(no subject)
Vow
by whereupon
sam/ruby/dean, tangentially post 'sex and violence,' nc-17, slight bloodplay, 3,431 words.
Kiss me blind, somebody should.
They've been on edge for days, Sam twitchy and nervous in the passenger seat and Dean driving faster, slamming on the brakes too hard and sudden, because he knows it'll bother Sam, because on some level he's making a point about control. Something dark beneath his skin, beneath both of their skins, and they've been fighting more, arguing over stupid things like they're kids again. Sharp words and then silence for hours.
Much as he wants to blame Sam for that, for this, he can't. It's both of them. It's everything. The weight of the world, and somehow the epics left this part out, the toll the whole battle between good and evil takes on things like living and driving and sleeping, how much harder it makes choosing hunts, choosing what to get for fucking dinner, because who knows what the cost might be, what significance every single little action might gain in retrospect.
So many seals broken and they could have stopped them, if they'd known. This whole time.
It's driving them both insane.
He almost hit Sam again yesterday and he's not sure if he's worried that Sam would have hit back, or that he wouldn't have. How far they would have gone, all because of the look on Sam's face when he said yeah, he had no idea where Dean's Zeppelin IV tape was, and maybe he was telling the truth, but maybe he wasn't. And Dean hates that, hates that he's second-guessing fucking everything now, jarring paranoid reflex, like he can't even trust Sam anymore, can't trust anything he says.
Which, maybe he can't.
So they're fighting. Or maybe not, this weird plateau, lull, like a truce, or like the calm before the storm.
He's not sure he wants to know what the storm will bring.
He finishes his beer, slaps a five down on the counter to cover the bill, and heads for the door. The bar's full of people, jostling and laughing and crowding, almost enough to drown out the noise in his head, but the music on the jukebox is shit and he's not in the mood to pretend.
He knows how it will end, if he stays, because it's ended the same way for weeks now. He hits on somebody's girlfriend, maybe just for laughs, to kill time, and her boyfriend jumps in, all Cro-mag defensive, and Dean smirks and he won't be the one to throw the first punch, no, but he'll hit back, and harder, because the other guy started it. Because after that, anything that happens is only self-defense.
(Because that's how he could justify to Sam. If Sam ever asked. Which he so rarely does anymore.)
It's so fucking easy, how quickly they react, and they all move the same way, like they learned to fight from late night westerns or Tarantino flicks. Like they have no idea, like they think it's something serious, turn it into a matter of life and death, dignity and honor and whatever other ideals they use to get themselves off, pretty little pictures they construct like shields to keep out the dark.
He never gets what he's looking for from the ones like that. He laughs at them, goading them on, and his ears ring and sometimes he tastes blood, but it's never enough.
He likes it best when they know what they're doing. When their punches land more often than not. When he can spend the next day tonguing his cheek, abraded skin, the bruise on the side of his jaw, when his vision flickers and he can't breathe, when he almost goes down. When maybe for an instant, for a heartbeat, it looks like they might win, after all.
Something thrumming through his veins, igniting, going deeper than sex, than anything ethanol or nicotine might provide.
He might have been able to get it from Sam, if it were last year or the year before that. Fighting, hand to hand and the thunder of breath, in some parking lot, back alley, open field, until whatever this is burned clear out of him, adrenaline rush and release, until his vision was as clear as the thin night sky, stars glinting hot and high above.
But the last time he and Sam fought like that, they were trying to kill each other. And he's not sure it will have the same effect, after that. Memory of holding a knife to Sam's throat, of Sam shoving him back, of standing over Sam with the axe and knowing that he was going to do it, instant clarity, that he was going to prove something awful and final and true.
He's not sure that anything less would work anymore, anything less than kill or be killed, and he's not sure he trusts himself not to do either. Not sure he trusts himself not to push past somebody's limit, past the boundary of humanity.
He thinks company could be fatal right about now.
The cold night air doesn't help as he walks back to the room. He left his car at the motel with Sam, walked to the bar instead. It’s a short distance anyway and he meant it as a sign of good faith, of trust. That he was coming back.
He took the keys, though.
He's not sure if Sam even noticed.
He's quiet when he gets back to the motel, the teeth of the room key digging into his hand, almost hard enough to draw blood, like that in itself might be release.
He's quiet, so goddamn quiet. Black on black, moving in the shadows, the weak light streaming in through the blinds from the streetlight outside the window, and he expects Sam to be asleep, wants to avoid waking him, talking to him. He's not sure there's anything Sam could say that wouldn't make Dean want to hit him again. Even if all Sam did was turn on the light.
So it's not a surprise when Sam doesn't see him. When they don't see him. Because Sam's not alone, sitting on the edge of his bed with Ruby in his lap. Stunning profile shot of Sam's face moving against the sleek line of Ruby's chest, the shadow of her skin just above the black of her tank top. The exposed line of Sam's back and his hands tight as cuffs around her biceps as she threads her hands through his hair, pushing it back from his face.
And maybe Dean was too quick with the sex judgment. Maybe that would have helped, after all.
Sam's hands edge beneath the straps of Ruby's tank top and she throws her head back, baring her throat. Dean moves when she starts to lift her shirt, thin black cotton sliding up to reveal the unscarred length of her stomach, abrupt latticework of her bra.
"Didn't know I'd be interrupting anything," he says and Sam jolts, lets go of Ruby's shoulders as Ruby tugs her shirt back down. For a moment Dean thinks her fingers are dipped in blood, but then he realizes that they're only painted, the nails red and glistening, unexpectedly human detail. He wonders if she did that for Sam, dressed up like a real girl, like that makes this better for him, easier to think about in the sunlight, in the day.
"Didn't know you'd be coming back," Sam says. His voice is heavy, no trace of anything like casual. He curls a hand around Ruby's wrist, possessive and anchoring. She doesn't shift away, doesn't get up to leave, doesn't look embarrassed or even annoyed. Just -- patient. Like she's waiting to see what Dean will do.
Dean doesn't move to turn on the lights, cast some pall of normality across the room, maybe make a joke about awkwardness or just an awkward joke. Neither does Sam. Ruby watches Dean with wide eyes and he wonders if she likes her new body. So different from the sharp angles of the other one, perfect California blonde. He wonders if she chose that one for Sam, too. Though it didn't look all that much like Jessica, really. Not even close.
"I can go," Ruby says, finally. She's still watching him, pensive, teeth digging into her lower lip like she's actually worried about how he might respond. What he might say.
"No," Sam says, quick. He doesn't look at her, looks at Dean instead.
"No," Dean says, and he's not bitter, he's not. Something else painting his words in grey and black, running rough down the texture of his voice. "You were here first."
She tilts her head.
"Dean," Sam says.
Ruby blinks, swallows. She looks almost nervous as she takes Sam's hand off of her wrist, slides off of his lap. Dean doesn't move as she comes closer. Her cheeks are flushed, her skin damp. He can see her chest moving, steady rise and fall, the slickness trailing down between her breasts.
He doesn't move as she lifts her hand, curves it around his cheek, the line of his jaw. Looks up at him and she's still in her boots, minimal height difference as she says, "Stay," and leans up to kiss him.
She kisses like she knows what she's doing, like she knows what she wants. She kisses him like she doesn't expect him to pull away, and he doesn't, his hands taking the place of Sam's around her biceps, pulling her close. He kisses her back, hard enough to bruise, and he feels her smile.
She runs her tongue across his lower lip one last time and pulls away. He meets Sam's eyes over her shoulder, and Sam nods.
Dean lets go of Ruby's arms. One of his hands comes away damp, sticky and warm. He looks down at his palm, back up at her. Thin red line curving around her shoulder, fingerprints of blood smearing beneath it. Like she was fighting with something, like somebody had a knife and she didn't move fast enough.
Like she was fighting with Sam, and maybe it's not just Dean, after all. Razor-edged thing threatening to tear out from beneath his skin.
Ruby smiles at him, another flash of white teeth, and turns back to Sam. She pushes him back, flat on the bed, pushing down on his shoulders when he catches himself on his elbows. She pushes him back and crawls on top, between his legs, and she's small, so small as she bows her head, dark hair feathering across Sam's neck, spilling onto the bed. Sam arches up, his breath catching, coming fast, and Dean swallows.
The other bed gives beneath him, springs creaking, and this is so far from holy, from the bloody commands of angels, the wrecked promises of a god in which he's still not sure he believes.
His mouth is dry and his cock is aching and his head is pounding, almost to the point of incoherence, almost to the point of breaking through to absolute silence, something like peace. And maybe this is a very bad idea, but he doesn't. He doesn't fucking care, not right now.
Ruby slides down, her hands flashing across Sam's chest as she reaches for his belt, for the button of his jeans. Sam clutches for her, clutches at the blanket beneath himself as her fingers, flash of her fingernails and from this close Dean can see that the red's chipped, curl around his cock, as she lowers her head.
Dean can't see her face, hidden by the veil of her hair, but he can see Sam's. Can see the line of Sam's throat as he swallows, the flicker of his eyes as he groans, Ruby straddling his legs, holding him down, and Dean makes a stupid choking noise as Sam shudders, as he reaches for Ruby and she lets him, lets him pull her close, press his mouth to hers and hold her tight as she works one hand into the space between them.
When Ruby pulls away, wipes a hand across her mouth and gets to her feet, Dean pushes off of the other bed. He's going to take her place, though what he's going to do once he's there is something he hasn't quite worked out. He and Sam haven't done this in. A long time. Since before hell. Since before there was something between them that blowjobs on the side of the road, that biting his lip at two a.m. in grimy truckstop bathrooms while the lights over the sink flickered and Sam's eyes were smudges in the mirror, couldn't touch.
He doesn't expect Sam to move, to twist a leg behind Dean, knock him off balance and turn him around. Dean's own back flat against the mattress and he's pinned beneath Sam's weight, staring up at him.
He doesn't remember when Sam got this fast, this strong. Four years ago he could have taken Sam, easy. Maybe. Four-and-forty, though, really, and just because time didn't pass as quickly here, that's no reason to expect Sam not to have changed.
No matter how many times he reminds himself, how hard he tries to keep that in mind, this new strange Sam hurts every time. Reminder of how Dean wasn't there to stop it from happening, last fragments of anything approaching innocence burning up long before Dean was pulled out of hell.
"Sammy," he says, blinking, and there's white noise buzzing at the back of his skull. He grinds up against Sam, swears as Sam pulls away, fractionally but enough. Sam leans in, one hand on the back of Dean's skull, an entirely different kind of pressure as he kisses Dean and Dean licks copper from his mouth, desperate, rough, sharp lines of his teeth until Sam relents, presses the heel of his palm against the front of Dean's jeans.
It's about power, maybe, a game, about winning or about control, but Dean doesn't care, not now, grinding and shuddering against Sam until he comes, mouthing at Sam's neck, biting down onto his shoulder and tasting sweat and electricity, livewire battery as the static recedes.
Ruby's on the other bed, satisfied smile on her face and her jeans undone, like she's been watching the whole thing. Which is only fair, to be expected. Turnabout, and she was here first. Sam kisses Dean one last time, open-mouthed like a promise, before straightening, standing, before going to her. He touches her knees and she parts her legs, lets him settle in between, press his mouth to her stomach and trace patterns with his tongue. She shivers as he dips below her waist, beneath the line of her underwear.
When he starts to tug her jeans down, Dean moves. Sam doesn't look up as he comes closer, as he kneels by Ruby's side while Sam kisses the dampness on her thighs, slips his fingers beneath the straps digging into her hips and eases her underwear down.
Ruby's eyes are closed, black pencil outline starting to smear around the edges. It looks like bruises when she opens her eyes, when Dean leans over, and it's not a kiss, exactly. More like a mark, a branding, as he opens his mouth against hers and tastes Sam.
She clutches at Dean, fingernails biting through his t-shirt, digging into his back as she whimpers, and she grips tighter as he pulls away, slides down to press his tongue to the flat hollow of her throat, the salt of her sweat so familiar, like something that's been dormant in him for ages. He licks across her collarbone as his fingers edge beneath the black of her tank top, her bra, his thumbs circling hard against her nipples.
The bed shakes as she presses into Sam, into him, rolling her hips, choking noises in her throat like she's trying to hold them back.
When she screams, raw edge, roman candle flare as she arches her back, Dean feels something inside him snap, something deep and buried and forgotten, how close the pitch is to pain, to violence, to that which something inside interprets as victory, and he digs his fingers into her shoulder as he comes, muffling his noise into the pillow beside her face.
Strange, how exposed that leaves him, when nothing else, none of this, has.
When he opens his eyes, when he sits up, Sam is looking at him, and Ruby's zipping up her jeans, pushing her hair behind her ears, watching Sam.
Dean thinks he should say something, that Sam might be expecting as much, something apologetic or dirty or maybe cruel, but there aren't words, nothing accurate, and he doesn't trust his voice right now. He thinks he should be ashamed, should hate himself or at least be nauseated by that particular flash of memory, but.
He's exhausted, burned out. The light streaming in around the window is the color of the moon.
Ruby finishes adjusting her clothes, but she doesn't get up, doesn't head for the door. Sam looks back at her, looks down at the bed. Dean scrubs his hands across his face.
He should get up. He should get up and leave, go back to the bar, maybe get wasted and forget all of this. Forget this jagged thing in himself, in Sam, in her, crackling around all of them, burrowing deeper with every breath. Wait until Castiel shows up with another message and cling to that instead, like if he holds tight enough, he might achieve something like righteousness, redemption. Blind faith in the face of everything he knows, everything he's known, but if he tries hard enough, refuses that which he sees, he might be able to look at himself in the mirror, in the daylight, and recognize something that used to be there.
He's not stupid enough to hope for forgiveness. The dead, the souls he touched, he destroyed, are so far beyond that.
Atonement, maybe. Instead of this. Instead of the heat and the dark and Sam looking at him like he knows more than he should, more than he possibly can, and Ruby. Ruby who has done the same things, who does know. Who crawled out of hell in time to save Sam, to stop Sam from killing himself, one more sacrifice to their inherited martyr complex.
They both want the same thing, down deep. Dean and Sam, Sam and Ruby, Ruby and Dean.
So similar, beneath the skin, the shape of their souls. And he never wanted that, not for Sam.
He should get up, he knows, but he doesn't, he won't, and he thinks maybe he could stay forever. His jeans are sticky and uncomfortable and he thinks he should sleep or maybe shower, but he won't do that, either. Breathes in, listens to Ruby and Sam doing the same. Quiet settling dim and the air still heavy, muddy salt taste, elemental.
He lowers himself back down, stretching out at Ruby's side. After a minute, contemplation or resignation or maybe something else entirely, Sam does the same, his eyes on Dean again, calm and unreadable. Ruby hums low in her throat, content. She takes Dean's hand, and then Sam's, folds them together, rests them on her stomach.
Sam turns onto his side, lays a kiss on Ruby's shoulder, and when he lifts his head, his mouth is red, sloppy. He doesn't knuckle at the blood, doesn't cringe or flinch or lick it away, rests his head back on the pillow instead, like it's nothing. Watches Dean from the other side of the bed, and between them Ruby's watching the ceiling, not looking at either of them. Dean imagines the perfect imprint of Sam's mouth, clean lines of his tongue against the red on her skin. He stares back at Sam.
Maybe Sam's not waiting for words, after all. Maybe for judgment, and Dean has nothing. Nothing. No lines to cross, not right now, no condemnation based on who they used to be.
After a moment, Ruby presses her thumb to the hollow of Dean's wrist, the rhythm of his pulse, the promise of life, a heartbeat, a continuation.
Dean wonders if she's doing the same to Sam, Sam's palm hot against his. If their hearts beat in unison, if they're the same that far down. He doesn't pull away.
He thinks this might be how they win, after all, stronger together, a unified front, built on the unmentionable things they've done. Or maybe it's just how they lose and these are the lies he'll tell himself to make it easier.
There are, after all, so many days when it's impossible for him to tell the difference.
by whereupon
sam/ruby/dean, tangentially post 'sex and violence,' nc-17, slight bloodplay, 3,431 words.
Kiss me blind, somebody should.
They've been on edge for days, Sam twitchy and nervous in the passenger seat and Dean driving faster, slamming on the brakes too hard and sudden, because he knows it'll bother Sam, because on some level he's making a point about control. Something dark beneath his skin, beneath both of their skins, and they've been fighting more, arguing over stupid things like they're kids again. Sharp words and then silence for hours.
Much as he wants to blame Sam for that, for this, he can't. It's both of them. It's everything. The weight of the world, and somehow the epics left this part out, the toll the whole battle between good and evil takes on things like living and driving and sleeping, how much harder it makes choosing hunts, choosing what to get for fucking dinner, because who knows what the cost might be, what significance every single little action might gain in retrospect.
So many seals broken and they could have stopped them, if they'd known. This whole time.
It's driving them both insane.
He almost hit Sam again yesterday and he's not sure if he's worried that Sam would have hit back, or that he wouldn't have. How far they would have gone, all because of the look on Sam's face when he said yeah, he had no idea where Dean's Zeppelin IV tape was, and maybe he was telling the truth, but maybe he wasn't. And Dean hates that, hates that he's second-guessing fucking everything now, jarring paranoid reflex, like he can't even trust Sam anymore, can't trust anything he says.
Which, maybe he can't.
So they're fighting. Or maybe not, this weird plateau, lull, like a truce, or like the calm before the storm.
He's not sure he wants to know what the storm will bring.
He finishes his beer, slaps a five down on the counter to cover the bill, and heads for the door. The bar's full of people, jostling and laughing and crowding, almost enough to drown out the noise in his head, but the music on the jukebox is shit and he's not in the mood to pretend.
He knows how it will end, if he stays, because it's ended the same way for weeks now. He hits on somebody's girlfriend, maybe just for laughs, to kill time, and her boyfriend jumps in, all Cro-mag defensive, and Dean smirks and he won't be the one to throw the first punch, no, but he'll hit back, and harder, because the other guy started it. Because after that, anything that happens is only self-defense.
(Because that's how he could justify to Sam. If Sam ever asked. Which he so rarely does anymore.)
It's so fucking easy, how quickly they react, and they all move the same way, like they learned to fight from late night westerns or Tarantino flicks. Like they have no idea, like they think it's something serious, turn it into a matter of life and death, dignity and honor and whatever other ideals they use to get themselves off, pretty little pictures they construct like shields to keep out the dark.
He never gets what he's looking for from the ones like that. He laughs at them, goading them on, and his ears ring and sometimes he tastes blood, but it's never enough.
He likes it best when they know what they're doing. When their punches land more often than not. When he can spend the next day tonguing his cheek, abraded skin, the bruise on the side of his jaw, when his vision flickers and he can't breathe, when he almost goes down. When maybe for an instant, for a heartbeat, it looks like they might win, after all.
Something thrumming through his veins, igniting, going deeper than sex, than anything ethanol or nicotine might provide.
He might have been able to get it from Sam, if it were last year or the year before that. Fighting, hand to hand and the thunder of breath, in some parking lot, back alley, open field, until whatever this is burned clear out of him, adrenaline rush and release, until his vision was as clear as the thin night sky, stars glinting hot and high above.
But the last time he and Sam fought like that, they were trying to kill each other. And he's not sure it will have the same effect, after that. Memory of holding a knife to Sam's throat, of Sam shoving him back, of standing over Sam with the axe and knowing that he was going to do it, instant clarity, that he was going to prove something awful and final and true.
He's not sure that anything less would work anymore, anything less than kill or be killed, and he's not sure he trusts himself not to do either. Not sure he trusts himself not to push past somebody's limit, past the boundary of humanity.
He thinks company could be fatal right about now.
The cold night air doesn't help as he walks back to the room. He left his car at the motel with Sam, walked to the bar instead. It’s a short distance anyway and he meant it as a sign of good faith, of trust. That he was coming back.
He took the keys, though.
He's not sure if Sam even noticed.
He's quiet when he gets back to the motel, the teeth of the room key digging into his hand, almost hard enough to draw blood, like that in itself might be release.
He's quiet, so goddamn quiet. Black on black, moving in the shadows, the weak light streaming in through the blinds from the streetlight outside the window, and he expects Sam to be asleep, wants to avoid waking him, talking to him. He's not sure there's anything Sam could say that wouldn't make Dean want to hit him again. Even if all Sam did was turn on the light.
So it's not a surprise when Sam doesn't see him. When they don't see him. Because Sam's not alone, sitting on the edge of his bed with Ruby in his lap. Stunning profile shot of Sam's face moving against the sleek line of Ruby's chest, the shadow of her skin just above the black of her tank top. The exposed line of Sam's back and his hands tight as cuffs around her biceps as she threads her hands through his hair, pushing it back from his face.
And maybe Dean was too quick with the sex judgment. Maybe that would have helped, after all.
Sam's hands edge beneath the straps of Ruby's tank top and she throws her head back, baring her throat. Dean moves when she starts to lift her shirt, thin black cotton sliding up to reveal the unscarred length of her stomach, abrupt latticework of her bra.
"Didn't know I'd be interrupting anything," he says and Sam jolts, lets go of Ruby's shoulders as Ruby tugs her shirt back down. For a moment Dean thinks her fingers are dipped in blood, but then he realizes that they're only painted, the nails red and glistening, unexpectedly human detail. He wonders if she did that for Sam, dressed up like a real girl, like that makes this better for him, easier to think about in the sunlight, in the day.
"Didn't know you'd be coming back," Sam says. His voice is heavy, no trace of anything like casual. He curls a hand around Ruby's wrist, possessive and anchoring. She doesn't shift away, doesn't get up to leave, doesn't look embarrassed or even annoyed. Just -- patient. Like she's waiting to see what Dean will do.
Dean doesn't move to turn on the lights, cast some pall of normality across the room, maybe make a joke about awkwardness or just an awkward joke. Neither does Sam. Ruby watches Dean with wide eyes and he wonders if she likes her new body. So different from the sharp angles of the other one, perfect California blonde. He wonders if she chose that one for Sam, too. Though it didn't look all that much like Jessica, really. Not even close.
"I can go," Ruby says, finally. She's still watching him, pensive, teeth digging into her lower lip like she's actually worried about how he might respond. What he might say.
"No," Sam says, quick. He doesn't look at her, looks at Dean instead.
"No," Dean says, and he's not bitter, he's not. Something else painting his words in grey and black, running rough down the texture of his voice. "You were here first."
She tilts her head.
"Dean," Sam says.
Ruby blinks, swallows. She looks almost nervous as she takes Sam's hand off of her wrist, slides off of his lap. Dean doesn't move as she comes closer. Her cheeks are flushed, her skin damp. He can see her chest moving, steady rise and fall, the slickness trailing down between her breasts.
He doesn't move as she lifts her hand, curves it around his cheek, the line of his jaw. Looks up at him and she's still in her boots, minimal height difference as she says, "Stay," and leans up to kiss him.
She kisses like she knows what she's doing, like she knows what she wants. She kisses him like she doesn't expect him to pull away, and he doesn't, his hands taking the place of Sam's around her biceps, pulling her close. He kisses her back, hard enough to bruise, and he feels her smile.
She runs her tongue across his lower lip one last time and pulls away. He meets Sam's eyes over her shoulder, and Sam nods.
Dean lets go of Ruby's arms. One of his hands comes away damp, sticky and warm. He looks down at his palm, back up at her. Thin red line curving around her shoulder, fingerprints of blood smearing beneath it. Like she was fighting with something, like somebody had a knife and she didn't move fast enough.
Like she was fighting with Sam, and maybe it's not just Dean, after all. Razor-edged thing threatening to tear out from beneath his skin.
Ruby smiles at him, another flash of white teeth, and turns back to Sam. She pushes him back, flat on the bed, pushing down on his shoulders when he catches himself on his elbows. She pushes him back and crawls on top, between his legs, and she's small, so small as she bows her head, dark hair feathering across Sam's neck, spilling onto the bed. Sam arches up, his breath catching, coming fast, and Dean swallows.
The other bed gives beneath him, springs creaking, and this is so far from holy, from the bloody commands of angels, the wrecked promises of a god in which he's still not sure he believes.
His mouth is dry and his cock is aching and his head is pounding, almost to the point of incoherence, almost to the point of breaking through to absolute silence, something like peace. And maybe this is a very bad idea, but he doesn't. He doesn't fucking care, not right now.
Ruby slides down, her hands flashing across Sam's chest as she reaches for his belt, for the button of his jeans. Sam clutches for her, clutches at the blanket beneath himself as her fingers, flash of her fingernails and from this close Dean can see that the red's chipped, curl around his cock, as she lowers her head.
Dean can't see her face, hidden by the veil of her hair, but he can see Sam's. Can see the line of Sam's throat as he swallows, the flicker of his eyes as he groans, Ruby straddling his legs, holding him down, and Dean makes a stupid choking noise as Sam shudders, as he reaches for Ruby and she lets him, lets him pull her close, press his mouth to hers and hold her tight as she works one hand into the space between them.
When Ruby pulls away, wipes a hand across her mouth and gets to her feet, Dean pushes off of the other bed. He's going to take her place, though what he's going to do once he's there is something he hasn't quite worked out. He and Sam haven't done this in. A long time. Since before hell. Since before there was something between them that blowjobs on the side of the road, that biting his lip at two a.m. in grimy truckstop bathrooms while the lights over the sink flickered and Sam's eyes were smudges in the mirror, couldn't touch.
He doesn't expect Sam to move, to twist a leg behind Dean, knock him off balance and turn him around. Dean's own back flat against the mattress and he's pinned beneath Sam's weight, staring up at him.
He doesn't remember when Sam got this fast, this strong. Four years ago he could have taken Sam, easy. Maybe. Four-and-forty, though, really, and just because time didn't pass as quickly here, that's no reason to expect Sam not to have changed.
No matter how many times he reminds himself, how hard he tries to keep that in mind, this new strange Sam hurts every time. Reminder of how Dean wasn't there to stop it from happening, last fragments of anything approaching innocence burning up long before Dean was pulled out of hell.
"Sammy," he says, blinking, and there's white noise buzzing at the back of his skull. He grinds up against Sam, swears as Sam pulls away, fractionally but enough. Sam leans in, one hand on the back of Dean's skull, an entirely different kind of pressure as he kisses Dean and Dean licks copper from his mouth, desperate, rough, sharp lines of his teeth until Sam relents, presses the heel of his palm against the front of Dean's jeans.
It's about power, maybe, a game, about winning or about control, but Dean doesn't care, not now, grinding and shuddering against Sam until he comes, mouthing at Sam's neck, biting down onto his shoulder and tasting sweat and electricity, livewire battery as the static recedes.
Ruby's on the other bed, satisfied smile on her face and her jeans undone, like she's been watching the whole thing. Which is only fair, to be expected. Turnabout, and she was here first. Sam kisses Dean one last time, open-mouthed like a promise, before straightening, standing, before going to her. He touches her knees and she parts her legs, lets him settle in between, press his mouth to her stomach and trace patterns with his tongue. She shivers as he dips below her waist, beneath the line of her underwear.
When he starts to tug her jeans down, Dean moves. Sam doesn't look up as he comes closer, as he kneels by Ruby's side while Sam kisses the dampness on her thighs, slips his fingers beneath the straps digging into her hips and eases her underwear down.
Ruby's eyes are closed, black pencil outline starting to smear around the edges. It looks like bruises when she opens her eyes, when Dean leans over, and it's not a kiss, exactly. More like a mark, a branding, as he opens his mouth against hers and tastes Sam.
She clutches at Dean, fingernails biting through his t-shirt, digging into his back as she whimpers, and she grips tighter as he pulls away, slides down to press his tongue to the flat hollow of her throat, the salt of her sweat so familiar, like something that's been dormant in him for ages. He licks across her collarbone as his fingers edge beneath the black of her tank top, her bra, his thumbs circling hard against her nipples.
The bed shakes as she presses into Sam, into him, rolling her hips, choking noises in her throat like she's trying to hold them back.
When she screams, raw edge, roman candle flare as she arches her back, Dean feels something inside him snap, something deep and buried and forgotten, how close the pitch is to pain, to violence, to that which something inside interprets as victory, and he digs his fingers into her shoulder as he comes, muffling his noise into the pillow beside her face.
Strange, how exposed that leaves him, when nothing else, none of this, has.
When he opens his eyes, when he sits up, Sam is looking at him, and Ruby's zipping up her jeans, pushing her hair behind her ears, watching Sam.
Dean thinks he should say something, that Sam might be expecting as much, something apologetic or dirty or maybe cruel, but there aren't words, nothing accurate, and he doesn't trust his voice right now. He thinks he should be ashamed, should hate himself or at least be nauseated by that particular flash of memory, but.
He's exhausted, burned out. The light streaming in around the window is the color of the moon.
Ruby finishes adjusting her clothes, but she doesn't get up, doesn't head for the door. Sam looks back at her, looks down at the bed. Dean scrubs his hands across his face.
He should get up. He should get up and leave, go back to the bar, maybe get wasted and forget all of this. Forget this jagged thing in himself, in Sam, in her, crackling around all of them, burrowing deeper with every breath. Wait until Castiel shows up with another message and cling to that instead, like if he holds tight enough, he might achieve something like righteousness, redemption. Blind faith in the face of everything he knows, everything he's known, but if he tries hard enough, refuses that which he sees, he might be able to look at himself in the mirror, in the daylight, and recognize something that used to be there.
He's not stupid enough to hope for forgiveness. The dead, the souls he touched, he destroyed, are so far beyond that.
Atonement, maybe. Instead of this. Instead of the heat and the dark and Sam looking at him like he knows more than he should, more than he possibly can, and Ruby. Ruby who has done the same things, who does know. Who crawled out of hell in time to save Sam, to stop Sam from killing himself, one more sacrifice to their inherited martyr complex.
They both want the same thing, down deep. Dean and Sam, Sam and Ruby, Ruby and Dean.
So similar, beneath the skin, the shape of their souls. And he never wanted that, not for Sam.
He should get up, he knows, but he doesn't, he won't, and he thinks maybe he could stay forever. His jeans are sticky and uncomfortable and he thinks he should sleep or maybe shower, but he won't do that, either. Breathes in, listens to Ruby and Sam doing the same. Quiet settling dim and the air still heavy, muddy salt taste, elemental.
He lowers himself back down, stretching out at Ruby's side. After a minute, contemplation or resignation or maybe something else entirely, Sam does the same, his eyes on Dean again, calm and unreadable. Ruby hums low in her throat, content. She takes Dean's hand, and then Sam's, folds them together, rests them on her stomach.
Sam turns onto his side, lays a kiss on Ruby's shoulder, and when he lifts his head, his mouth is red, sloppy. He doesn't knuckle at the blood, doesn't cringe or flinch or lick it away, rests his head back on the pillow instead, like it's nothing. Watches Dean from the other side of the bed, and between them Ruby's watching the ceiling, not looking at either of them. Dean imagines the perfect imprint of Sam's mouth, clean lines of his tongue against the red on her skin. He stares back at Sam.
Maybe Sam's not waiting for words, after all. Maybe for judgment, and Dean has nothing. Nothing. No lines to cross, not right now, no condemnation based on who they used to be.
After a moment, Ruby presses her thumb to the hollow of Dean's wrist, the rhythm of his pulse, the promise of life, a heartbeat, a continuation.
Dean wonders if she's doing the same to Sam, Sam's palm hot against his. If their hearts beat in unison, if they're the same that far down. He doesn't pull away.
He thinks this might be how they win, after all, stronger together, a unified front, built on the unmentionable things they've done. Or maybe it's just how they lose and these are the lies he'll tell himself to make it easier.
There are, after all, so many days when it's impossible for him to tell the difference.