FIC: Treat Her Like a Lady (SPN, Sam/Dean)
Title: Treat Her Like a Lady
Author: causeways
Fandom: SPN
Rating: R
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Word Count: 6,042
Disclaimer: All characters, situations, etc. belong to Eric Kripke and others. Except for the demon poodle. The demon poodle is mine.
Summary: You can never tell when a conversation with a really smokin' woman is going to come back and bite you in the ass. Dean gets cursed into dating Sam.
Author's Notes: This is for walkawayslowly, since basically it is all her fault. Thanks to balefully and dark_reaction for reading this over and to memphis86 for betaing.
Edit as of Feb. 12, 2010: There's also a Russian translation now, thanks to lmonombrel! It's here (on LJ) or here (off-LJ).
Treat Her Like a Lady
It's not that Dean's really a jerk to women. Dean loves women. He just loves them in very specific circumstances-which is to say, in diner bathrooms or hotel beds or the back seat of the Impala, although not that last one so often lately, since Dean's getting a little old for that sort of thing. He just doesn't really live the kind of life that would allow him to wine and dine a woman before he sleeps with her; that doesn't mean he won't respect her in the morning. If he doesn't call, it's not because he doesn't want to see her again; it's just that he and Sam are probably three states away already.
Sam made Dean slow down for a while after he got Dean out of Hell, but it's been a couple years since then. There are still all kinds of spirits to vanquish and creatures to kill. They still move around a lot, so it's really not like Dean has the time for anything long-term with a woman. That's just how it is, and Dean's not ashamed of it.
Four days after he gets drunk in a Tallahassee bar and spends two hours explaining that philosophy to a hot blonde, though, Dean's beginning to wonder if maybe he shouldn't have been quite so quick with the sharing. She'd seemed really eager to hear what he had to say, but really it's just more proof for one of the eternal maxims: you can never tell when a conversation with a really smokin' woman is going to come back and bite you in the ass.
Fucking witches.
*
Sam and Dean leave Tallahassee and drive to Pigeon Hollow, Arkansas to check out a haunted church. The hotel clerk has chaw stashed in his left cheek and his face screams, "I know what you boys are up to and I don't like it." Dean just grins at him and keeps an arm slung over Sam's shoulders the whole time they're checking in.
"You can stop now," Sam says after they're back in the parking lot.
"Huh?" Dean says, then realizes he's still got his arm around Sam. "Oh yeah, sorry." He slides his arm off and whistles, carrying his duffel bag inside.
*
They're standing at the register at a diner in Oklahoma when Sam says, "You know my wallet's on the other side, right?"
Dean stares at him blankly. "What are you . . ."
Dean looks down. His hand's in Sam's back pocket, tucked against Sam's ass.
"Ha, um," Dean says. "How did that get there?" It's not a hypothetical question; he honestly doesn't know.
Sam's eyebrows shoot up. "What do you mean, how did that get there?"
The waitress who's ringing them up grins at Dean. "Y'all are cute," she says, and knocks five bucks off their total.
"She thinks we're cute, Sam," Dean says once they're outside the diner. His hand's firmly back in his own pocket.
Sam sighs. "You're going to get us shot one of these days."
"Nah," Dean says. "Girls think we're adorable."
"It's not the girls I'm worried about," Sam says, but by then they're in the car and Dean lets Sam pick the music, and that's plenty enough to make him stop talking.
*
In Kansas City, Dean parks the car outside Plaza III Steakhouse and says, "Dinnertime, Sammy."
Sam's staring at him like he's lost his mind. "You sure this is our kind of place?"
"Sure," Dean says.
"There was a diner like three blocks back-"
"Aww, come on, you know you like steak," Dean says, locking the car and heading through the door.
The place is packed with well-dressed people and snooty-looking waiters, but Dean slips the maitre d' a twenty and the guy's cool disinterest flips right over into a welcoming grin. "Table or booth, sirs?"
"Booth," Dean says, just as Sam says, "Table," but Dean gave the maitre d' the money and he sure does know it. They get a booth with a great view of the live music in the back.
"See? This place is awesome," Dean says.
"Steaks cost forty dollars." Sam's pretty much whimpering, but whatever, John Rochester's brand new MasterCard can handle it.
The waiter walks over in his penguin suit, white button-down and black pants all starched to death. "Can I get you gentlemen something to drink?"
"We'll both have a PBR," Dean says, grinning as the waiter doesn't even bother to write it down. "And we both want the T-bone, medium rare."
"Very good, sir," the waiter says, making off with their menus.
Across the table Sam's gaping at Dean. "Are you-did you just order for me?"
"Was that not what you wanted?" Dean says, puzzled. "You'd been talking about wanting a T-bone for like a week."
"Yeah, okay, but . . ." Sam stops talking, because he totally doesn't have a leg to stand on, and he knows it. When the T-bones show up, they're completely delicious.
*
Sam's busy researching a case when they're in Independence, but Dean used their last pair of un-ripped boxers to wipe ghoul guts off his face a couple days ago and going commando is really starting to suck, so he hits up the Wal-Mart. They're having a sale on five-packs of cotton briefs, two for ten dollars; Dean stocks up on those while he's at it, grabbing a few other things on the way out.
"I broke the case," Sam says when Dean walks in the door. "It's not a ghost. It's somebody's crazy old aunt they're keeping in the attic."
"People are freaks," Dean says. "But congrats, Scooby. Good sleuthing, have a prize." He tosses Sam a pack of tightie-whities.
"What're those for?" Sam says.
"You see these holes? They're for your legs. You stick your legs through them, and then you've got your ass and your dick covered." Dean grins at him.
"I meant the flowers, jerk," Sam says.
Dean looks down at his hand. He's holding a bouquet of daisies. "Oh. These flowers. I got them on the way out." He holds the flowers out and waits for Sam to take them from him.
Sam finally does, staring at them warily, like they're going to jump out of his hand and start gnawing on his face any minute. "Um, okay, but why?"
"They were on sale," Dean says defensively.
"I'm still not seeing quite . . ." Sam trails off, looking between Dean and the flowers. "Oh my God, you bought me flowers."
"They were like $3.99! I'm really not seeing the problem here."
"Okay, dude, are we having a secret prank war again? Because if we are, you win. Can we stop this now?" Sam looks way more shaken up than the situation merits.
"We're not having a secret prank war," Dean tells him. "I just wanted to buy some flowers. Is it that weird?"
"Yes," Sam says. "You bought flowers and yesterday you took me out for steak and oh my God, this is like the definition of weird, Dean! This like taking every weird thing that's ever happened to us and balling it all up into one big ball of weird, except weirder!"
"It's just a friggin' bunch of daisies, Sam. It's not like I asked to pee in your mouth or something."
Sam gags a little. "Be serious for a second, Dean. There's something going on here. You're cursed or marked or else you're just totally losing your fucking mind-"
"I'm not cursed, Sam," Dean says. "Give me the damned flowers, and let's go to bed." Dean sticks the daisies in the ice bucket with some water and changes into a new pair of boxers to go to sleep, ignoring Sam's muttering about delusional crazy people and how Sam is going to choke them in the night. If Dean were cursed, he totally would have noticed it.
*
The next morning, Dean tries to open the driver's side door and discovers that he can't touch the handle. The harder he tries, the faster his hand slips away from the door, like those elementary school experiments with two magnets, the north ends repelling each other. He spends about thirty seconds fighting against it before he heads around to the passenger side to see if the universe has gone mad on that side of the car, too, but there's no problem there; he can touch the handle and open that door just fine.
Sam comes out of the motel room and stops dead. "Are you opening doors for me now?"
"What? No!" Dean says. "I was just-there was something wrong with my door, I was trying to-"
"Never mind," Sam says darkly, getting in and slamming the door shut. "Never freaking mind. There's no use arguing with crazy people."
"You're crazy people," Dean tells him, going back around to the driver's side. But he's really starting to wonder about himself: when he tentatively reaches for the door handle now, he can touch it on the first try. Fuckin' bizarre.
*
There's a diner in the middle of Missouri that serves the best coffee Dean's ever tasted, hands down. It's in the middle of nowhere, a couple hours out of the way from where they're going, but Dean makes straight for it. Dean drinks three cups of coffee with his burger and pie, and Sam does the same-Sam loves this coffee just as much as Dean does. They each get a big cup to go and make for Wichita.
About thirty miles west of the diner, Sam reaches for the cup holder and swears. "Fuck! I left my coffee on the roof of the car."
"Shit," Dean says. "That sucks."
Sam frowns. "Whatever."
"No, look," Dean says. "Here, you can have mine."
It takes a second for Dean's own words to get through his head, and by then he's sure he looks just as wide-eyed as Sam does.
"Oh my God," Sam says. "Something is seriously-"
"Call Bobby," Dean says grimly.
*
"Bobby wants to talk to you," Sam says, holding the cell phone up.
Dean pulls over and takes the phone. "Yeah?"
"From what Sam told me, it sounds like a curse, all right. You piss anybody off lately, Dean?"
"Not that I know of-oh, fuck, it was that bitch in Tallahassee. She was muttering something in Latin as I left."
"Which bitch in Tallahassee?" Bobby asks.
"Random woman at a bar. I was talking to her, asked her if she wanted to, y'know, and she said that most women like it when guys ask them on a date before trying to sleep with them." Dean can already hear Sam rolling his eyes. "I said that never stopped me, and she said something like, 'One of these days you're going to learn to treat a woman right.' It had to have been her."
Sam says, horrified, "Treat a woman right?"
Dean covers his ear with his hand so he can hear Bobby saying, "She's got a point there, Dean. Even if I could fix this one, I don't know that I would."
"What do you mean, even if you could fix it?" Dean says.
"It should just wear off on its own," Bobby says. "How long has it been?"
"Four days."
Bobby snorts. "You must've pissed her off good. It's hard to make this kind of stuff last more than thirty-six hours."
Dean's mouth falls open. "You don't mean I'm stuck like this?"
"Nah. Call me back if it doesn't wear off by the end of the week," Bobby says, laughing as he hangs up the phone.
Dean snaps the cell closed. "Well, shit," he says.
*
"It's not that big a deal," Dean says over dinner. "Right?"
"You just paid a violin player to come over here and serenade me," Sam says. "He sang about the power of our love. So no, Dean, I'd say this totally isn't a big deal at all."
"How do you know he was singing about the power of our love?" Dean says. "It was in Italian!"
"The little kissing noises were kind of a dead giveaway," Sam says, rubbing at his eyes with the palms of his hands.
"He probably sings that song for everyone," Dean says. "Look over there."
Across the restaurant the violinist is making the same exact kissy face at the man and woman he's currently playing for.
"See?" Dean turns back to his dinner. "Nothing out of the ordinary."
"Um, Dean?" Sam nods toward the musician.
Dean looks over at the man and the woman again. They're making out enthusiastically across the table as the violinist applauds.
"Not the point," Dean says, stabbing his veal. "Totally not the point."
"Then what is the . . . oh my God," Sam says. "You didn't get cursed into dating women. You got cursed into dating me."
"I what?"
"So when you kept ordering for me and taking my coat and-I'm not a woman, Dean!"
"I know you're not a woman, you're my brother!" Dean clamps his mouth shut.
It's too late: the whole restaurant's already staring. Sam bangs his head against the back of the booth, then flags down a waiter. "Check, please."
As they exit the restaurant, Sam says, "You don't need to help me with my coat, Dean. I've got it. I'm also not a woman."
"It's not me doing any of this! It's the curse!"
"Oh sure, it's the curse!" Sam says, glaring at Dean. "God, I thought infiltrating that cult that made us shave all the hair off our bodies was going to be the weirdest thing that ever happened to me, but no!"
"You know what, can we have this argument in the car?" Dean says, pulling the door open and stepping outside-only he doesn't actually make it outside. He tries again and still doesn't get anywhere, and it's just like the other day with the Impala's door.
"I can't go through," Dean says.
"What do you mean, you can't go through?"
"What does it look like, Sam?" Dean tries three more times; still no luck.
"Oh, for the love of-" Sam gets behind him and pushes, hands against the small of Dean's back; Dean still can't get through the door, not even when his blood's pounding with exertion.
"This is fucking insane," Sam says, panting. He shoves Dean one more time, so hard that Dean slips to the side and Sam goes spinning out the door, barely keeping his balance. As soon as Sam's across the threshold, the force field disappears and Dean stumbles out after him.
"What the hell was . . .?" Sam looks at Dean. The answer dawns on Sam's face at the same exact moment Dean gets it. "Don't even-"
Dean grins. "Ladies first."
"-say it. Oh my God."
"This is the funniest thing that's ever happened to me in my entire life," Dean tells him. "I just want you to know that."
*
"I'm going to punch you in the face if you don't stop laughing."
Dean tries to hold off; he really does. A chuckle still escapes and then he can't stop himself from howling. "The curse thinks you're a woman. When I'm ninety years old and in the rest home and I'm laughing my ass off for what seems like no reason, just know that this will still be what I'm laughing about."
*
"You sure you still think this is funny?" Sam says.
"It's still funny."
"That's the third time you've held a door for me today."
"Still funny."
"Also, you gave me the first shower."
"Still funny."
"And the last piece of cherry pie at lunch," Sam adds.
"Okay, that wasn't funny, but what was I supposed to do about it, Sam? Try to resist? I thought about eating it myself and the curse friggin' electric shocked me!"
"Fine, so resisting the curse isn't the answer! But seriously, shouldn't it have worn off by now?"
"We've still got two days before Bobby said to call him back," Dean says. "But if you really want me to explain that to him that the curse is making me treat you like a woman-"
"Never mind."
"If it's really bothering you, I can try to stop," Dean says.
"No, it's okay, I'm good."
*
They're walking down Main Street in Lincoln, Illinois when Sam says, "Okay, can you quit it?"
Dean stops whistling. "Better?"
"That's not what I mean. Dean, you're holding my hand!"
Dean looks down. Their fingers are intertwined. "Huh," he says. And then he starts whistling again.
"Dean." Sam tries to pull his hand away; Dean doesn't let go. "Are you doing this on purpose?"
"I wasn't," Dean says, tightening his grip. A woman with a pair of little kids grins at him. He grins right back.
Sam doesn't even notice the attention. "But you are now?"
Dean takes a good look at him. Sam's cheeks are flushed. "You're embarrassed!" Dean says, delighted. "No, wait," he adds when Sam doesn't immediately reply. "You actually like this?"
"Dean." Sam struggles to loose his hand again.
"No way," Dean says, squeezing Sam's fingers. "All this time you've been wanting a big, strong man to take care of you . . ."
"I'm three inches taller than you!"
Dean grins at him sideways and slides in closer. "Don't worry, baby. I'll keep you safe."
"Don't make me punch you," Sam says, flushing all the way down his heck, but he doesn't move to pull his hand away again. Dean totally won this time.
*
But Sam's not the only one turning red the next morning when he wakes up next to a dozen roses and a heart-shaped box of chocolate.
"Have you totally lost your mind?" Sam says.
"It's the curse!" Dean yells, making a break for the bathroom. He takes way longer in the shower than he really needs to.
When Dean gets out, though, Sam's snatching his hand away from something under the covers. Dean throws the sheets back: it's the chocolate.
"You already spent the money! I might as well eat it!"
"And you think I'm the freak," Dean says.
"I can't believe you bought me chocolate! And roses!"
"I can't believe you liked it!"
"You know what?" Sam snaps, then takes a deep breath. "Never mind. You want some?" He holds the box of chocolate out to Dean.
Dean stuffs a couple in his mouth. They're crunchy milk chocolate, with lots of caramel. "Huh," he says. "These are actually pretty good."
"Can we stop freaking out now?" Sam says.
Dean grins. "Just keep feeding me chocolate and I'll do whatever you want, baby."
"Don't call me baby," Sam mutters, passing him the chocolate.
*
In the car after lunch Dean takes the seatbelt in Sam's hand and helps him snap it into the buckle.
"What the hell are you doing?" Sam says.
"It's the curse!"
"So the curse thinks I'm a woman and an invalid?" Sam's voice is a good octave higher than it's been since he was fifteen.
"No! Maybe! I don't know!" When Dean looks down, his hand is still resting against Sam's hipbone. He jerks it away.
"This curse is really starting to freak me out," Sam says.
"Starting to?" Dean doesn't wait for a reply. He turns the radio on and lets the music drown Sam out.
*
The only room left in Minooka, Illinois has a single queen bed.
"There's a race in Joliet tomorrow," says the woman behind the desk. "NASCAR fans are nuts. The next room you're going to find is a hundred miles south of here. You taking this one?"
It's already ten p.m. and they've been driving all day. "We'll take it," Dean says, sliding his credit card across the counter.
The lone bed is right in the middle of the room. Dean stares at it. Sam stares at it. Dean stares at Sam staring at it.
"I'm not going to jump you in your sleep!" Dean says.
"What?"
"You were staring at me like you thought I was going to-never mind! Forget I said it!"
"Why would I think you were going to jump me in my sleep?"
"I don't know!" Dean yells. "The curse could be doing it!"
"The curse is making you date me, Dean, not rape me in the night!"
"Never mind! Let's just take deep breaths and go to sleep!"
"Fine!" Sam says, pulling back the covers.
"Fine!" Dean agrees, getting in the bed.
They go to sleep on opposite sides of the bed, with as much space between them as they can get. Dean keeps his eyes open for as long as he can, staring across the bed at Sam and making sure that the curse doesn't take hold of him and make him grab Sam in the night.
*
In the morning Dean wakes up spooned around Sam. Dean's got morning wood, and Sam is rubbing his ass against it.
"Gyah!" Dean yells, scrambling to get away and falling off the bed. "What the fuck are you doing?"
Sam blinks his eyes open. "Huh? S'early, Dean."
"Never mind! Nothing happened!" Dean's in the bathroom with the door closed before Sam can wake up all the way. He beats off quickly in the shower and doesn't think about anything at all while he does. Everything's fine.
*
The diner in Deerwood, Minnesota is packed at lunchtime, not a single booth left in the place. The waitress points them to a table in the back corner, squeezed in near the bathroom door.
"Don't even think about it," Sam says, sitting down abruptly before Dean ever could have had the chance to pull Sam's chair out.
"Wasn't gonna," Dean replies, watching Sam read the menu. Dean looks around the room, catalogs the locals. Lots of them have onion rings, so that's what Dean gets: a large order of those; a burger; cherry pie. Sam gets the meatloaf.
"You see that dude over there, with the overalls?" Dean nods in the guy's direction. "He's had barbeque sauce on his face for five minutes now, hasn't noticed a thing."
Sam doesn't look at the guy. Instead he says, "Do you think you could maybe keep your feet on your side of the table?"
Dean looks down. Their feet are all entangled. "I wasn't doing it on purpose," he argues. "There's not much space! My legs might get cramped!"
"Your legs," Sam says darkly, tucking his feet under the seat.
Dean tries to keep his feet to his side of the table, but there's nothing for it; there's no room. Every time he shifts, trying to keep his legs tucked back, his ankles rub against Sam's. It makes Sam jerk away; it makes Dean's stomach jump each time he does.
"Screw this," Dean says finally. "Put your feet down and stay still already."
Sam's silent for a couple of minutes before he says, horrified, "Are you playing footsie with me?"
"It's just a small space!"
"Fine!" Sam says. "Okay! Then just stay still!"
"Okay!"
Dean can't help fidgeting a little. Sam doesn't comment again, but every time their legs brush Sam's jaw twitches and his face turns red. So does Dean's.
It's the curse. And the curse fucking sucks.
*
It's not just the curse that's out to get them anymore. It's the entire universe.
They're trying to save a little old lady from her own possessed teacup poodle-like, possessed with an actual demon, although what the demon thinks it's going to accomplish from inside the body of a tiny dog, Dean doesn't know. Beyond yap and howl like a banshee all day and all night until someone finally shows up to do the thing in with a gardening trowel to the back of the head, that is; and that's exactly what Dean's planning on doing, trowel poised and ready, three-two-one die little doggy, when the little old lady yells, "No!" and runs at Dean, brandishing a frying pan.
"No, wait, Dean!" Sam yells as Dean scrambles out of the way of the frying pan, slips on a puddle on the kitchen floor, grabs for Sam, and pulls Sam crashing down with him. Sam's chest heaves as he gasps for breath, his thigh pressed between Dean's legs. Dean's in the same room as a demon in the form of a teacup poodle and a little old lady who's about to brain him and Sam with a frying pan, and somehow Dean's cock chooses that exact moment, pressed against his brother's thigh, to twitch.
Dean tries to scramble out from under him, but Sam already felt it, his mouth gone wide with surprise. There's not a single thing in the world that could make this moment suck more.
Until something warm and wet seeps through Dean's pants. Dean looks down. The demon dog is pissing on his ankle.
"Motherfucking fuck-" Dean swears.
The little old lady cackles. "Shows what you get for messing with Toffington!"
Sam manages to convince the little old lady to put the frying pan down and give them another chance to exorcise the beast. They distract it with a can of wet dog food. It doesn't even glance up once while they're chanting the Latin until the demon's already pouring out; after that it sticks its face right back in the bowl and keeps on eating.
Dean peers into the creature's soulless black eyes-if it weren't for the fact that he'd just seen the demon leave, he would have sworn they'd never exorcised it at all.
Dean's still shaking his head as they get in the car. "Fucking yippy dogs. I knew they were demons. Friggin' peed on my-"
"About what happened in there," Sam says. "That was just random, right? Heat of the, er."
"Battle," Dean supplies. "Against the agents of evil. Didn't mean anything, total coincidence, can we never talk about this again?"
"Awesome idea," Sam says.
"Great," Dean says, and gets right on pretending that the whole thing never happened.
*
Sam ignores Dean the whole next day. He answers in single words or grunts, but he won't look Dean in the face, and it's fucking stupid, is what it is, because it's not like Dean wanted his cock to twitch right then; it's not like it was because of Sam-or okay, say it was because of Sam, but that's the curse thinking Sam is a woman. Dean loves women, all kinds of women, loves their breasts and their pussies and their long, soft hair, loves to fuck them from behind while they brace against the Impala and Dean reaches around to grab Sam's cock-
Anyway, the point is, Dean loves women, and it's just the curse that's got him confused, so really Sam can stop being a little bitch any time he wants.
*
By evening they're in Chicago. Sam stabs his way through dinner, still keeping the silence up even though they're eating some of the best burgers Dean's ever tasted, and Dean can't fucking take it. He gets a room at the first place he finds-a hotel, all kind of ritzy, but Dean's too busy with getting ready to punch Sam in the face to think about the hotel. Dean just wants to get a rise out of him, make Sam look at him, so the moment they get into the room, Dean shoves Sam back against the door, hands on Sam's chest.
"What the fuck is your deal?" Dean says. "Friggin' talk to me, Sam. I can't get in your head if you don't tell me what's going-"
"Oh my God," Sam says, his eyes sliding away from Dean's face and focusing over Dean's shoulder. "Dean, you have to . . ."
Dean turns around as Sam trails off, and takes in the room: the gauzy curtains on the windows; the pale pink walls; the plush carpet with a trail of rose petals leading directly to the enormous heart-shaped bed covered in more rose petals and bright red satin.
Dean groans. "You've got to be fucking kidding me. They gave us the honeymoon suite?"
There are pink ribbons tied around flower vases on the nightstand. There is a bottle of champagne and a bowl of strawberries on the side table. In the background Marvin Gaye is singing "Let's Get It On."
"Seriously?" Dean says.
Sam moves away from Dean's grip and starts sweeping rose petals off the bed.
"What are you doing?" Dean says.
"It's a big bed," Sam says. "We can just-we'll get it cleared off, and we'll sleep on opposite sides, and it's not a big deal!"
"What's not a big deal?"
"This whole curse thing!" Sam says, shoving the flower petals away. "It's not a big deal!"
"Then why are you freaking out?" Dean says.
"I'm not freaking out!"
"No, you're just having a panic attack. That's not freaking out at all. Got it." Dean moves toward the bed. "I don't get what the hell there is to-"
Dean sees the pair of satin bathrobes folded neatly at the edge of the bed just as his foot comes down on top of them. He barrels forward, hitting Sam with full force and sending them both sprawling onto the bed, the breath knocked out of Dean; he wheezes for air, then opens his eyes: he's lying on top of Sam just like they were in the kitchen with the demon poodle, Sam wide-eyed beneath him.
Dean opens his mouth to say he slipped, he didn't mean it-and he leans down and kisses Sam instead.
Dean pulls back immediately, says, "Shit," and tries to scramble away.
Sam grabs him by the arm. "Dean?"
"It's just the curse!" Dean says. "It's making me insane! I didn't ever want this before! I mean, I never . . ."
Never wanted Sam before, but when Sam was sixteen and got his biggest growth spurt, Dean jerked off to the sight of Sam's bare back for weeks. Never wanted Sam before, but when Sam was twenty-two, out of college and back on the road, Dean wanted to pull Sam close and comfort him in ways that made his stomach turn with guilt. Never wanted Sam before, but when Sam was twenty-four Dean walked in on him jerking off in the shower with his eyes closed, and Dean went back into the motel room, took his cock in his hand and gripped it the same way Sam had been doing-slow on the upstroke, cupping his hand around the head-and he came with Sam's name on his tongue, and it hadn't meant anything, he'd told himself it hadn't-
"It isn't the curse," Dean says, swallowing. "Sam, this is fucking crazy and you can punch me in the face if you want-but Sam, this. It's not because of the curse."
Sam tightens his grip on Dean's arm. "What do you mean?"
"I-" Dean closes his eyes, then opens them again. "I've wanted this for a long time. Before the curse, I just didn't know it."
Sam keeps his grip on Dean's arm, staring at him for a long moment. Finally he raises his free hand and touches it to Dean's neck-a slow touch, and Dean can't help leaning into it. Sam looks at him, eyes dark, and says, "Are you sure?"
Dean considers it, turns the question over in his head, and the only answer he comes up with, every time, is, "Yeah." He says it quietly, a word that he could take back at any moment, but he doesn't, and Sam pulls Dean's head down and kisses him on the mouth.
Sam's lips are barely parted and he makes a low sound in his throat as Dean's hands come up to cup his head. Dean pushes his tongue into Sam's mouth and shifts his legs to gain a better angle, his cock rubbing down on Sam's.
Sam arches up, his cock already hard, and says against Dean's mouth, "Wanted this, too, Dean-God, you have no idea-"
Dean moves a hand down Sam's side and over to his hip. He finds the edge of Sam's jeans and says, "Can I?"
"Yeah," Sam says. "Fuck yeah, you too-"
They work each other's pants open, slipping on the satin and rose petals. The air smells like sweat and the sweetness of crushed flowers. Dean takes Sam's cock in his hand-it's heavy and warm, slick with pre-come, and Sam groans and arches into Dean's touch, his hips working. Somehow he finds Dean's cock-his grip is just this side of painful. It's too much all at once: Sam's eyes squeezed shut as he says, "Dean, I'm gonna-" and pulses, coming all over Dean's hand.
"So good," Sam says. "So fucking good. Come for me, Dean, come on."
Dean does.
When they're panting afterwards with the come sticky between them, Sam says, "We're okay, right? I mean, we're going to be . . ."
"Yeah," Dean says. "Yeah, Sam, you know we are."
It's too hot in the room, the smell of roses and come and sweat too strong, so Dean says, "I'm going to take a shower. You want to come?"
"Sure," Sam says, his face unguarded, eyes hopeful and bright.
When the shower turns out to be a Jacuzzi stocked with eight different kinds of bubble bath, well. Dean's not entirely surprised.
*
The next morning Sam makes Dean come twice in the bed and a third time in the Jacuzzi. Dean reciprocates every time. He's in an awesome mood afterwards, whistling as he shoves his clothes back in his duffel bag. Morning sex is great.
Dean leads the way out the door, gets five steps down the hall, then hears Sam say, "Holy shit."
Dean turns around. Sam's still standing in the doorway. "What?"
Sam gapes at him. "The door. You went through before me."
"I-what?" Dean looks back at the door. Sam's right: there wasn't any force field at all. "Sam! You think this means the curse is-"
"Over?" Sam cuts in. "Yeah, I guess it does."
Dean grins. "Thank God."
*
Dean keeps staring at Sam in the car all afternoon. He can't help it. Sam keeps catching Dean's eye and grinning at him, so there's nothing to worry about-if Sam's not freaking out, there's no reason for Dean to be.
Still, somewhere around the middle of Indiana, Dean says, "So you think the curse is over for sure, huh?"
"It didn't stop you at the door, so yeah, I figure that means it's done."
"The thing I don't get is why," Dean says. "You think it'd just been long enough, so the curse was over?"
"Maybe." Sam sounds dubious.
"What do you think it was, then?"
"Never mind," Sam says.
"No way, you've got an idea," Dean says. "Sam?"
"Never-" Sam cuts himself off at Dean's look. "I don't want to-fine. So you got cursed into dating me, right. Maybe the curse ended because we, well. Yeah."
Dean gapes. "You think the curse ended because we-" He can't say it, either, but Sam's flushed cheeks are enough of an answer. "Seriously?"
"I can't think of what else the answer could be," Sam says.
Dean starts laughing. "You know what this means? I wined and dined you into putting out, Sammy!"
"I hate you so much right now," Sam says.
"You do not," Dean says.
"See if you ever get me to do any of that with you again," Sam replies.
"You don't mean it," Dean says, but he tones the cackling down, just in case.
*
Just after they pull into a motel parking lot that night, Dean gets a call from Bobby. "I wanted to call and see if that curse has worn off yet," Bobby says. "It's been a week, hasn't it?"
"Yeah, the curse is gone," Dean says, watching Sam pull their duffel bags out of the trunk.
Bobby chuckles. "So what happened? You finally learn to treat a woman right?"
Dean looks over the roof of the Impala and grins at Sam. "Yeah," he says. "I guess I did."
the end
Author: causeways
Fandom: SPN
Rating: R
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Word Count: 6,042
Disclaimer: All characters, situations, etc. belong to Eric Kripke and others. Except for the demon poodle. The demon poodle is mine.
Summary: You can never tell when a conversation with a really smokin' woman is going to come back and bite you in the ass. Dean gets cursed into dating Sam.
Author's Notes: This is for walkawayslowly, since basically it is all her fault. Thanks to balefully and dark_reaction for reading this over and to memphis86 for betaing.
Edit as of Feb. 12, 2010: There's also a Russian translation now, thanks to lmonombrel! It's here (on LJ) or here (off-LJ).
Treat Her Like a Lady
It's not that Dean's really a jerk to women. Dean loves women. He just loves them in very specific circumstances-which is to say, in diner bathrooms or hotel beds or the back seat of the Impala, although not that last one so often lately, since Dean's getting a little old for that sort of thing. He just doesn't really live the kind of life that would allow him to wine and dine a woman before he sleeps with her; that doesn't mean he won't respect her in the morning. If he doesn't call, it's not because he doesn't want to see her again; it's just that he and Sam are probably three states away already.
Sam made Dean slow down for a while after he got Dean out of Hell, but it's been a couple years since then. There are still all kinds of spirits to vanquish and creatures to kill. They still move around a lot, so it's really not like Dean has the time for anything long-term with a woman. That's just how it is, and Dean's not ashamed of it.
Four days after he gets drunk in a Tallahassee bar and spends two hours explaining that philosophy to a hot blonde, though, Dean's beginning to wonder if maybe he shouldn't have been quite so quick with the sharing. She'd seemed really eager to hear what he had to say, but really it's just more proof for one of the eternal maxims: you can never tell when a conversation with a really smokin' woman is going to come back and bite you in the ass.
Fucking witches.
*
Sam and Dean leave Tallahassee and drive to Pigeon Hollow, Arkansas to check out a haunted church. The hotel clerk has chaw stashed in his left cheek and his face screams, "I know what you boys are up to and I don't like it." Dean just grins at him and keeps an arm slung over Sam's shoulders the whole time they're checking in.
"You can stop now," Sam says after they're back in the parking lot.
"Huh?" Dean says, then realizes he's still got his arm around Sam. "Oh yeah, sorry." He slides his arm off and whistles, carrying his duffel bag inside.
*
They're standing at the register at a diner in Oklahoma when Sam says, "You know my wallet's on the other side, right?"
Dean stares at him blankly. "What are you . . ."
Dean looks down. His hand's in Sam's back pocket, tucked against Sam's ass.
"Ha, um," Dean says. "How did that get there?" It's not a hypothetical question; he honestly doesn't know.
Sam's eyebrows shoot up. "What do you mean, how did that get there?"
The waitress who's ringing them up grins at Dean. "Y'all are cute," she says, and knocks five bucks off their total.
"She thinks we're cute, Sam," Dean says once they're outside the diner. His hand's firmly back in his own pocket.
Sam sighs. "You're going to get us shot one of these days."
"Nah," Dean says. "Girls think we're adorable."
"It's not the girls I'm worried about," Sam says, but by then they're in the car and Dean lets Sam pick the music, and that's plenty enough to make him stop talking.
*
In Kansas City, Dean parks the car outside Plaza III Steakhouse and says, "Dinnertime, Sammy."
Sam's staring at him like he's lost his mind. "You sure this is our kind of place?"
"Sure," Dean says.
"There was a diner like three blocks back-"
"Aww, come on, you know you like steak," Dean says, locking the car and heading through the door.
The place is packed with well-dressed people and snooty-looking waiters, but Dean slips the maitre d' a twenty and the guy's cool disinterest flips right over into a welcoming grin. "Table or booth, sirs?"
"Booth," Dean says, just as Sam says, "Table," but Dean gave the maitre d' the money and he sure does know it. They get a booth with a great view of the live music in the back.
"See? This place is awesome," Dean says.
"Steaks cost forty dollars." Sam's pretty much whimpering, but whatever, John Rochester's brand new MasterCard can handle it.
The waiter walks over in his penguin suit, white button-down and black pants all starched to death. "Can I get you gentlemen something to drink?"
"We'll both have a PBR," Dean says, grinning as the waiter doesn't even bother to write it down. "And we both want the T-bone, medium rare."
"Very good, sir," the waiter says, making off with their menus.
Across the table Sam's gaping at Dean. "Are you-did you just order for me?"
"Was that not what you wanted?" Dean says, puzzled. "You'd been talking about wanting a T-bone for like a week."
"Yeah, okay, but . . ." Sam stops talking, because he totally doesn't have a leg to stand on, and he knows it. When the T-bones show up, they're completely delicious.
*
Sam's busy researching a case when they're in Independence, but Dean used their last pair of un-ripped boxers to wipe ghoul guts off his face a couple days ago and going commando is really starting to suck, so he hits up the Wal-Mart. They're having a sale on five-packs of cotton briefs, two for ten dollars; Dean stocks up on those while he's at it, grabbing a few other things on the way out.
"I broke the case," Sam says when Dean walks in the door. "It's not a ghost. It's somebody's crazy old aunt they're keeping in the attic."
"People are freaks," Dean says. "But congrats, Scooby. Good sleuthing, have a prize." He tosses Sam a pack of tightie-whities.
"What're those for?" Sam says.
"You see these holes? They're for your legs. You stick your legs through them, and then you've got your ass and your dick covered." Dean grins at him.
"I meant the flowers, jerk," Sam says.
Dean looks down at his hand. He's holding a bouquet of daisies. "Oh. These flowers. I got them on the way out." He holds the flowers out and waits for Sam to take them from him.
Sam finally does, staring at them warily, like they're going to jump out of his hand and start gnawing on his face any minute. "Um, okay, but why?"
"They were on sale," Dean says defensively.
"I'm still not seeing quite . . ." Sam trails off, looking between Dean and the flowers. "Oh my God, you bought me flowers."
"They were like $3.99! I'm really not seeing the problem here."
"Okay, dude, are we having a secret prank war again? Because if we are, you win. Can we stop this now?" Sam looks way more shaken up than the situation merits.
"We're not having a secret prank war," Dean tells him. "I just wanted to buy some flowers. Is it that weird?"
"Yes," Sam says. "You bought flowers and yesterday you took me out for steak and oh my God, this is like the definition of weird, Dean! This like taking every weird thing that's ever happened to us and balling it all up into one big ball of weird, except weirder!"
"It's just a friggin' bunch of daisies, Sam. It's not like I asked to pee in your mouth or something."
Sam gags a little. "Be serious for a second, Dean. There's something going on here. You're cursed or marked or else you're just totally losing your fucking mind-"
"I'm not cursed, Sam," Dean says. "Give me the damned flowers, and let's go to bed." Dean sticks the daisies in the ice bucket with some water and changes into a new pair of boxers to go to sleep, ignoring Sam's muttering about delusional crazy people and how Sam is going to choke them in the night. If Dean were cursed, he totally would have noticed it.
*
The next morning, Dean tries to open the driver's side door and discovers that he can't touch the handle. The harder he tries, the faster his hand slips away from the door, like those elementary school experiments with two magnets, the north ends repelling each other. He spends about thirty seconds fighting against it before he heads around to the passenger side to see if the universe has gone mad on that side of the car, too, but there's no problem there; he can touch the handle and open that door just fine.
Sam comes out of the motel room and stops dead. "Are you opening doors for me now?"
"What? No!" Dean says. "I was just-there was something wrong with my door, I was trying to-"
"Never mind," Sam says darkly, getting in and slamming the door shut. "Never freaking mind. There's no use arguing with crazy people."
"You're crazy people," Dean tells him, going back around to the driver's side. But he's really starting to wonder about himself: when he tentatively reaches for the door handle now, he can touch it on the first try. Fuckin' bizarre.
*
There's a diner in the middle of Missouri that serves the best coffee Dean's ever tasted, hands down. It's in the middle of nowhere, a couple hours out of the way from where they're going, but Dean makes straight for it. Dean drinks three cups of coffee with his burger and pie, and Sam does the same-Sam loves this coffee just as much as Dean does. They each get a big cup to go and make for Wichita.
About thirty miles west of the diner, Sam reaches for the cup holder and swears. "Fuck! I left my coffee on the roof of the car."
"Shit," Dean says. "That sucks."
Sam frowns. "Whatever."
"No, look," Dean says. "Here, you can have mine."
It takes a second for Dean's own words to get through his head, and by then he's sure he looks just as wide-eyed as Sam does.
"Oh my God," Sam says. "Something is seriously-"
"Call Bobby," Dean says grimly.
*
"Bobby wants to talk to you," Sam says, holding the cell phone up.
Dean pulls over and takes the phone. "Yeah?"
"From what Sam told me, it sounds like a curse, all right. You piss anybody off lately, Dean?"
"Not that I know of-oh, fuck, it was that bitch in Tallahassee. She was muttering something in Latin as I left."
"Which bitch in Tallahassee?" Bobby asks.
"Random woman at a bar. I was talking to her, asked her if she wanted to, y'know, and she said that most women like it when guys ask them on a date before trying to sleep with them." Dean can already hear Sam rolling his eyes. "I said that never stopped me, and she said something like, 'One of these days you're going to learn to treat a woman right.' It had to have been her."
Sam says, horrified, "Treat a woman right?"
Dean covers his ear with his hand so he can hear Bobby saying, "She's got a point there, Dean. Even if I could fix this one, I don't know that I would."
"What do you mean, even if you could fix it?" Dean says.
"It should just wear off on its own," Bobby says. "How long has it been?"
"Four days."
Bobby snorts. "You must've pissed her off good. It's hard to make this kind of stuff last more than thirty-six hours."
Dean's mouth falls open. "You don't mean I'm stuck like this?"
"Nah. Call me back if it doesn't wear off by the end of the week," Bobby says, laughing as he hangs up the phone.
Dean snaps the cell closed. "Well, shit," he says.
*
"It's not that big a deal," Dean says over dinner. "Right?"
"You just paid a violin player to come over here and serenade me," Sam says. "He sang about the power of our love. So no, Dean, I'd say this totally isn't a big deal at all."
"How do you know he was singing about the power of our love?" Dean says. "It was in Italian!"
"The little kissing noises were kind of a dead giveaway," Sam says, rubbing at his eyes with the palms of his hands.
"He probably sings that song for everyone," Dean says. "Look over there."
Across the restaurant the violinist is making the same exact kissy face at the man and woman he's currently playing for.
"See?" Dean turns back to his dinner. "Nothing out of the ordinary."
"Um, Dean?" Sam nods toward the musician.
Dean looks over at the man and the woman again. They're making out enthusiastically across the table as the violinist applauds.
"Not the point," Dean says, stabbing his veal. "Totally not the point."
"Then what is the . . . oh my God," Sam says. "You didn't get cursed into dating women. You got cursed into dating me."
"I what?"
"So when you kept ordering for me and taking my coat and-I'm not a woman, Dean!"
"I know you're not a woman, you're my brother!" Dean clamps his mouth shut.
It's too late: the whole restaurant's already staring. Sam bangs his head against the back of the booth, then flags down a waiter. "Check, please."
As they exit the restaurant, Sam says, "You don't need to help me with my coat, Dean. I've got it. I'm also not a woman."
"It's not me doing any of this! It's the curse!"
"Oh sure, it's the curse!" Sam says, glaring at Dean. "God, I thought infiltrating that cult that made us shave all the hair off our bodies was going to be the weirdest thing that ever happened to me, but no!"
"You know what, can we have this argument in the car?" Dean says, pulling the door open and stepping outside-only he doesn't actually make it outside. He tries again and still doesn't get anywhere, and it's just like the other day with the Impala's door.
"I can't go through," Dean says.
"What do you mean, you can't go through?"
"What does it look like, Sam?" Dean tries three more times; still no luck.
"Oh, for the love of-" Sam gets behind him and pushes, hands against the small of Dean's back; Dean still can't get through the door, not even when his blood's pounding with exertion.
"This is fucking insane," Sam says, panting. He shoves Dean one more time, so hard that Dean slips to the side and Sam goes spinning out the door, barely keeping his balance. As soon as Sam's across the threshold, the force field disappears and Dean stumbles out after him.
"What the hell was . . .?" Sam looks at Dean. The answer dawns on Sam's face at the same exact moment Dean gets it. "Don't even-"
Dean grins. "Ladies first."
"-say it. Oh my God."
"This is the funniest thing that's ever happened to me in my entire life," Dean tells him. "I just want you to know that."
*
"I'm going to punch you in the face if you don't stop laughing."
Dean tries to hold off; he really does. A chuckle still escapes and then he can't stop himself from howling. "The curse thinks you're a woman. When I'm ninety years old and in the rest home and I'm laughing my ass off for what seems like no reason, just know that this will still be what I'm laughing about."
*
"You sure you still think this is funny?" Sam says.
"It's still funny."
"That's the third time you've held a door for me today."
"Still funny."
"Also, you gave me the first shower."
"Still funny."
"And the last piece of cherry pie at lunch," Sam adds.
"Okay, that wasn't funny, but what was I supposed to do about it, Sam? Try to resist? I thought about eating it myself and the curse friggin' electric shocked me!"
"Fine, so resisting the curse isn't the answer! But seriously, shouldn't it have worn off by now?"
"We've still got two days before Bobby said to call him back," Dean says. "But if you really want me to explain that to him that the curse is making me treat you like a woman-"
"Never mind."
"If it's really bothering you, I can try to stop," Dean says.
"No, it's okay, I'm good."
*
They're walking down Main Street in Lincoln, Illinois when Sam says, "Okay, can you quit it?"
Dean stops whistling. "Better?"
"That's not what I mean. Dean, you're holding my hand!"
Dean looks down. Their fingers are intertwined. "Huh," he says. And then he starts whistling again.
"Dean." Sam tries to pull his hand away; Dean doesn't let go. "Are you doing this on purpose?"
"I wasn't," Dean says, tightening his grip. A woman with a pair of little kids grins at him. He grins right back.
Sam doesn't even notice the attention. "But you are now?"
Dean takes a good look at him. Sam's cheeks are flushed. "You're embarrassed!" Dean says, delighted. "No, wait," he adds when Sam doesn't immediately reply. "You actually like this?"
"Dean." Sam struggles to loose his hand again.
"No way," Dean says, squeezing Sam's fingers. "All this time you've been wanting a big, strong man to take care of you . . ."
"I'm three inches taller than you!"
Dean grins at him sideways and slides in closer. "Don't worry, baby. I'll keep you safe."
"Don't make me punch you," Sam says, flushing all the way down his heck, but he doesn't move to pull his hand away again. Dean totally won this time.
*
But Sam's not the only one turning red the next morning when he wakes up next to a dozen roses and a heart-shaped box of chocolate.
"Have you totally lost your mind?" Sam says.
"It's the curse!" Dean yells, making a break for the bathroom. He takes way longer in the shower than he really needs to.
When Dean gets out, though, Sam's snatching his hand away from something under the covers. Dean throws the sheets back: it's the chocolate.
"You already spent the money! I might as well eat it!"
"And you think I'm the freak," Dean says.
"I can't believe you bought me chocolate! And roses!"
"I can't believe you liked it!"
"You know what?" Sam snaps, then takes a deep breath. "Never mind. You want some?" He holds the box of chocolate out to Dean.
Dean stuffs a couple in his mouth. They're crunchy milk chocolate, with lots of caramel. "Huh," he says. "These are actually pretty good."
"Can we stop freaking out now?" Sam says.
Dean grins. "Just keep feeding me chocolate and I'll do whatever you want, baby."
"Don't call me baby," Sam mutters, passing him the chocolate.
*
In the car after lunch Dean takes the seatbelt in Sam's hand and helps him snap it into the buckle.
"What the hell are you doing?" Sam says.
"It's the curse!"
"So the curse thinks I'm a woman and an invalid?" Sam's voice is a good octave higher than it's been since he was fifteen.
"No! Maybe! I don't know!" When Dean looks down, his hand is still resting against Sam's hipbone. He jerks it away.
"This curse is really starting to freak me out," Sam says.
"Starting to?" Dean doesn't wait for a reply. He turns the radio on and lets the music drown Sam out.
*
The only room left in Minooka, Illinois has a single queen bed.
"There's a race in Joliet tomorrow," says the woman behind the desk. "NASCAR fans are nuts. The next room you're going to find is a hundred miles south of here. You taking this one?"
It's already ten p.m. and they've been driving all day. "We'll take it," Dean says, sliding his credit card across the counter.
The lone bed is right in the middle of the room. Dean stares at it. Sam stares at it. Dean stares at Sam staring at it.
"I'm not going to jump you in your sleep!" Dean says.
"What?"
"You were staring at me like you thought I was going to-never mind! Forget I said it!"
"Why would I think you were going to jump me in my sleep?"
"I don't know!" Dean yells. "The curse could be doing it!"
"The curse is making you date me, Dean, not rape me in the night!"
"Never mind! Let's just take deep breaths and go to sleep!"
"Fine!" Sam says, pulling back the covers.
"Fine!" Dean agrees, getting in the bed.
They go to sleep on opposite sides of the bed, with as much space between them as they can get. Dean keeps his eyes open for as long as he can, staring across the bed at Sam and making sure that the curse doesn't take hold of him and make him grab Sam in the night.
*
In the morning Dean wakes up spooned around Sam. Dean's got morning wood, and Sam is rubbing his ass against it.
"Gyah!" Dean yells, scrambling to get away and falling off the bed. "What the fuck are you doing?"
Sam blinks his eyes open. "Huh? S'early, Dean."
"Never mind! Nothing happened!" Dean's in the bathroom with the door closed before Sam can wake up all the way. He beats off quickly in the shower and doesn't think about anything at all while he does. Everything's fine.
*
The diner in Deerwood, Minnesota is packed at lunchtime, not a single booth left in the place. The waitress points them to a table in the back corner, squeezed in near the bathroom door.
"Don't even think about it," Sam says, sitting down abruptly before Dean ever could have had the chance to pull Sam's chair out.
"Wasn't gonna," Dean replies, watching Sam read the menu. Dean looks around the room, catalogs the locals. Lots of them have onion rings, so that's what Dean gets: a large order of those; a burger; cherry pie. Sam gets the meatloaf.
"You see that dude over there, with the overalls?" Dean nods in the guy's direction. "He's had barbeque sauce on his face for five minutes now, hasn't noticed a thing."
Sam doesn't look at the guy. Instead he says, "Do you think you could maybe keep your feet on your side of the table?"
Dean looks down. Their feet are all entangled. "I wasn't doing it on purpose," he argues. "There's not much space! My legs might get cramped!"
"Your legs," Sam says darkly, tucking his feet under the seat.
Dean tries to keep his feet to his side of the table, but there's nothing for it; there's no room. Every time he shifts, trying to keep his legs tucked back, his ankles rub against Sam's. It makes Sam jerk away; it makes Dean's stomach jump each time he does.
"Screw this," Dean says finally. "Put your feet down and stay still already."
Sam's silent for a couple of minutes before he says, horrified, "Are you playing footsie with me?"
"It's just a small space!"
"Fine!" Sam says. "Okay! Then just stay still!"
"Okay!"
Dean can't help fidgeting a little. Sam doesn't comment again, but every time their legs brush Sam's jaw twitches and his face turns red. So does Dean's.
It's the curse. And the curse fucking sucks.
*
It's not just the curse that's out to get them anymore. It's the entire universe.
They're trying to save a little old lady from her own possessed teacup poodle-like, possessed with an actual demon, although what the demon thinks it's going to accomplish from inside the body of a tiny dog, Dean doesn't know. Beyond yap and howl like a banshee all day and all night until someone finally shows up to do the thing in with a gardening trowel to the back of the head, that is; and that's exactly what Dean's planning on doing, trowel poised and ready, three-two-one die little doggy, when the little old lady yells, "No!" and runs at Dean, brandishing a frying pan.
"No, wait, Dean!" Sam yells as Dean scrambles out of the way of the frying pan, slips on a puddle on the kitchen floor, grabs for Sam, and pulls Sam crashing down with him. Sam's chest heaves as he gasps for breath, his thigh pressed between Dean's legs. Dean's in the same room as a demon in the form of a teacup poodle and a little old lady who's about to brain him and Sam with a frying pan, and somehow Dean's cock chooses that exact moment, pressed against his brother's thigh, to twitch.
Dean tries to scramble out from under him, but Sam already felt it, his mouth gone wide with surprise. There's not a single thing in the world that could make this moment suck more.
Until something warm and wet seeps through Dean's pants. Dean looks down. The demon dog is pissing on his ankle.
"Motherfucking fuck-" Dean swears.
The little old lady cackles. "Shows what you get for messing with Toffington!"
Sam manages to convince the little old lady to put the frying pan down and give them another chance to exorcise the beast. They distract it with a can of wet dog food. It doesn't even glance up once while they're chanting the Latin until the demon's already pouring out; after that it sticks its face right back in the bowl and keeps on eating.
Dean peers into the creature's soulless black eyes-if it weren't for the fact that he'd just seen the demon leave, he would have sworn they'd never exorcised it at all.
Dean's still shaking his head as they get in the car. "Fucking yippy dogs. I knew they were demons. Friggin' peed on my-"
"About what happened in there," Sam says. "That was just random, right? Heat of the, er."
"Battle," Dean supplies. "Against the agents of evil. Didn't mean anything, total coincidence, can we never talk about this again?"
"Awesome idea," Sam says.
"Great," Dean says, and gets right on pretending that the whole thing never happened.
*
Sam ignores Dean the whole next day. He answers in single words or grunts, but he won't look Dean in the face, and it's fucking stupid, is what it is, because it's not like Dean wanted his cock to twitch right then; it's not like it was because of Sam-or okay, say it was because of Sam, but that's the curse thinking Sam is a woman. Dean loves women, all kinds of women, loves their breasts and their pussies and their long, soft hair, loves to fuck them from behind while they brace against the Impala and Dean reaches around to grab Sam's cock-
Anyway, the point is, Dean loves women, and it's just the curse that's got him confused, so really Sam can stop being a little bitch any time he wants.
*
By evening they're in Chicago. Sam stabs his way through dinner, still keeping the silence up even though they're eating some of the best burgers Dean's ever tasted, and Dean can't fucking take it. He gets a room at the first place he finds-a hotel, all kind of ritzy, but Dean's too busy with getting ready to punch Sam in the face to think about the hotel. Dean just wants to get a rise out of him, make Sam look at him, so the moment they get into the room, Dean shoves Sam back against the door, hands on Sam's chest.
"What the fuck is your deal?" Dean says. "Friggin' talk to me, Sam. I can't get in your head if you don't tell me what's going-"
"Oh my God," Sam says, his eyes sliding away from Dean's face and focusing over Dean's shoulder. "Dean, you have to . . ."
Dean turns around as Sam trails off, and takes in the room: the gauzy curtains on the windows; the pale pink walls; the plush carpet with a trail of rose petals leading directly to the enormous heart-shaped bed covered in more rose petals and bright red satin.
Dean groans. "You've got to be fucking kidding me. They gave us the honeymoon suite?"
There are pink ribbons tied around flower vases on the nightstand. There is a bottle of champagne and a bowl of strawberries on the side table. In the background Marvin Gaye is singing "Let's Get It On."
"Seriously?" Dean says.
Sam moves away from Dean's grip and starts sweeping rose petals off the bed.
"What are you doing?" Dean says.
"It's a big bed," Sam says. "We can just-we'll get it cleared off, and we'll sleep on opposite sides, and it's not a big deal!"
"What's not a big deal?"
"This whole curse thing!" Sam says, shoving the flower petals away. "It's not a big deal!"
"Then why are you freaking out?" Dean says.
"I'm not freaking out!"
"No, you're just having a panic attack. That's not freaking out at all. Got it." Dean moves toward the bed. "I don't get what the hell there is to-"
Dean sees the pair of satin bathrobes folded neatly at the edge of the bed just as his foot comes down on top of them. He barrels forward, hitting Sam with full force and sending them both sprawling onto the bed, the breath knocked out of Dean; he wheezes for air, then opens his eyes: he's lying on top of Sam just like they were in the kitchen with the demon poodle, Sam wide-eyed beneath him.
Dean opens his mouth to say he slipped, he didn't mean it-and he leans down and kisses Sam instead.
Dean pulls back immediately, says, "Shit," and tries to scramble away.
Sam grabs him by the arm. "Dean?"
"It's just the curse!" Dean says. "It's making me insane! I didn't ever want this before! I mean, I never . . ."
Never wanted Sam before, but when Sam was sixteen and got his biggest growth spurt, Dean jerked off to the sight of Sam's bare back for weeks. Never wanted Sam before, but when Sam was twenty-two, out of college and back on the road, Dean wanted to pull Sam close and comfort him in ways that made his stomach turn with guilt. Never wanted Sam before, but when Sam was twenty-four Dean walked in on him jerking off in the shower with his eyes closed, and Dean went back into the motel room, took his cock in his hand and gripped it the same way Sam had been doing-slow on the upstroke, cupping his hand around the head-and he came with Sam's name on his tongue, and it hadn't meant anything, he'd told himself it hadn't-
"It isn't the curse," Dean says, swallowing. "Sam, this is fucking crazy and you can punch me in the face if you want-but Sam, this. It's not because of the curse."
Sam tightens his grip on Dean's arm. "What do you mean?"
"I-" Dean closes his eyes, then opens them again. "I've wanted this for a long time. Before the curse, I just didn't know it."
Sam keeps his grip on Dean's arm, staring at him for a long moment. Finally he raises his free hand and touches it to Dean's neck-a slow touch, and Dean can't help leaning into it. Sam looks at him, eyes dark, and says, "Are you sure?"
Dean considers it, turns the question over in his head, and the only answer he comes up with, every time, is, "Yeah." He says it quietly, a word that he could take back at any moment, but he doesn't, and Sam pulls Dean's head down and kisses him on the mouth.
Sam's lips are barely parted and he makes a low sound in his throat as Dean's hands come up to cup his head. Dean pushes his tongue into Sam's mouth and shifts his legs to gain a better angle, his cock rubbing down on Sam's.
Sam arches up, his cock already hard, and says against Dean's mouth, "Wanted this, too, Dean-God, you have no idea-"
Dean moves a hand down Sam's side and over to his hip. He finds the edge of Sam's jeans and says, "Can I?"
"Yeah," Sam says. "Fuck yeah, you too-"
They work each other's pants open, slipping on the satin and rose petals. The air smells like sweat and the sweetness of crushed flowers. Dean takes Sam's cock in his hand-it's heavy and warm, slick with pre-come, and Sam groans and arches into Dean's touch, his hips working. Somehow he finds Dean's cock-his grip is just this side of painful. It's too much all at once: Sam's eyes squeezed shut as he says, "Dean, I'm gonna-" and pulses, coming all over Dean's hand.
"So good," Sam says. "So fucking good. Come for me, Dean, come on."
Dean does.
When they're panting afterwards with the come sticky between them, Sam says, "We're okay, right? I mean, we're going to be . . ."
"Yeah," Dean says. "Yeah, Sam, you know we are."
It's too hot in the room, the smell of roses and come and sweat too strong, so Dean says, "I'm going to take a shower. You want to come?"
"Sure," Sam says, his face unguarded, eyes hopeful and bright.
When the shower turns out to be a Jacuzzi stocked with eight different kinds of bubble bath, well. Dean's not entirely surprised.
*
The next morning Sam makes Dean come twice in the bed and a third time in the Jacuzzi. Dean reciprocates every time. He's in an awesome mood afterwards, whistling as he shoves his clothes back in his duffel bag. Morning sex is great.
Dean leads the way out the door, gets five steps down the hall, then hears Sam say, "Holy shit."
Dean turns around. Sam's still standing in the doorway. "What?"
Sam gapes at him. "The door. You went through before me."
"I-what?" Dean looks back at the door. Sam's right: there wasn't any force field at all. "Sam! You think this means the curse is-"
"Over?" Sam cuts in. "Yeah, I guess it does."
Dean grins. "Thank God."
*
Dean keeps staring at Sam in the car all afternoon. He can't help it. Sam keeps catching Dean's eye and grinning at him, so there's nothing to worry about-if Sam's not freaking out, there's no reason for Dean to be.
Still, somewhere around the middle of Indiana, Dean says, "So you think the curse is over for sure, huh?"
"It didn't stop you at the door, so yeah, I figure that means it's done."
"The thing I don't get is why," Dean says. "You think it'd just been long enough, so the curse was over?"
"Maybe." Sam sounds dubious.
"What do you think it was, then?"
"Never mind," Sam says.
"No way, you've got an idea," Dean says. "Sam?"
"Never-" Sam cuts himself off at Dean's look. "I don't want to-fine. So you got cursed into dating me, right. Maybe the curse ended because we, well. Yeah."
Dean gapes. "You think the curse ended because we-" He can't say it, either, but Sam's flushed cheeks are enough of an answer. "Seriously?"
"I can't think of what else the answer could be," Sam says.
Dean starts laughing. "You know what this means? I wined and dined you into putting out, Sammy!"
"I hate you so much right now," Sam says.
"You do not," Dean says.
"See if you ever get me to do any of that with you again," Sam replies.
"You don't mean it," Dean says, but he tones the cackling down, just in case.
*
Just after they pull into a motel parking lot that night, Dean gets a call from Bobby. "I wanted to call and see if that curse has worn off yet," Bobby says. "It's been a week, hasn't it?"
"Yeah, the curse is gone," Dean says, watching Sam pull their duffel bags out of the trunk.
Bobby chuckles. "So what happened? You finally learn to treat a woman right?"
Dean looks over the roof of the Impala and grins at Sam. "Yeah," he says. "I guess I did."
the end