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One of the earliest memories Sam has is waking up in the back seat, head pillowed on Dean's thigh. He's four, maybe five, and Dean's fingers comb through his hair. Sam remembers that he kept still, very very still, pretended to go on sleeping because he knew Dean would stop if he noticed Sam's awake. Playing with Sam's hair like this, it's girly shit and they don't do that, they're boys.
Sam never much cared for being girly or not, didn't back then and doesn't now.
Two years ago, not exactly but near enough, their positions were reversed. Bobby was driving, and Sam sat in the backseat, trying to cry but out of tears, breath hitching and eyes red, Dean's head in his lap. And now Dean's here, asleep in the passenger seat, one of the rare nights when he remembers that they're supposed to be equal partners now and tosses Sam the keys. Still here, again, Sam doesn't want to think about the details too much; it doesn't matter.
He reaches out, runs the back of his index finger over Dean's cheek; another one of these little touches that are considered unmanly and would produce a freak out if Dean were awake.
Oddly enough, the sensation of having him back hasn't worn off at all in the past months. Neither has Sam's all-compassing need to have Dean close, assure himself that he's really there. He didn't dare to hope for more at first, sure that what they started during Dean's last year before only happened because Dean knew it would be temporary, allowed himself to tangle them up even deeper within each other and leave Sam to deal with the consequences.
But barely a week after he came back, Dean fell to his knees in front of Sam, eyes dark and hungry, sucked him off, stood up, and disappeared into the shower without a word.
The day after, when Sam tried to bring it up, talk about it, still hopeful that they might somehow be able to turn this into a good thing - something beautiful in the midst of the mess that is their lives - Dean told him to shut up. He steered the car onto a quiet side road, got out, produced a little package of lube from his wallet, stripped his jeans and boxers, leaned over the hood and spread his legs.
"I don't want to talk," he said, the implication that Sam could only have one, conversation or sex, heavy in the air between them.
And damn him, Sam went with sex. Promised himself it'd be just this once, because he'd missed Dean so much; they'd have their talk, later. They'd make it work, or they'd stop.
Of course, they never did. Even now, hardly able to look each other in the eye, still lying to each other through their teeth, Sam up in arms and Dean barely holding on, they won't stop. Rough fucks in dark motel rooms, lights out because sometimes they can't even look at the other, during. Quick blowjobs when Dean can't sleep, which is all the time. He'd shake Sam awake, nose at his neck, whisper "Let me" into his skin and go down.
More than once, Sam tried to put an end to it. He can't deal with the fact that Dean won't talk to him, shuts him out, but still wants Sam's hands on his body, Sam's cock inside.
It makes Sam's head spin.
But every time, Dean leads him astray. Parades himself after taking a shower, buck-naked and well aware of the effect it has on Sam, touches Sam's crotch as if by accident, or downright pleads. "Please, I need this, Sammy, please" at first, "Don't you dare turn your back on me now, asshole" if Sam tries to refuse.
Sam's capable of a lot of things, but apparently saying no to Dean isn't one of them. Not about this, unhealthy and destructive as it might be. As it is, always will be, fucking each other, giving in to the enclosed spaces that shove them together.
And now this thing between them has taken on an edge that's as addictive as it is dangerous, and in some strange way, gives Sam what he craves and what Dean won't let him have in broad daylight: absolute trust. Out there, on hunts, he still doesn't trust Sam for shit, expects him to give in and bend over for the devil at every turn, second-guesses him just to make a point. But as soon as the lights go out and Sam has him naked, he surrenders control like it's nothing. Like that, in the dark, it's Sam who gets to decide. Dean won't ask for anything, and Sam's pretty sure there's not much he'd refuse to do either.
He's not quite sure how it came to this, and it didn't happen at once. It's been a gradual shift, a slow progression that crept up on Sam from behind, and now he can't step away from the headtrip. Dean willingly throws himself at his mercy, offering up more and more of himself for every bit Sam does allow himself to take, and it's so hard to stop. He wants more, he wants to put this to the test, find out how far he'll have permission to go. When Dean will dig his heels in.
If there's even a point at which he would.
So far, Sam kept a pretty tight lid on it. He gives commands, yes, and he's rough and deliberately selfish, but that's it. Up until now, that's his line in the sand.
***
In between angels and the devil and the fucking apocalypse, both of them need the standard, run-off-the-mill hunts to stay something akin to sane. Check out the case, research, gank, rinse and repeat. The fate of the whole world’s not at stake. In the end, a job well done, and a couple of lives saved. Uncomplicated.
Except that in their line of work, standard doesn't always mean easy. Tonight, it's the ghost of a shopkeeper who haunts the mall that's been built where his old shop used to be, held in this realm by unfinished business and a locket with strands of his and his late wife's hair. He pressed it into a still-wet concrete wall somewhere in the basement before he shot himself. Problem is, the place is fucking huge, the ghost is vicious, and the best plan they've come up with is to have one of them search for the locket while the other one distracts the ghost.
Of course Dean wouldn't allow for Sam to be the punching bag, so it's Sam who frantically searches through room after room full of cleaning agents and mops and bulk packs of toilet paper while Dean throws himself at the ghost again and again. They've settled for some sort of dance; Dean pumps the ghost full of salt, it reappears behind him, flings him against the nearest wall, and as soon as Dean's gathered his wits well enough to aim anew, they start over. By the time Sam finds the locket, pries it out of the wall and torches it, Dean's bleeding from a cut on his forehead and a few scratches on his cheek. He winces when Sam grabs his arm to help him up and limps on the way back to the car.
Sam makes an attempt to keep supporting him, take some of his weight, but Dean shoos him off. "Keep your grabby hands to yourself," he snarls, sidesteps Sam's outreached hand and charges forward despite the pain it quite visibly causes him to do so.
For a moment, Sam stays behind. He watches Dean as he goes, puts a distance between them, and Sam catches himself thinking that it's like an analogy for the state their relationship's in. Dean's hurting, but he stubbornly soldiers on and slips further from Sam's grasp with every step.
Back at the motel Dean immediately faceplants onto his bed, for once too beat to fight sleep when it tries to claim him, and Sam wakes early next morning to a rush of cold air as Dean lifts the covers to slip in behind him. He's naked already, and hard, rubs himself against Sam's hip.
"C'mon," he whispers and nibbles at Sam's earlobe. "Hey, sleeping beauty, wake up."
Sam wants to say no, he really does. He knows what this is. The needy tone of Dean's voice, raw and low, gives him away and it's not like Dean's initiating sex just for the fun of it anymore. The best Sam can do is keep himself still, try to feign sleep and hope Dean'll get bored and give up. When Dean reaches around to jerk him off, hard and fast and with no real rhythm, he can't help but gasp. Dean presses in closer still, buries his face in Sam's neck and smiles, knowing that he's won.
Caught between turned on and furious, Sam yanks Dean's hand away and turns to face him, pushes him back. "You've got to stop."
Dean grins and looks down between their bodies. "Your cock thinks differently."
He presses at Sam's shoulder until he gives in and rolls onto his back, then climbs atop of him and leans down to kiss him. When he breaks the kiss to set himself upright again, Sam makes another half-hearted attempt of stopping this in its tracks. Not quite awake enough to be conscious of the beating Dean took last night he takes holds of his hips with both hands, forcefully, and Dean yelps.
Sam looks down to where his hands dig into Dean's flesh, one of them right into the beginning of a huge, purple bruise that spans the entirety of his lower left flank. His hands fly off Dean's body almost of their own accord at the sight, but Dean catches them, puts them back in place.
"Do that again," he breathes out.
"No."
Dean doesn't answer. Instead, he lets go of Sam's left hand and starts to jerk himself off, presses Sam's right hand into the bruise on every upstroke, throws his head back and moans obscenely. Sam's pretty distracted by the way he sounds, the blissed-out expression on his face that slips into a brief grimace of pain every time he makes Sam put pressure on the bruise, and so it takes him a moment to catch on with what's happening.
Pain. Dean's getting off on pain, and hard. On Sam causing it.
In an effort to stop this from happening, Sam bucks his hips up to bring him off balance, yanks his hand away as Dean lets go of it to keep himself from falling forward, and flips them over. He holds Dean down. They stare at each other, neither of them moving, neither of them giving an inch, until Sam's had it, lets go of him and climbs off the bed.
The look on Dean's face is unreadable, somewhere between disappointed and pissed, and he can't hold Sam's gaze. "Fuck you", he hisses, eyes downcast, and Sam can't stand any of this for a heartbeat longer. He escapes to the bathroom, stares himself down in the mirror for a few moments, splashes cold water into his face.
When he comes back out, Dean's emigrated to his own bed, back turned to the room and to Sam.
***
Dean's always been vocal. He chatters when he's nervous, he shouts, he yells, he sings along to his music when he doesn't want to hear anything else. There's hardly a thing he doesn't communicate, one way or the other, either by being loud about it or by shutting up and visibly shoving it down.
Before hell, the few times they've done it in the months leading up to the due date of his deal, Dean's been vocal about sex, too. He gave a constant narration, voiced his pleasure and his demands loud and clear in a stream of dirty talk every porn star would envy.
Not anymore. Nowadays, as soon as he gets what he wants, as soon as he's gotten them started, he stops talking and gets aggravated when Sam tries to make him. All Sam has to go on are grunts and moans and soft noises, intakes of breath and gasping. Dean's not saying yes or no, no matter what Sam does, he doesn't even try to take charge by action. He lets Sam take him any way he wants to without so much as an attempt to get what he might want for himself.
Or at least, that's what it's been like up until now, until Dean found something that he wants and that Sam refuses to give him.
There it is again, that line. Sam can deal with being bossy, he can take charge and disregard Dean's pleasure in order to give him what he thinks he needs. He can do that and still look at his own reflection in the mirror the next morning. But hurting Dean? No way. Not going to happen. His brother has been hurt enough to last for several lifetimes. He won't do that, no matter how much Dean pushes.
And yeah, Dean does push. Every day for a week, while his bruises bloom and then fade, he crawls into Sam's bed, either before he falls asleep or in the morning. After Sam refuses the fifth day in a row Dean helps himself, jacks himself and massages the abused flesh where the bruise is the worst while Sam watches, appalled but unable to tear his eyes away.
But it doesn't seem to be satisfying, because the morning after that Dean sits cross-legged on the bed when Sam awakens, eyes fixed on him. "I'd really like to try it, you know? With you. I want you to do it."
Sam stares at him, wide-eyed, and he's sure he looks a little dumb with it, has to shake his head few times to get the sleep out of his system. "Forget it, I'm not going to hurt you."
Dean's eyes narrow, and he exhales, exasperated. It's so unlike Dean, almost kinda pouty, that Sam's not sure if wants to smile or cry a little. More than a year of fucking each other under the cloud of the night, and now this, finally, makes Dean want to talk.
Sam decides to meet it head-on, plunge forward and jump right in. "Why?"
"What do you mean, why?" It's not a front or distraction, Dean's honestly confused. "Gets me off, what else is there to it?"
"Why do you want this? Any of this. The -" Sam's voice dies on him, and he has to start again. "The submission. That kind of sex. And now, being hurt."
Silence on the other bed. Dean opens and closes his mouth twice but doesn't say a word, so Sam continues. If they won't manage an actual conversation over this, maybe Sam can at least give him something to think about.
"You haven't been into it before, right? It's so different. I don't know what do to with it, if giving in is going to help you or make you worse. Dean, I don't know."
That's when Dean declares the conversation to be over by getting off the bed, hastily shucks on jeans, t-shirt and a Henley and makes a run for it. He returns around lunch time, two greasy bags in his hand, expression carefully indifferent, and they don't talk about it again.
***
They're walking on eggshells around each other after that. Dean's pissed or disappointed or a bit of both, Sam assumes, while Sam himself is even more unsure about whether or not it's been a good idea to give in to Dean after he came back from the pit in the first place.
And he sure as shit isn't going to touch him again until he's figured that out, which, of course, Dean seams to interpret as rejection. Add to that the distance and mistrust that's been tainting their relationship ever since Ruby, and you have a downright toxic cocktail on your hands.
It explodes one late night about a month after the ghost in the mall.
The bar in that small town somewhere in Iowa is nothing special, nondescript and generic. They've spent the whole day in various corn fields, looking for a hint of the witch who's brought the entire town to the edge of bankruptcy this summer - there have been suicides already, which was Sam and Dean's cue to step in - but didn't get anywhere with it. They're both antsy and in a bad mood. To top it off Dean's got a bad sunburn (because using lotion would have emasculated him, or some equally stupid macho shit), and they split as soon as they enter the bar. Sam settles in a booth in the back, sulks and quietly nurses a couple of beers, while Dean stays at the bar, right in the center of attention.
He didn't do anything like that for a while, blatantly flirting with pretty much the whole room, and it's quite the show. Not one Sam enjoys, and the feeling that settles in his stomach as he watches Dean down shot after shot, toss fake grins every which way and undress every potential hook-up in the place with his eyes, is something dangerously close to jealousy.
Which is bullcrap. They're not like that, never have been. He's got no claim on his brother that way, they're not together that way, but it still stings. And if he's honest, deep down, Sam kinda thinks it's supposed to: this is for him. This is Dean offering up something Sam declined to take these past few weeks.
He wonders if Dean'll let the girl peg him, or if he's gonna go home with a guy. He wonders if Dean's going to ask whoever it is he'll pick to hurt him, and the thought makes Sam want to hurl his bottle at the wall, stomp over to the bar and drag Dean out of here.
Instead, he watches Dean getting friendly with a skinny brunette. She's as bland as the whole place, short spaghetti strap dress with a washed-out flower print, long hair in a pony tail, oversized creole earrings, and she's giggling like a school girl at whatever Dean's saying. Too loud and too eager, Sam knows from first-hand experience that Dean's not as funny as he thinks he is, and she presses her body to Dean's, blinks up at him, spellbound beyond retrieval.
Sam's reached his limit when they kiss. To let him witness the hook-up in real time, that's one thing, but pretty much sucking her face off right in front of him is more than he can take. He bangs his beer bottle on table so hard some of the content swaps over, stands, and elbows his way towards the bar a little more rude than strictly necessary.
Dean opens his eyes as Sam approaches, holds his gaze without ever breaking the kiss, and that's it with any doubts Same might've had that this whole stunt didn't serve a certain purpose.
Right then, things get a little out of hand. Sam's been planning to call upon Dean's devotion to their job, use the case as an excuse to get him back to the motel right the fuck now, but he's seeing red. As soon as he's close enough, he hauls the girl off Dean and to the side and takes her place. Before Dean has time to react, Sam's pushing him up against the bar, far enough that he has to bend backwards a little, and brings their mouths together in a deep, rough kiss. Dean kisses him back, gives as good as he gets, and when Sam comes back to himself enough to realize that they're in backwards-Iowa, two guys making out in public might be frowned upon here and pulls back, Dean's grinning at him. Smug, in-your-face grin, like all this worked out exactly how he wanted it to.
Sam turns on his heels, doesn't even care if Dean follows him outside or not. For all Sam cares, he can go and fuck that flower dress girl stupid, all night long. But of course, Dean does follow, and somehow Sam can't remember any of the reasons why he shouldn't let himself have this when Dean backs him up against the side of the car, kisses him and rubs his palm against Sam's cock through his jeans.
When he breaks the kiss and shoves Dean off, it's not to keep this from going any further; it's exactly the opposite.
"Loose your pants and get inside," he orders. His own voice sounds foreign in his hears, hoarse and too deep, and what is he doing here?
Dean licks his lips and strips off jeans and boxers, eyes never leaving Sam's. He crawls into the back seat and sprawls with his back against the opposite door, legs spread as wide as they go in the crammed space.
Reason tries to sneak back in right then, but the sight of Dean presenting himself like that renders it irrelevant. Sam shrugs off his own leg- and underwear and follows, drags Dean's head forward for another kiss and thrusts right into him. Dean cries out, no prep, no lube, nothing to ease the way and Sam's not exactly gentle, but Sam swallows the sound. The feel of working his way in dry is odd, mixture of gorgeous pressure from the unprepared muscle and an almost painful drag due to the lack of fluid.
He stills once he's buried in Dean's body as deep as he goes, to at least give Dean a chance to accommodate to the stretch, but it isn't long until Dean begins to wriggle his hips, urges him on, and Sam starts to fuck him in earnest. Pulls out, in again, sets a hard and relentless pace, and Dean writhes and moans underneath him, presses his hands to Sam's ass to get him closer, encourage him to keep going.
It's rough and ungainly, Dean's going to be sore for days, but Sam can't find it in him to give a shit. Right now, his senses are overflowing with Dean, his smell, the noises he's making, his body tight around Sam's cock, and Sam doesn't last long. He bites down onto Dean's sunburnt shoulder when he comes, and Dean winces once and follows him over the edge.
***
The next few days it's both guilt and arousal that jolt through Sam every time Dean shows discomfort sitting down or moving the wrong way. He's the reason for that, he caused him pain, but he also can't block out the images and sounds of that night.
More than that, he can't ignore the looks Dean keeps throwing him, heated and hungry and oddly enough, grateful. He's still distant and kinda wary around Sam out there, hunting and dealing with an apocalypse in the making and wherever they got company, but if it's just the two of them there's a different kind of tension. Something's thrumming beneath the surface, and they both feel it.
In the back alley of some bar two weeks later, it erupts again. No particular reason this time, Dean's spent all night munching peanuts and not even drinking that much on a chair opposite of Sam and didn't so much as glance at anyone else; if Sam would allow himself to look at it more closely, he'd probably say that this time its more contentment than anger that makes him do this. He leads Dean into the dark alley, fucks him against the wall of the building, dry again and hard enough that Dean comes away with scraps on his lower back from being shoved into the bricks on every thrust.
Afterwards, on the drive back to the motel, Dean keeps watching him out of the corner of his eyes, almost-smile and puzzled expression at war with each other. Then and there, Sam realizes that Dean's as confused by the whole thing as Sam is; probably worse, having been steamrolled by a need he wasn't prepared for, can't explain.
He should end this. Sit Dean down, lay out all the reason why it's going to destroy them in the long run, make sure he gets that it's not a rejection but an attempt to do what's best for him, protect him, help him. Figure out coping mechanisms that are constructive rather than destructive, get rid of the booze while they're at it.
But this is Dean. Words don't reach him, he's never going to hear what it is Sam tries to tell him. He didn't before hell, and after everything that's happened between them the past year and a half, he's even less likely to.
They're spinning out of control, rapidly, but all Sam can do is stand by and watch it happen. If he's honest with himself, he doesn't want it to stop anymore. Deep down, he's as hungry for it as Dean is. To have Dean like this, it's better than not having him at all.
Better than to think about what the world was like without him.
Later, after they went to bed and while he listens to Dean's too-even breath, neither of them able to sleep, he decides to make a last-ditch attempt at talking. "Dean?"
Sam expected him to go on pretending, feign sleep, but Dean doesn't bother. The reply comes immediately. "Yeah."
"We need to talk about this. I can't keep doing it if we don't."
Dean huffs. "So we're gonna, if I agree to talk it out? Keep doing it, that is?"
" I don't know. Depends on what you say, I guess?"
The sheets rustle as Dean sits up. "Fine. You first."
"Okay, uh." Sam has to recollect his thoughts, because he didn't quite plan ahead that much. "Is hell the only reason we're still fucking? If we'd gotten you out beforehand, would we have stopped?"
Dean doesn't even take time to think, answers immediately. "No. I can't keep my hands off you any more than you can keep yours off me. Couldn't have just gone back as if nothing happened, either way."
It's not enough to soothe that tiny, desperate voice inside of Sam's head that won't stop screaming at him, accuses him of taking advantage of his brother and what he's been through. He needs more, an affirmation that there's mutual attraction involved. "So, you. You want me?"
"Jesus, Sam," Dean presses out, and Sam can picture the expression to go with it; the set of his jaw and the cornered look in his eyes.
"Please, I -"
"Yeah. Yes, I do."
Sam's well aware he's pushing his luck, but there's one more thing he needs get out while he's got the chance. "The pain, Dean. You had so much of it, down there, you suffered for so long, is it... Dunno, lingering effects? Are we re-creating something?"
"You mean, like I miss being hurt? No."
"Then what is it? Punishment?"
There's no answer to that from the other side of the room, but that's okay, Sam didn't really expect one. He knew he'll have to rely on guesswork, here, to fill in the blanks.
The pause that follows is so long that Sam thinks Dean might've fallen asleep after all, but then Dean clears his throat. "So, what's the verdict? Am I too messed up to fuck?"
"Maybe we both are." It's meant to be kind of a bitter joke, ease out some of the tension, but it falls flat. "Doesn't mean we're gonna stop."
***
Sam didn't know what he's been hoping for, but the fact that nothing much changes leaves him disappointed. It makes sense, though: a few whispered admissions don't hold much weight against the patterns they've established over the course of a year and a half. An awkward little heart-to-heart can't erase the mistrust and wariness Dean spent months cultivating.
The only real effect is that it took the desperate edge off their not-so-brotherly nighttime activities, now that they both admitted to wanting it, and Dean doesn't bring up being hurt for a couple of weeks. But sex doesn't change anything on its own, they're still in the midst of an apocalypse and got archangels on their asses. They’re still both pawns that both heaven and hell try to make a grab for.
Then Blue Earth and the Whore happen. Dean makes a run for it, and Sam wonders if he's ever been able to read his brother right at all. He's too busy worrying and searching during the time it takes him to find Dean to think about anything else, but it hits him like punch to the gut while Cas is out locating Dean after his escape from the panic room.
Somehow, Dean arrived at the point where he'd rather bend over for the angels than keep up the fight, and Sam didn't notice it until it was too late. His brother's reeling, has been for a long time, it's not that Sam wasn't aware of it but whenever Dean actually did ask for Sam's help, Sam turned him down. One way or another.
Not anymore. There are a lot of things that lie in the past now, that he can't change, but he'll keep him from sacrificing himself again. And he'll do whatever's necessary for Dean to cope afterwards.
He will get him back; they're going to fix this.
***
Give what you want to receive is such a lame, overused saying, but for them, it works. Sam's a little astounded by that fact, can't quite believe the one-eighty Dean does after they made it out of the Green Room.
"If you're grown-up enough to find faith in me, the least I can do is return the favor," he'd said, and it's not an empty phrase. Sam can see it in the way Dean looks at him, talks to him, puts a real effort into meeting him at eye-level.
For a day or two, they follow leads and research theories with renewed vigor, and there's no room to think about what all this means for them. The part of them that has Sam fuck his brother raw at night, to be exact.
And yeah, there's still that. This thing they can't defy, that they both need but that's yet to be defined, and Sam has no idea how he's supposed to approach the matter again. All he knows is that he wants more, always more, isn't content with the quick, rough fucks that let them cling to a last fine thread of plausible deniability come morning.
Turns out, he doesn't have to approach it at all. Dean does it for him.
The night of the second day, Dean lifts the covers of his bed when Sam steps out of the shower, smiles awkwardly as he holds them up, and sighs when Sam's eyebrows shoot up to meet his hairline.
"Man, hey, don't make me spell it out. C'mere," he says and pats the mattress.
Sam's frozen to the spot for a moment or two before he's able to shake his surprise and practically dives into bed. It makes Dean chuckle, mumble something along the lines of "Now you're embarrassing yourself", and that sound is what drives the point home that this is new, that it's something else, different to what they've been doing so far. He says Dean's name, but before he can ruin the moment with a sappy declaration of the true depth of the feelings that are swirling in his chest, Dean pulls him in for a kiss and Sam climbs all the way under the sheets, wraps his body around Dean's without ever breaking away.
For a little while, they do nothing else, just kiss deep and slow and lazy until they're dizzy with it, bodies pressed together, both of them constantly inching closer still, and breathtaking isn't good enough a word for it. Sam feels like they're catching up with almost two years of withheld emotion and he'd be perfectly content if he'd be allowed to live in this exact moment forever. He's so lost in it that he doesn't notice the way Dean's been angling their bodies against each other until their cocks are aligned between them and Dean snakes a hand down to wrap it about both of them, starts to jack them slowly.
The sensation that rolls up his spine like a shock wave is a pretty eloquent way to point out that no, kissing isn't going to be the main attraction tonight.
Dean catches Sam's bottom lip between his teeth and then, finally, breaks the kiss. "Havin' a good time, there?"
And all of the sudden, Dean's expression changes, and his hands stills. Sam's stomach turns with fear that Dean might've changed his mind, that he'll jump right off the bed as if it caught fire, but when he forces himself to chance a closer look he realizes that Dean's not having second thoughts. There's no panic mirrored in his features, it's nervousness, and Sam's got an idea where that's coming from. He leans back in for another lingering kiss, meant to buy himself time to come up with a plan as much as to soothe Dean's nerves, and then he rolls out of bed.
He smiles at Dean, reassurance that Sam didn't change his mind either, before he crosses the room to dig through their duffels, no real clue what he's looking for until he finds it: the handcuffs they both used to learn how to pick them and that Dean hang on to all these years. Improvising the rest is easy from there, and Sam returns to the bed with the cuffs, lube, and one of the candles they keep at hand for rituals hidden behind his back.
Candle and lube get stashed under the bed, within reach but out of sight, but he dangles the cuffs right in front of Dean's face. Dean's eyes widen, and Sam holds his breath involuntarily, afraid he might laugh or shut down or make a run for it, but none of that happens. Instead, there's a gasp, a blink, and Sam knows he's on the right track.
"On your back," he orders, and to his amazement Dean complies immediately.
Once in position, Dean stares at him expectantly, and it takes Sam a moment to wrap his head around the fact that he's waiting for further commands. And yeah, Sam can do that.
"Slide down a little, and grab the headboard with both hands." Dean positions himself as he's told, and Sam closes the cuffs around his wrists. "Keep them there. I don't want you to let go. If you do, I'll stop."
"Stop -" Dean's voice breaks, hoarse and thin with arousal and anticipation, and Sam takes that as his cue to take his brother in. He's lying above the covers now, his position highlighting the muscles in his arms and upper body. His legs are bent a little because he's far enough down on the bed that he can't stretch out, and between his legs his hard cock strains up, bobs a little as he writhes under Sam's scrutiny as if to escape the blatant gaze. He blinks again, clears his throat. "Stop what, Sam?"
"You'll see." Sam's not going to rush this; if he screws up, he might not get another chance. Tonight's a turning point, marked from the moment Dean invited him under the covers. It's important, and Sam knows that if this goes south, he'll loose more than just the opportunity to try something new and make it good.
He climbs on top of Dean, leans in to mouth at his jaw, down his neck, licks across a nipple until it's hard and peaked and bites down on it, gently. But it's enough to make Dean's breathing hitch, and Sam grins into his skin; it's his turn to tease. "Enjoying yourself so far?"
Dean answers by writhing some more and screwing his eyes shut, and Sam's not sure whether it's to hide from this, from what he feels, or to increase the sensation by not seeing what'll happen next.
"Keep still, no squirming," Sam commands, and the fact that Dean presses his back into the mattress, balls his hands into fists in the cuffs and goes stock-still without a moment's hesitation has him suppress a moan.
He takes his time, licks and nibbles at parts of Dean's body he never had the chance to explore before; his collarbone, his thighs and the spot where they join his hips or the wide, smooth plane of his stomach.
Dean's breath comes labored after a while, he keeps biting his already kiss-swollen lips until they assume an even deeper, darker pink color, and Sam finally takes pity on him after a stretch of a few minutes during which he doesn't touch him at all.
When he wraps his hand around Dean's cock and start to stroke, Dean bucks his hips to fuck into Sam's fist, and Sam takes it away again. "Didn't I tell you not squirm?"
"Sam," says Dean, barely above a whisper and Sam doesn't know if it's protest or encouragement or plea, doesn't really care. He gives Dean's cock another tug before he moves his hand deeper, rolls Dean's balls in his palm briefly and moves on to push at his hole, dips only the fingertip in before he withdraws and reaches for the lube.
Sam could swear the noise Dean makes when he feels the cool liquid on the heated skin of his ass is disappointment, but he doesn't say anything.
He preps Dean slowly and extensively, fucks his fingers in deep, scissors them until Dean moans and gasps, and when he finally stops and sits back on his haunches Dean's leaking steadily.
Dean whimpers at the loss, rolls his hips as a prompt for Sam to get going again, and when Sam leans forward instead to touch his cheek, his eyes fly open in confusion. His bewilderment grows as Sam reaches forward to fish the candle from under the bed and dig for a lighter, and Sam makes sure to have his full attention when he produces both and holds them up for Dean to see. "You want me to hurt you when we fuck? Fine. But I'm not going to punish you for hell, or for the souls, or whatever it is you feel you need to be hurt to make up for."
Comprehension settles in, and Dean's eyes dart from Sam's face to the candle and the lighter and back up. Sam searches his face for doubt, for fear, anything that would mean he's not on board with this, but what he sees there is almost something like anticipation.
"I'm going to punish you for shit like what you pulled the last few days. For endangering yourself. For putting your life on the line. For... for making me fear I might loose you again. Make of that what you want to, but that's the way this is going to be." He lights the candle, and Dean throws his head back and groans once, so deep and low the sound makes Sam's own neglected cock twitch. "Because those other things? You're not responsible for that. They made you. It wasn't your fault. "
On the last word, Sam dips the candle so that the wax that pooled so far spills over, onto Dean's chest, and Dean arches up. Sam does it a few more times, mumbles shushing nonsense each time that he's sure Dean's too far gone to process, and blows out the candle when he sees that the first spots of wax are already hard.
Alternating between scraping away the wax and jerking Dean's cock fast and hard, he removes all the drops from Dean's stomach and chest and then he lines himself up so that the head of his own cock nudges at Dean's hole. "Dean? Hey, hey, you with me?"
Sam waits until Dean's eyes flutter open before he pushes in, slowly and in one long thrust. He holds it there for a moment before fucks out and back in at the same time as he scratches his nails down the red, sensitized skin where the wax had been, and Dean comes on a yelp, his whole body coiled up with his release.
The muscle contractions that go with Dean's orgasm make Sam follow after a few more thrusts, and he lets himself fall onto the bed by his brother's side. Dean looks at him, half-lidded, there's a sheen of sweat on his forehead, his eyes glisten, and he doesn't quite smile. He looks dazed and spent, debauched, and there's so much Sam wants to say but none of it seems to be enough.
***
Dean falls asleep with his head on Sam's chest, and Sam doesn't dare to fall asleep and miss any second of this, still afraid it won't happen again. He lies awake, cards his fingers through Dean's short hair absentmindedly.
This isn't going to fix them. It isn't even going to fix Dean, although Sam hopes it'll at least help him breath easier for a little while. But maybe it'll help them focus on what - and who - they're fighting for.
The only thing either of them will ever say yes to is the other.