Chapter Text
On New Year’s Eve, they leave Walkeye and head out towards whatever may await them. Dean drives and a little after eight that night he starts drinking to keep with the tipsy flow of the traffic. It’s not drunk drivers that ruin things for everyone; it’s that one sober motherfucker that screws everything up. Dean doesn’t want to be that guy. That’s what he tells Sam when he asks him if drinking Old Crow is such a great idea at the moment. Sam snorts and uses a pocket flashlight to read by after telling Dean he’ll be taking over the driving if he starts swerving too bad.
Dean misses Walkeye already, their little camp there was starting to feel like it could become a home for the two of them. They slept most of Christmas day, but when they got up, Dean cooked and made Sam help him. He’d been a little sore from the night before, but he also had never felt so satisfied. The afterglow had faded, that emotionally turned inside out feeling was gone and in its place was just a feeling of closeness with Sam. They’d eaten and then sequestered themselves away while they wrapped each others gifts. They’d opened them by the cheerful glow of the twinkle lights Dean had strung around the living room window.
The stay in Walkeye had felt like sending out feeler roots, seeking a spot for the taproot to anchor down. He wants to go back, but he knows they can’t and it smarts the tiniest bit. Those walls, that room, that bed, will all be for someone else soon and Sam and Dean’s merry Christmas will only be a memory they keep.
At about 10:30 they stop on the outskirts of Montgomery and rent a room. Dean’s got a buzz and they’re tired, more so than they would normally be after only a few hours driving. Once they rent the motel room though, neither of them sleeps. Sam goes back to reading and Dean takes Kilgore for a walk. When they get back, he flips through the television channels and watches part of an old softcore porn flick called The Sex Files until he gets so fed up with its ridiculousness that he turns the TV off. Sam has put his book away and is scrolling through online news articles for anything that may look like a potential job. If he finds anything, Dean hopes it’s good; something to start the new year off with a bang. He feels like shooting something.
Bored, Dean kicks back on the bed and scratches Kilgore’s head. He glances over at Sam. He’s bouncing his knee up and down, nervous energy and boredom making him fidgety. It’s New Year’s Eve and here they sit like a couple of… Dean doesn’t know what.
“Sam.” When Sam looks over at him, Dean waves his bottle of Old Crow. “Come have a drink with me. Let’s ring in the new year in style.”
Sam’s smile is quick and bright; he looks almost grateful. “Sure,” he says.
He sits down beside Dean and stretches his long legs out. Kilgore is between them and honestly, it’s a little crowded, but that’s okay. Sam takes the bottle when Dean passes it to him and drinks long and deep. Dean enjoys watching his throat work as he swallows.
“We shoulda got some fireworks,” Dean says. He always thinks about it and he always forgets.
“Maybe next year,” Sam says.
“Maybe,” Dean says. Next December 31st is a long ways off though and living the way they do, on what always feels like borrowed time, is not the kind of lifestyle that lends itself to things like planning ahead. It would be nice if they could though.
Sam passes the bottle back and they slip into silence, comfortable as an old shoe. Kilgore gets bored with them and gets off the bed, taking one of his toys to his bed and working away at it, trying like hell to get the squeaker out. They’re so used to the noise by now that it doesn’t even bother them. It’s a homey kind of sound.
They shuffle around a little after 11:30 and get ready for bed, pajama pants and a t-shirt for Sam, boxers and his shirts from that day for Dean. He tends to sleep in his clothes because he’s always waiting for the moment he has to get up and run, the moment he has to fight, the moment his sleep is disturbed by something coming to kill them. He’s partially gotten out of the habit the last few years though. He cannot say why, except that it feels more normal to take his jeans off when he sleeps. It’s also a hell of a lot more comfortable.
When they’ve taken care of all that, they climb back into bed and lean against one another, backs propped on the pressboard. Sam rests his hand on Dean’s leg and Dean lays his head on Sam’s shoulder. Outside, there is the sound of laughter and joyous revelry; the far-off pop-boom-crackle of fireworks. Inside is the sound of Old Crow draining from its bottle, the death-squeaks of Kilgore’s toys and their breath. It’s like being walled off, closed in; separated from everyone else. It makes Dean think of Sam’s maze analogy. He kisses Sam’s shoulder and Sam smiles, squeezes his thigh affectionately. He and Sam are different, they may mix and mingle with the rest of the world, but they are not truly a part of it. They really are free… and they’re free because they are outsiders.
Sam’s phone dings a quick, up-tempo tune and Sam raises the bottle high in the air. “Happy New Year, Dean!” he says with a laugh. It amuses Dean to realize he’s a little drunk.
“Stay gold, Sammy boy,” Dean says in return then leans in and kisses Sam.
Sam’s laughter hums in his mouth and it makes Dean laugh back. That’s what midnight means: celebration and swapping spit. Dean doesn’t mind that aspect of it at all.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Sam’s crawling up from the foot of the huge bed. Dean watches the rise and fall of his shoulder blades, the ripple of his muscles as he moves. His eyes glimmer in the reddish light, his gaze is sharp and intent. He smiles and Dean expects to see his mouth is full of row after razored row of teeth, but it’s not. It’s just Sammy’s teeth; straight on top, crooked on the bottom.
Dean holds out his hand to him and smiles back. “Come on, Sammy.”
Sam nods and slides over him like a new skin, a dry tsunami and Dean sucks in a sharp breath.
“Are you ready?” Sam asks.
“Yes,” Dean says. He touches Sam’s face, slides his fingers along his cheek bones, down his jaw. He touches Sam’s mouth and Sam kisses his fingers.
The knife shines brightly in the sourceless light and Dean closes his eyes against its glare. He breathes out slowly, letting himself relax. It’s what he’s wanted forever.
“Do it, Sam,” he says. “I trust you.”
“You do,” Sam says.
He cuts him and Dean moans, spreading his arms out, leaving himself wide open as Sam drags the knife down his belly. His skin parts like shafts of sunlight moving aside for the shade. His blood bubbles out of him like music, soaking into the deep red sheets and turning them red-black. It seems elegant and right to Dean.
The air licks at his insides, saturates his organs and soaks into his lungs like they’re sponges. Dean feels dizzy with it, drunk on happiness and desire.
“I love you,” he says.
Sam grabs his ribs and cracks them, a jagged fissure running up his sternum before the bone gives completely.
“Always,” Sam says. “Always.”
“Always,” Dean echoes as he takes Sam’s face in his hands and draws him down. “Eat, Sammy.”
He’s found the words and the elation sends thrills through him, electrifying his veins, making his exposed nerves spark and sizzle with pleasure. He can feel Sam’s breath, hot and moist as a southern wind, on his aching, starving heart.
Outside is the sound of calliope music, it filters through the walls and vibrates in the mattress springs. People are screaming laughter and barkers are calling for marks to come to their booths. The room is turning and turning and turning. This is a carnival ride and they are the main attraction; the stars of the freak show. No one can afford the admission to their tent but they themselves.
Sam takes the first bite of his heart. It makes a crisp, snap-crunch of sound. Breaking bones or a candy apple, Dean’s not sure and he doesn’t care. His breath is quickening as he tenderly cradles the back of Sam’s head and threads his bloody fingers through Sam’s dark, dark hair. It’s streaked with gold from the sun and it seems to melt over Dean’s fingers, a trick of the light. Sam takes another bite and Dean screams through his clenched teeth. Nothing has ever felt this good simply for the pain it causes.
When Sam lifts his head from Dean’s bloody chest cavity, his face is not his own for a minute. It’s the huge, shaggy head of a timber wolf with burning yellow eyes, but it is only a mask. Dean runs his fingers through the ruff of fur at the wolf’s neck and it fades away, long muzzle and hungry eyes melting away to show him Sam again. Sam with thick red like melted candy dripping down his face. Dean listens as he chews, feels himself leaking out onto the red-red bed.
Sam smiles at him and blood oozes between his sharp wolf teeth as he leans down to take another bite.
In the dirty dishwater grey light of a hungover New Year’s Day dawn, Dean comes awake with a gasp and a shudder. He’s lying against Sam’s side; head pillowed on his chest, the sounds of his breath and heartbeat filling his ear. Sam’s got one hand resting against Dean’s heaving side and his other is on his chest, his thumb just barely touching Dean’s cheek.
He cuts his eyes up to study Sam’s sleeping face in the ugly light and thinks that Sam is the only thing he’s ever truly known. Not hunting, not their dad, just Sam. Sam is the only thing worth knowing to Dean now. Maybe that’s always been the case.
Dean closes his eyes, but he can’t ignore the way his body thrums with energy and want. He’s hard, has been since he woke up—it’s partly what woke him up to begin with. Sam with his face buried in his chest, eating his fill; taking what he wants and in doing so, giving Dean precisely what he desires.
He opens his eyes again and looks up at Sam’s face. He’s startled to find Sam watching him back, eyes calm and wide awake. Dean pushes up from beside him and looks down at him.
“Sam.” His voice is a whiskey-burned rasp as he climbs on top of him.
Sam’s hands automatically go to his waist as Dean leans down to kiss him. Morning breath isn’t exactly sexy, but be damned if Dean cares and Sam’s not complaining, so to hell with it. He pushes at Sam’s shirt, trying to get it off and Sam finally makes him stop so he can take it off himself. While he does, Dean shucks his boxers and shirts. It’s got to be some kind of record. Sam shimmies out of his pants and pushes them down to the foot of the bed.
“I want…” Dean says as he climbs back on him. He moves against Sam, breath a rough groan in the back of his throat. He can feel Sam, hard against the crack of his ass. “Want you.”
Sam doesn’t say anything as he leans up to nip Dean’s bottom lip sharp enough to draw a bead of blood. It will leave a sore spot for days, something for Dean to press his tongue against and recollect.
Dean reaches behind himself to take Sam’s cock in his hand and hold it steady. He lowers himself down on it, breath straining through his teeth as he relaxes to take him in this way. Sam sits up, taking Dean with him, hands sliding up his back to cup his shoulders as the blankets crumple around them in ripples of well-worn fabric. Dean moves and looks right at Sam as he does, breath hissing out of him until he finds a rhythm. He kisses Sam and tastes his blood. Sam bites him again, drawing more blood. Dean bites Sam back just so he can lick at the sore spot and make it better.
The room is warm and the exertion makes sweat bead on his skin and slip down his spine. Sam’s stroking hands smooth it away as they move together in the dawn light. Sam bites his shoulders, the side of his neck.
“Here,” Dean pants. He leans back far enough to lay his hand over his heart. “Bite here.”
Sam does it, leans forward and takes a mouthful of flesh into his mouth and bites down. Dean feels when his teeth break the skin, he practically hears it.
“Yes, oh yes, Sammy.” Dean strokes his hair and the back of his neck.
Pleasure snaps up his back as he moves. It’s not all that comfortable without lube, but it can be done and it damn well isn’t bad. Not with Sam’s teeth buried in his flesh and his heart beating hard in the back of his throat. Sweat stings his eyes and he closes them against it, sees his blood oozing between Sam’s sharp predator teeth and cries out.
Sam lets go of him for a moment and only a moment before he bites down again. Dean can feel the way he works his jaw, forcing his teeth in deeper. Every movement pulls at Dean’s bleeding skin and he throws his head back.
“Eat my heart,” Dean says.
At last set free, the words come out not much more than a wisp of noise, curling into the stuffy air of the motel room. Sam makes a sound like a growl and Dean knows he heard him. When he shakes his head like he means to tear out a hunk of Dean’s flesh, it pushes him over the edge with a sharp sound of surprised pleasure. It’s intense, slamming into him so hard he can’t catch his breath for a moment. He grips Sam’s shoulders, blunt fingernails digging red crescents into Sam’s skin as he hangs on.
Sam grabs his hips and holds Dean tightly against him as he comes, moaning around his mouthful of Dean’s flesh. Dean feels it, the sound tunneling under his skin, seeking a place to live inside of his very bones. Let it. Let it stay forever. He will keep it.
They clean up and take Kilgore out, but it’s still too early to do much else, so they go back to bed. Dean’s wide awake and satiated, but Sam’s actually a little hungover, one of those slow, sneaky kinds of hangover that make you tired more than anything else.
“How are you not miserable?” Sam asks.
Dean snorts, breath puffing out across Sam’s chest. “Dean Winchester ain’t no fuckin’ amateur, that’s why.”
Sam laughs tiredly and nods. “You do have a lot more practice.”
“Yep,” Dean says, completely unashamed of the fact.
“I feel like I haven’t slept in a year,” Sam says.
Dean figures Sam knows exactly how that feels, too, so he doesn’t argue with him. “So sleep, I’ll keep watch.”
“Watch against what?” Sam asks.
“Whatever,” Dean says.
“Or you could get some more sleep, too,” Sam says. “You’ve had the same sorry two and half hours as me.”
“Maybe,” Dean says. He’s perking along just fine right now though, but maybe he’ll nap some. “Just sleep, Sam.”
“Sure,” Sam says. He closes his eyes and strokes Dean’s hair. It’s relaxing for them both and before long; Sam’s hand is resting on the back of Dean’s head, still.
Dean lies beside him and listens to Sam breathe while he stares at the wall across from them. He’s not tired, but he’s not ready to go running laps either. He has found that staring at nothing at all is a good in between though. He can do it for hours at a time if left alone. He’s done it before, losing time just by watching the wallpaper never change. Maybe that should worry him, but Dean thinks it’s probably a lot like meditation and people don’t get concerned about that, now do they? No, they don’t.
Dean checks out for a little while and eventually he does fall asleep again. He’s not even aware of the transition, just one minute the wall is there and the next, it isn’t. It doesn’t really matter.
~*~*~*~*~*~
In a rest area bathroom on the Maryland/Pennsylvania border, he reads about how Tracy Loves Kasey. Beside it, in parentheses, some joker added, (and the Sunshine Band). A little ways beneath that are the words, Reapent, Harlakwin! On the wall to his right is, Little snake, little snake, what a pretty pair we make.
Dean stares at that one while he finishes up his business. He thinks the important questions that no one has thought to ask are: What do you do when the little snake grows up to be a dragon? Will it breathe ice or fire? And either way, can you stand before it and not be killed?
Once he’s back in the car, he poses the questions to Sam who is quiet for mile after long mile. He barely even glances at Dean when he asks. He finally says, “What about the person that wrote it? What do they become?”
Dean frowns. He didn’t think about that. It’s a good point. What he says is, “I don’t know.”
“Neither do I,” is Sam’s reply. “But I like to think they become a dragon, too.”
“Maybe,” Dean says. “Maybe. Maybe.”
They drive on, only pausing long enough to get food, gas, take bathroom breaks or to switch seats so the other one can rest.
~*~*~*~*~*~
“Who was that?” Dean asks.
“That was Ricky Tindel,” Sam says. “He’s a veterinary assistant and is going to school part time to become a bona fide animal doctor.”
“That’s nice of him,” Dean says. “What did he give you?” He knows, but he wants to see if Sam will tell him.
“His phone number,” Sam says. “I’m supposed to call him tonight. He said he’d cook me dinner.”
“Of course he did,” Dean says. His voice is strained and tight. He tells himself he trusts Sam and Sam would never, ever do anything like cheat on him with one of them.
“What can I say? I’m charming,” Sam says.
“Like hell you are,” Dean snaps and then goes to look at books. Maybe they have something that’ll catch his attention. He hasn’t read a novel in a while; it may be nice to do something different.
Sam doesn’t say anything and when Dean peeks over the top of the low shelf he’s browsing, Sam’s flipping through a book of poetry by T.S. Eliot.
The knowledge of Sam’s dinner date weighs on him all day. He knows why Sam took the guy up on his offer, he knows why Sam didn’t tell him that he’s taken. He knows all of that and still, it bothers him like an itch he can’t reach to scratch. He wants to know why: Why does Sam do that? Why did Sam tell him no? Why does he have to wait, alone and unhappy, for Sam to come back? Why does he have to learn about what Sam does secondhand? Why, why, why?!
~*~*~*~*~*~
“Because I don’t want you to,” Sam says.
“Why?” Dean asks. His voice is a little too loud and it makes Sam tense up.
“The only times you’ve ever seen it, you fucking puked or freaked out, Dean,” Sam says. “And you kept puking, on and off, for weeks after the first time.”
“That was then,” Dean says. “It wasn’t about the fucking paramedic or Chastity anyway. It was about you.”
“And so all of that’s changed now, huh?” Sam says. He leans back in his chair and looks at Dean, gaze steady and face unreadable. “You’re a-okay with it all now? You think you could watch me do it?”
“Yeah, I do,” Dean says.
“Do you want to watch me do it?”
Dean looks away from him and licks his lips. Yes, rests on the edge of his lips, teetering there and threatening to go spilling out into the room. Instead, he says, “I just want to make sure that’s all you do.”
It’s said with the intention of wounding and it works. He sees the way Sam’s head jerks back just the slightest bit, how that infuriatingly calm inscrutability clears away.
“You don’t trust me,” Sam says. “Even now, even after all this time, you still don’t trust me.”
“Nope,” Dean says. He smirks at Sam, an ugly, vindictive twist of his mouth. “You have a long history of putting your dick where you shouldn’t.”
Sam’s nostrils flare and his eyes narrow. Dean’s pushing all of the buttons he can think to push, all of the sore places that have mostly healed up. He’s avoiding the issue, turning it around and turning it on Sam because he doesn’t want to answer the question. If he said yes, if he told the truth, he has the feeling it would be a line he couldn’t go back across ever again. It hurts him to do this though, it really does because the other truth is: He does trust Sam. He trusts him with his life on the job. He trusts him not to cut too deep or in the wrong place. Every time he lets Sam near him with a knife, he’s putting his life in Sam’s hands with the full knowledge that with Sam, he is safe.
“Go fuck yourself, Dean,” Sam smiles then, a bitter, harsh edged smile that is all anger and bared teeth.
“Yeah, well, fuck you, too, Sammy,” Dean says.
Sam gets up from the table and starts for the door. “I’m going out.”
“I don’t think so,” Dean says. He gets up and crosses the room to grab Sam’s shoulder. “We’re having a discussion here.”
“You’re picking a goddamned fight is what you’re doing,” Sam says as he shakes him off.
Dean tilts his head back, clicking his tongue against his teeth and then he laughs. “Ya know… You’re totally right, dude. I am picking a fight.” He pushes himself up into Sam’s face and pokes him hard in the chest. “So… Why don’t you shut up and fight, motherfucker?”
He’s so mad about Sam taking all of that time to be with them and leaving Dean to wait for the leftovers. He’s tired of being able to only imagine it. He wants to watch the blood fly, he wants to see the look on Sam’s face as he watches them die. He doesn’t want to stay at home like the shy little woman anymore. Dean wants a real taste of the good stuff.
When Sam punches him, he’s actually glad for the reprieve, for the chance to turn his brain off and let go for a little while.
After it’s all said and done, Dean’s left eye is black and Sam’s right eye is. They both have split lips and bruised jaws and shoulders. Dean’s left side is throbbing and he’s sure Sam’s chest is going to be purple in spots by tomorrow. He feels like a complete asshole because: What the fuck was the point of that?
Even knowing the answer doesn’t make him feel any better. Deflecting and transferring—those are Dean’s specialties and he just deflected and transferred all over Sam. It’s times like this that he is all too aware of the fact that he is somewhat damaged, to say the least. He doesn’t like that thought though, so he shoves it away and goes to get ice—a peace offering.
Sam doesn’t even look up when he sets the ice pack down on the table next to his elbow. He picks it up though and says, “Thanks.”
“Welcome,” Dean says. He sits on the bed and ices his own black eye, casting sidelong glances at Sam every now and then. He never once catches Sam looking back at him.
Eight o’clock that night comes quickly and when it does, Sam’s up and swinging the car keys around his finger before Dean can blink. “I’ll be back in a little while.”
He’s a little surprised, he thought Sam would cancel with Ricky for sure on account of his black eye and split lips. It seems that Dean was wrong on that front. He knots his hands into fists in his lap and tells himself to be still and shut up.
Sam’s got one foot out the door when he says, “Sam—”
Before he can finish, Sam makes a truly ugly sound in the back of his throat, something between a snarl and a laugh. “There’s no way in hell, Dean.” His voice is so flat and cold that it makes Dean shiver.
When he shuts the door, he does so a little harder than necessary and Dean is all too aware that the ice pack wasn’t enough. He shouldn’t have picked the fight to begin with, shouldn’t have said the shit—the lies—he did, but he can’t take it back now. That’s always been a problem with them: They say so many things and never remember how to say, I’m sorry afterward.
Dean punches the wall beside the television until his hand is sore and the plaster is dented. Given the truly shitty quality of this particular motel, Dean’s pretty sure no one will notice. He feels like crap and he’s still pissed off on top of it. He’s tired of this, of being a fucking bystander in Sam’s life. He’s missed out on so much and he doesn’t want to do it anymore. But there’s nothing else for him to do now, so he sits and waits; wearing his old mantle like a pair of shackles.
Dean does and does not understand where this jealousy and anger is coming from. He doesn’t really want to examine it too much either because that way lies truth—an ugly truth that he’s keeping from himself, he thinks. He figures he’s doing it for a good reason though. He’s got to be.
“I’ve got to be.” If he says it out loud, it will be true. So he repeats it until his throat is dry and his voice is hoarse.
He rocks back and forth, swaying on his feet and hugging himself. He tries not to think of Sam in some stranger’s house, breathing up their air and eating their food, salt and spices burning in the cuts Dean put there.
~*~*~*~*~*~
“Look,” he says. “I didn’t—”
“Save it, Dean. Right now, I don’t want to hear anything you have to say,” Sam says. His face is expressionless, his voice empty, but his shoulders are tense and his jaw is tight.
“No, I want you to listen,” Dean says. He swallows again. “Please?”
“Oh, what, you think being mannerly about is going to make me say, Sure, Dean, smear some more shit on me?” Sam shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”
“That’s not what I’m trying to do!” Dean says, losing his temper quick as you please.
“Then what are you trying to do?” Sam asks. “I need to take a shower and change clothes. So, if you’re really that determined then you need to make your little speech quick.”
“I’m sorry, okay? That shit I said earlier… I didn’t mean it,” Dean says. “I swear I didn’t.”
Sam leans against the wall by the bathroom door and watches him calmly, coolly. “Then why did you fucking say it?” His voice crackles though. God, he’s fucking mad and it’s all Dean’s fault.
“I said it because… because…” Dean trails off and scrubs his hands through his short hair, leaving it sticking up all over his head like hedgehog bristles.
“Well, that clears it up,” Sam says and turns to go into the bathroom.
“I said it because I’m fucking sick of you picking everyone else over me,” Dean says. “There. I said it.”
“What?” Sam looks at him over his shoulder, incredulous. “You think I’m picking them over you? Dean. What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You always do this, Sam. You always go off with other people and… and… You leave me,” Dean says. “You’re always fucking leaving me and I can’t fucking stand it.”
Sam sighs and turns around to look at him again. Dean can barely meet his eyes, he feels like such a fool. He can’t take it for very long and looks down at the carpet between his feet, taking a swallow of beer to wet his tight, dry feeling throat.
When Sam’s shadow falls over him, he shakes his head. “Look, man, forget I said anything.”
“No,” Sam says. “I will not forget it.” He sits down beside Dean and reaches over to take his chin in his hand, gently urging him to turn his head and look at him. When he does, Sam runs his fingers down his cheek and his smile is sad this time. “Nothing I have ever done and nothing that I do has ever been about me trying to get away from you, Dean. None of it. The times I ran away as a kid, when I went to Stanford… all of that was about getting away from this life and from Dad. Ruby was about trying to do what I thought was right and yeah, I fucked up. I fucked up a lot and we both know it. But none of it was about leaving you. You’re the only reason I ever tried to stay as long as I did, you’re the only reason I didn’t turn into some demon spawn hell… whatever. You’re why I’m still here at all.”
“But you never took me with you either,” Dean says. The words are heavy and thick coming out of his mouth. It feels like he’s unwrapping them like knotted tendons and coughing them up in a big fucking emotional mess.
“Only because you wouldn’t have come,” Sam says.
Dean deflates at that and wonders if it’s true. He’s not sure, but he thinks Sam may be right. Then again, he may be wrong, too. He wanted to escape almost as bad as Sam did. There were times he fantasized about it, but in those fantasies, he always had Sam with him. Did Sam ever even think about him though or did he give up from the get-go and think he had to do everything alone?
“I think that if you had asked then maybe I would have,” Dean says.
Sam clasps his hands between his knees and now it’s his turn to look down at his feet. “Then I’m sorry I never asked,” he says when he meets Dean’s eyes again.
“Yeah, Sammy, me, too,” Dean says.
It would’ve saved him from a lot of beatings if nothing else. Except then he thinks about how John would’ve tracked them both down and decides that no, it wouldn’t have. They were damned if they did and damned if they didn’t. He always jumped Dean’s ass when Sam ran off, but sometimes it was even worse for Sam when they found him again. Unless Dean got between the two of them and took the brunt of it in Sam’s stead.
“You’ve got me now, Dean,” Sam says. “Only you. I’m not ever going anywhere again. I promise you.”
He kisses Dean’s jaw and gets up then to go take his shower and Dean lets him go. He touches where Sam kissed him and cups his palm against it, holding it there while he tries very hard to believe that what he says is true.
After Sam’s shower, he goes out to the car and comes back with a small paper bag in one hand and a knife in the other. “I want to give you something,” Sam says.
“What?” Dean asks. He can’t stop staring at the knife, at the promise it wields like a radiant talisman.
“You’ll see,” Sam says. “I don’t know how to explain it, so I want to show you instead. Can I?”
Dean thinks for only a couple of seconds before he nods. “Yeah, Sammy.”
“Good.” Sam looks relieved.
“What do I gotta do?” Dean asks.
“Just take off your shirt,” Sam says.
Dean does it and then shrugs and takes off the rest of his clothes as well. If he’s going to be bleeding—and he figures he will be—then he doesn’t want to get it on his jeans. He doesn’t want clothes in his way at all.
Sam smiles at him and when Dean lies down, he crosses the room and straddles his waist.
“Are you going to tell me about it?” Dean asks.
Sam shakes his head. “No, I don’t think I am tonight,” he says. “This isn’t about what I do when I’m gone. This—this—is about us.”
Dean nods and touches Sam, running the tips of his fingers down his throat. “I do trust you, Sammy,” he says. “I do. I’m… About that I’m…”
“I know, it’s okay,” Sam says.
Dean wants to argue, but he doesn’t. He wants to make Sam listen to him, but he doesn’t do that either. He closes his eyes instead and offers himself up, speaking without saying a word because Sam will understand anyway, if he doesn’t already.
Sam takes his time, making each cut with precision and depth until the sheet is wet with Dean’s blood on either side. He cuts his chest, starting beneath the rows of neat, new scars there. It starts on one side and spreads out across his flesh to end on the other. As Sam works, Dean gets lost, letting his voice rise and fall as Sam cuts him until he’s shaking and shivering, panting for breath. It feels like it takes an hour or longer, stretching Dean to the limits of his patience for Sam-Sam-Sam. He won’t give in though, he’s intent on finishing what he’s started and only stops long enough to smooth Dean’s sweaty hair back, kiss him and tell him to wait, to just wait.
When he’s done, he sits back and strokes what he has engraved into Dean’s body. “Do you know what it is?”
Dean shakes his head even as he touches it himself, bloody fingers sliding over Sam’s equally bloody fingers. Some of it felt like letters, but others felt like shapes and he has no idea what any of it means.
“It’s a name,” Sam says. “Iphigenia.”
“Who?” Dean asks.
“Iphigenia.” Sam traces each letter as he speaks. “I wrote it in Greek. Her name means ‘strength’, more or less. Without her, Agamemnon would not have been able to sail to Troy. Without her, he would’ve been lost at sea and battered to bits on the winds the goddess Artemis sent to destroy him. Without Iphigenia, everything would’ve been lost to Agamemnon. She saved him, Dean.”
He takes his hand away and picks up the paper bag he brought in with him. Dean touches his bloody chest, finding the shape of the Greek letters and tracing them with wet fingers. He’s throbbing all over and wanting, but Sam’s not done yet. He doesn’t need to ask, he just knows.
Sam drops his head and kisses Dean’s hand where it moves across his chest, he licks into each letter, gathering blood into his mouth and swallowing it before he kisses Dean, sharing with him. Then he gets up and takes his pants off before he settles back on the bed between Dean’s legs. He’s up on his knees, looking down at him. He’s got something in his hand. It’s a fish hook.
Dean glances up at Sam in question and then jumps a bit when Sam runs the hook through his own skin right beneath his collarbone. Only then does Dean see the long piece of fishing line hanging from the hook’s eye.
“Jesus, Sam,” he says.
It may be weird for him to be shocked by that, but it doesn’t stop it from being so. Neither of them really swings in the same direction the other does. It’s uncommon, but that’s how it flows between him and Sam. Dean likes pain and Sam likes giving it, but not so much the other way around.
“It’s fine,” Sam says. He threads the other end of the line through another hook. That one he pops through the skin beneath Dean’s collarbone in approximately the same place his own hook is.
He keeps working and Dean watches him, awed and turned on and floored by it. By the time Sam is done, they are bound together by seven hooks leading from Sam to Dean and back again. The fishing line gleams like finely spun gossamer and every time Sam leans back even the slightest bit, the hooks pull at their flesh. Sam’s a little sweaty, but he looks satisfied, calm even though he’s aroused. Dean’s so hard he’s actually starting to hurt because of it and his brain is mostly offline, but he thinks he gets it all the same. Sam couldn’t find the words, so he drew him a picture in their flesh to say it.
Sam leans down and kisses him; his mouth, his jaw, his cheeks. “Do you understand now, Dean?” he whispers. He takes Dean’s face in his hands and stares into his heavy-lidded eyes. “Do you see?”
He bows his head and nuzzles Dean’s throat and Dean strokes his hair. “I do. It’s okay, Sammy, I see.”
“Yeah?” Sam asks.
“Yeah,” Dean says. He turns his head to kiss his temple even as he wraps his legs around him and lifts up to move against Sam.
“Without you, I’m nothing,” Sam says.
“Neither am I,” Dean says.
He rolls his head back on the pillow and arches his back as Sam pushes inside of him at long last. The hooks twist and pull in their flesh and Dean’s chest leaks blood all over the place, stamps its imprint onto Sam’s skin. This is the completion, the slow end of their ritual and Dean welcomes it. He tightens his legs around Sam and holds onto him, letting him in where he belongs.
~*~*~*~*~*~
It does blunt the claws of his green-eyed monster, though Dean is dimly aware that it’s starting to twist into something else. What it is though, he cannot say because he honestly has no idea. It’s becoming something other, he knows that much. It feels alien and familiar; different and the same. It knocks at the back of Dean’s mind like an impatient postman with a package to deliver.
Sam never does tell him about Ricky-from-Boston; Dean doesn’t even know if he lived in a house or an apahment. He likes to imagine that Sam strangled him and took his time with it. He imagines that Sam let him come up for air once or twice before latching onto his neck for good and squeezing so tight that Ricky-from-Boston couldn’t even hope for another sip of air. Dean entertains himself by adding that Sam tied a big, loopy bow around Ricky’s neck when he was done, an homage to the Boston Strangler. Sam’s not prone to whimsy, but Dean is and since he’s left to his own devices there, he indulges himself. It’s his right, by God.
He knows why Sam didn’t tell him and probably never will—no, scratch that probably. Sam won’t ever tell him that one. Ricky-from-Boston is an ugly mark on their map, a scar that neither of them really wants to look at. Instead, they have something else between them from that night.
The word, Iphigenia, makes his eyes burn every time he looks at it. It’s the same for the fading black-red punctures the fish hooks left behind. It’s the nicest thing Sam has ever done for him. Dean catches himself staring at the marks for minutes, even hours if he’s alone long enough, in bathroom mirrors state after state. Without you, I’m nothing.
It still doesn’t stop Dean from asking Sam to choke him in the bathtub of a house they squat in outside of Cleveland. His throat is sore for days, finger marks black and painful against his neck. He smiles every time his throat throbs and his neck muscles protest the ache when he swallows or turns his head.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The thing has wings like a bat and the head of a cat, the long, whipping tail of a lizard and claws like dirty black rapiers. The closest thing they came up with in their research is that it’s some kind of chimera. Whatever it is, it nearly wipes the floor with their asses. It gets Sam, Dean and Kilgore with its nasty, hooked claws. If not for the dog they would’ve been outright fucked from the word go.
Whatever it is, decapitation kills it just as good as it kills most anything else. When its head goes rolling across the snowy forest floor, Dean runs after it just so he can kick it in its ugly fucking face while Sam gathers up the dog in his arms.
They take Kilgore to a 24 hour veterinary clinic and tell them it was a bobcat. They have on layers and their coats are zipped up to absorb their blood as they stand around waiting. Dean’s anxious and on edge, Sam a quiet, calming presence beside him. He’s way too pale though and Dean figures his color isn’t much better. Sam holds Dean’s hand and doesn’t complain about how hard he’s squeezing his fingers.
When the vet comes back, Dean almost falls he scrambles up out of his chair so fast. Sam comes with him and puts an arm around his waist to keep him steady. She tells them that Kilgore got some nasty scratches, but he’s going to be fine with some rest and relaxation. It’s a good thing Sam has his arm around his waist because Dean’s knees feel wobbly-shaky at the news. She tells them they can come get Kilgore in a couple of days and Dean nods, trying not to get too emotional, but he still can’t speak. Sam pays with one of their credit cards while Dean goes back to look in on Kilgore.
Back at their motel room, they peel off their bloody clothes and take turns patching each other up. It feels strange without Kilgore there, chewing on his toys or lying on the bed between them, lapping up the petting and attention they give.
For the second time in less than a month, Dean thinks that retiring may not be such a bad idea. If they retired, shit like this wouldn’t happen. Kilgore wouldn’t be at some vet’s office with cuts and stitches, Sam wouldn’t have a gash in his side so deep and nasty that it looks more purple than red. Dean wouldn’t have shredded meat on the back of his upper left arm that Sam needed to trim away before he could start stitching him up. None of this would’ve happened.
Fact is, the world needs them more than they need the world. Dean’s getting tired of giving without getting anything in return while always running the very real risk of losing everything he loves to this fucking job.
Wrung out physically as well as emotionally and bombed on painkillers, they fall asleep sprawled across the gaudily striped bedspread in a tangle of bruised and dirty limbs; blood-soaked gauze and suture trimmings.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The floors are solid though and there’s a fireplace in the master bedroom, too. That’s where they lay out their pallet and make a bed out of a couple of extra blankets and their clothes for Kilgore to lie on near the fire. He’s making a quick recovery and regaining his stoic, but still good Doberman humor a little more each day. His movements are a little stiff, but he’s definitely bouncing back and that makes Dean feel so much better. He tries not to think about how else it could’ve gone; this is the only way it should be and so, it is. That’s that.
Sam takes long walks through the wintry woods almost every single day, sometimes staying gone so long that it’s near sunset when he comes back. Dean sticks closer to the house to keep an eye on Kilgore and be on the lookout for anyone who might dare to stick their nose in their business. At night, they sit in front of the fire and eat, drink and talk. They listen to the sound of the trees popping in the cold like tight joints and sometimes Dean sees the way it makes Sam smile.
One night, after supper, they’re sitting in front of the fire and simply enjoying the comfortable silence that comes from years of familiarity with one another. Outside it’s snowing, white flakes swirling down from the blackness above them, piling deep around the drooping porches and blowing under the eaves to drift in serpentine lines across them. Kilgore is gnawing at one of his rawhide chews and Dean’s smoking the last of his now ancient Pall Malls. Sam’s reading, squinting in the flickering orange-yellow light, but he gives it up after a short while and settles for staring into the fire like a man hypnotized.
“There’s a little subdivision through the woods,” he says. His voice seems unbelievably loud in the snow-wrapped silence all around them. Dean jumps and looks over at him so quickly it hurts his neck a bit.
“Okay,” he says.
“Near the edge of the forest is a house, it sits farther back from the other houses,” Sam says. “I don’t think it’s part of that… rural subdivision shit the other houses are.”
“What’s your point?” Dean asks. He thinks he knows exactly what Sam’s little walks have been about the past few days though.
“There’s a couple that lives there,” Sam says. He’s still staring at the fire, his eyes far away and reflecting back the dancing flames. “Late thirties or early forties. I’m going to kill them. I’ve never done a couple before.”
“Yeah.” Dean watches the tiny smile tugging at corners of Sam’s mouth and doesn’t know if he wants to kiss him or hit him. He’s not invited, he doesn’t need to ask to know that and the snowball in his head rolls faster, grows larger.
Sam meant what he said (illustrated) that night in Massachusetts, but it hasn’t really changed anything. That’s the part of his understanding that Dean cannot accept. They are bound together, without one, the other falls to ruin, but he is still left out; made to stand on the sidelines. It isn’t right, but there’s no use saying anything about it to Sam either. All it will be is an argument and in the end, Dean will look like an irrational fucking idiot and Sam will be so mad at him he won’t speak to him for days. He can feel himself coming to a point where that will cease to matter, however.
Dean’s not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
“When are you going to do it?” he asks instead of saying any of the things he’s thinking.
“Tomorrow night,” Sam says.
“All right then.”
“Yeah, it’s allll right,” Sam says. His smile grows to a scythe blade sliver and Dean licks his lips before looking away.
That night, he gets Sam to bite over his heart again until he’s bleeding from the perfect impressions left behind from his teeth. Taste. Eat. Devour. Dean mouths it over and over while imagining Sam chewing right through the bone to bite into the meat.
~*~*~*~*~*~
“See you soon,” he says before Sam disappears into the darkness.
He’s not carrying a flashlight and that only reconfirms what Dean’s thought for years: he doesn’t need a flashlight. He has a mighty fine idea about why that is, why it’s always been that way. It’s a minor thing though and not necessarily bad, even if it does speak to the fact that Sam is not and never will be entirely human. It’s inside of him and it’s not his fault.
Dean waits in the frigid kitchen for half an hour after Sam’s gone, a flashlight tucked into his coat, the heavy aluminum body of it warmed by his flesh. There’s a gun in the waistband of his jeans, equally warm and safe from the cold; its weight a familiar reassurance. Last night Dean decided that if Sam won’t let Dean come with him then he will simply go.
He has to prove to Sam that he can do this.
He touches the bruised, bloody ring of teeth marks on his chest once, twice, three times. Beat, beat, beat. His heart is Sam’s heart. He’ll show him that.
Outside, the cold is sharp as a knife, cutting through all of Dean’s layers and making his lungs burn if he breathes in too deeply. Sam’s footprints in the snow are deep and easy to follow, but he stumbles anyway because of the drifts. Sam’s taller than he is; he likely didn’t have as much trouble wading through the packed white as Dean does. He makes it past the tree line and follows the path of Sam’s footprints for what feels like hours. As he walks, clouds fill the sky and it begins to snow again and not lightly either. Soon, the tracks will be lost to him if he doesn’t hurry.
Dean picks up his pace, trying to keep to the trail Sam left before it’s obliterated. He looks up at the sky, now starless and gloomily dark. The only color is the white that howls down around him, twisting and dancing on the skirling wind. It shrieks around Dean, tearing at his skin and clothes. This is turning into a fucking blizzard, he knows it and thinks he should turn back, but he can’t. Not now. He moves even faster, wondering how much farther he has to go before he breaks on through to the other side.
His mind is a maelstrom to rival that of the one cavorting and screaming all around him; a million lost souls screeching for redemption. Why this is so important to him is hard to say, but he knows it is. He wants to be there, wants to watch Sam drain the life from someone’s body like an artist smearing paint on a canvas. He wants to belong, to be a part of the microcosm that Sam alone inhabits now. Dean wants to wrap his fingers around Sam’s on the handle of a knife and feel the drag of it as it parts flesh and makes those peoples’ tiny little lives actually mean something. As it makes them a story to be told.
Dean thinks about Sam’s disease, the Serial Killer Disease and for the first time, he stops to wonder: Is it possible that it’s contagious, that he’s caught it himself?
Then he asks: Do I care?
The answer makes him stumble and nearly go sprawling in the snow. The answer is, No. He wants to be infected. He can’t remember ever wanting anything this bad in his entire life, save Sam himself.
When he breaks the tree line, his visibility is even worse without the trees there to act as a buffer. He can just make out a glowing light, dim and far away. Dean surges through the snow towards it, sweating under his layers of clothes and beads of it freezing to his wind-burned face. His lungs hurt from the cold air he’s sucking down into them as he wades towards the faraway beacon.
He nearly walks right into the side of the house because his visibility is low and he’s so focused on that one bit of light. It’s leaking around a barely there crack in some drapes. This has to be the right house and if it’s not then Dean’s about to have a lot of explaining to do to some very startled homeowners.
The backdoor is unlocked and that gives him hope. He pushes it open and the wind helps shove him inside, pushing at his back like hard, frozen hands. Snow slips in around him in a dervish swirl and only falls when Dean quietly shuts the door. The sudden warmth is a shock to his system and his teeth start chattering as he hunches his shoulders and shudders all over, snow falling from his clothes in a pile around his feet.
Dean follows another faint light source into a nice kitchen and down a short hall. He stops just inside the mouth of the hall and looks out into the living room. The room has an open beam ceiling and Sam’s run a length of rope over the center beam. There’s a naked woman hanging from it, twisting slightly from side to side. She’s crying hysterically, her sobs muffled but not silenced behind a strip of duct tape that wraps all the way around her head. Sam’s stroking her hair and smiling at the man tied to a kitchen chair. He’s yelling behind his own duct tape gag and when Sam flicks the knife just so, slicing off one of the woman’s nipples, he screams.
If any of them turned their heads, they would see Dean standing in the hallway, face pale and hands shaking. He’s only seeing Sam through the red haze. He’s touching her. He doesn’t care why, only that he is. Oh, but Sam is beautiful just like he knew he would be. He’s luminous in the dim light, shining bright even in his black clothes. His teeth are gleaming and white, his dimples adding something eternally boyish and charming to his face; a stark contrast to Sam’s high, fine cheekbones and glinting eyes. Dean’s mouth waters and he knows right then that he will never forget the look of joy on Sam’s face. Knows he wants to see it every single time.
The man closes his eyes when Sam neatly slices off his wife’s ear, holding up her sunshine blonde hair to do so. The touch is almost loving, the way he sweeps her hair aside and runs his gloved thumb over the strands. Dean’s stomach clenches with rage even as he watches the glitter and sparkle of her emerald earring, still attached to the lobe, go tumbling down to the floor.
Sam goes to crouch down in front of the man and tilts his head with another little smile. He taps him on the shoulder and the man’s eyes fly open at that. “You may want to pay attention to what happens next,” Sam says.
Another clench in Dean’s gut, his vision seeping to an even darker shade of red. He’s talking to them. He said he didn’t. Didn’t he? No. He said he preferred not to and that’s not the same thing. Dean still doesn’t like it. But what he really doesn’t like, he thinks, is that he’s only a voyeur here, still getting everything secondhand. Still, he does not move, not yet. He wants to see what happens next, too. If he interrupts, Sam may not do it and that would ruin everything.
Sam eviscerates the woman, a quick upstroke of the knife and he unzips her like her very skin is but a costume. Her guts spill out in bloody loops and coils, blood gushes like a dam breaking. She thrashes, intestines swinging from the hole in her stomach and smearing abstract patterns across the polished hardwood floor.
Her husband screams again and gyrates madly in his chair, making it bounce up and down. He almost looks ecstatic instead of horrified, the bounce-bounce of the chair seems a lot like he’s cheering Sam on, Yea! Do it again! But he’s crying, too, tears streaking down his face as he shakes his head from side to side as his wife dies.
Sam stands calmly to the side, back to Dean and head tilted as he takes it all in. “Told you,” he says to the man. Dean can imagine just as easily that he’s talking to him though; that all of this was for him.
It’s then that the man’s head snaps up and he looks towards Sam, who is standing in the same line of sight as Dean. His eyes land on Dean first and then widen almost comically. He’s been spotted and something about that makes Dean downright livid. He had half-convinced himself to just turn around and leave, to save this for another time, but the thoughts of that flee his mind. In their wake they leave a high, whining buzz of sound and nothing else.
Dean reaches beneath his coat, grabs the gun and brings it up all in one smooth, long practiced motion. The safety is already off and so, all he has to do is pull the trigger.
Several things happen at once then: The gun is loud in the closed space, making Dean’s ears ring. The man’s head snaps back and his brains blow out all over the wall behind him before his head falls forward again. Blood drips onto his bare chest from the hole where his right eye used to be. Sam jumps and then whirls, his face a mask of nearly inhuman fury as Dean is lowering the gun. Dean stumbles back a couple of steps to try and get away from that look.
Sam strides towards him, long legs eating up the space in only a couple of seconds. He snatches the gun out of Dean’s hands and then shoves him back a few more steps.
“Do you have any idea what you have just done?” he asks. It’s the eerie calm of his voice combined with the rage on his face that’s the worst part.
Dean says, “I didn’t mean to. I—”
Sam shakes his head and rolls his shoulders. Dean hears him grit his teeth. “They have neighbors, Dean. Someone heard that gunshot and in a quiet neighborhood like this, you can bet someone is going to call the fucking cops. The cops, Dean. You couldn’t leave things alone though, could you? Oh, no, not you.”
He’s crowding Dean back with every menacing step; anger rolling off of him in waves of cold that even the blizzard outside cannot compete with.
“I didn’t mean to,” Dean says again. He sounds absurd to his own ears, a naughty child who broke mommy’s favorite heirloom plate because he was running in the house even after being told repeatedly not to. Actions have consequences: lesson learned.
“I didn’t mean to,” Sam mocks in a high-pitched, childishly venomous voice. “But you did it any-fucking-way, didn’t you?”
“Sam. Sammy, please.” He’s begging and he doesn’t care. This is the first time in years that he’s actually been afraid of Sam. But the look on his face is nothing short of murderous and it’s directed at him.
“Shut up,” Sam says. “This is why I didn’t want to bring you, Dean. You’re sloppy and you don’t think because you’re so… What are you? Jealous? That all you can do is get mad. You tend to—” Sam stops and coughs out a humorless laugh. “—act out when you’re angry.”
“I’m sorry,” Dean says. He touches Sam’s face and tries not to flinch when he jerks away from him. “Please don’t be mad.”
Sam sucks at his teeth and nods, looking down at Dean. “Here’s what you’re going to do: I figure you’ve got maybe fifteen minutes before the cops show up. You’re going to clean up your fucking mess before they get here. Dig that slug out of the wall and wipe down anything you touched since you didn’t pull the fingers up on your fucking gloves, genius.”
“What?” Dean looks down at his hand, at his fingerless glove-mitten things and slumps. He forgot. Why does he do that so much lately?
“Yeah.” Sam spits it out at him. “I’m going back to the house.”
“No. You can’t… Don’t leave me here, Sam,” Dean says.
“Your mess, your problem,” Sam says. He walks back into the living room to get his bag then and leaves Dean standing in the hallway, working the flaps of his gloves back over his fingers.
Sam comes back and goes around him, back through the kitchen and to the backdoor. Dean follows.
“Sam, please,” Dean says. He grabs Sam’s shoulder to stop him at the door.
“You better hurry, Dean, the cops’ll be here soon,” Sam says. He hands Dean what looks like the woman’s blouse. “Use that to wipe up your prints and bring it with you when you’re done.” Then he opens the door and disappears into the blowing snow.
Dean panics for a full five minutes before he kicks himself into high gear and wipes down the back doorknob and tries to remember if he touched anything else. He actually didn’t and that’s good, that’s really good. He does need to mop up the puddles of melted snow he tracked through the house. He’s probably mopping up Sam’s tracks as well, something he would’ve done on his own if he’d had time, but Dean doesn’t mind. It’s the least he can do. The hardest part is digging the spent slug out of the wall behind the dead man. It’s hard to hold the knife with the flap up and covering his fingers. He wore the fingerless gloves so he could access the trigger easier, but he didn’t think past that and now look at the mess he’s got to deal with. He gets the slug though and drops it twice before he manages to get a grip on it and shove it in his pocket.
Once he’s done, Dean takes a precious moment to look at the tableau in this cozy living room. There are family pictures on the mantle, a half-eaten bowl of popcorn on the coffee table. There’s a framed print hanging on the right side of the cheerfully roaring fireplace bearing that cheesy saying, Live. Laugh. Love. It has flowers all around it in the shape of a heart. On the left side of the mantle is a framed needlepoint sampler that reads, You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. — Isaiah 26:3,4
Against this warm, inviting backdrop is blood and brains, spilled organs littering the floor like dropped party favors. They shine brighter than anything else in the entire room and fill Dean’s mind, make his heart pound with excitement as his muscles quiver with something he cannot define.
He shakes his head to snap himself out of it and doesn’t realize he’s smiling when he finally runs for the door.
Outside, the snow is falling heavily, but the wind has died down some at least. He uses his flashlight to try and find the edge of the forest and when he does, he bails towards it, run-hopping as fast as he can to make the shelter. Behind him, the falling snow rapidly fills his boot prints just as it has already done for Sam’s.
Inside the trees, Dean stops to catch his breath and looks wildly around. He doesn’t know which way to go—left, right, straight ahead. He can’t remember and the tracks here are gone as well.
“Shit,” he says under his breath as he sweeps the beam of his flashlight from side to side.
He decides to go slightly to the left, that seems about right. He’s only taken a couple of steps when something grabs his arm and jerks him to a stop with a startled shout that he barely bites back in time.
“Calm down,” Sam says. “It’s just me.”
“Hey?” Dean ventures.
“Hello,” Sam says, squinting against the light from Dean’s flashlight.
He doesn’t sound as mad and his face isn’t that awful storm of fury like it was inside. Dean scrutinizes him in the light, taking in his rosy cheeks and wind-snarled hair.
“You waited for me,” Dean says.
“Yeah,” Sam says. “I didn’t want to leave you trying to find your way back in this shit.”
“Thanks,” Dean says. He’s relieved. Sam’s been walking these woods for days now, he has a much better sense of where he’s going than Dean does.
“Uh-huh,” Sam says. “Did you take care of it?”
“Yeah.” Dean nods, the beam of his flashlight bobbing along with his head until Sam takes it away from him and turns it off. “Hey!”
“People can see it if they’re looking,” Sam says.
“Oh,” Dean says.
“Oh,” Sam echoes. He knows he’s rolling his eyes even if he can’t see him now. “Did you wipe everything down? Mop up the water? Did you dig out that slug and remember to take that shirt with you?”
“Yes, yes to everything,” Dean says. He’s got the shirt stuffed inside his coat. He can smell the woman’s perfume faintly if he moves his head just right.
“Good,” Sam says. He takes Dean’s arm to help guide him. “Now come on, we need to get out of here.”
They slog through the cold in silence, save the sound of the bag containing Sam’s murder gear bumping against his leg every now and then. Dean’s mind races as he steps through the drifts and stumbles over hidden forest debris. Sam seems almost serene as he leads them back to their temporary home. The snowfall slows, but does not stop and continues to blot out their footprints like a good friend doing them a solid. It’s at least five or six miles through the woods and it seems even longer with their slow, careful way of moving. Sam moves with more confidence than Dean, who allows him to steer him to keep from braining himself on a tree or putting out an eye on a low-hanging limb.
It’s not until they finally come out on the other side, the house a dark, hulking shape in the dark, that Dean tries to speak again. He babbles is what he does, but he can’t help himself.
“I’m sorry,” he says again as he steps away from Sam’s side to stand in front of him. He holds his hands out towards him. “I just got so mad, you don’t even know how mad I was. You were talking to them. You touched them.” As he talks, he moves closer and closer until he’s gripping the front of Sam’s coat, face turned up to see him. Snow catches in his eyelashes, freezes his teeth for an instant before it melts and fills his mouth one tiny flake at a time. “I hate them. But I still didn’t mean to do it, I didn’t even know what had happened until I saw… saw that guy’s head. You gotta believe me, Sammy, I wasn’t tryin’ to fuck you over. I only wanted to see.”
“And did you? Did you see, Dean?” Sam asks him.
“Yes,” Dean says. “I did. I saw you and Sam, Sammy… You were beautiful, just like I knew you would be.”
Sam leans down until his face is a scant inch from Dean’s. “Did you like what you saw? Hmm?”
Dean shakes his head violently, but he says, “Yes. Yes I did. I want… I want to see it all the time. I’m tired of stories, Sam.”
Sam takes Dean’s face in his icy hands and leans even closer. Dean can feel his warm breath skating across his cold lips. “What am I going to do with you, Dean?”
“Everything,” Dean answers. His voice is a shaking whisper, but he’s smiling as he closes the last small gap between them and kisses Sam. It’s just a press of lips, almost chaste.
Sam’s smile is a slowly dawning thing, made all the more lovely because of the way it is drawn out. His teeth look blue and sharp in the cloud diffused moonlight.
“Take off your coat and shirts,” Sam says as he edges Dean back towards the Impala.
It’s freezing out, but Dean doesn’t care. He’s quick to comply because he meant what he said. Every syllable of it was the unadulterated truth and now that it’s been said, it cannot be unsaid. He doesn’t want it to be.
His coat and shirts land in a pile; shadows amongst the harsh white of the faintly moon-flushed mounds of snow around them. Then he waits for what comes next.
“Brace your hands on the hood,” Sam says.
The metal is shockingly, achingly cold beneath Dean’s hands even though he’s still wearing his gloves. He presses down harder, feels the cold kissing his back and making him go numb. His breath plumes out of him in silvery blue clouds. The sound of Sam’s belt buckle rattling as he unfastens it is bell-like in the deep alabaster silence.
The first snap of the belt against his back is shocking, both in its suddenness and because of how warm—almost hot—the leather is. Dean gasps and rocks forward, slipping a bit on the smooth, waxed hood, only to rock forward once more as the belt comes again. It whistles a bit now that he’s listening, but Sam is relentless, one blow coming quick on the heels of another. He finds the rhythm anyway and breathes in deeply in the short spaces between one lash and the next. He moans through his teeth and flexes his fingers against the Impala’s hood, seeking purchase that isn’t there. At last, he lays his upper body on the hood so he doesn’t fall down. He barely feels the cold against his chest because his back is on fire.
The belt whistles through the air again, but there’s a split second pause between that and it connecting with his skin. When it does, Dean gasps and moans at the sharper, harder sting of the metal buckle biting into his skin. That brief pause was Sam twisting the belt around to hold the tongue in his hand instead. The buckle thumps into his skin, harder than a fist and twice as good. The leather follows it, snapping against his throbbing skin. He feels it when the skin cracks and begins to bleed. It’s more warmth, wet and trickling as he presses closer to the car, rolling his hips against the grille.
I offer up my body as a living sacrifice, brother. This is my spiritual act of worship. It runs through Dean’s head in a mad loop. This is his body made whole. It is one thing he thinks he could never, ever say to Sam, but he has to believe that Sam knows anyway. Everything Dean does is for him.
Then Sam says, “Tell me about it, Dean. Tell me.”
Dean chokes on his own moans and tries to swallow, but he can’t seem to manage it completely. He begins to speak though; he tells Sam all about it while the belt rains blows down on him. His words—his confession—come out in staccato bursts, racked with moans and gasped breaths. He gives a full report in time though.
Sam stops when Dean’s tale is complete, when he sums it all up by saying, “I… liked… it.”
Dean is left with a ringing in his ears and the comingled sounds of his and Sam’s panting breaths. With shaking arms, he pushes himself upright and gasps at the pain of the movements. He looks over his shoulder at Sam who moves up behind him, pressing close and hard to his back.
His skin twitches and judders, pain and pleasure making Dean’s breath come in short, sharp bursts as he presses right back into Sam, the rough cloth of his coat and shirt aggravating Dean’s cracked and bleeding skin. He will have bruises in diagonal stripes, some of them crowned with the simple shape of the buckle, across his back tomorrow if he doesn’t already.
Sam kisses the back of Dean’s neck, up behind his ear and over his cold cheek to his mouth. Dean opens to the kiss and moves against him, asking without speaking, but Sam makes a sound of negation in the back of his throat.
“Tell me you want this,” he murmurs against the side of Dean’s neck, lips brushing the spot where his pulse thumps madly.
Dean’s pulse jumps even harder and he nods. “More than anything,” he says. He finds Sam’s hand where it rests at his waist and grips it in a brutal squeeze.
“Okay then,” Sam says. He twines their fingers together and with his other hand, reaches around to unbuckle Dean’s belt and unfasten his jeans.
He bends him back over the hood of the Impala and works Dean’s jeans down to about mid-calf. He pushes into him after a quick slick of spit and they rock together, listening to the icy squeak of the car’s shocks as they move. It’s slow and almost gentle in comparison to the beating, but when Sam strokes a hand firmly down Dean’s spine, he bucks against him.
In the distance, there is the sound of sirens at long last. Sam huffs out a soft laugh as he snaps his hips against Dean’s ass, cold-hot skin slapping together lewdly in the frozen dark.
“They’re late,” Sam says. He seems amused.
Dean doesn’t care; fuck the police, that’s his feeling on the matter. Right now is what is important—cold and pain and skin-on-skin while his blood freezes in the night air. Sam is all around him, they are tied up and bound this way forever and there’s nothing in the world that means more than that—than this—to Dean.
~*~*~*~*~*~
When he wakes up again, the sun has breeched the horizon, hanging brightly in the sky and their sad old has-been beauty queen of a house is miles behind them. So is the house where Dean shot the man, Sam gutted the woman. The house where people lived such plain, uninteresting lives and will now become the stuff of legend in the area. The house where a needlepoint Bible quote hung on the wall, so kind, so welcoming. So true. Dean bites his bottom lip to keep from smiling though he can feel the way it tugs and strains at his face, begging to be set free.
Dean drifts back to sleep and only comes to again when Sam hits a pot hole and jars his bruised back. He makes Sam pull over so he can climb in the backseat and lay down to try and keep some of his weight off of it. He and Kilgore switch spots and Sam puts in a Metallica tape to help him rest. Dean drifts off to the sounds of “Battery” and doesn’t know anything again until Sam wakes him up for lunch snagged from a Wendy’s drive-thru and consumed in a strip mall parking lot.
~*~*~*~*~*~
One night, Dean looks away from the television and finds Sam fiddling around with his laptop.
“What are you doing to my computer?” he asks.
“Deleting all the hentai,” Sam says.
“Dude, you better not,” Dean says.
Sam laughs and shakes his head—he’s really not.
“What are you doing, seriously?”
“Did you know that the serial killer Henry Lee Moore killed a family of five right here in Ellsworth in 1911?” Sam asks. He clicks something and Dean listens to the hard drive whirr and grind away.
“Ah… No,” Dean says. “Is that significant?”
“Nah,” Sam says. “Just interesting.”
“Sam, what the fuck are you doing with my computer? You know the rules, man: I don’t touch your shit and you don’t touch mine,” Dean says.
“I don’t touch your shit, that’d be sick. I’d be totally skeeved out if you touched mine, too, so you know.” Sam smirks, amused with himself.
“What? Gross,” Dean says. He wrinkles his nose.
“Yeah, it really is,” Sam says as he clicks something else.
“Sam—”
“You’ll see, Dean,” Sam says, finally a touch exasperated. “I’m not breaking your damn computer, so chill out, okay?”
Dean considers for a moment and then grudgingly nods. “Okay. But my hentai better still be there.”
“It will be,” Sam says.
“All right then… so long as we understand each other.”
“Aye-aye, Captain Dean the Porno Creep,” Sam says.
“It’s not creepy,” Dean says.
“Cartoon porn is creepy, no matter what kind it is, but this is especially weird,” Sam says.
“Shut up,” Dean says.
Sam laughs, triumphant and finishes up what he was doing. When he’s done, he puts Dean’s laptop away and then goes around the room, gathering up the rest of their stuff.
“Okay, what the hell is going on here? Stop being so fucking evasive, Sam,” Dean says.
“We’re moving,” Sam says. “I found us another house today. It’s outside of town, but there’s still a really good wireless connection. It must be coming from one of the other houses in the area. It’s not great, but it’s definitely good enough.”
“Uh-huh,” Dean says. “You mind telling me why we’re moving?”
“Less chance of being overheard,” Sam says. “The house has a fireplace in the living room, so that’s a bonus, right? I chased a family of raccoons out of it earlier today. Then I tested it out with a little fire and it works. The place isn’t that old, actually. Was probably a foreclosure. Anyway, it sits back from the road and there’s a place to hide the car, too, for extra coverage.”
“All right.” Dean’s not opposed to moving out of the motel, so long as he’s got a way to keep warm. He just wants to know a few minor little things, such as: Why was Sam messing with his laptop? Why are they leaving this place, which is pretty decent as far as roach motels go? Why is Sam being cryptic again?
Sam must see something on his face because when Dean tunes in again a minute later, he smiles at him. “It’s a surprise,” Sam says. “Now come on. Or do you need help?”
“I got it. You grab the beer though,” Dean says as he gets up and starts putting on his shirts. It hurts all the way down into his muscles even still, but it is lessening and he’s definitely a lot more flexible than he was even a day ago.
When he’s dressed again, he throws out his arms, relishing the ache even that brings. “Okay, let’s go, Mysterio.”
“This is going to be fun, I promise,” Sam says. The way he’s smiling makes Dean swallow. He understands a bit better now—not much, but he’s got the general idea at least.
~*~*~*~*~*~
“Why?”
Sam tilts his head, a little smile playing at the corners of his mouth as he leans forward to touch his tongue to the bow of Dean’s upper lip. “Because I want to show you what I would’ve done to that guy in Wisconsin.”
Dean drops his laptop then, but it’s not a far drop and it thumps down lightly on the tops of his thighs. “Really?”
“Really,” Sam says. “I put Skype on your laptop. I’m taking mine with me, so when I call you on it, just click the window that pops up.”
“Really?” Dean says again. He feels dumb, his ears full of that same strange static hum.
Sam slides his hand up the side of his neck to cup his cheek. “Yeah, really,” he says. “Unless… You don’t want me to.”
“No.” Dean’s answer is instant and more forceful than he means it to be, but it only makes Sam’s smile widen.
“Good,” Sam says. “I’ll call you in a few hours.”
“Okay,” Dean says.
Sam kisses him quickly and then rises from his crouch beside Dean’s spot on the pallet. He grabs up his laptop bag and is gone in only a couple of seconds, always anxious to be off doing what he loves to do.
“Thank you,” Dean says long after the grumbling sound of the Impala’s engine has faded away.
He lies down on his side and hugs the laptop to his chest, waiting. Sam may not be ready to take him along yet, but he’s ready to let Dean into his world. It may be a slow inch at a time, but he’s getting there. He’s making it and eventually, Sam will let him be a part of it entirely. He clearly fucked up in Wisconsin, but at the same time, he also managed to prove something—something incredibly important.
Dean’s not aware of the fact he’s laughing until Kilgore comes over and looks at him with a quizzical expression before he starts licking Dean’s face.
~*~*~*~*~*~
“I’m here.”
“Turn your laptop on and get it connected to the wifi.”
“Yeah, okay,” Dean says. His hands are shaking and he fumbles with the laptop’s lid for a second before he yanks it open. He has a brief pang of worry—what if he broke it? But it’s okay.
He turns on the computer and watches it boot up, just waiting for something to go wrong because that’s how things work in their life. When his desktop wallpaper pops up—Sam did change it, now it’s of a bunch of red balloons sailing off into the sky—he breathes a sigh of relief. He doesn’t waste any time connecting to the only wireless signal available in the area that isn’t password protected.
“I did it,” Dean says.
“Good,” Sam says. “See you soon.”
The line goes dead in Dean’s ear, but a second later, a little window pops up in the corner of the screen. Dean clicks it and there is Sam.
“Can you see me?”
“Yeah, Sammy,” Dean says. His heart is pounding, his palms are sweating. He blinks rapidly and this time, he doesn’t bite back his smile.
“Cool,” Sam says. He messes around for a minute and then stands back, the upper half of his body filling the screen. Then he steps aside. “Can you see him?”
“Fucking goddamn,” Dean chokes out.
Nailed to the wall behind Sam is a man. He hangs there, stripped naked and gagged with duct tape, toes just barely touching the floor—enough to keep his weight off the nails driven through his arms. He’s wide awake and staring right at Dean. Dean wants to look away, not liking that he’s been spotted; that this man can see him. He could identify him… except no, he can do none of those things. He’s going to be dead very soon.
“You nailed him to a wall?”
“I nailed him to his wall,” Sam says. “Do you like it?”
“Yeah… I…” It’s sacrilegious as hell, morbidly twisted humor if ever there was such a thing. “It’s great,” Dean says.
“I thought so,” Sam says. “You know, I actually found nine inch nails? Well, nine and three-quarters, but close enough.”
“Like the band?” Dean can’t tear his eyes away from the man nailed to the wall. He has sandy colored hair and fair skin. He’s not bad looking at all, athletic build, what seems like blue eyes though it’s hard to tell from the computer screen. He’s got blood all over his face—Sam probably beat him down to subdue him—and his eyes are glassy, wide open and tear-filled. It’s unreal, surreal.
“No, like the crucifixion,” Sam says.
“Oh,” Dean says.
The static is louder in his ears now; he can barely see or think past the man nailed to the wall and Sam standing beside him with a knife. He turns it this way and that, letting the blade catch the light and kick it back into the man’s eyes.
“Are you watching?”
“Yes, Sammy,” Dean says.
Sam nods and then he begins to work. Dean leans closer and closer to the monitor, watching when Sam peels back the skin on the man’s torso and tacks it to the wall as well. Then he cuts through muscle, each stroke of the blade precise as a mathematician’s calculations. The guy passes out once, head going limp and rolling forward, but Sam slaps him hard across the face—so hard Dean swears he hears one of his teeth break. When he comes back to, Sam continues on like nothing ever happened.
Dean is sweating and shivering at the same time. He feels feverish, the surface of his skin cold and just beneath it, burning hot. He licks his lips and wraps his arms around himself, rocking to the rhythm of Sam’s knife. Streamers of blood flood down the man’s body and Dean hugs himself even harder to try and quell his shaking.
He hears it when Sam slices through the man’s abdominal artery, the sudden gush-splash of blood hitting his cheap raincoat. The blood itself makes a sound a lot like a busted water pipe and Dean trembles and moans.
When Sam cuts through the last bit of muscle holding him together, viscera bulges out and then plops to the floor in a wet rush. Dean can see the faint gleam of sweat on Sam’s skin; can see the way he’s smiling; the way his eyes flare bright and hot as he reaches into the man’s chest cavity.
Dean cannot help the whimper that slips through his teeth as Sam does so. He knows Sam hears him, though he shows no actual sign of it. He sees the way Sam’s arm flexes as he grips the dead heart in his hand. Then he yanks. Once. Twice. Three times. Four times.
The man’s heart comes loose with a wet, snapping rubber band sound. What blood is left comes with it in a gout. Dean moans at the sight and leans so close to the screen when Sam faces him, his nose is nearly touches it. Sam has the heart held out like an offering as he comes ever closer until he’s crouched down right in front of the screen.
Sam holds the heart out to Dean for a second, glistening and wet, deep red and so strong, but so frail. Then Sam tosses it over his shoulder like it’s nothing. Like it’s trash.
He winks at Dean then, the expression quick and playful. This is just between us. Right, buddy?
“What would I ever want with some stranger’s heart?” Sam whispers.
Dean can’t think of anything to say, he just reaches out and touches all the thousands of pixels that make up Sam’s face. Sam kisses his fingertips and being unable to actually feel his lips hurts.
“I’ll be back soon,” Sam says.
“Hurry,” Dean says.
Sam nods and then he closes his laptop, leaving Dean alone and shaking.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Sam kisses him softly and then presses his mouth to Dean’s ear. “Do you still want me to eat your heart, Dean?”
Dean whispers back, “Yes, Sammy. Eat my heart.”
Sam takes him by the hand and leads him back to the pallet. He already has a knife, the sharpest one they have, the demon knife. He cuts Dean’s shirt off and then eases him back on the pallet. For a long, drawn out moment, they watch one another. When Dean nods, Sam nods back. Then he begins to work.
Inside their stolen house before the glow of the fire, Sam carves into Dean’s chest. He sings the whole time. You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey. He carefully scoops out a gobbet of flesh and holds it in his hand for a moment; looking at it and letting Dean see as well.
He strokes Dean’s cheek with his bloody thumb, smearing bright red in a swooping arc across his pallid skin. “You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you.” He speaks the words instead of singing them and smiles at Dean.
Dean cannot answer, he’s gasping for breath, shaking and shivering, sweat blurring his vision as his whole body throbs in response to Sam.
Right before his wide, watering eyes, Sam takes Dean’s flesh into his mouth and begins to chew. When he does, Dean comes so hard and so suddenly that he forgets where he is and he doesn’t care either.
All that matters is that Sam is here with him in this place that is neither here nor there; not in the maze, but free. All he can see is Sam. All he can hear is the sound of him chewing. All he can taste is his own flesh and blood when Sam kisses him to swallow the throat-tearing sounds he’s making. Dean holds onto Sam while his bleeding body shudders and jerks until it—until he—is at last still in his arms.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Inside, they are safe and warm. Sam’s hand rests on top of Dean’s where it covers the heart-shaped wound he carved out of his body. Blood stains the covers and floor, his back throbs in time with his heartbeat, the same heartbeat he can feel thumping up through the gauze packed piece of art in his chest.
Dean lets his eyes drift closed as he begins to doze; the sound of Sam’s humming dragging him further under. He is smiling. Things have never felt so fucking wonderful before. This is a new beginning, a step forward and they have found their footing once again, just as they always do.
Together, they are unstoppable. They are eternal.