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Dean hears the door open, but he’s careful to keep his eyes shut. So he doesn’t see the demon’s face go white when it catches sight of him lying on the bed, but he sure as hell hears the crash as it drops the breakfast tray. His stomach twists nervously, and the sensation is even more nauseating than usual when combined with the fire crawling up his arm from his left wrist.
He was hoping that the demon would be panicked enough to leave the door open, but the thud that follows the tray’s fall—like the lid of a coffin being slammed shut—disabuses him of that particular pipe dream. It’s okay, though: Dean Winchester is nothing if not adaptable. He hears the demon hurry over to the bed and stop just out of reach.
“Winchester,” it tries, in that honey-deep voice that doesn’t seem to match the host it has chosen for itself: petite and blonde and looking enough like Jessica that it still freaks Dean the fuck out.
He doesn’t know why Sam picked this particular demon as his primary keeper. Maybe because he’s up here pressuring Dean whenever he’s not in the field and enjoys looking at her. Maybe he thinks Dean will be less tempted by someone who looks like his brother’s dead almost-fiancé, as if Dean would ever touch one of the damned things of his own free will. Maybe Sam knows how uncomfortable it makes Dean and enjoys watching him do his best to pretend that the demon isn’t there. Maybe he hasn’t even noticed.
“You better be shamming,” the demon snarls, but there’s an undercurrent of fear in its voice. It’s worried about what Sam will do to it if Dean isn’t, in fact, shamming. The demon takes a shuffling half step closer, still nervous that this is all some kind of trick (it is) and hopeful that the red liquid staining the sheets is watered-down strawberry syrup (it isn’t).
Dean opens his eyes as the demon vacillates between terrified belief and suspicious doubt. The room spins around him, which means he’s cut himself worse than he meant to—has lost more blood than he meant to—but he can still focus on the demon, so he doesn’t worry about it too much. If he bleeds out from this, then at least it’ll be an end to the whole sorry mess.
It’s looking into Dean’s vague eyes that brings the situation home to the demon. Its face wavers between rage and terror as it takes that last, necessary step.
“What the fuck did you do?” it demands, like it can’t see the wet, reddened sheets. Like it can’t see the ragged wound in Dean’s left wrist just below the metal cuff, and the sharpened spoon handle lying next to him where it fell when he dropped it.
Dean gathers what’s left of his strength and surges up toward the demon. He grabs its shirt with his right hand and pulls. Lets himself roll off the other side of the bed as the demon falls down into the bloodied space he’s just vacated. He hits the floor and lies there while the room spins around him like a tilt-a-whirl gone out of control.
It’s the moment of truth: either the demon is going to come charging after him off the bed, or it won’t. Dean’s too busy trying to make his body work again to worry about it either way.
When he finally manages to haul himself to his feet, though, the demon is sitting in the middle of the mattress with his blood smeared across its face and clothes. It watches Dean expressionlessly while he fumbles the nightstand’s drawer open and pulls out the homemade tourniquet that he hid there before cutting into himself.
Dean wasn’t sure the devil's trap would work—was almost positive that it wouldn’t, that he would forget some necessary squiggle or angle and fuck it up—but he had to try anyway. The knowledge that he has friends only a few floors down has been eating at him just as Sam no doubt knew it would.
Dean knows his brother well enough to understand that Sam tossed him that nugget in the hopes that it would tip him that much further off balance. It did, at first: left Dean gasping and certain that he'd do it, he'd roll over onto his stomach and spread his legs if Sam would just let him see a friendly face again.
That was the first day. Since then, things have changed.
If he can only get to Bobby, Dean thinks as he tries to get his fingers to work with him long enough to slide the tourniquet over his hand. If he can only get to Bobby, then they can work out a plan. With Bobby’s help he can fix this: he can make everything right again. Maybe they can’t bring the dead back to life (been there, done that, crap idea), but at least they can stop adding to the body count.
It's the same hope that Dean clung to while he filed the handle of his stolen spoon down into a passable blade. It's what lay at the back of his mind as he tried to remember all of the devil’s trap's curves and lines.
Dean didn't dare to work on it more than a few minutes a day—partially from fear that he’d be discovered, but partially because the ink he used was in short supply. It takes a while to soak a devil’s trap into the box spring of your bed with your own blood. Takes longer if you have to be careful not to leave cuts large enough for your obsessed, power-flooded brother to notice. Sam hasn't really touched Dean since he dropped his little bombshell, but that doesn’t stop him from looking, and there’s nowhere on Dean’s body that his sharp eyes don’t go.
But Dean’s been careful. He's been quiet and methodical and steady, and he's done his best to ignore the panic gnawing at his chest. Now he knows how rabbits feel, trying to chew their way free from a hunter's trap without alerting any other predators to their plight. It's not the best feeling in the world, not by a long shot, but so far … so far so good.
Slitting his own wrist in order to get the demon off-guard enough and close enough to the bed for him to yank it over the devil’s trap may have been a piss poor idea, but it’s working. And it’s the only plan that Dean was left with after weeks (months?) of searching for an option that didn’t involve opening an artery.
Demons are just too strong to be manhandled over a distance, even without taking into account the whole ‘throw you around with their mind’ thing. And Dean’s keepers won’t come close to the bed normally: the bed is Sam’s territory, and none of the demons Sam allows into this suite would risk setting him off.
No, the only way to get one of the damned things close enough was to lay down some pretty convincing bait. Something immediate and sudden and obvious. Something that would be sure to work the first time, because damned if he'd get a second chance.
Playing sick—even faking something as serious as a heartattack—wouldn’t have cut it. That would have sent the demon running for a doctor instead of bringing it closer to stabilize him with some rudimentary triage.
Asking for help making the bed would have raised too much suspicion. Sam takes care of that himself; he enjoys the simple chore for some reason, and the demons know it.
Dean doesn't even have anything to use as a bribe or bait except for his own body. There isn't a demon drawing breath that would take him up on that one, interested or not.
His body is Sam’s territory too.
Dean smiles grimly as he pulls the tourniquet tight using his right hand and his teeth. Not for much longer, he thinks.
First thing he’s going to put Bobby to work on is getting the fucking tattoo off his back. Then the cuffs. And if Bobby has to skin Dean and chop both of his arms off at the elbows to do that, then so be it. For now, though, he’s got more immediate concerns.
Dean turns to face the demon and sways slightly on his feet as a wave of vertigo overtakes him.
“You need medical attention,” the demon says, narrowing its eyes.
Well, duh. Dean bares his teeth at it in a cold smile. “How do I open the door?”
“You can’t.”
“Bullshit.”
The world grays out for a moment and when it comes back Dean catches a look of sheer terror on the demon’s face. Not because it cares about him, of course, but because Sam probably wouldn’t be too happy with it if he died.
When it realizes he’s back with the world again, the demon schools its expression and offers, “At least let me tie you off tighter.”
“Got a friend who’ll help me out with that one,” Dean mutters, dragging over a chair and sitting down heavily. Standing is wasting too much of what little energy he has left. “All you’ve gotta do is tell me how to open the fucking door.”
There’s a trick to it, he knows: a password. He’s seen Sam and the other demons whispering something under their breath as they leave, but they always make sure he’s far enough away that he can’t hear. Which means that he can use the word too: he can get out of this damned room.
The demon snorts. “What do you think this is going to accomplish, Dean? You don’t think Sam is actually going to let you leave, do you?”
“Yeah, well Sam’s not here right now, is he?” Dean counters.
His brother’s all the way across the country, actually: in Vegas. Getting a second set of suites ready for … After. Like some perverted honeymoon. It would almost be sweet if Dean didn’t know what else his brother was taking care of out West. Executions. Punishments. Moving his front lines all the way to land’s edge in one last, brutal push.
“Password,” Dean insists.
The demon just looks at him sullenly.
“Look, you can either give me the password, or I can take this—” He taps the tourniquet ponderously. “—off and you can explain to my brother why I’m dead.”
“You wouldn’t.”
Dean utters a harsh laugh. “You think so? You think I’d rather stay here? Hell can’t possibly be this bad: all of you sick fucks are up here.”
He watches it work that through in its head, precious seconds hurtling past, and then it pulls its knees up to its chest and says, “Mary.”
The word hits Dean like a bullet to the gut and for a few moments he can only sit there, staring at the demon’s hateful face. Sam’s been sealing him shut in here with their mother’s name. Sam’s been profaning their mother’s memory: been putting the sound of her in the mouths of demons. It hurts so much that when it finally sinks in, the only response he can make is a hoarse laugh.
“Please,” the demon says suddenly. “At least let me put a better dressing on before you—”
“Say hi to my brother for me,” Dean interrupts. He stands up and almost falls face forward onto the bed.
“You’ll die,” the demon presses as he catches himself on the bedpost.
Dean’s pretty sure it’s right, but he only mutters, “Shut up,” and then heads for the door.
It seems a thousand miles away, and each dragging, slow step costs him more than he’d like to admit. Distantly, he can feel blood dripping from his mangled wrist despite the tourniquet. He makes it to the door and then leans against it, dropping his head forward and feeling the thrum of the warding through his skin.
“Mary,” he whispers. The word is a prayer on his lips, the last holy thing Dean has left, and the door swings open and spills him into the hallway.
He expects there to be a shout of alarm—it can’t be this easy, can it?—but the hall is quiet. When he raises his head, he sees that Sam hasn’t actually left any guards on the door. An undercurrent of unease runs through his skin; Sam knows just as well as Dean that a locked door can always be picked. It says something about his confidence in this pitcher plant of a suite that he hasn’t bothered setting a watchful eye.
Considering the matter, Dean’s pretty sure that his brother has something set up that’s going to bite him in the ass when he least expects it. Still, there isn’t anything he can do about it except push on and hope he can deal with Sam’s surprise when he comes to it. Because really, it’s either that or lie here in the hall and bleed to death, and that is Not An Option.
Not now that he’s out of the fucking rooms and feels like he can breathe again for the first time in God knows how long.
Dean tries to push himself back to his feet, forgetting about his left wrist, and falls on his face. There’s a sick flare of pain from his nose, accompanied by a flash of white and the metallic tang of copper at the back of his throat. I just broke my fucking nose, he thinks, and his breath whuffs out in a laugh.
This isn’t exactly the fast getaway he pictured.
After a moment of staring at the thick, burgundy carpet, Dean turns his head to the right. The hall stretches out before him, opulent in reds and golds, and there, at the far end, he can see the polished brass doors of an elevator.
He squints at them for almost a full minute, trying to will them closer. They don’t budge, of course. Dean’s nothing special; he can’t make the building shrink or the floor tilt up and roll him toward his destination the way that his brother probably could. He can’t even get up on his own feet and walk over there.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself and get up!
It’s Bobby’s voice, but Dean’s not so far gone that he doesn’t know the words are his own. Bobby’s just a convenient goad to prod himself with.
Dean frowns at the carpet and then, with a heave and a pained grunt of effort, manages to get himself up onto his knees and elbows. Panting, he lifts his injured arm and holds it against his chest. He fixes his eyes on the elevator, concentrates, and starts to crawl.
Now that he’s moving again, he feels more aware—progressively weaker as he gets further down the hall, yeah, but at least he’s not still laughing hysterically on the floor, half in and half out of that fucking suite.
It seems to take forever to get to the elevator, but he’s pretty sure that it has only been a few minutes. Just long enough for Dean to have accepted the fact that he’s heading downstairs to die with friends. He definitely cut too deep, and then he spent too long lying in the bed waiting for the demon to show. Those stupid mistakes are killing him, but at least he’s dying as himself instead of the broken, shadow-thing that Sam is trying to make of him.
If this is as close as Dean can come to winning, then it’ll have to do.
He eyes the button for a few seconds, gauging distance and his own flagging strength, and then rears back up onto his knees and slams the heel of his hand down on the rounded plastic. There’s a pristine ding and the doors immediately slide open, flooding green light into the hallway.
Dean lets out a shout of alarm and falls backwards, shutting his eyes. It’s still there against his eyelids, of course: an after-image of flames, green and vile and hungry, filling the elevator car.
Cracking one eye, he checks to see if he imagined it. The flames are still curling up the walls and sliding along the ceiling like water. He stares, mesmerized, and thinks that the elevator should have closed by now. Instead, the doors are still standing open, like it knows he’s there. Like it's waiting for him.
This is his brother’s safeguard, Dean realizes slowly. This flame-filled elevator.
Well, fuck Sam. Fuck Sam and his pushing and his hunger and the goddamned gilded cage he’s shoved Dean into. Fuck it all. If Dean’s going out, then he’s going out fighting, damn it.
He flops back over and, after a few awkward attempts, manages to get back up onto his hand and knees. Then he crawls forward into the car.
It isn’t like crawling into fire at all. The flames don’t hurt: don’t even register as heat on his skin. It’s only a pressure, like hands tracing over him, feeling for something. That pressure—the searching—gets more intense as he finishes dragging himself in and then there’s a moment of soft, quiet clarity when it pulls back. Dean is just beginning to wonder if Sam was bluffing when all of the muscles in his back go rigid in pain.
It’s the tattoo, it’s the fucking tattoo, of course it is. All the stark lines have come alive with fire. It feels like something’s tearing him open along those markings, stretching him wide and pouring molten lava beneath his skin. It hurts—oh fuck, it hurts—too much agonizing sensation to scream, leaving him open mouthed and wide-eyed: gasping with the sheer weight of it all.
Go back to the suite, Dean.
Sam. Sam’s voice cutting through the pain and even though Sam’s no more here than Bobby was a few minutes ago, he feels closer. Feels like he’s curling his body over Dean’s pain-wracked one and whispering commands into his ear.
No, Dean thinks. He digs the fingers of his good hand into the elevator's thick carpet as the pain ratchets up a notch.
Just go back to the suite and the pain will stop, Sam’s voice continues.
“Fuck you,” Dean pants, and then drops onto his side as a fresh wave of agony claws through him. The world’s gone all over in green: some intense, tantalizing shade that’s distracting in its familiarity, even through the pain.
Go back to the suite, Dean. Just go back to the suite and the pain will stop.
Sam’s voice loops over and over in his head like a broken LP. Sam’s power—Sam’s claim—shudders through Dean in intense, unbearable waves.
He loses track of time.
It’s only a few seconds, or maybe years, before he senses an abrupt change in the status quo. The green glow that has blinded him since he crawled into the elevator falls away and the pain in his back ebbs, leaving him more and more aware of the faint, burning throbs in his nose and left wrist. He comes around enough to figure out that he’s being carried down the hall—carried back to the suite—and does his best to struggle.
Power pours over him in a freezing rain, stilling him.
“Shh, I’ve got you,” a familiar voice purrs, and Dean would howl with laughter if he wasn’t so out of it.
It’s Sam. Of course it’s Sam. Cut his trip to Vegas short on a whim, or maybe never even went, who the fuck knows? Hell, maybe he knew all along what Dean was planning and was just waiting for him to get his leg caught in the trap so that he could come riding to the rescue.
Dean takes a hitching breath and he can smell his brother: can smell that familiar Sammy scent tainted by the ruffling reek of sulfur. It isn’t a strange odor—Sam has showed up smelling of Hell before—but it’s never been quite this fresh. Sam is usually careful not to leave Dean too many hints of what he’s been up to.
When Sam carries him back over the threshold, Dean feels it as a loosening of the last, sharp traces of tension in his back. Some beaten, pathetic part of him wants to sob in relief.
Sam puts him down on the couch and then crouches next to him. He lays one hand on Dean’s forehead, soothing.
“What the hell did you do to yourself?” he exhales, and then leans forward to kiss the tip of Dean’s broken nose. Warmth immediately chases away the dull ache there, leaving Dean slightly more aware, if no stronger.
He doesn't say anything in response to Sam's question; partly because the answer should be obvious, but mostly because he's just too worn out to make his voice work. Sam doesn't seem to want an answer anyway. His attention has been caught by Dean's sluggishly bleeding wound.
Dean watches his brother lift his mangled wrist with tender hands. Sam winces as he inspects the damage, and the motion brings Dean's attention to the shimmering, vertical lines on his cheeks. It takes him a few moments because he’s still pretty out of it, but he eventually realizes that he’s looking at tear tracks.
Guilt, sharp and barbed, lodges in his chest. He hurt Sam—made him cry, for fuck’s sake. The urge to make some kind of amends is strong enough that Dean raises his right hand and runs it through Sam’s hair, bringing those strange, yellow eyes up to his own.
“Sammy …” he manages.
Sam doesn’t speak, but his hand tightens on Dean’s wrist in response. Keeping his eyes locked with Dean’s, he lowers his head and licks a slow, tender path across the jagged skin of his wrist. It’s abrasive and painful and Dean hisses, but in the wake of his brother’s tongue he can see his flesh knitting together into an angry, red scar.
Sam licks again, just as deliberately, and this time there’s no pain: only a sleepy warmth seeping into his bones. The scar fades into a thin, white line, barely visible beneath the layer of tacky blood. Sam brushes his lips across Dean’s wrist in a gentle kiss and then rubs his thumb across the new, healthy skin.
There’s a heated look in those golden eyes that makes Dean’s stomach tighten. It isn’t exactly an unpleasant feeling, but that’s the problem, isn’t it? That’s why he was trying so goddamned hard to get away in the first place.
Dean turns his head to the back of the couch and tries to shove the tangled knot of emotions away. He’s too tired for this shit. He almost died, and Sam just kissed it better, and on top of that his escape attempt has failed spectacularly. He’s trapped here. Trapped like a goddamned ant in a pot of honey.
Sam’s fingers trail across Dean's forehead and cheek in a needy gesture that he remembers from Before. This is Sam seeking reassurance: making sure Dean’s all right. And he isn’t, not at all. He was closer to being all right when he was bleeding to death in the elevator car with his back on fire than he is now.
“Be right back,” Sam assures him, and then Dean feels a rush of cooler air that is Sam moving away. He hasn’t gone far, though, because a moment later Dean hears his brother say, “You let him hurt himself.”
He’s never heard Sam this angry. Not even when he was bargaining with the yellow-eyed bastard for Dean’s life. Not even when he caught up with Dean the last time he tried to sneak away. Sam's voice is hard enough to squeeze diamonds to powder. It's cold enough to freeze the sun.
“M-master, please. I didn’t—”
“How did he manage it?”
“Spoon—he k-kept a—”
“This?”
There’s a flash of ozone and Dean’s pretty sure Sam just vaporized his impromptu knife.
“Y-yes.”
“I’m having a little trouble remembering. Did I or did I not tell you what I’d do if I ever came back and found him hurt in any way?”
The demon lets out a gurgling cry of fear and Dean can’t help it. Like any idiot driving past a car wreck, he turns his head and looks.
The girl is huddled as far into the headboard as the devil’s trap will let her go. Her eyes are wide enough that Dean is seriously worried they’re going to pop out of their sockets, and she’s sweating like it’s a hundred and ten in here. Doesn’t look quite so pretty anymore.
“I begged him to let me tend to the wound, I swear by Lucifer. Ask him. He’ll tell you I begged—”
Sam leans over her, heedless of the devil’s trap he must know is there, and her words cut off. Sam is kissing close, with a smile on his face and rage in his eyes. Dean catches a glint of light off of the trail of tears running down his brother’s cheeks.
“Beg me now,” Sam breathes.
“Sam,” Dean croaks. “Don’t.” He could give a rat’s ass what Sam does to the demon for fucking up, but there’s a girl in there, and she’s gonna feel every second of it.
Sam doesn’t so much as glance at him. “You’re not really in the position to be asking for favors right now,” he growls.
“Please, Sam. I’ll do anything—anything you want, just—”
One second Sam is looming over the girl and the next his face is right in front of Dean’s. Sam’s hand is around his throat, pressing him tight into the arm of the coach.
“How many fucking times do I need to tell you that I’m not interested in forcing you?” Sam snarls.
Dean swallows with difficulty against his brother’s grip. “It wouldn’t—if you—”
Sam shuts him up with a bruising, hard kiss. Sucks Dean’s lower lip into his mouth and bites down on it. Dean instinctively tries to pull his head back and Sam uses his grip on Dean’s throat to drag him closer. It’s like Sam’s trying to claw his way inside and on top of everything that’s happened today it’s just too much.
Dean heaves a panicked breath in through his nose and pushes at Sam’s chest. Although he’s been healed, he’s still pretty weak from the blood loss and his efforts are wasted. Sam doesn’t even need to catch his wrists, just keeps kissing Dean thorough and deep and savage.
The hand that isn’t wrapped around Dean’s throat is planted on the couch arm, propping Sam up; Dean can see his brother’s fingers flexing into the leather out of the corner of his eyes. He lets his own hands fall back down by his sides.
He’s trembling, terrified of how far Sam’s going to take this but a little turned on as well. His body isn’t listening to his head; all that it can hear is the siren song of Sam sprawled against it, Sam’s heat soaking into it like the sun. It’s been so long since Dean’s been kissed by anyone, and this is Sam. If his mouth is a little rougher, a little more demanding, then it’s easy not to notice.
When Sam finally pulls back, Dean shuts his eyes. He’s not sure if he’s horrified or horny, but it isn’t safe to let his brother see either emotion reflected there.
“That what you want?” Sam asks. His breath ghosts over Dean’s moist lips. “You want me to fuck you right here? Right now? You want to make it up to me?”
Dean holds himself still, hardly even daring to breathe. Sam releases his throat to drag his hand down Dean’s chest and Dean’s shudders intensify. Oh God, he’s not ready for this. Not by a long shot.
Sam utters a sharp, bitter laugh. “Yeah, I thought so.”
The weight of his brother’s body lifts and, after a moment, Dean cautiously opens his eyes again. Sam is standing next to the couch, looking down with his face flushed and his lips slightly swollen. His eyes are wild, shining like a wolf’s, and the hard grin on his face isn’t any more reassuring.
“I’ll tell you how this is gonna play out,” he says. “You’re gonna lay there and keep your mouth shut while I finish up over here. Then we’re going to get you cleaned up and have a talk about you damaging what’s mine.”
Every ounce of self preservation that Dean has left is screaming at him to keep his mouth shut, but instead he hears himself say, “This is all on me. Don’t hurt her.”
Sam laughs. “Begging for a demon, Dean? That’s rich.”
“Not the demon: the girl.” He can tell he’s treading on treacherous ground from the way that his brother’s jaw clenches.
“Got a soft spot for her?” Sam asks, his voice low and dangerous. “You know her from before or do you just like looking?” His eyes narrow. “Or maybe you had something a little more ‘hands on’ in mind.”
“Maybe I just don’t want to watch my brother butcher an innocent person.”
Sam’s eyes flash and he’s in Dean’s space again. “This is who I am now, Dean,” he grates. “Get with the fucking program.”
Before Dean even has a chance to argue, Sam’s power clamps down over him. It slides under his skin and sets up a resonance with the lines etched into his back. Strength floods into him, and he’s catapulted into an easy, loose state that’s almost like being drunk.
“What’re you doing?” he slurs.
“Think of it as a little pick me up. I want you aware for our talk.” Sam kisses him on the forehead, soft and gentle and almost chaste, although it’s a little late for chaste with Sam’s power rubbing up along his insides—too close, too intimate, and so goddamned good that Dean’s half-hard just laying there.
“But I’m gonna give you this one, Dean. I know you’ve had a rough day.”
Sam turns Dean’s head so that all he can see is the back of the couch and a clean white stretch of wall. Another little surge of power and Dean is locked in place. Sam’s lips brush against the shell of his ear and he can’t even shudder.
“You don’t have to watch,” Sam breathes, and then he’s gone again.
Dean can’t see what’s going on, but he can still hear it when the girl starts to scream, the demon’s shriek layered on top like icing on a cake. The sound is muted, though, like he’s listening to voices at the end of a long hall. That’s Sam’s doing, he knows: Sam’s power flooding him and looping through the marks of ownership that flow down his back and across his hips. Sam’s power stopping up his ears with a cotton-candy-sweet hum that makes him almost not care about what’s happening just ten feet away.
Almost.
When Sam comes back into Dean’s field of view, he’s all but drenched in blood. There are tiny, grey gobs sliding down his shirt—brain matter—and flecks of bone peppering the red. The sight effectively kills the sense of calm that his power was doing its best to instill in Dean.
Sam reaches for him and he wants to scream—wants to retreat back into his head where he doesn’t have to put up with this shit anymore—but he’s not allowed to. The sigils painted into his back won’t let him take that escape route.
With a momentous surge of effort, Dean opens his lips and whispers, “Don’t.”
Sam hesitates, hurt flashing across his face, and then he straightens again. He watches Dean while he unbuttons his shirt and lets it slide off his shoulders. His shoes and socks come off next, tossed unceremoniously over his shoulder where they land with a wet, squishing sound, and Jesus Christ Dean’s supposed to sleep in this room. On that bed, if there’s anything left of it.
Sam must read Dean’s horror in his eyes because as he straightens he says, “Don’t worry; I’ll clean up after myself.”
Dean wants to scream that that’s not the point; Sam can recarpet the floor and replace the bed and repaint the walls and ceilings and it won’t make a fucking difference because Dean will still know that someone died here. He’ll know that someone was tortured to death here because he just can’t find it in himself to submit.
Then again, maybe that’s exactly the point.
Sam smiles as he unbuckles his belt and pushes his pants down, and just how far is he planning on going, anyway? All the way, it turns out, because Sam pulls his boxers off too and drops them on the floor next to his pants.
“Better?” he asks, spreading his arms wide.
Dean’s not sure how to answer that question. His brother is still streaked with blood where it soaked through his clothes—on his face, in his hair, coating his hands—but it’s not as disturbing as seeing those bits of brain and bone stuck to the soft chambray shirt he was wearing. On the other hand, now there’s really no way for Dean to pretend that Sam’s not hard, and that’s really fucking disturbing.
In the end, he opts for silence as the safest choice.
Sam nods to himself like Dean’s just agreed with him and then bends down again. Dean bites his lip as his brother lifts him, holding him close to his chest like he’s all of five years old. Except that Sam’s dripping right hand is a little too high on Dean’s thigh for this to be a completely platonic position. And the fact that Sam can hold him like this at all—that he can support Dean’s weight without any visible sign of effort—is just fucked up.
Dean knows that he’s lost weight since Sam sold the world upriver, but it hasn’t been much, and ever since Sam scrawled his claim across Dean’s back in ink and blood, he hasn’t dropped a single pound. Hasn’t lost any muscle mass even though he’s been trapped in this hamster cage of a suite for months now. Sam again. Sam throwing his power around like a spoiled kid who wants what he can’t have and won’t take no for an answer.
Dean supposes that Sam’s using his power again now, to make either Dean seem lighter or himself stronger. Either way, the result is the same. He doesn’t even know why he’s thinking about it, except that at least when he’s working out logistics he isn’t paying attention to the way that the liquid on Sam’s hands is still warm, still fresh. He’s not being driven slowly insane by the way that liquid is soaking through his jeans and shirt to stain his skin.
Sam turns abruptly and Dean closes his eyes a fraction of a second too late not to see what’s happened to the other side of the room. He’s certain that he’s going to be sick—that was part of a ribcage imbedded in the ceiling—but Sam’s power settles inside of him again, soothing the revulsion and the panic away.
“I love you, Dean,” Sam murmurs. “I need you. Too much to let anything happen to you.” He hoists Dean higher momentarily to nuzzle at the side of his face, and the power roiling through Dean expands. It feels like silk rubbing up against his insides.
“I know that you weren’t trying to kill yourself, so I’m gonna go easy on you today,” Sam announces, “But I can guarantee you that if you hurt yourself again—for any reason—I’ll bring a few kids up here. I’ll take my time, and I’ll be very, very creative. And, Dean? This time you will watch.”
His grip tightens, but that’s not what makes Dean’s breath rush out.
“Do you hear me?” Sam demands.
Dean nods his head against his brother’s chest and then, in case that isn’t enough, breathes, “Yeah.”
“Do you understand?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.” Sam starts them moving again; walking through the mess he’s made. Dean keeps his eyes tightly shut and tries not to think of the way it smells: of the shit and the piss and the sickening odor of too much blood over everything. When he hears Sam close the bathroom door behind them, shutting all of that out, his muscles go lax with relief.
“Do you think you can stand on your own?” Sam asks.
“Yeah,” Dean answers a third time, even though he’s not sure he can. He has to get out of his brother’s arms: has to not be touching Sam right now. He just needs some space to breathe, damn it.
Sam puts him down and Dean sways, almost falling. He catches himself on the edge of the sink and clings there, not sure if his debilitating weakness stems from the fact that he almost died less than two hours ago, or from what he just saw in the bedroom. From what Sam just promised to do if Dean tried anything like that again.
He hears his brother start up the taps on the bathtub and then Sam’s voice: an order. “Strip.”
There’s no point in arguing, so Dean lifts numb hands and fumbles at the buttons of his shirt. Sam lets him fight with the fabric and plastic on his own for a few minutes before moving in and taking over. His brother’s hands are clean again—Sam must have taken advantage of the water running into the tub—and Dean’s fascinated by them.
He remembers Sam teasing him with those hands: Sam standing him up in front of a mirror and making him watch while he ran his hands all over Dean’s body. Mapping out. Claiming. And then, when Dean’s muscles were trembling so badly that he thought he was going to fly apart at the seams, Sam shoved him against the mirror and fucked him while he stared into his own blown, dazed eyes.
Holy crap, Dean thinks suddenly. The flames. He’s just realized where he’s seen that particular shade of green before, and the thought of Sam riding up thirty three floors every day to see him, wrapped in that precise hue, is disconcertingly erotic.
Still, it’s his memory of that distant, happy, sane day that Dean blames for the way his skin flushes as his brother pushes his shirt open. His nipples are peaked and hard: aching. Sam notices, of course: Sam notices everything these days. His hands hesitate, then skim up Dean’s chest. He rubs his thumbs over Dean’s nipples, making his breath stutter.
“That’s it, baby,” Sam murmurs. “Just let me. Make you feel so good.” Ducking his head down, he closes his mouth over one of Dean’s nipples, and holy fuck that feels good. Feels like Sam has hotwired a line straight from that nipple to Dean’s dick and is stroking it hard and right and wet and … and there’s a glob of that blonde girl’s brain in Sam’s hair.
“What was her name?” Dean chokes out.
Sam’s mouth first stills and then, reluctantly, pulls off. “What?” he asks. His voice is low: annoyed bordering on angry. Right now Dean could give a shit.
“The girl you just tore apart in the bedroom. In the bed you want to fuck me in. She had a name, Sam. She was a person, damn it, and you just—”
Sam grabs him and spins him around before Dean realizes his brother’s moved. Sam shoves him forward, bending him over the sink and forcing his face up against the glass. Dean stares into his own doe-wide eyes, Sam naked and hard behind him, and is hit with a wave of dizzying déjà vu.
“It doesn’t matter what the fuck her name was,” Sam snarls. “You’re mine and she was careless with you. I told her what would happen. I told them all what would happen.”
“You didn’t have to kill her.”
“No?” Sam’s laugh is wild. “You think I could let something like that off with a warning? You almost died, Dean. Or would you rather I took that out on you?” He snaps his hips against Dean’s in a brutal thrust.
Dean is terrified enough that he’s seriously worried about having a heart attack, but he still offers, “If raping me is gonna stop you from killing any more innocent people, then just do it already.”
Sam’s breath hisses out and he bites down on the nape of Dean’s neck—his spot, always his—hard enough to leave a bruise. Then, shuddering, he rests his forehead between Dean’s shoulder blades.
“You’re such a—such a pain in my ass,” he whispers. “I can’t think when I’m around you, I can’t—need you so much, Dean.” Sam’s hold on Dean loosens and he slides down to kneel on the floor, wrapping his arms around Dean’s waist and burying his face in the small of his back. “You make—when I touch you it feels—all the noise and the hate and the rage goes quiet. I feel like—like I’m me again.”
He sounds so much like he did Before, and Dean wants to believe him—God, he wants to believe so much. Wants to think that he might be able to pull Sam back from whatever dark place he’s taken himself. But there’s a girl lying in pieces all over the next room, and enough blood on his brother’s hands that not all of the soap and hot water in the world would be enough to really scrub them clean. Dean’s Sam is gone, and he’s never coming back.
“You’re never going to be you again,” Dean whispers. The truth in his words leaves his throat a bleeding, sore thing. “You’re not—there’s no going back from what you’ve done.”
For a moment, Sam is silent and still behind him. Then his hands slide around to the buttons on Dean’s jeans and start popping them open.
“You’re right,” he says softly. “There’s no going back—for either of us. And the sooner you accept that, the better off you’ll be.”
He pulls Dean’s jeans down, taking his boxers with them and leaving him naked where it counts: vulnerable. Sam’s breath is warm on Dean’s ass as he taps at his left ankle. Dean numbly lifts first one leg and then the other. He expects his brother’s hands to dig into his hips—expects to feel Sam’s mouth on him, that hot tongue working him open—but instead Sam just finishes stripping him of his pants and boxers and then stands up.
Dean lets his brother steer him over to the tub and then stands, docile, while Sam leans over to turn off the water. Sam keeps one hand on Dean’s upper arm anyway, as though he expects Dean to bolt without some kind of restraint. Like running would help.
Looking down into the water, Dean thinks about ducking his head below the surface and just … not coming up. But that would leave his brother completely untethered, and after the threat Sam just made … Better not to risk it.
Sam tugs Dean’s shirt the rest of the way off and then nudges his shoulder. “Get in.”
Dean just wants to find some clean corner to curl up in and go to sleep. Let his nightmares give him a rest from the real world for a few hours. But Sam is going to let him do that just about never, so Dean gets into the tub and sits down, leaning back against the side.
The water is just this side of scalding and it feels good on his exhausted muscles. If he closes his eyes, Dean can pretend that the blood on his skin isn’t tinting the water pink. He can sense Sam crouched by the side of the tub, watching him, but he’s working real hard at not acknowledging that fact.
Sam’s always hated being ignored.
“Move forward.”
Dean opens his eyes and looks over at his brother. “What for?” he asks, too tired to tread lightly.
“I want to wash you.”
Dean shifts, unease coiling through his stomach. He hasn’t been naked with Sam since Before, and there’s already been too much touching for his peace of mind today. Besides: Sam wants to wash him? What the fuck kind of kink is that?
“Dude, that’s a little weird …” he starts, and then Sam gets impatient.
Power wraps around Dean and yanks him forward in the water. Waves slosh over the side of the tub while Sam gets up and steps in behind him. Dean stares at the choppy water as his brother sits down and sprawls long legs out on either side of his hips. Splaying one hand possessively over Dean’s stomach, Sam pulls him back against his chest.
A shudder runs through Dean’s muscles—too close, too goddamned intimate, and they’re both naked, and if Sam changes his mind about waiting then he’s about an inch away from getting fucked—and then he just … shuts down. Turns out there’s a limit to the amount of fear and horror a person can feel in one day. Anything after that is just white noise.
“Good boy,” Sam murmurs in his ear. “Just let me take care of you.” He stretches his free hand out and a facecloth floats over from the towel rack, closely followed by a bar of that sweet-smelling soap he likes so much. Humming softly under his breath, he lathers the cloth up and starts running it across Dean’s chest.
Dean lies there quietly for a few minutes before the slow passes of the cloth and the warmth of his brother’s body behind him set off a faint trembling in his muscles. He wants to stay wrapped in comforting numbness, but this whole thing is weird enough and stressful enough that he can feel the protective silence inside of him stretching thin like an overfilled balloon.
In a last ditch effort to distract himself, he opens his mouth and says, “Those flames there for everyone or just me?”
Sam’s hand stills, hesitating directly over Dean’s rapidly beating heart. As it starts moving again, Sam answers, “They’re there for everyone, but they’re attuned to you. To this.” He presses his other hand briefly against Dean’s spine.
“The tattoo.”
“Yeah.” Sam chuckles. “You’re resourceful, Dean; always have been. I knew you’d weasel your way out of these rooms at some point or other, but there’s no smooth talking this one. No tricks or cons.”
Sam is scrubbing at Dean’s lower stomach now, and it’s feeling a little better than it should. Dean takes a chance and, grasping his brother’s wrist, redirects his attention northward. Sam snorts in amusement but lets himself be guided.
“So, ah, you planning on keeping me locked up here for the rest of my life?”
“No. You can pass through the flames unharmed … just as soon as you submit to me.”
Dean stiffens. “And by ‘submit’ you mean …”
Circling Dean’s left nipple with the facecloth, Sam murmurs, “As soon as we consummate my claim on you.”
“You mean when I let you fuck me.”
“Mmm.” Sam nuzzles at Dean’s cheek, and slings his arm low around Dean’s stomach to hold him close.
Dean takes a deep, shaky breath, and then says, “I can’t keep doing this, Sam. You’re going to—I need—I can’t fucking breathe in here half the time, and—”
“Shh. It’s okay, Dean. I’m right here; I’ve got you.”
Yeah, that’s the problem.
Sam shifts and Dean is suddenly very aware of his brother’s cock pressing against the small of his back, closer than he’d like to his ass. His chest gives a weary pulse of nerves and he grasps at the sides of the tub. Looks like he’s not quite past feeling after all.
“Jesus Christ, Sam, just stop.”
“I’m not doing anything,” Sam says, but there’s knowledge in his voice, and amusement, and the bastard knows exactly what Dean means. If Dean has any doubts that his brother’s toying with him, then they disappear in the next instant when Sam gives a teasing, shallow thrust, and the head of his cock drags over Dean’s spine.
“Stop,” Dean whispers. His voice is so soft and lost that he can barely hear himself.
Sam chuckles, sending an answering vibration through Dean’s chest. “Why should I?” he asks.
He moves the facecloth down Dean’s body again, slow and sure. Dean’s pretty sure he knows where Sam is going with this, and he’s shuddering with the need to shove him away—to get up and at least try to run—but he can’t make his treacherous body obey. Sam slips his hand between Dean’s legs, pressing his thighs apart, and grips his dick.
It’s hard, of course it’s fucking hard, but it doesn’t mean anything. It’s not for Sam, and his soft, feathered touches. Not for the gentle kisses he’s laying on Dean’s shoulder. It can’t be, not anymore. But Sam’s hand is wrapped around him, the facecloth a flimsy defense from the skin-on-skin contact that Dean can't help but crave, and he can feel tears running down his cheeks as he fights the urge to thrust into that grip.
“You want me.” Sam’s voice is a low rumble though his bones, more felt than heard. “You’re hard for me right now, so why the fuck are you fighting this?”
Because it’s wrong. Because that’s not Sammy behind him with his hand on Dean’s cock: it’s just some twisted ruin. The only reason Sam’s hand isn’t dripping blood is that he washed it off and this water, oh fuck this water is red because of the girl’s blood, because of Dean’s blood, and he can’t, oh Christ he can’t.
He can’t do this and stay sane.
“P-please,” he begs. Every muscle in his body is taut with the effort not to move because if he does then he’s not going to be able to stop. He’s going to let Sam fuck him in this tainted, bloodied water, and he’s going to beg for it.
Miracle of miracles, Sam lets him go. Sam shoves him away and climbs out of the tub. Dean brings his knees up to his chest, reddened water sloshing against his skin, and hunches into himself. He can still feel the phantom grip of his brother’s hand on his dick. Sam, stomping across the room with sharp, angry movements, doesn’t look like he’s in much better shape.
Dean watches his brother yank a soft, crimson bathrobe off the hook on the back of the door and throw it on. Sam knots it closed and stands there with his back to Dean, chest heaving and head bowed. After a few minutes, he says, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
Dean blinks in surprise. If there’s anything he’s expecting from his brother, it isn’t an apology.
“I shouldn’t have—have tempted myself. You’re too—fuck, Dean, do you have any idea what you do to me?”
Dean’s got an inkling, yeah. He doesn’t know what to say, though. This is the most genuine—the most open—that Sam’s been with him since Before. Dean can’t put his finger on it, but this doesn’t feel like a trick. It feels real.
“When you—I felt the wards in the elevator go. I felt them latch onto you and I thought, ‘well, finally. Now he knows he can’t go anywhere and he’ll settle the fuck down.’” Sam shakes his head slightly. “Except you just—just stayed there, and the wards kept going off and when I checked on you—when I really looked, you were …” His voice cracks and he pauses for a moment before finishing, “I didn’t think I’d get here in time. I thought you were dead—thought I’d killed you for good and all of this was for nothing.”
Dean can’t find the words to reassure his brother. He isn’t sure he should even be trying to comfort Sam after what he’s done, the least of which is waiting to be cleaned up in the bedroom. But some instincts are cut too deeply, and Dean hears himself say, “I’m okay.”
“I don’t know what I would have done, man,” Sam confesses. “I can’t—without you, I just can’t, you know?”
Dean knows. That’s what got them into this mess in the first place, isn’t it? There’s more he could say—there are words he could use to ease the hurt line of his brother’s shoulders—but he’s already offered up what he can.
“How’d you get here so fast anyway?” he asks instead. “I thought you were in Vegas.”
“I was.” Sam turns around then. His eyes are amber-dark. “I took a shortcut. Distances in Hell are … different.”
Dean thinks about the sulfur scent that was on his brother when Sam carried him back into the room and winces internally. Sam’s tainted himself enough without making daytrips down there.
Sam looks down at him from the other side of the room and Dean stares back. He feels ashamed, and he’s not sure if it’s from the hard on he’s still nursing or from the worry he caused his brother. Maybe it’s both. But that doesn’t change what Sam is now. Doesn’t change what he’s done, what he’ll continue to do unless Dean can figure out some way to stop him.
Dean looks at Sam, searching for some faint remnant of the man he used to be, and can't see past those golden eyes. Past the blood still splattered on his face like off-color freckles. But that's still his little brother over there, and he owes Sam the truth, at least. After all, in a roundabout way, this whole mess is really Dean's fault.
“I can’t,” he says hoarsely. “Maybe I still—but it’s just reflex, man: it’s not you. If it’d make you stop I’d roll over in a second, but you’re—we’re past that, and you don’t. You don’t want that from me. I can’t give you what you want; I can’t make myself love you. Not like this. Just—kill me, or fuck me, I don’t really give a shit at this point, but this whole Stockholm syndrome angle you’re working isn’t going to happen. So just—God, Sam, just drop it.”
Sam’s face hardens and Dean knows instantly that he’s pushed this too far. Has made the mistake of thinking that he’s dealing with his brother and not the yellow-eyed demon’s creation.
Sam’s power slams into him and snaps his head back against the wall. He hears it hit and knows that there are fresh cracks running through the china-blue tiles in a spider webbed, cratered pattern.
Sam isn’t moving—he just stands there staring at Dean—but his shadow grows behind him: looms to fill the room and creep over the edge of the tub. The room is suddenly stifling—like the air on the edge of a hurricane—and the mirror over the sink shatters under the pressure. The toilet explodes outward in a shower of porcelain, and it smells like sulfur. Smells like Hell.
“Mine,” Sam growls. His voice is quiet, but the word rolls through Dean like an earthquake. “Say it. Fucking say it.”
“No,” Dean gasps.
The light in the room goes scarlet, as though cast by unseen flames. Sam takes a step forward and now Dean can see where that light is being reflected from; there are red flames burning in his brother’s eyes, flickers of carmine against saffron.
“Mine,” Sam repeats. Claws of power hook into Dean’s skin and tear their way inside. It’s a bloodless, painless entry, but Dean feels like screaming anyway because he can feel Sam rooting around inside of him. Can feel him searching like a bloodhound on a coon’s trail.
“Go ahead, brother,” Sam snarls. “Try and tell me that you don’t feel something for me, even now. That you can’t stand the sight of me. Tell me you hate me.”
Dean opens his mouth to do just that—maybe he can piss Sam off enough that he’ll put Dean down accidentally—and Sam’s power coalesces to a bright, burning point deep inside of him. It’s like Sam is shining a spotlight on a tiny, shadowed corner of Dean’s heart: the place he’s been fighting like hell to ignore.
The place that won’t go away, not ever, no matter how many innocent girls Sam splatters across the ceiling.
Oh God. Oh God, it’s true.
Dean knows that the realization flashes into his eyes because Sam’s lips curve into a triumphant smile, and the redness in the room dims. The horrible pressure shoving Dean back against the wall loosens slightly, and warmth chases away the ache in his skull that he hasn’t even noticed before now.
“Tell me,” Sam breathes, coming close and crouching next to the tub.
“It doesn’t …” Dean swallows with difficulty and then finishes, “…it doesn’t change anything. You—every time you touch me, I—”
“Mine,” Sam insists gently, trailing his fingertips down Dean’s cheek. “Say it. Please, Dean. I need … I need you, man.”
Sam’s eyes are shining, earnest and open and worried, despite what they both saw embedded in Dean’s soul, that he’s alone in this. And maybe it’s twisted and weak and wrong, but Dean can’t leave his little brother hanging like that.
“Yours,” he mumbles, dropping his eyes.
He doesn’t need to see Sam’s face to know it’s lighting up with happiness. He can feel it against his skin, like rays of spring sunlight.
“You finish getting cleaned up,” Sam says. His voice is more cheerful than Dean’s heard it in years. “I’ll order us some dinner. Steaks? You want steak? We can eat and have a few beers and watch a movie, okay?"
Oh hell. This is even worse than Sam’s all-powerful dark lord routine because when it comes to seducing Dean, this might actually work. Might make Dean forget, for a few hours, what’s happened to the world.
“I’m kinda tired …” he starts, but Sam jumps in with, “I’ll have someone hunt down a copy of the Great Escape.”
Of course he picks that. What better movie to remind Dean of his place? It’s a punishment and reward all wrapped up in one twisted package.
Still staring down at the bloody water he’s sitting in, Dean asks, “Isn’t that enough for today, Sam? Isn’t it—I told you what you wanted to hear, and I—”
“It’ll be great,” Sam insists. “Promise I’ll stay on my end of the couch.” He presses a quick kiss to Dean’s lips before bouncing up onto his feet. Dean suspects that, after the admission he just made, Sam’s efforts to keep his hands to himself—paltry though they may have been—are going to take a drastic nosedive.
“Take your time, okay?” Sam says. “It’ll take me a while to clean up out there and I don’t want you upset again today.” He hurries out of the room before Dean can offer any more arguments, not that they would have accomplished anything.
Dean’s chest aches so much he feels that one more absent touch will shatter him. He thinks he’d welcome it. Life was intolerable before, and now Sam has turned that damned spotlight on Dean’s heart and made him look. Sam has forced him to acknowledge the fact that, despite everything Sam’s done, there’s still something inside of Dean that cares for his brother. Maybe even loves him.
As he sits in the cooling, polluted water, Dean wonders what kind of person that makes him, and he wonders—oh God, he wonders—why he’s even bothering to fight when he’s already lost the war.