Contagious (SPN, Wincest, 7000 words, E)

[themegalosaurus]

Title: Contagious
Fandom: SPN
Pairing: Wincest
Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester
Warnings: consent issues inherent to sex pollen (but I've made it as un-dub-conny as possible)
Wordcount: c.7000
AO3 link

Summary: 'Nobody ever died of a boner, Dean’s pretty sure, whatever his teenaged self might have said to the girls back in high school when he was trying to get under their skirts. Or. Did anybody ever die of a boner? That would be just like Sam, to die of terminal sexual frustration and not to let Dean do anything about it until it was already too late.'

Author's note: I asked for 'fanfic cliche' prompts and got 'sex pollen'; so I decided to go all out and make it a cursed-object-in-the-Bunker fic too. This is pretty much unadulterated PWP.



The thing about the bunker is that it’s easy to be alone. There are all these rooms and echoing corridors; warrens of archives, corners upon crannies upon nooks. Before this, the two of them have rarely shared a space bigger than a two-room cabin, the kind of place that Dad might find for a long summer's stay; more frequently, they've been limited to motel-room walls or the still tighter confines of the Impala. When they're together (like they have been for most of their lives), they're usually really together. Dean's used to knowing every intimate detail of Sam's day: how long he’s slept and between what hours; what he’s eaten at every meal; which of his limbs is injured or achy; when he last jerked off. This new arrangement, where they're nominally 'living together' but where hours can pass without a face-to-face encounter, makes him uneasy. It's like a constant scratch at the back of his neck. He's always fighting the urge to hop to his feet and go check on Sam.

On the plus side, he's pretty sure that the problem's a shared one. More than once in the first few weeks after they move in, he looks up from his magazine or his gun to see Sam's pale face disappearing around the corner of the door.

"Alright, Sammy?" he'll call out, and Sam'll slink in, all casual and unconvincing, pretending like he just dropped by and was planning to say hi all along. Dean knows how it goes; he's done the same, been caught out by Sam just as frequently but they both pretend the thing's not happening. They're grown men. They should be able to get through the morning without constantly checking in.

It takes a good couple of months for things to change but eventually, Dean manages to get a handle on himself. He can go a good few hours, now, without thinking about Sam at all; can get lost in whatever task he’s set himself and only worry about his brother when he’s drawn out of it by hunger or something like. It helps that Sam’s own occupations are so predictable. He’s been going through the storage rooms downstairs, pulling things out of boxes and cataloguing them on some fancy database that he’s devised. As far as Dean understands it, there’s a lot of shit that doesn’t seem to come with too much information attached; Sam has spent several mealtimes sounding off about the pointlessness of an archive system that doesn’t tell you what it’s storing. Which, sure. That makes sense. But what’s mostly important to Dean is that whenever he needs to find his brother, he can just pad downstairs and along the corridor and Sam will be somewhere in one of those rooms, long back hunched over and his hair all dusty and probably grumbling under his breath about hunters more interested in blood sports than bibliography.

Or something. Dean only half-listens to those rants. He gets distracted, sometimes, by Sam’s long fingers as his brother gestures to illustrate his point. They’re very good fingers. Very… long. And flexible. Kind of like Sam himself, which Dean thinks is important because of operational, hunting reasons. You never know when the pair of them might have to investigate monsters in long, winding buildings. Or tunnels. And so it’s good to know about Sam’s long flexible everything because he could come in very useful in that kind of scenario. Like a mongoose. (Like a mongoose who is seriously built since he ate all that organic food the year Dean was away. Sam got thin while he had the Devil in his head and by the time he was in that godforsaken hospital he was down to skin and bone. Now, he looks a lot more solid again. In a pleasing, flexible way.) (Dean hasn’t explained this stuff to Sam. He figures it’s just like the checking up on each other thing. Sam’s probably reassured by Dean’s physicality as well. Right? That’s just… you need to consider these things about the guy you hunt with. Stands to reason. It’s like keeping an eye on your guns.)

This afternoon, anyway, this afternoon that we’re talking about, Dean’s been in the kitchen. He found an industrial-sized mixer in one of the big steel cabinets and it had something attached to it that the internet tells him is a dough hook, and so he’s been experimenting with a bunch of recipes for bread. It’s more difficult than it looks. It takes a good few attempts before the stuff rises properly and by the time Dean's contemplating a warm, sweet-smelling loaf, it's a good six hours since he last saw his brother - a casual encounter by the coffee machine around 11am. Six hours, and Dean would lay money that Sam hasn't eaten in the interim. He's terrible that way. He'd probably sleep in the goddamn archives if Dean didn't drop by every evening to bully him out into the open again.

In any case, the just-baked bread presents the perfect opportunity to go see what Sammy's up to. Dean cuts two generous slices, adds a round pat of butter, some tomatoes and lettuce (Sam loves that shit), a slice of beef left over from the joint Dean roasted at the weekend, and a couple of beers, which he snags in his free hand. Nice. Humming to himself, he heads downstairs to join his brother.

Thing is. Thing is. Sam isn't where he should be. Dean throws open a door or two along the corridor and shouts his name. There's nothing. Tumbleweed. Nada. Well, that's fine at first. Sam gets lost in his thoughts sometimes. He's a big boy. He's fine. But by the time Dean's made the rounds of the six archive rooms, bellowing for Sam at an increasingly embarrassing pitch, and there’s still no sign of Sasquatch, he's pretty fucking freaked. What the. Trust Sam fucking Winchester to get abducted from a fucking archive. Trust him to get into some kind of deadly trouble and Dean isn't panicking, he isn't, but it's certainly true that he takes the steps back up and along the hallway to Sam's bedroom pretty goddamn speedy; and when he finds the bedroom locked, his heart about leaps into his mouth.

"SAMMY!" he yells and slams the door with his open palm.

There's silence, just a beat too much of it, and Dean's already at the lock when he hears Sam's voice. It's thready, unnatural, strained; but it's definitely Sam, and Dean's initial reaction is a vast, disabling gratitude that has him clinging to the door handle for support.

"Go away, Dean," Sam says.

"What the hell?" says Dean, spiralling rapidly from relief into belligerent outrage.

"Please," Sam says, still in that same raw tone. "You… please just leave me alone."

Thirty-odd years of acquaintance and Sam obviously doesn’t know Dean all that well, if he thinks he can just send him away like that on command; particularly when it’s clearly apparent from Sam’s voice that he’s in - and of course, Dean can recognise it now - in pain. Jesus, Sam. What the fuck has he found in this Bunker full of dangerous supernatural objects to incapacitate himself with now? And more importantly, why the fuck won’t he let Dean help him?

“Come on, Princess,” Dean says into the door. “What is it? Grow some whiskers and a tail or something? I won’t laugh at you. Much.” Keep it light, keep it light and maybe Sam will calm down because at the moment there’s a real edge of panic in his tone. Dean rattles at the handle again. “You hurt?”

“I’m fine.” Sam’s voice is thick now, saturated. “Please, Dean."

“Yeah?” says Dean. “So how about you come out?”

There’s conspicuous silence from the other side of the door.

Dean thinks about it. “OK,” he says, “I’m going;” and he does, clomping loudly up to the war room where he grabs his lock-picking tools. He comes back in bare feet and puts his ear to the door, straining to hear anything through the Men of Letters’ thick old oak.

Sam must have fallen for the trick with the boots, because eventually, he makes a noise: a soft whimper that sets Dean’s nerves juddering. Sam doesn’t whimper. He suffers in silence. Which means that whatever’s happening in there really can’t be pretty.

"Fuck it," says Dean to himself, and picks the lock. It doesn't take too long, even with the tremor in his hands, the pressure thrumming at his temples: get Sam out, get Sam out. When he’s done, “I’m coming in,” he says, shortly, and shoulders open the door. There’s a cry from the centre of the room, a sudden scramble of movement, and Dean stands in the doorway, stunned.

Sam's naked. He's kneeling on the bed, his left arm handcuffed to the frame. His body is hunched over defensively and he's scrabbling with his right hand to try and pull the sheets up over himself but it's not really working: his ass, neat and tight and white, presents itself to Dean's view.

"Sam?" asks Dean, moving towards him, and Sam crowds away; hitching his knees up under his torso, curling protectively over his cuffed wrist. Dean takes a step closer, two steps. Sam's ass might be white but his back is caramel tan, long and broad and muscular. It's glistening with sweat. The beads of moisture catch the light, shimmering with Sam's movement: he's shivering, rigid with tension. It makes Dean's throat hurt to see him like this, gritted and silent and cringing inexplicably away. "Sam," he says, and reaches out his hand.

Sam’s not even looking, so Dean’s not sure how he anticipates the touch; but he does, flinches backward gunshot fast and kind of unrolls himself across the bed. The movement takes him away from Dean’s reaching fingers but it also exposes his naked body: all of it, the wide chest and the muscular thighs and the deep-cut hipbones and oh, yeah, the dark red thickness of Sam’s hard cock, bobbing needily against his abs. Shit, thinks Dean, and feels his stomach flip over.

“Sam?” he says, again, uncertain now. “Is this… what?”

Sam’s arm is flung up over his face, covering his eyes as though it will prevent Dean from seeing him. “It’s a curse,” he says, half-stifled, into the soft inside of his elbow.

“I don’t know, Sammy,” Dean says, almost on instinct, trying desperately to keep it together while all of the careful self-containment he’s been practising begins to fall apart. “I guess it’s pretty big but a lot of guys would call that thing a gift.”

Sam drops his arm and glares, blotchy-faced and furious. “I’m glad you can laugh about this.”

“Sorry,” Dean says. “Do you… do you want me to put a sheet over you, or something, dude?” It can’t be comfortable for Sam, exposed as he is. And Dean would be able to think a hell of a lot clearer without all that tightly clenched muscle on show.

“No,” says Sam forcefully. “Don’t touch me. I think… I’m pretty sure that I’m contagious. And anyway…” he clears his throat. “It’s not… it’s too much. On my skin. On… it kind of hurts. That’s why…” and he gestures with his hand down towards his naked body, his crotch.

“OK,” says Dean. “Got it. OK.” Christ. He forces his eyes away, catches on the metal of the handcuff around Sam’s wrist. “What about the cuff?”

Sam takes a long, shaky, steadying breath. “I didn’t want to do something I’d regret,” he says eventually. Dean’s watching his face and he’s not kidding. Dean knows Sam and he knows when he’s on the edge of really fucking freaking out. It’s enough to drive away the last nervous remnants of his laughter.

“It’s OK, Sammy,” he says slowly. “It will be OK. We can fix this. Just tell me what happened.”

“I was in the archives,” Sam says, “going through a bunch of boxes. And one of them had this… statue in it, this little stone statue. And I picked it up. Which was really fucking stupid and I should have known better but I picked it up and as soon as I did I just. Um. I knew straight away what. I mean. It hits you pretty quickly. And so. I couldn’t - I didn’t want - I didn’t want you to have to deal with this, you know? I came up here and I thought maybe I could just ride it out on my own.”

And of course Sam did, because he’s always too proud or too goddamn stupid to ask for Dean’s help when he needs it. “How long ago was that?” Dean asks.

“I don’t know,” Sam says. “I don’t know what time it is now. I think maybe. Maybe two or three hours ago? It feels like quite a long time.” His voice cracks a little on the last sentence and Dean tries to control his face as he thinks about Sam, up here for the past three hours, agonised with arousal, chained to the bed.

“Three hours,” he says.

“Yes,” says Sam. “And I thought I could deal with it but. I guess I’m not as strong as I thought,” and he laughs, strained and a little bitter, absolutely fucking typical Sam. Then his demeanour shifts and he looks up at Dean. “Actually, now you’re here,” he says, “Maybe you can do something for me.”

“Anything,” Dean says, and means it, probably more completely than he should.

“Can you try and get Cas?” Sam says. “I’ve been doing my best to pray to him but it’s just… it’s difficult. I can’t concentrate on anything, except. Um. I really don’t want to know what kind of messages he’s been getting, if he’s been getting any at all.”

Dean carefully does not show his disappointment. Instead, “You want me to get Cas to deal with your, uh, with the world’s greatest boner?” he asks. “Anything you wanna tell me about the two of you, Sam?” He’s kidding but he’s also not, not a hundred percent. An unexpected, nasty film of jealousy settles over his internal organs at the thought. And. It’s not surprising, right? Cas is his best friend. Sam is his… Sam. The two of them, getting together, would leave Dean somewhere pretty isolated; and if there’s one thing Dean can’t handle very well, it’s being alone.

Luckily, it seems like he’s got the wrong end of the stick with this one. Sam is looking at him now with a withering contempt that’s only mildly undermined by his complete, dazzling nakedness and that really fucking distracting dick.

“No, you clown,” Sam says. “I’m not hooking up with Cas. In fact I’m pretty sure the guy’s asexual. Which might come in handy around a contagious sex curse, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yeah,” Dean says. “OK, yeah.” When Sam’s angry his chest does this heaving movement, the same thing that happens when he’s out of breath or just after a kill.

“Now, Dean?” Sam says, and Dean realises with a jolt that he’s been staring. Shit.

“Maybe this stuff is contagious,” he says. “I’m starting to feel a little funky myself.”

Something inexplicable crosses Sam’s face, his features twisting quickly in a way that Dean can’t quite read. “Contagious by touch, Dean,” he says. “A little funky is nothing. Trust me. If it had got into you, you’d know.”

“Sorry,” Dean says, and he manages to tug his eyes away from Sam’s torso; although that only sends them travelling down the length of his legs, and seriously, Sam must be mistaken because Dean’s pretty sure that he doesn’t usually look at his brother like that. (That’s a lie. Dean’s been looking at his brother exactly like that for some time now. It’s just harder to deny when Sam’s spread-eagled and sweating on the bed in front of him.) Dean squeezes his eyelids shut, shakes his head like it’ll tip the thoughts out of his ears. He retreats around the end of the bed and sits down at the foot of it, as far from Sam as he can get.

“Hey, Cas,” he prays. “I, um, I don’t know what kind of X-rated stuff you’ve been getting from Sam but he’s in some trouble here, dude, and he thinks you can help him. We’d appreciate the hand.”

“Oh god,” Sam says behind him, choked.

“What?” Dean says, twisting around, distracted.

“Nothing,” Sam says into the pillow. “Just… hands.”

“Fucking hell, Sammy,” Dean says. Sam doesn’t reply.

He’s not sure if Cas has been put off by the smut Sam’s been broadcasting, or if it’s just the regular, unpredictable angel business keeping him away, but in any case they sit there for a good ten minutes and the dude doesn’t show. Behind him, he can feel Sam shifting on the bed, small movements like maybe he just can’t get comfortable, but Dean doesn’t want to look and at the same time he can’t help imagining what it is that Sam’s doing. Images proliferate in his mind: Sam scudding those long fingers over his nipples, gliding them down over his stomach towards… yeah. Which, actually, raises a pretty good point.

Looking studiously in the direction of Sam’s desk, “Do you… can’t you take care of it by yourself?” Dean asks.

Sam’s silent for a little while and when he speaks it’s muffled. “Doesn’t get me anywhere,” he says. “Won’t.”

Dean resolutely Does Not Think About how Sam managed to work that one out. But then Sam shifts again, makes a tiny half-formed sound, and the effort of the not-thinking starts to become so oppressive that Dean’s not sure he’s quite breathing properly. Maybe. Maybe he should give the both of them a break.

He puts his hands on his knees and stands, half-turns towards his brother. “I’ll, um. I’ll give you some privacy for a little while,” he says, hurriedly. “Maybe Cas will arrive. Or maybe it’ll wear off. Like you said. I don’t - I’ll come by again in half an hour or something.” He’s starting to feel guilty now, but then he felt guilty a second ago fucking fantasising about Sam jerking off. So. It’s a no-win situation. “Just holler if you need me, OK?”

“Mmmph,” says Sam. Dean risks a glance. Sam’s whole face is turned into the pillow, now, tucked uncomfortably under his arm where his wrist is still chained tightly against the post of the bed. His body’s twisted around in consequence, the muscles of his shoulders and thighs tense and stark where he’s lying on his side and his cock still hard and prominent and red against the white cotton sheets. OK. Yes. Yes. Dean definitely needs to leave.

“See you in a half hour, Sam,” he says, and escapes.

Shutting the door behind him, he leans for a second against the wall beside, trying to order his thoughts. The archives. Should he look in the archives? Maybe he could find something. Although actually Sam seemed weirdly knowledgeable about kinky inflammatory sex curses. Dean files that away. Something to tease his brother about once everything’s back to normal. Which it will be. Soon. Sam’s gonna be fine. Nobody ever died of a boner, Dean’s pretty sure, whatever his teenaged self might have said to the girls back in high school when he was trying to get under their skirts. Or. Did anybody ever die of a boner? That would be just like Sam, to die of terminal sexual frustration and not to let Dean do anything about it until it was already too late.

Considering this reminds Dean that his own situation is starting to demand a little attention; and although he definitely sets off down the corridor with the intent of some honest-to-goodness research, his footsteps somehow manage to turn off along the way and he finds himself, ultimately, in his own bedroom instead. The room’s different to Sam’s; cosier, a little smaller perhaps. But they’re essentially the same and when Dean looks at the bed it’s difficult not to see his brother, over on the far side of the bunker, sweating into his tangled sheets. Fuck. If he could just. If Sam would just let him touch him, Dean knows he could make him feel good.

Well, if he can’t touch Sam, he can at least touch himself; and he unzips his jeans, shuffles them down around his knees and sits, settling himself at the head of his bed. His state might be nothing to Sam’s (three hours, he thinks again, incredulous) but his dick’s definitely been interested by the afternoon’s proceedings and it only takes a couple of hard passes of his palm before it’s fattening satisfactorily under his hand.

He goes, then, to take himself out of his boxers; to tuck the elastic under his balls and really get to work. But as he slides his hand into his underpants, he starts to worry. It feels a little unfair, somehow, Dean lying in his bed and rubbing one out (let’s be real, rubbing one out to the image of Sam) when Sam’s stranded rooms away with a hard-on that just won’t quit. It’s. It’s not really very supportive. It’s like, what, chowing down on a burger when a guy’s starving to death right next to you. It goes against every instinct Dean has; well, almost every instinct. There’s obviously one quite powerful urge pressing him to continue. But the finer points of his manners, the stuff that he tries to live by… get your partner off first, right? That’s one. Don’t just come when she hasn’t got hers yet. And also (in unlikely juxtaposition): look out for Sammy. This ain’t that.

Dean groans and digs the heels of his hands hard into his face. Great. Fucking guilt complex ruining everything. Fucking statue. Fucking curse.

He thinks his dick into submission with an effort of will, only half-effectively really but enough that he can swing back around and pull his jeans back up his legs and start to move back towards Sam’s bedroom in at least a semi-functional fashion. Luckily, Sam’s probably distracted enough by his own problem that he won’t be looking too closely at Dean. Fingers crossed.

Back at Sam’s bedroom door, he’s instantly glad that he made this call; that he didn’t leave it the full half-hour. Things are obviously getting worse. Sam’s moaning again from inside the room, a series of breathy, pained little sounds that catch disquietingly both at Dean’s protective instincts and his desire. Steeling himself, he pushes open the door.

Sam’s spread out across the bed, again, no longer curled into the pillow but exposed to the air, a flush covering his body from his forehead to the base of his chest. He’s… well, the word is writhing, really, although as soon as he hears Dean enter the room, he stops. His eyes crack open and he lifts his neck to peer over at Dean, his eyebrows tilting desperately - hopefully. “Is Cas here?” he asks.

Oh. “No,” Dean says. “Sorry, man.”

Sam closes his eyes, lets his head fall backward on the pillow. Dean moves forward; takes up his position at the foot of Sam’s bed, his eyes toward the corner. “We need to do something,” he says. “You can’t just… this is getting ridiculous, Sammy.”

“I know,” Sam says. “I know. I can’t… Yeah.” He’s silent for a moment, and Dean can hear him breathing. Eventually, “Maybe you can find somebody else,” he says. “I need... I think it just needs somebody else. To, um. To… you know. To break the curse.”

“Right,” says Dean. He tries to review the possibilities: everybody they know, anybody they could call on who Sam wouldn’t find it utterly humiliating to be in front of in this state. The list is pretty empty. And there’s no fucking way he’s calling up that Amelia chick, not even if she were much nearer than Texas.

“I could call you a hooker?” he says. He’s not very sure what Lebanon has to offer in the way of sex workers. He’s not confident that there’s gonna be too much out there. “It might take a little while.”

Sam doesn't say anything to that: just exhales, shuddery and long. Dean risks glancing over, and immediately wishes he hadn't. Sam still has an arm thrown over his eyes. But he's moving now, circling his crotch, thrusting upward just a little into the empty air. It's gotta be inadvertent. He's half out of it by now, almost lost to Dean in this fog of... pain, or desire, or frustration, whatever it is. But fuck, the movement is hypnotic. Dean shouldn't look. He shouldn't. It's voyeuristic, especially when Sam isn't looking at him. Jesus, though, the slow, rhythmic shift of Sam's beautiful body. It has him almost cross-eyed with lust.

"Sam," he says, croaky, shifting forward on the bed.

Sam freezes, quite still. A long moment passes before he moves his arm, and looks Dean in the eye. His bottom lip is bleeding, bitten through.

“You need to stick with me, OK?” Dean says. “I need you with me so we can work out what to do.”

"Okay," Sam says; and nods, and furrows his brow. Then he opens his mouth and proceeds to surprise Dean in a way that Dean would have said was impossible, thirty seconds before. "OK, here’s something. There's a guy works on the checkouts at the grocery store in town. Call him."

Dean's almost laughing before he sees that Sam is serious. "What are you talking about?" he says.

"He gave me his number two weeks ago," Sam says. "It's on a receipt in the top drawer of my desk."

Dean doesn't move. He's trying to process the shock of this sudden revelation. It's unexpectedly hard to swallow. "You hook up with this guy?" he asks.

"No," Sam says, and then, "Not exactly. Would you just hurry up and call him, Dean?"

Dean has been pretty good up until this point, he thinks; especially in light of the enormous, crippling crush that he's apparently been nursing for the past... well, maybe forever, if he starts to think about it. He's respected Sam's boundaries, more or less. He hasn't touched him. He hasn't taken any embarrassing photos. He even offered to cover him up. But this latest development is just too much. The idea of it, of Sam with some anonymous dude - the idea that some man might just walk into the bunker and push Dean out of this room and shut the door - has him on the edge of hyperventilation.

“I’ll do it,” he says.

Sam drops his arm, now, drops it completely and clings with his fingers into the mattress and the sheets. He shifts backwards, up against the pillows and looks at Dean over his open knees.

“No, Dean,” he says. His voice is whispery, dry.

“Come on, man,” Dean says, and tries to smile. “Say I called up this guy. What am I gonna say to him? ‘Oh hey dude, I’m the brother of the guy that you blew in the stockroom last week.’”

“Um,” says Sam, a bitten-off contradictory noise and oh, right, apparently Dean got that one wrong. He’s momentarily blinded by the vision of Sam, on his knees amongst the cardboard boxes, looking up through his lashes at this fucking grocery clerk as he swallows him down. Jesus fuck. He closes his eyes, moistens his lips; tries to regain control.

“‘The brother of... that guy,’” he says. “‘Anyway, funny story, we hunt monsters and turns out something supernatural in our underground bunker home has infected him with a sex curse so you need to come over and take care of it right now.’”

“Hnnnngh,” Sam says, spreading his legs. His bare foot is only inches away from Dean’s fingers, now. Dean curls his hand carefully into a fist.

“Somehow I don’t think that’s gonna fly,” Dean says. “Show him in here and he’ll think we’re about to murder him.” It’s not inconceivable. Question is whether the guy would care. Seeing Sam like this, Dean’s pretty sure you’d have to be superhuman to resist him. Some dude who grew up out here in the middle of nowhere? Sam’s got to have blown his mind. Dean’s banged men and women across the continental United States and his brain is leaking out of his ears right now. Still. No need to muddy the waters. Might be that the guy would say no. “You understand me, Sam?” he says.

Sam nods, just a little bit. His whole face is screwed up tight, his fingers white with the pressure where they’re dug into the bed.

“Come on, dude,” Dean says. “Let me help you with this.”

“I can’t,” Sam says. His voice is still faint, almost no more than a breath. All of his effort is going into holding still. Dean can see it, see the tension thrumming through him. “You can’t. It’s too much.”

“It’s nothing, Sam,” and Dean is lying through his teeth but fuck it, he can pretend it’s nothing afterward, he can. He just. He just needs to have this, just once, but even he’s not lizard enough to do it unless Sam gives the OK. “Please. Let me,” he says. And then, because he’s a piece of shit, “Just let me touch you.”

Sam groans, long and low and deep, and shudders, completely, real slow. The movement ripples through him. Dean’s whole stomach is up at the back of his throat. Then Sam opens his eyes; opens them properly and looks at him. Dean looks back. Sam's cheeks are pink and his hair is tousled and his pupils are enormous and dark. A red bead of blood sits bright on his lower lip.

"Please," Dean says, undignified, almost gasping.

“OK,” Sam says, at last. “If you’re sure. OK.”

“Christ,” Dean says. “Yes, Sam, I'm sure."

Holding his breath, he twists forward and slides his hand over the top of Sam’s foot, notching the ankle in the V between his thumb and forefinger, curling his fingers around the bony back of Sam’s heel.

Turns out, Sam wasn't wrong about the contagiousness of this stuff, this curse, whatever it is. As soon as Dean's fingers settle onto Sam’s skin, he feels it; a shock that runs instantaneous through his body, setting hot needles dancing over his flesh. The impact leaves him gasping. Everything in the room narrows down to Sam. He’s the only thing Dean can see or hear or smell. Christ alive. If Sam’s been grappling this for the past three hours then his brother’s willpower is more terrifying than Dean’s ever imagined. It’s too much. It’s everything. It’s been maybe ten seconds and Dean’s already half-sure he’s going to die if he can’t get Sam, any part of Sam, in his mouth right now.

He leans over blindly, scrambling forward onto the bed, and presses his lips against Sam’s leg just above the knee; mouths at it, nips with his teeth. Sam makes an inarticulate noise, drops his legs until they’re splayed wide open. Dean presses himself down into the mattress and trails his mouth up the inside of Sam’s thigh, running his tongue over the long hairs, sucking and biting desperate and greedy at his brother’s flesh. Sam tastes salty, mostly, but just the sensation of him against the sensitive skin of Dean’s mouth is fantastic, enough to send warm waves of pleasure coasting down Dean’s spine.

He's so lost in it, the feeling of his face up against Sam’s body, that he almost doesn't feel when Sam's free hand fumbles downward, tugging at the collar of his shirt.

“Your clothes, Dean,” Sam says. "Please."

Yes. Fuck, yes. His clothes. Dean's pretty far gone, but not so far that he can't see the advantage of a lot more skin on skin. It's an effort, though, to take his mouth off Sam; and when he finally does, his brother gives a disappointed gasp that makes Dean almost queasy with desire. Cursing, he wrestles shirt and t-shirt over his head together, careless as the stitching tears. Jeans. He fumbles at the button, the metal digging painfully into the soft flesh under his fingernail, before he finally manages to wriggle them, with his underwear, down his legs and away. The denim scrapes over his skin like a network of electric wires, almost entirely painful but with a bright violet bolt of pleasure shot through.

Then, finally, he's naked, and there’s nothing to get between them. He puts his hands on Sam’s shins, on the back of his thighs. Sam’s body is trembling, piano-wire taut, and Dean’s keyed into the same fever pitch. Leaning forward, he crawls up the mattress on his elbows and buries his nose into the crease of his brother's groin, shuddering hot at the prickle of close-cropped hair against his cheek. He licks out with his tongue; not aiming for anywhere, really, just trying to cram his senses full.

“Dean,” Sam’s saying, babbling nonsense, “Dean fuck please Jesus God oh Dean.”

Dean wants to tell him that it’s OK, that he’s got him, but he can’t find the words; can’t find anything beyond the sweaty immediacy of Sam’s crotch under his mouth and his nose. Come on, he thinks. Come on. Let’s do this properly. So he gets his mouth over one of Sam’s balls, settles his fingers firm around his brother’s cock, and drags upward, their skin catching together.

“Oh jesusfuck,” Sam says, and there’s a wobble in his voice that will haunt Dean until the day he dies.

Dean slides his hand roughly down and then up again, repeats the gesture, runs his thumb under the head. He’s not being gentle, not at all, he’s too desperate for it; but that seems to be all right. It takes just a few strokes, and then Sam’s seizing, crying out, come splattering thick and milky over his chest in elongated pulses. Jesus. Dean doesn’t know what he’s done in his miserable life to deserve this but he’d do all of it over again, every bit of it, all the agony and the heartbreak and loss, just to be here at this moment with this whore’s-eye-view from between Sam’s legs of his brother shaking and flushed and abandoned, out of control.

He props himself on his elbow to get a good look, runs his other hand soothing over the flat of Sam’s stomach. “That’s it, baby,” he says.

The moment is delicious; but as Sam stills, Dean’s conscious again of the burning in the pit of his stomach, the need rippling hot over the surface of his skin. Sam might have come, but he hasn’t; and he needs, he needs.

Sam’s with it now, though, more collected; and as Dean lowers his mouth again to his groin, kisses up towards Sam’s navel, his brother reaches his free hand down under Dean’s armpit and tugs. “Dean,” he says, and Dean follows him upward, clumsy and almost falling, grabbing at Sam’s hip and his ribs and finally his shoulder blade until he’s spread over his brother with his face up tight against the base of Sam’s throat. His right leg is tucked between Sam’s, his crotch across Sam’s hip, and Sam braces his feet on the bed and drives up against him, sweet hot friction for which Dean’s so grateful that he wants to cry.

“Come on,” Sam says, and fastens his arm over Dean’s shoulders. Dean slips his hands under Sam’s back, digs his fingers into the shifting muscles there and grinds down hard.

“Fuck,” he says. “Fuck, Sam, I’m close.”

Sam’s still moving with him, urging him on. “Come on,” he says. “Come on come on come on.”

“Yes,” Dean says, “I know.” He’s gasping, lungs clutching at the air, and every breath he gulps down tastes like Sam; but it’s not enough. He bites at Sam’s collarbone, fastens his teeth over the ridge of it.

“Oh God,” Sam says, “Dean,” and breathes out heavy; but then, “Dean, come up here.” His left hand is still fastened useless to the post of the bed, his wrist red-raw from straining against the cuff. Dean runs his palm over the back of Sam’s arm, up to the elbow, and slides up his brother’s body until he can crush their mouths together. Sam lifts his head, craning his neck forward and the kiss is a messy, sloppy collision of teeth and tongues but fuck, it’s perfect. Dean can taste Sam’s blood in his mouth. He buries his left hand in the sweaty tangle of Sam’s hair, feels Sam’s hand slide down over the curve of his ass; thinks for a second about the sticky slip of Sam’s slick on his stomach; and comes, hard, in a great tide of sensation that has him clinging to his brother and gasping ragged into Sam’s open mouth.

When he comes back to himself, his face is on the pillow next to his brother's and Sam’s kissing him all over his face, butterfly-light across his eyelashes and cheekbones and nose. His hand is at the back of Dean’s head, fingers brushing over Dean's hair. “Hey,” Sam’s saying, quiet and soft, almost to himself. “Hey.”

“Hey,” says Dean back to him and wriggles down a little, settling his head into the space underneath Sam’s chin. They’re both out of breath and he just lies there for a while, on top of Sam, feeling their heartbeats regulate and slow to a matching pace.

“So,” Dean says eventually into Sam’s chest. “That seemed to do it.”

“Yes,” says Sam, and he clears his throat. “It was the, um. I think. Climaxing. With somebody else involved. I don’t know. There was a label, inside the box. Underneath the stupid statue. Something about pleasure, and unity. I don’t know.” He pauses, a little awkward, and starts to shift away; but Dean settles his weight determinedly down and, without protestation, Sam stills.

Dean breathes in, breathes out. Something is unfurling in his brain. He thinks about Sam, flushed and gorgeous, starting to come with his cock pulsing warm in Dean’s fist. He thinks about Sam’s hand on his shoulders and his back, Sam’s long fingers just brushing against the crack of his ass; about Sam, moaning his name. He thinks about the kissing.

"Dean?" says Sam.

Dean’s stomach swoops. He feels like he's holding a great glass bowl, a bowl that's really fucking valuable. And if he says the wrong thing, right now in this exact moment, the bowl’s gonna fall and it will shatter into tiny fragments, and he is never ever going to be able to put it back together.

“So,” he says, heart hammering hard in his throat. “So, I guess we’re immune to it now, right?”

“Huh?” says Sam.

“Well,” says Dean, “I mean. You said about how after… that it would stop. And I guess for a while there, I was infected, and you, um. You never caught it back off me, right?”

If Dean’s own feelings are anything to go off, Sam’s a little dazed by what just went down. So that’s probably why it takes him a while to cotton on to what Dean’s thinking. But Dean feels it when he does; feels Sam’s muscles stiffen in horror.

“Oh fuck,” Sam says.

Dean looks up, puts his hands on Sam’s chest and starts to lever himself upright. Sam’s face is white, pallid under the sweaty hair still sticking to his brow. “Fuck. I’m so sorry, Dean,” he says. “Oh god. Oh fuck.”

If Dean’s heart is gonna choose this moment to give out then it’s gonna be real fucking inconvenient, is all he can say.

“It’s OK, Sam,” he says.

“No it isn’t,” Sam says, and his voice is louder now, bordering frantic. “Jesus Christ, Dean. How could… I… Jesus, Dean, I’d never have told you, I’d never have done anything, OK? It doesn’t… I wouldn’t… this was the whole reason I’m up here chained up to this stupid fucking bed and I’d never, ever have told you and you wouldn’t ever have had to know about it and now you do know and things aren’t ever gonna be the same.”

Sam’s chest is rising and falling rapidly under Dean’s hands, a panic attack building.

“Hey,” Dean says, and he presses down with both palms, firm against Sam’s ribs. “Look at me, Sam.”

Sam does. He’s crying, almost.

“I said it’s OK,” says Dean, and he leans forward and kisses Sam full on the mouth.

There’s a long, awful moment when Sam doesn’t respond but then, thank Jesus and every useless angel in heaven, he does; pushes upward and pushes his jaw hard into Dean’s, clutches his fingers into Dean’s side. “Dean,” he says, “Dean.”

“Yes,” says Dean, and for a long while they’re kissing and it’s just... it’s everything; but then Sam pulls away.

Dean’s maybe one more plot twist away from all-out hysteria. “What is it, Sammy?” he says.

Sam looks up towards the corner of the bed, where his arm is still tethered.

“Can you get me out of these handcuffs?” he says. “I want. I want to touch you properly, this time. That’s all.”

“OK,” Dean says, giddy with relief. This morning, he was baking bread. There’s still a roast beef sandwich sitting somewhere in the basement corridor. “OK. I can do that. Yes.”