammy feeling in his stomach, the dread of what could go wrong; that's the same. He turns his head enough to meet Bobby's shadowed eyes. The old hunter looks at him then his eyes slide down to where Dean's face is pressed to Sam's pulse and Sam can't read anything in his face.

Bobby huffs, then reverses himself with a deft twist of his wrist. "I ain't haulin' his ass in so you're on your own for that. Reckon you know where the bedroom is."

"I-Yeah." Sam breathes. He is actually too tired to smile but he gives it his best shot as he loops his arm under Dean's ribs and hauls them both out of the car. Dean feels like he weighs a metric ton and the ground slips sideways every time Sam gets a foot on it, threatening to take him with it. He doesn't remember exactly how he gets them inside much less up the neck-breaking death-trap that Bobby calls stairs. He does remember the fresh sheets and the fleeting curiousity about how Bobby managed that.

He wakes up the day after that with a pounding headache, the taste of something foul and long dead sour on his tongue and a burning need to pee. He has to scramble over his brother to make it to the bathroom and he nearly doesn't manage it before his bladder overloads. The bathroom is tiny; Sam outgrew it when he was fifteen but it means that he doesn't have to work to stand straight while he pees. Just slumps sideways into the grubby tiles and closes his eyes for a second.

Bobby's made coffee, the smell making Sam's mouth water. Sam's gut tightens and he frowns when Dean doesn't even twitch. His brother is sprawled out across the whole bed as if Sam was the only thing keeping him in place. His breathing is even if not as deep as Sam would have liked but his skin is pink and healthy and he looks peaceful. It doesn't make it any easier to leave him upstairs but Sam's stomach is hollow and the least he can do to repay Bobby is go pay his respects.

Breakfast passes in silence, Bobby is polite but distant and Sam can't make the mental leap to overcome that. He eats slowly, chewing Bobby's boot-leather bacon and poking apathetically at the greasy eggs. His brain is sluggish, thoughts plodding along in hazy loops. Sam is half-planning the next step, checking down the list of libraries and relics for what they'll need before he remembers that there isn't one. Not even Dean at his brashest ever seriously planned for a future where they survived.

Sam's appetite wanes after about half an hour. He mutters something to Bobby and shuffles back upstairs. Dean hasn't moved and the sunlight casts sharp-edged shadows in the groove of his brows. Sam sighs and drops to sit beside his brother. Dean rolls into him and Sam wrinkles his nose. "Dude, you reek."

No response but Sam keeps talking. He tells Dean that his feet stink as he unlaces his boots, bitches about cheap-ass Walmart jeans when they rip as Sam rolls him over and spends fifteen minutes pointing out every flaw in AC/DC's entire back catalogue as he pulls the filthy cotton "Black Ice" shirt that he bought for Dean's birthday.

He has to stop to breathe when Dean, boneless and passive, sprawls across the bed. The sunlight is unforgiving and Sam's fingers brush the edges of the scar. Castiel's hand-print looks faded, almost washed out in comparison. There is a part of Sam that is savagely pleased with that. He has Dean's shirts pooled in his lap and he looks down, away from the vivid red lines across Dean's throat.

Dean never talked about the scar Castiel gave him and Sam wonders if Castiel burnt Dean's clothes away. Micheal didn't.

Dean stays unconscious for the next two days. Sam gets some soup into him (gets more soup onto the pillows and his shirt), cleans him and hovers when some of Bobby's friends - doctors - check him over. He itches with the urge to throw them out and he has to dig his fingers into the doorframe to keep from slapping their hands away as they poke his brother and talk in hushed voices. They don't say anything to him until they're downstairs with Bobby.

Sam doesn't hear more than one word in three but he hears the important ones. "Okay" and "Positive prognosis". There's others but the heart of it is that Dean will be better.

The haze of relief carries him through the rest of the week. Sam sleeps heavily when he sleeps at all and he doesn't remember any nightmares. He still sleeps in the bed with Dean despite the fact that they haven't fitted comfortably since Dean's first growth spurt. He eats and helps Bobby out with scut work. Sam doesn't have Dean's knack for mechanics but he's been helping Bobby out since he was five. He won't leave the yard or do anything that doesn't let him take two minutes every fifteen to go check on his brother.

Bobby doesn't comment but the texture of his silence changes over time, mellows out a bit. He still doesn't talk beyond a grunted good morning and gruff instructions for what Sam needs to do. His eyes still follow Sam around the junkyard but he stops watering Sam's beer with holy water about day two and doesn't redraw the Devil's Traps after day four.

Bobby doesn't like him because Sam nearly got his brother killed or worse and Sam's oddly okay with that. Sam's glad, even if the tiny part of him that isn't locked in perpetual orbit around his brother's wellbeing wishes that he could just rewind time and make everything easy again because now Sam can know for sure that Bobby, when it comes right down to the wire, will pick Dean. Sam loves the man for that.

The truce steadies and solidifies without either of them actually saying anything and Sam does all his talking to Dean. There's a lot he needs to say that Dean won't want to hear so Sam treats this as his practice run. He starts with 'sorry' because that's the one that he won't be able to swallow back once Dean's awake. Monologuing about how sorry he is that Micheal nearly tore Dean's heart out. He promises that he's not going to be so fucking stupid ever again. He doesn't say anything about Micheal's mental breakdown or how Lucifer grabbed him. The whole thing gets old the first time.

Next is 'you fucking idiot' because Sam's sick of sitting at his brother's bedside with his heart in his throat and his eyes burning. No more martyrdom, no more stupid risks and above all, no more fucking secrets. Sam knows that he can't keep doing this and that the next time his brother is hurt, Sam is going to kill somebody.

"We're fucking done, you hear me, Dean?" He says on the sixth night, tangled up in his brother's slack limbs. "We've killed enough evil sons of bitches and we saved the fucking world. We're done."

He's shaking with the force of it and he wraps tighter around Dean, pressing his lips to his brother's temple. "I'm not losing you. Not to anyone."

Sam's still a Winchester and even with a captive (and comatose) audience, there's stuff he's never going to talk about. He's not sure how much of his monologues will translate once Dean's awake and giving him shit. He is sure of one thing; Dean's stuck with him. Sam didn't get his brother through the Apocalypse to lose him now.

The next morning, Dean wakes up.

Ironically, Sam nearly misses it. Dean doesn't move and Sam's rolling him over, planning a shower because he's getting a little ripe. He rolls Dean into the sunbeam streaming through the window and Dean flinches. It's a tiny movement that Sam wouldn't have seen but he's got a hand on Dean's neck and he feels it. When he looks down, Dean's eyes are half-open.

"Dean?" Sam's voice cracks.

Dean's eyes flutter closed and Sam's grip on his brother's face tightens. His brother huffs and brings a hand up to bat weakly at Sam's hand.

"C'mon, man. Rise and shine already." Sam's smile is watery but as Dean rolls his head sideways, his answering smile lights up the whole damn room.

Dean is weak, not surprisingly, and hungry which isn't a surprise at all. Bobby fries some chicken as Sam carries his brother downstairs. Dean's legs work but Sam isn't sure they can hold him. Dean rolls his eyes but puts an arm around Sam's shoulder with a put-upon sigh. His eyes light up when he sees the food and Sam nearly drops him when he tries to wiggle loose.

Bobby snatches off his cap and spins his wheelchair away so he looks to be looking out the window. Sam can see his eyes and he looks away. Dean, already elbow deep in his breakfast, doesn't pay either of them any attention.

Sam coasts through the morning on a wave of relief, setting Dean up on a deckchair on the back porch while he and Bobby work on the beat-up Mustang that Bobby's putting through a service. Dean, armed with iced water and mostly-fresh cookies, doesn't object to being left to his own devices and within an hour, both Bobby's new dogs are settled at his feet. Sam's so relieved that it isn't until nearly noon that he realises Dean hasn't spoken a word.

He and Bobby try to draw Dean out over lunch but Dean just blinks, his eyes huge in his thin face and shakes his head when Sam begs him to say something. There's something sorrowful in his eyes that makes Sam's heart skip a beat. Bobby calls his friends and they're there before dusk.

Dean curls in on himself like a wounded animal the second he hears the engine outside.He's wearing Sam's clothes which are too big for him at the best of times but hang off his shoulders like a circus tent right now. He doesn't actively protest but Sam has to hold him when the two men come inside.

Dean feels tiny in his arms; Sam's hand seems to wrap all the way around his chest, Dean's ribs bracketing his fingers and Dean's racing heartbeat under the heel of his hand. Sam tenses every time Dean flinches and his shoulders are bunched steel cables by the time the two men nod their satisfaction and stand back. Dean's shaking and he's hanging onto Sam's shirt with both hands white-knuckled and he's breathing in short sharp gasps, just shy of hyperventilating.

By the time Sam has him calmed down, the men are gone and Bobby's slouched in his chair, with an open bottle of cheap-ass bourbon in his hand. Sam twists his neck to look at the man. "Bobby?"

"Fucking sons of bitches, I swear." Bobby takes a long pull from the bottle. His eyes are over bright. "They took his fucking voice, Sam. Burnt it right out of his goddamn throat."

"The angels." Sam says flatly as Dean stiffens in his arms. Bobby nods and takes another pull from the bottle. "Is there anything we can do?"

"Not a goddamn thing." Bobby rubs at his eyes. "I'm sorry, kiddo."

Dean drops his head to rest against Sam's shoulder and Sam feels the shuddering breath gust against his shirt. Sam hangs on tight. "I'm not."

Dean jerks back from him. There's hurt in his eyes and his face is painful blank; he looks betrayed and that's not what Sam meant. Sam grabs at his shirt and Dean knocks his hands away. Sam tries hang onto his brother but Dean shoves him away and disappears upstairs, leaving Sam in a heap on the floorboards. "Dean!"

Bobby looks down at him and shakes his head. He does offer Sam the bottle. "Best let him cool off, I think."

Sam wants to go after Dean but he grabs the bottle instead. The bourbon burns all the way down, settling into a slow smolder in his gut. He finishes the last third and chucks the bottle into one of the piles of old parchment and empty beer cans. His voice is bitter to his own ears. "I'm not."

Dean avoids him for the rest of the day but when Sam goes up to bed, Dean is a blanket wrapped bundle crowded up against the wall. He's gone when Sam wakes up but there's breakfast on the table and Bobby is settled on the porch, tinkering with a dismantled radio. He nods to Sam. "He's in the yard. Damned if I know what he's looking for."

Sam gets close enough to be sure that Dean's okay, making sure that Dean doesn't overdo it but he doesn't get close enough to touch because he knows this feeling, this itchy needy thing that keeps pushing for one more step. If he touches Dean, he's not going to be able to let go. Sam's an addict and he's just smart enough to spot temptation when he brushes it with his fingertips.

He skirts around Dean, an erratic but fixed orbit for the next two weeks. The first week is rough, Dean not quite strong enough to meet his own unforgiving standards and bristling at every hand lifted towards him. Bobby watches them and grunts occasionally without ever offering an opinion It's not like him. Sam would care more but he's totally focused on Dean, learning this new, honed version of his brother. It's freaky how fast he adapts to Dean's silence. Not that Dean's ever really needed his voice to communicate; he's the most expressive person that Sam's ever met.

Dean spends a lot of time training, building back up his strength to something approaching his pre-Micheal days. He takes over the cooking (and Sam offers a broad-spectrum prayer for that cause he and Bobby can't cook beans) and prowls along behind Bobby through the yard, taking over the more complex jobs without being asked.

Sam...researches. The lore on angels is spotty where it isn't outright self-serving bullshit which doesn't help. He isn't entirely surprised to find out that Bobby's nameless friends were right; this isn't' something he can fix. Angels aren't supposed to just take hosts and while Sam gets why Micheal couldn't keep his distance, just another moth sucked into Dean's flickering flame, reading the descriptions of 'failed assumptions' as they're called makes Sam's blood run cold.

Dean's lucky to be alive.

Sam tests the theory, Dean sullen but obliging enough to work through Sam's home-brew tests. He can grunt, sigh and even hum but he can't do more than shape words with his mouth. Sam pretends to take pages of notes, just so he doesn't have to look into Dean's devastated eyes.

Dean pushes him back a few steps further after that and Sam lets his brother edge him out into a wider orbit. He's more familiar than he ever wanted to be with Dean's grieving mechanisms. He doesn't let Dean push him away completely, hovering just inside arm's reach and spending each night wrapped around Dean, dreams filled with hazy terror and the chill inhuman frost of Micheal's eyes looking out of Dean's face.

Sam wakes one morning and Dean isn't gone. His big brother is lying in his arms and for a second, Sam's terrified that he's sick or back in the coma. Before his heart seizes altogether, Dean shifts a little and looks up at him. His face is calm, serious but Sam can't read anything in his eyes. Dean puts a hand in the center of Sam's chest, Sam's heart skips a beat (and seriously, Sam's gonna have a cardiac incident if Dean doesn't stop sweeping the ground out from under his feet).

Then Dean shoves him out of bed. Sam hits the ground flailing and Dean snorts, the cocky smirk that Sam associates with his big brother the asshole spreading across his face. Sam can practically hear the 'No cuddling, bitch.' as Dean hops nimbly over him to steal the first shower.

It gets a lot easier after that - Sam learns to read Dean's moods through the tempo of his breathing. Dean actually growls a little, just barely audible when he's pissed and he pants a little when he's excited. Rasping breath means Dean's gotten himself snagged on the jagged edge of an old memory and Sam's reaching out to rub a thumb across the fine hairs at the back of Dean's neck. Dean's breathing echoes the pattern of his laughter when he's happy and Sam's brain can paste the memory of his brother's actual laughter in.

Dean starts wearing the leather jacket as the weather cools and even the way it squeaks is woven into the new language. It tickles Sam's pride and becomes something he doesn't need to think about, like the sound of his own breathing Sam can track Dean's mood from clear across the house by the end of the month even if it takes a while to figure out what exactly Dean's saying. Sam's content to idle along but Dean's always been a high-gear, highway to the horizon kinda guy. Sam just forgets that for a while.

"Hey, Bobby?" Sam says one evening as they're playing poker. Dean looks up but Bobby keeps his eyes on his cards, shuffling them thoughtfully.

"Yes, Sam?"

"Been thinking...it's probably time for us to get going."

Bobby doesn't look up. "You got some place to be that I don't know about, Sam?"

Sam looks at Dean who's working hard to keep his expression neutral but there's a fierce joyful light in his eyes that makes Sam's shoulders straighten and he nods. Sam bites back the smile. "We got people out there who need saving, Bobby. And there's still a lot of evil sons-of-bitches out there."

Bobby puts down his cards and looks at Dean who isn't even pretending to be interested in the cards. Dean's looking at Bobby and Sam bites down the sour surge of jealousy because Dean wants this, needs it but he wants Bobby's blessing, clear as day. Sam isn't sure he'll ever be able to come back if Bobby can't give it.

Bobby sighs gustily. "You boys call me. None of this 'didn't want to bother you' bullshit. You get your asses in a sling, I wanna know about it ASAP. I ain't up to surprises no more, you hear me?"

"We hear you, Bobby." Sam says, unnecessarily as Dean lights up.

The poker game is forgotten as they start talking about cases, weapons and lines of credit. Bobby oversees the packing and they shoot the shit as Sam helps his brother bundle their lives up all over again. Bobby thinks there's a case in Florida and Sam claps a hand over Dean's mouth to cut off the wang jokes before he remembers that Dean can't speak.

Dean doesn't seem to catch Sam's stutter, eyes bright with mischief. He flicks his tongue out, slobbering over Sam's palm and falling over laughing when Sam jerks back reflexively. Bobby's snorting into his Irish coffee and Dean is still laughing as Sam scoots a little back. His hand curls and Sam stammers a little. He's flushed, a little too hot with a flare of interest making his dick twitch.

He goes upstairs to grab their clean clothes and freak out a little. Dean's licked him before, usually in the middle of being an asshole or just to gross Sam out. It's never gotten Sam hot and bothered before. Sam frets away at it as they finish packing and Dean flops into bed.

Sam's got no real illusions left; he's got a fucking doctorate in denial and he's a possessive son-of-a-bitch. He's lived through hell and lost nearly everyone and everything he cares about. Dean's the only thing Sam's ever really had faith in, the only thing that Sam's never lost for real. He's come close and just thinking about it makes his fingers twitch with the urge to grab Dean, hold him so close that even God can't pry them apart.

He startles when a hand closes around the ball of his shoulder and he looks up to meet Dean's concerned eyes and, holy shit, Dean shouldn't be this close to him right now. Dean's soft around the edges, hair mussed and rumpled with his over-shirt peeled off and the top button of his jeans unfastened. He's temptation incarnate and Sam jerks his head to the side so he isn't looking at Dean.

Saints and angels have succumbed to less temptation and Sam's a long way from sainthood. Dean's hand moves from his shoulder, fingers brushing Sam's neck. They're almost tenative which is something Sam can't associate with Dean. Before he can process it, Dean's cupping his jaw and turning his face back. Sam tries to pull away but Dean's stubborn and Sam's helpless to resist.

He meets his brother's eyes and Dean's open, soft underbelly exposed in a way that makes Sam's breath catch. He wants to stare, fix this moment in his memory and he wants to gather Dean up and hide him away so no-one else ever sees him like this. Dean's lips part around a wordless 'Sammy?' and Sam can't help it.

Dean's skin is soft and warm. Sam gets a hand under his T-shirt, feeling smooth skin and Dean's racing heart-beat. Even after this long, the missing scars throw him and Sam runs his hands up and down, entranced by the clean lines. Dean's breath hitches and his hands come up to press against Sam's chest. Sam has to tear his eyes away from the strip of bared skin, Dean's T-shirt pushed up and his own hands, dark and huge, covering Dean's pale skin.

Dean's eyes are wide, lips pink and parted. Another groan wrenches free from Sam and he grabs Dean's face, pulling his brother into a kiss. Dean tastes of coffee and toothpaste and he's soft tongue and sharp teeth and Sam wants. Sam pulls back, fighting for control.

Dean sways into Sam, panting harshly. He's flushed and trembling a little. Sam's stomach clenches, heat and terror tangling in his gut. Then Dean opens his eyes and his lips, still slick and swollen, curl up a little. This time, Dean kisses Sam and Sam swears his toes curl.

He drops his arms to wrap around Dean's waist, pulling his brother up and in and swallowing Dean's voiceless gasp. Dean groans into the kiss, rolling his hips and pushing his half-hard dick against Sam's stomach. Sam damn near blacks out, crashing backwards into the door and goddamn but it's hot enough to vapourise whatever braincells Sam had left.

He gets them across the room and breaking the kiss just long enough to drop Dean onto the bed and fall bodily across him. Dean oofs and smacks him in the shoulder but Sam's face is pressed into the curve of Dean's neck and Sam's lips part over Dean's thundering pulse. Dean jerks underneath him, a thin needy sound escaping his lips. Sam can't help it, he rakes his teeth across that unsullied skin and bites.

Dean's hands fist his hair, clutching Sam so close that he has to pull back to breathe. The red mark, still slick with his spit, sends a sharp pulse of lust straight to Sam's dick and he thrusts against Dean who squirms until he's got a thigh between Sam's legs, pushing up and giving Sam something to rub against. He kisses Dean blindly, breathless sloppy kisses that cover Dean's face. He's babbling, a senseless stream of "Mine. So fucking hot. Love you. Never let you go Mine. Going to fuck you through the fucking bed. So perfect, so hot. Love you."

Dean's grip tightens and he pulls Sam's head up. Sam moans, trying to clear his head but he's close and his hips keep pumping.. Dean's grip loosens a little and he cups Sam's cheek. Sam stares down into his brother's face and Dean smiles, wide and brilliant and his lips move. 'Sammy.'

Sam's world short-circuits and he cries out, aware of a warm wet rush against his stomach. Awareness ebbs back in slowly, his body is dead weight and Sam's slipping back towards sleep. He can feel Dean's chest moving under his and the clammy feel of his boxers sticking to his dick. It's kinda disgusting but Sam's too fucked out to care.

Tomorrow's time enough. Right now, Sam's okay with passing out for a bit. They'll have to talk about this, probably tomorrow. After that, he's got people to save, evil to kill. He's got a shotgun to take, a tape-deck to fight for and a road stretching all the way to the horizon. He's got his beautiful, reckless big brother who loves Sam more than God ever could.

Sam moves just enough to press an open-mouthed kiss to the fading scars across Dean's throat. Dean's pleased hum follows him into sleep.