Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/3252299.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Supernatural
  Relationship:
      Dean_Winchester/Sam_Winchester
  Character:
      Dean_Winchester, Sam_Winchester, John_Winchester
  Additional Tags:
      Somnophilia, Wet_Dream, Pre-Series
  Stats:
      Published: 2015-02-10 Chapters: 3/3 Words: 7564
****** Lonely Harmonies ******
by Linden
Summary
     Dean maybe gets why John insists on separate beds, these days.
Notes
     Title hijacked from The Civil Wars’ Finding North. Which I might be
     just a little bit in love with.
***** Chapter 1 *****
July 1998
'We're going to be killed in our beds,' Sam announced, as he climbed out of the
back of the Impala, slow and stiff. The rambling, run-down house they'd finally
stopped in front of in the Georgia woods was only twenty minutes or so outside
of town, but it was at the end of a narrow, twisting dirt road that they'd
arrived at only by bouncing down several other narrow, twisting dirt roads and
across one clearing; they hadn't seen another house in five miles, or a car in
twenty-five. 'We're going to be raped in our beds. Dad!' he hollered. Their
father was already halfway to the front door, digging a set of keys out of his
back pocket; he didn't turn around. 'Didn't you ever see Deliverance?'
Dean snorted back a laugh from where he was unfolding himself from the driver's
seat.  Christ, he was exhausted. 'Helpful tip?' he offered, as he closed the
door with a bang. 'Don't squeal like a pig, Sammy.'
Ah, bitchface #3. Always a classic. 'Dude, that's not funny!'
Dean grinned at him, obnoxious and bright. 'Aw, c'mon. It's a little funny,
isn't it?'  His back popped, painfully, as he straightened up and stretched. He
and John had been driving in shifts for thirty-seven hours, California to
Georgia, and despite the gas stops and grocery runs, Dean was fairly certain
that his hips had locked up on the other side of Louisiana and were never going
to work again. He was also fairly certain Sammy's face was gonna freeze in that
scowl if he kept it up. 'All right, grumpy. C'mon. Help me get our shit
inside,' he said, catching hold of the worn collar line of Sam's tee and
tugging him with him toward the trunk. 'I'm not haulin' your eighty pounds of
rabbit food around by myself.' They'd stopped at a Walmart two hours ago, where
John had told them to stock themselves up for a few weeks; why Sam had thought
they'd needed a bag of oranges and ten thousand kinds of vegetables and a box
of friggin' granola, he was never gonna understand.
Sam smacked his hand away. 'It's not rabbit food, asshat.'
'We could put it out back and have, like, sixteen Thumpers in our yard in an
hour, buttmunch.' Dean popped the trunk, tossed Sam both his duffel, swung his
own and their father's over his shoulder, hauled four of their Walmart bags
from the trunk. 'Wanna? You could have a little party out there with all your
bunny friends. Eat broccoli and apples together and shit.'
'They eat flowers and grass, Dean!'
'. . . dude, how do you even know that?' he demanded, following his grouchy
little brother up toward the house. 'You can't tell me the first damn thing
about a timing chain, but you know what freakin' rabbits eat. You got problems,
Sammy.'  They ducked inside together, stopped together, looked over the place
in weary resignation together, everything dim with the dusk-light streaming in
through dirty windows. The house must have been nice enough when it had been
first built, Dean thought—dove-tailed corners, solid walls, solid stairs
heading up to the second floor—but that had probably been a good, y'know,
seventy-three years ago now, and this evening the place smelled like mold and
must and dampness, and the air was every bit as stiflingly hot and muggy in
here as it was outside. Dean wasn't putting down money on there being an air
conditioner, either. Dean wasn't putting down money on there being lights.
'I'm sleeping in the car,' Sam muttered.
'Yeah, well. You're gonna be fightin' me for the back seat,' he replied, and
felt a warm tug in his chest at the smile Sam tipped up at him, reluctant and
wry but sweet, all the same. He looked away before he could linger on how much
he wanted to bend and kiss it off his brother's pretty mouth. 'Dad?' he called,
into the dim house. 'You dead?'
There were weary footsteps in the shadows, and then John leaned around a
doorframe a moment later. 'Yes, Dean. I accidentally electrocuted myself
checking the fuse box.’
Dean eased the bags to the floor. ‘You’re grumpy when you miss supper; anyone
ever tell you that?’
John just looked at him, wearily, and pushed a hand back through his hair.
‘Most of the fuses are blown,’ he said. ‘But the fridge and stove are running,
and Cormac left storm candles in the pantry last time he was here. Should be
good enough until tomorrow; we can pick some bulbs and fuses up in town when we
go in. Sam, get the windows open in here and then come upstairs and help me
with the beds, and Dean, get the cooler and the rest of what we need out of the
car.  I want the salt lines down before the daylight goes.'
Dean nodded, once, and headed back out into the dying summer dusk.
                                      ***
Nine o'clock found them eating a late supper in the kitchen, crowded around the
rickety table by candlelight, the three of them together. Dean had been
planning on frying up some burgers, the kind that Sammy liked with pineapple in
the middle, but it had been too damn hot to cook. It was very nearly too damn
hot to eat. He'd thrown together a pile of sandwiches and opened a bag of
potato chips instead, cut up a cucumber and carrot into thick veggie sticks and
added them to Sam's plate, and then shouted "Food!" in the general direction of
the stairs and sat down in front of his own. Ten minutes later he was pretty
sure that the backs of his thighs were permanently stuck to the chair. All of
the windows in the house were open, upstairs and down, but outside the night
air was close and humid and utterly still, not so much as a breath of wind to
help blow out the heat. If Dean didn't melt into the floorboards before
morning, he was going to count himself a lucky man.
They didn't talk much as they ate, all of them tired and sweltering in the
muggy dark, but the sandwiches were good—bread crusty, tomatoes sweet, turkey
cold and mustard spicy, ten times better than the week-old egg-salads-on-rye
they'd been picking up at every gas station between San Diego and northern
Georgia. After a little bit Sam got up to get himself another bottle of water,
got Dean another beer without asking. The kid had ditched his tee and jeans and
trainers somewhere upstairs earlier, was now crunching quietly through his
carrot sticks and the second half of his third sandwich in nothing but a pair
of old track shorts, damp with sweat and loose on his hips and clinging to the
curve of his soft cock. Dean was doing his damnedest to pay attention to
nothing but his food, but the table was small, and Sammy was so close, and as
his little brother grumbled about the heat and slumped back in his chair, legs
spread and head tipped back, Dean let his eyes skip, just for a minute, over
all that damp bare skin, along the lean ladder of Sammy's ribs in the
candlelight, his slim waist, broadening shoulders, the long smooth line of his
throat.  Felt his own cock thicken, just a little, felt his heart clench, hard
and painful, behind his ribs. 
He’d been so sure, last summer, that he’d be able to get a handle on this . . .
this wanting, so sure that it was just some passing fever, that he just needed
a little time. But all time had done was darken Sam’s hair and lengthen his
bones and narrow his hips and sweeten his smile; all time had done was hammer
this hopeless, helpless feeling ever deeper into Dean’s chest, leaving him
feeling raw and tender and painfully vulnerable inside. He could ignore it,
most of the time, could go—had gone—weeks on end without thinking too much
about how he wanted to tumble Sam into a bed and keep him there, how he wanted
to taste those miles of scarred silken skin, find out what made him laugh, what
made him moan, what would make him break apart under Dean's mouth and hands. He
could ignore it. Did ignore it.
But it was getting harder, the more Sam grew up.
Weary, aching, Dean looked away from his baby brother, found their father
watching him steadily from across the table, eyes utterly expressionless in the
chancy, flickering light.
Dean kept his face clear and still, and wondered, not for the first time, how
much John knew.
After a moment their father got up, went to get the beer Sam hadn't brought him
from the fridge. Dean cracked the cap of his own open with his ring, and took a
long, weary slug.
He needed to get some sleep. 
                                      ***
He wasn't going to get any, anytime soon, because they apparently had work to
do.
After supper John handed Sam a stack of their preliminary case notes to pin to
the kitchen wall and pointed Dean toward their weapons bags, and although Dean
felt very strongly that a far more productive use of his time would be to go
out and maybe kill someone for money for an air conditioner, and then go buy an
air conditioner and install it before they all died from fucking heat
exhaustion, he grabbed a few more candles from the pantry and went into the
living room all the same, tossed a clean drop cloth down and got to work. An
hour rolled by, slow as molasses: Dad and Sam drifting between the books at the
kitchen table and papers they'd pinned to the kitchen wall, muttering at each
other occasionally across the empty cans of Mountain Dew (Sam) and beer (Dad)
that were piling slowly up between them; Dean cleaning their guns on the living
room floor, Dad's Beretta and his own familiar Colt, and the Taurus that Sam's
slim capable hands were just really starting to grow into. Annoyed though he
was, he let the familiar routine and the feel of cool metal and the scent of
gun oil lull him into a sort of waking doze all the same, hands moving easy and
precise, utterly on autopilot, and so it was a long moment before he realized
that the low murmur of voices in the kitchen was rising into something shout-
y and sparking and dangerous, and had been for awhile. 
'—go telling me it's a bad plan just because you're tired and want to—' 
'I'm not telling you it's a bad plan because I'm tired! I'm telling you it's a
bad plan because it's stupid and it's wrong!' Sam hollered, and Dean's head
came up, sharply. Holy shit. 'Dad, Jesus, listen to me. It's not a rifter,
okay? It's not a rifter. It can't be, because the blood splatter doesn't fit a
rifter; it fits a freakin' werewalker. I studied them for three weeks at
Bobby's last summer. I read about them in Latin. I know what I'm talking—'
'Watch your—'
'I’m not gonna watch my goddamned tone!  I know what this is, damn it! I know
how to kill it! And you're gonna have us chasing our tails while it goes to
ground for another seventy years instead, because you're too fucking stubborn
and drunk to listen to—
Dean was already on his feet and moving before he heard the
unmistakable crack of his father’s hand, was at the door in time to see Sam's
pretty head snapping sideways, something ugly and red already blooming on his
cheek, half a heartbeat before John backhanded him across the other side of his
face for good measure, split Sammy's lip open against the kid's teeth and the
edge of his own ring. The sound was loud and flat and ugly, and there was blood
on John's knuckles, wet and dark.
The kitchen was utterly silent, save for the soft, shocked huffs of Sam's
breath. Dean could hear the rasp of them with perfect, painful clarity, from
where he stood with one hand white-knuckled on the jamb beside him.
His little brother put a hand to his mouth, shaking, eyes wide and wet. His
fingers came away bloody. He stared at them for a moment, then looked up at
their father, and Dean could see it, feel it: shock giving way to hurt giving
way to grief giving way to anger, his brother's temper cracking; and Dean was
across the room before he ever even registered he was moving, just as the kid
started to take a swing back at the man. Holy fucking Christ, no. He yanked Sam
back against his chest and hauled him back away from their father, and though
his little brother wasn't all that little anymore, Dean still had half a foot
and a good fifty pounds on him, and no matter how much he twisted and kicked
Sam couldn't get free.
'Let me go! Dean! Let me go!'
'Sam, Sammy, c'mon—'
Sam wrenched hard against Dean's arms, cursing. 'I hate you!' he shouted at
their father, kicking, as John stood watching them both, his eyes dark for half
a heartbeat with a shaken, stricken regret Dean already knew he would never,
ever give voice to. 'I hate you!' and Dean turned them both away, arms still
tight around his little brother, his hands gripping Sam's wrists, pinning them
to the kid’s chest. He manhandled him through the door and into the living room
and didn't let him go until they were on the other side of it, near the stairs.
Dean was ready for him to turn, to try to dodge back around him, but Sam just
took off up the staircase, two steps at a time, and the slam of a door overhead
was loud and final and sharp.
It was quiet, then, the cheap wall clock ticking loud and steady in the living
room, the faucet dripping in a soft counterpoint in the kitchen beyond. Dean
pushed a hand through his hair, turned to look at their father. The same
familiar excuses he always made for the man were tumbling through his mind (it
was the heat; it was the hunt; he's been drinking; he's tired; we're all tired;
he wouldn't have done it/said it/meant it sober/this morning/tomorrow), but
none of them were sticking this time, not the way they usually did, not the way
they always had. Because that hadn't been just a smack across the face for
disobedience or disrespect; there had been blood all over his baby brother's
mouth, bright and wet, blood smeared across his teeth, dripping down his chin,
and that wasn't—Dean couldn't—
John was scrubbing a hand across his face, weary and slow, the lines around his
mouth looking twice as deep as they had a minute ago, and Dean felt a familiar,
faithful pulse of love and worry amid the hot knot of fury in his chest. It
hurt. Their father met his eyes, just for a moment, and then he was reaching
for his keys, shoving his feet back into his boots, heading unsteadily for the
door. He had his hand on the knob when Dean spoke.
'Dad.' His throat ached, chest burned.
John pulled the door open, paused, didn't turn. His shoulders were tight, the
humid dark flooding in all around him.
'You ever hit him like that again,' Dean said, quietly, 'and Sammy ain’t gonna
be the one hittin’ back.’
The door closed, a moment later, with a soft click at their father's back.
***** Chapter 2 *****
It was pitch-black upstairs, and utterly silent, and Dean stood for a moment,
listening, a storm candle and two makeshift cold packs in hand—frozen
vegetables wrapped in dish cloths, a Winchester family special.
'Sammy?' he called, quietly.
He found him on the bed Dean had claimed for his own earlier that evening,
curled up on his side in the dark and looking so like the little boy he'd once
been that Dean felt the heavy, hollow hurt of it in his gut.  He put the candle
down on the crappy little bedside table and sat down beside his brother, cold
packs in his lap, old mattress creaking gently beneath his weight. Ran a hand
up Sam's knobby spine, squeezed at the back of his neck. ‘Sammy,’ he said
again, still quietly, and after a long moment Sam rolled onto his back. In the
flickering light his eyes were red and his cheeks wet and his pretty mouth
still bloody, and his breath was hitching, softly, in his throat. Dean knew
that most of what was boiling under his skin was anger, could see it in his
face, but there was little-boy hurt there, too, lingering in the corners of his
mouth, in the dampness of his lashes, because for all of the fights and
shouting and the epic, angry silences, for everything that had just happened
downstairs, Sam loved their father, fiercely, far more than Dean thought John
knew. 
Dean took careful hold of his chin, turned his face gently toward the
candlelight, bit back the curse that was blooming in his throat. The imprint of
their father's hand was already darkening on Sam's left cheek, and an ugly
bruise from the man's knuckles was blossoming on the right, and while the cut
in the kid's lip wasn't deep enough to need stitches, it was ragged and it was
messy, and it was gonna make eating a pain in the ass for a couple of days.
 Son of a bitch.
Sam was watching him with tired eyes. 'That bad?' he asked, softly.
Dean rubbed a gentle, gentle thumb along his jawline. 'You've had worse,' he
said, as quietly. Then, holding up three fingers: 'How many we got, kiddo?' he
asked.
Sam flipped him off, wearily, and Dean clucked.
'Nope. Off by two,' he said, and added a fourth. 'Try again.'
Sam sighed. 'Dean—'
‘Sam. This is not a fucking joke.’ And it wasn't, it really wasn't; Sammy had
already gotten his brains scrambled a week ago when a cranky poltergeist had
tossed him against a wall, and if their father had gone and made it worse—Dean
waggled his fingers at him. 'How many?'
'Four,' Sam groused. 
'Awesome.' He pressed one bag of frozen peas carefully against the side of his
brother's face, pulled Sam's hand up to keep it there. 'What highway did we
pick up in Texas?'
'Dean.'
'Humor me.' He bent to rummage out an antiseptic wipe and the A&D from their
med kit in his duffel beside the bed.  'What highway?'
'Twen—' Sam hissed at the sudden sting on his lip. 'Twenty,' he said, as Dean
wiped the fresh bubble of blood gently from his mouth, smeared some ointment
across it. 'Our last name's Winchester, Dad's a jackass, and we're in Georgia.
He only slapped me, Dean. I don’t have another concussion.'
'Yeah? What's seventeen times twenty-two?'
'Three hundred seventy four.'
Dean blinked, startled. ' . . . seriously?'
Sam's smile was small and reluctant, and it clearly hurt, but it was real, all
the same. 'Yeah,' he said, softly. 
'Huh,' Dean cradled the other bag of frozen veggies against his brother’s other
cheek and the edge of his torn mouth. Then: 'Nerd,' he added, and Sam's laugh
was nothing much more than a huff of air, but it was a laugh, all the same.
Dean smiled back, brushed soft, soft bangs off Sam’s forehead with his free
hand, let his fingers slide a little into the messy tumble of the kid’s hair.
Sam didn't pull away. 
'He wouldn't listen to me,' he whispered.
'I know.'
There was something desperate in his little brother's face as he looked up at
him. 'Dean, you gotta believe me, please; I'm right about this, and he won't—'
'Shh, shh. I believe you,' he said, because he did. Sam could be an arrogant
little shit sometimes, but if the kid said he knew something, then he knew it
cold, and Dean would willingly wager—had willingly wagered, more than once—his
life on his baby's brother's brains. 'We'll figure it out tomorrow, all right?'
he promised, softly. 'You and me,' and Sam nodded, but there were already tears
in his eyes again, tired and angry and hurt, and after a minute he shifted onto
his right side, face pillowed on frozen peas, pulled his knees up a little
again until he was curled around his brother, until he could press his forehead
into the side of Dean’s thigh, eyes closed, lashes wet. Dean kept a hand in his
tousled hair and the other cold pack against his face and let him stay there,
both of them silent in the muggy dark.
It was another ten, maybe fifteen minutes before Dean lifted the bag, shifted
his brother a little to get the other from beneath his cheek, took another look
at his pretty face. Satisfied that the bruises weren't swelling much, he went
looking through his duffel again, this time for their stash of meds, and found
the pouch already open. He glanced over at his brother. 'You take something
already, Sammy?' he asked, and Sam nodded, winced, held still. Flexed his jaw,
gently.
‘Orange bottle,’ he said. 'Tylenol?'
Dean's mouth quirked, just a little. If it had been in the orange bottle, it
had been Vicodin, but Dean figured there wasn't much harm in it. The pills
would knock the kid out for awhile, let him get some real rest; and Tylenol
wouldn't have done shit for the headache that would've kept him up half the
night, anyway. 'Uh, yeah,' he said. 'Tylenol. Good. You take two?'
'Yeah.' Still curled on his side, Sam was tangling his fingers in the hem of
Dean's tee, looking so fucking young that Dean's heart ached. His voice was
quiet. 'Dad take off?'
' . . . yeah, kiddo.'
Sam let his eyes close, his mouth twisting just a little, tense and unhappy.
'He shouldn't be driving,' he whispered.
'Yeah, well.' Dean carded a hand through his little brother's hair again, nails
gentle against his scalp. 'He shouldn't've been drivin' back from that bar in
Martinsville last month, either.' Or from the package store in Oakland, or the
bar in Winslow, or the one just outside of Louisville; there were a lot of
places John shouldn't have been driving back from, lately. He and Sammy didn't
talk about it, ever, and it wasn't like he was gonna say anything to their dad,
Jesus, but John had been drinking more this spring and summer than Dean had
ever seen him, and it was only getting worse. Nightmares of their car wrapped
around a tree, their father crumpled dead behind the wheel, had been dogging
Dean's sleep for months.
Bad nights painted John bleeding out on the hood, the windshield shattered all
around him.
With an effort, Dean pushed the images away, the same way he did every night
that he woke up to find their father's bed still empty, the dream-echo of tires
squealing on pavement sharp and high in his ears. 'He'll be okay, Sammy,' he
promised, because John had to be; he was . . . he was their dad. 'Everything's
gonna be okay, all right? It'll . . . it'll all be better when you wake up. You
just gotta get some sleep, little brother.'
It wasn't true, and Dean knew it wasn't true, and he hated himself for saying
it anyway. But it was the only thing he had to offer his little brother just
now: ice for his face, and a hand in his hair, and the same tired, familiar lie
he'd been telling him all their lives. Dad’s gonna be here for Christmas, just
like he always is. It'll all be better when you wake up. We're not gonna have
to move before the science fair, Sammy. It'll all be better when you wake up.
Dad'll be here for your birthday next year, I promise. It'll all be better when
you wake up. Sam didn't call him on it, just tightened his fingers a little in
Dean's shirt, looked up at him with eyes that were sleepy and soft and
chocolate-dark in the dim light. ' . . . c'n I stay with you?' he asked.
Dean knew exactly what their father would have thought of that request,
couldn't right now bring himself to care. 'Yeah,' he replied, softly. 'Yeah,
a'course, kiddo. Just budge up, okay?'
Sam shifted over a little as Dean leaned to blow out the candle, its thin skein
of smoke visible for half a heartbeat before the darkness swallowed it whole.
Dean stood to skin out of his jeans and pull his sweaty tee off over his head,
kept his boxers on, then crawled onto the narrow bed with his little brother.
It was too hot for this, it really was, and they were too old for this, and
Dean knew it, but Sammy tucked right into his side anyway, just wrapped himself
right around him as though Dean were his personal property, the same way he had
when he'd been four, seven, twelve and a half; and Dean brought a hand up to
cup the back of his dark head before he thought twice about it, fingers sinking
into the tumble of silky, tangled hair, his mouth and nose following a minute
after. They'd been in the car since Tuesday afternoon, sleeping and awake, and
it had to be eighty-five degrees in this cramped little room, but even sweaty
and sticky-hot and two days from clean, Sam still smelled so good to him, salty
and earthy and like brother and belonging and home, and if his cock were
swelling a little in his boxers at the warmth of that scent, and at the feel of
all that smooth soft skin pressed against him, well—it's not like that was
anything new, these days, and it's not like it was anything he didn't have
practice at ignoring.
He closed his eyes, Sam a familiar, welcome weight in his arms, worry and want
and love and comfort and lust tangled up so tight together in his chest that it
hurt to breathe past the ache of it.
'Dean?' Sam said, softly, after a little while.
He swallowed. He breathed. 'Yeah.'
Sam tucked his head more firmly against Dean's chest, curled closer, made
himself small. ' . . . thanks,' he whispered, the tension in his muscles
draining out slow and steady, like water, like blood.
Dean never knew which of them was the first to fall asleep.
                                      ***
It was maybe three hours later when he woke again, impossibly hot in the humid,
sweltering dark. He wasn’t entirely certain where or who he was for a moment,
but by the time his brain had coughed up in Georgia and Sam’s-brother-Dad’s-
son-Dean, it had also processed that he was sweating buckets and more than half
hard in his shorts, mostly because Sammy was sprawled entirely on top of him,
dead to the world, hands and forearms tucked under Dean's shoulders in a sleepy
sort of hug. He was squirming in his sleep, and tiny hiccupping pants were
catching in his throat; barely half-awake and sluggish with the heat, Dean
thought at first the kid was having a nightmare, was about to wake him up when
Sammy hitched himself a little higher, and Dean felt the firm, solid warmth of
his brother's cock sliding against his thigh.
Sam moaned, softly, in his sleep.
Later that morning, in the shower, head bent and hands braced against the wall,
icy water sluicing down his back until there was an ache blooming in his
temples and he was shivering and shriveled with the cold, Dean would think that
if he had just pushed his little brother off of him right then, everything
might have been all right. But he was still half-asleep, and half-convinced
that he was dreaming, and Sam felt so good on him that he lay motionless
beneath him for a long moment more; and by the time his brain came all the way
online Sam's hips had already found a clumsy rhythm and he was pushing his hot
damp face into the crook of Dean's neck, making these whimpery, hurt little
noises that were so impossibly hot Dean could feel his own toes curling.
Shit.  He pushed his head back into his pillow, squeezed his eyes shut as his
cock thickened and swelled and pumped out a warm slick of precome in his
shorts, as the sharp twists of want curled in his stomach, low and deep. Oh,
shit, shit—
He had to stop this. Clearly. He had to get Sam to stop this, had to wake him
up, he had to wake him up, but there was some sort of fundamental disconnect
going on between his turned-on body and his panicky brain, because his hands
were fisting in the sheets beneath him instead of moving his little brother off
of him; and his thighs were loosening, spreading, knees sliding up to let Sam
sink in to the warm cradle of his hips.  His brother made a sharp, filthy
little sound at the feel of it, fingers digging into Dean’s shoulder blades,
both of their cocks trapped against their stomachs now, sliding hot together
through the sweat and slick soaking their shorts. Dean swallowed against the
moan rising in his throat, forced himself to keep his hips still, his hands
still, because this wasn’t—he couldn’t—Sam was sleeping; Jesus, he was high;
didn’t know what he was doing, was probably dreaming of that pretty little high
school girl from Tucson who'd asked him to the sophomore dance—
His little brother's bruised mouth was open against Dean's throat now, hot,
wet, his slim hips jerking fast and hard; legs spreading a little to get him in
even closer, forcing Dean’s thighs wider, opening him up. Sam was panting,
softly, and the sounds spilling out of him were changing, sounding frustrated,
lost, like Sammy needed help, like he needed Dean.
Dizzy with want, Dean started to rock up into his thrusts, steadying his
rhythm, guiding him into a rough, easy ride. Sam’s ragged nails were bright hot
points of pain against his back, the kid’s startled moans puffing just beneath
his ear in the dark, and Dean couldn’t help the sound that punched out of his
chest this time, the way his back arched, one arm wrapping around his brother’s
shoulders, the other around his ribs—good so good how the fuck is it possibly
this good—and a moment later he felt Sam’s lithe body tighten and then lock up
entirely in his arms half a heartbeat before the kid came, on a hard helpless
thrust and a long low moan and with a damp blossom of heat against Dean’s
stomach. Sammy didn’t wake. Cock pulsing, body trembling, his breaths huffed
warm and wet and unsteady against Dean’s throat for a long moment, and then
they slowed and settled back into the easy, usual rhythm of his sleep as he
stilled, semen splattered wet and hot against Dean’s skin, body heavy and lax
and so, so warm.
Don’t, Dean told himself desperately, don’t, don’t, it was just for him, it was
just for Sammy, but he couldn't stop the rocking of his hips now; pinned as he
was beneath Sam’s weight and warmth, surrounded by his scent, it took him only
three more thrusts before there was a hook-pull of white heat wrenching through
his gut and punching up his spine and then he was coming, hard, harder than he
had in God only knew how long, biting his lip to keep from moaning as the hot
pulses of his orgasm tore through him, vicious and sweet and so
fucking good that his breath was coming in soft, sobbing gasps that he couldn’t
seem to slow even after he started to come down, aftershocks rattling through
him like static in his bones. He had one arm still locked around Sam’s ribs and
his face buried in his little brother’s hair, his other hand white-knuckled in
the sheets beside them, and Sam was snoring softly into his neck, blissfully
unaware of the fact that Dean had just violently and utterly unraveled beneath
him, with him, because of him. 
Sammy. Sammy. Sam.
He was aware, dimly, that he needed to move. Needed to move Sam, needed to get
himself cleaned up, but his body was still ringing like a sounded bell, and his
muscles felt so heavy he could scarcely lift his eyelids, never mind move his
arms, his legs, his baby brother.  Sleep crept up on him, wound around him, and
pulled him down gently into the dark, with Sam still cuddled close and utterly
content against him.
***** Chapter 3 *****
Sam swam back toward consciousness easy and slow, aware at first only of a
dull, distant sort of throbbing in his face. It escalated, rapidly, into a
singing, hammering ache as he came all the way awake, pain exploding all along
his cheek and jaw and in the muscles of his neck, with bright stinging sparks
tearing into the left side of his mouth. For half a heartbeat he was waking six
months ago in Salem Hospital, an IV in his hand and Dean sitting sleepless and
worried and pale beside his bed, and then he blinked and the world swam into
focus around him: no hospital, just a small hot room in an unfamiliar house,
early light painting the walls in morning-gold and shadow. It took him a moment
to remember what had happened (Dad drunk angry pain); and a moment longer to
realize that he was both alone and lonely (Dean where's Dean I want Dean); and
still one moment more before he became aware of the dried mess in his shorts,
itchy and sticky and uncomfortable, and felt a hot flush rising in his cheeks.
Shit. There were the tatters of a sweet, sweet dream about Dean lingering just
beyond the edges of his memory, and he squeezed his eyes shut and hoped, with a
desperation he generally reserved for hunts that went more than a little
sideways and the fourth quarters of Brick Holmes' football games, that his
brother had gotten up before he'd jizzed in his sleep, because the teasing was
going to be epic, if he hadn't. Dean had been gentle with him the first time
Sam had woken wet and confused and still trembling with the aftershocks of
orgasm, in their crappy trailer outside Achille; since then, whenever Dean had
found him stuffing damp sheets or wet boxers into a washer at 5 AM, he'd
snickered and called him Old Faithful for a week.
It was enough to make Sam wonder, sometimes, why he'd ever fallen in love with
his brother in the first place.
He sat up, slowly, embarrassed and sore. There were a handful of cheap Ritz
knockoffs on a napkin on the bedside table, along with a glass of water and
three ibuprofen, but there were no snarky-ass notes about geysers, and no
sketches of geysers, and Dean hadn't arranged the crackers in the shape of a
geyser, so maybe he was in the clear. He ate the crackers, quietly, before he
knocked back the pills and the water. His mouth hurt. His jaw hurt. Everything
above his shoulders hurt. He got to his feet and padded down the hall to the
bathroom, took a shower in the company of a spider roughly the size of
Kentucky, then did a half-assed job of drying off and pulled on a pair of
shorts and one of Dean's old band tees, the Deep Purple one Sam had found for
him a year ago at a thrift store in Nevada. His bare feet were quiet on the
stairs.
Dean wasn't in the living room—but their father was, snoring facedown into the
cushions of the long narrow couch, boots still on, one arm hanging over the
side. The twist Sam felt in his gut was equal parts relief and anger and
disgust and sadness, and he turned away, silently, too raw inside to deal with
anything having to do with John this early in the morning. Dean wasn't in the
kitchen, either, though he found what looked like the remnants of a fried egg
in the skillet in the sink and half a pot of coffee on the stove. Sam poured
himself half a cup, filled the rest with milk, rummaged out four of the sugar
packets he regularly hijacked from diners, and then went outside to look for
his brother.
He found him by the car around the side of the house, hood popped, toolbox open
on a nearby stump. Their tiny weather radio, perched on the fender, was putting
forth equal bursts of static and what sounded like a talk show, and Sam was
pretty sure that Dean was doing something . . . engine-like, though he had no
idea what. His brother looked up at the quiet shuffle of his footsteps, eyes
impossibly, beautifully green in his impossible, beautiful face, and as they
flicked over Sam's bruises Dean's soft mouth twisted into something unhappy and
upset.
'Jesus, Sammy,' he said, straightening.
Sam shrugged. He wanted to say that it looked worse than it felt, but it felt
pretty damn bad, so he settled on sipping at his coffee instead, careful of his
cut lip.
'You take the Motrin I left you?'
He nodded. Shuffled a little closer to peer under the hood. 'Dad fuck up the
car?' he asked, voice still rough from sleep.
Dean shook his head. 'Nah.' He'd taken a shower earlier, clearly; Sam could
smell the clean sweetness of soap on his sun-warmed skin, and it stirred a
confusing, familiar blend of comfort and arousal in his gut. For a moment he
wanted nothing more in the world than to drop his coffee and just push his face
into his brother's chest and wrap his arms around his waist; he wasn't sure
whether he wanted his brother to just cuddle him like a little boy or kiss him
like a lover, but he knew he wanted Dean.
He tightened his grip on his coffee mug instead.
'—spark plugs, kiddo,' Dean was saying—had been saying, Sam realized, and he
pulled himself the fuck together and tuned back in to the world around him.
'Should have done it before we left California, really, just didn't have the
time.' He quirked a smile at him, though there was something off about his
eyes—sad or worried or haunted or something, and it bothered Sam that he
couldn't tell what it was, or what had put it there. 'You remember the first
damn thing I taught you about swappin' em out last year?'
Sam sipped at his coffee. ' . . . sure.'
'Yeah?'
'You bet.'
'I'm all ears, Sam.'
'They're, um. Sparky?' he offered, and Dean smiled, really smiled, a quick,
sweet flash of ivory that crinkled the corners of his eyes and lit up Sam's
entire world. Sam would have given his left arm for his brother to have touched
him then—for a hand in his hair, on his shoulder, squeezing the back of his
neck—and for half a heartbeat he was sure Dean was about to, thought Dean was
moving to, but then his brother seemed to catch himself, somehow, for some
reason, fingers curling in on themselves instead of reaching for Sam, and he
turned again to the engine, an odd sort of stiffness in his shoulders, in the
line of his beautiful back. Sam watched him for a moment, silently, and after a
long moment he thought he recognized it as guilt. What the hell?
'Dean, you okay?' he asked.
'Yeah,' Dean said, to the engine block, without looking up. 'Yeah I'm good,
Sammy.' He cleared his throat. 'Look, you, uh . . . you don't gotta stay out
here, okay? Dad's gonna be out 'til evenin', the way he's snorin', so you can
just . . . go read, or . . . whatever. Go back to bed for awhile if you need
to, yeah? I'm gonna go into town and get some fuses when I'm done here so we
got lights and TV and shit later. Maybe a fan or an air conditioner, if I can
find one cheap.'
Sam tried not to feel as though he'd just been slapped across the face again.
You don't gotta stay out here. He waited for a minute for Dean to invite him to
come into town with him, but Dean said nothing else, didn't even look up from
where he was torquing a spark plug, and suddenly Sam felt stupid and young and
. . . well, that pretty much covered it. 'Oh,' he said, quietly, 'okay,' and
something of what he was feeling must have bled into his voice, because Dean's
beautiful, capable hands paused for a minute where he was working, and his
brother's head dropped, just a little, eyes closing briefly.
'Sammy, I didn't—'
'No, 's okay.' He swallowed, started to turn back toward the house. 'I get it.'
It hadn't any kind of bewildering guilt he'd seen in his brother's eyes and
body, then, just . . . annoyance. Maybe he'd just been too clingy last night;
maybe he'd pissed Dean off, fighting with their father; maybe . . . he felt a
sudden, hot lick of panic in his gut as he remembered the mess he'd woken with
between his legs. Oh, God if he'd . . . if he'd said something in his sleep and
Dean had—if Dean had—
'Hey.' His brother's hand closed around his upper arm, unyielding as a shackle,
before panic had time to blossom into full-blown terror. He tugged Sam back
around to face him, eyes tired and closed off, but gentle all the same. 'Sammy,
hey. I'm not tryin' to be a bitch, okay? I'm just—' He sighed, let go of Sam to
scrub a hand over his own hair, rub at the back of his neck. 'S nothin'. 'S got
nothin' to do with you, little brother; this is all me, and I just gotta . . .
I just gotta sort some shit out.'
'What do you mean?'
The twist of Dean's mouth was exasperated and weary as he let his hand fall to
his side. 'There some words in there you didn't understand, brainiac?'
'No, I just . . . ' He scuffed at the grass with one foot. 'Sorry,' he said,
softly. Because he did understand, he really did; they lived in each other's
pockets 24/7, were rarely more than three feet outside of each other's space,
and sometimes it got . . . you just needed some room, was all. He couldn't
remember the number of motel bathrooms he'd locked himself in over the years,
just to be alone for a little while, just to think things through, to remember
that he was just Sam and not part of Sam-and-Dean-and-Dad. But all the same,
Dean had never . . . Dean had never been the one to do that, not to him, no
matter how bitchy or needy or whiny Sam had ever been, and he wondered, now, if
his brother had felt this same hot, tearing pain in his chest every time Sam
had closed a door between them.
Course he hasn't, he thought, tiredly. He's not the one in love with you.
He looked up at his brother through his bangs. 'You, uh . . . you think you'll
be back for lunch?' he asked, hesitantly. 'I could . . . later I could get
burgers ready for us, or something.'
'Burgers'd be awesome, Sammy, yeah,' Dean said, and offered him what was
probably supposed to be a smile. It wasn't especially convincing. 'Just, uh.
Don't brain Dad with the skillet or anything while I'm gone, yeah? We don't got
time for a salt and burn tonight, man.'
Sam tried for a smile in return, was pretty sure he missed. The sunlight was in
Dean's hair, and in his eyes, and he was beautiful; and Sam needed—he needed to
not be here, needed to be anywhere but here, because he couldn't—'Drive safe,
okay?' he managed, and forced himself to get moving before Dean could tell him
to go away again. He didn't look back, not wanting to see if his brother had
already turned back to the car; just went up the porch stairs and let himself
quietly into the house and then went back up to the small bedroom he'd woken
in. He wasn't tired, but he ditched his coffee mug and lay down again anyway,
pushed his tender face into the pillow that still smelled like his brother,
breathed in his familiar scent. There were tears pricking at the backs of his
eyes, and this was stupid, stupid; he was fifteen and a half years old, and he
was not going to cry just because his father had bloodied his mouth last night
and his brother didn't want him around this morning.
He heard the car start up a little while later, heard the soft sound of tires
on a dirt road, and then it was quiet, heavy and still, the only sounds the
soft, ambient noise of the forest, drifting in through the open windows, and
John snoring on the couch below.
Sam tugged the pillow into his arms and curled up around it, and waited for the
sound of the Impala's engine, for the sound of Dean coming home.
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