There Should Be Light, Part 3 (of 3), Supernatural, NC-17

[phantisma]

Fandom: Supernatural
Title: There Should Be Light, Part 3 (of 3)
Characters/Pairings: Sam/Dean, mentions of Bobby, John, Ellen, Pastor Jim
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 15,000+ (All three parts total)
Written for: spn_apocasmut Prompt :The End, by the Doors

Summary: When Sam is stolen by demons and taken from this earth, Dean finds a way to win him back...but when they return, the world is a changed place, and Sam is a changed man...and every day brings them closer to the end...unless they can find a way to undo whatever it is they did to bring hell to earth.

A/Ns & Warnings: I thought I knew what I was going to write when I took the prompt. But then I sat down to write and something totally different came out. Over a year ago, I wrote There Should Be Light for poisontaster's birthday. I always knew there was more to the story. This is that more. This is bleak and dismal, even when it tries not to be. I do recommend reading the first part first. The rest will make more sense that way. Also, I took liberties with the lyrics, and they're concentrated largely in the middle section.

Beta'd by the incomparable shotofjack




The blue bus is callin us
The blue bus is callin us
Driver, where you taking us?


“Turn here.” Sam said breathless, pointing.

“Where? There’s no road.”

“There is.” He leaned forward as if he could see it, and he felt Dean slow the car, turning them onto a dirt lane that was barely big enough for the car.

“Shit, this—“ Dean cursed again as they bounced along the impossibly rutted road. “Sam, where the fuck are we?”

“First test.” He wasn’t sure what the rest were, but the first was getting up this road. Sam cradled his bandaged, wounded hand close to his chest.

“There.” Dean said softly and the car slowed even more. “There’s a truck.”

Sam nodded. “Dad.”

“I don’t see him.”

Dean parked the car and Sam was out of it, feeling his way down the hood and holding out his hand for Dean. “He’s here.” Dean guided Sam’s hand to his elbow and they moved toward the truck. His heart was pounding. His hand slid along the side of the truck. It was cold to the touch. John had a big head start.

There was a low growling sound, and Sam heard Dean cock a gun. “Easy Dean.” Sam tried to feel for it, but the whole area was…flat. Almost not real. He couldn’t rely on his gifts.

They moved, slow steps. Sam could feel the brush clinging to their legs. The growl disintegrated into a whimper, then Dean gasped. “Dad.”

He was dead. Sam knew that. “There’s a…I don’t know what it is, but it’s dying, and a lake…big lake.”

“Second test.” Sam muttered, sinking to his knees in the mud next to his father. He too seemed somehow not real, too thin, too small, too dead. Everything was so very heavy. He hung his head.

“Dean?” He reached out a hand for his brother. Dean knelt opposite him, his hand sliding up Sam’s arm.

“I’m here, Sam.”

“I have to finish this.”

“Finish what?” There was an edge of anger in Dean’s voice. Anger and fear.

“What Dad started. I have to fix it.”

“No, you don’t. You didn’t do this.”

“I think maybe I did.” Sam caught Dean’s hands, brought it to his lips. “But I can make it all go away.”

“By sacrificing yourself? No Sam. No.”

He had to make Dean understand. “Just me, Dean. Just me, for the whole world.”

“You’ve given enough Sam. You don’t owe anyone anything.”

“I owe you, Dean. I owe you something better.” Sam pulled his brother to him tightly, holding him close. “I love you. No matter what happens, remember I love you.” He took a deep breath and pulled back. “And, I’m sorry.”

He punched Dean hard across the jaw, his left hand crunching against bone, pushing him off balance and away. Sam turned, ran. The lake was there, the answer was in the lake. He just had to get there before Dean figured it out.


C’mon baby, take a chance with us
C’mon baby, take a chance with us
C’mon baby, take a chance with us
And meet me at the back of the blue bus

“Sam!”

Dean’s voice echoed around him, even as the icy water rose up his legs. The bottom of the lake fell away and he plunged into the cold, falling into the deep. He held his breath and resisted rising back to the surface. The answer was here.

His lungs burned, threatened to explode. He was vaguely aware of Dean’s body splashing in the water behind him. Final test.

It was harder than he imagined, letting go, exhaling the last of his air out into the frigid water. Everything was going quiet. Maybe she was gone. Maybe she had only been a figment of his father’s deranged mind.

Then a hand closed around his ankle and he was pulled, dropped, gasping and flailing like a fish on the ground. He sucked in air and coughed out water, rolled onto his back.

“It has been a long time since a mortal has tried to reach me,” a deep female voice said, near his head.

He sat up slowly. “Not many know how to find you.” There was magic here, strong, vital…deep earth magic. It amplified his psychic gifts, made it so he almost “see” her, long blue-black hair cascading past her knees, dress like water, flowing and moody, eyes of ice blue.

“Why have you come?”

“You know why.”

“You wish a gift.” It wasn’t a question. She moved away. “You did not complete the trials. You are not worthy.”

“I’m so fucking sick of trials.” Sam spit. The demons in the hell-place made Dean fight through trials, nearly killing him. His failures had cost Sam his eyes. His father had fought through the first two of her trials, and it had cost him his life. He got to his feet, following her movement. “Look around you. The world has gone to hell while you hide away here in this place.”

“I care little for the world outside this place.”

Sam hung his head. “I do.”

She was suddenly right in front of him. “Why? Look what it has done to you.”

“Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe…I feel responsible.”

She seemed to consider that. Her hands touched his shoulders, his arms. “You think you have given enough, that you should not have to prove anything more?”

He nodded slowly. “I lost my mother, my father, my girlfriend, my eyes.”

“And yet, you have him.” She circled around behind him, passed a hand over his eyes and he could see Dean, standing dripping and miserable on the shore of the lake, screaming his name.

“Dean.” Sam’s throat constricted around the name. He shook his head. “No, he holds me together, but eventually it will end us both.”

“You seek to remove the cause of this misery?”

Sam nodded. “I do.”

“He would rather have you back instead, even in this dark world…he would rather have you than the light.”

No. Sam wouldn’t believe that. Dean was in agony over what had happened, just as Sam was. If Dean had the choice…he would do the right thing. “He doesn’t understand.”

“I wonder if you do.”

He was dizzy and tired and cold and wet. “I know what I’m doing.”

“What if, in granting what you ask, I take away all that you have left?” She moved around him again. Dean faded away. “I will give you a gift. I will seek out the one thing in all of time that bears the most on this outcome you so despise. I will pluck that one thing out of existence, and all the world will change.”


This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end

“It will go back to what it was before?”

“It will never be truly the same and, for all we know, this may yet occur.”

Sam shook his head. If she could do it, make it happen, his father would never have reason to raise the fucking demonic son of a bitch that did this. “And Dean…he’ll…he’ll be okay?”

“I can not tell all of the outcomes of the change.”

“I want to see him again.” Air brushed over his face and he could see Dean, sitting now beside the still body of their father. His voice was gone, his mouth still moving. Night was settling in, the dark of day deepening. There should be light…there should be golds and reds painting the lake and making Dean’s face shine. There should be choices beyond the ones they’d been given. A life without the loss and pain Dean had endured.

And he could give him that.

“Do it.” Pain lanced through his stomach and he doubled over.

“You accept my terms?”

Sam clenched his jaw. “Yes. Do it.” He held on to the image of Dean, tried to burn his face into his memory. The pain doubled as she touched his shoulder.

“Be very clear. I can not undo this once it has been done. You will be gone from their lives.”

“Just fucking do it.” He locked his eyes on Dean, even as his knees gave out, even as the pain pressed into him.

Goodbye.

It seemed like such a small word. A tiny prick of light in a vast empty nothing that slowly sucked him under.


It hurts to set you free
But you’ll never follow me
The end of laughter and soft lies
The end of nights we tried to die

He thought he knew what would happen. He thought he understood.

Then he woke in some hospital, alone. He hadn’t expected to wake at all. His eyes were bandaged, his hand splinted and bandaged as well. He was alive.

“I see you’ve finally decided to rejoin us, Mr. Roberts.”

Roberts. The last id he’d had, it had been in his wallet before the world went to hell…Dean must have kept it after…

“I’m Dr. Gutoch.”

Days stretched into weeks. Sam hovered somewhere between numb and frantic. There were questions he couldn’t answer. There were papers he couldn’t sign. Stories he couldn’t tell. Would never tell.

They sent him a social worker. She tried to help him, set him up with a teacher to show him how to function without his eyes. He talked her into looking Dean up, not sure what to expect.

“Mr. Dean Winchester, Lawrence, Kansas. Son of John and Mary Winchester. Twenty-six. Only child. Not a stellar student, but he graduated high school,” she reported in her happy, sing-song voice.

Only child. Sam had never been born. No Sam, no demon. No demon, no fire. No fire, and his mother lived. No, he reminded himself. She wasn’t his mother. She was Dean’s.

“His..” Sam cleared his throat. “His parents? Are they still alive?”

“You know this guy?”

Sam nodded. “In another life.”

“That where you’re headed?”

He hadn’t thought that far ahead. But maybe. Just to make sure. Just to know.

“I don’t know. He won’t remember me.” It was wrong. Somehow, someway, he knew he should never seek him out. After everything he’d done to buy this. To give him what he’d never admit to wanting. A life without Sam.

He laid in his bed and let the memory of Dean’s face keep him warm. Dean laughing. Dean concentrating. Dean’s face as Sam was sucked away into hell.

It was an all night bus trip. All night and half the next day. Sam hated relying on people to help him find the bus, the men’s room, the diner. He had a backpack with a change of clothes and the little bit of money left from his emergency disability check.

He hated that he’d caved. Told himself he wouldn’t get involved. That he would just make sure that Dean was okay. That Dean was happy.

The social worker set him up with someplace called The Transition Center in Lawrence, a place that helped the newly disabled get settled back into life after their recovery. They would help him find a place to live, a job he could do to earn money. Make sure he didn’t crawl into the dark hole inside him and drown in the pool of his own self-pity.

He wanted nothing more than to go to the house. Hear Dean’s voice. He forced himself to go to the Transition Center first. The cab driver opened his door and pointed him toward the door to the center, told him it was about 8 steps to the door, maybe 7 with legs like his.

The cane tapped on the sidewalk, and up against the door. He felt for the handle, managed to open it without breaking the door or his foot. He stood for a second, listening, feeling. The front desk was only a few steps away.

“Help you?”

Sam froze mid step, the voice familiar, intimate. “Ah…I…I’m Sam.” No. It couldn’t be him.

“Sam Roberts? Been expecting you.”

Sam licked his lips, forced air in and out of his lungs. “And…you are?”

It couldn’t be. It shouldn’t be.

“Dean Winchester. I’ve been assigned to your case.”



Sam hardly said a word, his head reeled. He’d just wanted to be close, he’d never intended to meet him, talk to him…and yet, here he was, going over the details in his file like he was a total stranger.

Because he was. A complete stranger. Sam Winchester didn’t exist.

“It doesn’t say here how you lost your eyesight.”

Sam had to clear his throat to find his voice. “Eyes, not eyesight. Both of them. I don’t like to talk about it.”

“Don’t blame you dude, neither would I.” He could hear Dean taping his pen against his lips. “The social worker in Boise submitted the paperwork to get you a dog, but there aren’t any ready yet. New class graduates in about two weeks. We’ll get you out to find you one soon.”

He wanted to say he didn’t need a dog. He wanted to pull Dean to him and hold him. He wanted to run away and never come back.

“Your apartment is ready, I can take you there and get you settled in just a little bit. Landlord’s a friend of mine. I got him to waive your first month’s rent so you have a little breathing room. We’ll give you a few days to settle in, then we’ll get you started on job assessments.”

Sam tried to pretend this was someone he didn’t know. “Just like that? I mean…you don’t know me.”

He could almost feel the smile. Like sun on his skin. “Dude, I know everything I need to. You’re Sam Roberts, 22, from Boise, at least most recently, and you dig me.”

Sam sat forward and coughed. “I…what?”

“Don’t sweat it. I know I’m sexy.”



The apartment was small, but he didn’t need much. Less room to get turned around in, less furniture to bruise himself on.

“Bathroom’s at the end of the hall. There’s a closet here.” Dean set his hand on the door of the closet. “I had them take out the coffee table, at least for now. It just took up space anyway.” He made sure Sam was square with his back to the front door. “Couch is five steps to your right. Kitchen is straight ahead, seven steps. I had Margie fill the fridge for you. You should be set for a couple of days. Your file says you don’t read braile, so your meals might be a bit of a surprise.”

“I’m sure I can manage.”

Sam heard the refrigerator open and what sounded like a bottle opening. “Here.”

A cold bottle was pressed into his hand, then another one was opened. “What’s this?”

“Beer, to celebrate.” Dean clinked his bottle against Sam’s. “Your own place, a gorgeous aide, what more could a man want?”

If Sam didn’t know better, he’d think Dean was flirting. But he did know better. He’d let himself believe that Dean wanted him before, because it made taking what he offered easier, but Sam held no delusions. Dean only fucked Sam because Sam needed him to.

He drank the beer, sat on the couch. Waited for Dean to leave. Dean didn’t leave.

“So…um…how’d a guy like you end up doing this?”

“What, I’m not your dream aide?” Dean shifted, and Sam tried to remember what his face looked like. “Nah…no big thing. Got into a bit of trouble, got community service in return. My mom’s friend worked at the center and she got me in there. Turns out I’m good at it, and I like helping people. I finished up my time, and they asked me to stay. So here I am.”

He could hear Dean swallow his beer, felt him get up. “And I should let you settle in. I’ll come by tomorrow to check on you.”

Sam stood too, walking toward the door with Dean. “You don’t have to. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“You are fine.” Dean responded. His hand lingered in Sam’s after they shaked. “And it’s my job. You an early riser, Sammy? Or do you like to sleep in?”

Sam couldn’t breathe. Sammy. It was so familiar, so easily intimate. So…Dean. He shook his head. “Don’t sleep much…not since…” He gestured vaguely at his eyes, hoping Dean would take it to mean it had something to do with the accident, and he supposed it did, in some ways. He managed not to think about that…not until after Dean was gone and the door was closed and he was alone.

Then Sam leaned against the door, sinking slowly down it and wrapping his arms around his stomach. He shuddered, sobbing from his gut. It was too much. And yet nowhere near enough.



A week. Seven days. Every morning at 9, Dean was at his door, coffee in hand and a list of things to get done. They’d gone shopping for clothes. He’d been introduced to the landlord and his wife and daughter. He’d met the neighbors.

Dean had walked him to the corner where there was a little store, introduced him to the woman who ran it and her son. They’d tested his aptitude for jobs, things he could handle.

Sam yawned as they finished unloading the groceries they’d bought. Spending every day with Dean had been exhausting.

“So…my mother wants me to invite you over for dinner.” Dean said.

Sam stopped. Everything. He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe. “She…what?”

Dean sighed. “She’s under some impression that I’m interested in you, and she feels the need to have you over, inspect the goods.”

Sam shook his head. This was more than he was ready for. “Thank you but…”

“I know, I wouldn’t want to go in for that inquisition either. Especially looking like you do.”

Sam frowned. “What’s wrong with how I look?”

There was the rustling of a bag, and Dean moved closer, turning Sam. “First of all, there’s these sun glasses. She won’t go for that at all.”

Dean’s hands slid the sunglasses off. Sam turned his face away instinctively, but Dean’s hand turned him back. “Dean…I don’t…just don’t look.”

His thumbs brushed over Sam’s eyelids, and down his cheeks. “Hmmm…better. Then there’s this hair. Dude, do you even own a comb?”

Sam lifted his hands to swipe through his hair distractedly. Then Dean’s hands settled on his hips…fingers sliding through belt loops. “And she’s going to take one look at this skinny body and sit you down at the table and insist on feeding you everything in the house to fatten you up.”

Dean tugged and Sam’s balance wavered. Their chests touched and Sam could feel Dean’s breath. He froze again and he couldn’t have pulled away if his life depended on it when Dean’s lips touched his.

His stomach twisted and his breathing twitched. Dean gasped, startled, his hands letting go. “Damn. Fuck. I’m sorry. That was…unprofessional. I’m sorry.” He put the sunglasses in Sam’s hand.

Dean was leaving, and Sam couldn’t move. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? We’ll talk about dinner then.”

The door was closed and Dean was gone before his name found its way past heated lips. Sam licked at the warmth, shaking his head.

He stumbled toward the table, sinking into a chair. Dean had kissed him. Willingly. By choice. And his mother wanted him to come for dinner.

The mother Sam had never known.

He couldn’t.

He shouldn’t.

He wouldn’t.

He’d just tell Dean ‘No’.



As if telling Dean “No” was something Sam had ever been capable of.

“Is this about yesterday?”

“What? No. I mean…that was okay.”

“No, it wasn’t. I was out of line. Even if you are gorgeous.”

Sam pressed his lips together. He was off kilter. He hadn’t slept, and he wasn’t sure if it was Dean’s kiss or the thought of meeting his mother. “I’m not really ready to meet people.” Sam said finally, toying with his coffee cup. “I’m sure your mother is great…”

“My mother is the best.” Dean said. “I think you’ll like her.”

“I’m sure I would.”

“Good, then it’s settled. Sunday. I’ll come and get you around three.”

“Dean—“

His hand settled on Sam’s. “She’s going to love you, you know.” His fingers curled around Sam’s and as much as he wanted to pull his hand away, he found he couldn’t.

“Okay, you ready to get this day moving?”

All he really wanted to do was sit there with his brother…who wasn’t his brother anymore. “Actually, could we just…relax? I feel like we’ve done nothing but run since I got here.”

“Sure. You’re the boss.” His hand hadn’t left Sam’s, his fingers stroking lightly over the back of Sam’s hand, idly tracing scars. When Sam didn’t object, they slid up, under his shirt sleeve, onto the longer scar where a demon’s talon had sliced him open. “You certainly have a lot of these.” Dean murmured.

Once upon a time, Dean did too. Long, horrific scars that marred his perfect face. Scars he earned in his effort to free Sam. “Yeah. I grew up in a dangerous place.”

Dean’s fingers moved, up his arm, to his face. He pulled the sunglasses off and Sam flinched, reaching for them. “I want to look at you, not the glasses.” Dean said, moving his chair closer. His fingertips were gentle as they followed the small scars under his eye sockets, then gently over his eye lids. “Is it so bad? To let me see?”

Those fingers were mapping his face, cheekbones and chin, jaw-line and lips. He should have felt it coming, should have known and stopped it before it could start, but it still took him by surprise. It wasn’t the hesitant kiss of the day before. It was Dean, getting what he wanted. The way he always did.

His thumb on Sam’s chin encouraged Sam’s mouth open as his lips closed over Sam’s, his tongue, confident and forward, sliding into him. Electric current swept through him, arousal, desire, need.

Dean could feel it, Sam knew. His whole body tingled, responded. Sam stood quickly, exhaled. “I knew I wasn’t wrong.” Dean followed him, standing and moving with him into the kitchen.

“Wrong?” Everything about this was wrong.

“I knew you were into me.”

How could he not be? This was Dean…and maybe it wasn’t his Dean…and maybe everything was different, but he smelled like Dean, tasted like Dean. And he was there, pressing Sam into the counter as he kissed him again.

“You can touch me, you know?” His breath was moist, hot and it skated over Sam’s jaw, up and into his ear. His hands moved in response, connected with the tight skin over tight muscle in Dean’s neck. His hand always did just sort of fit there, craddling Dean’s head, his thumb under Dean’s chin.

Sam sighed and Dean’s mouth was right there to catch it, swallowing it. “You taste like blueberries.” Dean said as he backed up a little and Sam shifted his feet, trying to find a shred of the resistance he’d started with.

“So that’s what that was.” He wiped his mouth, as if that would erase the memory of the taste. “I burned my tongue on my coffee. Couldn’t taste it.”

“You okay?”

Sam licked his lips. “I’m…I don’t know.”

“Is it too much?”

Sam groaned. It was nowhere near enough.

“Say the word, Sam. I’ll never bring it up again.”

“No.” Sam’s stomach lurched at the thought that Dean would never touch him again. “I didn’t mean for this…when I came here. I wasn’t looking…”

He could imagine the smile, coy, slight…freckles over pink skin and his eyes lowered while he scratched at the back of his neck. “Yeah…I know. Not what I was planning either.” Dean said.

Sam felt him back off a step, felt the cold seep into the space between them. He reached for him, catching his hand. “Don’t…Just…”

“Go slow.” Dean finished for him. Sam nodded, drawing Dean’s hand up to his chest, against his heart. “I can do that.” Dean filled the emptiness, stepped in and up and Sam could breathe as long as the air came out of Dean’s mouth first.

He never could say no to Dean and mean it.

Dean’s hands slid inside his shirt, over the t-shirt. “You always wear so many clothes?”

“It was cold.” Sam said, and he wasn’t sure if he meant the time without Dean or the time before in the dark, but it didn’t really matter because he was warm enough now. Getting warmer too. He pulled at the sleeves and dropped the shirt. Dean helped, getting his hands up under the t-shirt and tugging it up. Before he’d gotten it off, his lips were on Sam’s skin, slipping over muscle.

Sam gasped as Dean’s mouth closed over his nipple. So much for slow.

“Cold now?” Dean asked.

Sam grabbed, pulled him up, his mouth hungry, desperate.

“Easy, Sammy, easy.”

Dean’s kiss was soft, tender…over the edges of Sam’s lips, into the corners of his mouth. It was everything it had never been when it had been just Sam and Dean alone in the dark. Sam had needed it then, and Dean had given it…because he couldn’t ever really say no to Sam either.

“Easy.” Dean breaths it onto his tongue, into his soul. His hands held Sam’s sides, his thumbs resting along Sam’s hip bones. “Easy, Sammy.”

His knees wobbled and his cock was craving and Sam was breathing hard already…and Dean would never know why. Just hearing his name like that burned into him and made him crazy with want. Then Dean’s arms were around Sam and he was drawing Sam in, away from the counter. “I’ve got you.”

Sam felt unanchored, disoriented, lost inside this...inside Dean. They stumbled down the hall, Dean’s hands and lips the only thing keeping him from breaking apart.

“Dean.” Sam pulled at Dean’s shirt and Dean caught his hands, kissing them lightly.

“Easy. Slow, remember?”

“Slow…” Sam felt the bed behind him and Dean guided him down. The bed moved and Dean’s hands slid over Sam’s stomach.

“This may sound strange, but I feel like I’ve known you my whole life.”

Then everything exploded in a blast of color and light as Dean’s hands freed Sam’s cock and his mouth swallowed it in one stroke. Sam’s body arched up off the bed and Dean chuckled as he slid off.

“Slow…” Sam panted. “You said slow.”

Dean’s hands were tugging on his jeans, pulling them down. “I lied.” His mouth was back on Sam, his tongue moving around the tip and down. Sam reached for him, but Dean eluded him. “Relax, I’ve got you.”

Sam wasn’t relaxing, in fact his body was a straight line of tension, his breath rasping through clenched teeth. Whatever he’d had before, it was nothing like this…further proof that this wasn’t his Dean. His hands fisted in the sheets, already damp with sweat as he writhed and Dean followed, sucking him in now until Sam whimpered.

“Dean!” It was long and drawn out, one syllable filling the room as Sam bucked up and came hard and fast. He collapsed to the mattress as Dean’s mouth slid off him and he turned those lips to Sam’s thigh. “I’ve got you,” he whispered, his mouth closing over a thick scar on Sam’s left thigh from a torn up fence when he was sixteen. He kissed up, spreading Sam’s legs further apart to make room, licking the sweat gathered there in the crease of leg and hip, pausing to suck lightly at the jut of hip bone, nipping, then licking the sting away.

Unerringly, his lips and fingers and tongue found every scar, every mark ever made on his body by the evil and supernatural…all the way up to his eyes. Dean’s lips lingered there, on first his left eyelid, then the right, before he took Sam’s mouth, all salt and come and something else Sam couldn’t quite place.

Dean’s body was laid out along his, his cock a line of heat against his thigh, hidden behind denim. Sam took a deep breath, feeling it shudder through his chest, and kissed Dean back, pressing him back to the bed, rolling so it was Sam laid out long against Dean’s body.

He followed Dean’s pattern in reverse, sliding his mouth up over the places where the worst of the scars had been, up over his left cheek bone, chasing into the hair line, down to his ear, over his neck. “Shirt,” he murmured, pulling until he got it loose and Dean could pull it up and off.

Sam licked down his collarbone, nipping lightly at the place where there used to be a crooked scar from barbed wire he’d fallen on trying to get a rawhead. He moved slowly, reverently. His Dean would never have laid still and let him do this.

Under the left nipple there had been a mark, thin and fading from a time when Dean was 9 and Sam was 5 and Sam can’t remember for the life of him how he got it, only that it had been his fault. Sam slid down, kissing over ripped abs that undulated under his mouth. He quirked his head to the side. “Ticklish?”

“No.” Dean lied. Sam knew all the places that made his brother move like that. He let his tongue drag between heavy muscles, then flicked at the space lightly. Dean twisted, surged up. Sam pushed him back down. “Relax, I’ve got you.” Sam repeated. Dean groaned and Sam went back to cataloguing his beautiful, unmarked skin…until he found one scar, on his right side.

He kissed over it, like it was sacred, a tie to the Dean he knew.

“Appendix.” Dean said softly.

Sam breathed along his waistband, his hands fumbling, shaking…until the zipper finally gave and then he was easing jeans down and away, holding his breath…because this too was something Dean never gave him. They were never naked, always needed to be able to run, duck and cover, hide. He dropped the jeans on the floor and Sam was there, kneeling between Dean’s naked legs.

“Sam…” He kissed the inside of one knee, then the other, alternating and working his way back up to his cock. Sam’s fingers felt for it, touched it, closed around it.

Sam breathed over the tip as he bent to take it into his mouth. He’d never done it before…not for Dean, not for anyone…but he licked at it gamely, flicking his tongue under the edge of the head, then fluttering it down one side and up the other. The tip was wet, salty and, it took a moment for him to realize, it was pre-come.

Sam opened his mouth and took him in, tentative at first, but gaining momentum as he got a feel for the depth and width and Dean’s body responded, tiny thrusts of his hips, the grunts and a whimper.

Dean’s hand was on his arm, squeezing a warning just before his hip lifted, thrust and Sam’s mouth filled with heat. He swallowed what he could, but it spilled out and all over. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand as Dean sat up, apologizing.

“Jesus, Sam, I’m sorry.”

Sam shook his head, wiped his hands on the sheet. “It’s okay.”

“Just sit still. I’ll get a washcloth.”

Sam listened to him padding into the bathroom and back, felt a warm, wet cloth on his face, then the bed moved and Dean’s arms folded around him. “You okay?”

Sam nodded, settled against the pillows. It was more than he’d ever imagined.

“Does this mean you’re coming for dinner on Sunday?”

Sam sighed and swallowed the panic. “We’ll see.”



He didn’t want to do this. On levels even he couldn’t explain. This wasn’t his life. These weren’t his parents. This wasn’t his brother. He shouldn’t be here. Not now, not like this.

Dean was opening his door. He could smell the spaghetti sauce. He put his feet on the ground but didn’t stand. “I…I don’t think I’m ready.”

Dean squatted beside him. “It’s okay Sam.”

He could hear the disappointment in his voice. He needed Dean to understand. “I…I lost my family. They…my mother died when I was six months old. I never knew her.”

Dean’s hands caressed his, his thumbs rubbing soft circles on his skin. “Sam, I’m so sorry.”

Sam shook his head. “My father…he did what he could…but…and then he died…and my brother and I…we went through hell.” He pushed at the sunglasses in a defensive gesture. Like they could protect him from the intensity of Dean’s gaze. Sam didn’t need vision to see it on him. “And…I lost them all. I’ve been alone ever since.” It was more than he’d said about his past to anyone. Too close to the truth, to everything that had never happened here.

Dean’s kiss was light, sweet. “You’re not alone anymore.” His arms slid around Sam and somehow Sam found himself standing, moving. His hand was on Dean’s elbow and he murmured instructions. “Crack in the sidewalk, step up. Stairs, three, shallow.”

The porch creaked under them and the screen door complained as it opened. “It’s about time, your mother’s been waiting.”

Sam froze. The gruff tone, the presence. Dad.

No, not Dad. John.

“Dad, this is Sam. Sam, my father, John Winchester.”

“Honey, is that you?” Dean was leading him inside. He could still feel John’s eyes on him. He was starting to hyperventilate.

“Hey Mom, we’re here. This is Sam.” Dean pulled on his hand to draw Sam’s attention away from John. “Sam, my mom, Mary.”

“Oh, look at you. Dean told me you were a handsome man, but just look at you.”

He felt her hands on his, then she swept him into a hug. “Dean’s told us everything about you. I feel like you’re a part of the family already.”

“Mom, you’re freaking him out.” Dean rescued Sam from her and guided him into the kitchen. “Is dinner ready yet? I’m starving, and Sam here’s been surviving on frozen dinners since he got here.”

Dean guided Sam to a seat. Sam let the banter swirl around him, the unfamiliar sounds of a family setting the table. John’s voice rumbled under Mary’s and Dean’s. Silverware clanked against plates. They moved around him. Chairs scraped on floors. Then Dean was guiding Sam’s hands to his plate, setting silverware in his hands, telling him where each kind of food was.

It felt like home.

The home he never had.

His gut ached…but this is what he had given Dean. Parents, a home.

This is the end, my beautiful friend

Dean’s hand found his under the table, squeezing lightly. Sam turned his face toward Dean.

Dean was happy.

That was all the light Sam would ever need.