Fic: Comme si de rien n'était

[sunspot]

Title: Comme si de rien n'était
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: 18+ for sexual situations and language
Word Count: ~2600
Warnings: implied consensual underage sex
Summary: Set vaguely mid-season 1, Dean is coming to terms with the fact that things are different now. He doesn't have with Sam what they had before his brother left for California, and he doesn't know if Sam wants it back.

Author's Notes/Disclaimer: Written for archae_ology for the samdeanexchange This is what I have come up with based on my translation of Quelqu'un m'a dit (the prompt was the song). The title is an album title by the artist of the prompt song and translates from French as As If Nothing Had Happened.

Beta’d by epiphanyx7 without whom I'd be adrift in a sea of comma abuse and my own tears.

Alternately, read on ao3.

It had been a very long week, but at least it was almost over.

Dean rolled his shoulders, tried to get comfortable under the thin motel blanket. He pushed his face a little further into the pillow, but it was no use. He just wanted to sleep, but the light from the bathroom was still on, the shower was still running; Dean could never fall asleep until he knew Sam was sleeping.

The day had been a shitty one, too, they'd hit four or five dead ends during their course of investigation, getting nowhere. Dean grimaced, his mind flashing briefly to the face of the girl they'd found, already dead. Yet another one they were too late to save. He pushed it as far out of his mind as he could, which wasn't very far.

The shower shut off.

Groaning, Dean rolled over to face the bathroom door, ready to cuss Sam out for taking so long.

"Sorry," Sam said, cutting him off before he had started. He tried to flick wet hair out of his eyes, but it just flopped back. "I know. I'm a girl. I take too long in the shower. You'll never know how I turned out like I did. You wonder if you were a failure as a big brother. Yadda yadda."

Dean flipped him off. "Get to bed, you big weirdo."

Sam smiled down at him and turned off the lights. Dean heard Sam toss his towel to the floor, which was irritating because then it wouldn’t be dry for the morning when Dean wanted to shower. He was about to say something when the mattress dipped down, and with a rush of cool air Sam was under the blanket and pressing his hands against the small of Dean’s back.

“Sam!”

“Shh,” Sam murmured, pressing his teeth into Dean’s shoulder. Dean struggled to turn over to face him.

“Sam,” he tried again, but Sam pressed their lips together, taking advantage of Dean's open mouth to thrust his tongue inside, teeth scraping at his brother's lips. Dean couldn’t say anything else, couldn't even think, could barely breathe with the way Sam was just going for it, fucking his mouth with his tongue like it was the only thing in the world that mattered. Sam pushed on Dean’s shoulder, shoving him down into the bed. Dean put up a token struggle for a moment before pressing back against his brother and biting into his lip.

Sam mumbled something into Dean’s mouth that could have been ‘I need you’ or it could have been ‘I bleed glue’ or anything else really because Dean was more focused on the kissing than on the actual words.

Finally, they broke apart for air and to get Dean out of his pajama bottoms. Sam wasted no time in wrapping his fingers around Dean’s already embarrassingly hard cock. When he pushed his hips forward and palmed his own length along Dean’s, and they groaned into each other’s mouths, Dean startled himself awake.

Sam was still snoring in the next bed, oblivious to Dean's hot blush and awkward noises. Rolling over, Dean put his back to his brother, trying to be quiet as he shoved his hand down the front of his boxers. Palming his erection, he shut his eyes and tried desperately not to replay the dream he had just had. He was hard and leaking already, slippery enough even without any lube. He stroked himself quickly, trying to think of blonde twins or flexible Korean gymnasts, instead unable to take his mind off of the slide of Sam's lips and the rough, hot, skin-on-skin pull of Sam's hands.

In the deafening silence between his heartbeats, Dean could hear Sam's slow, even breathing from the other side of the room. His grip reflexively tightened and it took all of his willpower to slow his pace to match Sam's breathing.

Dean's own breath caught in his throat as he stroked himself and as he listened to his brother, and wishing vehemently he was thinking about something else. He imagined it was Sam's hand wrapped around his cock. He imagined it was Sam teasing him towards orgasm, imagined Sam's hot breath on his skin, and Sam's lips curled in a smile, begging him to come.

And just after that thought, Dean did, quietly and hating himself. It wouldn't have been so bad if this wasn't the fourth time he'd jacked off while thinking about his brother while said brother was asleep in the next bed.

Dean rolled out of bed and slunk towards the shower to wash away the evidence before Sam woke up.

-

Sam glanced at his watch again and wondered where the hell Dean was. It was a common occurrence these last few weeks; Dean opting to split up to question witnesses, or research whatever the newest monster was, or to get dinner. At first it had been fine, Sam had spent the last four years getting accustomed to not having Dean lurking on the edges of every moment and to be thrown right back in to it left Sam craving his alone time. But when Sam started noticing the weird behaviour that was accompanying it all, he got a little edgy.

There were a number of times when Sam would look up from whatever he was doing to see Dean looking at him cock-eyed, or with his mouth open like he was about to say something, or with a furrowed, concentrated look on his face. But every time Sam would raise an eyebrow in question, Dean would find something else to be doing.

“Dean?” he finally broke one afternoon over a pile of research. “Is there something you want to talk to me about?”

“No,” Dean said tightly. Sam didn’t press it.

-

Before Stanford, before the blow-out fight with Dad, long before Sam had thought about leaving, things between Dean and Sam had been... weird. They both fully admitted it was weird, but never out loud because that would have ruined whatever it was.

It was weird mostly because it didn't feel weird. It was easy and comfortable and familiar. After a rough hunt or a long, long night of driving, they would hit a new motel and Dad would head out to do the first round of investigation and Dean would let Sam take the first shower. And they would end up in bed together, just lying there touching. It wasn't even sexual at first, just comfortable.

And then Dad went out one night in Tampa asking after a bodak during a thunderstorm and he left a bottle of Johnnie Walker where Dean could find it. While passing the bottle back and forth, the power went out and the TV went dead, so Sam and Dean were left with nothing to do but talk and drink some more.

Talking had never been their favourite past time, and somehow Sam ended up in Dean's lap, kissing him. Dean tried to protest, but Sam slipped his tongue in Dean's mouth instead and the taste of whisky got that much stronger-- and Dean forgot why he'd been trying to argue in the first place.

Things went pretty quickly from not sexual to sexual, and even though Dean had tried not to think about it he couldn't help the building tension, the confusion, questions, feelings and... things they were absolutely not talking about. But it felt right, too, because it meant they didn't need anyone else. No man is an island, but their lifestyle made it very hard to trust anyone who wasn't a Winchester.

-

Sometimes, Sam thought it was wrong. Sometimes he thought it was perfect. Usually, he thought it was both of those things, along with ridiculous, unlikely, hot, sinful and completely necessary.

Dean tried never to think about it, unless they were fucking.

“Sam,” he whispered against the back of Sam’s neck, pushing into him as slow as he could stand, gasping at the heat. Sam was making noises of his own, whimpers and moans like the hottest kind of porn, trying to stifle them in the pillow. That was really the most shameful thing about the whole encounter, Dean decided, wasting all those wicked, unrestrained noises Sam would make for him. “Fuck, yes,” he gasped, thrusting a little bit faster into Sam.

Sam choked out a noise that had to be a squeak and craned his head around, trying to catch Dean’s lips. His chin hit Dean’s forehead, a sharp flare of pain that Dean barely noticed. There was a chuckle, a grumble -- and then their lips met and Sam was licking into Dean’s mouth like it was all he needed.

In that moment, it was.

-

There had been more than a regular amount of painfully tragic bullshit in the lives of the Winchesters as a family, but Dean always numbered The Fight in the top three. Dad versus Sammy, toe-to-toe with bitter, hateful words and hard, unforgiving stares... and Dean was helpless on the sidelines. There was so much he needed to say, and no way he could say any of it. He wanted to yell at Dad, wanted to force him to see that this life wasn’t for Sam. Sammy needed more, he was capable of so much -- he could be better than this, could do so much more than this life was going to bring him. Dean could see the way it was breaking Sam apart at the seams to move all the time, to never have any friends, never have a real life, never have the kind of memories that drove John to revenge and lulled Dean to sleep at night.

He wanted to pull Sam close and breathe him in, to tell him it was okay to want to leave. He wanted Sammy to know that no matter how it hurt Dean, that Dean wanted him to go if it meant at least one of them could have a normal life. Even if it meant that he'd lose his brother.

Mostly, Dean hated that day, because it was the day he lost the thing with Sam that he tried to never think about. Nothing about it made sense in Dean’s head. Maybe that’s why he hated thinking about it.

-

Sam didn’t press the issue, not right away. But a few hours later, he couldn’t stand the tense air between them. “Dean,” Sam said again. “You’ve been acting weird, well, weirder, for weeks. What is up with you?”

Dean shoved himself back from the table and stood. Sam was startled by his abruptness.

“Nothing. It’s fine, I’m fine, we’re fine. Forget it, Sam.”

“We’re... Dean. Of course we’re fine. What do you mean?”

“I said forget it.” Dean was slipping his jacket on and patting down the pockets for his keys.

“No, Dean, why would you even say that?” Sam tried again, more confused than ever.

“Be back later,” Dean called over his shoulder without looking back.

-

He drove aimlessly for forty minutes until he found a quiet spot on the edge of some trees. He got out of the car and shut the door carefully, walking around and kicking at sticks, hurling rocks into the woods. It didn’t help, not really, but it was something to do.

Dean knew his brother well, and even though Dean only wanted to get four bottles of Southern Comfort and hide in the bathtub until these stupid childish feelings went away, Sam needed to talk about it in order to get past it. No Chick Flick Moments was the rule, but Dean needed to talk about it, too, at least if it would help Sammy.

So in a burst of inspiration, Dean bought a big, deep dish apple pie and a case of beer and drove back to the motel.

Sam was where he had left him at the table with books and paper spread around him, hunched over reading and taking notes like he could find every answer he needed if he just looked hard enough. Dean was frequently jealous of Sam’s attitude towards learning. He felt like he'd never be able to find the answers he needed.

“Dean--”

“Shut it, Sammy. I brought pie,” Dean said, setting it on top of an open text book.

He crossed to the television set and flicked through three or four staticky stations before he found one playing a Formula One race. He flopped onto the closest bed.

“Get the pie and come over here. I have beer.”

Sam rolled his eyes, but he obediently brought the pie over to the bed and sat next to Dean. “So.”

Dean held up a hand to cut him off before he started. “No, I go first.” He handed a beer to Sam before opening one for himself. He was stalling and they both knew it, but Sam thankfully didn’t call him on it.

“We had... we had a - a thing,” he started. “Yeah. Whatever it was. And I don’t know, I guess we never really talked about it, but it was there. And then you left.” Dean took a long drink. It was good beer, just the right temperature.

Dean considered the best way to mention Jessica, thoughtful as he drank more of his beer. The best way, of course, would be to not mention her at all. That was entirely a different conversation and Dean was pretty sure there wasn’t enough pie or professional car racing on the planet to get them through that conversation alive. Not yet. Not any time soon.

“And now you’re back, but we’re still not talking about it and I guess it just feels... weird.”

Sam was silent, not saying anything as he stared for a long moment at the bottle in his hands.

“Whatever. It was always weird.” Dean said, trying to be flippant about it.

Sam blinked once, and then he laughed, a short, sharp bark of a laugh. “Yeah. It was.” He cracked open the beer and took a long drink, a hint of a smile curling at the edges of his mouth. Not, of course, that Dean was looking, or anything.

They watched the cars on the grainy tv screen, sipping their beer and not saying anything.

Dean was about to give up, figuring that it -- this stupid conversation -- was over for sure, and then Sam turned to him with a bitter, tense expression on his face.

“Dean -- you can’t still... still love me. You’re acting like... like I never hurt you.”

“You left, Sammy. I didn’t expect you to stay forever. Frankly, I would love you less if you had.” It was supposed to be a joke, but it didn’t feel very funny when Dean said it out loud.

"I abandoned you," Sam said softly.

"You tried to make a life for yourself," Dean snapped. "It's not the same thing -- it's ... it's different," even though he didn't know how to explain it.

“I’m pretty fucked up,” Sam admitted. “With all of this.” He motioned around them like the little grey motel room was personally responsible for what was hurting him. “Dad going missing and hunting again and Jess...”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed vehemently.

“Yeah.”

And silence again.

“It’s a bitch, isn’t it?”

Sam looked at him sideways. “What is?”

“How time fucking flies. It changes everything.”

Sam kissed him.

Dean had to admit, in his vivid waking nightmares of all the ways this conversation might play out, he hadn’t thought about kissing.

It wasn’t messy and pornographic like the kisses he'd dreamed about, or nearly as fumbling and desperate as the ones they'd shared in the past. This was chaste and short and small and only lips, no teeth or tongues or excited hands, this was careful and painful and sweet. Sam pulled away after a second and sat back, away from Dean. He took a deep, steadying breath.

“Everything changed,” he agreed. “But that doesn’t mean we can't change it again.”