Work Text:
Sam lay there staring at the ceiling, minutes ticking by. He refused to look, but he knew Dean wasn’t sleeping either.
What were the rules supposed to be, hunting with your brother-who-isn’t-quite-your-brother? When your brother thinks he isn’t your brother anymore? It wasn’t what Sam had meant, not really, but it’s what Dean had thought he meant, and that’s what wound up mattering.
They had taken a motel room together, because they always did when they hunted. Was Sam sharing a room with his brother, or with his colleague-he-didn’t-get-along-with-lately?
His colleague, who five-year-old Sam had jumped after when they were kids. His colleague, who had taken him to the ER on his bike.
Sometimes Sam was sick of being so tangled up in what they were.
It’s not like he didn’t understand. Four-year-old Dean had taken him out of a burning building, nine-year-old Dean had biked him to a hospital, 26-year-old Dean had pulled him out of another fire, 28-year-old Dean had traded his soul to save him… Dean was doing what he’d always done, and Sam loved and hated him for it.
He just wished Dean could even attempt to see Sam’s end of it. The months of knowing something was wrong, Dean himself denying and denying. Because he knew if Sam found out, Gadreel would have been out of his body before they could blink.
And Sam would have dropped dead.
And that would have been Sam’s choice.
Dean couldn’t let that happen.
For weeks now, Dean had looked like he’d been hit by a truck. Ever since… and Sam felt like crap too, and he almost couldn’t sort out which crap was everything and which crap was this, because everything was always tangled up, and Dean was part of everything, and sometimes it felt like Sam had no nooks or crannies or personality left that weren’t somehow Dean’s.
And Dean wasn’t backing down, and usually he would. Usually Dean would at least try to understand, especially when Sam got this upset, for this long. But this time, Dean wasn’t. He wouldn’t. And it drove Sam in circles in his own mind, wondering if he was really being that unreasonable about all this? Was Sam really the bad guy for drawing a hard boundary around non-consensual possession and months of lying about it?
Just around the edges of Sam’s mind, the beginnings of a question. Was Dean being stubborn, or was it something else? Dean had called himself poison, then a week later insisted he hadn’t done anything wrong.
Was Dean fully himself right now?
Sam groaned aloud in spite of himself, prompting a shift in the bed beside his. Then silence. Sam couldn’t even be exasperated without Dean knowing about it.
He was tired of thinking about it. He was tired of going in circles.
He was tired of being upset.
And he missed him.
Dean was fucking everywhere. Dean was in this room and in his head and in the car and everywhere he went, and that was a tough life for colleagues. Sam couldn’t turn his head without his eyes landing on Dean. And it suffocated him. But he also missed him.
But every time Dean was in danger, Sam ran to him. Because even now, the alternative was too unbearable to think about.
Why couldn’t he just be sorry?
Sam just wanted his brother back.
***
They dropped off Harry at home, the atmosphere heavy in the car. Silently, they headed back to the bunker. Back home.
Back home? Was it home? Sam had only just started thinking of it that way. His home, their home, home with Dean.
Anger built in Sam, maybe just because he was tired of feeling sad.
“Fuck you”, he said to Dean, apropos of nothing.
Dean startled for a second, before responding with a curt, “Right back at ya.”
“You can’t even admit you did anything wrong.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong. You’re here, you’re alive, apparently you weren’t gonna fucking do it, so I had to.”
Faint little alarm bells sounded in the back of Sam’s head. This didn’t sound right. This didn’t sound like Dean. But he was too tired, too stressed, too pissed, to think about it right then.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? I can’t even just fucking die without your permission? How could you possibly think-”
Sam was cut off abruptly by screeching tires and Dean veering off the road. For a second he thought Dean had lost control of the Impala before they came to an abrupt halt and Dean was grabbing Sam by the collar.
“Shut up Sam! Just shut up!”
That wasn’t right either.
But Sam didn’t want to let go of the mad. He wanted to fight. He wanted an excuse to yell and curse, he wanted to be up in Dean’s face, he wanted Dean’s eyes and attention and mind on him, the way Sam’s had been since his earliest goddamn memories.
“No Dean! Fuck you. Fuck you again!” Sam jabbed him hard in his right shoulder, the one nearest him. “I’m not gonna shut up. I’m gonna fucking yell, because I’m fucking tired of this. I’m gonna-”
Sam stopped and intercepted Dean’s left hook. Dean usually had an advantage when they fought, but they were still in the car, the angle was awkward. Dean’s right hand was still tangled in Sam’s collar.
Dean growled in frustration, breathing heavy, yanked Sam in closer. His voice was low, menacing.
“You don’t know how hard I’m working right now to not rearrange your face. Don’t fucking test me.”
Sam was inches away and panting back. Dean finally let go, roughly shoved him off.
No. That wasn’t it. Sam didn’t want to be shoved off. He wanted the fucking fight, he wanted Dean close and focused and struggling, and he wasn’t going to examine why.
He was just gonna grab Dean by his own collar and yank him back.
“I’m not done yet.”
He was pretty sure he saw Dean’s pupils dilate, and one of them - Sam would never remember who - yanked the other straight over into the backseat, the better to brawl. They were cramped, there wasn’t room for a real fight, they should have taken it outside, but maybe neither of them were thinking straight. So they shoved and grappled and the punches landed too soft and then Sam was suddenly pinned with Dean on top of him, face close and panting.
“Are you fucking done?”
And Sam was pretty sure he wasn’t imagining what he felt through their clothes.
A saner Sam would have stopped. A Sam who had slept a single full night in the last month would have shoved his brother off and gotten out of the car. A saner Dean would probably be mortified.
But Sam wasn’t completely sane right then. He was riding off weeks of bad sleep and depression and rage and nearly dying not that long ago and his brother angel-raping him and lying about it. And Dean was riding off weeks of bad sleep and desperation and some weird thing on his arm stoking his rage. And neither of them were showering enough and the entire fucking car smelled like Dean and Dean was breathing in his face and it was the closest they’d been to each other in weeks or maybe months and Sam was tired of it all and amped up on adrenaline and ready to do something really stupid.
So when Dean realized, and his expression froze, and he went to move, Sam didn’t let him.
He grabbed Dean’s hips and pulled him back down - down to where Sam was so busy noticing what was going on with his brother he hadn’t noticed what was going on with himself. But he felt it when Dean pressed on him.
Sam let out a rough exhale. “I’m not fucking done yet.”
Sam kept his hands planted on Dean’s hips, pressing him down. Dean groaned slightly at the friction, his eyes went wide, but whatever the hell was working its way through Dean, making him rage, made him even more feral than Sam was right then. Dean clamped one hand under Sam’s jaw, the other grabbed his neck. Their faces inches apart, Sam jerked Dean’s hips and Dean moved and Sam started moving against him.
Sam shut down the parts of his brain screaming at him to stop. Whatever the hell was going on with Dean, Sam should know better, Sam should draw the limits - clearly, Sam had to draw the limits between them. But right now, Sam wanted to break it. He wanted his brother up close and breathing in his face and he wanted to inhale Dean’s air and he wanted to be surrounded by Dean like he always fucking was, and if they were fucked up, Sam wanted to fuck them all the way up.
Sam ground up and arched and panted back into Dean’s face. If Sam was never allowed to have anything outside of his brother, he may as well have this too. Normal was a pipe dream, normal was long gone, and all there was was each other, and this was the world, here in the backseat, and it was a fucking broken, messed-up world, but it was everything Sam had. If Dean wanted to own him, he could fucking own him, but Sam was going to be the one to make sure Dean knew exactly how fucked up it was.
Waves of pleasure shot through them, but through layers of denim, it wasn’t enough. They were ridiculously layered-up, shirts and jackets and their fucking boots still on, but this wasn’t supposed to happen in the first place, and taking enough time to stop and shed a few layers would either mean stopping completely or would mean a layer of deliberation neither of them wanted to deal with. Sam roughly pushed his jeans down, then Dean’s, before grasping at Dean’s jaw the same way Dean was grasping at his. If Sam wasn’t allowed to breathe any air that didn’t come from Dean, he was gonna make damn sure Dean stayed close. Keep Dean close enough to blur Sam’s vision, close enough that Sam could never see anything else. That’s what he wanted, wasn’t it?
His left hand stayed at Dean’s hip, encouraging him. Panting movements jerked erratically, until Sam stiffened and arched and groaned, Dean following a moment later.
Slowly they caught their breaths, calmed down, pulses slowing, and part of Sam didn’t want to let go of Dean. Part of him he didn’t want to acknowledge, the part that just wanted Dean close. And the rational part of him that was coming back online, wondering what the fuck they’d do now. Once he let go of Dean, they’d have to deal with what just happened.
Dean stared blankly at Sam for a moment, before yanking his pants back into place, opening the door, and stepping out of the car. For a split second Sam wasn’t sure if Dean was just going to fucking leave him there, walk away, hitch a ride, just go. But the driver’s side door opened and he slid in behind the wheel once more, Sam hastily following suit, wondering how Dean still seemed to have the upper hand, even now.
Once Sam was settled in the front seat once more, Dean started up and drove quietly. Sam’s panic slowly died down. Dean had picked the route. They weren’t going to talk about it. They were going to pretend it hadn’t happened.
Normally, for other things, that was Sam’s cue to force it, to push it, to make them both talk it out, fight it out, deal with whatever it was. But this time. Sam was okay with re-writing reality. It was the only way to get them through.
The silence mellowed as they made their way back home. Sam understood.