COULD I JUST BE YOU TONIGHT?
Title: Could I Be You?
Rating: M
Summary: *Wincest* Spoilers, set after I Know What You Did Last Summer.
Dean unwillingly confronts the person he became for the one love he left behind, and has his notion of morality twisted.
N/A- Obviously, unfortunately, I do not own. And if you don't share in a cultivated appreciation of Wincest, don't read and don't flame for the sake of it.
You show your pain like it really hurts
And I can't even start to feel mine.
I'm standing in place with my head burst out of shape
And I feel your progress stretch out for miles and miles.
You're laughing out loud, at just the thought of being alive.
And I was wondering...could I just be you tonight?
-Matchbox 20
"Dean, it's not your fault."
Your confession is split with burning tears and countless beers and your entire fragmented reality unravels all over again before your eyes. The screams of tortured souls is aching in the back of your throat, burning behind your closed eyelids as the weight of what you have done is momentarily lifted before crushing you all over again. Barely keeping you together is the drink you grip with the last of your willpower in your breaking hands, and Sam seated beside you, anchoring you down with the fierce loyalty burning in his eyes.
"Dean? Maybe we should start heading back..." Sam says with no immediacy, his slight intoxicated state making his concern even more sickeningly apparent than usual as he rests a hand on your knee uncomfortably. Your twisted reasoning screams that he has every right to be disgusted with the slightest contact, after all he's heard as you bleed yourself dry.
"I ain't going nowhere" You grunt in response as the blistering wind stings your tear stained cheeks, abandoning his offer in favour of the half-empty bottle he has discarded.
You're desperate for emptiness, a release that no amount of emotional purging or even Sam's soothing voice can bring. But you're sure as hell going to try to drown in your desperation to return to the repressed state of melancholy that defined your existence only moments ago. Ignorance is sweet, but you convinced yourself the moment you were dragged out of hell that you deserve nothing less than the grief that is finally breaking you down.
You don't deserve anything as reassuring as your brother beside you, stricken and pale in the moonlight, having a burden forced upon him that no one should have to bear, shouldering the load without question.
"Sammy...if you could see the things I've done..."
Sam tries desperately to comfort you with carefully constructed words, suppressing the horror and the sickness and the fear you are certain he is feeling when he looks at you now and forever on, although his gaze betrays nothing.
The details are painfully vivid, twisted words and images that spill from your mouth, out of your control as you sink deeper into the guilt-ridden pain consuming you. The effort of remembering causes you to physically convulse with pain, morphing you into the twisted monster you know you have become. Sam doesn't deserve this...shouldn't have to look at you as though you are still worth something, shouldn't have to pretend there is some decent aspect of humanity inside of you that is worthy of his sympathy.
"Dean..."
His glassy eyes reflect your pain, mirrored back to you a thousand times over, shredded and jagged like broken glass. God, it hurts to even look at him...you are desperately trying to run from these feelings, bury them with fake confidence and cheap booze, and Sammy displays the unbearable hurt in all its rawness, embracing your greatest fears head on.
The moonlight reflects on the empty bottles, the shine of the Impala glowing on his skin radiantly, making you choke on your own shame. Out in the open, even under the cloak of darkness, the scars on your skin feel exposed and weeping along with the shattered strains of your beating heart. But Sam looks surreally natural in the throes of vulnerability and concern, composed and controlled. You know Sam possesses an emotional stability more valuable than your entire lifetime of hunting experience. Right now, you would trade your soul all over again to feel the way only Sam can feel, with his entire heart and soul invested into every emotion...to feel as truly alive as Sam must feel with the blood, sweat and tears pouring out of him...
"Sammy...I don't wanna..."
"Dean, its okay to feel this way! But man, you have to know that you have nothing to be ashamed about. You did the best you could"
Sam places a steadying hand on your shoulder to silence your pitiful whimpering, and your flesh crawls venomously where you have been branded. The burning sensations lingers, scars that refuse to fade, an ugly reminder of the person you became for the one you left behind. You wince and attempt twist away, hissing and cursing as your skin weeps against his consoling touch.
"I failed, Sam. The bastards pushed hard enough, and I broke." I failed you.
Too naked under his consistent gaze, you rake down your sleeves, hiding the scars from view. The shadows lurking at the edge of your consciousness strike swiftly, dancing on the shattered pieces of your self-worth.
Ha, you think covering them up will make Sam think you're his big brother again? Pretty, loveable, heroic Dean? Now he sees you, Dean, now he sees you for what you always have been, who you really are...
Despite your feeble attempts to escape him with flippant remarks and physical distance, Sam's hand is still firmly planted on your shoulder, clinging with immovable faith as though you are the last thing in this world worth believing in.
He's repulsed by you, he loathes you, he's sick just looking at you...
Sam wraps his arms around you, and you surrender to the embrace, childlike and small in the large, protective arms. Sam's endless supply of positivity draws you in like a song and his eyes are the loveliest shade of darkness you have ever seen. The light emanating from him momentarily blinds you against right and wrong, flaws and perfection, so bright and hopeful it makes you want to crawl into his arms and die right there and then because you will never come this close to heaven again.
"You haven't failed anyone, Dean! Anyone would have done the same thing having to face what you did day in and day out..."
"You're wrong," The cold words stun Sam into silence as you regard him with bitterness, "Reckless killing...torture for your own preservation? You've done some bad things , but you never would have done the things I did down there! I know it, Sam! You would have been stronger than that!".
"That's bullshit, Dean!" Your little brother grasps you tighter, trying to make you see at arm's length, "I know you...the real you...wouldn't have done anything you weren't forced to!"
His eyes soften and your resolve is slipping.
"I know it, Dean. I just know it."
You stumble away from him, with the hurt revelation dawning in your eyes as you fly off the handle.
"You don't know a thing about it, a thing about me or how fucked up this all is! What I don't get is how you have been through this all before, and you can still sit there all starry eyed, and tell me you believe in me, and everything is gunna be just peachy with all the honesty in the goddamn world?"
You laugh, a low, pained noise that hurts your own ears.
"You just never change, do ya? Damn it Sam, do you know what I would give to be as good and clean as you?"
"What? Dean, you are seriously..."
His eyes blink unmovingly, trying to register what you are saying and you know you have finally lost it.
"I can't even be around you anymore, Sam! Can't you see? You had it made; going to college with a great life ahead of you...you were so good before I came, Sam! Before I showed up in the middle of the night and wrecked it all..."
You can see his heart-breaking, and the lump in your throat forces tears into your eyes.
"And you're so good-hearted, and sweet and innocent...and I don't want to ruin it..."
Can't you see how bad I want to be good and clean for you?
Your lunatic ramblings are silenced with a soft kiss, and you almost recoil when the corners of Sam's mouth tastes of salt and beer.
Sam sees the surprise in your expression and laughs gently, a less than pure noise from somewhere deeper than the back of his throat.
"You didn't break anything that wasn't already damaged goods, Dean. You can't blame yourself for how I, or Dad, or any of this turned out. Fate just has weird ways of bringing people together..."
"But Sammy..."
The passionate motion is repeated, and you reciprocate too fondly as the rest of his words blur.
Suddenly, you are in the backseat of the Impala, and all you can feel are Sam's hands trying to shake some sense into you and control your raving as you struggle against the conflicting feelings rising up inside of you.
The leather seats are hot against your back as you slide off your jeans. Sam towers above you, shielding you from the intoxicating darkness as his breath comes out in ragged gasp
You gently touch Sam's face; wipe away the tears smearing his perfect features with the lightest brush of your hands, ignoring how dirty you feel and making sure he is okay with this. Even though Sam is half naked in the backseat of your car, you can feel yourself choking against his clean aura, uncomfortable under the weight of his body positioned above you.
Do you know how much I would kill to be as good and clean as you?
"Sammy...I have to tell you..."
Sam smiles as though he has secretly held this knowledge for year's .The words break something innocent and untouchable inside him, as you drag him down on top of you, clawing closer to the source of light.
"I know"
"...I'm sorry"
His face falls when you don't profess your undying love, and the look of renewed hope that lights up his face when the beginnings of a smirk trace your lips outshines all the suffering you've felt and are going to feel after this one, brief night.
"Not exactly the invitation I was looking for"
"Close enough"
His smile glows before his lips slowly begin to trace your neck, and the need to feel that cleanness and goodness and purity inside of you overwhelms whatever will come outside this moment as you drag him down into the darkness with the blood pounding in your ears and your heart weeping with joy.
