surprise mini 13.21/22 coda-missing scene thing where i give sam and dean a minute alone after sam’s resurrection <3 1.8k gen rated and gencest imo but maybe weirdcest if we’re being strict about it.
First, we should get you cleaned up a bit, Sam,” Mom says, turning to Sam and touching a hand to gruesome stain of dried blood on his neck. “There’s a medicinal tent around the corner, why don’t you and I—”
In instant, without a thought, Dean’s wedging himself between them, getting his arm around Sam’s shoulders. “I got it,” he says tightly, effectively dislodging Mom and her gentle hands from his brother. He’s still spinning out too far to feel the guilt or shame that he should.
Mom blinks, clearly a little startled. “Oh,” she says, glancing at Sam’s face.
Safely hidden from Mom’s view, because they’re standing so closely, Dean feels Sam’s hand rub comfortingly between his shoulder blades. Easy, the touch says, easy, brother. Dean’s trying, damn it.
“Yeah, we got this,” Sam says, smiling at Mom in a way that is probably much more comforting to her than Dean’s face, whatever it must be doing right now. “I’m sure there are people you need to get to. We’re on the clock and you’re a leader here, we get it. It’ll only take a minute to wipe down, alright?”
Dean sways even closer to Sam, pressed up against him from shoulder to boot. In truth, Sam doesn’t need anyone to go with him to slap a baby wipe to his neck. It’s not like he needs wound tending, and even if there was time for a shower, he doesn’t need help with that. The only reason Mom offered to go, ostensibly, is to give mothering.
Mom hesitates a beat longer, and Dean can feel her gaze searching his face, but he refuses to meet her eyes. After a moment, she nods and tells them where to find her, then walks off. Dean’s heart flutters, finally. It was her who held Dean together in these last few hours without Sam. It was their mother who made it bearable.
“M’sorry,” he says, gruffly, to Sam, staring at the ground. “It’s Mom, did you want—”
“No.” And that’s that, then.
The medicinal tent is blessedly empty, a collection of beat up tables and chairs, various first aid kits all around, and some items that look like they’ve been rescued from what must have once been hospitals and clinics.
“Sit,” Dean directs. His hands are shaking even worse now, like he’s a junkie about to get his fix, and he supposes that’s close enough.
Sam tries once to say, “I can do this myself,” and flushes a beautiful, life-affirming pink when Dean glares at him until he sits without complaint. He strips off his flannel and t-shirt, his pretty skin pebbling slightly in the air made cool by box fans all around.
Dean finds clean rags and a stack of bottled water, which has to be a rationed commodity, but he doesn’t feel too bad since they’re about to rescue everyone’s sorry ass from this place anyway. He dumps them generously onto half the rags, and wrings them to dampness.
“Alright,” he mutters, stepping close in front of Sam, who looks at him with solemn, wide eyes. “Here we go.”
When Dean tucks Sam’s dumb Disney Princess hair behind his ear, Sam tilts his head to the side without being told. The dried arterial blood is slightly shiny in the low light, cracking a little from all the movement. The sight of it gushing from Sam’s neck flashes in Dean’s mind, and he swallows the ensuing nausea away.
With efficient hands, Dean pats one damp cloth on the skin until the blood goes liquid again, and then uses a few more cloths to wipe it up. He cleans up Sam’s neck, then commits to the job and goes over Sam’s shoulder too, the broad swell of his chest and a bit down his back as well, wherever he can get that all that blood gushed and dripped.
“Hmm,” Sam sighs, and when Dean glances at his face, his eyes are closed.
Dean snorts a little, belying his elation, and mutters, “Don’t go falling asleep, this ain’t a spa day, man. I’m no masseuse.”
Sam’s face twitches in some half hearted bitchiness, but his eyes stay closed. “No?” he murmurs.
With his free hand, Dean cards through Sam’s hair, scratching at his scalp before he slides it back to cup the nape of Sam’s neck. “Nah,” he says quietly.
Once he’s done a pass with a dry cloth over Sam’s skin, he deems the job good enough. “Not perfect,” he tells Sam, “but least you don’t look like….” He trails off, out of breath for any kind of joke. What Sam looked like was a man with his entire blood volume stuck to his skin.
Sam sighs, long and quiet, and straightens his head, looking up at Dean with those somber eyes again. “Thanks,” he says.
“Jesus, please don’t thank me.” Dean’s hands tremble again when uses to frame Sam’s face. “Please don’t.”
Sam grimaces, shoulders tightening under all that skin Dean loves so much. “Dean,” he starts, voice lecture-ready, “it wasn’t your f—”
“Shut up,” Dean tells him. “Shut the fuck up. You were fucking dead. I should have gone after you, I should have—”
Sam grips him by the backs of his knees, tightly. “I was dead,” he says fiercely. “Like you said, I was dead. There was no reason for you to go after me.”
Outside, there’s the commotion of the camp in a hurry to pack up and organize, to get out of here, and Dean ignores it all. “Like Hell!” he snaps. “It’s you, that’s reason enough.”
“You called out for me, man.”
Sam’s face flickers through a thousand emotions, and he tugs Dean close, his legs opening so Dean can stand between them. “I know,” he says. “I’ll always call out for you, dude. I can’t help it. That doesn’t mean you can always come after me, that you always can.”
Dean shudders, eyes filling up with embarrassing tears. “Yes, it does,” he insists. “Yes, it fucking does.” He rubs his hands along Sam’s shoulders and neck and face, up and down, over and over. “You were dead, Sammy.”
There’s a million other things he wants to say, and he goddamn will, but the clock they’re on right now keeps his mouth shut.
Sam shivers all over. He loops one arm entirely behind Dean’s legs and the other behind his hips, then leans forward hesitantly. Dean encourages him with a hand on the back of his head to rest his cheek on Dean’s torso, right at his solar plexus. They sigh at the same time, and Dean laughs a little at that.
“Shut up,” Sam mutters, practically nuzzling into Dean. After a moment, he very quietly and very fiercely confesses, “I hate that it was him who brought me back.”
Dean keeps petting through Sam’s hair with one hand, rubbing circles on the soft, bare skin of Sam’s back with the other. “I know,” he tells Sam, and wants badly to say, I know, sweetheart, but those names are for safe, private spaces only. They have to keep it the fuck together right now. They’ll say more later.
They’re so quiet Dean can hear the ticks of their watches, and he hates the sound immensely.
“How the fuck is your hair still this soft?” Dean asks. “What kind of girly shit do you put in it that it feels like this after all that?”
Sam turns his head, chin digging into Dean’s stomach, and says, “It’s less convincing when you make fun of my hair while you’re petting me like I’m a cat.” His eyes are so clear, so pretty, the dim light dashing through them easily. It makes the pin pricks of his pupils stand out in contrast.
“Only ‘cause you’re purring like one,” Dean tells him, and coaxes him to turn his head again, cheek resting on Dean.
“We gotta go, man,” Sam says quietly.
“Shh,” Dean shushes, both hands palming up and down Sam’s back now, greedy for warm, living skin. “Give me a minute.”
At one point, Sam tugs at Dean’s arm, and brings his hand to what part of his face is exposed, kissing Dean’s palm dryly. It’s insane that they didn’t always let each other have this, this moment of reassurance after a close call, in the past, when they were young and defiant and embarrassed. The years have worn them down to the quick in a way about which Dean’s not entirely unhappy.
Dean’s stomach growls, and Sam laughs into Dean’s hand, teeth and lips bumping over his skin. “Hungry?”
“Dude, they practically live off of nuts and Cliff bars and really bad jerky here,” Dean tells him, dismayed.
Sam turns his head again, looking up at Dean with those little lines by his mouth and eyes. “We’ll get you a pizza when you get home.”
When they get home, the last thing—well, not the last thing, but for damn sure not the first thing—on Dean’s mind is not going to be pizza. Sam knows that.
Dean says, “Deal,” and cups Sam’s cheek, rubbing a thumb along the tender skin of his under eye. He very badly wants to zap Sam back home first, before anyone else, doesn’t want him to spend another second anywhere near something that could kill him.
“Dean?” It’s Mom’s voice. “Sam?”
Dean steps smoothly back from Sam at a respectable distance before Mom walks, situating himself to stand just beside his brother.
Mom stills comes to a sudden halt, blinking at them dumbly for a moment before saying slowly, “Just…checking in on you.” Her eyes flicker all over them, and Dean becomes aware Sam still has a hand wrapped loosely around the back of his knee. Dean tenses his leg, and Sam pulls away at the feel of it.
“All good,” Sam tells her, smiling beatifically. To Dean, he says, “Hand me my shirt?”
Dean reaches over to the chair next to him and grabs the flannel and tee, tosses them to Sam, who pulls them on quickly. He stands up, unfolding to his stupid tall height, and Mary steps forward, giving his shoulder a squeeze.
“Much better,” she tells him, and Sam beams that happy little boy smile he gets whenever their mother offers the tiniest bit of affection.
Dean bites his tongue, wrestling down all those ugly-confused feelings. When Mom gives him a pat on the shoulder too, Dean smiles just as wide, because he’s no less needy than Sam, and fuck, he was terrified they were going to get to this world too late, that they were orphans all over again. It’s Mom; she’s here, she’s safe, and she’s going home with them, even if an extra 25 refugees are tagging along.
“So, uh, what needs to be done?” Dean asks.
Mom stands back, hands on her hips. “Well, we were hoping to extend the sigils further down the path, give us a little more protection as we leave, but I know Castiel can’t…”
“I mean,” Sam interrupts, “he can handle a few sigils. Some is better than none, right? Slow ‘em down, if anything.”
Mom hums, considering. “But is it worth wasting the time and energy on?”
“If it gives us any extra edge on Michael’s horde, hell yeah,” Dean inputs.
They debate it as they leave the tent to join the others, and when they’re delegated to their tasks, Dean insists on being kept with Sam. He knows it’d be better to separate and divy up their combined expertise and manpower, but he can’t leave Sam. He can’t.
