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Sometimes Dean likes to pretend he really is the Righteous Man. When he’s running into a moldering old, monster-infested warehouse that all the sane people have long since run out of, some nights it’s easier if he pretends he’s what the angels used to think he was. That he’s just and upright, a sword of righteousness, easy to wield and always striking true.
Tonight isn’t one of those nights.
“Open up, Chuck.” He pounds on the guest room door with the side of his fist.
Chuck grumbles from somewhere on the other side of the door. Sheets rustle and a laptop snaps closed. Dean bangs some more.
“It’s two a.m.,” Chuck complains. There are indistinct noises and then the padding of footsteps across the floor.
Chuck cracks the door open, not wide enough for Dean to come in. He’s wearing boxers, socks, Dean’s dead guy robe, and nothing else. Over his shoulder, Dean’s laptop is visible on the rumpled bedspread.
“Oh, for Chrissake, put a shirt on, Chuck.” Chuck’s scraggly chest hair is entirely more of the Almighty than Dean needs to see. “You’re not watching my porn again, are you? Because I’d think you know where the birds and the bees come from by now.”
“What do you want, Dean?” Chuck doesn’t sound amused.
Dean takes a deep breath, like Lisa always told him to do that year he lived with her while Sam's soul was Downstairs in the box. Not like he’s nervous or anything, but when your joke bombs with God, it’s not a great sign for how your demands will go over. Down the hallway, the sound of Lucifer singing 101 Greatest Hits of Cock Rock off key is emanating from Sam’s room.
“Sam needs his beauty rest or he’ll be a bitch for this week’s Apocalypse,” Dean says. “I tried to shoo Satan out again, but he still won’t budge. Your turn, dude.”
“We agreed we were going to let Lucifer cool down overnight,” Chuck replies. He crosses his arms over his chest.
“No, you agreed we were going to let Lucifer cool down. I said we were in a bit of a rush on account of Amara turning thousands of people into blood-thirsty zombies. And then you did what you wanted anyways.”
Chuck gives an unimpressed shrug.
“Listen, Chuck. You wanna give Lucifer his space, that’s fine. I mean it’s not fine, people are dying. But free will and don’t be a helicopter parent to humanity or whatever; I get it’s above my pay grade. But I need you to at least get the actual devil out of Sam’s room.”
Chuck raises an eyebrow but otherwise doesn't make a move. Lucifer croons a second rate cover of Under My Thumb. His ugly-ass vocals are still coming from the exact same place.
“I know you want what’s best for your brother,” Chuck says. His tone is smarmy and faux-reasonable and reminds Dean uncannily of when Chuck chided him yesterday for having daddy issues and mistaking him for John. Which is ironic because Dean’s pretty sure this is Chuck’s dad voice and it’s suddenly clear to him after all these years why teenage Sam could never let anything John said go.
“And that’s touching and all, Dean; really. But don't you think your priorities are a bit screwed up? We’re talking about the end of all existence here versus Sam being minorly inconvenienced." Chuck holds his thumb and forefinger up in a near pinch to illustrate how little consideration it would take for Dean to see Chuck's point. Through sheer force of will, Dean avoids replying with ‘minorly inconvenience this’ and flipping Chuck the bird.
“Lucifer’s mad at me already, Dean. I’m not gonna zap him all over the bunker against his will. Stop overthinking it.” Chuck says in his Father Knows Best voice. “You’re in the magic conspiracy version of an army barracks. Sam can sleep in a spare room for one night.”
He closes the door in Dean’s face.
As expected, Sam is in the library. Lucifer’s in his room; where else would he be?
He’s sitting at one of the tables in that Sam way he has where he hunches his shoulders forward to be less intimidating even when he’s alone and there’s no one there to intimidate. His big sasquatch head is buried in a tome of lore that can’t possibly have anything in it Chuck doesn’t already know. There are two empty bottles of Kingdom beer beside him. White stylized angels on the label hold up an over-embellished red crown. When Dean stopped at the Gas n’ Sip yesterday, it was the only brand there. Chuck’s work, Dean’s now sure, and he wishes he’d brought home nothing instead.
“It’s past your bedtime, Princess,” Dean says as he walks in. The overhead lights are off, and the two table lamps paint Sam’s frame in a soft, shadowed glow. “We have a big day tomorrow saving the universe.”
“You go ahead,” Sam replies, exactly like Dean knew he would. “I’ve got a couple more things I need to check first.” He keeps his head down when he answers and his eyes on his book. His voice is steady, but the page he’s reading trembles when he turns it.
Dean tosses his empties in the trash for him, and wanders over to the bookshelf where they keep the quality Scotch. He pours them a tumbler each and thunks Sam’s down beside his research. Sam flinches when it hits the table.
“I want to research Amara’s connection to the Mark a little more, and we also need to track down Rowena and the Book of the Damned,” Sam says.
“Chuck can find Rowena.”
“We can’t depend on Chuck for everything.” Sam flips another page. They’re vellum; almost see-through. The text is handwritten in Latin or something. Dean can’t read it across the table and upside down.
“Apparently we can’t depend on Chuck for anything. He won’t even get his brat of a son out of your room, ‘cause he’s too busy watch my porn. And he owes you, Sam. Why’d God have to turn out to be such a douche?”
They’ve done this dance a million times; Sam pretending he’s fine until they build some weird castle made of arguments around him strong enough that he won’t fall apart by opening his mouth and letting a tiny word of truth come out. It irritates Dean, to be honest, even though he’s well aware when he’s the one hurting, he does it too. When Sam’s chasing him around for sharing and caring time, he’d rather face down a roomful of demons with a single salt shaker than talk about his bullshit problems, so he gets it, he does. But he still wishes sometimes they could skip the preliminaries. Sam could say I can’t hold this by myself anymore. And Dean could say I know you’re scared. Let me comfort you.
“He doesn’t owe me,” Sam says quietly instead.
Dean still has nightmares that wake him up clammy with sweat, of Sam’s arms spread wide and that hole in the world, empty and ravenous, and he’s not even the one who fell into it. “He very well fucking does, Sam. That was his mess to clean up, not yours.”
Sam’s lore must be fantastic, with how attentively he’s staring at it. The angle of the light makes his cheekbones look sharp and his eyelashes smudged. His chin is tipped down, and his hair has fallen in front of his ear on one side. Dean’s hands itch to smooth it back where it belongs. They’ve tended Sam’s hurts, both large and small, for Sam’s entire life, and they don’t understand the distinction between wanted and unwanted, cure and more harm.
“I’m fine,” Sam insists.
“Well, I’m not.”
That gets him to look up at last, startled out of his defensive position.
“God turns out to be the King of the Dicks,” Dean says, “which shouldn’t surprise me, all things considered, but I still don’t like it. His sister wants me to become one with her, and not in the long walks on the beach and mutually satisfying orgasms way. The whole universe is winding up to shit the bed. And you’re gonna stay up all night freaking out.”
“I’m not freaking out.” Sam rolls his eyes, but it’s unconvincing. His face is too pale, and his mouth is pinched with worry.
“Come watch a movie with me.”
“Dean, no.” Sam goes back to his book. He is freaking out. He’s a liar and he’s doing it quietly, but Dean can see it all over him anyway.
“Then drink your scotch at least. I paid big bucks for that with Angus Young’s mastercard.”
Sam takes a sip so microscopic Dean’s not sure any passed his lips at all.
“Go to bed, Sam. You’re exhausted.”—and terrified—“You can sleep in my room.”
The shadow of a grimace flits across Sam’s mouth and back away.
“It’s not a big deal,” Dean protests, counterargument to an objection Sam hasn’t even made. “We sleep in the same hotel room all the time.”
“Hotel rooms have two beds, Dean.” Sam tries to put his bitchface on, but it’s cracked around the edges and doesn’t fit right. His shoulders are tight and pulled in, like a child preparing for a hit.
If Sam just needed a warm body who isn’t Lucifer nearby, they could drag a mattress from one of the spare bedrooms into Dean’s room and the problem would be solved. But instead of offering that completely adequate solution, Dean finds himself saying, “We slept in the same bed when we were kids.”
“We’re not kids anymore.” Sam means because of sexual taboos or whatever, obviously. They can’t share a bed because they’re grown-ass men who like to get their dicks wet, and it wouldn’t be right.
And it’s not like he’s off-base, entirely. Dean’s banged more girls than he can count, and he’s notched his belt with a handful of dudes along the way too. He’s not exactly an innocent and he wouldn’t have it any other way.
Sam, though.
It’s not as simple for Sam. Not just the sex thing, though God knows Sam’s been unlucky there too. It’s more… Sam’s not a kid anymore in all the worst ways. The long hard years of his life—of both their lives, really —are written all over Sam, every day, right out there in the open. They’re in all Sam’s flinches. In his excessive kindness, and his cooperation with enemies that Dean would put an angel blade through if he thought Sam wouldn’t find out. In the way Sam hides his nausea when Dean’s cooking and burns the bacon, and in how he gets up every morning before dawn and runs like he’s training for a marathon.
When Sam was a sophomore in high school, after Dean dropped out and was spending a lot of time on the road with dad, Sam tried to seduce him once. Dean got home, and Sam’d made dinner and somehow procured Dean’s favorite beer. There were candles on the table. It was awkward and sincere and kind of charming, and it scared Dean half to death.
That was a long time ago.
“I know you’re not a kid anymore,” Dean says, too seriously. He swallows down the lump in his throat. “But aren’t you tired, Sammy? Come to bed.”
Sam follows Dean to his bedroom.
While Dean takes off his flannel and throws it over a chair back, Sam stands in the doorway like a deer caught out in a clearing, stock still and waiting for its moment to bolt. Dean pulls back the covers on his bed, sits down on the edge, and takes off his boots. He strips out of his jeans, and says, “You waiting for an engraved invitation?”
Sam comes in.
When Dean throws his legs into bed and pats the empty spot beside him, Sam tentatively takes off his overshirt. He stands there awkwardly in the middle of the room in his soft gray tee and worn out jeans, his flannel dangling from one hand. It’s been nearly two years, and he still hasn’t gained back all of the weight he lost when Dean was a demon.
“Are you sure?” he asks. His voice is so carefully neutral.
“Woudn’t’ve offered if I wasn’t.”
Sam takes off his boots and jeans, because that’s what Dean did. Leaves on his T-shirt and boxer-briefs, because Dean did. He’s not hard. Dean isn’t either.
Dean lies down on his side, facing Sam, and pats the bed again. Sam sits down on the edge with his hands between his knees, squinting up at the ceiling like he’s trying to do calculus or maybe he’s gonna cry or Dean doesn’t even know what actually, so he rolls over and turns out the lamp on the bedside table.
Sam does lie down then, the cue that it’s expected too obvious to ignore. Light from the hall filters in through the decorative grate above Dean’s door. Sam’s flat on his back and tense as a board.
“Relax, dude,” Dean says. “the end of the world isn’t til tomorrow.”
“Right, right.” Sam chuckles nervously and rolls onto his side, facing away from Dean and as close to the edge as he can get without falling out of the bed.
Dean scootches over and drags him closer to the middle. He leaves a hand on Sam’s bicep and his knees tucked in behind Sam’s bent legs. There’s a sliver of air between Sam’s ass and Dean’s pelvis, just enough so Dean’s dick isn’t nestled right up against Sam’s glutes. In the quiet of the bunker’s climate control, Sam’s breathing is rapid and shallow.
Dean pets Sam’s arm, gentles him like a horse. Sam’s muscles twitch under his hand.
“Dean—”
“Shhhh, I got you,” Dean says. He strokes along Sam’s shoulder, smooths his hand through the soft strands of Sam’s hair.
That one first time, so long ago, was Sam's sole attempt at getting in Dean's pants. He never made another pass at Dean, not even in the last days before Dean's deal came due. But there have been small lapses over the years. Comparisons to one girl or another that Sam didn’t seem to realize it was weird he was making. Remarks about Dean’s dates that were a little too snippy and jealous to be coming from a brother. Once, when he was in the hospital after a nasty run in with a harpy, he was as high as a kite on morphine and he pecked Dean sloppily on the mouth, then blushed like a virgin and pulled the covers over his head.
Dean joked it off, like he always did. He’d thought he was doing it for Sam’s sake.
So when Dean lets his hand drift down to rest against Sam’s T-shirt over his pecs and Sam shudders but says nothing, and then there’s this tiny hitch in Sam’s breathing and the tension drains out of him like water, Dean recognizes it for what it is. The light hasn’t dawned on Sam that his cowardly, self-righteous brother is finally gonna do what he’s known for years they both need. No, Sam’s only decided that Dean’s rules are as rigid and confusing as ever, but that he’ll take whatever crumbs of love he can get.
“It’s okay, Sammy,” Dean says. “I’m gonna take care of you.”
He drags his fingertips across the plains of Sam's chest, travels the tiny hills and valleys of his ribs. When he gets to Sam’s nipples, he lingers there, rubbing and caressing. There can be no mistaking his intent now.
“Dean—” Sam says again, but this time he gasps and arches his back. His ass lands pressed against Dean's crotch, sliver of space for Jesus obliterated. Dean rocks his hips and his blood rushes south. He kisses the back of Sam's neck, pulls Sam’s tee up so he can lick along the muscles of Sam’s back. He abandons Sam's chest and lets his hand steal down, down, over Sam’s abs, along the fine trail of hair to the waistband of his boxer briefs.
Sam’s hard already when Dean gets to his dick, and holy crap is he hung. His thick shaft strains against the cotton of his underwear and the head of his cock peeks out past the elastic band of his shorts. Dean pushes aside the fabric and gets his hand all over it, strokes and pulls, coats his fingers in Sam’s precome, rolls Sam’s balls in his palm.
Sam moans and grabs Dean’s forearm, holds on to it like he’s lost at sea and Dean is all that’s keeping him from drowning. Dean is hot and flushed all over. His heart is racing, his breathing feels short, his dick is heavy and full. He loves Sam’s body; the strong muscle and the too sparse areas of softness, the sheer size of him—his monster cock, yeah, but all of him is big; his body, yes, and his mind and soul too. Solid, even too thin like he’s been for years now; ridiculously strong beneath his doubt and self-effacement. And Dean loves that he can do this for Sam; give him what he needs, make him feel good. Feel safe.
He turns to grab his lube from the end table and Sam starts to turn with him, but Dean says, “You’re good where you are, Sammy; don’t move,” and Sam doesn’t. Just wriggles out of his clothes, and waits there for Dean, while Dean gets undressed himself, bangs around in his bedside table and pours lube onto his palm, and comes back to lie pressed up behind Sam, as close as he can get this time; chest against Sam’s back, legs tangled up with Sam’s legs, dick hard against the warmth of Sam’s ass. When he takes Sam in hand this time, it’s with purpose. He jacks Sam slow and steady, slick as satin, gets him close to the edge and backs off, close to the edge and backs off again.
“Dean, Dean, God,” Sam moans.
Dean wants to crawl inside his brother, erase every boundary that’s ever been between them, so everything that’s a part of Sam is a part of Dean too. It’s what he’s always wanted, really, since Sam was a tiny screaming bundle he held in his four year old arms while he watched the world burn down around them. That's the long and the short of it. Right and wrong are complicated and negotiable. This is simple and clear: Sam should be happy. Sam should be safe. Lucifer should not be in Sam's room. Sam belongs to Dean, and Dean alone.
"You want me to stop, you just say so," Dean instructs. “We don’t have to. Whatever you want.”
But Sam only moans and shifts his leg so he's turned further over, almost down on his belly, the shadowed curve of his back and upslope of his ass beautiful in the semi-darkness.
Dean opens him slow. Keeps his fingers gentle and dripping with lube, silky and undemanding while they explore the vulnerable interior of his brother. He strokes Sam’s prostate while he kisses his neck and noses behind his ear. Sam stays mostly still at first, breathing into it, but Dean keeps at it until he’s writhing.
When Sam finally begs, breathy as a girl, Dean lubes himself up, positions himself so the head of his cock is nestled up against Sam’s hole, and gets a slippery hand back around Sam’s dick.
“You ready, baby?” he asks.
“Yes, yes; Jesus, Dean, you gonna take all night?”
Dean laughs, deep and low. “Yeah, Sam, that’s the plan.”
He breeches his brother, rocks into him easy.
He’s draped all over Sam—both of them still technically on their sides, but Dean nearly on top of Sam, one leg over both of Sam’s, one arm awkwardly around him, the crook of his elbow against Sam’s hip and his forearm squished under Sam’s body, so he can jack Sam slow as molasses in the gap between Sam’s pelvis and the mattress. Sam pushes back ineffectually against his weight to speed him along, but Dean just ignores it, kisses him more, bites at the peaks of his shoulder blades, holds him tight and thrusts into him like the tide.
“Dean, Dean, Dean.” It’s the best sound ever, Sam chanting his name in that desperate, blissed out voice, his inhibitions crushed by the urgency of his need. By having all of Dean at last, as Dean now has all of Sam, both of them without reservation.
Dean’s hot everywhere, sex flush rushing up his body. His skin against Sam is burning. His head is floaty. There’s nothing but the pattern of him moving inside Sam, the velvet friction of Sam holding tight around him.
His balls draw up and he starts to lose his rhythm, and Sam says, “Don’t stop, don’t stop, please—” and his voice breaks. He clenches around Dean, and Dean falls over the edge.
It can’t be more than a couple of breaths before Dean can pay attention to the world outside his body again. Sam’s come is slick all over his hand. Sam is breathing like a racehorse, back heaving.
Dean eases some of his weight off Sam, waits for his own racing pulse to settle. His cock starts to soften and he has to pull out. Sam groans.
“You okay there, Sammy? I knows it’s overwhelming getting dicked down by the king, so if you need to take a few minutes.”
Sam laughs, but it’s unsteady and thick, almost like—
Dean rolls the rest of the way off Sam and props himself up on his elbow, but Sam’s still turned half into the bed and Dean can’t see his face. “Really; are you okay, Sam? I didn’t—”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.” Sam takes a shaky breath in. “Really good. That was…” He laughs weakly again. “Wow, that was, um.”
He flops over onto his back. He does look okay. Actually, he looks pretty great. He’s sprawled out and relaxed in the half-dark, his hair a messy cloud on Dean’s pillow.
“Perfect?” Dean prompts. “Heavenly? The best sex you had in your life?”
Sam’s laugh is more steady now.
“Yeah, it was definitely adequate.” His voice is full of easy affection, not even making a minimal attempt to play the joke straight. “If it wasn’t your best effort, I’ll let you have a do over later when I can walk again.”
“I should hope so. Don’t give me a bad review on TripAdvisor or my membership in the Sex God Club will be revoked, and then how will I pick up chicks?”
Sam shakes his head like Dean is incorrigible, which to be fair, he totally is.
Dean gets himself comfortable, and watches Sam while Sam punches his pillow into a better shape and pulls the top sheet up all the way to his shoulders. It’s the exact same ritual Sam’s used in a million crappy motel rooms, on a million shitty nights, to get his cut rate bed ready to fall asleep in. But this time he’s doing it in Dean’s bed. Beside Dean.
“I guess Chuck’s gonna know we banged, huh? That’s kind of awkward,” Sam says. He doesn’t seem too broke up about it, thank, uh... Chuck.
“He’s God, Sam. He probably knows already. In fact he’s such a douche he probably watched. Whatever. Maybe he learned something.” Dean looks up at the ceiling and raises his voice. “Hey, Chuck! I hope you dug my porn!”
“I think that counts as a prayer,” Sam says dryly. “I can’t believe you just literally prayed to God he got off watching you have sex with your brother.”
“Eh, if he gets all puritan about it, we’ll just apologize. It’s not like we have to mean it. What’s he gonna do, let Amara destroy the universe because our gay incestuous love is too hot?”
Sam laughs. Dean’ll take it. If Sam is happy, Dean’s happy too.