fic: (Just) This

albydarned

xtinethepirate

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They’ve been here before: sweat-slick skin rubbing across his back, hands and knees on the dirt while Dean mutters sotightsofuckingtight in his ear. Biting and thrusting, kissing and touching at sixteen, eighteen, twenty-two … fucking across the whole god-damned country while their father fought a war that has been going on for many eternities, one that will continue to be waged long after their bones have crumbled to dust.

           

Sam’s been here before, but what he’s realized – finally, fucking finally – is that it’s not about the situation, it’s about the context. Demons might always be evil, but sometimes it’s all right to trust one – if she’ll save your brother’s life. Human life isn’t always as precious as it seems when it’s not your family lying cold and dead on the ground; someone else can lose a brother, a son, because Sam’s decided that he’s not losing Dean.

           

He’s not, and he won’t, and now Dean’s back and alive and warm under his wandering fingertips, drifting tongue. His brother stands still under Sam’s advances, warm concern spread across his features, but Sam just. doesn’t. care.

           

Sam’s been in this place before – yellow wallpaper and cornsilk sheets – a hundred times (thousand times) before, and last time he couldn’t leave fast enough. Now he’s slamming the door shut, throwing all the locks before he pounces on Dean. They fall to the floor, next to the bed and Sam can’t stop tasting, touching, feeling Dean. Alive.

           

“Sam,” Dean says, all slow sounds and whispered words. Like he’s taming a wild animal. Sam doesn’t stop. “Sammy, it really hasn’t been that long, has it? I mean, there’s a bed right there.”

           

But Dean … Dean just doesn’t know. It’s been forever, and Sam. Sam knows what it’s like now. To stare into his brother’s pale, dead face, again and again. He knows why that night, afterwards, Dean licked Jake’s blood from his face. Because now Sam’s got the taste of Dean’s toothpaste in his mouth, and he thinks that maybe … maybe he can just live like this forever.

           

He went months without food, without rest. He lived off of Dean’s death like a parasite.

           

“Want you, Dean,” Sam says into his brother’s collarbone, teeth leaving sharp indentations in their wake. Not breaking the skin; he’s seen too much of Dean’s blood to last a lifetime.

           

“‘Course you do,” Dean replies, hands cradling his shoulders, skimming the edge of his sleeves. “You’re not stupid.”

           

There’s not enough skin, Sam realizes. He starts making tortured noises in the back of his throat, pained sounds that feel like they’re echoing off of some deep hollow place in his fucking soul. He starts clawing and tearing at Dean’s shirt, gouging holes with his fingertips before Dean understands what Sam’s too (tired, weary, god-damned exhausted) to say.

           

With shaking hands – maybe he sees now, sees what Sam has become – Dean draws back, pulling the battered shirt over his head. For just a moment, his face disappears behind a cloth barrier, and Sam stops breathing. His eyes open wide and his blood runs cold.

           

Dean’s eyes appear again, and they’re looking on at Sam with trace concern and budding lust. Sam’s mouth hangs open and he pants; Dean leans over a bit to thrust his tongue inside, forcing Sam’s mute lips to comply, to engage in the kiss.

           

Hands roaming once more, Sam traces every single line of muscle, bone he can reach, categorizing them. Scar, scar, scar, scar … too many imperfections and Sam just wants to stop, wants to scream at the awfulness of it all. That his brother should have so many blemishes makes Sam want to hurt.

           

Dean touches him too, warm fingers burning living paths along Sam’s own body, trailing down his back and to the hem of his shirt. A push, pull, and Sam’s chest is bare, nipples hardening in the chilly morning air. Dean smiles at his brother and bends down slightly, taking one of the buds into his mouth, and all Sam can remember is painpainpain and a bullet – silver – screams of something dead but not echoing through his head. But Dean’s lips meet no scars, no jagged lines of a badly-done stitch-job.

 

“You’re shaking,” Dean whispers against his chest, lips brushing against saliva-slick flesh, and Sam. Is. His hands and his legs and even his bones are thrumming with a nervous energy, because he thought that this was never going to happen again. Months and months passed him by, stomach tied into knots so tightly that not even the smallest curl of arousal could breach him. His erection pressing eagerly against the zipper of his jeans is just another reminder of his life – this life, the one he has now with his brother.

 

Just another reminder. “Dean, please,” Sam begs, just like he begged to the Trickster to bring him back. Bring Dean back, and Sam wonders for a moment what Dean had to say to the demon at the crossroads to bring him back. Did he cry? Sam tastes hot salty tears at the corners of his lips … he’s still crying. Part of him was broken forever.

 

“Are you sure?” There’s a million-pound weight tied to the end of Dean’s words, and they sink through the dismal abyss inside Sam down to where he thinks his own soul might reside. Are you sure … Dean’s asked him that so many times before, but never – never – like this. Like Sam might fly apart if Dean so much as presses too hard; but Dean doesn’t understand that Sam will die without him.

 

There’s no need for Sam’s words; he’s had enough of his own voice to last a lifetime. There’s only his hands, clawing and scraping compulsively at Dean’s fly, grabbing and grasping at buttons until they pop underneath his onslaught. Knuckles brushing up against tented cotton, and Sam just … just …

 

“Here.” A murmur, and Dean’s hands are pulling back, his lips moving away as he helps Sam pull off the remainder of his clothes, which drop into a pile on the floor. Sam’s heart is racing faster than it ever has before, and he wants to pinch himself, he wants to hurt because Dean’s alive and this feels like a dream, a beautiful dream and Sam just doesn’t deserve this.

 

He’s killed. He’s killed so many times.

 

“Lay back, Sammy,” Dean whispers, hands pressing against his shoulders, muscles too tired to fight and simply giving in. Hard carpet now beneath him, scraping at his skin. He’ll have a rash in the morning – on Thursday – a sore spot that he knows he’ll rub against the thickness of his shirts, just to remember.

 

Sam has to close his eyes when Dean reaches for his own pants, when he urges his hips up so that they can be slid off, along with his underwear. There’s a whirling storm of memories twisting and turning behind his eyelids; sharp pain and a fullness when he first was full of his brother, two skinny kids fucking on a patch of grass outside of Denver … warm blood on his hands as he cradled his brother’s body, eyes gone dark and vacant. He wants to be sick, he wants to fuck, he wants for this to just stop and for it to just never end.

 

Tapping on the insides of his bare thighs, and Sam spreads his legs for Dean, who fits inside perfectly. Warm body pressed against him, and Sam has to. Touch. Lets his fingers drag over his brother’s body again, eyes still closed as he feels. Arms. Back. Hips. A gasp – finally – Dean, warm and pulsing in his fist, impossibly soft skin.

 

“We need something, Sam,” Dean says, a hard sharp line of words breaking through the confused, excited mist that’s settled in Sam’s mind. “You can’t just … we need to get something.”

 

Sam knows what Dean’s trying to tell him, but he doesn’t understand why it matters. There is no pain comparable to the pain of watching Dean’s body fall again and again. No pain like the soft slide of eyelids shut. No pain like an empty hotel room, lines and angles of evidence all he has to occupy himself before thoughts carry him away.

 

He thinks he glares, he thinks … there’s a sharp pull in his mind, like something’s come undone. Dean gasps – whatdoesheseewhatdoeshesee – and then. Then. Spreading open for Dean like he’s done a thousand times before, pain and home blending together at his core. It’s been months – it’s been days. Sam can’t remember and his body won’t tell him.

 

“Sam, stop.” Dean’s voice sounds scared, but Sam doesn’t know why. He’s not the one moving; Dean’s hips slam against his backside again and again, tears of unadulterated agony and joy forming in Sam’s eyes and he just. Doesn’t understand why.

 

All Sam does understand is that he wants this. This feeling, knowing that he’s alive and that he can feel again … he thinks that maybe he’s making this happen, like maybe it’s all inside of his head and that maybe he’s still in that hotel room. Alone. That this is just a dream.

 

“You’re not dreaming,” Dean, again, and Sam wonders if he said any of that out loud. A barrier’s been broken between his brain and his mouth, his hands and his eyes, like he just can’t control. Anything. All he knows is what he feels and what he sees; his perfect brother, above him. Pain, inside of him. Rumpled sheets to his side and his fingers itch to spread them out, remove the imperfections.

 

Dean gasps and comes – too quick, too quickly – filling his insides near where the deep hole remains with warm white life. His hips stutter to a stop and Sam realizes that he’s gone limp, flaccid organ trapped between their bodies uselessly. Yet he doesn’t mind, because … because. He’s never been more complete, more fulfilled. He’s come around a full circle, and –

 

“You’re bleeding,” Dean’s saying to him, shock and worry coloring his voice. Sam notices enough to sit up, feels the pointed sting inside and red on his brother. Between his legs. On the carpet. “Holy shit, Sammy …” Dean sounds betrayed. “What did you do?”

 

Sam doesn’t know, doesn’t care. There’s still a burning ache behind his eyes, and he can’t tell if it’s because of something inside or because he can’t blink, can’t look away from his brother. He wonders if Christ’s disciples felt the same, staring at their Lord resurrected from the dead; Sam thinks that maybe Dean can save him.

 

Dean’s a blur. He moves, standing up. Naked and spent and still so goddamned beautiful and Sam’s that it’s almost unreal. Sam shifts slightly, savoring the spreading ache that’s settled deep inside, imagining the act itself as a tangible thing that he can devour for sustenance.

 

And yet …

 

Something’s still off. Unsettled, unfixed. Sam’s eyes slowly focus into a glare as he tries to understand. He’s been here before, a million times. Beaten, broken and raw on the floor … something is wrong. Inside.

 

He’s missing a piece. The void is still there; Dean couldn’t fill him up, not all the way. Sam wants to stand, wants to find Dean – Dean, Dean coming to him, bandages in his hand, open worry in his eyes and whywhywhy Dean? – and have him again, make him stay this time, because now …

 

Now he can’t quite remember. It’s just … just too much. There’s not enough understanding, not enough order here, and Sam. Sam has to make it right.

 

****************

 

Dean stops when he sees his brother, spread out like a fallen, broken angel on the floor between their beds. A stain of blood has formed between his legs, his head is tilted to the side and his arms are spread wide. His hand …

 

Dean takes a small step forward, pulling the edge of the yellowed blanket from Sam’s fingers. Sam was rubbing the fabric, spreading it smooth so hard that he’d already gotten a small rash from the coarse material. The skin is already red and raw, and even though Dean can see the pain in his brother’s eyes, it’s like something else is missing, doesn’t register the hurt.

 

Sam’s lips are moving, his eyes staring at some distant spot. Dean kneels down beside his little brother, places his head on Sam’s chest and stops breathing, just so he can hear the whispered mantra.

 

****************

 

I’m going to make everything all right again. I’m going to save you. I’m going to fix everything. I’m going to make everything all right again. I’m going to save you.

 

I have to save you, Dean.