Chapter Text
Dean expects Sam to mount an immediate and unrelenting offensive as soon as they’re back in the car. But Sam is quiet on the drive—although where they’re driving to, Dean isn’t sure. He’s just driving as fast and as far as he can get from that white room, from Cas’ possible sacrifice (no knowing what activating a banishing sigil carved into his own chest might have done to him), from the terror on Adam’s face as the light in the room swelled into an unknowable, blinding brilliance.
Even from where he stood on the edge of the threshold, Dean could feel that light trickling into him—recognizing him and coming faster, because you apparently don’t get take backs when it comes to archangels. There was a part of him that recognized Michael in turn, a part that longed for the purifying wash of oblivion that would take him along with the angel’s touch: longed for an end, finally, to the red, pestilential places inside of him. An end to the dreams of fire and corruption, and to the seething hate and violence that sometimes cloud his judgment.
Dean knew, as he hovered in the doorway, that losing those places would burn. Michael’s grace would pour over them like acid on sugar, bubbling and smoking until they were completely seared away. He sensed the possibility that the corruption runs through him deeply enough that he wouldn’t survive the experience. And he faced the crawling suspicion that, in the aftermath of his cleansing, he might very well be left with nothing but the shell of his body.
No thoughts. No memories. The perfect, empty vessel.
Peace and oblivion, twin sides of the coin of his salvation.
And, with Michael’s Grace burning at the edges of his soul, Dean couldn’t find it in him to care.
He might have thrown himself forward then—at the mercy of Michael’s call, or in a desperate Hail Mary to save the brother he failed on the first run out—but Sam’s hand closed around his wrist, and Sam yanked him back and out and the door slammed shut on its own and that was that.
Dean doesn’t like remembering how he felt in the first few seconds of silence afterward. When his thoughts circle back to it, the choking, bitter aftertaste of despairing panic burns his throat. He feels a skin-prickling echo of the relief that shocked through him, strong enough to crest above the darker, roiling tide of emotion gripping his body and locking his muscles. And then the panic surged again, fueled by the fluttering of his thoughts and his dirty, mangled soul as they struggled to escape from the agony of revelation—like a thousand dark crows’ wings, snapping violently against the inside of his ribcage in a whirlwind of feather and bone.
Worse than those ghostly echoes of sensation, though, is the undeniable understanding that he had a third incentive to embrace the oblivion Michael offered. It makes Dean sick to his stomach to consider that maybe the strongest impulse that kept him rooted to the doorway wasn’t Michael’s allure, or the need to save another innocent. Maybe, it was this third thing: a driving need to flee from the terror of discovery, from the reeling shock that gripped him only moments before, when protective blinders he didn’t even know he had were stripped from his mind with ruthless, breath-stealing suddenness.
The revelation was too big, too much, too damn intense, and Dean’s goddamned chest was going to explode if he couldn’t get away.
Michael’s light offered an easy out—the only path providing possible escape from the smothering pressure of awareness. Dean is still trying to evade acceptance now (it’s true, it’s the goddamned elephant in the Impala, but Dean doesn’t have to fucking acknowledge it, no one can make him). He’s driving with the pedal pressed flush with the floorboards and willfully ignoring the fact that he’s carrying the naked, blistering realization along with him as he goes. All of that excruciating awareness is screaming in his head, unmuzzled and unrestrained now that it’s burst forth from its place of concealment beneath his ribcage.
More importantly, it’s sitting beside him in the form of his brother, who is a quiet, unavoidable presence to Dean’s right. Sam hasn’t stopped watching Dean since they got into the car, and he isn’t making any attempt to modulate the intensity of his gaze.
So driving isn’t actually getting Dean anywhere, but he doesn’t know what else to do, and it’s at least providing him with the illusion of decisive action. The barest illusion, maybe, but it’s just about the only thing keeping him inside his skin instead of exploding all over the goddamned car. He isn’t sure he could survive the words that want to come out of his mouth.
Even if he could, he damn well knows that he wouldn’t last longer than Sam’s inevitable reply.
It’s been two hours of silence between them in the night—in the wee hours of the morning, really, by Dean’s watch. For two unbearable hours, Dean has grappled with terrifying things that he can’t know, but which refuse to be ignored any longer—and whether they’re in Sam’s head as well, Dean doesn’t want to find out.
As long as he doesn’t meet Sam’s eyes, there’s still a chance that Sam might not have realized anything even happened back there. As long as they don’t talk about it, there’s still the possibility that Sam is blissfully unaware that Dean is going fucking nuts here. Dean hasn’t ever been that lucky before, but there’s a first time for everything.
So he keeps his trap shut and his eyes on the road. If he can just keep things unspoken for long enough, he can keep them that way—even if Sam does know. There’s a window of opportunity for these things, and the more minutes that Dean can stack up on his side, the better. Couple days, he’ll feel safer. Couple of weeks, and it’ll be smooth sailing again.
But somehow, he isn’t at all surprised when Sam breaks his silence to say, “Pull over.”
The firm, unyielding timbre of his voice tells Dean that Sam doesn’t mean to the side of the road. He understands, with a twist of mingled resignation and terror (and relief? fuck you optimism), that this is it, this is the goddamned firing squad, and that Sam does know, and Sam is going to rip the ground right out from underneath them whether Dean wants him to or not.
Dean’s heart kicks in his chest, but he doesn’t protest or pretend he hasn’t heard. He takes the next exit, following blue highway signs that point the way, and finally ends up in front of the Sleep E-Z Inn. He isn’t sure what state they’re in, let alone which town—not that Dean’s ever needed lines on a map to tell him where he is when Sam is with him.
Home, his heart beats out even now, as panicked as he is with the magnitude of his revelation. This is home.
How long has this intensity been between them? For how many miles and rest stops and ‘dude, if you get your hair cut maybe people will stop mistaking you for a girl’s have they both been circling ever closer to this moment? How many fond smiles have there been, how many casual touches that left heat beneath Dean’s skin and an itch at the back of his brain?
They’re questions Dean could answer if he tries, but he doesn’t want to—ignorance is bliss—so he parks and gets out of the Impala and books them a room, moving under auto-pilot as Sam gathers their bags from the trunk and stands waiting on the sidewalk. Dean continues to avoid looking at his brother’s face as he comes back out of the office, but he does cautiously take in the lines of Sam’s body (Sam isn’t a gawky teenager anymore, hasn’t been for years; he’s a man now, all muscle and strength, and Dean has never been so aware of that fact). He assesses Sam’s stance, how he’s holding himself, and Sam doesn’t seem at all anxious.
There’s actually a steady, calming patience about the way he’s standing there, just like he has so many times before, and Dean’s own pulse slows in automatic response. He breathes a little easier as Sam falls into step beside him, both of them moving for the room furthest from the office without a word—the same room they always take if it’s free, away from the prying eyes of civilians.
Once inside, Sam gives Dean his space, a ceasefire that Dean takes full advantage of. He unpacks his bag, lays down some salt lines, and then heads into the bathroom and splashes his face with cool, refreshing water. He takes his time, with the door shut, and tries unsuccessfully to wrap his mind around what he’s doing here, what they’re doing here, and oh god, he’s a fucking moron. They both are.
When he comes back out again fifteen minutes later, Sam is sitting at the table with his cell phone out in front of him, one hand resting lightly on the plastic casing.
“I called Bobby,” Sam says.
Oh good, casual bullshitting. Dean can totally do this. Dropping down on the edge of their (‘their’, Christ) bed, he asks, “On a scale of one to ten, how pissed was he?”
“About a seven. Mostly, he wanted to know why it took us so long to call him.”
Dean searches for a way to respond to that, keep the banal conversation going, and can’t find one. Mostly because he’s in the process of getting gobsmacked all over again by just how fucking gorgeous his brother looks.
Sam’s wearing old, worn jeans and a brown plaid shirt. The chair he’s sitting in is too small for him—the chairs in these places usually are—and one of his legs slants up at an awkward angle. The other, he has stretched out in front of him, with his foot propped up on the seat of another chair. There’s a hole in the heel of his sock, and a discoloration in the fabric stretched out over ball of his foot that tells Dean another one is on the way.
His hair is as stupidly floppy as ever, needs a trim even if he refuses to cut it. Heavy lines of exhaustion mar his face and smudged shadows underline his eyes—Dean’s fault, the way he’s been behaving over the last week or so, when Sam was running himself ragged to keep Dean from doing the sensible thing and saving them all.
In short, Sam looks like shit, actually, but Dean keeps on thinking that he’s fucking beautiful anyway. The sight of him makes Dean’s heart beat a little faster—excitement and not panic, the same warm rush as Dean always feels when he looks at Sam. And maybe that right there is the answer to the questions he was asking himself earlier.
This has always been between them. They have been circling toward this moment since the day they drew their first breaths. There have been countless smiles, infinite touches.
Dean can try to resist, but he’ll have just as much luck backing them up onto solid ground as a mangy coyote that just sprinted through some deep brush and found himself hurtling through midair off the edge of a cliff. Backpedal as quickly and as violently as he can, gravity already has hold of him, and he’s gonna fall. Hard.
Dean is keenly and unpleasantly aware that he’s been lying in his very own Wile E.-shaped crater for a while now.
“So,” Sam says without warning. Dean’s still holding out hope that his brother is going to follow that up with ‘how ‘bout them Rangers’, but instead Sam goes with, “You know what I’m going to ask.”
Dean does, but Sam can’t make him admit to it. This is coming at him quickly enough already without him helping it along, damn it.
Sam clearly understands that he isn’t going to get an assist, because he almost immediately continues, “What made you change your mind?”
Yeah, that’s the question Dean has been dreading since that first breath of silence after Sam pulled him out of the white room.
Being asked is somehow still a jolt, though, and Dean is suddenly back in that moment again—Zach’s voice dimmed to an unimportant, muffled mumble in the background as he chanted the words that would call Michael down. It was drowned out completely in the next instant, as Dean met Sam’s eyes for what he was certain was the last time. His pulse broke out into a thundering stampede of blood rushing through his head. There was an unbearable pressure in his chest, swelling larger and more painful with alarming speed until something snapped and all of Dean’s long ignored and spurned emotions spilled out in glowing, shivery shocks of realization.
Sam’s eyes. Sam’s faith and trust and desperation.
Fuck, Sam.
Dean shakes free from the memory of that earth-shattering moment and drops his eyes, feeling oddly exposed and vulnerable. This is… Christ, this is everything. Sam could break him in this moment, if he wants to. Not that his vulnerability where Sam is concerned is a revelation, but Dean hasn’t ever been so acutely aware of just how deeply Sam can wound him with nothing more than a casual, absent word.
Sam is waiting for a word from Dean now, with a lack of expression that’s making his take on the situation impossible to read, and Dean has to clear his throat before he can rasp, “You know what.”
“Maybe I want to hear you say it,” Sam answers, which is so fucking typical that Dean’s teeth ache.
The day Sam doesn’t try forcing Dean to say shit that doesn’t actually need saying is the day Dean will sell the Impala for parts. Dean feels his face tighten with resistance—he doesn’t want to be having this conversation at all right now; it sure as fuck isn’t going to go the way Sam wants it to.
Before he can snap at Sam, though, Sam adds, “I mean, I already did.”
For a few seconds, Dean doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Then he understands what Sam is referring to—Glenview, Sammy’s time tripping the light fantastic—and is left breathless all over again by the relieved confirmation that the electric emotions thrumming through him aren’t one-sided. He’s left lost and reeling for several heartbeats, shamefully grateful for the reassurance he isn’t alone in this, and then stiffens with the belated understanding that Sam is trying to weasel his way out of manning up to his emotions based on a motherfucking technicality.
“That doesn’t count! You were high as a kite,” he blurts, jerking his head up as he comes to his feet.
Of course, that must have been Sam’s plan all along because now that Dean has been tricked into looking, he can’t tear his eyes away. He’s stuck staring at Sam’s tight, satisfied smile as Sam nods and stands.
“Okay,” he says. “I’ll say it again.”
No, don’t, Dean thinks, and Yes. Yes, fucking finally.
Sam holds Dean’s eyes with his own as he moves away from the table. The weaker, cowardly parts of Dean are screaming at him to run for cover, but he can’t seem to move. Sam’s face is as serious as Dean has ever seen it, and the naked emotion—the depth of longing, of need—in his eyes is mesmerizing. Dean’s skin aches with how much he wants there not to be half a room between them right now.
“I love you,” Sam says, and then immediately elaborates, “I’m in love with you, Dean.”
The world doesn’t shatter. Dean’s chest doesn’t crack open; that damage has already been done. There’s just a deeper, more insistent pulse of aching warmth from inside him—contentment, and relief, and yeah, okay, love.
He’s in love with Sam.
Sam’s waiting for a response, just threw everything out there in the open where Dean can’t ignore it, turned it into a challenge, the little bitch, and Dean has to say something. He has to come up with some sort of answer.
“We’re brothers,” is what he says, although it doesn’t actually come out sounding like much of a protest. Hell, once the words are out, he finds that he doesn’t really care.
“Yeah,” Sam agrees, looking just as put off by the reminder as Dean feels. If anything, his smile broadens as he comes closer. “We are.”
Dean’s eyes widen when Sam doesn’t stop coming, when he moves across the room until he’s standing in Dean’s space and is impossible to ignore. Not that Dean was doing such a great job with that before. Then Sam stands there, breath wafting warm over Dean’s mouth while he holds Dean’s eyes with his own. The air between them feels electrified.
“What’re you doing?” Dean asks, barely daring to move his lips around the words.
“Thought I’d kiss you,” Sam answers just as softly. “If that’s okay.”
Dean’s stomach flips on him, although he’s had Sam’s tongue in his mouth hundreds of times, and he hides his nerves by joking, “Little late to be asking for permission, dude.”
“Maybe,” Sam says, reaching out and setting a hand on Dean’s waist. It’s a deliberate, burning weight on his side, and his pulse jumps when he feels Sam’s thumb slip up beneath his shirt to rub against bare skin. “But I haven’t ever kissed you like this before, so I’m asking.”
Christ, it feels hot in here all of a sudden. “Kissed me like what?”
“With intent,” Sam answers, pushing more of his hand beneath Dean’s shirt and lightly dragging his fingertips over Dean’s side and across his stomach. “Might have to get you out of these clothes.”
“You’ve done that before, too,” Dean points out, feeling like ten different kinds of stupid as he realizes just how much ground they’ve already covered.
One side of Sam’s mouth quirks up and he hooks his fingers in the waistband of Dean’s jeans, giving a sharp tug. “Might have to fuck you.”
Dean never knew Sam could sound so damn dirty—and he really never suspected that hearing those words out of his little brother’s mouth would send him from lazily aroused to rock hard in less than a second. Here they are, though, and Dean is already tilting his head for his brother as Sam’s lips graze along his jaw and throat. He’s reaching up and getting hold of Sam’s bicep, hanging on as Sam unbuckles his belt and opens his jeans for him.
“That’s a little presumptuous, don’t you think?” he manages as Sam pauses to open his own pants. “I mean, who says you get to be on top?”
“Rock paper scissors,” Sam offers, and this time, there’s pressure behind his kisses—open-mouthed and hungry, with just a graze of teeth against Dean’s upturned throat.
Because that game always goes so well for Dean.
“Rock, paper…How stupid do I look?” Dean grunts, fighting with the buttons on his brother’s flannel shirt. “Get this—fuck, get this off, man.”
Sam makes a frustrated sound, but he also stops touching Dean long enough to just haul the whole thing off over his head, and fuck, he’s ripped. It’s… it’s really nice, objectively speaking. Makes Dean want to do things with his mouth that he’s pretty sure Sam won’t have any problems with.
Sam is back on him in a second, with a little lunge that drives Dean back a step. He runs into the edge of the bed, overbalances, and falls backwards with a startled yelp. Sam comes down on top of him, the oversized lummox, momentarily driving Dean’s breath from him. When Dean recovers, Sam is already manhandling him higher onto the bed and rucking his shirt up so that he can bite at Dean’s stomach and lower chest.
“Fuck,” Dean mutters, reaching down for him. “Fuck, Sammy, get—get up here.”
Sam comes at his insistence, spreading himself out on top of Dean so that they’re rubbing against each other in all the right places. His gaze is heated but questioning as he looks in Dean’s eyes, and Dean is just not patient enough to deal with that shit tonight, so he gets a hand on the back of Sam’s neck and hauls him into a kiss.
It isn’t actually all that different from the ones that came before. Thank god for small favors on that score, too, because Dean really enjoyed the way those were going. There’s just a little shift in the flavor now that they’ve put a name to the emotion Sam’s mouth is rousing in Dean’s chest—and a few degrees more heat now that he isn’t fighting against his body’s instinctive responses.
Dean kisses Sam until he’s too impatient for more and then, turning his head to one side, insists, “Off,” while pushing at Sam’s jeans.
Sam laughs, shifting up to help him. “I’m starting to think you don’t like my clothes,” he jokes.
“Nothing personal,” Dean answers. “They’re just in my way.”
They don’t say much at all after that, too busy with other things, and somehow Dean’s clothes end up on the floor alongside Sam’s, and Christ, Dean hasn’t felt like this since he was a teenager feeling up his first girl. He can’t get enough of Sam’s skin, like it’s an addiction, and Sam clearly feels the same way, if his roving hands are any indication.
“Jesus Christ, Dean,” he says finally in a strained, wondering voice. “You’re so beautiful.”
It probably isn’t meant as an insult—Dean doubts Sam’s brain is working that well—and anyway, Dean’s sort of flattered, so he only grunts, “Shut up,” and somehow manages to grip his own cock and Sam’s together in one fist. This isn’t quite what he wants to be doing with his brother, but it’ll do in a pinch. Anyway, there’s plenty of time for more later, once they’ve figured out a fair way to decide about the whole top and bottom thing. Sam apparently agrees because he catches Dean’s mouth beneath his own again and rocks his cock through Dean’s fist.
Several jerks with his hand and Dean spills, riding an intense way of pleasure and making everything slicker down there, which seems to do it for Sam if the way he suddenly shakes and cries out is any indication. He’s a biter, too; damn near takes Dean’s bottom lip off as he comes.
Dean sags down against the bed while Sam is still shuddering out the tail end of his climax, limp with contentment. His chest glows warmly when Sam collapses on top of him a moment later and there are several peaceful, perfect moments while they catch their breaths.
Then Sam starts moving around, restless shifts that turn into more purposeful rolls of his hips. Dean isn’t going to let Sam, of all people, out-perform him, so they’re off again—parting long enough to secure some lube, this time, which helps after they engage in an impromptu wrestling match to settle the upstairs-downstairs question.
Sam’s arms are freakishly long, okay? It’s totally not Dean’s fault that he ends up with Sam’s cock pushing into him while he hangs onto his brother’s shoulders and hooks one leg around Sam’s waist in an effort to get him inside faster. Anyway, it feels—fuck, it feels awesome; feels even better when he’s managed to convince Sam that he isn’t going to break and Sam really starts giving it to him, dick sliding in and out past Dean’s sensitive rim with a rough speed bordering on desperation.
By the time they’re both sated, Dean’s ass is open and slick. His cheeks and upper thighs feel wet, and his muscles burn. Sweat coats his skin.
But as Sam gets out of bed and comes back with a wet facecloth and a towel for Dean to clean up with, and climbs onto the mattress to lie pressed up close along Dean’s back—like normal, right where he belongs—Dean feels nothing but contentment. He closes his eyes, smiling, and leans back into his brother. Sam idly trails fingertips over Dean’s chest, making him sink lower and lower in his lethargy.
Dean’s on the edge of sleep when it occurs to him. He really wants to push the thought away and deal with it in the morning, but it’s too horrible to ignore, swelling and looming in his mind until he can’t bear staring at it any longer.
“Oh God,” he groans, stirring restlessly.
“What?” Sam’s hand stills on Dean’s chest.
Heaving a sigh, Dean mutters, “Bobby’s never going to shut up about this.”
He can practically hear the gears turning in Sam’s head as he takes that little nugget in, and then, slowly, Sam offers, “Well, there’s no reason to tell him, is there? I mean, it isn’t like he wasn’t already making assumptions.”
Dean blinks up at the darkened ceiling with a slight, thoughtful frown. “You really think that’ll work?”
“No, but he isn’t going to say anything if we don’t. And I don’t know about you, but when it comes to this?” His hand slides down Dean’s chest to loosely curl around his spent cock. “I’m gonna have to say it’s none of his damn business.”
Dean’s a little taken aback by the vehemence in his brother’s voice, but Sam’s hand is making some pretty compelling arguments. And damned if Dean is going to suggest pulling Bobby aside for a little heart-to-heart about anything that isn’t related to cutting Lucifer into bite-sized bits.
“Sammy,” he breathes after a moment, rocking his hips lazily forward and then pushing his ass back against his brother’s body. “I like the way you think.”
Sam, the annoying bastard, lifts his hand and puts it back on Dean’s chest—just when things were getting interesting again, too. Not that Dean can find it in himself to be all that upset about it, considering the gentle, cherishing kisses Sam is pressing against his shoulder.
“Just the way I think?” Sam prods, lips brushing Dean’s skin and hand stroking his chest.
Dean hmms to himself, pretending to consider the question, and then laughs when Sam bites his shoulder in retaliation.
“You’ll say it eventually,” Sam mutters when they’ve both quieted again. He doesn’t sound too put out by Dean’s reluctance, though; sounds more amused and fond than anything. It means that Dean doesn’t actually have to respond; Sam knows how he works, what he feels.
Then again, anything Sam can do, he can do better.
“Hey, Sammy,” he says, covering his brother’s hand with his own and interlacing their fingers.
“Mmm,” Sam hums, pressing his nose against the back of Dean’s neck.
“Gonna make an honest woman out of you.”
Sam snorts a laugh and shoves Dean’s back, then immediately hauls him close again. One of his feet pushes into place between Dean’s, and he buries his face against Dean’s shoulder blades, breathing in deeply.
“Do I get a ring?” he asks.
Dean opens his mouth to tell Sam that that depends on whether his position on onions has changed and then shuts it again, shifting the fingers on his right hand. His ring is an ever-present weight, won after a night spent trading lies back and forth with a fir darrig over a campfire.
Sam probably would’ve nagged at him to get rid of it if he knew how Dean got it (even after all these years, Dean can hear his brother’s shouts—so stupid, how could you have done that, do you even know how dangerous that was, could have been killed), but someone had to convince the elf to move along and it had been too canny to go near Dad. Besides, a night spent playing ‘who’s the best liar’ was a walk in the park, compared to some other jobs Dean’s been on.
The ring has been a mark of pride since then, a trophy the fir darrig took off of one of its victims and grudgingly passed to Dean with the coming dawn. It’s worn a little smooth from the passage of the years, and from Dean’s own restless fingers. Sam might still not know where Dean got it, doesn’t suspect the ring’s true value and wouldn’t understand if he did, but he knows it means something. Right now, Dean figures that’s all that matters.
It takes a moment to work the ring off. Slipping it into place on Sam’s finger is a whole lot easier.
Behind him, Sam has gone still and quiet.
Dean licks his lips, surprised at how full his own chest feels right now, and a sudden, reckless need to break the moment apart swells inside him. He could do it, too; tell Sam that he gets this is the moment his girlish heart has been yearning for, but not to get snot on Dean’s back when he bursts into tears. That’d get a laugh from Sam, or a disgusted knee to the back of his thigh. It’d be safer.
Then again, nothing about tonight has been safe in the least, and Dean… Dean’s surprised to discover that he sort of likes it.
Silently, he takes hold of Sam’s hand, using his thumb to turn the ring on Sam’s finger.
“I love you, Sammy,” he confesses. “Scares me shitless how much.”
“Yeah,” Sam agrees. His hand turns in Dean’s, holding him back and twining their fingers together.
“You think we can really do this?” Dean asks. “You think we can tell Lucifer and Michael to fuck off and take their apocalypse with them?”
It isn’t quite a tangent. Dean’s awareness of this thing between them might be new, but the bond itself is familiar and old, and he knows, somehow, that it matters.
They matter.
Between his shoulder blades, Dean feels his brother smile.
“I know we can,” Sam answers. “We’re going to be okay, Dean.”
Dean lets out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding, relaxing back against the warm weight of his brother’s chest. It might just be the afterglow talking, but somehow—someway—he knows that Sam is right.