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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
“Why did you not tell Sam that I needed the amulet to find my Father?” Cas asked as Dean lurched the car into the motel’s parking lot. “And that I am an angel of the Lord, not a mortal man who should inspire his jealousy.”
Dean scowled and stalked to Room 39, practically kicking the door open. Cas followed a few steps behind, quiet.
“Why should I?” Dean shouted as he kicked off his boots and tossed his jacket on a chair. “He doesn’t deserve to know all that – he’s living his life, he should fucking well let me live mine! It’s none of his fucking business!”
“And you prefer him to think we are . . . boyfriends?” Castiel looked sincerely perplexed. Of course, he looked that way half the time anyway.
“I don’t give a rat’s ass what he thinks.”
Cas fixed him with the intense blue-eyed stare that Dean had come to both love and hate. “You don’t need to lie to me, Dean. I am not jealous of your brother.”
Dean sat down heavily on the bed, too many beers and too much Sam making him suddenly exhausted. He scrubbed a hand over his face impatiently. “I don’t,” he insisted. “I don’t care.”
Cas sat down on the opposite twin bed. Dean had no idea why he always got a room with two. It wasn’t like Castiel needed to sleep. “You don’t want to care,” Cas corrected.
This was the bad thing about consorting with angels. They knew too fucking much.
“Whatever,” Dean said, waving a hand dismissively.
“That means, “yes, you’re right,” Castiel pointed out.
“Fuck you,” Dean glared.
“If you like,” Cas agreed, and his blue eyes darkened.
This was the good thing about consorting with angels. They knew you, whether you wanted them to or not. Dean stripped his shirt over his head and unbuckled his belt.
He fucked Cas hard, pinning the angel’s arms to the bed as he drove his hips in quick and rough, forcing a completely human moan out of Cas with each thrust.
“You wish to hurt him,” Cas said, when they were both sweaty and sated. “With this – with us.”
Dean flinched, rolled off Cas, and threw a hand over his face. “No,” he said, but neither of them believed it.
When Dean woke in the morning, Castiel was gone, off to fight the war in Heaven, leaving Dean to fight his own battles. There was already a text from Sam on his phone.
Sorry I lost it. If Cas is what makes you happy, you deserve that.
Dean scrubbed a hand through his hair, looked at the tangled sheets and his clothes on the floor and the empty motel room, and thought about what Cas knew that Dean didn’t want to.
He’s an angel. I gave him the amulet because it can help him find God.
Dean imagined Sam’s face as he read the words; the way Sam’s eyebrows would fly up and his eyes would go wide and curious. The way his expressive mouth would part in surprise. Sometimes, in Dean’s better and so-much-worse dreams, Sam would make that face when Dean leaned in and kissed him for the first time, and Dean would laugh and tease him until Sam’s lips were back on his, parted in eagerness instead of surprise, his tongue in Dean’s mouth, insistent.
An angel? Like, for real an angel?
As real as Yellow Eyes was a demon.
There was another pause. Dean went back to his fantasy, wondering what expression was on Sam’s face now. Wondering what Sam was wearing, and wasn’t that just the most stereotypical adolescent thought ever?
Shit.
Yeah.
Why didn’t you tell me?
There it was, the fifty million dollar question.
None of your busin --Dean hit the backspace. What do you care? Backspaced again. Didn’t get a cha
Dean’s phone buzzed in his hand.
Jerk.
He smiled in spite of himself. Bitch.
Things were a little better after that. Sam texted more often, and Dean answered. Every time his phone buzzed, he steeled himself for the wedding invitation, and told himself it wouldn’t be any different than things were now. Sam lived with Jessica, slept with Jessica, loved Jessica. So what if there was a ring on her finger that said it was forever?
The text came on February 22nd. Please come, Sam added at the end.
It was easy to send the message Dean knew by heart.
I’m really happy for you, Sam. Of course I’ll be there.
For some reason, Dean hadn’t expected the next text.
Will you be my best man?
No hiding in the corner, no sitting in the back row, no sneaking out early. No swallowing feelings he shouldn’t have and didn’t want.
Dean?
His fingers were not shaking, they weren’t.
Of course I will.
“Do you wish me to go with you?” Cas asked that night, and trailed his fingers down Dean’s bare ribs in a tickling caress. Dean grabbed the angel’s hand, moved it between his thighs where his dick was swollen and aching. They’d been making out, uncharacteristically tender and slow with each other; Cas hadn’t been earthside for a month, maybe two. “You know that I would.”
“No,” Dean said, and leaned in to bite at Castiel’s already swollen lips, licking the bottom one where it was plump and raw. “You’ve got your hands full up there, and I probably won’t be very good company at Sam’s freaking wedding anyway.”
Cas kissed back; wrapped his fist around Dean’s cock and pumped slowly, keeping it loose and teasing. “I don’t require you to entertain me,” he reminded, and squeezed more tightly, making Dean’s hips jump forward.
“It’s okay,” Dean said against Castiel’s neck, teeth working on the salt-slick skin of his throat. “I got it.” He slid a hand down the angel’s slim body, reaching around to grab his ass and pull Cas closer. “Faster,” he said, and bit down harder. “C’mon Cas.”
Cas did, working Dean’s dick the way he knew Dean liked best, drawing out the bitten-off groans that made Castiel’s own cock leak and twitch between them, until Dean took pity and took him in hand, their arms flexing in rhythm until the pleasure broke over them. Dean rolled to his back with a satisfied sigh, wiping his hand on his stomach.
“Thanks, Cas,” he said, and Cas lay beside him for a long time, long after he must have imagined Dean had fallen asleep, long after the voices of many angels must have called him back.
* * *
Dean tried not to call on Castiel any more than absolutely necessary. Rafael and Gabriel and Michael and Zachariah and every other archangel you could shake a stick at were in on the heavenly civil war, and Dean supported Cas mostly by staying out of his way and not distracting him.
Cas appeared on his own the day Dean got the text about taking measurements for the suit Sam was having tailored for him.
“Was I that upset?” Dean asked when Castiel’s appearance had startled him into dropping the tape measure and nearly falling on his ass.
Cas nodded, quirking an eyebrow at the sight of Dean in only his underwear.
“Well, now that you’re here, can you freaking help me?” Dean tossed him the tape measure.
“I’d be happy to . . . help you, Dean. What do you wish me to measure?”
Castiel’s eyes dropped pointedly to Dean’s crotch in the tight black boxer briefs.
“Did you just make a joke?” Dean asked incredulously. “You did, didn’t you? You made a dick joke.”
Cas blushed endearingly. “I was merely asking a question,” he protested, but an all-too-human smile was tugging at his lips.
“I need you to measure my – my inseam. Not my dick,” Dean instructed, then smirked and added, “I think you already have a pretty good idea how big that is.”
“Pretty big,” Cas agreed, all-out smiling. Fuck, Dean had missed him.
“Asshole,” Dean said affectionately, then spread his legs wider. “C’mere and measure this – hold it right up here and see how many inches to my ankle.”
Castiel got down on his knees obediently, pressing the start of the tape to the highest point of the inside of Dean’s thigh. Dean’s cock began to plump up happily. Castiel glanced at it and grinned, then followed Dean’s instructions for the rest of the measurements, each time pressing the tape to one spot on Dean’s body and slowly extending it in a sensual slide across Dean’s bare skin, leaving gooseflesh in its wake.
“Now this,” Dean said gruffly when they were done, pressing Castiel’s hand and the tape to the base of his trapped cock.
“Mmm,” Cas answered. “Hold still.” He ran the tape up the swell of Dean’s shaft, all the way to the swollen tip, where he pressed it in with a whispered, “There.”
Dean’s thighs were quivering; he could feel the pulse of blood in his dick.
“Big,” Cas said, still on his knees and looking up the length of Dean’s body.
“Cas,” Dean growled, and the angel leaned in to kiss the end of the tape measure before dropping it on the floor. There was a wet spot beneath it, where Castiel’s finger had been pressing.
“Do you want?” Cas began, and Dean groaned above him.
“Fuck, yes, please.”
Castiel didn’t waste time; they didn’t have that luxury. He slid Dean’s shorts down, wrapped his lips around Dean’s stiff length and sucked hard and fast. Dean’s hands tangled in Castiel’s hair, and his cock pulsed in Castiel’s mouth when Cas fumbled his own pants open and slipped a hand inside to fist himself too. They came nearly together, Dean with a cry and Cas with a muffled moan, Dean’s cock leaving streaks along the angel’s cheek when he pulled off.
* * *
The suit fit perfectly.
Dean put it on for the first time the day before Sam’s wedding, after he’d driven fourteen hours and stopped six times in two different states to calm his nerves and tell himself he was being an idiot. This was a happy occasion. Sam was getting married, being normal, living the dream. Dean was happy for him. Happy.
Sam and Jess had moved again, now that Sam had a year of working at the law firm under his belt. The red stucco house at 143 Alice Grim Lane was over 200 years old, with plenty of built-in bookshelves and a generous front porch with hanging baskets of pink and yellow and purple bougainvillea surrounding it. The house had a spare bedroom too, half guest room and half workout room.
Sam hugged him as soon as the door opened, and Jessica did too, her hands as tentative and awkward as Dean’s. The suit was laid out on the bed in the spare room, a pair of shiny black shoes on the floor and black socks neatly placed alongside the crisp white shirt.
“Go ahead, try it on,” Sam said, putting Dean’s duffel on the dresser. He was smiling too much, and Dean couldn’t tell if it was from nerves or just because he was so damn happy to be getting married. It was the final stamp of normal, Dean thought, then pushed the thought out of his head. He could do this. For Sam, he could do this.
Sam closed the door behind him, and Dean thought of the years they’d spent in motel rooms showering with the door wide open, raising their voices so they could hear each other over the running water, neither of them considering a pause in conversation or a need for privacy. He’d known when Sam went quiet in the shower for a while that he was probably jerking off, and if Dean was feeling considerate, he left Sam alone for a bit. If he was feeling particularly brotherly, he started up a conversation about sea-slug-monster slime until Sam yelled for him to shut the hell up. Sometimes he snuck in and flushed the toilet if he thought the plumbing was crummy enough, but that got risky as Sam got older, when Dean couldn’t keep his eyes off the curtain, waiting for a shadowy glimpse of Sam with his dick in his hand.
“You dressed yet?” Sam called impatiently, and Dean startled, hurriedly pulling his tee shirt over his head and shucking out of his jeans.
“Gimme a goddamn minute,” he yelled back, and he could hear Sam’s laugh, and Jessica’s soft admonishment.
The pants fit like a glove; Castiel would make a good tailor. The shirt, too, just tight enough around his shoulders and chest, tapered to the waist. Dean tucked it in, then zipped the pants. He looked in the mirror as he buttoned up the shirt. The crisp material scratched against his nipples, and he shivered.
“Okay,” he yelled, and Sam opened the door immediately, like he’d been hovering just outside or something creepy like that.
“Wow,” he said, and his eyes ran from Dean’s still-bare feet up to the half-buttoned shirt where Dean’s fingers fumbled suddenly. “You look . . . it fits, like perfectly.”
Dean felt himself flush from the intensity of Sam’s eyes on him, unaccustomed to that kind of scrutiny from his brother. “Hand me the jacket,” he said, to distract himself, and Sam did. He slipped it on over the shirt and settled it onto his shoulders. It was glossy black, as fitted as the shirt.
Sam whistled; Dean blushed deeper. “I hope my tux looks as good as your suit,” Sam said, ducking his head to hide a smile.
“You wish,” Dean said, because it was expected. The little spare room felt tiny, not enough space between him and Sam; not enough space in Dean’s own body for all he was feeling.
“I do,” Sam murmured, and it sounded like some weirdly prophetic practice line, the same words Sam would say tomorrow . . . but not to Dean.
“Okay, fine, get out so I can put my own clothes back on, these things ain’t exactly comfortable.” He motioned Sam towards the door.
Sam didn’t move for a few seconds, and his eyes caught on Dean’s while his smile faded. “Dean,” he said, so quietly that Dean wasn’t even sure he’d spoken. “Dean, I –“
“Wow, you look great,” Jess said, appearing in the open doorway, and Sam jumped and stopped talking. Dean coughed to cover his discomfort.
“All right, show’s over,” he said, and this time he gave Sam a shove, pushing them both out the door. He closed it once they were out and leaned on the dresser with both hands, trying to slow his heartbeat. When he raised his head, he met his own eyes in the mirror, unearthly green against the red blush of his cheeks. He wondered how he’d get through the next day, when he couldn’t even stand in a room with his brother and have a conversation without coming undone.
He was glad that the evening was hectic, a rehearsal dinner (seriously, they had to rehearse this?) taking up most of Sam’s attention, their friends and Jessica’s relatives laughing and smiling. It was clear how happy they were for Sam and Jess, and Dean let himself feel a burst of pride – for the boy he’d raised and the man Sam had become. He took no credit for the Sam who was an attorney, soon to be a husband. That was Sam’s doing, these last eight years. But the first eighteen, those had been Dean’s. Maybe he hadn’t totally fucked up after all.
“You okay?” Sam’s voice startled him out of his unlikely reminiscence. Dean brushed an arm over his face, then gave Sam a shove.
“Jesus Christ, scared the shit outta me,” he grumbled, though he knew Sam wouldn’t buy it.
“I mean it, Dean. Are you?”
“Am I what?” Fuck, he didn’t want to have this conversation.
“Are you okay,” Sam repeated patiently. He hadn’t moved away at all; they were standing in the doorway of the church, its arched entrance framing the guests still inside, the pastor in his white shirt and collar, Jessica in her red dress.
“Of course I’m okay,” Dean said, trying not to look at Sam and his too-long hair that was half covering his eyes. “You should’ve cut your stupid hair for your own wedding.”
Sam pushed the unruly strands up and back, and his eyes caught Dean’s and held. “Jess likes it this way,” he said. Dean’s gaze followed Sam’s fingers. He felt pinned, caught out, though he didn’t know why. His damn heart was beating too fast again.
“Did you mean what you said?” Sam asked, a stubborn lock of hair falling back over his forehead. Dean’s hand reached out without his brain’s permission and tucked it back behind Sam’s ear, the way he’d done a million times when Sam was ten, twelve, fifteen.
Sam sucked in a breath at the touch, and Dean’s cheeks heated. He stepped back, intending to get some air, get away from Sam and his stupid hair and his stupid questions. He knew exactly what Sam was asking.
“I left something in the car,” he said without looking at Sam. “Meet you back at the house.”
“Dean,” Sam said behind him, but it wasn’t a shout, and there was too much sadness in it for Dean to stay and hear more.
He didn’t sleep that night; neither did Sam. He could hear Sam and Jess talking, hushed tones and the refrigerator opening and closing. A few times, he heard footsteps come close to the guest-room door, and his foolish heart started racing, but the knob never turned and the door never opened. When the sun finally filtered through the curtains, Dean got up and ventured into the kitchen. Jessica was there, wrapped in a fluffy white robe with her blonde hair piled on top of her head, tendrils escaping and falling over her shoulders. She was beautiful; there was no doubt about that.
“Coffee?” she asked, and he nodded, grateful. “Sam’s out picking up some last-minute things. You want some waffles?”
“Thanks, yeah, that’d be great.”
She set a place for him at the table, so he had to sit down while he ate. This is the woman who’s about to be Sam’s wife, he thought, the woman he eats breakfast with every day, talks to every day. The one who knows him now.
“It means so much to Sam that you’re here,” she said, and he looked up. The expression on his face must have surprised her – she raised her eyebrows when he didn’t answer.
“Why is it so hard for you?” she asked when he stayed quiet, and wasn’t that just the perfect question.
“I just want him to be happy,” Dean said, because that was the perfect answer.
“That’s what I want too. I can promise you that I’ll try my damnedest to make that happen.”
He liked her a little more then. Her blue eyes were sparkling, the way Castiel’s did when he was achingly honest, sincere in a way Dean didn’t think he himself could ever be.
“Okay,” he said, and it felt like a truce, though his stomach was still knotted and there was an elephant on his chest already, even though he didn’t have the tight white shirt and bow tie on.
They both heard the sound of Sam’s car door slamming and looked at the door expectantly, waiting for the most important person in their world to walk through it.
Jess turned back to him before it did, her eyes just as sincere. “He loves you so much, sometimes I just –
“Hey,” Sam said, bursting through the door with bags balanced in both hands, “Did you two save any waffles for me?”
Jessica shooed them out an hour early, so she and her girlfriends could finish her hair and so Sam wouldn’t see her in her wedding dress. With all the tragedy Sam had experienced, he had no problem going along with an old superstition. The limo waited for Jess; Dean drove Sam to the church in the Impala. She quibbled a little getting started, probably protesting the outfit Sam was wearing.
Sam fidgeted, fiddling with the buttons of his vest and alternating between looking out the window and darting glances at Dean.
“Stop it, you’re makin’ me nervous,” Dean said without heat. Sam blew out a breath and shifted uncomfortably on the leather seat.
“You’re making Baby nervous,” Dean tried, and pumped the gas once or twice to make her jump and stutter.
That did it; Sam turned the bitchface on him as he was jostled around. “Dean, cut it out!”
Dean grinned. They turned the corner and Memorial Church was there, the mosaics of the facade warmed by the afternoon sun and people already milling about on the courtyard in front, brightly colored dresses and shirts standing out against the green grass. Dean tried to keep the grin on his face, made sure Sam could see it.
He was in the tiny bathroom behind the pulpit trying to get his bow tie adjusted so it would stop choking him when Sam opened the door and squeezed in behind him.
“Here you are,” Sam said, and he sounded a little breathless. When Dean met Sam’s eyes in the mirror, he saw fear there.
“Here I am,” Dean agreed, and Sam nodded. His gaze went fond when he saw the tie hanging off one side of Dean’s neck.
“Here, let me,” he said, and before Dean could protest Sam’s hands were there, gentle and sure as he wrapped the material around Dean’s neck and held it snug in the front. The press of Sam’s fingers against his throat brought a flush to Dean’s skin, reddened the tips of his ears. He held his breath and watched Sam in the mirror.
“There,” Sam said when he was finished, and looked up to where they were both framed in the mirror. His hands were still on Dean’s throat; they rose and fell when Dean swallowed hard. “You,” Sam whispered, and brushed two fingers across the rise of Dean’s Adam’s apple and down the side of his throat, the touch so soft Dean might have imagined it if it weren’t for the look in Sam’s eyes, the sudden blaze of heat in the green-grey-gold.
Dean reached up with all his determination, wrapped his hand around Sam’s and held tight. His eyes held Sam’s in the mirror, resolute. His fingers were shaking.
“We should get you out there,” Dean said finally, voice too loud, too rough in the tiny space, Sam pressed up too close behind him and Sam’s fingers twitched in his grasp.
Sam blinked, and Dean watched the heat flicker and then fade. He shivered in the sudden chill, and Sam stepped backwards, looked away.
“God, yeah, we should – yeah, we – that looks fine now. You – you look good, man.”
“Thanks, Sammy,” Dean said, and his voice was back to normal, not wavering at all. He spun around and stretched his mouth into a grin. “Let’s do this thing, little brother.”
Dean didn’t flub a line. He didn’t flinch when Sam pinned the boutonniere on his lapel, or when Sam promised to cleave unto Jess and no one else until death did them part. He smiled every time someone smiled at him, and toasted the bride and groom with the words he’d practiced and didn’t look too hard at Sam when he said them. He didn’t drink too much, and didn’t dance at all. He wondered where Sam had learned to be so graceful, spinning Jessica in her white dress until she looked like an angel, Sam’s big hands tender and possessive on her hips. He missed Cas then, missed the warmth of his mouth and the desire in his too-blue eyes.
He stayed until Sam and Jess said their goodbyes; shook Sam’s hand and hugged him back and Jessica fell into his arms, too, kissed him on the cheek and thanked him for sharing their joy and Dean didn’t say anything crazy like I’m not, that’s not what I’m feeling, it’s not joy, anything but joy.
Sam sent him photos in a text a week later, Sam and Jess laughing and dancing, Sam at the altar waiting for his bride, Dean beside him with his bow tie just a little too tight, a slight press every time he swallowed. Dean saved one photo, allowing himself a little bit of masochism.
Cas was busy winning the war in heaven, so Dean switched back to girls. He threw himself into hunting and women, pretended he was 22 again and not almost 30. For a while, it even worked.
* * *
The next time Sam saw his brother, almost a year had passed. Sam had been busy, working sixty-hour-plus weeks as a young associate, trying to impress the partners and hang onto his integrity at the same time. There were days when he wanted to pack it in, get out of the office and back on the road. He would never tell Dean, but he missed it. When he was a teenager, being on the road had felt like a trap; now it seemed like freedom. He still dreamt of the Impala sometimes, and on her hood he kissed his brother while stars glittered overhead through the trees or fireworks lit up the night sky, and he woke up trying to forget how good it felt.
Dean never called him, so the display that read “D” at 4 AM jolted Sam out of a deep sleep instantly.
“Dean?” he croaked, fumbling for the light. Jessica stirred beside him, sitting up and switching on the other lamp.
“’Naw kid, it’s Bobby.”
“Bobby?” Sam’s throat closed up, his heart thumping wildly. “Is it – is he okay?”
“He’d probably kill me if he knew I was callin’ you,” Bobby said, and he sounded exhausted. “But I figured you’d wanna know.”
“Know what?” Sam managed. Jess was staring at him, wide-eyed herself.
“Got his fool ass kicked by a bunch of freakin’ zombies. Thought he could take the whole lotta them on or something. He’s – he’s hurt pretty bad, Sam.”
Sam scrambled out of bed, trying to pull his jeans on without putting down the phone. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know if he’d want you seein’ him like this – he hasn’t even come around yet, and they’re not really sure he will.”
“WHERE IS HE?”
Jessica was out of bed too, throwing on a robe and trying not to look too freaked out that Sam was yelling into the phone at 4 AM.
“Calm down, boy,” Bobby scolded, “He’s at West Jersey Hospital, outside of Camden. It’s in New Jersey. You’re gonna have to fly if you’re dead set on comin’ out here.”
“Be there tomorrow,” Sam said, searching for his shoes. “Tell him – tell him I’ll be there tomorrow, Bobby.”
“Where?” Jessica asked when he hung up. “You’ll be where tomorrow?”
“It’s Dean,” Sam answered, stuffing a change of clothes in his backpack.
“I know,” she said.
Sam was at the airport in less than 45 minutes, and it was a damn good thing there was a 6:10 nonstop to Philadelphia, or he might have committed murder or chartered a jet. The flight was nearly six hours, and then it took another hour to rent a car and get across the river to Camden. “Don’t you fucking die on me,” Sam muttered at the fifteenth red light. It was raining, the windshield wipers struggling to clear off a half-sleet mix that stuck to them stubbornly.
Bobby had told the nurses at the desk he was coming, so nobody tried to stop him. From the look on one young man’s face, they might not have anyway. Sam didn’t realize he was out of breath until he was standing at his brother’s bedside, and then he tried to catch up so fast he hyperventilated. Dizzy, he pulled up a chair and sat down.
“Dean,” he whispered, though they’d already told him his brother hadn’t woken up yet. Just a matter of time, though, he told himself. Dean was strong, nearly invincible. He put his hand over his brother’s, the one that didn’t have an IV bandaged to it. “I’m here, Dean,” he said, and waited.
Nurses and doctors came and went. The sun set outside the open window, darkness replacing the bitter rain that had pounded the glass all day. At 9:07 PM, Dean started coughing, his free hand trying to pull the oxygen tube out of his nose.
“Hey, hey, take it easy,” Sam said, grabbing Dean’s hand as it flailed. “You might still need that.”
“Sammy?” Dean croaked, his voice like sandpaper. He forced his eyes open, blinking wildly like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “Sam?”
“Yeah, it’s me.” Sam was smiling, couldn’t help it. “Scared the shit outta me, you jerk.”
“What?” Dean rasped, and then the room was full of nurses, two of them checking Dean and one of them checking dials and read-outs until they were satisfied that he really was awake. Dean winced when they pulled the oxygen from his nose. Sam let go of his hand so he could rub at his face where the tube had been taped. Eventually the medical staff left them alone.
“Fucking Bobby,” Dean grumbled. Sam held a glass of water with a straw for him, and Dean sipped it while rolling his eyes.
“You almost died,” Sam said.
“No, I didn’t.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Yes you did, you macho idiot. What were you thinking, trying to take out a whole house full of zombies?”
Dean huffed. “They were zombies, Sam.”
“Yeah, well, you were almost a zombie yourself.” Sam put the glass on the table and sat down heavily. He was suddenly weary, bone tired.
Dean turned his head to get a good look at Sam. “You look like shit,” he said finally. “Should go get some sleep.”
“Right back at ya,” Sam said sternly, “And I’m not going anywhere, so don’t bother.”
He stayed three days, sleeping on the empty bed that the hospital never filled, thinking about how close Dean had come to getting himself killed and how long it was taking him to get any better. The nurses took care of him, patient and precise. Dean slept most of the time. On the third day, the doctors got him out of bed and made him try to walk on his mangled left leg. Sam was there to see him nearly fall, and to see how much Dean didn’t want him to see it. That, more than the threat of losing a job that 300 other baby lawyers were lined up to steal away from him, convinced Sam to book a flight for that night.
“You’ll call me if you have any – any setbacks?”
Dean was back in bed, grumpy. He’d finally shaved that morning. Sam had sort of grown used to the scruff; it suited Dean, lending a masculine edge to features that were still pretty even on the other side of thirty.
“I won’t have any setbacks,” Dean said irritably. “Don’t you have to get back to your job – and your wife?”
“I’m going,” Sam said, and took advantage of the fact that Dean was still mostly confined to a hospital bed to grab his hand for a goodbye squeeze. Dean rolled his eyes and pulled away.
“Go,” he ordered. “’m tired.” He closed his eyes. Dean didn’t know that Sam had spent many hours over the last three days marveling over how long and thick his brother’s eyelashes were, how dark they looked against the pale freckled skin of his face. Sam took one last look and smiled even though Dean couldn’t see.
“Okay, okay,” he agreed, but his voice was fond and he knew he wasn’t fooling anyone.
While he was waiting to board, his phone buzzed.
Thanks, it said.
Sam saved it.
* * *
The firm kept him busy. On the rare occasions when he could take a weekend day off, he and Jess would go to the beach if the weather was warm enough. Sam tanned all over, like he had the summer he was fourteen and Dad left them at a little beachside bungalow in Seaside Heights. The water barely ran and there was only a window fan for the hottest days, but who needed anything else when you had the Atlantic at your feet? Dean hawked cotton candy on what passed for a boardwalk, his tight tee shirts and worn jeans mostly responsible for his amazing sales figures and the tips that left his pockets bulging by the end of the evening. He’d come home at midnight and pull off his sweat-soaked tee, kick off his shoes and peel off his jeans, grinning a challenge at Sam to follow. They swam in the dark in their shorts, the beach deserted and the waves nearly black, the white-fringed outline of each crest the only warning before the salt water crashed over their heads and left them laughing.
Jess stayed paler, just like Dean, freckles appearing on her shoulders and down her back, peppering her arms and sprinkled across the bridge of her nose. Sam traced them with one finger as they sat watching the waves crest and retreat, crest and retreat, caught up in the primordial rhythm.
“You’ve got a thing for freckles,” she smiled, and he nodded agreement, tracing over the pink gloss of her mouth.
“I’ve got a thing for you,” he amended, and it was true. Jess laughed, called him corny even though her cheeks matched her mouth afterwards.
He didn’t know why he’d been this lucky; why he’d gotten what he wanted against all odds. He wondered, as always, if Dean had. Hunting was all Sam had ever heard Dean want for himself. He wasn’t sure if it was a pursuit of happiness or an acceptance of responsibility . . . or whether, for Dean, there was any difference.
At the end of September, Jess sat down beside Sam at the kitchen table and said, “I’ve got something to tell you.”
“Ohmygod,” Sam said, and pulled her into his arms, because the look in her eyes was too raw, too hopeful, and he didn’t think he could match it. “A baby, oh my God, Jess.” It was unfathomable; Sam couldn’t remember having a mother, never really had a father. He’d never envisioned himself as a parent.
“I know we didn’t plan this,” Jessica was saying against his shoulder, “but Sam, I think I want this. I don’t think I can –“
“Yeah, I know, of course, of course,” he agreed, pushing her wild hair away where it was catching on the stubble at his jaw. “Of course, whatever you want.”
She sat back then; forced him to face her, and Sam hoped to hell his expression didn’t give away the panic that was making his heart race and his stomach flip. “Really?” she asked, and she looked so fucking happy, so overcome with joy, that Sam found himself smiling too. He’d done that, put that smile on her face. He’d given her a child, and maybe she’d never known she wanted one, but it was clear now that she did. He thought of Dean suddenly; wondered if there were things Dean didn’t know he wanted either, might never know.
“We’re having a baby,” Jess said, reverent, and Sam’s eyes fell on her flat belly as he tried to imagine something inside. A baby. His baby.
She jumped up a moment later. “I have to call my mom!”
Sam listened to Jessica’s excited conversation in the living room, punctuated by giddy squeals. He scrolled to the “D” on his phone, then hesitated. There was nothing in his past to give him a clue about how Dean would react. Hunters didn’t bring kids into the world; Sam had never really given it serious thought, other than the vague idea of “someday.”
He thought about a phone call, but knew Dean probably wouldn’t pick up. He couldn’t imagine this news in a voice mail, so Dean could replay it and read into every nuance of Sam’s voice. In the end, he settled for a text, though it seemed stupidly anti-climactic for news like this.
Big news. Ur gonna be an uncle. Jess and I r having a baby. Call when u can.
It was two days before Dean texted back.
Congratulations. Will call soon is all it said.
* * *
“I know you’re too busy up there, but--shit, Cas, I really could use a shoulder right now. I get that you gotta be up there now that you won the war and all, but if you get a spare second, could you just –“
“What is it, Dean?” The whoosh of the angel’s sudden appearance only a foot in front of his face knocked Dean backwards, and he put out a fist before he could stop himself. Castiel caught it easily, eased Dean’s arm back to his side with a gentleness that belied the incredible strength Dean knew was there.
“Sorry.” He felt stupid, demanding an audience with an angel who was busy running Heaven, because his feelings were hurt that Sam had gotten somebody – his wife, for godsakes – pregnant.
“Don’t be,” Castiel said, and his eyes were as clear as Dean remembered. It had been a year almost, since they’d seen each other. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
Dean snorted, knowing the sound was bitter. “You already know, don’t you?”
Castiel’s expression softened. “About Sam’s daughter?”
Dean straightened, too surprised to fake disinterest. “Sam’s having a girl?”
“I believe Jessica will be having her,” Cas corrected, but the crinkles at the corners of his eyes told Dean he was teasing. It was a rare thing for the angel, something Dean suspected Castiel saved only for Dean’s ears.
“Assbutt,” Dean said, but he sat down on the side of the bed like the news had knocked the wind out of him. Castiel sat beside him.
“I don’t know why it hit me so hard. It’s not like I ever see him – not like I expected him to get tired of the normal life and come running back to bad diner food and shitty motel beds and risking his life on a daily basis.”
“No,” Cas said, “but you wished for it.”
Dean shook his head. “No. I didn’t – I wanted him out.”
“You wanted him safe,” Cas corrected. “You didn’t want him gone.”
Dean huffed a laugh, devoid of humor. “Mutually exclusive.”
“I know,” Cas agreed, and patted Dean’s knee. “But it’s still what you wished for.”
“How long can you stay?” Dean asked, as Cas rubbed circles on his thigh.
“Not long enough,” the angel answered. The regret in his eyes made it hurt less, but Dean still sat on the bed for a long time after Cas had kissed him softly and vanished.
He drained his flask before he picked up the phone.
“Thanks for finally calling me back, asshole,” Sam said on the second ring.
“Kinda busy here, saving people, hunting things--you know the drill.” Dean knew the words would cut, but he couldn’t stop them.
“Dean,” Sam started to say, his voice exasperated, and then he must have thought better of whatever was going to come next. Dean could imagine Sam snapping his mouth shut, anger flashing in his eyes. “Look, I just – I know it’s stupid, it’s not like there’s a rabid wendigo at my door or anything, but I’m just – this is something I never . . . shit, you know what? Forget it.”
“How can I forget it?” Dean complained, “You haven’t even told me anything.” Never mind that Sam’s voice had told him plenty.
“You’re such a jerk,” Sam said, and Dean thought that would be the end of it, but Sam was apparently upset enough to keep going. “I don’t know how to do this,” he sighed, and Dean could hear an edge of panic in his voice. “I don’t know how to--be a father.”
“Sure you do,” Dean told him on instinct, in the same tone he’d used when Sam was six and insisted he didn’t know how to ride a bike. The same one he’d used when Sam was fourteen and said he didn’t know how to kiss. “After all, you learned from the best. You got to watch me parent your scrawny little pissing pooping squalling ass – and look how you turned out.”
Sam snorted on the other end, sniffed a little. “Yeah,” he said, still quietly, “that’s what I’m afraid of.”
“Your daughter could do worse.”
There was a beat of silence, and Dean realized what he’d said.
“Daughter?” Sam repeated. “Do you know something I don’t?”
“Uh, no, I was just – I was hoping you wouldn’t have to raise a dirty muddy annoying little shit like you always were, that’s all.”
“You’re a terrible liar,” Sam said. Dean raised an eyebrow that Sam couldn’t see. It wasn’t true; he was an awesome liar. He’d been lying to himself and Sam for years about the sort of things that happened in his dreams, and neither of them had been the wiser. “Did your angel friend tell you? Cas?”
“Damn,” Dean said, which was as good as yes.
“It’s okay, I think that makes it a little less scary.”
Dean laughed. “That’s how much you know – daughters are terrifying, Sam. They get hit on by guys like us sooner or later, and then what’re you gonna do?”
“Fuck off.” Sam was smiling; Dean could tell.
“You’re welcome,” he said, after they hung up.
It was the first time Sam had asked for his help in eight years.
Sam sent him a text when Jessica went into labor, another after the baby was delivered. That one had a photo, a pink and wrinkled little thing swaddled in a blue blanket.
Mary Rose. 8 lb 3 oz. She’s blonde.
Dean stared, scrubbing his finger over the keypad for a minute, remembering the squalling little bundle Mom had brought back from the hospital; how careful he’d been when he reached out to hold the new baby. He typed quickly, before he changed his mind.
So were you.
* * *
Dean was happy that Sam was happy; that had always been the thing he’d wanted most. He just didn’t think he could stand to see it in person.
Sam took a lot of pictures of Rosie – everyone called her that. Apparently her fat little cheeks went hot pink when she cried. There were pictures of her sleeping on the sofa, sleeping in her crib, sleeping on Jessica. Rosie in a ridiculous bright-yellow plastic bathtub on the kitchen table, naked and kicking her feet, and a soaking-wet Sam with rolled-up shirt sleeves grinning with his big hands wrapped around her pudgy middle. Sometimes it was just a picture, sometimes Sam wrote a few words. Usually insults.
Rosie tries strained peaches. She has your appetite.
Rosie doesn’t like hats. She has your temper.
Rosie at 8 months. She has your eyes
Bottle green surrounded by wispy blonde curls stared back at Dean from the phone’s screen. Dean told himself that going to California would be tempting fate. Sam was happy; he didn’t need Dean there to mess things up. Rosie deserved the white picket fence and the two parents and the plenty of strained peaches that Sammy never had, and didn’t particularly deserve a scarred lunatic loner of an uncle who had incestuous dreams about her father.
He finally came for her first birthday, mostly because Sam threatened to track him down with GPS and drag him there. Rosie was old enough for stranger anxiety, squalling when Sam put her in Dean’s arms. He had a sudden, visceral memory of Sammy with the same cry, the same red face, every time anyone other than Dean tried to hold him.
“She just doesn’t know you yet,” Jessica said, and Dean thought, neither do you. Either of you.
There weren’t enough people at the party to allow Dean to hide, so he made conversation with Jessica’s parents and an aunt or cousin or something, and Sam and Jessica’s neighbors, another young couple. It was like working a job; he could do it, as long as he didn’t think too much about the fact that Sam was across the room and not doing it with him. When the guests left, Jess put Rosie to bed while Sam and Dean loaded the dishwasher and put the leftovers away.
“You can stay with us, you know.”
Dean busied himself wrapping the uneaten cookies. “Yeah, I know. Got a job two states over though. I can make a couple hundred miles tonight.”
He could feel Sam’s frown even though he couldn’t see it. “Oh. Okay.”
“I should hit the road,” Dean said, finally turning around. Sam was right there, too close, like he always was whenever Dean was in the same room with him.
“Dean,” Sam said, and Dean didn’t want to hear the rawness to his voice, the emotion too close to the surface.
“Sam, you’ve got a family now, man. You gotta take care of them – keep them safe.”
“You’re my family, too,” Sam argued, stubborn as ever, and Dean thought about how Rosie was a Winchester – and yet she wasn’t.
“You’re all safer this way,” Dean insisted. Sam glared at him, exasperated.
“What does that mean?”
“Leave it, Sammy,” Dean said, and let some of his desperation show. “Just leave it.”
He didn’t chance a hug goodbye, afraid he wouldn’t follow his own advice.
* * *
When the phone call that changed everything came, Dean was holding off three ghouls and already had two flesh wounds from their greedy, disgusting, hungry-ass jaws. The vibration in his pocket startled the ghoul who’d just gotten a hand on him there enough to let him go, and that was the opening Dean needed to take that one – and then the two others – out. One right after the other, and he ended up splattered in enough ghoul guts to drown in the slimy shit, but alive and more or less intact.
“Thanks, Sammy,” he said to his phone when he saw the caller ID, but he tossed it on the passenger seat and hightailed it back to the motel, desperate to de-slime himself and pour some peroxide over the places they’d gotten their teeth in him. He hissed as he stripped off and cleaned out the wounds; forced himself to endure a hot shower and wash the rest of his body before he climbed out carefully and sat on the edge of the bed, naked, and threaded a needle. The wounds weren’t that deep but he still felt faint, woozy from blood loss and pain, and for the billionth time he wished Sam were there to tend to them. Dean could just lie back and Sam’s competent hands would do the rest. He fell asleep as soon as his back hit the mattress; woke up shivering and sore to the sound of the phone vibrating off the bedside table.
“Shit!” It was Sam again. Two calls in the same night. Shit.
“Sam?” he said, grabbing for the phone and then gripping his side when he sat up too fast. “You okay?”
“Dean,” Sam said, but it didn’t sound much like Sam at all. Dean forgot the pain in his side as a whole other kind of pain clenched his chest so tight he could hardly breathe.
“Sam, what is it?”
“It’s,” Sam choked out, and then a sob strangled whatever else he was going to say, and Dean’s mind filled in Rosie.
Oh God. He opened his mouth to say her name, and Sam sobbed out another.
“Jess,” he said, and there was so much pain his voice, Dean didn’t think he could stand it. “It’s Jess. There was a car accident. A-a-a drunk driver. Dean, I can’t – can you –
“I’m coming,” Dean said, and bit his lip bloody trying to get a shirt on without pulling all his stitches. “Where are you?”
Sam’s voice was shaking so much Dean could barely understand him. “Hospital,” Sam said, “but I’m going home soon, there’s nothing they could do, nothing—“
He trailed off, and Dean grabbed his keys. “Take a cab, Sam, you hear me? Then stay put. I’m coming.”
He was three states away; he made it in 18 hours.
The house on Alice Grim Lane was dark when the Impala pulled up. It was 4 AM. Dean thought about waiting it out, sitting in the car until he saw some signs of life so Sam could sleep. But the desire – the need-- to see Sam, after the agonized way he’d said Dean’s name on the phone, wouldn’t let him hesitate more than a few minutes.
He didn’t know what had happened, not really. Only that Sam’s wife was dead. Sam had characterized it as an accident, but Sam had been out of the life for a decade. Maybe it was an accident; maybe it wasn’t. Maybe all Dean’s careful plans and determination to stay away, to keep Sam and his wife and child safe, hadn’t been as successful as he’d hoped. Dean tried the doorknob instead of knocking; it opened, and he pulled his gun from the waistband of his jeans, finger poised on the trigger.
He eased the door open slowly, gun at the ready. It was darker inside than it had been under the street lamps outside, and Dean paused, using his ears instead. Nothing. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness of the living room, Dean could make out a figure slumped on the couch, and his heart crammed itself into his throat and stuck there. Sam. Oh God, Sam.
He got a hand on Sam’s shoulder first, then fumbled upwards to Sam’s neck, searching for the pulse there on instinct. Sam roused groggily, batting at Dean’s hand and mumbling, “Jess, what?” before his eyes opened and he saw his brother there instead.
“Dean,” he whispered, and Dean was so goddamned grateful Sam was alive and talking that he forgot all about the fact that they hadn’t seen each other in over a year and could only remember that Sammy was his baby brother. He wrapped Sam up in an awkward, too-rough hug, his hands way too tight around Sam’s back, clutching at him desperately.
“She’s dead,” Sam whispered against his ear, and Dean could feel him trembling.
“I know,” Dean whispered back. He didn’t say “It’s okay.” They both knew it wasn’t.
Sam stayed there a long time, letting Dean rub his back and not saying anything. Dean tried hard not to savor it--the feeling of Sam in his arms again, the knowledge that he was the one Sam had turned to. It felt familiar, and yet not. The man whose head rested on his shoulder felt different; big and solid and grown up, nothing like the gangly teenager who got on that bus ten years ago. Dean didn’t even know this man, not really. Yet Sam clung to him the same way he did in so many of Dean’s memories. The time Sam’s second-grade teacher had asked each of her students to introduce the parent who was there to see their school play and Sam got so flustered he couldn’t even say no one was there for him. The time a pissed-off werecat cornered Dean and Dad in a ditch with no cell signal for 15 hours; the look on Sam’s face when they finally stumbled in hurt more than the gashes in Dean’s thigh. The time Sam failed a history test in 7th grade because he spent the previous night stitching up a badly wounded Dean and a passed-out Dad instead of studying. Sam hadn’t cried out loud most of those times. He was a Winchester, even if he didn’t call himself by that name anymore, and Winchesters rarely gave in to actual tears. He didn’t cry this time either, just pressed his face to Dean’s shoulder and slumped there, boneless with grief, a heavy weight against Dean’s chest.
After a while there were cries from the bedroom down the hall, and Sam stirred, blinking at Dean like he’d forgotten where he was.
“I’ll get her,” Dean said, and it said a lot about how Sam was doing that he just nodded.
Rosie took one look at the stranger with arms outstretched to lift her out of her crib and wailed louder, her cries as miserable as the ones Sam was probably holding back.
“Hey, kiddo, it’s okay. Not gonna hurt ya.” He picked her up and put her on his hip, careful to scoop up the ratty blanket that he’d noticed her cuddling in so many of the photos Sam had sent. She grabbed it greedily, popping an end into her mouth and watching Dean with suspicion.
“Daddy’s right here,” Dean reassured her, turning on the light in the hallway so Rosie could see Sam on the sofa. “He’s not feeling too well right now, so I’ll make you some breakfast, okay?”
Rosie cried harder when she saw Sam, which finally seemed to rouse her father. He followed them into the kitchen and sat down, and Rosie quieted when Dean put her on Sam’s lap while he looked for the coffee and something to feed her. Dean felt awkward and out of place in this kitchen that was so much Jessica’s, a vase of wilted flowers on the counter and African violets and striped spider plants all over, thirsty and waiting for someone to notice. He couldn’t find the coffee filters; didn’t know where the mugs were; had no clue if Sam and Rosie ate cereal or homemade pancakes for breakfast or where he’d find either. The only thing that made it bearable was Sam’s cluelessness; he didn’t offer any suggestions, just sat staring out the window. Rosie followed Dean with her wide green eyes, no doubt wondering why he was so inept at getting her something to eat.
It felt a lot like the year Dean had spent with Lisa, after Sam had made it clear he was gone for good and Cas had won the war in heaven and gone up there to make sure it stayed won. He’d almost lost an eye and had temporarily lost the use of one leg in a fight with a shapeshifter, and Sam had just married Jessica, so he’d thought what the hell, if Sam can do normal, so can I. Except he couldn’t; every month he spent there told him it was a mistake. Every morning he drove their new pick-up truck to work and put on a hardhat and shot the shit with the guys; every afternoon he threw the ball for Ben in their backyard and then fired up the barbeque; every night he made love to Lisa and knew he was faking the smile he returned afterwards. He was a stranger in that life the whole year he was there. When Lisa proved herself the stronger of the two of them and asked him to go, he couldn’t even fake the heartbreak well enough to fool her. Apparently he was only that good when he was trying to fool Sam.
Sam didn’t say much that whole first day. Rosie flinched away every time Dean tried to extract her from Sam’s arms, until her soggy diaper finally got the better of her. Dean thought about how diapers were different than when he’d changed Sammy’s. Rosie’s were pink, with puppies, and apparently re-attachable, but even their “ultra absorbency” couldn’t stand up to an entire night and then some. Dean was surprised to find that his hands remembered how to change a diaper on a squirming baby just as easily as they remembered how to clean his guns or pick a lock. When he was finished, he patted Rosie’s tummy, and said, “That’s better, isn’t it?” He came close to adding “Sammy” before he caught himself. Rosie didn’t flinch away that time when he held out his arms to pick her up. He put her down for her nap, and she snuggled up with the ratty old blanket, and Dean thought she must be as exhausted as her father. Another baby without a mother, he thought sadly.
Dean threw away the half-dead flowers on the counter and watered the plants in the house and on the porch. He answered the door when friends came by to express their condolences and check on Sam. They seemed surprised to find a strange man there, but relieved that Sam and Rosie weren’t alone. Dean did his best to say the right things, and tried not to think about the friends Sam had partied and laughed with all those years without him. He answered the phone when Jessica’s parents called to talk about funeral plans, and Sam waved the phone away when Dean tried to hand it over. He wrote down the information Jess’s father gave him, and Sam said, “Yeah, okay,” his voice raw with the same agony Dean could hear in Mr. Moore’s.
Sam ate half the sandwich Dean made him for lunch and half a bowl of the tomato soup he made all of them for dinner. Afterwards, he turned on the Cartoon Network and put Rosie on the floor with all the toys he could find. He put her to bed at nine in the pajamas she’d been in since he’d gotten there, curled up with the ratty blanket in a dry, pink-puppied diaper.
Sam was harder to take care of. He shook his head when Dean suggested he get some rest, and only got up when he had to piss. Dean recognized shock for what it was and let him be, bringing him a beer and joining him on the couch. They watched whatever came on for hours, neither paying any attention to what it was, until the 18-hour drive and lack of sleep caught up to Dean. He came awake with the sense and smell and feel of Sam all around him. At first, he was sure it was a dream, and he kept his eyes closed, wanting to savor the fantasy as long as possible. Then Sam shifted and snored, his long hair tickling Dean’s cheek, and Dean realized they’d fallen asleep still sitting on the couch, shoulder to shoulder. Dean stayed still, not wanting to wake his brother, or relinquish the warm press of Sam’s body against his own.
Rosie’s cries woke them both some time later, and Sam startled and jumped up, eyes wide for a second when he saw that he’d been curled up with his brother.
“Dean, shit,” he said when he came fully awake, and Dean knew that feeling – the crushing realization that happened all over again every fucking day. It wasn’t a nightmare; the worst thing that could happen actually had.
“I’ll get her,” Dean said, rubbing his eyes open. Sam sat down hard; put his face in his hands.
* * *
They went on pretty much like that for the next couple of days. The morning of the funeral, Dean found a little dress in the closet in Rosie’s bedroom and wrangled her into it, and she even held still while he buckled the tiny black-patent-leather shoes onto her tiny feet. Sammy had never liked shoes at that age, always kicking like a mule when Dean tried to force them on him.
He went through Sam’s ridiculously big closet and pulled out a black suit and a white shirt. He had to rummage through Sam’s entire tie collection to find a plain black one; most of Sam’s ties were anything but plain—psychedelic colors and Enochian sigils and protection symbols all over them. What the hell? And what in the world did Sam’s colleagues think of them?
Sam came out of the shower with a towel wrapped around his hips and stood there dripping and staring at Dean like he’d forgotten what he was supposed to be doing, and Dean forgot all about the ties. His heart ached so badly he didn’t even notice Sam standing half-naked in front of him, only the devastated grief-stricken expression in his eyes.
“Get dressed, Sammy,” Dean said, as gently as he could. “We need to go.”
* * *
Jennifer Gevin met Sam Wesson their second year of law school. She was always a little in awe of his brains, but he was so adorably awkward in other ways that he never seemed as smart as he was, and never skirted the edge of obnoxious the way so many of their classmates did. She and Rob went hiking with Jessica and Sam sometimes on weekends; once, when Rob tumbled down a steep embankment, Sam had fashioned a splint out of sticks and strips of fabric and field set a bad fracture without even a moment’s hesitation.
“Was he pre-med before he was pre-law?” she’d asked Jessica after the ER doc had whistled in appreciation of the impromptu first aid. The answer was no, but Jennifer had realized right then that Sam Wesson had done a lot of things before he came to Stanford, and they would probably never know about any of them. He was a private man, didn’t talk about his past or about his family, and always shrugged and changed the subject when someone asked. Once Jennifer had done an internet search for some of the designs on the weird ties he wore, and found that they weren’t just abstract scribbles after all. She wondered if Sam knew that some of them were ancient symbols and protection runes, or if he just liked the way they looked and the way they set him apart from every other young lawyer in a dark suit. She was pretty sure she knew the answer.
On the day of Jessica’s funeral Sam’s tie was plain black, though he looked like he needed protection more than ever. Jennifer was about to go over to offer him her arm as he unfolded himself from the passenger side of a big old-fashioned black car, but before she and Rob got there, the man who’d been driving was out and around, steadying Sam by the elbow. He leaned in to say something, and Sam nodded and leaned back against the car, waiting while the other man got Rosie out of her car seat in the back. Sam didn’t move until the man’s hand was on his elbow again, and then they walked toward the church together, keeping pace with each other, Rosie on the other man’s hip.
The three of them stayed stuck together the entire time, Sam looking shell-shocked and exhausted, his eyes sunken and dull rather than the vibrant hazel that Jennifer was used to. Rosie clung to the man holding her, eyes wide as she looked around at all the people and the strange place. Every now and then, the man bounced her gently with the hand that held her, his other hand supporting Sam and never moving. They stood beside the closed casket after the service, Sam nodding in acknowledgement at the endless lines of people streaming by. Beside him, Jessica’s parents and sobbed openly, and after a while Rosie began to sniffle too.
“You should take her home,” Mrs. Moore said, and hugged Sam. Only then did the other man let go of his arm, stepping back a little so all the Moores could take their turn. He didn’t relinquish Rosie, though, and as soon as the family had moved away from Sam, he threw an arm around Sam’s waist.
“You ready to go, Sammy?” he asked, and Jennifer wanted to say, nobody calls him that.
Rosie looked up at her father, and so did the man, their green eyes identical, and Jennifer suddenly realized where she’d seen him before. Sam never talked about his brother, and Jess said they’d had a falling out long ago that never got healed, but Jennifer remembered a party once, and the way Sam had stood at the window after his brother had left, sadness in his eyes.
“That’s his brother,” she said, answering Rob’s question of an hour earlier. She watched the three of them make their way slowly back to the big black car, the brother’s hand on the small of Sam’s back, protective.
“I didn’t think he had any family.”
Maybe that’s what Sam had thought, too. “Looks like he does now,” she said, and squeezed Rob’s hand.
* * *
Part Four
runedgirlArtist name:
fanlayPairing: Dean/Sam, with Sam/Jess and Dean/Cas
Rating: NC17
“Why did you not tell Sam that I needed the amulet to find my Father?” Cas asked as Dean lurched the car into the motel’s parking lot. “And that I am an angel of the Lord, not a mortal man who should inspire his jealousy.”
Dean scowled and stalked to Room 39, practically kicking the door open. Cas followed a few steps behind, quiet.
“Why should I?” Dean shouted as he kicked off his boots and tossed his jacket on a chair. “He doesn’t deserve to know all that – he’s living his life, he should fucking well let me live mine! It’s none of his fucking business!”
“And you prefer him to think we are . . . boyfriends?” Castiel looked sincerely perplexed. Of course, he looked that way half the time anyway.
“I don’t give a rat’s ass what he thinks.”
Cas fixed him with the intense blue-eyed stare that Dean had come to both love and hate. “You don’t need to lie to me, Dean. I am not jealous of your brother.”
Dean sat down heavily on the bed, too many beers and too much Sam making him suddenly exhausted. He scrubbed a hand over his face impatiently. “I don’t,” he insisted. “I don’t care.”
Cas sat down on the opposite twin bed. Dean had no idea why he always got a room with two. It wasn’t like Castiel needed to sleep. “You don’t want to care,” Cas corrected.
This was the bad thing about consorting with angels. They knew too fucking much.
“Whatever,” Dean said, waving a hand dismissively.
“That means, “yes, you’re right,” Castiel pointed out.
“Fuck you,” Dean glared.
“If you like,” Cas agreed, and his blue eyes darkened.
This was the good thing about consorting with angels. They knew you, whether you wanted them to or not. Dean stripped his shirt over his head and unbuckled his belt.
He fucked Cas hard, pinning the angel’s arms to the bed as he drove his hips in quick and rough, forcing a completely human moan out of Cas with each thrust.
“You wish to hurt him,” Cas said, when they were both sweaty and sated. “With this – with us.”
Dean flinched, rolled off Cas, and threw a hand over his face. “No,” he said, but neither of them believed it.
When Dean woke in the morning, Castiel was gone, off to fight the war in Heaven, leaving Dean to fight his own battles. There was already a text from Sam on his phone.
Sorry I lost it. If Cas is what makes you happy, you deserve that.
Dean scrubbed a hand through his hair, looked at the tangled sheets and his clothes on the floor and the empty motel room, and thought about what Cas knew that Dean didn’t want to.
He’s an angel. I gave him the amulet because it can help him find God.
Dean imagined Sam’s face as he read the words; the way Sam’s eyebrows would fly up and his eyes would go wide and curious. The way his expressive mouth would part in surprise. Sometimes, in Dean’s better and so-much-worse dreams, Sam would make that face when Dean leaned in and kissed him for the first time, and Dean would laugh and tease him until Sam’s lips were back on his, parted in eagerness instead of surprise, his tongue in Dean’s mouth, insistent.
An angel? Like, for real an angel?
As real as Yellow Eyes was a demon.
There was another pause. Dean went back to his fantasy, wondering what expression was on Sam’s face now. Wondering what Sam was wearing, and wasn’t that just the most stereotypical adolescent thought ever?
Shit.
Yeah.
Why didn’t you tell me?
There it was, the fifty million dollar question.
None of your busin --Dean hit the backspace. What do you care? Backspaced again. Didn’t get a cha
Dean’s phone buzzed in his hand.
Jerk.
He smiled in spite of himself. Bitch.
Things were a little better after that. Sam texted more often, and Dean answered. Every time his phone buzzed, he steeled himself for the wedding invitation, and told himself it wouldn’t be any different than things were now. Sam lived with Jessica, slept with Jessica, loved Jessica. So what if there was a ring on her finger that said it was forever?
The text came on February 22nd. Please come, Sam added at the end.
It was easy to send the message Dean knew by heart.
I’m really happy for you, Sam. Of course I’ll be there.
For some reason, Dean hadn’t expected the next text.
Will you be my best man?
No hiding in the corner, no sitting in the back row, no sneaking out early. No swallowing feelings he shouldn’t have and didn’t want.
Dean?
His fingers were not shaking, they weren’t.
Of course I will.
“Do you wish me to go with you?” Cas asked that night, and trailed his fingers down Dean’s bare ribs in a tickling caress. Dean grabbed the angel’s hand, moved it between his thighs where his dick was swollen and aching. They’d been making out, uncharacteristically tender and slow with each other; Cas hadn’t been earthside for a month, maybe two. “You know that I would.”
“No,” Dean said, and leaned in to bite at Castiel’s already swollen lips, licking the bottom one where it was plump and raw. “You’ve got your hands full up there, and I probably won’t be very good company at Sam’s freaking wedding anyway.”
Cas kissed back; wrapped his fist around Dean’s cock and pumped slowly, keeping it loose and teasing. “I don’t require you to entertain me,” he reminded, and squeezed more tightly, making Dean’s hips jump forward.
“It’s okay,” Dean said against Castiel’s neck, teeth working on the salt-slick skin of his throat. “I got it.” He slid a hand down the angel’s slim body, reaching around to grab his ass and pull Cas closer. “Faster,” he said, and bit down harder. “C’mon Cas.”
Cas did, working Dean’s dick the way he knew Dean liked best, drawing out the bitten-off groans that made Castiel’s own cock leak and twitch between them, until Dean took pity and took him in hand, their arms flexing in rhythm until the pleasure broke over them. Dean rolled to his back with a satisfied sigh, wiping his hand on his stomach.
“Thanks, Cas,” he said, and Cas lay beside him for a long time, long after he must have imagined Dean had fallen asleep, long after the voices of many angels must have called him back.
* * *
Dean tried not to call on Castiel any more than absolutely necessary. Rafael and Gabriel and Michael and Zachariah and every other archangel you could shake a stick at were in on the heavenly civil war, and Dean supported Cas mostly by staying out of his way and not distracting him.
Cas appeared on his own the day Dean got the text about taking measurements for the suit Sam was having tailored for him.
“Was I that upset?” Dean asked when Castiel’s appearance had startled him into dropping the tape measure and nearly falling on his ass.
Cas nodded, quirking an eyebrow at the sight of Dean in only his underwear.
“Well, now that you’re here, can you freaking help me?” Dean tossed him the tape measure.
“I’d be happy to . . . help you, Dean. What do you wish me to measure?”
Castiel’s eyes dropped pointedly to Dean’s crotch in the tight black boxer briefs.
“Did you just make a joke?” Dean asked incredulously. “You did, didn’t you? You made a dick joke.”
Cas blushed endearingly. “I was merely asking a question,” he protested, but an all-too-human smile was tugging at his lips.
“I need you to measure my – my inseam. Not my dick,” Dean instructed, then smirked and added, “I think you already have a pretty good idea how big that is.”
“Pretty big,” Cas agreed, all-out smiling. Fuck, Dean had missed him.
“Asshole,” Dean said affectionately, then spread his legs wider. “C’mere and measure this – hold it right up here and see how many inches to my ankle.”
Castiel got down on his knees obediently, pressing the start of the tape to the highest point of the inside of Dean’s thigh. Dean’s cock began to plump up happily. Castiel glanced at it and grinned, then followed Dean’s instructions for the rest of the measurements, each time pressing the tape to one spot on Dean’s body and slowly extending it in a sensual slide across Dean’s bare skin, leaving gooseflesh in its wake.
“Now this,” Dean said gruffly when they were done, pressing Castiel’s hand and the tape to the base of his trapped cock.
“Mmm,” Cas answered. “Hold still.” He ran the tape up the swell of Dean’s shaft, all the way to the swollen tip, where he pressed it in with a whispered, “There.”
Dean’s thighs were quivering; he could feel the pulse of blood in his dick.
“Big,” Cas said, still on his knees and looking up the length of Dean’s body.
“Cas,” Dean growled, and the angel leaned in to kiss the end of the tape measure before dropping it on the floor. There was a wet spot beneath it, where Castiel’s finger had been pressing.
“Do you want?” Cas began, and Dean groaned above him.
“Fuck, yes, please.”
Castiel didn’t waste time; they didn’t have that luxury. He slid Dean’s shorts down, wrapped his lips around Dean’s stiff length and sucked hard and fast. Dean’s hands tangled in Castiel’s hair, and his cock pulsed in Castiel’s mouth when Cas fumbled his own pants open and slipped a hand inside to fist himself too. They came nearly together, Dean with a cry and Cas with a muffled moan, Dean’s cock leaving streaks along the angel’s cheek when he pulled off.
* * *
The suit fit perfectly.
Dean put it on for the first time the day before Sam’s wedding, after he’d driven fourteen hours and stopped six times in two different states to calm his nerves and tell himself he was being an idiot. This was a happy occasion. Sam was getting married, being normal, living the dream. Dean was happy for him. Happy.
Sam and Jess had moved again, now that Sam had a year of working at the law firm under his belt. The red stucco house at 143 Alice Grim Lane was over 200 years old, with plenty of built-in bookshelves and a generous front porch with hanging baskets of pink and yellow and purple bougainvillea surrounding it. The house had a spare bedroom too, half guest room and half workout room.
Sam hugged him as soon as the door opened, and Jessica did too, her hands as tentative and awkward as Dean’s. The suit was laid out on the bed in the spare room, a pair of shiny black shoes on the floor and black socks neatly placed alongside the crisp white shirt.
“Go ahead, try it on,” Sam said, putting Dean’s duffel on the dresser. He was smiling too much, and Dean couldn’t tell if it was from nerves or just because he was so damn happy to be getting married. It was the final stamp of normal, Dean thought, then pushed the thought out of his head. He could do this. For Sam, he could do this.
Sam closed the door behind him, and Dean thought of the years they’d spent in motel rooms showering with the door wide open, raising their voices so they could hear each other over the running water, neither of them considering a pause in conversation or a need for privacy. He’d known when Sam went quiet in the shower for a while that he was probably jerking off, and if Dean was feeling considerate, he left Sam alone for a bit. If he was feeling particularly brotherly, he started up a conversation about sea-slug-monster slime until Sam yelled for him to shut the hell up. Sometimes he snuck in and flushed the toilet if he thought the plumbing was crummy enough, but that got risky as Sam got older, when Dean couldn’t keep his eyes off the curtain, waiting for a shadowy glimpse of Sam with his dick in his hand.
“You dressed yet?” Sam called impatiently, and Dean startled, hurriedly pulling his tee shirt over his head and shucking out of his jeans.
“Gimme a goddamn minute,” he yelled back, and he could hear Sam’s laugh, and Jessica’s soft admonishment.
The pants fit like a glove; Castiel would make a good tailor. The shirt, too, just tight enough around his shoulders and chest, tapered to the waist. Dean tucked it in, then zipped the pants. He looked in the mirror as he buttoned up the shirt. The crisp material scratched against his nipples, and he shivered.
“Okay,” he yelled, and Sam opened the door immediately, like he’d been hovering just outside or something creepy like that.
“Wow,” he said, and his eyes ran from Dean’s still-bare feet up to the half-buttoned shirt where Dean’s fingers fumbled suddenly. “You look . . . it fits, like perfectly.”
Dean felt himself flush from the intensity of Sam’s eyes on him, unaccustomed to that kind of scrutiny from his brother. “Hand me the jacket,” he said, to distract himself, and Sam did. He slipped it on over the shirt and settled it onto his shoulders. It was glossy black, as fitted as the shirt.
Sam whistled; Dean blushed deeper. “I hope my tux looks as good as your suit,” Sam said, ducking his head to hide a smile.
“You wish,” Dean said, because it was expected. The little spare room felt tiny, not enough space between him and Sam; not enough space in Dean’s own body for all he was feeling.
“I do,” Sam murmured, and it sounded like some weirdly prophetic practice line, the same words Sam would say tomorrow . . . but not to Dean.
“Okay, fine, get out so I can put my own clothes back on, these things ain’t exactly comfortable.” He motioned Sam towards the door.
Sam didn’t move for a few seconds, and his eyes caught on Dean’s while his smile faded. “Dean,” he said, so quietly that Dean wasn’t even sure he’d spoken. “Dean, I –“
“Wow, you look great,” Jess said, appearing in the open doorway, and Sam jumped and stopped talking. Dean coughed to cover his discomfort.
“All right, show’s over,” he said, and this time he gave Sam a shove, pushing them both out the door. He closed it once they were out and leaned on the dresser with both hands, trying to slow his heartbeat. When he raised his head, he met his own eyes in the mirror, unearthly green against the red blush of his cheeks. He wondered how he’d get through the next day, when he couldn’t even stand in a room with his brother and have a conversation without coming undone.
He was glad that the evening was hectic, a rehearsal dinner (seriously, they had to rehearse this?) taking up most of Sam’s attention, their friends and Jessica’s relatives laughing and smiling. It was clear how happy they were for Sam and Jess, and Dean let himself feel a burst of pride – for the boy he’d raised and the man Sam had become. He took no credit for the Sam who was an attorney, soon to be a husband. That was Sam’s doing, these last eight years. But the first eighteen, those had been Dean’s. Maybe he hadn’t totally fucked up after all.
“You okay?” Sam’s voice startled him out of his unlikely reminiscence. Dean brushed an arm over his face, then gave Sam a shove.
“Jesus Christ, scared the shit outta me,” he grumbled, though he knew Sam wouldn’t buy it.
“I mean it, Dean. Are you?”
“Am I what?” Fuck, he didn’t want to have this conversation.
“Are you okay,” Sam repeated patiently. He hadn’t moved away at all; they were standing in the doorway of the church, its arched entrance framing the guests still inside, the pastor in his white shirt and collar, Jessica in her red dress.
“Of course I’m okay,” Dean said, trying not to look at Sam and his too-long hair that was half covering his eyes. “You should’ve cut your stupid hair for your own wedding.”
Sam pushed the unruly strands up and back, and his eyes caught Dean’s and held. “Jess likes it this way,” he said. Dean’s gaze followed Sam’s fingers. He felt pinned, caught out, though he didn’t know why. His damn heart was beating too fast again.
“Did you mean what you said?” Sam asked, a stubborn lock of hair falling back over his forehead. Dean’s hand reached out without his brain’s permission and tucked it back behind Sam’s ear, the way he’d done a million times when Sam was ten, twelve, fifteen.
Sam sucked in a breath at the touch, and Dean’s cheeks heated. He stepped back, intending to get some air, get away from Sam and his stupid hair and his stupid questions. He knew exactly what Sam was asking.
“I left something in the car,” he said without looking at Sam. “Meet you back at the house.”
“Dean,” Sam said behind him, but it wasn’t a shout, and there was too much sadness in it for Dean to stay and hear more.
He didn’t sleep that night; neither did Sam. He could hear Sam and Jess talking, hushed tones and the refrigerator opening and closing. A few times, he heard footsteps come close to the guest-room door, and his foolish heart started racing, but the knob never turned and the door never opened. When the sun finally filtered through the curtains, Dean got up and ventured into the kitchen. Jessica was there, wrapped in a fluffy white robe with her blonde hair piled on top of her head, tendrils escaping and falling over her shoulders. She was beautiful; there was no doubt about that.
“Coffee?” she asked, and he nodded, grateful. “Sam’s out picking up some last-minute things. You want some waffles?”
“Thanks, yeah, that’d be great.”
She set a place for him at the table, so he had to sit down while he ate. This is the woman who’s about to be Sam’s wife, he thought, the woman he eats breakfast with every day, talks to every day. The one who knows him now.
“It means so much to Sam that you’re here,” she said, and he looked up. The expression on his face must have surprised her – she raised her eyebrows when he didn’t answer.
“Why is it so hard for you?” she asked when he stayed quiet, and wasn’t that just the perfect question.
“I just want him to be happy,” Dean said, because that was the perfect answer.
“That’s what I want too. I can promise you that I’ll try my damnedest to make that happen.”
He liked her a little more then. Her blue eyes were sparkling, the way Castiel’s did when he was achingly honest, sincere in a way Dean didn’t think he himself could ever be.
“Okay,” he said, and it felt like a truce, though his stomach was still knotted and there was an elephant on his chest already, even though he didn’t have the tight white shirt and bow tie on.
They both heard the sound of Sam’s car door slamming and looked at the door expectantly, waiting for the most important person in their world to walk through it.
Jess turned back to him before it did, her eyes just as sincere. “He loves you so much, sometimes I just –
“Hey,” Sam said, bursting through the door with bags balanced in both hands, “Did you two save any waffles for me?”
Jessica shooed them out an hour early, so she and her girlfriends could finish her hair and so Sam wouldn’t see her in her wedding dress. With all the tragedy Sam had experienced, he had no problem going along with an old superstition. The limo waited for Jess; Dean drove Sam to the church in the Impala. She quibbled a little getting started, probably protesting the outfit Sam was wearing.
Sam fidgeted, fiddling with the buttons of his vest and alternating between looking out the window and darting glances at Dean.
“Stop it, you’re makin’ me nervous,” Dean said without heat. Sam blew out a breath and shifted uncomfortably on the leather seat.
“You’re making Baby nervous,” Dean tried, and pumped the gas once or twice to make her jump and stutter.
That did it; Sam turned the bitchface on him as he was jostled around. “Dean, cut it out!”
Dean grinned. They turned the corner and Memorial Church was there, the mosaics of the facade warmed by the afternoon sun and people already milling about on the courtyard in front, brightly colored dresses and shirts standing out against the green grass. Dean tried to keep the grin on his face, made sure Sam could see it.
He was in the tiny bathroom behind the pulpit trying to get his bow tie adjusted so it would stop choking him when Sam opened the door and squeezed in behind him.
“Here you are,” Sam said, and he sounded a little breathless. When Dean met Sam’s eyes in the mirror, he saw fear there.
“Here I am,” Dean agreed, and Sam nodded. His gaze went fond when he saw the tie hanging off one side of Dean’s neck.
“Here, let me,” he said, and before Dean could protest Sam’s hands were there, gentle and sure as he wrapped the material around Dean’s neck and held it snug in the front. The press of Sam’s fingers against his throat brought a flush to Dean’s skin, reddened the tips of his ears. He held his breath and watched Sam in the mirror.
“There,” Sam said when he was finished, and looked up to where they were both framed in the mirror. His hands were still on Dean’s throat; they rose and fell when Dean swallowed hard. “You,” Sam whispered, and brushed two fingers across the rise of Dean’s Adam’s apple and down the side of his throat, the touch so soft Dean might have imagined it if it weren’t for the look in Sam’s eyes, the sudden blaze of heat in the green-grey-gold.
Dean reached up with all his determination, wrapped his hand around Sam’s and held tight. His eyes held Sam’s in the mirror, resolute. His fingers were shaking.
“We should get you out there,” Dean said finally, voice too loud, too rough in the tiny space, Sam pressed up too close behind him and Sam’s fingers twitched in his grasp.
Sam blinked, and Dean watched the heat flicker and then fade. He shivered in the sudden chill, and Sam stepped backwards, looked away.
“God, yeah, we should – yeah, we – that looks fine now. You – you look good, man.”
“Thanks, Sammy,” Dean said, and his voice was back to normal, not wavering at all. He spun around and stretched his mouth into a grin. “Let’s do this thing, little brother.”
Dean didn’t flub a line. He didn’t flinch when Sam pinned the boutonniere on his lapel, or when Sam promised to cleave unto Jess and no one else until death did them part. He smiled every time someone smiled at him, and toasted the bride and groom with the words he’d practiced and didn’t look too hard at Sam when he said them. He didn’t drink too much, and didn’t dance at all. He wondered where Sam had learned to be so graceful, spinning Jessica in her white dress until she looked like an angel, Sam’s big hands tender and possessive on her hips. He missed Cas then, missed the warmth of his mouth and the desire in his too-blue eyes.
He stayed until Sam and Jess said their goodbyes; shook Sam’s hand and hugged him back and Jessica fell into his arms, too, kissed him on the cheek and thanked him for sharing their joy and Dean didn’t say anything crazy like I’m not, that’s not what I’m feeling, it’s not joy, anything but joy.
Sam sent him photos in a text a week later, Sam and Jess laughing and dancing, Sam at the altar waiting for his bride, Dean beside him with his bow tie just a little too tight, a slight press every time he swallowed. Dean saved one photo, allowing himself a little bit of masochism.
Cas was busy winning the war in heaven, so Dean switched back to girls. He threw himself into hunting and women, pretended he was 22 again and not almost 30. For a while, it even worked.
* * *
The next time Sam saw his brother, almost a year had passed. Sam had been busy, working sixty-hour-plus weeks as a young associate, trying to impress the partners and hang onto his integrity at the same time. There were days when he wanted to pack it in, get out of the office and back on the road. He would never tell Dean, but he missed it. When he was a teenager, being on the road had felt like a trap; now it seemed like freedom. He still dreamt of the Impala sometimes, and on her hood he kissed his brother while stars glittered overhead through the trees or fireworks lit up the night sky, and he woke up trying to forget how good it felt.
Dean never called him, so the display that read “D” at 4 AM jolted Sam out of a deep sleep instantly.
“Dean?” he croaked, fumbling for the light. Jessica stirred beside him, sitting up and switching on the other lamp.
“’Naw kid, it’s Bobby.”
“Bobby?” Sam’s throat closed up, his heart thumping wildly. “Is it – is he okay?”
“He’d probably kill me if he knew I was callin’ you,” Bobby said, and he sounded exhausted. “But I figured you’d wanna know.”
“Know what?” Sam managed. Jess was staring at him, wide-eyed herself.
“Got his fool ass kicked by a bunch of freakin’ zombies. Thought he could take the whole lotta them on or something. He’s – he’s hurt pretty bad, Sam.”
Sam scrambled out of bed, trying to pull his jeans on without putting down the phone. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know if he’d want you seein’ him like this – he hasn’t even come around yet, and they’re not really sure he will.”
“WHERE IS HE?”
Jessica was out of bed too, throwing on a robe and trying not to look too freaked out that Sam was yelling into the phone at 4 AM.
“Calm down, boy,” Bobby scolded, “He’s at West Jersey Hospital, outside of Camden. It’s in New Jersey. You’re gonna have to fly if you’re dead set on comin’ out here.”
“Be there tomorrow,” Sam said, searching for his shoes. “Tell him – tell him I’ll be there tomorrow, Bobby.”
“Where?” Jessica asked when he hung up. “You’ll be where tomorrow?”
“It’s Dean,” Sam answered, stuffing a change of clothes in his backpack.
“I know,” she said.
Sam was at the airport in less than 45 minutes, and it was a damn good thing there was a 6:10 nonstop to Philadelphia, or he might have committed murder or chartered a jet. The flight was nearly six hours, and then it took another hour to rent a car and get across the river to Camden. “Don’t you fucking die on me,” Sam muttered at the fifteenth red light. It was raining, the windshield wipers struggling to clear off a half-sleet mix that stuck to them stubbornly.
Bobby had told the nurses at the desk he was coming, so nobody tried to stop him. From the look on one young man’s face, they might not have anyway. Sam didn’t realize he was out of breath until he was standing at his brother’s bedside, and then he tried to catch up so fast he hyperventilated. Dizzy, he pulled up a chair and sat down.
“Dean,” he whispered, though they’d already told him his brother hadn’t woken up yet. Just a matter of time, though, he told himself. Dean was strong, nearly invincible. He put his hand over his brother’s, the one that didn’t have an IV bandaged to it. “I’m here, Dean,” he said, and waited.
Nurses and doctors came and went. The sun set outside the open window, darkness replacing the bitter rain that had pounded the glass all day. At 9:07 PM, Dean started coughing, his free hand trying to pull the oxygen tube out of his nose.
“Hey, hey, take it easy,” Sam said, grabbing Dean’s hand as it flailed. “You might still need that.”
“Sammy?” Dean croaked, his voice like sandpaper. He forced his eyes open, blinking wildly like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “Sam?”
“Yeah, it’s me.” Sam was smiling, couldn’t help it. “Scared the shit outta me, you jerk.”
“What?” Dean rasped, and then the room was full of nurses, two of them checking Dean and one of them checking dials and read-outs until they were satisfied that he really was awake. Dean winced when they pulled the oxygen from his nose. Sam let go of his hand so he could rub at his face where the tube had been taped. Eventually the medical staff left them alone.
“Fucking Bobby,” Dean grumbled. Sam held a glass of water with a straw for him, and Dean sipped it while rolling his eyes.
“You almost died,” Sam said.
“No, I didn’t.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Yes you did, you macho idiot. What were you thinking, trying to take out a whole house full of zombies?”
Dean huffed. “They were zombies, Sam.”
“Yeah, well, you were almost a zombie yourself.” Sam put the glass on the table and sat down heavily. He was suddenly weary, bone tired.
Dean turned his head to get a good look at Sam. “You look like shit,” he said finally. “Should go get some sleep.”
“Right back at ya,” Sam said sternly, “And I’m not going anywhere, so don’t bother.”
He stayed three days, sleeping on the empty bed that the hospital never filled, thinking about how close Dean had come to getting himself killed and how long it was taking him to get any better. The nurses took care of him, patient and precise. Dean slept most of the time. On the third day, the doctors got him out of bed and made him try to walk on his mangled left leg. Sam was there to see him nearly fall, and to see how much Dean didn’t want him to see it. That, more than the threat of losing a job that 300 other baby lawyers were lined up to steal away from him, convinced Sam to book a flight for that night.
“You’ll call me if you have any – any setbacks?”
Dean was back in bed, grumpy. He’d finally shaved that morning. Sam had sort of grown used to the scruff; it suited Dean, lending a masculine edge to features that were still pretty even on the other side of thirty.
“I won’t have any setbacks,” Dean said irritably. “Don’t you have to get back to your job – and your wife?”
“I’m going,” Sam said, and took advantage of the fact that Dean was still mostly confined to a hospital bed to grab his hand for a goodbye squeeze. Dean rolled his eyes and pulled away.
“Go,” he ordered. “’m tired.” He closed his eyes. Dean didn’t know that Sam had spent many hours over the last three days marveling over how long and thick his brother’s eyelashes were, how dark they looked against the pale freckled skin of his face. Sam took one last look and smiled even though Dean couldn’t see.
“Okay, okay,” he agreed, but his voice was fond and he knew he wasn’t fooling anyone.
While he was waiting to board, his phone buzzed.
Thanks, it said.
Sam saved it.
* * *
The firm kept him busy. On the rare occasions when he could take a weekend day off, he and Jess would go to the beach if the weather was warm enough. Sam tanned all over, like he had the summer he was fourteen and Dad left them at a little beachside bungalow in Seaside Heights. The water barely ran and there was only a window fan for the hottest days, but who needed anything else when you had the Atlantic at your feet? Dean hawked cotton candy on what passed for a boardwalk, his tight tee shirts and worn jeans mostly responsible for his amazing sales figures and the tips that left his pockets bulging by the end of the evening. He’d come home at midnight and pull off his sweat-soaked tee, kick off his shoes and peel off his jeans, grinning a challenge at Sam to follow. They swam in the dark in their shorts, the beach deserted and the waves nearly black, the white-fringed outline of each crest the only warning before the salt water crashed over their heads and left them laughing.
Jess stayed paler, just like Dean, freckles appearing on her shoulders and down her back, peppering her arms and sprinkled across the bridge of her nose. Sam traced them with one finger as they sat watching the waves crest and retreat, crest and retreat, caught up in the primordial rhythm.
“You’ve got a thing for freckles,” she smiled, and he nodded agreement, tracing over the pink gloss of her mouth.
“I’ve got a thing for you,” he amended, and it was true. Jess laughed, called him corny even though her cheeks matched her mouth afterwards.
He didn’t know why he’d been this lucky; why he’d gotten what he wanted against all odds. He wondered, as always, if Dean had. Hunting was all Sam had ever heard Dean want for himself. He wasn’t sure if it was a pursuit of happiness or an acceptance of responsibility . . . or whether, for Dean, there was any difference.
At the end of September, Jess sat down beside Sam at the kitchen table and said, “I’ve got something to tell you.”
“Ohmygod,” Sam said, and pulled her into his arms, because the look in her eyes was too raw, too hopeful, and he didn’t think he could match it. “A baby, oh my God, Jess.” It was unfathomable; Sam couldn’t remember having a mother, never really had a father. He’d never envisioned himself as a parent.
“I know we didn’t plan this,” Jessica was saying against his shoulder, “but Sam, I think I want this. I don’t think I can –“
“Yeah, I know, of course, of course,” he agreed, pushing her wild hair away where it was catching on the stubble at his jaw. “Of course, whatever you want.”
She sat back then; forced him to face her, and Sam hoped to hell his expression didn’t give away the panic that was making his heart race and his stomach flip. “Really?” she asked, and she looked so fucking happy, so overcome with joy, that Sam found himself smiling too. He’d done that, put that smile on her face. He’d given her a child, and maybe she’d never known she wanted one, but it was clear now that she did. He thought of Dean suddenly; wondered if there were things Dean didn’t know he wanted either, might never know.
“We’re having a baby,” Jess said, reverent, and Sam’s eyes fell on her flat belly as he tried to imagine something inside. A baby. His baby.
She jumped up a moment later. “I have to call my mom!”
Sam listened to Jessica’s excited conversation in the living room, punctuated by giddy squeals. He scrolled to the “D” on his phone, then hesitated. There was nothing in his past to give him a clue about how Dean would react. Hunters didn’t bring kids into the world; Sam had never really given it serious thought, other than the vague idea of “someday.”
He thought about a phone call, but knew Dean probably wouldn’t pick up. He couldn’t imagine this news in a voice mail, so Dean could replay it and read into every nuance of Sam’s voice. In the end, he settled for a text, though it seemed stupidly anti-climactic for news like this.
Big news. Ur gonna be an uncle. Jess and I r having a baby. Call when u can.
It was two days before Dean texted back.
Congratulations. Will call soon is all it said.
* * *
“I know you’re too busy up there, but--shit, Cas, I really could use a shoulder right now. I get that you gotta be up there now that you won the war and all, but if you get a spare second, could you just –“
“What is it, Dean?” The whoosh of the angel’s sudden appearance only a foot in front of his face knocked Dean backwards, and he put out a fist before he could stop himself. Castiel caught it easily, eased Dean’s arm back to his side with a gentleness that belied the incredible strength Dean knew was there.
“Sorry.” He felt stupid, demanding an audience with an angel who was busy running Heaven, because his feelings were hurt that Sam had gotten somebody – his wife, for godsakes – pregnant.
“Don’t be,” Castiel said, and his eyes were as clear as Dean remembered. It had been a year almost, since they’d seen each other. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
Dean snorted, knowing the sound was bitter. “You already know, don’t you?”
Castiel’s expression softened. “About Sam’s daughter?”
Dean straightened, too surprised to fake disinterest. “Sam’s having a girl?”
“I believe Jessica will be having her,” Cas corrected, but the crinkles at the corners of his eyes told Dean he was teasing. It was a rare thing for the angel, something Dean suspected Castiel saved only for Dean’s ears.
“Assbutt,” Dean said, but he sat down on the side of the bed like the news had knocked the wind out of him. Castiel sat beside him.
“I don’t know why it hit me so hard. It’s not like I ever see him – not like I expected him to get tired of the normal life and come running back to bad diner food and shitty motel beds and risking his life on a daily basis.”
“No,” Cas said, “but you wished for it.”
Dean shook his head. “No. I didn’t – I wanted him out.”
“You wanted him safe,” Cas corrected. “You didn’t want him gone.”
Dean huffed a laugh, devoid of humor. “Mutually exclusive.”
“I know,” Cas agreed, and patted Dean’s knee. “But it’s still what you wished for.”
“How long can you stay?” Dean asked, as Cas rubbed circles on his thigh.
“Not long enough,” the angel answered. The regret in his eyes made it hurt less, but Dean still sat on the bed for a long time after Cas had kissed him softly and vanished.
He drained his flask before he picked up the phone.
“Thanks for finally calling me back, asshole,” Sam said on the second ring.
“Kinda busy here, saving people, hunting things--you know the drill.” Dean knew the words would cut, but he couldn’t stop them.
“Dean,” Sam started to say, his voice exasperated, and then he must have thought better of whatever was going to come next. Dean could imagine Sam snapping his mouth shut, anger flashing in his eyes. “Look, I just – I know it’s stupid, it’s not like there’s a rabid wendigo at my door or anything, but I’m just – this is something I never . . . shit, you know what? Forget it.”
“How can I forget it?” Dean complained, “You haven’t even told me anything.” Never mind that Sam’s voice had told him plenty.
“You’re such a jerk,” Sam said, and Dean thought that would be the end of it, but Sam was apparently upset enough to keep going. “I don’t know how to do this,” he sighed, and Dean could hear an edge of panic in his voice. “I don’t know how to--be a father.”
“Sure you do,” Dean told him on instinct, in the same tone he’d used when Sam was six and insisted he didn’t know how to ride a bike. The same one he’d used when Sam was fourteen and said he didn’t know how to kiss. “After all, you learned from the best. You got to watch me parent your scrawny little pissing pooping squalling ass – and look how you turned out.”
Sam snorted on the other end, sniffed a little. “Yeah,” he said, still quietly, “that’s what I’m afraid of.”
“Your daughter could do worse.”
There was a beat of silence, and Dean realized what he’d said.
“Daughter?” Sam repeated. “Do you know something I don’t?”
“Uh, no, I was just – I was hoping you wouldn’t have to raise a dirty muddy annoying little shit like you always were, that’s all.”
“You’re a terrible liar,” Sam said. Dean raised an eyebrow that Sam couldn’t see. It wasn’t true; he was an awesome liar. He’d been lying to himself and Sam for years about the sort of things that happened in his dreams, and neither of them had been the wiser. “Did your angel friend tell you? Cas?”
“Damn,” Dean said, which was as good as yes.
“It’s okay, I think that makes it a little less scary.”
Dean laughed. “That’s how much you know – daughters are terrifying, Sam. They get hit on by guys like us sooner or later, and then what’re you gonna do?”
“Fuck off.” Sam was smiling; Dean could tell.
“You’re welcome,” he said, after they hung up.
It was the first time Sam had asked for his help in eight years.
Sam sent him a text when Jessica went into labor, another after the baby was delivered. That one had a photo, a pink and wrinkled little thing swaddled in a blue blanket.
Mary Rose. 8 lb 3 oz. She’s blonde.
Dean stared, scrubbing his finger over the keypad for a minute, remembering the squalling little bundle Mom had brought back from the hospital; how careful he’d been when he reached out to hold the new baby. He typed quickly, before he changed his mind.
So were you.
* * *
Dean was happy that Sam was happy; that had always been the thing he’d wanted most. He just didn’t think he could stand to see it in person.
Sam took a lot of pictures of Rosie – everyone called her that. Apparently her fat little cheeks went hot pink when she cried. There were pictures of her sleeping on the sofa, sleeping in her crib, sleeping on Jessica. Rosie in a ridiculous bright-yellow plastic bathtub on the kitchen table, naked and kicking her feet, and a soaking-wet Sam with rolled-up shirt sleeves grinning with his big hands wrapped around her pudgy middle. Sometimes it was just a picture, sometimes Sam wrote a few words. Usually insults.
Rosie tries strained peaches. She has your appetite.
Rosie doesn’t like hats. She has your temper.
Rosie at 8 months. She has your eyes
Bottle green surrounded by wispy blonde curls stared back at Dean from the phone’s screen. Dean told himself that going to California would be tempting fate. Sam was happy; he didn’t need Dean there to mess things up. Rosie deserved the white picket fence and the two parents and the plenty of strained peaches that Sammy never had, and didn’t particularly deserve a scarred lunatic loner of an uncle who had incestuous dreams about her father.
He finally came for her first birthday, mostly because Sam threatened to track him down with GPS and drag him there. Rosie was old enough for stranger anxiety, squalling when Sam put her in Dean’s arms. He had a sudden, visceral memory of Sammy with the same cry, the same red face, every time anyone other than Dean tried to hold him.
“She just doesn’t know you yet,” Jessica said, and Dean thought, neither do you. Either of you.
There weren’t enough people at the party to allow Dean to hide, so he made conversation with Jessica’s parents and an aunt or cousin or something, and Sam and Jessica’s neighbors, another young couple. It was like working a job; he could do it, as long as he didn’t think too much about the fact that Sam was across the room and not doing it with him. When the guests left, Jess put Rosie to bed while Sam and Dean loaded the dishwasher and put the leftovers away.
“You can stay with us, you know.”
Dean busied himself wrapping the uneaten cookies. “Yeah, I know. Got a job two states over though. I can make a couple hundred miles tonight.”
He could feel Sam’s frown even though he couldn’t see it. “Oh. Okay.”
“I should hit the road,” Dean said, finally turning around. Sam was right there, too close, like he always was whenever Dean was in the same room with him.
“Dean,” Sam said, and Dean didn’t want to hear the rawness to his voice, the emotion too close to the surface.
“Sam, you’ve got a family now, man. You gotta take care of them – keep them safe.”
“You’re my family, too,” Sam argued, stubborn as ever, and Dean thought about how Rosie was a Winchester – and yet she wasn’t.
“You’re all safer this way,” Dean insisted. Sam glared at him, exasperated.
“What does that mean?”
“Leave it, Sammy,” Dean said, and let some of his desperation show. “Just leave it.”
He didn’t chance a hug goodbye, afraid he wouldn’t follow his own advice.
* * *
When the phone call that changed everything came, Dean was holding off three ghouls and already had two flesh wounds from their greedy, disgusting, hungry-ass jaws. The vibration in his pocket startled the ghoul who’d just gotten a hand on him there enough to let him go, and that was the opening Dean needed to take that one – and then the two others – out. One right after the other, and he ended up splattered in enough ghoul guts to drown in the slimy shit, but alive and more or less intact.
“Thanks, Sammy,” he said to his phone when he saw the caller ID, but he tossed it on the passenger seat and hightailed it back to the motel, desperate to de-slime himself and pour some peroxide over the places they’d gotten their teeth in him. He hissed as he stripped off and cleaned out the wounds; forced himself to endure a hot shower and wash the rest of his body before he climbed out carefully and sat on the edge of the bed, naked, and threaded a needle. The wounds weren’t that deep but he still felt faint, woozy from blood loss and pain, and for the billionth time he wished Sam were there to tend to them. Dean could just lie back and Sam’s competent hands would do the rest. He fell asleep as soon as his back hit the mattress; woke up shivering and sore to the sound of the phone vibrating off the bedside table.
“Shit!” It was Sam again. Two calls in the same night. Shit.
“Sam?” he said, grabbing for the phone and then gripping his side when he sat up too fast. “You okay?”
“Dean,” Sam said, but it didn’t sound much like Sam at all. Dean forgot the pain in his side as a whole other kind of pain clenched his chest so tight he could hardly breathe.
“Sam, what is it?”
“It’s,” Sam choked out, and then a sob strangled whatever else he was going to say, and Dean’s mind filled in Rosie.
Oh God. He opened his mouth to say her name, and Sam sobbed out another.
“Jess,” he said, and there was so much pain his voice, Dean didn’t think he could stand it. “It’s Jess. There was a car accident. A-a-a drunk driver. Dean, I can’t – can you –
“I’m coming,” Dean said, and bit his lip bloody trying to get a shirt on without pulling all his stitches. “Where are you?”
Sam’s voice was shaking so much Dean could barely understand him. “Hospital,” Sam said, “but I’m going home soon, there’s nothing they could do, nothing—“
He trailed off, and Dean grabbed his keys. “Take a cab, Sam, you hear me? Then stay put. I’m coming.”
He was three states away; he made it in 18 hours.
The house on Alice Grim Lane was dark when the Impala pulled up. It was 4 AM. Dean thought about waiting it out, sitting in the car until he saw some signs of life so Sam could sleep. But the desire – the need-- to see Sam, after the agonized way he’d said Dean’s name on the phone, wouldn’t let him hesitate more than a few minutes.
He didn’t know what had happened, not really. Only that Sam’s wife was dead. Sam had characterized it as an accident, but Sam had been out of the life for a decade. Maybe it was an accident; maybe it wasn’t. Maybe all Dean’s careful plans and determination to stay away, to keep Sam and his wife and child safe, hadn’t been as successful as he’d hoped. Dean tried the doorknob instead of knocking; it opened, and he pulled his gun from the waistband of his jeans, finger poised on the trigger.
He eased the door open slowly, gun at the ready. It was darker inside than it had been under the street lamps outside, and Dean paused, using his ears instead. Nothing. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness of the living room, Dean could make out a figure slumped on the couch, and his heart crammed itself into his throat and stuck there. Sam. Oh God, Sam.
He got a hand on Sam’s shoulder first, then fumbled upwards to Sam’s neck, searching for the pulse there on instinct. Sam roused groggily, batting at Dean’s hand and mumbling, “Jess, what?” before his eyes opened and he saw his brother there instead.
“Dean,” he whispered, and Dean was so goddamned grateful Sam was alive and talking that he forgot all about the fact that they hadn’t seen each other in over a year and could only remember that Sammy was his baby brother. He wrapped Sam up in an awkward, too-rough hug, his hands way too tight around Sam’s back, clutching at him desperately.
“She’s dead,” Sam whispered against his ear, and Dean could feel him trembling.
“I know,” Dean whispered back. He didn’t say “It’s okay.” They both knew it wasn’t.
Sam stayed there a long time, letting Dean rub his back and not saying anything. Dean tried hard not to savor it--the feeling of Sam in his arms again, the knowledge that he was the one Sam had turned to. It felt familiar, and yet not. The man whose head rested on his shoulder felt different; big and solid and grown up, nothing like the gangly teenager who got on that bus ten years ago. Dean didn’t even know this man, not really. Yet Sam clung to him the same way he did in so many of Dean’s memories. The time Sam’s second-grade teacher had asked each of her students to introduce the parent who was there to see their school play and Sam got so flustered he couldn’t even say no one was there for him. The time a pissed-off werecat cornered Dean and Dad in a ditch with no cell signal for 15 hours; the look on Sam’s face when they finally stumbled in hurt more than the gashes in Dean’s thigh. The time Sam failed a history test in 7th grade because he spent the previous night stitching up a badly wounded Dean and a passed-out Dad instead of studying. Sam hadn’t cried out loud most of those times. He was a Winchester, even if he didn’t call himself by that name anymore, and Winchesters rarely gave in to actual tears. He didn’t cry this time either, just pressed his face to Dean’s shoulder and slumped there, boneless with grief, a heavy weight against Dean’s chest.
After a while there were cries from the bedroom down the hall, and Sam stirred, blinking at Dean like he’d forgotten where he was.
“I’ll get her,” Dean said, and it said a lot about how Sam was doing that he just nodded.
Rosie took one look at the stranger with arms outstretched to lift her out of her crib and wailed louder, her cries as miserable as the ones Sam was probably holding back.
“Hey, kiddo, it’s okay. Not gonna hurt ya.” He picked her up and put her on his hip, careful to scoop up the ratty blanket that he’d noticed her cuddling in so many of the photos Sam had sent. She grabbed it greedily, popping an end into her mouth and watching Dean with suspicion.
“Daddy’s right here,” Dean reassured her, turning on the light in the hallway so Rosie could see Sam on the sofa. “He’s not feeling too well right now, so I’ll make you some breakfast, okay?”
Rosie cried harder when she saw Sam, which finally seemed to rouse her father. He followed them into the kitchen and sat down, and Rosie quieted when Dean put her on Sam’s lap while he looked for the coffee and something to feed her. Dean felt awkward and out of place in this kitchen that was so much Jessica’s, a vase of wilted flowers on the counter and African violets and striped spider plants all over, thirsty and waiting for someone to notice. He couldn’t find the coffee filters; didn’t know where the mugs were; had no clue if Sam and Rosie ate cereal or homemade pancakes for breakfast or where he’d find either. The only thing that made it bearable was Sam’s cluelessness; he didn’t offer any suggestions, just sat staring out the window. Rosie followed Dean with her wide green eyes, no doubt wondering why he was so inept at getting her something to eat.
It felt a lot like the year Dean had spent with Lisa, after Sam had made it clear he was gone for good and Cas had won the war in heaven and gone up there to make sure it stayed won. He’d almost lost an eye and had temporarily lost the use of one leg in a fight with a shapeshifter, and Sam had just married Jessica, so he’d thought what the hell, if Sam can do normal, so can I. Except he couldn’t; every month he spent there told him it was a mistake. Every morning he drove their new pick-up truck to work and put on a hardhat and shot the shit with the guys; every afternoon he threw the ball for Ben in their backyard and then fired up the barbeque; every night he made love to Lisa and knew he was faking the smile he returned afterwards. He was a stranger in that life the whole year he was there. When Lisa proved herself the stronger of the two of them and asked him to go, he couldn’t even fake the heartbreak well enough to fool her. Apparently he was only that good when he was trying to fool Sam.
Sam didn’t say much that whole first day. Rosie flinched away every time Dean tried to extract her from Sam’s arms, until her soggy diaper finally got the better of her. Dean thought about how diapers were different than when he’d changed Sammy’s. Rosie’s were pink, with puppies, and apparently re-attachable, but even their “ultra absorbency” couldn’t stand up to an entire night and then some. Dean was surprised to find that his hands remembered how to change a diaper on a squirming baby just as easily as they remembered how to clean his guns or pick a lock. When he was finished, he patted Rosie’s tummy, and said, “That’s better, isn’t it?” He came close to adding “Sammy” before he caught himself. Rosie didn’t flinch away that time when he held out his arms to pick her up. He put her down for her nap, and she snuggled up with the ratty old blanket, and Dean thought she must be as exhausted as her father. Another baby without a mother, he thought sadly.
Dean threw away the half-dead flowers on the counter and watered the plants in the house and on the porch. He answered the door when friends came by to express their condolences and check on Sam. They seemed surprised to find a strange man there, but relieved that Sam and Rosie weren’t alone. Dean did his best to say the right things, and tried not to think about the friends Sam had partied and laughed with all those years without him. He answered the phone when Jessica’s parents called to talk about funeral plans, and Sam waved the phone away when Dean tried to hand it over. He wrote down the information Jess’s father gave him, and Sam said, “Yeah, okay,” his voice raw with the same agony Dean could hear in Mr. Moore’s.
Sam ate half the sandwich Dean made him for lunch and half a bowl of the tomato soup he made all of them for dinner. Afterwards, he turned on the Cartoon Network and put Rosie on the floor with all the toys he could find. He put her to bed at nine in the pajamas she’d been in since he’d gotten there, curled up with the ratty blanket in a dry, pink-puppied diaper.
Sam was harder to take care of. He shook his head when Dean suggested he get some rest, and only got up when he had to piss. Dean recognized shock for what it was and let him be, bringing him a beer and joining him on the couch. They watched whatever came on for hours, neither paying any attention to what it was, until the 18-hour drive and lack of sleep caught up to Dean. He came awake with the sense and smell and feel of Sam all around him. At first, he was sure it was a dream, and he kept his eyes closed, wanting to savor the fantasy as long as possible. Then Sam shifted and snored, his long hair tickling Dean’s cheek, and Dean realized they’d fallen asleep still sitting on the couch, shoulder to shoulder. Dean stayed still, not wanting to wake his brother, or relinquish the warm press of Sam’s body against his own.
Rosie’s cries woke them both some time later, and Sam startled and jumped up, eyes wide for a second when he saw that he’d been curled up with his brother.
“Dean, shit,” he said when he came fully awake, and Dean knew that feeling – the crushing realization that happened all over again every fucking day. It wasn’t a nightmare; the worst thing that could happen actually had.
“I’ll get her,” Dean said, rubbing his eyes open. Sam sat down hard; put his face in his hands.
* * *
They went on pretty much like that for the next couple of days. The morning of the funeral, Dean found a little dress in the closet in Rosie’s bedroom and wrangled her into it, and she even held still while he buckled the tiny black-patent-leather shoes onto her tiny feet. Sammy had never liked shoes at that age, always kicking like a mule when Dean tried to force them on him.
He went through Sam’s ridiculously big closet and pulled out a black suit and a white shirt. He had to rummage through Sam’s entire tie collection to find a plain black one; most of Sam’s ties were anything but plain—psychedelic colors and Enochian sigils and protection symbols all over them. What the hell? And what in the world did Sam’s colleagues think of them?
Sam came out of the shower with a towel wrapped around his hips and stood there dripping and staring at Dean like he’d forgotten what he was supposed to be doing, and Dean forgot all about the ties. His heart ached so badly he didn’t even notice Sam standing half-naked in front of him, only the devastated grief-stricken expression in his eyes.
“Get dressed, Sammy,” Dean said, as gently as he could. “We need to go.”
* * *
Jennifer Gevin met Sam Wesson their second year of law school. She was always a little in awe of his brains, but he was so adorably awkward in other ways that he never seemed as smart as he was, and never skirted the edge of obnoxious the way so many of their classmates did. She and Rob went hiking with Jessica and Sam sometimes on weekends; once, when Rob tumbled down a steep embankment, Sam had fashioned a splint out of sticks and strips of fabric and field set a bad fracture without even a moment’s hesitation.
“Was he pre-med before he was pre-law?” she’d asked Jessica after the ER doc had whistled in appreciation of the impromptu first aid. The answer was no, but Jennifer had realized right then that Sam Wesson had done a lot of things before he came to Stanford, and they would probably never know about any of them. He was a private man, didn’t talk about his past or about his family, and always shrugged and changed the subject when someone asked. Once Jennifer had done an internet search for some of the designs on the weird ties he wore, and found that they weren’t just abstract scribbles after all. She wondered if Sam knew that some of them were ancient symbols and protection runes, or if he just liked the way they looked and the way they set him apart from every other young lawyer in a dark suit. She was pretty sure she knew the answer.
On the day of Jessica’s funeral Sam’s tie was plain black, though he looked like he needed protection more than ever. Jennifer was about to go over to offer him her arm as he unfolded himself from the passenger side of a big old-fashioned black car, but before she and Rob got there, the man who’d been driving was out and around, steadying Sam by the elbow. He leaned in to say something, and Sam nodded and leaned back against the car, waiting while the other man got Rosie out of her car seat in the back. Sam didn’t move until the man’s hand was on his elbow again, and then they walked toward the church together, keeping pace with each other, Rosie on the other man’s hip.
The three of them stayed stuck together the entire time, Sam looking shell-shocked and exhausted, his eyes sunken and dull rather than the vibrant hazel that Jennifer was used to. Rosie clung to the man holding her, eyes wide as she looked around at all the people and the strange place. Every now and then, the man bounced her gently with the hand that held her, his other hand supporting Sam and never moving. They stood beside the closed casket after the service, Sam nodding in acknowledgement at the endless lines of people streaming by. Beside him, Jessica’s parents and sobbed openly, and after a while Rosie began to sniffle too.
“You should take her home,” Mrs. Moore said, and hugged Sam. Only then did the other man let go of his arm, stepping back a little so all the Moores could take their turn. He didn’t relinquish Rosie, though, and as soon as the family had moved away from Sam, he threw an arm around Sam’s waist.
“You ready to go, Sammy?” he asked, and Jennifer wanted to say, nobody calls him that.
Rosie looked up at her father, and so did the man, their green eyes identical, and Jennifer suddenly realized where she’d seen him before. Sam never talked about his brother, and Jess said they’d had a falling out long ago that never got healed, but Jennifer remembered a party once, and the way Sam had stood at the window after his brother had left, sadness in his eyes.
“That’s his brother,” she said, answering Rob’s question of an hour earlier. She watched the three of them make their way slowly back to the big black car, the brother’s hand on the small of Sam’s back, protective.
“I didn’t think he had any family.”
Maybe that’s what Sam had thought, too. “Looks like he does now,” she said, and squeezed Rob’s hand.
* * *
Part Four
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-06-19 02:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-19 04:45 pm (UTC)"There weren’t enough people at the party to allow Dean to hide, so he made conversation with Jessica’s parents and her sister and an aunt or cousin or something, and Sam and Jessica’s neighbors, another young couple."
Earlier, if I'm not mistaken, you mentioned Jess being an only child?
no subject
Date: 2012-06-20 02:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-19 07:01 pm (UTC)I thought the relationship with Castiel had a really interesting dynamic to it - not a romantic vibe, but like comrades, good friends, with sex as a natural part of it. Sam and Dean still wrapped up in each other even while Sam's getting married and becoming a dad and Dean's getting up-close-and-personal with an angel and hunting all the time... love that long-distance ache.
This is SO good :).
no subject
Date: 2012-06-20 02:53 am (UTC)And thank you so much for letting me know that Dean's relationship with Cas worked here too - I know some readers were squicked by having some D/C in this, but, as you say, it's much more a supportive friendship.
Thanks again, I'm loving your feedback :)
no subject
Date: 2012-07-07 11:35 pm (UTC)But mostly I love the way you write Sam and Dean, both trying so hard to do the right thing, especially Dean, always putting Sammy first. I can't wait to read the next part - I know what I'll be doing tomorrow!
no subject
Date: 2012-07-08 01:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-08 05:45 pm (UTC)"There were days when he wanted to pack it in, get out of the office and back on the road. He would never tell Dean, but he missed it. When he was a teenager, being on the road had felt like a trap; now it seemed like freedom. He still dreamt of the Impala sometimes, and on her hood he kissed his brother while stars glittered overhead through the trees or fireworks lit up the night sky, and he woke up trying to forget how good it felt." Yep.
I really liked the Jennifer POV at the end. Very effective.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-08 11:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-16 06:44 am (UTC)Ha...interrupting!jess--“Wow, you look great,” Jess said, appearing in the open doorway, and Sam jumped and stopped talking. Dean coughed to cover his discomfort.
This made me laugh--Rosie followed Dean with her wide green eyes, no doubt wondering why he was so inept at getting her something to eat.
And, wow, such a beautiful mental image--When he was a teenager, being on the road had felt like a trap; now it seemed like freedom. He still dreamt of the Impala sometimes, and on her hood he kissed his brother while stars glittered overhead through the trees or fireworks lit up the night sky, and he woke up trying to forget how good it felt.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-17 02:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-24 05:01 am (UTC)I love all the little echoes of them in Rosie. The texts, appetite like you, temper like you,m eyes like you. It's so painfully obvious that Sam thinks about Dean all the time. And then when Dean showed up, quickly relearning how to parent a toddler, and you know everything he does reminds him of little Sammy. It's like, in my head I see him with this queer double vision, nostalgia so strong it overlaps, Sammy and Rosie.
I loved the new POV at the end. It's so easy to get lost in brother-land and never notice how things are to an outside observer--like Sam & Dean's secret language from before--and it's so interesting to see how tightly they're bound up with each other right now, how they're literally clinging to each other, and Dean's holding them all together.
And on I go to the next chapter, hopefully! I am still *really* loving this.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-24 04:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-14 06:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-15 02:06 am (UTC)awesomeness
Date: 2013-01-27 09:34 pm (UTC)Re: awesomeness
Date: 2013-01-28 04:10 am (UTC)143 Alice Grim Ln 3
Date: 2013-09-15 04:22 am (UTC)Poor Jess. Well, I guess it would be more accurate to say poor Sam. Will Dean settle down if he will be helping to raise Rosie?
Re: 143 Alice Grim Ln 3
Date: 2013-09-15 03:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-07-18 05:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-07-27 12:27 am (UTC)And thank you so much for letting me know you've read this story many times, that makes my day :)
no subject
Date: 2022-03-09 05:00 pm (UTC)I really enjoy the little details of how the canon adjacent plot would continue in this world. The civil war in heaven with the archangels and Cas winning it in the end. On another note I was tempted to feel bad for Cas because because he and Dean are such good friends (I love Cas even cracking the odd joke 😂) but Dean will never be able to love him like he loves Sam. But I don’t feel bad for Cas because he knows and understands that, and that’s not what he has with Dean (and I get the feeling that it’s not what he needs from Dean either) so I’m just really happy that they were there for each other when it was needed.
Oh but a Sad end to the chapter too. Sam is so broken by Jessica’s death. I was thinking about how hard it was for Sam in season 1 of canon and how much worse this situation is here. Poor Sam. But at least Dean is here for them!
no subject
Date: 2022-03-10 05:08 am (UTC)