Warning: this chapter contains explicit content.

In the end it's Dean who can only open his mouth, too shocked to do anything else, and it's Sam who's walking them backwards into the wall. It's Sam who pulls away after a few moments and Dean can only look at him, look at his bitten-red lips and for a moment he nearly recoils because this Sam is one he's only seen in passing. This guy belongs to Jessica, to Madison, to all those pretty girls with their long hair and their nice manners, and for a second doing this seems beyond rational thought.

And then Sam does this thing. He cocks his head a little, looks at Dean curiously, and there's so much of Sam in that, so much that Dean can see echoing right back to the lanky bright-eyed kid he picked up from Stanford all those years ago, and something about that makes this suddenly feel okay. 'Sam,' he says, and rounds on him, pressing his hands into Sam's shoulders, crowding him up against the wall. 'Sam. Are you-? Are you on board here?'

'Oh yeah,' says Sam, breathing hard. 'Yeah, I think so.' He slides down the wall a little. 'You're. Um. Cool with this, then? You aren't going to freak?'

'Not gonna make any promises,' says Dean. 'But, uh. I'll give it my best.'

He kisses Sam, then, sliding his hands round the back of Sam's neck to pull him down, biting gently at his lower lip, and Sam smiles against his mouth.

They move it to Dean's room and he closes the door behind them when they walk in, reflexive, but Sam hesitates. Then, 'No,' he says, 'Leave it open, Dean, leave it open,' so they leave it open.

Sam sits on the edge of the bed, looking a little nervous, a little unsure, and his leg's jittering up and down. Dean sits down beside him and closes a hand over Sam's knee, stilling it, and Sam looks very grateful and maybe kind of sad.

'We don't have to,' says Dean. 'It's cool, Sam. Whatever you want, however you want, it's cool. Okay?'

Sam's eyes go all soft and shiny at that. He lies back on the bed, wincing at the pull on his stitches, and Dean takes that as an invitation. He crouches over Sam's body, leaning down to kiss the ghostly arch of his hipbone, and Sam smiles a little. Lets his legs fall open- when Dean withdraws, Sam reaches down to pull off his jeans and boxers, kicking them off, and then Dean's kind of speechless. Faced with a million miles of skinny vulnerable Sam-legs, the curve of his half-erect cock, the soft dark trail of hair just visible below his shirt, he's not sure what to do. His hands drift up Sam's calves, fingers settling in the pale grooves of his knees.

It's a moment before he registers that Sam's starting to look uncomfortable, starting to fold his legs together- and wouldn't he feel exposed like that, only wearing a shirt, so much more exposed than being fully naked?

Dean steps back, letting Sam's legs slip closed, and takes off his shirt. He shucks his jeans at the same time, hopping to get out of them just to make Sam chuckle, and when he's naked he stands for a moment, letting Sam see everything. The freckles scattered where his skin's palest. His dick hanging heavy between his legs. The scars, silvered and streaked and ugly. The powerful hinge of muscle where neck meets shoulder. He lifts his head, and knows that the light glints off sandy-brown and grey hairs alike.

Sam's looking at him, eyes glued to his face, and there's this look in them, and it makes Dean want to cry. Sam's looking at him with this weird hopeful trust that he's never seen before, not ever, with these eyes that say I know what you're doing and I'm so glad you're doing it and I love you. And say no matter what happens in this room and no matter how it changes us and no matter what you think of me and no matter what they think of us I love you. Dean's face starts to buckle; right then and there, standing nude in the lamplight with his brother laid out like a specimen butterfly on his bed, and he watches Sam's throat (his beautiful chrysalis throat) tighten with concern. With sympathy.

He steps forward, half-expecting the floor to be uneven.

When he touches Sam's thighs, Sam lets him move them apart. It's pretty distracting to have his cock right there, but Dean takes a moment. To look at his tanned and calloused hands digging into the pale flesh of Sam's thighs. To trace the soft bluish bleedings of his veins beneath the skin, and 'Dean,' says Sam in this quiet quiet voice.

He looks up. Aches to rub his nose against the delicate point of Sam's. He'd always found the shape of Sam's nose so cute. 'Yeah?'

'Do you have any,' and Sam clears his throat, 'stuff?'

Ah. Dean winks. 'First rule of buttsex, Sammy. You can never use too much lube, and always take a shower.'

'I'm pretty sure that's two rules,' says Sam, but he shifts to one side so that Dean can rummage in his bedside table.

After a second, 'Jackpot,' he says, coming up with a bottle of lube and a condom. Sam immediately snatches the condom out of his hand, fumbles it open. His fingertips graze the head of Dean's dick when he rolls it on, and Dean can't suppress a shiver.

Sam lies back again, propping himself up on his elbows.

'Are you sure you want to do it this way?' asks Dean carefully.

Sam fixes him with a look. It's another Sam-look. 'I'm sure,' he says.

But Sam's still got his shirt on- it's been at the back of Dean's mind for the past few minutes, and he's starting to get an idea of why. He lets his hands go to its buttons, but as he starts undoing the top one Sam's hand comes up to close around his wrist.

'I'd rather you didn't,' says Sam softly. 'Please. I'd really rather you didn't, Dean.'

'Trust me,' says Dean, and he leans down to drop another kiss on Sam's mouth, and then, finally, the tip of his nose. 'It's nothing I haven't seen before. Trust me.' After a moment Sam's hand falls away, and Dean undoes the buttons on his shirt, one by one.

As he gets farther down, the shirt slipping open, Sam seems to fight against the impulse to move, and when he closes his eyes Dean kisses his eyelids one after the other. By the time he reaches the last button both their hands are shaking. Finally the shirt falls to the side.

Sam's torso is wrapped in clingfilm over the skin graft, the scar showing long and black and ugly and the cuts over his torso crisscrossing, scabbed and brown and bruised, and okay, it's not a pretty sight, of course it's not a pretty fucking sight, and it takes a moment before Dean can put the onrush of guilt on hold, and Sam breathes in so deep his sternum shifts. Dean lays a hand on it and Sam's eyes find his and there's fear in them and a horrifying amount of trust and then he sees that one single mole below Sam's shoulder and he touches it with a fingertip and a small odd noise breaks free of them both.

It's a cue, maybe. Dean squirts lube into his hand, coating his fingers with it, and waits for Sam to spread his legs- and eventually, after a moment, Sam does, lying flat against the pillows, hitching up his legs so they're bent at the knee. Dean takes that in, takes in the openness of his body- has he ever seen Sam like this before?- and the ridiculous coltish bracing of legs and he's not sure when this started feeling so ultimate, and he's not sure when he got fully hard, he's not sure how any of this happened- in which of their thousand pitstops he first began to feel this many-headed thing for his baby brother, and then a thought comes to him and he says 'Sam, are you even supposed to be doing this with your stitches and all?'

And Sam, God bless him, just tilts his legs open wider and says 'We're already AM-fucking-A, Dean, just get the hell on with it, will you?'

So Dean does. He takes Sam's ankles in his hands and moves them even farther apart, and he reaches down to spread Sam's ass, brushing his dusky-pink hole with a thumb, and Sam squeezes his eyes closed. His ribs rise and fall.

Dean squeezes lube into his palm, coating his fingers with it, pressing a big dollop up to Sam's hole. It's cold and Sam makes a quiet noise of surprise. Dean slicks up his other hand, slides it over Sam's cock to keep him hard, and eases the tip of his first finger in.

'You okay?' he says.

'Yeah. Yeah.'

Dean opens him up as slow as he can, fitting in first one finger, then two, then three. Neither of them asks the other if they've done this before, and for that he's glad. Sweat starts out on his collarbone at the feeling of Sam's insides clamping down on his fingers, and there's a flush breaking over Sam's neck and chest and cheeks, and when Dean gets his fingers as far as he can into that soft tight heat and presses down in a certain way Sam's whole body shudders, head falling back, hair fanning over the pillow.

They don't speak. Dean's usually a talker, a sweet-smooth-dirty talker, but not here, not now. When he pulls out his fingers he lays his palm against Sam's throat, two fingers splayed careful over his Adam's apple, asking for reassurance, and Sam meets his eyes and smiles.

He lubes up his dick with one hand, lines up, begins to push in. Sam's hands fasten round Dean's biceps, fingers digging in and Dean can feel him trying to relax around Dean's cock and that clench-unclench of muscles is driving him crazy, blood throbbing in his groin, and he shoves all the way in involuntarily, punching a groan out of them both.

'Jesus Christ,' says Sam in a shaky voice, after a moment. 'Just, uh- give me a second.' Dean holds off moving, can feel the place where Sam's rim stretches around his dick as Sam shifts a little, hand on his clingfilm-wrapped stomach, and manages to relax just enough for Dean to pull out a little and slide back in.

It takes a few minutes before they find a rhythm. It's not screw-your-brains-out wild, but it's deep and slow and Dean's as gentle as he can, making his lesiurely way to find that sweet aching spot within Sam, and somehow the surreality of the situation has been swallowed into the shine of sweat on Sam's closed eyelids. Dean kisses the inside of Sam's knees as he works his hand on his cock and his brother's arm falls back as he comes, covering his eyes, fingers limp and curled towards the ceiling.

Dean comes sudden and unexpected, clinging to Sam with everything he has, Sam stroking his back with shaking hands.

They lie there where they've collapsed, listening to each other breathing, aware of the stink of sex that crouches in the room. Dean strokes through Sam's hair only once before getting up to wipe them off with half a packet of tissues. By the time he lies back down Sam's already asleep, chest rising and falling slowly.

He kisses the inside of his brother's wrists. Once. Twice.

SPN SPN SPN

Dean wakes first. They'd left the lamp on, and its glow burnishes Sam's eyelashes. He checks his watch; eight O'clock. They've slept in.

Sam doesn't begin to wake until Dean gets off the bed, and it's his manner of waking that reminds Dean that he's sick- the lethargy, the clumsiness as he rubs at his eyes. But that's okay. That's something they can fix.

'Mornin', sweetheart,' he drawls, infusing his voice with as much sarcastic twang as he can, and Sam paws at his eyes again, grinning through a yawn. 'Seriously?'

Dean winks.

In the kitchen, Sam settles into a chair. Dean starts looking through the cupboards, because he's hungrier than he remembers being in ages, and after a minute Sam's voice comes. 'So what are we going to do?'

'What?' Dean calls. He's got his head buried in a cupboard, looking for flour.

'About this. About-' Dean can just picture Sam's hands waving dramatically- 'us. What are going to do?'

He finds the flour. Sets it on the table, and sits down beside Sam, meeting his eyes.

'I'm only gonna say this once,' he says. 'I want to carry on. With this- thing. Whatever this is. And judging by last night, I'd say that- you do, too. Yeah?'

Sam's eyes are trained on him, unblinking.

'But if you don't,' he goes on, 'or if you've changed your mind, or- whatever- then just say. Okay? Just say. And we can stop, or- you can leave, even, if that'll make you happy.'

'It wouldn't,' says Sam. 'You know that.'

'Well- okay.' He clears his throat; stands. 'What I'm trying to say, Sam- whatever you give me, I'll take it. I'll always take it. But you don't have to give me anything. We clear?'

'I think so,' says Sam. He's staring at the table. 'Only I'm kinda confused. I expected you to be freaking out about. You know. The incest thing? Maybe? What would Dad say, this is wrong, you're my little brother sort of stuff?

'Yeah,' says Dean, and pauses. Thinks. He looks round to find Sam's eyes. 'I dunno. I mean- before all this amnesia crap happened- but I dunno. And after what you said yesterday- and after last night. I think- I mean, when it comes down to it, it's us, right? It's you and me. And that- doesn't feel wrong.'

'It doesn't feel wrong to me either,' says Sam. 'I don't think it could.'

'Good. I mean, I can't say for the future, y'know? I may or may not have a meltdown at some point about all this. But if I ever do, you might just wanna punch me.'

'Not punch you,' says Sam medatively. 'But I could get on board with 'lightly slap'.'

He looks at Dean, and all Dean's breath goes out of him at what's behind Sam's eyes, at what's living behind Sam's eyes.

He lays his hand over his brother's.

'Lightly slap' it is,' he says, and at the look Sam gives him he knows- it's going to be tough, of course it fucking is, it's always tough. Sam's still sick and Dean's still wrecked and they've both got a shit-ton of issues, but. But. As long as Sam can still give him that look.

They're going to be okay. They survive; it's what they do. And this new layer to the thing that's always been between them is just something else that they've got to keep safe, to hold and heal past fragility and uneasiness, to get them to a place where Dean can lean over and kiss Sam on the point of his nose every goddamned morning.

To get them back here, time after time. He leans over. Kisses Sam on the nose.

Right here.