(no subject)
I've no idea why I've been writing so much as of late, guys, but I imagine it'll slow down at some point soon. In the meantime, apologies for spamming you with stories, eh?
Cradle
by whereupon
Sam/Dean. Season one, R, 3,070 words.
It would hurt that much more when he realized his mistake.
A remix (cover version?) of paxlux's " Riptide."
Between the howl and scrape of wind across the wracked mettle of land and the moon-damned sisyphean iterations of waves wind-charred white, Dean could well believe this is hell, a wasteland of cruel truth and futility, if not for his brother lighting broken candles on that battered table like something ravaged and returned by the sea. They have been drawn here by the lorelei's cry, have driven to the edge of the country at news of three drowned men, two fishermen who should have known better and one shopkeeper who never came home after locking the door, slipping the cool metal key into his pocket and, seeing the cast of moonlight across the surf, deciding that he could spare a moment to walk along the shore.
Here the light is strange, liminal, forever the first breath of winter; the sky is streaked rough with blue and white, grey, though in places it seems almost colorless. No one lives in this house, this crooked season-abandoned bungalow rising like a forgotten shipwreck from the dunes, and the nearest motel is sixty miles and one hundred dollars a night that they do not have away, so they've requisitioned it. Squatting, Sam had said, don't make it sound like it's something it's not, and Dean had shrugged, turned away. He'd only been trying to make it easier for his brother, make it something lighter, and he shouldn't have felt stung, but Sam always had been able to do that, even when he didn't mean to. Even when he didn't know he was doing it, and those hurt more, those accidental slights.
Sam sets the lighter down beside the candles and pulls his chair out, settles in across from Dean. Dean sets aside the knife he was using to turn a sheet formerly draped protectively over one of the chairs into strips, some of which will be used to keep the wind from slipping in through that missing windowpane, some of which will make their way into the first aid kit, where they will be used later to bind their wounds, steady broken bones and sprains, keep them from bleeding out, and some of which he smears now with gun oil, that scent familiar as memory itself.
They work quietly; they know what they're doing and there's no need to talk about it, no need for anything more than this ritual as familiar as prayer. They might be the only living things for miles, the warmth of the candles, the warmth spreading from their hands the only signs of life here at all. Sam bites his lip unthinkingly, his jaw set, and though he is four years older now, though Dean knows the t-shirt he's wearing below all of those layers is emblazoned with the motto of some college club, he is so very much Dean's brother at that moment, Sam as he always has been and maybe always will be, that Dean cannot help but smile. The candles melt slowly, dripping onto the scarred wood, and the cloudy light dulls the blade in Sam's hand, the gun in Dean's. Maybe it dulls Dean himself as well, because he doesn't look away in time when Sam looks up; he can't twist the smile into a smirk before Sam sees.
Candlelight flickers across Sam's face as he raises an eyebrow. Dean shrugs in answer, says like a question or a dare, "You didn't miss this at all."
"Squatting in an abandoned house with no heat at what might be America's most desolate tourist destination?" Sam says. "Yeah, you got me there."
"Don't go gettin' sentimental on me," Dean says. He kicks Sam's ankle, jostling the table, and for a moment the candles tilt dangerously, wax dripping like divination. He has to reach quickly to catch wayward bullets before they roll to the floor.
"You're such a fire hazard," Sam says, reproachful, as though he isn't one himself.
"Takes one to know one," Dean says, and Sam shakes his head, and then there's nothing more that needs to be said. There's the scrape of the sharpener and the click of disassembling machinery, those easy familiar motions and the pitch of the light like cotton, glinting with the candles' gutter.
--
Nightfall comes on fast and the temperature drops with it. Beneath their boots the sand shifts, clutching, and always the water seems to be drawing nearer, reaching towards them, flushed and greedy with high tide. They have been walking for hours, Dean thinks, though a glance at his watch claims it's only been two, which is hardly anything, and they have been listening, and watching, and so far they haven't found a goddamn thing.
"Not sure there's anything here," Dean says, loudly against the scrum of wind. "Maybe we drove five hundred freakin' miles for the, the ambience."
"It was more like four-seventy-five, and don't forget about the view," Sam says, hunched in his coat. "Didn't you pick this job?"
"I was rounding up," Dean says. "And look around, dude, we're on a beach and it's fuckin' freezing. You think I picked this job?"
"Had to be you," Sam says. "I sure as hell wouldn't have."
"Hey, you're the one who likes the beach so damn much," Dean says.
Sam pauses for a moment, and so Dean pauses beside him. He's squinting out at the water as though he sees something, hair falling windswept and careless across his eyes, but then he blinks and looks back at Dean. "Only when it's warm," he says.
"Then why didn't you pick somewhere else?" Dean asks. "Real bright move, there, genius."
"What, Dean, like California?" Sam says, his tone like he's not expecting an answer, like he knows his brother well enough, and Dean's annoyed despite himself.
"No," he says. "I just," but Sam's not listening; Sam's looking out at the dark water once more. "You see something?" Dean asks.
Sam shakes his head. "No," he says. "I, uh. For a second, I thought I did."
"You sure?" Dean asks, more concerned than suspicious, though he hopes it doesn't show. And then there is a sound, something akin to a moan, and out on the encrusted rocks a pale hand appears as she pulls herself out of the water. The lorelei's hair hangs in dark, tangled strands, and her lips are the color of pearls; her skin is the translucent milk-shade of something born to the deep chill black.
"Are you going to leave me?" she asks, her voice at once innocence and barest sorrow.
"That depends on your definition of 'leave,'" Dean says, because it's a stupid question. His hand brushes the butt of his gun and out of years-old habit, watch out for your brother, he glances at Sam, more to confirm his presence than anything else. He should have done it sooner, he thinks, should have done something despite the fact that there was no way he could have expected this, because Sam is staring at her, Sam will not look away, Sam is transfixed, witch-bound and rapt, and as the lorelei takes a step towards them, rising out of the water, Dean finds himself on his knees, tossed down, struggling for air. His gun is in his hand but he cannot lift it, can hardly breathe, his vision beginning to spark, cannot do more than watch as she entwines her fingers with his brother's, as she leans forward, rising onto her toes to press her mouth against Sam's neck, and Sam does not protest.
"Don't leave me," she says, and Dean hears it from all around, a cry rising from the sea itself, carried by the wind. Sam's arms encircle her waist, drawing her to him, and already his clothes are soaked, already he is growing paler, sea-wrecked and salt-white, and it's Dean, now, who cannot look away, horrified as he thinks for a moment that this is how it ends, that this is how he loses Sam, in a few days Sam's battered and empty body will wash up on the rocks, and it's his fault, he was the one who found the case, who came across the article while using Sam's laptop in that diner, and he should never have gone to California, should never have dragged Sam back into this--
And Sam is taking a step closer, is letting himself be led to the water, is following her to the sea, willing sacrifice to the water that laps around his ankles, his knees, his waist, swallowing him--
And Dean is crashing into the surf, almost blacking out with the force of it, sheer desperation crackling against whatever binding this is, his lungs on fire, his vision blurred until he hits the water, grabbing Sam's arm with his free hand, the gun still clutched in the other. "Sammy," he says, and he's not sure that his brother hears him; the wind tears at his throat, rips away his words. "Sammy, damn it, snap the fuck out of it, let go," because Sam is still holding on, Sam is still holding her hand, Sam will hold on even as it kills him, will believe that he is doing the right thing, that he is saving her, and Sam isn't listening, so Dean raises the gun and fires without thinking, and the world goes silent in the wake of the gunshot--
And the lorelei shrieks, and he does not hear it; he doesn't need to. He feels that death-thrash like the crack of a whip snapping out across the sea, across the sand, across the night, and Sam stumbles, choking on salt water though Dean had not seen him go under. Dean catches his shoulders, gun forgotten, and Sam leans against him and together they wade shaking back towards shore.
"You okay?" Dean asks on the sand, turning Sam towards him, thumb smoothing along Sam's jaw. Sam turns into the touch, eyes closing, and Dean thinks that he might be nodding, but it's hard to tell because he's also shivering, shuddering, soaked through to bone. "Fuckin' idiot, you always go for the goddamn damsel in distress, just gonna walk into the water and leave me here," and he so did not mean to say that last part aloud. Or at all. He didn't even mean to think it, and of course that's what Sam latches on to.
"I wasn't," Sam says, his teeth chattering. "I wasn't gonna, Dean, I, I, swear."
"C'mon, dumbass," Dean says, because of course Sam would say that, and because that's not the point at all; the point is that having managed not to die by lorelei, Sam appears to be giving death by hypothermia his best shot. "Let's get you dry and warm."
This time, Sam listens.
--
The windows are frosted, sea-rimed, by the time they make it back to the creaking house. Dean breaks the coffee table for firewood, wraps Sam in every blanket he can find and guides him towards the couch. "I can walk," Sam says, but he doesn't push Dean away. The fire isn't yet putting off much heat, but it's something, the kindle and spark of the flames distancing them from the chill of the beach, from the thought of the water closing black over Sam's head while Dean watched helpless and forever alone.
Sam might be thinking of the lorelei or of California, of his beautiful warm-breathed Jess or beaches skylit and golden, but Dean is remembering those desperate last days before Sam left for Stanford, when he knew how little they had left and because of that Sam's knuckles left him aching; Sam's mouth left him damned. He'd known then that anything they did would leave them both scattered and shattered and worse for it, but even as he knew this, he could not turn from his brother, could not turn away. Sam was leaving and then like the turn of winter the world would dim, bleaken, all empty halls, empty places, silence where an answer should have been. The hell of absence, and against this Dean scraped his mouth against his brother's, their teeth clicking together; against this they shook together, frightened boys clinging to that which was all that they knew and that which would not remain. That Sam is returned has not allowed Dean to forget that, not entirely, though sometimes there are blessed moments in which he can.
He's gathering Sam's wet clothes when he hears a strange clattering noise, realizes a moment later that it's coming from him, that it's his own teeth chattering together, that he, too, is shivering.
"Now who's the fuckin' idiot," Sam says from the couch, swathed in mismatched blankets, legs drawn up and only his face visible. His hair's still wet, curling damply. Even in fireglow he's still far paler than he ought to be, though no longer dangerously so, and probably Dean is as well. He looks absolutely ridiculous, Dean thinks, flipping Sam off as he does, and Dean's going to tell him as much, just as soon as he's done picking up the mess Sam left behind. When he edges close to Sam, Sam snakes out an arm and pulls him close, dragging him down onto the couch. The springs creak and whine beneath them. "You're gonna catch your death," Sam says.
"And whose fault would that be," Dean says, but he doesn't protest, doesn't push away as Sam's numb fingers struggle with the ouroborosed laces of his boots, with his shirt, with the buckle of his belt. At heart he's always known Sam will be the death of him. He lets Sam draw him close and they huddle together, knees knocking, shivering hard enough that it hurts as they stare at the crackling remains of the coffee table. "Owners are gonna be pissed when they get back," he says distantly. "Was probably an antique or something." Sam's short-lived laugh is startled, frantic, very nearly out of control.
"Tell me you didn't miss this," Dean says, his smirk weary but a smirk all the same, because any day he can make Sam laugh like that is a good day, even if Sam only laughed because he's tired and cold and possibly in shock.
"I missed having you use me as bait," Sam says. "Sure. Jerk."
Dean glances away, hums low in his throat and says, "Bitch. At least I saved your ass."
"You have to," Sam says. "I'm your brother, it's a rule."
"Yeah, Old Testament or New?" Dean says. "'sides, rules are made to be broken, Sammy. You know that."
Sam shakes his head. "You'd never," he says, more sure of his faith in Dean than Dean has ever been.
Dean lets out a breath. "You know me too well," he says. "That's cheating."
"It's called winning the argument, actually," Sam says, and then there's nothing more that needs to be said. There's the pop and hiss of the fire and the steady rhythm of their breath, those easy familiar motions and the pitch of the light, flickering golden across their faces, fading into soft shadow at the edges of the room.
--
There's a mattress in one of the other rooms, and now that the coffee table's no longer in the way, there's space enough for Sam to drag it in, put it in front of the fireplace. It's musty and it sags; whenever they move, whenever they breathe, they roll towards the center, towards each other, gravity or geas. The fifth time this happens, Sam edges a hand out and rests it almost tentatively on Dean's arm, as though he expects Dean to pull away. When Dean doesn't, when he doesn't move, doesn't dare do anything but look at his brother, look at the way Sam's looking at him, Sam skims his palm down, rests his thumb against Dean's wrist.
Dean's mouth is dry. "Sam," he says, and with the last of the dying flames, Sam's face is shadowed, familiar only in slants, angles, only for seconds.
"What," Sam says, his thumb moving in slow small circles over Dean's wrist, the thrum of his veins, and Dean wants to close his eyes, thinks desperately that he could die like this, die happy here with Sam, as long as he doesn't say anything. As long as he doesn't ask.
And so, of course, he opens his mouth.
"You didn't, uh. At the beach. You didn't hear me callin' you."
Sam's thumb stills. "I'm sorry," he says. His fingers trace up to Dean's shoulder, the heel of his hand resting on the curve of Dean's arm. The wind has quieted, some; Dean can hear it pushing at the windows, but it's no longer howling, no longer raging. It's grieving, he thinks, and he swallows.
"Sometimes I don't know what to do with you," he says. It's half a joke, a way to dismiss the conversation, and half truth. Sam is a gift, is everything he wants and everything he does not deserve. He wonders how long it will be until he loses Sam again, to a normal life or to some supernatural being, something evil and wretched that he should have seen coming. He will not let himself imagine that he will have Sam forever.
If he did, it would hurt that much more when he realized his mistake.
Sam kisses him, then, his mouth familiar against Dean's. He still tastes faintly of the sea, of brine, and Dean kisses him back, teeth cutting at Sam's lower lip, an erasure. Iron for salt. They curl against each other, warm against the cold grey of the outside world, of everything beyond, and Dean tastes salt in the hollow of Sam's throat, and when he pushes into Sam and Sam gasps, when Sam says Dean's name, when Sam shakes now with heat and need, Dean thinks didn't you miss this, and he does not need to know what Sam would say.
He knows that he will remember this until he dies, that he could never imagine otherwise, never imagine anything else, and if, for a moment, he allows himself to believe that this will indeed be forever, he'll never admit it, not to Sam, not to anyone, maybe not even to himself, later. He listens to the crash of Sam's breath and he closes his eyes into the rough heat between them; there are worse things than wolves at the door, but it is enough for now to drown the darkness outside.
--
end
Cradle
by whereupon
Sam/Dean. Season one, R, 3,070 words.
It would hurt that much more when he realized his mistake.
A remix (cover version?) of paxlux's " Riptide."
Between the howl and scrape of wind across the wracked mettle of land and the moon-damned sisyphean iterations of waves wind-charred white, Dean could well believe this is hell, a wasteland of cruel truth and futility, if not for his brother lighting broken candles on that battered table like something ravaged and returned by the sea. They have been drawn here by the lorelei's cry, have driven to the edge of the country at news of three drowned men, two fishermen who should have known better and one shopkeeper who never came home after locking the door, slipping the cool metal key into his pocket and, seeing the cast of moonlight across the surf, deciding that he could spare a moment to walk along the shore.
Here the light is strange, liminal, forever the first breath of winter; the sky is streaked rough with blue and white, grey, though in places it seems almost colorless. No one lives in this house, this crooked season-abandoned bungalow rising like a forgotten shipwreck from the dunes, and the nearest motel is sixty miles and one hundred dollars a night that they do not have away, so they've requisitioned it. Squatting, Sam had said, don't make it sound like it's something it's not, and Dean had shrugged, turned away. He'd only been trying to make it easier for his brother, make it something lighter, and he shouldn't have felt stung, but Sam always had been able to do that, even when he didn't mean to. Even when he didn't know he was doing it, and those hurt more, those accidental slights.
Sam sets the lighter down beside the candles and pulls his chair out, settles in across from Dean. Dean sets aside the knife he was using to turn a sheet formerly draped protectively over one of the chairs into strips, some of which will be used to keep the wind from slipping in through that missing windowpane, some of which will make their way into the first aid kit, where they will be used later to bind their wounds, steady broken bones and sprains, keep them from bleeding out, and some of which he smears now with gun oil, that scent familiar as memory itself.
They work quietly; they know what they're doing and there's no need to talk about it, no need for anything more than this ritual as familiar as prayer. They might be the only living things for miles, the warmth of the candles, the warmth spreading from their hands the only signs of life here at all. Sam bites his lip unthinkingly, his jaw set, and though he is four years older now, though Dean knows the t-shirt he's wearing below all of those layers is emblazoned with the motto of some college club, he is so very much Dean's brother at that moment, Sam as he always has been and maybe always will be, that Dean cannot help but smile. The candles melt slowly, dripping onto the scarred wood, and the cloudy light dulls the blade in Sam's hand, the gun in Dean's. Maybe it dulls Dean himself as well, because he doesn't look away in time when Sam looks up; he can't twist the smile into a smirk before Sam sees.
Candlelight flickers across Sam's face as he raises an eyebrow. Dean shrugs in answer, says like a question or a dare, "You didn't miss this at all."
"Squatting in an abandoned house with no heat at what might be America's most desolate tourist destination?" Sam says. "Yeah, you got me there."
"Don't go gettin' sentimental on me," Dean says. He kicks Sam's ankle, jostling the table, and for a moment the candles tilt dangerously, wax dripping like divination. He has to reach quickly to catch wayward bullets before they roll to the floor.
"You're such a fire hazard," Sam says, reproachful, as though he isn't one himself.
"Takes one to know one," Dean says, and Sam shakes his head, and then there's nothing more that needs to be said. There's the scrape of the sharpener and the click of disassembling machinery, those easy familiar motions and the pitch of the light like cotton, glinting with the candles' gutter.
--
Nightfall comes on fast and the temperature drops with it. Beneath their boots the sand shifts, clutching, and always the water seems to be drawing nearer, reaching towards them, flushed and greedy with high tide. They have been walking for hours, Dean thinks, though a glance at his watch claims it's only been two, which is hardly anything, and they have been listening, and watching, and so far they haven't found a goddamn thing.
"Not sure there's anything here," Dean says, loudly against the scrum of wind. "Maybe we drove five hundred freakin' miles for the, the ambience."
"It was more like four-seventy-five, and don't forget about the view," Sam says, hunched in his coat. "Didn't you pick this job?"
"I was rounding up," Dean says. "And look around, dude, we're on a beach and it's fuckin' freezing. You think I picked this job?"
"Had to be you," Sam says. "I sure as hell wouldn't have."
"Hey, you're the one who likes the beach so damn much," Dean says.
Sam pauses for a moment, and so Dean pauses beside him. He's squinting out at the water as though he sees something, hair falling windswept and careless across his eyes, but then he blinks and looks back at Dean. "Only when it's warm," he says.
"Then why didn't you pick somewhere else?" Dean asks. "Real bright move, there, genius."
"What, Dean, like California?" Sam says, his tone like he's not expecting an answer, like he knows his brother well enough, and Dean's annoyed despite himself.
"No," he says. "I just," but Sam's not listening; Sam's looking out at the dark water once more. "You see something?" Dean asks.
Sam shakes his head. "No," he says. "I, uh. For a second, I thought I did."
"You sure?" Dean asks, more concerned than suspicious, though he hopes it doesn't show. And then there is a sound, something akin to a moan, and out on the encrusted rocks a pale hand appears as she pulls herself out of the water. The lorelei's hair hangs in dark, tangled strands, and her lips are the color of pearls; her skin is the translucent milk-shade of something born to the deep chill black.
"Are you going to leave me?" she asks, her voice at once innocence and barest sorrow.
"That depends on your definition of 'leave,'" Dean says, because it's a stupid question. His hand brushes the butt of his gun and out of years-old habit, watch out for your brother, he glances at Sam, more to confirm his presence than anything else. He should have done it sooner, he thinks, should have done something despite the fact that there was no way he could have expected this, because Sam is staring at her, Sam will not look away, Sam is transfixed, witch-bound and rapt, and as the lorelei takes a step towards them, rising out of the water, Dean finds himself on his knees, tossed down, struggling for air. His gun is in his hand but he cannot lift it, can hardly breathe, his vision beginning to spark, cannot do more than watch as she entwines her fingers with his brother's, as she leans forward, rising onto her toes to press her mouth against Sam's neck, and Sam does not protest.
"Don't leave me," she says, and Dean hears it from all around, a cry rising from the sea itself, carried by the wind. Sam's arms encircle her waist, drawing her to him, and already his clothes are soaked, already he is growing paler, sea-wrecked and salt-white, and it's Dean, now, who cannot look away, horrified as he thinks for a moment that this is how it ends, that this is how he loses Sam, in a few days Sam's battered and empty body will wash up on the rocks, and it's his fault, he was the one who found the case, who came across the article while using Sam's laptop in that diner, and he should never have gone to California, should never have dragged Sam back into this--
And Sam is taking a step closer, is letting himself be led to the water, is following her to the sea, willing sacrifice to the water that laps around his ankles, his knees, his waist, swallowing him--
And Dean is crashing into the surf, almost blacking out with the force of it, sheer desperation crackling against whatever binding this is, his lungs on fire, his vision blurred until he hits the water, grabbing Sam's arm with his free hand, the gun still clutched in the other. "Sammy," he says, and he's not sure that his brother hears him; the wind tears at his throat, rips away his words. "Sammy, damn it, snap the fuck out of it, let go," because Sam is still holding on, Sam is still holding her hand, Sam will hold on even as it kills him, will believe that he is doing the right thing, that he is saving her, and Sam isn't listening, so Dean raises the gun and fires without thinking, and the world goes silent in the wake of the gunshot--
And the lorelei shrieks, and he does not hear it; he doesn't need to. He feels that death-thrash like the crack of a whip snapping out across the sea, across the sand, across the night, and Sam stumbles, choking on salt water though Dean had not seen him go under. Dean catches his shoulders, gun forgotten, and Sam leans against him and together they wade shaking back towards shore.
"You okay?" Dean asks on the sand, turning Sam towards him, thumb smoothing along Sam's jaw. Sam turns into the touch, eyes closing, and Dean thinks that he might be nodding, but it's hard to tell because he's also shivering, shuddering, soaked through to bone. "Fuckin' idiot, you always go for the goddamn damsel in distress, just gonna walk into the water and leave me here," and he so did not mean to say that last part aloud. Or at all. He didn't even mean to think it, and of course that's what Sam latches on to.
"I wasn't," Sam says, his teeth chattering. "I wasn't gonna, Dean, I, I, swear."
"C'mon, dumbass," Dean says, because of course Sam would say that, and because that's not the point at all; the point is that having managed not to die by lorelei, Sam appears to be giving death by hypothermia his best shot. "Let's get you dry and warm."
This time, Sam listens.
--
The windows are frosted, sea-rimed, by the time they make it back to the creaking house. Dean breaks the coffee table for firewood, wraps Sam in every blanket he can find and guides him towards the couch. "I can walk," Sam says, but he doesn't push Dean away. The fire isn't yet putting off much heat, but it's something, the kindle and spark of the flames distancing them from the chill of the beach, from the thought of the water closing black over Sam's head while Dean watched helpless and forever alone.
Sam might be thinking of the lorelei or of California, of his beautiful warm-breathed Jess or beaches skylit and golden, but Dean is remembering those desperate last days before Sam left for Stanford, when he knew how little they had left and because of that Sam's knuckles left him aching; Sam's mouth left him damned. He'd known then that anything they did would leave them both scattered and shattered and worse for it, but even as he knew this, he could not turn from his brother, could not turn away. Sam was leaving and then like the turn of winter the world would dim, bleaken, all empty halls, empty places, silence where an answer should have been. The hell of absence, and against this Dean scraped his mouth against his brother's, their teeth clicking together; against this they shook together, frightened boys clinging to that which was all that they knew and that which would not remain. That Sam is returned has not allowed Dean to forget that, not entirely, though sometimes there are blessed moments in which he can.
He's gathering Sam's wet clothes when he hears a strange clattering noise, realizes a moment later that it's coming from him, that it's his own teeth chattering together, that he, too, is shivering.
"Now who's the fuckin' idiot," Sam says from the couch, swathed in mismatched blankets, legs drawn up and only his face visible. His hair's still wet, curling damply. Even in fireglow he's still far paler than he ought to be, though no longer dangerously so, and probably Dean is as well. He looks absolutely ridiculous, Dean thinks, flipping Sam off as he does, and Dean's going to tell him as much, just as soon as he's done picking up the mess Sam left behind. When he edges close to Sam, Sam snakes out an arm and pulls him close, dragging him down onto the couch. The springs creak and whine beneath them. "You're gonna catch your death," Sam says.
"And whose fault would that be," Dean says, but he doesn't protest, doesn't push away as Sam's numb fingers struggle with the ouroborosed laces of his boots, with his shirt, with the buckle of his belt. At heart he's always known Sam will be the death of him. He lets Sam draw him close and they huddle together, knees knocking, shivering hard enough that it hurts as they stare at the crackling remains of the coffee table. "Owners are gonna be pissed when they get back," he says distantly. "Was probably an antique or something." Sam's short-lived laugh is startled, frantic, very nearly out of control.
"Tell me you didn't miss this," Dean says, his smirk weary but a smirk all the same, because any day he can make Sam laugh like that is a good day, even if Sam only laughed because he's tired and cold and possibly in shock.
"I missed having you use me as bait," Sam says. "Sure. Jerk."
Dean glances away, hums low in his throat and says, "Bitch. At least I saved your ass."
"You have to," Sam says. "I'm your brother, it's a rule."
"Yeah, Old Testament or New?" Dean says. "'sides, rules are made to be broken, Sammy. You know that."
Sam shakes his head. "You'd never," he says, more sure of his faith in Dean than Dean has ever been.
Dean lets out a breath. "You know me too well," he says. "That's cheating."
"It's called winning the argument, actually," Sam says, and then there's nothing more that needs to be said. There's the pop and hiss of the fire and the steady rhythm of their breath, those easy familiar motions and the pitch of the light, flickering golden across their faces, fading into soft shadow at the edges of the room.
--
There's a mattress in one of the other rooms, and now that the coffee table's no longer in the way, there's space enough for Sam to drag it in, put it in front of the fireplace. It's musty and it sags; whenever they move, whenever they breathe, they roll towards the center, towards each other, gravity or geas. The fifth time this happens, Sam edges a hand out and rests it almost tentatively on Dean's arm, as though he expects Dean to pull away. When Dean doesn't, when he doesn't move, doesn't dare do anything but look at his brother, look at the way Sam's looking at him, Sam skims his palm down, rests his thumb against Dean's wrist.
Dean's mouth is dry. "Sam," he says, and with the last of the dying flames, Sam's face is shadowed, familiar only in slants, angles, only for seconds.
"What," Sam says, his thumb moving in slow small circles over Dean's wrist, the thrum of his veins, and Dean wants to close his eyes, thinks desperately that he could die like this, die happy here with Sam, as long as he doesn't say anything. As long as he doesn't ask.
And so, of course, he opens his mouth.
"You didn't, uh. At the beach. You didn't hear me callin' you."
Sam's thumb stills. "I'm sorry," he says. His fingers trace up to Dean's shoulder, the heel of his hand resting on the curve of Dean's arm. The wind has quieted, some; Dean can hear it pushing at the windows, but it's no longer howling, no longer raging. It's grieving, he thinks, and he swallows.
"Sometimes I don't know what to do with you," he says. It's half a joke, a way to dismiss the conversation, and half truth. Sam is a gift, is everything he wants and everything he does not deserve. He wonders how long it will be until he loses Sam again, to a normal life or to some supernatural being, something evil and wretched that he should have seen coming. He will not let himself imagine that he will have Sam forever.
If he did, it would hurt that much more when he realized his mistake.
Sam kisses him, then, his mouth familiar against Dean's. He still tastes faintly of the sea, of brine, and Dean kisses him back, teeth cutting at Sam's lower lip, an erasure. Iron for salt. They curl against each other, warm against the cold grey of the outside world, of everything beyond, and Dean tastes salt in the hollow of Sam's throat, and when he pushes into Sam and Sam gasps, when Sam says Dean's name, when Sam shakes now with heat and need, Dean thinks didn't you miss this, and he does not need to know what Sam would say.
He knows that he will remember this until he dies, that he could never imagine otherwise, never imagine anything else, and if, for a moment, he allows himself to believe that this will indeed be forever, he'll never admit it, not to Sam, not to anyone, maybe not even to himself, later. He listens to the crash of Sam's breath and he closes his eyes into the rough heat between them; there are worse things than wolves at the door, but it is enough for now to drown the darkness outside.
--
end