The second time Dean saved him, Sam was six. John was chasing a werewolf's bloody trail two states over, ignorant or heedless of their days' old hunger, who knew. When Dean left to case the grocery store, the motel manager came knocking. Dean made it back in time.
Dean dragged the body away after dark, left behind sticky trails of thick red gore that crept to the edges of the suffocating room, that stained Sam's hands his knees his face until Dean came back, alone. He grabbed Sam's shoulders, wiped his eyes. Standard checking-over, nothing broken, nothing shattered. Everything shattered. Bone-deep terror, shivering relief, and Sam didn't know why. Dean followed Dad's orders after that, until the striga.
Sam was twelve the first time Dean left him. He couldn't remember much of it, hazy months of chestache and phlegm and Dean's absence like a tap, draining him. Sideways glances from their father, a twitch in his eye when he spoke. Sam wasn't sure, though, not until Dean came back. He hated John after that.
Sam was thirteen the first time he saw it, Dean on his knees in the alley muck. He was old enough to know what it meant. He went back to the hotel, dry-eyed, and counted the meager change in their jar.
Dean came back with a blush on his cheeks and Sam knew he'd seen him, then. Dean knew Sam knew they all knew, around it goes. No one spoke, but Sam ate more slowly after that, savored each bite. Had to make sure the money held.
Sam was sixteen when Dean first kissed him, first revealed in drunken confession the depth of his self-hatred, his longing. It wasn't a surprise. Sam had wondered for months what to do when it came, this eruption of want from his brother. Had known for a long time he'd give in.
Dean pressed him into bed, mouthed at his neck. Whispered litany of I'm sorry I'm sorry god Sammy I'm sorry fuck yes oh god fuck yes. They both got off, went back to their separate beds. It felt like the start of something.
Sam left at nineteen. At twenty-two, Dean reclaimed him.
Now Sam's thirty-two with rope-burned wrists and whatever Dean drugged him with clouding his head. "Garth's on his way," Dean says. "He'll get you out."
Dean's pacing, brutal beat of one-two-one-two across the dungeon floor, his steady tread jarring against the green-black flicker of his eyes. He stops and kisses Sam, hot-cold breath in Sam's face and Dean it's Dean not Ruby not Lucifer Dean Dean Dean please Dean. Dean sinks his teeth in Sam's neck and Sam can smell it, Sam's blood Dean's blood wants it hates it please Dean please.
Can't stop now. Has to stop please stop but Dean's green eyes are black with bloodlust. Not even that bad, Sam wants to say, but Dean knows it's too late, too late, the man in the moon came down too late. Dean's face is wet and all Sam can see for one wild moment is hellhound claws and graveyard dirt and damn damn damned his wristbones crunch against the rope and someone screams he screams Dean screams and the yellow-white teeth of Cain's blade drip red with Dean's blood.
Sam was six months old the first time Dean saved him, and thirty-two, the last.