Archive of Our Own

The place Sam dreams of doesn't look like Hell. It's nothing like the woodcuts he's seen in Bobby's old books, or on torn-out leaves stuffed between the pages of his father's journal. There aren't any cauldrons bubbling away; no endless parade of macabre figures, bony fingers interlaced as they circle the flames. The place Sam dreams of has no fire in it, and doesn't look as if it ever could have harboured one.

In his dreams, everything is cold. Everything: the ground mirroring out like the surface of a frozen lake, fathoms deep and frozen to the core; the intermittent walls -- sometimes, they become bars -- like stalagmites of ice straining upward. Sam has never seen what it is they are reaching for, ceiling or sky or the dome of a cage, but he is sure that it, too, is cold.

He has determined that speech is impossible in this place. What he doesn't know is the reason for it. His dreams tend towards silence, but sounds can be heard here, and he has heard them, from time to time; faint, sharp stirrings in the stillness. When Sam breathes, he hears the soft huff of it outside of himself as well as from within his own head, even as he watches his breath break whitely from his lips. That phenomenon, too, he is tempted to count as a mystery, that any part of himself should be warm enough to make its mark on the air. His lips are numb, always, beyond the point of tingling; his fingernails are blue. It shouldn't be possible to be as cold as Sam is and survive, but then, perhaps this is not survival. When he is here, he doesn't know he's dreaming, but he does know that he isn't living. Not entirely. Not quite.

Sam can walk for hours through the whiteness, search out every secret place and watch the tundra roll onward before him, and never meet another person, but he knows, somehow, that he is not alone. Sometimes, when he wakes, he can still feel the frostbite burn of Lucifer's hand in his, a numbness spreading outward from the centre of his palm. He shivers, shoves his hands between his thighs, flattens them against the hot pulse of the femoral artery, but it doesn't do any good. In the small hours, it is as if Lucifer is still smouldering inside him like a great freeze.

He never dreamed like this before.

Obviously, he doesn't tell Dean about the dreams. Sam justifies this to himself with the fact that Dean's never been big on that kind of caring and sharing crap, never been one to wonder why he keeps dreaming of a giant floating banana, or whatever, and if it means anything. Sure, Dean was plenty interested back when Sam was still wired up to Azazel TV, but that was different. Those were premonitions, signs for which Sam was an unwilling conduit, and these -- these aren't visions; Sam doesn't even think they qualify as nightmares. These are just unsettling, and Dean wouldn't want to hear about them any more than he'd have wanted to hear about the time Sam dreamed of fucking his sexagenarian Math teacher up against her own chalkboard. This is nothing but his brain defragmenting itself in his sleep, working through all the stresses and strains of the past couple of years and rearranging them into some kind of order, and it doesn't mean anything. This is what Sam tells himself, anyway.

Naturally, the truth of the matter is more complicated than that. It always is, with them. The truth is -- well. For one thing, Sam isn't exactly desperate to talk about it. There are only so many words in English for cold, after all, and Sam isn't sure that any of them could accurately convey just how discomfiting it is to walk through that, night after night, wading through a cold so intense that it almost has form. He isn't sure, either, that he wants to think too hard about the way the chill of it eats into his bones and lingers there. Most of him is sure that it's mostly memory, something repressed snaking out from behind the broken wall, but the last, fragile part of him doesn't want to chance Dean thinking otherwise. He doesn't know if he could take it, if Dean thought it was more than that -- if Dean thought that the ache in the palms of Sam's hands stemmed from anything other than his own bruised psyche. The spectre of Lucifer is disconcerting enough; Sam has no desire to test how his weakened mind will hold up against the potential reality of him.

That's the selfish reasoning. The rest of it is more altruistic, maybe, but no less compelling. If there's one thing Sam is sure of, it's that his brother is not having his greatest month ever. Not, of course, that Dean's really managed to have even one semi-decent month at any point in the past five years -- which, frankly, is an entirely separate issue that Sam feels should really be worked on -- but this past one began with Castiel's betrayal and the destruction of Sam's wall, both falling together in one easy, horrible blow, and things haven't exactly improved since Castiel's self-deification. The last thing Dean needs, at this point in time, is to have to worry about Sam, too, especially given how relieved he was to discover that he wasn't going to have to spend the rest of his life holding the hand of a coma patient.

Sam has seen his brother in plenty of difficult situations, but rarely has he seen such a furious conflict of emotions in his eyes as in the moment when Sam plunged the angel sword into Castiel's back. There was fear there, certainly, stiff and clear under everything; hurt, too, at what Castiel had done; but above it all, holding Dean together, was the overriding note of relief at seeing Sam standing there, at seeing Sam doing anything when Dean had so obviously been unsure of ever seeing his brother open his eyes again. That was what kept Dean together on that evening, Sam knew; and it has been holding him together ever since, through all the subsequent weeks of charting and mapping and cataloguing signs, hunting out the likeliest place for a renegade angel-turned-deity to have gone to ground. Dean is still able to get out of bed in the morning -- brush his teeth; eat breakfast; hit the library; run through the routine salt-and-burns en route to the elusive final goal -- because he still has Sam, and he doesn't have to worry about him. In this, at least, if in nothing else, things have turned out better than Dean expected, and that's so damn rare, so pathetically unusual, that Sam would die before he'd take it away when Dean needs it most.

Dean needs Sam right now, to be normal and dependable and strong, to be there the way Castiel was so abruptly not. What he doesn't need is for Sam to turn around and tell him he's been dreaming of Lucifer, waking in the night feeling chilled to the bone, his mind thick with the unacceptable urge to heave himself out of his own bed and into his brother's just for the sake of the shared body heat. Dean doesn't need to hear that right now, and there's nothing Dean could do about it, anyhow. They're only dreams. They don't mean anything. Sam's wall is gone, fallen, and things aren't about to get any worse than they've gotten. If this is rock bottom, Sam thinks, it's a hell of a lot better than some of the potential scenarios he'd dared to contemplate from time to time, in his dark nights of the soul after he'd first gotten the damn thing back. Things can only improve from here, and in the meantime, he doesn't intend to put any more weight upon Dean than is necessary.

The dreams don't mean anything, Sam is almost entirely certain, except that there are too many Sams in his head; too many half-assimilated parts of himself, carrying too many memories. The pieces have been slotted back together, the jagged edges realigned and soldered into place. It only remains for time to blur the sharp edges, sandpaper them down. For the time being, there's nothing Sam can do but wait and work, keep his head up and watch his brother's back.

At night, it's cold in his bed, Lucifer-cold, but Sam has two arms -- gargantuan ones, Dean would point out. They're plenty long enough for Sam to wrap around himself, anyway, and that helps a little bit. The way things have been lately, Sam isn't about to look a little bit of anything in the eye and say it's worthless. A little bit is all he can have, and he'll take it, cling to it and wait. This, too, shall pass. It's hardly the worst they've suffered.

Life goes on. The dreams of the cold place don't diminish, not really, but Sam becomes more used to them, maybe, inasmuch as it is possible to do so. Dean is distracted, fired up for work in a way that is artificial and overbright, glowing like the bars of an electric fire. Sam knows it's only the threat of Lucifer in him that wants to curl up in that frantic heat, craving it even with its jagged edges, sharp corners that Dean doesn't usually exhibit. Dean's always run hot, always sweated early in summer, stripped off his overshirt before Sam did when they were digging or working outdoors. This isn't that, not quite, and Sam's body should recognise that, understand it for the bad sign it is, but still, it's close enough; it's something, and Sam is so cold. Dean isn't himself, but everything in him that isn't stuck on the ultimate goal of saving the world from the rise of an evil angelic dictatorship is geared towards Sam, and Sam is only human.

More than once, Dean's thrown out a casual arm along the back of the front seat while driving, and Sam's caught himself in the act of leaning towards it, tipping his head back against the curl of Dean's fingers. Sometimes, in restaurants, Dean's wound up on the same side of the booth as Sam, and his closeness was palpable, so near and yet not enough, the warmth of him just out of reach all down Sam's side. It isn't new, this craving for Dean. When Sam was a kid, he always wanted it -- wanted Dean's hand in his when they crossed the street, as much for the comfort factor as anything, and he never minded sharing a bed with him when Dad's money was running low and a room with two beds was always so much cheaper. He preferred it, even, long past the point at which he might have been expected to start getting restless about it. There was something reassuring about climbing into a bed that had Dean in it, especially after Sam discovered that there might well be monsters hiding in the dark space beneath his mattress. He was eight before he knew for sure that there were things in the dark, but he knew much earlier that, whatever was out there, Dean wouldn't let them get him. Dean was always a softly smouldering ember, a perpetual defence against the darkness, and Sam is no stranger to the desire to be close to him, to shore himself up with Dean's surety.

But that was then. That was when they were kids, when Dean was bigger than Sam as well as older; when Dean was the one with the smart mouth and the shotgun and the uncanny understanding of everything. It never went away entirely -- Dean was always, will always be, big brother -- but the impulse towards him has been far lesser lately, diminishing along with their tendency to touch each other, to express their dependence physically. This renewed whatever-it-is is as unsettling as it is deeply familiar, and Sam isn't sure what to do with it, except stop himself from giving in. Dean would know, then, that something was up. There's no way in hell or out of it that Dean wouldn't start getting worried and suspicious if Sam started grasping at his hands out of the blue, tipping his head back onto Dean's outstretched arm the way he wants to. No: Sam knows well enough that the impulse has to be resisted for as long as it decides to endure. He only wishes he knew how long that was likely to be, and that it would fuck the hell off already.

On the Cas front, they're no further forward. Some days, Dean pretends that they are, draws up lists of possible sightings, of strange natural disturbances he's turned up in local papers, but they both of them know that this is only a show for the sake of Dean's sanity, so they can feel like they've managed something at least a little productive in all this time. Bobby, not driven by the same urgency as Dean, has effectively given up. Last time they called him, Bobby said, without mincing his words, that he pretty much thought they'd exhausted all avenues other than 'wait and see', and privately, Sam is with him. Dean, though -- out of some misplaced sense of duty, doubtless; some deep-rooted guilty belief that he's somehow responsible for this, that it's his job to save the world from it, that he could have actually changed the mind of an angel of the Lord if he'd only tried a little harder -- Dean can't bring himself to drop it, and Sam understands that, understands it's too early to ask him to try. So, they go on searching, the Impala kicking up dust as they criss-cross the country, a different, creaky motel bed every other night, and Dean is nervous and Sam is cold, but neither of them seems to know what else to do, and so this is how it goes. Sam brings Dean apple pie to eat under library tables, tries not to complain, and Dean smiles at him sidelong, leaves his unoccupied hand loose on the table near to Sam's, so Sam can't take his eyes off it, keeps wondering how it would feel against his own cold palms, whether its heat would smoke out the chill.

He never makes any attempt to find out, of course, but the thought is there. After a certain point, it starts to feel like the thought always is.

Sometimes, Sam dreams of Him. It's always the same, always his own face with that unaccustomed smirk tugging nastily at the lips, and always worse because it is so clearly Sam and not some shade of Satan. He dreams of hands at his throat, long-fingered, long familiar, and his stomach dips in response to their pressure at his windpipe, a spike of fear shot through with a crawling want that leaves him nauseous when he wakes.

"Sam," says the other man, the interloper, the villain with his face, "I'm in you, you know that, don't you? You let me in. You let me get all up inside you and you're never getting me out."

These dreams are not like the dreams of Lucifer's cage of ice, not exact repetitions of each other. Sometimes, the man is naked when Sam finds him, sprawled on the ground as if dead, and Sam approaches, every time, despite his better judgement, as if he could surprise him, although the screaming voice at the back of his mind is certain that he cannot. Sam's eyes rove over the spreadeagled length of him, oddly objective, distanced from the reality of things, and when he wakes, he assumes the detachment is a mechanism his brain has constructed as a defence against the fact that they're one and the same. In the dream, though, it doesn't feel like a mechanism. In the dream, it feels like lust, low and dirty in his stomach, and Sam's approach feels like an attack, his pulse thundering under his jaw, sick and shivery with guilt. And then, at the last second, the other man will move -- will leap up, snatch at Sam's arms, pull him down -- and their positions will be reversed, the guilt in Sam's throat shocked instantly into trepidation.

"Let me in, Sam," the man says, rough and hot against the soft skin of Sam's throat, the space beneath his ear. "Sam." He bites, little nipping snatches of his teeth along the line of Sam's jaw; sucks hard bruises into Sam's neck, vicious enough that Sam's always surprised not to find them there in the morning, runs fingers reflexively over the places where they should be.

"Sam," the man hisses, kicking Sam's legs open with his own, "I'm gonna have you, you know that, right? You can run, but -- " and he hitches their hips together, slots himself flush between Sam's thighs -- "You can't hide. You're gonna take me."

This used to be where Sam jolted awake, sweat sticking his t-shirt to his skin, breath coming quickly for reasons he didn't want to analyse. Recently, though, his body has been too slow to save him from the worst of it, to thrust him into full consciousness before the man is done. Now, more often than not, this is only the beginning.

"Sam," the man says, and Sam is never naked when the dream begins, but it is as if he's stripped by the man's eyes, his body gone bare and vulnerable beneath his hands. "Makin' such a show of it, aren't you? But we both know you're gonna give it up for me, don't we, baby? Spreadin' it for freaking Lucifer --" He's quick, hands palming Sam's thighs wide, and then his fingers crook up inside Sam like a burn, the breaching ache of them spreading him open. "Christ, you'd spread for your goddamn brother, wouldn't you? Spread for him so fucking easy, I figure you can do it for me, too, huh? We're meant to be together, Sammy-boy, you can't fight it. You can't --"

And then he's sliding home, fat thrust of his cock jolting Sam, shaking, into wakefulness, and sometimes there's come on his stomach and sometimes there isn't, but the dirty twist in his chest is always the same, the uncomfortable ache of a remembered shame.

"You and me, Sam," the man says, "we're one and the same, dude. I know you." He touches all the places in Sam that never fail to make him squirm; gets his hands inside him just right, makes it good even while Sam's chest grows tight from the wrongness of it all. "Sam. I know you. I know who you are. I know what you want."

Sam only wishes it wasn't true.

Dean's eyes are green and gold, warm in every light. When Sam was a kid, there was nothing better than feeling them turned on him in approval; nothing that could match the sensation of being the only important person in the world, the one lucky enough to have commanded Dean's full attention. For a brief time -- maybe a year or two -- Sam wanted to fuck him so fervently that he couldn't even deny it to himself, the desire crawling up out of his subconscious in the night like an sea monster. It was only a teenage confusion of feelings, a conflation of his love for Dean with his own embryonic sexuality, Sam knew that. The books he checked surreptitiously out of city libraries were eager to assure him of the fact, at least, and Sam put a lot of faith in books then. Dean had been there through every stage of Sam's development, had been brother and parent and friend, and it made sense that some part of Sam felt that he should continue to be everything now, when the list of his needs included lover as well. They'd seen more of each other than siblings should, God knows. Sam knew the line of Dean's back, naked and damp from the shower; knew the sounds his breath made, hitching, when he jerked himself off under the covers in the early mornings. He knew the familiar, grounding smell of his sweat, the warmth of his body curled around Sam's while they slept. He and Dean had always been more intimate than lovers in every way but the obvious, and it made sense. The books said Sam would grow out of it when his world expanded, and so Sam pushed it aside, tried not to worry too much over it. Dean would never find out, after all, and sooner or later, Sam was going to go to college, and that would blow his world too wide to leave Dean as his body's first choice for this. It would be all right.

For a while, it was. Heaven was high and earth wide, and Sam's body learned to want other people's, to crave the smooth curves he didn't have himself instead of the reassuring sameness of Dean's narrow hips and broad shoulders, his Winchester blood. Eventually, for an idyllic span of months, his heart succeeded, too, in opening for someone else, for Jess's warm eyes and soft mouth, her cleverness and laughter. And then hell rose up, and heaven descended, and Sam was trapped in the middle again with Dean, in a space that was shrinking all the time. The monster had crawled back slowly, spreading its tendrils under Sam's skin, feeding on Dean's every concerned look, every sidelong smile, their every shoulder-to-shoulder stride into the fray together. But there had been a last stretch of space between them, all the same; they had rarely touched, never slept together the way they had as teenagers unless there was no other option, and there had always been someone, a final barrier. The memory of Jess; Dad; Bobby; Ruby. Castiel. Sam had kept the monster down without too great an effort, smothered it beneath the weight of everything else they had to worry about. But Castiel had been the last bastion, and he's gone, now, and the world is telescoping down to nothing. After everything, there is only Dean left, and Sam is so cold, wants so badly to touch him.

If it hadn't been for the sea monster, he might have let himself. As it is -- because Sam can't help but remember -- it's impossible. It's a risk too great to chance, and he doesn't need some soulless bastard with his own face to tell him that. Sam's approached this life from all sides, now, and if there's one thing he's sure of, it's that he'd rather stand in the cold with Dean than touch him and be burned. He can't be alone again, and Dean doesn't need that either, not now. Sam's a big boy; he'll cope, and it will get better. Dean never has to know.

One morning, Sam stumbles out of the cage with ice in his hair. He jolts awake, sits up abruptly in bed and rakes his hands through it, panting, hoping to shake the feeling, but his fingers are numb where Lucifer held them and the ice is too tenacious to dissipate. Its chill clings to his skull, his scalp, an aching, everywhere cold. Outside, the world is still pale with pre-dawn light. It looks like Sam's dream, deserted and grey, and Sam has to get out.

In the stark, fluorescent light of the bathroom, things are no better. Sam studies his own face, bloodless, in the mirror, and he can't see the icicles, but he is half asleep still and he doesn't need to see them to know, like this, that they are there. The cold burn has started to spread, creeping down his neck, out across his shoulders, and Sam barely hesitates before stripping off his shirt, scrubbing it uselessly over the abraded skin.

"Come on," he mutters, lips trembling as he chafes the cloth at his arms, "come on, come on," but it's no use. If anything, it seems to be spreading it further, catching up the cold and smearing it outward, down Sam's chest, down past his elbows. He balls up the shirt after a moment, tosses it away into the corner of the room and fumbles for the shower -- piece of shit contraption installed in the eighties, by the look of it, but it heats, and that's all Sam needs, the water pounding down until it's giving off steam. He's still in his boxers when he gets into the tub, but he can't bring himself to shuck them, doesn't want to touch himself and spread the chill further than he has to. He's shivering, arms wrapped around himself as he backs into the spray, but the water is, God, it's scalding hot, his skin flushing on contact, and Sam feels relief bleed into his bones like fever or love.

"God," he murmurs, "shit." It's too hot, really, he can tell by the way his skin is pinkening, but it feels so fucking good, a scalding, cleansing pain. He tips his head back, lets it seep into his skin, getting under it and into his blood, filling him up with a heat Lucifer's chill has nothing against. Full under the spray like this, it's like standing in a sauna, the constant wash of hot water shielding him on all sides like a forcefield. Sam feels, through the gut-deep tug of relief, that he could stand here forever and be safe.

It's unfortunate that the plumbing has other ideas. One of the greatest improvements Sam's seen in their living conditions in recent years has been the fact that, more often than not, newer motels provide endless hot water that nobody has to pay extra for, but this is not a newer motel, and its hot water tank, apparently, is not limitless. Sam's pretty well thawed by the time the water turns lukewarm, but it's a wrench, all the same, to force himself out from under it before it becomes actively cold. The bathroom is full of steam, the mirror blanked out under the layer of condensation, but it's chilly on his skin all the same, and Sam wastes no time in kicking off his drenched shorts, hauling a towel off the rail and wrapping it around himself.

If he were in a more stable state of mind, Sam would have recognised the cold drip of water down the back of his neck for what it was: an inevitable successor to every shower he takes, the natural tendency of water towards room temperature and downward progression. Right now, though, Sam isn't feeling especially stable. For now, he is still warm enough, the blush of heat only just beginning to fade, but the prospect of surrendering again to cold just because he's out of water is maddening, unthinkable. He grabs at the towel, scrubs at his wet hair with it, but there's so much goddamn hair and so much goddamn water in it, thinning to ice at the ends, and Sam can't let it freeze just because he's too slow.

Their odds-and-ends bathroom bag (Dean refuses to let it be referred to as their toiletry bag, on pain of death) is on the counter, half-unzipped, and Sam's eyes fall immediately on the nail scissors, glinting pale in the opening. He doesn't pause to think before he's snatching them up, tossing the towel aside so both hands are free, at least. The mirror is still steamed up, clouded but for slivers of silver at the edges, but there's another in the main room, and Sam can start without, anyway.

Sam doesn't like to leave a mess for housekeeping, knows things are shitty enough for those people anyway, but he can't spare the time to think about that right now, not with the threat of cold hovering over him once again. His hair is plastered wetly to the nape of his neck, arrowing down almost to his shoulderblades under the weight of the water, and Sam hacks off the first handful of it as he steps out onto the dirty brown carpet of the main room, lets it flutter to the floor behind him. He's breathing hard, erratic and unhappy, but when his own reflection looms before him in the mirror, it's still more obvious just how much goddamn hair there is to get rid of, how many little rivulets of water poised to freeze over. He can worry about his state of mind later. For now, it's all he can do to make some brief gauge of relative lengths and evenness before he's hacking at his hair with the scissors, cursing under his breath when they choke and snag on the weight of it.

"Dammit," he mutters, frowning at his reflection when the scissors stumble on a tangle of hair. "Shit, come on -- come on -- "

"Sam?"

Sam pauses in the act of attempting to somehow cut the scissors free, one hand in his hair and his eyes, in the mirror, on Dean, pulling himself up sleepily onto his elbows. It isn't that he'd forgotten Dean was there, exactly -- he'd remarked the shape of him under the blankets when he'd made for the bathroom; had listened, as always, for the steady sound of his breathing when he woke. But, under the frenzy of ice, Sam had few thoughts to spare for him, caught up in the urge to leave the dream behind. Now, naked in front of the mirror and dripping onto the carpet, Sam can't help but let Dean's voice anchor him, drag him back to what is real: his dream only a dream, the cold long beaten away, and his hair only overlong and wet from his shower. Sam takes a deep breath, pulls his shoulders in shakily, and closes his eyes.

"Sam." There are sounds of shuffling behind him as Dean sits up, swings his legs out of bed. "The fuck are you doing?"

His voice is curt, but there's concern in it, too, as Dean stands, pads across the carpet towards him. Sam doesn't need to open his eyes to know that Dean is approaching, his body a palpable source of warmth when it stops a foot or so from Sam's back. Dean has been concerned for weeks now, here and there, about Sam as much as anything, but Sam had been so intent on keeping the extent of it from him that he'd half-hoped Dean had forgotten his anxiety, put it aside. Now, though, when Dean's hands settle gentle on his shoulders, Sam can tell he was expecting, if not this, exactly, then something like it; some kind of eventual breaking point. Dean doesn't tease, doesn't ask Sam why the hell he's stalking around without his clothes on; doesn't do anything to suggest that he takes this lightly. When he reaches up to disentangle the scissors from Sam's fingers, it's slow, careful, and if he doesn't know what Sam was thinking, then at least, Sam thinks, he must know a little of where it came from, this early morning fear and loathing.

"Hey," Dean says, softly, like he's talking to a kid, "you wanted your hair cut, Sam, you only had to ask, you know?"

They did this all the time when they were kids, before Sam discovered the existence of barbers who could touch his nape, comb their fingers through his hair, and not leave him warm and breathless, feeling like his skin was too tight. Dean would sit him down on the edge of the bath, feet flat on the floor of the tub, and snip at his hair with endearing deliberation, brushing the loose ends off the nape of Sam's neck with his palms and sending shivers darting down Sam's spine. After Stanford, it got a little harder to find the time to stop anywhere long enough to get a haircut, but Sam knew all too well the pitfalls of letting Dean touch him like that, so intimately that Sam could feel Dean's breath on his skin, his fingers in his hair. Easier to let his hair get long and shaggy between cuts than subject himself to that, an open door, as it was, for the sea monster to curl up out of.

Now, though, it's too late to protest, and Sam doesn't have the energy for it any more. Dean's hand is warm on the bare skin of Sam's shoulder, his calloused palm and strong fingers firm and familiar, and it feels too good for Sam to find the strength to back away. When Dean tugs, a gentle pressure, Sam moves with it, turning to face his brother. Dean looks warm, no other word for it, his face still soft with sleep, the lines of his body blurred under his rumpled t-shirt and sweats, and Sam wants to step forward and bury himself in it, take refuge in the smooth, sleepy heat of Dean's skin. He swallows shortly, fingers twitching with the urge to touch.

"I didn't --" he tries, feeling the need to at least try to explain, but the words stick in his throat, stumbling. He takes a breath. "I know this looks crazy, but there's nothing, nothing wrong with me, nothing you need to worry about. Just --"

"Nightmares," Dean breaks in, low, and his mouth quirks up at one corner in a smile, uncharacteristically sweet. The hand on Sam's shoulder slides upward, flat and firm, the sort of reassuring pet one might give to an animal, and Sam can understand why, now. It's perfect, steady and comforting, anchoring Sam in what is real. "It's hell, right?"

Sam laughs shortly, not because he's in any way amused, but because he doesn't know quite how else to respond. "Lucifer," he confesses, with a curt nod. He shoots a glance at Dean through the mess of his wet bangs and smiles ruefully. "Did I talk in my sleep?"

"A little," Dean says, shrugging. He pulls, steering gently, and Sam finds himself seated on the end of his bed before he's even conscious of moving. Dean has always had that capacity, to take charge of a situation so slickly and quietly that nobody knows they're being manipulated until it's done, and all that's left is to be grateful. Sam is grateful. Dean's hand shifts upward, combing gently through the tangled mop of Sam's hair, and Sam closes his eyes, lets himself sink back into the soft succession of touches.

"Sorry," he murmurs, and Dean snorts a half-laugh of his own. He pulls at a sheaf of Sam's hair, holding it taut while he snips at the ends of it, and Sam feels the tug of it prickling across his scalp.

"You know how it is, man," Dean says, nonchalant. "Wasn't so much the talking -- I mean, you never screamed, or anything. Just muttering." The scissors close, and Sam hears the familiar birdlike snick of all that hair surrendering to their blades. "But I've been there, Sam. The wall, everything -- it was just a delayed reaction. You've been through hell, you're gonna dream about it."

Dean's voice is so matter-of-fact, so self-contained, that Sam can almost feel the tension relaxing in his muscles at the sound of it, the capable tone of it taking his anxieties away without asking. Or, possibly, it's the long-denied touches that are having that effect on him, the warmth of Dean's deft fingers cupping the helix of Sam's ear as Dean snips at the hair above and around it. Dean is beautiful, close and solid and smelling of home, but he is still Sam's big brother, and sometimes the old big brother superpowers are still in evidence. Dean is here to take care of him, and as long as this is true, there's only so far Sam can fall. He leans back, just slightly, into Dean's hands, lets himself be soothed.

For a while, there's nothing but the soft snick of the scissors closing, the barely-perceptible sounds of Sam's shorn hair feathering onto the comforter beneath him. Dean is good at this, efficient, his hands remembering what to do as they work around the sides of Sam's skull, directing Sam to tip his head this way or that with gentle, unobtrusive touches. Sam is half asleep again, lulled into stillness by Dean's ministrations, when Dean says, "So why the hair, anyway?"

Sam blinks drowsily, opens his eyes. Even without his clothes, the room is warm, and he can't help thinking it's been a long time since he's felt that. He glances at Dean sidelong, careful not to jerk his head and mess up what Dean's doing. "Hmm?"

Dean's shifted around, Sam sees now, is crouched on one knee in front of Sam with his fingers in his bangs, smoothing them out to be cut. When he sees that Sam is watching him, he smiles, snips the sheaf of hair between his fingers with a little flourish. "The hair," he repeats, clearly, but not pushing. Calm. "Did he grab you by it? Lucifer?"

It isn't a ridiculous assumption for Dean to have made, Sam thinks, but it makes him smile a little anyway; makes him move to shake his head before he remembers himself and says, "No." Like this, with Dean's warm hands in his warm hair, it's difficult to remember how desperate things seemed when he woke up, but he knows what happened, all the same, even if Dean's presence blocks his capacity to feel it. "He's just so cold," he explains, slowly.

Dean raises an eyebrow, prompting. "Cold?"

"Yeah." Sam furrows his brow, searching for a better way to explain himself. "Everything about him, his hands, his Cage -- he's just cold. I dream about it and I wake up freezing. It's like I'll never be warm again. He knows I only have my own body heat to work with and it's not enough. Takes me ages to go back to sleep sometimes." A breath of air skirts across Sam's hip when Dean drops his hand, brushing hair off onto the knees of his pants, and Sam is suddenly, abruptly conscious of his nakedness. He crosses his wrists over his lap, clears his throat. "Today it was like I had icicles in my hair. I showered, but I could still feel them, y'know?" He lowers his eyes, mouth tugging wryly. "I don't know. Cutting them out seemed like a good idea at the time." He wants to spread his hands, shrug with his whole body, it's all okay, honest But that's what Sam does when he's holding something back, when he's lying, and Dean deserves better. "I think I was still half asleep, if that's any defence."

He doesn't know what he expects Dean to do, exactly. Tell him it's about time, maybe; that Sam should have learned long before now that it doesn't make sense for a hunter to have hair like a freaking showgirl; that Dean hopes he's learned his goddamn lesson. Dean hasn't said anything without taking great pains about it since he woke up, and Sam is very conscious of it, but still, it makes his stomach twist uncertainly when Dean says nothing in response, only nods his acknowledgement and goes on cutting. He's almost done, Sam can tell, fingers combing gently through the last sections of Sam's hair now, and the look of concentration tightening his brow hasn't faded, so maybe that's all it is -- maybe Dean just wants to finish up before he gives Sam the requisite mouthful, make sure his brother at least has a level haircut before Dean lays into him the way Sam expects. That must be it, Sam tells himself, and closes his eyes again, breathing in slow through his nose, but every touch of Dean's fingers is suddenly palpable, now, in a way it hadn't been before. His touches have drifted from something low and comforting, a buzz of contact undercutting the surface of Sam's reality, into something immediate and warm, skimming the nervous edges of his consciousness. Dean is so close, his soft head ducked, his mouth hovering somewhere near Sam's temple, and Sam feels the pull in his stomach all over again to bury himself in that heat, pull Dean against him and cling, and cling. Perhaps, he thinks, with a sudden jolt of discomfort, Dean's worked it out, what Sam must be thinking. Cold, and Dean knows how much Sam must be craving his warmth, knows it with a dark, twisting certainty he can't bring himself to explore.

When Dean says, warily, "Sam," Sam's so caught up in his anxious, helter-skelter train of thought that he almost jumps, head jerking up. Dean, though, only smiles back at him a little, cautioning, and drops his hands. "Easy, tiger," he warns, setting the scissors down carefully on the carpet. "Lucky I was done, or you'd have ended up with some massive unevenness in an obvious place, there, dude."

Dean's smile is soft and sure, and despite the tug of unhappiness in his belly, Sam can't help but smile back. "Sorry," he says, and Dean shrugs.

"Hey," he says, "your hair, I'm only the artist." They both smile a little more at that, a moment of shared amusement; but then Dean's face goes solemn again and the low pull in Sam's stomach is back. "Sam," Dean repeats, soft, and Sam bites his lip.

"What?"

A shrug. "I just. What you said about Lucifer being cold." The scissors are on the carpet, glinting in the midst of a soft pile of Sam's shorn hair, but Dean makes no move to rise, only sets his palms to his thighs and frowns, like he's thinking. "I never thought about that, man. Where I was - " and his mouth quirks wryly -- "that's a problem we sure as hell never had."

Against his will, Sam thinks of Dean in the blazing fire-island of all those medieval woodcuts, and suppresses a shudder. "No," he says, and he shouldn't feel as guilty as he does, probably, but knowing it doesn't change the facts. "I know."

"Well." Dean hesitates a moment, and Sam's expecting some kind of challenge, a question, something about Lucifer. What he isn't expecting is for Dean to lift his hand again, cup the line of Sam's jaw where it's clenched against a possible attack. "Body heat, dude, I'm just saying. You need it, you don't only got your own." He smiles a little, and Sam can see the nervousness in it, a reflection of the sudden pounding of Sam's own heart, the way his pulse is thundering in his chest.

"What do you think I am, huh?" Dean adds, voice straining for a tone of light amusement and missing it by a shaking mile. "Chopped liver?"

For a horrifying second, all Sam can feel is the chill licking of the air across his skin, cool fingers stroking his nakedness, and it's all he can do to keep himself from jerking away, finding a blanket, anything, to wrap himself in, shield himself from whatever this is. Dean -- God, Dean doesn't know what he's asking, and the last thing Sam wants is to explain it to him, the reason he's afraid to ask for something as simple as touch from his own brother. The sick twist of wanting is firing up in the pit of his stomach, even now, curling around the fist of anxiety there, and Sam would give anything for Dean to step back, not force it out of him. He can feel the cold again already, encroaching, can feel how much colder it will be if Dean makes him say it, abandons him to his own little fucked-up problems. A moment ago, Sam was willing to suffer through any amount of discomfort for the warmth of Dean's hands on him, but now he can see the dark again, building on the horizon, and every impulse in his body is coiled to retreat, to sink back into his shell.

And then Dean moves, free hand coming up to span Sam's bicep, cautious and strong. The hand at Sam's jaw shifts a little, thumb lifting tentatively to hover over the lower swell of Sam's lip, the corner of his mouth. Sam swallows sharply, eyes darting to Dean's face, and Dean is -- God. Dean's lips are parted, breath coming short and shallow, but what holds Sam's attention is the look in his eyes, the green bled out so intensely that all Sam can see is gold. His thumb is a whisper-stroke from Sam's mouth, and Dean's eyes are on it, nervous, fixated. The shock of it hits Sam like a punch to the gut, the sharp twist of hope, and he wets his lips, half-conscious, uncertain.

Dean's breath catches on a whimper, bitten back low in his throat, and it sends a bolt of lust skittering hot and incredible across Sam's shoulderblades, chasing the uncertainty away. Shit. Dean --

"Dean," Sam whispers, and he feels the rough pad of Dean's thumb brush his lips as he speaks, feels the catch of skin against the damp inside of his mouth. The threat of cold is once more out of reach, and Dean sits before him like a flame, like a furnace Sam wants to step into and be consumed by. It's a bad idea; God, he's lectured himself on the subject often enough, but the problem is that, always, his insistences had been based on the fact that he was alone in this, that Dean would never want it. Like this, with Dean's palm warm and human on his face, there is no longer any doubt in Sam's mind that Dean does want it, wants him, however inexplicably, and against that, Sam is defenceless. He shouldn't be, but he is. He wants to be wherever Dean is, to be inside of him. He draws a damp breath, shaking. "Dean -- "

Dean kisses him then, ducks forward on a choked breath and presses his mouth to Sam's, and it is like being consumed, like being swallowed up by fire.

The heat of Dean's mouth is like nothing Sam has ever known, wet velvet rasp of his tongue delving immediately past the barrier of Sam's teeth. Dean's hand on his jaw is steady, angling Sam's face the way he wants it, and for a moment, Sam lets himself be manhandled, lets Dean slant their mouths together until they fit. When Sam's hands find Dean's shoulders, though, smooth up over his biceps to cup his nape, there is cloth in his way, wide inches of air between them, and Sam can't, Sam needs. He jerks back, fingers skimming Dean's sides, finding the hem of Dean's shirt, and lets Dean chase his mouth. The swell of Dean's lower lip is pink, impossibly kiss-bitten, and Sam can't resist ducking forward to suck at its softness in the second before the shirt is wrenched up and over Dean's head, tossed aside.

In the wake of it, Dean looks wrecked, hair standing up in a sheaf of soft spikes, and his mouth is saliva-slick, shining in the pre-dawn light. "Sam," he breathes into the space between them, but the last thing Sam wants now is to talk, not while there is still space where there shouldn't be. Sam's bed is damp where he's been sitting, covered in scattered snippets of his hair, but the other bed is on the opposite side of the room and Dean is too far away already. Sam leans down, spans Dean's ribs, smooths his palms down his flanks to the narrow nip of his waist, and his skin is everywhere hot, a furnace under Sam's hands.

"Please," he says, all articulacy lost in the dizzy need to feel all that skin against his own, but his clutching fingers seem to make a clear enough argument. Dean smiles, hooks his arms around Sam's neck to haul himself to his feet, and that is all the help Sam needs.

Dean is all pale gold and freckles, his stomach smooth and warm when Sam presses his cheek to it, the small of his back just beginning to sweat under Sam's hands. His breath hitches in surprise when Sam's mouth opens against the muscles of his abdomen, but Sam has more than that in mind; gets his hands under the waistband of Dean's loose pyjama pants and shoves them down over his backside. It's easy, then, stupidly easy to tug Dean towards him, palm his ass until he gets the message and kicks out of the tangle of fabric around his ankles, slots himself in between Sam's thighs. Easy, too, to brace himself against the carpet and lift, muscles straining, blood rushing hot and satisfying under his skin as he unbalances his brother, hauling him closer. Dean stumbles, as he was meant to, and Sam's hands slide down the outsides of his thighs, hook under his knees and pull until Dean's straddling him, one hand on Sam's shoulder and the other, helpless and shaking with surprise, fisted in his hair.

"Sam," Dean says, too loud and uncertain and conflicted, but he isn't protesting it, not quite, and that makes Sam's cock jerk hotly against his belly. He shifts his hands, finds the nape of Dean's neck and pulls Dean down, and then, shit, yeah, then Dean is flush against him, mouth opening against Sam's in a dirty wet slide. Dean's a firm, solid weight in Sam's lap, his cock fat and heavy between them, and when Sam fucks his tongue into Dean's open mouth he's rewarded with a reciprocal thrust of Dean's hips, grinding their bodies together.

"Fuck," Sam mutters; pulls back enough to nip at the curve of Dean's lower lip, lave over the indentations with the flat of his tongue. He's known for, God, for weeks that what he needs is skin on skin, but the sudden reality of it is dizzyingly, gut-twistingly good, and just like that, Sam's an addict.

He's running his hands urgently over the breadth of Dean's shoulders, the valley of his spine, the curve of his ass, for minutes before he realises he's doing it, but Dean is so warm, all fever-hot silk, and Sam can't get enough of it. On top of him, Dean's doing his fair share of touching, too, making fists in Sam's hair as they bite at each other's mouths, and fuck, Dean's mouth. Sam's stared at it for years, knows the shape of it better than he knows the back of his own hand, but still, it's an undiscovered country he maps with his tongue, learning the ridge of the soft palate, the slightly crooked set of the molars. There's so much more of Dean Sam wants to touch with his open mouth, but the idea of breaking away from Dean's kiss is almost painful, the wet cling of his lips, the way his breath hitches as he sucks on Sam's tongue. Sam's hard and getting harder just from the dirty tangle of their tongues, shifting under Dean, and it isn't enough, but fuck, it's good; it's Dean, and Sam can feel himself thawing.

Eventually, Dean pulls back a little, snatching a breath, and Sam takes the digression as an opportunity to draw his mouth lower, licking at the bolt of Dean's jaw, the soft place behind his ear. Even still, Dean's mouth has hold of him like a compulsion, and he thumbs at the kiss-slick corner of it as he closes his teeth around the tendon straining in Dean's neck, sucks until the blood surges up in the shape of his bite.

"Christ," Dean grits out, low, fingers scrabbling at Sam's hair as his hips pulse forward jerkily, and abruptly, it isn't enough, the weight of him straddling Sam's thighs, a space of air still between their chests. Sam closes his lips and sucks, rocks his hips up hard against Dean's and hauls the both of them backwards. It's inelegant, but Sam doesn't have time for artistry when what he wants is Dean: Dean's legs entwined with his, Dean's thigh trapped between his own, Dean's arms around his back and their bodies flushed together. The sprawl will only last a second, and then Sam will have him, his brother like a living flame in the cage of his arms.

"Fuck, Sam," Dean grunts, the word punched out of him, but there's none of the trepidation of earlier, nothing but a low, heated approval, and that's all Sam needs to hear, all Sam's ever wanted. He lifts his mouth; flattens his tongue to the blood-dark bruise he's made and slides a hand down the length of Dean's back in a long, smooth slide.

"Dean," he gets out; kicks Dean's legs apart far enough to hook his ankles around his brother's calves, their bodies settling into a rhythmic undulation without any conscious thought. "Sorry, I just -- I need -- "

"Yeah, Sammy," Dean cuts him off, and then his mouth is on Sam's again, the damp inside of it catching on the swell of Sam's lower lip, the bow of his upper. "Anything, you got it." And he slants his mouth again over Sam's, jaw going wide and slack into the kiss, and it's an invitation, a free pass. It's a fucking promise, and Sam doesn't waste a second in taking Dean up on it.

If Dean's surprised when Sam flips him, he doesn't show it, only grunts a little as his back comes into contact with the mattress, thighs falling open when Sam rocks down, slots easily between. Sam's reckless, impatient, but Dean shifts up immediately to meet the downward roll of Sam's pelvis, the pinioning weight of him, and the force of this first full contact slams through Sam like sonar. Dean's body is a line of pure heat against his, blood rushing hot in his long thighs where they grip Sam's sides, warmth bleeding from his palms into the muscles of Sam's back and shoulders, the vulnerable nape of his neck. Between their bellies, Dean's cock is hotter still, tip of it catching slickly on Sam's stomach as he ruts against his brother, and like this, Sam can smell it, the raw, human scent of Dean's precome. "Shit," he mutters; works his hips against Dean's in a cut-off circular motion, and Dean only grips tighter to Sam's back, lifts his knees a little towards his chest.

"You want it?" Dean's voice is thick with effort, breathless; Sam is grinding against him solidly now, rough little stutters of his hips, and Dean is taking it, giving Sam back everything he gets. His stomach is sticky-slick with his own precome and Sam's, with sweat and sex, making the glide easy, and Sam would have happily just gone on mindlessly like this until they both of them seized and came, spatter-wax heat of it all over the pale skin of Dean's belly. The grit in Dean's voice, though, the tilt of his pelvis, are blatantly suggestive and Sam's breath catches in his throat at the implication, stomach dipping hotly as his cock blurts a smear of slick.

"Oh, fuck." He's half-gone already, strung out on Dean's nearness, his warmth. His hands rove frenetically over Dean's flanks, his hips. They slide up over his chest to bracket his throat, the balls of his shoulders, and he doesn't, he can't make himself stop, doesn't want to stop touching Dean. This, though -- Dean's pelvis canting back a little, inviting, so Sam's cock is sliding in the hot dark place behind Dean's balls -- Sam can't resist this, the chance to get inside Dean entirely, bury himself in the furnace of him. His pulse skips at the thought, hips stuttering with it, and "shit," he mutters, hand skimming the spur of Dean's hipbone, sliding lower. "Shit, Dean -- shit, yeah, let me in, let me inside you, I want --"

"God," Dean cuts in, eyes closing reflexively, and they're both of them breathing raggedly, but Dean recovers his self-possession quickly enough to push Sam's fumbling hand gently aside, curling his knees almost all the way back to his chest and hooking them there with his elbows. There's something unmistakably knowing about it, anticipatory, practised, and the realisation that Dean's done this before makes Sam's gut twist almost as hard as the visual itself, the muscles standing out in Dean's arms, the wanton spread of his thighs. Saliva bursts over Sam's tongue, metallic, dizzying, lust clenching tight as a fist in his gut.

"Fuck, Dean," he breathes, involuntary, "Dean, I --"

"Lotion," Dean cuts in, and there's a familiar ring of authority to his voice, a strung out echo of his battle-cry there that Sam can't ignore, the sound of it forcing him to focus. "There's some in my bag, on the floor, would you just -- Sam --"

Sam is back with it before Dean's even thought of a coherent conclusion to the sentence.

It's messy. Fuck, it couldn't have been any other way, Sam's hands trembling as he sluices an overabundance of it into his palm, Dean hissing through his teeth when Sam forgets (and how could he forget?) that it's cold. It doesn't stay that way for long, though, not with the heat Dean is giving off, and Dean knows how to do this, how to force his body to give way for Sam's finger, for a second, for a third. There's still too much lotion by the time Sam has three fingers rocking rhythmically in and out of Dean's body, but Dean's lifting his hips into every deep thrust of his hand and Sam's too drunk on it to actually care, Dean's bitten-off sounds shooting pulses of heat through his gut, sparking at the base of his spine. It's rudimentary, at best, but Dean is impossibly hot around Sam's fingers, tight clench of his body, and Sam can't wait any more, pulls out, whimpers even as Dean does.

"Is this okay?" It takes everything in him to remember to ask, to check, even as he's lining himself up, but Dean only nods, biting his lip, hitches up his hips when Sam touches his cock to his opening and fuck.

"Fuck," Sam spits, muscles going tense in his shoulders, in his thighs, against the sudden flash of want as Dean takes the head of him, swallowing it easily. He's close, been close for what feels like forever, and the last thing he wants is to lose it now, lose this. He braces his hands on Dean's thighs, shoving them backward. "Dean, shit, you gotta give me a second, man, I'm gonna --"

"So do it," Dean breaks in, and then he's pulsing up his hips again, startling a cry out of the back of Sam's throat as he fucks himself back onto Sam's cock, impaling himself on the length of it. "Not gonna last two minutes, Sam, so if you could just quit worrying and fuck me already, that would be, you know --"

"Jesus Christ," Sam breaks in. His hands, still lotion-slick, clench reflexively on Dean's skin as he fucks down in one shocked, deep motion, and he never finds out what Dean was going to say, but he doesn't think it matters, not really, not when this is how it is. Dean is impossibly hot, around him, beneath him; Dean's skin under his hands and Dean's ass around his cock, and Sam is helpless before the urge to just thrust, jackhammer slam of his hips against Dean's, picking up speed like a train derailed. "Fuck," he gets out, "Dean," and Dean's moaning, sharp little sounds shocked out of him at the crest of Sam's every thrust. He's slick with sweat, shimmering with it, Sam's hands slipping as they fumble for purchase on his thighs, and they're both of them too far gone for kissing but it doesn't matter, not any more.

"Come on," Sam rasps out, "come on," because it's building in his stomach, the urgent weight of orgasm arrowing down towards his cock and Dean is, fuck; Dean is coming, body seizing, back arching off the bed as he shoots. It's copious, wet, slicking Sam's stomach like blood and Sam fucks him through it, thrusts going erratic, stammering into Dean as Dean clenches around him.

"Shit," Sam grits out; bites his lip, and the taste of blood breaks metallic over his tongue as Dean grasps at his nape, tangles fingers in his hair. "Dean."

"That's it," Dean is saying, and his voice is wrecked, debauched and raw and loved. "That's it, Sammy, I gotcha, come on, I'm here, fuck me, come on, fuck me, shit --"

The sound that tears its way out of Sam's throat in the wake of this litany is barely human, a feral yell muffled in the sweaty hollow of Dean's neck as he fucks in hard, and again, and comes.

"Yeah," Dean murmurs, dirty and low, "yeah, Sammy." His hands are soft on Sam's nape, on his shoulders, smoothing over his skin in rhythmic motions until Sam calms, settles.

"God," Sam mutters breathlessly, when his pulse finally begins to return to normal, and Dean chuckles, rubs his mouth against Sam's temple in what he'd undoubtedly deny was a kiss.

"Yeah," Dean says, voice satisfied, almost amused, as if this is normal; as if this is nothing at all but the positive development Sam's body and thundering heart think it is. "So I've been called."

Sam starts after a moment, makes a scathing sound, but he can't bring himself to offer much protest. Fondness swells in his belly, deep and total, and Dean's hands are still mapping his shoulders in long, smooth strokes, gentling, perfect.

Sam is almost asleep before he realises that Dean's hands don't feel so warm any more because Sam is warm, too, in every place Dean's been.

The place Sam dreams of doesn't look like hell. It's cold, a cavern of ice, and Sam still goes there, for long weeks, in his sleep, wakes with his palms numb where Lucifer held them. Now, though, when Sam stutters into consciousness, Dean stumbles after him with his soldier's alertness; rubs Sam's hands between his own, shoves them between his thighs with a well-placed lewd comment, a flash of a smile in the darkness.

"Hey," Dean will say, brushing his mouth brief over Sam's, "you okay there, dude?"

And Sam will be. He may still dream of ice, but he wakes to the sun, and that is enough. It always was.