tebtosca | FIC: one, after another, after another (Sam/Dean, Rated R)

Title: one, after another, after another
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: R
Warnings:

Character death--but a happy ending!

Word Count: ~1500

Summary: Five times they leave each other and one time they don’t

Author's Notes: Written in anticipation of the season 8 premiere. Just me getting my sentimental OTP feelings out. No spoilers! Fills my soulmates square on my Cotton Candy Bingo card ♥

The brick is rough against Dean’s back, shirt riding up from the press of Sam’s body undulating against his own. He doesn’t have his jacket, his shield, doesn’t want to remind Sam of Dad in this, what could be their final moment.

Sam is licking into his mouth, biting and cursing and swallowing all of Dean’s fear and guilt until it pushes down, down, down into his belly, and goes away like a twisted memory. Sam’s hands are on Dean’s face, and Dean’s hands are twisted in Sam’s hair, and the world that exists for them narrows down to mingled breath and confused devotion and sin.

Denim meets denim, hand-me-downs from the past, and it reminds Dean of a time when Sam was young, when Sam was innocent, when all he needed from Dean was to be his big brother and caretaker and hero.

Sam grinds and presses and takes, demanding that Dean notice him, and Dean submits, of course he does, until the insides of his boxers are slick, and hot, wet salt is at the corners of his eyes. He cries out “Sammy” like a benediction, and Sam stills, kissing Dean’s temple like a mother would a child.

Dean hates him as much as he loves him then. Clings to him anyway, just for a second, just to remember, and then releases him, knowing what he’s losing and what the mess in his shorts means he’s already lost.

Sam gets on the bus and goes towards his future, and Dean tells himself that everything will be okay.

***

Pastor Jim’s a nice guy, stern but kind, and he keeps a couple cases of pop in the basement, just in case. He lets Dean have one, even though his hands are shaking a bit and it’s late when Dad drops him and Sammy off. He ruffles Dean’s hair, tells him to holler if they need anything, and closes the door of his room with a soft click that still manages to resound down the hallway.

“Can I have a sip, Dean?” Sammy asks, curled up in a sleepy ball on the twin bed in Pastor Jim’s guest room. The three hour drive tuckered the poor kid out, and Dean wishes his own sleep would come as easily as his.

“Nah, Sammy, it’ll keep you up. Big day tomorrow,” Dean says, swallows hard.

Sammy’s eyes creep open, and he stifles a yawn. “Dad coming back soon, Dean? “

Dean thinks about Dad’s face when he was shooting the shtriga, the fury and disbelief afterwards. “I don’t know, Sammy. He’s got a job to take care of, Dad stuff.”

Sammy’s lower lip trembles a bit and Dean can’t keep himself from putting the pop down on the dresser and going over to crawl in next to him. Sammy immediately cradles himself close to Dean’s body, and even though Sam’s going on six now, too big for this baby stuff, Dean lets him.

“I’m sorry I left you, Sammy,” Dean says, pulling his baby brother closer to him, pressing his face to his hair. “Shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s okay, Dean, I forgive you,” Sammy says, simple, unburdened by all the bad things in the world.

Dad gave him a job, and Dean messed it up, but he’ll do better next time. He won’t leave his brother alone again.

***

The night before Dean dies feels like the night that Dean is born. Sam is crying as he bites ownership into Dean’s skin, telling the devil that Dean is his, and his alone. It’s rough and brutal, just spit for lube and flesh impaling, Dean clinging to the bulk of Sam’s shaking shoulders as Sam fucks him with that perfect mixture of love and loathing that they know so well. There’s blood at the corners of Sam’s mouth by the time the night is done, Dean’s blood on his tongue, and Dean’s body aches but he wants to stay in this moment forever.

Eventually, the real forever comes, and Dean is gone.

Hell is fire.

Hell is cold.

Hell is steel.

Hell is madness.

Hell is repentance.

When Dean returns, there is still blood on Sam’s tongue. Dean tries not to notice.

***

Watching Sam drive that shit-ass car away from the house is almost as bad as watching him fall in that hole in the ground, except without that whole eternal torment thing.

Lisa makes dinner, pork chops and applesauce and that fancy rice pilaf shit she loves so much. Dean chews, chews again, washes it down with expensive beer and determination.

“You okay?” she asks later, after Ben goes up to bed, finally exhausted by the events of the past few days.

They’re sitting on the couch, her thigh bare and warm against his. She’s a good woman, Lisa Braeden. His woman. As much as she can be. As much as he can allow.

Dean just shakes his head, doesn’t know the right words to tell her how it feels. Doesn’t quite know if he even knows what he’s feeling right now.

“He’s not gone for good, you know. Not this time,” Lisa says, and maybe she knows him better than he thinks. He’s grateful for it, pulling her close and pressing a kiss to the bow of her lips.

He can’t tell her that it’s not about Sam walking away. It’s about the fact that Dean didn’t follow.

***

There’s a fleeting moment between the time Dean stabs Dick Roman in the neck and he lands flat on his ass in the wilds of purgatory. In this moment, the entire history of his life flashes before him in a way it didn’t during the hundreds of times he’s died.

He sees all the times he and Sam have hurt each other. They leave because they’re pissed or because they’re disappointed or because they just feel too goddamn much. Sometimes it’s because they can’t breathe when they’re standing close, whatever it is between them sucking up all the oxygen and choking them out until they’ve got nothing left to do but run.

But then he sees all the times they’ve loved each other, and it turns the light on briefly in this world of blackened night.

Cas blinks out and Dean is alone and, fuck, he’s scared. The creatures in the dark that Dad shoved into his consciousness are close enough to lick the sweat off his neck, and yet all Dean can think about is how this is the last time that he’s going to leave his brother. When he gets out of this—and he will, he must, Sam needs him—he’s going to make sure Sam knows everything he hasn’t said since Sam got on that bus to California.

He stands up slowly, brushing the dirt off his jacket and trying not to make too much noise. Deep, silent breaths in and out, to steady himself.

I can do this, he thinks. I’m coming back, Sammy, I promise.

***

Sam and Dean die relatively old men, within days of each other. Sam goes first, the irony of a heart attack after decades of salads making Dean chuckle for just a minute as he holds Sam’s cold hand in his. Dean follows though, because they made a vow that they would never leave each other again. Dean hasn’t broken that vow, and he’s not going to let his brat of a kid brother break it either.

Dean never worries about after. He knows it in his gut that when he blinks himself awake in that great big Memorex in the sky, that Sam is going to be there waiting for him. Soulmates, you know.

“What took you so long?” Sam says, making a face. There are lines around his eyes and his hair is gray, and Dean loves him so much sometimes that he’d die if he wasn’t already dead.

“I had to finish that blueberry pie Becca down at the diner made me. No good letting it go to waste,” Dean grins, and Sam just rolls his eyes and comes over to wrap his arms around Dean’s shoulders.

There is a replica of the house they’ve been living in for twenty years over Sam’s shoulder, and Dean’s pretty sure that Sam’s already figured out a way to jump heavens. There are so many people to see, people they’ve lost. Dean might finally be able to see his parents again, and maybe this time they are together and happy. Maybe this time his mom doesn’t have to leave his dad like him and Sam used to leave each other.

But right now, Sam just presses his face into Dean’s neck and they still. Hold each other and just breathe.