(no subject)

[whereupon]

Cheap Shot
by whereupon
Sam/Dean, vague first season spoilers, nc-17, 5,729 words.
Any minute now, Dean's going to say something, and it's the waiting that's killing Sam.



"You got the chrism?" Dean says and Sam uses his elbow to push himself away from the door so he can turn his head, turn to look at Dean, but it's too hot to do anything more than glare.

"Yes, I got the goddamn chrism," Sam says.

"Okay," Dean says. He keeps his eyes on the road, purses his lips. "Good. I don't wanna have to go back or find some fuckin' priest in the middle of nowhere just because you didn't bother to double-check."

And as a matter of fact, Sam didn't bother to double-check, because he knows he put it in the bag and unless Dean took it out to fuck with him (which he might have done, but then it's his own fault if it's gone), it's still there. There's no way in hell he's going to tell that to Dean, though, so he only crosses his arms and says, "Yeah, good thing, I guess."

"You don't have to be so goddamn bitchy about it," Dean says.

"I wasn't," Sam says, and he bites down on the rest of his sentence. Rephrases. "I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings," he says. "We can talk about it if you want, if that would make you feel better. If you wanna share."

"Ain't no way in hell," Dean says. "Not all of us are eight year old girls, Miss I-read-Cosmo-for-the-quizzes."

"Jess read Cosmo for the quizzes," Sam says, which is low and not fair at all and he didn't mean it, it's not even true, and he feels guilty as soon as he says it. But it has the intended effect. It gets Dean to shut the hell up.

"Whatever," Dean mutters. "I didn't know."

Sam ignores him and goes back to staring out the window. His head is fucking killing him, this blinding white light that streaks in through the windows, cuts in around his eyes. They're passing thick pines and telephone lines, black and grey wires strung out for miles along the highway, all across the country, and Sam thinks maybe they've seen all of them once, maybe there's not one road left he hasn't been on once in his life. Some of the roads that he remembers probably don't even exist anymore, grown over or torn apart, and it's a disconcerting thought. Doing this with Dean, back and forth across the country while the road behind them disappears like it never even existed, the history of their lives as nothing, just this forever path stretching out like the goddamn telephone lines.

"You asleep?" Dean asks. "You're not asleep. Even you don't fall asleep that quick."

"What, Dean," Sam says tiredly. This time, he doesn't bother to look away from the window. He can vaguely make out Dean's reflection in the glass. He wants to tell Dean to keep his eyes on the goddamn road before they end up wrapped around one of the telephone poles, but he won't. Dean's only ever crashed the car once that Sam knows of, this one time a ghoul split open Dad's chest and Dean was trying to drive with blood in his eyes.

"I didn't know," Dean says and Sam looks at him. "There's no way I could have, I'm sorry, okay."

And Sam grits his teeth, because Jess is dead and she didn't ever read Cosmo, she read The Economist and Scientific American, and now Dean's looking at him so fucking apologetically. "It's okay," he says.

Dean twitches one shoulder in a shrug. "Okay," he says, shooting another concerned glance at Sam like one more for the road, kid, and then he looks back at the actual road, cracking asphalt winding up the mountain and they've only passed two cars in the past hour.

They're heading south. There's something lurking in the Maryland woods, scaring kids, and it's probably nothing. It's probably a bear. Maybe it's the Jersey Devil, Dean said when Sam gave him the article, and Sam rolled his eyes. It's not the Jersey Devil, Dean. It's in Maryland, he said, pointing at the word in the headline, and Dean glared at him. Yeah, thanks, I can read, dumbass, but maybe it migrated.

The Jersey Devil didn't fucking migrate, Sam wants to say again, because it's true, but he doesn't, because he doesn't want to have that argument a second time. When the tape clicks over and Dean reaches to turn up the volume, because apparently it wasn't loud enough the first time they listened to this side, Sam says, "Could you please keep it the fuck down?"

Dean freezes with his hand on the volume knob for one second, one second in which Sam considers whether it would be better to leap out of the car or to attempt to wrestle the wheel from Dean and drive them both off the edge, and then Dean's hand falls away and he smirks at Sam. "Yeah, I forgot, 'cause somebody can't hold his liquor."

"Look who's talking," Sam says.

"That's fuckin' weak, man," Dean says. "You wanna try again or should I just go ahead and laugh at you?"

"Can you do it quietly?" Sam says. "'Cause if you don't, maybe I'll puke in your car."

"You wouldn't dare," Dean says, but he doesn't sound sure and he doesn't say anything else, leaves Sam to whatever relative peace can be found with the music on and this scant amount of space between them, boxed in by the confines of this car that Sam spent his entire childhood memorizing.

The thing is, of course, that it's not a hangover at all. At least, not entirely.

Because they were both a little drunk and they were leaving, they were leaving the bar when Dean stumbled and caught himself on Sam's shoulder, fell against him and didn't back off, and they were out of the bar, at the edge of the alley, when Sam's arm slipped around Dean's waist and it was mutual, it was gravity pulling them back, the moon tugging at them like the tide, the rough brick wall pressing gritty and grey against the back of Sam's neck and Dean's mouth brushing open and hot against Sam's for an instant, just an instant, before the bar door slammed open again and somebody said, What the fuck is this?

It wasn't the first time, it wasn't anything that hadn't happened before. Years since Dean was old enough to go out and come back wasted, some of the nights when Dad was gone, years since Sam was old enough to go with him, this burn between them (which Sam knows all about, the product of their fucked-up childhood, just like everything else), and it was inevitable. It was never anything, never anything more than mouths on the back of necks at the edge of sleep, anything more than this bound-at-the-hip mentality, like the rest of the world was dangerous, unmapped, impossible to navigate alone (and maybe once when Sam was seventeen, it was his hand down the front of Dean's jeans).

It wasn't anything that hadn't happened before, except for the last part, this guy coming towards them as Dean broke away from Sam and they both turned to run, because there was a time and a place to fight, to make a point, and this wasn't either.

And they made it, brilliant clean trajectory of a getaway, adrenaline high as they ducked down some nameless side street. As Sam jumped the fence that stood between them and the back of the motel parking lot, Dean grinned at him, this blinding distraction, and for a second, Sam forgot to look down, his perfect-10 landing shot to hell as he skidded on the gravel and went down, an arm thrown out to catch his fall as the sky went dizzy and strange.

"Fuck, Sammy, hey," Dean said, and he was on his knees beside Sam and Sam's hand was bleeding, abraded skin glinting purple and black in the hazy blue glow from the motel sign.

"It's fine, I'm fine," Sam said, pushing himself up, brushing himself off, and Dean was watching him, something sharp and dark sliding beneath the vaguely glassy sheen of his eyes. And it was, it was nothing, it was laughable, they'd both had so much worse, broken bones and punctured lungs, a constant half-step away from death.

All the same, Sam didn't pull away when they got back to the room, when Dean put one hand at the small of his back and shoved him into the bathroom, knelt next to him and cleaned out the dirt and fragments of gravel and shards of glass from his hand, and Sam was going to laugh at him, because Dean was being such a pussy about it, but Dean had one arm braced across Sam's chest and one leg beneath Sam's arm to hold it steady and he was bleeding heat and biting his lip, looking down at Sam's hand, which didn't hurt at all, and just like that, Sam wanted him again, wanted to push him back and down, flat on his back on the grimy bathroom floor of some rent-by-the-hour motel, and Sam blinked, because he hadn't meant to think that, which meant that he was more drunk than he'd thought and he would have to pay attention if he didn't want to slip up, do something stupid and possibly unforgivable.

So he did. So he stared at the back of Dean's neck, the track of Dean's spine disappearing beneath the line of his collar, and he thought no no no, litany on repeat until Dean was done. When Dean offered him a hand up, Sam took it, because he was so fucking tired, maybe too tired to move ever again, and the next time he opened his eyes, the pillowcase was scratching at his face and his eyes were gritty and Dean's cell phone was ringing and in the other bed Dean was saying, "Morning, sunshine. Hope you didn't wanna catch church today 'cause it's, like. Late."

It took Sam a minute to remember after that, to remember why and how and what had happened, and the problem was that this time there was evidence, which was terrifying, because how the hell were they supposed to pretend nothing had happened if there was evidence?

But Dean didn't say anything about it at all. Not then, and he still hasn't, not once. Any minute now, he's going to, and Sam's a little afraid of what's going to happen then. Denial tends to get them nowhere, ever, and Sam's so fucking sick of secrets, of dreams about Jess, of this sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, and Dean's the one who dragged him back into this.

It's Dean's fault that he's here and Dean's fault that he has a splitting headache, Dean's fault that this fucked-up thing they call equilibrium is running broken and wrong, and Dean knows that they're going to have to do something about this, talk about it, maybe, and probably yell, there's no way he could not know it, for how completely he's avoiding the issue, and he's doing it deliberately because he wants to see how much Sam can take. Just like always. Just like when he was eleven and was pissed about having to stay back in the motel room with Sam and decided to pretend Sam didn't exist anymore, to ignore him completely.

Dean only made it two hours before he shoved Sam's hand out of his face and shoved Sam down, but for Sam at seven, it might as well have been years. Even after Dean knocked him down, Sam didn't cry, because he was so stupidly glad that at least Dean was acknowledging him again. And then Dean helped him up and swallowed and looked for a second like he was going to cry, but he didn't. He just said Jesus Sammy, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, don't tell Dad, please, and Sam didn't.

Any minute now, Dean's going to say something, and it's the waiting that's killing Sam, still, all these years later.

"Dean," Sam says, because he's not that kid anymore.

"What?" Dean says, and Sam closes his eyes, just for a second, and the world's still there when he opens them.

"Do you want to talk about it. I mean, seriously. Should we." Words like bullets, like shots, though he didn't mean for them to be, and Dean flinches. If Sam hadn't been looking at Dean when he said it, he might have missed the look of absolute panic that twists across Dean's face for a split-second before it's replaced with something bland and composed and worse than broken.

"No, Sam, I do not particularly want to talk about it, thanks for asking," Dean says, and he jerks the steering wheel to the right, throwing Sam back against the door, and Sam thinks for a moment that maybe he (finally) pushed Dean over the edge, but then they're pulling into a dirt parking lot, some truckstop pulloff, and Dean's parking and getting out of the car and leaving Sam to follow.

Sam sits in the car for a moment, listening to the engine cool, and he thinks about going after Dean. He probably should. He probably should, but he wants to hit Dean in the face, is the thing, wants to rough him up and make him bleed, get his hands in Dean's jacket and shake the truth out of him, whatever it takes, so he waits until his breathing goes back to normal and he can unclench his hands. Not so much because he doesn't think that Dean deserves it, but because he's not sure how far he would take it. How far he would let himself take it, how far Dean would let him.

Also, his hand kind of hurts.

The restaurant door's propped open and when Sam steps inside and scans the room, Dean's watching him. Split-second of Dean's eyes meeting his and then Dean's head jerks down. He's sitting at a booth in the corner, clear view of the door and his back to the wall, and Sam feels a twinge of satisfaction at the idea of Dean waiting for him, Dean thinking that maybe Sam wasn't going to follow him, after all.

He watches Dean pointedly not-look at him for a few minutes and then the waitress says, "Can I get you a table?" Sam shakes his head and grits his teeth, goes over to Dean.

"Place doesn't even do milkshakes," Dean says, staring at the menu. He doesn't look up as Sam settles across from him. "I drove all this way, I want a freakin' milkshake, you know?"

"You could ask," Sam says. It's really amazing how calm he sounds. How normal.

"It's not on the goddamn menu," Dean says, like he didn't hear Sam, like he wasn't listening. He heaves a sigh and sets the menu down and looks up at Sam, finally. The cruel thief-green of his eyes locks something up in Sam's brain like always, leaves his thoughts frozen and stuttering and leaves him blinking at Dean, makes him forget what he was going to say.

Dean takes the silence for something like surrender, which it isn't at all, and he smiles crookedly and cracks his neck. "Should take another hour on the road," he says. "Be there by dark."

Sam stares at him. The waitress comes by and Dean convinces her to see if he can get a milkshake. Sam rolls his eyes and gets a Coke. He's not hungry. He's not even sure why Dean stopped, other than for air, other than to avoid being trapped in the same car as Sam for one more fucking minute.

The windows of the restaurant are lined with pretty pink curtains. Gingham, and out of place with the scent of rubber and oil drifting in from the parking lot. Sam presses the heels of his hands to his eyes and tries to pretend he's somewhere else entirely.

The waitress brings Dean's milkshake, chocolate with a cherry on top, and he grins at her, calls her honey, all cowboy twang, and Sam kicks him under the table, more out of habit than anything, but harder than usual, steel-toed burst of, of frustration, because it's sure as hell not jealousy, and it's gonna leave a mark. Dean winces, his eyes flashing to Sam just for a second, this annihilating razorsharp slice cutting across Sam's heart.

Sam sits back, a little stunned, and sips his Coke, and tries to regroup. He's not entirely sure what just happened, that jagged burn of hurt and anger in Dean's eyes, like Dean thinks this whole thing was Sam's idea, is Sam's fault.

"Stop it," Dean says, after the third time Sam looks at him and the third time Dean looks away.

"Stop what?" Sam asks.

"Stop fuckin' looking at me."

"Looking at you? Dude, do you even hear yourself? What are you, five?"

"I'm serious, Sam," Dean says, and he's watching the door, not looking at Sam, but his voice is deadly. "You wanted to talk? Fine. I can't do this with you fucking looking at me like that, is the thing."

"Like what?" Sam says, more disbelief than anything else, because did Dean seriously drag him into the restaurant just so they could do this with an audience?

"Like that. Like, hell, I don't know. Just stop it, okay, just drink your goddamn Coke and, and don't do that."

"Fine," Sam says, very carefully, very precisely, and his ears are starting to ring. Dean's gonna give him a heart attack, the things he's doing to Sam's blood pressure. Sam crunches ice between his teeth, sharp little shards of cold. "I won't look at you," he says, and he's not sure if Dean even notices the sarcasm, the edge to his voice.

"Good," Dean says. He slurps at his milkshake and Sam stares at him anyway, because no way was that it, was that the conversation, was that anything more than Dean and his fucked-up avoidance issues. "Hey, how much money you got on you?"

"Jesus, Dean, what the fuck happened to the money you won yesterday?" Sam snaps and Dean's eyes flicker to him, flicker away, and he shrugs. Sam swallows, pinches the bridge of his nose and glares at his brother. "Forty bucks, maybe. I think. Why?"

"No reason," Dean says. He sucks on his straw and looks out at the parking lot, looks at the elderly couple eating cheeseburgers across the room, looks at the waitress's ass. Looks everywhere but at Sam.

Sam drains his Coke, slams the glass down on the table hard enough to rattle the ice cubes and jar the silverware, and Dean doesn't even flinch. "I'll be back," Sam says.

"Knock yourself out," Dean says. "Don't hurry back on my account, I'll just be here--" and Sam walks away before hearing the rest.

The lights in the men's room flicker and the mirrors have cracks spiderwebbing up the edges, but it's mostly clean and it doesn't have Dean.

Sam's standing at the sink, running hot water over his hands mostly because he doesn't want to go back out there, snap at Dean and not get anywhere and then get back in the car and do it all over again, when it hits. This prickle at the base of his skull, noise like waves somewhere very far off, and then it's like biting down on a live battery, this conduit burn, headache building abruptly to a crescendo, something snaking barbed-wire around his skull, down the back of his neck, and twisting.

You're not so bad, Dean says and his bravado tastes like sulfur as he looks up at this tall and dark and impossibly bony shape, skeletal edges and glossy liquid eyes like those of spiders, only terribly large, and Sam knows that Dean hates spiders, can almost see Dean's hand twitching on the shotgun, the sweat beading his upper lip, and the sky is black and Dean lifts the shotgun and the noise sounds like the world falling in, fragile eggshell sky splitting down the middle, and it's so fucking fast, the way it moves, the way it jumps, and Dean's still blinking as it knocks him down.

The crack of his neck and his eyes still open, bright as spring when he hits the ground.

And Sam is gasping, scrabbling at the sink for balance as the static recedes, and the bathroom door slams behind him, and he stares at the booth, the place where Dean was sitting, and Dean is gone.

Sam gets to the parking lot in time to see the Impala disappearing, taillights in the distance. And Dean is fucking crazy and Sam can't breathe, something hollow lodged nervous and tight in his chest, and his fingernails are digging into his palms and the guy getting out of the car next to him says, cautiously, "Are you okay?"

Sam's head comes up and he doesn't say, my goddamn brother just left me here, I just saw my goddamn brother die. He says, "Yeah, thanks," because he is so fucking well-mannered, because spending almost his entire life with Dean has prepared him for this sort of situation.

The be polite to strangers in the middle of absolute panic one, not the Dean's going to die one. No way he'll ever be prepared for that one, no matter how many times he lives through it.

Dean is going to die and Sam's head fucking hurts and Dean is so fucking afraid of having a conversation, afraid of Sam looking at him (and what the hell does he think Sam is going to see), that he took the hell off and Sam is having what might be the worst day in. A month, at least.

"Your monster-slayer brother's gonna need your help," the guy says, hands in his pockets and eyes narrowed against the sunlight, and Sam blinks at him.

"What?"

"What?" the guy says, and he frowns. "You need help, buddy?"

Sam shakes his head. "You just said--"

The guy licks his lips, looks past Sam at the restaurant. He looks a little frightened, the way people usually do around Dean, not around Sam, and Dean isn't even here and he's still fucking with Sam, fucking up Sam's life. "I can get somebody from inside--"

"No," Sam says. "No, I'm good. Thanks."

"Okay," the guy says, and he edges past Sam like he thinks Sam's going to snap, thinks Sam might jump him or pull a knife or do any of those violent and overly dramatic things.

Sam stares at the place where the Impala was, like maybe he can will it into being, unravel the last five minutes, twist time like thread. It doesn't work, so he goes back inside. The air conditioning is on in the restaurant, louder than he remembers, and the elderly couple is gone.

"Hey, kid," the waitress says, and Sam looks down at her. She fishes something out of her apron pocket. "Your friend left this for you." She holds out a piece of paper and Sam blinks, takes it.

"Thanks," he says. It's a receipt from the gas station they stopped at yesterday and on the back it says BACK SOON in Dean's block print, bitch written just below like an afterthought.

Sam crumples it in his hand and smiles at the waitress, who looks alarmed. He yanks his cell phone out of his pocket and dials, and of course Dean doesn't pick up. The phone rings and rings and clicks into voicemail, and Sam considers throwing it at the wall, satisfying crunch and plastic shatter, and of course he doesn't.

The gun at his waist is fucking burning, metal against his skin, unbearable weight, and he shoves his hands into his pockets, because he thinks he might be going crazy. Thinks Dean might have driven him crazy, after all.

The sun is hot on the back of his neck when he goes back outside. He picks the area farthest away from the windows, slides the picks out of his pocket, and nobody comes out to see. The lock pops and Sam opens the door, slides in. Wire to wire and the engine roars to life and he wants to peel out of the lot all screaming tires and burning rubber, that's what Dean does to him, but he drives slowly, sedately, so that no one will notice, so that no one will call the cops and stop him from saving Dean from doing one of the dumbest things he's ever done (which, really, is saying a lot).

Be there by dark, and he will be. He hits the gas when he's out of view of the truckstop, the road unfurling before him, even though Dean's got a head start. There are things that Sam knows, knows without knowing exactly how he knows them, pieces slotting together in his mind, this exit and the next and which road doesn't go all the way through, and he knows better than to question, not right now, when Dean's life is very probably at stake.

Because he saw Jess for days before she died, and he doesn't believe in second chances (even though his life is pretty much a testament to them, to escaping and rebuilding, to bridges crossed and burnt and crossed again), but he knows, he knows, he can do this.

This voice whispering not human at the back of his mind, slithering up his neck, cold down his spine, and he drives faster.

Your monster-slayer brother's gonna need your help.

He parks on the side of the road and the Impala's nowhere in sight, Dean is nowhere in sight, and this crackling vision remnant, this promise like heat on his tongue, a gun in his hand, like he was born to do this, born to do this one impossible thing.

Sam cuts through the blaze of forest as the sun sets, cuts up the hill, through the trees and past the church with the sagging walls and the blown-out windows, the church whose white paint went grey a long time ago and whose only parishioners are black birds and spiders.

Dean's already on his knees, lifting the shotgun, and Sam knows, he knows what happens next, and the pistol is hot in his hand (splitting something across his palm that hasn't even begun to heal yet) catching the thing in what might be its throat as it jumps. It crashes back to the ground, meteor hurl, sprawls across the dirt, and Dean turns around.

"What the hell," Dean says, the shotgun dangling from his fingers as he gets to his feet. "I was gonna come back, I left you a note, didn't you get the note?"

"I had a," Sam says. "I, I saw it. It killed you, you fucking idiot, because you fucking ditched me."

"Dude, I told you to stop looking at me like that," Dean says, defensive and defiant, licking his lips, his head held high, chin tilted up, like that's actually a reason, like that justifies any of this.

Sam wants to laugh. He doesn't, because Dean looks a little scared, his eyes shadowed in the dim, dirt on his face like claw marks.

Dean wipes the back of his hand across his forehead, smear of blood like he's been anointed, and says, "How the fuck did you get here so fast?"

"Maybe you're just getting old," Sam says. "Slowing down. It's okay, it happens to everybody, grandpa."

Dean's breath hitches and Sam's close enough to see the rise and fall of his chest. They're standing hip to hip and the post-gunshot silence is starting to fade, leaving something even heavier in its place. Sam swallows and the pistol slips from his fingers as he moves, and he has to bend his neck a little, curve down, and he forgets sometimes, forgets that Dean is so much smaller than him, that Dean is smaller than him at all.

"What are you doing?" Dean says, low and wary, and then, "Sam," but he leans into it, his hand coming up to rest on Sam's neck, ragged fingernails digging into Sam's skin. Sam hears the shotgun hit the ground and tightens his own grip. The shiver of Dean's back beneath his palms and he licks at Dean's mouth, runs his tongue along the ridges of Dean's teeth. When Dean pulls away, startled, Sam keeps his eyes closed and waits, and Dean comes back like Sam knew he would, and Sam knew, knew this would be fine, that they would be fine, if only Dean would stop running away, would listen to him.

Kissing his brother against the bloody backdrop of sunset and this is wrong, it was meant to be later, the sky was meant to be black, but Sam's always fucked with destiny, the unwritten rules of the future.

"Monster-slayer," he says against Dean's mouth, and Dean's eyes are wide, maybe confused, a little affectionate, his pupils huge in the gloaming.

"Yeah, I guess," Dean says, and Sam smiles, because Dean has no idea what he's talking about, never has, but that's okay. He grips Dean hard enough to leave bruises on his arms, fingerprints like burns, but that's okay because they won't be visible in the dark, because no one will see.

"It's okay," Sam says, sliding his hands down, pushing up against Dean, pressing them together, and Dean smells like sweat and gunpowder and blood, leather and home, everything Sam's ever wanted to burn down. He's Sam's pyromaniac half, the other side of the coin, and his eyes are searching, accusatory in the fading light.

"Sam," he says. "Are you sure you. Are you sure that. This isn't, you're gonna."

"Yeah," Sam says, and his hair's fallen across his eyes and he can feel Dean's heartbeat shuddering, ratcheting up through his palms, and, yes, he's sure, yes, he wants this, he wants everything, just like he always has, wants more than his fair share because he's never gotten any of it, and Dean's always given him as much as he could, everything he can, and it's never enough.

Dean swallows and licks his lips and says, "Okay," but it's barely audible, like he doesn't have a voice anymore, like it's been stolen away, and Sam doesn't think he can wait until they get back to the car, the Impala or the one he stole. He bites at Dean's mouth, hard enough to work this half-choked noise from Dean's throat, and they go down together into the dirt, pressed body to body, the rest of the world falling away like maybe it never existed in the first place, maybe it never mattered, this world of black-legged monsters and the molten sun slipping behind the trees, this world of violence and haunts and yellow-eyed shadows.

Peeling off Dean's jacket, shoving up Dean's shirt, flattening his tongue against Dean's stomach, and Dean clutches at Sam's shoulders, drags a hand through Sam's hair and pulls tight, so Sam doesn't really have a choice but to work his way up until he's looking down, staring Dean in the face.

This instant of absolute silence in which Sam can't breathe at all, and then Dean twists out from under him, shoves him back onto the hard earth and says, "Okay."

Sam tugs clumsily at Dean's jeans, Dean's nose pressed against his throat, until Dean makes a noise that could be a laugh if it weren't so breathless. This wordless huff of air and then he says, "Here, I can--" Pushing Sam's hands back, glint of silver in the falling dark, and then his hands are on Sam, sliding at Sam's belt, working at the fly of his jeans, just enough pressure to make Sam's breath come fast and hard.

On their knees, and down the hill there's a church with broken stained-glass windows, and Sam wonders if Dean's done this before, wonders how many times, the rhythm of Dean's hands so sure on his cock, Dean saying come on, Sammy, come on, good, hey. Sam's breath catches, and he grits his teeth, but it's not enough, this thing tearing through him (and it's this whole day, really, this whole insomniac life, salt and adrenaline constant) despite the way he tries to force it down, force it back. Flash of Dean's (too-wide, still-scared) eyes when Sam comes, but Dean's still saying good, Sammy, good as Sam shakes through it, shakes down.

"Sammy," Dean says, sounding a little shuddery himself, and his face is flushed, faint burn-shadow in the dark. His voice is tight, and maybe it was once fear, but now it's desperation. There's a hole below his collar, patch of skin visible beneath, and the freight-train rumble of his breath, and maybe this is all Sam's ever wanted, for Dean to trust himself so completely to Sam, to give himself over, to let Sam do this to him.

Dean swallows, rolling line of his adam's apple, and his amulet swings forward like a brief handprint against Sam's chest, and he rests his head against Sam's shoulder, his face pressed against the line of Sam's neck, exhaling warm air against Sam's skin. His cock hot against Sam's palm and he pulls back when Sam stills, when Sam stops to memorize the way Dean looks right now, the line of his jaw and the sheen of his skin, the flicker of his eyelashes and the set of his mouth.

"Sam," Dean says, rough-edged and almost a whine. "Fuck, what are you," and then Sam starts again.

These noises Dean's making, the way he's coming apart, and it's for Sam, it's because of Sam, and there's no way Dean will be able to ignore him now, no way Dean will ever again be able to pretend that he doesn't see him.

"Don't fucking ditch me again," Sam says, and his voice is low, but it cuts across the hush all the same.

Dean's mouth opens and closes and then he shakes his head and says, "Okay." And they sit there together, and Sam doesn't look at the corpse of the thing that he saw kill Dean, and Dean licks his lips like he's going to say something, but he doesn't, and the sky is dark long before they get back to the car.

--

end