SD Minibang Fic: Five Times Sam was Embarrassed (but also turned on) [Part 2]
(Part One)
Dean has had an unrivaled ability to humiliate Sam throughout their lives.
Sam learned what masturbation is at school, but he learned what it means from lying awake in bed after all the lights are out, listening to Dean make stifled grunting noises in the next bed. Sam learned about making it linger from the long long showers Dean would take when they had good hot water, a sense of rhythm from the creak of Dean's bedsprings, what to do with the mess from the crusted socks under Dean's bed, learned the flick of his fingers against his erection from the rustle of his brother's bed and the twisted edge of his brother's panting breath.
He learned discretion the Winchester way - you do what you need to do and stay quiet about it.
It's no wonder, Sam thinks years later. He was probably fucked from the start, from the first night he laid silent and hot-faced in his creaky twin bed, pretending to sleep with a tide of embarrassment still lingering fresh from sex-ed that day at school, fingers rubbing his belly and thinking awkwardly about masturbation and what the noises coming from Dean's half of the room must mean.
22
[When Dean smacks Sam's ass in public]
After six months on the road together, Sam is halfheartedly wishing Dean would learn to keep his hands to himself. Dean's been tactile all their lives but it's been a culture shock in some ways, coming back to his brother after years at Stanford and his male friends and Jess, none of whom ever touched him quite like Dean does, constant and affectionate but fierce, hand on his shoulder and slap on his back and fingers stealing his fries over the table. Coming back to it puts Sam on his home soil, weary and dumb with the things he had thought he'd escaped. Things Sam buried, because this is one secret his family can't save him from, that Sam is gonna take to his grave.
The problem is, Stanford didn't cure him. Freedom fixed a lot of things in Sam; the bitter teenage belief that life is automatically easier when you aren't running for your life half the time and dodging CPS at your doorstep; the lingering faint twang from their Dad's Kansas roots that Dean still has but Sam doesn't, anymore; the skinny leanness that Dean used to tease Sam for until he wanted to kick Dean in the teeth and cry, for reasons Sam didn't think too hard about at the time. Stanford helped Sam make himself smooth like a rail on a lathe, file off some of the hard brittle Winchester parts of himself. It was Stanford that finally rewarded him for loving more than a transient can afford, let his feelings for people beyond the familial circle of three flourish. Sam had kind of hoped that maybe when Dean wasn't nearly the only thing in his life that mattered he'd grow out of feeling like this, that it would dry up and flake off, a teenage infatuation with the only person who had really existed in his world.
But Sam thought wrong. Dean's hands on Sam's skin, the shine of his grin and the way he smells, they still make Sam buzz under his skin, same way they always did. Dean is buried deep in the parts of Sam that he'll never dig out and that sweet rotted part of Sam, the tender terror he feels for the warmth of Dean's hand and the angle of his jaw, is buried there with it.
But at least after Jess dies Sam's too sick and weary with self-hatred for destroying the best thing in his life to spend a lot of time hating himself for the other things he's ruined. Apparently there's a limit to how much Sam can hate himself at one time. And that keeps a lid on it, makes it a nonissue, for a while.
--
It's Dean's fault. They're in Oklahoma, trying to drum up some leads on a new case when Dean yanks Sam's sickness back up to the surface.
When Larry Pike the real estate developer flicks his eyes between Sam and Dean and tries to gently reassure them that no one's going bar them from this suburbanite community for being gay, Sam wastes a little huff of incredulity to cover the way his stomach clenches. Does Dean stand too close to him? Sam knows it's not him. He's made his entire life a study in how not to project I kind of want to have sex with my brother. Sam smiles and doesn't look freaked, damn it, and Dean's moment of bland incomprehension and following sharp denial are about what Sam would've expected. Larry lets it go easy, laughing off his mistake, ushers them into the barbecue and doesn't look back and forth between them again, doesn't watch how closely they stand together like he knows what it means, and Sam's ready to let it go as a fluke. But then it happens again, not five minutes later, the realtor trotting out the same inclusiveness spiel. What's with these people jumping down Sam's throat to show off how egalitarian they are? And he knows it shouldn't burn his ears to hear this, that he would probably be glad to hear all this inclusivity, but he knows that none of them, Larry or Linda or Dean, would smile and feed him barbecue if they knew what he really was.
Even Dean looks uncomfortable, except then -
"I'm gonna go talk to Larry. Okay, honey?" Dean says, and Sam is totally off guard when Dean decides to give his ass a good hard smack in the middle of a jam-packed realtor's barbecue. While they're talking to a witness. Christ, it stings hot and just a little bit tingling and it makes Sam jerk - Dean doesn't joke around. For a hot, desperate instant Sam's completely flummoxed, body convinced that all his dreams are coming true. Linda's mouth drops open, amazed or maybe appalled, and Sam's struggling to suck in breath, his heart roaring in his ears. His dick decides it's party time, jumping up in his pants like Dean's about to give it a fondle next. And then Dean strolls away leaving Sam with the hot potato in his pants and the blinking, blandly startled realtor to make polite, hunt-digging conversation while sporting half a boner. Sam hates that Dean's able to do this to him.
If Sam's kind of pissed off at Dean for a couple days afterwards, who can blame him?
And if the next morning he's curled on the blanket-covered carpet square they slept on, jerking off to the memory, while Dean wastes their time in the steam shower - well, Sam's a man harassed to the edge.
Fuck, all he wants is for Dean to do it, curve his fingers over Sam's ass and mean it, just once. Sam thinks about the strength in Dean's rough hands; it's no effort, no difficulty at all for him to picture them on his own skin while he slides his fingers into the split in his boxers. Thinks about Dean groping his ass at the barbecue, a Dean who means it, who'll rub his fingers over the back of Sam's neck and kiss him by the folding table, that'd let Sam drag him into one of the walk-in closets the realtor kept touting, let Sam rut between his legs and feel the hard press of Dean's heavy dick and cut muscles with his own body -
and here the fantasy stalls, because Sam already knows what the cut of Dean's bare muscles feel like up against his own, knows the strength in Dean's hands and their tenderness too when they thread a needle through a wound or a bullet around a hostage, when they're saving Sam's life. He knows what Dean's smile looks like when he's picking up a girl, crooked and sly and intensely flattering, the way his brother dials up his insouciant charm into the electrifying intensity he only spends when he really wants to get inside a girl's panties; the different intensity Dean gets when he's got a weapon in his hand and he means to kill; and the one that sometimes surfaces when he's dealing with Sam. All three can make Sam's heart slam in his ribcage, but they're never going to meet. The thought of Dean turning that flirting grin on Sam makes the muscles in his thighs clench up tight and sweet, but Dean never flatters Sam. He teases.
Sam moans into his fist, chasing an edge that won't come.
--
It's not that they've never been taken for gay before. It's happened, once or twice. Two young guys wandering America together, frequently without the excuse of being FBI partners or journalists or whatever - it's statistically probable that people are going to jump to conclusions every once in a while. Sometimes it's even useful; there are some witnesses where it turns out to be a pull. Sam tries not to let it get to him. Dean sure doesn't, tends to yuck it up and tease Sam when someone assumes they're gay, like it doesn't even bother him. And, yeah, they're not just two guys - they're two pretty affectionate young men, even if Dean tends to show his love with a punch to the shoulder and a bad joke - and it makes sense that people are going to sometimes draw the wrong obvious conclusion, at least until they trot out the reassurance that they're brothers.
So Sam hasn't been letting it freak him out. Much. They stay on the move and safely anonymous enough that it doesn't happen all that often, anyway, and he's been able to keep his concern about it safely shelved in the back of his brain, saving it for the sleepless nights he spends with Dean sawing logs comfortingly in the next bed, when all of Sam's demons crawl up into his mind and wait to become nightmares.
But after Oasis Plains the whole thing starts giving Sam cold sweats. Sam's not an idiot, he knows Dean was making a joke - but it's like it shook something loose inside Sam. He starts second-guessing all his brother's quirks, which is a losing proposition right there, with Dean. And in Oasis Plains - they've been taken as gay before, but Dean smacking his ass - that was all new. Dean never played along with it like that before. The memory of it still makes Sam's dick hard and his spine stiff with a little bit of terror, because what the fuck does it mean?
The Oasis Plains incident flips a switch in Sam's brain and it's like he's seventeen again, hypersensitive to everything his brother does, blood pounding every time Dean twitches or touches Sam's skin, and Sam spends his days aching. Sam thought he was past this. Dean is burning with personality, up in Sam's space and so fervently Dean, bright and laughing and Sam's older brother that he doesn't know what to do. Sam feels drained and wan beside him, the clotting sorrow of Jess and now his old shame dragging him down and making him sharp and fearful about everything, and Dean's the thing that keeps them both afloat. But being next to him like sardines in the Impala is some kind of exquisite torture. Some days it feels like Sam's brain is gonna come crawling out his ears just to get away from Dean for a few hours. It makes Sam tetchy, clammed up because it's all he can do to ignore Dean's proximity, turn his mind away and focus on other things, throw himself into the hunts they go on. Dean maybe doesn't notice, or takes Sam's bouts of prickliness in stride the same way he moves smoothly to accommodate Sam's grief on all the bad days when it still wells up in him, sharp and fierce.
Sam really starts noticing it after the scarecrow in Burketsville, like getting that reassurance that Sam isn't going to pack up and leave at the drop of a hat gives Dean the courage to take harassing his brother to a new level. Sam spends a lot of his time wondering if Dean was sent from God to test him. He loves his brother, he does, Dean clothed and fed and raised him, but it escapes Sam how any one man can be so determinedly, lovably annoying. Dean sings along loudly in the car, belches and grins at Sam from across the front seat and starts scuffles for the remote on days they're bored and not working, then gives up suddenly halfway through to sit up on the rumpled bed and leer down at Sam twisted around him, and Sam's left flushing and wondering again if something's showing on his face, in his eyes, something that Dean knows.
But Dean doesn't say anything. He never flinches when Sam touches him.
And sometimes- sometimes he thinks Dean flirts, not just with girls but with Sam. Did Dean always touch him this much? There's a corner of intensity to Dean's gaze, warm and sharp, that Sam can't manage to rationalize away. Dean doesn't grab his ass again but his arm rests on the back of the seat when they drive, fingers flicking Sam's ear; he snaps Sam's ass with a towel and a "Hurry it up, Sammy!" in motel rooms, stands and walks and sits close, too close, when they're on hunts, undercover, in public, steering Sam with a hand on his shoulder or elbow, suit-clad thigh touching Sam's when they sit on a witness's couch. Dean's always in Sam's space. Sam remembers how acutely he felt the distance between his body and Dean's when he was seventeen, feels sure that it was never this short. Whenever Sam's in danger Dean's hands are on his skin in an instant, like they're magnetized by Dean's fear, and it makes Sam tingle but also makes him suspicious.
Sam picks at their relationship internally, worrying at the space between their bodies like a bone. His nails are bitten down to the quick, the tips of his fingers starting to crack and bleed. Even Dean's starting to give him a concerned look instead of an eyeroll when Sam puts his fingers to his mouth and gnaws at them absently, but he can't stop his mind from whirling. Maybe Dean touches him inappropriately sometimes but it's Dean so who knows what that means? This isn't something Sam can turn off, but the thought of confronting it is intolerable. It scares him in a way Dad never could. There's no formula for this, not in John Winchester's rulebook and not at Stanford - the only answer Sam knows is the one he taught himself, run, run, run.
Then Dean nearly dies in a wet basement and Sam's heart spends a week never leaving his throat for a second. The fear Sam feels then wears him like a skin, the thought of Dean slipping away from him in the night, in his sleep, eclipses even Sam's old fears about himself, about what Dean does or maybe doesn't suspect. Leaving Nebraska with Dean hearty and sound in the driver's seat is like a hand coming off Sam's throat. Even the terror that Dean might figure out one day that his little brother's disgusting and hot for him pales after the prospect of Dean's imminent death, Sam's older brother not just gone but lost forever. After that Sam knows he made the right decision to stay, but it still doesn't make being with Dean all the time easy.
The hope is the worst part.
--
Sam breaks when they're in western Appalachia, investigating something that's been gutting seventh sons. Whatever's leaving ripped-open bodies in the woods is running on an M.O. they can't pin down beyond that, and maybe it's just be coincidence, not their kind of thing, except for that gut feeling of weird the obits give them both. So Sam drags them through the town interviewing everybody who knows anybody who might've seen or heard or known something, trying to grit his teeth and power through the case even though the lack of progress has been keeping them both in some kind of mood. They're on the porch of the sister-in-law of the man who turned up in a creekbed two weeks ago with his ribs pulled wide and open like wings, pretending to be concerned citizens and questioning her through her cracked-open front door about the last time she saw her sister's husband alive when it finally happens again - one of Dean's hands on Sam's ass, sliding gently across the curve to settle low on his back. Dean's hand is warm and barely-there through the fall of Sam's jacket, and Sam goes hot with the bizarre rush of it in his veins, then cold, because what the hell is Dean doing?
A moment later Dean's hand lifts away, like it was never there. It leaves him weak-kneed and lightheaded.
"What?" Sam says, insensibly, because he missed the last minute of what came out of the woman's mouth, and the witness darts her eyes back and forth between him and Dean, opens her door a little wider to let them into her foyer, and starts over on what she was telling them. She doesn't know much, just that her brother-in-law was a wanderer, liked to drink in the woods while her sister worked night shifts, and that's more or less all she has to tell them before she trails off on an awkward tangent and Dean nudges Sam's foot with his, you wanna get out of here? and Sam makes their excuses in a daze. She smiles before she shuts the door behind them.
"Y'all are cute." She's got golden curls like Jess, and it feels just enough like an accusation, like cheating. Dean tosses a wink and a flirty wave over his shoulder at her before tagging along, but Sam just walks to the car and tries not to shake.
Dean taps the steering wheel with his fingers, humming Blue Oyster Cult on the drive back to their motel room while Sam flips distractedly through their notes from the witnesses they've interviewed with something building slow and angry in his gut, stares hard at the side of Dean's head like it's a Magic Eye puzzle, like Sam can make an answer appear by force.
They break for dinner and a few beers that night, head to the diner across the street from their motel. Dean's acting like his own bad mood is broken and gone. He flirts terribly with their waitress, grinning and turning up the charm with one knee pressed into Sam's under the table the whole time, and Sam pours his beer down his throat to chase the knot he feels like he's swallowed, orders a second and then a third. Sam snatches the check from their waitress when it comes, before Dean can flirt with her any more but Dean takes it from his hand with a quick brush of his warm fingers over Sam's wrist when he gets up to pay their check and Sam is done. Up from their table, out the door with a sharp ring of the bell and stalking across the street and into the parking lot while Dean's at the cashier paying.
The diner door chimes behind Sam, Dean scrambling out after him, yelping "Hey! Sam! Wait!" like a tool, and Sam is so fed up with this hunt and this damn town and himself but especially his goddamn fucking brother that he doesn't even look back, just slams the door of their room behind him while Dean's still chasing him across the street.
The scrape of Dean's key in the lock comes a second later and Dean's chased him back into the room, flippant mood punctured and deflating on his face. "Sam, what the hell?"
Sam glares at himand rolls his beer-thick tounge."Christ, you're such a -" Sam hisses and then stifles himself, throws his body down in the moth-eaten armchair with his head down, feeling every mile he's ridden next to Dean, every inch of fear in his heart from the past year weighing down on him in this moment, drowning out any answer that won't tell Dean anything, won't dredge up the truth about Sam's rage from its shuttered place in his heart. Dean's feet scrape on the carpet when he crosses the room to stand by Sam.
"Sam, you wanna fill me in here?" Dean just sounds wounded and a little plaintive, like Sam's kicked a dog that didn't know what it was doing wrong, and the obliviousness just pisses Sam off more.
"Why're -" Sam's voice strangles. "You're always fucking with me!"
"Sam, what the hell are you talking about?"
"Why the fuck are you grabbing my ass in front of witnesses, Dean!?" It's a reasonable question, he's pretty sure.
"Whu-" Dean's mouth falls open, like this is astounding, like he never would have expected Sam to call him on this. "You're getting your panties twisted up now over that?" he says, holding up his hands, flat palms-out, unthreatening, but his eyes are doing that twitchy thing, meeting Sam's a half-second too late, that says Dean's hedging. Sam can feel his mouth go knife-thin.
"Dean."
"Aw, Sam - man!" Dean's voice goes strangled. "I thought you knew why!"
"No I really don't, Dean. Why don't you explain it to me?"
"I was just…" Dean runs one hand over his face awkwardly, like he knows he's messed something up but he's not sure how to fix it. "I was just thinking that - it worked. You know? Back in Toledo. That kid Charlie, on the Bloody Mary job, she only talked to us 'cause she thought we were gay. Nothing's less threatening to scared girls than a couple of gay guys and, man, we've got to deal with a lot of alone, frightened girls in our line of work. It's weird, maybe, but let me tell you, it's better than when I was by myself and they all thought I was gonna rape them if they looked at me wrong - I don't know if you've noticed, Sam, but sometimes we can use all the help we can get in the nonthreatening department. Not all of us've got puppy eyes people fall right over for."
Sam stares at Dean, digesting that around the churning in his stomach - is he losing it? Sam's been freaking out all year over this?
"I'm not like you, man, I can't just - sometimes, I swear, you're so nice you can make people fall halfway in love with you in just a conversation. That isn't me, man."
"But." Sam whines, dumbfounded. "But. Not just with witnesses. You keep touching me." Dean has been, right? Right?
Dean's fingers twitch. "Sam, wha? No, I really don't. I know I don't."
"But you…"
Dean puts out a hand, almost touching Sam's knee, then slowly curls it into a fist instead. Sam feels white and chilled, scooped out by Dean's shaking fist inches away from his body. Unable to touch him. God, Sam's sick and Dean's about five inches from realizing just how much and the fear of it rushes up like bile in his chest. He jumps up sharp, shoves past Dean and braces himself against the table, punch of awful feeling rising in his throat like he's going to throw up.
"Wait, quit running away from me, Sam - dude, are you okay?"
"No," Sam moans, "I am really not okay-" Dean's hand lands on his shoulder and Sam jerks away, twitching it off, hot and angry rush in his stomach in with the same old terror that whites his bones.
"Back the fuck off, Dean," Sam snaps.
And it's fucked-up, trying to hide this with a fight, like it's a squabble about who's going to get the laundry done that they can resolve by hurling their weight at each other a few times. Sam can remember just fine just how well that worked out for him.
"Stuff it, Sam. If something's freaking you out this bad you've gotta tell me what's wrong. I'm not the mind-reader, here," and Dean puts his hand back firm on Sam's shoulder, squeezing, like that's gonna make anything okay instead of worse. And fuck Dean for always digging like this, fuck him for treating Sam like just his baby brother and tearing at his secrets, acting like he's got a right to know every single piece inside of Sam, like Sam doesn't deserve to keep anything to himself.
"Fuck, it's you, Dean. You keep, keep touching me and I wanna -"
If Dean wants to know that bad, fine. That's one sure way Sam can hurt his brother back. Sam smashes his mouth against Dean's, licking at his mouth, his slack lips, sucking and biting, despair wild in his veins like arousal.
Dean lets Sam slam him into the wall and everything about it, the force of all the things that make Sam's gut twist in all the good and horrible ways, packed into the hard line of his brother pressed along his body, makes Sam drop his head and sob around the crazy, clawing feeling in his throat. There are hot tears running down Sam's face, and he can't breathe, he really can't breathe. All he breathes in when he tries is Dean and the way he smells and feels up against Sam, and the confused, belligerent, beloved frown on Dean's face, cracking into concern for Sam.
Sam lets his head and shoulders just drop, spine aching like they're too heavy for him to hold up anymore, sagging against Dean. His face ends up in the shoulder of Dean's jacket that smells like cheap aftershave, and Sam's crying and spitting messily on Dean's leather shoulder just like a half dozen times when Sam was a kid and came to his big brother for comfort, back when he was still innocent. It's so fucked-up that Sam can get that same comfort now, from putting his face in Dean's shoulder and letting his older brother take care of him, even when he wants to fuck Dean, wants his brother all over him so bad all the time, even right this very second.
"Sammy," Dean creaks.
Sam shudders. "I didn't want you to find out." He can barely look at Dean.
"Sam, I'm sorry-" Dean sounds fucked up, the kind of anguish Sam hasn't heard in his voice in months, maybe years. His mouth is wet. "Did I - Christ. What was I thinking. Come - C'mon, man, it doesn't have to mean anything? It's okay, it's okay-"
And a laugh tears itself out of Sam's throat at that. "No, god, Dean- I can't, I can't keep pretending I don't - it's been since I was twelve, it's all I can think about sometimes. I don't know what to do, some days I think it's gonna break me."
"Sammy," Dean says, very quietly.
"Don't tell Dad," Sam begs. He can feel, very far away, the trembling in Dean's hands pressed against his shoulders. "You can leave, I'll, I'll go to him and make him let me help, we'll find the demon and then you won't have to deal with me after that."
"Sam, fuck," Dean grunts, "I almost killed a pack of hillbillies to get you back, what makes you think I'm going to walk out on you? I can't just-"
"No, Dean - I'm so sorry-"
Then there are awkward thumbs on Sam's face, soothing over his wet cheeks and flinching away from his skin. "Shh, shh. No, Sammy - it's gonna be okay. I'm sorry. It's gonna be okay."
"No it's not, Dean, just lemme be-"
"This is my fault."
"God, Dean," Sam chokes out, "it's not just going to go away if you ignore it-"
"No, Sam. This is my fault," Dean says again. And his lips are gentle on Sam's jaw.
AND THEN
[When Dean calls him "Sammy" during sex]
By the time Sam's twenty-four he's pretty sure Dean is never going to keep his hands to himself, ever again.
Not that he'd want Dean to.
After a hunt like the one they wrapped up last night they can sleep for, god, forever, especially Dean who's a lazy ass when he can get away with it. So Sam feels muzzily surprised when he drifts into half-awareness after some unknown hours of sleep and Dean's already awake, silhouetted naked in the dim light coming in from behind the blinds. Sam's limbs feel heavy sprawled across their rumpled bed, sleepy-warm from being tangled in the sheet, and his eyes flutter closed again for an interminable hazy period until the drag of Dean's teeth on his skin brings him back.
Dean's crouched over Sam, hands curled around the bulge of Sam's knee and his bony ankle, pulling his leg open for the scraping suckle of Dean's mouth just above his knee. The small wet sounds Dean's mouth makes are just barely audible over the hum of traffic outside, the rustle of sheets on their bed where Sam's other foot is waking up, shifting restlessly from the pull of Dean's lips, the lush suction of his mouth. In the dim light Sam can just make out the line of hickeys blooming across Dean's shoulder and collarbone as Dean's mouth works slowly, sucking a mark of his own to match on the skin of Sam's inner thigh. Dean licks a stripe up the muscle of Sam's thigh, making it twitch involuntarily and Dean chuckles, breath wet on Sam's teased and kiss-darkening skin.
Sam yawns and rubs a hand over his face and Dean looks up, mouth quirking into a smile when he sees Sam awake. He already looks like sex, heavy-lidded and red-mouthed and smug in a way that makes Sam's stomach flutter.
"Hey," Sam rasps.
Dean shifts up the bed on his knees, amulet swinging, glides his fingers up Sam's body and presses his face close against Sam's. "Morning, Sammy," Dean croons in his ear, and Sam feels himself go hot all over, flush rippling under his skin and into his dick. Their mouths meet wetly, Dean's soft mouth pulling gently at his until Sam opens, tongues flirting. Dean pulls back and licks his lips. Dean's body is a warm weight pressing against Sam's, and Sam can see the quickening thump of Dean's pulse, the soft weight of his half-hard dick against Sam's thigh.
"How're you feeling?" Dean rumbles, fingers gliding down to the white square of gauze taped to Sam's side where the creature they hunted last night cut him with its claws. Sam hisses when Dean's thumb brushes across the bandage, flesh underneath sore and scabbing, and sighs when his brother strokes the unbroken skin below Sam's injury apologetically, rubbing the throb away.
"I'm all right," Sam says, and skates his hands over Dean's ribs to his back, gently cups the shoulder blade right below Dean's gimpy shoulder, bruised and swelling again from being thrown against the ground. "You?"
"Doesn't even itch," Dean scoffs, and Sam rolls his eyes, presses gently against the muscle he knows is injured and feels Dean twitch.
"Yeah, sure. Just take it easy."
"Whatever you say, honey," Dean says, mocking and saccharine.
Sam rolls his eyes again, nips Dean's smart mouth."Dude, shut up."
"You shut up," Dean shoots back without heat and rolls his tongue into Sam's mouth, slow and deep and dizzying, presses him back against the pillows until Sam forgets what they were talking about.
They've fucked once already today, hard and fast on the foot of the bed after they dragged in victorious from the hunt, exhaustion singing in Sam's limbs as he pushed Dean down to taste the salt of sweat on his belly. Dean cursed and fumbled their jeans off, hissed fuuuuuuuc-k, yeah, when Sam sank into him, before Sam pinned him with the weight of his forearms and snapped his hips into Dean until they came. Sam's muscles are tender now from the double exertion of fighting and sex, and his side is more sore and raw-feeling than it might have been, but he doesn't regret it.
He runs his hands along the strong arch of Dean's back, relishes the ripple of muscle there when Dean dips his head to bite Sam's ear. With his fingers on Dean's ass Sam can slide one inwards, touch where Dean's still loose and a little slick from hours ago. Dean growls appreciatively into Sam's ear and grinds his dick against Sam's thigh, and Sam shudders. He can feel the promise in the sucking roll of Dean's tongue against his jaw and he wants. Sex burned his adrenaline out so good earlier and now Sam feels sleep-heavy, slack and easy around the slow pulse of arousal starting to throb in his core, more than ready to let Dean keep pressing him down, keep rubbing kisses into his skin.
"You gonna let me, Sammy?" Dean mutters, low and affectionate against the side of his face. The husky rasp of Dean's voice makes Sam's heart kick in his chest, makes him shift restlessly under Dean, dick hardening, wanting Dean's fingers everywhere.
"God, yeah," Sam pants.
"Mmm-hmm," Dean groans back, tongue fluttering under Sam's Adam's apple, and Sam tips his head back for it eagerly.
Dean crawls down Sam's body, dick brushing stickily against Sam's hip and leg while Dean noses his way down Sam's chest. One thumb rubs idly at Sam's nipple, teasing it hard and sensitive while Dean presses his face against Sam's hip and belly, lips mouthing in the hair there, making Sam shiver, before Dean murmurs "C'mon," tugging gently on Sam's bad side. Sam rolls with him, settles on his front with a sigh that catches sharply in his lungs when Dean jumps straight to cupping and nuzzling his ass, bridge of his nose rubbing back and forth over the base of Sam's spine, nosing the tip into the top of Sam's crack. Dean's two-day old stubble is a rough tease against his sensitive skin, and then there's Dean's tongue, swiping slow across the flesh of his ass. Sam rubs his face in his pillow and groans, thighs trembling and balls hot and heavy in anticipation.
"Easy, Sammy," Dean mutters, thumbs shifting on his lower back, and Sam shudders, bucks up under his hands. God, hearing Dean say that like this, warm and tender and low, spoken into his skin-
"Ngh, Dean."
Sam's own voice is sticky with heat, dragging in his throat. Dean's hands shift and knead, thumbs massaging the dimples at the base of his spine until the muscles lie smooth and quivering, slowly pulls Sam's cheeks open, breath huffing hot and tantalizing in the space between.
"Deannn," Sam whines. Dean hums and sucks one last mark at the base of Sam's spine, then licks a broad swipe straight down where he's spread Sam open, drags his tongue hard and wet against Sam's hole. Sam twitches and groans, fingers shifting restlessly on the sheets, and Dean sucks at his rim, faint hint of teeth like he's going to put another hickey right there where he's about to split Sam open with his dick.
Dean's fingers shift restlessly on his ass, tongue flirting with the rim of Sam's hole until Sam's breath is juddering in his lungs and Sam spreads his legs and arches into it, begging with the needy cant of his hips, hissing through his teeth when Dean finally goes for it, pushes his tongue firm and steady into Sam.
"Fuck, fuck, Dean, fuck," Sam moans, mouth smushed slackly open against his pillow, spread open so good but not nearly deep enough on the flickering pressure of Dean's tongue inside him. He feels drugged from Dean's hands and mouth on his skin, the wet flutter of Dean's fucking lips against his crack and the pressure in his hole making Sam crave deeper, thicker, more. There's a slick push in next to the thrust of Dean's tongue that Sam doesn't notice at first but then goes, god, finally deep enough, Dean's lube-slick finger rocking into him alongside his tongue. Dean pulls the finger back with a squelch, tongue still working, then presses in slow with two thick fingers, gets them deep and firm inside Sam and spreads them, dragging him wet and wide. Dean's tongue laps between his knuckles, darts at Sam's rim, flicking into the open space where Sam's pulled apart by Dean's fingers. The Dean slides back slow, unhurried, fingers still messing in Sam's ass while he presses his mouth between Sam's legs to lap right above his balls.
"You ready?" Dean asks, and Sam nods his head, presses his face into his folded arms and groans at the feel of his brother's hands shifting on, in him. Dean's fingers slip out of him with a squelch that leaves Sam feeling slack and exposed, shifting restlessly on the sheets until the hot press of Dean's skin descends all along his back. Dean's dick presses against the curve of his thigh for a second, making Sam's heart jump in anticipation, then Dean's fingers are pulling him wide for the nudge of the head against his hole and Sam goes loose, boneless in the sheets from the slow hot thrill of his own ass flexing open as Dean slides home.
"Sam," Dean sighs on the thrust in, loops his arms around Sam's waist and kisses his back, lips moving slowly over the knobs of Sam's spine in time to the rock of his hips, the tender drag out and slow pushes back in. Sam feels himself shivering apart under Dean, under the throb of Dean's heartbeat pressed against his skin, the smell of Dean's sweat, the rasp of Dean's bowed thighs between Sam's spread ones and the slip of their skin together, the reverence of Dean's mouth kissing between Sam's shoulder blades. Dean worms one hand under Sam's hips and gets it around his dick, pulling slowly in time with his thrusts, rubbing his thumb over the head and Sam arches, feels it building in him, grabs for Dean, fingers clenching and shifting restlessly on Dean's hips behind his while the wave of his orgasm builds up slow and then crests with Dean's smile pressed into his shoulder, Sam's body shaking out of his own control as he spills wet on the sheets smashed under their bodies.
Sam feels hazy once he comes, blood trembling in his veins. Dean keeps pumping slowly into Sam's ass, breath growing heaving and heavy in Sam's ear until Dean crushes himself hard against Sam's back and comes, shuddering. There's a long breath while Dean sprawls on Sam's back, bodies wound together before Dean's weight gets too heavy and Sam groans and flexes, squirming until his brother lifts off and lets him roll over.
Dean stretches out warm beside Sam, worms a leg patiently between his, drags him close against Dean's chest. Sam rolls with it, smiling stupidly, lets Dean loop a possessive arm around his waist and kiss his mouth, humming "Sammy," into his jaw. Sam makes a face at the nickname but Dean laughs, nuzzles his face into Sam's neck, mutters, "You like it."
Dean has had an unrivaled ability to humiliate Sam throughout their lives.
Sam learned what masturbation is at school, but he learned what it means from lying awake in bed after all the lights are out, listening to Dean make stifled grunting noises in the next bed. Sam learned about making it linger from the long long showers Dean would take when they had good hot water, a sense of rhythm from the creak of Dean's bedsprings, what to do with the mess from the crusted socks under Dean's bed, learned the flick of his fingers against his erection from the rustle of his brother's bed and the twisted edge of his brother's panting breath.
He learned discretion the Winchester way - you do what you need to do and stay quiet about it.
It's no wonder, Sam thinks years later. He was probably fucked from the start, from the first night he laid silent and hot-faced in his creaky twin bed, pretending to sleep with a tide of embarrassment still lingering fresh from sex-ed that day at school, fingers rubbing his belly and thinking awkwardly about masturbation and what the noises coming from Dean's half of the room must mean.
22
[When Dean smacks Sam's ass in public]
After six months on the road together, Sam is halfheartedly wishing Dean would learn to keep his hands to himself. Dean's been tactile all their lives but it's been a culture shock in some ways, coming back to his brother after years at Stanford and his male friends and Jess, none of whom ever touched him quite like Dean does, constant and affectionate but fierce, hand on his shoulder and slap on his back and fingers stealing his fries over the table. Coming back to it puts Sam on his home soil, weary and dumb with the things he had thought he'd escaped. Things Sam buried, because this is one secret his family can't save him from, that Sam is gonna take to his grave.
The problem is, Stanford didn't cure him. Freedom fixed a lot of things in Sam; the bitter teenage belief that life is automatically easier when you aren't running for your life half the time and dodging CPS at your doorstep; the lingering faint twang from their Dad's Kansas roots that Dean still has but Sam doesn't, anymore; the skinny leanness that Dean used to tease Sam for until he wanted to kick Dean in the teeth and cry, for reasons Sam didn't think too hard about at the time. Stanford helped Sam make himself smooth like a rail on a lathe, file off some of the hard brittle Winchester parts of himself. It was Stanford that finally rewarded him for loving more than a transient can afford, let his feelings for people beyond the familial circle of three flourish. Sam had kind of hoped that maybe when Dean wasn't nearly the only thing in his life that mattered he'd grow out of feeling like this, that it would dry up and flake off, a teenage infatuation with the only person who had really existed in his world.
But Sam thought wrong. Dean's hands on Sam's skin, the shine of his grin and the way he smells, they still make Sam buzz under his skin, same way they always did. Dean is buried deep in the parts of Sam that he'll never dig out and that sweet rotted part of Sam, the tender terror he feels for the warmth of Dean's hand and the angle of his jaw, is buried there with it.
But at least after Jess dies Sam's too sick and weary with self-hatred for destroying the best thing in his life to spend a lot of time hating himself for the other things he's ruined. Apparently there's a limit to how much Sam can hate himself at one time. And that keeps a lid on it, makes it a nonissue, for a while.
--
It's Dean's fault. They're in Oklahoma, trying to drum up some leads on a new case when Dean yanks Sam's sickness back up to the surface.
When Larry Pike the real estate developer flicks his eyes between Sam and Dean and tries to gently reassure them that no one's going bar them from this suburbanite community for being gay, Sam wastes a little huff of incredulity to cover the way his stomach clenches. Does Dean stand too close to him? Sam knows it's not him. He's made his entire life a study in how not to project I kind of want to have sex with my brother. Sam smiles and doesn't look freaked, damn it, and Dean's moment of bland incomprehension and following sharp denial are about what Sam would've expected. Larry lets it go easy, laughing off his mistake, ushers them into the barbecue and doesn't look back and forth between them again, doesn't watch how closely they stand together like he knows what it means, and Sam's ready to let it go as a fluke. But then it happens again, not five minutes later, the realtor trotting out the same inclusiveness spiel. What's with these people jumping down Sam's throat to show off how egalitarian they are? And he knows it shouldn't burn his ears to hear this, that he would probably be glad to hear all this inclusivity, but he knows that none of them, Larry or Linda or Dean, would smile and feed him barbecue if they knew what he really was.
Even Dean looks uncomfortable, except then -
"I'm gonna go talk to Larry. Okay, honey?" Dean says, and Sam is totally off guard when Dean decides to give his ass a good hard smack in the middle of a jam-packed realtor's barbecue. While they're talking to a witness. Christ, it stings hot and just a little bit tingling and it makes Sam jerk - Dean doesn't joke around. For a hot, desperate instant Sam's completely flummoxed, body convinced that all his dreams are coming true. Linda's mouth drops open, amazed or maybe appalled, and Sam's struggling to suck in breath, his heart roaring in his ears. His dick decides it's party time, jumping up in his pants like Dean's about to give it a fondle next. And then Dean strolls away leaving Sam with the hot potato in his pants and the blinking, blandly startled realtor to make polite, hunt-digging conversation while sporting half a boner. Sam hates that Dean's able to do this to him.
If Sam's kind of pissed off at Dean for a couple days afterwards, who can blame him?
And if the next morning he's curled on the blanket-covered carpet square they slept on, jerking off to the memory, while Dean wastes their time in the steam shower - well, Sam's a man harassed to the edge.
Fuck, all he wants is for Dean to do it, curve his fingers over Sam's ass and mean it, just once. Sam thinks about the strength in Dean's rough hands; it's no effort, no difficulty at all for him to picture them on his own skin while he slides his fingers into the split in his boxers. Thinks about Dean groping his ass at the barbecue, a Dean who means it, who'll rub his fingers over the back of Sam's neck and kiss him by the folding table, that'd let Sam drag him into one of the walk-in closets the realtor kept touting, let Sam rut between his legs and feel the hard press of Dean's heavy dick and cut muscles with his own body -
and here the fantasy stalls, because Sam already knows what the cut of Dean's bare muscles feel like up against his own, knows the strength in Dean's hands and their tenderness too when they thread a needle through a wound or a bullet around a hostage, when they're saving Sam's life. He knows what Dean's smile looks like when he's picking up a girl, crooked and sly and intensely flattering, the way his brother dials up his insouciant charm into the electrifying intensity he only spends when he really wants to get inside a girl's panties; the different intensity Dean gets when he's got a weapon in his hand and he means to kill; and the one that sometimes surfaces when he's dealing with Sam. All three can make Sam's heart slam in his ribcage, but they're never going to meet. The thought of Dean turning that flirting grin on Sam makes the muscles in his thighs clench up tight and sweet, but Dean never flatters Sam. He teases.
Sam moans into his fist, chasing an edge that won't come.
--
It's not that they've never been taken for gay before. It's happened, once or twice. Two young guys wandering America together, frequently without the excuse of being FBI partners or journalists or whatever - it's statistically probable that people are going to jump to conclusions every once in a while. Sometimes it's even useful; there are some witnesses where it turns out to be a pull. Sam tries not to let it get to him. Dean sure doesn't, tends to yuck it up and tease Sam when someone assumes they're gay, like it doesn't even bother him. And, yeah, they're not just two guys - they're two pretty affectionate young men, even if Dean tends to show his love with a punch to the shoulder and a bad joke - and it makes sense that people are going to sometimes draw the wrong obvious conclusion, at least until they trot out the reassurance that they're brothers.
So Sam hasn't been letting it freak him out. Much. They stay on the move and safely anonymous enough that it doesn't happen all that often, anyway, and he's been able to keep his concern about it safely shelved in the back of his brain, saving it for the sleepless nights he spends with Dean sawing logs comfortingly in the next bed, when all of Sam's demons crawl up into his mind and wait to become nightmares.
But after Oasis Plains the whole thing starts giving Sam cold sweats. Sam's not an idiot, he knows Dean was making a joke - but it's like it shook something loose inside Sam. He starts second-guessing all his brother's quirks, which is a losing proposition right there, with Dean. And in Oasis Plains - they've been taken as gay before, but Dean smacking his ass - that was all new. Dean never played along with it like that before. The memory of it still makes Sam's dick hard and his spine stiff with a little bit of terror, because what the fuck does it mean?
The Oasis Plains incident flips a switch in Sam's brain and it's like he's seventeen again, hypersensitive to everything his brother does, blood pounding every time Dean twitches or touches Sam's skin, and Sam spends his days aching. Sam thought he was past this. Dean is burning with personality, up in Sam's space and so fervently Dean, bright and laughing and Sam's older brother that he doesn't know what to do. Sam feels drained and wan beside him, the clotting sorrow of Jess and now his old shame dragging him down and making him sharp and fearful about everything, and Dean's the thing that keeps them both afloat. But being next to him like sardines in the Impala is some kind of exquisite torture. Some days it feels like Sam's brain is gonna come crawling out his ears just to get away from Dean for a few hours. It makes Sam tetchy, clammed up because it's all he can do to ignore Dean's proximity, turn his mind away and focus on other things, throw himself into the hunts they go on. Dean maybe doesn't notice, or takes Sam's bouts of prickliness in stride the same way he moves smoothly to accommodate Sam's grief on all the bad days when it still wells up in him, sharp and fierce.
Sam really starts noticing it after the scarecrow in Burketsville, like getting that reassurance that Sam isn't going to pack up and leave at the drop of a hat gives Dean the courage to take harassing his brother to a new level. Sam spends a lot of his time wondering if Dean was sent from God to test him. He loves his brother, he does, Dean clothed and fed and raised him, but it escapes Sam how any one man can be so determinedly, lovably annoying. Dean sings along loudly in the car, belches and grins at Sam from across the front seat and starts scuffles for the remote on days they're bored and not working, then gives up suddenly halfway through to sit up on the rumpled bed and leer down at Sam twisted around him, and Sam's left flushing and wondering again if something's showing on his face, in his eyes, something that Dean knows.
But Dean doesn't say anything. He never flinches when Sam touches him.
And sometimes- sometimes he thinks Dean flirts, not just with girls but with Sam. Did Dean always touch him this much? There's a corner of intensity to Dean's gaze, warm and sharp, that Sam can't manage to rationalize away. Dean doesn't grab his ass again but his arm rests on the back of the seat when they drive, fingers flicking Sam's ear; he snaps Sam's ass with a towel and a "Hurry it up, Sammy!" in motel rooms, stands and walks and sits close, too close, when they're on hunts, undercover, in public, steering Sam with a hand on his shoulder or elbow, suit-clad thigh touching Sam's when they sit on a witness's couch. Dean's always in Sam's space. Sam remembers how acutely he felt the distance between his body and Dean's when he was seventeen, feels sure that it was never this short. Whenever Sam's in danger Dean's hands are on his skin in an instant, like they're magnetized by Dean's fear, and it makes Sam tingle but also makes him suspicious.
Sam picks at their relationship internally, worrying at the space between their bodies like a bone. His nails are bitten down to the quick, the tips of his fingers starting to crack and bleed. Even Dean's starting to give him a concerned look instead of an eyeroll when Sam puts his fingers to his mouth and gnaws at them absently, but he can't stop his mind from whirling. Maybe Dean touches him inappropriately sometimes but it's Dean so who knows what that means? This isn't something Sam can turn off, but the thought of confronting it is intolerable. It scares him in a way Dad never could. There's no formula for this, not in John Winchester's rulebook and not at Stanford - the only answer Sam knows is the one he taught himself, run, run, run.
Then Dean nearly dies in a wet basement and Sam's heart spends a week never leaving his throat for a second. The fear Sam feels then wears him like a skin, the thought of Dean slipping away from him in the night, in his sleep, eclipses even Sam's old fears about himself, about what Dean does or maybe doesn't suspect. Leaving Nebraska with Dean hearty and sound in the driver's seat is like a hand coming off Sam's throat. Even the terror that Dean might figure out one day that his little brother's disgusting and hot for him pales after the prospect of Dean's imminent death, Sam's older brother not just gone but lost forever. After that Sam knows he made the right decision to stay, but it still doesn't make being with Dean all the time easy.
The hope is the worst part.
--
Sam breaks when they're in western Appalachia, investigating something that's been gutting seventh sons. Whatever's leaving ripped-open bodies in the woods is running on an M.O. they can't pin down beyond that, and maybe it's just be coincidence, not their kind of thing, except for that gut feeling of weird the obits give them both. So Sam drags them through the town interviewing everybody who knows anybody who might've seen or heard or known something, trying to grit his teeth and power through the case even though the lack of progress has been keeping them both in some kind of mood. They're on the porch of the sister-in-law of the man who turned up in a creekbed two weeks ago with his ribs pulled wide and open like wings, pretending to be concerned citizens and questioning her through her cracked-open front door about the last time she saw her sister's husband alive when it finally happens again - one of Dean's hands on Sam's ass, sliding gently across the curve to settle low on his back. Dean's hand is warm and barely-there through the fall of Sam's jacket, and Sam goes hot with the bizarre rush of it in his veins, then cold, because what the hell is Dean doing?
A moment later Dean's hand lifts away, like it was never there. It leaves him weak-kneed and lightheaded.
"What?" Sam says, insensibly, because he missed the last minute of what came out of the woman's mouth, and the witness darts her eyes back and forth between him and Dean, opens her door a little wider to let them into her foyer, and starts over on what she was telling them. She doesn't know much, just that her brother-in-law was a wanderer, liked to drink in the woods while her sister worked night shifts, and that's more or less all she has to tell them before she trails off on an awkward tangent and Dean nudges Sam's foot with his, you wanna get out of here? and Sam makes their excuses in a daze. She smiles before she shuts the door behind them.
"Y'all are cute." She's got golden curls like Jess, and it feels just enough like an accusation, like cheating. Dean tosses a wink and a flirty wave over his shoulder at her before tagging along, but Sam just walks to the car and tries not to shake.
Dean taps the steering wheel with his fingers, humming Blue Oyster Cult on the drive back to their motel room while Sam flips distractedly through their notes from the witnesses they've interviewed with something building slow and angry in his gut, stares hard at the side of Dean's head like it's a Magic Eye puzzle, like Sam can make an answer appear by force.
They break for dinner and a few beers that night, head to the diner across the street from their motel. Dean's acting like his own bad mood is broken and gone. He flirts terribly with their waitress, grinning and turning up the charm with one knee pressed into Sam's under the table the whole time, and Sam pours his beer down his throat to chase the knot he feels like he's swallowed, orders a second and then a third. Sam snatches the check from their waitress when it comes, before Dean can flirt with her any more but Dean takes it from his hand with a quick brush of his warm fingers over Sam's wrist when he gets up to pay their check and Sam is done. Up from their table, out the door with a sharp ring of the bell and stalking across the street and into the parking lot while Dean's at the cashier paying.
The diner door chimes behind Sam, Dean scrambling out after him, yelping "Hey! Sam! Wait!" like a tool, and Sam is so fed up with this hunt and this damn town and himself but especially his goddamn fucking brother that he doesn't even look back, just slams the door of their room behind him while Dean's still chasing him across the street.
The scrape of Dean's key in the lock comes a second later and Dean's chased him back into the room, flippant mood punctured and deflating on his face. "Sam, what the hell?"
Sam glares at himand rolls his beer-thick tounge."Christ, you're such a -" Sam hisses and then stifles himself, throws his body down in the moth-eaten armchair with his head down, feeling every mile he's ridden next to Dean, every inch of fear in his heart from the past year weighing down on him in this moment, drowning out any answer that won't tell Dean anything, won't dredge up the truth about Sam's rage from its shuttered place in his heart. Dean's feet scrape on the carpet when he crosses the room to stand by Sam.
"Sam, you wanna fill me in here?" Dean just sounds wounded and a little plaintive, like Sam's kicked a dog that didn't know what it was doing wrong, and the obliviousness just pisses Sam off more.
"Why're -" Sam's voice strangles. "You're always fucking with me!"
"Sam, what the hell are you talking about?"
"Why the fuck are you grabbing my ass in front of witnesses, Dean!?" It's a reasonable question, he's pretty sure.
"Whu-" Dean's mouth falls open, like this is astounding, like he never would have expected Sam to call him on this. "You're getting your panties twisted up now over that?" he says, holding up his hands, flat palms-out, unthreatening, but his eyes are doing that twitchy thing, meeting Sam's a half-second too late, that says Dean's hedging. Sam can feel his mouth go knife-thin.
"Dean."
"Aw, Sam - man!" Dean's voice goes strangled. "I thought you knew why!"
"No I really don't, Dean. Why don't you explain it to me?"
"I was just…" Dean runs one hand over his face awkwardly, like he knows he's messed something up but he's not sure how to fix it. "I was just thinking that - it worked. You know? Back in Toledo. That kid Charlie, on the Bloody Mary job, she only talked to us 'cause she thought we were gay. Nothing's less threatening to scared girls than a couple of gay guys and, man, we've got to deal with a lot of alone, frightened girls in our line of work. It's weird, maybe, but let me tell you, it's better than when I was by myself and they all thought I was gonna rape them if they looked at me wrong - I don't know if you've noticed, Sam, but sometimes we can use all the help we can get in the nonthreatening department. Not all of us've got puppy eyes people fall right over for."
Sam stares at Dean, digesting that around the churning in his stomach - is he losing it? Sam's been freaking out all year over this?
"I'm not like you, man, I can't just - sometimes, I swear, you're so nice you can make people fall halfway in love with you in just a conversation. That isn't me, man."
"But." Sam whines, dumbfounded. "But. Not just with witnesses. You keep touching me." Dean has been, right? Right?
Dean's fingers twitch. "Sam, wha? No, I really don't. I know I don't."
"But you…"
Dean puts out a hand, almost touching Sam's knee, then slowly curls it into a fist instead. Sam feels white and chilled, scooped out by Dean's shaking fist inches away from his body. Unable to touch him. God, Sam's sick and Dean's about five inches from realizing just how much and the fear of it rushes up like bile in his chest. He jumps up sharp, shoves past Dean and braces himself against the table, punch of awful feeling rising in his throat like he's going to throw up.
"Wait, quit running away from me, Sam - dude, are you okay?"
"No," Sam moans, "I am really not okay-" Dean's hand lands on his shoulder and Sam jerks away, twitching it off, hot and angry rush in his stomach in with the same old terror that whites his bones.
"Back the fuck off, Dean," Sam snaps.
And it's fucked-up, trying to hide this with a fight, like it's a squabble about who's going to get the laundry done that they can resolve by hurling their weight at each other a few times. Sam can remember just fine just how well that worked out for him.
"Stuff it, Sam. If something's freaking you out this bad you've gotta tell me what's wrong. I'm not the mind-reader, here," and Dean puts his hand back firm on Sam's shoulder, squeezing, like that's gonna make anything okay instead of worse. And fuck Dean for always digging like this, fuck him for treating Sam like just his baby brother and tearing at his secrets, acting like he's got a right to know every single piece inside of Sam, like Sam doesn't deserve to keep anything to himself.
"Fuck, it's you, Dean. You keep, keep touching me and I wanna -"
If Dean wants to know that bad, fine. That's one sure way Sam can hurt his brother back. Sam smashes his mouth against Dean's, licking at his mouth, his slack lips, sucking and biting, despair wild in his veins like arousal.
Dean lets Sam slam him into the wall and everything about it, the force of all the things that make Sam's gut twist in all the good and horrible ways, packed into the hard line of his brother pressed along his body, makes Sam drop his head and sob around the crazy, clawing feeling in his throat. There are hot tears running down Sam's face, and he can't breathe, he really can't breathe. All he breathes in when he tries is Dean and the way he smells and feels up against Sam, and the confused, belligerent, beloved frown on Dean's face, cracking into concern for Sam.
Sam lets his head and shoulders just drop, spine aching like they're too heavy for him to hold up anymore, sagging against Dean. His face ends up in the shoulder of Dean's jacket that smells like cheap aftershave, and Sam's crying and spitting messily on Dean's leather shoulder just like a half dozen times when Sam was a kid and came to his big brother for comfort, back when he was still innocent. It's so fucked-up that Sam can get that same comfort now, from putting his face in Dean's shoulder and letting his older brother take care of him, even when he wants to fuck Dean, wants his brother all over him so bad all the time, even right this very second.
"Sammy," Dean creaks.
Sam shudders. "I didn't want you to find out." He can barely look at Dean.
"Sam, I'm sorry-" Dean sounds fucked up, the kind of anguish Sam hasn't heard in his voice in months, maybe years. His mouth is wet. "Did I - Christ. What was I thinking. Come - C'mon, man, it doesn't have to mean anything? It's okay, it's okay-"
And a laugh tears itself out of Sam's throat at that. "No, god, Dean- I can't, I can't keep pretending I don't - it's been since I was twelve, it's all I can think about sometimes. I don't know what to do, some days I think it's gonna break me."
"Sammy," Dean says, very quietly.
"Don't tell Dad," Sam begs. He can feel, very far away, the trembling in Dean's hands pressed against his shoulders. "You can leave, I'll, I'll go to him and make him let me help, we'll find the demon and then you won't have to deal with me after that."
"Sam, fuck," Dean grunts, "I almost killed a pack of hillbillies to get you back, what makes you think I'm going to walk out on you? I can't just-"
"No, Dean - I'm so sorry-"
Then there are awkward thumbs on Sam's face, soothing over his wet cheeks and flinching away from his skin. "Shh, shh. No, Sammy - it's gonna be okay. I'm sorry. It's gonna be okay."
"No it's not, Dean, just lemme be-"
"This is my fault."
"God, Dean," Sam chokes out, "it's not just going to go away if you ignore it-"
"No, Sam. This is my fault," Dean says again. And his lips are gentle on Sam's jaw.
AND THEN
[When Dean calls him "Sammy" during sex]
By the time Sam's twenty-four he's pretty sure Dean is never going to keep his hands to himself, ever again.
Not that he'd want Dean to.
After a hunt like the one they wrapped up last night they can sleep for, god, forever, especially Dean who's a lazy ass when he can get away with it. So Sam feels muzzily surprised when he drifts into half-awareness after some unknown hours of sleep and Dean's already awake, silhouetted naked in the dim light coming in from behind the blinds. Sam's limbs feel heavy sprawled across their rumpled bed, sleepy-warm from being tangled in the sheet, and his eyes flutter closed again for an interminable hazy period until the drag of Dean's teeth on his skin brings him back.
Dean's crouched over Sam, hands curled around the bulge of Sam's knee and his bony ankle, pulling his leg open for the scraping suckle of Dean's mouth just above his knee. The small wet sounds Dean's mouth makes are just barely audible over the hum of traffic outside, the rustle of sheets on their bed where Sam's other foot is waking up, shifting restlessly from the pull of Dean's lips, the lush suction of his mouth. In the dim light Sam can just make out the line of hickeys blooming across Dean's shoulder and collarbone as Dean's mouth works slowly, sucking a mark of his own to match on the skin of Sam's inner thigh. Dean licks a stripe up the muscle of Sam's thigh, making it twitch involuntarily and Dean chuckles, breath wet on Sam's teased and kiss-darkening skin.
Sam yawns and rubs a hand over his face and Dean looks up, mouth quirking into a smile when he sees Sam awake. He already looks like sex, heavy-lidded and red-mouthed and smug in a way that makes Sam's stomach flutter.
"Hey," Sam rasps.
Dean shifts up the bed on his knees, amulet swinging, glides his fingers up Sam's body and presses his face close against Sam's. "Morning, Sammy," Dean croons in his ear, and Sam feels himself go hot all over, flush rippling under his skin and into his dick. Their mouths meet wetly, Dean's soft mouth pulling gently at his until Sam opens, tongues flirting. Dean pulls back and licks his lips. Dean's body is a warm weight pressing against Sam's, and Sam can see the quickening thump of Dean's pulse, the soft weight of his half-hard dick against Sam's thigh.
"How're you feeling?" Dean rumbles, fingers gliding down to the white square of gauze taped to Sam's side where the creature they hunted last night cut him with its claws. Sam hisses when Dean's thumb brushes across the bandage, flesh underneath sore and scabbing, and sighs when his brother strokes the unbroken skin below Sam's injury apologetically, rubbing the throb away.
"I'm all right," Sam says, and skates his hands over Dean's ribs to his back, gently cups the shoulder blade right below Dean's gimpy shoulder, bruised and swelling again from being thrown against the ground. "You?"
"Doesn't even itch," Dean scoffs, and Sam rolls his eyes, presses gently against the muscle he knows is injured and feels Dean twitch.
"Yeah, sure. Just take it easy."
"Whatever you say, honey," Dean says, mocking and saccharine.
Sam rolls his eyes again, nips Dean's smart mouth."Dude, shut up."
"You shut up," Dean shoots back without heat and rolls his tongue into Sam's mouth, slow and deep and dizzying, presses him back against the pillows until Sam forgets what they were talking about.
They've fucked once already today, hard and fast on the foot of the bed after they dragged in victorious from the hunt, exhaustion singing in Sam's limbs as he pushed Dean down to taste the salt of sweat on his belly. Dean cursed and fumbled their jeans off, hissed fuuuuuuuc-k, yeah, when Sam sank into him, before Sam pinned him with the weight of his forearms and snapped his hips into Dean until they came. Sam's muscles are tender now from the double exertion of fighting and sex, and his side is more sore and raw-feeling than it might have been, but he doesn't regret it.
He runs his hands along the strong arch of Dean's back, relishes the ripple of muscle there when Dean dips his head to bite Sam's ear. With his fingers on Dean's ass Sam can slide one inwards, touch where Dean's still loose and a little slick from hours ago. Dean growls appreciatively into Sam's ear and grinds his dick against Sam's thigh, and Sam shudders. He can feel the promise in the sucking roll of Dean's tongue against his jaw and he wants. Sex burned his adrenaline out so good earlier and now Sam feels sleep-heavy, slack and easy around the slow pulse of arousal starting to throb in his core, more than ready to let Dean keep pressing him down, keep rubbing kisses into his skin.
"You gonna let me, Sammy?" Dean mutters, low and affectionate against the side of his face. The husky rasp of Dean's voice makes Sam's heart kick in his chest, makes him shift restlessly under Dean, dick hardening, wanting Dean's fingers everywhere.
"God, yeah," Sam pants.
"Mmm-hmm," Dean groans back, tongue fluttering under Sam's Adam's apple, and Sam tips his head back for it eagerly.
Dean crawls down Sam's body, dick brushing stickily against Sam's hip and leg while Dean noses his way down Sam's chest. One thumb rubs idly at Sam's nipple, teasing it hard and sensitive while Dean presses his face against Sam's hip and belly, lips mouthing in the hair there, making Sam shiver, before Dean murmurs "C'mon," tugging gently on Sam's bad side. Sam rolls with him, settles on his front with a sigh that catches sharply in his lungs when Dean jumps straight to cupping and nuzzling his ass, bridge of his nose rubbing back and forth over the base of Sam's spine, nosing the tip into the top of Sam's crack. Dean's two-day old stubble is a rough tease against his sensitive skin, and then there's Dean's tongue, swiping slow across the flesh of his ass. Sam rubs his face in his pillow and groans, thighs trembling and balls hot and heavy in anticipation.
"Easy, Sammy," Dean mutters, thumbs shifting on his lower back, and Sam shudders, bucks up under his hands. God, hearing Dean say that like this, warm and tender and low, spoken into his skin-
"Ngh, Dean."
Sam's own voice is sticky with heat, dragging in his throat. Dean's hands shift and knead, thumbs massaging the dimples at the base of his spine until the muscles lie smooth and quivering, slowly pulls Sam's cheeks open, breath huffing hot and tantalizing in the space between.
"Deannn," Sam whines. Dean hums and sucks one last mark at the base of Sam's spine, then licks a broad swipe straight down where he's spread Sam open, drags his tongue hard and wet against Sam's hole. Sam twitches and groans, fingers shifting restlessly on the sheets, and Dean sucks at his rim, faint hint of teeth like he's going to put another hickey right there where he's about to split Sam open with his dick.
Dean's fingers shift restlessly on his ass, tongue flirting with the rim of Sam's hole until Sam's breath is juddering in his lungs and Sam spreads his legs and arches into it, begging with the needy cant of his hips, hissing through his teeth when Dean finally goes for it, pushes his tongue firm and steady into Sam.
"Fuck, fuck, Dean, fuck," Sam moans, mouth smushed slackly open against his pillow, spread open so good but not nearly deep enough on the flickering pressure of Dean's tongue inside him. He feels drugged from Dean's hands and mouth on his skin, the wet flutter of Dean's fucking lips against his crack and the pressure in his hole making Sam crave deeper, thicker, more. There's a slick push in next to the thrust of Dean's tongue that Sam doesn't notice at first but then goes, god, finally deep enough, Dean's lube-slick finger rocking into him alongside his tongue. Dean pulls the finger back with a squelch, tongue still working, then presses in slow with two thick fingers, gets them deep and firm inside Sam and spreads them, dragging him wet and wide. Dean's tongue laps between his knuckles, darts at Sam's rim, flicking into the open space where Sam's pulled apart by Dean's fingers. The Dean slides back slow, unhurried, fingers still messing in Sam's ass while he presses his mouth between Sam's legs to lap right above his balls.
"You ready?" Dean asks, and Sam nods his head, presses his face into his folded arms and groans at the feel of his brother's hands shifting on, in him. Dean's fingers slip out of him with a squelch that leaves Sam feeling slack and exposed, shifting restlessly on the sheets until the hot press of Dean's skin descends all along his back. Dean's dick presses against the curve of his thigh for a second, making Sam's heart jump in anticipation, then Dean's fingers are pulling him wide for the nudge of the head against his hole and Sam goes loose, boneless in the sheets from the slow hot thrill of his own ass flexing open as Dean slides home.
"Sam," Dean sighs on the thrust in, loops his arms around Sam's waist and kisses his back, lips moving slowly over the knobs of Sam's spine in time to the rock of his hips, the tender drag out and slow pushes back in. Sam feels himself shivering apart under Dean, under the throb of Dean's heartbeat pressed against his skin, the smell of Dean's sweat, the rasp of Dean's bowed thighs between Sam's spread ones and the slip of their skin together, the reverence of Dean's mouth kissing between Sam's shoulder blades. Dean worms one hand under Sam's hips and gets it around his dick, pulling slowly in time with his thrusts, rubbing his thumb over the head and Sam arches, feels it building in him, grabs for Dean, fingers clenching and shifting restlessly on Dean's hips behind his while the wave of his orgasm builds up slow and then crests with Dean's smile pressed into his shoulder, Sam's body shaking out of his own control as he spills wet on the sheets smashed under their bodies.
Sam feels hazy once he comes, blood trembling in his veins. Dean keeps pumping slowly into Sam's ass, breath growing heaving and heavy in Sam's ear until Dean crushes himself hard against Sam's back and comes, shuddering. There's a long breath while Dean sprawls on Sam's back, bodies wound together before Dean's weight gets too heavy and Sam groans and flexes, squirming until his brother lifts off and lets him roll over.
Dean stretches out warm beside Sam, worms a leg patiently between his, drags him close against Dean's chest. Sam rolls with it, smiling stupidly, lets Dean loop a possessive arm around his waist and kiss his mouth, humming "Sammy," into his jaw. Sam makes a face at the nickname but Dean laughs, nuzzles his face into Sam's neck, mutters, "You like it."