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runedgirlAuthor name: ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
runedgirl
Artist name:fanlay
Pairing: Dean/Sam, with Sam/Jess and Dean/Cas
Rating: NC17
Four times Dean turned the Impala around and started driving east; four times he stopped to argue with himself, reciting all the reasons this was a terrible idea. Sam was safe – let him stay that way. Sam didn’t need him there – he had Jessica. Sam didn’t want him there – he had new friends, a new life. Every time the Impala rolled eastward, rational thought dissolved, drowned out by the overwhelming need to see his brother, to hear his voice, maybe even his laugh. Dean didn’t dare think about touch; contemplating sight and sound was too much to begin with. Dangerous to remember scent and feel, hot summer nights and the smell of leather and dust and rain and Sam.
The sun was setting by the time he pulled onto the street where Sam and Jessica lived, all the red stucco darkened to burnt sienna, still radiating warmth. Dean’s fingers were cramped around the wheel, clinging to it like he hoped the Impala wouldn’t let him do this after all. Their apartment was on the second floor, and the windows were open, blue and white striped curtains billowing in and out with the breeze, and Dean could hear the occasional laugh or someone’s name spoken above the conversation, the sharp clink of glass against glass. What the fuck are you doing here? You don’t belong here.
But Sam was in there, and Sam’s voice on the phone had sounded hopeful. Dean didn’t have it in him to ignore that, no matter how violently his skin was crawling as he walked up to ring the buzzer. The front door clicked open without anyone asking who was ringing, which ticked Dean off for a second, because what the fuck, just because Sam was in freakin’ California didn’t mean serial killers couldn’t ring your doorbell. In the middle of your birthday party.
A couple passed him on the stairs as he made his way up, the guy eyeing Dean’s leather jacket and pissed-off expression suspiciously as they went by. Dean schooled his face into something less dangerous and walked through the open door to 2A. He stopped on the threshold, taking stock, willing his heart to slow down because what the hell, this was a party, not a reaping.
His eyes found Sam across the room, surrounded by a group of talking, laughing, gesturing, beer-drinking people, all of them animated and inebriated and clearly having fun, a collage of bright pink and green and purple shirts, blonde hair and white teeth, short skirts and expensive jeans. He scrubbed a hand through his hair nervously, conspicuous in leather jacket and jeans that had seen too many knife wounds and monsters’ blood and gunshots. He thought about leaving, backing out the door and sprinting for the Impala and getting the fuck out of Dodge before he embarrassed himself – in front of Sam.
“Dean!” He felt it more than heard it, the moment Sam knew he was there. Hazel eyes caught his own and held, wide with surprise and then ablaze with something else Dean hadn’t wanted to count on, and Sam was out of his seat and pushing through the crowd, towering over most of the room, headed straight for him, and there was no room for thoughts of leaving when Dean’s legs were shaking like jelly, his heartbeat triple-timing so hard he felt faint with it.
“Dean,” Sam said again, and wrapped his gigantic arms around Dean’s shoulders and pulled him in for a hug, and Dean forgot to play it cool and push him off, his own hands splayed against Sam’s hard-muscled back, squeezing just as tightly. Sam felt big, grown and safe and strong, but he smelled like Sam, like Dean’s little brother who he’d hugged a zillion times before they both got too cool for it or felt too much when they did it. Dean forgot where they were, forgot that he didn’t want Sam to know how much Dean missed him. Impossible to think when Sam was right there.
“Hey, get a room, you guys,” a stranger’s voice said, and fear shot through Dean’s gut so fast he yanked away from Sam and almost stumbled, spinning on the guy with clenched fists, needing to wipe the filthy thought from his filthy lying mouth.
“Fuck off,” Sam laughed easily, still with a hand on Dean’s arm, calming. “Dean’s my b—best friend, I – grew up with him, haven’t seen him in forever.”
Sam dragged him off toward the kitchen before he could respond with a ‘what the fuck’ or a ‘fuck you’ or whatever was about to come out of his mouth.
“Dean, it’s nice to see you again.” Jessica’s eyes were wary, but she hugged him too, her breasts smashed against his chest and her hair soft and fragrant against his cheek. He patted her back awkwardly.
“I’ll let you guys catch up,” Jess said, and she wasn’t all bad, wasn’t even a little bad, Dean knew that, he did.
Sam handed him a beer and he drank half in one go, hoping it would erase the stupid feelings that kept blindsiding him.
“You ashamed to call me your brother now?” It came out an accusation, his mouth twisting cruelly around the words while his chest ached with the hope that Sam would say no.
Sam snorted and shook his head. “No, of course not. I changed my last name when I started school here, you know that. It seemed like the safe thing to do.”
It did. Dean had been all for it when he’d first come looking to check up on his stupid kid brother, totally on board. It stung more now, seeing Sam so different in ways Dean had never anticipated.
“Whatever. Just don’t forget who you really are.”
Sam smiled, and Dean found it hard to stay pissed. He always did, when Sam looked at him like that, too open. Dean leaned back against the counter, boots crossed at the ankles, and tried to look like he didn’t care anyway. Sam just grinned wider, unconvinced. He grabbed another beer from the refrigerator for himself and settled against the far counter, mirroring Dean’s stance.
“I know who I am, Dean. It’s you who’s the mystery. What have you been doing out there for the past five years?”
Dean wanted to say I’ve been doing the same goddamn thing I’ve always been doing – the thing we used to do together, that Dad taught us to do. He wanted to say why the fuck aren’t you out there with me doing it, watching my back?
What he said was “Oh you know, same old same old.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “You being careful?”
If you were really worried about my ass being safe, you’d be out there watching it. Me. Whatever.
“Sure,” Dean said, and looked away from his brother, into the living room where the brightly colored people – Sam’s friends -- were laughing and talking and living the normal life. He didn’t notice Sam moving closer until it was too late to shift away. Sam had a giant hand on his arm, fingers wrapped around the curve of muscle.
“Don’t just say that to make me shut up,” he said, so close that Dean could feel Sam’s breath on his face--smell the beer he was drinking. “I mean it, Dean, you gotta be careful.”
Sam’s expression was earnest; those exotic eyes sparkling with shards of emerald, flecks of gold and umber and grey, mesmerizing. They were so close Dean could see the pupils expand. He knew his own would be the same, like they needed to take in every molecule of each other, memorize every visual detail for the long months they’d be apart. Sam’s lips parted and drew Dean’s gaze, and suddenly he didn’t care that Sam had left, that Sam had another life, that Sam had Jessica. The intensity Dean had always felt from Sam – had always returned a thousand-fold – was still there, burning hot as ever, like a fever running down Dean’s spine, flowing through every muscle. The place where Sam gripped his arm throbbed with it; Dean throbbed with it.
He watched Sam swallow, the rise and fall of his Adam’s apple against the smooth skin of his throat. He didn’t know how long the moment held, only that he was helpless to break it.
“Hey, grab me a few beers, Sam?”
The intrusion of an unfamiliar voice shattered the spell, and Sam let go to step back, the break of physical contact like a bucket of ice water thrown over Dean’s entire being. He shivered.
“Oh, yeah, sure,” Sam recovered quickly, passing the bottles to whoever the guy was with an easygoing grin.
“Come back and join your party,” the guy said, and Dean wanted to punch him right in his smiling drunk artfully hipster unshaven face.
“Yep, be right there,” Sam said, still grinning, and Dean wanted to punch him too.
When Sam turned back to him, Dean was ready. “You should go entertain your friends,” he said, avoiding eye contact.
“Dean,” Sam started, but Dean moved away before Sam could get a hand on him and render him immobile again. He slipped past his little brother’s grabby reach and made his way into the living room, like it wasn’t a sea of strangers and he wasn’t dressed wrong and they weren’t looking at him sideways, wondering who the fuck he was. Sam followed, but was swallowed up almost immediately by a group of laughing pastel people all wanting his attention. Dean couldn’t blame them. He took the opportunity to wander around the apartment, examining the details of Sam’s new life, all the things he didn’t know about his little brother anymore. Everything there was to know about Sam could no longer fit in a duffel, ready to pack up and run at a moment’s notice. This Sam was settled, books and clothes and possessions spread throughout the rooms, neatly stacked in closets and medicine cabinets and on top of bureaus and in rows on bookcases. There were law books and textbooks, Cognitive Psychology and Juvenile Justice and the Norton Anthology of English Literature, novels and books of poetry, and fuck, Sam must be in heaven with all the books he had to read. Dean wondered which were Sam’s and which were Jessica’s, realized he didn’t even know if she was a law student too or something else. He felt a twinge of guilt, like he should care enough to find out, but pushed it away. The Sam who lived here was a stranger, and it hurt way more than Dean had prepared for.
The shirts in Sam’s closet, hanging next to Jessica’s skirts and dresses, weren’t worn flannel button-downs. The ones in his drawer weren’t hand-me-downs inherited from his big brother or worn until they were falling apart, though there was a single Metallica tee off to one side that looked like it had never been worn. There were neatly folded boxer briefs in black and navy and red in the third drawer of the big bureau in the bedroom, and Dean ran his fingers over them, remembering Sam skinny and self conscious in boxers so thin the cotton was nearly transparent, the elastic loose enough that they barely stayed up over his narrow hips. He jerked his hand away, slamming the drawer. What the fuck was he doing, going through Sam’s underwear like some kind of perv?
Sam was still in the middle of a group of people all talking animatedly when Dean came back to the living room. He felt a little sick, like someone had caught him with a good gut punch. Who was that Sam Wesson guy over there, with his long hair and his easy grin and his handsome face, at home amidst the pretentious looking group of people –law students like Sam, he guessed-- gathered around him, in this house with all these things that Dean didn’t know? And who was Dean, if he no longer knew Sam--if Sam no longer knew him? The sense of isolation swept over him in a rush, settling like ice in his veins, in his still-twisting stomach.
"What an asshole Ackerman was today. As if ANYONE will give a shit about the Rule Against Perpetuities fifty years from now," a tall kid on Sam’s right said, shaking his head in contempt.
The girl next to him agreed. "He can take his contingent remainders and executory interests and shove them up his ass."
They all laughed. Sam laughed, his teeth flashing white and the dimples around his full mouth deepening.
"Did you hear Scalia on the bench today?” the guy on Sam’s left asked, and everyone – including Sam – made disgusted faces. “As far as I'm concerned he and the Pope can blow each other.”
“It's like Griswold v Connecticut never happened”, a woman with curly brown hair agreed.
"He's trying to flush Lawrence v. Texas," the first guy said, to more nods.
Dean wondered what Lawrence meant to Sam now; if the old associations had been replaced by new ones Dean didn’t get, didn’t share. Dad used to say that Sam and Dean had a secret language, one that kept them alive when communication had to be a single word, a quick look, a pointed gesture. “What’s that Sammy code for?” he would ask, annoyed, when Sam was thirteen and constantly cryptic, and Dean could always answer.
Across the room, Sam and his friends were talking about an exam they’d taken, something about amounts in controversy and Federal diversity cases, from what Dean could make out.
“When did that get increased?” a short guy with wire-rimmed glasses asked, looking worried.
"Moron!” the guy next to him accused, pointing a finger in his face. “Section 1332(a) changed last year."
"No shit,” said a third, puffing out his chest a bit and gulping more beer. “How stupid do you have to be to not know that?"
What Dean did then was cowardly. He knew it, and a part of him wondered what Sam would do when he realized--if he’d be surprised or pissed off or maybe a little hurt.
The text message came half an hour later. Did you really leave without saying goodbye? Asshole.
Dean couldn’t resist just one reply. May as well be passive-aggressive all the way; he’d gone this far. Didn’t want to interrupt important intellectual discussion..
Fuck you Dean, Sam texted back an instant later.
Yeah, Dean thought, and turned off his phone. Fuck me. You did that. The funny thing was, he never really believed it--not even that night, when it felt like he’d finally lost Sam for good. He wasn’t mad at Sam for being normal; for wanting normal. Sam hadn’t been a jerk, hadn’t even wanted him to leave. But those few moments with Sam in the kitchen had rekindled a longing so strong Dean wasn’t sure he could survive any more of those moments. He needed to be closer. And if he couldn’t be closer, he needed to be farther.
* * *
Sam had been watching when Dean slipped out of the living room and into the hallway that led to the bathroom and bedroom. At first he’d assumed Dean just had to piss, but when he didn’t return, Sam knew he was sleuthing. Old habits, yada yada, but he was angry that Dean wouldn’t just ask, that Dean had to find out for himself. His friends kept talking, and Sam managed to answer, while a parallel track ran in his head. Dean would be judgmental, that was certain. What the fuck kind of shirts are these, Sam? Seriously, purple? Or is this mauve or magenta or something? Sam scowled to himself, Dean’s taunting voice clear as reality. You finally got enough books, Sam? Must have a hundred here easy. Bet you think you’re so much smarter than your uneducated family now, huh?
The imagined soundtrack of his big brother’s derision was so annoying that Sam shook it off, forcing himself to pay attention to his friends and not worry about what Dean was thinking. Why couldn’t he just for once be the supportive older brother so many of Sam’s friends had? Was it so wrong to have done something “normal” like go to college? Nobody had been there the day Sam graduated – only Jess and her family celebrated with them and patted him on the back and took them out to lunch. Had Dean even known when it was, or considered how important it was to Sam to have him there? No. Of course not. Well, fuck him. Sam had reached out and invited Dean here – now it was up to Dean to step up and stop being such a jerk.
He did such a good job of distracting himself debating with his friends that he didn’t look for Dean again for a while. By the time he went to the window, the Impala was gone. No goodbye, no explanation. Fuck you, Dean
Sam was shocked to get a reply; he wasn’t surprised that it was bitter instead of apologetic.
If that was the way Dean wanted it, then fine. Fine. Sam had made it this far on his own, no thanks to Dean or Dad or anyone. He didn’t need them; didn’t need Dean.
“I’m sorry,” Jess said as they cleaned up the kitchen. “I know you were really excited about seeing him again.”
Sam shrugged and took a few more antacids. Damn stomach ache, too much beer and bad food. “It was a mistake to invite him. I should’ve known better.”
He thought of the way Dean’s biceps muscle jumped when Sam touched him. The way Dean’s eyes went dark, only a ring of bright green around the black, and the way his mouth was wet with beer, so close. A mistake, it was a mistake.
It was stupid that he wanted to cry that night, when Jess had made him a birthday cake and thirty friends had toasted his first year-law-school success and he had a bright future ahead of him, everyone said so. But for the first time, he knew that future didn’t include Dean. Sam wiped impatiently at his closed eyes, blew his nose quietly. Jess rolled closer in her sleep and flung a delicate arm across his waist. Sam shut his eyes more tightly and willed himself not to compare.
He was busy, struggling to work and excel in his second year and into his third. He didn’t think about Dean, except when he did.
It was almost two years before he saw his brother again.
* * *
When Sam’s phone buzzed, he was in the law library, stiff from bending over his laptop and shuffling piles of historical documents and bound books. Shit, was it already time to meet Jess for dinner?
He glanced at the display to make sure it wasn’t Anderson trying for the fiftieth time to convince him to blow off the paper he was working on and come out drinking with the guys tonight, and nearly dropped the phone when he saw the caller id.
“Incoming Call,” it said, and underneath, “D.”
Oh God.
“Dean?” He answered the phone too loudly, fingers already shaking. The people across from him snapped their heads up at the alarm in his voice. Sam left the laptop on the table and headed for the door. “What’s wrong?”
The pause before Dean’s answer told Sam just how bad it was. “It’s Dad,” Dean said, and Sam knew.
“Where are you?”
Jess took him to the airport, holding his hand and saying what she clearly hoped were the right things. He knew you loved him, even if you didn’t get a chance to say it recently. He must have understood--you just wanted to be yourself, follow your own path. It’s not like you chose a life of crime or joined the Mafia, for godsakes--you’re in law school. Most parents would be proud!
Sam didn’t have it in him to argue; how could he? She was right, or she should have been. Explaining what it meant to be a Winchester was futile. It was why he’d never tried.
He waited at the baggage claim in Tulsa, shuffling his feet restlessly as he watched for the big black car. His stomach was tied in knots, half a coil of grief he hadn’t even processed yet, and half the fear of what his brother would think, say, do. Sam shifted the backpack over his shoulder, wishing for a second that he’d dragged his old duffel out of the closet and brought it instead. The familiar rumble sent such a strong wave of nervous anticipation through him that he thought for a second he’d be sick. He straightened when the headlights found him, squaring his shoulders under the backpack and pushing the hair back off his face. Dean didn’t get out--just pulled up to the curb, still shadowed.
Not like Sam was expecting a fucking hug or something. He opened the door and settled himself on the seat where he’d spent so much time as a teenager, beside his big brother. Dean nodded but kept his eyes on the windshield. “Sam,” he said carefully, and out of all the ways Sam had heard his name spoken by his brother over the years, it had never sounded like that.
“Thanks for calling me,” he answered, trying for the same flat tone, but it only came out rough, swallowed down. He wanted to ask, was it my fault for not being here? but he was afraid of the way Dean would answer.
Dean nodded again, pulling the Impala back onto the road and driving through the night in silence. Sam looked out the window and wondered if Dean wanted to hit him. He sort of hoped so. Anything was preferable to the cold that seeped across the front seat and made him shiver. The man driving the car Sam had grown up in looked like – felt like – a stranger.
Sam thought of all the things he’d wished he could say to Dean over the past six years. The time “Ghostbusters” was on late-night TV and Sam remembered how hard he and Dean had laughed at it when it first came out, too young to be envious of the rest of the world who could just be amused instead of laughing at how wrong they got it. All those days he’d picked up his phone and juggled it, stomach flipping, before shoving it back in his pocket. Every May 2nd, every January 24th. Every time Jess baked a cherry pie or stole the covers or sang along to the radio out of tune. Now Dean was right there, close enough to touch. And Sam was paralyzed.
They drove in silence to the long-abandoned cabin in the woods, the Impala lurching along the rutted dirt road, her wheels and springs complaining the only sounds. Dean cursed a time or two when they crunched over a substantial branch and he knew he was risking one of her tires, and when Sam dared a glance Dean’s knuckles were white around the wheel, his jaw clenched tightly.
Sam half expected the body to be wrapped for the pyre already, but Dean had allowed him a last goodbye at least. Dad was laid out on the sturdy old oak table in the main room of the cabin, the hard lines etched into his handsome face smoothed out by the only thing capable of making John Winchester stop and rest. Dean hung back at the door, but Sam could feel his brother’s gaze on him as he crossed the room. He felt it like a brand, a mark of judgment.
“Dad,” Sam whispered when he stood at his father’s side, and he half expected John’s eyes to open, to crinkle with welcome or to blaze with rage--Sam wouldn’t have cared which. “Dad, I – God, Dad.” There weren’t any words, not really. The time for explanations or understanding was past, and Sam would never hear the pride Jess kept insisting John would eventually feel. Sam would never say the “I’m sorry” he’d been saving for that perfect time when Dad could hear it.
By the time Sam got up off his knees and raised his head from John’s still and silent chest, Dean was gone.
They lit the pyre together that night, businesslike with the sense memory of experience--watched until the smoke forced tears that streaked their cheeks, but didn’t cry. The flames lit up the woods, licked up into the night and painted flickering colors on the trees . . . and then John Winchester, the last thing that bound Sam and Dean together, was gone.
“When’s your flight back?” Dean asked when they’d buried their father’s ashes and smoothed the dirt over the unmarked place, scattered some dried leaves and pine needles there. Sam followed him into the cabin, where the oak table was bare. It looked too hard to have been comfortable, Sam thought suddenly, then winced at the irrationality of the worry.
“Tomorrow morning.”
Dean nodded, like that was what he’d assumed. Exams and paper deadlines seemed ridiculous to mention, and Sam knew they weren’t the reason for the quick visit anyway. Sam could take a lot of pain, but Dean’s silence cut too deep when it came from right beside him, when Sam could see the strained stiffness of his brother’s shoulders and the way he kept his face turned away, offering nothing.
Dean brought two sleeping bags from the trunk, rolled one out for himself near the door, and tossed one for Sam to the other side of the room. As far away from me as he can get, Sam thought. But that was good, because his throat was aching, closing up, and he didn’t know how well he’d be able to choke back the sobs stuck there. He went to his knees on the bag and pressed it out flat. It smelled musty, familiar.
“I’m just gonna turn in,” Sam said, and his voice didn’t tremble, even if his hands did, stuffed in his pockets.
Dean didn’t answer, and Sam didn’t turn around to see if he nodded. A few seconds later the door creaked open and then shut, and Sam could hear Dean’s boots crumpling leaves and twigs as he walked away.
The ache became agony; Sam gave in, face buried in the worn cotton of the sleeping bag that still smelled like Dean.
* * *
Dean sat on the hood of the Impala for a long time; he didn’t know how long. There was no impulse to cry, no desire to swing a hammer and fuck something up or take something down. There was just nothing. Sam had been gone a long time and now Dad was, too. And for some reason he couldn’t figure out, Dean was still here, wearing Dad’s leather jacket and driving his big black car, symbols of something Dean didn’t think he even believed in anymore. He tried to think about what it would be like now, with Dad gone, but no awareness came. He thought about Sam, but that hurt was so familiar and had taken up such permanent residence in his soul that it just felt normal, a dull throb that he’d grown used to and would always have.
Sam was here, just inside that door. The tall man with the shaggy brown hair who used to sit on the hood beside him and look up at the stars was a stranger now, a grown man with a degree and a girl and a life of his own. Dean had done the right thing; John was Sam’s father too, no matter how far apart they’d grown. But this man’s long-fingered hands, the exotic slant of his eyes, the way he pushed his hair back off his forehead impatiently, every familiar intimate detail – it was all a funhouse mirror, an image of the little brother Dean still, despite his best efforts, loved with every fiber of his being. He couldn’t keep looking, couldn’t stand to see all he’d lost taunting him.
The night grew colder quickly, the Impala’s metal chilled and hard, and Dean tried to make his heart the same as he steeled himself to walk back through the cabin door. He hoped Sam was asleep, a dark bump under the sleeping bag across the room, nothing more. He walked quietly, sitting down before he took off his boots, and placing them carefully on the floor. Moonlight shone through the curtainless window, and he could see the giant lump that was Sam, curled up on top of the sleeping bag. Small tremors shook his massive shoulders, and Dean could hear the muffled sounds then, as familiar as his own heartbeat. Sam was crying.
Dean bit his lip, his hands in fists at his sides, willing himself not to hear. Sam drew in a soft hiccuppy breath, tried to swallow the next sob and choked on it instead. Dean remembered Christmas mornings when there were no presents and no heat and no Dad, Sam curled up in his arms making those same sounds, trying to be brave and snotting up Dean’s tee shirt. He remembered Sam brokenhearted when they had to leave Salt Lake Elementary in a rush, before he could even retrieve his backpack from the classroom, tears of outrage and misery all the way to the next town. It was January 23rd and Sam gasped out those same hiccuppy breaths until he was dizzy and sick while Dean patted his back and wondered what was so damned important in that backpack. He hadn’t figured it out until they were two counties over.
“Sam?”
Across the room, Sam sucked in a harsh breath and went dead silent and still, frozen in his near-fetal position. So he hadn’t known Dean was there.
Dean waited a few moments, watching Sam’s shoulders start to shake with the effort of staying quiet. A near squeak rattled out of Sam’s chest--he shuddered, the next strangled sound an almost-mewl, and God, Dean couldn’t not touch him. He crawled across the dozen feet between them and put his hand on Sam’s shoulder where it trembled and shook, and a great and horrible sob burst out with such force Sam couldn’t keep his mouth closed around it. Dean turned him then, instinct kicking in, and he didn’t care anymore that he shouldn’t, that this wasn’t his Sam anymore, that Sam didn’t need him. He just reached in and took, pulling the heavy dead weight of his little brother against him, Sam’s wet snotty face pressed to his tee shirt as he wailed out his agony. Dean rocked him, like he’d done a million times when Sam was the smaller one. Sam’s hands fisted in his tee shirt and he held on, his bony forehead bruising Dean’s chest as they moved together, the rhythm a primal comfort.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Dean said against Sam’s hair, “Couldn’t have stopped it.”
“Dad,” Sam cried, and “Dean,” and Dean rubbed his back, broad and thick with muscle under Dean’s fingers.
“I know,” he said. “I know, Sammy.”
They slept on top of Sam’s sleeping bag when exhaustion pulled them under, Dean curled around Sam and Sam still with a fistful of Dean’s tee shirt.
In the morning, Dean gently eased the cotton from Sam’s fingers and extracted himself from the warmth of Sam’s big body against his own, though doing it felt like peeling his own skin. Sam tossed restlessly, then settled, and Dean pulled half the sleeping bag over him. Sam was awake by the time Dean came back inside with a few bottles of water and some stale donuts from the car, though his eyes were still red-rimmed and puffy.
“Sorry,” Sam said, and his voice was still half wrecked. “I just—
Dean shrugged, tossing a donut. Sam grabbed it out of the air by instinct, and Dean almost smiled before he remembered that they didn’t have veryfuckingmuch to smile about. “This is all we’ve got for breakfast,” he said, and handed Sam a bottle.
Sam’s expression went less guarded, his red eyes a little more open. “Thanks,” he said, and drank almost the entire thing in one go.
On the way back to the airport, Dean told Sam what he knew about how the demon had managed to turn the tables and kill their father . . . which wasn’t a whole lot. Dean had gotten there too late to help John, but in time to aim the Colt between the yellow-eyed bastard’s eyes and watch him die. He hoped John had lived long enough to know it.
“You did it, Dean,” Sam said, and for a moment he sounded like Dean’s little brother again, the kid who thought Dean was a hero. “You did what Dad was trying to do this whole damn time.”
Dean shook his head, lips pursed against a sudden surge of regret. “And it didn’t do a goddamn thing to save Dad – or Mom.”
Sam reached across the seat, forgetting that they were strangers now, forgetting that they didn’t talk and didn’t touch. Dean startled when Sam squeezed his thigh urgently. “You’re alive,” Sam said, his hand big and warm on Dean’s leg. “And I’m alive. And that’s what Dad – and Mom, I think – would have wanted more than anything.”
Dean hadn’t felt alive in a long time; he did then, for a moment, with Sam’s hand pressing the certainty of his words into Dean’s flesh.
“It’s just you and me now, man,” Sam said when Dean pulled the Impala up to Departing Flights. “Will you stay in touch a little more?”
Sam’s hand was still on his leg, like Sam didn’t want to break contact any more than Dean did.
“Sure,” he said, and he felt cold when Sam took his hand away and opened the car door.
“Are you just saying that?” Sam asked, leaning back into the car.
“Are you?” Dean shot back.
Sam leaned in farther, and Dean could feel Sam’s eyes on him, hard. “Look at me,” he ordered, and Dean turned even though he didn’t really want to. “No,” Sam said, shaking his head. “No.”
“Okay,” Dean said, and blew out a breath. “Okay Sammy.”
Sam smiled a little then, though his eyes were still puffy and Dean knew he wasn’t done crying. “Good. I’m holding you to that.”
He watched Sam walk into the building, turning around as the glass doors shut to catch Dean’s eye again and wave before he disappeared. It hurt, but Dean thought maybe he could bear it every now and then, for those rare moments when it didn’t.
* * *
Dean answered the phone about every other time Sam called after that, some unrecognized algorithm that equaled met obligation minus irrational trepidation.
Sam tried not to read anything into it, though it was mathematically improbable that Dean was actually otherwise engaged every other phone call. He never asked; Dean called back now. That was enough.
On May 2nd, Dean even initiated the phone call – or at least the introductory text.
“Happy birthday, bitch,” Sam’s phone chirped at 9 pm.
“Thanks, jerk,” Sam texted back. He was stabbing at the eggplant parmesan that Jess had made specially, wishing his stomach wasn’t giving him trouble.
Sam put the phone back in his pocket and grabbed his fork. His stomach felt better now, so he dug back into dinner with gusto.
Jess raised an eyebrow. “Oh, you do like it, then?”
Sam chewed around an ear-to-ear grin. “Absolutely! This is amazing, just – it’s perfect! Seriously Jess, thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, smiling back. “Glad you like it.”
“Love it,” Sam amended, scooping up toasted bread crumbs and strings of melted cheese.
“Was that text from Dean?”
Sam rolled his eyes and held out the phone.
Jessica couldn’t help the snort. “Bitch? Is that some kind of big brother taunt or something?”
“Or something,” Sam agreed, but he was smiling again. “He’s an asshole, what can I say?”
Sam called the next day, surprised when Dean picked up on the third ring.
“Finally get your lazy ass up from too much celebrating last night, Sammy?” The tone said Dean was smirking.
“No,” Sam answered, “Just didn’t wanna call you too early in case you had--you know--company.”
There was a pause that Sam hadn’t expected before Dean gave the expected smartass reply.
“If you’re fishing for details about how much more exciting my sex life is than yours, forget it,” Dean said, but the smirk was gone, Sam could tell. He had the unsettling feeling he’d said something wrong, but had no clue what it might be.
“Whatever,” he said, because that too was expected. “Listen, I don’t know if you even know this, but I’m graduating next week and –“
“I know that, dickwad,” Dean said, more annoyed than Sam had anticipated. It wasn’t like they talked that often, after all.
“Okay, well – good, so – what I wanted to say is that we’re having – Jess is throwing a little party for me, nothing big, no big deal, but – well, you’re invited. I mean, of course. It’s, uh, the 30th. If you’re anywhere near the west coast or – if you wanted to.”
Dean didn’t say anything for a few beats, and Sam tried not to take it personally. The last party Dean had come to hadn’t exactly gone well. Sam hadn’t even tried to invite Dean to his undergrad ceremony. This would just be one more event in Sam’s life where everyone else had family gathered around, and Sam had Jess.
Dean cleared his throat, a decades-old tell. Sam stayed quiet.
“What time?”
Sam’s eyes went wide. “Really?” he said, too fast to keep the excitement out of his voice.
Dean had heard it; his voice went rougher. “’Course,” he said, even though it was nothing either of them would ever consider inevitable. “It’s a big day, right? A big thing.”
“Yeah,” Sam said, and suddenly it seemed like it. “Yeah, it is.”
There was another pause, and then Dean seemed to shake himself out of wherever they’d ended up. “So what time, asshole?”
“Seven,” Sam answered, “The party’s at seven.” He swallowed hard and pushed the rest of the words out. “And there’s a – the actual, well, ceremony, is at five. It’s in Canfield Courtyard, outside – I mean, it’s open to, you know, whoever.”
There was silence again, and Sam’s heart beat so loudly he was afraid Dean could hear it through the phone.
Before Dean could say anything that would get Sam’s hopes up or crush them into tiny pieces, he added, “You sure you remember how to get here?”
“Bite me,” Dean said, and hung up.
* * *
Sam kept his eyes on the back of Melissa Brown’s head as he walked down the aisle created between rows of chairs on Canfield Courtyard lawn, trying to concentrate on the way her braid was plaited, the strands of red and gold wound through the brown catching the late afternoon sunlight. There were probably friends he’d recognize sitting there, maybe some trying to catch his eye or give him a high five or a smile or a mouthed “congrats”, but letting himself scan the crowd would show him who wasn’t there too, and Sam couldn’t risk it. He only looked away from Melissa’s swinging braid when he heard Jessica’s voice, calling his name and bursting with the pride Sam knew he should be basking in.
“Love you,” she said, and she was glowing, beautiful.
“Love you too,” he mouthed back, and meant it. He couldn’t resist a quick scan of the rest of the section before he resolutely glued his eyes back to Melissa.
There were hoots and shouts when he walked across the stage, laughter as he tried to crouch low enough to allow Professor Kahn to hood him. Sam craned his ears for a familiar wolf whistle, then shook his head at his own foolishness. This was his moment, the culmination of a dream he’d never really believed he’d achieve until right now. There were velvet stripes on his robe and royal blue lining the heavy hood, red and gold silk turned out; Dean would no doubt laugh at him anyway.
By the time the ceremonies were over, Sam was calmer, relieved that he no longer had to wonder or worry. Disappointment was familiar when it came to his family. He knew how to deal with it.
At the last row, just as he was about to turn the corner and head to the field house where they all could change, he stopped short so abruptly that Ben Rodgers slammed right into his back.
“What the hell?” Ben asked, readjusting his cap.
Sam didn’t budge. Ben huffed and went around him.
“Dean?” Sam asked incredulously, staring. “You came?”
Dean’s cheeks went pink, but he rolled his eyes. “You can graduate from law school but you can’t put one foot in front of the other?” he said, shaking his head like it was a tragedy.
The line of graduates kept moving while Sam stood still, a few jostling him and admonishing him to keep going.
“Get going,” Dean ordered, and when Sam still didn’t, he waved a hand impatiently in Sam’s direction. The corners of Dean’s mouth were turned up, and his ears were red like he’d gotten a bad sunburn.
“You’ll come back to the house?”
“Yeah yeah,” Dean said, and tried to scowl. “Get your ass outta that ridiculous robe. You look like Harry Potter without the glasses.”
Sam turned around three more times as he walked toward the field house. Every time, Dean was still watching him.
* * *
Dean’s cell buzzed before he’d even gotten back to the Impala, which was illegally parked close enough for him to keep an eye on her.
“Don’t sit in the car instead of coming inside.” Goddamn Sam and his stupid mindreading abilities.
“Bitch, I’m not even in the car yet.”
“I’m timing you.”
“Time this.”
Dean smirked as he started the engine, picturing Sam’s face when he read the text. He drove the two miles to Sam’s apartment slowly, arm resting on the open window and Creedence playing too loud for the quiet neighborhood. If he’d considered sneaking away after the graduation—and okay, maybe it had crossed his mind once or a hundred time--the look on Sam’s face when he’d spotted Dean had made it impossible. If Sam could still smile at him like that, Dean could brave a boring night full of pretentious law students. Graduates. Lawyers. Whatever. He climbed the stairs, resolute.
Sam was waiting at the top, leaning on the inside doorway, that same stupid too-open grin on his too-handsome face. He’d lost the robe, looking more like Dean’s Sam in jeans and an already-faded Stanford tee shirt.
Dean had a biting comment ready about the shirt, but the words got smothered against Sam’s shoulder when Sam just reached out and hauled him in, wrapping both arms around Dean like he was the younger brother or something, nearly knocking the wind out of him.
“Dean,” Sam said right up against his ear, Sam’s hair brushing his neck and the smell of Sam all around him. It was so overwhelming that Dean let himself be hugged for an embarrassingly long time, his own arms crushed to his sides and his face smashed against the warm firmness of Sam’s chest.
Finally Dean recovered some awareness of where the hell they were and what the hell he was doing and shoved his brother off, probably a little too roughly.
“Jesus, Sammy, lemme breathe,” he grumbled, but Sam wasn’t fooled. He just kept grinning.
“Probably crushed your graduation present,” Dean said, holding the hastily wrapped package out and willing his ears not to go even pinker.
Impossibly, Sam grinned wider. “You got me a present?”
Dean shoved it at him. “Course I – isn’t that what you do for this kinda – thing?”
Sam was juggling it, still smiling. “Well yeah, but I – I didn’t expect you to, that’s all.”
Dean grimaced, trying to think of some way to change the subject.
“Can I open it?” Apparently Sam wasn’t going to make it easy.
He shrugged; Sam tore open the paper. His mouth fell open when he saw what was inside, and shit, Dean could feel his cheeks going red, his ears burning.
It was Dad’s fault for saving it. Stupid storage unit with so much stupid shit in it. In second grade, Sam had written some stupid paper about what he wanted to be when he grew up, and his stupid teacher had thought it would be cool to give the kids stupid plastic trophies. Sam’s said “Sam Winchester – Future Lawyer.” Dean figured Sam would hide it in a closet, since it had the wrong last name on it now anyway.
“Dean,” Sam whispered, and fuck, he sounded like he was about to cry or something.
The next hug was as rough as the first, but this time Dean was ready. He got his arms up in time, and when Sam pulled him in, Dean let himself go with it, pressing Sam to him with just as much force. They clung there for a few seconds, half awkward and half urgent, and Dean was flooded with the awareness of just how much he’d missed this – touching Sam, holding Sam, seeing the smile on Sam’s face and the way his eyes glimmered with mischievous joy. God, what a sappy thing to think
Dean stepped back, laughing briefly to cover the sound of protest that wanted to come out as they broke contact. “Whatever,” he said, and Sam laughed too. His cheeks were as flushed as Dean’s.
“What’s a man gotta do to get a beer around here?” Dean asked, a little too loudly.
“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Sam said, and ducked his head the way he always did when he was caught out, though Dean didn’t know what he was caught out in.
They went inside and Sam got them both beers, clinking the bottles on instinct. Dean took a few gulps, grateful for something to do with his mouth and the words that kept wanting to come out of it.
Sam didn’t make it easy. He stuck to Dean like glue, dragging him to the bedroom to put the stupid plastic trophy on the bureau. Even after Sam got pulled away to be congratulated by his other friends, he shadowed Dean when Dean went to the kitchen to grab another beer, interrupting his own conversations to track Dean around the apartment. No doubt to make sure he didn’t try to make another run for the exit.
“You’re not going to, are you?” Jessica cornered him in the kitchen, where Dean was popping the cap off his third beer. He nearly dropped it, startled.
“Not going to what?”
Jess smiled, but it wasn’t all that friendly. “Don’t play dumb, Dean.”
He had to admire her balls. “Fine. No, I’m not going to. Not without saying goodbye.”
Some warmth infused Jessica’s smile. “Good, because last time he was really upset.”
Dean didn’t want to hear this, not from Sam’s girl, who had the power to upset him about things Dean never would. “I’m sure he managed to recover,” he said dryly.
Jess took a few sips of her own beer. Dean could feel her eyes on him, assessing. “What’s the problem with you two?” she asked, and it wasn’t at all what he was expecting.
“There’s no problem,” he said automatically, because she was hitting way too close to things Dean Winchester would never admit, even to himself.
“Right,” Jess snorted. “No problem. That’s why Sam won’t talk about you, but he waits for your text all day on his birthday and doesn’t smile at all until you condescend to grace him with a few words at 9 PM.”
Dean’s stomach swooped abruptly, a wave of near-nausea running through him. Sam did what?
“Yeah, right,” he heard himself say, but it was a defensive move and they both knew it.
“Seriously,” Jessica said sharply, “What the hell is wrong with you two? Why won’t you admit how much you care about each other?”
Dean willed his heartbeat to slow before he answered, trademark smirk in place. “No chick flick moments,” he said, waving a hand to stop her questions.
Jessica rolled her big blue eyes. “Oh for godsakes, what does that even mean? You’re his brother, not his ex-girlfriend.”
That was the moment Sam picked to come into the kitchen. His eyes went wide, darting from Jess to Dean and back again. It was a look Dean had imagined on Sam’s face a million times, all of them in his worst nightmares.
He took the coward’s way out, once again.
“I gotta go,” he said, pushing past his brother, needing to get out, to get some fresh air into his lungs before he suffocated on the sickness crushing his chest, stinging his eyes.
He heard Sam call his name as he took the stairs three at a time, but didn’t look back.
* * *
“What did you say to him?” Sam asked later, after they’d carted the last bag of empties out to the recycling bin.
Jess wiped down the counter, then leaned against it and turned to answer Sam. “I asked him why you two can’t get along when it’s clear you care more about each other than just about anything.”
“What does that mean?”
She sighed, playing with the dishrag still in her hands. “You do, Sam – it’s obvious you miss him like hell. You didn’t take your eyes off him all night.”
“I was afraid he’d bolt,” Sam protested before he realized he was making her point for her.
“And what if he had?” Her eyes flashed, steel blue, and she tossed her hair back impatiently. “You wouldn’t even have noticed if I left!”
Sam gaped. “You’re jealous of my brother?”
“No,” Jess shot back. “I mean – yes, actually. You can’t see anything else when he’s around.”
“Lucky for you he never is,” Sam said, and it came out full of all the anger that fact still ignited in him.
Jessica didn’t say anything, but Sam could feel her eyes cold on his back as he shut their bedroom door behind him. He fell asleep before she came to bed, and he dreamt of going after Dean, his feet moving too slowly to catch the Impala though his muscles were straining like he was mired in quicksand. The taillights paused at a stop sign and Sam got a hand on the Impala’s flank--tried to make her stay.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” dreamDean said, unfolding himself from the driver’s seat and confronting Sam, right there suddenly, his hand burning on Sam’s arm.
“Don’t go,” Sam pleaded, but Dean shook his head and let go, backing away. Sam knew he was still in the quicksand, so he grabbed Dean before he could get out of reach and hauled him in, and it was good, like it had been at the party, Sam’s arms tight around Dean, holding on.
“We can’t,” Dean said, and Sam could feel the rumble of Dean’s voice against his shoulder. That mattered more than the words, the ones Sam knew he should have understood, but they were far away and Dean was right here, in Sam’s arms.
“Dean,” Sam said, like that was an answer, and kissed the pale soft skin beneath Dean’s ear. Dean’s hand was on Sam’s waist; his fingers curled at the touch of Sam’s lips to his neck, then dug in to hang on when Sam mouthed lower, down along his brother’s stubble-rough jaw, all the way to the corner of his mouth.
“Sam,” Dean whispered, soft the way he never was.
They were sitting on the Impala’s still-warm hood then, her headlights illuminating the tangled branches of a forest of trees surrounding them, but Sam wasn’t afraid here. Sam pressed a kiss to the side of Dean’s mouth, against the give of his full bottom lip, and Dean turned his head and opened up. Sam felt like he was melting, like the heat of his brother’s kiss would burn away everything else and leave them there in the woods, alone. He woke sweating and tangled in the sheets, heart pounding and breath coming too fast. Biting his lip, he pressed the heel of his hand against the swell of his dick in his shorts, blushing at the rush of pleasure that jolted through him.
Jess had fallen asleep on the couch. Sam splashed cold water on his face and waited for his body to calm before he went out to apologize and ask her to come to bed.
“I’m sorry, too,” she said, “I know you love him. I’m sure I’d feel the same way if I had a brother or sister.”
In the morning they made love, and Sam didn’t think about the dream, or how wrong Jess was.
* * *
Six months went by quickly, Sam too embarrassed to be the first to reach out, and Dean….well, who ever knew what Dean was thinking.
Sam texted the day he gave Jess the ring.
Need to talk to you. It’s important.
Nothing bad, he added.
Dean texted back ten minutes later.
Hands full on a case right now. Tonight?
Sam scrubbed a hand through his hair, trying not to be annoyed. Dean was working a case, he couldn’t just stop for a heart-to-heart with his little brother. Who cared if it had been six freaking months.
Sure. Call me when you can.
Jess came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his neck. “What did he say?” she asked, and he could hear concern in her voice.
“He’s working. Said he’d call me later.”
She kissed the back of his neck. “That’s good,” she said, but Sam knew she didn’t believe it either.
The phone finally rang at 11:15, and Sam grabbed it too quickly and almost dropped it.
“Hello,” he said-- then thought about all the reasons the call might have been late. “You okay?”
“Fine,” Dean said, though he didn’t sound it. “A few stitches and a few dead demons.”
“Dead? You mean—sent—somewhere else?” Sam was careful to keep the supernatural out of his conversation, in case Jess was in earshot.
Dean snorted. “Nope. Gone. Zip. Nada.”
“I didn’t think that was possible,” Sam said.
“Well, lots of things have changed since you were in the game, Sammy,” Dean said, and Sam wondered how the conversation could have gone so wrong so quickly.
“Guess so,” he said, trying not to buy into what was sounding suspiciously like a guilt trip. “I’m glad you’re okay, anyway.”
Dean laughed again, but there was no humor in it. “Fine and dandy,” he said. “I had some help.”
It hung there, a challenge. Sam debated whether to take the bait. He’s not hunting alone. That’s a good thing.
“Good,” Sam said finally, though it came out with less certainty than he’d hoped.
“Yeah, peachy,” Dean agreed, and Sam could hear him take a drink of something, no doubt alcoholic. “So I’m sure you didn’t call to check up on me – on my hunting record.”
It was a thinly veiled jibe at best, but Sam ignored it. Dean wanted to provoke him--too bad. Sam wasn’t falling for it.
“Jessica and I are engaged,” he said instead. “We’re getting married.”
“What?” Dean blurted, and his voice was raw, not the guarded, careful tone Sam had expected. Dean must have realized, instantly coughing and holding the phone away. When he came back, his voice was too loud. “That’s great,” he said, and Sam suddenly wanted to cry with how much he didn’t believe it.
“We’re having a party,” Sam said, pushing on. “Next Saturday, and I – Dean, it would really mean a lot to me if you would come.”
Sam thought of his dream; the way Dean’s mouth gave under Sam’s kiss, the way his hands were eager on Sam’s hips, holding on.
“Sure, Sam,” Dean answered, too quickly. “Of course, yeah, I’ll be there, but – I gotta go right now, gotta get cleaned up. Haven’t even showered yet, and you know how it is, I’ve got demon blood all over me and it’s just – well, you know, so, yeah, sure, I will, thanks, bye Sam.”
The call cut off before Sam could say goodbye.
He had the dream again that night, but this time the woods were closer, drawing in around them, overhanging branches swaying in the wind that picked up above them, tapping against the Impala’s windows as Sam and Dean lay back on her hood. Sam didn’t care what was out there, only that his brother’s mouth was wet and slick against his own. He wrapped an arm around Dean’s back and kissed him harder, fending off the branches that scraped and hissed against the Impala’s steel, but couldn’t touch them.
On the day of the party, Sam didn’t look out the window. Didn’t check his phone a hundred times. Didn’t change his shirt more than three times, and one of those was because Jess said there was a hole under the arm.
Jessica watched him anxiously. Once, she started to say, “Sam, you know he –
He cut her off before she could placate him or try to prepare him. “I know,” he said, waving a hand like he just didn’t care. “Whatever. I know.”
The last thing Sam expected was Dean at the door with someone else. Not a gorgeous woman, either. Dean stood at the door next to a handsome man, whose blue eyes rivaled Jessica’s in brilliance.
“Dean,” Sam said, and couldn’t think of anything else to say. Not even come in.
When Sam didn’t step forward, Dean shuffled his feet awkwardly, then gestured at his companion. “Uh, Sam, this is Cas. Cas, this is my brother, Sam.”
The blue-eyed man – Cas – held out his hand stiffly. “Nice to meet you, Sam,” he said, like they were at a business meeting. He was wearing a trench coat that was not entirely clean, or very attractive.
“Nice to meet you too,” Sam said woodenly, and finally remembered to invite them inside. He didn’t pull Dean in for a hug the way he’d been dreaming of for days.
“So, uh, how long have you two – how long have you known Dean?” Sam tried, as the three of them stood awkwardly in a corner, drinking beer way too fast.
Cas looked to Dean before he answered. “We first met in person ninety-six days ago, though I have known Dean for much longer than that.”
Sam frowned. Cryptic asshole. Was this some kind of “I’m his soulmate, feel like I’ve known him all my life” bullshit?
“Ninety-six days. Huh. You’re keeping count.” Like a middle schooler
Cas cocked his head and regarded Sam quizzically. “No,” he said simply, like that was the answer Sam was expecting.
“Oh,” said Sam, because what other response was there? Cas seemed to realize he hadn’t said enough. He cleared his throat and looked at Sam with way too much intensity for a stranger.
“Your brother is very special,” Cas said, and Sam wanted to vomit. Dean was looking down, the tips of his ears pink.
“Yeah,” Sam said, though he wanted to make fun of the weird dude who was obviously boinking his brother. “Dean’s special, all right.”
“Fuck you,” Dean said, finding his voice again.
“Hey,” Sam started to protest, but Cas interrupted.
“Neither of you is comfortable with that option at this point,” he said solemnly.
“Cas!” Dean gasped, his cheeks going red under his freckles.
“Is this not a place to speak the truth?” Cas asked, his blue eyes wide and innocent, and God, what a weird guy he was.
“That’s not . . . never mind,” Dean said, shaking his head. Then to Sam, “He’s not from around here.”
Cas nodded, still solemn. “From far away,” he agreed, gesturing to the ceiling. “Very far.” He looked to Dean again, clearly hoping he’d said the right thing. Obviously the guy had it bad for Dean. Not that Sam could really blame him. Dean looked good, same worn jeans and boots as ever, but the tight black shirt was more stylish than Dean’s usual tee shirt or flannel, snug over his broad shoulders and the muscles of his biceps. His eyes glittered bottle green when he smiled at Cas in reassurance, small crinkles at the corners, and his mouth looked as inviting as Sam remembered from his dreams, pink and wet. Cas smiled back, looking relieved, and Sam felt sick.
Jessica calling him from the kitchen was a godsend.
“So,” Jessica said when they were alone in the kitchen, putting mini quiches in the oven. “You never told me your brother was gay.”
Sam closed the oven door more forcefully than he intended. “He’s not – I mean, I knew he messed around with guys sometimes, but never – not like this. Like bringing a guy to my – to a party.”
“If I didn’t know better,” Jess said, head cocked sideways, “I’d think you were a homophobe.”
“Of course not,” Sam protested.
“Well good, since that would make you an asshole and a hypocrite,” Jessica said. “I remember that night at Gary’s house, when we all had a little too much to drink.” She gave him a leering smile.
Sam tried hard to smile back; it didn’t quite work.
Cas stuck as close to Dean as Sam had at the last party, hovering almost protectively as Dean drank too much beer and avoided Sam with single-minded purpose. The fourth time Sam came back in from the kitchen, Dean and Cas were sitting side by side on the sofa, talking animatedly. Cas leaned in, put a hand on Dean’s arm and shook his head, like he was trying to talk Dean out of something. Dean sighed, and Sam could see his lips form an “okay.” Dean looked up after that, his gaze unerringly finding Sam’s. He blinked and ducked his head. Cas looked up too, his blue eyes guileless, staring at Sam curiously.
Sam swallowed hard and crossed the room. Fuck this. “Dean, can I have a word?”
Dean snapped his eyes up to Sam, but didn’t move. “You can say whatever you have to say in front of Cas. We don’t have any secrets.”
It was the same thing Sam had said to Dean the night Dean had come to lure him back to the hunt, almost verbatim. With the same defensive arrogance.
“Maybe,” Sam said, “But I don’t want to.”
When Dean still didn’t move, Sam huffed and made what Dean used to call the bitchface. Apparently it still worked; Dean got up with a sigh of resignation. “Be right back,” he said to Cas, who just nodded.
Sam closed the kitchen door behind them.
“Want another beer?”
Dean gave Sam a lopsided grin. He was drunk; more drunk than Sam had realized. “Sure, Sam,” he agreed, swaying a little before leaning back against the counter.
“Hope you’re not driving.”
Dean used his ring to pop the beer, something Sam had seen him do so many times it caught in his chest, made him feel shaky. “’m fine,” he said. “Cas isn’t much of a driver.”
The tightness in Sam’s chest spread to his fists; he wanted to punch that smug look off his brother’s face.
“I guess he’s talented in other areas.”
Dean’s eyebrows shot up and his mouth fell open, inebriation ruining his usually ironclad game face. “What areas are you referrin’ to, Sammy?” he drawled, and Sam forced himself to stay still. This was his fucking engagement party--he wouldn’t let Dean’s new boyfriend ruin it.
“Hey, you and your new boyfriend are none of my business.”
“Damn right,” Dean said emphatically, “but he’s not my boyfriend. He’s a – a friend.”
Sam scoffed. “Right. You think I don’t see the way he looks at you?”
Dean looked genuinely surprised for a moment, glancing at the door, to where Cas was in the living room. That was the moment he saw it--or rather, the lack of it. The amulet Sam had given Dean that long-ago Christmas, the one he never took off, was gone.
“Where is it?”
Dean didn’t bother pretending he didn’t know what Sam was asking.
“Cas has it.”
“Cas – Cas has it?” The question came out a gruff whisper; something had Sam’s gut in a strangle hold. “You gave it to Cas?”
Dean met his eyes, and for a second Sam thought he saw Dean soften, saw the emotion in his eyes that Sam knew from his past and from his dreams – the warmth of love and loyalty, something just between them. Jessica’s laughter floated in from the other room, one of their friends congratulating Sam on his taste in diamonds and women. Dean turned away and didn’t answer.
Sam’s chest split open, pain burning through him, rage close behind as he looked at Dean’s averted face, the smooth material clinging to his chest where there was no longer any mark of Sam’s affection.
“You know what? Forget it. Forget I even asked – I don’t know why I even invited you, it’s so fucking clear you never wanna be here, so you know what? Just go – leave like you’ve probably been wanting to since the second you walked in the door.” He waved his hand toward the living room; his head felt like it would explode, there was so much rage in there.
Dean’s face was just as red as Sam’s felt. He pushed himself off from the counter and got in Sam’s face, one hand flat on Sam’s chest to shove him backwards. “FINE,” he yelled, loud enough for everyone in the house to hear. “I’m going.”
Sam had stumbled backwards into the refrigerator. He stood up shakily, adrenaline pumping, fists still clenched.
Dean put his half-empty beer on the counter and started for the door, clearly working hard not to sway when he walked. He turned just before he swung it open, green eyes slitted.
“Guess I forgot,” he hissed, hand on the door. “You’re the only one who gets to be happy. Ain’t that right, Sam?”
Sam watched them from the window, Dean stalking towards the Impala, kicking over a discarded beer bottle that got in his way. Dean didn’t look back, but Cas did, an expression of concern and confusion on his face as his eyes met Sam’s.
* * *
Part Three
runedgirlArtist name:
fanlayPairing: Dean/Sam, with Sam/Jess and Dean/Cas
Rating: NC17
Four times Dean turned the Impala around and started driving east; four times he stopped to argue with himself, reciting all the reasons this was a terrible idea. Sam was safe – let him stay that way. Sam didn’t need him there – he had Jessica. Sam didn’t want him there – he had new friends, a new life. Every time the Impala rolled eastward, rational thought dissolved, drowned out by the overwhelming need to see his brother, to hear his voice, maybe even his laugh. Dean didn’t dare think about touch; contemplating sight and sound was too much to begin with. Dangerous to remember scent and feel, hot summer nights and the smell of leather and dust and rain and Sam.
The sun was setting by the time he pulled onto the street where Sam and Jessica lived, all the red stucco darkened to burnt sienna, still radiating warmth. Dean’s fingers were cramped around the wheel, clinging to it like he hoped the Impala wouldn’t let him do this after all. Their apartment was on the second floor, and the windows were open, blue and white striped curtains billowing in and out with the breeze, and Dean could hear the occasional laugh or someone’s name spoken above the conversation, the sharp clink of glass against glass. What the fuck are you doing here? You don’t belong here.
But Sam was in there, and Sam’s voice on the phone had sounded hopeful. Dean didn’t have it in him to ignore that, no matter how violently his skin was crawling as he walked up to ring the buzzer. The front door clicked open without anyone asking who was ringing, which ticked Dean off for a second, because what the fuck, just because Sam was in freakin’ California didn’t mean serial killers couldn’t ring your doorbell. In the middle of your birthday party.
A couple passed him on the stairs as he made his way up, the guy eyeing Dean’s leather jacket and pissed-off expression suspiciously as they went by. Dean schooled his face into something less dangerous and walked through the open door to 2A. He stopped on the threshold, taking stock, willing his heart to slow down because what the hell, this was a party, not a reaping.
His eyes found Sam across the room, surrounded by a group of talking, laughing, gesturing, beer-drinking people, all of them animated and inebriated and clearly having fun, a collage of bright pink and green and purple shirts, blonde hair and white teeth, short skirts and expensive jeans. He scrubbed a hand through his hair nervously, conspicuous in leather jacket and jeans that had seen too many knife wounds and monsters’ blood and gunshots. He thought about leaving, backing out the door and sprinting for the Impala and getting the fuck out of Dodge before he embarrassed himself – in front of Sam.
“Dean!” He felt it more than heard it, the moment Sam knew he was there. Hazel eyes caught his own and held, wide with surprise and then ablaze with something else Dean hadn’t wanted to count on, and Sam was out of his seat and pushing through the crowd, towering over most of the room, headed straight for him, and there was no room for thoughts of leaving when Dean’s legs were shaking like jelly, his heartbeat triple-timing so hard he felt faint with it.
“Dean,” Sam said again, and wrapped his gigantic arms around Dean’s shoulders and pulled him in for a hug, and Dean forgot to play it cool and push him off, his own hands splayed against Sam’s hard-muscled back, squeezing just as tightly. Sam felt big, grown and safe and strong, but he smelled like Sam, like Dean’s little brother who he’d hugged a zillion times before they both got too cool for it or felt too much when they did it. Dean forgot where they were, forgot that he didn’t want Sam to know how much Dean missed him. Impossible to think when Sam was right there.
“Hey, get a room, you guys,” a stranger’s voice said, and fear shot through Dean’s gut so fast he yanked away from Sam and almost stumbled, spinning on the guy with clenched fists, needing to wipe the filthy thought from his filthy lying mouth.
“Fuck off,” Sam laughed easily, still with a hand on Dean’s arm, calming. “Dean’s my b—best friend, I – grew up with him, haven’t seen him in forever.”
Sam dragged him off toward the kitchen before he could respond with a ‘what the fuck’ or a ‘fuck you’ or whatever was about to come out of his mouth.
“Dean, it’s nice to see you again.” Jessica’s eyes were wary, but she hugged him too, her breasts smashed against his chest and her hair soft and fragrant against his cheek. He patted her back awkwardly.
“I’ll let you guys catch up,” Jess said, and she wasn’t all bad, wasn’t even a little bad, Dean knew that, he did.
Sam handed him a beer and he drank half in one go, hoping it would erase the stupid feelings that kept blindsiding him.
“You ashamed to call me your brother now?” It came out an accusation, his mouth twisting cruelly around the words while his chest ached with the hope that Sam would say no.
Sam snorted and shook his head. “No, of course not. I changed my last name when I started school here, you know that. It seemed like the safe thing to do.”
It did. Dean had been all for it when he’d first come looking to check up on his stupid kid brother, totally on board. It stung more now, seeing Sam so different in ways Dean had never anticipated.
“Whatever. Just don’t forget who you really are.”
Sam smiled, and Dean found it hard to stay pissed. He always did, when Sam looked at him like that, too open. Dean leaned back against the counter, boots crossed at the ankles, and tried to look like he didn’t care anyway. Sam just grinned wider, unconvinced. He grabbed another beer from the refrigerator for himself and settled against the far counter, mirroring Dean’s stance.
“I know who I am, Dean. It’s you who’s the mystery. What have you been doing out there for the past five years?”
Dean wanted to say I’ve been doing the same goddamn thing I’ve always been doing – the thing we used to do together, that Dad taught us to do. He wanted to say why the fuck aren’t you out there with me doing it, watching my back?
What he said was “Oh you know, same old same old.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “You being careful?”
If you were really worried about my ass being safe, you’d be out there watching it. Me. Whatever.
“Sure,” Dean said, and looked away from his brother, into the living room where the brightly colored people – Sam’s friends -- were laughing and talking and living the normal life. He didn’t notice Sam moving closer until it was too late to shift away. Sam had a giant hand on his arm, fingers wrapped around the curve of muscle.
“Don’t just say that to make me shut up,” he said, so close that Dean could feel Sam’s breath on his face--smell the beer he was drinking. “I mean it, Dean, you gotta be careful.”
Sam’s expression was earnest; those exotic eyes sparkling with shards of emerald, flecks of gold and umber and grey, mesmerizing. They were so close Dean could see the pupils expand. He knew his own would be the same, like they needed to take in every molecule of each other, memorize every visual detail for the long months they’d be apart. Sam’s lips parted and drew Dean’s gaze, and suddenly he didn’t care that Sam had left, that Sam had another life, that Sam had Jessica. The intensity Dean had always felt from Sam – had always returned a thousand-fold – was still there, burning hot as ever, like a fever running down Dean’s spine, flowing through every muscle. The place where Sam gripped his arm throbbed with it; Dean throbbed with it.
He watched Sam swallow, the rise and fall of his Adam’s apple against the smooth skin of his throat. He didn’t know how long the moment held, only that he was helpless to break it.
“Hey, grab me a few beers, Sam?”
The intrusion of an unfamiliar voice shattered the spell, and Sam let go to step back, the break of physical contact like a bucket of ice water thrown over Dean’s entire being. He shivered.
“Oh, yeah, sure,” Sam recovered quickly, passing the bottles to whoever the guy was with an easygoing grin.
“Come back and join your party,” the guy said, and Dean wanted to punch him right in his smiling drunk artfully hipster unshaven face.
“Yep, be right there,” Sam said, still grinning, and Dean wanted to punch him too.
When Sam turned back to him, Dean was ready. “You should go entertain your friends,” he said, avoiding eye contact.
“Dean,” Sam started, but Dean moved away before Sam could get a hand on him and render him immobile again. He slipped past his little brother’s grabby reach and made his way into the living room, like it wasn’t a sea of strangers and he wasn’t dressed wrong and they weren’t looking at him sideways, wondering who the fuck he was. Sam followed, but was swallowed up almost immediately by a group of laughing pastel people all wanting his attention. Dean couldn’t blame them. He took the opportunity to wander around the apartment, examining the details of Sam’s new life, all the things he didn’t know about his little brother anymore. Everything there was to know about Sam could no longer fit in a duffel, ready to pack up and run at a moment’s notice. This Sam was settled, books and clothes and possessions spread throughout the rooms, neatly stacked in closets and medicine cabinets and on top of bureaus and in rows on bookcases. There were law books and textbooks, Cognitive Psychology and Juvenile Justice and the Norton Anthology of English Literature, novels and books of poetry, and fuck, Sam must be in heaven with all the books he had to read. Dean wondered which were Sam’s and which were Jessica’s, realized he didn’t even know if she was a law student too or something else. He felt a twinge of guilt, like he should care enough to find out, but pushed it away. The Sam who lived here was a stranger, and it hurt way more than Dean had prepared for.
The shirts in Sam’s closet, hanging next to Jessica’s skirts and dresses, weren’t worn flannel button-downs. The ones in his drawer weren’t hand-me-downs inherited from his big brother or worn until they were falling apart, though there was a single Metallica tee off to one side that looked like it had never been worn. There were neatly folded boxer briefs in black and navy and red in the third drawer of the big bureau in the bedroom, and Dean ran his fingers over them, remembering Sam skinny and self conscious in boxers so thin the cotton was nearly transparent, the elastic loose enough that they barely stayed up over his narrow hips. He jerked his hand away, slamming the drawer. What the fuck was he doing, going through Sam’s underwear like some kind of perv?
Sam was still in the middle of a group of people all talking animatedly when Dean came back to the living room. He felt a little sick, like someone had caught him with a good gut punch. Who was that Sam Wesson guy over there, with his long hair and his easy grin and his handsome face, at home amidst the pretentious looking group of people –law students like Sam, he guessed-- gathered around him, in this house with all these things that Dean didn’t know? And who was Dean, if he no longer knew Sam--if Sam no longer knew him? The sense of isolation swept over him in a rush, settling like ice in his veins, in his still-twisting stomach.
"What an asshole Ackerman was today. As if ANYONE will give a shit about the Rule Against Perpetuities fifty years from now," a tall kid on Sam’s right said, shaking his head in contempt.
The girl next to him agreed. "He can take his contingent remainders and executory interests and shove them up his ass."
They all laughed. Sam laughed, his teeth flashing white and the dimples around his full mouth deepening.
"Did you hear Scalia on the bench today?” the guy on Sam’s left asked, and everyone – including Sam – made disgusted faces. “As far as I'm concerned he and the Pope can blow each other.”
“It's like Griswold v Connecticut never happened”, a woman with curly brown hair agreed.
"He's trying to flush Lawrence v. Texas," the first guy said, to more nods.
Dean wondered what Lawrence meant to Sam now; if the old associations had been replaced by new ones Dean didn’t get, didn’t share. Dad used to say that Sam and Dean had a secret language, one that kept them alive when communication had to be a single word, a quick look, a pointed gesture. “What’s that Sammy code for?” he would ask, annoyed, when Sam was thirteen and constantly cryptic, and Dean could always answer.
Across the room, Sam and his friends were talking about an exam they’d taken, something about amounts in controversy and Federal diversity cases, from what Dean could make out.
“When did that get increased?” a short guy with wire-rimmed glasses asked, looking worried.
"Moron!” the guy next to him accused, pointing a finger in his face. “Section 1332(a) changed last year."
"No shit,” said a third, puffing out his chest a bit and gulping more beer. “How stupid do you have to be to not know that?"
What Dean did then was cowardly. He knew it, and a part of him wondered what Sam would do when he realized--if he’d be surprised or pissed off or maybe a little hurt.
The text message came half an hour later. Did you really leave without saying goodbye? Asshole.
Dean couldn’t resist just one reply. May as well be passive-aggressive all the way; he’d gone this far. Didn’t want to interrupt important intellectual discussion..
Fuck you Dean, Sam texted back an instant later.
Yeah, Dean thought, and turned off his phone. Fuck me. You did that. The funny thing was, he never really believed it--not even that night, when it felt like he’d finally lost Sam for good. He wasn’t mad at Sam for being normal; for wanting normal. Sam hadn’t been a jerk, hadn’t even wanted him to leave. But those few moments with Sam in the kitchen had rekindled a longing so strong Dean wasn’t sure he could survive any more of those moments. He needed to be closer. And if he couldn’t be closer, he needed to be farther.
* * *
Sam had been watching when Dean slipped out of the living room and into the hallway that led to the bathroom and bedroom. At first he’d assumed Dean just had to piss, but when he didn’t return, Sam knew he was sleuthing. Old habits, yada yada, but he was angry that Dean wouldn’t just ask, that Dean had to find out for himself. His friends kept talking, and Sam managed to answer, while a parallel track ran in his head. Dean would be judgmental, that was certain. What the fuck kind of shirts are these, Sam? Seriously, purple? Or is this mauve or magenta or something? Sam scowled to himself, Dean’s taunting voice clear as reality. You finally got enough books, Sam? Must have a hundred here easy. Bet you think you’re so much smarter than your uneducated family now, huh?
The imagined soundtrack of his big brother’s derision was so annoying that Sam shook it off, forcing himself to pay attention to his friends and not worry about what Dean was thinking. Why couldn’t he just for once be the supportive older brother so many of Sam’s friends had? Was it so wrong to have done something “normal” like go to college? Nobody had been there the day Sam graduated – only Jess and her family celebrated with them and patted him on the back and took them out to lunch. Had Dean even known when it was, or considered how important it was to Sam to have him there? No. Of course not. Well, fuck him. Sam had reached out and invited Dean here – now it was up to Dean to step up and stop being such a jerk.
He did such a good job of distracting himself debating with his friends that he didn’t look for Dean again for a while. By the time he went to the window, the Impala was gone. No goodbye, no explanation. Fuck you, Dean
Sam was shocked to get a reply; he wasn’t surprised that it was bitter instead of apologetic.
If that was the way Dean wanted it, then fine. Fine. Sam had made it this far on his own, no thanks to Dean or Dad or anyone. He didn’t need them; didn’t need Dean.
“I’m sorry,” Jess said as they cleaned up the kitchen. “I know you were really excited about seeing him again.”
Sam shrugged and took a few more antacids. Damn stomach ache, too much beer and bad food. “It was a mistake to invite him. I should’ve known better.”
He thought of the way Dean’s biceps muscle jumped when Sam touched him. The way Dean’s eyes went dark, only a ring of bright green around the black, and the way his mouth was wet with beer, so close. A mistake, it was a mistake.
It was stupid that he wanted to cry that night, when Jess had made him a birthday cake and thirty friends had toasted his first year-law-school success and he had a bright future ahead of him, everyone said so. But for the first time, he knew that future didn’t include Dean. Sam wiped impatiently at his closed eyes, blew his nose quietly. Jess rolled closer in her sleep and flung a delicate arm across his waist. Sam shut his eyes more tightly and willed himself not to compare.
He was busy, struggling to work and excel in his second year and into his third. He didn’t think about Dean, except when he did.
It was almost two years before he saw his brother again.
* * *
When Sam’s phone buzzed, he was in the law library, stiff from bending over his laptop and shuffling piles of historical documents and bound books. Shit, was it already time to meet Jess for dinner?
He glanced at the display to make sure it wasn’t Anderson trying for the fiftieth time to convince him to blow off the paper he was working on and come out drinking with the guys tonight, and nearly dropped the phone when he saw the caller id.
“Incoming Call,” it said, and underneath, “D.”
Oh God.
“Dean?” He answered the phone too loudly, fingers already shaking. The people across from him snapped their heads up at the alarm in his voice. Sam left the laptop on the table and headed for the door. “What’s wrong?”
The pause before Dean’s answer told Sam just how bad it was. “It’s Dad,” Dean said, and Sam knew.
“Where are you?”
Jess took him to the airport, holding his hand and saying what she clearly hoped were the right things. He knew you loved him, even if you didn’t get a chance to say it recently. He must have understood--you just wanted to be yourself, follow your own path. It’s not like you chose a life of crime or joined the Mafia, for godsakes--you’re in law school. Most parents would be proud!
Sam didn’t have it in him to argue; how could he? She was right, or she should have been. Explaining what it meant to be a Winchester was futile. It was why he’d never tried.
He waited at the baggage claim in Tulsa, shuffling his feet restlessly as he watched for the big black car. His stomach was tied in knots, half a coil of grief he hadn’t even processed yet, and half the fear of what his brother would think, say, do. Sam shifted the backpack over his shoulder, wishing for a second that he’d dragged his old duffel out of the closet and brought it instead. The familiar rumble sent such a strong wave of nervous anticipation through him that he thought for a second he’d be sick. He straightened when the headlights found him, squaring his shoulders under the backpack and pushing the hair back off his face. Dean didn’t get out--just pulled up to the curb, still shadowed.
Not like Sam was expecting a fucking hug or something. He opened the door and settled himself on the seat where he’d spent so much time as a teenager, beside his big brother. Dean nodded but kept his eyes on the windshield. “Sam,” he said carefully, and out of all the ways Sam had heard his name spoken by his brother over the years, it had never sounded like that.
“Thanks for calling me,” he answered, trying for the same flat tone, but it only came out rough, swallowed down. He wanted to ask, was it my fault for not being here? but he was afraid of the way Dean would answer.
Dean nodded again, pulling the Impala back onto the road and driving through the night in silence. Sam looked out the window and wondered if Dean wanted to hit him. He sort of hoped so. Anything was preferable to the cold that seeped across the front seat and made him shiver. The man driving the car Sam had grown up in looked like – felt like – a stranger.
Sam thought of all the things he’d wished he could say to Dean over the past six years. The time “Ghostbusters” was on late-night TV and Sam remembered how hard he and Dean had laughed at it when it first came out, too young to be envious of the rest of the world who could just be amused instead of laughing at how wrong they got it. All those days he’d picked up his phone and juggled it, stomach flipping, before shoving it back in his pocket. Every May 2nd, every January 24th. Every time Jess baked a cherry pie or stole the covers or sang along to the radio out of tune. Now Dean was right there, close enough to touch. And Sam was paralyzed.
They drove in silence to the long-abandoned cabin in the woods, the Impala lurching along the rutted dirt road, her wheels and springs complaining the only sounds. Dean cursed a time or two when they crunched over a substantial branch and he knew he was risking one of her tires, and when Sam dared a glance Dean’s knuckles were white around the wheel, his jaw clenched tightly.
Sam half expected the body to be wrapped for the pyre already, but Dean had allowed him a last goodbye at least. Dad was laid out on the sturdy old oak table in the main room of the cabin, the hard lines etched into his handsome face smoothed out by the only thing capable of making John Winchester stop and rest. Dean hung back at the door, but Sam could feel his brother’s gaze on him as he crossed the room. He felt it like a brand, a mark of judgment.
“Dad,” Sam whispered when he stood at his father’s side, and he half expected John’s eyes to open, to crinkle with welcome or to blaze with rage--Sam wouldn’t have cared which. “Dad, I – God, Dad.” There weren’t any words, not really. The time for explanations or understanding was past, and Sam would never hear the pride Jess kept insisting John would eventually feel. Sam would never say the “I’m sorry” he’d been saving for that perfect time when Dad could hear it.
By the time Sam got up off his knees and raised his head from John’s still and silent chest, Dean was gone.
They lit the pyre together that night, businesslike with the sense memory of experience--watched until the smoke forced tears that streaked their cheeks, but didn’t cry. The flames lit up the woods, licked up into the night and painted flickering colors on the trees . . . and then John Winchester, the last thing that bound Sam and Dean together, was gone.
“When’s your flight back?” Dean asked when they’d buried their father’s ashes and smoothed the dirt over the unmarked place, scattered some dried leaves and pine needles there. Sam followed him into the cabin, where the oak table was bare. It looked too hard to have been comfortable, Sam thought suddenly, then winced at the irrationality of the worry.
“Tomorrow morning.”
Dean nodded, like that was what he’d assumed. Exams and paper deadlines seemed ridiculous to mention, and Sam knew they weren’t the reason for the quick visit anyway. Sam could take a lot of pain, but Dean’s silence cut too deep when it came from right beside him, when Sam could see the strained stiffness of his brother’s shoulders and the way he kept his face turned away, offering nothing.
Dean brought two sleeping bags from the trunk, rolled one out for himself near the door, and tossed one for Sam to the other side of the room. As far away from me as he can get, Sam thought. But that was good, because his throat was aching, closing up, and he didn’t know how well he’d be able to choke back the sobs stuck there. He went to his knees on the bag and pressed it out flat. It smelled musty, familiar.
“I’m just gonna turn in,” Sam said, and his voice didn’t tremble, even if his hands did, stuffed in his pockets.
Dean didn’t answer, and Sam didn’t turn around to see if he nodded. A few seconds later the door creaked open and then shut, and Sam could hear Dean’s boots crumpling leaves and twigs as he walked away.
The ache became agony; Sam gave in, face buried in the worn cotton of the sleeping bag that still smelled like Dean.
* * *
Dean sat on the hood of the Impala for a long time; he didn’t know how long. There was no impulse to cry, no desire to swing a hammer and fuck something up or take something down. There was just nothing. Sam had been gone a long time and now Dad was, too. And for some reason he couldn’t figure out, Dean was still here, wearing Dad’s leather jacket and driving his big black car, symbols of something Dean didn’t think he even believed in anymore. He tried to think about what it would be like now, with Dad gone, but no awareness came. He thought about Sam, but that hurt was so familiar and had taken up such permanent residence in his soul that it just felt normal, a dull throb that he’d grown used to and would always have.
Sam was here, just inside that door. The tall man with the shaggy brown hair who used to sit on the hood beside him and look up at the stars was a stranger now, a grown man with a degree and a girl and a life of his own. Dean had done the right thing; John was Sam’s father too, no matter how far apart they’d grown. But this man’s long-fingered hands, the exotic slant of his eyes, the way he pushed his hair back off his forehead impatiently, every familiar intimate detail – it was all a funhouse mirror, an image of the little brother Dean still, despite his best efforts, loved with every fiber of his being. He couldn’t keep looking, couldn’t stand to see all he’d lost taunting him.
The night grew colder quickly, the Impala’s metal chilled and hard, and Dean tried to make his heart the same as he steeled himself to walk back through the cabin door. He hoped Sam was asleep, a dark bump under the sleeping bag across the room, nothing more. He walked quietly, sitting down before he took off his boots, and placing them carefully on the floor. Moonlight shone through the curtainless window, and he could see the giant lump that was Sam, curled up on top of the sleeping bag. Small tremors shook his massive shoulders, and Dean could hear the muffled sounds then, as familiar as his own heartbeat. Sam was crying.
Dean bit his lip, his hands in fists at his sides, willing himself not to hear. Sam drew in a soft hiccuppy breath, tried to swallow the next sob and choked on it instead. Dean remembered Christmas mornings when there were no presents and no heat and no Dad, Sam curled up in his arms making those same sounds, trying to be brave and snotting up Dean’s tee shirt. He remembered Sam brokenhearted when they had to leave Salt Lake Elementary in a rush, before he could even retrieve his backpack from the classroom, tears of outrage and misery all the way to the next town. It was January 23rd and Sam gasped out those same hiccuppy breaths until he was dizzy and sick while Dean patted his back and wondered what was so damned important in that backpack. He hadn’t figured it out until they were two counties over.
“Sam?”
Across the room, Sam sucked in a harsh breath and went dead silent and still, frozen in his near-fetal position. So he hadn’t known Dean was there.
Dean waited a few moments, watching Sam’s shoulders start to shake with the effort of staying quiet. A near squeak rattled out of Sam’s chest--he shuddered, the next strangled sound an almost-mewl, and God, Dean couldn’t not touch him. He crawled across the dozen feet between them and put his hand on Sam’s shoulder where it trembled and shook, and a great and horrible sob burst out with such force Sam couldn’t keep his mouth closed around it. Dean turned him then, instinct kicking in, and he didn’t care anymore that he shouldn’t, that this wasn’t his Sam anymore, that Sam didn’t need him. He just reached in and took, pulling the heavy dead weight of his little brother against him, Sam’s wet snotty face pressed to his tee shirt as he wailed out his agony. Dean rocked him, like he’d done a million times when Sam was the smaller one. Sam’s hands fisted in his tee shirt and he held on, his bony forehead bruising Dean’s chest as they moved together, the rhythm a primal comfort.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Dean said against Sam’s hair, “Couldn’t have stopped it.”
“Dad,” Sam cried, and “Dean,” and Dean rubbed his back, broad and thick with muscle under Dean’s fingers.
“I know,” he said. “I know, Sammy.”
They slept on top of Sam’s sleeping bag when exhaustion pulled them under, Dean curled around Sam and Sam still with a fistful of Dean’s tee shirt.
In the morning, Dean gently eased the cotton from Sam’s fingers and extracted himself from the warmth of Sam’s big body against his own, though doing it felt like peeling his own skin. Sam tossed restlessly, then settled, and Dean pulled half the sleeping bag over him. Sam was awake by the time Dean came back inside with a few bottles of water and some stale donuts from the car, though his eyes were still red-rimmed and puffy.
“Sorry,” Sam said, and his voice was still half wrecked. “I just—
Dean shrugged, tossing a donut. Sam grabbed it out of the air by instinct, and Dean almost smiled before he remembered that they didn’t have veryfuckingmuch to smile about. “This is all we’ve got for breakfast,” he said, and handed Sam a bottle.
Sam’s expression went less guarded, his red eyes a little more open. “Thanks,” he said, and drank almost the entire thing in one go.
On the way back to the airport, Dean told Sam what he knew about how the demon had managed to turn the tables and kill their father . . . which wasn’t a whole lot. Dean had gotten there too late to help John, but in time to aim the Colt between the yellow-eyed bastard’s eyes and watch him die. He hoped John had lived long enough to know it.
“You did it, Dean,” Sam said, and for a moment he sounded like Dean’s little brother again, the kid who thought Dean was a hero. “You did what Dad was trying to do this whole damn time.”
Dean shook his head, lips pursed against a sudden surge of regret. “And it didn’t do a goddamn thing to save Dad – or Mom.”
Sam reached across the seat, forgetting that they were strangers now, forgetting that they didn’t talk and didn’t touch. Dean startled when Sam squeezed his thigh urgently. “You’re alive,” Sam said, his hand big and warm on Dean’s leg. “And I’m alive. And that’s what Dad – and Mom, I think – would have wanted more than anything.”
Dean hadn’t felt alive in a long time; he did then, for a moment, with Sam’s hand pressing the certainty of his words into Dean’s flesh.
“It’s just you and me now, man,” Sam said when Dean pulled the Impala up to Departing Flights. “Will you stay in touch a little more?”
Sam’s hand was still on his leg, like Sam didn’t want to break contact any more than Dean did.
“Sure,” he said, and he felt cold when Sam took his hand away and opened the car door.
“Are you just saying that?” Sam asked, leaning back into the car.
“Are you?” Dean shot back.
Sam leaned in farther, and Dean could feel Sam’s eyes on him, hard. “Look at me,” he ordered, and Dean turned even though he didn’t really want to. “No,” Sam said, shaking his head. “No.”
“Okay,” Dean said, and blew out a breath. “Okay Sammy.”
Sam smiled a little then, though his eyes were still puffy and Dean knew he wasn’t done crying. “Good. I’m holding you to that.”
He watched Sam walk into the building, turning around as the glass doors shut to catch Dean’s eye again and wave before he disappeared. It hurt, but Dean thought maybe he could bear it every now and then, for those rare moments when it didn’t.
* * *
Dean answered the phone about every other time Sam called after that, some unrecognized algorithm that equaled met obligation minus irrational trepidation.
Sam tried not to read anything into it, though it was mathematically improbable that Dean was actually otherwise engaged every other phone call. He never asked; Dean called back now. That was enough.
On May 2nd, Dean even initiated the phone call – or at least the introductory text.
“Happy birthday, bitch,” Sam’s phone chirped at 9 pm.
“Thanks, jerk,” Sam texted back. He was stabbing at the eggplant parmesan that Jess had made specially, wishing his stomach wasn’t giving him trouble.
Sam put the phone back in his pocket and grabbed his fork. His stomach felt better now, so he dug back into dinner with gusto.
Jess raised an eyebrow. “Oh, you do like it, then?”
Sam chewed around an ear-to-ear grin. “Absolutely! This is amazing, just – it’s perfect! Seriously Jess, thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, smiling back. “Glad you like it.”
“Love it,” Sam amended, scooping up toasted bread crumbs and strings of melted cheese.
“Was that text from Dean?”
Sam rolled his eyes and held out the phone.
Jessica couldn’t help the snort. “Bitch? Is that some kind of big brother taunt or something?”
“Or something,” Sam agreed, but he was smiling again. “He’s an asshole, what can I say?”
Sam called the next day, surprised when Dean picked up on the third ring.
“Finally get your lazy ass up from too much celebrating last night, Sammy?” The tone said Dean was smirking.
“No,” Sam answered, “Just didn’t wanna call you too early in case you had--you know--company.”
There was a pause that Sam hadn’t expected before Dean gave the expected smartass reply.
“If you’re fishing for details about how much more exciting my sex life is than yours, forget it,” Dean said, but the smirk was gone, Sam could tell. He had the unsettling feeling he’d said something wrong, but had no clue what it might be.
“Whatever,” he said, because that too was expected. “Listen, I don’t know if you even know this, but I’m graduating next week and –“
“I know that, dickwad,” Dean said, more annoyed than Sam had anticipated. It wasn’t like they talked that often, after all.
“Okay, well – good, so – what I wanted to say is that we’re having – Jess is throwing a little party for me, nothing big, no big deal, but – well, you’re invited. I mean, of course. It’s, uh, the 30th. If you’re anywhere near the west coast or – if you wanted to.”
Dean didn’t say anything for a few beats, and Sam tried not to take it personally. The last party Dean had come to hadn’t exactly gone well. Sam hadn’t even tried to invite Dean to his undergrad ceremony. This would just be one more event in Sam’s life where everyone else had family gathered around, and Sam had Jess.
Dean cleared his throat, a decades-old tell. Sam stayed quiet.
“What time?”
Sam’s eyes went wide. “Really?” he said, too fast to keep the excitement out of his voice.
Dean had heard it; his voice went rougher. “’Course,” he said, even though it was nothing either of them would ever consider inevitable. “It’s a big day, right? A big thing.”
“Yeah,” Sam said, and suddenly it seemed like it. “Yeah, it is.”
There was another pause, and then Dean seemed to shake himself out of wherever they’d ended up. “So what time, asshole?”
“Seven,” Sam answered, “The party’s at seven.” He swallowed hard and pushed the rest of the words out. “And there’s a – the actual, well, ceremony, is at five. It’s in Canfield Courtyard, outside – I mean, it’s open to, you know, whoever.”
There was silence again, and Sam’s heart beat so loudly he was afraid Dean could hear it through the phone.
Before Dean could say anything that would get Sam’s hopes up or crush them into tiny pieces, he added, “You sure you remember how to get here?”
“Bite me,” Dean said, and hung up.
* * *
Sam kept his eyes on the back of Melissa Brown’s head as he walked down the aisle created between rows of chairs on Canfield Courtyard lawn, trying to concentrate on the way her braid was plaited, the strands of red and gold wound through the brown catching the late afternoon sunlight. There were probably friends he’d recognize sitting there, maybe some trying to catch his eye or give him a high five or a smile or a mouthed “congrats”, but letting himself scan the crowd would show him who wasn’t there too, and Sam couldn’t risk it. He only looked away from Melissa’s swinging braid when he heard Jessica’s voice, calling his name and bursting with the pride Sam knew he should be basking in.
“Love you,” she said, and she was glowing, beautiful.
“Love you too,” he mouthed back, and meant it. He couldn’t resist a quick scan of the rest of the section before he resolutely glued his eyes back to Melissa.
There were hoots and shouts when he walked across the stage, laughter as he tried to crouch low enough to allow Professor Kahn to hood him. Sam craned his ears for a familiar wolf whistle, then shook his head at his own foolishness. This was his moment, the culmination of a dream he’d never really believed he’d achieve until right now. There were velvet stripes on his robe and royal blue lining the heavy hood, red and gold silk turned out; Dean would no doubt laugh at him anyway.
By the time the ceremonies were over, Sam was calmer, relieved that he no longer had to wonder or worry. Disappointment was familiar when it came to his family. He knew how to deal with it.
At the last row, just as he was about to turn the corner and head to the field house where they all could change, he stopped short so abruptly that Ben Rodgers slammed right into his back.
“What the hell?” Ben asked, readjusting his cap.
Sam didn’t budge. Ben huffed and went around him.
“Dean?” Sam asked incredulously, staring. “You came?”
Dean’s cheeks went pink, but he rolled his eyes. “You can graduate from law school but you can’t put one foot in front of the other?” he said, shaking his head like it was a tragedy.
The line of graduates kept moving while Sam stood still, a few jostling him and admonishing him to keep going.
“Get going,” Dean ordered, and when Sam still didn’t, he waved a hand impatiently in Sam’s direction. The corners of Dean’s mouth were turned up, and his ears were red like he’d gotten a bad sunburn.
“You’ll come back to the house?”
“Yeah yeah,” Dean said, and tried to scowl. “Get your ass outta that ridiculous robe. You look like Harry Potter without the glasses.”
Sam turned around three more times as he walked toward the field house. Every time, Dean was still watching him.
* * *
Dean’s cell buzzed before he’d even gotten back to the Impala, which was illegally parked close enough for him to keep an eye on her.
“Don’t sit in the car instead of coming inside.” Goddamn Sam and his stupid mindreading abilities.
“Bitch, I’m not even in the car yet.”
“I’m timing you.”
“Time this.”
Dean smirked as he started the engine, picturing Sam’s face when he read the text. He drove the two miles to Sam’s apartment slowly, arm resting on the open window and Creedence playing too loud for the quiet neighborhood. If he’d considered sneaking away after the graduation—and okay, maybe it had crossed his mind once or a hundred time--the look on Sam’s face when he’d spotted Dean had made it impossible. If Sam could still smile at him like that, Dean could brave a boring night full of pretentious law students. Graduates. Lawyers. Whatever. He climbed the stairs, resolute.
Sam was waiting at the top, leaning on the inside doorway, that same stupid too-open grin on his too-handsome face. He’d lost the robe, looking more like Dean’s Sam in jeans and an already-faded Stanford tee shirt.
Dean had a biting comment ready about the shirt, but the words got smothered against Sam’s shoulder when Sam just reached out and hauled him in, wrapping both arms around Dean like he was the younger brother or something, nearly knocking the wind out of him.
“Dean,” Sam said right up against his ear, Sam’s hair brushing his neck and the smell of Sam all around him. It was so overwhelming that Dean let himself be hugged for an embarrassingly long time, his own arms crushed to his sides and his face smashed against the warm firmness of Sam’s chest.
Finally Dean recovered some awareness of where the hell they were and what the hell he was doing and shoved his brother off, probably a little too roughly.
“Jesus, Sammy, lemme breathe,” he grumbled, but Sam wasn’t fooled. He just kept grinning.
“Probably crushed your graduation present,” Dean said, holding the hastily wrapped package out and willing his ears not to go even pinker.
Impossibly, Sam grinned wider. “You got me a present?”
Dean shoved it at him. “Course I – isn’t that what you do for this kinda – thing?”
Sam was juggling it, still smiling. “Well yeah, but I – I didn’t expect you to, that’s all.”
Dean grimaced, trying to think of some way to change the subject.
“Can I open it?” Apparently Sam wasn’t going to make it easy.
He shrugged; Sam tore open the paper. His mouth fell open when he saw what was inside, and shit, Dean could feel his cheeks going red, his ears burning.
It was Dad’s fault for saving it. Stupid storage unit with so much stupid shit in it. In second grade, Sam had written some stupid paper about what he wanted to be when he grew up, and his stupid teacher had thought it would be cool to give the kids stupid plastic trophies. Sam’s said “Sam Winchester – Future Lawyer.” Dean figured Sam would hide it in a closet, since it had the wrong last name on it now anyway.
“Dean,” Sam whispered, and fuck, he sounded like he was about to cry or something.
The next hug was as rough as the first, but this time Dean was ready. He got his arms up in time, and when Sam pulled him in, Dean let himself go with it, pressing Sam to him with just as much force. They clung there for a few seconds, half awkward and half urgent, and Dean was flooded with the awareness of just how much he’d missed this – touching Sam, holding Sam, seeing the smile on Sam’s face and the way his eyes glimmered with mischievous joy. God, what a sappy thing to think
Dean stepped back, laughing briefly to cover the sound of protest that wanted to come out as they broke contact. “Whatever,” he said, and Sam laughed too. His cheeks were as flushed as Dean’s.
“What’s a man gotta do to get a beer around here?” Dean asked, a little too loudly.
“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Sam said, and ducked his head the way he always did when he was caught out, though Dean didn’t know what he was caught out in.
They went inside and Sam got them both beers, clinking the bottles on instinct. Dean took a few gulps, grateful for something to do with his mouth and the words that kept wanting to come out of it.
Sam didn’t make it easy. He stuck to Dean like glue, dragging him to the bedroom to put the stupid plastic trophy on the bureau. Even after Sam got pulled away to be congratulated by his other friends, he shadowed Dean when Dean went to the kitchen to grab another beer, interrupting his own conversations to track Dean around the apartment. No doubt to make sure he didn’t try to make another run for the exit.
“You’re not going to, are you?” Jessica cornered him in the kitchen, where Dean was popping the cap off his third beer. He nearly dropped it, startled.
“Not going to what?”
Jess smiled, but it wasn’t all that friendly. “Don’t play dumb, Dean.”
He had to admire her balls. “Fine. No, I’m not going to. Not without saying goodbye.”
Some warmth infused Jessica’s smile. “Good, because last time he was really upset.”
Dean didn’t want to hear this, not from Sam’s girl, who had the power to upset him about things Dean never would. “I’m sure he managed to recover,” he said dryly.
Jess took a few sips of her own beer. Dean could feel her eyes on him, assessing. “What’s the problem with you two?” she asked, and it wasn’t at all what he was expecting.
“There’s no problem,” he said automatically, because she was hitting way too close to things Dean Winchester would never admit, even to himself.
“Right,” Jess snorted. “No problem. That’s why Sam won’t talk about you, but he waits for your text all day on his birthday and doesn’t smile at all until you condescend to grace him with a few words at 9 PM.”
Dean’s stomach swooped abruptly, a wave of near-nausea running through him. Sam did what?
“Yeah, right,” he heard himself say, but it was a defensive move and they both knew it.
“Seriously,” Jessica said sharply, “What the hell is wrong with you two? Why won’t you admit how much you care about each other?”
Dean willed his heartbeat to slow before he answered, trademark smirk in place. “No chick flick moments,” he said, waving a hand to stop her questions.
Jessica rolled her big blue eyes. “Oh for godsakes, what does that even mean? You’re his brother, not his ex-girlfriend.”
That was the moment Sam picked to come into the kitchen. His eyes went wide, darting from Jess to Dean and back again. It was a look Dean had imagined on Sam’s face a million times, all of them in his worst nightmares.
He took the coward’s way out, once again.
“I gotta go,” he said, pushing past his brother, needing to get out, to get some fresh air into his lungs before he suffocated on the sickness crushing his chest, stinging his eyes.
He heard Sam call his name as he took the stairs three at a time, but didn’t look back.
* * *
“What did you say to him?” Sam asked later, after they’d carted the last bag of empties out to the recycling bin.
Jess wiped down the counter, then leaned against it and turned to answer Sam. “I asked him why you two can’t get along when it’s clear you care more about each other than just about anything.”
“What does that mean?”
She sighed, playing with the dishrag still in her hands. “You do, Sam – it’s obvious you miss him like hell. You didn’t take your eyes off him all night.”
“I was afraid he’d bolt,” Sam protested before he realized he was making her point for her.
“And what if he had?” Her eyes flashed, steel blue, and she tossed her hair back impatiently. “You wouldn’t even have noticed if I left!”
Sam gaped. “You’re jealous of my brother?”
“No,” Jess shot back. “I mean – yes, actually. You can’t see anything else when he’s around.”
“Lucky for you he never is,” Sam said, and it came out full of all the anger that fact still ignited in him.
Jessica didn’t say anything, but Sam could feel her eyes cold on his back as he shut their bedroom door behind him. He fell asleep before she came to bed, and he dreamt of going after Dean, his feet moving too slowly to catch the Impala though his muscles were straining like he was mired in quicksand. The taillights paused at a stop sign and Sam got a hand on the Impala’s flank--tried to make her stay.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” dreamDean said, unfolding himself from the driver’s seat and confronting Sam, right there suddenly, his hand burning on Sam’s arm.
“Don’t go,” Sam pleaded, but Dean shook his head and let go, backing away. Sam knew he was still in the quicksand, so he grabbed Dean before he could get out of reach and hauled him in, and it was good, like it had been at the party, Sam’s arms tight around Dean, holding on.
“We can’t,” Dean said, and Sam could feel the rumble of Dean’s voice against his shoulder. That mattered more than the words, the ones Sam knew he should have understood, but they were far away and Dean was right here, in Sam’s arms.
“Dean,” Sam said, like that was an answer, and kissed the pale soft skin beneath Dean’s ear. Dean’s hand was on Sam’s waist; his fingers curled at the touch of Sam’s lips to his neck, then dug in to hang on when Sam mouthed lower, down along his brother’s stubble-rough jaw, all the way to the corner of his mouth.
“Sam,” Dean whispered, soft the way he never was.
They were sitting on the Impala’s still-warm hood then, her headlights illuminating the tangled branches of a forest of trees surrounding them, but Sam wasn’t afraid here. Sam pressed a kiss to the side of Dean’s mouth, against the give of his full bottom lip, and Dean turned his head and opened up. Sam felt like he was melting, like the heat of his brother’s kiss would burn away everything else and leave them there in the woods, alone. He woke sweating and tangled in the sheets, heart pounding and breath coming too fast. Biting his lip, he pressed the heel of his hand against the swell of his dick in his shorts, blushing at the rush of pleasure that jolted through him.
Jess had fallen asleep on the couch. Sam splashed cold water on his face and waited for his body to calm before he went out to apologize and ask her to come to bed.
“I’m sorry, too,” she said, “I know you love him. I’m sure I’d feel the same way if I had a brother or sister.”
In the morning they made love, and Sam didn’t think about the dream, or how wrong Jess was.
* * *
Six months went by quickly, Sam too embarrassed to be the first to reach out, and Dean….well, who ever knew what Dean was thinking.
Sam texted the day he gave Jess the ring.
Need to talk to you. It’s important.
Nothing bad, he added.
Dean texted back ten minutes later.
Hands full on a case right now. Tonight?
Sam scrubbed a hand through his hair, trying not to be annoyed. Dean was working a case, he couldn’t just stop for a heart-to-heart with his little brother. Who cared if it had been six freaking months.
Sure. Call me when you can.
Jess came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his neck. “What did he say?” she asked, and he could hear concern in her voice.
“He’s working. Said he’d call me later.”
She kissed the back of his neck. “That’s good,” she said, but Sam knew she didn’t believe it either.
The phone finally rang at 11:15, and Sam grabbed it too quickly and almost dropped it.
“Hello,” he said-- then thought about all the reasons the call might have been late. “You okay?”
“Fine,” Dean said, though he didn’t sound it. “A few stitches and a few dead demons.”
“Dead? You mean—sent—somewhere else?” Sam was careful to keep the supernatural out of his conversation, in case Jess was in earshot.
Dean snorted. “Nope. Gone. Zip. Nada.”
“I didn’t think that was possible,” Sam said.
“Well, lots of things have changed since you were in the game, Sammy,” Dean said, and Sam wondered how the conversation could have gone so wrong so quickly.
“Guess so,” he said, trying not to buy into what was sounding suspiciously like a guilt trip. “I’m glad you’re okay, anyway.”
Dean laughed again, but there was no humor in it. “Fine and dandy,” he said. “I had some help.”
It hung there, a challenge. Sam debated whether to take the bait. He’s not hunting alone. That’s a good thing.
“Good,” Sam said finally, though it came out with less certainty than he’d hoped.
“Yeah, peachy,” Dean agreed, and Sam could hear him take a drink of something, no doubt alcoholic. “So I’m sure you didn’t call to check up on me – on my hunting record.”
It was a thinly veiled jibe at best, but Sam ignored it. Dean wanted to provoke him--too bad. Sam wasn’t falling for it.
“Jessica and I are engaged,” he said instead. “We’re getting married.”
“What?” Dean blurted, and his voice was raw, not the guarded, careful tone Sam had expected. Dean must have realized, instantly coughing and holding the phone away. When he came back, his voice was too loud. “That’s great,” he said, and Sam suddenly wanted to cry with how much he didn’t believe it.
“We’re having a party,” Sam said, pushing on. “Next Saturday, and I – Dean, it would really mean a lot to me if you would come.”
Sam thought of his dream; the way Dean’s mouth gave under Sam’s kiss, the way his hands were eager on Sam’s hips, holding on.
“Sure, Sam,” Dean answered, too quickly. “Of course, yeah, I’ll be there, but – I gotta go right now, gotta get cleaned up. Haven’t even showered yet, and you know how it is, I’ve got demon blood all over me and it’s just – well, you know, so, yeah, sure, I will, thanks, bye Sam.”
The call cut off before Sam could say goodbye.
He had the dream again that night, but this time the woods were closer, drawing in around them, overhanging branches swaying in the wind that picked up above them, tapping against the Impala’s windows as Sam and Dean lay back on her hood. Sam didn’t care what was out there, only that his brother’s mouth was wet and slick against his own. He wrapped an arm around Dean’s back and kissed him harder, fending off the branches that scraped and hissed against the Impala’s steel, but couldn’t touch them.
On the day of the party, Sam didn’t look out the window. Didn’t check his phone a hundred times. Didn’t change his shirt more than three times, and one of those was because Jess said there was a hole under the arm.
Jessica watched him anxiously. Once, she started to say, “Sam, you know he –
He cut her off before she could placate him or try to prepare him. “I know,” he said, waving a hand like he just didn’t care. “Whatever. I know.”
The last thing Sam expected was Dean at the door with someone else. Not a gorgeous woman, either. Dean stood at the door next to a handsome man, whose blue eyes rivaled Jessica’s in brilliance.
“Dean,” Sam said, and couldn’t think of anything else to say. Not even come in.
When Sam didn’t step forward, Dean shuffled his feet awkwardly, then gestured at his companion. “Uh, Sam, this is Cas. Cas, this is my brother, Sam.”
The blue-eyed man – Cas – held out his hand stiffly. “Nice to meet you, Sam,” he said, like they were at a business meeting. He was wearing a trench coat that was not entirely clean, or very attractive.
“Nice to meet you too,” Sam said woodenly, and finally remembered to invite them inside. He didn’t pull Dean in for a hug the way he’d been dreaming of for days.
“So, uh, how long have you two – how long have you known Dean?” Sam tried, as the three of them stood awkwardly in a corner, drinking beer way too fast.
Cas looked to Dean before he answered. “We first met in person ninety-six days ago, though I have known Dean for much longer than that.”
Sam frowned. Cryptic asshole. Was this some kind of “I’m his soulmate, feel like I’ve known him all my life” bullshit?
“Ninety-six days. Huh. You’re keeping count.” Like a middle schooler
Cas cocked his head and regarded Sam quizzically. “No,” he said simply, like that was the answer Sam was expecting.
“Oh,” said Sam, because what other response was there? Cas seemed to realize he hadn’t said enough. He cleared his throat and looked at Sam with way too much intensity for a stranger.
“Your brother is very special,” Cas said, and Sam wanted to vomit. Dean was looking down, the tips of his ears pink.
“Yeah,” Sam said, though he wanted to make fun of the weird dude who was obviously boinking his brother. “Dean’s special, all right.”
“Fuck you,” Dean said, finding his voice again.
“Hey,” Sam started to protest, but Cas interrupted.
“Neither of you is comfortable with that option at this point,” he said solemnly.
“Cas!” Dean gasped, his cheeks going red under his freckles.
“Is this not a place to speak the truth?” Cas asked, his blue eyes wide and innocent, and God, what a weird guy he was.
“That’s not . . . never mind,” Dean said, shaking his head. Then to Sam, “He’s not from around here.”
Cas nodded, still solemn. “From far away,” he agreed, gesturing to the ceiling. “Very far.” He looked to Dean again, clearly hoping he’d said the right thing. Obviously the guy had it bad for Dean. Not that Sam could really blame him. Dean looked good, same worn jeans and boots as ever, but the tight black shirt was more stylish than Dean’s usual tee shirt or flannel, snug over his broad shoulders and the muscles of his biceps. His eyes glittered bottle green when he smiled at Cas in reassurance, small crinkles at the corners, and his mouth looked as inviting as Sam remembered from his dreams, pink and wet. Cas smiled back, looking relieved, and Sam felt sick.
Jessica calling him from the kitchen was a godsend.
“So,” Jessica said when they were alone in the kitchen, putting mini quiches in the oven. “You never told me your brother was gay.”
Sam closed the oven door more forcefully than he intended. “He’s not – I mean, I knew he messed around with guys sometimes, but never – not like this. Like bringing a guy to my – to a party.”
“If I didn’t know better,” Jess said, head cocked sideways, “I’d think you were a homophobe.”
“Of course not,” Sam protested.
“Well good, since that would make you an asshole and a hypocrite,” Jessica said. “I remember that night at Gary’s house, when we all had a little too much to drink.” She gave him a leering smile.
Sam tried hard to smile back; it didn’t quite work.
Cas stuck as close to Dean as Sam had at the last party, hovering almost protectively as Dean drank too much beer and avoided Sam with single-minded purpose. The fourth time Sam came back in from the kitchen, Dean and Cas were sitting side by side on the sofa, talking animatedly. Cas leaned in, put a hand on Dean’s arm and shook his head, like he was trying to talk Dean out of something. Dean sighed, and Sam could see his lips form an “okay.” Dean looked up after that, his gaze unerringly finding Sam’s. He blinked and ducked his head. Cas looked up too, his blue eyes guileless, staring at Sam curiously.
Sam swallowed hard and crossed the room. Fuck this. “Dean, can I have a word?”
Dean snapped his eyes up to Sam, but didn’t move. “You can say whatever you have to say in front of Cas. We don’t have any secrets.”
It was the same thing Sam had said to Dean the night Dean had come to lure him back to the hunt, almost verbatim. With the same defensive arrogance.
“Maybe,” Sam said, “But I don’t want to.”
When Dean still didn’t move, Sam huffed and made what Dean used to call the bitchface. Apparently it still worked; Dean got up with a sigh of resignation. “Be right back,” he said to Cas, who just nodded.
Sam closed the kitchen door behind them.
“Want another beer?”
Dean gave Sam a lopsided grin. He was drunk; more drunk than Sam had realized. “Sure, Sam,” he agreed, swaying a little before leaning back against the counter.
“Hope you’re not driving.”
Dean used his ring to pop the beer, something Sam had seen him do so many times it caught in his chest, made him feel shaky. “’m fine,” he said. “Cas isn’t much of a driver.”
The tightness in Sam’s chest spread to his fists; he wanted to punch that smug look off his brother’s face.
“I guess he’s talented in other areas.”
Dean’s eyebrows shot up and his mouth fell open, inebriation ruining his usually ironclad game face. “What areas are you referrin’ to, Sammy?” he drawled, and Sam forced himself to stay still. This was his fucking engagement party--he wouldn’t let Dean’s new boyfriend ruin it.
“Hey, you and your new boyfriend are none of my business.”
“Damn right,” Dean said emphatically, “but he’s not my boyfriend. He’s a – a friend.”
Sam scoffed. “Right. You think I don’t see the way he looks at you?”
Dean looked genuinely surprised for a moment, glancing at the door, to where Cas was in the living room. That was the moment he saw it--or rather, the lack of it. The amulet Sam had given Dean that long-ago Christmas, the one he never took off, was gone.
“Where is it?”
Dean didn’t bother pretending he didn’t know what Sam was asking.
“Cas has it.”
“Cas – Cas has it?” The question came out a gruff whisper; something had Sam’s gut in a strangle hold. “You gave it to Cas?”
Dean met his eyes, and for a second Sam thought he saw Dean soften, saw the emotion in his eyes that Sam knew from his past and from his dreams – the warmth of love and loyalty, something just between them. Jessica’s laughter floated in from the other room, one of their friends congratulating Sam on his taste in diamonds and women. Dean turned away and didn’t answer.
Sam’s chest split open, pain burning through him, rage close behind as he looked at Dean’s averted face, the smooth material clinging to his chest where there was no longer any mark of Sam’s affection.
“You know what? Forget it. Forget I even asked – I don’t know why I even invited you, it’s so fucking clear you never wanna be here, so you know what? Just go – leave like you’ve probably been wanting to since the second you walked in the door.” He waved his hand toward the living room; his head felt like it would explode, there was so much rage in there.
Dean’s face was just as red as Sam’s felt. He pushed himself off from the counter and got in Sam’s face, one hand flat on Sam’s chest to shove him backwards. “FINE,” he yelled, loud enough for everyone in the house to hear. “I’m going.”
Sam had stumbled backwards into the refrigerator. He stood up shakily, adrenaline pumping, fists still clenched.
Dean put his half-empty beer on the counter and started for the door, clearly working hard not to sway when he walked. He turned just before he swung it open, green eyes slitted.
“Guess I forgot,” he hissed, hand on the door. “You’re the only one who gets to be happy. Ain’t that right, Sam?”
Sam watched them from the window, Dean stalking towards the Impala, kicking over a discarded beer bottle that got in his way. Dean didn’t look back, but Cas did, an expression of concern and confusion on his face as his eyes met Sam’s.
* * *
Part Three
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no subject
Date: 2012-06-18 11:34 pm (UTC)This is the best I've read in the last couple of months. The way you move from event to even but never really dismissing what happens in between is amazing. And the language is beautiful and really poetic from time to time. And the mood and the dialog and aaaah
The art really fits too - I'm following Fanley on DA... she's really something *_*
no subject
Date: 2012-06-19 02:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-19 02:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-20 12:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-20 02:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-22 07:47 pm (UTC)It was January 23rd and Sam gasped out those same hiccuppy breaths until he was dizzy and sick while Dean patted his back and wondered what was so damned important in that backpack. He hadn’t figured it out until they were two counties over.
That line smacked me straight outta left field and landed right in my stomach. Amazing. Wonderful and subtle and in a few words sums up their shared history.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-23 12:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-16 05:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-23 08:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-24 05:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-28 01:57 pm (UTC)I really don't like Cas, but you write him bearable and his utter bluntness is quite funny sometimes. *g* "Neither of you would be comfortable with that right now." XD Jeez, I don't know how someone didn't explode on the spot. XD
Well, off to read the next chapter. (By the way, I actually visited your journal today to re-read "Fade to Black", XD lol!)
no subject
Date: 2012-06-28 02:00 pm (UTC)And Jessica. Smart woman, for sensing the threat even if she doesn't really understand just how much her jealousy's warranted. I feel kinda sorry for her.
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Date: 2012-06-28 02:47 pm (UTC)Also, you made my day by saying you originally dropped by to re-read Fade to Black. It's my favorite of anything I've written, so I have a real soft spot for it. Thank you :)
no subject
Date: 2012-07-08 04:58 pm (UTC)"If you were really worried about my ass being safe, you’d be out there watching it. Me. Whatever." I've had this very thought so many times about Sam taking off for Stanford, but I think within canon that he was too young to realize he had a responsibility to Dean as well. I wonder if he would have realized it as he matured if fate hadn't intervened.
"Who was that Sam Wesson guy over there, with his long hair and his easy grin and his handsome face, at home amidst the pretentious looking group of people –law students like Sam, he guessed-- gathered around him, in this house with all these things that Dean didn’t know?" I feel Dean's pain. There's something sadly disappointing about this Sam in his ordinariness. Dean has always been defined by Sam, and if Sam is someone else, Dean becomes almost invisible. He ceases to exist on his most basic level. The one person who really knew him, who he was most important to is gone, he thinks. And Sam's reaction to Dean leaving. Gr, really I was hoping he'd have gained a little maturity by then, but no, he reacts like it's all about him.
"Dean hadn’t felt alive in a long time; he did then, for a moment, with Sam’s hand pressing the certainty of his words into Dean’s flesh." I'd like to think Sam felt the same way just a little.
Mm-hm, see I knew Jess was taking this all in and building up some resentment. She knows somewhere deep down inside that he doesn't love her has much as he loves Dean.
“Neither of you is comfortable with that option at this point,” he said solemnly. This fic is so serious and sad that this made me bust out laughing.
I hope you don't take all my comments as evidence of criticism. On the contrary, I just can't help being engaged in such fine writing.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-08 11:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-16 05:35 am (UTC)Aww, Sammy :(--Sam didn’t make it easy. He stuck to Dean like glue, dragging him to the bedroom to put the stupid plastic trophy on the bureau. Even after Sam got pulled away to be congratulated by his other friends, he shadowed Dean when Dean went to the kitchen to grab another beer, interrupting his own conversations to track Dean around the apartment. No doubt to make sure he didn’t try to make another run for the exit.
Beautiful line--“Sam,” Dean whispered, soft the way he never was.
Aaah, this hit me so hard--“Cas – Cas has it?” The question came out a gruff whisper; something had Sam’s gut in a strangle hold. “You gave it to Cas?”
And all your details and descriptions...just perfect!
no subject
Date: 2012-07-17 02:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-24 04:23 am (UTC)I love that Jess is jealous, but not taking it too far. I also love that Sam is jealous, and just about out of his mind with it. The amulet hand-off would really feel like the worst betrayal, since he didn't know all the particulars of the situation.
Looking forward to reading the next part, and hoping I'll be able to finish tonight!
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Date: 2012-07-24 04:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-14 03:01 am (UTC)I am loving that Cas was written in, I love him so, and I love the way you described him, as being a weird guy that Sam is clearly confused by.
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Date: 2012-09-15 02:05 am (UTC)So glad you liked Cas in this - I'm partial to that 'weird' version of Cas who appeared in late S7, and I thought he fit well in this story. Thanks so much for letting me know this worked for you :)
143 Alice Grim Lane 2
Date: 2013-09-15 03:05 am (UTC)I can't believe Dean brought Cas. No way Cas can pass for normal, lol! I wonder why Cas came with him. I am assuming Cas is still an angel. Oh crap, did they not talk for 6 months because Dean had somehow still ended up in hell? if that is the case, that is going to kill Sam to find out.
I look forward to more.
Re: 143 Alice Grim Lane 2
Date: 2013-09-15 02:57 pm (UTC)I also was enjoying exploring Cas as a character who I'm often ambivalent about in canon, but wanted to incorporate into fic to see how I'd feel about him then. :)
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Date: 2022-03-08 11:14 pm (UTC)I wonder how Dean met Cas in this world. Dean killed yellow eyes when John died. Sam never died at cold oaks, so presumably Dean never sold his soul or went to hell. So the first seal probably hasn’t been broken. And I don’t know if they are still on track to be the vessels for the apocalypse, but maybe they are, because if Cas has the amulet then he is probably looking for god to get answers/help.
With Sam out of hunting and so many of the bad points of seasons 1 -5 avoided, this should seem like a perfect world in comparison. But it still hurts so bad that the boys aren’t happy and together (same as in Dean’s Djinn world dream).
I’m really looking forward to seeing how this all plays out 😄
no subject
Date: 2022-03-10 04:45 am (UTC)