original by memphis86

[spnremixfics]

Remix Title: Faded from the Winter (The Driftwood and Indra Remix)
Remix Author: balefully
Original Story: Faded from the Winter
Original Author: memphis86
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Sam/Dean
Summary: Sam has faith that Dean will return, no matter how long he may be lost.



Dean's been gone for weeks - empty weeks, filled only with Sam's housework, keeping to himself, and picking up necessities in the nearest town. Weeks of waiting. Sam sits in front of the air conditioner in their cabin as he has every night, feeling the cold rush across his face, and willing his brother to return. He swears he can feel cool fingers across his sweaty cheeks, rough with calluses but still gentle and soft. He dries his clammy hands, letting the chill sink into the hot, loose joints of his fingers. The steady hum of the breeze blows away his thoughts, his melancholy. Dean will come back to him. He always does.

A heavy scuffle on the steps of the cabin jerks Sam out of his reverie, and he slides to the door just as a frantic knock sounds, followed by a thud. He rips the door open, everything inside of him straining towards hope, held back by worry.

It's Dean. Dean, collapsed on the porch, breathing shallow, hot breaths. Sam sweeps him inside, his heart racing as he pulls off Dean's sodden, sweaty clothes and gets him situated next to the air conditioner in the bedroom. There are extra sheets in the small closet in the bathroom, so Sam soaks them in cold water in the tub before laying them across Dean's flushed skin. He's not even sweating anymore - heat stroke - and Sam tries to keep his hands from shaking. The urge to trace each line of Dean's body with ice is overwhelming, to rub cold into each burning stretch of skin, but there isn't time for lingering or caressing. He just tucks Dean into the cold sheets, aiming the vents from the air conditioner towards him.

The dehumidifier clunks as Sam crawls up next to Dean, his panting palpable even through the linens. He worries about what Dean will think when he wakes up, nearly naked under soaking sheets in bed with someone else. It's hard enough without those sorts of questions, always taking longer than one night for Dean to find himself again. To remember Sam. "You'll be okay," Sam whispers, his lips pressed to Dean's ear. "You're always okay."

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Sam's out for hours before he wakes up to the singing of summer birds outside the window; he always sleeps badly while Dean is away, and forgets the peaceful feeling of being truly rested until Dean comes back again. Dean still lies unconscious, but he's cooling down, starting to sweat again, and he breathes deep, regular breaths. His face is pink, flushed deep all over.

Dean's eyes flutter open, smoldering like the summer heat, lashes long and soft. He doesn't look panicked, just a little uncomfortable and maybe a little confused.

"Your cheeks are all red," Sam says, voice hoarse and quiet. He can't look away from Dean, from his dry, cracked lips and the sunburn spreading across his freckles. "And your ears. Even your nose."

Dean smiles a little. His confusion is the happy, comfortable kind. Sam never really knows what he should say in times like these, or what he should do. All he really wants is to kiss Dean, gather him up and hold him close and beg him never to leave again. He can't, though. "I want to help you," he says instead. "What can I do?"

"I don't know," Dean says, and he means more than just the answer to Sam's question. His lips turn down, but Sam feels the movement of Dean's toes wiggling under the covers at the foot of the bed, and he smiles. It will all work out eventually.

"That's okay," Sam tells him. "You can stay here. We-I have lots of space and plenty of food."

"But only one bed," Dean says.

Sam sits up against the headboard. "I hope that's not a problem," he murmurs. It will definitely be hard, feeling Dean in the bed in the next room and being unable to touch him, but he can do it. Has, before. "There's a couch. I don't mind."

"What's your name?" Dean asks. He might be changing the subject, but then again, maybe he isn't.

Sam sighs. He always hopes the next time will be different, and it never is. Dean's been warped ever since hell, and he doesn't ever seem to get better. Sometimes he gets worse, madness filling in the empty places. In then end, though, he's always still Dean. "Sam," he says, but his voice breaks on the single syllable. "What's yours?" He holds his breath.

"I don't know," Dean says, eyes going blank, trying to remember.

Sam sighs sadly. "That's okay," he says. "I figured you didn't. Do you know where you came from?"

Dean just shakes his head, biting his lip. "I was tracking something, maybe. I'm a hunter. That's really all I got." That doesn't really seem to bother him much, and Sam lets himself be grateful.

He smiles and claps a hand on Dean's shoulder, proceeding with building his picture of what Dean's been left with this time. "Well, that's something at least. Do you have family? What part of the woods were you in before you found me?"

Dean shrugs. "Sorry, I just-no idea." He huffs out a soft breath, hesitating for a moment before he says, "I'm strangely okay with that."

"Of course you are, D-" Sam stops himself before he makes things stupidly awkward. "Hey, you know what? You should pick a name. Something I can call you, something you can have as yours." He hopes maybe Dean can come up with his name on his own, dig it out from where it's buried under the rubble. "We all need names. Need to own ourselves and feel right in our own skin, and you must have something-"

"God, you kinda talk a lot, Sam," Dean mutters. Sam grins, but it's tight. His name never sounds right when Dean says it without knowing.

"Yeah, well. I don't really get much of a chance to talk when y-when my brother's not around." He turns to look down at Dean, to watch the minute shifts of his face and the rise and fall of his chest. To save it all up for next time.

Dean sits up, propped against the headboard, looking back at Sam. "What's up with your brother?"

"I'm waiting for him," Sam says, willing Dean to remember. To really hear him. "He isn't back yet. It's been a long time."

"Aren't you worried about him?" Dean asks, brows furrowing. Sam wants to smooth them with his thumbs, so he clenches his fingers into his fists.

"No. He always comes back to me," Sam says, barely above a whisper. He smiles, and Dean smiles back.

"I could eat a horse," Dean says, breaking the moment into tiny, bright candy pieces. He gazes out the window, glowing with hot-fog morning light, and his stomach growls hungrily.

Sam laughs, rough and loud, and rolls out of bed with a whoosh of breath. "Guess it's time for breakfast then, huh?"

Sam pours Dean cool spring water to rehydrate him, and cooks eggs and bacon and home fries - nothing fancy but all of it rich and filling. He leaves the pans on the stove and they eat together at the spindly wooden table under the window.

The cabin has three rooms: the main room that they're in now, the kitchen, and the bedroom with a tiny attached bathroom. It's always been more than enough for the both of them. Dean surveys everything like it's the first time he's seen it, and of course, to him, it is.

"I'll take the couch," Sam says. "It's actually really nice." He hates sleeping on the couch, as overstuffed and comfortable as it is; he has to spend the night listening to Dean's bare skin sliding against their bedsheets in the dark. But he can't very well expect Dean to let him in this soon. Waiting is the hardest part.

"No, take the bed. You're way too enormous for the couch," Dean says, incredulous. "I'm fine."

Sam smiles and clenches his hands in the folds of his jeans. "Thanks, man." Sometimes Dean doesn't offer, and sometimes he does. When he does, everything usually moves faster. "There's an A/C unit in here and everything. You'll be really comfortable."

Dean smiles back, and stuffs his mouth obscenely full with breakfast. Sam sips at his coffee and lets out the breath it feels like he's been holding for weeks.

xxxxxxxxxx

Sam wakes up to the metallic bang of the air conditioner malfunctioning in the middle of the night. He stumbles out into the sitting room to find Dean stirring on the couch under his thin blanket, wearing only his boxers.

"'S just the A/C," Sam mumbles, padding past his brother, touching his shoulder lightly to pull him the rest of the way from his heavy sleep.

"Thought somethin' was trying to bust in the window," Dean says, voice low and gruff. His hand slides out from under his pillow and Sam shakes his head. Always Dean, even when he isn't.

Sam messes around with the wiring in the central unit for a minute, but he doesn't have any idea what he's doing. Plus, the A/C must've been screwing up for most of the night before it gave up the ghost: it's scorching hot and Sam's fingers hardly work, they're so damp with humidity. "Fuck," he hisses, and wipes them against his shorts.

He doesn't even notice that Dean's stumbling to the kitchen until the weak glow of the refrigerator light cuts through the close shadows. The light flickers faintly as Dean gets situated, trying to keep the door propped open. "Don't worry about that thing," he says, flopping on the cool wood floor. "I'll take a look at it tomorrow. Come cool down with me."

Sam gets pillows from his room to pile on the floor in front of the fridge, but leaves the blankets. Dean doesn't ask if the ceiling fan in Sam's room is still working, and Sam doesn't tell him that it is. They curl together in the cold flood of air, and Sam's cheeks and nose grow cold in the fresh bite. He can't keep his eyes off Dean's face, limned with silver in the dark, but he can feel exhaustion creeping up on him.

"So why'd your brother leave?" Dean says, turning to look at Sam. His eyes are blue-green in the soft light.

"He's a hunter," Sam says, pressing his lips together. "Exactly like you." He closes his eyes, letting himself drift away on the sound of Dean's hum and steady breaths.

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Sam wakes up alone on the floor, stiff but well-rested. The door of the refrigerator is shut, and probably has been for a while; the heavy heat of day has sunk into the floorboards again, seeping the cool sheen from Sam's skin. "Dean?" he mutters without thinking. Dean isn't in the kitchen, though, and Sam drags himself upright to look around.

On the couch, Dean sits cross-legged in nothing but his boxer-briefs, staring at an array of metal lumps and colored wires that no doubt belong to the air conditioner. "Sleep okay?" he asks Sam.

"Great, actually," Sam says, rolling his shoulders. "I've got some kinks to work out, though."

Dean laughs loud and bright, then grins, tongue pressed between his teeth. "I bet you do."

Sam rolls his eyes, but his chest gets tight and goosebumps rise along his forearms, knowing Dean is so close under the surface. "You sleep well, too?" he says, instead of catching Dean's face in his hands and kissing him breathless.

Dean hums noncommittally. "Sort of."

"Sort of?" Sam sits on the end of the couch, trying to make sense of the parts Dean's fiddling with.

"I had a dream," Dean says, putting down his pliers. "A freakin' weird dream." He looks unsettled, and Sam can't help but smooth a comforting hand over Dean's thigh. "There were-dogs. Lots of dogs, really vicious, and they were attacking me. You were there. You were-crying, actually. There was a little girl, and a man with yellow eyes. A big black shadow of wings across the wall-" Dean shivers through the oppressive heat, his face blank and beaded with sweat.

"Hey," Sam says, scooting closer on the couch. He has to touch Dean, doesn't care if Dean will think he's weird or invasive. Sam needs Dean to feel that he's there, that they're both okay. He slides his arm around Dean's bare shoulder, bringing them slick skin to slick skin. "Just a dream. It's okay."

They just sit for a long moment, Dean's eyes sliding closed, head tipping onto Sam's chest. Sam feels like he can hardly breathe, and it's amazing. "You don't have to fix that, you know," he finally says, nodding towards the parts of the coffee table. Dean can't see him, but he'll know what Sam means.

"Gotta pull my weight," Dean murmurs. "I'll clean the house, too, and check out the car. But only if you go get us some liquor." He sounds tentative, and the two of them don't fit quite the way they should, but Sam has nothing if not time to sand down their edges and slot them together again.

xxxxxxxxxx

Sam pulls up to the cabin, Dean outside washing windows in jeans and nothing else - My brother's just your size, Sam had said. Try these. - and he feels a hot flush of need pulling at the base of his spine. "Got your Johnnie Walker Blue," Sam says with a wave and a smile. Dean hurls a soapy sponge at him with a war-whoop, and Sam barely ducks in time. "What the-you're such a jerk!" he yells, laughing, and tosses the sponge back gracelessly.

Dean shrugs, still chuckling, and makes his way up to the porch. Bitch, he doesn't say, and Sam's ears ring with the lack.

"You're sunburned," Sam says, to fill the silence. "Your cheeks are all red. And your ears. Even your nose."

"I know," says Dean, quietly. He's standing very close, and Sam can feel the heat radiating from Dean's shining skin, smell him thick in the air. "That's the first thing you said to me." Dean sways even closer, and Sam puts down his bag.

Dean looks up at him with cool, liquid-green eyes, and Sam can't help but run the tips of his fingers along Dean's jaw then up over his flushed cheeks, the spread of freckles and warm sheen of clean sweat. "Can I kiss them?" he asks, and Dean nods, lips slack around rapid breaths.

Sam presses his mouth to the spots of color on the high arch of Dean's perfect cheekbones, tasting salt and Dean's hot skin. He kisses the reddened tips of Dean's ears, the delicate shell-curve dusted with freckles. He kisses Dean's fingers, each one, still bitter from soap and the skin puckered with water. Dean tilts his face up and Sam kisses his nose, the sun-warmed pink tip, and Dean smiles a secret little smile. Sam rubs his nose, cool from the air-conditioned car, against Dean's - an Eskimo kiss in the middle of scorching summer. Dean huffs a sweet, surprised little breath.

Sam feels light all over as Dean brings a hand to the back of his own neck and turns pinker with blush. His self-conscious whisper of laughter says, You're such a girl, Sam. Sam just curls a finger under Dean's chin and catches Dean's mouth with his own. He licks and sucks gentle kisses into Dean's chapped lips, soothing and softening the cracks with his tongue. Tracing his way into Dean's mouth, the hot taste of them together is the same as ever.

Dean presses against Sam like maybe, somewhere in there, he remembers.

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They drink the scotch over ice and keep the bottle in the freezer when they're not pouring from it. It freezes and burns at the same time as Sam swallows it down, tingles prickling through every inch of his body as he and Dean curl together on Sam's bed in front of the A/C vents.

"I have other dreams about you, too," Dean says, staring at the whirling ceiling fan. "Where you're not crying."

"Yeah?" Sam says, hopeful.

"You got stabbed," Dean says. "And died in my arms." He can barely get the words out. "I did the crying that time."

Sam puts his glass down on the nightstand and rolls onto his stomach, propping himself up on his elbows over Dean. "I'm sorry," he says. He wishes he could say more, but it just won't come.

"Sometimes nobody's crying. Sometimes," Dean says, low and hot, trailing a hand from Sam's neck down his chest to the hem of his shirt, pulling it up with the hooked tips of his fingers, "we're doing something a hell of a lot more fun." Sam can't tell if Dean's blushing or if it's the lingering flush of sunburn. He sits up, pulling away from the tickling graze of Dean's fingers though it pains him to do it.

He tugs off his t-shirt first, eyes fixed on Dean as Dean watches every inch of skin Sam reveals. He pushes down his jeans and kicks off his underwear, naked and shuddering with the firm press of cool air from the fan. Dean leans up and traces his muscles, the shadows and dips, and kisses every mole as Sam pulls him up to his knees. The move together, Sam fitting his lips to the curve of Dean's neck, his hands to the firm flesh at the sides of his chest.

He presses Dean down again, kissing his lips, his throat, his chest - tasting Dean's sweat and pressing his nose into the dark fold of armpits and elbows and knees. Dean stretches underneath him, shifts and sighs as Sam writes memories into every corner of his brother he can reach.

He leans up again, laying kisses over each of Dean's nipples, claiming the freckles across his hard-muscled chest, then higher. "You're red everywhere, now," Sam says against Dean's lips.

"Thanks, Captain Obvious," Dean murmurs. Sam kisses Dean's nose, nuzzles against it slow and sweet.

Dean swats him away, but not until Sam has time for three deep breaths, soft rubbing nose-to-nose. "Quit that," he mumbles, with no heat.

Sam laughs, but it's strained. His cock stands hard and aching, pulsing with each beat of his heart, begging for touch. He can't help but fit his hips against Dean, rutting in abortive little movements as he feels the pool of precome seeping out, collecting on Dean's skin, caught in the coarse hair of his thigh. Sam's breath breaks in his throat and he can't help the muffled whine he makes when Dean shifts up, shifts into him, his own cock painting smears across Sam's tight stomach.

"God, I-can I fuck you?" Sam asks, barely above a whisper, lips grazing the pink edge of Dean's ear.

Dean nods, the click of his throat as he swallows dry heat indistinguishable from the click of the lube cap as Sam grabs it from the drawer, flicking it open.

He presses Dean open, fingers slick and warm, panting open-mouthed against the perfect jut of Dean's collarbone. Each scar there spells out Dean's life, Sam's life. He kisses them all, catalogues them and says, "Someday you'll remember these." Dean just presses back against Sam's fingers, legs spread wide and wanton. He tosses his head back on the pillow, "Please," and keens his desperation.

Dean trembles under him, and Sam pulls him close, holds him as he fucks into him, the tight hot clench around his cock sucking him so far inside Dean he'll never be able to leave again without taking Sam with him. Sam licks up the bright beads of his sweat, tastes his lips, feels right again when Dean winds his fingers in Sam's hair, pulling him down, holding on.

Sam pumps into Dean, relentless, riding the ebb and flow as he grabs Dean's dick, slick with sweat and dripping precome. He works it hard, fast, willing Dean to feel and know and remember. Pulling Dean back into himself as they move together.

He can't hold on, not after so long without this, without Dean, and he comes with a cry, muffled against Dean's neck. He empties into Dean's body, ragged gasping breaths that come out like sobs as his hips flex and his balls draw up tight and hot. Dean just wraps his legs around Sam's waist, keeping him close, and loops his arms around Sam's back, slippery with sweat and heat, and bucks into each hard thrust. Sam doesn't stop working Dean through it, even as he's coming down. Dean bows his back, sighing with high, sticky breaths as he comes, spurting all over Sam, all over his own stomach.

Sam blinks sweat from his eyes, folding himself into Dean's shaking arms, kissing him once, twice, deeper and longer as Dean caught his breath and wrapped himself around Sam, so close, so close to fitting again.

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Sam stirs awake, cool and comfortable on top of the covers despite the tight dryness where sweat and come flakes off his skin. Dean is trailing his hands and lips over Sam's body, cool in the blast of the air conditioner. He draws shapes, tracing along the smooth lines of Sam's face in hearts with the tips of his fingers, muttering to himself. Something like, Guess I'm the girl, now.

"Heard that," Sam says, opening his eyes to Dean's wry grin.

"Morning," Dean huffs deliberately into Sam's nose. He kisses Sam with gusto, lots of tongue and stale morning-breath spit. Sam crinkles his nose and shoves him off.

"Eugh, gross. You're such a pig," he laughs, sitting firmly astride Dean's waist, loving the solid feel of him between his thighs. Dean just smirks back, running his hands over Sam's legs, his hips, his lazy, half-hard cock.

"So," Dean says after a while. "You've got kind of an arsenal in the back of your car."

"My brother's car," Sam says slowly. Sometimes, Dean remembers the car.

"Your brother's guns?" Dean takes Sam's hands in his, pushing absently at Sam's cuticles.

"Yes. The ones that aren't mine, anyway."

"Doesn't he need them where he is? A hunter-"

"No," Sam says, smiling ruefully. "He doesn't need them where he is right now. He-forgets, sometimes. But it's okay."

"Forgets his guns?" Dean looks worried.

"His guns, and other things. When-well. Some bad things happened to him. To us. Ever since, he sometimes has episodes. When he's in danger, when something big is about to break - he just shuts down. You know about fugues?" Dean nods, but he looks unsure. "He just goes away." Sam is proud that his voice hardly breaks. That he's calm and steady for Dean. Dean who always, always comes back. He can't keep it up though, the hot tears welling up behind his eyes. He wishes Dean would look away, would look at him with something other than pity and love in his eyes.

"I'm so sorry," Dean says, sitting up, pressing his cool hands to Sam's face, thumbing softer under his eyes. Sam's tears fall freely now, and Dean's brushes them away with soft fingers, kisses them away with soft lips.

Sam can feel love in every kiss, can feel Dean in every kiss. "Don't be sorry," he says, pulling away. It's more than he can take. "He'll come back. He always comes back." The ceiling fan blows Sam's hair into his eyes, sticking in the wetness on his cheeks; Dean tucks it back behind Sam's ear. His nose is still pink.

"Are you mad he left?" Dean asks, barely audible over the rush of the vents.

Sam rolls onto his back on the bed next to Dean, their legs still entwined. "It's not his fault," he says. "I could never be mad for that."

"But, Sam-"

"Never, D-" He stops, clenching his teeth tight together. "No, of course I'm not angry."

Dean stays silent for a long moment, and Sam tries to count the revolutions of the fan. "I don't know why, but I've got this feeling-I just don't feel like he's coming back this time," Dean says.

Sam takes his hand, clutching it tight for a moment. He brings it to his lips, pressing a kiss to Dean's palm. Yes, you will.

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They're hiking in the woods around the cabin, Sam trying to give Dean a feel for the place, and it's sweltering. He's sweat through two shirts already, and he's never been more glad that Dean's hatred of shorts didn't rub off on him as a child. "You okay?" he asks Dean with a grin.

Dean is grumbling, scrambling over rocks in his sweat-soaked jeans and biker boots. "No. I'm gonna pass out again and you'll have to strip me and wrap me up like a mummy in the frozen foods section like before."

"Kinky," Sam says, laughing as he runs ahead. "Don't worry, there's a lake up here. No one really comes out this far, so we can get cool."

"Skinny dipping?" Dean says, perking right up.

Sam smacks him on the shoulder and starts running toward the water's edge. "Last one in's giving me a blowjob tonight," Sam yells, and manages to strip down to his underwear before hitting the shore, Dean left way behind in his wake. Except he comes to an instant halt at the edge of the water, stock-still and blank as he watches a bubbling form appear.

Out of the glassy surface of the lake rises a terrible face, bulbous eyes and wide, toothy snarl, stinking of rot and swamp gas and waste. The creature is fast, heaving itself out of the water and advancing on Sam before he hardly had the chance to figure out what was going on.

The Pyramid Lake monster. They'd dismissed it as bogus months ago, but here it is, in the flesh and towering over, bearing down on Sam.

He scrambles back to where he flung his shorts, grabbing the gun from the cargo pocket and aiming it straight between the monster's eyes. He shoots it clean and fast with consecrated iron, praying that it will work, that it will at least buy them time, because Dean.

But as soon as Sam turns around to grab Dean and run, Dean rushes past him, putting himself between Sam and the beast, brandishing a wicker bowie knife, serrated and carved with ancient holy runes. His eyes are wide and angry as he plunges the knife deep into the chest of the monster, twisting and digging the blade in hard. Sam can hear the snap and crack of bones and cartilage, the pop of ruptured organs.

Dean stumbles backwards as the creature screeches a death call, falling back into the water with a heavy smack. It bleeds red and thick into the lake, gushing out as it sinks, disappearing.

Sam rushes to Dean's side, cradles his face in his shaking hands, fingers tight on the back of Dean's neck. "Are you okay? Dean, please-" He forgets, forgets that Dean doesn't remember, and it's already out before he can take it back.

"Sam," Dean says, and it sounds right. Finally. "Sammy."

"Dean," Sam says again, and pulls Dean into a kiss, hot and wet under the scorching sun. Dean tightens his arms around Sam's back, but pulls away long enough to look at him. To really look at him.

Sam kisses the red tip of Dean's nose, and Dean Winchester returns to himself.