Sneaking through River Flood
Sam/Dean, beard shaving, 14x03 coda (spoilers) PG. hurt/comfort.
(I had to immediately after the episode... also, I recommend Nothings gonna Hurt You and Apocalypse by Cigarettes After Sex for this, i had them on repeat...)
Dean’s tired after all of it, the drive back, the bunker, the Chief thing, reuniting and introductions… the whole… wearing not-his clothes thing.
Sam gives him his space, moves around him to make sure everyone else has to go through him first. Protecting the bubble Dean needs right now, doing it with a quiet full calm. Dean makes quips where he usually seems to, but skirts edges and keeps his peripherals checked.
Sam asks, gets the response he expects. He understands. Not now, it’s too fresh, too soon… too confusing still.
Sam’s amused by Dean’s reaction to his beard at least, heartwarmed to have his jerk of a brother back, didn’t think about how he still had it, how that would be different for Dean. Irked and uncomfortable that there is so much of his Sam hidden halfway under it all.
Dean just wants Familiar right now. Sam understands, but he also finds it endearing the way Dean adamantly scoffs at it while everyone else seems charmed.
Sam considers shaving it almost immediately, but Sam also has enough little brother left in him to be captivated by seeing Dean to squirm about such strange things… especially ones that have to do with Sam.
In 9th grade, it was that one time Sam came home after making out with Ashley in her car for half an hour past his curfew. She had worn auburn lipstick that made their kisses sticky and thick, the taste pushing itself into his memory already as he crept back into the house with his heart escalated and kicking in his throat, snuck into their room giddy-quiet. He remembers expecting his big brother’s approval, suffering so many informative sex stories that encouraged him to follow example, but instead he got an agitated Dean, snapping and throwing a wet face cloth at him from the bathroom telling him to wipe off that damn lipstick, you look like a girl.
Or that summer of ’99, when Sam hit his growth spirt and grew up, up, up; tall and lean into the sky, able to look eye-to-eye with Dean and pinning him for the very first time in their combat practices. He felt his body hot and big over Dean’s, felt for the first time Dean genuinely struggle underneath him. Sam remembers it vividly: the hot Arizona sun, the smell of the dirt and the sharp mint of grass torn up by their scuffle, the echoes of a distant community baseball game carried over the dry air. The tickle of Dean’s hair against Sam’s cheek, the flex and pull of his muscles meeting Sam’s hold. The elbow Dean throw back in blind reptilian panic, clocking Sam right in the jaw. The speckle of blood he spat out on the dirt, how some of it landed on Dean’s face where he had twisted onto his back and was staring up at Sam in hot, wild-eyed shock… how they stayed like that a minute too long, Dean’s pink cheeks dirt-smeared and speckled with brother blood, Sam copper-mouthed right above him, blocking the sun, and tingling with the adrenaline of domination. Until the crack of a baseball against bat broke the locked moment, like a snap of fingers through hypnosis.
Now is different though, Sam thinks. Now Dean is agitated because it’s too different; a dent in the shield of familiarity he needs right now.
When Sam gets to his room, it’s not long after that Dean lets himself in, too. Weary, soft and a new colour of uncertainty clouding the edges of his meadow eyes. But still, Dean. Still moving easily over.
Sam doesn’t even say hi or ‘everything okay?’ because he knows it’s not, but he feels everything inside of him relax in contentment, in relief. Because there’s Dean, there’s his brother, his other half, alive and breathing and different but here. Back with him.
Dean comes over slowly, different in the face and the eyes, different in his smile, but still all Dean. He gives a little bit of a smirk, a quirk in the corner of his lips and eyebrow, and he raises his hand and shows off his razor in a pointed mission. “Sit, Paul Bunion.”
Sam huffs a laugh, a smile breaking easy and amused, and he lifts a hand to his beard, rubs at it in a way he’s been doing for the last few weeks, it’s soft scratch against the pads of his fingers a comforting grounding sensation. But now he’s got his anchor here, there’s no need for it anymore.
Sam sits down on the edge of the bathtub, and Dean’s shoulders square in approval. He methodically gathers up a bowl of water, a towel, the shaving cream, and sets them on the toilet seat before he stands in front of him and Sam easily moves his thighs apart to let Dean occupy the space between.
Sam watches as Dean’s jaw clenches subtly, watches the flickers of hologram hauntings behind his eyes, knows there’s so much inside of him he can’t quite exorcise just yet. Sam breathes in soft and slow, relaxes completely for Dean, reaches out tentatively to touch a hand softly against Dean’s thigh.
Dean’s eyes soften warmly, pooling, and they find Sam through the fog… they move over the crinkles forming at the corners of Sam’s eyes, over his eyebrows and the worry lines etched in above, down his cheek bones and to the warm bush of beard around his jaw. Dean’s eyes focus, zero in on the foreign difference and he lifts his hands, touches his fingers against the soft scratch and lets the corners of his mouth dip down in disapproval.
Sam can’t help but let a smile twitch under his offensive beard, and he rubs a thumb against the fabric of Dean’s pants.
The simple texture, real and rough, sends a bolt of relief shaking warm lava up his arm and into his bones.
Dean takes his time snipping at what his scissors can slit away and Sam sinks into the feeling of cold metal sliding sharp and thin against his cheek, his jaw, his throat…
the quick tugs with each snip, the tickle of stray hair falling on his neck, his collarbone.
The cool shivers of sensations fuzzing out his nerves.
Snip… snip… snip… the tug of hair, the release. Soft pinches. Weight lifting.
Then Dean places the scissors down, exhales a fuller breath, coming back to himself little by little with this simple task under his hands… his hands.
And Sam knows this is a big part of it: Reforming a relationship with his body through Sam.
Simple motor skills of snips of scissors and now the gel onto brush before he places a hand at the warm base of Sam’s throat and brushes the lathered lotion up his exposed neck… along his sharp jaw… over his scratching cheeks…
Sam watches the desperate single-task focus of Dean’s eyes… the ghost the ripples at the edges every few seconds, and feels his chest swell and ache cold. Understands loss of control, understands powerlessness in his own flesh, but knows the obsessive control Dean’s kept over himself, imagines that one self-trust snapping under his own call, that betrayal of consent he leaned his offering upon.
Dean allowed himself to sacrifice a temporary sense of control but ended up losing all of it. Completely. His body of flesh and blood now a house of transparent, penetrable glass.
Sam feels it in Dean’s gentle fingertips… the soft cradling of his throat…. the whispering cold slide of sharp razor edge against his warm skin, the tug and tickle along each line of gliding stroke.
Fragile, vulnerable, pliable. So Sam is for him, with him.
With his jaw tilted upward, he gazes up at his big brother. He blinks slow and feels young in the eyes, feels old and warm in the chest. Remembers watching Dean do this himself for the first time. Wants to lean forward and hold Dean up against him, pull his abdomen into his chest, act as a second ribcage for all Dean’s softest parts.
The razor slides with a rasp, tinks against the water bowl, comes back cold and wet, sends tingles and sparks along Sam’s jaw, into the back of Sam’s teeth, down low along Sam’s spine…
Sam closes his eyes, bathes himself in the feeling of Dean shaving him back to himself, the air washing cool and clean against his skin. He feels baptised by steel and water, a conduit for renewal.
The razor slides, and Sam sighs, lets Dean tilts his head to the slightest inch by the slightest touch. Rasp, tink, swish. Scrap, clean, wet. A hypnotic spell buzzes over Sam’s brain, tingles the surface of his skin and he sinks low into the feeling, into his brother’s care, welcomes it all.
Then it’s not the cold edge returning to his skin… it’s wet fingers, trailing over his cheeks, his jaw, his adams apple that bobs in a swallow under the touch. Smearing leftover shaving cream, drips of water.
His eyes are too heavy to open, so the fingers explore more… along his chin, the dip between his lips and nose, the dent of his dimples and the rise of his cheekbones.
He feels the fingers slide up to his ears and, slowly, push soft paths into the forest of his hair. Trailing deep and thick back to his neck, and thumbs slide to cup the crevice of his underjaw.
A shiver runs through Sam and his hand on Dean’s thigh tightens a little, hugs Dean closer just with pressure against his solid leg. And Dean comes. Sam feels him rest his forehead down, gently, against his. Feels his breath wash warm over his nose and cheeks. Feels the hands in his hair tremble, the rhythm of his breath stutter in the slightest.
Sam opens his eyes, feels the tickle of a tear drop onto his high cheek from Dean’s eyes clenched shut.
Sam feels his chest tare open hot with desperation and protection, feels his eyes sting in response.
He moves his hands to Dean’s waist and rubs his thumbs slow against his hipbones.
Dean breathes in a stuttered breath and his hands tighten in his hair and Sam welcomes it quietly, closing eyes again… feels the salt tears speckle his cheeks, thinks of his blood speckling Dean’s under that hot sun. And sighs.
