Sufferance
sufferance
Supernatural
Sam/Dean
700 words
adult content: sexuality
“Hey,” Sam whispers. He locks his ankle around Dean’s, and nudges his cotton-sheathed erection against his leg. “Hey,” Sam whispers. His hair itches at Dean’s shoulder and catches on the downy, delicate, golden bristle on his cheek and jaw.
Dean makes a noise, an all-encompassing sound. Don’t wake me, Good morning, and Yes. He shifts, as if in dream, to find Sam with a sleep-slow hand, and he turns them both inward, to let Sam hook his chin over his shoulder.
Both of them with eyes closed. Both of them awake, and pretending not to be. It’s how to allow this, how to honor this.
This, fingergrip firm and slow, locked over Sam in a sacred, intimate act of possession. This the fight for breath against the need for silence; the battle for stillness in Sam, his whole body trembling with desire to control. And this, neck bared, the halfborn whimper, and scrabbling, cutting fingers, his final act of surrender.
Sam opens his eyes, and rolls away, out of bed. Pad of his palm against his eye, scratching his head and looking for clean socks. It’s not something he questions. It’s more like a constant, a universal law. On any given day, the earth will rotate around the sun, and his big brother will get him off. This is his life. It’s a small choice, in a larger universe of assignments, deployments, pointless obligations and duty. School, chores, weapons practice, Latin studies, Bible studies, memorizing random junk, melting silver. The little things he’d wanted for himself – friends; or soccer, and then track, and then basketball; he’d had to give each of them up when they moved, or when it conflicted with Dad’s abstract schedule.
So it had felt good, that first time Sam had woken up next to Dean in the dark, full of heat and want, and Dean had let him fit himself perfectly into his hand. Let him grip his shoulder, let him hold on so tight he left bruises. It had felt so good, to have something just for him, to be wholly in control. In the dark, his brother couldn’t speak, couldn’t cover his mistakes with lame jokes, or tell him what to do; it were as if the darkness erased him, and let Sam fill the empty spaces up with himself. A perfect reflection. Dean became exactly what he needed, and wanted. He was warmth, and shield, perfect and selfless.
At first, sometimes, afterwards, Dean would cover and caress his own cock with hands still slick with him. Sam would flinch, pull away, unsettled. Whispering mean taunts, his voice beyond his control, the very center of him gone cold.
Dean learned not to need. Sam taught him to be empty of it.
And now it is just this. A ritual, a service that Sam deserves. Something he doesn’t need to think about, like having to eat or take a piss.
He pulls on his jeans, sniffs through a pile of shirts for something clean enough to wear. Not watching his brother, not wanting to see the way he watches him through half-closed eyes. If he can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. It’s that easy.
Easy to ignore his brother’s stiff cock, the glassy distance in his eyes, and tell himself it never means anything anyway, that it’s only mindless reflex. Easy, not to notice those times Dean doesn’t clean up, wipe his hand on the sheet, the way he keeps himself hidden until Sam is gone. Not to notice the extra five or ten minutes Dean takes getting dressed, or in the shower.
Easy, to deny the soft, vulnerable places that his brother has created in him. To forget dreams of fire and loss, and watch him bleed and struggle against something unseen, again. To not worry that the next time, maybe, Dean won’t come back with only grazes and bruises; that he won’t come back at all. Or to recognize that each time he digs seeking fingers into Dean’s skin, or hair, or mouth, that it might be the last time.
It’s easier, like this, not to care.
May 25th, 2010 at 8:16 am
It’s very… sorrowfully. I like it.
Thanks!