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As soon as they’re done burying Rufus, Bobby hops in his truck and disappears down the highway. It’s 13 hours back to Sioux Falls.
“Should we follow him?” Sam says.
Dean shakes his head. “He wanted our company, he’d have said so. We’ll catch up to him tomorrow.”
They check into a motel instead, someplace called the Baw Beese Inn where every wall of their bedroom is painted a different color, 1980s shades of pistachio and mauve that glow sickly under the electric light. Dean produces a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue from his duffel - identical to the one that Bobby just poured over the grave - and between them, he and Sam drink the whole thing. It has been a long day, with too much death in it. Samuel, dead. Gwen, dead. Memories of who Sam was in that long time, the things he did, dead with them.
“Forgive and forget.” That was what Dean had said, looking Sam right in the eye. Sam is grateful for the forgiveness, he supposes, but he wishes he knew exactly what was being forgotten. Dean won’t let him ask, gets frantic when he even nudges against the question. “The wall,” Dean says. It’s like living in the shadow of a dam. The town will flood eventually. Sam just doesn’t know when.
Right now he’s worn out from grappling with it: the grief, the guilt, the push-pull tug of wanting and not wanting to know. He turns his empty glass upside-down on the table, stands, sways, and staggers over to his bed, where he starts to strip off his clothes. As he pulls the neck of his t-shirt over his head, he catches Dean watching him.
One of the things that felt weird for Sam, coming back, was the body. He’s been built and powerful for a good couple years now, but this isn’t the same as when he was drinking blood, demonic steroids puffing him out into something unrecognizable. No. This is earned muscle: wiry, strong. The other guy earned it. Sam has some faint memories of the process, long nights without sleeping, doing pull-ups till his arms gave out. The guy ate clean, when he ate at all. If Sam eats a burger now, he throws it up more often than not. Not a choice. His stomach just… won’t.
Sam would like to do the same to this body that is-isn’t his: reject it, let it go. That was his first thought when Cas told him the truth, when the changes he’d noticed started to make sense. He wanted to strip the muscles off. He could imagine it so clearly: catching them with his fingernails; the way they’d feel as they went, peeling away like string cheese. Impossible, of course. And stupid, anyway, to waste all those hours of work. His body is a weapon. Rusty guns, dead hunter. That’s what Dad would say.
Dad frowning at him, disappointed. At least Sam knows that memory is his own. Perhaps that’s why he held onto it; why he has, in recent weeks, been working out himself. It’s useful to be strong. It’s easier to stay in shape once you’re there. But that’s not it, really, not quite. He’s trying to make them line up: his body, his mind. At the moment they still feel offset. Maybe if he can go through the motions with his brain switched on, he can overwrite the stranger's memories still knocking around his skull. How many push-ups till the muscles feel like his? More. That’s the only answer Sam has.
Anyway. Dean’s noticed, evidently, which isn’t so strange. Nobody Sam’s closer to. No body closer to his. Maybe he feels the same way about Sam’s bulging deltoids and biceps that Sam does - Sam did: that they’re alien, unwanted. Perhaps he doesn’t quite trust Sam to be who he should be. God knows Sam doesn’t trust himself.
“Looking good, man,” Dean says.
Well. Okay.
That makes sense, too. Death can do that, when it’s bad or bloody or brutal enough; when one of the few people you still care about is snatched away. It makes you cling to whatever is left. It was that way the night they burned Dad; Dean clutching at Sam, his hands desperate, his eyes wild. Thinking of it now, Sam realizes for the first time that Dad had just given Dean his instructions: save Sam, or kill him. So Dean fucked him, which was probably a good approximation either way.
It’s been a long time since they’ve done this, though: since before Dean went to hell. Sam didn’t want to press for it, after Dean got back. By the time he could have, they were too far apart and Sam was drowning in Ruby, too high or too different to connect with his brother. Then the long year of alienation, before Sam fell.
Dean is beside him now, close enough for Sam to see the blink of his brother’s long eyelashes. Sam can smell the whisky on his breath. Dean’s hand lands on his shoulder, warm and solid, and suddenly Sam finds himself overtaken with longing. When he jumped, he thought it was for real: for real forever, that he’d never touch his brother again. He’d tried not to think about it, in the days and weeks before. But at the moment the ground gave way, he wasn’t thinking about anything else.
He leans forward and kisses Dean. Fuck, he’s missed this. Not just Dean. Anyone. But right now, the way Sam’s feeling, it could only be Dean.
Sam’s already stripped down to his waist but Dean breaks the kiss to tug off his own clothes, fumbles then with Sam’s belt and pushes his jeans messily floorward. Sam helps out, stepping out of his pants, still hyper-conscious of his own appearance. Once they’re both naked he comes back for another kiss. Weird, stupid, fucked-up that Sam’s safe place is with his brother’s tongue in his mouth. But there it is. The boner nudging Sam’s hip is reassuring. Dean wants this. Wants him. It’s good to know that he’s doing things right.
Then Dean pushes his jaw into Sam’s forcefully, aggressively almost, harder than Sam expects. He bites Sam’s lip and Sam opens his eyes, steps back. They haven’t done it like this before. Even at the most desperate times, Dean isn’t quite like this. He’s soft. He likes to gaze into Sam’s eyes. He says earnest things under his breath and, in the afterglow, threatens to kill Sam for repeating them.
Sam could do with some eye gazing; with someone whispering his name. He could do with the reminder. Sam, it’s you.
Dean throws himself backward onto Sam’s bed, hooks his heels around the back of Sam’s knees and pulls Sam forward towards him. When he can reach, he takes hold of Sam’s shoulders and tugs at them, hauling Sam upward. Sam is on all fours now, crouched over his brother. Dean runs his hands over Sam’s chest, thumbs a nipple, squeezes his pecs appreciatively. He wiggles his hips, canting them upward.
Sam reaches for Dean’s dick, takes it briefly in hand, but Dean’s face twists. Disappointment. Okay. Sam reaches lower. His fingertips brush Dean’s hole and his brother’s face slackens: his eyes hood over, his mouth falls open.
“Do you want…?” Sam asks.
“Yeah. Yeah, Sammy. C’mon.” Dean shifts again, pushing down on Sam’s hand.
They haven’t done this too often, but it’s not like it’s totally new. “Lube?” Sam says. He doesn’t have any himself. It’s been so long.
“Don’t worry about it.” Sam’s surprise probably shows on his face. This is extremely unlike Dean. Dean doesn’t like pain, not that kind of pain. He takes his pleasure straight-up. “C’mon, Sam,” Dean says again. “I’m not some fucking… just do it, yeah?”
Maybe it’s hell. That might change someone. Fuck, Sam mustn’t think about that. He pushes at Dean again with cautious fingers; draws back to spit on his hand before he goes again. It has to have been a long time since Dean had anyone fuck him. Well. Maybe not. Lisa was famously incredible in bed. Sam doesn’t know what they got up to, Dean and Lisa in their suburban house.
Dean’s knees are up beside Sam’s ears and Sam turns sideways, lifts one, kisses his brother’s calf. When he looks back Dean’s eyes are hard, glittering. Not that, then. Sam goes back to his brother’s ass and Dean thrusts forward, so that Sam’s two fingers jam up hard inside him.
“Okay,” says Sam, flustered. Dean usually talks more than this. Yeah baby, that’s good, touch me just like that. Yeah baby, gonna make you feel me for a week. That kind of thing. Porn talk. It’s cheesy but Sam’s realizing how much he depends on it for guidance. It’s a thread to follow. Right now he feels like he’s floundering, lost.
“You’re not saying much.”
Dean almost rolls his eyes. “Just wanna forget about it. Everything.”
Makes sense. It just sucks that it’s the last thing Sam wants to do.
Dean brushes fingertips over Sam’s arms, his shoulders. His eyes are dark, desiring. “All this. The muscle. Maybe you can kind of lift me. Just. I just wanna get fucked.”
Sam thinks with a shiver of the woman in the Bristol bathroom, her back against the mirror, his hands under her thighs.
“I just want to forget,” Dean says again. Then he turns over, onto all fours. His back is freckled. Sam could probably draw those freckles from memory, the scattered constellations of them. Maybe not.
Sam swallows. He’d kind of like to see Dean’s face. Well. He wanted embodied, physical. This is still embodied, however they do it. It’s his own body he needs to connect with as much as anything else. Like the push-ups, this can still remind him he’s real. He puts a hand on his dick, which is more soft than otherwise, jerks himself into hardness. He can do this. He can. There's an uncomfortable pressure building in his chest, like somebody's sitting on it. He'd rather they were.
It's dumb because Sam's usually pretty take-charge, when it comes to sex. He can do strong. It's just not been that way with Dean. More than that. Since Ruby (since raising Lucifer) strong hasn’t felt like the right move. It certainly hasn’t felt as though that’s what Dean wants him to be.
On the bed in front of him Dean twists around. He looks up at Sam. “Maybe we should forget about it.”
“No!” The idea makes Sam panic. What if this is his last chance? Things change, that’s okay. He can deal with that. (A lie. Things have changed. Sam isn’t dealing at all.)
He lines himself up, clasps his hands over Dean’s hips and pushes forward, fucking into him in a single long, chafing stroke. Dean grunts, appreciative. It’s a reassuring sound. Sam can do this. No problem. He closes his eyes and goes again, setting up a rhythm. He’s trying to feel Dean at every point they’re connected; the muscle taut under his fingertips, the heat around his cock.
“More,” says Dean shortly.
He wanted to be lifted. That was what he said. So Sam reaches forward and tucks his forearms under Dean’s shoulders, tugs him upright so his weight falls onto Sam’s arms and chest, so Sam’s deep inside him and his face is smushed up against Dean’s shoulder. It should be difficult bearing the weight but Sam’s stronger than he realized. This is good, actually, skin-to-skin all the way up.
Dean still isn't talking but he's gasping now, juddery little moans that tap reassuringly across Sam's heart. He closes his eyes and thrusts upward, presses his nose into Dean's slippery skin.
- and then suddenly, stomach-churning, a memory coalesces in his mind. Dean in his arms, just like this. His own voice, gleeful. “Your little Sammy’s never done this for you. Never made you feel it the way I can.” His throat thick with satisfaction. And Dean panting and strained (fear? anger? arousal?), “Get fucked.” A laugh. A thrust. Dean’s choked-off yell. The warm spatter of his brother’s come on Sam’s hand.
Sam shivers all over. His skin is crawling. He’s shaking. He clutches at Dean’s shoulders, fumbles, half-drops him onto the bed. Dean makes a sound but Sam can't make sense of it. His head is aching, splitting with a blinding pain. His hands are hot. His feet are burning. He curls in over on himself, fetal. Somewhere in the distance he can hear his brother.
“Fuck,” Dean is saying, “Sam. I’m sorry. Sam. Sammy. Come back.”