Archive of Our Own ^beta

Scene is some little motel in some little town in some little state…which is exactly the way Dean would have described the area they were in except it was a year to the day from Sam’s return from the great beyond. “Wherever the hell that was.” Dean muttered to himself thinking out loud. He was stretched out on one of the room’s two double beds while Sam was in the shower. Dean wasn’t surprised by that, of course he didn’t care going for days in the same clothes and the same sweat; he knew his brother was near manic about being clean. And if Dean were truthful with himself he was pretty manic about it now that their relationship had been cranked up to the next notch for about the last three years.

Dean shook his head in wonder; they’d been fooling around with each others as teenagers, then a little more serious in later on, then their split while Sam was off in college, only to return to a hot and cold relationship for about two years, now here they were four years on in a seriously committed admittedly incestuous relationship. “And I don’t give a rat’s ass.” Dean told the ceiling.

“About what?” Sam said from the bathroom door, “Your turn by the way.”

“Yes mommy.” Dean said smirking as he started stripping off his clothes. Glad actually to be out of them, this was going to be one of those stopovers where if nothing else they caught up on some basic housekeeping.

“Anyway, you don’t give a rat’s ass about what?” Sam said as he toweled his hair for a moment.

“Oh nothing really super serious just thinking that today’s three years Sammy, three years that we’ve been well…pretty much hitched.” Dean said quickly trying to duck the subject.

“Yeah and you’ve been such a fine wife.” Sam started,

“No man, you been the wife.” Dean returned

“Nope not me.” Sam popped back.

“Well like hell that I’m the wife, you the wife in this marriage.” Dean said strongly as he marched naked by Sam who flipped his towel popping Dean on the ass. Dean gave an offended yelp and leapt slightly from the crack.

“And a lot better one than you deserve.” Sam turned back to him. He lay sprawled on the bed naked and luxuriating in the cool breeze blowing from the room’s air conditioner.

The weather in this Podunk town they were stuck in was miserably hot and air conditioning in a room a big plus. Sam lay there thinking now about his long fall down the rabbit hole so many months back. When he willingly took on the soul of Lucifer to bind him back again into the pit. Dean was sure that he’d lost his brother for good this time; Sam wasn’t too sure that the same thing was going to happen when divine intervention stepped in and separated him from Lucifer’s spirit freeing him of that burden. Then the intervention took another step and sent Sam back to the surface world about a month after Dean lay near death, propped up by the Impala and watching painfully in physical and spirit as Sam took the horsemen’s rings, muttered the spell and dove in, with some help from Adam of course. Adam was also trapped in the cell for a bit until Michael forced himself out of Adam’s body and then tossed Adam physically from the interdimensional prison cell.

Dean had told Sam of his time in hell, those four months earth side which were forty years in hell. He told his brother of the wheel and rack, the torture devices that Alastair had strung him on and worked him over until at last he broke and took the tools of torture from Alastair and began the sadistic work just to get off that rack.

Sam didn’t hear the water turn off or the sound of his brother coming into the room in a same sense of aplomb at a lack of clothing. What surprised Dean was coming into the room, not so much seeing his brother lying sprawled on his back on the bed, but rather because Sam was lying there sobbing without uttering a sound, not a word, but tears were streaming from his eyes, he sniffled now and then, but really didn’t seem to notice.

Concerned Dean lay down next to him and when he touched him, Sam actually jumped as if surprised. He looked over at Dean and proceeded to grab him up and hug him chest to chest for the longest moment, a moment frozen in time.

“Hey…hey Sammy, what’s wrong baby brother?” Dean said soothing and at the same time smoothing Sam’s curls back out of his face only to have them flop back. Sam’s only answer for the moment was pulling back slightly then kissing his brother with all the tenderness of long separation followed by a near desperate round of serious snogging. Finally Sam pulled back from him and wiped at his eyes quickly, now embarrassment catching up with the rest of him.

“Okay, that was fun,” Dean said with a sardonic grin, “Care to tell me why the mood swings…you’re not pregnant are you?” Dean said half seriously; in their world you couldn’t be too sure of anything.

“No, nothing like that.” Sam choked, “I was just thinking this is our four year anniversary of committal and a one year anniversary of me coming out of the pit.”

Dean sobered at once remembering the ordeal he’d suffered in Hell then the ordeal he suffered at losing his brother again. “Yeah, time flies and all that shit, eh?” Dean mumbled his own attitude changed for the moment. “You never told me but how was it for you; I mean I told you about the rack and all that bullshit. You…you didn’t have to go through something like that did you?”

Sam shook his head wiping his streaming eyes again, now furious that he couldn’t stop crying for the moment. “No, nah, I uh, I fell it seemed like forever and landed. Well landed isn’t exactly the right word, because if I had I’d broke every bone in my body.” He inhaled quickly his breath hitching just a bit. “I was just there, in a cold, sterile place that felt like no place. I can’t really describe it accurately only that it was like what you would imagine another dimension to be. And I panicked or rather Lucifer and I panicked at the thought of being there. I was torn because I was there and he was pissed at me because I brought him there. He started wrenching me from the inside out, tearing at my mind until I thought that just going insane and being a blithering idiot would be a blessing. Then all at once I wasn’t part of him, well he wasn’t part of me. We were standing across from one another, Adam was on the other side of the room or whatever we were in. “ Sam was now lying on his back just cradling Dean in the crook of his arm and they just cuddled, something both of them admittedly loved to do in their free time like this.

“Michael then turned loose of Adam and then it was the two of us on one side and two absolutely beautiful creatures on the other side. Suddenly it felt like I’d been grabbed by the scruff of the neck and whipped out of that room and I landed near where you’d parked the Impala a month gone.” Sam looked at his brother. “And I lay there for a moment not really reckoning time or anything else, just laying there and looking up at the sky, it was a gray afternoon and looked like it was going to pour down at any moment. I got up and walked back down the hill out of the graveyard and towards town. I don’t remember much else until I ran up on you at the Breaden’s house. “

“So that’s what all this was about?”Dean asked Sam as he flicked a tear from Sam’s cheek with an eyelash. “You were maudlin over…”

“Shit!” Sam said now angry and starting to rise up from the bed only to be pushed back down by Dean’s weight as he rolled on top of him. “That’s all you think isn’t it? You have some emotional quirk and it’s world stand still, this is a Dean Winchester moment, anyone else, and you … damn it Dean…”Dean started kissing him and stroking his still wet tangle of hair.

“No baby, that’s not what I’m thinking,” Dean seemed a little choked up himself at the moment. “You know I’m no good with words.” Dean kept kissing him between breaths and speech. “I love you Sammy, I just flat out love YOU.”

“Show me…” Sam said mollified slightly.

“Mean’s we’re going to need another shower. “ Dean said smartly.

“So we’ll use the linen of this bed to dry off with.” Sam returned.

“You got a deal sasquatch.”

“Bitch.” Sam said smiling as they folding into an impassioned embrace.

Dean settled into a kiss mouthing, 'jerk'.