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All the days seem to blend together for Dean when he gets back from Purgatory. Nothing seems to matter much past survival and keeping one foot in front of the other. He can’t seem to focus on the details anymore. It’s almost like he’s in need of glasses on an existential level. All the small stuff gives him a headache. Everything around him seems so mundane and unimportant.
When he first gets his hands on Sam, it’s not gentle. He knows it’s not. It can’t be helped. He can barely register the world around him when he grapples with his brother and puts him through a slew of tests to ensure his purity.
Not that either of them is ever really all that pure.
It takes him a few minutes for the fog to clear.
And when it does, he doesn’t see Sam. He sees Sammy. It’s like all the layers of metaphysical gunk that had latched onto his younger brother just melted away before his eyes. Soft, shiny hair. Bright, glowing eyes. Nice teeth. Strong arms. When Dean falls into his brother’s arms, he nearly collapses. The smell of his brother is incomparable. Just like he remembers, but even better. Sharp and warm and reliable.
Sammy. His little brother. The only damn thing keeping Dean pinned to this mortal coil. That’s the way it feels sometimes, at least.
It takes under five minutes for them to start arguing.
Not all that warm but definitely sharp and reliable, his little brother.
Dean doesn’t take long to scope out the nearest bar for a drink after that first night together at the cabin. He’s not even sure what he’s so angry about. The average person wouldn’t be so mad. Hell, Dean from a few years ago wouldn’t have been so bad. He’s not even sure why he’s so angry this time.
He didn’t look for me.
It doesn’t make sense. Maybe it’s just the fact that it’s so out of character that drives Dean a little crazy.
Why didn’t he look for me?
Questions stick like barbs in his throat as he drinks. His eyes bounce all over the pool hall, giving folks the impression that the handsome man at the bar has had a little more than whiskey tonight. Give him a wide berth. There’s way too much at stake if you play the game with him.
Still, somehow, he manages to get a number or two from some local girls. They’re cute. They’re funny. He’s almost tempted to disappear into a bathroom stall with one of them.
But he can’t really make it a few minutes without thinking of hot blood splattered on cold tree branches, so it’s probably for the best that he nods politely but makes excuses for why tonight is not the night.
He didn’t drive. It’s not that long of a walk to the bar, so he takes his time ambling on down the road, way beyond drunk and tilting over in an attempt to stare up at the stars above him. The stars were absent in Purgatory. He missed them. Missed them like he missed home.
Baby, hot showers, cold beer, salty burgers doused in sauce.
“And Sammy,” Dean mumbles under his breath, contentment lighting his words.
He hurries the rest of the way home, excited to learn more about Sam’s wild year away on his own, even if it’s sure to start another fight. Even if it’s just proof that Sam doesn’t need Dean. Probably never has. At least, not the way that Dean needs Sam.
When he stumbles through the door, he’s expecting any number of scenarios. They’re all pretty tame.
Sam doing research. Sam eating dinner. Sam watching television.
He’s not expecting Sam to already be in bed. He’s definitely not expecting Sam’s hand to be in his shorts with his headphones in and his eyes glued to his laptop screen, where it sits on his chest. Dean’s stuck in the doorway, face screwed up and chest all tight.
He clears his throat.
Stomps his feet a bit.
Waves his hands and clears his throat even louder.
That seems to get his brother’s attention.
Sam’s voice shakes a bit as he slams the laptop shut, “Dean! Jesus, give me a second here!”
Something about his brother’s jerky motions and wide eyes compels Dean to do the opposite. It’s his Big Brother wiring. He can’t just let Sam get away with this without a few cruel taunts.
“Ahh, what’s the matter, Sammy? I’ve seen you do worse. What’s got you all fired up now? Nurses healing the sick and needy? Nuns singing hymns?”
As Dean stomps closer and closer, Sam shrinks into the bed and pushes the laptop under the blanket, headphones still stuck in the jack. Dean laughs at his own joke, ignoring Sam’s wild eyes and nervous titters.
“Come oooonnn, Sam. I’ve been in Hell for a year—well, not Hell, but something like—you know…”
Sam glares across the room, but he can’t seem to look Dean in the eye. “Leave it, Dean.”
Dean has never once in his career as a big brother ‘left it.’
“No.”
He pounces on Sam, unruly and completely lopsided from the drinks at the bar. The tussle is short and frantic. Sam is out of practice from his year of matrimonial bliss. It doesn’t matter much anyway. When Dean is seconds away from pinning Sam like they’re just a pair of teenagers again, one of his knees catches on the headphones attached to Sam’s laptop and tugs them out of the jack.
What comes pouring out of the speakers is somehow more shocking than any smut Dean could have anticipated.
The wobbly smile on his face slowly melts away to confusion while he listens. Beneath him, Sam’s face is flushed bright red, his eyes squeezed shut, and the muscles in his body pulled taut.
“—prefer the smaller Winchester myself. He looks like a classic movie star. So dreamy.”
It’s a woman’s voice, unfamiliar to Dean. He catches the name Winchester and forces himself to focus harder, despite the flood of hard liquor coursing through his veins. He’s almost forgotten that he’s lying astride his much bigger, little brother.
“Jenny, we’ve been through this before. Guys that slaughter diners full of people can’t be dreamy.”
It takes a moment, but finally, Dean thinks he has an idea of what he’s hearing. His eyes snap to Sam’s strawberry-red cheeks. The tips of his ears are flaming. The gears are moving a little faster now, but Dean still can’t seem to connect all the dots in front of him. Sam might be saying something to him, wiggling beneath him nervously, but all Dean can focus on is the sound leaking from the laptop beside them.
“And I’ve told you that I’ve seen those clips of them that were leaked online, and I don’t care how many people they killed…you can’t deny they’re a little hot.”
A humiliating whine slips out of Sam then. Dean mostly ignores it. Mostly.
“Girl, you’re a perv.”
“Well, this podcast wouldn’t be very fun without a little bit of spice, now would it?”
“You’re talking about psycho brothers that killed and fucked their way across the country. What about that scenario makes you think you need to spice it up?”
The girls laugh and take sips from what Dean assumes are wine glasses. They have the telltale sound of box wine drinkers. His stomach turns. There’s no way they’re…that Sam…and he had been…
“Dean, get the fuck off me!”
In an instant, Dean finds himself thrown to the floor with his breath knocked out of him. Sam’s doing everything he can to shut off the sound coming from his laptop, all while he gasps for air and mumbles anger in Dean’s direction.
“Always push it too far. Stupid. Fuck, God, you’re so—ughhh—”
“Wait, you think you have the right to be upset about this?” Dean tries to roll himself into a less undignified pose, but his body aches from all the alcohol in his system and the long trip down from the bed. “What the actual fuck, man? You were—and they were—”
“—know, Dean. Don’t you think I know? Christ, it’s private. This is private. I didn’t think you’d come—fuck, why am I even explaining this to you? I don’t go walking in on you jerking off then judging you for your choices, do I?”
A dark laugh rumbles in Dean’s chest. “Dude, I jerk off to tits and ass. How on Earth could that possibly compare to—” He stutters and stretches his arms wide in the direction of the laptop, “—this?!”
“Yeah, like you’ve never had a single strange thought or feeling. It’s always me. I get it, man.”
Rolling his eyes, Dean tries his hardest to get to his feet, but his body’s all strung out on alcohol, nerves, and adrenaline from his little tussle with Sam on the bed.
“What the fuck was that anyway?” Dean tries to get up again, but he’s well and truly stuck in a kneeling position on the floor. Filthy floor, too. They really can’t afford to be seen in a laundromat right now. Sam’s eyes snap down to him. He groans and rolls off the bed with a sigh. A quick glance at his brother’s lower half calms Dean down a little bit. At least he’s not still sportin’ a stiffy. He actually shouts a bit when Sam grabs his forearm and tugs him up off the ground, none too gently. Their eyes meet, and Dean gives his brother his best glare, but Sam stands his ground. He doesn’t look intimidated. Just tired. Like he’s too tired to even roll his eyes. “I mean…okay, judgment-free zone. I just spent the last year…well, it was a lot. There was…a lot."
Sam’s face softens minutely. His shoulders sag with that age-old empathy. Dean pushes past him to wander over to the fridge. He chugs down half a bottle of water, then shoves a few pieces of lunch meat in his mouth.
“I’m sorry, Dean. I’m really—”
Dean knows he’s sorry. He’s heard it enough. He gets it. But there’s a part of him that is hankering for a fight. He’s been fighting for months. His fingernails still look red to him in some lights. He shouldn’t direct his desire for fireworks toward Sam. He knows he shouldn’t, but…
“Yeah, yeah. Save it. Tell me about these girls you were listening to.”
—
Whether it’s the comedown of the fight, the sadness in Dean’s eyes, or the loneliness that is ever-present in Sam’s achy brain, he gives in to his brother’s demands. Sam thinks he would’ve been the world’s best hostage negotiator in most situations, unless the captor was Dean.
And, in Sam’s big, wide world of wild whimsy, Dean is almost always the captor.
He’s barefoot, cold, and tired when he falls back into bed, Dean close on his heels. It reminds Sam of their younger days. Two frail kids with bloody knuckles and big plans to save the world, falling into bed together to save each other and themselves from catching a cold in some old, abandoned house in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.
Dean rambles through another mouthful of lunchmeat, “If it makes you feel better, pickins were slim in Purgatory when it came to…well, you know…I mean, I had to think of some sick shit when I was—”
Sam groans, eyes rolling, and pulls open his laptop. On the screen are two chicks, relatively hot but definitely a little crazy-eyed. There’s not a lot of patience in Sam’s voice when he cuts Dean off, “You managed to find time to jerk off in Purgatory? Truly, you’re…that’s just…wow.”
He plays around until the video on the screen is back to the beginning and reaches over to turn off the lamp at his bedside.
Dean wiggles in his spot, his sleepy grin growing. “Ooohhh, a true movie experience. Reminds me of watching a spooky movie. Such a freak, my little brother.”
It definitely doesn’t escape Sam’s notice that Dean ignored his question about Purgatory. It was a genuine question, too. Only Dean Winchester could be horny enough to take a break from slaying monsters and running tired and hungry to touch himself in a blood-soaked forest.
Sam breaks the silence in the room after another put-upon sigh, “It’s this podcast. There are actually a few of them. I’ve, uh, watched and listened to them all a few times.”
“Done more than watch and listen from what I saw when I walked in,” Dean adds with a shine in his eyes.
“That was…” Sam starts, then stops for a moment, nerves plain on his face. “I wasn’t doing that to this.”
“Sure, sure, Sammy. I believe you.”
The little laugh lacing Dean’s response makes Sam want to punch the wall beside them.
“They’re about us.”
Sam’s voice has taken on an almost morose tone. The admission has Dean’s head whipping to the side in horror. “Us?”
“Yeah,” Sam’s face has taken on that pouty, desperate look it seems to carry way too often. “Well, kind of.”
“Kind of?”
“It’s the history of us, but only bits and pieces. It’s mostly, um, actually…”
The sadness melts away to something antsy. Red blotches climb up Sam’s neck until his cheeks are pink apples just below his shiny eyes. Dean swallows hard and forces himself to look away. Clearing his throat awkwardly, Dean reaches out to press play on the video.
Their elbows, hips, and knees are rubbing together from how close they're sitting next to each other to be able to watch the video comfortably. It’s almost all Dean can think about initially. His body feels like it’s teeming with frenetic energy since coming back home through that big, blazing portal out of Purgatory.
It’s like his body’s looking for a fight anywhere it can find it. But sometimes, those wires get crossed. Sometimes the bloodlust just kinda feels like lust. And no one is ever as close to Dean as his brother is. They’re practically layered on top of each other at any given time.
He’s had a lot of strange feelings brewing since crossing back over into the land of the living.
To be fair, those strange feelings started while he was in that hellscape running for his life.
For some reason, it wasn’t Lisa he thought about as he lay panting, lip-bitten, and stiff under the canopies of trees in Purgatory. It wasn’t the long line of beautiful, blossoming women he had kissed and touched and fucked over the years. No pretty waitresses, no doe-eyed front desk chicks at hotels.
He thought of the smell of gun oil, Old Spice, and vinaigrette. He felt phantom threads of shining, auburn hair between his fingertips. He thought of the sound of a keycard opening a shitty hotel door. Chlorine from a barely clean pool. Brown hoodies. Dark eyes. A knife in the back. A cold body under his fingertips. He thought of a big, strong man nearly lifting him off his feet in a hug when he got back from Hell. Dark blood on bright white teeth. Eyes rolling back from a surge of pure power.
His baby brother, climbing out of the depths of Hell to come back to him.
It wasn’t sex or lust or violence that brought him over the edge, with a fist in his mouth and his hips thrusting upwards into cold air.
It was the promise of a future with the brother he loves most of all at his side. It was the loud roar of the Impala under his thighs. It was the heat of the blacktop. The sky blue as anything he’d ever seen stretched out above them for miles.
It was Sammy. And everything that came with him.
“Well, show me what has you all riled up, man!”
—
The little production is two girls on a couch with wine, giggling and chatting as videos and pictures of graphic events unfold. A podcast, Sam tells him. True crime, to be more specific. Dean knows his brother is into some weird shit, always has been. Long days on the road with no friends and only blood, gore, and family at your side will do that to an impressionable young man.
Dean never really thought too much about it, but this was just all a little too strange for him.
Because it’s not just some midwestern maniac that these tipsy girls are guffawing over.
It’s The Winchester Brothers. Capital T, W, and B. A double dose. Do not split. Blood Brothers. The Bond of Brutality. Fan favorite of Tumblr girls with absentee fathers, Sam tells him.
His brother’s ears and neck are flushed red as the video plays.
Parts of the story are actually about Sam and Dean, but most of it involves those goddamn Leviathans playing dress-up and ruining their already tarnished reputation across America.
“See, I get why people are so into it.” Sam’s voice is low and calm as he side-narrates the episode. They’re glued together from hip to shoulder in the darkness of the early evening gloom. Dean’s feeling something like itchiness under his skin with each word Sam speaks right next to his ear. “It’s like a movie to them, right? We’re not bad-looking guys, and we do a lot of strange shit. People really love the idea of peeking behind the curtain because they know they’ll never get to do it themselves.”
Dean can only nod. Gnawing at his lip, he tries to focus on the images flashing across the screen. It’s them, but it’s not them. Sam and Dean, faces speckled with human blood. Not monster blood. Eyes dark and focused. The Sam on the screen, especially, looks almost entranced by the wild violence they’re committing. For some reason, Dean’s heart is racing in his chest while he watches Not-Sammy licks a spot of blood from his lips before reaching out to cuff the back of Dean’s neck excitedly.
There’s a lot more footage here than Dean had ever seen. And, sure, people had pointed out that Sam and Dean are pretty tactile guys with each other before, but these impostors are downright handsy.
“Bloodlust. Brotherhood. Hellbent on Bedlam,” one of the girls says exaggeratedly before they head into an ad about stamps.
Swallowing hard, Dean sneaks a glance at his brother beside him. There’s a noticeable glow to Sam’s cheeks, despite the darkness of the room. It’s highlighted by the glow of the laptop between them.
“Sammy, why were you…I mean, I get watching this, because it’s interesting and all, but you had been—um—” Dean feels like passing out.
“There’s…more to it. It’s not just—ughh—this is awful, man.”
The ad passes and the video rolls on. Dean’s hands are tangled in the sheets beneath him. Holding on for his life. The stories keep getting weirder and weirder. Some of it is because of Sam and Dean themselves. Desecrated graves. Women talking about sleeping with one or both of the brothers. Dean didn’t realize his brother had slept with some of the same chicks as him.
“I just would’ve never guessed. Dean was such a gentleman. So handsome. His hands were like magic.”
A pretty brunette waxes poetic about Dean’s skills for a bit longer. Dean can’t help but grin over at his brother. Sam is cringing and clearing his throat. Awkward, for some reason.
“Not surprised about that Sam guy,” an ever hotter girl says. Gorgeous red hair, messy and wild. Big, green eyes. “He was a beast in bed. I won’t say I was scared. I definitely liked it. But he was everywhere. And it was so much. And sooo—”
Now it’s Dean’s turn to wiggle and clear his throat. He knew Sam could be a bit of a tough guy at times, but he never really knew too much about his brother’s conquests. Sam wasn’t much of a bragger in that department.
It was easy for Dean to tell when the stories were actually them, and when they were the Leviathans. The other Sam and Dean were violent, vile, and full of unfettered hate for the humans around them.
“Maybe we should turn this off for the night—” Sam tries to reach forward as a grainy, black-and-white video begins. It appears to be in a car garage. The other Sam and Dean are stumbling in the direction of their Impala, faces splashe with blood and hands tangled up like two little girls skipping to their favorite shop in a mall.
Dean grabs his brother’s hand and hits him with a glare. “—absolutely not. We’ve made it this far.”
Sometimes, Dean really wishes he would listen to his brother.
The drunk girls have stopped narrating at this point. It’s just the silent, grainy footage playing unedited. It’s Sam pushing Dean against the Impala. It’s tongues. It’s teeth. It’s opened zippers and barely exposed flesh, but it’s hot and hard and hell on wheels.
“Oh my God.”
Dean’s stomach turns. His thighs tense. Beside him, Sam squirms in his seat.
It’s them, but it’s not them. And they’re making an absolute mess of their impostor Baby’s hood with every fluid you can think of.
“Oh my God,” Dean mumbles again, heart pounding and throat clicking nervously. He chances a glance over at Sam, but Sam’s eyes are stuck on the screen in front of them. His eyes are wide and shiny. His full lower lip is stuck between his teeth, crushed and swollen. “Sam, were you…is this…”
It’s humiliating how broken up Dean’s voice is. He feels like a teenager again, sticky in his jeans and confused over feelings that are utterly unfamiliar to him.
The Sam on the screen is a conqueror. That’s the only way Dean can see it. There’s not a part of the other Dean’s body that hasn’t been squeezed, nipped, or sucked on by the end of the video. They’re sprayed in the blood of strangers they’ve just executed, and they’re eating each other alive like wild animals.
Finally, Dean leans forward and slams the laptop shut. His chest heaves as he pushes it to the end of the bed and pulls his knees up to his chest. It’s a Herculean effort to look over at his brother again.
This time, Sam’s looking back.
He’s breathing just as hard as Dean. His eyes are shining with something Dean can’t quite put a finger on. It’s sadness. It’s longing. It’s wild and bizarre.
“I missed you so much, Dean,” Sam starts slowly. His eyes are even shinier now. Tears, Dean realizes with confusion. Sam’s body is leaning closer to him, closer than it’s ever been outside of hugs and medical evaluations. “You…you don’t…I did look for you. I tried so hard. I always try so hard. You’re the only thing—I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have shown you that.”
Dean blinks over and over again, his eyes tracing the lines and faults in the skin of Sam’s face. Scars he cleaned out. Lines from smiles and frowns that Dean had put on his face.
Dean had carved those lines in his brother’s face.
He reaches out and lets his fingers run along the lines on Sam’s face. Way too tenderly. The tenderness does something to Sam, but it does something even bigger to Dean. After months and months of hate and violence and desperation…gentle fingers and soft sighs feel like grand gestures of lifelong love and loyalty.
His ribs feel like they’re cracking in his chest.
“Yeah,” Dean’s voice sounds wholly unfamiliar to him. There was a Sam and Dean on that screen that were tearing the world and each other apart, and somehow, Dean has never felt closer to the man in front of him. “I missed you, too, Sammy.”
He leans forward slowly, cautious and quiet. Sam does the same. Their foreheads touch, then their noses. Eyelashes tangle and breaths become breath.
Dean can feel it in his teeth. He can feel his brother at the base of his spine. Their fingers lace at some point. The closeness is so tame, so chaste, and yet…
“Can—can we just…” Sam’s words dance along the lines of Dean’s face. They’re softer than anything Dean’s ever felt.
Swallowing hard, Dean pulls his brother into his arms and holds him tight.
“Yeah, Sammy,” Dean holds on tight. “We can just…”