SpN fic: Come The Night
12/12/11 02:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
roxyTitle: Come The Night, 17/?
Author: roxy
Pairings/Characters: Sam/Dean, Dean/Angel
Rating:NC-17
Word Count: 2912
Spoilers: oblique reference to events in s5
Summary: this is (now) an AU treatment of season five, where Sam doesn't escape his fate and Boy King means just that. Dean once again enters hell to save his brother—not entirely voluntarily. When he returns to the world, everything's changed. He's lost Sam, the new world is difficult to navigate, and he finds himself saddled with an angry young man who elects himself to be Dean's guide.
Notes/Warnings: rape, dubious consent, extreme power imbalance. Some scenes are graphic. Feel free to ask if you'd like more info.
one ~ two~ three ~ four ~ five ~six
seven ~ eight ~ nine ~ ten ~ eleven ~ twelve
thirteen~fourteen~fifteen~sixteen
icon by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
deny1984
They test the angel's word and wearing the pendants, stroll back to their tent like they own the place, take what they need to. It's an odd experience, Dean thinks, walking through the town without being noticed. He walks right past Horse and the man never turns his way. He's thinking, worrying…Gavreel mentioned a block on his memories. Dean's known something was missing since he woke up in Terror Dome land. He's been kind of sort of sidling up on thinking it had something to do with Sam. But…divine intervention, that made him think of Cas…Dean lets out a long breath, follows Angel to the Out town wagons. He'll think about that another day—add it to his damn list of things to someday think about.
They catch a ride on the back of a wagon leaving the market after trading fruit to the Floating City. Dean carries their pack, his gun snug on the bottom of the bag. He keeps his fingers pressed against it, taking some comfort in the shape of it digging into his palm. The thick, hot smell of ox, the slow sway and bump of the wagon and the afternoon sun combine to work on Angel, calming him. He slides closer and closer to Dean until finally he's full out laying on him and snoring in Dean's lap. Dean sets the bag to the side and shifts Angel so he's comfortably lying against him, strokes his hair back from his face and just…keeps on stroking it. It's all grown out now, still weirdly asymmetrical but it's touching the back of his neck and curling around his ears…his shoulders are broader now too, and Dean thinks that with more food and more rest, Angel would be kind of threatening—to strangers, never to him. His fingers card through the kid's hair, rub around the back of his ears in soft, slow circles. Dean feels…the homesickness rolls back just a bit, just enough to let him draw a breath….
After an hour or so, Angel wakes up, and they split an ugly-orange and some dried lumps Angel swears is meat between the two of them. Dean notices that a few hunters on horseback mill around the wagons, must be going along as guards. They ride past and leer at him. Angel waves at them and they grin at Dean, make suggestive motions that hard as they are to make on horseback, it's easy to get the gist of.
Dean growls. "Pervert fucks."
"They think we're some guy and his slave—your bed-warmer." Angel shrugs, like he'd just mentioned the weather instead of being thought of as Dean's sextoy.
"What? Hey…is that what everyone's been thinking? Is that why they keep calling you my "boy"? Fuck!" He scrubbed a hand across his face. Slavery…the very idea turned his stomach—"Wait—I thought you said slavery was outlawed—"
Angel snorts. "It is—in the Out Towns, the mining camps. Out here, it does just fine." He glanced over at the outriders. "Yeah, they're making fun of you for traveling with such an old slave…."
"Old? Christ, you're barely—what—eighteen? Jesus." Dean wipes his mouth, scrubs at it like he's bitten into something sour. He was definitely ignoring the fact that, yeah, he was perving on the kid…"This world is so fucked up. This is all so wrong. I'm sorry."
"Eh. It's not all bad—could definitely be worse." Angel shrugs. "Besides, this gig with you is the best I've ever had. Hunh…kind of sad when you think about it."
"Fuck you," Dean says and likes it when all Angel does is smile. After a bit, the kid points up towards the hills they've come from. "Normally, no one would think twice about folks leaving the city but just to be on the safe side, let's assume that bitch is looking for you. We're supposed to be safe, but just because they can't see our faces, doesn't mean they can't scry us."
Dean nods. "Right. Not everything relies on sight."
"We're going to be leaving the caravan when they turn towards the Out Towns. We'll have to be extra careful. The way towards Chronopolis isn't easy for lone travelers. At least, I've got a Hunter traveling with me," Angel grins.
Dean grins back. He feels for the gun in his bag, takes a quick mental inventory. Gun, knife…not much else. Angel shakes the basket at him. "There's some salt, enough for making camp circles. Herbs to keep some stuff away—not much but hopefully, enough."
6
They drop off the tail of the wagon come night, and make their way quickly back through the ocean of grass. Listening for pursuit, listening for other noises. As the night wears on, Dean tracks sounds that make him nervous. Not too far behind them in the dark comes a low coughing growl. There's the flutter of wings, many wings. Sounds like bat wings to him. Big, huge, fucking giant, probably hungry, bats' wings….
Angel looks fairly serene though, so Dean tries to keep a leash on his paranoia. It's just, stumbling through the dark has never been one of his favorite things. There's a reason he loves his solid, Detroit steel car.
The grassy hills start to give way to rough uneven ground, dotted with scrubby shrubs, small pines, and flower-speckled hummocks of vegetation. The clouds are hanging lower, the sky grayer, by the time they work their way deeper into the desert. Out of sight of the plains, Angel finally lets them stop. "Over that crest, and south, that's where Chronopolis starts, see?" Angel points towards a gentle rise breaking up the tumbled landscape. Dean can just make out the tips of what look like steel pylons poking at the sky. "We won’t run into any real towns between here and the city. There's mostly temporary places, not as big as towns but almost as safe. People out here don’t want to attract notice. Dys is too close, hunters are too scarce."
Dean helps him clear out great handfuls of a bright green vine until they've cleared a little campsite. They bunch up the vines to throw their blankets over, pile them up into a bit of a windbreak. "It'll hide the fire too," Angel says, though at this point Dean's hands are sore and he's pretty fucking tired so he doesn't really give a shit. He catches the bedroll Angel tosses to him, tosses it over the vines, close to Angel's spot. He scuffs a shallow depression into the dirt and helps Angel ring it with rocks, watches the kid pull tea out of his seemingly bottomless pack and reminds himself to weigh those packs come morning.
The fire started, Angel flops loose-limbed as a puppet back onto the pile he's covered with his blanket. Dean sits on his own blanket, the vines a surprisingly comfortable mattress. He empties his bag, dragging the revolver out from the bottom of the pack. He loads it with silver/iron mix rounds, stashes it back in his belt and feels, for the first time in a long time, like he's completely dressed. "We should get a holster for this thing," he says. "This kinda gun needs to be in a holster, right on my hip."
Angel smirks at Dean. "Sure thing, Barnacle Bill."
"Dude, Buffalo Bill—" Dean interrupts, "the cowboy?" he goes on at Angel's confused look. "Barnacle Bill is a sailor—come on, you know this," he practically yelps when Angel wants to know what difference it makes.
Angel pours some of their water into a pot, sets it in the fire. He bites his lip. Shrugs. "Oookay, nomportah, bru… when we get to Chronopolis, you can trade up for a pretty little gun hammock, all right?"
Gun hammock? Dean wrinkles his nose at the guy, appalled at his lack of knowledge. The dude's seriously lacking in education…he curses when Angel lets out the laugh it must have been killing him to hold in. "Shut up. Asshole. Hey, think they're gonna come after us, that crew?" Dean jerks his chin back in the general direction that they'd come from. "Well? Do you think she's gonna take a run at us?" he asks again when Angel seems disinclined to answer.
Angel drops tea into the pot before answering Dean. "The Bitch Queen? Doubt it. If they didn't get us before we got to the hills, she won’t give chase. Too risky, and she doesn't know that you really are worth something, seems like—"
Dean grabs Angel's wrist and pulls him closer. "I don't get it. I told you who I was before—I've told everyone, just about, and no one believed me. Until now. "
"Because it wasn't possible—it was just a story, something you tell kids to get them to stop acting like little shits. And there you are, looking like ass, smelling like ass and talking like a lokar, but—and then the seer said--" Angel hesitates; Dean feels the tremor that shakes him through his grip on Angel's arm. "This is the story they tell: When Dean Winchester left his brother behind in Dys, he broke him first, and that's why the King is like he is. Evil, vindictive, twisted around seeking revenge. Some say Dean Winchester is dead and some say he can't die, just like the brother, that he's forever ageless and hard-hearted. Just about everyone agrees that all that's wrong is Dean Winchester's fault. Somehow, something he did, broke the back of the world and if Dean Winchester ever crosses your path, he'll do it to you—"
Angle tells the story in the cadence of a story-teller repeating a myth. Dean drops the kid's wrist, waves of nausea wash over him. He was a monster, the world thought he was a monster…well fuck, maybe it was true.
"So Dean, what's the truth? Why are you looking for your Sam so hard? Why do you want to be with him again? He's going to kill you, you know he will regardless of the truth, and according to the sayers, he's going to want me dead too and I'm nobody, just the guy who tried to help you. Maybe I should just leave…"
"Nobody's keeping you here—" Dean snaps, just wanting to be. Shit. Asleep. Gone. Just…not thinking, not breathing. Safe, for once in his miserable fucking life.
Angel looks at Dean, barely masking the hurt. Snaps, "Get over yourself. You couldn't keep me here if you wanted to." He stops, looks a little puzzled, like he wasn't sure what he meant to say but was pretty sure that wasn't it. "Dei knows I'm not hanging out for your witty banter and sparkling personality." He tosses more twigs into the fire, with a bit more vigor than called for and mutters just at the edge of hearing, "Can't imagine why anyone would leave your ugly ass. You so madida charming to be with and all…"
"Yeah, hate you too," Dean snarls back and then—startles Angel by laughing. It's just hit him—he's probably had about a million conversations that start just like that. Sitting now, almost close enough to touch, Dean can see the grin Angel tries to squash. Dean watches him from the corner of his eye, Angel's long legs pulled up to his pointy chin. Angel's grown taller, definitely. When he'd met him first, Dean swore they were eye to eye, maybe he'd been an inch or two taller than the boy. Now, Angel was definitely taller by that inch or two. Still god awful skinny though…he really needed to make that kid eat. And shave, that dirtstach was ridiculous….
~o0o~
The moon's high over the hills when they lay down for the night. Dean tries not to feel hunger pangs—dried whatever it was and tea didn't much cut it for him. He was used to hunger, could deal with it—but didn't mean he had to like it. As if reading his mind, Angel said. "Tomorrow, we'll meet up with stragglers or Edgers—they're good about sharing food." He tosses a canteen at Dean. "We still got water at least. A little. I'm pretty sure there's water close by. These vines seek out water. We'll just follow them come morning. Then we can make hot food—I nipped some travel cakes on the way out."
Dean takes a careful swig and passes the canteen back to Angel, watches him roll himself up in his blanket and settle in. He sighs, caps the canteen. The kid made it sound damn easy. Sure sign that things would go to shit. Wasn't that the first lesson a Winchester learned? He eyes the ring of salt and hopes no critter would try and cross it before morning.
~o0o~
Dean takes a careful swig and passes the canteen back to Angel, watches him roll himself up in his blanket and settle in. He sighs, caps the canteen. The kid made it sound damn easy. Sure sign that things would go to shit. Wasn't that the first lesson a Winchester learned? He eyes the ring of salt and hopes nothing's gonna try and cross it before morning.
~o0o~
Night birds call to each other in the dark. The fire cracks and hisses as it slowly dies down to coals… Angel takes deep even breaths, steady as a metronome.
Dean's got his head tilted back against his pack, blanket settled loosely about him, and watches the sparks jump from the fire and into the night sky. His eyes try to make shapes of the trails and wisps of smoke; he traces the slope of a dog's head in the smoke, a glowing ember lending an eye. He blinks, and in the coals, dragons wings unfold, then a mouth open in a scream…out of nowhere, his chest explodes in pain so deep and wrenching that it breaks out in a sob, and tears run no matter how hard he fights to stop them. Like a switch's been flipped, they pour out, the memories…feels like he's just lost the only thing that made his life worth living. Sam's name grates out from between his clenched teeth, ripping out of him like claws. Sam, who was everything, Sam whom he'd failed, lost, Sam, Sam--
He's on his knees with his arms wrapped around his middle and crying like he's all alone. He knows it all now. It rolls over him in sick, filthy waves. He knew where he was and why. Sam. Sam had done his best to kill him. Not to kill him--to turn him into an animal. Hell, he'd done it.
"Do you ever wonder, Roach, what I'm doing? Wonder about the rest of the world? Do you think at all?"
"Stop, stop, Dean, stop." Arms around him, pulling him back off his knees, warm and solid. He smells Sam, feels him, his Sam, the real Sam, not that thing that'd tried to pull him apart in sticky strings, he feels the Sam who loves him, and wants nothing but the best for him, the Sam who's stopped running at last….
He squirms around until he's turned in Sam's arms and Sam grabs him by the nape of the neck, huge hands warm and tucking Dean under his chin and not even commenting on the snot and tears Dean's smearing into his skin. "It was a nightmare, a horrible nightmare."
"I know, I know, it wasn't real."
"You're here, right--here? Really here?"
"I'm not going anywhere, Dean, right here, okay? Everything else is nomportah, 'kay? Just you and me, Deus, forever."
"Okay, okay…" Dean tilts his face up and despite the gluey mess all over it, Sam kisses him, kisses him, pets him, murmurs comfort against Dean's cheek and Dean's awake now, knows it's not Sam but he needs it so much and Angel's just like Sam at eighteen, built the same, same smell same feel…shit. Fuck that, the truth is, he loves Angel for being Angel and has for a while
He's on his back and staring up at the stars, Angel's breath hot in his ear, groaning, sweating, little curses raining from his mouth as he grinds between Dean's spread legs. Dean gasps at each new thrill of sensation, eyes wide and fluttering hands fisted in Angel's hair and his legs come up to lock around Angel's hips. He knows it's Angel and doesn't feel guilty because this is right, this is what he's wanted ever since Cas threw him out of the window of Sam's office---he's wanted back there, back in that dream world where it was sweet and Sam and everything he ever wanted out of life—so what if Sam never wanted the same from him, so what if every kiss was full of shame, guilt? He'd stopped caring. Never stopped wanting….
But here, in this life, Angel wants it. Fuck, he wants so much, so hard, so fucking grateful that Dean is holding him, letting him—fuck that, Angel needs him and the wet dripping down the side of his neck isn't Angel's sweat. Dean holds him closer, soothing him through the aftermath, tells him everything he wasn't able to tell Sam because Sam…he couldn't have loved Dean like this. Sam never had to tell Dean he didn't want him like this, never had to say a word because Dean knew it in his bones.
18
Author: roxy
Pairings/Characters: Sam/Dean, Dean/Angel
Rating:NC-17
Word Count: 2912
Spoilers: oblique reference to events in s5
Summary: this is (now) an AU treatment of season five, where Sam doesn't escape his fate and Boy King means just that. Dean once again enters hell to save his brother—not entirely voluntarily. When he returns to the world, everything's changed. He's lost Sam, the new world is difficult to navigate, and he finds himself saddled with an angry young man who elects himself to be Dean's guide.
Notes/Warnings: rape, dubious consent, extreme power imbalance. Some scenes are graphic. Feel free to ask if you'd like more info.
one ~ two~ three ~ four ~ five ~six
seven ~ eight ~ nine ~ ten ~ eleven ~ twelve
thirteen~fourteen~fifteen~sixteen
icon by
deny1984They test the angel's word and wearing the pendants, stroll back to their tent like they own the place, take what they need to. It's an odd experience, Dean thinks, walking through the town without being noticed. He walks right past Horse and the man never turns his way. He's thinking, worrying…Gavreel mentioned a block on his memories. Dean's known something was missing since he woke up in Terror Dome land. He's been kind of sort of sidling up on thinking it had something to do with Sam. But…divine intervention, that made him think of Cas…Dean lets out a long breath, follows Angel to the Out town wagons. He'll think about that another day—add it to his damn list of things to someday think about.
They catch a ride on the back of a wagon leaving the market after trading fruit to the Floating City. Dean carries their pack, his gun snug on the bottom of the bag. He keeps his fingers pressed against it, taking some comfort in the shape of it digging into his palm. The thick, hot smell of ox, the slow sway and bump of the wagon and the afternoon sun combine to work on Angel, calming him. He slides closer and closer to Dean until finally he's full out laying on him and snoring in Dean's lap. Dean sets the bag to the side and shifts Angel so he's comfortably lying against him, strokes his hair back from his face and just…keeps on stroking it. It's all grown out now, still weirdly asymmetrical but it's touching the back of his neck and curling around his ears…his shoulders are broader now too, and Dean thinks that with more food and more rest, Angel would be kind of threatening—to strangers, never to him. His fingers card through the kid's hair, rub around the back of his ears in soft, slow circles. Dean feels…the homesickness rolls back just a bit, just enough to let him draw a breath….
After an hour or so, Angel wakes up, and they split an ugly-orange and some dried lumps Angel swears is meat between the two of them. Dean notices that a few hunters on horseback mill around the wagons, must be going along as guards. They ride past and leer at him. Angel waves at them and they grin at Dean, make suggestive motions that hard as they are to make on horseback, it's easy to get the gist of.
Dean growls. "Pervert fucks."
"They think we're some guy and his slave—your bed-warmer." Angel shrugs, like he'd just mentioned the weather instead of being thought of as Dean's sextoy.
"What? Hey…is that what everyone's been thinking? Is that why they keep calling you my "boy"? Fuck!" He scrubbed a hand across his face. Slavery…the very idea turned his stomach—"Wait—I thought you said slavery was outlawed—"
Angel snorts. "It is—in the Out Towns, the mining camps. Out here, it does just fine." He glanced over at the outriders. "Yeah, they're making fun of you for traveling with such an old slave…."
"Old? Christ, you're barely—what—eighteen? Jesus." Dean wipes his mouth, scrubs at it like he's bitten into something sour. He was definitely ignoring the fact that, yeah, he was perving on the kid…"This world is so fucked up. This is all so wrong. I'm sorry."
"Eh. It's not all bad—could definitely be worse." Angel shrugs. "Besides, this gig with you is the best I've ever had. Hunh…kind of sad when you think about it."
"Fuck you," Dean says and likes it when all Angel does is smile. After a bit, the kid points up towards the hills they've come from. "Normally, no one would think twice about folks leaving the city but just to be on the safe side, let's assume that bitch is looking for you. We're supposed to be safe, but just because they can't see our faces, doesn't mean they can't scry us."
Dean nods. "Right. Not everything relies on sight."
"We're going to be leaving the caravan when they turn towards the Out Towns. We'll have to be extra careful. The way towards Chronopolis isn't easy for lone travelers. At least, I've got a Hunter traveling with me," Angel grins.
Dean grins back. He feels for the gun in his bag, takes a quick mental inventory. Gun, knife…not much else. Angel shakes the basket at him. "There's some salt, enough for making camp circles. Herbs to keep some stuff away—not much but hopefully, enough."
They drop off the tail of the wagon come night, and make their way quickly back through the ocean of grass. Listening for pursuit, listening for other noises. As the night wears on, Dean tracks sounds that make him nervous. Not too far behind them in the dark comes a low coughing growl. There's the flutter of wings, many wings. Sounds like bat wings to him. Big, huge, fucking giant, probably hungry, bats' wings….
Angel looks fairly serene though, so Dean tries to keep a leash on his paranoia. It's just, stumbling through the dark has never been one of his favorite things. There's a reason he loves his solid, Detroit steel car.
The grassy hills start to give way to rough uneven ground, dotted with scrubby shrubs, small pines, and flower-speckled hummocks of vegetation. The clouds are hanging lower, the sky grayer, by the time they work their way deeper into the desert. Out of sight of the plains, Angel finally lets them stop. "Over that crest, and south, that's where Chronopolis starts, see?" Angel points towards a gentle rise breaking up the tumbled landscape. Dean can just make out the tips of what look like steel pylons poking at the sky. "We won’t run into any real towns between here and the city. There's mostly temporary places, not as big as towns but almost as safe. People out here don’t want to attract notice. Dys is too close, hunters are too scarce."
Dean helps him clear out great handfuls of a bright green vine until they've cleared a little campsite. They bunch up the vines to throw their blankets over, pile them up into a bit of a windbreak. "It'll hide the fire too," Angel says, though at this point Dean's hands are sore and he's pretty fucking tired so he doesn't really give a shit. He catches the bedroll Angel tosses to him, tosses it over the vines, close to Angel's spot. He scuffs a shallow depression into the dirt and helps Angel ring it with rocks, watches the kid pull tea out of his seemingly bottomless pack and reminds himself to weigh those packs come morning.
The fire started, Angel flops loose-limbed as a puppet back onto the pile he's covered with his blanket. Dean sits on his own blanket, the vines a surprisingly comfortable mattress. He empties his bag, dragging the revolver out from the bottom of the pack. He loads it with silver/iron mix rounds, stashes it back in his belt and feels, for the first time in a long time, like he's completely dressed. "We should get a holster for this thing," he says. "This kinda gun needs to be in a holster, right on my hip."
Angel smirks at Dean. "Sure thing, Barnacle Bill."
"Dude, Buffalo Bill—" Dean interrupts, "the cowboy?" he goes on at Angel's confused look. "Barnacle Bill is a sailor—come on, you know this," he practically yelps when Angel wants to know what difference it makes.
Angel pours some of their water into a pot, sets it in the fire. He bites his lip. Shrugs. "Oookay, nomportah, bru… when we get to Chronopolis, you can trade up for a pretty little gun hammock, all right?"
Gun hammock? Dean wrinkles his nose at the guy, appalled at his lack of knowledge. The dude's seriously lacking in education…he curses when Angel lets out the laugh it must have been killing him to hold in. "Shut up. Asshole. Hey, think they're gonna come after us, that crew?" Dean jerks his chin back in the general direction that they'd come from. "Well? Do you think she's gonna take a run at us?" he asks again when Angel seems disinclined to answer.
Angel drops tea into the pot before answering Dean. "The Bitch Queen? Doubt it. If they didn't get us before we got to the hills, she won’t give chase. Too risky, and she doesn't know that you really are worth something, seems like—"
Dean grabs Angel's wrist and pulls him closer. "I don't get it. I told you who I was before—I've told everyone, just about, and no one believed me. Until now. "
"Because it wasn't possible—it was just a story, something you tell kids to get them to stop acting like little shits. And there you are, looking like ass, smelling like ass and talking like a lokar, but—and then the seer said--" Angel hesitates; Dean feels the tremor that shakes him through his grip on Angel's arm. "This is the story they tell: When Dean Winchester left his brother behind in Dys, he broke him first, and that's why the King is like he is. Evil, vindictive, twisted around seeking revenge. Some say Dean Winchester is dead and some say he can't die, just like the brother, that he's forever ageless and hard-hearted. Just about everyone agrees that all that's wrong is Dean Winchester's fault. Somehow, something he did, broke the back of the world and if Dean Winchester ever crosses your path, he'll do it to you—"
Angle tells the story in the cadence of a story-teller repeating a myth. Dean drops the kid's wrist, waves of nausea wash over him. He was a monster, the world thought he was a monster…well fuck, maybe it was true.
"So Dean, what's the truth? Why are you looking for your Sam so hard? Why do you want to be with him again? He's going to kill you, you know he will regardless of the truth, and according to the sayers, he's going to want me dead too and I'm nobody, just the guy who tried to help you. Maybe I should just leave…"
"Nobody's keeping you here—" Dean snaps, just wanting to be. Shit. Asleep. Gone. Just…not thinking, not breathing. Safe, for once in his miserable fucking life.
Angel looks at Dean, barely masking the hurt. Snaps, "Get over yourself. You couldn't keep me here if you wanted to." He stops, looks a little puzzled, like he wasn't sure what he meant to say but was pretty sure that wasn't it. "Dei knows I'm not hanging out for your witty banter and sparkling personality." He tosses more twigs into the fire, with a bit more vigor than called for and mutters just at the edge of hearing, "Can't imagine why anyone would leave your ugly ass. You so madida charming to be with and all…"
"Yeah, hate you too," Dean snarls back and then—startles Angel by laughing. It's just hit him—he's probably had about a million conversations that start just like that. Sitting now, almost close enough to touch, Dean can see the grin Angel tries to squash. Dean watches him from the corner of his eye, Angel's long legs pulled up to his pointy chin. Angel's grown taller, definitely. When he'd met him first, Dean swore they were eye to eye, maybe he'd been an inch or two taller than the boy. Now, Angel was definitely taller by that inch or two. Still god awful skinny though…he really needed to make that kid eat. And shave, that dirtstach was ridiculous….
The moon's high over the hills when they lay down for the night. Dean tries not to feel hunger pangs—dried whatever it was and tea didn't much cut it for him. He was used to hunger, could deal with it—but didn't mean he had to like it. As if reading his mind, Angel said. "Tomorrow, we'll meet up with stragglers or Edgers—they're good about sharing food." He tosses a canteen at Dean. "We still got water at least. A little. I'm pretty sure there's water close by. These vines seek out water. We'll just follow them come morning. Then we can make hot food—I nipped some travel cakes on the way out."
Dean takes a careful swig and passes the canteen back to Angel, watches him roll himself up in his blanket and settle in. He sighs, caps the canteen. The kid made it sound damn easy. Sure sign that things would go to shit. Wasn't that the first lesson a Winchester learned? He eyes the ring of salt and hopes no critter would try and cross it before morning.
Dean takes a careful swig and passes the canteen back to Angel, watches him roll himself up in his blanket and settle in. He sighs, caps the canteen. The kid made it sound damn easy. Sure sign that things would go to shit. Wasn't that the first lesson a Winchester learned? He eyes the ring of salt and hopes nothing's gonna try and cross it before morning.
Night birds call to each other in the dark. The fire cracks and hisses as it slowly dies down to coals… Angel takes deep even breaths, steady as a metronome.
Dean's got his head tilted back against his pack, blanket settled loosely about him, and watches the sparks jump from the fire and into the night sky. His eyes try to make shapes of the trails and wisps of smoke; he traces the slope of a dog's head in the smoke, a glowing ember lending an eye. He blinks, and in the coals, dragons wings unfold, then a mouth open in a scream…out of nowhere, his chest explodes in pain so deep and wrenching that it breaks out in a sob, and tears run no matter how hard he fights to stop them. Like a switch's been flipped, they pour out, the memories…feels like he's just lost the only thing that made his life worth living. Sam's name grates out from between his clenched teeth, ripping out of him like claws. Sam, who was everything, Sam whom he'd failed, lost, Sam, Sam--
He's on his knees with his arms wrapped around his middle and crying like he's all alone. He knows it all now. It rolls over him in sick, filthy waves. He knew where he was and why. Sam. Sam had done his best to kill him. Not to kill him--to turn him into an animal. Hell, he'd done it.
"Do you ever wonder, Roach, what I'm doing? Wonder about the rest of the world? Do you think at all?"
"Stop, stop, Dean, stop." Arms around him, pulling him back off his knees, warm and solid. He smells Sam, feels him, his Sam, the real Sam, not that thing that'd tried to pull him apart in sticky strings, he feels the Sam who loves him, and wants nothing but the best for him, the Sam who's stopped running at last….
He squirms around until he's turned in Sam's arms and Sam grabs him by the nape of the neck, huge hands warm and tucking Dean under his chin and not even commenting on the snot and tears Dean's smearing into his skin. "It was a nightmare, a horrible nightmare."
"I know, I know, it wasn't real."
"You're here, right--here? Really here?"
"I'm not going anywhere, Dean, right here, okay? Everything else is nomportah, 'kay? Just you and me, Deus, forever."
"Okay, okay…" Dean tilts his face up and despite the gluey mess all over it, Sam kisses him, kisses him, pets him, murmurs comfort against Dean's cheek and Dean's awake now, knows it's not Sam but he needs it so much and Angel's just like Sam at eighteen, built the same, same smell same feel…shit. Fuck that, the truth is, he loves Angel for being Angel and has for a while
He's on his back and staring up at the stars, Angel's breath hot in his ear, groaning, sweating, little curses raining from his mouth as he grinds between Dean's spread legs. Dean gasps at each new thrill of sensation, eyes wide and fluttering hands fisted in Angel's hair and his legs come up to lock around Angel's hips. He knows it's Angel and doesn't feel guilty because this is right, this is what he's wanted ever since Cas threw him out of the window of Sam's office---he's wanted back there, back in that dream world where it was sweet and Sam and everything he ever wanted out of life—so what if Sam never wanted the same from him, so what if every kiss was full of shame, guilt? He'd stopped caring. Never stopped wanting….
But here, in this life, Angel wants it. Fuck, he wants so much, so hard, so fucking grateful that Dean is holding him, letting him—fuck that, Angel needs him and the wet dripping down the side of his neck isn't Angel's sweat. Dean holds him closer, soothing him through the aftermath, tells him everything he wasn't able to tell Sam because Sam…he couldn't have loved Dean like this. Sam never had to tell Dean he didn't want him like this, never had to say a word because Dean knew it in his bones.
18
Tags: