Reverence
Pairing: one-sided Sam/Dean
Summary: Sam's heard all about hero worship, but this is something else.
Rating: T
Disclaimer:Nothing's mine.
A/N: Apparently I have a thing for underage smokers?
They're in Texas, holed up in some town that Sam hasn't even bothered to learn the name of. It's summer and understandably hot, but there's a breeze that tastes of pine and something cool and the remarkably crappy motel hasn't got a working A/C so they're sitting outside, Dean on their motel room steps and Sam just a few feet away, legs crossed underneath him and his ass on the sun-scorched concrete. People pass them occasionally – more often than not a member of the small staff, though sometimes it's a man and a woman, neither looking too pleased with their surroundings but not caring all the same – but no one says anything to them. They're out of the way and besides, it's too hot to bitch and moan at strange kids who look like they've gone two rounds with a champion boxer and come out second best.
Sam's still got a rancid purple-yellow bruise under his left eye and a split upper lip, and Dean has thin scratches running across part of his jaw, grazes from being dragged face-down through a forest by a creature that's now just ash and dust in a clearing only twenty minutes from civilization. They're not at their best, Sam thinks, but that doesn't matter. Three, maybe four nights at some random motel in Texas, who cares who sees them, or what anyone thinks? They'll never see these people again. Their opinions don't count.
Dean's wearing the same black Zeppelin shirt he's been wearing all week, and Sam can practically feel the softness of the material just by looking at it; he kind of wants to reach out and run his hand down Dean's chest, touch the soft, comfortable fabric and the hard body beneath it. But he doesn't.
He's still in the same faded grey jeans with the rips at the knees and the white, ruined cuffs, too. He probably doesn't even own another pair, Sam realises. He wears them everywhere. Sam frowns, wondering, wasn't he wearing them that night in June with the witch in the Oregon forest? How'd he manage to wash all that blood out of the denim? How many runs through the wash did it take for the last of the stains to ease away?
With an anxious glance at Sam – a sweeping, searching look that surveys Sam's expression and asks 'what are you looking at me like that for?' – Dean reaches for his pack of cigarettes, the same squashed pack that he stole from the top of a dresser two motels ago, the same night John wandered home drunk and tired, ready to fall asleep as soon as he was off his feet. Dean's hand is shaking as he pulls out a cigarette and holds it by the end, careful not to crush it beneath his fingertips.
Sam wonders how many times Dean's lit a cigarette and inhaled the smoke, knowing that it was slowly poisoning his body. Does he like them? Does he think they make him cool? Does he do it for the girls?
The lighter Dean stole from a 7-Eleven is red and transparent and it takes him five clicks before the flame darts into life. He fumbles the cigarette between his lips, pushes it to the side of his mouth, and he tries to light the tip with the flame. He makes it look difficult.
"Having trouble there?" Sam asks, trying for playful but sounding mocking instead. He winces when Dean's eyes narrow and shoot to his face, full of sudden anger.
Once he's successfully lit the cigarette he takes a drag and lets it out with a cough. His eyes water as he wheezes, "Shut the fuck up, Sam." His raspy voice shouldn't make Sam feel the way he does, but he can't help it. "Why are you even here?" asks Dean, unexpected and direly emotionless. "Haven't you got, like" – he waves his cigarette through the air as he gestures vaguely – "a movie to see, or a, or a book to read or somethin'?" He coughs again and wipes at his watery eyes.
Sam's nose scrunches automatically. "I can't just...?" He pauses, thinks. What is it he's doing, anyway? Watching Dean? Wondering how soft his shirt is? How worn his jeans are? How warm from the sun his skin feels? How ashy his lips taste?
Sam's heard all about hero worship, but this is something else.
Dean stares at him, long and hard. There's smoke spiralling from the lit end of his cigarette and ash is building there, soft and grey. Sam watches, waiting for it to fall.
"Sam," Dean says, gentle and full of careful hesitation. His eyes don't meet Sam's. His lips are wet and pink as he taps his cigarette to shake free the ash. "Why are you here?" he asks, rephrasing his question so that it's sweeter, nicer – still no easier for Sam to answer.
Carding his fingers through his sweat-damp hair, pushing it back over his scalp and out of his eyes, Sam runs his tongue over his lip, feeling the rough texture of dry, peeling skin, and shrugs his shoulders noncommittally. "I'm here because there sure as shit isn't anything better to do in this town."
He counts to three in his head – slow, remember to add Mississippi – before he looks at Dean for his reaction.
It's clear in Dean's eyes that he knows Sam is avoiding giving him a clear answer. He's got that patient little smirk playing at his lips, the same smirk that always bullies Sam just before he spills his guts and tells Dean all of his secrets. The same smirk that visits him in his dreams where Dean is shirtless with bandages wrapped around his torso, hiding stitches and wounds that Sam doesn't even know of, and they're in Kentucky, in a little cabin where the bed smells of mould and the food is cold and runny with too much oil. The dreams where Dean presses his lips to Sam's ear, hot and wet, and whispers, "This is what I've always wanted."
Dean returns the cigarette to his mouth and Sam watches as he breathes in lungfuls of the smoke. His cheeks hollow a little and all of a sudden Sam can think of thousands of things that he finds amazing about the sharp curves of his cheekbones. He wants to reach out, touch them, press a finger to the hard bone beneath the soft, sun-speckled skin. When Dean purses his lips and lets out a breath of smoke, Sam's still staring.
"You're actin' real weird, man," Dean murmurs, clearing his throat a little before flicking the dwindling remains of his cigarette to the ground and grinding the heel of his boot on it until it's nothing but a dark smudge on the concrete. He scratches his nose, picks an eyelash from the corner of his eye, blinks, looks far too pretty to be real, and sighs. "You've been acting weird for a while, I'd say," he continues, not unkindly, and Sam manages to find words again.
"I'm tired," he says, not lying. The last time he slept a full night he was a year younger and riddled through with naivety like an old house rotted with mould. Now he's lucky to get even four hours rest. "I'm tired and sore and what is it that's so weird, anyway?"
Dean's putting the cigarettes back into the pocket of his jeans as he says, "You're like my shadow or something, dude. Wherever I go, you're right fuckin' behind me."
"So I'm annoying you?"
He's shaking his head before Sam has even finished the question and he's quickly correcting himself with, "No, not annoying me. Worrying me, more like it."
That stumps Sam even further. "Worrying?" he mimics, frowning and picking at the weave of his threadbare Stooges shirt that had once belonged to Dean before he grew out of it. "What's there to worry about?"
A harsh laugh breaks through Dean's lips and he scoffs, "Have you looked in the mirror recently? You're all battle scars and dirt, Sam."
Sam raises his hand and rubs absently at the no longer painful bruise. "You're just as bad as me," he points out a little defensively. "Hell, you've been worse than I ever have." He remembers with a wince the few months Dean spent laid up with a broken leg, and glares defiantly at his brother.
"Yeah," Dean begins, slow, ready to argue, "I'm–"
"What?" interrupts Sam. "Older? Stronger? Better?" His heart is racing now, not in the good I can see his bare skin, the skin he hides behind shirts and jeans way, but in the he makes me so mad, I just want to hit him in the face way. "What is it, Dean? What makes you so indestructible compared to me?"
"It's not about who's tougher than who, Sam," Dean growls, and his voice is rough like gravel under the soles of Sam's boots. "It's that you're my brother, and it's my job to obsess over your safety."
Sam rolls his eyes. "I'm no baby."
"Never said you were," Dean replies quietly, looking past Sam at the horizon, at the heat waves that curl upwards from the pavement and quiver and shimmer before them. "I'm just sayin', Sam, that maybe you should take a step back. You're acting real odd lately, don't think I haven't noticed."
Sam feels a bead of sweat roll down the heated skin of his back beneath his shirt until it reaches his waistband where the fabric stops it. He blinks at his brother, wonders if his skin is damp with sweat under his shirt, too. "From what?" he asks. "A step back from what?"
Dean doesn't answer, he only stares. He dusts his knees, swallows, stands and goes back inside. The clap of the door echoes through the parking lot and all around Sam before he thinks he can possibly move an inch. His heart is still beating wildly from somewhere in his chest, making his entire body shake. He thinks of the flare of light that hissed through Dean's eyes before he stood and left. He thinks of the little slither of lower back he saw when Dean's shirt hitched up too high.
"I don't know what to do anymore," Sam whispers to himself, voice hoarse and thick. He draws a star on the palm of his hand with a long finger, sweeps a circle around it, and considers himself safe.