light of a match.
Supernatural. Sam/Dean. R. Smoking!Boys. Beta by frappygoddess. And because she is awesome and generally wins at everything ever, la_folle_allure drew this fic MS Paint Stick Figure fanart. ♥


Metaphors aren’t really his thing. At all. The first time Dean lights up a cigarette, he’s sixteen years old and he just watches the thing turn to ash for a few minutes before he remembers to smoke it. He thinks of his mother and coughs after the first drag, then again after the second, but pretty much gets it down by the time he hits seven.

He flicks the end with his thumb the way he’s seen it done in movies and remembers the night when he was four years old, that night when a fire went and changed everything.

He has a handful of mints later and does laundry when he gets home to erase the smell of smoke. Dean has no illusions about how his father would react, military or not. If John Winchester ever caught either of his sons with a cigarette, the response would be anything but pleasant.

Sammy knows it, too. Dean’s eighteen that day in late August when Sam nearly walks past him on his way home. He doubles back, takes in the view of Dean sitting on top of a picnic table with a Marlboro in one hand, a motel matchbook in the other.

“Dad’s going to kill you,” he says matter-of-factly, more irritated than surprised.

Dean half-smiles. “Dad’s in Illinois, Sammy. I don’t think he can smell the smoke from there.”

Sam frowns at him for a moment, chews his lower lip thoughtfully. Not all that unexpected in itself. At fourteen, he looks perpetually lost between thoughtful and annoyed. The only thing that comes as a surprise is when he sits down next to Dean and says, “Can I try?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“You got any idea what Dad would do to me if I let you?”

“Dad’s in Illinois,” Sam replies deftly and runs his fingers over the surface of the table. Someone carved their initials into the third plank, and there’s a phone number scribbled near the edge of the fourth in magic marker. Biff and Lisa were here in August ’94.

“This stuff’ll kill you.”

Sam snorts. “Yeah, because we live so far off the edge.”

Bad idea, says his head voice. Bad, bad idea. But there’s that goddamn puppy dog look, and Sammy isn’t even trying yet.

Dean stubs out the butt on the wood of the rain-softened table and reaches into the pack. “Here – that was almost out.” He hands it over along with the matches and Sam takes his time striking the flame.

Dean slaps him easily on the back when he starts to cough, and Sam’s frown deepens. “It gets better,” Dean says slowly, and Sam tries again. Careful now. Steady, steady. When the coughing subsides, Dean’s hand lingers between Sam’s shoulder blades.

It doesn’t take Sam as long as Dean to adjust to the feel, but he might get sick from it later. They don’t talk much, just pass it back and forth until the sparks almost reach the filter and it’s time to stop. Sam’s hand moves to the pack resting on the table, but Dean grips his wrist and shakes his head.

“It can be our thing,” he says with a small smile. “Just one. Just us.”

Sam smiles back and nods. “One at a time. Got it.”

---

The fifteenth anniversary of Mary Winchester’s death sees John a couple hundred miles from home, chasing the third firestarter that year along the southern border alone. Sam had been more than reluctant to leave school, and Dean had just as unwillingly agreed to stay behind and look out for his brother. Sam, of course, insisted he didn’t need supervision, but their father was adamant.

It feels like they should mark the occasion somehow, but neither of them really drinks much yet. They share a smoke instead, lying on a thin blanket spread over the cold ground of the local park and staring at the stars and moon. It’s full, and Dean has a gun loaded with silver in the waist of his jeans, just in case.

“Do you remember?” asks Sam, craning his neck to get a better look at Cassiopeia.

“Yeah,” Dean says and taps ash onto the grass. He sighs smoke and watches it curl upward and fade away. “She was beautiful, Sammy. And she loved you.” He sounds like he might add something, and Sam waits in silence until he realizes that some things really do have to remain unsaid. He pretends he hasn’t heard that answer several hundred times before.

“I think I remember that,” he replies and takes the cigarette from his brother’s hand. Dean’s fingers are cold. A cloud floats lazily across the moon and Sam swears he can hear a howling in the distance.

They go home.

---

The next year, their father is home but in bad shape. They haven’t had a job in nearly three months, and he’s getting restless. Evil is everywhere if you bother to look, and when it stands still, it’s never a good sign.

John buys a rare bottle of tequila that night and lets the boys each have a shot, and they toast Mary before he settles down in front of some grainy war flick on TCM and Sam and Dean head back to their room.

They smoke out of the open window to keep the air inside clean, and Sam asks vague questions, like every year. His brother does his best to remember the answers.

“I feel like I should remember,” Sam says dully.

Dean shrugs, flicking the lighter Sam gave him for his birthday on and off. “You were six months old. No one expects you to.” He exhales, dipping his head a bit past the window frame and practices his technique with smoke rings. Another drag, and he hands the cigarette to Sam. His technique sucks.

Sam leans against the sill. He lowers his voice when he says, “I wish I could remember.” There’s something there that Dean can’t quite place, and when he looks at his brother’s face, Sam bends his head and stares at the ground outside their window to avoid Dean’s fixed gaze. There might be frost in the morning.

It’s there in his eyes, whatever he won’t say aloud. Just this look, like he might break in the next few minutes, like he might have to before he can get anywhere else. Dean’s hand hovers over his brother’s shoulder before he pulls it back to his side. “Sam?”

Sam makes a noncommittal noise in his throat and counts the cracks in the peeling paint at his fingertips. “Sammy, c’mon. Talk to me.” Dean nudges him with his elbow, and Sam finally looks up. When Dean opens his mouth, what he means to do is say, I think I forget too, sometimes. He tilts his head and kisses Sam instead.

It takes his brother a moment to realize what’s happening, and it takes Dean even longer to figure it out for himself. He stumbles away and leans his back against the wall, fighting to keep his breathing steady. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, like he won’t be able to get the words out if he speaks up. He means it.

And Sam just stares at him—just looks at Dean for the longest four seconds of his life before taking a small step forward. Dean tenses to be cursed at or maybe even hit, but Sam just shakes his head fiercely. “No,” he says firmly, drops his palm to lay flat on his brother’s chest. “It’s okay.” He kisses back, and it is.

Their shirts are off and Sam’s hands are working at his belt before Dean finally comes back to his senses.

“Dad will hear,” he manages through the lingering taste of smoke and feel of his brother’s mouth on his throat, but Sam shakes his head.

“No, he won’t.” He drags down Dean’s zipper, tips his head to kiss him again, and Dean is very willing to believe that, particularly when Sam’s hands are there and the shocks racing down his spine have nothing to do with the wind picking up and sending a draft through the room.

It’s the first time since they started smoking together that they don’t actually finish the cigarette. It burns itself out on the sill and leaves a small, charred mark in its wake.

---

Dean’s looking for matches in Sam’s bag the day he finds a short but impressive-looking stack of college acceptance letters instead. His trusty lighter got buried along with the salted bones of a witch in western Tennessee a hundred miles ago, and he hasn’t bought a new one yet.

Dean tugs one of the letters out of its envelope. We are pleased to inform you—he shoves it away and thumbs through the stack, focusing on the letterheads. Northwestern, Columbia, a few others. They feel too heavy in his hand.

“Sammy?” he says, uncertain.

“Side zipper,” Sam calls back, and Dean hears the sink running. He shoves the letters out of sight just as Sam flicks off the bathroom light and pushes open the door. It’s an argument for another time.

Outside, Dean breaks three matches before Sam finally takes the box from his hands and strikes one to life, rolling his eyes. Dean thinks about how bad he is with metaphors.

---

They spend the night at a deserted laundromat in Alabama a few days later. Dad follows up on a lead twenty miles north and tells them to get some more practical work done, leaving money for a motel. Dean pockets it with the intention of playing a few hands of cards later and drives them to a small, square building with the door hanging a little crooked on its hinges and a spiderweb crack in the window.

It’s not exactly a four-star hotel, but they’ve worn everything at least three times and Dean points out that it’s cheaper than just another crappy, overpriced motel room. A cinderblock room lit by fluorescent bulbs and equipped with a series of rusted washing machines that just might predate the Carter administration is not Sam’s idea of a comfortable place to sleep, but Dean just brushes him off and says, “Don’t forget the bleach,” and taps his fingers to the da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, of the dryer on the armrest of his chair.

Sam doesn’t know that Dean knows. He can’t, has no way of knowing. They have enough rough spots that the way his brother’s been treating him for the past week could be about anything. Still, when Sam settles in a hard plastic seat and asks him if he ever considered college, Dean almost spills a roll of quarters all over the floor.

“Four more years of Hell?” He shakes his head violently. “No, thanks, man.”

“You’re smart, Dean. You could—”

“No, I couldn’t.” He slams the door to the washing machine a little harder than he means to. “Never an option, even if I had wanted to.”

“Why?” Sam means for it to come out as innocent curiosity. He doesn’t quite manage. Maybe he says it too fast, or maybe it’s because Dean knows about the letters. Maybe it’s just that he finally realized that all of those times he lied to Dad to help Sam pull off all of his after-school activities, clubs, sports, volunteer work... maybe it’s that he knows now that those things weren’t just some weak attempt at normal, that it was all leading up to something else.

“I couldn’t just up and leave, Sam. Not you and dad.” Something flashes across Sammy’s face, almost too fast to register, but Dean does. “Somebody has to keep your ass alive.”

He gropes in his pocket for a cigarette, but all he comes up with is an empty pack wrapped in crinkly cellophane. Sam shrugs.

The sit in silence after that. When the buzzer rings to announce the end of the cycle, they both stand.

“I can—” Sam begins and Dean steps closer and cuts him off. His brother’s lips are a little chapped even though it’s summer and he doesn’t put too much effort toward being gentle. In the hush left by the finished washing machine, they can hear crickets outside. Their knees bump together, and Dean curls the fingers of his left hand tightly in Sam’s hair. He stays there, just like that, for a moment before stepping back, smiling a little and almost sadly.

“I’ve got it,” he says and jingles through his jeans’ pocket, looking for change for the next load. Sam smiles back faintly and drops down into his chair again.

---

The bomb drops three weeks later, and Dean remembers the endless World War II videos his history teacher showed back in eleventh grade. He thinks dully about Hiroshima and folds dirty laundry because he needs something to do with his hands.

All Dean really wants to do is sleep, but all Dad and Sam seem to have energy for is shouting. It goes on longer than any fight Dean remembers, and it ends with John telling his youngest son to leave and never come back. Their father actually storms out of the motel room first, maybe hoping to avoid saying anything else he’ll regret, fishing in his pocket for the truck keys. Dean knows that it’ll take more than just a twenty-minute drive to calm him down tonight.

Sam follows minutes later, slamming the door hard and taking a seat with his back against the chipped brick wall, glaring at nothing in particular beyond the banister.

Dean cleans the weapons. He knows that if he goes out right away, it would just be looking for trouble. So he polishes, shines, and his hands smell like gun oil and steel by the time he pushes the door open and sees Sam sitting ten feet down the corridor, head balanced on his left arm and a cigarette in his other hand.

Dean sits down beside him, and they watch late-night, small-town traffic for a few minutes before he finally speaks up.

“You’re smoking alone now?”

“Fuck you.” Sam grinds his jaw and closes his eyes. “You could’ve said something.”

“And interrupt that beautiful show? Never.”

“I’m serious, Dean.”

“So am I. Excellent vibrato, Sammy. The next Pavarotti right here in our family and I never knew.” Sam opens his eyes and turns his head long enough to glare. Dean sighs. “It’ll be okay, man. Dad’ll get over it, and you’ll get over it, and you’ll be arguing about something completely different by lunchtime tomorrow.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Like you haven’t ever shouted at each other before. Maybe not that loud, but—”

“No—do you... you can’t really think I’m staying.”

That shuts Dean up. He stares right at his brother for almost a minute before reaching across him to take the cigarette from his hand. “Give me that,” he says roughly and swallows a lungful of smoke to help clear the fog in his head. “Where did you say you were going?”

“Stanford.” Sam pulls the cigarette gently from his brother’s hand. “California.”

“I know where Stanford is,” says Dean, irritated. He wants to count constellations, but there are clouds tonight. “That’s a long way.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“So you, what, picked the farthest place that would take you?”

“Well, the University of Alaska accepted me, but Palo Alto won out over Anchorage. It was a real toss-up, too, lemme tell you.”

Dean scowls. “Don’t do that. Being cute’s my thing.”

“Is that what you call it?”

“Don’t lie, dude. I’m damn near adorable.” Sam almost smiles at that, but it fades. “You’re really gonna go?”

“Dean. You know I will.”

“Yeah. I know. Look, Sammy—”

It’s just as well that Sam cuts him off, kissing Dean to shut him up, biting at his lower lip and moving his hands, shifting his weight before his brother can finish. He doesn’t know what he planned on saying anyway.

“We should go inside,” Dean says quietly, and Sam nods once. They move a little uncertainly, almost like they’re afraid to break contact, and it only occurs to Dean later that maybe they really are.

It only comes to him later, when he’s lying on his back and breathing hard and Sam is kneeling at the edge of the bed. Later, when his brother is beneath him, practically writhing, mouth open and skin tight across his throat. Later, when Dean kisses Sam’s forehead and pushes damp hair out of his eyes and thinks about how his brother needs a haircut.

Later, when it feels like goodbye.

“When are you leaving?” He asks the question later, when they’ve both showered and they’ve righted the covers on the bed and just finished off the second-to-last cigarette in the pack, together.

“Tuesday. Might leave tomorrow if...” Sam breaks off and absently folds and refolds the letter in his hands, finally sliding it carefully into its envelope and putting it securely back into his bag. “Friend of a friend lives in San Francisco. Said he’d let me crash on his couch until the semester starts.” He looks up. “Should be enough time for me to find a job, get things started.”

Dean nods tightly. “Right.” He glances at his watch. Dad’s still not back, not that they’d expected him. He’ll probably drive halfway to Mexico before turning around. “You gonna need a ride?”

“I’ve got a bus ticket.”

“Right, right. You’ve got this all figured out.” Dean fiddles with the ring on his hand for a moment before he stands up and pulls off his shirt. “Should get some sleep. Big day and all.”

Sam nods wordlessly and clicks off the light. They don’t say anything else until morning.

---

Dean starts smoking in the open once Sam leaves. His father doesn’t say anything, but he buys his son a new lighter at the next gas station. John’s tired of finding broken matches at the bottom of their duffels.

Dean thinks about his brother, his mother, about how bad he is with metaphors. He wonders if maybe Dad always knew, if maybe he had that pegged wrong from the start, too.

Sometimes, he still uses matches, and his hands still shake.