(no subject)

[whereupon]

Circumnavigation
by whereupon
Sam/Dean, first season, R, 4,875 words.
And this is an old fight, not the first time they've had it.
For fayedoll.



It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a ghost in possession of a terrible secret, must be in want of release, or so Sam says. Dean, on the other hand, says that his brother is a geek who reads chick lit (and ancient chick lit at that) and nobody ever put a ghost to rest by butchering Austen at it, so dude, grab a shovel already.

"You can't bore it to death if it's already dead," he adds. "That only works on people with a pulse."

"Have I ever told you how absolutely hilarious you are?" Sam asks.

"Not lately," Dean says.

"That's because you're not," Sam says.

"It's not my fault you were born without a sense of humor," Dean says. "Not everybody can get the good genes."

Sam raises his eyebrows. "Obviously."

Dean narrows his eyes. "Not cool."

"You walked right into that one," Sam says.

"Whatever," Dean says. "I gave that one to you."

"Whatever you gotta tell yourself, man," Sam says.

"Okay, we're meant to be digging up a corpse," Dean says. "Not listening to you do some stand-up comedy routine. Can we do our job already?"

"Uh, yeah," Sam says. "That'd be great, actually."

Dean glares at him, but doesn't reply; he turns around and manages to toss a shovelful of dirt all over Sam's shoes, which he thinks is reply enough. Even better, he's able to make it look like an accident, what with having his back turned and everything.

Sam makes that annoying frustrated huffing noise that he does whenever he thinks Dean's done something stupid but doesn't want to say anything, because then Dean would be able to argue with him and would eventually win because he's right, and not because Sam realizes the futility of the argument and gives up, which is how Sam usually tries to explain his crushing defeat.

"You know what?" Sam says. "If I'd gone to law school, I wouldn't have to be digging up a freaking corpse right now." Which is kind of an incredibly obvious statement, the kind that's so obvious it goes without saying, which means the only reason he said it was to annoy Dean, because, yeah, if Sam had his dream life, he'd be two thousand miles away right now, probably reading some law book while Jess read whatever the hell she was into. Vonnegut, maybe, since Sam's so clearly cornered the market on chick lit. Obviously Sam would rather be anywhere else than digging up some poor bastard's corpse with his brother. Dean gets that, okay, Sam doesn't actually have to go around saying it every thirty seconds. The hunch of his shoulders is enough of a reminder, the shadows under his eyes and the fact that there are four fucking years of memories that Dean doesn't have, and four fucking years of memories that Sam will never know, and those are things that Dean sees every fucking time he looks at his brother.

So yeah, Sam doesn't have to keep saying it.

"Don't blame me for that," Dean says. "If I hadn't dragged your ass away to check on Dad, it's not like things woulda gone different."

"You don't know that," Sam says, and his voice is quiet, angry. Unexpectedly so. Dean winces and turns around to look at him.

"I didn't mean it like that," he says. "I just, you know it wasn't your fault, Sammy. You bein' there wouldn't've made any difference. That's all."

"Like I said," Sam says. "You don't know that."

And this is an old fight, not the first time they've had it; it was every day for the week they were in California, the week they were waiting to find out, the week before the funeral. And they haven't had it for months, not since Sam's revelation about the whole freaky premonition thing, and Dean was so hoping they would never have it again.

But that would have been good and Winchester luck is usually bad, so really he should have seen this coming. Especially since it's Sam, and Sam has never once been able to just let something go.

"Yeah, I do," Dean says. "Okay? Now let's finish this before the security guard makes another sweep."

Sam works his jaw. "Whatever," he says, and his hair flops sullenly over his eyes as the edge of his shovel cuts deep into the soil.

Dean grits his teeth and turns back to the work at hand.

It's a simple salt and burn, and it goes quickly now that Sam's decided not to talk at all anymore, like he can work through whatever he wants to do to Dean by attacking the dirt. Which, yeah, is helpful, makes the job go a hell of a lot faster, but it also makes Dean feel unsettled, weirdly guilty, because he didn't mean anything by what he said, and what he said was true, anyway. Sam didn't have to twist the words in the worst way possible, into something cruel, because Dean didn't mean it like that.

And the fact that the words could be twisted like that, okay, maybe that's kind of Dean's fault. Maybe he kind of knew exactly how Sam would react, exactly how effective it would be, but he didn't, like, mean it.

It's just that Sam is really fucking annoying sometimes, and sometimes Dean snaps. That's all. And then maybe he feels really bad about it, because if what he said has an effect at all like how much it hurt when Sam left, when Sam ditched him and Dad for Stanford, then it's really fucking awful, and Sam shouldn't have to deal with that, ever.

Except for how Sam ditched his family to go live some bizarre normal-world life, because apparently the life he had wasn't good enough for him, and maybe living out of motel rooms isn't the best thing ever, and maybe sometimes this life really fucking sucks, but he had Dad, and he had Dean, and why the hell wasn't that enough? Sam and Dad and the job are enough for Dean; why does Sam always have to want something more, something better, something that they can't give him?

Dean would move hell and goddamn earth for his brother, if he could, and he thinks sometimes that Sam knows, and that it still isn't enough, and what the hell is Dean meant to do with that? Because that, that hurts.

Their shovels hit wood at the same time. "Guess we found it," Dean says.

"Yeah," Sam says, which isn't much, but at least he's talking. He's also just standing there, which means Dean's going to have to be the one to crack the coffin and burn the body, which is fine with Dean.

He could really go for setting something on fire right about now.

He lowers himself into the grave and pries open the coffin lid; at least the corpse is old, so it doesn't smell as bad as it could. He salts the body and then Sam hands him the kerosene. It's not exactly offering him a hand out of the grave, but it'll do for now. Dean douses the corpse and clambers out, and as soon as he's clear, Sam flicks open a lighter and drops it into the coffin. Which, okay, yes, did need to be done, but Dean was the one who actually had to do the work, so that part was totally his, too.

"Dude," Dean says.

Sam glances over at him. "What?"

"You coulda waited until I was outta the grave before torching it."

"You were outta the grave," Sam says. "You're just pissed that you didn't get to start the fire."

Dean narrows his eyes. "No," he says.

"Yeah?" Sam says. "Then what is it?"

Dean glares at him.

"You're such a pyro," Sam says, but he sounds exasperated, which is okay. Dean can deal with exasperated. He's used to it; most of the time, Sam doesn't have any other modes.

"Somebody's gotta bring excitement to your life," Dean says. "It's not like you're gonna find it on your own."

"Uh, right," Sam says. "Thanks for taking me to desecrate a corpse, Dean. You take me to all the best places."

"And don't you forget it," Dean says. "Now put out your fire and rebury Mr. what's his name, here."

"Since when do you care about covering our tracks?" Sam asks. "What happened to 'we toasted the ghost, Sam, there's no point hanging around for an encore'?"

Dean shrugs. "Just figured since you're the one who actually torched the dude, you'd probably be all, like, remorseful and shit. Forgive me for trying to respect your feelings."

"Respect my feelings?" Sam says. "Seriously?"

"This is why I'm never nice to you," Dean says. "Just so you know."

"You're never nice to me because you're a jerk," Sam says.

"Yeah, and this is why," Dean says. "I try to be nice, you throw it back in my face. I give up."

"So that's all it takes to exhaust your stamina?" Sam asks. "Pretty weak, man."

"Hey!" Dean says.

"I'm just saying."

"Yeah, so stop," Dean says. He tosses the salt back into the duffel and shoulders the bag. "If you're not gonna honor the dead, grab the damn shovels."

He thinks Sam rolls his eyes, but it's kind of hard to tell with the flickering light and the overall darkness. Sam grabs the shovels, though, and follows Dean back to the Impala. "Don't get dirt on the seat," Dean says, but it's mostly for show, and Sam ignores him, anyway.

They listen to one of Dean's tapes on the way back to the motel (though Dean's heard it so many times he's not sure that it's exactly listening, since he has the entire thing memorized, every chord and every place where the tape's wearing thin; it's more a matter of the music, like, reinforcing his memory), but as a sign of affection, Dean keeps the volume reasonably low.

It's not a long drive from the graveyard on the far end of town to the motel on the grimy edge of what passes for the urban district, but it takes entirely too long all the same. Dean keeps wanting to speed, and he would if they weren't wanted men within the state, but he has to settle for doing the speed limit and feeling weirdly edgy. It's probably the adrenaline from fighting with Sam, which he should be used to considering that he's spent most of his life doing it, or maybe it's because Sam totally stole his moment with the fire and now he's got all of these, like, pyromaniac urges.

If he cracks and ends up setting something on fire, it's so Sam's fault. Though most things are, so maybe it goes without saying. Maybe every fire he's ever set is because of Sam, is for Sam, because Sam makes him want to burn things down. Sam would make anybody in his right mind want to burn things down, really; it's a wonder the Stanford campus is still intact.

The motel sign is flickering like a sign of an oncoming storm when Dean pulls the Impala into the lot, but it's only shitty wiring, nothing new. Sam tenses anyway; he's doing that again these days, like he forgot what it was like to be used to this, to be scared.

He pushes past Dean as soon as Dean unlocks the motel room door. Dean doesn't say anything, doesn't need to; Sam looks relieved when Dean shuts the door, like he thinks they're safer, like whatever might be out there in the night won't be able to get them.

It won't see them, at least. And sometimes, that's fucking everything. Dean knows, and he gets it, so he only claps a hand on Sam's shoulder on his way to set the duffel down.

Sam sits on the end of his bed, though the beds are mostly indistinguishable, both military-neat the way Dad taught them. Dean wonders if Sam made his bed like that while he was gone, and if anybody asked about it, or if the habit came back once he got back on the road.

Dean's not sure which he'd prefer, and it doesn't matter, because he's not going to ask, ever.

"Takeout?" Sam asks.

"If you're gonna go back out there," Dean says, and Sam flinches. It's quick, a subtle twitch; probably nobody but Dean would have even realized what it was, and Dean bites his lip. He hadn't meant it as a challenge, had only meant that he doesn't feel particularly like going back out, doesn't feel particularly like doing anything other than taking a shower and collapsing into bed, where possibly there'd be somebody waiting to give him a massage at the very least, or maybe even only that, because the place where his shoulder tore last March is starting to ache, which means it's going to be stiff as hell tomorrow and they've got a six hundred mile drive ahead of them. "We could get pizza."

They've had pizza every night for the past week, save one, but Sam nods. "Sounds good."

"You can order, I'm gonna take a shower," Dean says.

"There's no hot water," Sam says, not taking his eyes off of the phone book that's spread across his lap, like finding a pizza delivery place takes all of his concentration.

Dean blinks. "What?"

Sam looks up. "The clerk swore it'd be back in the morning," he says. "Dude, you were right there when he told me. This morning? The guy who knocked on the door? Who said the hot water heater went out?"

Dean narrows his eyes. "Was that who you were talking to?"

Sam stares at him. "I'm not going to ask who you thought it was."

"I was asleep," Dean says. Or close enough; he's not sure how long it's been since either of them actually slept. Too many hunts and not enough time, and too much adrenaline, even when there is. And Sam's having nightmares again, even though he keeps saying he's not; that's not the kind of thing he can hide considering they're together basically twenty-four/seven, and considering that ever since he was four, Dean's known exactly how to tell when Sam's having a nightmare. "No hot water, really?"

"Really," Sam says.

"Fuck," Dean says.

"Yeah," Sam says.

Dean sits down on the end of his own bed. It really shouldn't be such a big thing, not being able to take a shower. He's done it lots of times, lots of times when they were too far out for motels, for civilization, or when he was too tired or too wrecked to bother. And they only dug up a grave, it's not like this job was even messy, as far as jobs go. It's just. He wants a shower. And clean sheets. And his shoulder hurts. And there's graveyard dirt beneath his fingernails, which is pretty much normal, except for right now it seems like an omen, like it might be seriously bad luck not to do anything about it. He stares at his hands.

"You okay?" Sam says, and Dean lifts his head.

"Yeah," he says, and his smile feels gritty. "Tired."

"Tell me about it," Sam says, and then, tentatively, "We can find another motel. I mean, we passed like a dozen on the way in."

"Nah, we're already here," Dean says. "It'd take us forever to pack up, anyway." Which is a lie; they can be out of a motel room in less than five minutes, and they have been out of a motel room in less than five minutes, but Sam shrugs.

"If you're sure," he says.

"Yeah, I'm sure," Dean says. "So. Pizza?"

"I guess," Sam says. He doesn't reach for his phone. He doesn't move at all, and after a minute, Dean gets tired of watching him stare at the yellow pages and flops back onto the bed. Maybe he'll just fall sleep here. He wouldn't even have to take his boots off. That would be okay. He'd probably wake up with a hell of a backache and be paralyzed for life, or at least for most of the morning, but right now, that doesn't seem like such a big deal.

Sam's face appears overhead and Dean blinks. His brother's leaning over him, and because there's like no space between the beds, and because Sam is a giant freak of nature in so many ways, he doesn't even have to get up in order to do so. "You're gonna wake up with a backache if you fall asleep there," Sam says, and Dean remembers Sam being five years old and waking Dean up at six o'clock on Christmas morning to see if Santa had found their motel room.

"Thanks for the newsflash," Dean says. He doesn't move.

"Seriously," Sam adds.

"Yep," Dean says.

"And then you're gonna bitch about it," Sam says. "Or, hey, maybe you'll have to let me drive."

Dean glares at him. Sam moves out of the way, and he sits up. "Low blow, man."

"It worked," Sam says. Dean tilts his head in acquiescence and then winces because holy God, maybe he should have let Sam exhume the corpse all by himself. Sam's eyes go wide, but that's nothing new. He always freaks out about the lamest things. "That's more than just tired," he says. "Seriously, what is it?"

"Nothing," Dean says, which is true, goddamnit. "I, uh, tore something in my shoulder awhile back. It'll be fine in a minute."

"Oh," Sam says. He gets to his feet, drops right next to Dean on the bed, and leans in. He looks exhausted up close, shadows beneath his bloodshot eyes and all of the places he missed while shaving, and Dean narrows his eyes; Sam needs to sleep. Otherwise he's going to go all walking dead and probably walk out in front of a bus or something. It's a good thing he'll have Dean to yank him out of harm's way if it comes to that.

Seriously, Sam is so much work.

"Do you want me to, um?" Sam says, gesturing at Dean's shoulder.

"Dude, you smell like dead people," Dean says. "Keep your hands to yourself."

"If anybody smells like dead people, it's you," Sam says. "You're the one who got close to the corpse."

"The corpse that you then set on fire," Dean says. "You torched my corpse."

"Do you try to make us sound like serial killers, or does it just come naturally?" Sam asks.

"It's a gift," Dean says. Sam rolls his eyes and slides back, reaching for Dean's shoulder. "Uh, did you hear what I just said?"

"Yeah, you're a gifted serial killer," Sam says. "Shut up."

"My shoulder is fine," Dean says. "I don't need you to, like, massage it, okay," and Sam's freakishly huge hand is flat against his back. His breath catches when Sam presses down. He can't remember when he last slept, and suddenly it seems entirely possible that this is a dream, a hallucination. Probably it's a nightmare. It seems entirely plausible that he'd dream about Sam, like, torturing him like this, considering that Sam spends most of his waking hours torturing Dean in ways at once subtler and more devious.

"Obviously," Sam says.

"Seriously, Sam," Dean says. "Personal space, okay? Get the hell outta my bubble."

This time, Dean can feel the displacement of air when Sam huffs, but Sam doesn't move, and Dean grits his teeth. He stands up, or tries to, but because Sam is, like, psychic, Sam already has a hand on his shoulder and pulls him back down, and ow, that hurts, and also Dean's head is now resting on Sam's thigh, which, how exactly did that happen, and Sam is glaring down at him.

"If you wanted me flat on my back, all you had to do was ask," Dean says. He's not wincing, he really isn't. And this -- Sam -- really is slightly more comfortable than the bed itself was. "You didn't hafta get physical."

"Yeah, because you were giving me so many other choices," Sam says. "Just because Dad acts like he's infallible doesn't mean you have to. You know damn well he's not."

"Fuck you," Dean says. That is so not what this is about. This is about Sam freaking out because Dean's shoulder aches a little, because that's what Sam does, he's such a fucking drama queen, he has to make everything a big deal. He had to run all the way to California to make some point about how awful it was to live with Dean and Dad, like it wasn't enough to just say that he hated it all the time. "I just wanted a damn shower," he says, and Sam looks at him.

Okay, maybe it had sounded a little pathetic.

Sam bites his lip; he's trying to keep from laughing, and it's not working. Dean can feel the tremors running throughout his body, and that's what's funny, that his brother is so incredibly ridiculous. That's all. Dean is not the weird one, here; he's laughing at Sam, not at himself. And Sam had better be doing exactly the same thing; if he's laughing at Dean, Dean's going to kill him.

"Oh my God," Sam says, when he can talk again. "How did you survive when I was gone?"

"I got by," Dean says.

"By what, the skin of your teeth?"

Dean narrows his eyes. What the hell, Sam went to California because he couldn't take this life anymore, he's got no right to talk about how they fared in his absence. "We did fine. Yeah, it was a hell of a lot harder, but we did just fine without you, okay."

Sam blinks. "I didn't," he says. "Dean, I didn't mean it like that."

Dean shrugs, which is slightly harder to do in this position. "Fine."

Sam drags in a breath and Dean can feel it, can feel the way Sam's tensing. He wonders if maybe he should get up before Sam starts talking again. Maybe he could make it to the other bed, to Sam's bed, and maybe Sam would surrender at that point, what with Dean having invaded his territory and all. "I missed you," Sam says.

"Sure," Dean says. "Okay, Sam, you don't actually need to go through that whole speech right now, thanks."

"Shut the fuck up and listen to me," Sam says, deadly serious, and it's not like Dean has a choice. "I missed you, okay? But he's the one who told me not to come back, and you didn't say anything else."

"Because it was obvious," Dean says.

"Yeah," Sam says. "It was obvious that you practically worshipped him, so whatever he said was totally okay with you."

And that, okay, that hurts more than his shoulder. Seriously, what the fuck, Sam? "No, you asshole, it was obvious that I didn't want you to go."

From this position, Dean can't see Sam flinch, but oh, he can feel it. Sam swallows. "You could have said something."

"Well, I didn't," Dean says, because he won't ever ask if that would have made Sam stay, and anyway, maybe it doesn't matter because even if it would have, he's not sure that he could have ever let himself do that to Sam. "And you left, like you wanted, and everybody was fine. End of story."

Sam's quiet for a moment, and then he says, "I wasn't fine, Dean."

"Yeah, well, neither were we," Dean says, because it's true and because he's not going to say neither was I.

"Okay," Sam says, which it really isn't, but if he apologized, Dean would probably hit him, so it's good that he didn't try. Dean wonders if Sam's aware that his hand has come to rest on Dean's arm, his thumb brushing against the inside of Dean's elbow. He wonders if he should seriously maybe sit up now, because Sam has almost all of the advantages in this situation, so he does, slowly, and Sam blinks as though surprised at the loss of contact.

Neither of them moves. It occurs to Dean that he's kind of very close to sitting in his brother's lap, and he thinks that maybe this should feel weirder than it does. But it's nothing new, really, Sam and his personal space issues, and Dean's not really sure why he's starting to blush. Probably because Sam gives off way too much body heat. He opens his mouth to say as much, something about Sam being a furnace, maybe he's the answer to renewable energy, and Sam clears his throat.

"Pizza," he says. "I should order."

"Yeah," Dean says. "You were going to, like, an hour ago."

"You distracted me," Sam says.

"Yeah, I'm good at that," Dean says.

"Tell me about it," Sam says.

Dean is very aware of his own pulse, of the way Sam keeps swallowing, of the flicker of Sam's eyes and the way he keeps licking his lips, like this is something more than Sam pushing into his space, more than just Dean being stubborn and Sam refusing to listen, something more than a conversation about, you know, pizza. "Look," he says. "I, uh."

"Yeah?" Sam says.

Dean swallows. "Fuck it," he says, because he is very good at reckless and suicidal and this might very well be exactly that. His shoulder twinges when his hand twists in Sam's shirt, when he drags Sam's mouth to his, and he is sitting in the vee of his brother's legs, and he is kissing his brother, and maybe more importantly, his brother is kissing him back. This is not meant to happen, not ever, and the heel of Sam's hand is callus-rough against Dean's cheek, and the fact that Dean can actually run his hands through Sam's hair totally makes Sam the girl in this. This. This. Thing.

Sam's mouth glistens, when Dean pulls back, and his eyes are huge, panic-stricken. "Sam," Dean says, and his voice is rough. Rougher than it should be. Sam should not be able to do this to him. It's wrong, in addition to being fundamentally unfair on so many levels. Not that Dean's ever been overly concerned with right versus wrong, especially considering that he's spent most of his life hunting the things that right-thinking people are afraid to admit even exist, but since Sam's, like, obsessed with normal, it seems like wrong might kind of be an issue.

"Yeah," Sam says. His hair is a ragged fall across his eyes, and when he bites his lip, his teeth are very white against the red of his mouth.

"Okay," Dean says, and he kisses Sam again. It's violent, consuming; he has to fight for breath, and it comes raggedly. When his fingers scrabble across the buttons of Sam's shirt, Sam swears, and their hands tangle together trying to lift Dean's shirt over his head. They remember too late that they are still wearing their boots, and the laces are knotted and heavy with dirt; Dean is intensely aware of every agonizing second of the time it takes to untie them. His breath hitches when he leans in, when his shoulder pulls, and again when Sam opens his mouth against his stomach. He tastes salt; he sighs and pushes against Sam, pressing their bodies together.

His shoulder aches, and he can't remember if either of them slept last night, and this is wrong. He shouldn't be doing this; after all, he's the responsible one, here, and he shouldn't trust Sam to, to know what's right, to know what's best, to know what he wants. After all, he wanted Stanford, wanted to escape, and look how that turned out. But Dean thinks this might also be the first right thing in a long time, the first right thing that Sam's wanted, that Dean can give him; hardly a salve but right all the same, and undeniable, because holy God, Sam.

He cannot believe that it is Sam doing this, that Sam is doing this, Sam twenty-two years old and back again, familiar except for those new fragments and strange jagged edges; he is tangible, real, illuminated by illicit firelight, by half-flashes of headlights from the opposite direction, visible in stolen glances beneath diner lights.

This is Sam, and this is now, and Dean will not think of the future. He will not think of roads and California, of dreams and heartbreak and the sound the screen door makes when it is slamming behind the one thing you've loved the most your entire life. He is here, now, they both are, and that is everything right now, all that matters and maybe all that ever has, that he is here and so is Sam.

Dean presses his face against his brother's neck, and his hands move between them in a devastating rhythm, and he does not think of morning. He's spent his whole life in nightfall, in shadow, after all; he's at home here.

Maybe they both are, maybe they both will be, and Sam shudders against him, his mouth opening on this wordless sound that could last forever, could encompass everything, unbroken.

--

end