[SPN fic - Shadows - Dean/dead!Sam - NC-17]

annabeth

shades_of_hades

deep_south

At first, Sam doesn't even realise he's dead. It's Dean's tears that give it away, more than anything else, even the pallor to his skin. In the beginning, Dean's just talking, something about responsibility and protection and yadda yadda yadda about the fucking shit John put on him, and then he's screaming, tears rolling down his cheeks like he's unashamed, and then again, why should he be? There's no one to see except Sam, and Sam can't control the way he feels when he looks at his body lying on a filthy mattress.

He wants to spook Dean, shout at him about leaving him on whatever might be living in that mattress, but the thing is, it's pretty clear by this point that he's dead, and why should Dean think it would matter? Even if his brother has always been far too conscientious of Sam, now Sam's lying there, and Dean can't know that his spirit's still around.

It hurts that he's become what he warned Molly about, a disembodied soul that can't let go; he watches Dean and he'd be crying himself if he had any tear ducts left. As it is he can only stare, can't look away from that beautiful skin, mottled from crying and about as gray as Sam's.

Sam knows that the reason he's still here, floating in the room where his body's been laid out to rest, is because Dean's still alive, and once Sam would have said that it was Dean who couldn't live without Sam, but Sam figures he's taken that one step further if he's still hanging around just because Dean's still breathing, broken and bleeding from a million unseen wounds, staring at Sam like his body might suddenly sit up and offer him some answers.

But what Dean does next shocks a person who thought nothing could shock him anymore. Dean climbs onto the mattress, heedless of whatever filth it's breeding, presses trembling thumbs against Sam's skin, one on each side of his neck, compressing against the bone and making the skin whiter than ever.

"Sammy," Dean whispers, and his voice is bleeding edges too, the intonation all wrong. He lets up on the pressure, strokes in little circles over the skin, leans in and lies his head down on Sam's chest. It breaks the heart Sam no longer has that while Dean is expecting comfort, cuddling up to Sam in a way he'd never do when Sam was alive, his face doesn't move from the exertion of Sam's breathing.

Because Sam's never breathing again, and he knows, as he stares at his brother's wrecked visage, that somehow he's going to have to learn to let go. Move on. He can't stay and haunt Dean forever, no matter how much he wants to. It's an actual ache in the soul that's all that's left, the knowledge that Sam has to leave Dean, has already left him in the most final way, because if he sticks around he'll turn bad someday.

"God, Sammy, I'm so sorry," Dean whimpers, rubbing the side of his face against Sam's clothes. That's his favourite shirt, ruined by blood and death, and it shouldn't matter, he's never wearing clothes again, but it does -- it fucking hurts.

"Burn my body, Dean," Sam says, even though he knows the words are as insubstantial as he is. "Don't let me become a spirit full of wrath and revenge."

Dean lifts his head, his legs are sprawled to one side of Sam's body, and he sits up, straddles Sam's lifeless form, and starts doing something that at first Sam can't make heads or tails of. His brother's unbuttoning his shirt, and as he does so, he dislodges one of Sam's hands, and it slips to the side and flops off the mattress, and Sam realises he's been dead long enough that the rigor mortis is starting to fade.

"I couldn't save you," Dean says in misery. "I couldn't ask you for anything, either." He finishes unbuttoning Sam's shirt and pushes the halves to the sides, reaches into his pocket and pulls out his favourite small knife, cuts through the undershirt beneath and spreads that apart too. Lays both palms flat on Sam's chest as if bracing himself, and then his head is drifting downward, and Sam's thinking, what the fuck?

So he says it, even though Dean can't hear him, because some things require vocalisation. "What the fuck, Dean?"

Dean's face is the merest breath away from Sam's and his exhalations are causing the remnants of Sam's life, his hair -- still lank and muddy from when he died -- to flutter. When Dean's lips meet Sam's and slide between them, lower lip cradled between Sam's slightly parted mouth, Sam can't even repeat his earlier words. He can only stare, and wonder just how broken a person's gotta be to kiss someone who's been dead for days.

It's strange that his body's not decomposing, but that could be for any number of reasons, none of which Sam is in any position to find out. That's when it really sinks in, though. It's not just worlds of fucked up to be kissing someone recently dead -- it's just as many worlds of fucked up to be kissing one's dead brother, and Sam can't help but wonder how long this has been going on.

Is Dean kissing him because he loves him and misses him and is out of his mind with grief? Or is he kissing Sam because he's always wanted to, and this is the only way he'd allow himself to take advantage of those feelings?

"C'mon, Dean," Sam says, totally disconcerted. Discombobulated, even. (At that little bit of black humour Sam can almost force a laugh.) "Are you fucking serious? You know it's even worse to take advantage of my dead body, right?"

Dean doesn't answer, but it gets worse, he slips his tongue into the cavern of Sam's mouth and sucks at him like he can bring Sam back to life if he just kisses hard enough. Sam wishes he had a physical body so that he could knock some sense into his brother, because hello, sucking at a corpse?

When Dean unbuckles Sam's belt Sam wishes he had eyes to close. Wishes he could bring himself to look away, but there's no doing that, not now. Dean works the jeans crusted with mud and blood down over Sam's slender hips, even grayer than his face, and then yanks them over Sam's shoes, tosses them to the floor. The boxers get the same knife treatment and then Dean's leaning back on his haunches, unzipping his own jeans, tugging out his erect cock, lying back down so that Sam can't see anything except the length of his brother's body covering his own.

He's thankful for small favours, although he really wants to know what on Earth -- and every other realm -- Dean's thinking of, taking out his cock -- wait, better question, why is Dean hard? It's not like looking at someone's corpse is all that attractive, and maybe Dean's been carrying a torch, but this is just this side of ridiculous. Hell, it might be just that side of ludicrous!

Dean kisses Sam long and deep and it doesn't seem to bother him that's Sam's motionless, that he's fucking dead -- and the black humour threatens to strangle Sam this time, or it would, if he still had a throat to choke -- or that Sam's gotta be ice cold by this point.

When Dean finally hauls himself back up he's got Sam's legs spread, cock encased in a condom that Sam couldn't see him put on, and that's just -- that's just -- wrong!

"Dude!" Sam cries out. There's no sound, no echo, no feel of his breath against his lips. "I'm dead, you idiot! You're not serious!"

But Dean, apparently, is quite serious. Fucking serious. He hitches his hips forward and his cock glides easily into the empty space in Sam's body, the place where he's open and relaxed because he's too dead to be practising any kind of muscle definition.

Dead. He's fucking dead, and Dean's fucking him, fucking his dead body, and that just settles it, Dean's fucking the dead and Sam doesn't see the humour in this anymore.

"That's pretty sick, Dean, even for us," Sam says, but there's no response. Because duh, Dean can't hear him, although after this, Sam totally wants to haunt his ass in retaliation.

Dean's actually thrusting, body flexing, muscles in his ass clenching with exertion, and he's making breathless noises interspersed with sobs, tears still running down his cheeks, dampening Sam's body, his face, and his fingers are making grooves in the lifeless flesh, and Sam still can't believe he's watching the older brother he's idolised his entire life fuck his corpse.

Dean grunts heavily, smacks back into Sam's cold, loose ass, and comes. Sam recognises the face from when he caught Dean masturbating once, and it would make him feel funny in his belly if he still had one. As it is it succeeds in making Sam feel funny in all of the places he's got left.

Dean puts their clothes to rights when he's finished, leaves the room, presumably to dispose of Sam's boxers and undershirt, and when he comes back he spends a long time standing against the door jamb and staring at Sam's body.

"I'm sorry, Sammy," Dean says. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Try not fucking my corpse, for one," Sam answers, even though it's a moot point on so many levels. Sam is still nothing more than a bit of disembodied fluff, the last remnant of his life, still hanging on in the place where his body's been violated, and he gives Dean a hard stare with his non-existent eyes. "You know, Dean, it's still rape even if the other party is dead. That's why it's illegal to have sex with the dead; they can't exactly give consent, and dammit, Dean, I definitely disapprove. This is so far from consensual that when you die we are so going to have a long discussion about this."

"What am I supposed to do?!" Dean screams, and when he barrels out of the room Sam wants to follow, but he realises quickly that he can't go along with. He's stuck in the room with his recently fucked corpse, and yeah, that will never stop sounding weird.

"Well, Dean, can't say as I mind the fact that you want to fuck me," he muses, left alone. "But I have a huge problem with the way you chose to go about it. At least, Dean, if I had still been alive I would have been able to enjoy it!"

-------------------------------------

Sam opens his eyes to a searing, blinding pain in his spine, a faint ache in the muscles of his ass, and a missing undershirt and boxers. He can't explain any of it, and he's not sure what's the strangest part of the whole experience.

But it's all forgotten when Dean bursts into the doorway, plows across the room and gives Sam the biggest, warmest hug of his life. Sam can't help the wince or utterance of pain, and when Dean steps back, there are dark shadows in his eyes that have never been there before.

Sam never finds out what put those shadows in place.

end.