SPN: An Act I Would Enjoy
An Act I Would Enjoy
Sequel to Filthy Mind; I suggest reading that first. NC-17 for really rather a lot of sex; Sam/Dean.
Notes: Thanks to giandujakiss, coffeeandink and cathexys. Not their fault!
They'd been back together for over a year, and fucking for nearly six months, when Dean asked.
It was Sam's fault, if fault was the right word. It had started the first time Dean had turned out the light and flipped back the covers on Sam's bed. Sam had frozen for a minute, but after the shock dissipated he'd immediately asked Dean if he was sure, if this was what he wanted. Dean had laughed as if the the questions were ridiculous, but when Sam had made his every limb go stiff and still, Dean had sighed like the rebellious teen he'd never been. "I wanna," he'd said, and thrust his erection against Sam's hipbone.
That hadn't been easy to resist, and Sam hadn't tried. Getting Dean to talk about it after had also been difficult, and had ended up feeling invasive of Dean's already too-limited privacy, so Sam had just kept following Dean's lead. He'd tried to be as considerate as possible without getting punched.
In the darkness, when Sam asked "Is there anything you'd like?" Dean would usually move Sam's hand to a relevant body part, or occasionally flip him into a new position. Sometimes he'd just snort and Sam would continue on as he'd been going. Soliciting Dean's preferences had been working pretty well for months, in that Dean didn't smack him when he asked and then they both got off.
But that night, after Sam asked, Dean stilled completely. Sam raised his head from where he'd murmured the words into the heat of Dean's belly. Dean was hard and ready, but his breathing had gone from sex-fast to hunt-desperate.
"Dean?"
Dean brushed Sam's hair off his forehead, a useless gesture when Dean's face was invisible in the darkness. "I, uh." He took a deep breath that made his entire body shift under Sam. "Tie me up?"
A spike of lust transfixed him, and then his brain caught up with his dick. "What?" Sam hadn't meant to sound that disbelieving. Dean pushed him off and Sam rolled into the center of the bed, which creaked with the sound of Dean sitting up and putting his feet on the floor. Sam could see his silhouette, bowed head and shoulders, against the slightly less black background of the closed curtains.
"I want you to tie me up and fuck me," Dean snarled at last, like an accusation.
Sam opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, then pushed himself up on his elbows so that he wasn't flat on his back. "Dean," he said after a minute, still bewildered, "I'm not sure that's-healthy."
"What, like the rest of my lifestyle?"
He could imagine it easily; he'd seen so often how Dean looked, straining against bonds or pinned by invisible hands. "But ... how could you want that?"
As soon as he said it, he knew he'd made a horrific mistake. "Dean," he pleaded, but Dean was already pulling on his jeans. Sam watched, helpless, as Dean stuffed his feet into his boots and headed out the door. Sam hurried to the window to make sure that Dean didn't leave, but all he did was get in the car and put his hands on the steering wheel. Eventually he slumped back in the seat. Sam made himself back away and lie down on the rumpled sheets.
He didn't sleep until near dawn.
****
When the sun was up, Dean came back in and showered. Sam didn't try to engage him.
They went to a nearby diner to eat. Dean ordered pancakes, and methodically worked his way through them, sawing each piece apart like it had cut him off in traffic. He dragged his bacon through the leftover syrup on his plate and ate every bite. He drank his orange juice and asked for a refill. He left a bigger-than-usual tip.
All without looking once at Sam.
"I'm sorry," Sam said, breaking, when they left and had resettled themselves in the car.
Dean flinched like Dad had just told him he'd fucked up.
Sam stumbled on, because it wasn't going to get any better until the poison had been drawn. "The only excuse I've got is that my brain was offline, and I know that's not enough. I was just-surprised."
Dean shrugged, his leather jacket bunching up at his shoulders. He swallowed, squinting ahead as if the empty road might be concealing monsters. "Nah," he said at last, and anyone else would have thought he was being casual. "You're probably right."
Which meant that nothing was fixed at all. Dean thought that he was fucked in the head; Sam was willing to bet his favorite knife that Dean still thought he'd mostly deserved that curse; and now Dean thought Sam shared those judgments. Dean was going to forgive Sam because he thought Sam had been telling the truth, not because Sam had apologized.
And honestly, Sam was pretty confused. Wouldn't being tied up just be a hellish revisiting of Dean's-of the curse? He didn't know how he could have said yes, even if he'd royally botched saying no. He was always so careful: whenever he found himself grabbing at Dean, accidentally rough with the force of his wanting, he immediately let go and made sure that Dean had unrestricted freedom of movement. It wasn't easy to stay in control, because Dean wouldn't tolerate anything he perceived as being coddled, but Sam had never let himself overcompensate in the direction of violence.
They had been doing fine the way they were. He'd thought so, anyway.
****
He figured out where they had to dig after twenty minutes in the North Monfort library. That was just what he needed, because he had a lot of other pressing questions on his mind. Questions he maybe should have asked six months ago, but both of them had always leaned pretty hard on the idea that Dean could handle anything.
As the day ended, he let Dean check them in to the motel. The fact that Dean chose a room with a single bed told him only that Dean was done punishing him, not that Dean was okay.
Sam could work with that.
The job was blessedly simple: a little breaking and entering, a little digging, a not-so-little fire (really not worth the agita to try to rein in Dean's pyromania at the moment), a little sprinting, and they were done. He didn't even have to use his powers, which was good because Dean always looked at him like he was showing off.
There was something about the way that dirt highlighted the muscles and tendons of Dean's forearms, the thick heavy width of his biceps. Sam only realized he was staring when Dean bit out, "Fine, bitch, I'll shower first," and stalked into the bathroom.
But he wasn't that mad; he left the door open.
Dean clean, damp, and poured into black boxer-briefs was also notable, but Sam forced himself to wash the grime off before taking any next steps. When he emerged from his own shower, still toweling his hair dry, Dean was lying back against the headboard, slumped a little, one ankle crossed over the other as he switched back and forth between America's Next Top Model and Iron Chef.
He turned the TV off as Sam approached the bed, then reached for the lamp.
"Hold on," Sam said.
Dean raised an eyebrow.
"I'm gonna need some light if I'm gonna tie you up."
Heat flared in Dean's eyes like his lighter flicking on, then as abruptly cut off. "I don't think so," Dean said, and turned the switch, plunging them into near-darkness.
Sam couldn't help but be a little relieved, because Dean would talk more easily if he didn't have to see Sam, and because even with all the theory he wasn't sure he was ready to try tonight. The cheap carpet was rough against his bare feet as he crossed the rest of the distance to the bed and eased himself down to lie on his stomach beside Dean, his head propped up on his folded arms.
"I've been thinking," he said. "If you're into it, then I'm into it."
"Not what you said about the donkey show," Dean rejoined, but without too much venom.
"Yeah, well, this is different." Survivors had all sorts of ways of dealing. "As long as it's safe, sane and consensual-"
"Dude, did you read a bondage handbook at the library?"
Actually, a whole bunch of counseling and recovery websites. He hadn't wanted to get kicked out of the public library, so he'd waited on the bondage sites. Anyway, he knew how to tie a damned knot. "It's really important to me that you get what you need. What you want," he corrected, not sure which word was likely to give Dean more trouble.
Dean yawned jaw-crackingly, the big ham, and flipped over, swinging his arm over Sam's back, his hand drifting down towards Sam's ass. "Right now," he said, "what I want is for you to shut up."
Sam could do that.
****
"Okay," Sam said, tugging at the knot one last time. As it had turned out, the bondage sites had been useful after all. Hunters generally didn't care about circulation or easy release. As Sam watched, Dean bent each hand at the wrist in turn, checking for himself to make sure the knots would hold, and that was just snotty enough of him to get Sam's back up. "Now, you remember-"
"Red red red," Dean drawled, in the exact same tone he'd have said 'blah blah blah' to summarize something Sam had told him.
Sam nodded, then swallowed. He'd spent so much time on the mechanics of getting Dean safely bound that he hadn't given much thought to what he was supposed to do. With Dean stretched out on the bed-God, the sheer difficulty of finding a place with a slatted headboard; they'd ended up at a B&B, which Dean usually sneered at-anyway, Sam realized, belatedly, that he was now entirely responsible for the proceedings, which was qualitatively different from taking the lead.
Dean sprawled underneath him, almost relaxed despite the ropes. Sam could do anything to Dean, and he would take it. There was a metallic taste in Sam's mouth, like the night before he'd left for Stanford, when every familiar and dangerous thing he knew had been about to drop away. He had to stop himself from shuddering.
"Any time now," Dean said, which was totally unfair.
And, Sam realized: this had to work for him, too, or Dean would quickly notice, and end up even worse off. But Dean's snark in desperate conditions was typical enough to ground him, even now. "I'm sorry," he said, using his most condescending voice, "did you misunderstand something about this scenario? If I want to take some time to look at you, that's what's going to happen."
Dean's chest heaved, once, and he turned his head into the pillow, his neck curving like one of Michelangelo's Slaves. His eyes closed, which was a relief.
The realization went through him like a hit of ecstasy: he could touch Dean like he wanted to. He'd never hurt Dean, but hurt had never been at the top of the list of things Dean thought he needed to fight.
Sam looked at him. "You are stunning," he said softly, as if he didn't care whether Dean heard. He brushed the tips of his fingers across Dean's bare stomach and watched Dean's entire body twitch. He dipped his index finger into Dean's belly button; Dean wheezed and jerked again but didn't protest.
He kept it like that for a while, looking more than touching, touching more softly than he'd ever dared. Dean alternated between stoic silence and hot little whimpers. This was all Sam wanted, to be allowed to be gentle, to have Dean accept that, even if it required some pretense. Dean's skin glowed, sweat-damp; the clean salt smell of him filled Sam's lungs.
By the time Sam left Dean's chest and abs to spend some time tracing his triceps, it was clear that Sam wasn't going to have a problem with the fucking portion of the evening. In fact, he might have to struggle to last long enough to give Dean what he wanted.
Stretched out above his head, Dean's arms were shown to their best advantage, corded with muscle under taut skin, each freckle and white-slick scar deserving its own kiss. Sam had felt them all a hundred times before, under his tongue and his searching fingertips, but he'd never been able to watch himself explore. Dean's hands flexed back and forth above the nylon ropes, never ceasing their movement, but the rest of him stayed still, pliant even as his breath hitched and sped up.
Dean's thighs fell to the sides like they were hinged when Sam pushed at them. Dean was hard, listing off to the right, but what turned Sam on most of all was being able to cover all that hot, soft skin. Dean wasn't a small man, and his quads were thick with muscle, but Sam's hands still spanned so much of him. He never got to see this, Dean aching for him, held together only by Sam's touch.
Sam bent his head to mouth at Dean's abs, his cheek brushing against the wet head of Dean's cock as it twitched. He let his weight settle on his hands, still braced on Dean's splayed thighs, as his tongue retraced the paths his fingers had taken earlier.
When he moved back up, biting at Dean's pecs and the sweep of his collarbone, Dean cursed. Sam looked up and saw that tears were leaking from his closed eyes, matting his lashes together into dark clumps. Sam gentled his kisses further until he was just pressing open-mouthed against Dean's chest, tasting the salt and faint citrus tang clinging to his skin.
"Stop," Dean gasped. "Stop, I don't-"
Sam raised his head, his blood like lava within him, and went all in. "No," he said.
Dean jolted, twisting against the restraints hard enough that even the soft nylon might bruise him. Sam's hips mimicked Dean's motion, thrusting into empty air, and Sam bit his cheek hard, fighting for control, the taste of his own blood mingling with the traces of Dean's sweat still on his tongue. He brought his hands up to Dean's shoulders, pressing him back down into the bed and continuing to kiss his chest, gentle and wet. Some part of him wanted to scratch and claw, mark Dean like Dean had marked his soul, but Dean knew how to push pain away, and Sam needed him here, cracked open and helpless beneath Sam.
Dean tried to bring his legs together to get some leverage, but Sam shifted his weight and pinned him, one knee on each of Dean's inner thighs, forcing them apart. Balancing scrunched up above Dean like that was not easy, but at the moment he didn't really care, even though his dick was begging for some contact. The wait would only make it better.
Dean's head whipped back and forth as he continued to jolt uselessly against the restraints and Sam's weight. Sam could have come just from watching. But Dean's breath speeded so much that Sam started to worry about hyperventilation. "Dean," he said, and repeated it until Dean stilled, though he wouldn't open his eyes. "Dean, you know how to make this stop."
Dean took a slow, ragged breath that sounded like it tore something inside him. Then another. "Fuck you," he said. "Fuck you and your fucking rainbow," steadier with each word.
If Dean wanted to cut through Sam's tenderness, he'd picked the wrong tack; even with Sam's own cock throbbing in protest at his neglect, Sam was nearly devastated by the weight of the trust Dean had given him.
He kissed Dean everywhere he could reach, places he would never have imagined Dean allowing, the crook of his elbow and the ball of his shoulder, the arch of his foot and the groove of his calf. Dean cursed and chanted Sam's name in roughly equal measure, and Sam still had to lean heavily on whatever joint was nearest to keep Dean still, but Dean didn't bother with 'no' again.
By the time Sam buried himself balls-deep in Dean, he was pretty sure that coming was going to end him. When orgasm caught him at last, the pleasure immolated him, melted him down from the inside out.
Some time later, Dean grunted, loud enough to cut through his daze, and he managed to pull free and roll off, Dean's come still warm and sticky across his belly and chest. And then, because he was considerate like that, he forced himself conscious enough to reach for the bandage scissors and cut Dean loose. No way was he attempting knots right now.
He fell asleep before he could figure out what Dean had said when he was coming.
****
"I thought you'd like it," Dean told him smugly the next morning when Sam came out of the shower.
Sam smiled involuntarily and ducked his head to rub his hair dry.
Dean looked fantastic, throwing off light like a second sun, and that assuaged most of the uncertainty Sam still felt. But not all. The research he'd done was all about survivors; he thought he understood what was going on with Dean. But what was his excuse? He could touch as gently as he wanted, but the fact was that Dean said he didn't want that, and Sam had still come so hard he was surprised he hadn't burst a blood vessel. Sure, there was the safe word, but Sam knew full well that Dean's standard macho bullshit would keep him from using it if he weren't actually dying, and maybe not even then. Sam could have kept the sex basically the same except for the ropes, and yet he hadn't; that decision was on him.
His own life had not been without its issues.
And maybe the excuse was this: Dean was hot and having him offer himself was hot. If somebody liked being covered with chocolate, that didn't make him the Easter Bunny.
Anyway, the point of being tied up had to be that it would be different somehow. If he'd tried to keep everything else about the sex the same, Dean would have gotten angry. He owed it to Dean to get over his qualms. Dean was asking him to take charge, and he wasn't going to let Dean down.
****
Fortunately for Sam's heart, Dean didn't ask to be tied up every night. Every couple of weeks, when they had time for it, they'd find a place with the right setup. As long as it was just another thing they did, Sam could deal with the conceptually difficult parts, like the way Dean fought so hard against the ropes that he managed to raise welts. Sam reminded himself that he'd given worse injuries to Dean sparring, and then he started wrapping Dean's wrists beforehand and the problem went away. Dean kept putting out the restraints and Sam kept using them. Each time it was as intense as a stroke; sometimes it took his brain until the next morning to restart.
****
Outside of State College, Pennsylvania, Dean spent half an hour flirting with a redheaded girl in a bar. The cigarette smoke made Sam's eyes water and the boiled peanuts stung the cuts on the inside of his mouth from the previous night's battle with the nest of thunderbirds. Sam watched the level of his beer carefully and ordered glass after glass of water, making sure to tip the bartender each time. He could handle this, but not drunk.
When Dean wandered back to where Sam was sitting, Sam was ready. "I can walk back to the room," he offered.
"What?" Dean's confused expression said that he seriously had no idea what Sam had just said. Dean would tease him about practically anything, but Sam doubted he'd tease about this. Not the first time, anyway.
Sam looked at him straight-on, leaning forward just enough that he wouldn't have to yell over the ambient noise. In the dimness, the details of Dean's face were hard to see, just dark eyes and killer lashes and that beautiful mouth. The girl was going to get a happy surprise when she got a good look at him. If Dean took her someplace with better light, anyway. "I said, I can walk back to the room, if you want to drive her somewhere."
Dean's head jerked back as his brows scrunched up. "Why would I-Sammy?"
"I told you, you don't have to worry about me. Whatever you want." He didn't mean it, but he meant to mean it, and that would have to be enough.
Dean stared at him, the way he'd stare at a circuit board just before he started soldering. Sam felt his skin overheating. "She was tellin' me about a ghost up to Renovo." Deliberately, he reached out, cupping Sam's jaw in his hand, rubbing his thumb along the line of the bone, where Sam's five-o-clock shadow was the heaviest. Sam leaned into the touch and didn't look around to see whether anyone was watching with disgust; this was a college bar, but they'd still have to be careful when they left.
"You need anything more from her?" Sam asked, terrified and hopeful.
Dean shook his head.
In the parking lot (no one followed; Sam had left everyone with a diffuse suggestion not to pay too much attention to the two of them, difficult but worth the effort), Sam stopped and grabbed the shoulder of Dean's leather jacket, forcing him to a halt. Gravel crunched and slipped under their feet, but it was easier here in the near-silence and contrasting cool of the night air, the patchy and distant light from the streetlamps concealing the details of their expressions. "I meant it," he insisted, even though Dean tossed his head impatiently. "I know you-" It was stupid to stop, but he didn't think he could continue without using some word like 'faithful' that would only reveal too much.
Dean twisted out of his grip, but only to turn and step so that they were face to face, close enough that Dean had to tilt his neck up to meet Sam's eyes. "Look there," he said, pointing at a shiny blue VW Bug about a dozen feet away from them. "Cute car, right?"
Sam nodded, confused.
"If I wanted, I could take a ride in her. Wouldn't take me long to figure her out, make her go smooth." Now Sam felt his skin blushing hot enough to toast bread, because he could tell where this was going and he had no hope of stopping it. "But why in fuck's name would I want to trade my girl for that, even for one night?"
Okay, so Dean knew more about fidelity than Sam had assumed. And Sam supposed he'd deserved that 'girl.'
"We aren't gonna have this conversation again," Dean warned him.
"No," Sam agreed.
****
Sam was a little suspicious when Dean popped the trunk and brought in the bag. Dean didn't have anything to prove. But when Dean showed him how he could thread the ropes through the bottom of the bedframe, anchoring them below mattress level, he thought maybe he had something he needed to demonstrate to Dean.
Dean held his wrists out for the Ace bandages. Sam disliked how they covered up his skin, hiding too much from view, but that was a small price for safety.
Years of gun maintenance had prepared him well for the routine: you never got sloppy, because a gun didn't care how careful you usually were, and neither did a rope.
"Can I," he began as he double-checked the knot on Dean's right wrist. Dean cocked his head, waiting. "Your legs, can I?" He hadn't known he was going to ask.
Dean's dick answered quickly, jumping up faster than the flush came over Dean's face. Dean rotated his hands in their bindings, more jerkily than usual. "Yeah," he said, the challenge plain in his voice. Sam swallowed hard and went back to the bag.
There was plenty of rope, though Sam had to break out the bandages from the regular first aid kit to protect Dean's ankles. His hands were steady, even though he felt like his body was made of loosely tethered balloons, dizzy with possibility.
Dean was panting by the time Sam finished, already deep in it, testing the ropes with tugs that Sam thought were mostly automatic. Sam felt the same energy, buzzing under his skin, forcing his fingers down to sweep over Dean's skin, tracing the long muscles where they curved and swelled. This was his, all his; he could choose anything. Dean's skin was sour where it had been exposed to the bad air of the bar, but sweat-salty and musky elsewhere, over his chest and stomach and quads.
It was different, having Dean unable to move more than a few inches in any direction. Sam loved how he looked, splayed out and ten times more vulnerable than when it was just his wrists tied. Dean pulled ceaselessly against the ropes, but Sam didn't need to worry about keeping Dean pinned, so he let his hands wander, curving around Dean's waist and squeezing his ass while Sam sucked raspberry bruises on the thin skin over his hipbones and felt Dean's cock rub slickly against his jaw, begging for attention. Dean's useless struggles moved the whole bed, bouncing it against the wall like every motel cliché ever.
Sam moved up Dean's body, kissing and nipping by turns. He paused to lay his head on Dean's heaving chest, turning his head so that he could hear Dean's furious heartbeat. Mine, he thought again. He wanted everything, from butterfly kisses to blood. When he looked up, he saw Dean's inner arm, the veins popping out a little, the indentation where the bicep pushed out from the bone. Dean moaned in protest, and Sam continued upwards.
He ran his mouth over Dean's collarbone, then moved up to the line of Dean's shoulder. At the thickest part, he bit deep, like a vampire, feeling Dean's skin part and tasting the sweet metal of Dean's blood. Dean groaned, thrusting his head so far back into the pillow that all Sam could see in his peripheral vision was the line of Dean's throat and the arrowing of his jaw to his chin.
He should stop, he knew that. Part of him was completely convinced that he needed to stop. Dean wasn't sensible enough to come in out of a hailstorm. Expecting him to know where the limits were was like expecting ghosts not to go through walls.
But the terror just fed his arousal. He pushed himself up, hating every inch of skin that wasn't rubbing against Dean's, and shoved his tongue into Dean's mouth, letting Dean taste himself, forcing Dean to know what Sam was doing to him.
Dean whined, deep in his chest, and arched off the bed until Sam put him down with a hand on his throat. He could feel Dean fighting for breath, and it was too much; he had to have Dean right then, except that Dean's legs couldn't possibly get far enough apart tied like they were.
Sam grabbed the knife from under the pillow and scooted down. His cheek brushed Dean's shaft and he turned his head to mouth at the hot slick flesh, even as he brought the knife slashing down unseeing, an inch from Dean's left ankle. The rope gave and Dean's leg snapped up, but Sam was ready and rolled away from it, keeping the knife back out of the way.
And now he was too crazy to wait. He lunged up, slamming the knife into the headboard just to have it out of his hand, then grabbed Dean's freed leg and shoved it up so that Dean's knee touched his chest. Dean yelped. His eyes were concussion-wide, but fixed on Sam; if he was seeing anything, he was seeing Sam. There was no time, no time at all, so Sam braced his weight on the hand that was holding Dean's leg in place, fingers curled around the back of Dean's thigh, and spit in his left palm.
Tell me to stop, he thought, but then the fire in him consumed all thought.
He couldn't get in with one push, not with so little prep, and it hurt, but the hurt only made him harder. He fought his way into Dean like it was a real fight, panting with effort and curses leaking from him, Dean's body clashing with his. Somehow Dean had managed to get his freed leg out to the side, and his heel smacked weakly against Sam's ass.
"Not gonna," Dean was saying, over and over; nonsense words.
His hands skidded across Dean's sweat-slippery skin. He lost his balance and crashed down, his hips still stuttering into Dean even as the breath squeezed out of them both. Dean's cock twitched against his stomach, ticklish as it slipped back and forth with the force of Sam's thrusts. He worked his hand between them, jacking Dean off ungently.
When Dean came, soaking his skin and Sam's fingers, Sam pushed in one last time and followed.
Eventually, Sam blinked himself back to coherence. There was a smear of blood across Dean's chest, dried enough to have started flaking. The smell of it, meaty and heavy, mixed with the sharpness of Dean's come. "Are you okay?" Sam asked, his voice small and silvery in the suddenly-chill air.
Dean chuffed. "Uh, yeah." Sam watched his face, and there was only a brief twinge of discomfort when Sam pulled back and let Dean's left leg fall back into place, though Sam could see that Dean was carefully squeezing and releasing his muscles to improve the circulation. It seemed kind of pointless to go for the bandage scissors when the knife was just out there, so he pulled it free from the wood and cut the remaining three ropes, then concentrated on unwrapping Dean's ankles while Dean worked on his own wrists. Usually the cleanup was a good time to decompress, intimate without being exposed, but tonight Sam felt off balance. He wondered what would have happened if he'd taken the knife and put it against Dean's skin: would Dean have stopped him? How much blood would it have taken before Dean would have said the right word?
He didn't want that, he wouldn't. But he wasn't sure if it would make a difference to Dean if he did.
The darkness when Dean turned the lights out was a blessing, giving them a reason to burrow under the bedcovers together. "Why do you like it?" Sam asked, hoping that Dean would feel relaxed enough to tell him something true.
Dean shrugged. After a minute, Sam decided that he wasn't going to get a better answer. He shifted a little, preparing to pull away so that they could get some sleep.
"It makes me feel safe," he said. Sam hadn't heard him sound so confessional in years. His heart squeezed in his chest, wanting to protect Dean even as his entire body thrilled with Dean's openness to him.
"Funny thing," Sam said unevenly, "it scares the shit out of me. I've got no brakes when it comes to you, Dean."
Dean gave a small, pleased rumble that Sam was morally certain had been involuntary.
It was pretty clear to him by now that he wasn't going to discover any uncrossable lines if they were between him and Dean. That was something he could either live with or mope about, and he refused to regret anything done for his brother.
****
They holed up at a roadside motel where the bed was an ancient four-poster, topped by carved wooden balls that were grainy and a little splintery where the paint had worn through. It had only been four days since the last time, but their lives rewarded seizing available opportunities, so Sam wasn't surprised when Dean brought in the bag with the supplies.
Low-key wasn't really an option. Sam decided to focus on biting this time, not hard enough to leave marks, just tugging at Dean's skin enough to make him groan and shake. He'd covered most of Dean's chest, spending extra time on Dean's aureoles because of how they swelled and darkened with blood, when Dean gave a terrific jerk and the top left post of the bed snapped.
Sam looked up when he heard the wood crack and saw the heavy post heading towards them, impelled by the force of Dean's pull. He reacted instinctively, throwing his power out to push it away. It flew back; Dean grunted, and Sam realized that he was putting too much stress on Dean's arm. He froze the fragment in place, giving himself a moment to figure out what to do next, and Dean arched up and came, untouched, semen slicking across his belly and chest, his head turned and tilted so he could watch the jagged edges of wood hovering in the air.
Sam felt his mouth drop open; he had to fight not to follow Dean over the edge.
Dean brought his chin down. His eyes were soft, his face flushed. The smell of his spunk was sharp and hot in the air. "Gonna fuck me?" he asked.
Of all the conflicting impulses sizzling through him, arousal was by far the strongest. Gritting his teeth, he slowly lowered the post and slipped the rope off past the broken end. "Can you ...?" he began, not even sure what to ask, but Dean just nodded and bent his freed arm over his head, grabbing his still-pinioned arm just above the elbow and hanging on. Dean never really fought by this point anyway, so Sam didn't worry too much about the remaining post while he grabbed for the lube.
****
Much later, when the room was dark and Sam was near sleep, Dean shifted and reached out for Sam's hand, which was surprising enough to bring him mostly awake.
"Next time," Dean said, his voice rough, "could we do it with just you? Holding me down, like that?"
Sam froze. He had no idea what he was feeling, much less what he should say. He clamped down on his instinctive reaction, which was to flee. "Let me think about it," he managed after a few terrified breaths. He knew it wasn't a good answer, but Dean just squeezed his hand and let him go.
****
Even assuming that he could control his powers in the middle of sex, which was pretty much untested aside from the one instance of accident prevention, the idea was very hard to accept. Bondage was one thing, but this-it would pretty much replicate exactly what the curse had done to Dean. What he'd done to Dean, unknowing.
And, God, he wanted to do it. He wanted to show off to Dean, make clear that he was strong enough and powerful enough to get them through anything. He wanted there to be nothing between him and Dean. He wanted to see Dean give what the curse had taken.
That last part, that was his problem, his sickness. The flip side of it was whether Dean was trying to get back to the curse, somehow, because he thought that was what he should want.
He knew what Dean would say: Dean had asked for it, specifically and overtly. But Sam wasn't sure that was good enough. He wasn't sure that Dean was capable of consenting to something like that.
In the end, there was no way around actually talking to Dean about it. He waited until after a good hunt, where they'd rescued a woman cursed to be a Headless Mule. Their bellies were full of steak and beer and Dean had spent a few hours tinkering with a portable generator he was modifying to create a demon-proof zone they could move around. When Dean put away his tools for the night and joined Sam in the bed, Sam put his grimoire on the nightstand and turned off the light.
They made out for a while, slow and warm together. Sam put his hands on Dean's shoulders, smoothing down over his arms and returning to his chest. Dean was so solid underneath him, safe and unharmed, one thigh pressed between Sam's legs. Since they'd started using the ropes, Dean had allowed more gentleness even on ordinary nights. Sam felt filled to bursting with gratitude. There was much in his life to regret, but right now the necessary things were in place. He wanted to reassure Dean that everything about him was fine. If they both believed that, it had to be true.
"The thing about using the powers," Sam said into Dean's ear, "is that I have trouble when I think you're not in control." That wasn't quite right, because Sam knew well enough how he liked to be in charge, but there were all different kinds of being in control and he just wasn't sure if Dean recognized any of them other than taking the blame.
Dean turned his head and captured Sam's lower lip between his teeth, tugging just enough to make Sam shudder. Then he stuck his tongue into Sam's mouth, sweeping across Sam's teeth and palate like he was searching for hidden treasure. He tasted of molasses, the bite of hops gentled to sweetness in his mouth. Sam's hips pulsed down as he rubbed himself more intently against Dean's body. He squeezed Dean's upper arms, struggling against the impulse to bruise.
He had to tip his head back to break the kiss and suck in air, his hips speeding up their thrusts as he got even harder.
"Red," Dean said, and for a frozen moment Sam hadn't the slightest idea what he meant.
Then he got it and rolled off, releasing Dean like his skin had gone molten.
It took him a minute to get himself calm enough to speak, his heart still pounding in him like an engine going eighty-five on bad road. "Dean?"
"I'm in as much control as anybody is," Dean said into the darkness.
It wasn't the answer he was hoping for. Maybe he wanted to hear that Dean would have desired the same thing even without the curse, but Dean would only have told him what he already knew: no way to tell. For all Dean's protective self-deceptions, he was shit at comforting lies for Sam, had been since Sam found out what Dad did for a living.
Sam had told Dean 'no' when he'd left for Stanford, and tried again a couple of times after that, but he'd never made it stick. Possibly this was just another of Dean's dares, to himself and to Sam, but that didn't make it any less seriously meant, because Dean didn't know how to do anything that wasn't a challenge.
"Okay," Sam said, ignoring the lead weight in his stomach-and the creeping black tendrils of arousal that surrounded it-in favor of shifting closer to Dean, who responded by putting his hand on Sam's cock, angling it just right for the bliss of his mouth.
"Don't make things so complicated," Dean said after, while his hand was rubbing slow circles on Sam's back. "'s about getting off, that's all."
Put like that-of course Dean was asking for a fantasy. It was the difference between sparring and killing.
****
Two weeks later, coming off a hunt that had nearly gotten them both arrested and impaled, not in that order, Sam felt antsy enough that when Dean tossed the bags down on the floor and suggested they hit a bar, he shook his head. "I thought we'd stay in."
Dean turned to face him, hands loose at his sides. "Yeah?" His voice was a challenge.
Sam took a deep breath and shifted where he stood by the door, already getting hard. He stared at Dean's chest, and the top button on Dean's red-black flannel slipped out of its hole, soft and easy. Dean swallowed and his hands clenched, then relaxed. He looked up, his pupils dilating, and nodded.
Sam's own hands were shaking until he clasped them together. He repeated the process on the remaining buttons, using his imagined hands to run fingers up and down Dean's chest at the same time; the fabric of Dean's shirt shifted and bunched around the invisible force. Dean didn't move to shrug the shirt off when it was open, so Sam tugged it down, letting it puddle on the floor behind Dean's feet.
Then it was time for Dean's black T-shirt. For the first time, Sam moved Dean's arms directly, pulling them straight up so that the muscles stood out, then pulling the cotton up, over his face. Sam slipped Dean's amulet free with a whisper of thought, then grasped the edge of the shirt and ripped it upwards until Dean's head emerged. He brought Dean's arms down and let the shirt slide downwards until it fell off of Dean's lax wrists.
He checked Dean's face again. Dean's nostrils were flared a little, and his chest was moving too fast for calm, but his posture was relaxed, almost defiant.
Fine.
Dean's belt flew open, the metal groaning a little with the force of Sam's intent, and then the button and zipper of Dean's jeans. There was a little awkwardness with Dean's boots as the jeans collapsed around Dean's ankles, but Sam solved that problem by pushing Dean onto his back, floating him over to the bed as he tilted. Sam didn't have the fine control to unlace the boots at the same time, but he took care of that as soon as Dean's body hit the bed, boots and then socks flying off to the sides, then the jeans and Dean's boxer-briefs.
Dean was hard too, his dick red and already leaking. Carefully, Sam wrapped his will around it, tugging up and down slowly, to make sure he wasn't hurting Dean, then faster at Dean's groan. It was tricky to coordinate that with holding Dean's arms and legs stretched out-imagining hands was no longer sufficient-but once he got Dean's wrists and ankles in place it was possible to just leave them pinned there, as if he really were using ropes anchored in air.
Watching Dean get an invisible handjob was just about hot enough to cause spontaneous combustion. His cock flared just a little under the pressure, like Sam's thumb was running along the length. Dean threw his head back, exposing the paleness of his throat; his face was blank, his lips parted just enough to emphasize their lushness.
Sam could have watched for hours, moving Dean this way and that for better angles, but not this time. He was too far away, unable to hear the small noises of Dean shifting on the bed or to smell Dean's sex-sweat, thick and dark.
"I'm gonna get you ready for me," Sam managed. Dean didn't react, other than to close his mouth and swallow again.
Sam looked over to their bags, and the side pocket of the right one unzipped, the cap of the lube already coming open as he sped it towards the bed. Mentally manipulating a gel was surprisingly awkward, and he ended up with a weird-shaped blob, but then he imagined fingers again and they slid into Dean without any problem. Dean gasped and threw his whole body up, forcing Sam to pump more power into the restraints. Every one of Dean's muscles was tensed, fighting even though Dean had to know there was no way he was going anywhere.
Sam hit his limit, not of powers but of self-restraint. He hadn't even undressed, but he managed to open his belt and his jeans as he stalked towards the bed while Dean continued to struggle. He shoved his jeans and shorts down, just far enough to let his cock spring free, and hit the bed as Dean's movements grew more frantic.
"Open your eyes," he ordered, taking himself in hand, almost wincing at how cool his fingers felt against the feverish heat of his cock. He changed the way he was holding Dean's legs, pushing them up and in towards Dean's stomach so that they bent and spread for him, exposing Dean's ass. Dean's mouth opened further, panting out the strain, sweat dampening the hair on his legs. His fists opened and closed, not quite in rhythm.
Sam had never seen this, not from so close. It was better than he could have imagined. The only thing he needed was for Dean to see. "Dean, it's me." The head of his cock rubbed up against Dean's body, slick with the sloppy application of lube. He gasped and had to close his own eyes for a second; the air in his lungs burned as if they were in the desert. But he'd given Dean an order and he needed to see Dean comply before he could let himself go. He bent over Dean, bracing himself on his hands to each side of Dean's chest so that they weren't touching anywhere else, and whispered the demand into Dean's mouth: "Look at me."
Dean groaned like he was being taken apart. His eyes fluttered open, pupils wider than Sam had ever seen them, and he gave a twitch that might have been a nod even as he gasped for breath to continue his struggles.
And all of a sudden Sam got it: they were taking it back, everything that they'd lost to the vicious things that had been done to them, to Dean. Saying 'fuck you' to all the people prepared to judge them. Beating it all, seizing victory from loss, and if they ended up with scars that would only map their triumphs.
Using his powers to give himself the necessary extra boost, Sam slammed himself home, feeling his belt buckle and the bunched fabric of his jeans scrape against Dean's thighs. Dean was tight and hot, little moans escaping his lips as Sam moved his hands to Dean's stretched-taut shoulders, pulling back just enough to fuck into him harder. He felt his lower lip tear and start to bleed under the pressure of his teeth; the salt and iron in his mouth just spurred him on.
He knew he ought to be taking care of Dean, giving him a hand, but he couldn't stop. Couldn't stop rocking into Dean, couldn't stop using his demon-granted powers to stretch Dean's arms out over his head and force his legs into the perfect position for fucking. Sam's blood roared in his ears; his vision dimmed into blue-white sparkles as the world narrowed to his cock. He wanted to get so far in Dean that they could never be apart.
Dean squeezed around him in orgasm, and that was it. He yelled and came and came, trying to shove himself into Dean entirely, until the sensation turned to hurt and past, until he lost himself in the black.
****
He woke up with Dean's hands on his shoulders, petting him. Dean's lips pressed soft little kisses along the curve of his temple, the kind of touch Sam never would have dreamed Dean knew how to give.
"Hey," Dean said, and Sam could hear the smile even without seeing it. He blinked. Somehow Dean was on top of him. Presumably when he'd passed out, all the psychic bonds he'd set up had collapsed.
"Hey," he replied. His bottom lip was sore; he could feel that it had swollen.
Dean smirked and very obviously didn't say something awful like 'Was it good for you, too?'
"I'd do anything for you," Sam said.
Dean's face scrunched up and he made as if to roll away, but Sam grabbed him. "Dean," he warned, "do I have to hold you down again?"
"Depends on whether you're gonna keep on with that emo shit." Dean smiled, and Sam couldn't resist the curve of his lips, pulling him down to kiss even though it was a little painful.
Eventually, Dean pulled back, bringing his hands up to cup Sam's face. Sam wanted to tell Dean that he understood, finally. That Dean's permission was an amazing gift, a grace offered to both of them. But one of the things he could do for Dean was limit the most egregious emotional displays, even if (or because) Dean's tough exterior was closer to Magic Shell than plate armor.
Still, he needed to check: "You didn't want to use the safe word?"
Dean smoothed his thumbs over Sam's brows, down past the outer edges of his eyes. "If I'd wanted to, I would've."
Sam nodded at him, relieved. Not that he really thought that Dean would say different, but it was still good to hear, because he wasn't planning to let Dean go ever again. And that would be so much easier to manage now that they really understood each other's needs.
Dean closed his eyes, his lashes a thick dark curtain that Sam wanted to feel against his fingertips. "Thanks," he whispered, then laid his head on Sam's chest, hiding his face from Sam's surprise.
It was all right, everything was all right. He'd vanquished his fears, let Dean show him that the past had no hold over them, any more than God or the law did.
Sam reached up and flattened his palm against the soft skin between Dean's shoulders, right below his neck. "My pleasure," he said, feeling Dean settle against his chest and stomach.
"Yeah," Dean breathed, a promise, a covenant. Sam loved him totally. He was going to give Dean anything he wanted. They'd want it together.
END
Endnotes: This fic is inspired in part by cesperanza, and in part (contradictorily) by CJ Cregg's line, "and it's the bathrobes that's outrageous." CJ, you were so awesome; given subsequent developments, I doubt Sorkin really knew what he had written in you. Anyway, the line isn't directly relevant, except that it deals with another Sam who is focusing his concern away from the most significant point in a chain of events.
Sequel to Filthy Mind; I suggest reading that first. NC-17 for really rather a lot of sex; Sam/Dean.
Notes: Thanks to giandujakiss, coffeeandink and cathexys. Not their fault!
They'd been back together for over a year, and fucking for nearly six months, when Dean asked.
It was Sam's fault, if fault was the right word. It had started the first time Dean had turned out the light and flipped back the covers on Sam's bed. Sam had frozen for a minute, but after the shock dissipated he'd immediately asked Dean if he was sure, if this was what he wanted. Dean had laughed as if the the questions were ridiculous, but when Sam had made his every limb go stiff and still, Dean had sighed like the rebellious teen he'd never been. "I wanna," he'd said, and thrust his erection against Sam's hipbone.
That hadn't been easy to resist, and Sam hadn't tried. Getting Dean to talk about it after had also been difficult, and had ended up feeling invasive of Dean's already too-limited privacy, so Sam had just kept following Dean's lead. He'd tried to be as considerate as possible without getting punched.
In the darkness, when Sam asked "Is there anything you'd like?" Dean would usually move Sam's hand to a relevant body part, or occasionally flip him into a new position. Sometimes he'd just snort and Sam would continue on as he'd been going. Soliciting Dean's preferences had been working pretty well for months, in that Dean didn't smack him when he asked and then they both got off.
But that night, after Sam asked, Dean stilled completely. Sam raised his head from where he'd murmured the words into the heat of Dean's belly. Dean was hard and ready, but his breathing had gone from sex-fast to hunt-desperate.
"Dean?"
Dean brushed Sam's hair off his forehead, a useless gesture when Dean's face was invisible in the darkness. "I, uh." He took a deep breath that made his entire body shift under Sam. "Tie me up?"
A spike of lust transfixed him, and then his brain caught up with his dick. "What?" Sam hadn't meant to sound that disbelieving. Dean pushed him off and Sam rolled into the center of the bed, which creaked with the sound of Dean sitting up and putting his feet on the floor. Sam could see his silhouette, bowed head and shoulders, against the slightly less black background of the closed curtains.
"I want you to tie me up and fuck me," Dean snarled at last, like an accusation.
Sam opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, then pushed himself up on his elbows so that he wasn't flat on his back. "Dean," he said after a minute, still bewildered, "I'm not sure that's-healthy."
"What, like the rest of my lifestyle?"
He could imagine it easily; he'd seen so often how Dean looked, straining against bonds or pinned by invisible hands. "But ... how could you want that?"
As soon as he said it, he knew he'd made a horrific mistake. "Dean," he pleaded, but Dean was already pulling on his jeans. Sam watched, helpless, as Dean stuffed his feet into his boots and headed out the door. Sam hurried to the window to make sure that Dean didn't leave, but all he did was get in the car and put his hands on the steering wheel. Eventually he slumped back in the seat. Sam made himself back away and lie down on the rumpled sheets.
He didn't sleep until near dawn.
****
When the sun was up, Dean came back in and showered. Sam didn't try to engage him.
They went to a nearby diner to eat. Dean ordered pancakes, and methodically worked his way through them, sawing each piece apart like it had cut him off in traffic. He dragged his bacon through the leftover syrup on his plate and ate every bite. He drank his orange juice and asked for a refill. He left a bigger-than-usual tip.
All without looking once at Sam.
"I'm sorry," Sam said, breaking, when they left and had resettled themselves in the car.
Dean flinched like Dad had just told him he'd fucked up.
Sam stumbled on, because it wasn't going to get any better until the poison had been drawn. "The only excuse I've got is that my brain was offline, and I know that's not enough. I was just-surprised."
Dean shrugged, his leather jacket bunching up at his shoulders. He swallowed, squinting ahead as if the empty road might be concealing monsters. "Nah," he said at last, and anyone else would have thought he was being casual. "You're probably right."
Which meant that nothing was fixed at all. Dean thought that he was fucked in the head; Sam was willing to bet his favorite knife that Dean still thought he'd mostly deserved that curse; and now Dean thought Sam shared those judgments. Dean was going to forgive Sam because he thought Sam had been telling the truth, not because Sam had apologized.
And honestly, Sam was pretty confused. Wouldn't being tied up just be a hellish revisiting of Dean's-of the curse? He didn't know how he could have said yes, even if he'd royally botched saying no. He was always so careful: whenever he found himself grabbing at Dean, accidentally rough with the force of his wanting, he immediately let go and made sure that Dean had unrestricted freedom of movement. It wasn't easy to stay in control, because Dean wouldn't tolerate anything he perceived as being coddled, but Sam had never let himself overcompensate in the direction of violence.
They had been doing fine the way they were. He'd thought so, anyway.
****
He figured out where they had to dig after twenty minutes in the North Monfort library. That was just what he needed, because he had a lot of other pressing questions on his mind. Questions he maybe should have asked six months ago, but both of them had always leaned pretty hard on the idea that Dean could handle anything.
As the day ended, he let Dean check them in to the motel. The fact that Dean chose a room with a single bed told him only that Dean was done punishing him, not that Dean was okay.
Sam could work with that.
The job was blessedly simple: a little breaking and entering, a little digging, a not-so-little fire (really not worth the agita to try to rein in Dean's pyromania at the moment), a little sprinting, and they were done. He didn't even have to use his powers, which was good because Dean always looked at him like he was showing off.
There was something about the way that dirt highlighted the muscles and tendons of Dean's forearms, the thick heavy width of his biceps. Sam only realized he was staring when Dean bit out, "Fine, bitch, I'll shower first," and stalked into the bathroom.
But he wasn't that mad; he left the door open.
Dean clean, damp, and poured into black boxer-briefs was also notable, but Sam forced himself to wash the grime off before taking any next steps. When he emerged from his own shower, still toweling his hair dry, Dean was lying back against the headboard, slumped a little, one ankle crossed over the other as he switched back and forth between America's Next Top Model and Iron Chef.
He turned the TV off as Sam approached the bed, then reached for the lamp.
"Hold on," Sam said.
Dean raised an eyebrow.
"I'm gonna need some light if I'm gonna tie you up."
Heat flared in Dean's eyes like his lighter flicking on, then as abruptly cut off. "I don't think so," Dean said, and turned the switch, plunging them into near-darkness.
Sam couldn't help but be a little relieved, because Dean would talk more easily if he didn't have to see Sam, and because even with all the theory he wasn't sure he was ready to try tonight. The cheap carpet was rough against his bare feet as he crossed the rest of the distance to the bed and eased himself down to lie on his stomach beside Dean, his head propped up on his folded arms.
"I've been thinking," he said. "If you're into it, then I'm into it."
"Not what you said about the donkey show," Dean rejoined, but without too much venom.
"Yeah, well, this is different." Survivors had all sorts of ways of dealing. "As long as it's safe, sane and consensual-"
"Dude, did you read a bondage handbook at the library?"
Actually, a whole bunch of counseling and recovery websites. He hadn't wanted to get kicked out of the public library, so he'd waited on the bondage sites. Anyway, he knew how to tie a damned knot. "It's really important to me that you get what you need. What you want," he corrected, not sure which word was likely to give Dean more trouble.
Dean yawned jaw-crackingly, the big ham, and flipped over, swinging his arm over Sam's back, his hand drifting down towards Sam's ass. "Right now," he said, "what I want is for you to shut up."
Sam could do that.
****
"Okay," Sam said, tugging at the knot one last time. As it had turned out, the bondage sites had been useful after all. Hunters generally didn't care about circulation or easy release. As Sam watched, Dean bent each hand at the wrist in turn, checking for himself to make sure the knots would hold, and that was just snotty enough of him to get Sam's back up. "Now, you remember-"
"Red red red," Dean drawled, in the exact same tone he'd have said 'blah blah blah' to summarize something Sam had told him.
Sam nodded, then swallowed. He'd spent so much time on the mechanics of getting Dean safely bound that he hadn't given much thought to what he was supposed to do. With Dean stretched out on the bed-God, the sheer difficulty of finding a place with a slatted headboard; they'd ended up at a B&B, which Dean usually sneered at-anyway, Sam realized, belatedly, that he was now entirely responsible for the proceedings, which was qualitatively different from taking the lead.
Dean sprawled underneath him, almost relaxed despite the ropes. Sam could do anything to Dean, and he would take it. There was a metallic taste in Sam's mouth, like the night before he'd left for Stanford, when every familiar and dangerous thing he knew had been about to drop away. He had to stop himself from shuddering.
"Any time now," Dean said, which was totally unfair.
And, Sam realized: this had to work for him, too, or Dean would quickly notice, and end up even worse off. But Dean's snark in desperate conditions was typical enough to ground him, even now. "I'm sorry," he said, using his most condescending voice, "did you misunderstand something about this scenario? If I want to take some time to look at you, that's what's going to happen."
Dean's chest heaved, once, and he turned his head into the pillow, his neck curving like one of Michelangelo's Slaves. His eyes closed, which was a relief.
The realization went through him like a hit of ecstasy: he could touch Dean like he wanted to. He'd never hurt Dean, but hurt had never been at the top of the list of things Dean thought he needed to fight.
Sam looked at him. "You are stunning," he said softly, as if he didn't care whether Dean heard. He brushed the tips of his fingers across Dean's bare stomach and watched Dean's entire body twitch. He dipped his index finger into Dean's belly button; Dean wheezed and jerked again but didn't protest.
He kept it like that for a while, looking more than touching, touching more softly than he'd ever dared. Dean alternated between stoic silence and hot little whimpers. This was all Sam wanted, to be allowed to be gentle, to have Dean accept that, even if it required some pretense. Dean's skin glowed, sweat-damp; the clean salt smell of him filled Sam's lungs.
By the time Sam left Dean's chest and abs to spend some time tracing his triceps, it was clear that Sam wasn't going to have a problem with the fucking portion of the evening. In fact, he might have to struggle to last long enough to give Dean what he wanted.
Stretched out above his head, Dean's arms were shown to their best advantage, corded with muscle under taut skin, each freckle and white-slick scar deserving its own kiss. Sam had felt them all a hundred times before, under his tongue and his searching fingertips, but he'd never been able to watch himself explore. Dean's hands flexed back and forth above the nylon ropes, never ceasing their movement, but the rest of him stayed still, pliant even as his breath hitched and sped up.
Dean's thighs fell to the sides like they were hinged when Sam pushed at them. Dean was hard, listing off to the right, but what turned Sam on most of all was being able to cover all that hot, soft skin. Dean wasn't a small man, and his quads were thick with muscle, but Sam's hands still spanned so much of him. He never got to see this, Dean aching for him, held together only by Sam's touch.
Sam bent his head to mouth at Dean's abs, his cheek brushing against the wet head of Dean's cock as it twitched. He let his weight settle on his hands, still braced on Dean's splayed thighs, as his tongue retraced the paths his fingers had taken earlier.
When he moved back up, biting at Dean's pecs and the sweep of his collarbone, Dean cursed. Sam looked up and saw that tears were leaking from his closed eyes, matting his lashes together into dark clumps. Sam gentled his kisses further until he was just pressing open-mouthed against Dean's chest, tasting the salt and faint citrus tang clinging to his skin.
"Stop," Dean gasped. "Stop, I don't-"
Sam raised his head, his blood like lava within him, and went all in. "No," he said.
Dean jolted, twisting against the restraints hard enough that even the soft nylon might bruise him. Sam's hips mimicked Dean's motion, thrusting into empty air, and Sam bit his cheek hard, fighting for control, the taste of his own blood mingling with the traces of Dean's sweat still on his tongue. He brought his hands up to Dean's shoulders, pressing him back down into the bed and continuing to kiss his chest, gentle and wet. Some part of him wanted to scratch and claw, mark Dean like Dean had marked his soul, but Dean knew how to push pain away, and Sam needed him here, cracked open and helpless beneath Sam.
Dean tried to bring his legs together to get some leverage, but Sam shifted his weight and pinned him, one knee on each of Dean's inner thighs, forcing them apart. Balancing scrunched up above Dean like that was not easy, but at the moment he didn't really care, even though his dick was begging for some contact. The wait would only make it better.
Dean's head whipped back and forth as he continued to jolt uselessly against the restraints and Sam's weight. Sam could have come just from watching. But Dean's breath speeded so much that Sam started to worry about hyperventilation. "Dean," he said, and repeated it until Dean stilled, though he wouldn't open his eyes. "Dean, you know how to make this stop."
Dean took a slow, ragged breath that sounded like it tore something inside him. Then another. "Fuck you," he said. "Fuck you and your fucking rainbow," steadier with each word.
If Dean wanted to cut through Sam's tenderness, he'd picked the wrong tack; even with Sam's own cock throbbing in protest at his neglect, Sam was nearly devastated by the weight of the trust Dean had given him.
He kissed Dean everywhere he could reach, places he would never have imagined Dean allowing, the crook of his elbow and the ball of his shoulder, the arch of his foot and the groove of his calf. Dean cursed and chanted Sam's name in roughly equal measure, and Sam still had to lean heavily on whatever joint was nearest to keep Dean still, but Dean didn't bother with 'no' again.
By the time Sam buried himself balls-deep in Dean, he was pretty sure that coming was going to end him. When orgasm caught him at last, the pleasure immolated him, melted him down from the inside out.
Some time later, Dean grunted, loud enough to cut through his daze, and he managed to pull free and roll off, Dean's come still warm and sticky across his belly and chest. And then, because he was considerate like that, he forced himself conscious enough to reach for the bandage scissors and cut Dean loose. No way was he attempting knots right now.
He fell asleep before he could figure out what Dean had said when he was coming.
****
"I thought you'd like it," Dean told him smugly the next morning when Sam came out of the shower.
Sam smiled involuntarily and ducked his head to rub his hair dry.
Dean looked fantastic, throwing off light like a second sun, and that assuaged most of the uncertainty Sam still felt. But not all. The research he'd done was all about survivors; he thought he understood what was going on with Dean. But what was his excuse? He could touch as gently as he wanted, but the fact was that Dean said he didn't want that, and Sam had still come so hard he was surprised he hadn't burst a blood vessel. Sure, there was the safe word, but Sam knew full well that Dean's standard macho bullshit would keep him from using it if he weren't actually dying, and maybe not even then. Sam could have kept the sex basically the same except for the ropes, and yet he hadn't; that decision was on him.
His own life had not been without its issues.
And maybe the excuse was this: Dean was hot and having him offer himself was hot. If somebody liked being covered with chocolate, that didn't make him the Easter Bunny.
Anyway, the point of being tied up had to be that it would be different somehow. If he'd tried to keep everything else about the sex the same, Dean would have gotten angry. He owed it to Dean to get over his qualms. Dean was asking him to take charge, and he wasn't going to let Dean down.
****
Fortunately for Sam's heart, Dean didn't ask to be tied up every night. Every couple of weeks, when they had time for it, they'd find a place with the right setup. As long as it was just another thing they did, Sam could deal with the conceptually difficult parts, like the way Dean fought so hard against the ropes that he managed to raise welts. Sam reminded himself that he'd given worse injuries to Dean sparring, and then he started wrapping Dean's wrists beforehand and the problem went away. Dean kept putting out the restraints and Sam kept using them. Each time it was as intense as a stroke; sometimes it took his brain until the next morning to restart.
****
Outside of State College, Pennsylvania, Dean spent half an hour flirting with a redheaded girl in a bar. The cigarette smoke made Sam's eyes water and the boiled peanuts stung the cuts on the inside of his mouth from the previous night's battle with the nest of thunderbirds. Sam watched the level of his beer carefully and ordered glass after glass of water, making sure to tip the bartender each time. He could handle this, but not drunk.
When Dean wandered back to where Sam was sitting, Sam was ready. "I can walk back to the room," he offered.
"What?" Dean's confused expression said that he seriously had no idea what Sam had just said. Dean would tease him about practically anything, but Sam doubted he'd tease about this. Not the first time, anyway.
Sam looked at him straight-on, leaning forward just enough that he wouldn't have to yell over the ambient noise. In the dimness, the details of Dean's face were hard to see, just dark eyes and killer lashes and that beautiful mouth. The girl was going to get a happy surprise when she got a good look at him. If Dean took her someplace with better light, anyway. "I said, I can walk back to the room, if you want to drive her somewhere."
Dean's head jerked back as his brows scrunched up. "Why would I-Sammy?"
"I told you, you don't have to worry about me. Whatever you want." He didn't mean it, but he meant to mean it, and that would have to be enough.
Dean stared at him, the way he'd stare at a circuit board just before he started soldering. Sam felt his skin overheating. "She was tellin' me about a ghost up to Renovo." Deliberately, he reached out, cupping Sam's jaw in his hand, rubbing his thumb along the line of the bone, where Sam's five-o-clock shadow was the heaviest. Sam leaned into the touch and didn't look around to see whether anyone was watching with disgust; this was a college bar, but they'd still have to be careful when they left.
"You need anything more from her?" Sam asked, terrified and hopeful.
Dean shook his head.
In the parking lot (no one followed; Sam had left everyone with a diffuse suggestion not to pay too much attention to the two of them, difficult but worth the effort), Sam stopped and grabbed the shoulder of Dean's leather jacket, forcing him to a halt. Gravel crunched and slipped under their feet, but it was easier here in the near-silence and contrasting cool of the night air, the patchy and distant light from the streetlamps concealing the details of their expressions. "I meant it," he insisted, even though Dean tossed his head impatiently. "I know you-" It was stupid to stop, but he didn't think he could continue without using some word like 'faithful' that would only reveal too much.
Dean twisted out of his grip, but only to turn and step so that they were face to face, close enough that Dean had to tilt his neck up to meet Sam's eyes. "Look there," he said, pointing at a shiny blue VW Bug about a dozen feet away from them. "Cute car, right?"
Sam nodded, confused.
"If I wanted, I could take a ride in her. Wouldn't take me long to figure her out, make her go smooth." Now Sam felt his skin blushing hot enough to toast bread, because he could tell where this was going and he had no hope of stopping it. "But why in fuck's name would I want to trade my girl for that, even for one night?"
Okay, so Dean knew more about fidelity than Sam had assumed. And Sam supposed he'd deserved that 'girl.'
"We aren't gonna have this conversation again," Dean warned him.
"No," Sam agreed.
****
Sam was a little suspicious when Dean popped the trunk and brought in the bag. Dean didn't have anything to prove. But when Dean showed him how he could thread the ropes through the bottom of the bedframe, anchoring them below mattress level, he thought maybe he had something he needed to demonstrate to Dean.
Dean held his wrists out for the Ace bandages. Sam disliked how they covered up his skin, hiding too much from view, but that was a small price for safety.
Years of gun maintenance had prepared him well for the routine: you never got sloppy, because a gun didn't care how careful you usually were, and neither did a rope.
"Can I," he began as he double-checked the knot on Dean's right wrist. Dean cocked his head, waiting. "Your legs, can I?" He hadn't known he was going to ask.
Dean's dick answered quickly, jumping up faster than the flush came over Dean's face. Dean rotated his hands in their bindings, more jerkily than usual. "Yeah," he said, the challenge plain in his voice. Sam swallowed hard and went back to the bag.
There was plenty of rope, though Sam had to break out the bandages from the regular first aid kit to protect Dean's ankles. His hands were steady, even though he felt like his body was made of loosely tethered balloons, dizzy with possibility.
Dean was panting by the time Sam finished, already deep in it, testing the ropes with tugs that Sam thought were mostly automatic. Sam felt the same energy, buzzing under his skin, forcing his fingers down to sweep over Dean's skin, tracing the long muscles where they curved and swelled. This was his, all his; he could choose anything. Dean's skin was sour where it had been exposed to the bad air of the bar, but sweat-salty and musky elsewhere, over his chest and stomach and quads.
It was different, having Dean unable to move more than a few inches in any direction. Sam loved how he looked, splayed out and ten times more vulnerable than when it was just his wrists tied. Dean pulled ceaselessly against the ropes, but Sam didn't need to worry about keeping Dean pinned, so he let his hands wander, curving around Dean's waist and squeezing his ass while Sam sucked raspberry bruises on the thin skin over his hipbones and felt Dean's cock rub slickly against his jaw, begging for attention. Dean's useless struggles moved the whole bed, bouncing it against the wall like every motel cliché ever.
Sam moved up Dean's body, kissing and nipping by turns. He paused to lay his head on Dean's heaving chest, turning his head so that he could hear Dean's furious heartbeat. Mine, he thought again. He wanted everything, from butterfly kisses to blood. When he looked up, he saw Dean's inner arm, the veins popping out a little, the indentation where the bicep pushed out from the bone. Dean moaned in protest, and Sam continued upwards.
He ran his mouth over Dean's collarbone, then moved up to the line of Dean's shoulder. At the thickest part, he bit deep, like a vampire, feeling Dean's skin part and tasting the sweet metal of Dean's blood. Dean groaned, thrusting his head so far back into the pillow that all Sam could see in his peripheral vision was the line of Dean's throat and the arrowing of his jaw to his chin.
He should stop, he knew that. Part of him was completely convinced that he needed to stop. Dean wasn't sensible enough to come in out of a hailstorm. Expecting him to know where the limits were was like expecting ghosts not to go through walls.
But the terror just fed his arousal. He pushed himself up, hating every inch of skin that wasn't rubbing against Dean's, and shoved his tongue into Dean's mouth, letting Dean taste himself, forcing Dean to know what Sam was doing to him.
Dean whined, deep in his chest, and arched off the bed until Sam put him down with a hand on his throat. He could feel Dean fighting for breath, and it was too much; he had to have Dean right then, except that Dean's legs couldn't possibly get far enough apart tied like they were.
Sam grabbed the knife from under the pillow and scooted down. His cheek brushed Dean's shaft and he turned his head to mouth at the hot slick flesh, even as he brought the knife slashing down unseeing, an inch from Dean's left ankle. The rope gave and Dean's leg snapped up, but Sam was ready and rolled away from it, keeping the knife back out of the way.
And now he was too crazy to wait. He lunged up, slamming the knife into the headboard just to have it out of his hand, then grabbed Dean's freed leg and shoved it up so that Dean's knee touched his chest. Dean yelped. His eyes were concussion-wide, but fixed on Sam; if he was seeing anything, he was seeing Sam. There was no time, no time at all, so Sam braced his weight on the hand that was holding Dean's leg in place, fingers curled around the back of Dean's thigh, and spit in his left palm.
Tell me to stop, he thought, but then the fire in him consumed all thought.
He couldn't get in with one push, not with so little prep, and it hurt, but the hurt only made him harder. He fought his way into Dean like it was a real fight, panting with effort and curses leaking from him, Dean's body clashing with his. Somehow Dean had managed to get his freed leg out to the side, and his heel smacked weakly against Sam's ass.
"Not gonna," Dean was saying, over and over; nonsense words.
His hands skidded across Dean's sweat-slippery skin. He lost his balance and crashed down, his hips still stuttering into Dean even as the breath squeezed out of them both. Dean's cock twitched against his stomach, ticklish as it slipped back and forth with the force of Sam's thrusts. He worked his hand between them, jacking Dean off ungently.
When Dean came, soaking his skin and Sam's fingers, Sam pushed in one last time and followed.
Eventually, Sam blinked himself back to coherence. There was a smear of blood across Dean's chest, dried enough to have started flaking. The smell of it, meaty and heavy, mixed with the sharpness of Dean's come. "Are you okay?" Sam asked, his voice small and silvery in the suddenly-chill air.
Dean chuffed. "Uh, yeah." Sam watched his face, and there was only a brief twinge of discomfort when Sam pulled back and let Dean's left leg fall back into place, though Sam could see that Dean was carefully squeezing and releasing his muscles to improve the circulation. It seemed kind of pointless to go for the bandage scissors when the knife was just out there, so he pulled it free from the wood and cut the remaining three ropes, then concentrated on unwrapping Dean's ankles while Dean worked on his own wrists. Usually the cleanup was a good time to decompress, intimate without being exposed, but tonight Sam felt off balance. He wondered what would have happened if he'd taken the knife and put it against Dean's skin: would Dean have stopped him? How much blood would it have taken before Dean would have said the right word?
He didn't want that, he wouldn't. But he wasn't sure if it would make a difference to Dean if he did.
The darkness when Dean turned the lights out was a blessing, giving them a reason to burrow under the bedcovers together. "Why do you like it?" Sam asked, hoping that Dean would feel relaxed enough to tell him something true.
Dean shrugged. After a minute, Sam decided that he wasn't going to get a better answer. He shifted a little, preparing to pull away so that they could get some sleep.
"It makes me feel safe," he said. Sam hadn't heard him sound so confessional in years. His heart squeezed in his chest, wanting to protect Dean even as his entire body thrilled with Dean's openness to him.
"Funny thing," Sam said unevenly, "it scares the shit out of me. I've got no brakes when it comes to you, Dean."
Dean gave a small, pleased rumble that Sam was morally certain had been involuntary.
It was pretty clear to him by now that he wasn't going to discover any uncrossable lines if they were between him and Dean. That was something he could either live with or mope about, and he refused to regret anything done for his brother.
****
They holed up at a roadside motel where the bed was an ancient four-poster, topped by carved wooden balls that were grainy and a little splintery where the paint had worn through. It had only been four days since the last time, but their lives rewarded seizing available opportunities, so Sam wasn't surprised when Dean brought in the bag with the supplies.
Low-key wasn't really an option. Sam decided to focus on biting this time, not hard enough to leave marks, just tugging at Dean's skin enough to make him groan and shake. He'd covered most of Dean's chest, spending extra time on Dean's aureoles because of how they swelled and darkened with blood, when Dean gave a terrific jerk and the top left post of the bed snapped.
Sam looked up when he heard the wood crack and saw the heavy post heading towards them, impelled by the force of Dean's pull. He reacted instinctively, throwing his power out to push it away. It flew back; Dean grunted, and Sam realized that he was putting too much stress on Dean's arm. He froze the fragment in place, giving himself a moment to figure out what to do next, and Dean arched up and came, untouched, semen slicking across his belly and chest, his head turned and tilted so he could watch the jagged edges of wood hovering in the air.
Sam felt his mouth drop open; he had to fight not to follow Dean over the edge.
Dean brought his chin down. His eyes were soft, his face flushed. The smell of his spunk was sharp and hot in the air. "Gonna fuck me?" he asked.
Of all the conflicting impulses sizzling through him, arousal was by far the strongest. Gritting his teeth, he slowly lowered the post and slipped the rope off past the broken end. "Can you ...?" he began, not even sure what to ask, but Dean just nodded and bent his freed arm over his head, grabbing his still-pinioned arm just above the elbow and hanging on. Dean never really fought by this point anyway, so Sam didn't worry too much about the remaining post while he grabbed for the lube.
****
Much later, when the room was dark and Sam was near sleep, Dean shifted and reached out for Sam's hand, which was surprising enough to bring him mostly awake.
"Next time," Dean said, his voice rough, "could we do it with just you? Holding me down, like that?"
Sam froze. He had no idea what he was feeling, much less what he should say. He clamped down on his instinctive reaction, which was to flee. "Let me think about it," he managed after a few terrified breaths. He knew it wasn't a good answer, but Dean just squeezed his hand and let him go.
****
Even assuming that he could control his powers in the middle of sex, which was pretty much untested aside from the one instance of accident prevention, the idea was very hard to accept. Bondage was one thing, but this-it would pretty much replicate exactly what the curse had done to Dean. What he'd done to Dean, unknowing.
And, God, he wanted to do it. He wanted to show off to Dean, make clear that he was strong enough and powerful enough to get them through anything. He wanted there to be nothing between him and Dean. He wanted to see Dean give what the curse had taken.
That last part, that was his problem, his sickness. The flip side of it was whether Dean was trying to get back to the curse, somehow, because he thought that was what he should want.
He knew what Dean would say: Dean had asked for it, specifically and overtly. But Sam wasn't sure that was good enough. He wasn't sure that Dean was capable of consenting to something like that.
In the end, there was no way around actually talking to Dean about it. He waited until after a good hunt, where they'd rescued a woman cursed to be a Headless Mule. Their bellies were full of steak and beer and Dean had spent a few hours tinkering with a portable generator he was modifying to create a demon-proof zone they could move around. When Dean put away his tools for the night and joined Sam in the bed, Sam put his grimoire on the nightstand and turned off the light.
They made out for a while, slow and warm together. Sam put his hands on Dean's shoulders, smoothing down over his arms and returning to his chest. Dean was so solid underneath him, safe and unharmed, one thigh pressed between Sam's legs. Since they'd started using the ropes, Dean had allowed more gentleness even on ordinary nights. Sam felt filled to bursting with gratitude. There was much in his life to regret, but right now the necessary things were in place. He wanted to reassure Dean that everything about him was fine. If they both believed that, it had to be true.
"The thing about using the powers," Sam said into Dean's ear, "is that I have trouble when I think you're not in control." That wasn't quite right, because Sam knew well enough how he liked to be in charge, but there were all different kinds of being in control and he just wasn't sure if Dean recognized any of them other than taking the blame.
Dean turned his head and captured Sam's lower lip between his teeth, tugging just enough to make Sam shudder. Then he stuck his tongue into Sam's mouth, sweeping across Sam's teeth and palate like he was searching for hidden treasure. He tasted of molasses, the bite of hops gentled to sweetness in his mouth. Sam's hips pulsed down as he rubbed himself more intently against Dean's body. He squeezed Dean's upper arms, struggling against the impulse to bruise.
He had to tip his head back to break the kiss and suck in air, his hips speeding up their thrusts as he got even harder.
"Red," Dean said, and for a frozen moment Sam hadn't the slightest idea what he meant.
Then he got it and rolled off, releasing Dean like his skin had gone molten.
It took him a minute to get himself calm enough to speak, his heart still pounding in him like an engine going eighty-five on bad road. "Dean?"
"I'm in as much control as anybody is," Dean said into the darkness.
It wasn't the answer he was hoping for. Maybe he wanted to hear that Dean would have desired the same thing even without the curse, but Dean would only have told him what he already knew: no way to tell. For all Dean's protective self-deceptions, he was shit at comforting lies for Sam, had been since Sam found out what Dad did for a living.
Sam had told Dean 'no' when he'd left for Stanford, and tried again a couple of times after that, but he'd never made it stick. Possibly this was just another of Dean's dares, to himself and to Sam, but that didn't make it any less seriously meant, because Dean didn't know how to do anything that wasn't a challenge.
"Okay," Sam said, ignoring the lead weight in his stomach-and the creeping black tendrils of arousal that surrounded it-in favor of shifting closer to Dean, who responded by putting his hand on Sam's cock, angling it just right for the bliss of his mouth.
"Don't make things so complicated," Dean said after, while his hand was rubbing slow circles on Sam's back. "'s about getting off, that's all."
Put like that-of course Dean was asking for a fantasy. It was the difference between sparring and killing.
****
Two weeks later, coming off a hunt that had nearly gotten them both arrested and impaled, not in that order, Sam felt antsy enough that when Dean tossed the bags down on the floor and suggested they hit a bar, he shook his head. "I thought we'd stay in."
Dean turned to face him, hands loose at his sides. "Yeah?" His voice was a challenge.
Sam took a deep breath and shifted where he stood by the door, already getting hard. He stared at Dean's chest, and the top button on Dean's red-black flannel slipped out of its hole, soft and easy. Dean swallowed and his hands clenched, then relaxed. He looked up, his pupils dilating, and nodded.
Sam's own hands were shaking until he clasped them together. He repeated the process on the remaining buttons, using his imagined hands to run fingers up and down Dean's chest at the same time; the fabric of Dean's shirt shifted and bunched around the invisible force. Dean didn't move to shrug the shirt off when it was open, so Sam tugged it down, letting it puddle on the floor behind Dean's feet.
Then it was time for Dean's black T-shirt. For the first time, Sam moved Dean's arms directly, pulling them straight up so that the muscles stood out, then pulling the cotton up, over his face. Sam slipped Dean's amulet free with a whisper of thought, then grasped the edge of the shirt and ripped it upwards until Dean's head emerged. He brought Dean's arms down and let the shirt slide downwards until it fell off of Dean's lax wrists.
He checked Dean's face again. Dean's nostrils were flared a little, and his chest was moving too fast for calm, but his posture was relaxed, almost defiant.
Fine.
Dean's belt flew open, the metal groaning a little with the force of Sam's intent, and then the button and zipper of Dean's jeans. There was a little awkwardness with Dean's boots as the jeans collapsed around Dean's ankles, but Sam solved that problem by pushing Dean onto his back, floating him over to the bed as he tilted. Sam didn't have the fine control to unlace the boots at the same time, but he took care of that as soon as Dean's body hit the bed, boots and then socks flying off to the sides, then the jeans and Dean's boxer-briefs.
Dean was hard too, his dick red and already leaking. Carefully, Sam wrapped his will around it, tugging up and down slowly, to make sure he wasn't hurting Dean, then faster at Dean's groan. It was tricky to coordinate that with holding Dean's arms and legs stretched out-imagining hands was no longer sufficient-but once he got Dean's wrists and ankles in place it was possible to just leave them pinned there, as if he really were using ropes anchored in air.
Watching Dean get an invisible handjob was just about hot enough to cause spontaneous combustion. His cock flared just a little under the pressure, like Sam's thumb was running along the length. Dean threw his head back, exposing the paleness of his throat; his face was blank, his lips parted just enough to emphasize their lushness.
Sam could have watched for hours, moving Dean this way and that for better angles, but not this time. He was too far away, unable to hear the small noises of Dean shifting on the bed or to smell Dean's sex-sweat, thick and dark.
"I'm gonna get you ready for me," Sam managed. Dean didn't react, other than to close his mouth and swallow again.
Sam looked over to their bags, and the side pocket of the right one unzipped, the cap of the lube already coming open as he sped it towards the bed. Mentally manipulating a gel was surprisingly awkward, and he ended up with a weird-shaped blob, but then he imagined fingers again and they slid into Dean without any problem. Dean gasped and threw his whole body up, forcing Sam to pump more power into the restraints. Every one of Dean's muscles was tensed, fighting even though Dean had to know there was no way he was going anywhere.
Sam hit his limit, not of powers but of self-restraint. He hadn't even undressed, but he managed to open his belt and his jeans as he stalked towards the bed while Dean continued to struggle. He shoved his jeans and shorts down, just far enough to let his cock spring free, and hit the bed as Dean's movements grew more frantic.
"Open your eyes," he ordered, taking himself in hand, almost wincing at how cool his fingers felt against the feverish heat of his cock. He changed the way he was holding Dean's legs, pushing them up and in towards Dean's stomach so that they bent and spread for him, exposing Dean's ass. Dean's mouth opened further, panting out the strain, sweat dampening the hair on his legs. His fists opened and closed, not quite in rhythm.
Sam had never seen this, not from so close. It was better than he could have imagined. The only thing he needed was for Dean to see. "Dean, it's me." The head of his cock rubbed up against Dean's body, slick with the sloppy application of lube. He gasped and had to close his own eyes for a second; the air in his lungs burned as if they were in the desert. But he'd given Dean an order and he needed to see Dean comply before he could let himself go. He bent over Dean, bracing himself on his hands to each side of Dean's chest so that they weren't touching anywhere else, and whispered the demand into Dean's mouth: "Look at me."
Dean groaned like he was being taken apart. His eyes fluttered open, pupils wider than Sam had ever seen them, and he gave a twitch that might have been a nod even as he gasped for breath to continue his struggles.
And all of a sudden Sam got it: they were taking it back, everything that they'd lost to the vicious things that had been done to them, to Dean. Saying 'fuck you' to all the people prepared to judge them. Beating it all, seizing victory from loss, and if they ended up with scars that would only map their triumphs.
Using his powers to give himself the necessary extra boost, Sam slammed himself home, feeling his belt buckle and the bunched fabric of his jeans scrape against Dean's thighs. Dean was tight and hot, little moans escaping his lips as Sam moved his hands to Dean's stretched-taut shoulders, pulling back just enough to fuck into him harder. He felt his lower lip tear and start to bleed under the pressure of his teeth; the salt and iron in his mouth just spurred him on.
He knew he ought to be taking care of Dean, giving him a hand, but he couldn't stop. Couldn't stop rocking into Dean, couldn't stop using his demon-granted powers to stretch Dean's arms out over his head and force his legs into the perfect position for fucking. Sam's blood roared in his ears; his vision dimmed into blue-white sparkles as the world narrowed to his cock. He wanted to get so far in Dean that they could never be apart.
Dean squeezed around him in orgasm, and that was it. He yelled and came and came, trying to shove himself into Dean entirely, until the sensation turned to hurt and past, until he lost himself in the black.
****
He woke up with Dean's hands on his shoulders, petting him. Dean's lips pressed soft little kisses along the curve of his temple, the kind of touch Sam never would have dreamed Dean knew how to give.
"Hey," Dean said, and Sam could hear the smile even without seeing it. He blinked. Somehow Dean was on top of him. Presumably when he'd passed out, all the psychic bonds he'd set up had collapsed.
"Hey," he replied. His bottom lip was sore; he could feel that it had swollen.
Dean smirked and very obviously didn't say something awful like 'Was it good for you, too?'
"I'd do anything for you," Sam said.
Dean's face scrunched up and he made as if to roll away, but Sam grabbed him. "Dean," he warned, "do I have to hold you down again?"
"Depends on whether you're gonna keep on with that emo shit." Dean smiled, and Sam couldn't resist the curve of his lips, pulling him down to kiss even though it was a little painful.
Eventually, Dean pulled back, bringing his hands up to cup Sam's face. Sam wanted to tell Dean that he understood, finally. That Dean's permission was an amazing gift, a grace offered to both of them. But one of the things he could do for Dean was limit the most egregious emotional displays, even if (or because) Dean's tough exterior was closer to Magic Shell than plate armor.
Still, he needed to check: "You didn't want to use the safe word?"
Dean smoothed his thumbs over Sam's brows, down past the outer edges of his eyes. "If I'd wanted to, I would've."
Sam nodded at him, relieved. Not that he really thought that Dean would say different, but it was still good to hear, because he wasn't planning to let Dean go ever again. And that would be so much easier to manage now that they really understood each other's needs.
Dean closed his eyes, his lashes a thick dark curtain that Sam wanted to feel against his fingertips. "Thanks," he whispered, then laid his head on Sam's chest, hiding his face from Sam's surprise.
It was all right, everything was all right. He'd vanquished his fears, let Dean show him that the past had no hold over them, any more than God or the law did.
Sam reached up and flattened his palm against the soft skin between Dean's shoulders, right below his neck. "My pleasure," he said, feeling Dean settle against his chest and stomach.
"Yeah," Dean breathed, a promise, a covenant. Sam loved him totally. He was going to give Dean anything he wanted. They'd want it together.
END
Endnotes: This fic is inspired in part by cesperanza, and in part (contradictorily) by CJ Cregg's line, "and it's the bathrobes that's outrageous." CJ, you were so awesome; given subsequent developments, I doubt Sorkin really knew what he had written in you. Anyway, the line isn't directly relevant, except that it deals with another Sam who is focusing his concern away from the most significant point in a chain of events.