Sam nudged open the screen door with his shoulder, bobbing his head to whatever music he had blasting on his portable CD player and making a beeline toward the kitchen sink to splash a handful of water onto his sweat-damp face.
He was shirtless and wearing a pair of Dean's old blue jeans that were just a little too tight and covered in grass stains from his new summer job (because he'd always hated hustling and a legitimate gig was the Winchester way to rebel).
Sam bent over to snatch a granola bar that had fallen out of his pocket, his tanned torso lean and angled with muscle in all the right places and his shoulder-length hair sleek with perspiration and clinging in strands to his neck, and as Dean watched his brother intently from the shadows of the hallway, he suddenly understood something about himself with very real clarity for the first time, something that he'd been excusing away and trying to erase from the back corners of his mind for years.
He just didn't have a fucking clue what to do about it.
Ten months later:
The early afternoon sun was blisteringly hot as Dean heaved his way out of the car, carrying two overloaded grocery bags and lugging them inside to lower them carefully down onto the closest counter.
"Sam!" he called out in mild irritation, glancing over his shoulder to scan the living room, "-Sammy, come on, help me out with this crap. There's still a bag in the back seat."
Groaning, he leaned to one side to peer out the kitchen window, finally spotting Sam where he was sprawled on a towel in the back on the tiny patch of grass they liked to pretend was a yard with his goddamned headphones in again, his chin propped up on both hands and what was probably a supremely nerdy book lying open in front of him.
Dean swore a few times in a row under his breath, but not because Sam was busy sunbathing while he was sweating his ass off trying to keep the two of them fed while Dad was gone.
Fuck.
If that kid didn't start wearing shirts again soon, which was unlikely in this damn southern heat, Dean wasn't at all convinced that he was going to be able to hold onto at least the minimal amount of normalcy he'd been struggling to maintain with Sam ever since he'd stopped trying to pretend to himself that he didn't want to fuck his little (not so little) brother more than he'd ever wanted anything.
Jesus christ, one of these days he was sure he'd end up doing something reckless and self-indulgent like-
…
He eyed the bottle of sunscreen on the far edge of the counter.
Well, like…that.
Fucking exactly like that.
He bit down anxiously on his lower lip, knowing right away that he was going to do it…that he wasn't going to be able to logic himself out of it despite having a hard enough time controlling himself lately even without his hands all over Sam's body.
It was just too tempting now that he'd let himself think it, and he was already vividly imagining the many different ways he could likely get away with some harmlessly-inappropriate moments and touches under the guise of thoroughly…very, very thoroughly…protecting his little brother from the sun.
Not that he'd have the nerve to follow through with most of what he was visualizing, but even just the raw potential was enough to have him flushed and stupidly giddy to a degree that he had to admit was a little embarrassing even in the privacy of his own mind.
"Pull it together," he mentally chided himself, grabbing the sunscreen and hiding it surreptitiously behind his hip before making his way around the side of the small cabin to the patch of lawn out back, crouching down next to his brother to tug at a curled loop of earbud cord and playfully digging his knee into the soft crease of Sam's waist.
"Hey, nerd, you deaf?" he mock-grumbled with an exaggerated roll of his eyes as Sam swiveled lazily onto one side to face him with a sleepy, sexy little smile, "-I, christ, I was yelling your name forever. How nice that you've been out here sunbathing the whole time while I've been busy doing all the chores."
Sam stuck out the tip of his tongue around another lopsided grin.
"Oh please," he shot back, crinkling his nose up at Dean, "I'm the one who does most of the chores, not you."
He swatted at Dean's legs with a laugh.
"What'cha need? I just didn't hear you get back. You get some food? I'll come help you bring it in."
He took what seemed like a very long moment to slowly stretch before easing himself halfway into an upright position.
"Nah-, yeah…you're good," Dean stammered, his gaze drifting completely of its own accord to the slick stretch of Sam's bare chest and lingering blatantly there for several seconds before he managed to realize what he was doing.
He coughed in alarm, hastily refocusing his line of sight and silently praying that his expression had at least been a neutral one, but Sam certainly didn't seem phased, especially as he moved to lean his upper body into a second lithe stretch that brought Dean's back teeth together into a sharp clench, his eyes actually watering from the Herculean effort to keep his brother (for the moment) in the safety of his peripheral vision.
"I already-…I got it. But, I mean…this sun, you-don't…don't you want me to get your back?"
He gestured breathlessly with the sunscreen to clarify, feeling a rush of anxiety in his stomach as if he had said some wildly-inappropriate thing even though the question itself gave nothing away and was actually inherently commonplace.
He and Sam had always been overly physical with each other, and he'd put sunscreen on his brother a thousand times before.
Just…not since…that day.
Sam instantly collapsed onto his stomach again with a muffled groan of, "Yeahhh, please," his face pressed already into the worn fabric of the towel and his arms lifting over his head as Dean popped the cap open before he could talk himself out of it, shifting his weight to his knees and squeezing some of the cool white lotion into the palm of his hand.
Just as he'd suspected, touching Sam was so different this time that for a few seconds he forgot how to breathe entirely, his gaze fixed unblinkingly onto the places where his fingers connected with his brother's sun-darkened skin and his heart pounding in his throat as Sam sighed very quietly, flexing his shoulder blades and murmuring something that sounded like, "-mmnng…the best," while he nestled his face even more thoroughly into the towel.
Sam had always been too pretty for Dean to really handle even at the best of times, and puberty had only added sharp muscles and lines and just…big everything to the equation, not to mention this new tan and the mind-numbing lack of clothing and the way Sam smiled and blushed about every damn thing…
When Dean's hands reached the base of his brother's spine, he didn't even try to stop himself from staring greedily at the curve of Sam's ass or from imagining how goddamned hot it would be to just rip off Sam's shorts and fuck him rough and dirty right here on the grass.
Letting himself do it, think it, was an exhilarating, disorienting rush, and some animalistic part of his brain took over in response just long enough to have him temporarily giving in to instinct and splaying out his fingers as he leaned in with a push of his weight and a snake of his pinky beneath the thin elastic of Sam's shorts all the way to the top knuckle.
Shit.
Shit…
But before he could even begin to properly panic about it, Sam was spreading his legs several inches apart on the towel like an invitation, his hips lifting ever so slightly into Dean's touch and his muscles contracting briefly in a way that tickled the inside of Dean's head with hot jolts of buzzing electricity, Sam's tiny responses all somehow so dirty in Dean's mind that his whole torso surged with a thick pulse of arousal intense enough to actually blur his vision and raise every hair on his arms in a single second.
Jesus fucking christ.
What was-…what did it…mean, though?
Did it even mean anything?
Dean's common sense suddenly felt like a shadowy afterthought, and he desperately wanted to know…he NEEDED to know if Sam had been reacting to him or just…reacting.
He had to know.
After all, Sam couldn't read his mind, right?
He was just…continuing to do what he'd already been doing, and Sam didn't know…wouldn't know.
Nearly every muscle in his body was clenched in anticipation as he skated up the length of Sam's spine with his palm to rub circles there before slowly slipping downward again along the same path, pausing once he reached the top of Sam's shorts before biting his tongue and brushing all five fingertips in a swiping arch beneath the elastic, which…fuck…was much more than he'd meant to do, but-
Sam's thigh muscles tightened instantly into defined ripples and his pelvis twitched minutely but visibly into a barely-there grind against the towel, his hands bunching into fists above his head and his bare toes curling as Dean watched in surreal amazement, struggling to accurately sort through and interpret what he was seeing, what it meant…if he was just looking at his brother through some fuck-hazed lens or if Sammy was actually turned on.
Dean's pulse was racing furiously in both temples as he continued to knead into Sam's lower back on autopilot, wanting more than anything to do it again, to touch Sam like that again, wanting it so badly that it felt like a mortal wound or a black hole right in the center of his chest, but…what if he was just seeing what he wanted to see?
If he tried it…if he went for it and he was wrong, how could he possibly explain it away?
But he could feel his brother's thrumming heartbeat under his palms, and he wasn't imagining the way Sam's shoulders were rising and falling around shallower than usual breaths or the shiver he tried to hide as Dean tickled a brief stripe just underneath his hairline.
Maybe if he just…if he just pushed a little further, just the tiniest bit further…
Fuck. Jesus.
He yanked his palm a bit too violently from Sam's back with a shaky exhale, crossing his arms defensively over his chest and standing up quickly enough to keen dizzily to one side from the resulting rush of blood.
"All-all…set," he mumbled breathlessly, unfolding his arms and trying to shove his hands clumsily into his pockets several times in a row before remembering that the pants he was wearing didn't even have pockets, "Just gonna…"
He signaled vaguely toward the cabin as Sam lifted his weight to his elbows to peer curiously over at him.
"-uh, gonna…smoke some weed. This heat…you know."
He trailed off, turning on his heels to make his escape around the side of the cabin before he managed to make a complete idiot out of himself, but-
"Hey, wait up!"
Great.
Sam trotted up behind him, cheerfully tapping his shoulder and fixing him with another one of those heart-stopping smiles as he sidled in close enough for the two of them to brush hips.
"Maybe…I mean, if you're smoking, could, uh, could I have some?"
——————
Dean hadn't actually been planning on smoking.
The words had just kind of fallen out of his mouth probably as a force of habit, but now that he was dragging deeply off of the joint he'd thankfully found in his emergency supply tin, he was quickly realizing that getting high truly was a spectacular idea after all.
A few generous inhales later (after having offered the joint to Sam first), and he was already relaxing and exchanging playful quips with his giggling lightweight of a brother while he admittedly took advantage of any excusable opportunity to get handsy again with Sam minus the guilt and nerves his sober self had been wrestling with.
Mhm.
Fucking spectacular idea.
This was only the second time he'd smoked with his brother too, and the first time had been at least a year and a half earlier, which might explain why he was just now noticing the fact that Sam was…fucking slutty when he was stoned.
"Hey! Check it out!" Sam exclaimed right on cue, untangling himself from Dean to skip over to the narrow beam halfway across the room that extended upward from the floor to the ceiling, "I'm a pole dancer!"
Dean raised an eyebrow at that, watching incredulously as Sam wrapped his long limbs around the beam to grind up against it with rhythmic little hip bucks while he slid one palm shamelessly down the center of his still-bare chest as if the impromptu performance hadn't been hot enough already.
"Just need some stripper music!" Sam added gleefully while Dean continued to gape from the couch, his forearms crossed tightly over his lap to get ahead of any potential physical reactions that he definitely didn't want to have to explain…
Case and point, though.
Slutty, high Sammy who was practically dry-humping a goddamned wooden beam.
Fuck.
Not to mention the fact that as the only other human being around, Dean had landed himself on the receiving end of some of Sam's sluttiness, which was arguably the best thing that had ever happened.
Ever.
"Looks like you got your career all cut out for you," he called over to Sam, remembering that he still had yet to respond out loud and pretending to shuck dollar bills in his brother's direction, "You're a fuckin' natural!"
He licked his dry lips, absently picking up what was left of the joint from their makeshift ashtray with one hand and using his other to dig through the couch cushions for his zippo more just to have something to do than because he actually needed another hit.
"-me too!"
Sam practically materialized next to him, flopping down with a cute little grin that had Dean chuckling and shaking his head in amused exasperation.
"Don't you think you're high enough already there, go-go boy?"
Sam huffed indignantly at that, trying clumsily to grab the joint from Dean's fingers but not even coming close to succeeding at the task and arranging his face into a mock pout while Dean just lifted his arm easily out of reach.
"Jeez, Sammy," Dean teased with a roll of his eyes and a pivot of his torso as Sam tried for a second time to snatch at the joint, quickly losing his balance during the lunge and toppling himself haphazardly over Dean's lap instead.
Literally everything the kid did was somehow adorable.
Dean used his free hand to lightly knuckle his brother's scalp.
"I mean…I could always give you-"
He paused mid-sentence, realizing the implications of what he'd been about to suggest a mere millisecond before he'd said it out loud and embarrassingly blushing like a damn schoolgirl while Sam just stared up at him expectantly.
"-give me…the joint? A makeover? Don't keep me hanging here."
Dean hastily debated the very tempting idea in his head.
He could ask.
Sam was stoned enough to maybe even agree to it, especially given what might (or might not) have been on the verge of happening between the two of them out back…
Either way though, his intentions would probably at least seem innocent enough, right?
He cleared his throat, making a snap decision.
"Yeah, sorry, dry-, uh, dry throat," he started, lowering his eyes again and willing his voice to steady itself, "I meant that I could give you…my hit, you know, just…"
He trailed off, miming an exhale of smoke while he pointedly lowered his gaze to Sam's lips for emphasis.
"Just…less of a high that way."
He anxiously held his breath.
It was almost comical how long it took Sam to mentally work through the offer in his inebriated state of mind, his face scrunching around the edges in obvious confusion and then finally melting into shocked disbelief as soon as he seemed to figure it out, which wasn't doing anything to calm Dean's nerves.
"You-you'd…is it-"
Sam gave up on the failed sentence, his eyes widening until they were close to cartoon character proportions and his sweat-damp palms slipping against Dean's thigh as he awkwardly tried to push himself into a more upright position.
"Can you…do that? I mean-, yeah. Yeah, that sounds…fine."
He blurted the whole thing out at the end of an exhale, sucking in a loud breath immediately afterward and shyly averting his eyes in stark contrast to the version of himself that had been dirty-dancing so enthusiastically no more than a minute earlier.
Dean blinked.
Sam had said…
Sam wanted…to do it.
Sam wanted to fucking do it.
Jesus.
Dean's entire body suddenly felt like a furnace, his skin tingling with heat and his stomach churning with a rush of dizzying anticipation.
Nodding unevenly at Sam through some mumbled partial word he couldn't remember how to finish saying, he quickly switched tracks and lifted the joint to his lips to strike at the zippo with the pad of his thumb before Sam could change his mind or regain his sanity or whatever the hell was happening here.
He inhaled deeply, pivoting with his upper body to drop the still-lit joint into the ashtray as he held the burning smoke at the top of his lungs, halting midway through his turn toward Sam while he inwardly panicked that his stoned-as-fuck brother might not have actually understood what he'd meant.
Shit….
No. Screw it.
Fucking screw it.
He leaned in a bit too impatiently, splaying his fingers out across the back of Sam's neck and allowing just under two seconds of an opportunity for Sam to protest it all before hauling him in close with an unyielding grip to firmly guide their mouths together over the thrum of his own racing heartbeat.
God…
It was fucking surreal.
Every nerve in Dean's body was already lighting up with the indescribable reality of what he was doing, what they were doing, and he couldn't help but watch his brother's face in a kind of mesmerized haze as he very gradually breathed out between Sam's lips, impulsively letting the tip of his tongue flick out at Sam's own under the fresh influence of this latest hit that had just begun to creep into his brain from every angle.
He'd half expected Sam to push him away despite…everything, but instead-
Instead, Sam was practically dissolving against his chest like butter with a breathy, muted sound that he tried too late to swallow down, his shoulders shaking enough for Dean to notice in his peripheral vision and his big hands reaching for Dean to clutch tightly at his upper back, scrunching the fabric of his t-shirt and digging in with trembling little presses of his fingertips that Dean knew right away he was not misinterpreting.
There was no fucking way.
Not this time.
He suddenly felt feverish and unstable, like he might be on the verge of spontaneously combusting, and despite his many fantasies starring Sam in similar situations, this was…different somehow…unnerving as hell but in the best possible way.
His face was tingling everywhere before he'd finally exhaled as much as he was physically capable of, and he hesitantly opened up a tiny crack at the corner of their lips to suck in a short, shallow breath, terrified that he'd broken them out of it, that it was all going to end…just…
That just…wasn't an option.
"You could, uh, give it…back to me," he heard himself suggest in a shaky whisper, the words ridiculously transparent even to his own ears, "I can't, I, uh-"
He didn't even bother trying to finish whatever he'd been about to say, not waiting for an affirmative signal from Sam before urgently reclaiming the space between them and realizing very clearly as he did that Sam had already exhaled most of the smoke…that there wasn't a single, viable excuse to be attached to his brother's mouth anymore and that what they were doing now really did qualify as kissing by absolutely everyone's standards, but, fuck-
His heart skipped several beats in a row and then nearly exploded in his chest as Sam crawled suddenly and eagerly the rest of the way onto his lap with a hot little sigh against his mouth, straddling his thighs with no warning and opening his lips to offer up his tongue in a tentative, searching push that Dean instantly reciprocated, his stomach burning white hot and his vision spotting red around the edges with spinning stars like he'd collided head-first with a brick wall.
Groaning, he roughly grabbed for Sam's hips with both hands to clamp down and dig in with his nails out of pure instinct, easing back by just enough to nip breathlessly at Sam's lower lip as Sam shivered against his chest, hanging the full weight of his upper body onto Dean like he'd lost the ability to functionally hold himself upright.
"Fuck, fu-, it's okay, c'mere," Dean urged through clenched teeth, briefly leaning downward pressure onto Sam's hips before squinting his eyes tightly shut to muscle himself back under control and lifting his hands unsteadily to Sam's waist.
"You gotta-…jesus, Sammy, I'm-uh…I'm really fuckin' high. I don't know what's-, fuck, what's okay, so you-"
He slammed his head violently back against the couch as Sam lowered his weight from his knees to bring them together crotch to crotch, pressing his face into Dean's shoulder with a muffled cry and immediately bucking down with his pelvis in a sharp, needy curl while Dean simultaneously lifted upward into the friction, gripping bruisingly around his brother's hips again to guide them both into a rhythm of thrusts that quickly turned rough and greedy and fucking perfect, just…inexplicably hotter on so many levels than Dean ever could have imagined.
Sliding a palm up the side of Sam's torso, Dean fisted through a handful of mussed hair and tugged backward to lift Sam's head from the dip of his shoulder, needing to see this, needing to catalog every detail.
Sam's cheeks were flushed with color, and his eyes…fuck…his eyes were heavy-lidded and dark with blown pupils, wet around long lashes and glossy with a sheen of overwhelming arousal.
Dean stopped breathing while he stared in stunned silence for a long, reverent moment.
"Jesus, Sammy, you're fucking perfect," he finally whispered without even having meant to say it out loud, but Sam just melted fluidly into a full-body arch at Dean's praise, bending backward on Dean's lap with a mewling little whine and using his legs as leverage to continue rocking himself back and forth over Dean's crotch like the real-life version of the best wet dream Dean could have ever conjured up in even his most indulgent fantasies.
Not to mention-
Dean's eyes drooped for the first time to the bulge of Sam's erection in this new position that gave him a direct line of sight, and he nearly blacked out from the responding coil of tight heat pooling the bottom of his stomach that had him scrambling his heels urgently against the floor with a low growl in the back of his throat while he roughly maneuvered Sam upright again, breathing like he'd just run a damn marathon and hauling Sam's weight onto his chest while he leaned in to position his mouth directly over his brother's ear.
He risked inching the hand he still had splayed over Sam's hip into the crease of his thigh now to tickle there over the thin fabric with teasing massages of his fingertips less than an inch away from Sam's hard cock.
It would be so easy to just…do it.
He could just…do it, and he knew, he knew that Sam wouldn't stop him.
Grinding his back teeth, he brushed his lips in a featherlight stripe over the rim of Sam's ear.
"Saaammmy," he breathed out, dipping his head to drag his teeth against the side of Sam's neck and simultaneously walking his fingers sideways to circle his fist firmly around the base of Sam's cock through his shorts without even giving Sam the time to process what he was about to do.
Sam clenched his knees reactively around the outsides of Dean's thighs and choked on a gasp as he sucked his lower lip between his front teeth, biting down hard enough to leave a mark and tensing along the curve of every muscle as he bucked desperately upward into Dean's fist.
"De-, Dean," he stammered, his eyes fluttering back nearly all the way to the whites while he swayed dizzily to one side, "-fuck, Dean, fuck, fuck-"
Dean had never been more turned on in his life, the heavy arousal taking over every cell of his body as he dragged the pad of his thumb in a slow, gratifying swipe across the head of Sam's cock, feeling the leak of fresh precum through the already wet fabric and tightening his fingers into a possessive, hungry grip to pump twice before giving in with a groan and lowering his other hand from Sam's hair to his shorts to yank impatiently at the elastic, tugging it outward and away from Sam's lower stomach.
Sam had fallen into a slump against Dean, panting and jerking erratically with his hips as Dean shoved his fingers below the elastic to grab around the width of Sam's bare cock, fisting up and down in greedy, rapid strokes and clenching his jaw almost painfully through another overpowering shiver of heat at the realization that he had Sammy…completely…that he was going to make his little brother cum right into his hand…in real life…that this was truly, actually happening.
Using his forearm, he leaned pressure over Sam's thigh, shifting to grind upward with his hips and jacking Sam to the same rhythm while he started up a continuous stream of dirty whispers into his brother's ear that he couldn't have kept to himself at this point even if he'd wanted to…
And he definitely didn't want to.
And Sam…god, Sam…
Sam was clawing into him like he was drowning and gulping in shallow huffs of air, his cock twitching and leaking almost constantly now in Dean's fist and the muscles in his back flexed so severely that his shoulder blades looked almost like wings jutting outward from either side of his spine.
Dean's own muscles were burning in protest as he rocked up with jerking drags of his hips on every pump of Sam's cock, but he was only distantly aware of the ache over the swell of hot pressure in his stomach, and he knew that even though he had yet to touch his own cock in the kind of direct way he'd become pretty accustomed to, he wasn't going to be able to hold out for much longer.
Hell, he'd always prided himself on his endurance when it came to all things sex, but…christ…
Adding Sam to the equation was just…a whole fucking new equation.
As the knot of tight heat began to tickle its way downward inside of him, fuzzing his brain with colorful static and sparking his nerves into overdrive, he used his thumb and forefinger to rub both over the slit and directly under the head of Sam's cock at the same time with constant pressure on each slide, growling his approval at Sam's instant, wordless cry and gritting his teeth as he shifted the arm he had draped over Sam's thigh to push down with the full bruising weight of his entire upper body.
"Come on, Sammy," he groaned, biting at Sam's throat and swearing against the soft skin under his teeth, "I want you to, want you to cum for me, so fuckin' hot, Sammy, jesus…"
He eased his arm from its clenched drape without even fully knowing what he was doing to tangle through his brother's hair again, using his grip to swiftly maneuver Sam's head into a sharp downward slant while he heeled himself back further onto the couch.
"Eyes open," he panted, kneading in with his fingertips against Sam's scalp, "-want you to watch yourself cum into my hand, Sammy, fuck, want you to see it."
He'd barely finished saying the last word before Sam was stiffening up with a rasping plea of Dean's name that almost immediately turned into a silent cry on his lips, his stomach tightening like a loaded spring and his fingers connecting haphazardly with Dean's thighs to claw at the fabric there as he came hard into Dean's fist with a full-body tremor and a forward lurch that would have easily toppled him against Dean's chest if Dean hadn't still been gripping a handful of his brother's hair tightly enough to whiten his knuckles.
With a low hiss, Dean urgently dropped his hand to muscle Sam's thigh to the side, still rubbing with his other thumb and forefinger around the dripping head of his brother's cock while he lifted his hips enough to yank at the waistline of his pants, finally gripping tightly around his own cock and groaning as he jacked upward with quick, sloppy pumps.
Sam was still watching with wide, wet, glossy eyes, his mouth slightly open around constant little sounds of hazy arousal and his damp skin glowing in the late-afternoon light, all liquid and velvet and smoother than honey.
Dean's torso went rigid as he bit down hard with his back teeth, suddenly cumming like he'd been edging himself for a damn month and squeezing his eyes tightly shut against the whiteout flood of raw sensation that was ripping through him like a wild animal.
Reeling, he slumped backward against the couch cushions behind him, shivering and coated in a sheen of sticky sweat and still riding the high from too-much weed mixed with the electric vibrations of sex that were pricking at every single one of his nerves in a way that might have been close to maddening if it hadn't felt so unbelievably fucking amazing.
"God-ffuck, fuck," he finally panted, shifting his hand to his brother's hip to ease him forward into an instinctive embrace and nipping lightly at the side of Sam's neck as he massaged a bit shakily with his fingertips, mapping, memorizing, claiming with every push and each soft stroke "I-…Sammy, I…are you…okay?"
He wasn't sure why he was even asking, besides the fact that the entire thing still felt unreal enough for him to half-wonder in his inebriated state of mind if he was in the throes of some fever dream or intoxicated to the point of being consumed by some wonderful delusion, but-
Sam silently used both hands to prop himself up until his head was level to Dean's, his eyes unblinking and searching out Dean's own with a kind of pleading urgency that bled into the rest of his expression…an expression that was alive with something incredibly complex and overwhelming that Dean somehow both understood and also didn't at the same time.
Later, he would figure out exactly what it meant. Later, he would be able to interpret the details he couldn't quite grasp at the moment.
Once he was sober, he'd be able to-
"This…you, and me…us, it's…"
Sam trailed off, gently tracing the outline of Dean's collarbone with his index finger, and Dean…afraid to break Sam's delicate words with his own, just wrapped his arms tightly around his brother's big shoulders and pulled him close, absently feathering his nails up and down the length of Sam's back and drawing the outline of a heart there, imperfect, too big, a little bit broken around the spine, and exactly the thing they had both wanted to say.