SpN: Impossible Things part 2
10/2/10 12:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
roxyTitle: Impossible Things
Author: roxy
Pairings/Characters:Dean/Sam
Rating: ranges from PG to R
Word Count:7614
Spoilers: very vague spoilery reference for the end of season 5, but it veers off into AUness pretty quick
Summary: What happens when you survive a thing you never expected to
PART 1
"Hey Sam, I know you want to take a break from hunting but—"
"Where? What's happening? Do I need to take time off, I can probably get a few days off like, over the weekend or—"
"Don't go getting your pigtails in a knot, Cinderella," Dean smirked. "Knew you were getting bored."
"It's not that. It's just between studying and working, I need a break."
Dean nodded. "Oh, yeah. I told Damien I'd need a couple of days for my 'other' work." He shivered and made a face. "Dude, I think he thinks I'm some kind of…sorcerer or something. 'screepy."
Sam shook his head. Civilians. "So, what are we after?"
"Bobby sent an e-mail." He shrugged at Sam's look of surprise. "He discovered the internet? Anyway, it was more of a general call for hunters in the area than for us specifically; he knows we're on a break."
"Uh-hunh. He just happened to send info about a job to us, too."
Dean grinned. "Yeah. Anyway, it’s a real basic one, a piece of pie--easy."
"Cake. And you know better than to say something's easy where the Universe can hear you, dude. It's like pasting a kick me sign on yourself."
"Unbunch, Priscilla." Dean rolled his eyes. "We're heading to Maine, there's a water baby making trouble there, or so Bobby says. Could be something else, but considering the area, and the M.O., water baby's his first choice."
"Water baby? Have you heard of that before? How the hell do you kill that?"
"Dad had some info in his journal—not personal experience, though. Seems you don't kill it. You get it to leave--you make its home unlivable and it disappears. Dad thought maybe they slip in here from another dimension--hey," he said to Sam's startled laugh. "Dad's theory, not mine." He dug around in a bag and pulled out two fat, red candles, and a plastic sandwich bag of bones. He shook the bag. "Chicken bones. Burn them on the bank, light the candles and tell it to leave and not come back."
"You're kidding. That's all there is to it?"
"Everything gotta be blood and screaming for you--" Dean choked to a stop, his smile faded, as the color leached from his face.
"Dean…"
"Anyway, it'll be a nice drive, you'll like it." His brother's eyes were begging him not to comment and Sam went with it.
"When you put it like that," he managed a small smile, and Dean gave him a grateful kind of grimace back.
****
Two days later, they were stretched on the sandy floor of a shallow cave, near the rocky shore of an inlet. Cliffs rose up on either side, forming the shallow walls and the high, slanted, roof of the cave they crouched in. Sam was bleeding and panting, hunched over their duffle and glaring at Dean like he'd throw him into the lake if he could. Between his teeth he ground out, "When we get outta here, I'm going to break your fucking nose."
"Dude, my nose is already broken." He wiped a palm full of blood off his upper lip and glared at Sam like it was his fault. "Fucking horned snake motherfucker. Water baby, my ass. I mean, when the man said 'water baby' I'm thinking baby, right? Not the god damn Loch Ness monster with a really shitty attitude. Damn."
Sam nodded, his breath still coming rough. "So. We try again?"
"Yeah, this thing will keep on taking people into the water if not. Matches?"
He tossed Dean a pack of matches, guaranteed to light wet or dry, and searched his pockets. Found the plastic bag full of salt and iron shells. "Okay—want me to take shotgun?" He dug the Mossberg out of the duffle, but Dean shook his head, held his hand out for it as he staggered to his feet.
"Nah, gimme--you're better than I am with the chanting thing. You know me, ready to hold down the fort, but you're the one who talks all purty. Get rid of this thing, I'll keep it occupied."
He stared at Dean. "I don’t feel good about you going up against this thing alone." We're out of practice he kept to himself.
"Well, I'm not alone. I got you and you've got my back. Light those candles and start chanting, I got a big watery bitch to irritate the hell out of."
Dean scrambled over the rocks, went farther onto the shore and started throwing rocks into the dark water. Sam flopped a few large, flat rocks together, set the two candles up, frowning at the oddly greasy feel of them. There was something about them that made his palms feel dirty…he felt a familiar itch under the back of his skull, and wiped his hands on his jeans, hard.
He lit the candles, and when the wicks had sputtered their last and finally held a flame, he piled up the chicken bones between them. He had no idea what the bones were meant to represent. They were dry and hollow, rough to the touch. They smelled faintly of fried chicken and were totally unremarkable…he shrugged and doused them with lighter fluid, and listened to Dean curse and throw stones at the water.
"Fuck!"
Sam's head whipped around, and there was Dean running up the dangerously rocky shore, yelling for Sam to start chanting right fucking now. Keeping pace with him, in the water, was a long dark shape that wove sinuously through the waves. Its long skull whipped back and forth and even over the sound of crashing water and Dean's panicked shouts, he could hear it hissing.
Sam quickly lit a twist of paper, dropped it onto the bones and the lighter fluid flared up, the dry bones caught. He thanked god silently and started chanting, loudly, clearly and quickly. "Back, give this water back. Give the meat back. Give the bones back. Go back. Go home. Go now." He repeated those words; he was supposed to say them until the 'water baby' listened. He chanted, and watched the monster slither out of the water and across the rocks, its fins working like legs to pull it after Dean—a whole lot faster than it seemed it should be capable of. Sam licked his dry lips, pressed his hand over his hammering heart and kept one eye on the beach and his frantically dodging brother, and chanted without stop. It felt wrong, the worst kind of wrong to not run down the beach and help Dean....
He startled but kept chanting when he heard a shotgun blast, much closer than he expected. Dean was still running but now he was running away from the cave, shouting and waving his arms and drawing the water baby away from Sam, and Sam couldn't stop chanting. He desperately hoped Dean knew what he was doing.
Sam's voice was getting rough, and the smoke from the greasy candles and the smoldering bones irritated his throat even more. His eyes were streaming when Dean came dashing into the cave, whooping.
"Dude, it lit up all over like a fucking Christmas tree and was gone! We were half way down the beach and it had an eye on me, I swear it licked its lips—it had lips dude, like Angelina lips--so fuckin' creepy--"
Sam hacked and coughed, and croaked, "Then we're done?"
"Kinda." Dean shrugged, and said, "Well, now we gotta find the bones of its victims and burn them too…."
"What—oh my god, I swear when we get back to the hotel, I'm going to drug you and cut your kidneys out and sell them."
Dean looked thoughtful for a moment, and said, "And then can we buy a pony?"
They drove down the coast because it really was a nice drive; the sun was high in a bright sapphire sky, the crisp ocean breeze dashed long streamers of vanilla white clouds across the blue. Sam snuck little looks at an oblivious Dean as they drove. Dean looked good, really good. Sam cataloged all the changes in his brother. He was tan, his freckles looked healthy now, and not like dark spatters against a sallow, grey canvas. The dark shadows were gone from under his eyes, the lines in the corners deeper, but they came from smiling and not that terrible frozen glare Sam had gotten used to seeing. He looked…whole. He looked like Dean again.
"Hey. You're thinking too hard and that's never good. What's up? Did we miss something?"
"No, no, I was thinking…"that I'm tired of being alone "that I'm kind of hungry. Wanna stop?"
"Fuck, yeah. Best idea you've had since…" Dean made a big show out of trying to remember, and Sam elbowed him. Asshole.
****
They took a break on the way back, stopped at a little rundown looking clam shack set back from the road. The original red and navy paint had faded to a sketchy pink and baby blue, the hand painted sign hung cock-eyed on the wall. An old fashioned screen door slapped on its spring hinge as customers came and went--was probably doing nothing to keep flying things out. Dean pulled the car into the dirt parking lot and smiled and Sam looked at him like he was crazy.
"Really? We're going for salmonella on the half-shell?"
"Nah, pretty sure the sign says 'Bud's Oyster and Beer'. Don't you know the less tarted up a place is, the better the food? Live a little, kiddo."
They got paper trays piled high with hot fried oysters and fries, a bottle each of Miller. Ignoring the slight chill in the air, they sat outside at one of the picnic tables at the rear of the lot, and stuffed themselves silly. Dean was grinning from ear to ear, the sun made his eyes blaze and the slight wind did its best to ruffle his hair. He laughed a lot and Sam sucked up the sound of it, learning it all over again.
"Told you it was gonna be good," Dean crowed at Sam, who was busy licking grease and crumbs from his fingers. All he could do was nod. Fried oysters had always struck him as something disgusting covered with breading and made more disgusting by coating it in oil, but this…he might have to rethink his stance on fried foods. Fried oysters, anyway. Dean winked and chewed, and Sam felt like…this was what it was all about. Here it was, this was his reward. His Dean.
"What? I got something?" Dean asked, wiped at his face and threw the napkin at Sam, chugged half his beer, and turned to Sam. "Hey, Sammy—" he burped out 'how are you?' and waggled his eyebrows.
Sam rolled his eyes. "You're, what—thirty-two going on twelve?"
Dean snickered. "You know you love it."
Sam handed Dean the rest of his fries. "Um. Something like that."
"One more," Dean said "One more, and then we'll go."
Sam sighed, licked the rim of his glass and peered at his brother. "Yeah, one more." Which really meant a few more before Dean found a hookup, and used to mean, when they moved day by day, leaving Sam to walk alone back to their room—or making Sam sleep in the backseat of the car. He scowled. Not fun memories.
He looked around the bar. Two could play that game. Shit, he should beat Dean to the punch, let god's gift to women see how he liked trying to pretzel his ass into the backseat to sleep. He caught the eye of a long, lean, girl, back against the bar, hips titled out to the room and a look on her face that was open, appraising. She met Sam's eyes and smiled. He stood, and was about to head her way when Dean grabbed his arm.
"Come outside with me, I feel like a smoke."
"What? No you don't," Sam said. "You don't smoke, remember?"
"Just because you believe a thing, don’t make it true for the rest of the world," Dean smirked. "Come on." He handed Sam his beer and grabbed his sleeve, and almost pushed him out the door. "You can thank me later, dude," he laughed and Sam tried to ferret out what he meant.
"Thank you? Dude—you cock-blocked me," Sam groused, stumbling a little in the dark.
His brother shook his head. "Nah, I saved you. She was trouble. She came in with that guy who was about ten feet wide—you didn’t see him?"
Sam blinked and looked around him—Dean had shoved him all the way to the back of the lot where his Precious was parked safely away from thugs and other car doors. He pushed Sam against it before he flopped next to Sam, looked him up and down, and snickered. "Maybe I should have let you try and talk to her—"
Sam felt a little flare of hurt. Dean wanted to see him get his ass kicked, did he? Well, sure he would after all—
"Man, it would have been kind of worth it to see that guy's face when you kicked his ass all over the bar. He looked like he could have stood taking down a peg or two. And you would have been the one to do it." Dean gave him a look, so proud, so full of everything Sam hadn’t seen since he was a teen. It made his head swim, and made him blush hot—felt it rise in his face, and roll right down to his chest…he ducked his head and swigged beer like it was a lifeline. Dean laughed and rolled over the fender, ended up in front of Sam. Between his legs, actually. Sam swallowed, froze. "You're drunk."
"Oh man, yeah. So drunk." He sounded proud of it. He giggled and dropped his head onto Sam's chest. "Man, I'm so drunk. It was a great job, right?"
"Oh yeah," Sam said. "You almost got eaten by a giant cross between Shamu and a snake, I almost choked to death…yeah, it was great." He laughed and reached up, rubbed the back of Dean's neck, up through his hair, rubbed against the back of his skull until Dean just sighed and his body loosened. "It was fun."
"And we won," Dean mumbled hot and damp against Sam's chest, the warmth spreading. "We won, and that's all that counts right. Do over; clean slate…"
Sam got it. Dean wasn't talking about the job any more; he was somewhere else, some other time. "It's all over, Sam, all that bad stuff. You know I forgave you right? Do you forgive me?"
"For what Dean, there's nothing to forgive. You were right and I was wrong and—"
Dean shook his head violently, rucking up Sam's t-shirt. "No. Not right or wrong. We both wanted the same thing. For it to end well. We want the same thing, right," he said and lifted his head, speared Sam with a hot glare and Sam felt himself harden in his jeans. He saw the moment Dean felt it and panicked, waited for his brother to fling himself away, but he didn't…his eyes dropped shut and he gave a tentative press back with his hips, and a slight move that barely rubbed their dicks together. He moaned, but Sam almost missed it, making his own noise. And Dean reached up and pulled his head down and brushed his mouth over Sam's and Sam shook, his hips jerked up towards Dean. "God, god, god….I think, I think…"
"Sammy. Shhh."
It was everything he thought it would be. More. Sam's mouth watered, Dean was delicious, just like he knew he would be. Ripe, like summer peaches, sweet and tart at once. Hot inside, juicy wet. He sucked Dean's tongue like it was candy, whimpering because he wanted something more in his mouth, wanted it now. He touched all of Dean that he could, slid his hands up under Dean's t-shirt, swept his thumbs over hard nipples and marveled, how soft his body hair was, how warm his skin. How hot and hard his dick was, pressed against Sam's leg. "Dean, let me suck you," he moaned. "Please."
Dean blinked, and stepped back, red slick lips framing a smile wide as ocean. His hand slid across Sam's chest, over his heart. Pressed there, a hot weight, before sliding down to Sam's waist, curling around his hip, and then off. "Damn Sammy, I'm really fuckin' drunk, dude. Take me back to the room?" He grinned and grinned and weaved on his feet. By the time they got back to their motel, Dean was out on his feet, and Sam had to wrestle him into the bed, pry off his shoes. Dean rolled to his side and threw an arm over his face, mouth open, breath groaning in and out of him. Sam watched him for a while, his heart thumping, breath catching in his throat. This was going to be bad. He knew Dean…with any luck, he'd pretend to forget. It hurt. But better this hurt than nothing at all.
Sam woke up with the feeling that he'd finally broken his brother and himself for good. He excepted to be in the room alone, accepted that he would be, maybe a note on the bed, Dean's bags gone—but he was in the next bed, curled like a snail and breathing deep and steady. The relief Sam felt was overwhelming, and swallowed in the next breath by the knowledge that they were still broken. Dean was going to blame him for everything, or act like there'd been nothing—
Dean woke, stretched, caught Sam looking and smiled. "Morning, Sas. You're up—that means you brought me coffee, right?"
Sam was startled into laughter. "Not yet."
Dean flopped to his face. He stretched out one arm and snapped his fingers imperiously. "Go bitch, bring me caffeine. Now."
It was…okay? They were going to be okay? Sam took the first real breath he'd managed since waking.
3
It was okay. At least it didn't get worse. In a way, it got better. Then again, it went pretty much as he thought it would.
Dean was more relaxed. More open. It was just. It seemed. He…okay, Dean acted like it'd never happened. Like he forgot that whole…kiss, thing, whatever it was. Had been. Quelle surprise. Huge, honking enormous, surprise.
How did Dean just shut things out like that? Sam couldn't imagine how he did it. Or maybe he could…Dean was good at stuffing things in little brain boxes and nailing the lids shut, no matter how much it hurt to do. In fact, Sam thought, as he made an eye-catching display of canned diced tomatoes and chilies on an end-cap, in some ways, Dean was handling it like a rock star, while he was flailing on the edge of some kind of psychic cliff, staring down into pointy stuff at the bottom…Dean though; he was bigger and brighter than before The Kiss. Like, content and as happy as he thought Sam would be for settling in one place for a while….
Unless he was faking it.
Sam huffed and stood, his knees cracking as he did. He shoved fists on his hips and imagined the cans exploding, aluminum shrapnel and diced tomato bits everywhere and Dean dancing naked in the middle of it….
Dean was definitely faking it.
Sam started guiltily as the cans wobbled, clattering slightly against the metal shelves. Must be heavy traffic going by…just in case, he tried thinking happy thoughts to calm himself.
Such as: Dean smiled. A lot. At him. Every time Dean saw him, he got this smile that said, 'I hit the lottery', or something. He joked more, touched Sam all the time now. It was like waking up in the middle of a great dream and finding it was your real life, a world where Dean finally kicked off any last traces of the shackles their life had snapped on him. He was more open now, less freaked about showing he cared, and okay, maybe they hadn't kissed again like they had that night but….
Sam would just have to be okay with that. Besides, a happy, smiling, caring Dean was more than enough for Sam. He could be content with that. He seriously could be.
The diced tomatoes and chilies mocked him with their silent judgment. But it was true. Jerking off every now and then and accidentally thinking of your brother didn't mean anything, everybod—fuck. Yeah--no.
Sam sighed and shoved the cans back in line. It wasn't an easy thing to admit, that kissing your own brother did it for you like no one else. It was a weird, uncomfortably twisty concept for Sam let alone Dean, who in a weird way, could be kind of rigid morally. His particular concept of morals anyway.
And that, that was okay too. Because Sam could see it in Dean's eyes—he could see it in those thousand watt smiles and. Well. Dean looked at him like he wanted more, he just needed time to come to terms with that. This, Sam was fine with. Hell, there was time enough for Sam to coax Dean out of his set ways and into seeing just how much they needed everything about each other. Plenty of time. Loads of time and if there was one thing Sam was, it was patient.
No. Seriously.
At the end of the week, Dean threw some stuff in a backpack and took a run out to a friend of Bobby's to pick something up for him. "Gone for two, three days tops, Sam." It was too sudden for Sam to clear his schedule so he had to let Dean go by himself and besides, not like it was a hunt or anything. So Sam just nodded, said okay, stood at the end of the drive waving good-bye to Dean—using all his fingers even if he really wanted not to.
Dean was gone longer than three days. Fucking liar.
Completely unrelated to that, Sam gave notice at the market. It was just, the market and he had come to a parting of the ways—irreconcilable differences. One more fucking case of green beans to price and he was going Cold Blood on everyone. First on his list, the old woman from the sixth floor, the one who demanded Sam drop everything and shop for her--the one with the illegal cats and that smell, peppermint and dusty old books and wet newspaper and lavender. The one who called Dean twelve times a day and complained like it was her job and Dean never once lost his temper with her or reported the cats, the awful, reeking, mangy, slatty-ribbed, evil-eyed cats who stared at him like he was some kind of abomination….
Sam took a deep breath and searched for his calm place and cursed when he realized his calm place was in fucking South Dakota somewhere, playing Indiana Jones….
Last day on the job, he tossed his apron on the break room table and gathered the cards that were shoved into his locker; they ranged from great working with you to thanks a fucking lot for quitting douche bag who's going to take my Saturday shift now. It warmed his heart. He went out for good-bye drinks with the crew and somehow ended up in an abandoned drive-in, just Jerome and him, draped over the hood of Jerome's Civic and being jerked off agonizingly slow, while Jerome whispered what sounded like snatches of poetry in his ear. Sam groaned and shuddered and still managed to make a quick mental note to bring Dean and his EMF o'meter to check it out--there was something off about the place. He was squinting at the shattered remnants of the screen; almost certain he saw movement and light flit across it when orgasm snuck up on him. Jerome let out a little grunt of satisfaction in a job well done while Sam shot thick and hot right up under his tee-shirt and all over his stomach before collapsing in a panting heap against the warm metal.
"Call me sometimes," Jerome said, kind of surreptitiously wiping his hand on Sam's waist. "I really liked working with you, man."
Sam nodded, and pulled Jerome close, hands sliding around his waist. "Before we go…."
He came in late; Dean was finally back, and sitting on the couch like he'd never left, staring at what looked like an infomercial. He looked up at Sam with a frown—the first time he hadn't greeted Sam with a smile in a while.
"Hey, you're back," Sam said, feeling happy and loose and really pleased to see his brother, his beautiful, beautiful brother, all ocean eyes and full pink mouth and funny little snort and the cute way he pressed his tongue against his teeth when he smiled sometimes and….
"Yeah. Called your phone. A couple of times. Sam."
*Crabby freckle-faced bitch*…"It was off."
"I know. You can't do that Sam, you never know—"
"Know what Dean? Who's going to hurt me? We won, it's all over, remember?"
"People, Sam. They can hurt you just as hard as monsters."
"Fuck Dean…you think I don't know that?" Sam scrubbed hands over his face, the warm, floaty feeling gone. He tried to settle but he felt too wide, too thin, too ready to break. He headed to the bathroom, uncomfortably aware of dried come on his skin, and Dean's wrinkled nose. Whatever.
****
The bookstore was a nice change from the market. He didn't smell like rotten lettuce and stale chicken blood anymore. Now he smelt like dust and old cardboard. Stocking the shelves was a zen way to spend the day. His manager was an asshole, but didn't impact on his life much—and Dean came to pick him up after work every day. If he let his coworkers think Dean was his boyfriend well…it always had been a common assumption and he only slightly encouraged it to avoid the inevitable awkward fumbling towards questions of availability. Besides, Dean kind of fed into it and it left Sam wondering….
Sam jerked hard to the sound of a dry cough behind him, just managing not to bounce his skull of the shelf edge in front of him. It was the kind of attention grabbing thing that people never really did outside of a book. There should be no way that Sam could tell the cough was dry and ironic but he could and it pissed him off. "Yes?" He tried not to hiss, and turned to face whatever douche thought he was being amusing.
Oz was smiling down at him.
Oz was…not Sam's arch nemesis, not only because that would be ridiculous, but also because Oz didn't seem to know. Oz was supposed to be some kind of assistant/helper/apprentice to Dean. What Dean called him was 'minion'. Sam didn't think it was funny but Dean seemed to think it was hilarious and said it way too much and even Oz called himself that. Asshole.
Sam struggled not to glare at the short, oh so short, man gazing at him. Oz, with his ridiculous spiky red hair, bracelets up and down his arms, tattoos and piercings and—stuff all over. He was leaning in a studied unselfconscious little slouch against the shelf, little hands shoved in his pockets, little shoulders curved inwards and a little half smile on his stupid little face, trying to look inoffensive but there was something about the guy that put Sam's teeth on edge—like licking pennies or chewing on tinfoil. The guy just made him…uncomfortable. For his part, Oz gave him a confused once over and his smile curled in on itself and died.
Sam refused to care. "Yeah? I mean, can I help you?"
"Um. Looking. For…" One thin shoulder hitched upwards and down again. "A book."
Oz took laconic to new levels. It just made Sam want to smack him…."I might need more info than that."
Oz's eyes crinkled at the corner in a way that reminded Sam of Dean... "Your brother did say you were a pretty funny dude."
"Yeah…." Sam shrugged. "So. What is that you're looking for—exactly?"
Eventually, Sam came away from the eastern philosophy section with a deeper appreciation of Oz's intelligence--and weirdness.
He still hated him, and he still made his skin crawl, and he still needed to keep his little bitty body out of Dean's personal space.
****
"Where you going?"
"I'm going for a run—I'm getting out of shape." Sam knelt in front of the door; head tilted forward, hiding behind the curtain of his hair. It'd worked when he was fifteen and wanted to kill Dean—it worked just as well at twenty-eight. He laced his sneakers carefully and tied them up. He glared at the toes of his outlet Adidas, pissed off and knowing, but not really knowing, why. "So how is it Damien is going to let you off for two weeks? What do you have on him, Dean?"
A shock, a sudden freezing thought, made his nerves fire unpleasantly. What was Damien to Dean? Sam shook his head hard—a totally stupid thought. Damien was some fat, greasy, old guy in a brown pinstriped suit, holed up in a real estate office somewhere, busy being a slumlord. Probably.
"Gah—don’t be stupid, Sam. Damien just--he knows the business. He gets it. He knows it's important."
Sam looked up into Dean's face, met with Dean's angry and disapproving eyes. They were bright and shining with a light that was really kind of scary, as scary as the knife-thin line of his lips. How it was possible for lips that were normally so invitingly kissable to look so, so…completely deadly, was beyond Sam. At the moment the razor line of Dean's lips said, 'I'll kill you, for free.'
Fine. Sam figured he might was well go for broke. "Okay, okay, but why you? You said weren't gonna do anything dangerous, just runs for Bobby—books and shit. And now look at you--and what about me? Why won’t you take me? I should be—should be at your back, not hiding out in this apartment."
Dean threw his arms up in the air like the drama queen he was and shouted, "Sammy, I told you, I'm not dumping you. This job is…it's a different kind of dangerous." His voice dropped and he did that thing with his eyes and mouth that probably influenced weaker people than him, and said quietly, like he didn't want to hear himself saying it, let alone Sam, "It's better for you if you don’t go."
And that right there—sent Sam into a deep, burning rage. Typical…Dean was never ever going to forget it—forgive it. He could live the rest of his life and that fucking god-awful mistake was going to be the only thing that Dean measured him by. "It's demons, isn't it? You don't trust me. You know what, fuck you."
"That's not—shit, I trust you, I just don’t want you to hurt, oh my god, it that so fucking wrong? That I care about you and don’t want you to—to hurt more than you do now? Besides, I had to get two guys to take your place—two guys. And neither of them will ever be as good as you but I need to know you’re okay. I need you to be as close to fine as you can be. Please. Sammy…"
And just like that Dean trapped him in a corner. Why the hell did Dean always act like he was wrapped around Sam's little finger when it was so the opposite? "Okay, all aright, god, I'm going to vomit pixie dust in a minute, you freakin' girl."
"Good, I couldn't go through that crap one more time without barfing up unicorn shit myself. Bitch."
Sam stood and palmed the back of Dean's neck, drew him in for a kiss on the cheek. "It goes without saying you're a jerk," he said and let himself out of the apartment, got halfway to the elevator before hitting the wall of what the fuck did I just do? "Shit…shit."
Sam bit his lip and cast a look back at the apartment. The door was closed and he wondered what was going on behind that closed door. Damn it. He meant to not freak Dean out…maybe he wasn't freaked out? Maybe he was cool with it; it was just a kiss on the cheek. A soft, dry little peck—filled with longing and please fuck me, the kind of peck that screamed I want you, oh god, oh god--Dean would deal better with Sam pulling his dick out and jerking him off instead of something like that kiss, shit. Fuck. Sam left off waiting for the elevator to wheeze its way to the floor and dashed down the stairs. The thing to do here was run until he passed out, and hopefully he'd be picked up by the cops, labeled homeless, driven to the edge of town and kicked out never to be seen again…or best case scenario, hit by a car and killed.
The thought kind of cheered Sam up as he headed to the park at a run.
* * * * * *
An hour, maybe more on the run, and Sam admitted maybe he was huffing a bit—not at all gasping like a beached orca, certainly not sopping wet like he'd run through a sprinkler or a tsunami. He eased from a run into a slow trot around the jogging path, weaving in and out of the trees and kind of reveling in being able to run at night in darkness and be perfectly safe—or at least safe in the way a Hunter saw it. The neighborhood was a good one—few unexplained gunshots, no drive-bys, no blood-curdling screams in the middle of the night, mostly just regular old shouting and cursing and yelling out the odd death threat. It was one of the best places they'd ever stayed. It meant Sam could run comfortably at night and not have someone challenge him because of his size, or try and rob him because of his appearance of relative wealth. Though a nice little clip holster added to one's peace of mind….
He was slowed to almost a walk now, nodding familiarly to the night time denizens of the park—not really all that terribly different to the day time denizens—maybe fewer baby carriages. His slow limp-trot took him past an almost hidden spot in the trees; he could see a small parking lot bordering a partly demolished playground peeked out of a gap in the bushes. More importantly he could see their car parked there and Dean leaning against the trunk, legs spread wide, lips wide in a goofy grin, the kind of grin that said he was fucked up. A little drunk, a little stoned, and not alone. "So, lasagna. 'slike…the world's perfect food. Only the most perfect perfect food is cheeseburgers. Cause you got protein and calcium and, and, leafy stuff and red stuff—tomatoes. And if you're a freak, pickles, but we won't talk about that…"
"No, no, you're right, pickles are an abomination and an insult to good food—kind of like anchovies."
"See, see? You get me, minion, that why I like you. Where was I—right. Lasagna. It's like a cheeseburger with just the real good parts and with noodles instead of bread. Yeah. It's good."
"Cats like it."
"Oz. Dude. Do you want me to, like--kill you?"
"Just sayin…."
Sam listened to their exchange—or Dean's drunken ramblings about food--with his teeth grinding together and an electric buzz coming up out of his chest and lodging in his throat. It was stupid—so Dean had a friend, so what? Didn’t he deserve a friend?
There was a weird nano-second in which he thought he could smell Oz, that he could feel Oz like prickly fur over all of his skin, even underneath his skin. That faded, at almost the same moment oz whipped his head in Sam's direction and Sam swore Oz could see him, even in the dark shadows cast by the bushes, under the screen of branches Sam found himself crouching in. Oz looked left and right, and his lip curled away from his perfect little blunt white teeth, and he sniffed—hard. Looked concerned, alarmed, thoughtful, and finally, amused, and that was the expression Sam wanted to kill him for. The branches all around him shivered and dropped leaves like rain, but that might have been because of the little breeze that suddenly popped up, for which by the way Sam was extremely grateful because at twelve at night, it was still hot and stuffy outside.
The wind blew hard enough to kick up little dust clouds at Sam's feet when he noticed that Dean was pretty much splayed out over the trunk, legs wide, his thumbs tucked in his pocket, his curled fingers framing his hard dick. Sam could see the line of his dick pointing towards his hip, trapped there in the confines of his jeans. Oz stepped closer, curled himself around Dean and Sam heard his brother make a pleased little noise--heard a growl in the distance. Realized a beat later it was coming from himself.
Oz took a few steps away from Dean and held up his hand. Car keys glinted in the full moonlight and he jingled them.
Okay, so Sam was not in the least bit embarrassed as he stepped out of the bushes to take the keys. He did not thank Oz for taking them or for helping him manhandle an uncooperative Dean into the car and certainly did not thank him for getting his brother high and horny. For rubbing against him like a mother fucking cat while picking his damn pocket.
What really got under his skin was that Oz was creepy as hell and not in the slightest a regular human. Sam couldn't see how it was that Dean couldn't see it, Dean, who was the best hunter Sam knew….
"Stop worrying about Oz, you freak.">
Sam had to hold the phone away from his ear. It still rang a little. He bit his lip, eyed the ceiling and let the buzz of Dean's voice wash over him. This was bad. Just when and how the hell did Dean cobble up this 'live and let live' attitude? Why wasn't he pumping silver bullets into his minion? Why was Sam so pissed that Dean was willing to believe that Oz had this thing (he was almost one hundred per cent certain it was a thing) under control when they knew that those kinds of fucking unlucky bastards just couldn't? why, because Oz was cool, cause he had good dope? Because Dean wanted to fuck him?
Sam hung up and hurried back to the rear of the shop. Whatever. What had he expected? He knew that Dean could be weird—surprising—scary sometimes--when he was drunk. It was just…it'd seemed so…different. Nice. Sam worried at his lip until it was raw and tasted of copper. His pulse beat in the tender spot, it was hot under his tongue and it sent a rush of heat to his dick, because it was almost the same taste as Dean's mouth and the same kind of heat.
"God fucking damn it!" Sam slapped the heel of his hand into his forehead. Delusional. That was the word. He was fucking on the edge of bugfuckcrazy. His eyes burned as he glared into the distance, wishing he had an ounce of control over his stupid heart, while behind him one of the cardboard boxes shuddered and started to unravel, spilling out its books ….
"Sammy…Sammy, come on...Sam, you know you like it. You do."
Sam held his head back out of Dean's reach and fit his palm over Dean's face. His lips were warm, a little slack, kind of damp—Sam shoved hard as he could and felt a sick flash of satisfaction when Dean went flying. Crumbled into a heap next to Sam's bed with a muffled curse. "Get out, Dean."
"But…but…Sam. Right? You."
"GET OUT." Tequila made Dean's pitifully few brain cells fire even slower than normal, Sam knew, but even that had to get through the alcoholic daze he was floating in. "Get out means get out, asshole. Sleep it off in the car." Sam was trying to keep a handle on a frustrated, pissed off, on-his-very-last-nerve emotional storm, he really was but—" I mean, what makes you think that you can drink yourself into a fucking semi-stupor and come back here and—and." Sam's mouth slammed shut around the words. For a second he really thought he was capable of killing Dean. The thought made him want to throw up. "Couldn't pull some skank, is that it? Came for second best?"
Yeah—wait, what?" Dean shook his head and turned a sickly yellow. He groaned, grabbed his head, his stomach. "No, that's not. No skanks, no seconds. It's you."
Sam grabbed Dean by his arm and yanked him to his unsteady feet. "Tell you what, Dean. When you can come in here and ask me when you're sober, you do it. Stop making me feel like a whore and maybe things'll work out. Tace atque abi jerk-off."
Dean looked devastated right up until Sam slammed his bedroom door in his face. Sam heard him yell, "Hey! You're not a whore! Or second best, you're—"
Whatever Dean thought he was Sam would never know. One thing he did know was that come morning, Dean had better have cleaned up the vomit in front of his door, god damn it.
Morning brought a brand new day, the section of floor in front of his door pine-scented fresh and shiny, the smell of coffee and pancakes drifting on the air. Sam grabbed his bag. "Late, see you when I get back."
"But I made pancakes."
"Yeah. Sorry." Sam ran out without a backward look—his chest was burning. He knew he was being kind of an asshole—but Dean started it. Playing with him like that. Disrespecting him. That was always Dean's problem. Always treated him like dirt. Sam rubbed his eyes.
Seeing as how it was actually his day off, Sam hung out in the park, watching all the people be people and feeling sorry for himself. That actually felt pretty good, and he congratulated himself on getting self-pity down to an art. The only thing that would make him feel better would be kicking Dean's ass. Or fucking it, but that wasn't likely to happen unless Dean was black-out drunk and Sam finally cracked and lost any bit of sanity he'd managed to wrest out of the hands of fucking demons and douche bag angels….Yeah. Great. Now he was pissed off all over again….
Around noon, he got a call from Bobby. He wrapped up a sandwich he was tearing into emo shreds and answered quickly. Maybe Dean'd figured out he was missing and had sent Bobby searching after him. It could happen. "Hey, Bobby, what's up?"
Without preamble, Bobby started hollering, and Sam rolled his eyes and wondered just why the hell everyone thought they could yell at him like he was some kind of untrainable puppy…and then what Bobby was saying sunk in.
"What the hell are you doing to your brother, Sam?"
Hunh? Doing to Dean?
"He's pestering me for jobs—thought you all were taking a break from hunting. He's driving me crazy. Says he needs space—can't live with you. Are you being a pain in the ass? Don't even answer that—I know how you can be. You better—"
Sam hung up. Out of nowhere a thunderclap exploded overhead, a long streak of lightning clawed the sky sideways. Rain poured down like curtains, fast and furious. It was still warm out, so Sam strolled out from the awning he was sitting under and walked around the streets. He remembered how when he was a kid, he'd loved it so much when a summer shower hit, and Dean let him run around behind whatever motel they were stranded at, dashing around in a swimsuit—basically an old pair of Dean's jeans, hacked off at the knees—running around, laughing and Dean smiling at him….
It rained hard, so Sam felt certain he could let it out. He made very little noise. The sun was bright in spite of the downpour. A giant rainbow arched across the sky and it rained and rained.
When it stopped, he had a hotdog and a coke and thought about changes and second chances and destiny and how nice it was just to lean up against a wall and enjoy a pretty good hotdog undisturbed. He shrugged his sopping wet book bag onto his shoulder. Time to go home and start all over again. Sam smiled a little. What the hell…not like this was the first time—probably wouldn't be the last either.
next part
Author: roxy
Pairings/Characters:Dean/Sam
Rating: ranges from PG to R
Word Count:7614
Spoilers: very vague spoilery reference for the end of season 5, but it veers off into AUness pretty quick
Summary: What happens when you survive a thing you never expected to
PART 1
"Hey Sam, I know you want to take a break from hunting but—"
"Where? What's happening? Do I need to take time off, I can probably get a few days off like, over the weekend or—"
"Don't go getting your pigtails in a knot, Cinderella," Dean smirked. "Knew you were getting bored."
"It's not that. It's just between studying and working, I need a break."
Dean nodded. "Oh, yeah. I told Damien I'd need a couple of days for my 'other' work." He shivered and made a face. "Dude, I think he thinks I'm some kind of…sorcerer or something. 'screepy."
Sam shook his head. Civilians. "So, what are we after?"
"Bobby sent an e-mail." He shrugged at Sam's look of surprise. "He discovered the internet? Anyway, it was more of a general call for hunters in the area than for us specifically; he knows we're on a break."
"Uh-hunh. He just happened to send info about a job to us, too."
Dean grinned. "Yeah. Anyway, it’s a real basic one, a piece of pie--easy."
"Cake. And you know better than to say something's easy where the Universe can hear you, dude. It's like pasting a kick me sign on yourself."
"Unbunch, Priscilla." Dean rolled his eyes. "We're heading to Maine, there's a water baby making trouble there, or so Bobby says. Could be something else, but considering the area, and the M.O., water baby's his first choice."
"Water baby? Have you heard of that before? How the hell do you kill that?"
"Dad had some info in his journal—not personal experience, though. Seems you don't kill it. You get it to leave--you make its home unlivable and it disappears. Dad thought maybe they slip in here from another dimension--hey," he said to Sam's startled laugh. "Dad's theory, not mine." He dug around in a bag and pulled out two fat, red candles, and a plastic sandwich bag of bones. He shook the bag. "Chicken bones. Burn them on the bank, light the candles and tell it to leave and not come back."
"You're kidding. That's all there is to it?"
"Everything gotta be blood and screaming for you--" Dean choked to a stop, his smile faded, as the color leached from his face.
"Dean…"
"Anyway, it'll be a nice drive, you'll like it." His brother's eyes were begging him not to comment and Sam went with it.
"When you put it like that," he managed a small smile, and Dean gave him a grateful kind of grimace back.
Two days later, they were stretched on the sandy floor of a shallow cave, near the rocky shore of an inlet. Cliffs rose up on either side, forming the shallow walls and the high, slanted, roof of the cave they crouched in. Sam was bleeding and panting, hunched over their duffle and glaring at Dean like he'd throw him into the lake if he could. Between his teeth he ground out, "When we get outta here, I'm going to break your fucking nose."
"Dude, my nose is already broken." He wiped a palm full of blood off his upper lip and glared at Sam like it was his fault. "Fucking horned snake motherfucker. Water baby, my ass. I mean, when the man said 'water baby' I'm thinking baby, right? Not the god damn Loch Ness monster with a really shitty attitude. Damn."
Sam nodded, his breath still coming rough. "So. We try again?"
"Yeah, this thing will keep on taking people into the water if not. Matches?"
He tossed Dean a pack of matches, guaranteed to light wet or dry, and searched his pockets. Found the plastic bag full of salt and iron shells. "Okay—want me to take shotgun?" He dug the Mossberg out of the duffle, but Dean shook his head, held his hand out for it as he staggered to his feet.
"Nah, gimme--you're better than I am with the chanting thing. You know me, ready to hold down the fort, but you're the one who talks all purty. Get rid of this thing, I'll keep it occupied."
He stared at Dean. "I don’t feel good about you going up against this thing alone." We're out of practice he kept to himself.
"Well, I'm not alone. I got you and you've got my back. Light those candles and start chanting, I got a big watery bitch to irritate the hell out of."
Dean scrambled over the rocks, went farther onto the shore and started throwing rocks into the dark water. Sam flopped a few large, flat rocks together, set the two candles up, frowning at the oddly greasy feel of them. There was something about them that made his palms feel dirty…he felt a familiar itch under the back of his skull, and wiped his hands on his jeans, hard.
He lit the candles, and when the wicks had sputtered their last and finally held a flame, he piled up the chicken bones between them. He had no idea what the bones were meant to represent. They were dry and hollow, rough to the touch. They smelled faintly of fried chicken and were totally unremarkable…he shrugged and doused them with lighter fluid, and listened to Dean curse and throw stones at the water.
"Fuck!"
Sam's head whipped around, and there was Dean running up the dangerously rocky shore, yelling for Sam to start chanting right fucking now. Keeping pace with him, in the water, was a long dark shape that wove sinuously through the waves. Its long skull whipped back and forth and even over the sound of crashing water and Dean's panicked shouts, he could hear it hissing.
Sam quickly lit a twist of paper, dropped it onto the bones and the lighter fluid flared up, the dry bones caught. He thanked god silently and started chanting, loudly, clearly and quickly. "Back, give this water back. Give the meat back. Give the bones back. Go back. Go home. Go now." He repeated those words; he was supposed to say them until the 'water baby' listened. He chanted, and watched the monster slither out of the water and across the rocks, its fins working like legs to pull it after Dean—a whole lot faster than it seemed it should be capable of. Sam licked his dry lips, pressed his hand over his hammering heart and kept one eye on the beach and his frantically dodging brother, and chanted without stop. It felt wrong, the worst kind of wrong to not run down the beach and help Dean....
He startled but kept chanting when he heard a shotgun blast, much closer than he expected. Dean was still running but now he was running away from the cave, shouting and waving his arms and drawing the water baby away from Sam, and Sam couldn't stop chanting. He desperately hoped Dean knew what he was doing.
Sam's voice was getting rough, and the smoke from the greasy candles and the smoldering bones irritated his throat even more. His eyes were streaming when Dean came dashing into the cave, whooping.
"Dude, it lit up all over like a fucking Christmas tree and was gone! We were half way down the beach and it had an eye on me, I swear it licked its lips—it had lips dude, like Angelina lips--so fuckin' creepy--"
Sam hacked and coughed, and croaked, "Then we're done?"
"Kinda." Dean shrugged, and said, "Well, now we gotta find the bones of its victims and burn them too…."
"What—oh my god, I swear when we get back to the hotel, I'm going to drug you and cut your kidneys out and sell them."
Dean looked thoughtful for a moment, and said, "And then can we buy a pony?"
They drove down the coast because it really was a nice drive; the sun was high in a bright sapphire sky, the crisp ocean breeze dashed long streamers of vanilla white clouds across the blue. Sam snuck little looks at an oblivious Dean as they drove. Dean looked good, really good. Sam cataloged all the changes in his brother. He was tan, his freckles looked healthy now, and not like dark spatters against a sallow, grey canvas. The dark shadows were gone from under his eyes, the lines in the corners deeper, but they came from smiling and not that terrible frozen glare Sam had gotten used to seeing. He looked…whole. He looked like Dean again.
"Hey. You're thinking too hard and that's never good. What's up? Did we miss something?"
"No, no, I was thinking…"that I'm tired of being alone "that I'm kind of hungry. Wanna stop?"
"Fuck, yeah. Best idea you've had since…" Dean made a big show out of trying to remember, and Sam elbowed him. Asshole.
They took a break on the way back, stopped at a little rundown looking clam shack set back from the road. The original red and navy paint had faded to a sketchy pink and baby blue, the hand painted sign hung cock-eyed on the wall. An old fashioned screen door slapped on its spring hinge as customers came and went--was probably doing nothing to keep flying things out. Dean pulled the car into the dirt parking lot and smiled and Sam looked at him like he was crazy.
"Really? We're going for salmonella on the half-shell?"
"Nah, pretty sure the sign says 'Bud's Oyster and Beer'. Don't you know the less tarted up a place is, the better the food? Live a little, kiddo."
They got paper trays piled high with hot fried oysters and fries, a bottle each of Miller. Ignoring the slight chill in the air, they sat outside at one of the picnic tables at the rear of the lot, and stuffed themselves silly. Dean was grinning from ear to ear, the sun made his eyes blaze and the slight wind did its best to ruffle his hair. He laughed a lot and Sam sucked up the sound of it, learning it all over again.
"Told you it was gonna be good," Dean crowed at Sam, who was busy licking grease and crumbs from his fingers. All he could do was nod. Fried oysters had always struck him as something disgusting covered with breading and made more disgusting by coating it in oil, but this…he might have to rethink his stance on fried foods. Fried oysters, anyway. Dean winked and chewed, and Sam felt like…this was what it was all about. Here it was, this was his reward. His Dean.
"What? I got something?" Dean asked, wiped at his face and threw the napkin at Sam, chugged half his beer, and turned to Sam. "Hey, Sammy—" he burped out 'how are you?' and waggled his eyebrows.
Sam rolled his eyes. "You're, what—thirty-two going on twelve?"
Dean snickered. "You know you love it."
Sam handed Dean the rest of his fries. "Um. Something like that."
"One more," Dean said "One more, and then we'll go."
Sam sighed, licked the rim of his glass and peered at his brother. "Yeah, one more." Which really meant a few more before Dean found a hookup, and used to mean, when they moved day by day, leaving Sam to walk alone back to their room—or making Sam sleep in the backseat of the car. He scowled. Not fun memories.
He looked around the bar. Two could play that game. Shit, he should beat Dean to the punch, let god's gift to women see how he liked trying to pretzel his ass into the backseat to sleep. He caught the eye of a long, lean, girl, back against the bar, hips titled out to the room and a look on her face that was open, appraising. She met Sam's eyes and smiled. He stood, and was about to head her way when Dean grabbed his arm.
"Come outside with me, I feel like a smoke."
"What? No you don't," Sam said. "You don't smoke, remember?"
"Just because you believe a thing, don’t make it true for the rest of the world," Dean smirked. "Come on." He handed Sam his beer and grabbed his sleeve, and almost pushed him out the door. "You can thank me later, dude," he laughed and Sam tried to ferret out what he meant.
"Thank you? Dude—you cock-blocked me," Sam groused, stumbling a little in the dark.
His brother shook his head. "Nah, I saved you. She was trouble. She came in with that guy who was about ten feet wide—you didn’t see him?"
Sam blinked and looked around him—Dean had shoved him all the way to the back of the lot where his Precious was parked safely away from thugs and other car doors. He pushed Sam against it before he flopped next to Sam, looked him up and down, and snickered. "Maybe I should have let you try and talk to her—"
Sam felt a little flare of hurt. Dean wanted to see him get his ass kicked, did he? Well, sure he would after all—
"Man, it would have been kind of worth it to see that guy's face when you kicked his ass all over the bar. He looked like he could have stood taking down a peg or two. And you would have been the one to do it." Dean gave him a look, so proud, so full of everything Sam hadn’t seen since he was a teen. It made his head swim, and made him blush hot—felt it rise in his face, and roll right down to his chest…he ducked his head and swigged beer like it was a lifeline. Dean laughed and rolled over the fender, ended up in front of Sam. Between his legs, actually. Sam swallowed, froze. "You're drunk."
"Oh man, yeah. So drunk." He sounded proud of it. He giggled and dropped his head onto Sam's chest. "Man, I'm so drunk. It was a great job, right?"
"Oh yeah," Sam said. "You almost got eaten by a giant cross between Shamu and a snake, I almost choked to death…yeah, it was great." He laughed and reached up, rubbed the back of Dean's neck, up through his hair, rubbed against the back of his skull until Dean just sighed and his body loosened. "It was fun."
"And we won," Dean mumbled hot and damp against Sam's chest, the warmth spreading. "We won, and that's all that counts right. Do over; clean slate…"
Sam got it. Dean wasn't talking about the job any more; he was somewhere else, some other time. "It's all over, Sam, all that bad stuff. You know I forgave you right? Do you forgive me?"
"For what Dean, there's nothing to forgive. You were right and I was wrong and—"
Dean shook his head violently, rucking up Sam's t-shirt. "No. Not right or wrong. We both wanted the same thing. For it to end well. We want the same thing, right," he said and lifted his head, speared Sam with a hot glare and Sam felt himself harden in his jeans. He saw the moment Dean felt it and panicked, waited for his brother to fling himself away, but he didn't…his eyes dropped shut and he gave a tentative press back with his hips, and a slight move that barely rubbed their dicks together. He moaned, but Sam almost missed it, making his own noise. And Dean reached up and pulled his head down and brushed his mouth over Sam's and Sam shook, his hips jerked up towards Dean. "God, god, god….I think, I think…"
"Sammy. Shhh."
It was everything he thought it would be. More. Sam's mouth watered, Dean was delicious, just like he knew he would be. Ripe, like summer peaches, sweet and tart at once. Hot inside, juicy wet. He sucked Dean's tongue like it was candy, whimpering because he wanted something more in his mouth, wanted it now. He touched all of Dean that he could, slid his hands up under Dean's t-shirt, swept his thumbs over hard nipples and marveled, how soft his body hair was, how warm his skin. How hot and hard his dick was, pressed against Sam's leg. "Dean, let me suck you," he moaned. "Please."
Dean blinked, and stepped back, red slick lips framing a smile wide as ocean. His hand slid across Sam's chest, over his heart. Pressed there, a hot weight, before sliding down to Sam's waist, curling around his hip, and then off. "Damn Sammy, I'm really fuckin' drunk, dude. Take me back to the room?" He grinned and grinned and weaved on his feet. By the time they got back to their motel, Dean was out on his feet, and Sam had to wrestle him into the bed, pry off his shoes. Dean rolled to his side and threw an arm over his face, mouth open, breath groaning in and out of him. Sam watched him for a while, his heart thumping, breath catching in his throat. This was going to be bad. He knew Dean…with any luck, he'd pretend to forget. It hurt. But better this hurt than nothing at all.
Sam woke up with the feeling that he'd finally broken his brother and himself for good. He excepted to be in the room alone, accepted that he would be, maybe a note on the bed, Dean's bags gone—but he was in the next bed, curled like a snail and breathing deep and steady. The relief Sam felt was overwhelming, and swallowed in the next breath by the knowledge that they were still broken. Dean was going to blame him for everything, or act like there'd been nothing—
Dean woke, stretched, caught Sam looking and smiled. "Morning, Sas. You're up—that means you brought me coffee, right?"
Sam was startled into laughter. "Not yet."
Dean flopped to his face. He stretched out one arm and snapped his fingers imperiously. "Go bitch, bring me caffeine. Now."
It was…okay? They were going to be okay? Sam took the first real breath he'd managed since waking.
It was okay. At least it didn't get worse. In a way, it got better. Then again, it went pretty much as he thought it would.
Dean was more relaxed. More open. It was just. It seemed. He…okay, Dean acted like it'd never happened. Like he forgot that whole…kiss, thing, whatever it was. Had been. Quelle surprise. Huge, honking enormous, surprise.
How did Dean just shut things out like that? Sam couldn't imagine how he did it. Or maybe he could…Dean was good at stuffing things in little brain boxes and nailing the lids shut, no matter how much it hurt to do. In fact, Sam thought, as he made an eye-catching display of canned diced tomatoes and chilies on an end-cap, in some ways, Dean was handling it like a rock star, while he was flailing on the edge of some kind of psychic cliff, staring down into pointy stuff at the bottom…Dean though; he was bigger and brighter than before The Kiss. Like, content and as happy as he thought Sam would be for settling in one place for a while….
Unless he was faking it.
Sam huffed and stood, his knees cracking as he did. He shoved fists on his hips and imagined the cans exploding, aluminum shrapnel and diced tomato bits everywhere and Dean dancing naked in the middle of it….
Dean was definitely faking it.
Sam started guiltily as the cans wobbled, clattering slightly against the metal shelves. Must be heavy traffic going by…just in case, he tried thinking happy thoughts to calm himself.
Such as: Dean smiled. A lot. At him. Every time Dean saw him, he got this smile that said, 'I hit the lottery', or something. He joked more, touched Sam all the time now. It was like waking up in the middle of a great dream and finding it was your real life, a world where Dean finally kicked off any last traces of the shackles their life had snapped on him. He was more open now, less freaked about showing he cared, and okay, maybe they hadn't kissed again like they had that night but….
Sam would just have to be okay with that. Besides, a happy, smiling, caring Dean was more than enough for Sam. He could be content with that. He seriously could be.
The diced tomatoes and chilies mocked him with their silent judgment. But it was true. Jerking off every now and then and accidentally thinking of your brother didn't mean anything, everybod—fuck. Yeah--no.
Sam sighed and shoved the cans back in line. It wasn't an easy thing to admit, that kissing your own brother did it for you like no one else. It was a weird, uncomfortably twisty concept for Sam let alone Dean, who in a weird way, could be kind of rigid morally. His particular concept of morals anyway.
And that, that was okay too. Because Sam could see it in Dean's eyes—he could see it in those thousand watt smiles and. Well. Dean looked at him like he wanted more, he just needed time to come to terms with that. This, Sam was fine with. Hell, there was time enough for Sam to coax Dean out of his set ways and into seeing just how much they needed everything about each other. Plenty of time. Loads of time and if there was one thing Sam was, it was patient.
No. Seriously.
At the end of the week, Dean threw some stuff in a backpack and took a run out to a friend of Bobby's to pick something up for him. "Gone for two, three days tops, Sam." It was too sudden for Sam to clear his schedule so he had to let Dean go by himself and besides, not like it was a hunt or anything. So Sam just nodded, said okay, stood at the end of the drive waving good-bye to Dean—using all his fingers even if he really wanted not to.
Dean was gone longer than three days. Fucking liar.
Completely unrelated to that, Sam gave notice at the market. It was just, the market and he had come to a parting of the ways—irreconcilable differences. One more fucking case of green beans to price and he was going Cold Blood on everyone. First on his list, the old woman from the sixth floor, the one who demanded Sam drop everything and shop for her--the one with the illegal cats and that smell, peppermint and dusty old books and wet newspaper and lavender. The one who called Dean twelve times a day and complained like it was her job and Dean never once lost his temper with her or reported the cats, the awful, reeking, mangy, slatty-ribbed, evil-eyed cats who stared at him like he was some kind of abomination….
Sam took a deep breath and searched for his calm place and cursed when he realized his calm place was in fucking South Dakota somewhere, playing Indiana Jones….
Last day on the job, he tossed his apron on the break room table and gathered the cards that were shoved into his locker; they ranged from great working with you to thanks a fucking lot for quitting douche bag who's going to take my Saturday shift now. It warmed his heart. He went out for good-bye drinks with the crew and somehow ended up in an abandoned drive-in, just Jerome and him, draped over the hood of Jerome's Civic and being jerked off agonizingly slow, while Jerome whispered what sounded like snatches of poetry in his ear. Sam groaned and shuddered and still managed to make a quick mental note to bring Dean and his EMF o'meter to check it out--there was something off about the place. He was squinting at the shattered remnants of the screen; almost certain he saw movement and light flit across it when orgasm snuck up on him. Jerome let out a little grunt of satisfaction in a job well done while Sam shot thick and hot right up under his tee-shirt and all over his stomach before collapsing in a panting heap against the warm metal.
"Call me sometimes," Jerome said, kind of surreptitiously wiping his hand on Sam's waist. "I really liked working with you, man."
Sam nodded, and pulled Jerome close, hands sliding around his waist. "Before we go…."
He came in late; Dean was finally back, and sitting on the couch like he'd never left, staring at what looked like an infomercial. He looked up at Sam with a frown—the first time he hadn't greeted Sam with a smile in a while.
"Hey, you're back," Sam said, feeling happy and loose and really pleased to see his brother, his beautiful, beautiful brother, all ocean eyes and full pink mouth and funny little snort and the cute way he pressed his tongue against his teeth when he smiled sometimes and….
"Yeah. Called your phone. A couple of times. Sam."
*Crabby freckle-faced bitch*…"It was off."
"I know. You can't do that Sam, you never know—"
"Know what Dean? Who's going to hurt me? We won, it's all over, remember?"
"People, Sam. They can hurt you just as hard as monsters."
"Fuck Dean…you think I don't know that?" Sam scrubbed hands over his face, the warm, floaty feeling gone. He tried to settle but he felt too wide, too thin, too ready to break. He headed to the bathroom, uncomfortably aware of dried come on his skin, and Dean's wrinkled nose. Whatever.
The bookstore was a nice change from the market. He didn't smell like rotten lettuce and stale chicken blood anymore. Now he smelt like dust and old cardboard. Stocking the shelves was a zen way to spend the day. His manager was an asshole, but didn't impact on his life much—and Dean came to pick him up after work every day. If he let his coworkers think Dean was his boyfriend well…it always had been a common assumption and he only slightly encouraged it to avoid the inevitable awkward fumbling towards questions of availability. Besides, Dean kind of fed into it and it left Sam wondering….
Sam jerked hard to the sound of a dry cough behind him, just managing not to bounce his skull of the shelf edge in front of him. It was the kind of attention grabbing thing that people never really did outside of a book. There should be no way that Sam could tell the cough was dry and ironic but he could and it pissed him off. "Yes?" He tried not to hiss, and turned to face whatever douche thought he was being amusing.
Oz was smiling down at him.
Oz was…not Sam's arch nemesis, not only because that would be ridiculous, but also because Oz didn't seem to know. Oz was supposed to be some kind of assistant/helper/apprentice to Dean. What Dean called him was 'minion'. Sam didn't think it was funny but Dean seemed to think it was hilarious and said it way too much and even Oz called himself that. Asshole.
Sam struggled not to glare at the short, oh so short, man gazing at him. Oz, with his ridiculous spiky red hair, bracelets up and down his arms, tattoos and piercings and—stuff all over. He was leaning in a studied unselfconscious little slouch against the shelf, little hands shoved in his pockets, little shoulders curved inwards and a little half smile on his stupid little face, trying to look inoffensive but there was something about the guy that put Sam's teeth on edge—like licking pennies or chewing on tinfoil. The guy just made him…uncomfortable. For his part, Oz gave him a confused once over and his smile curled in on itself and died.
Sam refused to care. "Yeah? I mean, can I help you?"
"Um. Looking. For…" One thin shoulder hitched upwards and down again. "A book."
Oz took laconic to new levels. It just made Sam want to smack him…."I might need more info than that."
Oz's eyes crinkled at the corner in a way that reminded Sam of Dean... "Your brother did say you were a pretty funny dude."
"Yeah…." Sam shrugged. "So. What is that you're looking for—exactly?"
Eventually, Sam came away from the eastern philosophy section with a deeper appreciation of Oz's intelligence--and weirdness.
He still hated him, and he still made his skin crawl, and he still needed to keep his little bitty body out of Dean's personal space.
"Where you going?"
"I'm going for a run—I'm getting out of shape." Sam knelt in front of the door; head tilted forward, hiding behind the curtain of his hair. It'd worked when he was fifteen and wanted to kill Dean—it worked just as well at twenty-eight. He laced his sneakers carefully and tied them up. He glared at the toes of his outlet Adidas, pissed off and knowing, but not really knowing, why. "So how is it Damien is going to let you off for two weeks? What do you have on him, Dean?"
A shock, a sudden freezing thought, made his nerves fire unpleasantly. What was Damien to Dean? Sam shook his head hard—a totally stupid thought. Damien was some fat, greasy, old guy in a brown pinstriped suit, holed up in a real estate office somewhere, busy being a slumlord. Probably.
"Gah—don’t be stupid, Sam. Damien just--he knows the business. He gets it. He knows it's important."
Sam looked up into Dean's face, met with Dean's angry and disapproving eyes. They were bright and shining with a light that was really kind of scary, as scary as the knife-thin line of his lips. How it was possible for lips that were normally so invitingly kissable to look so, so…completely deadly, was beyond Sam. At the moment the razor line of Dean's lips said, 'I'll kill you, for free.'
Fine. Sam figured he might was well go for broke. "Okay, okay, but why you? You said weren't gonna do anything dangerous, just runs for Bobby—books and shit. And now look at you--and what about me? Why won’t you take me? I should be—should be at your back, not hiding out in this apartment."
Dean threw his arms up in the air like the drama queen he was and shouted, "Sammy, I told you, I'm not dumping you. This job is…it's a different kind of dangerous." His voice dropped and he did that thing with his eyes and mouth that probably influenced weaker people than him, and said quietly, like he didn't want to hear himself saying it, let alone Sam, "It's better for you if you don’t go."
And that right there—sent Sam into a deep, burning rage. Typical…Dean was never ever going to forget it—forgive it. He could live the rest of his life and that fucking god-awful mistake was going to be the only thing that Dean measured him by. "It's demons, isn't it? You don't trust me. You know what, fuck you."
"That's not—shit, I trust you, I just don’t want you to hurt, oh my god, it that so fucking wrong? That I care about you and don’t want you to—to hurt more than you do now? Besides, I had to get two guys to take your place—two guys. And neither of them will ever be as good as you but I need to know you’re okay. I need you to be as close to fine as you can be. Please. Sammy…"
And just like that Dean trapped him in a corner. Why the hell did Dean always act like he was wrapped around Sam's little finger when it was so the opposite? "Okay, all aright, god, I'm going to vomit pixie dust in a minute, you freakin' girl."
"Good, I couldn't go through that crap one more time without barfing up unicorn shit myself. Bitch."
Sam stood and palmed the back of Dean's neck, drew him in for a kiss on the cheek. "It goes without saying you're a jerk," he said and let himself out of the apartment, got halfway to the elevator before hitting the wall of what the fuck did I just do? "Shit…shit."
Sam bit his lip and cast a look back at the apartment. The door was closed and he wondered what was going on behind that closed door. Damn it. He meant to not freak Dean out…maybe he wasn't freaked out? Maybe he was cool with it; it was just a kiss on the cheek. A soft, dry little peck—filled with longing and please fuck me, the kind of peck that screamed I want you, oh god, oh god--Dean would deal better with Sam pulling his dick out and jerking him off instead of something like that kiss, shit. Fuck. Sam left off waiting for the elevator to wheeze its way to the floor and dashed down the stairs. The thing to do here was run until he passed out, and hopefully he'd be picked up by the cops, labeled homeless, driven to the edge of town and kicked out never to be seen again…or best case scenario, hit by a car and killed.
The thought kind of cheered Sam up as he headed to the park at a run.
An hour, maybe more on the run, and Sam admitted maybe he was huffing a bit—not at all gasping like a beached orca, certainly not sopping wet like he'd run through a sprinkler or a tsunami. He eased from a run into a slow trot around the jogging path, weaving in and out of the trees and kind of reveling in being able to run at night in darkness and be perfectly safe—or at least safe in the way a Hunter saw it. The neighborhood was a good one—few unexplained gunshots, no drive-bys, no blood-curdling screams in the middle of the night, mostly just regular old shouting and cursing and yelling out the odd death threat. It was one of the best places they'd ever stayed. It meant Sam could run comfortably at night and not have someone challenge him because of his size, or try and rob him because of his appearance of relative wealth. Though a nice little clip holster added to one's peace of mind….
He was slowed to almost a walk now, nodding familiarly to the night time denizens of the park—not really all that terribly different to the day time denizens—maybe fewer baby carriages. His slow limp-trot took him past an almost hidden spot in the trees; he could see a small parking lot bordering a partly demolished playground peeked out of a gap in the bushes. More importantly he could see their car parked there and Dean leaning against the trunk, legs spread wide, lips wide in a goofy grin, the kind of grin that said he was fucked up. A little drunk, a little stoned, and not alone. "So, lasagna. 'slike…the world's perfect food. Only the most perfect perfect food is cheeseburgers. Cause you got protein and calcium and, and, leafy stuff and red stuff—tomatoes. And if you're a freak, pickles, but we won't talk about that…"
"No, no, you're right, pickles are an abomination and an insult to good food—kind of like anchovies."
"See, see? You get me, minion, that why I like you. Where was I—right. Lasagna. It's like a cheeseburger with just the real good parts and with noodles instead of bread. Yeah. It's good."
"Cats like it."
"Oz. Dude. Do you want me to, like--kill you?"
"Just sayin…."
Sam listened to their exchange—or Dean's drunken ramblings about food--with his teeth grinding together and an electric buzz coming up out of his chest and lodging in his throat. It was stupid—so Dean had a friend, so what? Didn’t he deserve a friend?
There was a weird nano-second in which he thought he could smell Oz, that he could feel Oz like prickly fur over all of his skin, even underneath his skin. That faded, at almost the same moment oz whipped his head in Sam's direction and Sam swore Oz could see him, even in the dark shadows cast by the bushes, under the screen of branches Sam found himself crouching in. Oz looked left and right, and his lip curled away from his perfect little blunt white teeth, and he sniffed—hard. Looked concerned, alarmed, thoughtful, and finally, amused, and that was the expression Sam wanted to kill him for. The branches all around him shivered and dropped leaves like rain, but that might have been because of the little breeze that suddenly popped up, for which by the way Sam was extremely grateful because at twelve at night, it was still hot and stuffy outside.
The wind blew hard enough to kick up little dust clouds at Sam's feet when he noticed that Dean was pretty much splayed out over the trunk, legs wide, his thumbs tucked in his pocket, his curled fingers framing his hard dick. Sam could see the line of his dick pointing towards his hip, trapped there in the confines of his jeans. Oz stepped closer, curled himself around Dean and Sam heard his brother make a pleased little noise--heard a growl in the distance. Realized a beat later it was coming from himself.
Oz took a few steps away from Dean and held up his hand. Car keys glinted in the full moonlight and he jingled them.
Okay, so Sam was not in the least bit embarrassed as he stepped out of the bushes to take the keys. He did not thank Oz for taking them or for helping him manhandle an uncooperative Dean into the car and certainly did not thank him for getting his brother high and horny. For rubbing against him like a mother fucking cat while picking his damn pocket.
What really got under his skin was that Oz was creepy as hell and not in the slightest a regular human. Sam couldn't see how it was that Dean couldn't see it, Dean, who was the best hunter Sam knew….
"Stop worrying about Oz, you freak.">
Sam had to hold the phone away from his ear. It still rang a little. He bit his lip, eyed the ceiling and let the buzz of Dean's voice wash over him. This was bad. Just when and how the hell did Dean cobble up this 'live and let live' attitude? Why wasn't he pumping silver bullets into his minion? Why was Sam so pissed that Dean was willing to believe that Oz had this thing (he was almost one hundred per cent certain it was a thing) under control when they knew that those kinds of fucking unlucky bastards just couldn't? why, because Oz was cool, cause he had good dope? Because Dean wanted to fuck him?
Sam hung up and hurried back to the rear of the shop. Whatever. What had he expected? He knew that Dean could be weird—surprising—scary sometimes--when he was drunk. It was just…it'd seemed so…different. Nice. Sam worried at his lip until it was raw and tasted of copper. His pulse beat in the tender spot, it was hot under his tongue and it sent a rush of heat to his dick, because it was almost the same taste as Dean's mouth and the same kind of heat.
"God fucking damn it!" Sam slapped the heel of his hand into his forehead. Delusional. That was the word. He was fucking on the edge of bugfuckcrazy. His eyes burned as he glared into the distance, wishing he had an ounce of control over his stupid heart, while behind him one of the cardboard boxes shuddered and started to unravel, spilling out its books ….
"Sammy…Sammy, come on...Sam, you know you like it. You do."
Sam held his head back out of Dean's reach and fit his palm over Dean's face. His lips were warm, a little slack, kind of damp—Sam shoved hard as he could and felt a sick flash of satisfaction when Dean went flying. Crumbled into a heap next to Sam's bed with a muffled curse. "Get out, Dean."
"But…but…Sam. Right? You."
"GET OUT." Tequila made Dean's pitifully few brain cells fire even slower than normal, Sam knew, but even that had to get through the alcoholic daze he was floating in. "Get out means get out, asshole. Sleep it off in the car." Sam was trying to keep a handle on a frustrated, pissed off, on-his-very-last-nerve emotional storm, he really was but—" I mean, what makes you think that you can drink yourself into a fucking semi-stupor and come back here and—and." Sam's mouth slammed shut around the words. For a second he really thought he was capable of killing Dean. The thought made him want to throw up. "Couldn't pull some skank, is that it? Came for second best?"
Yeah—wait, what?" Dean shook his head and turned a sickly yellow. He groaned, grabbed his head, his stomach. "No, that's not. No skanks, no seconds. It's you."
Sam grabbed Dean by his arm and yanked him to his unsteady feet. "Tell you what, Dean. When you can come in here and ask me when you're sober, you do it. Stop making me feel like a whore and maybe things'll work out. Tace atque abi jerk-off."
Dean looked devastated right up until Sam slammed his bedroom door in his face. Sam heard him yell, "Hey! You're not a whore! Or second best, you're—"
Whatever Dean thought he was Sam would never know. One thing he did know was that come morning, Dean had better have cleaned up the vomit in front of his door, god damn it.
Morning brought a brand new day, the section of floor in front of his door pine-scented fresh and shiny, the smell of coffee and pancakes drifting on the air. Sam grabbed his bag. "Late, see you when I get back."
"But I made pancakes."
"Yeah. Sorry." Sam ran out without a backward look—his chest was burning. He knew he was being kind of an asshole—but Dean started it. Playing with him like that. Disrespecting him. That was always Dean's problem. Always treated him like dirt. Sam rubbed his eyes.
Seeing as how it was actually his day off, Sam hung out in the park, watching all the people be people and feeling sorry for himself. That actually felt pretty good, and he congratulated himself on getting self-pity down to an art. The only thing that would make him feel better would be kicking Dean's ass. Or fucking it, but that wasn't likely to happen unless Dean was black-out drunk and Sam finally cracked and lost any bit of sanity he'd managed to wrest out of the hands of fucking demons and douche bag angels….Yeah. Great. Now he was pissed off all over again….
Around noon, he got a call from Bobby. He wrapped up a sandwich he was tearing into emo shreds and answered quickly. Maybe Dean'd figured out he was missing and had sent Bobby searching after him. It could happen. "Hey, Bobby, what's up?"
Without preamble, Bobby started hollering, and Sam rolled his eyes and wondered just why the hell everyone thought they could yell at him like he was some kind of untrainable puppy…and then what Bobby was saying sunk in.
"What the hell are you doing to your brother, Sam?"
Hunh? Doing to Dean?
"He's pestering me for jobs—thought you all were taking a break from hunting. He's driving me crazy. Says he needs space—can't live with you. Are you being a pain in the ass? Don't even answer that—I know how you can be. You better—"
Sam hung up. Out of nowhere a thunderclap exploded overhead, a long streak of lightning clawed the sky sideways. Rain poured down like curtains, fast and furious. It was still warm out, so Sam strolled out from the awning he was sitting under and walked around the streets. He remembered how when he was a kid, he'd loved it so much when a summer shower hit, and Dean let him run around behind whatever motel they were stranded at, dashing around in a swimsuit—basically an old pair of Dean's jeans, hacked off at the knees—running around, laughing and Dean smiling at him….
It rained hard, so Sam felt certain he could let it out. He made very little noise. The sun was bright in spite of the downpour. A giant rainbow arched across the sky and it rained and rained.
When it stopped, he had a hotdog and a coke and thought about changes and second chances and destiny and how nice it was just to lean up against a wall and enjoy a pretty good hotdog undisturbed. He shrugged his sopping wet book bag onto his shoulder. Time to go home and start all over again. Sam smiled a little. What the hell…not like this was the first time—probably wouldn't be the last either.
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