"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." Friedrich Nietzsche
"You were spying on me?" Sam yelled, managing to look intiminating even though he was still huging the toilet's basin.
"No," Dean denied, "I just- I was missing you, Sam. I- I just wanted to see you..."
"Bull," Sam narrowed his eyes suspiciously, "You just didn't believe I could make it on my own. Like Dad; you never trusted me to-"
"Hey! No, okay? No!" Dean cut him off, "Of course I trust you. It's everyone else I had doubts about. I just wanted to make sure you weren't having troubles like in high school..." Dean trailed off as Sam raised his hands exasperated.
"Man, get over that already! It was one time, and it happened a million years ago!" Sam said.
"Dude, you let that kid beat you up," Dean shook his head as if the mere concept was ridiculous, "even though you could've handled him with both your arms tied behind your back!"
Sam huffed. "We've talked about this. I wanted-"
"Yeah, yeah, you wanted to be normal. Well to me, normal is making sure my brother is alright," Dean replied indignantly.
"Fine," Sam relented, straightening up to lean on the cold tiled wall behing him, "So... You came to Palo Alto. Then what?"
Dean averted his gaze, suddenly very interested about the patterns on the tiles that adorned the floor. "At first, you were all classes and back to your dorm; my little geek spending every day in the campus's library and lovin' every minute of it..." Dean laughed fondly.
"Old habits die hard," Sam defended.
"No, yeah I know," Dean nodded, "I don't mean you weren't popular," he sniggered, "especially with the ladies. And sure you talked to a lot of people; you just never got close to them."
"It was hard to believe I was gonna stay there for years; I was so used to moving around all the time..." Sam waved as if it didn't matter anymore and then gestured for Dean to continue.
"Well..." Dean started again akwardly, "You didn't seem very happy; sometimes you'd be reading a book somewhere in the campus and you'd get this... far-off look on your face... And I remember wondering if you were thinking about me as much as I was thinking about you," Dean explained lamely and Sam remained silent knowing that Dean just had to get certain things out of him.
"Every time I was like: hey, tomorrow I'm gonna go to him. I'mma do something to make things right again," Dean's shoulders crouched as he continued, "I wanted to tell you that it didn't matter if you didn't want me... you know, like that. I could live with that; I just wanted us to be brothers again," Dean's voice cracked a bit and he coughed to compose himself.
Dean was so into his own story-telling he was startled when a hand -not so gently- grabbed his arm. "What are you doin'?" he asked as Sam maneuvered him towards the shower stall.
"You smell like..." Sam visibly had to force himself to swallow, "Like that whore," he spat. "Get in," he demanded and, without even waiting for an answer, he reached to absolve Dean from his sweatpants and boxers, before he pushed Dean under the shower spray and opened the faucet.
"Sam? I-" Dean tried but Sam cut him off.
"Shut. Up." Sam glared at him, turning and grabbing a washcloth and a bar of soap from the sink, roughly rubbing them against one another before he placed them on the ledge. He reached for the shampoo bottle instead. "You were saying?" he asked patronisingly when Dean just stood there, staring at him, bliking water out of his eyes.
"I..." Dean wasn't sure about the whole bathing him thing, but he knew it was better than Sam beating the smell off of him, "So yeah, I wanted to come to you," he said, easily falling back into his memories, "but I was... I was s-scared," he stuttered sounding ashamed, "that you'd be disgusted by me; that you'd yell at me to leave and that you never wanted to see me again; you know, for being sick in the head," Dean winced as Sam's hands were running roughly over his head, spreading the shampoo on his hair.
"Anyway," Dean closed his eyes, as suds were trailing down his face, since Sam wasn't particularly careful, "time was passing by and I was torn; I had no idea what to do. But you didn't look so well either; rarely getting out, always with a book in your hands, smiles forced and tight..." Sam ignored him, but his fingers started to dig deeper, nails not-so-gently scratching against Dean's scalp.
"And then... just as I was about to suck it up and talk to you... you met Jessica," Dean murmured the last part quietly, but not spitefully.
Sam's fingers froze for a few seconds, before he continued with his task as if he had never stopped.
"She changed everything," Dean admitted, something achingly similar to awe in his voice, "you were laughing again; you were smiling genuinely... all teeth and dimples and I-" Dean's mouth filled with water and suds, before he had the sense to spit and close it, as Sam tilted his head forward, beneath the water, rinsing his hair the same way he had washed them -roughly.
"A little 'heads up' would have been nice," Dean coughed out, when Sam grabbed his neck and straightened him back. He flinched, when he realized he didn't know whether he was talking about the sudden rinse or Jessica.
Dean felt the washcolth on his back, Sam pressing it against his skin in firm circles, massaging sore and knotted muscles with unceunnecessary force -and maybe some scratches too; so Dean didn't say anything abou it.
"She was very pretty," Dean revealed knowing that the word wasn't enough. Jessica was beautiful. But he couldn't say that to Sam; he couldn't confess all these -crazy- moments he had thought that if he had been a perky, blonde chick everything would have taken a different turn.
"It was like she awakened you -or some poetical shit like that," Dean gasped as Sam -silent as ever- started washing his chest with vigor, rough cloth unrelenting against his tender skin. Sam paid no attention at Dean's hisses as he finished washing his torso and then re-soaped the washcloth and continued his way down Dean's body.
Sam bent a bit forward as he washed Dean's groin -hand working gentler than it did with the rest of Dean. He wrapped his hand around Dean's dick, the cloth separating them, and -Dean would bet that was just to tease him- stroked slow and loose up and down the half-erect shaft a few times. Dean sucked in a breath, his back arching, a confused whimper escaping his lips as he exhaled.
Sam ignored him, traveling lower, using hard circles again with the soft skin at the creases of Dean's inner thighs. Dean again didn't react, knowing he deserved the harsh treatment.
Sam then squated behind him, to wash the rest of him, cruelly kneading the flesh of Dean's ass, slipping the washcloth into the soft fold beneath the swell of his butt and the top of his hamstrings. Then Sam spreaded his butcheeks and ran the cloth in Dean's crack once -persistently and harshly; as if to remind him what he had done.
Suddenly, Dean felt too exposed -and he was certain it had nothing to do with his nudity. Everything he had put Sam through the past few days finally registered in his brain and he inched his upper body a bit forward, thankful that the spray of the water would rinse any evidence of his weakness away.
He didn't want Sam to see him like this. Jess had always seemed so confident and strong -upbeat and graceful and so many other things Dean couldn't list right then. And maybe that was why Sam had been attracted to her and- Dean was doing it again... He was comparing himself to her again, thinking that maybe, if he had been a bit more like Jessica, Sam would have accepted him when he had confessed his feelings. But that was just wistful thinking.
By the time Dean came out of his stupor, Sam had washed the back of his thighs, scrubbed his kneecaps, run the washcloth over his shins and massaged his calves with it. Finally done, Sam stood and pushed Dean forward and they both just let the water run down his body.
Tired... wanting his brother to take control, because honestly Dean had no idea how to fix things by that point, Dean didn't move when he was rinsed; not until Sam pulled him back from beneath the water. He reached past Dean and turned the water off and they both just stood there, wet (Sam's clothes clinching to his body) and wide-eyed.
Sam dried him off, without the vengeance with which he had washed him and then he dressed Dean in a fresh pair of boxers and sweatpants.
Sam sat Dean onto his own bed, making a point to walk a very large circle around Dean's bed, and then Sam grabbed a chair and sat in front of him.
For a few minutes Sam studied Dean from head to toe, with an almost clinical gaze, as if he was examing him. "Would it have been so hard to tell me all this a few days ago?" Sam asked, his accusatorial eyes pinning Dean down. "When I was trying to have a conversation with you about our feelings I mean," he clarified, a tad sarcastic.
As if just then realizing how atrocious his behaviour had been -to put it mildy- Dean couldn't even get his mouth to function; to tell Sam how sorry he was, how much he wished he could take everything back. All Dean could think of was "not enough, not enough, not enough."
Nothing could ever be enough to express his regret. Dean himself wasn't enough for someone like his sweet Sammy. Sam needed someone else; someone with less issues, someone not so prone on holding grudges and talking revenges, someone more like pretty, innocent, Jessica, someone more... no, less like Dean.
With that thought in his mind, Dean's respond was cold-hearted and harsh when it finally made it through his teeth, "What did you expect, Sam? You come and tell me you can't live without me and I'm supposed to forgive and forget and accept you? Doesn't work like that, Sam," he sneered, heart breaking but knowing he was doing the right thing. Sam didn't deserve putting up with him. Dean was sick and twisted and dark and... nothing; he was nothing compared to Sam.
Sam huffed. "I know. You've said that already. I know I screwed up; that I don't deserve a chance and blah, blah, blah," he waved a hand as if to dismiss all that. "But no," Sam continued, voice sobered, "I didn't say 'I can't live without you' - I can; I just don't want to."
Sam scootched forward urgently and placed a hand on both of Dean's, whom had been squeezing his together onto his lap. "I don't want to," he repeated, his eyes pleading with Dean to do something; to stop playing games.
"Too little, too late, Sam," Dean chocked out, physically straining himself to swallow down the tears that were threatening to flood his whole being.
It was, too little, too late. Dean had no idea how to even start redeeming himself; he had no idea if Sam could ever forgive him; he didn't think there was anything he could do that would show how extremelly sorry he was.
"No, it's not!" Sam snapped, a flame burning inside his eyes, "'Cause you love me, I know you do. I feel it," he said, his grib on Dean's hands becoming painful. "And I'm gonna wait; for the moment you'll be able to trust me again. Because you're worth it; and because you're the only one I wanna be with."
Sam's puppy eyes were looking right at him and Dean was feeling dizzy. He didn't know what to say. "Why now?" he asked again, wincing as he remembered how badly that had gone the first time.
"Because..." Sam took a deep breath, his eyes softening, "Because your name was my first word. Because you stayed by my side when I had the chicken pox, even though you ended up getting sick yourself. Because you carved our names side by side onto the only home we ever had. Because I left away from you and the world became empty; nothing mattered cause you weren't there. Because you're everything I've ever wanted to be; smart and brave, selfless and kind, giving and strong -the most wonderful man I've ever known. Because you give me the kind of feeling people write novels about," Sam laughed knowing that last one was sounding a bit girlie. That didn't stop him though.
"Because that's what people do: we leap -and hope to God we can fly; because otherwise, we just drop like rocks, wondering the whole way down... "why in the hell did I jump?" Sam looked up at him, spreading his hands, "So here I am, Dean, falling; and there's only one person in the world that can make me believe I can fly. You." He raised a hand, caressing Dean's cheek softly.
Dean leaned into Sam's warm touch, before he jerked away. "How can you possibly trust me after everything I've done, Sam?" he wondered desperately.
Sam bit his lower lip. "You said I bailed on you," he reminded Dean. "Well, Dean, I'm here and I'm fighting and you have to make your choice too. Do you wanna fight for us or do you wanna bail?" he asked, eyes huge and round.
For a long moment, Dean's throat was so constricted with emotion he couldn't answer. Sadly, Sam perceived that as a denial.
"What do they have that I don't, Dean, huh?" he shouted, jerking to a stand. "Do they blow your cock and mind? Do they let you fuck 'em to ecstasy? Is that it?" he demanded, pacing up and down the room, pointing at Dean's bed, where he had fucked Candy, with disgust.
"I can do that," he frowned and Dean's eyes widened. "Let me do that. I'll do whatever you want," Sam whispered, looking... for lack of a gentler word pathetic, and something inside Dean broke. It snapped, like the day Sam had left him, confused and madly in love with a man that didn't return his feelings; but, unlike then, this time Dean felt free. Ready to dive, head first, inside this epically twisted love story he wanted to share with his brother.
"I don't want that from you," Dean said soflty, shaking his head.
Sam's determinate gaze faltered, his disappointment apparent as he thought Dean was rejecting him.