Dean hid it for as long as he could.
Sam was in the bed beside his, fixated on some mythology book that would have put Dean to sleep if he was in his position. The AC unit hummed loudly in the window, trying in vain to drown out the wall of dry heat that came with the end of August.
Heat pooled between his legs, followed by a wave of clear slick that made quick work of his underwear. Dean would need to change, but his legs weren’t working anymore. Embarrassment turned his face pink, and no amount of shifting and rearranging his limbs took the edge off: Dean was in heat, and there was nothing to relieve him.
Sex toys didn’t work and he wasn’t about to figure out the logistics of maintaining a suppressant prescription with his nomadic lifestyle. So, he powered through. He used his hand when it became unbearable and tried to ignore it when it was manageable.
Tonight, it wasn’t manageable.
He kept glancing over at Sam, staring at him, all but saying out loud “I’m in heat, you need to do something about it.” Sam had to have some kind of book about dealing with heats solo, he had books of all sorts of useless information. Maybe a passage that would explain why his body bothered going into heat every few months out of the year instead of every month like it was supposed to. It was just up to Dean to ask.
“Do you need something?” Sam asked when he finally noticed Dean staring, but he shook his head.
“No. I’m just fine.”
Sam furrowed his brow. “You’re staring at me like you want to take a bite out of me.”
Dean scoffed, rolled onto his back and sighed loudly. When that didn’t get enough of a reaction, he did it again. Sam rolled his eyes and tucked his nose back into his book. He swore he could see the start of a bright red flush coloring his cheeks. That set him into overdrive.
“You’re not uh…you’re not feeling weird, are you, Sammy?”
“It’s just that time of the month, Dean. I’m fine.”
Sam had a knotting dildo somewhere amongst his personals, and Dean had more than once thought to steal it just to see what all of that was about. However, there was never a good time for him to use it: Sam always seemed to be right there when Dean was at the apex of his heat. He shifted on the bed, grimaced, turned onto his side to put pressure onto his overstimulated, underused hole. It was a brief, but very welcome, relief.
“Was Jess an alpha?” He knew prodding into the topic was just going to make Sam edgy, but he ignored that impulse to keep his questioning to himself.
Sam kept his attention focused on the book propped up in his lap, turning the page and nodding once. “Yeah. That was the whole reason we started talking. Didn’t I tell you that?”
“Probably; you know I can’t remember everything you tell me.”
“Maybe if you tried you could.”
Dean crossed his legs again, twisted his thighs together until he felt a sharp wave of pleasure moving up from his core. Distraction wasn’t helping at all, and neither was trying to discreetly get himself off five feet away from Sam. He should have felt more ashamed of it, but he was masturbating in the next bed over from the time he was ten; precocious presentation. All of the guilt he felt about the proximity he held to his brother while he got himself through his heat had evaporated by the time Sam was starting to present himself.
“Not that I need to know or anything,” Dean started, and he could hear Sam exhaling loudly before he even looked up, “but how do you omegas deal with your heats?”
Sam didn’t move for a moment, like he was taking a moment to bask in Dean’s words. What there was to bask in, he didn’t know. But Sam killed any ambiguity in his silence by slamming his book closed and discarding it on the bed, turning onto his side to shoot Dean a hard, direct stare.
“You still can’t get over me being an omega, can you? You’re worse about it than Dad!”
Dean furrowed his brow. “What does that mean?”
Sam was entirely baffled, sitting up on the bed and staring at Dean like he’d just said something horrific. He couldn’t help but shoot that stupid look every chance he got, especially since he got back into the family business. Dean felt more merciful than the god Sam worshiped that he didn’t tell him off every single time he treated him like a dumbass; he still had that teenage know-it-all energy, only made worse by his time in college.
Dean sat up to try and level the playing field with Sam, not realizing until he was halfway through shifting his weight onto his ass that he was going to cause unwanted friction in his jeans. He stopped, held back any sound that threatened to break free, and looked at Sam only when he was upright. Both of his hands gripped at the sheets.
“You always give me a hard time about it! It’s like you can’t help but pry until I give you every detail you don’t need about my body! Are you insecure, Dean, is that why you always try to make me feel like shit for something I can’t control?”
Sam raked his hand through his hair, his frustration and dejection naked on his face. In spite of it all, Dean was still in heat, and Sam telling him off was doing something to him that he was feeling a bit of shame over. He tried to fold, tell Sam he was sorry, but all that came out of him was a small sigh of pleasure.
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” Dean said hurriedly, hoping he’d brush over it. Dean wasn’t so lucky.
Sam glanced over him, and the way his gaze drifted up and down Dean’s body only made things worse for him. He closed his legs together, but that only sent another shockwave through him. Dean brought his hand up to his mouth to try and cover the sounds that threatened to pass his lips. Sam, on the other hand, was confused.
“You’ve been acting weird all night. What’s going on? Is it Dad? Is that why you’re bringing up omega bullshit again?”
Dean looked away, a sickening guilt mingling with the white-hot heat still building in his core. “It’s not about Dad.”
Sam raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t it always?”
Dean’s heart pounded hard in his chest, he felt like he was about to go into cardiac arrest. That might be preferable to trying to explain to Sam that he’d been hiding part of himself since he was thirteen, especially trying to explain why he did that from Sam of all people. They were both supposed to be each other’s biggest confidant, and Sam had gone to Dean first when he started presenting as an omega. It was only fair that he returned the favor, no matter how much the thought of it made him ill.
“I’m…there’s something I haven’t told you, Sammy,” he started, and the pooling, wet heat in his underwear somehow was only made worse by saying his name. It wasn’t his biological mandate to pursue Sam, it made no sense that he’d seek his brother, seek another omega, to relieve him of his heat.
Sam didn’t give him a response, but Dean could see that something had just clicked into place in his mind. His eyes glimmered, his lip pulled slightly. He might have figured it out before Dean had to say a word at all.
“You’re in heat! I could smell something, but I thought it was just me. Why,” Sam paused, his expression turning to something hard, “did you hide it from me?”
Dean shrugged. Why did anyone hide it?
“I don’t know.” He knew and his shame was doing wonders for his heat. Dean could feel his face turning red, sweat starting to blossom on his brow.
He needed to be alone, but he wasn’t sure Sam would give him that. He didn’t trust that Sam would let him return to his undercover life, if he’d try and make Dean embrace being an omega. It was the last thing he wanted, maybe second to last if he remembered the very real possibility that Dad could find out about Dean’s feelings towards Sam. At the moment, they were tied.
Sam looked sympathetic, though hurt was still setting him on edge. “I wish you’d told me. I wouldn’t have spent so long feeling like a freak if I knew you were one, too.”
“You’re not a freak, Sammy. You’re like… too normal for an omega. I bet you could hide it perfectly if you weren’t so eager to announce it to everyone.”
Dean knew he fucked up then, but he really couldn’t fathom why anyone would be proud of being on the bottom of a niche food chain that was on the bottom of another, larger one. Omegas were a punchline and Sammy somehow found something admirable in that, enough to want people to know that he was the joke they laughed at. Dean felt furious, he felt confused, his head was pulsating and becoming weightless and all he wanted to do was slide off into the bathroom and try to get himself off on his fingers.
“Of course,” he scoffed, “just like Dad.”
“Sammy!” Dean’s breathing fell out of rhythm and became harsh. “Can it wait? You can bitch me out as much as you want when I’m good again.”
He avoided looking at Sam as he rushed into the bathroom, not out of a particular desperation to masturbate but out of a need to make sure he didn’t collapse on the floor. Dean slammed the door shut behind him, locked it, and fell against it with a rattling thud. All he had were his ten fingers and a wet, pooling, sickening heat bleeding out of him. In spite of how much of a mess he’d made already, his body only grew hotter, his heart beat faster, and he felt like he was going to pass out from heatstroke. It wasn’t the worst thing, he’d done it before and woke up with a bone dry throat and a quick, irregular heartbeat, but he didn’t want to invite Sam to play hero if he passed out in the room with him.
Dean shoved his pants off and angled his hips until he could easily reach his fingers down to his hole and push up into himself. There was no resistance as he stuck his fingers into what felt like boiling water—he wouldn’t clasp around his own fingers, it’s like his body knew he was trying to trick it. He wasn’t going to use fancy toys or, God forbid, find an alpha to get him through his heat. It wasn’t necessary, even though it might have gotten everything over with much quicker.
Footsteps receded until he heard a door slamming shut, and Dean tried not to think too hard about Sam walking out. It didn’t do much to alleviate his heat, in fact it only made it harder imagining Sam at all. At least that secret was locked up safe where it couldn’t turn Sammy into a moodier bitch than he already was.
Dean stretched out one leg and arched his neck, the top of his head pressed to the door as he felt some sense of relief start to wash over him. It was minor, he wasn’t going to sate himself like this, but it was good enough for being completely on his own. The visuals he conjured up while he took in sharp, halting breaths were all centralized, but they almost always were focused on the exact same subject: Sam. On top of him, underneath him, hiking a leg up to allow him to thrust his fingers up into him while he sputtered like a dying engine. Dean was overwhelmed drawing on his usual material and gasped, pushing a third finger into himself and forming them into a pyramid. For what little he was working with, it was almost like he had the real thing inside him.
The bathroom became humid quickly, his body temperature rising to somewhere around 101 degrees, but it felt more like 180. He went lax against the door and threw his arched leg open, moving his hips accordingly and almost losing his balance when he slid into the growing pool of his slick. Hot, losing fluids, raising his already rapid heart rate, Dean would predictably be out of commission for a day or two at most. But he rarely gave himself any bedrest after an incomplete heat, the kind of thing that left most omegas sick and weak for days, sent more than a few to the hospital. He wasn’t weak, not even when he was staggering on his feet, and he’d power through the worst of it. If he brushed it off as a really good night at the bar, Dad and Sam both didn’t question it. He got no relief now from Sam knowing about him.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been in there when the door opened and shut again, Dean so far gone that he barely registered those noises underneath the sounds of his desperate, dissatisfied moaning and did nothing to hide it from Sam. It was a trait they shared, he could just suck it up if it made him uncomfortable.
Dean’s wrist ached something fierce and his throat was feeling raw when a sharp knock on the door took him out of his frenzy. He tipped his head back further, looked up at the door with his mouth hanging open.
“Wha’?” Dean’s voice was almost gone, scratchy and weak.
“I, uhm…I had an idea, if you’re open to it.”
Sam sounded hesitant, like he wasn’t so sure of his plan himself, but his dominant wrist was out for the count and his other one wouldn’t last him even half of that. He wasn’t even thirty yet and he felt painfully old.
Dean forced himself up onto his unsteady legs, slick spilling down the insides of his thighs as gravity worked its magic. He grabbed tight onto the lip of the sink’s basin and slammed his other hand flat against the door to stop his wobbling.
“Lay it on me.”
Sam went quiet, Dean wondered if he’d just decided to leave rather than tell him his, apparently wild, idea. His brother was normal—he assumed he brought him emergency heat suppressants from a drugstore or, if those were out of their budget, a knotting dildo he could try his best to get off on. That would make sense of Sam’s hesitance to say anything: uncomfortable with the knowledge that he bought his brother a medical aid that would just look like a sex toy to outsiders, even ones in the know. Hell, Dean didn’t see them as anything but sex toys either the way they were shoved into back corners of stores like the back wall of a Spencer’s Gifts.
He was pulling his jeans back on when Sam started to speak again.
“I have a knotting toy,” the word came out choked, “and I’ll show you how to use it. It’s easy to hurt yourself if you don’t know what you’re doing.”
That wasn’t the idea Dean was expecting. It only made his breathing lighter, quicker, his head so weightless he thought he’d collapse and smash it on the edge of the sink. The end of Dean Winchester, done in by the idea of using the same silicone cock his brother did with his assistance.
“I think…” Dean trailed off, shifting his weight to try and find his more secure leg. Both of them shook helplessly and all he wanted was to move to his bed where he could at least lie down and not risk waking up to a knotted back.
“It’s not ideal, but I went to check and the pharmacy’s closed. I don’t think you’ll make it to morning like this.”
Sam sounded grave, and Dean wanted to laugh off his concern. This heat wasn’t any worse than the others before it; at least, he couldn’t remember it being any worse. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t be dead in the morning despite Sam’s worrying, but he didn’t have it in him to call him out. Later.
He rasped in a breath that sounded bad, admittedly, but it would be just fine. Dean wouldn’t be one of those omegas that died from an incomplete heat, barely any omegas died from those anymore. He might just have to wait for the drugstore to open again before he could get emergency suppressants.
Sam slammed on the door and exhaled roughly, a rattling sound that Dean could possibly pin as Sam starting his own. The temperature in his body rose, and his red face only felt hotter thinking of Sam struggling to satisfy himself solo.
“If it helps, it’s been boiled.” One last plea to get Dean to comply.
He wasn’t in a state to deny Sam’s help, no matter how proud he was. Dean had survived more than enough heats without any assistance but Sam was insistent and there was no way to get him off his ass except give in or scream at him until he fled. Dean didn’t have anything in him left to scream.
“Okay.”
He could practically hear Sam’s eyebrows raising up to his hairline. “Seriously?”
Dean unlocked the door and wedged it open, peeking out at Sam. He nodded to give his aching throat a break, and relief washed over Sam’s face.
The walk to the bed was slow: Dean didn’t like being hoisted against Sam’s side and guided, but he wasn’t going to be able to make it on his own. His feet were barely moving and his body was heavy and limp all at once. He looked up at Sam with half-lidded eyes and wanted to ask him if it was weirding him out that he offered up his sex toy to Dean, but he wasn’t going to get it all out no matter how hard he tried. Instead he gave him a lax half-smile that seemed to comfort Sam, reassurance that he wasn’t gone yet.
Dean spread out on the bed and exhaled softly, getting some sense of relief from the impact of his body hitting the mattress. Every single thing was causing the most delightful friction that made him hotter, wetter, in need of more than he would ever be able to give himself. His heavy-lidded eyes crawled up and down Sam’s body, searching for something and nothing all at once. Dean wasn’t going to say it out loud, but he’d be fucked without Sam.
He disappeared from view to grab the toy, leaving Dean to stare at the ceiling and think absolutely nothing. His brain was cooked, all he could do now was clench onto nothing and wait impatiently for it to end or for his hypothalamus to short out and boil him alive like a lobster.
Dean didn’t realize he was panting until Sam was hovering over him again, holding the cloudy, translucent toy in one hand and staring down at him with a raised eyebrow.
“Dean?”
He couldn’t speak. His throat had closed, his skin was dripping with sweat and radiating like a space heater, and nothing could fix the endless pooling underneath his thighs. Dean met Sam’s gaze and tried to tell him as much, but he failed.
His heart beat hard in his chest, slamming against his ribcage and jerking irregularly with unpredictable double beats. Dean reached out to Sam and grabbed him, his eyes watering with what must have been the last of the moisture in his body.
He fell back against the bed and everything went black.
—
Dad took Dean out on a drive when he was fifteen, bought him dinner at his favorite regional burger joint as a treat for a successful hunt, and talked with him about girls and keeping it in his pants unless he wanted to be paying child support while he was still in high school. Dean sucked on his soda, hid the sly smirk that crossed his face when Dad talked towards the road ahead of them about stupid decisions. Fingerblasting Janine Hoffman on the last day of their very brief stay in Winterset, Iowa definitely hadn’t been a stupid decision, in his humble opinion.
“I mean it, Dean. Can’t go havin’ little irresponsible flings like that, especially not if the girl’s…like that.”
Like that. Dad wouldn’t say it by name, and Dean tried to keep his own thoughts about it all at bay. From all he’d heard, alphas and omegas were rare, highly fertile freaks of nature, the only reason the human race continued to prosper after numerous plagues and famines. None of that meant Dean would ever be comfortable with the idea of being a man with a bun in the oven, though, humanity be damned.
But luckily, he didn’t have to worry about any of that so long as he kept his status under wraps. So long as he pretended to be a beta, Dad wouldn’t think any less of him, look at him with that disapproving glint in his eye like Dean had any say in his biology.
“I just think people could stand to keep that to themselves. They make those drugs for a reason—there’s no shame in being normal.”
If Sam was in the car with them he would have piped up, would have asked how being a hunter was any more normal than being an alpha or omega. He’d probably even have some statistics of how many hunters there are versus how many alphas and omegas there are: “though we don’t actually have concrete numbers on either because normal people are more comfortable pretending neither exist,” he could hear it perfectly in Sam’s voice.
Dean nodded noncommittally at the road, swallowing down another long sip of soda. John turned down the road to Bobby’s, and the clock read 11:23. Sam would be in bed by now, tucked up comfortably on the couch and leaving Dean the rickety old cot that they both fought to not sleep in. Dean supposed that made up for Sam not getting to go with them on the drive. He was glad Sam hadn’t wanted to go anyways; he hadn’t missed much.
“Here’s hoping Sam doesn’t end up dragged into all of that. Doesn’t need to be worrying about that kind of thing.” He turned Baby off and Dean waited until he was getting out of the car to let his expression fall.
For Sam’s sake, he hoped he’d be a beta.
Sam hovered at Dean’s bedside, waiting with a glass of water and a sense of panic that wasn’t subsiding.
He knew he should have seen the signs sooner, that Dean wasn’t coping with his heat well, but what good would playing the “should have” game do? The only solution he could think of was waiting for Dean to wake up, rehydrate him, and get him what he needed to cope with his heat.
Dean lay prone and sweaty on the bed, his cheeks flushed and his shirt turning dark where it stuck to his chest. He twitched and murmured every now and again, stirring that got Sam’s hopes up only to crush them when he realized that Dean was still unconscious. But it had only been twenty minutes, his body had overexerted itself and he would wake up eventually; Sam was sure of that.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t still worried, though. His heart hadn’t stopped pounding and he was unable to pull himself up from the chair beside Dean’s bed. He sat arrested, watching his brother like he was a coma patient and hope was the only thing keeping his heart monitor beeping. All he wanted was for Dean to wake up and shoot him a casual, lopsided grin chased with an “It’s alright, Sammy.” Twenty minutes of stress felt like twenty years hoisted onto his shoulders.
He jiggled his foot and folded over himself, leaning in close so he could hear Dean’s sharp, short breathing. Sam could feel his eyes starting to sting, regret washing over him that he didn’t step in soon enough to help Dean. The teenage contrarian that still lived deep inside him reminded him, though, that even if he’d intervened earlier, Dean still wouldn’t have taken his help. He wondered what it would take to beat Dean’s fatalistic attitude out of him, how much Sam would need to do to make him value his life if only a little bit. How was he supposed to feel when his brother would rather let himself succumb to his heat rather than allow Sam to help him? He refused to accept Dean’s discomfort with his own biology as an excuse.
Sam reached out and placed the back of his palm on Dean’s sweat-beaded forehead—he was burning up, he didn’t know what he expected. It took all of his willpower to force himself up, to cross the room and grab the ice bucket on the countertop next to the sink. Even if it didn’t bring him out of this, it couldn’t hurt to try and cool Dean down.
The ice machine was only down a few doors from Sam and Dean’s room, nestled in an alcove next to the vending machine. His thoughts were starting to clear up again, no longer endlessly meandering on what he should have done, guilt-tripping himself for not doing more, and he was formulating a plan.
Until Dean woke up, whenever that would be, Sam would sit at his side cooling him down with ice. He’d get whatever his pocket change could buy at the vending machine, something to make up for the calories his body was rapidly burning through, and rehydrate him with water and Gatorade. Then, if Dean was lucid, he’d ask him again if he wanted to do Sam’s stupid, frankly disgusting plan.
Only with Dean unconscious could Sam really stew on how horrific his idea was—even with it boiled, Dean would still have to contend with it being a sex toy that had been inside his little brother numerous times. A medically necessary sex toy that could save his life, but one that had been used for things brothers didn’t talk about with each other. At least, not in their case.
There was a part of Sam’s brain that had fixated on the idea that he never noticed Dean going into heat before—that in all the years they’d shared cramped motel rooms Dean had hidden it so well. Sam thought he knew his brother better than that. Somehow, his heat cycle didn’t have a tell.
Sam filled the bucket and spent all his change on chips and sports drinks, still ruminating on that massive blind spot in his memory as he walked back to their room. He fumbled grabbing the key out of his pocket and fitting it into the lock, dropping it with a clatter onto the pavement below. Sam groaned and readjusted the bucket and vending machine haul under one arm as he knelt down to pick the key up. He could feel them slipping and he could feel his patience coming undone along with them—his stress was compounding and no amount of deep breathing would fix this.
He wondered, his ass sticking out and one of the Gatorade bottles finding a precarious resting spot between the ditch of his elbow and the ice bucket, if Dean would thank him for doing any of this. He wondered how long it’d take before they ended up in another screaming match, yelling about how he didn’t want his help and he could handle all of this by himself. Hypothetical Dean was probably right, he’d been handling his heat by himself for at least a decade now, but it was like pulling teeth getting him to admit that he needed and deserved help. And maybe Sam was unsure now if he was deserving of help, knowing what kind of backlash he might get just for trying to be there for his only remaining family.
Sam grabbed the key and fit it into the lock, but found no resistance when he turned it.
He furrowed his brow and moved his hand to the door knob, twisting it until the lock clicked. It only opened a few inches before hitting something solid, but that was enough space for a pungent smell to waft out and hit Sam in the face. His nostrils flared and all of his bitter, angry thoughts were temporarily stalled. Sam took his hand off the knob and watched as the door opened slowly.
Dean was on the other side, his face still flushed and wet with perspiration and his eyelids half-closed. The scent couldn’t have been coming from anywhere else, and Sam worried that leaving the door open would attract unwanted attention. He quickly shoved past and closed the door behind him, thankful that he’d unconsciously taken the key out of the lock.
Dean barely moved, like he was using all of his strength to keep himself standing.
“How long was I out?” He asked, his voice scratchy and weak.
“Half an hour, almost,” Sam explained as he set the chip bags and bottles down. He grabbed one of the hand towels from the bathroom and wet it before crossing back to Dean.
Sam opened the ice bucket, plopping three cubes inside and rolling the towel around itself. “Here, put this on your forehead.”
Dean took it and obliged, pressing it to his brow and letting out a moan that sounded too alike to the noises Dean was making earlier. Sam brushed it off—or brushed it off as best he could with heat rising to his cheeks—and moved to get Dean the glass of water he’d laid out earlier, relieved to find it drained on his bedside table.
“I’m gonna be fine,” Dean said roughly, dropping back down onto the bed with one wobbling arm supporting his weight. “It’s almost over.”
Sam handed him one of the Gatorade bottles and watched him drain it, sitting down on his own bed and watching him cautiously. “I can feel how hot you are from here.”
Dean grinned, his bottom lip glistening and inspiring a little too much interest for Sam’s comfort. He moved his gaze upward, looking him in the eye as he winked and clicked his tongue.
“Always know just what to say, Sammy.”
He frowned and looked away, gripping the edge of the bed nervously. He knew Dean was bluffing, or that he was entering the eye of the storm and his nervous system was going to keep cooking him from the inside out until he died. Sam dug his nails in and exhaled unsteadily—he didn’t know when he’d started tearing up.
Dean discarded the bottle and his breathing settled slightly, it wasn’t as harsh and ragged, but that didn’t bring him much relief. It’d only get worse and worse.
“Why don’t you take heat suppressants?” Dean asked. The ice had melted away and he unfolded the hand towel, dropping it on top of his head and seeming relieved for a brief moment.
“I did when I was with Jess—neither of us wanted kids. I only get the emergency kind now.”
Dean lifted the hand towel, eyes glimmering like Sam had just let loose some deep, dark secret. “I always thought you’d have three kids or something. And I’d crash on your couch whenever I was in town, and they’d all get excited to see Uncle Dean again. It really pissed you off how much they liked me.”
Sam smiled bitterly, an unease washing over him—he expected that kind of speculative talk from Dad, the implication being that despite everything Sam would have been able to get someone else pregnant, but not Dean. He wasn’t even sure he could be upset when all Dean really cared about in that fantasy was being the cool uncle, not about enforcing the idea of pregnancy onto Sam. Still, he felt a stab of something cold in his gut and dug his nails into the edge of the bed until his knuckles turned white.
“That’s not gonna happen,” he said stiffly, trying to end the conversation at that. Dean didn’t have time to be lingering on something as unimportant as Sam’s reproductive system.
Dean furrowed his brow, persisting nonetheless. “You’re sure? I thought that’s why you were so proud of being an omega—you had a pregnancy kink or something.”
Sam’s eyes widened, and that cold stab turned into a feeling of a blade fishing around low in his abdomen. His heart started pounding again, blood rushing in his ears, and he glared at Dean; he almost looked confused at the sudden shift in Sam’s expression.
“Because I didn’t repress myself that means I have a fetish? Do you really think the only good omega is one who keeps it under wraps, who never lets anyone know unless it’s a life-or-death situation?” He leaned forward, pulling his lips into a scowl. “You scared the shit out of me, Dean, and all because you hate yourself so much you’d rather die than ask for help!”
Dean glared back at him. “I didn’t want you to know! It doesn’t matter what I am, you’re just obsessed with having another way to play the victim when Dad’s being tough on you!”
They both shot up within a few seconds of each other—Dean first, then Sam followed suit, trying to use the height he had over Dean to his advantage. He hoped he might stand down, he hoped that he might even collapse onto the bed and start sweating buckets again, but he and Sam stood chest to chest, snarling at each other like rabid dogs.
“Why? What would have been so wrong about me knowing? I could have helped you!”
“Do you know how humiliating it is to have your own body explained to you by your smartass kid brother? I thought you’d let it slip someday and everybody would know! I see how they look at you, Sammy—their respect vanishes in the blink of an eye, all they can think about is what’s in your pants! All because you don’t keep your goddamn mouth shut about it!”
Sam exhaled sharply. He and Dean shared a long, tense stare before he opened his mouth again.
“I think the only person who thinks about what’s in my pants more than me is you.”
The air was sucked out of the room, and for a moment Sam wondered what Dean was going to do next with that out in the open. His immediate first thought was that Dean was going to punch him, that he was going to break his jaw for saying something that depraved. Sam was more than willing to go down that way if it proved his long-standing theory about his brother’s fixation; if it deflected attention off of his own.
Sam’s next thought was decidedly less realistic, at least in his mind, but it was one that was sparked by those lingering gazes, the stench leeching off of Dean that was meant to attract an alpha but only made heat and wetness pool between his legs. He could set his fury at Dean aside if it meant he might come clean, or maybe he’d already started compartmentalizing it and considered saying something to rile him up. Maybe it’d get him to finally do what Sam could tell he’d wanted to for years.
Dean’s jaw hardened and he stared at Sam, but he didn’t move or speak. His breathing was ragged and the heat radiating off of him was sweltering; Sam wasn’t sure if he’d collapse in on himself before he could do anything else. But his desire to help Dean was being clouded by his spitefulness, and he thought he might get a rush out of seeing him suffer—if only just for a minute or two.
He didn’t count on Dean glancing away, like just looking at Sam was making him misty-eyed. Sam’s spite was quashed down, deep deep down, and he exhaled softly.
“That was a stupid thing to say,” Sam started.
Dean’s face was flushed red and his watering eyes caught the light as he turned, going to grab his boots from the foot of his bed. “See you in the morning.”
“Dean, wait!”
Sam grabbed him, dug his nails into Dean’s bare forearm. The heat was unbearable, like he was touching a hot stove. Sam felt another cold pang in his stomach and dread mingled in with the rest of his conflicting emotions. Dean jerked, but Sam didn’t let up.
“Stop fucking touching me, Sammy!” Fury burned behind his eyes and a tear broke free, racing down his cheek. “I can’t be here right now, not with you!”
Wait, it echoed through the sea of anger, fear, a thudding undercurrent of something deep and primal that he wished he could ignore but was only growing stronger by the minute. Wait, he doesn’t actually feel the same, does he?
He stayed firm, holding Dean’s arm and feeling their quick pulses start to fall into sync. His heart hammered against his ribcage and all he could do was watch Dean, wonder what was going on underneath his skull. Maybe his brain was getting cooked and that was the only reason he was acting like this, maybe Sam was all fucked up on his own and projecting onto Dean. Whatever the case was, a part of him still held onto the idea that maybe he was being genuine, no matter how much that wreaked havoc on Sam’s own fragile mental state.
“Please stay.”
He felt like a little kid, grabbing his brother’s sleeve and asking him to please not leave him alone, not now, that he could go along too. Sam remembered late nights that turned into early mornings waiting by the window in Bobby’s living room, hoping that the Impala would roll back up the driveway and Dean would come tumbling through the door. Sometimes they turned into days, weeks, a month spent with Bobby, no idea when Dad and Dean would be home. It made his stomach twist up into knots the longer he thought about it.
Dean exhaled shakily, his eyes gliding down to meet Sam’s lips. He glanced back up just as quickly, and that spark that he had been proven right flickered out again.
“Sammy, no. I know what’s gonna happen; you don’t want that,” Dean protested, but he was starting to fade out again. Sam knew it wouldn’t be long until he was unconscious again with too high a chance of it being for good.
“You never asked me if I did.”
Dean stilled, stopped trying to fight Sam off of him. His pupils were blown wide and the smell coming off of him was intoxicating—he needed to be rutted, and Sam was more than happy to do it if it meant saving him. Especially if there really was a part of Dean that wanted him like that.
Sam moved in slowly, giving Dean ample opportunity to move back, to reject him if he really wanted to, but they slammed together like magnets. Dean held Sam tight, grabbing his waist and his face and breathing hard as Sam kissed him like it was the end of the world. Their mouths clashed and there was no attempt made at gentleness; Dean wanted Sam, and Sam wanted Dean.