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Summary: Things will never be the way they were before. Companion piece to 'Crash And Burn.'
Disclaimer: Have you heard the one about not getting blood from a stone? I own nothing. NOTHING! *weeps*
* * *
Things will never be the way they were before.
Dean couldn't look at Sam as his brother said it. He could feel Sam's fierce gaze burning in his direction, but he concentrated on the gun in his hands and the draft prickling the back of his neck and pretending that his world hadn't just wobbled off its' axis and shattered on the floor. Don't beg don't beg don't beg is a mantra in his mind but two words- "Could be-" still fight their way past the tick in his jaw. The words are slow and measured, but even so, Dean knows he's not fooling anyone in the room, and he's just thankful that he didn't grab Sam and shake him and scream, How can you do this to me?
He wants to, though. God, he wants to, especially when Sam says, "Maybe I don't want them to be."
His life has been all about Sam for twenty-two years and he doesn't think he can break the habit. But the way Sam talks about 'being a person again,' Dean doubts he has a choice. Loving Sam is like lying in quicksand-always struggling to survive the despair that drags at him, knowing that rescue isn't in the cards, and it's only a matter of when the surface closes over his head at last.
He's so preoccupied with his own pain, it takes him weeks to realize that Sam's a liar.
* * *
People that are around me...tend to get hurt. It's like I'm cursed.
Dean pretends he didn't hear that when he interrupts Sam and Sarah. It's harder to hide his triumph than it was to hide his pain, because he hasn't had much experience with hope and joy. He tries not to think about how fucked-up that is, and concentrates on the knowledge that Sam doesn't trust himself to be near the people he loves; it's part and parcel with his preoccupation with ceilings.
Just because he gets it now, though, doesn't mean there's suddenly a bridge spanning the canyon between them. Sam's had a year to pull his soul away and leave his body behind as a decoy. The only way to get to the other side of a gap filled with endless silence and bitterness is to jump, and hope the fall doesn't kill him.
Dean can run a four minute mile, easy; faster if there's something chasing him. And yet the distance between two double beds in the dark seems endless; a hostile foriegn country, harsh terrain of cigarette-scarred carpet and he doesn't have a map for this.
There's no moon shining through the ragged curtains when Dean slides into bed with his brother, just the yellowish stripes of a streetlight highlighting the angle of Sam's cheek with such harsh beauty that Dean has to brush a kiss there. Sam freezes, and then the word, part plea and part sigh.
"Dean..."
In that one word Dean hears fear and despair and a craving that has been strangled and chained; now rattling its' cage, prowling, sensing escape close at hand. Dean doesn't know quite when wanting to have Sam became wanting to have Sam, but his own desire is more than a match for what he senses is trying to escape.
It is more than he hoped for that Sam could want this, as well as need this, and the chuckle that slides out is partly from sexual tension and mostly from relief. "You haven't burned me alive yet, Sammy. Can't get rid of me that easy. Can't get rid of me at all."
He feels Sam freeze, because it is an unspoken Winchester law that they don't talk about this. They sew each other's physical wounds; but Sam is bleeding from the soul, which means Dean is supposed to leave it alone. He wants to say, Let me fix it, but that would go too far; already Sam is teetering on the edge of pulling away. So instead he says it with hands and lips, a wordless plea, and the earth seems to pause for a small eternity before Sam says Yes with every inch of bare skin, and Dean knows that they'll never be totally seperate again.
* * *
It happens like this.
The first time Sam touches him in daylight-not to spar or help or bicker, but just to touch-he lays his arm against the back of the Impala's bench seat, and plays with the hairs at the nape of Dean's neck. The whole world narrows down to the feel of Sam's fingertips on his skin, and when he risks a glance at the passenger side, he can see the intent in Sam's eyes and there is something so hot about how deliberate the choice is, knowing that Sam knows this will be the first of many touches, a shelter for their scars with every caress, that Dean shivers.
Sam's smile comes back by degrees. The real one, the Sammy smile, that starts at the corners of his eyes and takes over his face until it's impossible not to grin back when he dimples at you. Dean had almost forgotten that smile until he saw it again, and there were new butterflies in his stomach along with the old familiar safety and sunshine and love, because he wanted to taste that smile. Because he could.
Dean measures time in nightmares and highways, but he thinks he's just north of thirty when he realizes he can't remember the last time Sam woke shaking in the middle of the night. It was somewhere between Barstow and Rascal Flats, he thinks, and it is such a sweet uncertainty that they take the day off and spend it in bed.
Things aren't the way they were before.
And Dean's glad to finally let go of the past.
Disclaimer: Have you heard the one about not getting blood from a stone? I own nothing. NOTHING! *weeps*
* * *
Things will never be the way they were before.
Dean couldn't look at Sam as his brother said it. He could feel Sam's fierce gaze burning in his direction, but he concentrated on the gun in his hands and the draft prickling the back of his neck and pretending that his world hadn't just wobbled off its' axis and shattered on the floor. Don't beg don't beg don't beg is a mantra in his mind but two words- "Could be-" still fight their way past the tick in his jaw. The words are slow and measured, but even so, Dean knows he's not fooling anyone in the room, and he's just thankful that he didn't grab Sam and shake him and scream, How can you do this to me?
He wants to, though. God, he wants to, especially when Sam says, "Maybe I don't want them to be."
His life has been all about Sam for twenty-two years and he doesn't think he can break the habit. But the way Sam talks about 'being a person again,' Dean doubts he has a choice. Loving Sam is like lying in quicksand-always struggling to survive the despair that drags at him, knowing that rescue isn't in the cards, and it's only a matter of when the surface closes over his head at last.
He's so preoccupied with his own pain, it takes him weeks to realize that Sam's a liar.
* * *
People that are around me...tend to get hurt. It's like I'm cursed.
Dean pretends he didn't hear that when he interrupts Sam and Sarah. It's harder to hide his triumph than it was to hide his pain, because he hasn't had much experience with hope and joy. He tries not to think about how fucked-up that is, and concentrates on the knowledge that Sam doesn't trust himself to be near the people he loves; it's part and parcel with his preoccupation with ceilings.
Just because he gets it now, though, doesn't mean there's suddenly a bridge spanning the canyon between them. Sam's had a year to pull his soul away and leave his body behind as a decoy. The only way to get to the other side of a gap filled with endless silence and bitterness is to jump, and hope the fall doesn't kill him.
Dean can run a four minute mile, easy; faster if there's something chasing him. And yet the distance between two double beds in the dark seems endless; a hostile foriegn country, harsh terrain of cigarette-scarred carpet and he doesn't have a map for this.
There's no moon shining through the ragged curtains when Dean slides into bed with his brother, just the yellowish stripes of a streetlight highlighting the angle of Sam's cheek with such harsh beauty that Dean has to brush a kiss there. Sam freezes, and then the word, part plea and part sigh.
"Dean..."
In that one word Dean hears fear and despair and a craving that has been strangled and chained; now rattling its' cage, prowling, sensing escape close at hand. Dean doesn't know quite when wanting to have Sam became wanting to have Sam, but his own desire is more than a match for what he senses is trying to escape.
It is more than he hoped for that Sam could want this, as well as need this, and the chuckle that slides out is partly from sexual tension and mostly from relief. "You haven't burned me alive yet, Sammy. Can't get rid of me that easy. Can't get rid of me at all."
He feels Sam freeze, because it is an unspoken Winchester law that they don't talk about this. They sew each other's physical wounds; but Sam is bleeding from the soul, which means Dean is supposed to leave it alone. He wants to say, Let me fix it, but that would go too far; already Sam is teetering on the edge of pulling away. So instead he says it with hands and lips, a wordless plea, and the earth seems to pause for a small eternity before Sam says Yes with every inch of bare skin, and Dean knows that they'll never be totally seperate again.
* * *
It happens like this.
The first time Sam touches him in daylight-not to spar or help or bicker, but just to touch-he lays his arm against the back of the Impala's bench seat, and plays with the hairs at the nape of Dean's neck. The whole world narrows down to the feel of Sam's fingertips on his skin, and when he risks a glance at the passenger side, he can see the intent in Sam's eyes and there is something so hot about how deliberate the choice is, knowing that Sam knows this will be the first of many touches, a shelter for their scars with every caress, that Dean shivers.
Sam's smile comes back by degrees. The real one, the Sammy smile, that starts at the corners of his eyes and takes over his face until it's impossible not to grin back when he dimples at you. Dean had almost forgotten that smile until he saw it again, and there were new butterflies in his stomach along with the old familiar safety and sunshine and love, because he wanted to taste that smile. Because he could.
Dean measures time in nightmares and highways, but he thinks he's just north of thirty when he realizes he can't remember the last time Sam woke shaking in the middle of the night. It was somewhere between Barstow and Rascal Flats, he thinks, and it is such a sweet uncertainty that they take the day off and spend it in bed.
Things aren't the way they were before.
And Dean's glad to finally let go of the past.
