Rivers Deep | Sam Winchester

15. The Ability To Destroy You

"Love is giving someone the ability to destroy you, but trusting them not to." - Lal Ropeka

• • •

Sam laughed over his beer, arm wrapped around the brunet beside him as he listened to the joke his brother had told. Noah leaned his head on Sam's broad shoulder, growing sleepy. Sam leaned his head down, pecking Noah's temple, "Rest, sweetheart, I've got you."

Noah chuckled lightly, burrowing his head into Sam's warm neck as his mind began to wander, inhaling Sam's beautiful and natural musk, huffing a small amused breath as he felt Sam's pulse increase slightly.

• • •

Noah's eyes snapped open. He panted his breaths slightly as he slowly sat up, remembering the images that had flowed through his mind as he slept, he gulped as he recalled that this was far from the first time, but he had seemed to never remember them until recently. There's no way that's real, it's just a dream, it's not actually how he feels, because of course that wouldn't ever happen-

And then it hit him like it always seems to after these dreams. The glances, the thoughts, the comments, the kind gestures, the openness he seemed to have with him, a kind he had with no one else, not even his past boyfriends. He shook his head, swinging his legs over the side of the mattress, huffing out his breaths as he ran his hand through his hair.

The oversized pants legs of his pajama bottoms dragged on the floor as he stood up, walking to the kitchenette, and opening the fridge, He pulled out a beer bottle, popping off the lid as he plopped down at the table, putting his face in his hands. This isn't allowed to happen. He cannot fall in love with somebody, not with someone he was this close to. It would only hurt him in the end.

Not only was he straight, at least as far as Noah knew, but he was a hunter, and his life expetancy wouldn't extend past fourty years old. The same thing applied to Noah. How could he put eithe rof them through that pain.

When he thouht of it logically, he realized that being an affection and attention-starved gay man, befriending two hunters who were male and understood his lifestyle better than anyone else would, and then he bonded wiht them, helped them, spent nearly a year with them, spent some of the hardest parts of the year, the hardest part of his life thus far right by their side... it was almsot inevitable that he fell for one or the other.

He somewhat considered himself lucky that it was Sam and not Dean he ended up falling for. Because that would end in even more of a shitstorm. Then again, they are both so good at readng people that they will realize if he tries to distance himself or acts different in any way shape or form.

And then that familiar dull ache reminded him of why he wasn't currently staying with them in the first place. He considered that fact and he recalled all they had both lost. They had lost both of their parents, their childhoods, their innocence, Sam lost his first love... he was not going to be the cause of another. They didn't deserve to lose anyone else.

He felt a single stray tear fall down his cheek before he took another sip from his beer.

• • •

"This lawyer guy, first heart-free corpse in town?" Dean asked his brother as he cleaned one of the guns. Noah was seated across from him, on the other bed, brushing out Delta's fur. They had just finished a case in the woods, and she was matted and muddy, so he had given her a bath and groomed her fur.

"First man," Sam replied as he grabbed a beer from the fridge, "Over the past year, several women have gone missing, dead bodies all washed up later in the bay, too deteriorated to draw firm conclusions," he dragged a chair over as he explained, sitting on it backwards with his arm folded over the back of it.