Inside Out Man, Sam/Dean (3/4)
Jun. 12th, 2015 12:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
runedgirlFic title: Inside Out Man, Part 3/4
Author name:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
runedgirl
Artist name:sarahtoga
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: NC17
Sam is suddenly painfully horny, his jeans too tight and his lips itching to press against Dean’s. They’ve never kissed, but that’s what he wants now, more than anything. Because that’s what Dean seems to want, and for Sam, that’s the most potent aphrodisiac there is.
“Can I?” Sam asks, touching the tip of his finger to Dean’s sticky, red mouth and spreading the gloss from side to side.
“Yeah,” Dean answers, barely a whisper. “Yeah, please.”
Sam doesn’t know why Dean feels like he has to beg; Sam would give it to him a million times over, forever and ever, and pay for the privilege. He wants to tell Dean that he doesn’t need lipstick and eye makeup to seduce Sam; that Sam thought he was sex on a stick when he had three-day stubble and a shiner and a body rippled with muscle and covered with scars. But this seems to be the only way Dean wants it, and if that’s how it has to be, Sam can work with it.
He leans in the few inches to get his mouth on his brother’s, and Dean groans into the kiss, immediately open and eager, all tongue and teeth with his hands reaching up to tangle in Sam’s hair. It’s almost exactly like the kisses Sam has shared with Dean in years of fantasies; just as aggressive as he always thought his big brother would be. Sam licks at Dean’s lips, eager to get the taste of the lip gloss out of the way so he can taste Dean. So he can forget that Dean looks like a girl and just enjoy his mouth and the way he kisses and the way he tastes.
Dean’s surprised by Sam’s enthusiasm, Sam can tell. He mmphs and then goes with it, angling Sam’s head roughly and taking charge. Sam can feel Dean’s excitement when Sam lets him, goes with it when Dean pulls him down on the bed and then rolls them over to climb on top. They make out with their clothes on, both of them still in tee shirts and sweatpants. The cotton isn’t much of an impediment, but Sam likes it there. He can pretend a little while longer that, underneath, it’s Dean’s hard cock straining against his own. He gets his hands on Dean’s ass and digs his fingers in, more roughly than he usually would with a girl—but Dean isn’t a girl.
Dean squirms and thrusts down against him, and Sam wonders if for a moment Dean’s forgotten, too; if they’re both acting out how they would have done it if Sam had ever dared to ask, and if Dean had ever been crazy enough to say yes.
The illusion breaks when Dean sits up and pulls off his tee shirt, his breasts falling free. His face is open, like he’s offering them, waiting for Sam to take. Sam carefully buries the stab of disappointment and moves one hand there, pinching and kneading until Dean is blushing red with arousal, his mouth, bruised from Sam’s kisses, open as he breathes hard.
When he can’t take it anymore, Dean stands up and slips off his sweatpants, grabbing a condom from the nightstand where he must have left it when he came back from the bathroom.
“Come on, I don’t wanna be the only one naked,” he says, and Sam sits up obediently and lets Dean pull off his tee shirt, then works his sweats down and off.
“You know what a nice dick you have, Sammy?” Dean asks as he runs a finger up and down Sam’s stiff length, spreading the little bit of slick around and around the head until Sam wants to cry with how good it feels. He doesn’t know what to say; yours was really nice while you had it, too, Dean? Gee, thanks, you can borrow mine whenever you want, now that you don’t have one of your own? It’s like the worst kind of Freudian joke.
Luckily he has an excuse not to say anything, because Dean shocks him speechless by bending down and taking the tip of Sam’s cock into his mouth.
“Fuck!” Sam shouts before he can stop himself, and Dean chuckles around his dick and takes it a little deeper. He’s going very slow, maddeningly careful with his teeth, his fist tight around the length he’s not even trying to take. It’s like heaven. Like every wet dream Sam has ever had coming true.
His climax hits him so fast he barely manages to blurt out, “I’m gonna…” before he is, and Dean pulls back just in time to get a faceful, spluttering and wiping the back of his hand over his cheeks.
Of course it would be one of those times when it seems to go on forever. Sam hasn’t exactly been cleaning the pipes very often.
“Ohmygod I’m so sorry,” he says when he can speak coherently again.
“Jesuschrist, Sam,” Dean says, and licks his lips. Sam’s spent cock gives a valiant twitch at that. Dean has splatters of come in his hair and on his chin. Sam’s come.
“Oh god,” Sam says again. He’s never going to get that picture out of his head. Never.
Dean gets up and goes to the bathroom, and Sam watches his ass and the curve of his waist and tries to remember what Dean looked like before. Dean comes back wiping himself off with a wet washcloth and then chucks it at Sam.
“Think you remember how to return the favor?” he says, trying for a smirk. It doesn’t quite work.
“Actually, plenty of women have told me I’m an expert,” Sam returns, trying for cocky.
Dean makes a face. Shit
“Not that you’re a woman—I mean, I didn’t—”
It’s a terrible time to say the wrong thing. Sam’s suddenly nervous. In all the times he’s fantasized about going down on Dean, it was never like this. There will be no pretending when he’s got his face between Dean’s legs.
“It’s okay,” Dean says, though Sam knows he doesn’t mean it. But Dean lies down and spreads his thighs, and Sam crawls between them. He wishes he’d shaved earlier; desperately wants to make this good for his brother. Dean is trusting him to do this, to make it something good even though Sam suspects that he hates this part of himself.
Sam runs both hands over the baby-soft skin on the inside of Dean’s thighs, parting his legs wider, and Dean shudders. Sam can see how swollen and wet he is, and that makes it easier. I did that, Sam thinks. I turned him on like that. Sure, they’re both sex-deprived and horny, but still. Right here, right now, that’s for me.
He tries to go slow, knowing how much most of the women he’s been with like a tease, but Dean’s having none of it. He fists his hands in Sam’s hair and drags him closer, and when Sam’s tongue touches him, he keens and wraps one leg around Sam’s shoulder, digging his heel into Sam’s back with painful force. Sam has to hold his hips down with one hand so he can breathe, Dean trying to buck up against him and whining with frustration.
Sam wants to say, “Easy, take it easy,” but he can’t speak, can’t do anything but what Dean wants him to do. He lets his brother set the pace and show him how to move, flattens his tongue and learns the places to put it that make Dean come undone. His scalp stings from Dean’s grip on his hair and he feels like he’s half drowning, but Dean’s desperate involuntary sounds as he comes make it all hotter than hell. All those years listening to Dean jerk off furtively beside in him in the dark, Sam never thought his brother would be so loud. He loves it; is addicted to it already.
Dean releases him finally, collapsing onto the bed like a puppet with his strings cut.
“Oh, holy crap,” he says, one hand pressing between his legs like he can’t stand to let it end just yet. “God damn, Sam.”
Sam retrieves the cold washcloth and wipes his wet face. “I hope that’s a good thing?”
Dean is cracked open like he rarely is, his eyes soft and dark as he looks at Sam.
“It is,” he says, and then raises an eyebrow. “And for you?”
“Can’t you tell?” Sam answers. His dick is already stirring again.
Dean looks down and gives Sam a half smile. “You’re still stuck with someone who’s not really a chick. Just a freak of a big brother who doesn’t know who or what he is most of the time.”
Sam’s stomach sinks, and his cock with it.
“You’re not a freak,” is what he says without thinking, because he knows what it feels like to believe you are.
Dean scoffs. “I’m the fucking definition of a freak, Sam.”
“I don’t care,” Sam clarifies. “I don’t care what you are, only who you are.”
“And who am I?” Dean presses. Sam feels like the answer will count, but he doesn’t need to think about it.
“You’re my brother.”
He’s rewarded with a rare genuine smile. Dean reaches over and touches his cheek; brushes his fingers over the stubble there. “You’re the only one who knows me, Sammy. The only one who ever will.”
They don’t talk like this, not ever. The fondness in Dean’s eyes makes Sam’s heart leap, but the sadness there mutes it. He hasn’t tried hard enough these past few months, Sam thinks with a sickening feeling, lulled into complacency and kept busy by hunting. He’s letting Dean down.
“Just remember that when you try to pull one over on me,” Sam replies, trying to keep it light.
Dean closes his eyes and snuggles into the mattress.
It’s hard to get up and cross the three feet to the other bed, but Sam does it.
* * *
Two months later, Sam gets a call from Bobby.
“How is he?”
“He’s on a supply run right now, but… he’s not good, Bobby. He’s trying to pretend he’s fine with this, but I can see how much he hates it. It’s like he hates himself, who he is. Or who he isn’t.”
“I had a friend once, a long ways back, who never felt right in his own skin. Looked like a man but felt like he wasn’t, y’know? Said it made everything else wrong, too, zapped the joy outta life, tainted everything he did. I didn’t get it at the time, seemed crazy to me, you know? He took more chances than anyone I’ve ever known. I think he was just hoping for something to take him out, so he wouldn’t have to go through that anymore.”
“And did something?”
Bobby pauses for a second. “Sure did,” he finally answers. “He was 27. I wish now I’d understood better, been more kind.”
“I worry about that, about Dean,” Sam blurts out. “Sometimes I can see so clearly what this is doing to him, how unhappy he is. Damn it, I need to fix this!”
“Well, I’ve got a lead, but chances are it’s as much of a dead end as all the others.”
Sam pulls out a notepad and a pen. “That’s okay, it’s worth a try. Tell me what you got.”
He doesn’t lie about it, but he doesn’t take Dean with him, either. They talk on the phone every night, and Sam pretends that on the other end of the line Dean has four days of stubble and his bare feet up on the bed, the fine hairs on his calves showing where his jeans are pushed up. Pictures the curve of muscle in his arms and the blunt width of his fingers, the flat musculature of his stomach and his bowed legs.
“So, you run into any hot chicks on your adventures?” Dean asks, and Sam is jolted out of his reverie.
“What? No. Why would you ask that?”
Dean hesitates a moment too long, and that tells Sam the question wasn’t a casual one. “I dunno,” he finally says. “I mean, you have a chance to bang some real chicks for a change, that’s all.”
“And what? You think that’s what I’m craving?”
“Well, yeah, probably.”
“You really are an asshole, you know that? I’m out here trying to find a cure for this mess, and you think I’m looking to hook up?” Sam’s actually angry, because Dean is just so stupid.
“I tried to talk you out of going,” Dean retorts, and he’s angry, too, Sam can tell. “It’s a waste of time. We could be hunting, doing something useful.”
That cuts Sam’s anger. It’s all Dean says he wants to do—the only thing that makes him feel even close to right. Sam thinks about Bobby’s long-ago friend.
“I know, I get that,” he says, instead of what he wanted to say. “I’ll be back soon and we’ll get back on the road, okay? Just—let me check this out, all right?”
“Okay,” Dean says, resigned. “I’m goin’ stir crazy here, that’s all.”
Dean doesn’t like to go into town when Sam’s not with him. Too many situations that could get out of control and end up with some idiot on the wrong end of Dean’s gun.
“Two more days,” Sam promises.
Dean’s voice is sad when he hangs up.
This witch is nothing like Mary Alice. His is old magic, darker than Sam would like, but powerful. Sam can feel it in every room of the witch’s old mansion. It’s like something out of a horror movie with too low a budget to afford fake cobwebs, so they just tossed around a lot of dust.
“I can do it,” Elmore says, “But it requires a blood spell. Your blood, I’m guessing. You’re sleeping with her, yes?”
Sam is once again caught off guard by the mindreading. “I—with him—I mean, no, he’s my brother.”
The witch narrows his beady dark eyes and frowns. “You can go,” he says. “If you can’t tell the truth, I can’t help you.”
Fuck. “Okay, okay, yes, I’m sleeping with him. It didn’t start until he was—until he was cursed.”
Like that makes it better. Sam almost adds, “He wouldn’t have wanted to before,” but it’s completely beside the point. So is the truthful, “But me, I’ve wanted to ever since I can remember,” so he doesn’t say that out loud either.
Fucking witches and their mindreading.
“The price will be some of your blood, and some of… his. Winchester blood, a handy commodity to have on hand. You never know who might get on your bad side or what might stop them.”
Sam hasn’t given their last name, but he’s not surprised. “Okay. I agree to your terms. I just need to get Dean here.”
Elmore nods, gesturing to the door.
“Oh, one more thing,” he says as Sam’s about to leave. “He has to be willing.”
Sam’s heart is already pounding triple time with excitement. “Oh, he will be.”
* * *
“I don’t want to,” Dean insists, practically stomping his foot to make his point.
“But Dean, I swear, this one is vetted and he looks like the real deal. It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”
Dean crosses his arms over his chest. The gesture pushes his breasts together and makes a deep shadowed cleavage.
“I told you, I can’t keep going on these fucking wild-goose chases, Sam! I get my fucking hopes up and nothing ever fucking comes of it. And besides, giving a witch our blood? No good will come of that, that’s for sure!”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Sam yells, and he’s angry now, caught off guard at Dean’s resistance.
Dean’s eyes flash. “Oh, am I? Well, ain’t that the story of my life! Are you just noticing now?”
With that he stomps right out of the motel, and Sam hears the Impala roar away.
Sam calls Bobby while he waits for his brother to return, both because he promised an update about the witch and because he wants to wring Dean’s neck.
“He doesn’t want to go, Bobby! And I’ve got a good feeling about this—everything I’ve dug up says this guy might actually be able to do this. I’m gonna tie him up and throw him in the backseat, I swear to god.”
“Nah, you’re not. You don’t have a clue what kinda twisted-up emotions that boy’s gone through all this time. Or what it costs him to get his hopes up again. You don’t have a clue about nothin’ because you ain’t never had to deal with bein’ a man when you look like a woman. So cut him some slack, you hear me?”
Sam sighs. “I hear you. And I know you’re right, it’s just…”
“I know,” Bobby says, his voice a fraction less testy. “I know this has been hard on you, too, Sam. But not like it has been for Dean. Give him some time.”
Sam frowns, regretting his own selfishness. Hard on Sam, right. If Bobby only knew.
“I will. Thanks, Bobby.”
Dean comes back two hours later, smelling like beer and looking half wasted. He wobbles a little walking across the room, but he doesn’t look as angry as he did when he left.
“I’m sorry,” Sam says, before Dean can say anything. “I have no right to tell you what to do, and I know I don’t really understand what you’re going through. I’m sorry.”
Dean sits down heavily on the bed and puts his head in his hands. When he straightens, Sam can see that his eyes are red.
“I’ll go,” Dean says. “You put all this effort into finding this witch, it’s the least I can do to go check it out. If that’s what you really want.”
There’s more sadness in his voice than there should be, and it niggles at Sam, something off. But Sam’s concern is drowned out by a wave of relief, and something that feels dangerously like hope. He tries not to make it obvious. Dean will need to keep his protective skepticism intact just in case, and Sam shouldn’t make it any harder.
“We can leave tomorrow morning,” Sam says. His duffel is already packed and he feels too excited to sleep. Maybe, maybe. Maybe Dean will be Dean again and his smile will reach his eyes.
“Okay,” Dean agrees, but he doesn’t get up from where he’s sitting on the side of the bed. Instead he puts his head in his hands and stays very still. Again, Sam thinks, wrong. Something’s wrong. More wrong than just the obvious.
Sam wants to comfort him, but he’s not sure Dean will welcome it. It’s awkwardly silent, both of them still and watching the other, and then they both speak at once.
“Do you—” Sam starts.
“Can we—” Dean says at the same time.
They stop abruptly, and Sam gestures for Dean to go ahead. The red rims of his eyes only make the green stand out more. Sam aches for his brother, for the desperate sadness there.
“Can we,” Dean begins again, and waves his hand at the bed. “I just need something to take my mind off it, you know?”
That hurts, and Sam suddenly realizes with a jolt of horror that this might be the last time they touch each other. Sam has been the safe person, the only one Dean trusts enough to be vulnerable. He wasn’t interested in guys before the curse as far as Sam knows, and chances are he’ll go back to sleeping with as many women as he can once he’s back to his old self. He won’t need to be fucking his little brother, that’s for sure.
The realization makes Sam go pale, and Dean drops his eyes.
“Never mind, stupid idea, sorry,” he says, already getting up to retreat to the bathroom.
“No!” Sam reaches out and grabs his arm before Dean can get far, tugging his brother to him and wrapping his arms around Dean’s slim shoulders. “No, no, I want to, I do. God, I really want to.”
Dean smiles at him then, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He stands on his toes to reach Sam’s mouth, kissing with what feels like desperation.
The last time, Sam thinks, and kisses back, wanting just this once to claim Dean’s mouth like he has in his fantasies. He lets himself be rough.
Dean moans into the kiss, letting Sam in, fingers at Sam’s belt to pull it open. They’re both too eager, fingers tangling and fumbling, unwilling to break their kiss to get their clothes off. Eventually they make it to the bed, stripped from the waist down, hands searching for skin.
With Dean still wearing his flannel shirt, Sam could almost think Dean is himself again.
Dean is already grinding against Sam’s thigh, and Sam’s cock is slipping against Dean’s belly. Sam reaches around to grab Dean’s ass, slipping his finger between the rounded cheeks to stroke over the opening. It would be the same, he thinks. Just this one time, it could be the same.
“Dean, can I?” he whispers, prodding gently. Dean stills on top of him, and Sam does it again, making it clear.
“Fuck,” Dean says. “Yes.”
Sam puts him on his back and grabs the lube and a condom, not giving Dean a chance to start unbuttoning his shirts. Dean spreads his legs and lets Sam shove a pillow under his hips and get a finger inside him. Sam watches his face, the rapidly changing expressions that go from discomfort to arousal and back again as Sam tries to make room.
“Here, turn over,” Sam urges, and Dean goes easily, on his hands and knees with his thighs spread wide and his ass upturned.
It’s so much like Sam’s imagined, he can barely contain his excitement, dying to be inside, to have this just one time.
“Touch yourself,” he orders, and to his surprise, Dean obeys, his hand working between his legs and his body opening up around Sam’s fingers.
“Keep going, I’m gonna try to,” Sam says when he thinks he can’t wait any longer, and Dean lets out a long, low groan as Sam pushes in.
Dean’s hand stills for a minute as he holds his breath, and Sam rubs his back and the back of his neck, says “It’s okay, I’ll go slow,” until Dean starts moving again.
It’s as hot and tight as every one of Sam’s favorite fantasies, and Sam is all the way in there, right where he wants to be. Dean moans and speeds up the movement of his hand as Sam starts pumping in and out, and Sam tries to memorize the image of Dean as his arms give out and he turns his head to the side where it’s pressed to the mattress. His mouth is open, his eyes closed, a look of ecstasy on his face, and then his body clenches tight around Sam and he gasps and whines, loud and anguished, his hand still moving between his legs. Sam loses it then, too, fighting the urge to close his eyes so he can keep watching Dean.
Dean’s face is wet when he sits up. He wipes at his cheeks with annoyance.
“Did I hurt you?”
He shakes his head. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m just… thinking about tomorrow, is all.”
He turns away when Sam tries to pull him in for a hug, heads for the bathroom to clean up.
That was it, Sam thinks, trying to stop his own tears. That was the last time.
It hurts even more than he thought it would.
* * *
“So this is the great Dean Winchester,” Elmore says when he opens the door. “I thought you’d be taller.”
“I was taller, asshole,” Dean scowls, clearly in no mood.
“I suppose you were, at that,” the witch agrees, and motions them in.
“Tea? Brandy?”
“What is this, a fucking social call?”
Elmore raises an eyebrow. “Fine, down to business it is.”
“Can you do this?” Sam asks.
“Two vials of blood from each of you,” Elmore counters.
“One now, another when you break the curse,” Sam says.
Dean scowls even more, but allows Sam to draw two tubes and cap them off. Dean draws the same from Sam and reluctantly hands one of each over.
“Sit down,” Elmore instructs, and they both do.
“Do I have to take my clothes off?” Dean asks.
Elmore’s eyes go wide. “Not unless you want to,” he smirks. “Though that would be a nice bonus.”
“Forget it,” Dean says, and gives Sam a hateful glare.
Elmore runs his hands over Dean the same way Mary Alice did, except apparently he’s powerful enough to get a reading through fabric. Or else she just got off on the extra humiliation. Sam forces himself not to think about that. Elmore closes his eyes and furrows his brow as he works, occasionally pausing and looking deep in concentration. Finally he sits back.
“The curse is reversible,” he announces.
Sam’s heart leaps into his throat. They did it. They fucking did it.
“But not for you.”
“What?! What the hell do you mean?” Sam jumps up from the couch, ready to wring Elmore’s scrawny neck. “Why not for us?”
“For him,” Elmore corrects. “I told you before, I can only do it if he wants it.”
Dean’s face goes red with rage. “What the hell are you talking about? Of course I want it! I’ve spent eight months in hell thinking I’m stuck like this forever!”
Elmore shakes his head, unperturbed by Dean’s anger.
“That’s your head talking. Not your heart. You have to be all in.”
“SAM! Fucking do something!”
Dean’s looking like he’s ready to go get the gun that Elmore insisted they leave in the foyer.
Elmore cocks an eyebrow, like he’s daring Sam. “There’s nothing your brother can do,” he tells Dean calmly. “It’s you who’s standing in the way of this, not him.”
Dean stares at the witch like he can make his head explode just by wishing it. Finally he gives a frustrated growl and storms off toward the door.
“Dean!” Sam can’t let this happen, can’t let it fall apart like this. Was the witch lying all along? Of course Dean wants this. Why the hell wouldn’t he?
Dean stops in the parlor and turns halfway around.
“I need a minute, Sam. I just… I need to think, okay?”
“What is there to think about?” Sam protests, and he’s yelling even though he doesn’t want to. “There’s nothing to think about, Dean!”
Dean’s anger seems to deflate, and he turns to face Sam fully. Instead of the fury of a few minutes ago, Dean looks almost sad.
“Isn’t there?” he asks, and Sam is so confused. “Are you sure about that, Sam?”
It hits Sam then, so hard his legs almost go out from under him.
“You think—you really think I’d want you to stay like this just so I could…”
Dean blushes, but holds his ground. “Just tell me. Are you sure?”
From the end of the hallway, there’s a sadistic laugh.
“Oh, this is priceless, absolutely priceless,” Elmore giggles. “It all comes down to sex, doesn’t it? So typical—”
“Shut up!” the Winchesters say in unison, and Elmore shrugs and disappears back into the sitting room.
“Dean,” Sam says, trying not to yell. “Don’t you think I want you to be happy? You think I don’t see how miserable you are, how much this hurts you? Of course I’m sure. I’m a million percent sure. Please, please, let him try. Please.”
Dean hesitates for another long moment, his brow furrowed like he’s trying to solve the mysteries of the universe—or figure out if Sam is lying. Finally he exhales, and his shoulders slump. He looks for all the world like he’s giving up and giving in, even if that makes no sense.
“Fine,” he says, voice flat.
Elmore has poured a cup of tea and taken a seat in the armchair in the corner, looking thoroughly amused.
“So are we doing this, or what?” the witch asks, taking a sip. “Not that I’m not enjoying the sibling drama for mature audiences.”
“Yes,” Sam says, nodding.
“Yeah,” Dean agrees.
“Okay then,” Elmore says, and puts the teacup down.
The curse breaking takes half an hour, a lot of Latin, some herbs that smell like shit, and far too much of Elmore touching Dean. Finally he pronounces it done.
“You’ll be back to yourself within 24 hours, give or take. Now hand over those other two vials of blood and be on your way.”
“How do we know you’re not bullshitting us?” Dean says, examining his own hands for any signs of change.
“I guess you’ll know for sure 24 hours from now. I’ll be right here if it doesn’t work. And now, if you don’t mind, I have an appointment. Thanks for the show, though. I’d always heard the Winchesters were attractive.”
“Can’t say the same for you,” Dean grumbles under his breath. He doesn’t like to be touched, especially since the curse, and Elmore clearly violated his boundaries.
They sit up all night, too wired to go to bed. Dean paces, goes to the bathroom and checks the mirror, drinks more beer, and eats three whole bags of chips. Sam tries not to stare, tries not to think that Dean’s jawline is firming, that his shoulders are broader than they were ten minutes ago. Dean obsessively runs his hand over his chin again and again, hoping to find stubble.
“It’s not working,” he says a million times, each time sounding more annoyed.
“It hasn’t been 24 hours,” Sam reminds him two million times, each time sounding less certain.
Dean falls asleep for a little while, and Sam sits on the other bed, watching him. Straining his eyes in the dim light for some sort of change.
“I’m gonna take a shower,” Dean announces when he wakes up shortly after sunrise. “I can’t fucking sit here and hope for something that’s not happening.”
Sam is searching his duffel for Advil when there’s a heavy thump from the bathroom.
“Dean?” he yells through the door, not wanting to open it if Dean doesn’t want him in there.
“Sam!” Dean yells back, and every hair on Sam’s entire body stands on end. He sounds… he sounds like Dean.
“Can I come in?”
He doesn’t get a chance to. Dean throws the door open and knocks Sam right on his ass.
“Dean, what the—”
Sam looks up. Dean is naked, soaking wet, dripping all over the floor, and grinning like a loon. Sam’s eyes go right to his dick, which is very much back. As are those familiar bowlegs and flat chest and muscular arms and broad shoulders.
“Oh my god,” Sam says, unable to do anything but stare.
Dean holds out a hand and grabs Sam, pulling him up and into a hug.
“You’re getting me all wet, asshole,” Sam protests, but it doesn’t matter because he’s crying, all the tears he didn’t dare let out for all those months erupting, and he doesn’t have it in him to care.
“I’m back, Sam, I’m fucking back,” Dean is saying, his arms wrapped tightly around Sam. “I’m me!”
He pauses for a second and pulls back so Sam can really see him.
Sam is suddenly glad he’s not the one who’s naked. Because Dean looks good enough to eat, and Sam’s appetite would be very obvious without his jeans.
Dean seems to realize he’s naked then, too, and takes another step back. It hurts a lot more than Sam expected, even though Sam thought he was prepared. Of course Dean won’t want him now.
“We should… um, we should go out to celebrate,” Sam says, pulling back himself and trying not to look at Dean.
Dean’s grin falters a bit, but then he nods. “Yeah, sure, we should. I’ll just—I’ll put some clothes on.”
And just like that, they’re back to normal. It’s almost like everything that happened between them when Dean was a girl didn’t happen to this Dean. The real Dean. It’s like Sam was allowed to want and take and touch that person who was his brother but wasn’t, and now he’s not. Now all the rules that were in place all their lives—the ones that kept Sam from confessing his dark secret—have snapped back into place.
Sam tries to act normal.
Except nothing feels normal at all.
* * *
Dean spends the next week in obsessive target practice, getting back the feel of his gun. The feel of his body, tall and broad and muscular.
Sam watches, appreciating the flex of muscle in his brother’s forearm and the wide stance of his bowed legs. He can’t stop staring at what he thought he’d never see again.
“Didya see that?” Dean calls from the place where six beer cans were lined up a minute ago.
He sounds happy, and it curls through Sam like a spark.
“I could do better,” he says, because it’s expected.
“The fuck you could,” Dean returns, already setting up another six.
They both knock them down with six bullets each, and Dean smiles and Sam thinks, Yes, I can do this. I might never kiss him again, but I have my brother back.
Most days, it’s enough.
Dean goes back to flirting right away, but it takes a little while for him to make good on his winks and sideways glances. They’re in a bar in upstate New York, celebrating a successful salt and burn, and Dean’s moved from beer to whisky. He’s buzzed, his cheeks a little pink and his “Hello darlin’” a little more drawled than usual. Dean gets more physical when he drinks, always has, and Sam’s been enjoying the way their knees keep bumping under the bar and the way Dean’s eyes crinkle when he smiles. He’s trying not to remember what it felt like to have Dean’s mouth on his dick, to have Dean beneath him writhing on Sam’s cock.
Then a blonde woman in a short skirt is slinking up to the bar between them and Sam remembers with a sudden shock that Dean is Dean—and Dean is not his. It’s like a bucket of cold water, and any buzz Sam had going recedes instantly.
He slides his bar stool back a bit to give her room, turning the other way so he doesn’t have to watch.
He can’t help but listen, though, and every flirtatious word out of the woman’s mouth scrapes against Sam’s skin like sandpaper. Dean answers in a rumbly almost-growl, so different from the way he sounded when he’d come on to Sam in what seems like an alternate universe.
“Hey, Sam?”
It takes Sam a while to realize that Dean is talking to him. He spins around and Dean is right there, leaning over the blonde’s shoulder, even more inebriated than the last time Sam looked.
“You mind if I meet you back at the motel?” Dean drawls, sloppy grin on his handsome face.
Sam shakes his head, swallowing hard.
“You sure you don’t mind?” Dean persists, and he’s got his hand on Sam’s leg now, fingers digging in almost painfully. “Cause if you do, I can…”
“I said I don’t mind!” Sam insists, and it comes out far too loud. The blonde jumps and twists to look at Sam, her brow furrowed in confusion as she tries to figure out what the hell is happening.
Sam can’t watch this; he’s too drunk himself, it’s too much of a letdown from the first part of the evening. He stands hastily, Dean’s fingers sliding across his knee and off as Sam throws a wad of cash on the bar and steps back.
“Have fun, just, you know, be careful,” he says lamely, then hightails it out of there without looking back.
“He must be your big brother, huh?” he hears the woman say, on his way to the door.
Dean comes back just before dawn, smelling like the blonde’s perfume and a whole lot of alcohol. He trips over something—or nothing—and practically faceplants on the bed with a muffled groan. He’s snoring loudly a few minutes later.
Sam lies there torturing himself for a while, taking in the curve of Dean’s back as he sleeps, the roundness of his ass in the worn jeans that fit him so perfectly once again. His mouth is open, and Sam thinks his lips are swollen; tries not to think about why. The one thing that didn’t change at all when Dean was a girl was his eyes: they’re exactly the same, the dark lashes a thick fringe against his cheeks.
When he feels he’s punished himself enough for wanting what he shouldn’t, Sam gets up and goes out, driving into the sunrise in search of coffee and breakfast. That will show Dean how fine he is with this, how absolutely fucking fine he is with Dean going back to fucking random women he meets in bars and Sam being a fucking monk and the two of them pretending they never fucked each other’s brains out for months. Just fucking fine.
He’s such a wonderful little brother that he doesn’t even wake Dean until it’s nearly checkout time.
“Yo, time to wake up, sleeping beauty,” he says, slapping Dean in a very brotherly way on the back, too hard for it to be misinterpreted as anything else.
Dean bats at him in annoyance and tries to burrow back into the pillow.
“Lemme alone, Smmmy,” he grumbles, so Sam pulls the pillow out from under him.
“Bitch!” Dean yells, more awake now. He tries to grab it back, but he’s way too slow.
“Checkout is in fifteen,” Sam says, tossing the pillow onto the other bed. “If you want a shower—and I’m pretty damn sure you need one—you better move your ass.”
Dean groans again, but rolls himself off the bed and to his feet with more grace than Sam would have expected. He sees the cup of coffee and bag of donuts on the nightstand then, and the glass of seltzer and four ibuprofen.
He looks up at Sam sheepishly.
“Uh, thanks,” he says, and for a moment his expression is unguarded. “Sammy, I…”
He takes a bite of donut and pauses, though he’s still looking at Sam with a strange expression. He looks almost… guilty.
“It’s okay,” Sam says, because he’s the best brother ever. Just a brother, only a brother.
Dean holds his gaze a few seconds longer, then nods and drops his eyes. He shoves the rest of the donut in his mouth, and follows it with the seltzer and pills before heading to the bathroom.
They both try to pretend everything’s okay for the rest of the day, but Sam keeps thinking about it. If someone had asked Sam if there was any chance that he and Dean would keep on being lovers, he would have said no. Yet the keen sense of disappointment he’s feeling now that Dean has gone back to sleeping with random women makes it clear that he must have been holding out some irrational bit of hope.
Never again, Sam tells himself. If he keeps repeating it, he’ll eventually start believing it. He doesn’t want me. Never again.
He doesn’t bother trying to convince himself it doesn’t hurt.
Part Four
Author name:
runedgirlArtist name:
sarahtogaPairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: NC17
Sam is suddenly painfully horny, his jeans too tight and his lips itching to press against Dean’s. They’ve never kissed, but that’s what he wants now, more than anything. Because that’s what Dean seems to want, and for Sam, that’s the most potent aphrodisiac there is.
“Can I?” Sam asks, touching the tip of his finger to Dean’s sticky, red mouth and spreading the gloss from side to side.
“Yeah,” Dean answers, barely a whisper. “Yeah, please.”
Sam doesn’t know why Dean feels like he has to beg; Sam would give it to him a million times over, forever and ever, and pay for the privilege. He wants to tell Dean that he doesn’t need lipstick and eye makeup to seduce Sam; that Sam thought he was sex on a stick when he had three-day stubble and a shiner and a body rippled with muscle and covered with scars. But this seems to be the only way Dean wants it, and if that’s how it has to be, Sam can work with it.
He leans in the few inches to get his mouth on his brother’s, and Dean groans into the kiss, immediately open and eager, all tongue and teeth with his hands reaching up to tangle in Sam’s hair. It’s almost exactly like the kisses Sam has shared with Dean in years of fantasies; just as aggressive as he always thought his big brother would be. Sam licks at Dean’s lips, eager to get the taste of the lip gloss out of the way so he can taste Dean. So he can forget that Dean looks like a girl and just enjoy his mouth and the way he kisses and the way he tastes.
Dean’s surprised by Sam’s enthusiasm, Sam can tell. He mmphs and then goes with it, angling Sam’s head roughly and taking charge. Sam can feel Dean’s excitement when Sam lets him, goes with it when Dean pulls him down on the bed and then rolls them over to climb on top. They make out with their clothes on, both of them still in tee shirts and sweatpants. The cotton isn’t much of an impediment, but Sam likes it there. He can pretend a little while longer that, underneath, it’s Dean’s hard cock straining against his own. He gets his hands on Dean’s ass and digs his fingers in, more roughly than he usually would with a girl—but Dean isn’t a girl.
Dean squirms and thrusts down against him, and Sam wonders if for a moment Dean’s forgotten, too; if they’re both acting out how they would have done it if Sam had ever dared to ask, and if Dean had ever been crazy enough to say yes.
The illusion breaks when Dean sits up and pulls off his tee shirt, his breasts falling free. His face is open, like he’s offering them, waiting for Sam to take. Sam carefully buries the stab of disappointment and moves one hand there, pinching and kneading until Dean is blushing red with arousal, his mouth, bruised from Sam’s kisses, open as he breathes hard.
When he can’t take it anymore, Dean stands up and slips off his sweatpants, grabbing a condom from the nightstand where he must have left it when he came back from the bathroom.
“Come on, I don’t wanna be the only one naked,” he says, and Sam sits up obediently and lets Dean pull off his tee shirt, then works his sweats down and off.
“You know what a nice dick you have, Sammy?” Dean asks as he runs a finger up and down Sam’s stiff length, spreading the little bit of slick around and around the head until Sam wants to cry with how good it feels. He doesn’t know what to say; yours was really nice while you had it, too, Dean? Gee, thanks, you can borrow mine whenever you want, now that you don’t have one of your own? It’s like the worst kind of Freudian joke.
Luckily he has an excuse not to say anything, because Dean shocks him speechless by bending down and taking the tip of Sam’s cock into his mouth.
“Fuck!” Sam shouts before he can stop himself, and Dean chuckles around his dick and takes it a little deeper. He’s going very slow, maddeningly careful with his teeth, his fist tight around the length he’s not even trying to take. It’s like heaven. Like every wet dream Sam has ever had coming true.
His climax hits him so fast he barely manages to blurt out, “I’m gonna…” before he is, and Dean pulls back just in time to get a faceful, spluttering and wiping the back of his hand over his cheeks.
Of course it would be one of those times when it seems to go on forever. Sam hasn’t exactly been cleaning the pipes very often.
“Ohmygod I’m so sorry,” he says when he can speak coherently again.
“Jesuschrist, Sam,” Dean says, and licks his lips. Sam’s spent cock gives a valiant twitch at that. Dean has splatters of come in his hair and on his chin. Sam’s come.
“Oh god,” Sam says again. He’s never going to get that picture out of his head. Never.
Dean gets up and goes to the bathroom, and Sam watches his ass and the curve of his waist and tries to remember what Dean looked like before. Dean comes back wiping himself off with a wet washcloth and then chucks it at Sam.
“Think you remember how to return the favor?” he says, trying for a smirk. It doesn’t quite work.
“Actually, plenty of women have told me I’m an expert,” Sam returns, trying for cocky.
Dean makes a face. Shit
“Not that you’re a woman—I mean, I didn’t—”
It’s a terrible time to say the wrong thing. Sam’s suddenly nervous. In all the times he’s fantasized about going down on Dean, it was never like this. There will be no pretending when he’s got his face between Dean’s legs.
“It’s okay,” Dean says, though Sam knows he doesn’t mean it. But Dean lies down and spreads his thighs, and Sam crawls between them. He wishes he’d shaved earlier; desperately wants to make this good for his brother. Dean is trusting him to do this, to make it something good even though Sam suspects that he hates this part of himself.
Sam runs both hands over the baby-soft skin on the inside of Dean’s thighs, parting his legs wider, and Dean shudders. Sam can see how swollen and wet he is, and that makes it easier. I did that, Sam thinks. I turned him on like that. Sure, they’re both sex-deprived and horny, but still. Right here, right now, that’s for me.
He tries to go slow, knowing how much most of the women he’s been with like a tease, but Dean’s having none of it. He fists his hands in Sam’s hair and drags him closer, and when Sam’s tongue touches him, he keens and wraps one leg around Sam’s shoulder, digging his heel into Sam’s back with painful force. Sam has to hold his hips down with one hand so he can breathe, Dean trying to buck up against him and whining with frustration.
Sam wants to say, “Easy, take it easy,” but he can’t speak, can’t do anything but what Dean wants him to do. He lets his brother set the pace and show him how to move, flattens his tongue and learns the places to put it that make Dean come undone. His scalp stings from Dean’s grip on his hair and he feels like he’s half drowning, but Dean’s desperate involuntary sounds as he comes make it all hotter than hell. All those years listening to Dean jerk off furtively beside in him in the dark, Sam never thought his brother would be so loud. He loves it; is addicted to it already.
Dean releases him finally, collapsing onto the bed like a puppet with his strings cut.
“Oh, holy crap,” he says, one hand pressing between his legs like he can’t stand to let it end just yet. “God damn, Sam.”
Sam retrieves the cold washcloth and wipes his wet face. “I hope that’s a good thing?”
Dean is cracked open like he rarely is, his eyes soft and dark as he looks at Sam.
“It is,” he says, and then raises an eyebrow. “And for you?”
“Can’t you tell?” Sam answers. His dick is already stirring again.
Dean looks down and gives Sam a half smile. “You’re still stuck with someone who’s not really a chick. Just a freak of a big brother who doesn’t know who or what he is most of the time.”
Sam’s stomach sinks, and his cock with it.
“You’re not a freak,” is what he says without thinking, because he knows what it feels like to believe you are.
Dean scoffs. “I’m the fucking definition of a freak, Sam.”
“I don’t care,” Sam clarifies. “I don’t care what you are, only who you are.”
“And who am I?” Dean presses. Sam feels like the answer will count, but he doesn’t need to think about it.
“You’re my brother.”
He’s rewarded with a rare genuine smile. Dean reaches over and touches his cheek; brushes his fingers over the stubble there. “You’re the only one who knows me, Sammy. The only one who ever will.”
They don’t talk like this, not ever. The fondness in Dean’s eyes makes Sam’s heart leap, but the sadness there mutes it. He hasn’t tried hard enough these past few months, Sam thinks with a sickening feeling, lulled into complacency and kept busy by hunting. He’s letting Dean down.
“Just remember that when you try to pull one over on me,” Sam replies, trying to keep it light.
Dean closes his eyes and snuggles into the mattress.
It’s hard to get up and cross the three feet to the other bed, but Sam does it.
* * *
Two months later, Sam gets a call from Bobby.
“How is he?”
“He’s on a supply run right now, but… he’s not good, Bobby. He’s trying to pretend he’s fine with this, but I can see how much he hates it. It’s like he hates himself, who he is. Or who he isn’t.”
“I had a friend once, a long ways back, who never felt right in his own skin. Looked like a man but felt like he wasn’t, y’know? Said it made everything else wrong, too, zapped the joy outta life, tainted everything he did. I didn’t get it at the time, seemed crazy to me, you know? He took more chances than anyone I’ve ever known. I think he was just hoping for something to take him out, so he wouldn’t have to go through that anymore.”
“And did something?”
Bobby pauses for a second. “Sure did,” he finally answers. “He was 27. I wish now I’d understood better, been more kind.”
“I worry about that, about Dean,” Sam blurts out. “Sometimes I can see so clearly what this is doing to him, how unhappy he is. Damn it, I need to fix this!”
“Well, I’ve got a lead, but chances are it’s as much of a dead end as all the others.”
Sam pulls out a notepad and a pen. “That’s okay, it’s worth a try. Tell me what you got.”
He doesn’t lie about it, but he doesn’t take Dean with him, either. They talk on the phone every night, and Sam pretends that on the other end of the line Dean has four days of stubble and his bare feet up on the bed, the fine hairs on his calves showing where his jeans are pushed up. Pictures the curve of muscle in his arms and the blunt width of his fingers, the flat musculature of his stomach and his bowed legs.
“So, you run into any hot chicks on your adventures?” Dean asks, and Sam is jolted out of his reverie.
“What? No. Why would you ask that?”
Dean hesitates a moment too long, and that tells Sam the question wasn’t a casual one. “I dunno,” he finally says. “I mean, you have a chance to bang some real chicks for a change, that’s all.”
“And what? You think that’s what I’m craving?”
“Well, yeah, probably.”
“You really are an asshole, you know that? I’m out here trying to find a cure for this mess, and you think I’m looking to hook up?” Sam’s actually angry, because Dean is just so stupid.
“I tried to talk you out of going,” Dean retorts, and he’s angry, too, Sam can tell. “It’s a waste of time. We could be hunting, doing something useful.”
That cuts Sam’s anger. It’s all Dean says he wants to do—the only thing that makes him feel even close to right. Sam thinks about Bobby’s long-ago friend.
“I know, I get that,” he says, instead of what he wanted to say. “I’ll be back soon and we’ll get back on the road, okay? Just—let me check this out, all right?”
“Okay,” Dean says, resigned. “I’m goin’ stir crazy here, that’s all.”
Dean doesn’t like to go into town when Sam’s not with him. Too many situations that could get out of control and end up with some idiot on the wrong end of Dean’s gun.
“Two more days,” Sam promises.
Dean’s voice is sad when he hangs up.
This witch is nothing like Mary Alice. His is old magic, darker than Sam would like, but powerful. Sam can feel it in every room of the witch’s old mansion. It’s like something out of a horror movie with too low a budget to afford fake cobwebs, so they just tossed around a lot of dust.
“I can do it,” Elmore says, “But it requires a blood spell. Your blood, I’m guessing. You’re sleeping with her, yes?”
Sam is once again caught off guard by the mindreading. “I—with him—I mean, no, he’s my brother.”
The witch narrows his beady dark eyes and frowns. “You can go,” he says. “If you can’t tell the truth, I can’t help you.”
Fuck. “Okay, okay, yes, I’m sleeping with him. It didn’t start until he was—until he was cursed.”
Like that makes it better. Sam almost adds, “He wouldn’t have wanted to before,” but it’s completely beside the point. So is the truthful, “But me, I’ve wanted to ever since I can remember,” so he doesn’t say that out loud either.
Fucking witches and their mindreading.
“The price will be some of your blood, and some of… his. Winchester blood, a handy commodity to have on hand. You never know who might get on your bad side or what might stop them.”
Sam hasn’t given their last name, but he’s not surprised. “Okay. I agree to your terms. I just need to get Dean here.”
Elmore nods, gesturing to the door.
“Oh, one more thing,” he says as Sam’s about to leave. “He has to be willing.”
Sam’s heart is already pounding triple time with excitement. “Oh, he will be.”
* * *
“I don’t want to,” Dean insists, practically stomping his foot to make his point.
“But Dean, I swear, this one is vetted and he looks like the real deal. It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”
Dean crosses his arms over his chest. The gesture pushes his breasts together and makes a deep shadowed cleavage.
“I told you, I can’t keep going on these fucking wild-goose chases, Sam! I get my fucking hopes up and nothing ever fucking comes of it. And besides, giving a witch our blood? No good will come of that, that’s for sure!”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Sam yells, and he’s angry now, caught off guard at Dean’s resistance.
Dean’s eyes flash. “Oh, am I? Well, ain’t that the story of my life! Are you just noticing now?”
With that he stomps right out of the motel, and Sam hears the Impala roar away.
Sam calls Bobby while he waits for his brother to return, both because he promised an update about the witch and because he wants to wring Dean’s neck.
“He doesn’t want to go, Bobby! And I’ve got a good feeling about this—everything I’ve dug up says this guy might actually be able to do this. I’m gonna tie him up and throw him in the backseat, I swear to god.”
“Nah, you’re not. You don’t have a clue what kinda twisted-up emotions that boy’s gone through all this time. Or what it costs him to get his hopes up again. You don’t have a clue about nothin’ because you ain’t never had to deal with bein’ a man when you look like a woman. So cut him some slack, you hear me?”
Sam sighs. “I hear you. And I know you’re right, it’s just…”
“I know,” Bobby says, his voice a fraction less testy. “I know this has been hard on you, too, Sam. But not like it has been for Dean. Give him some time.”
Sam frowns, regretting his own selfishness. Hard on Sam, right. If Bobby only knew.
“I will. Thanks, Bobby.”
Dean comes back two hours later, smelling like beer and looking half wasted. He wobbles a little walking across the room, but he doesn’t look as angry as he did when he left.
“I’m sorry,” Sam says, before Dean can say anything. “I have no right to tell you what to do, and I know I don’t really understand what you’re going through. I’m sorry.”
Dean sits down heavily on the bed and puts his head in his hands. When he straightens, Sam can see that his eyes are red.
“I’ll go,” Dean says. “You put all this effort into finding this witch, it’s the least I can do to go check it out. If that’s what you really want.”
There’s more sadness in his voice than there should be, and it niggles at Sam, something off. But Sam’s concern is drowned out by a wave of relief, and something that feels dangerously like hope. He tries not to make it obvious. Dean will need to keep his protective skepticism intact just in case, and Sam shouldn’t make it any harder.
“We can leave tomorrow morning,” Sam says. His duffel is already packed and he feels too excited to sleep. Maybe, maybe. Maybe Dean will be Dean again and his smile will reach his eyes.
“Okay,” Dean agrees, but he doesn’t get up from where he’s sitting on the side of the bed. Instead he puts his head in his hands and stays very still. Again, Sam thinks, wrong. Something’s wrong. More wrong than just the obvious.
Sam wants to comfort him, but he’s not sure Dean will welcome it. It’s awkwardly silent, both of them still and watching the other, and then they both speak at once.
“Do you—” Sam starts.
“Can we—” Dean says at the same time.
They stop abruptly, and Sam gestures for Dean to go ahead. The red rims of his eyes only make the green stand out more. Sam aches for his brother, for the desperate sadness there.
“Can we,” Dean begins again, and waves his hand at the bed. “I just need something to take my mind off it, you know?”
That hurts, and Sam suddenly realizes with a jolt of horror that this might be the last time they touch each other. Sam has been the safe person, the only one Dean trusts enough to be vulnerable. He wasn’t interested in guys before the curse as far as Sam knows, and chances are he’ll go back to sleeping with as many women as he can once he’s back to his old self. He won’t need to be fucking his little brother, that’s for sure.
The realization makes Sam go pale, and Dean drops his eyes.
“Never mind, stupid idea, sorry,” he says, already getting up to retreat to the bathroom.
“No!” Sam reaches out and grabs his arm before Dean can get far, tugging his brother to him and wrapping his arms around Dean’s slim shoulders. “No, no, I want to, I do. God, I really want to.”
Dean smiles at him then, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He stands on his toes to reach Sam’s mouth, kissing with what feels like desperation.
The last time, Sam thinks, and kisses back, wanting just this once to claim Dean’s mouth like he has in his fantasies. He lets himself be rough.
Dean moans into the kiss, letting Sam in, fingers at Sam’s belt to pull it open. They’re both too eager, fingers tangling and fumbling, unwilling to break their kiss to get their clothes off. Eventually they make it to the bed, stripped from the waist down, hands searching for skin.
With Dean still wearing his flannel shirt, Sam could almost think Dean is himself again.
Dean is already grinding against Sam’s thigh, and Sam’s cock is slipping against Dean’s belly. Sam reaches around to grab Dean’s ass, slipping his finger between the rounded cheeks to stroke over the opening. It would be the same, he thinks. Just this one time, it could be the same.
“Dean, can I?” he whispers, prodding gently. Dean stills on top of him, and Sam does it again, making it clear.
“Fuck,” Dean says. “Yes.”
Sam puts him on his back and grabs the lube and a condom, not giving Dean a chance to start unbuttoning his shirts. Dean spreads his legs and lets Sam shove a pillow under his hips and get a finger inside him. Sam watches his face, the rapidly changing expressions that go from discomfort to arousal and back again as Sam tries to make room.
“Here, turn over,” Sam urges, and Dean goes easily, on his hands and knees with his thighs spread wide and his ass upturned.
It’s so much like Sam’s imagined, he can barely contain his excitement, dying to be inside, to have this just one time.
“Touch yourself,” he orders, and to his surprise, Dean obeys, his hand working between his legs and his body opening up around Sam’s fingers.
“Keep going, I’m gonna try to,” Sam says when he thinks he can’t wait any longer, and Dean lets out a long, low groan as Sam pushes in.
Dean’s hand stills for a minute as he holds his breath, and Sam rubs his back and the back of his neck, says “It’s okay, I’ll go slow,” until Dean starts moving again.
It’s as hot and tight as every one of Sam’s favorite fantasies, and Sam is all the way in there, right where he wants to be. Dean moans and speeds up the movement of his hand as Sam starts pumping in and out, and Sam tries to memorize the image of Dean as his arms give out and he turns his head to the side where it’s pressed to the mattress. His mouth is open, his eyes closed, a look of ecstasy on his face, and then his body clenches tight around Sam and he gasps and whines, loud and anguished, his hand still moving between his legs. Sam loses it then, too, fighting the urge to close his eyes so he can keep watching Dean.
Dean’s face is wet when he sits up. He wipes at his cheeks with annoyance.
“Did I hurt you?”
He shakes his head. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m just… thinking about tomorrow, is all.”
He turns away when Sam tries to pull him in for a hug, heads for the bathroom to clean up.
That was it, Sam thinks, trying to stop his own tears. That was the last time.
It hurts even more than he thought it would.
* * *
“So this is the great Dean Winchester,” Elmore says when he opens the door. “I thought you’d be taller.”
“I was taller, asshole,” Dean scowls, clearly in no mood.
“I suppose you were, at that,” the witch agrees, and motions them in.
“Tea? Brandy?”
“What is this, a fucking social call?”
Elmore raises an eyebrow. “Fine, down to business it is.”
“Can you do this?” Sam asks.
“Two vials of blood from each of you,” Elmore counters.
“One now, another when you break the curse,” Sam says.
Dean scowls even more, but allows Sam to draw two tubes and cap them off. Dean draws the same from Sam and reluctantly hands one of each over.
“Sit down,” Elmore instructs, and they both do.
“Do I have to take my clothes off?” Dean asks.
Elmore’s eyes go wide. “Not unless you want to,” he smirks. “Though that would be a nice bonus.”
“Forget it,” Dean says, and gives Sam a hateful glare.
Elmore runs his hands over Dean the same way Mary Alice did, except apparently he’s powerful enough to get a reading through fabric. Or else she just got off on the extra humiliation. Sam forces himself not to think about that. Elmore closes his eyes and furrows his brow as he works, occasionally pausing and looking deep in concentration. Finally he sits back.
“The curse is reversible,” he announces.
Sam’s heart leaps into his throat. They did it. They fucking did it.
“But not for you.”
“What?! What the hell do you mean?” Sam jumps up from the couch, ready to wring Elmore’s scrawny neck. “Why not for us?”
“For him,” Elmore corrects. “I told you before, I can only do it if he wants it.”
Dean’s face goes red with rage. “What the hell are you talking about? Of course I want it! I’ve spent eight months in hell thinking I’m stuck like this forever!”
Elmore shakes his head, unperturbed by Dean’s anger.
“That’s your head talking. Not your heart. You have to be all in.”
“SAM! Fucking do something!”
Dean’s looking like he’s ready to go get the gun that Elmore insisted they leave in the foyer.
Elmore cocks an eyebrow, like he’s daring Sam. “There’s nothing your brother can do,” he tells Dean calmly. “It’s you who’s standing in the way of this, not him.”
Dean stares at the witch like he can make his head explode just by wishing it. Finally he gives a frustrated growl and storms off toward the door.
“Dean!” Sam can’t let this happen, can’t let it fall apart like this. Was the witch lying all along? Of course Dean wants this. Why the hell wouldn’t he?
Dean stops in the parlor and turns halfway around.
“I need a minute, Sam. I just… I need to think, okay?”
“What is there to think about?” Sam protests, and he’s yelling even though he doesn’t want to. “There’s nothing to think about, Dean!”
Dean’s anger seems to deflate, and he turns to face Sam fully. Instead of the fury of a few minutes ago, Dean looks almost sad.
“Isn’t there?” he asks, and Sam is so confused. “Are you sure about that, Sam?”
It hits Sam then, so hard his legs almost go out from under him.
“You think—you really think I’d want you to stay like this just so I could…”
Dean blushes, but holds his ground. “Just tell me. Are you sure?”
From the end of the hallway, there’s a sadistic laugh.
“Oh, this is priceless, absolutely priceless,” Elmore giggles. “It all comes down to sex, doesn’t it? So typical—”
“Shut up!” the Winchesters say in unison, and Elmore shrugs and disappears back into the sitting room.
“Dean,” Sam says, trying not to yell. “Don’t you think I want you to be happy? You think I don’t see how miserable you are, how much this hurts you? Of course I’m sure. I’m a million percent sure. Please, please, let him try. Please.”
Dean hesitates for another long moment, his brow furrowed like he’s trying to solve the mysteries of the universe—or figure out if Sam is lying. Finally he exhales, and his shoulders slump. He looks for all the world like he’s giving up and giving in, even if that makes no sense.
“Fine,” he says, voice flat.
Elmore has poured a cup of tea and taken a seat in the armchair in the corner, looking thoroughly amused.
“So are we doing this, or what?” the witch asks, taking a sip. “Not that I’m not enjoying the sibling drama for mature audiences.”
“Yes,” Sam says, nodding.
“Yeah,” Dean agrees.
“Okay then,” Elmore says, and puts the teacup down.
The curse breaking takes half an hour, a lot of Latin, some herbs that smell like shit, and far too much of Elmore touching Dean. Finally he pronounces it done.
“You’ll be back to yourself within 24 hours, give or take. Now hand over those other two vials of blood and be on your way.”
“How do we know you’re not bullshitting us?” Dean says, examining his own hands for any signs of change.
“I guess you’ll know for sure 24 hours from now. I’ll be right here if it doesn’t work. And now, if you don’t mind, I have an appointment. Thanks for the show, though. I’d always heard the Winchesters were attractive.”
“Can’t say the same for you,” Dean grumbles under his breath. He doesn’t like to be touched, especially since the curse, and Elmore clearly violated his boundaries.
They sit up all night, too wired to go to bed. Dean paces, goes to the bathroom and checks the mirror, drinks more beer, and eats three whole bags of chips. Sam tries not to stare, tries not to think that Dean’s jawline is firming, that his shoulders are broader than they were ten minutes ago. Dean obsessively runs his hand over his chin again and again, hoping to find stubble.
“It’s not working,” he says a million times, each time sounding more annoyed.
“It hasn’t been 24 hours,” Sam reminds him two million times, each time sounding less certain.
Dean falls asleep for a little while, and Sam sits on the other bed, watching him. Straining his eyes in the dim light for some sort of change.
“I’m gonna take a shower,” Dean announces when he wakes up shortly after sunrise. “I can’t fucking sit here and hope for something that’s not happening.”
Sam is searching his duffel for Advil when there’s a heavy thump from the bathroom.
“Dean?” he yells through the door, not wanting to open it if Dean doesn’t want him in there.
“Sam!” Dean yells back, and every hair on Sam’s entire body stands on end. He sounds… he sounds like Dean.
“Can I come in?”
He doesn’t get a chance to. Dean throws the door open and knocks Sam right on his ass.
“Dean, what the—”
Sam looks up. Dean is naked, soaking wet, dripping all over the floor, and grinning like a loon. Sam’s eyes go right to his dick, which is very much back. As are those familiar bowlegs and flat chest and muscular arms and broad shoulders.
“Oh my god,” Sam says, unable to do anything but stare.
Dean holds out a hand and grabs Sam, pulling him up and into a hug.
“You’re getting me all wet, asshole,” Sam protests, but it doesn’t matter because he’s crying, all the tears he didn’t dare let out for all those months erupting, and he doesn’t have it in him to care.
“I’m back, Sam, I’m fucking back,” Dean is saying, his arms wrapped tightly around Sam. “I’m me!”
He pauses for a second and pulls back so Sam can really see him.
Sam is suddenly glad he’s not the one who’s naked. Because Dean looks good enough to eat, and Sam’s appetite would be very obvious without his jeans.
Dean seems to realize he’s naked then, too, and takes another step back. It hurts a lot more than Sam expected, even though Sam thought he was prepared. Of course Dean won’t want him now.
“We should… um, we should go out to celebrate,” Sam says, pulling back himself and trying not to look at Dean.
Dean’s grin falters a bit, but then he nods. “Yeah, sure, we should. I’ll just—I’ll put some clothes on.”
And just like that, they’re back to normal. It’s almost like everything that happened between them when Dean was a girl didn’t happen to this Dean. The real Dean. It’s like Sam was allowed to want and take and touch that person who was his brother but wasn’t, and now he’s not. Now all the rules that were in place all their lives—the ones that kept Sam from confessing his dark secret—have snapped back into place.
Sam tries to act normal.
Except nothing feels normal at all.
* * *
Dean spends the next week in obsessive target practice, getting back the feel of his gun. The feel of his body, tall and broad and muscular.
Sam watches, appreciating the flex of muscle in his brother’s forearm and the wide stance of his bowed legs. He can’t stop staring at what he thought he’d never see again.
“Didya see that?” Dean calls from the place where six beer cans were lined up a minute ago.
He sounds happy, and it curls through Sam like a spark.
“I could do better,” he says, because it’s expected.
“The fuck you could,” Dean returns, already setting up another six.
They both knock them down with six bullets each, and Dean smiles and Sam thinks, Yes, I can do this. I might never kiss him again, but I have my brother back.
Most days, it’s enough.
Dean goes back to flirting right away, but it takes a little while for him to make good on his winks and sideways glances. They’re in a bar in upstate New York, celebrating a successful salt and burn, and Dean’s moved from beer to whisky. He’s buzzed, his cheeks a little pink and his “Hello darlin’” a little more drawled than usual. Dean gets more physical when he drinks, always has, and Sam’s been enjoying the way their knees keep bumping under the bar and the way Dean’s eyes crinkle when he smiles. He’s trying not to remember what it felt like to have Dean’s mouth on his dick, to have Dean beneath him writhing on Sam’s cock.
Then a blonde woman in a short skirt is slinking up to the bar between them and Sam remembers with a sudden shock that Dean is Dean—and Dean is not his. It’s like a bucket of cold water, and any buzz Sam had going recedes instantly.
He slides his bar stool back a bit to give her room, turning the other way so he doesn’t have to watch.
He can’t help but listen, though, and every flirtatious word out of the woman’s mouth scrapes against Sam’s skin like sandpaper. Dean answers in a rumbly almost-growl, so different from the way he sounded when he’d come on to Sam in what seems like an alternate universe.
“Hey, Sam?”
It takes Sam a while to realize that Dean is talking to him. He spins around and Dean is right there, leaning over the blonde’s shoulder, even more inebriated than the last time Sam looked.
“You mind if I meet you back at the motel?” Dean drawls, sloppy grin on his handsome face.
Sam shakes his head, swallowing hard.
“You sure you don’t mind?” Dean persists, and he’s got his hand on Sam’s leg now, fingers digging in almost painfully. “Cause if you do, I can…”
“I said I don’t mind!” Sam insists, and it comes out far too loud. The blonde jumps and twists to look at Sam, her brow furrowed in confusion as she tries to figure out what the hell is happening.
Sam can’t watch this; he’s too drunk himself, it’s too much of a letdown from the first part of the evening. He stands hastily, Dean’s fingers sliding across his knee and off as Sam throws a wad of cash on the bar and steps back.
“Have fun, just, you know, be careful,” he says lamely, then hightails it out of there without looking back.
“He must be your big brother, huh?” he hears the woman say, on his way to the door.
Dean comes back just before dawn, smelling like the blonde’s perfume and a whole lot of alcohol. He trips over something—or nothing—and practically faceplants on the bed with a muffled groan. He’s snoring loudly a few minutes later.
Sam lies there torturing himself for a while, taking in the curve of Dean’s back as he sleeps, the roundness of his ass in the worn jeans that fit him so perfectly once again. His mouth is open, and Sam thinks his lips are swollen; tries not to think about why. The one thing that didn’t change at all when Dean was a girl was his eyes: they’re exactly the same, the dark lashes a thick fringe against his cheeks.
When he feels he’s punished himself enough for wanting what he shouldn’t, Sam gets up and goes out, driving into the sunrise in search of coffee and breakfast. That will show Dean how fine he is with this, how absolutely fucking fine he is with Dean going back to fucking random women he meets in bars and Sam being a fucking monk and the two of them pretending they never fucked each other’s brains out for months. Just fucking fine.
He’s such a wonderful little brother that he doesn’t even wake Dean until it’s nearly checkout time.
“Yo, time to wake up, sleeping beauty,” he says, slapping Dean in a very brotherly way on the back, too hard for it to be misinterpreted as anything else.
Dean bats at him in annoyance and tries to burrow back into the pillow.
“Lemme alone, Smmmy,” he grumbles, so Sam pulls the pillow out from under him.
“Bitch!” Dean yells, more awake now. He tries to grab it back, but he’s way too slow.
“Checkout is in fifteen,” Sam says, tossing the pillow onto the other bed. “If you want a shower—and I’m pretty damn sure you need one—you better move your ass.”
Dean groans again, but rolls himself off the bed and to his feet with more grace than Sam would have expected. He sees the cup of coffee and bag of donuts on the nightstand then, and the glass of seltzer and four ibuprofen.
He looks up at Sam sheepishly.
“Uh, thanks,” he says, and for a moment his expression is unguarded. “Sammy, I…”
He takes a bite of donut and pauses, though he’s still looking at Sam with a strange expression. He looks almost… guilty.
“It’s okay,” Sam says, because he’s the best brother ever. Just a brother, only a brother.
Dean holds his gaze a few seconds longer, then nods and drops his eyes. He shoves the rest of the donut in his mouth, and follows it with the seltzer and pills before heading to the bathroom.
They both try to pretend everything’s okay for the rest of the day, but Sam keeps thinking about it. If someone had asked Sam if there was any chance that he and Dean would keep on being lovers, he would have said no. Yet the keen sense of disappointment he’s feeling now that Dean has gone back to sleeping with random women makes it clear that he must have been holding out some irrational bit of hope.
Never again, Sam tells himself. If he keeps repeating it, he’ll eventually start believing it. He doesn’t want me. Never again.
He doesn’t bother trying to convince himself it doesn’t hurt.
Part Four
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2015-06-13 07:36 am (UTC)“Oh, this is priceless, absolutely priceless,” Elmore giggles. “It all comes down to sex, doesn’t it? So typical—”
This made me smile. Elmore is fandom's mouthpiece. ;)
no subject
Date: 2015-06-13 08:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-14 11:36 am (UTC)Sam, stop being the good lil brother and go claim what's ALWAYS been yours and you Dean, stop fucking random girls when all you want is your brother!! Elmore is so us, I don't even feel sorry about it. *Taps fingers waiting for the boys to come to their senses*
Kudos to you Girl, you make it hurt so good.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-18 11:54 pm (UTC)I love the phone call from Bobby and the story about the friend he was unable to help! I love that he got it and was supportive! I love that he explained to Sam that however hard this was on Sam he couldn’t understand how hard it was on Dean. (Bobby is and always will be the best! 🤗🤗)
And I love the feeling of hope that I got when Sam found this lead that panned out. Also Elmore made me laugh. Sarcastic bastard 😂 fair enough as long as he does what he says.
And Dean having a hiccup about turning back, only in as much as he was sorry that Sam wouldn’t want him! 😂👍🏻 That’s the Winchester miscommunication that I know and love, they are both always far too concerned about assuming the other ones feelings and worrying they will push them away. It’s very comforting to know that somethings will never change no matter what! 😂😁
And between the three of us (Dean, Sam and me 😂) I don’t know who was most relieved when Dean turned back (Dean, it was definitely Dean!) but man was that good. Just the sheer relief of him getting to be himself again. So good. I didn’t even mind that they immediately started doing their distance-dance, let’s pretend we aren’t in love to spare each other 😂 especially since we had one more chapter to go and I knew you would sort them out before the end 👍🏻😁
no subject
Date: 2022-02-18 05:45 am (UTC)