A/N: This bunny hopped up to me, and I couldn't say no.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters or these song lyrics.
We danced in graveyards with vampires 'til dawn. – Tori Amos
By the entrancing light of a blazing green fire, under the softly glaring eye of a blood-tinged moon, Sam wiped away the grimy tears inspired by the acrid aroma of sizzling vampire flesh and ceremoniously held his dirty hand out to his brother.
"What." Dean asked, eyeing the proffered hand warily.
"I want to dance," Sam stated simply.
"What?" Dean asked again.
Sam nodded at the pyre before them. "We've been hunting this thing for a month now. We should celebrate the kill."
Dean peered right and left at the lifeless gravestones that lay all around.
"Dude. Celebrating involves beer. Not dancing in cemeteries."
Sam shook his hand insistently. "Come on, Dean! I'm feeling whimsical! Just go with me on this!"
"Whimsical? Oh, Jesus, Sammy, did this thing bite you before it died?"
"No, Dean!" Sam shouted, growing impatient. "I just want to dance with you, okay? Haven't you ever wondered what it would be like to sway gently side to side in my warm and loving embrace?"
Dean's eyes shifted, revealing to Sam that he had indeed imagined just such an event at least once.
"So dance with me already!" Sam commanded.
Dean shifted on his feet uncertainly. It was clear that he wanted to say yes, but something held him back.
"What is it?" Sam asked.
"I don't know," Dean shrugged.
"Oh, come on, Dean. Say it. Whatever it is."
Dean stared deeply into his brother's eyes, implying with his facial expression that if what he had to say was laughed at, Sam would walk away from this conversation with a busted lip. Sam understood the message easily, and implied a message of his own that he wouldn't dream of laughing.
"It's just that..." Dean began. "You're asking me."
Sam scrunched his eyebrows in confusion. "I know. Whimsical, remember?"
"But..." Dean said reluctantly.
"Yeah?" Sam urged.
Dean buried his eyes in his hand for a brief second, then shrugged again, finally spitting it out. "I wanted to be the guy in this relationship."
He braced himself, waiting for Sam's laughter to peal out into the eerie night, but Sam merely dropped his outstretched hand and took on a defensive stance.
"Dean, we're both the guy in this relationship."
"No, Sammy, that's not what I meant..."
"Then what the hell are you talking about?"
"Sam, listen, I..."
"Wait, does that mean you think I'm the girl?"
"No, Sam, I..."
"Do I have to remind you how many times you've seen me naked in the last month?"
Dean's eyes widened. "No, you really don't."
"We have sex like three times a day!"
"And I'm grateful, Sammy, I am!"
"And in all those times, have you happened to notice any girl parts?"
"Oh, come on, Sam! Don't be like this!"
"'Cause if you're looking for someone to demoralize with your insulting chivalry, then by all means, there's a singles bar down the block!"
Sam turned on his heel and stormed in the opposite direction haughtily. Dean chased after him.
"Sammy, wait! Please stop!"
"Stop chasing after me like I'm some girl that you have to win over!" Sam shouted without stopping.
"Then stop freaking out like some girl with PMS!" Dean screamed reflexively.
Sam halted dead in his tracks then, and in the blink of an eye, he turned around and decked his brother square in the jaw.
When Dean was able to stand upright again, he shook his head and stared back at Sam in shock. He tasted blood in his mouth and he wiped it away with a shaky hand. Sam stood before him, fuming, face red, and nostrils flared.
"I thought that you'd be grown up enough to handle being an us, Dean!" Sam yelled. "I guess I was wrong."
"Sam, if you would let me explain…"
"I don't want to hear anymore of your crap!" Sam turned to stalk away again, but Dean grabbed his arm roughly and forced him to stay. "Let go of me!"
"No."
"Dean!"
"Damn it, Sam, how many times have you clocked me in the face without getting clocked right back? Huh?"
Sam thought it over for a moment and didn't say anything. But the tension went out of his body and he stubbornly turned back around, keeping his eyes low. Dean had a point. It wasn't like him to not retaliate against physical violence. Even from his brother.
"I'm gonna let you get away with that punch, Sammy," Dean said in an authoritative voice, "because the PMS thing was uncalled for. I know that."
Sam folded his arms across his chest, his eyes still on the ground.
"Listen," Dean continued. "When I said 'the man in the relationship' I didn't mean that you're the girl, okay?"
"What else could you possibly have—" Sam interjected.
"Just hang on!" Dean spouted. His jaw throbbed horribly, and he feared he was on the verge of throwing that punch after all. Sam seemed to be able to tell this, so he quieted down. "I wasn't talking about stupid gay stereotypes, okay? I know we're both the guy in this relationship. If I wanted predictable male/female roles, I would go to that trashy singles bar and drag one of those ugly broads home by her hair or something."
"Not helping," Sam buzzed.
"Let me finish!"
Sam visibly backed away in fear, and Dean immediately felt guilty. He wiped another drip of blood away from his mouth and took a deep breath.
"I just meant," he finally said, "I just meant that…" Suddenly the words were failing him again.
"What?" Sam asked nervously.
Dean shook his head as he fought back an emotion that he wasn't expecting to have to deal with tonight.
"Dean?"
"You're my baby," Dean whispered through a constricted throat. Sam took a quick breath in surprise. "That doesn't mean I think of you as a girl or as submissive or anything like that," Dean said. "I just… I just love that smile you get on your face when I do something nice for you, you know? When I surprise you or do something sweet that you weren't expecting."
A ghost of that smile appeared on Sam's face in the red of the moonlight. "Yeah?" he prodded cautiously.
"I wanted to be the one to bring up dancing," Dean admitted. "To see the look on your face. To see that killer smile of yours." Sam smiled in earnest now, and even under the haunted blood moon, Dean could see a blush creeping over his cheeks. "You beat me to it, baby brother."
Another line of blood dribbled down Dean's chin, and before he could get to it, Sam pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped it away himself. He put his other hand against the cool skin of Dean's face and blinked lovingly. "I'm sorry," he said.
"For what? The busted lip or the bruised ego?"
"I'm such an asshole," Sam apologized.
Dean made as if to argue, then thought about it, then nodded his head. "Yeah," he agreed simply, eliciting a laugh from Sam. "There's that smile," Dean purred.
He leaned in for a kiss, but Sam put a hand on his chest, holding him back. "Wait."
"What?" Dean moaned petulantly.
"Come here."
Sam took Dean's hand and led him back to the fire where the vampire's body was now nearly unrecognizable. The brilliant green flame had faded to a soft purple, and Dean stared at Sam questioningly, trying not to be distracted by the beautiful hue the fire granted to Sam's tan skin.
"What are we doing, Sammy?"
"We're starting again."
"Huh?"
"I want you to ask me to dance."
Dean shook his head. "No, Sam, let's not do this right now, okay?"
"I'm serious, Dean. I want you to ask me."
"We can't just pretend the last five minutes didn't happen."
"I can," Sam corrected.
"No," Dean refused. "I'm not gonna let you do that for me. I was the one who screwed up the moment."
"Dean, do you think I don't know how you feel when you surprise me?" Dean didn't respond. "Do you think I don't love how proud you look when you've done something to make me happy?"
Dean looked away then, a blush of his own coming on.
"So if not for yourself, then for me," Sam said. "I would be getting something out of this too, you know."
Sam had said his piece, and he turned back to the purple flame, clearing his face of any expression, pretending that they had gone back in time to the point when Dean first lit the fire.
Dean shook his head skeptically. But the longer he stood there, the more he realized that Sam wasn't going to budge on this. So he finally took a deep breath and turned to his brother, holding out his blood stained hand. To his surprise Sam looked at him with perfectly crafted confusion.
"What?" Sam asked.
Momentarily thrown, Dean stood there blinking as if he had done something wrong. But he quickly got it back together and said, "I want you to dance with me, Sammy."
Sam's features lit up like a clear sky at noontime in an expression of delighted surprise that curled Dean's toes. Goddamn, this boy was good!
"What are you talking about, Dean?" Sam giggled.
Dean nodded at the fire, beginning to enjoy their little role play. "We've been hunting this son of a bitch for a month," he said smoothly. "Don't you think we should celebrate?"
Sam stood there with his mouth open, glancing back and forth between Dean and the fire. "We've never danced before," he said shyly.
"Well, I figure we've spent the last three months exploring every sexual position we are bodily capable of performing…" Sam didn't have to pretend the blush that arose from that. "And yet we've never swayed gently side to side in each other's arms." Dean offered his hand again. "Will you?"
Sam's smiled widened even more, and Dean felt his own face stretch into what must have been that expression of pride that Sam had been referring to. Strange, from Dean's end of it, he just felt goofy. But judging from the love that was practically pouring off of Sam's body in that moment, maybe goofy was okay.
"Yes," Sam said.
Dean instinctively reached for Sam's waist, then pulled his arms back. He realized that he had absolutely no idea how to approach a slow dance with another man, especially given the blow up they had just had over gender roles. He looked into Sam's eyes nervously.
But Sam was perfectly calm. He took Dean's arms and gently wrapped them around his own waist, then circled his arms around Dean's shoulders and pulled him close, rubbing his cheek up against his brother's. Dean sighed with relief as they began to sway, their only music the crackling of the fire, the sizzling of dead flesh, and an owl hooting eerily in the distance.
"I'm sorry we couldn't have a better setting for this," Dean apologized.
"Are you kidding me? It's perfect."
They swayed for several minutes, turning a slow circle in the consecrated dirt, breathing each other in and reveling in the warmth of each other's arms.
"This is the best idea you've had in a month," Sam whispered into Dean's ear with a hint of a laugh in his voice.
Dean pulled his head back just enough to look into Sam's eyes.
"Yeah, well," he said with fake modesty. "I was feeling whimsical."
Sam slapped the side of Dean's head playfully, and they both smiled. Then, without missing so much as a single synchronized step, Dean leaned forward and kissed his brother deeply, exploring every corner of his mouth with a skilled and eager tongue. When they finally parted, they rested their foreheads together to catch their breath.
"Yeah," Sam breathed heavily. "Me too."