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2007-02-14
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Ink

Summary:

After the events of Born Under A Bad Sign, Sam keeps a secret.

Notes:

Beta thanks to Anatsuno, Grace, and Stewardess, and some last-minute help from Calathea. This was a different (and far inferior) story before they worked their magic on it.

Work Text:

He was pretty sure Dean didn't suspect anything.

Hell, it's not like Sam had planned it out. There was nothing to suspect, not at first. Sam had just been possessed by a goddamned demon, and it's not like anything about their lives was real normal, so suspicious was kind of in the eye of the beholder, anyway.

Sam didn't think about it at all before it started. He just—did it, one day. They were in Duluth, on their way to check out a haunting up near the Canadian border, and Sam was out looking for a café to hang out in when he saw the place. He walked in on a whim, really. But when he walked out an hour later, still flying high on the buzz of it, he felt almost a palpable relief, like something he hadn't known he was carrying had been suddenly lifted away.

He went back to the hotel still floating. Dean was out buffing the car, and gave Sam a grunt and a nod for the donuts and coffee he handed over. Sam shut the door to the room behind him, went into the bathroom, shut that door too, and took off his shirt. He brought his arm up into the harsh yellow light to have another look; he could see it even through the blear of ointment and plastic wrap taped over it to help it heal.

Strong black lines obscured the ugly red brand and the burn mark that broke its circle, ink transmuting the demon's binding link into a stylized version of Agrippa's pentagram.

Sam kept looking at it as he undid his fly and took his dick out. He'd been hard since the needle first touched his skin, the flush of adrenalin hitting his system with a jolt, like a hunt with no outlet, all fight and no enemy. He watched his forearm flex as he stroked himself, the plastic wrap crinkling. The skin around the design was still kind of sore, and the little pain and the lingering rush conspired to bring him off faster than he'd expected. It was only moments before he was coming into his cupped hand, gasping.

He stood there panting for a second after, head spinning from the comedown, but then the door opened in the other room and Dean bellowed, "Sammy?"

"Yeah, what?" He switched on the tap, washing his hands and putting his long-sleeved thermal back on to cover up the plastic wrap. He thought maybe he looked guilty when he came out drying his hands, but Dean was elbow-deep in his duffel, and all Sam got was a "You got any clean shirts, dude? Mine are all fucking rank."

"Don't look at me, I'm not your goddamn laundry boy," Sam snapped, but he went to get Dean a clean flannel shirt anyway. They both ended up that night in some crappy hole-in-the-wall Laundromat, drinking beer and playing poker with a dog-eared deck until Sam had won Dean's favorite throwing knife and dominion over the tape player in the Impala for the next two days.

"You just got lucky, asshole," Dean grumbled as they folded the last load.

"You just keep telling yourself that, loser."

That was the first time.

He didn’t know why he didn’t show Dean. Dean would think it was cool; Dean was into that kind of stuff. Dean would clap him on the back and laugh and tell him stories about the girls he'd known who had unfortunate tattoos in scandalous places. But Sam kept it to himself. It was fall; he would have worn long sleeves all the time anyway.

It happened again a few weeks later in a little town outside Battle Creek, Iowa. The pentagram had barely healed, but Sam saw the crooked "Tattooing" sign in the window of the run-down little shop and ducked in. Just to look, he told himself. The guy was old and toothless and smelled strongly of gin, but he was open on Sunday, and his portfolio looked professional enough. Sam got a sun that time, rays licking out to warm the pentagram, a touch of yellow and red (auspicious colors) in the fill. It was good work. Sam tipped the guy extra on the fake credit card he used to pay, and went to pick up sandwiches for his cover story, half hard in his jeans and buzzing underneath his skin with the restless sweet rush of it.

That set the pattern. Whenever they weren't hunting and he could find someone open, Sam added another piece. He and Dean practically lived in each other's pockets, but Sam still managed to slip out pretty regularly. Dean wouldn't ask him where he'd been as long as he came back with food, and every Sunday they weren't on a hunt or on their way to a hunt, Dean washed and waxed the Impala in the morning. Sam figured it was Dean's version of church, the chamois and the rhythmic motions over the glossy black paint. Like telling a rosary—the week's sins sloughed off with the dirt, a shining new start.

Sam didn't go to church, but Dean thought he did. Or at least Sam thought Dean thought he did. Sometimes it was pretty useful having a big brother who thought talking about shit was pussy; Sam hadn't been to church since Jess died, except when they needed to go into one for work, but he didn't tell Dean that, and Dean didn't ask.

Instead, he spent his Sunday mornings in tattoo parlors.

The design that evolved, if anything so haphazard could be called a design, was a hodgepodge of charms and protective symbols from various cultures: Celtic knots, the Eye of Horus, crosses, scarabs. Some of the work was beautiful, detailed and filled with delicate shadings of color. Some of it was simple, stark black lines. Sam added words, too. First a favorite warding incantation in Latin, curling between the sun and the Raven. Then Jess's name. His Mom's. Dad's. And Dean's.

The riot of intertwined images, text and symbols covered more than half his arm by December, when he and Dean spent Christmas Eve, which would have to be a full fucking moon, tracking down a werewolf in the Appalachians, stumbling through snowdrifts and frozen mud to the thing's lair. Sam killed it with a silver bullet, but it was Dean who found the pups and took care of the litter while Sam was sick in the snow outside.

The sky was fading to a bleak gray by the time they made it back, covered in blood (Dean) and reeking of vomit (Sam). Sam let Dean have the first shower while he brushed his teeth—twice—and then went to dig the fifth of Knob Creek he'd bought Dean for Christmas out of his pack. Dean's eyes lit up when he came out, toweling his hair, and saw the bottle.

Sam grinned, already on his way to the shower. "Merry Christmas, dude."

Dean caught him by the arm before he was all the way past, and Sam froze, feeling Dean's fingers press against the still-healing skin where just three days before Sam had paid some punk at a biker shop to give him an ivy vine (plant of Osiris, medieval test for witchcraft, symbol of love and fidelity), trailing down past the pentagram to just above his wrist.

For a long, terrifying second he was sure Dean could feel the ink and the slightly raised skin through his thick sweater, and then, even worse, he was sure Dean would notice he'd gone hard, instantly and achingly hard, at the touch. He didn't know why he didn't want Dean to know about the tattoos, he just didn't, but he sure as fuck didn't want him to notice the hard-on. He held his breath and met Dean's eyes.

Dean looked down. "I didn't get you anything," he said, and the relief welled up in Sam even as he smacked Dean upside the head with his free hand.

"Then you'll just have to share your present, won’t you?"

Dean's outraged howl of protest followed Sam into the bathroom.

The water was already hot, and Sam stripped down and stepped in, feeling the shock of warmth on his chilled skin and aching muscles. The pure pleasure of it made his dick twitch, thick and flushed against his belly. And fuck, he could still feel it where Dean had touched his arm, could even see the slight irritation where Dean's fingers had rubbed the shirt against the too-new design, red limning the black and green.

It was practically Pavlovian at this point, the connection between the tattoos and his dick. Just the low buzz of the needle could make him hard, and he'd taken to picking up Dean's food before he went in, so he could hurry home afterward and get himself off before Dean was done with the Impala. Riding high on the adrenalin and the secrecy, feeling the pull of the skin around the new design, he'd take his dick out and stroke, twisting tight around the head until he felt like he was going to stretch and break from the building tension. It never took long, but it felt better than anything, like a fight and a fuck all at once, even though it was just him and his hand.

He'd taken to touching the ink when he got himself off at night, too, one hand making long slow deliberate strokes on his dick and the other one stroking the skin on his forearm, pressing in where the ink was new enough to be sore, tracing lightly over older designs. In the shower after a hunt, he watched his arm move as he pumped himself, ink shifting over wet muscles, the colors moving like the tangled lines had a life of their own.

But this wasn't just the ink, or the soreness, or the come-down from a hunt, though it was all of that, too. This was the pressure and weight of Dean's hand on his arm, Dean holding his arm, Dean touching him right where the pattern was new and raw, Dean holding onto Sam's arm like he knew, his fingers pressing in like a brand—like he knew—like a brand—like oh fuck oh fuck, and Sam came so hard he almost had to sit down, right there in the shower.

He stayed in until the water started to cool off, and then he dried off, put some ointment on the new ink, got dressed, and went out to wrestle his brother for some of the Christmas whisky.

Two weeks later, he got another one. By February, the ink was up to his shoulder.

They were headed into east Texas, following rumors of a series of mutilated cows, when he had the griffin done. They'd stopped in Austin, at some ratty motel run by hippies on the outskirts, and they woke up the next morning to the sound of church bells. Sam rolled out of bed and was out the door in yesterday's clothes, clutching his notebook, before Dean could even raise his bleary head. A college town was a good place to get a detailed piece, and what Sam had in mind would take longer than usual.

The guy at Atomic Tattoo and Body Piercing blinked at Sam's illustration, but, "Yeah, I can do that," he said, and Sam was sure it was true—he'd flipped through the portfolio that matched the name tag (Chris M.) while he was waiting and it was amazing stuff. Even the stock images were perfectly executed. "You sure you don't want me to size it up for you a little?" Chris asked, his multiple tongue and lip piercings giving him a slight lisp. "That kind of detail will blur in a couple years if you do it small like this."

"Um, how big would you suggest?" Sam had meant to put this one on his upper triceps, with the wings just curling over the top; he didn't really have room on his arm for anything bigger. "I was gonna…well, let me show you."

He unbuttoned his shirt and slipped half out of it. Chris's eyes went wide, and he grinned. "Cool, let me see that!" He took hold of Sam's arm and squinted at it as Sam blushed red and tried to will his dick to stay still. "Who did your work?"

"Different people. Here and there." Sam wasn't up to explanations. "I wanted this one at the top, here," and he reached over awkwardly to indicate the spot, "but if it's any bigger I don't think it'll fit."

Chris turned him so he could see Sam's shoulder, and Sam surreptitiously adjusted himself. "Well, dude, if you were up for doing something a little bolder, it could go here." He traced a line over Sam's shoulder blade, across the small silver scar from a harpy's claw and back down over the top of his shoulder. Sam shivered. "It would look fucking awesome, but it would be, like, twice this size."

Sam looked doubtfully at his illustration. "It wouldn't show over my collar or anything?"

"I could keep it below, no problem."

"How long would it take?"

Three hours later, Sam walked out of the parlor with half his shoulder encased in plastic wrap and tape and a hard-on that was painful in its insistence.

The bus ride back to the motel was excruciating, and he would have skipped getting coffee and burritos at the Mexican place next door if he hadn't known Dean would bitch for a week. By the time he made it back, he practically threw the food at Dean, who had his shirt off and was sweating a little as he bent down to shine the Impala's grill, before ducking into the room and falling gratefully on his bed, hands already busy with his fly.

He didn't even need to take off his shirt—couldn't see this one anyway, but he could feel the rub of sore skin on greasy plastic as he scrabbled at his waistband, pushing it down and freeing his dick. His whole body jerked at the first touch of his hand on overheated skin, and he hissed and dug his heels into the bedspread, shoes still on, as he leaned into the ache in his shoulder, closed his eyes, and went for it. One hand pushing up under his shirt, the other pumping frantically at his dick, and Jesus, he wasn't going to last long; he could already feel his muscles cramping up, his heart doing triple-time from adrenalin and lust.

The door banged open and Dean said, "Sammy, where the fuck did you get this coffee, it tastes like goat piss," and then "Oh, shit," as Sam clenched his teeth and his eyelids and his whole body and came.

In almost the same breath, his cock still sticky and jerking with aftershocks, Sam scrambled up the bed and under the covers, shoes and all. He knew he was red to the tips of his ears as he looked at Dean, standing in the doorway with his jaw hanging open. "Haven't you ever heard of knocking?"

"Haven't you ever heard of locks?" Dean countered, his stunned look changing into a wicked smile. "Sammy, Sammy, Sammy. If I'd known you were in here pulling the Polish I could have waited, given you and the Palm sisters some quality time."

Sam groaned and pulled a pillow over his head. He was never going to hear the end of this.

"I mean, I hear you in the shower in the morning," Dean continued blithely, "and I don't come barging in then, do I?"

Sam thought about just smothering himself with the pillow so he'd never have to face Dean again. Dean heard him in the shower? He'd thought the water covered up the sound of his breathing and occasional inadvertent noises, but apparently not. Worse, his traitorous dick seemed to think that was interesting, as it gave a lazy, too-sensitive twitch under the bedcovers. He pulled the pillow off his face and stared at the ceiling. "I hate you, you know."

"Awww, honey, why you gotta be like that?"

The cow mutilations turned out to be a pack of ghouls, which meant a long and messy hunt through cow pastures but an easy clean-up with rock salt and holy water. Dean made Sam wash his shoes off with the drinking water they kept in the back for emergencies before letting him back in the car. "No cow shit is touching my baby," he declared, scrubbing fastidiously at his own boots. "Isn't that right, sweetheart?" he crooned, running a hand over the paintwork.

Sam rolled his eyes. "You and the Impala need a little alone time?"

"Naw, Sammy," Dean drawled. "Me and my girl got Sunday mornings together." He thumped the hood affectionately. "Anyways, I'm not the one in this family with the desperate need for privacy."

Sam blushed furiously, glad it was dark and Dean couldn't see. "Shut up," he muttered.

"Don't worry, Princess," Dean assured him cheerfully. "These feelings you have are perfectly natural."

Sam slammed the car door a little too hard. "Can we go now?"

He didn't get another tattoo for a month. He stopped jerking off in the shower, too. Stopped jerking off at all, really, because what if Dean wasn't really asleep? Sunday mornings, he found a café or a diner with wireless, ate fruit and oatmeal, surfed the web, and tried not to think about sex, or ink, or Dean, or the way his shirt rubbed over his forearm when he reached for his coffee cup.

It didn't work. He found himself listening for Dean, when Dean was in the shower. Did he jerk off in there too? Sam couldn't hear anything except running water and the occasional off-key Metallica tune, but his overactive imagination just made things worse. He lay awake at night, tuned in to every rustle from the other bed, wondering if Dean was as hard as he was, wondering if Dean was managing to get himself off, quietly, stealthily. When did Dean do it? Dean shifted and snorted into his pillow, and Sam lay tense and aching under the cheap bedcovers until he fell into exhausted sleep.

It built up like that, mostly sex but also the hunger for the buzz and rush of the needle, until he felt like his skin was crackling with it, raw and sensitive and alive. The lightest touch on his arm made him instantly, blindingly hard, and he kept thinking Dean was looking at him strangely, and that made him hard, too, which he definitely didn't want to think about. Eventually, outside Flagstaff, he gave in.

This time it was a diagram of the molecular structure of salt, just below the outer edge of his collarbone, and he made sure to get home while Dean was still on the first coat of wax and to lock the door—and the bathroom door—before he stripped off his clothes. He came almost embarrassingly fast, and afterward his knees went to jelly and he had to stumble out of the shower and lie down.

He forgot to unlock the door to the room, though, and Dean gave him an obnoxious smirk and waved his key at Sam when he came back in. "Good boy, Sammy!" he said brightly. "You're learning!" Sam threw a pillow at his head, but Dean caught it and winged it back twice as hard, laughing.

Sam felt better after that, more normal. He was more careful about locks, and he didn't jerk off in the shower unless he knew Dean had the TV on in the other room, but otherwise, it was pretty much like before. Except every once in a while he'd catch Dean giving him funny looks, or Dean would touch him on the arm to get his attention, and he'd have to pull the computer over his lap and think about zombies until his hard-on went away. And once Sam heard the TV shut off while he was in the shower and he kept going anyway, thinking about Dean listening outside, hearing the wet slap of skin on skin, hearing Sam breathe, hearing the choked-off noise as he came, and that did it; he was gone.

Dean was cleaning his guns when Sam came out of the shower, and he didn't look up. "I thought maybe we could head east," he said. "Take a look at those hauntings in New Orleans. Been reports of ghosts around there, and I don't think it's just lingering trauma—the descriptions sound like pissed-off spirits, for sure."

"Don't blame 'em." Sam relaxed. Dean didn't seem like a man who'd been listening to his little brother jerk off. "Sure, let's go."

Pissed-off spirits wasn't the half of it, and they were muddy, battered, and exhausted by the time they'd tracked down all the bones they needed to salt and burn. Sam had a scratch on his cheek where that thing came for him, and he was bleeding onto his shirt from a bite on his ear. Dean didn't look much better—his jeans were soaked to the knees in mud and he had angry claw marks on one arm. Sam flopped on his bed in their motel room and heard the springs creak. Even in an area where almost everything had been rebuilt or remodeled, the beds still sounded like they'd been rusting for decades.

Dean dug through the duffle for the first aid kit, then came over to sit on Sam's bed, handing him the gauze and peroxide. "Clean this up for me?"

Sam did, and it was a measure of how tired they were that when Dean complained, Sam didn't give him any shit about acting like a baby, just finished cleaning the scratches and taped the gauze over them gently.

Dean turned around and knelt up. "Now, how about you?"

"'M fine," Sam mumbled. He had one arm thrown over his eyes, he was shedding swamp mud onto the bedspread, and all he wanted was to sleep for a year.

"Dude, you're not. You've got a cut on your face that at least needs a Band-aid, and fuck, there's blood all over your shirt." Dean had one button open and was fumbling with the next before Sam could slap his hands away and sit up.

"I'm fine, dude, leave me alone."

"I just want to check, now let me—" Dean grabbed Sam's arm and pulled at his shirt. Another button popped open, and Dean sucked in a breath. "Dude, what the fuck?"

Sam flopped his head back on the pillow and groaned. He yanked his shirt back from Dean and held it closed. "Nothing, Dean. Go away."

"No, man, what the fuck was that?" Dean tugged at his shirt, and Sam pulled it away, and Dean tugged at it, and Sam drew in breath to tell him to fuck off, no really, but then Dean tickled him, which was totally cheating, and grabbed the shirt while Sam was convulsed with giggles, pulling hard enough to pop off the buttons.

Sam closed his eyes. Shit.

Dean let out a long, low whistle. "Holy fuck. Sam. When did you—" He was already pulling at the sleeve, trying to see the rest of the tattoos.

Sam gave in. It was too late now, and the shirt really was disgusting; the blood had started to dry and the whole thing smelled awful. He stripped it off and looked Dean in the eye. "About six months now."

Dean was staring in open appreciation. "That's hardcore, Sammy. Full sleeve." He grabbed Sam's wrist to turn his arm a little. "Jesus, this is some powerful shit you're putting on your skin." He touched the pentagram over the binding scar lightly. "I guess I get that, though."

Sam pulled his arm back. "Don’t—it's just, it's private, man."

But Dean was already leaning in, touching, oh, shit, touching the ring of protection inked around Sam's right nipple. "You gonna keep going? Full shirt?" he asked.

Sam slapped his hand away. "Don't touch them, for Christ's sake, Dean." He could feel his face flush bright red, like all the blood that hadn't routed to his rock-hard dick was conspiring to make a neon "Sam is horny" sign on his face.

Dean leaned back and looked at him. "Don't be such a bitch," he started, and then he took in the blush and Sam could see him figure it out. Dean dropped his gaze, down past Sam's nipples, drawn up into tight little nubs, to the bulge in his jeans. "Oh my," he said, and Sam blushed even harder, drawing up his legs and wrapping his arms around them. "Naughty, Sammy, very naughty."

"Fuck off," Sam said miserably, hunched over his knees.

"No, I don't think I will," Dean said, a little roughly, and he reached over and grabbed Sam's arm again, prying it up from around his knees and running his other hand over the tangle of ink, up to the shoulder. Sam closed his eyes and shivered.

"Got a little kink, have we, Princess?" Dean smoothed his hand back down, tracing the "Om" symbol, lingering over the yew branches.

Sam wanted to snatch his arm back, but Dean's grip on his wrist was firm and Dean had always been a better wrestler. "Stop it," he said instead, but he could hear the weakness in his voice and he knew Dean could hear it, too.

Dean kept going, of course, the bastard. Over the purple aconitum, over the incantation, down to the list of names on the inside of Sam's elbow. He stopped right at the thin skin of the crook, where his own name was inked, and rubbed his fingertips over it. "Everybody else on this list is dead," he said, and he wasn't teasing Sam anymore.

Sam shuddered, and uncurled to look up at Dean, which was a total fucking mistake, because Dean was looking right back at him. "I know that, asshole."

But Dean wasn't listening. He was moving the hand off Sam's wrist, bringing it up to rub his thumb over his own name while he put his other hand, oh Christ, right over Sam's fly, right where Sam's dick was straining at the denim.

And he was looking at Sam, and touching him, and touching him and Sam took a deep breath and shut his eyes and came with an embarrassed whimper, right in his jeans, grinding up into Dean's touch.

He kept his eyes closed, and turned his face away. Dean let go of his arm, and took his other hand away, too, and Sam waited for the joke, the mockery. But there was just a long silence, and it stretched out until Sam finally turned his head to look at Dean.

Dean was still kneeling there, exactly where he had been, only he wasn't laughing. He was looking at Sam and gripping his own thigh tightly enough that Sam could see the white around his knuckles, with the other hand pressed over the crotch of his jeans. Sam could see Dean was hard, and when he looked up at his face again Dean looked down at him with blown pupils, gave him a shaky smile and said, "Sammy?" and Sam reached up and pulled him down until Dean was sprawled half over him, kissing Sam like a man who was starving for it, moaning into his mouth and rubbing his erection up against Sam's leg.

Sam reached down, fighting to get his hand between them, and undid Dean's zipper, pulled and pushed at denim and cotton until he had the hot length of Dean's dick shoving up into his fist. Dean was shaking and fucking his hand and biting at his mouth, muttering incoherent noises into the kiss, and Sam felt the smooth, warm head of Dean's cock riding damp along his wrist with each stroke.

Suddenly Dean broke the kiss and leaned up on his elbow, looked down at Sam's hand wrapped around his cock, and gave a last stuttering shove and came all over Sam's wrist and arm, come spattering white and thick across ink and skin. They both watched it drip down, fascinated, Dean's ragged breathing the only noise in the room, and then Dean collapsed across Sam's chest again, and Sam wrapped his sticky arm around Dean's back and held on.

For a long time, neither of them said anything. Then Dean grunted, "Shower," and pushed up and off Sam. He stripped down by the edge of the bed, and Sam watched him, drinking in the chance just to look at Dean's body, trying not to think of what might come next. When Dean was naked, he looked down at Sam. "Well? You coming?"

Sam held back on the obvious joke and just nodded, sat up, followed Dean into the tiny bathroom and stripped off his muddy shoes and damp jeans and underwear while Dean adjusted the water temperature. They crowded awkwardly into the small shower stall, and jockeyed for position under the water. They hadn't showered together since they were kids. It had worked better when they were both under five feet tall. Dean snorted at Sam's contortionist hair-washing routine under the too-low showerhead, and Sam splashed him, but mostly it was elbows and soap and not enough warm water for both of them at once.

When they were clean, Sam started to step out, but Dean put a hand on his arm. "I want," Dean said, and his voice sounded a little rusty. "I want to see them."

Sam nodded, and Dean backed him up against the shower wall and leaned in. "What's this one?" he said, tracing out the top of the griffin's wing.

"Griffin," Sam said. "It's," and he twisted so Dean could sort of see over his shoulder, "that's just the tip of it." Dean nodded, and moved his hand down.

"This one?"

"Diagram of a salt molecule."

"Geek," Dean snorted. He lifted up Sam's arm, and looked at the pentagram obscuring the demon's binding mark. He brought Sam's forearm up and kissed the spot. "Was this why?"

The touch of Dean's lips on the scar made Sam's dick swell, but he ignored it. "Yeah," he said, concentrating on Dean's face. "That's how it started, anyway."

Dean nodded, and bent down and licked it thoroughly, his tongue tracing the design, and then bit lightly at Sam's forearm. By the time Dean raised his head, Sam was fully hard and his breathing was shaky.

Dean looked down at Sam's dick and raised his eyebrows.

"Dean? We should—"

"Shut up, dude," Dean said, reaching past him to turn off the water. "I do not want to talk about it. I am not a girl, unlike you."

"But," Sam said, a little lost, "what—"

Dean stepped out and grabbed towels, tossing one to Sam. He dried himself off vigorously. "No talking."

"We can't just—" Sam spluttered

Dean wrapped the towel around his waist and smirked at him. "Hurry up and get dry, Princess, or you'll be late to the ball." He sauntered into the next room, leaving Sam damp and confused and still achingly hard.

Dean was sprawled on his bed naked when Sam came out. The pale light of spring filtered in through heavy curtains to leave him in half-shadow, and Sam perched awkwardly on the edge of the bed, the cheap motel towel rough against his sensitized skin.

"I don't understand, Dean. What," and he swallowed nervously, "what are we doing? What do you want?"

Dean flicked on the lamp and rolled over on his side, facing Sam. He reached out again and traced a finger down Sam's arm, stopping again at his own name. Sam shivered, though the room was warm, and Dean chuckled.

"I dunno, Sammy, how about you tell me where and how you got each of these, and how you hid them from me this long."

"I —"

"While I lick them," Dean interrupted, "all of them, and then I want you to blow me." He pulled Sam's elbow until Sam flopped down on the bed beside him, and grinned. "That sound good to you?"

Sam made a wordless noise and kissed him, rough, hungry kisses that Dean returned in equal measure until they were both panting, tangled together on the ugly bedspread. Dean tossed Sam's damp towel onto the floor and bent his head to lick around Sam's nipple, tongue following the black circle of ink that outlined it. Sam inhaled sharply, and Dean bit down, the barest scrape of teeth, before looking up.

"This one?"

Sam swallowed. "That fucked-up town with the zombie infestation, you remember, in Illinois. Some biker shop had a tattoo parlor out back and this burly dude with, oh, wow, a beard like fucking ZZ Top did it in half an hour for a half-rack of Pabst, don't stop."

Dean hummed into Sam's skin and moved on. "This one?"

"Michigan, Ann Arbor, when we stopped to take care of that dormitory haunting, oh, God, and you got bitten by the sprite and we were laid up for two days. Fuck, Dean, a hot blonde with a tongue piercing did that one, you'd have liked her, just please..."

"This one?"

"Michigan, too, oh, fuck, right there, in that town where…"

"And this one?"