SPN Fic: No such thing as alien sex-pollen (Sam/Dean;R)
One day, I will actually finish going through all the stuff I wrote in the course of NaNo. This is not that day. This fic was written in the last few hours of NaNo, after I assembled all my fics for upload to the website and discovered that Google Docs, while it has many virtues, is a dirty liar when it comes to wordcount. This was my emergency fic... at least, what I wrote that day was the bones of this fic, although my darling beta parenthetical has helped me to make some fairly radical edits and generally kicked it into shape. It was meant to be shameless PWP - I had an enticing vision of dom!Sam under the influence of some kind of sex pollen - but as usual the boys decided they had their own ideas. I blame Sam, who has never, ever behaved as I expected in any fic I've written. So... the Plot With (a certain amount of) Porn. Enjoy!
Title: No such thing as alien sex-pollen
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: R
Genre: Wincest
Pairing/Characters: Sam/Dean
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. It's all Kripke and CW... and the Js own the pretty.
Beta: parenthetical is my awesome beta of JOY. Everything which is 'all right' in this fic is yours, darling, in every sense <3
Notes/Summary: Sam’s never shown the slightest hint of being interested in Dean before. He’s the normal one, the one who went to college and fell in love with a girl and isn’t kept awake at night wondering what his brother’s lips taste like.
This started life as a PWP, but then it... wasn't. Blame Sam. Feedback is adored <3
Dean fucking hates witches.
Okay, Willow was pretty hot, especially in that episode with the singing and the lesbian sex. But it's not like that turned out all that well, which in Dean's experience is pretty much par for the course where magic's concerned. It's impossible to avoid it totally - spells of one kind or another have saved their asses more than once - but Dean'll take a shotgun over a magic wand any day. There's enough supernatural shit in the world without stirring up more.
So he's particularly pissed to find himself slogging uphill through the mud in some gloomy woods, grisgris hanging round his neck and Sam muttering some crazy mumbo-jumbo Dean half-suspects he got from a freaking Dr. Seuss book.
The place they’re trying to find has some kind of altar, at least that’s what Sam thinks. There’ve been a lot of mysterious deaths around this part of the woods recently: folk turning up ripped to pieces or just dead of exhaustion. It sounded at first like they'd been hunted down by something, but when Dean and Sam had gotten a look at the most recent pair of bodies, it had become clear that the only thing which had attacked them was each other. The last time Dean saw injuries like that, it was connected to a ward put up by some pagan cult around their sacred spaces. Which was all well and good, except for the fact that people who resisted the compulsion to walk away tended to find themselves overcome by an irresistible urge to commit suicide. As far as Dean is concerned, the fact that there are people in the world idiotic enough to fix that kind of mojo - just to protect their freakin' magic toys, for fuck's sake - makes him want to commit suicide without any kind of compulsion
Anyway, he wishes that whoever set up the particular working they’re tracking today had done it somewhere less cold and wet, and more conveniently situated next to a decent road. Or - even better - had just picked somewhere so completely isolated that no one would have stumbled upon it in the first place. Then he and Sam could have just left it to work its will on raccoons or trees or whatever.
Dean sighs and slogs on up the hill.
It takes a fuck of a long time to find the goddamn altar. They wander up hill and down fucking dale, pushing through the undergrowth, jeans wicking up the moisture. Eventually it starts to get dark, trees looming over them against the pale twilit sky.
‘Jesus, Sam, did we miss the sign where it said we were about to start climbing Everest? There’s no way this shitty little hill should be taking so long to climb.’
Sam stops, hands working on his own grisgris so he can keep on warding off whatever magical influences might be trying to get at them.
‘You’re right, this is taking too long.’ Sam's brow furrows as he thinks, evidently trying to work out whether they could have taken a wrong turn somehow. Then he lets out a huff of annoyed breath.
‘Shit, Dean, there’s a misdirection spell on the place as well as whatever it is making people go crazy. How did we not think of that?’
Dean feels like an idiot, because now that Sam mentions it it’s totally obvious. They’ve come across this kind of spell before, the kind that makes you keep turning back on yourself, sends you round in a circle while never letting you notice you’ve gone past the same tree five times before. Most forests seem to have some kind of weak natural version of it, and it stands to reason that any even halfway-competent magic worker would take advantage of that.
Great. Now he has to get with the chanting as well. Dean starts up on the string of words that’ll let them see past the misdirection, and gets back to walking.
When they finally make their way to the centre of the spell - and once they know the misdirection’s there, it's easy to see which way they should be going - it’s clear that whoever set it up is long gone. Sure enough, there is an altar, but it’s half-overgrown with moss and - great - poison oak. Not far off, there’s also a house, low-roofed and tumble-down like something out of the nastier fairytales. When they break in, they find nothing but a few tins rusting on the shelves, labels faded and almost unreadable, and a sizeable family of small rodents living in the chewed-up bed. Seems like the Magic Circle checked out more than a few years ago.
Sam insists on chanting a few more spells, just in case all the decay they can see is some kind of very sophisticated glamour, but they both know that it’s the real deal. There’s a sense you get when someone or something’s actively working magic nearby, and it’s completely absent here, nothing but the last few grains of power running out through the hourglass.
They search the house and grounds fairly thoroughly for any sign of a body - sorcerers have a nasty tendency to stick around as ghosts, or worse - but find nothing. They torch the house anyway, just to be on the safe side. Once the flames die down enough that they can be sure the fire won't spread, they go to tackle the altar.
It’s a pretty slow job, because they’ve got to clear the poison oak out of the way before they can even get a good look at what they’re dealing with. Dean doesn’t mind taking a punch or even a knife wound in the name of the job from time to time, but he still remembers the feel of poison oak from the time he was fifteen and they all ran into a patch of it, too busy getting out of the way of a werewolf to look where they were going. Sam remembers it too, so for once neither teases the other about how Winchester men are supposed to be fearless.
When they finally get it all cleared off, they can see that the whole altar stone’s engraved with some fancy-looking writing: a mix of jagged runes and ornate calligraphy.
Sam lets out a sigh of disgust. 'Crap, why do these wackos always have to mix traditions? We'll be here all fucking night decoding that.'
Dean's about to echo the pissed-off sentiment when he spots a couple of lines he recognises, and grins instead. 'Aw, too hard for you, Sammy?'
Sam looks disbelieving. 'What, you just happened to pack the wacko-script primer?'
'Elementary, my dear Sam, elementary.' Sam still looks sceptical, and it's getting cold out here, so Dean relents. 'Saw the same thing years ago in Maine, working a job with Dad. Usual twisted shit, 'bringing out the heart's desire', blah, blah, blah.'
'Huh,' Sam says. 'Tell that to those poor bastards we saw in the mortuary: I'm sure ripping each other to bits was exactly what they desired.'
Dean snorts. 'Dontcha just love these mystical cults.'
They lay out their grisgris around the edges of the altar and Sam recasts his protective spells before they get to work with crowbars and mallets to pull the stone up. Usually this kind of crap has to be fuelled by something or other buried under the altar. They steel themselves, because more often than not that something turns out to be a blood sacrifice, and they're half-expecting to find the remains of a body there, or something even worse. So it's a pleasant surprise when they lift up the last section of stone and find nothing but a little jar of liquid, sealed up except for a bit of cotton which is obviously supposed to serve as a wick. Neither of them recognises the liquid, or has the slightest clue what it's supposed to do, but as Sam points out, they probably don't want to know anyway. Instead they surround the little bottle with circles of salt and holy water, then burn the shit. It goes up in flames quite happily, crackling away to nothing in a matter of minutes.
All in all, not their worst-ever job.
Well, except for the fact that they still have to walk back down the hill.
Sam stretches himself out when they get back to the Impala, easing muscles sore from carting around all the shit they'd needed for the job. He folds himself into the passenger seat and Dean marvels that little Sammy, his little brother who used to be always four steps behind him in any race, who used to have to ask him to reach up and open the big fridge at Pastor Jim’s because the handle was too high, could have grown into this ginormous man. Not for the first time, Dean feels the urge to put his arms around that long body, feel the muscles where there used to be soft little boy. That’s Not What They Do, though, so he just bitches about Sam getting mud in his car, then jumps into the driver’s side and sticks on a Dream Theater tape before Sam has the chance to start whinging about wanting to hear some “decent” music for a change.
Once they get moving, Sam’s quick to fall asleep, head lolling against the window. It occurs to Dean that most people would probably find it pretty hard to sleep like that, face pressed up against cold glass, head bumping every now and again when Dean takes a corner fast or the car hits a rough patch of road. Both of them have been sleeping like that since they were little kids, though, rocked in the motion of the Impala the way they should have been held in their momma’s arms. There’ve been times when Dean couldn’t sleep at all except when he was being carried along that way, when he’s gotten up out of an anonymous motel bed and headed for the familiar leather and steel of the car. He’s willing to bet that Sam feels the same way.
Sam’s head is tipped back, face in shadows and long neck exposed. Dean keeps his hands steady on the wheel, glancing over every so often to see the seashell whorl of his brother’s ear and the line of his jaw, sharp where it used to be baby round. It’s impossibly beautiful, a kind of beautiful Dean’s never seen in the hundreds of pretty girls they’ve met over the years, even the ones - like Cassie - who’d actually meant something to him. Not for the first time, Dean feels his cock stir in his jeans at the thought of touching his brother, of leaning over and running his tongue up that arch of neck, along the stubble of that razor-sharp jaw.
He turns away and concentrates on the road instead.
When they get back to the motel, Sam’s still sleeping. Dean turns off the engine and lets himself look for a long moment, drinking in that beauty before he has to go back to being Sam’s big brother again. He knows big brother is the only role he can ever have, but they’ve got to travel together, live together day and night, and if he doesn’t let himself feel the truth occasionally he’ll go mad. This isn’t the first time he’s looked down on a sleeping Sam, pressed his hand hard against the bulge in his jeans and acknowledged that he loves his brother in all the ways it’s possible to love a person.
It’s the first time Sam’s ever looked back up at him, though.
When Sam’s eyes snap open and lock gazes with his, Dean freezes. It would be easy enough to move, to jump out of the car and call some dare, to hide what's really going on. Somehow, though, it’s clear that Sam already knows what’s going on. He looks into Dean’s eyes, a steady, unblinking gaze that strips Dean naked, sees all his faults and fears and loves.
And this is certainly new, because Sam’s looking back at him with unmistakable lust.
The second the realisation hits, Dean’s up and out of the car without even noticing the movement, because there’s no way in hell that this is normal. Obviously that shit they burned - whatever it was - has cast some kind of mojo on them, because Sam’s never shown the slightest hint of being interested in Dean before. He’s the normal one, the one who went to college and fell in love with a girl and isn’t kept awake at night wondering what his brother’s lips taste like.
Dean rips open the trunk and starts searching for the grisgris and the laptop, because he knows Sam saved all the stuff on the spells he thought they might be facing. He’s cursing himself for an idiot for the second time that night, because Dad always taught them that you should both go into a situation prepared, that it’s no good only one of you knowing a ritual, because you never knew what shit might go down. But Dean had been out buying more ammo, and the herbs and shit for the grisgris, and they’d been in kind of a hurry. So, even though they’d gone through the basic plan in the car beforehand, there was a lot of complicated wordiness which he hadn’t had time to memorise. Shit shit shit. He powers on the computer, hoping like hell that Sam hasn’t saved all the stuff he needs under one of his dumb, impossible-to-guess passwords.
‘Dean.’
He jumps a mile high and spins round to find Sam right next to him, hair still mussed and untidy from sleep, eyes fixed on Dean in the same intense gaze he’d regarded him with in the car.
‘Hold it there, Sam,’ Dean says, and his voice comes out weird, scratchy and breathy like he hasn’t spoken for weeks. ‘I’m gonna fix this, just give me a minute, hold on.’
He tosses Sam one of the grisgris and his brother catches it automatically without moving his eyes from Dean.
‘Fix what, Dean?’ Sam says softly. ‘There’s nothing to fix.’ He takes a step closer and Dean flinches back like he’ll burn him.
‘Of course there’s something to fix, dumbass,’ he says roughly. ‘The last time I checked, brothers didn’t look at each other like they were the tastiest thing on the Playbunny buffet. That fucking altar’s put some kind of mojo on you, and we’re gonna fix it before it can do any damage.’
Sam laughs softly, wonderingly. His face is open and bright, relaxed like Dean hasn’t seen him in ages, and Dean wishes like hell he could just pull that pretty mouth down and kiss him.
‘I notice you didn’t say there was any mojo on you, Dean,’ Sam says, and his tone is whiskey and molasses, reminding Dean of warm breath and soft kisses in the dark.
‘Well, yeah, I’m not the one…’ Dean trails off, because he’s no idea what the hell he can say that’ll sound convincing. Not the one looking at his brother like he’d like to strip him naked right there and then? Not the one who’s fallen in love with the most inappropriate person ever? Yeah, right, Dean. Way to sound convincing.
‘Dean, tell the truth. You’ve wanted this for ages, haven’t you?’
Sam moves closer, looming over him, and Dean would love to deny it, to pretend he doesn’t even know what his brother’s talking about, but he knows he’s got no chance.
‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘I have.’
He says it quietly, voice so low he can hardly hear it himself, but it seems like Sam has no trouble understanding, because his face is right next to Dean’s now, one hand tipping Dean’s chin up gently so that he can look him in the eye.
‘So have I,’ Sam says simply, and kisses him.
It’s soft and strange and lovely, like slipping into a dream and waking up all at once. Dean’s still dimly aware of all the reasons why this is a terrible idea, the underlying guilt of sick and wrong and taking advantage murmuring at the back of his mind, but it’s almost drowned out by the roaring in his ears, the feeling of complete rightness as his brother kisses him.
Sam’s lips are soft, as soft as any girl’s that Dean’s ever kissed, and there’s no slick of lipstick or powder or gloss, just sweet hot Sammy, warm breath with the sleep-heavy smell that Dean’s known all his life. Sam’s jaw rubs rough against Dean’s own, and he curls his hand around Dean’s head, cupping his skull in his palm and rubbing his thumb into the nape of his neck.
Sam keeps on kissing him until they’re both gasping for breath, then draws away, hand still holding onto Dean’s head, and looks into his eyes. Dean tries to pull himself together, to send this thing back the way it ought to go, but when he draws breath to speak he sees Sam’s eyes change, a look of hurt and betrayal shadowing them, and he can’t do it. Even if it’s the most fucked-up thing in their utterly fucked-up lives, there’s just no way he can stand here and trample Sammy underfoot because of some abstract notion about right and wrong. Dean’s the one who has always scoffed at normal, said the rules didn’t apply to people like them. He can’t change his tune now, and he doesn’t even want to.
‘I mean it, Dean,’ Sam says seriously. ‘This isn’t a one-time thing for me.
He leans in and kisses Dean again, and this time Dean sets himself free, opening to Sam’s tongue, sucking and licking at his bottom lip. Sam pulls him in close until their bodies are sealed together, Dean nestled into his brother’s embrace. He has to tip his face up to keep kissing Sam, which feels weird, but somehow makes it right as well. This isn’t his baby brother he’s kissing, it’s another grown man with his own thoughts and feelings and ideas, and Sam’s never been one to just go along with whatever anyone else wanted him to do, so Dean should trust that that’s not what he’s doing now.
Sam presses closer, pushing him against the trunk of the Impala, and Dean’s suddenly and overwhelmingly aware of his cock, hard against his brother’s thigh. Sam shifts and pushes his own cock up against Dean’s: hot, delicious friction through their layers of denim.
Dean lets out a moan, and then something else occurs to him. He pulls away with difficulty.
‘Sam, stop.’
‘Don’t want to.’
Sam rubs against his thigh and tries to move back in to kiss him again.
‘Dean, I really mean it. This isn’t a spell, you’re not taking advantage of me, I want this.’
‘I know,’ Dean says weakly. ‘Only - Sam - we’re kissing in the middle of the Super8 parking lot.’
Sam pulls away and looks around wildly, as if they had been teleported into the lot without their knowing.
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘You think we should go inside?’
They lock the car and get up to their room without either of them really knowing how. Dean feels light-headed, and he’s still not completely convinced that this isn’t all some kind of crazy sex mojo put on them when they were up in the woods, but he can’t bring himself to care.
The second the door closes behind them, Sam’s on Dean again, pressing him up against it and kissing and tonguing him as if he’d like to crawl under Dean’s skin. Dean brings his hands up to clutch at Sam’s hair, working his fingers through the long strands and tugging gently, rubbing at Sam’s scalp. When he rubs at the base of Sam’s skull, curling his fingers around the knob of bone there, Sam lets out a cry and bucks his hips up, pressing his cock against Dean's thigh. Dean does it again, pushing his own hips forward until their cocks are lined up against each other, hot and hard and nestled up like that’s how they’re meant to be.
They still for a second, clinging together and breathing hard, and then they’re moving again, frantically peeling off each other’s clothes and staggering over to the bed.
They’ve seen each other naked a million times, but never like this, flushed and rosy, cocks hard and bobbing against their stomachs. Dean pushes Sam down onto the bed and gazes at him, long lines and smooth planes, nipples standing out dark against the gold of his skin. He’s never done this before, not with a guy, and he’s suddenly afraid, because he wants to do right by Sammy, to make this perfect if they’re going to do it at all.
Sam reaches up and strokes one hand down Dean’s thigh, and this might be new territory, but Dean’s always been a quick study. He sinks down onto the bed next to Sam, curls one arm round his waist and licks tentatively at one nut-dark nipple. He’s rewarded by Sam’s moan and the feel of the flesh hardening under his touch, and strokes his tongue across harder, sucking and nipping at the skin.
‘Please, Dean, please, yes,’ Sam whimpers, grabbing at Dean’s head and back and running his hands across all the skin he can reach.
Dean keeps on kissing him, running his tongue down the long, long expanse of torso, chest to belly. He nips gently at the place where Sam’s waist curves round to his back, provoking another stream of fuckyesplease, then slowly, slowly, inches downwards.
He stops just short of Sam's cock, hot breath ghosting onto the head. This really is new territory, no comparisons with anything he’s ever done with girls, and Dean sure as hell likes having his own cock sucked, but he has no idea how to go about doing it for someone else. He’d always thought that it would be easier for a guy, that knowing what felt good on your own body would make it obvious what to do for someone else, but here he is looking at his brother’s cock, hard and big and totally mysterious. Sam’s whimpering with want, but he seems to sense that Dean needs a moment, because he doesn’t make any move to touch him or push his hips up closer, just lies there waiting to see what Dean will do.
Dean takes a deep breath, then licks one long stripe down the side of Sam’s cock. It’s hot and impossibly smooth, hard flesh burning under silken skin. Dean licks again, working his tongue under the head and then across it, lapping up the pearl of moisture there. Sam tastes salty and sweet, his come slippery on Dean’s tongue, and he moans and shifts when Dean’s mouth closes around him, pressing himself into the mattress.
Dean has a wild moment where he thinks Oh fuck, we’re really doing this, and then Sam’s cock is sliding past his lips, heavy on his tongue. It’s hard to coordinate teeth and tongue and breathing, and Dean grabs onto Sam’s hips so that he can keep control, stop his brother thrusting up into his mouth. Sam’s crying out, a continuous stream of fuck please Dean yes, more and more incoherent as Dean gets the hang of this and starts to move for real, sliding his mouth around his brother’s dick. Suddenly he feels hotwetsalty spurting up into his mouth and he pulls back, coughing and spluttering while Sam lets out a choked moan. He wraps his hand around Sam’s cock and moves with him, the thrusts of Sam's hips jerky and uneven as the last few waves of his orgasm ride through him.
They lie still, dazed and dizzy, Dean sprawled half across Sam's chest. He's still hard as all fuck, but he can taste Sam on his tongue, feel the wet stickiness of his come smeared across palm and face and chest, and he doesn't mind if he never moves again as long as he can go on feeling this.
Sam has other ideas, though, pulling Dean up for a kiss, licking his own come from Dean's mouth, and oh god the thought alone makes Dean groan and reconsider the part about never needing to move again. He thrusts his hips against Sam, rubbing his cock into the warm hollow of his brother's hip. He doesn't know quite where to go from here: it's one thing to give himself to Sam, but this is something else entirely. He pushes again against Sam's warmth and this time Sam responds, deepening the kiss and sliding his hand down between their bodies.
When Sam closes his fingers around his dick, Dean actually stops breathing for a second, because oh sweet fucking jesus, that's his brother's long fingers wrapped around him, warm and firm and sliding round to rub under the head. It's clear that Sam's as new to this kind of thing as Dean is, because he's kind of clumsy, the angle all wrong, but none of that matters when it's Sam's callused palm skating against Dean's skin, Sam's heat and strength all held behind his urgent desire not to hurt Dean, to make him feel good. All Dean can think is Sam yes more and he arches and bucks up into his brother's hand, clutches at the bedclothes and Sam's skin and whatever he can reach. It only takes a few thrusts, a few slip-slides up and down, and then Sam kisses him again and whispers Dean, and that's enough to send him over the edge, gasping and yelping and spurting all over Sam's hand and both their bellies. The feeling spreads out across him, washing over nerves and skin and leaving him boneless and open.
For a long time they lie together, relaxed and sated, Sam's fingers brushing mindlessly through the fine hairs at the nape of Dean's neck.
Then Dean thinks again of that altar, the bottle they destroyed, and the happy warmth rushes out of him and is replaced with a cold heaviness in the pit of his stomach. It's fear of the kind he's felt only a few times in his life, a creeping fear that's there because he still can't believe that Sam would have done any of this unless that job had worked some kind of mojo on him. He can't say that to Sam without making it sound as if he's denying that he wanted what's just happened between them, though, and there's no way that Dean can do that. Even if he probably should.
They'll have to deal with all this at some point, but right now they're sleepy and satisfied, and Dean thinks maybe he should just enjoy the moment, this one moment in his life when he's got exactly what he wants, and forces himself to relax. It's too late, though - he feels Sam's hand tighten on his shoulder and realises his brother has already noticed the tension that washed over him. He should have known better than to think he could hide his feelings from Sam. Anyone else, no problem, but not Sammy.
'Dean.' Sam's voice is low and steady. 'Dean, look at me.'
Dean doesn't want to look, doesn't want to see whatever's in Sam's eyes, regret or disgust or - please no - pity. There's something about Sam's tone which is impossible to disobey, though, so he forces himself to turn, look up into his brother's face.
'I know what you're thinking, Dean, and you're wrong.'
Sam looks... happy. Serious, and maybe worried, but happy too, and Sam's always worn his feelings openly, written on his face in a way Dean can't even conceive of doing. Dean doesn't know what he was expecting, but it's not this.
'I know you're thinking that this is all down to some kind of hex, dumbass, but it's not. Maybe - maybe - whatever shit was under that altar let me tell the truth for once. If you're looking for an explanation, you can have that. But I meant it when I said I wanted this way back before we ever laid eyes on that place. And you did too, Dean, so don't start playing hard to get now.'
'But -' Dean starts. 'You were so - you seemed like you were drugged, man.'
Sam laughs in his face.
'Dude, what do you think this is, the X-Files? That shit wasn't alien sex pollen or anything, you freak.'
Sam laughs harder, deep belly laughs that shake his whole body, and tightens his hold on Dean. Dean starts to laugh too, because this is the most surreal scene of his entire life, and then Sam kisses him again.
They'll probably have to talk about this, but Sam's not letting go, and Dean thinks that maybe it'll be all right.
Title: No such thing as alien sex-pollen
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: R
Genre: Wincest
Pairing/Characters: Sam/Dean
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. It's all Kripke and CW... and the Js own the pretty.
Beta: parenthetical is my awesome beta of JOY. Everything which is 'all right' in this fic is yours, darling, in every sense <3
Notes/Summary: Sam’s never shown the slightest hint of being interested in Dean before. He’s the normal one, the one who went to college and fell in love with a girl and isn’t kept awake at night wondering what his brother’s lips taste like.
This started life as a PWP, but then it... wasn't. Blame Sam. Feedback is adored <3
Dean fucking hates witches.
Okay, Willow was pretty hot, especially in that episode with the singing and the lesbian sex. But it's not like that turned out all that well, which in Dean's experience is pretty much par for the course where magic's concerned. It's impossible to avoid it totally - spells of one kind or another have saved their asses more than once - but Dean'll take a shotgun over a magic wand any day. There's enough supernatural shit in the world without stirring up more.
So he's particularly pissed to find himself slogging uphill through the mud in some gloomy woods, grisgris hanging round his neck and Sam muttering some crazy mumbo-jumbo Dean half-suspects he got from a freaking Dr. Seuss book.
The place they’re trying to find has some kind of altar, at least that’s what Sam thinks. There’ve been a lot of mysterious deaths around this part of the woods recently: folk turning up ripped to pieces or just dead of exhaustion. It sounded at first like they'd been hunted down by something, but when Dean and Sam had gotten a look at the most recent pair of bodies, it had become clear that the only thing which had attacked them was each other. The last time Dean saw injuries like that, it was connected to a ward put up by some pagan cult around their sacred spaces. Which was all well and good, except for the fact that people who resisted the compulsion to walk away tended to find themselves overcome by an irresistible urge to commit suicide. As far as Dean is concerned, the fact that there are people in the world idiotic enough to fix that kind of mojo - just to protect their freakin' magic toys, for fuck's sake - makes him want to commit suicide without any kind of compulsion
Anyway, he wishes that whoever set up the particular working they’re tracking today had done it somewhere less cold and wet, and more conveniently situated next to a decent road. Or - even better - had just picked somewhere so completely isolated that no one would have stumbled upon it in the first place. Then he and Sam could have just left it to work its will on raccoons or trees or whatever.
Dean sighs and slogs on up the hill.
It takes a fuck of a long time to find the goddamn altar. They wander up hill and down fucking dale, pushing through the undergrowth, jeans wicking up the moisture. Eventually it starts to get dark, trees looming over them against the pale twilit sky.
‘Jesus, Sam, did we miss the sign where it said we were about to start climbing Everest? There’s no way this shitty little hill should be taking so long to climb.’
Sam stops, hands working on his own grisgris so he can keep on warding off whatever magical influences might be trying to get at them.
‘You’re right, this is taking too long.’ Sam's brow furrows as he thinks, evidently trying to work out whether they could have taken a wrong turn somehow. Then he lets out a huff of annoyed breath.
‘Shit, Dean, there’s a misdirection spell on the place as well as whatever it is making people go crazy. How did we not think of that?’
Dean feels like an idiot, because now that Sam mentions it it’s totally obvious. They’ve come across this kind of spell before, the kind that makes you keep turning back on yourself, sends you round in a circle while never letting you notice you’ve gone past the same tree five times before. Most forests seem to have some kind of weak natural version of it, and it stands to reason that any even halfway-competent magic worker would take advantage of that.
Great. Now he has to get with the chanting as well. Dean starts up on the string of words that’ll let them see past the misdirection, and gets back to walking.
When they finally make their way to the centre of the spell - and once they know the misdirection’s there, it's easy to see which way they should be going - it’s clear that whoever set it up is long gone. Sure enough, there is an altar, but it’s half-overgrown with moss and - great - poison oak. Not far off, there’s also a house, low-roofed and tumble-down like something out of the nastier fairytales. When they break in, they find nothing but a few tins rusting on the shelves, labels faded and almost unreadable, and a sizeable family of small rodents living in the chewed-up bed. Seems like the Magic Circle checked out more than a few years ago.
Sam insists on chanting a few more spells, just in case all the decay they can see is some kind of very sophisticated glamour, but they both know that it’s the real deal. There’s a sense you get when someone or something’s actively working magic nearby, and it’s completely absent here, nothing but the last few grains of power running out through the hourglass.
They search the house and grounds fairly thoroughly for any sign of a body - sorcerers have a nasty tendency to stick around as ghosts, or worse - but find nothing. They torch the house anyway, just to be on the safe side. Once the flames die down enough that they can be sure the fire won't spread, they go to tackle the altar.
It’s a pretty slow job, because they’ve got to clear the poison oak out of the way before they can even get a good look at what they’re dealing with. Dean doesn’t mind taking a punch or even a knife wound in the name of the job from time to time, but he still remembers the feel of poison oak from the time he was fifteen and they all ran into a patch of it, too busy getting out of the way of a werewolf to look where they were going. Sam remembers it too, so for once neither teases the other about how Winchester men are supposed to be fearless.
When they finally get it all cleared off, they can see that the whole altar stone’s engraved with some fancy-looking writing: a mix of jagged runes and ornate calligraphy.
Sam lets out a sigh of disgust. 'Crap, why do these wackos always have to mix traditions? We'll be here all fucking night decoding that.'
Dean's about to echo the pissed-off sentiment when he spots a couple of lines he recognises, and grins instead. 'Aw, too hard for you, Sammy?'
Sam looks disbelieving. 'What, you just happened to pack the wacko-script primer?'
'Elementary, my dear Sam, elementary.' Sam still looks sceptical, and it's getting cold out here, so Dean relents. 'Saw the same thing years ago in Maine, working a job with Dad. Usual twisted shit, 'bringing out the heart's desire', blah, blah, blah.'
'Huh,' Sam says. 'Tell that to those poor bastards we saw in the mortuary: I'm sure ripping each other to bits was exactly what they desired.'
Dean snorts. 'Dontcha just love these mystical cults.'
They lay out their grisgris around the edges of the altar and Sam recasts his protective spells before they get to work with crowbars and mallets to pull the stone up. Usually this kind of crap has to be fuelled by something or other buried under the altar. They steel themselves, because more often than not that something turns out to be a blood sacrifice, and they're half-expecting to find the remains of a body there, or something even worse. So it's a pleasant surprise when they lift up the last section of stone and find nothing but a little jar of liquid, sealed up except for a bit of cotton which is obviously supposed to serve as a wick. Neither of them recognises the liquid, or has the slightest clue what it's supposed to do, but as Sam points out, they probably don't want to know anyway. Instead they surround the little bottle with circles of salt and holy water, then burn the shit. It goes up in flames quite happily, crackling away to nothing in a matter of minutes.
All in all, not their worst-ever job.
Well, except for the fact that they still have to walk back down the hill.
Sam stretches himself out when they get back to the Impala, easing muscles sore from carting around all the shit they'd needed for the job. He folds himself into the passenger seat and Dean marvels that little Sammy, his little brother who used to be always four steps behind him in any race, who used to have to ask him to reach up and open the big fridge at Pastor Jim’s because the handle was too high, could have grown into this ginormous man. Not for the first time, Dean feels the urge to put his arms around that long body, feel the muscles where there used to be soft little boy. That’s Not What They Do, though, so he just bitches about Sam getting mud in his car, then jumps into the driver’s side and sticks on a Dream Theater tape before Sam has the chance to start whinging about wanting to hear some “decent” music for a change.
Once they get moving, Sam’s quick to fall asleep, head lolling against the window. It occurs to Dean that most people would probably find it pretty hard to sleep like that, face pressed up against cold glass, head bumping every now and again when Dean takes a corner fast or the car hits a rough patch of road. Both of them have been sleeping like that since they were little kids, though, rocked in the motion of the Impala the way they should have been held in their momma’s arms. There’ve been times when Dean couldn’t sleep at all except when he was being carried along that way, when he’s gotten up out of an anonymous motel bed and headed for the familiar leather and steel of the car. He’s willing to bet that Sam feels the same way.
Sam’s head is tipped back, face in shadows and long neck exposed. Dean keeps his hands steady on the wheel, glancing over every so often to see the seashell whorl of his brother’s ear and the line of his jaw, sharp where it used to be baby round. It’s impossibly beautiful, a kind of beautiful Dean’s never seen in the hundreds of pretty girls they’ve met over the years, even the ones - like Cassie - who’d actually meant something to him. Not for the first time, Dean feels his cock stir in his jeans at the thought of touching his brother, of leaning over and running his tongue up that arch of neck, along the stubble of that razor-sharp jaw.
He turns away and concentrates on the road instead.
When they get back to the motel, Sam’s still sleeping. Dean turns off the engine and lets himself look for a long moment, drinking in that beauty before he has to go back to being Sam’s big brother again. He knows big brother is the only role he can ever have, but they’ve got to travel together, live together day and night, and if he doesn’t let himself feel the truth occasionally he’ll go mad. This isn’t the first time he’s looked down on a sleeping Sam, pressed his hand hard against the bulge in his jeans and acknowledged that he loves his brother in all the ways it’s possible to love a person.
It’s the first time Sam’s ever looked back up at him, though.
When Sam’s eyes snap open and lock gazes with his, Dean freezes. It would be easy enough to move, to jump out of the car and call some dare, to hide what's really going on. Somehow, though, it’s clear that Sam already knows what’s going on. He looks into Dean’s eyes, a steady, unblinking gaze that strips Dean naked, sees all his faults and fears and loves.
And this is certainly new, because Sam’s looking back at him with unmistakable lust.
The second the realisation hits, Dean’s up and out of the car without even noticing the movement, because there’s no way in hell that this is normal. Obviously that shit they burned - whatever it was - has cast some kind of mojo on them, because Sam’s never shown the slightest hint of being interested in Dean before. He’s the normal one, the one who went to college and fell in love with a girl and isn’t kept awake at night wondering what his brother’s lips taste like.
Dean rips open the trunk and starts searching for the grisgris and the laptop, because he knows Sam saved all the stuff on the spells he thought they might be facing. He’s cursing himself for an idiot for the second time that night, because Dad always taught them that you should both go into a situation prepared, that it’s no good only one of you knowing a ritual, because you never knew what shit might go down. But Dean had been out buying more ammo, and the herbs and shit for the grisgris, and they’d been in kind of a hurry. So, even though they’d gone through the basic plan in the car beforehand, there was a lot of complicated wordiness which he hadn’t had time to memorise. Shit shit shit. He powers on the computer, hoping like hell that Sam hasn’t saved all the stuff he needs under one of his dumb, impossible-to-guess passwords.
‘Dean.’
He jumps a mile high and spins round to find Sam right next to him, hair still mussed and untidy from sleep, eyes fixed on Dean in the same intense gaze he’d regarded him with in the car.
‘Hold it there, Sam,’ Dean says, and his voice comes out weird, scratchy and breathy like he hasn’t spoken for weeks. ‘I’m gonna fix this, just give me a minute, hold on.’
He tosses Sam one of the grisgris and his brother catches it automatically without moving his eyes from Dean.
‘Fix what, Dean?’ Sam says softly. ‘There’s nothing to fix.’ He takes a step closer and Dean flinches back like he’ll burn him.
‘Of course there’s something to fix, dumbass,’ he says roughly. ‘The last time I checked, brothers didn’t look at each other like they were the tastiest thing on the Playbunny buffet. That fucking altar’s put some kind of mojo on you, and we’re gonna fix it before it can do any damage.’
Sam laughs softly, wonderingly. His face is open and bright, relaxed like Dean hasn’t seen him in ages, and Dean wishes like hell he could just pull that pretty mouth down and kiss him.
‘I notice you didn’t say there was any mojo on you, Dean,’ Sam says, and his tone is whiskey and molasses, reminding Dean of warm breath and soft kisses in the dark.
‘Well, yeah, I’m not the one…’ Dean trails off, because he’s no idea what the hell he can say that’ll sound convincing. Not the one looking at his brother like he’d like to strip him naked right there and then? Not the one who’s fallen in love with the most inappropriate person ever? Yeah, right, Dean. Way to sound convincing.
‘Dean, tell the truth. You’ve wanted this for ages, haven’t you?’
Sam moves closer, looming over him, and Dean would love to deny it, to pretend he doesn’t even know what his brother’s talking about, but he knows he’s got no chance.
‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘I have.’
He says it quietly, voice so low he can hardly hear it himself, but it seems like Sam has no trouble understanding, because his face is right next to Dean’s now, one hand tipping Dean’s chin up gently so that he can look him in the eye.
‘So have I,’ Sam says simply, and kisses him.
It’s soft and strange and lovely, like slipping into a dream and waking up all at once. Dean’s still dimly aware of all the reasons why this is a terrible idea, the underlying guilt of sick and wrong and taking advantage murmuring at the back of his mind, but it’s almost drowned out by the roaring in his ears, the feeling of complete rightness as his brother kisses him.
Sam’s lips are soft, as soft as any girl’s that Dean’s ever kissed, and there’s no slick of lipstick or powder or gloss, just sweet hot Sammy, warm breath with the sleep-heavy smell that Dean’s known all his life. Sam’s jaw rubs rough against Dean’s own, and he curls his hand around Dean’s head, cupping his skull in his palm and rubbing his thumb into the nape of his neck.
Sam keeps on kissing him until they’re both gasping for breath, then draws away, hand still holding onto Dean’s head, and looks into his eyes. Dean tries to pull himself together, to send this thing back the way it ought to go, but when he draws breath to speak he sees Sam’s eyes change, a look of hurt and betrayal shadowing them, and he can’t do it. Even if it’s the most fucked-up thing in their utterly fucked-up lives, there’s just no way he can stand here and trample Sammy underfoot because of some abstract notion about right and wrong. Dean’s the one who has always scoffed at normal, said the rules didn’t apply to people like them. He can’t change his tune now, and he doesn’t even want to.
‘I mean it, Dean,’ Sam says seriously. ‘This isn’t a one-time thing for me.
He leans in and kisses Dean again, and this time Dean sets himself free, opening to Sam’s tongue, sucking and licking at his bottom lip. Sam pulls him in close until their bodies are sealed together, Dean nestled into his brother’s embrace. He has to tip his face up to keep kissing Sam, which feels weird, but somehow makes it right as well. This isn’t his baby brother he’s kissing, it’s another grown man with his own thoughts and feelings and ideas, and Sam’s never been one to just go along with whatever anyone else wanted him to do, so Dean should trust that that’s not what he’s doing now.
Sam presses closer, pushing him against the trunk of the Impala, and Dean’s suddenly and overwhelmingly aware of his cock, hard against his brother’s thigh. Sam shifts and pushes his own cock up against Dean’s: hot, delicious friction through their layers of denim.
Dean lets out a moan, and then something else occurs to him. He pulls away with difficulty.
‘Sam, stop.’
‘Don’t want to.’
Sam rubs against his thigh and tries to move back in to kiss him again.
‘Dean, I really mean it. This isn’t a spell, you’re not taking advantage of me, I want this.’
‘I know,’ Dean says weakly. ‘Only - Sam - we’re kissing in the middle of the Super8 parking lot.’
Sam pulls away and looks around wildly, as if they had been teleported into the lot without their knowing.
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘You think we should go inside?’
They lock the car and get up to their room without either of them really knowing how. Dean feels light-headed, and he’s still not completely convinced that this isn’t all some kind of crazy sex mojo put on them when they were up in the woods, but he can’t bring himself to care.
The second the door closes behind them, Sam’s on Dean again, pressing him up against it and kissing and tonguing him as if he’d like to crawl under Dean’s skin. Dean brings his hands up to clutch at Sam’s hair, working his fingers through the long strands and tugging gently, rubbing at Sam’s scalp. When he rubs at the base of Sam’s skull, curling his fingers around the knob of bone there, Sam lets out a cry and bucks his hips up, pressing his cock against Dean's thigh. Dean does it again, pushing his own hips forward until their cocks are lined up against each other, hot and hard and nestled up like that’s how they’re meant to be.
They still for a second, clinging together and breathing hard, and then they’re moving again, frantically peeling off each other’s clothes and staggering over to the bed.
They’ve seen each other naked a million times, but never like this, flushed and rosy, cocks hard and bobbing against their stomachs. Dean pushes Sam down onto the bed and gazes at him, long lines and smooth planes, nipples standing out dark against the gold of his skin. He’s never done this before, not with a guy, and he’s suddenly afraid, because he wants to do right by Sammy, to make this perfect if they’re going to do it at all.
Sam reaches up and strokes one hand down Dean’s thigh, and this might be new territory, but Dean’s always been a quick study. He sinks down onto the bed next to Sam, curls one arm round his waist and licks tentatively at one nut-dark nipple. He’s rewarded by Sam’s moan and the feel of the flesh hardening under his touch, and strokes his tongue across harder, sucking and nipping at the skin.
‘Please, Dean, please, yes,’ Sam whimpers, grabbing at Dean’s head and back and running his hands across all the skin he can reach.
Dean keeps on kissing him, running his tongue down the long, long expanse of torso, chest to belly. He nips gently at the place where Sam’s waist curves round to his back, provoking another stream of fuckyesplease, then slowly, slowly, inches downwards.
He stops just short of Sam's cock, hot breath ghosting onto the head. This really is new territory, no comparisons with anything he’s ever done with girls, and Dean sure as hell likes having his own cock sucked, but he has no idea how to go about doing it for someone else. He’d always thought that it would be easier for a guy, that knowing what felt good on your own body would make it obvious what to do for someone else, but here he is looking at his brother’s cock, hard and big and totally mysterious. Sam’s whimpering with want, but he seems to sense that Dean needs a moment, because he doesn’t make any move to touch him or push his hips up closer, just lies there waiting to see what Dean will do.
Dean takes a deep breath, then licks one long stripe down the side of Sam’s cock. It’s hot and impossibly smooth, hard flesh burning under silken skin. Dean licks again, working his tongue under the head and then across it, lapping up the pearl of moisture there. Sam tastes salty and sweet, his come slippery on Dean’s tongue, and he moans and shifts when Dean’s mouth closes around him, pressing himself into the mattress.
Dean has a wild moment where he thinks Oh fuck, we’re really doing this, and then Sam’s cock is sliding past his lips, heavy on his tongue. It’s hard to coordinate teeth and tongue and breathing, and Dean grabs onto Sam’s hips so that he can keep control, stop his brother thrusting up into his mouth. Sam’s crying out, a continuous stream of fuck please Dean yes, more and more incoherent as Dean gets the hang of this and starts to move for real, sliding his mouth around his brother’s dick. Suddenly he feels hotwetsalty spurting up into his mouth and he pulls back, coughing and spluttering while Sam lets out a choked moan. He wraps his hand around Sam’s cock and moves with him, the thrusts of Sam's hips jerky and uneven as the last few waves of his orgasm ride through him.
They lie still, dazed and dizzy, Dean sprawled half across Sam's chest. He's still hard as all fuck, but he can taste Sam on his tongue, feel the wet stickiness of his come smeared across palm and face and chest, and he doesn't mind if he never moves again as long as he can go on feeling this.
Sam has other ideas, though, pulling Dean up for a kiss, licking his own come from Dean's mouth, and oh god the thought alone makes Dean groan and reconsider the part about never needing to move again. He thrusts his hips against Sam, rubbing his cock into the warm hollow of his brother's hip. He doesn't know quite where to go from here: it's one thing to give himself to Sam, but this is something else entirely. He pushes again against Sam's warmth and this time Sam responds, deepening the kiss and sliding his hand down between their bodies.
When Sam closes his fingers around his dick, Dean actually stops breathing for a second, because oh sweet fucking jesus, that's his brother's long fingers wrapped around him, warm and firm and sliding round to rub under the head. It's clear that Sam's as new to this kind of thing as Dean is, because he's kind of clumsy, the angle all wrong, but none of that matters when it's Sam's callused palm skating against Dean's skin, Sam's heat and strength all held behind his urgent desire not to hurt Dean, to make him feel good. All Dean can think is Sam yes more and he arches and bucks up into his brother's hand, clutches at the bedclothes and Sam's skin and whatever he can reach. It only takes a few thrusts, a few slip-slides up and down, and then Sam kisses him again and whispers Dean, and that's enough to send him over the edge, gasping and yelping and spurting all over Sam's hand and both their bellies. The feeling spreads out across him, washing over nerves and skin and leaving him boneless and open.
For a long time they lie together, relaxed and sated, Sam's fingers brushing mindlessly through the fine hairs at the nape of Dean's neck.
Then Dean thinks again of that altar, the bottle they destroyed, and the happy warmth rushes out of him and is replaced with a cold heaviness in the pit of his stomach. It's fear of the kind he's felt only a few times in his life, a creeping fear that's there because he still can't believe that Sam would have done any of this unless that job had worked some kind of mojo on him. He can't say that to Sam without making it sound as if he's denying that he wanted what's just happened between them, though, and there's no way that Dean can do that. Even if he probably should.
They'll have to deal with all this at some point, but right now they're sleepy and satisfied, and Dean thinks maybe he should just enjoy the moment, this one moment in his life when he's got exactly what he wants, and forces himself to relax. It's too late, though - he feels Sam's hand tighten on his shoulder and realises his brother has already noticed the tension that washed over him. He should have known better than to think he could hide his feelings from Sam. Anyone else, no problem, but not Sammy.
'Dean.' Sam's voice is low and steady. 'Dean, look at me.'
Dean doesn't want to look, doesn't want to see whatever's in Sam's eyes, regret or disgust or - please no - pity. There's something about Sam's tone which is impossible to disobey, though, so he forces himself to turn, look up into his brother's face.
'I know what you're thinking, Dean, and you're wrong.'
Sam looks... happy. Serious, and maybe worried, but happy too, and Sam's always worn his feelings openly, written on his face in a way Dean can't even conceive of doing. Dean doesn't know what he was expecting, but it's not this.
'I know you're thinking that this is all down to some kind of hex, dumbass, but it's not. Maybe - maybe - whatever shit was under that altar let me tell the truth for once. If you're looking for an explanation, you can have that. But I meant it when I said I wanted this way back before we ever laid eyes on that place. And you did too, Dean, so don't start playing hard to get now.'
'But -' Dean starts. 'You were so - you seemed like you were drugged, man.'
Sam laughs in his face.
'Dude, what do you think this is, the X-Files? That shit wasn't alien sex pollen or anything, you freak.'
Sam laughs harder, deep belly laughs that shake his whole body, and tightens his hold on Dean. Dean starts to laugh too, because this is the most surreal scene of his entire life, and then Sam kisses him again.
They'll probably have to talk about this, but Sam's not letting go, and Dean thinks that maybe it'll be all right.