since feeling is first [NC17] Sam/Dean, part two
Part One
Sam’s ears have always popped every time an angel appears or disappears within a couple hundred feet of where he’s standing. He’s never mentioned it to Dean. Or anyone, actually. He doesn’t even think Cas knows. The truth is, it’s never felt normal, probably not something a guy who hadn’t been slurping demon blood as a baby would be able to notice.
Sam is just waking up, aching in a way that means he’s been sleeping for more than an hour, when his ears pop.
It’s dusky outside, and if Dean stuck to his plan then his brother is upstairs putting tarp over the windows to hold them off until the screens and pane glass they ordered comes in. Sam can hear a sharp scuffle of Dean’s feet overhead, a surprised back step and then nothing. Dean has either been taken (some dark piece of Sam snarls) or it’s Castiel.
The staircase is eerily silent as he ascends it, not so much as creaking as he pads up in his socks, big toe peeking through on the right one, and an angel frog-sticker in his hand. His grip only loosens fractionally at the sound of Castiel’s voice responding to something from inside the master bedroom, his usual monotone running fast and just about as close to excited as Sam has ever heard him.
“-thing changed in the playing field, a violent shift for good, and you’re telling me neither of you had anything to do with it?”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Cas.” If Dean sounded any more falsely casual he’d be talking about Ruby. “Out means out. We haven’t so much as snuffed a ghost since we moved in here.”
Frances seems to press kind of ominously around them; Sam chooses to blame his overactive imagination.
Castiel is too quiet for a split second, then in decidedly more somber tones, “Then perhaps Sam-“
“No.” Dean’s voice is ten kinds of back the fuck off, and then one more that even sends Sam back half a step before he remembers they can’t see him. “I’m sorry, Cas,” Dean adds, only fractionally as apologetic as he could sound, “but stay the hell away from my brother.”
“Dean-“ the angel starts, all concern.
“Just-No. I get that it’s irrational, okay, I do. But we are sitting this one out. I don’t want Sam so much as glancing at a saddle to get back into, do you hear me?”
“Of course,” Castiel says, perfectly toneless. “I only wished to share the good news.”
Sam’s ears pop.
He hesitates for three whole seconds before pushing open the door with the hand he’s not using to tuck the angel knife into his back pocket. Dean jumps for the second time in ten minutes, and all the buzzing in Sam’s head just stops.
“Hi,” he says. His voice is still thick from sleep, and if he never stops looking at Dean it’ll be okay.
“Hey,” Dean grunts back, gaze skittering sideways before he goes back to staple-gunning plastic across the window frame. He’s not quite tall enough to do the corner. It’s kind of fucking adorable.
Sam lets himself cross the room, lets himself get in Dean’s space just a little until he can reach over Dean’s head and pin the plastic flat, and Dean’s hesitation before he stretches up as high as he can to slam the staple gun down-his back to Sam’s front, close enough to touch, practically in Sam’s arms-makes something too hot flip in Sam’s stomach, even if Dean sidesteps as soon as he can.
“So I hear we scored one for the good guys,” Sam tries, and winces a little when Dean twitches at the word ‘scored.’
“Yeah,” Dean says, the hand holding the staple gun bumping up twice in a half-hearted cheer. “Go team. Sam, you can let go.”
He drops his arm instantly and the plastic holds, like he knew it would. It’s thick, opaque, just enough that he can see shapes blurred outside, colors, but not what they are. If it’s some sort of metaphor for his emotions, it’s just a little late. Sam feels sharp, Sam feels everything, everything feels pink with new skin, healing, and for the first time in a long time each beat of his heart feels like it’s doing more than pumping out of reflex.
“Do you think it was us?”
Dean’s eyebrows climb right up into his hairline, all sarcasm and scorn. “Do I think that our gay incestuous sex had some effect on the outcome of an angelic civil war? Yeah, pull the other one.”
Sam snorts softly. “So that’s a no, then.”
Dean tosses the staple gun aside like it means nothing, like it won’t thud against the floorboards loud enough to make Sam reflexively flinch, and he won’t even turn around all the way to face him. Sam has only seen that look in his brother’s eyes twice-once at Dean’s “last” Christmas, once when Sam confronted him about being fucking terrified. Both times Dean had been looking at a slow march to hell with no way out.
The blood slipping through his arteries suddenly runs cold.
“Listen,” Dean says, “We’re just going to pretend today never happened. Alright? We’re just two normal brothers who do normal, brotherly things, and…it was a fluke. Don’t worry about it. Don’t even think about it. There’s nothing to think about.”
Sam folds his arms over his chest before he lifts his chin enough to look at Dean. “Is that an order?”
“Yes,” Dean says, like he’s completely forgotten how to pick up facial cues. “Yeah, in case you couldn’t tell. I’m ordering you to forget it.”
“Fuck you very much, Dean,” Sam snaps, pretty damn cheerfully for the circumstances.
Dean blinks, expression hardening into something Sam recognizes from their father’s arsenal. “Excuse me?”
“I said, fuck you.” Then, when Dean just stares at him, Sam helpfully points out, “You don’t mean it.”
The staple gun skitters across the floor with the force of Dean’s boot hitting it. “Since when do I have to-“
“Since now,” Sam decides with a nod. “I’m making spaghetti, you want some?”
He tries to leave while Dean’s still cursing, then forces down a shiver when Dean barking his name is enough to make him stop, make him turn back. He doesn’t do as good a job as he should in hiding it, by the look on Dean’s face, but guilt and embarrassment are nestled somewhere safe in the back of Sam’s mind with no intention of coming out to play. If his eyes are a little heavy lidded, Dean can deal with it.
“Yes?” he prompts. “Did you want something?”
Dean is gaping, frustrated to the point of betrayal. “What part of ‘gay incestuous sex’ were you not there for?”
“What part were you?”
And damn if Dean doesn’t look like Sam just said he wants to reupholster the Impala with the skin of small children.
“I feel good!” Sam’s voice is loud because Dean isn’t listening. “Dean, I’m feeling! I feel almost a hundred percent, here, and you want me to pretend that had nothing to do with you? I can’t. You never want to do it again? That’s fine. You want to forget? Knock yourself out. But I’m sick and fucking tired of lying to myself, so…” He huffs a breath out through his nose and shakes his head, not prepared for this. “Spaghetti?” he snaps again, and leaves before Dean can answer.
~*~
The water takes ages to boil on their decrepit old stove, and it’s not just because Sam is staring it down the whole time, okay, it’s not. Watched pots do boil; whoever came up with that saying was a moron.
It gives him too much time to think, which is a problem. There were some pretty morbid, freakish thoughts running through his head when he was grinding Dean into their house (their house their home and for a moment Sam thinks Frances sighs) but… Sam thinks about it, steam brushing against his face, and none of it was really…new. It would be easy to blame that on his time spent being soulless, which is why he doesn’t.
Does he have to blame it on anything? He’d never do the things he’d thought of. But he’s not going to deny the thrill he got out of some of those images, the ones about Dean; what the hell would be the point? This just feels like another previously unexplored facet of being dangerously codependent.
Maybe he came back wrong. But maybe this is as right as he knows how to be.
He calls Dean down when dinner is ready, and Dean walks down those stairs like he expects to be attacked by some supernatural heavyweight once he hits the bottom. Or that’s what Sam’s guessing by the way his brother hesitates on the way down-when he gets a look at Dean’s face Dean looks nothing but awkward and uncomfortable, looking to Sam for some sort of clue as to where this is going. If he should expect poison in his food and know that he deserves it.
Sam rolls his eyes and says, “We don’t have a table,” and sits down in the living room with his back to the wall and the pasta pot at his side, two forks stuck in the middle and a tube of parmesan cheese by his knee. It only takes one more pointed look before Dean grabs them each a beer and settles at Sam’s side.
“Very Lady and the Tramp,” Dean remarks, right on schedule, stabbing and twirling his fork right in the middle of the noodles.
“I forgot to buy plates, sue me.” Sam spears just enough spaghetti that he’ll be able to fit it in his mouth, unlike some siblings he could name. Dean’s forkful is as big as a drumstick, and he eats it like it is one.
Dean sings with his mouth full, “Stick your hand in a crack, if you don’t get it back, it’s a moray…eel,” then smirks at the expression on Sam’s face and takes another bite, leaving a bright red smear of sauce on his chin.
This is how it’s going to be, huh? Sam thinks but doesn’t say. He doesn’t want to know what Dean’s smile would do.
As usual, Dean plucks the thought right out of his head-and decides to run in the opposite direction. “We’ll put a TV there,” he says, pointing with his entire hand. “Big one. Stupid big. And we’ll get a monster couch, maybe two, throw some rugs around, buy a plant.”
Sam has to work to swallow as something almost goes down the wrong pipe. “A plant?”
“Yeah. We never had plants growing up,” Dean shrugs, stabbing the spaghetti into submission. “And hey,” he adds, all brass, “if one of us doesn’t wander home with a stray dog by Christmas I know what’s going in your stocking.”
“Dean.”
“You got a preference? Like, that retriever, the dog we saw up in, you know-“
“Dean.”
“’Cause, no offense, Princess, but I don’t think I could go for some yippy football sized thing-”
“Oh my god,” Sam says, loud enough that Dean has to shut up. How does he even explain…? “This can’t just be for me.”
Suddenly it’s easy to look at Dean, meet the fierce confusion and bank it down, like wrapping his bare hand around a burning coal. He hopes Dean gets it; he can’t think of any other words that might press it inside Dean’s skull. His brother is too good at manipulating words to trust them-nothing on, above, or under the earth could iron out that wrinkle in his character. Maybe it’s a good thing Sam has been to all three.
Then- “Eat your damn spaghetti,” Sam mutters, because it’s fucking exhausting sharing and caring.
“Bossy,” Dean says, but if it comes out a little too quiet, Sam pretends he doesn’t notice.
~*~
They get a mailbox. Dean turns it into a National Event when they actually get mail in it, even though it’s two pizza coupon books and an ad urging them to donate money to the NRA. “Aw, it’s cute when civilians think they should have guns,” Dean says before pitching it, but they get discounted pizza every day for a week until the fliers mysteriously disappear from where Dean tacked them first and foremost on their brand new fridge with a magnet shaped like Bugs Bunny.
Dean already has a corner picked out for where they’re going to put a tree as soon as December first hits, and he keeps sneaking in stupid Holiday knickknacks like he thinks Sam won’t notice. They buy a kitchen table, and plates and bowls and glasses so they can drink other things besides beer, and Sam talks Dean out of buying a 55” flat screen for a more moderately priced 42”, but it sits on the floor for a week because they forgot to buy anything to put it on or hang it with. Dean would sit with his nose pressed to it if Sam let him-as it is, he sits on the floor in front of their huge red couch while Sam sprawls across the cushions and pretends not to watch the TV lights flickering across his brother’s face.
They fight over curtains (“But they’re called Buckeye!” “It doesn’t matter what they’re-god, Dean, they should’ve been named fugly.”) and carpet (“Shag, no.” “But it-“ “I will shoot you in the face.”) and wallpaper (“I think this leafy swirl is almost like a devil’s trap.” “What exactly are you smoking, right now?”) and everything is so normal sometimes Sam takes a breath to scream before he realizes he really doesn’t want to.
He just wants Dean. He wants Dean with him every moment of every day, wants Dean beside him when he falls asleep and Dean beside him when he drifts awake, and he gets it. Wanting anything else would just be stupid.
Dean gives him casual orders, and Sam loves them but he doesn’t need them, mostly, not as badly as he used to. And sometimes he starts crying without realizing it, and sometimes he’ll get hit with an emotion so hard he has to sit quivering in the bathtub for an hour before he can breathe right, but when he wakes up sweating and cold Dean reaches over, rests a hand on his chest, tells him to breathe and he does, Dean tells him to sleep and he dozes. They aren’t too bad, the nightmares. Mostly Sam tries not to let regret eat at him, shaking it off as it digs tiny claws into his skin, because he can’t go back and fix it, he can’t stay up all night worrying for Dean when Dean is right here, within arm’s reach.
They still haven’t bought a bed.
Two beds, Sam corrects himself, realizing the error this time around. One for Sam and one for Dean. And the thing is, when it happens it’s going to hurt, the fallout is going to be bad, because when they start fighting over who gets the master bedroom Sam is going to be fighting for something a lot more important, and Dean will be fighting just as hard for something else.
They do invest in sleeping pads, though. Dean claims they’re for camping, but he didn’t buy a tent.
~*~
It’s been a good couple of days-no nightmares, no shakes-so it catches Sam off-guard when Dean says in the middle of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, “Hand me the remote,” in a voice meant to be obeyed.
Sam does, of course, slowly but immediately, setting down the book he was reading so it splays across his chest, spine protesting. He’s trying to figure out what brought it on-Dean loves this show, they weren’t arguing over channels, this isn’t the commercial with the cartoon bears selling toilet paper that so weirdly creeps Dean the fuck out, so he has no clues, here. Not that he really needs them; it’s just a remote.
Dean’s finger taps against the mute restlessly without pushing down, and then he punches the off button and puts the hunk of plastic on the floor.
Sam doesn’t move.
Dean brings his knees up a little, socked heels catching on one of the good dozen throw rugs they have covering the scuffed and battered hardwood floor. His hands run up his thighs and catch on the way back; calluses maybe, or Dean just doesn’t know what to do with them. The fire crackles and twists, sound and light muted behind soot-smudged glass in the fireplace.
“You’ve been…doing better,” Dean chokes out, just when Sam has half convinced himself his brother is two seconds away from running without saying a word. “Haven’t you?” he asks without turning around, peeking at Sam from the corner of his eye like it doesn’t count if it’s peripheral.
“Yeah, Dean,” he says. He wants to stroke the back of Dean’s head, card his fingers through the fine bristle of it and the shape of Dean’s skull underneath, wants it so bad he has to clench his hand under his book and hope Dean doesn’t notice.
“That’s good, Sammy,” he murmurs, ducking to hide his cringing half-grin because he knows how chickflicky this all is. “I’m… That’s good.”
There’s something wired wrong in Sam’s genetic makeup that makes him want to go warm all over with the praise that this isn’t. It’s not how Dean meant it to sound.
Sam clears his throat and makes himself speak, question out of his mouth before he really acknowledged it was on his mind. “Hey, Dean? How…How did you know?”
“Know what?” Dean finally shifts enough to face him, and now it’s Sam’s turn to look away, frowning down at his book.
“You kept telling me… When I didn’t have my soul, you kept saying I wasn’t Sam, I wasn’t your little brother. And I could tell, you know? I could tell your skin was crawling just looking at me. I didn’t know what to feel about it, but I knew. So how could you tell I was me when my soul came back? I still couldn’t feel anything.”
“Yeah, well I could.” The answer is instantaneous, immediate. The way Dean only ever is when it’s the truth. Dean looks startled by it for a split second, and then it’s gone, frown of concentration chasing it away as he tries to explain.
“It was like… I don’t know, something just… Like when you crack your back and everything feels better, but you didn’t really know you were hurting before? But, ah… Guess that makes sense, right?” Dean glances upward, and it’s the slow crooked smile pulling at his lips as his gaze darts at Sam and then away. “Soul mates, and everything.”
When Sam takes a breath his lungs shake, like he hasn’t breathed in a year. “Yeah,” he says on the exhale. “And everything.”
“Sam,“ Dean starts, but Sam won’t hear it, can’t.
“Dean,” he says, book flopping to the floor as he gets up on one elbow, not one single inch of him touching his brother. “Dean,” he says, “tell me to kiss you.”
Dean’s eyes are so green, gold-flecked with firelight. “Sam-“
“Dean,” Sam begs, fingers digging grooves into the couch cushions. “Tell me to kiss you.”
And Dean snaps, “Sam!” and hauls him down with a rough handful of hair and Sam thinks, oh, Sam thinks, yes, and Dean gets up on his knees to push Sam down and kiss him wholly, utterly and completely, kiss him until every damn thing just falls away into the press of Dean’s mouth. Dean’s fingers slip up under Sam’s shirt and Sam wriggles and arches to give Dean room, sliding deeper into the sofa to make his shirt ride up more on its own. His hands tangle in Dean’s clothes, grip him tight and pull him close, and Dean breaks away with this noise that makes every bit of Sam flush hot.
Dean grabs Sam’s wrists and pins them by his head, looming up on his haunches and Sam shudders and just melts. Yeah, he could get free, but it’s like choosing door number two when he knows there’s no car behind that one.
“Sammy,” Dean grinds out, and Sam has a split second to remember they aren’t out of the woods yet. “You tell me right now if this isn’t something you want. Tell me the truth.”
“Want it,” he says instantly, happy to obey. “Next question.”
Dean looks so floored for a minute, rocking a little just to press down harder and Sam tries not to pant so damn obviously. “How long?” he finally asks, and god, he sounds so lost, like there’s one piece of the puzzle he isn’t getting that’s going to fuck this all to hell.
“Thirteen,” Sam tells him, still hopelessly breathless. “You thought I was at the library. Came home early, some cheerleader was blowing you on the couch.”
“Jesus,” Dean breathes, like he’s hurting. “Sammy-“
“Wanted to do it.” Sam is so hard, and Dean is barely touching him, fuck, he cants his hips up looking for anything, earns Dean’s wide, darkening stare and tugs it back with his voice. “Wanted to do that for you, you had sunburn all down your chest”-and that’s where that kink came from, huh-“and I just, god, you looked so blissed out. I choked myself on my fingers for years wishing it was you.”
“Oh fuck, god damn it, Sam.” Dean kisses him like he wants to shut him up, but that’s okay, that’s so okay, because Dean is climbing over him onto the couch, knees digging in on either side of Sam’s ribcage and Sam feels swallowed by Dean, surrounded by his scent and weight and taste. He could die right now, so damned content, and still so fucking needy. He whines deep in his throat, that ‘shameless’ switch flipped somewhere, and thinks Please please please until it spills out in a whisper against Dean’s mouth.
Dean curses and somewhere in that sound is the jangling of metal-Sam has one lucid moment to think If Dean smuggled in jingle bells when I wasn’t looking, before it clicks and Dean shoves his zipper down, belt hanging loose and obscene so close to Sam’s mouth. His lips part immediately, instinct or shock, because he can’t believe Dean would ever let him have this. He’s spent decades convincing himself this would never happen, he feels dizzy wrapping his head around it now.
His brother must see something in his expression-or it’s Dean’s bone deep insecurities creeping in-because he hesitates, and Sam tears his eyes away from the dark spot of precome already dampening the fabric of Dean’s boxers to look up at his face. Dean’s eyes are so dark it burns a little, meeting them.
Dean’s hesitation vanishes just as quickly as it came, smothered as the Winchester mule-headedness kicks into gear. “Open up for me, Sammy,” and he’s gentling it, but it’s an order. Sam lets his jaw fall open wider, and his eyelids almost flutter with the rush from doing right when Dean lets one wrist go to card a hand through Sam’s hair, murmuring, “Just like that. So good, Sam, you’re good.”
And then Dean’s boxers are down, shoved under his balls, and Sam gets that so brief squirm in his stomach from seeing something he’s not supposed to before that needy hunger eats him up and floods his mouth with spit. Dean is shaking, almost not enough to see, as he moves up Sam’s body and releases the other wrist to brace himself against the armrest, one foot slipping to the floor for leverage. “Hold onto me, Sam,” Dean growls, and Sam’s hands fit to the grooves of Dean’s hips like they were made to go there, yanking him forward to fill up Sam’s mouth.
Instantly Dean’s hand is there, tugging him back with a fistful of hair and Sam gasps, goes immediately still. “Did I tell you…” Dean starts but can’t finish it, sounds too porno or something and he tugs Sam forward by the roots, free hand holding his dick steady. “Slow, Sam,” Dean gets out, barely, wrecked. “Slow for me.”
Sam wants to cry it feels so good, and Dean’s right, slow is better, slow means Sam can really feel it, really taste it, lave his tongue over every little groove and not worry about his gag reflex because he has time to feel it sliding in and back.
As soon as Dean sets up a rhythm he lets go of Sam’s hair, bracing his forearms on the couch and resting his head there, curling in so he can watch Sam suck him down. Sam can feel Dean’s hot panting breaths against his face, Dean’s unbuttoned shirt falling around them like a curtain, muffling and darkening and Dean’s hips, god, they keep jerking in Sam’s grasp, sweet aborted little thrusts like he can’t help himself, but he won’t fuck Sam’s mouth no matter how Sam pulls him in. Maybe because he likes the feel of Sam trying.
Sam feels every fattening twitch of Dean’s dick in his mouth each time he swallows a whine and digs his fingers into the cut of Dean’s hips, working his jeans until he can get at Dean’s skin. Dean groans like he’s been shot, tries to jerk back and Sam’s hands lock down, keeping him there-where the fuck else does he think he’s going to come? This upholstery is brand fucking new-and then Dean curses, a tangle of Sam’s name, and just shoves forward, and Sam forgets language at the white hot slick of Dean on his tongue, filling his mouth all the way up.
“Oh Jesus…” Dean gasps out, still hunched over him and going boneless in pieces, like each muscle group is caving bit by trembling bit. “Jesus, Sam.”
And yeah, Sam’s smug when he remembers how to be, but it’s all but unrecognizable in the vision-blurring glow of having done well, done right by Dean. Not healthy, Sam thinks distantly, and sees how many teasing licks he can get in before Dean wriggles free with an oversensitive twist.
Not nearly as many as he’d hoped for. When Dean pulls out Sam gasps at the empty feeling he leaves behind, even when Dean accidentally smears a wet mix of saliva and come across Sam’s bottom lip crawling backwards down Sam’s body. Sam’s still lost in it when he feels Deans fingers nudging at his lip and refocuses on his brother above him, wearing this expression on his face like he wants to be sure Sam gets it all but he doesn’t know if he should, and Sam can’t help it, he turns his head and catches Dean’s fingers in his mouth, humming contentment as the emptiness disappears.
Dean groans, forehead knocking against Sam’s chest. “Christ, Sammy, get a load of the oral fixation on you.” Sam nips his fingertips then laves between them, smirking at the hitch in Dean’s breathing, words spilling out of Dean in a half-air rush. “A-ahh-god damn son of a bitch.”
Sam used to think about what Dean’s hands would taste like-gun oil and powder, road grit, rock salt-but nowadays they just taste like skin, like the cedar planks Dean got to replace the warped siding, like paint chips from the upstairs bathroom. Sam licks him clean and can’t even think to be disappointed. He wants everything.
He’s so caught up in tasting he almost doesn’t notice when Dean fumbles Sam’s belt open left-handed. He definitely tunes in when Dean yanks his briefs down, Jesus, because-because he’s been so hard for so long now that his spine arches like a goddamned bow, and because it’s Dean, and because Dean gives him a couple awkward strokes, pressing Sam down against his belly, smearing Sam’s precome all over his rucked up t-shirt and shaft, and then he says, “Fuck it,” says, “Shout if I’m doing this wrong,” and takes Sam in his mouth.
It takes exactly no talent to bring Sam off, he’s that close, and the thought of Dean-The Dean, Dean with Those Lips, Dean-not knowing how to suck a guy off because he’s never done it before just blows Sam’s fucking mind, blows his wad all over the soft uncertain curl of Dean’s tongue and probably puts Dean off giving blowjobs all together by hitting the back of his throat with no warning, but right now Sam can’t care. The sounds he makes around Dean’s fingers are obscene, and he doesn’t care about that either. His brother is in him and he’s in Dean and an asteroid could smash Frances to bits right now, nothing can be better than this.
Dean’s grumbling between coughs when he pulls off, but for some reason the wrinkles on his nose completely vanish when he gets a look at Sam, at the way Sam is losing every bit of tension from his body in an oh-so-very-languid stretch. Sam smiles at his brother when Dean takes his fingers back, partly because Dean’s knuckles are pruned up with spit and partly because he can, and wants to, and Dean will let Sam look at him like this, now, will actually let himself see it when Sam does.
“Could fall asleep right here,” Sam admits. His voice is absolutely wrecked, and his grin just grows when Dean can’t quite hide his reaction to that.
It’s just a faint shiver, but Dean shakes his head like he just moaned aloud, a flush that isn’t sunburn creeping up his cheeks. “I’ll, uh… Yeah, not gonna stop you.” He clears his throat, and then he starts to climb off the couch.
Sam has never been more grateful for the length of his legs than right now, when they make trapping Dean easy as breathing before he gets his hands on Dean and tugs him down, wriggling until he’s on his side pinning Dean between himself and the back of the couch. And Dean curses, of course he does, surprised and startled, but Sam says, “Come on, we’ve shared smaller spaces,” and that’s not logic Dean can argue with. Sam does up their belts-he does Dean’s first, tries not to feel reverential when he does it-and Dean relaxes by increments under Sam’s arm, most often accompanied by a reluctant sigh that Sam doesn’t buy for a minute.
Especially not when Sam’s breathing has evened out in that rhythm just before sleep, and Sam feels lips on his forehead, a hard, almost desperate, claiming kiss, and Sam tightens his grip on Dean and tumbles into dreams between one breath and the next.
~*~
He drifts awake just enough to settle the danger danger throb in his brain when Dean wrestles out of Sam’s death grip some time later, and only gives in when Dean brushes the hair away from his face and says something about cooking dinner. Sam thinks that’s a good plan, especially since he doesn’t have to move.
His ears pop.
“God damn it, Castiel,” Dean hisses, so loud that their neighbor-who lives eight miles to the north-can probably hear him. Sam resigns himself to being awake, but draws the line at opening his eyes. Even though he can’t remember the last time he heard Dean use Cas’s full name.
“Dean. Are you absolutely sure-“ the angel starts, not even bothering to be quiet.
“Yes, oh my god, yes I’m sure, get out of my fucking house.”
Alright, enough. “Dean,” Sam grunts, pushing himself up to glare blearily over the back of the sofa. Castiel looks mildly surprised, which Sam supposes means that Sam looks like he got thoroughly, thoroughly fucked by his brother in the middle of the day in their actual living room. Which is…great.
Judging by the expression on Dean’s face, he thinks so too.
“Hey Cas,” Sam mutters, feeling his cheeks heat. “So, uh. Heard the war’s going good.”
“It is,” Castiel agrees. He hasn’t blinked yet. Sam is trying to work out if he should be worried. Cas might bust a seam if he tries any harder to work out how to say thank you for engaging in incest.
“You want to stay for dinner?” Sam asks quickly, trying to distract him. Dean’s eyes go so wide it’s almost hilarious, because he can’t do any Fuck No What Are You Thinking hand signals while in Castiel’s line of sight.
“I should. Probably go,” Cas says, monotone breaking a little in the middle.
“Thanks for dropping by,” Dean says, smile tight with impatience, and Sam gets it, he does, Dean’s protective streak has been running rampant and unchecked since Crowley forked over Sam’s soul, but there’s no denying that when Dean gets his head on straight and remembers that he actually likes Cas enough to consider him a non-threat, he’s going to feel like an ass.
“What about next week sometime?” Sam asks as he stands, still kind of stupidly grateful that the couch is there as a buffer. “Dean’s trying to squeeze all the use he can out of that barbeque before the snow sets in.”
“I can barbeque in the snow,” Dean grumbles, but he looks like he might be clueing in. He gives Cas a sort of apologetic look-either that or a wince-and says louder, “Yeah, seriously. We bought more than two plates for a reason.”
The reason had been their slightly faulty dishwasher, but Castiel doesn’t need to know that.
Cas nods, looking a little more sure of himself, and says, “If they can spare me, I will…endeavor to bring potato salad. I am sincerely pleased to see you are doing well,” he adds before either of them can speak, giving them each a just-shy-of-significant stare, and Sam’s ears pop.
“Potato salad,” Dean mutters, and then, “Good old Cas,” as he turns away.
Sam follows him into the kitchen because, well, a lot of reasons, but mostly because he doesn’t like the set of Dean’s shoulders, and it’s just sinking in that not everything is fixed and settled. He wants to crowd Dean up against a wall and just hold him, rest his face against the crook of Dean’s neck and breathe in all of his doubt, let it out as nothing more than hot air.
“I’m so glad an angel of the lord knows we’re fucking,” Dean announces while Sam is still trying to figure out what to say. He’s slamming cupboards as he digs out pots and pans, olive oil, spices, but he has to face Sam for a split second before wrenching the freezer door open, and that’s where Sam gets him, shoulders the door closed and leans against it, pinning it shut. Dean glares, leaves it, turns to heat the oil.
He could just order Sam to move, and Sam would go. That he doesn’t is more telling than Dean probably thinks it is.
“You think our free pass to heaven just got revoked?” Sam asks, trying not to smirk too much.
The gas won’t catch, and Dean still won’t look at him. “I’m pretty sure incest is one of those biblical things without wriggle room.”
Sam shrugs. “Hey, maybe Cain and Abel just had some hardcore sexual tension that needed resolving.”
The pan drops down with a bang. “Dammit, Sam.” Dean braces himself against the cold stove, muscles knotting up under his shirt and his head hung low, jaw tight. Sam keeps himself so still, barely breathing, forcing his heart rate to calm down. Dean can’t do this to him. Not twice. Not after calling Sam his fucking soul mate.
“You’re gonna figure it out.” Dean’s voice is rough, quiet, and then he shoves away from the stove and makes himself face Sam. “You’re going to figure it out,” he repeats, louder but more wrecked, angry, and Sam digs his fingers in and won’t move, not yet. “You’re going to figure out how wrong this is and you’ll take off, Sam, and I’m not right enough in the head to do anything but chase after you.”
“Good,” Sam says instantly, two steps closer to Dean before he realizes he’s moving. “If I’m ever stupid enough to run you catch me and you drag me back home.”
He grabs Dean’s face when he kisses him, just to make sure he won’t go anywhere, and he doesn’t think Dean likes it so much but fuck it, this is the way Sam knows how to kiss. His thumbs slip over the roughening edge of Dean’s jaw and he licks into Dean’s mouth when he shivers, and Sam thinks heaven can go fuck itself, seriously, if it doesn’t want them anymore. This is worth every bit of shit they’ve had to deal with, and all the shit they’ll still get into before they kick the bucket. If they can just have this.
“Soul mates,” Sam reminds Dean, words murmured into his mouth, and Dean makes this sound like a whine and shoves a hand in Sam’s hair, kissing him back, kissing for keeps this time. Sam nearly breaks it he’s grinning so hard, soul glowing so bright in his chest he can almost taste it, taste where the bit of Dean’s soul is tangled with his.
“God damn it, I’m buying you a puppy,” Dean growls against Sam’s lips, and even though he can still hear Dean thinking, You wouldn’t leave a puppy-maybe because of it, because Dean can be so damn stupid sometimes-Sam can’t help but laugh.
~*~
They buy two beds.
The second one is in case Bobby drops by.
“kisses are a better fate than wisdom”
-e. e. cummings
The End
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comments are lovely ♥
Sam’s ears have always popped every time an angel appears or disappears within a couple hundred feet of where he’s standing. He’s never mentioned it to Dean. Or anyone, actually. He doesn’t even think Cas knows. The truth is, it’s never felt normal, probably not something a guy who hadn’t been slurping demon blood as a baby would be able to notice.
Sam is just waking up, aching in a way that means he’s been sleeping for more than an hour, when his ears pop.
It’s dusky outside, and if Dean stuck to his plan then his brother is upstairs putting tarp over the windows to hold them off until the screens and pane glass they ordered comes in. Sam can hear a sharp scuffle of Dean’s feet overhead, a surprised back step and then nothing. Dean has either been taken (some dark piece of Sam snarls) or it’s Castiel.
The staircase is eerily silent as he ascends it, not so much as creaking as he pads up in his socks, big toe peeking through on the right one, and an angel frog-sticker in his hand. His grip only loosens fractionally at the sound of Castiel’s voice responding to something from inside the master bedroom, his usual monotone running fast and just about as close to excited as Sam has ever heard him.
“-thing changed in the playing field, a violent shift for good, and you’re telling me neither of you had anything to do with it?”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Cas.” If Dean sounded any more falsely casual he’d be talking about Ruby. “Out means out. We haven’t so much as snuffed a ghost since we moved in here.”
Frances seems to press kind of ominously around them; Sam chooses to blame his overactive imagination.
Castiel is too quiet for a split second, then in decidedly more somber tones, “Then perhaps Sam-“
“No.” Dean’s voice is ten kinds of back the fuck off, and then one more that even sends Sam back half a step before he remembers they can’t see him. “I’m sorry, Cas,” Dean adds, only fractionally as apologetic as he could sound, “but stay the hell away from my brother.”
“Dean-“ the angel starts, all concern.
“Just-No. I get that it’s irrational, okay, I do. But we are sitting this one out. I don’t want Sam so much as glancing at a saddle to get back into, do you hear me?”
“Of course,” Castiel says, perfectly toneless. “I only wished to share the good news.”
Sam’s ears pop.
He hesitates for three whole seconds before pushing open the door with the hand he’s not using to tuck the angel knife into his back pocket. Dean jumps for the second time in ten minutes, and all the buzzing in Sam’s head just stops.
“Hi,” he says. His voice is still thick from sleep, and if he never stops looking at Dean it’ll be okay.
“Hey,” Dean grunts back, gaze skittering sideways before he goes back to staple-gunning plastic across the window frame. He’s not quite tall enough to do the corner. It’s kind of fucking adorable.
Sam lets himself cross the room, lets himself get in Dean’s space just a little until he can reach over Dean’s head and pin the plastic flat, and Dean’s hesitation before he stretches up as high as he can to slam the staple gun down-his back to Sam’s front, close enough to touch, practically in Sam’s arms-makes something too hot flip in Sam’s stomach, even if Dean sidesteps as soon as he can.
“So I hear we scored one for the good guys,” Sam tries, and winces a little when Dean twitches at the word ‘scored.’
“Yeah,” Dean says, the hand holding the staple gun bumping up twice in a half-hearted cheer. “Go team. Sam, you can let go.”
He drops his arm instantly and the plastic holds, like he knew it would. It’s thick, opaque, just enough that he can see shapes blurred outside, colors, but not what they are. If it’s some sort of metaphor for his emotions, it’s just a little late. Sam feels sharp, Sam feels everything, everything feels pink with new skin, healing, and for the first time in a long time each beat of his heart feels like it’s doing more than pumping out of reflex.
“Do you think it was us?”
Dean’s eyebrows climb right up into his hairline, all sarcasm and scorn. “Do I think that our gay incestuous sex had some effect on the outcome of an angelic civil war? Yeah, pull the other one.”
Sam snorts softly. “So that’s a no, then.”
Dean tosses the staple gun aside like it means nothing, like it won’t thud against the floorboards loud enough to make Sam reflexively flinch, and he won’t even turn around all the way to face him. Sam has only seen that look in his brother’s eyes twice-once at Dean’s “last” Christmas, once when Sam confronted him about being fucking terrified. Both times Dean had been looking at a slow march to hell with no way out.
The blood slipping through his arteries suddenly runs cold.
“Listen,” Dean says, “We’re just going to pretend today never happened. Alright? We’re just two normal brothers who do normal, brotherly things, and…it was a fluke. Don’t worry about it. Don’t even think about it. There’s nothing to think about.”
Sam folds his arms over his chest before he lifts his chin enough to look at Dean. “Is that an order?”
“Yes,” Dean says, like he’s completely forgotten how to pick up facial cues. “Yeah, in case you couldn’t tell. I’m ordering you to forget it.”
“Fuck you very much, Dean,” Sam snaps, pretty damn cheerfully for the circumstances.
Dean blinks, expression hardening into something Sam recognizes from their father’s arsenal. “Excuse me?”
“I said, fuck you.” Then, when Dean just stares at him, Sam helpfully points out, “You don’t mean it.”
The staple gun skitters across the floor with the force of Dean’s boot hitting it. “Since when do I have to-“
“Since now,” Sam decides with a nod. “I’m making spaghetti, you want some?”
He tries to leave while Dean’s still cursing, then forces down a shiver when Dean barking his name is enough to make him stop, make him turn back. He doesn’t do as good a job as he should in hiding it, by the look on Dean’s face, but guilt and embarrassment are nestled somewhere safe in the back of Sam’s mind with no intention of coming out to play. If his eyes are a little heavy lidded, Dean can deal with it.
“Yes?” he prompts. “Did you want something?”
Dean is gaping, frustrated to the point of betrayal. “What part of ‘gay incestuous sex’ were you not there for?”
“What part were you?”
And damn if Dean doesn’t look like Sam just said he wants to reupholster the Impala with the skin of small children.
“I feel good!” Sam’s voice is loud because Dean isn’t listening. “Dean, I’m feeling! I feel almost a hundred percent, here, and you want me to pretend that had nothing to do with you? I can’t. You never want to do it again? That’s fine. You want to forget? Knock yourself out. But I’m sick and fucking tired of lying to myself, so…” He huffs a breath out through his nose and shakes his head, not prepared for this. “Spaghetti?” he snaps again, and leaves before Dean can answer.
~*~
The water takes ages to boil on their decrepit old stove, and it’s not just because Sam is staring it down the whole time, okay, it’s not. Watched pots do boil; whoever came up with that saying was a moron.
It gives him too much time to think, which is a problem. There were some pretty morbid, freakish thoughts running through his head when he was grinding Dean into their house (their house their home and for a moment Sam thinks Frances sighs) but… Sam thinks about it, steam brushing against his face, and none of it was really…new. It would be easy to blame that on his time spent being soulless, which is why he doesn’t.
Does he have to blame it on anything? He’d never do the things he’d thought of. But he’s not going to deny the thrill he got out of some of those images, the ones about Dean; what the hell would be the point? This just feels like another previously unexplored facet of being dangerously codependent.
Maybe he came back wrong. But maybe this is as right as he knows how to be.
He calls Dean down when dinner is ready, and Dean walks down those stairs like he expects to be attacked by some supernatural heavyweight once he hits the bottom. Or that’s what Sam’s guessing by the way his brother hesitates on the way down-when he gets a look at Dean’s face Dean looks nothing but awkward and uncomfortable, looking to Sam for some sort of clue as to where this is going. If he should expect poison in his food and know that he deserves it.
Sam rolls his eyes and says, “We don’t have a table,” and sits down in the living room with his back to the wall and the pasta pot at his side, two forks stuck in the middle and a tube of parmesan cheese by his knee. It only takes one more pointed look before Dean grabs them each a beer and settles at Sam’s side.
“Very Lady and the Tramp,” Dean remarks, right on schedule, stabbing and twirling his fork right in the middle of the noodles.
“I forgot to buy plates, sue me.” Sam spears just enough spaghetti that he’ll be able to fit it in his mouth, unlike some siblings he could name. Dean’s forkful is as big as a drumstick, and he eats it like it is one.
Dean sings with his mouth full, “Stick your hand in a crack, if you don’t get it back, it’s a moray…eel,” then smirks at the expression on Sam’s face and takes another bite, leaving a bright red smear of sauce on his chin.
This is how it’s going to be, huh? Sam thinks but doesn’t say. He doesn’t want to know what Dean’s smile would do.
As usual, Dean plucks the thought right out of his head-and decides to run in the opposite direction. “We’ll put a TV there,” he says, pointing with his entire hand. “Big one. Stupid big. And we’ll get a monster couch, maybe two, throw some rugs around, buy a plant.”
Sam has to work to swallow as something almost goes down the wrong pipe. “A plant?”
“Yeah. We never had plants growing up,” Dean shrugs, stabbing the spaghetti into submission. “And hey,” he adds, all brass, “if one of us doesn’t wander home with a stray dog by Christmas I know what’s going in your stocking.”
“Dean.”
“You got a preference? Like, that retriever, the dog we saw up in, you know-“
“Dean.”
“’Cause, no offense, Princess, but I don’t think I could go for some yippy football sized thing-”
“Oh my god,” Sam says, loud enough that Dean has to shut up. How does he even explain…? “This can’t just be for me.”
Suddenly it’s easy to look at Dean, meet the fierce confusion and bank it down, like wrapping his bare hand around a burning coal. He hopes Dean gets it; he can’t think of any other words that might press it inside Dean’s skull. His brother is too good at manipulating words to trust them-nothing on, above, or under the earth could iron out that wrinkle in his character. Maybe it’s a good thing Sam has been to all three.
Then- “Eat your damn spaghetti,” Sam mutters, because it’s fucking exhausting sharing and caring.
“Bossy,” Dean says, but if it comes out a little too quiet, Sam pretends he doesn’t notice.
~*~
They get a mailbox. Dean turns it into a National Event when they actually get mail in it, even though it’s two pizza coupon books and an ad urging them to donate money to the NRA. “Aw, it’s cute when civilians think they should have guns,” Dean says before pitching it, but they get discounted pizza every day for a week until the fliers mysteriously disappear from where Dean tacked them first and foremost on their brand new fridge with a magnet shaped like Bugs Bunny.
Dean already has a corner picked out for where they’re going to put a tree as soon as December first hits, and he keeps sneaking in stupid Holiday knickknacks like he thinks Sam won’t notice. They buy a kitchen table, and plates and bowls and glasses so they can drink other things besides beer, and Sam talks Dean out of buying a 55” flat screen for a more moderately priced 42”, but it sits on the floor for a week because they forgot to buy anything to put it on or hang it with. Dean would sit with his nose pressed to it if Sam let him-as it is, he sits on the floor in front of their huge red couch while Sam sprawls across the cushions and pretends not to watch the TV lights flickering across his brother’s face.
They fight over curtains (“But they’re called Buckeye!” “It doesn’t matter what they’re-god, Dean, they should’ve been named fugly.”) and carpet (“Shag, no.” “But it-“ “I will shoot you in the face.”) and wallpaper (“I think this leafy swirl is almost like a devil’s trap.” “What exactly are you smoking, right now?”) and everything is so normal sometimes Sam takes a breath to scream before he realizes he really doesn’t want to.
He just wants Dean. He wants Dean with him every moment of every day, wants Dean beside him when he falls asleep and Dean beside him when he drifts awake, and he gets it. Wanting anything else would just be stupid.
Dean gives him casual orders, and Sam loves them but he doesn’t need them, mostly, not as badly as he used to. And sometimes he starts crying without realizing it, and sometimes he’ll get hit with an emotion so hard he has to sit quivering in the bathtub for an hour before he can breathe right, but when he wakes up sweating and cold Dean reaches over, rests a hand on his chest, tells him to breathe and he does, Dean tells him to sleep and he dozes. They aren’t too bad, the nightmares. Mostly Sam tries not to let regret eat at him, shaking it off as it digs tiny claws into his skin, because he can’t go back and fix it, he can’t stay up all night worrying for Dean when Dean is right here, within arm’s reach.
They still haven’t bought a bed.
Two beds, Sam corrects himself, realizing the error this time around. One for Sam and one for Dean. And the thing is, when it happens it’s going to hurt, the fallout is going to be bad, because when they start fighting over who gets the master bedroom Sam is going to be fighting for something a lot more important, and Dean will be fighting just as hard for something else.
They do invest in sleeping pads, though. Dean claims they’re for camping, but he didn’t buy a tent.
~*~
It’s been a good couple of days-no nightmares, no shakes-so it catches Sam off-guard when Dean says in the middle of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, “Hand me the remote,” in a voice meant to be obeyed.
Sam does, of course, slowly but immediately, setting down the book he was reading so it splays across his chest, spine protesting. He’s trying to figure out what brought it on-Dean loves this show, they weren’t arguing over channels, this isn’t the commercial with the cartoon bears selling toilet paper that so weirdly creeps Dean the fuck out, so he has no clues, here. Not that he really needs them; it’s just a remote.
Dean’s finger taps against the mute restlessly without pushing down, and then he punches the off button and puts the hunk of plastic on the floor.
Sam doesn’t move.
Dean brings his knees up a little, socked heels catching on one of the good dozen throw rugs they have covering the scuffed and battered hardwood floor. His hands run up his thighs and catch on the way back; calluses maybe, or Dean just doesn’t know what to do with them. The fire crackles and twists, sound and light muted behind soot-smudged glass in the fireplace.
“You’ve been…doing better,” Dean chokes out, just when Sam has half convinced himself his brother is two seconds away from running without saying a word. “Haven’t you?” he asks without turning around, peeking at Sam from the corner of his eye like it doesn’t count if it’s peripheral.
“Yeah, Dean,” he says. He wants to stroke the back of Dean’s head, card his fingers through the fine bristle of it and the shape of Dean’s skull underneath, wants it so bad he has to clench his hand under his book and hope Dean doesn’t notice.
“That’s good, Sammy,” he murmurs, ducking to hide his cringing half-grin because he knows how chickflicky this all is. “I’m… That’s good.”
There’s something wired wrong in Sam’s genetic makeup that makes him want to go warm all over with the praise that this isn’t. It’s not how Dean meant it to sound.
Sam clears his throat and makes himself speak, question out of his mouth before he really acknowledged it was on his mind. “Hey, Dean? How…How did you know?”
“Know what?” Dean finally shifts enough to face him, and now it’s Sam’s turn to look away, frowning down at his book.
“You kept telling me… When I didn’t have my soul, you kept saying I wasn’t Sam, I wasn’t your little brother. And I could tell, you know? I could tell your skin was crawling just looking at me. I didn’t know what to feel about it, but I knew. So how could you tell I was me when my soul came back? I still couldn’t feel anything.”
“Yeah, well I could.” The answer is instantaneous, immediate. The way Dean only ever is when it’s the truth. Dean looks startled by it for a split second, and then it’s gone, frown of concentration chasing it away as he tries to explain.
“It was like… I don’t know, something just… Like when you crack your back and everything feels better, but you didn’t really know you were hurting before? But, ah… Guess that makes sense, right?” Dean glances upward, and it’s the slow crooked smile pulling at his lips as his gaze darts at Sam and then away. “Soul mates, and everything.”
When Sam takes a breath his lungs shake, like he hasn’t breathed in a year. “Yeah,” he says on the exhale. “And everything.”
“Sam,“ Dean starts, but Sam won’t hear it, can’t.
“Dean,” he says, book flopping to the floor as he gets up on one elbow, not one single inch of him touching his brother. “Dean,” he says, “tell me to kiss you.”
Dean’s eyes are so green, gold-flecked with firelight. “Sam-“
“Dean,” Sam begs, fingers digging grooves into the couch cushions. “Tell me to kiss you.”
And Dean snaps, “Sam!” and hauls him down with a rough handful of hair and Sam thinks, oh, Sam thinks, yes, and Dean gets up on his knees to push Sam down and kiss him wholly, utterly and completely, kiss him until every damn thing just falls away into the press of Dean’s mouth. Dean’s fingers slip up under Sam’s shirt and Sam wriggles and arches to give Dean room, sliding deeper into the sofa to make his shirt ride up more on its own. His hands tangle in Dean’s clothes, grip him tight and pull him close, and Dean breaks away with this noise that makes every bit of Sam flush hot.
Dean grabs Sam’s wrists and pins them by his head, looming up on his haunches and Sam shudders and just melts. Yeah, he could get free, but it’s like choosing door number two when he knows there’s no car behind that one.
“Sammy,” Dean grinds out, and Sam has a split second to remember they aren’t out of the woods yet. “You tell me right now if this isn’t something you want. Tell me the truth.”
“Want it,” he says instantly, happy to obey. “Next question.”
Dean looks so floored for a minute, rocking a little just to press down harder and Sam tries not to pant so damn obviously. “How long?” he finally asks, and god, he sounds so lost, like there’s one piece of the puzzle he isn’t getting that’s going to fuck this all to hell.
“Thirteen,” Sam tells him, still hopelessly breathless. “You thought I was at the library. Came home early, some cheerleader was blowing you on the couch.”
“Jesus,” Dean breathes, like he’s hurting. “Sammy-“
“Wanted to do it.” Sam is so hard, and Dean is barely touching him, fuck, he cants his hips up looking for anything, earns Dean’s wide, darkening stare and tugs it back with his voice. “Wanted to do that for you, you had sunburn all down your chest”-and that’s where that kink came from, huh-“and I just, god, you looked so blissed out. I choked myself on my fingers for years wishing it was you.”
“Oh fuck, god damn it, Sam.” Dean kisses him like he wants to shut him up, but that’s okay, that’s so okay, because Dean is climbing over him onto the couch, knees digging in on either side of Sam’s ribcage and Sam feels swallowed by Dean, surrounded by his scent and weight and taste. He could die right now, so damned content, and still so fucking needy. He whines deep in his throat, that ‘shameless’ switch flipped somewhere, and thinks Please please please until it spills out in a whisper against Dean’s mouth.
Dean curses and somewhere in that sound is the jangling of metal-Sam has one lucid moment to think If Dean smuggled in jingle bells when I wasn’t looking, before it clicks and Dean shoves his zipper down, belt hanging loose and obscene so close to Sam’s mouth. His lips part immediately, instinct or shock, because he can’t believe Dean would ever let him have this. He’s spent decades convincing himself this would never happen, he feels dizzy wrapping his head around it now.
His brother must see something in his expression-or it’s Dean’s bone deep insecurities creeping in-because he hesitates, and Sam tears his eyes away from the dark spot of precome already dampening the fabric of Dean’s boxers to look up at his face. Dean’s eyes are so dark it burns a little, meeting them.
Dean’s hesitation vanishes just as quickly as it came, smothered as the Winchester mule-headedness kicks into gear. “Open up for me, Sammy,” and he’s gentling it, but it’s an order. Sam lets his jaw fall open wider, and his eyelids almost flutter with the rush from doing right when Dean lets one wrist go to card a hand through Sam’s hair, murmuring, “Just like that. So good, Sam, you’re good.”
And then Dean’s boxers are down, shoved under his balls, and Sam gets that so brief squirm in his stomach from seeing something he’s not supposed to before that needy hunger eats him up and floods his mouth with spit. Dean is shaking, almost not enough to see, as he moves up Sam’s body and releases the other wrist to brace himself against the armrest, one foot slipping to the floor for leverage. “Hold onto me, Sam,” Dean growls, and Sam’s hands fit to the grooves of Dean’s hips like they were made to go there, yanking him forward to fill up Sam’s mouth.
Instantly Dean’s hand is there, tugging him back with a fistful of hair and Sam gasps, goes immediately still. “Did I tell you…” Dean starts but can’t finish it, sounds too porno or something and he tugs Sam forward by the roots, free hand holding his dick steady. “Slow, Sam,” Dean gets out, barely, wrecked. “Slow for me.”
Sam wants to cry it feels so good, and Dean’s right, slow is better, slow means Sam can really feel it, really taste it, lave his tongue over every little groove and not worry about his gag reflex because he has time to feel it sliding in and back.
As soon as Dean sets up a rhythm he lets go of Sam’s hair, bracing his forearms on the couch and resting his head there, curling in so he can watch Sam suck him down. Sam can feel Dean’s hot panting breaths against his face, Dean’s unbuttoned shirt falling around them like a curtain, muffling and darkening and Dean’s hips, god, they keep jerking in Sam’s grasp, sweet aborted little thrusts like he can’t help himself, but he won’t fuck Sam’s mouth no matter how Sam pulls him in. Maybe because he likes the feel of Sam trying.
Sam feels every fattening twitch of Dean’s dick in his mouth each time he swallows a whine and digs his fingers into the cut of Dean’s hips, working his jeans until he can get at Dean’s skin. Dean groans like he’s been shot, tries to jerk back and Sam’s hands lock down, keeping him there-where the fuck else does he think he’s going to come? This upholstery is brand fucking new-and then Dean curses, a tangle of Sam’s name, and just shoves forward, and Sam forgets language at the white hot slick of Dean on his tongue, filling his mouth all the way up.
“Oh Jesus…” Dean gasps out, still hunched over him and going boneless in pieces, like each muscle group is caving bit by trembling bit. “Jesus, Sam.”
And yeah, Sam’s smug when he remembers how to be, but it’s all but unrecognizable in the vision-blurring glow of having done well, done right by Dean. Not healthy, Sam thinks distantly, and sees how many teasing licks he can get in before Dean wriggles free with an oversensitive twist.
Not nearly as many as he’d hoped for. When Dean pulls out Sam gasps at the empty feeling he leaves behind, even when Dean accidentally smears a wet mix of saliva and come across Sam’s bottom lip crawling backwards down Sam’s body. Sam’s still lost in it when he feels Deans fingers nudging at his lip and refocuses on his brother above him, wearing this expression on his face like he wants to be sure Sam gets it all but he doesn’t know if he should, and Sam can’t help it, he turns his head and catches Dean’s fingers in his mouth, humming contentment as the emptiness disappears.
Dean groans, forehead knocking against Sam’s chest. “Christ, Sammy, get a load of the oral fixation on you.” Sam nips his fingertips then laves between them, smirking at the hitch in Dean’s breathing, words spilling out of Dean in a half-air rush. “A-ahh-god damn son of a bitch.”
Sam used to think about what Dean’s hands would taste like-gun oil and powder, road grit, rock salt-but nowadays they just taste like skin, like the cedar planks Dean got to replace the warped siding, like paint chips from the upstairs bathroom. Sam licks him clean and can’t even think to be disappointed. He wants everything.
He’s so caught up in tasting he almost doesn’t notice when Dean fumbles Sam’s belt open left-handed. He definitely tunes in when Dean yanks his briefs down, Jesus, because-because he’s been so hard for so long now that his spine arches like a goddamned bow, and because it’s Dean, and because Dean gives him a couple awkward strokes, pressing Sam down against his belly, smearing Sam’s precome all over his rucked up t-shirt and shaft, and then he says, “Fuck it,” says, “Shout if I’m doing this wrong,” and takes Sam in his mouth.
It takes exactly no talent to bring Sam off, he’s that close, and the thought of Dean-The Dean, Dean with Those Lips, Dean-not knowing how to suck a guy off because he’s never done it before just blows Sam’s fucking mind, blows his wad all over the soft uncertain curl of Dean’s tongue and probably puts Dean off giving blowjobs all together by hitting the back of his throat with no warning, but right now Sam can’t care. The sounds he makes around Dean’s fingers are obscene, and he doesn’t care about that either. His brother is in him and he’s in Dean and an asteroid could smash Frances to bits right now, nothing can be better than this.
Dean’s grumbling between coughs when he pulls off, but for some reason the wrinkles on his nose completely vanish when he gets a look at Sam, at the way Sam is losing every bit of tension from his body in an oh-so-very-languid stretch. Sam smiles at his brother when Dean takes his fingers back, partly because Dean’s knuckles are pruned up with spit and partly because he can, and wants to, and Dean will let Sam look at him like this, now, will actually let himself see it when Sam does.
“Could fall asleep right here,” Sam admits. His voice is absolutely wrecked, and his grin just grows when Dean can’t quite hide his reaction to that.
It’s just a faint shiver, but Dean shakes his head like he just moaned aloud, a flush that isn’t sunburn creeping up his cheeks. “I’ll, uh… Yeah, not gonna stop you.” He clears his throat, and then he starts to climb off the couch.
Sam has never been more grateful for the length of his legs than right now, when they make trapping Dean easy as breathing before he gets his hands on Dean and tugs him down, wriggling until he’s on his side pinning Dean between himself and the back of the couch. And Dean curses, of course he does, surprised and startled, but Sam says, “Come on, we’ve shared smaller spaces,” and that’s not logic Dean can argue with. Sam does up their belts-he does Dean’s first, tries not to feel reverential when he does it-and Dean relaxes by increments under Sam’s arm, most often accompanied by a reluctant sigh that Sam doesn’t buy for a minute.
Especially not when Sam’s breathing has evened out in that rhythm just before sleep, and Sam feels lips on his forehead, a hard, almost desperate, claiming kiss, and Sam tightens his grip on Dean and tumbles into dreams between one breath and the next.
~*~
He drifts awake just enough to settle the danger danger throb in his brain when Dean wrestles out of Sam’s death grip some time later, and only gives in when Dean brushes the hair away from his face and says something about cooking dinner. Sam thinks that’s a good plan, especially since he doesn’t have to move.
His ears pop.
“God damn it, Castiel,” Dean hisses, so loud that their neighbor-who lives eight miles to the north-can probably hear him. Sam resigns himself to being awake, but draws the line at opening his eyes. Even though he can’t remember the last time he heard Dean use Cas’s full name.
“Dean. Are you absolutely sure-“ the angel starts, not even bothering to be quiet.
“Yes, oh my god, yes I’m sure, get out of my fucking house.”
Alright, enough. “Dean,” Sam grunts, pushing himself up to glare blearily over the back of the sofa. Castiel looks mildly surprised, which Sam supposes means that Sam looks like he got thoroughly, thoroughly fucked by his brother in the middle of the day in their actual living room. Which is…great.
Judging by the expression on Dean’s face, he thinks so too.
“Hey Cas,” Sam mutters, feeling his cheeks heat. “So, uh. Heard the war’s going good.”
“It is,” Castiel agrees. He hasn’t blinked yet. Sam is trying to work out if he should be worried. Cas might bust a seam if he tries any harder to work out how to say thank you for engaging in incest.
“You want to stay for dinner?” Sam asks quickly, trying to distract him. Dean’s eyes go so wide it’s almost hilarious, because he can’t do any Fuck No What Are You Thinking hand signals while in Castiel’s line of sight.
“I should. Probably go,” Cas says, monotone breaking a little in the middle.
“Thanks for dropping by,” Dean says, smile tight with impatience, and Sam gets it, he does, Dean’s protective streak has been running rampant and unchecked since Crowley forked over Sam’s soul, but there’s no denying that when Dean gets his head on straight and remembers that he actually likes Cas enough to consider him a non-threat, he’s going to feel like an ass.
“What about next week sometime?” Sam asks as he stands, still kind of stupidly grateful that the couch is there as a buffer. “Dean’s trying to squeeze all the use he can out of that barbeque before the snow sets in.”
“I can barbeque in the snow,” Dean grumbles, but he looks like he might be clueing in. He gives Cas a sort of apologetic look-either that or a wince-and says louder, “Yeah, seriously. We bought more than two plates for a reason.”
The reason had been their slightly faulty dishwasher, but Castiel doesn’t need to know that.
Cas nods, looking a little more sure of himself, and says, “If they can spare me, I will…endeavor to bring potato salad. I am sincerely pleased to see you are doing well,” he adds before either of them can speak, giving them each a just-shy-of-significant stare, and Sam’s ears pop.
“Potato salad,” Dean mutters, and then, “Good old Cas,” as he turns away.
Sam follows him into the kitchen because, well, a lot of reasons, but mostly because he doesn’t like the set of Dean’s shoulders, and it’s just sinking in that not everything is fixed and settled. He wants to crowd Dean up against a wall and just hold him, rest his face against the crook of Dean’s neck and breathe in all of his doubt, let it out as nothing more than hot air.
“I’m so glad an angel of the lord knows we’re fucking,” Dean announces while Sam is still trying to figure out what to say. He’s slamming cupboards as he digs out pots and pans, olive oil, spices, but he has to face Sam for a split second before wrenching the freezer door open, and that’s where Sam gets him, shoulders the door closed and leans against it, pinning it shut. Dean glares, leaves it, turns to heat the oil.
He could just order Sam to move, and Sam would go. That he doesn’t is more telling than Dean probably thinks it is.
“You think our free pass to heaven just got revoked?” Sam asks, trying not to smirk too much.
The gas won’t catch, and Dean still won’t look at him. “I’m pretty sure incest is one of those biblical things without wriggle room.”
Sam shrugs. “Hey, maybe Cain and Abel just had some hardcore sexual tension that needed resolving.”
The pan drops down with a bang. “Dammit, Sam.” Dean braces himself against the cold stove, muscles knotting up under his shirt and his head hung low, jaw tight. Sam keeps himself so still, barely breathing, forcing his heart rate to calm down. Dean can’t do this to him. Not twice. Not after calling Sam his fucking soul mate.
“You’re gonna figure it out.” Dean’s voice is rough, quiet, and then he shoves away from the stove and makes himself face Sam. “You’re going to figure it out,” he repeats, louder but more wrecked, angry, and Sam digs his fingers in and won’t move, not yet. “You’re going to figure out how wrong this is and you’ll take off, Sam, and I’m not right enough in the head to do anything but chase after you.”
“Good,” Sam says instantly, two steps closer to Dean before he realizes he’s moving. “If I’m ever stupid enough to run you catch me and you drag me back home.”
He grabs Dean’s face when he kisses him, just to make sure he won’t go anywhere, and he doesn’t think Dean likes it so much but fuck it, this is the way Sam knows how to kiss. His thumbs slip over the roughening edge of Dean’s jaw and he licks into Dean’s mouth when he shivers, and Sam thinks heaven can go fuck itself, seriously, if it doesn’t want them anymore. This is worth every bit of shit they’ve had to deal with, and all the shit they’ll still get into before they kick the bucket. If they can just have this.
“Soul mates,” Sam reminds Dean, words murmured into his mouth, and Dean makes this sound like a whine and shoves a hand in Sam’s hair, kissing him back, kissing for keeps this time. Sam nearly breaks it he’s grinning so hard, soul glowing so bright in his chest he can almost taste it, taste where the bit of Dean’s soul is tangled with his.
“God damn it, I’m buying you a puppy,” Dean growls against Sam’s lips, and even though he can still hear Dean thinking, You wouldn’t leave a puppy-maybe because of it, because Dean can be so damn stupid sometimes-Sam can’t help but laugh.
~*~
They buy two beds.
The second one is in case Bobby drops by.
“kisses are a better fate than wisdom”
-e. e. cummings
The End
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