Oh my stupid, I must be god!

Supernatural Fic - Mary, Jess (+ Sam/Dean).

2006-07-21T05:42:28Z

Title: The Second Place
Author: name_assumed
Beta:
Characters: Jessica, Mary. With mentions of John, Sam and Dean.
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: PG-13 for references to incest.
Category: Angst. Gen. Slash.
Spoilers: nothing past the first episode.
Summary: Two women, with nothing in common except their appearance, their deaths, and Sam Winchester.
Notes/Warnings: angst, implied incest. AU in that they're both, well, dead. :|

The Second Place

The older woman smiles at her – an odd, too-familiar smile that is nine parts warmth and one part mischief – and presses one of the steaming mugs into her hand. Jessica thanks her softly, wrapping her cold fingers around the warm porcelain. She can’t help taking another glance around the room. It is perfect; small and clean, every surface dusted, every picture frame hung immaculately straight around faded, fuzzy photographs. The tables and floors were just messy enough to seem homey. This is the sort of house that should have had a family inside; husband, wife and kids. Not the sort of house where a beautiful woman sits all alone, reading and doing menial chores, and staring up at pictures of the children she had lost so long ago.

It is a sad house. Empty. Jessica’s flat across town isn’t much better, and she understands, instinctively why she keeps coming here. Why she constantly calls on a woman she barely knows.

They both need this, if only for a little while.

Mary smiles again, and the smile hurts all the way to Jessica’s heart and out the other side. Mary’s tied her hair back today, blonde spilling from the edges of an old bandana. There’s barely a wrinkle on her face, in fact, she doesn’t look much older than Jess.

Everyone mistakes them for sisters.

What they are, Jess thinks, what they really are though, is comrades. Casualties of the same war. Jess is here for comfort. Mary wants the memories she was never allowed to make.

Mary laughs a little - and thank god she doesn’t laugh like her youngest son, because Jess isn’t sure she would be able to take it if she did – and sips her own tea.

“Tell me about him again,” Mary says gently. “Tell me anything. Tell me about my son.”

She always asks the same thing, and Jessica is always happy to oblige. She never gets tired of talking about Sam.

And she’s profoundly grateful Mary has never, ever asked her about Dean.

“He’s beautiful,” Jessica told her. “He smiles just like you.”

Mary grinned again, this time around her mug, and Jessica had to look away.

“My son, studying law,” she said happily. “Who’d have thought it? I wonder if he’s graduated by now.”

Jessica carefully said nothing. After all, maybe Sam had come back to Stanford. Maybe he had only been leaving for the weekend. She couldn’t possibly know for sure.

“He’s probably out defending tax evaders and pickpockets as we speak,” she replies, but it’s rushed and slightly bitter. Mary frowns at her.

“It’s all right, girl,” she says in that gentle, comforting tone that reminds Jess she would have been a wonderful mother. “It’s okay. He’s not gone for good. He’ll catch up to us sooner or later.”

Jessica shrugs.

Maybe he’ll catch up to you, Mary. But not me. Not again.

Mary strokes Jess’s hair away from her eyes until Jess manages to plaster another false smile on her face. No point breaking down here. There were some things the beautiful Mary didn’t ever need to know.

“I wish I’d known him,” Mary says simply. “Last time I met him, he was only a baby. Just a tiny little thing. About this big.”

Mary indicates a space about a foot and a half long with her hands. Jessica can’t suppress a snicker.

“He’s grown considerably since then. In our first flat, he always used to –“

“Hit his head on light fittings?” Mary cuts in wickedly, and they both laugh. Jessica has told that particular story far too many times, and it is still hilarious. Still so absolutely Sam, and back when she still knew Sam. Back before she’d realised that his job, his family, his home, his mother, his father and - most of all - his brother, were secrets that Sam would never share with her. Back before she’d realised he was living a lie.

Jess shakes her head and pushes those thoughts away. Here and now, with this woman, she can lose herself in the bright, happy memories of the man she was in love with, and that is exactly what she does. Mary’s voice is gentle, sometimes soothing, sometimes gleeful, sometimes broken, but always gentle and they talk and talk and talk. They take it in turns to boil the kettle and refill the mugs. The tea is followed by coffee, then juice, then more tea, then hot chocolate. Mary listens mostly, and asks questions. Some of them are identical to the ones she asked last week, and the week before that. Most are new, different, probing to find out about every single aspect of the life of a son she barely knew. Mary thinks she wants to know Sam inside and out. Jessica tightens her grip on her mug and hopes and prays Mary doesn’t ask the one thing she can’t possibly bring herself to answer. So she launches into anecdotes and stories with gusto, filling in every little detail, hoping to fill up the time ‘til she can excuse herself and leave, giving Mary as little opportunity as possible to speak.

“And your son is an absolute lightweight. Seriously. Two shots and he’s asleep, every single time. Every single party, we’d have to leave early. And I’d have to carry him home.”

Mary closes her eyes and smiles, and Jess knows she is trying to picture it. Picture her hulking great son lumbering around the place, half-slung over Jess’ shoulder, staggering back to their little flat. Jess can see him too, see him clearly in her mind. Dreamy drunken smile, floppy brown hair reeking of pub smoke as it tickled against her cheek, green eyes firmly closed, big hands on her shoulder, big hands on her hip, big hands on her butt…

…big hands on another man; chest, neck, stubbled jaw in the backseat of a car she didn’t recognise. She could never bring herself to ask.

He’d never looked at her that way.

Twelve months later, halfway to engaged and completely in love, she’d realised just WHO that man had been.

Jess drops her mug, and it hits the coffee table with a loud clunk, snapping her away from the ugly, obscene, beautiful, terrifying memory. Mary barely even notices this time.

“Lucky that was empty,” she says lightly, standing it back up with a graceful movement of the wrist. “So if my son was such a burden at parties, why didn’t you just leave him with one of his friends?”

Jess chews at her lower lip a bit.

“He, um…Sam didn’t really…get close to a lot of people.”

Mary stops smiling and gives Jess a long, careful look. Jessica can almost see the older woman turning the words over in her head.

“He didn’t have many friends?”

Jess inspects her knees, tries to find the right words.

“He…I was really the only one he…got close to.”

Liar.

Mary blinks.

“He didn’t have any friends?”

“He kept to himself,” Jess reasons, inexplicably defensive. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

Mary’s face hardens alarmingly and she leans forward, determined, gripping Jessica’s shoulders.

“What about his family?” she demands hoarsely. “What about my husband? John wouldn’t leave him.”

Jessica can’t meet Mary’s eyes. She’s scared now, Mary’s getting too close to that other name, the one she can’t bare to hear.

“I told you before,” she chokes, “I never met Sam’s father. I never saw him.”

Mary nods and releases her, sad and apologetic at once.

“I’m sorry,” she says touching her forehead. “I just…I just want to know about them, that’s all. I want to know that my family is okay. Did Sam ever tell you anything about them? Good God, maybe they all died in that fire. Did he ever say anything about them? Anything at all?”

She looks at Jess, broken and imploring.

“Yeah,” Jess says, feeling moderately sick. “Yeah, he mentioned them. From what he told me, he left home to go to college. He never told me what John did for a living, but I assumed it was somewhere far away from Stanford. The only one Sam mentioned being dead was you.”

And now it’s too close, far too close, she’s bound to ask now.

Mary smiles a bit, somewhat happier. And there’s less of Sam in her smile now, and more of the man she once saw Sam kissing in the backseat of that old car. Bile rises up in her throat and she can’t stomach the tea any more.

The pause before Mary speaks again is almost unbearable.

“What about my other boy?” she asks gently. “What about my Dean? Did you ever meet Sam’s brother? Surely he came to visit.”

“I met him once,” Jess tells her, voice devoid of emotion.

Mary raises a brow.

“Only once, in all that time Sam was at Stanford?”

Jess nods weakly. No, not once, god knows how many times, and how could Sam possibly do that with his own brother? His OWN BROTHER!

Had he loved her at all?

People always said she looked just like Mary. They could almost be twins. Maybe with her, Sam hadn’t been looking for a lover at all, but something entirely different, and it’s enough to make her nauseous, because she’ll never know.

“Excuse me,” Jess says, getting to her feet. She can’t bear this any longer. “I have to go.”

She runs. She just runs for the door and and doesn’t look back, because she can’t bear to see beautiful, maternal Mary staring at her in bewildered hurt. She just goes.

She’s halfway out the door and on the verge of throwing up when Mary catches her and pulls her close.

Jessica tries to pull away but Mary hangs onto her, gentle and firm, hugging her tight and stroking her hair, a perfect mother and Jess just presses her face into Mary’s linen-covered shoulder.

“It’s all right, girl, it’s all right. They’ll come back. They’ll all come back.”

Jess shudders in her arms, because Mary doesn’t understand, it isn’t all right, and them all coming back is exactly the problem. And how can she possibly tell Mary - adopted mother of half the suburb, Mary who looks like an angel, Mary who’s taken Jess under her wing when she was all alone in this place – what exactly it is her sons are doing to each other.

And sooner or later, she’s going to find out anyway. And God, if she has to find out by walking in on them like Jessica did…

…no. Jess owes it to her. Dammit, but she does.

Jess pulls away roughly and grabs the older woman by her forearms.

“Listen to me,” she says tersely. “There’s something you need to know. About Sam. He’s not…who you think he is. Who I thought he was. Something happened.”

And Mary touches her face, soft and so understanding and Jessica feels worse than ever before, but she can’t stop. She takes a deep, shuddering breath and plows on.

“There was this one night, when we’d been dating for about a year. Sam had said he wouldn’t be back ‘til late. He said he had study to do. He didn’t. I know because I saw him…fooling around with someone else in the carpark. Another man.”

Mary inhales swiftly.

“Oh…oh, honey. Oh honey. Oh, you poor girl.”

Jessica brushes Mary’s hands away, because she’s too angry and too sick to want to be close to anyone right now.

“Don’t you get it?” she says wretchedly. “Sam’s…he’s not perfect. He lied. He lied and he was unfaithful, but I never confronted him about it and it never happened again and I thought, I really thought everything was going to be fine for us until he introduced me to the guy months later and oh God, Mary…”

And she’s ashamed to find tears are running down her face, and that even now after all this time she can’t hate Sam for it, and she can’t even hate Dean, because they must both be so terribly, terribly alone out there and she spits out the last few words because they’re burning in her mouth now.

“…he’s in love with his own brother.”

Mary stops dead, the hand pressed to Jess’ face suddenly hard and cold. Her face freezes in shock. She says nothing. Jess doesn’t dare move, and she waits and waits and there is just no reaction from Mary at all. Jess wonders if it will be denial, or immediate hatred, or pity, or disgust, and she panics as she realises she might just have killed off Sam’s chance of ever, ever having a proper mother. And oh God, this isn’t what she meant to do at all.

“Sam,” Mary says in a ghostlike whisper. “My Sam….and my Dean. My Sammy. My…”

Mary trails off, tilts her head back and closes her eyes, as if she’s praying, as if she’s asking some higher deity to just get rid of the whole, twisted situation. Or maybe she’s just trying to convince herself that she heard wrong.

Jess wonders if she should reach out for her, if maybe right now, Mary needs a little of the comfort she dishes out so generously. Or perhaps she needs to be alone.

When Mary opens her eyes, her face is unreadable.

“Are you sure?” she asks, and her voice is still barely audible, but steadier.

Jessica nods numbly. Yes. Yes, because although Sam never told her, it was there in every word he spoke about his brother, in every glance at the one photo of his family Sam kept in his wallet, in every fevered dream where he called out and pleaded and said things she never wanted to hear.

“Then why,” Mary says sadly, “aren’t they together?”

Jess frowns. It’s such a bizarre thing to say, such an odd question. She wonders if Mary is still reeling from the shock of it, and who could possibly blame her? Jess had felt like the walking dead for a week after she found out. And anyway, why had Sam gone to Stanford?

Because he craved a ‘normal’ life. Because he wanted to get away from whatever craziness had thrived in his family. Because he loved college, loved the idea of domestic normalcy, loved her.

But he hadn’t been in love with her.

She can’t say all though, so she just shrugs, and Mary rounds on her.

“Please,” her voice is soft, persuading, “please tell me why my children are apart.”

And now, Jess has no idea what to say. Of all the directions she’d expected Mary’s reaction to take, this was not one of them.

“If they love each other, why are they apart?”

Jess wonders if maybe Mary has somehow missed the point entirely, that what her sons are doing is wrong, filthy, dirty…

…warm, comfortable, and she’d never seen Sam smile like that before…

…and terrible.

“They’re not,” she replies, answering on autopilot. “When I…before I…you know. Just before.”

Mary nods quickly. No-one likes to talk about the transition.

“Well, your oldest son…Dean…he came to visit. He came for Sam. Something…something happened with their father, I don’t know,” and her voice breaks a little more but she ploughs on, “but Sam went with him. It was the last time I saw him. Leaving. With his brother. They might still be together.”

And unexpectedly, Mary smiles. And this time her smile is like nothing else, warm and open and genuine and she looks like neither of her sons at all, she just looks like Mary.

“They’ll be all right, then,” she says. “Everything will be fine.”

Jess feels her lower lip wobble and she suddenly wants to scream. HOW was anything ever going to be fine, ever ever again? The man she loved was SLEEPING with his own brother, and they were off hunting god knows what horrible creature of the night and she was all alone and she had nothing and Sam would go to hell and everything she’d had was broken.

“It’s incest, Mary,” she pronounces. “In-cest. What they’re doing is…is…it’s practically-”

“Love,” Mary cuts her off without even raising her voice. “And they are my sons. And I will love them. And nothing will stop me.”

“But it’s NOT! It’s not just…it’s…it’s…”

She’s all alone in this, nowhere to turn, not even to Mary. She’d never really had to deal with this, had always pushed it away, had always assumed Sam would stay with her no matter what else went on. She’s always assumed they would be all right, one way or another. It had never honestly occurred to her that…

Mary strokes her hair.

“I’m sure he never meant to hurt you, girl,” she says kindly. “I’m sure he didn’t even understand what he was doing.”

Jessica opened her mouth to point out Mary couldn’t possibly know these things, because she hadn’t seen him since he was a damn baby! But Mary looks at her, ethereal and serene, and Jess just feels hollowed out inside, like there’s nothing left. Like it’s over now, it’s right there in the open, and she’s the only one who can’t accept it.

Mary gestures towards the door.

“Come on, Jess,” she calls. “It’s too dark to be travelling alone. There’s an extra bedroom upstairs.”

Mary is already walking inside, her feet light on the ground, always light, more like an angel than any dead woman has the right to be. Jess feels clumsy and useless. Mary smiles over her shoulder and she looks exactly like Sam again.

“Come on,” she says gently. “It’s a new day tomorrow.”

Jessica takes two steps, presses her face against Mary’s collarbone and breaks. Just breaks. She sobs until her chest aches and it’s nowhere near enough. It’s far too much, it’s always been too much, and it’s all such a mess that she doesn’t think she can ever pick up the pieces.

And Mary, as beautiful as ever, strokes her back and tells her everything will be all right.

end

--

Supernatural Fic - Sam/Dean.

2006-07-20T11:39:00Z

Title: "Hold Tight"
Author: name_assumed
Beta: tsu who deserves a medal for wading through my crap.
Characters: ...yeah. That would be Sam and Dean and Car.
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: R - NC-17
Category: Slash. A tiny bit of Plot.
Word Count: Word tells me it is 6226. Who am I to argue with Word?
Spoilers: to episode 3 or thereabouts.
Summary: in roughly alphabetical chronological order: there is a monster, they fight it, Dean is a dick, the Impala makes an appearance, and then there is sex.
Notes/Warnings: slash, incest, language, implied violence, sex between consenting adult men, first time SPN fic. Also, a corset. :)

--

Hold Tight

--

Sometimes, it was busting into a dingy old house and blasting the crap out of anything that moved. Sometimes it all came down to a little bit of fire and a heck of a lot of planning.

Sometimes, their best weapon was a tiny square of glass, about four inches across and silver on the back.

Something rustled in the shadows to their left, and Dean had to fight down all of his hunting instincts that were screaming at him to turn and look at the movement. This was dangerous country: That had been plainly obvious, written all over the screen of Sammy’s stupid prettyboy computer. Bad country. A lot of people died of snakebite (oh GREAT, so now we’re pest removers as well? What’s next? We gonna start laying floors for people?). A lot of people were turning into impromptu statues, faces locked into screaming eternity. And yeah, it could have just been a sculptor with a nasty sense of humour and too much time on his hands, but the whole place reeked of Gorgon. And Dean hated those serpent-headed daughters of bitches. Easy to kill – one well-placed shot to the heart would do it – but not so easy to kill and not get turned to stone yourself. Dean swallowed and surreptitiously checked the mirror again. There was nothing quite like walking backwards through a dark forest in the middle of the night. Sammy elbowed him cheerfully.

“’Smatter, you scared of the snakelady, Dean?”

Dean rolled his eyes.

“No, Sammy, it’s just that I hate hearing you scream like a little girl. Don’t you remember the last time we-”

“The last time we met a Gorgon I was seven years old,” Sammy told him, absolutely calm. “And you screamed too.”

And it had come back to that point again. Tramping backwards through wet leaves and mud, peering into a mirror, and he couldn’t even win an argument with his brother any more. Sammy had been Mr. Invincible ever since Dean had kissed him in the back seat of the Impala three months ago, and things had changed and tangled and twisted and now every day was a new battle for the upper hand. And Dean didn’t win all that often, either.

Dean felt his left boot squelch into something soft and foul-smelling, and he swore, fighting the urge to look down. Intellectually, he knew it wasn’t important. Gorgons didn’t leave turds. Sammy snickered, still so fucking bright and carefree, and manoeuvred the flashlight around behind them. A few more paces and something went snap. They both stopped dead, identically still. It was sickening really, just how synchronised they’d become. Dean let his free hand rest on the gun strapped to his hip, the metal cool and reassuring under his fingers. He lifted his mirror and scanned to the left, while Sammy scanned the right. Nothing. Dean gritted his teeth. The bitch was somewhere out there, probably watching them. He could almost hear the snakes rattling their nasty little teeth.

Well, that thing could wait as long as she wanted. The forest wasn’t that big, and he might have screamed like a girl fifteen years ago, but he’d still killed the damn thing with one shot and a shard of windowpane. And if they were really unlucky and the Gorgon jumped out in front of them, well, he’d rip it apart, even if he had to do it with stone hands. Because nothing, but nothing, was ever going to get to Sammy.

Sammy’s lips turned down slightly, but the smile still hadn’t vanished entirely from his face.

“She’s here,” he said quietly, and entirely unnecessarily. Stupid kid brother, always managed to say what would have been perfectly fine left unsaid and completely break Dean up with it in the process.

“Did you see that?”

Dean had seen it. Just out of the corner of his eye. A flicker of shadow to their left. Thank god snakeladies couldn’t pull any of that disappearing shit. If it was nearby, then it was going to stay within range for the next few minutes. Dean briefly let go of the gun and touched the centre of his brother’s back.

“Come on, turn ‘round. Let’s follow this fucker so that we can get this over with.”

They swung around, put their backs to where the shadow had been, and started walking. The second worst thing about Gorgons was that you looked like an absolute idiot when you were hunting them.

Close behind them, something was making leaves crunch in a footfall-like rhythm. Dean slipped his gun out of its holster. It would be up to him to kill the thing. Sammy’s hands were full of mirror and torch. They were moving more carefully now, each step exactly in time like a pair of soldiers marching together. Sometimes, they really might as well be the same fucking person, and that thought was terrifying and amazing and sickening to the point where it just didn’t bear thinking about. Tree branches brushed and snagged on his jacket, and dammit if the scrub wasn’t getting thicker back here. It would be too much trouble for the fucking bitch to come out into the open where they could get a clear shot.

Dean kept his eyes on his mirror. The forest looked washed out and grey in the harsh yellow torchlight. He could hear bats shrieking from the treetops, and his shoes stank of mud and animal shit. He wanted out of this fucking forest right now. He wanted a couch in some mouldy old hotel room somewhere, preferably under Sam. Funny, how he’d changed. He used to live for moments like these; the adrenaline rush, the hunt. Now he simply lived through them, as though he were always waiting for the better moments. Sometimes he had to hate Sammy for changing everything. Sometimes he had no choice but to despise the little shit for taking away everything he’d had and giving him something completely different. Right now, though, he just hated that stupid little smile on his brother’s face; like, even knee-deep in stinking wet forest grass, Sammy was still on top of the world.

Dean briefly considered punching him. Just to see if it would wipe that smirk off that stupid face.

Another step brought Dean’s shoulder right up against a thick shrub, which dug into the leather over his shoulder. He was going to have a fucking tear there, he just knew it. Something whimpered from the other side of Sammy – the pathetic mewl of something small, furry, and frightened. Well, then. She must be very close. Dean slid his gun silently from its holster. There wouldn’t be any second chances. But that didn’t matter, he didn’t intend to need any second chances. Without a word, both he and his brother turned their heads away from the sound. In Dean’s case, that meant his nose was almost touching the shrub, and his mirror was at an almost useless angle. Fuck. He held the gun snug against his stomach and waited.

And then…then the fucking bitch burst through the shrub. Right. In front. Of his fucking face.

Dean jumped back instinctively, pressing up against Sam. One of them was bellowing, deep, primal shock and it was probably him. Right there, she was right there. Something that sounded like glass smashed on the ground. His mirror had dropped out of his hand. It didn’t matter. He was between the monster and Sammy, and he had the gun. All he needed to do was aim and fire.

Aim.

Dean looked up.

It was tall and scrawny, vaguely woman shaped, its entire body covered with glistening, reptilian scales. Its hands ended in claw-like fingers. Dean fumbled the gun, trying to twist it around to point at the Gorgon. It was wrong. His body was moving so motherfucking slow, and he felt sick, and it was only when his eyes reached the neck that he remembered there was something important about that mirror. But there was the monster and there was his brother and he had to shoot, shoot now and to do that he had to see-

-he thought he saw a flash of white, snakelike teeth before his world went thick and dark and fabric-flavoured as a long arm wrapped itself around his head.

“Dean!” Sammy yelled, and he sounded frantic and helpless. He sounded the way Dean hadn’t heard him sound since the night he lost Jessica. Sammy twisted him around, rough and hard, slamming Dean’s face into his side and holding him there.

Dean panicked.

The gun… no… Sammy… facing the wrong way… still alive… he had to shoot… Sammy… Sammy wouldn’t let him up… no… no!

Long fingers prised the gun out of his hands, and Dean couldn’t tell if they were Sammy’s or hers. He clawed at his brother’s arm, desperate to get free.

Have to kill her…have to kill her right now or else…or else.

Sammy wouldn’t let go…and wasn’t that supposed to be Dean’s fucking problem, after all? He was yelling something about shutting up, something about the gun. Dean heard the Gorgon step closer, he could feel that foul reptile-breath, heard the snakes hiss and writhe, he could still see her in her minds eye. Sammy kept their backs to her and Dean fought him hard, and why the hell was Sammy stronger, anyway? What sort of justice was that? How was Dean supposed to save him?

If Sammy had an arm around him, and he also had the gun, then he couldn’t be using the mirror. There was no way his baby brother would be able to hit her. Dean bit at Sam’s shirt and struggled hard. Then he felt a clawed hand touch his back.

He heard his little brother roar “NO!”.

And then he heard the shot.

--

It felt like hours passed before Sammy let the vice-like grip he had on Dean’s head relax. Dean jerked up and pushed him away, reeling slightly but managing to stay upright.

“Did you get her?” he demanded, hot and angry. Sammy just pointed behind them. Dean spun on his heel and almost toppled into the puddle of molten-grey scales and snake-heads.

Yessir, that was one dead Gorgon.

Dean looked at the puddle, looked at his brother, looked at the puddle again, and felt inexplicably frustrated. He was the better fucking hunter, dammit. Why the hell had Sammy interfered?

Dean grunted, too angry to talk, and instead he opted to walk silently back to the waiting car and civilization. He set off at a wobbly lurch, stumbling over tree roots and clinging to every branch he passed for balance. Three strides later Sammy had caught him. By the goddamn collar. And he looked every bit as angry as Dean felt.

“You. Fucking. Dickhead!” Sammy punctuated the last word by shoving Dean backwards. Dean stumbled and almost hit the grass, but his image had always been slightly more important to him than his health, and snarky remarks were pure habit.

“I’m the dickhead?” he snapped back, unable to match Sammy’s volume. “You were the one who attacked me while I was trying to kill the damn thing.”

“You…you…” Dean’s brother waved his arms around furiously, then he lunged forward, grabbed Dean and dragged him back until they were chest-to-chest. “You LOOKED, Dean! You looked! You looked at a fucking Gorgon. If I’d been half a second slower, YOU WOULD BE A LUMP OF ROCK! WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU TRYING TO PULL BACK THERE?”

Dean snarled automatic indignation.

“I’m fine,” he snapped, pleased when he managed not to fall over or otherwise belie that statement. “I was just going to shoot it - “

“You were going to look!” Sammy breathed, rage evident in every syllable. Shit, his brother was pissed.

Dean’s vision was starting to swim a bit. Some of the snakelady poison must have gotten to him through that claw. He couldn’t have been thinking straight. That was the only possible reason for what he said next.

“I pulled you out of the house,” he slurred. “Did you forget that, Sammy? I knew what I was doing then – and I was fucking five years old – and I know what I’m doing now. I would have killed her.”

“You would have died, Dean!” Sammy gripped his shoulders and shook him hard, hard enough to send Dean’s world into a dizzying spin of colours. “YOU! WOULD! HAVE! DIED!”

“I-“ Dean tried, and Sammy swooped on him, leaned down until their noses were almost touching. In his semi-functioning state, Dean half expected a kiss. Instead his brother glowered.

“Go on,” he said, voice soft and dangerous, “tell me. Look me in the eye and tell me you weren’t going to look at her face. Tell me the truth, Dean. Tell me you were going to stop.”

Dean held his brother’s accusing stare for almost half a second before his gaze fluttered to the ground. The sick feeling welled right back up inside him. He would have kept looking. He might have killed her, he probably would have at least gotten a shot off, but he would have died. He would have looked. Sammy saved him, and now they were even, and that was perhaps the most frightening prospect of all.

The world whirled around some more and Dean staggered. Sammy snorted, pushed him a step in the direction of the car, then slid his hand up under Dean’s right arm, all the way to his armpit.

“Car,” he said thickly, steering Dean along mercilessly. “Now.”

“But Sammy-“

“Car, Dean. Now!”

Cursing in resigned acceptance, Dean allowed himself to be dragged to the car. Sammy marched him along – Dean felt like an errant schoolboy being escorted to the principal’s office (which was his clearest and practically only memory of his school days) and shitshitshit Sammy must have been mad. He never got like this. He was acting like…well, like dad. Dean’s head spun harder at that revelation, and he couldn’t find it in himself to complain for the entire trek to the road.

When they got there, Sammy shoved him again. Dean stumbled over to lean against the cold black car exterior that was the only other constant in his short, messed-up life. He kinda felt like kissing it.

Sammy stomped around him and opened the back door.

“In.”

Dean almost laughed. He hadn’t travelled in the back since he was twelve years old. Those seats were solely for cargo and sex. And all right, maybe he’d let Sammy drive, but there was no way he was going to-

“In! Now!”

Sammy’s face was screwed up with fury and the rest of the protests died on Dean’s tongue. He just wasn’t going to win tonight. He’d fucked up with the Gorgon, and now he was going to pay.

“You can hardly stay upright out here as it is,” Sammy told him shortly as he manhandled Dean into the car. “I’m not having you sprawling all over the front while I’m trying to get your stupid, sorry ass to a hospital. Now shut up!”

Dean was profoundly grateful when his brother slammed the back door and went to climb into the driver’s seat. For one thing, it meant Sammy had stopped bellowing at him. For another, the closed door gave him something to rest his aching head against. The hospital idea was a stupid one, he just needed rest and maybe some water. But the battle for the upper hand was raging supreme now, and he just wasn’t winning. Sammy would be calling all of the shots tonight.

Dean supposed it was his own fault for sleeping with the little bitch in the first place.

--

As it turned out, Dean was fine. There were traces of low-grade poison still lingering in his body, which the doctor assured Sammy would be metabolised as he slept and he’d be right by morning. Satisfied, Sammy had lugged Dean back to the car, and continued to ignore him for the rest of the journey. This was fine by Dean; in fact, he even managed to get over an hour of decent shut-eye, because the town they’d just saved from the Gorgon was approximately two streets wide and had no hotel, so Sammy drove back to the previous town they’d visited. It too was hotel-less, and Sammy had decided they would stay at the ‘haunted house’ that had brought them there in the first place.

By this time it was after midnight, and Dean was feeling much less like crap. He even managed to get out of the car on his own and walk up the stairs, which was a good thing, as Sammy had pulled up and immediately stomped off, leaving Dean to his own devices.

They chose the least-dusty room, in that same silent, wordless fashion, and it struck Dean that they both took it as given that they’d share. Apparently, even Sammy’s black mood didn’t change that particular precedent. Dean dropped his bag on the bed and wrinkled his nose at the small dust cloud that rose up and dissipated, illuminated in parts by the ridiculously old-fashioned lights that lined the room.

He set up salt lines along the windows while Sammy did the doors. Judging by the motherfucking ugly gilt-peeling vanity set in the corner, this had been a woman’s bedroom at some point. Ah well, pretty Sammy would fit right in then. Without thinking Dean opened his mouth to say as much, caught sight of his brother’s expression and carefully closed it again.

All right, so he’d fucked up. He’d practically admitted it already. Couldn’t Sammy just forget about it already? Was he going to be putting up with this shit for the next goddamn month?

Sammy appeared to be taking inventory of the room, every movement designed to keep his back firmly to his brother. Dean shrugged and used the chance to kick off his stinking boots and damp trousers. Jacket and shirt went on to add to the pile until he was down to just his boxers. He supposed he might have had clean trousers somewhere in the car, but it was cold and dark outside, and modesty had never been very important to either of the Winchester brothers when they were together. Dean sat down on the edge of the bed, rubbing his bare legs on the ancient scratchy blanket and watched as Sammy rummaged around in the gigantic trunk that lay beside the vanity cabinet. Now that they had nothing to do, the silence was getting to be a real pain. Dean decided he’d better get it sorted, or god knew, he’d be travelling in the back seat for the rest of the year.

“Sammy, I -”

“Look at this,” Sammy said loudly, obviously ignoring him. He held up a faded, cobweb-laden silk skirt that was roughly the size and shape of a small tent. It was probably very fashionable…a hundred years ago. Dean snickered despite himself.

“It suits you,” he told Sammy smugly. His brother scowled darkly, then stopped and fixed him with an odd look. Dean shifted a bit, glaring right back.

“What?” he demanded gruffly.

“Nothing,” Sammy shrugged, dropped the skirt to one side and continued sorting through the contents of the trunk.

Dean wasn’t letting it go that easily. There had been far too much calculation in that look, and, with his brother, that was never a good thing.

“Sam -”

“Check this out,” Sammy continued, this time fishing out a black satin corset, apparently made for a slightly bigger woman than could be deemed attractive by modern standards. “I wonder if it’s whalebone?”

“I never knew you had such a fetish for women’s clothes,” Dean drawled. Sammy lowered his eyelashes and glared, in an expression Dean knew Sam must have learned from him. Goddammit.

“All right, Sammy,” Dean said, getting to his feet. “Come on, let’s get this shit over with me. I know you’ve been dying to scream at me ever since we killed that Gorgon-”

“I killed the Gorgon, Dean. You almost died!” Sammy shouted at him hotly.

“If you hadn’t gotten in the fucking way, I could have killed it,” Dean yelled, even though he knew that wasn’t true.

“No, Dean. If I hadn’t gotten in the way, you would have fucking DIED! Like mum, Dean. Like Jess! Are you really so fucking desperate to put me through that again? Huh? HUH?”

Dean licked his lips and scrambled for words. He kept turning up blanks. His bitch of a baby brother was right, he would have been killed, but dammit when was Sammy going to realise that it was Dean’s fucking job to protect him. If Dean had died, Sammy would have been sad, gotten over it, moved on with his life, settled down, and gone back to college. If Sammy had died – and he could have just as easily – Dean would have absolutely fucking nothing.

“You really are an idiot, you know that?” Sammy said, soft but still angry. “You are an absolute, first class prick.”

“Oh, come on,” Dean said. “You know it wouldn’t have happened like that.”

He was such a terrible liar, and they both knew that.

“Yeah well,” Sammy sneered, “forgive me if I don’t fancy having a statue for a brother.”

And there it was. The anger was fading away from his brother now, and Dean breathed a small sigh of relief. This had turned out easier than he’d expected. He crossed the room in a few strides. Sammy still clutched the corset over his chest, but he wasn’t holding it out far enough for it to be a physical barrier. Dean set his hand on his brother’s neck.

“Besides,” he smirked, “I’d have made one hot statue.”

“Fucking jerk,” Sammy shot back, equally soft, and Dean was close enough to taste the heat in those words as well as hear them.

Dean ran calloused fingers through hair the colour of old chocolate and felt a little more of the tension leak out of his brother’s posture. Oh yeah. He still had it.

Dean kissed his brother lightly. He wasn’t really good with gentle, or slow for that matter, but the aim of this game was to calm Sammy down and biting him on the lips might just provoke another fight. So he kept it soft for just as long as he could bear, and Sammy responded in kind, kissing back silently.

Sammy didn’t reach out for him for a few long minutes, until Dean lifted his other hand to trace his baby brother’s face, and then finally Sammy touched his sides and pulled him closer. Dean felt silk across his stomach and chest, and the more familiar fabric of Sammy’s shirt against his bare neck. This was the warmest place in the world, in some filthy dirty room kissing his little brother. Even Sammy must have been feeling better, because he kissed harder, slipping his tongue in Dean’s mouth. It was always that way, Sammy’s tongue in Dean’s mouth, and Dean would have gladly been massacred by a thousand Wendigos before he would admit that to anyone.

Sammy pulled Dean tight to his chest, and used his motherfucking height advantage to tilt Dean’s head back. Big warm hands wandered over his bare back and it was good, it was far too good, just like beer and pizza and violence and everything else that was supposed to be bad for you. With a bit of luck, he could make Sammy forget his anger, forget why he’d ordered Dean around, forget everything that had happened out there in the forest, and things would be just fine again.

Sammy made an odd, sharp motion with his hands and suddenly Dean was having trouble breathing. He fought his way out of the kiss and came up gasping.

“What the fucking hell?” he growled. Sammy shot him a grin that was three quarters glee and nine quarters evil.

“Gotcha,” he said smugly, releasing his brother with a lazy flop of the arms. Dean got the gnawing feeling something very harmful to his pride had just happened and he looked down at himself with no small amount of trepidation.

“Oh no,” he muttered in abject horror, “you fucking didn’t!”

The little motherfucking bitch started to laugh.

Dean clawed at the shiny silk fabric now moulded to his torso. It didn’t budge. Sammy was almost dying with mirth.

“Come on, Dean. You walked right into that one. Anyway, it suits you.”

“Sammy,” Dean said tightly, “I am going to kill you. KILL YOU! DO YOU UNDERSTAND? I WILL KILL YOU IN YOUR SLEEP AND THEN I WILL FEED YOUR BODY TO AS MANY VAMPIRES AS I CAN FIND! ARGH!”

Sammy ducked away from him, easily dodging Dean’s punches with those freakishly long legs. Dean hollered and launched himself at his brother, managing to connect but failing to knock Sammy sprawling onto the floor as he would have liked. Instead, Sammy stumbled and came whirling back, pinning Dean’s wrists over his head with one fluid bastard of a movement.

“What’s the matter, Dean?” he teased. “Don’t like getting in touch with your feminine side?”

With an unintelligible growl Dean wrenched one hand free and twisted it behind his back, searching desperately for the fastening that would get this fucking thing off of him. But it seemed to be all smooth tight lace…no ties, no clips, no nothing. How the fuck had Sammy managed to get this thing on in the first place? And oh if Sammy thought Dean was ever going to trust him again, he had another think coming. He decided he wouldn’t so much as tweak Sammy’s nose unless the little shit was bound and gagged first. Oh yes. Dean was going to kill him. He couldn’t even breathe properly in this stupid fucking corset. Who the hell even thought up such a barbaric item of clothing? It was like a torture instrument.

Sammy grinned harder and drove his knee into Dean’s stomach, knocking the wind out of him completely and dropping him onto the bed.

Dean wheezed for air as his brother snagged his free arm and pinned it once again. Then he dropped down on top of Dean until their faces were almost touching.

“Hey there, big brother,” he said brightly, “having trouble with something?”

Dean wondered if he could kill Sammy just with his teeth. Sammy licked his nose.

“You know, it suits you.”

“It doesn’t even,” Dean hissed back, “it’s too fucking small.”

It was, too. It was tightest around his waist, the lower edge sat just under his navel, and the highest part didn’t even reach his nipples. Sammy managed to manoeuvre both of Dean’s wrists into one hand, and slid the other down to pet the bare skin between the corset and the waistband of Dean’s boxers. Dean had to bite back a moan. Sammy dropped his head further so he could whisper in Dean’s ear.

“It’s supposed to be tight, dipshit. It’s supposed to make it difficult to breathe.”

Dean’s snappy reply was killed completely when Sammy started kissing his neck, swiftly, over and over, and oh fuck it was good. Somehow the lack of oxygen was heightening all his senses, and he was gone anyway, because Sammy always knew exactly how to get him, ever since day one…and he should have known better than to get involved with someone who knew him so damn well.

Sammy nuzzled his throat and dragged his hand up over the obscene black satin to run his nails over Dean’s bare collarbone. Dean groaned and thrashed his head back, unsure whether he was fighting or encouraging the contact. It would only end one way, no matter what he did, because he sure as hell wasn’t going to tell Sammy to stop.

This was what they lived on. This was where they survived.

Usually minus the corset, though.

Sammy’s fingers traced a shivery path to Dean’s nipple and stroked lightly. If breathing had been difficult before, it was damn near impossible now. Dean twisted around, writhing from pure sensation, movements constricted by Sammy’s hand pinning his and the godfucking thing around his chest.

“Fucking hell, Sammy,” he whispered. Sammy chuckled into his hair and slid a knee between his brother’s thighs. Dean bucked automatically, desperate for contact. Sammy slammed all his weight down on top of him and kissed him hard, tongue and teeth and saliva everywhere, and Dean couldn’t even remember how to breathe.

“Guess gunning down a Gorgon really got you going, huh?” he murmured when Sammy managed to cease the assault on his mouth long enough for Dean to get a decent lungful of air.

Sammy drew himself up again, taking his weight on his arms and swinging his knees forward until Dean’s chest was cradled between them. There was nothing against Dean’s lower body any more, and he bucked air a few times before he managed to get his hips under control. Sammy’s eyes were solemn and hard, his hand around Dean’s wrists clenched so tight it hurt.

“She was a dead woman as soon as she tried to hurt you,” he said, and the utter seriousness of those words were getting to Dean in all the places no one should ever be allowed to get to in a fair world. Nevermind that he was so fucking hard it hurt and his lover was denying him, and that was hardly conducive to forming the snappy comebacks that usually came so easily to him.

And then Dean did a mental flail and hastily scrubbed out the word “lover” - god, what was he, some goon in a bad romance novel? - and swore to himself he’d never use it again.

At least until the next time Sammy called him “baby”.

“Come on Sammy,” Dean said, his voice sounding pathetically small, “you know I’m invincible.”

“No,” Sammy said quietly. “No. No. No you aren’t. You know you aren’t. And you’d better start believing it.”

And here Sammy leaned down aggressively.

“Because if you get killed,” he said harshly. “You know what I’ll do?”

Dean shook his head dumbly.

“I’ll take your car,” Sammy whispered, his hair tickling Dean’s nose, “and I’ll paint her pink. And I’ll drive her through town playing Britney Spears as loud as I can.”

“You do that,” Dean growled, “and I’ll haunt you til you’re dead. And,” he wheezed as Sammy thumbed his nipple again, “I’ll make sure you don’t get a wink of fucking sleep in the meantime.”

Sammy snorted.

“You do that anyway.”

Dean managed half a smirk. Hells yeah. Now if Sammy could just get back to the job at hand here. Or at the very least, get rid of the stupid fucking corset so he could breathe.

“Promise me,” Sammy said, all seriousness again, “that you won’t ever do something that stupid. Ever. Again.”

Dean couldn’t. Because he knew when it got down to ‘Sammy’ and ‘danger’ that he’d put his life on the line every single time. He looked away from his brother’s fierce green eyes.

“I can’t-“

“Promise,” Sammy repeated, tightening his knees until Dean was gasping for breath, “or you’ll be wearing this thing for the rest of your days. You know you can’t unlace it without my help.”

Dean felt sick at the mere thought of it. This was already fucking embarrassing enough, just having Sammy see him like this, there was no way any random stranger in any hick town would ever, ever get that privilege.

“I’ll… cut it off… myself,” he jarred through gritted teeth, “there…are…knives in my pack…fucker.”

Insulting Sammy probably wasn’t the smartest move in the world, but it was hard to think when his lungs were being crushed like that and Sammy was squirming on top of him. But the bitch didn’t even crack a smile.

“I’ll cuff you,” he said coolly. “I can do it right now. I’ve already got you pinned.”

Dean threw his head back and groaned.

“Sammy…you wouldn’t…”

Dean could hear his brother’s grin, even as Sammy dipped his head to lick at Dean’s Adam’s apple slowly and carefully. It took every iota of Dean’s self control not to start bucking again.

“You know I would,” Sammy purred. He raked his free hand up the underside of Dean’s right arm and Dean had to clench his jaw tightly. It wouldn’t help his case if he started gibbering and pleading now.

“No…”

“Promise, Dean.”

“Sammy…I…”

Sammy squeezed his knees tighter and now breathing hurt and Dean thought he might just pass out. He was pretty sure the only thing keeping him conscious was the ache in his dick every time Sammy moved.

“All right all right all right,” he managed in a rush. “Yes, all right? Yes. You win. Please…Sammy.”

And suddenly the weight was off him and the rush of air into his lungs was a beautiful, beautiful thing. Dean closed his eyes and sucked in air like a drowning man. When he opened them Sammy was grinning at him. When he closed them again, Sammy was kissing him. Those damnably long fingers crept spiderlike up his arm and threaded into his hair. It was almost enough to make him forget about the corset, but it was also making the tension in his groin unbearably worse. Dean never begged, and he never whined, but if Sammy didn’t start touching him motherfucking soon he was going to…well, he was probably going to beg or whine. Loudly. And right about now.

As if he was reading Dean’s mind (and who knew, maybe the little fucker was), Sammy nipped Dean’s lower lip between sharp teeth and ran his hand down over skin and satin until it rested on the softer material of Dean’s boxers.

“Sammy,” Dean groaned into his brother’s mouth. Sammy kissed him hard and mouthed back the words “it’s okay, baby”. Trust his baby brother so say something stupid like that. He didn’t need reassurance, he needed –

Sammy’s hand between his legs, rubbing him good and hard through thin cotton. Dean fell back against the bed and howled.

“The neighbours probably think this house is still haunted now,” Sammy said wryly. Dean gave him the best glare he could manage.

“Shu’ up.”

You got what you wanted already. Bitch.

But at least Sammy didn’t stop, and that was good, because otherwise Dean would have had to find a way to kill him without the use of his arms, and that would have been a lot of hassle. Instead, Sammy kissed his way down Dean’s chest and let his tongue caress pink skin and black satin. He slid his hand past the waistband of Dean’s boxer shorts, palm broad, fingers warm, exactly the way Dean remembered. And Sammy stroked him hard and fast, driving him to the edge so quickly and mercilessly even Dean couldn’t keep up, and he was supposed to be the speed freak. Dean thrashed around and moaned and said things that were probably shameful, but he couldn’t remember them and he could always deny everything in a few seconds whenwhenwhenwhenwhen…

…and Sammy stopped.

Dean was shuddering, on the fucking edge of orgasm, and Sammy had fucking stopped. Sammy lifted his head off his brother’s chest and smiled brightly at Dean’s frustrated pain.

“Didn’t you want this off?” he tapped the corset. Dean just stared. It was all he could manage to do.

“Well?” said Sammy. “Come on. Say the word and it’s off, I’ll even-”

“SAMMYIWILLKILLYOU!” Dean bellowed.

“ISWEARTOGODIWILLKILLYOUIFYOUSTOPNOW!”

Sammy tilted his head in mock confusion.

“I thought you wanted-”

“SAMMYI’MWARNINGYOU.”

“So you don’t want it-”

“NO!”

“No?”

“NO!”

Sammy beamed at him.

“Excellent.”

Dean hardly had time to register that his brother’s hand was moving again before he came and came hard. He squeezed his eyes shut and yelled something that was probably Sam and everything was brilliant and bright and golden, and then Sammy was all around him, holding him as he came down, big hands soothing and gentle and one slightly sticky.

After almost a minute of satiated lassitude, Dean noticed numbly that his arms had been freed and at some point in the aftershocks and knotted loosely around Sam’s shoulders. He frowned slightly, because he really owed the little bitch a punch or seven upside the head, but this position would do for now. It was warm and familiar, and not much else in Dean’s world was either of those things.

It took him another several seconds to remember the promise he’d gibbered earlier. Oh fuck. Of all the fucking things to ask him for…Dean had practically promised not to protect Sammy. Well, that wasn’t a promise he could keep, but maybe he could pretend for a little while until it wasn’t so fresh in Sammy’s mind.

Besides, they pretty much kept each other safe these days. They were a team. And that was why Medusa out there in the forest was dead, and Dean was still alive. Team. Home. Sammy.

His baby brother was already half asleep, apparently having gotten off himself at some point during his Dean-torture session. Fucker. Dean kissed his head, because there was no one around to see, and settled back to catch a few hours sleep himself.

In fact, it wasn’t until morning and Sammy’s shit-eating grin that he remembered he was still stuck in that fucking corset.

--

end

--