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''There's no other love like the love for a brother.''
– Terri Guillemets –
Salt in our wounds
There are no stars in the sky to pay homage to Sam's first hunt.
The horizon is a dark, moonless expanse, crusts of ice under his boots and the iron smell of blood in his nostrils.
A cold, biting wind blows, carrying with it an aftertaste of burnt leaves and fried onions — the town of Silverton slumbers quietly, oblivious to the monster that had populated its streets until a few hours earlier.
Plic, plic, plic.
Dean comes to his side, brushing the back of his hand and pressing with his fingers until he can intertwine them with his — cold silver heavy in his hand, Sam’s skin soft beneath his touch.
The snow begins to fall, white as lost innocence.
John greets them with a curt nod and a pleased glint in his eyes: a father's pride, a soldier's respect.
Sam returns the gesture, placing his dagger on the orange plastic desk and hiding his limp with a twitch of his thigh muscles. Dean meets his gaze, remaining still at the foot of the bed.
It’s up to them to heal each other’s wounds.
Theirs is a life with a deadline; a loan they can never repay — a losing gamble from the start.
Dean traces his fingertips over the ragged cut that runs from the back of Sam's knee to his calf, pausing at the protruding ankle bone.
"You'll have a scar, Sammy." he murmurs, his failure evident, his defeat bitter.
Sam shrugs, fifteen years old and a tumult of voracious, overbearing feelings beneath his skin.
Dean frowns, slightly tightening his grip around his ankle and hardening his gaze.
"You were reckless." he rebukes, and Sam falls silent, staring at him.
"It could have been much worse." he insists dryly.
"But it didn't happen." Sam retorts, his voice a petulant, angry inflection.
Dean looks up, searching his eyes — a shade of green that swallows him every time.
"It didn't happen, Dean." he whispers, his voice softening.
Between his ribs, guilt tangles with something far more dangerous.
There's a bottle of Johnnie Walker on the nightstand, and when Dean reaches over to take the glass from John's fingers, the sour aftertaste of the whiskey hits him like a punch, making him purse his lips and wrinkle his nose.
He looks at his father, and for a moment — a brief instant when the soldier gives way, making way for the man — he feels disgust: an annoyance so intense that it physically makes him retreat, burning away any sense of respect, or affection.
I hate you, his conscience murmurs.
I hate you for what you did to me, growls what he has smothered.
I hate you for what you did to Sammy, he screams, and it's only Sam's touch on his side that brings him back from that cold, black abyss — a void that will one day turn him into a tormentor and a monster.
"Let's go eat, Dean." Sam whispers softly.
"I'm hungry." he adds, and that's the magic word that always calls him back from that abyss — Sam's needs come first, always, and in every way.
Dean grabs Sam's hand and walks toward the door.
The heat of the fight is poison, and it flows under their skin like blood.
Dean can feel that strength pressing through his muscles, making his profile tense, nervous.
He stirs the mashed potatoes, crushing the lumps under the tines of his fork and listening absently to the commotion around him — lights and noises becoming a blur, his heartbeat echoing with alarming clarity.
"Dean." Sam calls, and he raises his head, meeting his brother's quiet eyes.
"Those potatoes must have done you a terrible wrong to keep butchering them like that." he murmurs, and Dean lowers his gaze again, then shakes his head.
"I was thinking."
"Something new." Sam comments, popping a chicken leg into his mouth and chuckling.
Dean kicks him from under the table, startling him.
"There's a brain behind that pretty face, you know?"
"And sometimes it gets used, too, go figure." Sam replies, still laughing.
Dean frowns, picking up a lump of mashed potatoes with the tip of his fork and using his index finger to curl the tines back.
Splotch.
Sam tilts his chin down, watching the yellowish stain slowly creep down his shirt toward his pants.
"...Very mature, Dean."
"Said the one who believed in the Easter Bunny until he was twelve."
"Eleven and a half."
"It's the same." Dean replies, stealing the soft scone from Sam's plate.
Sam sighs, dabbing at himself with a damp napkin. Dean studies him, noting how much he’s grown, how the boyish softness has turned to a man's features. It hits him then — a sudden, aching mix of nostalgia and grief.
Time has never given anyone anything.
"I like it." Sam begins, staring at the sky.
Dean lazily tracks the line of the satellite dish, taking a sip of his hot chocolate.
"When the air is this cold." he adds, grabbing a marshmallow and taking a bite.
"Everything feels cleaner." he contemplates, and Dean squints, feeling his breath thicken around him in pale, moist clouds.
Except for me, he wants to confess.
I'll never be cleaner again, Sammy, would be the right words to say, but he chooses to remain silent, and give his heart a little more warmth — a little more peace.
Sam glances at him sideways, his hair almost covering his forehead, making him look like a member of one of those boy bands that were so popular right now.
Dean stirs the chocolate with the plastic spoon, watching it slowly swirl inside the paper cup; he doesn't notice when Sam approaches him, closing the distance between them: he is so used to sharing space and breath with his brother that it feels unnatural whenever they expand, rather than folding back into one another.
"Dean." Sam whispers, and he turns, unable to ignore it — defeated by a feeling that intertwines devotion and affection, possession and obsession.
When Sam kisses him, it's like coming home.
Somewhere, lost between a laugh and the warmth of Sam's skin, there's guilt.
Dean knows it will rear its ugly head, biting him when he least expects it and hitting him from behind, but for now, sitting with Sammy in the backseat of the Impala, everything is silent except them — the one thing that fate had been cruel enough to separate.
He's the older brother, and he should tell him it's not okay: that what they did was wrong.
He's the older brother, and Sam is only fifteen — a recluse's life and the hormones of a teenager.
He's the older brother, and he's never had anything in life except Sammy — to protect, to love, to hold on nights like that, when the stars lay dead in the sky and the scent of blood was all he could taste.
Sam is telling him the plot of the last book he read — the story of an ordinary man from London who meets a girl named Door
"What a ridiculous name."
"It's metaphorical, Dean."
"It's still ridiculous."
which draws him into a London below, populated by people who have fallen through the cracks of the city itself — and his voice reverberates in his chest, lulling him to sleep.
"And then there are these two thousand-year-old assassins eating porcelain, and are you falling asleep, Dean?"
"No." he murmurs, his face buried in the crook of Sam’s neck; he breathes in the trace of greasy diner air and sandalwood — a jarring mix, but one he’d know anywhere.
"So tell me, who is Mr. Vandemar?" Sam challenges, and Dean tightens his grip around his waist, tickling his belly button.
"Dean, no!" Sam chuckles, trying to break free.
The Impala rocks beneath them, and for a moment, there truly is a future where they can be happy — where monsters stay tucked under the bed, lost in the shadows.
Sam laughs louder, Dean smiles: for a moment, anything really is possible.
Cradled in the belly of the Impala, they are one again.
The cold, fogged windows isolate them from the outside world, making them feel as if nothing exists beyond them — not John with his harsh, reproachful gaze, nor the yellow-eyed demon and all his hideous corollaries.
Sam seeks his mouth in a passionate, impetuous kiss — legs too long and a body that changes month after month.
Dean smiles against his lips, placing a hand on the back of his neck and accompanying his movements, his impatience — desire mingling with affection in a sting that's both sweet and painful.
The snow continues to fall, pale and indifferent.
It's late at night when he parks in front of the motel; the engine dies in a quiet growl, the clatter of cooling metal comes from the hood, and Dean turns, looking at his brother's sleeping profile.
He's handsome, Sammy, but that's not what makes his blood tremble and his heart burn.
He reaches out to him, brushing his cheek with his knuckles and whispering his name — a spell; a prayer he always answers, opening his eyes and taking a few seconds to focus on his face.
A sleepy, confident smile touches Sam’s lips; one he’ll find himself clutching at in his thoughts when the end comes — an end that, instead, will be nothing but a beginning.
Dean brushes his lips against his and indulges in the only good thing he has left.
John hasn't changed position since they left, and Dean simply ignores him, slipping into the bathroom with Sam to brush his teeth.
They steal each other's toothpaste, stomping his feet and pretending they didn't do it on purpose — half smiles and a secret that neither Hell nor Heaven will ever take from them.
They turn off the light in silence, closing the door behind them and slipping under the same sheet — Sam curling up against his side, trying to make himself smaller than his now too-long arms and legs allow.
Dean sighs, closing his eyes and complaining about this chick flick moment — we Winchesters only hug when we're dying, Sam, the mantra — but he rests his chin on Sam's head anyway, letting his breath graze the space just above his collarbone.
"Do you honestly think this is love, Dean?"
"What?"
"The obsession. The hunt. The way he’s hollowed us out just to fill us with his rage. Is that what creates love?"
Yes, he had answered him firmly at the time, It is love, Sammy.
It is that certainty — the absolute conviction that, years later, would drive him to barter his soul for Sam’s life, and to unleash hell upon the earth just to have his brother by his side again.
Sammy is the only destiny he's willing to die for, and live for: the rest, dust and rubble of someone else's dream.
''My brother may not always be at my side,
but he’s always in my heart.''