A/N - This is an end verse style story. I will not post warnings on this past this point as some may give plot spoilers. Rating is for language and some mild gore.
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Sam was pressed up hot behind him, arm sprawled across his hip, mouth probably slack enough to let in a whole army of spiders. He could imagine that relaxed face with ridiculous hair flung out like some spastic halo.
A weary ache with a familiarity earned through years of fights made him almost believe that there would a parking lot outside. That they were in a room that had a shower with questionable black growths in the grout and strange stains that screamed 'don't touch' on the carpet. Some shit continental breakfast waiting with limp donuts and stale coffee that may or may not have been out for three days.
Didn't matter if the sheets were a scratchy mess or his bladder was bursting while his stomach tried to eagerly munch itself. In the dark, he could dream of normal.
A mouth against his shoulder, teeth dragging across his skin.
"You fucking cuddled me, bitch."
"Morning to you too." Sam's breaths, hot pulses against him and he knew he couldn't roll over. They'd be late if he did that. "I'll try to stop threatening your masculinity."
Sam was laughing in that silent 'my belly hurts from your stupidity' way of his as Dean elbowed him. Somehow he got untangled from the mess of them and hated the cold under his feet, fingers fumbling with the camp lantern. At least the pitch black meant nothing had invaded in the night. Or at least that the reinforcements on the windows had held which was always good morning news.
He risked a look on his way to take a piss, Sam all amused and mussed that burned hot through him and he told himself no. Too much to take care of today to be lounging in bed.
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"Supplies are starting to dip," Risa was telling him as he leaned against a truck, the main drag a chewed up mess of semi-mud tracks.
He wanted to remind her this crap always dipped. People using it tended to cause that but he gnawed his bottom lip instead. They were better at the self-sufficient, making do with less which meant fewer of these trips. Less hazard for his people out there and made the droves of the mindless wander off. When you're a murdering lumbering mass of meat, he guessed, it got boring waiting.
"How long?"
She shrugged, hair falling back without thought. "Looking like max we can wait is ten days."
"Fine."
She was ambling back in, all pretty curves that he would have wanted in a different life. He rolled his head back up to look at the sky, finally fucking clear after the heavy rains they had been getting. Not that it helped the layers of muck that clung to his boots and jeans. Stuff seemed to get everywhere. He was surprised to not find it under their clothes.
There was little noise in these last few minutes left of the rest break. Sam, vocal brat that he was, demanded that he use ever damn lost second of it.
'We have to have joy if we're doing this keep going till the end, die free thing,' his brother had said. 'If we don't have that then it's not living and what's the point?'
Dean smiled, still staring up at the sky. That night, that had been a good night. He could still see the way his brother had hustled him up against the wall. Pushing, insistent, nostrils flaring with heat burning in those eyes; his hands so tight and taunt on his shoulders that they had hurt and Dean hadn't been able to move. Couldn't understand how Sam could be so big that he swallowed the world.
'I need, Dean.'
'What?'
'You.'
It still made a knot form in his belly. Guilt had been deep and dirty, lashing him down at how much he had screwed up for years. It was still trying to live in there, terror that he had broken his baby brother; kept breaking him until Sam burned through it, through him. Like his own damn personal sun scorching it out, over and over until it was just them.
His brother had sunk his hand in deep to hold the little fragments that were him together in his giant fist, keeping him Dean.
And if he stood around thinking like this he'd be finding his brother to go rut against and that was both embarrassing and unproductive.
He pushed himself off the truck and walked down a ways past a couple of the cabins. Dean had been happy this place hadn't come haunted or stalked by something. The last of his sanity would break if he was trapped in a teen slasher flick. A figure sat on one of the porches, clothes working on unraveling since basic sewing hadn't been a heavenly priority apparently.
"Hey Cas."
"Dean." His friend's eyes were closed, black hair abused by the breeze. "Glad it finally stopped raining."
"Yeah, well it helps the whole attempt at being farmer John," Dean answered flopping down on the stair. "We'll have to go out for supplies in a few days. See what we can rustle up, what's left to take."
"I will prepare then."
"Woah, didn't say we were going right this minute, Cas."
"I know you," a faint smile was on that face now, the closest Cas ever got to looking amused. "You want to be out there. Weed through the overgrowth, so to speak."
Dean cleared his throat, hitting the heel of his boot against the back of the step, mud in thick dry flakes falling in time. "Yeah, well, when you say it like that it makes me sound all homicidal."
"You have always been a man of action."
He snorted, something undignified and too loud. The kind of noise that he'd get a look for from Sam as a quiet testament to his long standing suffering. But it was true. Killing those things out there, checking to see if demons were close and ganking their asses before they could go report back to big daddy monster was freeing. It made him useful.
Otherwise, without a way to stop anything, to be able to slow this shit down he would have gotten more unhinged. Which probably would have consisted of a troubling bloodbath killing spree before screaming 'yes' to the sky while lighting flares.
Well, unless Sam found his ass and drug him back to tie him to something substantial till he got a grip.
Cas was looking at him, studying him and he knew the fallen angel wanted to point out the obvious. That whether or not it helped they needed to fight, drag their heels and refuse because if it was all going to die anyway than why go willingly?
It was so damn meaningless at times it ached.
"Can't wait around all day here," he said getting up, clapping Cas' shoulder. "Shit needs doing."
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The sky had a burnt out hue with smears of orange and red at its edge when his brother grabbed him and pulled him around a corner, pushing him hard against rough wood.
"This is how people get stabbed, Sam."
"Don't care," his brother muttered before he just ruined him. Mouth demanding and claiming him like it had always been his. Dean pushed his hands up into that hair. Held them pressed all firm together and Sam's always so hot, it feels like he's about to combust, burn completely to ashes when they're like this.
"Not leaving," Sam was whispering, biting his jaw, teeth skating down his neck between warm lips and Dean wanted to complain about bruises. That they'd bloom up and tattle that he'd been frisky. "Never leaving you again."
Clever mouth was still working at his neck, fingers tugging at the neckline of his shirt, tongue lapping at the hollow and Dean barely managed to keep from moving his hips. He must look like a slack jawed yokel out here, legs all spread, mouth hanging open wide enough to catch a swarm of flies.
Then Sam was kissing him, pulling him up and back and he can't make a sound as Sam just sucks it right out. Rips free everything he could say in this moment and drinks it. Strips out all those ideas of being bad and clears them away, washing him out, blurring all the lines of where he ends and Sam begins.
"Not that I'm complaining but what brought on the show?" he managed when Sam finally calmed a bit, pulling back.
Sam's hands where on his face, tilting it up because his brother had been fed too much growing up. It was his fault. Who would have thought Spaghettios and Lucky Charms would congeal in that stomach and cause a growth spurt? A thumb was circling on his cheek, Sam with his serious face and Dean wanted to protest.
"All I ever wanted was you," his brother breathed and Dean knew it was true. Could feel it sink down, carved into his bones, etched in every fiber of him. "I should have told you that so damn long ago. I should have fucking realized. I'm sorry I'm such a goddamn coward."
"You aren't, it's alright Sammy," because that was all there was to say and he barely trusted himself out here. A bell was rung, work over and dinner begun and his muscles burned from the day's work. "You got me. I promise, you got me."
Rain started to fall again but he didn't care. All he wanted was in front of him wet or not. He felt that need burst through him, trying to drown him as he gave in.
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The cold was bitter, sharp taste that only frost had on his tongue but he couldn't light a fire. Fire was human and the things hunting them looked for that. Signs of humans were dangerous, invited things he didn't have ammo enough for anymore.
A weird sort of luck had hit him here; a house with intact windows and a propane heater tucked away in the kitchen. Strong scent of fuel, sloshing to show it still had some life. Dried blood was caked into his knuckles, cracking and flaking like bits of dust as he made it safe. Even if it didn't hold in the end it was just for a little while. A small light was in his hand, trying to keep away from the glass that had had the drapes torn down. Grooves of claws in the walls that went with the blood splatter; the broken splintered bones scattered and silent all over the floor.
The things that had come through before them didn't care for cans and he found a couple. Everything was shaking, drained and feeling just gone. He had to eat as he pried one open, taking mindless mouthfuls of something pretending to be chili. Found spare salt in the cupboards and candles he wouldn't dare light.
Metallic taste in his mouth as he held the small flashlight in his lips and teeth. Peeled back strands of scalp, the glints of something that was designed to be covered. Face cut open, white shine of bone. Narrow tracts cut through the shirt into flesh that was plastered solidly with blood and grime on skin so pale they almost glowed against it.
He wanted to scream, to shake that still body and ask why he had thrown himself in front of that attack. Why had he thrown himself away like that?
Instead he cleaned the wounds. Tried to put things together as well as possible, getting rid of what was hanging and unneeded. That body still unlike the first time he had touched where it all convulsed. Teeth tight, chin snapped up, backs of the hands and toes tipped in, muscles rigid and unyielding. As ominous as it was, it was comforting that maybe pain wasn't so close anymore.
His weapon was a solid weight at his back and he tried not to touch it. He could end this.
He didn't know if that was right.
"Love you, never leaving" he whispered, kissing the corner of that mouth. Even if you are a crazy bastard.
Musty blankets were heaped in the corner of an old bedroom and he tucked them around his brother. Kept away the chill as it started to rain again, something leaking in a distant part of the house that dripped out of time with the rest. Then he leaned against the wall, tucking his hands under his shirt, trying not to be cold. So little fuel and it was going to get worse, he had to wait just a little bit; the terror that it wouldn't work creeping over his skin.
Finally, a click of the switch, a spark and the thing switched on. He crawled under the blankets trying not to cry at something so friggin' simple.
"We got heat again, Dean," he whispered, his brother's shallow breaths the only measure of life. "Just for a little while. Sorry it's not better."
There was no answer. There was never going to be an answer. All the things that they could have been, could have had were lost. He'd never know if Dean would have let him touch, would have let him know what he felt like outside of holding torn skin together to stich. Wanting to believe that maybe he would have, that maybe he wouldn't have just left.
He hadn't just burned bridges. He had incinerated entire metropolitan areas of his brother's heart, scorched whole continents of it with his choices. Blacked charred ruins as he tore away, laughing with singed hands if his brother asked him to come back; Sam blindly believing his way was better. Until those choices boiled over and left him with something broken in a collapsing world.
Yet his brother had still come for him, had still dragged him through surviving as the last little pieces that Sam hadn't destroyed held on for something, anything. Protecting him even after it was his hands that shredded and twisted that wreckage the most.
And Sam had been too afraid to speak, too fucking yellow bellied to tell his brother because Dean leaving was just too terrifying. So he had kept his brother while refusing to love him correctly, like he was some sort or permanent fixture guaranteed for life.
"All I ever wanted was you," his arm wrapped around that broken form. "I should have told you that so damn long ago. I should have fucking realized it. I'm sorry I'm such a goddamn coward."
Soon it would be time to get up, to make sure Dean was clean. He tried not to think of Castiel left behind, screaming at him to take his brother and go as the mindless monsters of Lucifer's making closed in. One more to count on their long list of bodies left in their wake.
I don't know what to do, he wanted to say but couldn't. I don't know if this is better or worse for you. I don't know if I'm hurting you.
The silence was suffocating outside of that breathing, trying to drag him under because Dean should never be this quiet. Could never be this quiet. His brother was always loud, banging and charging. Dropping his boots on the floor in lavish displays or tossing bags with loud snaps against hard surfaces. Even upset and glowering Dean could manage to scowl loudly. His car was loud, his laugh was loud, everything that was Dean had always been loud because he was life.
"Love you, never leaving," Sam whispered, running his fingers along the uninjured portions of his brother's face. Trying to map it, learn it, remember it no matter what came for him at the end.
There wasn't anything left to do but love him.
Nothing stirred, the quiet sound of the heater clicking in the dark keeping steady time.
