Supernatural Fic: Indelible
Jan. 10th, 2021 06:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kat_lair***
Author notes: Written for pushkin666's prompt 'Sam/Dean, bruises/marking'. Thank you to dreamersdare for beta, all remaining mistakes are mine.
Indelible on AO3
Being bruised is part of the job. Sam can’t remember a time without them, really, unless you count his time in Stanford. And the more years pass, the less Sam does that. Even when they were kids, when first Dad and then Dean were trying to still shield him from the realities of their work, there were scraped knees and elbows, finger-shaped marks from rough-housing and poking. Both their disagreements and their affection had a tendency to turn physical from the very start.
Now bruises are part of everyday life. They move from job to job quickly enough that the bruises from being tossed to a wall by a vengeful spirit don’t really have time to fade before they are replaced by the ones left by a vicious backhand from a siren or kick from a wendigo.
They are best ignored. There’s not much you can do for bruises except ice and arnica salve and those are left for the worst ones, first aid reserved for injuries that actually break the skin. Sam’s used to seeing his skin mottled with varying shades of blue, green and sickly yellow, used to seeing Dean’s in the same state.
The point is, there’s nothing unusual or noteworthy about bruises. Which is probably why it takes him a while to notice that Dean is not as good as ignoring them as Sam. Oh, he doesn’t worry about treating them, but he does worry them.
They’re lying on their respective beds, both only clad in t-shirts and boxers, weighted down by the sticky August night and the bone-deep exhaustion of the three-day long hunt. Dean is zoning on an old Western on the TV and Sam is zoning on the rhythmic way Dean’s fingers are rubbing his outer thigh, at the faded purple of a week-old bruise just above his knee.
Around and around they go, tracing the outline and pushing down slightly every few rounds. Sam can see the way muscle gives under Dean’s fingers, the skin going momentarily white from the pressure. His thoughts are moving slow and sluggish and it takes several minutes for the words to come.
“That still hurting?” Sam asks, voice slurred from exhaustion.
“Hmm?” On TV the sheriff is facing off the bad guys and Dean doesn’t take his eyes off the screen.
“Your thigh,” Sam clarifies. “That poltergeist got you pretty hard. You were lucky you didn’t break your leg, falling down those stairs.” For a split second there, Sam had feared Dean had broken his neck, but he wasn’t going to say that.
“What?” Dean turns to look at him and then down at his leg, frowning. He snatches his hand away, brings it to his lap. “Oh. No. It’s fine. Quit being such a worry-wart, Sammy.” He goes back to the film.
Sam hums and shrugs.
Five minutes later, Dean’s palm slides down his leg again, fingers taking over the same pattern from before; sweep, sweep, press, sweep.
***
Sam never learned the trick of putting things back into a box once he’d taken them out, which is probably why Stanford didn’t take. It’s also why, once he’s noticed Dean’s thing with the bruises, Sam can’t help noticing it again. And again.
He’s pretty sure it’s mostly unconscious, maybe a distraction or a comfort thing. Dean’s fingers find his bruises in moments of stillness; when they are on a stakeout, waiting for their breakfast order, winding down after a long day. It’s usually his arms of legs, something easily accessible, his fingers scratching through denim or rubbing at the sleeve of his flannel shirt. Over late night burgers, they are worrying at a spot where Sam knows a riot of colour is blooming thanks to Dean using that arm to block a piece of flying debris a disgruntled witch had sent their way last night. In the library, two days later, Dean sits with his head in one hand, reading through another town chronicle – god bless local historians – the other hand cupping the opposite shoulder, thumb doing a slow, steady sweep over his collar bone. The bruise there is tiny, almost entirely obscured by Dean’s digit. He must have been hit by something small, maybe a stone. Sam is supposed to be researching as well, but instead he watches the way Dean digs his thumbnail into the bruise, over and over, leaving behind a crisscross of sickle-moons, his breath hitching minutely every time.
Maybe not a comfort thing then. As such.
“I’m going to get some coffee,” Sam says, getting up. He’s already walking away by the time Dean whisper-shouts his order, as if Sam doesn’t know it by heart by now.
Then again, he didn’t know this so maybe it’s warranted.
***
Maybe Dean doesn’t know it either. Sam can’t decide which is worse. That this is a habit, something Dean does but not really knowing why or that it’s something deliberate, something he wants, maybe something he does when… Sam casts an eye at the closed bathroom door, the shower running on the other side of it, before he turns around, curling on top of the covers and facing away. It doesn’t stop the images from flooding his mind, of his brother standing under the water, the bruises he knows are there because he’s seen them, glistening wetly. Maybe Dean is touching them right now, fingers gliding from one to the next like connect-the-dots, pressing and scraping. Maybe he’ll let himself make noise. He could, the shower is pretty good, the water pressure strong enough to cover all but the loudest of moans and Sam would never know, would never hear. Unless he went closer.
Sam rolls onto his back, looks at the door again, thinks about getting up and walking right up to it, leaning his forearm against it like he imagines Dean doing in the shower. Unless he needed both of his hands. One digging into the bruises littering his torso, hips and thighs, the other…
Sam swallows and presses the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, hard enough for stars to burst, white and bright, behind his eyelids.
Then he gets up and grabs his coat. Time to get dinner.
***
He can’t stop thinking about it, about how Dean likes his bruises, or at least how they feel, despite them being something given by monsters or demons. How he likes them even though they are something that results from being thrown against walls and trees, through doors, planted on his skin by angry fists, heavy boots, by tools meant to harm. Maybe that’s part of why he likes them, because they are marks of hard-won victory. But maybe Dean would like them even better if they weren’t just a memento forced onto him by something evil he had to kill, if they were something… welcomed, with no real threat behind them. Well, not to Dean’s life.
Sam’s maybe.
Still, they haven’t gotten where they are by playing it safe and Sam…
Sam. Can’t stop. Thinking. About it.
***
“C’mon, then,” Dean says, getting up. “Put your money where your mouth is.” He makes a beckoning motion with both hands, clearly going for cocky and cool but only managing to look ridiculous. Of course, the half empty whisky bottle on the table may have something do with that.
It may also have something to do with the fact that instead of saying ‘I’m not going to wrestle you to prove a point’ like he very clearly should, Sam only puts his own glass down with a thunk and gets up as well.
“Alright then,” he says. “Let’s go.”
Dean’s face actually goes slack from genuine surprise for a few seconds before morphing into a delighted grin. Sam can’t exactly blame him. If asked, he’s going to blame the alcohol. Even though the moment his hand closes over Dean’s forearm to block his first hit – because of course there is no warning – he knows that his sudden amenability to settling an idle argument like this is nothing but an excuse to get his hands on his brother’s body.
It’s not exactly a masterclass in martial arts. They fight more like boys scrapping on a school yard, all elbows and half-hearted fisticuffs, crashing into the narrow space between the beds within thirty seconds. They are equally matched but also not trying all that hard, and Dean looks like he’s biting back laughter. And while they’re also both drunk, Sam’s got body mass on his side so he’s maybe a smidgen less drunk than Dean. When all is said and done it’s Sam who ends up on top, legs twisted around Dean’s to keep them bound, one hand wrapped around both of Dean’s wrists, wrenched above his head and pressed tight to the dirty carpet. The position stretches his torso out, arching warm and solid under Sam.
“Give up?” he asks, more breathless than the brief match really warrants. He fully expects Dean to struggle and try to flip them, body already tensing for it, but instead his brother’s gaze cuts to the side.
“Yep,” he says. “You win. This time.” He tries to shrug but the movement only serves to press their chests closer together. Under Sam’s grip, Dean’s wrists shift restlessly.
Sam lets go, partly from sheer surprise. Dean’s arms come down and Sam pushes himself up, one hand braced against the floor, one hand curled around Dean’s bicep. For a few seconds they freeze like that, Dean’s hands loosely holding onto Sam’s forearms but not shoving him away.
There’s something tight in Dean’s expression, like pain but not quite, and at first Sam can’t figure it out because he’s not leaning in that hard or at a bad angle, it’s not bone, only warm muscle against his palm and…
And bruises. Old ones, barely there anywhere, Sam knows because he’d looked, eyes flicking over Dean’s body that very same morning when they were getting dressed. It had been part familiar assessment and part something new, or at least newly acknowledged, his gaze lingering on the curve of ribs, jut of hipbone, the shift of back muscle just a fraction too long.
Right now, he can feel Dean taking a deep breath, mouth opening to say something, and smirk sliding in place. He’s about to break the moment and Sam should let him, should give him shit about losing and get the fuck off of his brother.
But he’s not going to.
“Not so fast,” he says.
Dean’s mouth snaps shut in a way that makes satisfaction coil low and hot in Sam’s stomach. “I demand payment. A toll, if you like, for your release.” He tries to inject some levity into his voice but isn’t all that sure he succeeds.
Dean’s eyes narrow but contrary to all laws of nature and Winchesters he still doesn’t toss Sam on his ass. “A toll?” he asks instead, smirk still in place but wavering. “Think I’ve got some loose change in my jacket pocket.” His eyes flick up where his jacket is draped over a chair back. “If you need some money to get a chocolate bar from the vending machine, you only had to ask, Sammy.”
Sam huffs a laugh, even though the amusement is surface only. “Not money. Not chocolate. I was thinking more… A pound of flesh, so to speak.”
He can feel Dean’s body going tense, muscles locking up in shock. He still doesn’t move though. That alone is making Sam dizzier than all the whisky they’ve drunk that night. He could still back off, make it into a joke, or something harmless like a smack on the head.
Instead Sam racks up one of the sleeves of Dean’s t-shirt, exposing his arm fully. The bruises are almost gone, like he remembered. Still, he selects an unblemished patch of skin right at the top of Dean’s bicep and then, carefully, deliberately, presses his thumb down to it. Hard.
Dean’s muscles are still tensed so at first it’s like trying to dig through stone but then, all at once, he goes lax, arm falling to floor as Sam sinks lower, Dean’s body giving in. His mouth drops open, eyes blown wide and dark. “Fuck,” he breathes out.
Sam can feel himself go hot all over, like someone had poured gasoline on a slowly simmering fire. He presses down harder, thumbnail really digging in, wondering if he’s going to draw blood, if that would make it better for Dean or not.
He keeps it up for a count of ten. Fifteen. Then he eases up, watching the way Dean’s lips draw back as he hisses through his teeth.
“There,” Sam says. He sounds like he’s been screaming. “All paid.”
Dean’s eyes are squeezed shut. Sam doesn’t know what to do now so he just rolls off his brother and gets up, hearing Dean do the same behind him.
So now he knows. Doesn’t mean he knows what he’s going to do about it.
***
Dean’s arm bruises beautifully, the mark developing overnight, deep purple colour like the sky right before a storm and so clearly finger-shaped that Sam thinks forensic analysis would have no trouble matching it to his thumb.
They don’t talk about it. That much Sam expects.
What he doesn’t expect is the way Dean… Well, there’s no better way putting it. Dean flaunts it.
It’s not like they have a lot of personal boundaries left but now Dean whips his shirt off almost the moment they get to the motel and doesn’t put one on until they leave again. And when he does, it’s a t-shirt which would maybe cover the bruise if it wasn’t the way Dean rolls up the sleeves to shorten them even more.
“It’s hot as Lilith’s tits out there,” he says, shrugging when Sam raises his eyebrows and yeah, he’s not wrong but Sam doesn’t think that’s the only reason.
And then there’s the touching. This is definitely no unconscious tick, not this time. This is Dean rubbing at the bruise – the bruise Sam gave him – in the car, one hand on the steering wheel, the other tracing the shape of the mark, in diners and bars, in bed, his eyes glued to the screen except for all the times they flick to Sam, to check if he sees.
Sam sees. Sam’s watching.
Sam’s curling his own fingers into his palms, the leather of the Impala’s seat, the worn Formica of diner tables and scratched wood of bar counters. He curls them into motel sheets, white-knuckled and desperate and he watches.
***
After almost two weeks, the mark on Dean’s arm has faded to a yellowish shadow despite the way he’s been constantly touching it. A few more days and it will be gone entirely. All Sam needs to do is nothing. If he just waits it out, this whole thing will disappear like the bruise, out of sight if not out of mind, the memory of the painpleasurepain of it lingering. The memory of Dean going boneless under his hands lingers too, the way his mouth had fallen open, wet and soft, choking on something that might have shaped into Sam’s name if he’d forced it out, dug hard fingers into his brother’s flesh again and again and pulled the syllable from his throat like a something alive and dangerous.
Sam wants that.
From the way Dean scrapes his fingernails over the mark, the way his gaze keeps catching on Sam’s and holding, Sam thinks he wants it too.
It’s fucked up, of course it is, but in the grand scheme of their lives it barely even merits a footnote. No one is going to die or is about to be possessed, no one is opening the gates of hell or starting an apocalypse, not this time. Even Sam’s guilt complex isn’t deluded enough to think this particular sin would rank as more than a source of amusement if someone’s keeping score. Not that he thinks anyone does.
It’s just them.
Just Sam, sitting on another anonymous motel bed. Just Dean, shirtless and twisting in front of a mirror, trying to see the fresh bruises on his back from their latest hunt, still red and obviously sore if the way he keeps grimacing is any indication.
“Could be worse,” Sam says. “That werewolf got way too close.” Neither of them had expected a third one to launch itself at them while they were still standing over the cooling corpses of two others.
“It dented my Baby!” Dean spits, still angry. “What could possibly be worse than that?”
Sam ignores the question. “I think technically your back dented the car. Maybe your elbow too.” The werewolf had managed to throw Dean against the side of the Impala before Sam had put a silver bullet in its brain. “Can you move your arm?”
Dean rolls his eyes. “It’s not broken,” he says, and proceeds to bend and straighten his arm to demonstrate, first to the side and then straight up. The movements are stiff and clearly painful, pulling on Dean’s bruised back muscles in addition to his arm, but he’s right; if there was even a fracture, there’s no way he’d be doing any of that.
“Let me check,” Sam says anyway and gets up. Three steps and he’s standing behind Dean, hand coming to cup his injured elbow, pressing down just enough to feel the bone as he guides Dean’s arm into repeat of the movements he already did on his own.
Bend. Straight. To the side. Down. Up in a slow arch, Sam’s other hand coming to support Dean’s shoulder, feeling the roll of the bone, safely in its socket, jarred but unharmed. He zones on the heat of Dean’s skin, palm traveling up the long line of muscle along Dean’s side and the inside of his arm the position reveals. Dean’s breath hitches.
Sam lifts his eyes up, startled, and sees the two of them in the mirror.
Dean’s arm is up, slightly bent behind his head and held there by Sam’s hands, wrapped around his shoulder and elbow. The position has pushed Dean’s chest out, his stomach stretched taut and his hip cocked out to compensate. His face…
Sam swallows and meets his brother’s eyes in the reflection, wide and hungry. There is something simultaneously terrified and challenging in the way he’s looking at Sam. Dean’s mouth opens as if he’s about to say something but no sound comes out.
Sam’s gaze flicks downwards to confirm what he already knows, sees the moment Dean realises there’s no hiding the obvious and feels how he tries anyway, twitching in Sam’s hold like he’s trying to curl around himself. Sam’s grip tightens on instinct. He lets go of Dean’s shoulder and instead wraps his left arm around his middle, hauling him close. They are flush against each other now, Dean’s back to Sam’s front, and it’s clear from the way Dean freezes that he’s noticed that he’s not the only one affected here.
For exactly five heartbeats – rabbit quick, each of them pulsing at the back of Sam’s throat, making it hard to breathe – they stand still. Then Dean’s weight settles against Sam’s chest as he leans back fully with a shaky sigh.
“Sammy,” he says, and it comes out like he’s been punched.
“Hold…” Sam clears his throat, unable to take his eyes off the way they look in the mirror; like something broken and dangerous, with sharp edges. “Hold your arm up.” He grabs hold of Dean’s wrist and tugs his hand down until it’s wrapping around the back of his own neck. The position leaves him open.
Accessible.
Sam’s hand trails down, fingers finding the scattering of old and new bruises on Dean’s chest, dancing over the curve of his ribcage, thumb slotting into the dip of hipbone. He presses down here and there, following a random pattern of scratches and pinches from bruise to bruise, pulling out a thin, barely audible whine from Dean’s mouth. Dean’s head is dipped forward, fingers buried in the short hairs at the back of his neck.
He’s panting, chest rising and falling under Sam’s touch, stomach muscles clenching against the splay of his palm. “Sam,” he says again, low and desperate. “Sammy.”
“You like this,” Sam says. It’s not a question. He finds a shadow of a bruise at Dean’s left side and digs his fingers in, all of them, hard and vicious. Dean moans, hips jerking forward, cock visibly straining against denim.
“Fuck. Fuck, pl—”
Sam doesn’t let him finish, instead yanking Dean’s head back further and pushing his tongue into his brother’s mouth, swallowing the plea.
There’s nothing gentle about how they kiss. Dean’s hand goes from grabbing the back of his own neck to grabbing Sam’s, fingers scrabbling for purchase. They are twisted around each other awkwardly and the position must be less than ideal for Dean’s back, but Sam doesn’t let him turn around fully.
“You like this,” he repeats, pressing down on a bruise to emphasise the point and licking the moan right off Dean’s mouth.
“Not as much as I liked this,” Dean pants, catching hold of Sam’s hand and placing on his bicep, over the barely-there bruise Sam left over a week ago.
It’s Sam’s turn to curse. “Dean.” He bites down on his brother’s name and then, on pure instinct, on the meaty slope of his shoulder. “Fuck, I’ll give you more,” he promises. “As many as you want.” He sucks on Dean’s skin, pulling blood to the surface, while his thumb covers the yellowing mark and presses down. He hadn’t liked the way it was fading any more than Dean had. “Gonna cover you up,” Sam whispers, right into Dean’s ear. “Keep you marked. You’d like that?”
“Yes. Fuck, yes, please, I…” Dean grinds back and Sam thinks about bending him over the nearest flat surface, of leaving finger marks all over his hips, the shape of his palm over the bare skin of Dean’s ass.
Next time.
Right now, his hand drops to Dean’s belt, pulling it open and shoving it aside. He pauses, thumb pressed against the button, the nail of his middle finger barely scraping against the zipper. “Dean…?” His hand is shaking. He can’t stop staring at his brother’s face, pupils lust-blown, mouth wet.
Dean’s hand closes over his. “Yeah,” he says, looking Sam square in the eye. “Do it. I want it.”
Sam thumbs open the button, eases down the zipper, shoves Dean’s jeans and underwear out of the way just enough. Dean’s cock is hard enough to curve up towards his stomach as soon as Sam pulls it out, leaking copiously, the tip dragging wetly over Sam’s palm when he wraps his hand around it.
They both groan, Sam’s own cock hard enough to hurt as he grinds against the small of Dean’s back. He’s not so much jerking him off as he is letting Dean fuck up into his tight fist, hips straining, back arched, most of his weight now supported by Sam. He’s gorgeous like this, his body like a weapon and all Sam’s to use, and when he finds the bruise on Dean’s arm again – his mark, his – and presses down, Dean keens, coming all over Sam’s fingers and his own stomach and chest.
He slumps down for all of five seconds, breathing heavy, while Sam rubs his come covered hand over his brother’s skin, a different kind of marking but no less effective. Then he straightens up, spins around and kisses Sam hard, taking full advantage of his surprise to push his way in, both hands coming up to cradle Sam’s face.
And then, before Sam has time to do more than gasp, tongue curling around his brother’s greedily, Dean pulls back and drops to his knees.
“Fuck,” Sam breathes, gracelessly shoving against Dean’s hands, already busy unbuckling his belt.
“Don’t think you’d last for that,” Dean says, and despite everything, there’s something of his familiar smirk hovering in the corner of his mouth. “Next time.” It’s not a question because there is no question about there being a next time. Sam may not have thought it consciously before, but he’d known it too. Once they crossed this line, there was no going back.
He’s glad. Fiercely, viciously, possessively glad.
Sam’s hand slips down to cup the back of his brother’s neck, his breath stuttering out when Dean rubs his mouth against the underside of Sam’s cock before wrapping his lips around it properly. There’s no teasing, no showing off. Dean grips Sam’s hips and pulls him closer, swallowing around him, urging Sam to fuck his mouth.
It’s never going to last long. Sam’s fingers grapple for purchase on Dean’s shoulders, finding the earlier bite mark and pressing down, more an accident than on purpose. It still makes Dean moan, his mouth going somehow wetter, more eager. Sam comes with a broken sound, spilling down his brother’s throat, and then pulling out to finish over his lips and face and neck, over the bruises littering Dean’s skin.
Sam’s knees give out and he slumps to the floor, pulling Dean into a messy kiss. It starts sloppy and still a little desperate, but slows down eventually until Sam is barely brushing his lips against Dean’s, hands back to tracing the bruises on his arms and torso on memory alone, rubbing in the cooling drops of come.
It’s Dean who shivers first, but as soon as he does Sam registers that he’s cold too. Stiffly he stands up, holding down a hand to his brother who takes it without a comment and pushes up with a pained grunt. Sam ghosts a hand over Dean’s bare back, the developing bruises warm even though rest of him is breaking out in goose bumps.
“Okay,” Sam says, voice surprisingly normal. “Hot shower.”
“Dibs on going first!” Dean’s already turning toward the bathroom, but he’s smiling and loose and letting his open palm trail over Sam’s middle in passing.
Sam grins, something awfully like contentment settling in his chest. “Who said anything about taking turns?” he asks, quirking an eyebrow.
Dean is visibly biting down on a grin of his own as he shakes his head. “You’re insane,” he says, walking into the bathroom. “There’s no way we’ll both fit in here.” Despite the protests, he leaves the door open behind himself though.
Sam takes the silent invitation. Worked out well the last time, after all. “Maybe,” he concedes, eyeing the tiny cubicle, but quickly distracted by the sight of Dean shrugging out of his jeans. “It’ll be fun trying though.”
“Less talking,” Dean says, turning on the water and letting his gaze travel up and down Sam’s body in a way that seems almost… Indulgent. Like he can finally let himself look. “More nudity.”
“Can do,” Sam says, openly laughing now, just stupidly… Happy. He strips off his clothes and pushes Dean under the hot spray, eager to see if his bruises look as good wet as he’d imagined.
They do. Better, in fact. Sam’s not complaining.
***
Title: Indelible
Author: kat_lair / Mistress Kat
kat_lair / Mistress KatFandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Sam/Dan
Tags: bruises/marking, power dynamics
Rating: E/NC-17
Word count: 4,515
Disclaimer: Not mine, only playing.
Summary: Being bruised is part of the job.
pushkin666's prompt 'Sam/Dean, bruises/marking'. Thank you to dreamersdare for beta, all remaining mistakes are mine.Indelible on AO3
Being bruised is part of the job. Sam can’t remember a time without them, really, unless you count his time in Stanford. And the more years pass, the less Sam does that. Even when they were kids, when first Dad and then Dean were trying to still shield him from the realities of their work, there were scraped knees and elbows, finger-shaped marks from rough-housing and poking. Both their disagreements and their affection had a tendency to turn physical from the very start.
Now bruises are part of everyday life. They move from job to job quickly enough that the bruises from being tossed to a wall by a vengeful spirit don’t really have time to fade before they are replaced by the ones left by a vicious backhand from a siren or kick from a wendigo.
They are best ignored. There’s not much you can do for bruises except ice and arnica salve and those are left for the worst ones, first aid reserved for injuries that actually break the skin. Sam’s used to seeing his skin mottled with varying shades of blue, green and sickly yellow, used to seeing Dean’s in the same state.
The point is, there’s nothing unusual or noteworthy about bruises. Which is probably why it takes him a while to notice that Dean is not as good as ignoring them as Sam. Oh, he doesn’t worry about treating them, but he does worry them.
They’re lying on their respective beds, both only clad in t-shirts and boxers, weighted down by the sticky August night and the bone-deep exhaustion of the three-day long hunt. Dean is zoning on an old Western on the TV and Sam is zoning on the rhythmic way Dean’s fingers are rubbing his outer thigh, at the faded purple of a week-old bruise just above his knee.
Around and around they go, tracing the outline and pushing down slightly every few rounds. Sam can see the way muscle gives under Dean’s fingers, the skin going momentarily white from the pressure. His thoughts are moving slow and sluggish and it takes several minutes for the words to come.
“That still hurting?” Sam asks, voice slurred from exhaustion.
“Hmm?” On TV the sheriff is facing off the bad guys and Dean doesn’t take his eyes off the screen.
“Your thigh,” Sam clarifies. “That poltergeist got you pretty hard. You were lucky you didn’t break your leg, falling down those stairs.” For a split second there, Sam had feared Dean had broken his neck, but he wasn’t going to say that.
“What?” Dean turns to look at him and then down at his leg, frowning. He snatches his hand away, brings it to his lap. “Oh. No. It’s fine. Quit being such a worry-wart, Sammy.” He goes back to the film.
Sam hums and shrugs.
Five minutes later, Dean’s palm slides down his leg again, fingers taking over the same pattern from before; sweep, sweep, press, sweep.
***
Sam never learned the trick of putting things back into a box once he’d taken them out, which is probably why Stanford didn’t take. It’s also why, once he’s noticed Dean’s thing with the bruises, Sam can’t help noticing it again. And again.
He’s pretty sure it’s mostly unconscious, maybe a distraction or a comfort thing. Dean’s fingers find his bruises in moments of stillness; when they are on a stakeout, waiting for their breakfast order, winding down after a long day. It’s usually his arms of legs, something easily accessible, his fingers scratching through denim or rubbing at the sleeve of his flannel shirt. Over late night burgers, they are worrying at a spot where Sam knows a riot of colour is blooming thanks to Dean using that arm to block a piece of flying debris a disgruntled witch had sent their way last night. In the library, two days later, Dean sits with his head in one hand, reading through another town chronicle – god bless local historians – the other hand cupping the opposite shoulder, thumb doing a slow, steady sweep over his collar bone. The bruise there is tiny, almost entirely obscured by Dean’s digit. He must have been hit by something small, maybe a stone. Sam is supposed to be researching as well, but instead he watches the way Dean digs his thumbnail into the bruise, over and over, leaving behind a crisscross of sickle-moons, his breath hitching minutely every time.
Maybe not a comfort thing then. As such.
“I’m going to get some coffee,” Sam says, getting up. He’s already walking away by the time Dean whisper-shouts his order, as if Sam doesn’t know it by heart by now.
Then again, he didn’t know this so maybe it’s warranted.
***
Maybe Dean doesn’t know it either. Sam can’t decide which is worse. That this is a habit, something Dean does but not really knowing why or that it’s something deliberate, something he wants, maybe something he does when… Sam casts an eye at the closed bathroom door, the shower running on the other side of it, before he turns around, curling on top of the covers and facing away. It doesn’t stop the images from flooding his mind, of his brother standing under the water, the bruises he knows are there because he’s seen them, glistening wetly. Maybe Dean is touching them right now, fingers gliding from one to the next like connect-the-dots, pressing and scraping. Maybe he’ll let himself make noise. He could, the shower is pretty good, the water pressure strong enough to cover all but the loudest of moans and Sam would never know, would never hear. Unless he went closer.
Sam rolls onto his back, looks at the door again, thinks about getting up and walking right up to it, leaning his forearm against it like he imagines Dean doing in the shower. Unless he needed both of his hands. One digging into the bruises littering his torso, hips and thighs, the other…
Sam swallows and presses the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, hard enough for stars to burst, white and bright, behind his eyelids.
Then he gets up and grabs his coat. Time to get dinner.
***
He can’t stop thinking about it, about how Dean likes his bruises, or at least how they feel, despite them being something given by monsters or demons. How he likes them even though they are something that results from being thrown against walls and trees, through doors, planted on his skin by angry fists, heavy boots, by tools meant to harm. Maybe that’s part of why he likes them, because they are marks of hard-won victory. But maybe Dean would like them even better if they weren’t just a memento forced onto him by something evil he had to kill, if they were something… welcomed, with no real threat behind them. Well, not to Dean’s life.
Sam’s maybe.
Still, they haven’t gotten where they are by playing it safe and Sam…
Sam. Can’t stop. Thinking. About it.
***
“C’mon, then,” Dean says, getting up. “Put your money where your mouth is.” He makes a beckoning motion with both hands, clearly going for cocky and cool but only managing to look ridiculous. Of course, the half empty whisky bottle on the table may have something do with that.
It may also have something to do with the fact that instead of saying ‘I’m not going to wrestle you to prove a point’ like he very clearly should, Sam only puts his own glass down with a thunk and gets up as well.
“Alright then,” he says. “Let’s go.”
Dean’s face actually goes slack from genuine surprise for a few seconds before morphing into a delighted grin. Sam can’t exactly blame him. If asked, he’s going to blame the alcohol. Even though the moment his hand closes over Dean’s forearm to block his first hit – because of course there is no warning – he knows that his sudden amenability to settling an idle argument like this is nothing but an excuse to get his hands on his brother’s body.
It’s not exactly a masterclass in martial arts. They fight more like boys scrapping on a school yard, all elbows and half-hearted fisticuffs, crashing into the narrow space between the beds within thirty seconds. They are equally matched but also not trying all that hard, and Dean looks like he’s biting back laughter. And while they’re also both drunk, Sam’s got body mass on his side so he’s maybe a smidgen less drunk than Dean. When all is said and done it’s Sam who ends up on top, legs twisted around Dean’s to keep them bound, one hand wrapped around both of Dean’s wrists, wrenched above his head and pressed tight to the dirty carpet. The position stretches his torso out, arching warm and solid under Sam.
“Give up?” he asks, more breathless than the brief match really warrants. He fully expects Dean to struggle and try to flip them, body already tensing for it, but instead his brother’s gaze cuts to the side.
“Yep,” he says. “You win. This time.” He tries to shrug but the movement only serves to press their chests closer together. Under Sam’s grip, Dean’s wrists shift restlessly.
Sam lets go, partly from sheer surprise. Dean’s arms come down and Sam pushes himself up, one hand braced against the floor, one hand curled around Dean’s bicep. For a few seconds they freeze like that, Dean’s hands loosely holding onto Sam’s forearms but not shoving him away.
There’s something tight in Dean’s expression, like pain but not quite, and at first Sam can’t figure it out because he’s not leaning in that hard or at a bad angle, it’s not bone, only warm muscle against his palm and…
And bruises. Old ones, barely there anywhere, Sam knows because he’d looked, eyes flicking over Dean’s body that very same morning when they were getting dressed. It had been part familiar assessment and part something new, or at least newly acknowledged, his gaze lingering on the curve of ribs, jut of hipbone, the shift of back muscle just a fraction too long.
Right now, he can feel Dean taking a deep breath, mouth opening to say something, and smirk sliding in place. He’s about to break the moment and Sam should let him, should give him shit about losing and get the fuck off of his brother.
But he’s not going to.
“Not so fast,” he says.
Dean’s mouth snaps shut in a way that makes satisfaction coil low and hot in Sam’s stomach. “I demand payment. A toll, if you like, for your release.” He tries to inject some levity into his voice but isn’t all that sure he succeeds.
Dean’s eyes narrow but contrary to all laws of nature and Winchesters he still doesn’t toss Sam on his ass. “A toll?” he asks instead, smirk still in place but wavering. “Think I’ve got some loose change in my jacket pocket.” His eyes flick up where his jacket is draped over a chair back. “If you need some money to get a chocolate bar from the vending machine, you only had to ask, Sammy.”
Sam huffs a laugh, even though the amusement is surface only. “Not money. Not chocolate. I was thinking more… A pound of flesh, so to speak.”
He can feel Dean’s body going tense, muscles locking up in shock. He still doesn’t move though. That alone is making Sam dizzier than all the whisky they’ve drunk that night. He could still back off, make it into a joke, or something harmless like a smack on the head.
Instead Sam racks up one of the sleeves of Dean’s t-shirt, exposing his arm fully. The bruises are almost gone, like he remembered. Still, he selects an unblemished patch of skin right at the top of Dean’s bicep and then, carefully, deliberately, presses his thumb down to it. Hard.
Dean’s muscles are still tensed so at first it’s like trying to dig through stone but then, all at once, he goes lax, arm falling to floor as Sam sinks lower, Dean’s body giving in. His mouth drops open, eyes blown wide and dark. “Fuck,” he breathes out.
Sam can feel himself go hot all over, like someone had poured gasoline on a slowly simmering fire. He presses down harder, thumbnail really digging in, wondering if he’s going to draw blood, if that would make it better for Dean or not.
He keeps it up for a count of ten. Fifteen. Then he eases up, watching the way Dean’s lips draw back as he hisses through his teeth.
“There,” Sam says. He sounds like he’s been screaming. “All paid.”
Dean’s eyes are squeezed shut. Sam doesn’t know what to do now so he just rolls off his brother and gets up, hearing Dean do the same behind him.
So now he knows. Doesn’t mean he knows what he’s going to do about it.
***
Dean’s arm bruises beautifully, the mark developing overnight, deep purple colour like the sky right before a storm and so clearly finger-shaped that Sam thinks forensic analysis would have no trouble matching it to his thumb.
They don’t talk about it. That much Sam expects.
What he doesn’t expect is the way Dean… Well, there’s no better way putting it. Dean flaunts it.
It’s not like they have a lot of personal boundaries left but now Dean whips his shirt off almost the moment they get to the motel and doesn’t put one on until they leave again. And when he does, it’s a t-shirt which would maybe cover the bruise if it wasn’t the way Dean rolls up the sleeves to shorten them even more.
“It’s hot as Lilith’s tits out there,” he says, shrugging when Sam raises his eyebrows and yeah, he’s not wrong but Sam doesn’t think that’s the only reason.
And then there’s the touching. This is definitely no unconscious tick, not this time. This is Dean rubbing at the bruise – the bruise Sam gave him – in the car, one hand on the steering wheel, the other tracing the shape of the mark, in diners and bars, in bed, his eyes glued to the screen except for all the times they flick to Sam, to check if he sees.
Sam sees. Sam’s watching.
Sam’s curling his own fingers into his palms, the leather of the Impala’s seat, the worn Formica of diner tables and scratched wood of bar counters. He curls them into motel sheets, white-knuckled and desperate and he watches.
***
After almost two weeks, the mark on Dean’s arm has faded to a yellowish shadow despite the way he’s been constantly touching it. A few more days and it will be gone entirely. All Sam needs to do is nothing. If he just waits it out, this whole thing will disappear like the bruise, out of sight if not out of mind, the memory of the painpleasurepain of it lingering. The memory of Dean going boneless under his hands lingers too, the way his mouth had fallen open, wet and soft, choking on something that might have shaped into Sam’s name if he’d forced it out, dug hard fingers into his brother’s flesh again and again and pulled the syllable from his throat like a something alive and dangerous.
Sam wants that.
From the way Dean scrapes his fingernails over the mark, the way his gaze keeps catching on Sam’s and holding, Sam thinks he wants it too.
It’s fucked up, of course it is, but in the grand scheme of their lives it barely even merits a footnote. No one is going to die or is about to be possessed, no one is opening the gates of hell or starting an apocalypse, not this time. Even Sam’s guilt complex isn’t deluded enough to think this particular sin would rank as more than a source of amusement if someone’s keeping score. Not that he thinks anyone does.
It’s just them.
Just Sam, sitting on another anonymous motel bed. Just Dean, shirtless and twisting in front of a mirror, trying to see the fresh bruises on his back from their latest hunt, still red and obviously sore if the way he keeps grimacing is any indication.
“Could be worse,” Sam says. “That werewolf got way too close.” Neither of them had expected a third one to launch itself at them while they were still standing over the cooling corpses of two others.
“It dented my Baby!” Dean spits, still angry. “What could possibly be worse than that?”
Sam ignores the question. “I think technically your back dented the car. Maybe your elbow too.” The werewolf had managed to throw Dean against the side of the Impala before Sam had put a silver bullet in its brain. “Can you move your arm?”
Dean rolls his eyes. “It’s not broken,” he says, and proceeds to bend and straighten his arm to demonstrate, first to the side and then straight up. The movements are stiff and clearly painful, pulling on Dean’s bruised back muscles in addition to his arm, but he’s right; if there was even a fracture, there’s no way he’d be doing any of that.
“Let me check,” Sam says anyway and gets up. Three steps and he’s standing behind Dean, hand coming to cup his injured elbow, pressing down just enough to feel the bone as he guides Dean’s arm into repeat of the movements he already did on his own.
Bend. Straight. To the side. Down. Up in a slow arch, Sam’s other hand coming to support Dean’s shoulder, feeling the roll of the bone, safely in its socket, jarred but unharmed. He zones on the heat of Dean’s skin, palm traveling up the long line of muscle along Dean’s side and the inside of his arm the position reveals. Dean’s breath hitches.
Sam lifts his eyes up, startled, and sees the two of them in the mirror.
Dean’s arm is up, slightly bent behind his head and held there by Sam’s hands, wrapped around his shoulder and elbow. The position has pushed Dean’s chest out, his stomach stretched taut and his hip cocked out to compensate. His face…
Sam swallows and meets his brother’s eyes in the reflection, wide and hungry. There is something simultaneously terrified and challenging in the way he’s looking at Sam. Dean’s mouth opens as if he’s about to say something but no sound comes out.
Sam’s gaze flicks downwards to confirm what he already knows, sees the moment Dean realises there’s no hiding the obvious and feels how he tries anyway, twitching in Sam’s hold like he’s trying to curl around himself. Sam’s grip tightens on instinct. He lets go of Dean’s shoulder and instead wraps his left arm around his middle, hauling him close. They are flush against each other now, Dean’s back to Sam’s front, and it’s clear from the way Dean freezes that he’s noticed that he’s not the only one affected here.
For exactly five heartbeats – rabbit quick, each of them pulsing at the back of Sam’s throat, making it hard to breathe – they stand still. Then Dean’s weight settles against Sam’s chest as he leans back fully with a shaky sigh.
“Sammy,” he says, and it comes out like he’s been punched.
“Hold…” Sam clears his throat, unable to take his eyes off the way they look in the mirror; like something broken and dangerous, with sharp edges. “Hold your arm up.” He grabs hold of Dean’s wrist and tugs his hand down until it’s wrapping around the back of his own neck. The position leaves him open.
Accessible.
Sam’s hand trails down, fingers finding the scattering of old and new bruises on Dean’s chest, dancing over the curve of his ribcage, thumb slotting into the dip of hipbone. He presses down here and there, following a random pattern of scratches and pinches from bruise to bruise, pulling out a thin, barely audible whine from Dean’s mouth. Dean’s head is dipped forward, fingers buried in the short hairs at the back of his neck.
He’s panting, chest rising and falling under Sam’s touch, stomach muscles clenching against the splay of his palm. “Sam,” he says again, low and desperate. “Sammy.”
“You like this,” Sam says. It’s not a question. He finds a shadow of a bruise at Dean’s left side and digs his fingers in, all of them, hard and vicious. Dean moans, hips jerking forward, cock visibly straining against denim.
“Fuck. Fuck, pl—”
Sam doesn’t let him finish, instead yanking Dean’s head back further and pushing his tongue into his brother’s mouth, swallowing the plea.
There’s nothing gentle about how they kiss. Dean’s hand goes from grabbing the back of his own neck to grabbing Sam’s, fingers scrabbling for purchase. They are twisted around each other awkwardly and the position must be less than ideal for Dean’s back, but Sam doesn’t let him turn around fully.
“You like this,” he repeats, pressing down on a bruise to emphasise the point and licking the moan right off Dean’s mouth.
“Not as much as I liked this,” Dean pants, catching hold of Sam’s hand and placing on his bicep, over the barely-there bruise Sam left over a week ago.
It’s Sam’s turn to curse. “Dean.” He bites down on his brother’s name and then, on pure instinct, on the meaty slope of his shoulder. “Fuck, I’ll give you more,” he promises. “As many as you want.” He sucks on Dean’s skin, pulling blood to the surface, while his thumb covers the yellowing mark and presses down. He hadn’t liked the way it was fading any more than Dean had. “Gonna cover you up,” Sam whispers, right into Dean’s ear. “Keep you marked. You’d like that?”
“Yes. Fuck, yes, please, I…” Dean grinds back and Sam thinks about bending him over the nearest flat surface, of leaving finger marks all over his hips, the shape of his palm over the bare skin of Dean’s ass.
Next time.
Right now, his hand drops to Dean’s belt, pulling it open and shoving it aside. He pauses, thumb pressed against the button, the nail of his middle finger barely scraping against the zipper. “Dean…?” His hand is shaking. He can’t stop staring at his brother’s face, pupils lust-blown, mouth wet.
Dean’s hand closes over his. “Yeah,” he says, looking Sam square in the eye. “Do it. I want it.”
Sam thumbs open the button, eases down the zipper, shoves Dean’s jeans and underwear out of the way just enough. Dean’s cock is hard enough to curve up towards his stomach as soon as Sam pulls it out, leaking copiously, the tip dragging wetly over Sam’s palm when he wraps his hand around it.
They both groan, Sam’s own cock hard enough to hurt as he grinds against the small of Dean’s back. He’s not so much jerking him off as he is letting Dean fuck up into his tight fist, hips straining, back arched, most of his weight now supported by Sam. He’s gorgeous like this, his body like a weapon and all Sam’s to use, and when he finds the bruise on Dean’s arm again – his mark, his – and presses down, Dean keens, coming all over Sam’s fingers and his own stomach and chest.
He slumps down for all of five seconds, breathing heavy, while Sam rubs his come covered hand over his brother’s skin, a different kind of marking but no less effective. Then he straightens up, spins around and kisses Sam hard, taking full advantage of his surprise to push his way in, both hands coming up to cradle Sam’s face.
And then, before Sam has time to do more than gasp, tongue curling around his brother’s greedily, Dean pulls back and drops to his knees.
“Fuck,” Sam breathes, gracelessly shoving against Dean’s hands, already busy unbuckling his belt.
“Don’t think you’d last for that,” Dean says, and despite everything, there’s something of his familiar smirk hovering in the corner of his mouth. “Next time.” It’s not a question because there is no question about there being a next time. Sam may not have thought it consciously before, but he’d known it too. Once they crossed this line, there was no going back.
He’s glad. Fiercely, viciously, possessively glad.
Sam’s hand slips down to cup the back of his brother’s neck, his breath stuttering out when Dean rubs his mouth against the underside of Sam’s cock before wrapping his lips around it properly. There’s no teasing, no showing off. Dean grips Sam’s hips and pulls him closer, swallowing around him, urging Sam to fuck his mouth.
It’s never going to last long. Sam’s fingers grapple for purchase on Dean’s shoulders, finding the earlier bite mark and pressing down, more an accident than on purpose. It still makes Dean moan, his mouth going somehow wetter, more eager. Sam comes with a broken sound, spilling down his brother’s throat, and then pulling out to finish over his lips and face and neck, over the bruises littering Dean’s skin.
Sam’s knees give out and he slumps to the floor, pulling Dean into a messy kiss. It starts sloppy and still a little desperate, but slows down eventually until Sam is barely brushing his lips against Dean’s, hands back to tracing the bruises on his arms and torso on memory alone, rubbing in the cooling drops of come.
It’s Dean who shivers first, but as soon as he does Sam registers that he’s cold too. Stiffly he stands up, holding down a hand to his brother who takes it without a comment and pushes up with a pained grunt. Sam ghosts a hand over Dean’s bare back, the developing bruises warm even though rest of him is breaking out in goose bumps.
“Okay,” Sam says, voice surprisingly normal. “Hot shower.”
“Dibs on going first!” Dean’s already turning toward the bathroom, but he’s smiling and loose and letting his open palm trail over Sam’s middle in passing.
Sam grins, something awfully like contentment settling in his chest. “Who said anything about taking turns?” he asks, quirking an eyebrow.
Dean is visibly biting down on a grin of his own as he shakes his head. “You’re insane,” he says, walking into the bathroom. “There’s no way we’ll both fit in here.” Despite the protests, he leaves the door open behind himself though.
Sam takes the silent invitation. Worked out well the last time, after all. “Maybe,” he concedes, eyeing the tiny cubicle, but quickly distracted by the sight of Dean shrugging out of his jeans. “It’ll be fun trying though.”
“Less talking,” Dean says, turning on the water and letting his gaze travel up and down Sam’s body in a way that seems almost… Indulgent. Like he can finally let himself look. “More nudity.”
“Can do,” Sam says, openly laughing now, just stupidly… Happy. He strips off his clothes and pushes Dean under the hot spray, eager to see if his bruises look as good wet as he’d imagined.
They do. Better, in fact. Sam’s not complaining.
***