So, I'm writing as much as I can right now because in a couple of weeks I'm going to be taking a trip overseas and I'll be gone for a bit with little to no computer access. Eek! So, I'm just giving you all a heads-up now in case I don't get out another chapter before then. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoy it! And, as always, I welcome all feedback, good and constructive!

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After the incident at the diner, Sam made a point to ask Dean if they could go to a strip club later that night and in response, Dean had given him a big-eyed, wide-grinned stare that reminded him of a kid on Christmas morning. When they got there, Sam chose a seat for himself facing away from the stage and spent most of the night staring at either his beer bottle or the grain pattern on their wooden table, glancing around only occasionally to signal their waitress for another beer. He took occasional glimpses at the stage when Dean seemed particularly excited about a dancer but usually looked back away pretty quickly. Sitting in front of a sticky table in a place that smelled faintly of beer and sweat while getting hard in public to nearly naked women who were only interested in him as a potential financial transaction was not his idea of a good time. On top of that, the hot, stuffy air was making him sweat but he tried to at least not look miserable and let Dean have his fun. Dean, of course, noticed his discomfort but said nothing and when the waitress made Sam feel awkward and blush by repeatedly touching his arm and back as she handed him his drinks, no doubt hoping that being extra flirtatious would bring her an extra-large tip, Dean actually laughed.

By the time they got back to their room, it was 3 A.M., Dean was drunk and Sam felt like his clothes were completely saturated in grime and sweat. They both immediately shucked off their dirty clothes, staying in only their t-shirts and boxers, and the moment they were laying down with the lights out, Sam heard the sheets rusting as Dean slid over to him from across the bed. In the next moment, he felt Dean's forefinger and thumb pinch his nipple and smelled Dean's whiskey breath on his face. Breathing heavily, Dean kissed him hard on the mouth and then rubbed himself against Sam's thigh and Sam felt how aroused Dean was. Although Sam felt tired and was a little annoyed that his brother was hard from staring at strippers and now expected him to take care of it, he made out with Dean for a little while and then shoved a hand down his shorts and began stroking him fast and sure. As soon as he did, Dean reached into Sam's shorts, pulled out his semi-hard cock and began stroking him as well. They lay there, facing each other side-by-side, kissing and stroking each other until Sam was fully hard and then Dean stopped Sam's hand, pushed their dicks together, and began jerking them off in sync. Sam joined, wrapping his hand around their bases, and together they laid, touching each other and breathing heavily into each other's mouths until they came, spurting all over one another's hands and clothes. Sam knew that he should care about the wet mess on him but at the moment was just too tired to really want to move and Dean seemed to feel the same way because they pulled their shirts off, wiped their hands off on them and threw them to the floor, then lay beside each other and fell asleep.

The next day, Dean kept his word and stopped bothering Sam about finding a hunt for them so they could just spend the day relaxing and getting ready for Christmas. They went into town and picked up a couple of bottles of whiskey, some tinsel, a bucket, a bag of sand, a small package of ornaments, a carton of eggnog, black licorice (Dean was going to have to eat all of that by himself,) popcorn, Reese's, Airheads, and some fun size Hershey's bars. On the way home, they found a little three-foot tall evergreen tree by the side of the road, chopped it down, tied it to the roof of the car and took it back with them. They set it up in their room by using the bucket and sand. Later, as they decorated the tree together, Sam watched Dean's relaxed, smiling face as he threw tinsel on the limbs and thought that for the first time in a while, his brother actually looked happy, or as close to happy as Dean got these days. Later that night as Sam lay on his stomach with a pillow shoved under himself while Dean lay on top of him rocking into him slowly, kissing and biting his shoulders and moaning into his ear, Sam felt like, apocalypse or no apocalypse, the two of them were finally okay.

Christmas started out fairly uneventfully. They slept in late, woke up at around eleven, and had another round of sex before getting in the shower to clean up. The water turned cold while Sam had Dean pinned against the cool tile wall of the shower with his tongue deep in his mouth, the two of them rutting against each other and still covered head to toe in soap suds. They rinsed off quickly and ran back to bed for a second round of sex, which then turned into a third. By evening, Sam and Dean lay in their sweaty, tangled sheets, feeling exhausted, sore, and completely sated.

Sam went out to grab them Boston Market while Dean stayed behind to make eggnog and after Sam came back with the food, they spent the rest of the night eating, drinking eggnog and watching movies. They turned on the TV right at the beginning of the old 1981 version of "Clash of The Titans." Dean got excited because he said he'd heard a new version was coming out in a few months and he wanted to see the old one again first. During a commercial break, Sam started flipping through the list of movies they could order and at first Dean got the wrong idea and sniggered.

"Sam, you sly dog, you wanna watch a porno together? Fuck, is there no satisfying you?"

Sam felt his cheeks burn a little hot and he swallowed hard. "Shut-up," he mumbled embarrassedly. "And I don't even want to think about sex right now, my ass is so sore."

He clicked on the "Action" section, making sure not to accidentally move down one more category to "Adult" like Dean had expected him to, and looked for a minute until he found "Fist of Legend." It had been a while since he'd seen a good Jet Li movie, so he told Dean that after their movie was over he wanted to watch that one next. After they finished the first film, Dean kept grinning like a little kid and repeating, "Unleash the Kraken!" Sam laughed good-naturedly at Dean's cheery mood and agreed to see the new "Clash of the Titans" movie as soon as it came out in theatres. Dean seemed relaxed and happy and Sam had had enough drinks to feel contented and untroubled, and so what happened next caught Sam completely off-guard.

They were sitting on their bed, drunk, still working through all the eggnog, and about to watch the second movie, although it had been over forty-five minutes since the first movie ended and neither of them had made a move to turn it on yet. The room had gone silent for the past fifteen minutes but Sam hadn't even noticed the silence until Dean suddenly broke it. "Sam?"

Sam, who had been happily staring off into space, turned to face his brother and saw him looking thoughtful and apprehensive as he spent a long moment quietly staring into his half-empty glass. "Yeah, Dean?"

"What's it like, having sex with a demon?"

Sam blanched. "Why?"

"Because I wanna know, that's why."

Sam swallowed hard; he'd always really hoped Dean would never want to have this conversation. "Dean, I really don't want to talk about it."

Dean's face hardened. "Oh, I see, so you're still allowed to keep secrets from me, huh? Is that it?"

"What? This isn't about keeping secrets! Why do you want to know so bad? It's not exactly like those were good memories for me."

"Right, not good memories, so you're gonna tell me you didn't like it?"

"Well…" Sam squirmed, trying to find the right words to say. "At the time, I guess it felt good, but afterwards I felt…" He stopped; he really didn't want to talk about this. "You know what, where is this coming from? Ruby's dead." Seriously, what did Dean care anymore? He knew that Dean hated Ruby, with good reason, and after reading Chuck's story he knew Dean was even jealous of her, but she was gone.

"It doesn't matter, Sam!" Dean burst out with sudden vehemence.

Sam stared at him wide-eyed. "Dean? What are you – why are you – " His face contorted in horror as a thought occurred to him. "We've been having sex all day, have you been thinking about this the whole time and comparing notes?"

"What? No!"

Sam raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Dean?"

"No, Sam! If I was thinking about you getting it on with that black-eyed skank, do you think I'd even be able to get it up?"

Sam felt a surge of shame at Dean's words and felt a new wave of disgust for all the things he'd done with Ruby. Dean felt sick whenever he thought about Ruby touching him, he knew that already from reading Chuck's story too, and he felt himself being filled with rage over it. He'd held Ruby in place while Dean stabbed her and had been doing everything in his power to control the demon blood cravings. He'd been punishing himself for what he'd done for a long time now by feeling like a horrible monster for it and he was doing everything he could to fix what he'd done and repair things between himself and Dean. Could he never redeem himself to his brother? Would Dean always be disgusted with him over what he'd done in the past and couldn't change? "Okay Dean, I've had about enough. I won't tell you anything until you tell me what this is about right now!"

Dean stared at him for a moment, emptied his glass, and then bent down to pick up the very spiked carton of eggnog, poured out another half cup, filled the other half with more whiskey, gulped it down, and did it again. "Fine. It's been bothering me for long enough already anyway. Two weeks ago, on the Impala. You really like it a little rough sometimes, don't you, Sam?"

Sam's jaw dropped. "What? What the hell does that have to do with anything? Wait a minute; I like it 'rough'? Do you mean I hurt you?"

"No, Sam, no, you didn't hurt me. And it didn't bother me at first. I mean, hey, you like to sling me around sometimes, alright, fine, whatever. But why is it that I've been sleeping with you for three months and I'm only now finding out that you like that sort of thing, huh?"

"Uh…I don't know, I guess I was afraid that you might not like it."

"Right." Dean said slowly. "So, what other kinks do you have that you're not telling me about?"

"Kinks? Dean, that's not a kink, sometimes I just like to take control when we're…" Sam paused and his face hardened in anger as the meaning of what Dean was saying finally clicked. "Hold on, are you actually suggesting that what I do with you is anything like Ruby?"

"I'm saying that there's a lot of leftover crap from Ruby that I don't know about. I'm saying that there are still things about you that, apparently, you're too scared to tell me about!" Sam stared at him, jaw tightened and nostrils flaring, and Dean's eyes softened a little. "It's not just about the sex, alright? I mean, we're supposed to be looking out for each other and I – sometimes, I just don't know. Lucifer seems so sure you're gonna say 'yes' and I don't even know how Ruby got you to…" He trailed off.

"Fine! You want to know what it was like? It was sex, Dean, no attachment, no emotion. Just sex. It was nothing like what you and I do. But she used to call me Sammy, almost like she was trying to be you, or something. I don't know; maybe she thought we were already together and she was trying to replace you, or she already knew about the things we felt for each other and weren't ready to admit yet. And she used to pretend like she cared about me like you do. At first it made me think of you and it got me off, which confused the hell outta me because I didn't know why. But I could still tell that she didn't care about me the way she pretended to. And I'd look at her when we were having sex or she was sucking my cock and hate her and then I'd hate myself. And I didn't want to do it anymore but then after I started drinking her blood, she cut herself one time and wouldn't let me drink until I was inside her. It became a usual thing until needing demon blood got me horny. And then we did stop having sex because every time I drank demon blood, it made me come. There! Is that what you wanted to know, Dean, what a sick freak I am?"

At the last four words, all of Sam's anger dissipated and he sat on the bed, feeling raw and defeated. Dean knew now, he knew everything. Dean stared at Sam wide-eyed and with his mouth hanging open.

"Jesus Sam, I had no idea. You used demon blood…to get off?"

There was an edge of revulsion and disbelief in Dean's voice and Sam's cheeks colored as he felt even more mortified and disgusted with himself. "Not at first, it didn't start out like that. But once we started, um…" he paused, "doing that, it became like a Pavlovian response, you know?"

"So, when you crave the blood do you still, you know…crave hot, freaky sex?"

"Uh…" Dammit, why did they have to start talking about this? Well, maybe it was better this way; at least he wasn't keeping anything from him anymore. "I don't crave the blood a whole lot anymore, but…yeah, sometimes."

Dean downed his drink and then picked up the bottle of whiskey, poured himself a generous glassful and shot it down. "Well, I'll tell you what: knowing this really makes me wish I could see that evil bitch again just so I could hang her up and melt her nice and slow in a vat of holy water." He looked thoughtful. "She knew how we felt, even before we did."

Sam nodded. "Yeah, I guess she did. But Dean, that's why I know I'm not going to say 'yes' to Lucifer. All Ruby did was the same thing that every angel and demon has ever done, and that's use how we feel about each other against us. But we know what we're doing now and this time we're gonna do it right. We're gonna stop Lucifer, together."

"You sure about that?"

"Yeah, of course."

"I mean, you sure you know what we're doing? Out of all the times we've gotten each other killed, brought each other back, and screwed the pooch, you're saying that this is the time we're gonna get it right? It's the friggin' apocalypse, Sam! We've got no room for error!"

"I know that, Dean! But we've learned from our mistakes – I've learned from my mistakes – and I know that the only person I can trust is you. I'm in this with you, one hundred percent."

"Yeah." Dean nodded absently and sat silently for a moment and then gave Sam a half-smirk, even though in his eyes he still looked seriously freaked out. "So, she used to pretend she was me, huh?"

"Sort of. I mean, she always did kind of, but just in a twisted sort of way."

He sniggered. "She wasn't as good-looking as me."

Sam shook his head. "She was a piss-poor substitute; if I'd have known back then that I could have had the real thing – " He stopped, realizing too late that he was once again putting his foot in his mouth. There was no way he was going to imply that the start of the apocalypse was Dean's fault because he hadn't started sleeping with him sooner. "You wanna watch the other movie?"

Dean nodded and emptied his cup. "Sure."

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After Christmas, Sam was sure that Dean wasn't going to want to touch him again for a while, but was surprisingly proved wrong the next evening when, as he was checking the Internet for demonic omens, Dean walked up behind him, shut his laptop, and then ran his hands up and down Sam's chest, began unbuttoning his shirt, and whispered, 'bed or floor,' into his ear. Dean actually seemed to take the news about the demon blood surprisingly well, although Sam couldn't be one hundred percent sure because they never talked about it again. He was still moody and withdrawn at times, but no more than before and Sam let it go because he really didn't want to talk about the blood and if Dean wanted to talk about whatever else was bothering him, he'd come to him eventually. He was drinking a lot, but that was pretty usual for Dean and other than that he was sleeping pretty regularly and functional. They settled into a routine, with Sam checking the news for anything apocalypse related while they did some small jobs in the meantime; a werewolf hunt in Red Bluff, California, taking out a vampire nest in Portland, Oregon, killing a shapeshifter in Reno, Nevada. At Sam's suggestion they took a little time off in between each hunt to earn some cash in case something big and bad came their way and they had to spend long periods of time without being able to get money again.

On February 12th, they were having a normal evening, with Sam at the laptop and Dean sitting at the edge of their bed with a needle and thread, mending a tear beside the back pocket on a pair of his jeans when Sam found an article that piqued his interest. "Hey Dean, check this out."

Dean stopped mid-stitch to get up and look over Sam's shoulder. "What ya got?"

"I think I just found us a really weird case. Olympia Fields, Illinois, a couple on a date came back to her place and apparently ate each other to death."

"To death? Wow, must have been hungry. Have the movie theater snacks really become that expensive?"

"Hilarious, Dean. Anyway, what do you say we pack up and leave first thing in the morning?"

Dean calmly walked back to the bed, picked back up his pants, and continued his stitching. "Sounds good. Illinois, here we come."

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