Sam is just so distracted these days that he's dumb – lucky for him, however, Dean is a little smarter than he acts.
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Spoilers: General up to season three
Warnings: Zip
Word count for Part I: 7,771
Dirt That Can't Be Scrubbed Clean
I.
Once, someone asked Sam why he didn't like Halloween.
Did you have a bad experience? they'd speculated, eyes cataclysmically huge and paternally concerned for his childhood's well-being (ha-freaking-ha), A 'monster' change your views on it when you were a kid?
The irony, and the generous slathering of tragedy that had been appropriately heaped on top, was unbelievable.
Dean actually muttered a stunned, "Holy crap," under his breath, eyebrows swooping toward his hairline in disbelief and mouth fighting between a pointless smirk and an empathetic (or as close as Dean could get) curve, his rough palm coming to rest securely upon the back of Sammy's neck.
And it was Sammy in that moment, not Sam; Dean murmured, "Sammy," in a tone that he usually reserved for the likes of We gotta kill her, man and Sammy zeroed in on it because otherwise he would be six months old again and left with his mother, screaming, burning, dying at the flickering flame-hands of a certain yellow-eyed monster… so yeah, forgive Sam if a night in which innocent children dressed up as and celebrated the existence of such things was not his favourite practice (not to mention that the thought of people appreciating and partying about evil spirits simply went against the very grain of Sam and Dean's purpose for living).
"Sam, Sammy, come on," and Dean was hauling him away from the naïve woman standing there mildly stricken and ever fretful, no better known to what she had said, one of his hands clenched around the jut of Sam's shoulder and the other around his left forearm, nails leaving little half-moon crescents in Sam's twitchy skin. Dean pressed his brother flat against the passenger door of the Impala and slammed him with a stern look, all raised eyebrows and careful slash of a mouth.
"Get off me, man, I'm fine, I'm fine." Sam shoved Dean's hands off him, feeling scalded and blistering in the places he had been touched – the outside temperature, of course, heat crawling up the line of Sam's throat as he jerked his body away from Dean, slanted is head to the side.
"Oh really? Is that why you're nearly passing out talking to these people, huh?"
"Oh, go to hell, Dean."
And Sam shunted his overbearing sibling off, swinging open the car door and dropping down into the sticky leather seat, impassive and stone-faced, the oppressive warmth of the day weighting down insistent and demanding upon him, just like every freaking thought he didn't want to have in his head.
"Look, man," Dean started lowly as he got into the car next to Sam, his tone just gunning for a brotherly moment of Real Feelings that Dean was usually the most eager to avoid, and Sam didn't want to hear a word of it. He would sooner shove bamboo splinters beneath his fingernails then talk to Dean about his real feelings. Just because Dean wanted to all of a sudden didn't mean he would get it.
"So it looks like a simple angry spirit, huh, that we're dealing with here? And everyone is just assuming it's some sort of Halloween legend invented around the recent death?"
Sam raised his eyebrows at Dean, expectant, and a moment passed full of brooding stares (Dean) and soundless pleading (Sam), before Dean dropped the matter with a sigh and a lilt to his broad shoulders. Don't talk about it if we don't need to. That was the rule the Winchester's lived by, and there was no reason that it shouldn't apply here as normal.
Except, well… it was usually Dean doing the gruff shunting and Sam pushing for the mushy feelings crap. The reversed tables felt completely disorientating, and Sam tried to ignore the nagging itch in his brain that he should just talk and attempt to appease his big brother's concern.
"So we figure out who the sucker is and burn his bones," Dean continued with an affirmative nod, chin ghosting up and down, fingers thrumming against the black steering wheel and sunlight hitting his collarbones in the most interesting way, all brisk angles and smooth shadows. Sam shut his eyes. "Sounds easy enough."
"Never is with us, though."
A sigh. "Yeah."
The quiet in the car bleared down on Sam, squashing into his ears with a shrill ring and shuffling through his chest haltingly, and Dean's measured breaths were the one steady thing within conceivable proximity. Sam tested the edge of his teeth against his tongue, his lip, just barely managing to catch himself before he shook his morosely.
Sam spoke, forehead crumpling, eyelids fluttering. He always yielded to Dean. Always will.
"I just- I, I, I don't like Halloween, alright?" he bit out, cursing the serrated gravel rumbling in his voice and prying his eyes open with some difficulty. He risked a glance at Dean, hated himself immediately because his brother was staring back, eyes huge and waging war between a humorous retort and a serious response (try story of Dean's life) and green, so stupidly green, a green that Sam had known his whole life. A green he remembered staring up into at six months old, his baby body cradled in the now scarred arms that had filled out with the years, the glittering irises reflecting the licking orange of flames and a nursery room burnt to a crisp. Sam blinked and wrung his hands together between his knees, wrenching his gaze to the fast-food wrapper littered car floor.
"What, is this like that Christmas thing you had?" Dean demanded except it wasn't really a demand, that was just how Dean's voice sounded, as sure and controlled as the Earth's orbit around the Sun, and Sam thought that was a really good way to think about how his relationship with his brother worked; he orbited around Dean and Dean was so damn bright and consuming, the pathway around him consistent and completely involuntary. Sam gave off a weak shrug, picked at the zigzag of a loose seam on his jeans leg.
"Not really, no. It's just, you know, Dean-" Sam slid Dean an suffering look, his soft voice buffering, "-it's a night dedicated to all the evil things we kill, and there's these parents letting their kids dress up and go around scaring people and getting scared like it's, it's so much damn fun and letting them think it's okay for monsters to- to, to exist and do the things they do, when we know what they do, Dean, and I-"
"Hey." Dean's knuckles were just barely pressed to Sam's shoulder for a fraction of a second, all scorching heat and almost non-existent pressure against tense muscle and Sam seized up, limbs locked and heart racing as it tried to come to terms with fight or flee, and Sam thought flee flee flee in quick staccato before he shook himself out of it and blew out a pain-filled breath because this was Dean, just Dean, just Sam's brother. The one constant in Sam's life. He was an awful pain in the ass, smart-mouthed jerk, and it so got on Sam's nerves the way they were in each other's faces every second of every damn day, as though if one of them blinked the other would be lost, but Sam wasn't scared of Dean. He was never scared of Dean. Hell, Sam was more often than not the reason Dean made other things scared.
"They don't know any better," Dean continued with a scarcely perceptible angle to his eyes and his face tilted down, shading it just so in a way that made Sam's mouth bone dry because shit, Dean hadn't noticed that little mental fiasco in Sam's mind just then, had he? "And we should be damn glad they don't; then we'd have a shitstorm on our hands. People asking for personal security and all that crap, and they would get pretty pissed when we only took the pretty girls into safety."
Dean dropped a wink, mouth slanted in his usual eh Sammy, eh manner and Sam swallowed with a rough wince, kicked his insubordinate mouth into a shitty half smile and nodded at Dean. He gestured vaguely with his big hands that they should get going, lots of research to do, you know, Dean, I don't care how much you hate libraries.
Sam felt pierced to his stomach with sickness at the thought of Dean and girls, his mouth a barren wasteland and organs a nuclear explosion site, a different sort of sickness than your general ew, my brother and Sam mumbled, "We gotta stop at a gas station before the local library," as the Impala snarled to life beneath him and his brother.
Dean glanced over; Sam burrowed his head into the window, hair swamping his vision, refused to look back. "What for?"
"I need some water."
"You feelin' alright, Sam?" Dean enquired and Sam huffed out a deranged breath, traitorous eyes slitting looks at Dean's relaxed body already, jumbled cut up images of Dean because of Sam's hair, all sun-kissed skin and cooled shades and taut muscles, and Sam blinked rapidly until his vision was full of dancing white spots and a photo negative Dean.
"'m fine. Just thirsty."
(break)
Sam hadn't always been in love with his older brother; let's just get that cleared up.
It had only been five years, starting at the devastatingly impressionable age of sixteen, which was in fact one of Sam's biggest rebuffs to himself whenever he fell slightly too far into the thick mess of his brain and a voice screamed sick, perverted things at him as he couldn't help but think about his brother in unnatural ways. He was so young. He had never known anything else or anyone else; he'd only seen life from the backseat of a gorgeous car, his sturdy, constant father manning the steering wheel that now held imprints of Dean's lithe fingers and his gorgeous older brother grinning and jeering from the passenger seat in true twenty year old fashion. Sam didn't know much about anything at this age, but he knew his family, knew what they did. And Sam knew that if he had ever drawn attention to himself in any way that wasn't case related, he was shunted off to Dean.
Sam was bored; Dean was there.
Sam was injured; Dean was there.
Sam was angry; Dean was there.
Sam needed help; Dean was there.
Sam wanted to talk; Dean was there.
Dean had always, always been there.
Sam's brother was there for him on a central and essential level – just as much as blood and oxygen, Sam existed on doses of Dean, on that cocky smile and thick metal ring and warm, caring palms; the worn leather jacket and gruff growl of his voice and never ceasing smart-ass commentary. Dean had unknowingly gotten underneath Sam's skin and refused to come out, refused to do anything but mess with Sam's head, and boy, was he good at that. At sixteen, when Sam's limbs had sprouted out gangly and in the way all the time and his brother had just seemed so unreasonably attractive, this lust had freaked Sam the fuck out, sure, but he hadn't been certain that it wasn't normal, wasn't just a phase. They were hardly like other brothers, after all. Did other siblings feel like this, just a little bit during their lifetime? And if they did, did they get over it? Sam would get over it, right?
Wrong.
Five years on and their father had died and Sam's girlfriend had died and all that shit had happened and in amongst the pissed off ghosts and demons and vampires and werewolves; the holy water and broken bones and Latin incarnations; the dank motel rooms and various women and sharpened knives… there was always a hollow ache in Sam's chest.
Sam lived vicariously through certain things; stolen glances at sleeping Dean, his shirt rucked up and revealing a dangerous slash of deliciously tanned skin; focussing on Dean's mouth a little more than his words when Dean was talking, before smiling tight-lipped and bailing to the nearest bathroom because Sam had sickening bile stuck in his throat; getting black-vision drunk and laughing and rough-housing and becoming just a little too grabby, to the point of Dean noticing and then Sam would fantasise cutting off his own hands as he rolled over and pretended to be asleep… it was routine for Sam.
This far along and Sam had managed to come to some kind of comprehension, some kind of acceptance. He wasn't going to change; understood. He indulged in it a little (give the man a break); understood. Sometimes he perilously didn't care, sometimes it horrified him to his core; understood.
Dean was detrimental and fundamental to Sam, and Sam was fucking mental about it all round.
So yeah, there was an ache. It was an unbroken thing, ever since that first night Sam had dreamed about Dean grunting his name over and over, hard hot lines and shimmering sweat against Sam and Sam had woken up with his hands down his shorts, and sometimes the ache was sharp and sometimes it was dull but it was always, always there.
Just like Dean.
(break)
"Hello, earth to Sammy?"
Fingers snapped in front of Sam's eyes, a white shard of light refracting off the ring one of them wore and across Sam's vision, and Sam tore up from his slumped position with a particularly painful bang against the mahogany desk he'd been reading at. A nearby librarian – a middle aged woman who was kinda attractive, all things considered – shot him a dirty look and Sam, feeling sleep-deprived and on the glimmering edge of hysteria, only just managed to choke down his laughter because shit, she thought Sam was a bad person for being loud in a library. A heart attack would probably take to her if she knew Sam wanted to sleep with his brother so badly it was like being dissected from the inside out with a blunt instrument.
"It's Sam," Sam grumbled instead of doing anything else his mind suggested, petulant and scrubbing at his face and definitely not studying Dean in the corner of his eye, half eaten sandwich in one hand, jacket probably left in the car due to the heat because Dean was only wearing his black undershirt and Sam didn't really like just how much he liked that.
Dean snorted and took a bite, eradicating half of the half-sandwich he had left. "It's grumpy, with that tone of voice. What'd you dig up, sasquatch?"
Grateful for the distraction of work, Sam cleared a small space on the desk and drew the main newspaper articles and books he'd been reading into it, and he nearly jumped out of his skin when Dean took a clattering seat next to him, all cheery I've-just-had-a-milkshake smiles and looks-like-we-might-finally-have-an-easy-case shoulder thumps. Sam acted as though looking directly at Dean would cause him to go blind – like the Sun, again – and recounted what he had found, skin prickling in painful awareness of his brother's existence, clothing feeling far too itchy and scalp crawling with the urge to have Dean's fingers running through his hair, ring snagging on the shaggier locks that fell around his eyes.
"There's been a string of deaths just like the one that brought us here – a supposed hanging but with super suspicious struggle wounds and cuts, which doesn't sound very much like a suicide. They date back to the eighteen hundreds and begin with a man by the name of Jacobsen Gallagher killing himself."
"Well that's gotta be our guy then, doesn't it?" Dean interrupted and Sam immediately double crossed himself and his resolve not to look and glanced at Dean, covering his frank astonishment at the damp ruffle of Dean's showered hair and unanticipated proximity with a cross throat clearing, lips tightening. Sam's fingers curled around the edge of the table as he tried to convince himself that leaning over and pressing his open mouth to the hot side of Dean's throat would not be the best plan of action. Dean raised his hands in defence, eyebrows mimicking and mouth kinked in amusement, and lent back in his seat, kicked Sam's foot underneath the desk for no real reason other than obligatory brother antagonism. Sam's stomach lurched.
"I'm thinking so," Sam agreed after a moment, pretending to skim over faded type-writer ink as he took distinctly conscious note of Dean's warm and still present foot against his own, leg faintly running up the length of his and just pouring heat. "Says here that Gallagher's body was found hanging from the rafters of his home with several lacerations to his body, none that were fatal but all nasty. In a suicide note Gallagher alleged that he'd fought with, and quote, 'a white-collar man of the heavens who awakened me to my sinful ways, and so I reacted thus.'"
At this point Sam would usually give Dean a crazy, I know look but the ache was tugging sharply today, demanding attention and then forcing that attention onto Dean rather than throbbing in the background like a bruise, how it sometimes did, so Sam decided to skip on that. Dean appeared to notice however and instead knocked his shoulder into Sam's with an easy laugh. Sam resisted the urge to draw back, resisted the longing to cave into his brother's warmth, and resisted the idea of slanting forward and slicking his tongue against the angle of Dean's smooth collarbone.
He stayed stone-still and Dean dragged his chair painfully closer with a screeching noise, eyes on the newspapers, and the chair's cry drew the librarian's disapproving gaze to them again. Sam tried to say something, to either Dean or the librarian he didn't know, tongue a ball of cotton in his mouth at the thought of his opened lips on Dean's skin, but Dean shot the lady a quick smile, fresh-white and alluringly sleazy, and she visibly flustered. Sam faltered.
"Stop flirting with your girlfriend and pay attention, would you?" Sam snapped, the words escaping him before he could stop himself, and Sam was forthrightly horrified at the potent jealousy just seeping from every inch of his body. Dean laughed again even though Sam's tone hadn't been very funny at all. A moment passed in which Sam thought with terror that Dean was going to bring up his odd behaviour, ("What the hell Sam? You're acting like you've just done the dirty deed with a ghost,") but Dean just coughed and attempted to redeem himself.
"So, what, this guy had a tousle, felt like crap and offed himself because of what some priest told him?" Dean asked in hushed tones and Sam thought ding ding ding, we have a winner, insufferable in his manner as he watched the librarian from beneath his hair, eyeing Dean with a low look before she disappeared behind a row of leather bound books. Sam's teeth gnawed on the inside of his cheek and his jaw clamped down hard and involuntary when Dean let loose an amused, gravelly chuckle. "Then he realised damn, the preacher was all crap, and now I'm dead. I think I'll kill people too, see how they like it?"
Sam hauled his eyes back down to the newspaper in front of him and nodded on reflex, realising a moment later that his nod had been appropriate as he and Dean had drawn the same conclusion. He wondered if his raging urge to sling his arms possessively around Dean's shoulders, trace his fingertips over Dean's lips and slide into Dean's skin just to feel close to his brother again was as glaringly obvious to the scattered groups of people as he feared, a headache spiking through him at the thought. A girl that made Dean's voice chuckling, "Jail bait," slide through Sam's head, sticky and terrifying, smiled at Sam from a distant table and Sam's nostrils flared, throat gulped, nearly fell out of his chair when Dean's hand rested on his shoulder for five seconds to draw his attention back. As if it could ever be focussed on anyone else.
Half against his own will Sam sneaked a few looks toward Dean, snapshots of his brother's mouth drawing up into a half grin, arms stretched long and thick next to Sam, torso practically bursting out of his absurdly tight shirt. Sam glowered at nothing in particular; however it would be safe to say that his unfairly pretty brother was the indecent cause.
Dean snorted sarcastically. "Good call on Gallagher's half. So where's the poor bastard buried?"
Here was something Sam could respond to easy enough. "Local cemetery, unmarked grave, as was common of that time," and Dean groaned irritably, foot pressing into Sam's with particular intent. Sam endured – enjoyed – the moment, blatant and pathetic, before shifting away with his hair crashing in front of his eyes.
"Just our luck," Dean lamented and Sam had to agree with that; it had been a long time since they'd had a simple run, not that this was terribly complex, but that was really to be expected of their career choice. 'Choice' being a relative word, of course, but let's not get into that.
"But it says in the obituary that Gallagher was buried in the belongings he died in." Sam risked a proper, full-on look at Dean, already fidgety from the lack of direct exposure (some people were just self-destructive, were they not?) and he caught Dean's raised eyebrows, ignored his parted lips. "And Gallagher died supposedly wearing a thick silver necklace, a gift from one of his lovers."
"One of?" Dean delved and Sam shrugged, referred to the papers and then back to his brother.
"That's all it says; I kinda assumed that was the 'sinful ways' the priest talked about to him, if that even happened. Seems to me the town folk of the day didn't like Gallagher and so decided he was just a crazy suicidal liar – no truth to the priest story; all self-inflicted wounds before he hung himself."
"Assholes," Dean commented absently as he combed through the newspapers Sam had collected during his research, fingers coming into contact with Sam's for a moment and while Dean's halt was excusable, reading and what not, Sam held his hand still for a distinctly noticeable amount of time before folding, and was surprised to see no burn marks when he wrenched it away, heart thrumming at the base of his throat. Dean seemed to just run a degree or two warmer than everyone else. Sam licked his lips, head thumping.
"So we're jus' gonna dig up every unmarked grave until we find a skeleton with a shiny necklace?" Dean summarised completely sardonically and Sam clenched his teeth abruptly at Dean's tone of voice, an audible clack that had both men starting, and Dean curled toward Sam in alarm.
Sam couldn't handle it – all the brotherly touches and crap that Dean was pulling today, the heat that was making Sam delirious, Dean's snarky fucking attitude about the research Sam had just painstakingly slogged through all the while totally consumed with thoughts of his brother, while said brother was at the motel taking a cold shower, getting relief from the temperature and treating himself to a goddamn milkshake, and now he was going to sass Sam? While Sam was trying his hardest not to pin down his brother and glue his mouth to Dean's and maybe punch him in the face, too, and ruin everything good Sam had in his life?
"Yeah, actually, no thanks to you," Sam spat, gathering himself and the pages he'd photocopied before shoving to his feet, hazed red and chest feeling somewhere perfectly in between flying and falling at the sharply collapsed look on Dean's face that Dean hurried to cover up, masochistic likeness be damned. Dean scrambled up after Sam, voice threading a constant hum of sarcastic, bullshit reiterations of his latest asshole-ism that Sam ignored entirely, and Sam kept stalking to the front door, silent and brimming with the tension of five years enduring unrequited love. And not only unrequited love; fucked up, gay, incest unrequited love. So shit. Forgive Sam if he was just a little grumpy on occasion.
"Just shut up Dean," Sam hissed once they had piled into the Impala, eyes stinging from the glaring asphalt reflecting the aggressive sunshine, Dean with this bitchy little smirk that screamed victory even though nothing had been won; hell, the stakes hadn't even been specified to Dean, and Sam with his arms full and mouth a jagged scar. "Not another fucking word."
Dean looked as though he might argue ("Who gives the orders around here again, bitch?") but to Sam's particular shock he dropped it, nostrils flaring with something other than his cocky brother show and neck taut. Dean started the car with a violent rev but didn't pull out and Sam slumped low in his seat, badly in need of a cold shower and a minute or two away from his brother.
There was quiet.
"Sorry, Sammy," came a rough, small voice thirty heat-heavy sluggish seconds later and Sam's breath was gone.
Was that Dean? Apologising to him? Sincerely? Sam cut Dean a startled look, hasty and not thinking properly, because heat stroke surely had to explain the way the he thought Dean was looking at him, green fields of iris all ablaze and fierce and Adam's apple bobbing uncertainly and holy shit, a hand reaching straight for Sam's hair with gentle, particular intent. Dean's fingers carded through the mass of brown locks atop Sam's head quickly, jerky and fleeting in his movements as Dean opened his mouth again. "Your research skills are crazy good, Sammy; you're like Spiderman from the new movies or something."
And that was a high compliment to be paid from Dean Winchester, so Sam shut his floundering mouth after locating where in his brain hid the ability to commence such an action and nodded, his head stuttering and lip torn into badly. His scalp felt burnt when Dean drew his hand away.
"It's- it's not that big a cemetery," Sam offered weakly in recompense and Dean smirked, laughed, nodded, broke down the walls of Sam's mind all over again and just as Sam was thinking that snaking his hand underneath the tight quarters of Dean's shirt and skating his fingers over the hard, scarred ridges of Dean's ribs wouldn't be that bad of an idea, Dean rolled the steering wheel to the left, reared into the traffic of the day and left Sam to press his face against the window and hope for some sort of release from this torture.
(break)
Dean had suggested a "little something to bring the night down with," on the way back to the motel and Sam had agreed with a brisk nod, his face attached to the window resolutely. Everything Sam did since they left the library, in fact, was exclusively through eye, head and hand motions, with the occasional grunt thrown in because otherwise Dean would pull over and smack Sam and until Sam spat out what was going on in his head. Sam felt fairly certain Dean was going to demand to know what was up soon anyway, and he was desperately scouring his numb mind for a bullshit answer. Anything but truth is, Dean, you freaking ass, I'm in love with you. There were only so many times one could mutter, "Had a crappy night," or, "Jus' really hating this heat," without it becoming utter litany.
They stopped at a liquor store and Dean thumped Sam's forearm, left his hand there, raised his eyebrows, nodded to the shop and blinked expectantly, apparently wanting in on Sam's stupid silent game. Sam drifted a shrug and spread his lips, waving a hand that said my usual, you know, and Dean nodded again with a brief smirk. His warm hand squeezed the flesh of Sam's arm for a moment, calloused and huge, and Dean paused, looked at Sam seriously, all glittering eyes and arched eyebrows, and hell, he even threw in a fond (and arrogant because let's face it, when did Dean not look like just a little bit of an asshole?) smile, because Dean was a giver like that.
"Sammy. What the hell is eating at you, man?"
Sam should have looked away a long time ago. Dean's hand should have moved away a long time ago. Sam curled his lip in faux brotherly irritation, heart thumping in his throat like a jack rabbit running from a predator.
"You, at the moment, Dean, so bug off and buy us the booze, okay?"
Dean exhaled a laugh a second later and his fingers pressed with devastating intent further into Sam's arm before he let go all at once and entirely, and Sam felt a breath torn from his lungs as his brother left the car, filled out leather jacket and worn jeans looking… Cataclysmic.
I hate to see him leave, but I love to watch him go, Sam thought with an odd, misplaced smile cracking into his cheeks until boom, it hit him again, that's your brother you sick fuck. Your direct blood relative. Jesus Christ, get a grip.
Sam rested his head against the glass of the window, his breath fogging up a little bit more of it with every exhale and his mind just a little bit strung about because fuck, he wanted to kiss his brother. His brother. Moreover, Sam wanted to memorise the grooves and dips and muscle lines of Dean's back with his mouth, to taste and see and feel nothing but Dean, an excess of Dean, for hours at a time. Dean, the solid foundation in his life that had saved his ass so many times he couldn't count it, and vice versa, the moron who refused to pay attention when learning Latin was there every step of it to make fun of Sam. The person he had grown up with in every moment of his life, apart from four years that he could barely remember. He wanted to be totally consumed by Dean, be smothered by him in an entirely different way to their usual brotherly antics ("You gonna finish that pie, Sam?" "Chant faster, damn it, Sammy!" "Quit your snoring, you ape.")
There was something deeply wrong with Sam, but Sam was done with fighting it. Fighting a desperately losing battle and insisting to himself, bloodied and screaming, that he wasn't looking at Dean the way you're thinking, just shut the hell up.
He wasn't going to tell Dean anything, act on any urges, Jesus no… but he wasn't going to live with this existential undercurrent of torment either. He didn't know where that left him, somewhere hazardously unbalanced in a grey spot, but whatever. Sam would deal with it. He always did.
(break)
"There isn't any connection," Sam insisted for the fifth time since they had arrived at their motel room, where Dean had immediately thrown off his shoes, shucked off his jacket and over-shirt that he'd hauled back on in the car for some reason and inhabited the bed nearest the door ("First person the attacker gets to, Sammy, and it ain't going to be you," "Over protective drama queen," "Watch your mouth, bitch.") Sam had set up station at a desk on the same wall the bed was, laptop in front of him and various papers littering the table top and floor around him, Dean on his mind (amongst the distressingly high body count of this case and the haggling nag that they'd calculated something incorrectly). The sun was halfway dipped beneath the horizon, bleeding vivid red and orange slashes through the accumulating onyx.
Dean waved the whiskey bottle precariously from where he was propped up against both his and Sam's pillows, eyes cemented on the crappy TV playing crappy shows, mouth set in a subconscious pucker, and, Sam was thinking, a lot more drunk than he was letting on. More than half of his bottle was already gone and they hadn't been cracked open that long ago, and he was yet to stand up – then it would all go rushing straight to his head and stomach and Sam was kinda waiting to laugh at Dean falling on his own face.
"They all died exactly the same way as the first dude, and none of them showed any signs of being suicidal. Tell me how that isn't a connection," Dean muttered, taking another deep swig, his lips wobbling around the words 'suicide' and 'connection' ever so slightly. Sam huffed, buried a smirk, loathed a creeping blush. "Drink up, baby brother, and stop overworking. We've got the right guy."
Sam felt something the size of a fist jam itself down his throat at baby brother (thanks for the reminder, asshole) and there was no way he was going to able to down anything, but Dean was suddenly watching him with an insistent stare, all blurred shadows and eyes so smudged they were leached all over his face, so Sam manned the hell up, grabbed his own bottle and spluttered through a few gulps, desperately ignoring how hot his face felt with the knowledge of Dean watching him as he drank.
The liquid was acrid; Sam hated it going down, loved it when it buzzed warmly in his stomach a moment later, hated it again when his eyes were inevitably drawn to Dean and shit, that asshole was just catastrophic in the shitty motel lighting. Dirty fingernails and shining ring, fluffed hair and smattered freckles, folded legs and sinewy arms – Sam wanted all of it, on top of him, now.
Sam wasn't really sure how he'd react if Dean were to say his name right now, pitched low and gravelly, the way he always did. He might simply die.
"Happy?" Sam gasped, eyes watering and throat burning (from the drink, definitely from the drink), and Dean snorted affirmatively.
"Peachy."
Dean's eyes drifted back to the TV; Sam's back to his research and Sam couldn't help it – he clattered a few more details into his search on is laptop, head swimming dangerously in alcohol but it was fine, Sam was fine, god, and then he bit into his lip as he skimmed over details of the other victims deaths. Something felt so off.
"But what if we've missed something? Stumbling across an easy case just isn't our style, you know that man. There's always been something other than the fashion of death connecting the victims together before, Dean-"
Sam stopped talking all of a sudden, on account of the fact that Dean had at some point risen from his carefree position on the stained, squeaking mattress and had crossed the room in order to very purposefully press his hand over Sam's mouth and offer Sam a serious (and mildly, or extremely, drunk) look. Sam essentially choked on his breath, and not because his air supply had been cut off; Dean's hand was hot on his face and tight over his lips – Sam could taste the alcohol Dean had been drinking and it drugged him entirely, Dean's body looming over his in a faintly oppressive manner but Sam didn't mind, not one bit, in fact oppressive felt rather homey right now. His skin crawled – Dean's neck looked awfully lick-able right now.
"Sammy," Dean said slowly and yup, Sam had been right, he was totally hammered, green eyes watching brown eyes as his head swayed on his shoulders, oiled and loose, the s dragging just a little bit between his teeth. "You told me to shut up today. That was rude. 'S my turn now. Shut up. Okay?"
Sam's pupils were blown wide as he nodded meekly and Dean still hadn't removed his hand, and Sam thought sluggishly that this was headed somewhere very, very dangerous, and yet, he couldn't care or pull away for the life of him. Dean fingers skated over Sam's cheekbone, releasing his mouth and Sam sucked in a tangible lungful of air, thick with Dean, Dean and more Dean. Deanknuckled into Sam's temples until he was touching Sam's hair again just the way he had in the car several hours earlier, and Sam's eyes were locked to Dean's, the green iris almost entirely eaten away by black, his mouth open as he breathed harder than the situation called for, and Sam didn't know what on earth was going on but he knew he liked it, knew Dean looked as though he liked it too. Something low in Sam's stomach curled, the sensation somewhere on the line of butterflies but heavier, and to the left of pleasant.
"Gonna need a haircut soon, Sammy," Dean mumbled, voice lilting and vaguely baby-ish, and Sam felt his heart jamming up in his throat. Dean looked very pretty in this light, from this angle of Sam seated and Dean standing above him; Sam thought he could get used to seeing Dean from waist height just a little too easily. Every muscle in Sam ached to stand, to push into Dean, to have Dean push him down and hold him there, and Sam was having significant trouble digesting the way Dean's fingers were crawling through his hair and pressing into his forehead.
"You know I like it like this," Sam replied petulantly and wow, was that his voice, all blown away and ruined like that, and was that his ragged breathing dominating the room just then, and was that really what he had just said?
"Yeah," Dean breathed and smiled, and it was a show of Sam's self-restraint that he didn't haul Dean to the nearest wall right there and then and flatten him against it for hours as Sam marked every inch of Dean's body. Dean swallowed. "It always looks good long."
And there was nothing conceivable to be said to that. Sam was utterly lost to the feel of Dean's fingers curled tight in his hair, stretching his neck upward into the touch, nudging his head back into Dean's waiting hands, breath dense, back arched, eyes fluttering and Dean was just… what was Dean doing?
Sam wrenched himself up and away and lost a few strands of hair in the process, heart wanting to leap from his chest and alcohol sloshing sickeningly in his stomach as Dean looked forlorn, hand twisted in empty air. Sam stumbled a few steps backward, the back of his knees encountering the bed so he stopped but god; he was badly shaken, at a complete loss because he'd fucked up. He'd fucked up big time. Dean's back was to him and Sam nearly keeled over and puked when Dean turned and frowned at Sam, confused and so ridiculously unaware of what he'd nearly enticed Sam into doing to him.
He's drunk, Sam mentally hissed at himself, he's drunk and just being a brother, goddamn it, stamp that hope the fuck out. Dean was not just coming onto you.
"I, I need to pee," Sam uttered weakly and Dean nodded, eyes misted and looked past Sam, and just as Sam thought that something might actually be up ("Did you keep another fucking death-related secret from me, man?" or, hysterically, "You wouldn't happen to want my mouth on your stomach too, would you?"), Dean's mouth ripped huge and wide in a yawn before smiling, drunk and sleepy.
"'kay," he mumbled and Sam could have carved his own heart out.
He disappeared into the bathroom and splashed viciously cold water over his face, across the back of his neck, rolled his sleeves up and dosed his arms too. Getting drunk was always a bad idea, why did Sam never learn? Dean wasn't making any moves on him, goddamn it, he was just drunkenly commenting that his little brother might need a haircut soon. A perfectly average thing to say. Yet Sam could still feel Dean's fingers threaded through his hair, still feel Dean's hand reaching Sam's neck and not stopping, not stopping until the fingertips encountered his shirt edge and slid beneath the collar, recklessly scouring for more skin, for naked skin-
And then Sam had pulled away.
"Jesus," Sam hissed, staring at himself in the dirty mirror and at his dishevelled appearance, hair array, red high on his cheeks and snaking up his neck, eyes blazing. The alcohol, Sam thought pathetically, it was the alcohol, and he would have stayed in there for hours if he hadn't heard a small, perfect voice blindly call out, "Sammy? Saammy?" and Sam nearly broke his ankles tripping over himself to wrench open the bathroom door and collapse out into the room.
Dean was a pile of tangled limbs on the bed, face mashed and content against Sam's pillow and his whiskey bottle drained and tossed to the floor next to him, Sam's emptied slightly more than earlier and discarded also. As if Dean wasn't drunk enough. His body started at Sam's clattering entrance.
"Sam?" Dean's eyes cracked open and a delighted grin broke over his mouth at the sight of his brother, hands gesturing urgently for him to come nearer. Sam edged forward cautiously until Dean caught a fist in his shirt and surged upward, using Sam to haul his weight and also simultaneously pulling Sam down toward the bed. Sam contemplated recoiling, despite the urge to climb on top of Dean, and Dean patted Sam's chest sincerely, locked him a serious gaze. "I want you to know, Sammy," Dean said, voice grave, "That I know you wanted to- hic, to go off and be mister fancy college boy and everything and not have to do the shit that we do, man, and it makes me sad sometimes that it makes you sad that you didn't get to do what you wanted to do-"
Dean cut himself off, looked mildly disturbed. "Did that make sense? I think it made sense, okay, good." Dean palmed at Sam's face dumbly, fingers that weren't twisted in his shirt locking onto the back of Sam's neck, and Sam's skin prickled at the proximity. Dean would collapse if he weren't clinging to Sam so, and Sam was finding it rather difficult to curve over Dean like this without indecent thoughts parading in his mind, Dean's green eyes so captivatingly close. Dean's fingers tightened on Sam's neck, tightened in Sam's shirt against Sam's chest, and Sam's fluttering hands uncertainly came to a rest on Dean's shoulders. "But I feel glad, too, that you didn't get it because otherwise you wouldn't be here!"
It must have occurred to Dean suddenly that Sam mightn't have understood what he meant, because he shuddered with another hiccup and elaborated. "You'd be away being a lawyer with your girlfriend – or wife -" Dean looked positively shell-shocked at the possibility, "-maybe being a father and living a normal life, and that would be so good for you, Sammy, you deserve something like that, but I'm selfish because I like that you don't have that because it means you're here with me."
Dean slid smoothly and dangerously up, pulled Sam down and their faces skated together, his stubble rough, shadowy chin scratching over Sam's cheek and Sam's nose clonking into Dean's jawbone. Sam panicked, tried to twist out of Dean's demanding, drunk hands with no success and tried to maintain his balance because the last thing he needed was to fall down onto the bed with Dean. All he wanted to do was cave entirely and open his mouth against Dean's throat and let Dean's wandering hands crawl underneath his shirt and taste the sweet, slick sweat of Dean but damn it, damn it, Dean was just drunk and hugging his baby brother, he didn't mean anything near what Sam meant, goddamn it.
"Dean, what're you-" Sam started softly but Dean dropped his head onto Sam's shoulder with an earth-shattering sense of certainty and Sam choked on his words, feeling Dean's mouth press against the material of his shirt and feeling the heat from Dean's hands drawing him inexorably closer, hair short and soft on his chin. Sam wondered if anything would go fatally wrong were he to lick the sharp edge of Dean's jawline right now, nip at his earlobe, fold his hands around the irresistible jut of Dean's hip bones.
"'m glad you're here," Dean repeated stubbornly and Sam's heart swooped, "Glad you're with me, Sammy, where I can keep an eye on you."
And that sounded significantly more like sober Dean, growly and possessive and stupidly protective of Sam, and Sam hesitated, feeling Dean warm and thick and heavy beneath him, before he did anything.
"Okay," Sam murmured, quiet and gentle as he untangled Dean's fingers and pulled back, his skin scorching and shaking, "Okay, Dean, me too, me too. I like being here. With you."
"Did you like it better away from me?" Dean asked in a drugged voice, eyes barely open as Sam laid him back down on the bed and straightened out his limbs so he could get a good night's sleep, and Sam swallowed, eyebrows collapsing and lips pressing together tightly. Dean is drunk, Sam reminded himself harshly, and these are his brotherly feelings. Brotherly. Sam blinked forcefully and responded, glad Dean was too plastered and close to passing out to hear the broken, serrated edge of Sam's voice.
"No way, Dean. Not even a little bit," and Dean smiled sleepily, content and making little intoxicated noises and he burrowed his face into Sam's pillow again and stretched, sighing. Sam felt his chest contract painfully as he watched Dean, watched his face all smoothed out and absent of those anxious lines that stole to him every day, wished that Dean had meant what he'd said in the way Sam had wanted him to.
Sam undressed and cleaned the room and put away the alcohol and research, turned off the lights and slipped into his bed, stealing Dean's pillow that smelled like him, gun powder and weaponry oil and sharp knives, and Sam sighed.
Just drunk.
He set their alarm for midnight, when they would go out and begin digging up graves, squeezed his eyes shut and willed sleep upon him even though he knew he had no hope. Dean's face mashed next to his was seared in his mind, crystalized and searing and gut-wrenchingly close to what he'd wanted, and there was nothing Sam could do but let the whole encounter replay over and over in his mind like a bad joke.
"Goodnight, Dean," Sam murmured, but Dean was already fast asleep and not listening, and Sam thought that that was a pretty fucking relevant metaphor.