some things you just don't talk about
bloodwritesThe first time it happened, Sam had just turned fifteen.
John was on a hunt, left the boys in a motel under a big electrical tower. What he couldn’t have known was that fifty years before, some asshole had blown his brains out all over the carpet.
The ghost woke them up in the middle of the night, dragged Dean out of bed and threw him clear across the room.
They figured out who he was, dug up his bones and burned them.
When they got back, they pulled the half-bottle of whiskey out of the first aid kit, and they emptied it.
Dean can’t remember who kissed who first, only that it started like that, built up to them tearing at each others clothes, ended with them both naked in his bed, covered in each others come and gasping for breath.
They woke in the morning to the phone ringing, John calling to say he was an hour out and he expected them packed and ready to leave when he got there.
They didn’t have time to talk about it. Hangovers and showers and hurriedly stuffing clothes and weapons into bags made sure of that.
The second time it happened Sam was seventeen. They’d stumbled back to Bobby’s, all four of them, licking their wounds after a hunt gone sideways.
John and Bobby emptied a bottle of whiskey, and John passed out on the couch. Bobby went up to bed, told Sam and Dean to take the beers they were slowly working their way through up to their own room so they wouldn’t wake their father.
Dean remembers he kissed Sam first, pushed him down onto the bed and stripped him bare. He remembers the sounds Sam made when Dean pushed two fingers inside him, the way he spread his legs and grabbed Dean’s hips and pulled him inside. He remembers how it felt when Sam came around his cock, moaning his name. He remembers the perfect release when he spilled inside his little brother.
John banged on their door at dawn. They were clearing out, heading for another job.
They shared a look, uneasy, conflicted. It was all the acknowledgement they gave to what happened the night before.
The third time it happened was years later. After Dad died. After Sammy died, and Dean made a deal to bring him back. After they killed the yellow-eyed demon. It was less a celebration than ‘let’s get drunk enough to cope’, ended with Sam shoving Dean down onto his hands and knees and fucking him until he forgot his own name.
Then Dean went to hell.
It seemed longer to Dean, because time moves differently in hell. Decades down there eclipsed the years Sam spent at school, the years chasing Azazel. Then there was Ruby, Sam drinking demon blood, letting Lucifer out of his cage. Dean never had much of a chance to deal with his own shit, too worried about Sam, too determined to save him from himself. There were never any big wins without great loss, never time to really let go.
He never stopped thinking about it. They could pretend there wasn’t anything like that between them, could joke, even when no one was listening, about the way strangers seemed to be able to see what those closest to them had never guessed. They never said a word to each other.
But sometimes, Dean would see something in Sam’s eyes. Like he was thinking about it, too.
The fourth time it happened was after the wall came down. Sam had a cut on his hand. Dean dressed it for him, took a swig from the bottle he used to wash it, passed it to Sam. They weren’t drunk this time, but the liquor warmed them enough, loosened them enough. Sam sought comfort, and Dean gave it to him.
Dean loses track after that. They don’t do it often, and they never speak of it afterward. Sometimes it’s comfort, sometimes release. Sometimes it’s anger. Frustration. Fear.
He knows one thing. They’re not strong. Sam and Dean, they’re both weak, they both hurt, but neither can let that vulnerability show outside the walls of a motel room, or their rooms inside the bunker. They might even try to hide it from each other, but they never can.
fin