The warm glow against his face is burning, and his breath is caught in his throat, frozen. He's choking, ash, like snowing, fluttering around him, landing softly on his cheek, the smudge staining deeper as hot, bitter tears trail his face.

He blinks, and swears his heart is breaking, and he can't turn away from the sight of the wreck of an old house glowing and collapsing in the bright, licking flames of the blaze. He's staring at the door of the old house, when the groaning wood frame of the house cries out in torment, and the roof caves in.

The air in his lungs escapes him in a choked sigh and his knees give way beneath him. He has lost everything. Again.

There is no one to hold him back from going into the blaze, like before. The fight has left him though, and he's just there, kneeling in wilting grass, his nails splitting as he digs his fingers into the dirt, trying to find purchase as his heart breaks. He no longer has the strength to run in, although he wants to more than anything. There is nothing left for him, in him.

He rips his hands free from the earth, his bleeding fingers trailing through his sooty, too long hair, and a strange sound filters to his ears. It takes him a moment to realize that the sound is being torn from the very pit of his soul and roaring from his wide-open mouth.

He closes his mouth only to choke again. He parts his lips, wraps his arms around his belly and collapses in on himself, much the way the house is falling in on itself. This is too much. He never thought things would go this way. In his dreams, his visions, he's always the one taken away, driven to madness, or killed. He is not supposed to be the one left behind. That is not how this works.

----------

Sam shakes his head, his eyes are closed, and his lips tight in disapproval as his brother comes stumbling into the room at an ungodly hour, smelling of cheap whiskey and quick, dirty sex. Sam is grateful that he didn't have to overhear it this time. That would be more than he can bear.

Dean calls out his name, and he can imagine the grin on his face as Dean starts undressing. Sam continues to feign sleep, but then the mattress dips precariously to the right of him, bringing his body dangerously close to familiar heat.

Dean leans down, playfully ruffles Sam's hair, and Sam can smell the whiskey on Dean's breath as Dean whispers against his ear, "I know you're awake, Sammy. One of these days I'm gonna get ya good and laid. Too tense. It can't be good for ya. Gotta let up sometime, lil bro."

As Dean pulls back, Sam rolls over, staring intensely up at his brother. Dean cocks his head, and looks down at Sam, puzzling over the shadows in Sam's eyes. Sam's always been a broody bitch, but these shadows seem different somehow.

"Sammy?" Dean asks, and he sounds more sober, more like the concerned older brother.

"I'm not like you," Sam replies bluntly. "I am not going to string someone along for one night of sex and then leave without strings attached. It's just not in me. So if you want to get me good and laid, you'll just have to fuck me yourself Dean."

Dean stiffens, his eyes widen comically and Sam doesn't know whether he wants to take back what he's said, or laugh at the way his brother is now looking at him. Sam chooses to go with instinct, and thankfully he's always been quick.

It happens before Dean has time to think. One moment Sam is laying down in the bed, the next moment he's sitting up, his hands cradling Dean's face as his lips press against Dean's mouth in the softest, most heartfelt kiss Dean has ever felt in his life, and this is wrong. They are brothers, and Sam is being vulnerable, and stupid, and his usual tortured self. Dean should stop this. He really should. But he can't.

Sam pulls back, his elbows supporting him, and his tongue sweeping nervously across his lips. His eyes are full of shadows, sorrow, guilt, want, need. Sam is so open, and sometimes Dean wishes he could be like this.

"I've never asked you to be like me, Sammy. I just worry about you, man. You're always so tense, and sometimes you just got to kick back and go with the flow. You never do that. It's gonna kill ya," Dean says, hoping that Sam goes with the change of subject and pointed avoidance for once.

Sam snorts. "So, that's how this is going to play out, huh Dean? I can't believe you. I just kissed you. I told you what I want. What I need. You're just gonna ignore it? Maybe it's about more than getting laid. Maybe it's about needing a little human contact! Maybe it's about loving the person that I fall into bed with. Maybe it's about fantasizing about you since I was fourteen and caught Beth Hallington giving you a blowjob in the bathroom back in the house we rented in Tucson."

"Christ! You beat off to that?" Dean asks, his tone incredulous.

Sam rolls his eyes and shakes his head. "This isn't about what I beat off to, Dean. This is me telling you that I love you. That I want you. Yes, it's fucked up, but what about us isn't fucked up?"

"But we're brother's," Dean replies, his voice firm.

"Tell me something I don't know. You think I haven't beaten myself up over how I feel? God, why do you think I ran away the first time? Why do you think I got on the Greyhound without saying a word to you? If I'd seen you before I left after that fight with Dad, I would have gone back in, sucked it up, dealt with Dad's bullshit, and stayed. I can't leave if I have to face you to do it. Not unless you tell me to go."

"Sammy," Dean whispers, and he reaches out, but stops short of his fingertips brushing Sam's cheek.

His fingers are visibly shaking, and Sam sighs. "Lately I feel like I'm losing what's left of my sanity. I'm losing what makes me human, Dean, and you're the only thing holding me together, keeping me from breaking. I miss being touched, held, kissed. I miss it so much, that when we spar and train I try all the harder to pin you, just so I'm close to you, touching you. I get in your face just so we're breathing the same air."

"Sometimes I wonder if I don't have a sister," Dean says, hoping that maybe this will make Sam bitch. Anything is better than these confessions.

Dean's not a priest, far from it, and this… He would do anything for Sam, but this…he's not sure he can survive this. This could be that thing that saves Sam and finally brings Dean to his knees at the point of breaking.

"You're not getting away with that this time. Stop with the jokes, and the run around. I know you don't want me. Hell, all you got on your mind is big tits and the next great hunt."

Dean turns away, shifts his gaze to the throat, and speaks so softly that he's not even sure if he's spoken aloud. "I worry about you all the time, Sammy."

He nearly jumps as Sam's huge hand comes out of nowhere, slipping up along his jaw and turning his head so that they are looking at each other. Sam's eyes are wet, and then Sam is shifting. It isn't long before his mouth is pressed against Dean's lips again, and every moral and decent thing that Dean holds sacred, and granted there isn't that much, is shattered.

Sam is breaking Dean, and Dean is surprised that he doesn't really care as long as Sam's mouth is covering his, and what in the hell is Sammy doing with that tongue of his?

Dean opens his mouth and he lets out a sigh as Sam's slick tongue slips into his mouth, and he let's his jaw fall a little and then he shifts, hungrily responding to Sam's need. His teeth catch Sam's bottom lip as Sam pulls back, and slowly his eyes drift open and their eyes lock.

"Is this what you need to stay? Is this how I save you?" Dean asks, his tongue sweeping across his kiss bruised lips.

"Dean…" Sam says, and closes his eyes. "I don't want this to be about you saving me or what I need."

"Okay," Dean replies, and then he reaches out, the edge of his left thumb tracing down the line of Sam's jaw. "What if this is about what I want?"

Sam looks up startled as Dean licks his lips again, and Dean's eyes darken, and Sam is weak as he leans forward, his mouth latching on to his older brother's lips again. He is a drowning man choking and gasping for air, and Dean is his air.

He feels the fire at the edges with every touch, but this, making love with the last person he has left in the world, Dean, is worth the blistering heat.

---------

He is still on his knees when the sound of a siren registers, but all he can do is stare vacantly at the burning house. He feels nothing, and that's probably something he should be grateful for, at least at the moment, but he's numb. The pain is too much and he's just numb as strangers run around him, someone asking if he's okay, while the firemen bring out their hoses and work to put out the flames, even though the house is obviously beyond saving.

They have to try. Something about the house being some kind of historical landmark. Sam Winchester laughs bitterly at this. Trust a haunted house to be a historical landmark.

He looks up as someone shakes him, asks if he's all right. Sam's broken hazel gaze locks with the concerned blue eyes of a young blonde man.

Sam shakes his head. "He's inside. Oh God, he's inside."

"Who?" the young fireman asks, his eyes widening as he turns to the blaze and then his gaze returns to Sam in pity, because no one could survive that blaze.

"My brother," Sam says, his voice barely above a whisper.

There is a groaning crash of wood as the walls begin to the fall in, the water from the hoses not even phasing the damn blaze.

Sam curls into himself again, clutching at his stomach, and murmuring, "no, Dean, no," over and over again.

At the startled shout of one of the firemen, Sam looks up and his eyes widen as a shadow rises in the very heart of the fire, the walls of the house, fallen and exposing the unnatural fire for what it is, supernatural.

The shadow rises until it stands fully. It is the figure of a man, and slowly it steps forward, walking calming through the hot flames, and the firemen and Sam watch in awe, and then the shadow steps free of the blaze, a bare foot touching the wilting grass that has yet to catch on fire.

Sam's eyes trail up from the foot as the shadow emerges from the flames, and there, larger than life, Dean stands.

He's naked, but proud, doesn't even seem to notice or care that his body is fully exposed. Sam drinks in the sight of Dean. He takes note of the scar on Dean's inner left thigh, the old bullet wound in his right shoulder, the scar running up along his left hip. Dean continues to walk forward, and Sam notices the smattering of familiar freckles on Dean's skin, and he's mapped them numerous times over the last few months since their lives changed and Dean finally gave in to him.

Sam swallows thickly as he looks up, and notices the amulet hanging from Dean's neck, dangling at the hollow of Dean's chest, and it almost appears to glow. Sam jerkily gets to his feet, and stumbles toward Dean. Dean catches him and wraps his arms around Sam.

Sam pulls back from Dean's arms, his hand lifting to stroke Dean's face and then his mouth is on Dean's, devouring him, tasting him, savoring him, making sure this is real and Dean is alive and not burning to death in that fire.

When Sam is finished kissing him, Dean smiles at him and says, "Guess you really would miss me, Sammy."

Sam punches him in the arm and then pulls off his dirty hoodie and hands it to Dean. Dean pulls the shirt on, but he's still exposed from the waist down, until he's handed a blanket by one of the stunned firemen.

"But how Dean? You never came out and then the roof fell in and the walls collapsed, and you were there, in the middle of the fire! I saw you! I saw you rise up in the flames. How?" Sam asks, his voice betraying how scared he was and how relieved he is now.

Dean smiles and fingers the bronze talisman hanging by the brown leather cord around his neck.

"Dad told me this would protect me when I found my other half. I could feel the fire, but it was like I was standing outside of it. It was hot as hell, but somehow it couldn't touch me. Only you can touch me, Sammy. Only you."

End.