Title: somewhere a clock is ticking [8/?]
Author: alakewood
Warnings: Wincest. Spoilers for AHBL.
Rating: R
Word Count: 1900+
Summary: The boys get together only for Sam to discover that Dean's been hiding something from him, but Dean's unwilling to reveal what it is. They have a fight which prompts Dean to look into his deal.
Disclaimer: As always, I own nothing.
oxoxo
Sam tugged, pulled Dean up the stairs and they tripped over their own feet, each others, as they hastily made their way into Dean's room. Sam frantically worked at the buttons on Dean's shirt, Dean's mouth covering his as they shuffled towards the unmade bed. Sam couldn't get his fingers to work, couldn't loose the buttons and, frustrated, tore the front of his brother's shirt open, buttons popping, flying, sent skittering over the rough wooden floors.
Dean's fingers wound and tangled in Sam's unwashed hair, held him still to kiss him how he wanted – slow, so slow, wanted to just live in the moment, nothing else but the two of them sharing the same breath in that room. But Sam's clumsy fingers slipped lower over the taut, muscled skin of his stomach, disappeared into the waistband of his jeans and, "Fuck," Dean breathed as Sam's cool fingers closed around his half-hard dick. Mouth hanging open, he could feel each of Sam's panted breaths on his tongue, could almost taste his brother's desperation and need.
"Please," Sam begged. "Dean, touch me."
Dean suddenly realized his arms were hanging limply at his sides, letting Sam take control, not wanting to push or pressure. "Sam."
Sam gripped Dean's arm at the wrist, guided his hand to his crotch, pressed his erection into Dean's palm and groaned. "Dean."
"Sam. God, Sammy." He shouldered out of his button-up and peeled out of his t-shirt, went to work on his jeans as Sam started stripping off his own clothes, everything left in a scattered heap near the foot of Dean's bed as they fell together to their knees on the mattress, sheets tangling about their legs. Dean was afraid to touch; Sam was all sharp planes and angles, bones jutting in ways they hadn't since Sam turned fifteen and grew five inches the following summer. He tried to be gentle, hands skimming over paper-thin skin, fingers trailing in the barest of caresses.
"Not gonna fucking break," Sam finally ground out, shoving Dean hard, making his brother land on his back on the mattress in a sprawl. Sam followed him down, showed Dean with his own hands how he wanted to be touched. "Please. Just want to feel you."
The tips of Dean's fingers traced fleeting designs over Sam's slim thighs, wound the pattern up over Sam's hips and lifted his brother onto his lap. He canted his pelvis forward, pressed his dick against Sam's, wrapped his arms around Sam's waist and sat back up, holding Sam against his chest as he sought his brother's mouth.
Sam moved against Dean, sharp little thrusts of his hips. He threaded his fingers through Dean's short hair to press Dean's hot, skillful mouth against his neck. Felt the scrape of teeth and the pinch of suction.
Dean flipped them over in a quick motion, pinning Sam to the mattress, and hovered over his brother's body, afraid to crush. He pushed Sam's damp hair from his forehead and kissed him slowly, dropping his head to fit in the hollow between Sam's shoulder and throat to press a kiss to Sam's whetted collar bone. He raised his face to Sam's once again, held his brother's gaze. "Why now, Sammy?"
Sam's hands skirred over the soft, hard-muscled flesh of Dean's back, up and down, fingers of his right hand finding the leather cord around Dean's neck and following it to where the amulet weighed it down between them. "Because I need you. Dean, I need you." He dropped the amulet, slid his palm over Dean's jaw to cup his cheek in a much too tender way. Studied Dean with naked love in his eyes. "Everyone I have ever loved has died. Dad. Jess. And it's only a matter of time before I lose you, too. And I can't do it, Dean. I won't."
"I can't lose you, either, Sammy."
"Promise me you'll never leave."
"Sam." Dean broke his gaze. Couldn't look Sam in the eye when he couldn't lie to his brother, couldn't tell him the truth.
Sam stared at him, long and hard, feeling something heavy seeping out of that one word, weighing as oppressive as the humidity on his lungs. He pressed his hands against Dean's chest, but couldn't push Dean off of him. "What did you do, Dean?" he asked, voice a low, harsh whisper.
Dean didn't answer, just covered one of Sam's hands on his chest with his own. He shook his head. "Sammy."
"What did you do?" Sam demanded, wrenching his hand free of his brother's and pushing himself up on shaky arms to press his back against the headboard of Dean's bed.
Dean slowly closed the distance between them, his hands going to Sam's head, smoothing down his mussed hair. Cautiously pressed his face into Sam's neck, whispering, "So sorry, Sammy."
And just like that, the fight in Sam was gone. He allowed himself to be coddled by his brother, leaned into the embrace, his fingers skimming over heated skin of Dean's back, grasping.
"You're not supposed to die," ghosted over Sam's ear, Dean's lips barely grazing the skin at his temple. "I'm not gonna lose you again."
"Again?" Sam questioned, tilting his head far enough to the side to look Dean in the eye. He instinctively knew whatever his brother was talking about had nothing to do with Stanford – Dean had had a choice then, and he'd been pretty clear about it. "What do you mean, again? What did you do?" Wouldn't drop it this time. Couldn't. Sam felt as though he were hyperventilating.
"What I had to."
"Dean."
"I'm sorry, Sam."
That was apparently all Sam was going to get. Again, he gave Dean a shove and he moved, more of his own accord than by Sam's force. He climbed off the bed and stalked out of Dean's room and across the hall, moonlight filtering in from the window at the top of the stairs painting him in bright contrast, making the bruises blooming on his hips stand out starkly. Dean's view of his brother's marred skin was cut off when Sam slammed his bedroom door behind himself.
There was nothing Dean could do about Sam now, it was out of his hands. It was better that way anyhow, didn't know how he was going to explain his deal to Sam. And that brought up a whole other question. Dean reached for his abandoned clothes and hurriedly dressed. He paused briefly outside Sam's door, but couldn't hear anything, and crept quietly down the stairs. His boots were where he'd left them inside the door and he quickly pulled them on while standing, shoving the laces inside as he reached for his keys. Any attempt at sneaking out of the house was made moot by the rumble of the Impala's engine as the car roared to life, but Dean purposely chose to not think about what Sam's reaction would be to his leaving.
Dean steered the Impala down his gravel lane to the gravel county road it ran into and took a left, headed the opposite direction of the two-lane highway and towards the unfamiliar network of county access roads. He stopped at the first crossroads he came across, braking hard, tires throwing small rocks and stirring up dust. He fumbled his I.D. box out of the glove compartment and quickly got rid of all the things he didn't need before climbing out of the car to bury the box in the gravel.
He slowly rose from his knees, scanning the dark fields that surrounded him on all sides. He was alone, then he wasn't. Ten feet in front of him, illuminated by the Impala's headlights, stood the Crossroads Demon. Different, always different, always a new victim. The Colt shoved into the back of Dean's waistband stuck to his skin uncomfortably as though it could sense the evil, but Dean wanted to spare the girl's life if he was able.
"Dean Winchester," she said, eyes flashing crimson as she smiled, gaze raking up and down Dean's body. "Back so soon?"
"Don't play dumb with me, bitch. You know why I'm here."
The smile split blood-red lips into a spiteful grin. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Sam! I'm talking about Sam. I was promised he'd be okay and he's not."
"You were promised no such thing. All your contract states is that you try to get out of your deal, Sam drops dead."
"I haven't tried getting out of anything and he's dying. Explain to me how the deal I made allows that."
She sighed heavily as though Dean were a petulant child. "You remember Meg, right? Well, you know how the only reason she was still walking was because of that demon inside her?" She paused, and Dean wasn't sure if it was to actually let him think back to what had happened to Meg Masters the girl or if was just to drive in her unspoken implication that he was more of an annoyance than anything. "Once the demon was gone, everything was broken. It's like that. See, there was a monster inside your brother's pretty little head. When he died, the monster went away. Now he's broken, too. You knew there would be consequences to bringing him back."
"For me, not him. Sam's supposed to be okay."
"You got your brother back, you've got your year," she told him, turning to face the moon, clasping her hands behind her back. "That was your deal. Now, if you want to discuss a new one, we could make Sam the picture of perfect health..." She was in the midst of turning to face Dean once again when, with a shaky hand and iffy aim, Dean fired a shot at her head. He was done with deals.
He returned to the Impala, put the crossroads in his rearview as fast as he could, tires slipping on the gravel, and headed back home. There was nothing he could do but bide the rest of his time and pray that Sam would be okay, that the doctors were wrong. He would take the rest of his year and put it to good use, spend it with his brother. The first step would be telling Sam about the deal, about their limited time, and that was something Dean had never planned on doing. But, with Sam's condition, they had no time to waste.
So Dean pulled the Impala into it's place in the yard and went back into the house, not bothering to kick off his boots before climbing the stairs. He knocked lightly on Sam's door, short little taps with his knuckles. "Sam," he said, voice wavering with uncertainty making it not much more than a whisper. Dean cleared his throat and tried again. "Sammy?" he questioned, laying his hand on the cool brass knob. "We gotta talk. Can I come in?"
There was no response from the other side of the door and Dean panicked for the briefest second, throwing open the door only to reveal a peacefully sleeping Sam tangled in his sheets. Dean kicked out of his boots again, stripped out of his dusty clothes and climbed into bed behind Sam. He wasn't going to waste another minute with his brother.