#chrisdrabble

Round and cool on his tongue, a rolled metallic that tastes biting for the first few weeks. He keeps his mouth shut, and for a thousand miles, nobody gives a shit about the silence. Summer vacation ends, the Winchesters settle into a new rental, and Sam clinks the bead against the inside of his teeth when he smiles.

Rebellion comes in small forms. Sam’s tried running away, he’s tried fighting back. He’s gone throat-hoarse with the things he’s had to say about the way they’re being raised. Nothing works—but this? The one-needle procedure in the living room of the last town’s best friend for the month is Sam’s favorite form of rebellion yet. 

It's past the point of hurting by the time it ever gets noticed. Sam likes feeling it against his teeth, the roof of his mouth; just having it is a comfort that he sometimes forgets.

Dean cracks a joke leaning against the Impala, beer between his fingers and breath coming out mist-warm in the winter chill. It's a few weeks until his big brother's twenty-first birthday, but he can handle a drink better than he handles a gun, and he handles a gun really goddamn well.

Sam throws his head back to laugh, mouth split glee-open, and Dean curses loud.

"Holy shit," he says, "lemme see your tongue."

A beer and a half is enough for Sam to comply, cheeks rosy and warm. He leans in close and sticks out his tongue, cheeks dimpling at the stunned look on his brother's face.

"Sammy, when'd you do this?"

Sam wipes off his spit-sloppy lower lip and clicks his teeth shut. The bead clinks against the back of them. "Mmm, like, six months ago?" he answers, swaying a bit on his feet. "Looks good, right?"

Dean's silent for a moment, brows furrowed. Sam settles against the hood, ass half-hanging off, and watches his brother step closer. "Lemme see it again?"

Sam opens his mouth again, sticks out his tongue again. He flicks the bead against his upper lip and huffs out a beer-sour giggle at Dean's jaw-dropped expression.

Then Dean's fingers press down against his tongue—forefinger and middle, trapping the bead between them. Sam stops laughing, starts looking up at his big brother through his bangs. His throat feels warm.

"Shit," Dean hisses out, and Sam drops his mouth open a little wider, "that's so fuckin' sexy."

Sam's lips close around thick big brother fingers, tongue lathes across the salty pads of them. Dean stares at him like he's never seen anything better. He fucks his fingers into Sam's mouth like it's meant to be there, and Sam's not going to protest.

When Dean's fingers slip away, Sam's eyes are low-lidded, lips shiny and wet. Dean closes in, trapping him against the hood of the car.

"Heard it's great for blowjobs," Sam whispers. Dean looks fucking wrecked. Sam presses his fingertips against his brother's jaw, lets Dean chase him until he's leaning back on his palm and their lips are too-close. "Wanna test that?"

There aren’t many people that know what it feels like riding shotgun to an archangel in their own body.

The engine hasn’t even stopped stuttering before Dean has a palm pressed flat on Sam’s thigh. High, deliberate—his thumb works at the aching muscle, and Sam tries to be gentle when he closes a hand over his brother’s wrist.

“Not tonight, Dean,” he says softly. Dean tenses. “I’m exhausted. Let’s just—”

“I got it,” Dean answers gruffly, voice tight; Sam flinches away from the creak and slam of the Impala door. 

There’s no great fanfare when they step inside the bunker. Most of the hunters live off-site; those that don’t tend to keep a strict curfew. Three in the morning just leaves a sleepy-eyed Jack mumbling tired goodnights and a world-wearied Cas. The angel gives Sam a quick squeeze of the shoulder before retiring, and Sam checks in on Mary—asleep in her bed, light still on, book spread open across her lap—before he heads down the hallway to his bedroom.

He thinks twice just outside his door and then heads over to Dean’s room.

Dean rubs his back, soothing little circles that dig just a little deeper with every hitched-breath sob that heaves from his chest. Sam tries to wipe at his eyes roughly, and Dean’s hands are gentler when they take over—these are big brother comforts that sate the ache sitting in Sam’s soul.

“What’s his name?” Dean asks, and Sam’s not even sure when he let slip that he liked boys; he leans into Dean’s side and sniffles hard.

“Justin Marlowe,” Sam answers. He’d been starry-eyed and shy around the sort of all-American glow that boys like Justin exuded. Weeks of being hopeful of requited feelings ended swiftly with nasty taunts and cruel insults in front of their classmates—Sam can still hear their laughter shuddering under his skin, spreading the cold snare of humiliation through to his fingertips.

Dean says nothing more. He holds him until he’s exhausted and tucks him into bed, shushes every attempt at apologizing for tears. Before Sam falls asleep, there’s a hand over his forehead, down his cheek.

“Not gonna let you get hurt again, alright, Sammy? Never again.”

When Monday rolls around, Sam’s stomach tumbles with it.

Justin’s arm is in a cast. When Sam peers curiously as he passes two-tables-away in the cafeteria, Justin’s eyes briefly meet his own before they scatter away, face paling.

Dean says nothing when he gets back to the motel and Sam’s starry eyes turn into a pinpricked focus.

Sam's fifteen-years-old the next time he cries over a boy. He's elbow deep in blood, slipping on it when he sobs; it tastes thick in the air, tinting the roof of his mouth. Dean stares, unblinking.

His newest girlfriend stares unblinking, too. Glassy-eyed and silent, and Sam feels like tearing his own heart out of his chest with how pretty she still looks.

"She can't—" Sam tries. Steps forward and slips on guts. He feels all snotted up, but Dean catches him before he falls. Blood looks good smeared down his big brother's forearms. "She can't have you," Sam finally manages.

Dean's hand soothes over his forehead, down his cheek. When Sam hitches out another sob, Dean has a thumb sweeping over the peak of his pout.

"You did such a good job, baby," Dean murmurs, and Sam takes in a sharp breath. It cuts his heart up to shredded bits. "You gonna show me how you did it?"

Sam feels lighter than air, giddy in his gore-touched soul. He nods and smiles sweet, lets Dean edge in his thumb between his teeth. Dean grins back—dark and feral and his, all his.

"Jesus, Dean!" Sam yelps out, hands pushing the guy away as he scrambles to put distance between them—it doesn't matter. The sight of Sam pressed shoulder-to-shoulder, knee neatly hooked over a jean-clad thigh, will forever be burned into Dean's retinas. "Knock first!"

Whatever voice Dean was born with dies out now, and he's soundless when he answers with closing the door in his hasty retreat. He thinks he hears Sam shift and shuffle, but he's mechanical in his burst back to his own room, shutting the door behind him just as he hears Sam's door get yanked open.

Dean shoves his knuckles into his eyelids and tries to erase what he'll never be able to unsee. Don't kiss anyone else, he thinks, and his fingernails dig pink crescent moons into the meat of his palms, don't fucking look at anyone but me ever again, little brother.

He has a recurring dream, fueled by filthy fantasies that Dean can't stop turning over in his fingers. Sam's in the passenger seat of Baby and they're driving seventy miles per hour down two-lane roads, and Dean's filled with the complete certainty that Sam belongs to him. Sam opens up like a fucking flowerbud, wanton and low-lidded, hands and lips hot where they meet Dean's skin.

"I love you," dreamboy says, and Dean always comes when he does, "I love you, Dean."

The Sam that enters his bedroom is sheepish, fully clothed. His kiss-ruined lips weren't created by Dean—they never will be. Dean stares at his hands and sits on the edge of his shitty mattress.

"Dean," Sam starts, and that's as much as Dean's love-fucked heart can take.

"It's okay," he croaks out. It's so unconvincing it's fucking pathetic. He clears his throat and drags a hand down his jaw, raising his eyes and attempting a smile. It fails, if the downcrested and desperate look on Sam's face is anything to go by. "Just warn a guy next time, alright?"

Sam's voice is quiet and wavering. "I know you—I know you're not really on board with the whole—guys liking guys thing," he says, and Dean wants to take him by the shoulders and shake him until his head lolls right off his pretty little throat. He's so fucking wrong it's frustrating, but when has Dean ever pretended to be anything but pussy-whipped and big brother attentive? "I just—don't tell Dad? Please, Dean? I'm sorry I didn't tell you, I just—I was scared."

"It's okay, Sammy," Dean repeats. He feels like a skipping record. "I won't tell Dad, kiddo. Your secret is safe with me."

The smile that blooms on Sam's face makes Dean want to slit his own throat. He loves Sammy so much it makes him go fucking crazy. "Thanks, Dean," Sam breathes out.

Dean wants to punch every guy that Sam has ever wanted to kiss. "Just experimenting, or do you, uh, like that kid?" He has to know. He has to know how badly his fingers will itch to dig into his own guts.

Sam's eyes go dreamy, distant, shy, starry—Dean hates it. Wants it all for himself. Sam's too pretty for fifteen-years-old. "Yeah," he says quietly, sweetly, breathily. Dean's gonna replay it in his mind when he jerks off tonight. "I like him."

I have this dream, Sammy, Dean wants to say. He opens his mouth and nothing comes out. Sam offers up another smile, the kind Dean's gonna take to an early grave. I have this dream.

Whatever scowl he has on his face drops the second he sees Sam’s on the verge of tears, his hair sticking to his forehead and his cheeks flushed. “Dean,” is all his brother manages, his voice a mere rasp; it sounds like it grates against his throat.

“Shit, Sammy,” Dean mumbles, exhaustion sloughing off in favor of wide-awake concern. He pushes back the blanket and Sam heaves in a hitched breath that bursts out ugly coughs—it sounds like he’s hacking up a lung. Dean takes Sam’s wrist as gently as he can manage and tugs him into the bed. His little brother looks miserable as he crawls in; Dean’s palm presses flat against Sam’s forehead and it’s burning up, so hot that Dean’s not sure how Sam managed to stay standing. “Jesus, kiddo, how long have you been sick?”

Sam mumbles in a closed mouth, and Dean waits patiently, hand stroking down the side of his brother’s cheek. It’s been years since Sam’s looked so vulnerable; it twists something hard in his chest. “Few days,” little brother finally says.

“Sam,” Dean frowns, brows knitting—a few days of this, and Sam could’ve been fried, left to be dragged to the hospital whenever Dean finally woke on his own accord. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Gone,” Sam whispers. You were gone. You left with Dad. Dean swallows hard and Sam drops his gaze, coughs into the pillow when he turns his head. He lets out a low whine that borders on a cry, and Dean pulls the blanket up to Sammy’s chin and soothes his hand down the front of his brother’s chest.

“You need to take some medicine, alright? I gotta go get you some medicine,” he says, and Sam’s breath hitches again; the gasping noises are accompanied by tears this time, Sam’s hand reaching out to weakly grasp onto Dean’s shirt.

“Don’t go,” Sam rasps. Coughs hard again, past mucus and saliva and tears. “Don’t leave.”

Sammy needs cold medicine—needs something for his throat, needs to get his temperature down. But he needs to be comforted more right now, so Dean settles onto his side, pushed up on his forearm so he can keep an eye on his brother. His palm runs over Sam’s cheek, thumb swipes under Sam’s nose. Sam lets out a half-wrecked hum and closes his eyes.

Sam chokes out blood, spit, bile. Dean knows what to do with his hands and keeps one on the steering wheel, presses the other certainly against his stomach to keep his guts where they belong. Sam can count out his pulse as it slows and stutters, clenching and unclenching through every drop of ironrich blood bleeding between Dean's thick fingers.

He's dying. They killed the Devil himself and averted three apocalypses, and Sam's dying from the unpredictable left swipe of a jittery mugger's hand. A drag, not a stab. The man was surprisingly strong for a weekday midnight in below freezing Indiana, but fear and motivation can make a man do surprising things, Sam thinks.

He laughs. Chokes out blood, spit, bile. Dean glances at him away from illegal red light runs and thirty miles per hour over the speed limit; Sam groans when he feels thick fingers digging into his stomach. Dean’s attention has always been a gutpunch ache.

“Hey, Sammy, you’re okay, alright? You’re okay, you’re gonna be okay, just hold on. We’re gonna get you to the hospital and they’re gonna Frankenstein you back to health,” Dean murmurs. 

Sam shakes his head. He’s dying, right there, in the passenger’s seat of their four-door home. He’s going to fall asleep there and wake up the same; he wonders if the sight that greets him will be Dean’s slow, cocky grin on the road to Jericho. He opens his mouth to talk and feels like a gaping fish, glassy-eyed and drowning with every fresh-air intake.

“No, no, you’re not gonna die on me, okay, Sammy?” Dean means it as an order, and Sam laughs out blood and spit and bile. It sounds like a death gurgle. “Don’t you fuckin’ die on me, Sam—I’m gonna drag your ass right back here if you do, you know I will—”

“Don’t,” Sam manages. Feels torn up, like the viscera has clawed up his throat and rests on the back of his tongue. “Don’t.”

He figures out what to do with his hands. He presses one over Dean’s hand, aiding the effort to keep his guts where they belong. He tries to press the other one to Dean’s throat, but Dean has to pull over to the side of the road and lean in close for him to do it. Dean’s pulse is stuttering and strong and rapid under his fingertips.

“I’m tired,” Sam mumbles. Closes his eyes so Dean believes it. “M’gonna sleep.”

Dean shifts against his palms; Sam imagines him nodding. There’s a soft press against his forehead and they share the same labored-pain breath with the same stitched-together soul. 

That’s what Dean’s gotten around to calling it. The days when Sam’s not the first one up, when Sam’s still lying in bed by the third breakfast call, when Sam’s back is curled facing the doorway every time Dean checks in on her. There’s been a lot of setbacks in their lives—losing Mom and Jack has been particularly hard on his sister—but Sam’s had bad days since they were kids, shuffling from town to town in the backseat of Baby and strapped to their father’s need for vengeance. 

Dean gets it. He has bad days, too. It takes Sam’s steady hands to drag him back from the edge they drop him onto, and she’s never failed him before.

There’s a possible haunting in Indiana, a few dead bodies washing up on south Florida coast with missing hearts, demonic omens trailing across Maryland, but Dean’s baby sister is hurting and that occupies all the space in his brain.

“Sammy?” It’s soft. Everything in him is curled soft for her now, gentled through the years of domesticity and the surety of the way their souls slot into each other’s. He leans against the doorframe and waits until he sees the tension of her shoulders to signal that she’s awake. “You need anythin’?”

She’s silent. When it doesn’t seem like she’s gonna respond, Dean clears his throat and continues, shifting on his heels and fingers flexing against the doorknob. “You, uh, wanna be alone?” he asks.

She turns to him, just an inch given where her shoulder drops in his direction. It’s all Dean needs—he closes the door behind him quietly and steps towards the bed. His knee sinks into the mattress at the same time that she settles onto her back, head finally turning to face him. 

Sam’s beautiful. She always has been. Dean still feels indelicate around her, where his rough-calloused fingers push her hair from her face and behind her ears, but she tilts into his touch like it’s exactly what she needs. It makes his heart tug in his chest, and he ducks his head to press a kiss to her forehead.

Her eyes are red-rimmed, but her breathing is calm; Dean’s known her long enough to know that means last-night sobs. He settles with his back against her headboard and gathers her up against his chest—Sam goes into him easily, head bowed and cheek pressed against his collarbone. 

Dean’s fingers drag down her arm, and she breathes slowly against him. It’s weird, sometimes, when Dean lets himself think about it too hard—the thought that they could have these quiet moments to themselves. Dean didn’t even think he would live this long; he thinks about being twenty-eight and regretting not being able to see Sam be who she is freely, regretting not giving her the space to feel safe to be herself in. A thousand things could have killed him—a thousand things had—and by some fuckin’ cosmic force, he’s still alive to hold her like this.

“Love you, Sammy,” he says, because he can’t not. There have been too many years lost between them. He feels her fingers tighten in his shirt, right over where his heart stutters over the way he feels about his sister.

It’s quiet for a long time, but Dean’s patient. “Me, too,” Sam whispers, palm spreading flat, and Dean lets out a soft sigh, hand moving to press over hers.

"We're not lost," Dean shot back, stumbling forward when his foot was caught in a tangle of roots. He managed to stay upright by clutching a tree trunk, swinging himself back into rights. He scowled. "We can't get lost if we don't have a destination."

"Well, that's reassuring," his brother bit out sarcastically. Dean threw a glare over his shoulder, and Sam returned it with one of his own.

Tensions were high. They'd spent the better half of the day tromping through overgrown forest and had little to show for it. Sam had wanted to establish a place to camp out, but Dean had wanted to venture further into the woods; it had been a morning of arguments, bickering back and forth about I know where we're going and this isn't standard protocol, Dean and yeah? and how would you know what Dad would do?

Dean couldn't say he wasn't glad to have his brother back in the cryptozoology coalition, but Goddamn, it was times like this when he had to put up with Sam's whining that he wished he had asked Garth to come along instead.

"According to reports, there hasn't been a sighting here in over thirty years, Dean," Sam huffed as they clambered over a log. "I think we should head back, hit the books a bit more, check out the local lore. Play it smarter, not harder –"

"Shh," Dean hissed out suddenly. He shot his arm out and pressed his palm flat against Sam's chest; his brother stilled beside him, eyes wary. "Look."

They crouched. Dean delicately lifted some of the underbrush – broken branches and snapped twigs of around a two feet diameter. His eyes flicked forward, and his heart nearly stopped in his chest.

Another tamped moss and dirt patch several feet ahead. It was a stride.

"Have some faith, little brother," Dean grinned, patting Sam on the back. His brother grunted and fell forward from the force; even through the bitch face he received back, Dean could see the bright look he always loved in Sam's eyes. "I saw a creek a while back. Let's set up camp and get some cameras up."

Sam nodded, straightening. There was a moment of pause before he broke out in a wide beam that left Dean breathless. "Holy shit. We're gonna see Bigfoot," he marveled, and Dean grinned back.