Some Kind of Strange Magic (A)
Title: Some Kind of Strange Magic
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rated: NC-17
Warnings: sex pollen/dust, fuck-or-die scenario, dirty talking
Word Count: 18,300
Notes: I started this around the start of last season, so this takes place somewhere after 5x04 "The End" when Dean lets Sam come back. This was supposed to be in response to a kink meme prompt asking for Sam/Dean first time, sex pollen, fuck-or-die, except they're still straight and have never secretly wanted to fuck each other. And okay, so I am not posting it in response to that because I have no use for that community anymore, but here it is. And they're straight... mostly.
Summary: "It may not have to mean anything, but they aren’t just two guys stuck in an impossible situation. They’re them and uncommonly attached to one another, so it will mean something and they both know it. This will change them and Dean can’t really blame Sam for suddenly being afraid to move."
Some Kind of Strange Magic
"We are all a little weird and life's a little weird,
and when we find someone whose weirdness is
compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall
in mutual weirdness and call it love."
- Dr. Seuss
Dean’s always been steady and sure-fingered. He can disable an alarm in under twenty seconds, assuming it’s a standard one without anything fancy to trip him up, he can pick a lock almost as fast as Sam can and he almost never misses his target when he shoots. Then one night after they’ve dispatched a particularly nasty witch, Dean idly picks up a glazed clay pot and his hand spasms.
They watch it fall like it’s happening in slow motion until it bursts on the floor like an over-filled water balloon. The contents whoosh out like the fire of an a-bomb and fill the room. The powder, glittering and so fine that they don’t even feel it in their throats as they breathe it in, tastes like burned sugar.
Sam and Dean exchange a knowing, panicked look and Dean is already running for the nearest window to let it out and let in some air when Sam grabs his arm and stops him.
“Sam, shit--Don’t touch me,” Dean says, but it’s too late. The imprint of Sam’s fingers, the scalding touch of his skin, slithers up Dean’s arm and into his flesh like sweet poison. “Oh God,” he whispers, trying to jerk away.
Sam’s hand tightens on his arm, that same poisonous lust creeping through him. “You can’t… open the window. It has to settle or it’ll… spread,” Sam says, panting as his blood heats with want. “Oh God, Dean, I’m sorry.”
Dean’s jaw clenches and he twists his hand and finally breaks out of Sam’s grasp. The agony of the lost contact is like ripping a chunk of their living bodies away with tenterhooks. They both scream and fall to their knees, more of the gleaming fine fairy dust puffing up around them as they fall, clinging to their skin and coating their tongues with sweetness.
“Dean,” Sam chokes out. He reaches for him, but Dean falls backward on his ass and crawls away from him, one hand up to hold him off if he should come after him. Sam watches him and he’s shaking with the need to follow him, to lay his hands on Dean’s skin, to do… Oh God. To… “Dean, we have to,” Sam manages.
Sam gags and falls forward on his hands and knees, not even noticing Dean scrambling back from him, pained sounds of distress in his throat as his breathing hitches and catches. “Dean… you know what this stuff is, right?” Sam says, looking up at Dean through his tumbled hair.
Dean looks back at him and there is such terror in his eyes that Sam hates himself for the desire filling up his body, riding the back of the spell kept in the dust on their skin and in their mouths. Dean stares back at him and there is such ravenous want inside him that he can hardly stand it, but he won’t do that to Sam--or to himself. They’ve only just started to be okay. Something like this could ruin them forever.
“We have to,” Sam whispers, and he shifts toward Dean, raising one hand to reach for him.
“No,” Dean hisses. Sam catches the leg of his jeans and Dean kicks out at him to get him off, get him away. “We’ll… we’ll just leave. We’ll find a couple of girls. We won’t die before that. Hell, we can get a couple hookers for the night and--”
“No,” Sam says, shaking his head. “We can’t do that. It’ll only spread.”
Dean catches himself staring at Sam and admiring the slant of his cheekbones, the bow of his mouth. He swallows and looks away, disgusted and ashamed as cramps suddenly rip through his insides like his entrails are being wrung out. “Fuck, oh fuck,” Dean gasps, collapsing onto his side in pain.
“Dean--”
“Fucking boy scout,” Dean says through clenched teeth. “So it’ll spread. Who cares.”
“We can’t… We can’t let it do that,” Sam says. He ducks his head again, retching as his own cramps make his abdomen clench. “Shit. Oh shit. Dean, come on, man. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, but there’s… we have to. It’s the only way.”
They had never encountered fairy dust themselves, but they’d both read about it in John’s journal and heard about it from other hunters. The only way to neutralize the love spell was to yield to it. Then and only then would they be immune to it and able to leave without contaminating someone else. Then and only then would it stop hurting them without killing them. If there were anyone else in the room with them, they could both fuck that person and be done with it, but there isn’t anyone but them.
“Sam… I love you, man, but no. I’m not going to fuck you,” Dean says. He grits his teeth and pulls his legs up as his stomach starts to tighten with the cramps.
“Dean… I love you, man, but I don’t want to die,” Sam says, painfully making it the few feet over to where Dean lays on the floor. When he touches Dean’s arm, Dean tries to twist away from him. Sam raises his hand to his face and rests his palm on Dean’s cheek. “I’m sorry, but there’s no other way. You know there isn’t.”
Dean shakes his head no, but he’s already leaning up into that touch of skin on skin. The soft caress of Sam’s hand on his cheek makes his eyes fall closed as a soft moan slips from his mouth. “Oh God, Sammy, no,” he whispers, his voice raw with despair.
“I know,” Sam says, but he’s pulling at Dean’s shirt, working it up his body. “Lift your arms.”
Trembling from the close way Sam’s body gives off heat when it isn’t even touching him, Dean opens his eyes and watches him, focusing on Sam’s face as he does what he asks and lifts his arms for Sam to strip off his shirt. For some irrational reason, he has the idea that if he doesn’t take his eyes away from Sam’s face, it won’t be that bad. It won’t be like sex or incest at all, just another way to break another spell.
Sam yanks his own shirt off and lays over him, his arms going around Dean to hold his body close. The skin to skin contact is like a soothing balm and they both moan from the slight relief even as it sparks new lust from them both.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Dean,” Sam whispers to him as he fumbles with the button and zipper of Dean’s jeans. He gets them open and slips his hand inside to rub lightly over his stomach once, then lower to close his hand around Dean’s cock.
Dean hisses a breath through his teeth and flushes with humiliation as he tries to push Sam away again. He’s hard, but only a little. Only enough that Sam knows it’s from the spell, not honest arousal. The knowledge makes him feel guilty, like a rapist, but the sickness and death hanging over them both is there in the back of his mind, so he doesn’t let Dean go.
“I’m sorry, Dean,” Sam tells him again, and starts to jack him off.
Dean shakes his head no and grasps Sam’s bicep to hold onto something. “Not your fault,” he says. He shivers and closes his eyes as his dick goes hard in Sam’s hand. “Stop.”
“No, Dean, we have to--”
“I know what we have to do,” Dean says, eyes snapping open and going sharp. “I know, alright? And look, I’m all ready to go, so let’s get this over with so I can start trying to forget about it.”
Sam nods shortly and takes his hand off of Dean’s cock. He scoots down enough to tug the laces on Dean’s shoes loose and pull them off, then pulls Dean’s jeans and underwear down his hips as he crawls back up. He darts a quick, uncertain glance up at Dean, then moves to kneel between his legs as he opens his belt.
“Dean, I don’t… I’ve never had sex with a guy before,” Sam confesses, feeling ridiculously embarrassed about it now for some reason.
“What, and you think I have?” Dean asks, eyebrows shooting up.
“No,” Sam says instantly. “No… I just… I don’t know how to do this.”
Dean sits up a little, bracing himself on his elbow to get a good look at Sam. He runs his eyes down Sam’s body and tries to not let imagined images of what that body is going to be doing to him in a few minutes invade his mind. It doesn’t work that well.
But Sam is nervous--no, Sam is a little scared--so Dean does what he always does when it comes to Sam.
“It’s okay,” Dean says. He sits up a little more and makes himself touch Sam, lets his hand stroke down his side, trying to soothe him. “It’s okay. It’s just sex. It doesn’t have to mean anything and it’s damn not your fault. I’m the dumb ass that didn’t keep his hands off of shit.”
And that is such a lie. It may not have to mean anything, but they aren’t just two guys stuck in an impossible situation. They’re them and uncommonly attached to one another, so it will mean something and they both know it. This will change them and Dean can’t really blame Sam for suddenly being afraid to move.
“Here, let me…” Dean says, tentatively reaching for Sam’s cock. He closes his hand around it and watches Sam’s face as he gently squeezes. “Fuck, this is so sick. I’m sorry, Sam. Are you--?”
“I’m fine,” Sam says. He is so completely not fine that it’s laughable, but he’ll make it. He puts a hand on Dean’s chest and gently pushes against him to get him to lay down. “Can we just get this over with?”
Dean nods and lets Sam push him back down on the floor. Sam runs his hands searchingly over Dean’s body, down his thighs and along his hips. When his hands finally stray near Dean’s ass, Dean is shivering again and becoming impatient. When his fingers only touch along the crack of his ass, Dean huffs out a breath and lifts his hips a little, moving toward him encouragingly.
“What are you--?”
“Put your finger inside me,” Dean tells him. He bites down on his bottom lip, flushing with humiliation at having to even say that.
“Wait… Why?” Sam asks.
“Because my ass is not a vagina,” Dean says calmly. “Because I don’t habitually poke things up there and now you have to fuck it. I don’t want to be hurting when this shit is over.”
Sam stares at him in stunned silence for a moment, considering that, then swallows thickly and nods. “Okay, so what do I do? Just… put my finger inside you and…?”
“I don’t know, just do it,” Dean says.
Sam nods and won’t meet Dean’s eyes as he presses the tip of his finger against his hole, then slowly pushes his finger inside. Dean draws in a breath on a curse and tenses and Sam can feel his body tighten and clench around his finger, light pressure against his fingernail.
“I think you have to relax,” Sam says, eyes fixed on where his finger is gripped inside Dean’s body. He carefully rocks his hand against him and pushes his finger deeper, drawing a soft sound from Dean that makes Sam look up and fix his gaze on Dean’s face. “Dean?”
“I’m trying to,” Dean says harshly.
“Dean… we have to hurry,” Sam says, breath catching. “My heart… it’s beating too fast.”
Dean nods and throws his hand out to reach for his jeans, which are too far away for him to grab. “Get… There’s a condom in my pocket. It’s lubricated. It’ll have to do because if you fuck me like this, all it’s going to do is hurt like hell.”
“But we can’t… There has to be contact,” Sam says, but he’s reaching for Dean’s pants and feeling around for the condom anyway.
“Yeah, so use the lube, not the condom,” Dean says, his heart thundering painfully in his throat. “Hurry up.”
“I got it,” Sam says. He tears open the little package and squeezes it to get the lubricant on his fingers from the condom. Hand shaking a little with urgency, Sam pushes his finger, now slick with lube, back inside Dean’s ass and works it in and out of him. “Shh, I’m sorry,” Sam murmurs when Dean jerks and makes a startled sound of protest. “I’m going to put another finger in you, okay? It‘s too tight. I can‘t--”
“Just… do it,” Dean says, panting. He pushes his hands down hard against the floor, his fingers clenching and unclenching against the wood, scraping a little. “Come on, do it, Sammy. I forgive you. I do. Come on, hurry.”
Deeply disturbed by it, no matter what Dean says, Sam adds his second finger and thrusts them both. Dean tenses up again and jerks before gradually relaxing. “You okay?” Sam asks him.
“I am so far from okay,” Dean says. He closes his eyes, throat working, and nods for Sam to continue. “Go on. Let’s just… do this. God, I fucking hate witches.”
Sam opens his fingers and twists them inside him and Dean makes a startled grunting sound, his eyes opening in surprise. “Sorry,” Sam says, watching him shaking on the floor.
Dean shakes his head. “No, it’s… that didn’t hurt,” he says. And that is the most upsetting thing about this. The idea that it might not hurt, that it might actually be good scares the hell out of him because how are they going to fix this when it is over? If they liked it, how could they say it was all the magic?
“Really?” Sam says. He does it again, blinking in surprise when Dean bucks against him and reaches for him. “Wow. Okay, I’m going to… um. You know.”
“You’re gonna put your dick in my ass and fuck me, yeah I know,” Dean says, his voice rough and shaking a little. Trying to ease the sting of his words, he pets his hand up into Sam’s hair. “Sorry. Just… come on. It’s okay. We gotta do it or our hearts are gonna stop. It’s gonna be okay.”
“Yeah, okay,” Sam says, looking down at him as he shifts forward, rolling his hips down on Dean as he pushes inside him.
Dean gasps and jerks against him, instinctively trying to get away as Sam’s cock slides inside his body, stretching him burning tight. “Oh Jesus,” Dean whispers, his mind rebelling at the strange, invasive sensation and the awareness of Sam’s presence. Sam’s body against him, Sam’s cock inside him, and it’s so much more wrong like that.
Sam shifts his hips and thrusts once, rough and deep until he’s all the way inside. Dean digs his fingers into Sam’s arms and buries his face against Sam’s shoulder, trying not to cry out. Sam bites down on a pleasured moan as Dean’s hot, tight body clenches around him and puts his mouth against Dean’s shoulder. He presses a calming, apologetic kiss there.
“Dean?” Sam asks, nudging him to try and get Dean to look at him.
Dean swallows and opens his mouth to speak, then just closes it and nods.
“I’m sorry,” Sam murmurs below his ear as he carefully starts to move. He takes Dean’s hips in his hands and holds him as he rocks against him, trying not to hurt him and sure that he is anyway. “I’m sorry,” Sam says again, moving his mouth along Dean’s jaw. “Don’t hate me later, okay? Please don’t.”
Dean catches Sam before he can move his mouth up to his and kiss him. He holds Sam’s face in his hands and stares intently into his eyes, then slowly shakes his head no. “No,” he says. “Not your fault, I know, but don’t you kiss me. Just do it, Sammy.” He pushes his stomach up, working his hips in Sam’s hands. “Move. Fuck me.”
Sam nods and holds Dean’s gaze as he starts to move again, faster, a little harder. Dean moans and thrusts against him as Sam’s cock touches, then slides over his prostate. With a low sound of triumph at finding it, Sam tilts Dean’s hips back more and strokes over that place again and again until Dean’s biting back cries that are slipping by as whimpers. His fingers flex against Sam’s cheeks and slide down to hold his neck, and both of them are shaking with the force of their physical reaction and their combined fear and shame over what they’re doing.
Sam drops his head to Dean’s shoulder as he moves, his breath in soft panting gasps on Dean’s sweaty skin. He closes his eyes as he hunches his shoulders into it, throwing his weight behind his thrusts until Dean’s biting savagely at his lips not to cry out. It feels amazing, such pleasure sparking and biting through them both that they can’t even deny that, but all either of them wants is for it to be over and that surpasses any animalistic drive for orgasm.
Dean finally cries out, tired and nearly mindless with the sensations screaming in his body, rising and falling with each beating, pounding thrust of Sam’s body inside his own. It echoes like a drum in his abdomen, the vibrations beating in soft, pleasurable pulses in his belly and up his spine. It’s so completely unlike fucking a girl to be fucked by Sam, but he likes it and he’s too busy liking it to really wish he didn’t.
Sam lifts his head to look down at Dean, watching him as he thrusts, working over his prostate until Dean’s writhing and bucking into each thrust, his fingers biting into Sam’s shoulders. There’s sweat on their skin, pooling on Dean’s stomach and sliding down Sam’s face, burning on his eyelashes and salty on his lips. The dust, glittering and bright as crushed rainbows, sticks to their skin and Sam raises one hand from Dean’s hip to touch where it’s coated Dean’s mouth.
Dean opens his mouth to that prodding finger and Sam watches with a pit of lust opening wide inside him as Dean licks. His tongue slides over Sam’s finger and everything tastes like hot burning sugar. “Dean,” Sam whispers, lowering his head to breathe against Dean’s throat.
Dean makes a low moaning sound of assent and opens his eyes. “What?”
Sam licks the underside of Dean’s chin, down to the base of his throat where his pulse is frantically beating, tasting the sweet fairy dust in the salt of his sweat. “I want to kiss you,” Sam tells him.
“Oh God, why?” Dean says. He tightens his grip on Sam’s shoulders and Sam snaps his hips against his ass, forcing a grunt from him at the force of it. Dean’s body tightens as pleasure squirms and rolls inside him like fighting serpents, but he holds Sam’s eyes with his own now. “Isn’t this bad enough? You want to… kiss me?”
“It’s not that bad,” Sam says, moving his mouth along Dean’s jaw. “It’s… different. It’s just--”
“I’m your brother,” Dean hisses. He arches against Sam, their stomachs sliding together in the sweat on their bodies, Dean’s cock trapped between them, stroked with the movement. “God, oh God… That… Even if this were… the time for some kind of doubts about your sexuality, I’m your brother.”
“Yeah,” Sam says. He licks under Dean’s ear, catches the lobe in his teeth and laves it with his tongue until Dean shivers. “All I want you to do is come… so I can come and we can get the fuck out of here.”
“Then why--?”
“I don’t know,” Sam says. “I like the taste of this dust stuff and it’s all over your mouth.”
“Not good enough,” Dean says. “No. Just… hurry up.”
Sam huffs out a laugh and says, “Fine,” as he pulls Deans hips down, forcing his ass tight against his groin, pushing as deep inside him as he can as he snaps his hips in quick, hard thrusts. He watches with a low growl of triumph as Dean comes apart beneath him. Perhaps it’s a power thing, he doesn’t know, but when Dean’s mouth falls open, hitching cries of humiliated pleasure spilling out, his body trembling, shaking and tightening all around him, Sam likes it. A lot.
And Dean likes it too, he can’t even deny it. Despite the clinging way Sam’s cock sticks inside of him sometimes like he’s fucking right through the muscle of Dean’s body, and the way Sam’s strength in every hefting thrust or flexing slide of muscle makes him feel vulnerable to the point of breaking, he likes it. Maybe even because of those things, he likes it, and it would disturb him if he weren’t trying to grasp at the straws of his nonexistent control to keep from crying out.
It’s almost paradoxal how he wants to come more than he’s ever wanted to come in his life and yet doesn’t because that would prove something. A testimony in semen of how much he doesn’t hate his little brother fucking him in the ass. It would mean that he likes it and the confused line between it being them and it being the spell would grow that much thinner.
But neither of them have much say in the matter in the end. Dean’s back bows up from the floor and his blunt fingernails drag down Sam’s back as his orgasm breaks through him like an electric shock. He cries out and his lungs feel hot and constricted, flooded with warm honey, holding in those bursts of pleasure because he can’t exhale around them fast enough.
Sam shushes him, accidentally smearing more of the sugary glittering dust in his mouth and on his lips as he touches his fingers there. Dean licks his fingers, the calluses scraping on his tongue and against his teeth, and Sam moans. He leans down and presses his mouth against the backs of his fingers over Dean’s mouth, panting as Dean’s ass tightens around him with his orgasm. Dean bites his fingertips and Sam shakes his hair out of his eyes, watching him. Meeting those aware and very afraid, pleasure bright bottle green eyes staring back at him.
“It’s okay,” Sam murmurs, trying to get rid of that fear because it makes his chest ache with regret for what they’re doing. Dean closes his eyes, lashes trembling, and Sam has the irrational desire to kiss him there, over his eyes where those lashes would flutter against his lips like wings. “Shit,” he mutters, cursing himself for such thoughts.
Some of it’s the magic, but how much of it isn’t?
“Okay, okay, I’m going to just… I’m sorry, Dean,” Sam tells him, then pulls him up, hefting his weight, and bows his head to Dean’s chest as he quickens his pace. Dean curses and goes tense all over again, the post-orgasmic lassitude leaving him as Sam fucks him harder, rubbing against his oversensitive prostate until he’s clinging to Sam and biting his lips not to scream or beg him to stop.
“Fuck, this is so messed up,” Sam mutters, pressing reassuring kisses to Dean’s shoulder. Dean’s skin twitches under his mouth, his body shaking, but then Dean’s hands come up and stroke into Sam’s hair.
“I’m sorry, Sammy,” Dean whispers, stroking his hands down his neck, trying to comfort. “I’m so fucking sorry, man. Come on, now. Think happy thoughts and shoot your stuff up inside me… and we can go and pretend it never happened and--”
Sam gasps and grinds against Dean, his back arching as pleasure snaps through him, roused by the mental image provoked by Dean’s words. “Shut up, Dean,” Sam says, panting.
Dean draws a deep breath through his nose, his body over stimulated and worn out, and pets Sam’s hair some more. “I don’t know, I think we were getting somewhere there for a second,” he says. He groans when Sam pushes against him again, then turns his face into the side of his neck, his mouth just below Sam’s ear. “Come on, you can do it,” he murmurs, voice low and an embarrassed flush creeping over his skin as he speaks. “Come on, Sammy, I know you like it, even a little, huh? Got me right where you want me now, and look at how easy it was to just fall into. I didn’t even try to fuck you, did I? Because I know you and maybe it’s not about sex, but you really like having your dick inside me anyway, don’t you? A real fucking power trip, huh?”
“Shh, fuck, be quiet,” Sam hisses at him.
“Oh, I don’t think so. I think you’re taking too goddamn long pounding my ass and I’m not a girl, so I’m not gonna be ready for another go for another fifteen minutes at least,” Dean says. He licks under Sam’s ear, making him shudder and turn his head away. “You do like it, look at that,” Dean whispers. “God, that’s just filthy, Sammy. I’m your big brother, I carried you in my arms and bounced you on my knee, you took your first steps for me. All it takes is a little fairy dust on your tongue, though, and that doesn’t matter anymore. All you can think about is slamming your cock up in my ass…” Dean moans and jerks against Sam as he thrusts hard over his prostate again. He nips Sam’s earlobe and pulls at his shoulders. “I don’t blame you, I’ve got a nice ass. Come on, Sammy, come inside me. It’ll feel so good. It--”
Sam moves one hand up to cover Dean’s mouth, shushing him. “Dude, you are not helping,” he pants. His lips quirk in a sardonic little smile as Dean’s eyes spark back at him before he moans into Sam’s hand. “God, you’re going to be so fucking sore,” Sam whispers.
Dean whimpers and closes his eyes, lightly setting his teeth against Sam’s palm. Sam bends his head down and licks Dean’s mouth where his lips are around the flesh of his hand. Dean’s eyes spring open, but he doesn’t twist away. Sam licks over his teeth, thick pleasure making his skin feel tight and almost burning. Dean’s dirty talking encouragement has done its trick, though and Sam finally ducks his head against Dean’s shoulder as his own orgasm rips through him, vicious and hard like a blow to the stomach. He fucks Dean through it, moaning as Dean’s body contracts around him and the slickness of his come makes thrusting into him that much easier. Dean catches his breath and squirms uncomfortably, but he doesn’t push Sam off or try to get away as Sam holds him down and moves through it until every aftershock has faded away.
They lay there just breathing for a few minutes when it’s over, their heartbeats regulating and the sweat on their bodies going cold. Dean’s the first to move and when he does, it’s just to put his hand on Sam’s shoulder and push to get him to roll off. Sam lifts his head and looks down at him, then carefully withdraws from his body and slumps back on the floor beside him.
“Fuck being sore later, I’m sore right now,” Dean mutters. “Christ, I just got the hell fucked out of me like I’m some chick. You ain’t exactly a gentleman either, Sammy.”
Sam snorts laughter, a puff of glittering dust following the sound, and Dean turns his head to look down at him. “You think that’s funny?” he demands.
“A little bit, yeah,” Sam says tiredly.
Dean scratches his cheek with his knuckles and shrugs. “Yeah, I guess it is,” he says. “You want to hear something that’s not funny?”
“Not really,” Sam says, thinking this entire situation has the potential to be really fucked up and not funny at all.
“I’ve got your cooling abortion sliding down my thighs and you know, those are my hypothetical nieces and nephews dying and working their way back out of my ass,” Dean says, thoughtfully staring up at the ceiling of the witch’s house. “That’s not so funny, is it?”
“When you put it like that, it’s pretty fucking gross,” Sam says. He runs a finger through Dean’s come on his belly and wrinkles his nose at his glossy fingertip. “Okay, sharing time is over. Let’s get dressed and get the hell out of here,” he says, getting almost painfully to his feet.
“I can get behind that,” Dean says, and rolls over to get up.
Sam tosses Dean his pants and hits him in the face with them. “And please, for the love of God, don’t touch anything.”
They spend the rest of the night in the motel room they had rented before they went after the witch, Dean in his bed and Sam in his, both of them turned with their backs to each other. The fact that it’s shame that has them doing it, not anger, doesn’t do a lot to make either of them feel better. In fact, it’s worse. A lot worse. If they were mad at each other, they could fight it out, throw punches and yell, curse, kick, bite, and--rarely--threaten to shoot. But what do they do with this? Neither of them has any right to be angry, and neither of them really is, but they’re both sick with shame and scared as hell.
“Dean?”
There’s no answer for a few minutes and Sam thinks Dean might really be asleep. Then Dean shifts in the bed and rolls onto his back. “What?”
“We should talk about this,” Sam says.
Dean groans and throws an arm over his face. “No, we should not talk about this. Because this never happened,” he says. “We should go to sleep and wake up in the morning where this has never happened and go get breakfast. Then you should look through the obituaries in the paper where this never happened and find us another job. One without witches.”
“That… Dean, that’s not going to work,” Sam says. He sits up enough to prop himself on one arm and looks over at Dean, who is an indistinct lump of darkness in the other bed. “You can’t really think that will work.”
“Why not?” Dean says.
“Well, for one thing, because if it worked, we could have just forgotten it and we’d be asleep right now,” Sam says.
“I’d be asleep right now if you’d quit running your mouth,” Dean says.
Sam sighs and flops back on the mattress on his back. “Fine,” he says.
“Fine,” Dean says.
“Dean?”
“What?”
“We’re… We’re gonna be okay, right?” Sam asks. And he’s scared of a negative answer, they can both hear it in his voice.
Dean chews at the corner of his mouth, then he lowers his arm and nods. “We’re gonna be fine, Sammy,” he says.
He sounds honest and sincere, but even Dean doesn’t know if he is saying it because he means it and it’s true or if he is saying it just because this is what he always does where Sam is concerned. He soothes the hurt, calms the fear, tells him there aren’t monsters under his bed even when he knows damn well there are. If he could kill this particular nasty monster, he would in an instant, but it’s a different kind. It’s curled up in their minds and eating at their souls.
Neither of them sleep very much that first night.
The next morning, Sam catches Dean staring at him when he gets out of the shower. He pauses as he’s fastening his belt and they stare at each other like that for a few minutes, the unavoidable weight of everything that’s changed sitting there on the bed between them with Sam’s shirt and Dean’s duffel bag.
Dean looks away first and Sam follows him with his eyes as Dean crosses the room, snatches his keys off the table by the window, and goes outside to wait for him.
In the diner while they’re eating breakfast, they try to find a balance of normal. Dean orders a stack of pancakes and pretends he doesn’t see Sam’s raised eyebrow and look of disbelief because that’s another one of those things they don’t talk about. Dean won’t eat it all, though he would have once, and they both know it, but he still orders the same food and the same portions and they still don’t talk about it. But that’s normal for them.
This other thing isn’t, and Dean can talk about Hendrix with three different kinds of syrup staining his lips as he flirts with their fifteen year old waitress if that’s what he wants to do, but it’s not going to change. There is this uncomfortable sense of being watched now, even when they aren’t looking. And if that were all it was, they could ignore it and pretend until the lie was true enough to serve, but it’s not. There’s more.
“Dean, we need to talk about this,” Sam says again at breakfast.
Dean licks blackberry syrup off the back of his fork and returns Sam’s imploring look with a cold one of his own. “Nope, we don’t,” he says. “I thought we already went over this.”
“But we haven’t, that’s why we need to,” Sam says. He has a newspaper from the machine in front of the diner folded on the edge of the table and the plate his omelet and toast was served on sits beside it waiting for a waitress to pick it up. In frustration, Sam smacks his hand down on the tabletop and the fork on the plate rattles a little.
“Knock it off,” Dean snaps, dropping his own fork onto his plate of half-eaten pancakes. He wipes his hands on a napkin, then stands up. “Grab your paper. I’m gonna pay and we can go. We’ll find a job on our way.”
“Dean--”
“Sam,” Dean says, a warning in his voice as he stops walking. His shoulders are tense and he takes a few deep breaths before he makes himself start walking again. “Just drop it, Sam.”
Sam starts to argue, but he notices some of the people in the diner staring at them and one waitress watching them out of the corners of her eyes. He closes his mouth, picks up his paper and his shoulder bag, and leaves the diner. As he does it, he’s reminded of Dean walking out of the motel room the same way not that much earlier and he wonders if this is what it’s going to be like from now on. Dean doesn’t hate him and Sam doesn’t hate Dean; there’s no one to blame, or at least they can’t blame each other. They can blame themselves, though, oh yeah. Because people are better at forgiving others than they are at forgiving themselves and the Winchesters sure as hell are not the exception to that old rule.
About 120 miles east, Dean pulls the car over on one of those turn-offs used by truckers to sleep late at night or readjust their loads and they get out. Dean paces a little, drinking from a pint bottle of whiskey while he stretches his legs. Sam spreads the newspaper out on the trunk of the car to read the obituaries, weighing down the corners with pieces of shale, and pretends not to notice or care that it’s only noon and Dean’s already trying to get drunk. It’s just another one of those things.
When they get back on the road, headed for upstate New York, Sam gets behind the wheel because Dean’s hands are shaking, and they still don’t talk about it. About the drinking, the weight loss, the shot nerves, Heaven and Hell, or about the one thing they both are thinking about, following behind them like a rotting corpse tied to the bumper of the Impala, stinking up the highway and every mile along the way. They just don’t; it’s a bad habit to fall into. Knowing that doesn’t change anything.
The next night when they stop, they don’t say a word about it, but by mutual agreement, they get separate rooms. Around 10:15 p.m., the Impala’s engine roars as Dean leaves the motel alone. He doesn’t ask Sam to come with him and doesn’t even tell him where he’s going or why, but he comes back less than an hour later and he’s not by himself.
Sam lays in the center of his bed staring up at a watermark on the ceiling that looks a lot like Felix the Cat while the box-spring of the bed in the next room competes with the girl Dean’s fucking for who can squeal the loudest. At least the box-spring isn’t faking it, Sam thinks as he gets up and turns on the TV, twisting the dial to get the volume up as high as it will go.
In the morning, Sam’s leaning against the passenger door of the car sipping coffee from a Dunkin Doughnuts paper cup while Dean kisses his lady of the night good-bye. When she’s gone, Sam pushes away from the car and goes by Dean into his room.
“What are you--?”
“I hope you at least gave her cab fare,” Sam says. He sets down another cup of coffee on the table and drops a bag of doughnuts beside it. “Here, breakfast.”
“Well come right in, why don’t you?” Dean says, closing the door.
Sam shrugs and drinks the rest of his coffee.
Dean watches him warily for a little while, then goes over to the table and digs in the bag until he comes up with an apple fritter. “Did you eat?” he asks, and takes a big bite of the glazed pastry.
Sam shakes his head no. “Didn’t sleep much either,” he says pointedly.
Dean catches his tone, but only interprets most of it. He grins and takes another bite of his doughnut. “Yeah,” he says. “Sorry about that. These walls, you know. Like paper.”
“Yeah,” Sam says. He watches Dean eat and his eyes fix on his mouth as Dean licks crackled sugar glaze from his lips with honest enjoyment.
He takes another bite and picks up his coffee to sniff it like it might be a trick. He’s done that forever and it’s always seemed odd to Sam, how Dean will smell something before he drinks it no matter who gives it to him, but he’ll chow down on whatever is put in front of him without a second thought.
Sam starts walking toward him, moving slow and almost casual, but Dean must sense some intent in his posture because he tenses and his head comes up. “So, hey, thanks for breakfast,” he says, taking an involuntary step backward as Sam moves into his personal space. “We should try to get on the road by--”
Sam crowds him back against the wall by the table and crushes his mouth to Dean’s in a bruising kiss. Dean makes a startled sound of protest and tries to jerk his head away, but Sam’s hand comes up to cup his cheek and he’s right up to the wall with nowhere to go. Sam nips Dean’s bottom lip and licks into his mouth when he gasps, stroking his tongue over Dean’s with the flavor of doughnut glaze still caught on the back of his teeth. It’s not fairy dust, but it’s just as sweet. All the sweetness with none of the potency. For a moment only Dean yields to the kiss, his body starting to relax against Sam’s, his own tongue sliding over Sam’s a little as though tasting or testing something. It’s a few seconds is all, but Sam moans into the kiss, a shock of real sexual desire singing through him.
Then Dean growls and bites him.
“Shit,” Sam hisses, turning his head and breaking the kiss as he brings his hand up to his mouth where his lip is cracked and bleeding.
Dean shoves him back and twists out of his hold and beyond reach. “Goddamn it, Sam,” he says, breathing harshly around the words.
“You bit me,” Sam says, still not quite believing it.
Dean glares at him wrathfully. “Well you kissed me,” he says. “We‘re even.”
“We‘re--There‘s a difference, you ass,” Sam says.
“Not much of one from where I‘m standing,” Dean says. He folds his arms over his chest and scowls at Sam, his bright eyes alight with anger and something else.
Fear is what it looks like to Sam. “Then why don’t you come over here and let me bite you, too,” Sam says. “Make it even, you dick.”
“Nuh-huh, you don’t get the moral high-ground this time, Sammy,” Dean says, jabbing a finger at him. Sticky pieces of his squished doughnut still cling to his fingertips. He sees it and puts the tips of his first two fingers in his mouth to suck them off. “What the hell was that anyway?”
Sam takes a few deep, steadying breaths, then shrugs and yanks open the door. “Doesn’t matter,” he says, walking out. “We’re not going to talk about it anyway.”
And they don’t. After that, Sam even stops trying to convince Dean that they should.
The next time they stop, Sam leaves the motel and walks down the highway to a bar where he picks a fight with a biker over a game of pool. He’s pissed off and tense from riding three hundred miles in the passenger seat of the Impala with Dean singing along to Bad Company right beside him. He’s tired from lack of sleep and this constant feeling like he’s walking on a frayed tight-rope just waiting for it to snap. He’s sick with shame and want that only compounds his shame and it all comes back full circle to him being pissed off and spoiling for a fight.
But the biker he decks just happens to have a whole lot of his burly biker buddies with him and Sam came to the bar alone. So Sam’s on his back over the pool table with a cue under his throat making it hard for him to breathe and two other guys holding him down when Dean hits the guy strangling Sam over the back of the head with a Jack Daniel’s bottle.
The guy slumps down on Sam, unconscious and limp, and Sam struggles under his weight to the sound of cursing and flesh pounding on flesh. The biker weighs about as much as Sam does even if he is about a half foot shorter, so it takes him a minute, even running on the high of adrenalin to get him off of him.
“Sammy!” Dean calls from where he’s holding off two of the unconscious man’s friends with his empty whiskey bottle in one hand and a knife in the other. “Hey, Sammy! You gonna lay there on your back all night like a bitch or get your ass up and, yanno, assist me?”
Sam struggles underneath the unconscious man and finally shoves him off. He rolls off of Sam and, dead weight heavy, slumps to the floor, hitting his head on the edge of the pool table as he falls. With a growl of annoyance in his throat, Sam hops down from the table and fumbles in the unconscious guy’s pocket for his wallet, which is hooked with a series of ridiculously pointless chains to one of his belt loops. He doesn’t count the money in it, just takes everything, counting anything extra as his due for pain and suffering, then picks up the biker’s dropped pool stick and snaps it across the back of another guy’s head just as he starts to move in on Dean.
“’Bout goddamn time,” Dean says as Sam joins him.
“Yeah, well,” Sam says. He shrugs and tosses the two pieces of the broken cue over his shoulders as he walks by Dean toward the exit. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Dean eyes the two men closest to him that he’s holding off and keeps backing up toward the door, still not sure. When he sees the jukebox in his peripheral vision, he knows about where he’s at and how far it is to the door, and throws the Jack Daniels bottle at the nearest biker before he turns and runs after Sam.
Sam has made it halfway across the parking lot at an easy, unconcerned stroll when Dean dashes out of the bar, trying to juggle the knife still held in his hand while he tries to find his keys and not slice his belt in the process. Sam glances around to see him coming and also see that no one has bothered to follow them, and reaches out to catch Dean, hooking his arm around his waist and hauling Dean against him as they reach the car. Dean instinctively fights him, still running on the adrenalin of the expected chase, and he ends up shoved against the side of the Impala with Sam’s fingers tight around his wrist, keeping the knife in Dean’s hand away from him.
Dean has to take a few deep breaths before he starts to relax. When he does, he’s shaking with the effects of the adrenalin high and he’s eye to eye with Sam, who is staring intently into his face. Dean swallows and Sam’s gaze flicks to his throat to watch it move with it, then right back to Dean’s eyes.
“Sammy, maybe you aught to let me go before they call the cops and--”
“Why did you follow me?” Sam asks him.
Dean shrugs and has to make himself look away from Sam, his stomach like a net full of butterflies with him holding him like this, touching him this way, staring at him in a way that makes Dean not quite sure whether Sam’s thinking about killing him or fucking him. “I don’t know,” Dean says after a minute. “Thought you might not mind the… company.”
Sam chuffs out an incredulous laugh and suddenly lets him go. “Didn’t think you wanted my company,” Sam says. He takes the keys from the pocket of Dean’s jeans himself and doesn’t even give the knife he’s still holding another look. “I’m driving,” he says, though that’s pretty clear from the way he is already getting behind the wheel.
Dean stands away from the side of the car, his mind suspiciously fuzzy considering how he hadn’t been all that drunk when he left the motel, and he stares down at the knife in his hand. “Ah… okay.”
“Dude, come on, the cops probably are coming,” Sam says. He starts the car and the Impala’s familiar roaring engine makes Dean tense. “And put the fucking knife away before you cut yourself.”
Dean glares at him as he slips the knife back into the sheath on his hip and goes around the trunk of the car. “Whatever, bitch,” he says, getting in. “I’ve been playing with knives since you were shitting your diapers, so what-ev-er.”
Sam rolls his eyes and backs the car out, making Dean grip the door as he sprays gravel. “Whoa, what’s the fucking hurry?” Dean says, gritting his teeth against the desire to yell for Sam to pull the hell over and let him drive.
“The 7-11 down the road closes in fifteen minutes,” Sam says, like that is in any way an excuse.
“So?” Dean demands.
“So… I still want a beer,” he says. He slants his eyes at Dean and his lips quirk. “They probably got condoms and shit like that if you’re not serious about keeping me company. You could still go pick up a girl.”
Dean scowls at him and slumps down in his seat. “What makes you think I don’t got my own?”
Sam snorts and brakes at a red light even though there’s hardly a soul around. “Nothing, I guess,” he says.
“Well, I do,” Dean says.
“Fine,” Sam says easily.
“Fine,” Dean says, feeling really uncomfortable with this topic of conversation all of a sudden. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to let you get me drunk and take advantage of me.”
He means it as a joke because that‘s what Dean does, and it is funny, Sam even laughs. But it’s not funny now for the same reason it would have been funny before and as soon as it’s out of Dean’s mouth, they both feel that. There’s an awareness between them now at the mention of such things that would not have been there before. The awareness comes from knowing how the ridiculousness of the joke doesn’t come from the fact that they have never, but that they have.
Before. There’s a before and an after now and they both think of it that way without needing to discuss it. They see things as before that night and after that night and that’s the map they measure their relationship by now. They’re in the after right now and so far, the after is a pretty frightening and uncertain place.
Sam pulls up to the 7-11 and kills the engine, then turns to Dean. “Dean, I really--”
“I’ll get the beer,” Dean says and gets out of the car.
He doesn’t run, but he doesn’t have to. Sam watches him go into the little store and just lets his head fall back against the back of his seat with a sigh. “Fine,” he mutters.
They go back to the motel and Dean carries the case of beer he bought at the convenience store into Sam’s room without even thinking about it. Without thinking about it, they both sit down on the bed with the case between them and watch a late night showing of Casablanca. Toward the end of the movie, Dean makes Sam laugh by trying to mimic Humphrey Bogart and they’re still not talking about it, but for the first time in days, they’re not thinking about it either. Things almost feel good again, normal again--at least by their standards--and they get drunk together sprawled out right there on the same sagging mattress like brothers.
Sam wakes up the next morning on his back with the sun slanting through the ragged curtains into his eyes and Dean’s face pressed right into the curve between his neck and shoulder. He lays there for a long time, feeling Dean’s breath puff warm and soft along his throat and tries to decide what to do about it. He knows what he wants to do about it, and he’s also pretty sure that if he pressed the issue, Dean wouldn’t put up much of a fight about it, but he doesn’t do anything because it’s way more complicated than that. It can’t ever be just about sex with them and they both know that; that’s what makes it so scary.
“Dean,” Sam says softly, jostling him lightly by jerking his shoulder.
Dean makes a soft whining sound of protest and Sam stills, closing his eyes with a deep breath as that sound echoes in his mind, bringing with it sensory memories that go straight to his dick. For an instant, there is a taste like saline and sugar on his tongue and Dean’s voice whispering filthy things in his ear, Dean’s voice catching and hitching and his lithe body straining under Sam‘s, gripping him tight.
Sam bites down on his bottom lip against a moan of heavy, constricting want. He opens his eyes and shifts, intending to ease out from under Dean and get up; put some distance and at least one more layer of clothes between them. He finds Dean looking back at him, his eyes sharp and aware with that same aching look of desire on his face, and Sam goes still.
“Hey,” Sam says after a minute. He doesn’t know what else to say.
“Hey,” Dean says back. His voice sounds strained and rusted.
“This is so weird,” Sam says, and he doesn’t have to explain that.
Dean’s lips curve in a lazy smirk and he shrugs one shoulder. “Figure you’ve just got this crazy repressed Oedipal complex,” Dean says blandly.
“Dude, you are not my mother,” Sam says, but his own lips quirk in a faint smile.
“And thank God for that,” Dean says. “You’d also be into necrophilia then, wouldn’t you?”
“Uh huh,” Sam says dryly, his eyebrows raised. “And all of this would be because of that fairy dust shit, then?”
“Probably,” Dean says. “Unless you’re trying to say you’ve always had the hots for me, Sammy.”
Dean’s grin is quick and mocking as he pushes up from the bed and rolls over to grab his shoes.
Sam follows him with his eyes, catching himself as he’s admiring the flex of lean muscle under the soft skin of Dean’s really fantastically pretty back. He’s never done that before. He’s seen Dean in every state of undress imaginable over the years and he’s never done that before.
That should probably come as some kind of comfort--that he’s never looked at his brother and found him attractive like that--but it doesn’t. They’re both fairly certain that the dust wasn’t just some magical excuse to do something they’ve always wanted to do anyway. It wasn’t a catalyst for something that was going to happen eventually. It wasn’t the straw that broke the back of the thing or the last shove they needed for what they secretly wanted. Fucking Dean hadn’t been an opportunity, not really, until after the fact.
“I was picking that glittery crap out of my eyes in the mornings, can you believe that?” Dean says as he pulls the laces tight on his shoe and ties it.
“Yeah,” Sam says. “I had some in my ear and it took me two days to get it all out of my hair.”
Dean coughs out a soft laugh and looks at Sam over his shoulder. There’s a moment where his smile is honest and genuinely amused, then it freezes and slowly, like it’s melting, slips away. There’s a high-charged tension of sexual hunger in the way he looks at Sam then and it still surprises them. It still makes their skin prickle with the strangeness of it all even as Dean twists back around and leans over Sam.
“Dean, we need to talk about this, man,” Sam says, his voice soft and unsteady in the confusion of it all.
“No,” Dean says. He stretches over the bed and runs the back of his hand up the side of Sam’s neck, lightly stroking. “It’s like the cat in the box, you know? So we can’t do that.”
“Dean, what--?”
“As long as the cat stays in the box and we don’t peek, it’s not really dead,” Dean says. He drops his head and presses a quick, forceful kiss to Sam’s mouth.
Sam starts to respond and just that quickly, Dean’s gone again, moving across the room to get his coat and find his keys on the table.
“Schrödinger's cat?” Sam says, dazed. He sits up and watches Dean head for the door.
“That’s the one,” Dean says.
Sam frowns at his back as Dean is fumbling with the chain lock and wonders where the hell Dean ever learned about the paradox of Schrödinger's cat. Sometimes he says shit like that, just out of nowhere like everyone should know these things and it’s no big deal, and it strikes Sam how really smart Dean actually is. And how good he is at hiding it.
“Ah… Dean?” Sam says, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck as Dean starts to step outside.
Dean leans back in the room, his hand still on the door, and looks at Sam inquiringly. “Yeah?”
“About the cat…” Sam says.
Dean huffs out an impatient breath and starts to leave again. “It’s a metaphor, analogy or whatever. There’s no cat. I’m gonna take a quick shower before we get--”
“No, I know,” Sam says quickly. “It’s just… It’s not alive either.”
“What?” Dean says, peering back in the room at him without opening the door again.
“Schrödinger's cat,” Sam says. “It’s not dead but it’s not alive either… When it’s in the box.”
Dean holds his gaze for a long, drawn-out minute because he gets it. He knows what Sam’s doing, that he’s just carrying on his metaphor to make his own point. Then Dean rolls his eyes like he doesn’t know what Sam’s talking about because Sam is the biggest geek on the planet and says, “Whatever, dude. Get dressed, I’m hungry.”
He closes the door on whatever Sam might say next and Sam slumps, feeling a little defeated. He sits on the side of the bed with his face in his hands for a little while, then sighs and gets up to go shower.
Continue>>
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rated: NC-17
Warnings: sex pollen/dust, fuck-or-die scenario, dirty talking
Word Count: 18,300
Notes: I started this around the start of last season, so this takes place somewhere after 5x04 "The End" when Dean lets Sam come back. This was supposed to be in response to a kink meme prompt asking for Sam/Dean first time, sex pollen, fuck-or-die, except they're still straight and have never secretly wanted to fuck each other. And okay, so I am not posting it in response to that because I have no use for that community anymore, but here it is. And they're straight... mostly.
Summary: "It may not have to mean anything, but they aren’t just two guys stuck in an impossible situation. They’re them and uncommonly attached to one another, so it will mean something and they both know it. This will change them and Dean can’t really blame Sam for suddenly being afraid to move."
Some Kind of Strange Magic
"We are all a little weird and life's a little weird,
and when we find someone whose weirdness is
compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall
in mutual weirdness and call it love."
- Dr. Seuss
Dean’s always been steady and sure-fingered. He can disable an alarm in under twenty seconds, assuming it’s a standard one without anything fancy to trip him up, he can pick a lock almost as fast as Sam can and he almost never misses his target when he shoots. Then one night after they’ve dispatched a particularly nasty witch, Dean idly picks up a glazed clay pot and his hand spasms.
They watch it fall like it’s happening in slow motion until it bursts on the floor like an over-filled water balloon. The contents whoosh out like the fire of an a-bomb and fill the room. The powder, glittering and so fine that they don’t even feel it in their throats as they breathe it in, tastes like burned sugar.
Sam and Dean exchange a knowing, panicked look and Dean is already running for the nearest window to let it out and let in some air when Sam grabs his arm and stops him.
“Sam, shit--Don’t touch me,” Dean says, but it’s too late. The imprint of Sam’s fingers, the scalding touch of his skin, slithers up Dean’s arm and into his flesh like sweet poison. “Oh God,” he whispers, trying to jerk away.
Sam’s hand tightens on his arm, that same poisonous lust creeping through him. “You can’t… open the window. It has to settle or it’ll… spread,” Sam says, panting as his blood heats with want. “Oh God, Dean, I’m sorry.”
Dean’s jaw clenches and he twists his hand and finally breaks out of Sam’s grasp. The agony of the lost contact is like ripping a chunk of their living bodies away with tenterhooks. They both scream and fall to their knees, more of the gleaming fine fairy dust puffing up around them as they fall, clinging to their skin and coating their tongues with sweetness.
“Dean,” Sam chokes out. He reaches for him, but Dean falls backward on his ass and crawls away from him, one hand up to hold him off if he should come after him. Sam watches him and he’s shaking with the need to follow him, to lay his hands on Dean’s skin, to do… Oh God. To… “Dean, we have to,” Sam manages.
Sam gags and falls forward on his hands and knees, not even noticing Dean scrambling back from him, pained sounds of distress in his throat as his breathing hitches and catches. “Dean… you know what this stuff is, right?” Sam says, looking up at Dean through his tumbled hair.
Dean looks back at him and there is such terror in his eyes that Sam hates himself for the desire filling up his body, riding the back of the spell kept in the dust on their skin and in their mouths. Dean stares back at him and there is such ravenous want inside him that he can hardly stand it, but he won’t do that to Sam--or to himself. They’ve only just started to be okay. Something like this could ruin them forever.
“We have to,” Sam whispers, and he shifts toward Dean, raising one hand to reach for him.
“No,” Dean hisses. Sam catches the leg of his jeans and Dean kicks out at him to get him off, get him away. “We’ll… we’ll just leave. We’ll find a couple of girls. We won’t die before that. Hell, we can get a couple hookers for the night and--”
“No,” Sam says, shaking his head. “We can’t do that. It’ll only spread.”
Dean catches himself staring at Sam and admiring the slant of his cheekbones, the bow of his mouth. He swallows and looks away, disgusted and ashamed as cramps suddenly rip through his insides like his entrails are being wrung out. “Fuck, oh fuck,” Dean gasps, collapsing onto his side in pain.
“Dean--”
“Fucking boy scout,” Dean says through clenched teeth. “So it’ll spread. Who cares.”
“We can’t… We can’t let it do that,” Sam says. He ducks his head again, retching as his own cramps make his abdomen clench. “Shit. Oh shit. Dean, come on, man. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, but there’s… we have to. It’s the only way.”
They had never encountered fairy dust themselves, but they’d both read about it in John’s journal and heard about it from other hunters. The only way to neutralize the love spell was to yield to it. Then and only then would they be immune to it and able to leave without contaminating someone else. Then and only then would it stop hurting them without killing them. If there were anyone else in the room with them, they could both fuck that person and be done with it, but there isn’t anyone but them.
“Sam… I love you, man, but no. I’m not going to fuck you,” Dean says. He grits his teeth and pulls his legs up as his stomach starts to tighten with the cramps.
“Dean… I love you, man, but I don’t want to die,” Sam says, painfully making it the few feet over to where Dean lays on the floor. When he touches Dean’s arm, Dean tries to twist away from him. Sam raises his hand to his face and rests his palm on Dean’s cheek. “I’m sorry, but there’s no other way. You know there isn’t.”
Dean shakes his head no, but he’s already leaning up into that touch of skin on skin. The soft caress of Sam’s hand on his cheek makes his eyes fall closed as a soft moan slips from his mouth. “Oh God, Sammy, no,” he whispers, his voice raw with despair.
“I know,” Sam says, but he’s pulling at Dean’s shirt, working it up his body. “Lift your arms.”
Trembling from the close way Sam’s body gives off heat when it isn’t even touching him, Dean opens his eyes and watches him, focusing on Sam’s face as he does what he asks and lifts his arms for Sam to strip off his shirt. For some irrational reason, he has the idea that if he doesn’t take his eyes away from Sam’s face, it won’t be that bad. It won’t be like sex or incest at all, just another way to break another spell.
Sam yanks his own shirt off and lays over him, his arms going around Dean to hold his body close. The skin to skin contact is like a soothing balm and they both moan from the slight relief even as it sparks new lust from them both.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Dean,” Sam whispers to him as he fumbles with the button and zipper of Dean’s jeans. He gets them open and slips his hand inside to rub lightly over his stomach once, then lower to close his hand around Dean’s cock.
Dean hisses a breath through his teeth and flushes with humiliation as he tries to push Sam away again. He’s hard, but only a little. Only enough that Sam knows it’s from the spell, not honest arousal. The knowledge makes him feel guilty, like a rapist, but the sickness and death hanging over them both is there in the back of his mind, so he doesn’t let Dean go.
“I’m sorry, Dean,” Sam tells him again, and starts to jack him off.
Dean shakes his head no and grasps Sam’s bicep to hold onto something. “Not your fault,” he says. He shivers and closes his eyes as his dick goes hard in Sam’s hand. “Stop.”
“No, Dean, we have to--”
“I know what we have to do,” Dean says, eyes snapping open and going sharp. “I know, alright? And look, I’m all ready to go, so let’s get this over with so I can start trying to forget about it.”
Sam nods shortly and takes his hand off of Dean’s cock. He scoots down enough to tug the laces on Dean’s shoes loose and pull them off, then pulls Dean’s jeans and underwear down his hips as he crawls back up. He darts a quick, uncertain glance up at Dean, then moves to kneel between his legs as he opens his belt.
“Dean, I don’t… I’ve never had sex with a guy before,” Sam confesses, feeling ridiculously embarrassed about it now for some reason.
“What, and you think I have?” Dean asks, eyebrows shooting up.
“No,” Sam says instantly. “No… I just… I don’t know how to do this.”
Dean sits up a little, bracing himself on his elbow to get a good look at Sam. He runs his eyes down Sam’s body and tries to not let imagined images of what that body is going to be doing to him in a few minutes invade his mind. It doesn’t work that well.
But Sam is nervous--no, Sam is a little scared--so Dean does what he always does when it comes to Sam.
“It’s okay,” Dean says. He sits up a little more and makes himself touch Sam, lets his hand stroke down his side, trying to soothe him. “It’s okay. It’s just sex. It doesn’t have to mean anything and it’s damn not your fault. I’m the dumb ass that didn’t keep his hands off of shit.”
And that is such a lie. It may not have to mean anything, but they aren’t just two guys stuck in an impossible situation. They’re them and uncommonly attached to one another, so it will mean something and they both know it. This will change them and Dean can’t really blame Sam for suddenly being afraid to move.
“Here, let me…” Dean says, tentatively reaching for Sam’s cock. He closes his hand around it and watches Sam’s face as he gently squeezes. “Fuck, this is so sick. I’m sorry, Sam. Are you--?”
“I’m fine,” Sam says. He is so completely not fine that it’s laughable, but he’ll make it. He puts a hand on Dean’s chest and gently pushes against him to get him to lay down. “Can we just get this over with?”
Dean nods and lets Sam push him back down on the floor. Sam runs his hands searchingly over Dean’s body, down his thighs and along his hips. When his hands finally stray near Dean’s ass, Dean is shivering again and becoming impatient. When his fingers only touch along the crack of his ass, Dean huffs out a breath and lifts his hips a little, moving toward him encouragingly.
“What are you--?”
“Put your finger inside me,” Dean tells him. He bites down on his bottom lip, flushing with humiliation at having to even say that.
“Wait… Why?” Sam asks.
“Because my ass is not a vagina,” Dean says calmly. “Because I don’t habitually poke things up there and now you have to fuck it. I don’t want to be hurting when this shit is over.”
Sam stares at him in stunned silence for a moment, considering that, then swallows thickly and nods. “Okay, so what do I do? Just… put my finger inside you and…?”
“I don’t know, just do it,” Dean says.
Sam nods and won’t meet Dean’s eyes as he presses the tip of his finger against his hole, then slowly pushes his finger inside. Dean draws in a breath on a curse and tenses and Sam can feel his body tighten and clench around his finger, light pressure against his fingernail.
“I think you have to relax,” Sam says, eyes fixed on where his finger is gripped inside Dean’s body. He carefully rocks his hand against him and pushes his finger deeper, drawing a soft sound from Dean that makes Sam look up and fix his gaze on Dean’s face. “Dean?”
“I’m trying to,” Dean says harshly.
“Dean… we have to hurry,” Sam says, breath catching. “My heart… it’s beating too fast.”
Dean nods and throws his hand out to reach for his jeans, which are too far away for him to grab. “Get… There’s a condom in my pocket. It’s lubricated. It’ll have to do because if you fuck me like this, all it’s going to do is hurt like hell.”
“But we can’t… There has to be contact,” Sam says, but he’s reaching for Dean’s pants and feeling around for the condom anyway.
“Yeah, so use the lube, not the condom,” Dean says, his heart thundering painfully in his throat. “Hurry up.”
“I got it,” Sam says. He tears open the little package and squeezes it to get the lubricant on his fingers from the condom. Hand shaking a little with urgency, Sam pushes his finger, now slick with lube, back inside Dean’s ass and works it in and out of him. “Shh, I’m sorry,” Sam murmurs when Dean jerks and makes a startled sound of protest. “I’m going to put another finger in you, okay? It‘s too tight. I can‘t--”
“Just… do it,” Dean says, panting. He pushes his hands down hard against the floor, his fingers clenching and unclenching against the wood, scraping a little. “Come on, do it, Sammy. I forgive you. I do. Come on, hurry.”
Deeply disturbed by it, no matter what Dean says, Sam adds his second finger and thrusts them both. Dean tenses up again and jerks before gradually relaxing. “You okay?” Sam asks him.
“I am so far from okay,” Dean says. He closes his eyes, throat working, and nods for Sam to continue. “Go on. Let’s just… do this. God, I fucking hate witches.”
Sam opens his fingers and twists them inside him and Dean makes a startled grunting sound, his eyes opening in surprise. “Sorry,” Sam says, watching him shaking on the floor.
Dean shakes his head. “No, it’s… that didn’t hurt,” he says. And that is the most upsetting thing about this. The idea that it might not hurt, that it might actually be good scares the hell out of him because how are they going to fix this when it is over? If they liked it, how could they say it was all the magic?
“Really?” Sam says. He does it again, blinking in surprise when Dean bucks against him and reaches for him. “Wow. Okay, I’m going to… um. You know.”
“You’re gonna put your dick in my ass and fuck me, yeah I know,” Dean says, his voice rough and shaking a little. Trying to ease the sting of his words, he pets his hand up into Sam’s hair. “Sorry. Just… come on. It’s okay. We gotta do it or our hearts are gonna stop. It’s gonna be okay.”
“Yeah, okay,” Sam says, looking down at him as he shifts forward, rolling his hips down on Dean as he pushes inside him.
Dean gasps and jerks against him, instinctively trying to get away as Sam’s cock slides inside his body, stretching him burning tight. “Oh Jesus,” Dean whispers, his mind rebelling at the strange, invasive sensation and the awareness of Sam’s presence. Sam’s body against him, Sam’s cock inside him, and it’s so much more wrong like that.
Sam shifts his hips and thrusts once, rough and deep until he’s all the way inside. Dean digs his fingers into Sam’s arms and buries his face against Sam’s shoulder, trying not to cry out. Sam bites down on a pleasured moan as Dean’s hot, tight body clenches around him and puts his mouth against Dean’s shoulder. He presses a calming, apologetic kiss there.
“Dean?” Sam asks, nudging him to try and get Dean to look at him.
Dean swallows and opens his mouth to speak, then just closes it and nods.
“I’m sorry,” Sam murmurs below his ear as he carefully starts to move. He takes Dean’s hips in his hands and holds him as he rocks against him, trying not to hurt him and sure that he is anyway. “I’m sorry,” Sam says again, moving his mouth along Dean’s jaw. “Don’t hate me later, okay? Please don’t.”
Dean catches Sam before he can move his mouth up to his and kiss him. He holds Sam’s face in his hands and stares intently into his eyes, then slowly shakes his head no. “No,” he says. “Not your fault, I know, but don’t you kiss me. Just do it, Sammy.” He pushes his stomach up, working his hips in Sam’s hands. “Move. Fuck me.”
Sam nods and holds Dean’s gaze as he starts to move again, faster, a little harder. Dean moans and thrusts against him as Sam’s cock touches, then slides over his prostate. With a low sound of triumph at finding it, Sam tilts Dean’s hips back more and strokes over that place again and again until Dean’s biting back cries that are slipping by as whimpers. His fingers flex against Sam’s cheeks and slide down to hold his neck, and both of them are shaking with the force of their physical reaction and their combined fear and shame over what they’re doing.
Sam drops his head to Dean’s shoulder as he moves, his breath in soft panting gasps on Dean’s sweaty skin. He closes his eyes as he hunches his shoulders into it, throwing his weight behind his thrusts until Dean’s biting savagely at his lips not to cry out. It feels amazing, such pleasure sparking and biting through them both that they can’t even deny that, but all either of them wants is for it to be over and that surpasses any animalistic drive for orgasm.
Dean finally cries out, tired and nearly mindless with the sensations screaming in his body, rising and falling with each beating, pounding thrust of Sam’s body inside his own. It echoes like a drum in his abdomen, the vibrations beating in soft, pleasurable pulses in his belly and up his spine. It’s so completely unlike fucking a girl to be fucked by Sam, but he likes it and he’s too busy liking it to really wish he didn’t.
Sam lifts his head to look down at Dean, watching him as he thrusts, working over his prostate until Dean’s writhing and bucking into each thrust, his fingers biting into Sam’s shoulders. There’s sweat on their skin, pooling on Dean’s stomach and sliding down Sam’s face, burning on his eyelashes and salty on his lips. The dust, glittering and bright as crushed rainbows, sticks to their skin and Sam raises one hand from Dean’s hip to touch where it’s coated Dean’s mouth.
Dean opens his mouth to that prodding finger and Sam watches with a pit of lust opening wide inside him as Dean licks. His tongue slides over Sam’s finger and everything tastes like hot burning sugar. “Dean,” Sam whispers, lowering his head to breathe against Dean’s throat.
Dean makes a low moaning sound of assent and opens his eyes. “What?”
Sam licks the underside of Dean’s chin, down to the base of his throat where his pulse is frantically beating, tasting the sweet fairy dust in the salt of his sweat. “I want to kiss you,” Sam tells him.
“Oh God, why?” Dean says. He tightens his grip on Sam’s shoulders and Sam snaps his hips against his ass, forcing a grunt from him at the force of it. Dean’s body tightens as pleasure squirms and rolls inside him like fighting serpents, but he holds Sam’s eyes with his own now. “Isn’t this bad enough? You want to… kiss me?”
“It’s not that bad,” Sam says, moving his mouth along Dean’s jaw. “It’s… different. It’s just--”
“I’m your brother,” Dean hisses. He arches against Sam, their stomachs sliding together in the sweat on their bodies, Dean’s cock trapped between them, stroked with the movement. “God, oh God… That… Even if this were… the time for some kind of doubts about your sexuality, I’m your brother.”
“Yeah,” Sam says. He licks under Dean’s ear, catches the lobe in his teeth and laves it with his tongue until Dean shivers. “All I want you to do is come… so I can come and we can get the fuck out of here.”
“Then why--?”
“I don’t know,” Sam says. “I like the taste of this dust stuff and it’s all over your mouth.”
“Not good enough,” Dean says. “No. Just… hurry up.”
Sam huffs out a laugh and says, “Fine,” as he pulls Deans hips down, forcing his ass tight against his groin, pushing as deep inside him as he can as he snaps his hips in quick, hard thrusts. He watches with a low growl of triumph as Dean comes apart beneath him. Perhaps it’s a power thing, he doesn’t know, but when Dean’s mouth falls open, hitching cries of humiliated pleasure spilling out, his body trembling, shaking and tightening all around him, Sam likes it. A lot.
And Dean likes it too, he can’t even deny it. Despite the clinging way Sam’s cock sticks inside of him sometimes like he’s fucking right through the muscle of Dean’s body, and the way Sam’s strength in every hefting thrust or flexing slide of muscle makes him feel vulnerable to the point of breaking, he likes it. Maybe even because of those things, he likes it, and it would disturb him if he weren’t trying to grasp at the straws of his nonexistent control to keep from crying out.
It’s almost paradoxal how he wants to come more than he’s ever wanted to come in his life and yet doesn’t because that would prove something. A testimony in semen of how much he doesn’t hate his little brother fucking him in the ass. It would mean that he likes it and the confused line between it being them and it being the spell would grow that much thinner.
But neither of them have much say in the matter in the end. Dean’s back bows up from the floor and his blunt fingernails drag down Sam’s back as his orgasm breaks through him like an electric shock. He cries out and his lungs feel hot and constricted, flooded with warm honey, holding in those bursts of pleasure because he can’t exhale around them fast enough.
Sam shushes him, accidentally smearing more of the sugary glittering dust in his mouth and on his lips as he touches his fingers there. Dean licks his fingers, the calluses scraping on his tongue and against his teeth, and Sam moans. He leans down and presses his mouth against the backs of his fingers over Dean’s mouth, panting as Dean’s ass tightens around him with his orgasm. Dean bites his fingertips and Sam shakes his hair out of his eyes, watching him. Meeting those aware and very afraid, pleasure bright bottle green eyes staring back at him.
“It’s okay,” Sam murmurs, trying to get rid of that fear because it makes his chest ache with regret for what they’re doing. Dean closes his eyes, lashes trembling, and Sam has the irrational desire to kiss him there, over his eyes where those lashes would flutter against his lips like wings. “Shit,” he mutters, cursing himself for such thoughts.
Some of it’s the magic, but how much of it isn’t?
“Okay, okay, I’m going to just… I’m sorry, Dean,” Sam tells him, then pulls him up, hefting his weight, and bows his head to Dean’s chest as he quickens his pace. Dean curses and goes tense all over again, the post-orgasmic lassitude leaving him as Sam fucks him harder, rubbing against his oversensitive prostate until he’s clinging to Sam and biting his lips not to scream or beg him to stop.
“Fuck, this is so messed up,” Sam mutters, pressing reassuring kisses to Dean’s shoulder. Dean’s skin twitches under his mouth, his body shaking, but then Dean’s hands come up and stroke into Sam’s hair.
“I’m sorry, Sammy,” Dean whispers, stroking his hands down his neck, trying to comfort. “I’m so fucking sorry, man. Come on, now. Think happy thoughts and shoot your stuff up inside me… and we can go and pretend it never happened and--”
Sam gasps and grinds against Dean, his back arching as pleasure snaps through him, roused by the mental image provoked by Dean’s words. “Shut up, Dean,” Sam says, panting.
Dean draws a deep breath through his nose, his body over stimulated and worn out, and pets Sam’s hair some more. “I don’t know, I think we were getting somewhere there for a second,” he says. He groans when Sam pushes against him again, then turns his face into the side of his neck, his mouth just below Sam’s ear. “Come on, you can do it,” he murmurs, voice low and an embarrassed flush creeping over his skin as he speaks. “Come on, Sammy, I know you like it, even a little, huh? Got me right where you want me now, and look at how easy it was to just fall into. I didn’t even try to fuck you, did I? Because I know you and maybe it’s not about sex, but you really like having your dick inside me anyway, don’t you? A real fucking power trip, huh?”
“Shh, fuck, be quiet,” Sam hisses at him.
“Oh, I don’t think so. I think you’re taking too goddamn long pounding my ass and I’m not a girl, so I’m not gonna be ready for another go for another fifteen minutes at least,” Dean says. He licks under Sam’s ear, making him shudder and turn his head away. “You do like it, look at that,” Dean whispers. “God, that’s just filthy, Sammy. I’m your big brother, I carried you in my arms and bounced you on my knee, you took your first steps for me. All it takes is a little fairy dust on your tongue, though, and that doesn’t matter anymore. All you can think about is slamming your cock up in my ass…” Dean moans and jerks against Sam as he thrusts hard over his prostate again. He nips Sam’s earlobe and pulls at his shoulders. “I don’t blame you, I’ve got a nice ass. Come on, Sammy, come inside me. It’ll feel so good. It--”
Sam moves one hand up to cover Dean’s mouth, shushing him. “Dude, you are not helping,” he pants. His lips quirk in a sardonic little smile as Dean’s eyes spark back at him before he moans into Sam’s hand. “God, you’re going to be so fucking sore,” Sam whispers.
Dean whimpers and closes his eyes, lightly setting his teeth against Sam’s palm. Sam bends his head down and licks Dean’s mouth where his lips are around the flesh of his hand. Dean’s eyes spring open, but he doesn’t twist away. Sam licks over his teeth, thick pleasure making his skin feel tight and almost burning. Dean’s dirty talking encouragement has done its trick, though and Sam finally ducks his head against Dean’s shoulder as his own orgasm rips through him, vicious and hard like a blow to the stomach. He fucks Dean through it, moaning as Dean’s body contracts around him and the slickness of his come makes thrusting into him that much easier. Dean catches his breath and squirms uncomfortably, but he doesn’t push Sam off or try to get away as Sam holds him down and moves through it until every aftershock has faded away.
They lay there just breathing for a few minutes when it’s over, their heartbeats regulating and the sweat on their bodies going cold. Dean’s the first to move and when he does, it’s just to put his hand on Sam’s shoulder and push to get him to roll off. Sam lifts his head and looks down at him, then carefully withdraws from his body and slumps back on the floor beside him.
“Fuck being sore later, I’m sore right now,” Dean mutters. “Christ, I just got the hell fucked out of me like I’m some chick. You ain’t exactly a gentleman either, Sammy.”
Sam snorts laughter, a puff of glittering dust following the sound, and Dean turns his head to look down at him. “You think that’s funny?” he demands.
“A little bit, yeah,” Sam says tiredly.
Dean scratches his cheek with his knuckles and shrugs. “Yeah, I guess it is,” he says. “You want to hear something that’s not funny?”
“Not really,” Sam says, thinking this entire situation has the potential to be really fucked up and not funny at all.
“I’ve got your cooling abortion sliding down my thighs and you know, those are my hypothetical nieces and nephews dying and working their way back out of my ass,” Dean says, thoughtfully staring up at the ceiling of the witch’s house. “That’s not so funny, is it?”
“When you put it like that, it’s pretty fucking gross,” Sam says. He runs a finger through Dean’s come on his belly and wrinkles his nose at his glossy fingertip. “Okay, sharing time is over. Let’s get dressed and get the hell out of here,” he says, getting almost painfully to his feet.
“I can get behind that,” Dean says, and rolls over to get up.
Sam tosses Dean his pants and hits him in the face with them. “And please, for the love of God, don’t touch anything.”
They spend the rest of the night in the motel room they had rented before they went after the witch, Dean in his bed and Sam in his, both of them turned with their backs to each other. The fact that it’s shame that has them doing it, not anger, doesn’t do a lot to make either of them feel better. In fact, it’s worse. A lot worse. If they were mad at each other, they could fight it out, throw punches and yell, curse, kick, bite, and--rarely--threaten to shoot. But what do they do with this? Neither of them has any right to be angry, and neither of them really is, but they’re both sick with shame and scared as hell.
“Dean?”
There’s no answer for a few minutes and Sam thinks Dean might really be asleep. Then Dean shifts in the bed and rolls onto his back. “What?”
“We should talk about this,” Sam says.
Dean groans and throws an arm over his face. “No, we should not talk about this. Because this never happened,” he says. “We should go to sleep and wake up in the morning where this has never happened and go get breakfast. Then you should look through the obituaries in the paper where this never happened and find us another job. One without witches.”
“That… Dean, that’s not going to work,” Sam says. He sits up enough to prop himself on one arm and looks over at Dean, who is an indistinct lump of darkness in the other bed. “You can’t really think that will work.”
“Why not?” Dean says.
“Well, for one thing, because if it worked, we could have just forgotten it and we’d be asleep right now,” Sam says.
“I’d be asleep right now if you’d quit running your mouth,” Dean says.
Sam sighs and flops back on the mattress on his back. “Fine,” he says.
“Fine,” Dean says.
“Dean?”
“What?”
“We’re… We’re gonna be okay, right?” Sam asks. And he’s scared of a negative answer, they can both hear it in his voice.
Dean chews at the corner of his mouth, then he lowers his arm and nods. “We’re gonna be fine, Sammy,” he says.
He sounds honest and sincere, but even Dean doesn’t know if he is saying it because he means it and it’s true or if he is saying it just because this is what he always does where Sam is concerned. He soothes the hurt, calms the fear, tells him there aren’t monsters under his bed even when he knows damn well there are. If he could kill this particular nasty monster, he would in an instant, but it’s a different kind. It’s curled up in their minds and eating at their souls.
Neither of them sleep very much that first night.
The next morning, Sam catches Dean staring at him when he gets out of the shower. He pauses as he’s fastening his belt and they stare at each other like that for a few minutes, the unavoidable weight of everything that’s changed sitting there on the bed between them with Sam’s shirt and Dean’s duffel bag.
Dean looks away first and Sam follows him with his eyes as Dean crosses the room, snatches his keys off the table by the window, and goes outside to wait for him.
In the diner while they’re eating breakfast, they try to find a balance of normal. Dean orders a stack of pancakes and pretends he doesn’t see Sam’s raised eyebrow and look of disbelief because that’s another one of those things they don’t talk about. Dean won’t eat it all, though he would have once, and they both know it, but he still orders the same food and the same portions and they still don’t talk about it. But that’s normal for them.
This other thing isn’t, and Dean can talk about Hendrix with three different kinds of syrup staining his lips as he flirts with their fifteen year old waitress if that’s what he wants to do, but it’s not going to change. There is this uncomfortable sense of being watched now, even when they aren’t looking. And if that were all it was, they could ignore it and pretend until the lie was true enough to serve, but it’s not. There’s more.
“Dean, we need to talk about this,” Sam says again at breakfast.
Dean licks blackberry syrup off the back of his fork and returns Sam’s imploring look with a cold one of his own. “Nope, we don’t,” he says. “I thought we already went over this.”
“But we haven’t, that’s why we need to,” Sam says. He has a newspaper from the machine in front of the diner folded on the edge of the table and the plate his omelet and toast was served on sits beside it waiting for a waitress to pick it up. In frustration, Sam smacks his hand down on the tabletop and the fork on the plate rattles a little.
“Knock it off,” Dean snaps, dropping his own fork onto his plate of half-eaten pancakes. He wipes his hands on a napkin, then stands up. “Grab your paper. I’m gonna pay and we can go. We’ll find a job on our way.”
“Dean--”
“Sam,” Dean says, a warning in his voice as he stops walking. His shoulders are tense and he takes a few deep breaths before he makes himself start walking again. “Just drop it, Sam.”
Sam starts to argue, but he notices some of the people in the diner staring at them and one waitress watching them out of the corners of her eyes. He closes his mouth, picks up his paper and his shoulder bag, and leaves the diner. As he does it, he’s reminded of Dean walking out of the motel room the same way not that much earlier and he wonders if this is what it’s going to be like from now on. Dean doesn’t hate him and Sam doesn’t hate Dean; there’s no one to blame, or at least they can’t blame each other. They can blame themselves, though, oh yeah. Because people are better at forgiving others than they are at forgiving themselves and the Winchesters sure as hell are not the exception to that old rule.
About 120 miles east, Dean pulls the car over on one of those turn-offs used by truckers to sleep late at night or readjust their loads and they get out. Dean paces a little, drinking from a pint bottle of whiskey while he stretches his legs. Sam spreads the newspaper out on the trunk of the car to read the obituaries, weighing down the corners with pieces of shale, and pretends not to notice or care that it’s only noon and Dean’s already trying to get drunk. It’s just another one of those things.
When they get back on the road, headed for upstate New York, Sam gets behind the wheel because Dean’s hands are shaking, and they still don’t talk about it. About the drinking, the weight loss, the shot nerves, Heaven and Hell, or about the one thing they both are thinking about, following behind them like a rotting corpse tied to the bumper of the Impala, stinking up the highway and every mile along the way. They just don’t; it’s a bad habit to fall into. Knowing that doesn’t change anything.
The next night when they stop, they don’t say a word about it, but by mutual agreement, they get separate rooms. Around 10:15 p.m., the Impala’s engine roars as Dean leaves the motel alone. He doesn’t ask Sam to come with him and doesn’t even tell him where he’s going or why, but he comes back less than an hour later and he’s not by himself.
Sam lays in the center of his bed staring up at a watermark on the ceiling that looks a lot like Felix the Cat while the box-spring of the bed in the next room competes with the girl Dean’s fucking for who can squeal the loudest. At least the box-spring isn’t faking it, Sam thinks as he gets up and turns on the TV, twisting the dial to get the volume up as high as it will go.
In the morning, Sam’s leaning against the passenger door of the car sipping coffee from a Dunkin Doughnuts paper cup while Dean kisses his lady of the night good-bye. When she’s gone, Sam pushes away from the car and goes by Dean into his room.
“What are you--?”
“I hope you at least gave her cab fare,” Sam says. He sets down another cup of coffee on the table and drops a bag of doughnuts beside it. “Here, breakfast.”
“Well come right in, why don’t you?” Dean says, closing the door.
Sam shrugs and drinks the rest of his coffee.
Dean watches him warily for a little while, then goes over to the table and digs in the bag until he comes up with an apple fritter. “Did you eat?” he asks, and takes a big bite of the glazed pastry.
Sam shakes his head no. “Didn’t sleep much either,” he says pointedly.
Dean catches his tone, but only interprets most of it. He grins and takes another bite of his doughnut. “Yeah,” he says. “Sorry about that. These walls, you know. Like paper.”
“Yeah,” Sam says. He watches Dean eat and his eyes fix on his mouth as Dean licks crackled sugar glaze from his lips with honest enjoyment.
He takes another bite and picks up his coffee to sniff it like it might be a trick. He’s done that forever and it’s always seemed odd to Sam, how Dean will smell something before he drinks it no matter who gives it to him, but he’ll chow down on whatever is put in front of him without a second thought.
Sam starts walking toward him, moving slow and almost casual, but Dean must sense some intent in his posture because he tenses and his head comes up. “So, hey, thanks for breakfast,” he says, taking an involuntary step backward as Sam moves into his personal space. “We should try to get on the road by--”
Sam crowds him back against the wall by the table and crushes his mouth to Dean’s in a bruising kiss. Dean makes a startled sound of protest and tries to jerk his head away, but Sam’s hand comes up to cup his cheek and he’s right up to the wall with nowhere to go. Sam nips Dean’s bottom lip and licks into his mouth when he gasps, stroking his tongue over Dean’s with the flavor of doughnut glaze still caught on the back of his teeth. It’s not fairy dust, but it’s just as sweet. All the sweetness with none of the potency. For a moment only Dean yields to the kiss, his body starting to relax against Sam’s, his own tongue sliding over Sam’s a little as though tasting or testing something. It’s a few seconds is all, but Sam moans into the kiss, a shock of real sexual desire singing through him.
Then Dean growls and bites him.
“Shit,” Sam hisses, turning his head and breaking the kiss as he brings his hand up to his mouth where his lip is cracked and bleeding.
Dean shoves him back and twists out of his hold and beyond reach. “Goddamn it, Sam,” he says, breathing harshly around the words.
“You bit me,” Sam says, still not quite believing it.
Dean glares at him wrathfully. “Well you kissed me,” he says. “We‘re even.”
“We‘re--There‘s a difference, you ass,” Sam says.
“Not much of one from where I‘m standing,” Dean says. He folds his arms over his chest and scowls at Sam, his bright eyes alight with anger and something else.
Fear is what it looks like to Sam. “Then why don’t you come over here and let me bite you, too,” Sam says. “Make it even, you dick.”
“Nuh-huh, you don’t get the moral high-ground this time, Sammy,” Dean says, jabbing a finger at him. Sticky pieces of his squished doughnut still cling to his fingertips. He sees it and puts the tips of his first two fingers in his mouth to suck them off. “What the hell was that anyway?”
Sam takes a few deep, steadying breaths, then shrugs and yanks open the door. “Doesn’t matter,” he says, walking out. “We’re not going to talk about it anyway.”
And they don’t. After that, Sam even stops trying to convince Dean that they should.
The next time they stop, Sam leaves the motel and walks down the highway to a bar where he picks a fight with a biker over a game of pool. He’s pissed off and tense from riding three hundred miles in the passenger seat of the Impala with Dean singing along to Bad Company right beside him. He’s tired from lack of sleep and this constant feeling like he’s walking on a frayed tight-rope just waiting for it to snap. He’s sick with shame and want that only compounds his shame and it all comes back full circle to him being pissed off and spoiling for a fight.
But the biker he decks just happens to have a whole lot of his burly biker buddies with him and Sam came to the bar alone. So Sam’s on his back over the pool table with a cue under his throat making it hard for him to breathe and two other guys holding him down when Dean hits the guy strangling Sam over the back of the head with a Jack Daniel’s bottle.
The guy slumps down on Sam, unconscious and limp, and Sam struggles under his weight to the sound of cursing and flesh pounding on flesh. The biker weighs about as much as Sam does even if he is about a half foot shorter, so it takes him a minute, even running on the high of adrenalin to get him off of him.
“Sammy!” Dean calls from where he’s holding off two of the unconscious man’s friends with his empty whiskey bottle in one hand and a knife in the other. “Hey, Sammy! You gonna lay there on your back all night like a bitch or get your ass up and, yanno, assist me?”
Sam struggles underneath the unconscious man and finally shoves him off. He rolls off of Sam and, dead weight heavy, slumps to the floor, hitting his head on the edge of the pool table as he falls. With a growl of annoyance in his throat, Sam hops down from the table and fumbles in the unconscious guy’s pocket for his wallet, which is hooked with a series of ridiculously pointless chains to one of his belt loops. He doesn’t count the money in it, just takes everything, counting anything extra as his due for pain and suffering, then picks up the biker’s dropped pool stick and snaps it across the back of another guy’s head just as he starts to move in on Dean.
“’Bout goddamn time,” Dean says as Sam joins him.
“Yeah, well,” Sam says. He shrugs and tosses the two pieces of the broken cue over his shoulders as he walks by Dean toward the exit. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Dean eyes the two men closest to him that he’s holding off and keeps backing up toward the door, still not sure. When he sees the jukebox in his peripheral vision, he knows about where he’s at and how far it is to the door, and throws the Jack Daniels bottle at the nearest biker before he turns and runs after Sam.
Sam has made it halfway across the parking lot at an easy, unconcerned stroll when Dean dashes out of the bar, trying to juggle the knife still held in his hand while he tries to find his keys and not slice his belt in the process. Sam glances around to see him coming and also see that no one has bothered to follow them, and reaches out to catch Dean, hooking his arm around his waist and hauling Dean against him as they reach the car. Dean instinctively fights him, still running on the adrenalin of the expected chase, and he ends up shoved against the side of the Impala with Sam’s fingers tight around his wrist, keeping the knife in Dean’s hand away from him.
Dean has to take a few deep breaths before he starts to relax. When he does, he’s shaking with the effects of the adrenalin high and he’s eye to eye with Sam, who is staring intently into his face. Dean swallows and Sam’s gaze flicks to his throat to watch it move with it, then right back to Dean’s eyes.
“Sammy, maybe you aught to let me go before they call the cops and--”
“Why did you follow me?” Sam asks him.
Dean shrugs and has to make himself look away from Sam, his stomach like a net full of butterflies with him holding him like this, touching him this way, staring at him in a way that makes Dean not quite sure whether Sam’s thinking about killing him or fucking him. “I don’t know,” Dean says after a minute. “Thought you might not mind the… company.”
Sam chuffs out an incredulous laugh and suddenly lets him go. “Didn’t think you wanted my company,” Sam says. He takes the keys from the pocket of Dean’s jeans himself and doesn’t even give the knife he’s still holding another look. “I’m driving,” he says, though that’s pretty clear from the way he is already getting behind the wheel.
Dean stands away from the side of the car, his mind suspiciously fuzzy considering how he hadn’t been all that drunk when he left the motel, and he stares down at the knife in his hand. “Ah… okay.”
“Dude, come on, the cops probably are coming,” Sam says. He starts the car and the Impala’s familiar roaring engine makes Dean tense. “And put the fucking knife away before you cut yourself.”
Dean glares at him as he slips the knife back into the sheath on his hip and goes around the trunk of the car. “Whatever, bitch,” he says, getting in. “I’ve been playing with knives since you were shitting your diapers, so what-ev-er.”
Sam rolls his eyes and backs the car out, making Dean grip the door as he sprays gravel. “Whoa, what’s the fucking hurry?” Dean says, gritting his teeth against the desire to yell for Sam to pull the hell over and let him drive.
“The 7-11 down the road closes in fifteen minutes,” Sam says, like that is in any way an excuse.
“So?” Dean demands.
“So… I still want a beer,” he says. He slants his eyes at Dean and his lips quirk. “They probably got condoms and shit like that if you’re not serious about keeping me company. You could still go pick up a girl.”
Dean scowls at him and slumps down in his seat. “What makes you think I don’t got my own?”
Sam snorts and brakes at a red light even though there’s hardly a soul around. “Nothing, I guess,” he says.
“Well, I do,” Dean says.
“Fine,” Sam says easily.
“Fine,” Dean says, feeling really uncomfortable with this topic of conversation all of a sudden. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to let you get me drunk and take advantage of me.”
He means it as a joke because that‘s what Dean does, and it is funny, Sam even laughs. But it’s not funny now for the same reason it would have been funny before and as soon as it’s out of Dean’s mouth, they both feel that. There’s an awareness between them now at the mention of such things that would not have been there before. The awareness comes from knowing how the ridiculousness of the joke doesn’t come from the fact that they have never, but that they have.
Before. There’s a before and an after now and they both think of it that way without needing to discuss it. They see things as before that night and after that night and that’s the map they measure their relationship by now. They’re in the after right now and so far, the after is a pretty frightening and uncertain place.
Sam pulls up to the 7-11 and kills the engine, then turns to Dean. “Dean, I really--”
“I’ll get the beer,” Dean says and gets out of the car.
He doesn’t run, but he doesn’t have to. Sam watches him go into the little store and just lets his head fall back against the back of his seat with a sigh. “Fine,” he mutters.
They go back to the motel and Dean carries the case of beer he bought at the convenience store into Sam’s room without even thinking about it. Without thinking about it, they both sit down on the bed with the case between them and watch a late night showing of Casablanca. Toward the end of the movie, Dean makes Sam laugh by trying to mimic Humphrey Bogart and they’re still not talking about it, but for the first time in days, they’re not thinking about it either. Things almost feel good again, normal again--at least by their standards--and they get drunk together sprawled out right there on the same sagging mattress like brothers.
Sam wakes up the next morning on his back with the sun slanting through the ragged curtains into his eyes and Dean’s face pressed right into the curve between his neck and shoulder. He lays there for a long time, feeling Dean’s breath puff warm and soft along his throat and tries to decide what to do about it. He knows what he wants to do about it, and he’s also pretty sure that if he pressed the issue, Dean wouldn’t put up much of a fight about it, but he doesn’t do anything because it’s way more complicated than that. It can’t ever be just about sex with them and they both know that; that’s what makes it so scary.
“Dean,” Sam says softly, jostling him lightly by jerking his shoulder.
Dean makes a soft whining sound of protest and Sam stills, closing his eyes with a deep breath as that sound echoes in his mind, bringing with it sensory memories that go straight to his dick. For an instant, there is a taste like saline and sugar on his tongue and Dean’s voice whispering filthy things in his ear, Dean’s voice catching and hitching and his lithe body straining under Sam‘s, gripping him tight.
Sam bites down on his bottom lip against a moan of heavy, constricting want. He opens his eyes and shifts, intending to ease out from under Dean and get up; put some distance and at least one more layer of clothes between them. He finds Dean looking back at him, his eyes sharp and aware with that same aching look of desire on his face, and Sam goes still.
“Hey,” Sam says after a minute. He doesn’t know what else to say.
“Hey,” Dean says back. His voice sounds strained and rusted.
“This is so weird,” Sam says, and he doesn’t have to explain that.
Dean’s lips curve in a lazy smirk and he shrugs one shoulder. “Figure you’ve just got this crazy repressed Oedipal complex,” Dean says blandly.
“Dude, you are not my mother,” Sam says, but his own lips quirk in a faint smile.
“And thank God for that,” Dean says. “You’d also be into necrophilia then, wouldn’t you?”
“Uh huh,” Sam says dryly, his eyebrows raised. “And all of this would be because of that fairy dust shit, then?”
“Probably,” Dean says. “Unless you’re trying to say you’ve always had the hots for me, Sammy.”
Dean’s grin is quick and mocking as he pushes up from the bed and rolls over to grab his shoes.
Sam follows him with his eyes, catching himself as he’s admiring the flex of lean muscle under the soft skin of Dean’s really fantastically pretty back. He’s never done that before. He’s seen Dean in every state of undress imaginable over the years and he’s never done that before.
That should probably come as some kind of comfort--that he’s never looked at his brother and found him attractive like that--but it doesn’t. They’re both fairly certain that the dust wasn’t just some magical excuse to do something they’ve always wanted to do anyway. It wasn’t a catalyst for something that was going to happen eventually. It wasn’t the straw that broke the back of the thing or the last shove they needed for what they secretly wanted. Fucking Dean hadn’t been an opportunity, not really, until after the fact.
“I was picking that glittery crap out of my eyes in the mornings, can you believe that?” Dean says as he pulls the laces tight on his shoe and ties it.
“Yeah,” Sam says. “I had some in my ear and it took me two days to get it all out of my hair.”
Dean coughs out a soft laugh and looks at Sam over his shoulder. There’s a moment where his smile is honest and genuinely amused, then it freezes and slowly, like it’s melting, slips away. There’s a high-charged tension of sexual hunger in the way he looks at Sam then and it still surprises them. It still makes their skin prickle with the strangeness of it all even as Dean twists back around and leans over Sam.
“Dean, we need to talk about this, man,” Sam says, his voice soft and unsteady in the confusion of it all.
“No,” Dean says. He stretches over the bed and runs the back of his hand up the side of Sam’s neck, lightly stroking. “It’s like the cat in the box, you know? So we can’t do that.”
“Dean, what--?”
“As long as the cat stays in the box and we don’t peek, it’s not really dead,” Dean says. He drops his head and presses a quick, forceful kiss to Sam’s mouth.
Sam starts to respond and just that quickly, Dean’s gone again, moving across the room to get his coat and find his keys on the table.
“Schrödinger's cat?” Sam says, dazed. He sits up and watches Dean head for the door.
“That’s the one,” Dean says.
Sam frowns at his back as Dean is fumbling with the chain lock and wonders where the hell Dean ever learned about the paradox of Schrödinger's cat. Sometimes he says shit like that, just out of nowhere like everyone should know these things and it’s no big deal, and it strikes Sam how really smart Dean actually is. And how good he is at hiding it.
“Ah… Dean?” Sam says, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck as Dean starts to step outside.
Dean leans back in the room, his hand still on the door, and looks at Sam inquiringly. “Yeah?”
“About the cat…” Sam says.
Dean huffs out an impatient breath and starts to leave again. “It’s a metaphor, analogy or whatever. There’s no cat. I’m gonna take a quick shower before we get--”
“No, I know,” Sam says quickly. “It’s just… It’s not alive either.”
“What?” Dean says, peering back in the room at him without opening the door again.
“Schrödinger's cat,” Sam says. “It’s not dead but it’s not alive either… When it’s in the box.”
Dean holds his gaze for a long, drawn-out minute because he gets it. He knows what Sam’s doing, that he’s just carrying on his metaphor to make his own point. Then Dean rolls his eyes like he doesn’t know what Sam’s talking about because Sam is the biggest geek on the planet and says, “Whatever, dude. Get dressed, I’m hungry.”
He closes the door on whatever Sam might say next and Sam slumps, feeling a little defeated. He sits on the side of the bed with his face in his hands for a little while, then sighs and gets up to go shower.
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