Archive of Our Own ^beta

Title: Damage

Author: jdax

Rating: R

Disclaimer:I own nothing. Really.

I can't escape this hell

So many times I've tried

But I'm still caged inside

Somebody get me through this nightmare

I can't control myself

So what if you can see the darkest side of me?

No one will ever change this animal I have become

Help me believe it's not the real me

Somebody help me tame this animal

I can't escape myself

So many times I've lied

But there's still rage inside

Somebody get me through this nightmare

I can't control myself

Animal I Have Become ---Three Days Grace

Dean sat in the darkest corner of the furthest booth, huddled over his beer, keeping an eye on the door. Sam had walked out two hours ago, leaving behind an order and a promise: Dean was to stay in the motel room behind lock and key until Sam returned with whatever he could find to get them out of their latest debacle.

As he absently began peeling the label from his beer bottle, Dean couldn’t help smiling a little at their consistently crappy luck. They just couldn’t seem to catch a break. Even when they crouched in darkness and lived on the very fringes of existence, the universe still had a way of keeping a Winchester solidly locked in its crosshairs. Dean already knew that from hard experience, but apparently a reminder had been overdue. After all, things had been going well between them; Sam had been brooding less as a general rule and Dean was reaping the rewards of what seemed at long last to be the forgiveness he’d never had the heart to ask for. Part of him would always think he didn’t deserve it, but the more Sam opened up, the more Dean believed they’d finally escaped the irresistible pull of their past.

Dean sighed. When they were very young, after their mom died, all Dean wanted to do was put the broken pieces of their family back together. Later, when Sam’s abilities started to emerge, the delicate illusion was shattered once more, but this time, Sam had no interest in helping Dean restore it. He wanted acceptance, powers and all, but Dean’s tolerance often faltered, resulting in the fights their father had grown tired of breaking up. Guilt abounded as Dean accused Sam of continuing to drive a wedge between them. Didn’t he know what that was doing to Dad? Sam countered by implying that Dean was a coward for not facing things as they were. Didn’t he know what that was doing to all of them?

That was one thing.

The other thing was more complicated.

At its heart, their argument had always been about the same thing; acceptance. Dean wanted far enough away from his past to comfortably obscure the details in mixed company. He longed for something to say about himself that was at once honest and bearable. Although Dean never used the word love, Sam had eventually given him that. Dean just wasn’t sure if he’d come by it fairly.

So it was that, on a hazy, hot afternoon four years ago, they came to an uneasy understanding about each other. They were, after all, just two people reaching for proof that they weren’t alone.

The crux of Dean’s guilt had always been that he’d reached first.

He ran a trembling hand through his hair.

Apparently, Winchesters are born to inflict and endure pain in equal measure; some sort of fucked up cosmic payback for lifetimes of sinning without shame, no doubt. And here they were, running up the tab again. Maybe that’s what all this was: retribution. Mom’s death, Sam’s weird abilities, the hunting, the killing, the fucking.

The leaving.

Thunder rumbled somewhere in the distance.

After the way he’d treated Sam, rejected him when his abilities evolved, the way he’d finally walked out, abandoning him back when he couldn’t ‘fix’ it, well, maybe he deserved what was happening.

And maybe he knew it.

So maybe, if he were honest with himself, he’d know that’s why he’d stopped struggling when Luther pinned him to that pool table; when there was nowhere to go and nothing to stop it, Dean stilled himself to get it over with. As Luther breeched him, stroking in and out nice and slow, effectively making Dean a co-conspirator in his own violation, he figured he wasn’t acquiescing to rape.

He was accepting his punishment.

There were things he knew Sam hadn’t seen, distracted as they both were with the effort of surviving. Sam had been looking elsewhere, thankfully, when Luther swiped a blood-soaked finger across Dean’s lips. The significance of it escaped both of them then.

Dean took another swig, swishing the liquid around in his mouth, enjoying the cool sensation before the bittersweet swallow. It was good, but it wasn’t what he wanted, what he craved, not by a long shot.

He sat back, slumping down in the seat, rubbing his jaw absently. It hurt. Truth be told, his whole body hurt, but the pain was strange, like a persistent echo he could never seem to distance himself from; it awaited his return from any distraction, not that there had been many lately. Sitting here, drinking alone in a dive the Devil himself could have walked through without raising any eyebrows, had been a last resort, a half-hearted plan B when it was clear plan A wasn’t gonna happen.

Fact was, plan A had been a real bitch lately. Fucking was too much like fighting these days and Dean didn’t think he had it in him to battle both their demons at once. Kai’s death was seventy-two hours old and nothing Dean had hoped for came in its wake. Sam still looked at him from across the veil, eyes distant, pitiless and unseeing. The easy swagger was gone, replaced by a meticulousness born of trauma that swallows a man whole. There was no coming back from what Kai had done; Dean felt the truth of that every time he touched his brother. When Sam rolled off of him at night and all that could be heard between them was ragged breathing barely holding back a sob, Dean silently mourned what they were losing.

He knew better than to talk about it; two years apart hadn’t beguiled Dean into a false sense of what it was to confront Sam. Hell, one of their final conversations had been an argument for the record books, ending with a few punches and what looked like the end of their road. Dean had walked away, torn by anger and guilt, but bolstered somehow by the belief they were letting each other off the hook Now, when he considered the possibility of cutting his losses, he was stopped cold by the inescapable truth that neither of them had anyone or anything else to turn to. In peeling back that layer, Dean was faced with guilt yet again, mitigated only by the idea that he’d taken his punishment from Luther, from Kai and now, finally, from Sam. Although Dean knew in his heart he wasn’t accountable for what had happened, what was happening, to his brother, he felt responsible.

Perverse as it had become, Dean still loved him and just as Sam couldn’t seem to let go of Kai, Dean knew he wasn’t about to let go of Sam.

He grunted bitterly as he flagged down the waitress. He didn’t really want her there and knew what he risked should she delay leaving, but his beer was almost empty and Sam would want something else. He always did these days.

One more demon. One more kill. There was always some reason to put off repair.

Recovery.

Redemption.

She came and went without much fuss, leaving in her wake a scent far more lingering than it had a right to be. Her innocence, her ignorance, filled his senses. He closed his eyes, breathing it in like pure oxygen, letting it seep in through his pores, imprinting his memory with an indelible knowing. His mouth watered and he swallowed hard.

When the Scotch arrived, he asked for two glasses and the bottle, handed her a wad of bills he suspected was more money than she’d ever seen at one time, then asked her politely but firmly not to come back. Hurt at first, her expression lightened considerably as she started counting the money. She turned away, never looking at him again, hurrying off to show someone she called Mario. Dean dragged the bottle closer, poured, then studied the liquid thoughtfully, scrying in its amber depths for what? Answers? Absolution?

Oblivion, he decided as he drained the glass.

Time moved on and Dean dragged himself along with it, wading though each oppressive moment with the fading hope that relief awaited him on the other side.

The bottle stood half empty when it occurred to him that Sam might have returned to an empty motel room by now. He pictured his brother standing on the threshold, staring, clutching the doorknob in a hard grip as Dean’s name sat silently on his lips. No matter where he looked, he wouldn’t be able to avoid the specter of their bed, blankets tangled together as their bodies had been that morning. He’d stare, disbelieving, as his mind recalled a similar bed two years ago, just before Dean had left him.

Dean downed another glass then and stood quickly to leave, intent on making sure that part of their history didn’t repeat itself, not even a little.

As if on cue, the bell over the door rang brightly, sounding Sam’s arrival. Each man froze when he saw the other, oblivious to the steady hum of activity around them. The waitress approached Sam, but he waved her away without taking his eyes off his brother. Neither of them moved, just watched and waited. Dean’s eyes were pleading, he knew, but he didn’t care if that seemed a weakness to Sam. He was weak where Sam was concerned. As he looked at his brother, Dean thought he saw relief pass over Sam’s features before he turned and walked out the door again. Dean threw a couple of bills on the table, set his glass down and followed, resisting the urge to break into a run.

Out in the deserted parking lot, in the safe haven of total blackness, Dean felt compelled to speak, though his words and movements were slowed by emotion and alcohol.

“Sam”, he called. “Hey, wait up.”

Sam continued walking the short distance back to car.

“Sam.”

Sam had reached the driver’s side door when Dean grabbed his shoulder clumsily and turned him around.

“Hey, talk to me, man.”

“You’re drunk, Dean,” He said, turning away.

Dean shook his head, frowning.

“No, man. Talk to me.” Dean struggled to make him understand he wasn’t just referring to tonight, but the words kept slipping away. Something else was crowding in at the corners of his awareness, something he’d been fighting off for days. It was coming now, raw and insistent, but he pushed it back a moment longer as he pulled Sam around and to him, whispering desperately, “What do you want from me, Sam?”

For a moment, Sam managed to look genuinely confused, then the facade fell away.

“Let’s go.”

Dean held him fast as he stared into Sam’s eyes. The blackness didn’t frighten him anymore; he was determined to pull his brother out of their depths or sink into them himself.

“Kai’s dead”, Dean whispered.

Sam cocked his head. “I know that.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah,” he said, staring Dean down. “I do.”

“Then why are you still hunting ‘em?”

“What?”

Dean clutched at his brother’s jacket as much to steady himself as anything else. Sam’s scent was overwhelming, but Dean shook it off as he forged ahead. His mouth hurt like a son of a bitch as he spoke now.

“We can’t kill ‘em again, Sam, so what’s it gonna take for you to let ‘em go?”

A long silence unraveled between them. Finally, Sam sighed and said, “Not now, Dean. Seriously.”

“Yes, now.”

“No.”

“Sam…”

“You’re not yourself.” Sam leveled a dangerous look at him. “We’ll talk about this later.”

“There is no later!” Dean said. “This is it, right here, right now. This is all we have. I’m not leaving, Sam. I won’t. Not this time. But, dude, I can’t even tell if you care anymore.”

Sam tried to look away then, but Dean wouldn’t let him. His grip tightened as he moved in and whispered fiercely, “What do you want?”

Sam shook his head helplessly, but no words came out.

Dean moved closer, pressing his forehead to Sam’s and whispering again, gently this time, “What do you want?”

“I’ve changed, Dean.”

“Me, too.”

“We can’t go back.”

“I know.”

“So.”

“So.”

Dean tilted his head, then pressed his lips slowly, tentatively to Sam’s. The kiss was soft and barely formed when Dean pulled away.

They regarded each other for a moment before they each swept in again, capturing lips and tongues in an unapologetic frenzy. Dean found his hands in Sam’s hair, holding him close. Maybe they’d joke about it later, but right now Dean comforted himself with Sam’s compliance, his need. For his part, Sam wrapped a large hand around the back of Dean’s neck and pulled him in, deepening the kiss. When they finally came up for air, Sam drew in a long, shuddering breath and Dean could have sworn he saw an apology in Sam’s eyes.

Dean gripped Sam’s shoulders, dropping his voice into the tone he reserved for lectures and this kind of thing.

“This isn’t your fault.”

Sam shrugged.

“This isn’t your fault.”

“Whatever.”

“Sam…”

“Maybe I didn’t do this, but I sure as hell don’t know how to fix it. Do you?” he asked, waving a hand helplessly between them. “ ‘Cause honest to God, Dean, that’s all I want.”

Dean shook his head and that’s when he knew there was no fixing it.

Sam pulled him in again sharply, then turned his head, exposing his neck.

“Do it.”

“Sam…”

“I’ve got nothing else for you, Dean. Like you said, this is all we have now.”

Dean nodded, torn again by that familiar marriage of desire and guilt.

“Do it!”

Dean bared his fangs and sank them into his brother’s waiting flesh. Sam moaned deeply the moment his skin was pierced and Dean didn’t have to look to imagine the expression on his face. All this time they had each been gently tethered to the other through the Winchester name, but Dean could feel it all slipping away. As they forged a new, darker communion conscripted in blood, Dean silently cursed what they had become.