A/N: It's the 'morning after'. A bit of Dean's POV. Are they ever going to get out of bed?

The Pompatus Box (Chapter 31: Re-negotiations) by frostygossamer

Dean wakes first. He has a strange half-dreamy feeling that he's spent the night wrestling with a hungry alligator. One with a humongous, intrusive tongue and sharp teeth. His skin tingles with tiny bite marks and his body feels loose and tender, but in a good way. He seems to have enjoyed last night. He muses on what he can remember of it...

He recalls kissing... Hot, hot kissing... Warm, soft lips devouring his mouth... An agile tongue exploring his tonsils like an miniature aquanaut... Great kissing, yeah.

There was sucking too, warm and wet... Sharp teeth grazing his nipple... A mouth sealed over his racing heart... Tracing a line down his belly... And on him, wet and warm... Awesome sucking, yeah.

He knows his feet were up around Sam's neck at one point... And he also knows they tested those bedsprings almost to destruction in pretty much every other position they could think of... And a few they may have invented. Heh heh.

And, between flashes of electricity that made his head spin, he recalls spikes of pure sexual energy running up and down his spine with the shock and sizzle of ice water on a hotplate. Whoa, yeah.

Again cool... but weird. Because he's had plenty of sex, one hell of a lot, and no one has ever gotten inside him that way, deep deep inside. Oh God, yeah.

Then again, he has never had sex with anyone so bat shit crazy in love with him before. Which is, in itself, kind of scary. Uh-huh.

And he was never hot for a guy till he met Sam. Which means the big goober has somehow warped him by being so freakin' irresistible. Damn it, yeah.

That pouty face and those huge hands all over his body? Dean never stood a chance. No sir.

He can still taste Sam on his tongue, gross but interesting. And, right now, there's Sam's arm wrapped around his waist. Sure.

It's heavy and warm and it actually... really doesn't feel that bad.

The chronometer beside his bed, shamelessly wearing Sam's downstairs ribbon, confirms that they've gotten within hailing distance of Eno. Pretty soon Baby will start procedures for landing. Dean should really go talk time and place with Captain Ellen Harvelle.

He moves to carefully lever himself up from the mattress and his hand happens to connect with Sam's hand. Experimentally he threads his fingers between Sam's and squeezes. Does it feel good the way it felt good to hold hands with Miss Lisa Braeden? Uh-huh, pretty good. Sam's huge paw makes even Dean's feel relatively small and childlike. Sam's hand feels the way his dad's hand felt, strong and safe. It's really not a bad feeling.

Sam squeezes back. He's awake. Damn it! Dean's natural reflex is to snatch back his hand, but Sam holds on and Dean leaves it there. He guesses this is the way it's going to be between them from now on so he may as well go with it. If he wriggles out Sam may get the wrong idea, that he isn't 100 percent happy. And he is, for once, 100 percent happy.

Dean snaps himself out of his daze. "Gotta go message Ellen Harvelle."

Sam opens his eyes a slit and grins. "Sure."

Dean makes no attempt to move. Sam rolls over and pulls him back onto the mattress. Dean lets him.

"So?" asks Sam, quietly in his ear. "Why'd you come get me after so long? Kinda figured you were outta my life for good. That was a cold move, by the way."

Dean shrugs. He thought he was doing the right thing. Sometimes the rightness of a thing is subject to drift. Sometimes you need a figurative lens to see it through.

"It was the Pompatus."

Sam is skeptical. "Oh, sure. One look at that little guy and you suddenly gotta go all party-crasher on my ass. Figures."

Dean pokes him in the ribs. "I can always take you back, chucklehead."

Sam kisses his ear and whispers, "Never."

He knows Dean's not going to flip-flop again, not after they have finally sealed the deal with a 'night of passion' that almost swung the damn rocketship off its course.

Dean shoves Sam's head away, fairly playfully. "Hey, bitch, I'm explaining something here."

Sam straightens his face. "Sure. Fire away."

"Well... Believe it or not, I had one of those cuddlebutts, back when I was four. Until some bitch caseworker saw fit to confiscate him, uh, it."

"Harsh."

"Way harsh. Sure missed its fuzzy ass, the dumb hunk of fluff. It was all the family I had left, friend, companion, confidant, bed-buddy."

Sam grins. "Sounds a lot like me."

Dean turns his head and gives him a look. "You get that, huh?"

Sam's eyebrows rise slightly. "Oh, that WAS what you were getting at. Hey, I can read minds. Freaky."

He can picture the scene. A small boy, four-year-old Dean, standing on the steps of a formidable fortress-like orphanage, some gray gabardine-clad matron gripping his tiny hand, the furry paw of his only surviving family member grasped in a little fist. They could have let him keep one soft toy, surely?

Even if none of the other kids were allowed, he had lost his father and almost his life, for heaven's sake. That they took away his only comfort is damn hard to justify. It was the last vestige of a loving family who had once called him their 'little prince'.

But now Sam's confusing this mental image with one from his own past. It's a vivid recollection of the day his grandfather called him into his office from playing ball with the servants' kids. The Grand Duke informed him that his parents, Samuel's daughter the Princess Royal and her husband, had both been lost in an airship disaster.

The stern old man's manner was dry-eyed and pragmatic. He said, "These things happen in time of war". At least Sam got to keep his teddy, and his entire nursery. His whole future didn't come crashing down around him like Dean's did. No wonder Dean is such a damaged bunny.

Dean snorts. "Can you shut your yap for one second?"

Sam looks suitably contrite as Dean finishes his thought.

"OK, I let them bully me into giving up THAT bear. Now I look in the box and there it is, a bear. It all comes flooding back and I'm thinking, 'Crap! I did it again.'"

"Did what?"

"Handed over my freakin' bear, that's what, doofus. Those freakin' mindbenders had me believing I gotta 'walk alone'. Well, self-sufficiency ain't all it's cracked up to be. And I fell for that old crap again. May as well have put you in a freakin' space suit, boxed you up and sent you airmail. Hell, I pretty much DID. So I'm thinking, 'Oh no, not this time, dude!'"

"Crazy!" Sam laughs. "Cue mad dash to the abbey, huh?"

"Bingo!"

Dean is already getting out of bed to go intercommunicate with Ellen. Sam is suddenly touched by Dean's analogy. Typical of the guy, he's never going to say it out loud but someplace hidden in there was a pretty sweet sentiment.

"So, uh, you're saying I'm YOUR Pompatus?"

Dean pauses, hand on doorknob.

It has taken him a lightning bolt of self-realization, and confirmation from Sam, but he does finally believe he can say what the heck a Pompatus is all about. If he chooses, HIS Pompatus could be the big naked guy lying there in his bed. And, yeah, he does choose.

"Yep. I guess." He disappears out the door, walking very gingerly.

Sam rolls over on his back and chuckles, patting his big rod. "Good boy, Goliath!"

Then he sits up, already missing his captain, and shouts through the open door.

"And you come right on back here. OK? I'm still kinda shaky on those last six positions."

Dean snickers to himself as he hails Eno Convoy Control. He may have to punish Sam for being such a bad student.

TBC

A/N: I promise next chapter will contain some plot. The adventure is not over yet. More soon.