Looking glass world
by Mary
Rating: NC-17 for Sam/Dean shenanigans.
Summary: Sam goes where the hunt leads him.
Notes: Spoilers for 'Devil's Trap'. Leaving feedback earns you points on heaven's magical star-chart. This is slash between Sam and Dean, like the rating warns.



2009

It's the car, of all things, that gets down under Sam's skin and makes his step falter on the path.

Black and polished and self-satisfied, like a fat glossy cat there in the driveway. Too real to be a ghost; too impossible to be real.

There is a knife strapped between Sam's shoulder blades, under his jacket, and the buckle on his left shoulder bites a little into the scar tissue there, and he's glad of the pain. It's familiar.

Sam's brain, treacherous, conjures the string of words that go with that one. Familiar, familial, family.

A second step becomes a second stumble. The house is low-set and neat. There's no furniture on the porch.

The Demon (it's always, always capitalized in Sam's head) slipped away from him a hundred miles and a universe ago, down into a portal opened by the cultists Sam's been tracking for nearly three months.

And Sam jumped right in after it, because revenge isn't just about wanting a world without one's enemy. Revenge wants justice, the old kind that burns in the blood and has nothing to do with the law.

It's a long time since Sam was that boy who wanted to learn the intricacies of the law.

And so here he is, in a brave new world, a place he's never been.

None of his credit cards work here, and the stores of cash left in safety deposit boxes and storage lockers never existed in this version of the world. He's made do with what he can get from some quick and dirty hustles in seedy pool halls, but that's never been Sam's preferred method. His charm has never had the right tone to it, especially not since the accident and the scars that came after.

Sam looks at the car in the driveway again. The heavy gold of the afternoon light catches the curve of a headlight and the edge of a window, and Sam swallows hard.

He's killed a hundred scary monsters and banished scores of spirits. There's another four steps or so to the front door of the house. He doesn't know if he's strong enough to take them.

There's no choice. He needs supplies and he needs to research, and everyone he's talked to has pointed him in this direction.

It's so easy to lie to himself, to say that he wouldn't come if it wasn't necessary. Perhaps he's not so far from lawyer-Sam after all.

His knuckles shake as they strike the wood of the front door.

The footsteps inside are even and only someone who remembered them like breathing would notice that they're a little slower than once upon a time.

"Hang on," Dean says, and just like that Sam's not twenty-six and he's not the hardest sunvabitch in the business and he's not the stone-cold hunter who took down those banshees in Jersey last fall without batting an eye. He's just Sam, and he hasn't heard his brother's voice in (a lifetime) three years and he's going to lose it any second now.

Then the door's open, and Dean's mouth is hanging open and his eyes are wide.

He doesn't say anything.

Sam swallows down on the tears threatening and makes himself smile shakily. "Hi, Dean."

"Oh God." Dean's voice is a whisper. His hand is slow to rise to touch Sam, but then he reaches over the threshold quick as a striking predator and grabs Sam's shoulder. And it hurts, because that shoulder always hurts if it's knocked, but Sam has never cared about pain less than he does as his brother hugs him.

"Sam," Dean says against Sam's jacket, and Sam cries for the first time in three years.

---

Later, much later, sitting at the kitchen table with two empty bottles and two mostly-full beers between them, they trade stories.

"Dad wanted you to shoot him," Dean recounts quietly. He's staring at the rim of his drink as if nothing else exists around him, but his hand is grasping Sam's fingers across the scratched wood, hard enough to bruise. "You wouldn't. It grabbed the gun, and --" the breath is deep and measured. "And shot you in the heart, and then Dad wrestled control back for long enough to get the muzzle to his temple, and that was that. Last bullet spent. I thought I was gonna die there, too. I wasn't exactly clinging on with all my might. But I didn't. I just lay there. Then I got up."

Sam squeezes Dean's hand. There's nothing he can say, nothing he can offer. He's stared into that same darkness.

"In my... whatever it was. Universe. Reality. We all got out of that room alive. The Demon left Dad's body. It made a truck driver smash his rig into the car when we were in it. You died instantly. Dad... Dad woke up for a little while, before anyone found us. There was part of a message written on the dash. But he died before help got there. I woke up in the ER."

"Hell," Dean manages to say, taking another long gulp of beer. "I wish I had something stronger than this, man. I'm usually stocked up, but a bunch of the new wave of kids have been through in the past few weeks, and I haven't topped the supplies up yet."

Sam thinks of the hunters he knew back in his own reality. "Does Jemima have that sword here?"

Dean's weary face breaks into a sudden grin. "You mean the katana? The one she coos at after a kill?"

"Yeah, that one." Sam's smile is weak, he knows, but at least it's honest. "Funny how some stuff stays the same, huh?"

"And some stuff's so different," Dean finishes the thought. "The car? Seriously? That son of a bitch killed my car?"

"If it's any consolation, dude, I've been trying to get vengeance ever since." Sam can't smile with those words, and the only way to soften all the things that go with them is to squeeze Dean's hand again.

"God, I can't even imagine what it'd be like picking up the pieces from that night with that thing still out there," admits Dean. "It was hard enough when it was just working out what to do next."

Sam looks around the large, welcoming kitchen. "You seem to be doing pretty well." Better than Sam, if the criteria for assessment is a place to live and a life to lead that's not just tracking and killing. But then, Dean's Demon has been dead for years.

Dean makes a noncommittal noise. "It's okay, I guess. Money gets tight if too long goes by with nobody asking for research, but that hardly ever happens. Everybody knows I'll get them the info they need faster than if they hunted it themselves. Thank the good sweet lord for Google-illiterate exorcists."

"How's the leg?"

"Okay, mostly," Dean says after a couple of seconds' thought. "Hurts like a bitch if the weather's cold or wet. I got it on the first hunt after you and Dad died. Stupid ghost knocks me out of the top story of this old plantation house. I figured it was the universe's subtle hint that my life was in a new chapter now."

Sam notices that he's still holding onto Dean's hand, and that Dean's hand is still holding his. It makes him realize how long it's been since he's been touched beyond wound-tending or incidental brushes. Dean's grasp feels as hungry as Sam's, but there's no way that it can be, really. Dean has always been a tactile creature. He attracts companions as with as much ease and constancy as he brings to his handing out of smiles.

Dean's smile is very different to what it used to be.

"I never burned your bones," Sam blurts out guiltily. "I know I should've, Dean, but I couldn't. I couldn't stand the idea that you wouldn't be able to come back if you wanted to. I'm sorry."

Dean just squeezes Sam's hand. "It doesn't matter now, Sam."

"It does. I'm sorry. It was just so hard, with you both gone, and I never wanted this, you know I never wanted this but you left me with nothing else, and I..." Sam can hear the hitch in his breath but it feels distant, like it's someone else having this freak out. The cold hunter Sam is still hanging back. Same as always. "I shoulda shot that sunvabitch when Dad ordered me to, and oh God I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Dean."

"Sam," Dean says in a voice that's enough like their father's was that Sam responds without thinking. "I won't pretend there haven't been days when I didn't wish you'd fired that gun. At least then I'd've had you, you know? But we had our limit, and that's okay. That makes us human."

Sam swallows, and nods, and feels like he's about fifteen years old again, getting comforted from his big brother for something that happened at school. It's always surprised Sam how Dean makes the years fall away so easily.

"I'm gonna need guns," he says. "I know how to cook up a solution that sanctifies them strongly enough to hurt it, now. Other supplies, too. I'm tapped out."

Dean nods, all business now. He releases Sam's hand and stands stiffly, keeping his left leg from bending as he straightens. Sam's palm feels like a layer of skin has been stripped away at the loss of contact. He ignores it. He's good at that.

"I'll show you the store rooms. There should be everything you need in them. I'm more diligent with keeping them stocked than I am with the booze."

Considering the circumstances, it's not the most normal thing in the world to smile, but Sam gave up on normal forever three years ago. "Between the two of us, it doesn't stand a chance."

Dean's own smile is nowhere near as grim as Sam's, though it's just as fierce. "It never did, Sammy."

---

Some of the weapons are one Sam recognises, from the old supply that lived in the car's trunk, or from Dad's own stash. Some are vaguely familiar, and he figures those are ones he's read about in books or has seen in the hands of an ally.

He takes a shotgun down off the wall nearest to him, weighing it in the curve of his palm.

Dean nods approvingly. "That's a good one. Charlie and Budd keep trying to buy it off me, instead of just hiring it all the time. Here, there's a trick to the safety, lemme show you."

Plucking it out of Sam's hands, Dean concentrates on what he's doing. His face tightens in frustration and Sam's breath catches like he's been punched.

This is real.

This is Dean, making a face that Sam can only half-remember. This is Dean, familiar and unfamiliar, with the same old eyes and a new rhythm of walking.

"Dean," Sam says, voice ragged, and Dean looks up in surprise. He'd been caught up in his Gun Zen, then. Sam remembers that; the happy fugue state Dean goes into when he's got weapons to play with.

Sam's got enough presence of mind left to take the gun from Dean and put it back on its pegs. Then, hands shivering like he's freezing, Sam cups Dean's face with his hands and kisses him.

Dean grabs Sam, fingers digging into Sam's upper arms with iron hardness, and kisses back like their mouths can fuse together. There's a sharp-edged broken tooth in Dean's mouth, too far back to notice in a smile, and the unexpected edge drags surprise across Sam's heat-fogged thoughts.

The taste is just like Dean. Like every home and every love Sam has ever grabbed for and had taken away from him, and if Dean ever thought that he knew more about being left behind than Sam did then the scales are well and truly balanced now.

Dean's hand brushes over Sam's hair, like his fingers expect to be able to tangle in it like once upon a time, and Sam realizes how much more changed he is than Dean. Dean moves a little differently, looks a little older and tireder, but his voice is the same and his taste is the same and it's all like something Sam remembers with his bones rather than his head.

Sam's hair is shorter, now. He doesn't think about at all, but it must have been shocking for Dean. His face is scarred and his thin tallness has matured into something rangy and honed. The person Sam used to be died with his family.

But his family is here, real and breathing and moving in his arms, and so who does that make Sam?

"Bed," Dean says, and Sam can hear a whole world in that word, a world where Dean is still trying to get used to a body that won't let him just drop to his knees and administer blowjobs whenever the impulse takes him.

"Uh-huh," Sam agrees, nodding, but then he works out that no, finding a bed would have to involve not kissing Dean anymore, and Sam disapproves of this plan on a fundamental level. His thumb strokes at the thin, vulnerable skin just below and behind Dean's earlobe, and Dean's lashes flicker like whispers against the skin of Sam's cheek.

"Come on," Dean insists, but doesn't move to lead them. Sam forces himself to take a step back, just enough that Dean can turn and head for the door. Dean's skin is flushed and glowing, and Sam's heart feels like it's being squeezed in a vice.

Dean's bedroom is, thank God, just next door to the supply room. It's sparse (soldier's quarters), just like all their rooms were growing up.

Dean pulls his shirt off and tosses it aside, then starts on Sam's clothes. Jacket, knife harness, t-shirt, undershirt. Sam lets him do it, too busy drinking in the sight of Dean to help. Scars that were never anything but open wounds in the world Sam knew, and other scars that never were at all.

When Sam's clothes are gone above his waist, Dean blinks in surprise and skates his fingertips over the amulet hanging around Sam's neck. The twin of it lies against Dean's breastbone, above the claw marks left from That Night.

"I always wear it," Sam admits, and it doesn't make any sense for his eyes to tear up and for him to miss Dean all over again, because Dean's right here. "There wasn't much else to salvage from the wreck."

"Sam," Dean says, like to say anything else would be not enough and too much.

They take off their own shoes and pants, because to try and help each other would just slow things down. Then they're on the bed, skin to skin, and Sam's had sex with people in the last three years but he hasn't had a lover since the moment the doctor couldn't meet his eyes when Sam asked about his family.

Dean's body is ever so slightly softer than Sam remembers it. Still toned and strong and deadly, but a little unwound. A little slower. Sam, in return, knows his own body is far harder than the one Dean remembers, as if he's a blade tempered by fire.

"Tell me if your leg's uncomfortable," Sam instructs. Dean just gives him a Look, the one that says 'you are in serious danger of finding string cheese in your shoes if you don't shut up', so Sam shuts up and lets Dean press him down so his bare back rubs against the soft, crumpled sheets of Dean's bed.

Sam feels like his body has been trapped in a dark room, and every brush and push of Dean's skin against his is a light, bringing parts of Sam back into visibility and reality. He can feel the slip of a tear from the edge of his eye down to his temple, but he doesn't care. There's no weakness in this reveal, and Sam can let go for the first time in too long because Dean is here, and Dean has always kept him safe.

Dean's mouth is murmuring things into the crook of Sam's neck; breathless, secret things that Sam doesn't need to hear in order to know them. There is flesh on flesh and heat on heat and slick on slick but the only thing Sam is really conscious of is the greedy, wanting part of him that needs Dean closer, always closer, inside where he can't leave Sam again.

"Dean, please, I need you," he begs, too wild and lost to clarify, hoping it'll be enough.

It is. Dean slows them down, obviously restraining himself from pushing against Sam with the urgency he feels. He reaches over to the bedside stand, arm trembling, and pulls out lube and a condom.

"Always prepared," Sam teases.

Dean grins. "Just like a boy scout, that's me." His concentration-face slips back on, only this time it's Sex Zen rather than Gun Zen, and Sam is almost certain he has never loved Dean more than he does at this moment.

Dean repositions them, resting one of Sam's legs up against his shoulder. Sam lies back, forcing himself to breathe slowly and to calm down, but the first press of Dean's finger inside him is too much.

"God, Dean, I don't care, I don't care, let it fucking hurt, I want it to hurt, just, you, now, please..." Sam babbles.

"Shh, Sam, it's okay. I got you," Dean soothes. "Just another minute."

Another finger. Sam makes a noise that could be politely described as keening and feels his hips roll of their own accord. His vision is sparking with spots of white and black.

Dean is staring at Sam's face, like he's afraid that if he looks away Sam's going to disappear.

"I'm here," Sam promises in a whisper, and Dean's eyes flare with dark hunger. "Dean, now."

Dean nods, moving his hand away and positioning himself at Sam's entrance. The first push is almost too much for either of them, leaving them both stilled and shut-eyed as they struggle to retain some tiny grip on their control.

Sam's eyes open first, and he can hear the sobs on his breaths as he pants.

Then Dean's eyes are open too, locked on Sam's. His lower lip is white where his teeth bite down on it. There's a hand on Sam's dick but Sam doesn't even care, because the whole world is Dean, Dean, Dean. He wants it to last forever but he can tell it's not going to last very long at all.

"I'm gonna -"

"It's okay," Dean says again, the words carried on gasps in tandem with the thrusts of his hips against Sam. "It's okay."

The words shoot straight down Sam's spine, ignoring his brain entirely, and he's coming with a hoarse cry and a scrabbled clutch at Dean's shoulders. Time seems to freeze and stretch and then slam down on Sam, knocking everything out of him and leaving him sticky and emptied.

Dean says "fuck" like it means more than they can comprehend, and crushes their mouths together with messy, hungry abandon. Sam clenches around him and strokes at his face, at the wetness in the shadows under Dean's eyes, and the joy in him feels so total that letting some out of it in a smile is like pricking a tiny hole in a dam of water.

Dean's face is so vulnerable as he comes that Sam feels like he should look away and knows he can't. He wants this, he wants all of Dean, he wants to take everything and give everything and never have to remember what it was to be alone.

The comedown feels longer than the sex, feels like air after drowning. Dean eases out and throws the condom into the wastebasket, and they curl together with Sam against Dean's back, hands drawn forward and knotted together over the scars over Dean's heart.

"Sam?" Dean asks quietly, the words sending a vibration through the skin against Sam's cheek.

"Yeah?"

"Are you still gonna be real in the morning?"

Sam hugs him in closer, and lets another smile dance on his lips. "Yeah. But you're cooking breakfast."

"'s my house. Guests are s'posed to be all grateful and stuff."

"Hosts are supposed to... host," Sam manages, mind already drifting into comforting black. If Dean answers, he doesn't hear.