Something Gold, Part Three

[ht_murray]

Soundtrack|Part One|Part Two| Part Three| Part Four--The End|DVD extras aka Author notes|


It's most likely mid-morning, judging by the thickness of the atmosphere and the evening rain still steaming off the pavement --ghost shadows of a sun they never see. A chain link fence appears on the edge of the horizon. Sam only recognizes it by the even spacing of the support poles, a steady pattern in the hazy blur between his eyelashes as he squints.

Sure, he can't really see for shit, but he keeps his lashes down and his head to the window. He's not protecting his eyes. Well, not just protecting his eyes. It's a little late for that.

There was a little boy once --a neighbor, a friend, maybe a relative, Sam can't really remember-- who'd squint his eyes up tight every time he met someone new. His mother said he thought not seeing someone meant that someone couldn't see him either. Sam had dismissed it, then, but the tightness around his eyes, now, is only partially reflexive. He doesn't want Dean to see him.

They've seen each other every which way AND loose, part of growing up joined at the double helix. They've cleaned each other, clothed each other, analyzed various fluids (for diagnostic purposes, of course), and weathered adolescent storms that involved really bad hair and body odor. Now, things are different. Somehow. Sam's not sure what he looks like with scratches over his arms, his eyes trying to pus over with irritation. But it can't be pretty. At any rate, he doesn't feel pretty. And it matters.

He kissed his brother, on the mouth, with tongue. He should be laughing his ass off about now, calling bullshit with a slug to the shoulder and two for flinching. That's what brothers do. On television. In books. The old movies that had always flooded the airwaves after one a.m. What Wally and the Beav do. What Joey and Blossom do. (Hey, the chick had some balls.) And Greg and Peter might have put the moves on Marcia (or so Dean's inclined to believe) but not on each other. Brothers don't do that. Brothers who aren't them.

Sam's not laughing. Hell, he's not even sure he's sorry. Should he be?

He is sure he should not be thinking about doing it again.

If it weren't for the low quiver so deep in his gut he can't quite identify as either arousal or nausea, Sam would think the kiss was just a hallucination. This is the desert. Wouldn't be the first oasis to evaporate into mirage out here.

Dean hasn't mentioned a thing, not the kiss, and not whatever happened a couple nights ago at their Fourth of July bash. Since taking a couple hits off his inhaler and climbing back into the driver's seat, he hasn't stopped talking--about everything else EXCEPT what Sam's doing putting the moves on his brother. Everything.

And yeah, Sam really did not need to know he was potty-trained by a dog.

Sam hasn't stopped thinking, about the desert, how there's no sun, so there are no mirages. About the heat, because even here the air's never really dry enough to cool down overnight. About why the hell he put the moves on his brother, and why he's... He can't really pinpoint what it is he feels, other than frustrated.

Dean's going out of his way to prove to him that nothing's changed between them. Hell, Sam could confess to being Jeffrey Dahmer's pen pal and Dean would pretend it didn't matter. What they have is good. It's stable like nothing's ever been for them. It's comfortable. Of course Dean doesn't want it to change.

But Sam's... not sorry so much as disappointed. Granted, he hasn't really thought about what it is he's trying to accomplish, what it is he wants, but he knows 'more' is a pretty good start.

Maybe he is a selfish bastard, never satisfied, but otherwise there'd be no such thing as Heaven, no Nirvana, no Valhalla. Not if people were supposed to be content with... content, weren't supposed to strive for better and perfect and more.

He doesn't know how much more he wants. For now, he'll start with Dean telling him where the hell they're going, because that fence is approaching fast, stretches in either direction as far as he can see, and Dean hasn't even taken his foot off the accelerator. They're close enough now to make out the scratched outline of razor wire along the top, and that's pretty close given the fact Sam can't see much of anything without blinking almost in time to his heartbeat.

"Where are we, exactly?"

Dean leans over as far as he can without steering the car off the road. "I can't tell you. It's top secret."

That's a joke. Sam knows it's a joke, but he didn't laugh at the story about how he tried to drive the Impala like Daddy when he was three by sticking the car keys in a light socket (thank god for ground fault interrupts) and he's not laughing now. He feels less like laughing every minute. There's a patch of raw flesh on the inside of his left arm he can't stop scratching. His head's starting to think the most annoying sound in the world is thunk-a-thunk-a-thunk of tires over cracked asphalt. Every thunk-a is echoed by an answering thud behind his temples, and Dean was probably right about him trying too hard not to say what was on his mind, because his throat's grown sore around the knot of words in it.

"Cut that out before I strap cooking mitts on you!" Dean smacks him on the thigh hard enough to make him jump. And damn if Dean's hand on his thigh doesn't make everything jump.

"Then tell me where we are!" It sounds bitchy, even to him. People laugh sometimes to keep from crying, and not laughing or crying makes for one pissy Sam. He's not sorry for that either. He might also have entitlement issues to go with his selfishness. Hey, his friggin' skin is trying to slough off, Dean's not keeping up with his nebulizer treatment, because he's too busy driving, and Sam has a raging hard-on. Pissy doesn't begin to describe it.

"Home," Dean says without taking his eyes off the road or the approaching fence. "At least, it will be, until you heal up, maybe longer."

"Where?" He's more exasperated than he means to be. A little part of him cringes in shame and guilt at Dean's use of that four letter word they're not allowed to have, but it's a quiet little voice he's been trained to ignore.

"Actually, I got the idea from you."

"How so?"

"Katharine Heigl?" Dean looks over, puts a hand on the side of Sam's face, brushes over his cheek. "Eye booger," he shrugs. He doesn't drop his hand as quickly as he should. "Did you think I never watched the dubba-dubba-dubba-dubba dubba-dubba-dubba-u-B? The home of Katie Holmes and Michelle Williams? And let's not forget Michigan J. Frog, rockin' the top hat."

This time Sam pulls away from Dean, his head snapping to the window where he can now make out giant 'Restricted Area' signs on the fence. "Roswell?" Now, he's not so much exasperated as just plain skeptical.

"Not quite. Next logical step." Dean examines the hand he used to clean off Sam's face and rubs it over the thigh of his jeans before placing it back on the wheel. "Area 51." The car rumbles up to the fence, which looks to be 12 feet high if it's a foot, and coasts to a stop. Turning to face Sam, Dean smiles lopsidedly. "Welcome to Earth."

Dean's knowledge really does all come from television and movies. Sam groans. He has to admit, a Will Smith quote is oddly appropriate, since this really is the story all about how their lives got flipped, turned upside down...

Too bad the upside down view is just as scabby as right side up.

#

It takes Dean a good half an hour to get the gate open with bolt cutters from the trunk. He could probably cut a hole in the fence itself in half the time, but he chooses to take on the half dozen chains padlocked with latches the thickness of Sam's thumb. Wouldn't want to take the chance on scratching the Impala's paint driving her through a ragged hole in the chain link.

"You know, the front gate probably just had a guard tower and a barricade. We could just drive through," Sam points out as Dean stops for the third time to catch his breath, hands braced against his knees. Sam had offered to take a turn, but Dean (masochistic bastard) had made some comment about Sam cutting off a finger, and took on the task alone. Sam takes the opportunity to piss in the bushes and sits down on the hood of the car under the pretense of giving Dean shit, but Dean doesn't know he's got an extra inhaler in each pocket and his ears tuned to ultra-high wheeze frequency.

"Yeah. This road isn't even named on the map, so I'm guessing they didn't use it to access the base anymore."

"But?" Because there's always a 'but,' something that puts a Dean Winchester filter on the facts and makes every ludicrous idea seem perfectly logical.

"But the front gate's all the way on the other side of the lake, and I don't think we have enough gas to get there." He says it with a scratch to the back of his head, a sure tell there's a huge boogeyman lurking in the statement.

"Dean. Tell me we aren't in danger of running out of gas in the middle of the desert."

"Okay," Dean shrugs. "We're not in danger of running out of gas in the middle of the desert... so long as we get where we're going about five minutes ago. But hey, don't sweat it," he continues, hoisting the bolt cutters up off the ground. "From here, it's all downhill. Even if we run out of gas, we can coast into the main."

"And then?" Surely Sam's not the only one wondering how they leave without gas.

"C'mon, Sammy. It's a military base. Bound to be some gas inside. And this is Area 51. We could probably use some of that alien technology to beam in a whole oil tanker right out of the Gulf of Mexico."

Sam shakes his head, which is a bad idea, because 'ow' then crosses his arms over his chest. Another bad idea, since any touching skin starts to scrape like it's made of hay chaff. "You don't believe that alien crap, do you?"

"Nah," Dean huffs. He wipes a trail of sweat off his forehead, catches his breath before starting again on the lock he's working through. Bearing down, his face turns beet red, and the veins pop out on his forearms before the hasp finally snaps, and Dean almost collapses forward into the fence. He catches himself less than gracefully.

"So why here, then? Why not a Regency hotel somewhere?"

Dean pauses again, bracing against the long handles of the bolt cutters like a cane, all the while making a show of cocking a hip nonchalantly. Sam plays along, but he's not fooled. If there wasn't just one more lock on the fence, he'd take the damned cutters and open it himself. But for just one more, he'll spare Dean a little of his arrogant dignity. It's the least he can do after molesting him. "I've been thinking."

"That's never good."

Dean's sweating enough to glow even in the lack of sunlight. Sam can pretend not to be noticing, what with his own eyes barely at half-mast, but between the sweat, the reddened cheeks, and the shortness of breath, Sam can't help but think this is what Dean looks like after sex. "Very funny, Chief Runs in Rain Until Dick Falls Off," Dean chides. Sam wonders if that's an observation or a prediction, because... yikes. Dean huffs and goes on. "Actually, what I've been thinking is, we're going about this all wrong. Dad always said if you're lost in the woods, the best way to find help is to sit tight and let them come to you."

"We're not lost."

"No, but I'm not so sure we're alone either."

"What makes you say that?"

"Bottled water."

"What?" He passes Dean's archaic two word sentence off as shortness of breath.

Dean wipes the sweat off his face with the back of is arm and takes a seat beside Sam on the car, keeping both feet on the ground like he remembers what happened the last time they both tried to sit on the slippery metal. The car tips down with the added weight, and Sam catches a heel in the bumper to keep from sliding off again.

"We've been driving across this wasteland for months now, right?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Stopped in some of these places a good two or three times at least. And we take what we need, water, food, whatever. But we never take it all, you know, because we might be back again."

"What are you getting at?"

"Every time I take water off a shelf, I arrange the leftover bottles the same way. I figure, if anyone else comes along, they might not share our taste in Little Debbie, but they're gonna take water."

"That's good thinking." Sam wishes he'd thought of it. "What'd you find out?"

Dean shrugs. "Pretty much what I expected to find. Sometimes the bottles are exactly the way I left them, and sometimes there are bottles missing."

Sam slides forward on the hood so his feet touch ground, catches himself with his hands on the edge of the metal. "So, you think there are other people, and we just haven't met them yet."

"Pretty much." And there's no smirk, no cocky expression, or mental pat on the back in Dean's expression. Sam can only guess the number of sleepless nights Dean's spent thinking up that plan, desperate to know if anyone's left but them. He'd guess hundreds. He's spent at least that himself.

"But why didn't you just leave a note?"

Dean opens his mouth for a witty comeback that doesn't come, then he tips his head and rubs the back of his neck. "Heh. Probably the same reason I didn't think to mention it to you before now. Obviously, there were some holes in my plan."

"Speaking of..."

"What?"

"You know that fence could've been electrified. Probably should've tested it before you went all Jaws of Life on the lock."

"No electricity."

"Solar powered."

"No sun."

Sam chuckles to himself. "Yeah, we really ought to talk more."

"So..."

"So..."

"So, what does being here have to do with whether there's anyone out there besides us?"

Dean twitches one shoulder up, not even a real shrug, dismissing himself in a way he'd never dismiss Sam, then stands again, hoists the bolt cutters up. "I just thought it would be better to hang out in one place for awhile. And the military is bound to have stockpiles of everything we'd need."

"We drove right by Fort Hood."

"You drove right by Fort Hood. I rode by it while you were all busy playing Superman." Now Sam actually laughs, small but audible. Dean was supposed to have been too out of it to notice Sam's cape and tights. "Anyway, this place is probably better. A Top Secret military base is bound to have all kinds of toys and goodies you can't get at GI's 'R Us. If there are people out there, then there's probably something here we can use to find 'em."

Sam doesn't even notice he's picking at a scab on his arm until Dean cuffs him upside the head.

"AFTER you stop shedding our skin, Godzilla."

Sam doesn't mean to fall off the car at that particular moment, but his head already hurt enough without Dean banging the gong on his ass. So, on his ass is exactly where he lands, tailbone throbbing, before he even realizes his knees start to wobble.

"Shit!" Dean catches him by the shoulder right before he tips forward and faceplants in the dirt. "Sam? Sammy?"

Sam blinks back tears that are more than irritation on his corneas, feels his head resist when he tries to meet Dean's gaze. Dean's hands on the side of his head help some to dampen the noise between his ears. "Ow."

"That's it," Dean says, though he doesn't stand up right away, a fact for which Sam is grateful, "back in the car with you."

"Just a minute." Sam bats at Dean's hands, because he doesn't need the blood rushing to his downstairs brain when his upstairs one is already starved. He closes his eyes and leans his head back against the grill, doesn't even think about the bugs stuck in it. The gravel crunches, door squeaks open then shut, and Dean comes back with a healthy dose of Tylenol and a bottle of water.

He feels Dean put a hand on the top of his head, one thumb extended down to his forehead and lifting up on first one eyelid then the other. His lips, what Sam glimpses of them, are all stretched tight and thin. It's a crime. Sam could totally make them plump up again if he didn't think his head would roll off in transit. Dean doesn't say what he's looking for, but Sam can tell he doesn't like what he finds. He might even press a little fumbling half-kiss onto the pad of Dean's thumb when Dean puts his palm over Sam's cheek. Dean says he used to suck his thumb when he was little, especially when he was sick with an ear infection or something else that just never stopped hurting no matter how much medicine they pumped into him. He's not above a little thumb sucking right now. Even if it is Dean's.

"You're getting hot."

"It's the desert." Now Sam laughs, and this time it's just to keep from crying. Dean's not allowed to look that close to tears.

"Whatever, smartass. You sit here until I finish the fence, and then we'll get inside."

Sam takes a drink of water and gives a thumbs up. "Aye, aye, Captain."

"Fuck you."

"Okay."

"You're sick, Sam." And right then, he is, so he's not offended in the least. Still not sorry either.

#

Two days after Dean almost died on the floor of that motel room in Texas, Sam feels like they've just managed to slide the death card across the table from one hand to the next like the dreaded Old Maid. Dean's all hands and an endless stream of dialogue that goes nowhere, because Sam only answers in whimpers and groans. His head hasn't stopped pounding, yet, and now his back's taken up counterpoint against the cinderblock.

"Can you help me out here, Sam?" Dean's hands steady his head, then fall away, and Sam's head follows. "Whoa, c'mon. C'mon, Sammy just hang with me for a few minutes." Sam doesn't want to. He wants to sleep, better yet, crawl under this friggin' cot and die, just wants to curl inward on himself like a silverfish rolling away from a hungry scorpion.

Everything hurts. What doesn't throb, itches, and he can't scratch, not with his hands wrapped in gauze and duct tape (masking tape tasted like shit, but that hadn't stopped him from chewing through it, and he really doesn't want to know what papier mache tastes like).

"Fine," Dean huffs, as Sam's head falls onto his shoulder. "But don't think I'm not gonna give you shit about this when you're better." He does some weird, stretching, twisting thing that makes his tendons cord under Sam's forehead, and there's a metallic scrape like something being removed from a stainless steel bowl. Then, Sam can see, just a sliver of light pushed over his eye by the pad of Dean's thumb, and between the haze of whatever infection's bubbling over the surface, he can just make out the fringe of Dean's bangs. He blows them away as if they were his own, force of habit mostly, and more effort than he'd care to make again. He catches a glimpse of Dean's other thumb right before it presses against his eye. His open eye.

"Hey!" He couldn't possibly sound any whinier. "What the..." He jerks back, but Dean's got his fingers spread over the side of his face and goes along with him. Sam almost summons the effort to shake him off, because, hello, you can poke your friends and you can poke your eyes but you can't poke your friends' eyes...uh..., yeah, that ain't right. Before he gets over the initial shock, something cool soothes outward from the warm press of Dean's thumb, and Sam stops fighting. "What is that?"

"You don't want to know."

"Smells like... Dude, you put slime in my eye?"

"Yeah, well, I figured it couldn't hurt. Stuff's like aloe or something. It's worked on everything else we've used it for. Burns, cuts, lube..." He clears his throat, "...for like squeaky door hinges."

"Couldn't hurt? Dean, you're putting it in my eye. How do you know it won't blind me?"

"It won't."

"How do you know?"

"Well, you see, I went out to the airstrip and rounded me up about twenty jackrabbits, then held them down while I smeared gunk in their eyes."

"There aren't any rabbits."

"Oh, well, then, I went down to the lab and got me one of those aliens..."

"Dean..." He's too tired to even sound pissy. "You didn't test it on yourself."

"Just call me Subject Zero. Consider my debt to humanity paid."

"What if it had blinded you?"

"Don't worry, Sam, I thought of that. Only put it in one eye."

"Great, so now you're sticking fingers in my face with bad depth perception."

"C'mon. Give a guy a little credit, would you? I'm trying to help. You and your grabby hands couldn't keep from scratching, and now you've got yourself a nice scrape on your eye." Dean puts some goop in his other eye and reaches for the gauze. "Lights out for now, can't have you squinting and making it worse."

Sam's not too proud to whimper, but he's asleep by the time Dean finishes tying the bandages.

#

The next time Sam wakes up, he really wishes he hadn't. The part of him not silently screaming and thrashing under the constant firing of pain receptors in his brain that seem hotwired into a lightning storm forces him to stay perfectly still and not add any new sensation to the mix.

Dean's still talking. Sam wonders if he's ever left his side or stopped rambling on.

"And that special alien metal they claimed was just the remains of a weather balloon? Well, that's real, too. They've got sheets and sheets of it rolled up like cloth on these big spools in the next hangar. You should see it, Sam. It's so shiny, it's almost like it doesn't just reflect the light, but actually multiplies it somehow. You know, like maybe the metal was actually part of what powered the ship..." A soft chuckle. "Would you listen to me, talking about aliens and spaceships... I dunno," and Sam can hear the scrape of Dean's fingers over the back of his own head, "guess I thought we'd really seen everything."

Sam's sure there's a wise crack in him, but it's lost in hurt, hurt, hurt, writhing and perfectly still. His breath hitches, uneven and trembling, screams he won't voice, cries he won't utter, but God, when will it stop?

Dean must hear the change in his breathing. The cot sinks down beside him, and the shift breaks Sam's paralysis for a second, just enough to roll onto his side and curl inward, around Dean like he's a giant heating pad on a pulled muscle.

Dean doesn't stop talking, but his voice gets quieter when Sam nuzzles into his hip. His hand falters a little but goes down between Sam's shoulder blades, a rub that's supposed to bring comfort. A fire ignites under his fingers, though, and Sam arches away, his knees drawing up tighter, practically into Dean's lap.

"Sorry. Shhh," Dean whispers. His hand doesn't hesitate a second time, winds up into Sam's hair instead, one thumb stroking over the top of his ear. It feels...good. It's the only thing that feels good, that doesn't burn, throb, or scream to be scratched. It dampens the thrum behind his temples some, and travels through his veins like medicine, something opiate and calming.

Dean's silent for a few breaths, and Sam nuzzles in closer, wants more, addicted already to warm and safe.

"And..." Dean clears his throat. "Anyway, that metal fabric, it's just as tough as they said on all those alien conspiracy shows you made me watch. I'm sure they must've made a cutting tool for it or something, but I haven't been able to find it, yet. Don't really need one, though. Turns out a knife that can kill a demon can also cut alien metal. Who knows, maybe they came from the same dimension or something." A soft huff of a laugh. "You should've seen me trying to cut off a piece. I tried everything, tin snips, arc welder, cutting torch, and eventually I just did a Dad. You remember how he used to get when he was trying to fix something and it wouldn't work no matter what he did? How he just started whaling on it with whatever he had handy. Guess he figured, at least if it was broken beyond repair, he could justify spending the money for a new one, ya know?"

Dean's voice is low, vibrating down through his skin, and soothing, way better than fingers for scratching. Sam can't curl any tighter without grinding his hips against Dean, but he does anyway, and doesn't try to muffle the whimper that starts in his groin and muscles its way out his throat. God, how can that feel so good when everything else burns and cringes, tight and away? He grinds again, just to see if it feels the same, whimpers louder, because, yes. Better.

"Sam?" Dean's tight against him, doesn't pull away but sits up straighter so there's more gap between them, no softness. Sam can't feign sleep, but he's still too far under, sickness as good as alcohol for removing qualms.

Sam slides a hand up onto Dean's thigh, just above his knee, feels Dean's muscle jump when his fingers clench into the fabric of his jeans. He doesn't know why, but he opens his mouth, teeth scrape against denim until he gets a hold, and bites down, because, fuck, he can't take this, and he can't scream. Can't ask, just whimpers again and grinds his hips against Dean's lower back.

If it was a bullet, a knife in his back, anything else but this blanket of ache and need, he knows Dean would fix it.

Dean's breath hitches along with Sam's hips, and his fingers in Sam's hair tremble somewhere between petting and grabbing hold. Sam can hear the thick in his throat and the quiver in his voice when he swallows and says, "Sa-Sam..."

It's probably not fair, but Sam knows the answer to that question, lets go the jeans between his teeth, little stringer of spit dragging over his lip, and huffs, "Dean, please." Not really sure what he's asking for, he can tell Dean doesn't know how to comply, but there's a softening, a sinking together so all of Sam is touching some of Dean. Even that's not enough.

Dean takes a long, slow breath in and out that fills all the way down to his waist and empties into the void of the room Sam's never really seen, only recognizes by the echo on the tile floor and the cool scrape of the wall behind his cot.

Dean... clears his throat and starts talking again. "So, you know I was thinking. As shiny as that metal is..."

Sam's fingers claw into Dean's knee as Dean starts to shift away, something closer to a sob than he'd like to admit scraping from his throat. Dean doesn't slow, not his voice, not his movement, but just when Sam thinks he's going to leave, Dean slides around behind him, one hand on Sam's hip, breath hot in his ear and slow, steady, deliberate. For some reason, Dean pressed up behind him doesn't burn the way just his hand between his shoulder blades had burned. This is good. Nice.

Even though he asked, practically begged, Sam still hisses when Dean's hand slides down his hip along his bare stomach, and under the waistband of his shorts. When his fingers start stroking, palm flexing, Dean's voice stays calm, even, but Sam can't hear what he's saying anymore, his own breath rasping into the crook of his arm. The mattress is thin, the spring more of a coiled frame than cushion, and there's no headboard or footboard, no sound of anything like sex as his hips start to flex.

Dean's tugs speed up to match Sam's thrusts, but his voice doesn't change, or his breath against Sam's neck. When Sam comes, a strangled groan into his teeth with a hiss, he's sure Dean chokes a little, swallows back on something Sam can't think about.

Dean slides his hand out, wipes it on Sam's underwear, and starts to turn away, but Sam turns with the hand as it goes, ends up with his forehead pressed into Dean's chest. "Don't."

Dean doesn't go, but his breath starts to huff, a sound Sam recognizes as frustration. "Dammit, Sam..." Sam presses further into Dean's chest, hooks an ankle around where their feet brush together. He's not letting go. "...been too fucking long."

Huh?

Sam misses the meaning for a second, until, instead of pulling away, Dean presses in closer, and either Sam got him the wrong jeans again, or he's hard. Sam's too dazed to be surprised, but that doesn't stop him from fumbling stupidly with his hands, uncertain and clumsy. He's all elbows and thumbs, can't seem to do more than hold Dean at the waist and stroke up under his t-shirt, everything slow-motion and heavy.

Dean doesn't wait for him to figure out what he's doing, undoes his zipper and slides on in. Sam feels a little useless and stupid until Dean's breath stutters against his throat, evens out gradually as he pulls Sam closer across his chest. Closer is more, and for now, enough.


#

Things get worse and better at the same time, criss-crossing back and forth, brief moments of together, right before their angular momentum propels them in different directions. Infection festers, delirium to rival the fog of steam that chased them out of Hell. Dean doesn't stop talking. Ever. If he sleeps, he talks in his sleep, his words sluicing out a floodgate, half nostalgia and half promise.

Dean taught Sam to ride a bike, but only after Sam insisted on riding to school with his training wheels still on. He always knew Dean beat up that kid who made fun of him on the way home. For some reason, Dean picks now to confess as much. Maybe he's not confessing, just reminding, a poke in the ribs to say, 'remember when we were brothers.'

Sam does remember.

But even sick and festering with infection, he likes this better.

It's more.

Funny how the horizon always rises, no such thing as an easy downhill coast toward anything worthwhile.

#

Dean's been saying for days the bandages on Sam's eyes are ready to come off, but he still puts them on. He takes extra care not to tie Sam's hair in the knot but pulls it tight nonetheless... right before he leans in for a kiss. Dean leans in for a kiss. Finally, finally, fucking finally, and something loosens in Sam's chest.

They break too abruptly for coherent thought to catch up with Dean's running mouth, and he whispers, "Don't you ever scare me like that again." Finally, what he really means.

"Fucking hypocrite." Two can play that.

Sam's hands might be soft from being wrapped and tucked away, but they're not clumsy or stupid. When Dean comes, Sam's hand and all its new pink skin is in his shorts, and Dean's breath gasps hot over Sam's tongue, no words from the past or for the future, just now in syncopated, hot rhythm.

The bandages start to slip from his eyes and unravel against Sam's cheek. He arches back and pulls them away, his eyes fluttering open for just a second. Dean's eyelashes sweep in wispy, dark shadow over pinked cheeks, a softness over his forehead Sam hasn't seen for…ever.

It's gorgeous and perfect, makes Sam's throat convulse around something rising out of his chest with jackhammer steps, until Dean opens his eyes and sees Sam looking back.

Dean's hum breaks off, just a choke in his throat tightening into a wheeze, and he falls back on his haunches, his face red with something other than desire. No amount of soothing touches, Sam's thumbs over the ridge of Dean's cheek, over his lips, can stop the exchange that follows in silence.

Dean swallows hard, chokes enough to hitch his chest. Can't do this. It's wrong.

Fingers curl over the ridge of Dean's ear, heels of hands solid against his jaw. Says who?

Dean pulls at Sam's wrists, eyes ducking away before he slides out of reach. Everyone.

Sam stands, jaw set. This half of everyone doesn't see it that way. It'd be more convincing if his shorts weren't bulging and damp.

This one does. Dean stands but doesn't look in Sam's eyes before leaving.

#

Sam does his own bandages and ointments after that. He does a lot of things alone after that, doesn't have much choice. Dean sneaks out of their room-- a mechanic's apartment at the back of the main hangar-- every morning, spends his days putzing around the base. It's nothing like it was portrayed in Independence Day. If there are huge labs and spaceships, then they're probably underground, and it's doubtful they'd run on the gas generator anyway. Dean says he's found that strange metal they'd claimed to be weather balloon wreckage, so Sam figures what top secrets they do have are locked away here like the Ark of the Covenant at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the research was farmed out to secret labs in other places who didn't really know what they had.

Dean seems intrigued by something, driven, keeps looking up toward the massive skylight above the hangar like he expects it to fall in on them. He scrambles through his days without even the deluge of one-sided banter he'd been spraying while Sam was sick, and Sam? Well he's not sure Dean's ready to hear anything he has to say, hopes the distraction of Dean's work, whatever it is, will help put things in perspective.

Sam doesn't really get what Dean's up to, but then, he hadn't known Dean was capable of building an EMF detector until he'd pulled it out, and he'd built the solar wind goggles practically right under Sam's nose. He figures whatever Dean's up to, it's probably huge. Sam had his Stanford. (They've been there once since the world ended, to stock up on Mac and Cheese and Ramen, or so Dean claimed. It's amazing how useless most of the library is, now. Government, Law, Sociology…none of that will be useful for generations, providing there actually are other people out there, and most of it's likely wrong if the whole, end of the world thing is any hint. All in all, the hallowed halls were mostly hollow in this context.) So, let Dean have his secret government facility. Hard science seems to be where the action's at. Social sciences will have to take a back seat.

Sam hates the back seat.

If Sam goes looking and happens to find his brother at work, a far-off, thoughtful haze over his features, Dean doesn't let on what he's thinking. If he speaks at all, it's about when they were kids, the things he and Dad had built together, salvaged from old junk. Sam lets him talk, feels a little like he's sitting in Pastor Jim's sanctuary taking in a sermon on the tenth commandment while eyeing the collection plate. They never talked then. It seems a little like sacrilege to talk about that stuff, now. Sam's trying to move forward, and Dean's falling back. Sam's not really sure what he's supposed to say. Dean never asks for his input, anyway, probably talks to himself when Sam isn't there.

Most days, he leaves Dean lunch-- a stick of hang-down sausage from the massive pantry, a Meal Ready to Eat, if he's pissed, or peanut butter and soda crackers. Most days it's sausage and cheese, and Sam even trims off the mold. He can't stay mad at Dean for pulling the dirtywrongbad card, considering Dean probably got it when Sam sent him fishing for queens. No wonder Sam never won at Go Fish.

Most of the MRE's, Sam eats himself, each bite a slow, arduous study in how he managed to fuck everything up.

#
Sam's entire being seems to lurch in the general direction of Dean in a way that's harder to ignore than any itch. It drives him mad with restlessness, but not mad enough to force the issue.

What he needs is a project of his own, something to while away the hours when he's most definitely not waiting for Dean-- a cover story, complete with bikini inspector badge and a cheap suit.

Mr. Clean, he's not, but poking through back rooms and abandoned offices is a good way to sort out what options they have, assess the situation from every angle. And it gives him something to do that doesn't include slamming Dean against a wall.

He's only pretending to look for mold. Funny how searching and finding seem to go hand in hand.

He should've looked for puppies instead.

The entire wall of the generator room and the intake for the central heat and air unit are covered in it. This place wasn't built to withstand the daily downpours. The foundation's cracked, and the roof is sagging where rain seeped into the ductwork, giving the mold a place to take hold, thick as soot and twice as noxious.

Dean, in typical Dean fashion, refuses to acknowledge the risk he's taking by staying. He used to throw himself in front of bullets and flying couches. Now, he stands against the falling sky and the rot beneath it.

"You mind telling me what the hell you think you're doing?" Dean asks.

"Packing." He says it while looking over Dean's shoulder like he can see the enemy approach, feels the need to reach for the gun in his waistband that hasn't been there for months.

Dean kicks through the pile of items Sam's chucked out of the trunk, things he'd stowed away himself a couple of lifetimes ago. "Kinda going about it ass backwards, don't you think?"

"We need more room for supplies. I-I think maybe we should head…north. Canada… Maybe farther." Sam shouldn't feel like he needs to duck his eyes away, but he does, suddenly embarrassed.

"You hate snow."

"It's not safe here. Too wet." He knows better than to panic, knows a level head can reason through just about anything, but his head's been off kilter since Dean developed the ability to turn blue at the drop of a hat.

"Just as wet there, only colder. We're doing fine right where we are." He won't leave.

So, Sam has a project now, too. Make sure they stay fine as long as they're here. He can do that. He hopes.

It's not easy beating back a colony of microbes that spreads through the air and water. It appears overnight in places that were clean yesterday, just the tiny mushroom tops sprouting over a fairy ring the size of Texas. It's a losing battle from the start.

But the good fight's not over just yet. There's something to be said for being on a military base. Sam imagines the Merry Maids never had flame throwers at their disposal and didn't have a clue how to turn over a jet engine in order to stir up a cleansing breeze. But the sheer vastness of the hangar wasn't designed to be climate controlled. Sam wages a valiant war while Dean squirrels away the hours in his makeshift lab, but it's like holding back a glacier with snow fence or throwing Dixie cups full of water at a dragon.

Little by little he surrenders more of their territory. They're down to just the lab, their apartment, and the half dozen offices between them along with the main hangar. The rest of the barracks is a toxic wasteland. He wears cover alls he keeps in garbage bags when he leaves the safe zone for supplies, and anything he brings back out of the pantry is triple washed before he opens the can. Still, Dean comes in every night wheezing, thinks Sam doesn't know the nebulizer is still plugged into the cigarette lighter in the car. And Dean doesn't know Sam's robbed half the airplanes in the hangar of their oxygen tanks and masks and has them stashed within a hundred feet of each other in every possible direction.

You'd think they were preparing for the end of the world.

#

Dean's been spending time on the roof, of all places, comes back with lines around his hands that make Sam think of Ben Franklin and his key. He'd worry if the lightning wasn't so predictable. All the months of surviving in this new climate, and he can count on one hand the number of freak storms that've blown up in the middle of the day. Sam leaves Dean to whatever finger mangling project he's got going up there, waits with bandages and antiseptic in tow.

Dean doesn't complain or protest when Sam dresses the cuts, but doesn't ask for help either. Sam takes him by the wrist, and he goes along with a sigh, like he doesn't have time for the distraction, looks through his pages of drawings and notes the whole time, not once meeting Sam's gaze. The extra care Sam takes to trim away the bulk so Dean can still use his bandaged fingers, the little rub of his thumb over the back of Dean's hand before he lets it fall, go unnoticed. Not so much as a blush.

Sam feels like the invisible man. He hasn't been able to look Dean in the eye since his bandages came off. Sometimes he looks away first. Sometimes Dean does, but glances in each other's vicinity are merely navigational, it seems, keeping them from bumping into each other, or stepping on toes. They don't look to or for each other anymore, not while the other might be looking back. They mostly circle like magnets trying to come together from the wrong direction. In every way that matters, Dean's that little boy with his eyes scrunched, refusing to see or be seen.

So, when Sam hears him call down the stairs, his voice urgent and half an octave above commanding, he takes the steps three at a time.

The door's ancient and usually sticks, groaning open an inch at a time even with a shoulder pressed into it. This time, Sam nearly loses a fingernail when he presses on the lever and it's ripped free of his grip, clangs against the side of the building hard enough to crumble the brickwork. Throwing an arm up to shield his eyes from the stinging lash of his own hair and a swirling cloud of coarse sand, Sam barely makes out the hunched outline of his brother on the far side of the roof, too close to the edge for Sam.

"Dean!"

"Sam! A hand over here!" His voice is ripped away in gasps, Sam catching it on a backdraft, out of sync with Dean's mouth.

As he approaches, Dean gives a heave, and Sam catches the glint of wire stretching into the sky, Dean's arms reaching up behind it, his hands dripping blood. Leave it to Dean to use wire instead of string. The line's lashed around the flag pole at least twice, from what Sam can tell, and still drags Dean closer to the edge of the roof. A shank of PVC pipe bangs up against Sam's shins, most likely the reel upon which the wire is supposed to be wound. Dean has the now-loose end wrapped around his bare hands, his face a strained reflection of his entire trembling body.

By the time Sam makes it to his side, battling against the prevailing wind, Dean's ghastly pale, his jaw clenched, eyes focused on his hands. With his palms wrapped in the sleeves of his jacket, Sam reaches an arm on each side of his brother, trapping the line against flag pole to take some of the strain off Dean.

"Let! Go!" He has to yell each word separately into the tempest, taking all his breath just to make his own ears hear. It leaves him panting, his chest heaving against Dean's back.

"No!" The word's lost, but the shape of Dean's mouth and the shake of his head are clear. "N-" Dean gasps, twists his head to the side, forehead against his shoulder. "Need it!" Thunder crashes, the abrupt clap of a cloud-to-ground strike. It's hard to tell where the vibration of it ends and the pounding of their hearts against Dean's back begins.

Fuck, Dean. Not even words, just a tensing in his shoulders irritated clench of his chin.

So much for predictable weather patterns.

He slides his hands farther up the pole, pins the wire with his right and jerks an inch of slack above that with his left, creeps a little higher and repeats the process, feeding the slack down the line until Dean can get a half-hitch around the tie-off. It takes another several minutes of tugging and reaching before Sam can get a second hitch, shadows shifting as lightning crawls along the belly of the sky. Then, releasing one finger at a time, he lets the tie-off take the wire and fumbles at the wraps on Dean's hands, the process made slow by the slick of blood.

The first splooshes of heavy raindrops splat against the steel door as Sam and Dean duck inside the stairwell. They don't pause to close it behind them. It's not worth the risk. Instead they stagger down the hallway and close the fire door behind them.

#

They're still gasping and swaying on their feet when they collapse through the doorway into their apartment.

"What the fuck was so important about that thing that it's worth losing your hands or getting struck by lightning?" Sam tosses three perfectly good but nearly threadbare towels to the floor, takes out the thickest. He's still seething enough that he doesn't feel the crack of his kneecaps on the concrete between Dean's feet when he falls at the side of the bed and wraps both his brother's hands, the towel turning red in a matter of seconds.

"Took me weeks to get it high enough to do any good."

Sam grimaces as he peels the towel back, starts to pour saline over the cuts in order to see them better. He doesn't like what he sees. "Spoken like a true scientist. I'm sure the Curie's would be proud."

"Sam, I…" He coughs, catching his breath more slowly than Sam.

"Forget it. I don't want to hear it, Dean. I've heard it before. The big picture, saving people, blah, blah. You wanna save the world, and you don't give a shit about yourself. It's noble. You're a real fucking hero. Freedoooom." He tosses a gob of pink gauze into the plastic tub he keeps on hand with all their first aid supplies in easy reach. The cuts are deep, a few nearly to the bone, but far as he can tell, nothing but skin and muscle damage. He can fix that. This time. Dean hisses as he dabs at the deepest one with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball, and despite himself, Sam says, "Sorry."

Dean doesn't argue, seems focused on something distant. That far-off gaze Sam's come to hate just a little clouds his eyes. Sam doesn't have the energy to still the shaking in his hands and stay mad, too. He's tired, of waiting, of hoping, giving space and never making any headway. There just aren't words for how futile it all seems just then.

But just lately, Dean always has words.

"Do you remember the kite you had when you were ten?" Dean asks, and without looking, Sam feels Dean's eyes on the top of his head. He wonders why Dean picks now to see him, but he doesn't look up himself. There's the little matter of wounds that need stitching, and not all of them are Dean's.

Sam huffs, makes a show of blowing the bangs out of his eyes. He can't tell if Dean's actually asking or if he's just fallen back into his weeks old routine of talking about things Sam barely remembers. He's not sure he's really supposed to answer. So far, it's been just Dean, talking over Sam like the soundtrack from their old life can make this one less real. "Yeah. I remember." Talking seems a good way to get his breath under control, helps the shaking a little. "It cost two bucks from the dime store down the street and had a picture of Superman on it."

Dean nods, without a smile. "It was April-- Kite-flying month. Your science class did a unit on aerodynamics and how the tails on a kite worked. At the end of it, your whole class had a kite-flying day in the park. You showed up with your two dollar plastic and popsicle stick wonder, and the rest of your class showed up with hobby store mock-ups that had two reels of string and tails as long as school buses. You were so embarrassed. I remember you tried to sneak off into the woods."

Sam laughs, more real this time than the last, pauses, needle in hand, and drops his chin to his chest, which seems to be the best posture for remembering. "You chased me down and said you spent our last two dollars on that hunk of junk, and if I didn't get my ungrateful ass out there and have some fun with it, you were going to tell everyone I was peeing in the bushes."

There's a hint of the old Dean in there, a crooked weakling of a smirk but a twinkle in his eye that doesn't need sunlight to emulate. "When we came out, all those other kites were just a tangled knot with a dozen crying kids on the ends of it."

Sam bites his lip, his head nod just a slow bob atop his slouched shoulders. "Wasn't enough wind to fly milkweed fluff that day. Ours was the only kite that made it high enough to catch a breeze, and you had to run like a racehorse to get that. Everyone else was so jealous." He looks up, now, remembers how Dean had seemed ten feet tall that day. Not even knee-high to the Dean sitting here now.

"You were so proud." Dean smiles, the first genuine emotion, Sam's seen from him in days. "We were a good team."

"We still are."

"Yeah." The smile softens and falls, "But would you still be proud? If people saw us..." The 's' is missing, cut off momentarily before Dean clears his throat. Sam waits, his eyes on the frayed hem of Dean's pant leg. "If people saw us together, what would they think?"

He doesn't have the luxury of planning what he'll say next. Dean will never believe him if he hesitates. "The same thing they thought then-- that I'm the luckiest kid they know." Coughing into his shoulder, Sam looks back down at the needle in his hand, notices the shaking has stopped. "Only taller."

The quivering's internalized, a panicky, awkward tickle of afraid and hopeful trying to mesh wavelengths between them. The feedback whine's not audible, but it's as impossible to overcome as trying to push two magnets together, north to north.

Finally, finally, after all Sam's waiting and backing away, Dean has enough room to flip. Before Sam can start the next stitch, Dean's fingers curl around his wrist, his thumbs stroking along the backs of Sam's hands. "Well, okay, then," he says.

Sam can't look up, so afraid he misunderstands.

It's a good thing brains are hard-wired for kissing in the dark.

#

It's not easy. If Sam had one word for Dean, he supposes it'd be restless. Dean's always moving-- up at dawn, to the lab, lunch with Sam, sex with Sam, up to the roof, after-dinner talk, always about the past, and never about the future. Wouldn't want to jinx it. Then it's bed, again, and Sam. Sex splinters them apart, laminates them back together, stronger but still striated, grains of Sam and grains of Dean, under each other's nails in the bleeding quick.

"Where you goin'?"

"I have work to do, Sam."

"Work."

"Yeah, well this world ain't saving itself."

"This Dean either."

"Sam..." He leaves his boots untied, the necks gaping open, and heads for the door. "C'mon, don't get all broody on me. Just... I can't drop everything I'm doing because something else comes up."  Sometimes the biggest step in the right direction is the step back. "Yeah." Sam drops back onto his pillow, one arm over his eyes. "You want me to bring you lunch?"

"I got plenty in the mini fridge." He opens the door, adds without turning, "Got enough for you, too," and shuts it behind him.

Sam sighs but doesn't let it linger. Rome wasn't built in a day, and the Great Barrier Winchester won't come down any faster.

But it will fall. Hopefully before they kill each other.

#

The first hint of a draft across his bare chest, and Sam bolts up, already missing Dean.

The only things that seem to help keep the mold at bay are moving air and fire. Fire creates smoke, which is almost as hard on Dean as the mold, but a constant supply of heated, drying wind is their strongest ally. There shouldn't be a chill in the air. Ever. A draft is like a starter pistol for every adrenaline pump in his body.

He's heard of soldiers sleeping in the trenches with their eyes half open, of the walking dead so strung out on adrenaline and nerves they keep walking and talking long after their heart's stopped feeding their brains. A lifetime of hunting, and it takes germ warfare to get him to the same point of unblinking hyperawareness.

Sam reaches for the switch on the torpedo-shaped shop heater they put in where the second bed used to go before he realizes it's still running.

It hasn't kicked out. Dean has.

It's nothing new for Dean to sneak out before Sam pries his eyelids open, but he's pretty sure it's still the middle of the night. Even Dean usually sleeps more than four hours. The sweat pooling in the hollows of Sam's chest from sleeping in the bone dry oven he's turned their apartment into chills to ice water as he lurches around.

The moment of panic twists into confusion. Where the hell can Dean be? Sam can hear him for Christ's sake. His neck's twisted about as far around as it can go with his arm knotted in the bed sheet that's supposed to be Dean, when his eyes catch the flicker of light from the two-way radio on the nightstand. Dean's got his keyed on the other end like a baby monitor so Sam can hear him breathing. Of course, he'll pretend it's an accident, just like he always does. The laugh that burps out in response is as much relief as it is exasperation.

Jerking his arm free, he hits the keyed mike alarm, knows the other radio will emit a tone to let Dean know he wants to speak, then waits a second for the speaker to go dead before he says, "Fuck, Dean. Now?"

The radio crackles with static as Sam falls back on his pillow. "Inspiration strikes when it strikes, little brother." A pause followed by more static. "Tried not to wake you."

"I'd actually sleep better if you would wake me."

"Aww…" static. "You're not afraid of the dark are you?"

"Only when you're out in it."

"Sam…" For a second, Sam can hear the endearment on the tip of Dean's tongue, something sweet and consoling and maybe romantic (cuz yeah, he's starting to think he really is that gay)…completely un-Dean. Instead there's more static, a breath and a low hiss, because Dean keeps his mike keyed while he thinks of something else. "What can I say? I do my best work at night."

"I won't argue with that." He keeps the smirk out of his voice to an extent, but not altogether.

"Of course not. You'd lose." The timbre of that is less snarky than Sam would like, but he wasn't expecting a response at all, so he takes what he can get.

What they do, now that they're together, even without the blindfold is still mostly making out in the dark. It's a whole lot of fumbling, slippery and new, straining taut muscles without all the softness of a woman's curves. There's still teeth where there shouldn't be, cut lips and bruised confidence, like learning to ride a bike or change a tire, only with fireworks and rumpled bedclothes. At least Dean doesn't go back to his own bed anymore. That might have something to do with the fact that Sam tossed it out to make room for the heater, but Dean's never complained. Things are good between them, just still a near secret they don't talk about. Sam's working on that, too.

"You in the lab?" What he wants to say is, 'you better not be on the roof.' He knows Dean's itching to get back up there, but the storm flooded the whole hallway and the offices along it. Sam won't let him go through there until it's thoroughly cleaned. It's a long process. He hasn't bothered mentioning the fact that there are gas masks and oxygen tanks all over this place. Dean's hands are barely starting to heal. If his kite didn't blow away in the storm, it's not going anywhere anytime soon.

Sam tries to imagine what Dean's doing on the other side of the static, what it is setting the rhythm of this conversation as there's another hiss and more static. The reception's not usually this bad.

"The car."

"Oh." Dean still takes his nebulizer treatments in the car. Sam isn't supposed to know. But it makes sense, now, the static over the radio as mist from the nebulizer hose hits the microphone. "You okay?"

There's a rustle of paper over the speaker before Dean answers. "Peachy." Sam smiles into the darkness imagining Dean writing in the little notebook he's started carrying. Sometimes he stops mid-sentence, jerks it out, and starts writing, which would be annoying if it wasn't so friggin' hot.

"Whatcha writing?" He always asks, never gets a straight answer, but the banter is like the solid center of the boat that doesn't rock, just bobs up and down, slow and easy.

"Living will. Cuz, ya know, modern medicine being what it is, I wouldn't want to end up on life support with you waiting on my comatose ass." There's an exaggerated scrape of graphite over paper, and he says, "Scratch that. I, Dean Winchester, being of sound mind and smoking hot body, want nothing more from my life than to have my brother, Sam Winchester, wait on me hand and foot. I'm tired. Bring on the coma."

That would be funnier if Dean didn't actually sound exhausted. Sam's pretty sure he hardly sleeps at all, can tell he's on the verge of something, either a breakthrough or a collapse, and all Sam can do is be ready. It's too much for just the two of them, and their days here are numbered. Unless they get some help.

"Turn on the radio." Sam thinks now's a good time to let Dean in on a little secret.

"What?"

"Sam, I don't have that Peter Gabriel song," wheeze, a hiss, and static, "and even if I did, your eyes are bloodshot, so not worth singing about."

"Not the tape deck," Sam clarifies, his arm flung over his eyes as he kicks away the sheet around his ankles. "Turn on the radio. It's a surprise."

"A surprise, huh? Last time you said you had a surprise for me, you stuck your tongue in my…" hiss and more static.

"Just do it. Center of the dial."

"Yes, sir, Air Jordan, sir."

The radio falls dead, just the green light glowing in the darkness as Sam waits for a response while rolling his bottom lip back and forth between his teeth. Dean actually sounds surprised when he comes back. "Is that…?" Surprised and a little something Sam can't quite pin down. Hopeful, maybe?

"Yeah. It is. I was cleaning some offices, found a shortwave radio in one of the control rooms. Thought it was worth a try. I'm broadcasting over three different stations on the center of the dial. Same message, over and over. I figure, if anyone's listening…"

"Sam… that's…wow."

Sam knows what Dean's trying to say. He's been there, too, trading hands on the dial searching for something, anything in the static over all the thousands of miles they've traveled. Sometimes, when the day's long, and he feels trapped in this place, the walls closing in, inch by spore-covered inch, he imagines just one other person out there, doing the same thing, clicking on the dial one last time, and hearing his voice. And then he gets up and keeps fighting, because reinforcements are coming. They are.

"You know what that means, don't you?" Sam asks.

"That you like to hear yourself talk?"

Okay, so he left himself wide open for that. "No. It means we can save the world while we sleep." He pauses for dramatic effect, then adds. "So, come to bed."

"Why do I think coming to bed and sleeping are probably not the same thing?"

"Because you're a fucking genius." He's only half teasing. Dean comes to bed anyway.

Part Four