Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/5994154.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Supernatural
  Relationship:
      Dean_Winchester/Sam_Winchester
  Character:
      Dean_Winchester, Sam_Winchester, John_Winchester
  Additional Tags:
      Alpha/Beta/Omega_Dynamics, Omega_Sam, Alpha_Dean, Puberty, First_Time,
      Nipple_Play, Scents_&_Smells
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-02-13 Words: 4465
****** Ankle Deep Rivers ******
by hellhoundsprey
Summary
     Sam grows into his omega skin and all the while falls head over heels
     for his big brother. An ode to explosives and the color blue.
When Dean is hungry, he smells like squished ants. When he tucks Sammy in at
night, he smells like warmth and parent, like blanket and TV and stolen
Cheerios. Sam loves every facet, every whiff. Every hint of Dean means Dean is
here and alive. (Dean's blood smells like gun parts and rusty cars. It tastes
like that, too.)
Dean's eyes are wide and green and on Sam. They always are, but not always like
now.
"What did you just say?"
When Dean is angry, he smells like gun powder.
"You're a knothead!" Sam repeats a little less confident but with his hands in
fists and his socked foot stomping on the ground. Just to even it out. The word
felt more freeing the first time.
Sam tries not to step back when Dean gets up from guns on the table. Reminds
Sam of a fish, somehow. Slithering and strong, strung like a bow, swim against
the stream whenever it's necessary. Maybe it's necessary more often currently.
Dean smells like gun powder a lot.
"Where'd you get that word from, Sammy?"
The voice is calmer. Somehow, that makes everything even worse. Sam dares to
cross his arms in front of his chest and feels shame gripping the back of his
neck. "School," he says.
A step towards Sam. Sam wills his legs to stand still. "Why're you sayin'
somethin' like that to me, Sammy? Do you even know what it means?"
Sam hugs himself tighter. It was just a stupid fight and now he messed
everything up. Again. As always. Overdid it. Him and his too big mouth. "It, it
means that- that your brain is in knots an' you can't think right! 'Cause
you're stupid!" And Dean is stupid. He's mean and too strict, especially when
Dad is not around. As if discipline could make up for the absence of a real
parent.
They have a short standoff. Just watching each other, no growling, no hissing,
no nothing. Gun powder. It makes Sam's skin crawl sometimes.
The gun still in Dean's hand hits the table with a soft thump. Dean wipes his
palms on his jeans. "I'll have to wash your mouth for that." Sam's mouth barely
opens as Dean shoves along, "An' don't make me repeat myself. Bathroom. Now."
This motel's soap tastes like lavender. Well, every soap kind of tastes the
same. Every soap kind of turns Sam's stomach inside out. He's tasting a lot of
soap at the moment. Dean swears sometimes, too, but mostly when Dad is around,
and Dad doesn't take the more elegant side of life too seriously. But Sam, Sam
somehow always chooses the wrong words, the really bad ones, apparently. Every
time, he swears to himself he won't be that stupid again, just to end up with a
palm full of soft bubbles and a set of angry eyes in the mirror. At least the
soap burns away the gun powder for a while.
Dean doesn't answer him when he asks for the real meaning of the bad word he
was punished for. It's evening and Dean smells soft, pulls the blanket up to
Sam's chin as if he wasn't a year away from middle school. It's strange how
easily situations change; as if the reality from before never existed. Dean
runs his blister-cold knuckles along Sam's cheek and asks him to go to sleep
now, Sammy, it's late already, c'mon, big boy. School tomorrow. Doesn't Sam
want to be fit for school? Sam nods because yeah, he wants to.
Some nights more often than other nights, Dean slips into Sam's bed once he
decided his own bedtime is taking place. Only a few times, Sam really wakes up
from that. Dean is like a fish in a quiet stream sometimes, almost invisible,
one with his surroundings. His arms are warm and strong and pull Sam close
against an even warmer chest. It's soothing, and it's nice.
Some nights, Sam dreams of that afternoon Dad taught them how to make shotgun
shells by themselves.
                                       ~
A slap makes Sam's knee sing. "Don't sit like a whore," Dean hisses, shoves
food on the table and himself into the chair opposite to Sam. Sam who glares
and flushes simultaneously. His knees might draw closer, yeah, but his kick
surely doesn't miss Dean's shin. "Lil' fucker," he hears, gets kicked and
glared at in return. But he also gets a plate full of homemade food, so he
can't really complain.
Spaghetti in his mouth and on his fork, Sam reminds that Dean sits like this
all the time, too.
"Yeah, but I'm no bitch," Dean spits, heaves another serving onto a plate that
isn't his. Sam is growing. Sam needs food. Sam needs to be pampered.
Sam's frown turns deeper, his chewing slower. "Don't."
Dean shrugs and eats. "It is what it is, man."
"You make it sound like a disease."
"You're a disease."
"Screw you."
"Get hit by a truck."
Sam has another mouthful. He hasn't tasted soap in months. Dean is less worried
about his language now, it seems. Days pull and extend like chewing gum.
Waiting for Dad to call, waiting for checks to come in the mail for groceries,
waiting for Dean to get dinner ready, waiting for the sun to rise so that Sam
can go back to school. Dean smells like sweat a lot, like barbecue. Sam does
the dishes because it's omega work. Cooking is, too, but Dean takes joy in that
one. Rules are kind of fluid in their household. Sam doesn't dread that.
Dean's eyes are heavy sometimes. Sam has his back to his brother and still
feels their weight. He scrubs tomato from white and tries to think of something
else than wildfires.
Dean says he didn't mean what he said. Sam nods and agrees, yeah, him neither.
Dean says sorry. Sam doesn't.
                                       ~
Reptiles. Maybe Dean is a reptile. Cold blood, smooth skin - no, scales. Needs
warm stones to get his blood going. Maybe Sam is that stone. Keeps Dean from
freezing at night. A lonely bed sometimes isn't enough. He knows.
Dean pretends to be asleep while he combs his fingers through his also
pretending little brother's hair, slowly and calming. Sam finds himself
smelling of buttercups recently, especially when his skin gets all oily. Dean
doesn't mind for the first few days, only reminds him that showers exists when
it's already disgusting. Dean is easier than Dad when it comes to that,
somehow.
"Y'think I'll get it soon?" Sam whispers it into the night, holds Dean's hand
that wedged itself underneath and around his chest. Dean's knuckles feel like
sandpaper against Sam's fingertips.
"Not for 'nother year," Dean mumbles. His lips tickle the back of Sam's neck.
"Or two."
"Hm," Sam says.
Dean shuffles a little, sighs, relaxes. "Maybe yer quicker 'an me. Who knows."
Dean popped his knot at fifteen. Not unusual, not the earliest possible date.
Omegas are said to be a little quicker with their first heats. Sam thinks about
words like "ripe". Fruity words. Sweet words. Omega words. He wonders if they
suit him, if he is sweet like that. According to the entire world, he is
"weird". Smart but "weird". Nice but "weird". Talented with a knife... but in a
"weird" way.
Dean squeezes Sam tighter, just to press his nose into his hair some more.
"Why're y'asking, kiddo? You alright?"
"Yeah," Sam sighs. "Weird" alright.
                                       ~
Summer makes Sam smell like overripe pears - a little alcoholic, heavy. Sam
pushes a sigh out of his sweaty chest and contemplates the chances of being
able to fall asleep in this heat.
Dean comes back from the bathroom, didn't close the door, and why should he?
Nothing wrong with that. Nothing Sam hasn't heard or smelled. Sam's thumb slips
from the remote because he senses the tremble in Dean's legs. "I was just, uh.
Here, back on X-Files. There you go." Sam keeps his eyes on the screen and runs
his palm over the back of his neck. He shouldn't have changed the channel. Dean
gets angrier faster in the summer.
Dean is in tee and boxers, the tee only an excuse to tell Sam to do the same.
Said he didn't want to see his little brother's o-tits, Sammy, c'mon, show some
decency. Sam is just as flat as Dean is, actually, but that doesn't matter, not
really. Omega chests are tits. Alpha chests are not.
Dean sits down and the sting of palm on knee startles Sam only for a second, is
wiped away with Dean's low, disapproving growl.
"Still with those whore legs of yours."
A crack goes through the TV's sound. Sam expects the hand to be gone by the end
of it. It isn't.
Dean pulls Sam's leg closer some more, hikes it up over his own, pets it like
they do to horse necks in movies.
Sam has his hands in his lap and kneads his fingers. Uselessly. Unconsciously.
The sweat between their meeting skins is hard to ignore, the scratch of Dean's
hairy thigh even less. It all stays hard to ignore for the rest of the episode.
Cicadas are chirping and mosquitos are buzzing outside. It's night but not dark
yet; deep Arizona summer. Sam doesn't feel like moving. Dean smells angry
again, or maybe still. For the sprawling, maybe.
Ads are on. In a desperate attempt to soothe his alpha-brother, Sam begins to
bob his foot up and down. No particular rhythm. The collected sweat in the back
of his knee unites to one big drop that tickles all the way down to his ankle.
He turns his head to watch his toes curl and uncurl. In the corner of his
vision, he sees Dean doing the same.
Sam hears himself saying that Dean could try to wash it out of Sam's legs, like
he did with his mouth when they were younger.
Gun powder explodes almost out of nowhere. Sam should have known. But instead
of shouting or dragging Sam around, Dean bolts from the couch and slams the
front door behind himself. Sam has to redo the salt line as soon as he dares to
move.
It's maybe one AM and Sam is on his stomach, tired of staring at the ceiling
but not tired enough to fall asleep. He turns to watch Dean as he is letting
himself in, watches knees buckle, a chest expand and then fall. Smells
rainsoaked oak - Dean's sadness. More muddy tonight, like a lake after a storm.
The moonlight from outside is enough to show the worried line between Dean's
eyebrows.
"Hey."
"Hey."
"Still up?"
"Can't sleep."
Dean helps himself with a forgotten glass of stale water, back from dinner. "Me
neither," he croaks. "Move over, sasquatch."
Sam does. "It's too hot for that." The mattress drops and squeals with the
added weight. Dean doesn't complain that Sam is complaining, just sighs, lets
his legs fall open. A knee pokes into Sam's ass until he grunts and makes some
space.
An exhausted huff. Dean left his shoes when he ran off. His feet must be
blistered. Dean's skin is dusted in finest sand when he lets it drop carelessly
too close to Sam's waist. Sam didn't keep the shirt on.
The cicadas are still eager. Rough knuckles scrape up and around Sam's side,
dive and submerge from the tiny hollow of his spine-supporting muscles. Hidden
behind his forearms, Sam sniffs at his own armpit. Weird... and still pears.
Dean's hand flattens itself, spans almost entirely over the small of Sam's
back.
Two seconds into it, Sam catches himself arching his back.
"Mh," he says.
The immediate response is, "This okay?"
Sam stares into the blanket without seeing anything. "Mh-hm."
A shudder. Like a sigh. Deeper. Sam forces his breathing shier.
The hand just lies there, presses down a little.
"I'm sorry for earlier," Sam mutters, because he doesn't know what else to say
or do. He feels like something needs to be said or done.
"Nothing's wrong," Dean hums. Then, he corrects himself. "With you, I mean.
You... It's the heat, y'know? Can't think straight."
"Yeah."
The hand slides up, down, spreads Sam's own sweat and mixes it with desert
dust. Pears and sand. Disgusting. Sam feels too small in his skin. He wants to
carve the itch out but couldn't describe where it sits. He hms again, pulls his
right knee higher.
"Dean?"
"Hm?"
"Is my... am I really... Is it really that inappropriate? How I sit an' stuff?"
His thumb shoves itself in between his teeth. They take the offer with
gratitude. "I don't feel slutty, y'know. I don't get it. I'm doing nothing
wrong, am I?" Please tell me I ain't.
"C'mere," Dean breathes.
Sam doesn't know why he starts rolling over at all. "My chest," he gasps, tries
to find a set of green on a pillow - finds mostly black.
Sam watches Dean's bottom lip stick to the upper one when they try to part,
imagines a quiver to a chin along with, "Don't matter."
Sam's too wide hands cover himself nevertheless, cup nothings as if they were
precious. Dean usually treats them as something special, not for the world to
see. Questioning eyes to big brother who simply reaches for one of Sam's wrist
with the arm farthest away from Sam, the other now lost in the little space
between them.
It tugs. "I said it don't matter, dude. They're not even there or anything."
And still, when Sam allows his hands to be pulled away, Dean's eyes stare as if
they were everything.
Burst of shame. Crossing of arms. "Don't stare."
"I'm not."
"Yeah, are." New tugging. Sam feels his cheek heating up against the already
too warm pillow. "No, you're just gonna make fun of me again."
"When have I ever made fun of you?"
"Every day of my life," Sam reminds. Their shoulders are close enough now to
bump against each other. "Callin' me mean names. Makin' fun of my- Of my-"
"Of your tits?" Dean offers.
"My everything."
A smile tugs on the corners of Dean's mouth. He seems to test out the words
before he says them. "Of my little boy-o?"
Campfire. No, sharper. Firework. "Stop it." Sam is trembling.
But maybe, if Dean is trembling too, that makes it okay. "Show me your little
o-tits, Sammy."
Dean tugs Sam's arms down and away and Sam shoves his face deep into the
pillow. He is very aware of the rise and fall of his own chest, of the treason
of a tighter pull of skin despite the warmth. As little as he would have cared
this afternoon to sit around shirtless, he dreads his nakedness now. Dean's
eyes burn bright; Sam doesn't even have to see them to know it, never had to.
But it's different. Dean's hands on his skin feel different, too. Hotter.
Rougher.
He smells Dean's breath shortly before they kiss. Still firework. Still gun
powder. Sam forgets how to breathe, what to do with himself with Dean's mouth
on him, feels stupid and confused and he doesn't even know how to do this.
Dean's lips move and Sam just lets them for a while. He is shaking harder now
and Dean stutters his breath when they part, brings their foreheads together
and has his eyes screwed shut.
Just when Sam attempts a puppy gesture with a lick to Dean's chin, Dean's
thumbs slip across the stiff buds of his nipples. Sam's mouth drops and
suddenly, he is on fire, too.
They kiss and Dean works his thumbs. Sam's hands are somewhere, nowhere, it
doesn't matter. He pants and frowns, chest pressing in and fleeing from his
brother's hands. Dean is the one licking him now, but not his chin; his bottom
lip. Pokes at it, slithers across and in. Slick. Fish. Sam puffs his chest out
for all he's worth.
Between hauling for breath and chewing on Sam's mouth, Dean mutters little
nothings, keeps kneading Sam's nipples, pulls on them a little, just a little,
because they are precious. Sam hears curse words and his name, God's name,
sounds that aren't words at all. They all have one thing in common: they make
Sam's throat tight and his eyes wet.
                                       ~
Dean winds himself, swims, slithers. All at once. A graceful being. Sam knows
Dean's mouth tastes like squished ants when he is hungry, too.
There is no need to remind Sam of putting on a shirt anymore. Okay. Yeah. Sam
gets it now. It's all very special. And oh, it's so much more special when Dean
has to ask him to hike up his borrowed Nirvana tee.
Dean's eyes are wide and wet when he looks up at Sam from where he is kissing
up Sam's tummy, fluttering and small and teen-soft, and his tongue is so pink
when it laps all wide and wet from the bottom of the left one first, making the
little nub stand even prouder, even harder, makes Sam's head spin even faster.
Dean suckles like a puppy sometimes, how Sam imagines a pup would do it, and it
drives him out of his mind. "I don't have any milk," he rushes one time, too
out of his head and alit to do anything but sob and hold on to the chlorine
tips of alpha-brother hair, and it makes Dean produce a dangerous sound,
something feral and deep. Sam throws his head back and digs his nails deeper
into hair and scalp.
It's almost close, sometimes. At least in Sam's mind. When Dean lets go, leaves
Sam's tits swollen and spit-slick, then he really wouldn't be surprised at a
trickle of milk. Don't they say lactation could be triggered? Maybe Sam's just
too young for that. Thirteen and a few months. He feels like too young.
Sam gets wet that first time Dean licks his chest - but doesn't say a word,
waits until he is alone again. Bathroom, lock, handheld mirror and dark pink
cheeks. He scoops some of the jelly-like liquid up with his fingers, watches
the strings hanging between two digits. He knows he probably shouldn't, that's
pathetic, but he ends up fingering himself, too horny and fascinated to let it
stand as it is. It's groundbreaking. His dick never was of much interest for
him; rather usual for male omegas. But oh. This. This.
He doesn't tell Dean for a long time. It doesn't feel appropriate.
                                       ~
Dad has to come to his school because there had been an incident with a fellow
classmate of Sam's. Sam has his ear pressed to the door and listens in second
hand shame how his father is getting lectured in omega sex ed. Sam didn't do
anything wrong. He's just walking and talking, not even sitting as carelessly
as when he's at home - but some can't handle his scent. Dad looks flustered.
Dean is furious.
"They can't just- Aren't there, aren't there rules for these little brats, or-
?!"
"Nothing happened, Dean."
"Yeah, YET!"
Sam sinks in on himself and doesn't quite understand how the gun powder waves
and pacing stomps and raised voice make him so goddamn wet.
When Dean says he needs some fresh air, Sam offers his company. Dad doesn't
have a clue that Dean lifts Sam's shirt without asking nowadays, has them
pulled over in a nameless meadow or piece of forest in the car they practically
were raised in together by said same Dad and makes his little brother leak
through both underwear and jeans.
"Out, c'mon, g-gotta-"
They stumble. Sam's head is in a fever, his vision blurry. One half of a spin
and Dean is there, right in his space, and rips Sam's belt and fly open as if
it didn't matter that there barely is a pair of jeans left that even fit him
these days.
Sam shudders because he is naked in some random field in the middle of nowhere,
and because a late summer breeze whips against his soaked skin. Because Dean
looks at him with a fury Sam never thought would be directed at him.
"I... I..." Sam starts a few more times but never finishes. Eventually, Dean
crowds him into the backseat of the Impala, pulls Sam's shirt over his head but
leaves it clinging in his armpits - and works his own jeans open as well.
Sam gasps. At the sight, at the act itself.
What a smell.
"Sorry, I- I can't, I- Sorry; FUCK!" Dean growls and works himself with what
could be anger. Definitely looks rough, looks painful, but then again it must
be painful by itself to have your dick that hard. Dark red, almost purple,
slick and wet and-
Gun powder.
Sam hauls in a deep breath without thinking. A burst of slick hits the seats,
powerful like a spit, and Dean shouts a curse.
Big brother knees edge closer fast, body tipping over, hovering over Sam now,
panting into Sam's hair. Sam watches Dean's fist stuttering, then Dean's dick
stuttering, pulsing - then, alpha come starts covering him hip to neck. Some
goes astray, some hits his shirt. Sam's eyes are wide open, his mouth not so
much, nostrils wide, inhaling, inhaling.
Dean sobs. Down to earth sobs, wet and tragic, and it makes Sam's eyes burn in
instant sympathy.
"Oh God," one of them says. Or both. Not so sure. Not so important.
                                       ~
Sam smells better every day. At least he tells himself that. He sees it,
actually. Could see it in the way heads turn and tongue loll, but no - he sees
it in the tremble of his brother's lip when he kisses omega-smooth skin from
toe to beginning of leg.
The first time Dean shoves his tongue into Sam's ass, the neighbors almost
knock the walls down. Sam is loud, too loud; weird. Dean says he doesn't mind.
Dean takes him for a late night ride and tonguefucks his hole until Sam is too
exhausted to even whine.
The day after that, Dean comes home from his random part time job with the
scent of another omega on himself.
Sam runs. Long and far and fast. He runs until he can't smell it anymore. Then,
he throws up into some curb. Then, he walks. Then, the Impala is driving next
to him.
"Sammy-"
"No."
"Sam, c'mon, please-"
"Just leave me alone."
"I swear, she was only-"
Sam mutters, "I hate you."
Tires screech, engine stops. Sam throws an irritated look and then keeps
walking, holds his breath. Sound of the car door, driver's side. Sam walks a
little faster.
"Say that again."
Faster. Steps behind him. It smells like rain. Autumn storms.
"You stop runnin' and you SAY THAT AGAIN TO ME, you sonofabitch!"
Sam starts running.
"SAM!"
Maybe ten seconds and Sam is tackled to the side, into grass and mushy leaves,
and he writhes and yelps and hisses but Dean keeps grabbing at his arms,
twisting them until Sam has tears in his eyes from the pain.
One of Dean's hands decides for grabbing the back of Sam's neck. Hard.
Sam's body loses every will to move.
Wind is blowing through treetops, over them, making them shiver. Sam is panting
with his face in the dirt, his ass leaking into his underwear, his alpha-
brother straddling the back of his thighs. Sam wants to wail but all his throat
allows is a soft whimper.
"I couldn't... Sam... Y'know I... that, that we... I couldn't do it to you. I
couldn't do that to you. Y'gotta understand, Sammy."
Sam's heart aches. Soaked oak again. Fireworks. "Just," Sam slurs, "j-just have
me, Dean, just... jus' don't..." Don't go to someone else for it. Whatever you
do, don't do it to anyone else.
Sam is nobody's omega. If he could choose one though, he'd know his pick.
Dean doesn't, that day. Fuck Sam, that is. Sam moans that it's alright, yes,
please, he can take it, it's okay, Dean, but Dean doesn't.
Back home, Dean explains to Dad that Sam had a rough day and that he will keep
watch while Sam bathes the cold out of his bones, just to make sure he doesn't
do something stupid. Dad gave up telling himself to believe his oldest by now
but nods, just to make it less awkward for everyone. It's all very sad but Sam
couldn't care less with his alpha in the tub with him, a lazily suckling mouth
on his chest and his head tipped back, seeing colorful things behind his closed
eyelids.
                                       ~
"I'm gonna get you knocked up." Dean whines the words as if he wasn't alpha at
all, as if he didn't know exactly that a pregnancy before the first heat is the
most impossible thing for an omega body. Maybe that's it. Because Sam's pre-
heat, and because Dean feels terrible for taking advantage of that. Which he
isn't. Sam wants it, too.
And Dean says that, yeah, but he's still got three of his fingers hooked into
Sam's maybe not so virgin anymore hole. He even flicks at the second opening,
too. His fingers are not long enough to reach it properly, though. Sam's
aren't, either. He tried. Oh, he tried.
Gun powder makes dizzy and snot-nosed, makes Sam's eyes water and his holes
clench. Dean groans and fucks his fingers in, in, in.
Dean is helpless in the stream, sometimes. Many times with Sam. Always with
Sam. When he gets his dick into Sam's ass for the first time, his knot swells
so fast and sudden that he doesn't even manage to get inside correctly. Instead
of into Sam's pussy, the first load of alpha ends up in his guts. Deep. Quite
deep. Sam comes three times in the twenty minutes their tying lasts.
Dean fucks him again after that, for real this time. The second entrance is a
bitch, untouched and shy, and Dean can't get enough of sliding back and forth,
just to have it cling to the flared head of his cock. Sam sobs and they find
out he's a squirter. The second knotting presses Dean almost painfully hard
against Sam's cervix, but the pumping motion Sam can feel rippling through his
alpha's entire body makes up for it. Somehow. Sam grows to like it the more
often it happens. It happens a lot.
People can smell it on Sam, of course. Underage, unmated, vigorously fucked.
Well. Still better than rancid pears, he decides.
"We really gotta stop this once you start heating," Dean sigh-yawns, arms and
legs slung around his little omega, his boy-o, o-brother. His. With his dick
still filling said his for the one-too-many times this day. Sam doesn't mind.
He likes the itch.
Sam yawns in return. "Uh-huh."
Surrounded by Dean's and his combined scent, he tends to dream of frogspawn.
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