Two great episodes for the price of one, folks! With angels falling in love with humans, Jensen’s masterclass in staring deeply into our souls, perfect song choices, and headcanons galore, these episodes pack a real punch. So hitch a ride on Larry, cause it’s time to cry, partner! Yeehaw! 🪞
Summary: After Dean gets his memory back, Sam has to deal with the consequences Dean losing his inhibitions. Trouble is, he has no way of knowing whether Dean remembers anything or not.
Series: Sequel to Distraction
A03
Sam knows it makes him a bad person, but he’s actually kind of glad they haven’t seen their mom for a while. He just doesn’t know how he would look her in the eye right now. He’s struggling, and at least without Mom around he’s got one less family member to worry about.
Family.
That’s the problem.
Ever since Dean lost his memory and ...things...happened, family is one of two words that thrums through his head every minute of the day, sometimes even waking him up at night in a cold sweat. The other word is brother.
Because Dean is his family, Dean is his brother, and therefore the thoughts he’s having, the dreams, the way his mind drifts when he’s in the shower, in the minutes between waking and sleeping, it’s all so very wrong.
Sam’s pessimistic thoughts are interrupted by said brother slamming the door open as he comes into the bunker, hands full of beer and shopping. “Oy, Sammy,” he shouts. “Lend a hand.”
Dean had been out for a couple of hours, doing their monthly supply run. Apparently, despite the many magical properties of the bunker, it didn’t automatically restock on toilet paper. It had been a real learning curve for them both - neither of them had ever really had a fixed home, and their few intermittent attempts had been with women who were used to living civilian life and running regular shops. They’d learned the hard way to make sure to replace the toilet roll before it ran out, as well as having to buy laundry detergent and other cleaning supplies. Sam has never felt the weight of his life choices, his decision to be with Dean, as much as he had in the queue at their first major walmart shop as they pushed a trolley full of toilet bleach and washing up liquid.
Carrying in the shopping is the kind of mindless task that allows his brain to run riot these days. He follows Dean to and from the kitchen, and finds himself idly noting the strength of his brother’s shoulders, the way Dean’s hands capably juggle the fruit he bought for Sam, how his brother’s legs bow out as he crouches to get under the sink, they way Dean’s jean’s tighten over his ass.
It’s been happening ever since Dean lost his memory and got it back, this casual appraisal of how beautiful Dean is that both his upstairs brain and, distressingly, his downstairs brain are carrying on without his permission.
It’s like he’s become aware, in a way he hasn’t been since he was a teenager and jealous of the way girls flocked to his brother, that Dean is superlatively beautiful. He’s always known objectively, has taken advantage of it for a case many times as Dean has flirted them out of trouble or into information, but now - now that knowledge is real, and intimate.
He can’t help but remember the easy, loose way Dean had stood in front of him, all the tension gone from his body, offering himself to Sam like it was totally normal. Kissing Sam like it was totally normal. He remembers the way that muscle had felt under his hands, the warmth of Dean and his familiar, comforting smell. He remembers the way Dean had been ready and willing to be directed, to do whatever would best please Sam. Most of all, he remembers the way Dean tasted, like beer and mint and safety; the plush feel of his brothers’ lips on his; the little noises Dean had made at the back of his throat.
Sam has blocked so many things out over the years, has repressed so many memories that’s he’s happy to say he’s an expert, but none of his techniques seem to work for this. Apparently, incestuous memories are so disgusting, make him such a terrible person that even his subconscious, with its memories of hell and torture, doesn’t want them and is forcing the memories to the forefront of his conscious mind.
“Earth to Sam,” Dean says, lobbing an orange at him which hits him in the shoulder. “You alright?”
Sam has been caught staring again, that much is obvious. Hopefully it was at something more innocent than Dean’s ass (unlike last time).
“Fine,” he says, distracted.
“Uh huh,” Dean says. He looks intently at Sam, and then smirks, turning his back and wiggling his butt, just ever so slightly. So slightly that Sam would never have noticed if he hadn’t been laser-focused on it already. Dean looks back over his shoulder at Sam, almost coquettish, and says, “You coming?”
Sam sputters. There’s no more elegant way of putting it, he sputters and stares, and again, Dean smirks.
Not for the first time, Sam wonders if Dean had been telling the truth when he said he didn’t remember anything.
***
They’re in a bit of a lull, in terms of work. Ramiel is dead, Kelly Kline is in the wind, with Cas tracking her, and Sam really, really doesn’t want to know what Rowena is up to. He can’t bear the thought of having to see Rowena’s knowing smirk any time soon. He’s scoured the internet for possible cases, desperate to get out on a hunt, but for once, America’s supernatural beings seem quiet.
That leaves him and Dean puttering around the bunker, taking care of all the chores that they put off during cases. That’s another thing Sam had more or less forgotten: how much work goes into keeping a home just ticking over. He and Dean had sat down a while back and created a painstaking schedule of who was to clean which toilet when; who would drive the garbage to the nearest bins; and what chores Sam would take over in return for Dean being solely responsible for the cooking (it was in everyone’s best interests). On top of routine housework, they’re still working their way through the bunker’s extensive hoard of supernatural paraphernalia; there are whole rooms of neatly filed boxes they haven’t searched through methodically, and with Lucifer’s son potentially about to be born into the world, now seems like a good time.
Dean, of course, is not a big fan of sitting down for extensive periods to research obscure artifacts or read through old case notes from the 1940s. They’re sitting at the main table in the bunker now, surrounded by files from the early part of 1947, and Dean is getting visibly frustrated. He’s tapping his fingers, leaning backwards and then forwards incessantly and sighing loudly at intervals.
Sam is well-versed in Dean - how could he not be after living in each other’s pockets for most of their lives? He’s normally able to easily drown out his brother’s ridiculous, childish behaviour through immersing himself in lore. But now, since the spell, he’s hyper-aware of Dean’s every movement. Each time Dean leans forwards, the detail of the freckles across the bridge of his nose and his perfect, thick eyelashes come into view; when he leans back, his old band t-shirt stretches across the muscles of his chest in a way that leaves little to the imagination.
Sam has barely gotten used to this more casual version of Dean since they’ve been living in the bunker; out on the road, they both drown themselves in layers of clothing in case they have to run, or on the off-chance that something nasty gets spilled on them (they’d learnt that lesson the hard way); but here, Dean is usually just in a tshirt and soft track pants, often even barefoot. It lends him a fragility that hurts Sam’s heart a little; and creates a sense of domesticity that highlights their shared life together.
Looking at Dean now, Sam could swear that he can see his brother’s (frustratingly perky) nipples through the thin fabric. Before he can stop himself, his mind wanders off into wondering whether Dean would squirm if Sam bit them, and imagining the noises Dean would make.
He almost growls when he catches himself. On top of the instinctive repulsion at the thought of incest is the knowledge that he’s turning into one of the men he’s always hated: the men who visibly and consistently objectify his brother.
He’s been aware, since he was small, that Dean attracted attention. Girls at school would swoon, and suddenly be Sam’s best friend, when they realised who his brother was. Older women in motels would find ways to bring them food, or move them to a better room, after one of Dean’s blinding smiles. Guys at every school they went to flocked around Dean, trying to get his attention, or just hoping to hook up with the girls drawn into his orbit. Dean had loved all of that; somehow soaked up the smiles and the approval without letting it spoil him.
But Dean had hated the way men looked at him. Even at 9 or 10, Sam had been aware of the way men would hesitate by their table, looking at his brother; of the catcalls that had followed them across parking lots later at night and the way teachers at their new schools would sometimes find themselves spellbound for a few moments before pulling themselves together. More times than he could remember, Sam had seen John approach a leering man, fists clenched, before the guy very rapidly vacated the area; or had watched as John hustled Dean into the car, or walked his son into motel rooms with a protective arm around his shoulder.
As Sam had gotten older, and Dean had been left to look after them both more frequently, Sam had become aware of what the men had said to Dean and the offers they made. They’d frequently promised money, which Dean had always rejected with rude words and a shudder; but in retrospect, Sam now wonders if Dean had sometimes felt forced to accept in order to put food on the table. Every time his mind wanders down that track, the fury he feels is so strong that he can’t bear to think about it, mind skittering away.
So when Sam finds himself staring at his brother, mind caught up for endless minutes in how pretty Dean is, how goddamn sexy he finds his brother’s every move, he can’t help but think he’s objectifying his brother in the same way, perving over him in a manner that Dean would find repulsive.
With an internal groan, he buries his head back in the dusty files, swearing that he’ll ignore Dean and his perky nipples until the end of time.
***
Dean’s been more touchy-feely than usual lately. Sam doesn’t know if it’s just because things have actually been right with them for the past couple of years; or if their mother’s reappearance has made Dean a little more vulnerable; or if it’s something else altogether; but he’s noticed it a lot recently.
They’ve never had much concept of personal space, growing up crowded into the back seat of the Impala or crushed together in a single motel bed. Their arms always brush when they walk, their knees press together when they’re sitting side by side, and their elbows find each other’s ribs more than is strictly comfortable. But now, Sam finds himself with Dean’s feet in his lap in the evenings, Dean’s arm hooked around his shoulders a few times a day, Dean’s head drooping onto his shoulder late at night. He knows it’s a recent change, but he can’t put his finger on just how recent. There’s a little voice in his head saying that it’s only been happening since the spell, but he’s trying resolutely to ignore that. There’s no way that Dean remembers anything from that time, his memory was so shot; so it’s just Sam’s wishful thinking.
***
It’s late the next evening when Sam finally pushes the last file from 1948 away from him. He’s been immersed all day in a fascinating case about shifters and how they reproduce; reminding him of that case with the babies when he’d been soulless. It’s not a time he generally likes to think of; but that case had been different. His brother had loved looking after little Bobby-John and had been devastated to give the baby up. Sometimes Sam thinks that the greatest tragedy of their lives is that Dean will never get to be a father.
Unwilling to dwell any longer on that thought, he leans back, cracking his neck and stretching out cramped muscles. Raising his hands to the ceiling, he feels his shoulder pop and sighs at the advance of age on his body.
The bunker is quiet, and he wonders where Dean is. He hasn’t seen his brother for a few hours; after spending half the afternoon researching, Dean had become increasingly fidgety and finally stalked off, muttering something about the garage and testing out the cars there. He’d come back into the main room to shove a plate of food under Sam’s nose a few hours ago, but Sam has hasn’t seen him since.
Sam can feel himself getting restless now at the realisation of how long it’s been since he saw his brother; it’s been this way between them ever since he can remember, both of them feeling the aching need to check in with each other at regular intervals. Sam can ignore it, of course, he’d been able to suppress it for four years at Stanford; but he’s long since stopped wanting to.
He sets off in search of his brother, long legs carrying him through the bunker. Dean’s not in the kitchen or his room, and when Sam pokes his head into the garage there’s no sign of him there either, although his tools are still laid out next to one of the cars.
He finally works out where Dean is when he hears his brother’s off-key warbling emerging from the main shower room. Sam shouldn’t be surprised; he thinks that Dean has an unhealthy fixation with the bunker showers, and Dean absolutely does not care what Sam thinks and takes the longest showers ever anyway.
Content now that he knows Dean’s whereabouts, he’s about to head towards his own room when the bathroom door opens and a cloud of steam billows out. It’s like something from a bad eighties music video, the steam sweeping upwards and obscuring the light. Sam snorts, wondering how Dean could possible create this much steam from one shower.
He’s so busy snickering to himself that he’s not prepared for his brother to emerge from the cloud, bare skin gleaming and droplets trailing down to the towel wrapped around his waist. Dean hair is spiked up adorably, and the heavy muscles of his chest and arms are on full display.
Sam’s laughter dies in his throat along with his ability to breathe. His brain decides to go on holiday, all the useful blood that usually powers it heading rapidly south, and he actually gurgles at Dean, unable to form words.
Dean smirks. He smoothes one hand down his chest, spreading water droplets down to the dubious barrier of the towel, but his eyes lock onto Sam’s, burning with intensity.
They stand, unmoving, for a long moment.
“Like what you see, Sam?”
The words and the low, intimate tone catapult Sam back into that motel room a few weeks ago, when he’d so nearly crumbled in the face of Dean’s undeniable charm. Sam’s voice stays on vacation and he’s unable to find the words to respond, mouth opening and closing without success.
It feels like they’re trapped there forever, Dean not moving and Sam unable to. Finally, Dean sighs.
“Night, Sammy,” he says quietly, and walks down the hall. Sam can’t help watching him go, eyes drawn to the dimples of his back peeking above the towel. He’s so fucked.
***
Sam downs most of a bottle of whiskey that evening in an attempt to shut his brain down. It takes that much to stop his mind from fixating on the vision of his brother he’d seen earlier, and to keep his hand out of his pants.
He wakes up the next morning feeling like shit. He’s not used to hangovers; heavy drinking has always been Dean’s chosen method of oblivion, not his. He makes his way to the kitchen painfully, and slowly, hoping that Dean has some coffee ready for him and beyond pleased that they have no plans for today.
“Wakey wakey, Sammy,” Dean says, already dressed and looking cheerful. “Rise and shine!” He’s obnoxiously loud and he grins as he waves a coffee cup at Sam, playing a short game of ‘keep away’ before taking pity and handing the cup over. “You look like shit,” he continues.
“Fucking thanks,” is Sam’s only response, before he buries his nose over the cup, inhaling deeply.
“Aww, poor Sammy,” Dean croons. “Feeling a bit delicate, are we?”
“Fuck off.”
“Poor little brother.” Dean rubs his hand through Sam’s hair and Sam shudders, stomach roiling.
“Do that again and I’ll throw up on you,” he threatens weakly, and Dean throws his head back with laughter.
Summary: Losing his memories means that Dean loses inhibitions Sam didn't even know he had.Missing scene from s12 e11 Regarding Dean
Rating: PG13
Words: 2224
A03
“Could be a memory spell. Did his hair fall out? His body hair too?”
“What?“
“From the neck down, is he smooth like a ken doll?”
“I don’t know, and I’m not checking, either.”
The problem is, as soon as Sam puts the phone down on Rowena and her barely concealed glee, he knows he’ll be checking. He might mouth off to Rowena about it, but if there’s a chance that Dean’s body hair is a clue to saving his brother and his memory, then he’s not going to pass it up.
He sighs to himself. He’s barely holding back panic by the skin of his teeth, but at the same time, the whole situation is so unbearably frustrating. Having Dean is rapidly descending into having a large, skilled toddler who has license, in the eyes of the public, to go anywhere and do anything that adults do - but without any of the sense of preservation that most adults spend their lives developing (never mind the heightened sense of awareness both Winchester’s have experienced since childhood). He feels like he has to watch Dean every second to make sure he’s not causing mischief or wandering off, putting himself into who knows what danger.
So Sam already knows that he’s going to try anything to fix this. Including checking out Dean’s body hair.
The problem is that Dean, with his dark blonde hair and fair, freckled skin, has always been so lightly haired. Sam himself is covered in dark fur on his chest, arms, legs, hell even his feet - easy enough to check. But Sam has been sharing motel rooms with Dean for almost his entire life and he knows that Dean couldn’t be more different. So he’s going to have to really look.
His plan gets derailed slightly by the fact that Dean has, as Sam feared, just wandered off, but by the time he’s located his errant big brother and gotten them secure in the right hotel room again, he’s determined to bite the bullet.
“Hey Dean,” he stutters, not quite sure how to articulate the next part of the conversation. Dean pauses where he’s investigating the differences between the lamps in the motel room, flicking the switches and exclaiming over the different levels of light.
“Yeah?”
“I need to check something. Come here for a second.” Sam steels himself for this most un-brotherly of moments. “Can you take your jacket off?”
“Sure,” Dean replies, with something like the grin he’d given the waitress earlier that day. “Anything for you.”
Dean looks like he’s seconds away from winking, so Sam scowls at him. It doesn’t stop Dean from sliding the first of his many layers off, and a quick glance at Dean’s wrists, hidden under white Fed shirt-cuffs, tells Sam that this isn’t going to be enough. “Shirt, too,” he says, heart sinking.
Dean does wink this time, the ingrained impulse to flirt apparently impossible to refuse. Despite the severity of the situation, Sam is unable to stop his own eyes from rolling.
“Calm down, cowboy. I just need to check something for a spell.”
“Do we know spells? What about witches?” Dean looks ridiculously excited at this - when he gets better, Sam is definitely going to remind him that at least once in his life he was pleased at the idea of witches.
“Yes, we know witches. Now, shirt off.”
Dean grins again, and slowly pulls his shirt over his head, making a big production of it. As inch after inch of golden, freckled skin is revealed, Sam is reminded (as if he could ever forget) why women flock to Dean. His brother is just as strong and muscular as Sam is, if not more so, but it’s so clearly honestly earned muscle, not a hint of gym-rat definition. Sam always feel self-conscious about his own body, about how hard he works to keep in shape, whereas Dean has always seemed to put on muscle without the slightest effort, and it shows.
Dean finally pulls his shirt over his head with a flourish, and Sam is caught staring. “Like what you see?”
Sam flushes up to his hairline. “I just need to check something,” he forces out. “Only take a second.”
“Shame,” Dean says, low.
Sam can’t remember the last time he paid attention to the detail of Dean’s body, usually more concerned with patching up whatever wound his brother has acquired, so he can’t remember if Dean has always been this smooth. He runs his hand down Dean’s forearm, and can barely feel any hair there either, just fine, soft golden fuzz - certainly nothing compared to his own. His heart is starting to beat double time at the thought that maybe this is the spell kicking in.
“Feels nice,” Dean’s voice breaks him out of his burgeoning panic.
“I’m just checking.” He pulls Dean’s arm above his head and peers at his brother’s underarm.
“Mmm, kinky,” Dean says, helpfully leaning back against the wall and raising his other arm up, crossing them above his head. “Do we normally do this?”
“God Dean, no. We’re brothers.” Sam is starting to feel like the situation is spiralling out of his control.
“Shame,” Dean repeats. “You’re gorgeous. What a waste.” He pulls his wrist out of Sam’s hold and trails his fingers along Sam’s cheekbone, and then under his jaw. Sam shivers, caught for the moment in Dean’s green eyes.
“Brothers, Dean,” he finally manages, shaking his brother’s hand away from his face.
“Is that an issue?” Dean sounds like he’s genuinely asking, and Sam is reminded how quickly Dean is slipping away. He looks determinedly at Dean’s underarms.
“Did you always have this little body hair? Did you not go through puberty?”
His tone is snarky, but Dean doesn’t even seem to register it. “Definitely did. I can show you the proof if you want.” His voice has dropped an octave and it’s a quiet, suggestive whisper.
Sam definitely hasn’t realised that somehow they’ve ended up with Dean pressed against the grimy motel wall, Sam looming over him and Dean’s arms still pinned above his head. Time seems to have slowed, Dean’s heavy-lidded eyes, with his ridiculous, beautiful eyelashes blinking up at him in almost slow motion. Somewhere, very deep down, Sam tries to remember that Dean knows exactly what he's doing, exactly the effect he has on people, and is not afraid to use that knowledge to get exactly what he wants. But with Dean so close, smelling comfortingly of big brother and looking like he’d be up for anything, it's hard to focus on that.
“I bet you’ve got some real proof to show me as well,” Dean continues. “Guy your size. Bet you’re packing.” Dean licks his lips, and Sam can’t look away. It feels like he’s trapped, caught in treacle, his thoughts increasingly stuck on his beautiful brother.
“Dean,” he tries one last time, “we’re brothers.”
“Uh huh, so you keep saying. Don’t see the big deal.” Dean surges up, suddenly, pressing his lips and body against Sam’s. Their hips snug in against each other as if they were made to fit and Dean licks insistently across Sam’s lips. Sam’s heart is pounding in his chest, his vision almost swimming with the many, many emotions swirling through his mind. He opens his lips on reflex, and Dean hums happily.
“God, you’re so pretty,” Dean says, pulling back for a moment. “Would be such a waste if we didn’t do this.” He dives back in and Sam sinks for a moment into the abyss, only able to focus on how goddamn good it feels as Dean nips at his lower lip, soothing it seconds later. Whatever else Dean might have forgotten, he hasn’t lost any of his skills here. His hands tighten impulsively around Dean’s raised wrists and Dean groans.
“Yeah, pin me. Feels good.” His brother bucks against him. “God, so you’re so big. Just big all over.”
Dean’s dirty mouth is enough to snap some sense into Sam, and he realises to his shame that he’s hard in his pants. He tries to ignore the fact that Dean is, too, and they’ve been rocking lightly against each other, which has no doubt been a major contributor to how cloudy his mind feels. He uses his grip on Dean to put distance between them.
“Dean, no.”
To his credit, Dean clearly hasn’t forgotten about consent, and he stops immediately. He does pout though, and Sam has to look away from those beautiful, plump lips - something he finds unimaginably difficult now that he knows how they taste. He suddenly feels like every creepy guy he’s ever seen checking out his brother, objectifying him.
“Dean, we’re brothers. I know you don’t remember, but that does matter. And you’ll regret this once you feel better again.” Taking another step back is one of the hardest things Sam’s ever had to do.
Dean snorts. “I absolutely cannot imagine that. How often do I ever meet guys as hot as you?”
Sam feels like he’s thirteen again, with the amount he’s blushed since he started this.
“You don’t usually go for guys,” he can’t help saying.
Dean seems honestly confused by this. “I am 100% sure that’s not true.”
“I am 100% sure that it is,” Sam counters.
“Guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. Or we could test it out…” Dean’s smirk is fully back in place. He’s still up against the wall where Sam had pushed him, still shirtless and of course, still stunning. He licks his lips oh so slowly, eyes sliding down Sam’s body to where Sam is still hard in his pants.
Sam’s breath is still coming short, and he scrambles for a way to stop this while he still can. Dean is like a child, he thinks, frustrated because Dean has always been better with kids than he has. What would he do with a child who wanted to do something they shouldn’t?
His mind tumbles gracelessly about for a few moments, pinging between ‘child’ and ‘so, so hot’ and back to ‘child’ again, before somewhere from the depths of his brain he pulls up Jess’s five year old nephew. He hasn’t thought about the kid in years, had only met him once or twice (god, he must be nearly adult by now, no, don’t think about that) but he vividly remembers the kid wanting a toy gun. Jess hadn’t been willing to buy him one - and had distracted him with lego.
Distraction, he thinks, elated.
Unfortunately, while he’s been trying to think about tactics, Dean’s hand has moved to his fly, and Sam can now tell that Dean definitely doesn’t lack body hair - Sam can see golden-brown curls just under where Dean’s hand is pushed into his own pants.
Dragging his eyes away, he says, “Dean, have I told you about the time we fought zombies?”
Dean’s eyes snap from Sam’s crotch to his face. “Zombies?” he says, eyes bright.
“Yeah, Dean. We fought them a while back. If you put your shirt back on I’ll tell you all about it. And the time we fought this ghost that made you so scared you got chased by a tiny little dog.”
“Yeah right,” Dean says, offended. “That so didn’t happen.”
“Did so.”
“How?” Dean is, thankfully, doing up his fly now and he pulls one of Sam’s t-shirts over his head.
“Well…” Sam begins, relieved.
**
They get through the next couple of days without Dean propositioning him again, or trying to kiss him, or any of the thoughts that Sam just doesn’t really have time to process right now. There’s a slightly tense moment when Dean seems to think that Sam and Rowena are going to enact live Skinemax porn just for his entertainment (Rowena looks so amused that Sam almost strangles her, has to remind himself how badly he needs her help), but otherwise, they manage to get Dean’s memory back without any more compromising moments.
Dean is quite clear with Rowena that he doesn’t remember anything, and even through his own relief, the transformation of her face from barely-concealed worry to a lighthearted smile is enough to pique his interest. She even hands the spellbook over without a fuss, and it’s so out of character that Sam is suspicious. He files it away in his mind to ponder at a later date.
He doesn’t want to dwell on what they’ve experienced the last few days; in fact, he’d be happy to never think again about the panic and despair he’d barely kept at bay. But now that he’s not fixated on that, the other thoughts keep creeping back in - the ones about how his brother had tasted, how he’d felt pressed up against Sam, how sweetly he’d let Sam pin him against the wall. How sure Dean had been that he was into men. Sam just can’t stop thinking about it.
“Anything weird happen while I lost my memory, Sammy?” Dean asks that evening, as he’s undressing, shucking a few of his layers before going for a shower.
“Nope,” Sam says studiously, eyes on his laptop.
“Boring.” His voice slides into the kind of teasing, flirty tone usually reserved for waitresses or cheerleaders, and he winks at Sam. “Don’t forget Dory got her memory back though.”
It’s only after the bathroom door slams shut that Sam realises that Dean had never mentioned Dory before he lost his memories.
What’s so much worse though, is the way Dean is so uncomplicatedly happy. And hedonistic. Sam remembers the way Dean was before Hell, in the vague, blurry way that he remembers anything that changed so subtly day by day, no big revelation to make a fuss over.
The obvious change was always the fact that Dean’s hookup rate imploded - his brother was no longer able to take the uncomplicated pleasure in casual sex Sam had always envied.
But more quietly, so many of Dean’s little pleasures had become diminished - he’d lost his ability to watch cartoons for hours on end; and most of all, he’d lost most of his sensual pleasure in touch. Before Hell, Dean had loved fabrics, and textures, always running his fingers over clothes and bedding when he thought Sam wasn’t looking, always picking the softest things of their out of their kit bags. He’d loved little joys like the ‘magic fingers’ in cheesy motel rooms. He’d gotten a little of it back with the bunker, and his appreciation for his memory foam - but nothing like on the same scale as before.
But this Dean - oh this Dean wants to touch and stroke everything. He’s curious to the point of distraction, asking Sam questions, touching his shirt, un-making the bed to see all the layers, clinking his beer bottle against the lamps to see the different sounds they make. More than anything else, his pure joy in every new sensation is breaking Sam’s heart.
(cut from Distraction, because it didn’t fit - but I still like it)
