Part II

Sam watches as the lights of the dawn try to sneak into the room through the thick window curtain. He throws an irritated glance towards the window as his hand flies to hover in the air over Dean’s eyes, shielding him from the intruding lights.

Dean has slept for seven hours now, Sam notes after glancing at the clock hanging on the wall. For Sam, it was seconds turning into minutes, and after several hours, he lost all sense of time. Somewhere along the way, it all turned into Dean-being-here. Sam wraps himself in this feeling, like a warm blanket; his senses are like the quiet waves lapping up against the fresh wood of the boat, of his Dean.  

Sam looks down at Dean sleeping peacefully on his back, with the sheet settled over his lower half. Sam's hand is not enough to protect Dean's sleep from the sun, so Sam gingerly turns Dean over onto his side in order to keep him away from the sun’s rays.

As Dean starts snoring lightly, a smile appears on Sam’s face. As if nothing has changed…

Sam’s stomach rumbles, waking him, reminding him that it has been empty for hours, but Sam easily ignores it. He watches absentmindedly for an hour as the room sinks into the darkness, his mind a quiet, comforting place.

All of the sudden, a scream breaks the silence making Sam’s calming state shatter into tiny pieces.  

“Dean, Dean,” Sam lightly shakes his brother’s shoulder, but Dean is trapped in his own nightmare. He keeps screaming without waking up, and Sam's despair is starting to cloud his mind, his lips move silently 'wake up, please, wake up'.

Suddenly, Dean’s eyes fly open, the fear and shock written all over his face, and Sam swallows his own panic, forcing himself to relax, placing his brother's needs before his own. Dean needs me.

Dean looks at Sam for a long moment. His stare is getting calmer, but then something in his eyes shifts, and his stare freezes. After several minutes of complete silence and heavy breathing as Sam tries really hard not to panic, Dean looks aside and stumbles out of bed, throwing the sheet away as if it's to blame.

Dean steps toward the window and stands still, leaving a dumbfounded Sam behind.

Sam looks at his brother, his gaze shifting from Dean's tense back to his clenched fists.

"Dean?" Sam says quietly. 

"Bad dream," Dean states the obvious.

"How bad?" Sam knows he’s pushing his luck, but he's scared. He needs to know what causes Dean’s pain, to hunt and kill it later. It's pretty simple these days.

“Sam,” Dean sighs, not turning his back, “just forget it.”

Sam opens his mouth to start his whole speech, but Dean’s mind works faster. “Sam!”

Sam hears the finality in his name, but then, Dean turns to face him and says in a soothing tone, “It’s nothing, just forget it.”

Sam’s mouth twitches as he looks at Dean.

“For now.” Dean adds, and Sam nods, accepting. For now.

Sam orders in, not wanting to leave the room or drag his brother to some crappy place to eat. He’s not willing to share his brother with anyone, not now.

By the time a pizza and the six-pack of beer are brought to the door, Dean is occupied on the bed watching some show on TV with a guy running away from the cops.

Sam tips the delivery guy, and arms full, kicks the door shut with his foot. It earns him a quick glance from Dean, and Sam catches his brother’s questioning look before Dean turns away, mask slipping firmly into place. His rigid posture tells Sam that Dean is trying to pretend as though the look he gave Sam was a figment of his little brother’s girly imagination.

Sam looks at Dean’s profile, considering his options of getting an honest answer from his brother, but it seems insignificant in comparison with Dean’s state of mind, so Sam lets it go.

Sam has never had any control over his feelings toward his brother. It was always a wild dance of burning sensations sprouting up from his core, and after understanding it, after his lousy attempt to hide from it in Stanford, it got easier. Now, Sam will simply let Dean get away with anything, as long as it keeps Dean happy.
 

“So, who’s winning?” Sam flops on the bed next to Dean, and Dean fixes him with a glare and “easy, jumbo”. Sam shrugs unapologetically and turns around to empty his hands onto the bed behind them, taking two bottles of beer for Dean and himself.

Dean talks like Sam is ten again and teaching him to throw knives, the main rule - patience. “’s not a game, Sammy. It’s a shitty TV show about cops, and according to TV, the cops always win. Now, hand me the pizza, Sammish!” Dean takes the beer from Sam, chuckling to himself.

Sam smiles back at Dean even though his brother’s attention is back on the TV.  The old nickname reminds Sam of the times when he was a kid, when things were black and white, demons were the bad guys and humans were the good guys, and you knew who you were. Now, there’s only one thing he has to hold on to – Dean. Dean was the ground Sam’s world stood on when he was a kid. Some things never change.

They sit in silence as they both try to concentrate on the poor bastard that is unsuccessfully trying to play hide-and-seek with the cops, and they pretend that it’s just one more ordinary day, that Dean didn’t come back from Hell, and Sam doesn’t want to lock them in the room and throw away the key.

Sam lets Dean eat almost all of the pizza while they finish the pack of beer and fails at keeping his eyes away from his brother. Dean acts like nothing’s wrong, that Sam isn’t trying to burn a hole in him, and Sam is profoundly grateful. Sam thinks he may stay this way forever.

Dean fidgets next to him, and Sam notices it, frowning, snapping out his bliss. “Sam,” Dean says in a quiet, tired voice as if he’s struggling with himself, turning to face him, “How did you bring me back?”

The unexpected question doesn’t give Sam enough time to build the lie, to postpone the truth. The oxygen leaves Sam’s lungs, and he tries to calm his breathing and force his mind to come out with the half-truth and hold off Dean’s inevitable storming out.

“I know you had something to do with it,” Dean continues matter-of-factly, but Sam hears loud and clear Dean’s desperate, “Don’t you tell me that you made a deal with a demon.”

And Sam wants to laugh. He’s gone much further than just dealing with demons. He always knew Dean wouldn’t approve it, and sitting here now, when he’s got his hands dirty with angels and demons, Heaven and Hell, with the mess just getting started, and Sam being the reason, he doesn’t give a damn. Dean is here.

“I didn’t sell my soul, Dean,” Sam says, and it’s truth. It’s what Dean wants to know, and Sam is not lying to him about that.

Sam leans in to brush his finger across the arch of Dean’s cheekbone. Dean’s eyelashes flutter, and Sam hesitates for a second, his mind tries to break through to him, reminding him that no, it’s not his imagination, no more imaginary Dean, and Sam surrenders, throwing up the white flag.

“Dean”, he whispers into Dean’s mouth before devouring his mouth. It’s been too long, way too long, and Sam can’t stop the despair and loneliness from seeping into his kisses, urging him to bite Dean’s lips, making Dean bleed into Sam’s mouth to color their kiss with metallic taste and red paint.

They fall down on the bed, smashing the empty pizza box and pushing it away. The thumps of their hearts and the tattoos are getting stronger, the loud beat of it is deafening. They’re cutting themselves off from the world, drowning in each other, surrounded by the loud drumming, giving in to the entanglement of lust and longing.

It feels like breaking the first sin, it feels like giving birth to love.

Dean wakes up to the sounds of raindrops violently beating against the windows. The room feels cold, and Dean shivers under the blanket, missing the warmth of Sam’s body. For a second, he’s tempted to cover himself with the blanket from head to toe and go back to sleep.

Sammy? Dean blinks his eyes open to find Sam sitting on the bed close to him, legs crossed underneath his body.

The minute Dean’s focus is clear, he feels the thick tension that fills the room, and he doesn’t know if it is from the anger with which the rain lashes the windows, wanting to drown the whole world or from Sam’s piercing gaze that is fixed on Dean’s naked shoulder.

“Sam?” Dean asks baffled, moving to sit up against the headboard, blanket sliding down.

“What is it?” Sam darkly spits out the words and brushes his fingers over the mark on Dean’s shoulder as if it’s some nasty alien slug.

“You tell me,” Dean answers steadily, crossing his arms and eyeing his brother carefully, sensing the unspoken truth hanging in the air. Sam clearly forgot to fill some holes of his coming back, and Dean is serious about getting some honest answers.

“He marked you. The bastard marked you.” Sam chokes on his own anger.

A tiny shudder runs through Dean’s body. Dean blames the freezing room and not the force with which his brother’s fingers are digging into his shoulder.

Sam is unconscious of it, focusing on the mark. His fingers are scratching Dean’s shoulder trying to wipe off the offensive mark.

“Sam!” Dean shouts, catching his brother’s wrist.

Sam glances up at Dean, his eyes give away the tangled up hurt and intransigence.

“Care to explain yourself?” Dean asks in a guarded voice, taking control of his growing anger. He gives Sam one last chance before he starts shouting. And God help him, his patience is slipping away.

“Castiel,” Sam breathes out.

And Dean doesn’t like the name. He’s pretty sure it’s not a name a human would be given.

“What have you gotten yourself into?” Dean grabs Sam by the shoulders wanting to shake him hard. Instead, he just tightens his grip hoping that Sam will understand how close he is to getting his ass kicked, “No demons, you said.”

Sam looks away, and Dean doesn’t find it assuring at all. “Castiel is not a demon.”

“Then, who the fuck is he?” Dean snaps, frustrated at receiving the unexpected answer. His mind is already at work processing the new information. Dean wonders how bad it is, is there any way to get Sam off the hook, and what does it have to do with all the whispers he heard in Hell.

“He’s a servant of the Lord.” Sam answers with a strained smile, and Dean doesn’t find it funny.

Dean studies Sam’s face, searching for the details that Sam could willfully leave out, and comes up empty, “Come again?”

“He’s an angel, Dean.” Sam rubs his hand over his face, sighing. His face is set in a stubborn gaze when he meets Dean’s eyes.

Sam continues in a mocking voice, “Big, bad demons couldn’t do shit to bring you back. They didn’t want to do it, no matter which ways I exploited to help them change their minds.” He laughs bitterly. “So, I just had to find another way. Any way would do.”

“Sammy,” Dean fights the urge to bring his brother closer and kiss away the lines of hurt on Sam’s forehead. He stays frozen, the words wanting to come out of his mouth are useless, and he prefers to listen to what else Sam has stored in that head of his.

“Don’t make me to lie to you and say that I’m sorry, that I didn’t know what I was doing.” Sam’s jaw tightens. Dean has witnessed this before; he knows that Sam is well on his way to getting pissed. “I know nothing comes free, especially from higher powers, but I dare them to come and take you away from me one more time, and we’ll see…”

Sam’s eyes darken with rage, and as Dean looks at Sam’s almost pitch black eyes on a face painted over with revenge, he startles with fear, uncontrollably. Dean blinks trying to chase away the image. It’s just Sammy, his Sammy.

“Sammy,” he says reaching up and touching his brother’s lips with his own. The feeling of Sam’s warm lips against his own helps, it gives him the solid ground, the proof that it’s them even if they’re shattered into pieces and some pieces are not as pure as they used to be.

When they kiss, when Dean’s tongue explores Sam’s mouth, all the thoughts about demons and angels shut down, and going with the high that comes with how good it feels, loving Sam’s taste in his mouth, Dean doesn’t give a damn about anything else.

Sam breaks the kiss to look into Dean’s eyes. “They can’t have you. I refuse to let them have you.” Sam whispers as if he’s sharing a secret, as if Dean doesn’t know. And Dean knows Sam means more, he means killing if he has to, he means hell on earth if he has to. Dean closes his eyes, not wanting Sam to see the pain in his eyes or to reveal the ugly truth that Dean has accepted the way they are a long time ago.   

Later, they fuck on the dirty sheets, with Sam being needy and begging for harder and please, and Dean locks all the gentle feelings towards his brother in his mind’s closet, pressing Sam’s face in the pillow and fucking his ass in earnest, leaving bruises, and then coming inside of Sam.

When Dean slides off of Sam and falls down to lie beside him, when Sam snuggles closer to kiss Dean’s closed eyelids, Dean can’t think of any other pure thing that anyone could witness.

Sam is showering with the bathroom door open, and Dean lets him have it, noising in the room as much as possible, allowing Sam to hear him even through the running water. I don’t want to think that you’d disappear once I let you out of my sight, Dean.  

Suddenly, there’s a knock at the door, and a woman’s voice declares “housekeeping”. They’ve never stayed in a room that provides such service, so Dean calls out “in a minute”, pulling out the knife from the bottom of Sam’s bag and hoping that it’s something that can be killed with a knife, throwing a glance toward the bathroom before opening the door.

What Dean finds behind the door is a cute, tiny brunette smiling up at him, unarmed. Dean registers the short, boyish haircut and well-toned body when he lets her in and then proceeds to slam her against the wall, bringing the knife up to hold against her neck.

“Good to see you, too, Dean.” The girl keeps smiling at him.

Dean smiles back, cold-blooded, pressing the knife a bit harder, cutting deeper, making red drops paint her pale skin. “Sorry, I don’t remember being introduced to you, sugar.”

Girl doesn’t even flinch; a mocking smile curls at her lips. “My feelings are hurt, Dean, as I remember you being kinky and all…” She cocks an eyebrow at him.

Sam chooses this moment to come out of the bathroom. Dean hears Sam’s approaching steps and expects him to get the picture and not to do anything stupid as Dean’s whole attention concentrates on the girl in front of him.

“Dean,” Sam makes his name sound like four syllables of remorse, and some of Dean’s attention slips to his brother. He darts a glance towards him and back, still holding the girl in place.

“You know her?” Dean asks, trying to keep the indignation out of his voice and not let his feelings push the knife deeper and slit her throat.

“Meg,” Sam asks, voice dripping with irritation and displeasure, “why did you come here?” He comes closer to stand beside his brother, and Dean hopes that Sam will keep some distance as his fists are itching to speak for him, for being fucked over, for being lied to, once again, by Sam.

 “Well, you don’t write, you don’t call. What else is a girl to do?” Meg keeps her mocking gaze locked on Dean, though she answers to Sam.

“Meg!” Sam commands, his voice is colder than the blade against her throat. And that makes the girl twitch.

Dean stares in astonishment, catching the flicker of the fear in her eyes before she gets a grip on herself and turns to look at Sam.

Meg’s voice is filled with insistence when she speaks. “Now that you have your brother back, Sam, it’s time to talk about bringing back mine.”

Part III