Disclaimer: I sadly don't own any Winchester, living or dead and even sadder, I don't get money for writing.

This was written for the h/c comment-fic-meme on the lj-community "Hoodietime". You should totally check out the other fics there, too!

The prompt was:

Touch starvation/sensory deprivation.

After being held captive in the dark with no human contact, Dean needs more physical contact

than usual.

Warnings: Maybe some disturbing content, but mostly schmoop. No pairing, no wincest.

It's not that it was unexpected. After all, no-one could really survive what Dean had without some major issues. Still, Sam hadn't seen it coming and therefore, trying to be the silent, no-touch support Dean usually tolerated, had managed to do things completely, utterly wrong. With nearly disastrous consequences.

They had found him after six weeks. Six weeks in which Sam hardly slept, didn't eat more than absolutely necessary and hadn't touched a razor. He looked exactly like the Sasquatch Dean always accused him of being. Gaunt, hairy and hollow-eyes. Smelled like one, too. But that was nothing compared to how his brother looked when they'd finally, finally broken the lock on the wooden cover of the well, where the so-called "hunters" had dumped his brother and left him.

To be fair, they probably hadn't intended to leave him in there that long. They'd have probably preferred to exchange Dean for Sam, like it had been their intentions. Sam had been the target, not Dean. He was just unlucky enough to cross their paths first, and the three burly men had seized the opportunity and snatched him, sending his ring and his amulet to Bobby to force the old hunter to deliver Sam to them. It had been a rather smart plan. And Bobby's had been pretty cool, too.

So, when they met at the old bridge, the old friend holding Sam at gunpoint, his hands tied behind his back, they'd expected the other hunters to keep up their end of the bargain and bring Dean too. No such luck. Sadly, they hadn't realized that the shape in the back of the van, which had looked exactly like an unconscious Dean, had been a crash-dummy, a fact that would have been hilarious if Sam hadn't, in his anger and out of self-preservation, killed the three men, before they noticed. Ok, so Bobby had taken one out too, but still. Sam had pushed the last one over the bridge, into the dry river-bed and Dean… Dean had been no-where in sight.

Silently, Sam had gone crazy. He didn't go full-on kamikaze, but he'd been so scary that Bobby had decided to split up. Not only to cover more ground, but also because he worried too much about Dean to keep attention to Sam's health, and he'd have to do that if they'd stuck together. He'd called every day, sometimes twice, though.

After five and a half weeks, Sam had dug up a paper that told him one of the men had been owner of a rather spacious, rocky and overgrown piece of land, had kept sheep there once upon a time. It took them the rest of the week to find the old well on it, having looked for any place where you could keep a man.

When they'd taken the cover from the well, a horrific stench had met them and Sam had crumbled. Just like that, his knees had given up and he'd fallen down, so sure that the smell was the stink of death and decay. Luckily, Bobby knew how a person smelled after being stuck in his own filth for too long. Deep down, huddled against the wall, trying to cover his face against the sudden brightness, a shaking human had been illuminated by the flashlight.

It had taken them quite a while to get Dean out, even though the man had lost so much weight that the clothes the kidnappers had kindly left him hung loose around his frame. They'd had to cover half the well up again after Sam had climbed down on a rope, so Dean could squint and believe there really was someone who'd come to rescue him. Seeing the boy cling to his brother with so much force had nearly broken Bobby's heart. He'd helped them find a place to stay and left them to themselves, knowing he couldn't watch this quiet, subdued and broken person and not weep every time he realized it was his young, stubborn friend, who should be a force of nature and not… not that

Two days after the rescue, fed with nourishing but blunt and liquid food, Dean had finally agreed to let Sam have him. Sam had done so himself only hours after the rescue, when Dean had been asleep on the soft, spacious bed, covered in fluffy blankets. Miraculously, his brother hadn't had many injuries. Some sores, some scrapes that looked infected, probably from trying to climb out of his prison. One badly puffed ankle, sprained, not broken, though. He was thin and pale and his eyes were huge in his head, giant green saucers which made him look like a child.

Or a POW-prisoner, which was more fitting. He'd had water from a puddle, and apparently he'd had enough of his instincts left to use the other side of the well as a toilet. Sam refused to think about what his brother had eaten during his time alone. He had eaten something, though. There had been some tiny skeletons in the well, and Sam had found some holes, obviously dug with fingers in the ground, probably to find worms or insects. But no, he wasn't thinking about that. He was so glad his brother was alive and relatively unharmed that he'd refused to believe anything was wrong. No, not wrong, but different. Feed him, clean him, get him to sleep – and eventually, Dean will be the same he was before. Dean always bounced back, no matter what life doled out at him. Right?

Right.

So after another three days, Sam turned to familiar patterns of Winchester-care and treated his still pale and silent brother like he would usually do. Offering comfort in words, food, jokes and feigned ignorance. Trying to give him space. And he worried, of course, that Dean seemed to get worse instead of better, shifting, trying to keep Sam in his sight, flinching at contact. Had worried and wondered and kept distant even more.

Until, one night, the silent nightmares stopped and made way to screams. Torn from the bottom of the soul, Dean screamed wordlessly and Sam was out of his bed, stubbing his toe on the door, and in his brother's room even before the first scream was finished. Apparently, his subconscious had known it would come to this.

He grabbed Dean's shoulder, trying to still him and his heart stopped beating a minute when the older one stilled at once, deflated like a balloon. For a second, he thought his brother was dead. He wasn't. And finally, finally Sam stopped listening to his brain and believed his guts, climbed into bed with his shaken sibling and whispered stupid reassurances at him, gripping him tight and telling him he wasn't alone, wouldn't be alone anymore. That Sam would stay with him as long as necessary.

After that night, it got better. Dean stopped flinching at touches, smiled even a little at times. Not the beam Sam was used to, missed so much, but it was better than the gloom of doom from before. And ten days after the rescue, Dean started speaking again. First humming to music, than laughter, grumbling about the sucky food he still needed. When Sam came home smelling like coffee and fries, Dean glared at him "Sadist. You do this on purpose! How about I feed you with this baby-food and I eat the burgers. How about it?" Sam grinned, happy to hear a full sentence again, even with the scratchy voice."Keep it up, jerk. I can still drink the sake myself if you don't want it." He held up the present he'd brought for his brother. Dean looked so pleased and happy, Sam felt a weight lift from him. They sat together on the bed, watching a stupid movie, one slurping the vanilla-shake with gusto, the other just smiling. Their shoulders touched and Sam felt Dean relax, like he always did now when contact was re-established.

Three days later, they were back on the road. Dean still looked like death warmed-over, but he was going crazy. Sam had promised Bobby to come by and the trip to South Dakota would be the perfect trial-run for them, seeing if Dean is already capable of the outside-world.

Sam says no, Dean – says "Hell, yeah!"

So they went to Bobby's. Three hundred miles. Dean's sitting on the passenger-side, having very reluctantly agreed to let Sam take the first half of the drive, his palms flat on the leather-seat of his baby-girl. About ten minutes after they've left the town, Sam noticed the hand twitching, the fingers moving and creating friction on the seat. Without thinking he reached over and covered it with his own paw, felt his brother tense and deflate rather sudden, an audible exhale punctuating the relief. Sam didn't look at his brother, peeking rather at him from the corner of his eyes. Dean was turned away, maybe embarrassed – ah, who was he kidding, certainly embarrassed – but still needing skin on skin.

When they switched places outside a diner in… somewhere, it didn't take long for Sam to feel a hand against the side of his thigh. Not much, just a slight pressure. Six miles later, he pretended to fall asleep, head "accidentally" sliding against his brother's shoulder. Dean didn't move away, leaned even into the contact a little, and soon after, the fake became real and Sam snored away.

It's not much, nearly impossible to see. Dean's much more haptic than he ever used to be before. Not that he's cuddling, or anything. Not since Bobby one day came to wake them and found Sam curled around his brother, Dean snuggled under his chin. They'd come from a hunt, months after the well-incident, just passing through. Taking the advantage of a great library and a real kitchen. The old man's eyes had nearly fallen out of his skull, but even after realizing his mistake and apologizing to a deeply embarrassed Dean, the Winchesters had stopped sharing a bed from then on. Sam misses it, sometimes.

Still, there are the touches. Slight, unobtrusive, seeking contact wherever and whenever possible. Shoulder-to-shoulder on a bed with a movie, leg against leg in a diner or a bar, hand against thigh in the car. Much more thorough checks of health after being thrown against walls, being choked, drowned…whatever. Both do, grabbing tight and not letting go for a while, stroking hair from foreheads, checking pulse. Sam stopped noticing it, Dean stopped being embarrassed. It's the way it is, needs to be. These days, it's getting less, moved from gentle strokes and fleeting skin-contact to affectionate punches and shoulder-bumps. More hands-on-hands sparring with the occasional kick and leg-sweep in between instead of wrestling. It's getting less. All part of the healing-process.

Still more than ever, though.

~end~