Chapter Text
Dean wakes reluctantly, ripped free from dreams of being trapped in Hell. The air in the room is soft and pure, but he has awakened this way too many times to be fooled into relief. There are reminders, even this close to sleep: the metal bracelets are heavy on his wrists, and his hair is falling in his eyes, longer than he’d ever let it get on his own.
He wishes that he could sink back into the refuge of his nightmares, but he knows even without looking that Sam is in the room, waiting for him. Sam is always there: he hasn’t left Dean’s side for more than a few minutes at a time since Dean’s failed escape attempt almost three months ago. Spends his time watching Dean with sharp eyes, like he’s worried about a suicide attempt, no matter how many children he’s threatened to kill. So Dean knows that Sam is there, just like he knows Sam can tell from the shift in his breathing that he’s awake.
Cracking his eyes open, Dean doesn’t immediately see his brother sitting by the bed, so he gives himself a few minutes to adjust. He stares at his pillow, tracing the creases there and feeling pathetically grateful that Sam still allows him this small space. He doesn’t know where Sam sleeps, or even if he sleeps; he only knows that when he curls up at night it’s without the crushing pressure of Sam’s body against his. It’s one of the only times he can get any air.
Dean’s chest tightens without warning and his hand twitches against the silk sheets. He thinks of his dream, and the searing pain of having his flesh peeled from his bones, and wants to laugh. It’s pretty funny, after all: he’s living in the lap of luxury and all he can think about is Hell. Is how he wishes that Sam had just let him go when his year was up.
He’s probably the first person in the history of the world to long for damnation.
Then again, Sam’s a first too as far as Dean knows. The yellow-eyed demon had other children, but Sam is the only one who took those final steps and opened himself to corruption. He’s the only one who completed the ritual, mouth stained red with blood and eyes flaring irrevocably gold. Demon blood in a human body: two halves coming together to form a terrifying whole.
A woman once told Dean that looking at him was like staring into the sun. Her name was Anna Brooks, and she was plain, brown-haired and mousy: an art student at some podunk community college in the middle of Arkansas. She wanted him to model for her; asked with a flush on her cheeks and down turned eyes, the bit about the sun not feeling like a line in the obvious face of her awkwardness.
Dean did the modeling, kept his hands and his dick to himself, and left her with the fifty she tried to pay him with. He hadn’t ever told Sam or John about her—some things were too private—but that hadn’t stopped him from working her words into his stories. Couldn’t let a line like that go to waste, after all.
He remembers Anna here on the edge of waking because looking at Sam is a bit like looking at the sun these days: all that strength and grace, those wide smiles and huge, talented hands. Beautiful. But get too close and the power lurking beneath that beauty—all the cruelty and hunger that the yellow-eyed demon unleashed when Sam made his bargain—would char you to cinders. Sometimes, Dean feels burnt just being in the same room as his brother.
Dean watches the firelight flicker across the black satin pillowcase and thinks that Anna’s words weren’t such a compliment after all.
Wait: firelight?
Sitting up, Dean blinks sleep-fogged eyes at the picture window. The curtains are drawn back and Sam is framed by an eerie, sullen glow. He has his back to Dean, broad and forbidding beneath the white button down he’s wearing. He doesn’t turn at the rustle of the covers as they slide down to pool in Dean’s lap.
“What’s happening?” Dean asks.
Now Sam glances over. His eyes travel lazily over Dean’s bare chest, making him wish that he wore more to bed last night. It was hotter than usual in the suite, though, and it had been strip down to his boxers or do without a sheet. Lately he feels too defenseless to sleep without that soft fabric as a barrier against prying eyes.
Under his brother's appreciative gaze, Dean's hands itch to pull the sheet back up and cover himself, but he doesn’t know what kind of mood that obvious rejection would put Sam in. The glint of amusement in those amber eyes tells him that his brother knows how uncomfortable he is right now, but Sam doesn’t comment on it. He only says, “The city’s burning,” and looks back out the window.
“What?” Dean blurts. For the first time since he woke up chained to a table in this suite, he forgets to be afraid. Kicking his way free from the sheet, he tumbles off the bed and stumbles over to stand next to his brother.
The world is on fire, flames boiling and trees exploding from the heat and Jesus he didn’t know that fire could get that tall. Didn’t know it could burn that white, blinding color not just at the core but everywhere: thick sheets of it filling Central Park like drifting, wind-tossed snow. There’s a tornado of pure flame rising up in the distance; even from here, Dean has to crane his neck to see the top, towering at least forty stories high. Overhead, thick clouds of demon-black smoke choke the air. Dean can’t see the sky through the darkness. As he stares, a sudden pulse of flame slides up against the lower floors of the Ritz Carlton like waves on a beach.
“Jesus Christ,” he says faintly.
“It’s okay,” Sam says, resting one hand on the back of Dean’s neck. His thumb rubs tiny circles that are probably supposed to be calming. “We’re safe. I made sure that we’d be protected from any accidents.”
“Accidents?” Dean repeats incredulously. “An accident is spilling coffee on your shirt. That’s … I don’t know what the fuck that is.”
Sam’s thumb stills and his other fingers dig into Dean’s skin. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were accusing me of something.”
Dean isn’t, not really. But he knows it’s not beyond the realm of possibility. And it’s not like Sam looks all that bothered by the blaze. He ignores the warning of his brother’s fingers and says, “Are you denying it?”
There’s a low, ruffling feel to the air that he’s come to associate with Sam losing control of his emotions and, for a moment, Dean thinks his brother is going to lift him and shake him like a rat. Maybe toss him against the wall and yell at him. Instead, Sam uses that hand on Dean’s neck to pull him closer.
Dean resists until it’s follow or fall and then takes the step. It puts him between his brother and the glass and Sam immediately releases his neck.
Before Dean can edge away again, Sam steps closer. He trails his hand down Dean’s chest to rest on his lower stomach. Dean tries to lean forward into the fire-warmed glass, but Sam presses more firmly on his abdomen, holding their bodies firmly together.
Caught between a firestorm and the sun, Dean feels feverish and faint.
Sam rests his chin on Dean’s shoulder. His pinky slides beneath the band of Dean’s boxers. “I didn’t start the fire,” he sing songs, and then giggles.
Two buildings down, something explodes and Dean jumps. Sam holds him tighter, his other arm coming across Dean’s chest.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Sam breathes in his ear.
No, Dean thinks, but he doesn’t quite dare to say it out loud. He shuts his eyes and can still feel the flames against his eyelids.
How many humans are hiding in the city, unaware of what’s coming? How many hunters, holed up close and waiting for a chance to strike at the heart of Hell? None, probably: Sam wouldn’t allow a threat to Dean’s safety to come that close. The only living creatures left in the city by now are demons and their human slaves, maybe a couple billion roaches living off the rotting carcasses stinking up dark stairwells.
The demons can take care of themselves, and the slaves would probably be better off as ash on the wind. Still, Dean’s bothered by the destruction: by the sheer wantonness of it.
“The whole city could burn,” he points out.
“Maybe.” Dean can feel Sam’s smirk against his shoulder. “Property value on this place would skyrocket.”
A joke. New York City is burning to the ground and Sam is making jokes. A tiny seed of anger unfurls in Dean’s stomach where his brother’s hand rests and he says, “You could do something.”
“Mmm. I’m planning on it. Thought maybe I’d order up some beer, couple pizzas. We’ll bring the couch over by the window and watch the show.” Sam nudges Dean’s jaw, tilting his head to the side, and sucks a slow kiss into his exposed neck.
Dean’s eyes flutter open involuntarily. He stares at their reflection in the glass: pale ghosts filled with fire and smoke. Sam’s hair curtains most of his brother’s face, but Dean can make out those hungry lips working on his skin. The pressure is just this side of painful, and he can feel the bruise forming. As if he hasn’t been branded as Sam’s enough already.
He has to swallow twice to get his voice working again, but he finally manages to rasp, “You’re just gonna watch it burn?”
Sam gives Dean’s neck a final, playful nip and then angles his head up to meet his eyes in their reflection. An inferno writhes in his pupils as he licks his lips. Slowly. Deliberately.
“Got something else in mind?” His voice rubs suggestively along Dean’s body. “Something better?”
Inching his hand lower on Dean’s stomach, Sam sends his pinky and ring fingers sliding through the wiry hair just above Dean’s dick. Dean is gripping his brother’s wrist, stilling him, before he realizes that he’s moved. Sam allows himself to be stopped and immediately starts nuzzling at the fresh bruise he left on Dean’s throat.
“You’re so fucking gorgeous by firelight. Could watch you all day. Just want to—just want to sit here and kiss you. You gonna let me, Dean?” He shifts even closer, breath ghosting over the corner of Dean’s lips, and his hand flexes in Dean’s boxers. When he speaks again, their mouths are close enough that Dean breathes in the whisper.
“You gonna kiss me back this time?”
“What part of the city being on fire do you not understand?”
Dean is impressed with the fact that his voice doesn’t shake: that he sounds cold and strong and slightly pissed off. Probably because he is slightly pissed off, but still. It’s been a while since he’s been angry enough for it to register above the constant thrum of fear.
“What do you want me to do about it?” Sam asks, his voice tight with annoyance. He’s always annoyed when Dean manages to ignore his clumsy attempts at seduction.
“Well, you could try stopping it,” Dean suggests.
He isn’t sure that Sam is powerful enough to quench the fire, but it turns out that Sam is a little more confident in his own strength because instead of arguing the plausibility angle he goes with, “Where’s the fun in that?”
The second explosion of the morning comes from somewhere on the opposite side of the park. Dean’s eyes track away from Sam’s and focus on the burning world outside. The MET is over there, he realizes. If the fire weren’t in the way, he’d be able to see its white exterior.
If it’s still standing, that is.
Sam dragged him there once, a little under six months before he left: hell, the acceptance letter from Stanford was probably already burning a hole in the bottom of his bag. Dad had dropped them off in the city while he went to hunt an incubus in Hackensack: they’d been deemed a liability at their ages, and with their libidos raging out of control.
Dean remembered agreeing with their father in principal but being pissed off anyway, and Sam had to put up with his temper for the first few days. But Sam, being Sam, could always haul him out of whatever mood he’d managed to work himself into, and on the fourth day after Dad left Dean found himself agreeing to take his brother to the MET.
Aside from the occasional naked chick or dude, Dean had been bored out of his mind. Sam, predictably, loved every minute. He spent hours gushing over ugly canvases and pulling Dean from one exhibit to the next. Dean would have chalked the whole day up as a bust if not for the fact that, when they got back to the motel, Sam gave him one hell of a reward for putting up with his geeking.
With his brother hard and hungry behind him, it isn’t the sex that Dean focuses on but all of the stuff in that stone building. His appreciation for the ‘finer things in life’ hasn’t really developed much past John Carpenter movies and a good beer, but he’s not so stupid that he doesn’t know what that kind of heritage will be worth to the people who are left when this is all over (and it will end, it has to).
He wants to leave them with more than ash and the taste of blood and the knowledge that no one is going to come riding to their rescue after all: that God and Superman and the Good Samaritan are all on a permanent cigarette break.
And he wants it for Sammy.
“If you don’t do something, the MET’s gonna go up.”
“So?” Sam lays a gentle bite on the corner of Dean’s jaw.
“You liked it,” he says, ignoring the rush of nerves the same way he’s ignoring the scrape of teeth over his skin. Which is to say, not very well. “You—when we went there, you said it felt like a real date.”
Sam’s breath huffs out in a soft laugh and (oh thank God) he shifts down from Dean’s neck to plant a kiss on his shoulder. “You called me a girl and asked if that meant you were gonna have to start buying me flowers to get me to put out.”
What Dean said was that he wasn’t gonna be buying Sam flowers, if that’s what he was after, but Sam’s version is close enough. Dean steels himself—what he’s about to do is kin to shaking a hornet’s nest like a canasta and then sticking his hand inside—and then asks, “You remember what happened when we got back to the motel?”
Sam goes still, and Dean feels the pulse of his brother’s hunger as a sudden swelling against his ass. He wants to pull forward and doesn’t, only half-held by Sam’s hand as it presses more firmly against his lower abdomen.
“I fucked you.”
“Four times.” It comes out as a moan because, despite everything, it still feels like Sammy behind him.
Sam’s breath hitches and his hips rock forward in an involuntary movement, knocking Dean’s half-hard cock against the window. Dean bites his lip and braces himself with one hand. Feels the warmth of the fire seeping into his palm.
Biting the lobe of Dean’s ear, Sam gives it a tug. He licks a slow path around the shell and then whispers, “It only counts as four if you pull out between rounds.”
His voice drips with promise and Dean can’t help but remember what that felt like: Sam’s cock softening and hardening inside of him in a cycle that left him breathless and stunned. Falling asleep with Sam still filling him, with Sam draped over him in a long, hot line and his own come a sticky, cooling mess beneath him on the bed. Dean had been sore as hell in the morning, stiff in all the wrong places and itching where his come had dried to a flaking crust on his cock and lower stomach, but it had been worth it.
“You walked funny for a week,” Sam recalls. “I thought for sure Dad would figure it out.”
Dean hadn’t. John only noticed Dean’s health when it interfered with a job, and by the time he needed backup again, Dean was already back to speed.
Sam slides his hand from Dean’s stomach to grasp one of his hips. His other hand trails down Dean’s chest and takes up a mirroring position. Hooking his thumbs over Dean’s boxers and laying his other fingers along Dean’s skin, he toys with the fabric.
Dean isn’t sure whether it’s meant as a threat or an enticement, but he’s blisteringly aware of how close he is to being naked. Sure, he hasn’t got anything that his brother hasn’t seen before, but things with Sam seem to get more complicated the less he’s wearing. Besides, he already feels naked enough, thanks.
“So, what prompted the little walk down memory lane?” Sam purrs.
All of Dean’s survival instincts are screaming at him to just drop it already, but he focuses on the fire outside and answers, “It might be fun to do again sometime. If you ever let me out of here.”
Sam’s hands give a little twitch Dean feels his boxers slip lower. When Sam speaks, there’s anger threading through the desire in his voice. “You know that’s not how it works, Dean.”
“I didn’t mean—I meant when—you know.” Dean can’t quite bring himself to say it, but he’s pretty sure his brother understands.
Sam laughs. Tightening his grasp, he digs his fingers into Dean’s hips hard enough that Dean suspects he’ll be wearing bruises in the shape of his brother’s hands later.
“You don’t really think that you’re being subtle here, do you?” Sam growls. “You want something, just come out and say it.”
“Fine. I want you to put out the fire.”
“Why?” Sam presses. “For a few paint-smeared canvases? You were bored stiff, Dean: you hated it there. So why the fuck are you putting your ass on the line for it now?”
“I didn’t hate—” Dean’s words cut off as Sam’s power slams into him, shoving him flush against the window.
“Don’t lie to me. I asked you a question and I want an answer. Why is this so important to you?”
Dean searches for another lie and can’t come up with one. He isn’t even sure why he’s bothering: Sam could reach inside of him and rip the truth from his mind. Will if Dean doesn’t give him what he wants quickly enough.
“I—I want it for—for after.”
The temperature in the room dips. There’s an inferno blazing in front of Dean’s eyes, but there are crystalline ice patterns forming on the glass where his breath fogs out. Oh fuck, maybe he should have lied.
“After what, Dean? After I’m ‘back to normal’? After you save the day and drive the demons back to Hell?”
The world blurs and moisture slips down his cheeks. His tears freeze as they hit the window. He can’t speak through his panic: doesn’t have an answer that won’t infuriate Sam further.
Sam’s power pulls back suddenly and he spins Dean around by the shoulder. Leaning on the window with one hand on either side of Dean’s head, he hisses, “That’s never going to happen. You need to give up the daydream and accept it.” He shoves one leg between Dean’s thighs and presses in, dragging a whimper from Dean’s throat. “You need to accept us.”
“Sam—Sammy—”
“How many people do I have to rip apart in front of you for you to understand? You want me to take you with me to the front lines, Dean? You want to watch me burn through the last, pathetic resistance?” His voice drops. “I can liquefy people, did you know that? All I have to do is look at them and they … they loose cohesion. Do you have any idea what that smells like? What it sounds like when they try to scream?”
Sam’s crying, and Dean doesn’t think he knows it. In the midst of his fear and his disgust at what Sam is telling him, he feels a flicker of hope unfurl in his chest. If Sam is crying—if he’s as horrified by this as Dean—then maybe there’s still something of Sammy left beneath the monster.
It’s that hope that drives Dean to bring his hands up to cradle Sam’s face. That swipes his thumbs across his brother’s cheekbones, obscuring the lines of tears.
Sam’s power slams into him, threading through the cuffs and the lines on his back and stretching him out against the glass. Dean’s arms are extended to either side, the cuffs pulsing warm against his wrists. Sam is standing just out of reach with his head bowed and his body shaking like a blade of grass in a windstorm.
“Sammy,” Dean whispers. He strains forward and the power coursing through him sharpens. It lodges in his throat and stops his voice—stops his air.
Sam stills himself and raises his head slowly, eyes reflecting back the fire on the other side of the window. “Don’t.” His voice is laced with the crackle of flames. “Don’t you fucking pity me.”
If Sam’s power weren’t wedged down his throat, Dean would try to explain that it isn’t pity he’s feeling, but compassion. It wouldn’t do any good, of course—he doesn’t think that Sam is capable of making that distinction anymore—but he would try. As it is, all he can do is continue to try to fight Sam’s hold in an attempt to reach out to the brother he thinks he saw.
Sam’s eyes narrow. “Maybe I should let it burn. Maybe that would get it through that thick skull of yours that this is the way things are now. The demons won. We lost. End. Of. Fucking. Story.”
He punctuates his final words with sharp bursts of power. It floods though Dean’s insides, tasting of Sam and leaving him a wash of conflicting emotions and needs.
Desire.
The power clogging his airways dissipates and Dean has almost two whole seconds to suck in a fresh breath before Sam’s mouth is there, hungry and taking. Lapping at his lips, biting them, demanding entrance.
Dean tilts his head back and opens his mouth, letting his brother in. He ignores the way his stomach turns, the way his heart flutters with panic. As much as it feels like it, this isn’t submission. It’s a desperate attempt to find out if what Sam said to him in the bathroom three months ago is true.
Sam kisses Dean for so long that he’s breathless again. When he finally pulls back, Dean is dazed. Sam’s lips are as swollen as Dean’s feel, and it takes effort to look past that into his eyes. He searches that golden gaze for a hint of calm: for some sign that his indiscretion has soothed the darkness inside of his brother.
But Sam’s face is as impenetrable as a mirror as he grips Dean’s hair and hauls his head back, baring his throat.
“Tell you what,” Sam says. “I’ll give you one location for every question you answer honestly. You ready?”
Dean isn’t going to like this, he can tell. But it isn’t like he has a choice. Letting his eyes fall shut, he nods. Sam’s hand immediately tightens in his hair.
“You’re going to look at me when you answer,” he insists. Dean forces his eyes open again and Sam rewards him by nuzzling his cheek. “That’s better. Okay, we’ll start off with something easy. Why did you bring up that day at the MET?”
In a way, Sam is right: it’s a simple question and Dean knows the answer, could offer it in a second. But then again, he also knows that answering is going to piss his brother off, and he would really like to get out of this with his skin intact.
If this is what Sam considers an easy question, Dean really doesn’t want to know what the hard ones are going to look like.
“Clock’s ticking, baby,” Sam prods.
Dean tightens his jaw and then decides that if he’s going to be upsetting Sam anyway, he might as well go the whole hog. “I thought it might make you more willing to get off your ass and do something.”
“Which part?” Sam asks, relentless. “The part where you spent the whole day bitching about being bored or the part where I fucked you?”
“The fucking,” Dean grounds out.
“You thought I’d save it in hopes of a repeat performance.” Sam’s voice is dangerously soft.
Despite the warning of his brother’s tone, and despite his own climbing fear, Dean’s frustration with the whole goddamned situation ratchets up a notch into something like anger. He presses his lips together.
Sam just smiles at him and purrs, “Tick tock, Dean.”
“That wasn’t a question, Sam,” Dean shoots back.
“Fine. Is that what you were hoping for?”
When Dean still doesn’t answer—too angry now and reveling in the feeling—Sam uses his grip on Dean’s hair to turn his head to the side until Dean can see fire. He’s suddenly aware that Sam is painted in a shifting, reddened glow: the whole room seems to have been dipped in it in.
“Answer me or I let it burn.”
Through the phantom taste of ash in his mouth, Dean manages to bite out a “Yes.”
Sam’s amber eyes darken as he slowly draws Dean’s head back to the point where his muscles are screaming for release and it hurts to swallow.
“I’m disappointed, man,” he murmurs. “We’ve been over this I don’t know how many times.”
It doesn’t require an answer, but Dean licks his lips and offers, “I know, I’m sorry,” anyway. His defiance is melting underneath his brother’s gaze. He was angry all the time at first, back in the early days After, but it’s getting harder and harder to maintain that kind of emotion.
“Do you want me to just take you? Is that it?” Sam’s thigh, intrusive and firm, shoves back in between Dean’s legs. He leans closer, his breath hot in Dean’s ear, and whispers, “You want me to fuck you? Right here? Because I could, Dean. I could turn you around and spread you open and take you while you watch the city burn. You think that’d get it through your thick skull that things have changed?”
“Don’t.”
The word comes too freely to Dean’s mouth these days; comes unbidden like an old friend whenever Sam pushes too hard. He can feel his brother’s erection against his hip and knows that Sam must feel his in turn. For a moment, Dean has a full bodied flash of their bodies moving together, sweat slick between them and that delicious, staticy burn in his ass that comes whenever Sam gives it to him hard. Sam rocks against him and Dean can’t quite manage to swallow his moan.
“See, your mouth keeps saying no, but your body …”
Sam’s hand is inside of Dean’s boxers before he knows what’s happening, wrapping around his dick and making his pulse soar. Sam’s thumb swipes across the head, smearing precum and making it impossible for Dean to keep pretending that he isn’t turned on by Sam’s body being so close.
“Doesn’t mean anything,” Dean insists. He does his best to focus on the discomfort in his neck muscles, but it’s near impossible to ignore the way that Sam is idly playing with him. His throat feels parched as he says, “Fuck, Sam, you know me; I get hard if the wind’s blowing the right way.”
Sam’s hand tightens on Dean’s cock, drawing a hiss from him. “No lying, Dean. You don’t—” He swallows and the fingers threading Dean’s hair tense in warning. “You do not want to piss me off right now.”
“Seem kinda pissed already,” Dean pants.
Sam gives one of his unbelieving huffs and then says, “Don’t make it worse.”
Dean must be feeling particularly masochistic today because he immediately comes back with: “You think it could get worse?”
He waits for the pain he’s sure will follow that: just because Sam hasn’t hurt him yet doesn’t mean he won’t if Dean pushes him to it. But Sam holds himself completely still for an endless minute and then carefully unwinds his hand from Dean’s hair. Lowering his head is even more painful than holding it at that awkward angle was and Dean winces. Sam’s hand finds the back of his neck and rubs, working out the tension.
“I’m beginning to wonder if you need me to do it,” Sam says after a moment. “If you need me to just take you once so that you understand things are different now, that you’re mine and I’m not letting you go. I’m wondering if you need a reminder of how good I can make it. Or maybe you just need an out. Maybe you need me to take so that you won’t feel responsible for letting me fuck you.”
Sam releases Dean’s dick and shoves his hand lower. Dean’s stance automatically widens for his brother’s touch, despite the sudden terror washing through him. He holds himself still as Sam’s fingers stroke over his entrance: a place they haven’t been since Before, despite all the heavy petting.
“Please—” Dean whispers, and then his voice cuts off as his brother’s power curls around his throat.
“Please do it? That what you want, baby?”
Now Dean can hear the tremors in Sam’s voice. He wonders if he’s done it this time: if he’s finally pushed Sam past the threshold of control.
“It’d be so much easier for you if I did, wouldn’t it?” Sam continues. “You could blame this on the big bad demon then, couldn’t you? Tell everyone I made you do it, that I forced you, that I’m a monster. Huh? Is that what you want? Answer me, damn it!”
Sam is shouting by the end, but his fingers are still gentle in their caresses. The contrast is fucking with Dean’s head, and he doesn’t know which to believe: the tenderness or that wild, bruising anger. Sam seems to realize that he’s holding Dean’s voice for ransom, or maybe he’s just done talking, because the pressure around Dean's throat eases.
“Come on, Dean,” Sam breathes. “I asked you a question.” Before Dean can do more than wet his lips, he adds sharply, “The truth, or I let it burn. And trust me, I’ll know if you’re lying.”
Dean shuts his eyes against the painful lump swelling his throat. He doesn’t want to answer that question. Because he and Sam both know what the answer is, but if they don’t acknowledge it—if Dean doesn’t have to say it—then they can pretend it isn’t true.
“Is that what you want?” The question is almost compassionate.
Dean realizes that he’s crying. He’s ashamed by it. Ashamed by the way that his body is reacting to Sam’s stroking despite the frantic signals his brain is sending.
“Simple question, baby. Yes or no?”
The window is fire-warm at Dean’s back, and the sun is before him. Sam’s heat soaks into his muscles and he wants, oh God, so much. Sam’s fingers are at his entrance, not pushing, just playing, and Sam Sam Sammy is everywhere and nowhere at the same time and Dean just … he can’t take this anymore. He can’t.
He can feel the slide his mind makes toward madness. Welcomes it like a lover.
Then Sam’s power thunders through him, setting his nerves alight and dragging him back to whatever sanity still exists in this fractured world.
“None of that, Dean,” Sam warns. Both of his hands are cradling Dean’s face, and Dean isn’t hard anymore. He wonders how much time passed while he was busy freaking out. How much of the city has burned.
Pull yourself together, son. I need you to be strong for me.
Dad? Dean thinks, but Dad is dead. Dad isn’t just dead but as gone as a spirit can get. Lucky for him: if he hadn’t died Before, then Sam surely would have torn him apart Now. Probably would have made Dean watch. That voice—those words—are just a memory. But they give Dean the strength to face himself.
“I don’t want either,” he says. His voice sounds strange in his own ears: trembling and hoarse. “I want my brother back. I want—God, I wish I hadn’t made that deal. I wish I hadn’t done this to you. But I couldn’t—without you, I just couldn’t, and I—it’s my fault. All of this is m-my fault. And I can’t—Jesus, I can’t take much more of this, so I … yeah, if it’s a choice between you making me forget who I am and you r-ra—taking what you want, then just take it already.”
“No,” Sam says. He sounds almost as broken as Dean feels, and Dean wishes that he could see through his tears: wishes he could make out the expression on his brother’s face. “If I—Dean, if I did that, I don’t think that you’d—I want you, Dean. I want my brother. I don’t want some kind of hollowed out shell, so I. I’m sorry, I can’t give you that out.”
“Sammy,” Dean begs. He reaches out, clings to Sam’s shirt, and Sam lets him. His hands are gentle on Dean’s cheeks as they brush away his tears.
“If I did that to you, I—I don’t think I’d be able to pull you back. And I need you here. I need you to—to anchor me. I’m sorry, man. I’m so goddamned sorry.”
Dean’s pretty sure that the demon cutting him up inside while wearing his father’s face hurt less than this. It’s a struggle to breathe, he knows that he’s hyperventilating, and maybe he wants to pass out. Because for the first time he believes, right through to his core, that Sam isn’t going to take him until he wants it. In any normal world, that knowledge would come as a relief, but instead it’s sending Dean into a panic.
Fucked up. Fucked up beyond repair.
Sam presses his mouth against the pulse in Dean’s throat and bites down. It doesn’t hurt but Dean can feel his heartbeat against his brother’s mouth and it leaves him feeling even more exposed. He sobs harder, feeling like he’s going to come apart at any moment, and then Sam’s hands settle on his waist and set up a rhythm: grip, release, grip, release.
It’s deliberate and steady, and Dean finds himself focusing on that rhythm. Feels his pulse slow from its frantic throb to match. Calm settles over him, cool and soothing as a summer rain. This time the low thrum of Sam’s power slipping into him is so subtle that Dean doesn’t realize what’s happening until he’s lax enough that he’d collapse on the floor if he weren’t being held up. His chest feels … empty.
“Getting better at this,” he mumbles.
Sam sucks at the skin in his mouth, not quite hard enough to bruise, and then draws off. “I’ve had a lot of practice,” he says. The words are bitter, but Sam’s eyes are gentle as he scans Dean’s face. “You okay?”
Dean laughs hoarsely. “No.”
“Okay, stupid question. Are you … better?”
Dean wants the answer to be no, but it isn’t. Sam just shoved him into acknowledging a few truths that he wishes he could forget, but now that the initial shock is over—now that Sam’s power is running through the tattoo on his back in soothing waves—it doesn’t seen so earth-shattering.
He nods.
“Good.” Sam runs a reassuring hand up and down Dean’s side. “Good.”
Dean takes a few moments to enjoy the numb quiet inside of his chest and then asks, “Did you do that on purpose?”
It’s crossed his mind before, of course—that Sam is playing him, is taking him closer to what Sam wants in fits and starts and encouraging small explosions instead of an irrevocable meltdown—but he hasn’t ever come out and asked. He isn’t sure what it says about him that he’s asking now.
Sam’s expression is unreadable.
“Did you?” Dean presses.
Sam’s power unfurls from Dean’s body, dropping him forward into his brother's arms. Sam steadies him and then says, “There are some new movies over by the TV. I shouldn’t be gone more than a few hours. I’ll save what I can, okay?”
It takes Dean a few seconds to remember what started this whole thing in the first place and then he says, “Thanks.”
Sam regards him evenly. “I suppose it’d be pushing my luck to ask you to say it.”
Dean stares at him. He tries to process what his brother’s asking for, but his brain feels like it’s been shoved into a blender and pureed. Although he’s calm now, the aftershocks of his near-breakdown are still shuddering through his muscles and that’s even more distracting.
Sam’s eyes narrow again, but not in anger this time. Dean can read sadness in those yellow depths—or maybe that’s just wishful thinking. He isn’t surprised when Sam pulls him in closer and places a chaste kiss on his forehead.
“I love you,” Sam whispers, and then the warmth of his arms is gone.
Dean’s legs give out on him, dropping him into the floor in a heap, but Sam doesn’t pause. Dean lifts his head in time to see his brother disappearing through the door—unwarded, now that Dean knows he can’t get off this floor. It closes behind him on a breeze of power and Dean is alone.