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They’re unhealthy.
It's just a fact. He and Dean are unhealthy. Codependent, a psych doctor once said, and granted he hadn’t known them for very long, but Sam’s pretty sure he’d gotten that right. They’re unhealthy, codependent, enmeshed, incapable of functioning without each other.
He used to hate it, maybe, back when it felt like all Dean ever did was lock him down and refuse to let him go, when he was pigeonholed into the role of little brother, the baby of the family, the one to be protected and never let out of sight.
Then at some point, between Dad dying, the visions and Dean's deal, between Dean letting him jump into the Cage, between soullessness, between the Trials, between Dean turning into a demon and abandoning him—
He knows all he's ever really wanted is to be with Dean.
And Dean lets him breathe now. It probably has to do with Sam chasing him down as a demon, chasing a cure for the Mark of Cain even it damned the rest of the world, chasing Dean just the way his brother’s always chased him. They need each other. They do.
Sam would think of it as Stockholm Syndrome, adapting to an environment he tried so hard to escape. And maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t.
It doesn't matter, because he doesn't hate it anymore.
Dean is handsy. Dean gets possessive. Dean nudges him on the prospect of long-term-relationships and doesn’t even try to hide a smile when Sam tells him he’s fine as is with him. Dean’s got chronic abandonment issues and Sam will tell him as many times as needed, little brother isn’t going anywhere.
Dean puts a hand in Sam’s back pocket, flashes a grin and practically starts necking him in the middle of a bar, just to watch a potential date raise his eyebrows, smile bashfully and walk away. Dean rolls his eyes the next day when a witness thinks they’re gay and jabs Sam in the ribs the way a brother would. Dean puts his hands on Sam’s chest and hauls him back from a suspect and tells him, “Not yet.”
He should be bothered by this. He would have been bothered by this years ago. He’s not anymore.
Dean wakes him up one morning by sucking on Sam’s neck, and he almost punches him. Not for the act itself, but because Dean’s scraping teeth on skin and Sam’s halfway to thinking his brother went and got turned by a vampire overnight when Dean pins his hand down, grumbling “Stop moving,” like Sam’s being an annoying kid, and he’s reassured his brother is mostly human.
Still, one of them has to have some semblance of normalcy.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Dean hums noncommitally and drags his teeth against the expanse of flesh. Sam shivers. Even for them, this is crossing lines—and they’ve both walked in on each other having sex before. Dean’s always had weird fixation with his neck, always liked pressing the pad of his thumb against Sam’s vein and feeling the beat of his heart, but Dean’s mouth on his neck, braced for suction, tongue and teeth poking at the dip of his collarbone—is bizarre.
“Relax,” his brother says, but the advice is followed up by his lips closing over Sam’s throat.
It’s not encouraging.
“You’re—“ Sam pries a hand loose and shoves him back by the forehead. He touches the dull ache on his neck and his fingers catch on rounding indentations. “You gave me a hickey?!”
“I’m giving you several hickeys,” Dean corrects languidly, tugging Sam’s hand aside and leaning back down.
“Why?”
“Just felt like it.”
“You couldn’t have asked first?”
Dean mumbles something into Sam’s neck, though he stops immediately trying to get his mouth back on his brother’s bruising skin. Sam tugs him back by the shirt collar and a hint of a blush starts on Dean’s cheeks. He looks down, at Sam’s neck, instead of his eyes.
Figures. Dean will mark him up like he owns him. Dean would tuck himself into Sam’s heart if he could. Everything Sam is, Dean has a claim on.
He should be more annoyed about this.
“That barista at the coffee shop was flirting with you yesterday,” Dean gives a short shrug. “I want him to know you’re taken.”
“Dean.” Sam throws him a face. “There were other ways to do this. Including asking me.”
“Shut up,” the blush creeps down Dean’s neck. “It’s just...”
Sam drapes a hand over his eyes.
It’s just that Dean hates asking for anything, and Sam would give him anything, the same way Dean would give Sam anything, and everything between them is a mind game of guesswork and intuition because they don’t really do the whole talking thing. They just push and pull and ask forgiveness if it goes wrong.
He lifts his hand and runs his fingers through his brother’s hair. It’s messy from sleep and the sight of it fills his chest with warmth.
They’re fucked up and he’s at peace with it now.
Sam leans back and tilts his head up, baring his throat. Dean smiles, satisfaction in his eyes, and leans down to close his mouth back over Sam’s neck.
“Just don’t get vampy on me,” Sam says. “And ask me next time.”
Dean chuckles into swelling skin.
“Promise,” he says, pressing a kiss to the mark, a very pleased smirk on his lips. He buries his face in Sam’s neck and Sam rests his hand over the back of Dean’s hair. Dean murmurs, “Thank you.”
A few hours later, they leave the motel to wrap up the case. The barista at the café smiles when he takes Sam’s order, then blushes at the hint of purple peeking over Sam’s shirt.
Afterwards, Sam grumbles, “Hedonist,” at Dean, tugging self-consciously at his collar, and Dean’s smile is far too smug, but he knocks their shoulders together and there’s only fondness in the resounding, “Love you too.”