Steam

Fandom: Supernatural

Category/Rated: R

Year/Length: 2007/~2892 words

Pairing: Dean/Sam

Spoilers: Season 3 Episode 3, Bad Day at Black Rock

Disclaimer: Not mine - they never were and never will be, but I would have them if I could.

Summary: "Sam? Sammy?" Dean had collected a basin of hot water, the medical kit and a roll of paper towels, and he was holding out a glass containing a large tot of whiskey. "C'mon, Sammy. Drink this. I need you to relax."

Author's Notes: What happened after the episode ended? This is for art_of_mayhem. Here's a story for you, with much love.

Beta: Not yet

When Dean Winchester makes love, he's like a fire.

He begins with tiny licks and nibbles, slowly warming his partner, offering heat and tenderness that almost become too much to bear. When he arrives at his flashpoint, his flames engulf them both, and the resulting conflagration roars out of control, both of them burning, sizzling, fiery and lost, until at last they're consumed.

When they're done, there's nothing left but ashes, and the ashes disperse as the wind blows.

Sam Winchester is different. When he makes love, he's like the ocean.

He's slow, like the sea, insistent, inexorable. There's no resisting him. He surges forward like the tide to surround and conquer, engulfing his partner no less effectively, merely differently.

Lapping at the start, like wavelets on the shoreline, placid and tickling, Sam encroaches, slowly surging up as he swells, until he's crashing, eroding, irresistible, and there's only him, only the pounding until the storm that is Sam Winchester abates.

So the two brothers co-exist, each of them encompassing the other, silent in their love, but bound together anyway.

They were content to remain that way until the day that the balance between them was altered irrevocably. It took a single instant for their world to change.

Sam died.

He'd fought his battle, won it and walked away. He'd never seen the approach of the man that killed him, and he didn't feel anything but cold as the blade severed his spine. When he died in his brother's arms, he'd seen the world fade, turn to darkness and that was all she wrote.

And then he was back, cold and stiff and more than a little confused, because Dean had done the unthinkable. Dean had done exactly what he'd said should never be done. Dean had given himself to bring him back.

Dean had given his own life – more than that, his soul – to save Sam, and now he was freewheeling, throwing himself into danger at every opportunity, just so he could say that he'd lived, that he'd done it all.

But inside, a little voice kept reminding him of what he already knew. He hadn't done it all, not quite, and the one thing he hadn't done was the one thing he wanted most.

Sam.

He wanted Sam – had wanted him ever since his brilliant brother had started to beat him out in their practice fights, somewhere back around Sammy's seventeenth birthday. He'd watched Sam grow, seen him off on his first date, nursed him when he was sick and comforted him the best he could when his world collapsed after Jess had died, but if he would only admit it, it was Sam that made the blood hum in his veins, Sam that sent his libido skyrocketing, and Sam was the only thing he would never, ever own.

Far better to give himself over to the easy fuck, and the taste of food, than to cross the line that divided him from his brother. And Dean didn't fear hell, because he lived it every day. He'd lived it for far too long now, and he couldn't think of anything that could possibly be worse than living shoulder to shoulder with the one thing that he craved most, knowing that he could never have it.

So when the bitch called Bela shot his brother in the shoulder, Dean was horrified. More than that, he was outraged. If he'd been anyone else but Dean Winchester, he might have stalked her and killed her for daring to hurt the only individual Dean prized more highly than himself. Instead, he let her go and turned back to his brother, who was white-faced and bleeding.

"God, Sammy. You gonna be okay back to the room?"

Nodding, Sam clutched at his shoulder and stumbled forward, pale except for the contusion on his cheekbone from where he'd been abused by the Jesus-Freak, Kubrick. Dean offered his arm, and by the time they made it back to the Impala he'd needed to support Sam with a shoulder too, Sam barely able to make it as the blood welled and dripped. Settling him into the car, Dean headed back to the safety of their room as fast as he could.

By the time they arrived, Sam was virtually unconscious, and Dean hauled him out of the car unceremoniously, dragged him into the room, ripping off his brother's jacket as he settled him in the chair. Sam slumped there, still clutching at the wound in his shoulder, his face grey now as the sluggish blood still oozed between his fingers.

"Sam? Sammy?" Dean had collected a basin of hot water, the medical kit and a roll of paper towels, and he was holding out a glass containing a large tot of whiskey. "C'mon, Sammy. Drink this. I need you to relax."

Sam lifted his head, nodded and took the glass, gulping it down and handing it back for a refill.

"Gonna cut off your shirt, dude." Dean wordlessly refilled the glass and passed it back to his brother as he was speaking. As Sam took his hand away from the site of the injury to take it from him, Dean peeled off Sam's overshirt and slit up the T-shirt beneath it so that he could take it off without disturbing the affected shoulder too much. "The bullet has to come out, man, you know it, don't you?"

"Do it." Sam's voice was thready, words clipped as though he didn't have the breath to sustain them. Dean had been aware of just how well made Sam was, but the sight of him, muscle and sinew and bone lolling helpless in the chair gave him a jolt of sensation that he knew was completely inappropriate.

"I've got you, Sam. I'll take good care of you." Dean could do this. He'd done this kind of thing so many times. What was once more? He'd have done worse than this to protect his brother; he already had. Gritting his teeth, he took the forceps from their medical kit, dunked them into his own glass of whiskey to sterilize them, and then probed in the wound, locating the bullet almost immediately and starting to extract it. Sam moaned and seemed to pass out, his eyes rolling back in his head as he fell unconscious.

Heaving a sigh of relief, Dean continued to tug on the projectile that was embedded in Sam's shoulder, finally getting it loose and tossing it aside to land on the table where it rolled a little way, leaving a trail of his brother's blood behind it.

He'd already washed and cleaned the wound, stitched it up and bound it before Sam gave a groan and came back to himself. The grey was fading a little from his brother's skin now, but in its place was the flush of a beginning fever, and that, to Dean, seemed just as bad.

"Come on, dude," he murmured, fishing in the kit for a hypodermic and cracking one of their very few ampoules of antibiotic. "Just a minute or two more, and I'll have you tucked up in your bed, snug as a bug in a rug."

"A bug? Dean, what are you smoking?" Sam's lips were twitching, and he was pretty obviously drunk. "You haven't said that to me since I was eight years old."

"Yeah, yeah." His syringe filled, Dean stabbed it into Sam's arm and gave him the shot. "Here. Vicodin. That ought to put you out like a light with all the scotch you've knocked back. Let's get you into bed, dude."

Sam rose to his feet, swaying dangerously, and Dean half led, half carried him to the bed, setting him down and bending to help him out of his remaining clothes, and if his fingers traced the solid muscle of Sam's back a little too tenderly, it could be set down to him helping his brother to get ready for bed. Sam was more than half gone by the time he was stripped down to his boxers, and lay down willingly, allowing Dean to cover him and tuck him in as if he were still his Sammy, six years old and a little scared of the dark.

Once Sam was asleep, snoring ferociously, Dean cleaned up, washing away the blood from the furniture. Sam's shirts and jacket were beyond saving, and he put them in a garbage bag with the bullet, ready for a trip to the dumpster in the morning. Tidying away the first aid box, he left out the painkillers, wondered about a further shot of antibiotic and decided against it. Sam was healthy and strong. He'd be fine; he had to be.

It was during the early hours of the morning that Sam woke Dean from a sleep and a dream populated with sloe-eyed women, all of whom were attempting to slaughter his brother. At first, he had no idea what had woken him. He lay, hand on his knife, frozen as he listened, wondering if someone had come into their room; wondering if it was Bela, come to exact revenge now she didn't have the rabbit's foot to sell.

It was a moment before he made out the sound that had woken him, and he sat up suddenly, wondering what the hell was going on. It finally dawned on him that the sound that had disturbed his sleep was the chattering of Sam's teeth.

Throwing back the blankets, Dean crossed to Sam's bedside and laid a hand on his brother's forehead. It was burning hot, clammy, and damp, and Sam was shivering hard enough to worry him. There were no other blankets to be found, so Dean dragged the one from his bed and used it to cover his brother, then fished his knife out from under the pillow and went to climb into the far edge of Sam's bed, hoping that he could get at least a little more sleep.

He lay listening to the sounds coming from Sam, feeling the heat that poured off his brother's skin and hearing his teeth chatter despite the blankets. Finally, he sighed and scooted in behind Sam, spooning up against his back so that he could put an arm around him and hopefully help to keep him from shaking himself apart – or, at least, that's what he told himself.

The morning came, bright through the gap where they still hadn't re-hung the curtain, poking its fingers into Dean's eyes as he lay plastered against his brother's back. Sam was cooler now, sleeping still, long, restless body quiet for once under his protecting arm, and Dean could take the time to study him, the messy hair a dandelion puff-ball, streaked with sweat, the purple bruise enhancing the stark sharpness of his cheekbone, and the usually intelligent, tip-tilted eyes veiled as the lashes fanned out over his cheeks.

He felt rage all over again for the bitch that had done this- had hurt his Sammy, and along with the rage, he felt an aching, deep-seated need to keep Sam safe, a sense of failure that Sam had been hurt, because he, Dean, hadn't been thinking, hadn't taken the bitch seriously enough, and as a result, Sam had suffered.

And with the guilt and failure came a sudden new realization. Sam could be hurt despite his presence. Sam would be hurt at any time in the future, and he wouldn't be there any more to keep him from harm. Dean wasn't afraid of dying – had never really been afraid of it - but somehow the sense of self preservation that had long ago atrophied in Dean kicked in, and suddenly he wanted more than anything to live.

This, lying here, arms around the one person in the universe he loved , was all he wanted from the world. To keep Sammy safe had been everything he'd lived for, and the sudden realization that he wouldn't be able to do that any more hit like a kick in the balls.

He tightened his arms around his brother, eliciting a sleepy protest from him, and bent to press his face against the nape of his neck – not kissing, never kissing, because that was unthinkable, but if his lips brushed Sammy's soft skin by mistake, well it was just there, and in the way of his mouth.

A tear forced its way out and down to wet Sam's shoulder as Dean mourned his own stupidly final mortality, and he bit his lip, trying to keep it together.

When Sam – now no longer sleeping – turned suddenly to face him, he was busted.

"Dean? What the fuck?"

And Dean, caught crying over something as stupid as less than a year to protect his brother, stared at the brother in question in much the same way as a rabbit caught in headlights would do.

He tried to speak. Being Dean, he went for normal, failed miserably, and the tears flowed despite his best efforts to hold them back. Sam gazed at him in astonishment for a moment, and then, somehow accepting that his brother was broken, he pulled Dean close, wincing a little as his abused shoulder made its presence known.

"It's okay, Dean. It was only money. We'll get more."

"Jesus, Sam, you think this is about money? The fuck do you think I am?" Angry worked for Dean. Angry always did, and his voice returned even though he was still unable to stop the tears from trickling down his face.

"Well, what then?" Sam gave him a shake, stopped abruptly when the motion disturbed his shoulder and hurt like a sonofabitch and made him gasp in pain.

And just like that, Dean folded, clinging to Sam, holding him tightly, desperately, as if somehow he could leave behind that embrace to protect his brother once he was gone. Sam understood his need enough to let things ride as he held Dean through the meltdown, seeming pleased in a way to be the one giving comfort for a change, even though he might have no clue what the problem was.

It was too late for Dean. He was open in ways he'd never been, split down the middle and ready to spill his guts about how he felt in a much less than manly way. All it would take would be for Sam to ask, and it would all pour out of him like so much poison from a boil. Sam had him cradled in his arms, exactly where he'd always wanted to be, and Sam was looking down at him with so much love that he couldn't bear it. He croaked out, "Sammy," and pressed close enough to kiss him.

He'd only meant it to be a kiss- just one kiss. He'd done it, thinking it was all he could have, compensation for what he would lose. It turned out to be so much more. The touch of his mouth to Sam's sent a shudder through his brother's body. Sam's arms tightened, his hands gripped, and before he knew it, Dean was enveloped, possessed, mouth on mouth, body on body, lost as it ceased to be a brief press of lip on lip and began to become a religion.

There were no more words, because each of them had their mouths occupied with other things, things that were far more necessary. They were busy determining the taste of the skin of a smooth, muscled shoulder, the feel of a tongue sliding against tongue, the sharpness of teeth and the exact sound of a gasp elicited by those teeth.

And Sam, apparently feeling much better than he had, seemed to know what Dean craved, offering it up as if it were a gift, each touch, each lick and bite filling Dean with joy and unbearable sadness, because this was his now, and he would lose it in less than a year.

Sam's body was open for him, and Dean, careful of the injury so recently sustained, let Sam take the lead, marveling at the way his brother seemed to focus in on him, until he felt as if he were the only place in the universe. Sam filled him, filled his senses. His big hands cupped and cradled him, and his wide, laughing mouth teased sensation from him until he could only beg incoherently for release.

And when Sam reached down between them to stroke them both to climax, Dean felt such a surge of love that he could only bow his head, press in against him and whisper out his love in broken sentences of "Oh, God, Sammy…"

When they were done, both lying in a limp and sticky tangle, Sam surveyed his brother and murmured, ‘Better now?"

"Some," replied Dean, wondering how the fuck he was going to break the doom that the Crossroads Demon had laid on him and keep this treasure that he'd found. So Sam's arm tightened momentarily around him, and Dean held him close, and this was going to be a whole new thing for them, together in a totally different way.

And there was no raging fire left in Dean, no surging, storm-lashed water moving Sam right at that moment, because they'd finally gotten it together, and everyone knows that when fire and water meet, the end result is steam.

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